Orion: From Spacecraft to the Son of Poseidon

Orion? Sirius? Poseidon? Helios? Scorpio? Apollo? Why is the simple name of a spacecraft more than meets the eye?

Like in the Philae name game, the twilight language of the Orion spacecraft is linked to a deeper meaning than is obvious from your cable news highlights.

The Delta rocket that launched Orion appeared to be a fiery trident to correspondent RPJ.

The Orion spacecraft was launched on the morning of December 5, 2014, from Cape Canaveral in Florida and finished its first test flight by falling safely into the Pacific Ocean, supported by a trio of parachutes. It was picked up by Navy personnel in a Zodiac (of course).

The details are easy to find in the mainstream media. The Orion blasted off at 7:05 a.m. EST, circled the globe twice, reached 3,600 miles above Earth, then landed in the sea off Baja California. The flight lasted about 4.5 hours, and served as a test of a spacecraft, similar to a large-sized Apollo capsule, which will take humans to asteroids and Mars.

But what is the name game behind the moniker Orion?

Orion (Ancient Greek: Ὠρίων or Ὠαρίων, Latin: Orion) was a giant hunter in Greek mythology whom Zeus placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion.

In the works of Homer and Hesiod we have linkages of some interest in this quest.

Orion is mentioned in the oldest surviving works of Greek literature, which probably date back to the 7th or 8th century BC, but which are the products of an oral tradition with origins several centuries earlier. In Homer's Iliad Orion is described as a constellation, and the star Sirius is mentioned as his dog. In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals; he is also mentioned as a constellation, as the lover of the Goddess Dawn, as slain by Artemis, and as the most handsome of the earthborn. In the Works and Days of Hesiod, Orion is also a constellation, one whose rising and setting with the sun is used to reckon the year.

The legend of Orion was first told in full in a lost work by Hesiod, probably the Astronomia; simple references to Hesiod will refer to this, unless otherwise stated. This version is known through the work of a Hellenistic author on the constellations; he gives a fairly long summary of Hesiod's discourse on Orion. According to this version, Orion was likely the son of the sea-god Poseidon and Euryale, daughter of Minos, King of Crete. Orion could walk on the waves because of his father; he walked to the island of Chios where he got drunk and attacked Merope, daughter of Oenopion, the ruler there. In vengeance, Oenopion blinded Orion and drove him away. Orion stumbled to Lemnos where Hephaestus — the lame smith-god — had his forge. Hephaestus told his servant, Cedalion, to guide Orion to the uttermost East where Helios, the Sun, healed him; Orion carried Cedalion around on his shoulders. Orion returned to Chios to punish Oenopion, but the king hid away underground and escaped Orion's wrath. Orion's next journey took him to Crete where he hunted with the goddess Artemis and her mother Leto, and in the course of the hunt, threatened to kill every beast on Earth. Mother Earth objected and sent a giant scorpion to kill Orion. The creature succeeded, and after his death, the goddesses asked Zeus to place Orion among the constellations. Zeus consented and, as a memorial to the hero's death, added the Scorpion [as Scorpio] to the heavens as well. Source.

Sirius, the star of Isis, takes us full circle to other connections. Isis was the primary goddess of the isles of Philae. NASA is not unaware of the names they are bestowing on their craft.

The youthful Walter O'Brien (played by Daniel Zolghadri) on CBS's hit series Scorpion is wearing a sweater that mirrors, in a fashion, the Apollo 11 USA sweater being worn by Danny in The Shining. (For more, see here.)

Cory Panshin reminds us: "So Orion was 'the lover of the Goddess Dawn' -- which would be Aurora, of course."

In the official feed to the news media, at splashdown, NASA launch commentator Mike Curie is heard to say, in his (seemingly scripted) enthusiasm that this moment was "the dawn of Orion in a new era of American space exploration!"

So many syncs, of late, seem to be foreshadowing events, as well as reflecting them.

