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.

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

What if we’re late to the game cause someone else already thought of nuclear weapons 10,000 years ago?!

Well that’s todays wonder – the theory that nuclear weapons are not a 20th century invention at all, but a bronze age creation.

Of course, this is a conspiracy theory, with as many proponents as debunkers trying to argue it out. But let me entertain you with the believers story. Because, after all, I love a bit of weird and wonderful inspiration and this is how I get my book ideas.

The Mahabharata an ancient Indian scripture, is famed for detailing descriptions of weapons that sound oddly like modern nuclear weapons:

“A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. “The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. “After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river.”  Disclose TV

But a single quote from a scripture isn’t really enough evidence to make a wild assumption like an ancient race having nuclear tech. So what of the physical evidence?

In India and Pakistan there are several geographical areas that have caused controversy. The first, Lonar Lake from the Buldhana region. Said to be created from a meteor impact, it’s age is said to be anywhere from 6000 years old to 570,000 years old. There is some disagreement about whether this crater was created by an asteroid. Although refuted (obviously *eyeroll*) there are claims that no meteorological material was found.

Harappa & Mohenjo-Daro

But more compelling than a big round bomb hole meteor crater, is the three square mile area west of Jodphur: a town called Harappa. All three square miles were found to be covered in a layer of radio active dust. The area was only found after a high rate of birth defects and cancer. The radioactive levels were so high in fact that the government cordoned off the area in order to do research. Research that unearthed remains of an ancient city and a bomb blast.

When they reached street level, they found petrified skeletons frozen in position almost as if they had no time to escape and there was no one left to bury them after. Why else would hundreds of skeletons all die simultaneously and be left in the street unburied? Oh, did I say they were irradiated too?

Glass – After the high intensity heat blast from a nuclear weapon, glass is formed. And guess what… That exact glass was found in great columns in the area, just like the remnants found in Nevada after nuclear testing.

Mysteriously, Oppenheimer the creator of the atomic bomb himself, responded when asked how he felt about firing the first atomic weapon, that it wasn’t the first, merely the first in modern times.  

Whether there were nuclear bombs in our ancient history or not remains a mystery to me. But what I do know, it that it’s cool to think about. I love the idea of hybridising an ancient race for a story. Ancient civilisation come science fiction. I guess that’s how the Steampunk genre came about – Science fiction meets the Victorian era.

But more than anything, it reminded me of my Flat Earth novel, that I am researching for and the concept that a race discovers the world they know is a total lie. What if ours really was? What if everything we thought we knew about our past was wrong.

If you liked this post, you can catch up with the others in the series on this page. While you’re at it, why not sign up for updates, all these weird wonders and writing tips straight to your mailbox. Sign up here.

The post The Ancient Nuclear War No One Told You About 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.

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The post Ancient Flyer – The Mystery of Ancient Aircraft 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.

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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.

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

Looking at historical buildings and constructions is something that even non historical writers should be doing. History is rife with anomalies and inconsistencies, which even with a hint of imagination can send you off in bizarre directions.

The Kailasa temple is shrouded in mystery.

Usually buildings are constructed from the ground up. The first brick is laid on top of foundations and then you continue placing them on top of each other until you reach the highest floor where you stop and attach a roof. This is how we build, in every country, in every continent across the world.

But the Kailasa wasn’t built like that.

The Kailasa was built top down. Yeah. Seriously. They carved from the top of a mountain down towards the Earth. I can barely get my head around that, I can’t comprehend the foresight needed to understand structurally how to build top to bottom. This means over 400,000 tonnes of rock had to be scooped out to leave the carvings. This would have taken years and years and years to do without advanced technology.

Yet the building was constructed in just 18 years.

In the video below, the man speaking does the simple math, and breaks it down to how much rock would need to be removed. Based on people working every day for 12 hours a day without breaks. That equates to: 22,000 tonnes a year, 60 tonnes a day, 5 tonnes an hour… umm……

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no architect, I am just presenting the information I have found, so if you are an architectural genius, feel free to disagree, these aren’t my arguments.

