In Millennial Eyes 6: The Antarctic Fourth Reich and the Great Game

Frank Hurley's photograph, taken between 1914 and 1916, of Antarctic explorer Dr. Leonard Hussey with Samson - one of the Canadian sled-dogs on Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance expedition. Image Source: Pinterest via Royal Geographical Society.

Today's post continues my coverage of the Millennial Antarctic Fourth Reich conspiracy theory and its meaning in terms of Internet psycho-politics. In this case, I will describe how this conspiracy theory relates to the revival of the 19th century contest between Britain and Russia for Asian lands and wealth: the Great Game.

I argue that Antarctica now replaces Central Asia, to serve as a cipher in a new virtual Great Game. The Antarctic Fourth Reich conspiracy theory appears to be an alarming Russian-sourced or pro-Russian form of propaganda, which endorses and then moves past the pro-Trump agenda, to encourage Americans to destroy their own country from within. The Fourth Reich theory also channels a folkloric and racist renewal of Anglospheric nationalism, in which Vladimir Putin is viewed as a strategic ally.

The Fourth Reich conspiracy theory depends heavily on the Nazis' merger of the occult, politics, and technology. Secrets of the Third Reich: The Rediscovery of Vimanas (uploaded 11 February 2013). Video Source: Youtube.

The conspiracy theory also seeks to isolate the Anglosphere from the Europeans. It hinges on the supposed historic continuation of German Nazism (with a conspicuous, ahistorical failure to mention Italian fascism, Japan, or affiliated Axis powers from World War II) and returns Anglospheric opinion of the Russians to the sympathetic year of 1944.

Despite the apparent Russian dominance of this online extravaganza, the Anglospheric aspect of the Fourth Reich narrative has an elusive introspective quality which may excise the Russian factor and even nationalist racism. That is, something about this conspiracy theory involves America, the UK, and affiliated Commonwealth countries chewing over internal identity in light of contemporary politics and evolving global techno-economies and societies. The outcome of that muddled cultural reevaluation may be completely independent and unexpected, regardless of whether or not the Russians try to interfere with, or benefit from, this process.

Prehistory's Mysteries: Billion Year Old Mountain Range Stays Young Beneath Antarctic Ice

Some original pulp illustrations from At the Mountains of Madness. See more here.

Anyone who has read At the Mountains of Madness (read it here; hear it in audiobook form here) can appreciate the Lovecraftian mystery of the Gamburtsevs, the mountain range that looks like the Alps, 8,500 feet high (2,600 metre tall peaks), but sleeps beneath miles of Antarctic ice. The Gamburtsevs were first discovered in 1958, and last week the journal Nature reported on the tectonic events that formed them. They have been dubbed "the last unexplored mountains on the planet." But due to new radar techniques and geophysical data, some headway is being made toward understanding the subglacial range. They are now believed to be one billion years old, but remain uneroded because of the ice sheet that preserves them. According to one of the co-authors of the article:

“Resolving the contradiction of the Gamburtsev high elevation and youthful Alpine topography but location on the East Antarctic craton by piecing together the billion year history of the region was exciting and challenging,” said Carol Finn, of the U.S. Geological Survey, a co-author on the paper. “We are accustomed to thinking that mountain building relates to a single tectonic event, rather than sequences of events. The lesson we learned about multiple events forming the Gamburtsevs may inform studies of the history of other mountain belts. The youthful look of any mountain range may mask a hidden past.”

Image Source: BBC.

In Millennial Eyes 5: Aryan Mystics of Antarctica and the Fourth Reich

Image Source: Nachtwächter.

The Millennial mind confronts many fears. Fear of poverty, fear of misrule, fear of violence and chaos. In a world dominated by science and technology, the ultimate fear is that rational systems could create mass irrationality. How could a pervasive anti-rationalism come to dominate a landscape framed by reason? Worse, anti-rationalism can manifest its own power. These concerns give rise to the fear that magic has been combined with politics, or that magic has been combined with technology.

Rationalists break things down, analyze them, and solve limited problems within defined boundaries. Wholeness is suspect in a world dominated by specialized knowledge and compartmentalized action. Universal knowledge is a path to faith, mysteries, and madness; however, it is enjoying a vogue in high circles and low. Conspiracy theorists - who lead the fearful - share a comprehensive vision with the supposed New World Order leaders they claim to oppose. Conspiracy theorists are now the world's greatest holistic myth-makers. If physicists seek the Grand Unified Theory and philosophers consider the Theory of Everything, conspiracy theorists offer their own brand of all-encompassing pseudo-knowledge.

