Update 2 on AUTEC

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Bruce Gernan, co-author of The Fog and our pilot on the trip to Andros, called this afternoon to say he’d read the blog post about the trip and that we might want to update it. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this while we were flying,” he said. “But as we flew over AUTEC on our way out on Sunday, something happened to my radar.”

His radar, he explained, is a moving map GPS, pegged to satellites. It shows land masses, with names. So as we headed north from Andros, the closest islands – Nassau, the Berry Islands and Freeport would show up on the radar. “But as we flew over AUTEC, all the islands in the Bahamas disappeared from the screen.”

“How long did it last?” I asked.

“For the entire trip back to the U.S.”

An hour and 40 minutes. And yet, as we approached Freeport, where we turned east toward Florida, we could see the island through the windows. But the radar couldn’t detect it. “Is the equipment working now?”

“Yeah, I tested it this morning and it’s fine.”

He had lunch today with a couple of other pilots and told them about it. They were floored. “Impossible,” said one. “How do you explain it?”

Bruce shrugged. “I guess it’s just part of what happens in the Bermuda Triangle.”

Posted in AUTEC, bermuda triangle, secret gov | 5 Comments

Maurey and Travel synchronicities

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Trish and Rob

I was reading a few stories on the Facebook synchroncity page this evening when a travel-related one caught my attention. Two women from a small town in Michigan went to Europe one summer. They knew each other, but neither knew the other was taking an overseas trip. So they ran into each other at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Surprise!

That reminded me that, from my own experiences, long-distance travel seems to generate such synchronicities. We are out of our daily routines, encountering new things in new places, and whether we know it or not, we are open to opportunities for meaningful coincidence.

One summer, while in Spain, my traveling partner and I kept running into an Australian named Maurey. It seemed that wherever we went, Maurey would show up. He wasn’t particularly friendly and never seemed surprised when we bumped into him.

After three weeks in Spain, we decided to go to Morocco. We ferried to Ceita and suddenly found ourselves in a culture where we didn’t speak the language, and couldn’t read the signs. We climbed into a bus with gaudy decor among the jalaba-wearing Moroccans. Several were involved in a heated argument near us and the Arabic music was loud and screechy. The bus was hot and dusty and my head was pounding when I noticed two Western men about three rows in front of us.

I tapped my friend on the shoulder. “You’re not going to believe it. There’s Maurey.”

We called out to him. Suddenly, he seemed like a long-lost friend. Maurey and the man next to him turned. To our surprise, Maurey was seated with the only other person we knew from our hometown who was traveling in Europe. But Dave was supposed to be in Sweden. We had no idea he planned to visit Morocco. But there he was…with Maurey.

That synchronicity from many years ago has always amazed me. Does anyone else have memorable travel synchronicities?
Rob

Posted in Maurey, travel | 1 Comment

Secret Base Update

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Trish and Rob

In a post called Secret Base (March 24), we mentioned AUTEC. We’ve added a photo we took of it over the weekend. The place definitely exists, everyone on Andros seems to know about it, but when pressed for details, few are talking!

While we were at the airport waiting for our ride to the hotel, I struck up a conversation with an airport employee who used to work at AUTEC. I asked if she knew anything about ‘The Dome.’ She nodded, glanced around uneasily, and in a soft, conspiratorial tone said, “Only the high commissioned officers are allowed in.”

“But what’s going on in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There are rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?”

And then we were interrupted. Figures, right? Later that night, at one of the local watering holes, we talked to a Bahamian man who is married to an AUTEC employee. They’ve been married for a dozen years and he claims his wife has never talked about her job. He doesn’t have any idea how much money she makes or what, exactly, she does there, except that she’s in “communications,” and has the “highest security clearance possible.”

The next night, at the same place, the wife was there. I spoke to her, said I was setting a novel on Andros and wondered what AUTEC actually is. A kind of force shield of silence surrounded this woman. Her answer? It sounded like it came out of the tourist guidebook: “AUTEC means Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center.”

