170 results found.
... places quite fascinating", Science Books. Contents also included in Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 248 pages, photocopied edition, $16.95, 74 illustrations, 5 indexes, 1982. 1070 references, LC 82-99902, ISBN 915554-09-7 , 7x10-in format. Hardcover edition, $24.95: out of stock Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation: A catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Here is our "weather' Catalog. As everyone knows, our atmosphere is full of tricks, chunks of ice fall from the sky, tornado funnels glow at night. The TV weathermen rarely mention these "idiosyncrasies". [Picture caption: Conical hailstones with fluted sides] Typical subjects covered: Polar-aligned cloud rows * Ice fogs (the Pogonip) * Conical hail * Gelatinous meteors * Point rainfall * Unusual incendiary phenomena * Solar activity and thunderstorms * Tornados and their association with electricity * Multiwalled waterspouts * Explosive onset of whirlwinds * Dry fogs and dust fogs * Effect of the moon on rainfall * Ozone in hurricanes * Ice falls (hydrometeors) Comments from reviews: ". .. can be recommended to every one who realizes that not everything in science has been properly explained", Weather 202 pages, hardcover, $16.95, 40 Illustrations, 5 indexes, 1983. 745 references, LC 82-63156, ISBN 915554-10-0 , 7x10 format. Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ribbons In The Sky November 18, 1999. North Atlantic Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Waterford enroute from Pto Bolivar, Columbia, to Ijmuiden. At 1832 UTC an azimuth of Jupiter was taken shortly after sunset. The sky in the vicinity of Jupiter was completely clear, no cloud of any type, with but a few small cumulus dotted around the horizon. About five minutes later, having completed the calculations, the observer again looked out to see a ribbon type cloud, broken in formation, stretching almost from [the] eastern horizon to [the] western horizon. If the estimated height (see below) is reasonably correct, then the bandwidth couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, apparently more cigar-shaped in cross section than flat, the maximum axis being horizontal, the minimum vertical. The cloud was fairly consistent in density, and at a fairly stable altitude, not undulating or rippled, having the consistency of a small cumulus cloud (white and fleecy), but also translucent. Initially, it was thought to be a condensation trail, but this was shortly dismissed as it was considered too low (estimated to be less than 10,000 ft altitude, probably around 7,0008,000 ft). Both ends of the cloud were checked with binoculars but no aircraft was evident; however, as a yardstick, and by good fortune, one did appear ...
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... the years. A famous flare example was observed and reported in 1900 by A.E . Douglass, at the Lowell Observaory. The popular press quickly announced that the Martians were signalling us. Actually, this assumption was quite understandable because in those days the newly discovered Martian "canals" were in everyone's thoughts. Most scientists, however, rejected the signal notion preferring to attibute the flare to the specular reflection of sunlight from snowy peaks on Mars. But they were wrong, too. Close-up inspection by modern spacecraft has revealed no snowy peaks or large bodies of water on Mars that might mirror the sun. But another possibility has now come to the fore. The Martian flares could be reflections of sunlight from flat, hexagonal crystals of water ice in the thin Martian clouds; the same crystals that create some of the solar halos and sun dogs seen on earth. That this sort of specular reflection does occur was demonstrated on June 7, 2001, when a flare was actually photographed in the area of Edom Promontorium. The photography was possible because scientists had been watching this spot intently -- with cameras at the ready -- because a well-observed flare had occurred at this location in 1954, and calculations showed that conditions would be just right for the sun to be again reflected by clouds at this spot on June 7, 2001. It was a prediction that came true. Sunlight reflected from Martian clouds cannot be the total answer, though. An area called Tithonius Lacus, for example, is the source of many flares, but it is ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Whence Whitings?Curious clouds of fine white particles often decorate the surface of the warm, shallow waters around the Bahamas. Called "whitings," these clouds of suspended material are not minor phenomena to file away and forget. Some of the bright streaks are 200 square kilometers in area and can be seen from the Space Shuttle. The source of the whitings has not been determined with certainty. The locals claim that schools of fish stir up the fine, white, calcareous sediments. This is doubted because fish are very scarce in the areas where whitings occur. Another thought was that calcium carbonate was being precipitated directly from the ocean water. Chemical tests showed this to be impossible. A new theory has schools of sharks intentionally raising clouds of bottom sediments to blind fish. The sharks then move in with their electrosensitive organs, which are unaffected by the "white-out," and pick off the helpless fish.(Copley, Jon; "Sneak Attack," New Scientist, p. 22, December 2, 2000.) Comment. It would take a lot of sharks to stir up 200 square kilometers of sediment! And why bother if fish are scarce where whitings are seen? A similar phenomenon is seen in the sudden whitenings of the Dead Sea. Details in GHC4 in Earthquakes, Tides,... From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites ...
