156 results found.
... by earthquakes] Typical subjects covered: Periodic wells and blowing caves * Sun-dominated tides * Immense, solitary waves * Animal activity prior to earthquakes * Earthquake geographic anomalies * Earthquake electricity * The sound of the aurora * Musical sounds in nature * Mysterious detonations * Anomalous echos * Slicks and calms on water surfaces * Periodicities of earthquakes * The vibrations of waterfalls * Unusual barometric disturbances Comments from reviews: ". .. surprisingly interesting reading", Nature 220 pages, photocopied edition, $16.95p, 32 illustrations, 5 indexes, 1983. 790 references, LC 83-50781, ISBN 915554-11-9 , 7x10 format Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Most of us have seen rings around the moon, but what does it mean when such rings are not circular or are off-center? Neither are rainbows and mirages devoid of mysteries. And the Brocken Specter still startles Alpine climbers! Typical subjects covered: Rainbows with offset white arcs * Sandbows * Offset and skewed halos * The Brocken Specter * The Alpine Glow * Unexplained features of the green flash at sunset *Fata Morgana * Telescopic mirages * Long-delayed radio echos * Eclipse shadow bands * Geomagnetic effects of meteors * Intersecting rainbows * The Krakatoa sunsets * Kaleidoscopic suns [Picture caption: Shadow of Adam's Peak with glory and radial rays] Comments from reviews: ". .. all in all it's a fascinating book", Sky And Telescope. ". .. any student of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Ice Ring In A Canadian Pond Ice rings (really ice "discs") are large circular discs of ice that occasionally form in rivers. One well-observed ice ring appeared in the Pite River in northern Sweden in 1987, About 100 feet in diameter, it was rotating slowly within a slightly larger hole in the ice covering the rest of the river. (SF#112) This ring was fashioned out of ice floes that had been captured by a whirlpool and set spinning. Its rough periphery had been "machined" to circular perfection over a period of weeks as it rotated ponderously within the confining river ice. A curious phenomenon is this, but one that seems to yield to simple explanation rather easily. Somewhat more puzzling is a 16-foot ice ring that formed overnight in the more placid waters of a farm pond near Delta, Ontario, in December 2000. The ice was too thin to walk upon, so it had to be a natural phenomenon. However, there was no whirlpool to provide the lathe-like action needed to create the neat disc. Nor was the disc said to be rotating when discovered. The whole event happened very quickly, too. (Bronskill, Jim; "Strange Ice Rings Baffle Researchers," Toronto National Post, March 8, 2001. Cr. G. Duplantier via L. Farish.) Comment. Even small farm ponds have some circulation of water ...
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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 Real perpetual motion?Physicist R.A . Webb and coworkers magnetically induce electrical currents in tiny gold rings at the University of Maryland. The ring temperatures are low but not in the superconducting range. Magnetic induction of electricity is of course perfectly allowable in physics. What is not theoretically permitted is for tiny currents to persist long after the magnetic field has been turned off. The currents are small, only 10-6 of an ampere; but, they are there, and they shouldn't be. (Lipkin, Richard, and Travis, John; "Electric Currents That Merely Flow," Science News, 149:126, 1996) Comment. If you conceive of electrical currents as mists of palpable electrons circulating around inside those gold rings, the situation does resemble perpetual motion. The referenced item is brief and not forthcoming on such mat ters. Do the currents eventually die out? Will any metal work? Does the phenomenon appear at room temperature? From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that as it may, scientists are now seeing some strange things happening on the "mesoscopic" scale; i.e ., from a few nanometers to a few millimeters (10-9 to 10-3 meters). This size range lies between the realms of quantum mechanics and macroscopic physics. Maybe these curious phenomena do have a bearing on how life started and whether it is really different from nonlife. Example 1. G. Whitesides, at Harvard, has dumped large quantities of millimeter-size iron balls into a plastic dish and then spun a bar magnet under the ensemble with startling results. The balls swarm around inside the plastic dish as the magnet rotates. At first the swarm is disordered. But after a minute, it breaks up into a set of concentric rotating rings. Within each ring, the balls follow one another along precise tracks, as if hugging the rim of an invisible roulette wheel. Soon the balls in each track are perfectly equidistant. Finally, one ball in each ring comes to a dead stop. The other balls in each track line up behind the leader in a tiny arc, even though the magnet is still whirling away below. Example 2. In water, large, fatty molecules (phospholipids) are observed to self-assemble into double layers with their water-loving bonds pointing outwards. This sort of structure closely resembles that of the biological membranes so vital to terrestrial life. This potentially biologically useful structure self-assembles! It seems that on the mesoscopic scale, under certain conditions, ensembles of particles (e . ...
