Science Special News

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Introducing NASA's anti-matter Mars spaceship

Most self-respecting starships in science fiction stories use antimatter as fuel for a good reason – it’s the most potent fuel known. While tons of chemical fuel are needed to propel a human mission to Mars, just tens of milligrams of antimatter will do (a milligram is about one-thousandth the weight of a piece of the original M&M candy). However, in reality this power comes with a price. Some antimatter reactions produce blasts of high energy gamma rays. Gamma rays are like X-rays on steroids. They penetrate matter and break apart molecules in cells, so they are not healthy to be around. High-energy gamma rays can also make the engines radioactive by fragmenting atoms of the engine material. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding a team of researchers working on a new design for an antimatter-powered spaceship that avoids this nasty side effect by producing gamma rays with much lower energy. Antimatter is sometimes called the mirror image of normal matter because while it looks just like ordinary matter, some properties are reversed. For example, normal electrons, the familiar particles that carry electric current in everything from cell phones to plasma TVs, have a negative electric charge. Anti-electrons have a positive charge, so scientists dubbed them "positrons". When antimatter meets matter, both annihilate in a flash of energy.

This complete conversion to energy is what makes antimatter so powerful. Even the nuclear reactions that power atomic bombs come in a distant second, with only about three percent of their mass converted to energy. Previous antimatter-powered spaceship designs employed antiprotons, which produce high-energy gamma rays when they annihilate. The new design will use positrons, which make gamma rays with about 400 times less energy. The NIAC research is a preliminary study to see if the idea is feasible. If it looks promising, and funds are available to successfully develop the technology, a positron-powered spaceship would have a couple advantages over the existing plans for a human mission to Mars, called the Mars Reference Mission.

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Ball-lightning generated in lab

Scientists in the joint study group of Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik and Berlin’s Humboldt University have generated ball-lightning in the laboratory - or, to be more precise, ball-lightning-like plasma clouds. The physicists produce luminous plasma balls above a water surface which have lifetimes of almost half a second and diameters of 10 to 20 centimetres. Ball-lightning is described as a luminous phenomenon occurring during thunderstorms. It is a mystery, however, that they should be visible not as a brief flash, i.e. just for microseconds, but exist for several seconds, i.e. a hundred thousand times as long as a flash of lightning. Besides such famous figures as the Roman philosopher Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Charlemagne and Henry II of England, in modern times the Nobel Prize winners in physics, Niels Bohr and Pjotr Kapitza, claim to have observed this phenomenon. Less renowned observers also report unexpected encounters with ball-lightning; the internet features more than a million entries on the subject.

On the other hand, the phenomenon is so rare that there are still no reliable data available. Accordingly, doubtful attempts at interpretation are rampant, ranging from black holes to mini nuclear explosions and esoteric explanations.

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UNESCO to investigate Bosnian pyramid

Bosnia's mystery pyramid is to be investigated and inspected by a team of experts from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, it emerged yesterday. Semir Osmanagic, an amateur archaeologist, has caused a stir with his find at Visocica hill in the centre of Bosnia, although local and European archaeologists denounce it as nonsense. Geologist Aly Abd Barakat, an Egyptian researcher sent by Cairo to assist Mr Osmanagic's team last month, has said that the 2,300ft hill did appear to be a primitive man-made pyramid of uncertain age. Mr Barakat said huge stone blocks found on the three sides of the hill used the same type of artificial cement as ancient Egyptian pyramids. Mr Osmanagic's team is also investigating Pljesevica hill - which he calls the Moon Pyramid - as well as tunnels he believes connect three pyramids.

The researchers have found a sandstone monolith in one of the tunnels with enigmatic symbols engraved on it, which will be sent to Egypt for analysis. Mr Osmanagic, who has studied pyramids in central America for the past 15 years, said that satellite and radar analyses have revealed the perfect geometry of Visocica and precise alignment of its sides with four cardinal points.

