A blanket fort play facility in Seattle (with ziplines, marshmallow roasting facility, and more)?

By Jack Brummet, Seattle Metro Editor

If this isn’t a prank (I can’t actually track the permit down), it's the best land use permit ever.  It is for a lot near Eastlake in Seattle. . .and even if it IS a prank, it’s a pretty good one.  It just about has to be a prank; if not the actual business plan must be the most impractical one ever developed. . .

click to enlarge

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Visiting a redeveloped Hutong in Beijing

Jack and Bill Willis on Thursday night in Beijing.  More stories and photos will be coming shortly.  Although Blogger (and Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, and many more sites) is blocked in China, I can slip in small items like this via the mobile blogger editor (but cannot format or proofread or even be sure it is actually posted).

Drawing: Two Women

Drawing by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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ATIT Reheated: Alien Lore No. 150 - The Big Radio

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Editor

As late as the 1920s, many people (including Albert Einstein) still considered light signals as the most practical way to contact distant civilizations/The Greys (a/k/a aliens). Radio transmitters were not yet capable of focusing a beam on a distant planet. It took a 50,000 watt station, like KGO San Francisco, WOR NYC, or KIRO Seattle, to even broadcast up and down the coasts. And finally, scientists gradually became convinced that Mars did not have the conditions to support life. . . therefore, any Greys or ETs, would exist much, much further away.


It wasn't until 1959 that radio-based SETI [Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence] started to be taken seriously. Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison showed that radar transmitters of the time were powerful enough to send signals light years through space. "If we can do it, then the aliens might be doing it."

And we've been trying to speak to them ever since.

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ATIT Reheated: Alien Lore No. 180 - The Alien Moon Base

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Editor

"Luna," according to many UFOlogists is an Alien base on the far side of the Moon (e.g., the side we never see).  They say it was filmed by the Apollo Astronauts. They also claim the base is HQ for a massive mining operation using very large machines. According to Milton Cooper, a number of very large alien craft--which he described as "mother ships"--were also there. 



Many researchers, UFOlogists, and nutjobs claim that  both Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after their historic landing on the Moon in in July, 1969.  People claims that one of the astronauts referred to a "light" in a crater during their television transmission.  Mission Control pressed for  further details.   The astronauts did not respond.

According to a former NASA employee, unnamed radio operators with their own VHF receiving facilities  picked up the following exchange:

NASA: What's there?  Mission Control calling Apollo 11...

Apollo11:  These "Babies" are huge, Sir! Enormous!  OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there, lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!

The dark side of the moon -- the alleged location of the Alien Moon Base

In 1979 Maurice Chatelain, a former head of NASA Communications said that  Armstrong had

reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. "The encounter was common knowledge in NASA," he revealed, "but nobody has talked about it until now."

Dr. Vladimir Azhazha, a physicist and Professor of Mathematics at Moscow University said "Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module.  But his message was never heard by the public," because NASA pulled it.

Another Soviet scientist, Dr.Aleksandr Kazantsev, says he saw color movies of the UFOs taken by Buzz Aldrin from inside Apollo 11.  Buzz continued filming them after he and Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon.  The UFOs departed minutes after the astronauts came out on to the lunar surface.

UFOlogists claims that Apollo 11's radio transmissions were interrupted on several occasions in order to hide the news from the public.  Maurice Chatelain claims that "all Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin - flying saucers, or UFOs, if you want to call them by that name.  Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence."

Moon Bases?

Another researcher says "I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 was the first of the astronauts to use the code name 'Santa Claus' to indicate the presence of flying saucers next to space capsules. However, his announcements were barely noticed by the general public. It was a little different when James Lovell  on board the Apollo 8 command module came out from behind the moon and said for everybody to hear: 'PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS.' Even though this happened on Christmas Day 1968, many people sensed a hidden meaning in those words."

____________________

One professor asked Neil Armstrong during a university NASA symposium:

Professor: What REALLY happened out there with Apollo 11?

Armstrong:

Professor: How do you mean "warned off"?

Armstrong: I can't go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology - Boy, were they big!...and menacing! No, there is no question of a space station.

Professor: But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11?

Armstrong: Naturally - NASA was committed at that time, and couldn't risk panic on Earth.   [He says here also that after Apollo 11, no one lingered on the moon].

Armstrong confirmed that the story was true but gave no details other than admitting that the CIA was behind the cover-up.
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All This Is That In Beijing: Peking Duck at One Duck, Two Systems + two statues in the garden

At the gates of the Forbidden City (I snuck this post in from China, where Blogger, Facebook, Glogger, Tumblr, and just about every other social site is blocked)

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor

Here I am in Beijing, standing in front of the gates to The Forbidden City.  More to come, when I can actually post text and pictures  in from China (where Blogger, Facebook, Glogger, Picasa, Tumblr, and just about every other social site are blocked).  Without saying how I snuck this onto Blogger/All This Is That, let me just say that they have China locked down pretty tight.  I probably don't want to say much more, since I will be returning to China fairly regularly.  But, despite their total lockdown, there are a couple of transitory exploits from which you can sneak things onto the Internet.  I will post far more pictures and commentary once I am back safely inside the borders of the U.S.