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More 237: Scorpion and The Shining

The new CBS series, Scorpion is loosely based on the true story of a group of geniuses, we are told. It premiered on September 22, 2014. The basis of the series is the life of genius and computer expert Walter O'Brien.

Walter O'Brien was born February 24, 1975 in Ireland, was bullied as a youth, and founded his Scorpion Computer Services, using a nickname from his youth. O'Brien was the "Real-Life ‘Scorpion’ Helped ID Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects," according to a report by WBZ-TV, Boston.

How much is real, legend, or myth, remains to be seen. Are new articles found on the Internet plants?

Intriguingly, the opening preface to Scorpion is a scene of a young O'Brien being arrested for hacking - wearing a USA rocket blue sweater. What is fake and what is fact? Sound familiar? Sort of like the Apollo moon landings? LOL.

Scorpion's young O'Brien (played by Daniel Zolghadri) is wearing a sweater that mirrors, in a fashion, the Apollo 11 USA sweater being worn by Danny in The Shining.

Daniel has its origins from the Hebrew name דָּנִיֵּאל (Daniyyel) and means "God is my judge."

In Room 237 (2012, directed by Rodney Ascher, produced by Tim Kirk), much is made by some theorists that Stanley Kubrick is giving a nod to the faking of the lunar landings with this sweater.

Sometimes, a sweater is just a sweater, but in the case of Scorpion, the nod here may be to The Shining, after all, therefore, in some ways, extending the mythos of Room 237.

Update: An Antares rocket has blown up.

"Every launch costs U.S. taxpayers $237 million." ~ "Cause sought for space-supply rocket explosion," Oct 29, 2014, WESH, Orlando, Florida.

Please, hold your breath, look at the sweater, note yesterday's posting was about the new series Scorpion, and read on:

Antares, also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Scorpii (abbreviated to α Scorpii or α Sco), is the seventeenth brightest star in the nighttime sky and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, and is often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion." Along with Aldebaran, Regulus, and Fomalhaut, Antares comprises the group known as the "Royal stars of Persia." It is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic.

The above observations were published late on Monday, October 27, 2014. By coincidence, that evening, an Antares rocket was scheduled to go to the orbiting space station. It was re-scheduled because a sailboat entered the restricted area, off shore. It was set to launch on Tuesday, October 28.

But instead, the unmanned Antares rocket exploded early Tuesday evening.
According to NASA, the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus ( = swan) cargo spacecraft were set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET. It was to carry some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.

"There was failure on launch," NASA spokesman Jay Bolden said. "There was no indicated loss of life.

The unmanned Antares rocket exploded shortly after launch from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The logo for NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) resembles a stylized trident.

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See also "The Autotune Ascension," which is about Auto-Tune, an audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies and its synchromystic links.

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237 postings:

More 237: Scorpion and The Shining

IKEA Even Set The Clock At 2:37

Beyond Room 237: Pitch Perfect 237 and 9/11

Flight 237, Obama's 237, and Room 237

Ebola Scare At Logan on Ebola Discovery Anniversary (Flight 237)

"Lone Gunman" at Canada's War Memorial & Parliament Hill

The day after...Halifax's The Chronicle Herald image by cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon is being called the "perfect tribute."

Breaking News on 10/22/14:

At least one person was shot this morning at a war memorial near Canada's Parliament in Ottawa.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that a soldier was shot. Others have seen a body inside Parliament.

The active shooters ran towards Parliament Hill, got into the main entrance to the Canadian Parliament, fired dozens of shoots, and then moved through the hallway. Parliament went on lockdown, officials reported.

Various accounts discussed different parts of a confusing whole. The Red Dirt Report mentioned that there was a sighting of a "man with long black hair, his face covered by a white scarf with decals on it and wearing a black jacket."

A member of Parliament, Bob Zimmer tweeted that the "lone gunman is deceased."

The suspect has reportedly been identified as Canadian-born Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was was killed in a Center Block shootout.

