An unidentified flying object (UFO) forced Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, Chinato cease operations on July 7. A flight crew preparing for descent first detected the object around 8:40 p.m. and notified the air traffic control department. Aviation authorities responded within minutes, grounding outbound flights and diverting inbound ones to airports in Ningbo and Wuxi.
Eighteen flights were affected. Though normal operations resumed an hour later, the incident captured the attention of the Chinese media and sparked a firestorm of speculation on the UFO’s identity.
“It is a hidden U.S. bomber flying toward China,” one Internet user wrote on Monday. Another wrote on Sunday night, “In my opinion, the UFO is neither a U.S. missile nor a Russian satellite. Suggestions that it is extraterrestrial are even more preposterous. Everyone, use your head. This is clearly a man-made phenomenon. Would the U.S. or Russia risk provoking China’s anger by firing a missile or satellite rocket in Chinese skies, without warning? I believe the Chinese military is responsible for the UFO. It is a new missile or aircraft being tested out.”
This artist’s rendering depicts NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft as it studies the outer limits of the heliosphere – a magnetic ‘bubble’ around the solar system that is created by the solar wind. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 29, 2010 NASA’s plucky Voyager 2 spacecraft has hit a long-haul operations milestone – operating continuously for 12,000 days. For nearly 33 years, the venerable spacecraft has been returning data about the giant outer planets, and the characteristics and interaction of solar wind between and beyond the planets.Among its many findings, Voyager 2 discovered Neptune’s Great Dark Spot and its 450-meter-per-second (1,000-mph) winds.
The two Voyager spacecraft have been the longest continuously operating spacecraft in deep space. Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, when Jimmy Carter was president. Voyager 1 launched about two weeks later on Sept. 5.
The two spacecraft are the most distant human-made objects, out at the edge of the heliosphere – the bubble the sun creates around the solar system. Mission managers expect Voyager 1 to leave our solar system and enter interstellar space in the next five years or so, with Voyager 2 on track to enter interstellar space shortly after that.
Having traveled more than 21 billion kilometers (13 billion miles) on its winding path through the planets toward interstellar space, the spacecraft is now nearly 14 billion kilometers (9 billion miles) from the sun. A signal from the ground, traveling at the speed of light, takes about 12.8 hours one-way to reach Voyager 2.
Voyager 1 will reach this 12,000-day milestone on July 13, 2010 after traveling more than 22 billion kilometers (14 billion miles). Voyager 1 is currently more than 17 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) from the sun.
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – Brain scans may be able to predict what you will do better than you can yourself, and might offer a powerful tool for advertisers or health officials seeking to motivate consumers, researchers said on Tuesday.
They found a way to interpret “real time” brain images to show whether people who viewed messages about using sunscreen would actually use sunscreen during the following week.
The scans were more accurate than the volunteers were, Emily Falk and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.
“We are trying to figure out whether there is hidden wisdom that the brain contains,” Falk said in a telephone interview.
“Many people ‘decide’ to do things, but then don’t do them,” Matthew Lieberman, a professor of psychology who led the study, added in a statement.
But with functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, Falk and colleagues were able to go beyond good intentions to predict actual behavior.
FMRI uses a magnetic field to measure blood flow in the brain. It can show which brain regions are more active compared to others, but requires careful interpretation.
Falk’s team recruited 20 young men and women for their experiment. While in the fMRI scanner they read and listened to messages about the safe use of sunscreen, mixed in with other messages so they would not guess what the experiment was about.
“On day one of the experiment, before the scanning session, each participant indicated their sunscreen use over the prior week, their intentions to use sunscreen in the next week and their attitudes toward sunscreen,” the researchers wrote.
After they saw the messages, the volunteers answered more questions about their intentions, and then got a goody bag that contained, among other things, sunscreen towelettes.”
“A week later we did a surprise follow up to find out whether they had used sunscreen,” Falk said in a telephone interview.
About half the volunteers had correctly predicted whether they would use sunscreen. The research team analyzed and re-analyzed the MRI scans to see if they could find any brain activity that would do better.
Activity in one area of the brain, a particular part of the medial prefrontal cortex, provided the best information.
“From this region of the brain, we can predict for about three-quarters of the people whether they will increase their use of sunscreen beyond what they say they will do,” Lieberman said.
“It is the one region of the prefrontal cortex that we know is disproportionately larger in humans than in other primates,” he added. “This region is associated with self-awareness, and seems to be critical for thinking about yourself and thinking about your preferences and values.”
Now, Falk said, the team is looking for other regions of the brain that might add to the accuracy of the technique.
While the findings can be important for advertisers seeking to hone a motivational message, they can be equally important for public health experts trying to persuade people to make healthier choices, Falk said.
The team is now preparing a report on experiments to predict whether people would quit smoking after seeing motivational messages.
Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.
National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.
Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,”Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, told The Daily Telegraph in an interview.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
Dr Fisher added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”
While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.
Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.
Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.
He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.
A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.
He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.
“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.
“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”
The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity”.
It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).
Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.
“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.
His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat
The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm
These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.
The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.
Saturn’s moon Titan, shown here in an artist rendering is loaded with liquid methane and shrouded by heavy clouds. Might it support life? New evidence raises the possibility, but scientists say it’s more likely the findings involve non-biological processes. Credit: NASA/JPL
New findings have roused a great deal of hoopla over the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan, which some news reports have further hyped up as hints of extraterrestrials.
However, scientists also caution that aliens might have nothing to do with these findings.
All this excitement is rooted in analyses of chemical data returned by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. One study suggested that hydrogen was flowing down through Titan’s atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Astrobiologist Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center speculated this could be a tantalizing hint that hydrogen is getting consumed by life.
“It’s the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,” McKay said.
Another study investigating hydrocarbons on Titan’s surface found a lack of acetylene, a compound that could be consumed as food by life that relies on liquid methane instead of liquid water to live.
“If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth,” McKay said.
