COLD FUSION HITS THE BIG SCREEN

The phenomenon of cold fusion is spotlighted in the storyline of two of this year's feature films.

The Saint, a Paramount release starring Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue, opened in early April. In a resurrection of the 1950s TV character created by Roger Moore, Kilmer plays Simon Templar, a rich sophisticate skilled at stealing even the most closely guarded of treasures. His path crosses that of Shue's character, a young scientist whose life is in grave danger because she has discovered the key to a Russian billionaire's plot to crown himself the first Czar of the new Russian Empire. The secret, of course, is successful cold fusion, and Templar's role is to steal the ultimate cold fusion process.'

Cold Fusion proponent Dr. Eugene Mallove, editor of Infinite Energy Magazine and author of the Pulitzer-prize winning book Fire from Ice, was a technical consultant on the film which names cold fusion discoverers Drs. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann and mentions the scurrilous treatment they received from the high-energy physics establishment after announcement of their findings in 1989.

Cold fusion receives even more center-stage treatment in Breaking Symmetry, a technothriller due out later this year. The film portrays events at a fictional research establishment, the Institute, where verifiable cold fusion has been discovered and treacherous efforts are being exerted by a group of paradigm-protecting hot fusion scientists to suppress it. The film is the brainchild of Dr. Keith Johnson, a renowned superconductivity expert and former MIT professor of materials science and engineering, who both wrote the screenplay and raised the capital to produce it. Music for the film is being composed by Atlantis Rising music critic Bob Resetar who brings numerous TV and feature film credits to the project.

In a case of art imitating life, various of the dirty tricks depicted in the film, the doctoring of results to disprove reported claims of success, the suppression of favorable evidence, and the refusal of respected scientific journals to allow proponents to publish their results, reportedly reflect what actually happened at certain universities in the aftermath of the Pons and Fleischmann discovery. Producers hope that, perhaps, in the near future, the actual mainstream scientists who participated in the reputed intrigue will come clean of their own accord, and not follow in the footsteps of their fictional counterparts. The cinematic group, when ultimately found out, try to justify their mean-spirited rejection with a variation on the old excuse: We were only following policy.

DRAMATIC ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD CAST DOUBT ON ORTHODOX THEORIES

The custodians of conventional wisdom on the origins of man must feel surrounded by hostile forces these days. New discoveries in Ethiopia, Germany, Siberia and Chile are challenging the orthodox chronology of man's prehistory on Earth as never before and pushing the dawn of human habitation back thousands of years.

Suddenly the notion that civilization itself may have had a much earlier beginning than we have been told becomes much more plausible, while claims that the developments of the last 5,000 years are unique and unprecedented now seem more naive and chauvinistic than ever. When the textbooks of paleontology and anthropology are rewritten, can the history books be far behind?

Here is the new evidence:

Ethiopia Crafted stone tools have been turned up by scientist in deposits of volcanic ash and dirt dated at 2.6 million years. The finding pushes back the record of tool making by around 200,000 years. The tools, which include rounded fist-size stones and smaller sharp-edged flakes show a remarkable level of craftsmanship and have scientists scratching their heads to explain who made them.

Sileshi Semaw of Rutgers University announced his discovery in the Journal Nature and theorized that the objects which he found were the work of homo, generally believed to be the ancestor of modern man. The superior workmanship of the tools also contradicts assumptions that tools made so long ago would be inferior to later ones.

Germany Wooden spears dating to 400,000 years have turned up in an ancient lakeshore hunting ground. The likely conclusion is that human ancestors hunted big game much earlier than previously believed. Robin Dennell, a professor of prehistory at the university of Sheffield in England says the finding of wooden spears along with more than 10,000 animal bones, primarily horses, which were mostly butchered indicates that the ancient hunters were organized enough to ambush herds that drank from the lake.

Before the new find, evidence for systematic hunting had been placed at about 200,000 years.

Siberia Primitive humans operated and thrived in what is presumed to be the killing cold of Siberia 300,000 years ago, far earlier than experts thought possible. That is the evidence produced from age-dating stone tools unearthed from the frozen tundra.

The discovery was reported in the journal Science in February.

Chile New finds in Monte Verde about 100 miles south of Santiago in Chile now contradict conventional theories of human origins in the Americas. An expedition of archaeologists have dated human habitation in the area to around 12,500 years ago, predating by 1,300 years the Clovis horizon (for spear points found near Clovis, N.M.) of about 11,200 years. Most archaeologists believe that humans migrated across the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska around 12,000 years ago. For now they are saying that the new findings could indicate humans came by some other route or that they migrated across the land bridge much earlier than previously thought.

EGYPT CLAMPS DOWN ON INDEPENDENT ARCHAEOLOGY

As the worldwide clamor grows for a new and unbiased reexamination of Egyptian ruins, the powers-that-be appear to be forming a rationale to block, or at least tightly control, any such efforts.

Foreign archaeologists, particularly those with unorthodox views, are now finding it harder than ever to get the approvals they need from antiquities authorities. The stated reason is a proliferation of amateurs. Exactly what is meant by amateurs is not clear, but the case of Greek archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi is cited. Souvaltzi apparently caused considerable consternation in academic circles recently by claiming to have discovered the tomb of Alexander the Great. Egypt, it seems, was embarrassed when scientists reviewing Souvaltzi's work determined her findings to be several centuries off the mark.

