The River Styx Welcomes You !! 
The mysterious Postojna cave world is a part of Slovenia that has been carved, shaped and created by water -- deep within these world-famous caves hide the much loved and multitudinous Proteus anguinus human newts [No, Newt Gingrich is NOT one of them].
Other rare fauna, living and fossil, in these regions are guanobites and Schwagerina carniolica. On rare days these two exotic species are also found in the meteor-formed common caves of the Hungarian Villany mountains, and in the Crystal caves of Beremiend [also in Hungary], and in the Dolzan Gorge of Slovenia.
The 20-kilometre-long Slovenian underworld Postojna karst cave system is a wonder of life preserved in a vast and deep underground kingdom, with disappearing lakes and rivers that vanish overnight --and pop up far away --to the astonishment of land lubbers who discover a river when they awaken -- where there had never been one before [a not uncommon occurrence in this part of the world]!
"My first doubts about http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/MiltonRichard1.php http://www.nexusmagazine.com/arcoverups.html
Some defenders of
Darwinism embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they
would never accept in other circumstances.
We have seen this same
"unscientific" approach applied to archaeology and anthropology,
where "scientists" simply refuse to prove their theories yet appoint
themselves as the final arbiters of "the facts". It would be naive to
think that the scientists who cooperated in the production of the PBS series were
unaware that there would be no counter-balancing presentation by critics of
Richard Milton is a science
journalist. He had been an ardent true believer in Darwinian doctrine until his
investigative instincts took command. After 20 years of studying and
writing about evolution he suddenly realised that
there were far too many disconcerting holes in Darwin's theory. Milton decided to try to allay
his doubts and prove the theory to himself by using at least the elementary methods of
investigative journalism.
[transcription of my notes made during my own
Slovenian Museum of Natural History tour [with dictaphone in hand] of the human
fish and karst cave rocks galleries, a visit made in early Dec.
2003] --->>> these notes below written on
Saturday, December 27, 2003 in a warm apartment 3-weeks later in Washington
DC, as i was transcribing my narrated notes which i had made into a dictaphone in the natural museum three weeks earlier
Let's take a quick look at Charles Darwin's Chapter 5 from his Origins of Species in which he quarrels with Agassiz over the blind human fish Proteus:
Let us again take one more look at Darwin's words on Proteus, from his own writings:
"It would be most difficult to give any rational explanation of the affinities of the blind cave-animals to the other inhabitants of the two continents on the ordinary view of their independent creation. That several of the inhabitants of the caves of the Old and New Worlds should be closely related, we might expect from the well-known relationship of most of their other productions. Far from feeling any surprise that some of the cave-animals should be very anomalous, as Agassiz has remarked in regard to the blind fish, the Amblyopsis, and as is the case with the blind Proteus with reference to the reptiles of Europe, I am only surprised that more wrecks of ancient life have not been preserved, owing to the less severe competition to which the inhabitants of these dark abodes will probably have been exposed."
One evolutionary branch of the human fish actually made it all the way to North America, to the eastern states where it lives in rivers and brooks right here in our own United States of Bush-Halliburton & Company [USA-BHC].
What about sex and rock[s] and roll "overs" [aquatic]?
Proteus becomes sexually mature at 14 years of age and starts to lay eggs at 16. Some live to be 100 years old and some can live without eating at all for over ten years!
The Postojna Cave system and Planinska jama cave of Slovenia are fed by the Pivka River and Unica River springs both belonging to the Black Sea, and not the Adriatic, which is much closer!
Slovenians also call their human fish the "Olm" and the "mocheril". Slovenia has perhaps the richest underground aquatic life in the world, given its relative size. Biotic and abiotic natural heritage are of equal importance for the conservation of Slovenia's biological diversity, two fine examples being Schwagerina carniolica and Pulsatilla grandis.
