One of the great

And suuuuure, some of us are open minded. But lets be honest we are the small minority.

I talked recently about the Fermi Paradox, that questions why, if the universe is infinite and there’s infinite possibilities of life, haven’t we come into contact yet? One of the questions still left in my mind, was what if, in trying to contact ET’s we have been both sending out messages they can’t understand and interpreting messages left here completely wrong the whole time.

How would we communicate? and what is the Universal Language? Many claim its numbers and maths. But aren’t those constructions of society and humans? Numbers are a method of measuring but what if our lifetimes span completely different timescales to others, perhaps our numbers would be trivial. Damon T. Berry, writer and filmmaker has come up with a suggested answer that I find intriguing. 

The messages we have sent out have been to date, using humanistic forms of communication. The Arecibo Message, was an image (to the right) sent into space using modulated radio waves. We assumed that intelligent life forms would be able to read radio waves. But… isn’t that a little human self-centric?

We then had another go and sent a gold disc out in to deep space with the voyager spaceship ship. But again, we were totes arrogant, and used human style symbols.

Damon T. Berry, in his video series on the Forever Time (links at the bottom of the post) talks through many concepts. But one has stuck with me.

It started as a question – the best type of communication is always the most basic. If we wanted to communicate with another life form, what would the easiest method of communication be?

Surely, it would be to use the one thing we all have in common.

But what is that…?

It’s not, life, or oxygen. It’s not time, or numbers or even words. It’s far more fundamental.

The one thing everything in the universe has in common is:

Stars

And stars are around for long enough to be considered ‘immortal’.

Wouldn’t the most simplistic method of communication be to use the star constellations?

Star constellations, although they move around our horizon over thousands of years, stay the same. It takes billions of years before a star dies, and even more years for that star’s light to stop reaching us once it has died.

One of the theories Berry suggests, is that UFO sightings, you know the ones – dark sky, bright lights, dumbstruck onlookers – are actually messages.

Berry suggests that the sightings and specifically the lights, when you replay footage, are actually star constellations.

Take the most commonly reported sighting – three lights – suspiciously like Orion’s belt.

Berry suggests that because this formation is usually the first formation seen during a sighting, it is a greeting.

But messages of ‘three’, and the significance of Orion’s belt aren’t unique to UFO sightings. Ohh no. Take the most iconic architecture in the world, the pyramids. Everyone knows they are lined up with Orion’s belt too.

During the videos, Berry talks about the cave drawings found all over the world that are up to 40-50,000 years old, Berry says, and I paraphrase from memory: “these messages have been left in our world in plain sight for all of us to see, and yet we refute them, dismiss them and call them the carvings and brick work of unintelligent ape men.”

The other thing that he bought to my attention… I wrote a post on the Ancient Flyer recently, and mentioned the Petroglyphs the pharaoh had carved into tombs – symbols that looked suspiciously like aircraft.

I can’t believe I missed this, but does anyone else think it’s ironic that the pharaoh responsible for these petroglyphs is called Seti, and the bloody organisation currently looking for life out there is also called SETI?!?!?!?! (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Anyone else think thats a ‘coincidence’?

Yeah. Didn’t fucking think so.

Anyway, Sacha’s mind = blown during these videos. I have gathered HUGE inspiration and ideas for book 2 in my dystopian series, The Firmament, which is based on the Flat Earth conspiracy. I know. I know. Stop working on different books. I wasn’t, promise. I just took notes. *looks away sheepishly*

What do you think? What do you think the universal language is? If you think UFO’s have visited, what do you think they are or were doing while here? DO you think they are sending messages or just watching, if watching, then why? Let me know in the comments.

If you want to watch the series:

It’s amazing, albeit quite long and a little slow in places. But nevertheless, you can find it on YouTube and it’s called: The Knowledge of the Forever Time.

The series by Damon T. Berry here: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5.

Want more posts like this straight to your mailbox? Sign up for a monthly post round up, writing tips, and the latest in publishing news. 

The post Orion’s Belt & The Universal Language appeared first on Sacha Black.

I often find myself wondering about my eyesight and the quality of my perception. I mean, how much of what I see is actually ‘real’ versus an illusion. Technically we have blind spots in our vision where our optic nerve joins the back of our eye, yet our brains interpret and fill that space so we don’t actually have a blind spot in our vision. We monkeys are easily tricked by even the simplest of illusions.

Yet there is one visual mystery  I just can’t believe is a trick. The ancient flyer.

The Ancient Flyer is a sculpture and carving that has been found all over the world. Said to be  thousands of years old and yet, upon looking at it, appears to be an aircraft. No, really!

This post has been on my list for some time, but it wasn’t until my son poked my necklace  and said ‘plane,’ that I remembered. That reaction, the ‘point and plane’ is exactly why I  wanted to write this post in the first place.

The ancient flyer (the image in the title photo) was first found in Colombia and is believed to have been from the Quimbayan civilisation 300-1550CE. The reason it caused so much controversy is because it was originally thought to be an insect – much like the other golden sculptures from that era. However, no insect has its wings attached to the bottom of its body, nor do they have upright tail fins or stabilisers as the sculpture does. Weird, right?!

Here’s a three minute video giving you some more info from experts including a snippet where some German engineers made a large scale replica in 1994 and flew it…

The ancient flyer isn’t the only example of mysterious aircraft. There are plenty of other examples of ancient aircraft no one can explain. Like the Petroglyphs first found in Egypt in 1848, before we (or the Wright brothers) had even invented flight! The Petroglyphs became popular in the 90’s after a bunch of photos of Seti’s tomb were taken and posted on the net.

