(1981):
This disinformation story actually begins in 1981 with an
article on the "photon belt" written by
Shirley Kemp and published
in the Australian International UFO Research Society magazine, and
reprinted in the February/March 1991 issue of Nexus magazine.
Kemp’s
article focused on the Pleiades star cluster as the source of the
photon belt and made no mention of the Galactic center. The mixing
of the photon belt concept with the idea of a Galactic center wave
came later, being injected by subsequent authors such as Robert
Stanley and Barbara Hand Clow. Kemp described the photon belt as a
ring of energy that encircles the Pleiades with its outer border
presently being positioned just about to touch our solar system. She
claimed that its presence had been detected in 1961 by satellite
observations of the Pleiades. In fact, there is no record of such a
satellite detection, nor is it likely that satellites in those days
would have been equipped to make such observations. Also neither is
there evidence of such a belt from observations with present day
ground and space based telescopes.
Furthermore Kemp claimed that in the course of 24,000 years our
solar system completes an orbit about the star Alcyone in
the Pleiades
cluster and passes through the photon belt twice in the
course of a revolution, alternately bathing in the belt for a period
of 2000 years, followed by a period of 10,000 years outside of the
belt. Moreover she claimed that during the imminent time when the
solar system is within the photon belt, the present day/night cycle
would cease and be replaced by a 2000 year-long period of continuous
light during which time humanity would be transformed into
spiritually enlightened "Atmosphereans."
As for the part about the
solar system orbiting the Pleiades, or
more specifically orbiting the star Alcyone, this can be shown to be
absurd. The Pleiades lie about 400 light years away in the
Taurus
constellation; hence an orbit about them would necessarily measure
about 2500 light years. To circle them in a period of only 24,000
years, the solar system would then have to be travelling through the
Galaxy at over 10 percent the speed of light, a thousand times
faster than the Earth’s orbit about the Sun. If this were true the
shape of the constellations would noticeably change within a single
lifetime due to stellar parallax effects. There is no evidence of
this. Moreover to cause such an orbital speed by gravitational
action, Alcyone would have had to be over a billion times more
massive than our Sun, thus rivaling the core of our own Galaxy. In
fact, there is no evidence of any kind that the solar system nor any
of the Pleiades stars are in orbit about Alcyone. The whole idea of
the photon belt would seem to be ludicrous were it not
for the fact that so many people have completely fallen for the
idea and adopted it as part of their reality.
(1991):
In the summer of 1991
Robert Stanley published an article in Unicus magazine (Issue
# 5) entitled "The Photon Zone: Earth’s Future
Brightens." His article combined the photon belt concept with a
Galactic center outburst concept that had striking similarities to
LaViolette’s Galactic superwave concept, but lacked any kind of
scientific or observational basis. Stanley described the "photon
zone" as a belt or toroid of excess photons being emitted from the
center of our Galaxy and that "rotate at a 90 degree right angle to
our solar system’s horizontal orbit."
Stanley apparently did not reference
LaViolette’s scientific papers
which describe evidence of Galactic cosmic ray superwaves being
emitted from the Galactic center, each outwardly moving superwave
shell producing a ring of electromagnetic radiation concentric with
the Galactic center and lying along the galactic plane, accompanying
the superwave as it travels outward. This radiation zone could be
termed a "photon band" or "photon belt".
LaViolette has shown that
radiation coming from the nearest of these superwave radiation
rings, at its closest point to us, would appear to originate from a
region lying about 7000 light years away in the Taurus constellation
region (~6500 light years further away than the Pleiades), and that
in the opposite direction, toward the Galactic center (Scorpius
constellation region), it would lie furthest from us, about 30,000
light years away. Thus the photon band concept which lacks
supporting observational evidence, creates a climate of confusion
for those interested in learning about the superwave concept.
Although Stanley describes this
photon band as being emitted from
the Galactic center, he also presents the contradictory notion that
it is a stationary zone. Adopting many of Shirley Kemp’s
proclamations, he states that the photon band lies near our Sun and
that our solar system periodically passes through it as a result of
a 26,000 year epicycle-like orbit that it supposedly follows through
space. In her book
The Pleiadian Agenda, B. H. Clow quotes
Stanley
as saying,
"our solar system enters this area of our Galaxy [the
photon zone] every 11,000 years and then passes through for 2000
years while completing its 26,000-year galactic orbit" about the
star Alcyone.
However, there is no astronomical evidence that the
solar system circumscribes a 26,000 year orbit about Alcyone. There
is evidence that the Sun orbits the Galactic center (Sagittarius A*)
once in about 200 million years, the Galactic center being situated
in a direction opposite from the Pleiades in the direction of the
Sagittarius and Scorpio constellations.
Ancient Hindu astronomers taught that the
Sun moves radially inward
and outward from the Galaxy’s "Grand Center" on a
24,000 year cycle,
but this would constitute an oscillatory movement, not an "orbit".
Neither is there any reason to think that the ancients considered
Alcyone, and not Sgr A* as being the Galaxy’s "Grand Center." As
described in Earth Under Fire, cyclical radial motion with respect
to the Galactic core Sgr A* could occur if superwaves were to exert
a tidal force on the Sun and planets.
