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Terra Obscura - Culture | Theory | High Strangeness
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Terra Obscura - Culture | Theory | High Strangeness

Is The Caudate-Putamen An Antenna For Anomalous Information?

1/8/2019
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What if there was physical evidence of a center in the brain whose configuration tracks with an individual’s intuitive capabilities?
 
In early 2018, researchers caught wind of a scientific study being done by Dr. Garry Nolan, Rachford & Carlota Professor in the Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine, and Dr. Christopher ‘Kit’ Green, a physician in private forensic medical practice, and affiliated with the Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at the Wayne State School of Medicine and Detroit Medical Center.
 
This was partly unearthed in a book entitled Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis written by author, journalist, and national security reporter Annie Jacobsen. In her book, she interviewed both Dr. Garry Nolan and Dr. Christopher Kit Green, initially due to Dr. Green's earlier work on remote viewing, but during the book preparation process apparently found Dr. Kit Green was still involved in some fascinating studies. Dr. Green says in the book,
 
"I'm interested in the notion of people injured physically by anomalous events.” Dr. Green goes on, "Often these events are perceived as [involving] unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, drones, high energy radio frequencies that confront people face-to-face and cannot be explained." 
 
The study involved, among others, a group of individuals termed these days as “Experiencers:” individuals experiencing Anomalous Mental Phenomena perceived through the senses including hallucinations, seeing beings and orbs, or hearing messages. One potential goal of the study involved identifying personality commonalities and, maybe, if “experiences” followed families—implying there might be a component that genetics plays in the experience process itself. Nolan and Green insisted that the study was not about determining the factual nature of the experience, just to determine if there were medical or familial relationships. There was also a Phenomenon Radio program hosted by Linda Milton Howe and John Burroughs which featured an interview with Annie Jacobsen discussing this very topic.
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​In late November of 2018 Dr. Nolan gave a presentation at Harvard Medical School's Consortium for Space Genetics entitled “Can Genetic Differences in Intuition and Cognition Drive Success in Space?” I caught up with Dr. Nolan to discuss the details of his presentation at Harvard for the contents and implications of this data. What I was told was both exciting and intriguing:
 
“We had groups of patients who objectively had a higher density of neuronal connection between the head of the caudate and the putamen.”
 
The caudate-putamen is a defined area in the brain based in the basal ganglia. Originally thought up until a decade ago to be mostly involved in motor control, more recently the caudate-putamen has been shown to also be involved with decision making, higher cognitive function, and intuition: non-conscious processing of sparse information. It is not too far a reach to assume that if humans did in fact have ESP capabilities, this area of the brain would make for a suitable candidate involved in processing information derived through anomalous means.
 
 
The group of 105 patients were made up of 60% male and 40% female individuals whom were among a group of individuals evaluated through high-field MRI brain scans. These patients selected were psychologically evaluated by Dr. Green and some met with Dr. Nolan. The major observation was that, apparently, the area of caudate-putamen in many of the individuals in the study was greatly enhanced over that of a reference “control” group of ~100 randomly chosen individuals. The connectivity, or density, of increased connections between the caudate and putamen ranged from slightly above normal to up to 8 times the control range. Interestingly, when family members were included as controls, it turned out that the feature of increased caudate-putamen connectivity was also found in some of the included family members. The MRI's of the patients (study participants and control MRIs) were read “blind” by professionals trained in brain physiology and reading of MRIs. In biological terms, the individuals with enhanced connectivity might be classed as hypermorphs, rather than the normal baseline caudate-putamen connectivity. 

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Caudate-putamen. Artist rendering, not to scale.
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Artist rendering, not to scale.
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Artist rendering, not to scale.
This signature of high connectivity in the caudate-putamen consists of high functioning individuals—some of whom reported visual and auditory phenomena which include seeing orbs, voices, and entities.  These were classed as hallucinations for the purposes of the study. The high connectivity in the caudate-putamen area was correlated, at least in this highly biased cohort, to high IQ, enhanced intuition, high performers, and seems to occur clustered in a few of the families they were able to access.
 
Dr. Garry Nolan reports that a peer reviewed paper will be coming at some point in the future, but stresses that the data should be at this point considered as extremely preliminary.  He felt comfortable enough, he said, to release the information publicly so others can begin to think about the implications. Dr. Nolan also commented that,
 
"Objectively, the connections [in the caudate-putamen] are real (note that Dr. Green is a trained forensic neurologist).  What these connectivity patterns mean in relation to intuition and cognitive function will need to involve neurological studies that involve disciplines of neurophysiology such as functional MRI and more".
 