The theorists have developed a Grand Unifying Conspiracy Theory, which centres on Antarctica, and uses the seventh continent to explain the role of Germany and America in 20th and early 21st century history. Beyond that, this theory claims to explain our entire world as it currently exists, and as it has ever existed.

Before I continue, I want to state clearly that I personally do not believe this conspiracy theory, nor do I subscribe to its racist or outlandish elements. However, I think it is an important phenomenon, which reflects the evolution of online behaviour and technoculture. This is the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. It revises the whole history of humankind. This alt-vision would be impossible without the Internet.

Post-Truth and Tomorrow's Politics

Salon screen capture, from a 4 March 2017 article, in which author Andrew O'Hehir lamented over "fake news and endless lies." Image Source.

The craziness of the phenomenon described here shows what happens when politics becomes a battleground of perceptions and opinions. Information is detached from reality and weaponized, and narratives are too. The Salon article above cited a New York Times article from 2 March 2017 on how Donald Trump has destroyed the tone of public debate and is jeopardizing democracy. We must find ways to determine between fake and real information. We must also consider what may or may not be discussed in the public square - and which voices are authoritative, and how, and why. But all these worries ignore a critical point.

How Twitter bots are skewing Geert Wilders' social media following for the Dutch election https://t.co/iZUWGdR1M8 pic.twitter.com/yTbTIXsuZJ

— Financial Times (@FT) March 14, 2017

If one allows that fake-versus-real is one discussion, one must still consider a second discussion, in which post-truth is a given. When post-truth is a given, one must learn how post-truth functions, in the same way a linguistic anthropologist studies urban legends, digital folklore, and their real contexts. If we agree with Samuel Greene at KCL that "voters' perceptions have become untethered from reality," we still need to understand how untethered perceptions work.

Post-truth is not fake news. It is neither true nor false. It is a principle for people who would like to keep all their options open and stay flexible when it comes to understanding reality. That grey area has tremendous utilitarian value, especially if it draws from deeply embedded cultural memory. In terms of that utility, it doesn't matter whether information is true, false, or blended. If established authorities decry threatening information as fake, so much the better. They stake their current power on a weakening principle, that is, old, limited forms of knowledge. Those who grasp post-truth's dynamics and mechanics have the advantage. That post-truth practical advantage drives the Antarctic conspiracy theory.

Still from Heimat (Season 1 Episode 1, Fernweh - 1919-28 (The Call of Faraway Places); first aired 16 September 1984). Image Source: Cartoon Simkl.

It may appear that conspiracy theories are idiotic nonsense, online entertainment for lunatics and basement dwellers. However, I am reminded of the Heimat German television series. That series dramatically covered the history of Germany from 1919 to 2000.

When I watched Heimat's first episodes on PBS in the mid-1980s, I was struck by how Nazis were depicted when they first appeared in rural Germany in the 1920s. They were shown as ridiculous, marginal figures, brown-shirted spotty teenagers, goose-stepping in the background of town squares. They were ignored by decent folk, who were talking in civilized tones in the foreground. In other words, no one who was 'normal' took these adolescent Nazis seriously.

That dramatic interpretation can be questioned; the history of youth movements in the 1920s confirms that Nazism was much more popular than that and its ideas grew from old precedents in Europe. But certainly, within ten years, Nazism, with all its outdoorsy nature worship and ludicrous magical politics became very serious business indeed. That is why the Antarctic conspiracy theory may seem a silly waste of time - arrested development fodder for adolescent Internet gnomes - but it would be wise to pay attention to it.

Technologically-induced social transformations are opening up power vacuums. Nimble opportunists on all sides recognize that everything is shifting, and potential power bases of the future - not yet extant - are up for grabs. Conspiratorial narratives are one way to surf the post-truth waves to future prominence and control. Today's Internet gnome is tomorrow's politician.

RT TIME ""Why the Nazis loved America" https://t.co/lAE9n0VdXL"

— Elivan Souza (@PrivateTeacher) March 22, 2017

Memories of the racist past in the USA, especially the South, may feed American fears of neo-Nazis and of Trump as a new Hitler. That is, Nazis-in-America may not be as real as the American cultural memory of racism in the United States, a separate historical phenomenon from National Socialism in Germany.

