INACS (Institute for Neuroscience And Consciousness Study) and the Anomaly Archives present:
Exploring UFOs and Consciousness with SMiles Lewis
UFOs & Consciousness – Part One– Video / Audio: Presented by SMiles Lewis for INACS’ monthly Consciousness Connections meetings. Co-Sponsored by the Anomaly Archives lending library. Presented / Recorded 10/25/11 at the Austin Center for Spiritual Living.
Resources, Information, Links Coming Soon . . .
Thanks to Floyd Anderson for Video and Bob Price for Audio.
What can we learn about UFOs from studying such diverse arenas of consciousness exploration as shamanism and drugs like DMT? What about Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and parapsychology? What about near death and out of body experiences? What have human agencies (governmental, corporate, aboriginal and esoteric) discovered about the UFO phenomenon’s effects on consciousness? Has humanity interacted with Alien Others throughout history? Could we be communicating with CryptoTerrestrials or a Gaian Mind? What do we really know about these diverse and exceptional experiences and those who’ve had them? Come discover the fantastic facts about UFOs, Altered States of Consciousness, and Mind-at-Large!
Austin Center for Spritual Living
5555 North Lamar, Suite D-117
Austin, TX 78751
SMiles Lewis has had a lifelong interest in all things anomalous. An early age proclivity at recalling his nightly dreams as well as several personal experiences with ESP, precognition and dream switching bolstered his interest in the paranormal. Shortly after high-school he joined the local MUFON chapter in Austin, Texas. He would later become a MUFON State Section Director for that group as well as leader of the local UFO Experiencer Support and Study Group. A lover of books, SMiles collected over 1000 titles before founding the non-profit Anomaly Archives that serves as the lending library of the Scientific Anomaly Institute (501c3). For over twenty years he has worked with digital audio, video and other bleeding edge internet technologies. He has published his own print journal (E.L.F. Infested Spaces), edited a local paranormal newspaper (Austin Para Times), maintained a large network of websites (ELFIS.net), organized a national UFO conference (NUFOC-38), spoken to anthropologists about UFOs and parapsychology (Encounters with the Fantastic), hosted (and been a guest on) both terrestrial and webradio talk shows and has been podcasting since before the phrase existed. All these efforts and more have led radio talk show host Robert Larson to describe Miles as a “Gonzo Alt-Media Proprietor and Informationalist.” He is also the LOWFI-Texas State Bureau Chief of The League of Western Fortean Intermediatists.
He is active with several local non-profits which includes his service on the board of directors for the Institute for Neuroscience And Consciousness Studies (INACS) and the Scientific Anomaly Institute‘s lending library, the Anomaly Archives.
The Anomaly Archives and Austin Mufon present a Free Lecture by UK ET Contactee Steven Jones…
Steven Jones – “A modern-day ET Contact Experiencer: After nearly an unbelievable 50 years of ET contact he is now able to assist others like him to move through the barrier that restricts so many from understanding what Contact really is” – Author of An Invitation To The Dance: The Awakening of the Extended Human Family
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 – 7pm at the NEW ACSL LOCATION
[Behind Half-Price Books on North Lamar] Austin Center for Spiritual Living
5555 North Lamar Blvd.
Building D, Suites D115 & D117
Austin, Texas 78751
. . .
Steven Jones: The Life and Times of An ET Contact Experiencer
“Steven Jones is a modern-day ET Contact Experiencer: no longer the confused and powerless Abductee, but an empowered participator in the extraordinary events that remain such an important and profound part of his life. After nearly an unbelievable 50 years of ET contact he is now able to assist others like him to move through the barrier that restricts so many from understanding what Contact really is.
Through perfect recall and in great detail Steven will guide you through a landscape of contact events with several types of ET. From early Contact experiences seen through the innocent eyes of childhood to the young adult whose perspective of events was unavoidably influenced by the world he lived in, Steven will safely deliver you via a roller-coaster ride of experiences that ultimately inspired his adult years. Even die-hard skeptics will have a problem dismissing the details of so many of the experiences that Steven has been through.
As we all head towards 2012 with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, Steven will share the knowledge that has been passed on to him by the ETs and explain how we might begin to re-evaluate our position as caring and responsible human beings, not only as residents of the planet Earth, but as universal citizens within the cosmos.
On this challenging journey of discovery we will begin to understand what the purpose of ET Contact has been, how we might consider responding to it and hopefully to identify who the ETs actually are. In doing so Steven will give you a glimpse into a point of view that goes beyond the usual belief systems about extraterrestrial reality, to give you valuable insight to make up your own mind about what this mystery actually means.”
Friday night, February 18th, join the Anomaly Archives in welcoming cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard to Austin, Texas.
Ken Gerhard is an accomplished cryptozoologist and field researcher for The Centre for Fortean Zoology and The Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization , as well as a fellow of the Pangea Institute . He has investigated reports of monsters and mysterious beasts all over the world including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra, winged creatures and even werewolves.
In addition to appearing in three episodes of the History Channel television series Monster Quest , Ken is featured on the special The Real Wolfman (History Channel) and in the series Legend Hunters (Travel Channel/A&E) and also Paranatural (National Geographic), plus numerous, radio and Internet broadcasts. His credits include appearances on Eyewitness News , Coast to Coast Radio and Ireland’s Newstalk Radio , as well as being featured in major books, DVDs and in articles by the Associated Press , Tampa Tribune and Amarillo Edge.
