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- HIDING THE TRUTH DEPARTMENT -

Supreme Court Denies FBI Translator's Case

WASHINGTON -- A former FBI translator failed Monday to persuade the Supreme Court to revive her lawsuit alleging she was fired for reporting possible wrongdoing by other linguists involved in counterterrorism investigations.

The high court also rebuffed a request by Sibel Edmonds and media groups to rule on whether an appellate court improperly held arguments in the case in secret without being asked to do so by either side.

"When courts are sealed, the public may suspect the worst and lose faith in their government simply because they are prohibited access," wrote lawyers for media groups, including The Associated Press.

Edmonds, 32, who was hired after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and fired in March 2002, argued that a trial court judge was wrong to accept the Justice Department's claim that allowing her lawsuit to go forward would threaten "state secrets," or national security.

The former translator claimed the FBI terminated her contract after she complained about the quality of translations of terrorism-related wiretaps and had reported that another translator was leaking information to targets of investigations.

At the time, the FBI said it fired Edmonds because she had committed security violations and had disrupted the translation unit at the bureau's Washington field office where she worked.

Edmonds' firing was controversial among some lawmakers in Congress, especially after the Justice Department's inspector general found that the FBI had not taken her complaints seriously enough and had fired her for lodging complaints about the translation unit.

Her lawyers argued the government should not be allowed to use the "state secrets privilege" to silence whistleblowers, such as Edmonds, who reveal "national security blunders."

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed Edmonds' lawsuit in 2004 after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets privilege" before Justice Department lawyers had responded to any of the case's allegations.

News organizations wanted the court to clarify when and how appellate arguments over civil lawsuits can be closed to the public.

"Closing cases that involve allegations of government wrongdoing ... fosters public doubts about the private justice that certain people and entities get in the public courts, harms public debate about the issues involved ... and perhaps most devastatingly, fosters an appearance of unfairness that the government can close off access to the public courts when it is under fire," the media lawyers said in a friend-of-the-court filing.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_FBI_Translator.html

- GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL DEPARTMENT -

The Big Thaw

Global disaster will follow if the ice cap on Greenland melts. Now scientists say it is vanishing far faster than even they expected.

Greenland??�s glaciers have begun to race towards the ocean, leading scientists to predict that the vast island??�s ice cap is approaching irreversible meltdown.

Research to be published in a few days??� time shows how glaciers that have been stable for centuries have started to shrink dramatically as temperatures in the Arctic have soared with global warming. On top of this, record amounts of the ice cap??�s surface turned to water this summer.

The two developments ??� the most alarming manifestations of climate change to date ??� suggest that the ice cap is melting far more rapidly than scientists had thought, with immense consequences for civilisation and the planet. Its complete disappearance would raise the levels of the world??�s seas by 20 feet, spelling inundation for London and other coastal cities around the globe, along with much of low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

More immediately, the vast amount of fresh water discharged into the ocean as the ice melts threatens to shut down the Gulf Stream, which protects Britain and the rest of northern Europe from a freezing climate like that of Labrador.

The revelations, which follow the announcement that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic also reached record levels this summer, come as the world??�s governments are about to embark on new negotiations about how to combat global warming.

This week they will meet in Montreal for the first formal talks on whether there should be a new international treaty on cutting the pollution that causes climate change after the Kyoto protocol expires in seven years??� time. Writing in The Independent yesterday, Tony Blair called the meeting ???crucial???, adding that it ???must start to shape an inclusive global solution???. But little progress is expected, largely because of continued obstruction from President George Bush.

The new evidence from Greenland, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows a sudden decline in the giant Helheim glacier, a river of ice that grinds down from the inland ice cap to the sea through a narrow rift in the mountain range on the island??�s east coast.

Professor Slawek Tulaczyk, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told the IoS that the glacier had dropped 100 feet this summer.

