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May 29, 2003 - Art Bell
02:46:18
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Cosmology & Consciousness - Adair Butchins
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From the high desert and the great American South, this is the story of a man who was
American Southwest I bid you good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be across the world.
Covered very spittily by this radio program called Coast to Coast AM.
And here I am again.
Another opportunity to sit in this seat.
An honored opportunity, I might add.
And I always would like to thank George.
And, of course, the network, Premier Radio Networks, for giving me this opportunity to sit in.
It is my honor and my pleasure to be here.
And it should be very interesting, actually.
I'll be here this evening as well as tomorrow evening.
I've been told.
You never know day-to-day on radio, right?
Huh.
I've got a bunch of stuff to tell you about.
Let me preface it by saying, for those that are curious or care, my back is better.
Never been better, actually.
I'm walking around like a normal human being and continue to do so with minor little episodes every now and then, but nothing much.
I think that I have, he says today, beaten the surgeon's knife.
They so wanted to cut into my flesh and, you know, change my back around, the one that the Lord gave me.
And so far, it's not going to happen.
Now, Ramona, my beautiful wife Ramona, is fine.
The kitty cats are spiffy.
Everybody is fine.
I've got a lot of really interesting stuff to tell you about.
We've taken several road trips, you know, out in the land yacht, we call it.
We take care of our baby, 95.1 FM, here in Pahrump, Nevada.
That takes up life, you know.
That's how retirement... It's not really retirement.
I'm retired, but I'm still in radio, immersed to my neck in radio, along with my wife.
I'll tell you this.
Here's an observation.
A lot of station owners out there will understand this real well.
You know, I've always been on the air, on the side of the microphone.
And I've done some engineering, so I know a little bit about engineering, too.
But that's where my real knowledge of radio stops, you know.
What do I know about sales?
What do I know about scheduling?
What do I know about logs?
What do I know about keeping records?
What do I know about a million things?
Well, I know a lot now.
I have been learning how to actually run a radio station.
It's a very serious experience, let me tell you.
And my wife could tell you, too.
It's been incredible.
So we've been doing that.
So if you want to Say that's retired, it's not really retired, it's just sort of shifting a little bit, but it's really cool because I'm learning something new!
Now, I'm gonna weave a little tale for you, only it's a true tale, and it's happening right now, and this is really a cool story.
It's gonna be technical, so some of you out there, I hope your eyes don't glaze over, just bear with me.
I think you'll understand the implications of what I'm about to tell you, even if you don't understand the technical details.
I come to you tonight sunburned and stiff.
Very stiff.
My whole body is stiff.
And it's because I have been, along with a construction crew and a whole bunch of guys, putting up this incredible antenna that I'm about to tell you about.
This is really an unbelievable story.
Many of you know I'm a ham operator.
And, I don't know, a year ago, maybe less, I thought it'd be a really cool idea to put up a monster antenna.
So I did.
A 1,000 foot loop, pretty high up in the air.
And some pretty unusual things happened when I put up that loop.
I noted, out of nowhere, just slightly in excess of 300 volts.
Appeared to be developing out of the air, out of the ether.
People have suggested the power lines were coupling.
People have suggested, you know, it's like a capacitor to the earth.
People have suggested a million different things, but nobody really can explain it.
Nobody.
Well, over the last several days... Well, let me go back a little bit.
I read a book about one of the most famous amateur radio operators, famous hands in all of history.
His name was Don C. Wallace, W6AM, and that's how I decided to start trying to build these giant antennas.
I read that book and the man was a genius.
The man He put up these, these rhombic antennas, these monster antennas that were designed to be very narrow and worldwide.
Zero in on a country on the other side of the earth.
You know, 1100 foot antennas, big antennas.
So, inspired by him, I put up this 1000 foot loop.
Besides being an incredible antenna, this antenna had about 300 volts.
Out of nowhere!
It still has 300 volts.
Well, actually, it has 400 now.
You see, over the last few days, I made a really incredible modification to this antenna that would appear to truly defy the laws of physics as we understand them as they relate to antennas.
Okay?
Here's what I did.
I moved the top loop This 1,000 foot circumference loop, and by the way, you can see it on the Coast to Coast AM website.
I've taken some photographs.
One, uh, hanging out the door of a helicopter.
I was hanging out the door of a helicopter with my camera, taking photographs of this antenna at my location where I live.
It was fun.
You know me and flying.
I love flying.
Hanging out the door.
Actually, they took the door off so I had a seatbelt on, and I just hung out and took the photos.
All right, so I had a construction crew in here over the last several days, and we together built this monster that we now have.
We extended the poles that hold this large antenna 1,000 feet around to 70 feet in the air, and we put the top loop 1,000 feet around at 70 feet.
We did something that hasn't been done, I guess, in a lot of years.
We put a second 1,000-foot loop at 63 feet all the way around, fed in parallel, fed in phase.
Here's where it's going to get a little technical, but bear with me for those who do understand it because I have a question.
This antenna now exhibits about 400 volts.
400 volts.
Now bear in mind, we're further away from the power lines than ever.
Now it's about 400 volts coming out of the ether.
I don't know where it's coming from.
Nobody does.
Power Company was supposed to come over here.
I've got elements of AC and DC on that line at 400 volts.
Elements of both.
And then we put this antenna on the air last night, late, about dark.
When we did, we began to get signal reports that were just unbelievable.
And I mean unbelievable.
I mean 20 or 25 decibels greater than the night before, at about 30 different locations, some measuring with careful test gear, you know, commercial test gear, that kind of thing.
There is no way on God's green earth, or even our brown desert where I am, That such a thing should be possible.
That's an impossible amount of gain.
In fact, really, there shouldn't be any gain at all.
However, I read Don C. Wallace's book.
Actually, Jan Perkins wrote the book about W6AM Don Wallace.
And in that book, several times he kept mentioning, run another wire about six or seven feet under your current wire and you will see an incredible amount of gain that There's really no documentation for it, but I'm telling you it's true as it relates to the rhombics he put up.
So I thought, well then why not, if you can do it with a giant rhombic, then why not do it with a giant loop?
And I did, and the results are inexplicable in terms of the voltage being gleaned from the ether, in terms of the signal reports, the incredible signal reports.
So, this is what I've been doing the last few days.
This is why I'm sunburned, all red in the face right now.
It was an incredible project, and I want to give you a sense of it.
So, if you'll go to coast2coastam.com, you'll see some on the front page about Art's Antenna Project.
Click on that, and then click through the two or three pages of photographs.
The first photograph is one taken from the air, hanging out of that helicopter.
The second one is of some of the construction.
You'll see the big cranes and mantellists and stuff we had here doing, putting together this incredible antenna over the last several days.
What we have here, I'm telling you right now, defies the laws of physics as we understand them.
So, we now have a 2,000 foot antenna, a thousand each in parallel at 70 and 63 feet respectively.
And that's what you're going to be looking at up there.
So we've got voltage out of nowhere.
And we're going to test and see what kind of current we can get.
I guess we're going to go ahead and do the tests.
I'm dying of curiosity, the same way everybody else is.
Of course, I've disposed of this voltage just by taking it to DC ground, and so it bleeds off before it gets in here and damages anything.
But, you know, this is important, potentially really important.
These photographs are worth taking a look at, and Lex Lonehood put them up in good, high definition, so you can get a pretty good look at them.
So that's what I've been doing, and I'm very extremely pleased, of course, with all of this, and I was gambling.
I had just read in the book about Don Wallace that he did this years ago and had spectacular results, and it's like the world forgot about it.
Nobody documented it.
Nobody knew exactly why it was occurring, and so they sort of ignored it.
But I thought, you know, in every other way, this guy knew exactly what he was talking about.
The guy was brilliant.
So why wouldn't he know what he was talking about when it came to this?
And so I gave it a try.
And the results are absolutely spectacular!
It's something to investigate.
Anyway, we'll be right back.
Just one more technical note here.
And, uh, that is, um, actually, I'm asking for help.
I have no idea why this antenna is exhibiting the strange properties it is.
I understand that, uh, running a second wire underneath would produce a broadening of the resonance, and that has occurred as expected.
It certainly shouldn't produce any appreciable, measurable extra gain, and it's producing
20-25 dB at 20 or 30 reliable points of constant monitoring.
So this is really bizarre.
Not the only bizarre thing in the world, but one in my yard, quite literally.
If you want to see it, there's pictures of all that.
It's fed up at 100 feet with 450 ohm, in case you want to know in your calculations.
And at 100 feet, and then the balance of it is at 70 or 75 feet.
It's a monster of an antenna.
A monster.
Two and a half acres.
Unbelievable!
I want to understand why it's working so well.
I had a hope, you know, I gambled that it would, but it's beyond all expectations.
All right, now, I wrote a book called The Quickening.
Tonight, I see the process accelerating.
The quickening is quickening, if you want to look at it that way.
What do I mean?
Well, look at our weather.
We've had the worst violent weather spring in U.S.
history.
The worst week four tornadoes in U.S.
history.
Day after day after day of destruction.
Tornadoes tossing the rubble of tornadoes that had been in their path the day before.
It was unbelievable.
Six earthquakes.
No, no, no.
Several earthquakes.
Three or maybe four recently.
Six plus.
In the Philippines, Japan, you know, in the areas where you would expect them, but six plus earthquakes, too many, too quick.
And our Sun, cycle 23 of the Sun, the Sun has cycles, you know, is totally abnormal.
We have had three X-class major flares, N and M, in the last, I don't know, two or three days.
I mean, this is a major, major geomagnetic event.
The Earth is being bombarded right now with particles, perhaps damaging to satellites.
In fact, if you've been watching some of the small dish satellite stuff lately, you'll notice every now and then the picture begins to pixelate a little bit over the last couple days.
And the reason that's occurring is because these satellites are under attack from our own sun.
These storms are underway right now.
As a matter of fact, they are so big, That you may wish to stroll outside sometime during the course of the evening and look to the north, particularly those of you in the northern latitudes, and observe whether you can see any unusual color sky, because we're liable to have aurora.
What has happened is we're liable to produce quite a bit of aurora up there, really beautiful stuff to see, amazing to see, it just ripples across the sky.
I once lived in Alaska and I used to watch it And it just ripples across the sky.
Well, that's the Sun attacking the Earth, folks.
Very Abbey Normal.
Cycle 23.
We should be on the way on to the downside of the cycle, but the Sun continues to go berserk.
And I think that relates to all kinds of other things.
I've always related the Sun activity to earthquakes in my mind, and this may bear that out.
Disease?
God, it's awful.
SARS.
People have various views on where SARS came from.
There are people who believe it came from a cat.
Kind of a cat in China.
There are other people, scientists, who believe that the Earth is constantly being bombarded by a biological material of varying sorts, and that viruses Are virtually raining down on us all the time.
They come in the form of, you know, ice and things contained in ice and meteors and what have you.
Various viruses entering the Earth's atmosphere and some of them obviously surviving to bite us in the butt.
But I mean, now there is SARS and mad cow disease.
That's new!
Both virtually at our back doors as I speak to you this night in Canada.
Right at our back door in Canada.
Of course, Toronto's suffering, because whether or not the World Health Organization has the stamp of disproval for travel for y'all to Canada, and they don't at the moment, the fact of the matter is that Toronto's been suffering because of the whole SARS thing, and the SARS thing, in my opinion, is nowhere near under control.
They talk about various stages of control and stuff, but it's not.
Fifteen new cases in Taiwan today, and what they are calling Phase 2 in Canada, you know, that means they didn't catch all the first people who were infected, and now they're going to try to catch the second group that now have been revealed to be infected.
So, this is a pretty serious thing.
It's a very, very serious thing.
In fact, officially, let me read you this about Sun, going back to the Sun for a second.
Two solar coronal mass ejections swept past Earth today, triggering strong and ongoing geomagnetic storms because of the timing of the impacts.
The best places to see the auroras so far have been New Zealand and southern parts of Australia.
Sky watchers elsewhere should be alert for auroras after local nightfall.
Even mid-latitude observers Might spot some northern and southern lights, because the moon is nearly new.
Lunar glare isn't going to be a factor.
Another coronal mass ejection is likely en route to Earth now.
If so, it would arrive on Friday, that's tomorrow, May 30th, and extend the ongoing geomagnetic activity.
It's going berserk up there!
So, these things that I see happening, Incredible weather in the midsection of the U.S.
The diseases that I predicted would be part of this process, all of this is occurring, and so very much more.
Not to mention the war, the troubles in the Middle East, and the social difficulties, all the rest of it, fitting into that one broad, the quickening, the name, the quickening.
It's obviously underway.
Right now.
And I believe the process to be Accelerating.
Now, you can handle that any way you want, personally.
