Saturday 30 June 2018

Interstellar Asteroid is Speeding Up

The world of astronomy was taken by storm when 'Oumuamua was discovered in October 2017. I covered it extensively myself during the Space Weather reports on the HPANWO Show, for example see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2017/11/programme-258-podcast-brian-clare.html. 'Oumuamua is a large solid object in space, an asteroid, but it is unique because it is not in orbit around the sun. It is a wanderer through interstellar space that just happened to have passed through the inner solar system by coincidence. Its name means "leading scout" in Hawaiian. It quickly became clear that this object was highly unusual in many other ways. Most asteroids are round or irregular lumps coloured grey or black; this one was very long and thin, shaped like a cigar about a thousand feet long and a hundred wide. It was dark red in colour, possibly as a result of countless aeons of being exposed to cosmic radiation. It was spotted by the Pan-STARRS telescope on Hawaii and the only photographs we have of the object are some grainy and low resolution shots showing light streaks. This is because its closest point of approach to the earth was nine million miles, that's about thirty-seven times as far away as the moon; it was also unfortunately well past that point when it was first spotted. It is travelling at over thirty miles-per-second relative to the sun, that's well over three times the average speed of an orbiting asteroid. This is why the astronomers knew it had to be interstellar; it was moving too fast to be in solar orbit. NASA and other space agencies have discussed the concept of a hypothetical mission to explore 'Oumuamua, but this will be very difficult because of the object's speed. It is heading away from the solar system out into deep space and is already past the orbit of the planet Jupiter. In just four years at its current velocity it will pass the orbit of the planet Neptune and then be officially outside the solar system. However, it's a bit more complicated than that.

It has just been announced that 'Oumuamua is speeding up. This should not be possible. An object cannot accelerate in space unless it enters a gravitational field, the "slingshot effect" or if it slows down (this is still termed "acceleration" in astronomy) due to friction with something, like a planetary atmosphere. The only exception to this rule is for... ahem!... something with its own propulsion system. Naturally when 'Oumuamua first hit the news the question was tabled about whether it could be artificial. Its shape and speed reminded many people, including me, of Arthur C Clarke's sci-fi novel Rendezvous with Rama, which is all about an alien spacecraft that visits the solar system and is explored by a team of astronauts. The Breakthrough Listen programme got to work observing 'Oumuamua. This is part of the SETI movement, see background links below. It examined the asteroid with the high-power Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia USA to see if it was emitting any radio signals. The object was totally silent during the entire duration of the study. However, now 'Oumuamua is speeding up, it might be worth repeating the observation. It might be a spacecraft that has been in "standby mode" previously and is now switched on. In another of Clarke's stories, The Fountains of Paradise, earth is visited by an unmanned (or should I say "un-alien-ed") probe, dubbed "Starglider", from an extraterrestrial civilization; and it behaves in a very similar manner to 'Oumuamua. According to the media, the most likely reason 'Oumuamua is accelerating is because it is really a comet. Comets do change speed and course at times because of the "outgassing" process. This is where ice inside the comet melts and evaporates creating water and steam jets that burst out through the object's surface and act like rockets. This is what causes the "coma"; the tail of the comet is made up of this material. Source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/interstellar-object-oumuamua-is-unexpectedly-speeding-up-leaving-nasa-scientists-baffled-a3875736.html. The certainty of the solution to this mystery varies depending on the media spot; as you can see the Evening Standard states that NASA scientists are "baffled" whereas Astronomy magazine takes a far more conservative stance: Speeding Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua is a Comet, not an Asteroid, see: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/06/speeding-interstellar-object-oumuamua-is-a-comet-not-an-asteroid. In that case though, why was it not identified as a comet sooner? Why is the assumption that it is a comet only being suggested now because it is, frankly, the only explanation that does not involve mentioning little green men? It is odd that this comet has suddenly started outgassing now that it is heading away from the sun and is already more distant that Jupiter. Comets usually begin this as they approach the sun; that is why their tails are longer and brighter there. Sometimes the earth's orbit passes through these tails and we get meteor showers. As comets leave behind the hot vicinity of solar space, the remaining water inside them freezes and the outgassing stops. Why did 'Oumuamua not outgas when it was closer to the sun, lighting up the night sky on earth with its magnificent interstellar tail? I hope Breakthrough Listen does take a second look at this most enigmatic of objects. If it turns out that it is electromagnetically active as well as in motion then we will have irrefutable confirmation that we are not alone.

