By Sam Merriman and Martin Beckford

Published: 20:46 EDT, 15 October 2024 | Updated: 20:51 EDT, 15 October 2024

Joe Rogan voiced ‘genuine fear’ after hearing whistleblower claims that the US military has mastered ‘alien’ anti-gravity technology.

The celebrity podcaster was joined by investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger, who said he has spoken to insiders with ‘direct evidence’ about the Pentagon’s long-rumored UFO ‘crash retrieval’ and ‘reverse engineering’ programs.

A staple of UFO lore dating back to the Roswell crash of 1947, these alleged efforts to reproduce the propulsion system of an alleged extraterrestrial spacecraft have long been linked to the US Air Force’s 70-year effort to crack ‘anti-gravity’ power.

Faced with his guests’ claims, Rogan worried aloud about the potential ramifications, or what would happen if such Earth-shattering revelations were confirmed publicly.

‘Society collapses because we’re faced with [the] illusion anyone of human race is in control,’ Rogan opined, ‘in the face of this overwhelming force from another planet.’

On Rogan’s broadcast Wednesday, Shellenberger divulged that a few of his sources claim to have ‘direct evidence’ that America has covertly ‘mastered anti-gravity.’

But Shellenberger — who is also an academic and a two-time candidate for California governor — also noted that he, himself, found the very notion of man-made anti-gravity propulsion hard to believe. 

‘I’m a little skeptical that we’ve mastered anti-gravity, because that would just be so game-changing,’ he told Rogan. ‘I think it would take a huge amount of effort.’ 

‘On the other hand, I have interviewed people who are not comfortable coming forward yet that say that we have,’ the independent journalist confessed, ‘and claim direct evidence of that.’

‘These are folks that want stronger whistleblower protections to be able to come forward,’ Shellenberger emphasized.

Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon counterintelligence official who has made a name for himself as an ‘on the record’ UFO whistleblower, has also spoken out recently claiming that the UFOs seen by military witnesses deploy anti-gravity tech.

In his new memoir, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs, Elizondo specifically cited the Gimabl UFO video caught on infrared by Navy pilots of the Eastern seaboard in 2015.  

‘The GIMBAL was a great, glittering mystery,’ Elizondo writes in his memoir. ‘It was clearly an antigravity device.’

The object’s heat signature, lack of flight surfaces, distance from shore and its odd, non-aerodynamic movements, in his view, were all dead giveaways. 

‘Imagine you were able to enclose your aircraft in a bubble that renders it immune from the effects of gravity,’ as he explained the physics implications.

‘The way we experience time on Earth would no longer be relevant because you would be insulated from Earth’s time and gravity,’ Elizondo wrote.

On Rogan, Shellenberger took pains to distinguish between these long-rumored UFO ‘crash retrieval’ and ‘reverse engineering’ programs and the new, top secret and illegal Pentagon UFO program that he brought to light last week.

Shellenberger went viral after last Tuesday after publishing one of his anonymous whistleblower’s accounts of an alleged UFO data collection program.

That classified UFO data retrieval effort, dubbed ‘Immaculate Constellation,’ was established in 2017 to ‘detect’ and ‘quarantine’ the military’s best UFO imagery, as well as its best videos, witness testimonies and electronic sensor evidence.

His anonymous source alleged that decades of deceptions were now occurring on the issues of non-human intelligence (NHI) and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

The phrases are the broader and more careful terms of art used by experts investigating these incidents, once said to involve ‘aliens’ and ‘flying saucers.’ 

‘The Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades,’ this anonymous whistleblower wrote in their alleged classified report to Congress. 

But few outside US national security circles and cleared legislators on Capitol Hill, have seen this alleged, approximately 20-page report on ‘Immaculate Constellation.’

This Monday night, however, Las Vegas-based KLAS-TV new reporter George Knapp and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell claimed they had read the report. 

