Indigo Children

I have difficulty writing about the topic of indigo children, because it's just so sad.  In the broadest, most meta sense, the concept of "indigo children" is a way to fleece gullible parents out of shed loads of money. 

Although the idea of "indigo children" first came to a wide audience in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they were originally "discovered" by a New Age psychic named Nancy Ann Tappe.  She made an off-hand mention that she had noticed a lot of children with indigo-colored auras. 

In 1998, a husband and wife team wrote a book called The Indigo Children, and the phenomenon was off and running.  According to Carroll and Tober, "indigo children" were actually mystical creatures, foundlings of a sort, who would grow up and improve the world for the better.

Indigo Children, we are told, are very smart and empathic.  They can also be very difficult.  Such is the burden of being a new stage of evolution.  Depending on who you talk to, all/some/most children suffering from autism and ADHD are in fact Indigo Children.

How comforting a thought it must be, for the distressed and exhausted parents of ADHD or autistic children.  Little Johnny doesn't suffer from a mysterious and incurable cognitive disorder; he's just really super special!  He was sent here by aliens, by angels, by evolutionary pressure.  Little Johnny will save the world.  And for a mere $_____ we can tell you how!

Later charlatans have continued to build on the original concept of Indigo Children.  Some style them as the children of extraterrestrials.  Richard Boylan, PhD calls them "Star Kids," and these children (who Boylan describes as being "bright but in non-traditional ways") are part of a program of "many years of continuing Star Visitor biological engineering in an ongoing effort to upgrade the human race."

One sign of a Star Kid is that when they pass below a street light, the light goes out.  And I swear to you, if I hear one more crackpot talking about what it "means" when a street light goes out, I'm going to cry.  Having lived my entire life in cities I can assure you: street lights go out all the time. 

When the lightbulb starts to fail, it gets into this thing where it gets too hot, turns off, cools down, then turns back on again.  Repeat, ad infinitum.  You can look down any street in the world and see a street light turn off, if you watch long enough.  It's every bit as mystical as a leaf falling from a tree. 

All of this Indigo Child business simply preys upon parents who fear for their children.  (Let's be honest; most parents already pretty much believe that their children are the next stage of evolution, anyway!)  The best I can say about the Indigo Child "phenomenon" is that at least it isn't actively harmful to children.  Although it probably isn't going to help little Johnny's case if he swaggers into school and explains to everyone that he's part E.T.

Photo credit: Flickr/scottwillis

Dolphin Telepathy

Someone recently brought this Dolphin Communication Orgone Pendant to my attention, and I couldn't be more enthralled.  What it may lack in visual appeal, it makes up for in "dolphin gem elixir."

I was not aware that dolphins were telepathic.  I learned that from reading about the pendant ($99) the dolphin gem elixir ($39) and the impressively hefty desktop Dolphin Portal Orgone Cone ($170).

When you think about it, it's remarkable what a connection we as a culture (if not as a species) have made with dolphins.  They are seen as friendly, spiritual, healing, mystical.  At the very least, cheerful.  All this from an animal that is so incredibly different from us. 

Dolphins live underwater, breathe through the tops of their heads, have two fins in front instead of hands, no legs, and a big fluke instead of feet.  Most people are even unaware that dolphins are mammals.  It's an understandable mistake, since they seem more like a fish made from an inner tube, with the fin attached sideways.

And yet, people connect with them.  Although species-specific animal safaris are common, I am unaware of any safaris where people venture out to "be one with the gerenuk" or "run with the tapirs."  But dolphin adventures are a brisk business, with people paying hundreds of dollars a day to swim (and hopefully commune) with dolphins.  Not to mention unscrupulous hotels which keep dolphins in sad, shallow concrete pools and charge tourists to wade into the water.

"Humans who meet dolphins do not necessarily change their lives overnight, but the Dolphin Presence is a conduit to allowing that choice if a human wishes to take it."