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... there does seem to be a serious shortage of carbon-based life forms elsewhere in the universe. In fact, there seems to be a great dearth of small, cool, solid, water-and-carbon-rich planets circling beneficent suns. Can it be that we are looking for extraterrestrial life in the wrong places? Life may have originated and prospered on the multitude of sun-less aggregations of matter drifting through the void, some doubtless quite close to us. Myriad nomadic planets may be roaming our Galaxy free from the clutches of parent stars. Two teams of astronomers think they have detected 25 of these free-floating planets, and say there could be hundreds of millions of them wandering the Milky Way. These free-floaters or "drifters" were created when small clouds of gas and dust coalesced under gravity's urging. If such collapsing clouds were less than 80 times Jupiter's mass, they would not be able to sustain nuclear reactions and become long-lived stars. Many would be-come "brown dwarfs." Still smaller aggregations -- less than 14 Jupiters -- would never shine at all. These would remain warm for a while as they dissipated the gravitational energy that created them. Such small objects would be temporarily detectable by infrared telescopes. Hundreds of such infrared "point sources" turn up in sky surveys. These are the only "drifters" we can detect. "Drifters" that have already cooled off are certainly out there by the hundreds of millions. (Muir, Hazel; "The Drifters," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is matter infinitely divisible?Just over a year ago, particle physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) announced that they had at last found the top quark, the final particle needed to flesh out the so-called Standard Model of subatomic physics. Then, all seemed serene in the world of quarks and gluons. Quarks, you see, are held to be the smallest building blocks of matter and now they had all been found and cataloged. The collection was complete. But a storm cloud has now appeared on the event horizon, casting a shadow on the solidity of the quarks themselves. Are they really fundamental; that is, indivisible? Fermilab scientists now wonder, for when they crash protons into antiprotons head-on at very high energies, the resulting debris clouds display an anomaly. Some of the supposedly indestructable quarks seem to have fragmented, too. The collision energies seem high enough penetrate the integument of the quarks if they are divisible. There may be other explanations of the deviation from theory, but right now quarks seem a bit more fragile than they did just a few months ago. (Wilczek, Frank; "A Crack in the Standard Model?" Nature, 380:19, 1996. Also: Walker, Gabrielle; "The Secret Heart of a Quark," New Scientist, p. 17, February 17, 1996) Comment. If quarks can be split, perhaps ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SAGA OF SOOT: PART III "For the first time, researchers have found complex organic molecules on the Earth that came from outside the Solar System. American scientists say tiny sooty grains extracted from meteorites contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from interstellar dust clouds." This article continues with an acknowledgement that F. Hoyle did predict way back in the 1950s that some of earth's organic matter came from outer space. And that he was roundly scoffed at. Next, more evidence is presented suggesting that the universe is full of the basic ingredients of life: Recently, the spectrum of the amino acid glycine was detected near the center of our galaxy. (Hecht, Jeff; "Stardust Brought Down to Earth," New Scientist, p. 17, March 23, 1996) Cross reference. IN SF#101, we related how PAHs were found in meteorite ALH84001, which was picked up in the Antarctic, and which is believed to have originated on Mars. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hailstorms as Imaginative Sculptors June 29, 1984. Padis Plateau, Romania. This plateau is located in the Transylvanian Western Carpathians. The weather was pleasantly warm even though the ground was still covered with snow. In the south there suddenly appeared a cumulonimbus capillatus whose top seemed to me to be about 14 kilometres or 42 000 feet. As the cloud took on the character of cumulonimbus incus and gradually covered the entire sky, thunder could be heard more and more loudly. The flock of sheep grazing in the deep valley gathered together just as they do before sunset because they too felt the approaching storm. At 16 UT the first raindrops fell. A weak shower of rain followed, and then loose-structured 20-mm-diameter discs of ice. Soon afterwards what was to be 30 minutes of "sky fire" set in. Stone-like pieces of ice streamed to the ground, very heavily and violently. Some of the hailstones were the size of a nut or plum. Within minutes a white carpet covered the plateau of Padis at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 feet), and the air grew very cool. The landscape was covered by a milky-white veil of fog which rose from the cold ground to a height of 1 to 1.5 metres to embrace the whole dolomite plateau. Then for three minutes the hailstorm paused, before restarting! It lasted for 55 minutes, and it was ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SAGA OF SOOT: PART II Shortly after Hyakutake's X-rays were announced, a fourth theory of origin was put forth by acknowledged heretics C. Wickramasinghe and F. Hoyle. Comet Hyakutake, they said, was not emitting X-rays itself. Instead, solar X-rays were mirrored in earth's direction by a cloud of very tiny carbon-containing particles released by the comet. Electrons in these nanometer-sized particles acted as if they were free electrons, and these are excellent scatterers of X-rays. Anyone familiar with the writings of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe can guess what these nanometer-sized particles might be: viruses, of course! Said Wickramasinghe: "It all fits in the the idea that there are real viruses in comets and that comets are the agents by which life is brought to planets." (Chown, Marcus; "Do X-ray Comets Shed Carbon?" New Scientist, p. 19, May 11, 1996) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... any other globular clusters checked so far. Are globular clusters in general different from the rest of the Milky Way? Possibly, see below. (Anonymous; "No Globular Planets?" Astronomy, 28:34, October 2000. Anonymous; "Planets Come Up Missing in a Globular Cluster," Sky & Telescope, 104:23, October 2000.) Answer. Globular clusters are peculiar in several additional ways. For example, the globular clusters in the Milky Way have a spherical distribution rather than being compressed into a flat spiral with the rest of our galaxy's stars. There is even evidence that the clusters may not participate in the Milky Way's ponderous rotation. See AOB4 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos for still more globular-cluster idiosyncracies. A spherical cloud of globular clusters coexists in space with the disc-shaped Milky Way. Each globular cluster is a dense spherical aggregation of tens of thousands of stars. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... is defined as being palpable and could also be that "missing mass" or "dark matter" that astronomers need to explain why spinning galaxies do not fly apart. Mirror Matter could also account for some mysterious terrestrial phenomena such as that unaccountable lack of a significant crater in Siberia, where the 1908 Tunguska blast leveled a huge forest but hardly disturbed the ground. Recently, Mirror Matter has been invoked to explain the ups and downs of terrestrial biodiversity. R. Foot and Z. Silagadze propose that the 26-millionyear periodicity in terrestrial extinctions -- claimed to be present in the fossil record -- is due to a solar-system planet made of Mirror Matter (and therefore invisible). This postulated planet has a period of 26-million years and regularly gravitationally jostles the Oort Cloud of comets on the periphery of the solar system. These jolts unleash torrents of devastating comets upon the inner solar system every 26-million years, thereby blasting the earth and its sensitive biological cargo. This supposed Mirror-Matter planet happens to be the conceptual double of a Normal-Matter, hypothetical planet named Nemesis, which was proposed in the 1980s to account for the same periodical extinctions in the fossil record. However, diligent searches did not locate Nemesis. Of course, if Nemesis were made of Mirror Matter, as now proposed, it would have escaped telescopic detection then and would still elude our telescopes today! (Schilling, Govert; "Through the Looking Glass," New Scientist, p. 16, April 28, 2001.) Comment. Not only is a ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil Deposits And Rotary Phenomena Sometimes obscure and unlikely correlations lead to new insights. In this context, we are obliged to mention a most improbable connection proposed by chemical engineer S. Mori in a paper presented at the Spring 2000 meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Mori suspects that oil and gas deposits are linked to the origin of tornados! In his paper, Mori said that positively charged oil deposits underground establish polarity with negatively charged oxygen ions at the surface. When a thunderstorm passes over the oil field, he thinks this subsurface polarity links up the with electric polarity established between clouds and ground, creating the vacuum that spawns the tornado. Over the years, Mori said he's built a data base of about 8,000 tornado hits in the United States for comparison with the location of known oil and gas deposits. He said that studies in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Texas found a high correlation. (Lore, David; "Underground Oil One Twist in Tornado Theory," Charleston Dispatch, June 8, 2000. Cr. J. Dotson.) Comments. There have been numerous reports of electrical and burning phenomena associated with tornados. See GWT1 & GWT2 in Tornados, Dark Days. The oil-sodden lands of the Persian Gulf can be correlated with another sort of rotary phenomena: the strange phosphorescent wheels of light that have been seen many times swirling in the shallow waters of the Gulf. See GLW ...