I’m not being funny, but even my two year old can see that there’s a helicopter, two ships and on another petroglyph a speed boat. But of course, there’s a totally scientific, evidence based reason that these aren’t in fact exactly what they seem…

Supposedly these carvings were used over more than one farohs reign, so the first ones were carved over again. Chuck in a splash of erosion (in a perfectly sealed tomb in which everything else was immaculately preserve) and you get these ‘double-carved-eroded’ images. God I feel sarcastic today… my eyeballs are already aching from rolling. Anyway for the sake of a well rounded argument, the skeptics came up with a name for this erosion bollocks, it’s called ‘palimpsests’

I’d have bought the erosion story if the above carvings were one offs. It’s almost believable that a freak occurrence causing the perfect erosion and re carving conditions would have bought about an illusion of a helicopter. But they weren’t the only case. Not even close. These petroglyphs have been found in various other locations including a temple in Karnak HUNDREDS of miles away.

There are also countless paintings of spaceships throughout history. I’d be here all day if I showed you all of them. But this post, by Crystalinks has a huge selection of examples, including several paintings that depict space craft linked to religious things in our past.

My fave example is this one, Crystalinks states:

“This painting is called “The Madonna with Saint Giovannino”. It was painted in the 15th century by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) and hangs as part of the Loeser collection in the Palazzo Vecchio. Above Mary’s right shoulder is a disk shaped object. Below is a blow up of this section and a man and his dog can clearly be seen looking up at the object.”

Sure, it could be coincidence – just like the dozens of other examples in that post could all be coincidences too, but maybe not.

What I love about this weekly wonder, is the opportunity it gave me to investigate different types of aircraft. The beauty of fiction is that we get to make shit up. Just because science says you need a dihedral wing angle to fly a craft, doesn’t mean you need that in my story. I have been thinking about transport a lot and whether my ‘steam trains’ are really cutting the mustard.

Investigating this gave me loads of ideas too, what if time travel was actually easy to achieve you just needed the right aerodynamics, or what if you needed to use sound to move, or crafts the shape of animals, or even artificially intelligent craft the shape of animals…

If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, I’m reading this book (on the left) which you can buy here.

Want even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox? Sign up for my sparkly newsletter right here. 

The post Ancient Flyer – The Mystery of Ancient Aircraft appeared first on Sacha Black.

In both those franchises, there are more creatures and ugly aliens than puss filled spots at a 15th birthday bash.

But what of ‘real’ aliens? And what if you wanted to add a pinch of reality to your science fiction? 

Whether you believe little green men flying in aerodynamic dinner plates have visited us or not, isn’t the point of this post. This is about fantasy and science fiction writing and I guess dystopian too. If you want to set your story on an Earth like planet, using a society similar to what we have, or even want to inject a little realism into a far fantasy/sci-fi story, then this Alien Top of the Pops is for you.

“At least four different alien species have been visiting Earth for thousands of years.” Former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer

I think a pinch of reality makes something all the more scary. What will give your story realism, is the fact some of these species are widely reported in conspiracies. Whether or not people believe doesn’t matter. The point is they will have heard of these creatures. Even a whisper in society is enough to give weight to a story. So whether readers believe in these species or not, their subconscious probably has probably heard of them and all you need is the illusion of truth and that will make your stories all the more real and scary to them.

I’ve picked the four most frequently whispered about aliens. At the bottom, I have linked to a series of youtube videos that list 82 different species that have visited Earth. If you want to do your research on aliens in conspiracies to give a more realistic or perhaps a scary feel to your story then that’s the series for you.

Number One – Grey Aliens

Everyone knows what a grey alien is. It’s the iconic, starved of oxygen runt of the litter. With skinny arms, legs and body and a disproportionately oversized head. Their name comes from their skin colour, grey. They’re also real short, at just 4ft high.

They are said to come from the Zeta Reticulan star system.

Made famous by the Roswell crash, there’s even a festival over there celebrating them. (#Bucketlist).

They might be small, but don’t underestimate them, these little fuckers are nasty. They’re the species attributed to 99% of alien abductions and the supposed hybrid programme combining human and alien DNA. They are also famed for experimenting on animals and dropping disembodied cow (and any other animal for that matter) carcasses all over the place.

This ‘grey alien’ term is widely accepted, but it seems as though there are many a variation of grey alien. From the taller greys sometimes know as Sirians attributable by their home star Sirius, to the short ones I have already mentioned.

They don’t like light. Some suggest that’s the reason for their big black eyes, which might actually be some kind of Morpheus superhero sunglasses. They also don’t talk. At least not our language. Conspiracists suggest they are telepathic only, and there are many a video on youtube with secret footage like this one showing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2SS8IwCCPA

Number Two – Pleiadian or Nordic

Imagine an baby making orgy between ABBA, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett in LOTRs) and a spiritually inclined giant viking, and that’s what a Nordic alien looks like.

They’re tall, like basketball player tall, at an average of 6-7 feet and get their name from their home star system Pleiadies 400 light years away. Skeptics refute that any lifeforms could come from their and be more advanced than us as those stars are still young.

They are said to be peaceful, spiritual and telepathic and only interested in interacting with humans rather than experimenting on us!

Their rise to fame was during the 50’s and 60’s after a number of reported sightings and interactions. However, skeptics refute the sightings claiming racial motivation due to their overtly ‘white’ appearances.