When pressed about the concept of how anomalous information might enter human consciousness, earlier in 2018 during a conversation with Dr. Nolan he speculated,
 
"Antenna are HYPOTHETICAL nervous system components that READ/SENSE and TRANSMIT. I don't think they would be nerves per se. I think they are COMPONENTS of nerves in some people. The idea is that different people are connected to their antenna in different ways. Some more attuned to sight, some to sounds, feelings, etc."
                                                                                           
Dr. Nolan remarked in his slides that what he and Dr. Green found in terms of neural connectivity might have been discovered (or intuited) previously by at least two others.

One of these individuals was the distinguished Oleg Sergeivich Adrianov who happened to be a world renowned neuroscientist from the former Soviet Union, and who had over 70 English publications during the span of his career. He was founder of many FSU Academies and Institutes and headed the commission on the anatomy of Lenin’s brain. Oleg noted “Our interest (in Caudate-Putamen over-expression) is based on the literary data (sic)… it participates in higher integrative activity…”. Oleg also made the following comments regarding this specific region of the brain; “of the frontal (neo)cortex for synthesis of single signals for programming future activity” and “and comparing its results with behavioural reactions of ‘foreseeing the future’ phenomena…” Perhaps one of his most telling assertions was “… Numerous clinical data suggests direct relation of the human brain to a higher psychic function.”

​Perhaps even more of a startling revelation and coincidence would be is that as early as the 1960’s intuitive and PhD. Viola Pettit-Neal, as stated in a 1971 interview, made such comments as “The caudate nucleus deals with the head antennae-millions of antennae which in the future will deal with the ability of all the extrasensory perception abilities, such as the ability to see events at a distance and the ability for telepathic contact.” Viola also claimed in her book, “The sending and receiving station for telepathic contact is located in the caudate nucleus.” As well as “There were very fine lines, thousands of them, and the caudate nucleus is like a miniature brain for higher stages of development.” Similar references about these regions of the brain and intuited information were made in her book “Through the Curtain” with Shafica Karagulla, MD.
What might these findings mean for Experiencers, people interested in Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, academia, cutting-edge science, or scientists willing to challenge their curiosity? Is there truly a center in the brain responsible for what we consider extrasensory perception? Is information in part distilled and processed in the caudate-putamen, and those with higher connectivity might have access to forms of intuition that others do not? In any regard, these findings are astounding and at the least we should continue to pay attention to this direction of research. Perhaps the world of science, and the paranormal, might begin to find a meeting point through work like this. 
 
(Most grateful and personal thanks to Dr. Garry Nolan for  taking the time to discuss this fascinating information and data with me—and his willingness to share his current speculations. And of course, we are indebted to Dr. Christopher Kit Green and his colleagues for all their decades of effort investigating cutting-edge areas of the science of consciousness and cognition.)

- James Iandoli
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Part 3 - Feeling Alienated

4/27/2017

​UFOs and the Mechanisms of the Mainstream

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Disclosure, Aliens and The Catholic Church; Or, how the "Disclosurists" are opening their mouths without thinking (yet again). 

8/8/2016
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Over the last month or so, I’ve seen several articles and social media posts concerning the Disclosure movement and the Roman Catholic Church. Due to a few comments made by Pope Francis and the former Director of the Vatican Observatory, Father Jose Funes, several years ago, there seems to have been a recent resurgence of the idea that the Vatican’s inner circle is aware of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth.

As with most things uttered in the name of Disclosure, this claim is ridiculous and has no evidence to support it. To be clear, I support the disclosure of information to the public, not just about the UFO phenomenon, but about all things. The democratisation of knowledge, which in turn becomes power (to borrow from Foucault), is essential to fair governance. 

However, many “Disclosurists” are not interested in furthering equality of power. They use the guise of open governance to line their own pockets. Here's a nice a gem for your reading enjoyment that supports my claim. 

Being born and raised a Catholic, I feel that I have to clear the air here. Is the Vatican, or any authoritative body for that matter, participating in a conspiratorial Disclosure campaign? I highly doubt it. Does the Vatican believe in extraterrestrial life? Well...for an institution that has been around for nearly two millennia and has a perceived image of being conservative, the Roman Catholic Church is very forward thinking on the matter.

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Scientific Ideology and Ufology; Can’t We All Just Get Along? - Part 3

6/27/2016
Part 1 can be found here.
Part 2 can be found here.

The final post in regards to this topic. I hope you have enjoyed it and I hope it was successful in answering the big question; are the general sciences truly more valid than Ufology? 

Feel free to leave comments or shoot me a message.
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The Lunatic Fringe and Why It Matters...

We need to question the ideological motivations that push science to dismiss the UFO/UAP phenomenon as a whole. Good ufologists worth their salt do not “cry aliens” when a well documented/credible UFO sighting occurs. Rather, they cry “what the hell was that, we probably should look into it…”

It is interesting that the same cry was the basis for the birth of the general sciences. People witness an event and say something to the effect of, “what the hell was that, we probably should look into it…”. We learned that lightning wasn’t an angry god, but rather a natural electrostatic discharge. We learned that the stars weren’t angels, but massive balls of burning hydrogen held together by gravity. We see something, and we want to figure out what it is.


