I just finished reading an astonishing and remarkable book, The Day After Roswell. Written by Col. Philip J. Corso, a retired US Army officer about his own experiences with the Roswell incident and its aftermath, this book is a readable “inside” account. On July 1, 1947, an alien spacecraft crashed into the New Mexico desert outside Roswell, New Mexico. US Army personnel from nearby 509th airfield retrieved the debris as well as the bodies of small alien creatures.

Within hours the military hierarchy began coverup stories of what had happened and what had actually been retrieved in the desert. That cover up has been accepted and believed to this day. A few people who knew the story have begun to relate their memories as they grow older, before they die. Such is the case with this book. Corso wrote these memoirs in 1996, and died within a year of its publication.

I don’t think anybody today actually believes the cover stories initially provided by the military, but there is still tons of speculation of what actually was found in 1947. And of course, the implications of that find are still being debated. So much disinformation has arisen that it is very difficult to sort out fact from speculation.

With his book Corso provided a huge aid to this dilemma. While he was not in New Mexico in 1947, he encountered bits and pieces of the story over his years in military intelligence. His biggest contribution to the facts of the story come from a couple years in the early 1960’s when he was stationed in the Pentagon in the R & D department under the authority of Lt. General Arthur Trudeau. Trudeau gave Corso a file cabinet which had been neglected for years. Inside this were files about the Roswell incident, and a few pieces of debris which had been recovered from the site.

What Corso was instructed to do was to research this information and to develop as much as could be gleaned for purposes of the US Army. What Corso did in most cases was to feed information into streams of R & D already occurring in order to speed up development of weapons and defense mechanisms. What resulted from this work, largely done behind the scenes, were huge leaps in the development of transistors, integrated circuits, night-vision goggles, bullet-proof material (like Kevlar), laser beams, particle-beam weapons, etc.

Along the way reading about all of this, we get a glimpse into some behind-the-scenes workings of the cold war environment in the US military. There were constant tug-of-war struggles occurring between Russia and the US. The CIA and KGB spy agencies had infiltrated each other to the extent that military higher ups would not trust their own intelligence agents. This resulted in much secrecy within various agencies within their own governments. Even the four branches of the US military would not trust one another, and kept many secrets from each other, while trying to ferret out secrets from the other branches.

Today this sounds like pure insanity. But while Corso is telling his story, it becomes clearer what the atmosphere was like through the 1950’s and 60’s. Much of the insanity of the cold war rhetoric becomes easier to understand when seen in context.

One thing which became clearer to me, something I had not been very aware of at all, was that throughout the cold war, an underlying agenda behind the arms race, the space race, the intelligence race, between Russia and the US, was their common need for defenses from alien attacks from outer space. Neither country knew exactly how much the other knew about the EBE’s (the term Corso uses for the alien creatures) and their advanced technology. Each country was afraid that the other would gain a technological advantage, and that the alien societies would see the other one as the superior power and would therefore negotiate with them rather than their own country when it came to contact and use of the Earth as a planet of interest.

Therefore, when developing weapons using the Roswell technology, always in the background was how this particular device could help in defense against EBE’s. Of course none of this could be stated publicly. When appealing for budgets from the civilian government, they had to be very circumspect when stating their arguments. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy knew fully about alien encounters and some of the technology being gleaned. But publicly, of course, they had to be careful what they said or implied.

Corso’s opinion, after retiring from the military, is that the US development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars” in popular perspective) under President Reagan allowed both the US and the Soviet Union to end the cold war. The SDI had implemented sufficiently advanced technology to counter the perceived threat from EBE’s. Therefore both countries could relax a bit in the race between them in areas of arms and space exploration.

I highly recommend this book! It is written with enough tech information to satisfy curiosity, but not so much as to be unreadable. I found it a very readable account of an aspect of society still largely in the shadows. The fact that it parallels my own life span makes it even more compelling. I was born within a year of the Roswell incident! All of the stuff Corso writes about has occurred within my lifetime. Having grown up in the US it helps explain a whole lot of stuff I never knew about. It broadens the perspective of my own experience.

Wow! I hardly know where to begin! The book, Millennial Hospitality, is an astounding story! Written by former US Airforce weather observer Charles James Hall, it details his few years spent at the USAF Desert Center Air Base in Nevada.

During his time there in the 1960’s he encountered extraterrestrial beings who were using the Nevada desert as a base, coming and going on a regular basis. But he was not told initially that he would encounter these beings. He found out only by hearsay that former weather observers stationed there had had terrifying encounters with something out on the ranges where they had to go to make their weather observations.

