Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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... kinds of evidence that certainly seem to undermine current dating schemes. Halos produced by the alpha particles emitted by Po218 are found in granite rocks in many areas. Yet, the half-life of Po218 is only 3 minutes. Since the Po218 has no identifiable pre-cursors in the rock, ". .. how did the surrounding rocks crystalize rapidly enough so that there were crystals available ready to be imprinted with radiohalos by alpha-particles from Po218 ? This would imply almost instantaneous cooling and crystallization of these granitic minerals -- and we know of no mechanism that will remove heat so rapidly; the rocks are supposed to have cooled over millennia, if not tens of millennia." In coalified wood dated as older than 200 million years, the ratio between U238 and Pb206 should be low. It is actually very high. "Thus ages of the entire stratigraphic column may contain epochs less than 0.001% the duration of those now accepted and found in the literature." Diffusion calculations insist that Pb in zircon crystals found in deep granite cores at 313 C should diffuse out of the crystals at the rate of 1% in 300,000 years. No loss of Pb can be detected at all. Therefore, the granite must be younger than 300,000 years. (Gentry, Robert V.; "Creationism Discussion Continued," Physics Today, 35: 13, October 1982.) Comment. Scientists admit that Gentry's work raises questions but apparently would rather live with the anomalies than with the thought of a young earth! From Science Frontiers ...
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... 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Precambrian nuclear reactors!On December 2, 1942, at Stagg Field, in Chicago, the first human-built nuclear reactor went critical. This feat has long been hailed as a triumph of the human intellect. Nature, though, had already beat E. Fermi and his colleagues by 2 billion years. For at Oklo and Bangombe, in the African Republic of Gabon, one finds the "ashes" where some 17 natural nuclear reactors cooked away for hundreds of thousands of years. Operating at temperatures as high as 360 C, they generated about 17,800 megawatt-years of energy. The Gabon reactors were discovered in 1972 when the French found that uranium ore from Gabon contained anomalously low concentrations of the fissionable isotope 235U as well as fission products. A little excavation work uncovered small pockets, a few meters in length and less than a meter in width, where natural fission had occurred in the Precambrian period. A geological reconstruction of what probably happened involves: (1 ) uranium-bearing solutions migrating through the fractured rocks of the region; and (2 ) the precipitation of the uranium as pitchblende and uranite when the solutions came in contact with kerogen. A critical mass was formed and a chain reaction started. Such a scenario is unlikely today because the concentration of fissionable 235U in natural uranium has declined by a factor of about five in the last 2 billion years. The half life of 235U is only about 700 million years. (Nagy, Bartholomew; " ...
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... . 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Plane Weirdness Made Plain In SF#93, under the title: "Just Plane Weird," we questioned the long-term persistence of trailing vortices from aircraft wingtips. Could such vortices actually maintain their integrities for several minutes and thus produce the curious tubes of misty air and flapping sounds observed at the end of the Los Angeles airport runway? The answer seems to be YES, as confirmed below: "Wingtip vortices have a core diameter of 20 to 40 feet and, as they trail behind each wingtip, remain approximately two wingspans apart. Why don't they enlarge in radius and dissipate? The rapid acceleration at the outer edge of the vortex produces low pressure in the core, and this pressure differential creates enough centrifugal force to hold the system tightly together for three to seven minutes. After that, friction takes its course, breaking these stubborn twisters apart into mere turbulence." The rest of this article deals with how light aircraft can avoid these sometimes deadly horizontal "twisters." (Manningham, Micah D.; "Wake Turbulence," Private Pilot , p. 69, June 1994. Cr. W.A . Welch) From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects What's ok in the mediterranean is verboten in the atlantic and the pacific Geologists and geophysicists have now satisfied themselves that a few million years ago the Mediterranean dried up nearly completely. The Deep Sea Drilling Project discovered in 1970 and 1975 that layers of evaporites existed beneath the Mediterranean's floor. In addition, over 80 years ago, the bed of the Rhone River was found to consist of river sands and gravels superimposed upon hundreds of feet of oceanic sediments. Beneath these deposits -- some 3000 feet down -- was a gorge cut in granitic rock. Other rivers emptying into the Mediterranean had cut similar gorges into solid rock long ago. No one could provide an acceptable explanation for the deep-cut gorges until the evaporites proved that the water level had been low enough for the rivers to cut the gorges subaerially. In other words, the Mediterranean's level fell several thousand feet, allowing the rivers to erode gorges much as the Colorado does today in the Grand Canyon. (Smith, E.G . Walton; "When the Mediterranean Went Dry," Sea Frontiers, 28:66, 1982.) Comment. The Med's buried gorges are obviously close cousins of the many submarine canyons found around the world's continental shelves. Most geologists strongly resist any explanation of the submarine canyons involving subaerial erosion, because no one believes the oceans ever dropped thousands of feet. True, the Med's evaporites confirm a great reduction in water level there, but the flat-topped guyots in the Atlantic and Pacific do the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 159: May - Jun 2005 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Incredible Discoveries in Mexico The Too-Ancient Human tools at Valesquillo Reservoir What the Polynesians Brought and What they tool Away Astronomy Rewriting Mars' History Again, Again, Again What's the Matter with Matter? Biology Rover's Leap Be Late and It's All Over between Us! Pleistocene Hanky-Pank? The Inversion of Chromosome 17 Geology Bot a Subtle Signal! Deep-Earth Methane Generation Geophysics Extreme LDEs (long-Delayed Echos) Unclassified 13 Things that don't make sense A Very High Satellite Some very Low Satellites? ...