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Caesar the Alien

Julius Caesar is the most famous name in Roman history. He was born in what is now Italy in 100 BC to an elite family of the Roman Republic. He rose through the ranks of the army to become a leading general. He was also a prolific writer and historian. A lot of what we know about Iron Age Britain comes from him. Caesar waged numerous wars of conquest against neighbouring territory to expand Roman rule as far as he could. His greatest achievement was his victory in the Gallic Wars where he conquered the land which is today France. In true Illuminati fashion, he forced the defeated French leader, Vercingetorix, to endure a humiliating ritual, throwing his weapons down at Caesar's feet. He also invaded Britain (No Boudica moment now; the actual conquest happened a century later under the Emperor Claudius.). After his military campaigns he returned to Rome across the River Rubicon and took power as the first Roman Emperor. He was assassinated by a conspiracy at the "Ides of March", on March the 15th; 44 BC. As one of the most famous and powerful people in the world, there were plenty of artistic images made of him during his lifetime and afterwards. Romans were particularly good at stone sculpture and there are many statues and busts of Julius Caesar. There are numerous descriptions of his face and voice from those who knew him; but in the days before photography, for those who came after him the question of what he truly looked like can never be answered in full.

Nevertheless an anthropologist and archaeologist called Maja d'Hollosy thinks she has answered the question. She has done this by scanning a marble bust of Julius Caesar and adding in comparisons of other artistic depictions of the man to produce a 3D assembled image of the closest estimate possible to what he looked like. This is not as accurate as the method used to recreate faces from skulls, as was recently done when Richard III's skeleton was found, see: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/video/2013/feb/05/king-richard-iii-face-recreated-skull-video. Caesar's body was unfortunately cremated so we have no skull to work with. However, the rendering by Maja d'Hollosy is extraordinarily detailed. It shows a man with the prominent nose Caesar was said to have had; other than that it is a fairly ordinary face. What is remarkable about him is the shape of his head. The upper cranium appears much larger and wider than usual. We know that Caesar suffered from epilepsy and at one point caught an illness that sounds like encephalitis caused by a tapeworm infestation; however he did not have hydrocephalus or any of the known conditions that cause brain damage or deform a human skull. A colleague of d'Hollosy's, Tom Buijtendorp, believes this strangely-shaped head was caused by his difficult birth. Contrary to popular belief, Julius Caesar was not born by Caesarean section; this refers to one of his ancestors. Source: https://www.rt.com/news/430659-caesar-head-reconstructed-rome/. It is true that difficult or prolonged births can cause newborn babies' head to warp into a highly unusual shape, but it returns to normal soon after birth. In order to permanently alter the shape of a person's skull, their head had to be artificially constricted in the first couple of months of life, before their skull bones are fully sealed; this used to be done in some cultures, such as ancient South America. An alternative possibility is that Julius Caesar was in fact not a human being, at least not completely. This astonishing notion is more plausible than it looks at first glance. Many ancient cultures produce images of royal personages as having highly bizarre features, especially weird-shaped heads. Ancient Egyptian pharaohs often look like that in sculptures and reliefs, see: https://www.ancient.eu/image/3451/. Ancient mythology from all over the world speaks of the ruling classes of human society being carefully cultivated and maintained bloodlines with ancestry that included "sky gods" or "those who came down to the earth from the heavens" etc. The best known of these legends is found in the Bible; in Genesis 6:4 where we see the line: "There were giants on the Earth in those days, when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair and took of them many wives who gave them many heirs. These then grew into the men of might and renown". Could Julius Caesar be an alien hybrid, a creature that is partly human, but also with some of its genetics coming from an extraterrestrial source?

Saturday 23 June 2018

Happy Independence Day!

