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on this edition of Sightings.

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30 years after the fact,

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the Air Force tries to provide an explanation

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for a landmark UFO encounter.

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Now they're providing us with new explanations for old sightings.

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I have no idea why they're doing it,

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but I find it highly significant.

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In New Mexico, sightings investigates a police officer's

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controversial contact at Socorro.

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Then, in Ecuador,

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the powers of nature are harnessed to perform miraculous healings.

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There's no trick re-involved here.

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There's no trick re-involved here.

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It's a power, and people come out of healings feeling better.

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Psychic Diana Abbott wants people to know one thing about hauntings.

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Being afraid only makes it worse.

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First thing I'll tell these people is no fear.

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That's ridiculous.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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And find out why a highly regarded journalist

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has opened his mind and his heart to victims of alien abduction.

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The first thing I'll tell these people is no fear.

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It's ridiculous.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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I felt such an affection for the abductees

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and their courage for having come forward.

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Welcome to Sightings. I'm Tim White.

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When it comes to the classic UFO cases

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of the 1940s, 50s and 60s,

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the U.S. government is running out of excuses.

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As more and more documents become declassified,

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officials can no longer blame every major UFO sighting

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on comets, clouds and weather balloons.

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Does this mean the government will finally begin telling us

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everything it knows about UFOs?

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SACURO, NUMEXICO

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SACURO, NUMEXICO

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SACURO, NUMEXICO

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is the kind of small town people are usually traveling through

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on their way to someplace else.

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Visitors rarely slow down long enough

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to learn that this place has a mysterious past.

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And that one retired SACURO police officer

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is still haunted by the unearthly encounter

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that took place here 32 years ago.

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Lonnie Zamora remembers April 24, 1964.

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Lonnie Zamora remembers April 24, 1964.

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Lonnie Zamora remembers April 24, 1964.

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He was a rookie on the force,

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returning to the station after an uneventful day.

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Then a speeding vehicle passed Zamora's patrol car,

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and he set off in pursuit.

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When we got to this hill,

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saw a lot of dust,

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and I let the speeder go,

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and I turned to investigate.

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I could see a white object

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sitting between those two bushes over there,

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and I had to come real slow

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because this was a messed up road,

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had big rocks on it and everything.

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I thought it was the kids from high school

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that were racing up here,

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and maybe one of the teenagers had turned over.

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When the speeding object came to a stop,

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Zamora claims that he saw two figures in white coveralls

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emerge from a strange white UFO.

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He moved in slow.

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I came up here on this road

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until I could find a flat spot

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where I could park my car.

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I got out the car and glanced down to the royal there,

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and I saw this white-looking object.

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It was sort of a big egg-chip, bigger in a car.

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Those are the bushes that were there,

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and the craft was sitting right in between them, too.

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So I started down to see what it was,

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and then I heard this big boom in the bottom,

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and the fire came out of the bottom,

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so I started running behind my police car to take cover.

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I could feel the heat off of it because it was windy like now,

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and then it gradually pulled up,

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up about 20, 30 feet, and stayed there for a while,

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and it just took off.

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His radio was dead.

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Zamora could only watch in awe

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as the object disappeared over the horizon.

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As soon as it was gone,

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the police radio crackled to light,

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and Zamora called for backup.

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A New Mexico state police unit quickly arrived.

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We came down here,

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and we saw this big rock right down here,

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and it was still on fire.

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And then we saw the imprints of the legs, of the craft,

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and there was four of them,

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and then we saw these footprints around here.

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By nightfall, the FBI had arrived on scene

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and began gathering evidence.

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They went down there and measured the footprints and everything,

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and we stayed out here until about 7 or 8 o'clock at night,

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still wondering what it was.

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But they didn't say what it was or not.

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But at 9 o'clock they said we went down to the courthouse,

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and we talked about it until about midnight.

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Instantly, Sikoro was the center

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of an unprecedented media frenzy.

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This is one of the few sightings

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that got national attention immediately.

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Lonnie Zamora's story is on the national news.

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It's in all the newspapers.

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Everybody's talking about it.

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Kevin Randall is an internationally renowned UFO investigator.

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He feels the Sikoro events stand alone

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because of the amount of physical evidence collected at the scene.

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Landing gear marks were found.

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The bush was burned by the UFO engine.

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There were occupants, creatures from the craft

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sighted by Lonnie Zamora.

