December 1990

THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE: OW MUCH DO SCIENTISTS iidihllllia'ili.™ IhWiiii REALLY KNOW? PLUS: OMNI'S ALIEN ALMANAC / HUMAN-EX HYBRIDS SECRETS OF THEApJCTEES

*M tOOKAT* PLYING SAUCER THE MYSTERIOUS IRNFIELDS OF ENGLAND AND THE SOVIET 'W onnrui VOL. 13 NO. 3 DECEMBER 1990

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR: STEVE FOX ART DIRECTOR: DWAYNE FLINCHUM

8 26 First Word Space By Dr. Samuel Broder By James Oberg The success The cosmonauts' of nations depends on experience with the people's Soviet space fluency in science. station is providing ^^M NASA with lO invaluable information Omnibus to avoid Contributing authors ^^H making similar mistakes. 12 ^l ^i^^H 28 Communications VH Arts *" Readers' writes * ' By Richard Broderick ^^r^ "^ /, / vtifl Little Green Men: 16 ^K 1 / Is the

: Stars wjf - A\ country really ready

By Thomas R. McDonough j . /~>7W'^. for their If extraterrestrial kws'^Hl mind-altering intelligence does exist, space jazz music? why haven't we observed any evidence? * •Jw^ : i^B 30 Artificial Intelligence 17 By Steve Ditlea Law Self-improving computers: By Bill Lawren Algorithms can Electronic help software evolve Frontier Foundation: to meet new Defending § and growing demands. hackers against chmefighters. 33 Continuum 18 20 22 The importance Mind Body Earth of whale watching, plus By Jeff Goldberg By Kathleen McAuliffe By Dana Points mood foods, The cough suppressant A painkiller Lighting technology in the space trash collectors, you bought developed ten years future will naming planets, might also combat your ago could be a real antidote use holograms to provide microwavable eyesight, memory loss. to drug addiction. natural light. and 3-D TV.

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•Bnnrui 42 97 The Big Ear The Alien Almanac By Dennis Overbye A guide to UFOs: Inside The search for extra- a flying saucer, terrestrial abductee confessions, intelligence: The coming plus: Are you generation. The a human-alien hybrid? first messages from space will probably 112 arrive in the form of radio Books waves. Will By Linda Marsa astronomers in Arecibo, The Leningrad Bible: Puerto Rico, be High-resolution the first to make contact? images of the world's oldest known 50 Hebrew text will provide Fiction: new facts about Snapshots From the the writing— and editing Butterfly Plague of the Bible. By Michael Bishop You survived 118 Alfred Hitchcock's birds. Phenomenon How will By Bob Berger you fare against this new The creation of one man, winged threat? this universe may exist only in his 60 computer. Pictorial: Field of Dreams? 139 By Dava Sobel The Omni Arcade Are the mysterious circles By Bob Lindstrom and on British Scot Morris tarmlands proof of The latest computer and UFOs? Scientists say they video games. know the truth. 74 90 Pickles that glow in 68 the dark. Interview What the Freedom Trail By Thomas Bass Government Isn't 146 By Rob Fruchtman Farouk el-Baz usually Saying About UFOs Traveling through Eastern explores upward By Patrick Huyghe Europe, a into outer space. Now he's The cosmic Watergate: documentary filmmaker reaching into What's known 148 reports on Egypt's pyramids and other and what's covered up. Last Word what the future holds for archaeological Is the federal By Merry Morris the people sites and divining the government embarrassed Questionable of the former Communist future of the by Its own answers to age old bloc countries. planet based on its past. UFO investigations? quandaries

Fiction: The Dead Love You By Jonathan Carroll After car owner Anthea Powell is involved in a mysterious auto collision, she quickly discovers that even maximum insurance coverage will not guarantee full protection from a vengeful motorist— but she has effective ways of protecting herself. FIRST IAJDRD

BEATING THE AIDS EPIDEMIC: Better communication between scientists and the public

is key to defeating the plague

working vocabulary to respond to the disease. Only Dr. Samuel or even had a young peo- a handful of scientists and clini- Broder is the of science? How many to cal researchers were available to director ple were actively encouraged or clinical re- begin to stem the tide. of the National choose science There are other consequences Cancer search as a career? In the Sev- Eighties, there were of declining literacy in the lan- Institute, enties and bright guage of science. Some research- located powerful incentives for their sci- people to become stock ers stop trying to make in Belhesda, young entific goals understandable to Maryland. traders and lawyers. What were frustra- the incentives for our brightest the public. This leads to sometimes young people to become scien- tion on all sides and for the public to dis- tists and clinical researchers? makes it hard arrogance The complexity of conversing tinguish between and conviction on the in the language of science is not deeply held the a new problem. Long before part of scientists. In addition, of scientists or their AIDS, C. P. Snow, a novelist personalities motivations can become trained in science, wrote: "Over inferred absorbing to the pub- whole areas of intellect and feel- much more the substance of their sci- ing, we have ceased to speak a lic than common language. Scientists ence. Finally, we face the risk that magic, denial, or wish fulfill- We are beginning the second dec- can't talk to nonscientists...." "These pres- ment can substitute for the sci- ade of a plague, and this haunt- Snow went on to say: novelists to entific method as responses to ma- ing milestone was marked by the sures have caused have jor diseases. San Francisco AIDS Conference lose their nerve. They been those or- into private world where, How can we support last June. Those who have AIDS driven a dinary scientists who work outside and those who love them experi- since they could not talk to any- least talk the public eye but do great ence suffering beyond metaphor. one else, they could at have tend- good? The success of the scien- But during the conference, we wit- to themselves. And they about tific enterprise against AIDS will nessed an astonishing display of ed to talk to themselves depend on having a few key new knowledge. their own loneliness." not people with name recognition in The San Francisco conference Are scientists and nonscien- described the arena. Rather, success will de- taught us three things. We can tists, like the novelists a diverse corps nerve? I pend on having achieve our public health initia- by Snow, losing their scientists pursuing in San Francis- of well-trained tives. We can develop effective think not. And yet, re- to see scientists their own investigator-initiated drugs to treat the disease. And co, it was striking search. Finally, success will de- we can develop a successful vac- and nonscientists who talked on- themselves. Did pend on the availability of clinical cine, or multiple vaccines. Never- ly internally to and community- defeating this help their loneliness? Per- researchers theless, the path for who Did this help the goal of based health care providers AIDS is not linear, and it is not with- haps. Probably not. know how to translate new find- out obstacles and contradictions. defeating AIDS? anger ings for the general public. to turn to several issues There was also accusatory I want Back to 0. P. Snow and the is- regarding science and the contra- from both of these groups. Will deteat sues related to the vocabulary dictions we face. The future will this anger help science grammar of the language of nations that are AIDS? Certainly not. and belong to those ' most urgent prob- science: We must find a way to fluent in the language of science One of our few young peo- speak a common language of sci- and technology, and we will cer- lems is still that too society, ence, to do all that we can to en- tainly not have an effective solu- ple go into science. As a of science in hance communication between tion to AIDS without a commit- we may be in awe still do scientists and nonscientists. Can ment to science. In the past two certain contexts, but we priority to we defeat AIDS? Yes. Will we decades or so, we have not not give a high enough

our n erve? I hope not. DQ made an adequate commitment the nurturing of young scientists. lose that we to science or science education, The surprise pandemic The views expressed in this editorial has brought this Dr. starting in grade school and mov- now call AIDS are the personal views of Broder relief. At the begin- necessarily the views of the ing on to high school, college, fact into stark and not Service or any oth- and beyond. "Before AIDS, how ning of the AIDS crisis, we could U.S. Public Health scientists er government agency. many people really knew science not find enough young —

onnruiBus

SAUCY AUTHORS:

It's not easy for writers to phone home when

they're in the field looking for UFOs

research for a book (imagine myself snowbound on Omni hope to communicate in project: this issue: that unidentified flying about the search for alien life. the rocky coast of Maine. I or UFOs, need not be Also contributing to Omni's spe- would sit in front of the fireplace objects, or even cial UFO issue is Thomas Mc- and keep my friends entertained extraterrestrial in origin — real, for matter—in order to Donough (Stars, page 16), coor- for many nights, not with ghost sto- that interesting or fun. dinator of the SETI program at the ries but with one interesting UFO be in this spirit that we present Planetary Society, an internation- tale after the next." The speaker It is special issue on UFOs. al association founded by Carl Sa- is the late J. Allen Hynek, con- Omni's editor at large gan and others. McDonough is sidered the father of modern UFO- Coordinated by Weintraub, the pieces the author of The Search for Ex- logy. He understood what we at Pamela that follow appeal to the sense of traterrestrial Intelligence and mystery and possibility secretly har- Spacer The Next 25 Years (John bored by us all. Though Wein- Wiley & Sons). traub herself does not think that On the lighter side of UFO in- UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, fo, authors Dennis Stacy, Jerome she believes that, in many instanc- Clark, and Paul McCarthy have es, they represent unsolved mys- contributed pieces to The Alien Al- teries. "Pondering the unex- manac (page 97). Included in the plained," says Weintraub, "opens almanac: a self-help quiz to de- read- up vistas in our deepest selves." termine whether or not Omni Opening up ers have alien genes. one sucn vists Finally, writer Richard Broderick Contributors completes our UFO repertoire this month, with a piece (Arts, page 28) on clockwise the far-out jazz sounds of Little from bottom: Green Men, which he "grokked" Patrick Huyghe, while in a sports bar in St. Paul. Dava Sobel, "Anyone expecting to hear anoth- Dennis Overbye, er version of 'Proud Mary' had Sandy Fritz, left twenty minutes into the set," Jeff Goldberg. Search for Extra- Broderick remembers. "Those terrestrial Intelligence (SET!), Over- who stayed were won over bye, who has been writing about including myself." SETI for a decade, is the author Taking a more empirical look at of Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos the great beyond, meanwhile, as- (Harper-Collins, 1991). sociate editor Sandy Fritz and Patrick Huyghe ("What the Gov- writer Rebecca Norris tell all ernment Isn't Saying About about geostationary satellites UFOs,'^ page 90) writes about the ("Parked in Orbit," page 120). government's search for E.T. Writer Jeff Goldberg (Mind, class Huyghe is coauthor of The Big page 18) reveals a weird Splash (Birch Lane Press). of new drugs that could revolu- "Field of Dreams?" (page tionize treatment for stroke vic- >0) illuminates one of the tims and others. Goldberg is the dramatic anomalies of author of Anatomy of a Scientific t most (Bantam). i the past decade—the ap- Discovery Fruchtman l pearance in British corn- PBS filmmaker Rob fields of mysterious gives us "Freedom Trail" on V circles. Investigative jour- page 68. He recalls a group of nalist Dava Sobel, for- young East Berliners selling Lucky merly of The New Strike cigarettes from a red Cadil- York Times, was lac convertible. "This is the new thrilled to help Om- reality in capitalism for the East v ' unravel this re- Germans," says Fruchtman, ;ent UFO mys- whose Wearable Art: The Body tery, Her latest Adorned will air this winter. DO — connnnuruicATiorus

READERS' WRITES: Of wilderness, insects, and the high price of random numbers

Stimulating Reading tered. I'm concerned that as known oil depleted, com- I'm a subscriber to Omni and reading and mineral reserves are will stop at the magazine has been stimulating and panies and governments notwithstand- informative throughout the years. I es- nothing, rare ecosystems exploit those pecially like Continuum and Antimatter. ing, to find, mine, and interesting thought pro- resources. As long as we put econom- I find them and material prosperity above voking, but this is not to say that your ic growth and precious plan- other material is lacking. Your publica- all else, the rape of our driving another 1 ,000 tion is the leader in its field when It et will continue. Is Not comes to providing scientific informa- miles worth the loss of a species? tion from a new perspective. in my book. Patrick M. Lasruk Cindy Harper Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada Ashland, Oregon

Generating Expense Thank you for your article on disap- Maui resident, The most unbelievable statement I pearing paradises. As a particularly interested in the part found in your September 1990 article I was rain forest. As the "The Dean of Psi" was that it cost about the Hawaiian in Hawaii, S50,00'0 for a random number genera- price of oil soars, we. here with the rest of the world, are des- tor. What is it about random number gen- along source. erators that makes them so expensive? perate for an alternative power wind, water, or so- What's wrong with putting dice in a cup However, it must be eases and shaking them for a specified time? lar—not geothermal—power that cures our dependency on oil. It's not the results of these psi experi- and finally prob- ments that stretch my credulity to the Many people are unaware of the geothermal would cause limit; it's the budgets they eat. How can lems that num- not just with the rain forest, but with the I trust anyone who says a random destroyed the un- ber generator is worth $50,000? coral that will be when Norman Doering derwater cables are laid. Valparaiso, IN Myrlin A. Hermes, age fourteen Kula, HI Bugaboo disappointed In your discussion of Alaska's Arctic Na- I was both delighted and to see the First Word by Edward O. tional Wildlife Refuge, there were sev- Wilson [September 1990], the disap- eral distortions and inaccurate state- pointment being that his sideline work ments. Caribou do not "insist on bear- in the ANWR coastal in entomology has obscured your view ing their calves" the first of his contributions to our understand- plain; in fact, this year was ing of the human condition. Here is the year in the last tour that caribou actu- man who gave us Sociobiology, the big- ally calved on the coastal plain. The gest eye-opener since Darwin, and On plain is not the "last unexploited Human Nature, which just about ren- stretch of Alaska's 1,100 miles of Arc- the area under con- ders all of classic philosophy and psy- tic coast." Between chology obsolete. And you have him sideration for oil and gas leasing and write about bugs! As Wilson admits, the the Canadian border is a 30-mile seg- bugs can take care of themselves; we ment of coastal plain that is already des- need thinkers of his caliber to help us ignated wilderness and will forever be oil gas exploration. in dealing with ourselves. off-limits to and Frank Finch John D. McClellan Smithfield, PA Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Barrow, AK Paradise or Progress? Many thanks for the article "Lost Hori- That Sinking Feeling fairly zons?" [September 1990], As stated on I found Mind [September 1990]

your cover, these paradises seem amusing because I have long said that doomed to be lost or irreparably al- people who are afraid of being lonely CONHNUFO ON PAGE 136 SWEET NOTHINGS? Here are three reasons why E.T has not yet phoned Earth

En- arise?When we optimists plug our became aware of an alien pres- I I hen ltalian Physicist f% Drake equation, ence, civilization would change, I I rico Fermi sat lunch- estimates into the just Papua New Guineans pol- U !# ing with physicist Ed- we get numbers ranging from thou- as the outside world now lis- ward Teller in 1950. Fermi ignited sands to millions of technological luted by music, TV, and a debate that rages to this day. civilizations that could exist in the ten to rock watch The Yorker. He asked simply, "If there are ex- Milky Way. When pessimists input read New aliens traterrestrial civilizations, where their numbers, they get approxi- Another possibility why haven't contacted us is that their are they?" In other words, if they mately zero. Ultimately, the bur- civilizations developed exist, why aren't they obvious? den rests on the shoulders of the may have permanent Why don't astronomers see alien optimists to explain why we have a method of inducing citizens through Coca-Cola signs flashing in the not yet discovered any proof of ecstasy for their electronic stimulation of night sky? life on other worlds. drugs, Radio astronomer Frank Drake To me, a Caltech engineering the brain, or computer-generated automatic life- made a valiant effort to answer lecturer and coordinator of the artificial reality. With systems, people could this question by creating an equa- Planetary Society's Search for support blissfully un- tion to estimate the probability of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) live happily ever after, about the rest of the life arising in our galaxy. He program, the most appealing ex- concerned apparent ab- universe. It could be that there are broke it down into a series of planation for the steps: What are the numbers of sence of E.T.'s is the quarantine whole worlds of slumbering little planets around a star? What are hypothesis. Fans of the old Star green men and women spending of their lives in cosmic rapture. May- the odds that life will sprout on Trek series know how the crew particularly inter- Talking head: one of those planets? What's the the starship Enterprise always be no one is in signaling us. Suppose The search likelihood that intelligent life will attempted to uphold "The Prime ested could live in resplendent ec- for extrater- Directive"; that is, they steadfastly you with stasy for the rest of your life. restrial life, avoided direct contact prim- interested in schlep- says Thomas R. itive civilizations in order to avoid Would you be McDonough contaminating the cultures. In the ping off to other worlds? oth- It's also possible that aliens of Caltech (right), same spirit it's possible that no interest in us than wilt yield an er civilizations want to avoid have more human has in ants, enormous payoff, interfering with the emergence of the average After a few million years of evolu- even If no primitives such as us. accelerated by their genetic aliens are Imagine we belong to an ad- tion they have an in- actually found. vanced civilization that's been engineers, may around for billions of years. We're telligence as superior to ours as a jaded group of near-immortal ours is to the ants'. What would aliens. We have lived 1 million they learn by contacting us? years and have sampled the pleas- That's not to say they haven't left ures of a thousand worlds. Our some subtle evidence for us to dis- most refreshing experience cover. Perhaps we, with our tee- might well be savoring Ihe pecu- ny ant brains, might still be able liarities of a brand-new world- io detect the crumbs the aliens that's uncontaminated by galac- have left behind. tic culture. Perhaps the.most pre- SETI has reopened a Pando- cious commodity in the universe ra's box of questions, but at least

is a civilization that does not yet it offers the possibilityot answers. trade information with other Throughout history, every time worlds, one where there are no in- we've turned a new kind of tele- tergaiactic McDonald's and no na- scope on the sky, we've always tives watching Andromeda IV's found surprises. So let's continue equivalent of The Cosby Show. To with the SETI search. At worst, an interstellar conservationist the we'll discover wonderful celestial greatest evil might be letting bar- bodies never before seen by hu- baric Earthlings know about the man beings. And at best, we may existence of an advanced galac- find civilizations dazzling beyond tic civilization. To do so would our wildest dreams. spoil Earth. Once Earthlings —Thomas R. McDonough DO —

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BREAKING AND ENTERING: Did the government confiscate hackers' rights

in its raids on computer crime?

looked like a scene from The por—author of the fabulously suc- in court that Neidorf did not par- 1-2-3 IIUntouchables. On March 1, cessful Lotus program ticipate in the theft, the case

1 990, agents of the U.S. Secret and financed in part by former Ap- against Neidorf was dismissed Service staged a surprise raid on ple whiz kid Steven Wozniak, a and charges against him were Steve Jackson Games, a small number of prominent hackers dropped. Why was the case tried computer games manufacturer have banded together to form in the first place? "The govern- in Austin, Texas. As Jackson the Cambridge, Massachusetts- ment didn't like the content of Nei- watched in disbelief, the T-men based Electronic Frontier Founda- dorf's electronic magazine," seized three computers, a stack tion (EFF). The EFF's mission is to says Gross, "so they were trying of software discs, and, according protect the constitutional rights of to tar him with theft." to one observer, "destructively ran- computer freaks against what Ka- Despite the EFF's role in the sacked the company's ware- por sees as the frequently illegiti- Jackson and Neidorf cases. Ka- house." Although the agents nev- mate, often uneducated, and por cautions that it is not a gener revealed the reason for the sometimes illegal incursions of gov- eralized hacker defense fund. raid, Jackson says one of them ernment computer crimefighters. "Unauthorized access is not some- told him that his newest game, In the words of John Perry Bar- thing we approve of," he says. GURPS Cyberpunk, was "a hand- low, a writer and Grateful Dead lyr- "We defend Neidorf, for example. book for computer crime." icist who has become the voice but we would not have defended of the EFF, "our job Riggs." The EFF is now develop-

Who ya gonna is to civilize the elec- ing criteria to determine what call? The tronic frontier." sorts of cases the foundation will Electronic Frontier At this writing the take in the future. Foundation foundation has tak- For its part, how would the gov- defends hackers en on two cases. ernment answer Kapor's charges against the One is that of Steve of ignorance and excessive incursions of over- Jackson Games, in zeal? "We'd respond to that in zealous which foundation- court," says Assistant U.S. Attor- computer crime- hired attorneys Har- ney Tim Holtzen, "which is where fighters from vey Silverglate and we'd have to."

the government. Sharon Beckman Kapor and the EFF are still wait- are trying to deter- ing for the federal government to mine why the Feds back up words with deeds, actual raided Jackson in charges and actual court cases the first place, of computer crime arising from since no charges the Sun Devil raids. In the mean- had been filed at time, the EFF has pledged to press time. Steve fund as much as $1 million worth Jackson Games is of legal defense and other activi- The raid was hardly an isolat- not, in fact, a target for investi- ties (lectures, demonstrations, ed incident. Two months later, un- gation. The incursion, says Beck- and the like) at least through der the auspices of a huge fed- man, "is just the type of fishing ex- 1991. At first, write Kapor and eral investigation known as Oper- pedition that the Fourth Amend- Barlow, "we were prepared to ation Sun Devil, law enforcement ment was designed to prevent." fight a few civil libertarian brush agents swept through as many as In the meantime, the EFF has fires" and consider the job done. 27 locations in 14 cities, seizing hired New York civil liberties attor- But it has now become apparent more than 40 computers, closing ney Terry Gross to defend Craig that "we're dealing with a much down a number of electronic bul- Neidorf, publisher of the hacker larger malady, the collision be- letin boards, and confiscating magazine Phrack. Neidorf had tween society and [the electronic 23,000 software discs. published, via an electronic bul- frontier,] the homeland of the The Jackson raid and Opera- letin board, information on the work- information Age." tion Sun Devil are part of a con- ings of the 911 telephone emer- The only cure for the malady, certed government, effort to gency service, What Neidorf they conclude, is to help bring law crack down on computer crime. didn't know was that the informa- to the new frontier and to fight for But the raids have computer hack- tion had been illegally lifted from computer users' rights. ers seeing red. Led by multimil- Bell South computers by hacker "If not us," they ask, "then lionaire computer maven Mitch Ka- Robert Riggs. After Riggs testified who?"—Bill LawrenDQ nniruD

WHEN MEMORY FAILS: A relative of PCP and a drug similar to cough medicine may protect against brain cell injury

the annals of neurology, a pa- study his brain. Instead of finding fire but to respond more vigorous- Intient known as R.B. may one massive damage, they identified ly after a period of intense firing. day rank as a hero whose un- the cause of R.B.'s forgetfulness The lasting change, called long- usual case marked the turning as a tiny lesion—less than one cen- term potentiation, may be a way al- point in the battle against stroke, timeter wide—in the CA1 region neuronal memory circuits are Alzheimer's disease, and other de- of the hippocampus, a part of the tered by experience. that if bilities caused by nerve cell inju- brain suspected, but never before But Choi has found receptors are flooded A form ry. In 1978, as a result of compli- proved, to be involved in memo- NMDA concentrations of gluta- of Alzheimer's cations following bypass surgery, ry. "R.B. was convincing evi- with high the retired postal worker suffered dence that the hippocampus was mate, the transmitter can be a de- caused by a sudden loss of blood to his essential to memory," Squire re- stroyer of neurons. Ordinarily, eating brain, causing him to lose his abil- calls. "The question was why." even greatly excessive amounts al- of glutamate have no detrimental foods high in ity to form memories. Although his The answer may be that the excitatory 111 IQ was not impaired, R.B. chemy of memory and its cata- effect because molecular pumps amino acids was unable to remember events strophic loss are closely related in the brain cells remove glutamate as fast as it accumulates.

However, if this uptake mechanism shuts down due to lack of oxygen, says Choi, "glutamate may build up and in a short time is le- thal. The nerve cells swell and slowly self-destruct," These observations could account not only for R.B.'s very specific damage but also for brain damage resulting from near drowning, head injury, cardiac arrest, and stroke. Because there is no proven remedy for nerve cell injury, drugs that will stop this neuronal domino effect by blocking the action of glutamate at NMDA receptors are currently a hotly con- tested topic at several major phar- maceutical companies. Among the odd assortment of prospective therapies now being tested, Merck, Sharp & Dohme's

compound MK-801 , a close relative of PCP, has shown the most powerful protective capabilities similar occurring even five minutes earli- processes. This is the contention against neuronal injury. Another to glutamate. er. He lived in a foggy blur of of Dennis Choi, a Stanford Medi- unlikely entry in the stroke-drug Glutamate disconnected conversations, fac- cal School neuroscientist, who sweepstakes is Hoffman LaRo- blockers could es, and sensations. studies the implications of gluta- che's dextrorphan, a compound prove useful A battery of psychological mate in nerve cell injury. Gluta- similar to cough suppressants. in treating tests administered by neuroscien- mate, an amino acid that trans- Investigators are awaiting re- devastating tists Larry Squire and Stuart Zola- mits excitatory messages through- sults of human trials comparing iloglcal Morgan at the Veterans Affairs out the brain, reacts with certain these and other compounds, Medical Center in San Diego doc- molecules on the surface of neu- Should glutamate blocker drugs umented R.B.'s condition. But the rons in the brain and spinal cord. prove safe, they may also be use- source of his strange malady re- When glutamate triggers these re- ful in treating many devastating mained unknown until his death ceptors, such as the NMDA sub- neurological diseases. If so, pain 1983, when Squtre, Zola-Mor- type (named after N-methyl-D- tient R.B. will have left behind an gan, and David Amaral of the aspartate used to detect them), invaluable legacy.

Salk Institute were permitted to it causes nerve cells not only to —Jeff Goldberg CXI — BDDV

THE CURE: Researchers say a nonaddictive painkiller stops cravings for cocaine and heroin

Substance abuse research- delson, director of the Alcohol of which have an immunosuppres- ers are buzzing with and Drug Abuse Research Cen- sive effect. Mendelson says this news of a wonder drug ter at McLean Hospital in Boston group may be even more suscep- they say could provide a major and Harvard Medical School pro- tible to infection with HIV, the vi- breakthrough in the treatment of fessor of psychiatry and neurosci- rus associated with AIDS, from opiate addiction. Preliminary re- ence. While research on heroin ad- contaminated needles than ports indicate that the drug- dicts continues, studies of bu- those who inject just one drug. called buprenorphine and original- prenorphine's effects on cocaine "That's why we're targeting them ly patented as an analgesic dependency are stealing center for treatment with buprenor- may also work for the growing num- stage. In an experiment conduct- phine," he says. "If it proves safe ber of cocaine abusers for whom ed last year, Mendelson and his and effective in their case, we'll

consider giving it to individuals ad- there are currently few— if any- colleagues trained five rhesus mon- effective therapies. "Of the thirty keys to self-administer cocaine dicted to cocaine alone." or so drugs the government is in- through an intravenous catheter. More studies will be required, vestigating for the treatment of After six months of daily doses however, before the Food and addiction, buprenor- Getting off the phine is one of the high horse: most promising," re- Heroin addicts ports Marvin Snyder, treated with director of the divi- buprenorphine sion of preclinical re- have no search at the Nation- problem staying al Institute on Drug straight; Abuse(NIDA)mRock- early reports on ville, Maryland. Buprenorphine is are equally chemically similar to promising. opiates like heroin, morphine, and meth- adone— a habit-forming drug dispensed orally in outpatient programs to block the effects of other narcot- ics—but drastically different in effect. When heroin users swilch to buprenorphine, they report a sense of calm and energy rather equivalent to human cocaine abus- Drug Administration approves bu- than the euphoric stupor other opi- ers' average intake, the animals prenorphine for purposes other ates induce. Even better, termina- became dependent on the drug. than pain control. Reckitt and Cole- tion of the drug after prolonged Then the researchers started giv- man, the British company that in- use results only in mild irritability ing them daily injections of bu- troduced the drug, has so far for a few days—tame symptoms prenorphine. Four of the monkeys been reluctant to see it associat- compared to the insomnia and vi- cut their cocaine intake in half im- ed with heroin addiction for fear olent cramps that compound her- mediately. After one month of treat- it will lose its mainstream market. oin withdrawal. Concluding that bu- ment, all five of the monkeys But the company's patent expired prenorphine has minimal potential stopped taking cocaine. recently, and NIDA is negotiating for abuse, the Drug Enforcement Mendelson's team is now spear- with it to obtain proprietary animal

If all well on Agency gave it a Schedule 5 rat- heading clinical trials of oral bu- research data. goes ing —compared with Schedule 4 prenorphine on 600 people dually the commercial and research for valium, Schedule 2 for metha- addicted to heroin and cocaine. fronts, buprenorphine could done, and Schedule t.for heroin. An estimated half million Ameri- soon become the first line of as- "It's almost impossible to over- cans regularly inject speedballs, sault for addiction.

dose on it," says Dr. Jack Men- a mixture of the two drugs, both —Kathleen McAuliffeDQ , EARTH

WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY:

Holograms give energy savers i for harnessing the sun's rays

researchers at the Advanced the solar buildings research direc- film and simultaneously splinters IfEnvironmental Research Group tor for the Department of Energy the white sunlight into a spectrum. (AERG) of Davis, California, (DOE), commissioned holography Two sheets of the intricately pat- have their way, office workers of expert Richard lan-Frese and fel- terned holographic film are sand- the future won't have to endure low researchers at the AERG to wiched back-to-back between the glare of fluorescent lights. In- explore the feasibility of using hol- two panes of glass; the first holo- stead their workspaces will be ograms to harness natural light. gram breaks sunlight into a rain- awash with uniform natural light. After nearly a decade of research bow, The second piece of film re- The key to this transformation will their efforts will be tested next sum- verses the process, mixing the be holography, the same laser- mer in a handful of government of- light into white light, which is sim- based technology ' that has fices, the identities of which can't ilar to sunlight The combined hol- beefed up credit card security be released per a confidentiality ograms bounce the light 30 or and given artists a new medium agreement with the DOE. more feet into the office interior. in which to work, Though the holograms AERG There it reflects off a wall or the The idea of catching rays to developed are not as attractive as ceiling and casts a golden glow brighten interior spaces is not their more artistic counterparts, over the work area, providing 250 new. Because the country uses they are made the same way. To lux of illumination —roughly equiv- half of its electricity for lighting, create them, two intersecting alent to the light emitted from an many researchers have focused beams of laser light etch a pattern ordinary desk lamp. on devising alternative lighting in a thin sheet of clear gelatin Eventually Pellish and other re- strategies. In the early Eighties, film. The pattern bends the sun's searchers expect to use- holo- for example, David Pellish, then rays as they pass through the grams to light windowless rooms with a network of "light guides" that could take the form of rectangular plastic tubes lined with fiberoptic filters. The guides would snake from a holographic collection device on the building's exterior, where sunlight would be tun- neled into a concentrated beam, along the ceilings of offices and down into workspaces. Despite the promise of holographic daylighting, the technology isn't a perfect solution to the energy crisis,' The holograms can't store light as solar collection

devices do; interiors would still need electric light at night and on overcast days. Several companies and univer- sities have asked lan-Frese to test his holograms on their windows. Now the researchers need a manufacturer to mass-produce and market the devices, a process that lan-Frese says would bring their cost to about $5 per square foot of window area. But the best news, says lan-

