Probably the greatest disadvantage to seeking truth about the UFO phenomena is the blatant inability to separate real facts from the many hoaxes and outright lies that have been spread over the years. UFO research and sightings have been under a blanket of ridicule since the 1950's with government approved skepticism and scoffing since the Condon Report. Finding reputable witnesses or researchers has been difficult. One of the worst cases of the lengths our military will go to discredit UFO research is evident in the Paul Bennewitz affair.

Having developed an interest in UFO investigations in the 1980's, Mr. Bennewitz' investigations into UFO sightings and intercepted radio communications from Kirkland Air Force Base inadvertently led him into notice by the military. Living near the AFB he began setting up equipment to photograph strange aerial phenomena and overhear communications. After having filmed strange activity there and over the also nearby Manzano Nuclear Weapons Storage Facility and Coyote Canyon Test Area he contacted the Air Force directly to report his findings.

Investigating his claims was Sergeant Richard Doty and the scientist, Jerry Miller. Analysis did show some unexplained phenomena over the AFB but rather than be concerned, a complex system of disinformation was built up to begin feeding to Bennewitz. Aided by fellow ufologist William Moore, who claims he had little choice but to go along with the plan as highly placed intelligence agents invoked "national security" on him, the Air Force told Bennewitz they were not interested while allowing Sgt. Doty to begin "releasing" secret information. Along with other military officers, Doty and Moore began to convince him of an elaborate conspiracy made up of spurious disinformation.

Sprinkling a few small, provable truths among an increasingly bizarre fabrication of lies, Paul Bennewitz shared his "information" with other ufologists. Among the tales fed to him by military and intelligence agency sources that had convinced him of their "reliability" were the tales of two races, the malevolent "greys" and a more human-friendly group. The greys were in control. They were responsible for cattle mutilations, human abductions, and the implanting of tracking and controlling devices. They had made and then broken a deal with the government and provided defective advanced technology, which ultimately crashed or proved useless. The greys had secret bases on Earth. Under this onslaught of frightening information, Bennewitz' health, both physical and mental, deteriorated to the point of hospitalization.

In 1989, William Moore told his story of the deceptions to the audience at the Las Vegas MUFON Convention. There was a tremendous uproar as many of these stories coming from Bennewitz had already circulated around the UFO community and become hard-core beliefs. Everyone was left with questions and doubts. What could be believed? Was it all a lie? Could the expose itself be the lie? In an instant, a vast stockpile of what had seemed like a clear picture of the workings of the UFO phenomena and its implications had fallen back into chaos.

There are a few clear implications to the vast lengths the military and intelligence community will go to cloud the facts about UFO's and the potential of extra-terrestrials. It is possible that they are fully aware at high levels of aliens and possibly what their intentions toward our planet may be and that they do not wish to share that knowledge. There is an equally frightening possibility that instead of aliens, it is the beginning of a plot for world domination by a One World Government to pretend to be aliens that are invading and taking over.

"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world" President Ronald Reagan - Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, 42nd General Assembly, September 21, 1987.

Is Reagan's popular "fantasy theory" actually a veiled indication of its possible reality or just a first, softening hint that someone, either extra-terrestrial or all too human may make use of this idea to stage a world coup? With the full might of multiple government agencies working to confuse the issue of UFO's and aliens with well-placed lies and fabrications we may never know the real truth until it is too late - if even then.

It seems to be a very fundamental part of human nature to look for something greater than themselves to hold in awe and veneration. This "godspell" is what has led to humanity creating gods and religions since the beginning of human existence. Even discounting the Sumerian legends of the Annunaki there has arisen in the past half century or so, a number of "religions" using the possibility of UFO's and extra-terrestrial entities as divine or spiritual beings bent on "saving" humanity from itself.

Many of these religions have their basis in what their devotees claim are telepathic communications between them and the "star beings" from other worlds and dimensions. While the details, and the entities involved, vary from one religion to the other, there does seem to be a common thread of hope. Most messages seem to be warnings to humanity to alter their behavior towards one more in keeping with harmony and peace while turning away from the greed and callousness that so easily foments hatred and war. Some of these religions include the belief that these "aliens" will ultimately return to us and fix the problems we "unenlightened" humans have created.