In this post and a subsequent post, I describe how one thread of post-truth, which I call the Antarctic Fourth Reich, covers everything. It works on its own mythical terms, and defies fakeness or realness. In later posts on this topic, I will consider the Fourth Reich's cultural meaning and actual utilitarian effect in terms of real history and real politics.

Antarctic Time Capsule

Never before seen: from Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Image Source: Antarctic Heritage Trust New Zealand via Petapixel.

Happy New Year! The blog starts 2014 with a hundred-year-old time capsule. On 10 December 2013, the Antarctic Heritage Trust published photographs from negatives discovered in Captain Scott's expedition base at Cape Evans (images of Scott's hut are here). The found photos were taken on Ernest Shackleton's famous and ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917:

The Trust’s conservation specialists discovered the clumped together cellulose nitrate negatives in a small box as part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project which has seen more than 10,000 objects conserved at Scott’s Cape Evans hut. The negatives were removed from Antarctica by the Trust earlier this year [2013]. Detailed conservation treatment back in New Zealand separating the negatives has revealed twenty-two images. The photographs are from Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, which spent time living in Scott’s hut after being stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea.

One of the most striking images is of Ross Sea Party member Alexander Stevens, Shackleton’s Chief Scientist, standing on-board the Aurora.

Although many of the images are damaged, the Antarctic Heritage Trust was able to recognise landmarks around McMurdo Sound, although the identity of the photographer remains unknown.

Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition marked the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Two ships served on this expedition, the Endurance and the Aurora; they had separate missions.

While the Aurora sailed to the other side of the continent, Endurance became trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea; it broke apart and sank. Shackleton and five of his crew sailed a life boat to South Georgia, climbing a mountain once he landed ("the first-ever confirmed land crossing of the South Georgia interior"). Shackleton found help and saved his whole crew. T. S. Eliot immortalized this incredible story in his 1922 poem, The Waste Land (see my earlier post here).

As the press release mentioned, the found photos below the jump are from the Aurora's leg of the expedition. The whole collection is here.

Millennial Extremes 7: 24 Hours to See a World Hidden for Millions of Years

Image Source: BBC.

Antarctica is home to over 400 subglacial lakes that are sealed off time capsules, miles beneath the ice.  These bodies of water retain their liquidity due to heat from the Earth's core and have not seen the light of day from anywhere between 125,000 years and several million years.  Three teams of American, British and Russian scientists are racing to drill at different points on the Continent to see what life forms survive in these freshwater lakes.  The Americans are preparing to drill at Lake Whillans in Operation WISSARD,  a project running from 2009 to 2015.  The Russians have been drilling for a few years and are metres away from reaching Lake Vostok - a 15 million year old time capsule; for Russian photos of their operation - go here.  At Lake Vostok, summer temperatures average minus 30 degrees Celcius and winter temperatures are around minus 80 degrees Celcius.

Underneath this ice sheet, Lake Ellsworth is considered more accessible than most subglacial lakes.

BBC just reported about a British team that is getting closer to starting their operation at Lake Ellsworth. Drilling will begin in November of this year. The conditions are terrible: in high summer, it is minus 20 degrees Celcius with extremely fast winds (30 knots).  The probes have to be completely sterile so that these hidden environments are not contaminated. Once the hole is open, two miles through the ice, the team will only have 24 hours to conduct experiments before the hole freezes up again.  Sounds like practice for space exploration, and indeed, the "Europa Jupiter System Mission team will be watching closely. They plan to send a lander to drill into the moon Europa’s ice-enclosed oceans to look for life."


See all my posts related to Antarctica.

Scott's Antarctic Expedition Auction Today

Exploration and Travel including the Polar Sale. Christie's Catalogue, September 22, 2010.

Dinosaurs and Robots recently reported that Christie's auction house in London is holding an auction today of images and paraphenalia from Robert Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica, 1910-1913.  The photographs and objects originate from several estates, including the estate of one of Scott's surviving men, Canadian Charles Seymour [Silas] Wright, who was on the 1912 rescue team that discovered the bodies of Scott, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers in their tent.  Wright later returned to Antarctica in 1960 and 1965, when he was in his seventies.  The auction catalogue is here; the Polar Sale starts on page 36; Wright's section begins on page 56.  There's a picture of the whole crew on page 77.  Feel like bidding? Go here.

Hail the Winter Solstice: Deus Sol Invictus

Winter Solstice: Dawn at Stonehenge. Image Source: Stellarium.

