Fooling the astronomologers

There are times that I think the woo-woos are engaging in an elaborate game of self-parody, just to see how far they can push us skeptics before we realize that it's all a huge joke.

Or at least, I live in that hope, because it's better than the alternative, which is that these people are serious whackjobs.  Take, for example, the case of the astrologer who recently commented on a crop circle that occurred in 2011 near Stonehenge.

Those of you are are aficionados of punk rock may recognize this as the logo of Crass, a punk rock band formed in the 1970s that was involved in the anarchic/political end of the punk spectrum, and which produced several albums, including the memorable Penis Envy.  For reference, here's their actual logo, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Not much doubt, is there?  Some wag with a taste for punk and way too much free time decided to make a crop circle as an homage to his (or her) favorite band.  As we've seen before, crop circles can be generated in short order as long as you have some kind of device to orient yourself and a piece of plywood with which to flatten the crops.  No other explanation necessary, not that we'd be likely to look for one given that it'd be an odd alien race that would come all the light years to Earth and leave behind a punk rock logo as their only communiqué.

That point, however, apparently flew past astrologer Donna Provancher so quickly that it didn't even ruffle her hair.  Excuse me, though; Provancher isn't an astrologer, she says she's an "astronomologer."  What, exactly, is an "astronomologer," you may be asking?  In her words, "astronomology is the practice of astrology using astronomy to build the chart and supply new insights."

Which doesn't sound that different from astrology, frankly.  It's as if I decided to open a practice doing Tarot card readings and started calling it "Tarothematics" because the Tarot cards have numbers on them, and expected that people should take me more seriously than the ordinary Tarot card readers because of it.

Be that as it may, Provancher was just enthralled by the crop circle, and had a wonderful explanation of what it meant.  None of which, I hasten to say, had anything to do with punk rock.  Here's Provancher's explanation, courtesy of the wonderful site Dangerous Minds:

You know those pictures of the Gods and Goddesses with eight or eighteen or a thousand arms? That’s what we are when we work together. You can tack thousands of pairs of eyes and ears to that image while you’re at it. Nothing escapes our notice. 

Roving Astronomologer eyes and ears (thanks again Solar Ophiuchus Raya King—that makes two Gold Stars for you) directed my attention early this morning to a crop circle reported June 20, 2011 near Stonehenge.Crop Circle Connector is calling this area “Stonehenge (1)” whatever that means. I have a Facebook Wall ping out to Philip Peake (visit his blog Thoughtsoftheguru.com) my longtime Friend (with a capital F), Web Host and Webmaster who is from the U.K. Maybe he can tell me where this is in relation to the megaliths. The map wasn’t revealing of that little detail...

She then goes on to explain what the crop circle means, as follows:

—As Above, So Below (opening greeting) 

—An equal-armed or Tau-Cross (the balancing of Earth’s energies) 

—A double-headed serpent wrapped around one of the axial poles of the planet — we’ll have to assume it’s the poles of the planet since East-West doesn’t have an axial pole. The piece on top (the double-headed serpent) is bolted to the Tau-Cross, so at this point, Raya’s vision of the Staff of Asclepius is partially correct; she just didn’t finish it. 

The 2-headed King-snakes I used to see at the San Diego zoo had tails. This one isn’t like that. But then it’s not imitating a snake, it’s picturing a new concept. The new Planetary Caduceus. It needs to be finished. This is something else I haven’t discussed yet but it looks like this is one more Agenda Item on the Table I’ll put this on my To-Do list to discuss.

Well, I don't know about you, but my little heart is just going thumpety-thump in anticipation of more discussion of the "planetary caduceus."  Whatever that is.

All the while I was reading this, I kept thinking... "come on.  When is the other shoe going to drop?  Surely she doesn't think this is really some kind of mystical symbol... like, aliens?  Or Gaea communicating with us?  Or... or...  No, merciful heavens above, she really doesn't realize it's a prank."

Anyhow, I'd like to thank Dangerous Minds for the best laugh I've had in days, and Donna Provancher for inadvertently being the cause.  I guess she's really not engaging in self-parody, as comforting an answer as that would be -- she really does believe what she's saying.  And now, I need to wrap this up -- I need to go study.  Pretty soon I'll be taking my licensing exam, after which I'll be a certified homeopathophysiolomedicopsychic-ologist.

Beat that.

Men in black, men in brown

It is a curious feature of woo-woo that the purveyors of such ideas feel driven to add layer upon layer of complexity to their theories, as if slathering more craziness upon an idea that was kind of ridiculous to begin with will make people sit up and say, "dear god, you're right!"  It's almost like some kind of strange parody of the scientific process, where experimentation, analysis, and insight lead to clarification.  Here, there's a sense of adding more mud to already muddy waters.