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'Sneeze-free' anti-allergy cat bred

A "sneeze-free" cat that does not trigger an allergic reaction in humans has been bred. The ultimate designer pet has been created by an American firm which has used selective breeding to produce what it bills as the world's first hypoallergenic cat. California-based Allerca Lifestyle Pets, which plans to sell the four-legged friends in the UK for thousands of pounds each, said the breakthrough would provide much-needed relief for the millions of cat-lovers who suffer from feline allergies. But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) accused the company of treating pets as "nothing more than designer handbags just to earn a buck". Cat allergies are triggered by a protein in the cat's saliva and skin flakes that are left on the animal's fur when it licks itself during grooming. An allergic person who inhales these airborne particles can suffer an asthma attack, itching, sneezing or skin rashes within minutes. Scientists at Allerca claim to have produced more than 20 allergy-free cats already by breeding over several generations, after identifying short-haired felines without the protein which provokes a reaction in humans.

The firm plans to begin selling the designer pets for £7,500 - not including shipping or quarantine costs - from next year and says it has hundreds of advance orders from across the US and Europe. The company's chief executive, Simon Brodie, said: "The personality of the first breed of hypoallergenic cat is playful and affectionate. "They make great family pets and are wonderful with children." Megan Young, the chief executive of Allerca, said: "For the first time, people who have allergies will be able to keep a cat without suffering. "This is a scientific breakthrough." But PETA said it was opposed to the designer pets.

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Who was Helen Duncan ?

One of the best documented cases in the history of paranormal archives, and one which still excites public interest, is the British governments harassment and imprisonment of Helen Duncan. Canada’s wartime prime minister Mackenzie King made several trips to visit Britains war cabinet during W.W.II, he also visited the famous medium William Roy, who Dennis Bardens occult student and the founder the “Panorama”, programme said was one of several top rated mediums consulted by Winston Churchill.Now I always believed that it was Helen Duncans refusal to be part of the Churchill/lord Dowding psychic group that prompted the prosecution of Duncan, but it came to light just twenty years ago, that she had in fact innocently advised the British governments occult experts, know as the “black team” and was mentioned by Louis De Whol who led the Astrological section, and occult researcher Dennis Wheatley, who also spoke of the Sunday Express, secretly looking into one of the most respected mediums of the day, Leslie Flint, after an approach by the Churchill clan.Remember Helen Duncan was prosecuted for fraud, if this was true that she was a fraud, then the prosecutions case, that she was jeopardising Allied ships by telling the truth, breaking official secrets must be nonsense, which it really was, as it was the British government who lied about ships not being sunk to “improve moral” ?

In wartime, psychics were employed as dowsers over maps, and to astrally project over strategic sites, Astrologers over the best times for an attack, and mediums for contacting the dead for information, some of these like, the top celebrity palmist of the day were paid in cases of wine to keep their names off payrolls.Disgraced psychic researcher Harry Price knew there was no money or fame in endorsing mediumistic skills, so modelled himself on Houdini, even down to learning cheap conjuring tricks that mimic psychic phenomena, ( in a similar fashion to conjuror James Randi) this is a recognised psychological impairment-and Price claimed he had caught Helen Duncan cheating on several occasions, but Harry Price escaped being drafted into the jaws of W.W.II by the “sudden” discovery of a heart murmer, while being given a stipend from the intelligence services, under the guise of “supervisor in munitions”, and having, according to Dr.E. J. Dingwall, ( see spiritualist periodicals of the time) free rein to attack mediums, So Harry Price was no more impartial or objective as was the obsessive and disturbed Houdini. or James RandiThe story is perhaps apocryphal that the spiritualist fraternity got their revenge on Price, by setting him up for ridicule over the “talking mongoose” episode ( look this up on the net )But it was through publisher Robert Maxwells amazing Bilderberg, J.I.C. intelligence, and Jewish underground contacts that Maxwell said he was told Louis De Whol was brought in only to counteract the work of Karl Kraft the astrological genius who he said was personal astrologer to Pius twelve and to Hitler, who were he said, a catholic alliance to destroy communist Russia, and Germany was no threat to Britain, in fact Maxwells knowledge on this was amazing, and in places duplicates that of David Irving, and chief of wartime naval intelligence, Barry Domville.

