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NASA / ESA via AFP - Getty Images
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a nebula known as IRAS 05437+2502, or "Ira's Ghost."
Did you know that NASA has a spokesman who talks to dead people? That's not the only thing that's spooky about the space effort. Halloween is the perfect time to touch upon the freaky side of the final frontier.
This week The Washington Post profiled Rob Gutro, the deputy news chief at Goddard Space Flight Center, who happens to be a meteorologist as well as a medium. When he wears his space-agency hat, Gutro deals with research into hurricanes and other types of storms. But in his other life, he tromps through haunted buildings, communes with spirits and snaps pictures of ghostly orbs.
It's not as if Gutro's spiritualist side is a big secret: He's written a book about his experiences, titled "Ghosts and Spirits: Insights From a Medium." And it's not unusual for folks who work at NASA to delve into mysterious phenomena. One of the prime examples is Apollo astronaut Ed Mitchell, who had such a deep spiritual awakening during his 1971 mission to the moon that he went on to establish the Institute of Noetic Sciences and look into UFOs and psychic phenomena.
But Gutro is on less solid ground when he contends that there's a scientific foundation for psychic phenomena. For example, in the Post's profile he notes that due to the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed. "It can only be transformed, so after we pass, that energy that's within us has to go somewhere," he said. "It can choose to be an earthbound ghost, or it can choose to be a spirit and cross over."
I may not be a medium, but I think I hear physicist Richard Feynman rolling over in his grave.
As for those ghostly orbs, most experts dismiss the bright circles as optical effects caused by reflections off particles of dust or fog. If you think there's more to the orbs or the other spooky phenomena that Gutro has gotten himself into, please feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Cosmic ghosts galore
The cosmos turns out to have mysteries and ghosts galore, but of a natural rather than supernatural variety. The reflection nebula pictured above is an example. The ghostly star-forming region, about 380 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, was first noted in infrared images taken by the IRAS satellite in 1983 and was given the name IRAS 05437+2502. The Hubble Space Telescope snapped a much sharper picture, but astronomers still couldn't quite figure out what was creating the bright boomerang-shaped feature near the center of the frame.
Right now, the leading hypothesis is that a young star zoomed through the cloud of gas and dust, sparking bright emissions as it passed through. But the fact that the mystery hasn't yet been conclusively resolved led some observers to assume that astronomers were spooked by "Ira's Ghost."
NASA / Hubble Heritage Team
NGC 6369, or the Little Ghost Nebula, was discovered by the 18th-century astronomer William Herschel.
The "Little Ghost Nebula" poses less of a conundrum. Hubble took this picture of the nebula, also known as NGC 6369, in 2002. The image clearly shows the ghostly rings of gas that are being blasted away by a star 2,000 to 5,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus. It's that ghostly appearance that gave the nebula its nickname.
The name is apt in an additional way: This is a star that's giving up the ghost. Astronomers call such objects planetary nebulae because they have the rounded appearance of a planet when viewed through a small telescope. But the gaseous shells actually signal the last stages of a sunlike star's life. In 10,000 years or so, the gaseous rings will dissipate, leaving behind a stellar ember that will gradually wink out of existence.
Our own sun will face a similar fate, billions of years from now, and not even the First Law of Thermodynamics can head off the extinction. Now there's a spooky thought. ...
More cosmic ghosts:
- The inside story of a dying star
- Tracing the stages of a star's death
- Colorful nebula in distant star cluster
- New clues to amazing shapes in space
- October's edition of Month in Space Pictures
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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When I was around 3 we moved into a new house. It was brand new, in fact, my father built a lot of it himself. After we moved in, I saw a man walk through my room on numerous occasions. He just walked through the wall and out the other. He wore a checked coat, and had a hat on, and was looking at the ground. Later, after I was older, I found out that our house was built on what had been a farm, and I wondered if I was just seeing the farmer checking his fields. I mostly saw him in the very late winter and early summer. After some people bought the vacant lot across the street when I was in high school, and cut down several large trees on the property, I never saw him again. A few years ago, I found out that my sister, who shared the room with me after she was born, saw the same man too. I never mentioned him to my parents; I wasn't afraid of him, and she said the same thing. Neither of us knew that the other had seen this ...ghost...? I'm very scientific, been an amateur astronomer for 25 years, do science experiments with my daughter...but as there is much out in space that we don't understand, I believe that there just might be more here on earth that we don't completely understand either. Ghosts...perhaps...there just isn't enough information yet to say yes or no.
