Nexus 1205 - new times magazine

AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2005 www.nexusmagazine.com NEXUS • 1

N E X U SNEW TIMES MAGAZINE

Volume 12, Number 5 AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2005

UK/Europe edition Website: http://www.nexusmagazine.com

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.............................................4

Comments from readers on NEXUS-related topics. GLOBAL NEWS.............................................................6

This issue includes news of a leaked British Cabinetpaper that confirms the UK was committed to a US-led invasion of Iraq in April 2002, and a rundownon the real G8 agenda behind debt relief.

BREAKING THE SILENCE: BILDERBERG EXPOSED...11

By Daniel Estulin. Secret discussions at this year'sB i l d e r b e rg meeting have, as usual, set the agendafor running markets and wars in the year ahead.Among the proposals on their wish list are a UN-imposed oil tax and a peacebuilding commission.

DOWN ON THE FARM—Part 2.................................19

By ETC Group. Gene technology is problematicenough, but now nanotech research ventures andfood corporations are putting nanoparticles intofood and cosmetics as well as packaging.

THE NANOBACTERIA LINK TO HEART DISEASE.......27

By Douglas Mulhall. Nanobacteria have beenfound at the core of the calcification that'scommon to medical conditions like heart diseaseand arthritis, but now a simple treatment is havingsuccess at reversing these infections and symptoms.

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: THE ALUMINIUM LINK......33By Harold D. Foster. Some people have a geneticpredisposi tion for Alzheimer's disease, butenvironmental factors that increase aluminiumlevels and leach magnesium and calcium are likelyto be responsible for the rise of this illness.

BRITAIN'S SECRET WAR IN ANTARCTICA—Part 1....39

By James Roberts. At the end of World War II,Britain sent a covert mission to Antarctica to seekout and destroy a subterranean Nazi haven.

SCIENCE NEWS..........................................................45This issue we feature articles from David Talbott thatcounter the myth of the Sun as a nuclear furnaceand promote the plasma glow discharge model.

DOES SOUND CREATE CROP CIRCLES?....................49

By Freddy Silva. Trilling sounds have often beenrecorded in connection with crop circle creation,and experiments with plants and sound haveproduced similar effects in the laboratory.

UFOs ON CAPITOL HILL—Part 1..............................55

By Robert Stanley. Exactly 50 years after UFOsbuzzed Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in July1952, gravity-defying objects penetrated restrictedairspace and even landed on the Capitol Building.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE................................................61

This issue our focus is on mass UFO sightings inMexico, a mysterious black triangular craft withEnglish wording on its underside, and a new spirit ofdisclosure from the Brazilian Air Force.

R E V I E W S — B o o k s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5"The Secret Teachings of Plants" by Stephen Harrod Buhner"The Calcium Bomb" by Douglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen"Big Oil and Their Bankers..." by Dean Henderson"Pyramid of Fire" by John Major Jenkins and Martin Matz"The Cost of a Discovery" by Loïc Le Ribault"The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings..." by Jeffrey J. Bütz"The True Meaning of the Da Vinci Code" by Robert Pope"Mystery of the Two Jesus Children" by B. Nesfield-Cookson"UFO Crash in Brazil" by Dr Roger K. Leir"Welcome to the Dance: Caffeine Allergy..." by Ruth Whalen"Powerdown" by Richard Heinberg"Coconut Cures" by Bruce Fife, ND"Forbidden History" edited by J. Douglas Kenyon"Collapse" by Jared Diamond

R E V I E W S — D V D s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2"The Charlie Hall Story" by Paola L. Harris and David Coote"Circle Speak" from New Land Films"Stairways to Heaven" from Awaken Productions

R E V I E W S — M u s i c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3"Echu Mingua" by Miguel "Angá" Díaz"Spirit of Havana" by Kargo"Dakshina" by Deva Premal"Divine Devotion" by Sacred Earth"Tantra of Sound Harmonizer" by Jonathan & Andi Goldman

NEXUS BOOKS, VIDEOS, ADS, SUBS...................80–88

NEXUS MAGAZINEVolume 12, Number 5

AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2005PUBLISHED BY

NEXUS Magazine Pty Ltd, ABN 80 003 611 434

EDITORDuncan M. Roads

CO-EDITORCatherine Simons

ASSISTANT EDITOR/SUB-EDITORRuth Parnell

EDITORS' ASSISTANTJenny Hawke

UK OFFICE ADMINISTRATIONMarcus Allen

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUEDaniel Estulin; ETC Group; Douglas Mulhall;

Harold D. Foster, PhD; James Roberts; David Talbott; Freddy Silva; Robert Stanley

CARTOONSPhil Somerville

COVER GRAPHICJohn Cook, [email protected]

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STATEMENT OF PURPOSENEXUS recognises that humanity is undergoing amassive transformation. With this in mind, NEXUSseeks to provide 'hard-to-get' information so as toassist people through these changes. NEXUS is notlinked to any religious, philosophical or politicalideology or organisation.

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Advertisers upon and by lodging material with the Publisher for publication or authorising or approving of the publication of any material INDEMNIFY thePublisher and its servants and agents against all liability claims or proceedings whatsoever arising from the publication and without limiting the generality of theforegoing to indemnify each of them in relation to defamation, slander of title, breach of copyright, infringement of trademarks or names of publication titles, unfaircompetition or trade practices, royalties or violation of rights or privacy AND WARRANT that the material complies with all relevant laws and regulations and thatits publication will not give rise to any rights against or liabilities in the Publisher, its servants or agents and in particular that nothing therein is capable of beingmisleading or deceptive or otherwise in breach of the Part V of the Trade Practices Act 1974. All expressions of opinion are published on the basis that they arenot to be regarded as expressing the opinion of the Publisher or its servants or agents. Editorial advice is not specific and readers are advised to seek professionalhelp for individual problems. The publisher reserves the right to refuse any advertising material for any reason. © NEXUS New Times 2005

Editorial

As I write this editorial, the news of the London bombings is now two days old andalready speculation is rampant on the internet about just who is responsible for these

heinous crimes. I note from my recent bout of net-surfing that there seems to be agrowing willingness by many people to accept that most terrorists and terrorist incidentsare state sponsored. It seems that more and more people are prepared to accept that suchacts are designed to bring about more social control—in other words, used to manipulatethe masses into compliance and fear. Indeed, managing your own enemy is acknowledgedby many historians as the oldest trick in the book!

In my travels and research I have spoken to, and read the testimonies of, several former"spooks" and Special Forces members. In each case, the person involved was instructedto participate in acts of terrorism—often against innocent civilians, as it turned out.Former Israeli Intelligence officers have gone public with their concerns that Israeli-infiltrated/controlled terrorist cells have organised many attacks upon Israeli citizens,purely to justify retaliatory "incursions". (Whoever invented that word? Sounds like across between an excursion and an invasion!)

I have spoken to British Intelligence officers who know of bombings blamed on theIRA but which were conducted by UK Special Forces and killed British citizens. Andaccording to some reports going around the internet, the Spanish secret police wereresponsible for the 2004 Madrid bombings.

Meanwhile, about 10 days ago, as many as 40 UFOs hovered over Mexico City, theworld's largest metropolis, at around 10 am, in broad daylight. They were videotaped,photographed and witnessed by thousands who came to a standstill to watch the half-hourdisplay—but there was not a word about this spectacular event from the media networksoutside Mexico and South America. As you will read in Twilight Zone in this issue, theBrazilian Air Force, presumably with the blessing of the government, has come out andsaid that UFOs are real. Moreover, it has begun the process of disclosure, starting withallowing key civilian UFO researchers to have access to its files.

There are some great articles again in this issue. Wait till you read about Britain's secretwar in Antarctica. Hidden Nazi bases in the Antarctic, strange tunnels, weird Polar Menand exotic technology—and it all seems to be genuine!

I'm also really excited about the article on the link between nanobacteria, calcificationand heart disease. When you read this, you'll find a heap of your brain cells popping asthey draw connections to many articles and reviews in NEXUS!

The report on the secret Bilderberg meeting in May is also pretty wild. Talk aboutbeing on the receiving end of some very interesting leaks from within the elite enclave!You can see that some decisions have already been implemented since the meeting.

I'm also pleased to present research material compiled by Freddy Silva about how cropcircle formation may be related to sound. If you place sand or fine crystalline powderevenly on a circular drum-skin surface and connect that surface to a source of sound vibra-tion, the results can be visually spectacular. Certain sounds will consistently produce spe-cific patterns, some of which look exactly like Egyptian hieroglyphs and others that lookjust like some of the "unexplained" crop circles. (Aussie readers should note that Freddyis making a presentation at our Conference in Brisbane on 23–25 September.)

There have been some new developments regarding foreign-language editions ofNEXUS. The good news is that there is now a Romanian edition and there will soon bean edition published in German. The bad news is that the publisher we'd lined up for ournew Spanish edition has vanished after having received numerous death threats; he isbelieved to be dead. I don't consider his disappearance to be due to any NEXUS connec-tion, as he was already a high-profile activist from the film and publishing sectors whoused his resources to protest against the Spanish Government's support of the US-led inva-sion of Iraq. (When I asked who was threatening him, he replied that it was Opus Dei!)

I'm pleased to report that the NEXUS Conference in Amsterdam in May was a greatsuccess; also, that plans for our Conference in Brisbane in September are complete anddetails are up on our website. I hope to catch up with some of you there.

Duncan

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NEXUS MAGAZINETel: 07 5442 9280; Fax: 07 5442 9381

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* Exopolitics & UFO/ET Disclosure* Dental Dangers & Solutions

* Our Expanding Earth* Tibetan Buddhism's Bloody History* The Electrical Nature of our Cosmos

* Vaccination Dangers* Mind Power & Hypnosis

* Secret Societies & Rigged Elections* Crop Circles – the latest

* Earth Resonance & Mind Control* Star Children Among Us?

* Covert Agenda to Weaponise Space* The Henoch Prophecies

* The Billy Meier ET Case continues...* Vedic Maths & Sacred Geometry

* Agricultural Health* Big Brother on the Internet

• Alfred Lambremont Webre (Canada)— Activist against theweaponisation of space and advocate for Exopolitics (the politics ofE T / U F O official contact).• Freddy Silva (USA)—Author/researcher into the links between soundwaves and crop circles.• Kris Millegan (USA)—Activist, researcher and author into CIA drugrunning, secret societies and geopolitical conspiracies.• Michael Horn (USA)—Author and researcher on the new Billy Meierm a t e r i a l .• Shé D'Montford (Australia)— Author and researcher on the hiddenhistory of Buddhism.• Martin St James (Australia)— Internationally famous stage hypnotistwill present info on how you can tap into your own mind power.• Robert Gammal (Australia)— Respected specialist in dental dangers,i.e. fluoride, fillings and more.• Mary Rodwell (Australia)— Researcher into the growing number ofgifted children with memories of ET contact or origins.• Graeme Sait (Australia)— Expert in all areas of alternative agriculture,soil mineralisation, etc.• James Maxlow (Australia)— Highly regarded researcher into theexpanding Earth hypothesis.• Viera Scheibner (Australia)— Author and researcher of vaccinationmyths and truths.• The Internet Security Team— The latest and greatest on internetsecurity use and abuse.• Wal Thornhill (Australia)— Internationally acclaimed researcher ofthe electrical nature of the Sun, planets, stars, comets and more.

Sponsored by: Bionic Products —manufacturer of the Elanra Therapeutic IoniserCo-sponsors: Wellness Products (www.wellness.com.au); BioCompatible Dentistry(www.bcd.com.au);

Robinvale Wines; OxyRich; Spectrum Therapies; New Dawn Magazine


Doctor Who, WhistleblowerHello Duncan: Thanks for

keeping up the good work on oneof the few "honest" newsp u b l i c a t i o n s .

Here is something that may inter-est you. Just recently on BBC1 inthe UK, a new series of D o c t o rW h o has been broadcast aftermany years' absence. There haveonly been several episodes so far,which have had terrific viewingfigures. Two of these episodes(perhaps more) have almostwhistleblower-like qualities.

In one episode, aliens have takenthe place of the Prime Minister andother ministers (wearing a skinover their own form to pretend tobe human) and are trying to getEarth involved in a war, usingweapons of mass destruction as theexcuse. They say the Earth can beattacked in 45 seconds! The aliensare only out for profit. War onIraq being paralleled?

In another episode, a giant evilalien has been controllinghumankind for the last hundredyears by "chipping" them and feed-ing them lies and propaganda dis-guised as news from a satellitebroadcasting station. The Doctornotes that the whole human race isenslaved yet has no idea!

These two episodes struck melike a sledgehammer. It is veryunlike the BBC to broadcast suchNEXUS-like material, albeit indisguised form. I do recommendwatching this new Doctor Whoseries if it comes your way, as thebrief descriptions I give don't dojustice to the whistleblower f e e l-ing that so pervades.

Happy day,Kevin D., UK[Dear Kevin: I've been a D r

W h o fan for decades, and the plotlines of this new series are justgreat. I have also been amazed atsome of the plots used in the lastseries of S t a r g a t e. Ed.]

Concerned AmericansFirst, I want to thank you for one

of the finest and most informativepublications available today, muchmore so in that it doesn't require aprofessional degree to read andi n t e r p r e t .

I do feel resentment at youreditorial in vol. 12, no. 3: " apopulation that largely seems tocare only about what is on theirpropaganda-filled TVs".

There are many people here inthe United States who feel highlyuncomfortable, to say the least,with the current ruling administra-t i o n . The average American Iencounter today feels we no longerhave "a government of the people,for the people and by the people",but a government of, for and by ther i c h . Many persons who wereoriginally persuaded by the elec-tion campaigns and the c a n d i d a t e shave changed their viewpoints, andrightfully so.

Yes, there are many who I sup-pose fit into the cliché you haveapplied, but please do not lump allUS citizens into that category.Frankly, if American TV program-ming is indicative of the values ofAmerican society at large, oursociety is in deep trouble. Y e talso there are many whose per-spective comes from deep withintheir hearts, from the core of theirspirituality, who know t h a t t ocontinue on the present course willlead to nothing but disaster.

So please present your editorialsin a manner that reflects that h e r ein America, as well as in al lnations and societies, there arepeople who face the world withlove, openness and honesty, just asthere are those who face the worldwith deceit, dishonesty and a needto dominate and control.

In my travels to well over 40countries, I have found by andlarge the majority of the popula-tion in any given country was byno means a reflection of a control-ling and dominating government ofthe country. Election results canand often have been highly manip-ulated by those who stand to gain.

Again, thanks for your fine publi-cation; it's become my favouritereading in the past two years.And thank you for taking the timeto read this communication.

Gary L., Wabash, Indiana, USA[Dear Gary: You should have

seen the editorial BEFORE Ruthgot to it! You're right, though; Ishould not generalise. Ed.]

Depleted Uranium CrimesI read with great interest David

Guyatt's wonderful article on GulfWar Syndrome on NEXUSMagazine's website [published invol. 4, no. 5]. I am so glad whenpeople point out the many thingsyou have. It is dated 1997, so Irealise new information has come

to light. Just in case: I know thatAmerican troops walk through agauntlet of vaccinations, leavingthem perhaps a quart heavier andthrowing up by the time they get tothe end of it. I have heard first-hand accounts of this. Such clus-tering of vaccinations flies in theface of standard medicine. Thetroops are indeed shot with a rangeof experimental vaccines, many ofwhich contain mercury.

The so-called "American PatriotAct" contains a rider that absolvesthe medical establishment and thepharma companies of all liabilitystemming from harmful effects ofv a c c i n a t i o n s .

One thing I did not see was anyreference to "depleted uranium"(DU) weapons. Many tons of thestuff has been dumped on Iraq byAmerican missiles and mortars inboth Gulf wars. The uranium dusthas worked its way into thegroundwater supply. DU dustspread by these weapons is so finethat the gas masks issued to thetroops cannot screen it out.

The women in Iraq, Kuwait,Afghanistan and other surroundingregions are increasingly givingbirth to babies that no longerresemble human beings, and thesame is happening to Americansoldiers.

There are now over 500,000 per-manently disabled American sol-diers due to multiple cancers ineach person created by DUweapons dust from the first GulfWar alone.

The US has already used over amillion troops on the ground inIraq and Afghanistan since theinception of their so-called "war ont e r r o r i s m " .

When a veteran checks into theVeterans Administration Hospitalhere in Houston, the first thing heor she is asked is what war theyserved in; if it is either one of theGulf wars or Afghanistan, the vet-erans are immediately taken to adifferent part of the hospital.Again, I have been told first-handaccounts of this.

Both American and British sol-diers are coming home fromBosnia and surrounding regions inthe former Republic of Yugoslaviawith all the same troubles, usuallybeginning with their kidneys shut-ting down. Neither of these mili-tary establishments is making anyattempt to decontaminate thetroops, who are simply sent home

to die slowly in ignorance.There needs to be a class-action

lawsuit on behalf of the families ofthese soldiers, as well as of all theunwitting employees ofHalliburton/KBR in Iraq. The useof DU weapons constitutes a warcrime that will last for many gener-ations. Fyi, I am not a doctor orscientist; I am just a citizen.

Yours sincerely,Suzanne Powell, Houston, Texas,

U S A[Dear Suzanne: Thanks for your

comments; also see Dr DougRokke's article, "The Scourge ofDepleted Uranium" in 10/04. Ed.]

The Coming Dimensional ShiftDear Duncan: Thanks once

again for another interesting andinformative issue of NEXUS [vol.12, no. 4].

After reading Will Hart's articleon the base-13 theory of theMayan calendar, it immediatelystruck me that this vitalinformation has been suppressedand "demonised" (unlucky 13, etc.)by the elite rulers/religions ofWestern society to such an extentthat the whole world calendar and,consequently, everyone's lives aregoverned by our dysfunctional andarbitrary "linear" calendar.

Our Western calendar does notrecord or predict important cyclicevents in our solar system, like theMayan cycles culminating in thealignment of our solar system withthe galactic centre in 2012 and thesubsequent dimensional changec o m i n g .

I feel that the suppression of theimportance of the number 13 inour lives has been a deliberate andpurposeful action by our "elite"governments/rulers, who are inturn "possessed" or "mind con-trolled" by negative reptilian enti-ties, both here and from the lowerfourth dimension. This subterfugehas been in place for so long thatpeople do not even think to ques-tion our awkward and clumsyWestern calendar.

More importantly, because thewhole world is running on thisdysfunctional calendar, our aware-ness and understanding of theseimmensely important cyclic eventsis "lost", and therefore people areunable to prepare themselves men-tally, emotionally and spirituallyfor the upcoming dimensionalshift.

Letters to the Editor ...


They then have a lesser chance tosurvive the shift and transcend thethird dimension, where the nega-tive reptilian entities wish to keepus for their own selfish purposes,to feed off our emotions of angerand fear.

I hope there is still enough timebefore 2012 for thinking people towake up to the importance of thenumber 13 in our creation and tothe solar cycles which nurture andsupport all life.

Best wishes,Max C., Darwin, Northern

Territory, Australia

The Search for Eternal LifeHi! I'm writing in response to

the article by Andrew Sokar on theGilgamesh Project [12/04].

I found it shocking—although notat all surprising—to hear a first-hand account of being ostracised bythe medical community. And Icongratulate Andrew on standingup for his beliefs and his rights andcontinuing in his efforts for theimprovement of mankind throughdisease prevention.

I just have a comment on the"search for eternal life". What isthe point? It's one thing to try andhelp people be healthy and happyright into their old age, but why tryto cheat death (and life)?

It may be true that certain organ-isms can live eternally, but we arehuman for a reason and our liveson this planet have a much deepermeaning than the superficiality ofthe body. It is my belief that weare already immortal, being in pos-session of the immortal and incor-ruptible Soul.

The body is just a transitoryobject in our possession for a shorttime while we complete one stageof our journey on this three-dimensional Planet Earth.

There is no need to place somuch importance on this one lifeand body—we are much "bigger"and "older" than that. The bodywas meant to die; we should notfear death as it allows us to transi-tion further on our journey and intoother realms.

And from a purely practicalstandpoint: what will we do afterone generation has used theimmortality pill, cheated death andlearned to live forever?

The planet would be overpopu-lated almost instantly; and shouldthe pill and its secrets get into the

wrong hands, would we end upwith a world controlled by a fewimmortal politicians and heads ofugly multinationals (think GeorgeW. Bush, John Howard, Monsantoand McDonalds)?

Yolande Manson, AMD, ND,Radiance Ayurveda Health Centre,Hamilton, New Zealand,w w w . r a d i a n c e a y u r v e d a . c o . n z

Classifications of ET S p e c i e sDear Duncan: Dr Valery

Uvarov's excellent article, "AnAlien Detour", in the last edition(June–July 2005, 12/04) was ofgreat interest to me because theextraterrestrials, described as"bags" or as a "mass", sound verylike a species that was last encoun-tered and described 47 years ago,as far as I have records, on 20December 1958 at Domesten,Kristianstad, Sweden, by StigRydberg and Hans Gustafsson.

In A Biological Guide toExtraterrestrials: A ClassificationBased on Contact Accounts, whichI presented at the Third AustralianUFO Conference, Brisbane,Queensland, on 15 June 2003 andpublished in the P r o c e e d i n g s o fthat conference (as well as on theJeff Rense website on 13September 2003 and in theresearch journals A u s t r a l i a nU F O l o g i s t, UFO Research a n dUFO Quest ), I identified thisspecies as Blob Amoebagigasd e f o r m i s (shapeless giant amoeba);kingdom Animalides; phylum,class, order and family not yetclassifiable.

This is a giant, one-metre-tall,intelligent, amoeba-like exoticspecies, blue-grey in colour withtwo black dot-like eyes and filledwith what looks like bloodcorpuscles.

This species does not possesslimbs, and it moves by bouncing.The outer surface has a powerfulsuction-like ability which it uses tograsp objects. A distinctive odouris noticeable and has beendescribed as a combination ofether and burnt sausage meat.Technology includes a disc-shapedcraft 3.5 metres across and onemetre high, resting on a tripod.

From eyewitness reports, thedescriptions of highly intelligentextraterrestrial species visiting ourplanet include 15 humanoidspecies, including three Greys, twoadditional exotic mammal-like

species, two reptile-like species,one bird-like species, oneamphibian-like species, one insect-like species and one amoeba-likespecies.

Their existence, if the reports canbe believed, may relate to theoccurrence and position ofdifferent-sized gas planets in theirsolar systems.

If extraterrestrial species arechemically similar to those on thisplanet, and with a similar geneticcode, the primary differencebetween ourselves and speciesfrom other Earth-like planets maysimply be the size and position ofgiant gaseous Jupiter-like planets,over 150 of which have now beendiscovered around nearby stars,varying their evolutionary history.

Thank you for continuing to keepus informed on so many fascinat-ing and vital matters.

Highest regards,Gary Opit, Mullumbimby, NSW,

Australia, [email protected]

The Buddha and NonviolenceDear Editor: I particularly wel-

come the article, "UnveilingBloody Buddhism" [12/04], as welive in an age with heinous deedsof staggering dimensions that areoften very effectively covered up.

However, I have just one reserva-tion; that is, that the article wouldbe better entitled "UnveilingBloody 'Buddhism'". The reason Ihave this reservation is that there isnot o n e reference that can be foundwithin any of the Buddha's 5,000+discourses which could be inter-preted as justifying killing.

In fact, "not to kill" is the veryfirst precept! Indeed, the Buddhaabsolutely ruled out returning evilfor evil; revenge was vehementlyrejected, no matter how justified itmight seem.

Now, if one carefully searchesthe Bible, especially the OldTestament, one can find passageswhich approve of killing. Even inthe New Testament, Saint Markexhorts us not to allow a witch tolive (and by this, I don't mean tosuggest that Christians nowadayss u p p o r t murder, etc.).

The important point here,however, is that, in the case of theBuddha's many discourses, it is n o tpossible to find even o n e p a s s a g econdoning killing, period.

The reader, of course, will befully justified in asking, " H o w

come hundreds if not thousands ofTibetan 'Buddhists' instigated andcarried out such a bloodbath?"Well, the short answer is that theywere not Buddhists in any realsense, any more than the CroatianCatholic priests who, crucifix inhand, led the massacre of t h o u-sands of Orthodox Serbs wereC h r i s t i a n s .

Dr D'Montford says, "I wanted tobelieve that Shakyumani Buddha,the year after his enlightenment...publicly debated the virtues of theKalachakra Tantra with the Kingof Shambhallah", and later notesthat "...a Brahmin boy, Tsi-lu-pawas teaching the Kalachakra as aHindu instrument in India AD9 9 6 " .

Dr D'Montford is rightly object-ing to being misled. However, it isimportant to note that she was mis-led about Tibetan Buddhism. Herremarks do n o t apply to the majormainstream traditions ofTheravada and Mahayana, butrather to the Kalachakra Tantrafirst taught by a Hindu boy morethan 1,500 years after the Buddha'sd e a t h .

That "Shakyamuni Buddha, theyear after his enlightenment...pub-licly debated the KalachakraTantra with the King ofShambhallah" is an entirely mythi-cal tradition and is recognised assuch by scholars who have devotedtheir lives to the rigorous study/editing of Buddhist scriptures.

The Buddha never taught theTantra and, in fact, it is widelybelieved that the adoption ofmantric [s i c] practices with theircondoning of orgies and drug-taking were the main reason f o rBuddhism dying out in India.

Not only did the Buddhaproscribe the use of mind-alteringdrugs but he also warned thatsexual explorations as a means ofspiritual growth were highlydangerous, saying "those whoknow stand in fear of suchpractices", which is surelyconfirmed by Dr D'Montford'stimely article.

Readers may well wonder aboutwhat the Buddha himself taught,and in this regard I can be ofassistance. Just contact TS att h e r a v a d a s o c i e t y 2 0 0 0 @ y a h o o .com or write to us for ourinformation pack.

T. A. Burgess, Secretary,Theravada Society, RMB 213B, StArnaud, Victoria 3478, Australia

... more Letters to the EditorNB: Please keep letters toapprox. 150 to 250 words

in length. Ed.


PATENTS GAGGED FORNATIONAL SECURITY

Secrecy orders can be slappedon private inventions in 13 of

the 26 member countries ofNATO, as well as in Australiaand New Zealand. And thetrend, from US figures at least,appears to be upwards. In theUSA, 4,885 secrecy orders arenow in place compared with4,741 in 2001.

In the UK, of the 30,000 patentapplications sent to the UKPatent Office (UKPO) in Cardiffevery year, 600 to 1,500 arepulled aside for closer scrutinyby military experts. "We don'treveal how many of those weprohibit from dissemination,"says Patent Office informationofficer Jeremy Philpott.However, on the orders of the Ministry ofDefence, the UKPO declassifies about 100patents each year—typically a decade ortwo after they were filed.

The US Invention Secrecy Act of 1951says that whenever the "publication or dis-closure of the invention by the granting ofa patent would be detrimental to thenational security, the Commissioner ofPatents shall order that the invention bekept secret". The UK Patents Act of 2004runs along similar lines.

In both cases, penalties for infringementinclude two years' imprisonment and/orheavy fines.(Source: New Scientist, 9 July 2005)

AMERICAN DIABETESASSOCIATION "BOUGHT OFF"?

After the American DiabetesAssociation received a large gift from

a major manufacturer of sugar-sweetenedbeverages, its top medical official isclaiming that sugar has nothing to do withdiabetes.

In an interview published on 16 May inCorporate Crime Reporter, Richard Kahn,the chief scientific and medical officerwith the American Diabetes Association,said: "What is the evidence that sugaritself has anything to do with diabetes?There is no evidence."

On 21 April, the ADA announced a

"three-year, multimillion-dollaralliance" with Cadbury SchweppesAmericas Beverages, which pro-duces sweetened soft drinks thatare implicated in the epidemic ofobesity and diabetes in the UnitedStates. Its parent company,Cadbury Schweppes, is the third-largest soft-drink manufacturer inthe world, after Coca-Cola andPepsiCo.

"Saying that sugar has nothing todo with diabetes is like saying thattobacco has nothing to do withemphysema," said Gary Ruskin,executive director of CommercialAlert.

"The American DiabetesAssociation has been so corruptedthat they have sunk to thementality of tobacco scientists whodenied the link between tobacco

and lung cancer." (Source: Corporate Crime Reporter pressrelease, 16 May 2005, http://www.corporate -crimereporter.com/diabetes051605.htm)

SHOCK WAVES STIMULATEBONE GROWTH

Blasting bones with shock wavessounds like a bad idea, but it turns out

that it stimulates bone growth. The non-invasive technique might help treat frac-tures that refuse to heal and perhaps evenreduce the need for hip replacements byencouraging ageing joints to regenerate.

Shock waves—single, high-pressurepulses—have long been used to break upkidney stones. They travel through softtissue without causing damage but releasetheir energy when they hit a hard sub-stance such as bone.

Doctors noticed decades ago that peoplewho had multiple treatments for kidneystones grew extra bone on the pelvis, eventhough later studies showed the waves donot damage these bones.

Now Joerg Hausdorf's team at LudwigMaximilians University in Munich,Germany, has studied the effect of shockwaves on bone cells.

The pulses stimulate production of animportant bone growth factor, bFGH,Hausdorf told a meeting of the US andCanadian acoustical societies inVancouver this week.

He thinks shock waves activate the samegrowth mechanisms as stretching andpressure.(Source: New Scientist, 21 May 2005)

FIRST PICTURES FROM THESURFACE OF THE MOON TITAN


TIME TRAVELLERS COULD NEVERALTER THE PAST

The laws of physics seem to permit timetravel and, with it, paradoxical situa-

tions such as the possibility that peoplecould go back in time to prevent their ownbirth. But it turns out that such paradoxesmay be ruled out by the weirdness inherentin the laws of quantum physics.

Some solutions to the equations ofEinstein's general theory of relativity leadto situations in which space-time curvesback on itself, theoretically allowing trav-ellers to loop back in time and meetyounger versions of themselves.

Because such time travel sets up para-doxes, many researchers suspect that somephysical constraints must make time travelimpossible.

Now, physicists Daniel Greenberger ofthe City University of New York and KarlSvozil of the Vienna University ofTechnology in Austria have shown that themost basic features of quantum theory mayensure that time travellers could never alterthe past, even if they were able to go backin time.

Quantum theory allows time travelbecause nothing prevents the waves fromgoing back in time. When Greenbergerand Svozil analysed what happens whenthese component waves flow into the past,they found that the paradoxes implied byEinstein's equations never arise. Wavesthat travel back in time interfere destruc-tively, thus preventing anything from hap-pening differently from that which hasalready taken place.

"If you travel into the past, quantummechanically, you would only see thosealternatives consistent with the world youleft behind you," says Greenberger.(Source: New Scientist, 18 June 2005)

UK MINISTERS TOLD OF NEEDFOR IRAQ WAR "EXCUSE"

UK ministers were warned in July 2002that Britain was committed to taking

part in an American-led invasion of Iraqand they had no choice but to find a way ofmaking it legal.

The so-called Downing Street memo(often shortened to "the DSM" on web-sites) is a leaked Cabinet Office briefingpaper, which states that Prime MinisterTony Blair had already agreed to back mil-itary action to get rid of Saddam Husseinat a summit at the Texas ranch of USPresident George W. Bush three monthsearlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at ameeting of Blair's inner circle on 23 July2002, said that since regime change wasillegal it was "necessary to create theconditions" which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if min-isters decided Britain should not take partin an invasion, the American militarywould be using British bases. This wouldautomatically make Britain complicit inany illegal US action.

"US plans assume, as a minimum, theuse of British bases in Cyprus and DiegoGarcia," the briefing paper warned. Thismeant that issues of legality "would arisevirtually whatever option ministers choosewith regard to UK participation".

Those present at the meeting included:Tony Blair; Geoff Hoon, then defence sec-retary; Jack Straw, the foreign secretary;and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief ofMI6. The full minutes of the meeting werepublished in May in the Sunday Times.

The document said the only way theallies could justify military action was toplace Saddam Hussein in a position wherehe ignored or rejected a United Nationsultimatum ordering him to cooperate withthe weapons inspectors. But it warned thiswould be difficult.

"It is just possible that an ultimatumcould be cast in terms which Saddamwould reject," the document says. But ifhe accepted it and did not attack the allies,they would be "most unlikely" to obtainthe legal justification they needed.

The attack on Iraq finally began in

March 2003.The briefing paper is certain to add to

the pressure, particularly on the Americanpresident, because of the damaging revela-tion that Bush and Blair agreed on regimechange in April 2002 and then looked for away to justify it.(Source: The Sunday Times , UK, 12 June2005, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html)

AUSTRALIA'S "DUST AGE"

Australia is in the grip of a "dust age", afive-year-long spell in which the

winds have swept tens of megatonnes oftopsoil from the face of the continent.

"Dust is a measure of the care we aretaking of Australia, just as the sediment ina river reveals how you are looking afterits catchment," says Professor GrantMcTainsh, who heads the dust researchteam in the Desert Knowledge CooperativeResearch Centre (CRC).

"Up till 2001, we thought we were get-ting better at it, based on the previous 40years' data. Then a major dust era erupted,from 2002 to 2004, which still persists inNew South Wales and parts of northernSouth Australia and western Queensland."

A single giant dust storm took 4.85 mil-lion tonnes of soil, Prof. McTainsh andcolleague Dr John Leys calculated. In thesame year, 20 other events took over a mil-lion tonnes apiece. Accentuating the con-tinent's violent contrasts, they recentlyobserved a huge dust plume rising rightalongside a flooding creek.

... GL BAL NEWS ...

"This week I finish off a magazine campaign positioning NuclearPower as the new green energy. Next week I start work on some TV

spots raising awareness of Whaling as an oceanic decongestant."


The DustWatch network was establishedin 2002 in NSW by Dr Leys from the NSWDepartment of Infrastructure, Planning andNatural Resources and Professor McTainshfrom Griffith University in Queensland.

Since 2002, the team has charted 15events which exceeded safe health limitsfor breathability. And all of the eventsspeak of lost topsoil, lost nutrients, and theland being stripped away and sometimesgone for good.

In bad events, the plumes extend faracross the ocean, stretching halfway toSouth America and Africa, besides dyeingthe New Zealand snows pink. In suchevents, Prof. McTainsh says, cubic kilome-tres of Australia's soil is lost—far morethan is exported by our rivers as sediment.(Source: CSIRO media release, 6 July 2005,http://www.desertknowledge.com.au/crc)

CODEX COMMISSION ADOPTSTOUGH VITAMIN GUIDELINES

In its 28th session in Rome on 4 July, theplanet's supreme food regulator has given

a nod to industry in approving guidelinesfor food supplements over the strenuousopposition of consumer representatives.

The full Commission of CodexAlimentarius adopted in final form theCodex Guidelines for Vitamin and MineralFood Supplements. This is the Step 8adoption, the final stage of adoption for theinternational Codex guidelines. The CodexVitamin and Mineral Food Supplementsguidelines are now official and no longer indraft form.

The Commission, with over 85 of the

171 Codex countries in attendance, adoptedthe guidelines by consensus method.

Although the guidelines are not in them-selves restricting supplement sales, they doprohibit making information availableabout diseases and nutrition, and they callfor future dosage restrictions to be set afterscientific evaluation of the safety of nutri-ents contained in pills and capsules.

Consumer representatives who attendedthe meeting are concerned that the guide-lines, in conjunction with the EuropeanUnion's Directive on Food Supplements,may be a first step towards heavy controlson nutrition that would favour the pharma-ceutical approach to disease over active,consumer-driven prevention. (Sources: Press releases, 4 July 2005,h t t p : / / w w w . n e w m e d i a e x p l o r e r . o r g /s e p p / 2 0 0 5 / 0 7 / 0 4 / c o d e x _ a l i m e n t a r i u s _a d o p t s _ v i t a m i n _ g u i d e l i n e s . h t m ;http://ahha.org/millerpressrelease705.htm)

THE AGENDA BEHIND DEBTRELIEF FOR POOR NATIONS

The statement that was released on 10June, following the G7 finance minis-

ters' meeting, has been generally receivedby the Western media as heralding somekind of new dawn for poor countries.

Taking a closer look, however, revealsthe statement to be very much about thebreaking down of barriers to "free" tradeand corporate control of countries' servicesand resources—or "the elimination ofimpediments to private investment, bothdomestic and foreign", as the ministerialstatement put it.

The writing off of debt, which occupiedso many front pages, is itself hedgedaround with similar conditions and requestsbefore countries will be allowed to benefit.It is linked to the HIPC (highly indebtedpoor countries) initiative, a form of debtrelief that has been tied to privatisationschemes controlled by the IMF and WorldBank.

The G7 statement makes it clear thatonly those countries that are "on track withtheir programmes of repayment obligationsand adjusting their gross assistance flowsby the amount forgiven" will be covered bythe write-off—in other words, only thosecountries that have adjusted theireconomies in favour of repayment.

