Freemasonry and secret histories – Ancient Prehistory

According to the official records of the Grand Lodge of England the first Grand Lodge was established in London on 24^th June 1717 at a dinner organised by four existing lodges of freemasons. The earliest masonic text has been dated to 1390 in the form of a poem known as the “Regius Manuscript” giving details of geometry and guidance as to the operation of a lodge and the role of the master. Although the exact origins of the movement that we know today as freemasonry are shrouded in mystery there are some known points of reference. It is clear that written references to the association of masons into fraternal brotherhoods was occurring on an ad hoc basis for many years before the structure of an overarching organisation was established. It is also clear from looking at the style, format and operation of masonic lodges that many of the ceremonies and offices refer back to antiquity, but what there has never been is a clearly defined link between freemasonry as it is practised today and the origins of masonry as a material construction practise.

Looking at this from the other direction we see a clear distinction between the construction techniques of early civilisations of the Indus Valley in India and the Mesopotamian area of Bablyon, Ur and Kush where buildings, both domestic and monumental were constructed of baked mud bricks and ceramic tiles, and the slightly later civilisation of Ancient Egypt where for the first time we see monumental structures created from carved stone blocks. It may seen odd that Egypt was a region that began building in stone given that, as with the Mesopotamian and Indus Valley regions, the area of occupation was largely based around fertile river flood plains, and many domestic Egyptian buildings retained the mud brick construction, as did many of the mastaba tombs and early temple structures. There have been any number of suggestions about where the inspiration to carve stone into blocks and use them to build monumental structures but the most likely source seems to be the introduction of technology from an earlier era in the late neolithic, a time when several European populations were developing the use of large blocks of worked stone to create megalithic stone circles. It is interesting to note the similarity between the construction and stone working techniques used in the construction of Stonehenge for example, and the techniques used to erect lintel stones in Egyptian Temple structure doorways.

Taking these two threads from opposite directions, the question arises, could there be a ancient European tradition of stone working, as a precursor to masonry into which the modern freemasonry movement taps? If this were the case it raises several interesting thoughts, thoughts which have parallels in accusations levelled at freemasons throughout their official history. For many years freemasons have been suspected of holding esoteric knowledge, and of practising pagan religions, these accusations rising to suggestions of Satanism and Witchcraft, and if there were a link to prehistoric stone workers then we are looking at an organisation with roots in pre-Christian Europe, a Europe described by the Christian Romans as barbaric, heathen, Pagan and known from Greek and Roman historians to practise blood sacrifices to horned deities. It certainly seems to be at least a possibility that the insistence of masonic lodges that they are not Christian organisations, venerating the “Great Architect” rather than the Christian God, and the use of ritualised ceremonies that have been used, in a modified form by Occultists for the last three hundred years at least may owe something to a retained and secret history of the religious practices of pre-Christian Europe, combined with the secret religions of Ancient Egypt with its beliefs in immanent Gods in a polytheistic pantheon.

It is unlikely that evidence for such a link would be known, even the majority of todays freemasons, given the necessity for secrecy over the last two millennia of the rise of Christianity and the Catholic Church, but it does lead to some interesting possible explanations for some of the more unusual aspects of freemasonry today.

The Templar conspiracy – An introduction

There is a theory that history repeats itself in cycles, and a consequence of this is that it is often valuable to consider historical events as a means to understanding modern situations. To this end it is perhaps worth considering one of the greatest mysteries of mediaeval Europe, the rise and fall of the Order of the poor fellow-knights of Christ and of the Temple of Jerusalem, or as they are more often referred to, The Knights Templar. Founded in the 12^th Century and endorsed by the Catholic church the order was created specifically to provide protection for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Lands from the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Founded by Hugues de Payens and provided with quarters by King Baldwin of Jerusalem, the Knights began from a base within the ruins of the Temple of Solomon and were a group of nine Knights devoted to the Christian Church and to the defence of Christian enclave in Jerusalem. Founded on the principles of poverty and chastity in the monastic tradition, the first members of the order were well connected through St Bernard of Clairvaux, the nephew of one of the founding Knights and it was through this connection that the order received its Papal blessing.

The order quickly became a popular charity amongst Christians and received grants of money and land from wealthy pilgrims. In addition, the order quickly developed a reputation for valour in battle, primarily based around their refusal to countenance surrender in combat. This reputation led many new Knights to request entrance to the order, and in the process of joining they gave their lands and wealth to the order. The rapid expansion and development created an opportunity for the growth of a network of forts, castles and fortified churches throughout the Holy Land and across much of Europe, particularly in France, Germany and Great Britain. Through the network they were also able to create an entirely new financial system based around protecting travellers from robbery. Before departing on a journey, a wealthy traveller could deposit funds with a local Templar outpost and receive a promissory note that could be redeemed from another outpost on arrival at the destination, thereby minimising the amount of money that travellers had to carry. The Templars would retain a small percentage of the transaction and over time built up vast estates and huge wealth.

By the 14^th Century the order was in a position to be one of the largest financiers of the mediaeval period and provided funding for, amongst others King Phillip IV of France, and it is this vast wealth and power that raises questions regarding the order and its demise. Even at the time there were stories of the Templars conducting excavations as part of their occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and rumours that they had discovered incredible religious relics and documents including the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. It was thought that these discoveries along with documents pertaining to the life of Christ had given the Templars incredible power within the Church and that this was in part responsible for their demise. In 1307, on Friday 13^th October in a simultaneous operation across France Templar strongholds were raided by the French Army under the orders of Phillip IV supported by a Papal edict from Pope Clement accusing the order of Heresy and Idolatry. The Knights of the order were arrested including their leader Jacques de Molay, and under extreme torture confessed to crimes including spitting on the cross, denying Christs divinity and worshipping a severed head or Baphomet. The leaders of the order were executed by burning alive and the lands and wealth of order were claimed by the French King, with a suitable donation to the Church.

The story of the Templar Knights and the mystery surrounding their discoveries in the Holy Land, their rise to power and the brutality and severity of their demise raise many questions that researchers and historians have been arguing over for the last six hundred years and over the coming weeks we will be examining some of the best theories and discussing the key evidence of the Templars, their history and their legacy which is still being felt today.

The conspiracy of the medicated generation

According to the official figures one in four of the UK population will suffer from some form of mental health problem and many will be prescribed one of the many pharmacological drug treatments to alleviate symptoms and control the underlying conditions. The trouble is that these figures don't give the real picture, for two reasons. Firstly the figures are for the UK population as a whole, rather than split out into age groups, and secondly the figures fail to demonstrate change over time, and these are serious omissions. When you drill down further into the figures and explore the age aspect and the rate of change the story is strangely similar. In the under 40 age group the rate of mental health issues rises to an almost unbelievable one in two for women and one in three for men, the sex discrepancy being almost certainly due to mens reticence to discuss mental health concerns with medical professionals. Having established this rather higher figure it will come as no surprise that the number of people at any one time with a mental health disorder is rising sharply.

Now, there are several valid reasons for this including the increased awareness of mental illness, the campaigns to remove some of the stigma of a diagnosis of mental illness and a better understanding amongst medical professionals of the symptoms and indicators of mental health issues. However, even taking all of these reasons into account there is still a discrepancy between the figures and the number of people being diagnosed and therefore medicated, so the question is, why is this the case? The background to this lies with the pharmaceutical industry. For many years there has been a schism between drug manufacturers and doctors in that doctors, through their training and the Hippocratic oath are bound to attempt to heal their patients ills, whilst the drug companies are bound by their owners and shareholders to maximise profit. This dichotomy represents most strongly in the understanding that people who are well tend not to require the products made by the drug company so doctors making people well adversely affects drug company profits.

