Moon rising in the west

Would Nibiru look like this when it comes near Earth?

Anyone attempting to photograph a fat orange full moon rising on the horizon will undoubtedly be disappointed upon viewing the resulting image.

Rather than seeing the enormous orb the photographer remembers, the moon appears as a small circular spot, as interesting as an aspirin hanging against a twilight background.

This is lunar illusion at work: A trick of perception seems to exaggerate the size of the moon when it is near the horizon. While it is no closer or farther away from the viewer on Earth, the low-hanging moon appears a good deal larger than it seems when elevated higher in the nighttime sky.

The popular explanation is that the moon looks bigger when you have something to compare it to. Seeing the moon compared to other objects -- trees, buildings, mountains -- makes it appear larger. The moon alone in the middle of the sky has no surrounding frame of reference, so it appears smaller.

Certainly this is the case, but it doesn't explain what happens in the human brain to change the viewer's perception. Why should a comparison to features on the ground change the way we perceive the moon? What trick is the brain playing that makes the moon appear to change size?

Thinkers throughout history have struggled to explain the illusion, and today the little-understood phenomenon is still a subject of controversy.

Two opposing theories vie for acceptance, but they are contradictory: One suggests that the horizon moon appears large because visual cues in the intervening landscape make the moon seem far away. The other idea says those same cues make the same moon appear closer.

Now a father-son research team's experiments may settle the dispute. Lloyd Kaufman, a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University, and James Kaufman, a physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, explain their work in the January 4 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Kaufmans argue that the explanation of the illusion lies in the fact that viewers judge a horizon moon to be much farther away than the overhead moon. The brain then exaggerates the perceived size of the moon as if to drive home this conclusion: the moon is so far away, therefore it must really be huge if it takes up so much space in the sky.

When the moon is at its zenith, there are fewer visible cues the brain can use to estimate the moon's distance from Earth. The brain concludes that the moon is nearer to the viewer and thus offers a perception that plays down its size, according to the theory, which was first proposed by Lloyd Kaufman and James Rock in the early 1960s.

Regardless of the moon's elevation, the distance between an observer and the moon remains constant. However, a moon perceived as growing closer as its elevation increases, must appear to grow smaller.

Competing idea, developed a few years after Rock and Kaufman's work, reasons that the moon appears larger over the horizon because the brain judges it to be closer than an elevated moon. Just as a softball 10 feet from the viewer appears smaller than one at arm's length, a closer moon would appear larger, the argument goes.

This is the account that most people will offer when pressed to explain why the horizon moon appears so large, said James Kaufman.

"If you ask people what they see -- whether it's farther away or whether it's near when they're viewing a large moon -- they'll say, 'Oh, it looks close,'" Kaufman said. "They're not saying it looks close relative to the elevated moon. They're just saying 'It's big, it looks close.' "

So which is it? Does the moon appear larger because it is perceived as close, or because it seems far away?

"In no case was there an experimental measurement of how far the brain is treating the horizon moon versus the elevated moon," James Kaufman said. Kaufman and his father discussed the illusion over many years.

"Finally I said, 'why don't we just measure it?' There must be a way we can make an experimental measurement of what the brain is doing as opposed to what people are concluding," he said.

The Kaufmans devised an experiment that used a stereoscopic display on the sky itself. They used a computer display and a set of lenses to project two moons onto a large semi-reflective piece of glass. When a person looked through the glass at the sky, the Kaufmans could reflect the projections of the artificial moons into the viewer's eyes. Thus, a subject would see two realistic-looking moons in the sky.

One of these moons was fixed, and the other could be moved by the subject to appear closer or farther away. The researchers asked subjects to place the variable moon at a point exactly halfway between themselves and the fixed moon. They did this with the moons projected at the horizon (which appeared large, consistent with the lunar illusion), and with elevated moons.