What is more, any further grants of aidare conditional on those countries' move-ment towards "good governance, account-ability and transparency". The WorldBank, under Iraq war architect PaulWolfowitz, will decide what amounts to"good governance".

This kind of sleight of hand—to controlthrough the appearance of altruism—isonly possible under a modern democracy,with a media so well trained in self-censorship that it can be trusted not to pokearound in the more unpleasant corners ofsuch statements.

Constant references were made to the"G8 debt deal" and even the "G8 financeministers". In truth, there were only sevenministers at that meeting.

Russia, although allowed into aspects ofthe G8 summit in view of its large reservesof oil, gas and nuclear weapons, is not con-sidered to be an important enough player,economically speaking, to come to G7finance meetings.

The dressing up of World TradeOrganization measures under the cloak ofhumanitarianism and international aid isperhaps the most successful aspect of theG8 summit's spin offensive.(Source: Corporate Watch , 17 June 2005,available at http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=1807; read the G7 statement ath t t p : / / w w w . g 8 . u t o r o n t o . c a / f i n a n c e / f m 0 5 0 6 1 1_dev.htm)

US DRIVER'S LICENCES TOBECOME NATIONAL ID CARDS

The "Real ID" bill that President Bushsigned into law on 11 May will turn

state-issued US driver's licences intonational ID cards.

Real ID, which was slipped into an emer-gency appropriations bill, stipulates that by

... GL BAL NEWS ...


US MILITARY SPENDING TO EXCEED REST OF WORLD COMBINED!

It is expected that next year the United States will spend more on its defence andsecurity than the rest of the world combined will spend on theirs. In 2004, massive

US spending on the war on terrorism pushed global military expenditure aboveUS$1 trillion—the sixth successive year in which the total has risen, according to theStockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

World military expenditure rose 5% to US$1.04 trillion, still 6% below a ColdWar peak in 1987–88 but up sharply since 1998, the Swedish Government–fundedinstitute said in its latest yearbook.

US military spending accounted for nearly half the global figure for 2004, rising12% last year to $455 billion, the institute said. That was more than the combinedtotal of the 32 next most powerful nations, SIPRI said. The figure was set to rise stillfurther to $502 billion in 2010.

The top five countries by military spending—the United States, Britain, France,Japan and China—spent nearly two-thirds of the world total last year according tothe institute, which monitors officially reported military spending for 159 countries.

Meanwhile, in May, a US Senate committee approved the US$441.6 billiondefence bill for fiscal year 2006. This includes the Department of Defense budgetand funding for nuclear weapons activity of the Department of Energy. It does notinclude other items such as money for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($49.1 billionfor fiscal year 2006) or Homeland Security funding ($41.1 billion for fiscal year2006).

Top military spenders for 2004 $US billions1. United States 455.32. United Kingdom 47.43. France 46.24. Japan 42.45. China 35.46. Germany 33.97. Italy 27.88. Russia 19.49. Saudi Arabia 19.3

10. South Korea 15.511. India 15.112. Israel 10.713. Canada 10.614. Turkey 10.115. Australia 10.1

To put military spending in another perspective, it is worth having a look at a recentyear (1998) of global expenditure priorities:

Global Expenditure $US billionsBasic education for everyone in the world 6Cosmetics in the United States 8Water and sanitation for everyone in the world 9United Nations and all its agencies 10Ice cream in Europe 11Reproductive health for all women in the world 12Perfumes in Europe and the United States 12Basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world 13Pet foods in Europe and the United States 17Business entertainment in Japan 35Cigarettes in Europe 50Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105Narcotic drugs in the world 400Military spending in the world 780

It would seem ironic that the world spends more on things to destroy each other (mili-tary) and to destroy ourselves (drugs, alcohol and cigarettes) than on anything else.

(Sources: http://www.dawn.com/2005/06/08/int14.htm; http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/001658.php; http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml; http://www.wjla.com/headlines/0505/228369.html; http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp)

2008 all driver's licences or equivalent IDmust include a machine-readable name, adigitised photograph, address, social secu-rity number, a digitised birth certificate andsignature. It was passed in the Senate on10 May without a word of debate.

If you don't have an ID card you won'tbe allowed onto planes, trains or buses orinto government buildings.

The Department of Homeland Security isto decide what reading technology will beused. One possibility is RFID tags that canbe read from a few metres away withoutyour ever realising.(Source: New Scientist, 21 May 2005)

NORTH ATLANTIC FOOD CHAINDRAMATICALLY ALTERED

Researchers who looked at data over a40-year period have found that the

food chain in the North Atlantic has beensignificantly altered with the disappearanceof large species, such as cod, a findingnever seen before.

Ken Frank, a scientist who co-authored arecent report in Science magazine, said thefindings provide an unsettling picture ofthe marine environment on the EasternScotian Shelf.

He said the virtual disappearance of codand other large species, such as haddock,flounder and hake, led to what he calls acascade effect. That is, large predatorsdeclined dramatically, but the fish theypreyed on were allowed to thrive and even-tually underwent a population explosion.

Cod, which used to sit on the top of thefood chain, has now been replaced bysmaller fish. That also trickled down to thelowest members of the marine foodchain—zooplankton and algae—which arebeing depleted at a faster rate because moreand more fish are feeding on them. Thathas also raised the fear that the smaller fishspecies could diminish the nutrients theyrely on.

"Their levels have now decreasedbecause they're being eaten heavily by theexploding group," said Ken Frank, whoworks for the Department of Fisheries andOceans at the Bedford Institute ofOceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada.

"It was always known that when youdeplete a predator, its prey will increase.But it was never suspected that this wouldcascade or extend all the way down to thebase of the food chain." (Source: The Globe and Mail , Toronto,Canada, 9 June 2005)

... GL BAL NEWS ...



Bilderberg's Plans for the World

The Bilderberg group's secret annual meeting determines many of the headlinesand news developments that you will read about in the coming months. But theEstablishment media completely black out any news of it and remain strangelyreluctant to lift the curtain hiding this major event. A number of high-ranking

members of the press who attend the annual meeting are sworn to secrecy, and news edi-tors are held responsible if any of their journalists "inadvertently" report on what takesplace. Yet few have ever heard of this exclusive and secretive group of the world's mostpowerful financiers, industrialists and political figures.

Although the Bilderberg group has lost some of its past lustre, on 5 to 8 May 2005 itmet at Rottach-Egern (in Munich, Germany) under its usual secrecy that makes a freema-sonry lodge look like a playgroup. Staff at the hotel were photographed and put throughspecial clearance. From porters to senior managers, the employees were warned (underthe threat of never working in their country again) about the consequences of revealingany details of the guests to the press.

The discussions that the Bilderbergers engaged in this year and the consensus theyreached—deciding how the world should deal with European–American relations, theMiddle East powder keg, the Iraq war, the global economy and how to stave off war inIran—will influence the course of Western civilisation and the future of the entire planet.Ironically, they met behind closed doors, protected by a phalanx of armed guards.

After three straight years of open hostility and tension amongst the European, Britishand American Bilderbergers, caused by the war in Iraq, the aura of complete congenialityamongst them has returned. Bilderbergers have reaffirmed and remain united in theirlong-term goal to strengthen the role the United Nations plays in regulating global con-flicts and relations.

However, it is important to understand that the Americans are no more the "Hawks"than the European Bilderbergers are the "Doves". Europeans joined in supporting the1991 invasion of Iraq by US President George Bush Senior, celebrating (in the words ofnotable Bilderberg hunter Jim Tucker) the end of "America's Vietnam syndrome".Europeans also supported former US President Bill Clinton's invasion of Yugoslavia,bringing NATO into the operation.

UN Global Oil Tax and Peacebuilding ProposalsA much discussed subject in 2005 at Rottach-Egern was the concept of imposing a UN

tax on people worldwide through a direct tax on oil at the well-head. This, in fact, sets aprecedent. If enacted, it would be the first time that a non-governmental agency (read theUnited Nations) directly benefited from a tax on citizens of free and enslaved nations.The Bilderberg proposal calls for a tiny UN levy at the outset, which the consumer wouldhardly notice.

Jim Tucker, formerly of the court-killed S p o t l i g h t magazine, wrote in the A m e r i c a nFree Press (14–21 June 2004) that: "...establishing the principle that the UN can directlytax citizens of the world is important to Bilderberg. It is another giant step toward worldgovernment. Bilderbergers know that publicly promoting a UN tax on all people on Earthwould meet with outrage. But they are patient; it [Bilderberg] first proposed a directworld tax years ago and celebrates the fact that it is now in the public dialogue with littlepublic attention or concern."

Bilderberg wants "tax harmonisation" so that high-tax countries can compete with more

When presidents,prime ministers,

bankers andgenerals rub

shoulders withEuropean royalty atthe annual secret

Bilderberg meeting,they discuss the

business of runningmarkets and wars

without beingaccountable to the

public.

by Daniel Estulin © May–June 2005

Email: [email protected]

The full text of this article is at:http://www.onlinejournal.com


tax-friendly nations—including the United States—for foreigninvestment. They would "harmonise" taxes by forcing the rate inthe US and other countries to rise so that socialist Sweden's 58-per-cent level would be "competitive".

According to sources, an unidentified guest at the conferenceasked how global taxation can be sold to the American public.One European Union commissioner suggested using as the batter-ing ram the rhetoric of helping countries build peaceful, stablesocieties once conflict subsides. Someone asked for the timing ofthe appeal. A former commissioner mentioned that the best timeto ask for cash is once the conflict subsides and the world is sub-jected to brutal images of destruction.A Norwegian Bilderberger disagreed.What looked to be Björn T.Grydeland, Norway's ambassador tothe European Union, said that, on thecontrary, it's much easier to get worldattention and money for a regionwhen a conflict rages.

This was confirmed a posterioriwhen Denmark's foreign minister PerStig Moller, during a debate in theUnited Nations on 26 May, stated onthe record that "[i]f the internationalcommunity is not able to act swiftly,the fragile peace is at risk, with lossof more lives as a consequence".Denmark holds the EU presidency until1 July 2005, when it will be replaced by the UK. [Thechangeover took place just before we went to press. Ed.]

Bilderbergers are planning to use what they nominated as a UNPeacebuilding Commission, apparently to help win the peace inpost-conflict countries, as one of the tools in secretly imposing theUN tax on an unsuspecting world population.

Jim Tucker said as much in his Bilderberg report in theAmerican Free Press (23 May) when he wrote: "There was some

informal discussion of timing for a vote in the United Nations onestablishing a direct global tax by imposing a 10-cents-a-barrellevy on oil at the well-head. This is important to the Bilderberggoal of establishing the UN as a formal world government. Sucha direct tax on individuals is symbolically important. Bilderberg'sglobal tax proposal has been pending before the UN for threeyears but the issue has been blacked out by the Bilderberg-controlled US media."

Mark R. Warner, governor of Virginia and a first-timeBilderberg invitee, expressed concern about how much additionalfinancial responsibility the United States would take on as a

result. At this point, José M. DurãoBarroso, president of the European

Commission, expressed a view heldby many within Bilderberg that theUnited States does not provide a fairshare of economic aid to poor coun-tries. My sources confirm JimTucker's report that "Kissinger andDavid Rockefeller, among otherAmericans, beamed and noddedapproval".

Although the US pays more into theforeign-aid piggy bank than any coun-try in the world, the Bilderbergers andthe United Nations are poised todemand much more funding from it tomeet the Peacebuilding proposal.

NGOs and the Global NeighbourhoodThe rise of the NGOs (non-governmental organisations) is a

development that former US President Clinton suddenly (one dayafter it was discussed at Rottach-Egern) suggested to be among"the most remarkable things that have happened since the fall ofthe Berlin Wall". Ironically, Clinton's statement was picked up bythe Wall Street Journal, a paper represented at the Bilderberg

meetings by its vice-president, Robert L. Bartley, until hisdeath in December 2003, and its editorial page editor,Paul Gigot.

The Bilderbergers have been vigorously debating, forthe first time, whether to have unelected, self-appointedenvironmental activists given positions of governmentalauthority on the governing board of the United NationsEnvironment Program (UNEP)—the agency which con-trols the use of the atmosphere, outer space, the oceansand, for all practical purposes, biodiversity. This invita-tion for "civil society" to participate in global governanceis described as "expanding democracy".

According to sources within Bilderberg, the status ofNGOs would be elevated even further in the future. NGOactivity would include agitating at the local level, lobby-ing at the national level and producing studies to justifyglobal taxation through UN organisations such as GlobalPlan, one of Bilderberg's pet projects for over a decade.

The strategy to advance the global governance agendaspecifically includes programs to discredit individuals andorganisations that generate "internal political pressure" or"populist action" that fails to support the new global ethic.The ultimate objective, according to sources, is to sup-press democracy.

If the plan proceeds, UNEP, along with all the environ-mental treaties under its jurisdiction, would ultimately begoverned by a special body of environmental activists,

According to sources withinBilderberg, the status of NGOs

would be elevated evenfurther in the future.


chosen only from accredited NGOs appointed by delegates to theGeneral Assembly who are themselves appointed by the Presidentof the United States, who himself is controlled by theRockefeller–Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–Bilderberginterlocking leadership.

This new mechanism would provide a direct route from thelocal, "on-the-ground", NGO affiliates of national andinternational NGOs to the highest levels of global governance.For example, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group ofaffiliated NGOs, recently petitioned the World HeritageCommittee of UNESCO asking for intervention in the plans of aprivate company to mine gold on private land near YellowstonePark. The UNESCO committee did intervene, and immediatelylisted Yellowstone as a "World Heritage Site in Danger". Underthe terms of the World Heritage Convention,the United States is required to protect thepark, even beyond the borders of the parkand onto private lands if necessary.

The ideas being discussed, if implemented,would bring all the people of the world into aglobal neighbourhood, managed by a world-wide bureaucracy under the direct authorityof a minute handful of appointed individualsand policed by thousands of individuals, paidby accredited NGOs, and all certified to sup-port a belief system that to many people isunbelievable and unacceptable.

A Lesson for Tony Blair Bilderbergers are celebrating the

result they wanted: the return of amuch humbled Tony Blair to 10Downing Street, with a much reducedparliamentary majority.

European Bilderbergers are stillangry at him for supporting America'swar in Iraq. While teaching Blair a use-ful lesson in international politics,Bilderbergers feel he is a far safer can-didate to continue on the path ofEuropean integration than his conserva-tive rival, Michael Howard.

The EU Referendum in FranceThe first day of secret meetings at Bilderberg 2005 was domi-

nated by talk of the European Union referendum in France andwhether President Chirac could persuade France to vote "Yes" on29 May. A "Yes" vote, according to sources within Bilderberg,would put a lot of pressure on Tony Blair to finally deliver Britaininto the waiting arms of the New World Order through its ownreferendum on the treaty, scheduled for 2006. Matthias Nass,Deputy Editor of Die Zeit, wondered out loud that a "No" vote inFrance could undoubtedly cause political turmoil in Europe andovershadow Britain's six-month EU presidency starting on 1 July.

Bilderbergers hope that Blair and Chirac, whose at times openanimosity has spilled into the public arena on more than one occa-sion, can work together for mutual benefit and political survival.Another European Bilderberger added that both leaders must putbehind them as quickly as possible all past disputes on such topicsas Iraq, the liberalisation of Europe's economy and the future ofthe budget rebate that Britain receives from the EU, and worktowards complete European integration—which could disintegrateif France's often "hard-headed and obstinate people", in the words

of a British Bilderberger, do not do the right thing, meaning giveup voluntarily their independence for the "greater good" of aEuropean federal super-state!

A German Bilderberger insider said that France's "Yes" vote isin trouble because of the "outsourcing of jobs". "Jobs in Germanyand France are going to Asia and Latvia [to take advantage ofcheap labour]." Latvia is one of the former Soviet republics thathave been admitted to the European Union, bringing the totalmembership to 25 nations. A German politician wondered outloud how Tony Blair will go about convincing Britons to embracethe European Constitution when, due to the outsourcing of jobs,both Germany and France are suffering 10 per cent unemploy-ment while Britain is doing well economically.

The Neo-conservative LobbyIn full force was that faction: the so-

called "neo-conservatives", who havedetermined that Israel's security shouldcome at the expense of the safety of theUnited States and be central to all USforeign policy decisions.

Most notable among them is Richard N.Perle, who was investigated by the FBI forconducting espionage on behalf of Israel.Perle played a critical role in pushing theUnited States into the war against Iraq. On27 March 2003, he was forced to resignfrom the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board

after it was learned he'd been advisingGoldman Sachs International, an habit-ual Bilderberg attendee, on how itmight profit from the war in Iraq.

Another neo-conservative figure onhand was Michael A. Ledeen, an"intellectual's intellectual". Ledeenserves for the American EnterpriseInstitute (AEI), a think-tank founded in1943 and with which Richard Perle haslong been associated. AEI and theBrookings Institution operate a JointCenter for Regulatory Studies (JCRS),the purpose being to hold lawmakersand regulators "accountable for their

decisions by providing thoughtful, objective analyses of existingregulatory programs and new regulatory proposals". The JCRSpushes for cost-benefit analysis of regulations, which fits withAEI's (and the Bilderbergers') ultimate goal of deregulation.

These neo-conservatives were also joined this year atBilderberg by a handful of other former top Washington policy-makers and publicists known for their sympathies for Israel,including: Richard N. Haass, former State Department officialand president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); RichardHolbrooke, former assistant secretary of state and "father" of theDayton Accord; Dennis Ross, of the pro-Israel WashingtonInstitute for Near East Policy, effectively an offshoot of theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and theJewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA); and PaulWolfowitz, the newly elected World Bank president.

American Criminals: Public Policy in PrivateIn the United States, the Logan Act states explicitly that it is

against the law for federal officials to attend secret meetings withprivate citizens to develop public policies.

The ideas beingdiscussed, if

implemented, wouldbring all the people of

the world into a global neighbourhood,

managed by a worldwide bureaucracy

under the directauthority of a minutehandful of appointed

individuals...


Although Bilderberg 2005 was missing one of its luminaries—US State Department official John Bolton, who was testifyingbefore the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations—the USGovernment was well represented in Rottach-Egern by: Allan E.Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy anddirector of the National Economic Council; William Luti, DeputyUnder-Secretary of Defense; James Wolfensohn, outgoing presi-dent of the World Bank; and Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary ofState, an ideologue of the Iraq war and incoming president of theWorld Bank. By attending the Bilderberg 2005 meeting, thesepeople broke United States federal law.

Journalistic Whores Bilderberg, at one time or another, has had representatives of all

major US and European newspapers and network news outletsattend. High-ranking membes of the inadequately named "inter-national free press" attend on theirsolemn promise to report nothing. Thisis how Bilderberg keeps its news black-out virtually complete in the UnitedStates and Europe.

This year's invitees included:Nicolas Beytout, editor-in-chief of L eF i g a r o; Oscar Bronner, publisher andeditor of Der Standard ; DonaldGraham, chairman of the W a s h i n g t o nP o s t; Matthias Nass, deputy editor ofDie Zeit; Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of T i m e; J. Robert S. Prichard,president and CEO of Torstar MediaGroup (Toronto Star); Cüneyt Ulsevere,columnist for H ü r r i y e t; John Vinocur, senior correspondent forthe International Herald Tribune; Martin Wolf, associate editor ofthe Financial Times ; Fareed Zakaria, editor of N e w s w e e kInternational; Klaus Zumwinkel, chairman of Deutsche Post; andJohn Micklethwait, US editor of The Economist and AdrianWooldridge, Washington correspondent for The Economist .Micklethwait and Wooldridge acted as the meeting's rapporteurs.

Declining Energy Reserves and Economic DownturnOf course, discussion at Bilderberg 2005 turned to oil. An

American Bilderberger expressed concern over the sky-rocketingoil price. One oil industry insider at the meeting remarked thatgrowth is not possible without energy, and that according to allindicators the world's energy supply is coming to an end muchfaster than the world leaders have anticipated.

According to sources, Bilderbergers estimate the extractableworld's oil supply will last a maximum of 35 years under currenteconomic development and population. However, one of the rep-resentatives of an oil cartel remarked that they must factor into theequation the population explosion and economic growth as wellas demand for oil in China and India. Under the revised condi-tions, there is apparently only enough oil to last for 20 years. Nooil spells the end of the world's financial system—which hasalready been acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal and theFinancial Times, two newspapers that are regularly represented atthe annual Bilderberg conference. The conclusion: expect asevere downturn in the world's economy over the next two yearsas Bilderbergers try to safeguard the remaining oil supply by tak-ing money out of people's hands. In a recession or, at worst, adepression, the population will be forced to dramatically cut downtheir spending habits, thus ensuring a longer supply of oil to theworld's rich as they try to figure out what to do.

During cocktails one afternoon, a European Bilderberger notedthat there is no plausible alternative to hydrocarbon energy. OneAmerican insider stated that currently the world uses betweenfour and six barrels of oil for every new barrel it finds, and thatthe prospects for a short-term breakthrough are slim at best. Thisconfirms a public statement made in 2003 by IHS Energy, theworld's most respected consulting firm cataloguing oil reservesand discoveries, that for the first time since the 1920s there wasnot a single discovery of an oil field in excess of 500 millionbarrels.

One invitee asked for an estimate of the world's accessible con-ventional oil supply. The amount was quoted at approximatelyone trillion barrels. As a side note of interest, the planet con-sumes a billion (1,000,000,000) barrels of oil every 11.5 days.Another Bilderberger asked about the hydrogen alternative to oil.The US Government official agreed gloomily that hydrogen's sal-

vation of the world's imminent energycrisis is a fantasy.

At the 2005 Bilderberg conference,the oil industry was represented by:John Browne, chief executive officer ofBP; Sir John Kerr, director of RoyalDutch/Shell; Peter D. Sutherland,chairman of BP; and Jeroen van derVeer, chairman of the committee ofmanaging directors at Royal Dutch/Shell. (Queen Beatrix of TheNetherlands, Royal Dutch/Shell'sprincipal shareholder, is a fully fledgedmember of the Bilderbergers. Herfather, Prince Bernhard, was one of the

founders of the group back in 1954.) It should be noted that in late 2003, oil and gas giant Royal

Dutch/Shell announced it had overstated its reserves by as muchas 20 per cent; in early 2004 it reduced its estimated oil and gasreserves by about 4.5 billion barrels, but in October had to applyan additional cut of 1.15 billion barrels in reserve estimates. Infact, Shell's three cuts in reserve estimates prompted the resigna-tion of its co-chairman. The Los Angeles Times (18 January2005) reported: "For petroleum firms, reserves amount to nothingless than 'the value of the company'."

At Rottach-Egern in May 2005, the industry's top executivestried to figure out how to keep the truth about diminishing oilreserves from reaching the public. Public knowledge of thediminishing reserves directly translates into lower share priceswhich could destroy financial markets, leading to a collapse of theworld economy.

An American Bilderberger wondered what it would take for theoil price to go back to US$25 a barrel. Another AmericanBilderberger, believed to be Allan Hubbard, laconically stated thatthe general public does not realise that the price for cheap oil canbe the bursting of the debt bubble. Cheap oil slows economicgrowth because it depresses commodity prices and reduces worldliquidity.

There is a strong indication, based on the information reportedfrom the Bilderberg 2005 meeting in Rottach-Egern, that the USFederal Reserve is extremely concerned about the debt bubble.One American Bilderberger reported that if the price of oil wereto go down to its previous low of $25 a barrel, the debt-drivenasset bubble would explode. Martin S. Feldstein, president of theNational Bureau of Economic Research, added that $50 a barrelinvolves greater cash flow.

According to publicly available information, the United States

Bilderberg, at one time or another, has had

representatives of all majorUS and European

newspapers and networknews outlets attend.


consumes daily approximately 20 million barrels of oil out of atotal world consumption of 84 million barrels. At $50 a barrel,the aggregate oil bill for the US comes to $1 billion a day, $365billion a year, about 3 per cent of 2004 US gross domestic product(GDP). About 60 per cent of US consumption is imported at acost of $600 million a day, or $219 billion a year.

A short, stout man asked if the surging oil price would influ-ence economic growth. Someone sitting in the front row notedthat higher energy prices do not take money out of the economy;they merely shift profit allocation from one business sector toanother. After further discussion, a US General commented thatwar spending helps jump-start the economy, noting that the trickto keeping the opposition at bay is to limit collateral damage toforeign soil.

A British Bilderberger noted that oil at $120 a barrel wouldgreatly benefit Britain and the United States,but Russia and China would be the biggestwinners. An expert in international relationsand policy studies noted that for the Chinesethis would be a real bonanza. The Chineseimport energy not for domestic consumptionbut, instead, to fuel its growing cheapexports—a cost that would be duly passed onto foreign buyers. A European banker pointedout that Russia could effectively devalue thedollar by re-denominating its energy tradewith Europe from dollars into euros, forcingEurope's central banks to rebalance theirforeign exchange reserves in favour of theeuro. Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor ofthe European Central Bank, was presentduring the debate.

Globalised Trading and the Riftwith China

European and American Bilderbergers,realising the most urgent of needs toexpand into developing markets in orderto help sustain the illusion of endlessgrowth, have agreed to name PascalLamy, a French socialist and fanaticalsupporter of a European super-state, asthe next World Trade Organization(WTO) president. It should be remembered that Washington gaveconditional support to Lamy's nomination in exchange forEuropean support of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank.

According to insider sources within the Bilderbergers, Lamywas chosen to help steer the global trading system through a timeof rising protectionist sentiment in rich countries such as Franceand Germany, both reeling from high unemployment and reticentto accept increasingly muscular demands for market access fromemerging economies. Third World States, for example, are insist-ing on cuts to EU and US farm subsidies. The WTO liberalisationdrive collapsed in acrimony in Seattle in 1999 and again inCancún in 2003.

The Bilderbergers have secretly agreed on the need to force thepoor countries into a globalised market for cheap goods whilesimultaneously forcing the poor into becoming customers. Thecurrent rift with China is a good example, as the Chinese haveflooded Western countries with cheap goods, amongst them tex-tiles, driving down prices. As a trade-off, the Bilderbergers haveentered into an emerging market ripe and vulnerable to superiorWestern know-how. Similar developing countries are slowly

acquiring more purchasing power, and the industrialised world isgaining a foothold in their domestic economies by targeting themfor cheap exports.

Further discussion on China was led off with a series ofrhetorical questions from the speaker. Is China really abusing itscompetitive advantage, or is it being victimised by the US and theEU? Is a trade war imminent? Should China revalue the yuan (itscurrency), and, if so, how should it do this?

An American Bilderberger noted that China in 2005 is one ofthe leading world economic powers whose actions influence theworld economy. Another American, believed to be but not posi-tively identified as Michael Ledeen of the American EnterpriseInstitute, said that if China doesn't revalue the yuan it would causethe entire world trade system to go out of whack. Someone men-tioned that the current situation could be dangerous for the

Chinese economy due to the creation of excessliquidity.

Elena Nemirovskaya, founder of theMoscow School of Political Studies, askedwhat would happen if the yuan were allowedto float freely. An economist responded thatthis could bring about serious consequences tothe world's financial markets. China's foreignexchange reserves are to a large extent madeup of US Treasury bills. An appreciation ofthe yuan would cause its dollar reserves todepreciate.

A German Bilderberger pointed out that thiscould force the Federal Reserve to have to

raise interest rates, thus causing the cur-rent housing boom in the US to come to ascreeching halt. An oversized Dutchmanpointed out that the InternationalMonetary Fund needs to play an activerole in helping the yuan.

"Is there a real danger, then," asked anItalian Bilderberger, "of this disputedeteriorating into an all-out trade war?""Not likely," according to an unidentifiedblond man from Scandinavia, believed tobe a Swede, "because China has totallyintegrated itself into the marketeconomy."

An American Bilderberger and a member of the USGovernment noted that all the posturing is part of the act to keepthe voters back home happy.

China's moves into the Mekong region did not go unnoticed atthe conference. William J. Luti, US Deputy Under-Secretary ofDefense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, explained thatChina's rapid expansion into the Mekong region, comprisingCambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, could threatenUS interests in the area. Such moves by China would give it anenhanced role in South-East Asia.

Over the last several years, China has invested heavily intransport infrastructure development linking China's southwesternYunan province and the Mekong region.

A European Bilderberger pointed out that China is heavilydependent on oil imports. Someone asked for a figure. A tall,lanky man with glasses, believed to be Jeroen van der Veer,Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, responded that some 40 per centof China's supply is imported. In fact, China's move into theMekong region is the result of acute awareness that the country'senergy supplies are vulnerable to interference. Overall, 32 per

A British Bilderberger notedthat oil at $120 a

barrel would greatlybenefit Britain and

the USA, but Russia and China

would be the biggestwinners.

cent of energy supplies, China's lifeblood, passes through the nar-row and easily blocked Strait of Malacca.

Indonesia–Malaysia Stand-offA political and military confrontation between Indonesia and

Malaysia in the oil-rich Sulawesi Sea (both claim territorial rightto the area of Ambalat) was the topic of much animateddiscussion among several American and European Bilderbergersduring Friday afternoon cocktails. An American Bilderbergerwaving his cigar suggested using the United Nations to "further apeace policy in the region".

In fact, Bilderbergers at the lounge table all agreed that such aconflict might well give them an excuse to garrison the disputedarea with UN "Peacekeepers" and thus ensure their ultimate con-trol over the exploitation of this treasure, meaning untapped oilreserves.

Nobel Peace Prize Pressure The appearance at Bilderberg 2005 of

Nobel Peace Prize Committee Secretary GeirLundestad was considered likely to mean,according to sources familiar with the discus-sion, a full court press by the American,British and Israeli delegation to the Nobelcommittee to prevent the Israeli nuclear tech-nician Mordechai Vanunu from winning thecoveted award.

Vanunu spent 18 years in an Israeliprison—eleven and a half of them in solitaryconfinement—for providing evidence ofIsrael's nuclear arsenal to the LondonSunday Times newspaper in October1986. Should Vanunu win the Nobel forpeace, it would bring uncomfortableattention to the Israeli nuclear arsenal,especially in the face of growing evi-dence that Israel and the United Statesare about to punish Iran for trying todevelop its own nuclear weapons.

Strong pressure was applied onLundestad not to choose Hans Blix, theUN weapons inspector in Iraq, norMohamed El Baradei, director-general ofthe International Atomic Energy Agency, whom President Bushhad tried to remove for not being tough enough on Iran.

Some of this year's other nominees are US President George W.Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for supposedly protect-ing world peace; the European Union; French President JacquesChirac, the main culprit for the "No" vote on the EuropeanConstitution; former Czech President Václav Havel; the now-deceased Pope John Paul II; Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá; andUS Senator Richard Lugar and former senator Sam Nunn for theirCooperative Threat Reduction Program, which is intended to dis-mantle nuclear weapons left over from the Soviet Union.

The Iran–Russia–China AllianceAccording to reports, a French Bilderberger pointedly asked

Henry Kissinger if the US Government's sabre-rattling againstIran means the beginning of new hostilities. Richard Haass, CFRPresident, after asking for his turn to speak, dismissed the notionof an Iran invasion as unrealistic due to the sheer physical size ofthe country and its population size, not to mention the billions ofdollars involved in getting the operation off the ground. Up to the

eyeballs in the Iraq quagmire, the United States military is waryof any new adventures in hostile terrain against a much healthierenemy, both better prepared and organised.

A Swiss Bilderberger asked if a hypothetical attack on Iranwould involve a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear sites.Richard Haass replied that such an attack would prove to becounterproductive because Tehran's counterattack options couldrange from "unleashing terrorism and promoting instability inIraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, to triggering oil priceincreases that could trigger a global economic crisis". Duringdinner, according to several sources, Richard Perle criticisedHaass's position and explained his opposition to his view.

A woman believed to be Heather Munroe-Blum, Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Quebec, Canada, asked arhetorical question about what would happen if Iran were tocontinue building its nuclear arsenal. Haass replied that in this

scenario, the United States would have nochoice but to grant Iran the same status as itdoes to Pakistan and India.

A US General commented that theChina–Iran–Russia alliance is changing thegeopolitical situation in the area.R a p p r o c h e m e n t between Russia and China isviewed by the Bilderbergers as a significantevent not to be taken lightly, even though it hasreceived little media attention in the West.

A secret US Government report was citedwherein, according to sources, the Chinesehave spent upwards of several billion dollars in

acquiring Russia's latest and mostsophisticated weapons technology.Someone pointed out that theSino–Russian alliance is not limited tomilitary trade and that the non-militaryexchange of goods has grown 100 percent since the beginning of the Bushpresidency.

A delegate at the conference, believedbut not positively identified by SecretService sources to be Anatoly Sharansky,a former Israeli Minister for Jerusalemand Diaspora Affairs, stated categoricallyduring Friday night cocktails that the

counterweight to the Moscow–Beijing–Tehran axis is theUS–Israel–Turkey alliance. A financial expert from a Europeannation intervened by stating that Russia is much better off finan-cially today than four years ago because tax revenue generated byfuel and arms production and exports as a result of heavy empha-sis on military production has financed strong growth of wagesand pension incomes, boosting private consumption.

A German Bilderberger pointedly asked Richard Perle if the"war on terrorism" will intensify over the second term of the Bushpresidency. Perle reportedly gave no reply but screwed up hisface and looked away.

The feeling of "enough is enough" wasn't limited to theEuropean Bilderbergers, wary of Bush's delirious, Hitler-likeproclamations of regime changes worldwide. Bilderbergluminary Richard Haass pointedly told Richard Perle duringSaturday night cocktails that the Bush Administration hasoverestimated its ability to change the world. Haass, according toseveral sources at the conference, is reported to have stated that


Continued on page 74

A political andmilitary confrontation

between Indonesiaand Malaysia in theoil-rich Sulawesi Sea

was the topic of muchanimated discussion

among severalAmerican and

EuropeanBilderbergers during

Friday afternooncocktails.




NANO-FOOD AND NUTRITION, OR "NANOTECH FOR TUMMIES"

Ahandful of food and nutrition products containing invisible nano-scale additivesare already commercially available. Hundreds of companies are conductingresearch and development (R&D) on the use of nanotech to engineer, process,package and deliver food and nutrients to our shopping baskets and our plates.

Among them are giant food and beverage corporations as well as tiny nanotech start-ups.According to Jozef Kokini, the director of the Center for Advanced Food Technology at

Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA), "every major food corporation has a program innanotech or is looking to develop one". 1 5 3 A 2004 report produced by Helmut KaiserConsultancy, "Nanotechnology in Food and Food Processing Industry Worldwide", pre-dicts that the nano-food market will surge from US$2.6 billion today to $7 billion in 2006and to $20.4 billion in 2010.154 In addition to a handful of "nano-food" products that arealready on the market, over 135 applications of nanotechnology in food industries (pri-marily nutrition and cosmetics) are in various stages of development.155

According to Helmut Kaiser, more than 200 companies worldwide are engaged innanotech R&D related to food. Among the 20 most active companies are five that rankamong the world's 10 largest food and beverage corporations, Australia's leading foodcorporation and Japan's largest seafood producer and processed food manufacturer. (Seeannex 1.)

Despite the obvious enthusiasm for nano-scale science and its applications to foodengineering and processing, the food and beverage industry is generally conservative andcautious when talking about the future of nanotech and food. Most industry representativesinterviewed by ETC Group declined to provide specific details about the level of fundingand industry partners. We spoke to scientists at giant food and beverage corporations(Kraft and Nestlé) as well as university researchers and representatives from smallnanotech start-ups (often one and the same).

After witnessing widespread rejection of genetically modified foods, the food industrymay be especially skittish about owning up to R&D on "atomically modified" foodproducts. "The food industry is more traditional than other sectors like IBM [wherenanotechnology can be applied]," explains Gustavo Larsen, a professor of chemicalengineering and a former consultant to Kraft. 1 5 6 "My take is that there are goodopportunities and it's often more feasible to realise these opportunities [in the food sector].You can make nanoparticles and use them in foods—you don't have to assemble themfirst."157 When asked what he believes will be the first products of nanotech R&D relatedto food, Larsen said that consumers are likely to see packaging composed of nano-scalematerials before novel food products. "I think the packaging is a safer bet," said Larsen.

Molecular Food ManufacturingSome people claim that in the future, molecular engineering will enable us to "grow"

unlimited quantities of food without soil, seed, farms or farmers—and that it will wipe outglobal hunger in the process. Consider the following views:

• "Nanomachines could create unlimited amounts of food by synthesis at the atomiclevel, which would eradicate hunger." – Carmen I. Moraru, professor of food science,Cornell University (USA), on nanotech's potential impact on food science158

• "Molecular biosynthesis and robotic replenishment may allow quick replacement ofproduction, so we wouldn't have to depend on centralized systems to grow and deliver ourfood. In the first, primitive stages of molecular assembly, we'd build packaged

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN THE FOOD CHAIN

Corporationsworldwide are

engaged innanotechnologyresearch to put

nanoparticles intothe food we eat, the

cosmetics we useand the packagingthat contains them.

