Archive | July 2012

Does ET inhabit the Star Wars universe?

Jul19

The Children of the Green Planet

There is a Scene in Spielberg’s ET where our beloved Alien is walking down the street on his way to a Halloween party. He has a white sheet over him and sees the world through the two holes cut out in the sheet. He  sees a young child dressed up as Yoda. Immediately ET points to him and says the word ‘Home’. This begs  the question, does ET recognise Yoda because as a species, they inhabit the same  universe?

In Star Wars Episode 1, the Galactic Senate plays an important role. Various creatures are  represented with each species sitting in their individual pods within the debating chamber. And lo and behold, If you look closely you can see a specific pod, containing three creatures. (As seen in the picture) They are of the same species as ET. According to Wookipaedia, the online Star Wars reference tool, the species is known as ‘The Children of the Green Planet’.

Perhaps that is why ET and his cohorts have such fascination with earths Flora and Ferna at the beginning of the film ET. The ‘Green’ planet is no doubt richly populated with dense vegetation. As is the Planet ‘Dagobah,’ which any Star Wars geek knows is the planet that Yoda went in to Exile on. Are they one and the same?  You never know….

 

Aliens, Al-Qaida and Hollywood

Jul10

What you may ask, has a notorious Islamic fundamentalist group have in common with little green men from outer space and the US filmmaking industry?  And why has there been a huge surge in the number of alien invasion movies over the past decade, the likes of which we have not seen for over 50 years? Well, to find the answer, we have to go back to the Cold War period of the 1950’s and 60’s.

This was an era when Soviet Communism threatened to destabilise and destroy the governments of the west. Short and long range Intercontinental Ballistic missiles with Nuclear tipped warheads were aimed at the large cities of the opposing enemies and the imminent threat of nuclear obliteration was indeed very real.

It was within this back drop of mutual self destruction that the type of films coming out of Hollywood changed. Films such as ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Singing in the Rain’ and ‘Gone with the Wind’, gave way to ‘Earth verses the flying Saucers’, ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘It came from Outer Space’. These however represented only the tip of the iceberg.

The fear of a Russian invasion was very real and it was these fears that were translated on to the big screen, thus invading Aliens had became a potent metaphor for the Marxist/Communist threat, seen as  undermining the American way of life.

This then brings us to the post 911 era and the constant threat from international terrorism. The indelible images of the destruction of the Twin Towers will remain scorched in the American psyche for a very long time to come. And along with the rigid dogma of fundamentalist Islam, came a new plethora of Alien invasion movies, that tapped in to the fears of the American public, Indeed, in Spielbergs War of the Worlds (2008) there was a sequence involving the first attack by the martians. The survivors, including the main protagonist played by Tom Cruise, are left covered in grey soot. Spielberg  admitted that this was a conscious decision to draw parallels with the fateful events of September 11th 2001 where survivors were seen covered in grey soot caused by the collapse of the World Trade Centre buildings.

Cloverfield (2008) was another film influenced heavily by the news footage of the 2001 attacks. An unknown creature  attacks New York city and again the resultant carnage depicts buildings collapsing, and people wandering around aimlessly, covered in grey soot.

Films such as Signs(2002), Dreamcatcher(2003), Transformers(2007), Monsters(2010), Skyline(2010) and Battle LA(2011), are all symptomanious of how the political and psychological climate of the times has influenced the output of Holllywood and as someone who is partial to a good alien invasion movie, one can argue that this is at least one positive  that has come out of these unfortunate set of political circumstances.

 

‘Bigfoot’ Hair sold in Texas

Jul9

It is said that in this in day and age, anything is for sale. And this was no exception in Nacogdoches, Texas. Steve Busti, the owner of the Museum of the weird in Austin, Texas, paid $212 for a few strands of bigfoot Hair ( allegedly).

“i’m really looking forward to having the hairs tested” he said. If however, the tests show that they emanated from a known animal, then explaining this to his missus, will no doubt be a hair raising experience :)

The link to the full article can be found here

Soldiers hear Bigfoot?

Jul8
Another Bigfoot encounter reported via my website. Many Thanks to Curtis Hinten for taking the time out and sending me this.
 
I am 55 yrs. old now but when I was in Yakima, Washington in the U.S Army we were on survival training (about 28-30 yrs. old at the time) in Yakima Valley my friend & fellow soldier were camped out by ourselves with no one else around for miles and we heard the loudest monkey like howls, grunts and screams you could ever hear. It seems as it was getting closer and closer to our tent. We locked and loaded our rifles but were scared stiff. We also smelled the terrible odor that researchers had been saying accompanied big foot. We even heard the heavy footsteps. This went on until almost morning. We were both so frightened we said if anything got to close to our tent we would fire away. In the morning we packed up and continued on with our training but did not see any prints or evidence of our nightly visitor. We told other soldiers approximately 3 days later after we had finished our training and was back with everyone else what had happened and our company 1st Sgt. stated that the most bigfoot sightings had been in yakima valley where were had been going through training. I someday want to go back to yakima valley and look for bigfoot.

