Parapsychologists have long dreamed of looking into the other world. And with my own eyes. It is even better to film another being, proving its reality to the whole world. The Greek researchers came closest to solving the problem.
Visions in the mountains
Alexander Bellos was born in 1912 in Agrinio, a town in western Greece where his father was mayor. The family did not need anything. Young Alexander was fond of mountaineering. He grew up in luxury and did not think about his future life - everything should have turned out in the best way!
The war changed everything. During the Greco-Italian conflict of 1940-1941, Bellos was drafted into the army. Those who were at least familiar with the basics of mountaineering were sent to serve in the mountain shooters.
Alexander's battalion took up a position in the mountains at an altitude of 2800 meters. The soldier was warned that Italian mountain riflemen were approaching. Soon, black shadows appeared on the moonlit snow plain. The Greeks opened fire, but the shadows continued to move to their full height, ignoring the hail of bullets. The commander ordered not to waste ammunition in vain and let the enemy get closer. The shadows stopped moving and soon disappeared.
In the morning the soldiers saw that the snow-covered plateau in front of the positions remained pristine - no footprints, no blood stains. Mass hallucination?..
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Time has passed. After the liberation of Greece, Bellos read an article about the "invisible satellites" on Everest. It turns out that many climbers felt someone's presence on the highest peak in the world and often received real help when needed. But who provided this assistance remained a mystery.
Scientists believed that the sensations of climbers were caused by oxygen starvation or extreme fatigue against the background of constant danger. But Alexander came to the conclusion that his "shadows" and "invisible companions" were beings from the spirit world, which are most easily manifested at high altitudes.
Seriously carried away by parapsychology by that time, Bellos wrote in his diary: “I was amazed why people who live at high altitudes or climb the mountains are so gifted with ghost vision, and we, who live at sea level, experience so many hindrances and obstacles in communicating with the other world. Then I dared to suggest that if we can create an environment of these heights in the parapsychological laboratory, we will achieve interesting results."
First experiences
On September 21, 1953, Bellos presented his invention to parapsychologists from the Scientific Institute for Metapsychological Research in Athens (NIMPI) - a vacuum ball, to which something like an instruction was attached:
“The ball is placed on the table for experiments in front of the hypnotized medium. Before that, the air is pumped out of it, creating a rarefaction less than that exists in the mountains at an altitude of eight kilometers. A chain of people holding hands is created around it.
The room should be completely dark or have a faint red light. During the session, participants should be silent, not move and remain calm, without tense waiting. After 20-30 minutes, sparks appear inside the ball and, finally, clouds. They turn into crisp images that can be photographed. These are visions of a medium in trance."
On February 24, 1954, the first public experiment took place. In addition to NIMPI scientists, journalists and a professional photographer were present in the hall.
“Participants put the ball on a marble stand; there was a vacuum inside, which corresponded to an altitude of 100 kilometers, - the "Hyperfos" magazine described the experience. Then they made a chain and turned off the light. The photographs were taken sequentially, either in complete darkness or with a flash. Each time people around the ball were asked to breathe slowly and to meditate silently."
The experiment lasted half an hour. The participants said that they saw in the ball "discharges like trees, luminous images and their rapid transformation." One of the pictures was published in the magazine "Gy-Perfos" in March 1954. The upper part of the face with eyes is visible in the ball. Iphigenia Hadzhivasiliu, sitting in chains, recognized the face of her late father.
The mystery of the glass ball
Greek parapsychologists and spiritualists tried to replicate the experiments, but they failed. Bellos' ball was not just a glass of sucked air, it was something else. The photographs of the first experiments show that four tubes extend from the ball. One - with a valve for connecting the pump, the second - in order to then let the air inside. But what are two more pipes for?
Metropolitan scientists have ordered another such ball from NIMPI to personally test it in laboratory conditions.
"During experiments with the ball, the lecturer of the University of Athens, Mr. Theodoridis, discovered a new method of observation," wrote the capital's newspaper "Vradini" on July 15, 1954. “He developed a device that used a special glass plate with a fluorescent composition. His device was called "spiritoscope". Three days after the beginning of the experiment, he saw the images imprinted on the plate. The more time he held the plate under the light of a 500-watt electric lamp passing through the ball, the more images appeared on it.