The video also brings up other interesting facts – a king tried to destroy the temple, 1000 of his people tried to destroy the temple, they worked for 3 years and barely scratched the sculptures. Interestingly architects seem to think 3 types of chisel were used to create it. If chisels were used to create it, then why couldn’t the same chisels be used to destroy it…? Just asking.

Even more interesting is the point that, to create a structure like this, is more difficult and would require a higher sophistication of structural engineering than building from the bottom up. Yeah, to create a building like this, requires more brain power, techniques and engineering feats than how we build today. So why, if we built like this before, do we not build like this today?

That, is an interesting question. It’s almost like we lost the technology. Vanished into thin air. *shrug*

Watch this video – it’s 9 minutes 20 so won’t take up much of your time.

Where do you get your inspiration? Let me know in the comments.

I bang on about these weekly wonders as a huge source of inspiration. For me, I have to look for the weird in the world, anything out of the ordinary immediately sparks of a flurry of ideas.

I wanted to think about the ‘why’ behind these posts.

I write them because I used to get stuck just looking at things I know about and already understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I still find beauty in the curves of the waves on an angry ocean or the plush greens of forests. But they help me describe things in my stories and help me get depth to my imagery and visuals.

What they don’t do, is spark ideas, or twists. By that I mean, thinking about this building makes my mind race all over the place. I wondered about a race of beings that only eat buildings. Snaffling the roof first and then gobbling the building whole – a bit like scooby doo and his sarnies. Wait what? How did I get from an ancient temple, to scooby doo… do you see my point?

Or what about another race of beings that flies over the planet using a beam to drop buildings in place, carving buildings out of thin air, to help save species, the ultimate green utopia – a building made of everything and nothing. What if they had an ulterior motive…I’m not saying these two ideas are amazing and perfect for a story, but I am saying they aren’t what I’d normally think of.

Whilst I love forests and oceans for the quality of metaphors they help me get, they don’t (for me) give me that something extra, the twists the uniqueness to stories.

When was the last time you investigated something different? Did it give you ideas? Where do you get that little bit extra from that makes your story special?

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The post Kailasa – The Temple That Shouldn't Be – Weekly Wonder #9 appeared first on Sacha Black.

Have you ever done a presentation in front of a projector screen? You know, the ones with a pull down plasticky screens that shoot up into its roll if you don’t secure it properly, then sending an endless ripple across your carefully crafted powerpoint presentation. Well hold on to that thought whilst you read and watch this:

It appears that during key times, any lay person with a camera and telescope can capture what looks like waves rippling across the moon, as if someone prodded a holographic screen and a ripple washed over the moons surface.

These events only seem to be happening at key times, like full moons. The suggestion is that what we see as the moon is actually just a projection of the moon. There are two parts to this.

The first, which would support the flat Earth theory that suggests there is a dome or firmament (as genesis says) sealing us into a flat Earth. The theory suggests projections are displayed on to the dome (ceiling) producing what we see as the moon and stars.

The second theory is what Crrow777 the original filmer of these mysterious waves thinks. He says the moon actually is up there. But what we are seeing is a projection of the moon, on to the moon in order to stop us seeing something else that’s going on.

Richard C Hoagland an ex science advisor to CBS News has discussed what’s on the moon on multiple occasions and maybe it’s this they are trying to hide. But one discussion I recall seeing recently was after the Chinese moon landing (Jade Rabbit). Hoagland analysed the footage which the Chinese released publicly and demonstrated that there was a dome (yeah I know… another mention of a dome) on the moon. It’s two hours long, so you would be in for the long haul, but it is fascinating to watch, check it out here.

Is the moon a hologram? I have no idea. What’s odd, is that this footage is no longer an isolated occurrence, there are plenty more videos spreading on YouTube showing the same thing. This makes it harder to swallow a ‘camera’ fault or whatever.

Of all the theories, I really hope this one isn’t true. I have been obsessed with the stars since childhood, I love nothing better than staring at a clear night sky in awe and wonderment.

I don’t often thank baby black for waking me up in the middle of the night. But a couple of months ago he woke up at precisely the moment of the super blood moon eclipse. It was breath taking, and the thought that what I saw might not be real, pains me.

I suppose the hologram theory would explain why we see an illusion of the moon not rotating. That is something no matter how many times I try and read explanations I don’t understand. Here, is another explanation.

