A New Year...

Further adventures of The Black Key... (detail) - digital - 2015, DS

"He spied a small blue flowerpot at the far edge of the garden, and, on impulse, knelt down and twisted the key into the hard soil which filled its interior.

'And so ends my involvement with this mystery', he said to no one, before returning to the warm interior of his car.

And, as he drove away, the winter landscape fading in his wake, he was already mentally erasing this futile excursion, and all the various disappointments it had entailed.

But, unbeknownst to him, a most curious thing occurred in the deep silence at the garden's edge. A sign? A portent? Who can say? For, who can estimate the many small miracles which might take place in the myriad corners of the world beyond a man's view?"

- excerpt from a Black Key vignette The Ace of Wands, December 31, 2015, DS

***

Despite the date on this post, what you are about to read is being written January 1st, 2016. A little sleight of hand there, folks, but that was my intention, and for good reason. In esoteric terms, December 31st and January 1st, are pretty much the same day, and/or the same door... an imaginary portal in an illusionary time-construct. A "year" is a relative thing; accurately determined by your placement on a map, but, in terms of actual human experience, it means nothing. It's of great use to historians, astrologers, and the like, however... in fact, you might say the entire Official World depends upon this illusionary time-construct, and, as denizens of said World, it benefits us to play along. No?

So, officially, it's a new year. And, as we humans are a superstitious species, we need signs, symbols and portents to assure us that, yes, despite all evidence to the contrary - such as dreary winter weather, for instance, or, well, just fill in the blank ______ - the future will be brighter.

But, no, I wasn't consciously thinking of portents - or, for that matter, Tarot cards - when I created the digital illustration (above) for this post. I was merely inspired to add another supplement to my ongoing Black Key saga. But, inadvertently, as things seem to go these days, creating a Tarot card is exactly what happened.

So, friends, followers and visitors to Mac's online memorial, it appears we've all drawn the Ace of Wands to herald in our new year, and, apparently (and no, I wasn't cognizant of this either), the Ace of Wands is a very fortuitous card, as we can see by the quotes below.

2190 days ago...

From Mac's (recovered) twitpics page, captioned: "The f*cking Kansas City Marathon has me trapped!"
2191 days ago via phone

I didn't intend to do a post today. Yes, it's been six years now since the fateful day*, but, I'm getting to the point whereas I'd just like to discontinue counting.

That being said, I was feeling nostalgic last night, and found myself thumbing through some old email correspondence between Mac and myself which I still happen to have on this computer. (Not the really old stuff... that's in an older machine: "the black vault".)  I figured if I posted anything this 18th day of October, I'd find my inspiration there.

The first notable thing I found was a video link I sent him of a 2007 pyrotechnical display. I had the odd urge to post this immediately, but it seemed like an odd thing to post, so I held off.

Moving on, I found another link... to Mac's twitpics page. Now, if you recall, twitter had disabled it's photo pages, and I had removed Mac's twitpics link from the sidebar. But, lo and behold, upon clicking the old email link, all the photos appeared like magic. So, that was nice.

I've uploaded many of them here... in the event they're "disappeared" again. Notable ones: the one above... which was his last photo, posted to his twitter page on October 17, 2009... the first photo below, which is a shot of his unfinished "Crypto" manuscript... the cigarette smoking alien Mac dedicated to @WhitleyStrieber... Mac's tabby, Ebe... self-portraits featuring his new viewing apparatus... and a few slices of life in Kansas City...

(click on to enlarge...)

Where the Key Was Found

Where the Key Was Found - digital assemblage - 2015, DS

"I experience synchronicity on a near-daily basis. I've come to view it as a sort of intelligence; I don't know if this is intrinsic to the phenomenon itself or an unrecognized aspect of myself. At the same time, it can seem quite mechanistic, like gravity or thermodynamics. I'm reluctant to commit to any grandiose uber-theories, as they all sound self-centered if not downright solipsistic.