Happy British Independence Day 2018, the second one we have celebrated as we wait with baited breath for our independence to become actually real. I have completely lost track of the labyrinthine political processes going on in Parliament as we limp from one Commons defeat to another; back bench rebellions, House of Lords vetoes and deal-or-no-deal. It sounds like some kind of bad BBC light entertainment farce. Now several industries are jeopardized as a result; for instance Airbus is threatening to close its aviation plant in south Wales. Today a demonstration of thousands in London demanded a rescue package for this shambolic situation, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44586638. Of course, as I've said before, the chaos is not just accidental ineptitude; it is deliberate sabotage. This is the nation that built a hundred and fifty Spitfires in four weeks; does anybody really believe we could not sort out our own future sovereignty with a continent we've been trading with since prehistoric times? The good news is that the dictatorial foreign occupier so beloved of Remoaners has entered its worst ever crisis. Britain is not the only country rebelling; Italy, Austria and many states in Eastern Europe are on the brink of insurrection. By the time the Brexit deadline arrives next March there will hopefully be nothing left to leave.

Thursday 21 June 2018

Nazi UFO Model Banned

Revell is a German-American company that makes models that come in kit form, allowing the owner to build the model themselves; a very popular activity which several other manufacturers provide. Revell have just recalled one of their products, not because it has sharp edges or poisoned glue, but for political reasons. The product is a model of a Haunebu flying saucer, an aircraft thought to have been built in Nazi Germany that is powered by free energy and propelled by an electrogravitic system. It was part of an experimental line constructed by BMW and Skoda, and also at the Wenceslas mine in Poland. This project ran from the mid-1930's until the end of World War II. There has been some questions over whether the machine ever existed, but some very credible researchers such as Nick Cook, Igor Witkowski and Joseph Farrell state that it did, and their reasons make sense in my view. There are many photographs of the craft that look genuine. After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the victorious allies appropriated the enemy's technology as part of Operation Paperclip. This was a secret part of the same programme that led to space rocket development in the public domain. See here for Nick Cook's films which I highly recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2h6RPcpxvM and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWWwzjFNtmU. The fact that there is a market in the hobby modelling industry for such products is a good sign that the awareness of their existence is spreading and growing. In fact another company called Testors has brought out a kit based on the Bob Lazar "sport model" flying saucer, see: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sealed-Testors-Area-S4-Area-51-UFO-1-48-Model-Kit-576-w-16pg-Bob-Lazar-book/173318790647?epid=1200166775&hash=item285a9addf7:g:yWwAAOSwQola-iXe.

The decision by Revell to ban the sale of their Haunebu model doesn't seem to be because of any covert attempt to cover up free energy and antigravity. It is a result of Germany's obsessive hypersensitivity about the Nazis. This is a cultural pitfall they have endured since the end of the Hitler regime and it does not seem to have eased over time. It's interesting to compare Germany to Russia. Russians feel no shame at all when it comes to the Soviet era, even though the USSR lasted for over seventy years, as opposed to Hitler's mere twelve years in power. The Soviets also were far more destructive and killed a far greater number of people the Nazi's did. Some Russians even feel pride over their history of being part of a global superpower, however oppressive, for most of the Twentieth century, even if they would not wish to see a return to that period. A spokesman for Revell, which is based in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said that the company was issuing a full apology and regarded the criticism they had experienced as totally justified. The company was attacked by a military museum in Dresden which pointed out that the Haunebu craft has never existed. There are two points relating to this statement. Firstly, it's not certain that the vehicle never existed; and secondly, even if it didn't, does this mean other models of imaginary spacecraft, such as the Starship Enterprise or Millennium Falcon, should be banned too? Then the German Children's Protection Association got involved. They were concerned that the kit was marketed at the skill level of children aged as young as twelve. The Haunebu flying saucer is of course associated with the Nazis and it includes some insignia of the Third Reich on its hull; this is illegal under German censorship laws. The child protection organization also doesn't want the idea promoted that the Nazi's managed to reach space because this apparently glorifies the Nazis regardless of its factual status; and they believe, wrongly, that it is not factual. Source: https://www.thelocal.de/20180619/toy-nazi-ufo-taken-off-market-after-criticism and: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5860439/Nazi-flying-saucer-toy-taken-shelves-Germany.html. This Nazi-guilt that lies at the collective centre of modern German psychology and culture is a very destructive thing, and there are other examples of pathological behaviour related to it. Isn't it about time the Germans let it go? It was a long time ago; only the very elderly still remember it and none of them deserve to be held responsible for it. It's time for closure; Germany needs to put the past behind them. I suspect that it is not merely accidental good memory though. There are signs that forces are at work that keep reminding the German population about the Nazi era to break the nation's spirit. It has been brought up whenever Germans object to their country's membership of the European Union. It was mentioned a few times during the recent general election... and I can't think of any other reason apart from national self-loathing to explain why anybody would re-elect Angela Merkel for a third term in office. I hope the German people find a way to escape this nasty piece of emotional abuse. (Thanks to Neil Geddes Ward for brining this to my attention)