Part 2 of 2

by ETC Group © November 2004

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greenhouses, radically different from those today, that wouldallow local or individualized production by millions who knownothing about farming… At the next stage of molecularmanufacturing, food synthesis could occur directly, withoutgrowing crops or livestock." – Douglas Mulhall, Our MolecularFuture (Prometheus Books, 2002)

• "Why can't human beings imitate nature's methodology?Instead of harvesting grain and cattle for carbohydrates and pro-tein, nanomachines (nanobots) could assemble the desired steakor flour from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms present in theair as water and carbon dioxide. Nanobots present in foods couldcirculate through the blood system, cleaning out fat deposits andkilling pathogens." – Dr Marvin J. Rudolph, director, DuPontFood Industry Solutions, in F o o dTechnology, January 2004

Producing food by molecularm a n u f a c t u r i n g1 5 9 is the mostambitious goal of nanotech—and theleast likely to materialise any timesoon. To those who have followedthe biotech debate over the past twodecades, enthusiastic claims that anew technology will feed hungrypeople is a tired and empty refrain.Nano-optimists see the futurethrough the biotech industry's rose-(and green-) coloured glasses: nowit's nanotech, they claim, that willeradicate hunger by increasingagricultural yields, enhancing thenutritional content of food and eliminating the risk of foodallergens.160

ETC Group concludes that present-day "nanotech for tummies"is following the same trajectory as other nano-scale R&D, with theearliest applications in the area of "smart" materials and sensors.More revolutionary applications, such as the atomic modificationof food, are perhaps more distant. But it's worth noting that a fewambitious scientists are trying to create food in the lab.

Tissue engineers at Touro College (New York City) and at theMedical University of South Carolina (USA) are experimenting

with growing meat by "marinating" fish myoblast (muscle) cellsin liquid nutrients to encourage the cells to divide and multiply ontheir own. The first goal is to keep astronauts in space from goinghungry.161

PackagingToday, food packaging and monitoring are a major focus of

food industry related nanotech R&D. Packaging that incorporatesnanomaterials can be "smart", which means that it can respond toenvironmental conditions or repair itself or alert a consumer tocontamination and/or the presence of pathogens.

According to industry analysts, the current US market for"active, controlled and smart" packaging for foods and beverages

is an estimated $38 billion—and willsurpass $54 billion by 2008.167

The following examples illustratenano-scale applications for food andbeverage packaging:

• Chemical giant Bayer produces atransparent plastic film (calledDurethan) containing nanoparticlesof clay. The nanoparticles aredispersed throughout the plastic andare able to block oxygen, carbondioxide and moisture from reachingfresh meats or other foods. 1 6 8 T h enanoclay also makes the plasticlighter, stronger and more heat-resistant.

• Until recently, industry's quest topackage beer in plastic bottles (for cheaper transport) was unsuc-cessful because of spoilage and flavour problems. Today,Nanocor, a subsidiary of Amcol International Corp., is producingnanocomposites for use in plastic beer bottles that give the brew asix-month shelf life. 1 6 9 By embedding nanocrystals in plastic,researchers have created a molecular barrier that helps prevent theescape of oxygen. Nanocor and Southern Clay Products are nowworking on a plastic beer bottle that may increase shelf life to 18months.170

• Kodak, best known for producing camera film, is usingnanotech to develop antimicrobialpackaging for food products that will becommercially available in 2005. Kodak isalso developing other "active packaging"which absorbs oxygen, thereby keepingfood fresh.171

• Scientists at Kraft as well as atRutgers University and the University ofConnecticut are working on nanoparticlefilms and other packaging with embeddedsensors that will detect food pathogens.Called "electronic tongue" technology, thesensors can detect substances in parts pertrillion and would trigger a colour changein the packaging to alert the consumer if afood has become contaminated or if it hasbegun to spoil.172

• Researchers in The Netherlands aregoing one step further to develop intelli-gent packaging that will release a preserv-ative if the food within begins to spoil.This "release on command" preservativepackaging is operated by means of a


At the next stage of molecularmanufacturing, food synthesiscould occur directly, withoutgrowing crops or livestock.

"Here, take one of our promotional DVDs."

bioswitch developed through nanotechnology.173

• Developing small sensors to detect food-borne pathogens willnot just extend the reach of industrial agriculture and large-scalefood processing. In the view of the US military, it's a nationalsecurity priority. 1 7 4 With present technologies, testing formicrobial food contamination takes two to seven days and thesensors that have been developed to date are too big to betransported easily.175

Several groups of researchers in the US are developingbiosensors that can detect pathogens quickly and easily, reasoningthat "super-sensors" would play a crucial role in the event of aterrorist attack on the food supply. With US Department ofAgriculture (USDA) and National Science Foundation (NSF)funding, researchers at Purdue University areworking to produce a hand-held sensorcapable of detecting specific bacteriainstantaneously from any sample. They'vecreated a start-up company calledBioVitesse.176

While devices capable of detecting food-borne pathogens could be useful inmonitoring the food supply, sensors andsmart packaging will not address the rootproblems inherent in industrial foodproduction that result in contaminated foods:faster meat (dis)assembly lines, increasedmechanisation, a shrinking labour force oflow-wage workers, fewer inspectors, thelack of corporate and governmentaccountability and the great distancesbetween food producers, processors andconsumers.

Just as it has become the consumer'sresponsibility to make sure meat hasbeen cooked long enough to ensure thatpathogens have been killed, consumerswill soon be expected to act as their ownmeat inspectors so that industry cancontinue to trim safety overhead costsand increase profits.

Tagging and Monitoring: • Radio Frequency ID (RFid) Tags

An RFid tag is a small, wireless, integrated circuit (IC) chipwith a radio circuit and an identification code embedded in it.The advantages of the RFid tag over other scannable tags—suchas the UPC barcodes pasted on most consumer products today—are that the RFid tag is small enough to be embedded in the prod-uct itself, not just on its package, it can hold much more informa-tion, can be scanned at a distance (and through materials, such asboxes or other packaging) and many tags can be scanned at thesame time.

RFid tags are already being used for livestock tracking,attached to the ear or injected into the animal. The entire chip canbe about the size of a dust mote—closer to micro-scale than nano-scale, though incorporating nano-scale components. Developersof the technology envision a world where they can "identify anyobject anywhere automatically".177

RFid tags could be used on food packaging to performrelatively straightforward tasks, such as allowing cashiers insupermarkets to tally all of a customer's purchases at once oralerting consumers if products have reached their expiration dates.RFid tags are controversial because they can transmit information

even after a product leaves the supermarket. Privacy advocates are concerned that marketers will have even

greater access to data on consumer behaviour. They want the tagsto be disabled at the cash register (what is known as "tag killing")to ensure that personal data won't be obtained and stored. Wal-Mart in the US and Tesco in the UK have already tested RFid tag-ging on some products in some stores.178

• NanobarcodesA "nanobarcode" is an alternative tagging or monitoring device

that works more like the UPC code, but on the nano-scale. Onetype of nanobarcode—developed by Nanoplex Technologies—isa nanoparticle consisting of metallic stripes, where variations in

the striping provide the method of encodinginformation.179

Nanoplex changes the length and width ofthe particles and the number, width and com-position of each stripe to make billions andbillions of variations. So far they've put bar-codes into ink, fabric, clothing, paper, explo-sives and on jewellery. The codes can be readusing a hand-held optical reader or a micro-scope that measures the difference in reflec-tivity of the metallic stripes. Silver and goldreflect light in different ways, for example,and it is the patterns of reflection that giveeach particle its unique code. In addition to

gold and silver, Nanoplex makes codesout of platinum, palladium, nickel andcobalt.

Nanoplex also produces "Senser"(Silicon Enhanced Nanoparticles forSurface Enhanced Raman Scattering)tags—50-nanometre metal nanoparticlesthat exhibit unique codes similar tonanobarcodes. Senser tags can also beincorporated into packaging and read byan automated reader up to a metre away,allowing items to be read at a checkoutlike RFID tags or covertly at ports.180

The tagging of food packages willmean that food can be monitored from farm to fork—duringprocessing, while in transit, in restaurants or on supermarketshelves and, eventually, even after the consumer buys it. Coupledwith nanosensors, those same packages can be monitored forpathogens, temperature changes, leakages, etcetera.

Nano-food: What's Cooking? 181

In 1999, Kraft Foods, the $34 billion Altria (formerly known asPhilip-Morris) subsidiary, established the industry's first nan-otechnology food laboratory. The next year, Kraft launched theNanoteK consortium, enveloping 15 universities and publicresearch labs from around the globe. 1 8 2 None of the scientistsinvolved in the consortium is a food scientist by training; rather,they're a mix of molecular chemists, material scientists, engineersand physicists.183

Looking at food from an engineering perspective is nothingnew. For the last three decades, scientists have introduced genesfrom one species of plant or animal into another using geneticmodification (GM) technologies; but at least for a thousand yearsbefore that, people introduced specially formulated additives tofood to impart new flavours, textures, colours or other qualities.

Nano-scale technologies will take food engineering "down" to a


A "nanobarcode" is an alternative

tagging or monitoring device

that works more like a barcode, but on

the nano-scale.


new level, with the potential to change dramatically the way foodis produced, grown, processed, packaged, transported and eveneaten.

• Nano-scale food additives In fact, the products of nanotechnology have already begun to

"appear" in food (though they are too small to be seen—and con-sumers would have no way of knowing, since there is no require-ment for labelling and no size-specific regulation).

BASF, for example, produces a nano-scale version ofcarotenoids, a class of food additives that imparts an orangecolour and that occurs naturally in carrots and tomatoes. Sometypes of carotenoids are antioxidants and can be converted to vita-min A in the body. BASF sells its nano-scale syntheticcarotenoids to major food and beverage companies worldwide foruse in lemonades, fruit juices and margarines.184 Nano-scale for-mulation makes them more easily absorbed bythe body but also increases shelf life. BASF'scarotenoid sales are US$210 million annually.This figure includes both nano-scale and othercarotenoids.185

In 2002, BASF submitted a GRAS(Generally Recognized as Safe) notice toinform the FDA of its sale of a syntheticcarotenoid called lycopene (which occursnaturally in tomatoes) as a food additive.BASF's synthetic lycopene is formulated atthe nano-scale. 1 8 6 According to BASF, thequestion of specialised testing fornanoparticulated lycopene was not raised andwas not required because "BASFdemonstrated safety in a varietyof...toxicological evaluations". 1 8 7 T h eFDA accepted BASF's notice withoutquestion.188

In a telephone interview, RobertMartin of the FDA confirmed that sizewas not taken into account in the reviewof BASF's synthetic lycopene, and heexplained further that "size per se" is"not a major consideration" in regulatoryreview but would be addressed "on acase-by-case basis" if there appeared tobe implications for health and safety.189

Is it safe to add nanoparticles to foods? The short answer to thequestion is, "No one knows for sure". The issue has yet to be con-fronted head on by either regulators or the scientific community.

ETC Group has identified only a handful of nano-scale foodadditives on the market today, but we can't be certain howwidespread their use is since there are no requirements that theybe labelled as such. Just as in other regulatory arenas such ascosmetics and chemicals, the question of safety has not beenapproached from the perspective of size. So far, manufacturershave been the only ones to consider size—primarily in terms ofthe market advantages that extremely small size offers (e.g., adecrease in size increases bioavailability in foods and increasestransparency in cosmetics).

In the case of additives that also occur naturally in foods, it isnot clear what the nano-specific safety issues are. Discussingnano-scale lycopene, for example, Dr Gerhard Gans of BASFexplained that once the synthetic, nano-scale lycopene reaches thegut, it behaves in exactly the same way the lycopene in a tomatobehaves: it is broken down by digestive enzymes and taken into

the bloodstream and further to the liver and other organs asindividual molecules.190 In other words, by the time it enters thebloodstream, all food is nano-scale—whether it started out as aslice of tomato or a glass of lemonade containing BASF'ssynthetic lycopene. (Perhaps because of health concerns relatedto nanoparticles, Dr Gans emphasised that the synthetic lycopenehandled by BASF employees and supplied to their customers wasnot in the form of nanoparticles; at that stage, he said, the particleshave clumped together in aggregates of micron-level size, whichwill partially dissolve in the final product. Ultimately, theconsumer's digestive enzymes bring the particles back down tothe nano-scale.)

While the explanation that all food is nano-scale by the time itreaches the bloodstream makes sense a priori, it is important tonote that BASF conducted toxicological testing of its lycopenenot because it was a nano-scale formulation but because it was

produced through chemical synthesis (ratherthan derived from lycopene-containing fruitsand vegetables). Had synthetic lycopenealready been vetted as a food ingredient,BASF would not have been compelled byregulators to test the safety of a nano-scaleversion.

This is what makes the prospect of addingnanoparticles to foods—in the absence ofspecific regulatory attention paid to size—alarming: what nano-scale substances are inthe pipeline that have already been approvedas food additives at larger scales but maynow be formulated at the nano-scale with

altered properties and unknownconsequences? Of particular concernwould be nano-scale formulations ofsubstances that do not already occurnaturally in food.

• Titanium Dioxide and SiliconDioxide Coatings

Take titanium dioxide (TiO 2) as anexample: TiO2 was approved as a foodcolour additive by the US FDA in 1966,with the only stipulation being "not toexceed 1% by weight".191 (Micron-sizedT i O2 imparts a bright white colour and

is added to icings on cookies and cakes). The FDA has alsoapproved TiO2 as a "food contact substance"—meaning that if itcomes into contact with food when it is incorporated into packag-ing, it won't cause harm. TiO 2 has been used as a colourant(white) in paper used for food packaging.192

With advances in nanotech techniques, TiO 2 can now beformulated at the nano-scale. The quantum property changes thattake place with the reduction in size offer advantages for certainapplications. But some of nano-scale TiO2's property changes—such as increased chemical reactivity—have caused concern inapplications where the nano-scale substance comes into intimatecontact with the human body, (e.g., as an ingredient incosmetics).193 Nano-scale TiO2 particles are no longer white (theyare transparent), but they still block ultraviolet (UV) light in theway their larger siblings do. Transparent, nano-scale TiO2 is nowbeing used in clear plastic food wraps for UV protection.

Because TiO2 has already been approved as a food colour addi-tive and as a food contact substance, its nano-scale use in foodsdoes not require additional toxicity testing. And the per-cent-by-

The products ofnanotechnology

have already begun to "appear" in food

(though they are toosmall to be seen—

and consumers would have no way

of knowing, since there is norequirement for

labelling...).


weight limits set back in the 1960s aren't necessarily relevant totoday's nano-scale formulations, since tiny amounts can producelarge effects.

Silicon dioxide (SiO 2), also known as silica, is another exampleof an FDA-approved food additive that doesn't occur naturally infoods. Silica is a common substance in nature—beach sand andquartz are almost-pure forms of crystalline silica.194

In addition to a crystalline form, silica occurs naturally in anamorphous form, e.g., diatomaceous earth, and it is this form ofsilica that is produced synthetically and is an FDA-approved foodingredient as an anti-caking agent.1 9 5 (Amorphous silica is alsoknown as "fumed" silica.) The regulation states that the silicacontent must be less than two per cent of the weight of the food.Food-grade fumed silica with particle sizes in the nanometrerange are commercially available.1 9 6 Again, it is not clear whatfood products contain synthetic nano-scale silica as there are nolabelling requirements.

Mars, Inc., one of the world's largest private food corporations,was issued US Patent No. 5,741,505 in 1998 on "edible productshaving inorganic coatings". The coatings create a barrier toprevent oxygen or moisture from reaching the product under thecoating, thereby increasing shelf life.

The patent claims the inventionwill keep hard candy from gettingsticky, cookies from getting stale,cereals from becoming soggy inmilk, etc. The coatings can be madefrom various chemical compounds,of which SiO 2 and TiO 2 a r especifically mentioned. According tothe inventors, the coating should beextremely thin because of regulatoryrequirements and because of textureand "mouth feel" considerations.

The patent states that the idealcoating would be somewherebetween 0.5 nm and 20 nm thick.While the coating could be made of any inorganic material, theinventors state that it is preferable to use a substance that hasalready been GRAS-certified by the FDA, such as SiO2 and TiO2.The patent application describes an example of their invention, inwhich they coated M&Ms, Twix and Skittles brand candies withan inorganic nanofilm.

ETC Group is not in the position to assess the safety of nano-scale food additives. We want to highlight the regulatoryvacuum, where size does not matter and nano-scale formulationsdo not trigger any special regulatory scrutiny. It's a kind of"particle nepotism" that could have dangerous consequences: ifBig Brother passes the safety test, Little Brother doesn't even haveto take the exam.

Special DeliveryThe food industry aims to engineer food so that it is more

"functional"—meaning more nutritious (or perceived to be) orserving some other purpose beyond its biological purpose of pro-viding energy through calorie consumption.

Many companies believe that nano-scale technologies will helpin this quest, and so they are focusing on "delivery". Most of usdon't think very much about delivery when it comes to food(unless we're waiting for a pizza to arrive from across town): webite, chew, swallow and our digestive tracts take care of the rest.But in order to benefit from delivery—whether it's the vitamin Cfrom an apple we've just bitten into or the synthetic lycopene in

our lemonade—the nutrient must go to the right place in the bodyand it must be active when it gets there.197

Controlling and engineering nutrient delivery is a challenge,and its mastery will be enormously profitable. According toindustry analysts, in the US alone the market for functional foodscontaining medically beneficial nutrients—worth $23 billion in2003—will exceed $40 billion in 2008.198

In December 2000, ETC Group reported on the biotech indus-try's quest to develop a new generation of biotech products, genet-ically modified "nutraceuticals" and functional foods that seek todeliver clear (or at least perceived) consumer benefits.199 Taintedby the wider controversy over GM crops, however, the GMnutraceutical products have been largely stuck in the pipeline.Will nanotech deliver where biotech has failed?

Like the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and cosmetics giants,food and beverage companies are also experimenting with the useof nanocapsules to deliver active ingredients. One way topreserve an active component is by putting it in a protective"envelope". The envelope can be engineered to dissolve, or theactive ingredient can be made to diffuse through the envelopetriggered by the right stimulus.

There are already several hundredtypes of "microcapsules" being usedas food additives in the US alone, 2 0 0

some to achieve the controlledrelease of active ingredients. GeorgeWeston Foods of Australia, forexample, sells a version of its popularTip Top bread, known as "Tip Top-up", which contains microcapsules oftuna fish oil high in omega-3 fattyacids. Because the tuna oil iscontained in a microcapsule, theconsumer doesn't taste the fish oil,which is released in digestion once ithas reached the stomach. The sametechnology is also being employed in

yoghurts and baby foods. Companies large (Unilever, Kraft) andsmall (see below) are now developing "nanocapsules":

• Researchers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have created astart-up company called Nutralease. They've applied for ap a t e n t2 0 1 on a nano-scale self-assembled structure that can carryactive components into and through the human body. Accordingto the company's patent application, their "nanovehicle" can bediluted in either oil or water without affecting its activeingredient. The company's nanovehicles are already on themarket in a cholesterol-reducing canola oil.202 Nutralease has justsigned a deal with an Israeli meat company that wants to inject alittle health into its hot dogs, and another deal with an ice creammanufacturer is in the works.203

• Royal BodyCare, a company based in Texas (USA), hascreated what it calls "nanoceuticals" (and has applied for atrademark on the name) using a different kind of envelope todeliver "powerful, tiny mineral clusters that are believed toincrease the absorption of nutrients into our cells".204 RoyalBodyCare puts these nanoceutical particles into its line of"SuperFoods" nutritional supplements.

• BioDelivery Sciences International (BDSI) has developed andpatented "nanocochleates"—coiled nano-scale particles (as smallas 50 nm in diameter) derived from soy (not genetically modified,they emphasise!) and calcium that can carry and deliver pharma-ceutical compounds as well as nutrients such as vitamins,lycopenes and omega fatty acids directly to cells. The company

Like the pharmaceutical,agrochemical and cosmetics

giants, food and beveragecompanies are also

experimenting with the use ofnanocapsules to deliver

active ingredients.


claims that its nanocochleates can deliver omega-3 fatty acids tocakes, muffins, pasta, soups and cookies without altering the pro-duct's taste or odour.205 No products containing the nanocochleatedelivery system are currently on the market, but the companyactively seeks to license its technology.

"We have some [food] companies that are clearly enthusiastic,"said Raphael Mannino, chief scientific officer of BDSI. 2 0 6

Mannino told ETC Group that it is not yet clear what regulatoryhurdles his company's nano-scale nutrient delivery system wouldneed to clear before commercialisation. "Nobody is really sureyet," said Mannino.2 0 7 Before it becomes a commercial reality,BDSI must achieve large-scale manufacture of the nanoen-cochleation technology. Under the most optimistic scenario,Mannino said that "we could be in food in one year".

• With funding from the USDA, LNK Chemsolutions isdeveloping nano-scale capsules of edible polymers to prevent theflavour and aroma of food molecules from degrading. The goal isto increase the shelf life of sensitive food products, but thecompany declines to reveal which ones.2 0 8 LNK Chemsolutionswas founded by Dr Gustavo Larsen, a professor of chemicalengineering at the University of Nebraska.

• Other companies are working on using nano-scale technolo-gies to create "interactive foods" that operate using "on-demand"delivery. The idea is that the con-sumer will be able to choose—basedon her individual aesthetics, nutri-tional needs or flavour preferences ofthe moment—which componentswill be activated and then deliveredand which won't be.

Kraft's NanoteK consortium scien-tists are developing nanocapsuleswhose walls burst at differentmicrowave frequencies so the con-sumer can "switch on" new tastes orcolours. Countless nanocapsuleswould remain dormant and only thedesired ones would be called intoaction. Kraft is also working on sen-sors that will be able to detect an indi-vidual's nutritional deficiencies and then respond with smart foodsthat release molecules of the needed nutrients.209

Early next year, food scientists will meet to discuss nano-scaleand micro-scale approaches for controlled release and nutrientabsorption in foods—at the first International Symposium on the"Delivery of Functionality in Complex Food Systems: PhysicallyInspired Approaches from Nano-scale to Micro-scale", at theNestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.210

In addition to aiding nutrient delivery, nanoparticles may beused in foods to alter other properties. For example, margarine,ice cream, butter and mayonnaise all belong to a class of foodsknown as "colloids", where small particles are dispersed in someother medium—liquid, gas or solid. Unilever, Nestlé and othersare conducting research and already hold patents on new ways tomake colloids using nanoparticles that will extend shelf life,prolong flavour sensation in the mouth, alter texture and improvestability. (See annex 2.)

• NutricosmeticsEating is just one way to deliver active ingredients. Paris-based

L'Oréal, the world's leading cosmetics firm, already markets skincare products containing nano-scale particles.2 1 1 (Nestlé holds a49% stake in L'Oréal. 2 1 2) The company's "nanosomes" are tiny

intercellular delivery systems that penetrate the skin and thenrelease vitamin E. According to L'Oréal: "Given that the inter-stices of the outer layer of skin measure about 100 nanometres,nanovectors offer the best solution to the problem of transportingand concentrating active ingredients in the skin."213

Cosmetics containing invisible nanoparticles have not escapednotice in recent European reports on potential risks associatedwith manufactured nanoparticles. A Royal Society (UK) reportreleased in July 2004 notes the dearth of toxicological data onmanufactured nanoparticles.2 1 4 Because these are used in somecosmetics and sunscreens, the report recommends that furtherstudies be done into skin penetration by manufactured nanoparti-cles and that toxicological studies conducted by industry beplaced in the public domain—no doubt causing some wrinkles forL'Oréal.

Food and cosmetics companies are now collaborating todevelop "cosmetic nutritional supplements". L'Oréal and Nestlérecently formed Laboratoires Innéov, a 50/50 joint venture.Innéov's first product, called "Innéov Firmness", containslycopene. The supplement is taken orally and is marketed towomen over forty who are concerned about lost skin elasticity.64

Shortly after Nestlé cemented its collaboration with L'Oréal,Procter & Gamble and Olay announced they would be creating

two lines of nutritional supplementstogether—one for "Beauty" and onefor "Wellness".216

While these particular supplementsare not advertised as using nano-scaletechnologies, it is difficult to be suresince there are no labellingrequirements. In any case, the foodand cosmetic alliances illustrate thetendency to blur boundaries betweenfood, medicine and cosmetics, a trendthat nanotech will likely accelerate. ∞

Author's Note:ETC Group gratefully acknowledgesfinancial support of the InternationalDevelopment Research Centre,

Canada, for our research on nano-scale technologies. We aregrateful for additional support from SwedBio (Sweden), the CSFund (USA), the Educational Foundation of America (USA), theJMG Foundation (UK) and the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust(USA). The views expressed in this document, however, arethose of the ETC Group.

About the Author:

ETC Group (formerly RAFI) is an action group on erosion, tech-nology and concentration. Publications, including the full text,recommendations and annexes of Down on the Farm: TheImpact of Nano-scale Technologies on Food and Agriculture,can be downloaded free of charge from the website,http://www.etcgroup.org, and are available in hardcopy from:ETC Group, 431 Gilmour Street, Second Floor, Ottawa, ON,Canada K2P 0R5, telephone +1 (613) 241 2267, fax +1 (613) 2412506, email [email protected].

Editor's Note:

Due to a lack of space, we have not published the relevant andextensive footnotes. Instead, we encourage readers to obtain acopy of the full report from http://www.etcgroup.org and use itto generate debate within the community.

Eating is just one way to deliveractive ingredients. Paris-based

L'Oréal, the world's leadingcosmetics firm, already marketsskin care products containing

nano-scale particles.




Millions of seriously ill patients are unaware that heart disease is being measur-ably reversed with an approach pioneered by researchers at the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and in Finland, aided by MayoClinic and Washington Hospital Center findings. This approach is now pre-

scribed by hundreds of doctors for thousands of patients. A similar approach has beendeveloped with prostate disease at the renowned Cleveland Clinic in Florida. According todoctors, both approaches are practical options for those whose other medicines and surgeryhave failed. So why aren't other desperately ill patients whose treatments don't work beingtold about it?

In July 2004, the medical journal P a t h o p h y s i o l o g y published a peer-reviewed researchpaper with the innocuous title "Calcification in coronary artery disease can be reversed byEDTA–tetracycline long-term chemotherapy".1 In plain terms, it meant that hardening ofthe arteries was being reversed. Not only were rock-hard calcium deposits being reduced,but chest pains were being resolved in most patients and bad cholesterol levels were beingcut beyond what other medicines had achieved. The findings were important for patientswhose other drugs and surgery weren't working, i.e., the "cardiac cripples", whose numbersare in the millions and whose doctors have told them there is nothing more to be done. Theywere the ones who responded most favourably to the new approach.

Then, in February 2005, a paper published in the prestigious Journal of Urology b yresearchers from the Cleveland Clinic, one of the leading urology hospitals in America,reported "significant improvement" in chronic prostatitis—a growing problem for millionsof men—again, where other approaches had failed.2

The studies, although otherwise separate, had a compelling link. They used a cocktail ofwell-known, inexpensive medicines that have been around for half a century but were neverbefore used in this combination. Both reports urged more studies to confirm their conclu-sions, and emphasised that not every patient experienced a reversal; only a majority did.Nonetheless, the results were encouraging. Chronic diseases that had befuddled modernmedicine were being reversed.

To put a human face on this, take the case reported by Dr Manjit Bajwa of McLean,Virginia, who did not participate in the clinical studies but whose experience with onepatient paralleled study results. Dr Bajwa reported in a testimonial of 5 May 2005:

"Two years ago I had a patient with severe coronary artery disease with a 75–85% block-age in left coronary and two other arteries. Open heart surgery was recommended as stentscould not be put in. The patient was told he would probably die within two weeks if surgerywas not performed.

"He declined surgery and instead chose chelation. [Author's note: chelation in this case isan intravenous form of heavy metal removal.] After twenty-five treatments of chelation, hisangina w o r s e n e d [author's emphasis]. With [his] heart calcium score of 2600, I started thenanobacteria protocol. Within two to three weeks his angina abated. He was able to returnto all his normal activities and exercises in two months.

"Nanobacteria protocol helped this patient measurably, when other treatments had failed.I am quite impressed with his results. With heart calcium scores of 750 or more, nothingelse seems to work."

Bajwa and her patient are far from alone. In Santa Monica, California, generalpractitioner Dr Douglas Hopper said he recorded impressive results with a diabetic patientwhen he used the treatment to help her recover from congestive heart failure. Hopper thenput his patient on the same treatment used in the clinical study: a regimen of tetracycline,

Nanoparticles areimplicated in the

harmfulcalcification that'scommon to many

illnesses.

A simple treatmentis now reversing the

symptoms,especially in heart

disease, so whyaren't the healthauthorities telling

patients and doctorsabout it?

by Douglas Mulhall © May–July 2005


Website: http://www.calcify.com

Based on the book The Calcium Bombby Douglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen

(The Writers' Collective, 2005)

EDTA and nutraceuticals,3 administered by the patient at home.Note that this was not intravenous chelation, which has beenbroadly analysed and critiqued, but, instead, a mix of oral andsuppository treatments.

In Toledo, Ohio, cardiologist Dr James C. Roberts, who pioneeredearly patient treatment with this approach, has on his website casehistories from dozens of patients who have shown remarkableimprovement. In Tampa, Florida, cardiologist Dr BenedictManiscalco, who supervised the clinical study [P a t h o p h y s i o l o g ystudy, referenced previous page], reports that patients who stayed onthe treatment after the study was completed showed dramaticreductions in their heart disease symptoms. There are many moreexamples.

Normally results such as these, when reinforced by clinicalstudies, however preliminary, would be cause for loud celebration.If the findings had been reported by a major pharmaceuticalscompany, they could have easily made thefront pages of medical news services because,until then, no one had reported reversing thesymptoms of such diseases to such an extent.More encouraging still, because the medicineshave been around for many years and theirside effects are minimal and well known, thenew approach is already available across theUSA and used with thousands of patients.That leaves thousands more doctors withmillions more patients who might benefit rightnow. On top of that, a blood test based on thenew approach has been used to identify heartdisease early in patients who show no outwardsymptoms.

Why, then, has the response from gov-ernment authorities, medical associa-tions and health experts been cavernoussilence?

To understand this requires looking ata scourge that has been with us for mil-lennia, and which science has been at aloss to explain until now. It is known asc a l c i f i c a t i o n.

C A L C I F I C A T I O NCalcification is a rock-hard mix of the

most plentiful minerals in the body:calcium and phosphorus. Normally thiscalcium phosphate mix is essential forbuilding bones and teeth. But as we age, and sometimes when weare still young, some of it goes haywire, stiffening arteries, roughingup skin, destroying teeth, blocking kidneys and salting cancers.

The arithmetic is frighteningly easy. Calcification doubles in thebody about every three or four years. We can have it as teenagersand not notice, although it mysteriously accelerates in someathletes. Then as we age and also live longer, it becomes soendemic that most people over seventy have it.

For decades, calcification has been growing imperceptibly in tensof millions of baby boomers. Politicians and pundits are among thehigh-profile victims of this slow-motion explosion that is rippingapart healthcare with skyrocketing treatment costs. In December2004, doctors diagnosed US President George W. Bush with one ofthe more commonly known forms: coronary artery calcification.Former President Clinton required emergency surgery becausedoctors missed much of his calcification when they used older teststo track it. Vice President Dick Cheney and many of his Senate

colleagues are calcified. At least three sitting US women governorshave had it in breast cancer as well. And they are not alone. Mediatypes who cover politics or poke fun at it haven't escaped. LarryKing and David Letterman are both calcified, as are many ageingnews anchors. A much younger CBS Early Show co-host, ReneSyler, has it too.

As we learn more about it, calcification is competing to be theleading medical disorder. Although it is nowhere on the "LeadingCauses of Death" list, it contributes to most diseases that kill us,including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The numbers arestaggering. For the 60 million Americans who have heart disease,most have calcification. Of the millions of women who developbreast or ovarian cancer or who have breast implants, calcificationis a warning. Men with prostate disease often have it, as do kidney-stone sufferers. Athletes with stress injuries like bone spurs andtendonitis get it frequently.

Most of us don't know the pervasiveness ofcalcification because it has a different name inmany diseases, and here are just a few: dentalpulp stones, hardening of the arteries, kidneystones, pitcher's elbow, bone spurs, microcalci-fication in breast cancer and "brain sand".

Unsuspecting patients aren't the only ones inthe dark. Many doctors are unaware of newstudies that show calcification is toxic, causingacute inflammation, rapid cell division andjoint destruction. Oddly, these nasty effects arewell known to specialists who study calcifica-tion in arthritis, but awareness of them hasn'ttranslated very well to the cardiovascular com-munity, with the result that calcification is still

misperceived by many as an innocentbystander instead of an inflammatorydevil.

The double-think about calcification isillustrated by how it is treated in breastcancer. When microcalcification isdetected in the breast with routine scans,it is a warning sign for cancer and thedeposits are biopsied for malignancies.This was the case, for example, withConnecticut Governor Jody Rell in early2005. Doctors found cancer in thecalcium deposits in her breast beforescans detected a tumour. This let themsurgically remove it before it spread to

her lymph nodes. That typifies one perverse advantage of calcification: it helps

doctors pre-empt more serious disease. In some ways, it is a canaryin the mine of the body. And yet, if cancer is not found in calciumdeposits, these are often declared as "benign" and patients are toldthere is nothing to worry about.

The same thing goes for heart disease. Coronary artery calcifica-tion is seen as an excellent predictor of the illness. Tens of billionsof dollars are spent every year on scanning technology to identifythe telltale thin white lines that betray its presence. Yet most doc-tors see calcification in the arteries as something that comes alonglater once the disease takes hold, despite evidence that calciumphosphate crystals generate the same type of inflammation that,according to cardiologists, plays a big role in heart attacks.

Incredibly, with all the advanced detection techniques, there hasbeen no way to find calcium deposits where they get started in thebillions of capillaries in the human body—so, without being able to


As we learn more about it, calcification

is competing to be the leading medical

disorder.

For the 60 millionAmericans who haveheart disease, most have calcification.

see the starting point, doctors often conclude that what they don'tsee isn't there. But make no mistake: calcification is there, and it isa medical disorder. It was registered in 1990 as a disorder underthe International Classification of Diseases list of the World HealthOrganization and was adopted by WHO member states as of 1994(see http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/).

When well established, calcification stares defiantly atradiologists every day from X-rays as it multiplies incessantly.There has been no proof of where it comes from, and there is noknown way to prevent it or sustainably get rid of it withoutremoving it surgically. Due to its gestation period of years before ittriggers real trouble, it has just begun sucking the life out of babyboomers and their healthcare budgets.

Among its more exotic effects, it threatens space explorationwhen it disables astronauts with unexpected kidney calcificationand it is a budget-breaker for pro-sport-team owners who lose athletes toits ravages. At the more mundanelevel, it complicates root canals and itdisrupts the lives of otherwise healthyyoung people when it strikes as kidneystones. Worst of all, it infiltratesplaque in heart disease and stroke andit plugs bypasses and stents used to fixour internal plumbing.

The US National Library ofMedicine holds thousands of researchdocuments referencing calcification,and various medical journals cover itin depth. GE Healthcare, Toshiba,Philips and Siemens sell thousands ofmachines for detecting it.

TREATMENT A THREAT TO PHARMCO PROFITSBut with all this money being thrown at calcification, there has

been virtually no success at finding the cause. So when researcherssuch as those at Mayo Clinic and NASA find something that seemsto cause it, and clinical studies show that a new approach seems toget rid of it, you'd think that most of the medical establishmentwould be rapt with attention, right? Wrong.

Only a few small studies have been co-financed by the NationalInstitutes of Health (NIH) to look into this, and neither has to dowith the treatment. The only thing the Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) seems to have done is to make rumblingsabout whether the treatment is legitimate, although the activeingredients—tetracycline and EDTA—have been FDA approvedfor other uses for decades. So far, no government agency has madepublic note of the peer-reviewed studies that many physicians sayare so promising.

According to doctors familiar with the approach, here are a fewreasons why the treatment has not been given the attention that itseems to merit...

• The most perturbing for patients: the treatment is relativelyinexpensive and produces poor profits compared to other drugs. Itis exponentially cheaper than open heart surgery. Because it doesnot have to be taken for life at full dose—as is the case with mostother heart drugs—it does not provide the steady cash flow thatother medicines do.

• Although the treatment is initially used alongside othermedicines as a precaution to make sure patients don't switchprematurely and suffer problems, evidence suggests that the newapproach might replace more profitable blood thinners and anti-inflammatories that are staples of the pharmaceuticals industry.

• And if the approach continues to reverse coronary artery dis-ease, it will cut down on expensive surgical procedures that are thefinancial mainstay of hospitals.

That's not to say surgeons don't want to get rid of calcification.New stents that go into arteries are specially coated with time-release drugs that seem to ward off calcification. But that only hap-pens where the stent is located, not in the other 99.999 per cent ofthe arteries.