Today, at 5:30 a.m. UTC or Greenwich Mean Time, the Winter Solstice occurs.  Thank Heavens. It's been getting pretty dark out there. In Antarctica, it is Midsummer and the Sun is shining nearly continuously. See the three videos in the bottom of my post here, which explain the Winter Solstice and the origins of Christmas in earlier Sun god worship.

The Solstice is the core of many religions and mythologies in the Northern Hemisphere.  In fact, since the dawn of human civilization in the Stone Age, the Winter Solstice and the days that follow it have been celebrated to hail the victory of the Sun, or the powers of light, life and good - in short, basic survival! - over the powers of dark, death and evil.

Hallowe'en Countdown 23: The Third Man Factor

Shackleton (second from left) and his men. Image Source: Daily Mail.

Spectres are not just found in haunted houses and ghost ships, or in abandoned temples and unquiet towns.  The most fascinating stories are of apparitions arising in completely desperate circumstances, when the spirits are benevolent.  The most famous story of this type concerns an Antarctic exploration expedition gone terribly wrong.  It is a documented vision, observed by rational human beings pushed to the very brink of death.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

There is a peculiar line in The Waste Land (1922), which T. S. Eliot drew from the incredible story about how Sir Ernest Shakleton saved his men on an ill-fated 1915 expedition to Antarctica. Shakleton's ship, the Endurance, got trapped in the ice, broke up, and sank. The survivors were trapped on ice floes for some months. They finally reached Elephant Island; from there a small, half-starved scouting party had to sail in a lifeboat (through a hurricane) to South Georgia. They then had to climb a mountain for 36 hours to get to the side of the island where there was a whaling station at Stromness. It's one of the most incredible stories of exploration and survival the world has ever seen. As they climbed to safety, pushed past all reason, Shackleton could have sworn another man joined their party, and followed them until they reached help. They could see this shadowy figure out of the corners of their eyes.  You can read more about Shackleton's amazing leadership and experience, here and here.

This phenomenon is now called the 'Third Man factor.'  In 2009, John G. Geiger expanded his 2008 article 'The Sensed Presence as a Coping Resource in Extreme Environments' into a book on this topic.  It has also been equated by some with a 'guardian angel.'  See the surprising number of cases below the jump.

Hallowe'en Countdown 2018: The Illuminati and the New Vampire Ouroboros

The Papal Audience Hall, Rome, Italy. Partly situated in Vatican City, the Paul VI Hall was designed by architect Pier Luigi Nervi and completed in 1971. The mouth of the serpent features an alien-looking sculpture of Jesus resurrecting from nuclear-bomb-created slag. Conspiracy theorists believe that the hall proves that the Vatican is secretly presiding over a neo-Babylonian Satanic sect of serpent-worshipers. Image Source: wykop.

Today's Hallowe'en countdown continues Monday's post on the ouroboros, the symbol of immortality behind the vampire story. The ouroboros myth reveals why populists and New Agers pair the reptile with the vampire in conspiracy theories about lizard aliens and blood-drinking élites.

David Icke is the main popularizer of the lizard alien hypothesis. David Icke: Conspiracy of the Lizard Illuminati (Part 2/2) (24 August 2012). Video Source: Youtube.

British ex-footballer David Icke is at the forefront of describing this new version of the ouroboros vampire, starting in his 1999 book, The Biggest Secret. Despite denials, he has laced his account of reptilian humanoid élites with anti-Semitism. He repackages anti-Semitism as anti-evil-space-alien, anti-Kabbalist, anti-Zionist, anti-Khazarian, anti-Babylonian Brotherhood, anti-moon-Death-Star, and anti-Saturn-worship. He claims that he opposes 'false Jews,' Freemasons, and Illuminists.

Icke was ridiculed throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. He only gained a following after the rise of social media and the concurrent 2008 recession, which was blamed on banking institutions and saw a corresponding explosion of anti-Semitism.

At the same time, graphics editing software became broadly available which was capable of subtly altering images and videos to create 'evidence' of lizard people. As a result, Icke now travels the world, talking for up to eleven hours at a stretch to packed audience halls. It is a new form of entertainment, and thousands of vloggers, bloggers, New Agers, and conspiracists have followed suit. They have expanded Icke's hypothesis to produce an enormous Millennial cosmology. Vox called it "the greatest political conspiracy [theory] ever created."

But the point is that it is not original. I think Icke derived his lizard people hypothesis from the ancient Egyptian mystery of the ouroboros, in which serpents were believed to be bound to the souls of kings and queens.

