In this blog, I’ll be posting links every day on various topics of interest to those who value the truth over lies in this, the most wicked and perverse of human generations since the Days of Noah.

The Counter-Revolution Begins

Five years ago, I began to explore the wonderful world of binoculars. After doing solely telescopic work for 38 years, I felt I needed to find a way to combine my love of the great outdoors with my deep and abiding interest in phenomenalistic optics. And what better way to amalgamate these two interests than to use a fine glass to explore the natural world in all its glorious complexity.  I’ve had the pleasure of owning and using many fine instruments in this binocular golden age we live in. But in the end, two instruments have captured my imagination more than all the rest combined; my Nikon E IIs; a little 8 x 30 and its larger and more powerful sibling, the 10 x 35. But why these two?

Well, for one thing, I prefer Porro prism binoculars to their roof prism counterparts. They have an elegant, classical simplicity that greatly appeals to me, delivering extraordinarily sharp, bright and high contrast images, with vivid three dimensionality in most lighting conditions.  They are precision optical instruments made to the highest optical and mechanical standards, with very light weight die cast magnesium alloy chassis, yet are very strong and durable. These are undoubtedly world class binoculars. The 8 x 30 weighs scarcely more than half a kilogram(575g), whereas the larger framed 10 x 35 tips the scales at just 50g more(625g).  If properly taken care of, they should easily outlive this author.

The EIIs have magnificent wide-angle eyepieces delivering impressively large true fields; 8.9 degrees for the little 8 x 30 and 7.2 degrees for the 10 x 35 instrument. Both instruments are a joy to use; with a silky smooth focus wheel, and an excellent, stable dioptre adjustment. Both handle superbly in field use, providing instantly gratifying vistas the moment you bring them to your eyes. Despite having smaller exit pupils than the commoner garden 42mm instruments, I’ve never experienced blackouts or the dreaded rolling back effect with these instruments; just simple, reliable performance time and time again. Indeed, these are unquestionably the easiest binoculars I have used to date.

Though neither instrument is waterproof, unlike most contemporary binoculars, it’s never been a dampener to my modus operandi. I’ve used these instruments in all weathers; brilliant sunshine, grey and dull overcast, chilly dark nights under the stars and even in light rain without ever experiencing significant issues. Through experimentation, I’ve found an easy and convenient way to keep them dry and fog proof, simply by storing them in Tupperware dry boxes laced with sachets of desiccant. This storage procedure has allowed me to use these instruments in much the same way as a regular nitrogen-charged waterproof binocular. They can be deployed in cold, humid conditions and I can bring them into the warm indoors without any fear of them fogging up inside.

Both instruments hang high on my chest to minimize any oscillatory motions encountered while travelling over all kinds of terrain, as well as reducing the chances of their optics being bumped out of alignment.

Ireland July 2023: Glassing the Great Shannon River

I brought the 8 x 30 on a short trip to my home city of Limerick, Ireland in July. It’s so small, inconspicuous and lightweight that it fits into an ordinary pocket, though I decided to carry it about in my rucksack. The great River Shannon, the longest river in the British Isles, flows through the city and the binocular provided excellent views of this magnificent water course. The day was warm and sunny, affording excellent visibility as I soaked up the views: the swirling waters, myriad babbling bubbles, the subtle undulations of the vital liquid over rocks and stones on its sojourn to the open sea. A variety of Seagull species of all ages were present, as were numerous Mute Swans and even the odd Cormorant. The photo above shows King John’s Castle across the river in the oldest part of the city – King’s Island – which dates back to the 13^th century and named after King John, Lord of Ireland, and brother to Richard the Lionheart. Archaeologists have unearthed much earlier settlements though that date back to the 9^th century AD when it was founded by the Vikings. I enjoyed glassing the old stone walls, made alive with the comings and goings of Swifts and Swallows screeching in the warm summer air.

