John Ratcliff's Weblog

What a nice bit of synchronicity this morning.  You may recall my favorite crazy guy in the bloggosphere, Eric Dubay .  A couple of months ago he wrote the most hysterically funny piece ever about Freemasons and UFOs .  As coincidence would have it I happen to be a Freemason who is 'in to' UFOs so, as always, life imitates art.  Anyone who has followed my UFO rants over the years knows by now that I am very anti-UFO and pro-Humanity.  I suppose I'm not towing the party line. Just today Eric posted links to two YouTube videos that someone created based on his original posting.  I don't know if the person who made the YouTube videos is making fun of Eric or not (I think he probably is) but either way it is terribly entertaining. Please enjoy. Here are the links to the two vidoes. Freemasons and UFOs part 1 Freemasons and UFOs part 2  

I used to be ‘in to’ UFOs a long time ago.   Back in the early 1990’s when I would frequent the Encounters forum on Compuserve.   I even managed to become involved in a little bit of UFO lore when Ray Santilli faxed alleged film segments from his infamous Alien Autopsy film to me.   This particular bit of UFO mythology today has become a well documented hoax, in large part due to the excellent research by Phillip Mantle .   Like most in the field I lost interest in UFOs because it seemed that nothing new was going on.   What point is there to read yet another UFO book or follow yet another sighting report?   And, the reports of alien abductees became like trying to glean meaning out of somebody else telling you about their dream or LSD drug trip. My attitude on the topic was that I was interested, but only up to a point.   Something ‘new’ would have to happen to get me interested in the topic again.   This evening I find myself newly interested in the topic but, surprisingly, i...

The video posted above is truly sad. What is going on in our culture such that people who convince themselves that they are hearing voices in their head are treated as prophets and enlightened individuals? Have we reached such a degree of absurdity that when someone claims to be hearing voices in their head we don't treat this as a sign of possible mental illness? Poor Blossom Goodchild is a 'channeler' who claimed to have heard voices in her head and these voices told her that a giant UFO was going to fly overhead to prove the reality of the 'Galactic Federation of Light'. A number of things about this are shocking to me. First of all, why did poor Blossom not seek professional help when this happened? Why would she choose to literally believe the voices she heard in her head? This simply boggles my mind. Let me assure you that if I start hearing voices in my head I will make a bee-line straight to the nearest psychiatric professional to help me understand thi...

This past week was a disturbing one in the McCain / Palin campaign for presidency. In the first time in American history a Presidential candidate should be investigated by the Secret Service for inciting mobs into threats of violence against a fellow candidate for the Presidency. Earlier this week, amid questions by Sarah Palin about just who is this 'Barack Hussein Obama' she continued by accusing him of being in league with terrorists. As the rowdy crowds reacted to this irresponsible rhetoric, prompting shouts of death threats which arose from the crowd, a growing concern was voiced within the Secret Service about how to deal with this crisis. It is a strange development indeed that in the United States of America we are faced with having to use the secret service to protect one Presidential candidate from the virulent attacks of another. Just this weekend I read an editorial in my own local newspaper which questioned why Obama's association with certain indviduals was...

I haven't really made any kind of a personal post in a long time. The reason for this is because my father passed away a few weeks ago and I just couldn't bring myself to post about much of anything. It was no surprise that my father passed away, he has been dying of cancer for two and a half years. When he first learned he had cancer he was told it was already stage four cancer in his colon and liver and was given less than six months to live. Dad went into quite a panic and was scheduled for emergency surgery right away. Dad really wanted to get his affairs in order because he was worried he might, perhaps, not live through the surgery. In a short few days I bought some property from my Dad so he would have the money he felt he needed to settle his affairs. I also signed a power of attorney and did my best to support him during his hospital stay. Dad didn't really handle the whole prospect of his mortality very well. I thought it a little bit strange since Dad had...

As I said in a recent post, I try not to be particularily political with this blog. Nevertheless, I am fond of political humour. I had an interesting experience this week. On Saturday I watched the great skit on Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The thing is, I had seen nothing of the Palin-Couric interview before I saw the Tina Fey skit; so I just enjoyed it as a bit of satire. I have to say, it was incredible to see the real interview *after* having seen the satire! Oh, my, it was like watching Palin imitate Fey! I had no idea how dead on Tina Fey was being until I saw the real train wreck! At any rate, please click on the image above, or use the following link to see another great piece of satire. A fictional Palin 'facebook page'. Very funny as well. A couple of additional YouTube videos after my original post. Having reviewed this whole Palin situation I have come to the firm conclusion that John McCain is absolutely going to lose this election ...