Over the past four years, the research adds, the front of the glacier ??� which has remained in the same place since records began ??� has retreated four and a half miles. As it has retreated and thinned, the effects have spread inland ???very fast indeed???, says Professor Tulaczyk. As the centre of the Greenland ice cap is only 150 miles away, the researchers fear that it, too, will soon be affected.

The research echoes disturbing studies on the opposite side of Greenland: the giant Jakobshavn glacier ??� at four miles wide and 1,000 feet thick the biggest on the landmass ??� is now moving towards the sea at a rate of 113 feet a year; the normal annual speed of a glacier is just one foot.

The studies have found that water from melted ice on the surface is percolating down through holes on the glacier until it forms a layer between it and the rock below, slightly lifting it and moving it toward the sea as if on a conveyor belt. This one glacier alone is reckoned now to be responsible for 3 per cent of the annual rise of sea levels worldwide.

???We may be very close to the threshold where the Greenland ice cap will melt irreversibly,??? says Tavi Murray, professor of glaciology at the University of Wales. Professor Tulaczyk adds: ???The observations that we are seeing now point in that direction.???

Until now, scientists believed the ice cap would take 1,000 years to melt entirely, but Ian Howat, who is working with Professor Tulaczyk, says the new developments could ???easily??? cut this time ???in half???.

There is also a more immediate danger as the melting ice threatens to disrupt the Gulf Stream, responsible for Britain??�s mild climate. The current, which brings us as much heat in winter as we get from the sun, is driven by very salty water sinking off Greenland. This drives a deep current of cold ocean southwards, in turn forcing the warm water north.

Research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts has shown, that even before the glaciers started accelerating, the water in the North Atlantic was getting fresher in what it describes as ???the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments???.

Even before these discoveries, scientists had shortened to evens the odds on the Gulf Stream failing this century. When it failed before, 12,700 years ago, Britain was covered in permafrost for 1,300 years.

Source: The Independent
http://gnn.tv/headlines/6125/The_Big_Thaw

- WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER DEPARTMENT -

One Step Closer 74469/104157_hourglass.jpg lt="" src="http://uforeview.tripod.com/cjimages/hourglass.jpg" style="width: 220px; height: 220px;" align="right" hspace="30" vspace="30">
A genetic experiment to unlock the secrets of the ageing process has created organisms that live six times their usual lifespan, raising hopes that it might be possible to slow ageing in humans.

The geneticists behind the study say the increase in lifespan is so striking, they may have tapped into one of the most fundamental mechanisms that controls the rate at which living creatures age.

The tests were carried out in single-celled organisms, forcing them into what the researchers refer to as ???extreme survival mode???. Instead of growing quickly and showing signs of ageing, the organisms became resilient to damage and were better able to repair the genetic defects that build up with age, often leading to cancer in later life.

???When you do this genetic manipulation, you can get some of the longest lifespans ever described,??? said Valter Longo, a biomedical gerontologist at the University of Southern California. ???We have good reason to believe this genetic effect is conserved in other organisms. We??�re working with mice and human cells now, and are already starting to see the same response.???

A large body of research has already shown that severely restricting diet can boost the lifespan of flies, worms and mice by around 40%. Scientists believe that drastically cutting calories triggers a switch in an organism??�s behaviour, from growing and being able to reproduce to a state of stasis in which growth and ageing are put on hold, at the expense of reproductive capability, until more food is available.

Scientists are now trying to mimic the effect by tinkering with genes in the hope of developing anti-ageing treatments that work without having to cut food intake.

???We??�re not too far from being able to start thinking about drugs that can put humans in anti-ageing mode. That doesn??�t mean we??�ll live six times longer, but we could slow down the DNA damage we accumulate as we age, and that could protect us from cancer,??�??� he said.

In the experiment, Longo??�s team took yeast cells and knocked out two key genes, namely Sir2 and SCH9. The latter governs the cells??� ability to convert nutrients into energy. The team found that, instead of dying after a week, the cells lived for up to six weeks.