A belief in dolphin telepathy is also common, as I have found with hours spent engrossed in reading websites (which invariably choose a combination of text color and background which makes it actively painful to read).  Dolphins are seen as higher beings, ones which wish us well.  They are benevolent, if often indifferent gods.

Author and spiritualist Timothy Wylie's book "Dolphins, Telepathy & Underwater Birthing" may have started this trend, or at least given it birth.  Wylie specializes in the study of "non-human intelligences," like aliens and angels.  Wylie's personal website is interesting, if somewhat baffling to navigate.

Another woman tells of how her group of fellow retreat-members in Mexico were able to summon dolphins, via a telepathic request.  The locals swore that the dolphins had left the area for the season, and wouldn't be back for 8 to 10 weeks.  But the retreat-goers asked the dolphins to meet them on Wednesday, and sure enough, they did.

(I am fascinated by the question of how the dolphins knew which day was Wednesday.  What is a dolphin's concept of time?  Do dolphins understand the idea of "days of the week," much less understand which day is Wednesday?)

Dr. Joe Champion of the Interspecies Telepathic Project (ITP) says that "it seems reasonable to hypothesize that dolphins are telepathic."  Who are we to argue?   Champion has also "developed an artificial intelligence" called ADAM (the first such in existence, were it true) which is "a telepathic bridge interlinking the minds of human and dolphin."  

Photo credit: Flickr/Cayusa

Blue UFOs: Night Sky Rave

A recent spate of UFO sightings has featured blue lights, flying in any number of patterns, configurations, and speed.  Problem being: these are the work of hoaxers across the country.

The recent availability of lightweight LED light strips has allowed pranksters with remote controlled aircraft to mimic UFO sightings with remarkable skill.  Metafilter user smoothvirus put together an excellent post about this pranking, and its consequences.

If you are a devoted fan of the late lamented show MonsterQuest, you have already seen these light strips in action in several episodes.  For example, in the "Ohio Grassman" episode, a local RC helicopter enthusiast is enlisted to help with the hunt.  The team attaches a FLIR thermal camera to the belly of the RC helicopter.  The pilot meanwhile attaches a set of lightweight LED strips to the helicopter itself, so that he can monitor its orientation when it is in flight in the darkness.

Of course, this is just the latest and most technologically advanced in a long line of UFO hoaxes.  When I was but a wee lass growing up in Alaska, one week the city of Anchorage was treated to a nighttime display of floating multicolored lights which seemed to drift silently through the night sky.

The culprit turned out to be a thin sheet of plywood, with a black plastic garbage bag attached at the edges to serve as a balloon.  Inside, the prankster had attached several cans of Sterno.  Sterno both gives off heat and emits a flame which is colored oddly.  The heat lifted the whole works into the sky, hot air balloon-style, and the light of the Sterno did the rest.

In January of 2009, a group of pranksters staged a UFO hoax over Morristown, N.J. simply by attaching flares to helium balloons with five feet of fishing line.

And of course there are the "actual mistake" category of UFO sightings.  I myself once thought I had spotted some amazing UFO activity once, when I was staying at a relative's vacation home on Whidbey Island here in Washington.  I watched, rooted to the spot, as a series of lights flashed in a slow pattern across the water. 

After several minutes a commercial airliner passed over my head and eventually joined the other lights, which turned out to be the runway of Sea-Tac Airport, as viewed through a few gaps in a distant line of hills.

In fact, the easy availability and use of RC flying vehicles (including both airplanes and helicopters) plus the cheap and ready LED light strips, should mean that any low-flying light source can be automatically dismissed as a hoax.  Particularly in an area with a known concentration of observers, like a city, town, suburb, or popular park.

All of which isn't to dismiss all UFO reports as hoaxes, of course.  For example, reports of a dark triangular craft flying overhead in the remote Southwest desert eventually proved to be sightings of stealth aircraft being tested by the US military.  But certainly, anyone observing supposed UFO footage (or a supposed UFO itself) should exercise extreme skepticism.  And if you see a UFO composed of blue lights, you're almost certainly seeing one of these LED hoaxes.

