title: Annabelle (film)

text: Early tracking projected "Annabelle" would gross around $25–27million in its opening weekend. However, estimates declined shortly after to a range between $20–22million. "Annabelle" was released on October 3, 2014, in 3,185 theatres in North America. It topped the box office in its opening day earning $15.4million (including its $2.1million midnight previews). In its traditional three-day opening the film debuted at #2 at the box office with $37.1million, at an average of $11,659 per theater from 3,185 theaters after a neck-and-neck competition against "Gone Girl" that earned $37.5million. The two releases were separated by $378,854. Its opening weekend gross is the eleventh highest in October and the biggest for a horror genre film of 2014, surpassing ""s $28.9million opening. Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros., said about the opening box office performance, "we had a wonderful campaign for the film and a good date"; she added "being a spinoff of "The Conjuring" set it up really well and we just hit the right note." It is the second time that an October weekend has produced two $30million or more debuts; the first was in 2008: "High School Musical 3" ($42million) and "Saw V" ($31million). To Rentrak, the opening weekend crowd was evenly split between females with 51% and under 25 years with 54%. The film's theatrical run ended on December 18, 2014, and it earned a total of $84million, becoming the thirty-fifth highest-grossing movie of 2014 in the US.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: The film was released in Russia on September 26, 2014, a week prior to its wide release and earned $2.1million on its opening weekend, debuting at No. 3 at the Russian box office. Overseas, in its opening weekend the film earned $23.6million from nearly 3,300 screen and 39 foreign markets for a first-weekend worldwide total of $60.8million.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: High openings of "Annabelle" internationally were reported in France ($3.4million), Brazil ($3million), the UK ($3.1million), Argentina ($1.2million), Spain ($1.45million) and Germany ($1.14million). In India "Annabelle" debuted at #2 behind Bollywood blockbuster "Bang Bang!" and collected $1.3million. It set an all-time opening record for a horror film in Peru with $1.34million which is also Warner Bros. second biggest opening weekend of all time there overall. In Mexico, the film earned $10.9million (including previews) on its opening weekend and broke the record for the biggest debut ever for a horror movie, and the best 2D opening. Its opening weekend gross is also the third-biggest opening overall of 2014 behind "Maleficent" and "" there. In total, the film took 59% of the total market share.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: As of October 13, 2014, "Annabelle" has become the highest-grossing horror film in the Philippines, earning over ₱121.33million. The film surpassed ""s record (₱113million), doing so after 12 days of release. The film has also become the highest-grossing horror movie in Lebanon after staying atop the box office for two weekends.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: "Annabelle" received generally negative reviews from critics, many of whom felt the film inferior to its predecessor. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 29% based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 4.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Annabelle" borrows unabashedly from better horror films, content to leave viewers with a string of cheap jolts that fail to build on the far more effective "The Conjuring"." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" criticized the film for its cheap production and screenplay, but was positive towards the performances of the cast and saying, "the film is ultimately so scary and formulaic that you won't forget it."


title: Annabelle (film)

text: Scott Foundas of "Variety" gave the film a positive review, calling the film "inspired" but periodically cheap. He added "a cut-rate spinoff from James Wan's superlative haunted-house hit "The Conjuring" that (partly) makes up in crude shock effects, but lacks in atmosphere. Designed mainly as a starring vehicle for the eponymous, creepy-as-hell doll (who easily outclasses her human co-stars), this WB/New Line quickie is the thirst of die-hard genre fans and is by the far the best horror movie of the year".


title: Annabelle (film)

text: Pete Hammond of "Deadline" gave the film a positive review and said that the scary doll show has left him pining for Chucky in "Child's Play". He further added, ""Annabelle" may still draw horror fans in this Halloween month, and they will be quaking over the scares in this film."


title: Annabelle (film)

text: In January 20, 2015 was released in DVD and Blu-ray by Warner Home Video. In May 31, 2022 was released alongside another The Conjuring Universe movies in Blu-ray, excluding The Curse of Llorona.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: In October 2014, Fellman told "The Washington Post" that the studio was considering a series based on the film, with a sequel already in the works. In October 2015, it was reported that Gary Dauberman would be returning to write the script. On March 22, 2016, Warner Bros. slated the film for release on May 19, 2017, with "Lights Out" director David F. Sandberg directing the film.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: In June 2016, Miranda Otto and Stephanie Sigman were cast to star in the prequel. The story centers on a dollmaker, and his wife (Otto) whose daughter tragically dies. Twelve years later they decide to open their home to a nun (Sigman) and several girls from a shuttered orphanage. When the dollmaker's possessed creation Annabelle sets her sights on the children, it turns their shelter into a storm of horror.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: In April 2018, Warner Bros. announced July 3, 2019, as the release date for an as-yet untitled new film in "The Conjuring" franchise. Later that month, it was announced that the film would be a third "Annabelle" film, with Gary Dauberman signed on to write and direct, in his directorial debut. James Wan and Peter Safran would co-produce the project. The film's title, "Annabelle Comes Home", was revealed in March 2019. In May 2019, the film's release date was changed to June 26, 2019.


title: Annabelle (film)

text: On October 27, 2021, Warner Bros C.E.O. Jason Kilar announced a YouTube video titled "Annabelle in Quarantine". The short film follows Annabelle in the Warner Bros. headquarters while bored in quarantine.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Christopher Daniel Duntsch (born April 3, 1971) is a former American neurosurgeon who has been nicknamed Dr. D. and Dr. Death for gross malpractice resulting in the maiming of several patients' spines and two deaths while working at hospitals in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before his license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board. In 2017, he was convicted of maiming one of his patients and sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. His father, Donald, was a physical therapist and Christian missionary, and his mother, Susan, was a schoolteacher. He is a graduate of Evangelical Christian School in the Cordova suburb of Memphis, where he starred in football.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch initially attended Millsaps College to play Division III college football, and later transferred to Division I Colorado State University. Former teammates later said that, while Duntsch trained hard, he lacked talent at the game. Duntsch returned home to attend Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis).


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Having exhausted his football eligibility, Duntsch decided to switch to a career in medicine. Duntsch completed his undergraduate degree in 1995, then continued on to an ambitious MD-PhD program. In 2010, he completed the MD–PhD and neurosurgery residency programs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and subsequently completed a spine fellowship program at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic in Memphis.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch completed his residency having participated in fewer than 100 surgeries. Typically, neurosurgery residents participate in over 1,000 surgeries in the course of their residency. He was suspected of being under the influence of cocaine while operating during his fourth year of residency training, and was sent to a program for impaired physicians. He remained there for several months before being allowed to return to the residency. Several of his friends recalled him going to work after a night of doing drugs, with one of them saying he would never allow Duntsch to operate on him.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Initially, Duntsch focused heavily on the PhD half of his degree. His name appeared on several papers and patents, and he took part in a number of biotech startups. However, by the time he met Young, Duntsch was over $500,000 in debt. He decided to turn to neurosurgery, which can be a lucrative field. In 2010, Duntsch moved to Dallas. He persuaded Young to come with him; Young agreed, since she had grown up in the Dallas area.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Upon applying for work, he looked extremely qualified on paper: he had spent a total of fifteen years in training (medical school, residency and fellowship), and his curriculum vitae was twelve single-spaced pages. Duntsch also claimed to have graduated "magna cum laude" from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital with a doctorate in microbiology – a program that the hospital did not offer at the time he allegedly attended.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch joined Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano (now Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Plano) as a minimally invasive spine surgeon with a salary of $600,000 per year, plus bonuses.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Early in his tenure at Baylor Plano, Duntsch made a poor impression on his fellow surgeons. Veteran vascular surgeon Randall Kirby recalled that Duntsch frequently boasted about his abilities despite being so new to the area. Kirby also recalled that Duntsch's skills in the operating room left much to be desired; as Kirby put it, "he could not wield a scalpel".