Corbell said that he is now facing ‘specific and direct and detailed threats’ to his own life for his knowledge of the ‘Immaculate Constellation’ report.

Knapp described he and Corbell’s plans to come forward as ‘our insurance policy.’

The duo told the listeners of their own podcast, Weaponized, that more whistleblower testimony related to ‘Immaculate Constellation’ would surface at new open hearings in Congress this November. 

‘We need to have those protections for whistleblowers. They need to pass this disclosure legislation.’ Shellenberger told Rogan on Wednesday. 

‘Congress needs to do more,’ the reporter and academic said, hoping such legislation will allow his own sources to go public.

Shellenberger was less worried than Rogan about a possible ‘collapse of rules and society’ that UFO disclosure might bring, but he did not think it was impossible.

‘The problem,’ as he put it, ‘is that there’s so many possibilities of what’s going on.’

For over a year, Congress has fiercely debated the issue of more robust, federally mandated protections for US intelligence and military officials who have direct knowledge of highly classified UFO programs that have been illegally hidden from congressional oversight.

Members of both houses of Congress have expressed frustration over the watered-down nature of the last version of the UFO disclosure amendment signed into law in 2024.

‘We got ripped off. We got completely hosed. They stripped out every part,’ said Representative Tim Burchett, one of the lawmakers who had been in favor the act.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who co-sponsored the bill with Republican Senator Mike Rounds, hoped to impanel and independent ‘review board’ with the power to grant ‘witness immunity’ to key sources.

‘The Review Board shall be considered to be an agency of the United States,’ their amendment stated in 2023. 

‘Witnesses, close observers, and whistleblowers providing information directly to the Review Board shall also be afforded the protections provided to such persons under section 1673(b) of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who sponsored the bill, told The New York Times: ‘It is really an outrage the House didn’t work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board.’

‘It means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades,’ Sen. Schumer said.  

Congressional Representative Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) are said to be among those who pushed back on the bill.

And David Grusch, the former high-ranking intelligence official who testified under oath about his knowledge of a UFO crash retrieval program, also named Rogers and Turner during his own interview on Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.

Grusch’s accounts, like Shellenberger’s new sources, echo claims made by both Elizondo and Elizondo’s one-time attorney Daniel Sheehan, who handled his own whistleblower complaint against US military officials.

Sheehan told DailyMail.com last year that one alleged recovery, recounted to him by a supposed crash retrieval program insider, involved a 30-foot saucer partially embedded in the earth, causing ‘all kinds of time distortion and space distortion.’ 

‘He staggered back out [of the saucer] after being in there a couple of minutes,’ Sheehan said, ‘and outside it was four hours later.’

QUESTION: Why did Elizabeth Taylor replace Vivien Leigh in the film Elephant Walk?

Elizabeth Taylor replaced Vivien Leigh in the film Elephant Walk (1954) because Leigh dropped out midway through production, citing a nervous breakdown.

The big-budget Paramount film, based on a 1948 novel by Digby George Gerahty, using the pen name Robert Standish, was originally scheduled to star Vivien Leigh and her then husband, Laurence Olivier. 

Although it was not their usual prestige production, the story had obvious mass audience appeal. It bears some similarities to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, which had been a big success in 1940 for Olivier, his co-star, Joan Fontaine, and director Alfred Hitchcock. 

The overbearing presence of a dead father replaced the dead wife and a house was destroyed by a herd of stampeding elephants rather than a fire.

Before filming began, Olivier pulled out of Elephant Walk owing to conflicting commitments, but Leigh decided to go ahead with her role as newlywed Ruth Wiley.

Olivier’s role as her husband, John, who owns a tea plantation, was given to Peter Finch.

Within days, Leigh called in sick, and soon afterwards dropped out of the film altogether. Her mental health issues could be traced back to 1948 and she was eventually diagnosed with manic depression, now termed bipolar disorder.

