Monday, April 27, 2009
Writing About the Unexplained
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
A few readers have commented that, sometimes, what I write goes “over their heads”: that I become too technical and far-out when I talk about things like excerpts from “Einsteins Time/Space Continuum” or things like the “String Theory”. This saddens me because I genuinely appreciate readers who take the time and effort to tell me what they think, and I feel like I may be letting them down.
To all of my readers I want to apologize when some of the things I write are difficult to understand. Please write to me and I will try my best to explain things in a clearer manner.
Also, please try to remember that I’m dealing with paranormal and other unexplained things that rocket scientists have been unable to explain. Unfortunately, the world we live in is very complicated and there are no simple answers available to such obvious questions about our daily life: Why our Earth keeps spinning at the same rate in space where there is measurable friction; Why doesn’t our rotation slow down like a spinning top?
O.K….granted that there is not that much friction in space, but there is enough friction to slow down the movements of our satellites and send them crashing back to Earth. You would think that after billions of years, even a little bit of friction should have, logically, slowed us down. Apparently, it hasn’t.
If you think that explaining things we live with every day is tough, try explaining things that aren’t apparent…like ghosts, UFOs, psychics, astral projection, etc. Far more intelligent minds than mine have tried to explain the “whys” and “wherefores” of paranormal things. There are explanations, but sometimes those explanations get very complicated.
I’m not suggesting that I have all the answers. All I have are “theories” that seem to fit with what little we do know. My theories tend to explain much about our world that even rocket scientists can’t explain, but there are no guarantees that my theories are correct…nor even that someone else may not come up with different ideas that are better than mine, that work even better and explain even more.
If you’re looking for simple answers, you won’t find them. Yet, most people want simple explanations. That’s why religions of all sorts and varieties are so popular:
The doctrines that every religion wants us to accept offer simple answers to very complex questions that everyone can understand. We are here because God placed us here. He created the world in six days and on the seventh He rested, etc. I’m not trying to put down anyone’s religious beliefs, but the fact is that things are more complex than that. Belief in the doctrines of any given religion creates more questions than answers: Where was God during the Holocaust? Why is He allowing the genocide going on in Darfur or the slaughter of Christians in Lebanon? Which version of the Bible is truly God’s word? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers? Did Jesus really walk on water? Did Noah really build an arc and save two of every species on Earth? Etc., etc. etc. Every religion has simple, easy to understand, answers.
Yet, who among us has not, at some time, questioned whether there really is a God? Who among us has not, at some time, questioned the writings in the Bibles? When we question the writings in our Bible, we tend to look and hope for other, simple, explanations of things. If we continue to question the religious doctrines, society tends to think of us as a “rebel”.
When we do not find easy-to-understand answers outside of the Bible, most people tend to “give up” seeking explanations and return to their religion. When they do return to their religion they will be joined by many others who have undergone the same search and found no answers. There is an important degree of “comfort” when you become a part of a group that accepts the same things you accept. It becomes insignificant that the things you have agreed to accept are without explanation or historical documentation. People in that religious group will offer you love and respect because you accept the same over-simplified answers that they accept…and “love” is a vital thing to humans.
The word “love”, to me, is one of the most powerful words in the world. Why do we “love” our children? Why don’t we simply cast them out onto the street after they’re born? Animals, far less advanced than humans, love and nurture their young…then set them free to live on their own. Humans love and nurture their young far longer than any other species of animal that inhabits the Earth. In fact, a primary drive of all humans is to seek love and acceptance from others. “Love me (accept me)” for what I am; “Love me (accept me)” for how I look; “Love me (accept me)” for what I have achieved; etc.
One of the major keys to the rise of Christianity was the belief “Jesus loves you”…just the way you are and no matter what you’ve done. And, if you “believe”...All your sins of the past can be washed away. Jesus will accept you into his realm of Heaven no matter what your life on Earth has been like.
Far be it from me to refute that beautiful concept. I am neither an agnostic nor an atheist. I am a seeker of truth and I believe the truth, rather than beautiful stories, will lead us to the real meaning and understanding of life: to the Nirvana we all secretly want.
Like everyone else, I want to be accepted. If what I write is not understood, then I am not being accepted. Often, my explanations can’t be simple because we’re talking about things very few people understand…mixed with a lot of falsified reports. I do try my best to write in a manner that everyone will understand, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. I genuinely appreciate it when someone writes to tell me what they think even if what they believe is opposed to what I’ve said and/or not complementary to me.