There is no clearer area of this than in the field of mental health. Through control and manipulation of the medical establishment the drug companies have been able to drive legislation and therefore prescription criteria. The way that this works is by funding universities and research institutes, alongside infiltrating the upper echelons of government legislature thereby creating a situation in which doctors are actively encouraged by drug companies and advised by institutions funded by drug companies to prescribe drugs for mental health conditions that would be better treated with counselling or therapy, drugs that alleviate symptoms in preference to ones which will effectively treat the condition, and drugs that serve little or no purpose as a treatment for the condition in question. Of course, there is another, more sinister aspect to this story. The medications that are used to treat many of these conditions have a range of side effects including decreased motivation, decreased libido, decreased intellectual and critical faculties and reduced ability to function effectively. Now, who could possibly benefit from side effects such as these? Who stands to gain from large sections of what have been the most politically active sections of society being reduced in their capacity to protest? Answers on a postcard please....

The Vampire conspiracy – Why Vampires have become so popular

The last ten years has seen an incredible resurgence in the popularity of Vampire stories. Not since the late 19^th Century and the publication of Bram Stokers Dracula in 1897 have they been such a feature of life. The question is why? The answer lies in one of the fundamental features of the Vampire in myth and legend, and drives to the heart of one of the biggest conspiracies of the modern age. At its core the Vampire is a metaphor for lasciviousness, the easy elegance, the smouldering eyes, the laissez faire attitude to common decency and morals and of course the bite, the anticipation of the touch of lips on the delicate flesh of an exposed neck, the sharp, intoxicating pain of the first bite, the delirious sensation of lifes fluid being drained to the point of death and rebirth are deeply erotic. This is key to their popularity as there has been a hidden agenda activated through the media in the form of music, film and literature to create a diversion in public attention from the reality of modern life by instilling an increasing interest in sexuality that would have been highly questionable in earlier times.

So, where is this drive coming from, and why is it happening. There has long been a suspicion amongst alternative thinkers that the global elite have an aim of creating a single unified global community effectively enslaving the masses to the benefit of the elite. In order to achieve this enslavement there is a need to create a mindset amongst the vast bulk of the population that allows for willing acceptance of that slavery. One of the clearest links from a sexual perspective is the popularisation of the BDSM lifestyle. Within that lifestyle there is a subset that engages in dominance and submission and that is the start point from which the elite seek to manage peoples minds, but a fondness for kink is not enough on its own. Alongside this there is a need to implant the suggestion that the possibility exists of a willing but involuntary submission to a master so powerful that dissension is impossible. What better way of implanting that message than by utilising perhaps the ultimate defiler of virtue, the beast, the master, the dominant force that is the Vampire.

Taking a start point from the mesmeric presence of Stokers eponymous Count and his ability to corrupt absolutely the innocents around him, the elite have been behind the funding and development of the Vampire legend through the early Hollywood films of the golden age of cinema with Nosferatu, to the Hammer Horror films of the 1950's and '60's the heyday of Christopher Lees near perfect portrayal, to the modern interpretations of the Twilight Saga. There can be little doubt that these films demonstrate a progression in the level of seduction, the level of control exerted by the Vampire, nor that the elite, through established links with the major media outlets have a means to effect this conspiracy. What is interesting is that we are now seeing a change in pace in the Vampire epic with increasing brutal in Thirty Days of Night and the Russian Nightwatch, Daywatch, Twilightwatch trilogy. What this suggests is that the process of implantation of the submissive aspect of the plan is nearing completion and the next stage has begun. That next stage is to be the acceptance of the brutal, controlling police state that will be part of the New World Order, and the utter submission to the whims of the Elite, where each persons life or death lies in the hands of another as surely as the victim trapped in Draculas hypnotising glare.

Freemasonry and secret histories – an introduction

There are some strange gaps in our knowledge of ancient history, particularly around the construction of some of the Worlds most iconic structures. Across the globe there are monumental buildings created from immense blocks of stone, often moved great distances by our ancestors using the most basic tools. Now it is true that in some cases we have written evidence from primary sources about the way in which these structures were created, but it is interesting to note that there are often conflicting reports or sections of description missing. As an example we have texts from ancient Egypt describing the quarrying of the stone blocks used for pyramids and temples, we have examples of the tools used and we know how blocks were moved within the quarry, but on the subject of how the blocks were moved to site, and how they were integrated into the structure and perhaps most importantly, how and why the structures were positioned as they were. Given the importance the Egyptian society placed on record keeping this seems rather odd. Then there are the stories of the construction of the both the Tower of Babel and the Gardens of Babylon. Again the Mesopotamian peoples were renowned for keep meticulous notes, and there are hundreds of thousands of clay tablets detailing every aspect of daily life, yet on the subject of these epic building projects which must have taken many years and many thousands of workers the tablets refer to myth and legend.

The same is true of the reports of the construction of the Temple of Solomon with stories of the great and wise King employing demons controlled by a magical ring. So we have missing evidence where we should have complete reports, but more than that we have some strange situations when it comes to reports of the designers and architects of antiquity. The best example is from Egypt again, where we see the same name cropping up over and over again across vast periods of time. This suggests that either our sense of chronology is badly wrong, or that the name Imhotep is a title of office rather than an individuals name, or that there is something more unusual going on. There have been many suggestions that the possibility of intervention by a more advanced race, possible extra terrestrial in origin exists. Certainly there is at least circumstantial evidence of the use of technology that we believe was not available during these periods, as seen in the metalwork reported to be found within the sloping shafts of the Great Pyramid at Giza and in the accuracy of the positioning of key monuments and the preparation of the initial groundworks.

So, how is this linked to freemasonry, a movement that officially has a history that only goes back to the 17^th Century in Europe? The secret is in the symbolism. Talking to senior Freemasons reveals that there is a belief that the use of Egyptian and Sumerian symbols within was created by the founders of the movement, and that the use of Solomonic scenes during initiation refers to the concept of King Solomon as the personification of the Great Architect, yet the story of Hiram Abif is rather more complex and suggests a narrative lineage directly linked through the rise of the Roman and later the Ottoman Empire and discovered by the Crusader Knights during the 11^th and 12^th Centuries and brought back to Europe. Certainly the principles and goals of Freemasonry and the insistence on secrecy with the movement hint at something more than a simple fraternal society, and the links between Freemasonry, politics and the Catholic church make you wonder exactly what secrets came back from the Holy Land, and what exactly it was that led to so many intriguing deaths and mysterious charges against certain religious orders. From the Friday 13^th plot to destroy the Knights Templar to the ritual murder of Italian banker Roberto Calvi there are many examples of a hidden history lying beneath the benign surface of this most elusive and closeted movement.

The real reason milk prices are so low

The recent wave of strikes and blockades by British dairy farmers has highlighted the growing trend for the market for agricultural produce to be controlled by the major supermarkets. The buying power of these vast enterprises and the collaborative way that they operate, in contravention of monopoly regulations and ethical business practices highlights an underlying governmental position with regard to UK agriculture in general and the position of the UK in Europe in particular. The background to this can be seen in the current vassilation of the UK prime minister David Cameron over a referendum on Britains membership of the European Union. It is well known that many people in the UK feel that we would be better off withdrawing from the European Union and standing alone. This does not suit the purpose of our political elite since the banking sector and its supporting infrastructure service companies are making vast amounts of money from work with the newer European states, as well as the markets of Eastern Europe. It is abundantly clear that the last thing David Cameron wants is a withdrawal from Europe, so by allowing supermarkets to force down the price of agricultural products it forces farmers to rely on subsidies provided by the European Union.

What this essentially means is that without Europe our agricultural sector would collapse leaving is at the mercy of global food markets. This comes on top of the drive to shift as many farmers as possible to producing none food crops, such as oil seed and animal fodder crops, as well as taking productive land out of cultivation. There can be little doubt that behind all this we are seeing the clearest evidence of the hand of the real ruling elite. What other reason can there be for the President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) to support the development of “Superfarms” essentially a return to the vast scale factory farms of the 1970's where production of meat and dairy products is refined and controlled in artificial environments. The way in which the agricultural sector has been manipulated over the last thirty years is an example of the drive to control the most basic aspects of our daily life, particularly our food and drink production. By controlling what we eat it is far easier for the elite to control how we act, how we think, our health, everything. Look at the way in which the nutrient contents of our basic food stuffs has changed over that period. We now have a situation in the UK where it is perfectly possible to eat a balanced healthy diet with plenty of vegetables and fruit, and still to be obese and nutritionally deficient.