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... advecting root exudates deep into the peat profiles. Seasonal droughts, however, favor the formation of transient confining layers that trap biogenic gases into discrete pockets... Bog breathing may therefore be a surface manifestation of the accumulation and release of greenhouse gases in peat deposits. (Glaser, Paul H. et al; "Bog Breathing: the Curious Interplay of Climate, Ground-water, and Greenhouse Gases in Boreal Peatlands," Eos, 80:F47, 1999.) Spontaneously igniting, biogenic gases are found in many marshy places. These eruptions were observed on an English mud flat in 1902. Comment. When bogs breathe they release plumes of flammable gases which probably give rise to the many observations of will-o '- the-wisps in marshy areas. Why these gas clouds are luminous remains mysterious. (GLN1 in Lightning, Auroras ) Similar biogenic gases cause the mist-pouffers mentioned in the foregoing item. Obviously, the energy releases in will-o '- the-wisps are less powerful. From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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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 Cloud Plumes Natural But Still A Bit Anomalous During the mid-1980s, satellites photographed strange cloud plumes that stretched hundreds of kilometers downwind of some nothern islands, especially Bennett Island, in the Soviet Arctic. Some wondered if perhaps the Soviets were conducting tests of some new type of weapon in these remote locations. With the end of the Cold War, flights of instrumented aircraft over the islands were permitted. Data from these flights support the idea that the mystery cloud plumes are formed by air currents passing over the islands. In other words, they are only orographic or mountaincaused clouds, like those sometimes seen over the Rockies. But puzzles persist: Why are the plumes so long? Why do they form at such high altitudes -- more than 3 kilometers above the tops of the relatively small mountains on the islands? (Monastersky, R.; "Mountains Give Rise to Perplexing Plumes," Science News, 141:422, 1992. Also: Fett, Robert W.; "Major Cloud Plumes in the Arctic and Their Relation to Fronts and Ice Movements," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 925, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Light Flashes Above Storms Past issues of Science Frontiers have recorded several examples of anomalous luminous phenomena above cloud tops (in SF#89, for example). Almost all of these observations have been anecdotal and too qualitative to be of use to scientists. Happily, some atmospheric scientists are now taking more interest in "rocket lightning" and those strange light flashes seen above storm clouds. First, though, one more anecdotal report, and then we'll summarize two recent scientific efforts to elucidate these phenomena. July 28, 1993. 150 miles south of Panama. From an aircraft flying at 33,000 feet. "I and another pilot in the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 912 were watching and circumnavigating a large cumulonimbus cloud. About five times, a large discharge of lightning at the top of and within the cloud was followed by a vertical shaft of blue light that propagated from the top of the cloud upward to 100,000 ft. "The beam was very straight and the color distinctly different from the lightning. At the top of this shaft, the column fanned out just before its disappearance. All the occurrences were identical. At least one also was witnessed by three other American pilots about 30 min. behind us on the same route." (Hammerstrom, John G.; "Mystery Lightning," Aviation Week , 139:6 , August 30, 1993. Cr. J.S ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Looping Lightning March 17, 1992. Delta Flight 1083 en route from Pittsburgh to Atlanta. At approximately 8:30 PM, this flight was thought to be flying safely high above thundercloud tops, which were situated at 20,000-22,000 feet. The pilot, W.F . Blanchard describes what he observed: "Then, from one of these clouds, a lightning bolt appeared that changed my mind instantly. This bolt came from the top of the buildup closest to our line of flight and formed an enormous loop in the sky. It started at the top of the cloud and went well above our altitude (to at least 40,00045,000 ft.) and then circled back down into the cloud. My impression is that it joined back into itself at the top of the cloud, but it may have returned to another of the peaks in the same cloud." (Grynkewich, N.E ., Jr.; "Lightning Loop," Weather, 47:493, 1992.) Comment. There have been numerous recent reports of upwardly directed "rocket" lightning, but none in which the lightning returned back to the same cloud. Grynkewich may have seen some bizarre form of intercloud lightning. Reference. Unusual and anomalous forms of lightning are cataloged in section GLL in our catalog: Lighting, Auroras . Details here . From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects In The Dark About Dark Matter During our last two-month collecting cycle, four "dark matter" items worth mentioning turned up. A wider search undoubtedly would have netted many more, because dark matter is worrying a lot of astronomers. Observations of visible matter, the only kind we can see directly, suggest that most of the universe is, in fact, composed of dark matter. This conclusion comes mainly from the belief that something unseen (dark matter) is tugging on visible matter, making it do things the laws of motion say it should not do. All visible bodies, therefore, seem to be careening about in a dense cloud of unseen, unknown masses. These might be dark, Jupiter-sized objects, black holes, and/or some exotic forms of matter. We must choose between the reality of dark matter or admit that something is awry with our laws of gravitation and motion when they are applied on a cosmological scale Now, let us examine those four darkmatter items from the recent literature: D. Lin, a University of California astronomer, has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits around our own galaxy (the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lines Of Maser Spots Masers work like lasers, except they radiate microwaves instead of visible light. Natural masers have been found in the atmospheres of both earth and Mars as well as in interstellar space. They form in space when electromagnetic radiation falls upon dense molecular clouds, which then reradiate the energy at frequencies characteristic of the molecules, Armed with radio telescopes, astronomers can "see" masers as bright spots (" maser spots") in the radio sky. R. Norris and J. Whiteoak et al, at the Australia Telescope National Facility, while surveying just 16 regions of the Milky Way between 5,000 and 30,000 light years, detected a dozen intense methanol masers (6 .7 -12.2 gigahertz) arranged in lines. Early thinking is that these maser spots decorate the discs of gas clouds surrounding nascent stars. In other words, maser spots could be protoplanets. Given the small area of the sky sampled by Norris and Whiteoak, maser spots may be very common. (Dayton, Leigh; "Microwaves May Mark Position of Protoplanets," New Scientist, p. 16, July 10, 1993.) Questions. Whence all this interstellar methanol? And where does it all go when the protoplanets coalesce into planets? Could these molecular clouds also contain those other organic compounds necessary for the creation and development of life? If so, we can speculate that life may originate often and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Depths Of Ignorance Oceanographers have been heard to complain that science knows more about the surface of Mars than it does about the topography of the deep ocean floors. Marine biologists, however, have even more reason to feel slighted. To illustrate, the usual picture painted of the abyssal terrain beyond the continental shelves and slopes is one a a frigid biological desert -- endless plains of sterile muck, broken once in a while by oasis-like deepsea vents, where weird tube worms thrive amidst clouds of chemosynthetic bacteria. This is a highly misleading portrayal. The situation, in fact, recalls what happened when biologists first released clouds of insecticides in rain forest canopies, thus precipitating a deluge of uncataloged insects into collecting nets waiting below. Now, instead of a mere million species of insects worldwide, entomologists are thinking perhaps 10 million or more. Will the same diversity prevail in the deepsea muck? C.L . Van Dover believes so: "Away from the vents, in the great ocean plains, life is much less dramatic and often scaled down to minute proportions -- threadlike worms, tiny snails, delicate, transparent clams. Yet, the diversity of animals in the cold abyssal muds, it now appears, may rival the celebrated biodiversity of the tropical rain forests." We now know virtually nothing about this fauna, how it survives, and how it evolved. Millions of undescribed species may be awaiting discovery by ...
