.......
Attacking The Bombers
The Japanese bombers were the Americans' real targets. Bettys, with their 20mm tail cannon, were typically attacked from above and to the side, leaving the Wildcat with enough energy to zoom-climb back up for another pass. Missing on one attempt, Foss dove right through a Betty formation. "A thousand feet below," Foss recalled, "I suddenly turned back up and headed toward the belly of the last plane on the left wing of the V echelon. Directly under the bomber, nose pointed straight up, I waited until my plane had lost almost all of its speed and I was on the verge of stalling before pulling the trigger." Not just for its streamlined hull did the Japanese call the Betty the "Flying Cigar"; its fuel tanks hit, this one exploded right on top of Foss -- his fifth kill.
DeBlanc's first victory was a G4M just 50 feet above the water, making a torpedo run against U.S. ships. "I flew through the [anti-aircraft] barrage from the fleet and locked onto the tail of a Betty and opened fire, killing the rear gunner and watching my tracers strike the engines," DeBlanc said. Target-fixated, he nearly collided with the flaming bomber, but he recovered to nail two more -- three kills in one mission. (At the end of January, in a wild dogfight over Vella Gulf, DeBlanc shot down three Japanese floatplanes and two Zekes before being shot down himself. He bailed out, was rescued by a coastwatcher and eventually was flown back to the Canal. Credited with nine kills, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.)
The Navy fighters' radio frequency, meant for communication over the uninterrupted expanses of the sea, was susceptible to interference from intervening land masses. Henderson's Japanese tranceiver could only transmit to the fighters out to about 20 miles but could receive their radios from 100 miles. The controllers in the Pagoda often could only sit helplessly and listen as the battle played out, unable to help direct the action.
Back To Base
"The ground crews would count [the survivors] as they landed," said the 67th's historian. "The ambulance would stand, engine running, ready for those who crashed, landed dead stick, or hit the bomb craters in the runway. Then the work of patching and repairing the battered fighters would start again."
Probably the Americans' greatest advantage was simply their proximity to the base. Pilots had a very good chance of making it back to Henderson Field -- if they could survive being shot down.
After downing three other Zeros during a dogfight on October 25,1st Lt. Jack E. Conger of VMF-212 went into the drink after he rammed a fourth Zero -- since he had no ammunition left. The Japanese pilot also parachuted and insisted the Marine rescue boat pick up Conger first. Conger had to convince the Marines not to shoot the chivalrous enemy pilot and was the first to reach down to pull him aboard. Taking umbrage at the dishonorable prospect of capture, the Japanese pilot, 19-year-old Petty Officer 2nd Class Shiro Ishikawa of the 2nd Kokutai, thrust his 8mm Nambu pistol out of the water into Conger's face and pulled the trigger. The wet ammo misfired and then misfired again when Ishikawa tried to shoot himself. Having had enough, Conger (who would finish with 10 1/2 kills) brained his recent aerial adversary with a five-gallon gas can and hauled him into the boat.
Bombardment
Nighttime brought a new set of annoyances: Tokyo Rose propaganda on the radio; nuisance bombers ("Louie the Louse" and "Washing Machine Charlie," named for the chugging sound of his unsynchronized propellers), mixing the occasional bomb with whistling bottles dropped just to rattle nerves; and troop convoys (the "Cactus Express," later redubbed "Tokyo Express") coming down the Solomons' central channel ("the Slot") to offload troops at Cape Esperance under cover of naval bombardment.
"Throughout most of my first night on Guadalcanal," recalled Foss, "shells streamed above our tents in both directions as Japanese ships in the channel targeted our artillerymen on the island, who returned the fire. The veterans...assured us that the night's shelling was 'light.'" By the end of his first week, Foss believed them. On October 13, Japanese 105mm and 150mm artillery pieces, dubbed "Pistol Pete" and "Millimeter Mike" by the Marines, began lobbing random shells from the surrounding hills, beyond the range of the Marines' 105mm and 5-inch fieldpieces. A heavily escorted Japanese bomber raid arrived over Henderson at noon, cratering the airfield and setting 5,000 gallons of aviation fuel ablaze. That night, in what was to be known ever after as "the Bombardment," the Japanese battleships Haruna and Kongo dropped more than 900 14-inch shells onto Henderson.