Then again, maybe I really do play a central role in the universe. Maybe you do, too, but your universe is ever-so-slightly different than mine yet still sufficiently similar that we can agree on a common "reality" -- at least most of the time."

- Mac Tonnies via the Posthuman Blues post: Synchronicity: The Key of Destiny, Wednesday, March 02, 2005.


"I don't agree with everything Strieber says -- particularly his views on crop circles. But his inclusion of von Neumann's contribution is most interesting, if only because von Neumann was identified by Robert Sarbacher as a member of a classified UFO working group. In short, von Neumann's ideas underscore the probability that the UFO problem is vastly stranger than "mere" visitors from other planets; I think we're dealing with a process that promises to redefine our understanding of consciousness as well as challenge our sense of cosmic isolation."

- Mac Tonnies via an untitled Posthuman Blues post, Thursday, June 09, 2005.


"The domain of so-called "junk" DNA is also a good place to look for messages encoded by extraterrestrials. I think the chances of finding a biomolecular signal within our own genome are at least as good as detecting an intelligible radio transmission from an ET civilization."

- Mac Tonnies via the Posthuman Blues post: Rodent Social Behavior Encoded in Junk DNA, Sunday, July 10, 2005.


"It's true -- creativity isn't synonymous with depression. I'm probably guilty of helping perpetuate this myth. After all, I'm frequently angry and given to bouts of unbridled misanthropy. But it's not because of my creative life; if anything, the prospect of losing myself in a creative project (whether writing or reading a book -- and I consider the very act of reading an important co-creative endeavor) makes life bearable. It's not without its share of frustrations, but what isn't?

It's true, incidentally, that society isn't especially kind or forgiving when it comes to artists and intellectuals. This is indeed alienating, even daunting -- but somehow never as daunting as facing a blank sheet of paper (or, more often than not, the eggshell glow of a blank Microsoft Word template)."

- Mac Tonnies via an untitled Posthuman Blues post, Friday, May 05, 2006.


"I personally think our brains are extremely limited organic quantum machines, in which case there's no obvious reason they can't be improved upon. But if we're to become "hyperconscious," our definition of technology itself must mutate to encompass notions such as "quantum tantra" and related neurological states. If we can make this ontological shift, I predict our understanding of the "paranormal" will blossom, and that the curtain between consensus reality and liminal phenomena such as apparent alien visitation will fall."

- Mac Tonnies via the Posthuman Blues post: Consciousness and Advancing Technology, Thursday, August 25, 2005.


"The notion that we can hack reality with the assistance of mere organic chemicals -- known to shamans of "primitive" cultures for thousands of years -- is both staggering and empowering. If true contact occurs, I predict it will be most unlike that envisioned by exponents of "exopolitics" and "UFO disclosure"; dialogue with the "other" will be far more robust, infinitely more rewarding . . . and even more difficult to integrate with consensus reality than the sudden, irrefutable appearance of extraterrestrial spacecraft in our skies."

- Mac Tonnies via the Posthuman Blues post: Drugs, art and the aliens who lit our way to civilization, Thursday, January 05, 2006.


"I almost hate to propose it, but could we be dealing with "hyperdimensional physics"?"

- Mac Tonnies via the Posthuman Blues post: The key to the Pioneer anomaly?,  Monday, August 21, 2006.

Meet your new Alien Overlords!

Well, okay, in reality, its average size is about 4 inches and its sting is rather harmless... but, don't be fooled!  Mastigias papua (alias the Spotted Jelly) has an advantage that none could have forseen...

Of course, you realize the real purpose of this post is to remember Mac on his birthday. And featuring jellyfish seems to have become a tradition.

He'd have been 40 today... not that the numbers mean a whole lot. And, in Mac's case, well, I can't imagine him ever getting old anyway. In fact, chances are, although he'd probably like the jellyfish video, what he'd really like is something like this...

Cheers, Mac!

PS  The above video was found on "hakodatecm's" playlist where a whole series of them can be found. Originally, a few were posted on a Pink Tentacle page, which Mac had posted about here... with this comment: This sure beats "Godzilla." (!)