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... The hammerheads seemed to possess some sort of unrecognized navigation sense. Suspecting they might be sensing the geomagnetic field, Klimley began towing a magne tometer behind the boat. Sure enough, the hammerheads were following paths coincident with lines of high magnetic gradient. And Espiritu Santo itself turned out to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into a sensory organ. On the other hand, hammerheads and many other sharks are extraordinarily sensitive to electrical fields, responding to fields as low as 10-8 volt/centimeter. Possibly the sharks' forward motion cuts the magnetic lines of force generating an electrical navigational signal. No one knows as yet. And so one mystery leads to another. (Klimley, A. Peter; "Hammerhead City," Natural History, 104:33, October 1995) Comment. Some marine biologists suspect that some deep-water whales and dolphins inadvertently strand themselves while following magnetic "paths" like those radiating from Espiritu Santo. (See SF#38) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Io's electrical volcanos Thomas Gold, of Cornell, long known for his provocative theories, has not disappointed us in this paper. Jupiter's moon, Io, exhibits an anomaly that seems to call for a radical explanation. Io's volcanos erupt with such violence that molten material is flung to heights of 250 kilometers. These outbursts proceed from caldera, and one is led to assume that normal volcanic action is to blame. Unfortunately for this simplistic idea, Io does not seem to possess low-molecular-weight substances, such as water, that could serve as a good propellant at reasonable temperatures. Sulphur is common, but its atomic weight is so high that temperatures exceeding 6000 K would be required to shoot matter out to 250 kilometers. Gold suggests that Io's volcanos get their firepower from electrical sources. He points out that Io short-circuits Jupiter's ring current periodically. Gold estimates that 5 million amperes flow through Io when it passes through the ring current. The energetic eruptions and caldera might therefore be electric-arc phenomena. The electrical energies available are sufficient to account for the observed outbursts. (Gold, Thomas; "Electrical Origin of the Outbursts on Io," Science, 206:1071, 1979.) Comment. Several scientists and non-scientists have proposed in the past that the sunspots and even some planetary craters result from large-scale electrical arcing within the solar system ...
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... Many others, however, heard a 40 Hz hum modulated at 1.6 kHz, and apparently of external origin. The hum sufferers were inclined to blame industrial noise, but no obvious sources could be uncovered. The hum investigators have considered sea noise, jetstream noise, and other natural sources. Whatever the source, most people do not hear it at all. It is possible that a small percentage of the population is abnormally sensitive to sound at 40 Hz. (Wilson, Steve; "Mystery of People Who Hear the Hum," New Scientist, 84:868, 1979.) Comment. Anomalous natural hums are not unknown; viz., the Yellowstone Lake Whispers and "desert sounds." Al-so a select few seem to be able to hear the very low auroras. For more on hums, see GSH5 and GSH6 in: Earthquakes, Tides, Anomalous Sounds. This Catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Ichthyometers Measure Pollution At the Centre International de l'Eau de Nancy, French scientists are putting the South American fish Apteronotus albifrons to work. This electric fish alters its self-generated electrical pulses as its aqueous environment changes. "Generally, when the fish is cruising around, it emits a continuous series of low-amplitude electric pulses at 1000 Hertz. But the researchers found that when the fish were exposed to certain pollutants in their holding tanks, the frequency and form of the electrical signals changed in characteristic ways that could be measured consistently. The electric fish, which are particularly responsive to potassium cyanide, phenols, and trichloroethylene, are soon expected to begin charging their way through French drinking-water treatment facilities." (Anonymous; "Zapping through Pollution," BioScience, 46:312, 1996) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Violent Undersea Weather Long lines of frothing, turbulent water and transitory packets of large waves occasionally sweep across an otherwise placid sea. Usually dismissed as "rips," satellite photos reveal that these disturbances may be 125 miles long. Often several can be seen criss-crossing an ocean simultaneously from different directions. Some have a 12.5 -hour period. linking them to lunar tidal action. The surface manifestations, like the tip of the iceberg, only hint at what transpires beneath the surface. The long corridors of disturbance, moving at about 5 mph, mark where "internal waves" intersect the surface. Down be-low, submarines and other objects may suddenly rise or fall as much as 600 feet. Internal waves may in fact have caused several submarine disasters. How are internal waves created? Tid-al waters may spill over an undersea sill or ledge, creating a travelling disturbance. Some oceanographers liken the internal waves to the lee waves formed parallel to large mountain ranges. Manifestly, there is much to learn about undersea weather. (Anonymous; "Underwater Waves Held a Possible Clue to Disappearances of U.S . Submarines," Baltimore Sun, October 5, 1980.) Reference. We collect observations of periodic bands of waves under GHW2 in our Catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Grand Canyon Shamed Again Exploration and mapping of submarine canyons cut into the continental shelves of Alaska and Siberia emphasize once again the colossal scale of these crustal gashes: "Erosion of some of the largest known submarine canyons has removed more than 20,000 km3 of former subduction margin between the Aleutian Islands and Cape Navarin, U.S .S .R . The canyons are incised as deeply as 2,400 m into Tertiary sedimentary and igneous rocks that make up the margin and attendant deep sedimentary basins along the outer Bering shelf. Cutting of the seven major canyons probably occurred during low stands of sea level when the Bering shelf was exposed to a depth of about -135 m, which allowed the ancestral Anadyr, Yukon, and Kuskokwim Rivers to carry large volumes of sediment to the outer shelf. Although their positions appear to be structurally influenced, the canyons apparently were cut by combinations of massive slumping and sliding of sediment deposited near the shelf edge and of scouring action of the resulting turbidity currents that carried debris to the abyssal sea floor, where deep-sea fans have formed." (Carlson, Paul R., and Karl, Herman A.; "Ancient and Modern Processes in Gigantic Submarine Canyons, Bering Sea," Eos, 64:1052, 1983.) Comment. The authors believe that submarine slumping and turbidity currents were sufficient to have eroded these huge canyons. Other geologists doubt this. The other ...