Blending elements of Christian mythos with Sumerian legends, the Raëlian Church is purportedly the largest of these UFO religions. Founded in 1974, they believe humans were scientifically engineered by a race they call the "Elohim" and that many of history's greatest spiritual leaders such as Jesus, Moses, and Buddha, were actually Elohim sent here to help instruct humans in proper behavior. That Raëlism encompasses a very open and accepting idea about human sexuality between consenting adults and this is a major drawing card for recruiting new members among younger people. While women are a minority in the Raëlian Church, the "Order of Angels" was started in 1990 and is dedicated "for femininity and refinement for all of humanity." They sponsor exhibits featuring their beliefs including the alien source of crop circles as well a cloning.

The Aetherius Society barely post-dates the American Roswell incident. Founded by George King in London, England in 1955, the Aetherius Society beliefs are similar to the "Ascended Master Teachings." Their primary divergence from these occult traditions is in their insistence on the dangers of atomic science. They feel that humanity is too immature to be working with "the fundamental energy of creation." They too believe such spiritual leaders as Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna were "Cosmic Masters" from another world sent to Earth to help humanity. While believing in a monotheistic god, they also feel that there is intelligent life on many planets throughout space and that they are universally friendly to our young species.

Another of the most notorious UFO religions is Heaven's Gate. Along with the belief that the planet Earth is due to be "recycled," they believe the only way to survive is to leave it for the "Next Level." Begun in the early 1970's by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, the group went through several changes in the early years. Finally, in a combination of ancient astronaut and New Age beliefs the group came to profess the human body as merely a vehicle for the ascending spirit.

They believed "to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, humans would have to shed every attachment to the planet. This meant that all members had to give up all human-like characteristics such as their family, friends, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions," according to the sociologist, Robert Balch who wrote frequently about Heaven's Gate. On March 26, 1997, thirty-nine members of Heaven's Gate committed suicide in the belief it was the only way their souls could be transferred to a spaceship they believed was hiding behind the passing Hale-Bopp comet.

Humans seem to always be able to find "god" in whatever is around them. That the technologically advanced cultures of our day have developed UFO religions to help them cope with the mystery that these enigmatic sightings bring about is normal. Faith and belief are strong and powerful motivators within humans so it is not strange that a possible "advanced" race of beings could be construed at some level as "gods." We are still waiting for the aliens to weigh in on what they feel about these religions based upon their possible existence.

Who among us that owns a cat or a dog hasn’t been witness to one of them seemingly being able to just know when something is going to happen like an owner coming home or a child returning home from school?

What about the story of the woman whose dog kept pawing at her breast and then cancer was found in that very spot?

Are these and more profound incidents an indication that our pets have a psychic connection with us?

I, myself have born witness to one of my cats seemingly knowing I am getting ready to go on a trip, and him totally being pissed at me to the point of ignoring me or even laying on top of all my clothes, etc so I can’t pack. Is it possible he knew I was leaving because he read it in my thoughts?

There are many animal psychics who swear they can talk to animals using telepathy, a form of mind talk using both words and pictures to communicate via thoughts instead of speaking out loud. I for one believe in this to some extent, as I know my pets seem to be able to read my mind, I am just not that good at reading theirs.

Animal psychic experts name three categories of evidence that shows pets do have varying degrees of psychic abilities: telepathy, sense of direction, and premonitions. My cat being mad at me due my making mental preparations for an upcoming trip would fall under the telepathy category.

So would other incidents in which the pet knew exactly when someone was coming home, even if they varied their routine, This was shown in a very dramatic sense in a story about a loyal dog and his soldier master, who was on a deployment.

The dog always brought his toys to the door in preparation for when his master came home from work. Since the man had been on deployment, the dog had not done this in several months. The day he was to come home from the deployment, the dog went and brought his toys, laid them by the door and waited until his master came home for the joyful reunion.

Premonitions would be in cases where the animals seemingly knowing when things are going to happen, like an earthquake. I can relate to because I had a Springer Spaniel named Sadie when I lived in Anchorage, Alaska who would pace every time there was about to be an earthquake. She was never wrong.

Other examples are dogs that can predict seizures or other medical attacks or smell out cancer.

