UFO witnessed at 'Black Mailbox' Area 51
Rachel, NV - 11/8/12: As a small group of tourists we had just left Rachel Nevada (Lil Alein) and stopped at the black mailbox en route to the Area 51 entrance. Earlier in the day we saw a helicopter in the area and two people in our group insisted that we were being followed by another man in a blue car. While we were doing our tourist thing at the black mail box, one of the group members shouted something that caused all of us to turn around. Two or three people began snapping photos of a shiny object in the sky. It hovered for a few seconds, seemed to move back and forth in different directions and after 30 seconds or so took off in an incredible speed. I could not hear noise coming from the object but it certainly freaked me out. Obviously, everyone was pretty excited, but strangely enough one lady in our group from Germany got physically ill almost immediately after the sighting. When we got to the entrance to area 51 she got diarrhea directly in view of the men in the white truck that sit on the hill. I thought you should have these pictures but I really dont want any publicity. I can assure you of one thing...I will never go back to Area 51. - MUFON CMS
Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
Groom Lake
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Residents trampled by cows during traditional ritual
Tradition once again took center stage in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India when people were trampled by cows on the occasion of Ekadashi.
The event was observed in the village of Bhidawad and neighbouring hamlets. Residents say that they have been practicing this bizarre ritual for centuries. Ekadashi is an event that takes place the day after Diwali.
For the event, villagers decorate their cattle with colors and henna in different patterns. Later, they are run over by their livestock in the belief their prayers will be answered.
Hundreds of villagers witnessed the event in which men wearing garlands lay on the streets as herds of cows trampled them. Locals claim no one has ever been hurt during this ritual that is believed to bring prosperity to the village. - Web India123
CultureShock India!: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Cultureshock India: A Survival Guide to Customs & Etiquette)
Culture Wise India: The Essential Guide to Culture, Customs & Business Etiquette
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The craziest Obama conspiracy theory yet!
President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That's according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.
On October 11, at a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus convened by the body's majority leader, Chip Rogers, a tea party activist told Republican lawmakers that Obama was mounting this most diabolical conspiracy. The event—captured on tape by a member of the Athens-based watchdog Better Georgia (who was removed from the room after 52 minutes)—had been billed as an information session on Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement that commits member nations to promote sustainable development. In the eyes of conservative activists, Agenda 21 is a nefarious plot that includes forcibly relocating non-urban-dwellers and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth. The invitation to the Georgia state Senate event noted the presentation would explain: "How pleasant sounding names are fostering a Socialist plan to change the way we live, eat, learn, and communicate to 'save the earth.'"
The meeting consisted of a PowerPoint presentation followed by a 90-minute screening of the anti-Agenda 21 documentary, Agenda: Grinding America Down. It was emceed by Field Searcy, a local conservative activist who was forced out of the Georgia Tea Party in April due to his endorsement of conspiracy theories about the president's birth certificate and the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 7. The presentation also featured a special video cameo from conservative talking-head Dick Morris in which the former Clinton aide warns that Obama "wants to force everyone into the cities from whence our ancestors fled."
About 23 minutes into the briefing, Searcy explained how President Obama, aided by liberal organizations like the Center for American Progress and business groups like local chambers of commerce, are secretly using mind-control techniques to push their plan for forcible relocation on the gullible public:
They do that by a process known as the Delphi technique. The Delphi technique was developed by the Rand Corporation during the Cold War as a mind-control technique. It's also known as "consensive process." But basically the goal of the Delphi technique is to lead a targeted group of people to a pre-determined outcome while keeping the illusion of being open to public input.
Obama, of course, has taken no steps to bring the United States under the control of a United Nations sustainable-development-themed dictatorship. (Environmental groups complain that he hasn't even taken sufficient action to combat climate change.) But that hasn't stopped state legislatures and local conservative groups from taking aim at the perceived threat. In May, the Kansas Legislature approved a resolution blocking Agenda 21 from being implemented in its state, following in the footsteps of Tennessee. Rogers, the Georgia Senate majority leader, introduced legislation in January that would have blocked the nonbinding UN resolution from being applied to his state. Among other things, the resolution noted that, "according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialists and communist redistribution of wealth."
