Strange Secrets Of The Space Shuttle Columbia

Credit to J.T. & UFO Files Newsletter via private email

Since the Colombia disaster, all sorts of strange, odd and downright spooky links and coincidences have emerged. Many have been listed or discussed on the Internet.

Christian seer Tom Gaston used the Bible Code to check out the name Columbia. He claims to have found predictions of the space disaster in the Old Testament, notably Song of Songs 8:6 and Esther 2:12.

"I have already found a (Bible) code for the space shuttle," Gaston reported, "The code: Crew, 16 days, which is the amount of days they were in space. Code: the fracture, the first day, the wing, followed by the defect, the defect, the inferno, spaceship returning to Earth, the seven dead, burning, Holocaust."

Curiously, the shuttle Columbia was carrying Holocaust memoribilia when the disaster happened. According to an Israeli news source, Arutz Sheva, "Yet maybe the strangest irony of all was that the Holocaust became a motif of the mission. (Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan) Ramon, whose mother beat the odds to survive Auschwitz, took with him on Columbia a drawing depicting the earth as seen from space, sketched by a 14-year-old boy, Peter Ginz, who didn't survive the Nazi death camp."

Ramon also carried a small Torah scroll which had been hidden in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and used on the Sabbath by Jewish prisoners.

Before the flight, Ramon told news reporters, "I carry on the suffering of the Holocaust generation. I'm kind of proof that despite all the horror they went through, we're going forward."

(Editor's Comment: Maybe Col. Ramon should have waited until he was safely back on the ground before making that statement.)

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman explored strange Fortean lexilinks (odd word links and coincidences--J.T.) in the shuttle disaster. He wrote, "In the wake of the pattern, I asked if the debris distribution from the space shuttle Columbia, with the first Israeli on board, raining down on Palestine, Texas, some Fortean 'name game' coincidences were being revealed."

"On February 3, 2003, reports from Texas talked of (shuttle) debris being found near Venus, Texas, 'and in a tree in Joshua, Texas.'"

"Now, on February 5, news services were saying the search for debris was spreading westward, because a piece of what appeared to be charred Columbia debris had been found in the driveway of a home in Joshua Tree, California." (See the related news story earlier in this issue--J.T.)

"Joshua Tree National Monument is an oft-discussed 'power point' in the occult community," Loren added, "Country rock musician Gram (short for Ingram) Parsons' death on September 19, 1973 took place at the nearby Joshua Tree Inn. (Parsons was famed for his music with Emmylou Harris, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers--L.C.) His death is legendary in music and magick because of what happened after he died."

"While Parsons' body was waiting at the Los Angeles International Airport to be flown back to New Orleans, his road manager, Phil Clark Kaufman, and a friend, Michael Martin, borrowed a broken-down hearse and drove it to LAX (the airport) to steal the body. Kaufman (who had produced the album Lie for Charles Manson--L.C.) and Martin took Parsons' body out into the Joshua Tree desert and burned/charred it."

(Editor's Comment: Here's another lexilink. The name Parsons could also refer to Jack D. Parsons, pioneering rocket scientist, friend of Robert H. Goddard and disciple of Aleister Crowley, who helped launch the USA's space program in the 1950s. Jack Parsons is infamous for a lot of things, notably a certain black magickal ritual in Pasadena, California in 1952, which is not discussed in polite society. But this one is my favorite: Jack got drunk in Tularosa, New Mexico one night and told the bartender: "Listen, fella, I've burned up more alcohol in five seconds than you've sold across this bar in twenty years!")

If you suffer from triskadeiphobia (fear of the number 13--J.T.), you might want to skip employment at NASA. "The number 13, and the month of January, take on a tragic significance in NASA's manned space program."

"Consider these haunting facts:"

"The doomed Columbia mission was launched January 16 (2003) as the 113th space shuttle mission."

"After several delays, the space shuttle Challenger finally lifted off January 28, 1986 at 11:38 a.m. One minute and 13 seconds into the flight, Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts" on board, including Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space. (In numerology, 11:38 a.m. works out to 1 plus 1 plus 3 plus 8 equals 13--J.T.)

"Apollo 13 lifted off at (gulp!) 13:13 Houston time, April 11, 1970. Two days later, on April 13, it had a near-fatal explosion onboard caused by a fault in electrical circuit 13."

And in 1952, the movie Abbott and Costello Go to Mars premiered. In the film, comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello accidentally launch themselves into space aboard a "rocket ship." By some eerie coincidence, the ship first lands in central Louisiana, where the easternmost debris from the shuttle Columbia fell to Earth.

Believing they are really on Mars, Bud and Lou put on space suits and venture forth. Of course, they've landed on Mardi Gras Tuesday, so they encounter lots of people in fantastic costumes, whom they believe to be aliens. Nor are the locals alarmed when they see the pair, figuring they're just dressed up for the festivities as "spacemen." After some comical misadventures, Bud and Lou blast off again. This time, though, they have two escaped convicts on board, and their spaceship heads for Venus.

Oh, yes, and the name of the "rocket ship" in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars?
Why...the Columbia. (See the tabloid Globe for February 18, 2003, "The Unlucky 13s," page 21. Also many thanks to Loren Coleman, Steve Wilson Sr., and others for the trivia.)