Frese, is what's good for business may also be good for people. "Many studies say that the psychological well-being and produc-

tivity of workers is enhanced by natural light."—Dana Points DO —

RUSSIAN LESSONS: Can the Soviets teach NASA how to build a better space station?

the adage "You learn by do- spacewalking repair jobs. at the sliding plastic window Ifing" also applies lo space, Some major changes in de- shades and laughed. "Don't you [hen the Soviets are the only sign, construction, and mainte- realize that floating debris will ones on Earth who know how to nance would be needed if Free- jam the mechanism in a few build and operate a manned dom were ever to be built, it was months?" he asked. The Ameri- space station. They've been do- fortunate the discovery was can engineers hadn't thought of that. toured and ing it for two decades, and made before the massive assem- The cosmonaut they've learned through numer- bly was begun in orbit. commented for another hour. ous breakdowns and malfunc- One NASA study revealed that Some NASA planners are now worried last year's long de- tions. If NASA engineers want to Mr compares quite well with the about avoid relearning those lessons the best that NASA plans to deliver, lays and repeated rescheduling hard way on the planned space Scientists cataloged the individ- of the launches of two large add- station Freedom, then they will ual replaceable gadgets on the on laboratory modules for Mir. have to admit that the Soviets can outside of Mir. Then they com- They foresee parallel problems or teach them a thing or two. pared the times that cosmonauts worse for Freedom. Whereas Mir This may not be easy. Last sum- had to conduct maintenance on was assembled from only four large the equivalent of mer, cosmonauts aboard . them during spacewalks with the modules— the space station Mir- failure rates for NASA space hard- tour space shuttle missions Free- Hands-on (Peace) struggled with ware such as the shuttle and the dom will be built from nine mod-, space experience shredded insulation and a Skylab space station. \ ules plus hundreds of small struc- \'' with the balky airlock hatch as West- The Soviet failure Jjifj rate tural pieces. Each part must be time, work exactly as Mir qualifies ern commentators : per gadget was in ready on promised, and be compatible with the other components with

which it will be hooked for the first time in space. Cosmonauts

on Mir are still struggling to inte- grate the power and data processing systems on the two recently attached laboratory modules. The Soviets have assembled and operated more than two dozen modules in space. Eighty per-

cent of all human space experi- is Soviet experience. And over the years, Soviet flight con- trollers and cosmonauts have had to cope with a string of ever-more- difficult breakdowns and repairs.

the Soviets as the low level of Soviet space tech- with that of the ^NASAgear. In . NASA plans to take on even tutors in the nology. "Trouble plagued," they fact NASA now \realizes that graver challenges with no such ex- construction and called it, as if such things could Freedom is going \ to be even perience, just decades of paper useful, but operation of never happen in a modern pro- more trouble-prone \ than Mir. studies. These can be a space station. gram like NASA's. Yet at the Space engineers and the public there is no substitute for being same time, NASA was struggling will have to learn to live with it. there. The recognition of this ac- with some problems of its own. American engineers have final- counts for NASA's recent signs of Studies of the maintenance rely begun looking at the spectrum humility in acknowledging there quirements for the U.S. space sta- of recent Soviet space experi- is much to learn from the Soviets. tion yielded the same dismal out- ence. They are questioning every Soviet officials are willing to come. The sophisticated colossus area from crew rescue systems share their hard-earned space les- was so complicated that no mat- and toilets to water purification sons. Now that NASA has realized ter how reliable each component, and locking technology: "How do the value of that commodity, it was, the assembled thousands of the Soviets do It?" should take advantage of the of- them would suffer hundreds of Last year a Soviet cosmonaut fer. It just might be a commercial breakdowns per year, forcing toured a mock-up of NASA's space match literally made in half the crew to do nothing but space station. He took one look heaven.—James Oberg DO ARTS

SPACE SOUNDINGS: For this jazz ensemble, there's more to music than old-fashioned rock and roll

aliens do appear among us the kind of work the group per- Davis and John Coltrane, who Ifwith a message of enlighten- forms. "We're doing a lot of 'out- was influential in "outside" music Sixties. "Coltrane ment, it's altogether possible side' music," explains Sklar. This in the late was that we will greet them with a avant-garde type of music a very spiritual musician," says shrug of indifference, or at best, doesn't stay within the traditional Sklar, "You could hear him striv- a derisive stare or two for not look- boundaries of a particular musi- ing to attain enlightenment and in his ing and acting exactly like the cal style. It has no rules. "Our his yearning for God music." rest of us. That's how the audi- name gives people an idea of Another performer who affected ence greeted the Little Green what to expect from us—some- the band's musical direction is Men who were crammed onto the thing different, maybe space ori- Sun Ra (who purports to be from said tiny stage at the Uptown Bar in Min- ented, but without losing what I outer space— he has he was neapolis. This superb jazz ensem- call the 'giggle factor.'" brought here from Saturn by an- ble writes and performs "space But the "space" explored by Lit- gels). In general, however, the heavily influ- jazz"—a hard-to-categorize mix of tle Green Men is not just outer; it group has been jazz, Eastern music, and occasion- is inner as well. The group's main enced by Indian musicians. "In- al rock rhythms. goal: to alter consciousness dian music usually has one me- The" group was founded in through their music. "We're very lodic instrument, a couple ot per- one Little Green 1988 by Steve Sklar, a guitarist, familiar with mystical traditions cussion instruments, and Men: The and Johnna Morrow, who plays that use meditation, drugs, or sex drone instrument," says Sklar. vertical jazz may be flute, ocarina, and provides "the to shift awareness," says Sklar. "There isn't the complex from Mars, group with ethereal vocals. Little They're trying to achieve the arrangement that you find in West- but the group's Green Men got its unusual name same mind-altering effects with ern music." Eastern really from for several reasons. For one, their music but without the threat- The convergence of Minneapolis. Sklar and Morrow share a passion- ening aspect of psychedelics or and Western influences is striking- "Nils Chundra," a The flaw- ate interest in astronomy and own the long-term commitment to spir- ly evident on less tapes hundreds of slides of the planets itual traditions like Zen Buddhism. mesmerizing cut from their sec- are produced and stars, which the ensemble Little Green Men draws from sev- ond album, OutofThis World.The begins as a duet be- byLCM uses in its performances. eral sources of inspiration, includ- number Productions. The name also offers a clue to ing the pioneering work of Miles tween Jason Orbit on fretless bass and Morrow on bass flute. In the manner of Ravel's Bolero, the piece builds steadily in ten- sion and tempo, slowly adding layer upon layer of texture over the drone line of the fretless bass. The effect is ravishing yet serene, producing a meditative quality. Sklar's "giggle factor" is amply displayed on "March of the Little Green Men" from the group's first album, Jazz From Mars. A tril- ogy consisting of "The Landing," "March of the Little Green Men," and "The Voyage Home," this cut opens with a bold guitar anthem, moves into a driving rock-based number, then gradually mutates into "outside jazz." The piece ends with a soothing astral journey that. showers the listener with a gentle starfal! of notes. Little Green Men would, of course, like to reach a larger, and more receptive, audience. The group hopes to tour the States soon.— Richard BroderickDO ARTIFICIAL IfUTELLIGEfUCE

GROWING SOFTWARE: Darwinian evolution may enable 'computers - to adapt to changing needs

Human-written computer any written by humans. More im- processor) to simulate thousands programs that are ex- portant, the programs keep improv- of independent organisms inter- pensive, bug-prone, and ing as the problems they solve be- acting simultaneously. These ar- quickly outdated may be an en- come more difficult. tificial organisms were numerical cre- dangered species. According to Software that learns from its mis- sorting algorithms designed to their Al whiz Danny Hillis, computers takes is hardly new. In fact, it's the ate random mutations of fittest, or most ef- will one day be able to grow their focus of the technology known as code. Only the own ever-improving soflware. heuristics. For the most part, ficient, mutations survived. By add- Hillis has applied Ihe principle such artificial intelligence tech- ing "artificial sex"—the "mating" of survival of the fittest to problem- niques rely on rigid goal-oriented of fit pairs of algorithms and the solving program elements known rules that can hit dead ends in recombining of their programs in as algorithms. "The dream is to complex applications. Artificial the next generation—improve- accelerated, evolve programs that solve prob- life, on the other hand, uses flex- ments were even lems we don't know how to solve ible, cell-like programming inter- when individual "parent" algo- but merely know how to state," actions that allow for unexpected rithms were not as efficient as says the thirty-four-year-old foun- results. Such "emergent" behav- their offspring. fur- der of the Thinking Machines Cor- ior holds the promise of contin- Software optimization was poration, a manufacturer of super- uing optimization of software as ther speeded up by the introduc- of coevolving artificial para- computers known as Connections it is run on a computer. tion force host Machines, in his firm's first 'at- In Hillis's experiment, one of his sites, which can a pop- tempt at applying what are company's computers used ulation, to develop new adaptive known as artificial life techniques, 65,536 processors running paral- characteristics. This experiment "evolutionary Hillis developed number-sorting lel (unlike standard computers led to a series of programs almost as efficient as equipped with a single central leaps," in which the algorithms im- proved so drastically they could Only the strong solve fheir problems with ease. survive: As in much of today's pioneer- In one experiment, ing artificial life research, it is eas- numerical ier to create software and para- algorithms mutat- site models than to find commer- ed, "mated," cial uses for them: "We are cur- and even produced rently applying similar techniques offspring to other applications to under- In a search for stand the range of applicability," the fittest Hillis says. "Our attempts to im- software breed. prove simulated evolution as an optimization procedure continue to take us ever closer to real bio- logical systems." MIT professor and Thinking Ma- chines Corporation cofounder Marvin Minsky, one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, hails his former student's experiment, call-

ing it "a reasonable approach to studying evolution." As for the practical applications of Hillis's research, Minsky cautions that many people think of practical as meaning "available next week." In the long run, Minsky predicts, "software written by humans will reach limits of complexity. Only self-generating software will be able to solve more complex problems."—Steve DitleaDQ — —

coruTinjuunn THE IMPORTANCE OF MEETING ORCAS: The guif between lip service and reform, plus mood food and microwave eyes

We had just boarded looking at water to the boat after snorkel- go whale watching." ing with some curi- Initially, the sun's ous sea lions along heavy reflection off their stony island the water made watch- roost when whafe ex- ing uncomfortable pert Michael Koztcki and ! could not imag- spotted a pod of orca ine how anyone whales in the dis- could possibly do tance. In ancient mar- this sort of thing iner time we were off more than once. But with a whirl of the by the third day out engine, our 80-foot many toothed (dol- boat making wakes phins) and baleen

in the cool waters of (blue) whales later, I the Sea of Cortez. In was a convert. less than 15 minutes in an age when va- we were with them. cations with a definite The majestic black ecological bent—it's and white ocean mam- called ecotourism mals breached the are commonplace, water and dove rapid- whale watching has ly, acting more like become a popular dolphins than the giant blue whales we had seen the pastime. In part that may be because so many whales days before. The orcas' towering dorsal fins flexed with are threatened with extinc;,on and the thought of not be- each surfacing, and no one on our vessel seemed un- ing able to see them at all is the requisite inspiration to moved by the sight. go looking for them in the first place. With what can only be described as intuitive good Although some environmentalists worry that the milliard faith, our expedition's leader, Diana Mclntyre, called to of boats that chug off each week to "chase" whales may us to brave the small skiffs trailing behind our boat and disturb their natural behavior, we may no longer have the race out to meet the whales on a more intimate level. With- luxury of such consideration. People need to be inspired in minutes we were there among them, the giant animals to take action now to preserve the integrity of the oceans, speeding under our boats, surfacing alongside, and dash- to ban the pillage of its wildlife, and to let nature begin ing off ahead. As a team of soccer players moves from the slow process of recouping for the damage already goal to goal, the orcas roved between our two boats, al- done. For every individual who is privy to the sight of dol- most as if to make sure we all got a chan'ce to see. Or phins riding the pressure wave in front of a boat (so was it the whales' eyes that were widest? If Ihey possessed close you can hear their high-pitched squeaks) and to human intelligence they would certainly be wondering other whales rising like blimps from the water, the ocean about the brain capacity of creatures that would venture is no longer a vast and unknown terrain. The sound of a out in tiny boats that any one of them could have flipped blue belching a great blast of water and the loud inhala- over with a well-timed bump. Mclntyre had surmised the tion that follows may awaken even the most landlocked situation accurately: The orcas were out for a play and of minds. we were welcome to join in. After a period of time the That's not to say that everyone who goes on a whale- whales moved on, leaving our skiffs idling in the sea. watching trip comes home an activist. Political action, af-

It isn't exactly a sickness, whale watching; it's more ter all, is a complex human behavior, as curious as it Is like an addiction, and one that takes, you by surprise. essential. But if concern can be bred through knowledge When our voyage with the Baja California tour group Baja and experience, then whale watching may help bridge Expeditions began, Mclntyre said, "You have to like the gulf between lip service and reform. JANE BOSVELD coruTiruuunn

TIDYING UP NEAR- EARTH ORBfT

It's not the big chunks of space junk that worry astronauts: Debris can be spotted and avoided easily. But nearly invisible rubbish such as flecks of paint bar- reling along at ten kilometers per second could easily puncture an astronaut's space suit. Larger iiec^s could rip through the hull of a spacecraft, Beauty may be in the eye of vv bcr-oider bul wr;er; it 'iions besides the space program contact tenses or glasses? In the near future, microwave.energy may do away with corrective lenses. What needs is an orbiting vacuum EYES HAVE IT— Aiiiomatism can be correct- a simpler approach: They cleaner that could remove FINALLY ed by flattening the lens merely inject the DNA all the potentially disastrous asymmetrically." directly nto muscle cells. debris orbiting the planet. Ah, the miracles of micro- His device, which may Jon Wolff and his That's why Cyrus L Butner wave energy: baked pota- be ready for clinical trials by colleagues injected a nutri- and Charles F. Gartrell of toes in 15 minutes, precision the mid-Nineties, applies ent solution containing what General Research Corpora- aircraft landing systems, microwave heat between he calls "naked DNA" into tion in Vienna, Virginia, have and even lightweight porta- 131Tand 136Ttothe the muscles of mice. They devised what they call an ble heaters. Now the same stroma, the thickest layer of expected the animals' cells "orbital debris mitigation microwave energy may the cornea. A circular to break down and reject the system"— a water-spraying move into the eye doctor's applicator pressed against foreign DMA. Instead the cone lined with plastic libers office to permanently cor- the cornea during the cells incorporated the new that collects space junk and rect visual maladies such as procedure contains a cool- DNA and followed its stores it in a canister. nearsightedness, farsighted- ing section that delivers instructions, leading re- Although their low-tech ness, and astigmatism. sa ne solution to protect the sca-chers to believe that the garbage collector is still in B. Stuart Trembly, asso- eye surface from heat- technique might ultimately the conceptual stage, the ciate professor of engineer- related damage. be used to treat muscle engineers foresee two pos- ing science at Dartmouth —George Nobbe disorders. It might even sible designs: a free-flying College, has built a become the heart of a sate: te that actively seeks pencil-shaped microwave DNA EXPRESS system :o deliver vaccines garbage or an array of eye tool that could do away DELIVERY again-;: such viral diseases cones co-orbiting with with glasses. It heat-shrinks as herpes and AIDS. spacecraft, acting as a an ill-shapen cornea, permit- Genetic therapy is the Curiously Wolff's direct shield. "Once the collection full, ting doctors to re-form it in rage in experimental medi- delivery technique does not canisters are an just seconds. cine these days, but work with brain, liver, and astronaut can replace them "The idea is to shrink the delivering the genetic mate- spleen cells. He admits with new ones," says cornea in just the right rial to its proper target is a cheerfully that he hasn't a Butner.—George Nobbe pattern so that you have the tricky business. Most cur- clue as to why it works with correct overall shape," rent approaches "piggy- some cells but not with Thousands of hamsters Trembly says. "For nearsight- back" their genetic freight others. "After all," he says, have been used in research edness., the eye is either within a virus that sneaks up "it took science one experiments in the United too elongated or the lens of on targeted cells before hundred years to figure out States and Great Britain. _ 1

:_-- . = : the eye itself is just too "hijacking '. them to do its why aspirin works. I guess ~re~ ?.~e ": _ powerful, so you need to work. Mow researchers from there's just something spe- iesos'zez = single* :=.--. - make the cornea optically the University of Wisconsin cial about muscles." ~s' -;r Svna in 1930. weaker by flattening It. ai Maeison have developed —Bill Lawren 34 OMNI AT LAST, 3-D TV depth without stereoscopic lieves the device — called BUT MY MOTHER- processing," says Ashbey. Deep Vision—will be on sale IN-LAW'S NAME Virtually abandoned by He explains that a in Europe and the United IS NEPTUNE the film industry in the late VCR-like device makes a States sometime next year

Fifties, 3-D technology may digital copy of a TV show or and will cost about the same If the Hubble Space soon make a comeback. A movie, then encodes it with as an ordinary television set. Telescope ever works well British inventor claims to electronic cues that send "It's going to change how enough to catch a glimpse have created the first three- slightly different images to people view television- of planets outside our solar dimensional television sys- each eye. The tape is forever," says Ashbey. system, who is going to tem ihat works with a played through an attached —Sherry Baker name them? With all of the standard TV. decoder; while watching, media hype placed on James Ashbey, who the viewer's brain combines Thomas Edison averaged Hubble's potential to detect heads the London-based the information received one new patent every two distant planets, it ap- Delta Group, where inven- from both retinas to weeks of his adult life. pears that nobody at NASA tors and filmmakers are perceive the film in 3-D. has given the question developing the 3-D televi- The primary drawback at KIDNAPPED SLUGS much thought. Steve Maran, sion system, emphasizes this stage of development: senior staff scientist at the that no special screen or The device can't trans- "Speak softly and carry Goddard Space Flight funny-looking spectacles late on-the-air TV into 3-D a big stick," said former Center in Greenbelt, Mary- but must first copy the U.S. president Theodore land, says that the discover- broadcast onto videotape. Roosevelt. But some shrimp- er could name a planet Nonetheless, Ashbey be- like beasties may have anything he or she wanted.

one-upped old Teddy: "He could even name it after Say absolutely nothing and his mother-in-law," says

carry a little slug. Maran, laughing. "And if

James McClintock, an people didn't like it, they'd

r nve tebrate zoologist at the give it another." University of Alabama in The question of proce- Birmingham, and John dures for naming new Janssen, a biologist at planets will probably be Loyola University of Chica- answered in the near future. go, discovered a curious "My gut feeling is that the dc : snse strategy among IAU [International Astronomi- Hyperieila dilatata that live cal Union] will publish off the coast of Antarctica. guidelines in the foresee- The quarter-inch-long crusta- able future," says Maran. ceans defend themselves Derek McNally, IAU from fish by abducting a general secretary in Lon-

marine slug and toting it don, says that if a new plan- around like a living back- et were discovered, the IAU pack. When fish try to eat would recommend that the pair, they spit them out discoverers select a name rrneciately, repulsed by a from a list of mythologi- chemical emitted by the cal characters, artists, and slug; crustaceans without famous scientists. "They slugs are quickly eaten. could name the planet any- In the end the slugs are thing they wanted to," he

nothing but prisoners, un- says, "but it would not have able to feed while they are the stamp of official approv- gripped by their kidnappers. al."—Joseph Baneth Allen "The snail," says McClin- tock, "gets nothing out of A male spider's penis is at the deal." —Oliver Fultz the end of one leg. \

coruTinjuunn

THE CLONE RANGER the base of the tallest tree in Are you the world and secured cut- ior:cso:r>& tonight? In the early Sixties, the tings from the upper biggest redwood branches of the second world's gests you may tree was discovered in tallest tree in the world. To- cuttings are Northern California's Hum- day these date with a rich boldt County, towering gradually repopulating the chocolate shake. 367.8 feet high. Clinically world with majestic redwood dubbed ARC 154, the tree, says Libby. APPLESAUCE redwood was standing on The original cutting from AND LOVE property owned by a lumber the redwood giant now high in are what you eat. . company; the second tall— stands 70 feet You take est tree in the world Libby's backyard, while the That platitude may a stood less than a quarter of second shoot stands equal- subtle twist due to research a mile away. lytall in a California research by psychologists Bernard "Something had to be .reserve. Clones from these Lyman and Janet Waters of in done," recalls Bill Libby, a two trees, made by putting Simon Fraser University forester at the University of cell cultures in a nourishing Canada: You are what your California, Berkeley. mix of damp earth, have mood is, and your mood Then two things hap- found their way to gardens determines what you eat. Electronic Bibles are tr up-to-date preach- pened: The lumber compa- and parks in Europe and The researchers culled rage with ny went out of business, and South America. "The king of 100 volunteers and asked ers, but in Great Britain the National Park Service Spain has a bunch," says them to keep track of their technically it's illegal to sell appropriated the land Libby. "And someone in moods and to jot down the these electronic holy for Redwood National Park, France has been cloning the lypes of food they craved books: A 400-year-old Once the situation stabi- clone he got 'from us. during different emotional decree gives the rights to Bible to lized, Libby took shoots from They're even being cloned states. "We found that most the King James and planted in South Amer- of us have definite food the Crown and the rights ica, which was never a na- preferences based on our and privilege to reproduce tive habitat for redwoods." emotions." Waters says. the King James to the Libby isn't sure about the Some common emotions Crown's agents, Cambridge number of offspring directly and the types of food University Press. This and indirectly sired by the responses they elicit: means that no one can two trees but guesses that Loneliness: liquid foods, publish a King James Bible "there's more than one such as soup or milk shakes in the UK without permission hundred and fewer than • Amusement: spicy, salty, from Cambridge. ten thousand" in the world crunchy foods Up to now, though, • sweets, Cambridge University Press today. "A lot of people , Worry: unheated around the world are such as candy bars has adopted what Bible planting redwoods," says • Anger: unheated solids division's Dennis Forbes Libby. —Mark Sunlin • Happiness: soft foods. calls a "fairly laid-back "We found that there is attitude" toward electronic You are tallest in the very common agreement Bibles, granting permis- morning. Your height may that, say, anger is a hard sions to a number of increase as much as a third emotion; thus there may be manufacturers. "All we ask," of an inch while you sleep. something about the activity Forbes says, "is that they The spongelike discs of crunching and clenching give us an acknowledgment between your vertebrae are the teeth that would lead and that they don't alter iiiiia v/ith liquid. During your someone to prefer hard, the words.. After all, if waking hours this liquid is crunchy foods when angry," it's meant to be the King squeezed out from between says Waters. "A soft emo- James version, then it happiness, should be just that." A chip off the ry, bvcX- &3cxz:-ias the stacked discs. While you tion, such as go international. sleep it's reabsorbed. might be more associated —Bill Lawren 36 OMNI coruTiruuurm

When injected at other times in the day, they either showed no weight gain or actually lost weight, says Meier, who believes that the circadian rhythms of body metabolism trigger the response. Using fish, rep- tiles, and mammals showed the" same results. Baton Rouge gynecolo- gist C. William Lovell tested Meier's findings by giving 70 overweight patients a drug that blocks prolactin secre- tion, Six weeks later the subjects had lost a significant percentage of their body fat without dieting. "But the timing, the time of day thai the drug is taken, is absolutely critical," says Meier, who refuses to divulge when the drug should be taken for fear of

its being used without supervision. He adds that clinical tests on hundreds of research subjects will soon LEONARDO, artist who adopted the FAT FOILER be under way around the is CATNAPPER format loved it so much that country and FDA approval EXTRAORDINAIRE he volunteered for follow-up Science may have finally being sought. oxpormerr.s. Additional stud- discovered a true miracle Despite the promising One Of .the mysteries ies with solo ocean racers drug: Researchers at results. Mary Ellen Sweeney, surrounding LGonardo da suggest that contestants Louisiana State University associate medical director Vinci is how he managed to with the shortest sleep may have discovered a way of Emory School of Medi- excel as an artist, architect, episodes did better than to melt away body fat with cine's Health Enhancement in Atlanta, sculptor, etc., etc. —and still those who slept longer. no more effort than it takes Program says find time to sleep. Leg- Stampi advocates a short to pop a pill. that there is still no quick fix

end has it that the master sleep schedule for medical LSU zoology professors for fat. "This therapy has not catnapped for 15 minutes interns, emergency fire Albert Meier and Anthony been proved and more every four hours, for a total fighters, and others who Cincotta suspect that pro- research is needed," she

of one and a half hours of need to remain attentive day lactin, a hormone that cautions "Even if this drug sleep a day. and night. But the average stimulates milk production in works, it should be used

This unorthodox sleep person, he says, is probably mammals, may be the key. only in the setting of dietary schedule makes bioloc/cal better off with eight hours When white- throated spar- modification, exercise, and sense, according loClaudio of shut-eye. "However," rows were given prolactin behavior modification." Stampi, a researcher at the Stampi says, "you may find injections for just one week, —Sherry Baker

1 Institute for Circadian Physi- that you have too much they became "embarrassing- ology in Boston. Most time and don't know what ly obese," says Meier, but Factoids are from Scot

animals, he says, naturally to do with it. We are not only if the birds were Morns s upcoming book The sleep this way. During a all Leonardos." injected with the hormone at Emperor Who Ate the Bible, three-week study, a graphic —Steve N..:idis a certain time of day. published by Doubleday. 38 OMNI CDRJTIRJUUnn

THE AMAZING of Rochester professor of DISSOLVING electrical engineering, BONE PIN armed with a modified personal computer and a In many instances a set of mathematical equa- shattered human bone tions, has devised a way to needs metal pins or plates sharpen blurred images in to keep the injury stable still photographs; and he

while it heals itself. One thinks that the same drawback to this treatment, technique can also sharpen

however, is that the metal videotaped images. frequently must be removed Working with a grant from in the future, requiring yet the National Institute of another painful operation. Justice, the research arm of A new incarnation of this the Justice Department, bolt-and-bind technique is Tekalp shuns old-fashioned being explored by research- enhancement methods, ers at Johns Hopkins whfch analyze the chemical University: dissolving pins components of a negative to and plates made from a new reconstruct an image. In- type of plastic called stead he has revised a set of phosphate esters. Once mathematical formulas to inserted, the material would correct, and ultimately slowly dissolve as the bone clarify, the image distortion grows back. that takes place while the Kam Leong, assistant camera shutter is open. professor of biomedical In effect, he uses com- THE SWEET SMELL OF found that unpleasant odors engineering at Hopkins' puter modeling to unscram- SUCCESS such as those from School of Medicine, says ble blurred images. This mothballs worked just as that the plastic bone pins results in a vastly sharper "Nothing revives the past effectively. are still on the drawing picture of what he calls "the so completely as smell," The findings are consis- boards, with animal tests exposure domain," which is wrote renowned author tent with a theory that slated for next year. the physical circumstances Vladimir Nabokov. Psycholo- says when the brain en- Researchers will be devel- under which the subject was originally gist Frank Schab of General codes an event in memory, oping different polymers photographed. Motors' Perceptual and circumstances surrounding that dissolve at different "We try to recover the Cognitive Science Group the event—such as images, rates—anywhere from a original scene by mathemati- agrees completely. In re- sounds, and odors— are, week to five years—so that cally modeling the blurred cent experiments, Schab also encoded. Potential newly mended bones will image of a moving subject," found that odors can apclcations for Schab's have a chance to heal he says. improve recall by acting as work are further down the before bearing a full work The math may be difficult retrieval cues. road: Eyewitness testimony load. —Devera'Pine to comprehend but the Schab asked 72 Yale in the courtroom might results are not: For example, University .students to gener- be enhanced, for example, SMILE! YOU'RE ON it will produce clearer of license plates ate a list of 40 antonyms; a if the odor present at the IMAGE-ENHANCEMENT images on day afterward they were time of the original incident CAMERA a speeding getaway car, or asked to recollect as many were reproduced, and far crisper pictures of a bank of those words as possible. students cramming for finals If .A. MuratTekalp's robber's face at a teller's Students who were exposed may be able to enhance mathematical theories about window. Tekalp sees no to chocolate aromas their recall abilities if they' image-enhancement are reason why his approach while generating their lists study and test in the correct, it's going to be a lot should not work just as well and during testing obtained presence of a specific smell. harder to rob a bank in four on videotape from security the highest scores. He also —Steve Nad is or five years. The University cameras.—George Nobbe 40 OMNI Giant new telescopes will step up the

hunt for intelligent life in space

Extraterrestrials seem to like Jill Tarter. As a radio astronomer devoted to the search-for life in the universe, she makes extraterrestrials her business—at least some extraterreslrials. Tarter is not interested in little green men in flying saucers who kidnap yuppies to Andromeda. Even so, that doesn't stop the tabloid variety from writing or phoning Tarter. Sometimes they even show up in person. As she pilots her black Saab Turbo BY DENNIS OVERBYE priests and the philosophers. There are four hundred billion stars in the galaxy," she adds brightly. "We're made of Stardust, really common stuff. In a universe filled with star-

dust, it's hard to believe that we're the only creatures who could be." Why should aliens be broadcasting to us, or anyone else? Because

it's a lot easier, cheaper, and faster than dropping by in person. A few dollars' worth of electricity can beam radar waves across the galaxy. The earth itself has been broadcasting news of humanity's existence in the form of stray radar and television signals for the last five decades. By now those signals have passed more than 1,000 stars. While SETI scientists do not rule out the possibility of discovering what they call "leakage," unintend- ed transmissions from some other planet, they think they'll find something like a radio beacon that is easier to detect." And the race or rac-

es that sent it probably will be older and more advanced than we.