Milk now has less calcium and more sugar than it did thirty years ago, vegetables have more sugar and less vitamins and minerals, meat products have less minerals and nutrients and more sugar, and that is before you get to the chemical additives. Add to this the quiet introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and you have a perfect storm developing where farmers are being forced by the need to reduce costs and qualify for subsidies to produce only those foodstuffs that contribute to the weakening and subjugating of society as a whole. Why else do you think that there is a constant crusade against small farmers, and specialist producers? Small farmers tend to farm in more traditional ways, often organically with far less reliance on artificial inputs and often using heritage crops and animal breeds. These are anathema to the ruling elite as they allow ordinary people an opportunity to eat good healthy food, and that's no good, now is it? Far better if we all eat McDonalds and drink Starbucks coffee, right?

Our farmers are being forced out of business at a faster rate than at any other point in history, and their farmers are being bought up and merged into super farms owned and operated by investment bankers. Now you know at least part of the reason why.

Colorado shooting is a classic false/false flag operation

Within hours of the first news reports of the tragic shooting incident in Aurora, Colorado the first claims that it bore the hallmarks of a planned FBI/CIA operation began to surface. The message boards of the internet are alive with claims and counter claims centred around some of the most apparently trivial features of this event. Questions are being raised about the level of sophistication of the weaponry used, the design and construction of the booby traps at the perpetrators apartment, the use of tactical body armour, the response time of the Aurora police, the shift in the news story about a possible accomplice, every detail is being raked over and analysed, and it is in this that we find the real conspiracy here. Lets start with a few of the facts. James Holmes, the man arrested in the car park of the movie theatre in Aurora is an unemployed medical researcher with no criminal record other than a speeding ticket. He enjoyed computer games and particularly online role playing games. It appears that he arrived at the midnight showing of the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, parked his car in the parking lot of the theatre and prepared for his assault.

He was dressed in military issue ballistic protection clothing including gas mask bullet proof vest, leg and throat protection and military issue boots. He entered the theatre by the emergency exit, reportedly announcing “I am the Joker” before throwing a gas cannister into the auditorium and opening fire on the crowd. He was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, two 0.40 Glock pistols and a semi-automatic pump action shotgun with multiple spare clips of ammunition. Immediately after the shooting he left the theatre and waited for the police next to his car. He surrendered to police without struggle and made no effort to resist. The police arrived at the scene within three minutes of the start of the incident, the police station being very close to the theatre. The suspect volunteered to the police the information that his apartment was rigged with booby traps, and gave them detailed information about them. Reporters on the scene were told that there may have been an accomplice but this story changed to a lone gunman story after a team from the local FBI office arrived.

So, on the surface we have a standard lone gunman rampage of the type that has been seen many times over the last thirty or so years in the US, yet there are a few potential questions to be answered. There are questions over the ability of a relatively poor medical researcher being able to purchase the equipment that he used. Estimates suggest that he would have spend in the order of $10,000 to $20,000 to amass the equipment, but this is not unachievable on credit if we believe that he intended not to survive the incident. There are also questions about the availability of the body armour that he used with suggestions that it was military issue and not available to the general public, but a quick study of the recent comic-con will demonstrate any number of cosplay fans dressed in many varieties of body armour from a range of comics and video games, so again this is not unusual. There are questions about the speed of the police response, but it should be noted that the local police office is two streets over from the theatre and that the journey between the two locations at midnight is a matter of moments. With regard to the change of story from a potential accomplice to a lone gunman this is a fairly standard response to media interest in an ongoing situation of this nature. The standard police procedure is to presume the possibility of multiple protagonists until such time as evidence to the contrary emerges.

So, why do I suggest that this is a false/false flag operation? The principle of a false flag operation is that an official body such as the CIA carries out an operation under the guise of some other group, as is the prevalent theory about the 9/11 plane hijackings. A false/false flag operation would be one in which in the aftermath of an event such as the theatre shooting, enough unanswered questions are left to suggest that it might in fact be a false flag operation. The purpose of this is to give the impression, through the online conspiracy community that the FBI/CIA intelligence axis is an all powerful controlling force thereby increasing fear and anxiety and allowing yet more anti-freedom controls.

This latest incident is almost certainly an example of a tragic individual with an undiagnosed delusional dissociative disorder, probably triggered by exposure to fantasy role playing games over prolonged periods and exaggerated by self imposed sleep deprivation whilst playing online games, combined with the easy availability of legal firearms and ammunition and the prevalence of tactical and weapon information online. It will be interesting to see how the story develops, and the ways in which it is used by the various interested parties to spread fear, and in which direction that fear is directed. What is interesting is that unlike previous spree killings of this type in the US the perpetrator has been caught rather than committing suicide or being gunned down in a shootout with police. This mirrors the Norwegian Breivik case and allows for at least the possibility of an understanding of the motives and triggers of spree killers.

Never forget that you are as likely to read government propaganda on a conspiracy website as you are to see it on Fox news. Trust no-one, question everything, the truth is an elusive beast.

The secret history of George Bush

The position of President of the United States of America is one of the most high profile, and highly scrutinised role in the World. Think back to the media hype surrounding the Barack Obama election campaign and the investigation into his family history, his birth, his background. Every aspect of his birth and life was scrutinised from supposed links to Islam, to possible birth outside the US. There is no doubt that the personal life of any Presidential candidate will be subjected to this sort of scrutiny, but there is one interesting difference which is the reason for considering Obama and comparing his treatment by the press with, just for arguments sake, his predecessor George W. Bush, and perhaps more importantly his father George H. W. Bush. The Bush family are considered an establishment upper class American success story with a strong history in finance, the oil industry and the armaments industry. In the run up to the election of George the elder there was certainly media interest in the role of his predecessor Preston Bush and his work as a financier to Nazi German in the run up to and during the Second World War, but what was less closely scrutinised was the suggestion that George H. W. Bush may not be a Bush at all.

There is evidence that the truth is one of the strangest stories in politics, and reads like a classic spy novel, but bear with it. As the second World War developed and the allies began to establish greater strength and senior figures within the Nazi party began to question the strategic decisions of Adolf Hitler and the progress of the War plans were put in place to ensure that key military, scientific and financial figures could ensure their safety. This is a tactic that has a long established history. Often the figures behind the power throughout mediaeval Europe would back both sides in a conflict to ensure their personal success and it was in this tradition that the German power brokers operated. Many had already established links with the United States in the inter war years and one of the most established was the scientist Nicola Tesla who had worked for Thomas Edisons company and had established himself with several leading US financially powerful families, eventually moving to America and taking dual Serbian and American nationality. Tesla is key to this story since he employed as his assistant and accountant one George H Schreff, a German national who emigrated to the States with Tesla, bringing his son George H. Schreff jnr.

Tesla repeatedly raised concerns over his assistants young son and the way he would examine Teslas experiments and notebooks, and it appears likely that the Schreffs had been attached to Tesla at the request of senior figures in Nazi Germany to monitor Teslas work and report back. Where this all gets far more interesting is that there is no clear evidence of accurate death certificates of either Schreff senior or junior, and that Schreff senior as well as working for Tesla was also employed by the Union Sulphur company, a company funded and partially owned by the Rockefeller family interests. The Rockefeller family was closely linked to several other European banking families including the Sachs banking institution of Goldman Sachs fame and the Warburg bankers of Germany. Through these links there was a connection to the family of Samuel Prescott Bush and his banking partner Thomas Walker. Returning to the need to develop a plan to escape the collapse of Nazi Germany there was a systematic expunging of family records of senior Nazi party officials and the creation of new identities, often within establishment families that were considered to be above suspicion. This was a process that was begun as early as 1920 as the inevitability of a second European War became apparent and plans began to be laid. So it was the George Shreff senior became Prescott Bush under this scheme, later to repay his debt by using his families bank to fund the Nazi party, and his son became George H. W. Bush, eventually the 41^st President of the United States.

