A sad piece of news just breaking: counter-culture author Hunter S. Thompson has reportedly shot and killed himself:

Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

This is breaking news, so I'm sure further information will be forthcoming.

Worth checking out: the Future Hi website, which has some excellent news and commentary on the subjects we always discuss, has a bucketload of brilliant audio files in its media section. Currently available are lectures from entheogenic pioneer Albert Hofmann on LSD, Joseph Campbell on the Grail Legends, Robert Anton Wilson on consciousness, and plenty of material from Terence McKenna to boot. Have a browse, have a listen - nice! Thanks Paul.

Life is like a corridor full of doors a thousand miles long. You try to open every door, but find they're all locked. You eventually get to the end of the corridor and try the very last door, but it too is locked. You turn around, only to see that the very first door way back where you started a thousand miles away is open a crack.

• BREAKING NEWS: 21 people have been rushed to hospital after an outbreak of a mysterious illness at Melbourne Airport.
• Question: What did a 55-million-year-old rabbit from Mongolia look like? Answer: Second breakfast.
• A 70-million-year-old crocodile fossil from Brazil is teaching us what the world was like before the continents were separated by oceans. Don't you wish you had a name like Uberabasuchus Terrificus?
• A fossilised Chinese dinosaur with feathers on its legs may be even older than archaeopteryx.
• Can the Platypus get any weirder? Yes, it can, but it faces strong opposition from Japanese vending machines containing schoolgirl underwear.
• There's a $1000 reward for anyone who can catch a four-metre-long giant eel with a football-sized head at a Melbourne trout-farm. Mmmm, it'd taste good smoked with miso paste.
• Homo Floresiensis, possibly the most important discovery in palaeontological (I love that word!) history, has been stolen, and is now being pillaged and plundered. Can you imagine a pirate palaeontologist? A spectacled guy with an eyepatch, a parrot on his shoulder, and wearing a cordury jacket with leather elbow patches. Yarrr.
• An Israeli expedition hopes to find the oldest remains of early humans.
• American Scientist has an interesting interview with Richard Dawkins.
• Here's the most obvious news story I could find: science in the USA is being stifled by the Bush Administration.
• Do you want to become a CIA agent? Don't call them, they'll call you.
• An 87-year-old woman's wild days of partying may finally be over. Heh, that's what the authorities think! CIA recruiters will be in contact with her soon.
• A television network plans to broadcast a live exorcism. Hasn't this already been done on Survivor: All Stars?
• Feel like you're not in control of your own mind? That's because you're not. Well, you are, but you aren't. Oh, just read the news story, it'll make more sense.
• A UFO mystery in Tasmania, Australia. Hrmm, I haven't heard from my sister in a while ...
• A review of Aliens: Why They Are Here by Bryan Appleyard (Amazon UK only at this stage). I love the book cover.
• Scientists are using muon-detectors to locate hidden chambers in Mexico's Pyramid of the Sun. Zahi Hawass, are you reading this? I've emailed him the news link, I'll let you all know if I get a reply.
• Do you know <">how 2600-year-old tombs were built into the steep cliffs of a Taoist mountain in Eastern China? A 400'000 Yuan reward will be offered to the scholar with the most plausible explanation.
• A legislature building in Canada may have been built to occult specifications. Post your favourite lawyer joke.
• In Gloucestershire, two megaliths are believed to cause a tingling sensation when you touch them. Women have said the same thing about me (well, that's what I dreamt last night).
• Here's the type of article I absolutely adore, where they talk about an incredible photograph capturing the image of a ghost, yet they don't show the photo in question. Grrr.
• European Space Agency says there is life on Mars. NASA disagrees. Pick a side and join the debate.
• Perhaps NASA should read this: water spread across much of ancient Mars, creating conditions for life.
• The greatest explosion ever monitored has stunned astronomers. Damn, I missed it.
• The world's first mobile (cell) phone virus has turned up in the US. It begins.
• This one's for Bill (mwahahahaha!): why Global Warming is not natural.

Quote of the Day:

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

I have just posted my latest article on the homepage of my website Mythomorph. "Incident at North Berwick" describes my personal encounter and subsequent investigation into the ongoing UFO phenomenon in Scotland, and was originally published in the January-February issue of Atlantis Rising (just slipping off the newsstands now).

