| By Clyde Lewis "There are three incoming objects. Two of them we know a lot about...but the third one is an unknown...all we know is it is coming and it has a high probability of hitting us."— Made by a fictitious scientist known as "Aussie Bloke" Back in 1504 Christopher Columbus created what can be called a classic psychological operation. When one of his ships was damaged and he held out in the Caribbean. He ended up in Jamaica and in order for he and is crew to survive they traded things with the natives there. The sailors in his crew started to get a little greedy and began taking too much food, raping the women and so on and the natives refused to deal with Columbus. Well, they basically told Columbus that his crew were not welcome and that they would not trade anymore for provisions. Well that meant starvation for Columbus and his men. Columbus used his knowledge of astronomy and secretly pre-calculated a lunar eclipse on February 29, 1504 He told them that he had the power of God and that he would remove the moon from the sky if they would not cooperate with him. The natives at first did not believe him. The moon then turned to blood and then it began to dim. The natives worried. The moon got very dim and the natives got very worried. Then the moon disappeared. The natives were in a panic and pleaded with Columbus to bring back the moon because they feared that the earth would be destroyed. Columbus knew precisely when the moon would reappear. He agreed to bring back the moon in due time, if they agreed to give him food. The natives agreed. The moon of course reappeared. Columbus saved himself and his crew from starvation. It was a case of using intelligence over ignorance. He used the native’s own fear of annihilation as tool to get them to do what he wanted. A 600-year-old trick can still be used on a frightened populace. When a critical mass believes that the end of the world is near they begin to do strange things. Since the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001 we have seen how a government uses fear in order to coerce a nation into surrendering civil rights and demanding an open ended war on terror. There are many people who believe that this war is the beginning of a foretold end of the world scenario in the bible. Others see it in quatrains brought forth from a French seer named Nostradamus. Despite the many failed predictions of Armageddon many people continue to assert that they have the date and time of the world’s horrible end. In the weeks preceding this article my radio show has entertained the idea of a cataclysmic event happening on or around June 20th, 2004. Not that I believed that it would end on that date, I wanted to tell people that there were others out there who were using current events as a means to deduce that a major event was on tap for the days or months ahead. I do admit that the circumstantial events were compelling and I was thinking about ways I could stock up on a few things in case I was stranded or otherwise cut off from the conveniences of modern life. I think that people secretly want to see the end of the world. It is kind of a sick thought but I think many people are intrigued by their own desolation. It entices us and makes us feel uncomfortable at the same time. This is why we pay top dollar to see movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and tune the TV to watch shows like "10.5" which show architectural keepsakes with emotional attachments fall to the ground during catastrophic earthquakes. We all know that these catastrophes are created in a computer and that they are made to look real so that the terror can be etched forever in our subconscious minds. For a moment we are fooled. For a moment we buy into the horror, and later we breathe a sigh of relief when we are told it was all a big hoax. What we fail to take into account is that sometimes life imitates art and the catastrophes that we create in Hollywood and the so-called hoaxes can become all too real in the blink of an eye. The Snowball NET saga is a blaring example of such a story. While I have detailed the anecdote in a past article, I believe that the time has come to create a short epilogue before the so called "impact time" of June 20th, 2004. Calling it an epilogue is optimistic especially when there have been many coincidences that may indicate that this story should be called "Snowball’s Penultimate." On January 26th, 2004 at 5 a.m. a message was broadcast on ham radio. It was a strange message and it’s transcript was posted all over the internet. The frequency was 11.176 mhz. Network operator BURROW or BURRO intercepted it. A broadcaster called SNOWBALL NET made the broadcast. The message kicked off a worldwide curiosity about a major event that some people thought could lead to a cataclysmic event from outer space: SNOWBALL NET: Snowball Net comms check. All stations, clock sync. (pause) Impact at minus 146 days, 5 hours UTC. Standby for ACC link (Digital Data Burst Recorded) BURROW : SNOWBALL This is BURROW. You are not secure repeat not secure go green go green. The message could have been a hoax, but there were many indications that pointed to the possibility that the broadcast had accidentally been leaked because of the frequency band in which it was left. The Department of Defense Emergency Action Message System broadcasts on a frequency of 11.176MHz. The Broadcasts are heard 24 hours a day seven days a week on upper side band. A message speaking of an impact event on a department of defense channel had the radio and internet community scrambling to figure out what was going to happen 146 days after SNOWBALL was told to shut down and move to a secure channel. There was in effect a scenario that was narrowed down to three pre-events followed by a major event on January 20th, 2004 that would usher in a "crisis" putting the United States and other countries under martial law. There were circumstantial coincidences that were happening after the broadcast that seemed to be puzzle pieces to a greater picture. The greater picture it seemed, was a major event either extra terrestrial or man made that would stun the world. Some of the coincidences were:
The truth is that I never said the world would end. I simply pointed out that there were all kinds of odd events that appeared to be earmarks for an end of the world type of event. Since June 20th, I have received numerous phone calls calling me a liar and a creep. I have also received e-mails telling me that I have made up all of the stories that I shared with my audience during the month of June. None of these stories have been made up. None of them have been exaggerated and most of them have somehow escaped the grasp of the mainstream media. I believe that these fireballs and anomalies form space may be the precursors to something far more threatening. I am not the only one who is thinking this way either. On June 22nd, 2004 the Maui News published a story headlined "Earth-asteroid collision inevitable, but preventable" written by Harry Eagar and in it, James Heasley a professor at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy is quoted as saying: "There's no question that there's a huge asteroid speeding through space somewhere with Earth's name on it, but it's the most preventable disaster mankind might ever face" In Chapter two for H.G. Welles book "War of the Worlds" a star falls from the sky in the early morning hours over