Cosmic Sponge

It was the cold war with both the Soviet Union and the United States looking to gain the upper hand in a game of cat and mouse.  It started in Moscow, with the creation of a program to train psychics in warfare on a different battlefield.  Once discovered, the U.S. government wasted no time with a project of their own.  Over the decades, the CIA would fund a covert study into the field of remote viewing lasting several decades, culminating in what would become known as Project Stargate.

Nelson Mandela died in prison in the late 1980s, or did he?  As it turns out, Mandela died in 2013.   The fact that many people remember the incorrect version of history begs the question, why?  Various people have suggested everything from "we all live in a version of the matrix" to "we live in one of many multiverses which bleed into one another".  In this episode, we explore many different possibilities for mass false memories which has become known as the Mandela Effect.    

In 1984 a package containing a roll of 35 millimeter film arrived at the home of Jamie Shandera, a filmmaker researching UFO sightings.  The film contained images of what appeared to be official government documents detailing the creation of a secret government program tasked with managing alien contact, crashed alien craft, and research into the UFO phenomenon. The files caused a public outcry for answers, an investigation by the FBI and Airforce, and produced a split in the UFO community as to the validity of the documents and the story they told. 

Considered one of the most credible UFO sightings of the 20th century, the Mansfield UFO incident of 1973 involved a near collision of a military helicopter and an unknown craft. The incident experienced by the crew of the helicopter was also witnessed by individuals on the ground.  The four crew members on the helicopter would report the incident both to their commanders in a flight incident report and to the news media.  Captain Coyne, the commander of the crew would be invited to share his encounter on the world stage at the United Nations.

Is time travel possible?  In this episode we discuss the reality of time travel including proven methods for traveling to the future and theoretical methods for traveling to the past.  We even take time to see which time travelling movies get the physics right and which movies (delightfully) use phone booths and hot tubs.

Imagine you are minding your own business, making soap and whistling a tune when out of nowhere it starts raining chunks of meat.  This is where one woman found herself in March of 1876 under a clear blue sky.  Hunters, scientist and even the New York Times weighed in on the bizarre phenomena with explanations as far reaching as outer space.

Thousands of years ago, the Dogon people were visited by the Nommos, an alien species which shared knowledge of the heavens only recently verified using modern science.  In this episode, we explore the knowledge known by the Dogon and how they came by it.  Is it possible an alien race visited them at the dawn of mankind or is there another more prosaic answer to the beginnings of this extraordinary knowledge handed down through the centuries? 

It is said he was born at the stroke of midnight during a thunderstorm.  His mother exclaimed he would be a child of light.  In his lifetime, Tesla would produce nearly 300 patents including an AC induction motor that would drive mankind toward the modern power grid.  He would go on to explore wireless energy, receive a message from outer space, and develop a death ray, earthquake machine, and force field generator.  Upon his death, it is said the FBI looted his designs and notes, hiding them away from the general public.  In this episode we attempt to separate fact from fiction and look into the possibility that some of the conspiracies may in fact be real.

In September of 1994, 62 school children at a private primary school outside of Haware, Zimbabwe observed the landing of a UFO just beyond their playground.  Some of the children witnessed the occupants of the craft and even received telepathic communications from them warning of ecological disasters. Over 20 years later, they still maintain what they experienced.  Was this the case of overactive imaginations and mass hysteria or did a craft of telepathic beings land by this primary school and communicate with the children?  In this episode, we will weigh the facts and evidence, explore skeptical explanations, and consider the possibility of a real extraterrestrial event in Africa.

This episode of Cosmic Sponge delves into the building techniques of ancient civilizations then explores the how they may have been achieved.