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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 Two Wrong-Way Phenomena!Electrical currents flowing in opposite directions. How can this be? What about Ohm's Law? This counterintuitive situation was confirmed in a recent issue of Science. Now two teams of researchers have induced millions of electrons to flow simultaneously both ways around a superconducting ring with a non-superconducting notch in it, a gizmo known as a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID. This is all pretty weird but it just one more paradoxical phenomenon allowed by quantum mechanics. You see, in quantum mechanics, an object can exist in two or more states at the same time. This is, of course, a statement of fact rather than an explanation appealing to one's common sense -- a common occurrence in the quantum world. (Cho, Advising "Physicists Unveil Schroedinger's SQUID," Science, 287:2395, 2000) Heat flowing from cold to hot. The revered Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to tell us that heat always flows from hot to cold. But out in space, under special conditions, physicists seem to hedge a bit. The groundbreaking experiment was carried out onboard the Mir space station last year as part of the French-Russian Perseus mission. By warming a copper-and sapphire-walled cell filled with a drop of liquid sulfur hexafluoride and one tiny bubble of gaseous sulfur hexafluoride in near-zero gravity, scientists triggered a slight compression of ...
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... hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have provided that encounter. The Roche limit is 2.9 Earth radii. The Roche limit is that distance within which Mars would begin to be torn apart by the gravitational pull of nearby Earth. (Day, Richard A.; "A Roche-Limit Encounter Explains Martian Features," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comment. Anomalists with long memories will see immediately that Day's theory is displaced Velikovskyism. Velikovsky had Venus straying close to Earth in recent times to account for historical and geological evidence of terrestrial catastrophism. Another related theory claims that the earth's moon was created when Mars dealt earth a glancing blow ...
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... driving those who can hear them to distraction. There have been some desultory inquiries into the sources of these hums, but no one has come up with anything more specific than engine noises, wind blowing across chimney tops (an organ effect), or some nefarious secret military project. Whatever the cause(s ), the hums have devastating effects on those particularly sensitive to them. Case 1. Take, for example, the Kokomo, Indiana, hum that started about 1999. "Almost immediately after the noise began, nearly every resident reported having chronic and severe headaches and were awakened several times at night and were fatigued." wrote Lisa Hurt Kozarovich, a freelancer. "About 30 residents said they were also nauseated and had other symptoms -- the most common being pressure or ringing in their ears, chronic joint pain, dizziness, depression and diarrhea." (Sharpe, Tom; "Pondering the Hum," Santa Fe New Mexican, July 24, 2001. Cr. D. Perkins via L. Farish.) Case 2. Residents of southwestern Germany are likewise afflicted by an unexplained, nocturnal, buzzing noise. Many have been complaining of racing pulses and fatigue along with a sense of excitation and uncontrollable muscle shivvering during their resulting insomnia. "Often at night I feel as if my bed were electrically charged. The pillow, the mattress and my whole whole body vibrate, and the only thing you want to do is to be able to turn off that sound,' said one of the sufferers, Carmen Mischke. (Anonymous; "Mysterious ...
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... 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates. Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon! Supporting evidence. Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail. Anomalously young radiocarbon dates in north-central North America. Example: the Gainey site in Michigan. Physical evidence of particle bombardment. Example: chert artifacts with high densities of particle-entrance wounds. Anomalous uranium and plutonium abundance ratios in the affected area. Tree-ring and marine sediment data. The authors claim that the burst of radiation from a nearby supernova, circa 12,500 years ago, not only reset radiocarbon clocks but also heated the planet's atmosphere, melted ice sheets, and led to biological extinctions. If verified, the claimed phenomenon would also "reset" archeological models of the settlement of North and South America. To illustrate, we may have to add as many as 10,000 years to site dates in much of North America! (Firestone, Richard B., and Topping, William; "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times," The Mammoth Trumpet, 16:9 , March 2001. Cr. C. Davant III. This off-mainstream journal is published by the Center for the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Concentric, rotating luminous rings seen in sweden On an evening in late January, 1991, near Borlange, Sweden, four observers watched what seemed to be a system of luminous rings for about 15-20 minutes. The rings were estimated to be 2-5 kilometers away and 10-30 meters in size. E. Witalis has provided a direct translation of their report. "The light phenomenon, which was strongly luminous, consisted of scintillating, rotating rings arranged as a system of plates (small rings in the centre and increasingly large ones towards the edges). The rings seemed to consist of sparks running around in a circular or slightly elliptical path with an impressive speed. Spontaneously I associated them with electrical discharges. The plate shape was felt as being in some way static as to location, and the sparks moved in a pattern without spreading out at the edges. It seemed that strong force was controlling the event. The sparks looked like having a core and a 'tail' behind. They looked like being able to crackle but no sound was heard, perhaps because of the distance. It was interesting to note that the rings were spinning in opposite directions. The effect clearly illuminated the surrounding air space. The whole light phenomenon took place with knifesharp edges in clear weather (temperature between -1 and -3 deg. C." (Witalis. Erik; "An Air Plasma Whirl, Seen in ...