“But what’s that mean?” I asked.

She shrugged. The shield of silence slammed into place completely.

The US government leases the land from the Bahamian government for a reputed 10 million a year.

– Trish

Posted in AUTEC, bermuda triangle, secret gov | Tagged | 2 Comments

Rainbows and Fog

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s one related to our recent trip to Andros Island in The Bahamas in which Rob was interviewed for the History Channel’s UFO Hunter program. We flew to Andros with Rob’s co-author of THE FOG, Bruce Gernon and his wife, Lynn. The accompanying photo shows Rob (at right) talking with the UFO Hunter cast on the beach.

***
We’ll start in 2004 when Bruce Gernon was en route to North Perry Airport near Fort Lauderdale where he was to meet a pilot of a twin-engine plane who would fly him and a crew from the Discovery Channel to Andros Island. It would be the first time in more than 30 years that Bruce would be returning to the site of his mysterious experience in the Bermuda Triangle.

A rain shower had just ended and the sun was out. As Bruce drove south from West Palm Beach, he noticed a rainbow. He moved beyond it, then noticed another one, and after that another. Altogether, he saw five rainbows in his journey of approximately 30 miles. The astonishing thing was that the last rainbow arced right onto the tarmac at North Perry Airport and the rainbow actually ended on top of the aircraft that Bruce and the TV crew would take to Andros.

He was the first one to arrive, and managed to take a photo of the rainbow ending on the plane and later gave the photo to the pilot. At that point, he knew it was going to be a good trip.

Skip ahead five years and we are approaching Andros for the interviews. As we descended through the area a few miles off shore where Bruce’s incident had begun, the aqua water below us seemed to glow and suddenly for nearly a minute it appeared as if the plane was surrounded by a neon haze. Then we reached the shore, moved into clear weather, and landed without incident.

This morning we awoke to a synchronicity. After spending the previous day talking about the Bermuda Triangle, Bruce’s experience, and THE FOG, we looked out the window of the hotel at 7 a.m. to find that we were socked in by what else…fog. Bruce checked the weather and found out that there was also heavy fog at the airport in West Palm Beach at the other end of our return flight. As our driver, a native of Andros, took us to the airport, he mentioned that it was very unusual to see fog here, but he didn’t think it would last.

We waited at the airport until 10 a.m. and finally took off as the fog was retreating and arrived back in West Palm under partly cloudy skies. Once again, we’d survived the Bermuda Triangle!

Posted in AUTEC, bermuda triangle, secret gov | Leave a comment

Golden Scarab

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Trish and Rob

The next story needs a little background.

Carl Jung’s investigation of synchronicity was triggered by a patient’s dream, in which she was given a golden scarab. Jung knew the scarab is a symbol of rebirth in Egyptian mythology and believed the dream might portend some sort of psychological rebirth that would pull her out of the excessive rationalism that had impeded her treatment. As he was about to say as much, he heard a noise behind him and glanced around to see an insect fluttering at the glass. He opened the window to let the bug in, caught it, and discovered it was the closest thing his area had to a scarab beetle. Jung then shared his interpretation of the dream and from that point forward, the stunned patient started to improve.

Now skip ahead many decades. One night I Googled physicist and author F David Peat, whose book, Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind – is one of my favorites. I found his website – Pari Center on Learning, located in Italy – and discovered he was going to be teaching a workshop this summer on synchronicity. I requested information on it and explained that we were writing a book on the topic and felt the workshop would be a terrific opportunity to expand our knowledge. His story about a scarab was in one of our email exchanges and he gave us permission to use it. He subsequently allowed us to use another one of his great synchronicity stories: Jung, Pauli, and Peat

Trish
***

I did experience something curious in 1994, the year we came to Italy.Its a complicated story but in our move from Ottawa to London we had three months to kill and decided to spend them in Siena. A travel agent arranged a flat in Siena and the day we left for the airport told us it had falled through but she had got us a bedroom in someone’s house – but it was outside Siena.