Supposedly Eisenhower met with them in ’54 to exchange technology and they tried influence him to disarm his nuclear efforts.

Number Three – Annunaki

The Annunaki are in fashion right now and my own personal obsession. I’ve written about them and their connection to the giants before. Also known as long heads, Nephilim, or gods. They are famed for being connected to Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Babylonian history and mythology.

But they are also connected to the bible. Said to have been the ‘watchers’ or angels who came down to Earth, copped off with our women and made the Nephilim (hybrid angel/alien babies). They taught us all kinds of cool stuff like how to make weapons, what ‘society’ and law is amongst a bunch of other stuff. Bit like the other bible story of the garden of Eden and the snake/apple.

They became widely popular after several elongated skulls were found in Paracas, Peru. Now, skull deformation isn’t a rarity in itself. The Mangbetu tribe in Africa would elongate all their heads, and the practice can still be found in Vanuatu today. However, what caused controversy was the formation of the skulls. Even when we elongate our brains the volume of space inside our skulls doesn’t change. These skulls had 30% more volume, as well as a different bone thickness and density, and only one parietal bone where we have two.

Cuneiform is supposedly the closest language to theirs something they taught to the Sumerians. See the photo on the right for an example. It comprises a set of almost triangular/star like markings arranged in rows.

The winged eagle with a circle in the top left is now widely accepted as the symbol for Annunaki. The wings representing flight and a ‘higher’ godlike status and the planet, Nibiru, their home.

What I find most interesting about the Annunaki is they are said to be from our solar system. From Planet X or the mystery planet often known as Nibiru said to come into our solar system orbits every 3600 years. There is actually a hole in the asteroid belt which suggests that something planet sized came/comes through it. It has also been blamed for smashing into Earth and splintering the moon off.

What’s interesting is that scientists do say there is some massive influence on our solar system that we haven’t identified yet, and I’m not talking dark matter here.

Many stars are actually double stars, or binary stars i.e. they live in ‘close’ proximity to another star, both influencing and impacting on each others gravitational pull. Nibiru is said to have lower light and radiation on their planet, which makes sense if they orbit stars at such extreme lengths. Supposedly, the Annunaki have drastically shortened lives living on Earth due to the increased light and radiation on our planet.

Here’s a confused bunch of reporters from KSRA filming the sky before dawn and a mysterious second sun? or maybe it is a planet…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HxsB4Lx5mU

Number Four – Reptilian or Alpha Draconian 

Imagine there was no catastrophic meteor 60 million years ago. What would dinosaurs have evolved into? Some kind of night-terror inducing, human / reptoid hybrid? Well, just maybe.

These are the Voldemort of the alien world. Nasty, human-eating mofos. There are a number of supposed subsets to this species. Including: preying mantis style insectoids, a delightful shape shifting world leader infiltrating bunch, a set that live underground here on Earth and well as some snakey looking bitches and a few others.

So named ‘Draconian’ because of their home star system, Draco. It’s a big ol’ system with stars ranging anything from  72 to 3000 light years away.

These reptoids are massive 7-9ft tall, scaley have vertical lizard pupils and three long fingers.

They have the most conspiracy surrounding them, including that they secretly run the world through rich families, hybridisation with humans and monarchies to actually being the world leaders and the pope shapeshifted in disguise! To inspiring TV series, like V.

Here’s the series of videos I mentioned with a mammoth list of 82 species that have reportedly visited earth, this is like a sci-fi candy box, grab the popcorn and binge out peeps.

The first video is here, the second here the final one here.

So what alien species have you heard of? Have you ever written any stories with them in? Have these sparked stories ideas for you? Let me know in the comments.

***

Like this or any other post? Get even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox, by signing up for my brand spanking, sparkly glitter covered newsletter right here.

The post A Writers' Guide to Science Fiction vs. Reality – Alien Species appeared first on Sacha Black.

They’re works of art, whether they’re made from the hand of a human or from the oddly artistic feet of an alien space craft, there’s no doubt they still look awesome.

But what is the significance of them? Why do they cause such controversy? and why the shit is it relevant to my writing?

Crop circles are flattened pieces of field usually pressed into artistic patterns which viewed from the air, look spectacular. They have been around for donkeys but didn’t hit the conspiracy market till the late 60’s after a series of hoax circles were created. These hoax circles were inspired by the ‘real’ crop circle formed in a field in Tully Australia after a guy witnessed a UFO and then found a crop circle.

The popularity of them boomed causing a gaggle of crop circle spotters dressed in finely tailored anoraks to shoot sightings through the roof. Sadly there’s no doubt that because of the JK Rowling like boom, many of the circles were hoaxes. Crop circles actually became so popular, they launched a crop circle competition with a £3000 prize for the best artist!

The top causes for conspiracy around crop circles are as follows:

1. The locations. Most crop circles in the UK appear near Stonehenge in Wiltshire an historical site known for its huge stones and inexplicable construction.

2. Some of them have electromagnetic readings that shoot through the roof. The suggestion is that the poles and magnetism are in part the cause of the shapes.

3. Supposedly some of them the crops aren’t flattened, but have accelerated growth which shapes the crops. (see photo)

If you want to visit a crop circle, I found this handy little UK website, and this little doll of a US site both of which list crop circles locations and accessibility rights.