It was the gossip of the day that Churchill, who always claimed to have special intuitive ability, had been in unsavoury psychic practises, and this is confirmed by independant clairvoyants that he kept mentioning the bibles ”witch of Endor” passage, to get information on battle winners.Incidentally Churchill was said to have visited Duncan in prison on more than one occasion, but Churchill was known for his duplicity.The government have said both publicly and privately that it was Duncans irresponsibility in making public knowledge the sinking particularly of the H.M.S.Barham, and secondarily the Hood, and another ship, which appears to be the merchantman, “Wilhelm gustoff” sunk on Jan 30. 1945 with 8000 German civilians and wounded on board, this is the greatest maritime loss of life ever, and because it was a great war crime, news of it has never come out, as the government for propaganda purposes wanted the facts suppressed, and that led to Duncans prosecution, as a lesson in silence to others. The I.R.D. or information research department, which was just a propaganda body, even claimed the slogan, “loose lips sink ships” was in order to demonise Duncan.But a mounting body of evidence shows that it could have been the War cabinets chief medium William Roys unmasking as one of the cleverest frauds ever, which was known to have thrown Churchill into deep depression, and helped escalate his drinking sessions to a point where an actor is reputed to have taken his part in public appearances.It was around this time that Churchill is on record as saying to his assistant John “Jock” Colville that the cat on the windowsill could be a spy for the Germans!Never forget that Churchill was an “appeaser” to the Soviets, and actually forbad intelligence gathering on Russia throughout the war, this is incredible, and was the reason at wars end why people like Claus Barbie were guaranteed freedom for the information they had on Russia.Incidentally Britain went back on its word on this, and with the pressure of his financial war backers, did prosecute Germany for war crimes, yet allied and Japanese war criminals went free.

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Churchill in fact, like the intelligence services and the legal profession, was heavily into freemasonry, it was called a “fast track to promotion” and some 30 years ago while chatting, a retired senior intelligence officer, this fine old gentleman who had just lost his wife, spilled out so much relevant information, some of this is now in the public domain, but he as a high level wartime naval officer did say that Churchill was so angry that the Bismarck sunk the Hood with such apparent ease, that he insisted the Bismarck must be sunk whatever the cost, and he refused to allow the several British ships in the area to pick up the ships crew, and he said they sailed past in silence, watching hundreds of German sailors drowning in the water. This, a major war crime was on Churchills orders, the excuse after the event was that there were worries of German U. boats in the area, this was patently not true as there was no confirming Enigma intell traffic, in any event they would have made good hostages. But some important facts of the Helen Duncan saga have come out from Soviet bloc sources, such as K.G.B. archivist Vasili Mitrokhin. The British government still hides and obfuscates the truth, in official disinformation and lies, to us its own people, as Soviet master spy sir Anthony Blunt told me, “they will not even tell the truth about why we got involved in the war.”

Blunts knowledge on this saga, and why he was never prosecuted merits a book on its own. However, of particular interest to psychic historians is the phenomenon of psychological –projection, that certain special interest groups point the finger at Hitler being a black magician, when evidence says it was possibly Churchill who would at times see a black dog following him, the black dog is the most sinister sign in the occult register. Churchill’s financial backers would not allow a German surrender, secret negotiations going on through the whole war, particularly from 1942, insisting on the country and peoples total destruction, an act of the grossest evil, which is why Rudolph Hess Who was innocent of war crimes, was imprisoned for life and finally murdered by a British special forces operative. There is much other evidence of German offers for an honourable surrender, Which Churchill and his secret backers refused.Remember in India in 1942 while fighting in Britain’s war suffered a famine that killed over 4 million people, Churchill would send no help, but sent help to Russia, that just stood rotting on the dock month after month.When Russia particularly since the 1930s planned a communist takeover for Britain.Hitler and his Roman catholic sympathies, and Stalin with his atheist beliefs, both had institutional hatred for Churchill’s freemasonry contacts.Finally there are what are called “wallflowers” these are in the intelligence game the memories that are the last to bloom, and often are never seen, many intelligence men before they die will pass on these hidden blooms from the gardens of the soul, sometimes guilt can prevent progress and the unburdening of these memories, can be very therapeutic for them, and to visit such men often in nursing homes to hear their last confessions over many years helps to put the official lies of the wartime jigsaw together. Of perhaps a hundred books behind this article, the relevant ones are;

“from admiral to cabin boy” by Barry Domville,

“Lies in wartime” by A. Ponsonby

testimonies of Ethel Rosenburg

Australian freedom of information act

Diaries of Minnie Adamson

H.M.Prison records.