Sense of direction is when lost pets manage to find their way home after traveling long distances over areas they have never been before. This is also a form of what is called psi trailing, where the pet is able to find his or her way home due to latching onto the owners thoughts from afar and reading their way to the new location.

Another area in which people have said proves animals are psychic is when they appear to be able to see things that humans can’t, like ghosts or other spirits. A show on Animal Planet, “The Haunted,” is dedicated to his eerie phenomenon and shows owners and their pets in situations in which the pet seems to be affected in different ways by the unearthly goings on in the owner’s home or business.

Whatever the case, I for one am a believer because I have seen too much evidence in some of the things my pets have done over the years that could only be a result of some sort of psychic ability.

So, be careful what you think when you are around Fido or Fluffy because you never know what they may do with that information.

This is your brain. This is your brain’s contents downloaded into another body and you living forever.

Science fiction? For now, perhaps, but research is ongoing on how to defeat death by finding out a way to do this very thing.

US based researcher Terrence Aym is working on a method that would allow humans to have their brain waves uploaded into a computer, then downloaded into another body, either flesh or android. We’d be somewhat like Data on Star Trek, except have all of our own emotions, memories, etc.

This is real research, with the focus on inventing a way to store our brain’s contents onto some sort of silicon computer chip that could be used in another body, essentially making us immortal.

Just think about it, no more death. When the body wears out we just take out the chip and insert it into some other body somehow. Volia! Instant new life, even if it would be in a different body.

Aym’s taskforce is called The Digital Immortality Institute (DII). Already they have come up with three things that they believe are needed to get to this point where humans could live forever through digital immortality.

Those three things are: guaranteed Internet access; insurance that your avatar body’s identity is reliable, and to be able somehow to ensure your own personality, memories and everything that makes you who you are can be uploaded into some kind of digital version right before the person dies.

Then, all we would have to do is wake up in our new avatar body with all that makes us ourselves and live on again. The new body could be flesh or it could possibly be cybernetic.

Aym claims that through his research, humans won’t have to ever face real death again by 2050. That’s because that is when its predicted super computers with enough memory will exist that are capable of holding the contents of a human mind.

To live again, abet in possibly an android body, or even in a flesh and blood body? Perhaps somehow clones of our own body could be grown in a lab to fast maturity and our brain’s content somehow downloaded into it?

More likely though, it would be a robotic or android body that would house our new brain and the contents from our old one. As Spock would have said, “Facinating.”

Even now, we have started along the path to creating a robotic body in some small ways. For instance, we have already created artificial limbs that can be controlled by the nerves in our own bodies, it’s just they are so expensive that they aren’t common as yet.

There is even a prototype of a sort that helps people see through implants that are a baby version of what Geordie on Star Trek has. And what is a hearing aid or a colloquial ear implant if not an artificial ear that could perhaps someday be developed into an ear for an android avatar?

Baby steps, yes, but we all took baby steps in our past and it lead to who and what we are today.

All in all the whole idea of transferring the essence of our brains into any other body is a bit frightening, but who among us really wants to die?

To have the chance to be immortal is a very tempting adventure that I for one will be watching to see what develops.

On the evening of December 29, 1980, Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum, along with Landrum's 7-year old grandson Colby, had the misfortune of encountering a large diamond-shaped, flame spitting UFO along a rural Texas roadway. The mysterious craft was being either surrounded or escorted by a fleet of 23 military helicopters. The heat radiating from the strange craft was enough to soften the vinyl interior of the Betty Cash's car. Frightened and disturbed, they had hoped as they sped home, that their encounter was over and all would be well. They were very wrong.

Within hours all three of them began to feel sick. Betty Cash suffered the worst as she had stood outside her car to view the craft while Vickie had returned to the vehicle with her frightened grandson. Along with nausea, headaches, diarrhea, skin blisters, and irritated, inflamed eyes, Cash also began to lose hair. Within a few days, on January 3, 1981 Betty Cash was admitted to the hospital, nearly unconscious and unable to walk. She never fully recovered. Her health became so bad she had to close the business she ran in Dayton, Texas.

Ten years later, in September of 1991, her physician, Doctor Brian McClelland, went on record in an interview with the Houston Post that his patient was experiencing a "textbook case" of radiation poisoning. He likened Cash's condition to that which would have been experienced by anyone standing "three to five miles from the epicenter of Hiroshima." Ultimately the three victims developed skin cancer from their exposure to whatever was emanating from the UFO.