If you fancy looking at some mind bogglingly impressive crop circles check out these 10 crop circle images that can be found on google

There’s no shortage of peculiar stories that surround crop circles too. Like this gem I found in the Telegraph or this woman who actually shot a photo of a UFO above a crop.

But why is any of this relevant, and what’s it got to do with writing?

Crop Circles & WorldBuilding

1. Distances and Feel

One of the things I can’t cope without when world building is having a tangible concept of what the city or location looks like. I’m visual. I need pictures and a layout, a map if you like.

Something my spatially inept brain can use to point at with fat digits, slap at a calculator to figure out travel times and distances. But also because I want to ‘feel’ what the city is like. Is it sprawling and wide like Los Angeles? or is it densely packed and suffocating like Kowloon Walled City?

I had to find inspiration and the bog standard city maps weren’t cutting the mustard. After all this was a fantasy location.

2. Fantasy vs. Reality

Although I needed something that was fantastical in nature, I also wanted it to be realistic. I write YA/NA and for me, grounding my plots in reality is important. So I studied crop circle shapes and discovered that there really are cities built in crazy ways, some of which reflect crop circle shapes. Take Palmanova in Italy as an example (photo on the left).

*insert my best moronic, jaw on the floor face.*

There are dozens more examples, like Palm island in Dubai. The point is this gave me something to go off. I used these cities and crop circle shapes as a springboard to creating my own maps.

3. Drawing and Mapping

So I had a go. I started with this cruddy biro drawing inspired by the patterns and layouts of the crop circles and oddly shaped cities. I know… it’s worse than a mouldy flea infested shit, but it was a first attempt!

Then I had another go, and moved it closer to reality. I inserted a compass, islands and boundary lines. This gave me the initial shape of the world. It’s a well loved bit of paper, hence all the creases. It’s not finished either. I still need to add each sectors’ cities, but for now, it’s enough. I know where the cities are in each section and I can visual the distances.

For the city constructs themselves and the buildings I am using a couple of Pinterest boards to pull relevant images and a mood board together. If you’re interested you can follow me here. Or join my group board for writers’ blog posts here.

So, how do you build cities or locations? What do you need when constructing places? Do you draw maps? Let me know in the comments.

Finally, if you’re interested I found a longer video on YouTube that talks about crop circles and the desert Nasca lines, it’s 50 minutes.

If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up for my brand new monthly newsletter with loads of great tips and inspiration for writers. Sign up here.

The post 3 Reasons To Use Crop Circles to Build Worlds – Weekly Wonder #11 appeared first on Sacha Black.

But, one thing I don’t mind admitting, is that I am 100% certain we are not alone.

You can’t tell me in that infinite void we call the universe, no one else climbed out of the primordial slime. No chance. I mean, does anyone actually believe that any more?!

But then, if there’s life out there… where the hell is it?

And that’s the question Fermi tries to answer with his paradox.

The Fermi paradox, according to Wiki, tries to solve the contradiction between the fact that space is infinite, and therefore the likelihood of there being life out there, is high. Yet, there is a lack of evidence for higher civilisations, (or at least a lack of accepted evidence).

Fermi asked just that.

If space is infinite, then the probability of other life is high, so why have we not encountered any other life forms?

To be fair, it’s a good question. He continues to add that our sun is average, in an average galaxy, that even at the slow pace of interstellar travel, our galaxy could be crossed in less than a million years. If it can be crossed in less than a million years, and the universe is over 13 BILLION years old, someone must have been able to cover the distance by now.
Fermi also reasoned that every star system ought to have been colonised and under the command of a species within 10 million years (SETI)…this is where he starts to lose me, didn’t it take at least 4 million years for us to crawl out of the primordial sludge, stop scratching our arses and start using our frontal cortexes?

Now, this is complicated, so I found a youtube video that explains it very simply, in just 6 minutes, watch it.

To summarise the video, it explains that there are three stages to life:

Type 1 – a civilisation that can use all resources on its planet

Type 2 – a civilisation that can use all the resources of its home star

Type 3 – a civilisation that can use all the resources of its entire galaxy (this would be god like to us)

It also highlights the concept of filters – a kind of barrier that life faces whilst trying to survive which is extremely hard to over come. The reasoning for it – the fact that we haven’t seen any other life, therefore, there must be something ‘a filter’ preventing us from surviving or travelling or…. etc etc.

It then gives three reasons why we may not have seen life so far:

1. Maybe these filters exist and we have passed them, if so maybe we are the first civilisation to exist, the rest are behind us and trying to pass the filters.

2. Maybe we are behind other civilisations and the filters are ahead of us and we    don’t know yet if we will survive them, or worse, we reach a filter that no life has yet been able to pass.

3. Maybe there is a type 3 civilisation out there that is watching us ready to extinguish us when we reach a certain level, or maybe they will welcome us. Or maybe, we are going to be that type 3 civilisation.

If you check out the Wiki page, there are a dozen or more reasons why we haven’t found life: we’re not listening correctly, we haven’t existed long enough, its too resource expensive to travel through space, extinction by natural disasters, everyone is listening instead of transmitting, Earth is purposely isolated – kept in a cage like a zoo, they are here, and we don’t know or worse, they are here and we do know but society doesn’t.

The problem with this paradox, is that either way, we’re fucked. If we DO discover life out there, then it means the filters we have passed are easier to pass than those we have coming. Meaning, whatever filter is next, or the one after that, will likely kill us.

*gulp*

Here’s another article with 11 weird answers to the fermi paradox.