(But there are other early reports there may be other shooters - two or three. And that they may be on the Parliament's roof. All seem to be incorrect.)

The suspect:

Michael Abdul Zehaf-Bibeau has been identified as the shooting suspect at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada on Wednesday. Zehaf-Bibeau is a Canadian native born in 1982.

"Zehaf" is Algerian, so some are speculating he is Algerian. Bibeau (Bibaud, Bibaut) is a French nickname for a heavy drinker, from a derivative of Latin bibere, "to drink."

Bibeau was shot dead by the Canadian Parliament’s Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers. He was killed inside the Canadian Parliament’s Center Block building. 


The victim:

The soldier who died is said to have been a member of The Argylls of Canada - 91st Canadian Highlanders.

In a photo from this week, here is Cpl Cirillo (left), and Cpl Stevenson on Guard at The National War Memorial in Ottawa. Both are members of The Argylls of Canada.

The soldier has been identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a reservist based out of Hamilton, Ontario.

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The timing:

The Canadian contribution to the bombing of ISIS or IS have been codenamed Operation Impact by the Canadian Department of National Defence. Canadian fighter jets left for the Middle East to join in airstrikes on October 21, 2014.

October 22 is the anniversary from 1964, when a Canadian Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selected the design which becomes the new official flag of Canada. (h/t RS)

The three-lobed Canadian maple leaf is often compared to a trident. (h/t RPJ)

Links abound, per Keys to Cosmic Doorways:

I think this is per Mark Gray.

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Update/Noon Eastern:

There were two soldiers standing guard at the war memorial in Ottawa near Parliament, and a gunman shot one of them, a witness told CNN on Wednesday. Peter Henderson, a journalist, said other soldiers doing drills nearby ran to help the fallen soldier. Henderson said he knew the person shot was a soldier because of the ceremonial uniform the soldier was wearing.

There were "several shooting incidents in downtown Ottawa" on Wednesday morning, police said on Twitter. "Incidents occurred at National War Memorial, near the Rideau Centre and Parliament Hill." All Ottawa police buildings remain on lockdown and are closed to the public, police also said on Twitter.

There were "numerous gunmen" Wednesday morning at the Canada War Memorial shooting, said Marc Soucy of the Ottawa Police Service. Authorities are working to figure out if there were two or three gunmen, he said. Only one person was shot, Soucy said. Source.

Update/2:00 pm Eastern:

There are reports that one soldier was killed at the War Memorial. One gunman was also killed, apparently, inside Parliament.

Officials are saying that the reports of an incident near the Rideau Center (mall) has nothing to do with the shootings at the War Memorial and Parliament.

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Today's events follows an incident on Monday, October 20, 2014, when 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau ran over two soldiers. Couture-Rouleau was briefly detained at a Canadian airport in July 2013 when he sought to fly to Turkey. Police did not have enough evidence to charge him with seeking to join a terrorist group abroad and released him.

Couture-Rouleau was fatally shot by police after he struck the two soldiers with his car in a Quebec supermarket parking lot (shown above) -- a scenario which had been depicted only last month in IS propaganda. Police said Rouleau raced through a mall parking lot in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu about 11:30 a.m. Monday. He called 911 as this unfolded and told the operator that he was acting in the name of Allah.

The parking lot of the Tim Horton's where the solider was run down.

Late on Tuesday, Canada raised its national "terrorism" alert, officials said, after a soldier run over by a suspected jihadist died in hospital. That soldier's name is Patrice Vincent.

The Canada case appears to be a copycat of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London in May 2013. Rigby was run over by two Muslim converts before being stabbed and hacked to death.

The statues at the top of the memorial symbolizes Peace and Liberty.

The National War Memorial is a cenotaph (surmounted by a bronze sculpture entitled "The Response") in stands in Confederation Square, Ottawa. A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek: κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion (kenos, one meaning being "empty," and taphos, "tomb").

