Secret HistoryS


Sherlock

Mummified remains of Reza Pahlavi, father of last shah of Iran, presumably found during excavation of Shiite shrine in Tehran


RT
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 19:48 UTC
coronation ranian leader Reza Shah Pahlavi
Coronation Reza Shah Pahlavi
The mummified remains of Iranian leader Reza Shah Pahlavi may have been found during the excavation of a Shiite shrine in southern Tehran.

Pahlavi ruled Iran during World War Two before being succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country's last shah, who was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The elder Pahlavi had been buried in a nearby mausoleum after his death in 1944 but the tomb was later destroyed by Iranian revolutionaries. The body was never found in the ruins and has been missing for decades.

Hassan Khalilabadi, the head of Tehran City Council's cultural heritage and tourism committee, reportedly told the state news agency IRNA that it was a "possibility" that the remains uncovered at the Shiite shrine of Abdul Azim are those of Reza Pahlavi. Authorities say they will now conduct DNA tests to confirm if the body is indeed Pahlavi.
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Family

Mystery diary of Rajneesh, AKA Osho, secrets discovered in locked file cabinet from commune

Maxine Bernstein
The Oregonian
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 15:02 UTC
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
© Brent Wojahn | The Oregonian/OregonLive | File
For a full year, the teenager from Terrebonne devoted at least 15 minutes each day fiddling with the lock on a black file cabinet stored in the back corner of his father's workshop.

It was the only file cabinet left from the hundreds his dad bought in the mid-1980s from the isolated eastern Oregon ranch where the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh improbably had hoped to establish a religious paradise.

The Bhagwan's followers sold all the commune's equipment as the empire collapsed in one of the most bizarre episodes in Oregon history.

Comment: See also: Inside the Rajneesh guru secret files: Drugs, poisoning and fraud

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Cult

Inside the Rajneesh guru secret files: Drugs, poisoning and fraud

Maxine Bernstein
The Oregonian / Oregon Live
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:47 UTC
Rajneesh guru papers
© Beth Nakamura | The Oregonian/OregonLive
References in the mystery papers of Rajneeshpuram are often incomplete, sometimes cryptic, but relatively easy to decipher given the notoriety of the case.

It was an incredible chapter of Oregon's past when worshipers of the Indian guru put down stakes at an empty cattle ranch, battled with the locals, poisoned many and plotted to kill people standing in their way.

Here are some of the more intriguing excerpts from 13 pages found in a folder hidden in a locked file cabinet from the commune and made public here for the first time.

The handwritten notes are in different colored ink, different styles and sometimes highlighted in pink or green.

The margins of the papers list names of followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, with information jotted beside each one: Anupa, Devaraj, Devika, Dharmakaya, Suburo.

It could be that those are the people who provided a particular account or who were involved in the actions described, but it's hard to tell.

The authors repeatedly mention members of the commune's inner circle of administrators: Sheela, Puja, Ava, Devarish.

Some of the pages list years: 1982, 1983, summer and fall of 1984 and June 1985.

Passages from the papers are followed here by an explanation of actual events based on news accounts and court documents from the time.

Rajneesh guru papers
© Beth Nakamura | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Comment: This bunch sounds a lot like the archetypical 'enlightened' yet extremely self-serving cult described in Theodore Illion's classic book Darkness over Tibet.

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Bulb

New evidence suggests: Pioneering Psychologist Hans Asperger was a Nazi sympathizer

George Dvorsky
Gizmodo
Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:58 UTC
Asperger
© Photo: Herwig Czech/Molecular AutismPortrait of Hans Asperger from his personnel file.
The term "Asperger's syndrome" will never be heard the same way again, owing to new research showing that Hans Asperger-the Austrian pediatrician for whom the disorder was named-was an active participant in the Nazi eugenics program, recommending that patients deemed "not fit for life" be sent to a notorious children's "euthanasia" clinic.