While staying at my sister’s house in Dooradoyle, I had the immense good fortune to glass a group of boisterous Starlings at very close proximity. In the morning, they would land just a few metres away on the grass lawn, hoping to pick up seeds my sister had dispersed earlier on. I find Starlings to be endlessly fascinating birds. In the evenings, they were fond of hanging out on a mature bamboo tree at the far end of her garden. Indeed, I was amazed how comfortable they were in my presence, displaying their magnificent summer plumage – an arresting purplish green iridescence – the details of which were richly on display through the 8 x 30. This is how I remember these birds from the days of my youth, when they were very plentiful indeed. At home in Scotland, far away from the cities, Starlings are far more timid but still highly entertaining. Such cheeky birds, I’ve glassed up to a dozen members flying low at breakneck speed across the valley and all landing on the back of a single grazing sheep! I’ve yet to see a ‘murmuration’ in real life, but have high hopes of one day observing this wonder of the natural world. Maybe my luck will change later in the autumn.

Chough Watching in Pembrokeshire, Wales, late July 2023

Towards the end of July, I brought both the 8 x 30 and 10 x 35 on vacation to Pembrokeshire, Wales. Last year, during a boat trip to Ramsey Island, I was introduced to the rarest of the corvid species to grace the British Isles – the Chough. On that trip I took my Opticron SRGA 8 x 32 to make by first observations of this interesting bird, but as I reviewed my journal notes for that trip, I had wished I had a little more magnification to see these shy cliff birds better. I’m delighted to say that the 10 x 35 proved to be the perfect choice; lightweight, optically excellent and delivering that extra magnification to enable me to glass these creatures a little better. During a trip to Marloes Sands Beach, which overlooks great red sandstone cliffs dating back to the Silurian Period (c. 430 Myr), I spent a few minutes scanning the tops of the cliff and was soon rewarded by the appearance of several groups of crows gliding on the summer thermals. Despite their respectable distance from me, I was easily able to pick off a couple of Choughs, red billed and red legged against the cobalt blue sky, among the murder of crows frequenting this 1.5-kilometre stretch of cliff face. With a concentrated gaze, I was also able to distinguish them from other crows by their deeply fingered wing tips. Consulting my copy of the superbly illustrated British Birds, I note the Choughs are also doing well in Ireland, inhabiting the north, south and west coasts of the island in decent numbers.

I’ve been especially delighted with the 10 x 35 since I first acquired it back in the early summer. I’d describe the images it serves up as vibrant, ‘delicious’ even, Indeed, I rate it slightly ahead optically of its little brother, the 8 x 30. Even though they employ the same wide-angle eyepieces, I think they work that little bit better with the longer focal length of the 35mm objectives. There are slight differences between the coatings on these instruments too, which might also explain some of the differences.  Whatever it is, the 10 x 35 is an amazing instrument to hold in one’ hands and look through. Like I described in my review of this instrument, it’s like having the field of view of a typical 8x glass with 25 per cent greater magnification. I have very fond memories of walking this beautiful beach, glassing the waves and the surf crashing onto the golden sands before me. The 10 x 35 handles glare extremely well. I’ve been extremely impressed by how well it performs while glassing strongly backlit scenes. It’s also a surprisingly good performer in dull light conditions, at dawn or at or after sunset, when many binoculars show their weaknesses including glare, which manifests as the eye pupil opens up and engages with any light leaks in the vicinity of the exit pupil. No such problems encountered in the 10 x 35. It goes on delivering long after the sun falls out of the sky.    

Seeing Up Close

One of the other surprising features of the EII Porros, apart from their slightly larger than advertised fields of view, is their close focusing distance. While the official specs state that the 8 x 30 and 10x 35 focus of 3m and 5m, respectively, my measurements have yielded much closer values; 1.96m for the 8x 30 and 2.96m for the larger 10 x 35. In retrospect, this is hardly surprising as Nikon tend to be quite conservative in their estimates of these parameters. And while it has been widely reported that focusing this close up is uncomfortable with these small, compact Porros, I’ve not had any issues with either glass. The trick is to reduce the interpapillary distance down to their minimum values by pushing the barrels together, in much the same way as you cross your eyes when an object is placed just in front of your face. The sub-2m close focus of the 8 x 30 puts it on par with the majority of roof prism binoculars, allowing it to serve as a long-range microscope. Indeed, just before I took the above image of the grasshopper leaving Marloes Sands Beach, I had glassed it first using the 8 x 30 using this very technique. This good close focus has also allowed me to obtain some excellent images of the less timorous bird species, such as Robins and Chaffinches which often allow you to get as near as 2.5m.

