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- NEW THOUGHTS, NEW SCIENCE DEPARTMENT -

Coming in Out of the Cold: Cold fusion, For Real

PASADENA, CALIF. ??“ For the last few years, mentioning cold fusion around scientists (myself included) has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings.

After the 1989 announcement of fusion in a bottle, so to speak, and the subsequent retraction, the whole idea of cold fusion seemed a bit beyond the pale. But that's all about to change.

A very reputable, very careful group of scientists at the University of Los Angeles (Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski, Seth Putterman) has initiated a fusion reaction using a laboratory device that's not much bigger than a breadbox, and works at roughly room temperature. This time, it looks like the real thing.

Before going into their specific experiment, it's probably a good idea to define exactly what nuclear fusion is, and why we're so interested in understanding the process. This also gives me an excuse to talk about how things work deep inside the nuclei of atoms, a topic near and dear to most astronomers (more on that later).

Simply put, nuclear fusion means ramming protons and neutrons together so hard that they stick, and form a single, larger nucleus. When this happens with small nuclei (like hydrogen, which has only one proton or helium, which has two), you get a lot of energy out of the reaction. This specific reaction, fusing two hydrogen nuclei together to get helium, famously powers our sun (good), as well as hydrogen bombs (bad).

Fusion is a tremendous source of energy; the reason we're not using it to meet our everyday energy needs is that it's very hard to get a fusion reaction going. The reason is simple: protons don't want to get close to other protons.

Do you remember learning about electricity in high school? I sure do - I dreaded it whenever that topic came around. I had a series of well-meaning science teachers that thought it would be fun for everyone to hold hands and feel a mild electric shock pass their arms. Every time my fists clenched and jerked and I had nothing consciously do with it, my stomach turned.

In addition, I have long, fine hair, and was often made a victim of the Van de Graf generator - the little metal ball with a rubber belt inside it that creates enough static electricity to make your hair stand on end. Yeesh.

Anyway, hopefully you remember the lesson that two objects having different electrical charges (positive and negative) attract one another, while those with the same charge repel. It's a basic law of electricity, and it definitely holds true when two protons try to get close together. Protons have positive charges, and they repel each other. Somehow, in order for fusion to work, you've got to overcome this repulsive electrical force and get the things to stick together.

Here's where an amazing and mysterious force comes in that, although we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives, literally holds our matter together. There are four universal forces of nature, two of which you're probably familiar with: gravity and electromagnetism.

But there are two other forces that really only come in to play inside atomic nuclei: the strong and weak nuclear forces (and yes, the strong force is the stronger of the two, the weak is weaker. Scientists really have a way with names, dont they?) I'm going to focus on the strong force, as that's the one responsible for nuclear fusion.

The strong force is an attractive force between protons and neutrons - it wants to stick them together. If the strong force had its way, the entire universe would be one big super-dense ball of protons and neutrons, one big atomic nucleus, in fact.

Fortunately, the strong force only becomes strong at very small scales: about one millionth billionth of a meter. Yes, that's 0.000000000000001 meters. Any farther away, and the strong force loses its grip. But if you can get protons and neutrons that close together, the strong force becomes stronger than any other force in nature, including electricity.

That's important- all protons have the same charge, so they'd like to fly away from each other. But if you can get them close together, inside the volume of an atomic nucleus, the strong force will bind them together.

The whole trick with fusion is you've got to get protons close enough together for the strong force to overcome their electrical repulsion and merge them together into a nucleus. The sun does this pretty much by brute force. The sun has over 300,000 times the mass of the Earth, which means there's a lot of gravity weighing down on its core.

That pressure gets the sun's internal temperature up to several millions of degrees, which means that particles inside the sun's core are flying around at huge velocities. Everything is moving around so fast that protons sometimes get slammed together before their charges have a chance to repel. The strong force takes hold, and a new atom (helium) is born.

In this process, some of the mass of the protons is converted into energy, powering the sun and producing the light that will eventually reach the Earth as sunlight.

Scientists have gotten fusion to occur in the laboratory before, but for the most part, they've tried to mimic conditions inside the sun by whipping hydrogen gas up to extreme temperatures or slamming atoms together in particle accelerators. Both of those options require huge energies and gigantic equipment, not the sort of stuff easily available to build a generator. Is there any way of getting protons close enough together for fusion to occur that doesnt require the energy output of a large city to make it happen?

