381 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Distressing near-death experiences (ndes)Noting that most NDEs are touted as involving "profound feelings of peace, joy, and cosmic unity," B. Greyson and N.E . Bush have collected much contrary testimony, which they organized into three categories: "( 1 ) Phenomenology similar to peaceful near-death experiences but interpreted as unpleasant, (2 ) A sense of nonexistence or eternal void, or, (3 ) Graphic hellish landscapes and entities." One of these testimonies, from Category 3, is worth reproducing here. The percipient was a woodworker with little interest in religion, although he was married to a "religious fanatic." He had been saving for a vacation for years, but just before they were about to leave, he was arrested for drunk driving and heavily fined, losing his license and vacation savings. Distraught, he tried to hang himself. He testified: "From the roof of the utility shed in my backyard I jumped to the ground. Luckily for me I had forgot the broken lawn chair that lay near the shed. My feet hit the chair and broke my fall, or my neck would have been broken. I hung in the rope and strangled. I was outside my physical body. I saw my body hanging in the rope; it looked awful. I was terrified, could see and hear, but it was different -- hard to explain ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Astounding Undersea Structure Near Okinawa "A structure thought to be the world's oldest building, nearly twice the age of the great pyramids of Egypt, has been discovered. The rectangular stone ziggurat under the sea off the coast of Japan could be the first evidence of a previously unknown Stone Age civilization, say archeologists." Wow! Is this true? This so-called "structure" is 600 feet long and 90 feet high. Said to be about 10,000 years old, it obviously predates the edifices of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. The "structure" is now under about 75 feet of ocean near a small island named Yonaguni southwest of Okinawa. During the Ice Ages, it would have been exposed, just like the Bering Land Bridge to the north. Of course, the crucial question is: Is it really artificial? R. Schoch, the Boston University geologist who vouches that the Sphinx is also about 10,000 years old (SF#79), described the "structure" as a series of huge steps about 1 meter high. Schoch is impressed by the regularity of the steps, but does not discount a natural origin. A photo taken by divers does reveal a remarkably regular, stepped surface, but nature can be very methodical on occasion. Adding to the artificiality of the "structure" is the claim that a "road" encloses it. (Barot, Trushar; ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Heavy traffic in near-earth space That region of outer space near the earth carries a heavier load of flotsam and jetsam than scientists expected. The devastation of the 1908 Tunguska impact in Siberia warns us that this space debris -- meteors, comets, asteroids -- is an active threat. A recent spate of articles paints an ominous future. The earth's retinue of mini-asteroids. "Asteroids as big as houses pass near the Earth 100 times more often than anyone suspected. On an average day, about 50 asteroids measuring at least 10 metres across come closer to the Earth than the Moon, and each year about five such objects may hit the planet." (Second reference below.) These startling data come from D. Rabinowitz and coworkers at the University of Arizona, who have been scanning nearby space with a telescope fitted with supersensitive charge-coupled devices (CCDs). They have picked up astronomical objects that have escaped conventional instruments. Several sources have been suggested for this unexpected, threateningly large population of small asteroids: (1 ) debris hurled earthward from collisions within the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter; (2 ) the breakup of a large object formerly in orbit about the earth; and (3 ) fragments blasted off the moon by impacts of large asteroids there. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Earth Gains a Retinue of Mini-Asteroids," Science, 258 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 1: September 1977 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New England Seamounts Once Near Surface Exploration of the New England Seamount chain by the research submarine Alvin confirmed that some of these peaks, now all a kilometer or more below the surface, were once at or above the surface of the ocean. This undersea mountain chain contains more than 30 major peaks and stretches 1,600 miles southeast from the New England coast. Deep-sea dredging has previously brought up Eocene limestone of shallow-water origin from the submerged mountain tops, but the Alvin explorations resulted in the first eye-witness accounts of dead coral (which grows only near the surface) and rock samples containing strands of dead algae that grows only within 100 meters of the surface. The New England Seamounts have therefore either subsided on the order of a kilometer since Eocene times or sealevel has altered drastically. The Alvin dives also discovered a series of very striking and perplexing buttes obviously the results of erosion (see drawing on cover). The buttes are apparently composed of volcanic rock and are only a few meters high. Some unexplained, extremely vesicular (holefilled) rocks seen on the sea floor during the dives seem to be identical to samples occasionally dredged up and formerly classified as cinders jettisoned from old steamships. The underwater surveys suggested that these "cinders" have a natural (still mysterious) origin. (Heirtzler, J.R ., et al; "A Visit to the New England Seamounts," American Scientist, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Computers can have near-death experiences!When HAL, the treacherous computer of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was being slowly disconnected, it began singing "A Bicycle Built for Two." In other words, the cutting of the computer's interconnections did not result in gibberish, rather memories that were previously stored flashed through its data processors. Something similar seems to happen with nonfictional computers. When a type of computer program termed an "artificial neural network" is "killed" by cutting links between its units, it in effect approaches a state which "might" be something like biological "death." S.L . Thaler, a physicist at McDonnell Douglas, has been systematically chopping up artificial neural networks. He has found that when between 10% and 60% of the network connections have been severed, the program generates primarily nonsense. But, as the 90% (near-death!) level is approached, the network's outout is composed more and more of previously learned information, like HAL's learned song! Also, when untrained artificial neural networks were slowly killed, they responded only with nonsense. (Yam, Philip; "' Daisy, Daisy'," Scientific American, 268:32, May 1993.) From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are ufo abductions akin to ndes?Hard-core UFO researchers will probably reject S.W . Twemlow's associating UFO abductions with NDEs (Near-Death Experiences). Here is an abstract of his 1994 paper published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies. "This article proposes an integrated psychodynamic perspective to account in part for a variety of similarities between near-death experiences and UFO abductions. The psychodynamic psychology of these experiences implies that their "realness" is mainly a function of that psychology, rather than primarily of an objectifiable external reality. Clinical and research examples highlight the theoretical and practical usefulness of this model." (Twemlow, Stuart W.; "Misidentified Flying Objects? An Integrated Psychodynamic Perspective on Near-Death Experiences and UFO Abductions," Journal of Near-Death Studies, 12:205, 1994. As abstracted in: Exceptional Human Experience , 14:261, 1996. Address of the latter: 414 Rockledge Road, New Bern, NC 28562.) Comments. If one prunes away the psychological verbiage, Twemlow seems to be saying that in the minds of the percipients, NDEs and UFO abduction experiences are pretty much the same; that is, both phenomena are mental and not physical. However, in the same issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, K. Basterfield asserts that physical evidence exists for UFO abductions but that there is none for NDEs! Apparently ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SKEPTIC'S NDE -- NOT SO MYSTICAL NDEs (Near-Death Experiences) profoundly affect those who recover to describe them. Prominent in most NDEs is the perception of traveling down a long tunnel. Those with a religion or mystical turn believe that this tunnel opens up into an afterlife or perhaps a continued existence on some other "plane." In a recent Skeptical Inquirer, L.D . Lansberry wrote of her personal NDE. It happened during angioplasty, when her heart stopped temporarily. Lansberry, a confirmed skeptic in such matters, has always maintained that the customary interpretations of NDEs are so much "tomfoolery." When she entered that famous NDE tunnel herself, she saw it close down around her as her heart stopped. Then, as the doctor brought her back, the tunnel opened up again and she saw a light at the tunnel's end, but it turned out to be only the light of the operating room. Lansberry asserts that there is nothing transcendental about the tunnel effect. She attributes the experience to the failure of neurotransmitters in the outer portion of her brain failing to fire, in effect creating a collapsing tunnel in her mind. Fortunately, her doctor reversed the effect. "When the tunnel closes," she wrote, we are dead." (Lansberry, Laura Darlene; "First-Person Report: A Skeptic's Near-Death Experience," Skeptical Inquirer ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Freak Wave Off Spain 1960s. At sea off Spain. ". .. the wind was north-by-west, force 6-7 and the ship was spraying and occasionally shipping water. The weather was not troubling our ship to any extent. The sky was partly cloudy with a full moon in the west. At 0520 hours the moon was blotted out and all turned dark. I looked to port to see what type of cloud could obscure the moon so thoroughly, and was amazed -- horrified, rather, to discover it was no cloud, but an immense wave approaching on our port beam. It stretched far north and south, had no crest, nor white streaks, and as it neared at quite a speed, I could see its front was nearly vertical. I yelled to the lookout man to come into the wheelhouse as he was on the starboard side of the bridge and could not see the wave. "As near as I could judge, about 80 to 100 yards away the wave started to break, and in another few seconds reached our ship and struck us fair abeam with three distinct separate shocks, sweeping our ship for her full length. Fortunately, the vessel rolled away just before the impact and this I am sure saved us from even more serious damage." "The wave was higher than our foremost track -- 85 ft above the water. As this wave approached from a direction 90 degrees different from the normal sea and wind, which had ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stele With Unknown Glyphs Found Near Vera Cruz A basalt stele found submerged in the Acula River, 40 miles southeast of Vera Cruz, Mexico, is "the most important stele found in America to date," says F.W . Capitaine, Director of the Jalapa Museum of Anthropology. The stele is 7.8 feet high, weighs 4 tons, and is adorned with 16 columns of glyphs. "The Vera Cruz stele has the same enumeration symbols used by the Mayas -- small circles and bars -- which enabled Mr. Winfield to identify two dates among the hieroglyphics: May 22, 143, and July 13, 156. "The remaining glyphs probably record events between those dates. Although there are 20 glyph types similar to the ones used by the Mayas, 100 more are new. The stone carries a total of 600 glyphs." Winfield hopes that the newly found stele will help explain what happened during the transition between Olmec and Maya cultures. He thinks it possible that the stele is the product of a previously unrecognized civilization. (Anonymous; "Inscribed Stone May Hold Secrets of Mexican Culture," Baltimore Sun, June 8, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "PLANETARY VISIONS" DURING NDEs (Top) Global nuclear arsenal in thousands of warheads. (Bottom) number of peace-keeping missions. It is difficult to move from the universe of hard objective facts into the shadowy world of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). Nevertheless, NDEs have elements of consistency across a wide spectrum of percipients. Mainstream scientists always explain NDEs in reductionist terms: they are merely the consequence of physiological changes taking place in the dying person's brain. Parapsychologists are more open-minded. They wonder if being near death breaks down a barrier separating the everyday, objective world from a spiritual one. If their intuition is correct, there is the thought that, by breaching this barrier during NDEs, the percipients might transcend our usual confines of time and space. At these moments, "planetary visions" beyond the moment might occur; that is, prophecy! Before chucking this issue of SF, "hard" scientists should recognize that the foregoing surmise can be tested, not as rigorously as measuring the electron's charge, but still a test of sorts. K. Ring has collected testimonies of these so-called "planetary visions" from individuals who had been clinically dead for more than 10 minutes, but who were subsequently revived (obviously!). Typical of Ring's collected testimonies was this from a 17-year-old NDE percipient: "I was informed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Apparent Circular Lightning May 1, 1997, near Patterson, New Jer sey. Between 3 and 4 PM, D. Quinlan was driving along Route 80. A dark line squall was approaching from the west. Quinlan observed many horizontal strokes of lightning passing from cloud to cloud. These discharges seemed to make little noise -- no loud crashes of thunder, although sounds were somewhat muffled by his vehicle. These strokes moved so slowly that their progress across the sky could be easily tracked visually. Most remarkable were three discharges that began to his right, progressed across the sky in nearly a horizontal plane, and then looped back to near their starting points, thereby completing what appeared to be a circle. (Quinlan, David; private communication, May 2, 1997.) Comment. In our Catalog Lightning, Auroras, section GLL25, we offer three cases of "meandering" lightning in which the discharges follow long, complex, looping paths. However, none of these were circular. Also, in SF#89. there is an instance of "looped" lightning that rises from cloud tops toward the ionosphere and then loops back to the cloud tops. The Catalog volume just cited is described at here . From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... nationwide CERES organisation. "As usual for Britain most circles were found in wheatfields, but there were some reports from fields of barley, rapeseed, linseed, and long grass grown for silage. In 1990, as in 1989, Wiltshire dominated the British scene with about 70% of the year's total. This year the leading counties were Wiltshire: over 400; Hampshire: over 50; Norfolk: 18; Devon: 17; Sussex: 16; Oxfordshire: 13; Buckinghamshire: 12; and so on." In his review of the 1990 phenomena, G.T . Meaden dwelt on the Hampshire dumbbell formations. From these many spectacular "circles" we focus on the one at Seven Barrows, Hampshire. Two of the 1990 Hampshire dumbell formations. (L ) Near Seven Barrows; (R ) Near Morestead. "The next system [see figure] was at Seven Barrows, north of Litchfield, Hampshire near the A34 highway to Newbury. On the evening of 22 June I pointed out this featureless field to conference members as we drove past following our circles tour, saying that this was a 'repeater' region for circles events (circles are known for these fields for 1976, 1978, 1981, 1983 and 1985). The next morning, the day of the conference, attendees travelling north from Hampshire to Oxford spotted the formation which had appeared overnight. The circles were a hundred metres from a group of Bronze Age barrows which had been there for over three thousand years." CERES is the Circles Effect Research Group, operated by G ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Emf fertilizer?In 1986, the U.S . Navy began operating a 90-kilometer-long radio antenna