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... likely, according to K. Strier, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is that some monkeys regulate their fertility by the judicious consumption of certain plants. Going even farther, K. Glander, Duke University, suggests that howler monkeys control the sex of their offspring through their diets. Glander divides howler monkey females into three groups. In the first are the high-ranking females that predominantly produce male offspring. This 'male-offspring' strategy favors these females because the males they produce tend to become dominant adults that will pass on more of the females' genes than would female offspring, who are limited in the number of infants they can engender in comparison to the males. Similar optimization strategies, according to Glander, induce middleranking females to produce mainly female progeny, and low-ranking females to birth almost all males. These howler monkeys seem to control the sex of their offspring pharmologically by selecting certain plants to eat. These plants, in turn, control the electrical conditions in the females' reproductive tracts to either attract or repel sperm carrying the male Y-chromosomes, which are thought to carry different electrical charges than the X-carrying sperm! (Lewin, Roger; "What Monkeys Chew to Choose Their Children's Sex," New Scientist, p. 15, February 22, 1992. Also: Gibbons, Ann; "Plants of the Apes," Science, 255:921, 1992.) Comments. It will take much more research to validate these startling assertions. We also have to ask how these instincts (or conscious ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The inca's use of bismuth From Machu Picchu, Peru, comes a unique artifact: a llama-head knife made from two types of bronze. The knife blade and stem are made from low-tin bronze (not at all unusual), but the llama head is bronze with 18% bismuth. Bismuth occurs as a native metal in Peru and it is not surprising that the Incas knew of it. This is the first artifact, however, containing any appreciable proportion of bismuth in bronze. The authors of this paper believe that the use of bismuth was intentional for at least two reasons. (1 ) It gave the llama head an attractive lighter tone than the rest of the knife. (2 ) The handle was cast directly on the stem, and the use of bismuth in the bronze would prevent the bronze from expanding too much during solidification. The handle, therefore, would be more securely attached to the stem. The Incas thus seem to have been better metallurgists than we have supposed. (Gordon, Robert B., and Rutledge, John W.; "Bismuth Bronze from Machu Picchu, Peru," Science, 223:585, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shc or h/t homicide?The possible case of SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion) just reported above may have a rational but bizarre explanation. S.L . Wernokoff commented as follows in the Journal of Meteorology: "The very first thing that comes to mind is whether overloaded hightension [H /T ] or low-tension wires were anywhere nearby. Since this incident occurred at a roadside, nearby power lines may well have been present. If such lines are overloaded or badly insulated, fatal arcing can occur from the ground at a considerable distance from the power lines. This has happened often in our country [the U.S .] , in rural areas where public utilities have quietly exceeded the capacity of their lines. The resulting discharges can easily electrocute livestock over mile from the 'leaky' H/T lines. I would wager that the Hungarian utility agencies are guilty of the same practice. Personally, I suspect that this unfortunate young man may have been electrocuted through his own urine! The 'blue light' witnessed by the victim's wife may have been St. Elmo's Fire -- an ungrounded luminous corona visible around the victim in the humid, pre-thunderstorm conditions. The hole in his heel and tennis shoe indicate where the current finally grounded itself." Wernikoff goes on to tell of a case in Canada where a man washing up at an outdoor table, 100 ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Efficacy Of Homeopathy Over the last several years we have been following the feud between the homeopathists and mainstream medicine, particularly the saga of J. Benveniste. Despite what the media writers say, homeopathy continues to produce positive results, as confirmed in the following item from the British Medical Journal: "Many doctors do not believe that homoeopathy [sic] is an efficacious treatment as it is highly implausible that infinitesimally diluted substances retain their biological effects. It is also often said that homoeopathy has not been evaluated with modern methods -- that is, controlled trials. The first argument may be true, the second is not. [J .] Kleijnen et searched the literature and found 96 reports containing 107 controlled trials of homoeopathy. Most trials turned out to be of very low quality, but there were many exceptions. The results show the same trend regardless of the quality of the trial or the variety of homoeopathy used. Overall. of the 105 trials with interpretable results, 81 showed positive results of homoeopathic treatment. A complicating factor in such reviews, especially of controversial subjects such as homoeopathy, is publication bias. If the results of Kleijnen et do not reflect the true state of affairs, publication bias must be considered a great problem in evaluations of homoeopathy. In any event, there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of trials with sound methodology." (Anonymous; "Clinical Trials of Homoeopathy," British Medical Journal, February 9, 1991. Cr. M. Truzzi.) Comment. Of course ...
