This disinformation story actually
begins in 1981 with an article on the "photon belt" written by
Shirley Kemp and published in the Australian
International UFO Research Society magazine, and
reprinted in the February/March 1991 issue
of Nexus magazine. Kemp's article focused on the
Pleiades star cluster as the source of the photon belt and made
no mention of the Galactic center.
The mixing of the photon belt
concept with the idea of a Galactic center wave came later,
being injected by subsequent authors such as Robert Stanley
and Barbara Hand Clow. Kemp described the photon belt as
a ring of energy that encircles the Pleiades with its outer
border presently being positioned just about to touch our solar
She claimed that its presence had
been detected in 1961 by satellite observations of the Pleiades.
In fact, there is no record of such a satellite detection, nor
is it likely that satellites in those days would have been
equipped to make such observations. Also neither is there
evidence of such a belt from observations with present day
ground and space based telescopes.
Furthermore Kemp claimed that in the course of 24,000 years our
solar system completes an orbit about the star Alcyone in the
Pleiades cluster and passes through the photon belt twice in the
course of a revolution, alternately bathing in the belt for a
period of 2000 years, followed by a period of 10,000 years
outside of the belt.
Moreover she claimed that during the
imminent time when the solar system is within the photon belt,
the present day/night cycle would cease and be replaced by a
2000 year-long period of continuous light during which time
humanity would be transformed into spiritually enlightened "Atmosphereans."
As for the part about the solar system orbiting the Pleiades, or
more specifically orbiting the star Alcyone, this can be shown
to be absurd. The Pleiades lie about 400 light years away in the
Taurus constellation; hence an orbit about them would
necessarily measure about 2500 light years. To circle them in a
period of only 24,000 years, the solar system would then have to
be traveling through the Galaxy at over 10 percent the speed of
light, a thousand times faster than the Earth's orbit about the
If this were true the shape of the
constellations would noticeably change within a single lifetime
due to stellar
parallax effects. There is no evidence of this.
Moreover to cause such an orbital speed by gravitational action, Alcyone would have had to be over a billion times more massive
than our Sun, thus rivaling the core of our own Galaxy. In fact,
there is no evidence of any kind that the solar system nor any
of the Pleiades stars are in orbit about Alcyone.
The whole idea of the photon belt
would seem to be ludicrous were it not for the fact that so many
people have completely fallen for the idea and adopted it as
part of their reality.
An additional critique of Kemp's
paper may be found at the following website:
In the summer of 1991 Robert
Stanley published an article in Unicus magazine (Issue
# 5) entitled "The Photon Zone
- Earth’s Future
article combined the photon belt concept with a Galactic center
outburst concept that had striking similarities to LaViolette's
Galactic superwave concept, but lacked any kind of scientific or
observational basis. Stanley described the "photon zone" as a
belt or toroid of excess photons being emitted from the center
of our Galaxy and that "rotate at a 90 degree right angle to our
solar system's horizontal orbit."
Stanley apparently did not reference LaViolette's scientific
papers which describe evidence of Galactic cosmic ray superwaves
being emitted from the Galactic center, each outwardly moving
superwave shell producing a ring of electromagnetic radiation
concentric with the Galactic center and lying along the galactic
plane, accompanying the superwave as it travels outward.
This radiation zone could be termed
a "photon band" or "photon belt". LaViolette has shown that
radiation coming from the nearest of these superwave radiation
rings, at its closest point to us, would appear to originate
from a region lying about 7000 light years away in the Taurus
constellation region (~6500 light years further away than the
Pleiades), and that in the opposite direction, toward the
Galactic center (Scorpius constellation region), it would lie
furthest from us, about 30,000 light years away.
Thus the photon band concept which
lacks supporting observational evidence, creates a climate of
confusion for those interested in learning about the superwave
Although Stanley describes this photon band as being emitted
from the Galactic center, he also presents the contradictory
notion that it is a stationary zone. Adopting many of Shirley
Kemp's proclamations, he states that the photon band lies near
our Sun and that our solar system periodically passes through it
as a result of a 26,000 year epicycle-like orbit that it
supposedly follows through space.
In her book
The Pleiadian Agenda,
B. H. Clow quotes Stanley as saying,
However, there is no astronomical
evidence that the solar system circumscribes a 26,000 year orbit
There is evidence that the Sun
orbits the Galactic center (Sagittarius
A*) once in about 200
million years, the Galactic center being situated in a
direction opposite from the Pleiades in the direction of the
Sagittarius and Scorpio constellations.
Sgr A* (centre)
and two light reflections from a recent explosion (circled)
Ancient Hindu astronomers taught
that the Sun moves radially inward and outward from the Galaxy's
"Grand Center" on a 24,000 year cycle, but this would constitute
an oscillatory movement, not an "orbit". Neither is there any
reason to think that the ancients considered Alcyone, and
not Sagittarius A* as being the Galaxy's "Grand Center."
As described in Earth Under Fire,
cyclical radial motion with respect to the Galactic core
Sagittarius A* could occur if superwaves were to exert a tidal
force on the Sun and planets.
The Pleiadian Agenda, channeled
by Barbara Hand Clow, further propagated the photon belt
myth, combining it with a Galactic center origin. In this case,
however, Clow had prior knowledge of LaViolette's ideas.