stretching pole-to-pole through a Michigan forest. Broadcasting at only 76 hertz, this long antenna can communicate effectively with submerged submarines. Although the antenna produces electromagnetic fields about the same as those from a large household appliance, some of the trees adjacent to the antenna have enjoyed an unexpected spurt in growth, according to D. Reed and G. Mroz of the Michigan Technological University. "The researchers have been gathering data on the growth of trees since 1985, making measurements at two sites, one near the antenna and the other 50 kilometers away. The results seem to suggest that the electromagnetic field has a subtle influence on the forest. They found that two species of trees, northern red oak and paper birch, do not seem to be influenced by the antenna at all. But red pines near the antenna grew taller than red pines at the distant site, while aspen and red maple grew thicker than their counterparts further off." (Kiernan, Vincent; "Forest Grows Tall on Radio Waves," New Scientist, p. 5, January 14, 1995) Trees are not the only plants affected. Algae in the upper Ford River, where the field is only 10% as strong as that near the antenna, increased chlorophyll production sharply after the antenna started operation. The cause ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Presumed Ball Lightning November 24, 1987. Tulsa, Oklahoma. "Circa 3:20 P.M . CST. Location: 2800 Southwest Blvd. in said city. Parents of Keith L. Partain saw a lightning strike near an oil refinery storage tank. Immediately after the strike they saw a bluish sphere with red and yellow highlights, not more than 9 feet in diameter, some 100 yards away, near the tank. The sphere lasted in that form some five seconds before fragmenting in a loud detonation. During the act of detonation the sphere became an irregular spheroid before fragmentation. Mr. Partain reported that he could feel the heat from the detonation. Both individuals, seated in a truck, were quite astounded by the apparition. The weather was quite stormy and violent in its gales, rain and lightning." (Partain, Keith; personal communication, November 24, 1987.) Comment. K. Partain checked the Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights and classified the phenomenon as GLB1 or Ordinary Ball Lightning. The above book is described here . The ball lightning figured left was seen near an Albany, NY, factory in 1975. The event closely resembles that reported by the Partains. From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tektite Mysteries Tektites are small glassy bodies found strewn on and near the surface in several regions of the world. They come in various shapes: droplets, buttons, even dumbbells. By general agreement, tekites are attributed to meteoric or cometary impacts that melt terrestrial rocks and splash liquid droplets into the atmosphere. There they are shaped by aerodynamic forces and solidify. This scenario is all very reasonable, but some nagging problems remain. Where-o -where is that crater? 770,000 years ago, a huge meteor hit somewhere on earth and strewed an immense batch of tektites and microtektites over fully 10% of our planet's surface (about 5 x 107 square kilometers). This is called the "Australasian strewn field." Such a recent cataclysm must have left a large and inescapable crater somewhere. The problem is that no one has yet found it. (Ref. 1) Many lines of evidence suggest that the missing crater is in Indochina. C.C . Schnetzler and J.F . McHone located four likely structures in Laos from Landsat images. However, visits to these areas found no evidence of an impact. (Ref. 2) So, this mystery persists. How were the Muong Nong tektites formed? Muong Nong tektites are unusually large (up to 24 kilograms), layered tektites. They are found in an area 1,000 kilometers in extent from Hainan Island to southern Indochina ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Antarctic ice sheets slipping?Geologists have generally assumed that the ponderous Antarctic ice sheets do not change their behavior rapidly. But, according to NASA's R. Bindschadler, an ongoing study of the Antarctic coast near the Ross Ice Shelf casts doubt upon this assumption of long-term stability. Measurements of one ice stream flowing down from the mountains to the sea in dicate a sudden unexplained, 20% reduction in speed over the past decade. Perhaps even more significant is that, even with this reduction in flow velocity, this particular ice stream carries ice into the sea 40% faster than ice accumulates up in the mountains. The sudden, rather large velocity change is alarming because it may signify widespread instability in the continent's icy mantle. Researchers state that there is even a chance that much of the Antarctic ice cap could collapse into the sea in the next few centuries -- a catastrophic event that would raise global sealevels by 6 meters! (Anonymous; "Antarctic Ice Potentially Unstable," Science News, 137:285, 1990.) Comment. In addition to looking at future consequences of collapsing Antarctic ice sheets, we should mark that what might happen in the future might also have happened in the past. Obviously, we refer to the often-discussed speculation that the Antarctic was nearly ice-free within historical times. In this connection, we cannot escape mentioning that remarkable ancient map of Piri ...
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... debate for over two years. Rather than retrace all the details, it is sufficient to say that the scientific community has been generally negative and often condemnatory about L. Frank's assertion and evidence that each year some 10 million icy comets, each averaging sixty compact cars in weight, strike the earth's atmosphere and, in the fullness of time, help fill the ocean basins. In his article Huyghe reviews the considerable evidence that has accumulated supporting Frank's claim: The water in Halley's comet had the same abundances of two key isotopes as the earth's oceans; The rocket detection of unexpected amounts of water vapor in the upper atmosphere; The microwave detection of unusual water-vapor events in the upper atmosphere; The Lyman-alpha detection of hydrogen concentrated near the earth; and The photographic detection of small, incoming objects with the characteristics of the debated icy comets. (Huyghe, Patrick; "Oceans from Space -- New Evidence," Oceans , 21:9 , April 1988.) Item 5. has been reported in other publications: "Using a telescope with a moving field of view -- a difficult technique that required a year of preliminary calculations to plan -- physicist Clayne Yeates has found and photographed what seems to be a population of fastmoving objects near earth that range between 8 and 16 feet in size. These previously undetected bodies match Frank's predictions concerning the speed, direction and number of pro posed comets flying by earth, says Yeates, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Can computers have ndes?When HAL, the treacherous computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, was being slowly throttled by the one surviving astronaut, it tried first to negotiate. Then, as board after board of electronic components were disconnected, it burst into the old song A Bicycle Built for Two . It had learned this tune early in its silicon-based life. Surprisingly, real computers can experience similar Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). S.L . Thaler, a physicist at McDonnell Douglas, was studying neural networks designed to mimic the structure and functions of the human brain. Such neural nets can actually learn as programmers train them. As a evening avocation, Thaler devised a program that randomly severed connections in the neural net, in effect destroying the artificial brain bit by bit. When between 10 and 60% of the connections were destroyed, the net spat out only gibberish. Near 90% destruction, though, strange "whimsical" information was produced that was definitely not gibberish. In contrast, untrained neural networks generated only random numbers as they were "put down"! Evidently, HAL's tuneful demise was not so fanciful after all. (Yam, Philip; "Daisy, Daisy," Scientific American, 268:32, May 1993.) Comment. A.C . Clarke, author of 2001, has stated firmly that HAL's name was not chosen ...