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... is a 5-hour drive from Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Geologically, this feature is a clay pan in the flood plain of the Tsauchah River, which flows on the average only once in a decade. Towering above the clay pan are sand dunes that reach 350 meters elevation above the river bed. They are veritable mountains of sand and the tallest dunes in the world. The potential anomaly at Sossusvlei is not the size of the dunes but rather the mysterious circles of grass that grow upon them. All we have to go on is a photograph showing a dozen or so of the circles situated at some unspecified distance from the photographer. Somewhat irregular in shape, the circles seem to be on the order of 100 meters in diameter. No grass at all grows within the rings of thick grass, but outside grow sparse, evenly distributed grass clumps. The writer of the Sossusvlei article labels the circles "unusual phenomena." (Pupkewitz, Tony; "Sossusvlei," Optima , 36:136, 1988. Cr. P.A . Hill. Optima is a South African publication.) Comment. Are these circles akin to the "fairy rings" found in moister climates? Perhaps also pertinent are the clones of creosote bushes which grow outwards in expanding circles, as mentioned in a fascinating recent article on giant aspen clones, which may be a million years old! (Grant, Michael C.; "The Trembling Giant," Discover, 14:82, October 1993.) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another Elliptical Halo Measurements of an elliptical lunar halo obvsered in the Indian Ocean. June 6, 1992. Aboard the m.v . British Skill in the Indian Ocean. "Between 1300 and 1345 UTC, a complete halo phenomenon was observed round the moon, as shown in the sketch. The ring was complete although its appearance was elliptical. Its horizontal diameter was 40 with its vertical diameter being 53 . "The illuminated part of the moon was not in the centre of the halo, its altitude at the lower limb (phase, new waxing) being 38 54'. The altitude of the upper part of the halo was 59 whereas the lower edge was at 6 ." (Anderson, P.R .; "Elliptical Halo," Marine Observer, 63:65, 1993.) Comment. Once again we have another observation called "impossible" by geophysicists. Halos, they say, must be symmetrical about the sun or moon. Yet, photos and precise measurements, like those above, demonstrate the reality of the phenomenon. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Permian Polar Forest "An in situ Upper Permian fossil forest in the central Transantarctic Mountains near the Beardmore Glacier includes 15 permineralized trunks in growth position; the paleolatitude of the site was approximately 80 to 85 south. Numerous leaves of the seed fern Glossopteris are present in the shale in which the trunks are rooted. The trunks are perminealized and tree rings reveal that the forest was a rapidly growing and young forest, persisting in an equable, strongly seasonal climate -- a scenario that does not fit with some climate reconstructions for this time period." Some models of the Permian climate, based on astronomical and meteorological parameters, have winter temperatures at the site averaging -30 to -40 C, with the average summer temperature at merely 0 C. This fossil forest is clearly at odds with these models. (Taylor, Edith L., et al; "The Present Is Not the Key to the Past: A Polar Forest from the Permian of Antarctica," Science, 257:1675, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 California's maze stones Humans have been carving and drawing mazes and building labyrinths from prehistoric times. Primitive peoples laboriously carved cup-and-ring designs; newspapers today print puzzle mazes in the Sunday editions. There is something fascinating, even mystical, about mazes. They are "signs that snare men's minds." We will never know why the Indians of southern California lavished so much labor etching mazes on hard rock surfaces, D.F . McCarthy, a University of California archeologist, has been studying these California maze stones for over 20 years. He has found over 50 of them so far. Some are over 3,000 years old, he thinks. Most are carved on rocks and boulders. They are just like our modern Sunday-paper mazes, with rectangular passageways, some blind, but always with a devious route leading to the center. Could they symbolize human life, full of potentially wrong turns, but with a Way to enlightenment? (Hillinger, Charles; "Ancient Carvings of Indians Remain Enigma to Expert," Richmond News Leader , November 11, 1991. Cr. H.C . Nottebart.) From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bruised Apples A serious problem has cropped up in supermarkets, where fresh, ripe apples are piled up high in beckoning pyramids. Surely, as the heights of the pyramids increase, the bottom-most apples will be crushed, particularly those in the center under the apexes. Common sense tells us that crushing forces will be greatest at Position #4 in the illustration. But grocers need not be concerned about Apple #4 . Two Czech researchers, J. Schmid and J. Novosad, using pressure sensors, found that in a horizontal plane through a stacked pyramid the maximum pressure actually occurs in a ring of objects (apples) some distance from the pyramid's vertical axis. How come? (Watson, A.; "The Perplexing Puzzle Posed by a Pile of Apples," New Scientist, p. 19, December 14, 1991.) A theoretical analysis of the problem by J. Grindlay doesn't help much. He analyzed a two-dimensional pile of disks, as shown, and calculated that maximum bruising forces should occur at the outermost disks instead of at the center, (Grindlay, J.; "Bruised Apples," American Journal of Physics, 61:469, 1993.) Comment. Thus, common-sense expectations, experimental measurements, and theoretical calculations lead to three different results. Much more work needs to be done here. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL ...