Look Skyward: Partial Eclipse of the Sun

Image Source: Aurum Astrology.

Space.com: "A partial solar eclipse will be visible [today] in southern South Africa, Antarctica, Tasmania, and most of New Zealand."

Happy Lunar New Year!

Image Source: Metro.

Just as an Aquarian partial solar eclipse covers Antarctica, those who follow lunar calendars are celebrating the New Year. Happy New Year! In Chinese astrology, this is the Year of the Earth Dog.

直播回看：2018中央电视台春节联欢晚会 | 2018 CCTV Spring Festival Gala (15 February 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

CGTN: Pray for the New Year at the Lama Temple大年初一雍和宫上香 (15 February 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

Midsummer's Lust for Life

Image Source: Fides via Gnawing Bones.

Today marks the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, at 5:04 a.m. UT, the longest day of the year. In the planet's northernmost cities, the sun sets around 10 p.m. locally today (in Helsinki, sunset occurs at 10:50 p.m.), while in the southernmost cities, sunset is around 4 p.m. (Ushuaia's sunset occurs at 5:12 p.m. today) and Antarctica is shrouded in darkness.

Midsummer celebrations once culminated with the Christian feast day on June 24 (six months before Christmas) of the Nativity of John the Baptist. Before that, the solstice featured pre-Christian and pagan bonfire celebrations, which still occur and stretch back to Neolithic times.

Traditionally in northern climes, Midsummer is a season of dreams, illusions and enchantment, the pleasant side of delusion. Astrologer Rob Brezsny recently made a comment that suits the spirit of Shakespeare's famous comedy from the 1590s. Appearances are deceiving when it comes to love and magic. But part of the charm of this time of year is believing in those illusions, however briefly:

"I was often in love with something or someone," wrote Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. "I would fall in love with a monkey made of rags. With a plywood squirrel. With a botanical atlas. With an oriole. With a ferret. With the forest one sees to the right when riding in a cart. With human beings whose names still move me." Your task ... is to [s]ee how often you can feel adoration for unexpected characters and creatures. Be infatuated with curious objects . . . with snarky Internet memes . . . with fleeting phenomena like storms and swirling flocks of birds and candy spilled on the floor. Your mission is to supercharge your lust for life.

William Shakespeare's play involves love, discord and magic around the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta; the plot is described here.

Anniversaries: The Last Voyage of the Space Shuttle Discovery

Video Source: William Shatner via Youtube.

It seems like yesterday, but on 9 March 2011, five years ago today, the first of three American space shuttles retired. Above, hear William Shatner's wake-up call to the crew of Discovery on 7 March 2011, while they were still in orbit, but soon to come home for the final time.

In 1990, the Discovery crew installed and later maintained the Hubble Space Telescope, which hugely expanded our view of the stars. Image Source: flickr.

Built in 1979, the spacecraft was named after four great ships from the European age of exploration: she took her name from HMS Discovery, commanded by Captain James Cook during his final voyage from 1776 to 1779; Henry Hudson's Discovery, used in 1610–1611 to explore Hudson's Bay and search for the Northwest Passage; the HMS Discovery of the 1875–1876 British Arctic Expedition to the North Pole; and RRS Discovery, which led the 1901–1904 "Discovery Expedition" to Antarctica.

Image Source: The Atlantic.

Time Lapses: Earth from the International Space Station

Image Source: NASA via Flickr.

See below the jump for a fantastic time lapse video of the Earth at night as seen from the International Space Station. (Hat tip: Lee Hamilton's blog.)

Awaken the Amnesiacs 8: You are Now Inside the Computer

Image Source: The Hedge Mason.

The Urban Dictionary defines Youtube comments as:

"The only place where a polite discussion about kittens can lead to a flame war about government conspiracies."

Conspiracists vary in style. On Youtube, there is a spectrum. David Seaman's vitriol approaches incendiary levels, his this-is-not-a-threat promises are so chilling that they help me understand the history of mass psychology better, especially that of the 1930s.

This post is not exactly about Seaman, nor the accusations he levels in a brooding monotone at the bankers, politicians, deep-staters, evil cabal, establishment figures, and finally - the tech leaders who censor him (like Youtube CEO, Susan Wojcicki, whom he calls "Catshit Face"). This post is about Seaman's and others' rhetorical style in relation to conspiratorial subject matter, and what it means for all of us.