That Mac... :-)

The Benign Robot...

A soulful robot... by KMNDZ.

... versus the not-so-benign robot. And, the response:

Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking call for ban on “autonomous weapons”

"Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and hundreds of artificial intelligence researchers and experts have signed a letter calling for a worldwide ban on “autonomous weapons.” The signatories say this new era of robotic and AI-equipped killing machines could set off “the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.”

(Hat tip to boingboing's Michael Borys & Xeni Jardin.)

Karen "Kartott" Totten on Jeremy Vaeni's "The Experience"

Ceramic owl charms - 2014, Karen Totten - from Starry Road Studio

"Consciously or not, Kartott is describing a being strikingly similar to the woman supposedly encountered by abductee Antonio Villas Boas, whose experience is described here. Indeed, the pointed chin, exaggerated cheekbones and vestigial nose and mouth are commonly reported characteristics of ostensibly "alien" entities, and crop up with compelling frequency in the UFO literature. The visage has become synonymous with that of the "Gray," a commonly portrayed UFO occupant type with massive black eyes and fetal characteristics. (The Grays are often described as sexless or even robotic, stirring discussion that they're in fact biological robots or even genetically atrophied human time-travelers from our own ecologically impoverished future.)"

- Mac Tonnies via the May, 2009 Posthman Blues post: Do aliens smoke cigarettes?

"Of late, I have been exploring a number of alternate realties: ufos, ghosts, psychedelic phenomena. All seem to be pointing to some undercurrent of reality that we can barely tip our toe into. We mostly deny it, put it down to "imagination" or simple fantasy. We even deny our own directly experienced phenomena, shutting the door to a wider world. This seems driven by a larger culture intent on squashing all things mysterious, unknown or unknowable. We believe that because such experiences are beyond measure and simple human reasoning, they must therefore not be real. Yet they all seem to point to a more fully realized consciousness, a kind of multi-dimensional existence. Our everyday brain seems divorced from this, almost as if there is a wall in place between our everyday functioning mind and our visioning, dreaming consciousness."

- Karen "Kartott" Totten via her initial Postreason blogspot post, February 8. 2009.

"Jeremy and I touched on essentially the same point in our discussion: about how the framework of our culture and our day-to-day "real" (material, physical) life may have a good deal to do with how our paranormal experiences unfold. I think this may happen on several levels: global / cultural, where commonly shared motifs and archetypes of our larger culture are played out, and at the individual / personal level, where our own interior mythos is added to the "brew". This complex filtering may explain both the similarities on one level, and on another level, the individual idiosyncrasies and variability of high strangeness details."

- Karen Totten from her most recent (May, 2015) Postreason article: Myth Happens.

***

For some of us, "paranormality" - and/or the unknown "other" - has less to do with UFO sightings, alien abductions and ghost-hunting, and is more closely related to our inner journeys - our meta-conscious lives -  and our overall creative engagement with the world. In other words, there's two sides to the paranormal coin, if you will: the phenomenal side, and the esoteric side.... the vaguely empirical side, and the shamanistic, alchemical side. And, melding the two seemingly separate camps are the narratives.... those stories we've been weaving since the beginning of time to somehow describe what is, in fact, indescribable.

In the end we have no understanding of the world; just the inexplicable notion that there is a "solve" and, at some point in time, we will eventually apprehend it. Will we? Probably not. Whether the glittering "gold" is of the solid, mineral kind, or the amorphous, intellectual, emotional and spiritual kind, it is likely to always hang just outside our reach. In which case, the journey is everything; we may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Mac Tonnies was kind of on the fence when it came to these two aspects of the paranormal. His book, "The Cryptoterrestrials..." was his attempt at a narrative, a way of weaving seemingly disparate "paranormal" aspects into a lump of something one could actually chew. But, even he was aware that his theory was merely one interpretation, and not the definitive "last word".