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Baylor Plano officials found that Duntsch failed to meet their standards of care and permanently revoked his surgical privileges. The hospital initiated another peer review, but Duntsch resigned rather than face certain termination. To avoid the costs of fighting and possibly losing a wrongful termination suit, hospital officials reached a deal with Duntsch's lawyers in which Duntsch was allowed to resign in return for Baylor Plano issuing a letter stating that there were no issues with him. Had Duntsch been fired, Baylor Plano would have been required to report him to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which is intended to flag problematic physicians.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch moved to Dallas Medical Center in Farmers Branch, where he was granted temporary privileges until hospital officials could obtain his records from Baylor Plano. However, red flags surfaced early on, as nurses wondered if Duntsch was under the influence of drugs while on duty. For instance, he came to work wearing the same tattered scrubs for three days in a row. He lasted for less than a week before administrators pulled his privileges after the death of a patient, Floella Brown, and the maiming of another, Mary Efurd.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch had severed Brown's vertebral artery, and refused to abort despite the massive blood loss. He then packed it with too much of a substance intended to stop the bleeding. She suffered a stroke as a result. Duntsch did not respond to messages from the hospital for a few hours, then the next day scheduled an elective surgery on Efurd rather than care for Brown. Hospital officials were exasperated when Duntsch refused to delay Efurd's surgery, and asked him multiple times to care for Brown or transfer her out of his care. Duntsch suggested drilling a hole in Brown's head to relieve the pressure, but was refused permission. Not only was he not qualified for and held no privileges to perform brain surgery, but Dallas Medical did not have the proper equipment or personnel for such an operation. Brown was left in a coma for hours before Duntsch finally acquiesced to her transfer. By this time, however, Brown was brain dead.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: While operating on Efurd, Duntsch severed one of her nerve roots during spinal fusion surgery while operating on the wrong portion of her back, twisted a screw into another nerve, left screw holes on the opposite side of her spine, failed to remove the disc he was supposed to remove, and left surgical hardware in her muscle tissue so loose that it moved when touched. Despite several warnings from his colleagues that he wasn't doing the surgery correctly and was attempting to put screws into muscle rather than bone, Duntsch persisted. Efurd was left paralyzed. She later recalled waking up feeling "excruciating pain", a "ten-plus" on a scale of 1 to 10. Several people who were in the operating room for Efurd's surgery suspected that Duntsch might have been intoxicated, recalling that his pupils were dilated.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Longtime spine surgeon Robert Henderson performed the salvage surgery on Efurd. When Henderson saw the imaging from Duntsch's surgery, he was certain that there would be legal action, and had the salvage surgery recorded. He likened what he found when he opened Efurd up to the results of a child playing with Tinkertoys or an erector set. Henderson described Duntsch's surgery as an "assault", and concluded that Efurd would have been bedridden had the salvage surgery not been performed.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Henderson later recalled wondering if Duntsch was an impostor; he could not believe that a real surgeon would botch Efurd's surgery so badly. He felt that anyone with a basic knowledge of human anatomy would know that he was operating in the wrong area of Efurd's back. Henderson sent Duntsch's picture to the University of Tennessee to determine whether he actually had a degree from that institution and received confirmation that Duntsch, in fact, did. He called Duntsch's fellowship supervisor in Memphis, as well as the supervisor of Duntsch's residency; it was then that he learned about the incident that led him to be referred to the impaired physician program.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Despite both of his surgeries at Dallas Medical Center going catastrophically awry, hospital officials did not report him to the NPDB. At the time, hospitals were not required to report doctors who only had temporary privileges.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: After leaving Dallas Medical Center, Duntsch received privileges at South Hampton Community Hospital in Dallas, and also took a job at an outpatient clinic named Legacy Surgery Center (now Frisco Ambulatory Surgery Center) in Frisco. While there, he damaged patient Jeff Cheney's spinal cord, leaving him without feeling on the right side of his body. He damaged patient Philip Mayfield's spinal cord, drilling into it and leaving him partially paralyzed from the neck down. After undergoing physical rehabilitation, Mayfield was able to walk with a cane but continued to experience paralysis on the right side of his body and in his left arm. He also reported shooting pains throughout his body. Mayfield died of COVID-19 in February 2021; according to his wife, he had been vulnerable to the virus due to complications caused by Duntsch's botched surgeries.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: While attempting to remove degenerated discs in Marshall "Tex" Muse's back, Duntsch left surgical hardware floating between the spine and muscle tissue. Muse woke up in considerable pain, but Duntsch convinced him it was normal. He then prescribed Muse so much Percocet that a pharmacist refused to fill the prescription. Muse spiraled into opioid addiction that cost him his wife and his job. He later recalled that he read about Martin's death on the day before the surgery, but Duntsch cursed him out when he called to ask about it. While operating on Jacqueline Troy, Duntsch cut one of her vocal cords and an artery, and also damaged her trachea. Troy was left barely able to speak above a whisper, had to be sedated for weeks, and had to be fed through a feeding tube for some time as food was getting into her lungs. Despite this, Duntsch was retained by South Hampton when new owners bought it and renamed it University General Hospital.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: When Duntsch applied for privileges at Methodist Hospital in Dallas, the hospital queried the NPDB. Soon afterward, he severely maimed Jeff Glidewell after mistaking part of his neck muscle for a tumor during a routine cervical fusion, severing one of his vocal cords, cutting a hole in his esophagus and slicing an artery. Duntsch stuffed a surgical sponge in Glidewell's throat to stanch the bleeding. However, he closed Glidewell with the sponge in place despite others in the operating room warning him about it. The sponge triggered a severe blood-borne infection that caused Glidewell to become septic. When other doctors discovered the sponge, Duntsch refused to return to help remove it. After several days, Kirby was brought in to repair the damage, and later described what he found after opening Glidewell back up as the work of a "crazed maniac". He later told Glidewell that it was clear Duntsch had tried to kill him. Glidewell was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus, and partial paralysis on his left side. Kirby claimed that it looked as if Duntsch had tried to decapitate Glidewell, and contended that such a botched surgery "has not happened in the United States of America" before. Glidewell was reportedly still suffering the ill effects of Duntsch's operation years later, and has undergone more than 50 procedures to correct the damage. At one point, he was only able to eat small bites of food at one time. He proved to be Duntsch's last surgery; University General pushed him out soon afterward.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Kirby wrote a detailed complaint to the Texas Medical Board, calling Duntsch a "sociopath" who was "a clear and present danger to the citizens of Texas." Under heavy lobbying from Kirby and Henderson, the Texas Medical Board suspended Duntsch's license on June 26, 2013. The lead investigator on the case later revealed that she wanted Duntsch's license suspended while the ten-month probe was underway, but board attorneys were not willing to go along. Board chairman Irwin Zeitzler later said that complications in neurosurgery were more common than most laymen believe, and it took until June 2013 to find the "pattern of patient injury" required to justify suspending Duntsch's license. He added that many board members found it hard to believe that a trained surgeon could be as incompetent as Duntsch appeared to be.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: The board called in veteran neurosurgeon Martin Lazar to review the case. Lazar was scathingly critical of Duntsch's work. For instance, he upbraided him for missing the signs that Martin was bleeding out, saying that, "You can't not know [that] and be a neurosurgeon." The Texas Medical Board revoked Duntsch's license on December 6, 2013. Texas Medical Board Revocation Order.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch moved to Denver, Colorado, and went into a downward spiral. He declared bankruptcy after listing debts of over $1 million. He was arrested for DUI in Denver, taken for a psychiatric evaluation in Dallas during one of his visits to see his children, and was arrested in Dallas for shoplifting.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: In March 2014, three former patients of Mary Efurd, Kenneth Fennel, and Lee filed separate federal lawsuits against Baylor Plano, alleging the hospital allowed Duntsch to perform surgeries despite knowing that he was a dangerous physician. Texas Attorney General and current Governor Greg Abbott filed a motion to intervene in the suits to defend Baylor Plano, citing the Texas legislature's 2003 statute that placed a medical malpractice cap of $250,000 and removed the term "gross negligence" from the definition of legal malice. The suit alleged that Baylor Plano made an average net profit of $65,000 on every spinal surgery performed by Duntsch.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Henderson and Kirby feared that Duntsch could move elsewhere and still theoretically get a medical license. Convinced that he was a clear and present danger to the public, they urged the Dallas County district attorney's office to pursue criminal charges. The inquiry went nowhere until 2015, when the statute of limitations on any potential charges was due to run out. Part of the problem was being able to prove that Duntsch's actions were willful as defined by Texas law. After interviewing dozens of Duntsch's patients and their survivors, prosecutors concluded that Duntsch's actions were indeed criminal, and nothing short of imprisonment would prevent him from practicing medicine again.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: As part of their investigation, prosecutors obtained a December 2011 email in which Duntsch boasted that he was "... ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold-blooded killer." ADA Michelle Shughart, who led the prosecution of Duntsch, later recalled that Henderson, Kirby, and Lazar contacted her demanding to testify against Duntsch; according to Shughart, doctors almost never testify against each other. In an article for "The Texas Prosecutor," the journal of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, Shughart and the other members of the trial team recalled that their superiors were initially skeptical when they presented the case, but eventually found themselves in "overwhelming disbelief" that a surgeon could do what Duntsch was accused of doing. As the trial team put it, the "scary pattern" of Duntsch's actions became apparent to the others in the office, leading the DA to give the green light to take the case to a grand jury.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: In July 2015, approximately a year and a half after his license was revoked, Duntsch was arrested in Dallas and charged with six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, and one count of injury to an elderly person. The indictments were made four months before the statute of limitations were to run out.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: The last charge was for the maiming and paralyzing of Efurd. Prosecutors put a high priority on that charge, as it provided the widest sentencing range, with Duntsch facing up to life in prison if convicted. They also believed that charge would be easy to prove in court; Duntsch had been told repeatedly that he was not placing the hardware in the correct position, and fluoroscopy images from Efurd's surgery proved this. Prosecutors sought a sentence long enough to ensure that Duntsch would never be able to practice medicine again. For the same reason, prosecutors opted to try Duntsch for Efurd's maiming first. He was held in the Dallas County jail for almost two years until the case went to trial in 2017. By this time, Duntsch was almost penniless, and the judge had to appoint a lawyer for him.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Shughart argued that Duntsch should have known he was likely to hurt others unless he changed his approach, and that his failure to learn from his past mistakes demonstrated that his maiming of Efurd was intentional. Prosecutors also faulted Duntsch's employers for not reporting him. They argued that Duntsch was motivated to continue operating because the lucrative salary of a neurosurgeon would solve his mounting financial problems.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Over objections from Duntsch's lawyers, prosecutors called many of Duntsch's other patients to the stand in order to prove that his actions were intentional. According to his lawyers, Duntsch had not realized how poorly he had performed as a surgeon until he heard the prosecution experts tell the jury about his many blunders on the operating table. Duntsch's defense blamed their client's actions on poor training and lack of oversight by the hospitals. Shughart countered that the 2011 email, sent after his first surgeries went wrong, proved that Duntsch knew his actions were intentional.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: After 13 days of trial, the jury needed only four hours to convict him for the maiming of Efurd. On February 20, 2017, he was sentenced to life in prison. On December 10, 2018, the Texas Court of Appeals affirmed Duntsch's conviction by a 2–1 split decision. On May 8, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Duntsch’s petition for discretionary review. The four hospitals that employed Duntsch have ongoing civil cases against him.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: Duntsch is housed at the O. B. Ellis Unit outside Huntsville. He is not eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74 years old.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: The conviction of Duntsch has been called a precedent-setting case, as it is believed to be the first time that a physician has been convicted on criminal charges for actions in the course of their medical work. The Dallas County district attorney's office called it "a historic case with respect to prosecuting a doctor who had done wrong during surgery."