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And the event brought the greatest UFO researcher of the day to Sikoro.

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Jay Allen Hynek, the Air Force consultant, came to Sikoro.

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He looked at it, talked to Zamora, talked to Zamora's superiors,

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talked to people who saw the landing traces, took photographs.

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So there's physical evidence remaining behind.

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It's one of the few times they said there could be a flying saucer.

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I had conversations with Dr. Hynek about the Sikoro case.

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And his comments to me led me to believe

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that he felt that this was one of those cases where the government

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was unwilling to permit him to say what he would like to say about it.

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And that this made him a great deal.

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According to Timmerman, a longtime associate of the Sikoro case

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and a longtime associate of Jay Allen Hynek,

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the Sikoro event was one of the defining moments in Hynek's career.

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He felt that this was one of the most important cases he'd come across.

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And I think that maybe his attitude toward it was developed

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as a result of his feel about the Lonnie Zamora, the primary witness.

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Lonnie Zamora is very credible. He's a police officer.

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He has nothing to gain by telling this story.

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He is stuck with this story from the very beginning.

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This is what he saw. There's no question that Lonnie Zamora

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saw something unusual on the ground.

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According to the Air Force and government, they say they don't know what it was.

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They never told me not to say or say about it, you know, talk about it.

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But they say that they don't know what it was.

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In fact, it took 21 years for the Air Force to finally offer an explanation

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for the Sikoro UFO landing.

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They offered logs from the White Sands missile base,

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charting government testing of the newly developed lunar landing module.

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But the logs indicate the tests ended more than five hours before Zamora sighting.

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The Air Force explanation simply doesn't work

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because they have no documentation to place the lunar lander

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in that portion of New Mexico at that time.

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It does not match Zamora's description.

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I think if Dr. Hynek were here today and saw this new documentation

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available to report that the Air Force says it was a lunar lander,

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if anything, that landed near Sikoro,

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I think he'd say bush wall.

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He'd say that this is the government trying to do its fancy little dance

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and saying things that will satisfy the media,

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that will satisfy the country and the world,

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that there's no reality to the UFO phenomenon.

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Whereas there is.

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And according to JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,

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the lunar lander alluded to in the government data did not fly.

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It was dropped from a tower and had no system of independent propulsion

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as reported by Zamora.

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Randall believes that this is proof the Sikoro UFO was not a lunar lander.

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The Air Force completed their UFO investigation,

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said they had nothing more to say on it,

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and yet now they're coming out this year

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providing us with new explanations for old sightings.

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I have no idea why they're doing it, but I find it highly significant.

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Randall believes it is Sikoro's proximity to several highly sensitive military bases

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that have prompted a continuing disinformation campaign.

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It is between the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the White Sands Missile Range,

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the very large array of radio telescope is 50 or 60 miles to the west.

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Sikoro's right in the middle of this.

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If you've got a race of intelligent beings wanting to see what we're doing,

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it makes a perfect place for them to come to observe our steps into space

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and what our science is doing.

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According to Timmerman, the Sikoro event convinced Dr. Heineck

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that the truth about UFOs was being manipulated by the Air Force.

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After Sikoro, Heineck left his post.

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The government lost one of its most prestigious spokespersons

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and gained its most ardent critic.

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Dr. Heineck saw this and it was very obvious to him

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that what Lonnie Zamora was saying in the depths of his honesty

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was not what the military was saying in their attempt to explain it.

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Disproving the lunar lander theory does not mean that the Sikoro craft came from another planet,

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but it does raise serious questions about the true nature of the event.

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What could have landed there more than 30 years ago that is still too sensitive to reveal?

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Recently, I accompanied a sightings investigative team to Ecuador.

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We were hearing stories about miraculous healings being performed

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by men who breathed fire and communicated with ancient spirits.

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It was an incredible journey into a culture rarely seen by outsiders.

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This is what a house call looks like in many parts of Ecuador.

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At its center is the shaman,

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a healer trained in ancient methods that appear bizarre to outsiders.

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His pharmacy is the rainforest, the sea and the mountains of South America.

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To appreciate the powers and magic that these individuals possess,

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it's necessary to see the shaman's world from the inside.

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Between the lakes and volcanoes of the Ecuadorian Andes,

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for centuries the shaman have been celebrated as mystical healers and teachers.

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Now the shaman have something to teach us.