NGC 6369, what a cool picture, it reminds me of the eye of sauron..
It is highly unlikely that ghosts are real. It is scientific fact, however, that hallucinations and mass hysteria are real.
Ah, but the same could be said about quantum physics a few decades ago.
I have mentioned this book on several other news pages, but since it is the source for finding the scientific proof of the existence of the astral plane, then I have to mention it again, or say nothing, since if I do not quote it I will be dismissed by the "experts"!:
The book is "Old Souls", by Tom Schroder, a journalist and writer. In it the author investigates a sample of many thousands of case studies of reincarnation investigated and collated over many decades of research. You can look up the book on Wikipedia - so I need say no more about it.
Science disregards the supernatural, the occult, the dark side, because scientists don't get funded to do the research, and when it is done, the unscientific prejudices of so many other scientists means it never has any effects upon science - it is put in a box and buried!
Scientists do not have a clue what is really going on in the universe - the picture you get from science is selective - almost entirely exclusively light-side scientific research. But there is a dark side; there is the unconscious, and it is the source of imagination, intuition, dreams, invention, creativity, analogical thought, poetry, ideas, metaphor, and visions of reality - the reality that scientists shy well clear of!
A good example is the pioneering work into E.S.P. by the famous parapsychologist Dr. J. B. Rhine - when he died the school of research he headed at the University that had funded his ground-breaking and controversial research for decades, was closed down, and the funding ceased - his research project was too important to the world and Dr. Rhine was too much of a celebrity for this to happen in his lifetime, but no-one would succeed him!!
The light side of science is opposed to the unconscious - Jungian psychology was not so, but Jungian psychology is no longer in vogue, and the unconscious is seen as something threatening to the order of the patient and to the order of society: The unconscious should not be understood; we should not dig to become aware of what is buried, hidden, suppressed, (both within and without) but rather we should contain and control the truth (both within and without) so that it doesn't come out of the boarded-up cellar and terrify the neighbourhood!
That which is buried should stay buried, no attempts should be made to understand the darkside: The role of psychology ("the study of the soul") should be to control the manifestations of the corruption of the psyche that comes of suppressing and repressing the truth. The role of psychiatry ("the diseases of the psyche"), therefore, is to cover up the symptoms of psychic dis-ease, and to propagate pandemics while pretending to cure them. Sanity is statistical! (I refer to the D.S.M. - the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" - the global Holy Bible of psychiatrists, and the Malleus Maleficarum of the 20th Century!) Under no circumstances should psychic reality be allowed to interfere with their police-work! - They are Orwell's "thought-police" and to be who you are in reality (as opposed to how they wish to make you) is not statistically valid - it constitutes Orwellian "thought-crime". And they do have the means to cure you of your unique individuality by using drugs that have the power to keep human beings chained to their side, to the light side. Now how is that not a patriarchal religion reacting to heresy against God's laws and God's order and against paganism and the female principle, no different in principle to the Papal inquisition of centuries ago?
One day it will be seen so! It will be seen for what it is!
If there is an astral plane, as required by reincarnation - existence outside of matter - then we are, in reality, immortal beings who dwell, naturally, on a plane of thought. And that plane of thought does not cease to exist if we are confined in matter. So why is awareness of it criminalized (I refer to the natural human need to use drugs for self-exploration and mind expansion and to uncover the truth that lies within us) and communication on the astral plane - whether it be knowingly, or unknowingly - treated as "thought-crime", and suppressed, in every possible way?
Fear!