The logic goes like this: If radio technology is the entrance require- computers capable of analyzing ment for the galactic club, then the row streets past > tens of.millions of radio channels at human race has had the wherewith- the six-story once will switch on and sift the crack- al for a mere 95 years. The other

j wind tunnels » le and hiss of the heavens for the members are likely to have been and blimp nan- UCIinC ||D unique signs of intelligent life, there thousands or millions of years gars that yawn ntftlla Ur NASA with its usual elegance has ahead of us. The galaxy, after all, is CCflOPU dubbed this earth- 10 billion years old and is full of !££',-„ A RELENTLESS DCHnbll bound mission MOP, stars and presumably planets, bil- for Microwave Observing Project, lions of years older than the sun and sun, her biond hair pulled I but astronomers and enthusiasts its entourage, on which life could

everywhere know it as the Search for have evolved long, long ago.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. It is this kind of reasoning that Generations of humans have leads Philip Morrison of MIT to call IN raised their eyes to the night sky and SETI the "archaeology of the future."

i ar- wondered if there was anybody These civilizations in some sense rep- rived at the visi- THE STARS else in the universe. The news that resent our future, at least technolog- tors' center of NASA's Ames Re- the human race is not alone could ically. The message we receive may search Center, where she works, come tomorrow, a thousand years be as obscure and difficult to inter- with documents purporting to prove from now, or never. It could come in pret as the hieroglyphics over his unearthly origins. "He wouldn't let the form of footprints in the methane which scholars have scratched us borrow them or Xerox them," she goo of another planet, the indecipher- their heads in the past. Some scien- says with a straight face. Patient and able nameplate on a derelict space- tists envision tapping into an inter- tolerant to a fault, Tarter is no soft craft, geometric ruins crumbling be- stellar radio and computer network touch. All the physics that has been neath a brown or red sky; but if ft that functions as a kind of galactic packed into her skeptical brain tells comes in the ''next ten years, it will library, linking cultures across un- her the most she can expect is the likely be in the form of radio waves. bridgeable gulfs of space and time, dit-dit-dit of some interstellar Morse And it is to Tarter's windowless of- broadcasting information about rac- code falling like rain on a radio an- fice, With its wall-size Saturn mural, es that have been dead for millions tenna from far out in the galaxy. that the answer to that cosmic ques- of years. SETI pioneer Frank Drake That faint radio tapping on the tion, wrapped in statistical uncertain- has speculated that the most likely astronomical window would, of ties and radio noise, will wind. Here interstellar communicators would be course, change the world. After ten she and her colleagues will have to races of immortals, who could wait years Tarter and her colleagues at make the official verdict that human- nearly forever for return messages. Ames may get that opportunity. On ity is no longer alone. In 1959 physicists Morrison and Columbus Day, 1992, in California "It's an old question, 'Are we Giuseppe Cocconi suggested that if and Puerto Rico radio telescopes alone?'" says Tarter, "This is the extraterrestrial civilizations wanted to equipped with special receivers and' first chance to take it away from the communicate with one another, the ing telescopes to survey the entire sky for signals that might be coming from between the stars or from far beyond the stars. As program scientist of MOP, Tarter is in change of the long-delayed project.

It was during the outlaw era in the late Seventies that Tarter got swept up in SETI. Raised in Scarsdale, north of New York City, she decided when she was eight that she wanted to be an engineer. Tarter studied engineering physics at Cornell—the only woman in her class—but after five years she'd had enough. "If engineering, was as boring as my professors..." she

groans. "I had a good education in

problem solving, so I went looking for problems," She hooked up with Cornell astrophysicist Edwin Salpeter and wound up chasing a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Califor- nia, Berkeley, a process made longer by the fact that she was then raising a daughter,' Tarter's first job at Berkeley was programming an old PDP-8S computer. "The S was for stupid," she jokes, but that old computer was to millionth of the galaxy. Drake likes be her introduction to SETI. Years lat- and economical PHYSICIST to say. that the searches to date er a Berkeley astronomer named Stu- method have been like trying to find a nee- art Bowyer, who had gotten en- would be dle by walking past the haystack thused by Cyclops and wanted to radio waves. In the every now and then. NASA got into equip the university's radio tele- to frequency range DREAMS the act in 1971 when it sponsored scope at Hat Creek do some with Stanford a summer workshop searching, was given custody of the at Ames, led by Barney Oliver—an old computer, He set about looking hertz, they pointed Til JIT Iflir engineer and one of the founders for someone to run it, found Tarter, out, background IIIHI UUE of Hewlett-Packard—which conclud- and gave her the Cyclops report to DDfllitlPE ed tnat tne best read. "That was it," she says. rtfUUUuE way to comb the Tarter learned early on not to cosmic haystack was with a massive hold her breath waiting for the Big ' nal could be heard array of 300-foot radio antennas Moment. In SETI most of the action a long way.ij dubbed Cyclops, is chasing false leads. She bends Unaware of U NASA's attempts to follow up on over backward to be conservative, that paper, Drake started his so- the Cyclops study were consistent- "There's no poetry in my soul," she called Project Ozma; for two ly frustrated by Senator William moans, "I'm afraid I'm so cynical months in 1960 he pointed a radio Proxmire's opposition to SETI. Then that I'll throw the baby out with the telescope in Green Bank, West Virgin- last year the White House and Con- bathwater." She recalls a tense ob- ia, at a pair of nearby stars, hoping gress gave their blessing to a real serving session in France a few to detect a signal. Drake went on to search. After many years in the po- years ago in which she and her part- invent an equation that—based on litical wilderness, the SETI scientists ner found a suspicious signal. If I go the fraction of stars with planets, the are blinking at their emergence into to sleep, she remembers telling her- proportion of those that are habit- respectability: NASA's search will self, my French colleague is going able, and the lifetimes of technologi- last ten years and has two parts. to call up Le Monde, one of the larg- cal civilizations—calculates the num- One group of astronomers from est French newspapers. After three ber of technical civilizations in the gal- Ames will build the special receivers nights they figured out the signal axy at any one time. Using Drake's and radio telescopes, particularly was coming from a Paris .radar. equation, optimists like Carl Sagan the 1 ,000-foot dish at Arecibo, Puer- The bounty of nature is the big- and Drake himself have concluded to Rico, to examine emanations gest problem facing extraterrestrial that there could be 1 million civiliza- from the 773 stars within 80 light- hunters like Tarter. Besides the bil- tions in the Milky Way alone. years of the earth. lions of stars or other places in the That was the beginning of the Another group centered at the Jet galaxy from which E.T's could be sig- quest known as SETI. In the interven- Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, naling, there are billions of frequen- ing years only 2,000 or so stars California, will use similar equipment cies on which they could choose to have been Surveyed, less than one- placed on NASA's deep space track- transmit. Moreover, artificial radio sig- "

nals that humans or aliens created spending a few years looking at one there ever since, writing computer pro- signals. would tend to be very sharp in frequen- particular star. grams to search for Cullers, alien "Hi cy, as opposed to natural radio sourc- The MCSA is only half the story, how- According to an form es, which are emitted over broad rang- ever. What do you do with 120 million there" would most likely take the narrow- es of frequencies. The carrier signal for numbers a second? Only a computer of a continuous tone at some of pulses. the Voyager spacecraft, for example, is could keep up with that flood. "Although frequency band or a series designed to recog- less than a hertz wide, and television we say we're looking for extraterrestri- His programs are the cosmic carriers are only about one tenth of a al intelligence, we can't define an intel- nize either kind among Cullers, noise and confusion. hertz wide. While this makes it easy to ligent signal," says Kent an only margin- distinguish alien broadcasts from qua- Ames physicist and expert signal proc- Our own civilization is within the bounds of detection by sars—just look for a narrow-band sig- essor. "We need to look for signals ally that can't be produced by any natural the SETI system, adds Cullers. Earthly nal— it also makes them harder to find. The receiver must be tuned to precise- process that we understand. The television transmitters are only about one tenth as strong as they would ly the right frequency. amount of data processed is the equiv- detected at the dis- For the last few years NASA research- alent to an entire Encyclopaedia Britan- need to be to be early warn- ers have been testing an experimental nica every second, Those are random tance of the nearest star. The of the United receiver known as a multichannel spec- letters, and we're looking for the one ing defense radars strong trum analyzer (MCSA), Designed at combination that says, 'Hi there.' States and the Soviet Union are from 100 light- Stanford, the MCSA can divide a radio SETI is probably the one field of as- enough to be picked up the direction of their signal into 74,000 frequency channels tronomy in which Cullers, forty-one and years away, but the and examine them simultaneously for blind since birth, is not at a disadvan- beams changes constantly as signals. That spectrum analyzer is the tage. "I don't know of many blind as- Barth rotates. the quest is its forerunner of an even more powerful tronomers," he says. His father was a To most SETI people ion-one-hertz-channel physicist at RockwBll. "I got astronomy own reward, whether the answer is out 1 4.38-mi 1 1 device there or not. "It would be incredible, fan- that will form the very heart of NASA's for bedtime stories." SETI systems. Figuring there was no future for a tastic, to succeed," says Tarter. "It's pret- fantastic just to search." She com- The MCSA is really a kind of super- blind astronomer, Cullers studied the ef- ty revolution. "Talk- computer. Every second that a radio tel- fects of radar on the ionosphere and pares it to the-green physics. ing about SETI to people makes them escope is on the air, the spectrum an- got a Ph.D. from Berkeley in feel different," she says. "They realize alyzer will generate 1 20 million numbers He started begging the Ames SETI after they're a small entity in a large universe. during its six revolutions. Jay Duluk, group to give him a job meeting This is milestone, a major achieve- founder of Silicon Engines, which is Jill Tarter at a wedding and persuad- a

social stability. far I building the MCSA for Ames, says that ing his wife, an economist and writer, ment in As as the first time we've taken with the receiver NASA searchers will to read the Cyclops report to him. She know, this is task that could last for generations, be able to examine all of the several read for 24 hours straight. "It was an on a curious. We're sign- billion frequencies available to an ex- astounding document," he says. He just because we're ing for this of our own free will." DO traterrestrial in a few hours instead of joined Ames in 1980 and has been on

als involved in or affected by the star to see if the signal goes away THE SETI PROTOCOL search. NASA meanwhile has devel- when it should, and other exercises to oped its own protocol for handling that Tarter won't describe, in order Lately a lot of people have been tak- potential discoveries. "Being NASA, keep hoaxers off guard. Only then ing seriously the possibility that we have to have a plan for every- will the computer wake up the oper- NASA's or some other group's thing," Tarter says, smiling, "even suc- ator, who will check again to make search might eventually succeed. In cess." The protocol is designed to min- sure everything is working right and 1986 during the International Astro- imize the chance that some strange begin monitoring the source. nomical Federation's (IAF) annual con- interference, or worse, a hoax, will Finally, the operator will call a spe- gress in Innsbruck, Austria, scientists, pass for the real thing. "We've had cial officer at Ames, who will arrange lawyers, philosophers, and diplomats people ask us, 'Would you like a test for another NASA SET| station to ob-

attended a session on "Legal, Politi- signal every now and then?' " she serve the star. "If the other site veri- cal, and.Social Implications of the De- says with a look of dread. fies the signal, we'll notify headquar- tection of an Extraterrestrial Intelligent To begin with, both the operation ters," Tarter says, According to her Signal." The following year the IAF of the radio telescopes—moving plan, the discovery site, the SETI of-

drafted a protocol on what to do if a them from star to star—and the anal- fice, and NASA headquarters in the signal Is received. Its guidelines stipu- ysis of the Incoming data will be com- person of the associate administrator

lated that any discovery should be con- pletely automated. Even if a human for the Office of Space Science and

firmed independently before it was an- could keep up with 20 million random Applications would share in the offi- nounced; once a signal had been ver- numbers a second, the pain of the te- cial announcement. After that, the tech-

ified, information about it should be dium hour after hour, night after nical details of the discovery would disseminated through regular scien- night, month after month, would be probably go to the International As- tific and public channels to all the cosmic. A human operator will make tronomical Union's Central Telegram world; and no response to the signal sure that everything is working and Bureau, which alerts astronomers should be sent without "appropriate then go to bed. Upon reception or rec- worldwide to fast-breaking events international consultations." ognition of a suspicious signal, the that need to be observed. "Nobody The International Academy of Astro- computer will perform a series of has signed off on it," Tarter admits. nautics and the International Institute tests, checking the source of the sig- "We can make a lot of plans in ad- of Space Law approved the docu- nal against a catalog of satellites and vance. You can imagine that people

ment. The goal is to have it signed by other causes of radio interference, wig- who take responsibility for this will the various institutions and individu- gling the telescope on and off the have strong opinions." DO — — —

Two cruel Aprils ago, a swarm of siroccos of pitiless silk, cying myself a Tour de France com- "It's just so hard to believe a of the moth-o-rama's parlor, "but MCll monarchs—see-through amber The culprits weren't monarchs petitor on a day so hot it could bunch of silky butterflies can really that's an Earth-shoe liberal's two- and hosiery black—wheeled down only, but azures, swallowtails, met- have been radioactive.) kill people," Jodi-Marie said, bit notion of cosmic justice. I don't

it, on a baby carriage parked next to almarks, hairstreaks: squadrons of "Damn Dennis, I said it's like his real name was Clay- buy it." a boathouse on Mockingbird Lake. flamboyant loveliness that drop- that old flick The Birds." Jodi-Marie Smokey—ton McKenna—said, "A ton of Laamaar was a wide man, as The butterflies landed on the ba- ped out of the sky or exploded reached out to halt me, bestride the nylon may be softer than a ton wide as his given naame, as wide by's face, then clung there like a from peach trees, wheat fields, cat- mountain bike I'd bought her, like of bricks, but a ton's still a ton, as the GREAT PLAINS. Fifty swaying tower of miniature flags. tle pastures. And when butterfly some ieggy, Lycra-ciad gal in a Bi- missy."Hetold us that truckers, or so, he put me in mind of a lumpy- (Twenty Thousand Flags Over Geor- silkstorms fanned into our cities cycle Guide ad, "Except it's but- people in cars,bus passengers, faced critter from my daddy's fa- gia,) From my bicycle on a trail smearing windshields; appliqueing terflies instead of birds," and speeding Hell's Angels were vorite comic strip, Pogo. But wheth-

It grilles; osterizing themselves Jodi-Marie hadn't been born probably safe, but that hikers and er hound, skunk, gator, or bear, above the boathouse, I saw it all. engine

never occurred to me to think in revolving doors; cycloning when The Birds came out. Me, I'd cyclists were "playing butterfly rou- I couldn't say, only that the gruff those monarchs were murdering the through subway stations like opal- been at Duke, digging the Beatles lette." Then, Good Samaritan-like, old coot was at once endearing kid, suffocating him the way Edward escent confetti; randomly canoniz- and pot-smoking my way to a hip- McKenna paced us four miles past and sinister. the Second's assassins crushed the ing winos, bag ladies, and whores pie peacenik vision of Shangri-la, El Reno to U.S. 270, which we fol- "It isn't nature biting back," he poor king under a table. But the (even as, tenderly, they snuffed Still, Jodi-Marie wanted points for lowed northwest to Watonga, said. "It's God or something like Him returning mother's scream, along them)—Uncle Sam mobilized the the allusion—which by then was so Woodward, Fort Supply, Forgan, souping up the ordinary with a whiz- tell with a whispery stampede of re- National Guard. old hat I had to myself that she and, eventually, the oxymoronical- bang glory." n treating infanticides, made me rightened boys in combat gear did deserve some credit; after all, ly monickered Liberal, Kansas. Later, our admission money in think again. gassed every butterfly-flooded it's hard to stay abreast of things hand, De Long walked Jodi-Marie urban canyon, or else they shot when you're self-propellering your Actually, birds weren't our allies and me through his bare-walled As everyone knows, incidents of to M/with evil-looking automatic tassels in the Cheetah Lounge five not any longer. In only their past moth-o-rama. "These are the night lepidopteran hostility increased weapons. In fact, on the Fourth to seven hours anight. nine to twelve generations, an ar- fighters of God's holistic ecological after that bewildering first inci- of July, in the parking lot of That's why she liked me: my inher- my of workaholic UN entomologists invasion force. I've always been an dent. From Montreal to San Die Atlanta/Fulton County Stadium, a ited cash and my savvy about the bemusedly reported, nearly every after-hours guy, so it had to be

I for kaleidoscopic kamikaze strikes on platoon of burr-headed guardies world. I wasn't just some crusty old lepidopteran species worldwide moths beelined when going

ballparks left dozens of machine-gunned a flight of angle- bum— I was a mature, and well- had chemically mutated to secrete into, first, a business and, later, players, and count- wings, pearl crescents, and red heeled, bicycle vagabond. into its blood a sickening toxin a religion." " less fans, bat- admirals. The carnage— if that's the "WIS time, I began to say, "the hydrogen cyanide—that no self- We walked by glassed-in dio- tered almost word—was spectacular, So was the birds are on our side"—-but a high- respecting bird or bat would ever ramas sheltering peacocks, lunas, insensi- way patrol car swam out of the want to taste again. regals, sphinx moths, owlets: an bility by Jodi- heat shimmer. And, the bug men said, butter- aviary of tender plumes hammer- Marie and was debonair in his flies from every continent but Ant- ing in the aqueous half-light of the watched Smokeywide brim and shades. "Hey," arctica were now ecumenically flock- viewingchambers.

m a wall he said, "you shouldn't be up ing, as if joined in common cause "Nowadays butterfly houses are above the park- here." (On the high holy motor- to chasten humanity with their spec- 'in'—a dime a dozen," said De

ng lot. To us, the ized vehicles only macadam, tacular oneness. And, of course, if Long, "but my moth-o-rama's a one- r fa f- far- illustrate sheer had no power to of-a-kind affair. I'm damned proud P< deafening he meant.) To his beauty ter.' looked like a fre- point, he told a story about some shame or reform, the little organza of ft," ight with the wash hitchhikers, over by Guthrie, set up- beasties weren't averse to pum- T he male lunas—pale green and line of a shah: bro- on by a wheeling conflagration of meling the bejesus out of us with a glowing, like bioluminescent fun- cades disintegrating, scarlet swallowtails. They were driv- myriad hallelujahing wings. gus—seemed especially res-

shantungs tattering in en screaming to their knees, not to tive. I wondered if their furred

air, the entire blazing ward- mention their deaths, by yards and Seven miles up the nauseating ze- antennae were picking up the robe of a royal household yards of belligerent red chiffon. bra haze of Highway S3, due north pheromone broadcasts of the fe- parachuting into orange "They looked like men on fire of hayseed Liberal, our incandes- males winging solo over the ticking and purple scrap, like they'd been whooshed by flame- cent mountain bikes coasted into evening wheat. throwers or something." the lot of a dusty complex of cinder- Jodi-Marie placed her hands on

"It's for the birds," Jodi- "Scarlet swallowtails are from the block buildings called— I kid you the glass, whispered consolingly to

Marie said as we illegal- Philippines," 1 said. "You don't get not—LAAMAAR DE LONG'S HOLISTIC the -moths, muttered that they de-

ly pedaled the shoulder them in temperate zones." ECOLOGICAL GREAT PLAINS CHURCH & served to be free, then said it was of Oklahoma's 1-40 be- Smokey waved. The air did diz- ROADSIDE MOTH-0-RAMA. "Some time to catch some muscle-restor- tween Yukon and Hydro. zying hulas over the concrete, out damn fools say it's nature biting ing shut-eye. Come morning, our itin-

'What's for the birds?" I on the prairie. "This look temperate back, " Laamaar De Long told Jodi- erary long since decided, we'd

said. (Probably it was fan- to you, bubba?" Marie and me in the welcome cool strike out for Wolf Creek Pass, the — " "

popcorn excelsior whoosh- Their I Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Jodi- Jodi -Marie's eyes had begun to glass less kernels of biomass burgeoned like April kud- "Nowl" shouted, pulling it out and "You mean they'd've left our bod- reverse Marie's own hubristic grail, Hollywood, in reverie. Butterflies swam in her ingly upward: a tornado run in zu. Meanwhile, silkworms, inchworms, snapping it in two. ies out as meat for a bunch of hungry (Hooray.) pupils..! almost fell in love with her on the drive-in-theater screen of the bagworms, woolly bears—all the differ-, Together, plummeting, we rode the butterflies?" "They're "Make camp here on my grounds," dream-stitched image of herself— her Seward -County sky. heading ent makes of caterpillar—were conspic- dropside of Wolf Creek Pass, coasting "You got it." toward the moon," Jodi-Marie said, uous by their extinction, headlong De Long said, "You're my first real cus- pied, and striated, and moire-patterned — to save our lives, falling han- Later, walking our bikes, holding tomers in days, I'd like the company," self- infatuation. "like moths toward a dlebar by handlebar toward Pagosa them back from the mountain's re-

Having taken a judgmental dislike to "A flame," I concluded for her. Jodi-Marie and I had stopped to rest in Springs. Suddenly a dreamy cloud of lentless tug, Jodi-Marie asked, "Why " of the old fellow, Jodi-Marie didn't want to "Come back inside! boomed De Long And, in fact, a superorganism a turnout at the top of Wolf Creek Pass. butterflies—lemon, ivory, sapphirine, em- climbing together to blot out water birch, spruce, it much too near us in the moon- moths was Near Engelmann erald, scarlet, orange—loomed below "It means butterfly," I said, "in Span- accept, I convinced her was okay, from

burned night, "I'll break all my moth cas- the moon, Lepidoptera in the fields be- and aspens I only half-listened to her us, smack in the middle of Highway 160. ish."

let fellas shingle yond the structure joined the escapees harangue about the necessity of choos- "Duck your head," ! cried. Later in in A full moon floated over the wheat. It es. You can the fuzzy "Go yet, a motel Pagosa glimmered like a beach ball as we buck- your pretty self for as long as it t-t- in windmilting aloft. ing a stage name to replace her real sur- through them! Stay inside the edging Springs, Jodi-Marie, clad only in the

Jodi-Marie and I watched draft- line!" ed on the canvas ground cloth in our tickles your fancy, gal," name, Woznicki, wings of a big crimson towel, pirouet- argosies of the creatures bank, thermoplastic tent, ISpi^ "Cripes!" said Jodi-Marie, pushing borne Among a stand of wind-nudged as- We were wearing helmets, our chin ted for me. higher wider, Despite the butter^MiiJ fly plague me off, interthread. flap and pens on the Pagosa Springs side of the straps flying free, and when we hit that "I've found my new name. Mariposa. " recover eclipse the stars, and greedily devour mountain, one tree like a eddying, airborne palette, sky, now in process, we^JP% were biking I fought to catch myself, to burned lamp moun- Jodi-Marie Mariposa. slow-to-set Then we packed natural tain, to the coast so that SKJI Jodi-Marie my shorts. the moon. sipping gas; the blaze of its fo- and roadway disappeared. The "It's a syllable longer than your own gear For miles, could "become a star." She wasn't an De Long blathered on: "My wife ran up our and scrammed. liage was a startling bluish white, world consisted solely of buoyant fab- name." couldn't the signs nintelligent young woman, but she off with a weather-radio man six years though, we outpace "I'd like something sweet and happy ric scraps, nostril-tickling quilting "Yeah, but it's prettier. And it goes in the sky of an imaginative sounding," Jodi-Marie was with Marie." ^ couldn't sing. Her voice ^^^ business gone horribly awry. a metallic whine. She saying, from far away. "Some- I just r^^H looked at Well, ./"couldn't act, not even thing gay. not gay. Joy- her. On^j^J the TV I plants on which enough to dis- Killing the ful. Upbeat. Funlike. watched ^^W an entire ?guise her distaste the larval caterpillars fed, My bonfire tree was an as- program about mutating lep- r entomol- **for Laamaar De Long said the hotshot UN pen but an albino, a breath- idoptera and their terrible from De Long himself, ogists, would knock out the taking freak. impact— ecological, eco- adults far more effi- And once past her perfunc- berserk nomic, emotional- m lands j& than machine-gun- tory B-girl bump and grind, ciently "Like Jolley. Jodi-Marie Jol- and peoples from' whirled she couldn't dance any bet- ning them as they tey OrGoforth. OrHarmon— the Philippines to the over parking lots; better, ter than a hamstrung sow trip- short for Harmony. Whad- Seychelles. ping down a meat-packing even, than spraying them daya think?" with chemicals while they in line on its way to become A crash the under- We saw butterflies every- Spam. basked in hardwood groves growth near the burning where we rode: throughxigh W meadows. M Nevertheless, in the plas- wildflower tree. A rattling of leaves, Uie country, on Arizona'ssna's / tic-diffracted glow of the The entomologists were A murmur. Faint snappings Navaho reservations, tree- August moon, Jodi-Marie wrong: Every species world- of branches. The leaves on clinging festively in Kaibab wide had modified its feed- albino burst into National Forest, said, "I am going to make it. my aspen swooping in ing habits to such a degree It's my destiny, Dennis. Re- the San Juan Mountain sky gafa formations past the layer- member that stripper who that it could live on carrion and spread out overhead cake strata of the Grand Can- as well as fcg^plants. We in of gaudy, living yon, eating animals did it with fans?" bands dead on Isn't flocks of British^JR^amberwell cirrocumulus. "Pardon me, Jodi girl, but I'm not ago. All I want's a look-see, gal. squares. Waves of bitter insects filled all the desert ranches between Cortez cloaks, that old." that what you want to give me? Isn't beauties, or mourn-^^B»ing The butterflies shooting from the as- my mouth. Sleeves of wind-plastered and Kingman. like Ritz-dyed lichen on the car- "What was her name? Sally some- that what you've been dreaming of?" He perched pen—huge mustard-whites, slightly small- scales rippled from my arms. It was scary to pass them. You had of road kills: dead dogs, steam- thing. Sally,., Rand." peered down into our tent like a boozy casses er azures—had scared me, but more The highway was an unraveling gal- no idea if they were only scavenging or " sodbuster colossus. rollered cats, raw red opossums. Almost scary was the party of bare-chested sav- 3ry of Roualts, Chagalls, Klees, Pol- cagily biding their time. I'd have felt "Yeah, but she didn't use fans "*" evolutionary terms, adult "Sure she did." "I was dreaming of show business," overnight, in ages trudging up the moun- 'lacks, Mondrians. much less anxious sighting a tornado lepidoptera become oppor- "It was feathers. Big ones. Ostrich Jodi-Marie said. "What you snuck up on had tain toward our turnout. Jodi-Marie and I broke from the silk at twelve o'clock high. also plumes." was private." tunistic scavengers. They en- Eight or nine in all, they squall. Wobbling crazily, we still might Las Vegas was all neon glitz, but the gaged in predation, slaying ir "Okay, okay. What difference does I got angry: "If it's a peep show you were young men and wom- have wrecked, but an unpaved escape painted ladies. Mormons, clippers, ly whatever they wanted 1 it make?" But the kink in her voice said want, buy a VCR." bands en (whites or Chicanos, so far as lane for runaway semis ski-sloped abrupt- striped blue crows, and crimson tips dart- that the distance between fans and os- "Eskimos share their wives," De to eat. 4could tell) who had glued to their ly up to our right. ing among the swimming pools and ca- there more: I trich plumes was vast. Then, as if to dis- Long said reproachfully, then staggered But was aces the scales of monarchs, sul- shouted, "Go up it! Go up!" sinos made even Las Vegas 's crisscross- lepidop- pel a gathering funk, she told me the back to his tinhorn moth-o-rama. These new ip furs, blue tigers, British or- She did. I did. We both did. ing searchlights and jitterbugging elec- • dream she'd been having nightly for Jodi-Marie figured De Long for a tera had abandoned ^ange tips—even the prismatic This uphill cut was bumpy and grav- tronic signs seem as prosaic as flash- the four-part life cycle of" over a week: She is sashaying down the would-be rapist; I argued that he was scales of various unpigmented elly, but it rescued us from screaming light beams. runway of the biggest crystal palace only a lonely, wifeless fool. egg, caterpillar, chrysalis species— so that their faces sparkled ever faster downward, and when its grav- We stayed at Caesars Palace, saw a since the world got into the business of So we stayed, and tried to sleep, and go—in favor of 1) sex between con- like those of rain forest Indians made ity finally caught us and we toppled, nei- stage show featuring thirty sequin-dust- world fairing. Big-time exhibitionism. She the moon tumbled by like the ball of an tending adults, 2) a three- or four- up for ritual war. ther the Mariposa People nor the but- ed girls, and fed more than five the herself is the fairest of the fair, feathered exhausted roll-on deodorant. month pregnancy, and 3) dropping "My God," Jodi-Marie said. (I heard terflies themselves were anywhere to be hundred quarters into the slots. At of fully formed winged infants (as few her.) "Those women down there"—she spied in last, in in exotic lepidoptera from Africa, Asia, — the spruce-lined defile of Wolf three citrus swallowtails a row South and Central America, the palmy Later: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! as one, as many as a thousand) that pointed "Dennis, they aren't even wear- Creek Pass. gave us a jackpot and a welcome ex- Caribbean: tailed batwings, languid Our after-the-fact deductions told us scavenged, preyed, and grew, no mating halter tops." cuse to stop.

ter the species, as large as a grown I didn't only barely owls with disturbing eyespots, yellow that De Long had fired a twelve-gauge say she was wear- "A bunch of crackpot millenarians," I "You could probably get on here," hand. Then they would fly off ing herself. bird wings, Paris peacocks, tigers, em- shotgun at the panels in the moth-o- man's one Besides, the savages said. "Theythinktheend has come and I said. I meant as a chorus girl, but erald banded swallowtails, GIANT pur- rama's roof, blasting holes in them, wid- with the reconnoitering squadrons to did have capes, hand-painted linen the only way to save the world, and them- Jodi-Marie smiled wanly and shook ple emperors, modest zebras, blood- ening these holes, then blasting again which their parents still belonged. wings that snagged the underbrush and selves, is to smear their faces with but- her head. red flambeaux. until every tin panel was a window and Said one worried bug man. "I'm afraid glinted menacingly. terfly scales and sacrifice 'mundanes' "It's Hollywood or bust," she said. today, the things are like They hide what she wants to hide. the moths in his dioramas (earlier freed that, damned "Those are Mariposa People," I like us to their Great Butterfly Manitou." I avoided the obvious joke, and early They show what she wants to show... by hammer slams) went helixing up souls: immortal." said." "Come on!" "Not really," Jodi-Marie said. that evening we pedaled out of Vegas

it to kill They flutter when she struts. They crack- through the holes like a tornado whirl- For although was easy freelanc- But an arrow, colorfully fletched, "Tfrafs the first lot I've ever seen, but down Interstate 15, our handlebars lad- adults, it did that, left alone, le, sigh, and hover exactly when she ing black-and-white origami toys, sets- ing appear lodged between the spokes of Jodi- it's plain what they wanted—namely, to en with water bags: Neither of us was die. wants them to. sored scraps of celluloid, and weight- these mutant lepidoptera did not Marie's front tire. kill us." too keen on dying of thirst in the Devil's