Makes questions over Obamas family history and place of birth seems slightly irrelevant really.

The reality of alien abductions and implants

Since the 1950's there have been periodic stories are news reports of people claiming to be abducted by extra terrestrials. These abductions generally follow a standard pattern of the individual being caught in a beam of intense light and transported physically to an alien spacecraft. The abductee is then subjected to some form of medical procedure and communicated with by the extra terrestrials. This is followed by a tour of the alien spacecraft before the subject is returned, often to discover a period of missing time. So far so odd, but it gets even stranger as many abductees report that following an abduction event they discover strange implants under their skin which on investigation turn out to be metallic in nature, often emitting radio frequency (RF) signals. A common factor in abduction cases is that there are never any external independent witnesses. Often individuals are abducted whilst sleeping alone, or from remote areas. There are exceptions but these are very rare. What is also somewhat odd is that many of these cases are associated with areas in which there have also been animal mutilations of the type which are often associated with extra terrestrial activity.

There are several aspects of these cases that bear a slightly more down to ear, but no less terrifying analysis. There is another school of thought regarding these strange occurrences. Alongside the reports of UFOs in these areas there are also reports of mysterious black helicopters and herein lies a somewhat different explanation. It has been suggested that animal mutilations may be the work of government agencies carrying out investigations. The theory holds that the military engages in tests of radiological, biological and chemical weapons in remote areas, and the mutilations, which tend to involve the excision of soft tissue including the tongue, cheeks, internal organs and particularly the reproductive organs, are carried out to investigate the effects of these weapons on living creatures, the results then being extrapolated to human populations. In this way studies of effects over time, particularly of long lasting weapons can be carried out. Taking this theory a step further, is it not also possible that human subjects are also being abducted by these same military organisations and that in order to retain secrecy, the alien cover story is used to prevent subjects being taken seriously?

Lets start from the known facts. The US military has been proved, in several test cases, to be carrying out weapon experiments in secret on its own citizens. These weapons tests include radiological fallout from nuclear bomb explosions carried out in the 1950's and '60's. It is also known that the US military has tracked and monitored test subjects over long periods of time, maintaining secrecy whilst doing so. It is only a small deductive leap to suggest that in some cases it has been necessary for these military researchers to study subjects in closer detail. Were this the case it is likely that in order to maintain secrecy a cover story would have to be used. The beam of light reported by abductees can be easily explained by the searchlight of a helicopter, and this would also account for the need for remote locations and no witnesses. The sensations of floating can be explained by the introduction of sedative type drugs, as can the reports of feelings of disorientation. The subject would then be transported to a local facility kitted out to give the appearance of an alien spacecraft, and the researchers themselves could easily assume the appearance of extra terrestrials sufficiently to fool a drugged subject. The type of medical procedures reported would also make sense in this scenario as it is likely that reproductive tissue samples would yield information about the generational impact of weapons tests.

If this alternative scenario was to be the case it would also explain the implants, since it is likely that there would be a requirement for ongoing contact and monitoring, and the easiest way of establishing this would be the implantation of a radio tracking and telemetry device, coded to a military frequency and encrypted to prevent interception. These implants would, by necessity have a finite live, leading to the need for multiple abductions. Sometimes the more down to earth explanations are worth exploring first.

Majestic 12 and the UFO conspiracy

The 1940's were the modern start point for the UFO phenomenon with reports from pilots during World War II of “Foo Fighters” followed by the reported sighting on 24th June 1947 by Kenneth Arnold. With interest sparked amongst Government organisations and increasing tension between America and Russia immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany combined with the importation of Germany scientists into America the time was ripe for the creation of an investigative group to study these UFO sightings. The real catalyst was the now infamous crash in July 1947 of a UFO outside Roswell, New Mexico, an incident that caused great concern to the American authorities given its proximity to several military bases running highly classified operations. There was anxiety within the US military that the crash may have represented a Soviet spy project, but initial reports scotched this conclusion and led to the equally problematic scenario that extra-terrestrial intelligent life was monitoring US military operations. This was a scenario that had been considered a possibility by several physicists and security specialists in the wake of the development of atomic weapons. Several science fiction writers including H.G. Wells had suggested that if there were extra-terrestrial life, one of the triggers for contact would be mans development of weapons that could destroy the planet.

The consequence of all of this interest and activity was the establishment of a group of highly regarded scientists, military personnel and intelligence agents based on recommendations established during World War II for dealing with a Nazi defeat of Soviet Russia and the development by Germany of a range of superweapons. The group that was established by executive order from Harry S Truman was given the classification Majestic 12 (MJ12) and was headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, the initiator and driving force behind the Manhattan Project and the founder of advanced weapons company Raytheon amongst many other top level military scientific positions. Dr. Bush drew together a team of fiercely patriotic and focused specialists specifically to analyse the wreckage of the Roswell crash, and to establish the potential benefits for the US from the alien technology. Having established MJ12 with the highest level of security, POTUS discretion eyes only, meaning that information was only shared within MJ12 and outside only with the authorisation of the President himself the new team quickly established that the crashed craft was indeed extra terrestrial in origin. They were also made aware that in addition to the craft itself three bodies had been recovered, one of which was still alive. Utilising Dr. Bush' recently developed analogue computers and the skills of two highly experienced military cryptographers on secondment from the US signals corps it became possible to decipher the alien language, and over the next ten years the technology of the alien craft was rebuilt to the point that the craft, and in particular its communication system was rendered operable.

Once the craft was operable, the communication system was used to establish contact with the extra terrestrial mothership, found to be in orbit around Saturn. The extra terrestrials agreed to provide additional information to the US on the understanding that the US would work to establish an environment in which safe contact between mankind and the extra terrestrials could be established. Part of this contract allowed the US to receive complete function UFO craft of various types and it is these that were witnessed by Bob Lazar in the underground facilities at the Groom Lake facility known as Area 51. In order to maintain secrecy, Bob Lazar and several other scientific and military researchers involved in the project had their histories erased making it completely impossible for them to give credible evidence of what they had seen.

It has been suggested that MJ12 was closed down in the late 1950's but this is far from being the case and the group is still active, the original members being replaced by a new wave of specialists including some who have become household names, whilst others remain in the shadows. Their primary focus is to establish a global mindset that will allow the extra terrestrials to colonise the Earth en masse, whilst employing the majority of mankind to provide for their resource needs. The payoff for MJ12 and those selected by them is to act as the human masters controlling the rest of the population at the behest of the alien overlords. The planned date for this development is 21^st December 2012.

More fallout from the latest bank frauds

Today saw the presentation by Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England (BoE) to parliament to explain his position over Barclays banks deliberate misreporting of the LIBOR (London Banking Interchange Rate) responding to allegations from Barclays senior management that their reporting of the rate was tacitly approved by the BoE. It must have been difficult for the attending MPs to keep a straight face whilst he stated that he was unaware of the misreporting until last week. This must have been particularly amusing given that at the same time a similar presentation was being given across the pond to Congress that the US banking regulators were made aware of the fraud by a whistleblower within Barclays several weeks ago, and that the US regulator had informed the BoE and the Financial Services Authority in the UK of the fraud and had expected the UK regulators to take immediate action. Are we really expected to believe that the head of the BoE wasn't made aware that one of the largest UK banking organisations was engaged in illegal activity, or at the very least that he wasn't briefed before going before parliament?

This goes beyond simple incompetence to something far darker. In order for this situation to have any credibility there would have to be a complete suspension of intellectual and critical analysis on the part of the viewing public and since that is not the case we should probably look a little closer at what might be going on. Lets start with the role of the FSA in the UK. The FSA is the watchdog for the entire financial services industry and as such has responsibility to investigate and act on information that a financial organisation was acting irresponsibly, let alone illegally. The BoE in its turn is responsible for the operation of banks within the UK and as such should have fully investigated any suggestion that illegal activity was occuring. Either the FSA and the BoE completely failed in their required tasks, in which case both are unfit for purpose and need to be investigated themselves, or there is a deeper conspiracy to allow banks to operate in whatever way they see fit, regardless of laws or corporate responsibility.