In August of 1991, LaViolette
had submitted to Clow the manuscript for his book Beyond the
Big Bang (then titled Warriors of Creation) along with the
first chapter and outline for its sequel Earth Under Fire
(then titled Astrology Decoded). These were sent to her
in confidence, in her capacity as being then Vice President
editor of Bear and Company, a New Age book publisher.
These materials described
LaViolette's 1979 theory that about 13,000 years ago the Earth
had been affected by an expanding "zone" or "belt" of radiation
that had issued from the Galactic center, a phenomenon he called
a Galactic "superwave." After reading this work, Clow expressed
great interest in publishing both books in revised form,
especially the second book describing the Galactic superwave.
However, later in November 1991, LaViolette had reservations
about choosing this publisher and turned down her offer to
publish his books.
Some months later, in 1992, Clow says she began psychically
channeling an entity called Satya, a Pleiadian extraterrestrial
astrologer supposedly residing in the Alcyone star system. Then,
a few years later, in 1994 she reportedly began channeling her
book The Pleiadian Agenda, which she subsequently
published in 1995.
Curiously, her book presented ideas
very similar to LaViolette's superwave concept, describing a
"photon band" emanating from the Galactic center, that engulfed
the Earth around 13,000 years ago bringing about the legendary
apocalyptic cataclysm. Although LaViolette was the first to
propose such an idea, and although she had prior knowledge of
Dr. LaViolette's work, Clow/Satya did not mention his work in
her book, neither did she reference his many scientific papers
nor his book Beyond the Big Bang, which were published on this
topic between 1983 and 1995.
Instead, Clow/Satya only refer to
Shirley Kemp's photon belt paper and to Robert Stanley's photon
zone paper, which interestingly was published the same summer
that LaViolette had submitted his confidential manuscript to
her, and which presented ideas similar to LaViolette's superwave
idea (see above).
Like Stanley, Clow/Satya describes the impending movement of the
Earth into a stationary photon band and frames this event in
terms of a coming New Age global psychic transformation. But in
places The Pleiadian Agenda confuses the idea of a Galactic
center origin by stating that the photon band originates from
the Pleiadian star Alcyone, a region which it claims is always
bathed in the "photon band" radiation.
In these parts she describes the
photon band as originating from a region on the side of the
Earth opposite to the Galactic center, hence approaching from a
direction exactly opposite from the direction that superwaves
would approach. In the direction of the Pleiades,
LaViolette's superwave event horizon
(radiation zone) would instead be receding from us, not
Disinformation is most successfully crafted when it disseminates
a distorted concept that is very close to the target concept,
thereby rendering a state of confusion. The photon band
conjecture very appropriately achieves this objective. Around
this same time, other channeled writings were published that
similarly described a "photon belt" and web pages have sprung up
disseminating these concepts.
Unfortunately, rather than being
educational, these works have the potential of creating general
confusion by diverting attention about approaching Galactic
energy waves away from the Galactic center and toward the
Robert Cox's book
Pillar of Celestial Fire,
published in 1997, also described a Galactic center influence on
the Earth. Like Beyond the Big Bang and Earth Under Fire, this
book speaks of the Galactic center producing a "ray" or "wave"
of "celestial fire" that washes over the Earth causing geologic
change, and also mentions a connection between the Sagittarius
arrow indicator and the Galactic center.
Although the book lists Beyond the
Big Bang in its bibliography, it does not cite LaViolette's
prior work as the source of these ideas. It mixes these concepts
with other channeled ideas about a "pillar of celestial fire" of
pure consciousness that it says is approaching the Earth from
the direction of the Pleiades, a location which, it claims,
contains the conscious "Center of the Universe."
Thus, by calling attention to a
celestial fire phenomenon that supposedly approaches from a
direction opposite to the Galactic center, this celestial fire
concept, like the photon belt concept, participates in creating
an atmosphere of confusion.
James Gilliland circulated an
email announcement claiming the arrival of a "pulse of
consciousness" from the "center of the universe" whose secondary
cause is a luminous "photon belt" and which he claims is
responsible for solar and geomagnetic disturbances currently
going on. Although Gilliland writes that this pulse "has been
observed and measured, in fact his "knowledge" of it comes from
psychic channeled contacts that he claims he has had with
Pleiadians during close encounters with their spacecraft.
Could he and others be unwitting
participants in an extraterrestrial disinformation campaign?
On his website, Drunvalo
Melchizedek published an incorrect announcement that the
Galactic center has been seen to "pulse huge amounts of energy
out into the universe" since the time of December 14, 1997 and
that in June of 1998 the "beeper" satellite "was destroyed by
one of these blasts from the center of our galaxy." In fact, no
such thing had happened. Up to the present, the Galactic center
has been observed to continue its relatively quiescent state.
The "psychic scientist" who supplied
Melchizedek this disinformation later withdrew his Galactic
center pronouncement. But it has been well over 8 months now and
Melchizedek has still persisted in leaving this startling
disinformation on his website.
Melchizedek was aware of Dr. LaViolette's scientific work since a year earlier he had
attended a seminar in which LaViolette had spoken about Galactic
superwaves and had purchased a copy of Earth Under Fire
However, for some reason he chose
not to consult LaViolette to check the validity of the
information he posted.