52 OMNI Playground or some funky desert sali- messages accusing the government of na. But with the man-eating butterflies "criminal inattention to the REAL of the dying twentieth century, we were NEEDS of the people." willing to take our chances. All this was going on even as the It took us three days to bike the dry funds I'd assumed bottomless were, ac- lakes of southeastern California. The on- cording to a registered letter from my ly lepidoptera we chanced upon were lawyer in Raleigh, steadily ebbing. Glob- singletons, because butterflies care for al crop failures and triple-digit inflation the yucca-spiked desert about as had a great deal to do with the deple- much as most people do. tion of my trust, but so did my life-style. In any lot case, we did a of riding at "Jodi-Marie," I said, "you'll never get night. When we finally reached "civili- a job until you find another stage zation," the insane freeway grid that is name." Greater Los Angeles, we felt like two

lost sand grains ourselves. We spent our September, October, November— all first night in a motel not too far from Dodg- gone. Our first Christmas in L.A. No er Stadium. You could hear the traffic tree in our bleak Koreatown walk-up, but on the Hollywood Freeway and the the star-struck wannabes on Sunset conch-shell roar of suntanned people Boulevard had plenty of baubles, nose in Hawaiian shirts and the faint, recur- rings, and tinsel-town pretensions to ring, businesslike cracks of either base- make up for the lack. When the daily ball bats or dreams. Butterfly Alert was favorable, I would you'll "Maybe be discovered," I told ride over to see them. Jodi- Marie. Jodi-Marie's new surname was O'Con- The pity was, standing with her on a nor (in honor of a favorite teacher in

balcony ledge somewhere on the Savannah), But in five weeks it had land-

bleak edge of Shangri-La La Land, I ed her exactly as many parts— i.e.,

understood, belatedly, that I wanted to none—as had Mariposa. discover her myself. Then, three days before Christmas, she bicycled home from a long-shot in- The plague grew worse. Galaxy arms terview not far from the Rancho La Brea of butterflies —-hordes of skippers, tar pits, to announce that she had moths, and swallowtails—reduced atmos- been... "discovered!" pheric visibility to a level prefigured on- "Tonight," she said, showing me an ly by the worst of L.A. smogs. You address, "I've got to go for a screen could not go outside without stepping test with a.. .a Mr. Marvyn Sabbatai.'"

on a carpet of wings or breathing in a "Okay," I said, smelling a rat. "I'm go- mist of scales or overhearing the pro- ing with." vocative whine of pastel membranes ra- We took a cab. Mr- Oliver Lux, Sab- zoring the wind. batai's aide, had given her the fare. We There was also the continuous noise ended up at a house of cedar shakes of insect husks colliding. Air-condition- and rustic stone off the Topanga Can- ing systems clogged. Swimming pools yon Road. The oleaginous Lux ap- began to resemble outdoor Oriental car- peared angry to see me, but he ush-

pets. Unprotected infants died. Street ered us into a leather-padded room full people emigrated inland. The Holly- of books and videocassettes. Then he wood sign took on a filigree of moving left. orchids. "Sabbatai's big-time, "Jodi-Marie whis- The President declared Greater L.A. pered. "Just look." a federal disaster area—redundantly, in "Name a film he's directed." my opinion. The Environmental Protec- "He's not exactly a director, Dennis." tion Agency, with the California Depart- "Great. Why are we here?" ment of Transportation, proposed spray- "He's a producer, a special-effects ing lepidoptera-specific poisons from wa- man with cash. He's worked with ter cannons mounted on trucks, boats, Spielberg, Kubrick, Ridley Scott." helicopters. and "Much too risky," said "Of course he has," I said. the mayor, and the plan was discreetly Sabbatai's library was dimly lit. If

scrapped. you're legit, I thought, why isn't there a fiim-scnooi diploma on your wall? The Meanwhile, Jodi-Marie "Mariposa" was place felt like the sanctum of a latter- getting nowhere but mauled in ail her day opium eater. Across from the door casting interviews—when, that is, she that Lux had exited by, another door qui- could hack her way down the butterfly- etly opened. COUFYOISIEK choked boulevards to her appoint- Sabbatai came through it. At first all ments, using a portfolio of publicity pho- we could tell about him was that he was tographs as a machete. tall and slender and seemed to be wear- Away from Southern California, the ing a rumpled dressing gown and a Mariposa People slaughtered every mem- pair of silk pajama bottoms as badly in ber of a wealthy Texas oil family, the need of pressing as his gown. head of a prominent logging clan 'in Se- Marvyn Sabbatai was less a man attle, and a rich arms manufacturer and than a papier-mache golem made up his wife in Ohio. At each site, they left of, and animated by, the thousands of " " —

Asian black swallowtails comprising his forth. Individual moths and butterflies de- cruelly, April again. Things had fallen gown and pajamas. His hands and tached themselves, briefly undulated apart. The center had not held. My mon- face also consisted of butterflies, but away, then floated back to alight again ey was gone. I'd hocked our bikes. Now- bronze, golden, or fuchsia ones, with among' their fellows. adays we walked between Koreatown feathery earth-tone moths all over his "Are you afraid of insects, Jodi-Ma- and Sunset Boulevard or, depending on scalp for hair. rie? Afraid of challenges? Afraid of me?" the status of the Butterfly Alert, scoot-

What sort of creature was this man? "No, sir. I don't think so." ed along the streets like bent-over sol- A human being? A robot of butterflies? "Then you won 'tmind butterflies land- diers. A holographic special effect? ingonyou. Orme, for that matter, touch- Sabbatai, who had reputedly pulled His entire body ceaselessly acrawl ing you—here. himself together again, was orchestrat- with beautiful insects, he turned about He approached to touch her, and ing everything; or else the butterflies to face us as if my unspoken question I, ..well, to stop him, I tried to grab the maybe the more likely scenario—were were banal, its answer either irrelevant lapels of his dressing gown. He flew orchestrating him: The filming of Hos- only proj- or unresolvably moot. He paced. He apart. I fell through him. Jodi-lvlarie tile Butterflies was the major would not sit down. Finally, though, he screamed. My hands were full of spar- ect in the works in Hollywood. Clearly, halted. kling scales. Sabbatai— if Sabbatai ex- the inhuman Mr. Sabbatai had put out "You'll do," he whispered to Jodi- isted —had panicked into fragments, a a pheromonic casting call; Greater L.A.

Marie. "My faithful Oliver wasn't lying. minor riot of everywhere-skittering had become, as I told the bewildered Jodi-Marie, a "mind-tripping Peter Max- "Do for what?" I said. wings.

It took a moment to realize that his A door opened, Oliver Lux within it. ville." few freak thunderstorms gave us whisper was actually a rubbing of I scrambled to my feet. Parts of Sab- A wings at the anatomical focus of his batai were shredded under my finger- several days relief, pelting butterflies out "lips." He had "whispered" because nails; parts were ground like mica or tint- of the sky, plastering them like scrolls what else can butterflies do to create ed Mylar into the burgundy carpet; oth- of flocked wallpaper to freeways, side- sound? Thus, his "voice" was a chilling er collops blossomed gaudily on his walks, awnings, cars. But when the sun approximation of speech, something walls and bookshelves. came out again, Sabbatai—who, accord- signed fifteen-year- you might hear from a man with a can- "Come on!" I said to Jodi-Marie. ing to Variety, had a old with for the symbolic cer-gnawed larynx, I grabbed her hand. Our cab was hooker AIDS "Do for the film I'm going to produce. still waiting, paid for in advance by Lux. role he'd almost given Jodi-Marie

hightailed it out of reinvoked his potent legerdemain, and "And what's that?" I asked. We Topanga. "My multimillion-docudrama: Hostile "You'll do, " the night whispered. "All the city brimmed again with psychedel- Butterflies. Our lovely Miss O'Connor of you will do." ic silk. " will play humanity. In fact, a coalition of UN entomolo- Sabbatai, gesturing, strode back and January, February, March, And, all too Mysterious circles etched in British farmlands may be messages from the stars or artifacts of nature HELD OF DREAMS? 1 —

far from the mysterious ring of ancient mega- # #lnsideeach Notliths at Stonehenge, a new phenomenon is sculpt- ing circles in the cornfields of southern England. I perfectly More ihan 400 times last summer, an unseen agent drawn circumfer- blew across growing crops, creating circular patterns in the fields. The phenomenon almost always occurred at ence, the corn night, sometimes accompanied by a warbling sound and lies bent, but not amoving orange light. Inside each perfectly drawn circumference, the corn broken with lies bent but not broken, with its still-growing stalks swept into a matted pinwheel pattern turning now clock- its still-growing from the air, many wise, now counterclockwise. Viewed stalks swept of the circles form complex patterns, arrayed as rings within rings, bull's-eye-style, for example, or as chains of into elaborate giant beads connected by bars and embellished with pinwheels turning this way and that on the ground, bull's-eye MM

exterior arcs. If a circle is laid down early in the season, when the crop is green, the rapidly growing stalks soon pick themselves up and grow straight again, so that the circle fades from sight until it appears only faintly etched into the vegetation. Once in a while, a circle forms with such force that plants are apparently blasted out of the_ center. Researchers from all over the world are strug-' gling to understand what causes the phenomenon and have written at least half a dozen books about the circles— but no one has arrived at the definitive explanation. The conflicting theories, amassing almost as quickly as the circles themselves, cover everything from extraterrestrial visitors and the testing of star-wars weapons technology to tornadolike atmospheric conditions and plain old-fashioned hoaxing.

Previous pages; The imprint of a giant circle lies in the fields of England. Top left and right: Unusual arete iormsiions. Below. left to right: Colin Andrews, G. Terence IWeaden, and John Show. Far right: A huge circle swirls through the waves of grain. Westbury patterns intrigue researchers Intricate patterns haunt researchers Mysterious rings attract tourist's and researchers alike Pinwheel pattern swirls through the crop ,

##Crop circles prize of £5,000 is promised by the Koestler Founda- tion lo the person who can expound the enigma Hare like fully. London's Sunday Mirroris offering an even Ai larger prize of £10,000 for that insightful individu- mouths speaking al. But there's no such recompense for the farmers in to us of the whose fields the circles appear. .Once portions of their corn and rapeseed crops are downed or destroyed by strangeness of the phenomenon, the surrounding fields are trampled things; they by sightseers flooding in to take photographs and view x the circles firsthand. A few Hampshire farm families, ap- - \ speak to hearts parently making the best of this unfortunate situation, began charging each visitor an admission fee of £1 more than The excitement over the circles is recent, but the phe- heads and to souls more than hearts. To explain them is to misunderstand IB,., them.

>mm h'w

• 1 mEk

itself turns out lo have a long history in the English croplands. Indeed, many legends from the Mid- dle Ages refer to circles that formed in the fields overnight. Back then, pundits talked of fairies dancing through the corn, or of mowing devils who came in the night and cut the crops in rings. Over the centuries, some scientists say, circles have been laid down continually. But they have been seen only occasionally and reported rarely. Today, with journalists, researchers, and tourists literally combing the countryside for crap circles. more and more have been found. Although circles have since been spotted in parts of the United States. Canada, and Australia, most have cropped up in an area of England called the Wessex Corridor or Wessex Triangle—a triangular tract of land about 40 miles on each leg in the southern central part

Facing page Crop ;:nc:e$ sv/eec ihrougn British farmland in huge circular patterns. This page. top. Swirling patterns from on high. Bottom, /eft; Complex piciograms in Wiltshire.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 121 Populist revolt: From the Balkans to the Baltic, mass demonstrations such as this one in Prague (left) helped to topple the totali- tarian regimes of Eastern Europe. Before the 1989 revolution: Hungarian soldiers guard a statue of Lenin in Budapest (above).

ishment. I nodded. He pointed to his village. "Gi- Ghimes-Faget and I- -spoke with our eyes and ges- TRANSYLVANIA STORIES FROM mesh/'he said, taking me along a narrow path. tures. Just a few months earlier, before the Ro- village in the tiny village. rose their tyranni- I slopped my rented Dacia outside a We walked through Heads sud- manian people up and toppled the heart of Romania's Carpathian Mountains, a denly poked out from rough-hewn doorways and cal rulers, this village stroll could not have occurred.

THE FREEDOM TRAIL part of the world better known as Transylvania. The over fences, farmers stopped their horse carts, and Had I mentioned that I was American, the people

lush green hills dotted with mounds of hay, the neat- women gave up their milking to watch the unusual of Ghimes-Faget would have turned away. And if ARTICLE BY FRUCHTMAN ROB ly tended pastures—In fact, the complete absence procession. I smiled obligingly, nodding and wav- they had taken the risk of speaking to me, they

of anything modern—created a sense of other- ing whenever the boy felt it necessary to announce would have had to report the contact to the po-

If Democracy was the timeness, of being flung backward a hundred my nationality. I shook every hand thrust ai me. lice. they hadn't, a neighbor surely would have. years to an era before the roar of planes and the An old man grabbed my arm tenderly. "Amerikai. This year the face of Eastern Europe has cry heard round the world this year, stench of automobile exhaust. A young boy Amerikai," he said, grinning widely. This from a changed unalterably. From small villages to great and the actions of many emerged from a field to gaze curiously, first at the man who had been told for the last 40-odd years cities, the complete collapse of a political and

car, then at my blue jeans. I smiled and told him that the United States of America, with everything economic system has uncovered the seeds of a Eastern Europeans may brighten the his it bright terrifying. In where I came from. "Amerikai?" he repeated, represented, was decadent, cruel, inhuman. With- future both and Germany two future for all of humankind expression changing from suspicion to aston- out words to bridge the gap, we—the village of countries have become one in a grand social expert- —

your of thinking. forced to live un- freely merit. In Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, Poland is attempting to transform itself from a way "We were Czechs had a elected governmenl until 1 947 workers and poets have been chosen to lead Communist to a capitalist country almost overnight, der Communism. The law was against us. The gov- and flirted w'th "soc ; ai.sm with a human face" un- didn't the truth. trust their people on an uncertain path fraught with dan- inducing a form of shock therapy on its citizens in ernment speak We could not der Alexander Dubfiek during the Prague Spring anyone. We must learn another way to understand of 1968. It is clear to anyone visits Czecho- ger. To fall off the path—well, it is just not an op- the hopes of jump-starting the economy. Last who things." What does he think will happen? "Noth- that is tion. And in Romania a people forced to the edge year inflation was higher than 600 percent. There slovakia today Communism an idea whose of hopelessness suddenly find that hope can were lines for everything from meat to shoes to ing, really. I'm afraid that this new government time has come and gone, seemingly forever. The doesn't know what to do. like virgin: come and go at any time, in any place. The peo- toilet paper. The last decade, in fact, has been pret- They are a vehemence with which people speak against willing fearful. ple of Eastern Europe desperately want a future ty miserable for Poles. More than 1 million have but Everything is happening so quick- their former way of life is truly surprising, surpassed ly. are so uncertain of freedom and prosperity, but they must first un- emigrated since the imposition of martial law in We about the present that we only by the joy with which the Czechs embrace don't even fry to think about the future. It Faces from a learn the lessons of the past 45 years. Traveling 1981. Even now there is a four-month waiting list is up to their new freedoms. States. yet, talking with the next generation to change Poland." Yet even in Prague, which has to be the most revolution: through these countries, I realize that, for better for visas to the United And An old woman or worse, they are ready to become a part of people on the street— shopkeepers, students, pen- With luck and help from the West, Poland may astoundingly beautiful city in all of Europe (yes, their opti- well transform itself into a democratic, economical- that includes Paris), one sees the vestiges of an holds out Europe once again. Whether it takes two years or sioners, artists—you sense their hope, ly viable country. It is torn, however, by dissent, unworkable ridiculously flowers (below), 20 yea rs, their future is with the West. mism. These are resilient people: When the Nazis system. Prices are cheap the specter and two burned Warsaw to the ground during World War by of growing nationalism and anti- by our standards and yet expensive for them. It POLAND Semitism, by badly outdated industry and an econ- is difficult to get service in or res- boys nibble on II (killing more than 200,000 inhabitants in the proc- decent a shop a omy in ruins. The split in Solidarity between Lech taurant because the last two generations bread and an "I think we Poles are romantic and heroic, espe- ess), its citizens rebuilt their city from the ground have not Walesa and the current prime minister, Tadeusz incentive to hard. e (top right) cially in times of crisis. But on a day-to-day level up, using 700-year-old paintings as their guide. had much work "We pretended Mazowiecki, is a subject to work and they pretend- of great controversy ed to pay us," one work- (Walesa, after helping to er told me. Their jobs install a Solidarity-led gov- were guaranteed by the ernment, now opposes government; they could it); but most people ap- not be fired. "For forty- pear grateful that they three years we haven't can argue, debate, take known how to work," part in reshaping their says Michael Petrovsky, country— something headmaster of a school that was denied them un- in the Slovakian town of

tii last year. Kosice near the border CZECHOSLOVAKIA between Czechoslova- kia and Hungary. "Un-

If Poles are hanging der Communism it was from a cliff by their fin- not necessary. This is gers, at least they can a crime." take solace in knowing At a bustling Prague Triumph of that their neighbors to cafe a schoolteacher the spirit: A coal the south are sharing the tells me, "the future of miner from cliff with them. There is a Czechoslovakia is with the Motru Basin in palpable change once the West. There is no Romania (above). you cross the border part of the Communist Left: Tourists from Poland into Czecho- past still in this country may still slovakia. The houses Gone. Except for the flock to statues are more substantial; the queue. Communism has of Lenin, inhabitants are better left us with queues." but the man's dressed. Czechs lived Privatization as it is ideas may pretty well under their happening in Hungary is have less impact past Communist regime; the only way to save East- on the future. many owned cars and ern Europe, an Ameri- second homes. They can embassy official in- were just denied their sists. "The next few basic right to speak years will be difficult. their to travel freely. of on the outskirts we can't seem to make things work," says Waldek "I don't know anything about politics or econom- minds and That, course, There will be unemployment, inflation, possibly proprietress of photo changed in November 1989, when the "Velvet homelessness. But they are beginning to of the most Saniewski, a translator from Warsaw. I ask Sa- ics," says Danuta Shivek, a now own polluted city in niewski what he sees for Poland in the future. He store in the center of town. "I just know it is going Revolution" swept the Communists from power their houses and farms; they have access to West- and the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel ern culture feel the world— shrugs. "It is. difficult to tell. This country is ready to get better," I ask her what kind of Poland she made and goods. They free." Copsa Mica, for investment, but there are no banking facilities. would like to see for her children. "My children are their leader. HUNGARY Romania. no communication network, no accounting system. not in Poland," she laughs. "Emigrated to Ameri- Prague in 1990 is one of the happiest places The foundry at Not enough people speak English. We have no ca." A seventy-eight-year-old woman augments her on Earth. Wherever you walk someone is singing About five years ago a few Western businesses or playing guitar; people lis- the Gdansk real plans: We just need money. It will get worse pension (about S40 a month) by selling fruit juices a gather to talk or to began to take root in Budapest, the stately Hungar- ten to other people talk, literally in shipyards before it gets better, of this we are sure." from a street cart—eight hours a day, six days a basking the new ian capital straddling the banks of the Danube. openness. In the evenings, groups of forests of (lower right). Saniewsk: l;kos menrough a poorer section of week. I ask what she wants for her children. "That students Now whole Western shops and hotels find other in or the city. Stalls are filled with jeans, T-shirts, elec- they don't work as hard as I do. That they live peace- each Old Town Square on the glori- line the streets: Armani, Cardin, Reebok, Adidas tronic gadgets, vodka usually sold only for export. fully, quietly, and not worry every day." She leans ous Charles Bridge to sing Beatles songs and even a McDonald's, the second one to open in the wine; There is a brisk business in overalls and protec- forward and adds in a soft voice, "I didn't expect share artists show off their paintings; cafes Eastern block (the first was in Moscow). The city tive clothing stolen from factories. This market, he the transition to be this hard. You have to be a are full: formerly banned books are for sale in the is overrun with tourists and the torrent of hard cur-

if is to happen bookstores and on street corners; and street thea- rency that market says, is controlled by a black market. I ask the great scientist to know what going accompanies them. Black mon- ter is everywhere. police do anything to stop it. in Poland." ey changers are everywhere, more often than not "No one pays them any attention," Saniewski re- fvlariusz Malinowski, a filmmaker living in War- The Czechs still have not come down from their cheating tourists olmd through various scams. The plies. "They're too hated and too weak." saw, says after 45 years it's not easy to retune euphoria. No strangers to democracy, the hottest-selling T-shirt displays a picture of Stalin — '

with the words Stalin tour 1924-B9 print- ed underneath; the second hottest states simply, go WEST. Budapest already is the West. Of all the countries in Eastern Europe, Hungary has come closest to rejoining Western Europe, both culturally and ec- onomically. For years the government has practiced "goulash Communism," a melange of capitalism and socialism that has raised the Hungarians' standard of living and opened their society to the inevitable invasion of Western culture. It is hard to imagine the impact American movies, English music, and European fashions have had on the post- war generations of Eastern Europe. The images are overpowering; wealth, luxury, sex, excitement, travel. Once West- em ideas were allowed into these countries, Communism's days were num- bered. "It's unfortunate, but the world can now be divided into two camps," laughingly suggests Chris Douglas- Sony OffersYou Morris, a successful young English businessman, "those who aspire to wear Ben- etton T-shirts and those who don't. The The Gift Of Music. kids of Eastern Europe aspire." Three free compact discs when you purchase any Sony home On a Friday night at "Rendesvu," Bu- CD Changer or car CD Player. dapest's trendiest disco,- the smart set When you choose Sony Compact Disc, you're free to choose the music that is dressed expensively in Italian, hard rock to rhythm & blues, pick one of seven super sound French, and American clothes. They moves you. From packages. And you'll discover your favorite recording artists on this three CD set. dance exclusively to American rap and Simply purchase a Sony 5 or 10-Disc home DiscJockey* CD Changeror any English rock and roll. But by far the Sony car CD Player, Then send in a copy of your sales receipt plus the coupon most popular song of the evening, re- below indicating your sound package choice. peated over and over again, is a catchy Now Sony gives you more than great sound, ^^\ T^T ^^T tune titled "I Wanna Be Rich." ^^J we give you great music, C^V-JJL^i JL E A young medical student nursing his beer at an expensive bar near the $1 50- THE LEADER Dl DIGITAL AUDIO per-nighl Intercontinental Hotel assures that behind this facade of wealth, me Offer applies to trie purchase of any Sony 5 or 10-Disc home DiscJockey CD Changer Hungary is stili poor. Inflation, as in the or any Sony car CD Player. Your purchase must take place between 10/1/90 and 1/31/91. other countries of Eastern Europe, is Request forms must be postmarked no later Irian 2/28/91. million people crushingly high. "Three Mail this coupon and a copy of your dated sales receipt to: live in Budapest but only one hundred Sony Gift of Music, P.O. Box 1147 Terre Haute, IN 47811 really afford it," he says. thousand can Check your sound p( choice below: Seventeen-year-old Anita Obrofta n Package A-Hard Rock, STEVE RAY VAUGHAN-ln Step, MIDNIGHT OIL-Species ballpoint pens sells "peace pens"— Deceases, SANTANA-Santana Abraxas made from the shells of Soviet bullets rn Package B-Hock Classics, BOB DYLAN- Highway 61 Revisited, BRUCE in Budapest's main sguare. Forced to SPRINGSTEEN-The Wild.The Innocent &The E Street Shuffle, ROY ORBISON- learn Russian in school, she says that Greatest Hits Volume One Package C-Easy Listening, JAMES TAYLOR-JT SIMON & GARFUNKEL-Bridge she prefers English. (For the first time n OverTroubled Water, BILLY JOE L-Piano Man World War II, Russian is no long- since n Package D-Sensational Soul, MARVIN GAYE-Midnight Love, LUTHER er required in the schools.) "In the VANDROSS-NeverToo Mucfi.TEDDY PENDERGRASS-Greatest Hits MACHINE-Eyes of Innocence, past, if you were clever, you still n Package E- Contemporary Sounds, MIAMI SOUND Bolton. SADE-StrongerThan Pride couldn't earn much, but now I think it MICHAEL BOLTON-Michael MILES DAVIS- for |-| Package F- Jazz Favorites, ELLINGTON/BASIE-Count Meets Duke, will be better." I ask what her hopes Milestones. FREDDIE HUBBARDThe Best of Freddie Hubbard the future are. "I don't know yet. I hope j-| Package G-Classical Favorites, CECILE LICAD: CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHES- in think- I I'm not free my will live well. so TRA'ABBADO, CONDUCTOh Racl imaninoff; Piano Concerto No. 2/Paganini: ing like in the West. Thinking about the Rhapsody, VLADIMIR HOROWITZ-The Last Recording, RUDOLPH SERKIN-Shubert: future is a luxury we can't afford." Quintet in C ROMANIA

As romantic as it may sound in a travel brochure, the Budapest-to-Bucharesi leg of the Orient Express is anything but. Large families—their suitcases packed with perishable goods— settle into the dingy, flea-bitten, and cramped cars for, the 14-hour overnight journey to the cap-

ital of Romania. We are crammed .six to a compartment, making jokes to keep

72 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 111 Although he usually explores outward into space, to unwrap the secrets of the pharaohs' mummies, the founder of the Center for Remote Sensing has turned his technology into a backward-in-time machine IfUTERVIEUU

f\ | hen Farouk El-Baz atmosphere from studying a I I drilled into a five-thousand-year-old sample U \m recently discover- of Egyptian air." ed tomb under the Great Instead of air, however, with Pyramid of Egypt, he was not his camera's eye El-Baz searching for archaeologi- found a cedar boat that could cal remains, ancient treasure. be the pharaoh's funeral or a pharaoh's missing bark, or possibly the final rest- mummy. He was looking for ing place for his mummy. air, "This would be a really The boat El-Baz saw inside the fabulous discovery," says the lomb is a companion to fifty-two-year-old founder another craft discovered under of the Center for Remote Sens- the Great Pyramid in 1954. ing at Boston University. Reconstructed from more than "Think how much you could 1,000 disassembled pieces learn about global warm- of wood, this previously dis- ing and other changes in the covered boat is the oldest in PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUVEN AFANADOR —

the world and iis design reveals a level and American deserts, to study their Apollo-Soyuz spaceflight. And before of technical skill rivaling that of the pyr- formation before focusing on another Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981, El- amids themselves. dry climate: the moon's surface. Baz was science adviser to the Egyp-

Soon after it was excavated from In a'dassic test of remote sensing tian oresident. "Farouk is always bring- what was thought to be a hermetically technology El-Baz figured out where the ing his expertise back to his native re- sealed chamber, this boat began to de- first manned mission to the moon gion and applying it to important prob- teriorate. That's when the Egyptian An- should land, what astronauts would be lems," says a colleague. "He's the ide- tiquities Organization (EAO) contacted walking on when they stepped out of al Egyptian scientist." . El-Baz. As an expert in remote sensing their space capsule, what samples Talking with El-Baz in his Boston Uni- technologies, which he developed as they should bring back, and how they versity office, interviewer Thomas Bass a scientist in charge of the Apollo would collect them without contamina- faced a wall-size mural of the space shut- moon missions, could El-Baz figure out tion. El-Baz became a geology instruc- tle Columbia flying over the Red Sea. what was happening to the boat? tor-in-residence for the astronauts. Judg-

That's when he decided to drill into the ing from the testimonials lining his of- Omni: Why were the pyramids built?

second unexplored chamber under the fice walls, he was a great teacher El-Baz: I think building pyramids was

' j:!~::q pyramid. Should it, too, be hermetically Mna-haba ci-ard. mir, Endoavo the equivalent to a WPA project or an sealed, the chamber Apollo space program. would reveal the best at- The pyramids would dis- mospheric conditions tinguish Egypt from for storing the recon- everyone else, unite the structed boat. It might country, and keep the contain a boat of its masses working on a fan- own, he thought, and tastic project. They that precious sample of were built over a short ancient air. period of time in an Accustomed to explor- event not to be repeating upward into space, ed. Each pyramid took for the archaeological at least twenty years to work in Egypt, El-Baz finish, indicating it was saw he needed 10 a part-time job. Other- delve downward into wise the ancient Egyp- history. He called on tians would have fin- friends from the Apollo ished the work quicker. missions who employed For three months of an arsenal of imaging the year when the Nile systems to design equip- floods, you can't farm. ment and methodology -So the pharaoh hands for a new kind of non- out grain to people who destructive archaeolo- come work for him. He gy. Whether studying puts together a melting mummies, the Sphinx. pot of northerners and pyramids, tombs, or oth- southerners on a project er sites in his native coun- they can feel proud of. try, El-Baz disturbs the They intermarry and objects as little as possi- unite to build a country, ble and leaves them in Egypt became a coun- place. "The era of ar- try then—and the bound- chaeology as high- aries have not changed class grave robbing is for five thousand years. over," he says. "It's Omni: So they weren't time we realize that ar- built by slave labor? chaeological sites are of- El-Baz: This Hollywood ten as important as the version of slaves labor- objects they hold." ing under the whip sim-

One of a family of nine children grow- elaykum salaam. ' saio asironaut Al Wor- ply doesn't work. The pyramids would ing up in Cairo, El-Baz saw his first pyr- den on finishing his twelfth orbit around not be as elegant as they are. To finish amid when he was about twelve. the moon, Ground control panicked, their quotas, the workers would have There were no restrictions in those thinking his space capsule had been hi- filled in areas with junk, rather than days, he recalls, "so we raced each oth- jacked by Martians. But Worden was perfect squares. er to the top and went back many speaking Egyptian for the benefit of They couldn't have been proud of times, climbing all over the immense King Farouk, as El-Baz was affection- their workmanship, as you see on the structures and crawling inside." After he ately known: "Hello, people of Earth, many blocks signed with names of got a master's degree at Am Shams greetings [rom Endeavor." crews that made them: "the perfect cut- University of Cairo in 1959, he received El-Baz has analyzed photos of the ters," the "falcons," and so on. a Ford Foundation Scholarship to sludy windswept surface of Mars, which These were teams competing in the United States. Trained as a ge- "looks like the desert of my childhood," against each other, looking for ways to ologist at the Missouri School of says the now naturalized American cit- do the job better. There was singing Mines, U\T, and the University of Hei- izen. From satellite photos of the and joy and pride in building these beau- delberg, he is today one of the world's Sahara itself, he has discovered vast re- tiful structures. We found similar mark- actually the solar system's— great ex- serves of groundwater and soil ripe for ings when our TV camera began trans- plorers. He led 12 expeditions into the reclamation. In 1975 he directed Earth mitting out of the boat chamber. Sahara, as well as other African, Asian, observations on the Soviet Amc-iican Omni: But doesn't the Hollywood ver- 76 OMNI a ^wr