Biographers have claimed that Leigh was deeply affected by the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, which she played both on stage and in the film version released in 1951, for which she received a Best Actress Oscar. However, the role of a disturbed, fading beauty was a little too close to Leigh’s own character for comfort.

In the spring of 1953, MGM contractee Elizabeth Taylor returned to work after the birth of her son, Michael Wilding Jr, in the January. She was only 21 to Leigh’s 39, but a resemblance between the two in build and colouring allowed the location footage of Leigh, in distance shots, to be retained.

John Rutherford, Sevenoaks, Kent

QUESTION: Where did the term hanky-panky originate?

Hanky-panky originated in the early 19th century as a slang term for legerdemain, the skilful use of one’s hands when performing magic tricks. It quickly took on a figurative use for dirty business, underhand business or double dealing.

The earliest recording of the term is in an edition of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol 1, from September 1841: ‘Only a little hanky-panky, my lud. The people likes it; they loves to be cheated before their faces. One, two, three — presto — begone. 

‘I’ll show your ludship as pretty a trick of putting a piece of money in your eye and taking it out of your elbow, as you ever beheld.’

Its definition as ‘sexual activity or dalliance, especially of a surreptitious nature’ has been with us since the middle of the 20th century. 

In George Bernard Shaw’s 1938 play Geneva, he wrote: ‘She: No hanky panky. I am respectable; and I mean to keep respectable. He: I pledge you my word that my intentions are completely honourable.’

Mike Woodbridge, Nottingham

QUESTION: What were 18th-century ‘circuit riders’?

Circuit riders were itinerant ministers, mainly associated with the Methodist Church in America, who travelled on horseback to preach to rural, often isolated, communities.

As organised churches were scarce on the American frontier, circuit riders spread religious teachings, established congregations and provided spiritual care in areas lacking clergy.  

Their routes could cover hundreds of miles and required immense dedication.

A key figure was Francis Asbury (1745-1816), whose efforts did much to assure the continuance of the church in the New World. He travelled 5,000 miles a year, establishing circuits of 25 or 30 meeting places, often huts or cabins. 

Asbury also set up teams of preachers, brave young men willing to ride a horse for weeks over wild country. By the 1780s there were more than 100 circuits established across the frontier.

The life of a rider was tough: days and nights were spent in the wild, food had to be hunted, foraged or begged from strangers, and there was a constant threat of violence.

The movement had mostly died out by the 1840s. As the US prospered, more Methodists came to live in cities so that there was population enough for a church building.

Alison Crawley, Modbury, Devon

In a shipping container near Canterbury, I’m watching as Boki the bear is being given a savage haircut. Fur is flying as the surgical team shaves him before a pioneering – and lifesaving – procedure.

This is Boki’s last chance. Unless the surgery is successful, the European brown bear is unlikely to recover after going into ‘torpor’ – a hibernation-like state – this winter.

Seven months ago, he began having seizures caused by excess fluid on the brain (hydrocephalus). When drugs failed to treat the condition, staff at Kent’s Wildwood Trust animal park knew there was only one person who could help their beloved two-year-old bear.

Perhaps the world’s premier wildlife vet, Romain Pizzi has travelled to 50 countries over a quarter of a century to operate on every type of creature from African elephants to Polynesian snails. If there’s a hippo with a toothache or an orangutan with a tumor, Romain is your man.

He’s also the only person to have performed the keyhole surgery that Boki so desperately needs.

Should he make it to adulthood, Boki will be a vast and powerful beast – brown bears can weigh over half a ton with jaws that can crush a human skull with ease.

But right now, he’s still a 20-stone juvenile. And it’s hard not to feel sympathy (mixed, admittedly, with a little fear) towards Boki as he lies five feet away from me with a breathing tube between his fangs.

Vet Elliot Simpson-Brown is in charge of monitoring the bear during the operation and making sure he remains unconscious for his own safety – and ours.

Fortunately Boki is, say those who know him, gentle and good-humoured and even, according to Wildwood Trust director of zoo operations Mark Habben, ‘an extremely engaging bear’. All the more touching given what he’s been through.