Ali Hassan, chairman of the Council for Antiquities, says the biggest problem he has is researchers like Souvaltzi who are funded by private sources, not recognized institutions that require teams to take meticulous records of their finds.

Another problem, not so freely discussed, is that of corruption within the antiquities bureaucracy. Recent breaches in the security of museums and thefts of important artifacts have increased pressure on the establishment to clean up its act.

In the meantime Soulvaltzi, who takes the new clamp down personally; in an attempt to regain her permission to dig in Egypt, is reportedly taking the matter to court.

JOHN MICHELL AND COLIN WILSON TO HEADLINE ATLANTIS RISING TOUR OF ANCIENT SITES IN ENGLAND

Joining forces as featured speakers on a tour of English sacred sites this September will be two of the best-known proponents of the notion that there once was a great but forgotten fountainhead of civilization on Earth. Colin Wilson, best-selling writer of From Atlantis to the Sphinx, and author of many well known books on the paranormal will join, on this occasion, with world-renowned authority on ancient alignments, sacred geometry and earth currents John Michell.

Atlantis Rising readers and others of like mind will make the trek to learn the latest on connections between enigmatic ancient monuments like Stonehenge and Avebury and a highly civilized pre-historic society. Entitled English Sacred Sites: the Atlantis Connection the seven-day tour will seek insight into an ancient order with such mastery of the landscape that it could not only raise giant stone temples at favorable locations but could also, with great precision and over great distances, align them to each other, as well as the moon and stars.

Other experts joining the tour will include F.C. Busty Taylor whose startling insights into the existence of an ancient, yet still standing, worldwide energy grid have earned him an enthusiastic personal following in both America and the U.K.. Personally hosting the tour will be Atlantis Rising Editor and Publisher Douglas Kenyon.

Colin Wilson's work has earned him recognition as one of the foremost authorities on the case for Atlantis, one which makes him a considerable thorn in the side of the academic establishment. Wilson believes that the planet suffers from a collective amnesia which prevents it not only from recognizing the achievements of the ancients but also from the kind of self knowledge that can save us from the abyss.

We all live within the ruins of an ancient structure, whose vast size has hitherto rendered it invisible, says John Michell, author of The View Over Atlantis and many other books on our lost heritage of earth knowledge. Michell eloquently and passionately insists that before we can learn how to live on Earth in the future, we must first learn the secrets our ancient predecessors once knew.

Michell has demonstrated that the builders of Stonehenge and other ancient monuments, possessed a technology and mastery of geometry beyond anything known today.

Tour participants will depart New York for London on September 6 and return on the 12. If you are interested in joining, call Mystical Journeys as 800-369-7842.

NEW YORKER TRIES TO TRASH NEW SPHINX EVIDENCE

Those who have been avidly following the feud of recent years between conventional Egyptologists and vanguard researchers such as John Anthony West and Robert Bauval concerning the antiquity and provenance of the Sphinx and Pyramids of the Giza Plateau will enjoy the latest salvo from the traditionalists camp in The New Yorker magazine. Writing in the February 10 issue in an article entitled Perils of the Sphinx, Alexander Stille reports on his travels to Egypt in the company of Mark Lehner of the University of Chicago, respected academic Egyptologist and renowned defender of the conventional paradigm.

Stille noticed fossils of spiral-shaped shellfish and oysters embedded in the quarry wall and the Sphinx itself, as well as rockface impressions left by coral, memories in stone from the time the entire area was under water. This personal observation was apparently insufficient, however, to give him pause before seeking to invalidate the conclusions reached in 1992 by Boston University geologist Robert Schoch. Schoch determined that the weathering patterns suggested water, not sand and wind, erosion and, consequently, a date of creation of no later than 5000 B.C.E. (and probably earlier still), a revision backwards in time of at least 2400 years from the currently accepted later date of 2600 B.C.E. By way of rebuttal, the article notes only that (d)ozens of other geologists with much more time on the Giza Plateau disagree and insist that other erosion processes could account for the weathering patterns observed. Ultimately, Stille faults Schoch for an inability to provide historical data to support his hypothesis, citing the lack of evidence of stone-carved temples or colossal statuary anywhere in the world before Egypt in the third millennium B.C.(E.). One wonders whether Stille is familiar with the review of just such evidence in Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods, among other books.

SCHOR GROUP DENIES CLEARING TUNNEL BENEATH GIZA CAUSEWAY

Unconfirmed reports, on the internet and elswhere, that the Joseph Schor group cleared debris from a tunnel beneath the causeway between the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, during late February have been denied by an official with the Schor group.

Television producer Boris Said told Atlantis Rising that the group has produced evidence from ground penetrating radar of the existence of a tunnel, and has applied for a permit to dig. It remains unclear, whether the Egyptians will allow the Schor group to follow through or if they will do it themselves. Said also says there has been some superficial investigation of Campbell's tomb, near the Sphinx, which is believed to be close to the tunnel. Nothing further on the location is being released at this point.

Filming for a documentary, which it is hoped will reveal, sometime this fall, a secret chamber beneath the paws of the Sphinx, has continued, but no firm commitments have been made as yet.