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Abstract

Abstract – “Chiemgau Impact” is an event which took place in the Bronze Age / Iron Age with the creation of a large meteorite strewn field by the impact of a comet / asteroid in southeast Bavaria. The research is interdisciplinary from the outset. It covers, among other things, geology, geophysics, limnology, archaeology, mineralogy, speleology, astronomy, and historical sciences. The research results show that a major disaster must have taken place in the area between Altötting, the Lake Chiemsee, and the Alps. Finds of exotic material, found only in meteorites, extremely stressed and altered rocks, caused by extreme pressures, high temperatures and the action of acid, strange carbon spherules, glass-like carbon, nanodiamonds, magnetic anomalies, soil compaction, sinkholes, and many other abnormalities can be explained by the hypothesis of a post-ice impact. All the impact criteria required according to scientific standards were demonstrated. The impact associated with a large air blast may have produced considerable regional and probably transregional effects. People not only from the Chiemgau region were witnesses of the fascinating, shocking and disturbing event. Perhaps quite accurate descriptions of the event and the regional effects were even described in the ancient Greek myth of the young racer Phaeton, driving the solar chariot. The paper presents the current (2017) state of knowledge and briefly also the research history.

Keywords: Holocene – crater – impact – meteorite – archaeology

Abstract

Abstract – In the first part of this paper controversies over claimed meteorites and impact craters are discussed from a history of science perspective, focusing on the Coon Mountain controversy in Arizona and cases in Germany and Austria. The impact of social factors on these controversies are emphasized. Further on the prevailing public controversy about the claimed Chiemgau meteorite impact in the Tüttensee lake, Bavaria, is focused on from a sociology of knowledge perspective. Structured interviews with 1313 inhabitants of the Chiemgau region (and, for comparison, also at Nördlinger Ries and Steinheimer Becken, two generally accepted impact craters in Germany) were conducted in 2010 and 1015. A majority of the population living near the Tüttensee is already convinced that the Tüttensee is an impact crater, while the controversy in science is still going on.

Keywords: meteorite – impact crater – impact research – history of science – Chiemgau impact – Tüttensee – Ries basin – Steinheimer Becken – Erwin Rutte – Frankenalb astroblems

Abstract

Abstract – The theory of a Herefordshire photographer, Alfred Watkins that prehistoric roads are still marked by aligments of moats, tumuli, churches and menhirs was connected in the 1960s with ideas about UFOs, and later, in psychedelic context, with dowsing – the ley had become a ley line, a current of earth energy. This idea held on, and now can be found throughout the New Age literature. Often enough, proponents of ley lines do not know anything about the origin of the idea. This paper traces the history of a now almost universal concept.

Keywords: geomancy – landscape lines – alternative history – ley – ley line

Abstract

Abstract – The Ancient astronaut discourse or paleo-SETI presents itself as parascientific research about extraterrestrial influence on human history. It claims to explain historic anomalies better than the relevant academic disciplines, e. g. archaeology or Indology. The publications of Erich von Däniken, the foremost proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis, display elements of his world view and religiosity that impact his reasoning. This paper examines Däniken’s underlying beliefs and the way they influence his arguments.

Keywords: Erich von Däniken – paleo-SETI – ancient astronauts – literalism – worldview – conception of god

Abstract

Abstract – Studies with individuals who have faced life-threatening situations show that a majority of them report an apparent slowing down of external time. Moreover, a majority of individuals who had near-death experiences (NDEs) reported that subjective time had changed. Anecdotal reports of NDEs reveal feelings of apparent timelessness, which is a typical feature of altered states of consciousness. However strongly the sense of time is changed in NDEs, not many systematic studies assessing exactly how time is altered during NDEs exist. Therefore, we conducted an empirical content analysis of a web-based databank from the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, which has collected NDE reports since 1998. To cover a considerable time range, we selected individual reports from three time periods: (a) 1998 to 2001, (b) the year 2010, and (c) January to March 2017 (in total N = 196). We concentrated on responses to the question: “Did time seem to speed up or slow down?” 127 of the 196 individuals reported a change in subjective time (65%). 120 of these 127 persons reported a feeling of timelessness (94%). The different narratives bear witness of individual variations, but they can still be interpreted as the impression of an apparently lost sense of the passage of time. Our study complements individual anecdotal reports showing an extremely distorted subjective time impression in a majority of people who suffered an NDE.

Keywords: Near-death experience – subjective time – timelessness – online survey

Abstract

Abstract – During the week of Easter holidays in year 1930, (Sunday April 20th to Sunday April 27th), an international event took place in Athens, unique for the Greek standards of that time. Eminent scientists and scholars came to Greece from abroad to participate in the 4th international conference of parapsychology. The three previous parapsychology conferences in this series were hosted in Copenhagen (1921), in Warsaw (1923) and in Paris (1927). This article presents an outline of the conference talks plus the activities that took place in Athens during the conference.

Keywords: cultural history – history – parapsychology – psychology – biography – Greece