The answer, it turns out, is yes.

Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.

Crystals are fascinating things; the atoms inside are all lined up in a tightly ordered lattice, which creates the beautiful structure we associate with crystals. Sometimes those orderly atoms create neat side-effects, like piezoelectricity, which is the effect of creating an electrical charge in a crystal by compressing it. Stressing the bonds between the atoms of some crystals causes electrons to build up on one side, creating a charge difference over the body of the crystal. Other crystals do this when you heat or cool them; these are called pyroelectric crystals.

The new cold fusion experiment went something like this: scientists inserted a small pyroelectric crystal (lithium tantalite) inside a chamber filled with hydrogen. Warming the crystal by about 100 degrees (from -30 F to 45F) produced a huge electrical field of about 100,000 volts across the small crystal.

The tip of a metal wire was inserted near the crystal, which concentrated the charge to a single, powerful point. Remember, hydrogen nuclei have a positive charge, so they feel the force of an electric field, and this one packed quite a wallop! The huge electric field sent the nuclei careening away, smacking into other hydrogen nuclei on their way out. Instead of using intense heat or pressure to get nuclei close enough together to fuse, this new experiment used a very powerful electric field to slam atoms together.

Unlike some previous claims of room-temperature fusion, this one makes intuitive sense: its just another way to get atoms close enough together for the strong force to take over and do the rest. Once the reaction got going, the scientists observed not only the production of helium nuclei, but other tell-tale signs of fusion such as free neutrons and high energy radiation.

This experiment has been repeated successfully and other scientists have reviewed the results: it looks like the real thing this time.

For the time being, don't expect fusion to become a readily available energy option. The current cold fusion apparatus still takes much more energy to start up than you get back out, and it may never end up breaking even. In the mean time, the crystal-fusion device might be used as a compact source of neutrons and X-rays, something that could turn out to be useful making small scanning machines. But it really may not be long until we have the first nuclear fusion-powered devices in common use.

So cold fusion is back, perhaps to stay. After many fits and starts, its finally time for everyday fusion to come in out of the cold.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0606/p25s01-stss.html

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- A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE DEPARTMENT -

Los Alamos Lab Whistleblower Beaten

SANTA FE, N.M. -- A Los Alamos lab whistleblower scheduled to testify before Congress about alleged financial irregularities was badly beaten outside a bar, an attack his wife and lawyer believe was designed to silence him.

Police and the FBI said that they were investigating the circumstances of the incident which, according to his wife, left Tommy Hook hospitalized Monday with a broken jaw and other injuries.

Police Deputy Chief Eric Johnson said officers found Hook after responding to a reported assault at the Cheeks Night Club about 2 a.m. Sunday. He provided few other details.

"We are working jointly with the FBI, trying to determine what may have happened and what the assault may have stemmed from," Johnson said. FBI spokesman Bill Elwell described the agency's inquiry as preliminary.

Hook's wife, Susan, alleged the assailants told her husband during the attack: "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

Tommy Hook and another whistleblower sued the University of California in March, alleging that after they uncovered management failures, university and lab managers tried to make their jobs miserable so they would quit.

Hook, a former internal auditor who now works at another job at the lab, had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month.

According to Susan Hook, her husband received a call late Saturday from someone wanting to meet with him at a bar. She said her husband told her the man never showed up, but that as he was leaving the parking lot, a group of men pulled him from his car and beat him.

"They left him in the parking lot for dead," said Tommy Hook's lawyer, Robert Rothstein.

Rothstein said the assailants didn't take Hook's wallet, other personal belongings or car. Without any other motive, it appears the beating was related to his whistleblowing, Rothstein contended.

Susan Hook said her husband did not frequent bars.

Los Alamos lab spokesman Kevin Roark called the beating a "senseless and brutal act and should not be tolerated."

The lab and UC also issued a joint statement decrying the violence. "Director (Robert) Kuckuck, the University of California and the laboratory believe that any form of physical violence toward an individual is unacceptable," the statement read.

Source: The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/
AR2005060601717.html

- SEEKING A COVER-UP DEPARTMENT -

Computer Hacker Arrested Looking for UFO Proof

A London man described as the "world's biggest computer hacker" has been arrested.

Gary McKinnon, 39, was seized by the Met's extradition unit at his Wood Green home.

