F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

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The Sailing Stones of Death Valley

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I’d first read about these things years ago when I was a kid, and over the course of my life thought I’d made it all up—until I checked out this MSN link. Well, I’ll be danged—there they were!  The Sailing Stones of Death Valley!

Okay, being that I’ve given so much thought to these over the course of my life, and that this is so fricking out there to begin with, I thought I’d come up with a just-as-out-there possible solution. A gedankenexperiment, s’il vous plait:

What do the tracks look like?

Trajectories.

Of what?

(Here it comes…)

Flying saucers. UFOs. Foo Fighters!

Yeah, isn’t that out there?  I mean really out there?

But, wait—there’s more.

What kind of UFOs, you ask?

Ours.

Ain’t that just great?

Maybe…it’s a training field for UFO drivers, as they’re being taught by the Master UFO drivers, yeah? You know, like when you learned to drive, you took out the Family Truckster into a deserted parking lot and drove donuts til you puked?

I don’t know how much I believe this, but let’s just give this some amusing “whiteboard” consideration, in this gedankenexperiment of ours. And, yes, I know—these things have supposedly been around some 90 years, but with some of this “technology,” time actually doesn’t matter, and UFOs have also been seen for as long as Humans have been walking this earth—they’re even in some Renaissance paintings. I say that Death Valley being a “huge patch of nothing” makes it a great area for UFOs to play around in, whoever’s flying. You know, screaming around, buzzing and skimming inches over the ground. Heck, conventional fighter pilots do it—why not other “pilot types,” right?

And what if these UFOs were controlled by magnetism or electrogravitics, or some other power source that emitted a force field? So, here you are screaming along at 70,000 feet, then—purely and justly fer kicks—you dump the nose, and power dive…only to yank-and-bank it out of oblivion at the last possible moment….

Or, perhaps, you’re just tooling along in your craft, and huggin the ground, like terrain following aircraft ….

So, you see, in this gedankenexperiment coming so close to the ground, your force field would move some rocks about…while leaving others untouched.

It fits!

Okay, that’s my theory, whether or not I believe is moot…

But, most amusing to kick around!

In Memoriam to Robert F. Butts (1919 – 2008)

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This is in memory of a friend of mine who died on this day.  Though we’d never met (we almost did, but our lines got crossed…), we’d corresponded (best I could figure), over 30 years. This is a very nicely done video done by Paul Helfrich, Bob Terrio, and Rodney Davidson. Great job, guys!

Just Another Tool….

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A friend forwarded me a post by M. J. Rose that caused me to throw a powerful fist into the air, shouting “Yeah!”  It’s a post dealing with an issue I’d posted about back in February of this year (Forget Facebook, Hang Twitter!). It says it all and even has some stats to back it up.  This is what I’ve been looking for (thanks, K)!

Thing is, will publishers even take note, let alone to heart? Since I’m an optimist, I’ll say “yes.” I think that even they will see that the light. After all, it’s about return on effort (“ROE”), and this whole social media thing is still quite new–especially in publishing.  Everything’s still in development, so if the Suits want a better return on their investment , you can bet, however long it’ll take them to “get this,” they will, and start behaving more like M. J. Rose says, giving writers more useful tips on how to perform the whole social media/PR thing. Everyone wants more money.

Thanks, M.J.!

Old Fort Erie Ghost Shadow

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Friday night I found this show, called Ghost Adventures, on the Travel Channel. On Friday’s show was an episode called Old Fort Erie, at Ontario, Canada. It was about this fort having been the scene of a nasty battle in 1814. But what really got me in this show, and I’ve seen a couple episodes of this guy, Zak Bagans and his crew’s, work–and really like it–is this is the first time I’ve ever seen–on TV–any so-called “evidence.”

Now, when I see shows like this, though I always consider them scripted, I still consider them “real,” as in the content is not made up. On this point, I’d love to hear from people in “the business” to let me know if I’m off the mark. Can content like this really be faked and put on TV as real, and there be no ramifications to the show/producers?

So, to this end, there was a scene in the kitchen, where the Ghost Adventure guys got one of the re-enactors (who also happened to have had ancestors in this very battle) participate. He was later so shook up by what he’d experienced, he left the kitchen. What shook him up is on this video clip. This is the first time I’ve ever seen such “proof” on TV about any kind of ghost sighting, and which is why I ask if there’s anyone in the TV/movie business who can tell me that such show content can legally be faked. In this clip is the shadow of an arm and elbow moving. Creeeeepyyyyy! The hand looks exactly like something out of the original Max Schreck Nosferatu movie!

On Killing

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Over the past week, as I listened to some of what was on the news and also talked with some about a certain individual who was “taken out” last weekend, I found the responses very interesting. From those who I might have expected quite a different response, I found appalled surprise at those who literally danced in the streets in NYC’s Ground Zero. Now, while I understand the “felt need” from those individuals for their response, it saddens me that any of us rejoices for the killing (and I chose this term deliberately) of any individual.

In my humble-and-not-so-humble (I’m told) opinion, Death is not the end. It’s a shift in consciousness and focus. I get it that not everyone agrees, that’s fine, but that’s not why I object to cheering about another’s killing. I object to it because of the intent surrounding that applause. Why are people cheering certain individuals’ deaths? Is it because those people were so against something that others were against and now that person is forever gone? I’m not getting into rights and wrongs, here, but the philosophy of intents and actions, because (to me) this discussion also involves probable realities and selves and is a bit deeper than I want to get into while keeping things brief.

Here’s something to consider. While we blame a lot of the negative on “others,” might we also consider another point of view? That we all have a part in what is manifest in everyday life?

I recently read a quote from Richard Kendall (second-to-last paragraph) that was given by Seth. That quote is “YOU ARE NOT SO MUCH A PART OF A MEANINGFUL UNIVERSE, AS THE UNIVERSE IN PART.” At the very least it takes away the “distance” aspect of us living in the universe (we are not so much a part of it, baby, we are it), and shedding that misidentification leads to: if we are the “universe in part,” then doesn’t it stand to reason that we have a direct hand in creating it? Even if your point of view is God creating the universe and us and everything…from what were we created?

Something else? Something else not of the universe?

Of course not.

So, if we are the “universe in part,” then might not our actions, our thoughts, our very existence affect the universe? If everything is literally connected to everything else, and we all directly affect everything, how can any one of us point blame at any one individual for anything?

This extends from our every day awareness into the unconsciousness of all of us, but my point is that each of us are who we are, grow to the best of our abilities (again, right and wrong, deviations from the norm are another discussion), and populate the universe with our actions. But I maintain that we all have a hand in it, consciously or unconsciously. That within each of us is some “metaphysical structure” we bring to existence and within which allows for the manifestation of all we see. I don’t believe God (I prefer the term All That Is) creates everything
without our input. I believe All That Is allows for our direct creation of existence. Is the Medium for our expression for individual and en masse value fulfillment. Sure, All That Is is directly involved, but we are All That Is in part. There is no separation.

Therefore, what are we really cheering when we cheer on the killing of anyone?