Ken is author of the books Big Bird: Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters and Monsters of Texas and has contributed to trade publications including Animals and Men, The Journal of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club and Bigfoot Times . He has lectured and exhibited at numerous paranormal conferences across the United States. Born on Friday the 13 th of October, Ken has traveled to twenty-six different countries and has visited forty-three of the states. An avid adventurer, he has camped along the Amazon, explored the Galapagos, hiked the Australian Outback and has visited many ancient and mysterious sites, from Machu Pichu to Stonehenge.
Friday February 18th at 7pm
Austin Center for Spiritual Living
4804 Grover Ave Austin, TX 78756
Follow the Anomaly Archives on Twitter, Facebook friend us, and track our events through our Meetup group or Yahoo group.
Articles, Interviews, Links and Media Coverage of Ken Gerhard…
Here is the invitation from Austin Mufon coordinator (and SAI/Anomaly Archives Board Member) Mike DeGroff:
Hey, “EARTHLINGS”!
Our next Austin MUFON meeting / Christmas Party will be held this coming Saturday afternoon, December 4, from 1:00 P.M. until whenever, at the INACS “Nerve Center”, located at the Forest Plaza office park, 12593 Research Blvd., Ste. 302, Austin, Tx., 78759.
To get there take the “Oakknoll” exit from Research Blvd., (183), and stay on the North-bound feeder road. The first street you will pass will be Technology Blvd. and the very next drive after that will be the entrance to Forest Plaza. (Look for a black MUFON sign beside the entrance). Please bring your spouse or significant other.
This will be a casually dressed, potluck affair and alcoholic beverages are permitted. Please bring your favorite “munchies” to share, i.e.- finger sandwiches, chips & dips, veggies, cheezes, desserts, drinks, etc.
“Why so early in the month?”,or, “Christmas is three weeks away!”, you may ask yourself. Well, because it’s the day we are normally scheduled to meet and it’s also the only Saturday I have open for this, for the entire month! I’m pretty sure everyone else will also have their Saturdays tied up with office parties and plans of travelling out of town to visit relatives over the Holidays.
I hope everyone will be able to attend because the past year’s parties have always been a really good time, but if you’re unable to attend, I understand, and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!!
Contactees contains the fascinating stories of the select group of people chosen by visitors to Earth to spread their message. Are aliens really among us? Don’t be too quick to dismiss their claims.
Truman Bethurum was divorced by his wife because she believed he was having close encounters of a very personal kind with a beautiful extraterrestrial “space captain” named Aura Rhanes. Is he nuts? Prescient? An omen?
A band of eerily human-looking, blond-haired aliens–later known as the Space-Brothers–informed other contactees that they were concerned by our warlike ways and wished us to live in peace with one another. Acting on the advice of the Space-Brothers, contactees such as George Van Tassel and George Adamski went out and spread the extraterrestrial word to anyone and everyone who would listen. And many did, including U.S. government agencies.
More than half a century later, the contactees are still among us, still telling their tales of personal alien encounters, and still maintaining their cult-like status in the world of UFOlogy. Nick Redfern’s Contactees relates their thought-provoking, lluminating, controversial, and sometimes bizarre stories in all their appropriately out-of-this-world glory.
Originally from England, Nick Redfern lives in Arlington, Texas. He is a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including UFOs, alien contact, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, government conspiracies, and paranormal phenomena. He writes regularly for UFO Magazine, Fortean Times,
Paranormal Magazine, and Fate. His previous books include Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; Strange Secrets; A Covert Agenda; and There’s Something in the Woods. Among his many exploits, Redfern has investigated reports of aliens in Mexico; lake-monsters in Scotland; vampires in Puerto Rico; werewolves in England; and crashed UFOs in the United States.
This new monthly event will be a FREE showing of lesser known “Flying Saucer Films” with a focus on those that have important points to be made regarding the nature of paranormal, UFO and other anomalous phenomena, as well as society’s cultural reactions to UFO related phenomena.
UFO related phenomena and the Modern Wave of Flying Saucer sightings in the United States have had a lasting effect upon American Popular Culture. For that reason we feel it fitting to host this new event series at the South Austin Popular Culture Center (frmly the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture).
Our next showing is … Starship Invasions, from 1977.
This new monthly event will be a FREE showing of lesser known “Flying Saucer Films” with a focus on those that have important points to be made regarding the nature of paranormal, UFO and other anomalous phenomena, as well as society’s cultural reactions to UFO related phenomena.
UFO related phenomena and the Modern Wave of Flying Saucer sightings in the United States have had a lasting effect upon American Popular Culture. For that reason we feel it fitting to host this new event series at the South Austin Popular Culture Center (frmly the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture).
Our next showing is … Invaders From Mars, the 1953 original classic.
“In the 1880’s a budget crunch led the state of Texas to bring convicts in to the area to work the quarry. 8 convicts died while working and were buried in the area known as Convict Hill. These convicts now haunt the road”
Is There Anything Paranormal or Mysterious About Convict Hill Road?
by SMiles Lewis
In early October of 2009 I was contacted by an associate producer for the online webisode series “Streets of Fear” who was wanting to know if I knew anything paranormal or mysterious about Convict Hill Road here in Austin, Texas. The online series is part of the horror lineup of programming offered at Fear Net dot com that focuses on ultra brief media bytes exploring stories of American streets with really spooky names, such as Bloody Pond, White Wolf, Dark Hollow, Widow Susan, Beelzebub, Gore Orphanage, Hell Hollow, Shades of Death, Gallows Hill, Purgatory, Spook Rock, Burnt Church, Witches Rock, Bloods Point, Tombstone Canyon, Mount Misery, Extraterrestrial Highway, and Bloody Spring. They had contacted me after finding my friend James Bankston whose article in the Oak Hill Gazette (via Archive.org) had gotten their attention
I told the Fear Net producer that I was familiar with the road but had never heard of any paranormal haunting stories associated with the road. I said that I would check all available resources that the Anomaly Archives had and would inquire amongst the network of contacts associated with the Scientific Anomaly Institute. I spent the rest of the week reviewing every catalog in the Anomaly Archives collection related to ghosts, hauntings and other folklore associated with supposed weird and paranormal locales. Not a single one in the more than a dozen I checked made any reference to paranormal activity associated with Convict Hill Road. Lots of references to documented haunting encounters at the Texas Governor’s Mansion, Austin State School, Driskill Hotel, and even Round Rock’s crypto-ghostly Hairy Man Road (and its festival [via archive.org] which was going on that very week). I told the producer all of this but they were still interested in getting me and James on tape talking about the history of how the road got its name.