However, NASA scientists caution that aliens might not be involved at all.
“Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed,” said Mark Allen, principal investigator with the NASA Astrobiology Institute Titan team. “We have a lot of work to do to rule out possible non-biological explanations. It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results.”
“Both results are still preliminary,” McKay told SPACE.com.
To date, methane-based life forms are only speculative, with McKay proposing a set of conditions necessary for these kinds of organisms on Titan in 2005. Scientists have not yet detected this form of life anywhere, although there are liquid-water-based microbes on Earth that thrive on methane or produce it as a waste product.
On Titan, where temperatures are around minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 degrees Celsius), any organisms would have to use a substance that is liquid as its medium for living processes. Water itself cannot do, because it is frozen solid on Titan’s surface. The list of liquid candidates is very short — liquid methane and related molecules such as ethane. Previous studies have found Titan to have lakes of liquid methane.
Missing hydrogen?
The dearth of hydrogen Cassini detected is consistent with conditions that could produce methane-based life, but do not conclusively prove its existence, cautioned researcher Darrell Strobel, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., who authored the paper on hydrogen appearing online in the journal Icarus.
Strobel looked at densities of hydrogen in different parts of the atmosphere and the surface. Previous models from scientists had predicted that hydrogen molecules, a byproduct of ultraviolet sunlight breaking apart acetylene and methane molecules in the upper atmosphere, should be distributed fairly evenly throughout the atmospheric layers.
Strobel’s computer simulations suggest a hydrogen flow down to the surface at a rate of about 10,000 trillion trillion molecules per second.
“It’s as if you have a hose and you’re squirting hydrogen onto the ground, but it’s disappearing,” Strobel said. “I didn’t expect this result, because molecular hydrogen is extremely chemically inert in the atmosphere, very light and buoyant. It should ‘float’ to the top of the atmosphere and escape.”
Strobel said it is not likely that hydrogen is being stored in a cave or underground space on Titan. An unknown mineral could be acting as a catalyst on Titan’s surface to help convert hydrogen molecules and acetylene back to methane.
Although Allen commended Strobel, he noted “a more sophisticated model might be needed to look into what the flow of hydrogen is.”
Consumed acetylene?
Scientists had expected the sun’s interactions with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene that falls down to coat the Titan surface. But Cassini mapped hydrocarbons on Titan’s surface, it detected no acetylene on the surface, findings appearing online in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Instead of alien life on Titan, Allen said one possibility is that sunlight or cosmic rays are transforming the acetylene in icy aerosols in the atmosphere into more complex molecules that would fall to the ground with no acetylene signature.
In addition, Cassini detected an absence of water ice on the Titan surface, but loads of benzene and another as-yet-unidentified material, which appears to be an organic compound. The researchers that a film of organic compounds are covering the water ice that makes up Titan’s bedrock. This layer of hydrocarbons is at least a few millimeters to centimeters thick, but possibly much deeper in some places.
“Titan’s atmospheric chemistry is cranking out organic compounds that rain down on the surface so fast that even as streams of liquid methane and ethane at the surface wash the organics off, the ice gets quickly covered again,” said Cassini team scientist Roger Clark based at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. “All that implies Titan is a dynamic place where organic chemistry is happening now.”
Speculation ‘Jumping the Gun’
All this speculation “is jumping the gun, in my opinion,” Allen said.
“Typically in the search for the existence of life, one looks for the presence of evidence — say, the methane seen in the atmosphere of Mars, which can’t be made by normal photochemical processes,” Allen added. “Here we’re talking about absence of evidence rather than presence of evidence — missing hydrogen and acetylene — and often times there are many non-life processes that can explain why things are missing.”
These findings are “still a long way from evidence of life,” McKay said. “But it could be interesting.”
A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, made his claim in a television interview.
MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern.
He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets.
The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns.
In his letter he says that – assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke – it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin.
He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state secrets.
Mr Ilyumzhinov said in an interview on primetime television that he had been taken on board an alien spaceship which had come to planet Earth to take samples – and claims to have several witnesses.
He has been president of Kalmykia, a small Buddhist region of Russia which lies on the shores of the Caspian Sea, for 17 years.
The millionaire former businessman has a reputation as an eccentric character.
As president of the World Chess Federation, he has spent tens of millions of dollars turning the impoverished republic into a mecca for chess players – building an entire village to host international tournaments.
Hawking has depicted what kinds of alien could be out there
Jonathan Leake
THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.
“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”
The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history.
One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.
Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease and has very limited powers of communication. The project took him and his producers three years, during which he insisted on rewriting large chunks of the script and checking the filming.
John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: “He wanted to make a programme that was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that’s a tough job, given the complexity of the ideas involved.”
Hawking has suggested the possibility of alien life before but his views have been clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery, since 1995, of more than 450 planets orbiting distant stars, showing that planets are a common phenomenon.
So far, all the new planets found have been far larger than Earth, but only because the telescopes used to detect them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at such distances.
Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonise its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.
Hawking’s belief in aliens places him in good scientific company. In his recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as likely places to look.
Similarly, Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, warned in a lecture earlier this year that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding.
“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,” he said. “Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”
Stephen Hawking’s Universe begins on the Discovery Channel on Sunday May 9 at 9pm
For those who doubt the veracity of my blog yesterday suggesting that the Icelanders had summued up some kind of Nordic god in revenge for Britain’s use of strong armed tactics to extract compensation over the Icesave collapse, take a look at the following photograph.
Incredible it may seem, but taken by the Icelandic coast guard a few days back using special cameras, it shows the three main vents of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. If this is not the face of some fallen deity summoned up from the undeworld, I don’t know what is.
(CNN) — Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said.
The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m., said the National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wisconsin, just west of Milwaukee.
“The fireball was seen over the northern sky, moving from west to east,” said the NWS in the Quad Cities area, which includes parts of Iowa and Illinois.