A long time after his years out there in the desert, the author began to record his experiences. He mainly was doing this to provide an account for his own children. When his wife discovered that he was writing these stories down, and began reading them, she insisted that he get them published. The couple decided to self-publish these stories. So far they have five books printed.

These stories are well-told; they are gripping accounts of the initial terror he experienced when encountering the unknown. They are written in very simple language. Reading them is like reading perhaps junior-high level writing. But they are entirely gripping stories, well-worth reading. The only criticism I have is that they are a bit hard to access. My local library had no copies. I had to order this first book online; I will order subsequent books as I finish them.

I heard about these books from an interview the author had on the Coast to Coast AM radio program. George Noory, the host of this overnight program, had also enlisted a person who specialized in debunking alien encounter stories. After the interview with Charles Hall, she said he was entirely authentic. There was nothing in his story which caused her to doubt him.

This first book is published as fiction. After hearing the interview with him, and the subsequent discussion, this surprised me a bit. But I suppose he might have to pose these stories as fiction in order to evade security concerns, I don’t know. He stated that he had received no restrictions on writing down what he experienced at Desert Center. Nothing he learned was classified in any way. I guess publishing them as fiction also allows readers to just enjoy the stories for what they are, and not have to try and get their heads around what incredible accounts these are.

This first book details his growing exposure to these alien creatures. At first he refused to believe what he was experiencing. He was somewhat terrified by these encounters as had been his predecessors. He kept putting them off as mental apparitions. “I’m just seeing things out in the desert in the middle of the night.” But the longer he was there, the more he began to realize that there was something very real about these beings.

Because he treated these visions as not real, and didn’t freak out about them, he had more of them, over a longer time period, than had his predecessors. And the fact that he did not overreact, or try to attack the aliens, they began to respect him and their encounters with him. He began to get orders from the Pentagon in Washington to allow these encounters. Apparently these beings had reasons for wanting human encounters. And they had agreements with high-level military regarding these.

Because this first book deals only with the very initial encounters, I am very anxious to read more. I know from his interview that he discovered a whole lot of interesting things about how these aliens live, how their societies are structured, family dynamics, and so on.

This is certainly the most detailed account I have encountered about alien beings. I have absolutely no trouble believing they are among us. I am fascinated in discovering details about them, and want to know more!!

I highly recommend these books to anyone with similar curiosity.

My goodness!! Went to hear this little Texas girl with the big voice the other night. I have heard her gospel/blues renditions three or four times in the past few years. And every time is awesome! Ruthie has such a big, big voice I can hardly believe it every time I hear her. As my wife says, it’s like her voice comes right up out of the earth and exits through her mouth.

She ended her concert the other night with a long-time favourite, “Death Came Knockin'”. The chorus of this song is, “Hallelujah! Done, done my duty!” Sounds to me like an acknowledgement of someone who has come to earth to accomplish certain things, and is aware of that fact. When it comes time to die, they just buckle up their shoes and get on with it! I done, done my duty. I have accomplished what I came here to do. Hallelujah! I can let go of this life, and get back to my natural home.

I love the concept! That is certainly how I view life, our earthly life. We come here to do some thing, some task. When it is done we can be released of this life, strip off this body like a wetsuit, and return to where we belong.

And Ruthie Foster captures that idea in her signature song.

I urge anyone reading this: if you ever have a chance to go see this woman in person, do it! Do not hesitate for a moment! She is worth hearing, especially in person. She is an amazing presence on stage. Her voice is unparalleled. Truly entertaining!

Efforts have been made by scholars for over two millennia to pare away the pious stuff in the Bible and get at the true nature and life of Jesus. This author makes yet one more try at doing that. And does a credible job, one which is an entertaining read.

Zealot: the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan, 2013, is the full name of the book and author.

One of the ways in which Aslan makes the book quite readable is to not footnote everything. He then has a copious notes section at the back of the book which those interested readers can check for sources, other viewpoints, or for further research. Indeed, his book seems extremely well researched. He seems to have taken into account many divergent viewpoints in coming up with his own version of events.

I greatly appreciated this feature of the book (no footnotes), although I must not have paid much attention when beginning to read. I was caught by surprise at the extensive notes! 54 pages worth! But it certainly made the book a more flowing read; it was quite a pleasure, actually.

I certainly did not find myself agreeing with all of Aslan’s points. Thinking back over the book, I would say the point I most strongly disagreed with is that of Jesus being a mostly poor, likely illiterate, peasant labourer from Nazareth. From things I have been reading more recently the picture is emerging of Jesus being fairly well-educated, learning from scholars in Egypt, perhaps India, including Greek and Hebrew scholars closer to home. Being a carpenter, Joseph likely was fairly well-to-do for his place and time.