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sion date back to Herodotus, the old- go. He built the first pyramid for the Pha- hundred years old or younger. Mummi- soul of the Pharaoh across the sky? Two ships that crossed the Atlantic. The est non-Egyptian source on pyramids, raoh Djoser at Saqqara in [c. 2630 B.C.J fication took place in stages, and only boats would be required: one for the jour- main cabin has two rooms; maybe one who describes the Pharaoh Khufu as a Architects after Imhoteb realized they the Pharaoh got the fullest treatment. No- ney by day and one by night. Some for the mummy and the other for peo- stead of traveling into space, we were tyrant who forced his subjects to work could build them without steps. They cov- bles got lesser treatment, and common- think the boats actually transported the ple accompanying him on his journey traveling down into history. By modify-

I ing with technol- as slaves? ered the blocks with mortar providing ers little or none at all. We've plenty of Pharaoh's mummy. Many boat pictures to the west. climbed inside to study archaeology Space Age exploring new frontier. El-Baz: Herodotus was a tourist who lis- a layer of white plaster to color. A pyr- skeletons and bones from five -thousand- appear in tomb paintings and there are its construction and saw how the ogy we were a

with if in middle of drilling, a crack tened to anybody who'd tell him a sto- amid with a smooth surface was a fan- year-olds, but no perfect mummies. lots of boat models in tombs— like the planks were tied together ropes What the little developed in the stone? As in the Apol- ry. And Egyptians from ancient times tastic billboard. Excellent bureaucrats, Omni: Maybe Khufu's mummy is lying two small boats found next to Tutank- threaded through holes. Nails have been storytellers, the juicier the bet- the ancient Egyptians left nothing un- in the boat you discovered? hamen. The boats are obviously connect- weren't discovered for another fifteen lo missions, the job had to be done right there ter. Along comes this guy knowing noth- written. They covered the surfaces of El-Baz: Oh, absolutely. If not in this ed to death or the journey after death, hundred years. No iron or steel holds because would be no

it. better ing of the history; he can't speak the lan- temples, obelisks, tombs, and clay tab- boat pit, then in another. Khufu and the including a possible return to life. the boat together. The engineers who chance to redo So we be cov- guage or read the writing on the walls. lets with their history. Because the his- Pharaohs after him may have built There was no question in the an- designed it rank among the best ship- ered from A to Z. half years before He sits down with camel drivers and tory of the pyramids and Pharaohs who these magnificent pyramidal structures cients' minds that they were going to builders ever. I saw where the ropes Two and a passed some fellow Greeks, who have their own built them was written on the outside, to draw attention away from their real come back to life, not reincarnated, but left marks on the wood. This means the we started the operation. We began by which motive for making Khufu look like a ty- these overwhelmingly massive objects tombs. The burial chamber for the guy actually living again in the same body. boat once floated. using ground-penetrating radar, rant. Remember that the Greeks were could be read for miles away. When the following Khufu, the builder of the sec- That's why whenever someone of noto- Omni: Describe your attempt to capture indicated something was sticking up in pushing to take over Egypt, which they Pharaoh's mummy was sailed across ond pyramid of Giza, has never been riety was buried, he or she would be sur- a sample of air from the second pit. the middle of the pit. So we drilled one eventually did. the Nile to be buried with music play- found. The American physicist Luis Al- rounded by milk, grain, bread, and veg- El-Baz: To me the composition of the air third the way along the length. We Omni: Where did the Egyptians get the ing and these awesome objects shin- varez thought he could find the cham- etables. The higher in rank, the more seemed as important as anything we'd hung a drill heavy enough to cut idea to build pyramids? ing in the desert, that's when you cried ber with cosmic rays. He entered only amenities. And of course, you needed find in the pit. Even if my calculations through six feet of limestone from a El-Baz: The shape is based on what and gave way to religious feelings. the known compartment in the base of a boat. The ancient Egyptians lived on gave me only a one percent chance, it wooden scaffold tied together with

of Nile buried was worth it. But how were we to ana- ropes just as in ancient times. We they saw in the desert. I was flabber- Omni: Where are the mummies? the pyramid and pointed his ray detec- the east bank the but trans- lyze this air without touching it? We had used a maneuverable camera modified gasted when I began exploring places El-Baz: In the middle of the Great Pyra- tor at the sky. Rays coming through a their dead on the west bank, They

light It orig- that humans may not have seen for mid of Khufu, in what's believed to be vacuum should travel at a different ported the bodies by boat, so when you to locate the boat underground and with a fiberoptic source. was to for five thousand years. Out in the middle the king's burial chamber, we still have rate than those moving through stone. came back to life, you'd have to cross drill through two meters of limestone with- inally designed check minute of the Great Sand Sea you find conical a fabulous granite sarcophagus. But That's how he hoped to locate the cham- the river again to be among the living. out contaminating the air inside the cracks in the interior walls of nuclear re- structures where nothing should be the body's never been found. We have ber. But he got more noise than signal. Omni: What makes you think the solar chamber. This meant we had to drill with- actors. The size of its head—eight and of standing. The wind is so fierce that ev- no mummies from the Old Kingdom: His equipment wasn't good enough. boat carried the Pharaoh's mummy? out lubricants or coolants and slowly a half centimeters— defined the size erything around them has been totally guys forty-six hundred years old. Actu- Omni: Why were the boats called "so- El-Baz: The solar boat, the one that's enough not to raise the internal temper- the hole we drilled. leveled. Did the ancients notice these ally they might be older by another lar" boats? been reconstructed, is the oldest ever ature of the tomb. Our most remarkable piece of tech- forms and realize they were durable? four hundred years. Colleagues are com- El-Baz: Tomb paintings depict ancient found. It's long, sleek, and the wood is This problem was very much like nology was probably the airlock around

It Black A great architect, Imhoteb, invented ing up with new dates that push all Egyp- gods holding boats in their hands and curved into a magnificent melonlike those we'd handled on the Apollo mis- the drill. was designed by & par- the idea of building repeated mastabas, tian history back four hundred years. raising them toward the sun disc. Is shape, At one hundred, forty-two feet, sions; Sight up alt the aspects and tack- Decker engineer Bob Moores, who

' or steps, that get smaller the higheryou Most mummies we have are thirty-five this a symbolic boat for transporting the it's forty-two feet longer than the Viking le them one by one, designing backups in the design of the lunar drill —

for the Apollo astronauts. On the moon technology. We don't know what's in- One can make a museum out of the while and you didn't know what to do El-Baz: Many tombs in the Valley of the percolated through the tomb joints, mov-

it. it salts we had to drill a sample of soil without side, or what shape it's in." So we con- site. We already have one boat and I with you'd donate to the Boston Mu- Kings were opened early this century. ing io recrystallize behind the plas- using any mineral oils or air pressure tinued the way we'd planned. can tell you right now what the second seum of Fine Arts or to Massachusetts Some were kept open, others neglect- ter layer. Because it's not a continuous that would alter its composition. Here it Omni: Besides the solar boat, what did boat will look like, so why take it out of General Hospital. ed, and the tomb of Ramses' sons dis- process, the tomb can be sealed to pre- was even trickier, because we had to your cameras find? the ground? The history of Egypt does not speak appeared under rubble. The EAO vent further degeneration. drill without mixing the air inside the El-Baz: Pharaoh's curse. Somewhere in Omni: To find out if Khufu's mummy kindly of the people who've gone there hoped that such equipment as ground- Omni: Among your discoveries on the chamber with the air outside. We kept every archaeological excavation you is inside? and plundered the land of its most mag- penetrating radar, seismometers, con- Giza plateau, you seem to have solved the drill bit under slightly negative pres- find the curse of the ancient Egyptians: El-Baz: In the future we'll have plenty nificent artifacts and took them out of ductivity meters, and electromagnetic the riddle of the Sphinx. sure, so that if anything broke, air revenge for disturbing the dead. For us of ways to "see" if there's a mummy in the country, The beard of the Sphinx is sounders would unearth the missing El-Baz: Alter spending years looking at would go into the drill rather than the curse took the form of a live desert the boat. Wood responds differently in the British Museum. The head of Ne- tomb. Sure enough, we found it with a these sphinxlike shapes in the Chinese come out. beetle. A living dung beetle here from bone, so I can imagine many tech- fertiti is in Germany. The best obelisk magnetometer, which measures disturb- and Indian deserts, the Sahara and oth-

Omni: You also published an article in meant that the mortar sealer between niques for distinguishing the two, is in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. ances in the local magnetic field thai er windy environments, I came to be- Science asking for advice. Did you get the blocks was opened. We already Omni: Have you studied mummies? So what some archaeologists might result from the presence, or absence, lieve the Sphinx itself was a yardang, a any good ideas? had marks indicating holes large El-Baz: The Boston Museum of Fine call exploring the past, a fabulous jour- of different kinds of rocks. Everything wind-sculptured rock sitting on the pla- El-Baz: All kinds. But maybe the most enough for water to seep through, but Arts has the largest collection of mum- ney into unknown history, maybe to oth- around a void has a magnetic orienta- teau. Rather than removing it when con- important suggestion came from a sci- now we obviously had holes big mies outside Egypt. As a student at ers it's a case of highway robbery. tion, but a void has none at all. The structing the pyramids, the ancient Egyp-

it entist in Boston who called to ask how enough for a large insect. MIT, I used to go there a lot. When you Omni: What technology is the best to tomb, we discovered, held twelve of tians dressed up with the face of we were planning to reseal the cham- Omni: What are your plans now tor the stand next to one for a long time and study mummies? Ramses' sons, all of whom he outlived Khafre (Chephren), the Pharaoh who ber after we were finished drilling into solar boat? think of it as a person, you develop tre- El-Baz: X rays provide an image of in his sixty-seven years as Pharaoh, built the second pyramid. I spent field in the that fellow feeling for the creature. well flesh for background, I also introduced Space Age technol- years making observations fhe it. I named an epoxy resin, and then she El-Baz: I've suggested to EAO mendous bones as as During trip the Farafra asked, "Why not seal it the way the an- we drill back through the top of the You begin to think, "Isn't it terrible to be But now we have nuclear magnetic res- ogy to study the paintings on the walls desert. a to Oa- cient Egyptians did in the first place? chamber and use our cameras and oth- exposed like this?" That's why Sadat onance and an array of other technol- of Nefertiii's tomb at Luxor. These are sis [in the Sahara] in 1977, I found an They used gypsum mortar." She was er devices to figure out what leaks. ruled that the mummies of the Pharaohs ogies. In the old days, you'd cut up the magnificent color murals depicting the honest-lo-God sphinx standing there in right. Then we can reseal it and fill it with an on display at the Egyptian Museum mummy and take out chunks. Now queen wearing a see-through white the desert all by itself. I took a picture

Omni: What happened when you final- inert atmosphere, something like nitro- should be put back in their tombs. we're pushing to do micro, non- gown. She's being prepared to meet and said, "That's the proof I need. Any- ly broke through? gen, that will keep bacteria from affect- Omni: Why are there so many mum- destructive analyses. To analyze the the gods, who in the different masks of body questioning this one can see in El-Baz: There was no change in pres- ing the wood. Through the hole we've mies in Boston? chemistry of mummification, we use Isis. Hathor, and so on are seated the background all sorts of sphinxes-in- sure, which meant that the damn cham- drilled, we can install a TV camera El-Baz: Because George Reisner, who spectrometers to bounce olf the mum- around her. We used instruments to de- the-making." When I published the the- ber wasn't airtight. Over half of what something like the original we used for taught at Harvard, was one of the my's surface. But from X rays we know tect salts and pockets of moisture be- ory, I was amazed I didn't get a lot of hysterical letters archaeologists. In we'd done in preparation was useless. the exploration —and hook it to a moni- great Egyptologists. Collecting mum- that Ramses II had growths between his hind the paint layer. The lab work is on- from

People from the EAO said, "Now that tor in the museum. Visitors will be able mies used to be a big thing for tourists joints and suffered from arthritis. going, but it looks as if most of the dam- fact, almost everyone who wrote said it's no longer airtight, let's just open up to direct the camera back and forth to do. You'd bribe an official, buy a mum- Omni: You've used remote sensing to age came from a onetime event, a su- they'd seen similar things and felt the

will lying in it to show the rainfall that the tomb same way. the chamber." But I said, "This isn't a oyer the boat, which be my, and bring home study the tombs of Ramses' sons and perheavy flooded onetime job. We're trying to prove the place as the ancient Egyptians left it. kids. After it lay around the house a- Queen Nefertiti, his wife. before its discovery in 1904. Water had Omni: What exactly is the Sphinx? CONTINUED ON PAGE 134

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FICTION BY JONATHAN CARROLL

Anthea Powell has a bit of a problem—a bully, the supposed victim of a minor traffic accident, has decided to make her life a living hell PAINTING BY JEFFREY JONES

' he most frightening sound in the world is your own heart beating. No one

ikes to talk about that, but it is true. In the midst of deep fear, it's a secret east pounding a giant fist on some inner door, demanding to get out.

A few minutes before the accident, I saw a line of graffiti written on a wall.

5 a foot high, it

mean? What kind of citizen would think it important enough to pai the middle of the city? Easy enough to dismiss as a stunt, or a rr

world from a Grateful Dead fan, but I sensed it was something n

My name is Anthea Powell. I am a sr~~~ thirties. My holdings include a few valL

both fear and fascination. It is my engine at

; fast... because I had to keepTlHlfmy appointment in Samarra. I knew the

intersection, even knew the stoplight as a slow one. It was red when I got there, red when the white Fiat pulled up behind me. There was nothing else to dc driving. , the man He was wearing

which made me smile because it was nine at night. Was he smiling, jn't remember. As the light changed, a bicycle came zooming by on my

..: o.«~. At the same time, the Fiat sped up and tried to pass me on the right.

' The bike was so close I was sure I'd hit it. The only thing to do

i wrong and >

a lot of things. I smacked the Fiat and simultaneously heard a rr J and loud boom: my right front tire blowing. m D£/W LCV3E ycu mssm wm . — :

ieling a car accident happening id you is a bitter, hopeless thing.

id what were you doing, pass- ina on the right?"

going too slow. I had to that was only reflex. get by." "' "She wasn't going at all— ing to avoid the bicycle, ed lo wring his neck. I wanted it to be wrong being there. That's thirty seconds ago so I could do it righ-

' ' 3ning. this time. 1 wantt Baths area have a healthy car again. stant indulgence.

,,,™,d tightly. Hei ! Dubois, whenev-

lat he was hearing. "That's absolute ng, I turn i >ullshit! V possible. Tl ;aying is true?" doctors all say the shock isn't good for

very blond and f lap- my heart, but it's one of the few times

ld down. I say that's too damned bad. I keep think-

I opened the door and started to get

way. Since it it's living inside r out, but a sudden arrhythmia of i knows heart grabbed hold and for a monei,. a group of peo

~ : 'as frozen there, scared eyes closed. s car, talking V "Lady, are you out of your fucking **** in mind?" i jjuuicu a lovely big dollop of "Could you just wait a on the right. Dan- conut oil bubble bath. Watching it ciously I'd put both h move, you know. Illegal, too. " car 1. I felt you're not going to have much forgot a while about my crunched

if this to and the angry man with the white hair. i in half. i case goes court."

just about 'I don't believe you're fucking telling The angry white man with the white c , lady, you

After clothes up, I gr , „u,,t end of my car. What this!" hanging my

'I attitude, Whitey. fully stepped into the smoking bub l I going to wait for?" don't like your ""'" - lur driver's licen " and got comfort!" blinks lat

I brought out a in an unknown city, h first sight and I on behind and i Net. saw a large ~ I to something Ee ir really the first time I looked up at Midnight, that abomint be the other driver. He'd taken the sunglass- that is so popular these days. ably Communist. Sofif TM OHLU lOIHG TO DO UJflS SU3ER13C 1HTD T» WW

' es off, and only then d' why he \ low hair on the edge of silver, transpar- ent white eyebrows, pink skin, I don't

pushing him forward from the evening dark around us. A phosphorescent toy or night-lite, glowing. "Okay, what's the problem?" The po- liceman was big and burly, with a voice like a trailer truck shifting gears. "The problem is sf ing car." "Watch your mouth, Ace. Tl lady |

pulling out from the ligh' -;n on a bicycle cut me off. J banging on my chest's door. fix. Tell me and we'll figure something or darkness and nothing in between. ferent context. But I didn't own any chil- a foreign city in the truest sense of the I could see the front bumper had been

And I hadn't read this 1 walked on tiptoe through the apart- out." Nothing special happened and dren's books. one word. A city of quiet, and anonymous carefully bent into the same twist as

I I little conversation. I in night. I'M I get that that of its big, real brother. ment, No one was there. think expect- "I don't want it fixed. want a new there was very But bed last coming to you pain. I had never been there, was

that,- it wonderful knowing and I'll remember were more comfortable I finished, I put the book sure. More surprising was my compan- Terror. ed but was one, Anthea. Buy me a new car we When

place, other I like tree in for sure. I looked in every hiding leave alone." with each because seemed to down and looked out the window. ion. Tightly holding my hand was a lit- A heart that shakes you a you

. I Call the police re- . . say- I and a storm warns that whatever word you closet, under my bed before "Don't be ridiculous; I dented your know where was going. The boy What could do? tle boy I didn't know: an albino last. ing "Okay," front end." sensed that and didn't whine or cry port a nonexistent "Bruce Beetz" who dressed in blue jeans and a blue blaz- hold on your tongue may be your

I terrorizing off for it is one When I was in the bathroom again a "I want a car, Anthea." when lost my way or got confused. was me? Pay him an er, red sneakers, and a red St. Louis Car- So savor it and know the right new fin- partially shiver went up back like a cold threaten me, Bruce. I "What's your real name? You lied be- accident he was responsible dinals baseball cap. before you use it. my "Don't remem- it's for? Wait for his next crazy in I call fore; move? "What's your name?" Terror. gernail. The albino had been that ber your name. Don't forget can not Bruce." of I was asleep. Close enough tell this. He put his small hands over his face What was his way "eating [my] fuck- "Bruce Beetz." The toy car terrified me. It was impos- room when the police and them about over and drop a toy car into calls, breaking into and laughed a lovely naughty kid's ing face"? "How old are you?" sible, funny, the worst kind of threat. to reach Threatening phone The phone book. John Cray! Every- "Seven." Had the white man actually come into my bathwater. people's houses.... It wouldn't be hard laugh. wasn't as "Are you at thing that had happened in the last Even his seeing me naked I think there are too mad me?" "Do you know where we're going?" my bathroom while I was sleeping and finding you. don't as the idea of a in at all. What is your name?" twelve hours was so cuckoo, why not ' it I was disturbing somehow many albinos town named Bruce "Not He frowned. "You're supposed to be put it in my bath? Put there when in white, white hand touching and getting "John Cray." He kept his hand in look in the phone book for the name of taking me home." dreaming of holding his young hand Beetz!" in. in white wet from the water I was lying laughed. "Brucey! You think front of his face. a little boy a black and "Where is that?" that strange and distant city? He telling truth this Worse, was he still in my apartment? The phone rang. that's my name? He's dead, honey. "Are you the time?" dream? He started to cry. I squeezed his next to the It indig- There were two John Crays and one them- I picked up the extension That driver's license I showed? The hands dropped. He looked hand and tried to smile reassuringly. Single women must take care of in sink. "Anthea Powell?" lapsed three because old nant. "Yes, John Cray. That's my J. Cray listed. It was early Sunday morn- were selves these days, I keep two guns months ago But J really had no idea where we ing. Time enough to track them all that "Yes, Who is this?" Bruce lapsed' then, too. I took it off his name!" or who he was, besides the little boy ver- my apartment, paranoid as

bathtub, "A dead white Fiat. Remember? The and had it changed a little. He Waking, I looked across the bed and down and see. sion of the man whose car I'd just hit. sounds. One under the one be- body the car in your tub? coinci- a book lying on the pillow a few inch- I picked up the phone and dialed The whole dream was so strange hind my bed. They're licensed and I guy you hit? The Me" died in a car accident. Strange saw

hand. I put Too nervous, I hadn't read any- first. The voice that answered was ob- practiced with them enough so I still had the gun in my dence, huh? es away. and ludicrous that I woke up laughing. have if it might falling viously black and not whom I was look- if it it against the receiver, as "Do what I say, Anthea, or I'll eat thing before asleep the night be- in the and haven't that I know how to shoot someone I often fall asleep tub

I hear help. your fucking face." hung up. fore. Grabbing the book, 1 tried to read ing for, but wanted to him say drowned yet, but waking with a giggle is necessary. He were you night. the title foggy, morning eyes: more than just "no", so... the closed (it "What do you want? What I didn't sleep much that What through is not me. Making sure door was TO GET YOU. "Is this John Crayon?" I I'M the tub), I doing in my house?" dreams had were all in black and COMING the with tired had been before I got into I looked around room "You fucked up my car, Anthea. I'm white and took place in the new un- It was a large-format children's "Crayon? No, John Cray, lady, John hot eyes, refocusing on what I'd lost to dried myself quickly and slid my jeans collecting for that." book with little text but lots of pictures. Tyrone Cray. What kinda name is that, sleep. Nothing had changed around and T-shirt on. The gun under the bath- known city. it. another plan- Crayon? You think this is Sesame Street? Floating tub is a thirty-eight and heavy in the "What do you want from me?" Young Bruce Beetz and I walked the I read A monster from me. Then I looked in the tub. "What's mine. You owe me a lot of De Chirico-lit streets snow-white or cut et comes to Earth to eat a little boy. The You got yourself a wrong number, Big there among the white bubbles was a hand. It is always loaded. —

in half by punishing, unforgiving shad- story had a funny, sweet ending I Bird." He laughed and hung up. it, I the and little white plastic car—a Fiat Uno, just Cocking crossed room again ows that scythed things into either light would have loved if I'd read it in a dif- The next Cray number in the book like Bruce Beetz's. Without touching it, opened the door. My heart was

.. I0&& ft

Forecast for the puris '

was answered by a brittle-voiced old drink in the world, although very few he had a good chin, too. A strong, woman who said her husband, John, knew that. The last person I'd told was square chin. had died six months ago. my old boyfriend, Victor Dixon. Was he "How did you know I like kir with

off It I dialed J. Cray not expecting much. here? lime?" He took the sunglasses.

Another woman's voice answered. "Who sent it, Walter?" was Bruce Beetz. to tell that ei- "I lot "May I speak with John Cray, "I'm not supposed you know a about you, Anthea. You

ther, but I will, the guy at the bar in the keep your diaphragm in a purple plas- "He's not here now. Would you like great Gaultier jacket." tic case on the night table next to the the bed. Eat only tuna, to leave a message?" I looked up and saw a man at 'Bumblebee' brand just little sleep. "No, I'll call later." I smiled and bar, his back turned to me. He had and snore a when you hung up. dark hair and wore a cranberry-red jack- Want to know anything else? Your fa- After puttering around the apartment et with black Cyrillic letters across the ther's name is Corkie. Corcoran Pow-

It wonderful, ell. Mother's dead, one brother and two for some hours, I went out to eat at my bottom. was show-offy but favorite restaurant. too. Victor Dixon never wore snazzy sisters. I know a lot about you, Anthea." Sunday brunch at Chez Uovo is a clothes. "Why?" nice way to spend seven dollars. Go "Who is he, Walter?" He smiled, shrugged. "I have to there a few times and soon they're greet- "I don't know. He just ordered the know things about my people." ing you like one of the gang and giving drink and said you'd like it. Gave me "Why am I one of your people, you free dessert if one of their fine pies five bucks to make it. Toodle-oo." Wal- John?" is fresh out of the oven or you're look- ter sauntered away, whistling the song He stopped smiling. It was my turn. ing sad. "Love Is in the Air." "That's your name, isn't it? John did he know Cray." I liked to sit by the window and Who was he? How watch the silent sidewalk traffic outside. about my secret, loved drink? All the "How'd you know thai?"

I hand shaking in lap. I tight- Since it was midafternoon the place time I waited for him to turn around, My was my

it hard, then relaxed. I was half empty. Almost as soon as I sat felt a hot, sexy stone of expectation in ened "Because down at my customary table, Walter, the my stomach. But he didn't turn and dreamed you. I don't know if you came into it." headwaiter, came over and put a drink didn't turn. Finally 1 got annoyed wait- out of my dream or went down in front of me. ing. He was mysterious and this scene He stood up. "What the fuck are you talking "What's this?" was sexy, but I don't like long games, about?" hair, "I'm not supposed to tell you, Anthea. so I went back to looking out the win- "Where's your white John

You're just supposed to drink it and be dow. Cray? .Did it go away with Bruce surprised." "May I join you?" Beetz?" stuck his finger out at "I stud- I He me. I looked at the drink and smiled. It turned and, taken aback by his sud- was a kir, but hooked on the side of the den closeness, saw only the straight ied you! I know a lot about you, An- glass was a wedge of lime: my favorite dark hair and aviator sunglasses. No, thea I"

I shrugged, smiled. "So our accident wasn't an accident?" He cut the air with his finger. "We don't make mistakes. We're always right with the people we choose!" "Maybe I'm not people." Walter watched Cray leave, then came over. "That was a fast romance. What'd you tell him, Anthea, you got AIDS?"

I drank the last of the kir and held up the glass for another one. "Something like that. Did you ever see him before, Walter?" "Nope. But he's certainly a good- looking guy." "You mean good-looking woman."

Walter looked truly surprised. "No! I am a champion at guessing who's who these days. You cannot tell me that was a woman, Anthea."

1 nodded and pushed my glass at him. "It was a woman. She works hard

at not being one, but if you look and lis- ten hard enough, you can tell."

"Your 'John Cray' is really Joanne Cray. She lives with another lez named Petra Hackett. Probably the one on the bicycle that night. They got setup situations like that that they've used before. Both of them are old actresses who

didn't make it. So now the two of them got a good business terrifying people

into doing whatever they want. It's a prof- itable approach these days." "Terrify like how?" Is the U.S. hiding

about aliens and saucers?

ueey in ii ic -^ bowels of the Pen la go B. i.-^ri a secret meeting te in nrnnrns;'! Seated a

.;... are three Air Force gene *W als, an Army colonel. BEMJIElKfflJillMllJWdT $ : the Defense Intelligenc Agency (DIA), and personnel from both th

PAINTINGS BY JOHN BERKEY

k — ' .

Central Intelligence Agency and the Bryant, who directs the Washington, ual to champion the notion that the and its occupants. During the past dec- National Security Agency. The colonel, DC, office of Citizens Against UFO Se- government was hiding the existence of ade more and more people have forward claiming the Harold E. Phillips, is running the show. crecy (CAUS). Others wonder how the UFOs, Keyhoe had such troubles pry- come to have seen The idea for this cozy gathering known group could have been impressed by ing UFO information from the Air Force craft and the aliens themselves. If there is cover-up, then Roswell as the UFO Working Group was all his. the sightings over Elmwood, the pro- that he quickly became convinced a a it Roswell Phillips has convened this session to posed home of a welcome center for massive cover-up was taking place. is where all began. "Once the real discuss the "perfect" UFO incident. The E.T.'s. David Jacobs, a history professor The Air Force was aware that flying sau- came along, government had justification for.keeping something un- case, he says, involved a whole town at lemple University and-the author of cers were from another planet, said Key- der says Bruce Maccabee, a full of witnesses. He wants the CIA to The UFO Controversy in America, hoe, but they were covering up the wraps," physicist who directs the Fund for UFO send an investigative team, But a CIA thinks it can mean only one thing. fact to prevent a public panic, Rainier, Maryland. representative at the table balks. The "They're amateurs," he says. Today many of the arguments for or Studies in Mount "As- Roswell is true, there agency cannot legally conduct domes- Blum maintains that the group is of- against a government cover-up hinge W's suming the case %%M some groups keeping track of ficial DIA business. But he doesn't on single case. On the evening of Ju- must be tic activities, he says. A discussion en- a IE£*^ stuff, keeping it under guard." sues. Eventually an exception to the think the government is harboring any ly 6, 1947, a large glowing disc was &wA that i*e ' j&*ZU Witnesses of the Roswell incident rule is found, and two CIA agents, pos- secrets. "They're covering up not what seen over the New Mexico desert, A were intimidated, contends Stanton ing as NASA engineers, are sent to in- they know, but what they don't know," sheep rancher, who heard an explosion Friedman, nuclear physicist in Fred- vestigate the UFO sightings over he says. "They're embarrassed, and at the time, went out the next morning a ericton, New Brunswick, Canada, who Elmwood, Wisconsin. even a little frightened, by their inabili- to find an area of his ranch covered interviewed of the eyewilness- The existence of the 17-member ty to explain certain phenomena." with strange wreckage. Days later the has many and other participants. "People UFO Working Group was revealed for Blum's view that the- government public information officer at the nearby es were told not to talk," he says, "no ques- the first time this fall by investigative re- knows little more than we do about Roswell Army Air Field created a sen- tion about it. One officer was told by the porter Howard Blum in his new book UFOs is a decidedly "lite" version of the sation by announcing they were in pos- SINISTER THE AIR acting head of the Strategic Air Com- Out There. According to the former New cover-up. The more sinister, tradirfanal session of a crashed flying disc.