Digressing just a little bit, while the essence of Slovenia is still inside of me, i.e. Slovene pear brandy, either Sadjevec or Viljamovka, brand names, gets one in the mood to listen to ancient Slovene woodwind music ... the flute from Divje Babe discovered in 1995 near the Idrijca River opposite the karst cave region village of Reka, Slovenia, is dated from 43,000 BC !!! [okay, radio carbon dating is often false, so let's say at LEAST as far back as 4500 BC]. The flute was made from the tubular section of a thighbone of a cave bear cub. This flute is a Neanderthal artifact, and far too old to be a much younger Cro-Magnon flute.
JUST A LOT OF LIMESTONE BLUSTER, OR ARE WE BEING GYPSUMED?
So! Just what is the buzz about this karst stuff? Karst has been called kalk by some. Kalk is also called mortar, lime, creta. One also encounters ejecta blankets from crashing meteors, or volcanic tufa and gypsum and sulfur carbonate [or ash heap matter from a pre-historic nuclear strike?] which also have some of the same properties.
There are many marbleized and fossilized trees in Slovenia that are a very welcome sight to behold, especially after the sterile aluminum silicates of Dobrova! Solid limestone is much less porous than granite. Volcanic rock is very very porous. Even today, at present, no good theories explain the oddities of karst cave systems, nor their anomalies, such as the confusingly varied and "unrelated" substances called dolomite and chalk and karst and tufa and kaolin and calcium carbonate and gypsum [you may be able to tell by now that I am not a trained geologist].
The Postojna cave is located in the Maastrichtian limestone breccia at the extreme northern limit of the tectonic unit of the Inner Dinarides [Slovenian basin]. Micritic limestone and marine cretaceous cement, along with organogenic coral barrier reef, in addition to a little greenish grey marlstone, make up its solid contents, with inlays of dolomite.
Small "scallops" are often found on the karst cave walls. The water has a high level of carbonate and potassium, thus it is very hard water. Sulfur and chloride are in the water also. Ceiling "cups" which look like ulcers can be frequently observed. The mixtures of sulfur and water create cave cracks and mazes, with spots of gypsum and tuffa.
SOMETHING VERY EARTH SHATTERING HAPPENED HERE long ago in a struggle between the 3 or 4 main Secret Society Orders of our planet, it seems to me:
LET'S EXAMINE SUCH NOTIONS BELOW:
The Knights Templar had their headquarters during at least 3 of the Crusades on Cyprus, the island, near Turkey, and lived amont the Cypriots.
The Hospitallers Knight Order was shortly afterward headquartered on Malta.
The Order of the Teutonic Knights had their headquarters in Transylvania during the Crusades. Later they moved to Marienburg.
Each of the three orders had mysterious connections [or a very prominent LACK of them] to "pseudo-marine" and "faux dolomite", non-crustacean deposits, which means something very significant, but I don't understand it yet and few investigators or researchers ever delve into these enigmatic puzzle pieces in a satisfactory manner.
LEGENDARY SLOVENIAN Knight Erasmus Luegger of the Slovenian Predjama Castle in the karst region is a kind of national legend learned by nearly every Slovenian school child, but he was of an "unknown" knightly order. Could he have been with a lost Atlantean order, that is not one of the three mentioned above?? [and he was clearly not a Knight of the Occult Sufi Order either].
+ -----> I fell asleep leaning
against an ancient Roman column in Ljubljana on the main riverbank at 4:30 AM in the
30s [F] temperature [freezing]!!
+
bone chilling
disturbing river fog had set in
+
walked up the river
even further and found an abandoned Yugo old communist made car
+
a lot more comfortable
inside the Yugo than out in the cold -- moisture and fog all over the interior
windshield from my warm breath
+
looking forward to
seeing the human fish again tomorrow at the caves
ROCKS of the Karst
region and other unique regions of the globe:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Predjama Castle near the Caves
A few kilometres from the entrance to Postojna cave stands one of the most picturesque buildings in the whole of Slovenia. Predjama Castle hangs dramatically in the middle of a 123 metre cliff ? a four storey structure almost arrogant in its simplicity -- unconquered and uncompromising. Although the current building dates from the end of the 16th century, a castle has stood on this site since the year 1201.