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... . Accompanying it was a roar like that of a military jet. The phenomenon occurred a total of four times; the second of which is the most interesting. "A second illumination was observed twenty seconds later, but this time it reappeared away from the tree so a clear view was possible. The illumination was in the form of a narrow column and of the classic gentle 'S ' tornado shape in the 'roping out' stage; it was silvery in colour towards the top and golden-orange lower down. Additionally, Mr. Smith saw the illumination move from the sky towards the ground, but at a speed slower than lightning. The sound of rushing wind was heard again, while this illumination lasted five to six seconds. Mr. Smith also noted a very low cloud base with a second layer of cloud only slightly higher." (Reynolds, David J.; "Nocturnal Tornado Illuminated by an Electrical Discharge at Farnham, Surrey, 10 January 1994," Journal of Meteorology, UK, 20:381, 1995.) Comment. Although ordinary lightning accompanies many tornados, glowing columns suggestive of other types of electrical discharge are not part of prevailing tornado theory. Nevertheless, observations of glowing discharges within the funnel - making it look like a neon light - have been observed and even photographed. See above sketch taken from GLD10 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For a description of this book, visit: here . Very rarely the funnel of a nocturnal tornado will glow like a neon light. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY- ...
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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 The milky sea a.k .a . "white water"June 1854. South of Java. Aboard the American clipper Shooting Star . Captain Kingman reporting: "The whole appearance of the ocean was like a plain covered with snow. There was scarce a cloud in the heavens, yet the sky...appeared as black as if a storm was raging. The scene was one of awful grandeur; the sea having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness, and the stars going out, seemed to indicate that all nature was preparing for that last grand conflagration which we are taught to believe is to annihilate this material world." We selected this account of the milky sea phenomenon because of its vivid verbiage -- something absent from the modern reports: "August 13, 1986. Northwest Indian Ocean. The entire sea surface took on an intense white glow which was not unlike viewing the negative of a photograph." The milky sea is a rather common phenomenon. In fact, the British Meteorological Office has established a Bioluminescence Database, which presently contains 235 reports of milky seas seen since 1915. P.J . Herring and M. Watson have employed this Database in a review paper on these impressive displays. Geographical plotting of the reports shows a strong concentration in the northwest Indian Ocean (see figure). Seasonally, there is a strong peaking in August and a secondary blip in ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects Another Milky Sea January 25, 1995. Indian Ocean. Aboard the s.s . Lima , Juaymah to Rotterdam. Third officer, S.M .F . Masud, and others of the ship's company observed another instance of one of the sea's great unex plained phenomena. "At 1800 UTC on a clear moonless night while 150 n.mile east of the Somalian coast a whitish glow was observed on the horizon and, after 15 minutes of steaming, the ship was completely surrounded by a sea of milky-white colour with a fairly uniform luminescence. The bioluminescence appeared to cover the entire sea area, from horizon to horizon but above the surface, and it appeared as though the ship was sailing over a field of snow or gliding over the clouds. "There was no damping effect on capillary waves or reduction of visibility at all and there was no mist at deck level although at a distance it seemed as if there was either lowlying mist or the upwelling of the luminescence itself. The bow waves and the wake appeared blackish in colour and thick black patches of oil were passing by. Later, the Aldis lamp revealed that the 'oil patches' were actually light-green kelp, amazingly black against the white water." A water sample contained many singlecelled microorganisms, but they displayed no luminescence. After 6 hours, the luminescence disappeared. Commenting on this report, P.J . Herring, of the Southhampton Oceanography Centre, said that milky seas are most often associated with the Southwest Monsoon. This one was was rare ...