The story of how the road got its name is simply a matter of Texas’ historic use of prison convict labor and the circumstances surrounding the burials of those convicts killed trying to escape or who died by other causes. Rumors circulated that those who were killed or otherwise died on site at the quarry were buried there, under the mounds of limestone rocks piled up around the timbers known as dead-men. As my friend James Bankston had succinctly written:
Some men died on the site, while others tried to escape and were shot dead. Eventually a legend grew up that these dead prisoners were buried under limestone cairns on what came be known as “Convict Hill.”
In the 1980s when real estate developers got interested in that area, they found they had to confront this question head-on. We’ve all seen enough scary movies to know that bad things happen to people who build on abandoned burial grounds.
Archaeologists, historians, and geologists were all brought out to see if they could literally find out where the bodies were buried. Soil tests and other methods concluded no one had been buried on Convict Hill, but a study of the historic record did offer another explanation to the mystery.
Derricks had been employed to move and haul stone at the quarry. They had been secured by guy wires and heavy timbers. Since the soil was so rocky that the timbers could not be buried in the ground, they had to be stabilized by heavy piles of rocks.
The timbers themselves were called “dead men,” so it’s easy to see how that spooky name, tomb-sized piles of stones, and notoriously cruel working conditions could form in the public mind this legend that convicts had been buried on Convict Hill.
So, with a name like Convict Hill Road and rumors of buried prisoners who’d been shot trying to escape, the location was bound to generate at least a slight background noise of paranormal speculation, yet the official literature and internet searches for possible paranormal folklore associated with the location seem to be non-existent, aside from this single video recorded by some bored teenagers “investigating” an alleged abandoned house just off of Convict Hill Road:
Despite the lack of official recorded encounters I was open to the possibility that perhaps a visit to the recently created Convict Hill Quarry Park, where I was to meet a local cameraman working for “Streets of Fear” and which allegedly marks the geographic center of the old thousand acre quarry operation, might still hold some sort of spookiness that could tingle my own less than psychically sensitive perceptions. Upon arriving at the park, I discovered a small group of amateur paranormal investigators who were embarking on their own informal investigation of the park. I asked if they had been there before and if they had ever heard any stories associated with the place. The gentleman seemed to indicate that this was so. I believe the man I spoke with was Martin Estrada of Montopolis Paranormal and he was there with a woman whom I believe is the organizer of Latino Ghost Hunters of TX Paranormal Warriors. Once inside I leisurely explored the small acre or so sized last remaining vacant lot along Convict Hill Road. As you can see from the pictures I took with my camera-phone the park is very nice and not spooky at all. There are numerous piles of small, medium and large sized limestone chunks, many with chip marks or bored through by drill bit holes.
After giving myself the tour, getting bitten by mosquitoes, sweating profusely in the still sweltering early October humidity, and falling on my rear end from the tallest mound of rocks, I finally gave my comments to the cameraman. It is a very awkward thing to be speaking to the space beside a cameraman’s head as if there were an interviewer there, let alone having to incorporate the questions they want you to answer into the wording of those answers. I reported the fact that I and my colleagues at the Anomaly Archives lending library of the Scientific Anomaly Institute could find no documented incidents of anything mysterious or paranormal associated with the street, just its interesting history as a probable torturous work environment for the inmate labor and the subsequent rumors of buried convicts. I explained, as did James Bankston, how tales of extreme distress, often associated with tragedies, are generally accepted as the instigators of much paranormal activity. I explained how it could be possible that there are in fact actual stories of hauntings being handed down from person to person, generation to generation, just waiting to be recorded into official catalogs of the paranormal literature. I spoke of the Fortean Name Game and how so often strange and scary sounding place names such as Diablo are given for places with a history of strange phenomena. But of course the editors of this ultra-compressed 2 minute segment managed to squeeze in the one moment where I alluded to the fact that I’ve “been hearing that there is in fact paranormal activity associated with Convict Hill Road.” I was alluding to the general belief in the possibilities of such stories existing as had been implied by the “Streets of Fear” associate producer, by the bored videocamera-wielding teenagers out ghost-hunting and by the local paranormal group I’d encountered just as I entered the park. It’s possible there could be buried convict bodies somewhere under the thousand acres of now surburbanized homes and that the souls of said departed could be haunting the lives of the living but have yet to officially report there plague of poltergeists. However, if such encounters have happened, noone has bothered to document them in any formal way.
As interesting as the possibility of ghost stories or paranormal activity associated with this historic site might be, for me personally, I find the site’s historic value (in relation to Inmate Labor / Texas Labor Strikes – see links below) to be of much more import and interest.