Our first example of this comes from the world of the conspiracy theorists.  I've devoted a number of posts to such issues as the Illuminati, HAARP, the Bilderberg Group, and secret societies, and how some subset of the above is responsible for (1) controlling world governments, (2) spying on innocent citizens with nefarious ends in mind, and (3) causing natural disasters.  The individuals running the conspiracy are always portrayed as evil, superpowerful arch-villains, who are untouchable by normal means, and who pull everyone else's strings for their own mysterious purposes.

Basically, the worldview is that we live inside a David Lynch movie.

In any case, it's kind of a dismal way to look at life.  So, it is not any real surprise to me that there has now been a revelation of a new conspiracy, a nice conspiracy, that will sweep down and get rid of the old, nasty, evil conspiracy.  (Source)

This claim states that "very soon" there will be a mass arrest of banking executives by a group of world leaders who are fed up with corporate corruption, removing the "Illuminati banking cartel" and returning "power back to the people."  Plans are already in place to "cut off... international calling" and stop international travel; at that point, "the pro-humanity forces will sweep through and arrest MASS AMOUNTS of bankers and corrupt financial execs as they complete their task to bring freedom to the world from these financial terrorists."

Well, that sounds hopeful enough, as far as it goes, but how do we know it's true?  The writer states:

The part of this story that makes it believable is that it is actually backed by Real Names and Real People who can be researched. The majority of the information comes from Benjamin Fulford.  Benjamin Fulford was Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief for Forbes magazine for seven years, until 2005 when he quit because of the "extensive corporate censorship and mingling of advertising and editorial at the magazine."

Oh.  Benjamin Fulford, eh?  The originator of the HAARP conspiracy theory?  The man who claimed that "the American government, in cooperation with [the] Federal Reserve, the Rockefellers, and other powerful groups" were going to cause Mt. Fuji to erupt on April 11, 2011, and who has continued to pontificate undaunted despite the lack of cooperation by the actual volcano?  The guy who says Bill Gates is going to be arrested as one of the lead conspirators, and that the pope is going to resign on April 15?  We're supposed to consider this guy a credible source?

It's not only the conspiracy nuts that have this regrettable tendency to elaborate themselves to death; the same is true of other branches of woo-woo.  Take, for example, this recent story from the world of aliens and crop circles.

In case you are understandably reluctant to read the article itself, the whole thing adds a new dimension to the idea that aliens are responsible for crop circles; the author claims that aliens are now being spotted hanging around the crop circles, as if waiting for something significant to happen.  And these are not easily identifiable aliens, i.e little gray guys with enormous eyes; no, these aliens are smarter than that.  They are cleverly disguised as tall blond guys wearing brown clothes.

There are several accounts of contact with these dudes recounted in the article, but the following is my favorite:

(A)n anonymous woman called the operator to the Air Force in the UK... in Suffolk and reported a strange episode that occurred when she was walking with his dog.  She saw a man dressed in a light brown suit... who spoke with a “Scandinavian accent.”  He asked if she had not heard about the large flat circles that appear on the wheat fields.  During the ten-minute conversation the man told me that he was from another planet similar to the Earth, and that his relatives have visited Earth, and made such education.  Guests arrived here on a friendly target, but “they were told not to come into contact with people for fear that their visit can be regarded as a threat.”  Apparently, he did not say who told them not to come into contact with us.  The woman was “very scared”, and while she ran to the house, she heard of a “loud buzzing sound,” and saw the trees soared a large spherical object, glowing orange-white light. BBC statement said the woman told me about an hour and had no doubt that she wrote about a real event.

So, now we not only have the crop circles to puzzle over, we have blond guys with Swedish accents coming up to innocent dog-walkers and saying, "Say, how about that crop circle over there?  Pretty nice one, eh?   Oh, by the way, I'm an alien, but don't be afraid.  Later."  And then they take off in their spaceships.

Then, to make matters worse, the author throws in his two favorite theories for what the crop circles are for.  I reproduce those here, verbatim:

(T)he location of crop circles – referencing a crop circle ‘database’ – near ancient formations indicate a connection between ancient extraterrestrial visitors and modern day crop circles. Crop circles that contain messages that will “help usher mankind into the Golden Age.”  ... Also, crop circles can be used as a reference point for time travel in the source field.  They often appear right next to the ancient monuments of the vortex points, and that to this day can serve as portals for time travel in space.

Oh, okay, that makes perfect sense.  Vortex points and time travel in the source field.  And also, don't forget frequency resonant vibration energy dimensions!  In space!

In any case, that's our dose of woo-woo lunacy for today.  Men in black (or brown, as the case may be), and how they either will be taken down by the People's Revolution or else use messages in corn fields to usher us into the Golden Age.  Either way, I suppose I should be happy that the outlook is good.  It certainly is preferable to some previous forecasts, such as a massive eruption of Mt. Fuji.  That would have sucked.