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Sightings journey to central Ecuador, to the village of Caravella,

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a fertile plain ringed by active volcanoes, an area known here as the Valley of the Dawn.

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Our guides were local expert Eduardo Quito and John Perkins,

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a successful corporate executive turned environmentalist and an expert on shamanism.

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John, what is the definition of a shaman?

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The definition that I like best, the short definition,

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is a shaman is a person who journeys into other worlds.

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We may call that the subconscious or the collective unconscious.

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And in these other worlds he finds power, energy and knowledge

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that he can then use to effect change in this world.

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Shamanism is based on a belief in the power and value of mother nature

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that earthly forces affect us in mysterious ways.

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The most important thing that's going on is recognizing our oneness and our unity with nature.

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The shaman will use his wakas, his sacred stones,

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and he'll be using different herbs,

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and he'll be using trago, this cane sugar alcohol, and fire, and water, air and earth.

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All of the elements will be present.

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Perkins worked with the World Bank until a trip to Brazil,

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and a meeting with a shaman changed the focus of his life's work

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and inspired him to write this book about his experience.

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Ipupiara, my blood brother, is a Ipupiara,

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from the Brazilian Amazon, a very, very special person, a shaman

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who has been a great influence in my life,

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a very important man who's not only a shaman from the Amazon,

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but also has a PhD in anthropology and is working as a consultant to the Smithsonian right now.

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Ipupiara is the indigenous name of anthropologist and shaman Bernardo Piocioto.

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It means freshwater dolphin.

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The first thing that I have to learn to be a shaman was to respect and love people.

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Then they started teaching me about the sacred religion that we have,

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how to heal, how to take the vision quest, how to fast, how to purify myself,

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and also to learn about the herbs and the roots and leaves that we have in the rainforest to heal people.

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Healing is one of the most important duties of a shaman.

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Janice Meeder gained first-hand knowledge of shamanic power after a trip to Ecuador with John Perkins.

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Prior to my departure, I had been diagnosed with an ovarian tumor.

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And so as we went into the shaman's place and sat down, I said to the shaman,

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this woman with me has a very specific illness.

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She was diagnosed by a doctor in the United States and I'd like to tell you about it.

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And he said, no, let me tell her.

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He went right to it. It was surprising, if you want to call it that.

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He was able to go over my entire body without me saying a word

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and locating the exact location of where this tumor existed.

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The results of her healing session with the shaman were even more surprising.

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After the healing session, I returned home from the Amazon with John Perkins

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and decided to check in with my doctor.

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I just wanted to see peace of mind-wise how things were going.

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And when I went back, it was diagnosed that the tumor had dissipated.

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Here at the top of the Andes, almost at the top of the world, in tiny Carabuella,

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John Perkins wanted me to meet the legendary shaman and healer, Donny Stabon.

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We were invited to attend a healing session.

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That night, a local woman was being treated for migraine headaches that had plagued her for months.

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Donny Stabon purified the room by blowing fermented sugarcane over it.

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He purified himself by disgorging bad spirits he felt were inside him

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and then he blew fire as a final cleansing ritual.

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There's no trickery involved here. It's a power and people come out of healings feeling better.

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The patient is given an ancient Amazonian spear.

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Donny Stabon blows carnation petals on the woman.

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To someone trained to respect the Western tradition of stethoscope and prescription pad,

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the shaman's methods were bizarre.

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A flocking with native plants, sacred stones rubbed on the chest and head.

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And as the evening progressed, the shamanic rituals became more bizarre,

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culminating in this dramatic moment.

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He will use fire, using the alcohol, blowing it through a candle so that the patient is engulfed in a ball of fire,

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which helps to smooth down this myeliety, this bad air, this bad energy, the bad vibrations.

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Finally, Donny Stabon uses crystal to draw the sickness out of the patient and into himself.

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When I drink him bad spirits, I wake up the next day feeling weak, not feeling so good.

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But it has helped heal people and the spirits protect me.

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I honor them, I honor the earth and it gives me energy and strength.

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Shamans, like Donny Stabon, believe there is a balance in our lives, as there is in nature,

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but now the scales are tipping, especially in the north.

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It's important for all of us to recognize that we all come from shamanic cultures.

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We can look at shamanism any way we want, but it's in our blood, it's in ourselves, it's in our DNA.

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Whether we're from Asia or Europe or Oceania or Africa or the Americas,

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every one of us has shamans in our ancestry.