"The task was to move it halfway between you and the horizon moon or between you and the elevated moon," James Kaufman said

In each of five cases, the subjects placed the halfway point between themselves and the horizon moon at a farther distance than the point they picked as halfway to the elevated moon. On average, the subjects placed the horizon moon more than four times further away than the elevated moon.

The Kaufman's argue that these measurements demonstrate that the brain perceives the horizon moon as farther away and adjusts the viewer's perception to emphasize the fact that it must be an enormous object to be so far away and still take up so much of the sky.

This happens even though when asked, subjects said the larger horizon moon must be closer than the elevated moon.

"This is a conclusive demonstration that the elevated moon is registered by the perceptual system as closer than the horizon moon -- even if subjects say otherwise," Lloyd Kaufman said. "In this particular case, what we're learning is that the perceptual system operates in ways that do not entail our conscious awareness."

This same perceptual magnification of objects that seem far away is illustrated by the simple Ponzo Illusion. Consider two converging lines drawn as if they were railroad tracks stretching toward into the distance. If two horizontal bars of exactly the same length are drawn between the "tracks," they appear to be different sizes. The line that looks to be farther away down the tracks will actually seem larger. The illusion distorts perception of any same-size objects placed between the converging lines.

"Giving size meaning, if you will, depends upon the perceptual system responding to the information about distance to the object," Lloyd Kaufman said. "A pussy cat close by does look smaller than a tiger far away, even if the Tiger's image is very tiny."

The brain uses a variety of different cues to give meaning to the size of objects -- to keep small objects looking small even if they are nearby, and large objects staying large even if they are far away.

The perceptual system encounters difficulty with celestial objects, though.

"At those vast distances, you can't get an accurate perception of distance," Kaufman continued. "The moon is 240,000 miles away and it's 4,000 miles across, and it doesn't look like its 4,000 miles across."

At the horizon, details in the foreground allow the brain to determine -- even if it can't tell exactly -- that the moon is, at least, very far away. "If you were to look toward an elevated moon where there are less salient cues to the distance to the moon, you locate it at a closer distance and therefore it is perceived as being smaller," he said.

From:  http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part5/section-22.html

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE MOON - SOME SPECULATIONS

Joseph Lazio <jlazio@patriot.net>,

The Moon presents a curious problem. Of the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) only Earth and Mars have satellites. Mars' satellites are much smaller than the Moon, both in absolute size and in comparison to their primary. (The Moon is 3476 km in diameter while Phobos is 23 km in diameter; the Moon's diameter is 27% that of the Earth while Phobos' diameter is 0.34% that of Mars.)

Furthermore, the Moon's chemical composition is peculiar. In many respects it is quite similar to the Earth's, except that the Moon seems to have less iron (and similar elements like nickel) and considerably less water (it's quite dry!).

Until recently there were three competing theories to explain the Moon's origin. (1) The Moon formed elsewhere in the solar system and was captured eventually by the Earth. (2) The Moon and Earth formed together at the same time in essentially the same place. (3) The early Earth was spinning so fast that a portion of it broke off and formed the Moon (possibly leaving the Pacific Ocean basin as a result). All theories had their difficulties, though.

If the Moon formed elsewhere in the solar system (like between the orbits of Venus and Earth or between the orbits of Earth and Mars), how did it get disturbed into the orbit that took it near the Earth? Furthermore, it is actually quite difficult for an object that is not initially orbiting the Earth to begin doing so. The incoming object must lose energy. In the case of Mars, its small satellites could have gotten close enough to skim the upper part of its atmosphere, which would cause them to lose energy from air resistance. Because the Moon is so big, it probably would have hit the Earth rather than passing just close enough to lose just enough energy to be captured into orbit.

If the Earth and Moon formed simultaneously at nearly the same location in the solar system, then the differing chemical compositions of the two are quite difficult to understand. Why are they similar yet so different?

 Finally, there isn't much evidence to suggest that the early Earth was spinning anywhere near fast enough for it to break apart.