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... computer bulletin board here! Subject: #235852-Ball Lightning From: Jeff Baum (PHX)
[email protected] To: Emory Kimbrough [TCL]
[email protected](X ) "On 8 January 1992 we were in MSP [Minneapolis/St. Paul] ready for pushback at sunrise. Weather was sleet squalls, temperature of + 2 degrees C (35 degrees F), ceiling of indefinite 100 obscured, visibility of about 1 and mile variable. We deiced and taxied for the active 11L, airborne in 8 minutes after deicing had ended. The First Officer was flying that leg. Climbing through about 900 feet ABL, this incandescent sphere approximately 10 cm (6 inches) in diameter surrounded by a, what I called, plasma
cloud of bluish white approx 1 to 1 and meter (3 to 4 feet) in diameter with bright white 'rays' similar to a fireworks explosion formed just forward and to the left of the radome. We contacted this within second on our left side, just aft of the attach seam of the radome (namely about in line with my left foot). With this contact there was a sharp bang. The cabin crew reported the loud bang but didn't see any haze or light inside the cabin. One did report seeing a bright light on the left side of the aircraft's exterior." Reference. Rayed ball lightning is fairly common. We have cataloged it in GLB3 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science
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... bumps in the brain. The function of the vomeronasal system is pheromone detection. It was widely believed that humans had long ago discarded this sensory system along evolution's trail. But a closer look at the human nose by B. Jafek and D. Moran, affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center at the University of Colorado, revealed that all humans examined displayed two tiny pits on both sides of the septum, just inside the the opening of the nose. Behind the holes were tubes lined with unique cells that could well be pheromone detectors, since they responded positively to puffs of air laden with pheromones. In conclusion, we humans actually do have a sixth sense, and we are all enveloped in an aura -- not the luminous aura of the mystics but a cloud of pheromones. Somehow, our attitudes towards others are likely affected by these pheromones. (Blakeslee, Sandra; "Human Nose May Hold an Additional Organ for a Real Sixth Sense," New York Times, September 7, 1993. Cr. P. Gunkel) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the long nights, is a band of dedicated meteor observers -- mainly amateur astroomers. Collectively, they record many meteor showers and fireballs; all quite respectable astronomical objects. But sometimes fuzzy, rapidly moving luminosities appear, as in the following paragraph written by J.S . Gallagher: "Diffuse luminous objects moving at angular velocities similar to those of meteors were observed during over 200 hours of meteor watching in 1991. They fell in three broad categories: arcs, patches, and 'meteors' similar in appearance to comet comas. Though I at first dismissed the possibility of their being related to meteors, I reconsidered this relation after eliminating other possible causes such as reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy comets postulated by L.A . Frank to account for the transient "holes" seen in satellite ultraviolet images of the earth. (See SF#60 and #72 for more.) (Gallagher, John ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wrong-way stars in spiral galaxies Spiral galaxies are believed to form when gigantic clouds of gas collapse under the pull of gravity to create spinning discs. Further condensations give rise to the billions of stars that make up these immense rotating stellar wheels. Intuitively, one would expect all of the stars in a given galaxy to rotate around the hub in the same direction, like all of the water molecules in a whirlpool. But galaxy NGC4138, 50-million light years away, defies this common-sense expectation. M. Haynes and colleagues at Cornell have discovered that fully one-fifth of this galaxy's stars are rotating in a direction opposite from the rest. Otherwise, NGC4138 is a well-behaved spiral galaxy, almost a boring one, exhibiting no signs of internal turmoil or past collisions with another galaxy. However, all of the wrong-way stars appear to be youngish. This little clue may lead to some sort of explanation. (Muir, Hazel; "Counter-Revolutionaries Lurk in Spiral Galaxies," New Scientist, p. 18, March 16, 1996.) Comment. If all of NGC4138's counterrotating stars did condense from the original spinning gas disc, their large wrong-sign angular momentum would have had to be compensated for by a speed up of all the "right-way" stars. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 ...
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... the bursters would be concentrated in the plane of the galaxy (the Milky Way), which clearly they are not. Another theory places the bursters in a distant spherical halo about our galaxy. But, in this case, the bursters would have to be much more energetic than astronomers care to contemplate. In fact, if they exist in a galactic halo, we should also be able to detect the bursters in our neighboring galaxies -- but we do not! A more exciting suggestion is that gamma-ray bursters are really very close! This would be consistent with the failure to find cosmological redshifts in the burster spectra. Could they be really close, just a few hundred light away? Perhaps arranged in a spherical halo about our solar system in the vicinity of the postulated Oort Cloud of comets? If this were so, they would not have to be nearly as powerful as they would in the neutronstar model. If the gamma-ray bursters really do lurk just at the fringes of the solar system, they must, given their power and small size, be objects completely new to astronomy. (Schwarzschild; Bertram; "Compton Observatory Data Deepen the Gamma Ray Burster Mystery," Physics Today, 45:21, February 1992.) Comment. Historically speaking, the gamma-ray bursters were discovered accidentally by satellites launched to detect surreptitious tests of nuclear weapons. Wouldn't it be ironical if our satellites are really monitoring artificial phenomena, generated by battles we can only write science fiction stories about? Reference. Refer to AOF29 in our Stars, Galaxies ...
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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 "TAIL WAGS DOG" IN SOLAR SYSTEM The Oort Cloud of comets hovering at the far frontiers of the solar system is, as we know from SF#57, not without its anomalies. Here, let us assume that it really does exist, even though we cannot see it. From a new book by I. Asimov (title below), we learn that this remote haze of icy fluff, the Oort Cloud, may really have about 90% of the angular momentum of the entire solar system. It was already sufficiently anomalous to discover that the planets possess fifty times the angular momentum of the much more massive sun. (See ABB3 in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) Astronomers have been attempting for years to explain this 50:1 split. Now, with the Oort Cloud apparently having ten times the angular momentum of the planets, the situation is much worse. According to Asimov, the solar-system angular momentum is split as follows: Oort Cloud 90% All of the planets 9.8 % The sun 0.2 % The total mass of the Oort Cloud is estimated to be roughly that of Saturn. The recent flyby of Halley's Comet created this dilemma. It was discovered that Halley was a chunk containing 140 cubic miles of ice - much larger than anticipated for this "typical" comet. If the estimated 2 trillion comets are, on the average, Halley' ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Upwardly directed lightning from cloud tops "An image of an unusual luminous electrical discharge