“Well before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight,” the service said. “Several reports of a prolonged sonic boom were received from areas north of Highway 20, along with shaking of homes, trees and various other objects including wind chimes,” it said.
It said the fireball was seen across parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. CNN affiliate WISN-TV said that people in Ohio also saw it.
Video from WISN showed a massive ball of light exploding across the sky. The Doppler Radar from the Quad Cities weather service appeared to capture a portion of the smoke trail from the fireball at just after 10 p.m., the NWS said. It appears as a thin line extending across portions of Grant and Iowa Counties in Wisconsin.
There has been no official determination as to what caused the fireball, the NWS in Sullivan said.
However, it said there is a meteor shower called Gamma Virginids that occurs from April 4 to April 21, with peak activity expected on Wednesday and Thursday.
“A large meteorite could have caused the brilliant fireball that has been reported,” the National Weather Service said.
The NWS in Quad Cities said that it was unknown if any part of a meteorite hit the ground.
According to NASA, a meteor appears when a meteoroid — a particle, chunk of metal or stony matter — enters the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space.
“Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles,” it said. “People sometimes call the brightest meteors fireballs.”
Special Offer: You’ll Work Through Four Remote Viewing Targets Using a Simplified Version of PSI TECH’s Military Remote Viewing Structure – Absolutely Free!
PSI TECH’s Quickstart system allows beginners to test themselves against a series of 4 remote viewing targets, following a set structure via guidance from an online instructor.
ow everyone who is curious about remote viewing will be able to try it online, in the privacy of their own homes, without having to make a commitment to a complete training program. Using a proven structure, the new Quickstart Online System is a web based remote viewing testing program that will guide a beginner through a series of five basic remote viewing targets. No previous experience or training is required.
How Quickstart Works
We developed Remote Viewing Quickstart Online* to allow those who are interested in remote viewing training to have a taste of what it is like, prior to investing in an in depth training course. The program is designed to take a person who has no previous exposure to remote viewing, and show him or her how to describe and sketch a provided blind target, using a modified form of Technical Remote Viewing. This structure, based on techniques used by PSI TECH and the U.S. military’s remote viewing training program, is designed to facilitate a beginner’s ability to establish and maintain site contact and retrieve accurate raw data.
An online monitor will guide you through each of your sessions, essentially holding your hand, explaining each stage of the process, so that you do not have to pause to think or guess what to do next. Every participant will be taught how to describe each target’s sensory and dimensional data and produce a kinesthetic sketch of the target. Following each monitored session, you will be provided with the target feedback so you can compare the actual target to your work.
The program has simple and easy to follow instructions. There are no lectures or theory involved and no required video to purchase – just a specific structure that you will be required to follow, explained to you in detail, in an on screen video, by your instructor. Quickstart is completed entirely via the internet, with options for several connection speeds. Originally priced at $39.95, this program is now available to you free of charge.
Learning Technical Remote Viewing allows one to access levels of human potential never before imagined. After you complete the targets and realize that you have the innate ability to accurately access information anywhere in time and space, using only mind, your life will be changed forever. For those who want to further their training and realize the full potential of this technology, we offer a curriculum of complete Technical Remote Viewing training programs at our Remote Viewing Solutions section. PSI TECH is dedicated to supporting your journey and helping you master the most important skill ever developed by man.
Quickstart requirements
To participate, you will need the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox with the Macromedia Flash plug-in, a stack of clean white paper and a rollerball style black ink pen.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Apollo 11 hero Neil Armstrong Tuesday lashed out at President Barack Obama’s decision to axe NASA plans to return to the Moon, describing the move as “devastating” to the US space program.
Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the lunar surface, was one of three former astronauts who signed an open letter to Obama ahead of his visit to Florida on Thursday where he will deliver a space policy speech.
Budget plans unveiled two months ago proposed scrapping the Constellation program, which was developing a new rocket to take Americans back to the moon; and giving private industry the role of building the space vehicles to take humans to the International Space Station (ISS).
However Armstrong and fellow Apollo program commanders James Lovell and Eugene Cernan bemoaned the proposals for the US space effort in a letter released to NBC News on Tuesday.
Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan said that while some of Obama’s NASA budget proposals had “merit,” the decision to cancel the Constellation program, the Ares 1 and Ares V rockets and the Orion spacecraft, was “devastating.”
American astronauts could now only reach low Earth orbit and the ISS by hitching a ride on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft “at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat,” the letter said.
“For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature,” the astronauts said.
“Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity,” they added in the letter.
Professional Remote Viewers Using a Previously Top Secret Military Intelligence Technology Will Download Direct Knowledge For You
by PSICORP
ow you no longer have to invest in thousands of dollars and years of training to access information about your Optimum Trajectory – the optimum, most fulfilling course for your life. Technical Remote Viewing offers human beings the opportunity to find their life destiny. It does this by offering up the impression in a foresight image to show a person what their highest potential is for their individual life. It’s a map that they can follow to be the best that they can be; their path for living the most meaningful life possible. It is a life that will lead them into situations that support optimal growth and evolution; an actualized life that by the end of their journey, they can look back on with a feeling of fulfillment.
For many of us it hits unexpectedly. And often there doesn’t seem to be a valid reason for it. A person can be employed, financially secure, have a healthy, happy family or relationship, be surrounded by friends and a solid social network. But regardless, there it is. That feeling as though something is missing from our lives, a vital component that gives our life meaning. Why aren’t we happy? Why aren’t we fulfilled? What would it take to bring meaning to our lives and give us a sense of satisfaction? How can we reach that place where we awaken every morning feeling grateful to be alive, and excited about the day ahead?
The Optimum path is a dynamic trip. It’s a willful choice and it’s your ultimate aspiration. Whether you are aware of it or not, it sits in your unconscious like a burning potential ready to spring into action at the slightest regard or release. So do you think you are up for your optimum journey? Or how long can you keep bypassing that chapter in your life?
