[extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) Edison's 'Conquest Of Mars'

[Terry W. Colvin]

From: Nick Balaskas <Nikolaos at YorkU.CA>

To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 11:45:33 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: Edison's 'Conquest Of Mars'


Hi Everyone!

I got to hear and meet with Robert Godwin, publisher of Apogee 
Books, when he gave a talk last Wednesday to the members of the 
Toronto Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at 
the Ontario Science Centre last Wednesday.

Godwin gave many examples of long forgotten works of science 
fiction and scientific speculations by astronomers from the late 
19th and early 20th centuries that not only directly influenced 
many of the space scientists and engineers of this generation 
that got us to the Moon and shaped our ideas about Mars but who 
also played a part in creating our present beliefs about aliens 
and UFOs.

Many of us are familiar with H.G. Wells 1897 'War of the World' 
that created panic when it was first broadcast on radio in 1938 
and later popularized in several films, including Steven 
Spielberg's version that was in the cinemas last summer, but few 
know that the Hearst publishing empire commissioned a sequel in 
1898 called 'Edison's Conquest of Mars' that was serialized in 
their many newspapers. In this sequel, an armada of manmade 
cigar shaped UFOs were built and first test flown to the Moon 
before this 19th century international financed human invasion 
of Mars was launched from Earth (sounds familiar?). Now for the 
first time a book version of this sequel is now available by 
Apogee Books, the Canadian based space publishing company. Can 
Spielberg's sequel 'War of the Worlds 2' where it is our turn to 
kick some Martian butt be in the works too (a few years ago I 
had fun playing a soldier who gets killed chasing the Martians 
through the woods in the movie pilot of the short lived TV 
series 'War of the Worlds').

http://www.cgpublishing.com/Books/Edison.html

Although Godwin's talk seemed to convince his audience that our 
science fiction and human creative ingenuity of the past can 
account for the rash of flying saucer sightings of the present 
and he also dismissed the Roswell UFO crash as nonsense, when I 
approached him after his talk to get him to sign my copy off 
'Mars, The NASA Mission Reports' he was startled when I stated 
that I believed that some UFOs are real and not from Earth. I 
also reminded Godwin about the astronaut post flight debriefings 
reproduced in his three volume set on Apollo 11 that describe an 
unexplained UFO sighting in space made by these astronauts which 
he himself discussed on Errol Bruce-Knapp's 'Strange Days... 
Indeed' show 171 four years earlier!

I encourage all of you to check out Godwin's other excellent and 
unique Apogee books on manned space flight and view the rare 
footage in the CDs/DVDs that accompany them which will allow you 
to relive many amazing and incredible moments in human space 
flight or to discover them for the first time.

http://www.cgpublishing.com/Books/SPACE_SPLASH.html

Godwin has visited many of NASA's facilities where he has seen 
valuable documents thought to have been lost or destroyed 
(including a room the size of the auditorium he spoke at which 
contained all the technical records of the Saturn V, the world's 
largest and most successful rocket which, if production was not 
cancelled, could have been used to place all the parts for the 
International Space Station into orbit in a couple of launches) 
and talked with many of the its past and present astronauts and 
employees, including Werner von Braun's right-hand man Ernst 
Stuhlinger and many other still living Project Paperclip space 
scientists from Nazi Germany who I know have a lot of important 
but still untold stories about space - and UFOs - that Godwin is 
unaware of and would be very surprised to learn about.


Nick Balaskas



-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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