With the realization in the 1980s that impacts (of comets, asteroids, etc.) have played a major role in the history of the solar system, a new theory emerged:

The Moon was formed when a Mars-sized object collided with the Earth when the Earth was very young, about 4.5 billion years ago. Much of the Earth's crust and mantle, along with most of the colliding object, disintegrated and was blown into orbit thousands of kilometers high. About half of this debris fell back to Earth. The rest coalesced into the Moon. (Loose material in orbit can coalesce if it is outside the "Roche limit," otherwise it will be pulled apart by tidal forces. The Roche limit for the Earth is approximately 3 Earth radii. The material outside this limit formed the Moon, the material inside the limit fell back to Earth.) Since the time of its original formation, the Moon has slowly moved farther from the Earth to its present position.

This theory does a good job of explaining why only the Earth has a large moon and why the Moon's chemical composition is similar yet different. Impacts are random events, and there almost certainly were not a lot of large objects left in the solar system as the planets were nearly the end of their formation. The Earth just happened to be the planet struck by this large, rogue planetoid. If we could start over the formation of the solar system, it might be Venus or Mars that would end up with a large moon. The chemical composition of the Earth and Moon are clearly predicted to be similar in this model, since a portion of the Earth went into forming the Moon and a portion of the impactor remained in the Earth. The Moon would be deficient in iron and similar metals if the impact occurred after those elements had largely sunk to the center of the Earth (i.e., after the Earth differentiated). The Moon should also be quite dry because the material from which the Moon formed was heated to a high temperature in the impact, thereby evaporating all of the water.

Computer models of this event indicate that the Moon coalesced in only about a year. Also interesting is that a large percentage of simulations result in the formation of two moons. Some of the more recent simulations suggest that the colliding object might have had to have been much larger, about three times the size of Mars.

More information on this theory of Moon formation can be found at http://www.earthsky.com/specials/moonformation.html

ZECHARIAH SITCHIN'S MOON CREATION  STORY ACCORDING TO THE SUMERIAN RECORDS

There is another planet in our solar system, which he calls Nibiru. This planet has a very eccentric orbit, which brings it through the asteroid belt every 3600 years. Life developed on this planet.

Originally, there was no Earth & moon between Mars and Venus. There was, however, a planet orbiting in the place of what is now the asteroid belt. Sitchin identifies this planet as Tiamat.

One fateful orbit, Nibiru came too close to Tiamat, and Nibiru's moons collided with Tiamat, cracking the planet. On the next orbit, Nibiru or her moons crashed into Tiamat again, smashing her into a lot of small pieces and two larger pieces. The smaller pieces became the asteroid belt, and larger pieces became the earth and the moon. The Earth became seeded with life from Nibiru at this point.

In his books, The Twelfth Planet and The Cosmic Code, Zecharia Sitchin outlines this “celestial battle” as described in the Babylonian text called Enuma elish.

The planet “Marduk” (the Sumerian “Nibiru”), as it came into the solar system on its clockwise elliptical course, struck Tiamat, which was moving in its ordained counterclockwise orbit. One of Marduk’s satellites struck Tiamat first, followed by two more of Marduk’s moons. Then Marduk itself, an enormous planetary body, struck Tiamat, smashing one half of the planet into pieces, which became the Earth’s Moon and the “Great Band” (Asteroid Belt). The other half of the planet, which was struck by a smaller moon of Marduk, was moved into a new orbit, along with a chunk of material which became its moon. The new planet was then called “KI,” meaning “cleaved one.” The Earth’s original moons were dispersed, many changing the direction of their orbits.

Sitchin has also written in Divine Encounters, the planet where God the creator resides is referred to in the Bible as Olamin, the plural of Olam. The meaning of “olam” in the ancient world was a measure of a really long time, specifically related to the span of time between the periodic disappearance and reappearance of the planet Marduk/Nibiru on its vast 3,600 year elliptical orbit. The domain of Olamin was described as a kingdom which encompasses many worlds. According to Robert Temple, in The Sirius Mystery, the Dogon tribe of Mali call this planet “the egg of the world,” and they say it is the origin of all things. They say of this planet that it is “the center of all things and without its movement no other star could hold its course.” They say it is made of a heavy metallic compound called “sagala.” The Sumerians also wrote that this planetary “god,” Nibiru, “remade our solar system and remakes the Earth on its near passages.”