Because poor Boki just can’t seem to catch a break. His parents had been forced to work in a Spanish circus before they were rescued. In the wild, brown bear cubs can stay with their mothers for several years, but Boki was aggressively rejected by his mum at birth and removed from her for his own safety.

Why exactly, is unclear, but Mark has a theory: ‘The bears might have detected his illness,’ he tells me. ‘Animals can sometimes sense these things, and they don’t want to “catch” a disease.’

In December 2022 when he was around 10 months old, Boki was adopted from Port Lympne safari park in Kent where he had been hand-reared and transported to Wildwood.

He was quick to make it his home, climbing trees and entertaining the visitors who come to see the exotic and wonderful creatures here, including wolves, reindeers, bison, lynxes, various types of snakes and arctic foxes.

He was put into an enclosure with Fluff and Scruff, both in their 20s, who had suffered appalling neglect before being rescued from a bear-hunting facility in Bulgaria in 2014. They took to Boki immediately and treated him like a little brother.

Then fate took a cruel turn.

There had been no signs at first that there was anything wrong with Boki, says Mark. But earlier this year, he started having seizures that impacted his vision. Then one day he collapsed.

He was initially prescribed steroids, as it was believed he might have an infection. And that helped. The youngster stopped shaking, and his vision and mobility improved.

When the seizures returned, Boki was referred to TV vet Professor Noel Fitzpatrick’s practice in July, where he became the first bear in Britain to have an MRI scan.

The scan painted a bleak picture. Excess cerebrospinal fluid was building up in Boki’s skull, causing more and more pressure and severe damage to his brain. The condition, very rare in animals, is like having the most excruciating migraine you can imagine – all the time.

‘Our primary thought was about his ongoing welfare,’ says Mark. ‘How do we manage his condition? What can we do?’

There was even talk of having poor Boki euthanised. That’s when Wildwood Trust called upon the services of Romain Pizzi.

Growing up in Port Elizabeth in South Africa, Romain was surrounded by wild creatures. After studying at the University of Pretoria veterinary college, he came to the UK to undertake a Masters at London Zoo.

Romain specialises in laparoscopic, or keyhole, surgery, which is commonplace in humans but, until recently, rare in veterinary medicine.

A slight, bespectacled man, who now lives in Scotland with his wife and two young children, Romain is so softly spoken you have to lean in to hear him. And yet he holds the attention of everyone present, like a rockstar – minus the ego.

When Romain treats endangered or threatened species, he does so with an awareness of what its death might mean. He keeps a photograph of himself with the last living specimen of Partula Faba, or Captain Cook’s bean snail, named because it was first discovered on Cook’s expedition in 1791.

When it died in 2016 at Edinburgh Zoo where he is based, the species was extinct, in spite of conservation efforts.

During his career, Romain has repaired a Siberian musk deer’s broken leg, fixed a chimpanzee’s hernia in West Africa, extracted bladder stones from Greek tortoises, and amputated a Costa Rican zebra tarantula’s leg (in order that it could grow a new one).

There have been some highly unusual cases. Romain once even treated an Ostrich with a paralysed phallus.

‘I don’t know how that happened, maybe he got kicked by one of the females or did it jumping over a fence. But it had to be amputated! It was starting to get infected.’

He will soon be heading off to do clinical work with chimpanzees in Liberia and then on to rescued lions in Ethiopia.

‘There are things that can go wrong,’ Romain tells me. ‘The anaesthesia might go wrong. There could be a bleed in Boki’s brain. He’s been on a high dose of medication, which might have suppressed his immunity. The brain is really complicated. There are all sorts of microscopic things going on.’

But if anyone can succeed then Romain can. In February 2013, he performed the first (and thus far only) such brain surgery on Champa, a three-year-old Asiatic black bear.