Speaking of roof prism models, I’ve often been asked in email enquiries how well it stacks up to higher-end roof prism binoculars. My response has been to say that Porros and roof prism binoculars produce qualitatively different viewing experiences, but a few weeks ago I hooked up with a resident of our village who has enjoyed a classic Leica Trinovid BN 8x 32 to glass the waters of the Carron Dam just a few miles south of my home. On this occasion I happened to have my 8 x 30 with me and he was kind enough to allow me to do some quick A/B comparisons between the two instruments on an unseasonably warm early September day with mostly overcast skies. My impressions were that they were very close. Indeed, I can’t remember an instrument that came as close to the E II in terms of colour tone, sharpness and contrast than this old Leica glass. The only significant differences we could note were the EII’s larger field of view and greater stereoscopic impressions on objects set in the middle distance. That said, I could see why he loved the Leica BN 8 x 32 so much: it’s built like a tank and has wonderful ergonomics. Indeed, I think these older Leicas look even more stylish than their current crop of instruments.

Of course, a picture paints a thousand words. Here is some recent footage made through the E II 8x 30 captured by YouTuber BlackForestRecon, from a beautiful alpine vantage. The reader will note that the E II he imaged with is an early 2000s model and so will not have as good antireflection coatings than more recent models. I  hope you’ll agree that the images look superb!

Exploring the Endrick Valley

As well as walking, I also enjoy taking rides on my mountain bike outside the village to explore the Endrick Valley, especially when the light is good and strong. The Nikon binoculars are easy to carry in a padded case with a good neck strap, and as soon as I arrive at a suitable vantage point, I dismount the bike, fetch my binocular and drink up the views. The wide-angle eyepieces in the Nikon EIIs are ideally suited for studying landscapes like this beautiful place on the backroad to the nearby village of Balfron, with fields that seem to go on forever and verdant hills on either side towering majestically above the valley floor. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a glimpse of a Red Kite or Sparrow Hawk surveying the fields below for prey. Places like this are ideal for watching migrating geese moving in graceful formation for miles across the valley, but also to watch large groups of Starlings return from their feeding grounds down in the fields to their roosting spots in nearby woods and high up on cliff edges.

Scotland is blessed by regular rainfall that keeps the fields and hills vibrant and colourful. Often a few days of rain are followed by settled weather with blue skies and excellent visibility affording ideal conditions to enjoy binocular views to the full. The evening I took the above picture was just a day after the summer solstice after 8pm in the evening. Indeed, during high summer, the skies this far north never get truly dark, and twilight rules the wee small hours. If the sky remains clear, I’ll bring my binocular along for a walk up the castle drive after local midnight to study the ghostly wisps of noctilucent clouds located high in the stratosphere, where its constituent ice crystals are illuminated from the Sun just below the horizon.

Many folk mistake these clouds for auroral displays since they too are seen hugging the northern horizon. But unlike the aurora borealis, noctilucent clouds can be studied using binoculars, with the 10x glass being my instrument of choice to garner that little bit extra detail.  Sometimes the views can be downright enchanting. Delicate gossamer streams of light, like some kind of giant spider web, fill the field of view iwith a backdrop of the deep, purplle twilight.. Noctilucent clouds are best observed between the end of May and the end of July, after which they vanish with the arrival of dark skies once again. They are part of the magic of living at such high northerly latitudes.

Among the Thistles

To be Continued……

De Fideli.

At the end of June 2021, after months of hype all over the internet and a string of sensationalized reports by the main stream media, the Pentagon released a 9 page report¹ on the subject of 144 Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena(UAP) documented in recent years by the US government. Millions of people all over the world anxiously awaited the findings from that report but were ultimately left disappointed and frustrated because the same report was completely inconclusive and never even mentioned the word ” extra-terrestrial” or ” alien.” Instead, the report merely stated that,

“Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects, given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers and visual observation¹.