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... 100-year subcycles! Allen's article, as it appeared originally in the Journal of Human Ecology (1 :1 , 1951), ran 41 pages. We can hit only a few high notes here. And, since we are concerned mainly with anomalies, we shall concentrate on this unexpected periodicity in musical creativity. Allen describes how musical theorists have proposed both supernatural and evolutionary explanations for this periodicity, which commenced some 2,500 years ago with the Ancient Greeks. He is not convinced by either class of explanations. Instead, Allen has been beguiled by the long-period tones of environmental cycles: "Now we have knowledge of a constantly operating cyclic factor in our cosmos, scientifically based on a mass of inductive evidence that goes beyond recorded history into the tree-ring records from centuries B.C . For the first time, we are provided with a powerful conditioning factor, if not a determinant, in the creation of music." Here are two statements reflecting Allen's observations on the subject: "After 1590, as a new warm period began in the 100-year cycle, a new Golden Age began in music, as in Science. "In our own day, some composers have been extremely sensitive to cyclic changes. Stravinsky, notably in his return to neoclassicism after 1920, reflected the warm trend." (Allen, Warren Dwight; "The 500-Year Cycle in Music: The Modern Period," Cycles, 42:100, 1991. A reprinting.) Comment. Left unexplained in the "weather theory ...
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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 Indigestible Supernova Leftovers There seems to be a mysterious "central compact object" lurking amid the debris of Supernova SN1987A. Prevailing supernova paradigms cannot account for this high density remnant. While some aspects of standard supernova theory were supported by observations made during and since the 1987 explosion, astrophysicists are left with several puzzles in addition to the mystery object itself: "Other puzzles include the largescale asymmetries observed in the heavy element ejecta (Fe-group line emission), the supernova envelope (optical polarization), and the circumstellar medium ([ O III] ring), which are in addition to the complex structures resulting from hydrodynamic instabilities." (Chevalier, Roger A.; "Supernova 1987A at Five Years of Age," Nature, 355:691, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Deardorff referenced below. On the other hand, several books and a flood of reports in fringe publications claim that the crop circles, particularly the complex ones, are evidence that extraterrestrial intelligences are attempting to communicate with us. There is also a middle ground upon which stands G.T . Meaden, a physicist, and a few other scientists. Meaden has summarized this third position in the following paragraph: ". .. we believe that the formation of real crop circles is a rare phenomenon resulting from the motion of a spinning mass of air which Professor Tokio Kikuchi has modelled by computer simulation and calls a nanoburst. This disturbance could involve the breakdown of an up-spinning vortex of the eddy or whirlwind type. On this theoretical model such a process leads to plain circles and ringed circles -- types which are known from pre-hoax times in Britain and other countries, and are the only species which credible eye-witnesses have seen forming. All other so-called crop circles reported in the media news in recent years are likely to be the result of intelligent hoaxing, while the so-called paranormal events to which Deardorff alludes are nothing but the consequence of poor observation and/or exaggeration by susceptible mystics and vulnerable pseudoscientists. In the absence of hoaxing the subject would still be unknown to the general public because the average number of real-circle reports per annum is small (indeed in some years it may be zero)." (Meaden, G. Terence; "Crop Circles: The Real and the Hoaxed," Weather, 47: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Will earth's rings return?" In the past, the Earth had a ring system just like Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, according to a Danish astronomer. He has gone so far as to say that our planet boasted rings on 16 separate occasions in the past 2800 years. "Kaare Rasmussen of the National Museum in Copenhagen carried out a survey of all reports of meteorite falls, fireballs and showers of shooting stars from 800 BC to 1750 AD. He then carried out a statistical analysis of the data. He discovered that there were many distinct periods of intense activity." Rasmussen found that the active periods, during which he believes a ring existed about the earth, began with a peak of high meteoritic activity as the ring formed, as a consequence of the earth's capture of a comet or asteroid. This was typically followed by a decrease of activity indicating ring stability. Finally, the ring broke up as its particles were decelerated by the earth's upper atmosphere, leading to another peak of activity. Thus, the plot of me-teorite activity is U-shaped, as in the figure, with the bottom of the U a bit higher than the normal background. (Gribbin, John; "Will the Earth's Rings Return?" New Scientist, p. 19, April 6, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991- ...
