Tunguska, 1908

On June 30 1908, in a remote region of Siberia near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, something exploded above the Earth levelling an estimated 80 million trees in a 2,000-kilometre radius. Over a hundred years has passed since the explosion, and a definitive answer as to what constituted the event has been elusive. The most common theory regarding the “Tunguska Event” concerns a burst of air caused by an exploding meteor, asteroid or comet at least 5 kilometres above the surface of the Earth – a theory determined by the available evidence. The energy from the event was estimated to be 1,000 times greater than that recorded from the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 - approximately 10-15 megatons. Eyewitnesses to the event were few, with most reporting the sound of the explosion and subsequent tremors. People hundreds of miles away reportedly were knocked to the ground by the force of the ‘impact’. Others saw the sky “split in two” as fire and a massive windstorm ripped across the surrounding area.

In 1921, Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik led the first recorded expedition to the Tunguska region to investigate the event. Having accepted from local reports that the incident was caused by the impact of a massive meteor, Kulik was surprised at what he found. For there was no impact crater, only a huge area of scorched trees with some in the epicentre that were still standing. Further away, trees were levelled away from the epicentre, lending credence to the theory that an explosion above the Earth had sent an air blast down and horizontally outward. Subsequent expeditions revealed mineral and metal deposits in greater prevalence in comparison to their natural occurrence in the area, meaning that something extraterrestrial had fallen to Earth.

Many theories have of course been expounded in relation to the Tunguska event. A hypothesis put forward in 1973 by two physicists at the University of Texas, made the claim that the event was caused by a small black hole passing through the Earth. However, for this theory to hold water (so to speak), an ‘exit point’ must be determined and discovered at an opposing position on the globe – somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic. In 2007, scientists from the University of Bologna in Italy made the claim that a lake discovered in the Tunguska region – Lake Cheko - was a possible impact point of the event. Whilst agreeing that the explosion happened above the Earth’s surface, they maintain that a fragment of the meteor/asteroid/whatever did in fact hit the Earth and that the lake has formed over the last century. Certain investigations have lent support to the idea, and a one-metre piece of rock was apparently found at the bottom of the lake via magnetic readings.

A few weeks ago, Yuri Labvin, head of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, released a statement saying that the explosion was caused by an alien craft intercepting an incoming meteorite or asteroid. Labvin explains that the alien craft destroyed the approaching object by crashing into it and in the process, saved mankind from a cataclysmic event. Labvin has said that pieces of quartz inscribed with ‘strange markings’ were found in the area, and are currently being examined by experts. According to Labvin, these quartz fragments are remnants of the alien craft. However, this crazy theory is subject to any of these supposed pieces of quartz being produced or at the very least, photographed and shown to a sceptical world.

by Max Drake
(Freelance writer and artist for GritFX.)


For more information on Tunguska visit: http://www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska/

The Battle of Los Angeles

On the night of February 24th and 25th, 1942, several unidentified flying objects were spotted in the skies above southern California, prompting an artillery assault from the US armed forces. Many explanations were put forth regarding the event, both from civilians and the military, and the ‘Battle’ has gained much attention in the circles of Ufologists. For no object was hit by the barrage of artillery and many reported that objects simply disappeared after the event – clear indication to some that the objects seen on that night were nothing short of alien craft.

On the 24th, naval intelligence warned that an attack on US soil could be expected within hours. Around ten o’clock that night, the warning was lifted, but in the early hours of the 25th, radar picked up an unidentified ‘target’ approximately 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Anti-aircraft batteries were alerted and the unidentified craft was tracked to within a few miles of the coast where it subsequently vanished. Nearing 3am on February 25th, a coast artillery colonel spotted “about 25 planes at 12,000 feet” over Los Angeles. Four anti-aircraft batteries opened fire and the airspace above Los Angeles “erupted like a volcano”.

From here, reports of the incident vary widely. Great numbers of planes in the air were reportedly observed that night – anywhere from one to several hundred were seen, ranging in altitude and speed. The mysterious craft dropped no bombs and despite reports that four were shot down, no evidence of this was forthcoming. Hollywood residents perched themselves on rooftops and hills to watch the fiery parade of UFO’s and exploding shells. The only damage sustained to the city came from some shell fragments and car accidents, initiated by a military-enforced blackout. One citizen reportedly died of heart failure amidst the excitement – the first real taste of the drama of the Second World War for most Americans.

At a press conference on the 25th, Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox explained that the incident was a false alarm and there was no evidence supporting the presence of enemy planes. For it was not initially stated by anyone that the observed craft were alien in nature. The most common belief was that the craft were either commercial airlines or Japanese planes - the fact that no bombs were dropped signified a reconnaissance mission. The Army waited a day to issue any statements, interviewing witnesses to the event and eventually arriving at the aforementioned conclusions. After the war however, the Japanese insisted that no planes had been anywhere in the vicinity of Los Angeles on the night in question.

