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Instead, it was found that interstellar space is filled with invisible objects which don't emit light rays but which do give off powerful radio waves. These things have been dubbed quasars and pulsars. They constitute one rather trivial aspect of a broad and complex phenomenon. Our haunted planet has always been bathed in mysterious electromagnetic propagation and radio waves, some of them intelligent signals of unknown origin. We have been aware of these signals ever since the invention of the radio receiver, but we still can't account for them. All of this will Just as those funny flying isaucers seem to be an environmental mystery which has always existed on this planet, it also seems that the earth's atmosphere has always been charged with unidentified radio signals - some of which seem to radiate from the planet itself ... as if the earth were beaming signals into space in response to the signals being received. Of course, the cultists contend that WOW has established secret transmitters in underground caverns. Even gravity is a mystery. Newton discovered the hard way that if you sit under an apple tree, you are apt to get hit on the head by a falling apple. But we still don't know why. Recent experiments indicate that gravity is really a slowly pulsing wave pouring across space, beating about once per hour. The source of this wave and its true nature are a puzzle. We thought we knew something about ic until our astronauts went into space and fumbled around in weight- lessness. They found that even friction disappears in space. R. Buckminster Fuller, the great thinker and designer, has said, "Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. Everything is up for grabs. We don't know anything about the universe or outer space. We have in all likelihood constructed a totally false history of our own race. And most humiliating of all, although we have lived on this planet for at least forty thousand years, we really don't know much about it. Worse still, we haven't even explored it! Vast sections of this planet encompassing hundreds of thousands of square miles have never been surveyed. There are enormous regions that still have not been visited by a single scientifically trained man. Seasoned travellers are wearily familiar with the problem of locating accurate maps. In many countries in Africa, Asia, and South America detailed maps are simply unobtainable because no surveys have ever been made. Those maps which are available often have the rivers and mountains in the wrong places. Here in the United States precisely detailed maps of many areas just don't exist. There are blank spots in Maine and even in New Jersey. The average road map doled out by service stations includes only the major highways and the larger towns. Unincorporated villages - and they number in the thousands - can't be found on any map anywhere. The regional maps distributed by the Geological Survey in Washington are often based upon surveys made in 1880 or 1920, so many of them are virtually useless. New highways are being built so rapidly that the average road map is two to five years behind. Travellers to inland Brazil find themselves trying to cope with maps based on sketches drawn by missionaries a hundred years ago. Visitors to the Himalaya Mountains have to deal with maps be discussed in depth in another chapter.