– SMiles Lewis
Photographs from the Convict Hill Quarry Park Shoot:
Further Resources on Convict Hill Road, Texas Labor and Paranormal Phenomena
Audio Resources:
PsiOp Radio 91 – 091011 – SMiles discusses the Fear Net episode on Convict Hill Road’s history
Fortean Name Game & Anomalist Resources:
Wild Talents by Charles Fort (on coincidence and synchronistic relationships of things)
One dies, get another: convict leasing in the American South, 1866-1928
By Matthew J. Mancini
Cowboy Strike of 1883 by Robert E. Zeigler
“In 1883 a group of cowboys began a 2½-month strike against five ranches, the LIT, the LX, the LS, the LE, and the T Anchor,qqv which they believed were controlled by corporations or individuals interested in ranching only as a speculative venture for quick profit. In late February or early March of 1883 crews from the LIT, the LS, and the LX drew up an ultimatum demanding higher wages and submitted it to the ranch owners. Twenty-four men signed it and set March 31 as their strike date. The original organizers of the strike, led by Tom Harris of the LS, established a small strike fund and attempted, with limited success, to persuade all the cowboys in the area of the five ranches to honor the strike. Reports on the number of people involved in the strike ranged from thirty to 325. Actually the number changed as men joined and deserted the walkout.”
Strikes by Ruth A. Allen, George N. Green, and James V. Reese
“In September or October 1838 the Texas Typographical Association, the first labor organization in Texas, struck the Houston publishers and secured a 25 percent wage increase.”
“Not until after the Civil Warqv did bona fide strikes occur. Those of 1870 were typical. In January of that year, Houston telegraphers joined a short, unsuccessful nationwide strike against Western Union; in April, the Austin Typographical Union suffered a disastrous defeat; in May, Galveston brickmasons struck for a raise but returned to work without it; and in November, the engineers and brakemen on the Houston and Texas Central Railway lost their jobs as a result of a walkout over wages. The first work stoppage involving more than a handful of workers occurred in June 1872, when the management of the Houston and Texas Central Railway began requiring all employees to sign an agreement releasing the company from liability for accidents on the job.”
“The number of strikes increased through the seventies, as the number of unions and labor militancy grew. The peak year until the middle eighties was 1877, when, in addition to numerous small strikes, major work stoppages occurred among dockworkers in Galveston and railway workers on the Texas and Pacific. Both the large strikes were marked by considerable violence. The dockworkers’ strike saw the first use of African Americansqv as strikebreakers in Texas (see SCREWMEN’S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION.)”
…
“The first strike in Texas noted in official records occurred in 1880, when fifty employees of the draying industry stayed out 150 days but were denied an increase in wages. Between 1880 and 1886, 100 strikes occurred, involving 8,124 workers; establishments involved were closed for a total of 450 days; striking workers were out for a total of 708 days each; and the loss due to strikes was estimated at $1 million. These strikes included the Cowboy Strike of 1883,qv in which more than 300 cowboys in the Tascosa area struck for higher wages and better working conditions, and two strikes in Galveston, one of 280 cotton handlers lasting sixty-four days and the other of 150 longshoremen against the use of black laborers lasting two days. The first failed, the second succeeded. One of the most spectacular strikes was the Capitol Boycottqv in 1885. The largest number of strikes was called by the building trades unions, but the largest number of workers involved in any one industry was in transportation. The third largest group involved was the West Texas coal miners. The greatest number striking in any one year was 4,154, involved in seven strikes in 1885. Of these, 1,500 were longshoremen in the port of Galveston, and the major part of the others were in transportation. Additional thousands of Texas laborers joined the national strike of telegraphers and sectional strikes against the management of the western and southwestern railroads. In 1885 Texas ranked ninth among forty states in number of workers involved in strikes (4,000); for the six-year period it ranked fifteenth. Seventy-five of the 100 strikes, chiefly interstate strikes of telegraphers and railway workers, occurred in the year 1886; seventy-four of these were called by an organized labor group. Twenty-four of the twenty-five strikes between 1886 and 1894 were called by organized groups. The most significant were in the coal-mining areas, where industrial troubles were almost continuous from 1884 to 1904. In 1884, for six months, 450 coal miners carried on a losing strike against a reduction in wages. Troubles began in the mines in Erath County in 1888 and lasted for four years; Texas Rangersqv remained in the area for more than a year. The strike was largely unsuccessful.
After 1886 annual figures on the number of strikes are not available, but a summary for the quarter century from 1881 to 1905 shows a total of 341 strikes in Texas involving 37,000 workers.”
Austin and Oatmanville Railway by Nancy Beck Young
“The Austin and Oatmanville Railway Company was chartered by the Capitol Syndicate (see XIT RANCH) on November 5, 1883, to connect Kouns, a station on the International and Great Northern Railroad five miles south of Austin, with Oatmanville (now the Austin suburb of Oak Hill). The road was built to haul limestone for use in the building of the Capitol.qv Although the limestone was unsuitable for the exterior of the building, stone from the quarry was used for the foundation and basement walls, cross walls, and backing for the exterior walls as well as elsewhere in the structure. The capital stock was $100,000. Members of the first board of directors were Abner Taylor and Charles B. Farwell, of Cook County, Illinois; Amos C. Babcock, of Fulton County, Illinois; and John T. Brackenridge, Gustav Wilke,qqv A. P. Wooldridge, and W. D. Williams, all of Austin. In 1884 the railroad built six miles of track between Kouns and the quarry at Oatmanville at a cost to the building contractor of $35,000 for grading and bridging, while the International and Great Northern spent $24,100 for rails and cross-ties. Before the end of 1884 nearly 280,000 cubic feet of limestone had been delivered from the Oatmanville quarry. The line was abandoned and the rails removed in 1888.”
