In the 20° Cancer rising SAMVA USA chart, there are three planets placed in the secretive sign of Scorpio and the creative fifth house.
These planets are Jupiter, the 6th lord of conflict, Mars, the 10th lord of government and military, and Saturn, the 8th lord of death-like fears.
This preponderance of influences gives Americans a mighty resolve, plenty of courage, technical ability, military prowess, but also a transformative impulse focused in the fifth house of intelligence, creative imagination, young people, and moral sense. This is more so, as both Jupiter and Mars are in opposition aspect with 1st lord Moon, which is exalted in the practical sign of Taurus and the 11th house of incomes and ideals. This complex but pervasive part of their collective nature can be readily seen from their history, at all levels of the national life.
BIRTH OF THE ATOMIC AGE
After World War II, the so-called Cold War developed between the Soviet Union and the USA, creating a dividing line around the globe. It was accompanied by the development of massively lethal nuclear bombs in the USA, followed by the Soviet Union.In fact, with the detonation of the first atomic device on July 16, 1945, in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Atomic Age was born. Moreover, after Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, in early August 1945, a foreboding sense of death and destruction began to percolate into the public consciousness. However, it did not explode with death-like fear in American society until the Soviets harnessed the awesome power of the Hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953. After that a palpable sense of fear of death permeated all sections of US society.
THE FLYING DISC CRAZE
Interestingly, this fearsome energy found expression in the culture.
America's lively imagination was provoked at the beginning of the Jupiter major period (1937-1953), when during Halloween in 1938, the famed actor, Orson Wells, directed a live theater edition of "The War of the Worlds" on American radio in New York City. The show became famous for giving an overly realistic portrayal of alien invasion that sparked panic along the east coast.
Almost a decade later, after the victorious conclusion of World War II, a veritable flying disc craze developed in the USA during the summer of 1947, with a rash of unidentified flying object reports. The craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold's story of witnessing disc-shaped objects which headline writers dubbed "Flying Saucers". Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands.
On July 7, 1947, the so-called Roswell incident took place on a farm by that name in Utah. It involved the recovery of metallic, plastic, tinfoil and rubber debris from a military balloon. The Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release, broadcast via wire transmission, announcing possession of a "flying disc". Amid the hundreds of reports nationwide of flying saucers, the following day "the Army retracted its release, but falsely stated the crashed object was merely a conventional "weather balloon", likely to hide its secret military purpose. The incident was forgotten until 1978, when retired lieutenant colonel Jesse Marcel suggested the 'weather balloon' had been a cover story to divert public attention from....its "extraterrestrial origins."
The fervent imagination at the time was thus linked to the work that began with the Trinity Project in 1943 to secretly develop a nuclear bomb. After the war, these secretive efforts became also focused on developing a delivery mechanism, whether it was a missile, airplane or some other device. Indeed, during the infancy of the nuclear age, the Soviet Union bragged about its ability to deliver nuclear weapons, even if their claims were far from credible. The US introduced its first military jet bomber, the B-45, into service in 1948. The areal tests were carried out over New Mexico and other sparsely populated states in the interior of the USA.
The related Space Age is considered to have begun with the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, which led to the Space Race. However, the USA began its rocket tests much earlier, after German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was brought from Germany to the USA after WW II. The advent of missiles quickly entered the sci fi lore.
In any event, after the Saturn major period began in the SAMVA USA chart in April 1953, the heightened sense of danger was reflected in the vibrant cultural life of Americans.
SCI FI MOVIES TAKE OFF
For comparison, only 11 science fiction films were released in the USA between 1902 and 1945. Following WW II, this number increased to 12 between 1946 and 1953. However, a veritable explosion happened in 1953, with the movie mentioned above, followed by 99 other such films until 1972, when the period ended. While the interest for such entertainment has continued robust, with also growing international demand, it has had a different and changing focus, from the initial death-like fears at the onset of the atomic age.
SEVENTY YEARS LATER
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, with the US-led NATO supporting Ukraine in its brave struggle, the awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons has again begun to percolate in the American mind. In the fall of 2022, a prediction was made before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, about the reemergence of such fears nine months later. It turned out to be accurate.
As a matter of record, Joe Biden as President, unlike his predecessor, adopted a harshly adversarial position viz-a-viz Russian President Vladimir Putin. In early 2021 he went so far as to publicly call Putin a "soulless killer." True as that may be, such a stance tends to preclude any diplomatic dialogue with Russia, In the event, Biden has had few levers to pull to end Russia's invasion and restore peace to the people of Ukraine. As a result, the Biden administration has pushed for a hardening stance of NATO to support the Ukraine resistance, in order to repel Russia from the seized lands. In so doing, Biden has amplified the risk of nuclear war. The fears were greater after Putin bragged about his advanced delivery system, hypersonic missiles, which could deliver nuclear weapons to the USA within minutes.
Not surprisingly, the famous American film director Oliver Stone says he "regrets voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, warning that the president is dragging the country into a potential World War III with Russia."
Recently, there have been a few movies focused on the birth of the Atomic Age, notably Oppenheimer and Asteroid City. The latter film includes the lore of extraterrestrials. Moreover, there have also been hearings on UFOs in the US Congress, with imaginative whistle blowers, born decades after the original events, sharing their beliefs in aliens, to the joy of UFO fans everywhere.
ASTROLOGY OF SCIENCE FICTION
Currently, the Moon/Mars period is operating, with transit 6th lord Jupiter conjunct natal Rahu and the most effective point (MEP) of the 10th house, while transit 8th lord Saturn aspects 10th lord Mars.
Some consider distances in space being so vast that no material crafts can pass between planets from one solar system to the other, seperated by distances taking many light years to bridge, assuming advanced life forms also exist there.
With conspiracy theories, including alien visitations, sub-terranean shape shifting reptilian infestation of the ruling class, re-engineered alien technology, etc., the imagination can run wild.
The American public is once again torn between fanciful, unbounded notions and a pragmatic understanding of its imaginative mindset.
SIDE NOTE
*) In 1938, the US actor Orson Wells touched off mass hysteria in the Eastern United States with his radio play War of the Worlds, based on the same book.