I've got another little item that I would like to read you about the war.
As you know, I've had many, many comments in the past.
Although I still have one comment, and I have not seen And this doesn't bear on how I feel about the fact we fought the war, because we did very well.
Our troops were magnificent.
The victory was quick.
The aftermath is fairly predictable so far, with kind of an erosion.
You gotta wonder if that jerk is still alive over there, don't you?
And sort of planning all of this post-occupation sniping.
That's what's going on over there, sniping, right?
I do wonder that.
But all of those issues aside, I have yet to see weapons or mass destruction.
Now they trotted out some trailers where they said, I think they said that they saw no legitimate use for them, and who knows, they might have been toying around with biological this or that, I'm sure they were.
But as of yet, nothing On the scale that we had expected, you know, large vats of stewing poison and gas and maybe even nuclear weapons, who knows, right?
None of that yet.
But in surveys, Americans say, well, that's okay.
The war, nevertheless, was justified, even if we don't find any weapons or mass destruction.
So anyway, a couple of other items, and we'll get phone lines open.
I've got a very interesting guest coming next hour.
Adair Butchkins is his name, all the way from Great Britain.
Assuming we can establish telephone connections.
And we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics, consciousness.
Consciousness.
Are you conscious right now?
Well, you are.
But do you know what that is?
Can you define it?
Probably not.
Maybe like porn, though, and a Supreme Court Justice, you know it when you see it, right?
Be it sight, sound, smell, or touch, there's something inside that we need so much.
The sight of a touch, or the scent of the sand, or the strength of an oak when it moves deep in the ground.
The wonder of flowers to be covered and then to burst up through tarmac to the sun again.
Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing.
To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing.
And all these things in our memories are And they use them to count us
To find us Life, life passes on
Take this place, off this trip Just for me
Coast to Coast and world wide on the internet This is Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie
Filling in for George Tonight's special guest host is Art Bell.
To talk with Art, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies call 800-825-5033 and west of the Rockies call 800-618-8255.
International callers are International College.
Howdy, everybody.
In a moment, we're going to take some calls.
Operator and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903. Now for George Norrie, special guest host Art Bell.
Yes, that would be me. Howdy everybody. In a moment, we're going to take some calls, open lines,
anything goes kind of calls. But I've got just a quick little thing on SARS,
an additional item on SARS, backs up what I said a moment ago.
Lancet in Britain, this is where this came from, the Lancet, very well respected journal in Britain, says, quote, we detected large quantities of viable microorganisms in samples of stratospheric air at an altitude of 41 kilometers.
We collected the samples in specially designed sterile Cryo samplers carried aboard a balloon launched from the Indian Space Research Organization Data Institute Bloom facility in Dayahad, Urdubad, India on January 21st, 2001.
Now listen.
Although the recovered biomaterial contained many microorganisms as assessed with standard microbiological tests, we were able to culture only two, both similar to known terrestrial species.
Our findings Lend support, then, to the view that microbial material is falling from space.
In a Darwinian sense, it's highly evolved, with an evolutionary history closely related to life that exists on Earth.
Now, that sounds pretty interesting, when they've collected all of this at those altitudes.
Meaning apparently to them that it only could have fallen from space, microbial life from space.
So then there would obviously be some who would say, well then, perhaps we as a species at some point fell from space.
And I don't really have an argument with that point of view.
It fits in even with the Bible.
In the sense that You don't have to quite take the Bible in a total literal sense.
In other words, God could have moved his hand in a meaningful manner, and the right combination fell to earth, and voila, we have the beginnings of life that eventuates into the human being.
So I never saw a great disparity of, you know, difficulty in terms of thinking of the religious angle and the scientific angle and putting them together.
Never a bit of trouble with that.
nevertheless a very interesting piece I would say, wouldn't you, from The Lancet?
Alright, I thought this worthy of your consideration too.
I thought it was very interesting.
Listen to this.
The war which will not end in our lifetimes is being waged because the world is beginning to run out of oil and gas.
The gap between demand and production is going to increase forever.
This is called peak oil.
There's only enough conventional oil to last at present consumption rates for 35 years, yet demand is increasing every year.
There are no more large reserves to find anywhere.
The Caspian Sea Bonanza Which was estimated to be at about 250 billion barrels in 1955, and six has turned out to be less than 40 billion after two years of drilling.
The world consumes a billion barrels of oil every 12 days.
A billion barrels of oil!
On average, every barrel will now be more expensive to pump.
Oil fields are dead when it takes more energy to pump oil than one gets from burning it.
That's when you can declare an oil field history.
The only sources of cheap oil in quantity are the OPEC nations of the Middle East, until they peak in about eight years.
Iran has already passed its peak of production.
Did you hear that?
And begin to import gasoline themselves next year.
The U.S.
passed its peak of production back in 1970.
Within 20 years, we'll be importing 70% of our oil.
So will China.
About 60% of all recoverable oil is in the Middle East.
Hydrogen is too far away.
It takes more than 3,000 gallons of gaseous hydrogen to equal even one gallon of gasoline.
Fuel cells do not create energy.
They simply store it.
Producing commercial hydrogen requires both electricity and natural gas.
It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than burning it yields.
It is too late to change the infrastructure before economic and social crisis begins.
That's all extremely profound.
And if you tag this on to the other items that I just sort of ticked off for you with regard to the acceleration of the quickening, then it should be obvious to you, too.
For what it's worth.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air!
Hello!
Hi.
Hi.
Well, first I'd like to congratulate you that you're well enough to be doing the show.
I and a lot of other people have been crying for you.
As long as I can stand, I can do it.
As long as I can be straight, I can do it.
I understand that.
I am a bit of an amateur scientist and inventor myself, so I would like to ask just a couple of questions about your antenna.
Sure, fire away.
What's the amperage?
uh... both before and after you but here's what i can tell you here's what
i've done so far actually uh... initially i regarded the uh...
uh... the incredible voltage on that antenna as a terrible annoyance
and so i read up the system uh... that takes it essentially to dc
ground outside before it ever gets into the house because i got shot too damn
many times I can understand that, and you don't want to throw your equipment either.
Yeah, that's right.
So here's what I can tell you.
You could take either one of the legs coming in on the 450 ohm twin lead, and hit ground with it, and you'd see a good spark.
And then if you would measure it, you know, keep a probe from a Volvo meter on it the whole time while you hit ground and let loose?
Uh, there was no detectable rise time.
In other words, that voltage was BANG!
Right there.
Right back there, as soon as the short was lifted.
Hmm.
Yeah, I know.
Hmm.
So, does it then dissipate completely, or does there continue to be a residual voltage once you put it to ground?
In other words, if you... Well, when it's on ground, obviously.
No, I mean, it's going to ground.
No, okay.
The moment you let it off ground, the voltage is immediately back full force.
Okay.
Okay, that's what I'm telling you.
And the size of the spark when you hit ground is enough to convince you that you don't want to be shocked by it again.
Have you tried, you might want to get a cheap one to do this in case it fries it, but have you tried instead of running it directly to ground running it through an amp meter or volt meter or a multimeter ideally?
Yeah, sure.
I mean all of that is next.
The fact that the antenna is now twice the size it was and I've got another hundred volts And I'm 20 feet further away from the power lines than ever before.
Yeah, you've got more energy, exactly.
And I'm telling you right now, this is just... Alright, let's ask you.
Assuming that it's not coupling from the lines, and I don't rule that possibility out.
They're a low voltage rule type power line.
There's nothing astounding out here, right?
Right.
And there shouldn't be that much inductance to provide that much coupling to have anywhere near what we're seeing here.
Assuming, just for a second, that it's not that.
Then what do you think it could be?
The obvious first idea is that you're actually picking up static from wind.
No, no, no.
Totally, totally silent, quiet, no wind days, and on top of that all the wire is insulated.
At this point we start to look at strange things like zero point energy.
Yeah, I know!
That's what I'm trying to point out to people, and Don C. Wallace did this so long ago and found similar things with regard to his antennas.
So I'm not surprised I'm finding it now, but I'm just surprised that it hasn't been more deeply considered in science.
Most people don't have the land to set up an array like this.
I understand.
The other thing I wanted to mention to you, being an amateur inventor, I did design a Basically a chair that I thought might be helpful to you.
Really?
And if there was some way for when you're having problems with your back, would it be feasible for me just to email you a description of that?
Email me a chair?
Not, not, no.
Wait a minute, are you calling from South Africa?
You got a deal for me?
No, okay.
A description or plan.
Of course, yeah, be my guest.
Okay, because I, I have family members who suffer from similar problems and basically if you can sometimes get something that can be adjustable enough that you can wind up relieving the pressure points it can help.
Now I don't know if that's your specific problem but I know that when you have compacted discs you can get in really bad pain sometimes.
Well it's been a while and I feel that I'm I'm being healed, sir.
So... Wonderful.
Anyway, don't be afraid to email that to me.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Will do.
Thank you for the questions as well.
There really is no good answer to this.
Or maybe there is, and it's just an omni... I mean, I had Bonnie Crystal.
You remember Bonnie Crystal?
She was once on the show.
She's a caver, and she's an incredible person on antennas.
And she happened to be here at the house last night.
Just dropped in.
Well, she knew I was putting up an antenna.
Big one.
Monster.
So she was here just as I was finishing the work on the antenna with the crew out there.
And she was here for all the testing.
And she was just... And I'm telling you, she really knows what she's doing.
I mean, she can put me in the dirt, technically, and she's that good.
And she was just sitting there shaking her head.
Going holy smokes and stuff.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi, Art.
Hi.
Hi, this is Heather from Cayucos, beautiful central coast of California.
Yes, ma'am.
I know you know the area well.
I do indeed.
The reason why I'm calling you is because every night before Coast to Coast comes on, and I've got to tell you, I miss going to bed with you, Art.
I really do.
Thank you for saying that.
But George is great.
We love George.
Before the show comes on, the news comes on, and they said that they had an earthquake, a three-point-something in Washington.
Washington... State.
State.
Yes.
So, I just thought that was interesting.
Really?
So you mean just before the program tonight?
Before the program tonight, it was on the news.
I'm not surprised.
I'm telling you, and I'm going to say it again and again and again, I relate this really crazy activity on the sun.
To what the earth does.
There's a relationship between when the sun spits, to use a rather pedestrian term, and when the earth is spit upon, and earthquakes!
So, I'm not shocked to hear that.
Did you feel anything?
No, I haven't felt anything.
And I haven't felt a good earthquake since 89.
But I'll tell you, we're due here.
I know we are.
And we're right on the coast.
You know, when I first moved to the area where I am now, which is fairly near Death Valley, I thought it was a geologically stable place.
But, as we discovered, there was a 7.3 earthquake out here in the desert two or three years ago, and it scared the you-know-what out of us.
We were rockin' and rollin', it was comin' in like the ocean, like one ocean wave crashing after another.
It was really bad here, and I thought about that 3,000-foot steel tower above me, and I thought, don't come down here, baby.
Yeah, you think you have back pain now, huh?
Yeah, that's right.
It'd ruin your whole day, believe me.
It'd cut through this house like a hot knife through butter.
Yes.
So, yeah.
We'll see what happens, Art.
It's great to hear you back on the radio.
Thank you very much for calling.
I apologize for the really bad cell phone connection.
First of all, it's Michael in Salt Lake listening to 570 KNRS Family Values talk radio.
That's what I do.
apologize for the really bad uh... cell phone connection first of all it's uh...
michael and salt lake listening to five seventy k n r s family values talk radio has really
well that i'm very very good
but uh...
take it back to You had, I know that's way back.
It is.
You had an animal communicator on.
Oh yes.
And she communicated telepathically with animals.
I was hoping maybe you or one of your listeners would remember her name.
I believe she was in San Francisco.
One of my listeners I'm sure will.
I've interviewed, I think sir, perhaps three Or four animal communicators.
We'll see if anybody in the audience remembers this particular one.
But I do have something I want to say on the subject.
As you know, I'm an animal lover.
My wife and I are real animal lovers.
We have four cats, and they're like four kids, as any cat owner can well attest.
For the longest time, I wanted to get on the radio, and that's something I never succeeded in doing in all the years that I was doing this program.
I wanted an animal communicator to come on the show and really tell me, be able to tell me what an animal thinks.
I want to know what my cat thinks!
I want to know what my cat thinks about, what gives my cat joy, aside from the usual obvious.
What my cat considers, what my cat understands about its own being, if anything.
Does my cat understand that it lives?
Does my cat have, this is what we're going to be talking about coming up in the next few hours, consciousness?
Well, it seems like it.
My cat has personality.
My cat has a sense of humor.
My cat loves to play.
My cat knows what it likes and what it hates.
It does hate some things.