New research published today in the science journal Molecular Autism shows that Asperger wasn't the man he led the public to believe he was. That he worked among the Nazis is no secret, but after the Second World War he said he was no friend of the Nazis. He even claimed that he was hunted down by the Gestapo for refusing to hand over profoundly disabled children. But new work by Herwig Czech, a historian of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, says there's no evidence for these claims, and that the popular conception of Asperger is false. The brutal reality, according to Czech, is that he was both a Nazi sympathizer, and a medical doctor who "actively contributed" to the Nazi eugenics program.
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Info

100,000-year-old marking may be first human symbol

Michael Erad
Science Mag
Fri, 20 Apr 2018 18:58 UTC
Ancient Etchings
© Christopher Henshilwood and Francesco d’ErricoAn early human scratched this hashtag pattern into a red ochre stone at Blombos Cave in South Africa.
Torun, Poland - About 100,000 years ago, ancient humans started etching lines and hashtag patterns onto red rocks in a South African cave. Such handiwork has been cited as the first sign our species could make symbols-distinct marks that stand for some meaning-and thus evidence of a sophisticated mind. But a new study, reported here this week at Evolang, a biannual conference on the evolution of language, finds that these markings and others like them lack key characteristics of symbols. Instead, they may have been more for decoration or enjoyment.

To come to this conclusion, Kristian Tylén, a cognitive scientist at Aarhus University in Denmark, and his team of cognitive scientists and archaeologists took a closer look at dozens of etched red ochre stones found in the cave, known as Blombos Cave. Some scientists have called the markings early forms of art and even evidence of symbolic behavior, such as full-blown language. Tylén's group also looked at a set of ostrich egg shells with engraved lines, parallel lines, and ladderlike images found at another site in South Africa. The markings date to between about 52,000 to 109,000 years ago, after the birth of our species but before widespread artistic expression such as cave paintings of animals.

Tylén figured that if the marks were chiefly decorative, created because someone enjoyed looking at the pattern, the eyes of living humans would be able to see the patterns easily. If the markings were cultural traditions, they would need to be memorable, because the cave dwellers may have had to make them multiple times. And in that case, people today also ought to able to remember and copy them. Over time, the markings from each locality ought to also become more distinct, because a maker in one place wouldn't want the scratches to be confused with those in another place.
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Archaeology

France: Mystery in the Pilat Mountains around a 'megalithic' site

Damien Grousson
France 3 Auvergne Rhône-Alpes
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 17:50 UTC
Thomas de Charentenay
© france-tv
Some walkers think they have discovered a site whose origin goes back to the deepest times. Each of their explorations raises new enigmas: for them, it is a "megalithic" site as important as the one of Carnac. They called it "Le Cadran du Pilat".

Two years ago, Thomas de Charentenay was walking in the forest at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 foot) near the Pierre des Trois Evêques, in the Pilat massif.

Curious, Thomas ventures beyond the path, skirts a series of rocks, and mechanically, begins to count his steps. Surprise: it is the same distance between each stone: 12 steps exactly, 10 meters (32.8 foot) each time, and all aligned due East.
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Attention

In 1973, US and Russia came close to fighting a nuclear war over Syria

Michael Peck
The National Interest
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Sam II anti-aircraft missiles
© Getty ImagesYom Kippur War
On the night of October 24, 1973, came the dreaded words: Assume Defcon 3.

On bases and ships around the world, U.S. forces went to Defense Condition 3. As paratroopers prepared to deploy, B-52 nuclear bombers on Guam returned to bases in the United States in preparation for launch. On another October day eleven years before, the United States had gone to the next highest alert, Defcon 2, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This time the catalyst of potential Armageddon wasn't the Caribbean, but the Middle East.

In fact, the flashpoint was Syria. And as tensions rise today between America and Russia over the Syrian Civil War, and U.S. and Russian troops and aircraft operate in uncomfortable proximity in support of rival factions in the conflict, it is worth remembering what happened forty-five years ago.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Cold War is what didn't happen: the United States and Soviet Union managed to avoid fighting each other directly, and instead waged their conflict through proxies.
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Cow

Ancient skull suggests brain surgery on cows

Chris Mahon
Outer Places
Thu, 19 Apr 2018 16:51 UTC
Ancient Brain Surgery
© Fernando Ramirez RozziA cow skull showing evidence of cranial surgery.