But there was much, much to like in this book. (And I must say that I don’t read only books that I agree with!!!) One is the overall picture of life in first-century Palestine. The author lays out in very readable, entertaining ways the multitude of forces at work at that time. It certainly gives me a much clearer idea of what life was like for Jesus when he was growing up, and for the people around him.

Another feature of the book I appreciated was the image of James the Just, brother of Jesus. James became leader of the believers in Jerusalem. He was killed around 62 C.E., for disputes with the priestly rulers of the temple. James very much seems to have carried on Jesus’ message and been an able leader of the earliest church.

He also is the most likely author of the epistle of James in the Bible. Reza Aslan says, “That would make James’s epistle arguably one of the most important books in the New Testament. Because one sure way of uncovering what Jesus may have believed is to determine what his brother James believed.” (p 204). Some points where Jesus and his brother agree is, 1) the “. . . passionate concern with the plight of the poor”, in James’s epistle. 2) Another point is James’s “. . . bitter condemnation of the rich.” (p 204). 3) Jesus and James also seem to be “. . . in agreement [over] the role and application of the Law of Moses.” (p 205). “The primary concern of James’s epistle is over how to maintain the proper balance between devotion to the Torah and faith in Jesus as messiah.” (p 206).

While Peter is often held up as the primary leader of the first Church, James almost certainly deserves that title. There is no evidence of Peter ever being a leader of the Church in Jerusalem. It was not until after his move to Rome that Peter became recognized as a Church leader. So, while James was the leader in Jerusalem, Peter was becoming the leader in Rome. Of course, once Jerusalem was destroyed and its inhabitants scattered, James’ role, and that of his successors, diminished, and Rome gradually came to be seen as the center of the Church.

Fascinating stuff! As I said above, an articulate picture of the earliest days of the Church emerged from reading this book.

One of the most powerful moments for me in reading this book came in the Author’s Note at the beginning. Reza Aslan explains how he found Jesus as his Saviour at the age of 15. Born into a lukewarm Muslim home in California after being displaced from their native Iran,

“. . . our lives were scrubbed of all trace of God. That was just fine with me. After all, in the America of the 1980’s being Muslim was like being from Mars. My faith was a bruise, the most obvious symbol of my otherness; it needed to be concealed.

Jesus, on the other hand, was America. He was the central figure in America’s national drama. Accepting him into my heart was as close as I could get to feeling truly American. (p xviii).

He became very evangelical and fervent in his new-found faith. In college, however, as happens to so many of us, he began to have doubts about the biblical account. Initially, “. . . like many people in my situation, I angrily discarded my faith as if it were a costly forgery I had been duped into buying.” (p xix). As he continued academic work in religious studies he found himself increasingly drawn to the life of the historical Jesus. So now, in addition to discovering some life in the Muslim faith of his forefathers, he also finds himself fascinated with the life of Jesus. “. . . two decades of rigorous academic research into the origins of Christianity has made me a more genuinely committed disciple of Jesus of Nazareth than I ever was of Jesus Christ. My hope with this book is to spread the good news of the Jesus of history with the same fervor that I once applied to spreading the story of the Christ.”     (p xx).

What really touched me in his Note was that Reza Aslan travelled such a similar path to my own. The only difference is that what took him probably five years or less, has taken me four decades to realize! Along with Aslan I find myself increasingly questioning the biblical stories and more and more attempting to model my spiritual life on that of Jesus himself. Jesus is worthy of following; the Church’s portrayal of him not so much.

I encourage anyone interested in the earliest bases of the Christian faith to read this book. It is certainly enlightening.

I just finished reading a most remarkable story. It is published under the title, A House in the Sky. Written by Amanda Lindhout, it is her story of being held hostage for over a year in Somalia.

Amanda grew up in Alberta, so it adds interest to read about landmarks with which I am familiar. And the story is incredibly well-written. It is a fabulous job of storytelling. It reads like a suspense novel; so much so that at times it was difficult to believe that someone actually underwent the horrendous experiences being related.

Amanda does not dwell on the horror; she rather allows the reader to experience it from a distance. In fact, the means Amanda used to retain her sanity and her spirit is demonstrated by the book’s title. She was able to build a “house in the sky” in her mind, one attempt at maintaining her will to live and her incredible spirit. Though she understandably considered suicide while in the depths of the brutality, she was able to develop the ability to remove her mind from the horrors of her situation and maintain some semblance of sanity and psychological health.

