If you remember back to the end of September, you might recall there being a stir caused by scientists at CERN who said they observed neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. This seemed to disprove Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity which held than any object with mass cannot accelerate past the speed of light. This discovery opened the door to all sorts of incredible possibilities from faster than light starships to time travel. At least until scientists working at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands identified a flaw in the experiment that caused the neutrinos in question to seem to be moving faster than they actually were. The problem, ironically enough, has it’s root in Einstein’s theory of Relativity. To time the neutrino’s trip, the scientists at cern used the time signal from an orbiting GPS satellite. According to the Dutch team this is where the error crept into the experiment. Since the satellite was moving relative to the experiment it introduced an effect called time dilation, which was not properly accounted for by the CERN team. Compensating for this effect, the speed of the neutrinos drops to bellow the speed of light, leaving Special Relativity intact.

The explanation seems reasonable enough to say “wow, that would have been neat” and move on living in a world where faster than light (FTL) travel is pure science fiction. It’s not even odd for scientists to pick apart each others discoveries, in fact it is an important part of the scientific process. Why then did I not end this post two sentences ago like other news outlets? Because of the very fact that time dilation is a well-known effect. So well know in fact, the clocks on GPS satellites are corrected for both special and general time dilation effects (GPS would not work otherwise). If you just thought “but wait, didn’t the scientists at CERN use the clock on a GPS satellite for their experiment?”, then you just hit the nail on the head. Now, I am no physicist so I can’t say for sure that this blows a hole in the Dutch teams debunking and puts FTL travel back on the table. Maybe the corrections made to the GPS satellite’s clocks are not accurate enough for this experiment. What this single fact does however, is make me wonder why someone would want to debunk the FTL neutrino experiment so quickly? For an answer we only need to look at the possibilities that faster than light travel may hold.

If researchers were able to harness FTL travel to build spacecraft, we may find new sources for what we believe are limited resources like gold, silver, water, oil, food and land. There are quite a few individuals whose entire wealth exists because they control what is “known” to be a dwindling resource. If FTL travel were to reveal that these commodities were not so limited after all, the world’s power brokers would stand to loose trillions. Imagine an interstellar gold rush brining tons of new gold on the market. You don’t have to be an economics major to know what that would do to the price of gold. What if owning your own land meant being willing to strike out and homestead a new world instead of indebting yourself to the banking industry? Do you think the ultra-wealthy would be willing to risk a new future that comes at their expense?

One of the best arguments against extraterrestrial UFOs is that to travel the astronomically huge distances between stars would take far to long to make the trip worthwhile or even possible at sub light speeds. It is a well-reasoned argument and kind of comforting. If it’s not likely that UFOs are from other planets, then they must be manmade and within our control. However, if faster than light speeds are possible then it would seem to reason a more advanced civilization could have conceivably mastered the technology necessary to zip between the stars and visited our planet. Even the possibility of that being true is HUGE. Suddenly we face incredible uncertainty and might start asking tough questions. Depending on the answers to those questions, there could be massive shifts in the world’s power base. It would seem then that it would behoove the ruling elite to maintain the status quo and ensure that the question of UFOs is left to the “nuts”.

Could then, there be a conspiracy to suppress CERN’s findings? Faster than light travel would be one of the biggest discoveries in mankind’s history and could bring about radical change. The implications of such a discovery could make trillions for some while costing others even more. The basic power structure that controls the would could crumble because of it. I have no proof that anything below board is going on regarding CERN’s research. It is quite possible that the adjustments made to compensate for time dilation in the GPS satellite clocks were not enough to give CERN’s experiment accurate results. It is also possible that the Dutch team made an honest mistake in their calculations and that FTL travel is still a possibility. However, I feel we must also consider the possibility, regardless of how remote, that scientific progress may very well be being manipulated to the benefit of the ruling elite.

Is it possible that there is a conspiracy afoot that has moved to suppress the existence of Sasquatch in the United States? According to a series of tweets by Big Foot researcher William Jevning, that is exactly the case. Jevning relates an incident that he was involved with in 1994.

While scouting a favorite hunting spot the father of one of Jevning’s co-workers and his friend came across a series of what they believed to be Sasquatch tracks running down a little used access road in the Mt. Adams area of Washington state. On the way out of the area the two reported the prints to a forest service supervisor. The supervisor then headed out to the area with a camera to document the tracks. When they returned home, the two contacted Mr. Jevning and offered to take him out to the area. On the way in, they passed a forest service water tanker that was leaving the area. Upon arriving where the tracks had been, Jevning discovered that the water truck had been driven down the access road spraying water, destroying any evidence. Jevning attempted to follow-up with the forest service, but was told the supervisor the hunters encountered didn’t exist. According to him, the forest service personnel he spoke with responded in a less than honest tone.

But why would the forest service cover-up the existence of a big foot? According to Jevning, it all has to do with the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the logging industry. While researching his new book, “Notes From the Field: Tracking North America’s Sasquatch“, Jevning discovered that if the existence of a North American Hominid or Great Ape were proven, the entire logging industry in the area would be shut down while scientists conducted research on the new species and studied the impact that continued logging would have, costing the industry what would certainly amount to billions of dollars.

I have to say, I never thought to consider the effect that the “discovery” of Sasquatch would have on the logging industry. After seeing the lengths that other industries have gone to protect their bottom line, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that the logging industry was taking steps to prevent the formal identification of Sasquatch as a living species. While all we have right now is a single anecdote which hardly proves anything, I would love to see more research into this facet of the Big Foot story. (I will admit though that this has peaked my interest and I have a copy of Jevning’s book sitting in my cart at Amazon as we speak.)

[via "Recent Cryptid Odds and Ends" @ Phantoms & Monsters]

photo courtesy of Darlene Stewart

Residents of the rural community of Harbour Mille in Newfoundland were shocked when they saw strange objects streaking up from the ocean Monday night. Darlene Stewart spotted the mysterious object while out taking photographs of the sunset. Shaken by the sighting, she called her neighbor Emmy Pardy and her husband. All told, the trio witnessed three of the objects flying up from the sea. Pictures taken by Mrs. Stewart show a long possibly cylindrically shaped object trailed by smoke or fire (which doesn’t rule out a missile launch). The witnesses reported that the objects made no noise as the flew across the sky. The incident was investigated by the local police who “confirmed that it was something”, but refuse to elaborate further on the incident, instead referring further questions to the Department of National Defense. Officials from the DND have refused to comment on the incident leaving the quiet community wondering what it is they saw.

DND, RCMP mum on UFO mystery [via Chris Holly's Paranormal World]