It does not take much imagination to see how Predjama castle
would be the ideal stronghold for a wilful, rebellious knight ? and a curious and
romantic legend of this nature survives: the story of the robber baron Erazem, aka The Knight Erasmus Luegger, of the Order [Teutonic/Templar/Hospitaller--to be determined], who bravely fought Ravbar's soldiers [of the Ulrik/Ullrich/Allrich family order of warriors??] and who is
today commemorated by the recently opened Erazem's Passage.
LEFT -- The Knight Erasmus Luegger, of the Order [Teutonic/Templar/Hospitaller--to be determined].
From his stronghold Erazem Luegger, a 15th century baron in the mould of Robin Hood [who in real life was drained of all of his blood in a treacherous ploy by a Cisterian nun in a monastery near Nottingham Woods] ... Erasmus had held out against the Austrians of his time, taunting them and raining down fruit and animals on them much like John Cleese's knights in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. The Austrians were baffled by Baron Luegger's unlimited supply of these edibles from numerous secret passages through the karst caves beneath his castle and beyond. Erazem met a paradoxical death too, crushed by a cannonball as he sat on the toilet in his castle, having forgotten to have closed the door.
His castle is well
worth a visit, as is the underworld below the
castle. It is an adventure whether you are a caver, a tourist ? or just plain curious.
As early as 1689 the famous chronicler Baron Valvasor wrote of the province of
Carniola, mostly located in southern Austria. Baron Valvasor wrote about the fear and astonishment of local
inhabitants when an immature "dragon's offspring" was found at a
water source near Vrhnika. A postman, a certain Mr Hoffman, even took it home
and put it on display. The Baron admitted that the so-called dragon "was
only a hand span long and looked like a lizard and spoke in taverns that it was no more than an underground worm
and vermin of the kind that is common in some Carniolan and Slovenian and Croatian parts. People had long forgotten about the terrifying Vrhnika monster when in 1751 an enterprising
fisherman caught a 5 four-legged fish as white as virgin snow.
When he tossed them out
of the net they started "screaming and squealing." People
were used to fishermen's tales even then and did not get particulary excited
about them. Of course we should not swallow hook, line and sinker all the apocraphal stories of
dragon's offspring and squealing fish and in this day and age we can be absolutely sure that
in both cases only one creature was responsible for all the excitement - our dear little
Proteus anguinus.
In terms of the construction of its body the human fish is a member of a family of amphibians, Proteidae. The family comprises only two genera: Proteus, with one species living in the water of the Dinaric Karst in the area from Slovenia to Herzegovina, and the other Necturus, indigenous to surface waters in North America along the eastern states.
The human fish, or known locally in Slovenian as "mocheril," (etymologically, 'that
which burrows into wetness'), is the only cave amphibian classified and is the largest of
true cave animals -- that is -- those that can not hope to survive outside of the caves.
One of
the main characteristics of amphibians is metamorphosis; the larvae of tadpole living
in water and breathing with gills develop into adult animals which leave
the aquatic environment and then breathe with lungs like a land animal. But the
human fish appears not to complete this metamorphosis. It reaches sexual
maturity as a larva. So far, science has still not entirely explained "neoteny,"
as this phenomenon is called. But one thing is certain, namely, that this
peculiarity is somehow connected with the production of the hormone thyroxine,
in spite of the fact that proteus does not react to the substance in the way
other amphibians do. Scientists have attempted in vain many times to force the unfortunate
proteus to metamorphosize. The animal breathes all its life through gills although it also has rudimentary lungs.
The famous 18th century Swedish scientist Karl von Linn鍊 (Linnaeus), whom many refer to as the "father of systematics", regarded the human fish as a larva. He did not include proteus in his natural order as an independent animal species and for this he made a colossal mistake. In 1772 he was challenged by Giovanni A. Scopoli, a physician at the Idrija mercury mine and a well-known natural scientist, who wrote to him: "Respected Linnaeus, to whom I sent the picture, is of the opinion that it is the larva of some lizard." And he added: "...mihi videtur genus singulare... I feel that the mocheril is a separate animal genus." And he was right!