'I want you to talk about York Times journalist, the group was es- view holds that the government has ev- Shortly afterward, however, a retrac- mand, don't

FORCE FLYING this ever again.' I even have a man who tablished in February 1987 to coordi- VIEWS HOLD THAT idence of alien visitations and has for tion appeared: The wreckage, officials KNEW official assign- nate a review of the evidence for decades kept this knowledge from the declared, was actually a "weather bal- handled the bodies on ment down there, and not only was he UFOs and the search ior extraterrestri- THE GOVERN- public. This "high calorie" version of the loon." This much is history. Less well- SAUCERS personally threatened, but he was told al life. The DIA, of course, denies that cover-up as government conspiracy known are reports that a thorough ANOTHER that if he talked about this, they'd get the UFO Working Group exists at all. To MENT'S BEEN KEEPING has been around for decades. search of the area in the days that fol- WERE FROM his family, too." UFO researchers, the government The first to raise a stink about it was lowed led to the discovery, miles away More convincing is the lack of official team is less than impressive, "They DEAD EX'S Donald Keyhoe, a retired major in the from the sheep ranch, of the main por- PLANET BUT documentation on the case. "We know seem like a loose-knit, unofficial discus- Marine Corps and a former aide to tion of the crashed disc. Inside, suppos- crashed," says Barry Green- sion group called together on the au- AND SAOCERS UNDER Charles Lindbergh. With the 1950 pub- edly, were several small beings who THEY WERE COVERING something wood, research director of CAUS. "We thority of Phillips, a self-appointed UFO lication of Flying Saucers Are Real, Key- died in the crash. The military is said material was gathered. We know guru within the agency," says Larry W. LOCK AND KEY. hoe became the first prominent individ- to have whisked away the wreckage UP THE FACT. know

1953, tion, and others held to the Air where.it made a 25° turn and headed ground radar operators told them a es on the ground could hear a roaring ner swore that on May 21, he others were driven to nearby In- CRASH LANDINCS Force's original statement. east. Outside Kecksburg, Pennsylva- UFO was about to come into view. sound associated with its passage. Ac- and By 1990 the Center For UFO Stud- nia, a number of local people ob- They watched a disc-shaped object cording to investigator Kevin Randle, dian Springs Air Force Base, put on a bus with blackened windows, and in- In one of her sketches. Lily Tomlin ies had interviewed some 2b0 individ- served the object descend in a make a 90° turn but were denied per- witnesses reported the UFO landing they to participate in the controlled fashion. it, tracking in- near Eureka, Utah, for a few minutes formed that were plays a bag woman who has encoun- . uals who were somehow related to smooth and mission to chase Radar its Might, it disap- the recovery of a "supersecret Air tered some little green men not from incident—everyone from members of Those who ventured into the dicated the UFO crashed near the Tex- before resuming miles Force vehicle." After four hours they outer but from inner space—from the ranch families who lived near the woods in the evening darkness, accord- as-Mexico border. The colonel and his peared from radar screens 70 Werner surmised cracks within the world. After talking to crash site to high-ranking Air Force of- ing to reports, discovered a large companion landed their jet, boarded northwest of Las Vegas just as observ- were let out in what Arizona, area. them, the bag woman finds a police ficers. Those who expressed^an opin- gold, acorn-shaped object that emit- a light plane, and flew to the crash ers saw an aerial explosion. The inci- was the Kingman, only shown an oval object that officer and tells him what she's seen. ion about the debris's nature suspect ted a strange blue light. In a band site alighting "in the pasture right dent is an obscure one—the They were in the Ve- "looked like two deep saucers, one in- "You got evidence, lady?" he asks. it is not of earthly origin. For one along (he side of the object was hiero- across from where it hit." They saw the press account appeared Las April 19—-and few UFOIo- verted upon the other," about 30 feet Such is the predicament of UFO re- thing, witnesses claimed the- craft ylyohiclike wiping. Soon, as members object in the sand, the colonel now gas Son on in diameter. His particular job, he as- searchers. The following five. cases of contained an undentable thin foil.that, of the Aerospace Defense Command's says, surrounded by soldiers. gists even know of it. to determine how fast the purported UFO crash landings. are after folding, returned to its original 662nd Radar Squadron appeared on The Tex-Mex story first surfaced In the Eighties Randle interviewed serted, was craft traveling when it hit the some of the more curious pieces of ev- shape with no crease mark. the scene, civilians were ordered to during an investigation by W. Todd witnesses, one of whom had been sta- had been Ihe sand. At one point, Werner claimed, he idence .about extraterrestrials. Al- Some of the center's informants in- leave the area. Later, Kecksburg resi- Zechel, who heard of it through an tioned at Nellis Air Force Base at look into a tent at the though far from conclusive, each qf dependently claimed that bodies' dents reported an Army flatbed truck Army associate whose uncle said he time. The man claimed that he and oth- happened to on a bus site; there he saw the "dead body of these cases is still under investigation. not of human beings—had been recov- carrying' something covered with a had participated in a UFO recovery er soldiers had been put creature in sil- ered a mile or two away. tarpaulin; its shape was that of a along the border. During the exercise, with closed windows and taken to a a four-foot, humanlike a suit." he The Roswell Incident giant upright acorn. The official explana- the uncle claimed, the body of an site in the desert to pick up the wreck- ver, metallic-looking As was leaving talked briefly with an airman After a UFO crashed in remote Lin- The Kecksburg "Acorn" tion of the Kecksburg object is "meteor- alien being had been recovered. In lat- age of what looked like a flying sau- he said that seen the interior coln County, New Mexico, in early Ju- At 4:15 P.M. on December 9, 1965, ite," although no such object has er years Zechel managed to locate the cer. The soldiers were told only the who he had is of craft, where there were "two ly 1947, the Air Force base at Roswell tricuspids of people-in several fv1;d-ves>- ever been produced and none of the uncle, a retired Army colonel. He nei- craft was something secret. Randle the of swivellike seats as well as instruments Field announced in a press release ern and Eastern states observed the eyewitness testimony supports that ther confirmed nor denied the story but now looking for other members the

it, national alleged recovery team. and displays." that' it had a "flying disc" of the kind passage of a glowing object whose particular interpretation. refused to discuss citing All participants were sworn to se- being reported in the newspapers. long smoke trail remained visible for as security concerns. crecy. Another investigator, Leonard When the material was taken to the long as 20 minutes. after the object it- The Tex-Mex Episode Disc in the Desert re- Stringfield, interviewed a former Air Eighth Air Force Headquarters in- Fort self was gone. Investigators who later In 1977 a retired Air Force lieuten- Nevada Crash In the Seventies veteran UFO metallurgist claimed that in Worth, however, the commander, Brig- tracked its trajectory concluded that ant colonel swore in an affidavit that On April 18, 1962, North American searcher Raymond Fowler investigat- Force who pseudonymous the spring of 1953 he had been flown adier General Roger Ramey, said it the. object had been moving slightly many years i0, investi- Air Defense Command radar tracked ed the case of the was from a weather balloon. Ramey's faster than 1,000 miles per hour (me- gators deduced) he and another pilot a glowing red object moving west "Fritz Werner," an engineer who blindfolded to a "hot and sandy area" in the of ve- own assistant, Brigadier General Thom- teors, travel at a minimum of 27,000 (since deceased) had been flying- an across the United States at a high al- served at Wright-Patterson Air Force to participate recovery a - later Proving hicle like the one Werner as DuBpse, as well as Major Jesse mph) in a southeasterly direction from F-94, then in the experimental stage, titude. By the time it reached the South- Base and at the Atomic much Air Ground in Nevada. In an affidavit Wer- described. —Jerome Clark DO Marcel, who led the recovery opera- Flint, Michigan, to the Cleveland area, out of a Texa." Force base when west, it was close enough that witness- that it was shipped out somewhere. So ment as having any answers. II they where is the paperwork? Where is the knew what UFOs were all about, I think analysis? We just don't see it." But history would have been a little differ- Greenwood, unlike Friedman, is not ent than what we now see." convinced thai Roswell represents the This argument gains power, oddly crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft enough, from the Roswell incident itself. and its occupants. He takes the "lite" "If it was a UFO that crashed in view and thinks the government is just Roswell," says Jacobs, "a whole series as baffled by the UFO phenomenon as of events would have been set in mo- the rest of us. tion in the government. There would be

Thousands of pages of UFO docu- major studies of it. Hundreds of scien- ments generated by the CIA, the FBI, tists would have been involved with it the Air Force, the State Department, over the past forty years. The govern- and other agencies have been released ment would be acting very differently under the Freedom of Information Act. about UFOs than they do now. All of But these, says Maccabee, offer only UFO history makes sense if there was indirect evidence of a cover-up: They not a crash, and none of UFO history point to an accumulation of information makes sense if there was a crash." that wouldn't be there if no one were in- Jacobs adds, "It's still possible that one terested. "It's hard to believe that all could have crashed and there's an en- those reports would pour into govern- tirely different scenario at work." ment agencies and no one paid any at- If the craft at Roswell had been an tention," he says. "It's hard to believe IF THE E.T craft, insists Klass, then the United the government would be so stupid." States would have wanted to know just Maccabee believes the government is UFO DOCUMENTS WERE how many of these craft were passing covering up the existence of UFOs, cov- overhead. At the very least, he says, we ering up that it really doesn't know RELEASED, would have established a space-surveil- what's going on, and covering up that lance system similar to the one that was set three years after the launch of it doesn't know what to do about it, name- THEY'D REVEAL THE up ly what would happen if it went public Sputnik. Klass cannot imagine the gov- with all this. FACT THAT ernment doing nothing and simply hop- Government agencies still have hun- ing the aliens are friendly. dreds of UFO documents that they re- WE'VE ALSO CRACKED Never in his 24 years of UFO investi- fuse to release to UFO researchers. The gation has Klass encountered a govern- National Security Agency (MSA) admits ENEMY CODES. ment cover-up of significant information. to withholding more than 100 UFO- If you think there's a cover-up, he retated documents, the CIA refuses to es and methods, and that would be a says, call your local air base and report release about 50, and the DIA says it's violation of national security. But Fried- that a saucer has just landed in your withholding six. This is black-and- man believes that there is something backyard and that strange-looking crea- white proof of a cover-up, says Green- about the phenomenon itself that the tures are getting out of it. If the govern- wood. "In a literal sense, information is agency regards as a threat to national ment really were trying to keep things being covered up in being withheld." security. These objects are violating our under wraps, he says, the voice on the The most tantalizing of all the with- airspace, he points out, and they show other end would ask for your address held UFO documents are those belong- the powerless response of our military and a SWAT team would be there with- ing to the MSA, the supersecret agen- systems to such intrusions. Friedman in minutes. Instead, what will happen, cy whose primary job is eavesdropping has a name for all this. He calls it the says Klass, is that the voice on the oth- on military communications. No one re- cosmic Watergate. er end will simply thank you for calling ally knows what UFO information its doc- Philip J. Klass, an aerospace journal- and suggest that you report your sight- uments contain, but Friedman has an ist and the field's foremost skeptic, ing to the local police department or to idea what one may be about. Someone says there is no such thing. He points one of the national UFO groups. working for the agency told Friedman out that many of the communications That's too simplistic, says Bryant. If that in March 1967 a listening post pick- intercepted by the NSA come from po- they really have hard evidence about ed up communications between Cuban tentially hostile nations and many of aliens and flying saucers, what would radar installations and two MiG-21 jets them are coded. So the agency's ration- they care about what's in your back- sent to intercept a mysterious, bright me- ale for not making these documents pub- yard? For the past several years Bryant, tallic sphere in Cuban airspace. When lic is actually quite simple. "They who happens to be a Pentagon employ- the MiG pilots failed to make contact might reveal the location of certain lis- ee, has been placing ads in military with the object, they were instructed to tening posts," he explains, "and even newspapers encouraging anyone with shoot it down. "Suddenly there was more important, they would reveal that UFO information to come forth and this shrieking from the pilot in the sec- we have cracked and were able to de- blow the whistle on the government ond plane," says Friedman. 'The first cipher certain codes." cover-up. So far no one has come for- plane had disintegrated." Friedman's So if the question is whether the with- ward to reveal what he calls the "ulti- contact says that IMSA headquarters held documents contain any answers to mate secret" that will motivate the gen- was sent a report on the incident. the UFO mystery, the answer is, Prob- eral public, the press, and Congress to UFO researchers took the IMSA to ably not. "Long ago a lot of us used to resolve the issue. He's not surprised. court for its UFO documents in 1980, think that the government was covering "So few people in the government re- but federal district court judge Gerhard up a knowledge of extraterrestrials and ally know about UFOs," he says. "And Gesell, the same judge who presided their craft,"- says Greenwood, who six those who don't know are covering up over the Oliver North case, ruled in the years ago coauthored Clear Intent: The because it's just the way of doing NSA's favor. The agency refuses to re- Government Coverup of the UFO Expe- things. It's the bureaucratic way. lease any of its UFO-related documents rience. "But we've had a change of at- When in doubt, don't let it out. Don't because to do so would reveal sourc- titude. We just don't see' the govern- even let out that you don't know." DO 94 OMNI -

—

* IALMANAC

The people's first

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PAINTINGS BY TSUNEO SANDA —

THE ALIEN ALMANAC

SAUCER SECRETS: What really happens to abductees inside the alien ships

THE JUICY firm believer in holding writing on alien walls. Some DETAILS UFOLOGISTS things back" but won't resources have suggested the WON'T REVEAL veal even in general terms writing may resemble Chi- what these things are. nese ideograms, Egyptian UFO abductees come So far, researchers hieroglyphics, or other forms complete with incredible cross-checking material that of pictorial writing. tales of tiny gray aliens, vast has been held back from the 2. Alien Nurseries. Accord- starships, and horrific public have not met with all ing to Hopkins, abductees medical exams. But how do the hoped-for results. Los consistently report alien nurs- UFOIogists distinguish Angeles UFOIogist Ann eries—rooms in which between true abductees Druffel, for instance, has not human-alien hybrid and pretenders, between found the unusual body are bred. What do these someone who has been measurements referred to rooms look like? Only the ab- through a bona fide ab- by Jacobs, nor the strange ductees (and Hopkins) very little give," J contains lighted, duction and someone who is notational markings with- know for sure, but we think devices snaking simply repeating infor- held by Hopkins, the researchers are hiding armlike up from its sides. mation that was reported in Hopkins himself notes reports of uncovered metal- the press? that cross-referencing can lic incubators that take the In many cases, Jacobs To validate stories and be misleading, since differ- hybrid fetus through every notes, the examination room sidestep hoaxes, many ent researchers have differ- stage of development. resembles the hub of a UFOIogists have begun to ent styles. For instance, he 3. Fetal Removal wheel. The spokes, or hall- ways, lead from the withhold details of the explains, "if a person com- Hopkins won't reveal how hub abduction experience, ments on being measured, the hybrid babies are actu- to other chambers, revealed only much as police withhold the Dave Jacobs will ask what ally born. Our best guess is to some abductees clues found at the scene of part of the body and from that machines transfer the ba- after the exam. Also circular, with domed ceilings, white a crime to trip up a thief. where to where, while I'll just bies from the incubators to or gray walls, built-in Only true abductees, investi- let that go." larger, deeper metal contain- and of gators say, will report the Some of this inconsisten- ers used as cribs. benches, some these seem to be "visiting rooms" correct informational tidbits, cy might be reduced if ab- 4. Mother-and-Child Reun- hybrid which have been kept from duction researchers could ion. Once the hybrid baby sual "if a good deal of fear craft as is necessary to gel feet. If the craft is on the in which human-alien climb babies are touched, held, the public domain. all agree to hold back the is born, it is presented to the was involved." the job done. That's why ground, abductees a Artist Budd Hopkins, same information, but, says human mother, abductees 6. Alien Garb. Early they invariably describe staircase ihat is lowered or viewed. if Finally, author of Missing Time and in- Haines, "that agreement is report. What's the exact na- reports of aliens decked out Ever wonder what spartan, efficient, and sterile from the object. But I he ves- abductees may through a confrol truders, for instance, holds difficult to get in any field," It ture of this interaction? in seamless, formfitting, Ian alien craft might look surroundings with virtually sel is hovering, they are pass room

If features that nothing like back abductee reports of is a question of differing "Let's just say it's not the unisex bodysuits seem lack- J like inside? the informa- no luxury at all. floated up." sounds "what would appear to be research styles, he says, way we would doit," luster. We think the tion collected by Temple These are clinical-looking Accidental tourists find the bridge of the starship a notational system of letters "with everyone trying to Hopkins asserts. We think researchers may be hiding University historian David rooms with domed ceilings, themselves in a hallway with Enterprise. There is a are with lights, an and numbers" drawn on the make his or her own mark," the aliens may not touch the some form of bodily dec- Jacobs is correct, it may sKyiightlike windows, and metallic walls that console unpad- inside walls of the alien Perhaps that's why UFO babies at all, perhaps extract- oration: colorful clothing patch- now be possible to know. Af- gray or white walls, Jacobs usually bare but sometimes ded seat, and no windows. ships. David Jacobs, anoth- researchers zealously guard ing them from shallow es, brightly colored buttons, ter interviewing 50 UFO explains And the aliens are contain a floor-to-ceiling While all this is fasci- er abduction researcher the material they withhold. metallic containers (the alien even tattoos. abductees who say they good housekeepers. "It is window. Usually they are ush- nating, equally interesting and professor of history at In an effort to dig up some of cribs) with robot arms and 7. Human-Alien Sex. We have been whisked off some clean and neai. We have ered along a curved is whal abductees don't re- Temple University, who has their best-kept secrets, delivering them, via moving believe that many ab- 275 times, Jacobs has had some cases where peo- corridor, which gives them port, Jacobs says. His just finished a book on the therefore, we went to a pro conveyors, to the human ductees report the sen- pieced together a picture ple vomited and it was the feeling that they are witnesses are remarkably abduction phenomenon, re- anomalies expert Dennis mother, who provides physi- sation of paralysis followed of what's under the dome. cleaned up immediately." walking around the perime- consistent in not describing fuses to reveal a specific Stacy. After snooping cal warmth and love. by unwilling sexual inter- It's incomplete, says Despite these broad ter of the ship, although no living areas and other details similar ties. loop, to in female body area measured around a bit, Stacy gave us 5. Letting Go. Some of our course with aliens. We sus- Jacobs, because the atmos- Jacobs adds, one makes a complete expected pop up imagined by aliens. "The area is so his "best guess" list of some sources have suggested pect that the unpleasant, phere aboard a UFO is all there are at least two types says Jacobs. Eventually fabricated or ac- unusual," he says, "it's diffi- weird, bad, and bizarre (but that abductees are reporting but possibly arousing, ritual business and no one is of- of craft, "with the typical they are led to the vessel's counts. "Of course," Jacobs "that cult to describe precisely." secret) aspects of alien life. loss of bowel and bladder surrounding this experience fered a guided tour. large UFO checking in at center, the "medical arena," says, doesn't mean they don't exist in other Even more circumspect is 1. Pictographic Writing. control, Even Hopkins and has been described in Abductees are there for a 'about two hundred feet in di- where unpleasant physical psychologist Richard As Hopkins said, abductees Jacobs admit that such great detail by thousands physical exam, he says, and ameter and its smaller examinations occur. parts of the UFO." Haines, who says he is "a regularly report a system of incidents would not be unu- of UFO abductees. they see only as much of the cousin at about thirty-five Virtually all medical zones —Paul McCarthy 93 OMNI .

THE ALIEN ALMANAC

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: From France to New York, the five thorniest sightings of the Eighties

1 Physical traces at Trans- 4. Texas scorcher. On De- en-Provence, France. On Jan- cember 29, 1980, near uary 8. 1981, Renato Nico- Huffman, Texas, two women lai, an elderly, near-illiterate and a seven-year-old boy in Italian immigrant, saw a sau- a car observed a brilliant, dia- cer-shaped "ship" land brief- mond-shaped UFO floating ly on his property. When above nearby trees and emit- the Groupe d'Etude des ting scorching heat. The witnesses suffered severe Phenomenes Aero- and lasting illnesses from spatiaux Non -Identifies the encounter, and a radiol- (GEPAIM), the French govern- ogist said the cause ap- ment's official UFO-studypro- peared to be radiation sick- ject, investigated, it found ness. Seeking answers and two large concentric circles, compensation, the witness- one inside the other. Soil es sued the government with- and vegetation samples out success. were brought to plant trauma- tologist Michael Bounias, 5. Westchester boomerang. whose analysis, conducted In 1983 and 1984 thousands over a two-year period at the of people in seven suburban Institut National de la Recher- counties of New York and che Agronornique, deter- Connecticut saw weird flying mined that the leaves had objects that resembled fly- inexplicably lost 30 to 50 per- ing wings. One witness com- cent of their chlorophyll pig- pared a UFO to a "boomer- ment and aged in a way that ang with lights running up neither expected natural United States tracked a mys- 5:10 p.m., the crew of a Ja- and down its wings." Anoth- processes nor laboratory terious flying object as it en- pan Air Lines Boeing 747 ob- er said it was "so huge it experiments could dupli- tered the upper atmos- served fast-moving rectangu- filled up the entire sky." cate. Later GEPAN head phere, performing complex lar lights. The lights were Sometimes the boomer- Jean-Jacques Veiasco said, maneuvers at dazzling soon joined by a larger ob- angs, said: to travel at every- "The effects on plants in the speed. The object later en- ject, which was picked up thing from lightning speed to area can be compared with tered orbit in a bizarrely ran- on both the plane's radar 5 mph, passed no more than that produced on the leaves dom way. A flash alert—the and ground radar. Minutes a dozen feet above witness- of other plant species after kind of warning that could sig- later the "mother ship," as es' heads. Reports of the exposing the seeds to [a con- nal the start of World War the JAL observers de- Westchester boomerang complicated siderable amount ot] gam- III —was sounded at the Pen- scribed it, vanished tempo- have been by ma radiation." Yet strangely, tagon and throughout the rarily from the screens, then the discovery of pranksters there was no evidence of North American Air Defense reappeared behind the 747. flying ultralight aircraft in radioactivity in the Trans-en- Command, but the object Now the crew got a good tight V formation. Despite

Provence plant samples. To disappeared as abruptly as look at it: It was Saturn- this possible cause for the all appearances, GEPAN it had arrived. A report of the shaped (a disc with a rim ex- boomerang sightings, some concluded, "something simi- incident put on President tending from and around researchers say, the best re- lar to what the eyewitness Reagan's daily brief is said its midsection) and the size ports remain unexplained. has described actually did to have led to the creation of of "two aircraft carriers." And identical boomerangs take place." a classified UFO working Phot Kenju Terauchi took have been observed else- group within the Defense In- frantic evasive maneuvers, where in the United States.

2. Intruder in the upper atmos- telligence Agency. but the UFO kept its position 7~.'"..''s listing was compiled by Je- directly behind the airliner. phere. In December 1986 rome Clark, author of UFOs in U.S. Naval Space Surveil- 3. Giant UFO over Alaska. Fly- At 5:39 P.M. the object !he 1980s (Apogee Books/, the lance System radar screens ing over northeastern Alaska vanished from sight and firs! o: 'our volumes in the UFO in the southern and western on November 17. 1986, at radar screens. Encyclopedia series. 100 OMNI THE ALIEN ALMANAC

TRUE CONFESSIONS: The unbearable pain, sorrow, and terror of alien abduction

ing back to the coast. I frequented this particular didn't speak, just stood remember driving into a fog place) and we had there. There was a light be- on the highway, The next somehow lost two hours of hind them, so their shape in tall- thing I knew, I was passing time. We looked up and was shadow. One was through St. Louis on the saw another orange glow, on- er than the other and they

afternoon of the next day.,.. ly this time It was rising. I didn't move, just stared for This was followed by several laughed a nervous little ages. He was too terrified days of confusion and terror. laugh and we both looked to move, he said. After a said, while they Atone point I thought at each other and turned and there was something wrong Oh, it's nothing, it's just a walked away. Then he cried

it for with my car. I left at a UFO. We said good- me.

it garage and spent at least night immediately without Normally I would put

one night at a motel, where mentioning it further. down to a bad dream

it seems to me a police It was the last time we ever except for his behavior the

car parked and shone its spoke about it. next day. He was tired first

lights through my window for My friend was never the thing, and as I dropped him

15 minutes. It turned same after this experience off at my sister's for two

out that there was nothing and in a few short years hours while I took Jimmie to

I wrong with my car, and I had committed suicide. The an appointment, thought

kept on going. next morning I woke up he would play quietly or

I TV. However, the NOTES FROM THE When I finally got to the with what now think was a watch by

side of time I got to he UNDERGROUND coast, I was in the early "sunburn" on one my back him

stages of a complete face, but at the time I was laying on the floor

Budd Hopkins, author of emotional breakdown. The thought it was an allergic crying with a bad headache.

Missing Time and intruders, symptoms included agora- reaction to something I had Also he seemed to have a has written more extensively phobia, fatigue, some neuro- eaten. I also noticed a sore groin. He had told my about trie abduction motor problems, and ex- brown sore spot in my navel sister about the two visitors phenomenon than just treme depression. It went on but, again, never correlated in the bedroom and drew a about anyone. Because he for nearly four years. it to the experience, if in- picture, insisting they has so eloquently described •It was the fall of 1968 when deed there had been one. were real and not part of the plight of the abductee, my friend and I decided to This effect lasted for quite a a dream. those who consider them- spend an evening away few years. •We were driving along a de- selves part of this strange from our parents up on what •Late in June this year I was serted road in complete phenomenon are constantly we called "the aqueduct." It awakened by Jason darkness when we turned a sending him mail. was an area behind our calling out to me: He sleeps bend in the road and came In fact, since Intruders apartment building complex in the next room. He across a brightly lit object be- was published some three where huge power lines screamed, "Mom, there are side the road ahead. The

II itself to years ago, Hopkins has had been erected . was. se- two aliens staring at me." object revealed be received about five cluded with plenty of trees Normally if ever the boys nothing more than a farming abductee letters a day; his on either side. need me in the night my tractor, or something similar, collection of more than There was a power feet are on the ground be- but as soon as I saw it from 4,000 letters is extensive in- substation on top of a hill, fore I'm awake, but despite a distance of about two hun- deed. Writer Paul McCarthy and this is where we saw an the terror in his voice, I dred yards I was absolutely has excerpted some of orange glow descend. We called out to him that it was frozen with terror, for no rea- these letters, which express ran up the hill and to the only a dream and to go son. My friend who was the pain, sorrow, and abject best of my recollection saw back to sleep. About thirty driving obviously had the terror of the abductee, a small round disc. It is to sixty minutes later I heard same thoughts as he quickly below: from this stage on that my him crying, and this time I brought the car to a halt be- memory has become went in to him. He was sitting side the object before we

I identified it • In the summer of 1966 I somewhat cloudy. The next up in bed. cuddled him both (from about worked at a summer job In thing we knew was that and he told me two aliens ten to fifteen yards) as being the mountains. On the last we were down behind one of (his words) had stood by his some sort of tractor. related the night of the job, I started driv- the buildings (we never bed and stared at him. They We often

102 OMNI THE ALIEN ALMANAC

how could this be? I have But the thing wouldn't let me

this in my memory all the past the door. I started to

time now, and I have cry but I couldn't call my

pondered over it many, mom. Finally I knew I was

many times. This is the going to be sick, and as I vision; Someone is taking tried to call Mom, Julie woke

I me somewhere. I don't know up and threw up. She for where I am. I don't know called Mom .me and Mom

who is with me, but I feel came in and tried to get me

someone is with me. Per- to Ihe bathroom, but I was haps only one person. There so terrified to go past the is no speaking at ail during door that she had to show this whole thing. We come me a number of times that

to a place. I don't know there was nothing there.

where this is. There seems Finally she got me cleaned to be a huge tank of some up and put me to bed. When

I kind. I cannot even see the I woke up the next morning

I boundaries of it. I am in front felt* like had a sore throat,

of it. I cannot see the sides so I sat up and blood ran out

of it or the back of it because of my nose, Not bleeding,

of the fluid. It is filled with a but like it had been just lay-

very dark, clear biuish- ing there. But I figure that

green liquid. Hanging inside il would have to nave been re-

of the liquid are scores of fe- cent or it would have

tuses, in different phases of coagulated. I had forgotten their growth. They are hang- all about this incident until

ing on a cord, which is I read Intruders. Now I can't experience to others as an pened before and I'm not attached to their abdomen stop thinking about it. amusing incident, and to plain crazy! (umbilicus?). I cannot see •When I was around five I re-

it voice that this day I've never men- I often think about the where is attached up member a would tioned it to my friend as a se- encounter, especially when above. I don't know where come to the side of my rious matter. However, as I'm alone or in bed. it is coming from. The bed. I could never open my

all it but it time has gone by, I'm still Sometimes I just feel con- fetuses are hanging with eyes to see was for haunted by this event. It cerned, but, more often than their backs upward. They there around a week and

of this it knew my name and would frightens me, and I have to not, the thought of those few arc facing the bottom

talk to me. I think it was a admit that, but I don't know moments causes me to tank. But they are suspend- later why. There was something shiver, and regularly I start ed in this liquid, which couple of years that a into about the way the object to cry. Right now I fee pretty seems to be thick, or gelati- ball of light came my traveled was lit, or perhaps the posi- silly even writing this letter, nous, in nature. house and just

• incident I I I around. having a tion it was parked but know that when I relive remember an was in, that must have caused the encounter again, on my when I was about eight or slumber party that night and

I in it the astonishing reaction I own, it will have the same nine. had been sleeping scared everyone so much had experienced. effect, but why? my bed: Julie was asleep that they all backed into a cor- Another time, looking • I the ner. The question I want to put became aware of this across room from me. to you is if you know of any imp.- os si on several years My bed was near the out my bedroom window cases where UFOs have ago and it was so very vivid, backyard window. ! could when I was a kid, I saw a

call I light in effectively disguised them- and I cannot get it out of my hear someone me. bright the back of my

It it Julie, I Staring at that light, selves to the onlooker as mind. I decided must have thought was so house.

I I I there felt then woke everyday objects. I hope been something had looked up and was a strange— of with this doesn't sound complete- dreamed at one time, but it thing behind the door, I start- up on lop my covers ly wild, but I'm hoping that always seemed much more ed feeling sick (scared sick, blood on my nightgown and you'll be able to tell me that like apart of me, like a I think) and I wanted to go to a bloody nose, but no blood this sort of thing has hap- memory, than a dream, and the bathroom and throw up, on my bed. 104 OMNI .