Longo said parallel experiments on human liver cells appeared to replicate the effect, but he refused to elaborate until the results have been published.

The researchers believe the Sir2 gene plays a role in restricting an organism??�s lifespan, allowing energy from the food it eats to be directed into growth and reproduction. By blocking the gene, the cells were essentially tricked into believing food was scarce and they switched to survival mode.

???When you start increasing lifespan, you??�re really playing with the life and death programmes of organisms. We??�re telling the organisms to go into a completely different mode of slow ageing,??? said Longo. ???What they??�re doing is saying ???I cannot afford to age. I still have to generate offspring, but I don??�t have enough food to do it now.??�???

Research has begun to test whether the effect works in mice. According to Longo, lab mice bred with the equivalent gene knocked out appear to live longer, but are smaller, infertile and often suffer muscular defects. This suggests the gene is necessary for normal foetal development.

The research is a big step in a small field that has been progressing at pace since the advent of the new tools of genetics. Another paper published recently in the American journal Science describes the discovery of 10 new genes that are thought to regulate longevity in yeast cells. ???Even though yeast is a simple, single-cell organism, it??�s still capable of revealing mechanisms in the ageing process,??? said the study??�s lead researcher, Stanley Field of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Source: Mail & Guardian
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=257995&area=/insight/insight__international/

- CHILDHOOD'S END DEPARTMENT - 74469/104160_indigochildren.jpeg >

James Twyman is convinced that there's a new generation of special children among us who are psychically sensitive and spiritually evolved.

Those who follow metaphysics and ancient spiritual teachings have for years quietly nurtured the belief in these kids, known as Indigo children for the deep blue color of the "auras" psychics say they see around them.

Skeptics point out that there's no scientific research backing up the existence of these children, and Twyman, 43, knows that's true.

"Certainly in the scientific realm, this is just a bunch of New Age nonsense," says Twyman, a writer and musician known as a "peace troubadour" in his hometown of Ashland, Ore. "But I think anyone with an inquisitive and rational mind can look at many children out there today and say there's something about them."

Twyman was so inspired by Indigo children that he has co-written and produced a movie called Indigo about a girl with intuitive abilities.

In the film, a fictional girl called Grace has psychic and healing powers. She senses harmful situations before they happen and feels an instant kinship with other Indigos.

Tammy Glover says she sees evidence of the phenomenon in her daughters, ages 9 and 3, who she says have talked about past lives and seem to know things before they happen.

Glover says her preschooler, for example, described a bathing suit in detail that Glover had purchased for her, even though she says she never told the child she was going to buy her anything.

"I'm absolutely a believer," she says.

Glover's daughters are both in the movie, which was filmed in Ashland using local actors, including Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling Conversations with God (Penguin Group) books.

In a one-day event in late January, more than 600 churches, movie theaters, schools and bookstores screened Indigo in the USA and Canada. The independent film took in almost $1.2 million, Variety says. Now the movie is available on DVD at mainstream video and other stores.

The movie, along with several new books and Indigo-focused Web sites, is bringing the Indigo phenomenon to the attention of the general ??� and often skeptical ??� public.

Even among believers, Indigo kids are known to exhibit some unruly behaviors similar to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; they are often diagnosed with ADHD.

Some mental health experts fear that parents may embrace the Indigo label because they don't want to believe their children have behavior problems associated with ADHD, such as resistance to authority and trouble with school rules.

"The odds are that mixed in that group are a number of children who are very, very bright and astute and alert and very sensitive to picking up cues in other people," says David Stein, a psychology professor at Longwood University in Farmville, Va.

But "I would not call them Indigo children. I would simply say it's a bright child who misbehaves."

David Cohen, a clinical social work professor at Florida International University in Miami, agrees.

"The view in medicine is that ADHD is a defect. It's a disorder," he says. "If you're a parent, the idea of 'gifted' is much more appealing than the idea of a disorder."