“The moon orbits the Earth once every 27.322 days. It also takes approximately 27 days for the moon to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the moon does not seem to be spinning but appears to observers from Earth to be keeping almost perfectly still. Scientists call this sychronous rotation.” www.space.com

Effectively they are saying they spin at the same rate proportionately which is why it appears still. Seriously what? I don’t understand that at all. Not one bit. Maybe I’m just spatially inept.

There are examples of holograms littered in films and literature. I don’t however recall a story suggesting everything we see is a hologram – other than perhaps the loosely connected Matrix. So perhaps one of you could write the story. What’s going on behind the moon? Is it for our own good? Maybe an alien invasion?

Either way, it’s a cool theory that got my brain thinking of yet more stories, and an awesome way to start the New Year. Hope this year is the best one you have ever had.

What do you think? Did it inspire you? What do you make of the video and the theory?

The post Lunar Waves and the Mystery of the Holographic Moon appeared first on Sacha Black.

For a few thousand years, we thought the world was flat. All 5 big religions, had accepted and promoted theories of a flat Earth. They believed the Earth was flat and at the edge was protected by something called the firmament – whilst they might have differed in their beliefs, they were united on this.

It wasn’t until Copernicus in the 16th century realised the world spun at over 1000mph and 60,000 mph round the sun, that he proposed the globe model. From these calculations he surmised the world was round. That’s it. No more proof no more evidence, it was accepted into mainstream society and still is to this day.

It’s one of those fundamental ideas we are taught on the first day of primary school; the world, is 100% round.

But, humour me, what if it’s not round? What if we got it right the first time? The Earth is flat. As conspiracy theories go, this one takes the biscuit. 

I am not even going to attempt to explain this as well or as in depth as Mark Sargent does, but I will give the highlights from his research combined with my questions and plead with you to go watch the 11 short episodes in his youtube video series so you can make up your own mind. I have posted links at the bottom of this post should this spark even a hint of doubt or interest in your mind.

Like most things in life, this started one with a question. Actually it started with several. Lets begin with these:

1. If the world is spinning at 1040 mph, and spinning at 60,000mph round the sun, then why aren’t the stars too? Why don’t they look like this?

2. Why doesn’t the moon change its face?

3. Why, if the Earth is curved, when we stand on the edge of the beach on a clear day, do we not see a hint of the ocean curving around and down?

4. Why if the Earth is curved and we are 35,000 feet in the air on a plane do we not see the horizon below us, but at eye level?

5. Why is there only one photo taken of the Earth from space? All the others are composites. That means that they have been ‘interpreted, combined and CGI’d’

6. Why are all the images of Earth from space only partial – not full 180 degree or 360 degree?

7. Why are all the images of Earth from space so vivid? Aren’t those photos taken from hundreds of miles away through a ton of atmosphere? When we look up we can’t see through all the cloud, so how can the photos be so vivid?

8. Why do we have an accepted structure of the Earth depicting all the way through mantles, inner and outer cores when the deepest hole we have drilled is only 8 miles deep – we have never been to the core, so how do we know what it’s like?

9. Why do rockets when launching into space turn? Why don’t they just continue upwards?

Maps are an odd thing. Do you know we are taught completely incorrect maps at school? The Mercator map is the most widely accepted map to date. See left. It is taught in schools, accepted as fact, and yet, it is completely wrong.

The Gall-Peters, map shows the world laid out with the correct proportions between the countries. See the map right. Notice the drastic difference in size of Greenland and the Antarctic? Notice the enormity of Africa?

But this is the strangest thing of all. Wiki has a list of maps, scroll down  way down until you find the Azimuthal Equidistant (AE) map. Or in other words a map of the world if it were laid out flat. See below Left. All the maps in that list, reference only the people who came up with it. So why does the United States Geological Survey USGS use this map, a map of the world flat, lined by the Antarctic as its accepted map?? It’s not right? The world is round, Right? It isn’t lined by a 300 mile wide perimeter of ice.

So tell me this: why is the Antarctic the only continent on Earth without a native population? There is no place on Earth not populated by man. But more strange than that, because it has no population, it has no government. No one owns it.