THE ALIEN ALMANAC

DIPPING INTO THE GENE POOL: Are you a human-alien hybrid? Take the Omni self-help quiz to find out

During the past decade unique, could alien genes thousands of people around be the reason why? To find

the world have reported a out whether you fit the nightmarish journey to the hybrid profile suggested by dark side of the soul. These abductee reports and our individuals claim they have own perverse reckoning, an- been abducted by the alien swer the ten questions entities some call Grays. below. Choose the answer The Grays' self-professed that best describes you. victims—known as ab- 1 When you first meet a ductees—have filled their re- stranger, you: a) form a ports with dozens of fasci- powerful, intuitive first impres- nating details on areas rang- sion; b) usually feel bored ing from painful medical and unimpressed; c) know exams to the interior of the ali- exactly what he or she is en ship. Bui one of the most really thinking. disturbing claims involves 2. Whenever you think of the creation of human-alien your parents, you: a) feel a hybrids. Abductees insist deep kinship; b) wonder thai Grays routinely extract how pedestrian people like human egg and sperm sam- these could have produced ples and combine them with a oni iant, creative genius alien genes in speciai breed- like you; c) sense confusion ing rooms. The resulting and discomfort. human-alien embryos are 3. When visiting a said to gestaie in incu- museum, you are drawn to: batorlike trays until, some a) the swirling lights, months later, they are flowers, and fields of Van vacation was: a) a time for lui'^an race; c) questions "born." The delicate, beatif- Gogh; b) the abstract fun and self-exploration; b) from friends about the ic-looking hybrids crave the shapes and bold colors of a painful test of your populari- circumstances of your con-

loving human touch, it is Klee; c) the strange ty and ability to fit in; c) a ception and birth. said, but can survive only hieroglyphic renderings of period when you would dis- 10. Your .largest physical in the protective cocoon of the Egyptians. appear for long stretches of problems include: a) over- the alien ship. 4. Unusual markings time—sometimes even sized features, such as a Virtually all UFO investiga- along your body include: a) days—yet not remember large nose or ears; b) a tors contend that if hybrids freckles; b) moles or cysts; where you had been. tendency to put on weight; exist, they do so only up c) straight, unexplained cuts 8. You are on a subway c) gray skin, premature there, on Gray vessels in the that appeared mysteriously train in (Mew York City when ;:;:.! dress, and a tiny, almost great beyond. But we at Om- one day. a gang of tough-looking vestigial, mouth. ni would like to propose 5. You experience head- youths demand your money. another option: Perhaps the aches when: a) you enter a You: a) give it to them; b) SCORING THE QUIZ aliens have also created room filled with paints, pow- decide to punch and kick embryos that are, say, 25 per- erful cleaning fluids, or other your way out of the situation; Please give yourself three cent alien and 75 percent noxious fumes; b) you are up- c) look into their eyes and points for every C answer human, and have gestated set; c) a strange, inaudible convince them to desist you selected. If you scored them not in an incubator, but signal beckons you to come. through nonverbal communi- between 21 and 30 points, in an actual earthbound hu- 6. The characters in your cation alone. you may truly be out of this man abductee. If so, this dreams include: a) relatives 9. You are most often both- world. A score between heartier, distinctly more hu- and childhood friends; b) ered by: a) blaring music or and 9 indicates a basic earth- man version of the hybrid rock stars, political figures, other loud noises after mid- iness. Scores between 9 might be among us. One of and TV ne"ws anchors; c) night; b) an insistent inner and 21 points indicate you them might even be. ..you! bald figures in bodysuits. voice telling you, in English may have a few alien genes. 7." If you have always felt For you, summer and Spanish, to save the But then, don't we all?

105 OMNI T'he. ArtiSt © ART CUMINGS It must Art .dona have a reason for shock value -For being trite 15 / -*%S. /

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But fs Beauty watching \$ in the eye of critic squirm the beholder reason enough? W (X —

TOE DEAD LIM V/OVI CONTINUED FROM PAGE SS

He crossed his legs and took another of rny cigarettes.

"Like you name it. Big Push mostly." "What's 'Big Push'?"

"Blackmail. I heard they kidnapped a kid once, but that's

only hearsay. They specialize in scaring people into doing things. Like what Ihey tried with you." He laughed and sat

back in his chair. "Jesus, if they only knew who they were fucking with, huh?"

I straightened my skirt and pushed hair back over my ear. "What else?" He looked al the pad on his knee. "Neither of them has a record because they got so many disguises. Most people think they're men! They also change cities all the time,

move around a lot. But they got a good reputation." "Are they for us? Are you sure?"

"They are absolutely for us. No question about it."

I nodded he could go. He got right up. "Can I do anything else for you, Ms. Powell?" He was always eager to do more, one of his few nice qualities. Otherwise just another snoopy little rat who worked for me when I'd let him.

"No thank you. I'll be in touch." He bowed, hat in hand, and left.

I sat back in my chair and looked out the window. I want-

ed to see for myself before I took them in. Other people's opinions aren't always my own. I liked the car in the tub and the book on the bed, but those might have been only inspired moments—the tenor who once reaches high C but then spends the rest of his career trying unsuccessfully to

do it again. True inspiration isn't luck— it's genius. Only ge- niuses got in.

So I watched them. Bruce Beetz/John/Joanne Cray liked sexy stuff. Pick up people in a bar as a man, take them home either alone or to Peter (Petra), then pull some stunt there that was both hot and embarrassing to the unsuspect- ing victim. Simple stuff—take some photographs, then a few days later threaten to wave them around like the Libyan flag if the person didn't do what they asked. More interesting, however, was the girls didn't always want money or the more obvious things. Sometimes it was simple humiliation. They made a snooty woman walk naked through a shopping mall and get arrested for indecent exposure. One poor man had to make an obvious pass at his son, thus ruining a lifelong wonderful relationship in a few hellish moments. One afternoon sitting in my car outside their apartment

building, I fell asleep and dreamed again of the child and the mysterious city. Only this time there were two children Joanne Cray and Petra Hackett. Both held my hands and we walked happily through the anonymous, uninteresting streets.

"How much longer is it, Anthea?"

"Soon, Joanne. A few more blocks, I think."

"And I get to come, too?"

"Sure. Joanne asked and I said yes." Joanne looked at Petra and walked around me to put her arm around her friend. "Anthea always keeps her word." The two of them looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

I know I am not a good storyteller, I could be, but it doesn't interest me. I purposely leave things out or ignore

if others they don't interest me. I tell jokes terribly.

Anyway, this voice bores me. I am not Anthea Powell, although a real woman's similar fear and weakness interest me (and always incite others). J have pretended to be her

often when I come here on my.. .trips. A middle-aged woman with a heart condition is a marvelous disguise. I have used her for hundreds of years. A good thing lasts forever! Like my slimy little detective. He is dis- night, she found the table set with all ment and down the stairs to the front gusting but efficient. And I did not even their silver and linen and best crystal. door. "You really have no idea where need to create him because he has I'd made a five-course dinner centered we're going?" been around as long as I. Loves his job, around a twenty-five-pound turkey, She shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm not too. Loves finding all the boring dirt and Petra sat in her chair in a mauve silk sure." gossip about people, loves the snoop- dress with the perfectly cooked, still- "We're almost there anyway. It's just ing, the setting up, the trap. smoking turkey stuck over her head. around the corner."

But Joanne passed the test with fly- Once outside again, I" felt the hand

Are you confused? Good! Stick with ing colors! She walked in and very cool- shrink in my own until it was the size of me a while longer and you'll know ev- ly looked at the ruin o'f her life. I came a child's. I looked down at the girl with

till erything. I could have held all this the out of the kitchen wearing a chef's cap the white hair and squeezed her nice

end. But I want you frowning now, know- and carrying the mince pie. hand. ing something is very wrong with your "Are you hungry? There's so much "What about Petra, Anthea? You parachute even before actually pulling food." said she could come, too." the cord and praying it opens, RS. It She looked at me. "She's dead?" "Well, sometimes you have to lie won't. "Choked on a Fiat." I pointed to my about things. I thought she could, but

I watched them for weeks. Both wom- neck. "A little white one got stuck in her she can't. Are you angry?" en were very good at telling the world throat." She shook her head. "Naah, she's a things don't make sense and cruelty of- "Who are you?" jerk. How much longer?" ten comes in new colors. It is a talent, "Anthea Powell! One of your victims, "Two minutes," but there are more and more people Joanne!" In almost exactly two minutes we who have it these days. Only the She smiled sadly. "I didn't do such were there. We went into the building wrong survive.... Maybe it's like Holly- good research this time, did I?" and down some stairs to the basement wood in the Thirties—a lot of beautiful I clapped my hands to my face. door, I opened it with a key and we women dyed their hair like Lana Turner Mock dismay. "Just the opposite^. You walked into an almost totally black and sat around Schwab's waiting to be hit the jackpot this time. That's why you room. discovered, but very few of them ever did what you did, all along. You two "I can't see, Anthea!"

got in the movies. were looking for me! Want to come "Don't worry, honey. I know where I'm

When I'd seen enough, I killed Petra see?" going."

Hackett. She wasn't as good at it as her Coyly, she asked, "Something I I led us across the room with one lover and there really was only space want to see? I've been looking for you? hand out in front of me so as not to for one. I killed her in their apartment That's funny." bump into anything. Almost at the far while Joanne was away for the week- "Absolutely. Come, I'll show you." I wall, I touched the ladder. "We're end. reached over and took her hand. It was here."

When she returned on Sunday warm arid dry. I led us out of the apart- I pulled her around and put her small hands on the first rung, "Just

start to climb. It's twenty-five steps up. Real easy."

She started, up. I went right behind her, just in case. Halfway there, you could smell something very sweet and sugary, almost sickening in its heavi- ness. "Smells like cake." "Just keep going, honey, We're almost there."

"I'm there! I can feel the top."

"Take a piece and taste it. It's your favorite."

"Chocolate! It's chocolate cake, An- thea!" "That's right, Joanne. Now push

through it. Everyone's waiting for you."

I heard a soft smooshing sound and then there was a blast of white light from above. Lots of voices cheering. The girl had climbed to the top of the

ladder. I went up behind her, into the light. People cheered. "Hooray, Jo- anne!"

I looked at everyone. Everyone who deserved to be here after so much good work. Wonderful souls. The shit of the earth. "The dead love you, Joanne. Wel- come home!" 00

Jonathan Carroll's most recent novel, A Child Across the Sky, and his story "Mr. Fid- dlehead" (Omni, February 1989) were nom- inatedforthe 1990 World Fantasy Award. He lives in Vienna. —.

ing shops that sell ! itle mere than pick- a year from country to country." "What is

FREEDOM led vegetables from Bulgaria and your plan?" I ask. "To get out of here," dried shrimp from Vietnam. One fifth of Waiting for my plane at Bucharest's

the city was leveled so that Ceausescu ramshackle international airport, I buy dollars, of our spirits up. It is only when I reach Bu- could build (with slave labor, many peo- a beer—with course—and him- strike with Israeli charest that I realize how important ple tell me) a Fascistic monument to up a conversation an this uncomfortable train journey is, for self—the gargantuan "House of the Peo- businessman whose shipping compa-

it prepares me for the shocking disar- ple" and the miles-long avenue of white ny has done business with the Roma- ray that is modern-day Romania. Bu- stone apartment blocks to house his nian government for years. "Romania is

charest is Budapest stripped bare: a fad- Communist nomenklatura and secret po- a rich country. You put something in the ed, once elegant but now forgotten city lice. The damage Cea.isescu wrought ground and it comes up. This country

crumbling under the weight of its own is so pervasive that it will take years for has everything and yet it can't feed its

despair. The air is thick with the grime the Romanians to dig themselves out. people." I ask him if there is any hope

of diesel fumes. Unsmiling people hur- The economy is in ruins. It really is true for Romania. "There's always hope. If

ry along the streets, breaking stride on- that a pack of Kent cigarettes will buy it weren't for hope, would I be here?"

ly when a line spontaneously forms at you a meal, get you to the front of a The miracle of Eastern Europe is some unmarked storefront, for that line, even fill your gas tank. that hope prevailed against armies, se- means that there is something worth buy- Christian Radoi, head of the country's cret police, and governments that had ing. This month sugar is being rationed union of sleeping car conductors and survived for decades on their ability to

in Bucharest. Beer, soap, and coffee a man constantly in trouble for speak- suppress it, Hope, while occasionally fal- are extremely difficult to find, as are ra- ing his mind during the Ceausescu tering, now is sustaining the new wave zor blades and toilet paper. But for the years, shakes his head sadly. "Romania of freedom for the long-suffering peo- first time since anyone can remember, doesn't have the engines to launch the ple of Eastern Europe, And it is begin- crowds of people gather in University new Romania. Look around you. There ning to. pay dividends. Slowly but stead- is Square to discuss politics, the econ- is nothing to eat in this city. Today I saw ily, investment money flowing in from oil. reopening omy, the past, the future. It was against a hundred people in line for cooking the West. Stock markets are the- law under Ceausescu for more Cooking oil. Six months we wait: no in Hungary and East Germany. Dem- than three people to gather in public. change. I'm afraid [Ion] lliescu is the ocratic elections are being held in ev- often Now almost every evening hundreds same as Ceausescu," I ask him what ery country, though accompanied sometimes thousands— exercise their he hopes for the future. by fierce, sometimes violent, debate. newfound right to speak freely. "Our fantasy is to have a decent Their future may be threatened with Being in Bucharest is like stepping flat, a car, and"—he smiles, embar- dark clouds, but their will is strong. back 60 years—only a few streetlights, rassed at the extravagance of his Strong enough, they believe, to push — r rickety trams riddled with rust, depress- dream "a boat so that we can sail lo the clouds away. DO

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Locked deep within the Although racing to get the en- bowels of Leningrad's tire manuscript shot under daunt- Saitykov-Shchedrin State cess to the manuscript but no ing conditions and within the

Public Library is the legendary means of conducting a detailed time the Soviets had allotted, the Leningrad Codex—the oldest com- study away from the library. photographers lived up to their rep- plete text of the Hebrew Bible in Thanks to glasnost, an en- utation for being meticulous. Ken existence. What distinguishes the hanced photographic edition of Zuckerman set up a tiny make- manuscript—written in Cairo the codex produced by a Soviet/ shift darkroom to load and unload around the year 1010—are the ed- American venture will soon be the camera and protect the film. itorial notes in the text's margins. widely available. The high-resolu- Bruce Zuckerman spent ten These notes were written by the tion images will open up this ex- hours a day for almost three Masoretes, scholars from the Gal- traordinary archive to scholars weeks hunched over a camera in

ilee area dedicated to preserving worldwide, providing them with a dimly lit room buried deep in- the accuracy of the Scriptures. the unprecedented opportunity to side the walls of the elegant, mau- Their notations helped define study these texts. soieumlike library. They used a words and phrases in the text to "This project could have been minimicroscope to make sure ensure that the original meaning done by a Soviet group, but we that the letters were in focus: of the Old Testament would re- don't have the technical equip- Some of the Masoretes' notations

- it have taken far are no bigger than the period at main unaltered. . ment, so would "These markings are really a longer and the quality wouldn't the end of a sentence. Before fence around the Torah to guard have been as high," explains each session, the photographers and standardize all the precious Viktor Lebedev, head of the Ori- took Polaroids of each page to Soma notes words in the text," says James A. ental manuscripts department of check the exposure. They franti- on tfie Sanders, president of the Ancient the Saitykov-Shchedrin Library, cally processed the film in their ho- Torah's pages Biblical Manuscript Center. "Mow during a phone interview from his tel room, keeping their fingers are no our focus is to be able to read the apartment in Leningrad. Initially, crossed that the photos were larger than Masoretes' markings." adds Lebedev, the library's direc- clear— daily activity in the library a period This ancient manuscript was tor was reluctant to allow Western- causes vibrations that can distort at the end of the subject of intense curiosity ers to photograph the manu- the images.

a sentence, among biblical scholars when it scripts. But he persuaded his "After all the planning, prepara-

boss to permit the Americans to tion, negotiations, and travel, it fi-

make this historic mission. nally all comes down to you stand- This past May four Americans ing over a precious manuscript became the first foreigners permit- with a light and a sensitive piece ted to take photographs of the of film and making that image reg- -: ;,-- <..-:-': ':,:--' 982-page text. The group includ- ister to an optimal degree," says ...;• ' .-.'- <•/: ed Ken and Bruce Zuckerman, a Bruce Zuckerman, who is also an photographic team from the associate professor of religion at

:... .- .«».-; : .... West Semitic Research Project of USC. The team managed to pull ::. -::-:. '. - trivTs; . '; the University of Southern Califor- off what seemed impossible.

" " .',...... !.'' .> ...... i. . . ; «-*' iv;^-w;. nia JUSC), and Garth Moller and They're hoping to process all the -.-.._.. ;.; .. ,...,...., .,;,...,..,..,, Marilyn Lundberg, representa- film by early 1991. tives from the Ancient Biblical "Our work is really a continua- Manuscript Center, located in tion of the Masoretes' tradition," Claremont, California. concludes Bruce Zuckerman. The Zuckerman brothers, expe- "The Masoretes were state-of-the- rienced ancient manuscript pho- art in the year 1000. We're state- tographers, have also photo- of-the-art in the year 2000." graphed the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bruce Zuckerman hopes to return Their state-of-the-art photographs to the USSR and train the Soviets are designed not only to preserve to continue his work. "We're us- the contents of this fragile manu- ing all of our photographic skill script, which is written on goatskin and scholarly knowledge to vellum, but to illuminate the criti- leave a monument of information cal editing marks no longer visi- that will endure for another millen- ble to the naked eye. nium."—Linda MarsaOO —

EU 2 Books CONTINUED FROM P/ 10 Bucks seventy-two percent of the planet's lepi-

dopterans had migrated, or were now APPLE II

satellite-trackably "in the act of migrat- C0017 Ttie Apple He: \bur First Computer ing," to sunny Southern California. . CC025 Apple Machine Language For Beginners

C0084 Second Book of Apple Jodi-Mariefell ill. Disappointment, exis- C084X The Complete Apple tential ennui, and simple hunger drove CC963 Guide to Sound & Graphics on the her to the daybed in our flat. Through Apple lies our Venetian blinds, the ceaseless blur C0971 Apple lies Machine Language for and hum of wings served only to ampli- Beginners if fy her little-girl delirium. I asked her C120X Mastering the Apple lies Toolbox she wanted me to get her out of LA. in C1307 Adv. Prog. Technigues for Ihe Apple

a has-been-hippie friend's microbus. Ilea Toolbox

"No, Dennis. This is where I belong.' COMMODORE 64 and 1ZS

Why, I had no earthly idea. I was sur- C0C92 Telecomputing on the C-64 viving on peanut butter and stale C0610 Machine Language Games for Ihe bread. Jodi-Marie was getting by on luke- warm lemon tea and Skippy-flavored kisses. One day in May, hacked off at God, the C-64

, First of I left her lo the odors of sickness drench- D0346 Book C-64 ing our walk-up. D03S1 Creating Arcade Games on the C-64

Under the blizzard of insects rustling D037>i C-64 Games for Kids

like palm fronds above Olympic Boule- DQ40X All About the C-64 Volume 1

Beginners Guide to C-64 vard, I stumbled toward the studios. D054X Sound

Along the way I saw dozens of camera- . D0701 Commodore Collection Volume 2 people busily filming Marvyn Sab- D072B Third Book of C-64 Beginners batai's latest, probably last magnum . D0116 Machine Language for opus. D0531 Second Book of Martin; Language They were everywhere. Squinting, aim- 00327 Kids and the C-128 ing, shooting. Producing enough full- C0335 C-128 Machine Language for color footage to preserve the end of Beginners this world in complex celluloid montage GENERAL

for. .not for our posterity, I guess, but C022X 40 Great Flight Simulator Adventures

for whoever or whatever succeeded us. C0920 Jet Fighter School

Sabbatai himself, magnificently recon- C117X Electronic Battlefield stituted, stood swaying on a sixty-foot CI 277 SubCommander scatfold, visible from half a block away C1781 COMPuTEI's Computer Viruses

on Olympic. Gripping a huge mega- CI669 COMPUTED Computer Security phone of butterflies, he "whispered"

Total Number of Books . _ through it as loudly as the Malibu surf: (2 book minimum! "Full sunl Cameras! Action!" X S5 each equals A third again as tall as his tower, he Sales Tax (NC, NJ, NV spoke to the sky over Los Angeles Coun- resident add sales tax) _ Call Our Alien ty and Santa Monica Bay. His words SnpL'ii: line handling had the unbrookable force of Yahwis- For More Information: $1 per book tic command. Monarchs, malachites, Toial Enclosed . coppers— a thousand, thousand spe- (ChecK or money 1-900-847-SFTV cies—converged on the city, homed on Sabbatai's scaffold, and geysered

above it in an iridescent stalk as wide as teeming West Hollywood.

I fell to my knees. Stoplights blinked. Traffic halted. A blast-furnace wind hurricaned around me, stealing Callers will receive information my breath and parching my lungs. But

on how to order T-shirts and still I saw that the lepidoptera billowing aloft were not only rising, transfiguring Mail this entire coupon to: Sci-K items . All cal" sunlight, but spreading out atop their Compute Books will receive a FREE brochure, streaming pillar like the cap of a hallu- 2500 McClellan Ave. a SCI-FI CHANNEL button or poster. cinatory thermonuclear mushroom. Pennsauken, NJ 08109 My air was gone. The ground was The SCI-H CHANNEL gone. The sun was gone. This was Ar- mageddon. Sabbatai was its impresa- Nothing else like it on earth. rio. Then he mutated on the scaffold, coming to resemble—briefly, at least .

Laamaar De Long, his body a carnation- I knelt beside her. I waited. Later, faunching for celebrity?

and-chrysanthemum-covered effigy on dumbfounded, I watched her arch her Well, it It wasn't the "vision" I loved: a float in an upwardly mobile Rose back and die. was Jodi-Marie. No matter how child-

Bowl Parade. "NO!" I cried. ish or crass, her goal was higher than Sabbatai = De Long = Siva the De- (Outside, butterflies kept erupting mine. stroyer. Therefore the head of the Holis- heavenward.) For mine was to drift, take my pleas- tic Ecological Church of Liberal, Kan- "Jodi-Marie Woznicki," I said, "I ure, and die.

also I sas, was an usher into everlasting love you." Did mean it? Or was say- Now I can heal myself, not quite at mystic liberty. ing so a sop to my own conscience? leisure, of the spiritual rot that once

Butterflies were nibbling on my eye- Then I rem&mbered the dream she'd numbed me to everything about her I lids. Somebody indignantly shooed told me under the August moon at couldn't take in at a glance.

them away and helped me up. Laamaar De Long's, and I knew: Beauty—the visible sort—has always Beneath the roiling mushroom cap sit- slain me. Now it does so again: a love-

ting on our city, I hitched a ride on the ly, silken megadeath. back of a fume-stained van defeatedly Thanks to God and Marvyn Sabbatai,

sputtering east on Olympic. it slays us all: the quick and the dense, the naked and the overdressed, etc.,

Jodi-Marie was out of bed. Venetian etc. , for this is the way the world ends, blinds lay jumbled on the floor like this is the way the world ends—not spilled swords. The window overlooking with a bang but a flutter. Koreatown stood open. Butterflies wob- But to hell with all that T. S. Eliot bled around the room in a Mack Sen- crap. Here's my epitaph for Jodi-Marie: nett frenzy. Jodi-Marie sat by the radia- HER TALENT WAS HER LOVING-KINDNESS. tor under the window listlessly grabbing SHE STAYED TRUE THROUGH THE BEAUTIFUL the insects, cramming them into her WORST mouth. Meanwhile, so many goddamned but- "Good," she said, holding out a hand- terflies! Batwings, bird wings, pea- ful. "Try some, Dennis." cocks, the whole iridescent, suffocating

I seized her hand, brushed the schmear.

crushed insects away. "They're foul," I To die beneath them is an exasper-

told her. "Foul! You can't do this." ating loveliness, and I would do any-

"Dennis, I'm hungry. You, too. Eat." thing if, as a final boon, they would

I guided her back to the daybed. I shape for me aloft the clear, forgiving laid a damp washcloth over her eyes. Was this a shallow vision? An empty face of Jodi-Marie Woznicki. DO

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Enigmatic spheres travel through by Prueitt at Los Alamos National Lab- visualize his fantasies. Prueitt's com- space, obeying the laws of their own oratory to aid scientific imaging, the puter-generated photographs have universe, laws that make perfect SCOPE computer program then cre- been on exhibit at the American Mu- sense to these galactic baubles but ated a three-dimensional universe seum of Natural History in New York lie beyond the understanding of hu- with its own colors, shadows, textures, and, more recently, Philadelphia's Fran- mans. Indeed, this universe, the cre- and strings of spheres resembling trop- klin Institute, among other museums ation of physicist Melvin Prueitt, exists ical-colored pearls traveling in the ga- and galleries. outside anything scientists know. lactic void. Prueitt then transferred the "With the computer," says Prueitt, Prueitt produced what he calls image to Kodak News 35 mm film author of Art and the Computer (Mc- "Eigenspace" on a Cray YMP com- through a Dicomed film recorder. Graw-Hill), "passive artists, people puter. Eigenspace's rules of gravita- The SCOPE program will help sci- who appreciate art but lack the hand- tion, and attraction and repulsion, are entists see the interaction of atoms eye coordination to draw or paint, can based in part on the laws of physics, and the collisions of distant stars now express themselves in color and but they also heed artistic directives. more clearly. Prueitt, however, form, I have the hardest time draw- He began by randomly choosing seems equally interested in exp oring ing even a straight line. But with the points in. space, represented by pix- its aesthetic possibilities, using the computer, I'm picture perfect." els on a computer screen. program to create his art—or at least —Bob BergerDQ

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Credit card holders call toll-free: 1-800-221-1777 ly fired off a short scientific paper ex- ten two shorter works, largely in re- plaining them in meteorological terms sponse to the fantastic claims of Colin and has been refining his theory ever Andrews and Pat Delgado, called The since: The circles are caused by whirl- Cycles Effect and Us Mysteries and Cir- winds, Meaden believes, that break cles From the Sky. ATTENTION down, hit the ground, and weave the Numerous other researchers em- DIRECT crops into the tangled patterns of their brace Meaden's theory, including Jen- MARKETERS! spiraling winds. ny Randies and Paul Fuller of the Brit- MAKE NEARLY Meaden had hoped to gather support- ish UFO Research Association, who are ing evidence last summer with a month- the authors of Controversy of the Cir- 4 MILLION GREAT long circles watch that he mounted cles and, more recently, Crop Circles: with the help of volunteers and private A Mystery Solved. Fuller is also the ed- IMPRESSIONS funds, but the group wasn't lucky itor and publisher of a new scientific jour- enough to find a circle in the making. nal called The Crop Watcher, which EVERY MONTH... "It's a little like trying to film a road keeps a weather eye on the circles

accident as it happens," Meaden says phenomenon and takes a staunchly in explaining ihe odds against success. meteorological stand. "It's not that the event isn't common. It's As far as Fuller and Randies are con- INTRODUCING: that you've got to know where to be cerned, Meaden's theory also accounts ahead of time, and have your cameras for a good number of UFOs sighted in THE OMNI rolling before the action starts." Wiltshire. This is because the strong elec- After ten years of investigation, Mea- trical effects that are thought to EMPORIUM den holds that the secret of the circles charge the circle-making whirlwinds lies in the interplay of light oncoming can set compass needles spinning, winds with stable layers of air overlying stall cars, stop watches, cause power

OMNI now offers direct marketers the hills in and around the affected failures, and fill the air with cracking, a product showcase custom tailored fields. buzzing noises. of also the to their special advertising needs, He envisions the summer air . hang- These kinds events are ing motionless over these hills during stuff of UFO reports. Indeed, Randies The "OMNI EMPORIUM" will consist the night, untii the first stirring of wind points out, circles appear at sites of re- of 1/6-page, black and white ads, toward morning starts to pick up near ported close encounters. But in reality

2" wide by 4" deep. the level of the crops. When these it is the circle phenomenon that pro- winds strike the hillsides, they ricochet duces the illusion of the alien space-

back, forming spinning columns of air. craft, Randies maintains, not some Display rates: Usually, this sort of column, or "eddy extraterrestrial beings whirling their mes- vortex," dissipates uneventfully, but of- sages over the ground. $3,000 per l/6,h page ad. ten enough, air continues to pour into "We now have twenty-four eyewitness-

the vortex from all directions, spiraling es who all report an atmospheric vor- inward and upward. Then a bulge may tex—similar to a tornado or a whirlwind," Camera-ready artwork is requested. develop partway up the spinning col- Randies says. This is an astounding num- If necessary, OMNI will provide crea- umn, where the air is rushing in and ro- ber of firsthand accounts, given that 90 tive assistance to advertisers at an tating rapidly. The bulge then "relieves to 95 percent of crop circles are additional cost. Payment must ac- itself," Meaden says, by breaking thought to be formed between three company all ad orders and must be in down namely, bursting and falling to and five o'clock in the morning. (Other, the form of a check, bank check or — the where it leaves its telltale more mystically oriented crop watchers money order. Please enclose a sam- ground, cornfields. holding vigils in the cornfields have ob- ple of your product or catalog with mark in the Other geographic locations have the served no such vortex but instead re- your ad, as well as your street address and phone number, otherwise right mix of conditions to produce ported hundreds of "black rodlike such eddy vortices, Meaden concedes, things," or "thongs," according to one your ad will be returned. All ads are but not the undulating miles of to "that jumped and down subject to acceptance by OMNI. crops account, up record their passing. A circle etched in above the top of the ; crop.") or snow disappears with the next for the fact that the circles seem Deadline for materials is the 1st of the sand As second month proceeding the issue gust of wind. to be increasing in quantity and com- Electrical forces are also involved, plexity, offers a of date. Closing for the March issue is Randies number January 1,1991. Meaden adds. As the vortex sucks in down-to-ear :h possibilities thai could af- air, it strips electrons off the molecules, fect circle-making conditions, from pes- For further details write: turning them injo ions that glow in the ticide spraying to the removal 'of hedge- dark. rows, to chlorofluorocarbon buildup In OMNI EMPORIUM Airborne particles of pollen, dust, the atmosphere, to the depletion of the 1965 Broadway and sea salt hovering over the ozone layer. Meaden claims that the fields accelerate the buildup of electric number of circles is not increasing, al- New York, N.Y. 10023 charge inside the whirlwind, making it though the number of newly discovered

hum and shimmer with orange, yellow, circles is. Or call: or red light. From a distance, the "We've been called the greatest par- Glenn Smith at bulge in the whirlwind may look like ty poopers In history," says Randies, ball lightning, and its noise may sound who finds the geometric regularity of the (212) 496-6100 Ext. 1544 similar to humming, buzzing, or even a circles no more astounding than the com- wail, plex formations to seen among Fax (212) 580-3693 siren's be snow- Meaden began work on a serious sci- flakes. "People would rather come up entific book about the circles in 1983, with the daffiest solutions possible." which is due to appear in print some- Some of the most sober solutions time next year. Meanwhile, he has writ- were aired publicly last June 23, when Meaden chaired the First International ly disappear. However, Snow thinks from half a dozen directions, and see Conference of the Circles Effect, many of the more elaborate patterns in whether vortices appear. The key ques- which drew scientists from as far away the cornfields are hoaxes, perpetrated tion, he says, is not whether vortices as Japan and the United States to a one- to keep 'news media interest in the could create the circles in the corn, but day parley at Oxford University. Animat- crop circles alive. whether they actually form as frequented exchanges between the presenters "The British press is having a great ly as the vortex model suggests. and the audience, which included time with these circles," says Snow. "I stayed on in Manchester for a Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado, were "There's probably an interesting me- while after the conference," Church the order of the day. At the end, Mea- teorological phenomenon behind them adds, "and a crop circle appeared den told the gathering that decades that should be studied, 'but it's tough to near where I was living about two more research might be required to pin do serious science in such an atmos- weeks later. The circle was- approximate- down all the details of the full answer. phere of sensationalism." ly ten meters in diameter,' with a satel-