Also, the EDTA–tetracycline–nutraceutical combo that hasdemonstrated such promise is not the only treatment shown to work.A group of drugs known as bisphosphonates, used for example totreat osteoporosis, has been shown to be effective in the lab againstsome calcification. But bisphosphonates can have nasty side effects,especially with the type of regular application that seems to be nec-essary to reverse heart disease in seriously ill patients. Due to these

risks, the only present approach thatseems to be safe and effective in revers-

ing heart disease is the one that uses theEDTA–tetracycline–nutraceutical mix.

Critics claim the reason why thetreatment isn't adopted more broadlyhas nothing to do with money butinstead with science. They sayresearchers can't show how thetreatment works.

NANOBACTERIA DISCOVEREDIN OUR BLOOD

It all comes down to a sub-microscopic blood particle known as an a n o b a c t e r i u m, discovered in 1988 by

Finnish researcher Dr Olavi Kajander at Scripps Research Institutein California.

The particle has a special habit no other blood particle has beenknown to possess: it forms a rock-hard calcium phosphate shellthat is chemically identical to the stuff found in hardening of thearteries, prostate disease, kidney disease, periodontal disease andbreast cancer. The problem is, the particle is so small that it appar-ently can't accommodate nucleic acid strings that, according tocommonly accepted wisdom, would let it replicate on its own andbe alive. So scientists are stumped over how it manages to self-replicate.

For 15 years, microbiologist Dr Neva Ciftcioglu (pronounced"shift-show-lew") has been peering with an electron microscope atthis blood particle that critics say doesn't live. But according toNASA colleagues and Mayo Clinic researchers, the question ofwhether it lives is less important than what it does. Despite or per-haps due to its tiny size and genetic elusiveness, this speck may bethe Rosetta stone for a calcified language found in most diseases onthe Leading Causes of Death list.

Like her science, Ciftcioglu's life is full of unusual turns. Being awoman microbiologist from Turkey speaks volumes. Throw intothat her once-fluent Finnish, a position at NASA and professorshipson both sides of the Atlantic, and you've got a determined characterstruggling with a stubborn scientific cryptogram.

Ciftcioglu's work with nanobacteria began when her PhDscholarship took her to the University of Kuopio in Finland, wherealongside her once mentor, biochemist Olavi Kajander, shedeveloped the antibodies necessary to find the particle in the humanbody. A decade later, her work caught the eye of NASA chiefscientist Dr David McKay and she ended up at the Johnson SpaceCenter in Houston, gathering science awards that testify to hersuccess.


It all comes down to a sub-microscopic blood particle

known as a nanobacterium,discovered in 1988 by Finnishresearcher Dr Olavi Kajander.

Now Ciftcioglu and long-time collaborator Kajander, whodiscovered the nanoscopic artifact, stand at the eye of a growingstorm. They and their colleagues are garnering praise and scornbecause they claim to have evidence for why most of us are literallypetrified by the time we die. More profoundly, their work mayinfluence how new life is found on Earth and other planets.

SELF-REPLICATING NANOPARTICLESAn intense dispute has raged for years that connects how we look

for infection in the body with how we look for bio-kingdoms onEarth and throughout the universe. Researchers have long soughtterrestrial extremophiles that tell them what might survive on Mars,while others doubt the wisdom of looking for life on Mars at all.The mystery remains: what is the most effective way to find novelorganisms?

Until recently, every life-form was found to have a particularRNA sequence that can be amplified using a technique known asPolymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Nucleic acid sub-sequencesnamed 16S rRNA have been universally found in life-forms. Bymaking primers against these sub-sequences, scientists amplify theDNA that codes for the 16S rRNAs. Resulting PCR products,when sequenced, can characterise alife-form.

One high-powered group persuadedNASA with a "Don't fix it if it ain'tbroke" line and lobbied successfully touse the same method employed foryears: get a piece of RNA and amplifyit. The group—led by scientists suchas Dr Gary Ruvkun at the Departmentof Genetics in Massachusetts GeneralHospital, Boston, and advised byluminaries such as Dr Norman Pace atthe University of Colorado—gotmoney from NASA to build a "PCRmachine" that would automaticallyseek such clues in harsh environmentssuch as those found on Mars.

Other scientists known as astrobiologists say the PCR machineapproach is a waste of money because such amplification showsonly part of the picture—not what nature might have done on otherplanets or, for that matter, in extreme Earthly environments.

However, their argument always suffered from lack of evi-dence—that is, until 2003 when scientists associated with the SanDiego–based Diversa Corporation and advised by Professor KarlStetter, of the University of Regensburg, Germany, published thegenome of an extremophile known as Nanoarchaeum equitans,which Stetter's team had discovered in Icelandic volcanic vents.

N. equitans was special because it had the smallest knowngenome found so far, but it also had another intriguing trait. WithNanoarchaeae, the particular 16S rRNA sequence found in otherlife-forms wasn't in the place that it was expected to be and did notrespond to conventional PCR tests. The 16S rRNA sequence wasdifferent in areas addressed by the PCR primers and did notamplify. Stetter noted that the so-called universal probes that workwith humans, animals, plants, eukaryotes, bacteria and archaeae didnot work in this organism.

How, then, was the discovery made if the organism couldn't besequenced in that way? Stetter had found that the organism'ssequence where the traditional "universal" primers are located wasabnormal. This finding let him use other means to sequence thegene. In reporting their discovery in the Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences,4 the Stetter team observed that the

information-processing systems and simplicity of Nanoarchaeum'smetabolism suggests "an unanticipated world of organisms to bediscovered". In other words, it might be the tip of a nano-lifeberg.

Stetter's finding gave ammunition to scientists such as NevaCiftcioglu who say they have found other extremophiles, includinghuman nanobacteria, that cannot have their nucleic acids detectedwith standard PCR amplification.

One of the differences between Stetter's N. equitans and thenanobacteria found by Ciftcioglu and Kajander's team is thatNanoarchaeae need another organism to replicate, whereas at leastsome nanobacteria seem to replicate by themselves. Another differ-ence is that Nanoarchaeae are slightly wider: 400 nanometres com-pared to 100–250 for nanobacteria. The greater size allows forwhat conventional wisdom says is the smallest allowable space forlife-replicating ribosomes.

Which leads to the question: how do nanobacteria copythemselves? Evidence for self-replicating nanoparticles has beenaround for years in everything from oil wells to heart disease, butfailure to sequence them using regular PCR led some to dismissthem as contamination or mistakes. However, researchers havefound characteristics that make the particles hard to explain away.

They replicate on their own, so are notviruses. They resist high-level radiation,

which suggests they are not bacteria.They respond well to light, where non-living crystals don't. So if they aren'tviruses, regular bacteria or crystals,what are they?

Some supporters of standardised 16SrRNA tests are quick to discountnanobacteria. That's not surprising. If anovel nucleic sequence holds true withother extremophiles as with N. equitans,then a machine that searches for lifeusing standard PCR tests might missthem and be obsolete. Conscious ofthis, the PCR machine team has said

that as part of their work, they plan to "search for the boundaries" ofthe 16S sequences, but what exactly that means and how they planto overcome the problem hasn't been set out yet.

Reputations, money and perhaps the foundations of life ride onthe 16S rRNA dispute. Resolving it may determine who getsmoney to find the next great biological kingdom.

NANOBACTERIAL INFECTION How relevant is the outcome for human welfare? In 2004,

researchers reported finding nanobacteria in everything from heartdisease to cancer and kidney stones. Medical researchers reportedto the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2004 that atest for nanobacteria is an accurate predictor of heart disease risk.But the work that these researchers say may already have savedlives has been ridiculed by critics who claim that such nanobesdon't exist, which in turn has made funding for basic research hardto get.

Who is right? One well-respected astrobiologist observer quali-fied the struggle this way: "Unless we declare [the nano-organismscientists] incompetent, then the info they have gathered is rathercompelling that something interesting is going on."

That's why a few intrepid investors have plopped US$7 millionand counting into a Tampa biotech start-up devoted exclusively toCiftcioglu and Kajander's discoveries about the calcifying particle.For the big pharmaceuticals companies that's pocket change, but forthese entrepreneurs it's a pocketful of faith that's been keeping them


In 2004, researchers reportedfinding nanobacteria in

everything from heart diseaseto cancer and kidney stones.

on edge for years. And it's starting to show some results, aspublished research from NASA, Mayo and various universitiesindicates. Moreover, despite its relative financial insignificance,this venture may end up wagging the dog due to a long-overdueparadigm shift in, of all things, the space program.

After decades of resistance, NASA—provoked by successfulupstart private projects such as the X Prize, which led to the firstprivate foray into space—is now collaborating with fledglingcompanies, instead of just corporate behemoths, on intractableproblems: in this case, why perfectly healthy astronauts come downwith kidney and other calcifying disorders. The result: in March2005, NASA's Johnson Space Center put the finishing touches on atightly secured lab aimed at decoding nanobacteria found at thecore of kidney stones. After some serious growing pains, the lab isfinally beginning to look into what Ciftcioglu and Kajander beganexamining so many years ago: the genetic content of nanobacteria.Meanwhile, Ciftcioglu and others havepublished results showing that nanobacteriamultiply five times faster in weightlessnessthan in Earth gravity,5 which may explain whycalcification shows up so suddenly in space.

But while researchers argue over what thisnanobacterium is and how it multiplies, doctorsare finding that, when they treat it with a med-ical cocktail, their patients improve.

Nor is it unusual that doctors are succeedingbefore science figures out why. Antibioticswere used successfully against bacteria longbefore scientists deciphered DNA. Doctorsstopped infecting patients by washing theirhands long before they were able to iden-tify all the viruses and bacteria that theyinadvertently transported from patient topatient.

Most recently, a vaccine that preventscervical cancer has been put on themarket. It apparently works by targetingthe human papilloma virus. Problem is,researchers can't show exactly how thevirus causes cancer; they can only showthat when it is stopped, the cancer doesn'toccur. But that hasn't prevented the drugfrom being patented and put on themarket. The history of medicine is full ofsuch examples where patients improvewith treatments whose mechanisms aren't fully understood at thestart.

The idea that infection could be at the heart of chronic illness isintriguing because it has been around for more than a century butonly now is regaining favour due to discoveries of, for example, avaccine that prevents cervical cancer (as mentioned above). Theresulting debates over infection in chronic disease have a noveltwist because they are driven by new diagnostic technologies thatgive researchers the molecular accuracy required to confirm oldertheories about infection. On one hand, clinical results suggestantibiotics alone do not prevent the rate of heart attacks amongcoronary patients. On the other, discoveries that infection isresponsible for most stomach ulcers and some cancers support thelong-held idea that the same might be true in heart disease, if onlyscience could find the right infection and get rid of it.

Some say that nanobacteria may be one such infection. Yet sci-entists' inability to fully explain the genetics of nanobacteria isbeing used by high-ranking medical authorities as an excuse to

ignore the pathogen and its treatment. This is especially perplexingbecause scientists involved in the discoveries work at some of thehighest level institutions in America, including NASA, MayoClinic, Cleveland Clinic, Washington Hospital Center and manyothers, and are not only respected in their field but are also awardwinners. Other centres of excellence internationally, such asUniversity Hospital in Vienna, have also isolated the pathogen andobserved it in diseases such as ovarian cancer.

For decades, scientists have shown that disease can be caused bycontaminants that are not "alive" and cannot replicate on their own.Environmental toxins, many viruses and, most recently, particlesknown as p r i o n s have all been shown as players in diseaseprocesses, although they cannot self-replicate.

So it seems unusual that nanobacteria would be discounted justbecause no one has yet shown how they multiply. Which takes usto the question of where nanobacteria might come from.

N A N O B A C T E R I A - C O N T A M I N A T E DVACCINES

When Dr Olavi Kajander discoverednanobacteria in 1988, he was not looking fordisease at all. He was looking for what waskilling the cells that are used to develop vac-cines. Labs everywhere have a vexing andexpensive problem with these widely used cellcultures: they stop reproducing or die after afew generations and have to be thrown out.

Kajander surmised that something invisiblewas killing them; and when he incubatedsupposedly sterile samples for more than a

month under special conditions, he got amilky biofilm. That biofilm containedparticles that he later namedn a n o b a c t e r i a, unaware at the time thatsome of their characteristics made themquite distinct from bacteria.

The serum that Kajander used to growthe nanobacteria came from the blood ofcow foetuses. Serum from the UK espe-cially was full of nanobacteria, but amuch later study also concluded theywere present in some cow herds in theeastern US. In other words, nanobacteriaare in cows, and cow blood is used todevelop many vaccines. Kajander

emphasises that this should not stop people from using vaccines,because the immediate risk from diseases that the vaccines areintended to prevent is relatively higher than the calcification risk inthe short term. Nonetheless, the potentially explosive implicationsof contaminated vaccines and cow by-products would be clear toeveryone at government agencies who has examined the issue.

In that context, a series of hotly disputed discussions went backand forth between Kajander and Ciftcioglu and disease preventionagencies. And it certainly wasn't a secret because the M e d i c a lLetter on the CDC & FDA (10 June 2001) published an article enti-tled "Nanobacteria Are Present In Vaccines; But Any Health RisksRemain Unknown", explaining that nanobacteria had been discov-ered in some polio vaccines.

The minutes of a subsequent meeting of the FDA Center forBiologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) advisory committee inNovember 2002 reveal an extraordinary decision by the committeemembers: they elected n o t to investigate the potentialcontamination. According to the minutes they based their decision


When Dr OlaviKajander discovered

nanobacteria in 1988,he was not looking fordisease at all. He waslooking for what waskilling the cells thatare used to develop

vaccines.


on a lone experiment, suggesting that what Kajander had found wasa contaminant often found in lab experiments and nothing new. Inother words, they maintained that Kajander had made a mistake.

But one of the glaring problems with the NIH-funded experimentperformed around late 1999 or early 2000, as shown in thepublished paper about the results,6 is that it did not use a controlsample that could have been provided by Kajander. In other words,the experiment never examined the particle that Kajander haddiscovered, but instead relied on growing the particle independentlywithout knowing if it was the same one Kajander was referring to.Moreover, the experiment was never repeatedafter the preliminary finding. On that veryslim basis, according to the CBER committeeminutes, the whole issue of nanobacteria wasdismissed as a potential contamination issuefor the time being. Since then, papers havebeen published showing that nanobacteriahave been grown in labs around the world andthat patients began to improve when thepathogen was targeted in disease.Nonetheless, neither the FDA nor NIH hasindicated much readiness to re-investigate thevaccine contamination issue or the nanobacteria treatment.

What might be the price for this delay in researchingnanobacteria? Annually, millions of heart disease patients gothrough agony or die because drugs and surgery prescribed for themhaven't worked. For this last-ditch group, the choices are simple:try something new or die.

The question that the NIH and FDA may one day face is: whensuch promising early evidence was being reported and so manypatients had exhausted their other options, why were doctors notadvised of this new possibility so that they could at least tellpatients and make some informed decisions?

Researchers like Ciftcioglu and Kajander, along with cardiologistslike Benedict Maniscalco plus experienced general practitionerssuch as Douglas Hopper, profess frustration that so many patientsand their doctors are not being given the information that could helpthem, especially in last-ditch situations. Meanwhile, calcificationcontinues its relentless march in millions, and the human andfinancial costs are mounting.

P O S T S C R I P TIn May 2005, Dr Olavi Kajander delivered a sobering message to

a joint meeting of the US FDA and theEuropean Medicines Agency on viral safetywhen he presented new evidence to supportsomething first published in 1997: that vac-cines are contaminated with nanobacteria.

Since 1999, government agencies have donevirtually nothing to investigate the claim, duelargely to that NIH experiment which failed touse particles discovered by Kajander as controlsamples; so now that the vaccine contamina-tion has been officially reported to authorities,the question is: what will be done?

Then on 24 June 2005, a "smoking gun" wasannounced about calcium deposits in heart disease. Britishresearchers published proof in the leading medical journalCirculation Research7 that calcium phosphate crystals cause inflam-mation in the arteries. Inflammation is a leading cause of heartattacks, but until now most cardiologists have believed calcificationto be an innocent bystander in the inflammatory process. Becauseof that, calcium deposits were never targeted with treatment. Iftrue, the British discovery would force a re-evaluation of the wholemedical approach, not only to inflammation but also to the founda-tions of heart disease, looking at calcification as a prime culprit.

∞

About the Author:

Douglas Mulhall is a leading nanotechnol-ogy journalist who appears often onnationally syndicated talk shows in the US.As managing director of the HamburgEnvironmental Institute, he co-developedmethods now used by government agen-cies to measure environmental impacts.His book Our Molecular Future(Prometheus Books, 2002) describes howto use nanotechnology as a defenceagainst tsunamis and other natural disasterrisks. His disease prevention experiencecomes from pioneering water purificationtechnologies in China and South America.

Mr Mulhall's communications back-ground began with a Bachelor ofJournalism (Hons.), progressed to (award-winning) documentary film making, thendiversified into management when he co-founded the first commercial TV networkin the Republic of Ukraine. He has writtenarticles for US media such as News Day,The Futurist and The National Post as wellas for publications in Germany and Brazil.He contributed to the first Financial Times(UK) book on green business opportunitiesand has also written and edited a range oftechnology training books. DouglasMulhall sits on the advisory boards of the

Center for Responsible Nanotechnologyand the Acceleration Studies Foundation.He has given invited lectures to organisa-tions such as the National ResearchCouncil, the US EPA and the Institute ofMedicine.

Editor's Note:

This article is based on material in the bookThe Calcium Bomb: The NanobacteriaLink to Heart Disease & Cancer, byDouglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen (TheWriters' Collective, 2005; see review thisissue), which was selected as a Finalist forthe 2004 Book of the Year Award forHealth by Foreword Magazine. For moreinformation, visit http://www.calcify.com.

E n d n o t e s1 . Maniscalco et al., "Calcification in CoronaryArtery Disease can be Reversed byEDTA–Tetracycline Long-term Chemotherapy",P a t h o p h y s i o l o g y, July 28, 2004. 2 . Shoskes, Daniel A., Kim D. Thomas andEyda Gomez, "Anti-nanobacterial therapy formen with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic painsyndrome and prostatic stones: PreliminaryExperience", J. Urology, February 2005. 3 . The ingredients are described in The CalciumB o m b, p. 94; they are: (1) nutraceutical powder(vitamins C and B6, niacin, folic acid, selenium,EDTA, L-arginine, L-lysine, L-ornithine,

bromelain, trypsin, CoQ10, grapeseed extract,hawthorn berry, papain), 5 cm3 taken orallyevery evening; (2) tetracycline HCl, 500 mgtaken orally every evening; (3) EDTA, 1500 mgtaken in a rectal suppository base every evening.According to the representatives of the companythat sells the nutraceutical/EDTA combo, thetreatment works this way: the nutraceuticalsboost the immune system, accelerate EDTAaction and reduce inflammation; the EDTAstrips off the calcium phosphate shell; and thetetracycline eradicates the nanobacteria. Thetetracycline is also a chelator on its own andhelps remove the calcium phosphate. 4 . Waters, Elizabeth et al., "The Genome ofNanoarchaeum equitans: Insights into earlyarchaeal evolution and derived parasitism",P N A S 100(22):12984-12988, October 28, 2003. 5 . Ciftcioglu et al., "A potential cause for kidneystone formation during space flights: E n h a n c e dgrowth of nanobacteria in microgravity", K i d n e yI n t e r n a t i o n a l 67:1-9, 2005.6 . Cisar, John O. et al., "An alternative interpre-tation of nanobacteria-induced biomineraliza-tion", P N A S 97(21):11511-11515, October 10,2000. 7 . Nadra, Imad et al., "ProinflammatoryActivation of Macrophages by Basic CalciumPhosphate Crystals via Protein Kinase C andMAP Kinase Pathways – A Vicious Cycle ofInflammation and Arterial Calcification?",Circulation Research 96(12):1248-1256, June24, 2005.

In other words,nanobacteria are in

cows, and cow bloodis used to develop

many vaccines.


Lear: Does any here know me? This is not Lear. Does Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discerningsAre lethargied – Ha! Waking? 'Tis not so.Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Fool: Lear's shadow.William Shakespeare, King Lear

THE COSTS OF LONGEVITY

Life expectancies have risen dramatically over the past century. As aconsequence, in both the developing and developed world, the number of elderlyhas undergone an unprecedented increase, with the proportion of the very old inthe population doubling in one generation. Globally, in 1950 there were 214

million people aged 60 or over; by 2025 there probably will be one billion, a more thanfourfold increase. 1 Although, of course, there are major advantages associated with thistrend, there are also serious costs. Not only are more people surviving into old age andtherefore increasing their chances of developing dementia, but those who do so are livinglonger after its onset.

Gruenberg2 termed this paradox the "failure of success" because it was a major problemthat was largely attributable to progress in medical care. As he and his colleagues pointedout, "the old man's friend, pneumonia, is dead—a victim of medical progress". 3 W h i l ethis is an oversimplification, pneumonia is certainly less common than it used to be, as aremany other diseases that were previously fatal to the elderly. As a consequence, 5–6 percent of the USA population now has Alzheimer's disease or related dementia, some 4.5million Americans. This figure is expected to rise to 14 million by 2050.4

Of course, dementia is not limited to the USA. For example, it has been estimated that,as of the year 2000, approximately eight million people in the European Union MemberStates had Alzheimer's disease. Since this disorder accounts for some 50 per cent of alldementia in people over sixty-five, total estimates for dementia in Europe are closer to 16million. As in the USA, the population of Europe is ageing rapidly and the number ofsenile dementia cases increasing dramatically.5 Clearly, in the Western world, dementia isnot a rare problem. Indeed, Katzman and colleagues6 have argued that, in those aged overseventy-five, new cases of dementia occur as frequently as myocardial infarction andtwice as often as stroke.

Despite considerable hype from the pharmaceutical industry, there has been little realprogress in either the prevention or the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The estimatedUS$100 billion costs associated with the disease in the USA produce no cures and, if any-thing, by extending the life expectancy of the demented merely exacerbate the problem.The health bill for "warehousing" 4.5 million Alzheimer's patients in the USA is roughlyequivalent to the cost of running 500 moderate-sized universities, providing higher educa-tion to some seven million students. The reader can decide which would be the better usefor their taxes.

GENETIC PREDISPOSITIONAlzheimer's disease is named after Dr Alois Alzheimer, the first doctor to identify a

patient (Auguste D.) suffering from this disorder, and then only after her death. What was

Alzheimer's diseaseis on the rise in

many regions of theworld due to

environmentalfactors, but by

increasingmagnesium and

calcium intake andreducing aluminium

absorption thedisease can be

prevented and itssymptoms reversed.

by Harold D. Foster, PhD © 2005

Professor, Department of GeographyUniversity of Victoria

PO Box 3050Victoria, BC, V8W 3P5, Canada

Email: [email protected]: http://www.hdfoster.com


it about Auguste D.'s brain samples that Alzheimer found sostriking and unusual? He noticed something in the slides that wasextremely rare: gum-like clumps outside some cells andabnormal collections of proteins inside others; that is, plaques andtangles respectively. A fresh look at the recently rediscoveredAuguste D. slides confirms Alzheimer's claims. Her cortexdisplayed what are now accepted as the classic pathological signsof the disease named after him: amyloid plaques andneurofibrillary tangles. Indeed, neurofibrillary tangles weredescribed for the first time ever in this brain.7

It is now well known that such plaques and tangles are formedby the deposition of abnormal proteins, especially beta-amyloidand tau. The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, therefore,rises and falls with the ability to prevent the formation and depo-sition of such proteins. This ability is, in part, genetic. Theapolipoprotein (APO) E4 allele plays a key role in promotingAlzheimer's disease because of the inefficiency with which thosepossessing this genetic aberration canremove brain beta-amyloid and tau.8

Genetically, however, there is more toAlzheimer's disease than the APO E4 gene.To date, four genes have been identified asplaying a role in either early- or late-onsetAlzheimer's disease: beta-amyloid precursorprotein, presenilin-1, presenilin-2, andapolipoprotein E genes. 9 Workers havelinked most of these variants to familialearly-onset Alzheimer's, but the APO E4allele is a relatively common risk factor fordeveloping late-onset Alzheimer's disease.1 0

Considerable progress has been made ininterpreting the significance of such geneticvariants.

To illustrate, mutations in thepresenilin-1 gene seem associated withincreased super-oxide production andgreater vulnerability to amyloid betapeptide toxicity. 1 1 I n t e r e s t i n g l y ,mutations in the presenilin genes,which are linked to more than 40 percent of all familial Alzheimer's cases,cause enhanced production of anabnormal form of beta-amyloidprecursor protein. 1 2 This protein islonger than normal, aggregates morerapidly, kills neurons in culture moreeffectively and precipitatespreferentially to form amyloid plaques. The same elongatedprotein also is produced as a result of mutations in the geneencoding beta-amyloid precursor protein.

ENVIRONMENTAL VARIATIONSThere must be far more to Alzheimer's disease, however, than

just genetics. There is no doubt the environment plays a key rolein this illness. Multi-infarct dementia is common in Japan butAlzheimer's disease incidence seems to be much lower than inEurope.13 This is unlikely to be due to racial variables because, inChina, vascular dementia predominates in Beijing andAlzheimer's disease in Shanghai.14

At the regional scale, spatial variations in the incidence andprevalence of Alzheimer's disease are far greater. Two hospital-based studies1 5 involving brain autopsies of every patient dyingwith dementia in Maracaibo, Venezuela, a city with a population

of some 650,000, discovered only one Alzheimer's case in over adecade. In contrast, in the worst-affected Norwegian municipali-ties during the period 1974–1983, the median annual age-adjustedAlzheimer's disease mortality rates were between 44 and 55 per100,000 for males and between 87 and 109 per 100,000 forf e m a l e s .1 6 These figures suggest that Alzheimer's disease is atleast 1,000 times more common in the municipalities along thesouth and southeastern coasts of Norway than in Maracaibo,Venezuela. Even within Norway itself, Alzheimer's mortality washigher by a factor of 15 in some municipalities than in others dur-ing this period.

Studies of temporal change in dementia incidence are expensiveand complex and involve extensive fieldwork. As a result, they arerare. The best study probably comes from Lundy, Sweden,17 wherethe entire population was medically examined several timesbetween 1947 and 1972. Interestingly, all levels of dementia werefound to have decreased by the end of the period. This seems

unusual, since more recent studies conductedin the United States,18 England,19 Australia,20

C a n a d a2 1 and Norway 2 2 all suggest thatAlzheimer's disease is becoming increasinglycommon.

Two recent research projects have demon-strated that migration greatly influences theprevalence rates of dementia. Graves andco-workers23 established that, in the JapaneseAmericans of King County, WashingtonState, dementia was more common than inJapan. In addition, the distribution of sub-types of dementia in Japanese Americanswas found to be much more like that ofNorth American and European Caucasians

than of Japanese residing in theirhomeland. As a result, Alzheimer'sdisease was more common and vascu-lar dementia less prevalent in JapaneseAmericans than might have beenexpected. A similar study conducted inIndianapolis and Ibadan, Nigeria, byHendrie and co-workers 2 4 e s t a b l i s h e dthat Alzheimer's disease was more thantwice as common in AfricanAmericans than in Nigerian Yoruba ofthe same gender and age ranges.

In summary, globally and regionallyAlzheimer's disease does not have arandom, relatively uniform spatial

pattern. It appears to be increasing faster than the population isageing and its incidence and prevalence are greatly affected bymigration. In short, it shows none of the expected geographicalcharacteristics of a primarily genetic disease.

KEY RISK FACTORSIn their book G e n o m e, Bishop and Waldholz 2 5 argue that:

"...aberrant genes do not, in and of themselves, cause disease. Byand large their impact on an individual's health is minimal untilthe person is plunged into a harmful environment." The signifi-cance of an aberrant gene therefore depends upon location andlifestyle; that is, on geography.

The preceding review of the literature establishes that the"harmful environments" that increase the significance ofinheritance of the APO E4 gene and other Alzheimer's-relatedgenetic aberrations have two very important characteristics. They

The great bulk ofevidence from

numerous...studiestherefore supports astrong link between

aluminiumconsumption,

especially monomericaluminium from

drinking water, and anelevated incidence ofAlzheimer's disease.


display very clear spatial variations, and appear to be increasingquite rapidly in number. There is extensive evidence to suggestthat such environments are areas where drinking water is high indissolved aluminium [aluminum] (especially in its monomericform) together with depressed levels of magnesium and calcium.This water is also typically low in silicic acid. These conditionsoccur where low-alkalinity surface waters have very little abilityto buffer the impacts of acid rain, one of which is increasedaluminium solubility. 2 6 In such low-alkalinity, high-acid-rainregions, rising levels of dissolved aluminium, found in both soilwater and run-off, are resulting in widespread ecological damage.It appears that this element is also the dominant environmentalrisk factor in Alzheimer's disease.

Clear evidence was provided in 1988 that excess aluminium inpotable water can affect memory. An accident at a water supplyplant at Camelford in Cornwall, England, resulted in water thatcontained enormously elevated levels of aluminium sulphatebeing drunk by the local population.Memory loss was an extremelycommon complaint amongst thoseunfortunate enough to use suchcontaminated water.27

Significant evidence of the linkbetween dementia and aluminium alsocomes from McLachlan's Ontariostudy involving 668 autopsy-verifiedAlzheimer's brains.2 8 These demon-strated that the risk of developingAlzheimer's disease had been about2.5 times greater in individuals fromcommunities that drank water thatcontained more than 100 mcg per litreof aluminium than it had been in thosefrom areas where the potable water hadcontained less than this level of aluminium. McLachlan's resultswere even more spectacular for those who had drunk water thatcontained 175 mcg per litre of aluminium. Depending on howthose patients were grouped, the odds ratio of developingAlzheimer's disease varied from 6.7 to 8.14; that is, their brainswere some 7–8 times more likely to show the characteristic signsof Alzheimer's disease if such patients had normally consumedwater that was very high in aluminium.

Several authors have attempted to quantify the strength of theassociation between Alzheimer's disease and aluminium. Forbesand McLachlan, 2 9 for example, studied this link in the veryelderly, those aged eighty-five years or more. They discoveredthat, after controlling for six other factors such as fluoride, silicicacid, iron, pH and turbidity, those living in districts that supplieddrinking water that contained more than 250 mcg of aluminiumper litre were almost 10 times more likely to develop Alzheimer'sdisease. This confirmed an earlier Ontario longitudinal study 3 0

which established that men aged seventy-five years and older,who were drinking water containing at least 0.0847 mg per litre ofaluminium, were 1.72 times as likely to show impaired mentalfunctioning. Similarly, after statistical control for five othervariables, Alzheimer's mortality displayed an odds ratio of 3.54for those who had drunk water that contained at least 0.336 mgper litre of aluminium.31

A more recent eight-year longitudinal study involved 3,777people aged sixty-five years and older who lived in southwestFrance in 1988–1989. It confirmed that double the risk of devel-oping Alzheimer's disease occurred in those who drank water withan aluminium concentration greater than 0.1 mg per litre.32

Looking for a link between Alzheimer's disease and totaldrinking water aluminium may be too simplistic. In 2000,Gauthier and co-workers33 described a case control study in whichthe chemical characteristics of the water historically drunk by 58elderly Alzheimer's patients were compared with those of potablewater used by age- and gender-matched non-demented controls.This was conducted in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region ofQuebec. Aluminium (Al) specification was assessed usingstandard analytical protocols. Long-term drinking water exposure(from 1945 to the onset of Alzheimer's disease) was estimated fortotal aluminium, total dissolved aluminium, monomeric organicand inorganic aluminium, polymeric aluminium and five otherspecies of this metal. While there was no obvious relationshipbetween total aluminium in potable water and Alzheimer'sdisease, after adjustment for educational level, family cases of thedisorder and the APO E4 allele, exposure to monomericaluminium clearly was associated with this form of dementia

(odds ratio 2.67). The importance of monomeric (single

molecule) aluminium has been con-firmed again by a more recent studyconducted by Prolo and colleagues34 innorthwest Italy, where the drinkingwater contained between 5 mcg and1,220 mcg per litre of total aluminium.Levels of monomeric aluminium (thetype of this element most easily able toenter human cells) ranged from 5 mcgto 300 mcg per litre. These researchersfrom the University of California atLos Angeles established thatAlzheimer's disease was most commonwhere drinking water levels ofmonomeric aluminium were highest.

They also discovered that monomeric aluminium interfered withcell function in cultures, accelerating cell death especially in thepresence of beta-amyloid protein.

The great bulk of evidence from numerous geographical andepidemiological studies, therefore, supports a strong link betweenaluminium consumption, especially monomeric aluminium fromdrinking water, and an elevated incidence of Alzheimer's disease.The negative impact of aluminium, however, appears to be miti-gated by silicic acid, calcium and magnesium, especially inpotable water with a pH of between 7.85 and 8.05. Acidic drink-ing water that is high in aluminium and lacking in silicic acid, cal-cium and magnesium seems to be particularly dangerous.Fluoride is a well-established antagonist of aluminium and mayalso protect against Alzheimer's disease when the water pH ishigh; but unfortunately, elevated water fluoride levels are knownto cause other health problems.

HOW ALUMINIUM CAUSES ALZHEIMER'S DISEASEIf aluminium causes Alzheimer's disease, how does it trigger

this form of dementia? It seems that individuals who inherit theAPO E4 gene(s) are less capable than the general population ofremoving the beta-amyloid and tau brain proteins that form thebulk of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. As a result,such people are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's diseasein regions that promote the deposition of beta-amyloid and tau.Such "harmful environments" are those in which the potable wateris acidic, high in monomeric aluminium and lacks silicic acid, cal-cium and magnesium. Under such circumstances, aluminium canenter the brain and impair the enzyme choline acetyltransferase,

The negative impact ofaluminium, however, appearsto be mitigated by silicic acid,

calcium and magnesium.

creating an acetylcholine deficiency. A shortage of acetylcholineencourages the growth of senile plaques. Similarly, aluminiuminterferes with the enzymes calcium/calmodulin kinase II andalkaline phosphatase, promoting the formation of neurofibrillarytangles. Plaques and tangles created in this manner are the hall-marks of Alzheimer's disease. Such relationships, therefore,explain why this form of dementia is most common in regions ofhigh water acidity, in those members of the population that carrythe APO E4 isoform.

There is, however, more to Alzheimer's disease than plaquesand tangles. David Shenk, 3 5 in his interesting book T h eForgetting, describes Alzheimer's disease as "death by a thousandsubtractions". The scientific evidence appears to support thischaracterisation. In 1980, for example, Barry Reisberg, 36, 37 aneurologist from New York University, established the presenceof an inverse relationship between the progressive stages ofAlzheimer's disease and those of infant andchildhood development. He demonstratedthat as the symptoms of this form of seniledementia worsen, the patient begins to loseabilities in cognition, coordination,behaviour, language and feeding, in thereverse order in which they were acquired inthe early years of life. In the final stage ofthe disorder, the patient becomes infant-likeand can no longer walk, sit up withoutassistance, smile or hold up their head.Reisberg called this process of a thousandsubtractions "retrogenesis", meaning "backto birth".

Although retrogenesis is not a perfectreversal, neurological tests do showthat, as Alzheimer's disease progresses,there is an almost precise inverse rela-tionship in neurologic reflexes, brainglucose metabolism and EEG activity.As the disorder worsens, all these abili-ties decline. Such evidence ledReisberg to present a picture of thebrain as a giant ball of string wound upin infancy and childhood but unwoundby Alzheimer's disease. From birth andthroughout childhood and beyond, theball grows rapidly, but in Alzheimer's itis unravelled in reverse, slowly butsurely reducing the ability of the brain to function.

In Alzheimer's disease, brain damage appears to begin in themost recently and least myelinated area of the brain, specificallyin the hippocampus. As a consequence, the first symptoms ofdeveloping Alzheimer's are losses of recent memories. From thehippocampus, demyelinisation begins to impact on the frontal cor-tex, adversely affecting concentration, abstract thought and plan-ning ability. This reverse myelinisation relentlessly continues,unwinding the "ball of string" in a very predictable manner untilthe primary motor area is finally affected and the late-stageAlzheimer's patient is again infantile, unable to speak, sit up unas-sisted or hold up their own head.

Interestingly, aluminium is known to damage myelin innumerous ways. Animal experiments clearly demonstrate thataluminium can alter the nature of myelin, accelerate its oxidationrates and promote its rapid loss from the hippocampus and spinalcord. Exactly how these procedures occur is uncertain. In a studyof brains from monkeys chronically administered aluminium,

Sarin and colleagues38 were able to show, however, that this metalhad inhibited three membrane-bound enzymes: specificallyNa+K+ ATPase, acetylcholinesterase and, most interestingly, themyelin-specific enzyme 2',3'-cyclic nucleotide phosphohydrolase.This inhibition causes a rapid thinning of the myelin sheath inboth rats 3 9 and mice, 4 0 and it can alter its composition byincreasing galactolipids and so make myelin more prone too x i d a t i o n .41, 42 It does not seem much of a step to suggest thatthese destructive processes probably lie behind thedemyelinisation and associated retrogenesis seen in Alzheimer'spatients.