Filming the otherworldly
Bellos ordered a large ball from a glass factory to make it easier to observe the visions that arose in it. On October 26, 1955, Dr. Ioannis Pavlidis made the first filming of mysterious images. The film was shown in a cinema in front of a large audience.
“We were surprised to see sad women in the ball, sitting around an oblong table, as if chained or immersed in meditation,” Bellos told about the footage to the journalist of the newspaper “Athenaiki”. “The one on the right was holding her face with her hands. Another, that. that on the left, stood up, stretching out her hands in despair. A handkerchief was clamped in them. What was happening, from which only the density of the atmosphere separated us, looked rather unpleasant and created an oppressive atmosphere.
On another occasion, an 18-year-old girl appeared in a ball, apparently knitting. The images around her moved, appearing and disappearing in strange ways, as if absorbed by a vacuum. In the middle of the film, a priest suddenly appeared in the ball, judging by his clothes, from the East. He smiled, raised his left hand and waved it.
The shooting was never repeated. In 1956, Bellos and his associates left the NIMPI and created their own organization, which was called the Scientific Society for Metapsychic Research. Every Saturday at 7:30 pm they experimented with the balloon.
The entrance was free of charge. However, no more visions arose. Bellos hoped that among the visitors there would be a strong medium who could revive the extinguished ball. He spent his last money on experiments.
Unexpected cases
On February 3, 1958, metropolitan parapsychologists decided to conduct an experiment without Bellos, renting a balloon. The famous psychic Dimitrios Simeonides became the medium.
The experiment was unexpectedly successful, but parapsychologists were not ready for it. They expected to see "a couple of blurry faces", as in Bellos's recent successful experiments, but instead got clear pictures of what Simeonides was seeing as he sat in a trance.
In the ball, among other things, images of "a monk and his disciples from a Tibetan monastery" appeared. The psychic had already telepathically talked to this monk before. According to him, he was alive during the experiment.
The researchers conducted the second experiment on December 4, 1958. Bellos died five months earlier, and his wife gave the experimenters a device that had become unnecessary. Among the images appearing behind the glass was … the deceased himself! His face was photographed.
The parapsychologist Dimitrios Ambelos and the director of the Athens Observatory, Konstantin Hassapis, decided to use the orb to look at other planets. On February 23, 1964, they saw what they believed to be the surface of Venus.
“There is dense cloudiness, hot and humid, it is raining,” Dimitrios told about the images that had arisen in an interview with the Psychic magazine. - Lots of water, deep rivers and forests with large trees. There are snakes similar to crocodiles, but without paws and with elongated eyes-slits. We photographed a couple of these snakes. Giant creatures, mostly aquatic, lie in the rivers. There are black vultures with large wings. The natives are not afraid of them. The typical animal is white, dog-like with a flat muzzle. He was filmed three times during the sessions. Tall swarthy people live in caves. They go without clothes and do not have their hair cut. They cook black food in stone pots, similar to soup. Their settlements are scattered across the planet.
Window to the subconscious
Now we know that Venus is a blazing hell, where you can melt lead right on the surface of the planet, and the atmospheric pressure corresponds to a kilometer deep of the ocean on Earth. But Ambelos and Hassapis did not know this.
Only after Soviet probes sent the first images of the surface of Venus to Earth did parapsychologists realize that the ball was not showing them the real picture.
The ball makes visible what is hidden in the subconscious, what people want to see. Simeonides saw a Tibetan monk who hardly existed in reality, and people saddened by the loss of loved ones - their faces.
When the researchers realized that Bellos' ball was not a window to another world, but something like a mirror, the images stopped appearing. Now they knew the truth. The belief in the power of the ball vanished with the visions.
In 2011, Thanassis Vembos found an unwanted ball in the basement of a meta-psychic society. It will light up again if scientists find gifted psychics who believe in a miracle.
Mikhail GERSHTEIN