Scopoli could not keep his enthusiasm about the discovery of
this new animal species to himself. He sent several human fish preserved in alcohol
to scientists all over the world. He studied the human fish, drew them and was
preparing to make his great discovery public. In the meantime, a Viennese
doctor and zoologist, J. N. Laurenti, admired the completely unknown animal
which Scopoli had sent to a friend living in Klagenfurt. Before the meticulous
natural scientist from Idrija could announce his discovery, Laurenti beat him to the punch and entered history books from that day onward as the grand discoverer of a new animal species, our human fish.
He
called it "Proteus anguinus" after the shepherd of all beings of the sea, the Greek sea god Proteus, son of the uber sea-god Poseidon -- and his wife the nymph Naiad.
Scopoli was left empty-handed while Laurenti won the fame of the first discovery without even being certain where his "discovery" had come from. He named Cerknisko Jezero (Lake Cerknisko) as the place of his discovery which at the time enjoyed the fame of an Austro-Hungarian Loch Ness "monster". Despite his haste the scientific name which Laurenti chose for the local "Nessie" has stuck.
Completely adapted to eternal darkness, the human fish hides
in the depths of underground sources far from our inquisitive gaze. The pale
skin of the human fish contains no pigment and the tiny eyes can be seen only at the fetus
stage. Later the eyes atrophy and skin grows over them. Approximately 25 cm long, [the length of an average human penis] with a flat tail surrounded by a skin-like fin used for swimming -- it is
snake-like and for this is has the Latin species name anguinus ("anguis"
means snake). It can also move using two pairs of legs - the front ones have three
digits and the hind ones two. The entire body is sensitive to
light and magnetic plasma. It breathes in three ways. It has an excellent sense of
smell and it also has a highly specialised sense for electromagnetic plasmas which could partly explain its orientation abilities in the total
darkness of the cave. On either side of its body, at the back of its head, there
are three pairs of extended gills which have excellent blood circulation and
are therefore of a very bright red colour.
It eats small animals, such as cave shrimps, amphipods and the larvae of various insects. Sometimes, under the cover of the night, human fish swim to the cave exit where they hunt for small surface water animals. Cannibalism is conceivable in starving mocherils if there is no other food around, but a full-grown animal can naturaly only atack very very small larval prey, as its blunt muzzle and small teeth make it no ferocious predator. Proteus has always caused great fascination since it can remain in captivity without food for an incredibly long period [up to 10 years without food!]. Reliable and documented reports by various observers are known about their ability to go without food, the longest such period having gone on for the least 12 years. We know proteus' metabolism must be extremely deccelerated since the human fish reaches sexual maturity only at the age of 16 to 18 years and it may even live to reach the old age of 100!
A special chapter in the history of research into the human fish deals with the mysterious question of the animal's reproduction. Divers have swum through hundreds of miles and fathoms of siphons and underground lakes and researchers have turned countless stones but so far nobody has seen where or how the life of this mysterious creature begins. We can only assume that proteus reproduces deep deep deep down in the peaceful and inaccessible watercourses of the karst underground, as far away as ancient Atlantis.
THREATENED SPECIES
Proteus does not have a single enemy in its natural environment and an adult animal can swim freely in the underwater labyrinths without having to fear the slightest danger. But proteus does have one malignant enemy, the worst and most ruthless of all -- man.
Due to the difficulty of access to the true habitat of proteus in the karst underworld, and the high number of caves that have still to be discovered and perhaps never will be, it is completely impossible to estimate the size of the proteus population, both white and black. This represents a considerable obstacle but we know that Slovenia is the richest in underground aquatic animal life in relative terms -- and even in terms of absolute figures it does not lag behind areas ten times larger, such as Croatia. A few years ago you had to watch your every step to avoid treading on human fish in the Kocevje caves of Slovenia. Today not one remains. Dumping all sorts of filth onto the surface of the Karst region is extremely risky, for precipitation washes poisons underground in unpredictable directions. Proteus has for a long time been on the list of the Washington CITES convention which prohibits trade in rare wild animals. But unscrupulous dealers do not give a second thought to this and the human fish has been shot up to the top of the endangered list and appears regularly on pricey lists in Italian and Parisian shops for wealthy aquariumists. Even biologists and many other scientists from all over the world use this disreputable method to acquire human fish specimens for their research.