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... ! These sliding sheets with remarkable structural integrities are required to explain what geophysicists see in the seismic reflections; namely, transparent zones of crystalline rock sitting on top of rocks that return strong reflections typical of layered sedimentary strata. However, one such situation in Arizona was explored with a drill bit. When the upper crystalline layer was penetrated, the drill found only more crystalline rocks, nothing sedimentary. In fact, the crystalline rock was not layered and was homogeneous. Thus, the source of the misleading seismic reflections is unknown. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Continental Drilling Heading Deeper," Science, 224:1418, 1984. Also: Anonymous; "Probing the Deep Con-tinental Crust," Science, 225:492, 1984) Comment. So-called "low-angle thrust faulting is often invoked to explain situations where large areas of older sedi-mentary rocks overlie younger rocks. More on these thrust faults may be found under ESR3 in Inner Earth. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary samples, the overall results were that means in high intensity runs exceeded means in low intensity runs by 4.38 sigma. (The probability of chance occurrence of this outcome is less than 6 x 10-6 .) Jahn also reviewed the results of other types of psi experiments which also produced positive results. Replying to Jahn, Anderson admitted that he indeed had Jahn in mind when he wrote his original article. "What my piece actually said was within my competence as a theorist, which is to make logical connections, and the logical point I made is that physics as it is practiced, and specifically precise mensuration, is not compatible with Jahn's claims; one must choose one or the other, not both, as he also emphasizes. If the 'observer effect' as he calls it -- or 'magic' as one might equally ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subterranean Electric Currents We have little appreciation of the immense electrical currents that flow through the rock formations beneath our feet. These "telluric" currents are primarily those induced by the earth's changing magnetic field, as it is affected by the solar wind. Telluric cur-rents do not flow uniformly through the earth's crust. Rather, they seek out low resistance rocks, in accordance with Ohm's Law. Such current concentrations can be detected at the surface with magnetometers. The present paper announces the discovery of a regional telluric current flowing in the vicinity of the San Francisco Peaks volcanic field in Arizona. The shallow part of the current flows in an unidentifiable "geoelectrical" structure not more than 10 kilometers below the surface. There are no surface hints as to what this geoelectrical structure could be. (Towle, James N.; "The Anomalous Geomagnetic Variation Field and Geoelectric Structure Associated with the Mesa Butte Fault System, Arizona," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 95:221, 1984.) Comment. Similar anomalous magnetic fields exist in many areas, indicating a vast subterranean system of poorly understood geoelectrical structures. Some of the channeled earth currents are man-made, being the return paths in electrical power transmission systems. The return paths may be far-removed from the actual power lines because they tend to follow the geoelectrical structures. Reference. Other important subterreanean electrical currents are described in ...
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... fireflies. This illustration is Fig. 3 in a lengthy review article and carries the following unilluminating caption: "Examples of Entrainment of femme C's (see Table 3) Responses to Multiple Counterfeit Flashes." It seems that we have some sort of electronic warfare between the femme (predatory female fireflies that lure other fireflies with false signals) and the preyed-upon species. The many pages describe all sorts of feints, verification signals, and other stratagems. (Carlson, Albert D., and Copeland, Jonathan; "Communication in Insects," Quarterly Review of Biology, 60:415, 1985.) Comment. It is impossible to do justice to this paper in this short review, but two things should be mentioned: (1 ) Fireflies may be considered "low" on the evolutionary ladder, but their tiny brains certainly process a lot of data in complex ways; and (2 ) In southeast Asia, massed fireflies flash in synchronism along some riverbanks, creating one of the great spectacles of nature. See our Handbook Incredible Life for details. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... verified pure tones heard emanating from some waterfalls. Charlie recalls that the famous European geologist A. Heim observed that 15 Alpine waterfalls all produced two nonharmonizing groups of pure acoustical notes. These, a Zurich musician likened to the major-C triad and F. (Heim published his observations in a paper entitled: "Tone der Wasserfalle." Verhandlung der Schweizeren Naturforschung Gesellschaft, 8:209, 1874) In his letter to the magazine Earth (now defunct), Charlie wondered if the same resonant tonegenerating mechanism (rising clouds of bubbles) operated in both the oceans and waterfalls. (Charlie, Wayne A.; "Musical Monotones," Earth , 7:7 , June 1998.) Comments. In our catalog Earthquakes, Tides (GQV2), we recorded how waterfalls produce low-frequency terrestrial vibrations with one frequency predominating. This characteristic frequency is inversely proportional to the height of the waterfall. Just as fascinating are the remarkable flashes of light that emanate (rarely) from the bases of waterfalls. These may be due to sonoluminescence. (GLD14 in Lightning, Auroras) The predominant fequency in waterfall vibrations depends upon the height of the waterfall. (From: Earthquakes, Tides). From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is there life on mars after all?G. Levin and P. Straat, who designed one of the three life-detection experiments on the Mars Viking landers, have always maintained that the positive results obtained with their experiment were unreasonably overruled by the negative data from the other two experiments. At a recent scientific meeting in Washington, they stated: "It is more likely than not that our experiment detected life on Mars." Their research in the decade following the Mars landings has only strengthened their belief. Further, they have demonstrated that one of the other life-detection experiments producing negative results was not sensitive enough to detect low population levels of microorganisms. Realizing that the no-life-on-Mars dogma is well-entrenched, they looked for other kinds of evidence for life. "In support of their claims, the two researchers presented two photographs of a Martian rock taken years apart by a camera on one of the landers. The photographs show greenish patches which had changed over time. Spectral analysis of the photographs compared favorably with the spectra given out by lichen-bearing rocks on Earth, as seen through a replica of the lander's camera." (Anonymous; "Is There Life on Mars After All?" New Scientist, p. 19, July 31, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual Wave January 14, 1998. Indian Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Oriental Bay , enroute Port Klang to Suez. "At 2230 UTC the vessel was on a course of 269 at 23 knots when a line was observed on the radar at a range of 3 n mile, travelling from northwest to southeast at an estimated speed of 15 knots, as indicated on the sketch. The line was observed to be a wave. "It was about 10 minutes after the first sighting that the vessel passed over the wave, which was approximately 4 m [13 feet] high, and she heeled 5 to port while the autopilot deviated 3 off course. At the time of the event, there was a low swell of 1.0 m from 320 and the sea was 0.5 m from 360 . The current was estimated to be 2.5 knots running to the west." (Talbot, A.P .; "Unusual Wave," Marine Observer, 69:10, 1999.) Comment. The wave could not have been a tsunami because it was travelling too slowly. Tsunamis travel at jet speed and are rarely visible on the deep ocean. Since the wave was solitary and four times the height of the gentle swells, it is unlikely that it was a chance combination of the swells. Most likely it was a surface manifestation of an internal wave that had been reflected from an undersea obstacle like the continental shelf. From Science Frontiers #122, MAR- ...