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... stone spheres Books and articles on Stonehenge, the Easter Island statues, and the Egyptian pyramids are legion. Granted that these structures are important and intriguing, we still ask why Costa Rica's meticulously wrought stone spheres are languishing in the wings of science. They epitomize exquisite workmanship. Such geometric perfection rendered in granite is remarkable-- -for any ancient culture. Lastly, the stones' purpose completely escapes us. Why strew such masterpieces of stoneworking around and even buried under the dark jungle floors? M.T . Shoemaker also wonders about these things in a nice recapitulation of the stone-sphere mystery. His compilation of facts and figures only impels us to learn more about the spheres and what their shapers had in mind. The spheres are found on the Diquis River delta, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica. Stone-sphere sizes range from an inch to 8 feet in diameter. At least 186 spheres have been recorded in the literature. Surely many more were destroyed and other remain undiscovered. No local source exists for the granite; and no stone-working tools have been found near the spheres. "The best spheres are perhaps the finest examples of precision stonecarving in the ancient world." The maximum circumference error in a 6-foot, 7-inch diametre sphere in only 0.5 inch, or 0.2 %. The spheres are often grouped, but no general system or alignment mode seems to exist. "One very disturbing mystery emerges in examining the Diquis culture. The superb stone-carving skill necessary for the creation ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange explosions at sasovo, in russia Some most peculiar phenomena have occurred recently about 200 miles southeast of Moscow. Discussioms have appeared in Russian publications, but we have not yet seen anything in the English-language journals. These phenomena have a bearing on the still-enigmatic Tunguska event of 1908 -- customarily attributed to a celestial projectile of some sort -- and perhaps even those bizarre "cookie-cutter" holes found in the U.S ., Canada, Norway, and elsewhere. One of our Russian correspodents has summarized what is known about the Sasovo explosions, and we are pleased to be able to present part of his (lightly edited) letter here: "On April 12, 1991, a strange explosion took place near the Russian town of Sasova (350 km to the southeast of Moscow). After the explosion, a crater, diameter about 30 m and depth 3m, was found. At first, several ideas about its nature were proposed, but now almost all of them are abandoned, except one: that it was a tectonic (endogenic, to be exact) origin. This is proved by geophysical research in the region and a secondary, weaker explosion (a crater also appeared) taking place in 1992 in a sparsely populated area about 9 km away from the first one. For some years before the explosions, there were signs of increased tectonic activity in the region: a great number of 'fireballs' and so-called UFOs, evidence of slow ground deformation, and so on ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Light January 14, 1993. Eastern North Pacific. Aboard the m.v . B.P . Adventure , Panama to Chiba. "At 0235 UTC the phenomenon shown in the sketch was first seen about 15 above the horizon, bearing 265 . It was initially thought to be a downward pointing spotlight from an aircraft: it was bright (nearly white), conical in shape and about 1 high. During further observation the shape slowly enlarged, becoming more bell-shaped with a darker elliptical patch at the bottom. As it increased in size, the shape faded away and moved slowly towards the horizon in a slightly southerly direction before disappearing just above the horizon at 0254, bearing 260 . "The maximum height reached by the shape was about 5 and throughout the observation stars could be seen through it while at one point it was nearly obscured by cloud of which there was 1 okta. The only other bright object nearby was Venus, being slightly higher and to the south, bearing 248 , elevation about 20 . Visibility was excellent as about 10 minutes after the observation a ship was spotted bearing 280 at a distance of 16 n.mile. The observers felt that the shape was too regular to be a cloud and had no real idea of its origins." (Peacock, K.E .; "Unidentified Light," Marine Observer, 64:17, 1994.) From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More challenges to newton's law of gravitation Two experiments reported at the 1988 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco can be added to the others that question Newton's venerable Law of Gravitation. The abstracts of these papers are short and to-the-point, so we quote them: "We have performed an experimental test of Newton's inverse-square law of gravitation. The test compared accurately measured gravity values along the 600 m WTVD tower near Raleigh, North Carolina, with upward, continued gravity estimates calculated from ground measurements. We found a significant departure from the inverse-square law, asymptotically approaching -547 36 microGal at the top of the tower. If this departure is derived from a scalar Yukawa potential, the coupling parameter is alpha = 0.023, the range is lambda = 280 m, and the Newtonian Gravitational Constant is G = (6 .52 0.01) x 1011 m3 kg-1 s-2 . We do not yet have adequate resolution to discriminate this scalar model from a scalarvector model." (Eckhardt, D.H ., et al; "Experimental Evidence for a Violation of Newton's Inverse-Square Law of Gravitation," Eos, 69:1046, 1988.) "In the late summer of 1987, an ex periment was performed to determine the value of the Newtonian gravitational constant, G, by measuring the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nuclear bombs will not save the earth!Not too long ago, geologists adamantly denied that there were any large meteor craters pockmarking our planet. Now, they find 100-kilometer craters on a regular basis. And scientists are casting worried looks at those near-earth asteroids, knowing that one day one will be on a collision course. Not to worry, say the modern-day Technocrats, we will launch nucleararmed rockets that will nudge such cosmic threats into harmless trajectories. These Pollyannas are presumptious. They assume that asteroids are hard, cohesive objects that will be shoved aside by a few megatons of explosive energy. There are two things wrong with this idea, and these reveal how radically our ideas about the nature of asteroids have changed in just 10 years. First, most astronomers will now agree that asteroids are orbiting rubble piles rather than monolithic objects. For example, the near-earth asteroid Mathilde, 53 kilometers in diameter, has a density of only 1.3 grams/cubic centimeter. Its porosity must be greater than 50%. It is not a hard, coherent object. Instead of a bullet, it is more like a cloud of shotgun pellets. It would be hard to divert all this debris with a nuclear blast. To make matters worse, asteroids like Mathilde are stickier than a cloud of buckshot. This fact is deduced from photos of asteroids showing many to be marked by huge craters ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supernova Confusion And Mysteries Just a few weeks ago, IN SF#51, we reported some of the anomalies surrounding supernova 1987A, the first nearby super nova since 1604 AD. 1987A's nearness has given astronomers the opportunity to identify just which star exploded. (Other supernovas have been much too far away.) The prime suspect was the star Sanduleak -69 202. But then it was claimed that old -69 202 was still alive and well. This presented a quandry because no other star in the area was large enough to go supernova. But now it seems there was a mistake, and it was Sanduleak -69 202 all along that detonated. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "Supernova 1987A: Notes from All Over," Science, 236:522, 1987.) Comment. Naturally all of astronomy heaved a sigh of relief over this. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived, and a second dose of antacid now seems required! Just a few days after the above, researchers reported in the New York Times some discomforting news: "According to Dr. Robert W. Noyes of Harvard-Smithsonian (Center for Astrophysics), the observations gathered by an extraordinarily sensitive camera show that the bright exploding star, or supernova, is actually two points of light, very close together, one about 10 times brighter than its companion. Since neither was present before the explosion, astronomers ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 22: Jul-Aug 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Large changes of the earth's magnetic fields in historical times By measuring the magnetic properties of bricks and other accurately dated human artifacts, geophysicists can reconstruct the history of the local magnetic field. Near Loyang, China, the field was as much as 54% higher in 300 A.D . than it is now. It was 15% higher in 1500 A.D . In 1000, it was less than today's value. (Wei, Q.Y ., et al; "Intensity of the Geomagnetic Field near Loyang, China, between 500 BC and AD 1900," Nature, 296:728, 1982.) Comment. Direct measurements of the earth's field go back only a few hundred years, but they are consistent with the data reconstructed from artifacts, both showing a steady decrease since 1500. No one has estimated the effects of these substantial changes on radiocarbon dating and, perhaps, human biology. From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tunnelling Towards Life In Outer Space Most books on biology begin the history of life in those apochryphal warm ponds of primordial soup. Leave comfortable earth for a moment and consider the immense, cold clouds of gas and dust swirling between the stars and galaxies. At near-absolute-zero, sunless and waterless, these clouds hardly seem the womb of life. Yet, there may be found the atoms necessary to life -- H, C, O, N, etc -- and in profusion. Collisions of cosmic rays can promote the synthesis of fairly large molecules. We have already detected molecules as complex as formaldehyde in the interstellar medium. But surely the immensely more complicated molecules of biology cannot be synthesized near absolute zero. This may not be true either because at extremely low temperatures the quantum mechanical phenomenon of "tunnelling" becomes important. To achieve molecular synthesis, repulsive barriers must be overcome. The warm temperatures in that terrestrial pond can provide the extra kinetic energy to climb over these barriers. In cold molecular clouds we must look elsewhere. The laws of quantum mechanics state that there is always a very low probability that atoms and molecules can tunnel through repulsive barriers -- no need to climb over them via thermal effects. "Specifically, entire atoms can tunnel through barriers represented by the repulsive forces of other atoms and form complex molecules even though the atoms do not have the energy required by classical chemistry to overcome ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Planets As Fragments Of An Ancient Companion Of The Sun J. Webb has called attention to a fascinating feature of the solar system. "If one calculates the total energy and the total angular momentum of the planets, the numbers turn out to be very nearly the same as those of a single planet having a mass essentially the same as the total mass of all the planets, and orbiting the sun in an orbit which is near the present-day center of mass of all the planets. The possibility that the solar system was once a binary star (or is in the process of becoming one) needs to be examined more closely." (Webb, Jerry; "The Solar System and a Binary Star: Is There a Connection?" American Journal of Physics, 53:938, 1985.) Cross reference. See SF#42 for speculations about the solar system once being a quintuple star system. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Mosier Mounds In past issues (SF#38 and SF#115) we introduced the still-mysterious East Bay walls that stretch for some 50 miles along the foothills bordering San Francisco Bay. The strange, meandering stone lines of the Panamint Valley near Death Valley appeared in AR#3 . In fact, the western states are festooned with curious stone structures. Now we add the Mosier Mounds to this file. On the south bank of the Columbia, near Mosier, Oregon, archeologists have mapped a 30-acre complex of rock walls, cairns, pits, and troughs -- a vertiable maze of lithic structures. (See map.) The most impressive features are alignments of stacked rocks that hug the contours of the slopes. Although their configuration suggests a battlement, the stone formations weave so sinuously that they cannot be defensive in nature. Some anthropologists suggest that these various lithic structures were used for burials, vision quests, and even the physical conditioning of the young men who were given the job of piling up all the stones! No precise dates are available, but the Mosier Mounds probably predate European contact. (Connolly, Thomas J., et al; "Mapping the Mosier Mounds: The Significance of Rock Feature Complexes on the Southern Columbia Plateau," Journal of Archaeo logical Science, 24:289, 1997.) Maps of the main concentrations of Mosier Mounds. The heavier lines represent the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Precariously Balanced Rocks As Earthquake Detectors PBRs, such a this "rocking stone" near Peekskill, NY, signify a lack of recent quakes in the area Precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) are rather common where earthquakes have never occurred. In this sense, balanced rocks are measures of seismic stability. For example, says J. Brune, you won't find PBRs within 10 miles of spots where quakes have shaken the ground over the past few thousand years. To illustrate: "Rocks stacked in piles and balanced on their narrow ends on Yucca Mountain near the Nevada border with California, he said, have not moved in at least 10,000 years and perhaps as many as 100,000 years, judging from the depth of "rock varnish," or weathering, on their exposed surfaces." Looking for PBRs is not really as useless as it sounds, for they are indicators of stability to construction engineers planning nuclear waste disposal sites and similar projects requiring long-term seismic quiet. (Petit, Charles; "Seismologist Studies Precariously Balanced Rocks," San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 1992. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. How do rocks become "precariously balanced" in the first place? Melting glaciers and snow packs are known to ease their cargos of rocky debris gently down into unstable configurations. From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Strange Case Of Angled Lines In The Atmosphere The subject phenomenon is weird to say the least. We have seen nothing like it before and have no idea how to explain it. January 30, 1965. Near Johannesburg, South Africa. Testimony of R. Crowder. "It was the day of Churchill's funeral. I had been flying a Piper-Colt around South Africa's southern Transvaal, dodging the usual huge CuNims, and headed back to Baragwanath airfield near Johannesburg as the towering thunderheads ran out of 'puff', and began to topple and decay. Coming in to land, it seemed that something was wrong with my eyesight as there seemed to be faint flickers in the air itself, only a dozen feet or so above the ground. Taxiing and parking, I found when my wife and I got out of the plane that there were clear straight lines in the air itself. My wife saw them too. So did half-adozen fellow pilots whom I routed out of the bar to act as witnesses. .. .. . "These sky-lines were quite characteristic. There were a least half-adozen in the air, apparently starting close to the ground and fading away twenty or thirty feet up. They were all inclined slightly to the vertical, were of a dirty-brown colour, slightly blurred, roughly four inches wide, several feet apart, of some depth ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biology Lite A coughing tree "The New Zealand Herald reported that hundreds of people are flocking off to a 3,400-year-old maidenhair tree southeast of Beijing, China, to hear the tree make a coughing sound at night. According to the Beijing Evening News, the tree makes the unusual sound several times during the night and resembles an old man coughing. "The tree is nearly 83 feet (25 m) high and nearly 50 feet (15 m) in circumference and is regarded as a living fossil. As many as 1,000 people at a time have visited the tree to witness the phenomenon since it was first reported April 5th. Speculation abounds as to what causes the coughing sound at night, but no reasonable explanation has yet been presented." (Anonymous; "Coughing Tree Attracts Hundreds," World Explorer , 1:6 , no. 8, 1996) Synchronicity and death. In category BHF35 in Humans II , we cataloged several cases where identical twins died almost simultaneously. We can add the