It has all of these traits that we otherwise would imagine are inculcated in all of us, right?
That make us what we call conscious.
But if they say animals, they don't quite have all of that, or don't have souls, or I don't know.
I hear a lot of things.
I heard a guy, I think George was doing an interview the other day, say animals don't have souls.
Oh yes they do.
Common sense tells me animals do too have souls.
In fact, I'm glad I'm getting a chance to respond to that.
I think animals have souls.
For all the reasons I just told you about, a few minutes ago, they can display every emotion, every minutiae of what otherwise it takes, except perhaps vocal speech.
Don't you wish a cat or a dog could talk?
Don't you wish your animals could talk?
Don't you wish you really... Have you ever wondered, for example, what a cat sees or what a dog sees?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to take a camera and understand the manner in which the cat's brain is interpreting the visual information it's getting and transfer it so that you could put on a pair, a headset or something, and see the world around you exactly as your cat or dog does?
All the forms, as they would appear to a cat, or a dog, or any other animal, so that you could know what they see.
And of course, the next step would be knowing what they think.
West of the Rockies, you are on the air.
Good morning.
Hello, Art?
Yes, sir.
Hi.
Okay, this is Ron in San Diego.
Yes.
I am tickled pink to talk to you.
I'd like to talk to you about the Pan Am flying boats.
I wondered if Pan Am flying boats could fly again.
There's a seaplane ramp here at Coast Guard Station.
It goes back 70 years, and we need to save it.
And I wondered if you'd take an interest in trying to save the flying boats, the engines, technology is there.
The four seaplane ramps still exist.
One in San Francisco, one in San Diego.
You want to save them for what?
Historical reasons?
Yes, sir, but they can be rebuilt again.
The engines and the sites need to have historical designations, and we need to save a little bit of history.
San Diego's Harbor is just incredible.
We have the largest aviation history anywhere in the country, yet it's been forgotten.
20 years before the Wright Brothers, John J. Montgomery was flying gliders from 20 years before the Wright Brothers, up to 3,000 feet.
But San Diego's Harbor is incredible.
I know you've been here.
And the Seaplane Ramp and the Coast Guard Station go back.
It's a beautiful place.
Yes, it is.
But anyway, my question to you is, Would you study the data if I sent it through the CC radio people?
Would you study the data and would you study the faxes and emails?
That would be the Sea Crane Company.
Well, I mean, but you've got to understand that I'm only on here, you know, in terms of, you're obviously seeking coverage and support.
Well, you're talking to a retired guy.
I understand, but I know where your heart is and I know you're in love with aviation.
Well, that's true.
The harbor here is incredible.
It's being taken over.
They're going to fill it up with hotels.
And the sad thing is the children of San Diego are not allowed to know the history.
All right.
All right.
Yes.
All the big boats have been here.
Yes.
The Boeing 314s, the China Clippers.
Yes.
They've all been here.
Yes, sir.
We need to have a museum here.
Yes.
I will do it.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Take care.
You send it to me.
I'll look sure.
And he's right.
You know, me and aviation.
I had so much fun.
I mean, that aerial photograph you see of the antenna is one that I took in a helicopter and was so cool.
They took the door off the helicopter.
I said, come on, let's rock.
And I'm leaning out the door of my digital camera and just having a blast.
I do absolutely... He said, the helicopter pilot, Captain Vick said, aren't you afraid?
Aren't you afraid of doing that?
I said, no, not at all.
Why should I be afraid?
I'm, you know, hung out of helicopters before.
He's over there shaking his head.
No big deal.
I do, I love it.
If I could fly, if God had given us wings, I don't think I'll ever be on the ground.
Yes, indeed.
The history of aviation.
I'm Art Bell.
Stay right where you are.
Sweet dreams are made of this.
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody is looking for something.
Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you.
Some of them want to abuse you.
Some of them want to be of you Some of them want to be of you
I'll tell you that she came in the year of the cat She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your all in hers And you follow to your sense of which direction
Completely disappears By the blue cloud walls, near the market stalls
There's a hint that she leads you to you
These days, she says, I feel my life just like a river running through the air of the camp.
From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie.
Filling in for George, tonight's special guest host is Art Bell. To talk with Art,
call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies, call 800-825-5662.
Hey there!
There is a moth in this room, dive-bombing me.
Call 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach Art by calling the AT&T International Operator
and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
Now for George Norrie, special guest host, Art Bell.
Hey there.
There is a moth in this room dive bombing me.
This is a big desert moth, and I don't know how he got in here,
but he should know.
I'm told you can make deals with insects.
If you keep dive-bombing me, I'm going to bring my cat, Yeti, in here.
Who will eat you?
Good, now he's just crawling along up there.
Live and let live.
One more dive-bombing and it's Yeti.
Alright, this is going to be very interesting.
We're going all the way across the ocean now.
And we're going to speak with somebody named Adair Butchkins.
And I hope I'm not...
I'm butchering Mr. Butchkins' name.
A former Merchant Navy officer and Bomber Command Navigator, Adair Butchkins obtained a DPHIL in Astrophysics from Oxford University before working at the University of London Observatory at Mill Hill, where, get this, he wrote the software for the Tycho Project, carried on the Hipparchos, I think it is, satellite of the European Space Agency.
He also spent some time in industry as principal engineer in the Advanced Systems Study Group at Recall Avionics.
He returned to lecture in aeronautics at London Guildhill University.
Now he's retired, he's been an avid student of religion and philosophy.
All his life, his book, The Numinous Legacy, contains a wide-ranging and well-considered series of reflections on the big questions of human existence Relating Scientific Views on Cosmology, Life, and Consciousness.
Aha!
Right down our alley.
Consciousness.
The conundrums of existence, ancient philosophy, and both Eastern and Western religious viewpoints give a thoughtful yet concise exposition of this range of important issues presented in an open and dispassionate manner.
So we reach all the way across the ocean to, I'm not really sure where, Adair, welcome to the program.
Oh, hello.
Yes, I'm in London.
Oh, you're in London.
Okay.
How's the weather?
The weather is absolutely wonderful today.
I think it's going to go up into the 80s.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Usually when people in London say, it's wonderful, that means it's foggy.
It's wonderful weather.
Great to have you on the program.
I guess the place to begin is with your book and telling us what it means.
What does it mean?
The Numinous Legacy.
Where did the title come from?
Numinous, as I've got in my glossary, means awe-inspiring or a sense of the divine.
The book is basically about how modern cosmology affects religion, and all religions, but particularly the three monotheistic religions.
These are the three religions we know best.
That's Judaism, which is the oldest, Christianity, and Islam.
Well, usually it offends them.
You know, in the case of Christianity, Most of what's learned in cosmology seems to offend Christians, right?
I mean, after all, you know, when the universe began, scientifically, versus when God pointed the finger and said, begin, let there be light, right?
Yes, but not all Christians are offended.
The Quakers and the Anabaptists seem to take it all in their stride.
But I think there are certain creationists that tend to look over modern cosmology and regard it as something that shouldn't be believed.
Believe me, Adair, I've interviewed a large number of them.
I'm also getting rusty because I've got to do my commercial set.
So hold on, Adair, we'll get right back to you.
Let me do this lest I forget.
yet. We'll be right back.
They were very picky about these commercials.
You actually have... So, there you go.
Alright, now we're unencumbered to the bottom of the hour.
Adair, sorry about that.
I'm just rusty.
I didn't run it when I should have there at the beginning.
Alright, so anyway.
So you're trying to reconcile.
Do you find more areas where religion and cosmology are able to be reconciled or more areas where they are not?
Well, the serious scholar has only three choices, really, to either reconcile Reject religion or reject science.
And most Christian apologists anyway accept the first option.
And this is very difficult because it requires the denial of what is known as the Copernican principle.
Which is?
Now the Copernican principle is very interesting.
It basically says that there is nothing special about us or our place in the universe I buy that as one possibility.
And it is sometimes known as the principle of mediocrity.
It was first postulated in the 16th century by a gentleman called Giordano Bruno.
You mean, so we're here as a matter of mediocrity just simply occurring?
Yes, we're absolutely, we're typical.
We're not special.
Uh-huh.
That is the Copernican Principle.
I bet it's not real popular.
Well, it's not popular, but it's popular among scientists.
Einstein used it, and he called it the Cosmological Principle.
In other words, wherever you are in the universe, when you look out, on the large scale, things will look more or less the same.
Bruno postulated it from a child when he Played in the orchards and wonderful luxurious vines on Mount Vesuvius.
And when he went to Mount Cicada, he looked back and saw that the mountain looked quite barren because it was a long way away.
And when he went to the other mountain, the other one looked barren.
And so he decided that things are not always what they seem, but on the large scale, things can look the same from different positions.
And he postulated that for the whole universe.
And Einstein took it up when he got his relativity and his cosmology and called it the Cosmological Principle that wherever you are in the universe, when you look out on a large scale, everything is the same.
And of course, that has now been added to because not does everything look the same, everything more or less is.
All the stars are made of the same elements.
Well then, an extension of all this would obviously be that mediocrity is a common thing and so that all of those stars would now we know all of those planets going around those stars there's almost got to be all kinds of mediocre occurrences that just spread life mediocre as may be from here to there and everywhere you can see in the sky just about.
Yes, this is the whole point that makes it very difficult for the three One of the theistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, because they were formulated before Copernicus decided that we went round the sun, and the sun didn't go round us.
When those religions were formulated, we were the center of the universe, and man was the whole reason for the universe's existence.
Well, within those religions, that remains true.
Yes, but with modern cosmology, we've now discovered that the universe is most probably infinite, and there must be a lot of intelligent life in the universe.
What makes us think the universe is infinite?
Why do you say that?
How do we know it's infinite?
Maybe it's a big circle.
Maybe there's a brick wall out there somewhere.
We don't know, right?
Well, we've got a pretty good idea, actually.
Oh, do we?
Let's hear it.
Well, what we have to do to find out if the universe is infinite, we have to look at Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Now, if you remember, he was saying that matter has Energy equals MC squared, which is where we get the atomic bomb from.
Right.
Yes.
But according to his general theory, matter will deform space.
Yes.
And space decides the path that matter can take.
So it's like a feedback.
Okay.
So if there is enough matter density in the universe, then space will take the form of an ellipsoid.
And we then say the universe is closed.
In this case, the universe will be finite, but unbounded, like the surface of a balloon.
It's finite, but there's no boundary.
And eventually... Okay, so the universe then is feedback, and feedback by its nature is infinite?
Well, this is what I'm coming to.
Is that fair?
Yes, but I must explain that the expansion, that the universe is undergoing expansion, it will eventually collapse.
The universe will end in a big crunch, similar to the way it started.
Well, there's another beauty.
How in the world do we know that?
Well, this is what we're trying to discover.
If there's not enough matter, density matter, to close the universe, The geometry of space will not become like an ellipsoid.
It will take on the shape of a hyperboloid.
In other words, it's like a saddle.
It will curve outwards, and the universe will be infinite and expand forever.
Well, that's an extremely interesting theory.
But you see, we are now accelerating.
And if one postulates that we began with a big bang, that was insufficient.
A big bang.
Then everything is blown outwards, and like any explosion, the acceleration of particles, or us, would begin to be less, not more.
And yet scientists now, cosmologists, are finding that things are accelerating away from each other to the degree that we'll be all alone someday.
I mean, virtually all alone.
At least that's what I've been hearing of late, that we could be sort of out here by ourselves and wouldn't even, virtually wouldn't even see many stars in the sky, because they'll all be gone.
Yes, well, now to do that you have to do quite a lot of observing and find out whether the universe had enough matter or not.
What we have to do is plot the magnitudes of galaxies of the same brightness against their distance.
The resultant curve can tell us the shape of space.
But the problem is it was almost impossible to find galaxies of similar intrinsic brightness.
How do you know?
But these latest observations that you've just mentioned used supernovas, which are calculated to have the same brightness.
And as you say, the results seem to show that the expansion of the universe is speeding up.
Well, how do you square that with the old rubber band theory, which is what you were giving us a little while ago, that it eventually will all collapse back in on itself?
Well, it won't.
This is what we've now discovered.
Oh.
This was the big problem we were trying to discover.
But all the observations so far seem to say that that will not happen.
What will happen is the universe will expand forever.
And this seems to have been, you can use other methods as well, galaxy counts at different distances, an examination of the size of very small distortions in the Microwave background, which I'll explain later, and all these seem to indicate that the universe is infinite and expanding.
And then of course, according to scientists generally, the chances of intelligent life
developing on planets like ours is very, very small.
But if you have a vast number of events, then even very, very small probabilities can get
an awful lot of results.
Yes, the numbers grow rather large, considering the totality of the numbers, yes.