Write me. Maybe I will have a “simple” answer to your questions. Stebrel@aol.com.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Science v. Common Sense
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
I seem to be having a growing battle with our scientific community: As I have said numerous times, paranormal phenomena are impossible to prove in any scientific manner: primarily because science does not recognize their existence.
Of course, science has done a very poor job of explaining a lot of things we live with every day, so I guess not being able to prove things like ghosts and living-before/again puts me in the same category as scientists…except that scientists try and make their theoretical conclusions sound factual and not subject to question. Then, of course, science changes its mind and tries to make their new theory sound factual and not subject to question.
That’s where my battle with science begins: I do question their conclusions. Common sense tells me that much of what science has declared to be hard fact does not stand up to common sense and reason. There are many questions that science has glossed-over because they can’t come up with good answers. And there are other questions that science says they have answered…only to change their mind as other facts come into play.
Examples? How is it we are living on a little ball in the middle of space, suspended by nothing? How is it that this little ball keeps rotating and revolving about our sun with such accuracy that we can predict the sunrise or sunset on any part of the Earth within seconds? Science comes up with words like “gravity”. But, when pressed, they can’t tell you what gravity really is or how it works. For years science preached that our orbit around our sun was round because gravity made it that way. Recently, when they discovered that our orbit around our sun was eliptical, they scrambled for new answers. There are a million questions for which our esteemed group of scientists have no good answers…so they make them up…and later, change their collective minds.
Science has never come up with a good explanation of human behavior: The so-called science of psychology has yet to settle-down with any genuine conclusions. Via Sigmund Freud and Freudian Psychology they developed theories about how the human mind works…until Gestalt came up with his theories and changed everything. Now, almost all “abnormal” human behavior is treated with chemicals...or rather, prescription drugs. These drugs may cloud or dull the functions of the brain, but even psychologists and psychiatrists realize that they are treating a symptom and not the problem. It seems that if they can dull the brain enough so that a person can live in our stressful society, they feel that they have done their jobs.
Certainly science has tried to explain why some people become “deviant” to what they deem is the “norm” of society. Science now claims that most problems emanate from a chemical imbalance in the brain. It seems to me that they’re going to have to come up with a theory of what is chemically “balanced” brain before they start talking about “imbalance”. Of course, they can’t do that, so they come up with a bunch of theories and then try to support those theories with a lot of fancy talk and baloney…then try to back it up with meaningless experiments.
Science makes no effort to explain how it is that a child of professional parents can become a criminal, or how someone from a dysfunctional family can become a world leader, or how two children raised in the same environment: one can become a world leader and the other a criminal.
These days, science is likely to say (with dogmatic authority) that it is their genes. But how does that explain how a set of twins, from one sac, with almost identical genes, one can become a musician and the other a mathematician…or one can become a doctor and the other a prostitute.
At least the paranormal theories that I have set forth in these blogs explain many of these things in a manner that seems consistent with what we know and what we are learning: We know we all have an electromagnetic aura surrounding our bodies. Science has made little (if any) attempts to explain what it is or how it works. But if it is an inter-dimensional thing that feeds our computer-like brains, and has done this for many others before…it explains a lot. It explains the strange dreams we may have; it explains ghosts; it might even explain UFOs. In fact, the more you unclog your brain from the nonsense our scientific community disseminates, the more sense things in life actually make.
I’m not saying or suggesting that science has not helped make our physical lives healthier and longer. But the fact is that we are not our bodies…we are our minds!
No physician or scientist anywhere can locate our minds as any part of our bodies. But they call me some kind of “nut” when I say that our mind is actually outside of our body. I firmly believe that our minds are actually located in the electromagnetic aura that surrounds our bodies. It doesn’t hold water to believe that our mind is a part of our brain. We know that brain-damaged people still think with complete clarity. If the mind is a part of the brain, when the brain is damaged by a heavy blow or by cerebral palsy, why doesn’t it affect the mind? Damage to the brain will clearly hamper the brain’s being able to control bodily functions…but we know from thousands of experiments that it doesn’t affect the mind. So why not accept my belief of the possibility that our minds are outside of our bodies in our electromagnetic auras.
If you accept this, it make things like astral projection logical and possible. It makes things like retrogression through hypnosis to a previous life seem elementary. And, of course, if we have had previous lives, doesn’t that go a long way towards explaining ghosts and hauntings?
