Venus Transits Sol & Introduces Prometheus

A drawing of the 1631 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius 
by Glovan Batista Passaro.

The December 7, 1631 Transit of Venus was followed on December 16th by a violent, unexpected eruption of Mt. Vesuvius beginning around 6:00 am. Vesivius have been inactive for a great deal of time, probably since 1139. During the night of December 16-17, earthquakes occurred every 1-15 minutes. At about 11:00 am on the 17th, a large mass of ash, gas, and stones flowed down all sides of Vesuvius, causing the liquefaction of the mountain. Ten minutes later, a tsunami up to 6 to 15 feet of height hit the coast. By 6:00 pm on December 17th, the decline of activity began, lasting several days. The death toll was variously reported to be 3000 to 6000 deceased individuals in Pompeii and other locations.


A Transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours).

Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus A.D. 1639 

by Ford Madox Brown, a mural at Manchester Town Hall

The first known observation of a transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks from his home at Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston in England, on December 4, 1639 (November 24th under the Julian calendar then in use in England). His friend, William Crabtree, also observed this transit from Broughton, near Manchester. Horrocks and Crabtree were founding members of "Nos Keplari." Horrocks died mysteriously two years later, at the age of 22.

Charles Mason (1730-1786), astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, (1733-1779), surveyor and astronomer, are best known for giving their name to the Mason-Dixon line in the United States of America. But their biographies are interwoven with their viewing of two Transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769.

In 1760 the Royal Society chose Charles Mason to go to Sumatra to observe the 1761 transit of Venus, and, probably on Bird's recommendation, Mason suggested Dixon should go as his assistant. An encounter with a French frigate delayed their final sailing so that they could not reach Sumatra in time. They therefore landed at the Cape of Good Hope, where the transit was successfully observed on 6 June 1761….
Mason and Dixon eventually reached England early in 1762. In August 1763 Mason and Dixon signed an agreement with Thomas Penn and Frederick Calvert, seventh Baron Baltimore [qq.v.], hereditary proprietors of the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to go to North America to help local surveyors define the disputed boundary between the two provinces. Arriving in Philadelphia with their instruments in November, they began operations before Christmas 1763. When work for the proprietors on what was to become the famous Mason-Dixon line was complete late in 1766, they began on the Royal Society's behalf, at Dixon's suggestion, to measure a degree of the meridian on the Delmarva peninsula in Maryland and to make gravity measurements with a clock sent out by the Society, the same one that Maskelyne had had in St Helena and Dixon took to the Cape in 1761. They reported their task complete on 21 June 1768 and sailed for England on 11 September. Before leaving, they were both admitted as corresponding members of the American Society held in Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge.
In 1769 Dixon sailed to Norway with William Bayly in the Emerald to make observations of the transit of Venus on 3 June on the Royal Society's behalf. Dixon observed on Hammerfest Island, Bayly at North Cape, about sixty miles apart in case of cloudy weather. They reached England again on 30 July. Dixon returned to Durham, resuming his work as a surveyor. Among places he surveyed at this time were the park of Auckland Castle and Lanchester Common. He died [at age 55] unmarried in Cockfield, county Durham, 22 January 1779.
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Mason was employed by the Royal Society during six months in 1769 on an astronomical mission at Cavan in Ireland. He observed the second transit of Venus on 3 June, partial solar eclipse of 4 June, the phenomona of Jupiter's satellites, and in August and September the famous comet which signalised the birth year of Napoleon Bonaparte....He returned to America, and died in Philadelphia in 1787. His journals were almost tossed, also found a certificate of admission into American Society of Philadelphia. Dixon was reportedly born in a coal mine, died [at 46] at Durham in 1777. ~ Oxford University Press Dictionary of National Biography

The above drawing was created, partially, in anticipation of the Transit of Venus of December 9, 1874. Bob Rickard, editor of Fortean Times, writes me: "This is an illustration from Harry Price's Poltergeist over England (1945) and is a satirical comment on the alleged teleportation of the medium Mrs. Guppy during a poltergeist haunting in London in 1871."

Transit of Venus, December 1882

Freemason John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus was composed after the Transit of 1882 (pictured). See here for more synchromystic details related to Sousa.


After 1882, the next Transit of Venus was not until June 8, 2004. What notable events are associated with that Transit? Days before it occurred, on June 4th, Ronald Reagan, American actor, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911), and officially a Scottish Rite Mason, died. On June 8th, during the Transit, the 30th G8 summit took place on Sea Island, Georgia, USA.


One seemingly strange event was timed exactly for the 2004 Transit of Venus. The heart of the dauphin Louis-Charles, recognized by French royalists as Louis XVII of France, was entombed in the royal crypt of Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris, 211 years after he perished in the French Revolution. DNA testing had verified the heart as belonging to the son of the guillotined King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. No French government officials or members of reigning royal families attended the service.