Champa, who was rescued as a cub by charity Free the Bears and brought to a sanctuary in the mountains of Laos, also suffered hydrocephalus, though the condition was more advanced. The crippling pressure had deformed her skull and made her almost blind.

In another country, the recommendation would have been to euthanise her. But because of its Buddhist tradition, Laos forbids this.

And after six hours of keyhole surgery, Champa was able to enjoy a greatly improved quality of life until her death in 2019.

In the shipping container next to Boki’s enclosure, the team carefully lifts his 127kg body onto a makeshift operating table. They have done ‘dry runs’ with the anaesthesia to make sure it would go smoothly, though Boki’s paws are cuffed just in case…

Naturally Boki had to skip dinner last night so that he wouldn’t regurgitate food during the operation. But when he woke up this morning a little grumpy, the staff relented and gave him a tiny bit of honey-infused water.

The surgery involves drilling a small hole in Boki’s skull, making tiny incisions in his belly, puffing it up with air and inserting a tiny camera. Then Romain will position the 2mm thick silicon tube that will drain the cerebral fluid into Boki’s abdomen, where it is absorbed harmlessly.

It’s a procedure that was expected to start at 9am and last around three hours, but that doesn’t take into account how long it takes to shave Boki from his head to abdomen – nearly an hour. Lying there, bare flesh on display, he looks almost human.

Because of the bear’s very thick skull it takes another hour as the whirr of Romain’s drill makes a tiny hole. After that, he inserts the thin ‘shunt’, or tube, through the brain into a space called the ventricle.

From now on, when there’s an excess flare-up of pressure inside Boki’s brain, it will open a valve, releasing the fluid into his abdomen where it is absorbed harmlessly. Romain thinks there’s currently an extra 2 teaspoons CHK of fluid in there. It might not sound a lot for such a huge animal, but it causes agony.

Just before 6pm, the last few minor stitches are made and nearly six hours after it began, the operation is over and declared a roaring success. Boki can be moved to his den to recover.

‘I feel bad, it was tiring for everyone,’ Romain apologises gallantly, after removing his surgical gear. ‘I’m so sorry your day has been so long.’

Forget my day, I’m not the one who has been performing brain surgery! Romain is happy with the outcome: ‘Everything went beautifully. He didn’t have any major bleeds, though it was difficult to place the shunt in the brain and find a safe space so it wouldn’t get damaged.’

The most important part now is Boki’s recovery. ‘With a dog you can put a cone on its head. With a child, their parents can sit and watch over them. You can’t do that with a bear,’ says Romain.

‘Bears and pandas are very dextrous, they can use the tips of their nails to get inside a wound. Or they might lick it.’ And it’s not like Boki can be told to get some bed rest for several days. And then there’s the need for him to put on weight before winter.

‘If you keep him inside, he might get stressed and frustrated and do himself more harm. Imagine if you were locked up in your airing cupboard!’

Dr Pizzi has waived his fee for the surgery, but the Trust still needs £20,000 towards the operation and aftercare. Boki’s shunt alone cost £3,000 and he’ll be on antibiotics and painkillers for a couple of weeks.

Then there’s his food (he devours three buckets of vegetables, dog biscuits, and fish in a day), plus paying for vets and keepers and maintaining his enclosure.

So how is Boki feeling after becoming the first bear in Britain to undergo such a procedure?

Jon Forde (who holds the enviable title of ‘Head of Bears’ at the Wildwood Trust) said he was ‘really impressed at Boki’s rate of recovery. He came up to the bars and was letting us scratch him and wanting attention.’

And on Friday when he was let out for a walk, Boki sat in the sun, eating grass without a care in the world.

I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for Boki’s recovery. But right now it looks as if this charming bear with a very sore head may finally be out of the woods.

Anyone who wishes to donate towards Boki’s care can contact Mark Hedden on info@wildwoodtrust.org or visit https://www.wildwoodtrust.org/brown-bear-rescue/

Cervical cancer survival can be increased by 40 per cent using a new treatment regime of existing medicines, a large trial found.