Photo credit: Flickr/pommesschranke

Are Ghosts Just Time Slips?

One theory to explain the phenomenon of ghosts is that they may represent a time slip, or a "thin spot," where time leaks can occur.  One thing is true: even with all our advancements in physics over the last hundred years, our understanding of the nature of time is primitive at best.

Einstein once postulated that time was like a river, a current which seems to carry us forward.  And just like a river, Einstein believed it was theoretically possible for the current to meander in odd ways, forming eddies and oxbows, and perhaps to even flow backwards at times. 

Our perception of time is certainly faulty.  You can perform the following experiment easily yourself: lie down on a table and close your eyes.  Have a partner touch your face and your toe at the exact same time.  You will experience these touches as happening simultaneously.  But this is impossible, because it takes a perceptible amount of time for information to travel across your nerves. 

The touch on your face happens close to your brain, and therefore has only a slight distance to travel.  But the touch on your toe happens far from your brain.  It takes a perceptible amount of time to travel the distance to your brain for processing.   You ought to feel a delay, but you don't, because your brain processes your perception of time to account for the lag.  Crazy, right? 

According to the "time slip" theory, certain places are thin spots in time where leakage can seep through between the ages.  This leakage is most often auditory - bangs, knocks, footsteps, and shuffling are the most commonly reported ghost phenomena.  Perhaps sound waves travel better through time than other things, for reasons we don't fully explain.

This theory is most appealing in ancient locations like hotels, castles, and military forts that are hundreds of years old.  Across the centuries, various sounds and occurrences pass back and forth, building evidence that a place is haunted.

It's also fun to think of cases where ghosts seem to respond to questioning.  If you have ever looked across a crowd of people and had the feeling that everyone was talking on their cell phones to everyone else, you can see how this would work.  It's intriguing to think that ghost hunters throughout history are basically talking to each other through the time rift.

I had a similar experience when I was a little girl.  One evening I accidentally rapped my knuckles against the wall in my bedroom, and heard an answering knock.  I knocked back, out of curiosity.  Sure enough, the "ghost" replied in kind. 

Months later I met the girl who lived in the other half of the duplex apartment.  Funny thing; she had a ghost story about knocks in the wall, too!  Sheepishly, we quickly realized that our bedrooms shared a wall, and that we had been accidentally scaring the dickens out of each other.

The time slip theory can't account for a lot of physical actions which occur. Unless you believe that some guy in the past suddenly saw a modern lamp materialize on his table, and was moved to turn it on before it vanished back into the ether.  (I'm sure we would have heard some of those stories!)  But it's an interesting thought experiment, at the least!

Photo credit: Flickr/hpk

Colesakick Vs. Intergalactic Reptilian Black Market in Human Meat

Imagine a worldview so convoluted that the answer to "Where are the bodies of the people killed by the Indonesian tsunami go?" is not "They were washed into the ocean," but "They were taken by the Reptilians and beamed up into space, to be sold at an intergalactic black market butcher shop."

Confused?  Don't worry: YouTube Sensation colesakick wants to break it down for you.  In fact, that is what she was sent here on Earth to do: She is a Pleiadian who was incarnated here to blow the whistle on "you guys."  (I think she means the Reptilians and co?)  At the end of the video she identifies herself as "The spirit of the mother of everything in this galaxy."

Unfortunately, colesakick (real name Colleen) had a recent misfire.  In a video titled "Update to Obama and all hostiles" she predicted that "On November 6th the EMP will take out all communications and electrical grids so prepare your electronics, unplug them, place on ground and cover with metal blanket of some kind"  (I don't have a "metal blanket," can you loan me one?)

Standing beside a Thomas Kinkade painting, in what looks for all the world like an upscale hotel lobby, colesakick and her ample, paislied bosom dish out the facts. 

Once Obama and "his entourage" were clear of the United States, a host of dirty bombs would be set off by the Draconians and the Reptilians, who are trying to wipe us out.  Luckily, the Pleiadians were on our side, and defended us once again against this attack.