The Year 2004 is perhaps most remembered for one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hit the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generated enormous tsunami waves that crashed into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries is recorded as 186,983, while more than 40,000 people are listed as still missing.

Strange Eye looks at the 17 dates of the previous sixteen Transits, plus the 2012 Transit of Venus.

For 2012, this Transit will be visible in its entirety from Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, the Pacific and eastern Asia, with the beginning of the Transit visible from North America and the end visible from Europe.

Secret Sun had a few visual observations about the forthcoming Transit of Venus, posted a month before the event, here. Etemenanki has his too, and Andrew Griffin, as well.


The Transit of Venus will be seen in the USA on June 5, 2012, from about 8 PM EDT until sunset. It will continue be visible during sunrise in the UK on June 6th. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is on June 2-5, 2012, in the United Kingdom, as noted in "Queen's Diamond Jubilee omens." 

What will truly occur in 2012? 


What you perceive as happening in the wake of this year's Transit of Venus may not be as euphonious as you have heard in various peace-filled and transformational predictions. Well-known astrologer and former psychotherapist Philip Levine of Sirius Astrological Services shared with me his balanced insights about the upcoming Transit of Venus:

It seems like no big deal that Venus is doing this. One hundred five years is a very short time in the life of planets. And this Sun-Venus conjunction is squared by Mars, so all the harmony and money and love and other Venusian things that one might expect have a fairly loud dissenting voice being thrown into the mix, because Mars squares are about hostility, conflict, aggression, and competition. Such a time would seem to be challenging in terms of finding the best mix of these opposing principles.

Venus, Mars, the Sun...thoughts of a human from a company named Sirius? I can't think of a better guide to a more reasonable way to think about this event.

But what will be the most immediate phantasmagoric space-related imagery that directly follows the 2012 Transit of Venus? Indeed, it may be the June 8th opening in the USA of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which introduces its new mythos for our beginning, graphically. 

Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals. What will this movie give to all of us? What will the Transit of Venus presage for tomorrow?

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"I do not know how to find out anything new without being offensive. To the ignorant, all things are pure: all knowledge is, or implies, the degradation of something. One who learns of metabolism, looks at a Venus, and realises she's partly rotten. However, she smiles at him, and he renews his ignorance. All things in the sky are pure to those who have no telescopes. But spots on the sun, and lumps on the planets -- and, being a person of learning, or, rather, erudition, myself, I've got to besmirch something, or nobody will believe I am -- and I replace the pure, blue sky with the wormy heavens...." 

~ Charles Fort, Lo!

March 17th: War In Libya?

Update: 

On the evening of March 17th, the U.N. Security Council approved (10-0, 5 abstainees) measures including a no-fly zone to try to halt Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's advances and the use of any other measures necessary to protect Libyans. Canada immediately noted they were ready to send 6 fighter jets to Libya to help enforce the no-fly zone. News services reported that the first strikes will be unilateral ones by British and French aircraft. Those countries' fighters could be in the air within hours of the resolution's approval. It is likely five Arab air forces will take part. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said it will mean bombing Libyan air defenses. 

On the morning of March 18, 2011, New York time, Libya's foreign minister declared a cease-fire after the U.N. Security Council approved the no-fly zone to protect civilians. Later reports, however, note that twenty-five people, including several children, were killed during heavy bombardments by forces loyal to Gaddafi on the western city of Misrata on Friday, a doctor in the city told Reuters.

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The following was posted early on March 17th, 2011. Also, I had mentioned a month ago (here) that this date would have some significance.

Stay with me here. These are games that boys into men play, deadly, yes, but happening on a strange landscape that takes into account Oklahoma, Texas, Tibet, Nepal, Iraq, and Libya - and some characters all too familiar to you.

Libya? March 17th? Yes, the American involvement in Libya is tied to that specific date. In 1957, from March 17 to 20, in the wake of the 1956 Suez Crisis, Ambassador James P. Richards, Special Assistant to President Eisenhower, visited Libya. His mission resulted from the President’s earlier address to Congress, in which Eisenhower promised that the United States would defend countries in the Middle East against communist aggression and would supply development and security assistance as needed (the Eisenhower Doctrine). Richards made a second visit to Libya on May 4. A joint U.S.-Libyan communiqué announced that the United States was prepared to assist in a survey of Libyan development needs, development of broadcasting and telecommunications, assistance in education, electric power development, and domestic water supplies. 

  
James Richards of South Carolina served in World War I and played professional baseball before his election to his first of twelve terms in the House in 1932. 