The unemployed former computer engineer is accused of causing the U.S. government $1billion of damage by breaking into its most secure computers at the Pentagon and Nasa. He is likely to be extradited to America to face eight counts of computer crime in 14 states and could be jailed for 70 years.

The former Highgate Wood comprehensive-pupil was granted bail at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.

Most of the alleged hacking took place in 2001 and 2002. At one stage the U.S. thought it was the work of the al Qaeda terror network.

Friends said that he broke into the networks from his home computer to try to prove his theory that the U.S. was covering up the existence of UFOs.

He is accused of a series of hacking offences including deleting "critical" files from military computers. The US authorities said the cost of tracking him down and correcting the alleged problems was more than £570,000. The offences could also see him fined up to £950,000 if found guilty on all charges.

He was arrested yesterday evening but the U.S. first issued an indictment against him in November 2002.

Prosecutor Paul McNulty alleged that McKinnon, known online as "Solo," had perpetrated "the biggest hack of military computers ever". He was named as the chief suspect after a series of electronic break-ins occurred over 12 months at 92 separate US military and Nasa networks.

McKinnon was also accused of hacking into the networks of six private companies and organisations.

It is alleged that he used software available on the internet to scan tens of thousands of computers on US military networks from his home PC, looking for machines that might be exposed due to flaws in the Windows operating system.

Many of the computers he broke into were protected by easy-to-guess passwords, investigators said. In some cases, McKinnon allegedly shut down the computer systems he invaded.

The charge sheet alleges that he hacked into an army computer at Fort Myer, Virginia, where he obtained codes, information and commands before deleting about 1,300 user accounts.

Other systems he hacked into included the Pentagon's network and US army, navy and air force computers.

Reports when he was first indicted said that McKinnon found his career as a computer engineer tedious.

One message updating old schoolfriends on a website read simply: "Computers (Yawn)".

Friends said he was desperate to prove that the Americans had mounted a huge cover-up to deny his belief that aliens had visited earth.

Andrew Edwards, who has known McKinnon since their days together at Highgate Wood comprehensive, said in 2002: "Gary told me all he was doing was looking for proof of a cover-up over UFOs.

"He's been interested in UFOs for some time and believes the Americans are holding back information - although he didn't find any proof."

McKinnon's friends claimed he found thousands of UFO photos on U.S. computers and said the Americans wanted to make an example of him for showing up lax security.

Outside court, his solicitor Karen Todner said he was disappointed it had taken the authorities this long to bring him to court.

She said: "This decision for extradition is driven by the American government. Mr McKinnon intends to contest this case most vigorously.

"Of particular concern to him is the treatment of other British nationals under the American judicial system which inspires little confidence.

"We believe that as a British national, he should be tried here in our courts by a British jury and not in the U.S."

Source: This is London
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/19164714?source=Evening%20Standard

- RADIO ROUND-UP DEPARTMENT -

Timothy Green Beckley to be on Jeff Rense Friday June 10!

Listen in for Conspiracy Journal's own Timothy Green Beckley to be a guest on the Jeff Rense Show, Friday June 10, with special host Brad Steiger. The Jeff Rense program is heard nationwide on the GCN Radio Network, and worldwide on the internet,
LIVE M-F 7pm-10pm PST
http://www.rense.com

- TIME BE NOT SO PROUD DEPARTMENT -

The Mystery of Time Slips
By Tim Swartz

Time is a funny thing. There never seems to be enough -- yet there is an infinite amount. Time slips through moment upon second into eternity past; yet present, to begin the future.

Time is thought to be unstoppable in its relentless push towards the future. Humans perceive themselves as bound up in time as an insect in amber. Forever imprisoned and forced to reconcile with the regularity and inevitability of change. The past is gone -- the present, fleeting -- and the future is unknown.

Or is it?

There is a rare and fascinating phenomena where time and space seems to temporarily slip from their traditional boundaries. Those fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be in the right place and time, experience what appears to be another era, briefly intruding on the present. There is even a name given to such events -- time slips.

A time slip seems to be spontaneous in nature and localization, but there are places on the planet that seem to be more prone than others to time slip events. As well, some people may be more inclined to experience time slips than others.

A classic example of a time slip can be seen in a note from Lyn in Australia. Lyn had read the book, Time Travel: A How-To Insiders Guide, (Global Communications, 1999) and thought her experience was similar to others featured in the book.