Sheeple in the Year of the Sheep: Illusion and Illumination

Mainly in Asian countries and communities, 2015-2016 is the year of the Sheep, according to the Lunar calendar. Image Source: CNN.

How do we see Sheeple in the Year of the Sheep? Does the Lunar New Year's conciliatory message resolve the trend toward Millennial alienation, conflict and aggression? Can the values of Asia's Year of the Sheep or Goat, such as pacifism, collective action and creativity, ease the tensions caused by western gnosticism? In yesterday's post, I outlined how gnostic beliefs provide the background "social pathology of the political religions." Gnosticism built the central myth of our time: the four-fold Enlightenment illusion of rationalism, of higher knowledge through conflict, of control of the nature, and of human power over the earth. In today's post, I consider the Lunar New Year's symbols as a solution to this problematic myth, despite the fact that 'sheeple' are ridiculed by today's gnostically-minded.

Image Source: Pyramids and Sheeple.

Image Source: Veritas Virtual Vengeance.

Image Source: Seeking Alpha.

Image Source: Democratic Underground.

Image Source: Red Pill.

Image Source: XKCD.

"Making XKCD slightly worse." Image Source: Simon Software.

Fallen Stars: Magic, Mysticism and Mayhem

Image Source: Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute/NASA Ames) via Live Science.

Caption for the above photograph: "On Oct. 6, 2008, Richard Kowalski, at the Catalina Sky Survey, spotted a new asteroid, dubbed 2008 TC3, on a collision course with Earth. For the first time, astronomers around the world tracked the asteroid's approach for the day before it hit Earth. The asteroid exploded upon entering Earth's atmosphere, and as predicted, it fell in the Nubian Desert of Northern Sudan, where 35 pounds (15.9 kilograms) of meteorites were eventually found. Much of its mass is believed to have been vaporized or to have disintegrated when it hit Earth's atmosphere. It was renamed Almahata Sitta, Arabic for "station six," a railroad stop on the line to Khartoum near where the meteorites were found, according to the auction catalog description."

Well before the Space Age, meteorites brought a little piece of heaven - or hell - down to our world. On May 30, we narrowly avoided an extinction event. A 1.7 mile wide binary asteroid, 1998 QE2, which is so large that it has its own moon (see here and here), just passed earth by a whisker: "White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a press briefing about the asteroid: 'scientists have concluded the asteroid 'poses no threat to planet Earth'. He then laughed and said: 'Never really thought I'd be standing up here saying that, but I guess I am.'" 1998 QE2 is considered to be about the same size as the space rock that landed on earth and likely wiped out the dinosaurs.

Meteorites were not officially linked with their celestial origins until 1803. But people have invested these objects with mystical and divine qualities for millennia, evidently because they knew them to have fallen from the skies. Even today, space rocks have that tangible yet unearthly quality that fascinates. In late 2012, the Heritage Auction house attracted attention when they put up 125 space rocks and meteorites for sale, "offering ... rocks from Mars and the moon, silver meteorite slices studded with peridot gems, a slice of the meteorite that killed a cow in Venezuela, the rear tail-light bulb and title to a car punctured by a meteorite, meteorite jewelry." Immediately below, see some of the items which were auctioned (all Heritage Auctions images and cited text are from this page).

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "Meteorites are pieces of asteroids, the moon and Mars that travel to Earth after being ejected from these heavenly bodies. Exotic origins aside, meteorites can be beautiful, mimicking abstract sculpture for example, and many bring interesting stories when they collide with Earth. On Oct. 14, 2012, more than 125 meteorite specimens and related material go up for auction. Here's a look at few of them. Above, the naturally formed holes on this iron Gibeon meteorite found in Namibia give it an animal-like appearance."

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "This meteorite, found in China's Gobi Desert, is a pallasite, a class of stony-iron meteorites that contain the mineral olivine. Gem quality olivine, as appears in this meteorite, is called peridot, the August birthstone."

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "In 1492, this stone fell from the sky outside the walled city of Ensisheim, located in the Alsatian region France. The stone's descent was seen as a sign from God; the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites would not be accepted for another 300 years. The Ensisheim meteorite was brought into the city and chained up in church to keep it Earth-bound."

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "The majority of meteorites break off from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter; rarer specimens come from the moon or Mars. This one, found in the Sahara Desert, is a lunar meteorite."

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "In 1803, the L'Aigle meteorite landed in Normandy, France, convincing French scientists that rocks did indeed fall from the sky, and so ushering in widespread acceptance of the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites. This L'Aigle specimen bears an antique parchment label."