Come dawn, Henderson was a scene of staggering destruction, the steel-matted main runway a twisted ruin and the Pagoda damaged. (Geiger ordered the Pagoda demolished to deny the Japanese a target in the future). More than three-quarters of the SBDs and all of the TBFs were destroyed. Forty-one Americans were dead.
But the Americans had a surprise up their sleeves -- an auxiliary airstrip, Fighter One, carved out of the coconut grove southeast of the main field. From there, the Cactus Air Force launched strikes against incoming air raids and the Tokyo Express. On the night of October 14, however, heavy cruisers Chokai and Kinugasa paid a follow-up visit, pelting Henderson with 752 8-inch rounds.
Taking Out Transports
The morning of October 15 found Japanese transports calmly offloading at Tassafaronga, just 10 miles from Lunga.
Mortally stricken by aircraft from Henderson on November 14, Kinugawa Maru, one of "Tenacious Tanaka's" troop ships, lies close to the mouth of the Bonegi River, near Tassafaronga, after being deliberately run ashore. (National Archives)
But the Japanese were to rediscover a truth that has blessed and bedeviled air forces since the dawn of military aviation -- runways, though easily cratered, are easily repaired. Henderson put every available plane in the air to bomb and strafe the ships as well as the troops and supplies already ashore. Flying General Geiger's personal Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina amphibian, Blue Goose, Major Jack R. Cram torpedoed one of the transports, Sasago Maru, for which he would receive the Navy Cross.
The accompanying destroyers riddled the PBY, and three Zeros of the Tainan Kokutai chased it back to Lunga. Haberman, attempting to put his smoking F4F down, pulled off from his approach to Fighter One and shot the last Zeke off Cram's tail (killing Petty Officer 2nd Class Chuji Sakurai). During the action, three transport ships were set afire and beached; one was sunk by more Boeing B-17s sent up from Espíritu Santo.
Trading Blows
Again, before dawn on October 16, the cruisers Myoko and Maya came down the Slot to hammer Henderson, this time firing 1,500 8-inch shells. By dawn Geiger put his total losses at 23 Dauntlesses, six Wildcats, eight Avengers and four Airacobras. Even including those planes that the ground crews cobbled up from cannibalized parts, the Cactus Air Force had only 34 planes left, including just nine Wildcats.
Just as nine Aichi D4Y1 "Val" dive bombers plunged down to finish off the Cactus Air Force, Lt. Col. Harold W. "Indian Joe" Bauer arrived from New Hebrides with 19 Wildcats and seven Dauntlesses. His fuel tanks almost empty, Bauer nevertheless shot down four Vals.
Both sides needed time to recover from the shock. Because Fighter One was too frequently flooded, another strip, called Fighter Two, was smoothed out across the Lunga River. Geiger, 57, who at one point had personally taken an SBD up to drop a 1,000-pound bomb on Japanese troops, finally was transferred out with combat fatigue.
Sinking The Hiei
Meanwhile, Japanese cruisers and destroyers landed more troops on the island, and on November 13 the battleships Hiei and Kirishima came down the Slot to smash Henderson once and for all. Alerted to their approach, American cruisers and destroyers ambushed them. Dawn found Hiei, hit 85 times, almost dead in the water just 10 miles north of Savo Island and less than 40 miles from Henderson. It was payback time.
All day Hiei lay prostrate while SBDs and TBFs punched bombs and torpedoes into her. The Wildcat fighter escort, finding no Zeros, went down to strafe as well. That night the Japanese scuttled Hiei. An American report noted, "It should be recorded that the first battleship to be sunk by Americans in the Second World War was sunk because of a handful of Marine and Navy aircraft."
Educational Sources: www.military.com/ www.daveswarbirds.com/cactus/
............