The accommodation was less than ideal and we went to all the agencies in Siena but it was the month of the Palio, filled with tourists, plus students at all the language schools. We had visited the last agency on the list and considered that maybe we should go to Portugal instead. Then I noticed a plaque on a wall in the corner of the square – maybe it was an agency not on the list? I walked to the door but was stopped by a group of people speaking German and looking down at the
floor.

It was a golden scarab! I said to my wife. “Now, we’ll get something.”

But it was the same story. However, on the way out, the secretary said that her friend had a house for sale in a hilltop village 30 km south of Siena. Maybe she would agree to rent it to us.And so we came to Pari, a year later we returned and we’ve been here every since.

I often thought that I was made to come here, that the village wanted us to be here and called us.
+++
David Peat also contributed another synchronicity to the blog:
https://ofscarabs.blogspot.com/2009/05/jung-pauli-and-peat.html

Posted in animals, c2, Jung, Peat, scarabs, science | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The Butterfly Effect

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Hazel from Toronto- the Clever Pup blog – sends this synchronicity that happened to her mother. It really illustrates how closely we are all connected – The Butterfly Effect!
**

One of the best synchronicity stories happened to my mother. I was there for part of it.

I’ll work it backwards.

My Mum and Dad were English but had immigrated to Canada in 1956. My Mum and I went back to England for Christmas 1973. I was 11. My grandfather and grandmother were good lawn bowlers and Mum & I went to their indoor green and had a Christmas tea at their club. One of the club members came up to my mother almost immediately and said, “You’re Joan Smith, aren’t you?” My mother said yes, half-expecting that this lady had been briefed by my grandparents.

It turned out, however, that this woman’s cousin had visited Canada in 1965. The cousin somehow ended up visiting at the house immediately next to my parents in the small town of less than 5,000 people where I grew up. My parents and the next door neighbors celebrated Christmas together, along with this visiting cousin who was a friend of a friend of a friend. Pictures were taken.

So this woman at the bowling club in England had seen a photograph of my mother and her cousin at a Christmas dinner in 1965, recognized her AND remembered her name 8 years later. That was so weird. I remember my mother actually being in a bit of a panic about the coincidence, it was just so unfathomable.

I even think she had the photo in her purse.

https://the-clever-pup.blogspot.com/

Posted in family, mothers | Leave a comment

Is Timing Everything?

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Trish and Rob

This story comes from Connie Cannon, whose life seems to be filled with synchronicities. She’s not sure what the message is – neither am I! – but the juxtaposition is strange. If anyone has any insights into these numbers and times, please post them!
Trish

Connie’s husband will be having major surgery at 11 AM on 5/5 in Jacksonville, Florida. Her grandson will be having a chemical echocardiogram at 11AM on 5-5 in Palm Coast, Florida. Her sister-in-law will be having open-heart surgery to replace her aortic valve at 11 AM on 5-5 in Atlanta.

Posted in timing | 4 Comments

Chicago Breakfast Bum

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s another one from Max, a proverbial fountain of synchronicity. He also contributed Dominoes, The Little Prince and The Magic Teapots. The following story took place in January 2007, a few months after the teapot story, which all his fellow workers had heard about. But we’ll let Max tell it.
***

I was in Chicago with the rest of my department. The last morning, a handful of us went out seeking some breakfast. We didn’t know where to go – the owner of the company had told us we should check out some place right by the hotel, but none of us could remember the name in our hung-over states.

So I decided that we should just head out walking in a randomized direction – determined by having a coworker who was not coming with point in a direction of his choosing. He pointed, and that’s the way we walked off, with all of our bags in tow (we had 2 to 3 hours before the train departed), all smiles and openness to whatever goodness the universe and Chicago wanted to float our way.