In the book, however, he sites several stories sourced from collaborators and cyber-friends, one of which - the story of the "Cigarette Lady" as related to him by "Kartott" - he made a point of posting on Posthuman Blues in March, 2009 (linked to above).*

So, I think he'd be just thrilled to know that his friend Karen Totten ("Kartott"), recently appeared on "The Experience" podcast - What are Experiencers Being Shown? - hosted by Jeremy Vaeni, discussing her Cigarette Lady experience, plus a number of other experiences which don't necessary fit seamlessly into the expected, paranormal box...

Flying the Anomalous Skies

UFO sightings map (click to enlarge)

"This map is based on data from the National UFO Reporting Center. It includes over 90,000 reports of UFO sightings dating as far back as 1905.

Each circle on the map corresponds to a reported UFO, with the size representing the number of UFO reports received.

For any UFO reported by at least two people, details of all sightings are available by clicking on the circle. More circles become clickable as you zoom in closer."
- Via Metrocosm's interactive UFO Sighting's Map website.



Created by Max Galka using data from the National UFO Reporting Center and the Mutual UFO Network, the interactive UFO Sightings map above (and it's website) give us cause for pause...

90,000 UFO sighting reports on just the U.S. of A. side of the equation? If you're getting the impression that the "anomalous" isn't quite so anomalous after all, you're not alone.

... but my guess is that you knew that already. ;-)

(Hat-tip to Reality Sandwich.)

***

And, just for fun, in some recent, related news:

UFOs appear on International Space Station cameras just as NASA cuts live feed

The follow-up:

4 explanations for UFO sightings just before NASA halts live ISS feed

(Hat-tip to Tam B.)

But can we really trust someone going by the name of "Mr. Enigma"? ;-)

Vale, Bruce Duensing (In Memory of a Beautiful Mind)

Photograph (above) - a still from Wim Wender's Wings of Desire (trailer)- and the videos presently on the sidebar (Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass, and Strange Angels by Laurie Anderson) were borrowed from Bruce Duensing's blog, A Transit of Contingencies. See quotes below.

"All of this brings to mind imagination and consequently concepts that have no form, which then brings to mind the invisible man who had to wrap himself in bandages to be seen. Going further down the rabbit hole, there has been a great deal of dialog and debate in the scientific community about the equally loaded language generically termed “life after death” which if you ponder this for a moment and the associations it brings forth, it’s as incoherent a framework as it is screamingly apparent that any sentient existence of ourselves beyond physical embodiment would have no resemblance to life as we know it."
- Bruce Duensing via The Voyages of The Dead, his last blog post on "A Transit of Contingencies".

"The spirit of life was in them: death can do nothing against the dawning light; death is but a cardboard mask soon consumed by fire. Behind the black flag - which is nothing other than an anti-flag - the garden of all possibilities is hidden, opening out infinitely to the sea."
- Bernard Roger; quote via A Transit of Contingencies' sidebar.

“It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.”
- Surrealist Andre Breton; quote via A Transit of Contingencies' sidebar.

"The transference of memory outside of it's utility has been a chief feature of ghost encounters as well as dreams. What connects them is the strange bandwidth of a call, like the hoot of an owl or a sigh or the modality of words that proceed communication...the bandwidth of emotional engagement in the dreams that are superimposed as realities and the realities akin to dreams where the twain meets being neither one or the other, unconstrained by descriptors and yet in the genetics of an art where one brush stoke is built upon another, remain visible as a pixel in a memory without constraints..the glue of emotional engagement to referents that span our demarcations..become a cellular superimposition in a waking dream on both sides of this  proverbial mirror more akin to art than science more reinvention than mimicry, the recreation of our inner realities, a play upon solids that are not solids, but brush strokes."

"Perhaps the dead view us as dead as much as we view them to be artifacts of memory put in their place as we dream we are something termed alive. File cabinets, reams of paper, language, islands, the waves of sound washing on the material making patterns of undeniable artistry that has no objectivity we can wrest from it. Reality is silent to the words we utter, yet we partake of this orchestrated art, to make images in the mind, to imagine what is not and to visualize it as a stick one end pointing to the devil, the other to Angels in a relativity of an art critic."

