Neil deGrasse Tyson says “Moonfall” beats “Armageddon” in violating more laws of physics per minute

Emlyn Travis
Fri, September 22, 2023 

Neil deGrasse Tyson isn't exactly over the moon with how the laws of physics are being applied in modern-day filmmaking.

For years the persnickety astrophysicist has adamantly argued that the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon — which saw Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck stop an asteroid from crashing into Earth with a big drill and a nuclear bomb — had earned the not-so-coveted title of violating "more laws of physics (per minute) than any other film in the universe." But now he's passing the crown to another movie that he says is even less scientifically accurate.

"That's what I thought until I saw Moonfall," Tyson admitted on Thursday's episode of The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM. "It was a pandemic film that came out — you know, Halle Berry — and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it's hollow."

"I just couldn't," Tyson said, placing his hands on his temples. "So I said, 'All right, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown, but apparently not.'"

Written and directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow), Moonfall follows former astronauts Jocinda Fowler (Berry) and Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), plus conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley), as they attempt to defend Earth from the rapidly approaching moon and the murderous aliens inhabiting it.

Halle Berry in 'Moonfall'

Tyson, the author of such books as Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Death by Black Hole, went on to say that in the case of both Armageddon and Moonfall, there's actually a pretty simple solution for dealing with a projectile hurtling toward Earth.

"All you gotta do is just nudge it," he said. "If you nudge it like 1 centimeter per second to the right — in space there's no friction, so it'll just keep drifting to the right. If you do that early enough, then you can have the asteroid pass in front of the Earth rather than hit the Earth, or you can slow it down so that it'll pass behind the Earth. Two ways you can adjust it."

He compared the outlandish cinematic methods to remedy the problem to the temporal paradox of the Terminator movies, wherein "I want to kill your parents so that you're never born."

"Really?" an exasperated Tyson said. "All you have to do is prevent your parents from meeting each other, or have them have sex 20 minutes later than the other one. That will create a different zygote and you won't be born. So the movies, in some cases… they get hyperbolic on their solutions to problems."

If Tyson's synopsis wasn't enough to raise eyebrows, he further explained that the 2022 movie reveals there's a "moon being made out of rocks" inside the hollowed-out moon, and "the Apollo missions were really to feed" the creature rather than taking one giant leap for mankind.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a new favorite sci-fi movie to complain about

William Hughes

AV CLUB
Sat, September 23, 2023 

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Although he fulfills other roles in our society—TV host, talk show guest, some actual astrophysics, presumably, at some point—Neil deGrasse Tyson largely exists to fill one major niche these days: Pedant. There must (apparently) be one person willing to stand up in front of the masses and point out when a science fiction movie does not space correctly, and that self-appointed job has fallen to him. It is not an easy road, nor a pleasant one, or even one anyone particularly wants him to walk. But it’s his, nevertheless, relentlessly informing audiences of every potential inaccuracy, and passing judgment—as he did in a recent interview, when he revealed that 2022's Moonfall has stolen Armageddon’s crown as the least accurate space movie he’s ever seen.

Y’all remember Moonfall, right? Roland Emmerich flick; Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, Sam from Game Of Thrones; moon is hollow? It came and went from theaters with a quickness, with its only real hype coming from an aggressively goofy trailer. But Neil deGrasse Tyson remembers, stating (per Deadline) in a recent interview that, “I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown,” (i.e., “violating more laws of physics per minute than any other film ever made”), “But apparently not.”



Neil DeGrasse Tyson Claims ‘Armageddon’ Has Been Dethroned As Film Violating Most Laws Of Physics
Nellie Andreeva and Bruce Haring
Fri, September 22, 2023 at 5:52 PM MDT·2 min read

5


Armageddon‘s quarter-century reign as the Hollywood movie running afoul of the most physics laws is over. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made the revelation during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show to promote his new book, To Infinity and Beyond, highlighting glaring scientific inaccuracies in another space film, the 2022 Moonfall starring Halle Berry.

“Armageddon, you say, violates more laws of physics per minute than any other film ever made,” Cagle began.