There had been a few other witnesses, including a Dayton Police Officer, Detective Lamar Walker, who had seen a large number of helicopters in the area that night. One oilfield worker, Jerry McDonald, claimed to have seen the diamond-shaped UFO when it flew over his home. Since there had been such a fleet of recognizable military helicopters surrounding the UFO, Cash and Landrum sued the U.S. Government for medical expenses incurred due to the encounter. After years of court battle, they were denied any recompense or understanding about what they had seen and experienced. On August 21, 1986 the case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court judge on the grounds that, "the plaintiffs had not proved that the helicopters were associated with the U.S. Government, and that military officials had testified that the United States Armed Forces did not have a large, diamond shaped aircraft in their possession."

Major Tony Geishauser, the press officer at nearby Ft. Hood, denied any of their helicopters being in the area that night. "I don't know any other place around here that would have that number of helicopters," he said. "I don't know what it could be... unless there's a super secret thing going on and I wouldn't necessarily know about it."

A subpoena for the maintenance records of Ft. Hood's helicopters was stonewalled with the comment that such records were "routinely destroyed after six months " even though it is standard military procedure for all vehicles, from Jeeps to aircraft carriers, to keep all maintenance records for the life of the equipment. Also, the road surface along that part of Farm to Market Road had been severely damaged. It was, however, repaired within days, yet neither the State nor County Road Departments were notified of the repairs, performed the work or were charged for the resurfacing.

There are no answers available about this case, only questions. Was the UFO in fact a failed experimental military craft? Was it extra-terrestrial in nature with military complicity supplying protective "cover" during a spot of "engine trouble." There are enough anomalies surrounding the case to point to "something" going on but "plausible deniability" left three people sick and broken and UFO investigators and the population at large in the dark as to what was truly behind the terrestrial involvement with this strange and dangerous UFO.

With a government and military mindset that seems too often to treasure "secrets" over the rights of the people they supposedly serve, it is hard sometimes to know just what is going on in relation to some UFO sightings. One such event occurred in the Piney Woods area of Texas not far from the town of Huffman on December 29th, 1980.

It was about 9:00 p.m. when Betty Cash and her friend, Vickie Landrum, were driving back towards their homes in Dayton, Texas along the Farm to Market Road 1485. Accompanying the women was also Vickie Landrum's seven-year-old grandson, Colby Landrum. Along this isolated stretch of road the women saw lights in the distance. At first they figured it was an airplane heading towards the Houston International Airport about thirty-five miles distant. However minutes later they found out differently.

Coming around one of the curves in the winding road they came upon a frightening sight. It was, as they described it, a mysterious craft moving slowly along the road just above tree level. They described the object as about the size of a water tower, diamond shaped with the top and bottom truncated. They said there were blue lights ringing the center of the craft and that it was of a dull, metallic color. It was spewing out reddish orange flames from the bottom and producing an extreme amount of heat. Betty stopped her car to keep from running underneath the craft but the heat from its down-shooting flames quickly heated the interior to a very uncomfortable level. They exited the vehicle to get a better look at the object.

They said the object was emitting a steady roar from the flames and a beeping sound. Colby became frightened of the sight and his grandmother took him back into the vehicle despite the heat. Betty continued to watch the object from outside, mesmerized by the sight. It was then that a greater mystery began. She saw a fleet of what appeared to be military helicopters, some of them the well-known Chinook CH-47 helicopters (large twin-rotored transport craft) and other smaller, faster craft thought to be Bell-Huey's. She counted twenty-three of them as they attempted to fly around the diamond shaped UFO. As the flames grew stronger, the craft slowly moved off away from the road, surrounded by the large group of helicopters in escort. The encounter lasted a total of about twenty minutes.

Now we pause to investigate some of the irregularities in this case so far. The diamond shaped craft the women described does not match any of the classic UFO types. UFO's are also generally described as not showing any particular conventional type of propulsion systems. They usually manage to outclass anything known in both speed and maneuverability. As the two women stated, the craft would rise as the flames increased and lose altitude when they diminished.