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... by carbon-14, which can measure about 40,000 years. The Weak Radiation Laboratory in France tested them by a more sensitive uraniumthorium method, and came back with a staggering date of 300,000 years. .. .. . "A cave called Grotto of the Cosmos at nearby Xique-Xique contained paintings of suns, stars and comets, and this is what archaeologists believe is the oldest astronomical observatory in the Americas. "' There probably were at least two cultures here,' said (J .) Labeyrie. 'One, about 10,000 years ago, made the pain tings. Another, much older, was responsible for the artifacts.' "In the grotto's dim light, a red comet 4.5 feet long stretches across the low ceiling, against a painted backdrop of stars. Red suns rise and set amid figures of lizards, a creature traditionally associated with the sun. .. .. . "Near the entrance of the cave is a notch where every year, precisely on the winter solstice (June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere), the sunlight enters and illuminates a red sun painted on the slanted ceiling." (Muello, Peter; "Find Puts Man in America at Least 300,000 Years Ago," Dallas Times Herald , June 16, 1987.) Reference. In our handbook Ancient Man you will find many additional archeological anomalies disputing current theories about the peopling of the New World. Further information here . From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William ...
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... years, we have reported on the British hum (SF#36) and the Sausalito hum (SF#42). The latter has been attributed to mating toadfish in the harbor; the former to an underground network of gas pipelines. We have resisted reporting other hums. However, a recently reported hum possesses some interesting features. It is called the Taos hum, and it has been bothering some sensitive individuals in the U.S . Southwest: "More than a dozen people living in an area from Albuquerque to the Colorado border said in July 1992 interviews with the Albuquerque Journal that they had heard the lowlevel hum. "A Denver audiologist said that she had recorded a steady vibration of 17 cycles per second with a harmonic rising to 70 cycles per second near Taos. The low range of human hearing is 20 to 30 cycles per second." (Anonymous; "Defense Dept. Denies Link to Taos Hum," Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1993. Cr. L. Farish.) Some residents of Taos are plagued by this machine-like sound that grinds away 24 hours a day, with only occasional respites. Some cannot sleep; others complain of headaches. Most people, however, cannot hear the hum at all. Nevertheless, it is there. Instruments pick it up. In fact, they have even recorded a higher-frequency component that pulses between 125 and 300 cycles per second. The cause of the hum is a mystery. One hint comes from the observation that the hum seems concentrated along the Rio Grande Rift, a fault ...
