Blather Doesn't Care - An end of the pseudo-m*llennium special

As we are mere weeks away from the end of the year, Blather would like to make it know that *we don't care* about the (change of) millennium.
We don't.
Ok?

However, we will discuss possible Irish meteorites, Wexford UFOs and other malarkey...

THE SPIEL
In between the last few issues, we've been prostrating ourselves, itching in our liquid latex hairshirts, and flagellating ourselves with the guilt of not producing Blather on a more regular basis. It's not that we've been short of material, rather we have had very little time to devote to the matter, and what time we've had has been spent considering the path that Blather should take, as we enter what is alleged to be the final month of the 'millennium'. We promise that we will do better in future. Somehow.

Since the last rant, this Blatherskite has been living in interesting times, turning his life upside down and travelling to distant lands. And we still, somehow, managed to annoy *some* people at least. In the last Blather, we stated that we were to be 'pitted against one Alan Sewell of the Irish Centre for UFO studies in *UFOs Exist. A debate*' at *Octocon*, the 10th Irish National Science Fiction Convention, held on the 9th and 10th of October in The Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire. We showed up on the day, apprehensive but full of devilment. Alas, Mr. Sewell pulled out at the 11th hour, apparently stating that he felt Blather's Dave Walsh would 'only twist his words'.

Feeling both flattered and disappointed, we instead took part in a ramshackle assortment of panelists for the UFO discussion, which included authors Robert Rankin and Eugene Byrne. The result was pleasantly chaotic - we probably didn't really get anywhere constructive, but it was a lot of fun, with some frighteningly concise all-encompassing conspiracy theories For Everything Including UFOs getting aired. Much thanks to Pádraig Ó'Méalóid and the other organisers, and cheers to Robert Rankin, who entertained us with tales of having his car windows shot out and the culinary horrors of human-chicken relationships.

A few weeks later, on the afternoon November 5th, not long back from having spent Samhain (Halloween) in the hills of Leitrim with the fine people at the Grove of Sinann (Irish readers should look out for more about the Grove in a forthcoming issue of *Source* magazine), we found ourselves being fed an improbable cornucopia of alcoholic beverages by an Australian-German British Airways hostess at about 35,000 ft over the south-west Irish coast. Landing at Baltimore, this blatherskite was whisked off to the hotel where the The International Fortean Organization's Fortfest 99 was to take place - the 29th annual conference on anomalous phenomena.

Speakers present included the wonderful John Keel, author of *The Mothman Prophecies* and *Operation Trojan Horse*, the elegantly droll Doug Skinner, Michael Grosso on miracles and the like, Budd Hopkins (who showed us endless slides of, er, implant scars), the highly enjoyable Paul Harrison - president of the Loch Ness Monster Research Society and Paul LaViollette - 'the first astronomer to disprove the expanding universe theory and the first to discover concentrations of cosmic dust and gold in ice age polar ice'. Also speaking were Doug Rogers on crop circles, J. Antonio Huneeus on UFOs, Tom Vallone on 'free energy' and Vincent Bridges on 'Alchemy, Fulcanelli and The Great Cross'.

This Blatherskite ended up being the final speaker of the two-day conference, recounting tales of *Accidental Satanists* - a further exploration of the Hell-Fire Clubs of the 18th century, a subject previously touched up in this publication.

Memories of the weekend (vague as they are) include getting a gift of a deer bone discovered during drunken fortean forays behind the hotel, sitting on the podium with John Keel, Larry Arnold and others, recounting all kinds of crazy after-dinner stories, consuming unwise amounts of Jameson 1780 at 4am at the party that just kind of happened in Jim and Brent's room, secret self-service at the hotel bar, six people crushed into a five-seater car on a quest into the strip-mall hell that is College Park, Maryland, in an long hilarious and hopeless search of *yet more* drinkables, getting yelled at by the audience during *Accidental Satanists* 'cos we were too quiet, too fast and too Irish (it was all good natured of course), and the entertaining Monday drive to New York City, passed by storytelling and poetry.

The cast: dozens, but you know who you are. Special thanks to Jim Boyd and his warrior-sprog Kiarna, Phyllis Benjamin and Sheila and Corinna Makris.