Science has come up with what they think are the keys to personal satisfaction. They call it the Science of Happiness. But like all science, not everyone agrees on the formula. Some research shows that creativity and challenge in the work place can increase fulfillment. Other studies claim that an increase in our freedom to make choices is the vital component to our sense of well being and contentment. Some studies list such keys as philanthropy, increased social interaction, and exercise as a means to increase total life satisfaction. And while many of the suggestions as a result of these scientific studies are excellent and generally beneficial, they all have one thing in common. One enormous flaw. They’re ambiguous. They aren’t honed to you, as an individual. They don’t say, “The key to ultimate happiness and satisfaction in your life is to quit your current job and seek employment with an eco-friendly company in Portland, Oregon that is developing optimum methods of hydroponics, and in tandem pursue that secondary degree in agriculture that you’ve always hoped to finish.” Sure, telling you that you should be working in a challenging field doing something that you truly enjoy is good advice, but where? What job? What does that mean, specifically?
WHAT ARE TRAJECTORIES?
The Matrix (or Collective Unconscious) is dynamic because it records all thoughts and actions of all that lives, breathes and grows. Every thought that one thinks, and actions proliferated, add a paragraph or page to a book which is simultaneously growing with the added recorded data. The Matrix is also static because all the thoughts and actions that have previously occurred have been recorded and are stored like pages in a history book. We call these “Current Trajectories.” An individual’s thoughts and actions in numbers and over time create cultures, and the actions of cultures ultimately create entire eras. These past deeds have created “grooves” in the fabric of the Matrix and like a well-traveled path in the forest, determines the direction of a future destiny. This is a known phenomenon. Most people are swept up into these paths because it feels easiest, like the path of least resistance. We can live our lives following our “current trajectories,” not ever realizing that an alternate, more fulfilling life could be obtained as simply as “just a slight step to the side.”
A BREAKTHROUGH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION TECHNOLOGY
Click on the above image to see a remote viewing demonstration.
That’s where remote viewing comes in. Technical Remote Viewing was originally developed to be utilized in military intelligence to gather information that could not be obtained by normal conventional intelligence collection methods. For example, if a high ranking military official had been kidnapped in a foreign country, conventional intelligence might be able to determine who the kidnappers were, what country he may be being held in, and may even have satellite information on how the kidnapping occurred. But what do they do when they hit a wall and have no more leads on the exact location where the victim is being held? That’s when they turned to the classified remote viewing unit for answers. For twenty years, these psychic warriors supplied accurate, adjunct intelligence to our government, using a mind technology developed at Stanford Research Institute that allowed them to download information on targets distant in space and time. In 1989 a few officers took this technology out of the military and into the public sector. They began training remote viewers, using the same protocols used by the military unit. That company was PSI TECH.
APPLICATION IN THE CIVILIAN WORLD
Serving the needs of top CEO’s and corporate clients around the world, as well as maintaining military contracts, PSI TECH continued developing this remarkable technology. And one of the greatest discoveries was the Optimum Trajectory. It was found that most people in the world live their lives enmeshed in the current trajectory of humanity…a trajectory created by the acts and reactions of those around them. Believing life to be a raging river they have no control over, they live it by letting the flow take them where it will, often struggling to stay afloat amidst the massive force. They dream for a better life, a more satisfying life, but they don’t know how to obtain it. And adding to their dilemma, they often mistakenly assume their dreams to be ideal, when in reality they will only bring more misery and dissatisfaction.
But there is another way. It was found that we have another trajectory, an Optimum Trajectory, and like a small rivulet that splinters away from the powerful flow, you can veer onto it. If you know how to recognize it when you see it. So if you’re like so many of us who are frustrated in your current trajectory, it’s time to put down the self help books and get the specific answers you’re looking for. No amount of good vibes, intellectual company, exercise, increased intimacy, travel, or being in the moment can fill that space that is intended for just one thing, and one thing only. The path that is specifically designed and meant for you. Call it your personal meaning to life. Call it a life purpose. Call it a calling. But whatever you call it, it’s your own unique path that brings you ultimate satisfaction. And if you aren’t on it, you’re going to have that dull ache, that sense of uncertainly, that unexplainable pull in a faint distant direction that you simply can’t put your finger on.
TRV has become the ultimate tool for humanity. Now you no longer have to make choices at random, wondering, hoping that the choice you make will bring you satisfaction. Now there’s a way to know which choices truly are optimum for you, in every way-medically, spiritually, emotionally, financially, romantically-optimum trajectories show you a future in which, should you choose to follow its path, will bring you meaning and satisfaction unlike anything felt before.
An Optimum Trajectory is the most fulfilling direction or life path to take. But that doesn’t mean that it will be the easiest path. Optimum means optimum, not easy. Optimum Trajectories are frequently riddled with challenges. When on your Optimum Trajectory, you may be faced with difficult choices, barriers to over come, and storylines of the kind seen only in movies. But you will know that you’re on your Optimum Trajectory, because you will be filled with a sense of purpose. Things will fall into place, and you will experience the maximum joy of life. Life is always filled will challenges. But when you are on your Optimum Trajectory, the choices, however difficult, are made with conviction. The barriers, however large, will give you a tremendous sense of accomplishment. And the storyline, however improbably it may seem at first, will become your storyline. One that ends with a life lived to the hilt.
If you’re like most people looking for the keys to happiness, this is what you’ve been searching for. Let PSICORP reveal the story of a lifetime-your lifetime-and get you started on the right path.
Since ushering TRV technology out of the confines of military intelligence in 1989, PSI TECH has trained thousands of individuals to use this advanced tool, and now our new investigative venture PSICORP is offering the unique opportunity for you to have your Optimum Trajectory remote viewed for you by highly skilled professionals who possess many years of experience.