What does this mean for writing? Well it’s a wicked cool hypothesis to base a sci-fi or fantasy story on. Right now, I have all kinds of ideas churning round my head. Here’s some questions that are giving me story ideas:

• What does (or could) a filter look like?  
• What happens when we get there? Could I set a story right at the point civilisation reaches a filter?
• How do we fight it or battle past it?
• Do we survive? What happens if we DO survive? What would life look like?
• What if we met other species battling the same filter? What if they were the filter?

Finally, there is a TEDx talk from Rob Hanson that discusses this:

Did this spark inspiration for you? What do you think of the Fermi Paradox? Do you think there’s life out there? Let me know in the comments below.

Get even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox, by signing up for my brand spanking, glittery* newsletter right here. (*electronic glitter only)

The post F*** Fermi – I Never Liked A Paradox Anyway appeared first on Sacha Black.

I am well overdue a weekly wonder. So I thought I would bring you a truly bizarre theory.

I stumbled across the Hollow Earth theory trying to research the Hollow Moon theory some time ago (more on that another time).  There have been many theories proposing different ideas around the Hollow Earth, William Reed and Edmond Halley being some of the first to note it. The Hollow Earth theory is a conspiracy claiming that the Earth is in fact, Hollow. The way I see it, this hollowness is in two parts:

The first: that the inside of the Earth is partly or entirely hollow, with a sun at the centre of the Earth which shines permanently and gives life to the most beautiful luscious greenery and a plethora of creatures and animals including those that have been extinct on the surface of the Earth, like mammoths and some even suggest dinosaurs. The giant land which is said to be at the centre of the Earth is called Agartha and its capital city is called Shamballah.

Interestingly Shamballah is also a name coined by Bhuddists (Shambalah). Which refers to a magical mythical land somewhere inside Asia and is thought of as the pure land with beings more beautiful and wise than we. It makes me question whether given the descriptions of the perfect serenity of this land, if there aren’t connections to the garden of Eden?

Tibetan scholars, have taught about an inner world, and claim to be in contact with the “King of the Inner World” or supreme ruler of the entire planet. Which supposedly the Dalai Lama is a representative for the outside world.

What’s interesting is what else the Tibetan scholars say. Supposedly the tunnels connect Tibet with the inner world (which they protect). There are claims of dozens of others connecting tunnels which are scattered across the Earth. For example, those found under the great pyramids of Giza – Egypt, Derinkuyu in Cappadocia -Turkey, South America, the Amazon Basin connecting the lost city of “El Dorado“ and many more. Which brings me to…

The second: this part of the theory connects Hollow Earth to Area 51. Suggesting that Area 51 is actually entirely underground comprising 27 levels, the first of which begins at 2.5miles below the surface. The first 16 levels are controlled by us, the second 11 by other creatures. Theories claim that what’s above ground is called S4 or dreamland. But this goes one step further, claiming that the Earth’s mantle is littered with an underground cave system and tunnels. The only way I can envisage this is much like the London underground! These tunnels are both connecting the surface to Agartha and also used for military purposes.

Reed was looking for the North and South poles and as a result of the crazy magnetic readings and difference between true north and magnetic north claimed that they don’t actually exist on land. They are in fact, in the middle of a giant hole – the opening to Agatha, he said. Why?

Because at 70 to 75 degrees North and South latitude the Earth starts to curve INWARDS and flattens. The Earth is not a perfect sphere. Reed says that the magnetic pole is just the outer rim of a magnetic circle around the polar opening of the tunnel to Agartha. Perhaps this is why there is a difference between True North

and Magnetic North. Lots of Arctic explorers after reaching high latitudes have been flabbergasted by the inexplicable behaviour of their compasses. When approaching 90 degrees (inside the polar opening) their compasses had a tendency to point upward vertically.

Another strange fact – Icebergs are freshwater – NOT salt water. Weird huh. Well the claim is that it is the fresh water from inside the Earth that freezes on contact with our atmosphere.

CONTRARY EVIDENCE 

I like to be balanced, just to prove a point that this is about ideas for writers, not that I believe everything I read, so here is some contrary evidence:

Gravity. Giant objects like planets swirl and turn, until they spin so fast they clump together creating non-hollow spherical objects – stars and planets.  Ordinary matter is not strong enough to support an entirely hollowed planet against the force of gravity. Or so the science tells us – it doesn’t mention dark matter or the other stuff we don’t have names for yet though…

Current gravity theories suggest anyone on the inside of the hollow Earth wouldn’t experience an outward pull and therefore wouldn’t be able to stand on the inner surface; they would be nearly weightless.

“This was first shown by Newton, whose shell theorem mathematically predicts a gravitational force (from the shell) of zero everywhere inside a spherically symmetric hollow shell of matter, regardless of the shell’s thickness.”  Crystalinks

Ok fine, but didn’t we just learn that the Earth isn’t perfectly spherical? And what about those fairground rides that are spherical, and spin really fast – you stick to the inside of the walls well enough… so how does that work?

Well, a tiny gravitational force would indeed arise from the fact that the Earth does not have a perfectly symmetrical spherical shape, as well as from forces arising from other massive bodies like the Moon. This would provide some gravity in essence to stick someone to the surface, but likely, they would need to be moving at the same speed as the inner surface of the Earth. However, if the Earth were hollow, it is likely that the gravitational pull on the surface we stand on, would be much lower.