Even the universe that we can observe, now we can only observe the universe for the last approximately 15 billion years that life has been traveling.
According to the Hubble Space Telescope, there are something like 50 billion galaxies, each galaxy with approximately, say, an average of 200 billion stars.
And that's just the universe we could, in principle or in theory, observe.
And that gives an awful lot of cases.
And so, even extremely rare Even if it's extremely rare, there's still vast mediocrity scattered out there, right?
That's right.
And if the universe does seem to be infinite, there will in fact be an infinite number.
As long as the probability is not zero, there will be an infinite number.
Well, if it goes on for infinity, then there has to be an infinite number of things filling it.
Providing the probability is not zero.
Well, it can't be zero, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
No, it's not zero.
We can observe that it is not zero.
Yes.
And this is a very interesting point, because the religions now, the sort of basis of the religions, for instance, the idea of, in Christianity, the incarnation and redemption, If it's only going to be for us, it makes God rather local.
And in Judaism, the idea that the Jews are the one most important race, chosen especially by God, seems to fall out of the system as well.
Islam as well have the same legends of heaven and hell and all the rest of it, and that doesn't seem to tie in either with an infinite universe.
So, we're left with not theism, not so much the religion, we're left with whether this whole universe was constructed by God, whether it just started on its own, or whether there's some other explanation.
I've always rather lived with the thought that it could be both.
It was a natural process guided by the Lord's hand.
And in that way I just get cherry-picked and be happy.
In other words, whether it was a lightning bolt hitting the muck that caused something that became us finally to crawl
from it, or whether it was God's hand that pointed the lightning, I
can live with them together, those possibilities.
Yes, but the thing is that there are... a big argument for the case of a God, a deism,
is the fact that there are very, very special factors in the universe that seem to point to the formation of life in
the universe.
I thought it was mediocre.
Life is common, but you could not get life in the universe unless certain conditions were fulfilled.
There has to be certain, one has to have carbon made in the center of stars, because without carbon there is no life.
Now many of the laws of physics make life possible under the right conditions.
Yes.
And then there are the initial conditions.
But going back to where you said that it's so common, at least numerically, it's going to be so common as to be mediocre.
I'm getting lost a little bit.
So we'll take a break here and we'll come back and I get lost easily.
We'll try and make some sense out of this.
We're a great mediocrity, but then there's a God that does seem like who made us.
He made us mediocre.
He wouldn't have done that to us, would he?
Or maybe his creation of life is just sort of a thing he does, you know, every other day or so.
Ha!
Another Earth.
Boom!
Over there.
Another planet.
Boom!
Life.
We'll be right back.
Happy and I'm smiling.
He set up as a fool, don't you see?
Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created.
watching her life, she musters a smile for his nostalgic tale
never coming near what he wanted to say only to realize, it never really was
She had a place in his life.
He never made her think twice.
As she rises to her apology, anybody else would surely know He's watching her go
What a fool we are He's a fool
The wise man was a fool From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet
This is Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie Filling in for George, tonight's special guest host is Art Bell.
To talk with Art, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies call 800-825-5033.
And west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach Art by calling the AT&T International Operator and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
Now, for George Norrie, special guest host, Art Bell.
Actually, George is taking a couple of well-deserved days off.
He's been Working his tail end off, I can tell you, a lot of people think that doing a four-hour radio program is, hey, nothing to it.
You just jump on there and do four hours of radio.
Not quite.
There's a fair amount of preparation and thought goes into it, even though it might not sound like it when you're doing it.
There is.
It's a lot of work.
He's done a lot of it, and definitely deserves the time off.
We'll get back to Adair Butchkins in just a moment.
First, this.
Confused.
That's what I am.
Adair Butchkins is my guest, all the way from London, and at the beginning of the program, he seemed to be making the case that, you know, we are what there is.
That's all there is, folks.
We're fairly common, even mediocre, and life is fairly common and mediocre, and there's probably quite a bit of it out there, and then he hits me with, but then the case for the maker.
There's a case for God, there is a case for God amongst all of this seemingly contradictory theory.
I'm tempted to ask you, Adair, what your religious preferences are, but you know what?
I'd rather just listen to you and try to figure it out myself, and I haven't yet.
That's pretty interesting.
I can't figure out where you're coming from, but you say there's a case for the maker, a case for God.
Yes, I've got, in my book, there are two cases.
There are the scientific arguments for the existence of God, and the scientific arguments against the existence of God.
Yes, really.
Now, the argument 4 is basically the argument from design.
Now, this relies upon the fact that the laws of physics are such as to make the formation of life possible under the right conditions, and there are conditions obtaining at the time of the Big Bang to consider.
Many very special factors are necessary for the formation of life.
The slight excess of matter over antimatter at the beginning, and otherwise there will be nothing.
And when the universe was very, very hot, the background temperature was over a billion degrees, we had to have the formation of helium and hydrogen, which needs exactly 11 minutes for the temperature to drop from 6 billion to 1 billion degrees.
Carbon is the basis of organic life.
And that has to form in the interior of stars.
So its energy level must be very close to the average energy found at the center of a hot star.
There are many other very, very precise conditions necessary for the formation of life in the universe.
And so the argument rests upon the question, could the universe have been different?
Why do gravity and electricity obey A square law when it could have been a cube law and so on.
Basically, it's all just so wonderful that God had to have done it.
This is basically the argument from design, yes.
It's also the hole in the argument at the same time, isn't it?
Because it could be just simply our perception that all is so wonderful that it just had to have been God.
Well, maybe... You know, I live in a state, Nevada, where you have gambling, right?
Well, every now and then somebody trots in, drops a coin in a machine, and hits megabucks.
It happens.
Yes.
You have now got very, very astutely onto the scientific arguments against the existence of God.
And that is based upon what is known as a many worlds theory.
Many cosmologists claim we're in a universe that is only one of a vast or even an infinite series of universes.
And with such a series there must be some I have the right conditions for life to form, like your gambler, the Windsor jackpot.
Yeah, sure.
And we happen to be living in one of them.
Yes, but we just look around us and we say, holy mackerel, everything had to be exactly so or we wouldn't be here.
Well, right.
Yeah, but somebody hit megabucks, so it could be that.
Do you have, maybe I should ask now, do you subscribe to one theory or the other, personally, or does it matter?
Well, my own My own condition is I think there's definitely a system at work.
Whether you want to call it a God or whether there's an intelligence behind it, I'm not sure, but I definitely think there is a system that seems to operate to make the universe as it is.
I can't be very much more definite than that because I'm not all that definite myself about it, but I do believe that The laws of physics are paramount and they cannot be changed, and I believe the universe is orderly.
I don't think that suddenly gravity will be reversed and we'll all fly off the world, or that the speed of light will change, or anything like that.
We can't prove it, won't we?
Well, let's see.
There is one condition that could begin to do that sort of thing.
If the ever-expanding universe instead began to snap back like a rubber band, then you would be rather surprised at the backwards things that would begin to occur.
People would be falling up, and all kinds of water would be coming out of glasses, and it would be a terrible world.
Yes, but we wouldn't survive because the contracting universe would have far too much radiation.
Well, yeah, it would kill us, of course, so we wouldn't get to see it.
But we've speculated here about what would happen, right, if it began to snap back?
But you don't think that's going to happen?
No.
No.
The other argument is, the argument for the creation, for the existence of a God, is the argument from ethics.
The universal nature of ethics gives them an objective structure that can only be the result of planned creativity.
In my book, I have a letter There are letters at the end from various religious authorities, and Rabbi Rayner writes, I think that genuine ethical principles are by definition universal.
They appear to be, don't they?
Yes.
And he said if it was alleged that in some other world there operates an ethical code by which falsehood is preferable to truth, hatred to love, contempt for life to respect, etc., he would reject that allegation.
And the best arguments for this are in George Allison and Nancy Murphy's book, The Moral Nature of the Universe.
So this is the ethical argument for the existence of the deity.
Fair enough, I guess.
The argument, again though, is that the other side is right there.
It's hanging right there.
You can go off the other side of the cliff just as easily.
Yes, because there's such a thing as social biology which attempts to explain morality in evolutionary terms.
It's an attempt to show that ethics can be entirely reduced to the biological level.
Absolutely.
Just a normal evolutionary course of events in a way a society that wants to evolve and wants to improve would have to act, right?
Right, but I have come to the conclusion Although there's quite a lot in my book about this and how it has come to be biologically based, but it has developed as an emergent property into something much greater.
Although it doesn't necessarily imply the existence of a deity, it does become much greater, become something more than just a biological reciprocal function.
There's a lot in my book about this, and I think that is quite interesting.
Well, how then are we to understand, if there is God, why he casts down upon us viruses, germs, illness, death, destruction, tragedy that seems to have no explanation, leaves, fathers and mothers screaming, there cannot be a God for this to happen, that sort of thing.
Yes, why did God make germs?
Well, that is interesting because, again, the three great monotheistic religions are not only pre-Copernican, they're also pre-bacterial.
When these religions were formed, nobody knew anything about germs.
Diseases and such were thought to be the wrath of God, doing Things that you shouldn't have done.
But of course, I think certainly for the Jews, for the progressive Jews anyway, I think the Holocaust sort of hit that argument off the end.
I mean, a million children were murdered by the Nazis under the age of five.
What could they have done wrong?
Yeah, exactly.
Go ahead.
Lay an answer on us.
In other words, whether it be that or whether it be the loss of a child that a parent can't explain and denies the existence of God because it just can't be so, and there could not be a God who would be so... Yes.
Well, I personally consider that if there is a God, I don't really believe in this loving God that interferes in the universe all the time.
I think that A God is more like the God of Aristotle, if such a God exists, because it is a God that is way transcendent, way above us.
He is completely indifferent to the universe.
He may not even know it exists.
A God be so indifferent to a universe?
I mean, that's like saying a mother would be indifferent to the fate of her child, is it not?
Or are we just thinking, again, somehow on the wrong scale?
I mean, our Creator would be, in essence, our Father, yes?
Or only us mere humans, mediocre humans, would think that way, I guess, huh?
Yes, but it seems that Any evidence for the intervention of God in the universe, as far as we can see, is non-existent.
If God does exist, he doesn't interfere.
In fact, considerations could support the basic argument, but it seems to rule out the concept of a resurrection in a new earth and a new heaven.
It would seem.
The arbitrary changes in the laws of physics and biology for the body's resurrection of the dead completely contradict the idea of an orderly universe.
It certainly does.
In fact, actually, in the Bible, there would be nothing but one contradiction following another.
I'm sure as you sit down and read it and consider all you've just said, you just run into one contradiction after another, don't you?
In other words, we have a God who created us and didn't care and doesn't care now, but gee whiz, look at all these specific things that were said indicating He is a loving, caring, at times intervening God who will bring us all from the grave one day and so forth and so on, right?
I personally don't believe that.
I would concede the scientific basis of morality.
I think it's possible to extend the principle to all values postulated in the platonic, intersecting, non-physical universe.
In other words, the same ethical and ascetic values, in their broadest sense, will prevail throughout the physical universe wherever free-willed, intelligent beings exist.
I find the final step towards the divine presence possible, but difficult.
It's much easier to consider it in pantheistic terms.
In other words, that the universe in some way is God than in the interventionist concept of the main religions.
Perhaps closer to what Native Americans believe with regard to Mother Earth.
Yes, something like that.
Yes.
You write about a final Fireball, or the universal heat death.
What in the world do you mean by that?
Because according to what I've been listening to, well, that sounds an awful lot like, well, I don't know, the collapse of the universe, perhaps, or the Big Bang in reverse, and yet you suggest that won't occur.
Well, the thing is that we've mentioned The fact that the universe seems to be expanding forever, so it doesn't seem that we're going to have the big crunch or the big fireball.
That has been mentioned as a way of ending the universe and reconciling it to religion, but according to religion, It's not just that, it's supposed to be us only, we're supposed to, the earth is supposed to change and we are all, the dead are supposed to raise themselves and it seems that it's not really a very good analogy, not really.
Now the universal heat death means that as the universe expands, what happens is that Disorder increases.
Now, this is the result.
Did you say disorder increases?
Yes.
Disorder increases.
Disorder increases.
This is the result of what is known as the second law of thermodynamics.
Now, a gentleman called Carnot introduced the laws of thermodynamics as a way of working out how steam engines Yes.
Do you now see in the world, collectively, disorder on the increase?
Well, in the universe, particularly, let's say, just the world, but in the whole universe, as the universe expands, it gets cooler.
Correct.
Right?
And as it gets cooler, motion tends to stop.
And eventually, The background temperature's now about three degrees Kelvin, three degrees above absolute Leo.
As the universe expands, things will get cooler and cooler.
All the stars will radiate.
Everything will just stop.
