Welcome to our 48th edition of the World Tonight newsletter dedicated to '2001: A Space Odyssey', space exploration and the unknown. This has been a very good year of prophecies. Arthur C. Clarke's "Odyssey Two" has become true to a degree regarding the spots that appeared on Jupiter. Even Richard Hoagland, founder of The Enterprise Mission and former science advisor to CBS News and Walter Cronkite, mentions how 2010 has become a reality to his alternative views:

http://www.enterprisemission.com/NukingJupiter.html

To find out more about what the scientific community thinks about the spots:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/jupiter_dark_spot_031023.html
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2003/11/17.html#spot

HAL 9000 discovers the black spot on Jupiter:

"Fifteen minutes to ignition. All systems nominal."
"Thank you, Hal."
"By the way," said Vasili, from the other ship. "We're catching up with the Great Black Spot again. Wonder if we can see anything new."
"By the way," said Vasili, from the other ship. "We're catching up with the Great Black Spot again. Wonder if we can see anything new."
I rather hope not, thought Curnow; we've quite enough on our hands at the moment. Nevertheless, he gave a quick glance at the image Vasili was transmitting on the telescope monitor. At first he could see nothing except the faintly glimmering nightside of the planet; then he saw, on the horizon, a foreshortened circle of deeper darkness. They were rushing toward it with incredible speed.
Vasili increased the light amplification, and the entire image brightened magically. At last, the Great Black Spot resolved itself into its myriad identical elements…
My God, thought Curnow, I just don't believe it!
He heard exclamations of surprise from Leonov: all the others had share in the same revelation at the same moment.
"Dr. Chandra," said Hal, "I detect strong vocal stress patterns. Is there a problem?"
"No, Hal," Chandra answered quickly. "The mission is proceeding normally. We've just had rather a surprise--that's all. What do you make of the image on monitor circuit 16?"
"I see the nightside of Jupiter. There is a circular area, 3250 kilometers in diameter, which is almost completely covered with rectangular objects."
"How many?"
There was the briefest of pauses, before Hal flashed the number on the video display:

+

1,355,000 - 1,000

"And do you recognize them?"
"Yes. They are identical in size and shape to the object you refer to as Big Brother. Ten minutes to ignition. All systems nominal."

- Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: odyssey two

Commentary 2: God, ET, & UFOs
The response to my commentary in issue 48 was great. The feedback was fair and enlightening. My commentary helped open up a serious discussion about the central theme of "2001: A Space Odyssey." I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in synchronicity. The day after I sent out issue 48 of TWT, I was getting ready to go to work when the door bell rang. I opened the door and there in front of me was a well dressed middle age couple. With a smile, the woman asked me if I trust anyone. I said, "I trust myself." She opened her Bible, which was clearly marked, and began to read scripture from Matthew. While she was reading, I placed my finger on the page and finished the paragraph for her. I told her, "I read this before and once was fascinated by the Apostles. I am familiar with this page." I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk to them and told the woman I had just written a commentary in my newsletter, which I wanted to share with them as an exchange of enlightenment. They looked at me with disbelief on their faces. I quickly left leaving my new friends at the door and returned with a hard copy of issue 48. In hindsight, it was amusing what I did. But as naive as it sounds, I tried opening up a quick discussion of our differences and perhaps finding common ground. I handed TWT to the woman but she stepped back and closed her Bible and tersely said, "I came to you to give you a message and I don’t think we can accept it (newsletter)." The odd couple turned and walked away ignoring me as I stepped outside in my robe. In front of my yard on the street curb were many messengers loading into a van.
That morning showed me how difficult it would be if not impossible for some people in organize religion to openly discuss God, E.T. and UFOs. Making these topics as sensitive as gay priests and abortion issues.

Ironically, two weeks after my close encounter of the third kind with the messengers, Coast To Coast AM with George Noory and Linda Moulton Howe (earthfiles.com) broadcast from the first UFO Crash Retrieval Conference in Las Vegas. Noory interviewed many of the speakers who had participated in the 3-day event. The topic about ET’s impacting religion was raised by a caller with guest, UFOologist, Grant Cameron, expert in the studies of U.S. Presidential activity logs of alleged UFO crash retrieval days. "The guest [Stanton Friedman] that was on a little awhile ago, made a statement that I heard before on this program that somehow UFOs would affect religion? Basically I want to say that’s absolutely false. Judaism had has its beliefs for 3600 years. Christianity for 2000 years. Basically it comes down to the issue, what is your worldview and criterion of truth? Are you going to use UFOlogy as your criterion of measuring rod of all the truth? Or are you going to use religion? We have a criterion to truth in our religion by we can measure and judge these things [UFOs]. We’re prepared for UFOs. They can come down anytime and they can say anything they want." Noory reply’s back to the caller, "Some religions believe we are the only people alive in this universe. And I think that’s what he meant. That this is it—we are it. And if anybody [ET’s] that would come from any other place, that it would shatter some of those beliefs." The caller responds back to Noory’s statement, "Well, you see, it can’t shatter religion though because religion admits the universe is very vast and God created all things." Cameron intersects in the discussion, "Well that may be your opinion but the opinion that I believe of the government. One of the things I worked very hard in the last couple of months is to try to confirm the fact that Jimmy Carter was briefed. And of the stories we have is one of the witness who was in the room, who then later denied which really means not much because the story was pretty detailed. The two reasons they had are things that you really can’t control, like for example, you may have your strong religious beliefs but you can’t tell what the Arabs are going to do or what some other Christian religions. The two reasons that were given in the Jimmy Carter briefing notes that I saw or why they’re not releasing this thing are number one, the religious problem. If Jesus came to save us, what about all these people [ET's]? Who’s saving them? And the other is the fact that the government doesn’t have control of the situation and there is no point in releasing something---a weakness in the government you can’t control---there’s nothing you can’t do about it. So you might as well hope it goes away or figure out what’s going on."