We are all, you see, in the middle of a vast war which we only barely perceive.  Swine flu and SARS are actually attacks on the American people by the shadow government, which is actually run by Reptilians and Draconians.  The Britons and Australians too, she assures us.  (Whither New Zealand?)  They are all sons of Satan, Colleen assures us.  Which is why the Pope wears red shoes and sits on a throne with an upside-down cross.  (??)

The Reptilians have no compassion.  They are heartless, unfeeling sadist who eat us.  In fact, they are harvesting us for sale on the galactic black market.  (!!)  This by the way is why no bodies were recovered after the tsunami - all the bodies were "beamed off" to be sold for meat.

Her more recent video shows a different Colleen.  She takes a call as the video starts - with the recent "missile launch" scare in California, Colleen has been much in demand.  As she talks to some kind of reporter (using something that looks like several iPhones glued together into a device the thickness of a hockey puck) she rocks, anxious, in her seat. 

But frankly, it's difficult to muster sympathy for someone who is mongering this much fear.  When "the forces" come knocking on your door, she tells us, if you aren't armed, you need to hide.  The UN troops are pawns of evil.  They are shutting down the highways to transport their vehicles.  They are on their way, they will be here any minute, we are all going to die.

There is a bit of good news, though: "Late next spring, everybody that gets to live on this planet gets $5.3 million dollars."

Mistletoe: A Festive Parasite

I'm sure you have heard of mistletoe, that cute little sprig that hangs overhead to garner kisses during the holiday season.  But did you know that it's actually a parasite?

Mistletoe is a hemi-parasite, which means that it both draws sustenance from the host plant, and uses photosynthesis to feed itself.  (The chlorophyll it uses for photosynthesis is responsible for the plant's festive green color.)

Parasitic plants are somewhat rare, with about 4,100 species in existence according to Wikipedia.  (Out of about 350,000 total plant species in the world.)  Mistletoe parasitizes the stems and branches of other plants, particularly trees.

There are two main species of mistletoe, one which is native to the eastern United States, and one which is native to Great Britain and Europe.  Both varieties are harvested for use in holiday decorations, although these days plastic mistletoe is far more common than the real stuff.

Mistletoe is spread by its seeds, which it produces inside tasty, sticky berries.  Birds eat the berries and then pass the seeds through.  The seeds, which have a sticky coating, stick to the branch and help keep the seed fastened tightly until it can sprout and attach itself to its host. 

Because of this stickiness, mistletoe berry juice has been used to catch birds.  Hunters chew the berries into a paste, then pull them into a sort of taffy-like collection of glue-y strings, which are then wrapped around a tree branch.  When a bird lands on the branch it gets caught in the "bird lime," and can easily be plucked from the branch and killed.

The European mistletoe has a similarly close (but less fatal) relationship with the Mistle thrush.  The Mistle thrush is omnivorous, but it particularly likes mistletoe berries.  It will stake out a mistletoe tree, and defend it against other birds.  In exchange, the Mistle thrush's favorite species of mistletoe is spread almost exclusively by the Mistle thrush.

(The Mistle thrush habitually calls before a bout of bad weather.  This habit led to the Mistle thrush's original name, "Stormcock.")

Although mistletoe is damaging to its host tree, it rarely kills its host. Only a heavy infestation of mistletoe is enough to kill a healthy host tree.  And despite its somewhat unsavory eating habits, mistletoe turns out to be an extremely important species for the woodland ecology.  It attracts birds, provides shelter for birds and insects, attracts pollinating insects, and provides food and shelter for a wide range of animals.

Mistletoe is quite poisonous.  According to French legend, this is because mistletoe was growing on the tree that was cut down and used to crucify Jesus.  Because of its perceived role, it was doomed to roam the world as a homeless parasite, a sort of plant version of the Wandering Jew.

Many cultures have a whole host of myths around mistletoe, including the Druids, medieval Europeans, and Norse mythology. Today, we are familiar with mistletoe mainly for the holiday kissing tradition. 

