The function of spindle neurons, which is not well understood yet, may be involved in cognition -- learning, remembering and recognizing the world around oneself.

The finding may help explain some of the behaviors seen in whales, such as intricate communication skills, the formation of alliances, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage, the researchers report in The Anatomical Record.

Spindle neurons probably first appeared in the common ancestor of hominids, humans and great apes about 15 million years ago, the researchers said -- they are not seen in lesser apes or monkeys.

In cetaceans they would have evolved earlier, possibly as early as 30 million years ago, the researchers said.

The new study suggests certain cetaceans and hominids may have evolved side by side.

Robertsen continues to resist a local order to tear down the derelict structure, and is currently being fined NOK 300 (USD 47.50) a day until he flattens the barn. Local authorities first ordered the barn demolished in February 2005 after complaints from Robertsen's neighbors and a new order was passed this autumn.

Robertsen fears the consequences of tearing the building down.

"I don't believe in ghosts, but underworld creatures have taken up residence in the building," Robertsen told newspaper Nordlys, referring to a term used for the fairies and goblins of Norwegian folklore.

Robertsen would not go into detail about his experiences, but said he was convinced that to comply with the order would have serious consequences for his life and health.

"A while back I removed the top of the building and that is an experience I will not repeat," he said, and points out that the barn is built on an old Viking site.

He has offered to build a solid fence around the ramshackle building so that it no longer poses a danger to anyone.

The head of the local building policy department, Mette Mohåg, told Nordlys that there was as yet no deadlock in the matter.

Did you see the bright lights in the sky? MMS your photos and video to 0406 THE AGE (0406 843 243) or email scoop@theage.com.au

For the second night in a row residents in western Victoria have reported seeing a bright light in the sky.

Residents at Ballarat, west of Melbourne, said they saw something that looked like a UFO after spotting an orange-coloured light in the sky about 10pm yesterday.

The object hovered for more than one minute. But one resident said it could have been a model helicopter.

"A lot of guys fly night choppers here and they have the LCD lights around the blades and they have lights all down the boom and tail rotor," the man, identified only as Ian, told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"These models can hover and they can go from zero to about 100 kph in a few seconds."

On Monday night, people in South Australia and western Victoria deluged police and media with reports of a spectacular meteor sighting.

Police in SA said they took calls from just after 8pm (CST) on Monday from Renmark and Loxton in the Riverland, most Adelaide suburbs and then from people living south of the city, with reports of something looking like a fireball in the sky.

In Victoria, callers to ABC Radio from Bendigo to Horsham in the state's north-west down to Colac in the south-west, reported seeing a bright green coloured object shooting westward in the sky.

A South Australia Police spokesman said later that the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed the object seen on Monday night was a meteor.

Researchers Akira O'Connor and Chris Moulin, from the university's Institute of Psychological Sciences have just had their paper on non-visual déjà vu published in the journal Brain and Cognition. In the article, they discuss how mundane experiences - undoing a jacket zip while hearing a particular piece of music; hearing a snatch of conversation while holding a plate in the school dining hall - triggered déjà experiences in the blind subject.

"Optical pathway delay is a quite antiquated theory, but still widely believed - and was the basis for the déjà vu sequences in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22. But this provides strong evidence that optical pathway delay is not the explanation for déjà vu. The findings are so obvious, so intuitive, that it's remarkable this research has never been done before," said O'Connor.

The researchers hope to work with other visually impaired people, to assess how common the effect is. They'd also like to take the research further: "It would be really neat to do some neuro-imaging on people during genuine spontaneous déjà vu experiences - but it's very difficult to get them to have them on demand," mused O'Connor.

O'Connor is also experimenting with the induction of déjà vu through hypnosis. "We now believe that déjà experiences are caused when an area of the brain that deals with familiarity gets disrupted," he said. In one experiment, subjects were asked to remember words, then hypnotized to make them forget the words - and then shown the same word again to induce a feeling that they have seen it before. Around half said this brought on a sensation similar to déjà vu.

Stan Hall doesn't seem like a man who has come to the conclusion that life as we know it may be one big allusion. Sitting in his flat in a seaside town outside Edinburgh he tells of his life as a construction engineer before an adventure in Ecuador changed his outlook on life forever.

Hall was drawn to South America by tales of a fantastic mythical gold and crystal library, said to be hidden in subterranean tunnels somewhere in Ecuador. In 1976 he organised an expedition to try and locate the position of these extraordinary caves - even managing to entice the astronaut Neil Armstrong into coming along for the ride.

During his time there he failed to find the library. Instead he is convinced that he has located the lost city of Atlantis:

"The word comes from Atal and antis. Antis is the name for the Andes and Atal means old, or of the time of the mother waters - or deluge."

Where this all ties into the Newton Stone is complex and involves a past civilisation - the Atlanteans of old and their ancient history.

Hall came to believe in the work of Juan Moricz - a Hungarian who lived in Ecuador who professed to have visited the metal library. Moricz theorised that the language spoken in South America was actually ancient Magyar and that this language can be found in ancient Sumerian and Assyrian writing. Hall believes that the Atlanteans spread their language and culture East and West after a crisis pushed them out of their homeland.

"After some interplanetary catastrophe and global deluge, Magyar-speaking survivors from the equatorial Andes...left the continent of Atl Antis," says Hall. "They crossed the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to establish a global federation."

According to Hall, these ancient people travelled to Sumer and the Middle East before, over time, spreading west where their Magyar word for tribe - Catti - became first the khatti-sars of the Assyrians, the Hatti of the Hittites and finally the same Catti who repulsed Julius Caesar from British Shores. He supports this theory by referring to LA Waddell's, 1924 book The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, which suggests that the writing on the back of the Newton Stone is Hittite. And, according to Hall's theory, if the writing is Hittite, then it follows that the information that the stone depicts came ultimately from the South American Atlanteans,

"The keys to our lost history lie in things like the Newton Stone," says Hall before trying to explain the meaning of the carvings itself in relation to catastrophism theory.

The major proponent of catastrophism was Immanuel Velikovsky, who, in the 1950s, posited the idea that the earth has suffered global catastrophes, mostly caused by planetary action, that have been set down in myths, legends and histories of all ancient cultures. Hall thinks that the Newton Stone demonstrates one such cataclysmic event.

"I recognised that on the Newton Stone it shows two planets breaking away from each other...The double disc and z-rod pictographs...record for posterity the actual birth of Jupiter from Saturn."

Hall believes that this break-up of Saturn - which must have been an extraordinary cosmic moment - has been recorded in the myths of all ancient people.

"The Greeks talk of the night of the falling stars - all major civilisations have records of major interplanetary catastrophes. They're found in old nursery rhymes, which have found to be Sumerian, like 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle' which shows the planets rushing together."

But whilst Hall believes that our mytho-history records these turbulent disruptions, he is unsure whether humans would have been around to witness the events depicted. Which leads to Hall to question who first set down the information? Just who might have been around to see the birth of Jupiter?

One theory that comes into play is that of Erich Von Däniken whose 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past suggested that extraterrestrials visited earth in the distant past.

Hall has come round to believing that this might indeed be what happened after all the interplanetary disruption of break-away planets, concluding that someone might have arrived in Earth looking for safety. It could be that the metal library in Ecuador may contain the proof of our colonisation by aliens.

"Who knows?" says Hall. "Perhaps 'it' brought 'its' treasures and archives to the one place on earth that offered the best possibility for colonisation - namely the equatorial Andes."

With the experience of witnessing interplanetary explosions presumably so vivid in their memories, we should not be surprised that they sought to record the event for prosperity - and encouraged their descendants to remember the event forever.