MORE UFOS IN THE SKIES

MORE UFOS IN THE SKIES
December 27, 2009

A reader asks: “I’ve been noticing a lot more reports about UFOs recently. Do you think that maybe more and more UFOs are visiting us? Are they a threat to us?”

Dear Reader: In order to respond to your questions logically, we first have to look at the history of UFOs. UFOs appear to have been around the Earth since Biblical times. A careful reading of the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel” can easily be interpreted as a primitive man’s seeing a UFO and possible space visitors.

But man, today, is a lot more sophisticated than was Ezekiel: Man has been flying in heavier-than-air machines for less than 100 years. In fact until approximately 100 years ago, anything seen in the sky was believed to be a bird or a balloon of sorts, so the term “UFO” was not even a consideration. When airplanes started to fly, they were strange sights, and anything seen in the sky was believed to be an airplane.

Aviation began to become sophisticated in WWII, and it was following WWII, in 1946, that a pilot noticed an object “skipping along in the sky like a saucer”. Thus began the idea of identifying UFOs as “flying saucers”. The reports of “flying saucers” were quickly hushed-up by the Air Force into what is now known as “Project Bluebook” and governments, everywhere, fearing some advanced society’s invasion of the Earth sent out reams of publicity trying to make reports of sightings seem to come from people who were just fantasizing or imagining things. It became a popular concept that if you claimed to have seen a UFO, it meant you were some kind of a nut.

This was helped-along by a bunch of publicity-seeking people creating false pictures of UFO’s (all of which resembled saucers), claiming alien abductions, etc.

But, technology has advanced beyond the expectations of WWII thinking. Now, cameras are not heavy objects that need steadying and focusing. Almost everyone carries around a camera and a VCR in their pocket cell. When they see a strange object in the sky, they don’t have to run back to their house and get a bulky camera…they take out their cell and start taking pictures or VCRs right away. The result is that UFO sightings are no longer from people with loose screws in their heads; they are everyday people who photograph what they have seen.

With the fear of being ridiculed by your friends and neighbors vanishing, senior statesmen, scientists and others are no longer afraid to tell the world what they have seen…and to photograph it. Russian and British scientists and their military have not only recognized the existence of UFOs, they currently have teams of researchers trying to determine what they are, why they are and where they’re from. Only the USA still keeps their Project Bluebook files secret.

So the answer to your question is: There are not more UFOs in our skies…there are now more people everywhere who are no longer afraid to report seeing strange things…and having the pictures and videos to back it up. I’m not suggesting that photos and videos can’t be photo-shopped, but these days, most UFO pictures and videos are checked by experts. Less than 10% of them have been found to be retouched or photo-shopped. Clearly UFOs are very real and the world is slowly acknowledging this.

As for who or what is inside these UFOs (or where they are from) is something still being researched. We’re getting closer to answers. I do not believe they are hostile in any way, shape or form or they would have invaded the Earth centuries ago when it would have been much easier to do.

If you’ve got questions about unexplained things, I’ve got answers. Write me at stebrel@aol.com

Cruising Along and Paranormal Games

CRUISING ALONG AND PARANORMAL GAMES
December 18, 2009

Before writing, about the paranormal, I want to share with all my readers that I was on vacation last week. My wife and I took a cruise on the Norwegian “Dawn” from Miami to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. A few weeks before our scheduled departure, I called and wrote to the executive staff at NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) and offered to give passengers aboard the “Dawn” a 60-90 minute lecture (based on my book “Explaining the Unexplained”). I offered to exchange this service to NCL for an upgrade to a better cabin than the one we had paid for. It would have been easy for any of the execs at NCL to simply write or e-mail me and say “yes” or “no”. But none…absolutely none of the NCL execs demonstrated the simple courtesy of even acknowledging any of my three telephone calls and two letters. It seems the execs at NCL just don’t care enough about their paying passengers to acknowledge their communications.

The above having been said, the cruise was an excellent one, and in fact, one of the best I’ve ever taken. My wife and I enjoyed it enormously. The ship was beautiful, the crew (especially a Garden Café maitre de named Fortunato Rebello) was friendly and helpful, the food was worthy of a professional gourmet, and the entertainment was magnificent. It’s unfortunate that the pompous asses in the NCL executive offices don’t learn something from the people they employ.
*************************************
Last week I wrote about Astrology, Palmistry and Phrenology. I promised to follow this up with a look at Tarot Cards, Crystal Balls and Ouija Boards:

Tarot Cards and Crystal Balls have long been the trademarks of Gypsy Fortune Tellers: The theory behind the crystal ball is that, because of its clarity, the fortune teller can see into the future. In actuality, there has never been one single iota of truth attached to crystal ball fortune telling. Normally, the fortune teller is a good “cold-reader” and plays-off of the person whose fortune they are telling.

