|
THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS
December 30, 2012
These included,
...and dozens more.
The first show with Steve rocketed Omega Man to the #1 Blog Talk Radio Show in the world for over a week. It focused on the ancient Prophecy of the Popes and the fact that the pontiff following Benedict XVI will be the final one on this mysterious list of popes, a prophecy that was concealed inside the secret vaults of the Vatican for hundreds of years and which many believe points to the arrival of the False Prophet of end-times infamy.
(Note that at the start of this
investigation, Benedict XVI remains pope and whoever is scheduled to
follow him in the role of Petrus Romanus is still an open question,
but whoever it turns out to be, they are the final pope according to
the medieval catholic prophecy).
That program sent Omega Man into the
stratosphere for an unprecedented one-month position as the top BT
radio show on the planet, illustrating to these authors that the
world is more than casually interested not only in the final pope,
but in the connection between Rome and their work on
extraterrestrial intelligence, astrobiology, and the intriguing
connection between those issues and Petrus Romanus.
Located near the northern limit of the Chiricahua Apache and Western Apache territories, Dził Nchaa Si An, as it is known in the Western Apache language, is one of the four holiest mountains in America for the Apache, and considered sacred to the all of the region’s Native peoples.
(The San Carlos Apache Tribe had
originally joined environmentalists who sought, among other things,
to protect the Sacred Grounds and American Red Squirrel, in filing
dozens of lawsuits before a federal appeals court to stop the
construction of the observatories on Mt Graham, but the project
ultimately prevailed after an act by the United States Congress
allowed it).
We were scheduled to arrive at the Mount Graham International Observatory a couple hours after departure. We would meet with astronomers and engineers at the Large Binocular Telescope - currently one of the world’s most advanced optical telescopes - where, among other things, the new LUCIFER device is attached between its gigantic twin mirrors (either of which would be the largest optical telescope in continental North America).
We were later told by the LBT systems engineer who spent significant time with us that day that another instrument - LUCIFER-II - is scheduled to arrive at the observatory anytime now and will complete the two multi-object and long-slit infrared spectrograph imagers they need for studying the heavens in search of, among other things, exo-planets that may host intelligent life.
We would also visit the Heinrich
Hertz Submillimeter Telescope that day, which sets between the
LBT and the real target of our quest - the Vatican Advanced
Technology Telescope and the Jesuits who work there.
As we went from Sonoran Desert scrub at the mountain’s floor to alpine spruce-fir forest closer to the summit, our guide who set in the opposite front seat from the driver occasionally pointed to something off to one side, describing how more life zones and vegetative varieties existed here than on any other North American mountain, including almost two dozen plants, animals and insects that are not found anywhere else.
Of course this included the celebrity of Mount Graham - the endangered Red Squirrel - which Arizona has already spent at least 1.25 million dollars protecting.
But it was hard to appreciate these facts while growing queasy and wondering how far down the canyon wall we would roll if at any moment the driver lost control and barreled off the side.
Thankfully, just when we were starting
to think this had been a bad idea, we stopped approximately
two-thirds way up the mountain at the Columbine Ranger Station, a
USDA Forest Service Administrative Complex that had been built Circa
1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public work relief
program that was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New
Deal” and that had provided unskilled manual labor jobs for people
to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression.
While munching on a sandwich and looking at the aging black and white pictures that hung on the walls here and there of the Depression-Era men who had built the modest encampment, we met a volunteer, an interesting old chap who told us how he had been coming there for many years to keep a fire in the fireplace and to greet hikers that wandered into the park. When we told him where we were going, he got quiet.
When we added that our plan was to speak
with the Jesuits at
VATT in the restricted area further up the
mountain, he lost interest in the conversation and started stirring
his fire again.
The guide had a key to the gate. She unlocked then relocked it behind us after we drove through the opening.
At that point, the driver pulled a radio out, which we had not noticed before, and radioed somebody that we were heading up the incline. Evidently this was necessary because from this point forward the steep gravel lane was barely wide enough for one vehicle at a time, and you didn’t want to risk running up against another vehicle that might be coming down from the Observatories. No one answered the call, so he radioed again, then a third time, with still no response.
The silence must have meant the road was clear, as just like that he slipped the vehicle into low gear and we began our final 30-minute crawl up the mountainside.
She wasn’t smiling, and when we got to the observatories, we saw the security lines and enforcement vehicles, just as she had described them.
Near it was the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) or as it is also known, the Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope building, a “state-of-the-art single-dish radio telescope for observations in the sub-millimeter wavelength range… the most accurate radio telescope ever built.” [ii]
And last but not least about a block
away from them we observed our primary reason for trudging to the
top of this peak - the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope
or VATT.
Such technical language aside, the “Observers” who are approved to operate VATT and what they are using it for these days is what would take us through the looking glass.
This was confirmed minutes later by the Jesuit Father on duty that day (whom we got on film) who told us that among the most important research occurring with the site’s Vatican astronomers is the quest to pinpoint certain extrasolar planets and advanced alien intelligence. He then proceeded (as did our guide) to show us all around the observatory - from the personal quarters of the Church’s astronomers - where they ate, slept, relaxed, studied - to the control rooms, computer screens and systems, and even the telescope itself.
While we were given complete and unrestricted opportunity to question how the devices are used and what distinctives set each of the telescopes on Mt. Graham apart, we had not expected the ease with which the astronomers and technicians would also speak of UFOs!
This was especially true when we walked up the gravel road from VATT to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), where we spent most of the day with a systems engineer who not only took us to all seven levels of that mighty machine - pointing out the LUCIFER device and what it is used for (which he lovingly referred to as “Lucy” several times and elsewhere as “Lucifer”) as well as every other aspect of the telescope we tried to wrap our minds around - but who also stunned us as we sat in the control room, listening to him and the astronomers speak so casually of the redundancy with which UFOs are captured on screens darting through the heavens.
Our friendly engineer didn’t blink an
eye, nor did any of the other scientists in the room, and we were
shocked at this, how ordinary it seemed to be.
and an astronomer (out of frame on right) describing how often
“UFOs” are
captured during observations.
We had come with deeper questions concerning high-level Vatican astronomers and what they had been leaking to, and discussing with, media in recent years. Captivating comments from Jesuit priests like Guy Consolmagno - a leading astronomer who often turns up in media as a spokesman for the Vatican who has worked at NASA and taught at Harvard and MIT and who currently splits his time between the Vatican Observatory and laboratory (Specola Vaticana) headquartered at the summer residence of the Pope in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and Mt. Graham in Arizona.
Over the last few years, he has focused so much of his time and effort in an attempt to reconcile science and religion in public forums specifically as it relates to the subject of extraterrestrial life and its potential impact on the future of faith that we decided to contact him.
He agreed to be interviewed from Rome, and over the numerous exchanges that followed he told us some things that seemed beyond the scope.
He even sent us a copy of a private pdf, a literal goldmine of what he and the Vatican are considering regarding the ramifications of astrobiology and specifically the discovery of advanced extraterrestrials... in which he admits how contemporary societies will soon,
References
|