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John Perkins isn't advocating that we turn our backs on the medical profession.

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Rather Perkins and others are suggesting that we consider the power of all forms of traditional medicine,

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even if the tradition is not our own.

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Next, the government calls it a necessary part of our national defense.

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Its critics call it a doomsday machine. This just may be the most important story you've never heard.

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Here are some of the stories that sightings is following in the news, or not in the news, as the case may be.

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Project Censored is an annual effort by journalists and others to seek out and publicize news stories

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which they feel have been ignored. One story that caught our attention concerned a government project called HARP.

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In California, the government has called it a doomsday machine.

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In California, Sonoma State University is the home of Project Censored,

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an annual review of more than 700 stories that have been overlooked or under-reported by the mainstream media.

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A panel of judges, including Mike Wallace, Bill Moyers and John McLaughlin,

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select an annual top 10 list of the most significant news stories.

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Last year, the number one most under-reported story was a mysterious U.S. government project called HARP.

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HARP is an acronym for High Frequency Active Aurora Research Program.

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It's based in Gakona, Alaska, and when the program is fully functioning,

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it will blast up to a billion watts of radio energy into the sky.

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HARP could be used to alter weather patterns, to jam electrical grids,

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various serious things that the public, in fact, had every right and need to know about.

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So on that basis alone, it qualifies.

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It also qualifies because there's been virtually no mainstream press coverage.

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We're talking about New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, the network news shows.

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The HARP story has been virtually completely absent from mainstream coverage.

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The fact that the public does not know about it, and the fact that the press has not reported the story,

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gives us some concern, and I think we give many, many Americans some concern.

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Some concerned people are calling these HARP antennae the doomsday machine.

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They believe the program will have a number of questionable functions,

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including X-raying the Earth, changing seasonal weather patterns,

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destroying enemy missiles, even psychotronic warfare.

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The debate over the global effects of HARP will be the subject of an extended investigation

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on the next edition of Sightings.

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In Beijing, the Chinese government has now rejected a six-year-old boy

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as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second holiest religious figure.

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The boy had been chosen after a series of secret ceremonies in May of 1995

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and was dubbed Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama, the supreme leader of Tibet's Buddhists.

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The Dalai Lama currently lives in exile, and for the first time,

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has been the object of an ongoing war of conscience between the Tibetan Buddhists and the Chinese government.

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Tibet's election of the boy ended a six-year search for the successor to the 10th Panchen Lama,

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who died in 1989. The rejection by Beijing is the most serious step

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in the religious and political confrontation between the spiritual hierarchy of Tibet and Chinese officials.

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Many in Tibet now fear for the safety of the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama

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because the Chinese government has now identified a different boy as the reincarnated soul.

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In doing so, they are being accused of interfering with the religious freedom of Tibet,

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and China now becomes the first communist government to officially express a belief in reincarnation.

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Scotland's first reported case of alien abduction took center stage

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at the 8th annual UFO Congress held recently in Sheffield, England.

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Scottish UFO researcher Malcolm Robinson revealed details of his case history of a unique abduction experience.

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It was a terrifying encounter that occurred in 1992, when Gary Wood and Colin Wright claimed that they were abducted together

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from a wooden area on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

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They contacted numerous societies in England for someone to take them seriously,

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and I can't believe that nobody got in touch with these gentlemen.

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Robinson was the first researcher to suggest that Wood and Wright be interrogated separately

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and that they undergo hypnosis to see if even their subconscious memories would match. They did.

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It was just terror. Vivid memories seem to arise, beings being in some form of a room,

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being on some form of a platform with these big creatures, small ones and big ones,

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round me, doing things to me.

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It is only now that their case is being revealed at conferences like this one in Sheffield

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that Wood and Wright feel they can begin to recover from the unexplained events of August 17, 1992.

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I feel more comfortable now, rather than being up all night terrified and scared.

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Uphologists from around the world are particularly intrigued by this Scottish case

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because the two abductees are men who had not been exposed previously to the alien abduction phenomenon,

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or the details revealed by other abductees under hypnosis.

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I believe in the sincerity of these two gentlemen. This really did happen.

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And it's the only case in Scotland to take me off the proverbial fence into believing that perhaps,

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and it's about good perhaps, humankind is indeed interacting with some form of alien intelligence.