Trident Stolen From Poseidon's Fortress

According to WJON, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office is reporting that a theft occurred at the “Poseidon Fortress” house in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Sheriff John Sanner says deputies were called to 32208 County Road 1 in Le Sauk Township on Thursday, October 16, 2014, for a theft complaint.

[The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group. Due to the yellow-clay soils found around Saginaw Bay, their autonym was Oθaakiiwaki (often interpreted to mean "yellow-earth"). The Ojibwe and Ottawa name for the tribe (exonym) was Ozaagii, meaning "those at the outlet." From the sound of that, the French derived Sac and the English Sauk. The use of "le," for "the" is thus used in American location names, as per "Le Sauk."]

Sanner says the caretaker at the residence reported that somebody stole (at a time unknown) the trident from the bronze Poseidon statue in front of the house. Source.

The Poseidon Fortress/House is the site of a spoof of an actual real estate video of the home for sale. See below.

Weird Pitchfork Incident #2

There's been another encounter of the pitchfork kind, and it happened before the Ohio authorities released the information about T. J. Lane escaping from prison with a pitchfork. Lane had a pitchfork with him during his 9/11 escape, but the public did not know about it until the evening of September 15, 2014.

Oklahoma City resident Shaun D. Walsh, 41, was arrested much earlier (around 12:30 am) on Monday, September 15, 2014. He was charged with punching his ex-girlfriend and chasing her with a pitchfork - technically domestic assault with a dangerous weapon and malicious injury and destruction of property.

The events occurred in the 2800 block of SW Grand Blvd, near South May Street, on the south side of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

According to the victim, Walsh said, “F*** you, b****. You get what you deserve,” as he punched her. After he stopped punching, the victim told police Walsh went into another room of the home and grabbed a three-prong pitchfork. She said he began chasing her around the house before she could make it out the front door. Once outside Walsh demanded the victim give him the keys to her car. She refused, and that's when she said Walsh used the pitchfork to break the passenger side window to her car. He then dropped the pitchfork and left the scene on foot, according to News9.com.

Police caught up with Walsh and took him to Southwest Medical Center to be medically cleared before he was transported to the Oklahoma County Jail.

(Thanks to Todd Campbell for the news hint.)

Tridents, Pitchforks, and Satan in the News

"We will follow them to the gates of Hell until they are brought to justice. Because Hell is where they will reside. Hell is where they will reside," Vice President Joseph Biden speaking about ISIS on September 3, 2014, at the Portsmouth Naval Yard, New Hampshire. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is one of four remaining naval shipyards in the nation, and is capable of docking all active classes of submarines including the Los Angeles, Trident and Virginia classes.

When is a trident really a pitchfork?

A trident is a three-pronged spear, used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the god of the sea in classical mythology. In Hindu mythology it is the weapon of Shiva, known as trishula (Sanskrit for "triple-spear"). Parallel to its fishing origins, the trident is associated with Poseidon, the god of the sea in Greek mythology, the Roman god Neptune, and Shiva, a Hindu God who holds a trident in his hand. In Hindu legends and stories, Shiva uses this sacred weapon to fight off negativity in the form of evil villains. The trident represents the deity in his three aspects of creator, preserver and destroyer.

A pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thick, widely separated pointed tines (also called prongs) used to lift and pitch (throw) loose material, such as hay, straw or leaves. Pitchforks typically have only two, three or four tines. The three-pronged pitchfork has grown to be associated with the Devil or Satan. The pitchfork is often used in satire of Christian demonology in popular media, especially in early humorous cartoons where a popular joke was a caricature of an angel and a pitchfork-wielding devil sitting on the opposite shoulders of the conflicted protagonist. The "pitchfork" of Satan looks remarkably like a trident. One has merged with the other.

Author Chris Woodyard's research on Herman Menz and his carved stone Devil of
Detroit (see above) has revealed a trident on the monument, although it was called the "big ugly fork" in the original news story. Woodyard has a new look at this Devil and others here.

Speaking of Detroit, the site of "Devil's Night" every October 30th, it is directly in the news in conjunction with Satan's followers coming to that city.