Turning Point
On November 14, a cruiser force under Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa tried to achieve what the battleships had failed to do, shelling Henderson Field once more while an 11-ship troop convoy under Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka headed for Guadalcanal. Both Japanese forces soon found themselves under attack by every available Cactus Air Force plane and the entire air group off the American carrier USS Enterprise, which had flown in to reinforce Henderson. In the ensuing fight, Indian Joe Bauer, by now an 11 victory ace, went into the water; he was seen swimming but disappeared before he could be rescued. (Bauer was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.) Mikawa lost the heavy cruiser Kinugasa to Enterprise's dive bombers, which also succeeded in damaging the heavy cruiser Maya. Seven transports went down; the others, beached, were destroyed the next day. Only 40 percent of the 10,000 Japanese troops made it onto Guadalcanal, with just five tons of supplies.
It was a turning point. After mid-November the Japanese, although they continued trying to destroy Henderson, gave up trying to recapture it. Instead, they secretly built their own airfield, at Munda on New Georgia, stretching a wire net over the construction to conceal the runway and leaving the tops of palm trees on it as camouflage.
Foss Returns
Foss, with a Distinguished Flying Cross and severe malaria to show for his stint on Guadalcanal, had been rotated rearward but returned to Henderson on New Year's Day 1943. Placed in command of VMF-121, he soon shot down three of the new, square-winged A6M3 Type 32 Zekes to raise his score to 26 -- tied with American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker. The bet was that Foss would be first to break Rickenbacker's record.
Foss' chance came on January 25, when Japan sent a last-ditch aerial armada down the Slot -- 30 army bombers and fighters, recently moved to Rabaul from Malaya to assist the depleted naval units. Against them Foss had only his eight-plane Wildcat flight -- the "Flying Circus" -- and four Lockheed P-38F Lightning fighters of the 339th Fighter Squadron.
The bombers stayed out of range until their Nakajima Ki-43 fighter escorts could deal with the Americans. But the Ki-43 pilots feared a trap. "By refusing to run away when the odds were clearly and overwhelmingly against us, we instilled [in the Japanese] the deep suspicion that we had many more planes in the air," said Foss. The P-38s were more than capable of handling the few Ki-43s that ran the gantlet, two of which were shot down by Lieutenants Ray W. Bezner and Besby F. Holmes.
With the Wildcats still blocking the way -- and accounting for two more Japanese fighters -- the bombers soon gave up and went home. For turning back that air raid without firing a shot -- and for giving Henderson's safety higher priority than his personal score -- Foss received the Medal of Honor; a few days later he transferred out for good. His 26 kills would make him the highest scoring Marine fighter pilot of the war except for Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington (who technically scored six of his 28 kills over China as one of the "Flying Tigers"). Foss retired a brigadier general, later serving as governor of his native South Dakota.
Role In History
The Japanese military saved face by evacuating their remaining ground forces in early February, literally under the Americans' noses. The campaign for Guadalcanal was over; Henderson's role in history, however, was not. It was from Fighter Two that 16 P-38s of the 339th Squadron took off on April 18, 1943, to intercept and shoot down a Betty bomber carrying the mastermind of Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, as it approached Bougainville. But one of the returning Lightnings landed at a new forward airstrip in the Russell Islands. The war was leaving Henderson behind.
Through January 1943 the Cactus Air Force had lost 148 aircraft shot down and 94 airmen killed or missing. In addition, between August and November 1942, 43 planes were destroyed on Henderson Field, and 86 were lost operationally. During that same period, the U.S. Navy carriers supporting the Guadalcanal campaign lost a total of 49 planes in combat, 72 destroyed on their ships and 184 operational losses. Estimates of total Japanese losses ranged as high as 900 aircraft and more than 2,400 aircrew members. The latter statistic reflected the beginning of a talent drain that would ultimately prove fatal to the Japanese land and naval air forces.
"None realized more the importance of the field that they had so obligingly begun, and so precipitantly abandoned, than the Japanese," wrote one historian. "For they never regained their strategic airfield, and for the lack of it they lost Guadalcanal, the Solomons, and ultimately New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and their bases to the north. Probably never in history have a few acres of cleared ground cost so much in ships, men and treasure as...Henderson Field."