Similarly, Tarot cards are used in the same way: A good cold-reader uses the 78-card Tarot deck to build a story around the person whose fortune is being told. The Tarot deck was originally designed as a game-playing deck in the early 1500s much like the 52-card deck now in common usage. The Tarot has four suits corresponding to the suits of conventional playing cards. Each of these suits has pip cards numbering from ace to ten and four face cards for a total of fourteen cards. In addition, the Tarot is distinguished by a separate 21-card trump suit and a single card known as the Fool. Depending on the game, the Fool may act as the top trump or may be played to avoid following suit. There is nothing paranormal about Tarot Cards.

Now let’s look at Ouija Boards: On the surface, there is no more to Ouija Boards than there is to Crystal Balls or Tarot Cards. Yet, I have spoken to and corresponded with numerous people who tell me of life-saving feats and terrible accidents that have been avoided resulting from the use of a Ouija Board.

The theory behind Ouija Boards is that two or three people, by combining their energy and concentrating on the spirit of a deceased friend or family member and placing their fingertips on a wooden marker, the spirit will guide the marker from letter to letter on the board and spell out an important message.

Virtually all ghost-hunting societies agree that spirits rarely talk or make discernable vocal sounds (except immediately after death), so there may be some substance to the concept that spirits try to communicate by guiding the lightly touched marker. Yet, I wonder if those using the Ouija aren’t unconsciously guiding the marker to where they want it to go, and sending themselves messages they want to hear.

People, whose status or reputation is too high to impugn, have told me that Ouija Boards have informed them of a child’s undiagnosed illness and that Ouija has forewarned of planned actions which, if taken, would have proven disastrous.

It’s difficult for me to accept that a marker and a game-board with letters on it can communicate with the spirit world, but those who use them swear by them with the kind of fervor that only comes from having seen the proof. Is it just coincidence? I’d like to hear from you about any experiences you may have had. If you’ve ever had some Ouija Board messages that proved meaningful, please share them with me at stebrel@aol.com.

Stephen Ellis

Paranormal Games

PARANORMAL GAMES
December 6, 2009

There has been an increasing amount of mail asking about what I call paranormal “games”. Things like Astrology, Palmistry, Phrenology, Tarot Cards, Ouija Boards, Crystal Balls, etc. I think it’s time to take a moment and look at these things with an objective eye.

Astrology: (“What’s your sign?)

In its simplest terms, “Astrology” refers to the influence of the stars and the cosmos on your life. The date of your birth determines your astrological sign, and there are twelve astrological signs which make up what is called the Zodiac. Over the years, the Zodiac has changed. Originally, there were thirteen (not twelve) signs of the Zodiac. The Zodiac was, originally, based on a lunar month: the time it takes for the Moon to revolve around the Earth. However, it was confusing as to what your astrological sign was because the Moon’s rotation about the Earth was actually slightly different than a calendar month and two people, born on the same day and month, in diffderent years, could actually be under two different astrological signs. So, to keep things organized, the Zodiac was reduced to twelve astrological signs.

People who dedicate themselves to “reading the Zodiac” (and there are many) create a plan for each sign of the Zodiac called a Horoscope. Many people who read the Zodiac try to determine the influence of the Sun the Stars and the Moon at the exact hour and location of a person’s birth.

There are millions and millions of people who believe in Astrology and follow their Horoscope. As long as I have been alive, Horoscope Magazines have sold very well and just about every daily newspaper carries a Horoscope column in which they indicate the good and the bad things associated with your astrological sign for that day.

In the dating scene, one of the most common questions asked in order to start a conversation with someone new is “What’s your sign?”

I have often been asked as to whether I believe in Astrology. Plainly, I do not believe in the magazine or newspaper horoscopes. How can one single set of predictions be good for millions of people? However, I do yield to the possibility of an influence of the cosmos at the time and place of your birth: Simply put, I do not know enough about astrology to know whether the position of the Sun the Stars and the Moon has any material effect on your life.