And in the end, there'll be nothing left but black holes, black dwarfs.
There will be no life, no stars, nothing.
Yes.
The complete, endless vista of nothing.
Dead stars.
Virtually nothing, though.
That is called the heat death.
That is called the heat death?
Yes, that's what it is.
It sounds like the cold death.
Why not the cold death?
Because I don't know why they haven't christened it the cold death.
That's what I would christen it, but it seems to be that it's referred to as the universal heat death.
I would say the universal lack of heat death.
Who comes up with this stuff?
If indeed we are going to be all alone, no stars, virtually no stars disappearing in the sky, and Earth here, but all alone and cold, heat death, I mean, where'd that come from?
I'm not sure who Grissom did it.
I think what it meant was the lack of heat death.
But that is basically...
What the idea is that this will happen to the universe.
And what about the concept of the steady-state universe?
That is to say that there was not a Big Bang, because there never was a Big Bang, because everything's always been here.
Yes, that is a very interesting theory, but I'm afraid that it... Doesn't hold water?
It doesn't really hold water.
Scientifically?
Scientifically.
Right, just hang on a minute.
What happens is that this was a position formulated by Hoyle, the late Fred Hoyle, and Narlika, and Gold, and their idea was that there was a continuous creation of matter, in other words, hydrogen atoms, and this continuous creation of matter Went to make up stars, and went to make up galaxies.
All right, hold that note.
We have a continuous occurrence of the need to take a break, so we'll come right back to this.
We're talking about the steady state universe theory, that everything has always been and always will be.
It's all the same, and it's always been that way.
forever.
They seem so hard to find I tried to wait for you But you have lost your mind Whatever happened to our love?
I wish I understood It used to be so nice, it used to be so good.
So when you're near me, darling, can't you hear me SOS?
So when you're near me darling can't you hear me SOS?
The love you gave me nothing else can save me SOS When you're gone how can I even try to go on?
When you're gone, no I try but cannot carry on From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is
Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie.
Filling in for George, tonight's special guest host is Art Bell.
To talk with Art, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies call 800-424-9000.
727-1222, east of the Rockies call 800- And west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach Art by calling the AT&T International Operator and dialing toll-free, 800-893-0903.
Now, for George Norrie, special guest host, Art Bell.
That sounds so strange.
Adair Visions is my guest from London, England, where I understand it's in the 80s, the sun is out, and it's a new day, as it just has begun to be here on the west coast of America.
I'm Art Bell.
Great to be here.
We've been talking in the last hour, kind of in circles, getting alternative theories about how it perhaps all began, or didn't, and whether somebody had a hand in it, or didn't, with sort of equal presentations on both sides.
Maybe God just said, lights, camera, action!
Well, that'd be the modern-day interpretation.
actually was left there to be light or something like that, right?
By the way, my current mystery of the universe is this antenna that I've built.
I'd really appreciate your, uh, Going to the website and perusing it a little bit, at least photographs, and you'll see the magnitude of what I'm talking about, what we've built here, this incredible thing.
And I would like to know why it appears to be defying laws of physics in a couple of areas with regard to gain by about 20 dB.
Totally defying the law of physics, and then of course there's that stray voltage that seems to be coming from the ether.
It could mean a lot of things.
It really is interesting, again, with AC and DC components.
What I'm really looking for is somebody into physics of antennas sufficiently to be able to explain this to me.
And then, of course, everybody else as well.
Incidentally, tomorrow night we're going to do open lines.
Now, I don't know what form of open lines we're going to do.
I haven't figured it out yet.
So I'm open for suggestions, as I used to be.
You know, if you've got some thought about the way you'd like to see Open Lines develop for Friday night, Saturday morning, tomorrow's show, you let me know.
My email address remains, as always, artbell at mindspring.com.
That's A-R-T-B-E-L-L, lowercase, at mindspring.com.
Once again, here from London is Adair, and we're talking about the Steady State Universe Theory, virtually suggesting that everything's always been here, always will be here, there was no beginning, there will be no end, it's just always been and always will be, right?
Yep.
The consensus of astronomers measures time from the Big Bang, but the dissident voices of Fred Hoyle, Gold, Bondi and Narlika postulate a steady state theory that advocates the eternal existence of the universe without beginning or end.
There are some good reasons, observational evidence, which provides strong reason for discounting such a theory.
The evidence is that the universe, observationally, was different in the past.
This takes the form, firstly, of radio telescope observations.
When we look at distant objects in the universe, we are in fact Looking backwards in time, because of the finite speed of light, the more distant the object is measured by the redshift, the further back in time we see it.
Now, if the steady-state theory were true, then the past would look exactly like the present.
As far as these radio observations are concerned... Unless there's a constant oscillation of some sort going on, I mean, after all, our observations are very macro indeed in terms of the totality of time.
They're very macro indeed.
So what if we're observing some simple oscillation that's a part of a bigger oscillation that's never-ending?
But that isn't the theory of the steady-state theorem.
Everything should, what is called the perfect cosmological principle, in which everything should be the same all the time.
As far as their theory goes, Continuous creation of matter would carry on at exactly the same rate all the time.
It seems that the universe is much more congested in the past.
Yes, indeed.
Things are changing.
But as I explained, it doesn't totally rule out the steady state theory.
I mean, there could be oscillations within oscillations and so forth.
That is interesting because it brings us to the Theory of Inflation, that was a very interesting point.
If you want me to go on about inflation, because that does give some kind of oscillation and it brings us back to the Steady State Theorem, but in a Completely different way.
You seem to be describing all of these theories very elegantly, but I haven't yet reached and understood why you wrote about them all.
What point you're trying to make, or what you personally believe, or what you were trying to drive home with the book that you wrote.
What conclusions were you coming to?
I've come to the conclusion that there is no evidence at all for any intervention in the universe by God.
Really?
Yes.
So he's there, but he's not paying attention?
Well, if he is there, he's not.
He may not be there, of course.
So even if the ultimate peril came to mankind and we faced extinction, he might be at the movies?
Possibly, yes.
That's a possibility.
Alright, when we're looking at all of this and the various religions, I note here that you feel, apparently, that Islam is less affected by modern cosmology than either Judaism or Christianity.
Why do you feel that way?
Well, basically, Islam, the fundamentalist Islam, is just as much affected by modern cosmology as the other three, as the other two monotheistic religions.
But Islam can be much more transcendental than many of the other religions.
The fundamental beliefs of course are affected as I've said.
But, apart from its fundamentalist aspect, Islam does not have the same literal interpretation of events that we find
in Christianity or Judaism.
Obviously, the fundamentalists do, and that's where they get their terrorists from.
But there are sophisticated arguments that involve special pleading that the accounts of Judgment Day, the joys of Paradise, and the terrors of Hell are not meant to be interpreted literally, But there's expressions of some higher reality transcending the world, which is a fascinating argument, but still leaves us with a belief in the intervention of God in human history.
The giving of the Koran itself, for instance.
Yes, good example.
But it doesn't negate the Copernican principle, but it's at odds with the idea of modern science, which doesn't agree with intervention.
So, although the Copernican principle invalidates Islamic fundamentalism, the mystical element is the orthodox insistence on fundamentals.
In effect, this eliminates the idea of a personal God and brings in the conception of God as transcendent.
Well, what elements of Islam, the non-fundamentalist version, support this?
What would you say?
Well, for instance, they're quite happy to concede That if there are other planets with life on them there would be other prophets.
Unlike Christianity in which Jesus Christ is the one and only incarnation of God.
That's a good point.
It's also interesting that in Islam in ancient days the religion of Islam says you must look for evidence and find reasons and so they weren't Antithetical to science.
They like science, and they did a lot of science originally, which is where we get a lot of our, for instance, algebra was formed by the Arabs.
And a lot of science was brought forward by the Arabs, because they were told in their religion that they must look for reasons and evidence.
Whereas the early Christians were told that as shortly as there's going to be the end of the world, don't waste your time trying to find reasons for things, just
attend to your religion.
So that's one of the reasons why the Islam is less
affected by modern cosmology, although it's certainly the fundamentalist part of it.
Interesting. Alright, let me ask you about something that's very
close to my center of wonderment in this universe and that's about consciousness.
Oh, yes.
We were talking about consciousness in the first hour, a little bit, and I heard somebody come on this program, and I don't recall who, and it doesn't matter, in the last week or so, or something or another, said animals have no soul.
Now, that's perhaps a little bit of a leap from a discussion of consciousness, but let's, or maybe it isn't, I'm not sure.
Define for me what you believe consciousness to be.
Well, first of all, we could understand the universe, well it would be able to understand the universe much better if there wasn't such a thing as consciousness.
The stars would shine and all the laws of physics would take place and everything would happen Without any life or consciousness, it would be much easier to understand.
The only problem, of course, is that we wouldn't be here to understand it.
So, consciousness is the most amazing... Define consciousness for me.
What is consciousness, Adair?
Well, this is the subject of many arguments, what is consciousness.
Is it self-awareness?
In other words... Well, that's part of it.
But what we have here is we have various schools of thought.
Now one school of thought... You are a presenter of various schools of thought, aren't you?
You want to know what I think?
Yeah, sure.
What do you think consciousness is?
I think consciousness has arisen from what I consider to be A parallel universe.
Really?
Yes, I consider there to be a parallel universe which has a boundary or an intersection with our universe.
Now, the physical universe with its atoms and its protons and its various and its stars and all the laws of physics is intersected by a parallel universe which has ethics and mathematics And aesthetics.
And it's intersected through consciousness throughout the universe.
This is what I think.
That there is a universal consciousness?
You think there is a consciousness beyond the individual self-awareness?
You think there is a greater collective consciousness?
Well, I think that there certainly could be.
And I think that... I do too.
I mean, we know that mathematics is something Beyond ourselves, because certain aspects of mathematics have been discovered before their actual practical applications.
For instance, if you take a cone and cut it in various ways, if you cut it horizontally straight, it divides it into a circle.
Do you see what I mean?
Yes.
And if you cut it one way, you get straight lines.
Cut it another way, you get a different... This was discovered by Apollonius, I think, in about 300 BC or something.
And it's only lately we've discovered that these sections not only describe the various orbits that comets and planets and stars make, it also describes a lot of the electrical theory as well.
Now, Apollonius didn't know that when he was investigating conic sections.
And so it seems that mathematics is definitely something beyond us.
It's not something that we've invented.
And I'd say that is part of the evidence that there is some kind of platonic universe intersecting through consciousness, where all the things that we think of, like beauty and love and compassion and justice and so on, exist.
Dare, do you imagine that consciousness could be a force?
That a directed consciousness could in fact be a force in the universe?
That if many minds wished for something to occur, that it might occur?
I wouldn't think so.
If you take two people that want something to occur, it's no more likely to occur than if one person wants it.
The same as if you take ten people.
Here's something then for you to chew over.
You are aware, no doubt, of the academic institution called Princeton, right?
Yes.
Princeton is doing a series of experiments now in which they have taken what they call eggs.
Now these eggs really are computers.
Yes.
and they generate random numbers and these eggs are located geographically all around the world in major cities and capitals and all around the world yes and they just sit out there spitting out random numbers but Princeton a number of years ago began and all of these eggs report back to the big egg at Princeton and they began looking at a correlation between These eggs suddenly reporting a non-random response from the computers in certain areas and corresponding world events.
For example, when 9-11 occurred, the Twin Towers came down and hit off the charts.
These computers that were spitting out random numbers began to get more and more less and less random, if you'll pardon me.
In other words, something happened when major world events occur There is some sort of effect on these eggs, or computers, if you will, and then to the master computer.
In other words, they're registering these incredibly large world events.
Now, what do you suppose they might be measuring, Adair?
Well, it completely baffles me, because I don't see how there can be any actual Connection.
Yes, but there seems to be, and they've got quite a bit of history now with this, watching the 9-11 event, but that was just the most recent stunning example.
Other large events have been also registered, and so there's some collective force out there, obviously acting on these random number generators and causing a change.
Well, I also have the theory that there's no such thing as random.
Oh, well, that may be so.
I don't know.
When you think you're generating random numbers, you're not.
You're not.
And it may have something to do with that.
I can't explain that.
But as far as actual consciousness is concerned, I can explain the various theories that people have.
But it is very strange because when you think of it, If you read stories about statues, you have a statue, and then the statue suddenly comes to life.
We all think, you know, this is just a story.
But in fact, if you go over about 3 or 4 billion years, it's true, because here you have a universe with completely non-conscious elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on, and hydrogen, and You put them all together and suddenly you're finding a living person with the sense of identity who can think.
How on earth can these conscious thoughts arise from non-conscious material?
That is the real question.
Based on most of what I think I've heard you say, wouldn't prayer, you know, praying to God, wouldn't that be more or less A total waste of time, Adair?