Does the theory seem plausible? I’m not so sure. What I do find interesting with a lot of these conspiracy theories, is that you often see traces of them in mainstream media. Take the Matrix Revolutions as a case in point, or The Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. In the Matrix, what’s left of Earths population live in the centre of the Earth in a city called Zion where it’s still warmed by the Earth’s core.

This theory is every science fiction and fantasy writers dream. I love the idea of underground tunnels – in fact, as a result of learning about this theory some time ago, I use something inspired by this in my first book, Keepers, which I am now editing,

If you are interested in reading more, there are a number of anecdotes from military personnel who claim to have been there, you can read more here.

What do you think? Have you ever written a story with underground tunnels or a world of people that live underground? Let me know in the comments below.

Get even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox, by signing up for my brand spanking, glittery* newsletter right here. (*electronic glitter only)

The post Hollow Earth and the Secrets Hidden at the Centre of the Planet appeared first on Sacha Black.

Ironic really, that the week before Martian the new Matt Damon film was released, NASA confirm there is water on Mars. Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the frequency of ‘information’ releases about extraterrestrial life has increased significantly over the last 5 -10 years? I guaranty, give it 20 years and we will be told there is life out there. Quite frankly, I’m gobsmacked NASA didn’t release the fact there are microbes in the water on Mars as it is.

I mean, isn’t that a given? What water doesn’t have microorganisms and amoebas in it. I mean seriously, there isn’t even bacteria in the Martian water??? Doesn’t anyone else find THAT harder to believe than the fact there’s water on the planet?

This is one of the photos of Mars taken by NASA.

What you are being shown sadly, is false colour. They do this a lot and spout reasons like ‘it makes it easier to see and differentiate what they are trying to show us.’

Ah ha. I hate that.

Show me the real image, the real colours… why do they assume changing the colours is better than using an arrow to point out what they need to? Changing colours leads to all kinds of wrongly accepted information. Like, did you know the moon isn’t grey?! Yeah. For real. It’s sandy red coloured.

You can see that from official Chinese Jade Rabbit photos and video footage – watch the video right through to the end – the second half of the video is in colour and shows the moons real surface colour.

In the photo above, and below, you can see “Dark, narrow streaks…formed by seasonal flow of water on Mars. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field…are formed by briny liquid water”  you can read the full story on NASA’s website. In addition, if you want to see some awesome and seriously inspirational photos in a collection, check out Flipboard.

NASA go on to explain that the water flow is intermittent, due to temperature fluctuations, they say,“They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.”

But by far the most interesting thing they say is this, from astronaut John Grunsfeld:

“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water — albeit briny — is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”

“Search for life…. validates what we’ve long suspected.” Yeah…  just read that first sentence again, Anyone else notice how he’s admitting by omission the fact they know there is life out there? What’s frustrating, is that they freely admit have the technology to detect what they term ‘signatures’ of salts and minerals in the water. That means they can detect trace or microscopic amounts of minerals You know what that says to me? That they can also detect frigging tiny microorganisms too.

But water on Mars, isn’t the only interesting thing up there, and this wouldn’t be a weekly wonder without some kind of controversial topic… So… It is said, that there is a face on Mars. The face is a monstrous 3 km rock, first discovered in 1976 by the viking spacecraft and has divided the scientific community for decades, people either believe one of two things:

1. It is a trick of the light and caused by wind erosion

2. It was created by an ancient intelligent civilisation.

The 2001 photo is said to be more accurate because of increased technology and satellite capability.

I have seen other satellite photos claiming that the face has eyeballs, and some satellite photos which show teeth carved into the sculpture too. The interesting thing is, that despite photos being taken weeks apart, and from opposing angles and in different lighting conditions, the images still seem to show the same thing. A symmetrical object – it looks like a face from either side. All except the newly (2001) published photos, odd, given they have two decades of photos showing roughly the same thing.

The thing is even in the newer photos, there are perpendicular lines, and semi circles in it. ERM…. natural erosion does not produce straight lines, perpendicular ones or semi circles that form a perimeter round objects for that matter. Sure maybe one or two of those things might happen in some types of erosion – I am sure someone will be able to find an example of it just to be argumentative. But all of them? What are the odds?

On the face of probability, if the face was an isolated object, it’s just about believable that erosion could have done the one in a million thing and produced a face. But wait one…This ‘face’ isn’t an isolated occurrence in the region it’s located on Mars. It is near several other ‘odd’ objects. A pyramid for one, and  secondly, what people are claiming is remnants of a city. All these objects have straight edges and non-natural shapes too including other smaller pyramids. I think if the ‘face’ was isolated it may be more convincing that it was a natural freak occurrence, but given that it is near dozens of other objects that appear to be ‘man made’ it makes the ‘erosion’ theory a little harder to swallow.

Not sure which camp I sit in, I would be happy to accept either, if only there was some serious, validated and convincing proof one way or another.

What do you think?

Weekly wonders are meant to inspire my writing, this has given me an explosion of ideas, you could do anything from: Sci-Fi, inspired Mars stories? Maybe humans have run out of space and migrate to Mars, maybe the airs run out, or perhaps we were invaded by an alien race, or maybe someone discovered we actually came from Mars and we decide to migrate back. I hope this has given you some inspiration.

Get even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox, by signing up for my brand spanking, glittery* newsletter right here. (*electronic glitter only)

The post The Secrets of Mars appeared first on Sacha Black.