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... ago the answer to this question would have been a resounding "no" from the experts on both volcanism and impact cratering, the only geological processes known to eject solid material at substantial velocities. Observation, however, has once again confounded expectation." In the snowy wastes of Antarctica, scientists have picked up meteorites that almost certainly came from the moon and Mars. And near St. Gallen, Switzerland, there was discovered a 22-centimeter block of Malm limestone that was apparently ejected from the Ries impact crater, almost 200 kilometers away, about 15 million years ago. We know all of these rocks are impact debris because they contain shatter cones indicating a violent origin. Not only did these bits of debris confound expectations, but their shatter cones implied shock-wave pressures far too low to achieve lunar and Martian escape velocities, or even the velocity necessary to propel that chunk of Malm limestone 200 kilometers. Something was wrong somewhere. It has turned out that shock-wave theory had been misapplied. It is not the pressure that is important in ejecting bits of debris from around the impact site, but rather it is the pressure gradient. Anomaly extirpated! (Melosh, H.J .; "Blasting Rocks Off Planets," Nature, 363:498, 1993.) Moral. A.C . Clarke was right again: When a respected scientist says something cannot happen, it probably will! From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... .) Impey says, referring to Malin 1. 'This galaxy is far removed from our ideas of what a normal galaxy should look like. There could be more of these things that haven't been discovered yet.'" (Anonymous; "Massive, Dark Galaxy Found in Void," Astronomy, 15:75, September 1987.) The same discovery is dealt with, in a more technical way, in Nature. A revealing paragraph from the Nature article follows: "Although Malin 1 could be a unique case there is in fact a significant body of circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. Our present knowledge of the galaxy population is so biased by a single insidious selection effect that it is entirely possible that Malin 1 is just the first example of a class of such low-surface-brightness giant galaxies that forms a significant constituent of the universe." The "selection effect" mentioned is a consequence of the very bright sky that confronts astronomers. Astronomical interest and instrumentation have focussed on those astronomical objects that are bright. In truth, the universe may be full of "icebergs and crouching giants." (Disney, Michael, and Phillipps, Steven; "Icebergs and Crouching Giants," Nature, 329:203, 1987.) Comment. Since astronomers have built their models of galaxies, galactic distribution, and the evolution of the universe on an unrepresentative portion of the actual cosmos, we may be in for some major changes in our overall view of the universe and its beginning -- if it actually had one. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Quantitative analysis of a large data base of remote perception experiments reveals similar departures from chance expectation of the degree of target information acquired by anomalous means. Digital scoring techniques based on a spectrum of 30 binary descriptors, applied to all targets and perceptions in the experimental pool, consistently indicate acquisition of substantial topical and impressionistic information about remote geographical locations inaccessible by known sensory channels." In some trials, the percipient was asked to describe the remote scene even before the location was selected or visited! (Jahn, R.C ., et al; "Engineering Anomalies Research," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1:21, 1987.) Cumulative deviations from chance for higher numbers of counts (PK +), lower numbers (PK-), and baseline (BL). The low probabilities obtained from more than 250,000 trials are very significant. Each operator had curves with distinctive shapes, or "signatures". From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... asteroid impact trigger the ice ages?Asteroids and comets are being blamed these days for more and more of our planet's catastrophism -- biological, meteorological, and geological. What a turnabout in scientific thinking in just a decade. F.T . Kyte et al have now provided additional details on meteoritic debris they first described in 1981. On the floor of the southeast Pacific, about 1400 kilometers west of Cape Horn, about 5 kilometers down, they found high concentrations of iridium in Upper Pliocene sediments about 2.3 million years old. Since the proposed projectile hit in very deep water, no crater was dug out. What did survive is called an "impact melt." This is debris rich in noble metals, such as iridium, and contains particles typical of a low-metal mesosiderite. Some 600 kilometers of the ocean floor received this debris. Kyte and his associates estimate the size of the impacting object at at least 0.5 kilometers in diameter. No biological extinctions are correlated with the 2.3 -million-year date, but there appears to have been a major deterioration of climate at about this time. There was a shift in the marine oxygen isotope records and, more obvious, the creation of the huge loess (sandy) deposits in China. What the impact may have done is to vaporize enough water into the atmosphere to increase the earth's albedo, reflecting sunlight back into space, lowering the average temperature, and thus triggering the Ice Ages. (Kyte, Frant T., et al; "New Evidence ...
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... 80 yards away. Without any kind of warning, there was a violent detonation overhead, at what might have been tree-height. Service in war enables one to describe an explosion better than those whose experience is limited to Guy Fawkes' Day. This seemed to me about the same as an air-burst from a German 88 mm high velocity gun. My friend and I took it to be lightning; but neither of us saw any flash -- perhaps because we were both looking downwards at the time. "Shortly afterwards, my wife appeared, dazed and shaken. The explosion had evidently been closer to her, for she (having served in the WRNS) was reminded of an ammunition ship blowing up 'whoosh,' suggestive of a very high speed aircraft flying very low. That is what she momentarily thought it was, coming from the ridge of the Cotswold escarpment, under which this house lies; and she instinctively ducked. Immediately before the detonation, there seemed to her to be a sound not unlike machine-gun fire; and there was a movement of the air which disturbed the surface of the soil where she was working. She also saw no flash. For some hours afterwards she had a massive headache. "Two near neighbors of ours observed the explosion, which they too assumed to be lightning. One of them, about a quarter of a mile away, says he saw a flash. The other saw none." (Carter, G.; "Two Unusual Lightning Events on 22 August 1987," Weather, 43: ...
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... , when I suddenly spied a geometrical group of faint bluish-green rectangles of light similar to the "Lubbock lights". My wife and her mother were sitting in the yard with me and they saw them also. The group moved south-southeasterly, the individual rectangles became foreshortened, their space of formation smaller, (at first about one degree across) and their intensity duller, fading from view at about 35 degrees above the horizon. Total time of visibility was about three seconds. I was too flabbergasted to count the number of rectangles of light, or to note some other features I wondered about later. There was no sound. I have done thousands of hours of night sky watching, but never saw a sight as strange as this. The rectangles of light were of low luminosity; had there been a full moon in the sky, I am sure they would not have been visible. (Signed August 7, 1957) (Swords, Michael D.; "Clyde Tombaugh, Mars, and UFOs," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 13:685, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 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. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil from mars?Who would have thought that the dreary Antarctic wastes would harbor a piece of Mars, much less a fossil of Martian life? Yet, British scientists, I.P . Wright et al, in Nature, come close to such a conclusion. "The meteorite EETA 79001, which many believe to have originated on Mars, contains carbonate minerals thought to be Martian weathering or alteration products. Accompanying the carbonates are unexpectedly high concentrations of organic materials (defined here as carbonaceous matter that has a low stability towards oxidation, and so combusts at less than 600 C; the term 'organic' does not necessarily imply an origin by biogenic processes.) Although the carbon isotope composition of these materials is indistinguishable from terrestrial biogenic components, and so cannot be used to assess the source, we argue here that their occurrence in an interior sample of a clean Antarctic meteority militates against a wholly terrestrial origin. A sample of Martian organic materials may thus be available for further study in the laboratory." (Wright, I.P ., et al; "Organic Materials in a Martian Meteorite," Nature, 340: 220, 1989.) But there are many "buts": Meteorite EETA 79001 may not have come from Mars after all, even though many scientists think it did. The organic material in EETA 79001 may have come instead from the comet that supposedly blasted the meteorite into space from the ...