Technically, each time a man kisses a woman beneath the mistletoe, he is to remove one of the berries from the sprig.  When all the berries are gone, the kissing has to stop.  However, keeping mistletoe hanging all year long is said to prevent house fires.  (Which is a great excuse, if guests point out that your holiday decorations are still hanging at Valentine's Day!)

Photo credit: Flickr/kqedquest

Galls: Parasitic Plant Tumors

If you have ever found a weird lump or growth on a plant, chances are good that it's a gall.  Leaf galls are the most commonly seen.  You can find these strange lumps on tree leaves of almost any species, all throughout the summer months.  They are easiest to spot late in the season, when they are largest. 

Leaf galls can frequently be spotted on oak trees.  These galls are caused by a species of parasitic wasp, known (logically enough) as the gall wasp or gallfly.  In the center of the gall, were you to cut it open carefully, you would find the larvae of one of these wasps.

The gall wasp injects its egg into the flesh of the leaf.  As the larvae hatches and grows, the gall grows around it, like a sort of leaf tumor.  The mechanism by which this gall grows is unknown.  The larvae grows fat and healthy, eating the gall flesh of the leaf.

Of course, other parasitic wasps have learned about this trick.  In fact, most galls contain both the parasitic larvae of a gall wasp, and the parasitic larvae of a wasp which feeds on the parasitic larvae of the gall wasp.  (It's like an Escher drawing!  But with parasitic wasps.)

Another interesting fact is that many gall wasps practice parthenogenesis, which is where the female reproduces without any interaction with a male. Some species practice blended methods (sometimes reproducing sexually, and other times using parthenogenesis) and other species alternate generations (with one generation reproducing sexually, and the next generation reproducing through parthenogenesis).

Rose Bedeguar Gall
Galls can be produced from other irritants, and in other shapes.  One well-known type of gall is called a Rose bedeguar gall, or Moss gall.  These form on certain species of rose bush, and are caused by a particular species of gall wasp.

The bedeguar gall is caused by a gall which forms at a leaf bud, causing the leaf to grow out in a distinctive and bizarre pincushion shape.  Rose bedeguar galls have captured people's attention and imagination for centuries, and feature both in English and Persian mythology.

Oak Apples and Oak Marbles
One particular species of gall wasp, when it parasitizes the leaves of one particular species of oak tree, creates a big hard lump the size and shape of a small apple.  A slightly different species of wasp creates a smaller gall, called an "oak marble."

Oak marbles are, like many galls, filled with concentrated chemicals from the tree itself.  In the case of the oak gall, the concentration of tannic acid allowed them to be used in one of the earliest forms of ink.  Iron gall ink is complicated and painstaking to make, and is one of the original inks used by the earliest writers in medieval times, from the 12th century until the early 20th century.

Cedar-Apple Rust (Pictured)
This is an example of a gall caused by a parasitic fungus.  The fungus infects the host plant (often a juniper) and causes it to grow "orange tentacle-like spore tubes" which "have a jelly-like consistency when wet." 

It's worth noting that it's not the fungus itself which grows this way.  It is the fungus which causes the tree branches to grow freakish jelly spore tentacles.  (Aren't you glad you're not a tree?)

Photo credit: Flickr/photoholic1

The Devil in Dartmoor

Dartmoor is a windswept hilly region of England.  This beautiful land of grassy rolling hills (the moorland) has been rich with myths and legend for thousands of years.  In particular, the Devil is said to stalk the moors of Dartmoor at night.  In fact, the Devil makes quite a few appearances there, in a number of different guises.

Black Dogs
The Devil often appears with his hunting hounds, called the Wisht Hounds.  These large evil animals are pitch black, with glowing eyes.  They hunt down unwary travelers, and carry their souls off to Hell.

A lone black dog may also be the Devil himself, in disguise.  The legend of black dogs in Devon is an entirely separate (and equally rich) set of tales which we talked about a little while back. 