Well someone was is watching. There is a satellite orbiting the Earth and it’s called the Black Knight, and we discovered it before we even had the ability of putting objects in the sky…

It’s reported that we are captured on camera 300 times a day. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, in buses, shops, libraries, work buildings. Big Brother, isn’t just a concept any more. It’s completely real. But what if it had been real long before we had the ability to put objects in the sky?

Nikolas Tesla was famed for intercepting a signal from an unidentified source in space in 1899. It was later attributed to the Black Knight, this was retracted a few years later and attributed to pulsar signals from a neutron star. Sadly he wasn’t able to decrypt the message because it wasn’t in a recognisable language.

The story kept resurfacing and was in the news in the 1940’s. It later made famous when it was in the the St. Louis Dispatch and The San Francisco Examiner, both wrote about the “Satellite” in May 1954. Time Magazine also wrote about the “Black Knight Satellite” on the seventh of March, 1960.

Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation were organisation to successfully photograph the unidentified satellite next to their recently launched Echo One satellite (so it definitely wasn’t their satellite). They reported that object varied in colour from carrot to straw.

In 1954 investigations began looking for artificial objects orbiting the Earth – Newspapers reported that there were 1 or 2 objects that were unidentifiable. They were initially thought to be Russian or British. But the Russians didn’t launch their first satellite into space until 1957. In 1960 after president Eisenhower received information about the Black Knight’s orbit and that it wasn’t British or Russian, he marked all further information on the Black Knight as top secret. Then the space race began…

Not being funny… but marking anything top secret screams juicy right?

If you want to see the original NASA image above you can find it here, where you can download and zoom to your hearts content – I did!

Most objects orbit the planet around the equator – an ‘equatorial orbit’. The spin of the Earth and pull of gravity into the centre makes this the easiest orbit to achieve. In addition most orbits are just a few hundred miles out. What makes the Black Knight so interesting is that it has been recorded at different distances and up to 6200 miles out, more interesting than that is, it doesn’t orbit equatorially; it has a polar orbit. The first satellite to orbit in a polar fashion wasn’t launched until 1st April 1960, long after the satellite was discovered.

Of course, this is a cover up conspiracy so naturally there as many deniers as there are believers.

The most frequent argument against this being an alien satellite and just plain old space debris is that during the STS-88 mission a ‘Trunnion’ cover fell off and went missing.

They said the cover was black one side, silver the other – hence it wasn’t the mysterious Black Knight at all, but actually a trunnion cover. If you are going to lie, and cover something up, you ought to make sure you check the detail first… Look at the photo, the trunnion covers white, not black.

To give weight to the conspiracy you always need an expert to back it up. Gordon Cooper (1924-2004) Project Mercury astronaut stated that he saw the Black Knight. He said it had green lights emanating from it. This sighting happened simultaneously as NASA ground control reported something unexplainable.

There’s more and this is where it gets really strange…

I mentioned Tesla found signals, well he wasn’t the only one. In the 1920’s signals were observed by a Norwegian and Dutch scientist when they were studying the long delayed radio effect. In 1973 Duncun Lunan, a writer and astronomer was investigating their data and managed to decrypt a message, this was published in a variety of credible sources such as Time magazine, where he also in an effort to be transparent, published his methodology. After coming under scrutiny he withdrew the theory, but later still republished a slightly reworded version in lesser known academic paper. The message read:

I’ve looked up this constellation, guess what… there are exoplanets orbiting the stars…

As a result of the signals, and the identifiable information, he was able to posit that this message originated 13 – 15,000 years ago.

And what happened 13,000 years ago? The great flood. And what does the bible say about the great flood? Well, one of the quotes is this:

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.”

Ark? An ark…?? What like the one that held the DNA of the animals two-by-two just before the flood?! Don’t like over connecting dots, but…

I’ll sum up…This satellite has been observed in dozens of countries by pilots, scientists, astronauts and even amateteur astronomers. Although it cant always be found, when it is, it is always in the same polar orbit, an orbit we use now for reconnaissance. It has also been observed making a 180 degree turn. NASA and various others who have observed this satellite have measured it’s speed. It is 1.5-3 times fast than our fastest satellites.

My last fact for you: Scientists have fired radio signals at it. Natural objects cannot reflect radio signals. The Black Knight does.

***

This reminded me of the film Aeon Flux – if you haven’t seen it, do: There is an Ark, which holds the DNA of the remaining humans. Those in power clone humans because as at some point we became infertile. It’s the only way they survive until they find a cure for infertility. But because they are clones, they begin to have flashbacks of memories from past lives.

Is someone watching us? Maybe but maybe it is just another conspiracy. What I think doesn’t matter, I found it fascinating and inspiring more importantly. It shot me back to 1984, and watching Big Brother. It made me think of Utopian worlds with governments that claim they are watching you for the greater good… This one really got my creative juices flowing. What do you think?

The post Big Brother Really is Watching He's Called The Black Knight Satellite appeared first on Sacha Black.

Giants are all over fiction stories like fairytales such as Jack and the Beanstalk and the BFG, but what about actual giants? You know, the ones that lived and breathed on planet Earth? Some argue it’s just another conspiracy. But I wonder if they saw a giant skeleton, knew about the ones hidden in the Smithsonian, heard about the theory connecting the Annunaki and Nephilim and the references littered in the Bible, whether they might change their mind…

This is the second instalment in my weekly wonder series, designed to provide inspiration for stories. This time I wanted to think about different creatures or beings you could create and so, giants sprang to mind…

There are a plethora of newspaper articles from the 18 and 1900’s that describe discoveries of giant skeletons. There was an explosion of discoveries in America during this time. This is fact. We know they exist, skeletons were found. A definitive explanation for how they came to be or why they died out still alludes us.