over a thunderstorm 250 kilometers from the observing site has been obtained with a low-light-level television camera. The discharge began at the cloud tops at 14 kilometers and extended into the clear air 20 kilometers higher. The image, which had a duration of less than 30 milliseconds, resembled two jets or fountains and was probably caused by two localized electric charge concentrations at the cloud tops." (Franz, R.C ., et al; "Television Image of a Large Upward Electrical Discharge above a Thunderstorm System," Science, 249:48, 1990.) Comment. Note that the above discharges were diffuse and quite unlike most cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. They were, in fact, much like the mountain-top glows seen along the Andes. Also, one should ask where those "localized electric charge concen trations" came from and why they did not disperse. Reference, Upwardly directed "rocket lightning" is cataloged in GLL1 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. Fuller description here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Of The Missing Comets A key feature of our solar system is the Oort Cloud of comets that surrounds the sun and its family of planets. No one has yet seen the Oort Cloud directly, but the textbooks say that it must be there. In fact, all stars like our sun with planetary systems should have their own private Oort Clouds of comets - if the prevailing theory of planetary-system formation is correct. When we see a comet looping around the sun, it is because it has been jostled loose from the Oort Cloud by a passing star or molecular cloud. Further, some of these jostled comets should be kicked outwards and thus escape the solar system. Continuing with this reasoning, we on earth should sometimes see interstellar comets that have been shaken loose from other stellar systems. But we don't ! T.A . McGlynn and R.D . Chapman worry about this. "This lack of detections of extrasolar comets is becoming an embarrassment to the theories of solar system and comet formation." McGlynn and Chapman calculate that we should have seen six interstellar comets in the past 150 years, but the actual number is zero. Such interstellar comets would be easy to spot because they would be moving much faster than our own comets. Two possible explanations for the missing interstellar comets are: (1 ) The Oort Cloud theory is wrong; and (2 ) Solar systems like ours are rarer ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Globular Clusters Upset Theory Of Galaxy Formation A spherical cloud of globular clusters surrounds the Milky Way galaxy. Each cluster is itself a spherical groups of stars. Through the telescope, globular clusters are beautiful spherical aggregations of bright stars that seem to get ever denser toward the cluster's center. Globular clusters harbor many anomalies (AOB4 and AOB17 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos); here, we mention two involving spatial distribution and age. Many spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, spin ponderously in the center of a spherical cloud of scores, even hundreds, of globular clusters (see sketch). Not only do the globular clusters surrounding us display a different spatial distribution (spherical rather than flat-spiral), but their individual ages undercut galaxy theory. All of the Milky Way's globular clusters were supposed to have been formed when our galaxy was created. Yet, the ages of these clusters vary by as much as 5 billion years. (Dayton, Leigh; "Globular Clusters Upset Theory of Galaxy," New Scientist, p. 34, May 13, 1989.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning still another cluster anomaly: The globular clusters do not participate in the galaxy's general rotation. Where did these oddballs come from? Reference. The catalog volume: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, mentioned above, is described here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 ...
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... the day was in progress with curtains of rain and flickers of lightning, a few kilometres away to the north-west. The storm was moving towards us and the squally wind had already begun. I was again watching the weather from my office, which is on the fifth floor, when I was suddenly distracted by the appearance of a very bright, circular flash of blue-purple light (perhaps one metre or less in diameter), which persisted for about two seconds and then silently 'popped out,' leaving behind a puff of smoke, which then drifted away. The flash of circu lar light occurred about 500 m away from me: it was about 30 m above the ground, close to, and partly behind, a tall factory chimney. There was definitely no cloud-to-earth lightning over that area at that time, but the edge of the cumulonimbus cloud, giving the storm a few kilometres away, was directly overhead." (Kirvar, Erol; "Thunderstorm and Possible Ball Lightning in Ankara, June 1988," Weather, 44:136, 1989.) Reference. The various forms of ball lightning are cataloged in chapter GLB in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For more information on this book, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Meteoroid impacts: the other side of the story Astronomers have long puzzled over the origin of localized magnetic anomalies on the moon. These magnetic concentrations (called "magcons") are located precisely on the opposite side of the moon from the larger lunar basins. How could an impact on the moon magnetize the antipodal region? The impact of a large silicate meteoroid at speeds of 10 kilometers/second would not only blast out a big crater but it would also create a huge cloud of hot, partially ionized gas. This hot gas or plasma will conduct electricity and interact with lunar magnetic fields. As the plasma cloud spreads away from the impact site, it acts like a bulldozer, compressing the lunar magnetic fields ahead of it, as it envelopes the whole moon and rushes towards the antipodal point. It drives the compressed mag netic field into the surface, permanently magnetizing the rocks at the antipodal point. Voila! Magcons. (Hood, L.L ., and Huang, Z.; "Formation of Magnetic Anomalies Antipodal to Lunar Impact Basins: Two-Dimensional Model Calculations," Journal of Geophysical Research, 96:9837, 1991.) Comment. The earth also sports scars from the impacts of large meteoroids. Are there magnetic anomalies opposite these craters? Even more interesting to check out would be the holes blasted in the earth's biosphere by the converging masses of hot gases at the an tipodal points ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double Image Of Cresent Moon November 24, 1989. Knoxville, Tennessee. "Conditions: Clear sky (no clouds, but a slight haze). Waning moon was approx. 60 above the horizon, air temperature 33 F. "I came out of the house about 6:25 AM to perform a task and, being an amateur astronomer, I looked up at the sky to see what was visible. I noticed the crescent of the waning moon appeared as a double crescent. My eyes kept trying to resolve it into a single image, but it wouldn't resolve. I then looked at several other light sources (radio tower, porch light, & street light) and determined that my vision was probably fine, as these objects appeared as single images. Looking back at the moon, it still appeared as a double image. I covered the right eye and I still saw a double image. I did the same with the left eye and got the same results. I then held out my right arm and extended my thumb to cover one crescent. I saw only one image that way. I moved my thumb and the image was again doubled. I concluded that I was viewing refracted images of the moon. "Conditions prevented continuous observation, but I was able to return approximately every five minutes. By 6:55 AM the sky was brightening and there was only a single lunar crescent. ...