WHAT PSICORP’S PROFESSIONAL REMOTE VIEWERS WILL DELIVER TO YOU
100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED, OR YOUR MONEY BACK
As an example of an Optimum Trajectory session, a retired FBI agent was taking PSI TECH’s Professional Development Course. He was given his Optimum Trajectory as a blind target (blind meaning he did not know what he was viewing at the time, but was just given a set of random numbers). He began his session by describing a man who was in a room, doing what he was doing. He was remote viewing himself without realizing it, even describing his weight, height, family, and his home. He began to get data on this man having a heart attack, followed by elements of a gym. After he was done and saw the target cue, the man went home and visited his doctor. He was informed that he had a blocked artery, and was told that he would have a heart attack if he did not take care of it immediately.
After you select your Optimum Trajectory service option and complete your online purchase, within 48 hours you will contacted by telephone with a PSICORP representative who will discuss and explain your options, developing a project which is custom designed to meet your individual needs or desires. We can task our professional remote viewers with a general Optimum Trajectory search, a more open ended investigation that allows the Matrix to deliver information that will point your life to its most fulfilling direction, often toward an opportunity that you never expected, but one that will bring your the most satisfaction. There are many potential benefits to pursing this type of search (one that does not assume in advance a particular direction.) You might be made aware of a potential health problem that you were not aware of. Or a solution to a problem that you might never have considered.
Or you might decide that your goal is to find out about your optimum career. This more specific search will deliver up information exclusively about the best employment opportunities for you. Another option is a search for your optimum mate. You also have the option of restricting the time frame of the search so that we can help you determine the best path for the next 2 weeks, next 6 months, or next 5 years.
After the project is finalized and agreed to, your PSICORP project manager will create a target cue or cues, depending on the service package you selected, and task the targets to professional remote viewers who will work the targets under blind conditions. The viewers only receive 8 random numbers which have been assigned to the target. They are not aware of the name or nature of their target prior to downloading the psychically derived data.
The data will be analyzed and a written project report detailing your Optimum Trajectory will be delivered to you. Should you desire additional work, you may purchase a follow-up service package and your project manager will discuss your investigative options with you.
If you are not 100% satisfied with the data, you will receive a full refund. How can we make such an offer? PSI TECH, PSICORP’s training arm, started the remote viewing industry. We’ve been developing and applying remote viewing techniques for twenty years. Our technology was developed to solve the nation’s most difficult intelligence problems – ones often involving life and death situations. Our highly skilled professional remote viewers have years of experience working thousands of Technical Remote Viewing sessions. This rigorous experience has honed their skills to an unparelleled level of accuracy. Now this valuable experience is available to you.
“It (TRV) is a very systematic, very controlled method of accessing information that is not normally available by any other source… It is independent of time.. I can go present, I can go future. It is independent of location, so I can go anywhere on this earth, I can go into any closet, I can go into any mind..It is independent of space, therefore, I can access that information any place on the planet or off of it if I choose.”
–Major General Albert Stubblebine, former PSI TECH Chairman Of The Board and commanding officer of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)
PSICORP’S SERVICE OPTIONS
Optimum Trajectory: Standard Search
The Standard Search includes:
An initial TRV session by a professional PSICORP Viewer
2-3 additional corroborating professional TRV sessions
Analysis
Written project report
Cost: Was $1400.00SPECIAL OFFER! Now only $1150.00. Use coupon code PSISTANDARD during checkout to receive this $250 off discount.
This investigation package provides the greatest value. The conclusions reached following the analysis of corroborating data from multiple TRVers can achieve close to 100% accuracy. This package includes a free initial electronic/email consultation with a PSICORP professional project manager and one follow up electronic/email consultation (where parameters for follow up work will be established at the client’s discretion) after the delivery of the final written report. Additional uncorroborated raw data (not included in the project report) will be provided upon request.
Time of completion and delivery of final written report is one to three weeks.
Follow-up additional sessions relating to the initial Standard Search may be requested at a rate of $300.00 per session.
Optimum Trajectory: Quick Search
The Quick Search includes:
One professional TRV session
Analysis
Written project report
Cost: Was $690.00SPECIAL OFFER! Now only $590.00. Use coupon code PSIQUICK during checkout to receive this $100 off discount.
This option includes one free initial electronic/email consultation. Additional sessions may be requested at a rate of $400 per session. Time of completion and delivery of initial report: one to three weeks following receipt of payment.
The president released his FY 2011 budget Monday, and his policy for NASA’s human spaceflight program sets the nation on a course to second-class status in space. Instead of setting our national sights on the moon, nearby asteroids, or more distant destinations, President Obama is declaring that human spaceflight is unimportant to U.S. national interests.He’s not saying so directly. But his budget actions speak loudly. He has cancelled NASA’s next-generation Constellation Program, including the Orion spacecraft and both rockets planned to return American explorers to deep space, to the moon and beyond.
A little history: under three different administrations, NASA has lost more than 25 percent of its buying power in the past 20 years. Despite those cuts, the agency managed to operate the shuttle and build the International Space Station (ISS). But it lacked a long-term goal in space, and that lack of direction and failure to replace the vulnerable shuttle led in part to the Columbia accident in 2003 that killed seven of my colleagues.
Now, seven years later, the president’s budget shows that he and NASA have already forgotten the lessons of Columbia. Without a goal worthy of the serious risks of human spaceflight, we will be putting our astronauts in danger to do nothing more than crew a research outpost. Even though I helped build it, the space station is not an ultimate destination. The ISS is a stepping stone to more ambitious exploration.
It is true that President Obama inherited a Constellation Program (a return to the moon and deep space) that the Bush administration underfunded by more than 35 percent since its inception in 2004. Because of that lack of support, today Constellation is badly behind schedule. Those delays also raised costs for the development of the Ares I booster. Yet NASA flew a successful early version of Ares I last October. While not a long-term successor to the shuttle, restored funding could have put this rocket in service to the ISS by 2015, and restored our own access to space.