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: The director of neurosurgery at UT Southwestern, Carlos Bagley, testifying for the defense, said that "the only way this happens is that the entire system fails the patients." A neurosurgery expert for Duntsch's defense team himself said, "The conditions which created Dr.Duntsch still exist, thereby making it possible for another to come along."


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: "Dr. Death", a TV mini-series based on the podcast, began streaming on Peacock on July 15, 2021. It stars Joshua Jackson as Duntsch, Alec Baldwin as Robert Henderson, Christian Slater as Randall Kirby and AnnaSophia Robb as Michelle Shughart. A follow-up docuseries, "Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story", was later released on Peacock on July 29, 2021, featuring interviews with some of Duntsch's patients and colleagues, as well as with Henderson, Kirby and Shughart.


title: Christopher Duntsch

text: In 2019, Duntsch was the focus of the premiere episode of "License to Kill", Oxygen's series on criminal medical professionals. In 2021, he was profiled on CNBC's "American Greed".


title: Sirius

text: Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CMa or α CMa. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, Sirius is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. Sirius is a binary star consisting of a main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed Sirius B. The distance between the two varies between 8.2 and 31.5 astronomical units as they orbit every 50 years.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius appears bright because of its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to the Solar System. At a distance of , the Sirius system is one of Earth's nearest neighbours. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar System, so it is expected to increase in brightness slightly over the next 60,000 years, reaching a peak magnitude of −1.68. After that time, its distance will begin to increase, and it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the Earth's night sky for approximately the next 210,000 years, before Vega, another A-type star and more luminous than Sirius, becomes the brightest star.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius A is about twice as massive as the Sun () and has an absolute visual magnitude of +1.43. It is 25 times as luminous as the Sun, but has a significantly lower luminosity than other bright stars such as Canopus, Betelgeuse, or Rigel. The system is between 200 and years old. It was originally composed of two bright bluish stars. The initially more massive of these, Sirius B, consumed its hydrogen fuel and became a red giant before shedding its outer layers and collapsing into its current state as a white dwarf around years ago.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius is known colloquially as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog). The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean.


title: Sirius

text: The brightest star seen from Earth, Sirius is recorded in some of the earliest astronomical records. Its displacement from the ecliptic causes its heliacal rising to be remarkably regular compared to other stars, with a period of almost exactly 365.25 days holding it constant relative to the solar year. This rising occurs at Cairo on 19July (Julian), placing it just before the onset of the annual flooding of the Nile during antiquity. Owing to the flood's own irregularity, the extreme precision of the star's return made it important to the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped it as the goddess Sopdet (, "Triangle"; , "Sō̂this"), guarantor of the fertility of their land.


title: Sirius

text: The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius as the morning star heralded the hot and dry summer and feared that the star caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused. Owing to its brightness, Sirius would have been seen to twinkle more in the unsettled weather conditions of early summer. To Greek observers, this signified emanations that caused its malignant influence. Anyone suffering its effects was said to be "star-struck" (, "astrobólētos"). It was described as "burning" or "flaming" in literature. The season following the star's reappearance came to be known as the "dog days". The inhabitants of the island of Ceos in the Aegean Sea would offer sacrifices to Sirius and Zeus to bring cooling breezes and would await the reappearance of the star in summer. If it rose clear, it would portend good fortune; if it was misty or faint then it foretold (or emanated) pestilence. Coins retrieved from the island from the 3rd century BC feature dogs or stars with emanating rays, highlighting Sirius's importance.


title: Sirius

text: The Romans celebrated the heliacal setting of Sirius around 25 April, sacrificing a dog, along with incense, wine, and a sheep, to the goddess Robigo so that the star's emanations would not cause wheat rust on wheat crops that year.


title: Sirius

text: Bright stars were important to the ancient Polynesians for navigation of the Pacific Ocean. They also served as latitude markers; the declination of Sirius matches the latitude of the archipelago of Fiji at 17°S and thus passes directly over the islands each sidereal day. Sirius served as the body of a "Great Bird" constellation called "Manu", with Canopus as the southern wingtip and Procyon the northern wingtip, which divided the Polynesian night sky into two hemispheres. Just as the appearance of Sirius in the morning sky marked summer in Greece, it marked the onset of winter for the Māori, whose name "Takurua" described both the star and the season. Its culmination at the winter solstice was marked by celebration in Hawaii, where it was known as "Ka'ulua", "Queen of Heaven". Many other Polynesian names have been recorded, including "Tau-ua" in the Marquesas Islands, "Rehua" in New Zealand, and "Ta'urua-fau-papa" "Festivity of original high chiefs" and "Ta'urua-e-hiti-i-te-tara-te-feiai" "Festivity who rises with prayers and religious ceremonies" in Tahiti.


title: Sirius

text: In 1717, Edmond Halley discovered the proper motion of the hitherto presumed "fixed" stars after comparing contemporary astrometric measurements with those from the second century AD given in Ptolemy's "Almagest". The bright stars Aldebaran, Arcturus and Sirius were noted to have moved significantly; Sirius had progressed about 30 arcminutes (about the diameter of the Moon) to the southwest.


title: Sirius

text: In 1868, Sirius became the first star to have its velocity measured, the beginning of the study of celestial radial velocities. Sir William Huggins examined the spectrum of the star and observed a red shift. He concluded that Sirius was receding from the Solar System at about 40 km/s. Compared to the modern value of −5.5 km/s, this was an overestimate and had the wrong sign; the minus sign (−) means that it is approaching the Sun.


title: Sirius

text: In his 1698 book, "Cosmotheoros", Christiaan Huygens estimated the distance to Sirius at 27,664 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun (about 0.437 light-year, translating to a parallax of roughly 7.5 arcseconds). There were several unsuccessful attempts to measure the parallax of Sirius: by Jacques Cassini (6 seconds); by some astronomers (including Nevil Maskelyne) using Lacaille's observations made at the Cape of Good Hope (4 seconds); by Piazzi (the same amount); using Lacaille's observations made at Paris, more numerous and certain than those made at the Cape (no sensible parallax); by Bessel (no sensible parallax).


title: Sirius

text: Scottish astronomer Thomas Henderson used his observations made in 1832–1833 and South African astronomer Thomas Maclear's observations made in 1836–1837, to determine that the value of the parallax was 0.23 arcsecond, and error of the parallax was estimated not to exceed a quarter of a second, or as Henderson wrote in 1839, "On the whole we may conclude that the parallax of Sirius is not greater than half a second in space; and that it is probably much less." Astronomers adopted a value of 0.25 arcsecond for much of the 19th century. It is now known to have a parallax of nearly .


title: Sirius

text: The Hipparcos parallax for Sirius is only accurate to about light years, giving a distance of . Sirius B is generally assumed to be at the same distance. Sirius B has a Gaia Data Release 3 parallax with a much smaller statistical margin of error, giving a distance of , but it is flagged as having a very large value for astrometric excess noise, which indicates that the parallax value may be unreliable.


title: Sirius

text: In a letter dated 10 August 1844, the German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel deduced from changes in the proper motion of Sirius that it had an unseen companion. On 31 January 1862, American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint companion, which is now called Sirius B, or affectionately "the Pup". This happened during testing of an aperture great refractor telescope for Dearborn Observatory, which was one of the largest refracting telescope lenses in existence at the time, and the largest telescope in the United States. Sirius B's sighting was confirmed on 8 March with smaller telescopes.


title: Sirius

text: The visible star is now sometimes known as Sirius A. Since 1894, some apparent orbital irregularities in the Sirius system have been observed, suggesting a third very small companion star, but this has never been confirmed. The best fit to the data indicates a six-year orbit around Sirius A and a mass of . This star would be five to ten magnitudes fainter than the white dwarf Sirius B, which would make it difficult to observe. Observations published in 2008 were unable to detect either a third star or a planet. An apparent "third star" observed in the 1920s is now believed to be a background object.


title: Sirius

text: In 1915, Walter Sydney Adams, using a reflector at Mount Wilson Observatory, observed the spectrum of Sirius B and determined that it was a faint whitish star. This led astronomers to conclude that it was a white dwarf—the second to be discovered. The diameter of Sirius A was first measured by Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Q. Twiss in 1959 at Jodrell Bank using their stellar intensity interferometer. In 2005, using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers determined that Sirius B has nearly the diameter of the Earth, , with a mass 102% of the Sun's.


title: Sirius

text: Around the year 150 AD, the Greek astronomer of the Roman period, Ptolemy of Alexandria mapped the stars in Books VII and VIII of his "Almagest", in which he used Sirius as the location for the globe's central meridian. He described Sirius as reddish, along with five other stars, Betelgeuse, Antares, Aldebaran, Arcturus and Pollux, all of which are of orange or red hue. The discrepancy was first noted by amateur astronomer Thomas Barker, squire of Lyndon Hall in Rutland, who prepared a paper and spoke at a meeting of the Royal Society in London in 1760. The existence of other stars changing in brightness gave credibility to the idea that some may change in colour too; Sir John Herschel noted this in 1839, possibly influenced by witnessing Eta Carinae two years earlier. Thomas Jefferson Jackson See resurrected discussion on red Sirius with the publication of several papers in 1892, and a final summary in 1926. He cited not only Ptolemy but also the poet Aratus, the orator Cicero, and general Germanicus as calling the star red, though acknowledging that none of the latter three authors were astronomers, the last two merely translating Aratus's poem "Phaenomena". Seneca had described Sirius as being of a deeper red than Mars. Not all ancient observers saw Sirius as red. The 1st-century poet Marcus Manilius described it as "sea-blue", as did the 4th-century Avienius. It was the standard white star in ancient China, and multiple records from the 2nd century BC up to the 7th century AD all describe Sirius as white.