This may seem an extreme suggestion but let us look at another news story coming out of America today. It appears the HSBC another major bank has been acting illegal by facilitating a large scale money laundering operation through its Saudi Arabian banking operation, HSBC staff coaching Saudi individuals on exactly how to avoid the strenuous efforts to prevent exactly this activity. It further appears that this money is profit from drug trafficking operations, so not only is a bank acting illegally in breach of international banking laws but it is also flouting Americas anti-drug stance. The only way that these, and other illegal activities can be taking place with such regularity is if the leaders of these banks believed that they were immune to prosecution and that the banks themselves were operating above the law. Of course, if that was the situation it would mean that someone had suggested to the banks that this was the case. Who could have that sort of power? There are two possibilities, either the US and UK governments are so in awe of the banks that they have effectively given them carte blanche to operate as they see fit, or there is a group above the governments that is operating by a completely different set of rules. Perhaps the stories of the Illuminati are not so crazy after all.

Why have the banks acted so irresponsibly?

Since 2008 we have seeing report after report of the way in which our banking institutions, and particularly their investment banking arms have acted in the most reprehensible and at times illegal way. According to the official story this is predominantly the result of simple greed. Bankers are paid extra-ordinary amount of money, predominantly in the form of annual bonuses that regularly exceed seven figures and often eight figures for senior bankers. However there is a problem with this story. Greed is certainly a driving factor in human evolution, but it is invariably tempered by a mid to long term view. In order for greed to be the primary driving force it would require highly intelligent and well educated people to all be acting as sociopaths with no concept of anything beyond the short term. This seems unlikely but not impossible. However there is a further wrinkle to this story. Banks don't operate in a vacuum. Being the driving force behind much of the Worlds economic growth and development, the banks themselves are intrinsically linked to the economic policy units of the Worlds developed economies. They are also linked to the international financial community through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Central Bank and the various national Central Banks such as the Federal Reserve, The Bank of England and so on. In turns these are linked back to national Governments and International political associations.

Given these links it seems impossible that banks would operate in a way that risked their profits and success without some kind of guarantee that their rash decisions and risky trading positions will be protected, but why would this be the case? In any other commercial arena that features global business, even where this is closely allied to Government such as is the case with IBM, Microsoft, General Motors, Hyundai, Toyota and the like the company, whilst being supported by Government, if it reaches a point of financial crisis is largely on its own. Indeed, international law often requires that Governmental support for such companies is limited specifically to prevent anti-competition agreements and monopoly positions. This strongly suggests that the banks are operating under a separate and secret system. The level of protection and the scale of the bailout of failing banks has created a system under which every single tax payer in the major global economies is now in debt paying off the bank bailout, not just for the next few years but for the next four generations. Herein lies the likely reason for this rather strange situation.

For the last three hundred years there have moves by key figures within Royal houses, banking families and industrial leaders to create a society in which they and their associates are perfectly protected and where the working masses supporting the elite are completely subservient and unable to stand against the elite. Various methods have been attempted, from global conflict through empire to destroying trade unions and political movements that stood in their way, but they have been only partially successful. This new move has created a society where the primary concern of the majority of people is fear over the loss of employment, income, home and family and there is little time for concerns over politics or the machinations of the global elite as espoused by conspiracy theorists. Fear is the driving force in modern society, and as any social scientist or anthropologist will tell you, creating a society in fear is the first step in creating society that is totally controlled. Sure, bankers are greedy, but it makes more sense when you realise that their greed is being backed, approved and driven by a secretive powerful group aiming to control the World.

How the Intelligence Community operates

Time and again I here that conspiracy theories can't be real because they are so often contradictory and far too complex and involve groups and individuals who would never work together, so here, for you delectation, is an example of just what a tangled web the global network of intelligence agencies can weave. Lets start with post World War II Europe. In the weeks and months of late 1944 and early 1945 when it became clear that the defeat of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany was inevitable it also became clear that the allied powers in a post war World would be in a position of ideological opposition. The Western European forces and America knew that the next threat they would face would be the expansionist plans of the Communist forces of Russia under Joseph Stalin. Following the defeat of Germany, the race between these opposing forces to take control of Germany and its intellectual and industrial assets highlighted this conflict and set the stage for the cold war through the 1950's '60's and '70's and the American response to this is what I will be focusing on. Across Europe as each nation returned to some semblance of normality after the war and rebuilding began there was a secret operation taking place that remained hidden until the 1990's.

In each country, groups of key figures within political life, the military and intellectual institutions were recruited, brought together and funded by American security operatives ostensibly operating as a branch of the CIA. These groups operated as sleeper cells and were concealed within semi-secret societies such as the masonic P2 lodge in Italy, the terror gangs of Germany and France such as the Baader Meinhof, the Neo-Nazi paramilitary groups in the UK such as Column 88 and Combat 18 and both sides of the paramilitary groups in Ireland particularly the IRA and the UDF. Following one of these areas gives some insight into exactly how this policy was implemented and what purpose it served. In Italy the P2 masonic lodge was established by a combination of Vatican bankers, Mafia criminal families and politicians who had been active in the Italian Fascist movement. It was funded by the profits of crime and by access to gold reserves amassed by the German Nazis through the death camps and held in secret bank accounts in Switzerland. Now, you would think that a criminal/religious/fascist organisation of this type would be anathema to security services given that by the nature of its members it would be engaged in activities that run counter to security, yet the groups members were trained by CIA and MOSSAD agents in counter insurgency and terror tactics, and were provided with opportunities to procure weapons, ammunition and explosives. The P2 lodge and its members have been implicated in a number of false flag operations including car bombings, assassinations and hijackings.

Similar examples are found in each of the groups established in this era of European uncertainty under the ideal that these groups would operate as agent provocateur in the event of Communist Russian invasion of Europe and the groups were consider as “Stay behind” assets. The principles for this type of operation came out of the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) established by Winston Churchill to provide support for resistance movements in occupied Europe, and despite the strange, not to say almost impossible combination of ideologies within these groups and their controllers, for example former Nazi officers operating with Jewish Israeli security agents, the principle of “My enemys enemy is my friend” was paramount and overcame these obstacles.

This may sound like the ultimate conspiracy fiction, but this comes from revelations by the former president of Italy as part of a project called Gladio. Far from being conspiracy nonsense, this is being actively investigated by several European countries and by the European Union. It is also a conspiracy that, in spite of stories to the contrary, is still ongoing. The only difference between the Gladio network of the 1970's and the network that operates today is the nature of the opposition. Will the collapse of the USSR and the democratisation of former Soviet states a new target emerged in the form of expansionist Islam. The rules change, but the game remains the same. Of course, it is interesting to note that the CIA has also been funding, training and arming Islamic groups in counter Communist operations, those same groups who are now the targets of the European groups. Choose to believe any of this or not, the way in which security agencies operate is a perfect example of why anyone who says that a conspiracy can't be real because it is too complex or too sinister couldn't be more wrong. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Britains worsening financial crisis

Today the IMF has downgraded growth forecasts for the UK economy for the reaminder of 2012 and 2013. This stands in sharp contrast to the UK governments and the Bank of Englands own forecasts, and suggests that hopes for a resurgence in economic performance as a result of the Olympics may be in vain. Certainly if we look at the effect of hosting the Olympics for the last three hosts, Athens is in serious trouble and is still paying off the cost of the games, Sydney in Australia is struggling and even the global giant China is still counting the costs of being the host in 2008, and that was before the current global economic conditions really took effect. The likelihood is that the Olympics will not generate anything like the boost to the economy that many seem to be hoping for with many people choosing to stay at home, and the costs of hosting the games having rising by a staggering 1000% from the original estimates.