March data from the National Center for Health Statistics say 6% of children ages 3-17 had ADHD in 2003.

But believers say Indigos are special kids who have been misunderstood.

"These are sensitive, gifted artists who are non-conformists and don't fit in, and that's what gets them sent to the school psychologist," says Doreen Virtue, author of the 2003 book The Crystal Children: A Guide to the Newest Generation of Psychic and Sensitive Children (Hay House Inc).

Teresa Zepeda's daughter Crystal is among the case studies in Virtue's book. Zepeda, of San Antonio, says Crystal healed herself of an earache when she was 6. Zepeda says she told her to "lie down, put her hand on her ear and ask God and Jesus to heal her."

Indigos may have existed in many generations. But in the past, parents may have discouraged kids from developing psychic talents, says Wendy Chapman, director of a Web site called MetaGifted.org.

Twyman believes Indigo kids will play a significant role in the evolution of humanity. "It's such an important time in human evolution and our history that we need wise souls," he says. "Maybe it's possible these children are coming to save the planet."

Meghan McCandless, now 11, stars in the Indigo movie, but her family is not convinced Indigos really exist.

"We are from fundamentally different places spiritually," says Cameron McCandless, Meghan's mom. "There has never been any shred of evidence that I've seen to support the existence of Indigo or that phenomenon. However, there are people that we respect and admire who believe in that."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2005-05-31-indigo-kids_x.htm

- TALES OF THE THUNDERBIRD DEPARTMENT -

Dozens of eyewitness accounts and a few intriguing photographs suggest that this flying monster, thought to have died with the dinosaurs, might still exist.

They were the largest creatures to ever attain flight. With wingspans reaching nearly 40 feet, pterosaurs ruled the prehistoric skies for over 100 million years, until they died out with the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

Or did they?

There have been many modern-day sightings of creatures that by eyewitness description sound like pterosaurs. There are also intriguing rock carvings and even photographs that suggest that this species of amazing flying monsters could have survived extinction, could have soared through the skies of the southwestern United States until very recently, and might still exist in small numbers in remote parts of the world.

Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, but a family of large flying reptiles ("pterosaur" means "winged lizard") that includes the pterodactyl and pteranodon. The pterosaur stood on two rather spindly legs and had wings composed of a leathery membrane that stretched from the animal's extremely long fourth finger to its body. Despite their appearance, they were not related to birds (as dinosaurs are theorized to be), and were highly successful flyers that might have dined on fish and insects.

Modern Sightings

Although there seems to be no hard evidence that pterosaurs did not die out millions of years ago - no pterosaurs have ever been captured and no bodies have ever been found - sightings have persisted. Stories of flying reptiles have been recorded for many hundreds of years. Some think that tales of the "mythical" dragons in the lore of many cultures around the would could be attributed to the sighting of pterosaurs. Here are some more modern accounts:

May, 1961, New York State - A businessman flying his private plane over the Hudson River Valley claimed that he was "buzzed" by a large flying creature that he said "looked more like a pterodactyl out of the prehistoric ages."

Early 1960s, California - A couple driving through Trinity National Forest reported seeing the silhouette of a giant "bird" that they estimated to have a wingspan of 14 feet. They later described it as resembling a pterodactyl.

January, 1976, Harlingen, Texas - Jackie Davis (14) and Tracey Lawson (11) reported seeing a "bird" on the ground that stood five feet tall, was dark in color with a bald head and a face like a gorilla's with a sharp, six-inch-long beak. A subsequent investigation by their parents uncovered tracks that had three toes and were eight inches across.

February, 1976, San Antonio, Texas - Three elementary school teachers saw what they described as a pterodactyl swooping low over their cars as they drove. They said its wingspan was between 15 and 20 feet. One of the teachers commented that it glided through the air on huge, bony wings - like a bat's.