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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 Crop circle update: what are "they" trying to tell us?Several hundred crop circles have afflicted English farmers' fields already this year. The English newspapers haven't neglected them, but where are Nature and Science? Here is a genuine mystery, and most scientists don't dare touch it for fear of being labelled "kooks." Well, we do have one item from New Scientist, but we'll have to rely upon the newspapers for this evermore-bizarre phenomenon. Australia now a target. "Dozens of flattened rings of wheat have been reported recently in Australia over a wide area of arable country in northwestern Victoria. The rings resemble the corn circles found in southern Britain. "Max and Nancee Jolly, farmers at Turiff West, found 12 rings in their wheat crop. Each ring was 12 metres across and rock-hard in the middle. 'The wheat in the rings was bent over at the base but not damaged in any other way.' said Nancee Jolly." The Australian Sceptics suspect pranksters. (Anonymous; "More Circles," New Scientist, p. 23, August 11, 1990.) An article in a Perth newspaper puts the number of wheat circles in Victoria at 400, as of July 9. That's a lot of work for hoaxers! It is also said that the soil in the rings is "magnetically altered," whatever ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subterranean "circles"As if we didn't have enough problems with crop circles on the earth's surface, it now seems that whatever agency (or "entity") that is responsible for them also plies its craft underground! "Sets of concentric rings, similar to those found last summer in British wheat fields, have been discovered in a Japanese subway tunnel. .. .. . "Many sets of concentric rings were found drawn in dust that accumulated on the ground and walls inside the tube. The metro versions of the mystery circles are much smaller -- up to 8 centimeters in diameter -- than the British ones, the largest of which measures scores of meters." Y. Otsuki, a professor of physics at Waseda University, discovered the rings and believes that plasma generated in the air creates them. Subway tunnels, he says, create conditions similar to those in the plasma generators he uses in his fireball research. A photo of the rings accompanying the article shows six neatly-formed, concentric rings around a central crude circle. (Anonymous; "' Mystery Circle' Found in Tunnel," Asahi Evening News (Tokyo), April 5, 1991. Cr. Y. Matsumura via L. Farish) Speculations. Apparently, plasmoids can be of any size: crop circles may be 100 feet in diameter of just a foot or two, and now we may have centimeter ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deep-sixing another hypothesis?T. Gold once said, "In choosing a hypothesis, there isn't any virtue in being timid." Neither have the Swedes been timid in following Gold's lead by drilling for natural gas in the granite of central Sweden. All the experts pre-dicted this quest would come to naught, because there are no source rocks in the area containing biological materials from which the gas could have been generated. But Gold does not believe that the methane in natural gas comes from buried organic debris. Rather, most methane is primordial and abiogenic, a legacy left deep in the earth's crust when our planet was formed. The 72-kilometer-diameter Siljan Ring in central Sweden is generally believed to be of meteoric origin. The granite here has been shattered, perhaps to a depth of 40 kilometers. If Gold's hypo-thesis about the origin of methane is correct, methane might well be found seeping up through this wound in the earth's outer skin. Further, the shattered granite might prove to be a gigantic reservoir of valuable methane. The Swedes decided to drill. After three years and the expendi-ture of $40 million, drilling at the Siljan Ring has been terminated. The drill penetrated to 6.8 kilometers before it got stuck. No significant methane had been found. The experts snickered! But the story is not finished, at least as far as Gold is concerned. He maintains that the drilling ...
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... too. This is indeed damaging evidence to crop-circle enthusiasts. Time concluded that the admissions of Chorley and Bower have "brought to an end one of the most popular mysteries Britain -- and the world -- has witnessed in years." (Constable, Anne; "It Happens in the Best of Circles," Time, 138:59, September 23, 1991.) Essence of the Science article. The Science piece was written before the Time expose, but it presents several points supporting the existence of a genuine natural phenomenon beneath all the obvious hoaxing. T. Meaden, an English scientist, has personally investigated over 1000 crop circles. He remarks that, before all the media hype, all the corn circles were simple in design -- including plain circles, ringed circles, and circles with small satellite circles nearby. In 1991, Meaden organized Operation Blue Hill, during which 40 researchers watched British crop fields. Significantly, one circle formed in a field they had ringed with automatic alarms, making a hoax very unlikely. All in all, some 1800 crop circles have been recorded, many in other countries, including Japanese rice fields. One doubts that hoaxers could have been this ubiquitous. Further, Y. Ohtsuki, a Japanese scientist, has been able to reproduce some of the characteristic corn-circle patterns by dropping plasma fireballs into a plate dusted with aluminum powder. Even double rings can be created around central circles in this way. So, the simple crop circles could well have reasonable explanations. The gist of the Science article is that ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop circles: daisy patterns and a red ball of light G.T . Meaden, in the second installment of his review of 1990 crop-circle research, singled out for special attention the so-called "daisy patterns." While these are not as intricate and mysterious as the spectacular nine-circle complex at Alton Barnes, the formation of one of the daisy patterns may have been accompanied by luminous phenomena. "Circles in a daisy pattern were reported from Devonshire and Somerset County: the first a centre circle with seven regular satellites, evenly spaced, from Bickington in June; the second a circle with six similar satellites from Butleigh Wootton, near Glastonbury in mid-July. "A third daisy-pattern system, one with ten ringed satellites surrounding a central ringed circle, turned up at the end of July in East Anglia. This last was formed on the night of 30-31 July, possibly in the late evening of 30 July at the time of the observation of a glowing ball of red light. It was seen by the farmer shining above his field at Hopton as viewed from his house on the edge of Gorleston (Norfolk). 'He looked at it through his binoculars and described it as a red central glow with a thinner red outer ring...By the time he had passed the binoculars to his son the thing had gone'" ( Eastern Daily Press ). (Meaden, G.T .; "Major Developments in Crop-Circle Research in 1990: Part 2, ...