Husband and wife hear scream while fishing

Jul8

Many Thanks for bigfoot-lives.com visitor Dewey Lambert for sending me his Bigfoot experience. I have included the text in it’s entirety below.

YEAR: 1994
SEASON: Fall
MONTH: September
STATE: Alabama
COUNTY: Cleburne County
LOCATION DETAILS: From I 20 you get off at the Heflin exit and go through Heflin and get on hwy 78. You will see signs directing you to Pine Glen, a camping area, and Coleman Lake soon after this point. The roads are dirt roads, but follow the signs to Pine Glen and about 3 miles up the road on the left you will see a sign for Sweetwater Lake. This road will go down about 1/2 mile to the lake.
NEAREST TOWN: Heflin
NEAREST ROAD: I 20
OBSERVED: About 7 years ago my wife and I were at a lake in the middle of the Talladega National Forrest in Alabama. The lake was sweet water lake. We were fishing in a small boat at the end of a slew early in the morning, we were the only ones at the lake, I think it was on a Wednesday and we were all alone. We heard something scream, it started out as a howl and turned into a long high pitched scream and it was so loud it echoed through the mountains. It made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. But that is not all. About a year before that My stepfather and I were hiking around the same lake, we liked to fish at a spillway way on the backside of the lake, and about 1/2 mile into the hike we crossed a fire brake about 20 feet wide, now keep in mind that we are a pretty good way back in the woods, we have crossed rocks thorns and briars and all kinds of rough ground. And right there across the dried mud in the fire brake is a set of foot prints dried into the mud. They were not huge they were about the size of a full grown man but they did look human, I just couldn’t understand why a man would be this far back in the woods without shoes on. And over the years there is one thing I have thought about a Bigfoot would have to grow up, so maybe it was a young Bigfoot
ALSO NOTICED: no
OTHER WITNESSES: Myself and my wife
OTHER STORIES: I once worked with a man in Alabama that after we became friends, told me he and his whole family were picking huckleberries at Sweetwater Lake, the huckleberries grow wild all over the area.
He and his wife and two children were picking away when they all heard something in the trees. They all turned around to see a harry man standing there. He said it was a little taller than a man and as soon as it saw them it ran off into the woods. It scared them so bad that they left.
TIME AND CONDITIONS: the scream was in the early morning and I saw the foot prints at about 10:00 or 11:00 in the day
ENVIRONMENT: It is a lake in the middle of the Talladega National Forrest. With pine and hard wood forrest around, with miles and miles of forrest between the lake and the nearest town. The name of the lake is Sweetwater Lake near Coleman Lake.
________________________________________
Follow-up investigation report:
BFRO Investigator: Tommy McElyea

A Bigfoot Encounter

Jul7

I received an email recently from a vsitor to my site regarding her encounter with a Bigfoot. I have included the full text below.

In 1974 I was backpacking in the Desolation Wilderness area in California with a group of 8 hikers, I was almost 17.

The day before we arrived at the lake and almost at the end of our week long hike, I had fallen down a steep embankment and injured myself pretty badly. I had mostly large scrapes with skin missing from my elbows, shins, knees and hands. A large contusion on my forehead and generally lots of swelling everywhere. Felt like I had been hit by a truck. So, early the next morning I went down to Loon lake to bathe because I thought the cold water might help the swelling. I felt uneasy and had the sensation that I was being watched. There was an absence of noise in my general vicinity. NO birds, no nothing…

I stripped down to my underwear, naked, and proceeded to wade into the freezing water. I couldn’t help but scream and yell at the top of my lungs because of the cold water and my pain. I was in about 4 feet of water and I held my breath and went under, when I emerged I let out a huge scream. I was generally swearing loudly and splashing about like an idiot. Oblivious really to all the noise I was making. There was a large semi submerged boulder that I left my dry clothing on and as I was wading out of the lake I froze dead in my tracks, still not completely out of the water. In front of me and slightly to my right, about 50 to 100 feet away from me, standing partially obscured behind a tree was a huge hairy creature. A male, it had a large stone in it’s right hand and it banged the stone against the tree(twice) and grimaced and I could see it’s teeth. It stood at least 8 feet tall, hairy all over except for it’s face. Covered with reddish brown hair with amber colored eyes and a deep crease or scar on it’s right cheek. The skin on it’s face had a slightly red tint to it. It had no neck and a sloping forehead.

We stared at each other for what seemed like hours but in reality it was probably only like 3 minutes. My mind was racing, I was terrified. I grabbed my clothes and ran screaming back to camp, worried that it was right behind me and it was. I was screaming and leaping over rocks in my bare feet and on my way back encountered my dad who heard my screams and came running. I was in a flat out panic. My father was a big man himself, 6’6″ and weighed about 400 lbs. I knew by the look on his face that he saw something behind me because he turned so quick and I have never seen him run faster than that ever. Even though I had a head start on him, he quickly caught up with me and grabbed my right arm and shouted …”Faster!” Which only made my panic worse.