In the meantime, he said, the phenom- Christopher Church, an expert in tor- lite ring running around it, but it was noth- enon would continue to manifest itself nadolike flows at Miami University in Ox- ing to get excited about, It looked like in hundreds of different patterns, most ford, Ohio, also attended the circles con- something kids had done. I remember of which have not yet materialized and ference and also goes along with the thinking that my son and I could have none of which could be predicted. vortex idea—up to a point. made one as well or better by anchor- "Just listening to these people was "I think the very bizarre features, ing a rope at the center and running such fun," commented American attend- such as the rectangular patterns and around with a board." On the grounds ee John T. Snow, professor of atmos- arcs that look like pictographs or sand of this unspectacular display, Church pheric science at Purdue University. paintings," Church says in a phone in- says he would positively rule out any ex- "There was lots of discussion, but very terview, "can't be explained by natural traterrestrial involvement. little real study reported." Most of the causes. You could call it hoaxing, or The vortex theory, however, is not the

"crop circle studies," he said, entailed you could call it an artistic challenge." only scientific explanation. Eyeing the visiting the sites and speculating on the Church says he's sufficiently stimu- circles from across the English Chan- sights there. lated by the problem to do some lab- nel, optical engineer Jean-Jacques Snow's own conjecture is in line with oratory testing. He plans to construct a Velasco of the CNES (the French coun- Meaden's—that most of the circles are model of two to three square miles of terpart to NASA) declares that "no the artifacts of whirlwinds. He agrees the surface of the Hampshire country- known meteorological phenomenon that whirlwinds form in the lee of hills, side, where many circles appear. His will produce rings on the ground, possibly swirling crops into circles, tabletop model will miniaturize the ar- much less double rings, without touch- just as they form at the corners of tall ea's horseshoe-shaped depression sur- ing the vegetation in the middle of the buildings in New York City, where rounded by hills. Then he'll put the mod- rings." Instead, he suggests, the circles swirls of dust and litter form but quick- el in a wind tunnel, blow smoke at it may be the result of military tests of ad-

"It's no! working out, Leo.... I'm still evolving and you're still regressing." vanced star-wars-type weaponry. scale, by conducting experimental ical conditions in Ihe areas where they Indeed, when Velasco observed the test shooting of plants with microwave form. One of the center's first official genuine article under a microscope, he and infrared guns. acts was to meet with the National Farm- found that bent stalks plucked from Velasco bolsters his" argument with ers' Union and draw up a "Code of Prac- crop circles looked as though they had the fact that the area of greatest circle tice" for researchers wishing to inspect been twisted and subjected to some intensity coincides with a large British circles on private land, (Investigators form of heating. military installation. His speculations, are expected, for example, to ask farm- The heai source, he speculated, which he describes as still private and ers' permission before" entering the could be an infrared or microwave untested, were roundly rejected by the fields, to keep the gates closed, and to beam of high intensity. Such a beam British and American researchers inter- refrain from littering.) could be produced by the powerful la- viewed for this article. The first issue of the center's fledg- sers used in experimental defensive Other theories range from the mischie- ling journal of crop circle studies, weapons under development in the vous (tracks left by helicopters flying up- called The. Cereotogist, appeared late United States, the Soviet Union, and pos- side down) to the mysterious (warnings last summer and ran true to its editorial sibly the United Kingdom as well. The of ecological disaster chiseled in the policy of standing "receptive to the proliferating patterns in the cornfieids, corn in ancient Sumerian script). Some news, views, and theories of any by this argument, are the fallout from test- modern observers cling to the notion group or individual who is engaged in ing a new defense strategy. that the circles are the work of fairies these studies, subject only to their cour- "It's all done with mirrors," Velasco or nature spirits. teous expression." Beyond the usual sus- explains. "You test the beam from the "I've been studying these circles for pects (atmospheric effects, fairies, hoaxers), The Cereol- ground by directing it at a pilotless air- five years now," notes Archie Roy, hon- extraterrestrials, craft flying overhead." A mirror affixed orary senior fellow in physics and as- ogist gave reports from dowsers, chan- to the test aircraft reflects the beam tronomy at the University of Glasgow, neled, and mystics. Novelist Patrick Har- this back to Earth, where it marks the a researcher well-known for his interest pur, a student of alchemy, offered the circles. are like crops. Indeed, Velasco asserts, "the Eng- in the paranormal, "and I don't believe view of crop "They lish are really using the cornstalks as we have any real idea of what they are dreams," he said. "To interrogate microwave detectors." The bent corn is or what causes them." them is to force them to lie, to interpret evidence of the beam's power. (If the Roy is president of the newly them is to diminish their richness; to ex- beam were to strike the aircraft, instead formed Centre for Crop Circle Studies, plain them is to misunderstand them,... of being deflected by the mirror, it which is charged with building up a na- Crop circles are like mouths that of the strangeness would destroy it, Velasco claims, and tional computer database of relevant speak to us and heart this is why the test craft would have to facts.about all the crop circles found to depth of things— speak to the be pilotless.) He' will be testing the idea date, such as the types of crops they more than the head and to the soul in his laboratory, he says, on a small inhabit, their size, and the meteorolog- more than the heart." DO

^59^^"

" "Wo wonder there's a shortage of adequate heuiih care: ait the hospitals, doctors, and nurses are on television. ALIEN ALMANAC FORGET WHAT have seen. MIB typically appear in YOU KNOW pairs or threes and dress in conservative dark suits. They typically drive ABOUT ROLE black Cadillacs or some other large, PLAYING dark-colored American sedan. Missing time. An episode ot amnesia re- GAMES! ported in association with a UFO abdue- COMPUTE tion or close encounter. Such gaps in The World's Unbound awareness commonly surface in a piece- BOOKS Series by Compass Rose meal lashion, most vividly as a result of Games, Inc. is the next hypnotic regression. Nords. The second most prominent IS YOUR evolutionary step in role- type of UFO occupant reported after playing games! the diminutive Grays. The Mordic ali- You tell the story! ens—or Nords, for short— customarily AMIGA resemble human beings of Scandinavi- You decide how complex an descent. They have blue eyes and or simple the plotl blond hair and, unlike the malevolent RESOURCE You decide how long the Grays, are generally perceived as neu- game will last! tral or benevolent. Tectonic strain. The earth's surface is It is easy to get started - made up of several large, floating OM1fi Elementary Amiga more Flexible than other plates constantly colliding in slow mo- Basic $14.95 games. tion with one another. The result: active , CO904 First Book of Amiga $16,95 No complex equipment tectonic strain released as earthquakes C1226 Second Book of Amiga $16.95 research- or pieces to buy. and volcanic activity. Some ers have suggested that geomagnetic CQ483 Kids and the Amiga $15,95 • Everything is you need fields produced by the tectonic strain C0289 Amiga Programmer's included! create the strange lights sometimes in- Guide $18.95 terpreted as UFOs. Under certain circum- Get acquainted with C0459 Advanced Amiga Baste $18.95 through stances, theory has it, the geomagnet- World's Unbound C053X Amiga Applications $18.95 ic fields could directly affect the human our first release. nervous system, initiating visual, audito- C1951 Mapping the Amiga $22.95 ry, and spatial hallucinations that The Attoti Stone C04D3 Inside Amiga Graphics $18.95 might be interpreted as an interaction C1714 Amiga Desktop Video $19.95 It is science-fiction adventure with UFOs and their occupants. DO at its best! Experience high adventure! CREDITS J Page S clockwise Irom lop left: Ellon Sori.sisr. a- • Encounter alien cultures! Sales Trt I.NC, NJ, NY page 10 ,.;kwise Irom lop (eft: Unravel the mystery of Edr CoLiwull. R.vidv Mayer. Jo-ir Stuart. Jo'ir Slu-

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Mail to: Compass Rose Games, Inc. P.O. Box 1571 Cape Girardeau, MO 63702-1571 v.f^V (Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery) IRJTERVIEUU of age dating we no longer say, "This an important time span. We have lots hearth might be this old because it re- of data on people who lived in the sembles one over here." We now say, Saharaand on the ancient Egyptians,

El-Baz: The way it eroded clearly indi- "It is fourteen hundred years old, and but the link between them, right before cates that the Sphinx is not built of this one is sixteen hundred and fifty the first Pharaoh, is what we need to fig- blocks but carved from the rock in years old," ure out. This site also lies in an area ptace mainly by the wind. Any strategy Archaeology immediately entered the that should be agriculturally developed. for conserving it must answer two ques- league of exact sciences. But non- Omni: Have you been influenced by tions: What part does groundwater destructive archaeology is an even your training in geology? play in its deterioration? What part more scientific approach. We've El-Baz: Geologists are responsible for wind? We need to make a hydraulic mod- changed methodology. You don't not aiding archaeology. The history of el to see how much water via capillary move into an area and start digging. the earth and rocks geologists usually action gets from the ground to the First you look at it from space photo- consider are tens or hundreds of mil- Sphinx's head. We also have to place graphs or data from remote sensors lions of years old. Geologists generally instruments around the Sphinx to ana- nearer the ground. You define the ge- keep their hands off anything less than lyze how wind vortices work. Then we ology and other controls on human hab- a million years old, so they've neglect- can put the model in a wind tunnel and itation. After you've identified the most ed the relation between geological con- compute the erosion rates. Before you likely places where people mighl have ditions and human habitation. Civiliza- pump out the groundwater, cover the lived, you go in with your instruments tion occurs with geological consent.

Sphinx, spray it, build wind baffles, or and bounce rays off the ground. If you You have to have arable land, water, whatever, you have to figure out non- find something worth excavating, you lim- and sunlight. These are essential envi- destructive^ what's happening now it your digging to a minute area. ronmental conditions, but geologists and what will happen after the remedy. It's unfair to label huge tracts of tend not to think in these terms. So Omni: How important is the idea of non- land as archaeological sites and forbid they fail to supply information to ecolo- destructive archaeology? people to use them. This happens a lot gists, environmentalists, and archaeol-

El-Baz: It's potentially as important as in Egypt. I say, "Tell me exactly where ogists. In the absence of geological the technique of age dating. Before these sites are, mark them, and let peo- knowledge, others tend to make predic- that, the only truths we knew about the ple live around them." We're involved tions from a weak base. past were those of history and interpre- in one of these cases right now. We're Omni: Why do you call the theory of de- tation, and a few hints from the super- using remote sensing technology to sertification "Bedouin bashing"? imposition of objects in relation to map an archaeological site on the El-Baz: Changes we don't understand each other. Then all of a sudden we got west bank of the Nile near Nag Ham- are taking place in the earth's dry this method that uses carbon atoms to madi that once held a prepharaonic lands. The term desertification gives peo- figure out the age of a mud brick or community. This was a town existing ple the false impression we know what piece of charcoal. Since the invention just before the initiation of statehood. It's we're talking about. It's easiest to blame the "ignorant native," while in reality these people know more about the desert than we do. The most dangerous thing we can do is settle the nomad because nomadism is the best way of living in desert environments. The recent problems are due to the deep wells and settlement schemes that governments and well-intentioned aid projects have adopted to "save" the pop- ulation. These agencies are trying to find people to help. And they must get them to some place to help them. Omni: What makes deserts expand? El-Baz: Deserts don't come from goats nibbling at plants. Major climatic changes caused by variations in the amount of energy the earth receives from the sun have been making deserts expand and shrink throughout geologic times. Deserts go back two hundred thirty million years. Only twenty thousand years ago, the edge of the Sahara, which today lies near Timbuktu, extended four hundred kilometers southwards into trop- ical Africa. Enormous dunes, now covered with vegetation, are visible from

space. From this perspective, we're living in wetter times and the desert is

smaller than it has been. The most significant piece of the puzzle is the environmental balance at

the desert's edge, where life is so frag-

ile that by doing little you can tip it either way. But each desert has to be considered separately; to generalize is to condemn. DO "

connnnunJicATionjs CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 OMNI or of drowning should stay away from the sea. As one who survived the sink- HME CAPSULES ing of two ships in 1942 (one with the

loss of nearly a thousand men), I have

to admil that I enjoyed both occasions

immensely. On the first sinking, when I found myself swimmifig in the shark-

infested Indian Ocean, I never doubt-

ed that I would survive even though no one knew the ship had sunk or exactly SERIOUS ABOUT THE where we were. WEATHER? NOW YOU CAN John Cotton Vancouver, British Columbia Now the mo go? ins of the future can

AFFORD A PERSONAL kept tor the future. Store your issues i OMNI in a new Custom Bound Library Case WEATHERSTATION! made of block simulated leather. Its bu From the Back USSR lost, and it will keep 12 issues in mini We are very glad that it is now possi- condition indefinitely. The spine is embossed ble to buy Omn/in the USSR. We want with i'li' gold OMNI logo, and in each case there Is a gold transfer tor to thank you for your miracle magazine. recording the date. It gives us a view on American science 5end your check or money ordei fiction and other issues. It is like a win- ($8.95 each; 3 for $24.95; 6 for $45.95) WIMD DIRECTION dow into the United States. paslpcid USAoroers on.y. Foreign IRATURt hi/lo|_ Independent Cultural Center orders add $1.50 additional for (OPTIONAL)- RAINFALL postage and handling per case. 4-DAY MONEV-BACK GUARANTEE Kemerovo To: OMNI MAGAZINE DIGITAR WEATHERPRO and I'm studying at the Jesse Jones Industries. 459 E. Erie Ave. Phila., PA 19134 WEATHER STATION: ONLY $189! tenth form [equivalent to senior year in ORDER TODAY:1-800-678-3669, OM over high school], I'm fond of PC program- CREDIT CARD HOLDERS (orders $15) CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-972-5858 ming. In order to use a PC and devel- Or mail your order, clearly showing your

op programs, I and my friend make our account number and signature. Pa. residents way to the Black Sea Company Com- add 6% sales tax. Did TAR SATISFACTION GUARANTEED Mi- DIABLO AVE, h puter Center almost every evening.

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try is a leader in the world's program- STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP ming and I'd enjoy hearing from a qualified American programmer who can help me in my study. Alyosha Vernikov

We love contests as much as Ameri-

cans do. When I'm reading Omni, I often find offers to take part in contests,

and at once I sigh with distress. These

contests are for Americans only. I think

it is not the right state of affairs. Boris Sidyuk Kiev, Ukraine

I am an ordinary Soviet young man. I like to read your magazine in spite of

the fact that it is very difficult to buy in Retinitis pigmentosa is a progressive, inherited eye disease our magazine shops. The main purpose that causes night bhndness, of my writing is as follows: There are tunnel vision, and, ultimately, many advertisements in your magazine, blindness. Today there's no but they are for the people who have or cure. treatment hard currency I think you know that our

But it doesn't have to be that way. country is in crisis now. Our shops are empty no cigarettes, no sausage, Intensive research is under way. — Your support of the RP Foundation sometimes no bread. It's not good to could he the great save for send to our country such a magazine thousands of people. that causes only envy and malice and

nothing more. I regret that I am forced

to write such a letter, but it is my opin-

RP Foundation Fighting Bllndne ion and you should know it. Stan USSRDQ the onnrui arcade BLOODLESS BATTLES: Playing war games can have you seeing spots on your screen

In 1903, at Kitty OUT, DAMNED Hawk, North Carolina, SPOT. Yes, it's just a the Wright brothers computer-animated achieved a technolo- variation on the board gy that some opti- game Oihello or Rever- mists thought would se featuring the red cir- make war impossible. cle from the 7-Up com- mercials. But Virgin It only launched human tragedy into the Mastertronics" Spot un- clouds. Wings, Cine- bottles some strategic maware'sWorldWarl surprises. As many as air combat simulator, four players take also opens with a ro- turns placing colored manticized vision of discs on a grid of the dawn of flight. The squares. When you po- game, however, quick- sition a piece next to ly and convincingly an opponent's, his departs from fantasy pieces turn your color. and presents the air- The aim is to have the plane as the twentieth most colored discs on century's first high- the board at game's tech war machine. end. Game play is Loneliness, isola- kept fresh by "spe- tion, and personal loss were daily realities for World War cial" squares with unexpected effects on play and a va- are never in the destruc- riety of board shapes. You can also play solo as well as I pilots; yet these realities conveyed tion that permeates most computer war games.. In design your own boards. In addition, while you're plac- Wings, however, the expected action of combat missions ing and flipping discs, the Spot characters spin across is tempered by on-screen pages depicting the journal of the screen, moonwalking or somersaulting in some of the the 56th Aerosquadron. Though fictitious, the entries are best character animation ever seen in a computer game. based on period documents. Through the words and pic- Though you can disable these time-consuming antics, on- tures contained in the journal you suffer the death of a ly a curmudgeon could resist their charm (IBM, Amiga, colleague, feel the senselessness of a no-win combat as- Commodore 64, and also Nintendo's Gameboy). signment, and endure the frustration of an overly de- PREVIEWS. Summon the Force, Skywalker wannabes. manding senior officer. Wing Commander adds breathtaking 3-D graphic detail With detailed graphics and excellent 3-D flight simula- and a movielike musical score to its point-of-view inter- tion, the more than 200 action missions of Wings are var- stellar combat (Origin Systems, IBM). ied and enlightening. Equipment failure, unexpected at- Shanghai II brings 13 new tile formations, a layout con- tacks, and other chance occurrences bring sometimes struction set, new graphics, and two new game variations frightening authenticity to the action sequences. This is to the classic computer board game (Activision, IBM). one of the few flight simulators that you can enjoy with- PC compatible owners who also have CD-ROM play- out becoming a certified pilot or memorizing a 50-page ers now can savor the point-and-click exploration of ThG manual. Even so, the memory of airborne triumph isn't fore- Manhole. The greatly expanded CD version includes bi- most in Wings. Instead, you tend to recall the rowdy fun lingual dialogue (English and Japanese). 256-color graph- of a drunken R&R leave in Paris, the emptiness of losing ics, and a digitally recorded musical score (Activision, IBM a veteran member of the unit, and the camaraderie of a with CD-ROM player). hastily contrived birthday party for the commander. TIP OF THE MONTH. When designing pilots in Cine- Though not strictly a war game or a flight simulator, maware's Wings, initially devote all your extra points to fast the trigger is invaluable surviv- . Wings is the first combat game that credibly addresses gunnery. Being on an the nobility and the futility -of war (Amiga, IBM}. al asset while honing your piloting skills.—Bob Lindstrom —

the onnrui arcade

SIMULATED PIGSKIN: The only physical danger in these football games is developing a sore finger

Action warrior. Likewise, a PREVIEWS slight delay in control-pad response demands a period Your mission, should you

of adjustment. Even so, a var- choose to accept it: Recov- ied playbook and other stra- er the five Elemental Swords tegic and statistical options of MAGI and defeat the evil make Play Action Football Darces the Dark, Taito Soft- one of the most complex ware's Dungeon Magic and complete Nintendo (NES) doesn't do much for sports simulations available. plot-line innovation, but its TV Sports: Football, how- point-of-view 3-D graphics ever, scores biggest in excite- and arcadelike action com- ment. Smooth, responsive bine some of the best fea- controls and an up-close- tures of American and Japa- and-personal view of the nese role-playing games. field combine with detailed The Atari Lynx cartridge TurboGrafx visuals to throw of Paperboy may be the you headlong into the ac- best home version yet of the tion. With a TurboTap acces- smash arcade game. Watch sory and extra control pads, out for dogs, hot rods, lawn as many as five fans can mowers, and irate motorists bash video helmets at once. while pitching your papers in- As in the computer ver- to mailboxes and through sions of TV Sports: Football, windows. The color graphics newcomers may find the and fast-moving animation passing controls difficult. truly show off Lynx's ad- But with lots of practice, this vanced capabilities. game effectively re-creates Super Mario Brothers the timing and spotting de- meets fern's in Nintendo's mands placed on a real quar- Dr. Mario. Match shapes terback and adds to the fun and colors as a Mario medic and intensity of the game. slowly tosses vitamins into

Though lacking real NFL play- your medicine bottle. It er statistics, simulated play- looks like the Soviet import er stats increase the strate- Tetris. but other obstacles, player statistics to cutaway gic depth of TV Sports: Foot- such as troublesome virus- views of the electronic stadi- ball, particularly when guides, give Dr. Mario a screen- Monday night gridiron. The um's video screen, Play As- ing a single'ieam through an side manner all his own. rest of us can put hangnails tion Football tackles a sense entire league season. I loved the witty animation and fingertips on the line in of pigskin realism. Mid- and Other football games and cartoon graphics of Nin- a hard-hitting game of video long-range perspectives put scheduled to hit the field in- tendo's Snake, Rattle N Roll. football. Indeed, several you on the scrimmage line clude Sega's Joe Montana Control one of two snakes new football simulations are and then take you heaven- Football, featuring separate Rattle or Roll—crawling now in play or waiting on the ward for a skycamiike view team playbooks, eight defen- through a three-dimensional sidelines for cartridge- of the play. At critical mo- sive plays, and sophisticat- landscape as the reptile in- based game systems. Two ments the view again closes ed artificial intelligence for creases its size by gulping of the newest are Nintendo's in as you guide the ball car- each player. Accolade's the Nibbley Pibbleys. Don't Play Action Football for the rier through an opening in Mike Ditka's Big Play Foot- let the names mislead you: Nintendo Entertainment Sys- the defensive line. ball (NES) includes an up- Snake, Rattle N Roll has tem (NES) and Cinema- Shifting.views help would- down and left-right scrolling some of the most impressive ware's TV Sports: Football be bruisers get the big pic- playfield, a top-down dis- graphics and action puzzles for the NEC TurboGrafx-16. ture,. but they also tend to display of the field, and simulat- ever featured in a Nintendo From its authentic NFL orient an inexperienced Play ed player stats. cartridge, —Bob Lindstrom 140 OMNI —

THE OfMfUl ARCADE

IS A HOT-WIRED DILL KOSHER? Making your pickle glow in the dark could have some serious, but spectacular, consequences

sion from Pickles," and in- When 1 was in college, to submit it to Jour- stoves weren't allowed in the tends The WARNING! nal of Chemical Education rooms, so I cooked hot dogs but is holding off for now. by electrocuting them. It on- "I'm an assistant professor ly took a minute or two for THE EXPERIMENTS DESCRIBED IN THIS ARTICLE and I'm being considered the frankfurter to cook BY QUALIFIED WERE PERFORMED tenure. Senior colleagues enough for a midnight meal. for advised that it Can you guess what will hap- RESEARCHERS AND SCIENCE TEACHERS. have me might not look good if my pen if a pickle is electrified? DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DUPLI- Amazingly, the pickle glows! first published paper is YOURSELF. LIVE ELECTRICITY about pickles. So I'm work- In a few seconds it sizzles CATE THEM smoke, and ing madly on my other re- and begins to IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. then a yellow light begins search and writing it up so I paper. flickering from inside the pick- can send in the pickle

of adds. "I'm us- "My colleagues and I still le! It is bright enough to see ways appears on one side rage," Jacobs to under normal laboratory light- the pickle, not both: Is this being a recipe off the side of a have not been able solve substi- the problem of why the picking, but it's more brilliant in cause one electrode is mak- vinegar bottle, but I'm the dark. ing better contact? Revers- tuting other salts: copper le lights up only on one end. In salt solution mixture, This is the strangest sci- ing the electrodes seems to chloride, strontium chloride, the effect: and lithium niirate. They'll pro- the active electrode can ence demonstration I have have no The same ever seen. Never published end of Ihe pickle glows. duce poisonous, inedible switch back and forth hap- of the pick- pickles, but at least they'll be hazardly. It doesn't make in any science journal that I Does the make-up

If any sense to me because know of, it's weird, surpris- le determine which side good for testing. these current both ing, and unexplained. glows? My own tests found glow they should have a dif- it's AC and Rod Edge, a professor of that either the large end or ferent color." ends should be the same: I physics at the University of the small end could glow, ei- Jeff Appling, a chemist at have tried hooking up sever- South Carolina, Columbia, ther the lighter end or the the University of Kentucky in al pickles in parallel, and in has been showing the pickle darker end, either the stem Lexington, first thought the series, hoping to get some- string of Christ- glowfo his students for a cou- or the nonstem.end. What salt-vinegar combination thing like a only one ple of years. Edge writes a kinds of pickles work best was crucial, but now he mas tree lights, but column on science experi- dills or gherkins, sweet or finds that it's the salt alone pickle would light up at a just salty time." There is still apparent- ments in The Physics Teach- sour? "I have one friend who that does it. Using ly to predict which er, but he has never written insists the pickle must be ko- water you can get yellow no way up the perplexing pickle be- sher," Edge jokes. sparking around the elec- end of a pickle will light up it to cause, as he says, "1 still Steve Jacobs of Wichita, trode tips, but it isn't nearly first. "As of now seems in the pickle. random, fifty-fifty shot," don't understand why it Kansas, a science consult- so dramatic as be a lights up in such a peculiar anl for Mr. Wizard's World'on The pickle diffuses the light Appling says. isn't the glow spread It may all depend on the manner, and I don't want to Nickelodeon TV, also and makes publish an experiment with- sure what causes the light. all over. precise instant the pickle is in the out a full explanation." "One theory is that when the "I have golten the same plugged in —when Edge brought more ques- current hits the salt and acid yellow sparks in seawater 60-cycle-per-second current alternation the jolt of tions than answers: Other mixture it produces an eth- and seaweed," Appling objects such as plums, ane gas around the elec- says. "Sodium ions pick up electricity hits. That first apricots, and pears yield sim- trodes that ignites and electrons from the passing sixtieth of a second may set in pickle, with ilar effects, but a pickle causes the light. Or maybe current, turning them into up a bias the definitely works best. Why? the burning excites the sodi- sodium atoms in an excited positive ions traveling to one and negative ions to A pickle is wet, salty, and um atoms and they give off state," Appling explains. end acidic— could you get the the light. You'd get the same "The only way the atoms can the other, a bias too strong to later alter- glowing from, say, a. wet yellow color if you burned an return to their most stable be undone by cucumber that hadn't been ordinary .salt solution in a nat- state is by giving off a pho- nations in the current. That's and fur- soaked in salt water or in ural gas flame. ton —and there's the light." just my speculation, obviously acetic acid (vinegar)? '.'I'm trying to make some Appling has written a pa- ther research is Morris The light, moreover, al- pickles now, out. in my ga- per, "Sodium D Line Emis- needed.—Scot DO 142 OMNI Advertisement onnrui GIFT GUIDE

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ACCESSING THE FUTURE

KIDDIE KEYBOARD

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INQUIRING MINDS: Why doesn't a watched pot boil? What caused the ozone hole?

tive system. Instead, they have 21 percent belligerence, and 5 per- combustivs systems, which not on- cent laziness.

ly continuously burn fat but also Question: Is it possible to meas- release water and calories into the ure peer pressure? atmosphere. This, of course, cre- Answer: Yes, peer pressure can ates an unfavorable environment be measured by placing a child for people with weight problems. in a vacuum, then measuring the Question: Why does a watched amount of internal pressure his pot never boil? body exerts. This amount is sub- Answer: When a person watches tracted from 100 (the maximum de-

a pot while waiting for it to boil, the gree of peer pressure), and the intense radiation beamed from his result is the degree of peer pres- eyes causes a vacuum over the sure on that child. If the measured

it is surface of the liquid, making it im- peer pressure exceeds 60, a possible for boiling to take place. good idea to leave the child in the Question: Why are dogs consid- vacuum for a year or so. ered man's best friend"? Question: Why can't we sense Answer: Psychologists have that the earth is rotating and mov- trained dogs to function well in hu- ing through space? man society. Through years of psy- Answer; Humans normally have The Human Genome Project and chotherapy, they have taught five senses, although rare individ- sixth sense, the superconducting super collid- dogs to behave as if they accept uals possess the criticism, to obey ESP. It is the seventh sense, er will make it possible for future man without and rotation scientists to construct maps oi hu- his commands without question. though, that detects and revolution on planets. So far, no man genes and to describe the It is believed that no other animal universe's beginnings. can be trained to put on such a humans have been found to pos- seventh sense, although All the fascinating new informa- good act. sess the have been found to pos- tion will lead to billions of new ques- Question: Why are thunderclouds many tions. From now on, however, dark? sess no sense. is fast food not "old" questions will have only one Answer: Thunderclouds are dark Question: Why healthy for answer. There will be no time for because they are ominous rather you? controversy or debate as scien- than luminous. Ominosity pro- Answer: It has always been that haste makes waste. tists attempt to answer each ques- duces darkness, while luminosity known quickly food tion quickly. produces brightness. Therefore, the more The following questions have Question: Why does bottled soda is prepared, the more waste it contains. fast-food ham- been answered in the last few min- taste better than soda in a can? The average utes and are being published Answer: Soda in a bottle contains burger is cooked so quickly that here, with their answers, so you tiny bacteria. Because they are unit is almost 100 percent waste. is saved can quit wondering about them. able to grow in opaque contain- Question: Why a penny ers, canned soda does not have a penny earned? Question: Why do some people that extra flavor ingredient. Answer: This is an optical illusion put on weight so easily while oth- Question: What caused the hole caused by the fact that at some ers can eat as much as they in the ozone layer? angles a penny saved appears want without gaining an ounce? Answer: The "shot heard round round and from other angles it ap- Answer: People who gain weight the world" fired at Concord had pears elliptical, just as a penny per- easily have billions of fat cells in no known origin: It also had no earned does. The viewer their bodies. A process called known destination until recently, ceives both pennies to be equal fatosynthesis, which combines when the bullet was discovered in every way. taken light, water, and oxygen to con- on the planet Jupiter. This bullet Question: Have computers tinuously produce fat, occurs in- caused asmall hole in the ozone over the world? even your side each of these cells. (Calories layer that has been growing larg- Answer: Yes. Anyone, act as catalysts to speed up the er every year. next-door neighbor, could be a process but are not necessary for Question: What does the earth's computer in disguise. So it is of? wise to avoid people who make it to occur.) People who never atmosphere consist gain weight no matter how much Answer: Overall, the earth's atmos- beeping, humming, or clicking they eat actually have no diges- phere is 74 percent friendliness. sounds. DQ 7)j)/l l<; I 1990. I

You always come back to the basics. J