The newspaper articles I’ve seen claim skeleton heights from 7ft tall all the way up to 19ft tall. There is an interesting quirk to how a lot of these skeletons were found. The ones in America particularly, were often found in groups under burial mounds.

Something I found fascinating was that they were buried in circles, sat upright, with all their feet pointing into the circle. I haven’t done enough research yet to know what the suggested reasons for this are ye. But it certainly generates a lot of sparks for ideas around ceremonies and unusual traditions around death and burials which is particularly helpful for me as I have a death and funeral of sorts in my novel.

There are other interesting things about these skeletons, for example, one report I read stated one skull had teeth which grew the other way around. Instead of being flat facing like ours (lets call our teeth horizontal) some of theirs grew vertically – as in a 90 degree rotation.

Many of the giants skeletons have red hair. What’s interesting about this is that some of the Paracas skulls (the long head – or conehead- skulls, and if you don’t know what they are that will be another post) also have red hair, and some of those too were famed for being Giants albeit slightly shorter at 6″7 – 7″6. In addition, their children (Nephilim) were often said to be either blonde or red headed.

Something else that I have always wondered about is the size and scale of some ancient structures. Take for example the Sumerian doors in the British museum. I can feel myself about to talk myself round in a circle but bear with me. We have been told that thousands of years ago technology was primitive…

So why therefore would these primitive societies go to such lengths to build enormous doors? Particularly when most things were made for functionality and efficiency. Generally speaking the most efficient thing to do is construct buildings and structures appropriate to the need. Its Pareto’s law – 20% effort for 80%.

It doesn’t make any sense to me that these things were built so massive just for the sake of grandeur and displays of wealth. Sure the rich and royal adorned themselves with diamonds and jewels – but epic sized doorways and buildings…? hmm, I’m less convinced.

Lets think about sculptures in general, and replicate that thought across. Why are some sculptures huge and others tiny?

When you look at a lot of sculptures (ok, I know this doesn’t apply to all sculptures) – they are life size or almost life size… I figure it’s easier these days to make extravagant oversized sculptures because we have the technology to do it – but this is G.R.A.N.I.T.E we are talking about. Not some soft soapstone or alabaster, pure rock hard, needs a diamond tipped saw to carve it, granite.

Why would they choose to create oversized sculptures using the hardest most impossibly difficult stone to carve? Personally I don’t think they would. Which leads me to think that these Giants, (given that skeletons have been found all over the world) were in fact.

Take this tablet I photographed in the museum. A tablet found in an Iraqi temple. You could argue that this tablet is symbolic, that the seated person is in power and therefore depicted larger. But why? Why would you leave symbolic tablets for future generations to ‘interpret’? Would you not be more literal, factual, to the point to save for translational errors? The seated figure is sat and yet still twice as large as the humans below him, can you imagine if he stood? Sounds like a giant to me, possibly one of the 18ft ones.

Look at his hat. The humans have normal shaped heads. The giant has a large hat on his normal shaped head… or maybe he just has a long hat for his long Paracas shaped head. Just stating the obvious…

More interesting than this though, is the connection between giants, long heads, the Bible and the Nephilim.

The bible is littered with references to giants. More often than not this has been interpreted symbolically – Giantism a symbol for wealth and power. (Hold on to that thought)

Numbers 13 (NKJ Version) is an infamous quote about giants:

“…all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants[d] (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

But what if like the buildings these scriptures were meant literally. What if the 12 spies that Moses sent to Canaan really did see giants? The Israelites wrote that all their knowledge came from the giants. What if the first humans were giants? But what if they came from somewhere other than here? The Sumerians one of the first recorded civilisations wrote that their knowledge came from celestial beings. Beings that ‘came from the heavens’ creatures they called the Annunaki.

This knowledge included (but not limited to) concepts of law, policing, writing and complex buildings. The Sumerians’ were the first race to ‘do’ many of these things. That’s a lot of change and innovative thought for one society to miraculously discover. Perhaps it is more likely that these Annunaki/watchers gave them this knowledge.

The Annunaki have an identical story as the Watchers. Watchers religiously known as the angels came to watch over Earth. They saw women and decided they were beautiful and took them for their wives – creating the Nephilim – a race of giants. This particular race were destructive. It is said, one of the reasons for the great flood was to wipe out the giants…The Apocryphal book of Baruch specifically says the great flood wiped out 409,000 giants.

Sadly, many of these skeletons recorded in the news, photographed and written about have disappeared. Particularly the more controversial ones. Some do remain, particularly the Paracas skulls I will discuss in a different post, but very few giant skeletons remain on display, many being rumoured to have been sucked into the secret underground archives of the Smithsonian.

That’s enough wondering from me. My brain is full to the brim with ideas about worlds of giants, both good and evil, humungous temples and buildings and stories about angels. I have ideas for the history and creation of the world I have created in my novel too. But more than anything I’m left with questions about where we came from, and who the giants really were…

This is an interesting film about giants, but if you want to watch it – be warned it is about 40 minutes long.

What did you think of this post? Did it inspire any stories? Let me know in the comments below.

Get even more exclusive content straight to your mailbox, by signing up for my brand spanking, glittery* newsletter right here. (*electronic glitter only)

The post Earth's Secret Race of Giants and Their Connection To The Annunaki and Nephilim appeared first on Sacha Black.