James 'The Amazing' Randi has thrown down the gauntlet to mediumship in his latest weekly newsletter. He leads off with a straight-out challenge to Dr Gary Schwartz regarding his 'Afterlife Experiments', proposing that Dr Schwartz challenge for his million-dollar prize. One has to wonder what sort of daft person would submit to the judgement of Ray Hyman and Michael Shermer though, considering their past records in 'objective' thinking.

Later in the newsletter, Randi also ridicules medium-du-jour Allison Dubois (she of the television show 'Medium'). Responding to Dubois' announcement that she is intentionally ignoring Randi, he describes Dubois as having "now scurried under that rock where John Edward, Uri Geller, Sylvia Browne, and the whole community of scared fakers are hiding."

Yahoo News is reporting that a film is in the works based on Ahmed Osman's controversial research into the Egyptian origins of Biblical history:

A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed to AFP.

The movie will be based on Osman's 1990 book Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus (available from Amazon US/UK).Thanks Charles.

Robots and mammoths are in the news today. Just not together...

• Preparations are underway for the return of Ethiopia's Axum Obelisk.
• Newly discovered ancient Indian temple fascinates archaeologists.
• Anger in Scotland over plans to build cemetery near important neolithic stone circle.
• UFO caught on video over Vatican after Pope's death. David Icke to have a field day.
• Here's a review of Bryan Appleyard's Aliens: Why They Are Here (Amazon UK).
• Get out your bicycle and install a solar panel - world oil production to head into decline. Settle down Chicken Little!
• Robot camel riders take the place of banned child jockeys. I think I see the evolutionary beginnings of the Jawas...
• Robot suit gives wearer superhuman strength. Calling it HAL may be inviting bad things though...
• Robocop conducts security patrol in Japanese shopping mall.
• Japanese genetic scientists seek to create woolly mammoth version of Jurassic Park. Get it patrolled by the robocops above, and there's a movie script in there for sure...
• It's a mammoth news day - well-preserved mammoth remains found in Southern California.
• Deaths during Native American Spirit Dance cause controversy.
• Television series brings Celtic monsters to life.
• Risk assessor gives 67% chance that God exists. Wonder if he takes confessions as well?
• The easy way to fix global warming - block the Sun.
• Immortality awaits - just hang in there for 25 more years...
• Drilling team reaches bottom of the Earth's crust, breakthrough to the mantle looms.
• Animal gas chambers draw fire in the U.S.
• New method discovered for dating ancient earthquakes.
• The latest weekly newsletter from James 'the Amazing' Randi.
• 250 years on, homeopathy remains controversial.
• Former museum director indicted in theft of space artifacts.
• Russian surgeons grow a penis on man's forearm. I might have to start a new website just to accomodate all the one-liners for that one.

Quote of the Day:

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

Once again, what's happening on alternative radio this week:

Jeff Rense Show: Monday's guest is Alfred Webre on exopolitics, Tuesday is regular Peter Davenport with eyewitness UFO reports, Wednesday's guest is Bill Hamilton on the X-files & the Z-Division followed by regular Jim Marrs, Thursday is still pending, Friday sees regular Brian Vike with his 'BC UFO Phenomena' segment, Sunday is Encore.

Coast to Coast AM: Monday sees sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury and authors Marc Zicree and Gary Renard dropping in for a chat, Tuesday's guest is David G. Brown on new theories concerning the Titanic disaster, on Wednesday Steve Quayle will talk about suitcase nukes and his new book Lucifer’s Luggage, Thursday is a UFO Roundtable with Linda Moulton Howe, Grant Cameron, Bruce Maccabee and Bob Wood.

More details including relevant guest links are available at the respective websites. Also C2C can be listened to through KOGO.

Frank from the excellent TSJ.org website sends word of the latest 'esoteric history' offerings over there:

• The Great Architects of Tiron - by Francine Bernier: Regarding the Order found by the little know Bernard de Tiron, builders of Cathedrals and Artisans.
• Saunieres Saints - by Nicolas Mazet: A look at the Saints depicted in statuary at Berenger Sauniere's Church in Rennes-le-Chateau.
• Historic Thornholme Grange for Sale - A real live Priory Property which will shortly be undergoing renovation. Located in Spalding Lincolnshire UK.

Plenty of other cool reads on site too, with an emphasis on RlC and Knights Templar content. Thanks Frank.