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Ben Emlyn-Jones on the Kev Baker Show 35

I have been interviewed again on the Kev Baker Show (aka MrGlasgowTruther) on Truth Frequency Radio, see here for the podcast: http://tfrlive.com/the-kev-baker-show-79033/.
And here for the illustrated YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvKw9OJfrk0.
Subjects discussed include: The Bilderberg Group meet in 2018, 5G high power digital network, time-slips in tunnels and much much more. I was joined on the air by Jimmy Gene of the Into the Microcosm show on TFR, see: http://tfrlive.com/microcosm/.
See here for my previous appearance on the Kev Baker Show: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/05/ben-emlyn-jones-on-kev-baker-show-34.html.

Tuesday 19 June 2018

Michael Shermer Update 2

In the links immediately below I describe how I have been following the career of the arch-skeptic "rock star" Michael Shermer since he made some statements indicating that he was wavering in his faith-of-choice, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2016/08/michael-shermer-update.html and: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2014/10/michael-shermer-traitor.html. Since my last update in 2016 we still see no obvious public change in his position. He has written a new book called Heavens on Earth which I have not yet read, see: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heavens-Earth-Michael-Shermer/dp/1627798579. It has the rather drawn-out subtitle of: A Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality and Utopia. I must say, I am curious to read it and it's a pity that I will probably not have time to give it a full review for several months because I am writing my own book, see: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2018/02/roswell-redeemed-sample-first-chapter.html. However, there are some intriguing suggestions in the book's blurb and in some of the recent media spots Shermer has taken part in that he is entertaining alternative thoughts, ones that may have been beyond him previously. He describes humanity's interest in the afterlife and immortality as an "obsession". I have not heard such strong language coming from Shermer before on this subject. It's the kind of talk I'd expect from James Randi.

Michael Shermer returned to the Joe Rogan Experience in January to discuss his book and a lot of what he says is rather unoriginal. He talks about transhumanism, which is fairly interesting; but his statement on near-death experiences is totally cliche. Then Shermer makes an astonishing announcement; he says that Graham Hancock has invited him to an ayahuasca workshop, see at 00.26.01: http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/michael-shermer-3. Ayahuasca is a traditional psychoactive drug taken by the natives of the Amazon jungle. Hancock wrote a gripping book called Supernatural all about the subject, see: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Supernatural-Meetings-Ancient-Teachers-Mankind/dp/0099474158/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8. I expect this eventuality emerged out of another of Joe Rogan's podcasts where Hancock and his fellow guests, including Michael Shermer, have a heated debate, see: http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/graham-hancock-randall-carlson-michael-shermer. I would be very keen to hear what Shermer had to report if he did have an ayahuasca session. These experiences have changed people's lives. Do I sense some suppressed indecision within Shermer? As I said in my previous analysis of Michael Shermer, people who change their minds about one of their very fundamental worldviews rarely do so in a straightforward manner. There are all kinds of psychological effects that can include some very extreme backtracking. Could this backtracking be what Shermer is undergoing when he talks about an "obsession" with the afterlife? Either that or he's after an upgrade to his MBA! We shall see. I'll write more on this subject when Shermer says more.

