M.J. Rose

When you say the word “Bigfoot”, many get mental pictures of a large, muscular ape with long hair sneaking through the woods of the American Northwest. Does Bigfoot really exist? If so, what is it? There are those who approach the Bigfoot question from a scientific point of view. Cryptozoology is the scientific study of and search for cryptids, animals which are beyond current zoological catalogues. Cryptids are often thought of as fantasy creatures and are ignored by mainstream scientists. Cryptozoologists, those who study cryptozoology, research anecdotes and legends from various cultures concerning creatures too fantastic to exist, such as Bigfoot (also known as the Sasquatch), the Loch Ness Monster, Pennsylvania´s Beast of Bray Road, England´s Beast of Exmoor (thought to be the motivation for the book The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), to sea monsters in general. There are literally thousands of such cryptid tales throughout the world.

Some cryptids have been proven to exist. One example is the Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct. Numerous anecdotes of the Coelacanth were obtained from South African locals, but its continued existence was never verified until 1938, when a specimen was found in a fisherman´s nets. The Okapi is a former cryptid found in central Africa. It appears as a combination of a giraffe´s head, a donkey´s body, and a zebra´s legs.

The Sasquatch is probably the best known and most highly sought after of the cryptids. They walk upright, standing between 7 and 10 feet tall, are covered by brown and reddish fur, with a heavy brow, pronounced nose and wide mouth, are reported to have terrible body odor, and inhabit secluded forested areas. Despite their reputation for living in the Northwest, sightings of the Sasquatch extend into Oklahoma, Texas, the Carolinas, even Georgia and Florida. They are also known as the Yeti by the Nepalese of the Asian Himalayas, Yeren by the Chinese, and Yowie by the Australians. You have to ask yourself how the same creature can be so widely known by so many relatively isolated cultures throughout the span of history and not exist.

The Sasquatch has many commonalities with Extraterrestrials…

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Keep an eye out in your city for this exhibit. It sounds incredible…

INDIANAPOLIS. (Art Daily dot org)- The Indianapolis Museum of Art will be the first venue to host To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum, which will be on view July 13 – September 7, 2008. Featuring approximately 120 objects dating from 3600 B.C. to 400 A.D. from the world-renowned Egyptian art collection of New York’s Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition will illustrate the range of strategies and preparations the ancient Egyptians developed to defeat death and to achieve success in the afterlife.

“The IMA is pleased to be the first museum in a multiple-city tour for this exhibition,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, the Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the IMA. “Through a vibrant selection of artworks from one of the world’s leading collections of Egyptian antiquities, our visitors will gain real insight into the ancient quest for survival into eternity.”

The exhibition explores the belief that death was an enemy that could be vanquished, one of the primary cultural tenets of ancient Egyptian civilization. In order to survive in the next world, Egyptians would purchase, trade, or even reuse a variety of objects—statues, coffins, vessels, and jewelry for example—that would protect them in the afterlife. The exhibition explains the process of mummification, the economics and rituals of memorials, the contents of the tomb,
the funeral accessories—including the differentiation of objects used by upper, middle, and lower classes—and the idealized afterlife.”

Exhibition highlights include:

-a vividly painted coffin of a Mayor of Thebes (about 1075-945 B.C)
-the mummy and portrait of Demetrios, a wealthy citizen of Hawara (95-100 A.D.)
-two mummies of dogs (664 B.C.-395 A.D)
-stone sculpture and statues
-protective gold jewelry made for nobility
-amulets (items for protection in the afterlife)
-canopic jars (used to store the body’s major organs)
-ceramic vessels

“Many of the objects in the show have never been exhibited before,” said Theodore Celenko, curator of African art at the IMA. “And one piece in particular—a limestone statue of a father, mother and child that’s more than 2,000 years old—will only be shown in Indianapolis.”

In addition to the exhibition, the IMA will host a lecture by the exhibition’s curator Edward Bleiberg. On Sunday, July 13 at 2 p.m., Bleiberg—the curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum—will discuss religion, aesthetics and immortality of ancient Egypt in relation to the exhibition.

Here is a fellow who has researched both UFOs and reincarnation…I’d love to have coffee with this guy!

By RUFFIN PREVOST
Gazette Wyoming Bureau

CODY – While a robotic lander digs in the Martian soil in an effort to detect traces of ancient primitive life, a Wyoming psychologist will speak here Saturday about his belief that intelligent aliens have often visited Earth.

R. Leo Sprinkle, a counselor in private practice in Laramie, has spent 45 years researching sightings of unidentified flying objects and speaking with people who claim to have had encounters with extraterrestrials.

Sprinkle acknowledges that his research seems at odds with the mainstream scientific pursuit of life on other worlds – like NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander, a $450 million mission aimed at detecting water and organic matter on the red planet.

“I tried to get my colleagues involved, but that didn’t go over too well,” Sprinkle said of his years doing research as a professor of psychology at the University of Wyoming.

Sprinkle, who has a doctoral degree in psychology, arrived at UW in 1964 and did research into hypnosis and reincarnation as well as UFOs.

He left the university in 1989 after being pressured to do so by administrators, who feared that his work cast the school in a negative light, Sprinkle said.

His research since the early 1960s has consistently shown that people who report alien encounters or UFO sightings are generally psychologically well adjusted and have strong educational backgrounds, Sprinkle said.

Skeptics point out that no physical evidence exists to support claims of alien visitors or advanced spacecraft.

“There has been a long history of people in the know who say the government has known for 60 years that flying saucers are here and that we’ve had some crashed disks and bodies recovered, but the information has been hidden,” Sprinkle said.

Though he has been a frequent speaker in the past at UFO conferences around the world, Sprinkle, 78, said he now gives presentations only once or twice a year.

More than 40 people are expected to attend a dinner, slide show and discussion Saturday by Sprinkle scheduled at the Thomas the Apostle Center in Cody, said Connie Moody, a director of the retreat owned by the Wyoming Episcopal Diocese.

“We’ve had a tremendous response to this, so we’re really excited,” Moody said.

The center is open to all denominations and also hosts private events focused on a variety of topics not necessarily endorsed by the Episcopal Church, Moody said.

She said that Sprinkle’s talk is part of a planned “out of the box” series of lectures to be scheduled at the retreat.

Sprinkle said his presentation Saturday will “speculate on the possibility that ETs are here to help us raise our level of awareness,” and will explore connections between the concepts of reincarnation, immortality and souls.

“Technology and science are coming together with ancient religious stories,” he said, adding that the world of quantum physics may have connections to UFO sightings and related phenomena.

Sprinkle said he was invited to speak by the Rev. Warren Murphy, an associate clergyman at Cody’s Christ Episcopal Church, who had heard Sprinkle lecture on reincarnation…

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