Fear, because everything is organized patriarchally - order, judgement, logic, law, "the Light"- and anything truly new, creative or intuitive, is perceived, from this perspective, as a threat to the established order - archetypally, to "the order of heaven". Order and logical judgement rule for the supposed good of all - anything new may cause the "The Infinite Chain of Being" (which comes down to us from God in Heaven) to collapse, and then the entire universe will be in chaos! Nothing has changed - only the language! Patriarchy is firmly entrenched all over the world - and its fears are no different now to what they were before, hundreds or thousands of years ago. The same old fears - fear of the darkside, fear of the unconscious, fear of the supernatural and the occult, fear of psychic reality, fear of the female principle, fear of individual freedom, fear of what is new (as in ever-changing and renewing nature), and fear of what challenges "authority".
As for ghosts, I have my own theory. Do you know what it is like to sleepwalk? - Have you ever experienced sleepwalking, or encountered a sleepwalker? Well, there seems to me to be a similarity, and, perhaps, a close relationship, between sleepwalkers and ghosts. What if, some ghosts at least, are people being drawn back to a past experience, especially a stressful or horrifying or traumatic experience which they did not get over while incarcerated in bodies of material substance. On the astral plane we create things with our minds as thought forms, not out of matter with our hands. And while our thoughts are not visible to others on the physical plane, where we see hard material matter all the time, on the astral plane our thoughts are much more revealing, of who we are. What if, in torment, we sleepwalk at times and create images of ourselves; and involuntarily cast into places we are still tied up in, within, thoughtforms of memories that continue to plague us?
Perhaps these thoughtforms are so strong they transcend time - after all, we know from experience that we can exist in "eternity in an hour", a year in a day! Time, which is so strongly tied to matter, to physical space, and to the heavy masses of the universe, would not behave in the same way on the astral plane! We would not be under the spell of physical laws - and that is another theory about the universe that I have!
Science and scientists, by definition, study and try to understand the natural, physical universe. Unfortunately, the existance of ghosts, ESP, astral planes, etc. always seems to just fall short of proof. Look too closely and they disappear. They remain part of the supernatural and therefore out of the realm of scientific study. Scientists have unearthed all manner of exotic phenomena, can detect fantastically small amounts of energy, and can bring tremendous analytical power to problems. Yet they seem unable to detect ghosts, ESP, flying saucers, or bigfoot despite considerable effort. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, a rational person has to conclude that these things cannot be shown, or at least have not been shown, to have any influence in our natural world. People are free to believe in the supernatural if they want, but please don't expect self-respecting scientists to back you up. It just is not in the job description.
He is a scientist!
Science is based on observation by a relative few. For a phenomenon to be recognized by science, it must be witnessed by one of these (preferably more). Otherwise, tales of it are dismissed as 'myth', 'folk lore', and 'old wives tales'. Just look at rogue waves or the great apes or giant squid. For hundreds of years people reported these phenomena. Frequently many people at once, and often ones with distinction. Since they weren't 'trained naturalists', though, these reports were discounted. Even those of some trained naturalists were discounted. Then, we found bodies washing up on shore, one naturalist delivered a skull from Africa to the British Museum of Natural History, and video tapes caught the wave slamming into a ship. Now, these rare but real phenomena are recognized as just that: rare, but quite real.
By your standards, Jim, something that happens in the wilds, or at rare and unpredictable intervals, will likely remain 'supernatural phenomena' until someone with the right devise just happens to be standing in the right place at the right time to catch evidence of it.
I know of no peer reviewed evidence that a scientist can't also be a nut case.
As they say, the line between genius and insanity is very thin.