title: Sirius

text: In 1985, German astronomers Wolfhard Schlosser and Werner Bergmann published an account of an 8th-century Lombardic manuscript, which contains "De cursu stellarum ratio" by St. Gregory of Tours. The Latin text taught readers how to determine the times of nighttime prayers from positions of the stars, and a bright star described as "rubeola"—"reddish" was claimed to be Sirius. The authors proposed this was further evidence Sirius B had been a red giant at the time. Other scholars replied that it was likely St. Gregory had been referring to Arcturus.


title: Sirius

text: The possibility that stellar evolution of either Sirius A or Sirius B could be responsible for this discrepancy has been rejected by astronomers on the grounds that the timescale of thousands of years is much too short and that there is no sign of the nebulosity in the system that would be expected had such a change taken place. An interaction with a third star, to date undiscovered, has also been proposed as a possibility for a red appearance. Alternative explanations are either that the description as red is a poetic metaphor for ill fortune, or that the dramatic scintillations of the star when rising left the viewer with the impression that it was red. To the naked eye, it often appears to be flashing with red, white, and blue hues when near the horizon.


title: Sirius

text: With an apparent magnitude of −1.46, Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, almost twice as bright as the second-brightest star, Canopus. From Earth, Sirius always appears dimmer than Jupiter and Venus, as well as Mercury and Mars at certain times. Sirius is visible from almost everywhere on Earth, except latitudes north of 73° N, and it does not rise very high when viewed from some northern cities (reaching only 13° above the horizon from Saint Petersburg). Because of its declination of roughly −17°, Sirius is a circumpolar star from latitudes south of 73° S. From the Southern Hemisphere in early July, Sirius can be seen in both the evening where it sets after the Sun and in the morning where it rises before the Sun. Along with Procyon and Betelgeuse, Sirius forms one of the three vertices of the Winter Triangle to observers in the Northern Hemisphere.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius can be observed in daylight with the naked eye under the right conditions. Ideally, the sky should be very clear, with the observer at a high altitude, the star passing overhead, and the Sun low on the horizon. These observing conditions are more easily met in the Southern Hemisphere, owing to the southerly declination of Sirius.


title: Sirius

text: The orbital motion of the Sirius binary system brings the two stars to a minimum angular separation of 3 arcseconds and a maximum of 11 arcseconds. At the closest approach, it is an observational challenge to distinguish the white dwarf from its more luminous companion, requiring a telescope with at least aperture and excellent seeing conditions. After a periastron occurred in 1994, the pair moved apart, making them easier to separate with a telescope. Apoastron occurred in 2019, but from the Earth's vantage point, the greatest observational separation will occur in 2023, with an angular separation of 11.333".


title: Sirius

text: At a distance of 2.6 parsecs (8.6 ly), the Sirius system contains two of the eight nearest stars to the Sun, and it is the fifth closest stellar system to the Sun. This proximity is the main reason for its brightness, as with other near stars such as Alpha Centauri, Procyon and Vega and in contrast to distant, highly luminous supergiants such as Canopus, Rigel or Betelgeuse.(Note that Canopus may be a bright giant) It is still around 25 times more luminous than the Sun. The closest large neighbouring star to Sirius is Procyon, 1.61 parsecs (5.24 ly) away. The "Voyager 2" spacecraft, launched in 1977 to study the four giant planets in the Solar System, is expected to pass within of Sirius in approximately 296,000 years.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius is a binary star system consisting of two white stars orbiting each other with a separation of about 20 AU (roughly the distance between the Sun and Uranus) and a period of 50.1 years. The brighter component, termed Sirius A, is a main-sequence star of spectral type early A, with an estimated surface temperature of 9,940 K. Its companion, Sirius B, is a star that has already evolved off the main sequence and become a white dwarf. Currently 10,000 times less luminous in the visual spectrum, Sirius B was once the more massive of the two. The age of the system has been estimated at around 230 million years. Early in its life, it is thought to have been two bluish-white stars orbiting each other in an elliptical orbit every 9.1 years. The system emits a higher than expected level of infrared radiation, as measured by IRAS space-based observatory. This might be an indication of dust in the system, which is considered somewhat unusual for a binary star. The Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows Sirius B outshining its partner as an X-ray source.


title: Sirius

text: In 2015, Vigan and colleagues used the VLT Survey Telescope to search for evidence of substellar companions, and were able to rule out the presence of giant planets 11 times more massive than Jupiter at 0.5 AU distance from Sirius A, 6–7 times the mass of Jupiter at 1–2 AU distance, and down to around 4 times the mass of Jupiter at 10 AU distance. Similarly, Lucas and colleagues did not detect any companions around Sirius B.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius A has a mass of . The radius of this star has been measured by an astronomical interferometer, giving an estimated angular diameter of 5.936±0.016 mas. The projected rotational velocity is a relatively low 16 km/s, which does not produce any significant flattening of its disk. This is at marked variance with the similar-sized Vega, which rotates at a much faster 274 km/s and bulges prominently around its equator. A weak magnetic field has been detected on the surface of Sirius A.


title: Sirius

text: Stellar models suggest that the star formed during the collapsing of a molecular cloud and that, after years, its internal energy generation was derived entirely from nuclear reactions. The core became convective and used the CNO cycle for energy generation. It is calculated that Sirius A will have completely exhausted the store of hydrogen at its core within a billion (10) years of its formation, and will then evolve away from the main sequence. It will pass through a red giant stage and eventually become a white dwarf.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius A is classed as an Am star because the spectrum shows deep metallic absorption lines, indicating an enhancement of its surface layers in elements heavier than helium, such as iron. The spectral type has been reported as A0mA1 Va, which indicates that it would be classified as A1 from hydrogen and helium lines, but A0 from the metallic lines that cause it to be grouped with the Am stars. When compared to the Sun, the proportion of iron in the atmosphere of Sirius A relative to hydrogen is given by formula_1, meaning iron is 316% as abundant as in the Sun's atmosphere. The high surface content of metallic elements is unlikely to be true of the entire star; rather the iron-peak and heavy metals are radiatively levitated towards the surface.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius B is one of the most massive white dwarfs known. With a mass of , it is almost double the average. This mass is packed into a volume roughly equal to the Earth's. The current surface temperature is 25,200 K. Because there is no internal heat source, Sirius B will steadily cool as the remaining heat is radiated into space over more than two billion years.


title: Sirius

text: A white dwarf forms after a star has evolved from the main sequence and then passed through a red giant stage. This occurred when Sirius B was less than half its current age, around 120 million years ago. The original star had an estimated and was a B-type star (most likely B5V for ) when it was still on the main sequence, potentially burning around 600-1200 times more luminous than the sun. While it passed through the red giant stage, Sirius B may have enriched the metallicity of its companion, explaining the very high metallicity of Sirius A.


title: Sirius

text: This star is primarily composed of a carbon–oxygen mixture that was generated by helium fusion in the progenitor star. This is overlaid by an envelope of lighter elements, with the materials segregated by mass because of the high surface gravity. The outer atmosphere of Sirius B is now almost pure hydrogen—the element with the lowest mass—and no other elements are seen in its spectrum.


title: Sirius

text: Since 1894, irregularities have been tentatively observed in the orbits of Sirius A and B with an apparent periodicity of 6–6.4 years. A 1995 study concluded that such a companion likely exists, with a mass of roughly 0.05 solar mass—a small red dwarf or large brown dwarf, with an apparent magnitude of more than 15, and less than 3 arcseconds from Sirius A.


title: Sirius

text: More recent (and accurate) astrometric observations by the Hubble Space Telescope ruled out the existence of such a Sirius C entirely. The 1995 study predicted an astrometric movement of roughly 90 mas (0.09 arcsecond), but Hubble was unable to detect any location anomaly to an accuracy of 5 mas (0.005 arcsec). This ruled out any objects orbiting Sirius A with more than 0.033 solar mass (35 Jupiter masses) orbiting in 0.5 years, and 0.014 (15 Jupiter masses) in 2 years. The study was also able to rule out any companions to Sirius B with more than 0.024 solar mass (25 Jupiter masses) orbiting in 0.5 year, and 0.0095 (10 Jupiter masses) orbiting in 1.8 years. Effectively, there are almost certainly no additional bodies in the Sirius system larger than a small brown dwarf or large exoplanet.


title: Sirius

text: In 1909, Ejnar Hertzsprung was the first to suggest that Sirius was a member of the Ursa Major Moving Group, based on his observations of the system's movements across the sky. The Ursa Major Group is a set of 220 stars that share a common motion through space. It was once a member of an open cluster, but has since become gravitationally unbound from the cluster. Analyses in 2003 and 2005 found Sirius's membership in the group to be questionable: the Ursa Major Group has an estimated age of 500 ± 100 million years, whereas Sirius, with metallicity similar to the Sun's, has an age that is only half this, making it too young to belong to the group. Sirius may instead be a member of the proposed Sirius Supercluster, along with other scattered stars such as Beta Aurigae, Alpha Coronae Borealis, Beta Crateris, Beta Eridani and Beta Serpentis. This would be one of three large clusters located within of the Sun. The other two are the Hyades and the Pleiades, and each of these clusters consists of hundreds of stars.


title: Sirius

text: In 2017, a massive star cluster was discovered only 10 arcminutes from Sirius, making the two appear to be visually close to one other when viewed from the point of view of the Earth. It was discovered during a statistical analysis of "Gaia" data. The cluster is over a thousand times further away from us than the star system, but given its size it still appears at magnitude 8.3.