Octocon
http://www.lostcarpark.com/octocon/

The Grove of Sinann
http://www.iol.ie/~sinann/

A Mothman Retrospective
http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no5.html

The International Fortean Organization
http://www.research.umbc.edu/~frizzell/info

Doug Skinner @ White Knuckle Sandwich
http://www.whiteknucklesandwich.com/

FORTEAN FALLS
On November 29th, the RTE email news *UPDATE* (amongst other RTE media types) announced that Astronomy Ireland had reported the possibility of a meteorite landing on the night of the November 28th, around 10:10pm. A large fireball had been seen *and* heard in many parts of Ireland.

They're apparently looking for witnesses who may be able to help them plot its trajectory. No meteorite has been found in the Republic of Ireland since 1835 - one fell in Northern Ireland in 1969.

For more see:
http://www.astronomy.ie/

In the last issue, we reported on claims of 'Black Rays' over Lough Neagh. Harriet Moore, who lives 4 miles (6.4km) from Aldergrove Airport a similar distance away from Lough Neagh, emailed to tell us of not black *rays*, but *black rain*.

'We saw it one Sunday morning about 10/11am. In our estimation it was fuel dumped from aeroplanes, and as it isn't very far from the airport to the Irish Sea, we reckoned the planes were dumping fuel. Certainly didn't look like anything else we could think of. It started as black parallel 'lines' roughly where the wings would be, and with high altitude winds, cloud formation etc., the two 'lines' gradually spread out and could be seen 'falling' in much the same way as contrails do.'

Harriet continues:
'There also was weekend rave in the Nutts Corner area in late June/Early July. It lasted from Friday to Sunday night and was attended by something over 1,500 people. Of course Laser lights and other stuff to create light effects were in use at the time. I have seen laser lights bouncing off low cloud cover from a distance of 20 miles which turned out to be a Laser show in Belfast which I could see from Dromore, south of Hillsborough. It was weird initially as I was driving along the dual carriageway, but I pulled over and watched.'

Shereen Beckett was in touch, from the Carrickfergus area - she informed us that, having asked around, she can confirm that no-one locally had picked up the 'black rays' story, including the media.

See: *Funny what you can find near Bundoran...*
http://www.blather.net/archives3/issue3no6.html#blackray

UFOS AT HOME AND ABROAD
It seems to have been remarkably quiet on the UFO side of things recently, at least in Ireland. Despite the Leonid meteor showers of mid-november, no reports have come our way, except a third-hand report from Co. Wexford. On the night of December 2nd 1999, a power cut, apparently due to high winds, plunged some of the county into darkness. During the black-out, two large, slow-moving bright lights were reported in the Carne area (south of Rosslare Harbour and east of Kilmore). They were also reported as being seen near Tuskar Rock, the island lighthouse to the south-east of Rosslare, some 8km (5 miles) off the coast, and as far away as Duncormick, some 20km (12.5 miles) west of Carne.

That's all we have for now, more reports welcome...

While we're on the subject, we should add that Blather's Turkish correspondent, Soner Goksu, informed us that around the 7th and 8th of November, there were UFO sightings over Istanbul. Soner commented that they've been seen regularly since the eclipse of August 11th. We would point out that the horrific Turkish earthquake took placed mere days after the eclipse. Any possible correlation? The phenomena of 'earthquake lights' has been explored in the past by Paul Devereux and Michael Persinger - see:

*The Tectonic Strain Theory as an Explanation for UFO Phenomena*
http://www.laurentian.ca/neurosci/tectonic.htm

UFOS OVER SHANGHAI?
"UFO darts across the city's skyline", reported the Shanghai Daily, "UFO appears in the sky over Shanghai", said the Wenhui Daily, on Thursday 3rd December...

'Nearly 100 people claimed to have seen a cylindrical object with a flaming orange tail moving over the western part of the city for about an hour Thursday afternoon, the newspapers said. They offered no theories on what it might have been', said Fox News...the following day.

Even odder, the Shanghai Daily ran the story *next * to an advertisement for the X-Files movie, and of course, we got the story from Fox, who of course are the company behind the X-Files, and...