Yes, I don't think... even Rabbi Rayner doesn't seem to think that petitioners... I don't know who Rabbi Rayner is, but you agree with that, then?
Yes, except of course, when you come to... I mean, sometimes people think of meditation as a form of prayer.
And I think meditation can help one's mental state.
Well, that's self-help.
Yes.
That's self-help.
That's not the same as, oh, please save my baby, and then God intervening, save your baby.
It's not the same thing, right?
No, because the whole of evolution depends upon cruelty and agony, really, doesn't it?
You know, they're going to think you're a real heretic.
They really are.
Listen, hold on.
We're at break point here.
That's all right.
They can think that of you.
They've thought that of many of my guests.
That's all right.
Good morning.
I'm Art Bell.
Here for George, who's taken a couple of days off.
He can use them.
We'll be right back.
Nights in white satin, never reaching the end.
Letters I've written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I'd always missed With these eyes before
Just what the truth is All of times have come
We're fucked now, baby.
Baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper.
the reaper, no to the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be right there, come on baby,
don't fear the reaper, baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper, we'll be able to fly,
don't fear the reaper, baby I'm your man.
La la la la la la la la la. La la la la la la la la la.
From Coast to Coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie.
Filling in for George, tonight's special guest host is Art Bell.
To talk with Art, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies call 800-825-5033.
A very interesting interview.
They're almost a presenter of theories for and against the concept of God and creation.
and dialing toll free 800-893-0903.
Now for George Norrie, special guest host, Art Bell.
I think I'm beginning to get this.
A very interesting interview.
Almost a presenter of theories for and against the concept of God and creation.
That's really what we're talking about here.
We're talking about ancillary things as well, but they all relate back to that.
So I'm pretty sure that's what we're talking about.
Whether or not there really is a... Should I use the word conscious dog?
No, a creator that is involved in our everyday lives in any way at all, or perhaps not at all.
And I think that's really the center of what we're talking about.
We'll get right back to it.
let's say right there well throughout this interview i've been listening
carefully to a dear and trying to discern actually
Very difficult in the beginning because he was just sort of a presenter of alternative theories, but now I think I'm beginning now to grasp where he is coming from and why he wrote this book and what he's trying to suggest, which is a little radical, I'm sure, but that's okay.
As a matter of fact, this next question really is going to fit right in, I think.
Why don't I confirm my theory?
I mean, really, Adair, as I listen to you, it seems to me that you were being almost politically careful in what you were saying to us, when really you were trying to suggest that this is what you believe.
It may not agree with a lot of religion, Well, that is what I think is possible.
and uh...
that uh... carries along with you uh... toward uh... toward believing this that
there is there's indeed perhaps a god but that he's
non interventionist uh... totally to the point that we destroy ourselves and he
wouldn't even notice that that that's really your theory of our creator and
creation is that kind of the bottom line
well and that is what i think is is a possible and in fact i will i'll i would be even call
it i would call it a system
system.
For example, you believe that the Creator, or our Creator, could be a super-civilization, an alien race.
It could be another mediocre, perhaps grown a little better society somewhere, that created us, rather than the God Force itself.
Yes?
Well, that's interesting.
It's not actually something that I believe, but it's a theory.
That I've read, and I find it quite interesting.
Well, it's because it fits in with what I think you do believe, right?
The paper, actually, was written by Edward R. Harrison, at the University of Massachusetts.
He addresses a connection between black holes and intelligent life.
He proposes that our universe was created by superior intelligences existing in another physical universe.
In which the constants of physics are finely tuned, and therefore essentially similar to our own.
Now, why would we suppose that physics would be a constant in another universe?
Certainly we know they are, or believe them to be, in this universe.
But in another universe, we could have a completely separate law of physics, could we not?
But physics have to be fine-tuned for life to exist.
Well, our life, yes.
Yes, Adair, our life, as we discussed earlier, our life is either real lucky that it's just right for us, or we're here because of that random fact.
Yes, based upon carbon.
Yes, but perhaps in an alternate universe there's some slugs moving about that have developed some form of intelligence and function within this other law of physics just spiffy.
Yes, that's an interesting point, but that isn't the theory that Harrison has written.
Harrison assumes that life is like, and the reason is that these people in this physical universe, which are like our own, very similar to our own physics, have actually created our universe and other universes to be like their own, so that other people could arise in them.
Now, it seems more like science fiction than science, but it is published in the quarterly journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and so it's obviously taken seriously by its editors and referees.
Harrison gives a short description of the fundamental constants of physics, and some examples of how only slight variations could rule out development of life.
He then examines the concept that such an intricate network of interlocking Critical Relations appears to be evidence that the universe has been designed at a fundamental, not superficial, physical level for the benefit of our organic life.
This would point to deliberate creation.
Now, he explores the possibility of creating a universe spanning a hundred billion light years, containing billions of galaxies.
And he quotes some work by some scientists, Fari and Guth, who consider how one day it may be possible to form a small black hole of about 10 kilograms mass.
Now, you know, a black hole is something so dense that even light can't escape.
You know, they're actually working on that right now.
Yes.
And anything that gets anywhere near it is sucked into it.
So how they could do it in the laboratory, I haven't the faintest idea.
But he says, by careful arrangement, This black hole has an interior that inflates, not in our universe, but in a re-entrant bubble-like space-time that is connected to our universe by an umbilical cord originating from the black hole.
The black hole evaporates and severs the link with the new universe.
This new universe will inherit the same constants of the parent universe, and another life-bearing universe comes into being.
Harrison considers The beings of our limited intelligence can dream up wild and implausible schemes for making universes, then beings of a much higher developed intelligence might actually possess the technique for achieving it.
This also explains why man is able to comprehend the universe.
He was deliberately programmed to do so, not by a supreme being, but by a supreme civilization whose intelligence is far in excess of his own.
Do they care about us?
Now, I personally don't believe that.
Oh, you don't?
Okay, well, again, you are a great presenter of theories, and I'm most curious what you do believe.
In other words, the purpose behind the book that you have written.
Surely, in the presentation of these various theories, you have come to some conclusions, have you not?
Present the reader with them.
So I'll tell you what conclusions I've come to.
Conclusions I've come to is my own view, as I said before, is first of all that the universe is orderly.
Events occur according to the laws of physics and mathematics.
As I said, we cannot prove tomorrow gravitational attraction will not suddenly change or the speed of light will change.
I do not believe that the universe is arbitrary.
I believe it follows rules and it's orderly.
Now, this consideration could support an argument for God, but it seems to rule out the concept of the resurrection, a new earth and a new heaven, a specific event in space-time rather than transcended imagery.
As I said, the arbitrary changes in the laws of physics and biology necessarily foreboding the resurrection of the dead Contradict the idea of an orderly physical universe.
So again, you seem to allow for the evidence of a creator, but one that doesn't care.
Yes.
However, with modern technology, we could introduce a messianic age of peace and plenty now, if we effected the necessary sociological transformation.
Oh yes, but the very thing that generally gets away, excuse me, prevents that process from Continuing, or the road piece being paved, I don't know how you want to look at it, are the very religions that we've been discussing.
Yes, precisely.
I mean, when you think... Putting our cards on the table.
When you think of how much money has been spent, and how many of its sources have been exhausted in the 50-year battle between the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East, if that money had been spent on On social welfare, they could all be living like movie stars.
Well, as you look at the present situation in the world, from any point you wish, ecologically, socially, from a religious point of view, political point of view, Our behavior, whatever it is you want to look at right now, when you look at the totality of things the way they are right now, do you think we're going to go down that little golden path you just talked about?
Or do you rather think that, well, we're going to come to a heat death?
I'm afraid I'm not an optimist.
I know most Americans are optimists and like optimists, but I'm personally not really much of an optimist.
I don't think we are.
What of the future of humanity?
We could meet our end before the demise of planet Earth in various ways for a start.
It could be a drastic change in the atmosphere or climate.
The greenhouse effect could make the Earth uninhabitable for oxygen-breathing creatures.
Other alternatives are a deadly plague.
Spares no one.
A thermonuclear conflict.
Destruction by an alien invasion.
Very unlikely.
Ah, nevertheless, let us count the ways.
None of these last three possibilities seems likely.
Even the worst plagues find some resistance.
And although an atomic war could have terrible consequences, it wouldn't kill everybody.
Why not rule out the possibility of an engineered little killer virus of some sort that would be effective More effective than those which die of their own accord?
That's possible, and I don't think there'll be an alien... Although, dear to the hearts of UFO spotters, an alien invasion could only be launched from within our own galaxy, and as we've seen... Oh, well now, while we're on the subject of UFOs, let's stop for a second.
I saw one.
I really saw one, Adair.
Close up.
A big, big triangle.
Moving, not flying.
Floating, not flying, Adair.
I saw this.
My wife saw it.
It was close up.
I could have thrown a rock at the damn thing if I hadn't been in shock.
I saw one of these.
Now, they are something.
They are not nothing.
I saw this with my own eye.
There's no question.
It wasn't foggy.
It wasn't blurry.
It was perfectly clear.
And without gravity, it floated right above my head and then on out across the valley in which I live now.
These things are real.
There's something out there.
What do you make of all these UFO reports?
Well, I don't know because I've never seen one, but a UFO is just an unidentified flying object.
Right.
Which is perfectly normal.
What I don't believe is I don't believe they're really from an alien civilization.
Why is it not possible that somebody who was some race that was originally just another mediocre bunch of protoplasm running about got a little better than mediocre and made it here?
Well, I'm not saying it's impossible.
I'm saying it is possible, but I would have thought it was extremely unlikely because the The sparseness of intelligent life in the universe.
But of course there's nothing to say that...
Um...
Rotatings...
Now, I've got the paper here.
In my book, I've mentioned the paper submitted to the Observatory.
Now, that's the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1991 by someone called Duncan Steele.
It described a 10-meter object designated 1991 VG on a heliocentric orbit, an orbit around the Sun, that made its closest approach to Earth in December 1991.
Jim Scotty discovered it with the Space Watch telescope at Pitt Peak on the 6th of November 1991.
Its very Earth-like orbit and rapid brightness fluctuations argued for it being an artificial body rather than an asteroid.
None of the handful of man-made rocket bodies left in heliocentric orbits during the space age had purely gravitational orbits returning to Earth at that time.
In addition, the close distance observed may be interpreted as a controlled rather than a random encounter with Earth.
It could therefore be argued That 1991 VG is a candidate for an alien probe observed in the vicinity of our planet.
And when was this?
Sorry?
When was this, that Kitt Peak observed this?
6th of November, 1991.
1991.
Now, you know, that's a new one on me.
I had never heard this, Adair.
And what, pray tell, did Kitt Peak do with this observation?
Did they call other observatories to confirm it?
Well, they published it in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
And how was that greeted?
It's read by scientists.
I understand.
That's why I ask.
How was that greeted?
Was there great excitement?
My God, they are here!
Or what?
No.
Everybody just read it and said, How interesting.
And that was about it.
The paper investigates the different probabilities of the nature of this object.
You've got to love our scientists.
It seems that the probability that it is returning madmane rocket or spacecraft is extremely low.
So it's possible.
Similarly, the probability of it being a natural asteroid is also low.
So the paper concludes that the observations provide prima facie evidence that it is a candidate alien artifact.
Well gee, that's quite a statement to make, isn't it?
a man-made body are both estimated to be unlikely that require further investigation.
Well, gee, that's quite a statement to make, isn't it?
Yes.
In other words, they're saying, more or less, this was probably an alien probe or a spacecraft.
It's not a natural thing.
It's not an asteroid.
We here at Kitt Peak believe that we've seen a spacecraft.
I mean, let's get right down to it.
That's what they're saying.
If it was a return man-made rocket, it was very much a fluke that was observed.
And the normal progress of science requires we consider the possibility of some other origin.
And the next near passage is calculated to be in 2041.
I see, so it's going to be a while before we get another look.
Yes, and I won't be around, I'm afraid.
But yes, I think that is very interesting, but no, there was no great excitement about it.
Should it come by again, which you say it will in 2041, and the world, based on what you just read, focuses all of the large telescopes upon it, and we do decide, wow, This is not from Earth, it is alien, and it's real.
Just as a matter of curiosity, Adair, how do you think the human race will react to such news?
Do you think people will go, oh well, or ho-hum, or oh my god, or we're all going to die?
No, no, I think there will be a lot of excitement.
And there'll be great headlines everywhere, and I think your program will probably come on the air.
One of the first, no doubt.
Adair, hold on, please.
We're at a break here at the top there.
When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about time as it relates to all this.
See what's become of me Time, time, time
See what's become of me Why I live so round
And an angel's kiss in spring My summer wine
one.