Spiritualist association documents

Jonathan pollard legal statements

Soviet war records.

Russian G.R.U. archives

J Scott funeral arrangers.

Crown Prosecution service withheld files section.

Wartime court records

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Sir Anthony Blunt/Queen mother statements held in Moscow

A.Pocklington Genealogists ***.

Rudolph Hess secret statements.

Admiralty papers for shredding basket.

Buster Milmo M.I.5 internal chatter.

J.I.C and M. I.5 documentation held in Dzerzinsky offices

The Churchill papers ( pre.editing )

Janes fighting ships

Apparatus inspired by the genius Nicola Tesla, is believed to be used in amplification exercises, for psychic warriors in Israel, the professional U.S. armyjournal, “The military review” some years ago, entitled an article “The new mental battlefield”, most of this material was based on Britains wartime psychic efforts, and is only eclipsed by inspectors in China running tests on schoolchildren for psychic training ability, in the same way they used to train young gymnasts.

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Antikythera mechanism: An ancient computer?

The size of a shoebox, a mysterious bronze device scooped out of a Roman-era shipwreck at the dawn of the 20th century has baffled scientists for years. Now a British researcher has stunningly established it as the world's oldest surviving astronomy computer. A team of Greek and British scientists probing the secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism has managed to decipher ancient Greek inscriptions unseen for over 2,000 years, members of the project say. "Part of the text on the machine, over 1,000 characters, had already been deciphered, but we have succeeded in doubling this total," said physician Yiannis Bitsakis, part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from universities in Athens, Salonika and Cardiff, the Athens National Archaeological Museum and the Hewlett-Packard company. "We have now deciphered 95 percent of the text," he told AFP. Scooped out of a Roman shipwreck located in 1900 by sponge divers near the southern Greek island of Antikythera, and kept at the Athens National Archaeological Museum, the Mechanism contains over 30 bronze wheels and dials, and is covered in astronomical inscriptions.

Probably operated by crank, it survives in three main pieces and some smaller fragments. "(The device) could calculate the position of certain stars, at least the Sun and Moon, and perhaps predict astronomical phenomena," said astrophysicist Xenophon Moussas of Athens University. "It was probably rare, if not unique," he added. The rarity of the Antikythera Mechanism precluded its removal from the museum, so an eight-tonne 'body scanner' had to be assembled on-site for the privately-funded project, which used three-dimensional tomography to expose the unseen inscriptions. The first appraisal of the Mechanism's purpose was put forward in the 1960s by British science historian Derek Price, but the scientists' latest discovery raises more questions.

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Tooth gives up oldest human DNA

Scientists have recovered DNA from a Neanderthal that lived 100,000 years ago - the oldest human-type DNA so far. It was extracted from the tooth of a Neanderthal child found in the Scladina cave in the Meuse Basin, Belgium. The study, reported in Current Biology, suggests our distant cousins were more genetically diverse than once thought. Their diversity had declined, perhaps because of climate change or disease, by the time early humans arrived in Europe about 35,000 years ago. French and Belgian researchers isolated the genetic material from mitochondria. These are "power pack" structures in cells which contain their own DNA. The scientists decoded the sequence of 123 DNA "letters" (base-pairs, or bp) and compared it with other known Neanderthal DNA sequences from specimens dated between 29,000 and 42,000 years old.

"The Scladina sequence has revealed that the genetic diversity of Neanderthals has been underestimated," a team led by Dr Catherine Hanni of Ecole Normale Superieur in Lyon, France, wrote in the journal Current Biology. "Thus, more Neanderthal sequences than the six presently available and longer than 100 bp are needed to fully understand the extent of the past diversity of Neanderthals."