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... 000, where the infamous Soviet "Woodpecker Radar" is mentioned specifically. But are electromagnetic pulses really to blame? The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years. This is just the period during which British Gas has been installing a nationwide gas-distribution system, which employs powerful turbines to pump natural gas through underground pipelines. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant conditions. (Fox, Barry; "Low-Frequency 'Hum' May Permeate the Environment," New Scientist, p. 27, December 9, 1989.) Reference. Ordering information for our catalog (mentioned above): Earthquakes, Tides may be found here . From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a self-luminous spinning ball of light. We reproduce here the second of these accounts. June 28, 1989, north-central Wiltshire, near Silbury Hill. "Soon after midnight the occupier of the roadside cottage by the path which leads to West Kennett Long Barrow noticed a large ball of light 400 metres distant in a wheatfield to the west. At the time of the observation he was walking from house to garage, and had a clear view to the illuminated part of the field through a gap in a hedge which borders his garden. He described the ball as orange in colour, adding that it was brighter around the periphery, and he guessed the diameter as 30-40 feet (say, 10-13 metres). When first seen, the ball was already low over the field and still descending. The witness watched the base of the ball 'go flat' as it made contact with the crop and/or the ground. The ball then gave 'a little bounce' and after a further 'seven or eight seconds' disappeared in. "Next morning on leaving the house the witness could see via the gap in the hedge a large circle at the place which corresponded to the position of the light source the previous night, and some smaller circles were evident as well." A flyover the same day revealed a big circle with a ring around it plus smaller circles. G.T . Meaden (the writer) arrived at the site on the morning of the 30th to find that a half dozen additional circles had joined the earlier ...
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... and more rambunctious. The sunspot peaks have been ascending to greater heights every 11-or-so years. Right now, near the peak of the present cycle, the earth is being bombarded by extra-high fluxes of X-rays, ultraviolet light, and other energetic radiation. A century ago, no one would have noticed or cared, but today our technological infrastructure is suffering. K.H . Schatten has listed some of the "sunburn symptoms" in a recent article in Nature. Fade-outs of over-the-horizon radio communications Greater aerodynamic drag on satel lites and earlier reentry Glitches and outright damage in satellite electrical systems Anomalous induced voltages in elec trical power systems and long-line communications Blackouts of high-frequency polar communications oInduced errors in VLF (Very Low Frequency navigation systems Occasional radiation levels that are hazardous to humans in high-flying aircraft. (Schatten, Kenneth H.; "The Sun's Disturbing Behavior," Nature, 345:578, 1990.) Comment. It would be interesting to learn whether the "computer errors" we encounter so frequently follow the sunspot cycle. One phenomenon, at least, seems anticorrelated with solar activity: The number of solar neutrinos measured here on earth falls as sunspots multiply. This is particularly puzzling because neutrinos are presumably generated in the solar core, whereas sunspots are supposed to be manifestations of solar-surface activity. One phenomenon "should not" affect the other. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "Solar NeutrinoSunspot Connection Found," Science, 248:444, 1990 ...
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... , and in doing so escaped from the radars of the fighters and the ground units at Glons and Semmerzake. This maneuver took place over the suburbs of Brussels, which are so full of man-made lights that the pilots lost sight of the object beneath them... "Everything indicates that this object was intelligently directed to escape from the pursuing planes. During the next hours the scenario repeated twice... "This fantastic game of hide and seek was observed from the fround by a great number of witnesses, among them 20 national policemen who saw both the object and the F-16s. The encounter lasted 75 minutes, but nobody heard the supersonic boom which should have been present when the object flew through the sonic barrier. No physical damage was reported. Given the low altitude and speed of the object, many windows should have been broken." From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... set up in the valley in 1983. During January-February 1984, eight different kinds of instruments were in use, with the following results: Camera with grating : Three pictures showed a continuous spectrum. No spectral lines were seen on any picture. IR-viewer: This instrument was used too little to drawn any conclu sion. Spectrum-analyzer: Sometimes there were electromagnetic signals with harmonics of about 80 MHz. Seismograph : No local seismographic activity was measured. Magnetograph : The magnetic field did sometimes change when the lights showed up. There also seemed to be a correlation with the mag netic pulsation. Radar : The lights could be seen on radar. The speed varied all the way from 0 to 30,000 km/hour. Sometimes the radar saw something moving at a low speed, but no lights were seen by eye. Clearly, there was something there, but only the radar showed it. Laser : A laser-beam was directed toward the light, and the behavior of the light changed. Geiger-counter : No radioactive radi ation was detected. But the source was 1 km away when this instrument was used. (Strand, Erling; "Project Hessdalen -- A Field Investigation of an Unknown Atmospheric Light Phenomenon," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 8:581, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 'TERMITE BANDS' IN SOUTH AFRICA Few animals besides man have significantly affected our planet's geology. To be sure, corals built the Great Barrier Reef and beavers left their mark on the hydrology of parts of Canada and the U.S .; but termites!? It seems that in southern Africa this industrious insect is responsible for enormous striped patterns of ridges and vegetation bands. These amazingly regular patterns are caused by alternating low ridges and gullies. The ridges are