Is really made from all these things I walk in town on silver spurs of the jingle too
you A song that I had only sang to just a few.
She saw my silver spurs and said, let's pass some time.
And I will give to you summer wine.
Oh, summer wine.
Strawberries, cherries, and an angel's kiss in spring.
My summer wine is really made from all these things.
From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie.
Billing in for George, tonight's special guest host is Art Bell.
To talk with Art, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies call 800-825-5033 and west of the Rockies call 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach ARC by calling the AT&T International Operator and dialing
toll free 800-893-0903.
Now for George Norrie, special guest host, Art Bell.
An angel's kiss in spring.
Not in a Dare Butchins universe.
Not in the summer or the fall or the winter or any other time either.
No angels to kiss.
Anyway, we're gonna turn the phone lines over to you in a moment, and this should be very interesting.
So if you'll just stay right where you are.
Oh man, this is weird.
I mean, this is really weird.
What we're experiencing right now, ladies and gentlemen, let me, uh... Let me explain to you what's going on.
Adair Butcham's in Great Britain.
I'm explaining to you at the same time.
You may recall at the beginning of the program, I told you all that we are being attacked virtually by the sun right now.
That our sun is throwing particles at us as a result of some really major flares.
I mean, we're just having some incredible flares right now.
I just looked at the A-index, which is 34.
The K-index is 5.
We're having a major geomagnetic storm.
And I told the network folks at the beginning of the program that there had been satellite dropouts on TV, and we're more of a narrow band than TV, and that we could have dropout problems on our own.
And sure enough, I got a call during the break saying, hey, we were off for 90 seconds.
We lost the satellite for 90 seconds.
Then I got another call just as we came out of break saying, well, hey, you're off.
You're not on at all.
And so I said, OK, you know what?
I'm going to roll some music.
Let me know when we're back on.
And that's what I did.
And here we are back on.
And I'm telling you right now that what we're experiencing, almost certainly, I just checked the uplink numbers and looked at everything, and everything's just fine.
We're transmitting fine.
But we're being bombarded so hard from the sun right now.
And there are some who will say, well, the sun's not out.
How could that be?
You see, the sun erupts, and then the Earth gets hit later.
In other words, the sun spits.
And 90 million miles later, 91 million miles later, we get hit.
And we're being hit right now with this very large geomagnetic storm.
So that had us off the air.
And for all I know, we could come and go some more.
But that's the situation.
So if you noticed a discontinuity in the radio program for 90 seconds, and then as we came back, that's what's going on, folks.
Certainly, that's the best guess.
We will notice some power interruptions, and certainly the power grids across the U.S.
are being affected by what's going on right now.
And as I told you at the beginning of the program, you're going to want to watch for aurora, which could appear in the night sky.
Usually you're going to watch the northern skies, depending on where you are, possibly even the southern skies.
Even as far south, a latitude as we're in here in the desert, We were able to see blood-red skies just a few years ago when we had a similar development, but to have that in the middle of cycle 23 right now is just astounding.
I mean, what's going on with the sun right now is absolutely astounding, and the dropouts you heard in the program are due to exactly that.
Incredible phenomena here in the middle of the night.
So, let's see if Adair Butchins is still there.
Are you there, Adair?
Yeah, I'm still here.
Remarkable events really going on right now in the world.
We're experiencing a gigantic geomagnetic storm.
Not my fault.
Well, no, I'm not blaming this one on you.
Don't worry about it.
But it is an amazing thing, actually, to observe, Adair.
Just a couple of things that I want to cover in our interview before we Before we continue, and one of them is time, I wanted to ask you, since we're talking about such large issues as the Big Bang, the nature of the universe, the nature of a creator, if there is one, and all the rest of it, then a very good question with regard to parallel universes and physics and what we believe right now is time.
I wonder if you have any comments on the nature of time.
Do you think time Is merely a man-manufactured thing that we watch or do you think that there's more to the nature of time that we understand that someday man will be able to perhaps move within the time stream either forward or in reverse?
Or is this just something that we made up and we watch clocks tick and so it's really time is just our invention?
Well it's an interesting question because Time is part of the whole construct of space-time.
Space has three dimensions, and time is another dimension.
By the way, before I carry on, you have my book there, do you?
I do, in front of me.
Well, if you want to check on that report to the Royal Astronomical Society, if you look at the bibliography under steel, you'll have the reference, and you can get yourself a copy of the magazine.
Under steel, huh?
Yes, and the bibliography.
Okay.
Very good.
Steel.
Duncan.
Right.
Yes, time is looked upon as one of the dimensions of space.
Now, what is interesting is that there's a theory, it's only a mathematical theory, by Stephen Hawking, that the universe Did not actually have to have a beginning.
And what he does is he takes the problem of the Big Bang and he goes right to what he calls the instant and the beginning of the universe and he goes to imaginary time.
Now, when you take Now, this becomes a bit mathematical.
I'll try and explain it simply.
When you take the coordinates of where anybody is, that tells people where we are in time and in space, time has a quantity called I in front of it, which is the square root of minus one.
This all comes out in the mathematical equation.
I won't try and explain it.
Certainly not over the telephone.
But Hawking says that right at the beginning of time, time itself becomes imaginary.
By imaginary, I don't mean something that you just imagine.
Imaginary means something multiplied by the square root of minus one.
Would you have imagined that there was time prior to the Big Bang
or in other words there was space but there was nothing in it
then we have the Big Bang and there were things and you could measure momentum
and movement one object against another and then calculate the passage
or see the passage of time but prior to any physical being there could be no time as we understand it
I don't think there was any time before but to go back to Hawking
he maintains that the quantum fluctuations right at the beginning of the universe
he has time going into imaginary quantity it becomes multiplied by the square root of minus one
When you fit that into the Einstein equations of special relativity, you suddenly find that time, the three dimensions of space and one of time, ...become four dimensions of space, and time vanishes.
And so the universe wouldn't have any beginning.
It would just be there.
It would just exist.
And then you get the fluctuation.
Time would come in later on.
This is basically Hawking's mathematical idea.
There's no actual proof of it.
There are certain things it can predict, which seems to work out.
This is one idea of the time that the universe itself didn't actually have a beginning.
It just existed.
And now I realize this is rather a difficult sort of a concept to get over on the telephone.
Am I being very obscure?
Well, no.
Concepts are made for this kind of ability to communicate.
Adaris, don't worry about it.
This is exactly what radio is for, so we can explore these concepts.
Do you embrace that?
Do you agree with Hawking?
Well, not really.
Not really?
No, because Penrose, another great mathematician, states that he actually believes in the Big Bang, but the trouble is Nobody really knows what went on with the Big Bang.
What we do have is a theory of inflation, which is also quite interesting, which can take us back to the steady state universe again.
I just thought it took us back to the Carter administration.
Listen, I've got a lot of people that want to talk to you and ask questions.
And so, you know, I've dominated you.
Let me bring in a few callers and let's see what they ask you, all right?
All right, good.
On the wild card line, you're on the air with Dara Bushins and Art Bell.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
Hi.
Hi.
Hello.
Wild card line, you're on the air.
Are you there?
Going once.
Going twice, gone, east of the Rockies, you're on the air with Adair Butchins.
Hello.
Yes, good morning.
This is Eric in Niagara Falls, New York, and you're coming through loud and clear.
Good.
I take it that you heard the slight disruption that we had there.
A 90-second dropout overlaid by a Norie interview came in vocally, came on very well.
It happened twice during the interview.
Really strange stuff, but that's from our son, I would wager.
Yeah.
At any rate, sir?
I have a question for Dr. Butchins.
Regarding the concept of increasing entropy or decreasing order, I'm not a physicist by profession or training, but several years ago I've been very intrigued by the question.
I consulted with a specialist in the area of low-temperature metaphysics at the local university.
I was working on the philosophy of the problem.
I was told that the concept of entropy is only valid cosmologically within a closed system.
Could you please comment on the current status of that concept, and on what thinkers like Ilya Pergagin and other theorists currently believe about the status of the universe as a closed or open system?
And I do have a follow-up question.
Well, in fact, you couldn't get...
The idea of a closed or open universe, let's not get confused between whether the universe is hyperbolic or ellipsoid.
This is a different kind of closed and open.
But the universe, there's nothing more closed than the universe.
It is a completely closed system.
Regardless of its geometry?
There's nothing extraneous coming into the universe.
This is what it means by a closed system.
In other words, If you pour hot water onto ice, the ice will melt.
You won't get more ice forming and the water getting even hotter, unless you have a refrigerator or a kettle suddenly put in there.
So, what it means is that entropy always increases in a closed system, and the universe is completely closed.
There's nothing coming in from outside the universe to change it.
Unless, of course, you believe that God is going to do it.
Well, my follow-up question concerns what amount of experimental evidence is there to support the concept that the universe is indeed closed, or is that endemic to the nature of the two geometries you mentioned?
It doesn't have to be closed.
It's complete... Are you talking now about geometry or about entropy?
Well, the two different... You mentioned the ellipsoid or the hyperbolic?
Yes.
I guess you're talking about like Riemannian manifolds and so on with the... Yes, yes.
Is it necessary, I guess I'm saying, like a proposition that the universe is considered closed no matter what geometry might prevail?
No.
The universe is only closed if the geometry is ellipsoid.
If the geometry is hyperbolic, the universe is open and infinite.
Also, if it's exactly critical, in other words, if there's neither hyperbolic nor ellipsoid, it's called flat.
And it still becomes infinite and expands forever.
And would the balance of current experimental data indicate that it was indeed closed, like you said, the hyperbolic?
No, it indicates that it is open and that it is hyperbolized because the actual universe is actually accelerating.
Its expansion is actually accelerating.
It indicates an open infinite universe.
Is there not some contrary data to that?
All right, well I've told it there.
I bet you're going to find out there is.
Is there not some contrary data?
No, all the evidence, even, I'm not talking, this is the latest one using supernovas, but certainly all the latest measurements from people, scientists concerned, have always produced a critical density Less than the critical density.
They've all indicated an open universe of one sort or another.
And there seems to be no evidence that the universe is in fact closed.
Something may turn up, I don't know.
But at the moment, all the observations, both galaxy counts and Okay, perhaps time for one quick one.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Adair Butchins.
Hello.
Good morning, Mr. Butchins.
Good morning.
It's great to hear you both.
Thank you.
The crew from Undernet coast-to-coast chat room sends a huge hello.
A huge hello back.
Mr. Butchins, I understand the universe is expanding and that it's growing faster and faster.
That is the latest observation.
This reminds me of gravity, like things falling towards Earth.
My question is, what do you think we're expanding towards?
We're not expanding towards anything, we're just expanding.
It's rather difficult.
We talk about the Size of the universe and so on.
We're talking about the observed universe.
The universe that we could observe from the Big Bang to the present day, which is as far as light could travel.
But of course, the universe is infinite.
It has always been infinite.
But it's still spanning.
It's a very difficult concept to grasp.
A universe that was very dense is infinite.
And it's expanding.
And it's still infinite.
It doesn't expand into anything.
Space itself is expanding.
I'm sorry if this sounds obscure.
Well, it's not obscure.
It's very hard to grasp.
Yes.
It's very hard to grasp, but I don't know about obscure.
All right.
Hold on.
Hold it right there, please.
And I do.
I'm trying my hardest, too, to grasp all of this.
Always expanding and infinite.
Fascinating.
I'm Marcel.
And, assuming the sun lets us do it, we'll finish this program up tonight.
Uh, we're really getting bombarded out there.
That's the way things work.
Sometimes.
I'm Margot.
It is the night.
My body's weak.
I'm on the run.
No time to sleep.
I've got to run while I can win to be free again.
And I've got such a long way to go.
I've got to run while I can win to be free again.
Out on the street I was talking to a man.
He said, so my brother's love of mine that I don't understand.
You shouldn't worry, I said, that ain't no crime.
Cause if you get it wrong, you'll get it right next time.
you Premier Radio Networks presents Coast to Coast AM with George Norrie.
And now, filling in for George, here's special guest host, Art Bell.
It really is a remarkable night, isn't it?
Of all the nights I could pick, we're getting slammed in a giant geomagnetic storm.
And it's slamming our satellite.
It just figures, doesn't it?
My guest is Adair Butchins.
Very, very, very interesting discussion about the nature of everything, really.
And that is what we're talking about, you know.
The nature of everything.
We're talking about everything that is.
And how it became.
I guess it's really what makes the world go round.
And we'll continue with Adair in a moment.
The book is Numinous Legacy by Adair Butchins on The book is Numinous Legacy by Adair Butchins.
I bet that you could probably get it at your favorite online or offline bookstore.
It's probably everywhere.
Is it mostly everywhere now, Adair?