following to that collection: "Identical twins John and William Bloomfield lived their entire 61 years together in Australia and died only minutes apart, on Sunday. Both John and William suffered heart attacks." (Anonymous; "Twins Die," Saginaw News, May 22, 1996. Cr. B. Kingsley via COUD-I .) Reference. For more on the book: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tear Of The Gods?" This huge teardrop of ice, weighing four pounds, fell out of the sky and landed on a grass verge near stunned commuters at a bus stop in Ecclesfield, near Sheffield. Firemen took it back to Tankersley fire station and preserved it in a freezer. Later, someone took it out and dropped it." (Anonymous; "Tears of the Gods," Fortean Times, p. 9, no, 88, August 1996. Source cited: Sheffield Star, March 18, 1996.) Comment. Based on its weight, this "drop" of ice is about 5 inches across. One wonders where in the sky such a large drop of water could form and then freeze solid. The hackneyed explanation that ice falls come from leaky aircraft lavatories seems unlikely here! Reference. Ice falls or "hydrometeors" are described in GWF1 in the catalog: Tornados, Dark Days. This book is listed here . From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A TUNGUSKA-LIKE BLAST IN BRAZIL IN 1930 In a review of D. Steel's new book Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets , C. Keay injects a startling bit of news: "Too late for Duncan Steel to include before his book went to press, comes the latest news that British astronomer Mark Bailey and his colleagues have discovered that a Tunguska-like event in 1930 blasted flat a huge expanse of jungle near an upper tributary of the Amazon in Brazil close to the border with Peru. The resulting fires burned for months. The only European near at hand was a Catholic priest, whose reports of the incident have lain unnoticed in the Vatican library until now." (Keay, Colin; "The NonDenominational Day of Reckoning," The Skeptic, 15:44, Spring 1995. This journal is published in Australia and should not be confused with the UK journal of the same name.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Everyone A Memory Prodigy Our handbook Unfathomed Mind presents many cases of exceptional memory. Without question, some people can reproduce incredible blocks of words and numbers as well as drawings, music, etc. The question is: Is such exceptional memory the consequence of an exceptional brain or just long training? Those who hold the first position believe an anomaly exists because: (1 ) The difference between normal memory and exceptional memory is so large; and (2 ) People with exceptional memory seem to employ different mental processes in transferring information into long-term memory, notably visual techniques like 'photographic' memory. The authors of this article present several cases where subjects with normal memory have been trained to where they perform nearly as well as memory experts. The key seems to be the use of mnemonic devices and other methods of imposing some sort of order or meaning on the information involved. To illustrate, a chess master can usually recall the positions of all the pieces on a chessboard after a quick glance. But if the chessmen are arranged randomly and meaninglessly, his memory is reduced to near-normal. The gist is that long prac-tice and the application of mnemonic devices can vastly improve anyone's memory and, in consequence, memory prodigies are not really so anomalous. (Ericsson, K. Anders, and Chase, William G.; "Exceptional Memory," American Scientist, 70:607, 1982.) Comment. The real anomaly here may be the fact that the ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Down-Falls "Falls" are a Fortean staple, particularly showers of fish and frogs. But the sky produces other exotic materials, such and blocks of ice and (ugh!) raw sewage. July 26, 1998. Rue, Switzerland. "On Sunday July 26, 1998, at around 9h 45m Central European DaylightSaving Time (7h 45m UT), a Rue farming couple were in front of their house when they heard a whistling sound "like a big rocket on August 1" (Swiss national holiday). They just had time to see a block of ice the size of a "football" pass in front of their field of vision and crash into the tarred path near to their farm. The block broke up into thousands of pieces and the witness recuperated [sic] the largest which was "the size of a skittle." The ice was "very hard" and "snow-colored." "The witness estimated the weight of the ice block at 7-8 kg and the piece he was able to recuperate at 6-7 kg. Unfortunately, he did not think of conserving the block in the freezer, and let it melt near his house after having shown it to his neighbor, who had also heard the noise." Swiss aviation officials claimed they could not identify any aircraft that might have been responsible "because of incertitude over the time of the incident"! (Mancusi, Bruno; "A Block of Ice Falls ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Ndes Differ From Obes NDEs (Near-Death Experiences) and OBEs (Out-of-the-Body Experiences) are rather common altered states of consciousness that are now the subject of considerable psychological research and public interest. OBEs, where one feels detached from his body and may even view it from afar, occur to many people who are not near death. Yet, the two phenomena have many features in common; so many that some psychologists have claimed that NDEs have no unique features at all. Gabbard et al have examined hundreds of experiences of both kinds and support the contention that none of the curious features of the NDE are the exclusive province of the NDE. They go a step further, however, by trying to separate NDEs and OBEs statistically. The following experiences occur significantly more often in NDEs: (1 ) Noises are heard early in the scenario; (2 ) The sensation of travelling through a tunnel; (3 ) The physical body is seen from a distance; (4 ) Other beings in nonphysical form are sensed, especially deceased people emotionally tied to the percipient; and (5 ) Encounters with communicative entities of a luminous nature. (Gabbard, Glen O., et al; Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 169:374, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Inscribed Stone From Tennessee Necropolis The pictured stone was found during the early 1890s in an extensive cemetery near Nashville. The stone's back was hollowed out like a cupstone, while its front was inscribed with symbols. Barry Fell considers the symbols Libyan, pre100 A.D . style. He translates them thus: "The colonists pledge to redeem." (Whittall, James P., II; "An Inscribed Libyan Token from a Necropolis in Tennessee," Early Sites Research Society, Bulletin, 6:37, 1978.) Reference. Several controversial New World inscriptions may be found in Ancient Man. This Handbook is described here . Inscribed stone found near Nashville From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hostage Hallucinations "The literature on hallucinatory experiences of hostage victims is reviewed. The phenomenology is examined in 30 case studies involving 31 persons, including exprisoners of war and victims of rape, kidnapping, terrorism, robbery, and 'UFO abductions.' The victims were subjected to conditions of isolation, visual deprivation, restraint on physical movement, physical abuse, and the threat of death. For eight victims, these conditions were sufficient to produce a progression of visual hallucinations from simple geometric images to complex memory images coupled with dissociation. The other 23 victims, subjected to similar conditions but without isolation and life-threatening stress, did not experience hallucinations. The hostage hallucinations are compared to those resulting from sensory deprivation, near fatal accidents, and other states of isolation and stress. A common mechanism of action based on entopic phenomena and CNS (central nervous system) excitation and arousal is suggested." In a typical case, an 18-year-old female college student was kidnapped and held for ransom. She was bound, blindfolded, and denied food, water, and toilet facilities. She was periodically threatened with death. She saw dull flashes of light in front of her eyes and small animals and insects on the periphery of her visual field. Becoming hypervigilant, she heard strange sounds and whispers. Hearing loud noises, she thought her captors were coming to kill her. It was then her whole life ran off like a slide show before her eyes. The noises were the police coming to ...