Winchester England. The fireball moves eastward leaving behind a line of flame in the upper atmosphere. It left behind a greenish streak and many who witnessed the event said that the bolide made a hissing noise as it moved quickly through the sky. In the early morning an impact point had been found. An enormous hole had been made where the projectile had hit and earth was pile all around it. The brush nearby was on fire and blue smoke was rising up from the impact point. This was the beginning of a fictitious encounter with extra terrestrials that would soon lay to waste an entire planet. For the past four weeks I can’t help but think that I have been thrust into something that feels similar to that chapter in Welle’s classic. Much like the Radio show that came in the 1930’s. The "Aussie Bloke" saga had many people talking about some sort of major event coming from space. Well, hoax or not it needs to be reported that many events have taken place and one has to wonder why these huge fireballs have been reported by news generating organizations but have escaped the popular news programs. These events are far more intriguing than some terrorist event or war story. I recall that when the radio show "War of the Worlds" was broadcast many people thought that the play about the invasion from Mars was real. They secretly worried that perhaps a threat loomed over the horizon and that is why they panicked when Orson Wells broadcast that an invisible threat had taken over Grover’s Mill New Jersey. That didn’t mean that a threat didn’t exist. There really was an enemy preparing to attack. History eventually shows that after the broadcast a more earthbound enemy was found in Nazi Germany and Japan. It was a coincidental metaphor, a preemptive sounding of the alarm. It may have been a hoax, but the world eventually faced a real war. Does life imitate art? Or is it part of the trixter’s cosmic joke? It seems that the times we live in seem to reflect the writings of the visionaries and we all wonder if perhaps the story book scenarios that haunt us are becoming reality. We have heard that we live in the times spoken of by the biblical John the revelator, or the futurists Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. If the sky falls we run like chicken littles to our bunkers and blow the dust off of the quatrains by Nostradamus to see if perhaps his creepy haikus give any indication that we are living in strange and wondrous times. We all know that we are. Who knows why we are so quick to think that the end is near and that the countdown to extinction has begun? Perhaps we are all wired into believing that a major catastrophe is looming over us. It is a frightening thought that the majority of breathing humans believe that our time here is nearing its end. At the end of Bill Clinton’s New Book "My Life" the former president writes about the lessons he learned in his life. He speaks of letting go of his anger forgiving those that have persecuted him. His words trail off into some philosophical narrative about death and dying. He said that in the many black churches he has visited he has heard funerals referred to as "home goings." "We're all going home," he wrote, "and I want to be ready." It seems similar to the same statements that were made by President George W. Bush about the future when he spoke to reporter Bob Woodward. "History, we don't know. We'll all be dead."—George W. Bush In contrast, we have just put to rest our former President Ronald Reagan. During his lifetime he was known as the great communicator and regardless of what you thought of his policies, and even though he showed the wear and tear of a man whose golden years had passed him, his quotes about the future gave us hope. "While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future."—Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan was slowly fading away into his elder years ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease and still managed to keep a positive outlook on the future. It is troubling to hear our leaders of today speaking as if there is no future. Many politicians and leaders before them have spoken about the future and about how our outlooks can be hopeful. They spoke of growth and prosperity and blessings bestowed upon our nation if we uphold our values and keep the faith. I suppose that people like Clinton and Bush have no values and know that their actions have probably sealed our fate as a nation. They speak as if we are all doomed because their efforts to put us closer to our own demise have been evident. I know I joke about doomsday from time to time, and many people chide me about being a doomsayer, but now I have to keep saying to myself that I could be kidding, and at the same time I couldn’t be more serious. It is business as usual in the apocalypse and while June 20th was not the magical date for an apocalyptic cataclysm you can take heart in knowing that in nature what a little caterpillar thinks is the end of the world a butterfly knows is only the beginning. I believe that we have not seen the end of these space anomalies and that when we look up into the sky we will understand just how small we are in comparison to the universe and all of it's unknowns waiting to reveal themselves to us here on earth. I also believe that when someone infers that the end is near and there is a date given, there will be a number of people who will invent a prepackaged scenario of how it is supposed to be. When the SNOWBALL NET broadcast was made and the statement of "impact" was given it allowed over active imaginations to employ an end of the world thought form. This is normal. The unfortunate thing is that there have been so many self styled seers and prophets that use doomsday as a means to gain followers and to sell an idea that the only way to survive the "end times" is to surrender to some half baked philosophy or dogmatic religious practice. Most of their predictions have been wrong. However in my opinion the predictions of impact events in June were fulfilled. Most of them were downplayed and virtually ignored by the mainstream media. The question is why? It is especially troubling that NASA reported back in March of 2004 that an asteroid flew past Earth and that it was so close that it nearly entered the orbital halo where weather satellites circle the earth. The Asteroid was spotted on March 15th. Scientists say that while there was no threat there are still hundreds of thousands more where that one came from. Still there is no major news story or overwhelming public demand for safety from extraterrestrial threats. Money is thrown around for the war effort and people demand justice for some criminal activities being committed by a small group of fanatics and yet they will barely burst a blood vessel worrying about the possible impacts of asteroids and comets on the planet. In case you didn't know, there is no established chain of command to the White House in relation to possible asteroid impacts, nor is there any plan for what government agencies should do regarding possible evacuations or emergency preparations if a big one is seen heading toward the earth. This may be why our leaders are speaking about "going home" and how "we will all be dead." With this type of mindset it is evident to me that they know exactly what is coming next. The end. Copyright 1998-2007 Ground Zero Media, Clyde Lewis, and John Hart. All Rights Reserved. |