Beyond this, aluminium also inhibits the enzyme phospholipaseA2, probably causing brain membrane dysfunctions, and seems tocause depression of antioxidant status by reducing levels of brainglutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase. As aresult, the lipid peroxidation of cell membranes by free radicals is

accelerated.43

The biochemical evidence therefore isvery good in that in individuals who have adepressed calcium and magnesium intakecombined with abnormally high aluminiumabsorption, some enzymatic processes areinhibited. This inhibition is most likely tooccur in enzymes that have aluminiumantagonists, such as calcium, magnesium andiron, as co-factors. It is not surprising, then,that since the end result of such enzyme inhi-bition is Alzheimer's disease, patients withthis form of dementia experience a widevariety of biochemical abnormalities, 11 of

which are discussed in some detail inthe author's book, What Really CausesAlzheimer's Disease.44 This is why nodrug will ever prevent or reverse thisform of dementia, unless it preventsaluminium absorption by the body.45

AVOIDING ALZHEIMER'SDISEASEReducing Social Risk

Exposure to acidic water that con-tains elevated aluminium and depressedcalcium, magnesium and silicic acidlevels appears to promote Alzheimer'sdisease.

One might naively expect that it would be a relatively simplematter to pass legislation reducing levels of aluminium in, andpromoting the addition of calcium, magnesium and perhaps silicicacid to, drinking water. Not only do governments show littleinterest in increasing the magnesium content of drinking water,they routinely allow the use of aluminium sulphate as a flocculantby water treatment plants. This practice reduces the amount ofsediment in the water supply but greatly increases levels ofdissolved aluminium, especially if the water is acidic.46 Clearly,aluminium sulphate must be replaced by alternatives.

The Western diet promotes Alzheimer's disease in three distinctways. First, it tends to be deficient in calcium and magnesium,47

making those who eat it very susceptible to aluminium toxicity.Second, many foods are canned, wrapped and/or cooked inaluminium. The more acidic the food, the more easily it appearsto dissolve this metal. Third, maltol is added to many processedfoods in an attempt to "improve" flavour. 4 8 Maltol greatlyincreases aluminium's ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and

Exposure to acidic water that containselevated aluminium

and depressed calcium, magnesium and silicic acid levelsappears to promoteAlzheimer's disease.


interfere with brain enzymes. Indeed, when researchers want tostudy a rabbit whose brain has been badly damaged byAlzheimer's-like plaques and tangles, they feed maltol to it. 4 9

There is no logical reason why maltol should be allowed to beroutinely added to hot chocolate, beer, some commercially bakedgoods and many other products.

Reducing Personal RiskFor most of those reading this article, the average day will

begin with a shower. If the water used is acidic and deficient incalcium and magnesium, it is possible that it will be a source ofaluminium that enters the body through the pores and nose. Thisexposure to aluminium is most likely if the water supplier usesaluminium sulphate as a flocculant to remove sediment. Oncedried off, most readers will smear their bodies with a layer of alu-minium provided by antiperspirants andd e o d o r a n t s .5 0 How much of this aluminiumpasses through the skin into the body isunclear, but McGrath51 has argued that under-arm shaving and frequent use of antiperspi-rants and deodorants seem linked to an earlyage of breast cancer diagnosis.

British researchers 52, 53 provided evidence tosupport the feasibility of McGrath's hypothe-sis, reporting traces of parabens in every tis-sue sample taken from 20 different breasttumours. Parabens are chemicals used indeodorants and other cosmetics that canmimic oestrogen. The hormone oestro-gen is known to encourage breast tumourgrowth. Clearly, parabens can enter thebody from deodorants and it is possiblethat aluminium can do the same.Deodorants with a herbal base do notusually contain these toxins.

Then comes breakfast. Tea, coffee andhot chocolate are usually made withwater from the tap. It is important not touse soft, acidic water which is likely tocontain monomeric aluminium. Mostwater supply companies will providechemical analyses, allowing the assessment of the aluminium,calcium and magnesium content of their product. If not, privatecompanies can conduct such analyses relatively cheaply. If colasor fruit juices are drunk, they are likely to have come from cans.These are typically made of aluminium. The longer the drink hasbeen in the can, the higher the aluminium levels in it are likely tob e .5 4 In addition to any aluminium it contains, hot chocolate islikely to be "enhanced" with maltol, so increasing the likelihoodthat this metal will reach the brain. Similarly, tea brewed inacidic water or flavoured with lemon juice contains significantlyhigher levels of bioavailable aluminium than normal, because themetal contained in the leaves is more soluble in water with a lowpH.55

After breakfast comes lunch, dinner and a variety of snacks.Junk food, because it is so heavily processed, is usually a verypoor source of minerals, including calcium and magnesium. Theaverage British and North American diet contains less than halfthe calcium and magnesium required to avoid the associateddeficiency illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease.

The best way to address this problem is to eat many of themineral-enriched foods such as salmon, sardines, broccoli,spinach and bok choy, for example, which are all high in

calcium.56, 57 Pumpkin seeds, almonds, Brazil nuts and wholegrainbrown rice are good sources of magnesium. 5 8 C e r t a i nsupplements, especially mineral ascorbates, provide high levels ofboth calcium and magnesium. Alacer Corporation of FoothillRanch, California, a company with which I have no financialassociations, provides excellent mineral ascorbate products. Onetablet of Super-Gram II, for example, contains four per cent of thecalcium and eight per cent of the magnesium recommended dailyallowance. Emer'Gen-C is a fizzing drink mix that is pleasant totake when added to water. It provides 1,000 mg of vitamin C and32 mineral complexes, including calcium and magnesium.Alacer's products were used in the Joint Russian Committee onWorld Health research projects that produced a marked reversal ofmemory loss in the elderly.59, 60, 61 ∞

About the Author:Harold D. Foster, PhD, was born and educatedin England. He specialised in geology andgeography, earning a BSc in 1964 f romUniversity College London and a PhD in 1968from London University. A Canadian bychoice, he has been a faculty member in theDepartment of Geography, University ofVictoria, British Columbia, Canada, since 1967.

A tenured professor, Dr Foster has authoredor edited some 245 publications, the majorityof which focus on reducing disaster losses oridentifying the causes of chronic disease orlongevity. He has published hypotheses on the

origins of numerous diseases includingmyocardial infarction, SIDS, cancer, dia-betes, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis(MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases,stroke and AIDS.

His numerous books include: D i s a s t e rPlanning: The Preservation of Life andP r o p e r t y (Springer Verlag, New York,1980); Reducing Cancer Mortality: AGeographical Perspective ( W e s t e r nGeographical Press, Victoria, 1986); T h eOzymandias Pr inciples : Thirty-oneStrategies for Surviving Change(Southdowne Press, Victoria, Canada,

1997); What Really Causes AIDS (Trafford Publishing, Victoria,2002; reviewed in N E X U S 10/05), What Really CausesSchizophrenia (Trafford, 2003; reviewed in 11/02); and W h a tReally Causes Alzheimer's Disease (Trafford, 2004; reviewed in12/03).

Dr Foster is Associate Editor of the Journal of OrthomolecularM e d i c i n e, and was named Orthomolecular Doctor of the Year(2004–2005) by The International Society for OrthomolecularMedicine. He is a member of the board of the InternationalSchizophrenia Foundation and is also a member of the ScienceAdvisory Panel for the Healthy Water Association.

Every day, Dr Foster makes a point of taking at least the recom-mended daily allowance of the known essential nutrients. He isalso currently pursuing offers for his suggested nutrient mixture tobe produced for use in clinical trials with AIDS patients.

For a more detailed résumé, visit Dr Foster's website,http://www.hdfoster.com. Copies of several of his books can befreely downloaded from his website.

Editor's Note:Due to space constraints we are not able to reprint Dr Foster's end-notes accompanying this article; however, these can be accessedvia his website, http://www.hdfoster.com.


It is not surprising,then, that since theend result of such

enzyme inhibition isAlzheimer's disease,

patients with this form of dementiaexperience a wide

variety of biochemicalabnormalities...



Introduction

In 1938, Nazi Germany sent an expedition to Antarctica with a mission to investigatesites for a possible base and to make formal claims in the name of the Third Reich.To prepare them for their mission, they invited the great polar explorer Richard E.Byrd to lecture them on what to expect. The following year, a month after hostilities

had commenced in Europe, the Germans returned to Neuschwabenland to finish what hadbeen started, with many suggesting that a base was being constructed.

Nine years later, Richard E. Byrd, who by now had become an Admiral in the UnitedStates Navy, was sent to Antarctica with the largest task force ever assembled for a polarmission. In Admiral Byrd's own words, the mission (code-named H i g h j u m p) was"primarily of a military nature".1 Many claim that the task force was sent to eradicate asecret Nazi base in Queen Maud Land, which the Nazis had renamed Neuschwabenlandand which had never been explored as profoundly as the rest of the Antarctic. But, andthe big but is, the fact that Admiral Byrd spoke of "flying objects that could fly from poleto pole at incredible speeds"2 and with well-documented German activity before, duringand in the immediate aftermath of World War II, one can't help but wonder whether thereis some truth in the Nazi Antarctica myth. Even so, could Operation Highjump and Byrd'squotes have overshadowed the truth about British excursions in Antarctica by way ofmisinformation, bringing attention to h i s mission and, by doing so, making sure thathistory only remembered one mysterious Antarctic mission?

When the Antarctica mystery is mentioned, Britain is never given more than a footnote.That fact is surprising in itself, especially as British forces were active in Antarcticathroughout the war and quite possibly took the initiative in dealing with the AntarcticNazi threat a whole 12 months before Operation Highjump was initiated.

Britain's activities on Antarctica, though less documented and more clandestine, are justas intriguing as the supposed much-vaunted Operation H i g h j u m p. Unfortunately forBritain, though victorious in the War, it was bankrupted and humiliated by the two newsuperpowers. But Britain was in a position to regain some pride and surreptitiously upsetits supposed allies with the final, decisive battle against the surviving Nazis: a battle thatwould never be recorded in the history books; a battle that would make its claims on thecontinent more legitimate; but, most importantly, a battle that ended the war that it hadbeen compelled to wage.

Antarctic Postage Stamps: Claim or Commemoration? On 1 February 1946, a set of postage stamps was released with His Majesty's royal

approval. The stamps caused international outrage and brought on a diplomatic crisis fora war-weary Great Britain. The offending eight postage stamps commemorated Britain'sclaim to the Falkland Islands Dependencies, but one of them also depicted a territorialmap of Antarctica that completely overlooked Chile's and most of Argentina's claims onthe continent. Now why would Britain, when the world economy was in such dire straits,bring about an international crisis over an area of the world that appeared on the surface tobe totally devoid of life?

Many historians claim that Britain's postwar interest arose because, with Britain in direneed of materials, Antarctica was deemed as the solution; the stamps were a way of mak-ing Britain's claim valid. That assertion, however partially true, does not explain whyBritish forces, as part of Operation Taberlan, were on the continent throughout and in theimmediate aftermath of the War.

At the end of WorldWar II, Britain senta covert mission to

investigateanomalous activitiesnear its secret base

at Maudheim ineastern Antarctica

and to seek out anddestroy a

subterranean Nazihaven.

Part 1 of 2

by James Robert © 2005



Operation Taberlan was activated as a measure of monitoringGerman activities on the Antarctic continent. The known Britishbases were mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula, in places such asPort Lockroy and Hope Bay, and on the islands surrounding thepeninsula, such as the secret bases on Deception and WienckeIslands—though some were set up on the continent. The mostsecret of all has not, and more than likely never will be, disclosed.The base at Maudheim, near the Mühlig-Hoffmann MountainRange in Queen Maud Land or, alternatively, Neuschwabenland,was so secret that it was never given a name or even a grid refer-ence on official maps.

Could the stamps have been released to commemorate a suc-cessful mission in Queen Maud Land? The facts and rumours, aswell as a story dispensed by awartime SAS officer, may shedsome light on the many myster-ies of the Antarctic arena—afront that has been kept secretfor 60 years—and on a hostileencounter that will never bedivulged to the public.

Britain has suppressed somany wartime events in thename of national security thatnow, even 60 years on, manypeople are still none the wiserabout the secrets of the war—from Rudolph Hess to thepeace parties, to the even moresinister happenings includingBritain's knowledge of the Naziextermination camps, the IrishRepublican Army's flirtationwith Nazis, and the lesserknown secrets such as SS con-centration camps on British soilon Alderney in the ChannelIslands. With just those fewlisted, a pattern of suppressionis emerging—and on some, atotal denial is normally forth-coming. Antarctica is noexception.

With the passing of time, allthose who served in the Neuschwabenland campaign are nolonger with us. The last survivor gave me the following accountof the forgotten battle. I hasten to add that the story was told ontwo separate occasions, 10 years apart, and there was not one dis-crepancy in either account.

[Editor's note: We have deleted opening and closing quotationmarks in the next section for ease of reading.]

The Neuschwabenland Campaign

When Victory in Europe was announced, my unit was restingin a cave in the former Yugoslavia. I was thankful that the

War had finally ended, though with war still being waged in thePacific and tensions rising in Palestine, we were warned that ourwar could continue.

Thankfully, I was spared from participating in the war againstJapan—but alas, I was posted to Palestine where the influx ofJews, allied with a rise in Zionist terrorism, was causing anguishnot only to the inhabitants of Palestine but also to the British forcesthat were sent to stem the Jewish influx and quell the uprisings. I

was warned that my posting in Palestine would continueindefinitely. I saw many of my fellow soldiers die. Thankfully, Ireceived an order at the beginning of October 1945 to report to mycommanding officer, as I had been selected for a mission so secretthat none of my senior officers knew why I had been requested togo to Gibraltar. I was not told why I had to report, but I went,hopeful that I would soon be discharged into Civvy Street. Howwrong I was: I would be spending another Christmas on a warfooting.

Once I arrived on Gibraltar I was secreted away by a Major andinformed that I would be sent to the Falkland IslandsDependencies for further briefing and that I would be joined byseveral other soldiers from other elite British forces. The mystery

thickened as we were all flownto the Falklands under completesilence. We were ordered to noteven speculate about why wehad been selected and where wewere going.

Upon reaching the desolateand forbidding Falkland Islands,we were introduced to the offi-cer who was leading the expedi-tion and a Norwegian who hadserved in the NorwegianResistance, an expert in winterwarfare who was going to betraining us for the mission thatwe had no inkling about.

The Falklands is now consid-ered the best-kept secret in theBritish Army, and being postedthere normally meant an easyfew years; however, things weredifferent in the 1940s—evenmore so for those who had beenselected with me.

We were forced to undertakea gruelling month's trainingwhere we were prepared forcold-weather warfare. Frombeing plunged into the icyAtlantic to facing the elementsin a tent on South Georgia, the

training was arduous and there seemed little sense in the madnessthat we were forced to undertake. However, after the month'straining we were briefed by a Major and a scientist, and as themission was relayed to us we all realised that there would be littlechance of us all returning, especially if the suspicions provedcorrect.

We were informed that we were to investigate "anomalous"activities around the Mühlig-Hoffmann Mountains from theBritish base in Maudheim. Antarctica, so we were told, was"Britain's secret war". We were then briefed on British activitiesin the South Pole during the war.

We sat intrigued as to what was being divulged; none of us hadheard anything so fascinating or frightening. It was not commonknowledge that the Nazis had been to Antarctica in 1938 and1939, and even less known was the fact that Britain began to setup secret bases around Antarctica in response. The one we wereto visit, Maudheim, was the biggest and most important as well asthe most clandestine Antarctic base of them all. The reason for itsimportance was the fact that it was within 200 miles of where the


Nazis had supposedly built their Antarctic base.We sat there stunned, but still the mystery deepened. We were

told about German activity in the Southern Ocean aroundAntarctica. We were also informed that an inestimable number ofU-boats were missing and unaccounted for; but worse, some ofthose that had surrendered months after the War had ended fuelledeven more speculation.

British forces had captured three of the biggest names in theNazi party—Hess, Himmler and Dönitz—and with their capturesBritain was given information that was not going to be sharedwith Russia or the United States. That information compelledBritain to act alone, and we were spearheading that operation.

We were told in no specific terms what was expected of us andwhat Britain expected us to find on Antarctica. Britain had morethan a strong suspicion that the Germans hadbuilt a secret base and had spirited many ofthe unaccounted Nazis away from the tur-moil in Europe.

Still, more and more revelations wereforthcoming. The summer before, we weretold, the original scientists and commandoshad found an "ancient tunnel". Underorders, the force went through the tunnel butonly two returned before the Antarcticwinter set in. During the winter months, thetwo survivors made absurd claims over theradio about "Polar Men, ancient tunnels andNazis". Radio contact was finally lost inJuly 1945, and ominously for ourmission, going into the unknown, thelast broadcast brought us all furtheranxiety as we listened to the fear in thevoice: "...the Polar Men have foundus!" was screamed before contact waslost.

After the radio broadcast was played,we were then given a rousing speechfrom the Major who would be leadingthe expedition to investigate what hadhappened. "We are to go to the base atMaudheim, find the tunnel, investigatethe enigma of the Polar Men and theNazis and do what we can to make sure the Nazi threat isdestroyed."

When asked for questions, we all had so many, and thankfullythe answers were honest and direct. We were informed thatevasive action was being taken because Britain was well aware ofUS and USSR intentions in mounting their own expeditions, andBritain did not want to risk the chance that the US or the USSRwould discover the base and gain further Nazi technology. Bothcountries had a technological advantage over Britain because ofthe scientists, equipment and research both countries hadrecovered. Nevertheless, Britain wanted to be the nation todestroy the menace because Britain viewed Antarctica as underthe British Empire's jurisdiction, and if the Nazis were there it wastheir duty and their desire to eradicate them first and thus denyboth the USA and the USSR the propaganda value of fighting thelast battle of World War II.

We were flown to the pre-designated drop-off point which was20 miles from the Maudheim base; snow tractors had already beendespatched and were awaiting our arrival. After parachuting intothe icy wilderness, full of fear and trepidation, we reached thesnow tractors and from that moment on we were on a war footing.

We had to operate under complete radio silence. We were alone,with no back-up and no chance of retreat if our worst fears wereconfirmed.

We approached the base wary of what was awaiting us, butwhen we got there the base appeared devoid of life, a ghost town.Instantly, our suspicions were roused, but, just like all the previ-ous campaigns I had fought during the War, we had a job to doand so our personal fears could not shroud our judgement.

As we split up to search the base, a trip wire was detonated anda siren sounded, destroying the silence and startling the wholeforce. A shout was soon heard, demanding us to identify our-selves, but the voice could not be targeted. With our guns raisedthe Major introduced us to the voice, and then, thankfully, thevoice was given a body. The voice belonged to a lone survivor,

and what he divulged made us more anxiousand had us wishing that there were moretroops amongst our ranks.

The lone survivor claimed that in BunkerOne was the other survivor from the "tunnel"trip, along with one of the mysterious PolarMen that we had heard on the recordedbroadcast. Despite obstructions andobjections from the survivor, Bunker Onewas ordered to be opened. The survivor hadto be held back and his fear and anguishpanicked us instantly, and none of us wantedto be the one to enter the bunker.

Fortunately, I was not selected to enter;that honour was bestowed on theyoungest member of our unit. He pro-ceeded inside, hesitating slightly as hestruggled with the door. Once inside, asilence descended across the base, fol-lowed moments later by two gunshots.The door was opened and the PolarMan dashed to freedom. None of uswas expecting what we saw, and thePolar Man had fled into the surround-ing terrain so quick that only a fewtoken shots were fired.

Out of fear and awe at what we hadseen, we all decided to go into the

bunker. Go in we did, and two bodies were found. The soldierwho had pulled the short straw was found with his throat rippedout, and, more heinous, the survivor had been stripped to thebones.

What we had witnessed demanded answers; and with our abjectanger at seeing one of our unit die within hours of our landing onthe continent, our anger was taken out on the lone survivor whohad warned us against opening Bunker One.

The whole unit listened categorically to the Major's questions,but it was the answers that were to provoke the most intrigue.The first question that needed answering was just what had hap-pened to the other survivor, and how he had become trapped inthe bunker with that Polar Man. However, the lone survivor pre-ferred to start from the beginning, from when they had first foundthe "tunnel". Whilst he narrated what had happened, the scientistwho had accompanied us scribbled down everything divulged.

It transpired that the area near the tunnel was one ofAntarctica's unique dry valleys, and that was how they managedto find the tunnel with such ease. Every one of the 30 personnelat the Maudheim base was ordered to investigate and, if possible,find out exactly where the tunnel led.

"We were informed that we were to

investigate 'anomalous'activities around the

Mühlig-HoffmannMountains from the

British base inMaudheim.

"Antarctica, so we were told, was

'Britain's secret war'."


They followed the tunnel for miles, and eventually they came toa vast underground cavern that was abnormally warm; some ofthe scientists believed that it was warmed geothermally. In thehuge cavern were underground lakes; however, the mystery deep-ened, as the cavern was lit artificially. The cavern proved soextensive that they had to split up, and that was when the real dis-coveries were made.

The Nazis had constructed a huge base into the caverns and hadeven built docks for U-boats, and one was identified supposedly.Still, the deeper they travelled, the more strange visions they weregreeted with. The survivor reported that "hangars for strangeplanes and excavations galore" had been documented.

However, their presence had not gone unnoticed: the twosurvivors at the Maudheim base witnessed their comrades getcaptured and executed one by one. After witnessing only six ofthe executions, they fled to the tunnel, lestthey be caught, with the aim to block up thetunnel—though "it was too late; the PolarMen were coming", claimed the survivor.

With enemy forces hot on their tail, theyhad no choice but to try to get back to thebase so that they could inform and warn theirsuperiors about what they had uncovered.They managed to get back to the base, but,with winter approaching and little chance ofrescue, they believed it was their duty tomake sure the secret Nazi base was reported;and so they split up, each taking a wirelessand waiting in separate bunkers. One of thesurvivors tempted one of the Polar Meninto the bunker in the hope that they'dbelieve only one had survived. Theplan worked, but to the detriment of hislife and to the radio. Unfortunately, thebrave soul in Bunker One had the onlyfully operational wireless radio, whichwas destroyed in the fracas. The othersurvivor had no option but to sit, waitand try to avoid going stir crazy.

The mystery of who or what thePolar Men were was explained, notsatisfactorily but explainednonetheless, as a product of Naziscience; and the enigma of how theNazis were getting power was also explained, albeit not inscientific terms. The power that the Nazis were utilising was byvolcanic activity, which gave them heat for steam and also helpedproduce electricity, but the Nazis had also mastered an unknownenergy source because the survivor claimed: "...after what Iwitnessed, the amount of electricity needed is more than could beproduced, in my opinion, by steam".

The scientist amongst the party dismissed most of what wasdivulged, and rebuked the survivor for his lack of scientific edu-cation and implied that his revelations "could not possibly betrue". Though the scientist dismissed the survivor's claims, theMajor didn't. He wanted to know more about the enemy that wewere facing, but, more fundamentally, just what the Polar Manwas going to do next. The answer from the survivor did nothingto comfort us and provoked the scientist to announce that the sur-vivor was "certifiable". Disconcerted is too weak a word todescribe how we felt when the survivor replied to the Major'squestions about the escaped Polar Man's intentions: "He willwait, watch and wonder just how different we taste."

On hearing that, the Major issued the battle cry, and guard dutywas set up whilst the Major and the scientist discussed, in private,just what we were to do next, even though it was obvious to therest of us.

The next morning we were ordered to "investigate the tunnel",and for the next 48 hours we made our way steadily to the dry val-ley and the supposed "ancient tunnel". Upon arriving in the dryvalley we were all amazed, for we had been told that Antarcticawas completely ice-bound and yet here we were in a valley thatreminded me of being back in the North African Sahara. Wewere forbidden from even approaching the tunnel until the tempo-rary base camp had been erected; and whilst the men constructedthe base, the scientist and Major investigated the tunnel.

After a few hours, they returned to the now complete camp tochronicle what they had seen and what our next plan of action was

to be. The tunnel was not an ancient pas-sageway at all, claimed the scientist,although the Major added that the walls weremade of smooth granite and looked infinite.We were informed that we would be able tomake our own minds up after we had restedfor the night.

Sleeping in Antarctica during the summermonths was difficult with perpetual daylightcovering the continent; but that night, sleepwas even more difficult to come by with allthe thoughts running through each of ourminds about what we would find and justwhen, or where, we would encounter the

Polar Man again.Just before we were assigned our

times for guard duty, we were informedthat we would be following the tunnelall the way—"...to the Führer, if needsbe".

That night our fears were confirmed,as the Polar Man did indeed return.However, this time no more casualtiesoccurred [on our side], but the PolarMan was slain as he was lured to thecamp. The scientist decided that thePolar Man was "human" but, it seemed,had been able to produce more hair andwithstand the cold far more effectively.

The corpse, after a brief post-mortem, was stored in a body bag,and with the cold could be preserved until a more meticulous dis-section could occur.

The next morning it was decided that two would remain at thetunnel's entrance with the corpse, the tractors, the equipment but,more fundamentally, the radio. The Major, leading the expedi-tion, needed the Norwegian for his expertise and also the scientist;the survivor, too, was critical for the mission's success. The restof us wanted to join them. I was selected with the other jubilantfour who would be undertaking one of the most exciting and pos-sibly one of the most important expeditions in human history.

The two who were kept behind were disappointed, but theirroles were just as vital to the mission's success as the nine whowould be traversing into the unknown.

As the nine of us prepared to enter the tunnel, we made surethat we took enough ammunition and explosives to wage a smallwar and hopefully destroy the base in its entirety, for that was ourmission: not to salvage, but to destroy.

We walked into the darkness, and thankfully after four hours of

"The cavern proved so extensive that they

had to split up, and thatwas when the real

discoveries were made.The Nazis had

constructed a huge base into the cavernsand had even built

docks for U-boats..."

walking we began to see some light in the far distance. However,the light was still another hour away; and as each of us battledwith our mind's questions of what we would uncover, we inchedforward.

Eventually we reached the vast cavern that was artificially lit.We were then led to where the survivors had witnessed theexecutions. The survivor stated it was as covert as one couldpossibly have wished for.

As we looked over the entire cavern network, we were over-whelmed by the numbers of personnel scurrying about like ants,but what was impressive was the huge constructions that werebeing built. From what we were witnessing, the Nazis, itappeared, had been on Antarctica a long time. The scientist jotteddown everything he could, drew dia-grams and took rock samples as wellas the odd photograph. The Major, onthe other hand, was more interested inhow the base was to be destroyed with-out being caught by the Nazis present.

After two days of vigilant reconnais -sance, the scientist and Major decidedon the targets for the mines. Themines were to be placed all around theroof of the cavern, with other targetson the to-do list such as the generatorand the petrol dumps and, if possibleand attainable, the ammunition dumps.

Throughout the day, mines were laidand more photos were taken; and withthe odds of not being detected looking good, a hostage was taken,as well as proof of the Nazi base, the "Polar Man" andphotographs of new, and quite advanced, Nazi technology.

When the mission to place the mines that would destroy thebase had been accomplished, as well as substantial proof of thebase gathered, we headed towards the tunnel—but, alas, we werespotted, and more of the Polar Men and a troop of Nazis gavechase. Upon reaching the tunnel, we needed to put an obstacle inthe way to slow down our enemy long enough for the mines todetonate. Some mines were placed at the entrance to the tunnel,and when the explosions were heard we werehopeful that not just the base had been compre-hensively destroyed but so, too, the enemyforces giving chase. We were wrong.

The mines did indeed close the tunnel, but, forthose Nazis and Polar Men behind, the chase wasstill on. In a fighting retreat, only three of the 10escaped the tunnel: the Norwegian, the scientistand myself. The rest had fallen gallantly inmaking sure that some of the party survived.

Upon reaching the safety of the dry valley,enough mines were laid to close the tunnel per-manently. After the mines were detonated, therewas no evidence of any tunnel ever existing.

Suspiciously, very little of the evidenceunearthed remained. Whether it had been lostaccidentally or purposely, it mattered littlebecause the scientist had already made his and,ultimately, the mission's own conclusions.

The camp was disbanded and we returned tothe Maudheim base where we were evacuatedand flown back to the safety of the FalklandIslands Dependencies. Upon reaching SouthGeorgia, we were issued with a directive that we

were forbidden to reveal what we had seen, heard or even encoun-tered.

The tunnel was explained away as nothing more than a freak ofnature; "glacial erosion" was the scientist's specific term. The"Polar Men" were nothing more than "unkempt soldiers that hadgone crazy"; the fact that they were German was never submittedinto the report, and any notion of the mission going public wasfirmly rebutted. The mission would never be made official,though certain elements of the mission were to be leaked to theRussians and the Americans.

So my last Christmas of World War II was spent on theAntarctic continent in 1945, fighting the same Nazis that I hadfought against every Christmas since 1940. What was worse was

the fact that the expedition was nevergiven any recognition, nor the sur-vivors any credit. Instead, the Britishsurvivors were de-mobbed from theforces, whilst the scientist and hisreport would soon disappear, the mis-sion never to be known about exceptby the select few.

That mission never made the historybooks, but the return mission inFebruary 1950, conducted by a jointBritish–Swedish–Norwegian expedi-tion that lasted till January 1952, did.The main purpose of the expeditionwas to verify and investigate some ofthe findings of the 1938–39 Nazi

expeditions to Neuschwabenland.Five years after our mission, Maudheim and Neuschwabenland

were revisited, and that expedition had everything to do with theNeuschwabenland campaign, but, more importantly, with what wehad destroyed. For the intermediate years between the missions,the Royal Air Force continuously flew flights overNeuschwabenland. The RAF's official reason for their extensiveflights was that they were searching for suitable places to set upbase camps. However, one can't help but wonder.3

[The SAS officer's account ends here. Ed.]


"The mission would never bemade official, though certainelements of the mission were to be leaked to the Russians

and the Americans."

"Apparently it's run by stupid adults."

How Britain Gained the "Knowledge"My U-boat men, six years of U-boat warfare lie behind us.You have fought like lions. A crushing superiority has com -pressed us into a narrow area. The continuation of the strug -gle is impossible from the bases that remain. U-boat men,unbroken in your war-like courage, you are laying down yourarms after a heroic fight which knows no equal. In reverentmemory we think of our comrades who have sealed their loy -alty to the Führer and Fatherland with their death.Comrades, maintain in the future your U-boat spirit withwhich you have fought at sea, bravely and unflinchingly, dur -ing the long welfare of our Fatherland. Long live Germany!

Your Grand Admiral.– Grand Admiral Dönitz, 4 May 1945,

ordering his U-boats to start their return journey.

With 16 German U-boats sunk in the South Atlantic areabetween October 1942 and September 1944, and with most ofthose sunk engaged in covert activities, Britain had long sincebeen aware of Neuschwabenland being a possible base, but it wasnot until after the war in Europe hadended that the world awoke to thepossibility.

On 18 July 1945, newspapersaround the world focused their head-lines on Antarctica. The New YorkT i m e s stated "Antarctic HavenReported", whilst others claimed that"Hitler had been at the South Pole".4

These headlines which shook theworld were based, in part, on fact.The news reports and events happen-ing in South America made the worldsit up and take notice, not least themilitary forces of the United Statesand Great Britain.

On 10 June 1945, an unmarkedGerman U-boat surrendered to theArgentine Navy; no further details were released. The where-abouts of at least a hundred other U-boats were still a mystery, asrenowned historian Basil Liddell Hart noted: "During the earlymonths of 1945 the size of the U-boat fleet was still increasing...In March, the U-boat fleet reached its peak strength of 463[emphasis added]."5

The mystery deepened when, on 10 July 1945, the GermanU-530 surrendered at Mar del Plata, Argentina, and it only tookeight days for the world to know. However, the U-boat mysterydid not end with U-530; just over a month later, on 17 August1945, U-977 also surrendered at Mar del Plata. Even more curi-ous was the fact that the same month, U-465 was scuttled offPatagonia.

Only three months after the Kreigsmarine's U-boat's strengthhad peaked, the first of the unaccounted-for U-boats appeared.Unfavourably though, historians tend to gloss over the enigma ofthe missing U-boats and Hart also offers no explanation other thanto explain the 362 known U-boats' fate: "After Germany surren-dered in May, 159 U-boats surrendered but a further 203 werescuttled by their crews. That was characteristic of the U-boatcrews' stubborn pride and unshakeable morale."6

With so many U-boats missing—a minimum of 40 wereestimated missing at the end of the War—and with Britain stillpossessing one of the world's largest navies and strategicallybased territories in the Falklands and Antarctica, Britain was the

most ideally placed of all the Allies to deal with a Nazi haven. Itwould have been the best informed about the missing U-boats dueto its southern hemisphere territories and an empire that, thoughcrumbling, was still the largest the world had ever seen.Intelligence soon substantiated the suspicions with theinterrogations of the captains of both the U-977 and U-530.

Captain Wilhelm Bernhard, commanding the U-530, claimedthat under Operation Valkyrie-2 his U-boat set off to the Antarcticon 13 April 1945. Under interrogation he divulged just what themission had involved. Supposedly, 16 crew members had landedon the Antarctic shore and deposited numerous boxes that wereapparently documents and relics from the Third Reich. HeinzScheffer, captain of the U-977, also claimed that his U-boat hadspirited relics away from the Reich. However, less plausible isthe theory that the U-boat delivered the remains of Hitler and EvaBraun to the South Pole, and other theories that the Holy Grailand the Spear of Destiny were also taken to the Antarctic onlycloud the truth.

What does help substantiate their story is the little-known fact(which P r a v d a reported on 16 January 2003) that, in 1983,

Special Services seized a confidentialletter that Captain Scheffer wrote toCaptain Bernhard, and in the letterScheffer pleads to Bernhard not topublish his memoirs in too profounda detail and, in fact, states his intentfor the world not to know the truth:

"We all made an oath to keep thesecret; we did nothing wrong: wejust obeyed orders and fought for ourloved Germany and its survival.Please think again; isn't it better topicture everything as a fable? Whatresults do you plan to achieve withyour revelations? Think about it,please."7

Another mystery that has neverbeen solved is that of the cargo of

mercury contained inside U-859 which was sunk on 23 September1944 by the British Royal Navy submarine HMS Trenchant in theStrait of Malacca in the Java Sea, so far from home with such ananomalous cargo—a cargo that could be utilised as a fuel source.The survivors divulged to their British captors what they had beencarrying, and that information would have definitely raised eye-brows when their find was relayed to British Intelligence.

The case of U-859 was not an isolated one. Many German U-boats were active throughout the world; many supplied theJapanese throughout the war and, strangely, even after theGerman capitulation. In July 1945, an unmarked German U-boat,supposedly part of a secret convoy, delivered a new invention toJapanese research and development units. The Japanese con-structed and activated the device. The device soared into the skywhere, however inauspiciously, it burst into flames. It was neverdared to be built again.

The British Navy, having already retrieved many of the U-boatsthat had surrendered in Norway, was well aware that many morehad fled, especially if the tale reported in the Latin Americanpress about a German U-boat convoy totally annihilating theBritish destroyers that engaged the convoy is to be believed. On 2May 1945, El Mercurio and Der Weg claimed that the final navalbattle of World War II between the Kreigsmarine and the Royal


Another mystery that has neverbeen solved is that of the cargo

of mercury contained inside U-859 which was sunk in 1944

by the British Royal Navysubmarine HMS Trenchant in theJava Sea, so far from home with

such an anomalous cargo...



THE ELECTRIC SUN & THE MYTHOF THE NUCLEAR FURNACE

by David Talbott© 2005 Thunderbolts.info

What is the source of the Sun's lightand heat? Throughout history,people have proposed answers to

this question that have always reflectedhuman experience. The Sun was a shininggod, or a "spark" cast off in the creation.Later it was a pile of burning sticks or coal.

By the 19th century, astronomers hadbecome accustomed to thinking that gravitywas the dominant force in the heavens. Sothey began to conjecture that the energy ofthe Sun might be due to "gravitationalcollapse", a compression ofsolar gases by gravity. Thissimple hypothesis, itsproponents claimed, couldprovide the required energyoutput for a few tens ofmillions of years. However,by the late 19th century,geologists were confident thatEarth was much older than theastronomers' model wouldallow, and the conflict betweenastronomy and geologycontinued for several decades.

Then, in 1920, the Britishastronomer Sir ArthurEddington combined the prin-ciple of gravitational collapsewith an exciting new principlein the physical sciences:nuclear fusion. He proposedthat at the core of the Sun,pressures and temperaturesinduced a nuclear reaction fus-ing hydrogen into helium.

In 1939, two astrophysicists,Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and HansBethe, working independently, began toquantify the gravitational collapse andnuclear fusion hypothesis. Bethe describedthe results of his calculations in a briefpaper entitled "Energy Production in Stars",published in 1939.