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The Skocjanske jame caves have an extremely complex system of cave passages running a total
length of 5.8 km. The difference between the lowest and the highest points in
the caves is about 209 meters. The caves are the biggest and best known natural
phenomenon within this classical Karst area. With the shifting of sink holes in
the geological past, numerous collapsed dolines have formed at the contact
point where flysch meets limestone under the caverns.
With their depth of 163
meters, Velika dolina and Mala dolina charm even the most hedonistic of visitors. The finest view of
both dolines is from an observation point near their natural bridge formation and the cave that separates them. The caves, with an immense underground gorge and halls,
are the beginning of the Skocjan underground system.
The height of the gorge
exceeds 100 meters at several points. The caves probably have the biggest cave
hall in Europe, measuring 12,000 square meters (1.2 hectares) in cross section.
The Reka river runs underground for almost 40 kilometres, to the sources of the
Timav River in the Gulf of Trieste.
Within the Park’s protected area there are three
smaller villages featuring typical karst architecture: Skocjan, Betanja, and
Matavun. The entire village of Skocjan is especially interesting. It was once a
fort and with its village square and the church of Sv. Kancijan (St. Canzian) after whom
the caves were named it is considered a “#147;settlement monument”. There
are several archaeological sites in the territory of the Park from various
archaeological periods including settlements, burial grounds and cave sites.
Because of their special value they are included under the
protection of the cultural heritage act. Other points of interest are several stone houses with stone wells, portals, barns
for wheat threshing and storage, water mills, ice pits, and a cemetery with
crumbling tombstones.
Because of the nearby Skocjanske jame caves and their extraordinary significance for the natural heritage wonders of the world, in 1986 the Skocjanske jame were included on UNESCOs World Heritage List. The Republic of Slovenia pledged to ensure the protection of the Skocjanske jame area and therefore adopted the Skocjanske jame Regional Park Act. The Park is managed by the Park Skocjanske jame Public Service Agency, located in Skocjan, Slovenia.
The Skocjanske jame Regional Park is situated in the south-western part of Slovenia, in the region called Kras, or Karst. Kras is the area where researchers first began discovering typical karst formations, karst caves and other karst features, and is therefore also referred to as the original, or classical, Karst. The internationally accepted term used in karstology for a steep-sided and flat-floored depression -- a doline or dolina -- owes its origins to the dolines of the Skocjan area (Velika and Mala dolina), where the Reka river disappears underground yet another time.
=========================
The ?kocjanske jame Regional Park, which is situated in the
Divača municipality, extends over an area of 413 hectares and encompasses
the area of the caves, the surface above the caves, and the system of collapsed
dolines [and the Reka river gorge] to the bridge in ?koflje.
The boundary of the
Park runs along the Kozina-Divača highway on the west, embraces part of
the Divača Kras on the north, and in the south-eastern direction extends
to the foothills of the flysch hills of Brkini. When the metamorphosis of a river passes from
flysch to limestone it is called "contact karst,"
and the ?kocjanske jame caves
which are located in such a passage, are a unique example of this karst
feature.
Together with the extensive system of caves the Park embraces collapsed dolines and individual cultural monuments, and the Park makes up a typical karst "architecture". The unusual climatic conditions in the dolines and at the cave entrances account for the blended presence of both Alpine and Mediterranean flora. The unique concentration of plant and animal species cohabiting in such an extremely small space gives this area a significant value in terms of biotic diversity. The employees of the Park and the local inhabitants pay special attention to the protection of the natural ecosystems and archaeological sites.
" Who Will Drive a Stake Through the God of War?" "Strike Workers of America, STRIKE!"