Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, June 2019
Our Cosmic Ancestry in the Stars: The Panspermia Revolution and the Origins of Humanity
By Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ph.D., Gensuke Tokoro, and Kamaia Wickramasinghe, MA
Inner Traditions
Bear & Company
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
2019, 144 pages, 6 x 9, US $14.00
ISBN: 978-1-59143-328-6
24 b&w illustrations
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ph.D., an acclaimed professor of applied mathematics and astronomy, was a long-time friend and colleague of the famous British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001). Together they first worked on what is known as the panspermia theory back in the 1970s. According to this theory, comets have been carriers of life here on earth in the form of spaceborne viruses and that viral inserts in our DNA have shaped our human genome over millions of years. The authors of this book assert that the evidence over the past four decades since this theory of cosmic biology was initially proposed has accumulated significantly and they feel represents compelling indications that the seeds of life are spread throughout the universe, pointing out how the tiniest of viruses, microscopic animals like the tardigrades as well as seeds can survive the harsh conditions of space. The authors believe that panspermia is on the verge of becoming recognized as a major scientific fact and will be on a par with the Copernican Revolution when it happens.
The Murder of Moses: How an Egyptian Magician Assassinated Moses, Stole His Identity, and Hijacked the Exodus
By Rand and Rose Flem-Ath
Inner Traditions
Bear & Company
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
June 2019, 256 pages, 6 x 9, US $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-59143-336-1
www.BearandCompanyBooks.com
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
After spending a decade investigating the matter, continuing in the footsteps and building upon the earlier research of Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, and Sigmund Freud – who invested the last 40 years of his life obsessed with attempting to solve the presumed murder of Moses’ – authors Rand and Rose Flem-Ath detail in this book how they finally uncovered the elusive truth. Certainly not what the Christian mainstream wants to hear, the authors present disturbing evidence that Moses was murdered by his father-in-law, Reuel, a very skilled magician, trained at Egypt’s esteemed House of Life, who faked the famous Burning Bush incident and how the early scribes of the Old Testament altered some of the details, including the location of the Mountain of God from Edom, where Reuel was a prince, to Sinai instead. The authors also reveal that Reuel’s motive was to be found in the fact that he was the son of Esau, from whom Jacob stole his birthright, and his desire to acquire the leadership of the Hebrew people.
Area 51: The Revealing Truth of UFOs, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups, & Conspiracies
By Nick Redfern
Visible Ink Press
43311 Joy Road #414
Canton, MI 48187-2075
2019, 422 pages, Paperback, US $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-57859-672-0
www.visibleinkpress.com
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
Described as a true expose of some of the government’s most classified secrets, this encyclopedic volume is yet another slam dunk for prolific author Nick Redfern who has a genuine knack for extracting and uncovering the most compelling information and stories out there, and it doesn’t matter that a lot of times it’s truly “out there” – UFOs, MIBs, cryptozoology, Area 51 – it doesn’t matter. Redfern is on top of his game and is top dog in this genre of investigative journalism.
I personally found a whole slew of thought-provoking nuggets of useful information in this book, even though I’m generally not all of that gung ho about things relating to Area 51. Come on people, it’s a top secret aircraft testing site for the military. It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the “flying saucers.” I often feel as though many writers and promoters of the whole UFO/Area 51 controversy have taken a quantum leap into fictional excess. However, Redfern inserts some angles into this story that had me taking a second look, from a different orientation. Was Bob Lazar a government patsy? What of his claims of two days worth of missing memories at Area 51’s alleged S-4? What of his statement that he saw two men in white lab coats seemingly talking to a small alien figure he happened to get a glance of through a small window while walking down a corridor. Even Lazar wondered if it was a fake setup just to test his reaction. “They play so many mind games there,” Lazar was quoted saying. And was it Dr. Edward Teller, whose interest in UFOs went back to his participation in a secret UFO conference in 1948, the person who got Lazar into Area 51’s S-4? Were there indeed remote viewers at Area 51 back in the 1970s who were concerned about possible underground alien bases on our moon? Did they seek the help of SRI’s famed remote viewer Ingo Swann? Should we be thinking in terms of Jacques Vallee’s Messengers of Deception?
Now let me be clear that I am not opposed to high-strangeness scenarios. After all, I am a long-time fanboy of the works and theories of John A. Keel. I’m not strictly a follower of the government disinformation scenarios. I see two sides to this strange ufological coin. The Keelian side included contactees, MIBs, cryptids, and a parallel world from which “ultraterrestrials” (or what occultists have long called elementals) interacted with us from. Redfern also includes the ancient shape-shifting Middle Eastern’s Djinn, believed by such leading UFO researchers as Rosemary Ellen Guiley and the late Gordon Creighton to have played a significant role in these UFO high-strangeness encounters. Redfern even describes a classified Department of Defense program involved in alleged contact with “nonhuman entities” [supposedly extraterrestrials]. Two physicists who claimed that they worked on this project told ufologist Ray Boeche that they had been trying to learn their alien secrets to be utilized for military purposes. However, as things unfolded (if this wasn’t all just part of a disinformation program) the physicists, both of them Christians, came to believe instead that the intelligence they were dealing with was demonic. The scientists showed Boeche a dozen photos of three people laid out dead in something resembling dentist chairs with EEG and EKG leads still attached to them, the explanation being that they were presumably killed by the “aliens” during so-called psychic experimentation.