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History channel investigates "UFO car"

Late one August night, almost 30 years ago, a mysterious flash of light bore down on a Marshall County deputy as he was patrolling the western edge of the county. The light lasted only a few minutes, before Sheriff Deputy Val Johnson, who was driving along Minnesota Highway 220, lost consciousness of time.A few minutes grew into half an hour - 40 minutes, before Johnson became aware of the night again, and when that happened, damage had been done to his eyes and his squad car.The cause of the light has remained a mystery since August 1979. And it's been the subject of much speculation. Enough speculation to draw the occasional interest of publications and television producers, according to Ethel Thorlacius, the director of the Marshall County Historical Museum.Today, Thorlacius said, producers from the History Channel will be visiting the museum, which houses the squad car Johnson was driving that night.

The car retains unusual damage, she said, from a broken headlight to a long dent in the hood, a hole in the windshield and an antenna bent at a 45-degree angle.It's become the county "UFO car," though Thorlacius said there's no way to know what caused the damage."I believe that there was something outside that car that was responsible for the damage," Thorlacius said.A UFO, a ball of lightning, St. Elmo's fire, all come up on Thorlacius' conjecture list."You would have to see the damages to understand how unusual they are," Thorlacius said. "It's, well, it's like something went right over it, rolled over it."Maybe she'll never know how the damage occurred, but she will have many more opportunities to discuss it as interested parties come through to talk about it.

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Take a trip into the light fantastic

Sir Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, plans to offer flights into the spectacular celestial display of the aurora borealis. The northern lights have long captivated observers on the ground, but the company now says it is looking for a European base to launch trips that will go high enough to delve inside the glowing sky for the first time. "No human being has ever flown into an aurora borealis," said Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic. "You have to go beyond the edge of space. I think that will be a magical and mystical experience." Sir Richard's venture is a collaboration with Burt Rutan, who designed SpaceShipOne, the craft that won the $10m (£5.2m) Ansari X-prize in 2004. The prize was awarded for flying a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to the edge of space twice in two weeks. Mr Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, in Mojave, California, is working on a successor called SpaceShipTwo, which will carry six passengers and two pilots. Virgin Galactic will not be drawn on exactly when the tourist flights will start but most observers expect them to launch in 2008 or 2009.

The company already has 100 "founder" members who have each paid $200,000 for a ticket on one of the early flights. Once testing of SpaceShipTwo is completed, the first flight will carry Virgin Galactic staff and the second will take Sir Richard himself. The company is based in New Mexico where the state government is building a spaceport, but a launch site for aurora flights in Europe is yet to be decided. "It's very, very difficult to find locations in Europe," Mr Whitehorn told a conference on space tourism at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Wednesday. Most suitable airports were too close to population centres, and only 55 airports in the world had runways long enough.

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New dwarf dinosaur species discovered

Fossils from a new species of a 150 million-year-old dwarf dinosaur have been found in northern Germany, scientists said on Wednesday. Initially they suspected that the remains from more than 11 sauropods were from young dinosaurs. But an analysis of their bones showed they were small adults that probably lived on an island during the late Jurassic period.“It is the first case of island dwarfing proven for sauropod dinosaurs,” said Professor Martin Sander of the University of Bonn in Germany.Sauropods were the largest animals that lived on Earth. With their long necks, massive tails, small heads and stout legs they weighed on average about 20 tonnes and measured 20 metres (yards) in length. The biggest grew to 80 tonnes and were as long as 40 metres.By contrast, the new dwarf species, called Europasaurus, was a mere 1 tonne and about 6 metres long -- about the size of a small rhinoceros or a big buffalo.“This one is minute but it is still a big animal,” said Sander, who reported the finding in the journal Nature.The bones were discovered in marine beds in northern Germany. During the Jurassic period, sea levels were much higher than today so much of central Europe was under water.

Dwarfism is a common phenomenon on islands. The scientists believe the animals’ size decreased because they lived in an area where sea levels rose and land masses shrunk.Another possibility is that they moved as large animals to islands and shrank within a few generations because of limited resources.