In 1997 Lyn lived in a small outback town that was built in 1947 and had changed little since that time.

"I was driving toward the main intersection of the town, when suddenly I felt a change in the air. It wasn't the classic colder feeling, but a change, like a shift in atmosphere. The air felt denser somehow. As I slowed at the intersection, I seemed to be suddenly transported back in time to approximately 1950. The road was dirt, the trees were gone and coming toward me to cross the intersection was an old black car, something like a Vanguard or old FJ Holden. As the car passed through the intersection the driver was looking back at me in total astonishment before he accelerated. From what I could see he was dressed in similar 1950s fashion, complete with hat.

"This whole episode lasted perhaps 20 seconds and was repeated at least 5 times during my time there, always at the exact spot. I tried to make out the registration plate number but the car was covered in dust."

Lyn wondered if there is someone out there still living who remembers seeing a strange sight at the intersection back in the 50s...of a weird car with a bug-eyed woman at the wheel.

Patricia Tallberg from Kansas recalls a strange event that happened one spring day in 1993 when she and some friends decided to go driving on the country roads outside of town.

"We did this for about an hour until we came upon an old church with a graveyard beside it," Patricia recalls. "Brian, who was driving, decided to stop and investigate.

"We all climbed out of the car and started to look around. It was a warm day but for some reason when entering the churchyard it felt as if the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees. Nancy went back to the car and put on her jacket, saying she was cold."

The graveyard seemed to be well kept, though there were no flowers on the gravesites. This seemed strange to Patricia since Memorial Day was that weekend. There were no gravestones dated any later than 1931 even though there was plenty of room, which also seemed a bit unusual.

"Brian wanted to go into the church, which was boarded up, and, having nothing better to do, we all agreed. We thought that since the windows were boarded up that the door would be barred or locked. We got ready to have to 'break in' when Brian pushed on the door and it swung open. At this point we all became a bit nervous but went inside."

Patricia remembers the smell hitting her first: Instead of being old and musty the inside of the church smelled like roses. The place was spotlessly clean. They looked around and couldn't figure out why, if this was an abandoned church, why was the inside was so nice and clean?

"The next thing we noticed was all the Bibles sitting in the seats, as if waiting for the congregation to sit down and pick them up. We all looked at each other and I said, 'I don't think we should be here.' As we stayed longer I noticed that dust started appearing -- not a little bit, but thick coats of it. It was as if the inside of the church was aging rapidly to catch up to its outside appearance. Brian and I watched as a spider web just appeared between one of the pews, and at this point all of us got a very bad feeling. We all ran out of that church as if the Devil were on our tails."

The next day was Saturday and the teens decided to return to the strange church. They followed the directions back to where the building was, but found instead a dead end road and a local lake where the church should have been. They drove around for another hour but still no church.

"We pulled into a convenience store and there was an old man working there. When we described the church and graveyard and asked where it was, he got as white as a ghost. Brian started repeating what we had said and the old man stopped him. He said, 'There is no way you kids could have been to that church. It burned down in 1932 when some drifters tried to light a cook fire inside; then the state put in the lake in 1935. That land where the old church and graveyard sat is under 50 feet of water.'"

What can be concluded then from these anecdotal tales? Did these people actually travel, albeit briefly, into the past to glimpse scenes that once were? Or were they caught up in a form of haunting where, like an old movie, they saw a scene that had somehow been implanted in a location and allowed to "play back" again for those sensitive enough to pick up the lingering impressions?

However, if time slips are a form of haunting, what explanation can be offered to the experience of a Mr. Squirrel, who in 1973 went into a stationer's shop in Great Yarmouth to buy some envelopes. He was served by a woman in Edwardian dress and bought three dozen envelopes for a shilling. He noticed that the building was extremely silent -- there was no traffic noise. On visiting the shop three weeks later, he found it completely changed and modernized; the assistant, an elderly lady, denied that there had been any other assistant in the shop the previous week. Even though the envelopes disintegrated quickly, Mr. Squirrel was able to track down the manufacturers, who said that such envelopes had ceased to be manufactured fifteen years before.