Caption for the above Heritage Auctions photograph: "This partial slice comes from the Valera meteorite, which killed a cow when it landed in Venezuela in 1972. The cow was subsequently slaughtered and eaten, and the meteorite was used as a doorstop. This is the only meteorite known to have been responsible for a fatality."

Below the jump, see some of the world's most famous and mystical meteorites, objects which unite human celestial fascination of the ancient world with that of the future. The most interesting is perhaps a mysterious meteorite carved into a Buddhist figure in the Middle Ages, which the Nazis stole from Tibet during World War II.

Jeffrey Epstein: You'll Find a God in Every Golden Cloister

Notice that in this cross-dressing portrait, Bill Clinton has six fingers on his right hand (close up). Parsing Bill by Australian-American artist, Petrina Ryan-Kleid. The painting sits in Epstein's Manhattan mansion. Image Source: Daily Mail.

Coverage of Jeffrey Epstein's demise reminds me of the disappearance of Flight MH370 (see my posts here and here). This is a moment, as I put it, when everyday reality "goes off script" and we begin to perceive a gross drama, a terrible, epic story that serves as a backdrop to, and drives, our little lives.

Which of these stories contains the real truth? One is the mundane truth of small individuals. Voltaire celebrated this reality at the end of Candide (1759). You could venture out into the tempestuous world and encounter imperial intrigues, the fall of princes, natural disasters. But at the end, you would be lucky to sit at your front door, grow flowers and eat strawberries, candied citron and pistachios:

"You are perfectly right, said Pangloss; for when man was put into the garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum [to serve him], so that he should work it; this proves that man was not born to take his ease. —Let’s work without speculating, said Martin; it’s the only way of rendering life bearable. The whole little group entered into this laudable scheme; each one began to exercise his talents. The little plot yielded fine crops . . . and Pangloss sometimes used to say to Candide: —All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; for, after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunégonde, if you hadn’t been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn’t traveled across America on foot, if you hadn’t given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn’t lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn’t be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios. —That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden."

Night (7 August 2019). Video Source: Youtube. See other videos of Epstein's islands by Rusty Shackleford, here. See Epstein's fake ambulance, revealed in drone footage, here; possibly related to trafficking.

The other truth is one of murderous and hungry golden gods. It is an inconvenient truth about the world's politicians, celebrities, academics, scientists, and philanthropists, best described in the lyrics from One Night in Bangkok, sung in 1984 by Murray Head, written by Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus:

Time flies doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change don't you know that when you
Play at this level there's no ordinary venue

It's Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings or
Or this place!

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me ...

Tea, girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite ...

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or reclining Buddha
And thank God I'm only watching the game controlling it

I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you

So you better go back to your bars, your temples
Your massage parlours

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Basically: Hoffenberg was Epstein's mentor and business partner, and the two of them joined forces in the mid-1980s. But then in 1993 everything fell apart when it turned out Hoffenberg's company was actually just a half-billion dollar Ponzi scheme.

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

I'm still looking for the attorney supposedly murdered in 1997, but I found a different attorney who was murdered in 1985 and Les Wexner was linked to his death somehow, and also to the mob. https://t.co/NR8M3YXnjH pic.twitter.com/P2bLhFlaQg

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to securities fraud and spent 20 years in prison, while Epstein pleaded guilty to... conspiring to steal Treasury checks from residential mailboxes and got 5 years probation. pic.twitter.com/mLticXckDq

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

Oh shit y'all, I almost gave up, but I finally found it! I now know who Hoffenberg thinks Epstein killed: Wexler's attorney, who tried to blackmail Epstein and Wexler in 1997 for child sex trafficking.

No, I have no idea if said attorney actually existed, or if he was murdered. pic.twitter.com/BsnYrx1lpj

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

As part of his sentence, Hoffenberg was ordered to pay $475M in restitution. While there was little hope of him paying back that amount from prison, Hoffenberg seems convinced that Epstein still has that money somewhere -- and he's still trying to collect it from Epstein today. pic.twitter.com/r6ZpZYfg13

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

But the whole Hoffenberg arc does cast a light on @thedailybeast's story from yesterday, on what Acosta told the Trump transition team when he was being vetted. Acosta claimed he'd agreed to the lenient NPA because he'd gotten orders to do so – Epstein was some kind of informant. pic.twitter.com/lwPIUjKB2j

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) July 10, 2019

Arthur Shapiro homicide investigation (1985-1990). Image Source: 4chan. Click to enlarge.

