Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization

41 The Pulsar Mystery

Could the Enigmatic Phenomenon Be the Work of an Ancient ET Civilization? A New Scientific Study Makes the Astonishing Case

Len Kasten

Logic would dictate that there must be some type of connection among all the worlds in our galaxy, the so-called Milky Way. Viewed from afar, it appears to be a single, spiral-shaped unit with a luminous center. What forces operate to cause so many “billions and billions” of stars to cohere to this unit? They must be vast and incredibly powerful. Now, as we enter the twenty-first century, discovery of these forces is clearly the next frontier in physics and astronomy. It is the next step in the logical progression that began only five hundred years ago with Columbus’s discovery of the spherical shape of the planet.

This logical progression continued with Galileo’s “heresy” that the earth revolves around the Sun, Kepler’s discovery of elliptical orbits around the Sun, and then, triumphantly completing the “Copernican Revolution,” Newton’s deduction, in 1687, of the Second Law of Mechanics and the Law of Universal Gravitation, which elegantly proved Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion. Then, it wasn’t until Sir William Herschel developed a powerful telescope in 1781 that we began to peer out into the cosmos and to comprehend its complexity and immensity and to understand that what we thought were clouds of cosmic dust were actually countless other stars like our Sun.

Herschel, his son John, and his daughter Caroline eventually cataloged over 4,200 star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies, thus setting the stage for the modern era of astronomy. Then, with the orbital placement of the Hubble Telescope in 1990, we finally began to understand our stellar neighborhood. What has become known as the “local group” is dominated by our Milky Way and the giant spiral galaxy Andromeda, but also includes some minor galaxies. But even now, with all that we do know, we still know almost nothing about the implications of “membership” in our galaxy. Has our solar system simply been fortuitously “captured” by the immense centrifugal force of the galactic hub, or does the entire galaxy somehow act as an organic whole?

GALACTIC EXPLOSIONS

Thanks to the author Paul LaViolette, Ph.D., we can begin to appreciate that certain galactic “events” have a very profound physical effect on our little Sun and planet way out here in the outer reaches of a spiral arm. LaViolette, a physicist with a doctorate in systems theory, has postulated the existence of something called a “galactic superwave.” In his book Earth Under Fire: Humanity’s Survival of the Apocalypse, he claims that astronomical and geological evidence suggests that a “protracted global climatic disaster” occurred on this planet about 15,000 years ago.

One piece of this evidence derives from a new technique developed by scientists in the late 1970s measuring the concentration of the element beryllium-10 in ice-core samples drilled at Vostok, East Antarctica. Minute quantities of this rare isotope are produced when high-energy cosmic rays collide with nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our stratosphere.

Since a time frame can be associated with each layer of the ice-core sample by measuring the Be-10 concentrations at various levels, the fluctuations of cosmic bombardments of Earth can be precisely determined. The Vostok samples clearly showed a peak of cosmic radiation between 17,500 and 14,150 years ago, associated with a sharp increase in the ambient air temperature from -10 C to about 0 C. This, claims LaViolette, caused the end of the ice age and ushered in the era of moderate temperatures that made modern civilization possible.

This concept of the galactic superwave, apparently caused by massive “explosions” at the galactic core, is not entirely new to astronomers. However, they view them as relatively rare events, occurring perhaps every ten million to one hundred million years and having no particular effect on our solar system because they believe that the galactic magnetic lines of force prevent cosmic radiation from propagating very far from the core.

But LaViolette has amassed an impressive profusion of evidence, from many different sources, that these events are much more frequent and that they are really massive bombardments of cosmic ray particles (electrons, positrons, and protons) with the power of five to ten million “highly-charged” supernova explosions that reach, in full strength, to the farthest limits of the galaxy!

The theories of Paul LaViolette are highly controversial in astronomy circles even though he makes his case with careful and thorough research. Perhaps it is because he is not afraid to boldly go where other scientists fear to tread—into the realm of myth and legend to find supporting evidence for his theories.

His book The Talk of the Galaxy: An ET Message for Us? puts forth another daring proposition. He argues that pulsars are high-tech galactic “beacons” very likely created by highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations, and are being used to signal the advent of galactic events, especially the superwaves. These books, taken together, sketch out a fantastic scenario that radically changes the status quo of the astronomical, anthropological, and archeological landscapes, and opens up a new universe of potential research and investigation.

LaViolette may well be just the pivotal researcher to lift science out of stale, inbred stagnation into invigorating, human-oriented realms and new directions for the twenty-first century. In view of the importance of his theories, we set up an interview for the purposes of this article. When we spoke with him, we were surprised at how deftly he was able to shift back and forth from science to mythology to support his ideas.