‘Moonfall’

DeGrasse Tyson agreed, adding, “That’s what I thought until I saw Moonfall. It was a pandemic film that came out, you know, Halle Berry, and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it’s hollow and there’s a moon being made out of rocks living inside of it and the Apollo missions were really to visit, to feed the moon being, and I just couldn’t, so I said, “Alright, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown, but apparently not.”

Cagle brought up previous suggestion by deGrasse Tyson that, unlike the plot in Armageddon, there is a much simpler way to throw an asteroid off its path. He elaborated on that while also making a Terminator reference.

Moonfall

“All you gotta do is just nudge it, and if you do that early enough, if you nudge it like one centimeter per second to the right, in space, there’s no friction, so it’ll just keep drifting to the right,” he said. “If you do that early enough, then you can have the asteroid pass in front of the earth rather than hit the earth, or you can slow it down so that it’ll pass behind the earth. Two ways you can adjust it. So, yeah. You know what it’s like? It’s like The Terminator thing where I want to kill your parents so that you’re never born. Really? All you have to do is prevent your parents from meeting each other or have them have sex 20 minutes later than the other one. That will create a different zygote and you won’t be born, so the movies go, in some cases, they get hyperbolic on their solutions to problems.”

‘Moonfall’

Co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich, Moonfall follows two former astronauts (Berry, Patrick Wilson) alongside a conspiracy theorist (John Bradley) who discover the hidden truth about Earth’s moon when it suddenly leaves its orbit.

The film, released in January 2022, was a boxoffice flop.

• You can watch a trailer below 

 

Icy waters of 'Snowball Earth' may have spurred early organisms to grow bigger

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

 

IMAGE: CARL SIMPSON INSPECTS A FOSSIL OF BROOKSELLA ALTERNATA, AN INVERTEBRATE ANIMAL THAT SWAM IN THE OCEAN ROUGHLY 500 MILLION YEARS AGO. view more 

CREDIT: GLENN ASAKAWA/CU BOULDER

A new study from CU Boulder finds that hundreds of millions of years ago, small single-celled organisms may have evolved into larger multicellular life forms to better propel themselves through icy waters.

The research was led by paleobiologist Carl Simpson and appears today in the journal The American Naturalist. It hones in on a question that’s central to the history of the planet: How did life on Earth, which started off teeny-tiny, get so big?

“Once organisms get big, they have a clear ecological advantage because the physics around how they capture food become totally different,” said Simpson, assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at CU Boulder and the CU Museum of Natural History. “But the hard part for researchers has been explaining how they got big in the first place.”

In his latest study, Simpson draws on a series of mathematical equations to argue that this all-important shift may have come down to hydrodynamics—or the pursuit of a more efficient backstroke.

Roughly 750 million years ago, and for reasons that scientists are still debating, the planet became suddenly and dramatically colder—a period of time called “Snowball Earth.” To adapt to these frigid conditions, which can make swimming more difficult, small organisms like bacteria may have begun to glom together to form larger and more complex life.

Simpson still has a lot of work to do before he can prove his theory. But, the geologist said, the results could help to reveal how the ancestors of all modern multicellular life, from flowers to elephants and even people, first arose on Earth. 

“By swimming together, these cells could remain small on an individual level but still produce more power,” Simpson said. “They become both bigger and faster as a group.”

CAPTION

Two fossils of Brooksella alternata, an invertebrate animal that swam in the ocean roughly 500 million years ago.

CREDIT

Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder

Snowball Earth

Those successes took place at a seemingly inhospitable time in the planet’s past.

During “Snowball Earth,” the globe may have been all but recognizable. Ice sheets a half-mile thick or more may have blanketed the planet for as much as 70 million years, while temperatures in the oceans plummeted to less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit. 

But even amid those frigid conditions, something spectacular happened: The first organisms made up of many different cells, not just one, began to emerge around the planet. Scientists still aren’t sure what those ancient multicellular organisms might have looked like. One theory suggests that they resembled Volvox, a type of algae that are common in oceans today and are shaped like a hollow sphere or snow globe.

“That’s something that has lodged in my mind for years,” Simpson said. “How do Snowball Earth and the rise of multicellular organisms go together?”

The answer to that counterintuitive problem may hinge on a little-known property of water.