The new budget, announced Monday, seems merely an attempt to disguise the demise of U.S. leadership in space. The president does away with Constellation, its Orion spacecraft, and its Ares I and Ares V boosters. The abrupt cancellation means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to the frontiers of knowledge and spacefaring skill. We are deliberately choosing to have no better space capability than do Russia, China, or India.
During the height of the shuttle program in the 1990s, we launched six or seven shuttles and about 40 astronauts per year into orbit for science and defense purposes. Starting next year, and for the foreseeable future, just four Americans will make it into space annually—as passengers on foreign rockets. Is this a bold new course for the nation?
After the shuttle orbiters retire late this year, American astronauts will rent seats on Russian rockets headed to the ISS. We won’t field an alternative spacecraft for five years or more. The president will instead farm out the nation’s access to low Earth orbit to commercial firms. None of the rockets NASA has contracted to deliver cargo to the ISS has flown, and betting our nation’s sole access to space on industry’s ability to replicate fifty years of NASA experience on the fly is unwise. NASA should fly a new crewed spacecraft as quickly as possible, then move to commercial firms once they have a proven record of reliable cargo services.
While NASA hopes its commercial effort will produce a ship that can service the ISS, the end of Constellation defers indefinitely the building of a heavy-lift rocket. Without such a Saturn V-class launcher, Americans will never get out of low Earth orbit (where we have been marooned for nearly 40 years). Instead, the Ares V heavy-lifter has been replaced with “research and development” on building such a vehicle, someday. With no ability to launch humans past the ISS, we will watch, helpless to follow, as China pursues its determination to be the next nation to send its explorers into deep space.
The president’s rejection of a clear goal to send humans into deep space by a certain date eliminates a future in space for the brightest of our young scientists and engineers. The space talent pool began emptying Monday, as promising innovators turn to careers in other industries. What student would pursue a career in space science or astronautics with the knowledge that the country deems leadership in space unimportant?
The president appointed his Augustine Committee last May to review the nation’s human spaceflight plans. Of their options, he accepted the move to put our human access to space on a commercial footing, with great uncertainty as to safety, schedule and cost. The nation has no backup plan if this effort fails.
But the president rejected the most important of the Augustine observations, that a great nation must fund an exploration program worthy of its vision. In fact, the committee recommended an extra $3 billion per year to renew NASA’s human exploration efforts. The president’s team instead chose to add only a billion dollars annually, missing a chance to remedy past underfunding and to take the U.S. forward in space. Although $787 billion was “available” last year for stimulus spending, finding $3 billion this year to stimulate our high-tech economy and talent pool proved impossible.
By proposing a budget for NASA that barely exceeds inflation, and failing to renew a commitment to send the U.S. beyond low Earth orbit, the administration is turning away from the dominance in space technology America has enjoyed since Apollo. This nation once put its confident footprints on the moon. Following the president’s misguided course, we will trudge in retreat from the frontiers and promise of space.
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard, is photographed from the Command and Service Modules in lunar orbit in July 1969. Photograph: NASA/REUTERS
The announcement of an end to immediate ambitions for an American to again reach the moon, on the seventh anniversary of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, sets the stage for a furious battle in Congress over US manned space exploration.
Politicians from Florida, Texas and Alabama, three states that have lost thousands of jobs in the space industry from this year’s planned retirement of the ageing shuttle fleet, promised a fight to keep the moon programme, Constellation, alive.
“They are replacing lost shuttle jobs too slowly, risking US leadership in space to China and Russia, and relying too heavily on unproven companies,” said Bill Nelson, a Democratic Senator for Florida and former astronaut who flew one mission in 1986.
Michael Griffin, who resigned as Nasa chief when Obama took office, branded the plan “disastrous”, likening it to Richard Nixon’s cancellation of the Apollo programme in the 1970s. “It means that essentially the US has decided that they’re not going to be a significant player in human space flight for the foreseeable future,” he told The Washington Post.
Nasa has already spent more than $9bn on Constellation, including testing the Ares I rocket that was to have replaced the shuttle as transport from Earth to the international space station and beyond. The programme was “based largely on existing technologies, over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation”, according to Obama’s budget report.
“The truth is that we were not on a path to get back to the moon’s surface,” said Charles Bolden, the new Nasa administrator.
“There will be challenges as a result of cancelling Constellation, [but] the funding for Nasa is increasing, so we expect to support as many if not more jobs.” The budget gives Nasa $19bn for 2011, and $100bn over the next five years; the proposal also extends the international space station until 2020.
On July 20, people around the world celebrated an American triumph. The 40th anniversary of
the Apollo 11 moon landing recalls a period of curiosity, ingenuity and perseverance that
captured the world’s imagination. I was in Houston interviewing with NASA for a spot in the
astronaut corps in 1969 when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the lunar surface. It was
phenomenal to observe it up close, but the moment was bittersweet. Even as we did something
that had never been done before, we knew we wouldn’t be doing it much longer. The program
was winding down because of budget constraints.
The Apollo 11 anniversary this year and the scheduled end of the Shuttle program next year
evoke many of the same conflicting emotions we felt behind the scenes in 1969. A smart, young
workforce had fueled the race to the moon. When Apollo missions ended in 1972, so too did
thousands of jobs. Our brightest and most committed were unemployed.
Due to budget constraints and shifts in approach, the current plan calls for a several years-long
gap between the end of the Shuttle program and the first flight of the Constellation program,
NASA’s new initiative to return to the moon and beyond. That devastating gap could mean
another “brain drain” as talented, skilled contractors and NASA employees are forced to take
their institutional knowledge elsewhere.
Once people leave, you can’t just call them up years later and say, “We’re going to fly again,
and we hope you’ve waited around for years to come back and share your talents.” We found
ourselves in this situation when we started the Shuttle program – forced to train a new
workforce with no prior experience. As one of the few people in the world who has piloted a
never-before-flown spacecraft, I’m here to tell you – you want experienced engineers and
technicians on your team.