Sunday 17 June 2018

Ben Emlyn-Jones Live in Newcastle

I will be speaking at an event in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on Friday the 6th of July at the Ray Gray Community Centre, Stotts Road, Walker, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, NE6-4UH. The event starts at 7.30 PM and costs just £3. It is organized by Truth Seekers North East. My talk will be entitled Energy Politics and UFO's. Energy is everything; it is the foundation and structure of civilization. What are the politics of energy? Something far deeper and more complicated than you might think, and believe it or not, it connects to UFO's. Why? The answers... and more questions, will be revealed.
See here for my previous talk at Truth Seekers North East: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/06/ben-emlyn-jones-at-truthseekers.html.

Friday 15 June 2018

Bilderberg 2018

The Bilderberg Group is no longer secret. It was from its establishment in 1954 until about the 1990's, but since then it has been exposed to the point that its covert status can no longer be maintained. Bilderberg's exposure is a perfect example of conspiracy theory activism dragging a black organization into, if not the white then at least the grey, world. It used to operate in total secrecy with a watertight media blackout imposed in it. For example, when the Group met in 1998 at the Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire, Scotland, the security for the conference was the biggest police operation in Scottish history, but not one word about it was breathed in the press. However several dedicated researchers steadily broke down this palisade of lies, such as Daniel Estulin, David Icke and Alex Jones; but I think the turning point came when a journalist called Jim Tucker began reporting on it in his newspaper, The Spotlight. That's an apt name because, bit by bit, the actual spotlight shone more and more in the Bilderberg Group's direction until this culminated in the Bilderberg Fringe Festival of 2013, when the Bolderbergers met in Watford, England; and it had considerable mainstream news coverage and which I attended myself, see background links below. In 2006 the organization was forced to set up an official website. It is crude and austere, but it includes basic information and contact details, see: http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/. The latest meeting of the Bilderberg Group took place on the 7th to the 10th of June at the Torino Lingotto Congress in Turin, Italy. It has published a page on the site with a list of participants and a basic agenda, see: http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/press-release.html. All the usual suspects are there, the Kissingers and the Osbornes and the Stoltenbergs and the Carneys of this world; but I was surprised to see Anne Applebaum on the list. She is a fairly prestigious journalist in the USA, but not a political powerplayer... well, not until now. Amber Rudd also attended, which is strange because she has just resigned as the UK Home Secretary after a major scandal. Something tells me her success flag will not be at the bottom of the pole for long.

I'll now examine the list of topics for discussion at the 2018 Bilderberg Group conference with what I think are probably the true thoughts of the Group beside them in quotes and bold:
1. Populism in Europe "Why the hell couldn't we stop them voting for Brexit!?"
2. The inequality challenge "How are we going to lower the wages of the poorest people even further?"
3. The future of work "Anybody know where we can get some cheap shackles and chains?"
4. Artificial intelligence "Let's get the peasants microchipped as soon as possible!"
5. The US before midterms "Damn it! I can't believe we let Trump win!"
6. Free trade "This is how we're going to do Agenda 21."
7. US world leadership "We're going to crash the US economy and fund the NWO with Chinese gold."
8. Russia "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
9. Quantum computing "The latest database system for Big Brother."
10. Saudi Arabia and Iran "What's the best way to do a new false flag terrorist attack?"
11. The "post-truth" world "Our propaganda needs sorting out; the peasants are getting wise to it."
12. Current events "A list of everything that's going to happen in the year ahead."

Of course there will be items tabled that are hidden from the published agenda. No doubt the revelation of the Bilderberg Group will not end the clandestine nature of its operations, as with Area 51 merely being formally acknowledged, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/08/area-51-revealed.html. They have probably already set up a "group within a group" of its most senior figures. This is still progress though. Despite our success, the work of the conspiracy theoretical activist is not yet over.