title: Sirius

text: The proper name "Sirius" comes from the Latin "Sīrius", from the Ancient Greek "Σείριος" ("Seirios", "glowing" or "scorcher"). The Greek word itself may have been imported from elsewhere before the Archaic period, one authority suggesting a link with the Egyptian god Osiris. The name's earliest recorded use dates from the 7th century BC in Hesiod's poetic work "Works and Days". In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included "Sirius" for the star α Canis Majoris A. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius has over 50 other designations and names attached to it. In Geoffrey Chaucer's essay "Treatise on the Astrolabe", it bears the name Alhabor and is depicted by a hound's head. This name is widely used on medieval astrolabes from Western Europe. In Sanskrit it is known as "Mrgavyadha" "deer hunter", or "Lubdhaka" "hunter". As Mrgavyadha, the star represents Rudra (Shiva). The star is referred to as "Makarajyoti" in Malayalam and has religious significance to the pilgrim center Sabarimala. In Scandinavia, the star has been known as "Lokabrenna" ("burning done by Loki", or "Loki's torch"). In the astrology of the Middle Ages, Sirius was a Behenian fixed star, associated with beryl and juniper. Its astrological symbol was listed by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.


title: Sirius

text: Many cultures have historically attached special significance to Sirius, particularly in relation to dogs. It is often colloquially called the "Dog Star" as the brightest star of Canis Major, the "Great Dog" constellation. Canis Major was classically depicted as Orion's dog. The Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius's emanations could affect dogs adversely, making them behave abnormally during the "dog days", the hottest days of the summer. The Romans knew these days as , and the star Sirius was called Canicula, "little dog". The excessive panting of dogs in hot weather was thought to place them at risk of desiccation and disease. In extreme cases, a foaming dog might have rabies, which could infect and kill humans they had bitten. Homer, in the "Iliad", describes the approach of Achilles toward Troy in these words:


title: Sirius

text: In Iranian mythology, especially in Persian mythology and in Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, Sirius appears as "Tishtrya" and is revered as the rain-maker divinity (Tishtar of New Persian poetry). Beside passages in the sacred texts of the Avesta, the Avestan language "Tishtrya" followed by the version "Tir" in Middle and New Persian is also depicted in the Persian epic "Shahnameh" of Ferdowsi. Because of the concept of the yazatas, powers which are "worthy of worship", Tishtrya is a divinity of rain and fertility and an antagonist of apaosha, the demon of drought. In this struggle, Tishtrya is depicted as a white horse.


title: Sirius

text: In Chinese astronomy Sirius is known as the star of the "celestial wolf" ( Chinese romanization: Tiānláng; Japanese romanization: Tenrō; Korean and romanization: 천랑 /Tsŏnrang) in the Mansion of Jǐng (井宿). Many nations among the indigenous peoples of North America also associated Sirius with canines; the Seri and Tohono Oʼodham of the southwest note the star as a dog that follows mountain sheep, while the Blackfoot called it "Dog-face". The Cherokee paired Sirius with Antares as a dog-star guardian of either end of the "Path of Souls". The Pawnee of Nebraska had several associations; the Wolf (Skidi) tribe knew it as the "Wolf Star", while other branches knew it as the "Coyote Star". Further north, the Alaskan Inuit of the Bering Strait called it "Moon Dog".


title: Sirius

text: Several cultures also associated the star with a bow and arrows. The ancient Chinese visualized a large bow and arrow across the southern sky, formed by the constellations of Puppis and Canis Major. In this, the arrow tip is pointed at the wolf Sirius. A similar association is depicted at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, where the goddess Satet has drawn her arrow at Hathor (Sirius). Known as "Tir", the star was portrayed as the arrow itself in later Persian culture.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius is mentioned in "Surah", "An-Najm" ("The Star"), of the Qur'an, where it is given the name (transliteration: "aš-ši'rā" or "ash-shira"; the leader). The verse is: "", "That He is the Lord of Sirius (the Mighty Star)." (An-Najm:49) Ibn Kathir said in his commentary "that it is the bright star, named Mirzam Al-Jawza' (Sirius), which a group of Arabs used to worship". The alternate name "Aschere", used by Johann Bayer, is derived from this.


title: Sirius

text: In theosophy, it is believed the "Seven Stars of the Pleiades" transmit the spiritual energy of the Seven Rays from the "Galactic Logos" to the "Seven Stars of the Great Bear", then to Sirius. From there is it sent via the Sun to the god of Earth (Sanat Kumara), and finally through the seven Masters of the Seven Rays to the human race.


title: Sirius

text: The midnight culmination of Sirius in the northern hemisphere coincides with the beginning of the New Year of the Gregorian Calendar during the decades around the year 2000. Over the years, its midnight culmination moves slowly, owing to the combination of the star's proper motion and the precession of the equinoxes. At the time of the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in the year 1582, its culmination occurred 17 minutes before midnight into the new year under the assumption of a constant motion. According to Richard Hinckley Allen its mightnight culmination was celebrated at the Temple of Demeter at Eleusis.


title: Sirius

text: The Dogon people are an ethnic group in Mali, West Africa, reported by some researchers to have traditional astronomical knowledge about Sirius that would normally be considered impossible without the use of telescopes. According to Marcel Griaule, they knew about the fifty-year orbital period of Sirius and its companion prior to western astronomers.


title: Sirius

text: Doubts have been raised about the validity of Griaule and Dieterlein's work. In 1991, anthropologist Walter van Beek concluded about the Dogon, "Though they do speak about "sigu tolo" [which is what Griaule claimed the Dogon called Sirius] they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the "sigu" [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as "sigu tolo". All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule." According to Noah Brosch cultural transfer of relatively modern astronomical information could have taken place in 1893, when a French expedition arrived in Central West Africa to observe the total eclipse on 16 April.


title: Sirius

text: In his pseudoarcheology book "The Sirius Mystery", Robert Temple claimed that the Dogon people have a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from Sirius.


title: Sirius

text: In the religion of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania, Sirius is called "Yoonir" from the Serer language (and some of the Cangin language speakers, who are all ethnically Serers). The star Sirius is one of the most important and sacred stars in Serer religious cosmology and symbolism. The Serer high priests and priestesses (Saltigues, the hereditary "rain priests") chart "Yoonir" in order to forecast rainfall and enable Serer farmers to start planting seeds. In Serer religious cosmology, it is the symbol of the universe.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius features on the coat of arms of Macquarie University, and is the name of its alumnae journal. Seven ships of the Royal Navy have been called since the 18th century, with the first being the flagship of the First Fleet to Australia in 1788. The Royal Australian Navy subsequently named a vessel in honor of the flagship. American vessels include the as well as a monoplane model—the Lockheed Sirius, the first of which was flown by Charles Lindbergh. The name was also adopted by Mitsubishi Motors as the Mitsubishi Sirius engine in 1980. The name of the North American satellite radio company CD Radio was changed to Sirius Satellite Radio in November 1999, being named after "the brightest star in the night sky". Sirius is one of the 27 stars on the flag of Brazil, where it represents the state of Mato Grosso.


title: Sirius

text: Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who wrote a piece called "Sirius", is claimed to have said on several occasions that he came from a planet in the Sirius system. To Stockhausen, Sirius stood for "the place where music is the highest of vibrations" and where music had been developed in the most perfect way.


title: Sirius

text: Sirius has been the subject of poetry. Dante and John Milton reference the star, and it is the "powerful western fallen star" of Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", while Tennyson's poem "The Princess" describes the star's scintillation:


title: Sirius

text: As Sirius is situated far south of the ecliptic, none of the planets of our solar system can be seen closer than 30 degrees to Sirius. However some planetoids with high-inclined orbits can be seen at rare occasions near Sirius or can even occult it.


title: Sirius

text: On February 19th, 2019 the small, 16.7 mag bright asteroid Jürgenstock occulted Sirius for observers in the Caribic and in South America and on October 9th, 2022 8.7 mag bright Pallas passed 8.5 arcminutes north of Sirius.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone is a hypnotic sedative. It was sold under the brand names Quaalude ( ) and Sopor among others, which contained 300 mg of methaqualone, and sold as a combination drug under the brand name Mandrax, which contained 250 mg methaqualone and 25 mg diphenhydramine within the same tablet, mostly in Europe. Commercial production of methaqualone was halted in the mid-1980s due to widespread abuse and addictiveness. It is a member of the quinazolinone class.


title: Methaqualone

text: The sedative–hypnotic activity of methaqualone was first noted in 1955. In 1962, methaqualone was patented in the United States by Wallace and Tiernan. Its use peaked in the early 1970s for the treatment of insomnia, and as a sedative and muscle relaxant.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone became increasingly popular as a recreational drug and club drug in the late 1960s and 1970s, known variously as "ludes" or "disco biscuits" due to its widespread use during the popularity of disco in the 1970s, or "sopers" (also "soaps") in the United States and Canada, and "mandrakes" and "mandies" in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. The substance was sold both as a free base and as a salt (hydrochloride).