Giving a boost of chemotherapy ahead of the standard treatment can also lower the risk of the disease returning by more than a third.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) say the ‘remarkable’ findings mean it should become the standard treatment for the disease.

A combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy — known as chemoradiation — has been the standard treatment for cervical cancer since 1999.

But, despite improvements in care, the cancer — which typically affects women in their 30s — returns in up to 30 per cent of cases.

Funded by Cancer Research UK and UCL Cancer Trials Centre, the trial looked at whether a short course of induction chemotherapy prior to chemoradiation could cut relapses and death among patients with cervical cancer that had not spread to other organs.

They recruited 500 patients over 10 years from hospitals in the UK, Mexico, India, Italy and Brazil.

Patients were randomly allocated to receive either standard treatment or the new treatment combination.

The new treatment programme led to a 40 per cent reduction in the risk of death and a 35 per cent reduction in the risk of cancer returning for at least five years.

The results, published in The Lancet, are so clear that experts are calling for the regime to be used across the UK and internationally.

Dr Mary McCormack, lead investigator of the trial from UCL Cancer Institute and UCLH, said: ‘This approach is a straightforward way to make a positive difference, using existing drugs that are cheap and already approved for use in patients.

‘It has already been adopted by some cancer centres and there’s no reason that this shouldn’t be offered to all patients undergoing chemoradiation for this cancer.’

After five years, 80 per cent of those who received a short course of chemotherapy first were alive and 73 per cent had not seen their cancer return or spread.

In the standard treatment group, 72 per cent were alive and 64 per cent had not seen their cancer return or spread.

Researchers said that five patients involved in the trial have been disease-free for more than 10 years.

Dr Iain Foulkes, executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Timing is everything when you’re treating cancer.

‘The simple act of adding induction chemotherapy to the start of chemoradiation treatment for cervical cancer has delivered remarkable results in the Interlace trial.

‘A growing body of evidence is showing that additional chemotherapy before other treatments, like surgery and radiotherapy, can improve the chances of successful treatment for patients.

‘Not only can it reduce the chances of cancer coming back, it can also be delivered quickly, using drugs already available worldwide.’

Around 2,700 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in England each year and 850 die from it.

The NHS wants to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 by boosting uptake of screening and the HPV vaccine, which protects against the virus causing nearly all cases.

Cervical screening, once called a smear test, is a test to check the health of the cervix and help prevent cervical cancer — offered to women aged 25 to 64. 

The most recent figures show just 66 per cent of the 11 million eligible women aged 25 to 49 attended their screening, while the proportion was 74 per cent among women aged 50 to 64.

By Eleanor Harding Education Editor

Published: 17:33 EDT, 14 October 2024 | Updated: 17:37 EDT, 14 October 2024

By Kate Pickles

Published: 19:23 EDT, 13 October 2024 | Updated: 19:33 EDT, 13 October 2024

Family of the former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond have paid tribute to the ‘formidable’ politician in a touching statement after he died yesterday at lunch.

The new comments released by the pro-Independence Alba Party talk of how Salmond ‘dedicated his life to the cause he believed in’ but was foremost ‘devoted’ and ‘loving’ to those close to him.

Salmond leaves behind Moira, 87, his loyal wife of 43 years. The couple lived in Strichen, Aberdeenshire. It is believed Mrs Salmond was at home when her husband died having lunch at a conference in North Macedonia.

The tribute reads: ‘Alex was a formidable politician, an amazing orator, an outstanding intellect, and admired throughout the world.

‘He loved meeting people and hearing their stories, and showed incredible kindness to those who needed it.

‘He dedicated his adult life to the cause he believed in – independence for Scotland. His vision and enthusiasm for Scotland and the Yes movement were both inspirational and contagious. 

‘But to us, first and foremost, he was a devoted and loving husband, a fiercely loyal brother, a proud and thoughtful uncle and a faithful and trusted friend.’