The ancient tale of Nibiru’s Celestial Battle is actually scientifically sophisticated, and current advances in astronomy have recently corroborated certain aspects of the Sumerian cosmogony, among them the following:

• The March 16, 1999 announcement by NASA at the 30th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston of the theory of the origin of Earth’s Moon as a catastrophic collision with a “Mars-size planet.”

• Hubble’s recent discovery of 18 (at last count) stars, and numerous Jupiter-size planets (last count 9) with highly elliptical orbits and retrograde (counterclockwise) orbits. Such orbits are now understood to be quite the norm in nearby solar systems, although they are considered peculiar in our own.

• The 1994 announcement by NASA of a one-mile wide moon orbiting the 33-mile wide asteroid Ida, which follows the expectation that if a planetary body in this solar system exploded (or collided), the debris will be gravitationally bound in orbits around a primary body.

• The discovery of water, atmosphere and perhaps previous life on Mars, the Moon and Europa.

• Why there is a strange gravitational “pull” on Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which indicates there is another body of significant size beyond it.

On June 17, 1982, a NASA press release from Ames Research Center officially recognized the possibility of “some kind of mystery object” beyond the outermost planets. Various press releases around this time confirmed that scientists were indeed looking for the infamous Planet X. For instance, Astronomy magazine published an article in December of 1981 entitled “Search for the Tenth Planet,” and another article in October of 1982 entitled “Searching for a Tenth Planet.”

In addition, Newsweek covered the story of Planet X on June 28, 1982 in an article entitled “Does the Sun Have a Dark Companion?” This article implied that the tenth planet actually orbits a two sun (binary star) system, but we cannot see the other sun because it is a “dark” star. The article stated:

"A ‘dark companion’ could produce the unseen force that seems to tug at Uranus and Neptune, speeding them up at one point in their orbits and holding them back as they pass. … the best bet is a dark star orbiting at least 50 billion miles beyond Pluto… It is most likely either a brown dwarf, or a neutron star. Others suggest it is a tenth planet … since a companion star would tug at the other planets, not just Uranus and Neptune."

The Washington Post covered the story of Planet X on the front page on December 31, 1983 called “Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered.” This story reported that the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) detected heat from an object about fifty billion miles away. A report of an interview with chief scientist Gerry Neugebauer from Jet Propulsion Laboratories appeared in the story. The article stated:

"A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.… ‘All I can tell you is that we don’t know what it is,’ said Gerry Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist."

The Post article went on to explain that this mysterious object has never been seen by optical telescopes on Earth or in space, but its infrared heat signature was detected twice by IRAS as it scanned the northern sky between January and November of 1983. The second infrared observation of the body, which is so cold it casts no light, noted that the body appeared not to have moved in six months. This suggested that the object is not a comet, since it probably would have moved. The article also explained that the infrared telescope aboard IRAS, which is able to detect very cold objects, calculated that the heavenly body was so cold that its temperature is about 459°F below zero.

Astronomers suggested it was a “giant gaseous planet, as large as Jupiter,” and is so close that “it would be the nearest heavenly body to Earth beyond the outermost planet Pluto.” This would make it part of our solar system. The article explained that there had been some speculation that the object “might be moving toward Earth.” However, Cal Tech’s Neugebauer was careful to “douse that idea with as much cold water as I can.” He pronounced with certainty that this object “is not incoming mail.”