While preparing for the first Shuttle mission at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the 1970s, I
also witnessed firsthand the economic devastation of the aerospace industry downturn. The
Space Coast, Houston and other cities that thrived on aerospace were hit hard. Once again, we
face the prospect of thousands of layoffs, and the residual economic blow to aerospace
communities around the country is grim, especially coupled with the current national climate.
Delaying key decisions about the future of the program will magnify the job losses.
The Obama administration recently announced a comprehensive review of the existing Shuttleto-
Constellation plan by an independent panel, with a report due by August. The review
provides an opportunity to consider adjustments that could prevent the loss of talented
personnel while heading off devastating economic effects. Also, the administration’s selection
of Charles Bolden for NASA Administrator is a very positive move.
NASA and industry leaders have been working hard to keep top talent, ensuring the current
design of the Constellation program takes advantage of those already working on Shuttle. The
leadership is limited, however, by budgetary and policy guidelines.
President Obama has recognized the importance of the United States’ position as a leader in
space exploration. In a recent speech at the National Academy of Sciences, he marked the
Apollo 11 anniversary with a reminder that “the enormous investment of that era – in science
and technology, in education and research funding – produced a great outpouring of curiosity
and creativity, the benefits of which have been incalculable.”
Critics may question the benefits of a strong space program, but America’s space industry is a
critical component of both our economy and our legacy of exploration. Wernher von Braun, who
developed the Saturn V rocket that propelled Apollo to the moon and is widely considered the
greatest rocket scientist in history, was quick to answer the critics of his day with the facts:
“The NASA budget is not being spent on the moon,” he said. “It is being spent right here on
Earth. It provides new jobs, new products, new processes, new companies and whole new
industries.”
The same holds true today. Adequate support of the Constellation program from the country
and Washington is imperative to minimize the gap, retain expertise and instill enthusiasm for
science and technology in a new generation.
During the Nixon administration, the gap between the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs was
devastating to the aerospace industry. The six-year gap cost America more than 400,000 jobs.
Today, we face a similar once-in-a-generation decision. Based on the long-term view of
President Obama’s support for America’s space exploration program, my guess is he won’t
make the same mistakes. Instead, my fervent hope is that he will not only minimize the gap, but
he will also build on JFK’s vision and return America to its greatness as a truly spacefaring
nation.
Bob Crippen is a former astronaut who served as pilot of the first space shuttle mission (STS-1);
commander of three other space shuttle missions (STS-7, STS-41C, STS-41G); former director
of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and former president of Thiokol Propulsion. He is a
current member of the Coalition for Space Exploration Board of Advisors.
Revealing the plans behind The Mystery Revealed. by Author X
When billionaire Elliot Burbank hires PSICORP to find his missing son, they assemble the finest psychic remote viewing unit since the cold war. Able to penetrate the deepest secrets of the universe using only their minds, the Omega Team soon find themselves in a race to save the child from the clutches of his abductors. But in this race there is only one way to win. The team must solve one of the most elusive enigmas of our century.
So goes the jacket blurb on the newest addition to the Remote Viewing family, a publication released by the Lifequest Publishing Group for PSI TECH by the name of Circles: The Mystery Revealed. One could certainly insert a Monty Python-esque tidbit here about the name. “Circles? What secrets do circles have? Do they go around in a lopsided fashion? Is it going to elope with a triangle? Tell me now, what sinister plans could this deviant polygon have to unleash upon the world?”
As the cover image suggests, the “circles” aspect actually has little to do with shapes and more to do with the unusual markings that have come to be known as cereal glyphs: more succinctly, crop circles. Of course, even there the mystery lies rather flaccidly, unless one takes upon the myriad stories of energy ley-lines and other cosmic artifacts able to be sensed by a handful of self-proclaimed ’sensitives’ who know more about these things than any of us care to know. The key questions to be answered are not what the circles are, but rather who makes them and more menacingly, why these acts of terrestrial graffiti continue to appear around the world. The answer to that, obviously, lays inside the book itself, wrapped around a delightful story of the circumstances and the remote viewers who are called upon to solve this mystery. But more about that later.
For years now, PSI TECH has been eager and excited to release tales of Remote Viewing projects and the associated mysteries therein to the mass populace, in a form easier to swallow than the usual glib reply one may find in the chat room, such as “Why don’t you just TRV it?” Of course, not many will be willing to perform the requisite mental gymnastics required to accomplish said Remote Viewing session, an endeavor akin to assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle set for the sheer entertainment aspect of it (and my apologies to those who actually do assemble crossword puzzles for entertainment on a nightly basis — I will hope for your cable television to be turned back on soon). For the more HBO-oriented crowd, something more simple than undertaking the full-on course was required.
Enter the Omega Series, a serial-style collection of novels set in the modern day, but with a twist. Although the usual daily events go on, such as wars, famine, kidnappings, political intrigue, and even the brewing at Starbucks, the world portrayed in the Omega Series contains a small difference. In the world of the Omega Series, there exists a secret base, home and operations center for the world’s most elite psychic spies. Deep in the jungle, under its glass-lined ceilings, sculpted rock walls and lush botanical expanses (which contain a few mysteries of their own, from what I understand), the center known as Eden hums away as the world’s central hub for serious psychic spying. You might call Eden and its residents the A-Team of the intel world. Fortunately for us, this psychic A-Team doesn’t wear fancy gold jewelery or need to spend inordinate amounts of time constructing battle vehicles from backyard scrap; they have everything they need right there in their heads. As regular readers of The Matrix will no doubt be aware, this refers to the skill of Technical Remote Viewing.
The first book in the series, as noted earlier, is Circles. As with all books in the series, the story revolves around a central core of information gleaned from actual Technical Remote Viewing sessions performed by PSI TECH and its viewers. Like a tootsie-pop, this chewy, caramel-like core is covered in a sweet but somewhat more challenging fictional aspect, most of which revolves around the Eden center, its resident administrators, and the five Remote Viewers who do the actual ‘enigma penetration’. This daring crew is brought to us courtesy of the writing talents of Kimberly Snow (yes, the same one that writes articles for The Matrix newsletter).