Also in March 1957, Vice President Richard M. Nixon visited Libya. Then on June 30, 1957, the United States and Libya signed a military assistance agreement, and a Military Assistance Advisory Group was later established in Libya. Two years later, on April 9, 1959, Standard Oil of New Jersey discovered oil in Zelten. By 1961, Libya had 10 fields producing oil for export. By 1965, Libya was the sixth-largest oil exporting nation. 

In 1957, on March 17th, an Abominable Snowman expedition was creating media attention. Who was the head of that expedition? Tom Slick, of course. The date March 17th keeps surfacing in an almost ritualistic way as a "chosen" date for activities that has ties to oil, Tom Slick, Abominable Snowmen, and more.

Wonder and wander with me in this temporal stream of consciousness on this St. Patrick's Day.

First, always intriguing to me has been the fact that March 17th is seen as a pivotal date in the history of the wealthy Oklahoma/Texas oil family of the cryptozoologist Tom Slick.
Tom Slick's father was also named Tom Slick, and history remembers him as the "King of the Wildcatters." Wildcatting was the practice of going about the dry, harsh farm lands of Oklahoma and Texas, buying up oil lease rights, and drilling for oil, on pure speculation. For years, his nickname was "Dry Hole Slick" and "Mad Tom."

But then in 1912, Tom Slick, Sr. made the "biggest discovery of his life" when the Wheeler Well Number 1 in the Cushing Field of Oklahoma struck oil with a giant gusher on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. Slick controlled the information about the discovery, however. He rushed to the Cushing farm, and cut the telephone lines. He hired out all the horse and rigs thereabouts so the news would not travel out. Slick also bought up all the nearby leases for one dollar an acre. Two weeks later, Harry Sinclair had to buy up leases for $200 an acre. The Cushing Field has been called one of the greatest oil fields ever found. Think James Dean as Jett Rink in the 1956 motion picture Giant.

From March 17, 1912, henceforth, "crazy ole Tom" Slick was called "Lucky Tom Slick." He made millions from the Cushing leases. Slick's family moved to Texas to follow the oil boom of the 1920s. When Tom Sr. died at the early age of 46, his estate was estimated to be worth seventy-five million dollars in 1930 dollars!

Tom Slick, his son (who really never used the "Jr." too often), was to inherit his parts of the principal of his father's money when he reached 30, 45, and 55 years of age. But the will stated Tom could live off the interest and he did, as an investor, jetsetter, playboy, friend of Howard Hughes and Jimmy Stewart, and adventurer. By the year 1960, Tom Slick had inherited 15 million dollars. By 1962, Tom Slick was dead in a mysterious air crash, at 46 - the same age his father died.

While Slick had decided to invest in oil and beef, he had creative ideas for what else he wanted to do with some of his money. Part of his inheritance went into his search for cryptids. I document in my Slick biography his quests for the Loch Ness Monster, Sumatran rhinos, Trinity Alps' Giant Salamanders, Bigfoot, and Orang Pendek.

Tom Slick (above, after his March 15, 1957, near-death accident in Nepal) was most famous, of course, for his expeditions in search of the Abominable Snowmen, the Yeti of the Himalayan Mountains.

In 1957, Tom Slick personally headed his first of many sponsored expeditions to Nepal in search of the Yeti, with Peter Byrne and Sherpa guides along for his deadly serious initial reconnaissance. From noting the timeline for Slick's trek, remarkably, I discovered that Slick began his actual search in earnest in the Arun Valley on March 17, 1957.

On March 18th and 19th, 1957, the Government of Nepal issued press releases and answered reporters' questions that they officially forbade all foreign mountaineers from "killing, injuring, or capturing a Yeti." Slick's party was allowed to carry guns for their self-defense. But they also had steel traps to capture a Yeti, and the new law was specifically targeted at Slick's expedition.

Especially interesting to me is a question I have never had fully answered: Was the character in the movie The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas of the American Yeti hunter and exploiter "Tom Friend" (shown above next to the film's Yeti body) based, in some part, on the real Texan Yeti hunter Tom Slick?

What was one of the other missions of Tom Slick's 1957 expedition? Apparently, it may have been spying on the Chinese in Tibet. Certainly that was what the Russians thought.

This April 27, 1957, article (above) in The New York Times carried the claims that Tom Slick was behind an effort to subvert the Chinese and free Tibet. (It would be revealed years later that Tom Slick and his Slick Airways were working closely with the OSS and the CIA.)

Two years later, what date would the CIA pick to begin the exit of the Dalai Lama from Tibet? March 17, 1959. Who may have been helping with that trek? Tom Slick and Peter Byrne. Perhaps it was Tom Slick that picked the date, not the CIA?