Simpson explained that when saltwater gets colder, it also becomes several times thicker, or more viscous. Humans are too big to notice the change. But for organisms the size of modern-day bacteria, the difference can be huge. 

“When you’re small, you’re stuck,” he said. “The water moves you.”

Taking a swim

The geologist ran a series of calculations to gauge how organisms of various shapes and sizes might fare in the oceans of Snowball Earth. And, in this case, bigger might be better. 

Simpson said that modern-day bacteria and other single-celled organisms move around in aquatic environments using two different sets of tools: There are cilia—which are wavy, hair-like projections—and flagella—think the “tails” on sperm cells. Both of these tools would have been painfully slow in frigid ocean conditions, his results show.

If individual cells joined forces to make a bigger organism, in contrast, they could produce a lot more swimming power while keeping the energy needs of each cell low. 

“The advantage of the multicellular strategy is that each cell stays small and has low metabolic requirements, but these cells can swim together,” Simpson said.

He’s currently testing the theory using experiments with modern algae in a lab and by digging deeper into Earth’s fossil record. One thing is clear, Simpson said: Once life forms got big, a whole new world of possibilities became available to them. Primitive animals like sponges, for example, survive not by floating in the ocean but by actively pumping water through their bodies. 

“When you’re big, you now can move the water rather than the other way around,” Simpson said.

---

JOURNAL

The American Naturalist

DOI

10.1086/716634

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Adaptation to a viscous Snowball Earth Ocean as a path to complex multicellularity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Jul-2021

PALEONTOLGY

Earth's earliest forest revealed in Somerset fossils

by Cardiff University

A reconstruction of a Calamophyton forest, where trees drawn measure 2–3 meters high. 

Credit: Peter Giesen/Chris Berry

Scientists have discovered remnants of the Earth's oldest fossil forest on the north coast of Devon and Somerset in the U.K. The trees, which are about 390 million years old, are thought to have grown as part of an extensive forest covering the east coast of the Old Red Sandstone continent—part of Europe at that time.

This makes the Somerset forest 4 to 5 million years older than the previous record holder at Cairo, New York, in the U.S.

Discovered by researchers from Cambridge University and identified at Cardiff University, the fossils show incomplete trunks up to 2 meters long, together with small branches, of a pioneering type of tree called cladoxylopsids.

Cladoxylopsids dominated terrestrial ecosystems for a period of about 5 million years before the advent of more modern woody trees about 385 million years ago, according to the team.

Their findings, presented in the Journal of the Geological Society, throw new light on the evolution of trees and the transformative role they played in shaping the world we live in today.

Dr. Christopher Berry, a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences who identified the fossils, said, "These Calamophyton trees are the oldest fossil trees ever found in Britain and represent an as yet missing part of our vegetational history.

"The record of fossil forests, where tree bases are preserved where they were living, so far dates back to those discovered in New York State, at Cairo and Gilboa at about 385 million years.

"Although the area of rock exposure is limited and dangerous to access, our new discovery is the oldest clear example of such a geological phenomenon known to date and it speaks directly to the ecology of the oldest forests 390 million years ago."

At first glance, the Calamophyton resemble palm trees, but were unrelated to the kinds of trees that populate Earth today.

Credit: Cardiff University

Rather than solid wood, their trunks were hollow in the center with a ring of woody supporting strands around the outside. Instead of leaves their branches were covered in hundreds of twig-like structures.

The trees were also much shorter than their descendants, standing between 2 and 4 meters tall and as they grew, they shed their lower branches, dropping lots of vegetation litter, which supported invertebrates on the forest floor.

The team also found evidence for bases of the trees, and their fallen trunks, demonstrating for the first time the environmental context and spacing of the trees while they were living.

Dr. Berry added, "The shape and forms of these structures taken together strongly suggest that these the Calamophyton were standing alongside a raised bank beside a small river channel.

"I was able to identify the tree trunks based on 30 years studying these types of fossils and particularly having worked on the best and most complete specimens of Calamophyton from Belgium and Germany where they are well known but relatively rare.

"Nevertheless, it was a bit of a shock. Having traveled the world in search of the earliest forests, it is amazing to know that you can see the localities from here on the South Wales coast."