The US News World Report on September 10, 1984 published an article called “Planet X – Is it Really Out There?” This article had the following to say about Planet X:

"Shrouded from the sun’s light, mysteriously tugging at the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, is an unseen force that astronomers suspect may be Planet X – a 10th resident of the Earth’s celestial neighborhood. Last year, the infrared astronomical satellite (IRAS), circling in a polar orbit 560 miles from the Earth, detected heat from an object about 50 billion miles away that is now the subject of intense speculation. "

The article went on to say that scientists are hopeful that the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes will locate the object, which they noted was possibly a “brown dwarf,” a protostar that never got hot enough to become a star. Others astronomers, however, argue that the object is a “dark, gaseous mass that is slowly evolving into a planet.” The article quoted Neugebauer as stating: “If we can show that our solar system is still creating planets, we’ll know that it’s happening around other stars, too.”

Contrary to this information, according to the ancient Sumerian texts, our solar system is not still creating planets, and this planet has been with us all along. It would appear that the media spin being put on Planet X is a clear attempt to call it something else besides “incoming mail.”

The media was quiet on the subject of Planet X for the next few years. Finally, an article by R. Harrington in The Astronomical Journal dated October 1988 supplied the details of continuing mathematical modeling of this planet. The article suggested the mysterious planet was three to four times the size of Earth, and its position was three times further from the Sun than Pluto. Mathematical modeling also suggested that Planet X had an extreme elliptical orbit of 30 degrees.

A NASA/ARC press release published in Newsweek on July 13, 1987 disclosed that “an eccentric 10th planet may – or may not – be orbiting the Sun.” The article stated that NASA research scientist John Anderson “has a hunch Planet X is out there, though nowhere near the other nine.” The article concluded, “if he is right, two of the most intriguing puzzles of space science might be solved: what caused mysterious irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune during the 19th Century? And what killed off the dinosaurs 26 million years ago.”

The reference to killing off the dinosaurs seems to indicate that something more is known about this planet than NASA is letting on. Is this in fact a reference to the planet Nibiru of ancient infamy, the planet which, according to ancient sources, did in fact strike the Earth (Tiamat) in ancient times, and gave us a moon for a thank you? Regardless of what NASA really knows, silence is golden, and, for the most part, mum was the word on the issue of Planet X during the 1990s. Instead, scientific journals began to debunk the issue of a tenth solar system planet.

In the 1990s, news stories began to dwell on “runaway planets” and “rebel planets” discovered in other solar systems. The issue of Planet X has now become entirely befuddled with recent discoveries of 18 nearby stars with Jupiter-class planets orbiting them (last count as of October, 1999). (see astron.berkeley.edu) Locating any new developments regarding a tenth solar system planet is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, since it’s difficult to know which “new planet” they are talking about.

For instance, an October 23, 1996 AP article entitled “New rebel planet found outside the solar system,” disclosed the following:

A new planet that breaks all the rules about how and where planets form has been identified in orbit of a twin star about 70 light years from Earth in a constellation commonly known as the Northern Cross. The new planet has a roller coaster like orbit that swoops down close to its central star and then swings far out into frigid fringes, following a strange egg-shaped orbit that is unlike that of any other known planet.

Thus, the issue of Planet X became lost in the information shuffle. Due to the Hubble space probe, many distant galaxies, stars, planets and brown dwarfs are suddenly being discovered all at once. This situation affords NASA the opportunity to attempt to avoid the societal chaos that will surely ensue once everybody realizes that a sizable planet somewhere out there is actually destined to circle our own sun in the next couple of years (2003 according to one web site). After all, who would bother to go to work, go to school, pay their bills, play the stock market, be a loyal, taxpaying John and Jane “Doe,” if they thought the end of civilization was near?

See More About the Coverup here: http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/23Article.htm

MOON FACTS

Aristarchus introduced six hypotheses, from which he determined first the relative distances of the sun and the moon, then their relative sizes:

1) The moon receives its light from the sun.

2) The earth is positioned as a point in the center of the sphere in which the moon moves.

3) When the moon appears to us halved, the great circle which divides the dark and bright portions of the moon is in the direction of our eye.

4) When the moon appears to us halved, its [angular] distance from the sun is then less than a quadrant by one-thirtieth part of a quadrant. (One quadrant = 90 degrees, which means its angular distance is less than 90 by 1/30th of 90, or 3 degrees, and is therefore equal to 87 degrees.) (This assigned value was based on Aristarchus' observations.)