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on October 27:
1728 James Cook captain/explorer, discovered Sandwich Islands
1782 Niccolo Paganini Genoa It, composer/violin virtuoso (Princess Lucca)
1811 Issac Merrit Singer inventor (1st practical home sewing machine)
1844 Klas Arnoldson Sweden, politician/pacifist (Nobel 1908)
1850 Old Sarge born in small 2 up 1 down split-level log cabin. Lifer Extraordinaire (pardon my french) bane of 2nd Lt's know to cause Privates to....soil themselves with just a look. Inventor of SOS (the orginal breakfast of champions)
"Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again." ~Menachem Mendel Schneerson
1858 Theodore Roosevelt (R) 26th Pres (1901-09) (Nobel 1906)
1872 Emily Post authority on social behavior, writer (Etiquette)
1910 Fred de Cordova film/TV producer (The Tonight Show)
1910 Jack Carson Manitoba Canada, actor (Star is Born, Mildred Pierce)
1911 Leif Erickson Calif, actor (Invaders from Mars, On the Waterfront)
1914 Dylan Thomas Swansea, Wales, poet (Child's Christmas in Wales)
1917 Oliver Tambo leader of African National Congress
1918 Paul Dixon Earling Iowa, Ohio talk show host (Paul Dixon Show)
1920 Nanette Fabray San Diego Calif, actress (One Day at a Time)
1922 Ralph Kiner HR hitter (Pitts Pirates)/sportscaster (NY Mets)
1923 Roy Lichtenstein US, Pop art painter; painted comic book panels
1923 Ruby Dee Cleve Ohio, actress (Raisin in the Sun, Cat People)
1926 HR Haldeman former White House Chief of Staff-Watergate figure
1928 Kyle Rote football half-back (NY Giants 1951-61)
1932 Sylvia Plath American poet (Bell Jar)
1933 Floyd Cramer La, country pianist (Last Date, On the Rebound)
1939 (And now for something completly different) John Cleese comedian/actor (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers)
1940 Lee Greenwood country singer (God Bless the USA)
1945 Carrie Snodgress Park Ridge Ill, actress (Diary of Mad Housewife)
1946 Steven R Nagel Canton Ill, USAF/astr (STS 51-G, STS 61-A, STS 37)
1946 Terry J Hart Pittsburgh Penn, astronaut (STS 41C)
1953 Michael A Baker Memphis Tenn, Lt Cmdr USN/astronaut (STS 43)
1958 Simon Le Bon rocker (Duran, Duran-Hungry Like the Wolf)
1963 Deborah Moore London England, actress (Danielle=-Day of Our Lives)
1963 Marla Maples Dalton Ga, model/Donald Trump's main squeeze
2004 Jake aka grand high PooBah of Ranjaporr, Monarch of all he surveys, Potentate of poop, Czar of the Creamed Peas
(Mommy's sitting down. That means it's time for her to change my diaper!)
"Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again."
Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968
Deaths which occurred on October 27:
0925 Rhazes, [Abu Bakr Mohammed ibn Zakarijja al-Razi), Persian, dies
1439 Albrecht II von Habsburg, king of Bohemia/Hungary/Germany, dies at 42
1505 Ivan III The Great Russian tsar (1462-1505), dies
1553 Michael Servetus Spanish physician burns at stake for heresy. His last book “Christianismi Restitutio” included a chapter on the pulmonary circulation of blood.
1659 Marmaduke Stevenson Quaker in Boston, hanged
1944 Iman J Van de Bosch, Belgian resistance fighter, dies
1955 Clark Griffith baseball player/manager (NY Yankees), dies at 85
1962 Fatso Marco comedian (Milton Berle Show), dies at 56
1964 Sammee Tong actor (Bachelor Father, Mickey), dies at 63
1975 Rex Stout writer ("Nero Wolfe")
1988 S.B. Fuller founder of Fuller products, dies at 83
1990 Elliott Roosevelt son of FDR, dies at 80
1990 Xavier Cugart bandlander, dies from heart failure at 90
1996 Morey Amsterdam actor/comedian (Dick Van Dyke Show) at 74
Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
27-Oct-2003 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private Jonathan I. Falaniko Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - car bomb?/RP grenade?