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We'll have more stories from the news next time. Now, here's what's coming up on Citing's.

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Diana Abbott believes when it comes to hauntings, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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This is a very practical science support line concern. There's no superstition involved.

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Later, close encounters of the fourth kind.

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Ghosts are the most persistent of all paranormal phenomena.

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For centuries, we've wondered why only some people see apparitions of the dead walking among us.

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Perhaps it's all a dream. Or maybe there are spirits who return because they have unfinished business here on Earth.

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Born during a lunar eclipse, psychic Diana Abbott believes she inherited her unique gift

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from her grandmother, who accurately predicted the date and time of Diana's birth.

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Recently, Diana contacted Citing's about haunting activity in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

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Her no-nonsense approach caught our immediate attention.

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This is a very practical science support line concern. There's no superstition involved.

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Diana consults with local law enforcement agencies and also works with private clients

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who are trying to cope with hauntings and other paranormal activity.

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Her philosophy is, get tough, get smart, and don't be a victim.

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I really, really hate to see it when people buy into the fact that they've got a ghost in their house

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or they have paranormal activity and they make a projection out of it

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and you see people going through this, you know, oh poor me type thing.

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Well, that's ridiculous because all that's going to do is make it worse.

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We wouldn't leave unless there was something very serious happening.

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When Diana first met the frightened residents of this Nebraska farm, they were victims.

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Allowing the threatening entities presence they felt here to drive them out.

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I could never sleep in my bedroom. I could never sleep at night.

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I would wake up for no reason in the middle of the night and just have this incredible fear.

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It was like the greatest noise you could possibly hear.

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It was almost like freight train going through your house.

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It was almost like somebody just grabbing your house and squeezing it in and out.

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It was just like the most horrible thing.

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And it just sort of shocks you. You just sort of sit there because you know it's not a house sound from an old house.

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It's very pronounced and there's no explanation for it.

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It's enough to scare you and make you think that there's something else in the house that wants you out

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or at least wants you to be afraid of it.

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The entities reportedly seen on this property have taken many shapes and forms.

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One time when I drove in the driveway I thought I saw a dog about the same color as mine.

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And I thought to myself, you know, my roommate, I said, darn it, you know, why did you let my dog out and leave?

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I pulled the driveway, I get out and I call for her and she didn't come.

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So I went inside and there she was running up to me inside the house.

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Among the first to be called into help was the family priest who offered to perform a house blessing.

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There are times when powerful forces have overtaken places and people for which special treatment and special prayer was needed.

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I have never been confronted in my 22 years as a priest with anything like this.

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The blessing was no match for the forces here. The spirit attacks continued and then intensified.

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When the situation is so bad that you have to run out of the house, we knew we needed help.

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They sought help from Diana Abbott as a last resort.

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She instantly knew about the house, told me and described rooms in my house.

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When I had never talked to her, she hadn't known me, had never been to our house.

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I was actually shaking that she knew so much about our house and I had never talked to her before.

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The very first time Diana walked through the property, she made contact with what she felt was a ghostly entity.

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I felt some energy behind me that was building very rapidly and it was what I would perceive as being human energy but transitory.

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In other words, what we would call a ghost.

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And I turned around to look and a female form through my vision started to form over here next to the barn.

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It is somewhat unusual to see an apparition in daylight hours this tangibly.

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Just now, standing over this area where I saw the young woman, I very definitely was told that she drowned.

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Our sightings researcher has since confirmed that a young woman did die on the property.

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She drowned in a horse trough in 1934.

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The barn itself has a lot of activity, even upstairs.

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It feels almost juvenile in nature I'd have to say or just a very low spirit level which could potentially be poltergeist activity.

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But I get a sensation of one or two horses here too that are still in their minds alive and still living in that barn.

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It's almost like looking at dust. If you leave dust alone for a year, it has time to build and gain shape also.

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And it's the same thing with this type of energy.

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It was undisturbed, had nothing to get in its way and subsequently started building back to the form that it started out in.

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And in this case, it was ghosts.

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You're not going to destroy this energy, you're only going to transform it.

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This is manageable, it can be handled, most ghost settings can be handled.

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Don't buy into the fear, don't buy into the anger.

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With a mix of philosophy, psychology and practical tips, Diana counsels the roommates that they can take back their home.

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Everything in life is either wave or particle.

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With that in mind, to break those energy fields apart, you introduce more wave and more particle.