Perhaps there is a natural phenomenon that under the right conditions and location can produce briefly a doorway to another time and place. Even though this may sound outrageous, this natural "time machine" could show that modern concepts and perceptions of time need to be seriously reconsidered. It may be that the past and even the future might be closer then thought with current scientific theories. With the right frame of mind and the right natural conditions, the barriers of time and space that have traditionally kept mankind locked into place may finally be broken, allowing the mysteries of the world and the universe to be finally revealed.

How does this sound -- a conversion kit that would allow your car to run on clean, plentiful hydrogen? It's in the works in New Mexico, and the name of the guy who is building it may ring a bell. He's Bob Lazar, and 16 years ago he told the I-Team's George Knapp about Area 51 and said scientists there were studying UFOs. He dropped out of sight, but George caught up with him.

As a teenager, Bob Lazar built a jet-powered bicycle, then a jet Honda, then a jet dragster. These day's he's focused on a different propulsion system. Bob Lazar, former government scientist, said, "Every vehicle we have here is powered by hydrogen."

At his new home in rural New Mexico, Lazar has been working on a conversion kit that will turn any car into a hydrogen hybrid. His two vehicles have already been converted and can travel up to 450 miles on hydrogen, then switch automatically back to gasoline. Lazar wants to take it a step further.

Lazar said, "Every major car company is working on a hydrogen system, but the only difference is, they want to sell you a new hydrogen car and sell you hydrogen gas at hydrogen gas stations. Basically, we're making a conversion kit you can use in your own car and instead of buying hydrogen from someone else, you make it."

He makes hydrogen using water and a solar powered generator. But again, with a Lazar twist. "It's the only particle accelerator on the block, I guarantee ya."

The small lab behind his home has a 30-foot long particle accelerator he built from scratch. He uses it to produce metal hydrides, which absorb hydrogen gas like a sponge and make it much safer to use as a fuel.

Lazar says, "You can do that with ordinary metal hydrides but we found a way to manipulate the atomic structure to change things. It's worked fantastically."

George Knapp teases, "It almost sounds like you're a real scientist."

Lazar replies, "That's what they tell me."

It's an inside joke based on the ridicule Lazar has faced ever since he went public in 1989 with his claims that he worked on flying saucers in the Nevada desert. The military refused to answer any questions about Lazar or his claims, nor could we verify much of anything about his life.

Lazar told us he previously worked at Los Alamos National Lab. The lab repeatedly denied it, even after we found Lazar's name in the lab phone book. His critics say that since he can't prove he ever earned a college degree, he can't be a real scientist, even if he can build jet engines, hydrogen systems and particle accelerators.

Is there a way to prove any part of his story? Maybe. In 1989, Lazar claimed the ET saucers he worked on could produce their own gravity. This propulsion was made possible by a superheavy substance Lazar called Element 115. What is the problem with this story? Element 115 did not exist in 1989. Now, however, it does.

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Lab created a miniscule amount of 115 last year. A profound development, but the material decayed almost instantly. So where did the government get 500 pounds of the stuff, which is what Lazar claimed long ago?

Lazar says, "It has to come from some place where it's natural, like from a super nova."

In other words, it comes from a solar system other than ours. Lazar's critics say the fact that 115 as created in a lab is unstable and fleeting proves Lazar is a liar. Lazar says the first batch was only a starting point and that he will be proven right in the long run.

"I'd like to see them continue to work and produce different isotopes of 115 because they're gonna come up with a handful of different varieties and they're gonna come up with a stable isotope, and that's what we're interested," he countered.

By no means does he dwell on being proven right. He and his wife have left the UFO crowd far behind and could care less, they say. Lazar stands by his original story, but says, "I can't say I would do it again. I would probably keep my mouth shut this time."

George Knapp inquired, "But you must get a twinge about the program."

Lazar said, "Oh sure. I mean, who wouldn't like to go back and see what they're doing now? But on the other hand, I'd rather be here."

Earlier this year, British scientists say they demonstrated an anti-gravity system that appears to be based on the theories revealed years ago by Lazar. Some scientists say it's proof that what Lazar said about Element 115 is true after all.

The year 1811 was long before the beast, mythical or otherwise, became known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot. But it is the first formal record of such a critter.

The fellow who set it down was neither slouch nor faker in the exploration department. David Thompson is famous for tracking the Columbia River from its headwaters to the sea and establishing trading posts for the North West Co. on the Kootenai, Pend Oreille and Spokane rivers, several years before John Jacob Astor's crew set up shop at Astoria.