It is a well-documented fact that militaries worldwide generally tend to send their fastest aircraft to intercept and investigate UFO's. A fleet of heavy workhorse Chinooks is an extremely unlikely choice for intercept duty but very good at being able to haul away the pieces of a crashed experimental craft if things go terribly wrong.

With the disappearance of the flotilla of aircraft, Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum resumed their journey home. As they sped away, they still caught occasional glimpses of the aircraft in the distance. They sincerely prayed their close encounter with the unknown was over. Regrettably their troubles regarding the event were just beginning.

NEXT: The Betty Cash Encounter - The Tragedy and the Coverup

Beautiful and nearly silent, its black velvety wings flutter softly as the large black butterfly hovers above the sleeping man’s head. His wife suddenly notices it and panics and tries to kill it, knocking it down with her handkerchief, but the body of the insect is never found. The next day, her husband is found dead.

Strange coincidence or was it a visit by a messenger of death?

Legend has it in several countries, including Brazil and Colombia, that a black butterfly is a sign of death or impending doom. The Celts believed that if they saw a butterfly flying at night that death was coming for someone, and the Samoans believed that if you caught a butterfly you would be struck dead.

It isn’t always a black one either, as in Maryland some people believe if a white butterfly gets into your house someone is going to die. And in Brunswick, if the first butterfly of the season is white, then someone is about to die.

Yet, a white butterfly can also mean something good as well as two of the 33 Chilean miners related some time after the incident that trapped them and 31 of their fellow miners underground 68 days.

They were driving a truck through one of the levels and heading down into the mines, when they stopped because there was suddenly a little white butterfly fluttering in the air in front of them. How had it gotten 100 meters down into the tunnel they wondered?

Suddenly slabs of rock started falling and they were covered in dirt and debris. When the dust cleared they were able to keep going and reach the relative safety of Level 100 where 31 of their fellow miners were already huddled. One of the miners said he believed the little white butterfly was a good omen because his grandfather told him that if you happened upon a white animal in the dark, it was good luck. He went on to say he believes it was a little white angel leading them out of danger because had they not slowed down to watch it, they would have driven headfirst into the falling rain of rocks and been crushed.

But sometimes the butterfly, while somewhat freaky, is merely an innocent, yet ghostly, visitor, as in the following cases.

A ghost butterfly is said to haunt the Theatre Royale in Bath during the pantomime season. Supposedly it has been showing up every year at Christmastime since a 1948 Christmas performance in which the actors were dressed as butterflies. Perhaps the poor thing is looking for those players for some unknown reason.

Yet another butterfly ghost frequently appears around Bournemouth’s Pavilion Theatre. The red admiral butterfly has been documented as late as 2008 when supposedly someone stepped on it and it still survived and flew away.

Butterflies are supposed to stand for transformation, so perhaps even the black butterfly said to predict a person’s death is just meant to represent the transformation from life into death since death is considered by some to be a transforming of the spirit.

So, the next time a butterfly appears around you perhaps you should be extra careful until you find out what your butterfly stands for – life, luck, or an omen of death.

Winged humans or human-like beings have appeared in the folklore of just about every culture in the world. Some of these fantastic beings are portrayed as evil, while some are seen as either good or neutral.

These include entities like the demon Ala who was said to look like a black, human-like being with a huge mouth. Or Fujin, the Japanese God of the Wind, who supposedly looks like a dark, red-headed humanoid wearing a leopard skin. If you add angels, other demons, fairies, and many similar creatures to the list, you can see the idea of a humanlike creature with wings is extremely common.

Even in modern times, these sightings happen fairly frequently. Between 2000 and 2005, there were multiple sightings in Mexico with both photos and videos to document these strange close encounters.

In March 2000 Salvador Guerrero, one of Mexico’s revered UFO watchers, had a bizarre encounter while watching the sky from his roof in Colonia Agricola Oriental. He saw a dark object in the sky and when he began to videotape it he realized it was a human-like being spinning slowly with its arms out straight and Similar sightings occurred in July and October in Mexico with reports of little flying men in the skies seen near the Mexico City airport.

The same year there were also sightings in Poland near the northern city of Koniewo when two friends riding bicycles at night saw flying figures above them. They described the creatures as being grey, about two meters tall and having very long hair.