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... about fifty miles per hour. "The agency, though invisible, behaved like a solid object throughout and did not show any fluid tendencies, i.e . no variation in speed, line or strength. There was no visual aberration either in front, above or below the advancing line. "After crossing the field on a shallow arc the 'line' dropped to a position about 1 o'clock and radially described a circle 75 ft radius in about 4 seconds. The agency then disappeared." Meaden, a champion of the plasma-vortex theory, believes that the observation reported by Barnes is consistent with this theory. During a later interview, Barnes stated that a hissing noise accompanied the phenomenon. This, thinks Meaden, could be due to electrical discharges within the plasma cloud. (Meaden, G.T .; "Circle Formation in a Wiltshire Cereal-Crop -- an Eye-Witness Account and Analysis of a Circles-Effect Event at Westbury," Journal of Meteor ology, U.K ., 14:265, 1989.) Comment. Still at issue are the formation of a large, swirling mass of ionized air, its mysterious motion, the precision of the circles, and the diverse, almost too-neat geometrical patterns. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... anything like it,' he said. "The Oregon State University oceanographer said the pool, about 6 feet in depth, is approximately 3 feet wide by 8 feet long. It is near the lush white and orange bacteria mats found last summer." The murky pool of fluid was discovered during a dive in a research submarine. The temperature of the pool was about 4.5 C (40.1 F) which made it 1 C warmer than the surrounding lake water. (Anonymous; "Strange Blue Pool Found in Crater Lake," Sunday Oregonian , August 13, 1989. Cr. R. Byrd) Comment. Some lakes in northern climes still retain ancient seawater in their bottoms. Also, we have the well-publicized African lakes that suddenly overturn, producing clouds of poisonous gases. See our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are the soviet plumes only orographic clouds?F.C . Parmenter-Holt, a NOAA scientist, has reacted to the recent discussions of Soviet plume events as follows: "I believe that these clouds are naturally occurring, orographically-induced formations. When winds blow perpendicular to the 2,500-plus foot glacial ridge, along the northern portion of the island, a long gravitywave pattern is established downwind, on the lee side. The cases collected by Matson show sharp boundaries conforming to the contour of this glacial barrier." The Matson reference is Science News, March 28, 1987, p. 204. (Parmenter-Holt, Frances C.; "Plumes and Peaks," Science News, 131:403, 1987.) Comment. Parmenter-Holt could well be correct in some cases, for wave-like orographic clouds often form in the lee of mountain ranges, such as the Rockies. Some of the plumes, however, extend for 175 kilometers, as described above. This is pretty long for a glacial ridge. Then, too, one should inquire whether such plumes occur near similar ridges in northern climes and not just over Soviet territory. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Concentrated Source Of Lightning In Cloud July 21, 1985. Strait of Malacca. m.v . Staffordshire . "Between 2000 GMT and 2200 GMT whilst the vessel was transiting the Strait of Malacca in a southeasterly direction, the following phenomenon was observed. "For several hours lightning had been seen ahead of the vessel. As we approached, it appeared to take on several forms, the most interesting of which is shown in the sketch. It had the appearance of a central point of light with ragged streaks radiating from the centre in a mainly horizontal direction. At no time did this lightning reach the sea surface. This type was observed about ten times during the period of observation..." (Thomas, C.O .; "Lightning," Marine Observer, 56:116, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of this phenomenon are recent sightings of vapor vortices in regions where crop circles are common. While no one has yet seen these vortices gouging out circles, these visual manifestations betoken strong circular winds in the proper locations. Here follows a recent account: "Looking across the field of winter wheat to the east..., he suddenly noticed at a distance of 80 metres... what he took to be a large puff of white 'bonfire smoke' rising to 15 feet (5m) maximum height. The outer part of this 'smoke' column was scarcely rotating but the middle part, which was too thick to see through, was spinning rapidly. In a couple of seconds the effect had ended; the spinning central column had gone and the residual 'smoke' or cloud of fog drifted gently in the prevailing light north-east wind towards the southwest and dissolved after going several yards. He used the word smoke out of convenience but said that the effect was more likely caused by water vapour, cloud droplets or fog. He further emphasized the swiftness of the appearance and disappearance of the phenomenon. It had arrived suddenly like 'smoke from a distant cannon' or just as if 'a smoke-filled or fog-filled balloon had suddenly burst.' That is to say, it emerged as if from nowhere. He made the further point that the spinning column might have been very much longer than he could judge, for he realized that the only part he could see was the part rendered visible by the smoke or fog. The diameter of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sodium Surges Over Illinois An advanced lidar device, located at Urbana, Illinois, has been sending pulses of light up into the atmosphere and measuring the reflections from atmospheric atoms and molecules. To the researchers' surprise, this instrument detected sudden appearances of clouds of sodium atoms at about 85 kilometers altitude. The clouds quickly dissipate, but where do they come from? The best guess is that their source is meteors vaporizing in the upper atmosphere. (Raloff, Janet: "Sudden Sodium Surges Seen over Illinois," Science News, 134: 238, 1988.) Comment. Could these sodium clouds have any connection with the controversial icy comets? From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... motion which I was, for a moment, too dazzled to grasp. Presently I did. The whole thing was rotating, shooting past from right to left with incredible velocity. "I lay back on my left elbow, to afford the baby better protection, and looked up. It is possible that in that upward glance my stricken eyes beheld something few have ever seen before and lived to tell about it. I was looking far up the interior of a great tornado funnel! It extended upward for over a thousand feet, and was swaying gently, and bending slowly toward the southeast. Down at the bottom, judging from the circle in front of me, the funnel was about 150 yards across. Higher up it was larger, and seemed to be partly filled with a bright cloud, which shimmered like a fluorescent light. This brilliant cloud was in the middle of the funnel, not touching the sides, as I recall having seen the walls extending on up outside the cloud. "Up there, too, where I could observe both the front and back of the funnel, the terrific whirling could be plainly seen. As the upper portion of the huge pipe swayed over, another phenomenon took place. It looked as if the whole column were composed of rings or layers, and when a higher ring moved on toward the southeast, the ring immediately below slipped over to get back under it. This rippling motion continued on down toward the lower tip." Hall also reported a peculiar bluish light and blue streamers that appeared to consist of vapor. (Hall ...