Thursday 14 June 2018

Portal in Woolwich Foot Tunnel

One of the oldest and most famous underground crossings of the River Thames in London is the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. It was opened in 1912 and runs under the river from the forecourt of the Waterfront leisure centre in Woolwich to Pier Road in Newham. It is 1,654 ft long but only wide enough for pedestrians and cyclists, pushing their cycles; riding is not allowed. It has suffered numerous technical problems over the years and was shut completely in September 2010. This was supposed to be for one year only, but in the end this stretched to over two years. The reason for this closure, the council said, was to carry out essential repairs to stop the tunnel leaking. However, according to a local researcher, there could be another, covert, motive for this closure. They claim to have interviewed a builder working on the refurbishment and he told them a dark tale. It seems there was some kind of space-time anomaly inside the tunnel, a portal. Time ran at a much faster rate down in the tunnel. In fact a worker could walk across the entire length of the tunnel almost instantly. This led to some strange antics among the builders; some of them fun and some of them serious. They caused the site manager stress by calculating the extra pay for the additional time they spent inside the portal, which far exceeded their actual measured time in the normal world. At one point some of the men decided to carry out an alarming experiment that almost led to a causality paradox, an incident that is theorized might split the universe in two. Since the tunnel reopened there have been no strange experiences reported and the portal is believed to be inactive, see: https://portalsoflondon.com/2017/07/02/the-woolwich-anomaly/. I still feel another HPANWO TV outing coming on.
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/09/flatland.html.

Tuesday 12 June 2018

Neil's Videos of Dreaming Saucers

There are house recordings of all the Dreaming Saucers talks on HPANWO TV, for example: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/05/dreaming-saucers-deborah-hatswell.html, but Neil Geddes-Ward has made his own recordings of the proceedings that are different in style and have far better audio quality. They are all available now. Many thanks to Neil for taking the time and effort to produce these videos.

Thursday 7 June 2018

The Southend Ratman

The following is one of the most unnerving cryptozoological and/or supernatural cases I've ever come across. I must thanks Mark Antony Raines of the Holsworthy Mark Show for the background, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/04/ben-emlyn-jones-on-holsworthy-mark-show.html. There is a subway in Southend-on-Sea, Essex which is said to be haunted by a grotesque and malevolent creature called "the Ratman". As its name suggests, it is a cross between a human and a rat. It has been reported by many people, including numerous schoolchildren. Whether this counts as a paranormal phenomenon, classroom banter or an urban legend remains to be seen. There are several explanations for its origins. One tells the story of an elderly tramp who used to take shelter in the underpass when the weather was unpleasant. One cold winter's night, in a scene reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, he was brutally beaten by a gang of teenage thugs who stole is blanket. Deprived of his only source of warmth, he perished in the cold. When he was found in the morning, rats were nibbling at his corpse. His suffering and death produced the Ratman as a psychic projection, some kind of tulpa. Another story is that the Ratman is a real flesh-and-blood cryptid. It is the mutant bastard offspring of a promiscuous Southend mayor who had the subway constructed specifically to hide the entrance to a secret chamber where the monster is kept. The creature is cannibalistic and so is only allowed out at night to hunt its human prey... I think another HPANWO TV outing is called for. Source: http://cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Ratman_of_Southend.

I'm not sure what it is about the rat that arouses such horror and disgust in so many people. They are merely large mice, basically. They are very hardy and will almost certainly outlive humans as a species. If they had furry tails they would look like squirrels and everybody would think they were cute. It might be a subconscious folk memory from the Black Death. During the Middle Ages millions of people all over the world were killed by this epidemic of plague. It was only known much more recently that the plague was spread by fleas from rats biting humans, but obviously areas with the largest rat populations would be worst hit by the epidemic. The sight of rats close to plague-hit communities must have become intuitively iconic with the Black Death, even if we didn't know why on a rational level. Many horror stories feature rats, usually just to create atmosphere, but also sometimes as the central plot, as in James Herbert's The Rats, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_(novel). The rat population of British cities is growing and I have seen rats many times above ground in the last few years, whereas I never saw one previously because they rarely left their usual home in the sewers. The cause of this is primarily a degeneration of local authority public hygiene services. Dustmen now only carry out fortnightly collections when they used to come weekly. This had led to excess waste being left lying around outside homes. Councils have become very authoritarian, issuing fines to people who break the Byzantine waste processing rules. This has caused people to resort to fly-tipping household rubbish, including leftover food. Nature is finding its own balance, as always. The increase in rats has attracted birds of prey into the cities when they only used to patrol only rural areas. I regularly see hawks of all kinds cruising above my hometown's rooftops.