After a couple blocks it was clear that whatever the cafe the owner had suggested was, it wasn’t this way. We pressed on, hoping for something good to happen. We passed a McDonald’s on Chicago Ave, we voted it down. Eww.

Just then a ragged guy approached me and introduced himself – he was Andre, and homeless. I tend to give anyone who asks for money whatever change I have on me at the time, so I reached into my coat pocket and found that I had a fistful of quarters, which I gave him. He thanked me and we continued on.

A block or two later, we turned onto State Street, and saw a small place called Deangelos Deli. My co-workers were losing faith in finding a good place to eat in this random manner, so we opted to just try the deli. Maybe it would be great .. although it really didn’t look promising.

As we crossed the street and started walking through the door, I heard Andre the homeless guy urgently shouting behind me – “Hey! Hey!!”

I waited for him to catch up as the others went inside.

Andre shook my hand again, and then said “I apologize. What are you guys looking for?” I told him we were going to get some breakfast.

“Oh no, no – don’t eat here – this place is always in the paper, it’s nasty,” he exclaimed.

“Do you have someplace else in mind?” I asked. Andre said he did. Not worried about it but doing the motions of caution, I asked him where the place he had in mind was (I didn’t want us to be led down an alley and robbed). But he assured me that it was just a couple blocks ahead on the street we were on – he said he could see the sign from where he stood.

The others were inside looking at the menu behind the deli counter, but no one had ordered anything yet, so I banged on the glass and beckoned everyone back out. When they emerged I told them that we were following Andre, who knew of a better place to eat.

While we walked, Andre explained to us that the deli we’d almost eaten at was ‘always in the paper’ – for failed health code inspections. (Apparently in Chicago regular surprise health inspections are a really big deal – https://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-dirty-diningoct09,0,2423980.story)

So we walked down the road – and it quickly became apparent that the place Andre was bringing us to was in fact ‘Tempo’ – the very cafe that we had been hoping to stumble across in the first place.

My coworkers were amazed – I just had to smile and say – “See? Teapots!”

We ‘tipped” Andre handsomely for his help, and went inside. The food was excellent, and we were grateful we hadn’t settled for the questionable deli.

After breakfast was done we went up to the counter to pay. The guy working the register was beaming and chatty – super happy. It turned out he was the owner of Tempo.

Some other guy was hanging a piece of paper up on the wall next to the register, behind him – and I was delighted to discover that the synchronicity wasn’t over yet – the reason the owner was so happy was because Tempo had just passed their annual surprise health inspection, while we’d been eating. The paper being hung up as we watched was the certificate from the Chicago health department.
***
Max also contributed Dominoes.
https://teapotshappen.wordpress.com/about/

Posted in max, travel | Leave a comment

Rongo-Rongo Synchronicity

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s one that Dale Dassel sent a couple of days ago. By way of introduction, Dale is Indiana Jones fan #001.
***

Last night I logged onto Wikipedia to do some research for my story, and there was an article on the decipherment of the Easter Island Rongo-Rongo script, which immediately reminded me of the novel Indiana Jones and the Interior World. As I read the article, I decided that I wanted to reread the novel this weekend. I took the book from my shelf and flipped open the cover. I read the preface, and then turned it over to read the author’s inscription written for me several years ago. Here is the synchronicity: The date of the inscription: 4/5/04 – which also happens to be today’s date! Plus five years.

But here’s what makes it a double synchronicity. The author of the novel, Rob MacGregor, is the same one runs this synchronicity blog, along with his wife, novelist T.J. MacGregor. How cool is that?

Posted in books, Indiana Jones | Leave a comment

Synchronicity Radio

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a radio show out of Vancouver that’s called Synchronicity – https://spiritualshow.blogspot.com

Also, F. David Peat, who wrote Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind, one of the seminal books about the topic, is conducting a workshop about synchronicity in Italy in May. Check out his site on the right, under “websites of interest.”

Posted in Peat, radio | Leave a comment