The team says the North Devon and Somerset site was likely located much nearer Belgium and Germany in the Devonian period, before it was relocated along a huge geological fault during the Carboniferous period at a time of crustal compression and faulting when Africa collided with Europe.

The study's first author Professor Neil Davies of Cambridge University's Department of Earth Sciences said, "The Devonian period fundamentally changed life on Earth. It also changed how water and land interacted with each other, since trees and other plants helped stabilize sediment through their root systems, but little is known about the very earliest forests.

"The evidence contained in these fossils preserves a key stage in Earth's development, when rivers started to operate in a fundamentally different way than they had before, becoming the great erosive force they are today.

"People sometimes think that British rocks have been looked at enough, but this shows that revisiting them can yield important new discoveries."

More information: Neil S. Davies et al, Earth's earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation, Somerset and Devon, SW England, Journal of the Geological Society (2024). DOI: 10.1144/jgs2023-204. www.lyellcollection.org/doi/ab … /10.1144/jgs2023-204

Journal information: Journal of the Geological Society

Provided by Cardiff University 

Scientists uncover world's oldest forest

New study reveals which animals are most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change

by University of Oxford

Artistic reconstruction of a late Triassic undersea scene before (left) and after (right)

 a climate change-related extinction event. Credit: Maija Karala.

In a new study, researchers have used the fossil record to better understand what factors make animals more vulnerable to extinction from climate change. The results could help to identify species most at risk today from human-driven climate change. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

Past climate change (often caused by natural changes in greenhouse gases due to volcanic activity) has been responsible for countless species' extinctions during the history of life on Earth. But, to date, it has not been clear what factors cause species to be more or less resilient to such change, and how the magnitude of climate change affects extinction risk.

Led by researchers at the University of Oxford, this new study sought to answer this question by analyzing the fossil record for marine invertebrates (such as sea urchins, snails, and shellfish) over the past 485 million years. Marine invertebrates have a rich and well-studied fossil record, making it possible to identify when, and potentially why, species become extinct.

Using over 290,000 fossil records covering more than 9,200 genera, the researchers collated a dataset of key traits that may affect resilience to extinction, including traits not studied in depth previously, such as preferred temperature. This trait information was integrated with climate simulation data to develop a model to understand which factors were most important in determining the risk of extinction during climate change.

Key findings:

• The authors found that species exposed to greater climate change were more likely to become extinct. In particular, species that experienced temperature changes of 7°C or more across geological stages were significantly more vulnerable to extinction.
• The authors also found that species occupying climatic extremes (for instance in polar regions) were disproportionately vulnerable to extinction, and animals that could only live in a narrow range of temperatures (especially ranges less than 15°C) were significantly more likely to become extinct.
• However, geographic range size was the strongest predictor of extinction risk. Species with larger geographic ranges were significantly less likely to go extinct. Body size was also important, with smaller-bodied species more likely to become extinct.
• All of the traits studied had a cumulative impact on extinction risk. For instance, species with both small geographic ranges and narrow thermal ranges were even more susceptible to extinction than species that had only one of these traits.

Cooper Malanoski (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford), first author of the study, said, "Our study revealed that geographic range was the strongest predictor of extinction risk for marine invertebrates, but that the magnitude of climate change is also an important predictor of extinction, which has implications for biodiversity today in the face of climate change."

With current human-driven climate change already pushing many species up to and beyond the brink of extinction, these results could help identify the animals that are most at risk, and inform strategies to protect them.

Lead author Professor Erin Saupe (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford) said, "The evidence from the geological past suggests that global biodiversity faces a harrowing future, given projected climate change estimates.

"In particular, our model suggests that species with restricted thermal ranges of less than 15°C, living in the poles or tropics, are likely to be at the greatest risk of extinction. However, if the localized climate change is large enough, it could lead to significant extinction globally, potentially pushing us closer to a sixth mass extinction."

Infographic summarising the key traits and factors identified by the study that 

determine species risk to climate change-related extinction. 

Credit: Miranta Kouvari (Science Graphic Design).