The model that followed the work ofEddington, Chandrasekhar and Bethe

described a "nuclear furnace" responsiblefor igniting stars. And for decades now, cos-mologists, astronomers and astrophysicistshave accepted the basic concept as fact. Inthe early formulations of this "standardmodel" of star formation, it was said that thegravitational force within a primordial cloudleads to its progressive compression into a"circumstellar disc", as the outer material inthe cloud "falls" inward and gravity givesbirth to a star-sized sphere whose core tem-perature continues to rise under increasingpressures. Collisions of atoms within thecore eventually become so energetic thatelectrons are stripped from their nuclei,leaving free electrons and hydrogen protons(a plasma, as we now understand it). In stars

roughly comparable to our Sun, with envi-sioned core temperatures less than 15million Kelvin, the nuclear reaction beginswhen hydrogen protons are joined or stucktogether in the "proton-proton fusion" ofhydrogen into helium.

Critics, however, pointed out that thetemperatures given by standard gas laws arenot sufficient to provoke nuclear fusion.They cited the "Coulomb barrier", in this

case the electric repulsion between twoprotons or like charges. Once protons arefused, they could be held together by thestrong nuclear force, but that forcedominates only at short distances. Toachieve fusion, it would be necessary forprotons to cross the barrier of the repulsiveelectric force, which is sufficient to keep theprotons apart forever. But Eddington'ssuccessors accomplished the impossible bysomething called "quantum tunnelling",enabling an extremely small percentage ofprotons simply to "appear" inside the barrierat any particular time.

It is ironic that the early objections to thefusion model of the Sun focused on thepowerful electric force. This was long

before the arrival of the SpaceAge, with its discovery that thecharged particles of plasma per-meate interplanetary and inter-stellar space, and long before anysystematic investigations of plas-ma and electricity in space.

Advocates of the "nuclearfurnace" model made a series offundamental assumptionscommon to astronomy longbefore the emergence of anuclear model of the Sun. Thecredibility of these assumptionswas not an issue to them. Theyassumed that diffuse clouds ofgas in space would collapsegravitationally into star-sizedbodies. They assumed that theSun's mass could be calculatedsimply from the orbital motionsof the planets. They assumedthat Newtonian calculations ofmass, coupled with standard gaslaws, enabled them to determine

the pressure and temperature of the Sun'score. The pioneers of the nuclear furnacemodel also followed another assumptioncommon to astronomy in their time: thatthe Sun and planets are electrically neutral.They gave no consideration to the role ofelectricity and no consideration to the roleof the magnetic fields that electric currentsgenerate.

Are the assumptions made in the first

S C I E N C E

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

half of the 20th century still warranted afterdecades of space exploration? Thoseproposing an electrical perspective, basedon more recent data, insist that the earlierconjectures are not only unwarranted butdiscredited by direct observation and mea-surement. They emphasise that every fea-ture of the Sun, as we now observe it,defies both the gravitational assumptionsand the standard gas laws relating to pres-sure, density, temperature and relativemotions of gases. The deepest observablesurface of the Sun yields a temperature ofabout 6,000 degrees Kelvin. As we peerinto the darker interior of sunspots we seecooler regions, not hotter. But moving out-ward to the bottom of the corona, the tem-perature jumps spectacularly to almost twomillion degrees. Thus, the superheatedshell of the Sun's corona reverses theexpected temperature gradient predicted bymodels of internal heating.

It seems that the Sun does not even"respect" gravity. The mass of chargedparticles—expelled by the Sun as the solarwind—continues to accelerate beyondMercury, Venus and Earth. Solar promi-nences and coronal mass ejections do notobey gravity, either. Nor does sunspotmigration. Nor does the movement of theatmosphere, since the upper layers rotatefaster than the lower—reversing the situa-tion predicted by theory—while the equato-rial atmosphere completes its rotation morerapidly than the atmosphere at higher lati-tudes—another reversal of predictedmotions. If the Sun's atmosphere were sub-ject only to gravity and the hot surface, itshould be only a few thousand kilometresthick instead of the hundred thousand kilo-metres or more that we measure.

Even the shape of the Sun defies theexpectations of theory. The revolving Sunshould be an oblate sphere. But it is virtu-ally a perfect sphere, as if gravity and iner-tia have been overruled by something else.

For the electrical theorists, the "some-thing else" should be obvious from thedominant, observed features of the Sun (incontrast to things assumed but never seen).

The anomalies facing the standard modelof the Sun are predictable features of aglow discharge. Refer to Pictures of theDay at http://www.thunderbolts.info..

[Note: This article, dated 27 May 2005, iscopyright © 2005 Thunderbolts.info. Thefull text of this article, with text links, canbe viewed at http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050517fusion.htm.]

THE ELECTRIC GLOW OF THE SUN

by David Talbott © 2005 Thunderbolts.info

Alittle known fact: popular ideas aboutthe Sun have not fared well under the

tests of a scientific theory. The formulatorsof the standard Sun model worked withgravity, gas laws and nuclear fusion. Butcloser observation of the Sun has shownthat electrical and magnetic propertiesdominate solar behaviour.

For centuries, the nature of the Sun'sradiance remained a mystery toastronomers. The Sun is the only object inthe solar system that produces its own visi-ble light. All others reflect the light of theSun. What unique trait of the Sun enablesit to shine upon the other objects in thesolar system?

Today, astronomers assure us that themost fundamental question has now beenanswered. The Sun is a thermonuclearfurnace. The ball of gas is so large thatastronomers envision pressures anddensities within its core sufficient togenerate temperatures of about 16 millionK, producing a continuous "controlled"nuclear reaction.

Most astronomers and astrophysicistsinvestigating the Sun are so convinced ofthe fusion model that only the rarest amongthem will countenance challenges to theunderlying idea. Standard textbooks andinstitutional research, complemented by achorus of scientific and popular media,"ratify" the fusion model of the Sun yearafter year by ignoring evidence to thecontrary.

A growing group of independentresearchers, however, insists that thepopular idea is incorrect. Theseresearchers say that the Sun is electric. Itis a glow discharge fed by galacticcurrents. And they emphasise that thefusion model anticipated none of themilestone discoveries about the Sun, whilethe electric model predicts and explains thevery observations that posed the greatestquandaries for solar investigation.

More than 60 years ago, Dr Charles E. R.Bruce, of the Electrical ResearchAssociation in England, offered a new per-spective on the Sun. An electricalresearcher, astronomer and expert on theeffects of lightning, Bruce proposed in1944 that the Sun's "photosphere has theappearance, the temperature and the spec-trum of an electric arc; it has arc character-istics because it is an electric arc, or a largenumber of arcs in parallel". This dischargecharacteristic, he claimed, "accounts for theobserved granulation of the solar surface".

Bruce's model, however, was based on aconventional understanding of atmosphericlightning, allowing him to envision the"electric" Sun without reference to externalelectric fields.

Plasma Glow Discharge Years later, a brilliant engineer, Ralph

Juergens, inspired by Bruce's work, addeda revolutionary possibility. In a series ofarticles beginning in 1972, Juergens sug-gested that the Sun is not an electricallyisolated body in space but the most posi-tively charged object in the solar system,the centre of a radial electric field. This

N E W S C I E N C E N E W S C I E N C E N E W S C I E N C E



field, he said, lies within a larger galacticfield. With this hypothesis, Juergensbecame the first to make the theoreticalleap to an external power source of theSun.

Juergens proposed that the Sun is thefocus of a "coronal glow discharge" fed bygalactic currents. To avoid misunderstand-ing of this concept, it is essential that wedistinguish the complex electrodynamicglow discharge model of the Sun from asimple electrostatic model that can be easilydismissed.

Throughout most of the volume of aglow discharge, the plasma is nearlyneutral with almost equal numbers ofprotons and electrons. In this view,the charge differential at the Earth'sdistance from the Sun is smaller thanour present ability to measure—perhaps one or two electrons percubic metre.

But the charge density is far highercloser to the Sun, and at the solarcorona and surface the electric fieldis of sufficient strength to generateall of the energetic phenomena weobserve.

Today, the electric theoristsWallace Thornhill and Donald Scotturge a critical comparison of thefusion model and the electricalmodel. Given what we now knowabout the Sun, which model meets the testsof unity, coherence, simplicity andpredictability? Why did so manydiscoveries surprise investigators and evencontradict the expectations of the fusionmodel? Is there any fundamental feature ofthe Sun that contradicts the glow dischargehypothesis?

Our closer looks at the Sun have revealedthe pervasive influence of magnetic fields,which are the effect of electric currents.Sunspots, prominences, coronal massejections and a host of other features requireever more complicated guesswork on behalfof the fusion model. But this is the way ananode in a coronal glow discharge behaves!

In the electric model, the Sun is the"anode" or positively charged body in theelectrical exchange, while the "cathode" ornegatively charged contributor is not adiscrete object but the invisible "virtualcathode" at the limit of the Sun's coronaldischarge. (Coronal discharges cansometimes be seen as a glow surroundinghigh-voltage transmission wires, where thewires discharge into the surrounding air).This virtual cathode lies far beyond the

planets. In the lexicon of astronomy, this isthe "heliopause". In electrical terms, it isthe cellular sheath or "double layer"separating the plasma cell that surroundsthe Sun ("heliosphere") from theenveloping galactic plasma.

In an electric universe, such cellularforms are expected between regions of dis-similar plasma properties. According tothe glow discharge model of the Sun,almost the entire voltage differencebetween the Sun and its galactic environ-ment occurs across the thin boundarysheath of the heliopause.

Inside the heliopause there is a weak butconstant radial electrical field centred onthe Sun. A weak electric field, immeasur-able locally with today's instruments butcumulative across the vast volume of spacewithin the heliosphere, is sufficient topower the solar discharge.

The visible component of a coronal glowdischarge occurs above the anode, often inlayers. The Sun's red chromosphere is partof this discharge. (Unconsciously, itseems, the correct electrical engineeringterm was applied to the Sun's corona.)Correspondingly, the highest particle ener-gies are not at the photosphere but above it.

Solar TemperaturesThe electric theorists see the Sun as a

perfect example of this characteristic ofglow discharges—a radical contrast to theexpected dissipation of energy from thecore outward in the fusion model of theSun.

At about 500 kilometres (310 miles)above the photosphere or visible surface,we find the coldest measurable tempera-ture, about 4,400 degrees K. Moving

upward, the temperature then rises steadilyto about 20,000 degrees K at the top of thechromosphere, some 2,200 kilometres(1,200 miles) above the Sun's surface.Here it abruptly jumps hundreds of thou-sands of degrees, then continues slowly ris-ing, eventually reaching two milliondegrees in the corona. Even at a distanceof one or two solar diameters, ionised oxy-gen atoms reach a temperature of 200 mil-lion degrees!

In other words the "reverse temperaturegradient", while meeting the tests of theglow discharge model, contradicts everyoriginal expectation of the fusion model.

But this is only the first of manyenigmas and contradictions facing thefusion hypothesis. As astronomerFred Hoyle pointed out years ago,with the strong gravity and the mere5,800-degree temperature at the sur-face, the Sun's atmosphere should beonly a few thousand kilometres thick,according to the "gas laws" that astro-physicists typically apply to suchbodies. Instead, the atmosphere bal-loons out to 100,000 kilometres,where it heats up to a million degreesor more. From there, particles accel-erate out among the planets in defi-ance of gravity. Thus the planets,Earth included, could be said to orbitinside the Sun's diffuse atmosphere.

The discovery that blasts of particlesescape the Sun at an estimated 400–700kilometres per second came as an uncom-fortable surprise for advocates of thenuclear-powered model. Certainly, the"pressure" of sunlight cannot explain theacceleration of the solar "wind". In anelectrically neutral, gravity-driven uni-verse, particles are not hot enough toescape such massive bodies, which (in thetheory) are attractors only. And yet, theparticles of the solar wind continue toaccelerate past Venus, Earth and Mars.Since these particles are not miniature"rocket ships", this acceleration is the lastthing one should expect!

According to the electric theorists, aweak electric field, focused on the Sun,better explains the acceleration of thecharged particles of the solar wind.Electric fields accelerate charged particles.And just as magnetic fields are undeniablewitnesses to the presence of electric cur-rents, particle acceleration is a good mea-sure of the strength of an electric field.


Juergens suggested that the Sunis not an electrically isolatedbody in space but the most

positively charged object in thesolar system, the centre of a

radial electric field. This field, he said, lies within a

larger galactic field.


A common mistake made by critics ofthe electric model is to assume that theradial electric field of the Sun should benot only measurable but also strong enoughto accelerate electrons toward the Sun at"relativistic" speeds (up to 300,000 kilome-tres per second). By this argument, weshould find electrons not only zipping pastour instruments but also creating dramaticdisplays in the Earth's night sky.

But as noted above, in the plasma glowdischarge model the interplanetary electricfield will be extremely weak. No instru-ment placed in space could measure theradial voltage differential across a few tensof metres, any more than it could measurethe solar wind acceleration over a few tensof metres.

But we can observe the solar wind accel-eration over tens of millions of kilometres,confirming that the electric field of theSun, though imperceptible in terms of voltsper metre, is sufficient to sustain a power-ful drift current across interplanetary space.Given the massive volume of this space,the implied current is quite sufficient topower the Sun.

Look for more details on the drift cur-rent, solar magnetic fields, nuclear reac-tions and many other features of the Sun inupcoming Pictures of the Day athttp://www.thunderbolts.info. ∞

[Note: This article, dated 27 April 2005, iscopyright © 2005 Thunderbolts.info. Thefull text of this article, with text links, canbe viewed at http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/ arch05/050427sun.htm.]

Additional ReadingSee also these Pictures of the Day: • Arc Lamp in the Sky http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040729solar.htm • Stellar Nurseries http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040727stellar-nurseries.htm • Electric Stars http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040922electric-stars.htm • The Iron Sun http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041006iron-sun.htm • Solar Tornadoes http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041015solar-tornado.htm • Kepler Supernova Remnant http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041103supernova.htm



DOES THE EARTH HAVE A SOLAR UMBILICAL CORD?

January 2005 was a stormy month—in space. With little warning, a giant spotmaterialised on the Sun and started exploding. Between 15 and 19 January,

sunspot 720 produced four powerful solar flares. When it exploded a fifth time on20 January, onlookers were not surprised.

They should have been. Researchers realise now that the 20 January blast wassomething special. It has shaken the foundations of space weather theory and pos-sibly changed the way astronauts are going to operate when they return to theMoon.

Scant minutes after the 20 January flare, a swarm of high-speed protonssurrounded Earth and the Moon. Thirty minutes later, the most intense proton stormin decades was underway.

"We've been hit by strong proton storms before, but [never so quickly]," says solarphysicist Robert Lin of UC Berkeley. "Proton storms normally develop hours oreven days after a flare."

This one began in minutes.Proton storms cause all kinds of problems. They interfere with ham radio com-

munications. They zap satellites, causing short circuits and computer reboots.Worst of all, they can penetrate the skin of spacesuits and make astronauts feel sick.

"An astronaut on the Moon, caught outdoors on January 20, would have hadalmost no time to dash for shelter," says Lin. The storm came fast and "hard", withproton energies exceeding 100 million electron volts. These are the kind of high-energy particles that can do damage to human cells and tissue.

"The last time we saw a storm like this was in February 1956." The details of thatevent are uncertain, though, because it happened before the Space Age. "Therewere no satellites watching the Sun."

According to space weather theory (soon to be revised), this is how a protonstorm develops. It begins with an explosion, usually above a sunspot. Sunspots areplaces where strong magnetic fields poke through the surface of the Sun. For rea-sons no one completely understands, these fields can become unstable andexplode, unleashing as much energy as 10 billion hydrogen bombs.

From Earth we see a flash of light and X-rays. This is the "solar flare", and it's thefirst sign that an explosion has occurred. Light from the flare reaches Earth in onlyeight minutes.

Next, if the explosion is powerful enough, a billion-ton cloud of gas billows awayfrom the blast site. This is the coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are relativelyslow. Even the fastest ones, travelling at 1,000 to 2,000 km/s, take a day or so toreach Earth. You know a CME has just arrived when you see auroras in the sky.

En route to Earth, CMEs plough through a lot of gaseous material, first in the Sun'satmosphere and then out in interplanetary space. You thought space was empty?No. The void between planets is filled with protons and other particles from thesolar wind. Shock waves in front of the CME can accelerate these protons in ourdirection—hence the proton storm.

"CMEs can account for most proton storms," says Lin, but not the proton storm of20 January.

According to theory, CMEs can't push material to Earth quickly enough. So, backto the drawing board. But if a CME didn't accelerate the protons, what did?

"We have an important clue," says Lin. When the explosion occurred, sunspot720 was located at a special place on the Sun: 60 degrees west longitude. Thismeans "the sunspot was magnetically connected to Earth".

He explains that the Sun's magnetic field spirals out into the solar system likewater from a lawn sprinkler. (Why? The Sun spins like a lawn sprinkler does.) Themagnetic field emerging from solar longitude 60 degrees W bends around and inter-sects Earth. Protons are guided by magnetic force fields, so on 20 January there wasa superhighway for protons leading all the way from sunspot 720 to our planet.

"That's how the protons got here," speculates Lin. How they were accelerated, however, remains a mystery.

(Source: NASA, 10 June 2005, http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/10jun_newstorm.htm)

Continued from page 47

Smashing the Myth that "All Crop Circles Are Hoaxes"

During the twilight days of 1998, small articles tucked away in the nether regionsof the British press quietly announced "Unknown Force Was Behind CornCircles, Claims Hoaxer". This dramatic U-turn by the surviving member of theinfamous Doug and Dave duo—the English sexagenarians who from 1991

misled the world with tales of their crop-flattening prowess with planks of wood—illustrates that the hand of man materialised in crop circle lore long after the realphenomenon had manifested.

Although hoaxers claim to have orchestrated the phenomenon in 1978, unpublished evi-dence at the time showed approximately 200 sporadic reports of crop circles around theworld throughout the 1900s, with dozens of eyewitnesses reporting crop circles forming ina matter of seconds as far back as 1890. Several highly descriptive accounts were evendocumented in 1678 by Robert Plot, then curator of the Ashmolean Library in Oxford,England. If hoaxers are responsible for crop circles, then they appear to have masteredthe art of time travel, in which case it is they who ought to be under scientific scrutiny.

To date, some 10,000 crop circles have been catalogued in 29 countries worldwide, andtheir anomalous features continue to defy human replication: plants bent an inch abovethe soil, their cellular structure altered, their stems lightly burned around the base; alter-ations to the crystalline structure of the affected soil; evaporation of groundwater; alter-ation of the local electromagnetic field; and dowsable, long-lasting energy patterns, not tomention hundreds of measured effects on the human biological field.

So much, then, for two guys and a piece of wood. But thanks to a virtual embargo onthe coverage of research throughout the media, a popular myth has developed that all cropcircles have been nothing more than a prank with a plank. By definition, a hoax is aforgery, and a forger requires an original from which to copy. So what is this "unknownforce" that creates genuine crop circles? One answer may lie with sound.

Sound and Sacred GeometryTraditionally, sound has been considered a prime universal force in the creation of

matter. This concept is echoed in all faiths and traditions: "In the beginning was theWord, and the Word was with God", so the Bible, the Q'ran and the Rig Veda remind us.In a similar way, Hopi and Navajo religious traditions assert that, in ancient times,shamans could utter words onto sand and create patterns not dissimilar to the Hindumandalas—those geometric paintings held to be expressions of vibrations from the unseenUniverse. Consequently the Eastern faiths, Islam in particular, chose this sacred geometryto express the image of God. In the 12th century these geometric principles were encodedin the design of Gothic cathedrals, and their application is now known to enhance thesebuildings' sonic effects.

Geometry, sound, resonance and vibration are fundamental to our supposedly physicalworld. When the primeval Hindu sound, the "OM" (from which is derived our modernterm "hum"), is sung into a tonoscope (a device for converting the human voice intovisible form), it is possible to see geometric shapes attributed with "sacredness". Underthe microscope, even atoms are seen as harmonic resonators, and their structures arecomposed of geometric rhythms whose proportions are similar to the mathematicalintervals governing the notes of the music scale. For example, the gap between the notesC and G—a musical fifth—can be represented geometrically as a pentagram.

As the expression of number in space, geometry is inextricably linked to sound, since

Experiments withplants and soundhave produced

effects similar tothose analysed inand around crop

circles, suggestingthat particular sonicfrequencies couldbe creating these

beautiful,mysterious designs.

by Freddy Silva © 1997–2005


The Crop Circular website:http://www.lovely.clara.net


the laws of the former govern the mathematical intervals thatmake up the notes in Western musical scales, also known asdiatonic ratios. Physical reality, it seems, is governed bygeometric arrays related to sound frequencies.

One of the mathematical minds studying crop circles was thelate Professor Gerald Hawkins. In February 1992 he published aninteresting challenge to the half a million subscribers of ScienceN e w s. Prof. Hawkins had studied the work of Euclid, a Greekmathematician of the third century BC, whose treatises on mathe-matics pretty much form the basis of our knowledge today. Heused the principles of Euclid to prove that four geometric theo-rems can be derived from the relationships of design elements incrop circles. More significantly, hediscovered a previously unknownfifth theorem from which he couldderive the other four. Euclid himselfhad not written it in his 13 treatiseson mathematics, and yet Prof.Hawkins showed that a gap existed inEuclid's work where logically itought to have fitted.

Despite an open challenge to thehigh IQ readership of Science News ,no one was able to create this fifththeorem. Needless to say, it came asa slight shock when it materialised asa 160,000-square-foot crop circle atLitchfield, England, in 1995 (see fig. 1).Incredibly, the theorem did not appear overtly, and, just like thechallenge laid by Hawkins, the Circlemakers required it to bedecoded from within their own design.

By their nature, the crop circle theorems produce diatonicratios, so a link now exists between crop circles and musicalnotes, which are the by-product of sound frequencies. And by1995, crop circles bearing unmistakable physical associationswith sound began to appear. One contained a curious ratchet fea-ture from which is extracted a musical diagram, the Lambdoma,dating to the ancient Egyptian mystery schools. Also known as

the Pythagorean Table, it defines the exact relationships betweenmusical harmonics and mathematical ratios (see figs 2a, 2b).

But it was a convincing crop circle etched in barley atGoodwood Clatford, England, in 1996—which had its plants bentsix inches from the top—that gave the proverbial nod to sound,for here was a representation of a cymatic pattern (see fig. 3).

Cymatics is the study of sound waves and their interaction withphysical substances. One of its modern pupils was Swiss scientistHans Jenny who, throughout the 1950s to 1960s, painstakinglycaptured on film the effects of sound as it interacted with powdersand liquids. He observed how sound vibration created geometricshapes: a low frequency produced a simple circle encompassed

by rings, whereas a higher frequencyincreased the number of concentricrings around a central circle. As thefrequencies rose, so too did thecomplexity of shapes, to the pointwhere tetrahedrons, mandalas andother sacred geometric forms couldbe discerned.

Just as the Egyptians had oncedescribed geometry as "frozenmusic", so Jenny now enabledhumanity to see it. Jenny also pro-vided a physical connection to thecreation of crop circles I'd been look-ing for, since many of the vibrationalpatterns captured in his photos mimic

their designs: from the simple circle surrounded by concentricrings, typical of early 1980s designs, to the tetrahedron and thecomplex star fractals of the 1990s (see fig 4).

Visually, then, the connection is undeniable. But what evi-dence links sound and crop circles at a physical level?

Sonic Effects in the Field and in the Laboratory• Audible sound

Many accounts exist of a trilling sound heard by the 80 reportedwitnesses to crop circles forming. This unusual noise, which

sounds like a cross between a cicada and a waterfall, wascaptured on magnetic tape in 1989 during a night watch ofa field at Cheesefoot Head, England, by a group ofresearchers. It was duly sent to NASA's Jet PropulsionLaboratory in Pasadena, where it was brought to the atten-tion of Robert Weiss, the man who had previously analysedthe famous Watergate tapes. He concluded that the noisewas not related to any type of bird or insect, and due to itslooping, rhythmic nature it appeared to be of intelligent,mechanical origin. Further, it contained a frequency of5.0–5.2 kHz.

Later that summer, the trilling sound was capturedagain—this time by a BBC cameraman whilst recording aninterview inside a crop circle. A few seconds after itsappearance, it rendered his US$55,000 camera useless.According to the technicians who later rebuilt the equip-ment, the sound frequency had interfered with the circuitryto such a degree that the camera would not work after thatepisode.

Interestingly, many latter-day Australian Aboriginesrelate to this trilling sound. During their ceremonies tocontact their "sky spirits", a specially shaped piece of woodcalled a b o r a is attached to the end of a long string andwhirled, creating a noise practically identical to the cropcircle sound. It was later discovered that not only have


Cymatics is the study of sound waves and their interaction

with physical substances. Low frequencies produce a simple

circle encompassed by rings,whereas higher frequencies

increase the number of concentricrings around a central circle.

Figure 1: Crop circle at Litchfield near Dunley, Hampshire, UK, formed 4 July 1995.Photograph © Steve Alexander 1998.

crop circles appeared in Australia, they have also manifestedthroughout Aboriginal myths, just as their geometries haveappeared in ancient Aboriginal rock paintings.

But back to that 5 kHz connection, since it has taken me on ajourney of extraordinary connections, particularly regarding theway in which sound interacts with plants and soil. Back in the1950s, American agricultural researcher George Smith found thatexposing corn to sound frequencies produced a higher heat con-tent in soil as well as a slight burnt appearance in the plants. Sucheffects are consistent with thesoil of crop circles, where theaffected area appears noticeablydrier—in some cases, baked—compared with the rest of thefield, even despite overnightrain; the same applies to the"slight burning" at the base ofcrop circle stalks. Oddlyenough, Smith speculated at thetime that particular sound fre-quencies also increased molecu-lar activity in plants.

Three decades later, suchactivity was indeed discoveredin plant samples taken fromcrop circles. Tests performedsince 1989 by Michigan-basedphysicist Dr W. Levengoodconsistently show how theenergy creating crop circlesaffects seed embryo and plantgrowth and elongates the plants'nodes, even altering the patternof their crystalline structure.

The sudden and abnormalgrowth in plants affected by theenergy of crop circles wasattributed by Levengood tomicrowaves. However,microwaves have the ability torender biological systemssterile, and an overdose willeven kill organisms. Crop circleplants, on the other hand, arecertainly alive and well, so thereis another answer.

Already conversant with dis-coveries by Russian scientiststhat certain sound frequenciesnoticeably affected the growthof plants and seeds, MaryMeasures and Pearl Weinbergerexperimented with sound at theUniversity of Ottawa through-out the 1960s. They succeededin accelerating growth in wheat,but the sound also produced a resonant effect in the plants' cells,thereby affecting their metabolism. And the frequency appliedwas identical to the crop circle trilling noise: 5 kHz.

Perhaps the greatest connection linking sound to the manifesta-tion of crop circles lies in their greatest anomaly: the permanentbending of the plants' stems. In 1968, laboratory experiments atTemple Buell College, Colorado, measured the effects of music

on plants by subjecting them to different tones. Exposure toheavy metal music made the plants tilt in the opposite direction ordie, whereas classical music lulled the plants to lean toward thespeakers. But in the case of Hindu devotional music—the typeplayed by the sitar player Ravi Shankar—the stems bent in excessof 60º to the vertical, perhaps the closest any human has evercome to recreating that right-angle bend common to plant stems ingenuine crop circles.

Interestingly, applications of Indian devotional song to plantsduring the 1930s at AnnamalaiUniversity, India, also showed anumber of similar biophysicalchanges to those whichoccurred in plants collectedfrom crop circles and analysedby Dr Levengood.

Sound as one energy sourcecapable of creating crop circlesnow becomes very feasible.But what type of sound coaxesplants to bend and lie down byapplying firm and gentle pres-sure and, given the intricacyand complexity of latter-daypatterns, with a fine degree ofprecision?

• Ultrasound Interestingly, ultrasound is

capable of interacting withphysical elements to such anincredible degree. It can beaimed like a laser beam, andspecific frequencies can befocused to cause certain kindsof molecules to vibrate whileothers nearby are left unmoved.

The higher the frequency ofultrasound, the greater its abili-ty to be directed. This requiresfrequencies in the high MHzrange, such as those detectedfor over a decade inside cropcircles. The readings generallyhover in the vicinity of 260–320MHz. However, the frequen-cies inside them appear toincrease each year, and relativeto the increase in their geomet-ric complexity. This mirrorsJenny's experiments, whichshow that a relationship existsbetween the complexity ofcymatic geometries in propor-tion to the dispensed sound fre-quencies. In other words, the

higher the frequency, the greater the geometric intricacy.Such extremely high frequencies are known to affect states of

awareness and consciousness in humans, and visitors to crop for-mations often report this.

Such effects are traditionally associated with sacred spaces—stone circles in particular—and it is interesting to note that ultra-sound has been detected at stone circles and standing stones in


Figure 2a: Crop circle at Andover, Hampshire, UK, formed July 1995.

Figure 2b: Pythagoras' Circular Lambdoma, which contains all musicalratios. Diagram © Robert Faulkrod.

England. When tuned in the MHz range, ultrasound preventsdamage to sensitive tissue, so its healing properties are today usedin the treatment of muscular ailments. Again, this mirrors thefolklore of sacred spaces—and as far as crop circles are con-cerned, hundreds of people have also reported healings. Onelong-time sufferer of Parkinson's disease stopped shaking. A manwith a retinal eye tumour, 99 per cent malignant, saw the tumourshrivel away after contact with crop circles; this case is clinicallydocumented in New Hampshire, and the patient's doctor remainsat odds to explain this.

• InfrasoundBelow 20 Hz, sound becomes infrasonic, and such frequencies

influence biological processes. And here lies the direct connec-tion to crop circles.

Experiments throughout the 1980s at the Princeton EngineeringAnomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory demonstrate that theacoustic power of infrasound, when combined with high pressure,boils water inside a cavity in one nanosecond.

As water heats, it expands; and in the case of crop circle plantsand their water-filled stems, a close look reveals tiny holes in theirnodes (the plant's "knuckles"), indicating that the superheatedwater has blown outwards. The bases of the stems are made sub-tle like molten glass by the heat, leaving the now top-heavy plantsto collapse into their new horizontal position. Since this action(called "vapour cavitation") creates local temperature increases ofhundreds of thousands of degrees for a fraction of a second, it isnow not difficult to see how millions of gallons of groundwatercan disappear within and around the perimeter of a crop circle orwhy the plants attain their slightly burnt appearance.

Combine this with Levengood's discovery of microscopic blow-holes in the plants' cell-wall pits (indicating the rapid boiling ofwater inside the plant), and everything starts to fall into place.

Infrasound is also capable of atomising water molecules,creating a fine mist, and farmers in England and Canada havewitnessed columns of mist rising from within newly arrived cropcircles.

Finally, the lower the operating frequency of infrasound, the

greater the effect, and 18 Hz is the lowest safety threshold belowwhich the pressure formed by infrasound is known to produce dis-ruption to chromosomes.

Every northern summer, crop circle plants of every variety aresent to Dr Levengood for blind-testing, and some samplesinevitably show unmistakable disruption to their chromosomes.Yet give him samples from man-made designs and he finds some-thing remarkable: perfectly normal plants!

Psychic Questing with the CirclemakersSo, who is in control of this "technology" that is manifesting

these euphonious crop circles? In England, one highly respectedpsychic individual inadvertently vectored information about theorigin of crop circles during a trance session. Her name is

Isabelle Kingston.Psychic ability is undoubtedly the hardest practice

to prove because of the social barriers placed in frontof the quest for its understanding, the biggest of allbeing ridicule. Yet since the 1950s, Soviet parapsy-chologists have systematically established the sixthsense as a valid means of communication.

What gives Eastern scientists the edge is theirdeep-rooted understanding that nature is composedof both the seen and the unseen, and that many of itsphenomena—like ultrasound, infrasound and thegreater portion of the light spectrum—lie beyond ourfive limited senses of perception.

In Bulgaria, psychic abilities have proved so usefulthat they have been applied throughout education andmedicine. In the West, despite lack of publicacknowledgement, the employment of psychics isbecoming more commonplace than one might think.Psychics are today employed in successfully locatinggeological faults, in crime solving, even in predictingearthquakes. The military has admitted working withpsychics, both in remote viewing and in remoteinfluencing of policymakers, so something obviouslyworks.

The information vectored by Isabelle Kingston in


Figure 3: Graphic of crop circle at Goodworth Clatford, near Andover,Hampshire, formed June 1996. From www.cropcircleconnector.com.

Figure 4: Crop circle at Milk Hill, near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, formed August 1997.Photograph © Steve Alexander 1998.

1982 came from the Watchers, a universal group consciousnesswho appear throughout history, serving as helpful guides tohumanity during its times of tumultuous change. As the ShiningOnes or Els, they are featured throughout ancient Egyptian texts.They also facilitated the building of Europe's tallest mound,Silbury Hill ("Sil-bury" means "hill of the shining beings").

The problem with the information received by Isabelle was that,at the time, few knew what a "crop circle" was, so when theWatchers said they would provide signs of their purpose in thefields at Silbury Hill within seven days, no one in Isabelle's groupknew what to expect. Seven days later, a group of five crop cir-cles arranged like a Celtic cross manifested at the base of the5,000-year-old sacred site.

In succeeding years, Isabelle would be provided with furtherinstructions ahead of time as to the circles' locations and physicalattributes. Their appearance was often closely followed by mili-tary helicopters which seem to be able to pick up their electro-magnetic fingerprint on radar.

The main purpose behind the glyphs, weare told, is to feed information into theplanet's subtle energy grid, thus providinghuman beings with the tools that will helpthem wake up to their responsibilities as co-creators and achieve their greater potential.

To some, the message may seem somewhatsimplistic, even utopian, yet there is no doubtthat we are living in times of great upheaval,and whatever choices we are making as a col-lective will affect generations to come. Whatis already certain is that the tens of thousandsof people who have come into contact withcrop circles have taken with them amore positive world-view, and thischange in perception is quietly seepinginto the everyday world.

The Watchers spoke of technologyyet to be deciphered from the glyphs(spinning disc and antigravity devicesbased on the designs are being devel-oped as I write), and how the patternsare connected to all ancient sacred sitesvia subtle energies. It has since beendiscovered that all genuine crop circlesindeed lie at the crossroads of invisibleelectromagnetic pathways which criss-cross the entire globe, linking all sacredsites.

They also spoke of the designs being essentially createdthrough thought processes sent from other levels of awareness.These vibrations transform into sound and light as their frequen-cies are slowed down by our atmosphere and the laws of the phys-ical world. Indications of these processes would eventually bediscovered in the plants and the soil by people who'd be commu-nicated with at a subtle level of exchange.

The Sound of TransformationThe musical scale, constructed on the harmonics of sacred

geometry and now found within the framework of crop circles,represents the mathematical structure of the soul of the worldbecause it embodies the essence of the Universe. So it's no coin-cidence that a large percentage of crop circles can be identifiedwith, and by, ancient cultures who to this day honour their histo-ries through song and music, their healing rituals performed with

sound. This relationship is applied in Buddhist mandalas, whoseelaborate geometries are used to alter states of consciousness.Perhaps it is not by coincidence that crop circle designs mirrorthese intricate patterns, just as they bear an uncanny familiarity toJenny's materialisations of sound.

If sound vibrations are creating crop circles, is it not possiblethat they can arouse the individual at a spiritual level? After all,it's through music that whole human experiences are celebratedand carried on from generation to generation. It is very probablethat the very shape of the human ear—more specifically, thecochlea—is a spiral constructed according to the harmonic lawsof tone, just as the same spiral shape is the primary form fromwhich thousands of crop circles have sprung.

Music is a carrier for social change: the effect of Handel'smusic is believed to have reversed the lax moral values prevalentthroughout early Victorian England, just as the anarchic overtonesof Punk music corralled disillusioned youth into fighting an

Establishment that held no tolerance forthose who stepped outside its rules.

The effects on people's awareness aftercontact with crop circles is similarly docu-mented. In 1990, a pictogram at AltonBarnes sported the trident of Neptune orShiva—figures traditionally associated withtransformation. Ironically, it was throughexposure to this unique crop circle that mil-lions around the world felt transformed, justas images of crop circles today continue toenlighten the awareness of those who comeinto contact with them.

If sound is one of the formative principlesbehind crop circles, it is not surprisingthat these formations are leaving psy-chological impressions on those whoseantennae are extended and receptive totheir tune. ∞

About the Author:Freddy Silva is a writer and art directorwho has researched crop circles andsacred spaces from a multidisciplinarypoint of view since 1990. He is todayone of the world's leading experts onthese subjects as well as a bestsellingauthor. His comprehensive bookSecrets In The Fields: The ScienceAnd Mysticism of Crop Circles

(Hampton Roads, 2002; reviewed in NEXUS 9/06) is availablefrom his website, The Crop Circular, athttp://www.lovely.clara.net. The original version of this article,with accompanying colour photographs, can also be viewed athis website. Mr Silva is a scheduled speaker at the NEXUSConference in Brisbane on 23–25 September.