Palmistry: (Palm Reading)

Probably the oldest form of fortune telling is what is called Palmistry. We often associate Palmistry with Gypsy fortune tellers, but even in the Old Testament, there are references to your hands revealing your life.

The concept is that God (or a Supreme Being) controls the first making of a fist on a newborn’s hand and the creases that result from this are a window into the future life that newborn will have. Palmistry is the art of being able to read those creases on the hand and foretell that person’s future. A life-line; a success-line, etc.

One of the problems facing Palmists is that the creases on the hand change during a person’s lifetime. If you are right-handed, the Palmist will usually want to look at your left hand because it is used less than your right and, logically, will have fewer changes to the creases on the palm.

People who believe in fortune telling (and there are millions) will swear by the accuracy of the Palmist’s statements. I look at Palmistry more pragmatically: If there was even a fair degree of accuracy to a life line, every insurance company would want to see your hand before they sold you a life insurance policy. If there was a fair degree of accuracy to your success line, every College and every employer would want to look at your palm before working with you.

Phrenology: (Bumps and lumps on your head)

Phrenology, very popular in the 19th century, is the pseudo-science of reading the bumps on your head and is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind: that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. Phrenologists believed that the mind has a set of different mental faculties, with each particular faculty represented in a different area of the brain. These areas were believed to be proportional to a person's personality. It was believed that the cranial bone conformed in order to accommodate the different sizes of these particular areas of the brain in different individuals, so that a person's capacity for a given personality trait could be determined simply by measuring the area of the skull that overlies the corresponding area of the brain.

No one, anywhere, has a perfectly smooth head, but today Phrenology is looked upon in most of the world as pure quackery.

Next week I’ll discuss Tarot Cards, Ouija Boards and Crystal Balls. If you have questions, please e-mail me at Stebrel@aol.com

Powers Within

POWERS WITHIN
November 29, 2009

A lady friend from the San Francisco Bay Area named Nancy wrote that when she was six years old, she had an accident wherein she fell on her head onto concrete from a 12-foot height. Miraculously, she recovered completely, although a neurologist told her mother that some soft tissue (or “brain buffers”) may have been injured. Some years later, while in college, Nancy decided to have herself tested for psychic ability, in a lab. To the amazement of the scientists administering the test she was able to perform psycho kinesis: the ability to move objects with her mind. Nothing fantastic (or phony) like Yuri Geller’s artificial act of spoon bending, but she was able, at will, to move a wire so that it made an electrical connection and sounded a bell. She was tested repeatedly and succeeded every time.

My family and I had a fabulous Thanksgiving prepared by my son, Craig Ellis and his wife, Bethany Ellis. At the dinner table, the conversation turned to the blogs I’ve been writing. My niece, Laura, an exceptionally beautiful (and unmarried) girl, related a few instances that she felt were precognition and four instances of a “ghostly experience”. They were interesting enough to set forth here:

When she was going to college (in Indiana) sometimes she and a bunch of the girls she roomed with would go off to have a little fun. They would pack themselves in a car and just take-off laughing about everything. Because Laura was the smallest one in the group, they told her to lie down in the back where they usually stored the luggage. Laura had a premonition that she was not safe, so with her girlfriends’ approval, she squeezed into the back seat with the others stating that she had a strong feeling they were going to be in an accident. Minutes later, a car crashed into the rear of their car and crushed the area where Laura was supposed to be lying down.

In another event, Laura had rented a hotel room and all of her friends came over bringing lots of beer. Laura was upset because she was the only one in the room that was legitimately over 21. Laura cautioned everyone to stay quiet as Indiana does not cotton to people under 21 drinking beer. They all had quiet fun until a pizza delivery man knocked at the door. Laura hushed everyone and said she saw an image of a cop standing right behind the pizza delivery man. Everyone laughed. When she opened the door, there was the pizza man…with a cop standing directly behind him. They had not been making any noise and there was no known reason for the cop to be there.

Laura also told of a ghostly experience: She was trying to sleep when she felt someone pushing down and bouncing the foot of her bed. She thought it was her roommate playing a prank, and she was not going to open her eyes to appease her roommate until the bouncing of the bed became too severe. She opened her eyes…and there was no one in the room. She says she was not sure if it had been a half-awake/asleep dream, but the shaking of the bed was very real. No one was there except Laura. Laura told me this happened to her three more times…always when she was alone. She always tried to keep her eyes closed until the shaking of the bed became too severe to ignore it.