"In praise of the toys, in praise of the play of dreams wound on a mainspring by birds on the wing... never to return this way again. Then if we left all of this to the recycling bin, to the scrapyard of the impractical, I sense we will lose our sense of enfoldment, which as an attachment I have found is crucial to a life, perhaps more so than that ATM card we keep close at hand."

- Three separate quotes taken from several earlier posts on A Transit of Contingencies.


"We spend most of our existence in a dynamic of unconscious self-sabotage."

- Bruce Duensing quoted, via the June 16 Radio Misterioso  show, "A Tribute To Bruce Duensing – Life Is But A Dream". (highly recommended listening)

***

On May 23rd of this year, mathematician (and the subject of the 2001 film adaption "A Beautiful Mind") John Nash died. But, the world lost another - less celebrated - beautiful mind last month; that of Bruce Duensing.

Some of you may have known Bruce through his blog, A Transit of Contingencies (contingency referring to a future event that can't be predicted with certainty), or his earlier blog, Intangible Materiality, previously mentioned on PMB here, which had a tribute to Mac I listed on the PMB sidebar under "Other... Memorial... Links". (Note: for whatever reason, Intangible Materiality is no longer available to the general public, and this is unfortunate.)

Bruce had been a follower - and fan - of Posthuman Blues and mentioned Mac from time to time in the context of his own paranormal thought experiments. Having lost his son, Matthew, whom he mentioned often in his writings, Mac's early, unexpected death especially touched a chord...

Seeing the Future: Clouds and Stars

3D-printed tubes coiled into a mass that emulates the construction of the human gastrointestinal tract
(Photo Credit: Jonathan Williams and Paula Aguilera/Mediated Matter)

"MIT professor Neri Oxman has displayed what is claimed to be the world’s first 3D-printed photosynthetic wearable prototype embedded with living matter. Dubbed "Mushtari," the wearable is constructed from 58 meters (190 ft) of 3D-printed tubes coiled into a mass that emulates the construction of the human gastrointestinal tract. Filled with living bacteria designed to fluoresce and produce sugars or bio-fuel when exposed to light, Mushtari is a vision of a possible future where symbiotic human/microorganism relationships may help us explore other worlds in space."
- Via the Gizmag article, World’s first photosynthetic living matter-infused 3D-printed wearable

***

Mac's memorial was always intended to be a time-capsule (as well as a tribute and a virtual touchstone), but I've generally lagged way behind on that aspect. Every now and then I'll notice things that might be posted, but I'm never impressed enough to bother. Today was one of those days when, in fact, three stories presented themselves - 2 via my emailbox and the third via my home page - and, well, three's the charm, so here I am again.

The first bit came as a link (from Tam B, over at HOTTC) in reference to this "wearable" prototype embedded with living matter. At first glance it seems like a cool idea, but then we learn Neri Oxman's prototype "emulates" a gastrointestinal tract complete with living bacteria (i.e., not for the squeamish).

Of course, why anyone would want to wear their guts inside-out, and wander around like a probiotic advertisement is a question for higher minds than mine, but, then again, what about those "living bacteria"? Call me an alarmist, but what if they suddenly escape and mutate? (Coming soon to a theater near you: "The Tee-shirt That Ate Los Angeles.")

In the same article, Gizmag features a 3D-printed sculpture by Oxman shown at a 2014 exhibit at London's Science Museum, entitled "Pneuma 2" (below).

This is your brain on mutated gastrointestinal bacteria.

"Pneuma 2" - 3D-printed sculpture - Neri Oxman
(Photo Credit: Gizmag/Stu Roberts)

Below is another 3D-printed prototype from the same exhibit: an aero engine. I'm not sure of its actual application, but it looks kind of exotic, and my guess is that if you somehow combined it with Pneuma 2 you'd create a working model of (Singularity guru) Ray Kurzweil's latest notion of a new and improved artificial brain...

Model aero engine made with printed parts.