5) The breadth of the earth's shadow is that of two moons.

6) The moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the Zodiac. (The 360 degrees of the celestial sphere are divided into twelve signs of the Zodiac each encompassing 30 degrees, so the moon, therefore, has an angular diameter of 2 degrees.)

Although he proved many propositions (eighteen to be exact), the three most well-known are the following:

1) The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen times, but less than twenty times, the distance of the moon from the earth.

2) The diameter of the sun has the same ratio (greater than eighteen but less than twenty) to the diameter of the moon.

3) the diameter of the sun has to the diameter of the earth a ratio greater than 19 to 3, but less than 43 to 6.

In his determination of these three factors, Aristarchus developed the Lunar Dichotomy method and the Eclipse Diagram, the latter of which became a much-used method of determining celestial distances up until the seventeenth century.

Sole natual satellite of the Earth. It revolves around the planet from West to East at a mean distance of about 384,400 Kilometres 239,900 miles).

The Moon is less than one third the size of the Earth. Having a diameter of only about 3,476 km (2,160 mi) at it's equator. It is only 1/81.3 as massive as the Earth and has a density of roughly 3.34 grams per cubic centimetre as opposed to 5.52 for the terrestrial body.

The Moon shines by reflected sunlight, but it's albedo ie the fraction of light received that is reflected is only 0.073. Its brightness varies through its cycle of phases primarily because of the roughness of its surface and the resultant variable amount of shadow.

The Moon rotates about its own axis in 29 1/2 days.. which is identical to the time it takes to complete its orbit aroung the earth. As a result the moon always presents nearly the same face to the Earth.

July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 landed with Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin on the desolate Lunar plain known as the Sea of Tranquility. The last U.S. mission was December 1972.

MORE FACTS: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Kristen/Aristarchus.html

Planet of the Apes:  http://www.ukonline.co.uk/dvd/review/planetapes/contents.html

The year is 2029, and astronaut Leo Davison is on a space station orbiting Jupiter. Leo and his crew are using genetically modified intelligent apes to do routine investigative missions, but things go awry when they send chimp Pericles off to investigate a strange electromagnetic storm.

Pericles disappears off the radar and despite orders not to follow his simian pal, Leo sets off on a rescue mission. However, the storm ends up sending Leo hurtling through time and space and crashing onto a mysterious alien world.

Just to check that he isn’t going to be seeing any historical American landmarks anytime soon, Leo notices that there are two moons and astutely observes “Two moons over the horizon? This can’t be earth!” After trying to acquaint himself with the local human population, he is abruptly captured by a horde of talking Gorillas.

OTHER INTERESTING INFORMATION ABOUT TWO MOONS

Twelve stars and two moons - The twelve stars represent the twelve tribes of Israel and the two moons represent Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was promised to be the father of many nations and that his descendents would be as numberous as the stars.

THE BALINESE MYTH

One example of prehistoric remains is a kettledrum, 1.86 meters high and with a field-strike diameter of 1.60 meters, which is stored in Penataran Sasih temple, Pejeng in Gianyar. Because of its moon-like shape, this archeological remains is called bulan pejeng by Balinese people, and the temple where it is stored, is also called "Penataran Bulan".

A story was developed from this object’s interesting shape. The story goes, that there were formerly two moons in the sky and one of them fell down in Pejeng villag. Now there is one moon left in the sky, and the other one on the ground. Until this day, may parents in Bali cheer up their children by taking them to Pejeng to see the moon that dropped out of the sky.

EARLY ENGLISH

To the early English, the world was full of lesser spirits as well as the great gods and goddesses. There were elves, ettins (Trolls), wælcyrian and a whole host of other supernatural beings (who all joined the earlier Celtic deities amongst the faerie folk).