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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 Black gold -- again The Siljan Ring and T. Gold are back in the news again. A few years ago, at Gold's instigation, private investors and the Swedish govenment put up money to drill for oil and gas at the Siljan Ring, some 200 kilometers northwest of Stockholm. This granitic region is a meteor-created, shattered scar on the earth's crust. It is in just such a spot that Gold expects to find abiogenic petroleum and methane seeping upward from deep inside the earth, where they have resided since the earth was formed. Con-ventional petroleum geologists have roundly ridiculed the Siljan Ring project; after all, everyone knows that oil and gas derive from buried organic matter. Three years ago, at a depth of 6.7 kilometers, the "misguided" Swedish drillers pumped 12 tons of oily sludge from the granite rock. "Just drilling fluids and diesel-oil pumped down from the surface," laughed the experts. This autumn (1991), more oil was struck in a new hole only 2.8 kilometers deep. This time, only water was used to lubricate the drill. How are the skeptics going to explain this? Well, about 20 kilometers away, there are sedimentary rocks; perhaps the oil seeped into the granite from there. Rejecting this interpretation, the drillers are going deeper in hopes of finding primordial methane. (Aldhous, Peter; ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of time and the coral - and other things, too R. Fairbanks is a paleooceanographer at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. Recently he has been drilling deeply into the submerged coral reefs off Barbados. During his research, it has been discovered that the radiocarbon (C1 4 ) scale is in serious error beyond 10,000 years BP. Radiocarbon dating is widely used in archeology, but it has always been hard to estimate how much radiocarbon was present in the earth's atmosphere thousands of years ago. As a matter of fact, even before Fairbanks' discovery, a major correction to the radiocarbon time scale was made using tree-ring counts as an absolute reference. But tree ring data go back to only about 10,000 years. The latest correction was made by E. Bard, also at Lamont-Doherty, who took Fairbanks' coral cores and compared the radiocarbon dates with uranium-thorium dates. The result is that at 20,000 BP, the radiocarbon date is 16,500 BP, 3500 years too low. [Of course, all this as sumes that the uranium-thorium dates are accurate.] Use of the newly corrected radiocarbon scale has pushed the peak of the Ice Ages back from 18,000 BP to 21,000 BP. But there is more. The same article in Science, without saying how he came up with the number, has Bard fixing the strength of ...
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... Crop Circle Corner The Wiltshire crop "scroll". Dimensions in meters. Every week, it seems, some new facet of the crop circle phenomenon appears. It is reminiscent of the early days of UFOs. Several books have appeared. A periodical, The Cereologist , now promises to keep everyone up-to-date. People are scouring the old literature and pouring over aerial photos for pre-1980 examples. Theories abound, especially those invoking extraterrestrials! We have room here for only a few brief items. Scorched earth in Xenia, Ohio. A hired hand of Gene Eck was harvesting a field of soybeans when he came upon a circle of flattened plants -- bent but not broken -- some 80 feet in diameter. Inside this circle was a 40-foot-diameter ring of burnt stubble. Within the ring was a patch of undisturbed foxtail 14 feet in diameter. The soybean circle was a half mile from the nearest road; no tracks led into it. (Williams, Nat; Illinois Agri-News, November 9, 1990. Cr. R.A . Ford) Column of light in Wiltshire. During the summer of 1990, teams of English ob servers scanned the cereal fields at night. At 2:30 AM, on July 25, R. Fla-herty, an experienced wildlife photographer, saw a single shaft of light descending from high in the sky toward a Wiltshire wheat field. Flaherty's view of the field itself was cut off by a ridge, so he could provide no further data. When morning came, ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects Books About The Crop Circles You know a phenomenon has "made it" when a book is devoted to it. With the English crop circles, we now have two books (bibliographical information below.) We will try to stock at least one of these books, but it will be a few months before can can get them on this side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, a review of the two books in New Scientist provides some information beyond that already presented in several past issues of SF. First, the crop circles, spanning 5 to 20 meters, are incredibly precise and sharp. Flattened stems on the periphery of a circle almost touch erect, undamaged stems. The so-called satellite circles that sometimes array themselves around the main circles may be connected by a narrow ring, thus: Even more curious, a short radial spur extends outward from some circles, so that from the air the circle resembles a fat tadpole. In his book, G.T . Meaden, the Editor of the Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., presents his theory of how the circles are incised in field crops: "He describes the clues that have enabled him to point to the circles being formed by the impact of a body of fast-spinning air that has been partially ionized. He explains how a columnar atmospheric vortex, with a vertical or inclined axis, provides the channel for the formation of a plasma (ionized gas) vortex and for its conduction towards the ground. The ionisation of the air ought to be sufficient to make the vortex luminous ...