But the Pentagon report was presaged by further hype fuelled by Harvard Astronomer, Avi Loeb, who released a sensational book, Extra-terrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life beyond Earth², in February 2021, in which he claimed that an asteroid nicknamed Oumuamua, which passed through the outer solar system in a highly unusual orbit in late 2018, displayed signs of artificiality, both in terms of its of movements and physical properties. Since then, several natural explanations have been forwarded by scientists to explain the behaviour of Oumuamua, but predictably, those were largely ignored by the media. A few months earlier in December 2020, Haim Eshed, a retired army general and former head of Israel’s Defence Ministry’s space directorate, claimed in an interview that Earth has been contacted by a “galactic federation” of extraterrestrials,³ and that “they have been waiting until today for humanity to develop and reach a stage where we will understand, in general, what space and spaceships are.”

Then on July 26 2023, the US Air Force officer and former intelligence official David Grusch appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Authority, giving testimony on the government’s alleged coverup of evidence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), relating to the congressional committee that the US government were in possession of physical alien spacecraft since the 1930s, with evidence that included not only large components of the spacecraft but “biologic material” as well.

Stories such as these form the basis of a multi-million-dollar industry in the form of books, documentaries, the internet and Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbusters, entertaining countless millions of curious individuals across the world. But why are some people captivated with UFOs and extra-terrestrials and on what basis do they believe in their existence? Furthermore, how should we, as Christians, respond to such events?

 Test everything; hold fast to what’s good⁴

That famous quote from St. Paul, writing to the Church in Thessalonica, provides a great place to start. The secular world has been fed a staple diet of evolutionary ‘science’ that powerfully affects the way many people think. The reasoning sounds both rational and straightforward, at first glance; life evolved on Earth and our planet is one of countless quadrillions scattered across the Universe. Life therefore must have taken hold on many worlds, and in many epochs, so it’s reasonable to expect that intelligent spacefaring aliens exist.  Unfortunately, though, the latest science is casting severe doubts on this worldview.

For one thing, there are now serious doubts that evolution, as described by biologists, really happened. The origin of life is a profound mystery and given the astonishing complexity of even the simplest living cells, there is effectively zero chance that it happened by accident⁵. Indeed, it is arguably true that understanding how the first living cells came into being represents the greatest scientific problem of all time. Added to this, the explosive origin of most of the advanced animal body plans in existence today which emerged within a geological ‘blink of an eye’ in an event called the Cambrian Explosion, has still not been explained to any degree of satisfaction by evolutionary biologists.  Furthermore, the fossil record, which scientists have now unearthed in great detail, doesn’t show any evolutionary progression over the 3.8 billion years or so since its inception. Instead, it reveals many extirpation events followed by equally rapid speciation episodes, in contrast to the expected gradualism of Darwinian evolution. Simply put, we can be reasonably confident that if a scientific theory approaches the truth, the uncertainties become smaller over time. The problem with the evolutionary paradigm is the opposite – the error bars are increasing… and rapidly.

Coupled to this is the growing realization that most of the planets orbiting other stars, both within our galaxy and in myriad other galaxies scattered across the cosmos, are now considered very unlikely to harbour habitable worlds. For example, as much as 80 or 90 per cent of all the stars that exist are cool red and brown dwarfs that would require their habitable planets to be located far too close to their surfaces to be warm enough to allow liquid water to exist. Yet the same stars are highly unstable, firing off dangerous high energy flares and ferocious stellar winds that would damage fragile living systems⁵. What’s more, when you factor in all the other requirements for a viable biosphere, Earth stands out like a proverbial sore thumb as being very special indeed!

We therefore suffer somewhat from what scientists call observational bias;  because we see our planet teeming over with life, we naturally assume the same thing happened on countless other worlds.  But, as the distinguished organic chemist, James Tour, quipped.

 “Life should not exist. This much we know from chemistry. In contrast to the ubiquity of life on Earth, the lifelessness of other planets makes far better chemical sense⁵.”

In addition to these problems, there are real issues trying to explain how physical beings could traverse the vast distances of interstellar space, as well as surviving the enormous forces they would encounter in manoeuvring in the spectacular ways they do in recorded video footage. Indeed, there is a real possibility that these recordings are part of some greater, overarching deception.

Biblical Guidance

If there is life out there, and intelligent life in particular, it must have been placed there by God. Yet the Biblical narrative gives us other clues about whether space-faring ETs exist or not.  The secular world view posits that humans emerged from other lifeforms accidently, but the Bible makes it clear that the Earth was first prepared before humankind was placed here. Living things made Earth habitable for humans and continue to provide a life-support system for human flourishing. Would God create worlds packed with life without placing sentient beings on them? That’s a good question, but I suspect not.