about 2 meters high, up to a kilometer long, and separated by about 50 meters. The ridges themselves are closely spaced termite mounds. Just why the termites choose to build their mounds in long rows is an unanswered question. And how do the termites maintain strict parallelism, especially since they are blind? How could termites in one mound know how their neighbors in the nearest ridge, 50 meters away, are building their mounds? Anyway, the ridges help channel the flow of water and thus the growth of vegetation, giving immense swathes of country a corrugated appearance. (Sattaur, Omar; "Termites Change the Face of Africa," New Scientist, p. 27, January 26, 1991.) Comment. In Australia, the so-called "magnetic" termites build their slab-like mounds so as to minimize the amount of sun-generated heat. From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Killer Trees That Talk Among Themselves "Acacia trees pass on an 'alarm signal' to other trees when antelope browse on their leaves, according to a zoologist from Pretoria University. Wouter Van Hoven says that acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin in quantities lethal to the brows ers, and emit ethylene into the air which can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of impending danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just five to ten minutes." (Hughes, Sylvia; "Antelope Activate the Acacia's Alarm System," New Scientist, p. 19, September 29, 1990.) Free-ranging antelope can always find unwarned acacias with low levels of tannin to browse on, but on some South African game ranges, they are forced to consume high tannin leaves. Too much tannin inactivates the antelopes' liver enzymes, and they die in about two weeks. Hundreds may perish in a very dry season. (Vincent, Catherine; "Les Arbres Communiquent entre Eux," Le Monde , p. 11, September 14, 1990. Cr. C. Mauge) From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... countries. "This report presents new insights into an unconventional option of locating water reserves which relies on water dowsing. The effectiveness of the method is still highly disputed. Now, however, extensive field studies -- in line with provable and reliable historic account -- have shown that a few carefully selected dowsers are certainly able to detect faults, fissures and fractures with relative alacrity and surprising accuracy in areas with, say, crystalline or limestone bedrock. A series of Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusam menarbeit (GTZ) projects involving this technique were carried out in dry zones with unexpectedly high rates of success. In particular, it was possible to locate a large number of relatively small underground aquifers in thinly populated areas and to drill wells at the sites where water is needed; the yields were low but sufficient for hand-pump operation throughout the year. Finding or locating a sufficient number of relatively small fracture zones using conventional techniques would have required a far greater work input." A second part of the study involved controlled experiments in which dowsers tried to detect concealed targets such as pipes. (Betz, HansDieter; "Unconventional Water Detection: Field Test of the Dowsing Technique in Dry Zones," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 9:1 and 9;159, 1995. Journal address: ERL 306, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305) As one might expect (and should want), dowsing skeptics reacted swiftly to the German work. As for the field studies mentioned in the above quotation, R. Hyman, a University of Oregon psychologist and noted skeptic of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual electrical (? ) phenomena November 24, 1975. Tendele Hutted Camp, Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa. The following observations were made during violent electrical storms. "Around 10pm, WN observed a luminous vertical column in an easterly direction which appeared suddenly at a location low on the hillside on the far bank of the Tugela River at a distance of about 1km. This stationary light column seemed to have the dimensions of a pencil stub (approx. 50mm x approx. 7mm) held vertically at arm's length. The column, which had a bluish glow like a fluorescent tube, was visible for about 5 to 10 seconds. .. .. . "At 11.15pm, when the intensity of the storm had abated and the sky was lit intermittently with flashes of sheet lightning, the writer saw a luminous spherical object, seemingly of golf to tennis ball size, moving rapidly with an apparently vertical undulating motion from left (northeast) to right (southwest) on a horizontal course in the general direction of Mont-Aux-Sources (3282m) where the Tugela River has its origin. This sighting lasted 2 to 3 seconds. About 3 minutes later, another similar object crossed the field of view, following the same course as the first object and showing about 2 or 3 undulations in its passage. At midnight, a third object was seen having the same characteristics as the first two objects. ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Valleys Of Death And Elephant Graveyards Legend has it that elephants near death separate from their companions and trek alone to ancestral graveyards, dying only when they reach these special places. The truth is that accumulations of elephant bones have indeed been discovered, but no one seems to have followed expiring elephants to these boneyards. We hope someone will tell us otherwise, but the tale seems apocrythal. The piles of elephant bones could, in fact, be the work of mazukus. (Mazuku means "evil wind" in Swahili.) It seems that there are places on this earth where CO2 and other deadly gases emitted from volcanic vents accumulate. J. Lockwood and M. Tuttle investigated three mazukus known to natives in East Africa. In these low-lying areas, they came upon the remains of small mammals and birds that has been asphyxiated by concentrations of CO2 dense enough to snuff out burning kerosene-soaked rags. Unfortunately for the elephantgraveyard legend, they found no elephant bones. (Anonymous; "Elephant Graveyards," Discover, 12:10, May 1991.) Comment. It would be interesting to know if other species of animals are found in the elephant graveyards. So-called "valleys of death" are found elsewhere in the world, including Yellowstone. Reference. Other "valleys of death" are cataloged in ESC5 in Anomalies in Geo logy, described here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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