CONTINUOUS CREATION VS. BIG BANG

Perhaps one of LaViolette’s most heretical theories relates to the purpose of these galactic core explosions. His explanation resurrects that bête noire of modern science, the concept of the ether. LaViolette is convinced that these tremendous energy discharges are nothing less than an ongoing process of the creation of matter itself from the etheric flux, which invisibly pervades the entire universe.

This idea of “continuous creation” is in direct opposition to the now generally accepted “Big Bang theory,” which most esotericists have never really been comfortable with, but which does seem to satisfy those religious groups who believe that “creation” was literally a single primordial act by God. A complete discussion of this subject can be found in LaViolette’s book, Genesis of the Cosmos: The Ancient Science of Continuous Creation, and also in his follow-up book, Subquantum Kinetics: The Alchemy of Creation.

The concept of the all-pervasive etheric substratum from which matter is created was really originally derived from ancient Hindu metaphysics, but had gained considerable scientific credence up until the late nineteenth century, when it was supposedly “put to bed” by the famous Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887. However, this experiment was seriously flawed because it assumed the ether to be another physical dimension rather than a precursor to energy itself. Today, although orthodox science may not have granted respectability to etheric theory, it certainly doesn’t mind using it every day to explain the propagation of radio and television waves.

FIRE AND FLOOD

According to LaViolette, these galactic explosive phases occur about every 10,000 to 20,000 years and last anywhere from several hundred to several thousand years. Evidence of this frequency began emerging in 1977, but scientists considered it an aberration. The electrons and positrons travel radially outward from the core at near light speed, but the protons travel much more slowly because they are about two thousand times heavier.

They disperse and are then captured by the magnetic fields in the galactic nucleus. The superwave itself would not normally have much of an effect on the Sun or Earth, since the energy would be about one-thousandth of that radiated by the Sun. But the solar system is surrounded by a cloud of dust and frozen cometary debris that remains on the periphery because of the solar wind, which has an expelling action and cleanses the entire solar system.

However, the superwave, when it arrives, would push back this dust cloud into the interplanetary medium and would block out the light of the Sun, Moon, and stars, and the Sun would appear to go dark. Also, the superwave and dust particles would energize the Sun and increase flaring activity so much that dry grasslands and forests would spontaneously catch fire. This heat would also melt the glaciers, releasing tremendous quantities of water, causing extensive flooding all over the planet.

A whole panoply of cascading catastrophes would then ensue, including earthquakes and increased seismic activity, high winds, failed crops, and destroyed vegetation, along with high, ultraviolet radiation, causing skin cancers and increased mutation rates. In short, it would be a time of cataclysmic destruction that would probably snuff out much of the human and animal life on the planet.

LaViolette, in Earth Under Fire, cites all the legends and myths relating to cataclysmic events, all of which appear to have occurred during the time of the last galactic superwave—that is, about 15,000 years ago. The Greek myth of Phaeton, for example, the semi-mortal son of Helios, the sun god, who was given the reins of the sun chariot and caused it to crash into the earth thereby setting off a tremendous worldwide conflagration, is claimed to be a metaphor for that era when the superwave caused an extraordinary increase in infrared and ultraviolet emissions from the Sun, along with ultra-high flaring activity.

This could easily have caused a “scorched-earth” phenomenon, according to LaViolette. The Greek writer Ovid says of this event, “Great cities perish, together with their fortifications, and the flames turn whole nations into ashes.” Then, as the glaciers melted and the ocean levels rose all over the world, large landmasses would have become submerged.

This might easily account for the flood legends in just about every ancient civilization. LaViolette compiled a list of about eighty societies with some sort of flood myth. He has no doubt that the deluge that sank Atlantis was caused by glacial meltwater. He says, “The . . . ‘sinking’ of Atlantis simply refers to the melting and ultimate wasting of the continental ice sheets,” which “spawned a foray of destructive glacier wave floods.” Interestingly, the Phaeton myth concludes with massive flooding sent by Zeus to quell the flames. According to Plato’s Timaeus, this would have occurred about 11,550 years ago, right around the time of the last stage of the superwave.

LITTLE GREEN MEN

In The Talk of the Galaxy, LaViolette turns his attention to those puzzling anomalies of astronomy, the pulsars. Having established, in his earlier books, a very convincing case for galactic events that affect all the worlds therein, it was natural to question whether or not pulsars have any connection with these events. The fact that they emitted such consistently regular pulsations suggested to him that they were of intelligent origin.

This was not a new theory. Several scientists involved in the SETI project have speculated on this subject. LaViolette tells us that Professor Alan Barrett, a radio astronomer, theorized in a New York Post article in the early 1970s that pulsar signals “might be part of a vast interstellar communications network which we have stumbled upon.”

It was, in fact, the first thought that occurred to the two astronomers who discovered the first pulsar signal, in July 1967 at Cambridge University in England. Graduate student Jocelyn Bell and her astronomy professor, Anthony Hewish, named the source of the signal LGM 1, an acronym for Little Green Men. By the time they published their astonishing discovery in Nature magazine in February 1968, having discovered a second pulsar, they were afraid to suggest an ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) thesis because they feared ridicule from colleagues, and were afraid that the discovery would not be taken seriously by scientists. But nevertheless, they continued with this naming convention up to LGM 4!