Salmond was a prominent figure in the Scottish Nationalist movement, who served as the country’s first minister from 2007 to 2014.

He was having lunch at a conference in the south eastern European country, North Macedonia, when he died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 69. 

The titan of Scottish politics took to social media to proudly fight for Scotland just hours before his death – signing off his final post: ‘Scotland is a country not a county’.

Mr Salmond had made a speech at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy Forum before collapsing in a crowded room.

A photo from the event showed him smiling cheerfully in the centre of a crowd of dignitaries in what is believed to be his last photo, alongside his Alba Party chair Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, who is wearing a tartan dress.

Eye-witnesses said medical teams desperately tried to resuscitate him after he appeared to have possibly suffered a heart attack, but they were unable to save him.

Succession star Brian Cox was another individual who paid tribute to the politician this evening saying his friend was ‘a lot of fun’, following his shock death in Ohrid, North Macedonia yesterday.

Mr Cox appeared on BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme and spoke fondly of his pal.

‘He had great humanity, he was probably, I think, one of the greatest political thinkers, certainly Scotland has ever produced, and I think possibly these islands have ever produced,’ he said. 

Scotsman Mr Cox first met Mr Salmond when he was a disillusioned Labour supporter, he said.

‘I felt the one place where social democracy was happening was back in my own country, so I suddenly had to rethink my own feelings and Alex enabled me to do that,’ headded

Last night a touching informal memorial service was arranged in the Balkan country in which the former President of North Macedonia, Gjorge Ivanov, delivered a speech reflecting on Mr Salmond’s life and work.

Elections expert Sir John Curtice said Alex Salmond ‘did more than anybody else’ to make independence central to the debate about Scotland’s future.

Speaking to Sky News On Sunday, Sir John said: ‘The truth is Mr Salmond is probably the person who did more than anybody else to move the argument about independence, and indeed his party, the Scottish Nationalist Party, from being a relatively fringe interest that never looked as though it was going to happen to be something that is now central to the debate about the future of Scotland.’

Mr Salmond was described by former colleagues as ‘one of the most talented politicians of his generation’ and ‘the finest First Minister our country has had’.

He later split with the SNP to form the Alba Party following allegations of sexual harassment. He was cleared of 13 charges, including one of attempted rape, and later took successful legal action against his former party.

The King led tributes to the Scottish politician saying he and the Queen are ‘greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond’, and adding: ‘His devotion to Scotland drove his decades of public service.’

Sebastian Garrido was traveling to visit his dying grandfather in the hospital when he had what he calls a ‘time slip’ that changed his views on what happens after we die.

Often dramatized in science fiction, a ‘time slip’ is defined as a moment when someone accidentally travels through time — but Garrido said his all too real ‘time slip’ hit him on the street when he noticed a mysterious figure standing nearby.

He told DailyMail.com that a mysterious figure stood along the road, and a closer look revealed it was his grandfather, but younger, as he was in his 40s or 50s.

‘Fancy meeting you here, everything will be okay. Tell your dad I’ll be fine,’ the man said before disappearing.

During the eerie encounter, Garrido, 26, said he ‘got goosebumps and then threw up.’ Then, he ran to the hospital to see his present-day grandfather, finding the man was still alive, resting in his bed with just weeks to live.

When Garrido arrived at the hospital, his grandfather said, ‘I saw you in a dream.’ 

While there is no scientific evidence to support time slips, doctors have suggested these experiences could be related to déjà vu, external stimuli impacting the brain, or simply just one way that some people cope psychologically with trauma.

‘Time slips might be explained by electromagnetic fields,’ as Buckinghamshire New University psychologist Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe wrote for the Daily Mail this June.

‘Research from Canadian academics shows that such energy fields can produce hallucinations,’ Dr O’Keeffe explained, ‘by toying with signals in the brain.’