The above, unsolicited, stories are examples of how the paranormal affects our lives and existence; often in ways we tend to ignore until we start reflecting back on them and we realize that there are special forces within each of us. If we will only make the effort, we can learn to control them and use them for our own benefit and the benefit of others.

If you’ve had some experiences like these, let me know at stebrel@aol.com

Questions and Answers 4

Questions and Answers-4
November 22, 2009

Dear Mr. Ellis: My uncle belongs to a group that studies UFOs. He tells me that our government knows that UFOs are based on the back side of the Moon, and is keeping the truth from us. What do you think? David in Gallup, NM

Dear David: Theories about where the UFOs come from have been talked about for fifty years, and no one seems to know the answers for sure. Granted, it is far more likely UFOs come from our Moon or from Mars than that UFOs have traversed the vastness of outer space to visit us. There are a lot of “conspiracy theories” out there about our government knowing what (and who) UFOs are and keeping it a secret from us.

The above having been said, there are also conspiracy theories concerning man’s landing on the moon, about so-called concealed photos from Mars and the Moon that show the remnants of life and buildings, etc. These conspiracy theories have just flooded the internet. It’s worth a few moments of our time to look at them closely and see if, perhaps, they answer some questions about UFOs or even about our own origins.

YouTube has at least four or five videos claiming that the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon never happened. They say it was a massive conspiracy to deceive the world into believing that man had actually set foot on the Moon. I’m certain that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins get very upset when they hear these theories.

I am not, particularly, a conspiracy buff. I do believe that our government has intentionally concealed much information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, but there are important, serious reasons behind our government’s concealing the truth in these instances:

In the case of JFK, there is strong evidence that the assassination was planned and formulated in Cuba. If this was true and could be verified, The USA would probably have bombed and invaded Cuba. This would have brought Russia to Cuba’s defense and probably started World War III. So, our government might have had some strong reasons for not wanting the full facts to be known.

In the case of 9/11. Virtually every knowledgeable structural engineer in the world has agreed that the WTC towers could not have collapsed the way they did due to the crashing of the jets into the towers. Tower #7 showed no signs of weakness when it collapsed with only a minor fire on its roof. So, the conspiracy theory is that our government intentionally or accidentally imploded the towers in order to give us the grounds to start a war in the Middle East. Again, there would be some serious reasons for the government to conceal this information. Thousands of people died.

Now let’s look at Apollo 11: What serious reasons would the government have had to cover–up a failed mission? No lives would have been lost, no wars started. It might’ve been a big slap-in-the-face for NASA, but hardly worth a government cover-up. There would have been another mission attempted after about six months. Britain, Russia, India and others have subsequently sent missions to photograph the moon, so what would have been the big deal?

It is these other subsequent photographic missions circling the Moon that have created even bigger conspiracy theories: YouTube has several videos of our Moon that some believe to show manmade structures on the surface. I’ve seen several of the videos and, I must admit, there are things on the surface that appear like they could have been manmade.

Is this the kind of thing you keep under wraps? I think not! I’m certain all Moon surface photos have been examined thoroughly by NASA and Russian scientists. If they felt there were any indications of life (past or present) on the Moon, there would have been several exploratory missions to check it out. Your uncle has his beliefs, but until there is a lot stronger evidence than unclear photos of the Moon’s surface that can be interpreted in many ways, I’ll have to assume the Moon is not a UFO port.

Thanks for writing. Stephen Ellis

I love your questions. Please keep them coming. Stebrel@aol.com

More on Reincarnation

More on Reincarnation
November 15, 2009

Maybe it’s the holiday season, but this week I did not receive any questions or e-mail. Either that means no one is reading what I write, or that no one is curious about the paranormal. In either case, it gives me the chance to write more about reincarnation:

The only thing about reincarnation that is a great mystery to me is why more people haven’t recognized it as a true fact of life. The evidence that reincarnation is real is absolutely overwhelming! Granted that it is empirical or circumstantial evidence, but what kind of forensic evidence could possibly exist?

In the case of Shanti Devi, a young Indian girl of nine was able to go back to the village in which she lived in her past life which was many miles away from where she now lived and in a village where she had never visited. Accompanied by a group of scientific skeptics, she not only correctly located what she claimed was her former home, but noted the changes in it caused by remodeling. She immediately identified her former husband although he, anticipating her much publicized visit, intentionally,
pretended he was an onlooker and had an actor pretending he was her former husband. In front of numerous witnesses, newspapers and skeptic Shanti related intimate details of their married life that no one could have possibly known. That’s about as close to “forensic” as you can get.