Why is Monday's news late, I hear you ask? I don't know. I'm missing a whole day, I have no idea what happened to it. One minute it's morning, the next it's late evening. It's another case of missing time on the Daily Grail. I may have unwittingly become a part of Bill's black ops project. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone near that glowing light in the faerie ring ...

• Recent crop circle activity in North Devon.
• Hundreds of ancient musical instruments have been unearthed in China. The Rolling Stones claim the instruments are from one of their earlier tours.
• The Mahabharata epic of India may have historically taken place in 2156 B.C. according to a Canadian researcher. You can register for the electronic text of the Mahabharata here.
• Meet Terry Iacuzzo, New York City's most famous psychic.
• What did Nostradamus prophesise for the next Pope? I may be a Gnostic-Pagan-Jedi-Knight, but I hope old Nossie is wrong, and I sincerely hope, for Africa's sake, that Cardinal Francis Arinze is chosen.
• Just hours before Pope John Paull II's funeral, a mysterious light appeared over the Vatican. Wow, the lengths Dan Brown's publishers will go to to promote his next bestseller.
• The prophecy of St. Malachy, and the implications of the solar eclipse on the day of the Pope's funeral.
• An interesting interview with an Angel Hair expert over at Phenomena Magazine.
• The remains of a 500'000-year-old mammoth have been found in a Californian construction site.
• Earth's oldest rock goes on display. No, it's not the Rolling Stones. Hang on, I've already used that joke ...
• NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery is ready for flight.
• After being hit by an ice pebble, the Huygens Probe has landed on Titan, leaving future exploration up to the Cassini Probe.
• A burst of gamma rays may have wiped out sea life 450-million-years-ago.
• Fossil galaxies cannibalise other galaxies. It's a galaxy-eat-galaxy world out there.
• Did you miss Friday's solar eclipse? You weren't alone.
• Japanese scientists plan to bring woolly mammoths back to life and build a park for ressurected extinct species. All your mammoth are belong to us. Itadaki-mammoth.
• We humans risk killing over a quarter of our primate cousins.
• Is nuclear power the green energy we need?
• A dastardly spammer gets slapped with a nine-year jail-term. I believe jail is too soft: he should be forced to eat spam for nine years. Perhaps torture by playing Monty Python's spam song over and over?
• Using invisible forces to create art.
• What happened to the Segway revolution?

Quote of the Day:

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Henry Thoreau

Bill continues on black-ops for the next few weeks. Kat will step into his chair from next Friday, but I'll cover for today. Please remember, if you're working hard today, it's POETS day and you should observe the usual customs...

• Scientific paper muses that 270-year-old sea monster sighting might have been a sex hungry whale. That qualifies as a sea monster to me...have you seen the size of their penises?!.
• It's a renaissance for the Tarot, with more and more people consulting the cards for guidance.
• NASA seeks guidebook for recognising extraterrestrial life. "Poke it wit' da stick Jethro, aif it moves it mus' be an extratrestral."
• Astronomers expect to be 'dazled' by views of an ancient Universe.
• Simulator success for shuttle Discovery crew, despite the simulator landing them 1000 feet underground.
• Forget searching for radio waves from ET. Just look for giant structures in space.
• Sure, being a soldier in the U.S. might mean getting shot at and bombed - but where else could you get your own flying saucer?
• Hubble de-orbit endorsed.
• Sony patents a method of beaming an artificial world of experience into your brain by ultrasound. I think a good name for it would be Blue Pill.
• Prairie dogs found to talk using the most sophisticated language in the animal kingdom. Kinda makes them look more sinister when they pop up out their hole and look at you with their beady eyes, doesn't it?
• Metallic glass - it's bound to be the new black.
• 'SmellyVision' the television of the future. TV shows stink enough already, thanks very much.
• Cannabis compound slows artery disease in mice.
• The latest spy planes are small. As in about 13 inch wingspan. I didn't realise Bill was so small.
• Solar plane planned for round-the-world flight. Gives new meaning to 'following the sun'.
• Hunter S. Thompson's ashes to be fired from a cannon.
• Satanic orgies desecrate Brisbane graveyard. Who says we have no nightlife here?
• If some guy from Chad called Toumai turned up at your door saying he's a distant relation, he might be right. 6 or 7 million years distant actually.
• New finds suggest early hominids cared for their elderly.
• Underwater concrete manufactured from 2000-year-old recipe.
• Iron Civil War-era casket found in Washington, D.C..
• Being a Viking wasn't just about raping, pillaging and marauding you know. Sometimes they took time out to be sensitive.
• New book explores the feminine roots of shamanism.
• In ancient days of feasting, producing enough alcohol was always a difficult proposition. Unless you had a buddy called Jesus that is.