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Poem: the first amendment to the Ten Commandments

By Jack Brummet

They didn't know

Whether it should be

The eleventh commandment,
The first amendment

To the Ten Commandments,
Or the Commandment Codicil.

One bloc argued
There were loopholes

To be closed.
Another group liked

The round number ten.
Why spoil it with twelve or thirteen?

One prophet who looked like Jerry Garcia
Said we forgot to tell them enjoy life--

Follow the rules 

But have fun in between.

And another camp voted for
Forty more commandments,

Just to be sure.
A quasi-Buddhist splinter faction

Pushed to add Jesus's words
Love one another.

They never settled a thing.
With the missing tablets,

The Framer's intentions
Were impossible

To divine.
They weren't even sure

Moses turned the tablets over
To read the other side.

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Beijing traffic

Interestingly, I probably see fewer bikes here in Beijing than I do in either Seattle or SF. But probably quite a few more than you see in, say, L.A.

Beijing

Random shots from Tonight...

Arrived in Beijing... #fb

Wow. Beijing. My greeter met me at the gate and she steered me through a totally hassle free and painless customs and immigration gauntlet and then plunked me in an Audi limousine for the 15 minute ride to my glossy hotel.

Sitting in a German bar having a house brewed Pilsner before I go to bed. I successfully slept only a couple hours on the flight--which only took 10 hours due to an awesome tailwind. So i should actually be able to sleep. Everyone I've met speaks English at about the same level I speak Spanish--barely passable and comically inept, just enough to barely communicate. So, there is a definite level of comedy in all my transactions so far. It's midnight and I'm outside on a plaza. Now, it's off to bed and see what tomorrow holds. Should be interesting and strange. I've wanted to be here all my life: this is great. Your first night in a foreign country is Always a little jangled and surreal--not quite so surreal as Istanbul or Bombay or Tangiers due to the modernity and gloss. And I love it. More soon. I'm about ready to fall asleep. Jack

Alien Lore No. 231 - Senator Bobby Kennedy on aliens and UFOs

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Editor

A letter from Senator Robert Kennedy has just sold on eBay.  It was a typed letter, written to Anne Epple of NYC, on a question she asked about UFOs.  The September 10, 1966 letter sold for  $220.  The Epple letter is the second known letter written by Robert Kennedy on the UFOs/ETs.

Dear Mrs. Epple,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter on "unidentified flying objects".

Many reputable scientists also believe that there must be other beings in the universe. Dr. Harlow Shapley, for one, has stated that there is a high probability that there is other life in the universe. To believe that there is other life in the universe is not, however, to believe that "UFO's" are manned vehicles. One explanation of this phenomenon, in addition to those you mentioned, connects the lights that are seen with the gaseous tails of comets. A careful analysis of sighting to date has not given us any indication that "UFO's" are manned.

I appreciate hearing from you on this matter and look forward to hearing from you again.

Sincerely,

(Signature)

Robert F. Kennedy

The letter is similar to another letter written on May 9, 1968 from Senator Kennedy to Gray Barker. Barker was the publisher of Saucer News.  In the Gray letter, Kennedy writes about his interest in UFOs. He writes: “I am a card carrying member of the Amalgamated Flying Saucers Association. Therefore, like many other people in our country I am interested in the phenomenon of flying saucers.” 

The excellent TV series Dark Skies (1996-97) had several plot points around the Kennedy brothers, and posited early in the series that JFK was killed because he became aware of a government cover-up of aliens and UFOs by the Majestic 12 organization.  In Dark Skies, Bobby Kennedy was a sworn enemy of Majestic 12 and believed people "deserve to know the truth."  In one episode Frank Bach, the head of Majestic, told the rogue agent John Loengard that "Bobby Kennedy will never become President."

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Poem: A meditation on the I Ching and Mitt Romney’s comment that “the earth can handle pretty much anything we dish out”

By Jack Brummet

1.
She may be a deep chasm,
But every bucket has a bottom.

So far, so good,
But every bucket soon fills up.

2.
The earth's factory setting
Is receptive.

She takes everything we dish out.
So far.

3.
Dragons fight in the meadow
Their blood is black and yellow.
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Faces No. 300 - Married Beardos

By Jack Brummet

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Poem: Tethers

By Jack Brummet

Our tenuous hold on earth
Is disguised in our shadows,
Tethered to the ground
By the soles of our feet,
And a theory of gravity.

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