But, while the psychologist does not himself believe in the phenomena of time slips, he admits that modern physics does not rule it out. 

‘If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan ‘s sci-fi film Interstellar — or even know your Einstein — you’ll be aware that time is not necessarily ­linear,’ he argued in his essay.

Garrido, like many experiencers, said it felt very real. The life-changing experience happened in 2021 while Garrido was studying and  being supported through college by his grandfather, Hiram Garrido, with whom he was very close.

Hiram died at the age of 86.

Garrido described the encounter as the ‘weirdest experience of his life,’ saying he’s never experienced anything like it before or since — save for one childhood episode where he saw someone in a dream and then saw someone identical in real life.

He said that his experience of this ‘time slip’ and other traumas he experienced around this time in his life ‘forged him’ as a person.

‘The experience deeply affected me; I was shaken and didn’t know what to think,’ Garrido confessed. ‘I was very emotional during those weeks.’

‘I felt closer to my grandfather, and even though it was strange, I think it was his way of reassuring me that everything would be okay, despite his impending passing,’ he said. ‘It was a difficult time.’

According to Garrido, the experience changed his views on life and made it easier to think that there might be some form of life or consciousness after death.

Before the experience, Garrido was uncertain in his views, but the meeting with this younger version of his grandfather ‘made him wonder’ about the true nature of reality. 

‘It definitely gave me a different perspective on life and death,’ he said.

Stories of ‘time slips’ first appeared in fiction in the 19th century, including Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. 

But the internet and social media are full of people who genuinely believe they have ‘slipped’ briefly through time.

DailyMail.com also spoke to podcasters Carrie and Sean McCabe of ‘Ain’t It Scary,’ who researched the subject. The podcasters said that ‘time slip’ reports are common, but less so than Bigfoot sightings and UFO encounters.

And yet, certain ‘time slip’ stories have achieved cult status, they told DailyMail.com.

‘The most famous one, and the craziest story, is the turn-of-the-century “Moberly-Jordain Incident,”‘ McCabe said. 

The alleged incident, as attested to by the witnesses Charlotte Anne Moberly (1846–1937) and Eleanor Jourdain (1863–1924), was dramatized by ITV in 1981.

The two ladies — both English literary academics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford — said they had their time slip while visiting the Palace of Versailles in France, the famous former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV.

As they would later claim in their best-selling 1911 book, An Adventure, the pair were lost in the Petit Trianon château located on the grounds when all of a sudden they traveled back in time to Marie Antoinette’s garden party.

Marie Antoinette was the last Queen and wife of Louis XVI. Both were tried and convicted of treason, and died at the guillotine eight months apart.

In their book, they said that everything suddenly looked unnatural, and then they saw a lady in an old-fashioned dress who was sketching and looked at them.

After the pair compared notes, they came to believe that they had traveled back to 1792, just before the abolition of the French monarchy.

The book, published under fake names, caused a sensation and the pair later claimed to have other supernatural experiences, including seeing the Emperor Constantine in the Louvre.

Theories abound for what really might have happened to Moberly and Jordain during that fateful trip to Versailles. 

In 1965, a biographer of the French poet and aristocrat Robert de Montesquiou, Philippe Jullian, proposed an innocent error wherein the two women had crashed an 18th century-theme party held by the poet and his eccentric friends, accidentally.

While by no means definitive, Jullian argues that de Montesquiou threw such soirées and his circle was exactly the type who might stay in character with strangers.

As podcasters steeped in the topic, the McCabes think that some ‘time slip’ experiences may also come from the fact that people are familiar with the idea from TV and film — so when something unusual occurs, it’s a ready-made explanation.

But for Garrido, and others like him, a concrete explanation for what happened during their curious episode is often less important than the life-changing shift in their own way of thinking, that grew out of their perceived ‘time slip.’

‘No one knows what happens after death, but this experience changed my view,’ Garrido told DailyMail.com. 

‘It made grief a little easier — although grief is never easy.’