Colonel Fletcher Prouty has written about this secret mission to Tibet. In 1955, Prouty was appointed the first "Focal Point" officer between the CIA and the Air Force for Clandestine Operations per National Security Council Directive 5412. He was Briefing Officer for the Secretary of Defense (1960-1961), and for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Prouty, in his 1973 book about the CIA, Secret Team, writes: "This fantastic escape and its major significance have been buried in the lore of the CIA as one of those successes that are not talked about. The Dalai Lama would have never been saved without the CIA."
On March 17, 1959, three groups, the Dalai Lama, his immediate family and senior advisors, escaped from Lhasa, Tibet.

John Prados writing in The Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations Since World War II (New York: Morrow, 1986), notes: "Tenzin Gyatso [the Dalai Lama] was disguised as a common soldier of the guard.... The best information [about the fleeing Dalai Lama] came from the CIA.... The CIA was so well informed because it had furnished an American radio operator, who traveled with the Dalai Lama's party...There may have been other CIA agents with the party as well."

Who were these individuals? Who helped the Dalai Lama's party get out of Tibet? None other than Peter Byrne, Tom Slick's man in Nepal. He may forget it, but he told me so in 1988, when I was interviewing him about his years of work, overt and covert, with Tom Slick of San Antonio, Texas. I go into further details in my book, Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology (Fresno: Linden Press, 2002).


Is it a coincidence that on this date, seven years ago, some view this same calendar date as being the one that another Texan, linked to oil, began the present Iraqi War? While most historians use the date of March 20, 2003, as the start of the Iraqi War, others point to March 17, 2003. On that special date, the start of the US invasion of Iraq is keyed to President George W. Bush's announcement in a televised speech that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons had 48 hours to leave Iraq, or the United States will initiate preemptive military action against Iraq.

On March 17, 2003, Robin Cook, Leader of the British House of Commons, resigned from the UK cabinet over the plan to invade Iraq. The UK and the USA withdrew a proposed UN Security Council resolution on Iraq. The United States advised UNMOVIC and the IAEA to withdraw all weapon inspectors out of Iraq. This all occurred on March 17, 2003. 

What will happen on March 17, 2011? Will be even know it happened on the 17th? In Libya? In Japan?
Texas, Tibet, Nepal, Iraq, Egypt?
Oil, Yeti, Espionage?

Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.
- Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

US Soldier Kills 5 Fellow Soldiers

A U.S. soldier opened fire at a counseling center on a U.S. base Monday, May 11, 2009, killing five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody, the U.S. command and Pentagon officials said.

On Tuesday, May 12, Maj. Gen. David Perkins told reporters that the charges were filed against Sgt. John M. Russell of the 54th Engineering Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany. Russell was taken into custody following the Monday shooting at Camp Liberty.

Perkins said the dead included two doctors -- one from the Navy and the other from the Army. The other three dead were enlisted personnel.

The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport and adjacent to another facility where President Barack Obama visited last month.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the shooting a "terrible tragedy" and said Obama planned to meet with Defense Secretary Gates later in the day to discuss the matter. Gibbs said the president's heart goes out to the victims' families and wants to know what happened.

A brief U.S. statement said the soldier "suspected of being involved with the shooting" was in custody but gave no further details. A senior military official in Washington said three others were wounded, but the U.S. military in Baghdad said nobody else was hurt.

In Washington, Pentagon officials said the shooting happened at a stress clinic, where troops can go for help with the stresses of combat or personal issues. It was unclear whether those killed were workers at the clinic or were there for counseling. No details were released about the gunman or what might have provoked the shooting.

"Anytime we lose one of our own, it affects us all," U.S. military spokesman Col. John Robinson said in Baghdad. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this terrible tragedy."

Separately, the military announced Monday that a U.S. soldier was also killed a day earlier when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Basra province of southern Baghdad.

The death toll from the Monday shooting was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in Mosul.

Attacks on officers and sergeants, known as fraggings, were not uncommon during the Vietnam war as morale in the ranks sank. However, such attacks are believed to be rare in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2005, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted in the blast.

Additionally, there have been several incidents recently when gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers have opened fire on American troops, including an attack in the northern city of Mosul on May 2 when two soldiers and the gunman were killed.

Also Monday, a senior Iraqi traffic officer was assassinated on his way to work in Baghdad. It was the second attack on a high-ranking traffic police officer in the capital in as many days.

A car cut off Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi as he drove through a central square in the capital and a second vehicle pulled up alongside and riddled him with bullets, police said, citing witnesses. Al-Kadhoumi was director of operations for the traffic authority.

The gunmen were armed with pistols equipped with silencers, the police added on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Incidents involving gunmen armed with sophisticated weapons, including silencers, have been on the rise since a string of high-profile robberies in April.