So, lets look at the more scenario for UK plc over the coming twelve to twenty four months. We have seen rapid increases in population over the last decade, predominantly in poorer inner city areas suggesting an increase in the unwaged and low income non tax payers. Combined with this we have a banking sector that refuses to loan to either businesses or individuals. Unemployment is heading towards record high levels, particularly in the under 25 age bracket, and the population as a whole is ageing significantly. The number of people in fuel and food poverty, those who cannot afford to heat their homes and put food on the table is rising and at the same time local authorities are facing massive budget cuts particularly in front line support services. The NHS is under tremendous pressure having been saddled with completely unaffordable public private finance projects being repaid over thirty years, the rail network is struggling with maintaining the infrastructure and rolling stock, and the cost of transport both public and private are increasing exponentially.

What all of this means is that even the downgraded IMF forecasts look optimistic to say the least and there is every chance that the second recession that we are already in may only get worse over the coming few months. One of the least reported aspects of the last four years is that many of those who have managed to stay in employment and hold things together have done so at the expense of their hard earned savings. Many people no longer have any sort of safety net, and any detrimental changes in their position will be catastrophic. Now is the time that everyone needs to wake up to the coming storm and take a leaf out of the book of the Icelandic people. Unlike the rest of the Western World the Icelanders decided to allow their banks to fail and used the vast amount of money that they saved in not bailing the banks out to instead bolster their economy, creating employment and stability that isn't being seen anywhere else. It is perhaps instructive that non of that is being reported outside Iceland, but of course, news of a voting population telling the politicians and bankers who caused this mess to get lost isn't something a media in the pocket of big business wants to put out there is it?

Are UFOs more likely to be human time travel vehicles?

To date there has been no credible evidence of intelligent life in far flung corners of the Universe, and if we consider the development of intelligent life on Earth it seems difficult to conceive of an advanced civilisation perhaps a million years ahead of our own that is capable of interstellar travel. Here on Earth the development of life has been a long and complex process and it is likely that if life has developed elsewhere it will have been a similarly long and difficult journey, so it would be more likely that any extra terrestrial species would be at a similar level of development given that the Universe occurred at a discrete point in time. There is however another possibility. Based on the work of Einstein and later physicists particularly Stephen Hawkins and Carl Sagan the possibility of time travel can be considered not only credible, but likely, and this leads to the possibility that what we see as UFOs could in fact be vehicles from our own future. If we look back at the history of UFO and particularly supposed Alien sightings we consistently see that Aliens are almost exclusively anthropomorphic, that is that they look human in terms of number of arms and legs, eyes, mouth and so on. This seems unlikely if they are truly extra terrestrial given the tremendous variation seen in life on earth.

From the wall carvings of the Annunaki in ancient Sumeria through the images of Gods in Egypt, Greece and Rome, and on into the supposed ET contact in more recent years this same phenomenon has been in evidence. There are, of course exceptions to this, most notably in Hinduism where Gods tend to be far more variable in form, and in the indigenous religions of South America where the same is the case. The images of fiery winged serpents and multi-armed deities could be explained as referring to the vehicles rather than individuals, or to robotic exploration units. Then there is the question of close encounters. Recent cases seem very rarely to suggest that extra terrestrials require environmental protection equipment, there seem to be very few reports of any sort of space suit. This suggests that the aliens come from a planet with a comparable atmosphere to ours. It also suggests that the planet must be a similar size and density to ours as they don't seem to have any major issues with Earth gravity. If we go back to one of the key thinkers on Extra Terrestrial intelligence and a founder of the SETI Institute, Frank Drake and his famous equation, we could perhaps add a couple of extra probabilities to the equation to question the likelihood that a the home planet of an extra terrestrial race would be close enough to Earth as to be interchangeable.

There is then the reports of Bob Lazar into the craft themselves. Although his reports of the power system of the craft seems tremendously exotic, they utilise materials that are obtainable on the Earth rather than something that it would be impossible for us to find or produce. It seems likely that if UFOs were indeed extra terrestrial in origin they would employ materials that seemed rather more strange and otherworldly. Certainly Lazars reports on the mercury plasma power source matches well with existing human technology taken on perhaps fifty years. It seems more likely that these craft, and their occupants are coming back to us from our own future, perhaps 500 years hence and that these time travellers have been travelling back into mankinds earliest development. Are we reshaping our own past to reshape our future, and if we are how does this impact on the question of paradox in time travel? It will be interesting to see what developments over the next ten years bring in the field of particle physics, and what the implications of the recent work on the Higgs Boson are for developing effective control of gravity, and thereby time.

Yet more Olympic security questions

With the first Olympic teams arriving in the UK in preparation for the games we are already seeing big questions over the measures put in place by Group 4 Security (G4S) and the role they are playing in creating a situation where the Government is forced to supplement the private security force with police and military assets. Several Olympic football teams are flying into the North East of England to training and acclimatisation camps and G4S were supposed to have 58 trained staff members to provide security. It appears that as of this morning they managed to get 10 staff members on site. Of course, the Northumbrian police have stepped into the breach and made up the numbers but this raises serious questions of several levels. Firstly there is the simply inefficiency of G4S. This company is being paid by taxpayers to provide security for the games. In failing to achieve this the police, who are paid for by the UK taxpayer, are having to step into the breach. Doesn't this mean that the taxpayer is paying twice for the same security? Then there is the question of why this is happening. It appears that G4S, apparently in a bid to keep costs to a minimum have decided that rather than paying people who already hold SIA security certification and are already trained to operate X-ray scanners and metal detectors they will train and employ people who are not qualified or certified.

This saves considerably on contract costs for security personnel but means that many of the security staff employed are simply not up to the job, and have no proven reliable security work history. In setting up and awarding the contract to provide the security for these games did the Government not stipulate that all staff must be security vetted and properly trained? Was there no requirement for the use of a proportion of experienced staff? If not, why not? It seems to stretch the bounds of credibility that such a high profile event would not have such requirements written into the contract. It suggests strongly that it was always the intent of the government to introduce police and military assets in a frontline role, but why might this be the case. It seems credible to suggest that there are valid threats to security of athletes and support workers, particularly given previous security problems around Olympic events, particularly the Munich incident, so the use of police and military personnel was always likely, so why employ G4S at all? Why not make it a police and military operation from the outset?

The official story is that G4S represents better value for money, but this is proving to be at least an incorrect and inept decision, and at worst a deliberate ploy to make it appear that private sector options were explored in full. The more likely reason is that it was always the Governments intention to utilise the military either as a direct precursor to the implementation of a police state as a consequence of an incident at the games, or as an exercise in preparation for such at state at an undefined point in the future. The best advice for the time being is to treat any official stories surrounding the security of this global event with a very large pinch of salt. What is beyond doubt is that nothing that is reaching the mainstream media has credibility and it is now a waiting game to see exactly what has been planned for this media circus. It almost makes you wonder why the film director Danny Boyle, famous for his complex special effects rich movies is the driving force behind the opening ceremony. This is going to be interesting folks.

Fresh evidence of a coming medical crisis

It appears that the move towards a major global event is accelerating if rumours coming out of the Defence Research Agency, Porton Down, the Uk's biological and Chemical research facility and the Centre for Tropical Medicine in London. Between them, these organisations contain some of the most highly qualified weapons researchers in the World and have strong links to the equivalent US organisations DARPA and the Centres for Disease Control (CDC). The stories coming out refer to consignments arriving at military airbases in the UK, always at night, and always serviced by US military personnel rather than the more usual UK military ground crews. These consignments are unloaded in secure hangers and are shipped off base, again using US military assets within an hour of disembarkation without undergoing any of the standard security checks used for regular consignments. From the brief sightings of the crates being moved they correspond to containerised flight cases for moving medical samples, and this is further corroborated by illicit tracking of the onward transportation units through their radio frequency tracking chips, showing that the containers are being delivered to Porton Down and to two London Hospital research centres. There are also questions over the flight plans of the incoming flights. All flights, whether military, commercial or private are required to file detailed flight plans before take-off and to stick to that flight plan. Failure to do so can result in revoking of flight status. These flights are coming in with flight plans that don't appear to match base of origin records for the consignments.