Oak Hill, Texas (Travis County) by Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
Oak Hill, on U.S. Highway 290 and Williamson Creek, eight miles southwest of Austin in southwestern Travis County, was originally called Live Oak Springs. In 1865 an attempt was made in the community to establish a town called Shiloh, but the effort was unsuccessful. Schools called Live Oak and Oatmanville also gave their names to the community for a time. A post office called Oak Hill was established in 1870 with Swen M. Berryman as postmaster. When the new state Capitolqv building was constructed in Austin in the 1880s, the Oak Hill community boomed because of its nearby stone quarries. In 1884 the town had a general store, four saloons, and seventy-five residents; pecans, cotton, wool, and hides were the principal commodities shipped by area farmers. By 1904 the population of Oak Hill had reached 200. The Oak Hill post office was discontinued in 1910, and mail for the community was sent to Austin. In the 1970s and 1980s the population of Oak Hill was listed at 425. By 2000 the community had been absorbed into the Austin city limits. Numerous streets and businesses still identified the area as Oak Hill. A local newspaper, the Oak Hill Gazette, was published weekly.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mary Starr Barkley, History of Travis County and Austin, 1839-1899 (Waco: Texian Press, 1963). John J. Germann and Myron Janzen, Texas Post Offices by County (1986).
Galveston Longshoremen’s Strike of 1920 by James C. Maroney
“Tensions grew amid rumors that the city’s deep-sea longshoremen might join the strike in sympathy with the coastwise dockworkers. On June 7 the governor declared martial law and sent in 1,000 national guard troops. Although deep-sea longshoremen never joined the strike, the possibility of their doing so, along with the presence of the rangers and state militiamen, the prevailing racial tension, and sporadic confrontations between strikers and nonunion dockworkers all added to the tension. The Mallory line also brought in Mexican workers in such numbers that the president of the Galveston Trades Council complained of “a regular Mexican colony” on west Galveston Island.
The city commissioners, the Galveston Dock and Marine Council, and the state’s labor press all argued that the true reason behind Governor Hobby’s decision to order troops to Galveston and to keep them there after the tension cooled was to destroy union effectiveness and to guarantee an open-shop labor market. In July Hobby suspended the mayor, city commissioners, and police force for failing to maintain the peace and protect citizens. The police were disarmed, and Gen. Jacob F. Woltersqv took control of the courts and jails. The mayor, city attorney, and commissioners could perform routine duties but retained no powers to enforce penal laws. The city commissioners filed a suit against Governor Hobby, General Wolters, and the Texas National Guard,qv but the case was dismissed by Judge Robert C. Street of the Fifty-sixth District Court. The strike-induced martial law was challenged by a private citizen, who, after being arrested for a traffic violation, brought suit in a federal district court questioning the constitutionality of martial law in Galveston; the court, however, upheld Hobby’s action in the matter. Ultimately, negotiations between city and state governments resulted in the withdrawal of the national guard at midnight, September 30, 1920, but some Texas Rangers remained until January 1921 to supervise the Galveston police department.
The Galveston ILA locals returned to work between December 1920 and July 1921 with a pay increase far below that demanded in March 1920.”
This new monthly event will be a FREE showing of lesser known “Flying Saucer Films” with a focus on those that have important points to be made regarding the nature of paranormal, UFO and other anomalous phenomena, as well as society’s cultural reactions to UFO related phenomena.
UFO related phenomena and the Modern Wave of Flying Saucer sightings in the United States have had a lasting effect upon American Popular Culture. For that reason we feel it fitting to host this new event series at the South Austin Popular Culture Center (frmly the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture).
Beginning with … Quatermass & the Pit, aka Five Million Years to Earth!
“The ufo phenomenon exists in a synergistic cybernetic interface with humanity. Whatever the true nature of UFOs, they interact with us within several different milieus, all of which are influenced by the media and culture. This media and culture in turn feeds back into the phenonomenon in a continuous cycle.If the fantastic fictions of our television and print media can feedback upon and influence our images and ideas of the unknown then we will continue to have a harder and harder time of sorting the wheat from the chaff of non-human intelligences communicating through the ufo encounter.
Therefore it is very important that we look at some of the various ways the subject of UFOs and Aliens have been handled by the film and television industries. Each night’s selection of films delves into these issues areas especially as they relate to that day’s particular event theme.”
– SMiles Lewis (circa 2001) 38th annual National UFO Conference www.NUFOC.com
Five Million Years To Earth (1967)
aka Quatermass & The Pit
By Nigel Kneale
“Was the Devil really a Martian? Could our predatory nature be the result of a eugenics experiment performed on our ancestors by aliens millions of years ago? These are the questions raised after an ancient spaceship is unearthed in the London Underground, and Professor Quatermass must answer them before the world is torn apart in a Martian race war. Based on the popular BBC sci-fi t.v. series.”
For more information on Five Million Years To Earth…
Carpenter’s script assembles elements of his earlier films in a kind of survey; especially Precinct 13’s siege setting and hordes from out of the demimonde, and The Thing’s shapeless, body-claiming alien force. The writing is good, littered with funny lines and highly imaginative contemporary twists on the tale’s origins in the works of Nigel Kneale, to whom Carpenter pays nod-wink homage by billing the screenplay as the work of “Martin Quatermass”.
W: Welcome to Weird Magazine. It’s been a while. Tell readers about the Anomaly Archives?
SAI: Hi Russell. It’s great to talk with you again. Thanks for the opportunity to tell you readers about the Anomaly Archives.
The Anomaly Archives is the lending library of the Scientific Anomaly Institute (S.A.I.), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks the preservation and dissemination of scientific research into anomalous phenomena, research into and analysis of our accumulated collections and the education of the public regarding scientific investigations into these many mysterious phenomena.