On Jan. 7, 1811, Thompson and party were slogging west across what we now know as the Canadian Rockies when they saw something worthy of a detailed journal note, which Thompson later expanded in "Narrative of His Explorations in Western America."

"I saw the track of a large Animal -- has 4 large toes abt 3 or 4 In long & a small nail at the end of each. The Bal of his foot sank abt 3 In deeper than his Toes -- the hinder part of his foot did not mark well. The whole is about 14 In long by 8 In wide & very much resembles a large Bear's Track. It was in the Rivulet in about 6 In snow."

In his "Narrative" he added: "We were in no humor to follow him; the Men and Indians would have it to be a young mammoth and I held it to be the track of a large old grizzly; yet the shortness of the nails, the ball of the foot, and its great size was not that of a Bear, otherwise that of a very large old Bear, his claws worn away, the Indians would not allow."

In 1840, the Rev. Elkanah Walker wrote that members of the Spokane Tribe spoke of hairy giants that inhabited remote parts of their territory.

Indeed, Native American tradition across America is replete with creatures generally referred to by some native term for "Big Man." In his 1980 book "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," author Peter Mathiessen quotes Joe Flying By, a Hunkpapa Lakota:

"I think the Big Man is a kind of husband of Unk-ksa, the earth, who is wise in the way of anything with its own natural wisdom. . . . Some of the people who saw him did not respect what they were seeing, and they are already gone."

In the Chinook language, the term "Skookum" connotes a large, powerful entity who bestows ill fortune and makes bumpy noises in the night.

In 1893, no less a no-nonsense personality than Theodore Roosevelt wrote of his Western adventures and passed on an account of such creatures he attributed to "a beaten old mountain hunter named Bauman."

In his 1978 "The Apes Among Us," author and Sasquatchologist John Willison Green recounts Albert Ostman's 1924 claim that, while prospecting in the British Columbia wilderness, he was kidnapped and held for six days by the creatures:

"They look like a family, old man, old lady and two young ones, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl seem to be scared of me. The old lady did not seem too pleased about what the old man dragged home. But the old man was waving his arms and telling them all what he had in mind."

Also in 1924, miner Fred Beck reported that a cabin he occupied with others in the wilds above Kelso, Wash., was assaulted by giant creatures that pounded on the structure, threw rocks and at one point thrust a hairy, outsized, menacing arm through the wall.

About this time the term "Sasquatch," derived from Northwest native dialects, came into vogue in reference to the creatures.

In 1967 came a defining event in Sasquatch history. Sasquatch hunters Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin took to the hills around Bluff Creek, Humboldt County, Northern California, and came up with about a minute of 16 mm film showing a form of Sasquatchian magnitude galumphing through some underbrush, obviously of no mind to be photographed.

A newspaper account, noting the size of the creature's tracks, called it "Bigfoot." The nickname stuck. So did the controversy surrounding the sighting.

Doubters point to such as retired logger Rant Mullen who in 1982 confessed to creating large footprints out of alder and whomping fake tracks into soft earth in various Northwest locales. Likewise road contractor Ray Wallace, who died in 2002 at age 84, told his family he had planted Sasquatch tracks in the area of the Patterson-Gimlin film.

Bigfoot partisans grant fakes abound. But, they say, experts have identified significant animalian tracks that can't be duplicated in wood and can't be equated with any other known biped.

Sasquatch sightings are frequent -- more than 500 in Oregon alone over the years. Many are by people otherwise trustworthy -- police officers, foresters, college professors, outdoor enthusiasts. Recent sighting hot spots include Northern California, the Cascade Range mountains above Estacada, and the Wallowa and Blue mountains.

Scientific inquiries are inconclusive. DNA samples from supposed Sasquatch hair and scat can't be verified. No skeletons or other remains have been found.

And although he or she (the Patterson-Gimlin film shows clear signs of femininity) is regularly the subject of news stories and TV documentaries -- trailing only Liz Taylor, Elvis and UFOs in tabloid coverage -- Sasquatch is shyly resolute in refusing to show face or provide other solid evidence of existence.

After 200 years, the reclusive, smelly (extreme body order is an often-reported characteristic) beasts seem content to remain an enigma wrapped in mystery cloaked in fur.