Once again, in Mexico in 2004, two witnesses saw a large black figure with wings and wearing a cloak flying in the sky and the next year, more sightings came in Mexico of dark, flying figures in June 2005.

The U.S. has had its share over the years as well. For instance, in 1922, the Air Force lists an incident involving a strange, dark, eight foot tall winged humanoid seen by a man in Nebraska as it landed and started to walk across a snow covered field. The witness tried to follow the footprints, but didn’t locate the mysterious flying man.

In 1966, the Air Force archives list two encounters in Point Pleasant, West Va. In the first, a couple was driving home and saw two winged beings about six and half feet tall with big red eyes that seemed to hypnotize. They were terrified and floored the gas in the car, going nearly 100 mph but the winged creatures were able to keep up with the car.

In the other incident in the same month, a resident was driving and saw a tall human like creature in a field spread its wings and fly into the air. The creature followed his car, which was traveling at 75 mph.

Encounters like this go on and on and on all over the world. While some believe at least a portion of them could be mass hallucinations or military experiments, there are those who insist they are real.

Once again that begs the question, what are they and where do they come from?
What about plastic surgery or genetic engineering? Could it be that at least a small portion of these amazing sightings are experiments to allow humans to actually fly?

Being able to fly would definitely have its advantages, especially in this day and age when travel by air is getting more expensive with petty little charges for nearly everything from your suitcase to your seat choices.

Two plastic surgeons have speculated on the practicality and the possibility of creating wings for humans. The wings wouldn’t likely be able to propel the person through the air, but they would be actual skin and bone structures that could be controlled just like any other limb.

In 2002, plastic surgeon, Dr. Joe Rosen explained how he could create wings through manipulative plastic surgery and graft them on just like a regular limb. Rosen is no quake; he is a well-known and revered plastic surgeon who has also been working on ways to graft robotic limbs onto amputees and recreate facial appendages like noses and ears on bomb victims.

In 2008, Dr. Samuel Poore, a reconstructive surgeon at the University of Wisconsin in Madison listed the steps needed to create wings on the human body through special surgical procedures and plastic surgery. Poore calculated that a person weighing 170 pounds would have to have a wingspan of at least 20 feet in order to fly.

No word on how far either of these doctors got in their quest to put wings on a human being, but this shows it is at least possible, even if not probable someone could really fly.

So, is a winged human fact, fantasy or plastic surgery? Whatever you believe, here’s to happy thoughts of being able to fly to your next vacation spot without having to pay those sky high airport fees.

There is a party game where one person whispers a short story to another guest who then passes it on to the next. The last person to be told the story then relates it aloud and it is compared with what the first person originally said. Through retelling, it is impossible for the narrative to remain unchanged. In a similar fashion, attempts at understanding just who or what the biblical Nephilim were is impossible. One of the few things that remain a common thread is that they were half-breeds, the children of humans and "something else."

Our most ancient written documents come from the Sumerian culture. It is from this area the roots of modern Judeo/Christian religions also spring. According to Genesis, Chapter 6, verse 4: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." The maternity of the Nephilim is clear; they are half human. The paternity of these "men of renown" is not so well established. That the word "nephilim" has also been translated as "giant" or "titan" in some texts only further confuses the issue. One can add to that the word used, "Elohim," which is not the word for God but a plural form meaning "gods."

Many theologians claim that the "Sons of God" were angels, sent here originally to watch over the human creation. There is the problem, however, that "angels" are also considered to be sexless beings, neither male or female, which makes it dubious that they would be procreating with anyone. It is known from their name, the Grigori, that they were assigned as "watchers" and that they originally came down to Earth from out of the "heavens" or the "sky." Interestingly, the Sumerians named their live-in "gods," Annunaki, which also means "those to came down from the "heavens" or the "sky."

It was not the original aliens who colonized an as yet uninhabited planet who were interested in mating with the human creatures once they came into being. That practice was originated by a later generation of these beings that were actually born here on Earth. According to the Sumerian cuneiform tablets, the Annunaki mixed the genetics (seed) of an indigenous Earth creature (most likely homo erectus or neanderthalis) and themselves to design a somewhat intelligent worker class of beings to do the heavy toil for them. This was done because the Annunaki mine workers rebelled against Enlil, the Lord of Earth and Sky, and refused to do their assigned tasks. Sound like a familiar theme from another, more spiritually oriented, story?