The Dewerstone
The Dewerstone is a remote cliff that rises above the valley of the Cad.  The Devil likes to use his hunting hounds to drive sinners towards the cliff - and off the edge, to perish on the sharp rocks far below.  This craggy cliff is named after the Devil himself, who also goes by the name of Dewer.

Legend has it that you can hear the cries of the long-dead sinners, if you listen carefully late at night.

Once, long ago, locals report that after a fresh snowfall they found the tracks of a human footprint alongside those of a cloven hoof.  The tracks led up to the very top of the cliff.

The Devil's Thunderstorm
In 1638, an unusually severe thunderstorm struck the village of Widcombe-in the-Moor while church was in service.  In a freak act of nature, ball lightning entered the church.  As a result, four people were killed and 60 people injured.

Local legend has it that the thunderstorm was sent by the Devil, who had bet a local card sharp that the Devil would take his soul if he ever found him asleep in church. 

That morning, an innkeeper a few miles away reported that a tall black man with cloven hooves for feet, riding a giant black horse, stopped in for a pint.  The ale sizzled as the Devil poured it down his throat, and when he set down his pint glass, it scorched a mark on the bar (which can still be seen to this day).  After he left, the innkeeper found that the Devil's money had turned to dried leaves.

Wishtman's Wood
This is a small, treacherous copse of woodland.  It features boulders covered with slippery moss, and small weathered trees which drip lichens and mosses. 

The Wisht hounds hunt here, driving the unlucky sinners into the darkness, where they fall and break an ankle or leg.  This leaves them vulnerable to the pack of hounds, which then bear the hapless soul to Hell.

The Devil's Stone
In the tiny town of Shebbear lies a large stone, weighing about a ton.  Is the Devil buried beneath it?  Or did he drop it there when he was driven out of Heaven? 

The residents aren't sure - but they do know that every year, the village bell-ringers have to use crowbars to turn the stone over on November 5th.  If they don't, the village is plagued with terrible luck for the rest of the year.

Photo credit: Flickr/tiny_packages

Today in Stupid Human News

Apparently, a man from Essex was so terrified of a spider that he sprayed it with an aerosol can, and then tried to light himself on fire. (His wife called him to deal with the thing, so she was apparently to scared to deal with it either way—aerosol or none.) Whatever happened to the shoe method my husband uses?

In all fairness, the lighting of the fire came after the man sprayed the spider. The light bulb in the room blew out, inspiring him to light a match (and ensure the deadness of the arachnid)—and then blow himself up. He wasn’t blown to pieces, thankfully; just to the point where he suffered severe burns.

The scary thing is, this could easily be me. For one thing, we’re almost the same age, so that’s hugely coincidental, right? Seriously, though, I’ve sprayed spiders with aerosol cans before—usually air freshener, but pretty much anything—cleaner, whatever—I have on hand will do. I’ve sprayed plenty of other creepy crawlers, too—my madness is not limited to spiders. Believe me, I know it’s stupid, but when you have the big recluses and wolf spiders we have in our area, you don’t even want to touch them with an extended object! (Then again, it could simply be sheer laziness.) I’d like to think that I wouldn’t light a match after ward, though I wouldn’t be sure until the light bulb blew out above me.

(Knowing me, I’d run to another room, speculate on the spider’s demise, and then just be scared he survived for a week every time I enter the room…)

I remember when my daughter first came home from the hospital and in a fit of primitive, motherly rage, I savagely murdered a spider that dared to enter her nursery. My mother was horrified to see me in a cave woman stance, pounding the thing to death over and over again, screaming in outrage at the thoroughly dead splat.

And to think, I used to collect spiders! As a kid, I’d keep them in Pringles jars, releasing them in our yard when I came home. I even dangerously had a “pet” black widow who lived on our shed. And today, now that my child is older (and has a love of spiders herself), I find myself more laid back, even preserving the small spiders in our kitchen window to converse with them rather than kill them.

It just goes to show what happens when fear motivates people.

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