The paradox, which Cameron explained, would complicate the argument of disclosure or the acceptance of life off the Earth, which would either contradict many of the beliefs and interpretations or simply destroy them. The topic continued through the 4-hour show about impacting technology, financial markets and corporations and the trust issue in our democracy.

This issue is important to talk about because it’s centerpiece of "2001: A Space Odyssey." Even if our government can’t or will not disclose the UFO phenomenon, the scientific community will one day discover life within our solar system or somewhere out in the Milky Way. So, this issue will not go away.

Local fan Jackson Kelley contributed this UFO sighting report, and said the sighting was reported to authorities in 1976 by several persons who saw it, but were told it was only reflections. But clearly, this sighting was for real. "The truth and the heart of the matter will not go away. I remember this sighting clearly as if it was yesterday and I learned something." Here is what Kelley reported to TWT:

I remember very well a sunny day in July during the summer of 1976. I was living in San Jose, California near San Jose State University where I attended school. A friend of mine, Joanne, came to pick me up at around 6:30 PM. She and I were on our way to a friend’s house in Sunnyvale. Joanne did the driving and we headed west on Central Expressway toward Sunnyvale. Being that it was a warm day, we had the car windows rolled down. When we got about half way to our destination, I looked up to my right and saw three silver flying objects. They were shaped like saucers with round domes on top of them. They were flying relatively close to each other with one being a little further away, sort of like an irregular triangular formation. The second I saw them, I pointed them out to my friend. She and I could hardly believe what we were looking at!

It is hard to say how far away they were, but they were very close. Offhand, I would say the distance was about five or six city blocks, or about one mile. Since they were so close, we could see them very clearly. They were also fairly low to the ground. As we were looking at them, we were looking to the right, and slightly upwards. Joanne was trying to maintain a good look at them while trying to keep her eyes on the road! As well as keep up with their speed.

The UFOs were travelling parallel with us for a few seconds and then sped off into the distance to the right and then vanished out of sight. The UFOs left no vapor trails, there was just the clear, sunny sky. We may have exceeded the speed limit at one point while trying to keep up with them. Whatever else was happening around us we never noticed -- all of our attention was on the UFOs.

A short while later we arrived at our friend’s house. Wow! Did we have a story to tell! We told our friends what we saw on our way there. What's ironic is that the street name of our destination was named 'Arriba Drive', which means 'to arrive to'. Two years later, I ended up moving and taking up residence on that very same street on Arriba Drive. But that was because I liked the neighborhood.

With more information coming out about the Kecksburg incident, interests are high about if we’re alone. My feeling is that government will not disclosed any information due to national security. But probably the best reason for UFO censorship is probably because its not controlled entirely by any government. But controlled by a small fraction of important people because of the "celestial gifts" as President Roosevelt once said about alien artifacts according to UFOlogist Ryan Wood, investigator of pre-Roswell crash retrievals, are valuable to our defense and advancement in technology.
Citizens of the Earth will probably have to do this on their own. Organize religion will have to accept the possibilities that primitive life or advance cultures exist or did exist off the planet Earth or we’ve been visited since the dawn of man or watched over since then. My opinion is that religion today will either fade away or convert into something new to adapt to the idea that we are not the only living beings in the universe. This is where I think religion and science can unite if we’ve ever crossed that bridge of discovery of life on another planet or contact. Whatever the outcome, perhaps that’s how Arthur C. Clarke’s world of the future might become as envisioned in "3001: The Final Odyssey" (1997). He envisioned that after the Earth accepted advance intelligent life off the Earth had once visited us and was still involved, the old religions were discredited and God or Gah (as they pronounced) was still accepted as creator of the universe a thousand years from now. The citizens of the Earth were either Deists or Theists. Theists believe there’s not more than one God and Deists that there is not less than one God. But no matter how many faces of God one accepted, the creator was still accepted.