September, 1982, Los Fresnos, Texas - An ambulance driver named James Thompson was stopped while driving on Highway 100 by his sighting of a "large birdlike object" flying low over the area. He described it as black or grayish with a rough texture, but no feathers. It had a five- to six-foot wingspan, a hump on the back of its head, and almost no neck at all. After consulting some books to identify the creature, he decided it most looked like a pterosaur.

Africa's Kongamato

While other reports of pterosaur-like creatures have come out of Arizona, Mexico and Crete, it is out of central Africa that some of the most interesting anecdotes have come. While traveling though Zambia in 1923, Frank H. Melland collected reports from natives of an aggressive flying reptile they called kongamoto, which means "overwhelmer of boats." The natives, who were occasionally tormented by these creatures, described them as being featherless with smooth skin, having a beak full of teeth and a wingspan of between four and seven feet. When shown illustrations of pterosaurs, Melland reported, "every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked out and identified it as a kongamato."

In 1925, a native man was allegedly attacked by a creature that he identified as a pterosaur. This occurred near a swamp in Rhodesia (now Zambia) where the man suffered a large wound in his chest that he said was caused by the monster's long beak.

In the late 1980s, noted cryptozoologist Roy Mackal led an expedition into Namibia from which he had heard reports of a prehistoric-looking creature with a wingspan of up to 30 feet.

Out of Stone

If pterosaurs really died out with the dinosaurs and their fossil remains were not first discovered until 1784 (in Germany), then a depiction of one could not possibly exist in an ancient rock carving. Yet a pictograph found high on a cliff face near Thompson, Utah seems to show just that. (See photo at right.)

While many experts believe the drawing is of a bird, the beak, head prominence, wings and legs also look very much like those of a pterosaur.

Another fascinating tale of a pterosaur literally coming out of stone dates back to 1856 in France. Workmen were digging through Jurassic-era limestone for a railway tunnel between the St.-Dizier and Nancy lines. When a large bolder of limestone was split open, the workers were astonished to see a large winged creature come stumbling out. They said it fluttered its wings, let out a croaking noise and then dropped dead at their feet. The creature had thick black, leathery skin, a beak full of sharp teeth, long talons for feet, and membrane-like wings that spanned 10 feet, 7 inches, by their measure.

The body of the creature was taken to the nearby town of Gray, according to the story, where it was identified as a pterodactyl by a student of paleontology. As reported in the Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856, the rock in which the creature had apparently been entombed for millions of years, contained a precise mold of its body.

The April 25, 1890 edition of the Tombstone Epitaph ran a story of two Arizona ranchers who claimed to have chased on horseback a flying monster "resembling a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings." True to the spirit of the West, they shot the creature. Taking measurements, they reported that the monster was 92 feet long with a 160-foot wingspan and a mouth full of sharp teeth. The story is not taken seriously by many researchers today, but it corresponds loosely with a story about a thunderbird that was allegedly shot in the same area in 1886 and dragged into town to be photographed. Several paranormal researchers claim to recall seeing that photo, but don't know where, and the photo has not been seen since. Then in the late 1990s, the photo at top left surfaced on the Internet, any many wondered if it was related to the long-lost photo in any way. As it turns out, however, the photo is a hoax, created by Haxan Productions for their "Freaky Links" television show.

The photo at center left might also be a hoax. It was sent to Art Bell, the late night radio talk show host, by someone named Ernest Todd. Details about the origin or context of the photo were not provided. The photo appears to be taken from a newspaper, but digital manipulations would make such a forgery quite easy.

Finally, the bottom left photo was e-mailed to me by a person calling himself George. It resembles the top photo somewhat and has the added effect of torn edges to give the photo an old, used look. It, too, may very well be a hoax, perhaps also from Hexan. George did not provide any details about the photo, where he found it, or where or when it might have been taken, despite repeated attempts by me to get the information.