The article is illustrated with photographs taken by myself and my daughter last July, as well as two four-frame sequences from a couple of QuickTime movies I shot last April. The movie sequences are particularly interesting since they allowed me to judge both the airspeed of the UFOs and their probable point of origin. Hope you find it interesting - Jeff Nisbet.

As per usual for Friday, I've added a new feature article to the site - this week's addition is a review of Ian Lawton's The Book of the Soul. The book focuses on the evidence for an existence beyond death, and also what we might learn from those who have journeyed to this afterlife...or in the case of Ian's research, the 'interlife'. The Book of the Soul is available for purchase from Ian Lawton's website for just £10. More information about the book, including sample material, is also available from Ian's website.

We fooled them again, didn't we? It's time to slip into the ever-loving arms of the weekend with TDG news ..........

• The fossil of a prehistoric crocodile is teaching scientists about what the world was like on the ancient continent of Gondwana, when all continents were one land mass.
• Let's cut to the chase. Did Neanderthals and modern humans do it?
• The fossilized skeleton of a rabbit-like creature that lived 55-million years ago has been found in Mongolia.
• Mammoth and camel bones unearthed in northwest Kansas that date back 12,200-years could be part of one of the most important archaeological sites in North America.
• For the first time in Baja California, archaeologists have found significant evidence of hunters who settled the region between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago.
• The sea claimed an ancient capital of India. Now it has given it back
• Some geneticists have welcomed the scrapping of the Tasmanian tiger cloning project, arguing it is a waste of precious resources.
• Indian tribes that failed to block the scientific examination of the 9,400-year-old remains known as Kennewick Man are appealing a court ruling in hopes of gaining a role in future discoveries.
• Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself.
• New Zealand unveils Stonehenge replica. That should confuse future archaeologists.
• Slugs, leeches and earthworms inspire new robotic devices.
• Amid the Kyoto celebrations, is climate change a menace or myth?
• GM food will save the world. GM crops will destroy the world. More saving. Take your pick.
• A new device destroys biological weapons.
• Global terrorism follows a power law. Interesting.
• Robocopter captures the defense money.
• A Winnipeg professor argues that the Manitoba legislature has occult roots.
• Data on over one million crucial DNA variations in three racial groups should pave the way for individualized medicines. Is this racist?
• A three-year-old has become the youngest member of the high IQ group Mensa after taking a series of tests run by psychologists.
• Scientists have discovered that HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, could in fact hold the key to curing cancer.
• How our brains help warn us off dangers.
• Amid the nation’s starvation, poverty, and a raging AIDS epidemic, the king of Swaziland gives each of his 10 wives a new BMW while he picks his next wife from the ranks of the topless, dancing virgins. It’s good being king.
• Take it easy ladies, we're wired this way. Why men fall asleep after sex.
• The Bible says Edom's kings interacted with ancient Israel, but some scholars have confidently declared that no Edomite state could have existed that early. And the winner is ………….
• Bold naked images of Jesus draw protest. Surely the Romans wouldn't have crucified him naked.
• Theologists debate fossils vs. faith.
• Here's documentation on the moving rocks of Death Valley. With pics.
• Scientists in India finally understands how UFOs hover all around us without being visible. What took so long?
• 'I believe' is the watchword as a UFO group gathers to share research.
• An invisible tiny UFO is caught by scientists. It's all in how one phrases things.
• Earth creates powerful gamma-ray flashes.
• A unique and comfortable Russian spaceship to fly to the Moon and to the orbital station.
• Did you know that your moon is rumbling? Scientists find a deeper meaning the event.
• Astronomers announced the discovery of 12 previously unknown worlds, bringing the total count of planets outside our solar system to 145.
• Titan's features emerge from the haze.
• Meshed theories could explain planet formation.
• Sea of Tranquility, Bay of Rainbows, Bach crater, and the Wagner Mountain range - did you ever wonder how newly discovered moons and new features on planets are named?
• Summit calls for more space cooperation.
• Mars rover finds a bizarre new rock.
• Sniff of life on Mars has tongues wagging.
• Black holes bend light the 'wrong' way.

Quote of the Day:

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Douglas Noel Adams

Here's the full rundown on the radio schedules for the second half of the week:

Whitley Strieber's Dreamland: This week Greg Little joins co-host William Henry to discuss his journey to Yucatan in search of a lost hall of records that 'sleeping prophet' Edgar Cayce predicted could be found there.