And the book is not at all bleak or only dark. The first half of the book deals with her craving to travel and experience the world. She grew up in a very dysfunctional family, but came out of that environment with a zest for life. She wanted to experience the wider world, and set about to do that. She would waitress in high-end bars and restaurants, earning high tips, which she diligently saved for her travels. While working she would research places to go, and gather her travel resources.

Then she would quit her job, and go! After a few years of this she began to develop her skills for writing and photographing her travels, selling her stories freelance. This is what eventually took her to Somalia. She and another journalist were kidnapped and held for over 400 days, beaten, tortured, treated very brutally by Muslim extremists.

And most incredibly, Amanda came out of this experience with her spirit whole. In fact, she has established an organization to help educate women and children in Africa, and returns there frequently to oversee this effort. I was quite blown away by how mentally healthy she was after coming through this absolutely horrific experience.

I highly recommend this book. Read it and be encouraged by the strength of the human spirit! This book is a real page-turner, holding the reader’s interest right through to the end.

I recently finished reading a book by Shirley MacLaine, called, What If . . . : A Lifetime of Questions, Speculations, Reasonable Guesses, and a Few Things I Know for Sure. I found this to be a delightful read. Fairly light, compared to lots of what I read. But Ms MacLaine asks a lot of the same questions I live with. And speculates on a lot of the same things I do.

Shirley MacLaine muses on a broad spectrum of topics. From her career in Hollywood to celebrities she has known, politics to the mundanities of life, from religion to spirituality, she asks “what if . . .” She is non-judgmental, light-hearted, irreverent at times, thought-provoking.

I quite enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone wanting a lighter look at what this world and life are all about.

It was with tremendous fascination that I read Dr Raymond Moody’s first book, Life After Life, stories of near-death-experiences (NDE’s). Published in the mid-seventies, this book was absolutely ground-breaking, in society, but also in my own life. It started me down the path to exploring the truths about the afterlife. These initial (for me) truths were provided by those who had experienced death and come back to tell about it. Dr Moody had documented hundreds, if not thousands, of peoples’ NDE’s. The utter consistency of these experiences was compelling. I had no doubt whatsoever about the veracity of their reports. Thus began a life-long interest in NDE’s. Although I would not describe myself as obsessed with these accounts, I did avidly read them whenever I encountered them.

So when I heard about a subsequent book written by Raymond Moody, I had to check it out! His new book, Glimpses of Eternity: Sharing a Loved One’s Passage from this Life to the Next, 2010, narrows its vision to one aspect of NDE’s, people who experience part of someone else’s NDE. Almost always this is a loved one accompanying the person who is dying. As the person’s body expires, sometimes there are mystical elements associated with this transition.

Again, as with his first book, Dr Moody is collecting stories of what he has come to call “shared death experiences”. And he documents the common elements of these experiences. No one person has experienced all seven of the common elements,           but “. . . a person having a shared death experience will most likely have a few of them–or perhaps even only one.” (p 76).

These seven elements are: change of geometry, mystical light, music and music sounds, out-of-body experience, co-living a life review, encountering unworldly or “heavenly” realms, mist at death. Moody expands on each of these, sharing many stories of people who experienced these various things.

In addition to telling many stories of shared death experiences, Moody also discusses this phenomenon in historical literature. He supposes these experiences (including NDE’s) have occurred all through history, but only recently has there been an effort to document them in any sort of systematic way.

One fascinating conclusion Dr Moody has come to through this study of shared death experiences is that they offer much more concrete proof of an afterlife than do NDE’s. There were many who, upon being exposed to the phenomena of NDE’s, were quick to explain them away as “. . . hallucinations, a phenomenon tossed up by biochemical and electrical failures in the dying brain.” (p 72). He discusses this as a safety net for those unable to accept something so radically different from their accepted belief system.

“However, shared death experiences do not offer any such safety net. . . . these people were not dying or even sick, an obvious fact that throws a major monkey wrench into the standard way of debating this highly important issue.” (p 72,73). In addition, NDE’s could be explained away as being one person’s experience, and thus subjective. Shared death experiences, on the other hand, were shared experiences, and not so easily shuffled aside.

Moody admits to being mystified by these experiences he has collected and documented. “There is no settled language to explain these experiences. But nonetheless they exist. It is as if the other side somehow opens up and invites us to take a closer look.” (p 73). Being mystified is not a negative, in Moody’s eyes. “I think it is good for mankind to have a hearty dose of the unexplained.” (p 165). These experiences are life-changing for those who undergo them. And while there is an inbuilt mechanism demanding explanations, it is good for us to have mystery in our lives. “We are a long way from explaining shared death experiences, a lack of explanation that I find a good thing. What the world needs now is an unexplainable mystery, one that offers great hope.” (p 166).