Again, it's relatively simple in today's digital world to create quite convincing fake photographs, and such images should be considered with a high degree of skepticism.

But what of all the eyewitness accounts of pterosaurs? Are they merely misidentified birds and bats? Or is it just possible that this ancient species survived into the 20th century, and perhaps still exists? An even more bizarre theory is that these sightings are artifacts of a slip in time - either a look into the distant past, or that some of these flying monsters have passed through some time portal to present day. Whatever the answer, these pterosaur sightings present a fascinating glimpse into the unexplained.

Source: Paranormal.about.com
http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa061702a.htm

- STRANGE CREATURES FROM TIME AND SPACE DEPARTMENT -

Monsters on the Rio Grande

Most peoples of the world have myths and legends of monsters and other fanciful creatures that spring from humanity's fertile imagination. For a thousand years before Columbus, Europeans busily assembled a reservoir of lore about oneeyed beasts, dragons, giants, amazons and headless monsters that breathed through their stomachs.

These weird ideas and legends were quickly transferred to America. On many of the earliest maps, engravers included images of sea monsters and land dragons in those spaces still unexplored.

The Spaniards who settled New Mexico at the beginning of the colonial era brought with them their Old World notions of monsters and mythical beings.

For example, when Juan de Oñate led an expedition from the upper Rio Grande westward to Arizona in 1604, he was accompanied by Father Francisco de Escobar. The priest was an expert in Indian languages.

In speaking to natives along the Colorado River, he claimed they told him of curious beings who lived beyond the horizon, ???monstrous and never seen in our time.???

Among them were humanlike creatures with large ears that dragged on the ground; others born with but a single leg and foot; a tribe of people that slept standing up; and another tribe that slept under water. These clearly were not Indian notions, but the friar's projection of European myths.

There exists a rare book written in French and published in Paris in 1784 containing engravings of monsters that are supposed to inhabit New Mexico. In its pages are several images of ???harpies,??? which are birds or animals with human heads and horns.

Author of this bizarre volume was a prince of the French royal household who later ascended to the throne as Louis XVIII. In the book credits, he gave himself the imaginative titles of Count of Barcelona and Viceroy of New Mexico.

In the folk culture along the Rio Grande, one finds persistent tales of a fabled monster known as the basilisk, or in Spanish, el basilisco. The legend originated in North Africa, was carried to Spain by the Moors and later transferred to the colonies in America.

The basilisk is variously described as a large lizard, serpent or dragon. In all cases, its breath or its look, when falling upon a human, is said to be fatal.

In Spanish myth, the creature is born from an egg laid by a rooster. But in our own Southwest, it is said to spring directly from the hen without benefit of an egg. As to the deadly effect of the monster's eye, the Rio Grande version of the story follows belief in other parts of the Hispanic world.

If the basilisk sees someone first, that person dies. But if the situation is reversed and the creature is caught unaware and observed by a human first, then it dies.

A basilisk once found a home in a magpie's nest in a tree that grew beside the Albuquerqueto-El Paso wagon road. Many an unsuspecting traveler was killed by its deadly gaze. Finally, a mirror was placed near the nest. The beast looked at its own reflection and perished.

The same story, with slight variations, occurs in such widely separated places as Spain, Guatemala and Chile.

Another common tale in New Mexico concerned a monster snake. This was a legend that arose from American Indians.

The oldest version comes from Pecos Pueblo. Lt. James Abert wrote in 1846 about a giant snake god that had once been kept in an underground kiva and fed infants for nourishment.

His large appetite contributed to the extinction of the pueblo by the late 1830s.

Of this beast, Santa Fe trader Josiah Gregg reported: ???Once I met a New Mexican rancher who asserted that upon entering Pecos Pueblo one winter's morning, he saw the huge trail of the reptile in the snow, as large as that of an ox being dragged.???

The Indians of Taos Pueblo are also reputed to have possessed in the 19th century a giant rattlesnake that dined on their babies during important feast days. At the time of the 1847 uprising, American military forces attacked the pueblo.