Further Reading • Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants, AllenLane, Penguin, 1974 • David Tame, The Secret Power of Music, Destiny, 1984 • Hans Jenny, Cymatic, Basillius Presse, 1972• Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice, Thames& Hudson, 1982, 1994 • Joachim Ernst Berendt, Nada Brahma, Destiny, 1983• Valerie Hunt, Infinite Mind, Malibu, 1989• Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind theIron Curtain, Prentice-Hall, 1970


If sound is one of theformative principlesbehind crop circles,

it is not surprising thatthese formations areleaving psychologicalimpressions on thosewhose antennae are

extended and receptiveto their tune.


Photographic Evidence of UFOs Landing on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC

As I write this article in June 2005, the official American policy of plausibledeniability, distraction and public dissuasion regarding UFOs is now more than50 years old. This policy is currently supported by nearly all politicians,Pentagon officials and members of the media regardless of their political or

religious affiliation. The policy began to emerge in 1942, due to increasing numbers ofmilitary encounters with UFOs during World War II. However, the current policy didn'tachieve its mandate until the year 1952, as dramatically growing numbers of UFO sight-ings worldwide were viewed by a range of responsible American leaders as the beginningof a possible alien invasion.

In 1952, during the month of July, many of the world's newspapers reported that dozensof strange, spherical, glowing, unidentified aircraft were sighted by hundreds ofeyewitnesses above the nation's Capitol. These objects had registered on radar as theyflew over Washington, DC, and F-94 jets were scrambled to intercept but they were easilyoutmanoeuvred by the UFOs. The UFOs reportedly were loitering in the area for manyhours through the night on at least two occasions and were able to appear and disappearmysteriously at will.

There were very few photographic images taken of those events, but they areimpressive. And yet, when those strange, glowing, unidentified aircraft returned againexactly 50 years later in July 2002, only a few media sources reported a brief but failedUFO intercept by F-16s. Most Americans had no idea that this was just the tip of theiceberg.

In fact, the events that occurred during 2002 were even more enigmatic than those of1952 because of the incredibly clear, high-resolution, night-time photographs that weretaken. Colour images captured on high-speed film by a professional photographer showconclusively that during the month of July 2002, on 4th and 16th, there were a number ofUFOs flying over the restricted air space of the Capitol Building and the WashingtonMonument. And as incredible as it sounds, they provide evidence that on July 16, UFOsencircled and landed on the Capitol Building roof and the surrounding park area late thatnight!

Here's what happened. On July 16 at approximately 12.30 am, a professional photogra-pher from Washington, DC, was shooting an album cover for a recording artist using theReflecting Pool and Capitol Building as a background. Based on the photographer's testi-mony and the two images that he took, there were no other people on the Capitol Buildinggrounds at that time. However, what is clear from these two images is that there were atleast five UFOs that penetrated restricted air space in that location. At least two of thesevehicles actually landed for a brief period. As that was occurring, one of the other UFOsentered the Reflecting Pool and submerged while yet another UFO hovered nearby overthe water, emitting an eerie-looking energy field that reflected light beneath it.

The DC photographer captured all of these images with a Nikon F-5 camera equippedwith a very expensive, distortion-free, AF-ED 600-mm F2.8 lens mounted on a tripod.The exposure time was one-fifteenth of a second on high-speed film, ISO 1600. The ISOmeter on the camera was set at 1200 to slightly overexpose the film and increase the over-all density of the image.

After taking the two pictures in front of the Capitol Building, the DC photographer thenmoved to a different location on the edge of the Capitol Building's Lower Senate Park.

July 1952 wasfamous for a UFO

flypast overWashington, DC,

and sightingsexactly half a

century later onCapitol Hill withinrestricted airspace

confirm that the USGovernment is still

not prepared todivulge what it

knows about UFOs.

by Robert Stanley © UNICUS Magazine, June 2005

1147 Manhattan Avenue #43Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, USA

Website: http://www.unicusmagazine.com


He estimates that 20 minutes elapsed before he took the nextand final shot of the evening. That image's exposure time was 3.5minutes. Hovering in the sky, just above a commercial building,there are a number of UFOs, some grouped in a triangularformation. Near the ground there are two UFOs in the distance.However, floating in the air in front of the DC photographer, thereare two oval-shaped, semi-transparent spheres of energy that hebelieves were UFOs equipped with some type of advanced opticalstealth device. The amount of alien activity that took place thatnight was mind-boggling.

The large formation of UFOs parked above the building emitteda strange energy. The highly complex signature of their energyfields was clearly captured on the film due to the long exposuretime and their close proximity to the camera. Just prior to leavingthe area, the UFOs generated a "wormhole" in space.Unfortunately, this incredible image came at a price. The DCphotographer's fingers were burned by radiation and took about ayear to heal.

During one of our conversations, he explained: "I was posi-tioned underneath these objects. And according to my images

they warped out, or whatever they did, andwent back to wherever they came from inthe time of that exposure. At that pointthere is an image that shows a centre set ofUFO formations in lateral and upwardmotions. I felt that I was caught in thethrust of something...like I was hit by amist, but there wasn't any moisture. Soonafter that, I noticed I had very fine, pinhole-sized burns in my fingernails...and my armsfelt like they were charged with some kindof energy."

More UFO Sightings in 2002–03Just 10 days later, on July 26, 2002, Fox

News correspondent Shepard Smithreported: "The night-time skies over thenation's Capitol came alive with blue andorange lights streaking across the sky, sosay a lot of panicked people who called into a radio station; no joke here. American

fighter jets in hot pursuit... NORAD [North American AerospaceDefense] confirmed to Fox News that two F-16s did scramble, butfound nothing! A mystery in the sky above Andrews Air ForceBase...that's the one the President uses."

Fox DC correspondent Brian Wilson continued the story. "It'sfair to say, Shepard, that there are a lot more questions thananswers at this point, but something strange was going on in theMaryland night sky. Here is what we know. At 1.00 am, thefolks at NORAD saw something they couldn't identify inMaryland airspace, not far from the nation's Capitol [r e s t r i c t e dairspace]. The track it was taking caused them some concern, sothey scrambled two DC Air National Guard jets to check thingsout. Now, DC Air National Guard confirms that two F-16s fromthe 113th Wing were vectored to intercept whatever it was thatNORAD was worried about.

"However, when the pilots got where they were supposed to be,they said they didn't see anything when they arrived on the scene.NORAD would not provide details about the exact location, direc-tion or speed of the object they were tracking. Independently, anumber of folks who live in Waldorf, Maryland, which is not far

from Andrews Air Force Base and not farfrom the nation's Capitol, called local radiostation WTOP to say that, at about the sametime, they witnessed a fast-moving, brightblue light in the sky. They claimed that thelight was being chased by military jets. Onewitness told the radio station that the jetswere right on its tail: 'As the thing wouldmove, a jet was right behind it.'

"An investigation is underway. ButNational Guard spokesman Captain SheldonSmith said: 'We don't have any informationabout funny lights.' By the way, this justhappens to be the 50th anniversary of aseries of still-unexplained sightings over thenation's Capitol, a story that made banner-headline news in 1952. Shepard, we'll con-tinue to watch for this."

Meanwhile, that same night, a father andson in Arlington, Virginia, had gone outsideto get their cat off a ledge outside a second-floor window around 1.15 am. They were


UFOs over the Washington Monument and Capitol Building, July 4, 2002. (Photo © WGA 2002)

On July 16, 2002, a blue sphere-shaped UFO lands briefly on the Capitol Building roof (lower right ofdome), then takes to the air. (Photo © WGA 2002)

both looking up at the side of the house, wondering how to gettheir cat down, when two circular white lights flew over theirhouse. They estimated the UFOs were about the size of a baseballheld at arm's length. The UFOs were visible for about two min-utes before moving off, but soon came back again.

This time, both UFOs stopped close by—and that was when thefather and son realised the spheres were small. Both UFOsstopped for a second, and then one of the objects flew away at aright angle to its previous path of flight. The other objectremained motionless for about five seconds before continuing onpretty much its original direction. These were two separateobjects flying in tandem at first, andthen separately. They were clearlyunder intelligent control.

Four months later, on November 11,2002, the DC photographer capturedanother amazing night-time photographof a small UFO. This object was ametallic sphere about the size of a golfball that silently defied gravity. It liter-ally floated over the head of a beautifulblonde model before swiftly movingoff.

One year later, in November 2003,Fox News reported that Air Forcefighter jets had once again beenscrambled and that the White House had briefly been evacuatedon November 20 after "birds" or possibly "disturbances in theatmosphere" tripped radar that keeps watch on restricted airspacearound the complex.

According to Fox News, Federal Aviation Administrationspokesman William Shumann said: "It's a false radar target.When the NORAD fighters got to the location of the allegedviolation, they found nothing." NORAD is the command centrefor the defence of American and Canadian airspace. Shumannexplained how "flocks of birds or atmospheric disturbances mighthave caused the false radar reading, whichwas initially thought to be a plane flyingwithin five miles of restricted airspacearound the White House". He said: "It'sone of those 'electronic gremlins' that popup, but there was no aircraft there."

Swarm over the Capitol in May 2005So, should we just forget what happened

in 1952 and again in 2002 and 2003? Thoseevents are behind us now and no one wasseriously injured, right?

But what if I told you that a "swarm" ofUFOs passed over our nation's Capitol asrecently as Monday, May 2, 2005, at 8.45pm Eastern Time? According to an eyewit-ness, a fleet of UFOs once again passedthrough restricted airspace undeterred.

Below is the amazing account that wassent to me by a friend of the DCphotographer. I spoke with him on thephone 24 hours after the event and he wasstill in shock from what he had observed.This man, whom I call "the graduatestudent", is highly intelligent and verycredible. He is working on his PhD inanthropology at a Catholic university. He

wrote: "I was in my bathroom of my apartment on U Street, NW,DC, looking out the window, when I saw a helicopter with itssearchlight on as it cruised at about 400 feet elevation movingwest to east over the S Street, NW, area. This is a normal thing tosee in my 'hood. I just paid attention because it had thesearchlight on, which is generally only used when they arelooking for bad guys on the ground.

"However, the searchlight of the helicopter went directly overwhat appeared to be a very large swarm of bees. I thought thiswas very strange, not only to see such a swarm at that altitude butalso that these objects must have been a lot larger than bees to see

them that distinctly from about 1/8 mileaway and approximately 400 feet up!

"The helicopter continued on its wayas if it did not see anything. Nor did itfix its light onto the strange swarm. SoI began looking more closely at this"swarm", which was cloud-like butseemed to have the distinct shape of avery large triangle. It was the size of afootball field and was much larger thanany aircraft. The wind was blowingwest to east at about 10 mph (theyahoo.com weather page said it wasNW 10 mph that night). Either way,the wind was not blowing westerly—

which makes my next point even stranger. The clouds in the skywere either standing still or moving toward the east.

"This group of objects started to cruise south toward theNational Mall. At this point I yelled for my wife to come to thebathroom. 'Get in here now! You have to see this weird thing inthe sky!' I pointed it out to her and she watched with me as wetracked it moving east to west over The Mall, over theWashington Monument, toward the Lincoln Memorial, and offtoward the Pentagon area.


But what if I told you that a"swarm" of UFOs passed over

our nation's Capitol as recentlyas Monday, May 2, 2005, at

8.45 pm Eastern Time?

A closer look at the three lights over the Washington Monument, July 4, 2002. (Photo © WGA 2002)

"Now, mind you, this is exactly the route the airplanes use toenter DC airspace to land at Washington National Airport. Oneproblem, though: the planes must approach from west to east—the exact opposite of what this thing was doing. And this thingwas about 15 times or more the size of a 747...easily! It alsoemitted what appeared to be a faint light—which could have beencity light reflecting off of it, but it did seem to be generating thisvery faint light, almost like it was shimmering, or some weirdphasing of light, like when you are seeing a heat mirage off of hotasphalt. Then it simply faded off into the distance and out of ourview.

"Again, it was huge, appeared to have a triangular shape,though the mirage-like shimmering somewhat distorted this, had apossible illumination effect and was moving against the wind at agood speed. It must've been moving pretty fast, since it coveredground from Logan Circle area to the Capitol Building area,across The Mall toward the LincolnMemorial and then off to the Pentagon area,all within a matter of minutes. Yes, the F-16s can do that even quicker, I know, butthis was not moving at 10 mph as the windwould suggest if it were a cloud, nor was itmoving in the same direction of the otherclouds! Okay, so you tell me what the hellthis was?"

Historically, the official answers to thisquestion have been: (a) temperature inver-sion layers; (b) weather balloons; (c) balllightning; (d) swamp gas; (e) gremlins; (f)meteors; (g) birds; and (h) stars.

National Security IssuesNow, compare the May 2, 2005,

event to what occurred just nine dayslater. The FAA revoked the pilot'slicence of a Pennsylvania man whoflew his two-seater Cessna intoWashington, DC's restricted airspaceon May 11, causing a highly emotionalevacuation of the White House andCapitol Building mid-afternoon. Justhow serious was this event? NORADsent two F-16s and a Black Hawk heli-copter to intercept one Cessna.

The FAA said the flight instructorhas had his licence revoked and must wait at least a year to applyfor a new one and start over with flight school lessons. Becausethe instructor was the only licensed pilot in the aircraft, he wasresponsible for the restricted airspace violation. According toFAA spokesman Greg Martin: "It's an extraordinary action thatreflects how seriously we view violations within restricted air-space."

The big question regarding this ongoing alien incursion ofrestricted airspace is: at what point does a UFO, or swarm ofUFOs, represent a threat to national security? Clearly, a two-seater Cessna aircraft is considered a threat to national security.Why not a UFO? Perhaps it is because UFOs have not taken anyovert hostile action toward us...yet?

But by the mid-1950s, having studied the matter for years, theUS Government had concluded that the public's potential to panicdue to waves of UFO sightings was the only clear and presentdanger to national security. And thus began the official denial,distraction and dissuasion regarding this matter.

Do our current leaders in Washington, DC, know about thisissue? Clearly, part of their job is to know what's going on, andmost are briefed daily from a variety of sources.

One such source is the aforementioned photographer who haslived and worked in Washington, DC, for many years. He is anintelligent, patriotic American who felt it was his duty to reportwhat had happened to the proper authorities. That's why he wentto the Capitol Building a few days after the evening of July 16,2002, and met with members of the detective division of theCapitol Police. He patiently showed them the UFO images he hadtaken on July 4 and 16 and explained the night's events. Aftersome careful consideration, the detectives told him "no crime tookplace" and therefore they would not make a report. Undeterred,he next sent copies of his photographs and a detailed report to theOffice of the President, but he received no reply. He thencontacted officials at the Pentagon. Not surprisingly, there has

been no official response as yet. He thensubmitted his work to National Geographicand eventually met with an assistant artdirector who was very excited about thepictures. The DC photographer did not hearback from him for a month, and when hecalled National Geographic to inquire abouthis pictures he learned that the assistant artdirector had been fired.

When I spoke by telephone with the publicrelations officer for the Capitol Police aboutthe events that transpired on the night of July16, 2002, I was told: "We can neither con-firm nor deny if a report exists on this event."

When I asked if the Capitol Police areon duty all night, he replied: "Securitypersonnel are stationed around the areaat all times and security cameras are onall the time for surveillance of theCapitol Building and surroundinggrounds." Finally, I wanted to know ifany representatives worked in theCapitol late at night after the building isclosed to the public. The officerexplained: "Members do conduct busi-ness at night and will work as late asrequired."

During the course of my investiga-tion of this incredible case, I have dis-

covered an immense amount of material regarding UFOs andWashington, DC. As a result, a book entitled Capitol Offence:Alien Incursions of Restricted Airspace , written by myself and theDC photographer, will be published later this year. If you or any-one you know has further information regarding this case, pleasecontact me at [email protected]. ∞

About the Author:Robert M. Stanley is a writer and researcher specialising intechnology trends. His article on Robert Krupa's "FireStorm"spark plug was published in NEXUS vol. 12, no. 2, and hisinterview with space technology consultant David Adairappeared in NEXUS vol. 9, no. 5.

This article is copyright © 2005 UNICUS Magazine, 1147Manhattan Avenue #43, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, USA.Robert Stanley can be emailed at [email protected] the UNICUS Magazine website at http://www.unicus-magazine.com.


By the mid-1950s, the US Government

had concluded that thepublic's potential to

panic due to waves ofUFO sightings was theonly clear and present

danger to nationalsecurity.



THE BREITENWINNER CAVEEXPLORATION IN 1535

Dear Sir: Following your request forfurther information subsequent tothe publication of this article in

NEXUS June–July 2005 [12/04], I wouldlike to provide some facts which may behelpful. Amberg is a medium-sized town(approximately 50,000) in northeasternBavaria in Germany. Since the 13th cen-tury it has been a centre of trade to Bohemia(Czech Republic), the border of whichtoday is about 100 km away. It is situatedon the eastern border of the FrankonianJura, a limestone formation well known forits many caves and mining activities back toprehistoric times. For more detailed infor-mation on the area, I have included a copyof a current road atlas.

Inconsistencies of the article• "...citizens of the town of Amberg set

off to a mountainous area three miles dis-tant from Amberg." There is no village ofPredenwind within this distance of thetown, and one has to question why thegood citizens had to stay overnight inHohenburg just to cover three miles.

• The cave is called "BreitenwinnerCave", supposedly because it is near thevillage of Predenwind. I think it is fair toconclude that Breitenwinn and Predenwindare one and the same location, "Preden-"being an old form or local dialect of theHigh German "Breiten-". However, frommy knowledge of the dialect spoken in the

area, "Preden-" is not a word used; rather, itmay come from Flat German, which isspoken in the far north of Germany.

• It is unclear if this text is the original,but, if so, the style and words used are notconsistent with the time when it was pub-lished. For comparison, I also include acopy of a text published in 1552, whichdespite the archaic font can be read bymost German-speakers but certainly is noteven close to what the Buchner accountprovides.

Historical/geographical background• There is a cave called "Holloch" ("hol-

low hole"), close to another one called"King Otto Cave", close (about three miles)to a village called Breitenthal and two vil-lages called Kirchenwinn andReicherstwinn, in an area about 12 kmsouthwest of Hohenburg. With an earlystart from Hohenburg, these caves could bereached by early/mid-morning. Breitenthalcould have been called "Breitenwinn" inthe past. Alternatively, this may point to asimple mix-up of place names.

• The caves are just outside a restrictedmilitary training area which was estab-lished in the first half of last century(Hohenfels Truppernübungsplatz), and Iwent to both caves when I spent time withthe military. Holloch is like an elongatedgate through the mountain, whereas theother is known to be quite extensive under-ground.

• Back to before Roman times and for along time after, the area was settled bySlavic people called "Wendish" (Wendenin German), equivalent to "Sorbs"(Sorben). With the eastward colonisationof the Franks after 800 CE, Germanic peo-ple increasingly settled there too, living inreasonable coexistence and indicated bymany place names ending in -thal, -dorf,-hausen, -ing, etc. However, typical Slavicnames remained, such as those ending in-winn, -wind, -a, -is, -itz. It is interestingto note that the Romans called today'sAugsburg "Augusta Vindelicorum", theWendish "Augusta". Also the noble familyof Windischgrätz, royal in both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Holy RomanEmpire of the German Nation, has its rootsin exactly the same area.

• These Slavic tribes were renowned fortheir mining skills and at the time of theBuchner publication in 1535 may havebeen marginalised and taken up living incaves and abandoned mines. This accountsfor the encounter with the female "ghost".

It is also undisputed that the Jura caveshad been occupied even before Neolithictimes; so, not surprisingly, even fossilisedbones in great quantities may be found.

I conclude by agreeing that the "ignorantwill not believe this story" but equally alsothose who have some understanding ofhistory.

Best regards, Peter L. Zeidler, Richmond, Victoria,

Australia



MASS SIGHTINGS OF UFO FLEETOVER XALAPA, MEXICO

Amass UFO sighting took place onFriday 24 June 2005 in Xalapa,

Mexico. This stunning event waswitnessed by Xalapa's governor, FidelHerrera Beltrán, members of his staff,many officers of the Xalapa policedepartment, newspapers and televisionreporters and many people gathered at CasaVeracruz for an official ceremony for thedelivery of new police patrol cars to thepolice department.

The amazing incident took place at 10.30am, causing commotion, excitement andsome alarm among the people and officials.

Just after Governor Beltrán finished aspeech inaugurating the new units, hisattention was called by his officials whowere signalling to the sky where a strangespectacle was appearing.

A fleet of at least 14 unknown flyingobjects shocked the entire gathering atCasa Veracruz who, pointing to the sky,screamed "OVNIs, OVNIs!" in a tremen-dous state of excitement. The police offi-cers were also signalling to the sky, won-dering what these unknown flying objectscould be.

Newspaper reporters were taking photosand the television crew videotaped theentire spectacle. Governor Beltrán took themicrophone and said jokingly: "It seemsthe Martians have arrived!"

After some minutes, Governor Beltráncontinued reviewing the new police patrolunits while the attention of the people wasdivided between the official act and theUFO spectacle.

Some time later, Governor Beltránreturned to the stage and, looking again tothe sky, realised the UFOs were still there.So he took the microphone again and begancounting the objects—one, two...thirteen,fourteen—to the smiles of the people.

The enigmatic flying objects remainedalmost static in the sky, in a formationdescribing a triangular pattern in perfectalignment for almost 30 minutes.

(Source: By Santiago Yturria, 25 June 2005,via http://www.rense.com/general66/massive.htm)

ENGLISH WORDS IDENTIFIEDON BLACK TRIANGULAR CRAFT!

On 9 April 2005, I saw what I believe tobe a UFO in Comanche County,

Texas, at 9.12 pm local time. That evening, I was walking back to my

motor home after wild boar hunting in anunpopulated area that I lease for hunting.The sky was clear, the wind was calm andthe sun had just set. The sky was growinga darker and darker blue straight above andstars were beginning to show...

I had my rifle set up with a high-techLeupold optical sight (scope), which isextremely accurate and highly specialisedfor great light-gathering ability and per-forms best in low-light conditions. Thescope magnifies the target image with greatsharpness and definition and the magnifica-tion is adjustable from 4.5 to 14 times thatof the natural image.

Upon my return to the motor home, Iwas tired after a long walk. I had carriedquite a bit of equipment with me. I sat on a

chair, took my eyeglassesoff and towelled my face, asit was already becoming hotin Texas.

While I rested, withoutmy glasses on, I noticedthree very "unfocussed"lights to my south and theselights were moving towardme. Immediately I put myglasses back on and sawwhat I believe was a UFO.

The object approachedfrom the south-southwest,and while moving north-northeast it passed almostdirectly overhead, makingno sound whatsoever.

I estimated its altitude tobe somewhere about 800

feet and its air speed approximately 30mph. It "floated" and did not fly, as itobviously had insufficient airspeed to fly.(I am a physicist and an FAA-licensedpilot.)

I could clearly see its underside, as it wasilluminated from the fading sunlight to thewest. I estimated that the machine wasabout 60 feet wide, 80 feet long and 10 feetthick at the rear. Under its belly, there wasa straight line going from its leading tiptoward the centre of the aft edge of thefuselage, which was perpendicular to its[direction of] travel. This straight edgeclearly showed its shape to be three-dimensional. The straight line showed thatits belly was V-shaped, much like the hullof a speedboat.

This machine was directly over me and Iwas alone in the middle of nowhere, there-fore I felt quite "uneasy". It made nothreatening moves whatsoever, but I aimedmy rifle at it and through the riflescope,which was set on 8.5 power, I could clearlysee surface detail in explicit detail.

The machine's surface detail appeared tobe covered with well-fitted tiles, much likethe ceramic tiles used on the US spaceshuttle.

Then, in the fading light, I noticed adistinct marking. This marking wasabsolutely shocking, as I could actuallyread it! It was white print outlined in blackon a red arrow pointing toward a rectangleof sorts...something rectangular that Icannot define, but I clearly could read thesewords, "EMERGENCY RELEASE andRESCUE". In the same place were otherwords that appeared too fuzzy to read. Isuspect that these words were "PULLFOR..."

Instantly I realised that this was a mili-tary machine and no "flying saucer". I feltmuch better, as I knew that these were sur-face details that were intended to help res-cuers gain access to remove the pilots onboard in the event of a crash.

I kept the crosshairs on the centre of theaircraft as it disappeared into the darkness,but as I realised it was "one of ours" and itwas not a threat to my personal safety (Ithink) I put the rifle safety back on.

I can see, however, that others may have"defensively" shot at it—and that may haveresulted in a crash of the vehicle.

(Source: From a UFO report posted on 16April 2005 at http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/043/S43465.html)

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

"Drought's been bad, so I've only gota bunch of cropless circles this year."


BRAZILIAN AIR FORCE BEGINSDISCLOSURE ON UFOs

Friday 20 May 2005 was an historic dayfor ufology in Brazil and in the world.

The Brazilian Air Force (FAB), for thevery first time in its history, officiallyreceived a committee of top UFOresearchers to openly discuss sightings inthe country and fully examine classifiedUFO documents in two separate militaryfacilities in Brasilia, the federal capital.

"We want to have all information on thesubject, which has been withheld by us forsome decades, fully released to the publicthrough the UFO community," declaredBrigadier Telles Ribeiro, chief of theBrazilian Air Force communication centre.

The Brazilian Government, through theBrazilian Air Force, has finally decided tocome forward and recognise UFO researchas a genuine activity.

This is a direct result of the intense pres-sure made by the campaign "UFOs:Freedom of Information Now", a move-ment started by the Brazilian U F OM a g a z i n e in April 2004. The campaignwas launched by the Brazilian Committeeof UFO Researchers (CBU), composed ofsix UFO civilian researchers: ClaudeirCovo, Marco Petit, Rafael Cury, Reginaldode Athayde, Fernando Ramalho and A. J.Gevaerd.

Details of the campaign in bothPortuguese and English can be consulted atwebsites http://www.ufo.com.br andhttp://www.ufo.com.br/secrecy.php.

The approach of the Brazilian military tothe CBU committee started last February,10 months after the campaign began, with aphone call from a Brazilian Air Forcespokesman, Major Antonio Lorenzo, and aformal invitation to a visit and a chat insome Air Force headquarters in Brasilia.

Two meetings between the civilian UFOresearchers and the military took place onFriday 20 May, and the first was in theheadquarters of the Integrated Centre of AirDefence and Air Traffic Control (CentroIntegrado de Defesa Aérea e Controle deTráfego Aéreo, or CINDACTA), a verysensitive facility.

For over two hours, the researchers weregiven lectures on the procedures conductedat CINDACTA and had the chance to visitair traffic control rooms and understandhow UFOs could be detected by Air Forcepersonnel.

The second and more important meetingtook place just after this one at the very

reserved facilities of the Brazilian AirspaceDefence Command (Comando de DefesaAérea Brasileiro, or COMDABRA), aneven more sensitive installation that con-trols the entire air defence situation in thecountry and surrounding areas of theAtlantic Ocean and South America. In thisfacility, the UFO researchers were given afull briefing on the top aspects of aerialdefence of the country.

It was in this facil i ty that i ts owncommander, Brigadier Atheneu Azambuja,admitted to the UFO researchers howconcerned the Brazilian military is aboutthe UFO phenomenon. Azambuja alsogave details of COMDABRA proceduresand openly admitted that the country hassystematically detected and registeredUFOs in the country—labelled as "Htraffic"—since 1954.

After detailed explanations ofCOMDABRA activities, BrigadierAtheneu Azambuja gave full access for thefirst time to the civilian UFO researchers toexamine three different folders with classi-fied UFO information—cases from the spe-cific dates of 1954, 1977 and 1986.

The first case was that of an aircraft pur-suit of a UFO over the ocean shores ofParaná State.

The second file was much moreimportant. In the folder containing the1977 documents that could be examined bythe UFO researchers there were dozens ofcases of UFOs in the Amazon, with anamazing number of pictures—over 100—

made during the so-called OperationS a u c e r , an official program of UFOinvestigation by the military that took placefrom September to December 1977 and hasbeen fully covered by specialised UFOpress around the world.

The third case was "The Official Nightof UFOs in Brazil", a very significantgroup of events that happened in May1986, when 21 objects of over 100 metresin diameter jammed Brazilian air trafficcontrol systems over mainly Rio deJaneiro, São José dos Campos and SãoPaulo, and several jets were sent to inter-cept the intruders but without any success.

The Brazilian Air Force representativesat those meetings then admitted thatufology is serious business and theybroadly recognised the activity of UFOresearch by the civilian UFO community.

They also guaranteed that further stepsare about to be taken to let the researchersexamine the entire military UFO files in amore comprehensive way.

Plus, it was promised that a committee ofmilitary and civilian UFO researcherswould start operating very soon,coordinated by the Brazilian Committee ofUFO Researchers. ∞

(Source: By A. J. Gevaerd, Editor of UFOM a g a z i n e, Brazil, and head of theBrazilian Committee of UFO Researchers(CBU), posted 23 May 2005, [email protected], websitehttp://www.ufo.com.br)

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

From left: A. J. Gevaerd, Fernando Ramalho, Roberto Beck, Marco Petit, Rafael Cury and ClaudeirCovo outside the offices of the Integrated Centre of Air Defence and Air Traffic Control (CentroIntegrado de Defesa Aérea e Controle de Tráfego Aéreo, or CINDACTA) after their two-hour visit.


THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF PLANTSby Stephen Harrod BuhnerBear & Co., USA, 2004 ISBN 1-59143-035-6 (318pp tpb) Availability: Australia—Brumby Books, tel(03) 9761 5535; USA—Inner Traditions,http://www.innertraditions.com

In this insightful study of the natural world,herbalist and poet Stephen Buhner argues

that science will not progress if it continuesto rely on analytical, linear, reductionist,deterministic and materialistic modes ofcognition. The way forward is through anholistic, intuitive, "depth" mode that is morein line with how indigenous peoples gainknowledge of the world around them. Hisintention is to open us up to the idea that theheart is an organ of perception and intelli-gence, a brain that feels, that operates inphysical, mental, emotional and spiritualplanes. Native peoples and sensitive indi-viduals through the ages have been able tolearn directly from plants—that is, theylearned the uses of plants as medicines fromthe plants themselves, not through mere trialand error—and to do so they had to useheart-centred perception.

For the sake of explanation Buhner takesan analytical approach in the first half("Systole") of The Secret Teachings ofPlants, but he discusses information that's atthe cutting edge of science, dealing with thenonlinearity of nature, self-organisation oflife and bioenergetics as well as specifics ofthe heart as a multidimensional organ.

The second half ("Dystole") takes us on aninward journey into nature and the nature of

ourselves, and includes snippets of wisdomfrom remarkable people who have learnedfrom direct heart perception—Goethe, forinstance, who studied plant metamorphosis.

Buhner suggests that biognosis, this"knowledge of life", is an inherent aspect ofour humanness and something we all havethe capacity to develop; so he provides exer-cises to help us become more attuned andbetter able to "gather knowledge from theheart of the world" about everything fromour physical selves to the environment atlarge. In reality, this heart intelligence is away of being and it allows an intimate senseof connectedness with nature.

Experiment with Buhner's advice andyou're bound to feel and be more alive!

THE CALCIUM BOMBby Douglas Mulhall and Katja HansenThe Writers' Collective, Rhode Island,USA, 2005 ISBN 1-59411-101-4 (228pp hc) Availability: The Writers' Collective, tel800 497 0037 (toll free in North America);Amazon.com

One thing that's common to Alzheimer'sdisease, arthritis, cancer, heart disease,

psoriasis and a host of other illnesses is cal-cification: the build-up of calcium phos-phate deposits in the blood, blood vessels ororgans. Until fairly recently, these depositshave been noticed but ignored as having arole to play in the disease process itself.

So what's behind this calcification?According to authors Douglas Mulhall andKatja Hansen, writing in The CalciumBomb, the invaders at the heart of thesedeposits are "nanobacteria"—althoughthey're so microscopic that even the frontierscientists aren't sure whether they're bacteria

or not, so we may as well call them"nanobes". Signs of calcium build-up in thebody can be a signal of impending diseaseincluding tumour development, but if they'reso bound up in the disease precondition,what would happen if we could dissolvethem? Or should we be tackling the nanobesthat are at the heart of these calcium phos-phate deposits?

Breakthrough clinical studies are going onaround the world, utilising combinationscomprising the chelator EDTA, the antibiot-ic tetracycline and a cocktail of "nutraceuti-cals". The authors argue that if success isbeing had in reversing the symptoms of themost intransigent diseases of our times, thendoctors should be much better informed byhealth authorities about their benefits andthese treatments should be widely available.It's not so long ago that the bacterial sourceof stomach ulcers was discovered.

There's much to be learnt about prevention,too, in this "explosive" book. (Also seeMulhall's article in this issue.)

REVIEWS


Reviewed by Ruth Parnell

BIG OIL AND THEIR BANKERS INTHE PERSIAN GULFby Dean HendersonDean Henderson (self-pub.), USA, 2005ISBN 1-57558-000-0 (451pp tpb) Availability: Dean Henderson, 1706Diane Street, Papillion, NE 68046, USA,email [email protected]

The Illuminati's plan to control the world'sresources and implement a globalised

economy is well on track, although newfinancial and military alliances may still beemerging as the elite move their pieces onthe grand chessboard. The power behindthis centuries-old (if not millennia-old) cabalset on dominating the world is a group of"Eight Families" with the familiar nameRothschild at the top of the pyramid, joinedby other key European and American bank-ing families. Certainly many researchershave written at length about their centuries-long power plays, but Dean Hendersonassembles a staggering amount of detail inthe one place and makes some surprisingconnections about these power players inBig Oil and their Bankers..., while acknowl-edging the contribution of these researchersthroughout his commentary and in his(unnumbered) endnotes (though an indexwould have been helpful).

Tales of conspiracy and corruption are writlarge on every page, so much so that it's hardto single out any particular episode in recentor distant history that is worse than the next.But the theme running through the book isthat of the "Eight Families" who have the"Four Horsemen" of oil do their bidding;these are the giant oil/resource companiesExxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, BP-Amocoand Royal Dutch/Shell. Henderson, a politi-cal activist, organic farmer and columnist

with an MS in environmental studies, exam-ines their exploits in securing markets andrevenues but with reference, too, to theirglobal networks in intelligence and terrorismas well as in arms and narcotics trading.

However, Henderson goes further (perhapstoo far for some readers) to include his takeson the origin and spread of Freemasonry, onthe so-called "Protocols of the Elders ofZion" and on the Illuminati's connectionwith the allegedly reptilian Anunnaki "gods"linked with ancient Sumer (and popularisedin extreme conspiracy lore by author DavidIcke). Overall, an extraordinary exposé ofthe powers and events that are exacting aheavy toll on us, the people.

PYRAMID OF FIRE: The Lost AztecCodexby John Major Jenkins & Martin MatzBear & Co., USA, 2004 ISBN 1-59143-032-1 (175pp tpb) Availability: Australia—Brumby Books, tel(03) 9761 5535; USA—Inner Traditions,http://www.innertraditions.com

The Pyramid of Fire is a "lost" Azteccodex (hieroglyphic manuscript) which

was probably painted in the latter half of the15th century and has been protected by theMazatec of Mexico ever since. However, in1961, the American visionary poet MartyMatz, having lived in Mexico off and onsince the late 1950s, was initiated intoMazatec secret knowledge by a shaman, donDaniel, who read/performed the codex textto him for transcription in the nativeNahuatl. Matz also transcribed the originalpictographic form and translated the textinto English. Apart from sharing the contentwith his fellow Beat poets, he guarded thecodex translation for many years, and it was

not until 1995 that, on the suggestion ofTerence McKenna, he teamed up with Aztecand Mayan scholar John Major Jenkins tobring this material to a wide audience .

One of the fascinating things about thecodex—and the translation is included inthis book—is how it corresponds with whatcould be termed "perennial philosophy": a"visionary ascent literature" found in manytraditions around the world from the kabbal-istic, gnostic and alchemical to the teachingsof Gurdjieff. In the final chapter, Jenkinscompares the Pyramid of Fire's conceptswith those of Taoism and Hinduism. Thebasic premise is that personal sacrifice is anecessary prerequisite for spiritual growth.

Fascinating background is provided byMatz, with a short story on his search forPaititi—the legendary paradise city that endsthe spiritual quest—and an unfinishednovella structured upon all 13 pages of thecodex (Matz died in 2001). Interestingly,the 13th page of Matz's codex was missinguntil Jenkins was able to transcribe it from a

REVIEWS


recording Matz made in the early 1960s withJack Kerouac! There's additional commen-tary on the codex lines by Jenkins, who isconvinced the codex has mantric power andrelevance for our times.