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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 "COMPACT STRUCTURES": WHAT NEXT?We know that immense molecular clouds drift through interstellar space, but a new denizen has now made itself known through its ability to diffract quasar radio signals. Although constituted only of ionized gases, these new objects are called "compact structures." "' Compact means that these objects are about as big as the earth's orbit around the sun, and therefore larger than all but the biggest stars. They are, however, much smaller than the clouds that previous observations have detected in interstellar space. They reveal their presence by diffracting the radio waves coming from distant quasars. .. .. . "The objects move too fast to be near the quasar -- to be that far away, they would have to go at 500 times the speed of light -- so the observers conclude that they are in our own galaxy. Previous observers didn't see them, [R .L .] Fiedler says, because they didn't observe the same quasar at close enough intervals." If these ionized clouds are spherical. they have masses comparable to the asteroids; but, if they are elongated, their mass is anyone's guess. No one knows how they are formed, how long they last, or where the energy comes from to maintain them in an ionized state. Extrapolating from the five instances recorded so far, the observers speculate that these ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery At Novaya Zemlya F.C . Parmenter-Holt opined above that the long plume-like clouds detected over Soviet territory were merely orographic clouds; that is, a consequence of the terrain below. Some facts presented by W.O Roberts, in the latest issue of The Explorer, hardly square with that interpretation. For example, the March 12, 1982 plume seen over Novaya Zemlya was 109 miles long and at an altitude of about 6 miles. Its position did not con form to the wind direction at that altitude. Other plumes over Novaya Zemlya have been aligned with the wind, but they too have been at great altitudes. Says Roberts: "Taken together the data suggest irregular emissions from a single point source near the north end of the Island as the cause of the myster ious episodes." Just what is being vented, if anything, remains unknown. No active volcanos are in this area, neither are there copious sources of natural gas. There have been no seismic or radioactive signs of nuclear tests. (Roberts, Walter Orr; "Mystery at Novaya Zemlya," The Explorer, 4:6 , April 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... they find that the meteorites' ages do not spread evenly through time. Instead, the ages seem to cluster at 7 and 30 million years." Astronomers have hitherto been content to attribute these clumped ages to collisions among the meteorites' parent bodies - the asteroids - which ply periodic orbits. However, S. Perlmutter and R.A . Muller, at Berkeley, point to the apparent 26- to 30-million-year periodicities of three terrestrial phenomena: Biological extinctions in the fossil record, Magnetic field reversals, and Terrestrial-crater ages. Could there be a connection between the clumped meteorite ages and these terrestrial phenomena? Perlmutter and Muller propose that all of these phenomena are the consequence of periodic storms of comets that invade the inner solar system from the direction of the Oort Cloud of comets that purportedly hovers at the fringe of the solar system. These comets not only devastate the earth but also collide with the asteroids, knocking off those bits and pieces we call meteorites. (Anonymous; "Do Meteorite Ages Tell of Comet Storms?" Astronomy, 17:12, January 1989.) Comment. Unanswered above is the question of why comet storms should be periodic. One hypothesis is that Nemesis, the so-called Death Star, a dark companion of our sun, lurks out there, periodically nudging the Oort Cloud of comets, causing it to release some of its comets. From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The large-scale structure of electrical storms Ground-based observers see only a few of the anvil-shaped clouds comprising a big electrical storm. The entire storm may stretch for hundreds of kilometers -- and it is not a simple structure. The latest surprise is that all large electrical storms are bipolar; that is, the rare positive lightning strokes are concentrated at the northeast end of the storm complex, while the negative strokes are everywhere else along a northeast-southwest line. This bipolar structure persists for several hours, and it has been found in all North American storms analyzed so far. This insight into the structure of large electrical storms was provided by magnetic lightning detectors that have now been installed over nearly 75% of the United States. The positive lightning strokes are of longer duration and more liable to start fires than the common negative strokes. But why are they concentrated at one end of the storm complex? R. Orville ventures that in a big mesoscale electrical storm, the prevailing winds blow the positively charged upper portions of the clouds to the northeast, thus establishing bipolarity. (Orville, Richard E., et al; "Bipole Patterns Revealed by Lightning Locations in Mesoscale Storm Systems," Geophysical Research Letters, 15:129, 1988. Also: Anonymous; "New Lightning Theory Strikes," Eos, 69:57, 1988.) Reference. Large thunderstorm complexes are cataloged in GWH3 in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Expanding ball of light (ebl) phenomenon X8. June 22, 1976. North Atlantic. "At 2113 GMT a pale orange glow was seen to be coming from behind a bank of towering cumulus to the west. At 2115 a ghostly white disc (see sketches) was observed at an approximate altitude of 10-degrees and bearing 290-degrees. The glow from behind the cloud persisted." The glowing region developed as indicated in the figure. Stars could be seen throught the disc at all times. By 2140 the disc had disappeared. In the latest number of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, R.F . Haines presents a summary table of 15 cases of a luminous phenomenon he has dubbed the Expanding Ball of Light or EBL. EBLs are very large, sometimes occupying much of the sky. They seem to occur everywhere, though rarely. Haines elaborates: "According to several pilot witnesses, the center of the EBL is at relatively high altitude while it is forming. Its color is evenly whitish or yellowish and becomes increasingly transparent to background stars as it expands. As it enlarges it appears to maintain a sharply defined edge. At some point it fades completely from sight. The rate of boundary interface expansion is impossible to determine without knowing its distance from the observer. It is also of interest to note that most EBL events have taken place after dark. If EBL phenomena are associated with an advanced ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A COSMIC CAUSE FOR THE OZONE HOLE?Wouldn't you know it? Now they are blaming the polar ozone holes on Frank's icy comets -- or something very much like them! M. Dubin and I. Eberstein, two NASA scientists think that small icy comets can account for the seasonal ozone hole and the mysterious polar strato spheric clouds that form during the winter. They propose that ozone molecules bond to tiny ice particles in the winter and, when spring arrives, solar ultra-violet radiation converts water (ice) plus ozone into oxygen and hydroxyl ions. (Anonymous; "A Cosmic Cause for the Ozone Hole?" Sky and Telescope, 75:465, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fractals, fractals everywhere Anyone who follows the popular scientific literature knows that fractals are now "in." Commonly employed to "explain" patterns in nature, fractals are, from a simplistic viewpoint, mathematical ways to predict the development of a growing structure, be it a crystalline mass, a plant, or the universe-as-a -whole. Yes, the universe-as-a -whole, the clouds of stars and clusters of galaxies, may be mimicked by cellular automata (i .e ., fractals). Imagine the universe as a cubical lattice, and start in one corner, adding one layer of cubes after another. Galaxy distribution could be simulated by using a rule telling us which of the added cubical cells had galaxies in them and which did not. "The rule actually used supposes that the question whether each point in a newly added layer will (or will not) be occupied by a galaxy is mostly determined by the occupancy of the five nearest neighbors in the previous layer, but for good measure, there is a random variable to introduce an element of white noise to the system. To make the process a little more interesting, the determination whether a new site is occupied depends on whether a number characteristic of that site, and calculated by simple arithmetic from the corresponding number for the five nearest neighbors in the preceeding layer, exceeds an arbitrarily chosen number." Comparing this ...
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