(1994):
The book
The Pleiadian Agenda, channeled by Barbara Hand Clow, further propagated the
photon belt myth, combining it with a
Galactic center origin. In this case, however, Clow had prior
knowledge of LaViolette’s ideas. In August of 1991, LaViolette had
submitted to Clow the manuscript for his book Beyond the Big Bang
(then titled Warriors of Creation) along with the first chapter and
outline for its sequel Earth Under Fire (then titled Astrology
Decoded). These were sent to her in confidence, in her capacity as
being then Vice President editor of Bear and Company, a New Age book
publisher. These materials described LaViolette’s 1979 theory that
about 13,000 years ago the Earth had been affected by an expanding
"zone" or "belt" of radiation that had issued from the
Galactic
center, a phenomenon he called a Galactic "superwave." After reading
this work, Clow expressed great interest in publishing both books in
revised form, especially the second book describing the
Galactic superwave. However, later in November 1991,
LaViolette had
reservations about choosing this publisher and turned down her offer
to publish his books.
Some months later, in 1992,
Clow says she began psychically
channeling an entity called Satya, a Pleiadian extraterrestrial
astrologer supposedly residing in the Alcyone star system. Then, a
few years later, in 1994 she reportedly began channeling her book
The Pleiadian Agenda, which she subsequently published in 1995.
Curiously, her book presented ideas very similar to LaViolette’s
superwave concept, describing a "photon band" emanating from the
Galactic center, that engulfed the Earth around 13,000 years ago
bringing about the legendary apocalyptic cataclysm. Although LaViolette was the first to propose such an idea, and although she
had prior knowledge of Dr. LaViolette’s work, Clow/Satya did not
mention his work in her book, neither did she reference his many
scientific papers nor his book Beyond the Big Bang, which were
published on this topic between 1983 and 1995. Instead, Clow/Satya
only refer to Shirley Kemp’s photon belt paper and to
Robert
Stanley’s photon zone paper, which interestingly was published the
same summer that LaViolette had submitted his confidential
manuscript to her, and which presented ideas similar to LaViolette’s
superwave idea (see above).
Like Stanley,
Clow/Satya describes the impending movement of the
Earth into a stationary photon band and frames this event in terms
of a coming New Age global psychic transformation. But in places
The Pleiadian Agenda confuses the idea of a Galactic center origin by
stating that the photon band originates from the Pleiadian star
Alcyone, a region which it claims is always bathed in the "photon
band" radiation. In these parts she describes the photon band as
originating from a region on the side of the Earth opposite to the
Galactic center, hence approaching from a direction exactly opposite
from the direction that superwaves would approach. In the direction
of the Pleiades, LaViolette’s superwave event horizon (radiation
zone) would instead be receding from us, not approaching.
Disinformation is most successfully crafted when it disseminates a
distorted concept that is very close to the target concept, thereby
rendering a state of confusion. The photon band conjecture very
appropriately achieves this objective. Around this same time, other
channeled writings were published that similarly described a "photon
belt" and web pages have sprung up disseminating these concepts.
Unfortunately, rather than being educational, these works have the
potential of creating general confusion by diverting attention about
approaching Galactic energy waves away from the
Galactic center and
toward the Pleiades.
(1997):
Robert Cox’s book
Pillar of Celestial Fire, published in
1997, also described a Galactic center influence on the Earth. Like
Beyond the Big Bang and Earth Under Fire, this book speaks of the
Galactic center producing a "ray" or "wave" of "celestial fire" that
washes over the Earth causing geologic change, and also mentions a
connection between the Sagittarius arrow indicator and the Galactic
center. Although the book lists Beyond the Big Bang in its
bibliography, it does not cite LaViolette’s prior work as the source
of these ideas. It mixes these concepts with other channeled ideas
about a "pillar of celestial fire" of pure consciousness that it
says is approaching the Earth from the direction of
the Pleiades, a
location which, it claims, contains the conscious "Center of the
Universe." Thus, by calling attention to a celestial fire phenomenon
that supposedly approaches from a direction opposite to the Galactic
center, this celestial fire concept, like the photon belt concept,
participates in creating an atmosphere of confusion.
(1998):
James Gilliland circulated an email announcement claiming
the arrival of a "pulse of consciousness" from the "center of the
universe" whose secondary cause is a luminous "photon belt" and
which he claims is responsible for solar and geomagnetic
disturbances currently going on. Although Gilliland writes that this
pulse has been observed and measured, in fact his "knowledge" of it
comes from psychic channeled contacts that he claims he has had with
Pleiadians during close encounters with their spacecraft. Could he
and others be unwitting participants in an extraterrestrial
disinformation campaign?
(1998):
On his website,
Drunvalo Melchizedek published an incorrect
announcement that the Galactic center has been seen to "pulse huge
amounts of energy out into the universe" since the time of December
14, 1997 and that in June of 1998 the "beeper" satellite "was
destroyed by one of these blasts from the center of our galaxy." In
fact, no such thing had happened. Up to the present, the Galactic
center has been observed to continue its relatively quiescent state.
The "psychic scientist" who supplied Melchizedek this
disinformation
later withdrew his Galactic center pronouncement. But it has been
well over 8 months now and Melchizedek has still persisted in
leaving this startling disinformation on his website. Melchizedek
was aware of Dr. LaViolette’s scientific work since a year earlier
he had attended a seminar in which LaViolette had spoken about
Galactic superwaves and had purchased a copy of Earth Under Fire
from him. However, for some reason he chose not to consult LaViolette to check the validity of the information he posted.