I recently read of an Englishman named Ricky Wills who, when regressed by a hypnotist to a past life remembered being a printer who could never keep his hands clean of printers’ ink. As a printer he was always embarrassed by his ink-stained hands. When he was killed (being run-over by a horse and cart) he remembered watching his own funeral where his widow, as an emotional gesture, threw a decorative dress pin onto the dirt as they were covering the coffin. Ricky went back to the place where his former self was buried, found the grave, and out of curiosity dug down about a foot into the dirt covering the grave…and found the pin! Forensic evidence? Incidentally, Ricky, for some reason, in his present life, had never understood why he had a fetish about keeping his hands clean.

Or what about Bruce Kelly? The young man who, under hypnotic past life regression, remembered being a sailor, James Johnston, who died aboard a submarine that was sunk in WWII. Under hypnosis, he related in detail what it was like dying on the sinking submarine although Bruce had never been on a submarine. This was recent enough so that some of Johnston’s family was still alive and the details of Johnston’s life before enlisting and his Naval career in WWII were verified as told to the hypnotist by Bruce. Kelly had gone to the hypnotherapist because he had an unexplained fear of water. Forensic?

It’s not that these are isolated cases. There are more than one hundred that have been written about, detailed and verified in intricate detail. It does not seem probable…or even possible…that all of these people are lying or making-up stories while they are hypnotized. One of the characteristics of hypnotized people is that they tell the truth.

Hypnotism is, and always has been, a magic key to the paranormal. Hypnotism puts the brain to sleep and allows the mind/aura takes over. It’s the mind/aura that has lived before and will live again. During a waking state, when the brain is active, for some reason, direct communication with the mind/aura is exceedingly difficult. All communications with the mind/aura in a waking state are influenced by the brain.

It is while hypnotized (usually self-hypnosis, but sometimes under artificially produced sleep through anesthetics) that people can experience astral projection (mind-body separation). It is while hypnotized that psychics get their clearest telepathic communications.

As I stated at the outset, the biggest mystery to me is how so many, otherwise intelligent, people can refuse to even accept the possibility that reincarnation is real.

Questions and Answers 3

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS -3
November 8, 2009


1. Question: What are “orbs”?

Answer: That’s not an easy question. Orbs are roundish balls ranging in size from pin-points to the size of a volleyball. We do not know what they really are, so, perhaps, a description of them would be best:

These (not always) round balls will appear in photographs and make a photo look like there were rain drops or a lot of dust on the lens of the camera. Of course, these possibilities have been tested and found to be without merit. At first, orbs were thought to be imperfections in the film. But when they started to appear on digital photos, this was also eliminated. If the orbs had been imperfections on digital photos, they would have appeared Square and not round.

A spectro-analysis of orbs has shown them to be surrounded by a coat of energy. Not very high-grade energy, but clearly the markings of energy. Thus, some scientists started to call them balls of energy. They have since retracted that theory.

It is interesting to note that the energy surrounding orbs is electromagnetic in nature and extremely similar to the electromagnetic field that surrounds our bodies… often called our “aura”.

Orbs have been around for a long time, but it seems that their presence has been noticed more in the past ten years than at any previous time.

In Perth, Australia, there is a house that seems to attract orbs. These are not orbs that the camera alone can see. They can be seen with the naked eye! In fact, the internet is replete with U-Tube videos of the orbs that seem to frequent this house. These orbs seem to come and go as per their own fee will. Solid objects do not seem to deter them…they pass right through. This, by the way, obviates someone using a flashlight or laser beam to make these things appear. When a light strikes a solid object, the light bends and goes around the object leaving a shadow on one side. These things clearly pass directly through solid objects.

The thought that these may be ghostly objects has also filled the internet with theories. Many people claim to be able to see faces in these orbs. To me, that takes a bit of imagination, but I can’t deny the “possibility” just because I don’t see them.

As I have often written about, I believe there are cracks in the time and fabric of our Earth and what we call “reality” or the dimension in which we live. Perhaps this house in Perth is near such a crack and some inter-dimensional objects pass through.

One thing is for certain: They have never harmed anyone.

Please keep the questions coming. stebrel@aol.com

Stephen Ellis