According to the research team, future work should explore how climate change interacts with other potential drivers of extinction, such as ocean acidification and anoxia (where seawater becomes depleted of oxygen).

The study also involved researchers from the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol. Professor Dan Lunt, from the University of Bristol, said, "This study shows that over the course of Earth's history, the extinction risk of marine life has been inextricably linked to climate change. This should act as a stark warning to humanity as we recklessly continue to cause climate change ourselves through burning fossil fuels."

More information: Cooper M. Malanoski et al, Climate change is an important predictor of extinction risk on macroevolutionary timescales, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adj5763. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj5763

Journal information: Science 

Provided by University of Oxford Mathematician creates mass extinction model regarding climate change and adaptation

 

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

The idea of Lemurians has a complex pedigree—rooted in science, pseudoscience, science fiction and various esoteric beliefs.

In the 18th century, a palaeontologist named J. Sclater came up with Lemuria—a theoretical land bridge—to explain how Lemurs got from Asia to Madagascar. Plate tectonics pretty much ended the vogue for lost continents in science, but Lemuria was co-opted into a popular theory of a lost, pre-Atlantean continent called Mu that explains common mythology and symbology between disparate cultures. The concept evolved in different directions, but in certain circles of thought Lemuria-Mu morphed to incorporate much of the Pacific, and eventually, California and the entire West Coast of the U.S. A great flood, or thermonuclear war, depending on who is doing the telling, caused the Lemurians to take refuge in Mount Shasta.

Their descendants still live there, although according to Lemuria believers, they are not inside the mountain on earth’s physical space: they exist in a fifth dimension, but they can travel freely back and forth between that dimension and ours.

Theosophist Willam Scott-Elliot’s map of Lemuria superimposed over the modern continents from his book, The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. He envisioned Lemuria as a large continent that sank, leaving only small islands. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Theosophists took up Lemuria in the 1880s. In her writings, Theosophical Society founder Madame Blavatsky furnished the Lemurians with the metaphysical properties they still have today. To her, they were not just ancient refugees; they were a spiritually advanced civilization. Blavatsky’s writings were influential, an appealing mix of ancient religious ideas and new concepts borrowed from Darwin and modern science, but Lemuria was not linked to Mount Shasta until the publication of Frederick Spencer Oliver’s A Dweller on Two Planets in 1904. Oliver—who grew up in the gold rush town of Yreka not far from Mount Shasta—claimed his writing was channelled through visions and “mental dictation” from Phylos the Tibetan, of the Great White Brotherhood, who once lived on the ancient continent of Lemuria but now lived in the depths of Mount Shasta. The book incorporates many Theosophical ideas.

But the most decisive chapter for Lemurians came in 1931 when Harvey Spencer Lewis, a founder of the San-Jose-based Order of the Rosicrucians, published under the pseudonym Wishar Cerve, Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific. It tied various strands of Lemurian lore together by rehashing other books and articles, cementing the link between Lemuria’s ancient civilization and archaeological ruins in the western United States, and trying to support his claim that Lemurians were a common ancestor to all mankind. The book draws heavily on Dweller on Two Planets and Blavatsky’s writings, with some added shopkeeper testimony about tall, slender men in robes who paid in gold nuggets. But it goes a step further in asserting that Lemuria and Mu are the same thing.

What truly ensured its impact was the claim that the descendants of the Lemurian Garden of Eden were to be found in California, not Asia or Africa; and, just as curiously, that California was the oldest territory on earth. The notion that California was the true cradle of mankind was impossible for Golden Staters (narcissists even then!) to resist. California was already a haven for new religions and thought; this new belief in Californian Lemurians just added to the mosaic.

Lemurian swag at Mount Shasta City’s Visitor Center. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

In the 1930s, the spiritual influx began in earnest—thanks both to Cerve’s book and the I AM movement, which was founded in the wake of a 1934 book, Unveiled Mysteries, which was written by a Midwestern mining engineer named Guy Ballard.