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And for us in the physical plane of existence, that means light and sound and smell.

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So, the more sunlight in the rooms that you've got, the more sound through radio or stereo, TV, anything, and people too.

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And also the use of incense or even perfumes, potpourri, anything to break up the energy field that's causing you problems.

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That's how you start.

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Diana also told the group that she felt that much of the destructive energy in the house was emanating from this room upstairs.

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Before you enter in this room, I would visualize a shield of white light around yourself and then put blue around that for protection.

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This is an energy vacuum. You may end up with headaches or some other physical anomaly, unless you do.

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So, just visualize white light around yourself when you walk in here.

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The strongest area of energy is straight behind the door.

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That is an area that is literally the worst in the house. Very, very, very negative energy.

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Diana believes it is possible to change this kind of negative energy by using an ancient ritual.

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This is sea salt and also some herbs in it.

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And what you need to do then is place it in the corners of the room as close to being true north, true south, true east, and true west as possible.

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It's time for you to move on.

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In that house what they have upstairs is emotionally damaging because it restricts their use of their facility.

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And that's not right.

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So, people have to learn how to take back their environment.

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From my viewpoint, there's no victims here.

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First thing I'll tell these people is no fear. That's ridiculous.

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It's terrible that people have to leave their homes because of hauntings.

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And, you know, there are ways to deal with the ghosts and keep you sane and apparently that's what I'm doing.

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These people will learn to deal with this energy.

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I'm not the least bit concerned about that. They will learn.

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But it's great to see people growing with the situation instead of backing away and being fearful and diminishing their lives.

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In this case, these people's lives have opened up because of this experience, which is the way it should be.

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They've made it positive and they've turned it for the good.

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It's like I said, the basic final statement is no fear.

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Diana Abbott does not know if the ghosts will ever leave the farmhouse.

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But she feels that it's up to the people who live there to decide whether they will be victims or victors in this haunting situation.

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Next, a respected journalist investigates stories of alien abduction.

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The phrase is, utterly credible people telling utterly incredible stories.

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Despite ridicule, censure and public scorn, people are continuing to insist that they have had close encounters of the fourth kind.

456
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,000
The abduction phenomenon is not going away.

457
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:05,000
Instead, as Carla Wall tells us in this report, it's getting some attention in the academic mainstream.

458
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:12,000
If alien abduction is here to stay, they concede, we'd better figure out what exactly is going on.

459
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,000
I was so terrified looking into these big black eyes.

460
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:25,000
I ended up on a craft laying down on a table.

461
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:29,000
Rounded by these beings and one of them's putting a needle in my neck.

462
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:36,000
They're emerging from a personal nightmare, coming forward to tell their stories of alien abduction.

463
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:46,000
The sheer magnitude of the phenomenon is what inspired this author to write close encounters of the fourth kind, alien abduction, UFOs and the conference at MIT.

464
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:55,000
He is CDB Brian, a seasoned and respected journalist, contributor to New Yorker Magazine and the author of Friendly Fire.

465
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:02,000
I met with Brian at his home in Connecticut to find out what drew him to the academic conference on which his book is based.

466
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,000
Why go to the MIT conference in the first place?

467
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,000
Because it was such a crazy idea.

468
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:17,000
And I thought that if MIT, that high church of technology, was holding a conference on this subject,

469
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:23,000
and I learned it was being chaired by Dave Pritchard, who is a Breuder Prize-winning physicist at MIT,

470
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:29,000
and John Mack, who had already won the Pulitzer, the Harvard Psychiatrist.

471
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:36,000
These two men were chairing a conference on this subject, which was the equivalent of little green men.

472
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:43,000
It was news. MIT was lending this phenomenon of credibility, which it had never had before.

473
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:48,000
The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bastion of critical thought,

474
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:55,000
was an unlikely setting for a conference on the alien abduction phenomenon, which took place in June of 1992.

475
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:01,000
Physicist and MIT professor Dr. David Pritchard organized the conference.

476
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:09,000
The point is not that MIT endorses alien abduction as a scientific area of research,

477
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:13,000
but that they endorse the principle of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry.

478
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:18,000
Pritchard and his co-chair, Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. John Mack,

479
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:24,000
assembled the most respected names in abduction studies for five days of seminars and debate.

480
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:29,000
Despite the scholarly focus of the conference, many attendees faced scorn from their colleagues,

481
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,000
including historian Dr. David Jacobs.