Coast to Coast AM: Friday night is open lines. Saturday's first hour is Chris Moneymaker on how he went from playing poker on the Internet to becoming the winner of the 2003 World Poker Series, second hour is UFO authority Timothy Good on pilot sightings and cover-ups. Sunday is physicist and author Russell Targ, who will discuss how remote viewing is accepted in the scientific community, and how some government agencies have utilized it.

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:

Unidentified Flying Humanoids, vampires and exorcisms, time travel and worldwide conspiracies. Just a normal day for your intrepid TDG news team. The truth may be in here - somewhere.

• Was an Unidentified Flying Humanoid filmed above Santa Monica in November of last year?
• A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars.
• The late Carl Sagan discusses arcane aspects of time travel from how you define time to what it might look like inside a wormhole.
• Malarial drugs given to US troops can cause hallucinations, psychotic behaviour, paranoia and other mental effects. I'm sure the troops in Iraq don't need "The Kane Madness" on top of everything else.
• The latest edition of New Scientist (Issue 2487, Feb 19th) is now available at their website. It focuses on India, the next knowledge superpower.
• Some 60 miles east of Los Angeles one finds the Integratron, a 38-foot high, 50-foot diameter, non-metallic structure designed by the engineer George Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine.
• Was a Portuguese sailor the first ‘real-life’ vampire in American history? Did the President of the United States intervene to save him from the gallows?
• And bang up to date from Canada - Teenage vampires, blood-sucking lust, and an alleged murder plot.
• Russia has lost one of it's most advanced spy satellites after it came down to Earth in the middle of snowy Siberia.
• The Pentagon's space-war chief tells satellite operators to assume they are under attack if an orbiter goes wonky - and the US will consider any attack an act of war. From whom?
• The most interesting airplanes are the ones that never got built. Some of these were schemes that were too visionary, some are found in fiction, and some were practical aircraft that lost out somewhere between blue sky and finished prototype.
• The BBC science programme "Horizon" tries to replicate the "star in a jar" results of experiments in sonic fusion.
• The Vatican university is launching a new course for exorcists - Roman Catholic priests who cast out evil spirits from the possessed.
• Two skulls originally found in 1967 have been shown to be about 195,000 years old, making them the oldest modern human remains known to science.
• A team of experts expects to announce in March whether the latest test results on the mummified body of Tutankhamun will provide evidence for the theory that the boy pharaoh was murdered.
• Mammoth and camel bones, along with possible stone tools, unearthed in Kansas may push back the dating for human occupation of America by 1,300 years.
• Some 5,300 years after his violent death, a Alpine iceman reveals his secrets to a global team of scientists.
• The ancient stadium revealed - a new book documents the wide reach and use of athletic venues in the ancient Greek world.
• Can people be possessed by evil spirits? British TV seems to think so, and next week plans to broadcast "as live" the exorcism of a young man who says he is possessed by evil.
• Scouring the internet is the way to woo. It may not sound as romantic as wooing with candlelight and champagne but it could be much more effective.
• British scientists have confirmed once again that mathematics has a special place in the human brain. I can confirm I must be brain-damaged.
• A civilian nuclear fuels reprocessing plant in northwest England cannot account for some 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of plutonium, enough for seven or eight nuclear bombs.
• The Mexican government said on Tuesday that 75 percent fewer Monarch butterflies have appeared at wintering grounds.
• Bilderberg's secret agenda 2005 - Europe's leaders are only pretending in their 'opposition' to the US.
• Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe - but here are some ideas. I bet TDGers can come up with some more.

Thanks to Shadows for links.

Quote of the Day:

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

W Somerset Maugham

A reminder for US readers to scribble next Thursday (24th Feb) into their diaries, as ABC will be airing "Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing". The program will air from 8-10pm ET, and will feature respected newsman Peter Jennings:

I began this project with a healthy dose of skepticism and as open a mind as possible. After almost 150 interviews with scientists, investigators and with many of those who claim to have witnessed unidentified flying objects, there are important questions that have not been completely answered — and a great deal not fully explained.

On a more negative note, the John Mack Institute is reporting that the interview Jennings did with abduction researcher John Mack has been cut from the program. Being the final interview Mack took part in before his tragic death in London late last year, let's hope that this interview material still sees the light of day at some point. Thanks Kat.