In the midst of the battles, the ???snake god??? was seen to be in danger. So a brave Indian placed it under blankets in a handcart and rushed it to safety through a hail of bullets. But in the process, the rescuer was shot to pieces.

Source: The New Mexican
http://www.freenewmexican.com/story_print.php?storyid=35527

- DOES ANYBODY REALLY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS DEPARTMENT -
74469/104162_phantomtime.jpg font-weight: bold;">The Phantom Time Hypothesis

When Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz introduces his paper on the "phantom time hypothesis," he kindly asks his readers to be patient, benevolent, and open to radically new ideas, because his claims are highly unconventional. This is because his paper is suggesting three difficult-to-believe propositions: 1) Hundreds of years ago, our calendar was polluted with 297 years which never occurred; 2) this is not the year 2005, but rather 1708; and 3) The purveyors of this hypothesis are not crackpots.

The Phantom Time Hypothesis suggests that the early Middle Ages (614-911 A.D.) never happened, but were added to the calendar long ago either by accident, by misinterpretation of documents, or by deliberate falsification by calendar conspirators. This would mean that all artifacts ascribed to those three centuries belong to other periods, and that all events thought to have occurred during that same period occurred at other times, or are outright fabrications. For instance, a man named Heribert Illig, one of the leading proponents of the theory, believes that Charlemagne was a fictional character. But what evidence is this outlandish theory based upon?

It seems that historians are plagued by a plethora of falsified documents from the Middle Ages, and such was the subject of an archaeological conference in München, Germany in 1986. In his lecture there, Horst Fuhrmann, president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, described how some documents forged by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages were created hundreds of years before their "great moments" arrived, after which they were embraced by medieval society. This implied that whomever produced the forgeries must have very skillfully anticipated the future??� or there was some discrepancy in calculating dates.

This was reportedly the first bit of evidence that roused Illig's curiosity??� he wondered why the church would have forged documents hundreds of years before they would become useful. So he and his group examined other fakes from preceding centuries, and they "divined chronological distortions." This led them to investigate the origin of the Gregorian calendar, which raised even more inconsistency.

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar we still use today was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII to replace the outdated Julian calendar which had been implemented in 45 BC. The Gregorian calendar was designed to correct for a ten-day discrepancy caused by the fact that the Julian year was 10.8 minutes too long. But by Heribert Illig's math, the 1,627 years which had passed since the Julian calendar started should have accrued a thirteen-day discrepancy??� a ten-day error would have only taken 1,257 years.

So Illig and his group went hunting for other gaps in history, and found a few??� for example, a gap of building in Constantinople (558 AD - 908 AD) and a gap in the doctrine of faith, especially the gap in the evolution of theory and meaning of purgatory (600 AD until ca. 1100). From all of this data, they have become convinced that at some time, the calendar year was increased by 297 years without the corresponding passage of time.

Sometimes a hypothesis which challenges convention can be alluring, particularly when it seems to fit most of the facts??� but as Carl Sagan used to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It seems to me that all of the evidence provided by Illig and his group is circumstantial, and their conclusions misguided. The hypothesis does raise some interesting questions and point out some inconsistencies in history, but to jump to such an outlandish conclusion indicates an unscientific approach to the problem.

Not only that, but their suggestions for the possible motives behind the calendar-changing conspiracy border on ridiculous. For instance, the first hypothesis they put forward is that Otto III modified the calendar in order to reign in the year 1000 AD, because this suited his understanding of Christian milleniarism.

I consider myself a rather open-minded chap, and I researched this hypothesis with unbiased curiosity when I first learned of it. Granted, most of the materials regarding this theory are written in German and have not been translated into English, so there may be more specific arguments for the hypothesis than those available to me. But from what I can tell, this theory has no basis in fact.

Source: Damn Interesting
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=164

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