When we got back to camp, we all hurriedly packed and quickly left the area. We found another campsite further down the trail towards a dirt road and we were kept awake that night by the eery sound of a baby crying. On the hike out, me and another hiker were continually pelted with stones from the left side of the trail causing us to quicken our pace. I have never been back.

My father died 20 years ago. I think he knew that It bothered me that he never acknowledged what we saw. A few days before he died, we were talking and he said “I’m sorry…..it was right there, I Just couldn’t accept what I was seeing,…I still have a hard time…..Jan…I’m sorry…..don’t go hiking alone, okay?” I nodded. That was the only time he ever spoke about it. I remain equally horrified and fascinated by the event to this day and sometimes…I dream about it.

New hunt for China’s Yeti

Jul4

A new hunt is about to begin for China’s Yeti, the ‘Wild Man’ who lives in the dark forests of central Hubei province.

Standing 6 foot 8 tall and covered in dark grey hair, this Chinese incarnation of Bigfoot has been spotted hundreds of times

For centuries, the villagers who live around the Shennongjia forest of China’s central Hubei province, a forbidding 1,000 square mile reserve of high mountains and deep forests, have believed that the Wild Man, or Yeren, lives among them.

Standing 6 foot 8 tall and covered in dark grey hair, this Chinese incarnation of Bigfoot has been spotted hundreds of times.

Improbable, at least by Chinese standards, size 12 footprints have been recorded; long thick strands of hair have been tested by scientists, who proclaimed that they did not belong to any of the known creatures inside the reserve.

But no one has ever proven its existence.

This weekend however, a new team of 38 researchers drawn from several different Chinese universities and research institutes will fan out across the Shennongjia reserve on an expedition to catalogue the region’s unique ecosystem.

Their trip will continue throughout August, and the researchers will collect data on the 1,000 or so different types of animals that live in Shennongjia, including the Golden snub-nosed monkey and a white-furred bear that is only found in the reserve.

If the researchers manage to find concrete evidence of the Wild Man, they will have succeeded where two major previous expeditions, one in 1974 to 1981 and one in 2010, failed.

“I simply want to put an end to the argument that it exists,” said Wang Shancai, at the Hubei Relics and Archaeology Institute, when he set out in 2010.

In 2005, Zhang Jiahong, a shepherd in Muyu, near the forest, told the Chinese state media he had seen two of the creatures, with “hairy faces, eyes like black holes, prominent noses and dishevelled hair, with faces that resembled both a man’s and a monkey’s.

Another explorer, Zhang Jinxing, spent years living as a hermit in the Shennongjia forest, and said he had seen footprints on 19 separate occasions, without ever finding the beast.

However, Zhou Guoxing, a former director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History and a paleontologist, has poured scorn on the idea that there may be a Chinese Bigfoot.

“There is no Wild Man in this world,” he said, earlier this year.

“I’ve visited every place where the Wild Man was reported in China.

“I’ve studied everything related to the Wild Man including hair, skulls and specimens. All of them are dyed human hair or come from monkeys and bears.”

He claimed the local government in Hubei is simply trying to drum up tourist revenue. And indeed the Shennongjia Nature Reserve has recently signed agreements with Beijing to help promote package holidays to the area for nature lovers and yeti hunters.

The name of the nature reserve comes from the Emperor Shennong and the word jia, meaning ladder. The emperor was said to use the ladder to climb up the area’s mountains, and it subsequently transformed into a lush forest.

(By Malcolm Moore. The daily Telegraph 2nd July 2012)

Scientists to Search for Chinese Bigfoot

Jul4

It stands at over two metres tall, is covered in dark grey hair, leaves size 12 footprints and goes by the name of the Wild Men – or the Chinese Yeti. And a group of scientists are setting out on an expedition this weekend to prove he really exists.

The existence of the Chinese incarnation of ‘Bigfoot’ is a tale that has been told for centuries around the Shennongjia forest of China’s central Hubei province, with over 400 reported sightings, reports The Telegraph.

In 2005, shepherd in Muyu, near the forests, told Chinese media he saw two creatures with “hairy faces, eyes like black holes, prominent noses and disheveled hair, with faces that resembled both a man’s and a monkey’s”.

Zhang Jinxing, who spent years living in the Shennongjia forest, and said he had seen footprints on 19 separate occasions.

Chinese scientists claim to have found long thick strands of hair which they claim do not belong to any creature in the region, while villagers have reported seeing massive footprints, although no scientific proof of the ‘Yeren’ has yet been recorded.

This weekend, a group of 38 researchers from several Chinese universities will set out across the Shennongjia Reserve.

They hope to catalogue the ecosystem, collect data on the 1,000-plus animals that live there – including the Golden snub-nosed monkey and white-furred bear – and prove, or disprove, the theory of the Chinese Yeti once and for all.

The last major expedition, in 2010, failed to find any concrete proof and not everybody is convinced this time will be any different.

Zhou Guoxing, a former director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, said earlier this year: “There is no Wild Man in this world.

“I’ve visited every place where the Wild Man was reported in China.

“I’ve studied everything related to the Wild Man including hair, skulls and specimens. All of them are dyed human hair or come from monkeys and bears.”

( 7 News. 3rd July 2012)