The actions of the military were put on trial in the media with reporters expressing concern at the lack of a satisfying response to the event. If no craft were actually present and it were a case of the jitters, the confidence in the actions of military personnel was extremely troubling. If the craft were indeed flying as low as 9,000 feet (as was reported by some), why were the aircraft batteries so ineffective? And moreover, why were no American planes sent to engage the objects even though they were put on alert? The question posed was what would the response have been if the incident were not a false alarm? Was this the kind of incompetence the public could expect?

These simple facts regarding the “Battle of Los Angeles” have been the source of much speculation from those researching the global UFO phenomenon. The vanishing objects, the lack of damage or downed craft and the supposed cover-up by the military have all lent credence in the eyes of the UFO community to the version of events relating to alien visitation. There is no denying that an event took place in the skies above Los Angeles in 1942, but its explanation could be as far from the aroused speculation as the distance covered by visiting alien life-forms.

by Max Drake
(Freelance writer and artist for GritFX.)

Dropa – Fact or Fiction?

In 1937, a Chinese archaeologist named Chi Pu Tei discovered strange cave burial sites in the Baian-Kara-Ula mountain range, located in the borderland between China and Tibet. The skeletons found were roughly 4 feet tall, and displayed heads which were considerably larger than their slender frames. In each of the 716 graves, Chi Pu Tei found a stone disk approximately a foot in diameter and almost an inch thick. Chi Pu Tei published his findings stating that the burial sites were made by mountain gorillas and that the disks were placed there by later cultures. Chi Pu Tei was rightfully ridiculed by the Chinese archaeological community for this absurd claim.

The caves themselves had the appearance of being ‘carved’ from the mountain, according to Chi Pu Tei. The walls were squared and glazed and were more akin to an underground system of interlinking tunnels. The disks, upon closer inspection, were inscribed with a strange, unknown writing. In 1962, Chinese scientist Professor Tsum Um Nui managed to partially decode the inscriptions, telling a wild tale of an alien spacecraft that had crashed to Earth. Many of the occupants were hunted and killed by local tribes because of their strange appearance, and with no means to re-build their craft, were stranded on our planet. Indeed, an old Chinese legend describes a race of small, yellow-skinned humanoids, with large heads and slender, frail bodies. Their supposed descendants live in the area of the Baian-Kara-Ula and are of very small stature, encompassing none of the features associated with the Chinese, Mongols or Tibetans.

In 1947, Dr Karyl Robin-Evans travelled through Tibet bound for the “mysterious land of the Dropa”. He met with the Dalai Lama and eventually found the tribe, who were indeed small in stature and of strange appearance. He conversed with a language teacher of the Dropa who told him the same story of an alien race being stranded on Earth. Apparently they had been here roughly 12,000 years ago on an exploration mission, and that another craft had crashed here around 1014AD. Robin-Evans took a photograph of the supposed Dropa leaders (see below) but this seems to be the ONLY photo of this race of people in existence.



Russian scientist W. Saitsew published a paper in 1968 which raised the interest of extraterrestrial visitors in our past. Much of the information published was from the work done by Professor Tsum Um Nui, but included information of the make-up of the stone disks, which had large metallic traces such as cobalt. When the disks were placed on an oscillator, they produced a vibratory hum that suggested the flow of energy. The centre hole in the disks was cut with such precision that it defied explanation, considering the disks were aged at around 12,000 years.

In 1974, Austrian engineer Ernst Wegener was able to photograph two of the disks being displayed in the Banpo Museum in Xian. The museum curator could tell Wegener nothing of the disks, and when Hartwig Hausdorf visited the museum twenty years later, the disks had disappeared. Wegener’s photos are published all over the internet, but their quality is poor, having been taken with an old Polaroid camera. No inscriptions are visible, and while they are as they had been described in the past, the photos are hardly proof of anything.

For this is the problem with the story of the ‘Dropa Stones’ and the small skeletons supposedly found in the mountains of the Baian-Kara-Ula – the lack of proof. It is highly unlikely that Dr Karyl Robin-Evans trekked into Tibet and took only ONE photograph of this mysterious race of people supposedly descended from extra-terrestrials. There might be a logical reason for this, but it escapes this author. The other ‘facts’ of the case are suspect as well – for instance the reported transcription by Tsum Um Nui and the details regarding the properties of the disks. The complete lack of evidence to support a discovery of this magnitude lends credence to the idea that this is all an elaborate hoax. A number of photos have surfaced on the internet claiming to be the skeletal or mummified remains of the Dropa ‘aliens’, but most are proven fakes or from another location on the planet, passed off as ‘Dropa’. And where are the 716 stone disks supposedly discovered by Chi Pu Tei in 1937? Were subsequent expeditions undertaken to recover any disks or skeletal remains that were left behind? It’s a great story, but is it anything more than that…?