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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 When Identical Twins Are Not Identical Past studies of identical twins separated at birth have documented remarkable similarities between them, despite the fact that they were reared under radically different circumstances. Their physical appearances, habits, vocations, health histories, and other factors are often eerily the same. For example, two female identical twins, who had never seen each other, each wore eight rings! The upshot of such investigations is that most of a person's characteristics are genetic in origin; that is, Nature dominates nurture. But what about identical twins who are remarkably different? They can, for instance, differ appreciably in size, intellect, and behavior. In such cases, does nurture dominate nature? No! Identical twins may diverge even in the womb, where one may receive more oxygen and nutrients than the other. One also may be assailed in by viruses, bacteria, or drugs, while the other escapes. Even more drastic is the possi bility that one twin may pick up an extra chromosome soon after the original egg has split. Also, mutations may doom one twin to Down's syndrome or some other genetic affliction, while the other is unscathed. Identical twins may even be of different sex! Of course, such twins are genetically different, but they are still monozygotic (from the same egg). Blood tests will show them to be identical. It used to be thought that the small ...
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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 Impact Crater Beneath Lake Huron "With the help of magnetic sensors, scientists have detected a rimmed circular structure, 30 miles in diameter, more than a mile beneath the floor of Lake Huron. They believe the magnetic ring marks a buried crater -- blasted by a meteorite at least 500 million years ago." (Stolzenburg, W.; "Impact Crater May Lie beneath Lake Huron," Science News, 138:133, 1990.) Reference. Many other impact craters are cataloged in section ESC in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. Details on this book here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Curious Silver Crosses From A Georgia Mound In November of 1832, two silver crosses were extracted from an Indian mound in Murray County, Georgia, along with more usual Indian relics. The crosses are exquisitely wrought and were most likely brought to the Americas by the expedition of Hernando de Soto. Some of de Soto's men, under Adelantado, ventured into what is now Georgia trying, among other things, to Christianize the Indian. The puzzle of the silver crosses is not in their source but in the crude figures and inscription added to one of them. The cross shown in the figure depicts a horse on one side and an owl on the other. The inscription (too small to be read on the figure) is withing the central ring and states: IYNKICIDU, which makes no sense in any known language. This minor mystery was first revealed in the 1881 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution . Charles Fort took note of it in his Book of the Damned , where he pointed out that the letters C. D, and K are turned the wrong way in the inscription and, further, that the crosses, having equal arms, are not conventional crucifixes. (Pontolillo, James; "The Silver Indian Crosses of Murray County, Georgia," INFO Journal, no. 63, p. 26, June 1991.) From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Anomalies We don't read much about "waterguns" in the modern scientific literature, but a century ago Nature published many ear-witness accounts of them. These muffled detonations heard near the coasts of almost all the continents are believed by some to be caused by eruptions of methane from the seafloor. The same eruptions probably also account for the myriads of "pockmarks" found in the sediments of shallow seas. Whether this outgassing of methane comes from shallow accumulations of organic matter or from deep within the crust is still debated. Here, geophysics merges with biology. Recently, a group of researchers discovered a large (540 square meters) patch of chemosynthetic mussels in a brine-filled pockmark, at a depth of 650 meters, off the Louisiana coast. The mussels grew in a ring around the concentrated brine. The mussels harbor symbionts which consume the methane still seeping up through the brine from a salt diapir (a massive fingerlike intrusion 500 meters below the brine pool. The origin of some diapirs is not well-understood.) The mussels get the oxygen they require from the ordinary seawater covering the dense brine. Like the biological communities surrounding the "black smokers" and other ocean-floor seeps, the brine-filled pockmark community includes several species of shrimp, crabs, and tube worms. We have here another example of the astounding ability of lifeforms to take advantage of unusual, even bizarre niches. (MacDonald, I. Rosman, et al; "Chemosynthetic Mussels at a BrineFilled Pockmark in the Northern Gulf of Mexico," Science, 248:1096 ...