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... , unweathered rock. On the other hand, the higher headlands have retained these dunes. Australians B. Young and T. Bryant hypothesize that a tsunamis 40 meters high swept the lower headlands clean about 100,000 years ago. They can even plot the incoming wave's direction, because a few remnants of the coastal dunes still cling to the southwest corners of the headlands along the NSW coast south of Newcastle. In their scenario, the tsunamis came from the northeast, smashed into the Solomons, southeastern Australia, and northeastern New Zealand. The Great Barrier Reef protected northeastern Australia from the full force of the wave. Young and Bryant favor a Hawaiian landslip as the initiator of the tsunamis, but acknowledge that an asteroid impact could also have done the job. If the wave began near Hawaii, it would initially been about 375 meters (about mile) in height. (Davidson, Garry; "A Tsunamis Tale from Sydney," New Scientist, p. 17, October 17, 1992.) 65,000,000 BP. Northeastern Mexico. The date mentioned is, of course, that of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. This is the time when, many scientists believe, a very large asteroid slammed into northern Yucatan, forming the now-buried Chicxulub crater and wiping out the dinosaurs. Since the impact site was covered with ocean at the time, a powerful tsunamis should have surged out from this area. Indeed, debris attributable to a tsunami has been found on the U.S . Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. J. ...
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... 1988-January 1989. Saguenay region of Quebec. During this period, a total of 67 quakes were recorded. The foreshock (November 23) registered 4.8 ; the main shock (November 25), 6.5 mmlg. Many after-shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ground, one was seen attached to a luminous band -- all as described by Montandon. (St-Laurent, F.; "The Saguenay, Quebec, Earthquake Lights ...
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... aggregate length of some 100,000 miles! Qanats rank right up there with the Inca roads and the Great Wall of China as wonders of the ancient world. After reading our catalog section on Iranian qanats, E. von Fange informs us that the qanats of Bahrain pose a set of different problems. The Bahrainian qanats are easy to follow across the desert because the access shafts protrude a few feet above the sand. As one follows them up-slope for a mile or two, some greenery appears in the distance---low bushes perhaps. A closer approach proves instead that the greenery is actually the tops of palms. These trees are growing in a sunken oval area about 200 yards long girt by a wall 20-30 feet high. Outside, the desert sand reaches nearly to the top of the wall; inside, steps lead down to limestone bedrock from which springs of crystal-clear water flow. The qanat entrance can be seen down near the bottom of the wall, but the water level is now too low to feed the abandoned qanat. In his book Looking for Dilmun, G. Bibby asks some pertinent questions. Has twenty feet of sand been dug away by hand over the enormous area needed to expose a matter of fifteen thousand square yards of bedrock and the springs that broke forth there? And was a twenty-foot wall then built and the sand piled back around it? And if so how had they known where to dig and find the springs? For if not there was only one other explanation. That we were standing there ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Humps Of Particles In The Gulf Stream Peculiar humps or hills of particulate material, thousands of feet long and hundreds high, have been observed in the Florida Current with ultrasensitive, 20-kilohertz sonar. The humps extend from the bottom of the oceanic mixed layer to near the surface. Sediment and plankton probably make up the humps, but the actual constitution and cause of the concentrations are unknown. Conceivably, currents could concentrate the particulate matter; so could some sort of coordinated, collective biological activity. (Proni, John R., et al; "Vertical Particulate Spires or Walls within the Florida Current and near the Antilles Current," Nature, 276:360, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is equivalent to 600-800 billion solar masses, compared to the only 100 billion solar masses of visible matter. (Flam, Faye; "Spinning in the Dark," Science, 260:1593, 1993. Also: Anonymous; "' Dark Matter' Is Observed 'Cannibalizing' a Galaxy," Baltimore Sun, p. 8A, June 8, 1993.) The dark matter surrounding a galaxy will, according to the Theory of Relativity, act as a gravitational lens that will deflect light rays passing near it. This dark matter, acting like a telescope, should increase the number of quasars counted in the sky near galactic clusters. Such larger quasar counts are indeed observed, but these increases are much larger than expected. The implication is that there is much more dark matter in the universe than previously thought. (Cowen, Ron; "Quasar Count Poses Dark-Matter Puzzle," Science News, 143:397, 1993.) Finally, dark matter is forcing scientists to reexamine the Equivalence Principle, which asserts that gravitational mass (as in Newton's Law of Gravitation) is identical to inertial mass (as in Newton's Force = Mass X Acceleration). In terrestrial experiments, the two kinds of mass are equal, but on a cosmological scale, they ...
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... of sheep tends to mass protectively in a group of irregular outline, the group being formed of individual groups of small numbers of sheep. When grazing undisturbed, sheep tend to fan out from a given point, sometimes following a dominant group leader. Progress is usually uncoordinated and ragged. In general, patterns presented by sheep en masse are seen to be haphazard, indeed, generally random in nature. If follows that any suggestion of flocks of sheep forming geometric patterns would appear to be highly improbable, since this would call for group coordination only to be found in such as wolves and wild-dogs. In view of this it would appear that certain exceptional observations made on Sunday 21 August 1988 would be worthy of recording. "Out on an afternoon drive M. Belcher parked his car near the trigonometric survey point on Baildon Moor, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, at approximately 1430 GMT facing northeast. His wife suddenly exclaimed: 'Look at that circle of sheep in that field!' That was Sheep Circle 1 on the plan where 'a hundred or so sheep were in a circular formation, each sheep being more or less equidistant from the next. At the north end of the field some 20 or 30 cows were standing, grazing and chewing cud in the usual haphazard manner. The circular formation of these sheep was so unusual that I thought I was looking at bales of hay set out in the field by the farmer. Indeed, a stoneage stone circle might have been appropriate on this occasion. I looked around from north-west to north-east, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 126: Nov-Dec 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flotsam On The Great Sand Sea One of the strangest mysteries nestled among the giant dunes of the Egyptian Sahara was not recognized by modern scientists until 1932. In December of that year, P. Clayton, a surveyor for the Egyptian Geological Survey, was driving among the dunes near the Saad Plateau when he heard his tires crunch on something that wasn't sand. It turned out to be large pieces of marvelously clear yellow-green glass -- not just any glass but ultra-pure glass, 98% silica. As often the case, Clayton was not the first to come across the now-famous Libyan Desert Glass or LDG. Prehistoric humans had made knives and other sharp-edged tools from it; the ancient Egyptians had carved a scarab from LDG and deposited it in Tutankhamen's tomb. But Clayton and the ancients did not recognize the scientific implications of their discovery. LDG is the purest natural silica glass ever found. Over a thousand tons of it are strewn across hundreds of kilometers of bleak desert. Some of the chunks weigh 26 kilograms, but most LDG exists in smaller, angular pieces looking like shards left when a giant green bottle was smashed by colossal forces. Pure as it is, LDG does contain tiny bubbles, white wisps, and inky black swirls. The whitish inclusions consist of refractory minerals, such as cristobalite. The ink-like swirls, though, are rich in iridium ...
