Tillings 666th post -

Marcus has sent this link, very appropriate for my 666th post

from Tilling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8217001/French-village-which-will-survive-2012-Armageddon-plagued-by-visitors.html

Here are some edited highlights;

Bugarach,population 189, is a peaceful farming village in the

Aude region, and sits at the foot of the Pic de Bugarach, the

highest mountain in the Corbières wine-growing area.

But in the past few months, the quiet village has been inundated

by groups of esoteric outsiders who believe the peak is an

"alien garage".

According to them, extraterrestrials are quietly waiting in a

massive cavity beneath the rock for the world to end, at which

point they will leave, taking, it is hoped, a lucky few humans

with them.

Most believe Armageddon will take place on December 21,

2012, the end date of the ancient Maya calendar, at which

point they predict human civilisation will come to an end.

Another favourite date mentioned is 12, December, 2012.

They see Bugarach as one of perhaps several "sacred

mountains" sheltered from the cataclysm.

"This is no laughing matter," Jean-Pierre Delord, the mayor,

told The Daily Telegraph.

"If tomorrow 10,000 people turn up, as a village of 200 people

we will not be able to cope. I have informed the regional

authorities of our concerns and want the army to be at hand if

necessary come December 2012."

Mr Delord said people had been coming to the village for the

past 10 years or so in search of alien life following a post in an

UFO review by a local man, who has since died.

"He claimed he had seen aliens and heard the humming of their

spacecraft under the mountain," he said.

The internet abounds with tales of the late President François

Mitterrand being curiously heliported on to the peak, of

mysterious digs conducted by the Nazis and later Mossad,

the Israeli secret services.

"Many come and pray on the mountainside. I've even seen one

man doing some ritual totally nude up there," said Mr Delord.

Several "Ufologists" have bought up properties in the small

hamlet of Le Linas, in the mountain's shadow for "extortionate"

prices, and locals have complained they are being priced out of

the market. Strange sect-like courses are held for up to €800 a

week. "For this price, you are introduced to a guru, made to go

on a procession, offered a christening and other rubbish, all

payable in cash," said Mr Delord.[ie not taxable.Ed.]

Valerie Austin, a retired Briton from Newcastle who settled in

Bugarach 22 years ago who said the alien watchers were spoiling

the village atmosphere.

"You can't go for a peaceful walk anymore. It's a beautiful area,

but now you find people chanting lying around meditating.

Everybody has the right to their own beliefs, but the place no

longer feels like ours." She said alien watchers planted strange

objects on the mountainside.

Recently she found a black virgin statuette cemented to the rock

face.

Although she described the alien claims as "total rubbish", she

said there was nevertheless something special about the place.

"It has a magnetic force in the scientific sense of the word.

There is a special feeling here, but if I really believed the world

were about to end, I'd have a whale of a time over the next two

years rather than look for salvation," she said.

This is not quite accurate as several of the alien watchers

hereabouts think the aliens may be landing on the mountain -

their ship left Betelgeuse some time ago - and they take the

form of giant green lizards. Locally such believers are called

the green lizard folk, among other things.