Our collection houses over 2000 books as well as research materials that includes videos, government documents, magazines, and personal correspondence donated from a variety of people in the UFO and paranormal research fields. Along with the S.A.I. collection, we also house the collections of Austin MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) and INACS (Institute for Neuroscience And Consciousness Studies). We house many great books that discuss a wide range of scientific subjects including UFOs and Ufology, Consciousness, Parapsychology, Fortean Phenomena, ParaPolitical Science, Human Potential, and Jungian Theory. Also located on site are thousands of books belonging to the Jung Society of Austin, devoted to the psychological theories of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung.
We have a wealth of information on a wide variety of strange phenomena available for free to the public and dues paying members can check out books to read at home.
We also sponsor local lectures and workshops on these subjects including past events featuring former military remote viewer Paul Smith as well as a Texas Ghost Lights Conference with guest speakers including British earth lights researcher Paul Devereux, Texan paranormal bigfoot investigator Rob Riggs, British transplant and Fortean Cryptozoologist and Ufologist Nick Redfern, myself and others.
W: What are the hours the public can visit?
SAI: Right now we are open most Saturdays from 1-5pm. Though there is often someone on-site during normal weekday business hours, interested folks should contact me ahead of time (contact@anomalyarchives.org) before dropping by unannounced. We hope to begin offering expanded weekday and weekend hours very soon. Folks can come visit us at our new location in North West Austin near the intersections of Research and Technology Blvds (ED: This was our 2nd location and we moved out of their in about 2018)
MAILNG ADDRESS:
Anomaly Archives
PO Box 152252
Austin, TX 78715
W: How long have you been conducting the Archive?
SAI: Well, I’ve been collecting books on strange phenomena all my life. I had dreamed of starting my own paranormal research organization for a long time and in 2003 we officially incorporated with the State of Texas. By 2006 we’d been approved by the IRS as an official tax-exempt community group. So officially I guess I’ve been coordinating the Archives for about 7 years now.
W: So tell us SMiles… Bigfoot, UFOs, Men In Black, Aliens from Space, is there truth to any of these legends? If so, can we learn more through the Austin Anomaly Archives?
SAI: As you know Russell, there is at least a little truth in all of those mysterious legends and a whole lot of speculation surrounds each of them. Yes, there is a lot to be learned about these mysteries from the materials at the Anomaly Archives.
Most people don’t think of Texas when they hear about bigfoot but I’ve said for years that any big discovery about these elusive creatures is very likely going to come from research done here in Texas. Our big state has a long history of bigfoot sightings with a wide variety of regional names associated with these creatures including Wild Man, Hairy Man, Swamp Ape / Skunk Ape, Wooly Booger, to name just a few. The Piney Woods of East Texas’ Big Thicket have apparently played home to a number of such human / bigfoot encounters as documented in Rob Riggs’ excellent book In the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wildman.
Texas has one of the best organized bigfoot investigation groups in the country: The TBRC – Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy is a non-profit outfit doing some of the best ongoing instrumented cryptozoology field research not just in Texas’ Big Thicket but also into the forests that spread from here into Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. They also have one of the best annual bigfoot conferences in the country, previously held in Jefferson and most recently in Tyler. In fact for a time, Texas was home to two annual bigfoot events, one put on by the TBRC and one hosted by another fantastic Texas bigfoot hunter named Chester Moore Jr., called the Southern Crypto Conference.
The Anomaly Archives has a sizable section of books and videos devoted to Cryptozoology and the hunt for bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti.
I realize that many people find it very difficult to believe in bigfoot, but consider this: legendary primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall even thinks there is good evidence for the existence of an undiscovered North American primate…
Dr. Goodall: Well now, you’ll be amazed when I tell you that I’m sure that they exist. Ira Flatow: You are? Dr. Goodall: Yeah. I’ve talked to so many Native Americans who all describe the same sounds, two who have seen them. I’ve probably got about, oh, thirty books that have come from different parts of the world, from China from, from all over the place, and there was a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week which says that British scientists have found what they believed to be a yeti hair and that the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn’t identify it as any known animal. National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday – 9/27/02
Folks should check out the recent film released in 2008, Wild Man of the Navidad. It’s a nicely done retro horror movie based on stories of bigfoot-like wild people from the Navidad region northwest of Victoria. And let’s not forget the Hairy Man Road legends in Round Rock which now has its own yearly festival.
UFO (and Parapsychology) research are the Anomaly Archive’s strong suit and represent our largest collection. We have hundreds of books on the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects, Alien Abductions, and related areas of research. There are many approaches to understanding the UFO phenomenon including advanced secret technology, mysterious natural phenomena, etc., but of course it is the possibility that some sighting reports represent NOT “UFOs” but “IFOs” in the form of supposed alien spacecraft that gets most people excited about “Flying Saucers.” Despite there being a lot of nonsense surrounding belief in UFOs, there is much we can learn about ourselves, humanity at large and the nature of perception and reality by studying the phenomenon. I personally think that it is highly likely that humanity has been in contact with a wide variety of intelligences (be they extraterrestrial, interdimensional, cryptoterrestrial, time travelers, what have you) through phenomena variously described as UFOs, phantom airships, mysterious lights, spiritual encounters with angels and demons – all manner of mysterious interactions. There is a wealth of cutting edge science that could possibly explain these and other strange events, and the Anomaly Archives seeks to educate the public about these new scientific discoveries and old esoteric knowledge.