If it seems as if Rogers is just repeating John Birch Society conspiracies, he is—literally. As in Tennessee, large portions of his 2012 bill, SR 270, were lifted word-for-word from draft legislation prepared by the Birchers.
But as Seth Clark, the Better Georgia volunteer who filmed the Capitol conspiracy bash, points out, Rogers' warning extended well beyond the actions of liberal politicians. According to one slide that was featured at the presentation, "Smart Growth and Sustainable Development are often promoted by NGO's, Chambers of Commerce and [public–private partnerships] that are unelected and unaccountable to the people." In August, when the Georgia Chamber of Commerce handed out its official grades for state legislators, Rogers got an A+.
Apparently the conspiracy is coming from inside the Capitol.
Update, 11/15/12: Rogers defended the presentation in an email to the Cherokee (Ga.) Tribune, noting that the meeting had been requested by constituents. "This is not the first time our office has facilitated this type of request and won’t be the last, I am sure," he said.
Update II: That was quick. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Galloway reports that Rogers has withdrawn his name from the Senate majority leader race. - Mother Jones
Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier
The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists
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Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola
Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.
In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them.
The researchers say they believe that limited airborne transmission might be contributing to the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa.
They are concerned that pigs might be a natural host for the lethal infection.
What we suspect is happening is large droplets - they can stay in the air, but not long, they don't go far. But they can be absorbed in the airway”
Ebola viruses cause fatal haemorrhagic fevers in humans and many other species of non human primates.
Details of the research were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the infection gets into humans through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs and other bodily fluids from a number of species including chimpanzees, gorillas and forest antelope.
The fruit bat has long been considered the natural reservoir of the infection. But a growing body of experimental evidence suggests that pigs, both wild and domestic, could be a hidden source of Ebola Zaire - the most deadly form of the virus.
Now, researchers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the country's Public Health Agency have shown that pigs infected with this form of Ebola can pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact between the species.
In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier. After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised.
One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.
One of the scientists involved is Dr Gary Kobinger from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He told BBC News this was the most likely route of the infection.
"What we suspect is happening is large droplets - they can stay in the air, but not long, they don't go far," he explained.
"But they can be absorbed in the airway and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way."
The scientists say that their findings could explain why some pig farmers in the Philippines had antibodies in their system for the presence of a different version of the infection called Ebola Reston. The farmers had not been involved in slaughtering the pigs and had no known contact with contaminated tissues.
Dr Kobinger stresses that the transmission in the air is not similar to influenza or other infections. He points to the experience of most human outbreaks in Africa.
"The reality is that they are contained and they remain local, if it was really an airborne virus like influenza is it would spread all over the place, and that's not happening."
The authors believe that more work needs to be done to clarify the role of wild and domestic pigs in spreading the virus. There have been anecdotal accounts of pigs dying at the start of human outbreaks. Dr Kobinger believes that if pigs do play a part, it could help contain the virus.
"If they do play a role in human outbreaks it would be a very easy point to intervene" he said. "It would be easier to vaccinate pigs against Ebola than humans."
Other experts in the field were concerned about the idea that Ebola was susceptible to being transmitted by air even if the distance the virus could travel was limited. Dr Larry Zeitlin is the president of Mapp Biopharmaceuticals.
"It's an impressive study that not only raises questions about the reservoir of Ebola in the wild, but more importantly elevates concerns about ebola as a public health threat," he told BBC News. "The thought of airborne transmission is pretty frightening."
At present, an outbreak of ebola in Uganda has killed at least two people near the capital Kampala. Last month, Uganda declared itself Ebola-free after an earlier outbreak of the disease killed at least sixteen people in the west of the country. - BBC
Ebola, Culture and Politics: The Anthropology of an Emerging Disease (Case Studies on Contemporary Social Issues)
No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses
Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola: Nature, Accident, or Intentional?