Epstein was set up as a billionaire. He got much of his money managing the fortune of Leslie Wexner (owner of Victoria's Secret, among other companies and foundations, also a noted philanthropist), who is connected to the 1985 murder of attorney Arthur Shapiro. Online bloggers and reporters now suspect Epstein's involvement in the 1997 murder of Wexner's attorney. Epstein was rumoured to be an intelligence agent, whether for the CIA, MI6 or Mossad (see here, here and here). He lured state leaders and societies' leading lights into compromising positions with trafficked underaged sex workers. He then blackmailed his associates. He also cleared their financial debts.

Image Source: 4chan.

Jeffrey Epstein - Palm Beach House Raid Police Video (10-20-2005) (14 August 2019). Video Source: Youtube.

The Epstein case reveals how whole societies can be manipulated through the exploitation of their leaders' shadow sides. These are the burdens of power: sadistic sex, drug addictions, cult fetishes, secret obsessions. We know that there is still decency left, because these people fear exposure, and have blind spots, although they probably believe that decency is for the suckers on Main Street. Everything depends on deceit. The whole MSM is tasked with convincing the public that their top stratum is sane.

Epstein May Be Just One Part of an Intricate Network of Sex and Power (15 August 2019). Video Source: Youtube. For journalist Whitney Webb's research on this network, go here; her Epstein series: part 1, part 2, part 3.

QTR #139 - Whitney Webb Goes Deep: Blowing Open The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal (15 August 2019). Video Source: Youtube.

In 1985, Les Wexner's attorney was murdered in broad daylight before he supposed to testify about tax evasion and offsh banking. A suppressed police report implicated him in his death.

Soon after, Epstein began fixing Wexner's "tangled finances." Coincidence? https://t.co/CqFlsk1OW0

— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) August 16, 2019

Watch my latest interview w Consortium News for the latest on my Epstein research and a sneak peek at Part 4 of my series on the case. https://t.co/5jccEyCxiy

— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) August 16, 2019

any researchers knowledgeable about money laundering, currency manipulation and institutions like deutsche bank and financial institutions that are intel front companies, please get in touch w me. i think i may know why epstein was arrested in july out of nowhere after all.

— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) August 16, 2019

Slowing people are realizing Epstein flew for Khashoggi in Iran/Contra.
Oct 23rd, 2018 Epstein Flew Mujahadeen For Khashoggi's Barrick Gold, Deripaska Is Drug Runner Nowhttps://t.co/57d0sWYS9D

— TruthLeaks (@GeorgWebb) August 16, 2019

This week, Epstein's friend, associate and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in Los Angeles while reading a book about CIA agents, implying that Epstein was part of the system that supposedly protects us. In other words, we are the sheep who need herding and we - not they - are unknowing hypocrites when we draw a line between our leaders and ourselves.

Image Source: 4chan.

Maxwell seemed to be saying: Jeffrey was Everyman. He was Everyone. He was 'one of us.' This is a fallacy which helps murderers sleep at night. Contrary to what our leaders think, they are not indispensable, nor is the order they have created. Their corruption, hidden by compromised individuals, ruined institutions, proxies, shell companies, and a theatre of philanthropic (or terraforming) virtue, are not necessary conditions for our collective survival.

Not fiction, not fake news: Keyser Soze is real, and 'committed suicide' last week. Keyser Soze (The Story) (24 July 2007). From The Usual Suspects (1995) © Gramercy Films/Spelling Films. Directed by Bryan Singer, who has been accused several times of underage sexual assault in Hollywood. Reproduced non-commercially under Fair Use for educational purposes. Video Source: Youtube.

This is a world of pleasure, exploitation, corruption, private islands, tax evasion and silenced victims. Obsessed with protecting their positive reputations, these Pinhead Hellraisers have a strange sense of regret and sadness. They lament over their debts and the constant need to maintain fake public personas. You can hear it in songs like Adele's Skyfall.

Image Source: 4chan. This New York Post story inspired this trans-person-versus-Epstein legal case in 2008.

Their twisted dream is dying, although they feel like they are on the verge of victory. Their narcissistic lies have begun to dissolve. Their rotten materialism is failing them; fewer and fewer people want to buy into their illusions. Karma and Justice are coming for them. They are living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

How Jeffrey Epstein became the richest pedophile in the world | CDAN Ep. 284 (9 July 2019). Video Source: Youtube.