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone is a sedative that increases the activity of the GABA receptors in the brain and nervous system, similarly to benzodiazepines and barbiturates. When GABA activity is increased, blood pressure drops and breathing and pulse rates slow, leading to a state of deep relaxation. These properties explain why methaqualone was originally mainly prescribed for insomnia.


title: Methaqualone

text: Additional effects are delirium, convulsions, hypertonia, hyperreflexia, vomiting, kidney failure, coma, and death through cardiac or respiratory arrest. It resembles barbiturate poisoning, but with increased motor difficulties and a lower incidence of cardiac or respiratory depression.


title: Methaqualone

text: The standard single tablet adult dose of Quaalude brand of methaqualone was 300 mg when made by Lemmon. A dose of 8000 mg is lethal and a dose as little as 2000 mg could induce a coma if taken with an alcoholic beverage.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone peaks in the bloodstream within several hours, with a half-life of 20–60 hours. While the salt methaqualone hydrochloride is typically used clinically, methaqualone free-base was also marketed, namely as the methaqualone component of Mandrax, a combination drug which contained 250 mg methaqualone and 25 mg diphenhydramine within the same tablet. Oral dosage forms of methaqualone hydrochloride were manufactured as capsules, whereas oral dosage forms of methaqualone free-base were manufactured as tablets.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone was first synthesized in India in 1951 by Indra Kishore Kacker and Syed Husain Zaheer, who were conducting research on finding new antimalarial medications. By 1965, it was the most commonly prescribed sedative in Britain, where it has been sold legally under the names Malsed, Malsedin, and Renoval. In 1965, a methaqualone/antihistamine combination was sold as the sedative drug Mandrax in Europe, by Roussel Laboratories (now part of Sanofi S.A.). In 1972, it was the sixth-bestselling sedative in the US, where it was legal under the brand name Quaalude.


title: Methaqualone

text: Quaalude in the United States was originally manufactured in 1965 by the Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, based pharmaceutical firm William H. Rorer, Inc. The drug name "Quaalude" is a portmanteau, combining the words "quiet interlude" and shared a stylistic reference to another drug marketed by the firm, Maalox.


title: Methaqualone

text: In 1978, Rorer sold the rights to manufacture Quaalude to the Lemmon Company of Sellersville, Pennsylvania. At that time, Rorer chairman John Eckman commented on Quaalude's bad reputation stemming from illegal manufacture and use of methaqualone, and illegal sale and use of legally prescribed Quaalude: "Quaalude accounted for less than 2% of our sales, but created 98% of our headaches."


title: Methaqualone

text: Both companies still regarded Quaalude as an excellent sleeping drug. Lemmon, well aware of Quaalude's public image problems, used advertisements in medical journals to urge physicians "not to permit the abuses of illegal users to deprive a legitimate patient of the drug". Lemmon also marketed a small quantity under another name, Mequin, so doctors could prescribe the drug without the negative connotations.


title: Methaqualone

text: The rights to Quaalude were held by the JB Roerig & Company division of Pfizer, before the drug was discontinued in the United States in 1985, mainly due to its psychological addictiveness, widespread abuse, and illegal recreational use.


title: Methaqualone

text: It was sold under the brand name Quaalude and sometimes stylized "Quāālude" in the United States and Canada, and Mandrax in the UK, South Africa, and Australia.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone was initially placed in Schedule I as defined by the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, but was moved to Schedule II in 1979.


title: Methaqualone

text: In Canada, methaqualone is listed in Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and requires a prescription, but it is no longer manufactured. Methaqualone is banned in India.


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone became increasingly popular as a recreational drug in the late 1960s and 1970s, known variously as "ludes" or "sopers" (also "soaps") in the United States and "mandrakes" and "mandies" in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. "Sopor" is a Latin word for sleep.


title: Methaqualone

text: The drug was more tightly regulated in Britain under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and in the U.S. from 1973. It was withdrawn from many developed markets in the early 1980s. In the United States it was withdrawn in 1983 and made a Schedule I drug in 1984. It has a DEA ACSCN of 2565 and in 2022 the aggregate annual manufacturing quota for the United States was 60 grams.


title: Methaqualone

text: Mention of its possible use in some types of cancer and AIDS treatments has periodically appeared in the literature since the late 1980s. Research does not appear to have reached an advanced stage. The DEA has also added the methaqualone analogue mecloqualone (also a result of some incomplete clandestine syntheses) to Schedule I as ACSCN 2572, with a manufacturing quota of 30 g.


title: Methaqualone

text: Gene Haislip, the former head of the Chemical Control Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told the PBS documentary program "Frontline", "We beat 'em." By working with governments and manufacturers around the world, the DEA was able to halt production and, Haislip said, "eliminated the problem". Methaqualone was manufactured in the United States under the name Quaalude by the pharmaceutical firms Rorer and Lemmon with the numbers 714 stamped on the tablet, so people often referred to Quaalude as 714's, "Lemmons", or "Lemmon 7's".


title: Methaqualone

text: Methaqualone was also manufactured in the US under the trade names Sopor and Parest. After the legal manufacture of the drug ended in the United States in 1982, underground laboratories in Mexico continued the illegal manufacture of methaqualone throughout the 1980s, continuing the use of the "714" stamp, until their popularity waned in the early 1990s. Drugs purported to be methaqualone are in a significant majority of cases found to be inert, or contain diphenhydramine or benzodiazepines.


title: Methaqualone

text: Illicit methaqualone is one of the most commonly used recreational drugs in South Africa. Manufactured clandestinely, often in India, it comes in tablet form, but is smoked with marijuana. This method of ingestion is known as "white pipe". It is popular elsewhere in Africa and in India.


title: Methaqualone

text: Illegal efforts to weaponize methaqualone have occurred. During the 1980s, the apartheid regime in South Africa ordered the covert manufacture of a large amount of methaqualone at the front company Delta G Scientific Company, as part of a then-secret chemical weapons programme known as Project Coast. Methaqualone was given the codename "MosRefCat" (Mossgas Refinery Catalyst). Details of this activity came to light during the 1998 hearings of the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Louis Cachet (born Kristian Vikernes; 11 February 1973), better known as Varg Vikernes (), is a Norwegian writer and retired musician best known for his early black metal albums and later crimes. His first five records, issued under the name Burzum from 1992 to 1996, made him one of the most influential figures in black metal. In 1994, he was convicted of murder and arson, and subsequently served 15 years in prison.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: A native of Bergen, Vikernes began playing guitar at the age of 14 and formed his first band, Kalashnikov (later known as Uruk-Hai), by 1989. Around the same time, he would go on to join the band Old Funeral, in which he briefly played guitar from 1989 until his departure in 1991. He recorded multiple tracks with the band, which were featured on the "Devoured Carcass" EP, as well as various compilation albums released years later. After founding Burzum, he became part of the early Norwegian black metal scene. In 1992, Vikernes, along with other members of the scene, was suspected of burning down four Christian churches in Norway. Vikernes denied committing the arsons, though he supported them. In 1992–1993, he also recorded bass for Mayhem's debut album "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In August 1993, Vikernes fatally stabbed Mayhem guitarist Euronymous during an altercation at the latter's apartment, and was arrested shortly after. In May 1994, Vikernes was convicted of first-degree murder, church arson and possession of explosives. Vikernes said the killing was self-defense and unsuccessfully argued for the charge to be reduced to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum penalty under Norwegian law. During his incarceration, Vikernes launched the Norwegian Heathen Front, had two books published, and released two ambient albums as Burzum. In 2009, he was released on parole, after which he moved to France with his wife and children, where he has continued to write and make music. He was also an active video blogger on his YouTube channel ThuleanPerspective, before the channel was deleted.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Described by Sam Dunn as "the most notorious metal musician of all time", Vikernes remains controversial for his crimes as well as his political and religious views. He promoted views which combined Odinism and Esoteric Nazism, and openly embraced Nazism during the mid-late 1990s. He has since disavowed the ideology and its associated movements, although critics continue to label his views as far-right. Vikernes calls his beliefs "Odalism" and advocates a "pre-industrial European pagan society", opposing Christianity, Islam, Judaism, capitalism, socialism and materialism.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In the interviews printed in the 1998 book "Lords of Chaos", Vikernes discusses his background and childhood. "Lords of Chaos" also includes an interview with his mother, Helene Bore (the book and a newspaper depicted there refer to her with the given name Lene, whereas Vikernes' own website uses the name Helene). In a 2004 interview, Vikernes said his mother was "working in a large oil company". His father is an electronics engineer, and his older brother is a civil engineer.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In the "Lords of Chaos" interview, Vikernes recalls that when he was 6 years old, the family moved for about a year to Baghdad, Iraq, because Vikernes' "father was working for Saddam Hussein" developing a computer program. Since there were no places available in the English school in Baghdad, the young Vikernes went to an Iraqi elementary school during this time. According to his interview, Vikernes here became "aware of racial matters". Corporal punishment was very common in the school, and on one occasion, Vikernes had a "quarrel" with a teacher and called him "a monkey". But as Vikernes perceived it the teachers "didn't dare to hit me because I was white". Vikernes' mother also recalls that "the other children in his class would get slapped by their teachers; he would not". She mentions that this created problems, but generally she "has no good explanation" of how Varg developed his views.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: When asked about his father, Vikernes states that he was hysterical that his son "had a swastika flag at home". Vikernes feels that his father was a hypocrite because he was worried about Vikernes "being a Nazi", whereas he too was "pissed about all the colored people he saw in town". About his mother, Vikernes states that she was "very race conscious", in the sense that she was afraid that Vikernes "was going to come home with a black girl!" At the time of the 1995 "Lords of Chaos" interview, Vikernes still had a positive relationship with his mother but "very little contact" with his father. He also stated that his parents are divorced; Vikernes' father is said to have "left about 10 years ago", which would have been 1985, when Vikernes was 11 or 12.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: The "Encyclopedia of White Power" and historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke have both alleged that Vikernes was part of the neo-Nazi skinhead culture as an adolescent. When asked in the "Lords of Chaos" interview whether he hung out with skinheads in Bergen, Vikernes said that "there were no skinheads in Bergen".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: According to an interview posted on his official website, Vikernes' facial scar was caused by a skiing accident when he was 11 years old.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: A fan of classical music as a child, Tchaikovsky in particular, Vikernes started listening to heavy metal at 12, citing Iron Maiden as his biggest inspiration. Later he discovered other metal bands whose sound would be influential on his own band, such as Kreator, Sodom, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Destruction, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Slayer, Pestilence, Deicide and Von. Although Venom are widely considered the primary influence on black metal, Vikernes has always denied to be influenced by them, as well as defining the band as "a joke". He once wore a T-shirt of Venom's "Black Metal" to promote the genre but stated he later regretted doing that.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: From an early age, Vikernes was also deeply fascinated with the fictional realm of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. His stage name, Grishnakh, is taken from that of an orc in "The Two Towers", while the band name Burzum, meaning "darkness", was taken from the Black Speech inscribed on the One Ring in "The Lord of the Rings". The inscription read "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh "burzum"-ishi krimpatul", or in English, "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the "darkness" bind them." Additionally, before joining the Bergen death metal band Old Funeral, he was in a band called Uruk-Hai, which was named for a type of orc from Tolkien's writing.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes started playing guitar at the age of 14. When he was 17, Vikernes came into contact with members of Old Funeral. He played guitar with them during 1990–1991 and performed on their "Devoured Carcass" EP before he began his solo musical project, Burzum, and quickly became involved with the early Norwegian black metal scene. During 1992–1993, he recorded four albums as Burzum.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes has stated that for the recording of these early albums he used an old Westone guitar, which he had bought in 1987 from an acquaintance. He used the cheapest bass guitar there was in his local shop and borrowed a drum kit from Old Funeral, the successor band Immortal, and "another musician living nearby". On "Hvis lyset tar oss", he also borrowed Hellhammer's drum kit, the same one Hellhammer used to record "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" by Mayhem. He used a Peavey amplifier, but for the recording of "Filosofem", he used the amplifier on his brother's stereo and some old fuzz pedals. For vocals, he would use whatever microphone the sound tech handed him, but during the recording of "Filosofem", he intentionally used the worst mic they had, a headset mic. On the track "Dungeons of Darkness", he used the large gong at Grieghallen for background noise (Euronymous assisted him by beating his fists on it).