Like many good authors before her, Snow cut her literary teeth on poetry (some of it detailed in the independently published Fire and Mirth), capturing the fine details in small cutaways of ordinary, everyday life. This attention to detail comes through with great effect in her portrayal of the Eden team. In many ways, the social dynamics amongst the team, and their own personal reasons for both learning Remote Viewing and choosing to abandon their old lives to a degree to join up with the Eden program, are far more interesting and overshadow the data itself in some instances. But this is not a bad thing at all. In fact, I could compare the dynamics and their completeness to a level usually seen in a good Stephen King mystery/horror novel. Like King, Snow enjoys getting inside the character’s heads, not just dictating to us what they are doing but what on Earth makes them do so. In many instances this is a fantastic addition, as most would agree running off to a secluded island in the Pacific to hang around scribbling odd shapes on paper isn’t quite up to par with normal weekend hobbies. I was never left wanting to know what was going on, why it was going on, or faced with terminal boredom during slower moments of the story.
As with many first installments of good series, a large part of the book is spent identifying and introducing us to the characters that propel the story forwards. Head of the Eden project, the dynamic duo of Jane and Daniel Byron call upon the resources of three live-in associates. Shawna, a high-spirited, bubbly blonde (but with brown hair), manages the plants, animals, files, and acts as general gopher, providing a much-needed exuberance around the life-and-death projects carried out on the premises. Jeff Kilmer is a driven, though somewhat aggressive groundskeeper, the kind of anchorman you want to make sure everything gets done. Elric, the resident technophile, maintains and runs everything electric, and his dark personality provides an interesting black comedy aspect to many parts of the project. Gene, the gatekeeper, ensures security with a sidearm and his ever-present collection of ID badges. This crew supports the Remote Viewing wunderkind who fly in and out of the project while performing their feats of mental gymnastics.
The foremost of these teams is known simply as Omega. The Omega team is comprised of five individuals, taken from all over the world. Each of them has their own reasons for coming to Eden, and all of them have their own skeletons in their closet, as well as their own hopes and wishes for their lives as well as others’. Jorge Jones, an eccentric gambler, attempts to live large the easy way, and finds out the hard way that doing so usually comes at a great cost. Rodrigo Mondego, a young professor in particle physics, brings a withdrawn and shy side of the team, intrinsically capable of fantastic things but often without the personal knowledge of how to accomplish them. Joe Keats, a retired beat cop who has seen more heinousness in his day than his psyche wishes to admit, attempts to save the world one missing persons case at a time. Melanie Tipton is the straight-up country girl with attitude. An accomplished veterinarian, she can do anything she sets her mind to, except confront the ghosts of her lost child. Aiden Shepherd is a dynamic bad boy archaeologist, for whom rules are merely things in the way of uncovering secret historical digs discovered with TRV data. These five individuals make up the Omega Team, some of them reluctantly, some of them eagerly. Propelling this lot of characters forward to a confrontation with things larger than themselves is the larger-than-life billionaire Elliot Burbank. Burbank is a man who is used to buying everything. That is, until all the money in the world is useless as investigator after investigator comes up empty in the search for his abducted son. And so we dive straight into the world of Remote Viewing.
If there is a failing with the book, it could only be that it is done too well as a dramatized account. In some respects the reader is left with the definite feeling that the Eden project and her crew are simply too good a thing to exist in this world. Yet in others, the interplay of politics and the everyday shortcomings of humanity captured within demonstrate a certain realistic downer that keeps the book from being able to be enjoyed on a simple, pure fantasy level. None of this really intrudes on the purpose of the story. If anything, it created an entirely different experience that I was not anticipating: an enjoyable adventure on its own merit. While the mystery and Remote Viewing data is indeed “revealed” as promised, it is done so in the manner of a good play. We see a little bit of what is behind the great curtain on the stage, but only enough to keep us wanting to go from one scene to the next. By the end of the book, there are more questions than answers, but none of those questions stem from the original topic of the book. We definitely know what created the circles, and a little bit about why. Some of us probably already have a pretty good guess about what form the answer to the who part will take, but I doubt that anyone has yet uncovered the why part that is touched on in this book. Could it have been more explicit in that detail? Most likely. This is not a CIA after-action report. Those of you looking for a cut-and-dry debriefing session will not find it here.
For the introductory cover price of $5.95 (ebook) or $9.95 (paperbook), this is definitely not a bad thing. Let there be no confusion about it: this is a serious, bona-fide novel, despite its initial form as a downloadable PDF document. This is a much better deal than I’ve gotten on many of the real-deal books of the dead-tree variety hanging out on the aisle displays at Borders, and the story itself is just as entertaining if not more so. The next novel promises to be even more of a character-driven powerhouse, expertly interweaving more of this grand story of the creators of crop circles and their plans for humanity, with the page count to prove it. Author Snow informs me that the next installment of the series will be darker, more dramatic, and continue to open up the grand back-story just touched upon in this first part of the series.
For whatever reasons, be it the subject matter, the team dynamics, perhaps just the Wizard-of-Oz-like magicality of the setting, Circles just clicks. It’s an entertaining romp through the world of what-if, mixed in with just enough truth and mystery to make the entire concoction intellectually stimulating as well. I would encourage anyone who is interested in Remote Viewing to take a look at what is possible with a little desire, a little luck, and a lot of TRVing. There are four other books in this series, links are available below.
ow everyone who is curious about remote viewing will be able to try it online, in the privacy of their own homes, without having to make a commitment to a complete training program. Using a proven structure, the new Quickstart Online System is a web based remote viewing testing program that will guide a beginner through a series of five basic remote viewing targets. No previous experience or training is required.
When billionaire Elliot Burbank hires 
