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| Sandy Clark examines the Unexplained |
Issue 20 available now £2.60 ($4.99)
When you think of prospectors and Indians, your mind probably fills with visions of American westerns, John Wayne films, and Saturday morning serials. In this case, the prospector in question is the NASA Lunar Prospector and the Indians are the American Navajo tribe. The dusty soil being contested isn't some rugged ridge line in the American West but the very surface of the Moon itself. It seems that the Lunar Prospector mission had more than just good intentions riding on it when it headed for the moon. The probe was designed to look for lunar ice, perhaps the most valuable commodity we could find off Earth. Since it costs so much to lift life-giving H2O into space, any water we find 'out there' is worth more than its weight in gold.
In addition to this prospecting mission, the probe also carried the ashes of Astronomer Gene Shoemaker. That is where the trouble starts. The Navajo hold the Moon to be a sacred place and are trying to keep the ashes from being left there. They say the surface of the Moon should be kept free of human remains.
UFO Watch
As previously reported in Strange Happenings, Arizona was a 1997 UFO hot spot. It may even get hotter in 1998. The strange lights of last March even made it onto television UFO specials hosted by the Star Trek star and 1990s paranormal pitch man Jonathan Frakes. This strange triangular shaped light formation appeared over Phoenix after several other strange sighting in the area on the evenings of March 10-15, 1997.
Since then, things have boiled over into the political arena with local politician and former vice mayor Frances Emma Barwood running for secretary of state on a platform of revealing the truth about UFOs. While this isn't here only campaign issue, it certainly livens up Phoenix and Arizona politics. At a press conference in Phoenix, Barwood surrounded herself with UFO researchers and enthusiasts and vowed to find the truth about intelligent extraterrestrial presence on Earth.
The entire issue is part of a plan by campaign manager Stephen Bassett to vault Barwood into the international arena. Bassett has pleaded with politicians in Washington to champion his cause without finding any takers. In Barwood, he finally has a candidate willing to carry the platform. "This campaign is going to truly be the road less traveled. In fact, this campaign is going to be the road never traveled," Bassett said.
Beware of Psychics
A recent article in the January/February 1998 Skeptical Inquirer warned of several scams going on in the psychic community. These included frauds and charlatans of all sorts, but perhaps the most disturbing were false 'psychic surgeons.'
These psychics claim to be able to reach into the body and remove tumors leaving no scar. In many of the cases, bits of chicken liver or some other tissue are produced as the tumor and everyone goes home happy. Believers believe, the patient may receive some benefit from the placebo effect, and the psychic is well paid.
Earth Under Fire
The Earth may be coming under the gun of extra terrestrials. Meteors, that is. Several meteor sightings have occurred recently all across the globe.
Tragically, this wave of impacts has a death toll. In Columbia, local officials are blaming a meteor strike for the deaths of four children on the night of December 14. The meteor strike started a fire that killed the children. At first, the fire investigators suspected less sensational reasons for the fire such as candles or bad wiring, but other evidence pointed strongly to a fire of extraterrestrial origin. First, several witnesses saw fireballs rain down from the sky onto the house. Second, investigators found a 10-inch hole burned through the zinc roof from the outside.