This false reporting of flight plans has been seen before with the controversial rendition flights moving terror suspects around the World under the control of the CIA. These rendition flights were exempted from logging accurate flight plans by Presidential order as their purpose was to transport suspects to illegal torture sessions. This strongly suggests that whatever is happening with these new flights represents a similarly illegal activity. It is interesting to note that similar tactics have been used by the CIA for the shipment of cocaine from Columbia into the US under Project Snowball, the payments being used to fund the Contra rebels and coming to light during the Iran-Contra scandal that involved Oliver North and implicated Ronald Reagan. It seems unlikely that these consignments are illegal drug related, and the size and type of flight case precludes further victims of rendition, so what else could they be? Given the destinations of these shipments it seems most likely that these are either chemical or biological samples, and it also seems likely that whatever these are, they are outside the normal range of hazardous materials that are transported between research sites.

Given the recent events in Miami and Georgia in the US and the controversy over misreporting of drug involvement in the Zombie style attacks it seems likely that these shipments are a designer biological agent that creates a Zombie like state based on the viral strains found in the Africa Zombie outbreaks associated with blackfly infestations. Now it could well be that these materials are being transported for standard research purposes, but if that is the case, why the secrecy? It seems more likely given the upcoming media attention on London that these are part of a plan to create a major panic event during the games giving the opportunity to declare martial law in the UK and establishing a police state under a false flag operation. Only time will tell, but it all seems a little suspicions.

The real reason the LIBOR banking scandal won't go anywhere

The banks are not most peoples favourite organisation at the moment, and banker bashing is pretty much becoming a national institution across much of the Western World, and yet there is one example of their abhorrent approach to business that is only really getting fairly minor play in the mainstream press, yet it is the one that strikes deepest into the soft underbelly of the global financial giants. There is a reason for this, but before we get to that, lets have a little background on this problem. The London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) is the rate at which banks lend to each other and is a crucial measure of how much money costs. It is the basis for how easy or difficult it is for banks to raise finance and therefore to lend. The LIBOR is managed by the British Bankers Association (BBA) in the UK and by similar organisations around the World. So far so good, but there is a less well known aspect to this that may come as a bit of a surprise.

The British Bankers Association is, as you might expect, made up of senior bankers from the key UK banks, and it operates to regulate bank activity, but what is less well known is that it is itself unregulated. This is not a Government quango or body, but simply a semi-formal club. As such it has no responsibility to anyone but the banks and therein lies the problem. The way LIBOR works is that the banks voluntarily report the rates that they lend to and borrow from each other, and these rates are averaged over a period of time to establish internationally the interbank lending rates. In theory at least the BBA is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of this information and indeed employs auditors for that purpose. It now appears that at least some of the major banks in the UK have been less than accurate in their reporting of these rates, using that inaccuracy to take advantage of the money markets to make even more profit than they already do.

This in itself is bad enough and would certainly be a major news story globally and would almost certainly lead to criminal investigations and proceeding against some pretty senior banking establishment figures, but that isn't happening and here comes the real kicker. It would appear that not only were some banks being less than honest, but that this was happening with the tacit approval of the Bank of England, the UK central bank. This causes major issues for the whole system not just of banking but of politics as well. The Bank of England does not operate in isolation but is a key player in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. It would not have allowed this without approval throughout the chain of command so if the Bank of England is tainted in this then so is the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, and so are the senior politicians whose job it is to monitor bank activity and national and international money supply. In the UK this is the treasury, almost certainly the most high profile of all of the ministries of Government.

Calling into question a few rogue bankers lending to the wrong people, or a few politicians with their snouts in the trough is one thing but potentially bringing down the entire global banking system is quite another, and that is why this story will just quietly die and nothing will be done. No matter how much we might wish it were different.

Open government and conspiracy theory

There has been a tremendous emphasis over the last decade or so from senior politicians in the UK on Government being open and transparent, such that the general public can see clearly how and why decisions are taken. This has been in response to a series of questionable political decisions starting with the poll tax legislation which led to riots and coming right through to the parliamentary expenses scandal and the current inquiry into press intrusion and links with police and politicians, but there are still an awful lot of questions about just what open Government means. I think there can be little doubt that within any political system there are some things which, by their nature, need to remain secret, at least whilst they are still current. I am thinking here of the fine details of current military operations, ongoing intelligence operations and police investigations. These are areas where free and open access to information could conceivably endanger the lives of service personnel and jeopardise the effectiveness of current operations. The case can also be made that release of information on military and police tactics whilst they are still in use can have serious implications for operational efficiency.

Having demonstrated that there needs to be a degree of secrecy within some aspects of political decision making, we arrive at the core of the problem of open Government as a concept. That problem is where exactly the lines are drawn as to where openness is acceptable and where it is not. Let us take an example of a contract for military equipment. You can argue that the process of awarding a contract to supply military equipment requires an element of secrecy to prevent the possibility of industrial espionage revealing details of weapons or defensive capabilities. Of course if you allow commercial decisions of this nature to be secret, what else do you have to keep secret? How about arms sales to international customers? Can it be argued that these should also be protected? How about in the field of energy production? Particularly where this relates to the development of nuclear power the case could be made perhaps.

You begin to see the issues I'm sure, but lets take it a step further into the realms of data collection and analysis. In order for police operations against organised crime to be effective, it is argued, there has to be secrecy in the way in which data is collected, the techniques involved and the way that that data is analysed. If this information is available then there is every chance that criminals will find ways to circumvent those data collection techniques and thereby reduce their effectiveness. Of course, having established methods and techniques of data gathering, and having demonstrated that these need to be kept secret, what are the chances that these might be extended to data collected on other targets? Isn't it possible that those same techniques, lets say the interception of mobile phone conversations or e-mails could be used to investigate perfectly legal campaign or protest groups, or worse still, might they not be used to leak information to the press in order to exert influence over high profile figures? It appears that this might be the case, but I'm sure the Leveson enquiry might reveal more on this subject.

So we have an ideal of open government, but this has to be balanced by the interests of national security. As long as the lines are being set by Government as they currently are there will always be questions about what exactly is being concealed, and what value can be placed on the information that is revealed. This is one of the fundamental reasons that conspiracy theories exist, and why investigative journalists and conspiracy researchers have to be taken at least slightly seriously. For every thousand nonsense stories of UFO's that turn out to be Chinese lanterns there is one story of how, for example, a British Prime Minister lied to Parliament and the electorate to engage British troops in a military action of questionable legality. I guess we will just have to keep asking questions and hoping that we can sort the wheat from the chaff.

Syrian weapons of mass destruction

Reports are coming in of signal intelligence from the Syrian military referring to the movement of chemical weapons to storage facilities in the town of Homs. These are distinct from the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that were one of the key triggers for the second Gulf War yet strangely missing on detailed investigation. Now don't get me wrong. Saddam Hussein undoubtedly not only had, but used chemical and biological weapons throughout his dictatorship, particularly against the Kurds in Northern Iraq against whom he committed genocide. The problem is that one of the reasons that we knew that Iraq had such weapons was because the UK, US, Russia and Germany had supplied them, and we still had the receipts. We also knew that he had already used his stockpiles before the invasion. This presents a problem when it comes to the latest reports from Syria.

Once again we have a situation where we know that Syria has biological and chemical weapons facilities because we supplied them, and we know that the Syrian authorities have stockpiles of nerve agents including Sarin gas because two dissident journalists escaped the country and brought photographic evidence with them. The problem is that there is no way that the public are going to believe politicians or the intelligence community as a consequence of previous lies and misinformation. There are additional problems in that there is a strong possibility that military action by the West would result in serious repercussions as the Middle East is considerably less stable and more defensive. There is also the question of the impact any action would have on Israel give the history of the Syrian backing of Palestinian militia units in defence of their homeland against Israeli incursions into the West Bank.

Of course this has nothing to do with the lack of accessible oil in Syria, or the links between the Syrian leadership and the CIA in accessing Iraq and Iran during the 1970's and '80's. As part of the CIA support for Osama Bin Laden during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan training camps were set in in Syria and the Syrian military were supplied with weapons and equipment. In addition it almost certainly isn't related to the continuing weapons contracts for UK, US, Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers or the personal contacts of President Assad and his lovely first lady, and the information that they hold on key Western leaders.