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... grooves made by sharp stone tools -- a sure sign of human occupation. The mammoth bone has been dated as 36,000 years old. This is the earliest sign of hominid presence in the high Arctic. These grooves on the Mamontovaya Kurya mammoth bones were made with sharp stone tools, but for what purpose? Was primitive notation in use 40,000 years ago? You will notice that we use the word "hominid" rather than human, because the campers may have been Neanderthals. No hominid bones were found to resolve this matter. The implication of all of this is that, although the Arctic may have been very cold 36,000 years ago, it was largely ice-free. (Pavlov, Pavel, et al; "Human Presence in the European Arctic Nearly 40,000 Years ago," Nature, 413:64,2001. Wilford, John Noble; "New Evidence of Early Humans Unearthed in Russia's North," New York Times, September 6, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps) Comment. A nearly ice-free Arctic some 40,000 years ago might have permitted human diffusion into the New World, but so far we have seen nothing this early. It is likely that the Southern Hemisphere was also freer of ice during this period. Although humans had gained Australia by this time, we know of no good evidence that they used Antarctica and the islands of the Southern Ocean to reach the New World. But see a related item under GEOLOGY. From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A LUMINOUS-TUBE PHENOMENON Night of July 11-12, 1991, near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, England. Three individuals were monitoring nearby fields for crop-circle phenomena. Instead, they observed a strange, but possibly related, luminous mass. R.L Goold described it in the following words: "Suddenly, at 2.55 a.m ., birds began singing which heightened our alertness and made us check wrist watches. It was soon quiet again, but at 3.00 a.m ., almost exactly, I spotted a tube of light to the northeast descending vertically beneath a cloud in that part of the sky. Most of the remainder of the sky was clear and starry. The tube extended steadily in length as we watched, and its milky-white colour seemed to be due to a self-luminoscity like one might expect from the electrical effect known as plasma. As it came down against the black sky and neared the ground, the tube began to broaden, and branched out to give two opposed arms, as indicated in the drawing, forming a design in the air with rounded ends. Then the tube dissipated from the top downwards, and disappeared into the horizontal arms which themselves proceeded towards the ground out of sight beyond the hill peaks. No noise was heard. The whole phenomenon lasted about six seconds." The trio of observers used their fingers held at arm ...
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... -Reckoning Mental Processing during Sleep Chess Prodigies Accelerated Mental Processes Mnemonists PIG MYSTERIES OF GENIUS AND CREATIVITY Early Appearance of Genius Genius and Mental Illness Origin of "Strokes of Genius" Periodicity in Creativity Humor and Creativity Genius and Season of Birth Aesthetics and Creativity Dream Creativity PII EIDETIC AND AFTER IMAGES Eidetic Imagery Vivid Afterimages Eidetic Imagery and Retardation Eidetic Imagery and Hallucinations Recovery of Eidetic Imagery through Hypnosis PIK CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness and Hypnosis Nature of Consciousness Free Will Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics [BHT22] PIM ANOMALIES OF MEMORY Capacity of the Human Brain Emotional Enhancement of Memory Learning and Memory under Anesthesia Hypnosis and Memory Pseudomemory Hypnotic Misrecall Mnemonics Photographic Memory Prenatal Mental Life Inherited Memories False-Memory Syndrome Memory-Processing Bottlenecks Memory Regression [PHP] Cryptonesia PIP ODDITIES OF PERCEPTION Synesthesia Optical Illusions [PIB] PL HALLUCINATIONS AND ILLUSIONS PLD NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES Near-Death Experiences NDEs in Non-Threatening Situations Involuntary Memories during Illness and Injury PLF HYPNAGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC ILLUSIONS Hypnagogic Illusions Hypnopompic Illusions PLG HALLUCINATIONS, APPARITIONS, ILLUSIONS Migraine Hallucinations Epileptic Hallucinations Drug-Induced Hallucinations Hallucinations during Sensory Deprivation Conjurable and Manipulatible Hallucinations Spontaneous Hallucinations Fairies, Elementals, etc. Religious Hallucinations (Angels) Psychic Lights (Welsh Revival) UFOs and Their Occupants [X ] Visions of Monsters Illusions of Desired Physical Phenomena (N -Rays) Psychic Doubles or Autoscopic Illusions Negative Hallucinations Collective Hallucinations Auditory Hallucinations Imaginary Companions (" Philip" Phenomenon) Nightmares Auras Hostage Hallucinations Geomagnetism and Hallucinations Hallucinations in Life-Threatening Situations Lilliputian Hallucinations Hypnotism and Color Blindness Illusions of Levitation [PSP] Seance Illusions [PSM, PBA] Indian Rope Trick and Related Magic Tricks Sex- ...
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... did not seem to be pyramids at all, at least in the archeological sense. All of this pyramid excitement was precipitated by Rex Gilroy, an amateur Australian archeologist. Well, Gilroy is at it again. This time he claims to have evidence of ancient Chinese visits to Australia -- long before the Dutch explorers and Captain Cook. Although our Australian contacts have warned us about Gilroy, and his "pyramid" evidence has been debunked, his latest data should at least be laid open for inspection, with caveats attached of course. Since China is much closer to Australia than Egypt, and the way is paved with handy islands, early Chinese contacts would not be as anomalous at Egyptian-built pyramids. Gilroy's latest claims are: (1 ) A carved stone head unearthed near Milton, NSW, seems to represent a Chinese goddess. (2 ) An old Chinese record, Atlas of Foreign Countries, describes the north coast of a great land to the south inhabited by pygmies, evidence for which has been found in Queensland. (3 ) A 6th. Century copper Chinese scroll includes a crude map of Australia. A 2000-year-old vase also seems to show another crude map of this island continent. (4 ) In 1948, fragments of Ming porcelain were dug up on Winchelsea Island. Some 35 years ago, a jade Buddah was unearthed near Cooktown, Queensland. As these data as legitimate and convincing as Gilroy claims? We will await further communications from Down Under. (Gilroy, Rex; "Were the Chinese First to Discover Australia ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deathbed Experiences Laid To Rest Over the years, doctors and psychiatrists have accumulated a large lode of deathbed or near-death experiences. Typically, one about to pass through the veil feels exhaltation, meets long-dead relatives, reviews his past life, encounters luminous beings, departs his body to view friends clustering around, and so on. What to make of it all? Is heaven or some sort of after life just beyond death's door? Alcock's analysis is very revealing. He first describes several well-known psychological states: out-of-the-body experiences, hypnogogic sleep, hallucinations, and the so-called mystical experience. He concludes that the full spectrum of deathbed experiences can occur any time, not merely during the final moments of life. Nothing unique happens at death's door, merely the altered states of consciousness expected at such a crucial moment. Thus, death-bed experiences reveal nothing of the territory beyond the grave. Alcock does maintain, however, that these various altered states of consciousness are very curious and well worth further study. (Alcock, James E.; "Psychology and Near-Death Experiences," The Skeptical Inquirer, 3:25, Spring 1979.) From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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