Of the many theories advanced to explain pulsars, the one that had prevailed by 1968, and is still accepted today by default, is known as the Neutron Star Lighthouse Model. Proposed by Thomas Gold, it postulates that the signal comes from a rapidly rotating burned-out star that has gone through a supernova explosion that transformed it into a bunch of tightly packed neutrons. This would have made it incredibly dense and much smaller, reduced from about three times the size of the Sun to no more than thirty kilometers. Gold theorized that as it rotates, it emits a synchotron beam, much like a lighthouse beacon, which is picked up on Earth as a brief radio pulse. To match the pulsar frequencies, these stars would have to spin at rates up to hundreds of times per second.

SIGNAL COMPLEXITY

LaViolette has compiled a very impressive and convincing set of reasons why the pulsars are very likely of intelligent rather than natural origin and why they cannot possibly fit the Neutron Star model. They all relate to the fact that the signal is totally unlike any other ever encountered in terms of both precision and complexity. Of major importance is the fact that the pulses are timed not precisely from pulse to pulse, but only when time-averaged over two thousand pulses.

Then the time-averaged pulse is exceedingly accurate and regular. Furthermore, in some pulsars the pulse drifts at a constant rate, adding another layer of complexity to the signal. Another factor has to do with amplitude modulation. Some of the pulses increase in amplitude in varied yet regular patterns. Then many of the pulses exhibit something called “mode switching,” wherein the pulse suddenly exhibits an entirely new set of characteristics that persist for a time, and then it reverts to its original mode.

In some cases, this switch is frequency dependent and in others the switching conforms to regular patterns. LaViolette argues that an ET civilization would expect us to understand that such a complex signal must necessarily be intelligently designed. Perhaps they assume that we have the computer power necessary to comprehend the logic behind all the variability. The Neutron Star model has to be continually “stretched” to encompass these characteristics as they are discovered. At this point, it has been contorted beyond recognition in order to explain this complexity, but astronomers are reluctant to abandon “the sizable mental investment involved.”

In terms of precision, some stars do show periodic, regular variations in color and luminosity. Several binary X-ray stars pulse with periods accurate to six or seven significant digits. Pulsars, on the other hand, are from a million to one hundred billion times more precise! LaViolette speculates that if Bell and Hewish “had known then what we know now, perhaps they would not have rejected the ETI communication scenario as readily as they did.”

MARKER BEACONS

Perhaps the most striking of all pulsar characteristics is their placement in the galaxy. When their positions are plotted within the galactic “globe,” which is a projection of the galaxy similar to the Mercator for Earth, they all seem to congregate in certain key locations. The densest concentration is found on or near the galactic equator, not the galactic center as one would have expected if they were created out of supernova explosions as theorized.

Then they seem to clump around two points along the equator. These two points are precisely at the one-radian marks measured from the earth. A radian is a universally understood geometric measurement of an angle that marks off an arc around the circumference equal in length to the circle’s radius, and is always 57.296 degrees. Using the earth as the center of the circle and placing the galactic center on the equator, perhaps the most significant pulsar in the galaxy falls precisely at a one-radian mark!

The so-called Millisecond Pulsar is the fastest out of all 1,100 discovered to date. It “beats” at 642 pulses per second. It is also the most precise in timing, being accurate to seventeen significant digits, which surpasses the best atomic clocks on Earth, and it emits optically visible, high-intensity pulses. LaViolette believes that the Millisecond Pulsar was deliberately placed there by ETs to function as a marker beacon expressly for our solar system, as they knew we would understand the significance of the one-radian point.

LaViolette’s main thesis is that all of the pulsars “visible” to Earth were put in place in order to convey a message to us relative to the galactic super-wave. This, he says, explains why two unique (too complex to explain here) pulsars that LaViolette calls the “King and Queen of Pulsars” were positioned in the Crab and Vela nebulae, both of which were the sites of supernova explosions.

He estimates that after reaching the Earth about 14,130 years ago, the last superwave would have reached the Vela complex about one hundred years later and detonated a supernova there by heating up the unstable stars to the explosion point. Then, about 6,300 years later it would have reached the Crab nebula and triggered a supernova there. These very large supernovas would have become visible on Earth at 11,250 B.C.E. and C.E. 1,054, respectively. By placing marker beacons at these points, LaViolette believes the ETs were giving us information about that superwave that we could use to predict future waves, along with their associated cataclysmic effects.

LaViolette believes that we already have the technology to build our own Force Field Beaming Technology. Therefore, the day may not be far off when Earthlings can join the galactic community and help to inform some other unfortunate planet of the approach of a fearsome galactic superwave.