We need to do a great deal more scientific investigation into the "other side". This only makes sense since we are all destined to end up there one day. I personally believe it should be possible to develop reliable communications technology for communicating with the "other side. Just a few hundred years ago, no one on Earth would have thought it possible to communicate with anyone on the other side of our planet, and now we do it every day. Likewise, I personally believe it should be possible to communicate with people who have crossed over to the "other side". I would personally like to think it possible that one day in the very near future we will be able to pick up a phone and talk to our dearly departed on the "other side", just like we can with people on the other side of our Earth. I personally do believe that there is a scientific basis for the so called "after life". I personally believe that we all possess a quantum mechanical body, or so called "spiritual body", which in turn resides within our mechanical or physical body. I believe this way partly based upon the evidence which Kirlian photography has provided. I believe that our physical or mechanical body is gestational to our spiritual or quantum mechanical body; in other words our quantum mechanical or "spiritual" body derives its unigue organization from our physical or mechanical body. I also believe that our long term memories are stored in a quantum mechanical way, and when we cross over we also carry these memories with us to the other side. This is the only way to explain how we can store up a lifetime of multimedia memories in just the small space of our physical head. I think people who are still searching for answers to life on this side tend to 'stick around' our world longer once they do cross over, and I personally believe we could achieve an intelligence bonanza if we could reliably link up with these people on the other side. On the eve of 9/10 just before the attack of 9/11, someone came to me from the other side in a state of panic, and tried to tell me something was about to happen in connection with terrorism. I could not discern anything else about what they were trying to tell me, just that it had something to do with terrorism. I was not in a position to do much about this, so I signed onto AOL and proceeded to lambast the Bush administration, as specifically I lambasted Condelessa Rice, for their lack of attention to terrorism. I then signed off, and said in a voice out loud "That is all that I can do." This seemed to appease or satisfy whoever it was on the other side who was trying to communicate with me, and at that point I headed off to work (I was making night time repairs to some equipment connected with my job.) The next morning I walked in and flipped on the TV while I quickly got some breakfast before going off to bed. One of the twin towers was already on fire, and at first I thought it was just a high rise fire on the news. But then the second aircraft struck the second tower as I was watching, and I realized something else was going on. Over the years since I have wished many times that I had more reliable means of communication with whoever it was who was trying desperately to contact me on the other side. I can only hope that one day we will develop this more reliable form of communications with the other side. There is no calculating how much value this kind of technology could potentially have upon our human world. - Rick Carter
PS - It might be possible to develop extremely sensitive bionic keyboards which people on the other side can operate in order to communicate with us. Just a suggestion when it comes to finding a good place to start further investigation into the "other side". I was also watching one of these Ghost Hunters or similar programs once on satelite TV, and they apparently used a scanning laser to illuminate a spirit which was walking down a road at night. If this was actually a truthful program, then apparently incoherent light passes through these "spirits", but certain spectrums of coherent light apparently reflect or bounce off of them. Just want to bring this phenomena to light as well, no pun intended. - Rick Carter
I have had my own expeirences, just as I assume most of you have. I have seen weird orbs floating in our skies, No not satellites, these changed direction, and No not planes, to fast of a change in direction. what I saw that night still gets my blood pumping, Now im always looking up, bc No one really knows whats out there. Even the skeptics cant explain all strange events. I think the skeptics are just scared because they cant wrap there heads around the fact that we are not alone in this vast universe. LOOK UP you might see something
i think its ironic that serious investigations into unknown, metaphysical or psychic phenomena is brushed off as pseudo-science because there is no empirical evidence of it, yet we're spending billions in dollars and time in research into dark matter, of which there is no empirical evidence. Yes, its okay to assume 85% of the universe is invisible matter & energy we can't detect, touch or measure despite it being right in front of your face, yet if you claim to have seen a ghost you're a nutcase. Thing is, since normal matter/energy can organize itself and grow into self-aware, conscious beings, why couldn't dark matter do the same?
As a society we value the scientific more than the intuitional, shall I say? Things exist that cannot be measured or necessarilly scientifically proven. Everybody dies, their bodies are left behind and where do they go? Does religion give us a clear picture of the afterlife, or is there more than what we read in our religious books?
Indigenous peoples place a lot of importence on dreams and things like that. As modern people, we've pushed that to the margins of our existance. I think we're missing a lot of impotant information about life and ourselves.