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Scientific Ideology and Ufology; Can’t We All Just Get Along? - Part 2

6/26/2016
For Part 1, please click here.

In Part 1, I hoped to establish the basic question that needs to be answered; are the ideologies that surround the general sciences more valuable than the ideologies that surround Ufology? 
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The "Catch 22" and Ideological Hubris

In order to arrive at an answer, we need to establish what “Ideology” is.


Ideology is separate from objective “base reality”. Mother nature, the universe, base reality, whatever you wish to call it, does not function upon ideologies. Humans form ideologies to make mother nature, the universe, and base reality livable, to make it understandable to our limited minds.

We must be clear here; we do not purposefully and willfully create ideologies- they simply happen without our control. Similar to the heart, one do not consciously force it to beat, it simply does so as a condition of its existence within the human body. Similar to the formation of human social ideologies, we do not force them to occur, they simply do as a condition of our consciousness and existence. Ideologies shift, develop, and change based upon human choices and experience.

Humans are social creatures, so arbitrary rules and constructs have settled into our social world to ensure life isn’t chaotic. This is generally a good thing; humans need these mechanisms in order to survive in groups, otherwise, we tend to murder each other. It stands to reason then that when we try to expand our knowledge, our understanding, and to progress forward, we do so ideologically. Science moves along with society and society moves along with science. Ufology moves along with society and, one could argue that, society does move along with Ufology.

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Scientific Ideology and Ufology; Can’t We All Just Get Along? - Part 1

6/24/2016
In this three part series, I hope to establish a justification for Ufology to be accepted by the mechanisms that govern the general sciences, and the scientists who work under that mechanism. 

This needs to be approached with an open mind, but I hope the logic and rationality of my arguments stand up to potential critique. If you do wish to engage in a discussion concerning this three part series, please comment below or send me an e-mail.

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Part 1 - The Ideological Construct that Governs Human Endeavours.

Ufology, like every other field of study, including the general sciences, is significantly governed by social ideological constructs. All human endeavour, whether it be historical, artistic, or scientific exists within the frame of human experience and society. No field of study operates in a vacuum, separate of our current cultural zeitgeist; nothing humans do is independant of our social world, as we are trapped in it. There is no place in which one can stand “outside” of the given social, cultural and experiential reality we dwell in. Therefore, the sciences are governed by the same ideologies as Ufology.

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UFOs in the Great White North

4/13/2016
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Chris Rutkowski and the team at Ufology Research have provided another excellent report concerning the UFO situation in Canada. For all of you who have never heard of the Canadian UFO Survey, it is a collection of hard data that establishes the numbers of sightings and the details surrounding them. It posits no explanation for the sightings, but is rather a massive number crunch designed to provide an overall view into what people are seeing and how often.

I had the honour to write the "Forward" for the document, and I've re-posted it for you below. I've also included the link so you can access the survey for yourself.  

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The Spots, they are a changin'

3/17/2016
The dwarf planet Ceres, which hangs out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, seems to be undergoing a few changes. According to Astronomy Magazine, the bright spots on Ceres seem to brighten and darken. Astronomers believe that under the planet's surface exists an ocean, and the large surface spots are frozen patches of that ocean that seem to have come to the surface.

Another planet in our solar system that has water, which means that there is another planet in our solar system that might harbor some life. It's a mysterious and wonderful place, our solar system.

Click here to read the original article.
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One of the "bright spots" on Ceres, courtesy of NASA
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Let Us Have This One...

1/31/2016
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Ancient Babylonian Mathematics. Courtesy of Mathieu Ossendrijver, Science/AAAS
As it turns out, humans have been tracking planets like Jupiter much longer than originally thought- about five centuries longer, if not more. Does this mean that ancient alien theorists have been right all along? Have the Ancient Babylonians been receiving special help from their "Sky Gods" to decode the movements of our solar system? No. No, they have not. Don't be silly. Humans did this...we sorted this out on our own, and we should be proud. 

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Is Planet 9 Our New Neighbour? 

1/20/2016
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It looks like our solar system may have just become a little bigger. In an article published in the Astronomical Journal, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, may have proven that there is a large planet hiding at the outer edge of our system and its actually pretty big- much larger than Earth.

Using the orbits of six icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, Brown found that they all move differently, but all face the same direction. They are all tilted about 30 degrees in the same direction- and, according to Brown, that means something is governing their orbits. Enter a new planet lovingly named Planet 9, at least until someone comes up with something better. 

I look forward to the first "articles" that come out suggesting its an alien megastructure. For now however, I'd like to be the first to welcome this new theoretical planet into our family. Welcome to our solar system Planet 9- long may you wander around our Sun.

Check out the original article here.



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