[To read the first commentary, go to the http://www.2001exhibit.org/press/2003news_oct.html.]
Interesting sites to check out:

http://www.textfiles.com/ufo/blubk13.ufo (reported from Coast To Coast AM: Project Grudge
Former commercial pilot John Lear has sent us a report he wrote about a missing 13th section that was left out of the originally published Blue Book/Project Grudge investigation.)

http://earthfiles.com

This Sunday night Rebroadcast of John Lear from Nov. 2, 2003 -UFO Revelations- http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2003/11/02.html

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2003/11/14.html (UFO Crash Retrieval Conference
George Noory and Linda Moulton Howe)

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2003-10/24/12.00.sfc

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/index.html

Space News:
The Expedition 8 crewmembers' holiday week included working with science experiments and testing exercise equipment. They also took time off Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Check out a new section from Human Spaceflight website, "Behind the Scenes". Human space flight starts on the ground, where thousands of NASA employees, contractors and industry partners work together to send humans safely into space:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/index.html

Spectacular aurora in the sky: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/1121_aurora.html

The Sun Goes Haywire: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/12nov_haywire.html

Flare damages Mars Odyssey probe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3246722.stm

"2001" News Update:
"2001" fans Robert Carey and Dana Lubich updates TWT about the new French hobby magazine "Dixieme Planete." (Tenth Planet), devoted to the models of "2001": http://www.arapress.com/space_products.html

"2001" fan Dana Lubich reports to the TWT that Sky & Telescope magazine has a new special out called Beautiful Universe. One of several photos of the moon is a close up of Clavius. They make mention that the crater was made famous in 2001. Dana also reports that Popular Science magazine's Dec. issue naturally covers the 100th year of flight. There is an article, which covers the magazine's cover artwork on aviation and space. While it doesn't show the June, 1968 issue that had 2001 on the cover, it does highlight Bob McCall as one of their most prominent illustrators from the late 50's to early 70's. They do mention that he was one of the illustrators on 2001 though. Apparently the Smithsonian will be involved in an exhibition of his work in Arizona, in late 2005.

"2001" websites Update:
The Video/DVD category has been updated thanks to "2001" fan Dana Lubich:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/collectibles.html

I also like to thank model maker and "2001" fan George Ruboyianes for contributing his complete original 1969 Aurora Moon Bus for our collectibles category:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/collectibles/models/2001/moonbus.html

The Press/Magazine category has been updated thanks to "2001" fan Dana Lubich:

http://www.2001exhibit.org/press/2001zines.html
And
http://www.2001exhibit.org/press/2001zines4.html

We've updated the engineering category in the Science section. For many years, we've assumed that the concept car shown in Piers Bizony's book was the actual car from 2001. It is but not really. Dan Lubich reports to the TWT that we had the wrong car. This is his story:

"Having watched 2001 on a friend's DVD player, I used the zoom feature often and identified a misleading bit of info from Piers Bizony's book.

The revised edition, on page 85, shows the inflight movie car to be the Firebird IV, but the DVD, showing up close, shows it to be the GM Runabout (which is shown in the book photo on the far right). I contacted Piers about that, and he said the photo was one of a couple of unmarked ones he came across in his research. Those involved also couldn't remember the names of the cars either.

There appear to be two other cars in the distance (in the inflight movie), which are too small to be identified, but one could still be the Firebird IV.

I also contacted GM's research center to find out if the concept cars from the World's Fair still exist.
They don't appear on inventory lists after 1968, which means they were probably (ARGH!) destroyed sometime after that. Although, the Firebird IV was renamed the Buick Century Cruiser in 1969, so it must have been around a while longer."

In the interest of accuracy, I updated the information for the pop-up window under "Automobiles" of the Engineering Designs section. Here it is:

http://www.2001exhibit.org/science/2001_engineering2.html

But there is more!
Dana also discovered by accident that one of the "2001" cars was a toy in the 60s! Here is his story:

"Did you know there was a Century Cruiser toy in 1969?

I recently found by accident, on eBay, the Hasbro Amaze-A-Matic line of "programmable" cars, one of which was the Century Cruiser. So if the original Firebird IV was in 2001, kids were playing with an "unofficial" toy from the movie, and didn't realize it (I don't even remember the toy myself). I've included three images from eBay (which, as you can see, has some detailing differences from the actual car)."

You can see the toy in our collectibles section:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/collectibles/models/2001/2001.html
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/collectibles/models/2001/2001car.html

Now we're researching the car that appeared in 2010. Stay tune!

The 2001 website is now listed in the SciFi.Com:.
http://www.scifi.com/webguide/new.php3

And our e-mail Contact Us page is now working again: http://www.2001exhibit.org/contact.html

We've also updated the fashion category in the Arts section, featuring the entire magazine "w" on 2001 fashion: http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/fashion_w2.html

Happy Thanksgiving to my American and Canadian friends . I hope you all had a nice holiday month so far. The 2001 website is going through a major face-lift after two years. The website might be off and on through out December and January but please be patient. The renovations will be an improvement with new sections in FLASH. I like to thank "2001" fans Terry Boblet helping me put this month’s newsletter together. If you have anything about "2001/2010" or space news, report it to the World Tonight and I’ll give you special credit. Until then…

See you next Wednesday (Frank).