Similar conclusions are reached by the Christian astronomer and young earth creationist, Danny Faulkner(PhD Astronomy Indiana University), in his book, UFOs & ETs; a Biblical and Cultural Exploration of Aliens.⁶ Faulkner squarely lays the blame with the brainwashing of the general public in accepting evolutionary thought:

“We must realize that nearly all discussion about such matters has been within an evolutionary framework. That worldview assumes the plurality of worlds-that life has arisen on many other planets in the universe, and that life on at least some of those planets is intelligent. Hence, in the evolutionary worldview one might expect that extra-terrestrial aliens will visit Earth from time to time. However, Christians ought not to adopt an evolutionary worldview. Instead, we ought to base what we think about on the Bible, not the ideas of men. Evolution is clearly contrary to Scripture, and so life only exists where God created it. While the Bible does not explicitly state that God created life only on Earth, the clear implication from Scripture is that God made life only on Earth and that man is the centre of God’s attention. Therefore, within a Biblical worldview, one would reject the plurality of worlds idea and would not expect extra-terrestrial aliens to have visited Earth(or even to exist)⁶.”

Furthermore, we read in the passages of Scripture that Jesus died “once for all⁷.”  If there are other civilizations out there, did Jesus die for them too? Some theologians have suggested that these beings might have not fallen, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, and so were in no need of a Saviour. But we read that the entire creation is groaning⁸ and that God has reserved this current Universe for a fiery destruction⁹. If those putative civilisations exit elsewhere in the Universe, they too will perish and that would make God a monster, which is clearly a theological non sequitur!

 Occult Connections

But there appears to be a more sinister façade to UFOs(or UAPs) and ETs. Many in-depth studies conducted over many decades have shown a strong connection between these phenomena and the occult, and which often involve narratives that serve to undermine Christianity in particular. In their now classic work, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at UFOs and Extraterrestrials⁹, astronomer Hugh Ross, theologian, Kenneth Samples, and political scientist, Mark Clark, showcase many studies linking the obsession of the New Age movement with extra-terrestrials and flying saucers. They conclude that, while most of these sightings can be discounted by natural phenomena, hoaxes or human-made technological devices, a small number of residual cases cannot be explained away and display properties that suggest that they are real but non-physical in nature, that is, these events are demonic in nature and represent deceptions by fallen angels who can move inter-dimensionally, at one moment looking real and the next, vanishing into thin air. In this capacity, The UFO phenomenon could well be part of an End Times deception.

To my mind, our culture’s fascination with spacefaring aliens merely represents a post-modern form of pagan idolatry, a convenient distraction from the things we ought to think about. Unwilling to accept the reality of an omniscient Creator, they resort to imagining beings far in advance of our own as new gods who will solve all of humanity’s problems. Yet, as I’ve explained earlier, this is little more than fanciful thinking that has no basis in scientific reality. In short, we simply don’t expect such agencies to exist! I suspect that, in the end, the only aliens we’ll ever meet are our human neighbours. So, as Jesus taught us, we ought to love our neighbours as ourselves!

1. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
2. Loeb, A., Extra-terrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life beyond Earth, Houghton Miffin Harcourt, 2021.
3. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weird-news/former-israeli-space-security-chief-says-extraterrestrials-exist-trump-knows-n1250333
4. 1 Thessalonians 5:21
5. English, N., Origin Stories, Why Life is Beginning to Seem Very Special Indeed, Salvo #50
6. Faulkner, D., UFOs & ETs; a Biblical and Cultural Exploration of Aliens, 2015, Answers in Genesis Press.
7. Romans 8:28
8. Romans 6:10
9. 2 Peter 3: 7
10. Ross, H, Samples, K., and Clark, M., Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at UFOs and Extra-terrestrials, Nav Press, 2002.

Dr Neil English has a wide academic background in biochemistry, physics, astronomy and classical studies. He’s the author of seven books in amateur and professional astronomy. His new work, Choosing and Using Binoculars: a Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts, hits the shelves later this year.

De Fideli.