ALIEN FOETUS NEWS
Curiously, the Irish alien foetus story has died a death. We certainly haven't heard anymore about it. However, our favoured webzine at the moment, the fascinating *GettingIt*, recently ran an article which may be of interest to alien foetus fans, called *Have You Hurled a Fetus today? - England's in love with alien embryos*:

'They've been called "the most disgusting toy in the world." This may be so, but there's certainly a sick thrill in recklessly hurling embryos against a wall. Especially as they collapse on impact with a satisfying splat into formless ectoplasm. But the best part is there's no mess to clean up afterwards. Slowly peel them off and they magically reconstitute themselves into embryonic form.'

Click here to be taken to GettingIt article:
http://www.blather.net/archives3/issue3no7_gettingit.html

*Funny what you can find near Bundoran...*
http://www.blather.net/archives3/issue3no6.html#embryo

EMAILS IN:
From: Ettye Hurleu Subject: Christina Gallagher

Comments: 'Having visited Achill Island on pilgrimage and having prayed at the House of Prayer, I witnessed first hand what you have chosen to disregard - in your sophistication. Open your heart.'

Blather sez: We fear that Ettye is oblivious to our peculiar blend of ironic impartiality. If we had chose to disregard, we wouldn't have mentioned Ms. Gallagher at all... we do not dismiss the claims of miracles at The House of Prayer on Achill Island, we simply choose to doubt. Is that such a sin? We use 'alleged' because we cannot vouch for what we ourselves have not experienced.

For more on the Achill/House of Prayer story see:

*Weird Achill*
http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no9.html

*Baaaaah-Humbug*
http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no2.html

*Rocks from Irish Skies*
http://www.blather.net/archives/issue1no33.html

LORD LUCAN SIGHTINGS
Following Blather's stint on South African radio, we're happy to say that Lord Lucan was back in the news, albeit briefly. On Wednesday October 27th, *The Irish Times* reported that the British government had declared Lord Lucan officially dead.

*Lucan's family 'draws line' under disappearance*
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/
breaking/1999/1027/break5.htm

On Saturday October 30th, 1999, *The Irish Times* printed:

'He still qualifies for a place in the profile slot - just. It was the obituary page editors who were flexing their muscles earlier in the week as Lord Lucan, the missing earl, was reported "officially" dead. He was promptly resurrected on Wednesday, however, and officially declared alive and well and living in . . . well, take your pick.'

*Missing earl who died and was resurrected*
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/
newsfeatures/1999/1030/newsfea18.htm

*The Things We Get Asked To Do*
http://www.blather.net/archives3/issue3no5.html

BLATHER RECOMMENDS:
The Village - Building Sustainable Community - Sustainable Projects Ireland Ltd.
http://www.sustainable.buz.org/
sustainable_projects_pages/

'Sustainable Projects Ireland Ltd. wants to create an ecological settlement of about 40 houses on an 100 acre rural site, about one hour from Dublin. The village is to be a model of sustainable development for the next millennium. Its aim is to lead the way in ecological building techniques, local enterprise creation, renewable energy systems, rural regeneration, worthwhile job creation, waste management, and environmental/social education.'

Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment
http://voice.buz.org/

Signum Magazine: Meaning & Paranoia by Blather's Barry Kavanagh http://www.signumpress.com/Issue2/marrow/madness1.html

*Are You... Experienced?* by Skylaire Alfvegren - all about a 'jazz singer who happens to be in touch with higher beings'
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/52/reverb-alfvegren.shtml

Our *favourite* webzine of the moment, *GettingIt*
http://www.gettingit.com

An *Irish Times* retrospective on the 'moving statue phenomenon'.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/
features/1999/1130/fea1.htm

23
http://www.twentythree.co.uk

Adbusters - Culture Jammers Headquarters
http://www.adbusters.org

Time Travel Hangar Grand Opening
http://members.aol.com/AppleAlien

'This site contains info on several first-ever SETI and Time experiments plus much overblown hype. You may be interested in publicizing the effort.'

Posted by daev at December 8, 1999 7:40 PM