Ballard was a fan of Theosophist ideas, and he claimed in his book that while on a hike on Shasta in 1930, he met Saint Germain, a common figure in New Age beliefs who is alleged to be an 18th century alchemist, referred to by followers as “the Wonderman of Europe” and “the man who knows everything and never dies”. St. Germain called himself an Ascended Master and began training Ballard to be a “messenger”. Based on these teachings, Ballard and his wife founded the St. Germain Foundation— a group (classified as a cult by J. Gordon Melton in his Encyclopaedic Handbook of Cults in America) that is still active today. It remains guided by “I AM” activity—the acronym comes from Ascended Masters and the religion includes a series of affirmations such as “I AM the spirit”. (The I AM concept had already appeared in A Dweller on Two Planets). The idea of Ascended Masters (St. Germain is one, Jesus is another) like the Theosophy that influences it, blends Christianity, Buddhism, and other spiritual threads. It is essentially a guide to life based on Ascension–achieving an individual higher spiritual consciousness.

The I AM Reading Room—the St Germain Foundation’s education center and book store. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

Ballard also described the visions of his and St. Germain’s past lives in Atlantis and Lemuria when he was at Mount Shasta—and soon, the mountain was besieged by Lemuria seekers—many of whom were I AM followers.

The St. Germain Foundation bought a lot of land around Mount Shasta. Not everyone was thrilled with the area’s spiritual makeover. When the foundation bought the historic Shasta Springs Resort in the 1950s, in Dunsmuir, it made what had been beloved public land, including two waterfalls, off-limits to the locals.

Frank Barr was seven years old when he came to Dunsmuir in 1949, when his father got work at a lumber mill. Sipping on barley wine at Dunsmuir Brew House in a pair of denim Dickies overalls, he had plenty of complaints: “They took away our free country! Bought up the retreat, painted it white, and put up No Trespassing signs. They don’t contribute anything to the community.”

PEOPLE SAID YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO INDIA, JUST GO TO MOUNT SHASTA

Today, many I AM adherents live at the Dunsmuir complex. There is an I AM Reading Room and a temple in Mount Shasta—and a yearly ‘I AM COME’ pageant. I AM adherents revere the color purple; the Violet Ray is divine love. (Before I visited the Reading Room, Barr told me not to wear red or black.).

Another influx—not just of I AM followers—began in the 1960s, with the cultural appetite for spiritual alternatives and expanding consciousness: “A lot of people were travelling to India,” says a spiritual guide and coach named Andrew Oser. “But people said you don’t have to go to India, just go to Mount Shasta.”

A view from Mount Shasta. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

Aurelia-Louie Jones was a public face for Lemuria-Telos, and gave it a global footprint; her books were translated into 17 languages and there is a worldwide Telos network that is still active. Jones died of cancer in 2009.

But Jones was not the first to channel from Telos: that was Diane Robbins, a schoolteacher from Rochester, NY.

Robbins lives in a dark-wood house at the base of Mount Shasta; one more left turn, and you are on the road that takes you up and into the mountain’s dense forest.

In 1990, Adama, the High Priest of Telos, contacted Robbins telepathically and began to dictate. “I didn’t even question why—I just did it. I took messages for 2 or 3 years, word for word.”

When finally, sitting in her kitchen in Rochester, she asked Adama what to do next, he told her to bind and market the book, which she did. Telos: Original Transmissions from the Subterranean City beneath Mount Shasta was published in 1992. The current edition features a blurb by Shirley MacLaine: “I read this book and found it to be fascinating.”

Telos, she explains to me, means “communicating with the spirit”.The book’s purpose was for others to make their own connections with Adama and to attain higher consciousness. In this iteration, Adama is an Ascended Master in the tradition of the I AM movement. The book reveals details of Telos’ advanced society, such as the Telosian Justice System; it also says Lemuria ended not in a flood, but thermonuclear war.

In Robbins’ reading, Telos is one of 100 subterranean cities inside the earth called the Agarthan Network – the book also contains a diagram of the Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth theory has waxed and waned for centuries, but is present in many ‘alternative history’ beliefs and conspiracy theories, including the Illuminati. It appeared in in two of Blavatsky’s books, and she may have cribbed it from the holy city underground found in some Buddhist ideas.

Diane Robbins on Mount Shasta. Photo courtesy of Diane Robbins.