Richard E. Byrd an Admiral in the navy took 4500 military officers to the Antarctic – in the 50’s he claimed that it was the most important scientific discovery there’d ever been. But more interestingly, that it was rich. Rich with coal and oil and uranium and a plethora of things that would keep the planet going for centuries. So why after his second mission was it closed off for good?

The Antarctic Treaty is a treaty that has been in place since 1961 and now has 53 nations signed up to it. Um… does anyone know of any other treaty that has been in place that long between that many nations and not been broken? Didn’t think so. What does the treaty say? It says, that nothing and no one can go there…EVER. Why? You would think oil companies would be hounding the UN for access. But no one does.

Why?

So then I started to look for an image of the Antarctic. Guess what I found. Composites. Nothing but composites. Made up make believe images.

Let’s entertain for one second the possibility that the Earth is flat. Lets then think about the structure of the Earth and how easy it would be to keep us on land in the centre safe from ever discovering it was anything other than a sphere.

Go up – the air gets so thin it kills us if we are unassisted by technology. Go North or South, the conditions become so cold that we would freeze to death if not protected. Try to sail your way around the world? Pretty damn hard unless you have a big boat full of supplies. Imagine how much easier it would be if it wasn’t filled with salt water and you could drink the sea. Go down and the heat is so fierce we can only drill 8 miles  before our tools are melted. Pretty neat way of containing us if you ask me.

And what of the dome in the sky? Well, in 50’s just after the first space mission the American’s and Russians started firing Nuclear bombs straight up and not little ones. Megaton ones. They continued to do so for 4 years. Why? Were they trying to break the dome?

The Earth’s curvature means that when a boat reaches a certain distance it should sink below the surface of the horizon, particularly on water. There is a stretch of canal over 6 miles long in Norfolk UK. The experimenters fixed a pole above the water and then rowed 6 miles away. Using a telescope they looked for the pole. They could still see it, but it should have been several feel below the surface. Suggesting the Earth is in fact flat – google it.

The really bizarre thing for me are the flight paths for planes travelling in the southern hemisphere. For a proper explanation of this, watch episode 7 below. In effect, why, if you want to go from any southern hemisphere city to another southern hemisphere city which you would think would be a, simple direct flight across the ocean, does it become extraordinarily complex? There are NO direct flights. None. Try it – I dare you. Try and book a direct flight from Perth to Brazil.

I have talked a lot, and not as coherently as Sargent does. So please, if you can spare an hour, watch the videos and see the arguments laid out in a much simpler and more comprehensive way.

So what of the writing world? Well, if you’re a science fiction writer then I’m guessing you have spent this whole post eating your heart out. This has to be the coolest bit of inspiration I’ve found… ever. But the strange thing is, it’s already been used. Anyone recall Terry Pratchett (RIP), flat planet on a turtle on some elephants? What about Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the world building warehouses? Funny how so many conspiracies find their way into literature and fiction stories. I know not everyone approves of these posts, but I don’t give a shit. It’s inspiring, and gives me (and other writers) SO many ideas, so I hope that this has been for some of you at least, inspirational.

Mark Sargent’s video series on the Flat Earth Clues:

Video – Introduction

Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5, Video 6, Video 7, Video 8, Video 9, Video 10, Video 11.

Stay tuned, because I contacted Mark and have since interviewed him over Skype. I will do a follow up post shortly.

I wrote a piece of flash fiction inspired by this theory, which has now sparked an entire idea for a novel. So I thought I would share it, I entered it into Charli Mills flash fiction challenge here.

The Firmament by Sacha Black

I placed my hand on the dome; it was hard as diamonds and colder than I expected. I couldn’t see out just the image of our own world, our own failings reflecting back on us.

I pumped my fist onto it. “No.”

“Now what?” Luke said, touching my shoulder.

I turned, stared at the thousand men I’d led to the edge of the Earth with the promise of freedom.

His eyes were wide. His fear, infectious, rippled through the crowd.

The dome rose in all directions and further than the eye could see. We were trapped.

“I don’t know.”

Have you ever written about a strange Earth? What do you make of the conspiracy? If this has given you some writerly inspiration let me know in the comments below.

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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.

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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.

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