US Sergeant Aubrey D. Bell Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
27-Oct-2004 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Staff Sergeant Jerome Lemon Sindiayah (near, nr. Balad) - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - car bomb
Afghanistan
10/27/04 Gomez, Billy Corporal 25 Army 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Reg., 25th Infantry Div. Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://soldiersangels.org/heroes/index.php
On this day...
0097 To placate the Praetorians of Germany, Nerva of Rome adopts Trajan, the Spanish-born governor of lower Germany.
0625 Honorius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1644 2nd Battle at Newbury: King Charles I beats parliamentary armies
1787 Federalist letters start appearing in NY newspapers
1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, provides free navigation of Mississippi
1809 President James Madison orders the annexation of the western part of West Florida. Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority
1858 RH Macy & Co opens 1st store, (6th Ave-NYC) Gross receipts $1106
1862 Confederate forces defeated at the Battle of Labadieville, near Bayou Lafourche in Louisiana
1864 Battle of Fair Oaks, Va.
1864 CSS Albemarle torpedoed and sunk
1867 Garibaldi marches on Rome.
1871 Boss Tweed (William Macy Tweed), Democratic leader of Tammany Hall, arrested after NY Times exposed his corruption (Corruption in the democrat party! I can't tell you how shocked I am!)
1880 Theodore Roosevelt marries Alice Lee, on his 22nd birthday
1886 Musical fantasy "Night on Bald Mountain," performed in Russia
1893 Hurricane hits coast between Savannah Ga & Charleston SC
1904 World's 1st subway, the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit), opens in NYC, subway/bus fare is set at one nickel
1913 Pres Wilson says US will never attack another country
1916 1st published reference to "jazz" appears (Variety)
1919 Axeman of New Orleans claims last victim
(He Came in the Night
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/axeman/) 1920 League of Nations moves headquarters in Geneva
1920 Westinghouse radio station in East Pittsburgh, KDKA begins
1922 1st commemoration of Navy Day
(I joined the Navy to see the world,
and what did I see?
I saw the sea.
I saw the Atlantic, it wasn't romantic,
I saw the Pacific, it wasn't terrific,
and the Caribbean, wasn't all it's cracked up to be.)
1924 The Uzbek SSR forms
1925 Water skis patented by Fred Waller
1931 Chuhei Numbu of Japan, sets then long jump record at 26' 2"
1938 DuPont announces its new synthetic fiber will be called "nylon"
1941 Chicago Daily Tribune editorialize there will not be war with Japan
1942 Starachowice, Poland, Nazi soldiers separated out weak Jews from the strong. The strong were sent to work and the weak were sent to the extermination camp at Treblinka
1947 "You Bet Your Life", with Groucho Marx, premieres on ABC radio
1948 Israel recaptures Nizzanim in the Negev
1954 Walt Disney's 1st TV show, "Disneyland," premieres on ABC
1959 Rare Pacific hurricane kills 2,000 in Western Mexico (And where was George Bush?)
1960 Singer Ben E King records "Spanish Harlem" & "Stand By Me"
1961 American Basketball League starts play
1961 Outer Mongolia & Mauritania become the 102nd & 103rd members of UN
1967 4 people from Baltimore pour blood on selective service records
1967 Expo '67 closes in Montreal, Canada
1969 Ralph Nader sets up a consumer organization known as Nader's Raiders
1971 Republic of the Congo becomes Republic of Zaire
1973 Alabama sets offensive record (828 yds), beats Virginia Tech 77-6
1977 NASA launches space vehicle S-200
1978 Begin & Sadat win the Nobel Peace prize
1978 President Carter signs Hawkins-Humphrey full employment bill
1979 St Vincent & the Grenadines becomes independent of UK (Nat'l Day)
1979 Voluntary Euthanasia Society publishes how-to-do-it suicide guide
1980 Dave Gryllis sets world bicycle speed record of 94.37 kph
1981 Andrew Young, former UN Ambassador, elected mayor of Atlanta, Georgia
1982 China announces its population at 1 billion people plus
1984 Wash State's Rueben Mayes sets col football rec of 357 yards rushing
1985 KC Royals beat St Louis Cards, 4 games to 3 in 82nd World Series
1985 Thieves steal 9 paintings, including 5 Monet's & 2 Renoir's
1986 NY Mets beat Boston Red Sox, 4 games to 3 in 83rd World Series
1987 South Korean voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution
1988 "ET" released to home video (14 million presold)
1991 Minn Twins beat Altanta Braves 1-0 in 10 to win World Series in 7
1997 US releases a redesigned $50 bill
1998 Hurricane Mitch, one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded, began its four-day siege of Central America, causing at least 10,000 deaths.