The answers are there…but we find it difficult to accept them because this is not what we were taught in school. It’s strange to me that billions of people believe that God made our world in six days 5,500 years ago, but the same people can’t accept the possibility that He separated our minds from our bodies so that our minds would never be injured as we live our lives.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Please keep your letters coming. I answer every one of them personally. Contact me at stebrel@aol.com
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Mediums & Psychics
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
Most people do not understand the difference between the terms “psychic” and “medium”. A “medium” is someone who (supposedly) can communicate with the spirits of the dead while a “psychic” is someone with a “sixth sense”...an extra sense beyond the five senses we all live with: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. The true psychic can sense the thoughts of others sometimes even when the thought they are sensing is many miles away. Sometimes the true psychic can hold an object belonging to someone and sense many things about the owner of that object
Two of the most popular TV series are “The Medium” and “The Mentalist”. The first about a lady who can pick up the thoughts of dead people and the second about a man who is exceptionally sensitive to the thoughts of those around him. Of course, both these TV shows are fictionalized.
Probably the single most important thing to remember if and when you meet someone who says that he/she is psychic or has the abilities of a medium is that 99% of them are frauds. Being a recognized psychic or medium is very big business. People like John Edwards, James Van Paagh or Derek Acorah probably make enormous amounts of money every year by convincing people that they are talking to the spirits of the dearly departed. I have seen them perform and they are excellent “showmen”, but in my opinion, are not believable at all. Probably the biggest frauds are those who claim to be able to predict the future:
One of the most famous “psychic predictions” was that of alleged psychic, Jean Dixon, who announced to the media that she had warned President John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas where he was assassinated. Whether or not Dixon really did this or whether she has capitalized on a national tragedy may never be known, but Dixon’s predictions subsequent to the Kennedy assassination have proven to be significantly less than reliable…even though many of her subsequent predictions were about things that were “expected” to happen.
This may point-up a serious problem with psychics: The abilities of true psychics seem to “come and go” without warning. The same psychic who made my knees shake when he told me intimate details of events I had shared exclusively with my brother and father may be 100% wrong in trying to pull up events from the life history of someone else.
In fact, I have met several people who have convinced me that they have genuine psychic abilities, but I have never met anyone who has convinced me they are a genuine medium. If you pay close attention to the way popular mediums work, they give what is known as a “cold reading”. They pretend that a name or a word has come to them from a spirit world and see if anyone in their audience picks up on the name. Then they proceed to follow it through with someone’s initials or other non-specific terms. If the audience member acknowledges that the spirit is a female, the medium will suggest that it is the mother or sister (a high probability guess). Cold readings are very impressive…and very phony. Frequently the medium will have a “plant” or two in the audience with whom the medium can be very specific and impress the other members of the audience. It’s all showmanship and not communication with the dead.
It hasn’t even been a hundred years since the famous magician/escape-artist, Harry Houdini, offered $10,000 to any medium who could demonstrate genuine medium powers. On course, $10,000 in 1910 was like $250,000 or more today. A lot of very famous mediums sought the funds…and put on some elaborate shows for Houdini, but none were able to demonstrate genuine medium powers and no one collected Houdini’s money.
But before you write-off all mediums as a waste of time, there have been a few very convincing incidents with which I am familiar: Just like in the movie “The Sixth Sense”, I’ve been told about some people who claim to be able to see and talk with dead people. The major difference between such people and professional mediums is that dead people seem to contact the medium and the medium has little or no ability to choose who it is that contacts him.
Then, too, several psychics have proven that they may have limited medium abilities: The best example of this I know is when psychic, Peter Hurkos, located the exact spot in Amsterdam where a little girl had accidentally fallen into a canal and drowned.
A further example of this is the growing number of psychic detectives who work with law enforcement agencies and have helped to locate where “missing” bodies can be found. The general detective routine is to tell the psychic nothing about the case, but merely show pictures of a missing person. The work of psychic detectives has truly been amazing even to the point of locating and identifying a murderer.
Mere “identification”, while helpful to the police, is not legally sufficient information for police to make an arrest or a District Attorney to bring charges. But psychic detectives have often set the police investigations in the right direction when the police had few or no clues to work with.
If you’d like to see exactly how a fake medium gives a cold reading and convinces his audience that he is speaking with the dead, use this link. A former professional medium, Darren Brown, now an admitted fake, shows how he did it.
http://www.funny-videos.co.uk/videofakemediumderrenbrown.html
If you’ve had some experience with someone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead, please contact me at stebrel@aol.com I’d like to hear from them.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
More UFO photos
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES April 5, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
It continues to amaze me how many people I speak with who are still in complete denial as to paranormal phenomena. They didn’t teach about things like UFOs or ghosts or different dimensions in school, so the majority of people refuse to believe their existence. I wonder how many centuries it took before man finally acknowledged that he was living on a little ball in space suspended by…nothing. People are slow to accept facts that their teachers did not teach them. For example: it wasn’t until the last two hundred or so years that people realized that light could be created without using fire…or that crystal-appearing water could contain deadly germs…or that it was really possible for man to fly, etc.