THE COST OF A DISCOVERYby Loïc Le RibaultLLR-G5 Ltd, Ireland, 2003 (first publishedin French in 1998)ISBN n/a (488pp tpb) Availability: LLR-G5 Ltd, c/- Ross PostOffice, Castlebar, County Mayo, Republicof Ireland

If you followed Martin J. Walker's story ofthe persecution of French forensic scientist

Loïc Le Ribault in our last two issues, youmay be interested to read The Cost of aDiscovery. This is Le Ribault's memoir ofhis life in forensics as well as in developingthe G5 organic silica compound that has soriled the French authorities and the big phar-maceutical companies. It was first pub-lished in French in 1998, but Le Ribault hasupdated it for his 2003 English-languageedition, although it was released before hisimprisonment in Switzerland in November2003 and France in early 2004.

His recollections of his forensic researchare intriguing, although this work, too,brought on several battles with the authori-ties as he was not prepared to toe the line.One interesting aside in his coverage of thegrim forensic cases he's been involved withis his analysis of the videotape of the "live"executions of the Ceausescus of Romania.

It's a tragedy of our times that visionary,innovative and dedicated scientists like LeRibault are so persecuted instead of praisedfor providing answers for the ills that ail usand our societies. However, his battle with

the French state could have been duplicatedin any nation where a maverick who goesagainst the status quo comes up against thefull force of a corrupt police force, a com-promised judiciary and powerful corporateinterests. And yet Le Ribault's story is a tri-umph over adversity, for he's back in Irelandproducing his famous G5 formula withoutbeing persecuted and, with his supporters, ismaking a difference to people's lives. Oneperson can indeed help change the world,but at what personal cost?

THE BROTHER OF JESUS AND THELOST TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITYby Jeffrey J. BützInner Traditions, USA, 2005 ISBN 1-59477-043-3 (220pp tpb) Availability: Australia—Brumby Books, tel(03) 9761 5535; USA—Inner Traditions,http://www.innertraditions.com

Probably the most overlooked and sup-pressed figure in the early Christian

Church was James, younger brother (but notthe only one) of Jesus. According to authorJeffrey Bütz (a Lutheran minister, theologi-cal scholar and an adjunct professor ofworld religions at Penn State University), itwas James, not Peter, who was the leader ofthe fledgling Jewish Christian movementfrom the time of Jesus' crucifixion.

Highlighting some key scholarly investiga-tions into the historical Jesus as well ascanonical and apocryphal writings, Bützmaintains that breakthroughs in understand-ing come by analysing the figures in thecontext of their essential Jewishness. Heagrees that studying the life and works ofJames (Ya'akov) can give insights into thetrue teachings and story of Jesus—and howthey've been covered up by dogma and doc-

trine. The fact that Jesus had siblings at allis a cause of embarrassment for the RomanCatholic Church, he notes, because it threat-ens the doctrine of virgin birth and Jesus'mother Mary's perpetual virginity.

It was James who was embroiled in ideo-logical battles with Paul, and Bütz arguesthat Paul's interpretations, which became thefoundation of the Christian Church, were atodds in many ways with the teachings ofJesus. James' desire to retain Jewish lawand practices while upholding the ministryof Jesus lost out to Paul's zeal to take themission to the Gentiles, and the sack ofJerusalem in AD 70 cemented the split.

But the memory and teachings of Jameshave been kept alive as an undercurrent overthe last 2,000 years, quite separate from theRoman Church, as Bütz explains.

His hope is that the insights that Jamesprovides on his brother Jesus could help healthe rifts between Christianity, Judaism andIslam. His book is another in a growingmovement that's changing our perspectiveson historical and religious traditions.

REVIEWS


THE TRUE MEANING OF THE DA VINCI CODEby Robert PopeThe Science-Art Research Centre ofAustralia, Inc., 2005ISBN 0-9577784-7-3 (155pp tpb) Availability: Australia—The Science-ArtResearch Centre of Australia, Inc., PO Box773, Murwillumbah, NSW 2484, [email protected]

By adhering to a mechanistic world view,Western civilisation is on a path to

extinction, says Science-Art philosopherRobert Pope. The ancient knowledge passedon by the Greeks upheld a survival science,a "Saviour science" that was misinterpretedby Leonardo da Vinci but was privatelyunderstood by Isaac Newton.

Da Vinci was an "unbalanced genius"according to Professor Pope, and by"inadvertently" obscuring the "principle ofcreation" he helped bring into existence amechanistic mindset that is now acceleratinga global crisis of destruction. He made theultimate mistake by suggesting that all of theuniverse could be made visible to humanperception—and yet the Greeks, and otherancients before them, identified with a uni-versal reality in which harmonious, invisibleatomic movement generated divine wisdom.

In response to popular novels like DanBrown's The Da Vinci Code, Pope hopes toset the record straight by returning to theatomistic philosophy of the ancient Greekscholars such as Plato and Philo. Plato'sworld view is much more akin to a holo-graphic reality, Pope argues. The "truemeaning of the code", he suggests, relates toatomic movement creating evolutionary wis-dom, and he points out some classic exam-ples of Renaissance art that communicate

this truth. Furthermore, he says, the quest ofthe Knights Templar was bound up in ensur-ing that the wisdom of this code would notbe lost. In this escapade through thephilosophies of the ages, Pope reassessesour technocentric society and posits a betterway to achieve true democracy and peace.

THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO JESUSCHILDREN and the Descent of theSpirit of the Sunby Bernard Nesfield-CooksonTemple Lodge, UK, 2005 ISBN 1-902636-65-1 (82pp tpb) Availability: Temple Lodge,http://www.templelodge.com

There's an underground mystery traditionthat holds that there were two Jesus chil-

dren. The two completely distinct genealo-gies given in the canonical gospels ofMatthew and Luke lend support to thisnotion, says UK author and educatorBernard Nesfield-Cookson.

He contends that the genealogies ofMatthew and Luke split after King David;

the Matthew tree goes from Solomon,David's eldest and royal son, while in Lukeit goes from Nathan, the prophet-priest whowas another of David's sons. There weretwo Marys and Josephs, he says, as well astwo Jesus/Messiah contenders who were ayear apart in age, so these stories of thechildhood of Jesus are describing the livesof two different people, he maintains. The"two Jesuses" concept is recorded in variousapocryphal and gnostic texts, was known inthe Arab world, was portrayed in certainpaintings of the Renaissance era, and wasconfirmed in the so-called Dead Sea Scrollsthat were found at Qumran in 1947.

In fact, Nesfield-Cookson is a student ofRudolf Steiner, who in 1908–09, decadesbefore the scrolls were found, publicly dis-cussed this dichotomy. However, Steiner'scontention was that during the reputed miss-ing three days in the Temple, the wisdomand cognitive abilities of the Solomon Jesuswere transferred to the more sensitive, soul-ful, 12-year-old Nathan Jesus in a magicalceremony that fulfilled the prophecies, butwith the result that the former was depletedof his life-force and died. The fact that inci-dents like this were passed on and recordedin Renaissance art adds weight to theauthor's argument that there was an esotericundercurrent so strong that it was kept flow-ing through the centuries.

Nesfield-Cookson says that Steiner alsodrew on the wisdom of ancient Persia andIndia, suggesting that what happened in theTemple between the Solomon and Nathanlines was a fusing of the Zarathustra andBuddha streams of wisdom. He shines alight on the mystery of the "descent of thespirit of the Sun" in this thoughtful reassess-ment of biblical and spiritual history.

REVIEWS


UFO CRASH IN BRAZIL: A GenuineUFO Crash with Surviving ETsby Dr Roger K. LeirThe Book Tree, San Diego, USA, 2005ISBN 1-58509-105-7 (150pp tpb) Availability: The Book Tree, tel 1-800 7008733 (toll-free in North America), websitehttp://www.thebooktree.com

Aland of colour and contradiction, Brazilis no stranger to UFO and paranormal

activity and has had its fair share of truthfulclaims and cruel hoaxes surrounding thesephenomena. News of one particularlyunusual ET-related incident in July 1996 inthe city of Varginha, north of São Paulo,captured the headlines and hit the radars ofmost ufologists around the world.

Dr Roger Leir, who conducts research onUFO phenomena and has a particular focuson the physical evidence for alien implants(his book The Aliens and The Scalpel wasreviewed in NEXUS 6/03), has beenintrigued for years by this case. The famousVarghina incident involved a crashed UFOand a couple of surviving aliens who inter-acted with the populace for a short timebefore being hunted, captured and whiskedaway by the Brazilian military, possiblywith covert US military complicity.

In any case, it wasn't until 2002 that DrLeir managed to travel to Varginha to checkout the evidence, or what was left of it, forhimself. With help from contacts in theBrazilian UFO research world, he trackeddown and interviewed a number of eyewit-nesses to the strange incidents—includingpeople who'd not previously met each otherbut whose stories have uncanny similarities.Statements obtained in interviews from threeyoung girls who encountered one of thealiens, from medical staff on duty at the

medical hospitals, and from military person-nel involved in the retrieval support the casefor contact. Dr Leir believes that what hap-pened in Varginha is among the most impor-tant UFO events ever, especially as itinvolved direct human interaction withETs—true close encounters of the first kind.He also draws parallels with the 1947alleged UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico.

There are many bizarre moments andamazing scenes in Dr Leir's UFO Crash inBrazil, and enough travel highlights to makeyou think seriously about visiting Brazil—for the land and the people, not the aliens!

WELCOME TO THE DANCE: CaffeineAllergy—A Masked Cerebral Allergyand Progressive Toxic Dementiaby Ruth Whalen, MLTTrafford Publishing, Canada, 2005 ISBN 1-4120-5000-6 (423pp tpb) Availability: Trafford Publishing,http://www.trafford.com

It was not until 1999, some 27 years aftershe first showed symptoms, that lab tech-

nician Ruth Whalen was diagnosed withsevere caffeine allergy/toxicity. Apparentlyshe had developed a sensitivity to caffeineas a child (whose parents drank lots ofstrong coffee), and although she's now got itout of her system she still has to be carefulof going into anaphylactic shock should sheeven be around coffee bean aroma.

Embarking on a research effort, she dis-covered that her symptoms were similar toclassic signs of schizophrenia and bipolardisorder, and yet she had a hard time con-vincing doctors and psychiatrists that theirtreatments weren't helping her; they onlymade her worse and forced her into a psy-chiatric ward for a while. She also learned

that some drugs prescribed for these mentaldisorders contain caffeine, and thus canexacerbate an existing caffeine allergy.

Welcome to the Dance is Whalen's harrow-ing story of struggling with a confusing setof physical and psychiatric symptoms andwaking up to and learning to deal with hersituation. The foreword is by Dr A. Hoffer,president of the International SchizophreniaFoundation, who says that at least 40 percent of schizophrenic patients have foodallergies—a statement which supports thecall for more research to be conducted inthese areas, including into allergies to caf-feine and its metabolites such as theo-phylline. And let's not forget: caffeine isn'tjust found in cups of coffee but in softdrinks, chocolates and even teas. The caf-feine anaphylaxis that Whalen underwentwas like being chronically drugged onamphetamines, altering perceptions,thoughts and actions.

If you think you may have a caffeineallergy you'd be well advised to investigatethe literature on the subject, and Whalenprovides extensive listings.

REVIEWS



POWERDOWN: Options and Actionsfor a Post-Carbon Worldby Richard HeinbergNew Society Publishers, Canada, 2004ISBN 0-86571-510-6 (208pp tpb) Availability: New Society Publishers,http://www.newsociety.com

Independent "information worker" RichardHeinberg wonders how many more warn-

ings about impending environmental andeconomic crises do we have to have in orderto make changes to stave off the comingenergy famine and socio-economic melt-down. Briefly restating his Peak Oil argu-ment from The Party's Over (see 10/04), inPowerdown he proposes strategies to copewith the resource depletion, climate change,population pressures, declining food produc-tion, unsustainable debt levels and interna-tional instability about to overwhelm us.

Regarding this predicted energy famine,Heinberg believes that fossil fuels are non-renewable and their supplies finite, and thatthe signs are already here that the rate ofglobal oil extraction has peaked and willstart to subside within the next few years,regardless of any technical advances inexploration or recovery. Yet our demand foroil knows no bounds. This is obviouslyunsustainable, and Heinberg thinks thatsome form of collapse is now inevitable,though perhaps industrialised societies cando something to choose the form it takes.

He presents and analyses four options thatdemonstrate "the constraints and opportuni-ties of our unique moment in time": LastOne Standing, or the path of competition forremaining resources; Powerdown, the pathof cooperation, conservation and sharing(including development of alternative ener-gy sources and more equitable resource dis-tribution); Waiting for a Magic Elixir, wherewishful thinking, false hopes and denial dis-tract from the hard work to avert a catastro-phe; and Building Lifeboats, the path ofcommunity solidarity and preservation,which assumes that our civilisation cannotbe salvaged in anything like its present form.

Heinberg rejects "business as usual" as thesolution and suggests that a combined strate-gy of Powerdown and Building Lifeboatsmay preserve the best of what we haveachieved while easing us out of a dire fate.

Heinberg concludes that small-scale, sus-tainable, decentralised communities thatnurture individuals and preserve their cul-ture while protecting the environment holdthe answer for humanity to weather the com-ing challenges—but it means much sacrificeand effort on our part.

This is an alarm call for urgent action ifwe're to avoid decades of war, economiccollapse and environmental catastrophe.

COCONUT CURESby Bruce Fife, NDPiccadilly Books, Colorado, USA, 2005 ISBN 0-941599-60-4 (256pp tpb) Availability: Piccadilly Books Ltd,http://www.piccadilly books.com

If ever there were a true cure-all, coconutwould have to be it. Its water, meat, milk

and oil are prized in the Asia-Pacific regionfor its benefits in health, healing andlongevity, and its fibre is useful in a range ofapplications. Literally, a coconut a day cankeep the doctor away for peoples in the trop-ics and, for that matter, anywhere.

Coconut Cures is nutritionist and naturo-pathic doctor Bruce Fife's follow-up to hisbestselling book The Healing Miracles ofCoconut Oil (Piccadilly, 2001; see review inNEXUS 9/02). Fife has done much to edu-cate the public about the healing propertiesof the medium-chain saturated fats found incoconut products, and his new book has anabundance of advice on how to make themost of this gift from nature.

People who partake of coconut are lessprone to coronary artery disease, stroke,arthritis, asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer's dis-ease, auto-immune disease, psoriasis, cancerand many other illnesses compared with thegeneral population.

As a food, coconut is nutritious, safe andcan be taken freely; it promotes absorptionof other foods, particularly fat-soluble vita-mins (A, D, E, K) and minerals (calcium,magnesium, iron). It also has powerful anti-pathogenic, anti-inflammatory and immuno-regulating properties.

Fife advises on treatments for specific ail-ments using the products of the coconut;these are inexpensive, accessible and time-honoured alternatives that you can introduceinto your regime without having to resort topharmaceuticals. And forget about facelifts:applying coconut oil and partaking ofcoconut can reduce wrinkles and combatageing! For those who can get hold of freshcoconut, Fife has some fabulous recipes formaking your own coconut-based products.

REVIEWS

FORBIDDEN HISTORYedited by J. Douglas KenyonBear & Co., USA, 2005 ISBN 1-59143-045-3 (322pp tpb) Availability: Australia—Brumby Books, tel(03) 9761 5535; USA—Inner Traditions,http://www.innertraditions.com

The US-based bimonthly journal AtlantisRising has been plugging away with

alternative views on ancient history andmysteries for a decade or more. Now, itseditor, J. Douglas Kenyon, has compiled acollection of essays from its pages thatreflect a growing body of knowledge thatquestions the usual arguments and suspects,and applies some lateral thinking to our old-est conundrums on such questions as wherewe come from and where we are going.

The contributors are mavericks in theirfields but are carrying on with expanding theenvelope despite the occasional ridicule andextreme tactics from critics in academia.Several of them you'll have encounteredbefore in the pages of NEXUS, whether inour feature or science pages or reviews.

As well as Kenyon himself, contributorsinclude: Will Hart, on the futile search formissing links; Peter Bros, who exposes thescientific myth of the ice age; RobertSchoch, whose geological analyses confirmthe Sphinx is much older than Egyptologistsbelieve; Rand Flem-Ath, who wonderswhether alignments of ancient monumentshave something to do with the Earth's shift-ing crust; and Christopher Dunn, who specu-lates that the ancient Egyptians built theGreat Pyramid as a power plant.

Touched on by various of these contribu-tors are Velikovsky's catastrophe theories,Schwaller de Lubicz's secret wisdominsights, Michael Cremo's forbidden archae-ology work, John Michell's research into theAtlantean dimensions of megalithicEngland, Paul LaViolette's and John MajorJenkins's heralding of a superwave fromgalactic centre, and Wal Thornhill andDavid Talbott on the electric universe (seeDavid's items in Science News this issue).

This is a rollicking ride through history inthe process of being rewritten (although,again, navigation would have been helpedby the inclusion of an index).

COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose toFail or Surviveby Jared DiamondAllen Lane/Penguin, 2005 ISBN 0-7139-9862-8 (575pp tpb) Availability: http://www.penguin.com

Many societies have failed in the past,but a handful have succeeded in pros-

pering for millennia. So what can we learnfrom their experience and how can we applyit to societies today so that we don't repeatmistakes? In Collapse, his epic analysis ofthe changing fortunes of civilisations ancientand modern, Jared Diamond acknowledgesthat many cultures have disintegrated due toenvironmental crises—most of which have,at least in part, been self-induced.

Diamond identifies eight categories ofprocesses through which past societies havebrought on unintended ecological suicide:deforestation and habitat destruction, soilproblems, water management problems,overhunting, overfishing, effects of intro-duced species on native species, human pop-ulation growth and increased per-capitaimpact on people. He adds four more cate-gories for today: human-caused climatechange, environmental build-up of toxicchemicals, energy shortages and full humanutilisation of the Earth's photosyntheticcapacity. It's claimed that most of these 12threats will become globally critical withinthe next few decades.

Diamond uses diverse examples from pastand present societies, treating them with hishard-hitting, down-to-earth perspective toencourage us to connect with the rhythms ofnature that produce times of abundance andthen scarcity. The chapters cover a broadspectrum from the vanished Anasazi of theFour Corners of southwestern USA to ourmodern-day, drought-ridden Australia.

Ultimately, Diamond takes a positive noteby stressing that our environmental, eco-nomic and social problems are not insur-mountable but can be solved if we choose tostart solving them. However, part of ourchoice must involve a realistic assessment ofour modern consumer values and livingstandards, for we cannot continue treadingroughshod over the environment if we wantto survive into the future. He also takes apot shot at corporations who put so muchpressure on fragile environments, but pointsto more enlightened alternatives involvingstewardship. Then again, there's not toomuch you can do about an asteroid impacton our planet. Sometimes, collapse just isn'tyour fault at all! A powerful, timely book.

REVIEWS



THE CHARLIE HALL STORY: AnInterview with Charles J. Hall by PaolaLeopizzi Harris and David CooteProduced by Paola Leopizzi Harris© 2005 www.paolaharris.it (150mins) Availability: Paola Harris, via her websitehttp://www.paolaharris.it

At the beginning of this millennium,Charles James Hall, a physicist and

information technology specialist, tookadvantage of a period ofunemployment to write histhree-volume autobiogra-phy. Large portions of hiswritings are devoted to arecord of his real-life expe-riences with ETs. He titledhis book series MillennialHospitality (see 12/02) andpublished it as fiction toprotect the names of peoplehe worked with. He statesunequivocally that theevents actually took place.

This historic video interview conducted in2003–2004 is the first to put Charles Hall onthe record and on the map. As a weather-man in the US Air Force, he was assigned tothe desert ranges in the vicinity of thefamous, super-secret "Dreamland" and Area51. Hall not only claims to have witnessedinteraction between "tall white" aliens andUS military officials, but that he ended upplaying a simple yet significant role in thisjoint terrestrial–ET project. It is a fascinat-ing study of protocol and human–ET inter-action on an exopolitical level.

CIRCLE SPEAK: A Journey into theHeart of Crop Circle Country© 2005 New Land Films (217mins) Produced by Laurence NewnamAvailability: New Land Films, PO Box32660, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA,website http://www.circlespeak.com

This film comes with high praise fromvirtually all the leading luminaries from

the crop circle research field (pardon thepun). I have to agree that it is the mostcomprehensive documentary on the subjectthat is "out there". In the process ofcovering the history of this phenomenon,

the producers introduce us to all the maincharacters—believers, sceptics, circle-makers and researchers alike. The filmskilfully skirts all the personal politics, butstill manages to capture the "big picture" ofall that has transpired since the late 1980s.

It has excellent graphics and productionquality, and heaps of interview clips witheveryone involved. All angles of explana-tion are covered and great scientific detailappears where it is needed.

A must-have for all croppies!

STAIRWAYS TO HEAVEN: The Practical Magic of Sacred Space© 2004 Awaken Productions (54mins) Produced and written by Freddy SilvaAvailability: Freddy Silva, [email protected], websitehttp://www.lovely.clara.net

Gothic cathedrals, 200-tonne rocks, stand-ing circles, crop circles, sacred geome-

try and cymatics are all woven together inthis excellent documentary.

Freddy is to be congratulated on such pro-fessionalism, considering he wrote, pro-duced and directed this film. His choice of

musical scores is alsogreat—and I had to keepreminding myself that Iwas not watching a UK TVdocumentary.

This is a very informativefilm which asks lots ofquestions and suggestssome intriguing answers.

For example, I liked thethoughts at the end of thefilm, where it is suggestedthat the energy used to cre-ate crop formations couldlikely be affecting the deep

water aquifers under that part of the planet;and using the concept of water being able toretain memory, it is considered that thewhole planet's water could be receivinginformation in the form of frequencies.

Stairways to Heaven also links in withFreddy's excellent book Secrets in the Fields(see 9/06), which explores the role of soundin the formation of these intriguing designs(see his article in this issue).

This film is truly a visual and mental feastthat will leave you wanting more.

Reviewed by Duncan Roads

REVIEWS

ECHU MINGUA by Miguel "Angá" Díaz World Circuit, UK, 2005 (59mins)Distributors: Aust—MRA, tel (07) 38496020; UK—World Circuit, tel (0)1689870 622, http://www.worldcircuit.co.uk

Percussionist Miguel "Angá" Díaz madehis reputation with Irakere, a leading

Cuban jazz ensemble, and started playing onAfro-Cuban All-Stars projects in the late1990s. His solo debut is World Circuitlabel's most unusual Cuban fusion project todate. Band members on Echu Minguainclude Cachaito on bass, flautist MagicMalik and DJ Dee Nasty. The CD has fourfine pianists: Irakere's leader ChuchoValdés, Roberto Fonseca (of Ibrahim Ferrerfame), David Alfaro (Afro-Cuban All-Stars)and Rubén González. Malian Baba Sissokois a guest on vocals and n'goni. A funky andunusual album of unique Cuban jazz.

SPIRIT OF HAVANA by Kargo New World Music, UK, 2005 (54mins)Distributors: Australia—NWM, tel (02)9565 4522; UK—NWM, tel 01986891600; Europe—MCC, tel +49 4102898202; USA—NWM, tel (303) 4151040, http://www.newworldmusic.com

The sounds of Cuba have become verymuch a part of the world music scene

since the Buena Vista Social Club hit theheadlines in the late 1990s (see NEXUS5/02). This album of Cuban music blendsthe Cubanismo rhythms with a touch ofstrings and piano and musical synth patternsthat add an ethereal sound. Pleasant musicwith a good Cuban and sometimes Spanishfeel, but it may not satisfy those fans of thetrue Buena Vista genre. There's much moreof a Spanish influence that's enticing.

DAKSHINA by Deva Premal Prabhu Music, UK, 2005 (55mins)Distributors: Aust—New World Music,tel (02) 9565 4522; UK—Prabhu Music,http://www.prabhumusic.com,http://www.MitenDevaPremal.com

The goddess of song must have smiledupon Deva Premal early in life as she is

now one of the biggest minstrels of devo-tional sounds in the West. Her albums (seeNEXUS 10/04) sell well throughout theWestern world. The new album Dakshina,with her rendering of traditional mantras in anewer devotional style, with a richly layeredproduction (with help from Miten and Kit

Walker), has blazed a trail of mantra acrossthe globe. The album topped the new agecharts at Amazon.com as soon as it wasreleased. Its time has come.

DIVINE DEVOTION by Sacred Earth Sacred Earth Music, Aust, 2004 (56mins)Distributors: Australia—New WorldMusic; Sacred Earth Music, websitehttp://www.sacredearthliving.info

In Australia, it's always encouraging to seelocal artists doing well. This album by

Sacred Earth is another of devotional musicwith a difference. Sublime vocals by Pene(Prem Ayliah) provide a beautiful, heartfeltsound, and the elegant flute playing byJethro combines to create a very warm,Earth-connecting musical experience. Theembracing, liquid, angelic sounds of thefemale voice especially on tracks three andfour, together with acoustic guitar backing,are a real feast. Their first album,Pamanyungan (2003), was awarded "Albumof the Year" by the Queensland RecordingAssociation. This second release is destinedto be another success.

TANTRA OF SOUND HARMONIZER by Jonathan Goldman & Andi GoldmanSpirit Music, USA, 2005 (56mins)Distributors: USA—Spirit Music, tel 800246 9764 (toll free in USA), websitehttp://www.healingsounds.com

Over the years we've reviewed severalalbums to be used as tools to open up

the chakras and improve brain balance andharmony. This one uses a system calledSynchroSound that balances brainwaves andthe body. It contains sacred sound, toning,chanting psycho-acoustic frequencies andsound texture to create a profound tool forhealing and communication. JonathanGoldman is known worldwide for his soundhealing work and has released a book to gowith the album. The CD itself comes with a16-page booklet to explain its processes.

Reviewed by Richard Giles


REVIEWS

regime change can be attractive because itis "less distasteful than diplomacy and lessdangerous than living with new nuclearstates". However, he noted: "There is onlyone problem: it is highly unlikely to havethe desired effect soon enough."

A Possible Attack on Iran's NuclearFacilities

The presence of US General James L.Jones, Supreme Allied CommanderEurope, and Retired US Army GeneralJohn M. Keane at the Bilderberg meetingin Germany suggested to us that the nextstage of the conquest is about to begin.

An American neo-con at an afternoondrink-fest said he was convinced that the"Iranian opposition movement" will unseatthe mullahs. Nicolas Beytout of Le Figaroexclaimed: "You don't really believe that!"A tall, bald, well-dressed Swiss gentleman,believed to be Pascal Couchepin, head ofthe powerful Department of Home Affairs,replied reflexively that it will only succeedin having the Iranians rally behind theirgovernment. He ended by saying: "Youdon't know Iranians."

Tempers boiled over momentarily whena French Bilderberger, raising his voice,told Kissinger that "an attack on Iran willescalate out of control". According tosources working for the CIA and the spe-cial unit of the US Army charged with pro-tecting the US delegation at Rottach-Egern,both the CIA and the FBI are in open revoltagainst the Bush White House.

A member of the Greek Parliament askedEival Gilady, strategic adviser to IsraeliPrime Minister Ariel Sharon: "What wouldhappen if Iran were to retaliate?" Someonepointed out that even if the United States orIsrael were to show restraint in their use oftactical nuclear weapons, an attack onIran's nuclear facilities would surely notonly engulf neighbour states, raising thelikelihood of a broader war, but alsosucceed in creating a nuclear disasterthrough nuclear radiation spilling over awide area.

As a follow-up question, someone asked:"How much of this war has to do withAmerica doing its utmost to prevent Iranfrom becoming a regional power?" AFrench Bilderberger wished to know if theimpending attack on Iran would involve theUnited States and Israel working in

tandem, or if it would be a NATOoperation. The question was directed atNATO Secretary-General Jaap G. de HoopScheffer. Another European Bilderbergerwanted to know how the US was planningto cope with three wars simultaneously,referring to Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran.

The reader should be reminded that thereare now 150,000 US troops deployed inIraq who are unable to move to anothertheatre of operations because of effectiveresistance tactics. The Israeli delegationwas pressed to answer if Israel is preparedto use nuclear weapons against Iran. Theanswer was incoherent.

What is so terrifying about Iran as atheatre of operations is that, according toour deep sources (both of whom belong tothe Bilderberg group), there are twoalternative dates set for the invasion. Theearliest possible date would be in the"deadest of summer", some time in August,and the other alternative is a late autumncampaign. This substantially confirms theinformation provided by Scott Ritter, theex-Marine turned UNSCOM weaponsinspector, who stated that "George W.Bush has signed off on plans to bomb Iranin June 2005" (Aljazeera, 30 March 2005),

Breaking the Silence: Bilderberg Exposed



although he did go on to clarify that theJune date suggests that the US and Israelare "in a state of readiness".

Russian vs American Foreign Policy Policy discussion began with a European

expert on international relations pointingout that over the next several years Russiais poised to assert itself and increasinglychallenge Bush Government foreign policygoals.

Someone openly asked the committee ifthe world is safer today than in 2001 and ifit will be safer in four years' time. ADutchman responded by saying there is lit-tle doubt that the hand of international ter-rorism has been substantially strengthenedby the US Government's heavy-handed pol-icy in the Middle East. A DanishBilderberger wondered about what hadhappened to the US promise to take alower-key approach in Iraq—referring tothe heavy-handed tactics employed byAmerican troops in the siege of Fallujah,which played an important role in alienat-ing a large cross-section of moderate Arabstates. Additionally, the Dutchman pointed

out, terrorism hasn't been confined to theIraq theatre of operations but has escalatedacross Asia, Africa and most of the MiddleEast.

A blonde woman, believed to be ThérèseDelpech, Director of Strategic Affairs forthe Atomic Energy Commission, said thatunilateralist policy actions by the US willonly succeed in alienating friendly nationsand emboldening enemy combatants. "USis not all-powerful. It must coordinate itspolicy with other great powers to achieveits ends."

An oil expert believed to be from Britain,possibly Sir John Kerr of Royal DutchShell, focused on the oil pipeline fromSiberia to northern China. TheBilderbergers openly wondered at themedium-term repercussions of this deal.An American investment banker asked justhow much oil is expected to flow throughthis pipeline. Another member of the oilcartel offered 65–80 million tonnes peryear as a ballpark figure.

India's Missile TestsDuring Saturday night cocktails at the

bar, neo-con Richard Perle was seen andheard talking to a group of Bilderbergers,

amongst them Philippe Camus, Presidentof the European Aeronautic Defence andSpace Company (EADS), Donald Grahamof the Washington Post and General JamesL. Jones about the near-future test-firing ofIndia's Agni 3 intermediate-range ballisticmissile capable of carrying nuclearwarheads. General Jones added that such aweapon would greatly increase India'scapabilities because, according to the four-star general, India's strategic deterrents willbe able to strike targets deep insideneighbouring China. In fact , Dr M.Natarajan, head of the prestigious DefenceResearch and Development Organisation(DRDO), said as much two weeks later on17 May in New Delhi.

The 2005 German ElectionsThe Bilderbergers also discussed how to

dust off the "boring" image of AngelaMerkel, Germany's "future leader", aheadof the German elections on 18 September2005.

A short, oversized male Bilderbergeroffered an opinion that in order for thewidest cross-section of the German publicto accept Merkel (leader of the ChristianDemocratic Union opposition) as




Chancellor, it would be important to give anew definition to the term "family values".German Bilderbergers well versed in theconservative Bavarian collective psychebelieve that Merkel, a divorcee with a doc-torate in physics, doesn't have a "reliable"enough image to attract sufficient votes inthis staunchly conservative area of thecountry. According to people withinearshot of the discussion, the idea "in theup-coming campaign would be to stress theimportance of families rather than marriageas an institution".

Bilderbergers pushing GerhardSchroeder aside in favour of a new candi-date could very well signify that, after threeyears of strife between American andEuropean Bilderbergers over the war inIraq, the secret society is ready to moveforward with a much- revised and morecohesive policy. It must be rememberedthat Schroeder, along with FrenchPresident Chirac, was one of the mostvociferous European critics of the US-ledIraq intervention.

Both Schroeder, representing the left,and Merkel, representing the right, are

owned by the Bilderbergers. It has beenthe group's policy since its inception in1954 to own both horses in the race.

For the record, every US Presidentbelongs to the Bilderberg group or its inter-locked sister organisation, the Council onForeign Relations. Although Bush Juniordidn't personally attend the meeting inRottach-Egern, the US Government waswell represented by William Luti, RichardPerle, Dennis Ross and Allan Hubbard.

Towards a One World Government History teaches by analogy, not identity.

The historical experience is not one of stay-ing in the present and looking back; rather,it is one of going back into the past andreturning to the present with a wider andmore intense consciousness of the restric-tions of our former outlook.

If democracy is the rule of the people,then secret government agendas andsinister, influence-peddling cliques whichstand for cunning selfishness areincompatible with it. The whole idea ofclandestine spheres of influence wagingsecret campaigns is therefore foreign to thenotion of democracy and must be foughtwith zealous determination.

Through lies and obfuscations,Bilderbergers are desperately trying to foistonto the unwilling world population a total-itarian One World Government, a singleglobal currency and a syncretic universalreligion.

Those of us who care deeply about thefuture of politics—domestic andinternational—cannot afford to ignore thefact that the grimly political One WorldGovernment is no longer merely a shadowsubculture. It has, in fact, emerged as thedominant force in world affairs. ∞

About the Author:Daniel Estulin is an award-winning inves-tigative journalist who has been researchingthe Bilderbergers for over 13 years. He wasone of only two journalists who witnessedand reported (from beyond the heavilyguarded perimeter) the super-secretBilderberg meeting at the Dorint SofitelSeehotel in Rottach-Egern, Munich, Bavaria,Germany, on 5 to 8 May 2005.

Mr Estulin can be contacted by email [email protected]. The full textof his article, including the list of partici-pants, and other Bilderberg stories are avail-able at http://www.onlinejournal.com.




Navy had been won by the Kreigsmarine,and that the story had been suppressed inthe Western press for fear of stimulatingGerman resistance. Only one destroyerwas reputedly spared and the Captain wasreported as declaring, "May God help me,may I never again encounter such a force".8

Though the story has been suppressed andthe British Government would never admitto the event, rumours of the naval battle arewhispered amongst ex-servicemen—butalas, very little of the rumour issubstantiated.

The missing U-boats were part of theAntarctic jigsaw puzzle that Britain hadbeen putting together since the Nazis firstsent Admiral Ritscher on his Thule-sponsored polar mission. And withBritain's Intelligence network—the SOE(Special Operations Executive) and the SIS(Secret Intelligence Service)—providingvirtually all the information to the AlliedForces via the E n i g m a m a c h i n e9 and itsimmense European spy network during theWar, the picture was appearing slowly.

One prime example of Britain'sIntelligence excelling was in how much

Britain knew about the Nazi's secret atomicweapons programmes which, in turn,helped the RAF bomb the Nazi's secretresearch station at Peenemünde in theBaltic Sea. The Germans were at a loss tohow the British had even heard about it, letalone been able to bomb it.

Continued next issue...

About the Author:James Robert is a civil servant with anagency of the UK Ministry of Defence, aswell as a World War II historian andwriter. He has travelled extensivelythroughout North Africa and Europe toinvestigate mysteries of Britain's secretwars. With a family from a military back-ground, and with German sources givingmany so-called "myths" credence, he hasset a personal mission to delve deeperinto the strange, suppressed, little-knownand anomalous activities that were con-ducted before, during and after the waragainst Germany. "Britain's Secret War inAntarctica" has been taken from his forth-coming book that will document some ofhis investigations.

James Robert can be contacted [email protected].

E n d n o t e s1 . Admiral Byrd's press release, 12 November1 9 4 6 .2 . El Mercurio, 5 March 1947; Admiral Byrdinterviewed by Lee van Atta.3 . Former British SAS officer, documenting the1945–46 Neuschwabenland campaign.4 . Le Monde, 18 July 1945.5 . Hart, Basil Liddell, History of the SecondWorld War, Cassell, London, p. 410.6 . ibid., p. 411.7 . P r a v d a, 16 January 2003, citing a confidentialletter from Scheffer to Bernhard. The letter, dated1 June 1983, was seized by Special Services,whom a German source claims were from the for-mer German Democratic Republic (GDR) andsent at the USSR's behest.8 . The Captain cited by El Mercurio and D e rW e g has never been named, nor has the story beengiven any credence by the British Navy.9 . The Intelligence network performed wondersfor the Allies, especially after the capture of anE n i g m a machine with decoding documents on 9May 1941; the German U-110 was captured byHMS B u l l d o g and HMS A u b r e t i a of the 3rdEscort Group. The Germans never discovered thefact that Britain had broken their "unbreakable"codes. However, it was Britain's fortuitous cap-ture which painted the full picture and helpedcomplete the jigsaw puzzle, thus compelling themto take the possibility of a Nazi Antarctic havenseriously before others did.

Britain's Secret War in Antarctica



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