"We have 300 million pattern recognizers in the neocortex by my estimate. That hierarchy we build ourselves, each of these pattern recognizers capable of connecting itself to other neocortexes, to build its hierarchy. We build that hierarchy from the moment we're born or before that. We're constantly building it, but we run up against this limitation of 300 million. We'll be able to extend that and think in the cloud."
- Via Big Think's Ray Kurzweil: Your Brain In the Cloud.

***

I'm not sure how Kurzweil's "brain" works (!) but, apparently his estimated 300 million or so pattern recognizers we already naturally create and possess are not enough for the job. Moreover, if we could somehow equip our new and improved (reverse-engineered) artificial brains with "cloud-based" extensions... we could, um, "think in the cloud."

Comment withheld.

But, let's say (for the sake of argument) that our minds already have "extensions"... ones that we, as a species, are unaware of. If so, where would this leave Ray Kurzweil's cloud? In any case, should the denizens of that cloud happen to succeed, they'd better equip their new habitat with some kind of firewall, because something tells me an advanced intelligence (or bacterial Morris worms of the mutated gastrointestinal kind) would have no qualms about devouring those clouds (and/or seeding them with all sorts of nasty little toxins).

Which brings us to story #3: contacting our alien overlords! Yes, indeed, if you've been hankering to "show and tell" with an advanced (or not so advanced) intelligence, now's your chance. Observe: NASA Pluto Probe May Carry Crowdsourced Message to Aliens.

Not a bad idea... provided you know your recipients... and that your "Message to the Stars"  is the sort of "message" The Aliens might appreciate. 

For instance, if we sent up something like Oxman's "wearable art" and it was eventually intercepted by a race of giant intestinally-shaped worm-like aliens (with eyes... but without one shred of a sense of humor), we might create a War of the Worlds... and then what?

And, so much for today's time-capsule...

Sign of the Times

"A Google search finds no other reference to the Willamette Valley Dream Survey. The number has in the past been affiliated with a summer camp operated by the German-language immersion program Sophie Scholl Schule, which operates in Beaverton, Portland and Corvallis. But a school official said the number was a Google phone account that the school no longer uses."

- Via Odd Willamette Valley 'survey' wants to hear your recent, weird dreams

Found in Portland, Oregon, and probably a scam, but cool nonetheless!

Have a Merry May Day!

(Hat-tip to Tam B!)

Earth's Indigenous "Aliens"... and Our Convoluted Narratives

No, this is not a Hopi petroglyph! *
(click on images for enlargements)

"It may sound like the perfect plot for the new and upcoming series of The X-Files. But, it’s worth noting that this is a scenario that has surfaced on a number of previous occasions. In 2010, Anomalist Books published the final title from the late Mac Tonnies: The Cryptoterrestrials. Highly thought-provoking and deeply controversial in equal measures, the book focused on the idea that UFOs are not the products of alien races, but of very ancient, terrestrial people that dwell deep underground and who masquerade as extraterrestrials to camouflage their true identity."

- From Nick Redfern's 2015 (Mysterious Universe) article: Roswell Slides and the Ant People.

"One of the most intriguing Hopi legends involves the Ant People, who were crucial to the survival of the Hopi—not just once but twice. The so-called “First World” (or world-age) was apparently destroyed by fire—possibly some sort of volcanism, asteroid strike, or coronal mass ejection from the sun. The Second World was destroyed by ice—Ice Age glaciers or a pole shift. During these two global cataclysms, the virtuous members of the Hopi tribe were guided by an odd-shaped cloud during the day and a moving star at night that led them to the sky god named Sotuknang, who finally took them to the Ant People—in Hopi, Anu Sinom. The Ant People then escorted the Hopi into subterranean caves where they found refuge and sustenance." 

- From a 2013 article The Ant People of the Hopi by Gary David.

"The First People of Tokpela, the First World, were safely sheltered underground as fire rained down upon the earth. Volcanoes and fire storms destroyed all that was above them until the earth, the waters, and the air itself was all elemental Fire.