The Satanic Temple, a New-York-based religious group, announced on September 7, 2014, it wants to build its first chapter house in Detroit, Michigan, where it will perform services such as marriages and funerals. It noted the sacrificing of babies, humans and animals will not take place.

This is the same group that caused a stir when it said it wanted to erect a seven-foot tall statue of Satan near the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol.  The proposed image (see above) of the statue suggested that the Temple wanted to depict Satan as a goat-headed Baphoment figure with a long beard, horns, and wings, with a pentagram design placed overhead. Two smiling children would be placed on both sides of the statue. Early reports of a Black Mass in Oklahoma also circulated. The plans for the Black Mass appear to be on a fast track.

However, the group’s leaders say they do not worship Satan. “We believe in a metaphorical, literary construct of Satan,” a Temple leader said. “He’s a symbol for rebellion, a symbol of human nature, the thirst for knowledge.”

Meanwhile, across the continent, in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Devil made a very dramatic appearance in that city on Tuesday morning, September 9, 2014. The Devil was placed on a location that had formerly held a statue of Christopher Columbus.

The 9-foot-tall statue - please note, was left on 9/9 - thus 666 (upside down) - was a representation of Satan, Lucifer or the Devil, complete with red skin, a pointed tail and horns atop his head. The statue also holds one hand up in a devil-horn salute familiar to heavy metal fans the world over. It also sported an enormous erect penis.

The last detail caused headline writers to have a field day, from "Naked devil statue erected near SkyTrain line" to "NSFW Satan statue erected (and taken down) in East Vancouver" to "City crews remove satan statue erected alongside busy Vancouver roadway."

"I'm going to have nightmares tonight," said one city worker who removed it around 3:15 p.m. PT.

All of this news of Satan exist closely in time with the bizarre death of Sarah Bean, who was killed when a gargoyle was beheaded by a piece of metal and then the gargoyle's head hit her directly on her head. She died in front of Chicago's Second Presbyterian Church, on September 4, 2014.

And speaking of a beheading...

Back to ISIS/ISIL, for a moment, as "Satan" is part of their justification for their campaign of terror and beheadings. And I mean more than the old "Americans are Satan" line. Members of the Yazidi religion, one of Iraq’s oldest minorities, are in the midst of a genocide by ISIS. Gruesome images of brutally slain people have emerged in recent weeks, as local officials say that at least 500 Yazidis, including 40 children, have been killed in northern Iraqi.

What is ISIS's reasoning for targeting the Yazidis?

As the Guardian reported in August 2014,

At the core of the Yazidis’ marginalization is their worship of a fallen angel, Melek Tawwus, or Peacock Angel, one of the seven angels that take primacy in their beliefs. Unlike the fall from grace of Satan, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Melek Tawwus was forgiven and returned to heaven by God. The importance of Melek Tawwus to the Yazidis has given them an undeserved reputation for being devil-worshippers – a notoriety that, in the climate of extremism gripping Iraq, has turned life-threatening.

Representations, such as this one above, of the Kurdistan Yazidis’ Melek Tawwus or Melek Taus can have a trident-like appearance. It is a familiar image from The Exorcist movies, an overlap with the same region's Assyrian demon Pazuzu. To the Yazidis, Melek Taus is an angel; to ISIS, Melek Taus is Satan. It is the difference between life and death in modern day Iraq.

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UPDATE: Conservative blogger Matt Drudge took an image from President Obama's 9/10 speech about confronting ISIL.

"We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today." - President Obama, 9/10/2014

Drudge posted the 9/10 image to his blog on 9/11 with the caption "Photos Capture Obama's Head of Horns."

Needless to say, I have to point out it looks like a trident.

Of course, the real question is why would anyone wish to photoshop the real image - there are no drapes that low behind the president (see here) to make President Obama look like the Devil?

Below is the actual background for the speech of 9/10.

See also "Synchromystic Symposium: The Meaning of Tridents."