482
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:38,000
This is a phenomenon that is steeped in ridicule. There is a price to pay.

483
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:46,000
It's a price that I have paid willingly. It's a price that I think all academics have to pay ultimately if you're very outspoken about the subject.

484
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:52,000
You have to be doubly, triply careful about what you say. It's certainly going to be misinterpreted.

485
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:57,000
In fact, you don't have to say anything and people will say, well, Dave Pritchard thinks it's real,

486
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:01,000
even though I never said that and I don't and I don't have any evidence.

487
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:06,000
That doesn't matter. The fact that you're doing it, you're going to get branded in this fashion.

488
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,000
What did you go up there thinking?

489
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:14,000
Well, I went up determined to have an open mind, which says I was skeptical and I still am.

490
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:21,000
But in the meantime, I had such admiration for Pritchard and Mack for the risks they were taking.

491
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:29,000
And ultimately, I felt such affection for the abductees and their courage for having come forward.

492
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:34,000
For the skeptical Brian, it was not the presence of so many respected academics,

493
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:41,000
but the sincerity of the 20 abductees at the conference that ultimately convinced him to take the phenomenon seriously.

494
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:45,000
I woke up terrified. Light comes in the window. Bed starts shaking.

495
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:50,000
I was screaming because I had alien eyes right in front of my face and I couldn't get away from them.

496
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:57,000
They were so vulnerable. They were frightened. They were smart. They were attractive.

497
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:04,000
They were everything that you would want in a human being and yet, God, these terrifying things were going on.

498
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:09,000
And I wasn't going to be the one who laughed at them and made fun of it.

499
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,000
I just wanted to try to get them to tell the story and understand it.

500
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:20,000
Here's someone who came into this with open eyes and basically he says that these abductees are sincere.

501
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,000
They're telling similar stories and we just don't know why.

502
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:30,000
The fact that he sat down and wrote this book and went through the process of his own changing attitudes towards the subject matter,

503
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:36,000
I think it's extraordinarily important. It's kind of a model for the way I think an intellectual,

504
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:43,000
if he does get daring enough to look into the matter, would tend to find himself moving.

505
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Despite his attempt to leave no academic stone unturned,

506
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:57,000
Brian was unable to find the kind of physical proof that would finally end the debate over the abductee's extraordinary claims.

507
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:05,000
One of the astronomers at the Harvard complained that he wouldn't believe in the UFO phenomena until a tailpipe or a cigarette lighter dropped from one.

508
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:12,000
But people neglect the fact that these abductees are hard evidence.

509
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,000
So you think something's going on. Do you think abductions are going on?

510
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:21,000
I'm going to have to be a journalist. I haven't been abducted. I've never seen anyone abducted.

511
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,000
But boy, the people I've interviewed are utterly convincing.

512
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:31,000
And the phrase is, utterly credible people telling utterly incredible stories.

513
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:35,000
They believe they've been abducted. There's no question in their minds.

514
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:40,000
Very short and you can't really explain what it's like unless it's actually happening to you.

515
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,000
This is something that affects you all your life.

516
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:47,000
There's a part of me that would love to find the answer that it was something else.

517
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:56,000
CDB Brian knows that far more researchers needed before anyone will get to the truth of the abduction experience.

518
00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:05,000
But Brian says he won't be the one to do it. One paranormal book is okay, he feels, but two will compromise his standing as a serious journalist.

519
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:06,000
Next.

520
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:12,000
We today are in the process of destroying our civilization, just as Easter Island did destroy its own civilization.

521
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,000
Can the lessons of Easter Island save planet Earth?

522
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:26,000
The monolithic statues on Easter Island have always been shrouded in mystery.

523
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:30,000
But the truth is that scientists know who built them and how they were created.

524
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:38,000
The real mystery on Easter Island is not in the statues, but in a macabre trail of death that almost wiped out an entire civilization.

525
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:45,000
Dr. Jared Diamond believes that the planet Earth is in trouble.

526
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:50,000
And to understand why, we need to look no further than this tiny island in the middle of the Pacific.

527
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:59,000
Easter Island is roughly eight miles across. Its area is 64 square miles.

528
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,000
And it's the most isolated, habitable piece of land on Earth.

529
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000
2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.

530
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,000
1,400 miles even from the nearest Polynesian island.