Of course, a discovery like this would invariably draw the attention of the world’s governments and it is quite possible that the entire discovery has been quashed. Perhaps the evidence is locked away deep underground in a top secret installation – deemed far too unsettling for the minds of the average person….

by Max Drake
(Freelance writer and artist for GritFX.)

Aurora, Texas (1897)

On April 17th, 1897, in the town of Aurora, Texas, a cigar-shaped craft was supposedly seen in the sky. Shortly thereafter, the object crashed to earth, destroying the windmill on the farm of the local judge. A small humanoid occupant was reportedly ejected, and was buried that same day in the town cemetery.

Newspaper reports at the time described the incident with candour and sincerity. One local newspaper made mention of the peculiar metal that the craft seemed to be constructed from as well as maps and writings found which were a strange type of hieroglyphic. Indeed, reports at the time from all over the country appeared in various publications all describing similar craft seen in the sky prior to and after the Aurora crash.

In the 1970’s, the mystery of the crash gained some recognition in certain circles. Many began to investigate the incident, including author Jim Marrs and aviation writer Bill Case, the latter having followed the incident for many years. But details of the crash and the truth of the matter remained elusive. Local townspeople that were interviewed, who had been alive at the time of the crash, were divided on whether the story was factual or an elaborate hoax. Others knew the story, and many had made judgements on its authenticity based on hearsay of family members.

Yet there were some aspects of the mystery that defied conventional reasoning. Brawley and Etta Oates bought the judges’ farm in 1945, and Etta confessed to the fact that nothing grew for years in the spot were the craft allegedly crashed. They also suffered cysts and goiters – the cause of which, they were told, was from drinking the radioactive water out of the well near where the craft had struck the earth.

The grave where the ‘alien’ was said to have been buried did in fact exist. The grave was smaller than a normal man, and bore a strange headstone. Inscribed on the stone was a “V” lying on it’s side with three circles etched inside it, like portholes. Case, Marrs and others moved to have the body exhumed, but were stopped by the local council. A few days later, the headstone was stolen. Case told Marrs that he had scanned the grave with a metal detector some time before the exhumation request. He found three positions within the grave that showed metal to be present. After the request and the subsequent headstone theft, the metal was gone and Case showed Marrs three small holes in the earth where the metal had obviously been extracted. When Marrs asked Case who he thought had taken the metal, Case replied “The government.”

By Max Drake

(Read: “Alien Agenda” by Jim Marrs; and visit http://www.abovetopsecret.com

MINDBOGGLING CROP CIRCLE

Mathematicians were confounded after a crop circle formation was discovered in a barley field near Barbury Castle in Wiltshire, England on the 1st June 2008. The circle is, apparently, a coded image representing the first ten digits of pi.


Measuring 285 feet in diameter, the formation had experts and enthusiasts perplexed until it was eventually identified by retired astrophysicist, Mike Reed.

Maths codes and geometric patterns have long been important factors in crop circle formations – the most famous of which was a formation in a field near Stonehenge some 12 years ago which depicted a complex set of fractals known as The Julia Set.

Yet despite the abundance of crop circle formations each year, their occurrence is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media, if at all. Most people still consider the crop circle phenomenon a hoax, regarding as proof the infamous TV demonstration many years ago of a circle being formed by a couple of guys with some rope and board. However, as most crop circle researchers attest, the most intricate geometric and mathematical formations (such as the recent pi formation in Wiltshire) would be impossible to create with such precise detail and on such a scale.

Other factors which should not be dismissed include the magnetic energy often recorded in the centre of crop circles and the biological changes that occur in the affected crops. These and many other factors cannot be explained by the ‘rope and board’ theory.

So what the hell are they? Who or what causes the formations to appear? Many theories have been extrapolated regarding crop circles, from electromagnetic fields to extraterrestrial meddling. Perhaps it is beam weaponry technology – maybe some bored NASA geeks using orbiting satellites fitted with invisible beam weapons are making their ‘hoax marks’ on the Earth’s surface.

Then again, maybe the extraterrestrial theory is more plausible.

by Max Drake


(Max Drake is a freelance designer for GritFX. Max has an interest in all things weird and will have weekly posts on this blog.)

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For more on the crop circle phenomenon, including a more intricate explanation of the 1st June Wilshire formation, visit http://www.cropcircleconnector.com