This mystery encourages us to surrender ourselves to the ineffable. Moody quotes Joseph Campbell, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” (p 164). And Carl Jung, “The seat of faith . . . is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual’s faith into immediate relation with God.” (p 165).

This is a fascinating little book, worth a read by anyone even remotely interested in the afterlife, the spiritual dimension to which we all are heading sooner or later!

This is the third in a series of books written by Kimberly Klein. The first, Hummingbirds Don’t Fly in the Rain, was reviewed by me some months ago. I would recommend anyone interested in these books to read Hummingbirds. . . . first. It tells the story which sets up the following two books, The Universe Speaks, books one and two.

The Universe Speaks are transcriptions of the messages received from Talia, a 13 year-old girl who died in an airplane crash December, 2007. After she died she began contacting her mother, the author, and others, most notably “G”, a family friend who began hearing from Talia in very clear communications.

The messages from heaven contained in these two volumes are profound, reassuring, healing, and utterly fascinating. They are reassuring to anyone doubting the reality of the afterlife. Talia removes all doubt about that little detail!!

They are healing in the sense that Talia shares some of what her life over there is like. She is very busy, all the time. She is hard at work preparing people on earth for an understanding of their eternal nature. She works at helping earthlings understand how they can help others toward new consciousness. It sparks my confidence to think that heaven and its occupants are working very diligently to help us here on earth grow spiritually, assisting the transition of earth to a higher consciousness.

From my own understanding of the Spirit realms, Talia must have been a very advanced soul prior to coming to earth as Kimberly’s daughter. She was able to contact her earthbound family and friends very shortly after her death. And she was able to do this over a long period of time, very consistently, as recorded in these books.

The things learned from Talia’s communications are profound. There is so much about God and the heavenly realms which we do not understand. To hear Talia speak matter-of-factly about these realms makes it seem real and concrete.

Although Talia did not grow up in a religious home, her language is permeated with religious concepts and language. There is nothing in the things she says which disagrees with the Christian writings, the Bible. If anything they are affirming of the biblical writings, expanding on them to be sure, and making them seem very concrete.

I read a fair amount of spiritualistic writings. I have also had personal out-of-body experiences of the Spirit dimension. It is continually amazing to me (though it shouldn’t be, I guess!) how consistent all these messages are. Hearing the same things over and over, from diverse and numerous sources, makes these truths that much more real, lends them validity and credence.

One caution to potential readers: these books are quite spiritually profound and deep. Not everyone will be able to understand or accept the things presented in them. If you find that to be the case, then just chalk it up to something like perhaps you are not ready for these books. Or perhaps not ready to hear the truths being presented in them. Do not be judgemental toward those who are, and especially to those who go to the work of sharing these truths with the rest of us.

I am so thankful to Kimberly Klein for giving the world access to the personally painful experience of losing her daughter in the flesh, and then regaining access to her in the spirit. There is so much to learn from these communications.

Man, I just finished a most interesting book! This is a bit outside the usual subject matter on Urban Monk, but I have to post something anyway!

Roger Wiens is a cousin, related both to my wife and to myself. He is a scientist working for NASA in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This book details his involvement with developing one of the instruments on the Curiosity rover currently exploring our neighbouring planet Mars.

Attending family reunions over the years I always viewed the two Wiens boys from Minnesota as really, really bright kids. They both ended up with PhD’s, experts in their own fields. I particularly remember one reunion in the nineties where either Doug or Roger gave a talk on ways in which science and the Bible agree, and that we don’t have to divide ourselves into camps on one side or the other. In the setting of fundamentalist mindsets of many of those present I always viewed this as a tremendously courageous talk! I was proud to be related to these brilliant people. But I had no idea of the extent of their work.

Until the last few years. A couple years ago we were alerted to a television appearance by Doug, an earthquake expert, following the devastating Japan earthquake. And now this book, detailing Roger’s work in space exploration.

The book reads like an adventure novel! It is very well written, surprisingly so for someone as highly educated as Roger Wiens! (Sorry, Roger!!) It is an articulate telling of the compelling story of one particular aspect of the Mars rover story. Roger was in charge of an instrument called ChemCam which uses lasers to analyze the composition of rocks and soil on the Mars surface. All of the gritty details of their problems, failures, disappointments, getting cancelled at one point, and successes, are told in a very entertaining way. It is a real page turner, for sure!

Even if the reader is not in the least interested in space exploration, it is a very good read. And for me, who has always been interested in space, flight, the cosmos, etc, I could hardly put the book down!

Check it out! Red Rover, by Roger Wiens. You will not be disappointed.