1999 The Clinton administration authorized the first direct military training for opponents of Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein
2001 Brian Robinson (40) of San Jose became the 1st person to hike the 3 major National Scenic Trails, 7,400 miles in 22 states, in a calendar year
2003 A new US stamp dedicated to Theodore Geisel (d.1991), creator of Dr. Seuss issued
2004 Stefan Jaronski, a Montana researcher, found that canola oil combined with a fungus can be used to get rid of grasshoppers
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Cuba : Discovery Day (1492)
Iran : Imam Reza's Birthday
St Vincent Islands : Statehood Day (1969)
US : Navy Day (1775)
US : Mother-in-Law's Day (Sunday)
National Magic Week (Day 4)
Computer Learning Month
Religious Observances
RC : Comm of St Frumentius, bishop; founded Ethiopian church
Feast of St. Claudia, Pilate's wife (Eastern Church).
Religious History
1553 In Switzerland, Spanish physician Michael Servetus, 42, convicted for promulgating anti-Trinitarianism, was condemned for heresy and blasphemy, and burned at the stake in Geneva.
1771 Landing at Philadelphia, pioneer bishop Francis Asbury, 26, first arrived in America. He had been sent from England by John Wesley to oversee Methodism in the American colonies, and stayed all of his remaining 45 years, till his death in 1816.
1889 The first Lithuanian Church in America was organized in Plymouth (near Wilkes-Barre), PA. Rev. Alexander Burba was its first pastor.
1963 One month before his death at age 65, English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'Autumn is really the best of the seasons; and I'm not sure that old age isn't the best part of life.'
1977 American missionary and apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'The unforgivable sin is not something done once and for all and which when done is without remedy. it is the constant, unremitting resistance of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit for salvation.'
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Alien abductees prone to false memories?
Oct 26, 12:36 PM (ET)
LONDON (Reuters) - Do you have memories of being abducted by aliens and whisked away in a spaceship?
You wouldn't be alone.
Several thousand people worldwide claim to have had such close encounters, researchers say. But in a new study, a psychology expert at London's Goldsmiths College says these experiences are proof of the frailty of the human memory, rather than evidence of life in other galaxies.
"Maybe what we're dealing with here is false memories, and not that people are actually being abducted and taken aboard spaceships," says Professor Chris French, who surveyed 19 self-proclaimed alien abductees.
Several of the abductees reported being snatched from their beds or cars by alien creatures around four feet high, with spindly arms and legs and oversized heads, French said.
Some men said they were subjected to painful medical examinations by the aliens, during which their sperm was extracted.
Many of the alien experiences could be explained by sleep paralysis, a condition in which a person is awake and aware of the surroundings but is unable to move.
Sleep paralysis often leads to hallucinations and 40 percent of people experience the state at least once in their lives, French said.
A rich imagination was also at play. Several of the alien abductees were already prone to fanaticizing and also claimed to have seen ghosts and have psychic or healing abilities.
"People have very rich fantasy lives," said French, who is due to present his findings at a public seminar at London's Science Museum Wednesday.
"So much so that they often mix up what's happening in their heads with what is going on in the real world."
(Or you could be NUTS)
Thought for the day :
"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in."
H. R. Haldeman