Most people think surgery is a modern concept, but if the knife-handed skeleton discovered in Italy proves anything, it's that ancient medical tech can be surprisingly advanced (but no less terrifying).

Today, a new game-changing archaeological discovery just rewrote medical history: New evidence suggests that humans have been experimenting with brain surgery for a lot longer than anyone expected. A 5,000-year-old cow skull has been discovered in Vendée, France, that has a cleanly bored hole right through the bone, and it looks like humans were using it for practice.

Vendée is hypothesized to have been the site of an ancient trading hub during the Neolithic era, and two of the major commodities coming through were cattle and salt.
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Info

Jackie believed that Lyndon B. Johnson had John F. Kennedy assassinated


Irish Central
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:55 UTC
Jackie and JFK
In the sensational tapes recorded by the First Lady months after the President's death, broadcast by ABC, Kennedy revealed her belief that Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons orchestrated the murder of her husband by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy, who later became Jackie Onassis, claimed that the Dallas murder was part of a larger conspiracy to allow Johnson to become American President in his own right.

Johnson, who served as a member of Congress, completed Kennedy's term after the assassination and went on to be elected president. Leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr recorded the tapes with Jackie Kennedy within months of her husband's death. They have been stored in a sealed vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston after orders from Mrs. Kennedy that they would remain secret for 50 years after her death.

Comment: Jackie Onassis was not far off. See: Former Nixon aide: Lyndon B. Johnson arranged John F. Kennedy's assassination

And for an even broader view of the JFK, RFK and MLK's assassinations, watch the stunning and comprehensive video Evidence of Revision: The Assassination of America

Evidence of Revision


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Magnify

Bay of Pigs: The CIA's unlearned lesson in failed regime change operations


RT
Wed, 18 Apr 2018 21:39 UTC
cuban tank bay pigs
© Prensa Latina / ReutersA tank of the Cuban Armed Forces near the site of the Bay of Pigs invasion, 19 April 1961
The looming end of the Castro era in Cuba coincides this week with the 57th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion - a failed attack by the CIA that greatly catalyzed the Castro approach to resisting American encroachment.

On Thursday, Raul Castro, the 86-year-old brother of the late Fidel, will step down as the president of Cuba. For the first time in almost 60 years, the island will not be led by a Castro, although the man who is widely assumed to take the post next, First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, has vowed to stay on the path of Fidel's revolution.

Two days prior to this, however, the island marks the day when, in 1961, Fidel and his forces beat back an assault which, it was then hoped in Washington, could unseat the leader and nip Cuba's communist dream in the bud.

The Bay of Pigs invasion (or the invasion of Playa Giron, as it is known in Cuba) was a staple of American regime-change tactics. Orchestrated, prepared, planned, bankrolled, and combat-supported by the CIA, it was fronted by defectors from Castro's Cuban revolution who had earlier fled to the US. Warplanes were painted in Cuban Air Force colors, ships were procured from a Cuban-owned company, and political asylum was granted to combatants - all for the sake of "plausible deniability." It was hoped that a small force of returning exiles would sound a wake-up call for Cubans to rise up and topple Castro.

Comment: The deeper story on the Bay of Pigs fiasco, covered in David Talbot's excellent book The Devil's Chessboard, was that the CIA Director at the time, Allen Dulles, hated JFK so much that he intentionally planned the invasion to fail by staffing it with inexperienced agents and then flying to Central America on the day of the invasion to spread even more chaos. Dulles wanted the operation to fail and for Kennedy to be eviscerated by the public and in the history books. But JFK was not notified of the Dulles' plans and once he was, he ordered the air cover to stay on the ground since the Cubans were ripping the American planes that were already in Cuba to shreds.

Interested readers might also want to watch the below interview with author and former high-level military man Fletcher Prouty, where discusses some of the above and more on the Bay of Pigs fiasco:



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