Quote of the Day:

This guy is a total drunk. It's an occupational hazard. Every time our Lord goes to get a glass of water, it transforms into a generic grocery store Merlot.

Blair Blake

Here's the rundown on the radio schedules for the second half of the week. Remember that our good friend Mitch Horowitz is on C2C on Thursday night if you're near a radio:

Whitley Strieber's Dreamland: This week's show begins with Jim Marrs reporting on Peter Jennings' announcement that he has cancer, and how this relates to the UFO community. Then this week's guest Dr Colm Kellerher discusses his research into the dangers of Mad Cow Disease, and how there may be links to the current 'Alzheimers epidemic'. At the end of the show Linda Howe reviews the latest scientific information about the spread of Mad Cow in the US.

Coast to Coast AM: Friday is open lines, Saturday's guest is remote viewing teacher Major Ed Dames, Sunday sees NDE 'legend' Raymond Moody step into the chair for a chat with Art Bell.

More details including relevant websites are available at the linked pages above. Remember also that while Coast to Coast is subscription, it can be listened to through KOGO, while Dreamland is free.

A summary of the updates to the Phenomena website over the past week:

Here is Thursday's news. I'm off to find a mountain...

• John Brown, a born-again Christian and founder of Zion Oil & Gas of Dallas, is using his Bible to find black gold in the Holy Land.
• The latest edition of New Scientist is now available online. Check it out here. The lead feature this week is "Evolution's Greatest Inventions".
• Was a boy abducted by a pedophilia ring, turned into a Satanist and then trained by the CIA as a journalist? Well, it's unlikely but it's a story on conspiracy-buff websites.
• Something strange is happening to wildlife off the Florida coast following last season's hurricanes.
• What if UFOs were really angels and demons? That's the thesis of a movie by a Truthseekers, a group interested in exploring current events through a Biblical world view.
• On June 11, Natural Awakenings - Austin, with the association of Anomaly Archives, will present "The Texas Ghost Lights Conference". There are more sightings of mystery lights in Texas than anywhere else in the world - I think it's because of Bill's experiments.
• Those who say eclipses herald history-shaping events will find support for their superstition when, on Friday, the Sun will be briefly plunged into darkness on the day of Pope John Paul II's funeral.
• Dr. Richard Wiseman is holding seances in the most haunted room in the most haunted street in Edinburgh's haunted undercity catacombs. I've been down there - incredible place.
• Parapsychology: Fact of séance fiction? A visit to Edinburgh University’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit.
• Never mind the Bermuda Triangle - what about the strange happenings in the "Michigan Triangle" on the Great Lakes?
• Russia unveils more details of it's new ballistic missile, designed to beat the US' missile shield (if they ever get the shield working in the first place) and invites international sales.
• It's ridiculous but true - a judge had to order the CIA to reveal it's top-secret budget figure....from 1963!
• Just what every Grail Knight needs - a ghost detector is now on the market in Japan. When can I have my particle beam generator?
• Fleshing out the 'first ape-man' - experts are a step closer to answering whether an ancient skull from Africa belonged to a possible human ancestor or was closer to apes.
• Masterpiece move - The Mona Lisa has been carefully transferred to a brighter setting at the Louvre.
• DNA tests of the inhabitants of the Shetland Isles reveal that the Vikings took their womenfolk with them to settle down when they went a-pillaging.
• NASA's Prometheus: Fire, Smoke And Mirrors. There are technical difficulties in putting a nuclear powered craft into space.
• Scientists at NASA and the University of Kansas say that a mass extinction on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago could have been triggered by a star explosion called a gamma-ray burst. But could it have sunk Atlantis?
• Nanobacteria in clouds could play a crucial role in the spread of disease and in the formation of rain drops.
• Scientists trying to solve a medieval murder mystery that has puzzled historians for 550 years say France's first officially recognized royal mistress was poisoned and probably murdered - but who did it remains a mystery.

Quote of the Day:

He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting "All the Gods are bastards."
Terry Pratchett