That the Annunaki were reportedly able to procreate with the human population and produce viable offspring shows a very close genetic similarity between the two races. Is it possible they made us too similar, primarily tweaking the genes that gave them such longevity so that the humans would have only brief lives by comparison? It seems that the short life span was a dominant trait as these children of such matings did not have the near immortality of their alien lineage. The hero/king Gilgamesh spent a vast part of his life seeking a way to be granted the boon of a long life like his Annunaki mother, Ninsun, the great-granddaughter of Enlil himself.

That there have been giants on this Earth is not only a biblical reference. There have been many gigantic skeletons dug up over the years, even though the Smithsonian Institute, where they were so often sent to for safekeeping, seems to keep losing them. The ancient Hebrew texts and the newer Judeo/Christian books all speak of a pre-Adamic race upon the Earth. The Sumerian texts state that the Annunaki came down from their home planet of Nibiru hundreds of thousands of years ago. Since they genetically engineered homo sapiens sapiens long after they took up residence here indicates they were that pre-Adamic race. It explains somewhat, the old Hebraic stories that Adam had a "wife," Lilith, before Eve was created from his "rib."

Despite their semi-divine or semi-alien origins, depending on the way you want to interpret the tales, the life of the Nephilim was not generally any less uncomfortable than that of anyone of mixed ancestry. Never fully accepted by either their human contemporaries or their divine/alien kinsmen, theirs seemed to be a life of struggle to make a place for themselves. There is the biblical tale that Moses ran the last group out of Canaan. It is suggested that Goliath was a wandering remnant of this tragic group of half-breeds. Even within the retold and ever-changing tales, the semi-divine Hercules did not have an easy life or death.

The stories have gone around the campfire far too long to pin a definitive origin on the Nephilim. Whether they were the offspring of angels or aliens, theirs is an indelible part of our culture and literature, if not still a part of our ancestral lineage.

Did you ever get a creepy tingling feeling on the back of your neck and feel like someone or something was behind you? Or maybe you thought you saw something just in your peripheral vision, only to have it fade away?

If so, you may just have had a close encounter with a shadow creature. Shadows are an everyday occurrence, so most of them are just that, a shadow of a person, animal or object. However, there are times when an unexplained shadow appears that just can’t be fully explained.

These unexplained shadows may only appear for an instant, or in some cases, for a long period of time. Either way, it’s hard to know if it’s just a trick of the light or if it really is some mysterious, dark being. Just what are shadow creatures?

Accounts of encounters with shadow beings are thought to have happened many times over the years, but there really isn’t much in hard, black and white literature to explain them. Some people believe they are demonic in nature, while others are convinced they are inter-dimensional beings of some sort.

One such account is that of the Hat Man. Hat Man is said to appear wearing a large brimmed hat, and have red glowing eyes or even no face at all. Those that have allegedly seen Hat Man say they have a very negative feeling when he appears. Some believe Hat Man to be merely a “watcher,” who observes humanity, while others insist he is the Devil himself.

These shadow beings don’t always restrict themselves to just watching, as some people report being attacked by them, usually while asleep.
These supposed victims have reported being strangled, moved off their beds, or smothered. Granted, since it appears to happen either in sleep or on the verge of sleep, who knows if it was merely a bad dream?

Disbelievers say these occurrences are merely a form of sleep paralysis, which can cause someone to think they are being hurt as their brain wakes up from being in a REM state before the body catches up with it. This is a real phenomenon that causes the person to briefly be unable to move or taIk.

They conclude that things you see in your peripheral vision can also be explained away by a condition called pareidolia, where the brain somehow thinks that seemingly random light or shadow is a face or humanoid form. Many people have had this happen to them when they first walk into a dark room and mistakenly think a table or chair is a person.

Just what is the truth? There are legends in other cultures describing creatures that could possibly be either shadow beings, or related to them. These include the Djinn, a sort of powerful demon like creature mentioned in the Islamic religion and an evil spirit called the Raven Mocker mentioned in American Indian legends who steals the soul of a dying person.

So, the next time you feel a Spidey senses tingling sensation on the back of your neck, look around to see if that shadow in the corner is just your old comfy Lazyboy chair or a wispy visitor from parts unknown.