As for the MIB (Men In Black), yes, there are many stories of these bizarre shadowy figures who seem to arrive and depart more like phantoms than supposed government alphabet agency men. Some times these sinister personages seem very much like FBI types, presenting false credentials, intimidating witnesses, stealing evidence such as UFO photographs, but more often than not there is an absurd trickster-like quality to their behaviors and their very existance seems more like that of a ghost or some other-worldly denizen. The late John Keel (one of the best writers on the subject of UFOs) did much to popularize the notion of the MIB with his book The Mothman Prophecies. He and a handful of other writers described the reports they’d received of UFO witnesses encountering these often menacing Men In Black. However, these UFO writers, Gray Barker, Jim Moseley, Timothy Green Beckley and John Keel, could all be said to have their own sort of Tricksterish quality about them. <wink>
W: Tell us about Anomaly Radio.
SAI: I’ve been streaming my own webradio station since late 2000. During the past 10 or so years I’ve hosted a variety of terrestrial and internet-based radio shows. For a while I co-hosted the Thursday evening news on Austin’s KOOP 91.7fm radio station. I even co-hosted a show with you for a while back in 2002 or 2003. Beginning in about 2006 I relaunched my webradio station as the Anomaly Radio Network. The station features an eclectic assortment of live and pre-recorded paranormal and parapolitical shows produced by myself and friends of mine from around the country. Among the many fine programs on the network you can hear Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso, Robert Larson’s Out The Rabbit Hole, Raymond and Joe’s Disinformation, John Greenewald Jr.’s Black Vault Radio, Mike Watt’s The Watt From Pedro Show, Scott Horton’s AntiWar Radio, plus a whole lot more.
Every Sunday night my good friend and comic artist Mack White and I host PsiOp-Radio live from 7-9pm CST. Besides Anomaly Radio, the show is also carried on the American Freedom Radio and Revere Radio networks.
Anomaly Radio is not affiliated with the Anomaly Archives lending library.
W: You know Alex Jones of Austin, what do you think of his latest film “Fall of the Republic”?
SAI: Yes, of course. I’ve been following Alex Jones’ career since the late 1990s. It’s been amazing to watch his rise to prominence over the past 10 plus years. We have several of his documentaries available at the Anomaly Archives. In fact, two of our earliest large donations of books came from Mike Hanson and Chris Athanas. Mike Hanson was one of Alex’s earliest assistant producers and fans will remember him as the honorable man who snuck into Bohemian Grove with Alex. Chris Athanas was a then prolific Austin Community Television producer and staunch defender of liberty. Both Hanson and Athanas have graciously donated a number of books on a variety of topics to the Anomaly Archives.
Fall of the Republic is Alex’s best produced documentary to date. With each new film he raises the bar on parapolitical / conspiracy documentary filmmaking. It also doesn’t hurt that in FOTR he is perhaps the most CALM he has ever appeared in any of his films. This toning down of his usually overly dramatic persona has definitely made he and his message much more accessible to a wider audience.
W: Is there really a nefarious element deep within American Government or on a global scale that wishes to enslave humanity as portrayed in George Orwell’s hellish nightmare predicted in his book, 1984?
SAI: I think it is incredibly naive to think that people in power would limit their activities to only philanthropic pursuits. History is filled with examples of the Powers That Be colluding and conspiring to not only keep the power they have but to seek greater and greater levels of power. Empires throughout history have risen and fallen on the backs of conspiracies perpetrated by cabals of the rich and powerful. Various individuals and groups have conspired with designs on conquering and controlling the world. Very often this is accomplished not just through overt and obvious military might but through economic and psychological warfare which most people don’t even recognize as being used against them.
So while the tyrannical techniques described by Orwell in 1984 are mirrored in our growing Big Brother surveillance society, I think the evidence is equally clear that through accident AND design, a Brave New World Order “scientific dictatorship” as described by Aldous Huxley is the new preferred model for controlling populations.
I should add that “the views and opinions expressed by myself are not necessarily those of the Anomaly Archives or its board of directors.” LOL!
W: What are your thoughts on Climategate? And have you seen Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura on truTV?
SAI: Climategate is a perfect example of how science is NOT supposed to operate. Science is about making observations, testing hypotheses, asking questions and applying the answers to make useful predictions about the world around us. But science has always been politicized and weaponized, so this recent scandal is nothing new. However, whatever the true nature of global climate change and humanity’s influence on those changes, there should never be a climate of fear surrounding open discussion about the scientific research investigating those climatological processes.
So far I’ve only seen one episode of Jesse Ventura’s new Conspiracy Theory TV show, and it wasn’t the one on HAARP and weather control. However, I believe that episode featured researcher Jerry E. Smith whom I’ve interviewed on my radioshow about his excellent resource, Weather Warfare, which details the facts and history of human modification of the weather as well as the creation of earthquakes and more. When I interviewed Jerry, it was after they’d recorded the episode but before it had aired. He said that the TruTV folks had bungled several of the facts and details alleged in the episode regarding oil companies and HAARP related patents.
The one episode I’ve seen of Ventura’s new show was on 9/11. I thought it was very interesting and pretty well done. I was especially interested in the discussion about the official claim that no black boxes were recovered from ground zero for the WTC attack aircraft. All 4 boxes were supposedly never found. Yet there are allegations that they were found but have been suppressed for some reason.
W: Did you see the footage of the ALLEGED Russian Missile test in Norway? It looked more like a portal opening up out of Star Trek. Are you familiar with Project Blue Beam?
SAI: Wow! Yeah, I’ve watched as many of the video clips as I’ve been able to find. Yeah, it really looks like the “jump-gate” vortex from the Babylon 5 tv series to me. While I am initially inclined towards accepting the Russian Bolova missile explanation, there are aspects of the event that I have still not found adequate answers for. I’ve seen people use various mathematical formulas to both support the missile test theory and debunk it as well. But I think that if someone can create that dramatic of an event, whether with a missile or some other exotic technology and techniques, then it will be used as weapon for psychological warfare.