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Millipede with 666 legs rediscovered

She is all legs and after 27 years, she is showing not one but 666 of her rarely seen limbs.After years of searching, scientists have rediscovered Illacme plenipes, a millipede that is the world's leggiest creature, in a tiny patch of San Benito County, California. This type of millipede was first discovered in 1926.The word millipede literally means a thousand feet. In reality, no millipede has so many. The I. plenipes, however, comes closest, with the females possessing up to 750 legs based on previous finds.Over the course of three trips to the California Floristic Province, scientists found four male specimens and three females, which they report in the June 8 issue of the journal Nature.The females, as in turned out, were not only longer at about 1.3 inches, but also had up to 666 legs. The males averaged 0.6 inches in length and walked on no more than 402 legs.

The males and females probably start out at the same size. Females grow larger and develop more body segments, explained the report's co-author Paul Marek of East Carolina University. "They are also wider."It isn't known if the females have accelerated growth or just keep growing once the males have stopped. "Females may just continue to add segments," Marek told LiveScience. "It remains a mystery."

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The mystery of Titan's missing craters

What happened to Titan's craters? NASA's Cassini mission should have seen hundreds of impact craters on Saturn's giant moon, but so far it has only spotted a handful. The latest clues in the mystery of the missing craters suggest a conspiracy between volcanoes, rain and settling soot - perhaps aided by an eggshell-thin crust.Cassini has aimed its radar at Titan five times, mapping five narrow strips of terrain. In a paper published in Nature, the radar team analyse the second strip in detail. If Titan were like other dead moons in the outer Solar System, this strip would be scarred by perhaps 100 craters bigger than 20 kilometres across, created by cosmic impacts. But only two appear, meaning the others must have been destroyed.One is a ring 80 kilometres across called Sinlap. The other, named Menrva, is an impact basin 450 kilometres in diameter and there is a clue to the mystery on its rim - gaps in its ramparts and fluid drainage patterns nearby.

Radar team member Steven Wall at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, thinks that the gaps have been cut by flowing fluids, probably the liquid methane that is thought to rain down occasionally on Titan. Methane streams might have completely washed away smaller craters.But other processes are probably at work too. "We see so much evidence for surface modification, it is likely that craters are being buried or obliterated," says Wall. On other passes, Cassini has seen bright lobes of material that are thought to be volcanic flows. Many craters might have been filled in by such cryovolcanism - floods of liquid water from Titan's interior.

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New book explores 1965 town abductions

Were you in Grantham on the evening of November 9, 1965? Yes? Then you were abducted by aliens but inconveniently have had the memory wiped, according to a new book. Indeed, only a cover-up by the Journal and all the usual Government suspects has prevented the story being told ... until now.Asylum – The Definitive UFO and Alien Abduction Experience is written by Anthony R. Mallin and claims to be based on the story of a real person, Clive Powers, who as a boy in 1960 was groomed by the aliens when they touched down in Syston five years earlier.When the Grantham landing happened in Green Lane, Powers suffered the torment of abduction while 'drawn' out to the site with his mate.He was sent to Rauceby and thence to an asylum in Croydon where his memory was agonisingly unravelled by a mysterious psychiatrist.It can be difficult to follow what's going on and it's difficult to check as the author claims names have been changed, oddly, to avoid "possible contraventions" of the Official Secrets Act. Perhaps there might have been greater concerns about making enemies from further afield.

But there are plenty of place names and so on to tickle the fancy of the Grantham reader, even if you were lucky enough not to get whisked away on that evening 40 years ago.Powers, who seemed to live in both Hamilton Road and Melbourne Road, went to Belton Lane Primary School and St Wulfram's (where some pretty amazing things happened). He worked at Parnell's TV shop and there is, inevitably, a big Ministry of Defence cover-up surrounding RAF Spitalgate and possibly the goings-on at Barkston Heath.But the real villains of the piece are at the Journal. When our intrepid hero is attempting to research what really happened he is met by sinister questions.