While this was going on, the people lived happily underground with the Ant People. Their homes were just like the people's homes on the earth-surface being destroyed. There were rooms to live in and rooms where they stored their food. There was light to see by, too. The tiny bits of crystal in the sand of the anthill had absorbed the light of the sun, and using the inner vision of the center located behind the eyes they could see by its reflection very well."

- From Native American Legends.

***

(Since posting this article two days ago, I happened upon Greg Bishop's latest radio show over at Radio Misterioso which, as it turns out is strongly related to the role of the story - and/or the "narrative" - and its relation to "paranormality."  I wish there was a transcript of Greg's and "Robert's" profound conversation, but, in lieu of that I can only recommend listening to “Burnt State” – The Story’s The Thing", if you haven't already. Had I listened to the show before I'd written this post, I would have surely mentioned it,  so I've updated the post to compensate for my unintentional omission.)

It's been a strange several months and, as for myself, after falling down a rabbit-hole (a sort of existential wormhole), I've become firmly entrenched in the mythology of the Middle Ages. (!) It began with a work of fiction I'd begun writing in January - also set in the Middle Ages - and then, thanks to the rabbits, dove-tailed into an exploration of medieval women's contributions to the arts. Now, you're probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with Mac Tonnies? Well, actually, medieval women aside, mythology is at the core of this post - as it was with the afore-mentioned fictional tale & the Trans-D posts - and, possibly with a little "narrative glue" (as Mac used to call it) I can tie a number of seemingly disparate threads into... well, one immense knot!

In any case, I've been avoiding the internet as of late and, so, it's of no great wonder that it took me a week to find Nick Redfern's article, Roswell Slides and the “Ant People”, over at Mysterious Universe. (Sorry, Nick!) His article brings up the topic of the Hopi Pueblo's mythic "Ant People," a benign subterranean race which rescued the Hopi from cataclysmic earth events in the First and Second "Worlds" of their history. This, in turn, led him down the Crypto trail - another sort of rabbit-hole - into Tonnies territory, specifically his compadre Mac Tonnies's Cryptoterrestrial theories outlined in Mac's posthumously published book... well, you know the book. The question NR asks is: might the Ant People actually have been bona fide cryptoterrestrials; that is, indigenous "aliens" who lived underground? From the descriptions it certainly seems possible....

March 12 Update: Glitch Fixed

Thanks to the Powers That Be, the mysterious video problem I was experiencing on my blogs has been repaired.

To celebrate, I was inspired to upload something for your viewing pleasure. I spent about 4 hours searching through YouTube fractal videos looking for something beautiful, lush, cool, unique, under 5 minutes, with a soundtrack that wasn't distracting, irritating, or downright obnoxious.

I found two, possibly three... and all of them can be found on Truman Brown's YouTube channel. The one above is Afflux.

Thanks, TB, you don't know it, but you saved my day!

Cat Island

"Cats crowd the harbor on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture of southern Japan on February 25, 2015."
Photo credit: Thomas Peter/Reuters
(Click to enlarge)

"Aoshima Island is one of about a dozen "cat islands" around Japan, small places where there are significantly more feline residents than people. In Aoshima more than a hundred cats prowl the island, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in the quiet fishing village. Cats outnumber humans six to one on the island."

- Via the Atlantic article, A Visit to Aoshima, a Japanese 'Cat Island', Alan Taylor, 3/3//15

Every now and then I'm compelled to beam something up to Mac, and I couldn't resist this story. "Cat Island"? Made to order!

Thank you,  Xeni Jardin! :-)

Mac's Original Website Restored

"I tend to think in the future-tense. I’m a skeptic, agnostic and existentialist; I perceive reality as a kind of consensual hallucination that forces us to define our sense of identity without recourse to faith or superstition."

- Mac Tonnies' introduction to his website

A very special thanks goes out to the ever-diligent Dana Tonnies, Danae... and, I believe, the amazing Mark Plattner (Mac chose his friends very well).