The early English year was full of religious significance, and was divided into only two seasons: summer and winter. These were divided by moon-lives (months), six to each season; but the year was governed by the sun. The two greatest festivals were at the two Solstices, Midsummer (Liða) and Midwinter (Geola or Yule). These times were so important that each was 'guarded' by two moons: Ærra Liða (the month before Midsummer) and Æftera Liða (the month after Midsummer) - June and July, and Ærra Geola and Æftera Geola flanking Midwinter - December and January.

ANCIENT ORACLES

During the winter of 218 BCE, a horrendous time for Rome, Romans were terrified because of a large number of prodigies:

A baby of six months of age suddenly uttered, "Victoria!"

An ox climbed three stories and then jumped.

Phantom ships gleamed in the sky. [This one might be of interest to UFO researchers.]

The temple of Hope was struck by lightning.

A wolf snatched a sentry’s sword.

The situation in Rome grew most precarious the next spring (217 BCE) when Hannibal moved out of his winter quarters to finish his so-far highly successful campaigns against Rome.

That spring in both Italy and Sicily, the heavens gave many warnings. First, the orb of the sun decreased in size. Then it appeared to be colliding with the moon. Then two moons appeared in the daytime sky. Then the sky split apart; through this rift a brilliant light shone, and then the sky appeared to catch fire. Then, in the city of Capua, during a rainstorm, one of these moons fell to earth. The same portent that had signaled the fall of Thebes occurred: a holy spring ran blood.

The Cumaean Sibyl finally ordered the now hysterical populace to go out and sit at the crossroads and to pray to Triple Hecate, and last of all to bring from Asia the Black Stone of Mother Cybele, and then Cybele Herself, as their protectress in this grave emergency

JAPANESE

In some Japanese traditions, mirrors are related to the revelation of the truth, as well as to purity. So when one looks through the Japanese myths that relate to mirrors, one can realize that those legends are part of a truth and purity type of text perhaps...

The 'heavenly intelligence' reflected in a mirror is identified symbolically with the Sun, and this is why the mirror is so often a solar symbol. It is also a lunar symbol in the sense of the Moon...the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, it's like a mirror itself. A solar mirror occurs in Japanese myth, in which the mirror draws the divine light out of a cavern and reflects it upon the world. In Siberian symbolism, two great heavenly mirrors reflect the Universe, perhaps two moons reflect the Universe. In turn, the Shaman traps this refelction in his mirror. This reflection of cosmic perfection also finds expression the the mirror of Devi, and in that of Sarasundari, who are messengers, mirros of messengers.

In Vedic tradition, the mirror is the solar manifestation symbolizing the successions of shapes, of transitory, and ever changing beings.

[Devi, also Mahadevi, and Parvati; Mahadevi, the wife of Shiva, meaning Great Goddess'; she is often called Uma, which means 'light'.]

[Vedic, also Vedism; ancient Indo-European speaking peoples who entered India 1500BC from the Persian/Iran region; the name was taken from sacred texts known as the Vedas; the starting point of Hinduism.]

The mirrors task is to reflect an image...'when the soul becomes a perfect mirror, it becomes part of that image,' and through becoming part of that image it undergoes a transformation. Therefore there exists a relationship between the object contemplated, and the mirror (the perfect soul), which contemplates it; in the end the soul becomes part of that beauty to which it exposes itself. Because of the Universal belief that ones reflection is a vital part of ones soul, mirrors and other reflected surfaces were long regarded as 'soul catchers,' or doorways to the other world of spirits. Egyptians used the same word for 'mirror' and 'life'. Celtic women were buried with their personal mirrors, which were supposed to be their 'soul catchers'. In India, the Great Goddess was called 'the Mirror of the Abbess,' in which the Great God Shiva constantly reflects himself. Buddhist said that all existence is like a reflection in a mirror...

THE ANELRAN CREATION STORY http://www.fluidartist.com/Finley/mynovel/anelranmyth.html

The moon Fateno generally appears closer to the horizon where the sun set when it is visible. It also sets first sometimes leaving only two moons in the sky.