Robbins insists that she does not read about other people’s experiences with Lemuria or Telos. “I could never read them; I don’t want to hear about them, otherwise I don’t know what’s coming from me, or from the Ascended Masters. I never even watch movies, because I have to be clear. I can’t do what I do if I fill my mind with other people’s information.”

Robbins says she had however, listened to the revelations of Sharula Dux – a supposed Princess of Telos inside Mount Shasta, born in 1725, who said she came to the surface through Mount Shasta’s tunnel systems in 1988. Sharula Dux spoke at conferences and gave a few interviews, revealing that Atlantis and Lemuria were two great continents that fought a war; that Telos is an underground city in the Agarthan Network governed by 12 Ascended Masters, with Adama its high priest. These revelations are the root of the modern channelers, it seems.

It appears that Dux, also known as Bonnie Condey, ended up in Santa Fe with her husband. (Santa Fe is also a St. Germain hub—and was also, in some books, the location of Telos.) According to an investigative journalist in Austin, TX, Sharula/Bonnie was born in Utah in 1952 and worked as a stripper in Hollywood under the name Atlantis. The name Sharula had also appeared in a 1978 Romance novel.

The Mount Shasta Gateway Peace Garden was set up by a local family in their private garden but is open to all, and has shrines of several religions and a labyrinth. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

A few months after Robbins’ book came out, Aurelia Louise Jones contacted Robbins and offered to help publish and promote a second edition. Jones then moved to Mount Shasta in 1997, and started channelling for her own messages from Adama and Telos.

Robbins and Jones worked together for a time: Jones was in the dedications in Robbins’ second and third editions. But they differed in their approaches, particularly on the correct way to channel Adama: “I wrote down word-for-word what Adama said to me, and Aurelia wanted me to edit my sentences, so we would argue.”

Robbins explains that Jones performed what she called a “co-creative process” in her books by editing Adama’s channelings, which Robbins believes diluted and disrupted Adama’s true “vibration”.

Even a spiritual mecca is not immune to small-town politics.

At Adama’s insistence, Robbins moved to Mount Shasta in 2007, expecting to join a welcoming community, but found that fellow Lemuria/Telos believers in Jones’ circle would have nothing to do with her.

“Aurelia [Jones] really did not want me to move here. She sent me emails telling me not to move here. She didn’t want anyone to know,” says Robbins. “And when I came here, nobody talked to me. I can only imagine what she told people about me. Her ego got in the way. And those people are not following the teachings of Telos. It’s really sad.”

Robbins is not sure what to make of the alleged encounters around the mountain; “People tell me all the time they’ve seen Lemurians… but Adama made it clear that they weren’t showing themselves right now.”

For her part, Jones claimed to have encountered Telosians only once; two tall gentlemen showed up at her door and bought $400 worth of her health products. She had complained to Adama about cash flow problems. She suspected the men were from Telos, not Tahoe as they said, but one of the rules is that Telosians, while they surface from time to time, cannot reveal they are from there. Although Adama did confirm to her afterwards that he had sent them.

Mount Shasta from the lake, hiding behind clouds. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

Ashalyn, who runs Shasta Vortex Adventures, says she is not an adherent of any of the movements in Mount Shasta. When I ask he if she has had a Lemurian encounter, she responds, “I don’t see Lemurians, I channel them.” She is currently working on her own book with Adama. Her previous book was written with Thoth the Atlantean, another Mount Shasta inhabitant.

There are other spiritual vortex locations, such as Arizona’s Sedona Valley, and other New Age centers like Santa Fe. But the mountain makes it easier for people to tune in to whatever they’re trying to hear.

So what are people seeing when they have encounters with odd people? Some tell me it’s more about the feeling, not seeing; many of the strangest stories contained in books from the last century seem to have been taken as second-hand gospel by others.

Saranam (birth name: Mark Greenberg), who works at Mount Shasta’s Crystal Room, has another theory: people who have meditated a lot and have themselves tapped in to a higher consciousness might seem otherworldly to others who hike on the mountain. “People might just go there and meet people there that have a presence – and think they’ve had an encounter with a mystical being.”

Shasta Vortex Adventures – one of many businesses servicing spiritual pilgrims. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle

READ ON The Magic Mountain (roadsandkingdoms.com)