That is the basic premise behind the 15 year old rumor known as “Project Blue Beam” which appears to have been first publicized by researcher Serge Monast in 1994. This idea of a deceptive grand illusion has been one of my main areas of study since I first read Jacques Vallee’s seminal book Messengers of Deception, that he published in 1979 (and which was just republished by Daily Grail Publishing in 2008). In that book he suggested that the engines of deception employed by the Allied powers to defeat the Axis in World War II, might have been employed after the war to create UFO and paranormal manifestations with the ultimate goal of preventing another World War by uniting humanity through the production of a grand external threat. He doesn’t think these technologies and techniques represent the “true UFO phenomenon” but that the governments and militaries of the world are utilizing belief in these phenomena for their own political ends as psychological warfare.
Project Blue Beam has never been officially documented and is simply one alleged grand scenario in which images of a deity would be holographically projected into the sky around the world while accompanied simultaneously by another psychotronic technology designed to excite your “heart chakra” so you feel love and devotion while also inducing the “Voice of God” inside everyone’s head. Vallee has suggested that some UFO events might be small scale versions of a scenario like that described above, though to my knowledge, he has never specifically referenced “Project Blue Beam.”
W: Back to the Archive real quick, what else should Weird readers know about the Archive?
SAI: Well, Weird readers should know that we are a tax deductible non-profit organization that needs your support. You can learn more about us by going to our website at:
W: What is next for the Anomaly Archives? Ever thought about taking it on the road?
SAI: We have several events in the planning stages right now for this year featuring various paranormal and UFO researchers. We are starting monthly meetups for folks wanting to learn more about anomalous phenomena.
I would love to see the Anomaly Archives launch a tour across Texas and the United States educating the public about these fascinating, strange, and mysterious phenomena. If someone wants to donate an RV, bus or van then perhaps we can create our own Alien UFO Bookmobile!
W: Finally, what do you think about 2012 and climate change? Will the global Elite blame weather and 2012 as the cause for the need for a global carbon tax, in your opinion?
SAI: I don’t think that 2012 and climate change necessarily have anything to do with one another, though perhaps those seeking globalization through environmentalism-based governance might like to conflate the two.
I agree with Terence McKenna, who arrived at the December 21st, 2012 date through his own research into psychedelics and the Chinese I-Ching… that we will be unrecognizable to ourselves after that point. I don’t think it will necessarily be an immediate or dramatic event so much as an increasingly alienating experience of the world around us due to ever increasing technology innovation, political and social upheaval.
I have no idea whether the proposed global carbon tax will be the inevitable currency through which the forces of globilization shall seek to control the populations. One of the great things about McKenna was that he was an eternal optimist when it came to grand global conspiracies. He felt that the nature of humanity and the mind of the planet were far to complex to be completely controlled by nefarious human agencies. While I hope he is correct, I don’t think that should stop us from actively working to ensure that the Powers That Be fail in their attempts to use resources as weapons in an infinite cycle of crisis politics. Time and time again I come back to this quote:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill … All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
– Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider – founder and secretary, respectively, of the Club of Rome – The First Global Revolution, pp.104-105
W: Thanks SMiles, Take your pic of conspiracy. Rank the following. JFK assassins, UFOs & the Government, NASA Fake Moon Landings; 911 was an Inside Job; and the ET Presence on Earth. Best to worst conspiracy?
SAI: Thanks Russell. It’s been a pleasure talking with you and your readers.
Okay, if you mean for me to rank them in terms of Best Evidence vs Worst Evidence then here is how I’d rate them:
* UFOs & the Government – It is undeniable that the United States government and military have investigated UFOs in the past. There are thousands of official documents which prove this fact. To what degree they are still doing so is the real mystery.
* JFK assassins – There is significant evidence of conspiracy and multiple assassins involved in the death of John F. Kennedy. The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that there was a probable conspiracy, contradicting the Warren Commission Report.
* 911 was an Inside Job – From my research into the events of September 11th, there are too many anomalies, inconsistencies, and outright cover-ups that are not accounted for in the U. S. government’s official conspiracy theory. There is evidence that was not acknowledged by the 911 Commission which clearly indicates that the alleged hijackers had help carrying out the attacks. If even one of those who helped the attacks take place was in a position of power, whether within the FAA, airport security, the FBI, the halls of Washington or the walls of the Pentagon, then there was indeed an “Inside Job.”
* NASA Fake Moon Landings – While I think it is naive to believe the United States government would tell us the absolute truth about such incredibly symbolic technological achievements I’ve not seen convincing evidence that the entirety of the moon landing was faked. It’s been said that if the United States discovered that the world was flat they would conceal this discovery so that it could be used to their strategic advantage. In a similar way I think we’ve not been given the entire truth regarding our trips to the moon. I’ve seen some evidence that makes me question the nature of what we’ve been shown and told is photographic evidence of the events, however, that doesn’t convince me that we didn’t go, it just convinces me that the government, as usual, isn’t telling us the whole story.
* ET Presence on Earth – I believe the UFO phenomenon represents humanity’s encounters with a variety of consciosnesses and intelligences. Evidence for the “alienness” of such entities is skimpy and highly speculative at best. I think the data much more strongly suggests what Mac Tonnies called the CryptoTerrestrial hypothesis. So far the only real scientific investigation into publicly documented ExtraTerrestrial life existing on earth has been the highly controversial findings of physicists Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, India into the mysterious “Red Rain” which fell in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 2001.