Please understand that I am not a UFO “freak”: I don’t belong to any UFO societies or clubs. But common sense tells me that in the more than two million sightings reported that there must be some degree of truth to the reports. Maybe 99% are made-up stories, but that still leaves 20,000 genuine sightings. Then, too, with the improvement in photography and the ability to see something and photograph it within seconds, even at night, there have been thousands of photos depicting UFOs. Again, even if 99% are fakes, that means that 1% are genuine.
Personally, I tend to discount photos that seem to concentrate on a UFO as if the UFO posed for the photographer. Computer graphics can make anything appear real in a photo, so you have to look beyond the photo to the integrity…or intent…of the photographer. Even the O'Hare airport UFO photos that caused such a sensation were, admittedly, fakes. Now take a good look at the photos above:
In the photos above, it makes sense to me that a tourist was taking a picture of San Francisco’s City Hall as any tourist might do on a clear Sunday morning. As is often the case, using a digital camera, you take two or three photos and then use only the best one. The photographer didn’t see anything until he put the pictures on his computer to look at them. On the second photo, he saw what looked like a “speck” in the sky, so he tried to blow it up. The result is pictured above. Even to an untrained eye, it looks like a UFO. It doesn’t look like a helicopter or an airplane (no wings or tail), and it moved much too fast for it to be a blimp. It wasn’t there in a photo taken a few seconds earlier or in a photo taken a few seconds later.
To me, it doesn’t fit the pattern of someone “faking” a photo to get publicity. As I have often said, “If you do not believe, no amount of proof will convince you. If you do believe, no proof is needed.” Some people won’t believe UFOs exist if they went for a ride in one.
All I ask of my readers is that they do not shut the door to their minds. The evidence is overwhelming that there are objects flying around in our skies that defy known explanations. So, instead of living in denial, we should assume that there is “something” out there and ask ourselves some intelligent questions: “What are they?” “Where do they come from?” “Why has our (and other nations’) governments tried to conceal the evidence?” “Do they pose any danger to us?”, etc.
It’s important to keep an open mind, but I have found nothing to support the claims that there is really a super-secret subterranean base beneath the Archuleta Mesa near Dulce, New Mexico or that our military keeps evidence of alien beings there or that the so-called super-secret Area 151 in Nevada also plays host to alien ship wreckage. One thing about the military: they can keep secrets very well, but sooner or later, military men get discharged…and I think if anything really existed like the UFO conspirators say, at least one discharged military man would have written a book about it and sold it for a few million dollars. Just look at how long people have been discussing the alleged Rosewell, New Mexico incident although it has been disproven many times. If someone really had any proof, it would have made international headlines.
It is very difficult for me to believe that UFOs are ships belonging to extra-terrestrials. If any ships “could” or “did” negotiate the vast distances in space seeking other life forms, the most natural thing would be for the pilots (or remote operators) to seek “contact”. There have been claims of unexplained objects in the sky for a hundred years…and no known attempt at “contact”. Accordingly, it does not make sense to believe these craft are piloted by alien creatures. If they are alien craft, it makes more sense to believe they are operated via remote control…but considering the vastness of space, even at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) it would take years for a home base to send a signal to a remote near Earth. So, I also discount remote control operation of the UFOs.
Previously, I have written that I believed these UFOs are objects that are from a different dimension that have, somehow, slipped through cracks in our dimensional fabric. Recently, two highly prestigious researchers, Dr. Jacques Vallee and John Keel, have tended to agree with the conclusions I have espoused for years and have stated their belief that certain places here on Earth have cracks in the dimensional fabric which are portals to another dimension(s). This still stands as the most rational explanation I’ve seen. It would explain the lack of contact because there is no known way that things from one dimension can communicate with or contact things in another dimension. It should also allay any fears about something from another dimension being a danger to people on Earth.
It is my hope that in the future some innovative researchers, who have kept their minds open, will find a way to make contact through the dimensional barriers.
If you've ever seen a UFO or had any questions about them, tell me about it. Contact me at Stebrel@aol.com
As I said…nobody asked me.