531
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:15,000
Today, Easter Island is remote, barren, and largely uninhabited.

532
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:20,000
But this is not nature's doing. The island used to be covered with tropical plants.

533
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:26,000
It was home to exotic animals and large human population, a population much like our own.

534
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:30,000
Dr. Diamond suggests that ignore the balance of nature.

535
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:36,000
I think the real appeal of Easter Island is that it is a microcosm for the world and what's happening to us.

536
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:43,000
The biggest threat to human civilization in the next century is an environmental holocaust.

537
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,000
We can see the signs all around us.

538
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:50,000
Population biologist Dr. Paul Ehrlich also sees a cautionary tale in Easter Island.

539
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:55,000
The parallels so far between Easter Island and the global population are very clear.

540
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,000
That is, Easter Island had a population explosion. We've had a population explosion.

541
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000
Easter Island then had a population collapse.

542
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,000
The issue is, are we going to have a population collapse, or are we going to sensibly limit our reproduction

543
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:12,000
so that we can begin a gradual return to a sustainable population size?

544
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Because right now, the population of the planet is far above the present carrying capacity.

545
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,000
And when the population of Easter Island exceeded its carrying capacity,

546
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,000
not only was the Pacific paradise destroyed, so were the people.

547
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:32,000
Mistake number one, too many people. Mistake number two, they destroyed their biological environment.

548
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:39,000
They chopped down the forest. With a loss of forest, there was soil erosion, so their agricultural productivity decreased.

549
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:47,000
You can see the same thing happening to the entire planet. Land degradation has affected a very large proportion of the world.

550
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:51,000
Desertification has ruined a lot of the western United States.

551
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:55,000
When the last tree was gone, the islanders had seen their fate.

552
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:03,000
They did not have the raw materials needed to build canoes with which they could then go to sea and feed themselves.

553
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,000
So they exterminated some of the wild species on which they depended for food.

554
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:14,000
The result was that when they had eliminated the main sources of wild protein,

555
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:20,000
they then turned to the only source of large protein remaining on the islands, namely humans.

556
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,000
They turned to cannibals.

557
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,000
Things got so tough that they began eating each other.

558
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,000
I mean, one of the classic curses on Easter Island was,

559
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,000
your mother is stuck between my teeth.

560
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:34,000
That's not the situation we want to get into here on the planet as a whole.

561
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:38,000
But could the island's history repeat itself on a global scale?

562
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:43,000
Our population and the scale of the human enterprise is growing essentially exponentially.

563
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:49,000
And we could very easily face a demise such as that that took over Easter Island.

564
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:56,000
Essentially all the tropical rainforests outside of parts of Amazonia and Zaire will be destroyed by the year 2030.

565
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,000
The world population is doubling about every 42 years.

566
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,000
So in about 60 or 70 years, we'll be using all the energy from sunlight

567
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:09,000
that then is an absolute limit on human population and there won't be anything left in the world

568
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,000
except humans, cows, rats and the other animals dependent upon us.

569
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:18,000
What we need to do immediately is to raise to the top of the human agenda

570
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,000
the whole issue of how we reduce the scale of the human enterprise

571
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:26,000
to the point where the planet can sustain us essentially permanently.

572
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:31,000
If we don't start doing that immediately, I fear for the future of our civilization.

573
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:35,000
The planet Earth is an island in the middle of space

574
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,000
and we today are in the process of destroying our civilization

575
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,000
just as Easter Island did destroy its own civilization.

576
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,000
Paul Ehrlich offers his dire predictions not because he's a fatalist

577
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:52,000
but because he believes there is still time to turn things around.

578
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:01,000
If you've had a paranormal experience, please write to us at Sightings.

579
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,000
Sightings can also be contacted at America Online at keyword Sightings.

580
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:10,000
At the Sightings forum, download images, sounds and quick time clips.

581
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:14,000
Also, join us daily in our chat room live on AOL.

582
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:20,000
Until next time, remember, no mystery is closed to an open mind.

583
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,000
For Sightings, I'm Tim White.

584
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,000
Sightings is open to all.

585
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,000
Next on Sci-Fi Dark Shadows

586
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,000
Ten years ago, some kids disappeared from this very place.

587
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:46,000
It's free!

588
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,000
What was that?

589
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,000
The creature just came out of the shadows.

590
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:57,000
As it gets closer and closer and closer...