The situation in Syria is escalating daily and there are increasing risks that the West could be drawn into the situation in spite of every effort to remain distanced by the flashpoint area between Syria and Turkey. This could be the biggest crisis to face the West and raises questions that could critically damage the political structure of the Western World and lead to the expansion of the Muslim World in the manner of the Ottoman Empire of the 10^th and 11^th Century. It will be fascinating to see how this situation develops.

Does the UK weather seem strange?

The British Isles are notorious for having changeable weather, famously it is what we talk about all the time, or so I've been told, but just lately, even by our standards things have been a little odd to say the least. Back in March and April we were hit with hosepipe bans after a series of record breaking dry winters, but since April we have barely had a dry day. April, May and June have all set records for precipitation, and in early July we had a months rain in a matter of hours, not once, but twice. This seems rather hard to believe, but there is more to come. In the next two weeks we have that biggest of events, the 2012 Summer Olympic games, and we know that it is going to be the biggest shop front for GB Plc in living memory. The World will be coming to the UK, and those that can't come will be watching. Now, suppose someone had come along to the UK government and said “You know what? We can guarantee that the weather for the Olympics will be perfect, but there will be costs and implications”. Wouldn't that be a tempting idea?

We know that there have been tests over the last thirty years in controlling extreme weather events. The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) has carried out successful tests of cloud seeding and rain generation to modify tornadoes and hurricanes and to break droughts, and these are just the official projects and experiments. What is less well known is the weaponising on weather modification technology based around the HAARP project and its ability to heat the upper atmosphere. This is by far the most likely cause of our current sodden state since heating of the ionosphere would have the strongest impact on the jetstream, and the reason for our current conditions is that the North Atlantic jetstream has moved further South than is usual for the time of year. This has drawn cold air from the polar regions to clash with warm air rising from central Europe bringing torrential rain.

So far so good, but the implications of this are far reaching. One of the biggest claims used to debunk conspiracy theories is that governments would simply not take the risk of harming their own citizens or economy, but is this the case? There is more and more evidence that not only are governments willing to put their citizens in harms way but that this extends as far as lethality. It is now widely known that military and medical testing has been carried out both knowingly and unknowingly as have government backed false flag operations, so is it really such a step to put lives at risk in widespread flooding just to guarantee a couple of weeks of good weather? I guess it is our own fault for marketing the UK as a green and pleasant land. Well we can pretty much guarantee lush greenery everywhere with record rainfall, and it should just about be dry by the time the games start.

This could all be coincidence, but I guess that we will find out in a couple of weeks. If we have perfect weather for the Olympics maybe a few more people will start to ask questions and we might move a step closer to finding out just what exactly our political leaders are up to.

Implications of new security measures around the Olympics

So, today is the last day that pilots, both private and commercial can fly over the centre of London without clearing their flight with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and keeping in contact with military air traffic controllers. The background to this is the perceived threat of a terrorist attack by air on the Olympic venues, and that is fine. It is a realistic threat and appears on the surface to be a reasonable response to that threat. At least until you look at the small print and particularly when you understand the implications of that small print. The response to an unauthorised aircraft entering restricted airspace is to scramble military helicopters or fast attack Typhoon jets depending on the intruding aircraft, and attempts will be made to contact the pilot. It is at this point that it gets rather darker. If attempts to contact the pilot fail, and a credible threat is perceived then the RAF are authorised to use deadly force to bring the aircraft down. Technically the RAF has always had this power, but it is the first time that it has been authorised publicly over a major UK city.

It also raises another interesting question. Given that security for the games is being provided by Group 4 Security (G4S) backed up by up to 11,600 regular army and territorial army soldiers who will potentially, along with the police be armed, do these authorisations of deadly force extent to ground based threats? It would seem likely given the level of perceived threat. Think back to the aftermath of the July 7^th underground bombings, and particularly the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes the Brazilian electrician shot to death reportedly by armed police officers who mistakenly identified him as a terrorist threat. Of course it couldn't possibly be the case that he was actually shot by a military special forces unit of the SAS. The fact that he was shot using a double tap technique favoured by the unit, that he was shot repeatedly in the head by multiple shooters, a tactic favoured by special forces soldiers, and that he was shot using dum-dum bullets which are not approved for use by police marksmen is irrelevant.

So, if we do have armed military personnel providing security, and those personnel have a shoot to kill policy authorised by the UK government, isn't this the very definition of a military police state? Even allowing for the special circumstances how has this situation been allowed in a supposedly democratic society without raising serious political questions and heated debate? How has the mainstream media not been all over this? Perhaps the most important question of all is, if this state of affairs is possible without such debate and media interest, doesn't that rather suggest that those decisions have already happened in private, that there are already plans approved by previous governments for the creation of such a police state? Just how long has this been the case? It seems likely that it goes back to at least the 1980's and the use of the SAS in hostage situations such as the Iranian Embassy seige, and their engagement in the shooting of suspected terrorists in Gibraltar. There is some evidence that this was considered even earlier through the trade union disputes of the 1970's when the UK teetered on the brink of anarchy and the collapse of law and order.

It does rather make me wonder what the countries who are sending athletes and spectators to the games make of it all. Presumably they have all been made aware of this policy? What does that say about, lets say America, and its own policies and preparations for a police state? It appears that only time will tell.

Scientology to develop new media centre

It appears, if the rumours are to be believed, that the Church of Scientology, the American organisation founded by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard following his attempted development of a school of psychological thought known as Dianetics is the join more mainstream Christian religious groups in having its own TV broadcasting facilities. As most of you will be aware, religion and conspiracy theory are seldom happy bedfellows and I will happily state my own position to be spiritual, non-religious, but what is fascinating is the way in which many people, and particularly the media view what are loosely called New Religions. Whatever the rights and wrongs of religious belief in general, and the belief in new religions in particular it seems that it is almost impossible to establish a new faith without all sorts of accusations flying around that, in large part, make little if any sense. Let us consider the accusations that are levelled at Scientology and how these compare with other, more established groups. It is claimed by many the Scientology is a cult for three clear reasons. The first is that the movement requires that a new initiate removes themselves from their previous life. This includes contact with friends and family outside the movement. The second is that progression within Scientology requires spending money on resource material, books and so on, the best estimate being that to achieve status within the movement costs a minimum of $64,000, many members giving a proportion of their salary to the movement. Thirdly there are reports that Scientology uses techniques such as repetition, hypnosis, subliminal messaging, starving and sleep deprivation to convert people.

These are serious accusations but now let us look at one of the most mainstream religions for comparison. Within the Catholic church there are a number of groups who follow similar, if not more extreme philosophies. Consider Opus Dei, the non monastic group established globally with papal blessing. On joining Opus Dei, new members are required to sever all ties with family and friends outside the group. Opus Dei members live communally in group houses, sexually segregated, and either work for free within the house or take jobs outside the house, donating all of their earning to the house and to Opus Dei. Techiques such as scourging or self flagellation, and the use of the scillis or spiked wire band tied around the thigh could be considered forms of torture, as could the sleep deprivation caused by intense bible study and group prayer sessions. Sounds almost familiar doesn't it? Examples of this type of religious lifestyle can be found in Islam, Protestantism, Judaism and even Buddhism and Hinduism, so why is Scientology singled out for criticism?

I think it comes down to a fear of the unknown, and to an extent Scientology has historically done itself no favours by its insistence on secrecy over its operations, and the constant shifting believes away from Hubbards original concepts in order to try to make Scientology more palatable. Personally I have no more concern over Scientology having access to production facilities than I do to tele-evangelists having those same facilities, and I have no doubt that just as many evangelists were caught out by the penetrating gaze of the TV camera, philandering and committing fraud, this may turn out to be the worst move in Scientology history to date. It will be interesting to see just how this develops, and how it plays in countries were Scientology has had its status as a religion removed.