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In 1992, Vikernes joined the black metal band Mayhem, a year after band member Dead committed suicide on 8 April 1991. Vikernes replaced bassist Necrobutcher, who quit the band because of Euronymous' treatment of Dead's suicide.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes has distanced himself from his black metal past, claiming he "came under the influence of an absolute degenerate loser, Øystein", and blaming his past actions and "degeneracy" on the negative influence of others in the scene. In a 2020 blog post, Vikernes wrote that he had many differences with others in the black metal scene from the beginning; they did not care for his political opinions or rifle collection, and he changed his beliefs to fit in.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On 6 June 1992, the Fantoft Stave Church, dating from the 12th century and considered architecturally significant, was burned to the ground by arson. The cover of Burzum's EP "Aske" ("ashes") is a photograph of the destroyed church. By January 1993, arson attacks had occurred on at least seven other major stave churches, including one on Christmas Eve of 1992. Vikernes was found guilty of several of these cases: the arson and attempted arson of Åsane Church and Storetveit Church in Bergen, the arson of Skjold Church in Vindafjord, and the arson of Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo. He was also charged with the arson of Fantoft Stave Church, although the jurors found him not guilty. The judges called this an error but did not overthrow the whole case.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: At the time, media outlets reported that Vikernes was associated with theistic Satanism. In later interviews Vikernes, while not accepting responsibility for the arsons, said that they were not Satanic, but instead "revenge" for the Christian desecration of Viking graves and temples. According to Vikernes, the arsons were on the anniversary of the Lindisfarne Viking raid. Vikernes claimed that all the burnings, except for the one at Stavanger, were done by one person.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In January 1993, an article in one of Norway's biggest newspapers, "Bergens Tidende", brought the black metal scene into the media spotlight. Two friends of Vikernes interviewed him and brought the interview to the newspaper, hoping they would print it. In the anonymous interview, "Count Grishnackh" (Vikernes) claimed to have burnt the churches and killed a man in Lillehammer. "BT" journalist Finn Bjørn Tønder set up a meeting with Count Grishnackh with help from the friends. The journalists were summoned to an apartment and reportedly warned that they would be shot if the police were called. There, Vikernes and his companions told the journalists that they had burnt the churches, or knew who had done it, and said that the attacks would continue. They claimed to be devil worshippers and said: "Our intention is to spread fear and devilry [...] that is why we are telling this to "Bergens Tidende"." They gave the journalists details about the arsons that hadn't been released to the press, so "BT" spoke with the police before publishing it, who confirmed these details.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: The article was published on 20 January as the front page of the "BT". It was headlined "We Lit the Fires" and included a photo of Vikernes, his face mostly hidden, holding two large knives. However, by the time the article was printed, Vikernes had already been arrested. The police found him by going to an address printed on a Burzum flyer.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: According to Vikernes, the anonymous interview was planned by himself and Euronymous. The goal, he says, was to scare people, promote black metal, and get more customers for Helvete. At the time, Burzum was about to release the "Aske" mini-album. Some of the other scene members were also arrested and questioned, but all were released for lack of evidence. Jørn Inge Tunsberg of Hades said that the interview had "grave consequences" for the rest of the scene and that they did not know he was going to talk to the press, as "he had said nothing". He added that they became "bloody angry" and he, Tunsberg, was "pissed off".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Norwegian magazine "Rock Furore" published an interview with Vikernes in February 1993. In it, he said of the prison system: "It's much too nice here. It's not hell at all. In this country prisoners get a bed, toilet and shower. It's completely ridiculous. I asked the police to throw me in a real dungeon, and also encouraged them to use violence". He was released in March for lack of evidence.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In early 1993, animosity arose between Euronymous and Vikernes. After the "Bergens Tidende" episode, Euronymous decided to shut Helvete as it began to draw the attention of the police and media.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On the night of 10 August 1993, Vikernes stabbed Euronymous to death at his apartment in Oslo. The murder was initially blamed on Swedish black metallers by the media. It has been speculated that the murder was the result of a power struggle, a financial dispute over Burzum records (Euronymous owed Vikernes a large sum of royalty payments), or an attempt at "outdoing" a recent stabbing in Lillehammer committed by Emperor drummer Faust. Vikernes claims that he killed Euronymous in self-defense. He says that Euronymous had plotted to stun him with an electroshock weapon, tie him up, and torture him to death while videotaping the event. Vikernes explains: "If he was talking about it to everybody and anybody I wouldn't have taken it seriously. But he just told a select group of friends, and one of them told me". He said Euronymous planned to use a meeting about an unsigned contract to ambush him.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On the night of the murder, Vikernes and Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch drove from Bergen to Euronymous' apartment at Tøyengata in Oslo. Blackthorn allegedly stood in the stairwell smoking while Vikernes went to Euronymous' apartment on the fourth floor. Vikernes said he met Euronymous at the door to hand him the signed contract, but when he stepped forward and confronted Euronymous, Euronymous "panicked" and kicked him in the chest. Vikernes claims Euronymous ran into the kitchen to fetch a knife. The two got into a struggle and Vikernes stabbed Euronymous to death. His body was found in the stairwell on the first floor with 23 stab wounds—two to the head, five to the neck, and 16 to the back. Vikernes claimed his final stab to the skull was so powerful the knife remained stuck in Euronymous' skull, but no physical evidence or bodily injuries supported his claim. Vikernes contended that most of Euronymous' wounds were caused by broken glass he had fallen on during the struggle. After the murder, Vikernes and Blackthorn drove back to Bergen. On the way, they stopped at a lake where Vikernes disposed of his bloodstained clothes. This claim of self-defense is doubted by Emperor drummer Faust, but Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher believed Vikernes did kill Euronymous due to the aforementioned death threats.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Blackthorn claimed Vikernes planned to murder Euronymous and pressured him into coming along. He claimed that, in the summer of 1993, he was almost committed to a mental hospital but fled to Bergen and stayed with Vikernes. Blackthorn said of the murder, "I was neither for nor against it. I didn't give a shit about Øystein". Vikernes, however, claims that he had not planned the killing and that Blackthorn came along to show Euronymous some new guitar riffs. Vikernes called Blackthorn's claims a "defense [...] to make sure I couldn't blame "him" [for the murder]".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes was arrested on 19 August 1993 in Bergen. The police found 150 kg of explosives and 3,000 rounds of ammunition in his home. According to the "Encyclopedia of White Power", Vikernes "intended to blow up Blitz House, the radical leftist and anarchist enclave in Oslo", a plan that "was reportedly on the verge of execution." In an article originally published in 1999, Kevin Coogan also mentioned Vikernes' alleged intent to "destroy an Oslo-based punk anti-fascist squat called Blitz House", and stated "Vikernes may have felt that he had no choice but to kill Euronymous before bombing Blitz House because 'the Communist' would almost certainly have opposed such an act." Vikernes denied these claims in a 2009 interview, saying he was collecting explosives and ammunition "in order to defend Norway if we were attacked any time."


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes' trial began on 2 May 1994; he was represented by the lawyer Stein-Erik Mattsson. Many other members of the scene, including Blackthorn and Faust, were put on trial around the same time. Some of them confessed to their crimes and implicated others. According to "Lords of Chaos", "Vikernes is disgusted by the fact that, while he held fast to a code of silence, others confessed."


title: Varg Vikernes

text: During the trial the media made Vikernes "the nation's first real bogeyman in fifty years". At the trial it was claimed that he, Blackthorn, and another friend had planned the murder. The court alleged that this third person stayed at the apartment in Bergen as an alibi; to make it look like they never left Bergen, he was to rent films, play them in the apartment, and withdraw money from Vikernes' credit card.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On 16 May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison (Norway's maximum penalty) for the murder of Euronymous, the arson of three churches, the attempted arson of a fourth church, and for the theft and storage of 150 kg of explosives. Though Vikernes only confessed to the theft and storage of the explosives, two churches were set on fire the day he was sentenced, "presumably as a statement of symbolic support". Blackthorn, who hadn't taken part in the murder as he had gone down the condominium's stairs to smoke, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for being an accomplice.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: May 1994 also saw the release of Mayhem's album "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", which has Euronymous on electric guitar and Vikernes on bass guitar. Before the release, Euronymous' family had asked Mayhem's drummer, Hellhammer, to remove the bass tracks recorded by Vikernes. Hellhammer said "I thought it was appropriate that the murderer and victim were on the same record. I put word out that I was re-recording the bass parts, but I never did."