Yes, I think Barnes & Noble and... Yeah, all the usual suspects.
But it's certainly on Amazon.
Amazon.com, of course.
All right.
Very good.
All right, back to the phones.
Many people await.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Adair Butchins.
Hello.
Good evening, gentlemen.
Good evening.
Hi, I'm calling from Arkansas.
I'm on my way from Tennessee.
Okay.
Earlier in the program, you had mentioned that you believe that there is a parallel universe of consciousness that intersects with the physical.
That's right.
Yes.
Is that correct?
But at the same time, you don't believe in the power of prayer?
That's quite right.
I wouldn't say I believe exactly.
I've postulated an idea of the parallel universe, but no, I don't think any real results.
Oh boy, are you about to give an example?
No, no, no, not an example.
I'm not going to give an example, but I'm going to ask a question.
Is the human body basically water and electricity and carbon?
That is basically what the human body is constructed of.
But we have this consciousness which is incredibly interesting and amazing.
Right.
And is it not possible that the consciousness controls the electricity and when we direct
that electricity, now I'm not saying necessarily to God or anything, but if we decide something
in our mind and we quote unquote pray for it, we're directing that electrical energy
that we ourselves contain to make something happen.
You're talking about free will now?
No.
No, I'm not talking about free will.
I'm talking about specific Saying this is going to happen and willing it to happen.
She's talking about exactly the same thing I was talking about earlier, Adair.
Oh yes, yes, yes.
The projection, the projection of it.
And you can mix it up with prayer if you want to.
It's really... That's what I call it.
It's the same thing.
Thank you, thank you dear.
It's the same thing.
And there are, and I would suggest in reading to you, Adair, with regard to The experiments going on at Princeton.
I mean, we all like science, with respect to this.
It's kind of hush-hush stuff, to some degree, but it is in fact going on.
There have been a number of studies, very scientific studies, about the power of prayer.
Some of those I would imagine you'd be aware of, or would have heard of, using control groups and that sort of thing.
In what manner would you dismiss those?
Well, the one I've heard of is the one given by Stannard, in which you have a control group who are being prayed for, and another group that weren't being prayed for.
Well, I would discount that entirely.
This is not quite the same as trying to make things happen by your will, by your electricity.
Why is it not the same?
Well, because this is a prayer to God, to an outside being, and of course God, if God does exist, as they say he does, and omnipotent and omniscient, he'd know all about these control groups anyway, so it's not really... But she was really stepping away from the word prayer, and was suggesting that a force, an electrical force, or an electromagnetic force, or something perhaps we don't fully understand yet, can be projected, perhaps even in a mass way, to achieve, to get something done.
You know, people attach the word prayer to it, that's fine.
We can leave it off for the sake of this discussion.
How do you know there is not a force capable of being projected beyond the physical?
Well, I don't know.
But of course, obviously, the evidence, I can't prove, I don't know.
It comes to a matter of faith.
I mean, in science we have faith that we believe in the evidence Science doesn't really like faith.
Faith means believing in something that you cannot prove.
Believing in something that you know isn't true.
That's right.
Science, on the other hand, really likes proving things, and it likes repetitive experiments that yield the same results time after time.
Yes, but it does rely on faith, that we can believe the evidence of our senses.
Oh yes, indeed.
And that is faith, because we can't prove That the outside world is exactly as our senses say it is, but it's a reasonable position to take, and also our evolutionary survival depends on the fact that the outside world is at least approximately as we see it is, but that is definitely the faith of science.
We have faith that we do believe the evidence of our senses, and we can't prove it, because we can't climb outside of our minds.
Yeah, a lot of people have faith in science.
Perhaps misplaced.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Adair Butchins.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
Hi.
Hello.
Well, that's you and I saying hello, Adair.
We're trying for a third person here.
Hello there.
Are you there?
Yes.
Oh, you are there.
Good.
Where are you?
I'm in New Iberia, Louisiana.
All right, sir.
You're on the air.
By saying parallel universes, aren't you saying extra dimensions also?
Yeah, that's another way to look at it.
Sure.
Oh, you said God doesn't intervene in man's affairs.
That's what he said.
How do you know he doesn't intervene?
I mean, just because there is bad in the world, how do you know that he's not doing it?
Because if you don't believe, maybe he's not doing it so you can comprehend it.
All right.
A crutch, Adair?
Is it a crutch?
Yes, I should think so, because there doesn't seem to be any evidence that God has come down and intervened, or that God has intervened in any way.
It's in the Scriptures, but there doesn't seem to be any Definite proof of intervention.
I mean, we're going back to disease.
Well, of course, as you mentioned in the scriptures, I mean, we have the Red Sea parting, that seemed to be a little unusual, and, you know, a few others.
Yes, but you had Jesus as the incarnation of God, curing people with diseases.
Yes, you do.
Which is rather strange, because presumably God made these diseases in the first place, and Then he comes in as an incarnation and cures some of them.
It's sort of a bit like the head of the Mafia throwing five pounds or five dollars into a charity for fallen women.
Well, that was Adair's analogy, folks, not mine.
And he's across the sea, where you can't get to him now anyway.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Adair Butchers-Lowe.
Oh, great show, Art.
I really appreciate it.
Three quick questions for your guest, but first I have an idea for a line tomorrow night.
How about reserving an amateur astronomer line?
Ah, it's flat on X!
I see it, it's coming, it's coming!
Maybe, we'll see.
Okay, three quick questions.
If the Virgo supercluster, our supercluster, is 180 million light years across, And you shrink that down to the size of your thumbnail.
Does that mean the universe is, say, the size of your average suburban house lot?
And a second question.
If you have these superclusters, and you were talking about observing their magnitude and distance, can you observe for the amount of matter in the universe?
Observe through the superclusters and get an accurate count.
Third question.
If it's 15 billion years old... You know what?
You better pause and take some of the answers here.
One more question.
Nevertheless, sir, pause.
Take some of the answers.
Okay.
Adair?
Oh, yes.
As far as clusters are concerned, we have done... In fact, I myself have observed and taken galaxy counts Um, as well as I can.
There's an awful lot of problems doing it.
But I have done it, um, observing on the Schmidt Telescope, um, at, um, Mount Palomar.
And, uh, that also gave an effect that the universe was open.
And, uh, what was the first question?
Sorry.
If, if, uh, our supercluster, the Virgo supercluster, is, uh, 180 million light years across... Oh, yes.
You shrink that down to the size of your thumbnail.
Yeah.
And does that mean the universe is about the size of your average suburban house lot?
Well, no, but when we get back to the Big Bang, what we're talking about now is the observable universe.
And as we go back in time towards the Big Bang, that shrinks and shrinks and shrinks and becomes denser and denser.
But this is the part of the universe That in theory, we could observe.
All the rest of the universe is still there.
It's not the whole universe itself that's shrinking down.
It's that part of it that we can see.
That's what people talk about the size of the universe.
They mean the size of the observable universe.
The observable universe is infinite.
All the whole mass of the universe will still be there.
But it's easier To look at the size of the observable universe to be able to tell people or explain exactly what is happening.
Well, that's a good lead-in to my third question, which is, if we can observe 15 billion light-years, would that mean, would one suspect that there's another 15 billion light-years that we can't?
From the observations, one would suspect that there is an infinite number of light years that we can't yet.
But every second, we can... This is only in principle.
This is not real observing with telescopes, because there are too many factors limiting our observation.
But in principle, we can see as far as light has travelled from the Big Bang.
And every second, it's travelling another 186,000 miles.
Adair, here's one for you.
In Arizona, a very good place to observe the cosmos from.
Arizona's thin air, kind of like here in Nevada.
And so, mountaintops in Arizona are great places to put large observatories.
And in fact, the Catholic Church from Rome pushed right past all kinds of environmental Mountains and molehills and bureaucracy and red tape and by God, the Catholics got themselves an observatory in Arizona that you just couldn't believe.
What do you think the Catholics are down in Arizona looking for, Adair?
I think they are looking for the study of the universe.
They're looking for galaxies.
They're looking for stars.
They're examining astrophysics.
I think they're doing the same as all other scientists.
Why?
According to scripture, they should know exactly what's going on.
Why the need to be looking into the cosmos?
I don't think Christianity or Catholicism claims to know everything about the physical universe.
I think it claims to know everything about the spiritual universe.
Well, if the Catholics one day, staring through the eyepiece, saw something that contradicted everything they believe, what do you think they would do with that information?
They wouldn't accept it.
People don't accept things they don't want to believe.
In 9-11, a lot of Muslims believe that it was done by the Jews because they didn't want
It was done by the Muslims.
Many people will not believe something they do not want to believe.
Well, you're quite right about that.
All right.
Well, sir, the Rockies, you're on the air with Adair Butchins and Art Bell.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yes, sir.
Good morning.
Good morning.
There you are.
Yes, my name is Walter.
I'm in Eatonville, Washington.
Hello, Walter.
Hello, Mr. Butchins.
I'd like to ask you about the ascension thing you were talking about.
I don't see why science can't figure that out, since it seems like science is on the path of beaming people up into space.
The only drawback I can see from it, or people might not like, is that I could think I'm a messenger of God and want to kill everybody and arrange the meeting of God that way, and everybody gets to ascend into heaven.
That's the only thing I can't see why you seem like you're down on the ascension, that people can't just leave the planet and ascend and meet God, you know?
Well, to leave the planet, one would have, well, one can leave the planet in a rocket, of course, providing you go 25,000 miles an hour, which is the speed necessary to resist the Earth's gravity, but I don't think heaven In the particular sense that the scripture puts it, actually exists.
As a matter of fact, C.S.
Lewis wrote a book in which he quoted the Russians saying that they've been into space and they haven't met God or seen heaven.
Let's get right down to a hard question, Adair.
What about the human soul?
Do you think there is something that we traditionally understand to be the human soul?
I would rather imagine you don't think that, do you?
Well, so far there's been no... generally biologists don't believe it.
Richard Dawkins certainly doesn't believe there's a human soul.
But on the other hand, we have the mystery of consciousness and identity.
No one understands that.
Also, people have had various ideas, but no one really understands that.
Now, Stannard considers that the human soul developed evolutionarily with the human being.
Now, I couldn't think of any survival value for the human soul, but then I thought, well, free will, for instance, seems to have come from an evolutionary point of view.
I mean, presumably insects don't have free will.
They just react to various events.
But as you go up the intelligence ladder with animals, you become more and more free will, because free will becomes very useful both to the victim and the predator.
To the degree, actually, that in some mammals, particularly those we keep as pets, for example, There appears to be so much free will and identity that one might as easily assign the concept of a soul, if that's what it is, to an animal as one does to a human.
Yes, that's right.
Stanard considers it evolutionary, but it could of course, if the soul does exist, it could easily have evolved in concert with free will.
Because I cannot believe that with There's no free will, there's no soul, as far as I can see.
You're just reacting to events.
But as free will has come into being, evolutionarily, it is possible, as Stannard says, that a soul could have evolved with it.
Now, I'm not stating that, but it is a possibility, and I respect people that accept that.
All right, we're almost out of time.
Let me squeeze one more in here.
Hello there on the wildcard line.
You're on the air with Adair Butchins and RFL.
Not a lot of time here.
Hi, this is Steve in Santa Fe, Missouri.
Hey, Steve.
I'm a retired telephone cable line troubleshooter, and so I've got some... I'll just have to email you with some answers on the fantastic array you've built.
Oh, I'll look forward to that.
Some real familiar stuff to me.
Electricity does exist in the ether.
Yeah, this is one of those things you just wouldn't believe unless you saw it.
That's why I put the photographs up.
Do you have any quick questions?
Yeah, I do.
I would just like to observe this continual denial of the creative force, even though we admit there is this possibility of it in the design.
If the universe is expanding, and our guest knows this, Then why is that not considered change, and why the assumption that the Creator isn't making that change?
That's question number one.
Well, that's a really good one.
Actually, it's the only one we'll have time for.
Adair?
Well, one can assume that if the Creator, a God, exists, then He is causing the universe to expand, and eventually we'll all end up in the heat death.
What is normally thought of as a creator is that he is eventually going to cause complete change of universe, and we're going to get a Judgment Day and the resurrection of the dead.
And that would be an arbitrary change of the universe.
All right.
Dare, you know what?
We're out of time.
Now that I've gotten to know you, we could do much more, and maybe one day we'll get an opportunity to do that.
In any case, the Numinous Legacy is on sale.
Now, wherever you probably buy your books, and I would suggest that you might want to know more about what this man thinks and believes, because he's fascinating.
Thank you for being here.
We've got to go!
Thank you very much for introducing me to your program.
You have a great day there in Great Britain.
Good night!
It's a good night.
Thank you.
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