title: Varg Vikernes

text: According to Swedish scholar Matthias Gardell in his book "Gods of the Blood", Vikernes launched the Norwegian Heathen Front ("Norsk Hedensk Front") during his early years in prison. Gardell says this was a pagan neo-Nazi group that grew into the international Pan-Germanic Heathen Front ("Allgermanische Heidnische Front" or AHF). According to Xavier Cattarinich, Vikernes was the "self-proclaimed leader" of the Norwegian Heathen Front and Goodrick-Clarke mentions that Vikernes underlined "his role as chieftain of his Norwegian Heathen Front" with the writing of "Vargsmål". The Heathen Front officially denied that Vikernes was in charge. According to the authors of "Lord of Chaos", this may have been to protect him, as Norwegian prisoners were prohibited from leading political groups. In addition, the organization's listed address was the same PO box Vikernes used in prison, which the authors state would have made it "very hard for him [Vikernes] to do an effective job" at leading the organization, as all letters would have been screened by the prison personnel. Vikernes said "I have never formed or been a member of such organizations. The only organization I am a member of is Riksmålsforbundet" ("The Society for the Preservation of Traditional Standard Norwegian"). He however came in contact with the neo-Nazi group Zorn 88, and wrote articles in its magazine "Gjallarhorn". One of the group's leading members, esoterist Jan Erik Kvamsdahl helped Vikernes publish "Vargsmål" and set up the Heathen Front according to the "Monitor" organization.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On 8 April 1997, Norwegian police arrested five neo-Nazis in Hemnes. According to police, the young men were part of a self-styled "Einsatzgruppe" and were plotting attacks on political and religious figures in Norway. They also had plans to break Vikernes out of prison. The group "had all the trappings of a paramilitary unit", including guns, explosives, bulletproof vests, steel helmets and balaclavas. One of its members, Tom Eiternes, had befriended Vikernes in prison before escaping while on leave. Vikernes' mother, Lene Bore, was arrested for supplying the group with 100,000 kroner. She confessed, but claimed she did not know they were "right-wing extremists" and said her son was being attacked by fellow inmates. In late 1996, his jaw had reportedly been broken in a fight with another inmate. However, the prison director said her claims were unfounded, and police suspected that the money came from Vikernes himself. "Lords of Chaos" says that Vikernes adopted a "skinhead" look and wore a belt buckle with SS insignia around this time. Despite her confession, Bore was not convicted, and in 1998 the case against the "Einsatzgruppe" was dropped.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: During his time in prison, Vikernes recorded two albums made up wholly of ambient and neofolk music. The first, "Dauði Baldrs", was recorded in 1994–1995 and released in October 1997. The second, "Hliðskjálf", was recorded in 1998 and released in April 1999. Vikernes was denied access to an electric guitar, bass guitar or drums, and instead used a synthesizer. In 2000, Vikernes decided to put Burzum on hold. He believed that his philosophy was constantly misinterpreted by an ignorant fan base that was too closely related to black metal and Satanism. Later, through his website, he indicated that he hoped to continue Burzum after his release from prison, stating: "I will publish a few books, possibly using a pseudonym in order to stay anonymous, and perhaps a Burzum album or two, but that's it". In the early 2000s Vikernes regularly wrote articles in the magazine of the neopagan neo-Nazi group Vigrid.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In August 2003, Vikernes was transferred from a maximum-security prison in Bergen to the low-security prison in Tønsberg. On 15 October, the local paper, "Tønsbergs Blad", published an article that criticised Vikernes. On 26 October, Vikernes went on the run after being granted a short leave. He stopped a car in Numedal. Inside it was a family of three, who said that he hijacked the car at gunpoint. About 19 hours later, police stopped the car in Romerike and arrested him. The car contained knives, a gas mask, camouflage clothing, a portable GPS navigator, maps, a compass, a laptop and a mobile phone. Police also found a handgun and an AG3 automatic rifle in a cabin in Rollag, where Vikernes had hidden during his escape. They concluded that his escape "was well planned and involved assistance from several people on the outside". Before the escape, Vikernes gave his mother a letter. In it, he wrote that he had received death threats and another inmate had tried to strangle him shortly after the newspaper article was published. For his actions, thirteen months were added to Vikernes' sentence and he was moved to a prison in Ringerike. In July 2004, he was moved to a maximum-security prison in Trondheim. The last three years of his sentence were spent in Tromsø Prison.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: When Vikernes was convicted, it was possible to be released on parole after serving 12 years of a 21-year sentence, but in 2002, before he became eligible, the Norwegian Parliament had extended this to 14 years. In June 2006, after serving 12 years, Vikernes was denied parole by the Department of Criminal Justice for this reason. His lawyer, John Christian Elden, has complained that the policy change is a form of retroactive legislation. Article 97 of the Norwegian constitution forbids any law being given retroactive force. Vikernes was denied parole again in June 2008, although he was allowed to leave Tromsø Prison for short periods to visit his family. His full sentence would run for another seven years. In March 2009, however, his parole was announced. He had then served nearly 15 years of his 21-year sentence. On 22 May 2009, he confirmed that he had been released from prison on probation.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes continued with Burzum after his release. He released a further three black metal albums: "Belus" (2010), "Fallen" (2011) and "Umskiptar" (2012) and a compilation of re-recorded songs ("From the Depths of Darkness"). On 27 April 2013, Vikernes posted a song on his official YouTube channel, titled "Back to the Shadows", which Vikernes has stated to be the last metal track to be released by Burzum. In May 2013, he released another ambient album, "Sôl austan, Mâni vestan".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In the years following his release from prison, Vikernes became an active video blogger on his YouTube channel, ThuleanPerspective (or Thulêan Perspective). In 2013, Vikernes and his wife released a film called "ForeBears", based on bear worship during the time of the Neanderthals, and inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes was one of the recipients of far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto, which Breivik sent out before launching the 2011 Norway attacks, killing 77 people. Although Vikernes condemned Breivik's actions, this drew the attention of the French authorities.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: On 16 July 2013, Vikernes and his wife, a French national, were arrested at their home in Corrèze, France, on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism after his wife bought four rifles. Officials later stated that Vikernes' wife had a legal firearms permit to buy the rifles. The two were later released without charge after police failed to identify any terrorist plans or targets. Vikernes was instead charged by French authorities with inciting racial hatred against Jews and Muslims. This was due to posts on his blog, "Thulean Perspective", which included anti-Semitic posts that were taken down following the charges. Vikernes claimed he had not written the posts, although the blog attributed all posts to him. On 8 July 2014, Vikernes was convicted of inciting racial hatred and sentenced to six months of probation and a fine of .


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In June 2018, Vikernes made comments that he had "moved on" from Burzum on his YouTube channel, saying "bye bye" to the project.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: YouTube removed Vikernes's channel from the platform in June 2019, by which point it had 250,000 subscribers. This coincided with an announcement from YouTube that it would be more aggressive in removing "videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion".


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In late 2019, Vikernes announced on his Twitter that he intended to release another album as Burzum. Titled "Thulêan Mysteries", the album was released in March 2020. Vikernes has indicated that this will be his last album under the Burzum name.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In late 1994, while in prison, Vikernes wrote a Norwegian-language book called "Vargsmål" ("Varg's Speech"). Vikernes has said he wrote "Vargsmål" to defend himself against the media. According to "Lords of Chaos", "Vargsmål" became available on the Internet for some time in 1996 but not in a printed form. In 1997, a Norwegian publisher released a paperback edition of the book; its publication was financed by Vikernes' mother, Helene Bore. As of 1999, "Vargsmål" was being sold by the Nazi organization Heathen Front via its website.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In 1998 he wrote a book called "Germansk Mytologi og Verdensanskuelse" ("Teutonic Mythology and Worldview") that was published by Cymophane in 2000.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In 2011, Abstract Sounds Books published Vikernes' English book entitled "Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia", about the religious practices of Scandinavian peoples, particularly during the Stone Age and Bronze Age. According to a review from the music blog "Heathen Harvest", the book rejects accepted academic theories, instead focusing on Vikernes's speculation and personalized story-telling.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: By late 2003, Vikernes had begun writing articles for Burzum.org, which became the official Burzum website. He also wrote for his personal blog, Thulean Perspective, which was set up in January 2013. The website Ancestral Cult was created by him and his wife.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Vikernes has self-published a tabletop role-playing game named "MYFAROG" (Mythic Fantasy Role-playing Game). In 2019, he announced that the upcoming ambient album of Burzum, "Thulêan Mysteries", was also intended as background music for the game.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: In "", director Sam Dunn described Vikernes as "the most notorious metal musician of all time" due to his crimes as well as his political and religious views. While in prison, Vikernes promoted views which combined Odinism and Esoteric Nazism. Religious studies scholar Egil Asprem characterized Vikernes as "an idol for skinheads with an inclination towards Paganism and for contemporary Pagans with an inclination towards National Socialism". In a 2005 statement on his website, Vikernes wrote that although he had "occasionally used the term 'nazism' to describe [his] ideological foundation", he no longer describes himself as such. He had used the term following his 1994 conviction until the late 1990s and in 2022 stated that he "appreciated" being labelled as a Nazi. Among other things, he did not wish to be associated with anti-Slavic sentiments.


title: Varg Vikernes

text: Since the late 1990s he has described his views as "Odalism", which he says encompasses "Paganism, traditional nationalism, racialism and environmentalism". Vikernes also advocates social conservatism, simple living and self-sufficiency (including survivalism). Vikernes has described his own ideology as fiercely anti-modern. According to Eric Brown writing for the "International Business Times", Vikernes opposes anything deemed "a threat to a pre-industrial European pagan society, including but not limited to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, capitalism and materialism", and he also "rallies against a perceived international Jewish conspiracy to destroy the traditional European identity".