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... all, is what science is all about. It turns out that Alfven has made many correct scientific predictions. (He even shared a Nobel Prize in 1970.) But, as S.G . Brush has related in a detailed article in Eos, being correct is not the same as being accepted. "According to some scientists and philosophers of science, a theory is or should be judged by its ability to make successful predictions. This paper examines a case from the history of recent science - the research of Hannes Alfven and his colleagues on space plasma phenomena - in order to see whether scientists actually follow this policy. Tests of five pre-dictions are considered: magnetohydrodynamic waves, field-alligned (' Birkeland') currents, critical ionization velocity and the existance of planetary rings, electrostatic double layers, and partial corotation. It is found that the success or failure of these predictions had essentially no effect on the acceptance of Alfven's theories, even though concepts such as 'Alfven waves' have become firmly entrenched in space physics. Perhaps the importance of predictions in science has been exaggerated; if a theory is not acceptable to the scientific community, it may not gain any credit from successful predictions." Brush concludes that the continuing resistance to Alfven's work is due to the widely held opinion that his theory is not plausible; that is, it does not conform to the dominant paradigm. (Brush, Stephen G.; "Prediction and Theory Evaluation," Eos, 71:19, 1990. Cr. L. Ellenberger) Comment ...
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... that he, too, has observed this phenomenon, as reported in SF#68. "It was in the early evening a few years back. On seeing the double crescent, I called out my brother who was visiting. It looked like a double image to him, too. Then I got my binoculars for a better look. There was NO double image seen in the binoculars, so the effect was clearly physiological/psychological." (Eason, R.; personal communication, May 5, 1990.) Comment. Recently, on a trip to the American Virgin Islands, my wife and I observed a thin crescent moon. I saw a doubling of the ends of the crescent; she did not! Both of us agreed, however, that a thin, bright ring enclosed the dark part of the moon, and that the dark part of the moon was distincly brighter than the dark sky around the moon. From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... upper tangential arcs of a 22 halo join together. Possibly because of the absence of appropriate theory, R. White, in 1981, suggested that the observations recorded in GEH2 were only the consequences of observational error or inaccuracy in representation of the phenomenon. (This assertion is well-known to all anomalists!) Recently, however, several elliptical halos have graced the skies of Finland. We provide below a summary of these observations, as prepared by J. Hakuma ki and M. Pekkola. First, though, we express appreciation to Hakumaki and Pekkola for a paragraph headlined SOURCEBOOK PROJECT ANOMALIES, where in effect they vindicate the approach of the Project. We now quote from the summary of their article. "In December 1987 two Finnish amateur astronomers observed and photographed a peculiar vertically elliptical ring surrounding the moon. A literature study carried out soon after this first observation brought to light ten reported historical cases of this type of rare halo phenomenon. It was found out that the existence of these elliptical halos has been uncertain to date due to a lack of photographic evidence. One indication of this is that none of the major modern works on halos mentions such phenomena. During 1988 three more elliptical halos were seen by the Finnish halo observing network. Observations and photographs taken of these phenomena seem to indicate that at least two types of elliptical halo exist. The smaller one was first reported by US astronomer Frank Schlesinger in 1908 and its vertical axis has in all four possible cases been about 7 . No name has been suggested for this halo. The larger one seems to have a ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Great Wooden Well Of Kuckhoven While on the subject of ancient hydrological engineering, it is appropriate to mention a remarkable wooden well found in northwest Germany. Over 200 oaken planks have been discovered so far. These are up to 15 centimeters thick and 50 wide. Fairly large oaks had been cut and split with stone axes and then worked into planks. Mortises were cut in some way so that the planks could be joined. It is quite clear that the Neolithic peoples of the region were skilled carpenters. The size of the well, too, is impressive: it was more than 15 meters deep. The tree rings on the planks permitted very accurate dating: 5303 BC -- well over 7000 years ago. (Bahn, Paul G.; "The Great Wooden Well of Kuckhoven," Nature, 354:269, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ones. Five of these formed a quintuplet - a large central circle with four small evenly spaced outriders. (Meaden, G.T .; "Nocturnal Eye Witness Observation of Circles in the Making. Part 2: North Wiltshire, 29th June 1989," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 15:3 , 1990. Journal address: 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, ENGLAND BA15 1LD) Comment. Meaden, Editor of the Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., is the proponent of the plasma-vortex theory of crop- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The cup-and-ring motif in america Typical cup-and-rings from Ireland. Drawing from Ancient Man. The 1988 volume of the Occasional Papers of the Epigraphic Society is at hand. As usual, it is chock full of ancient symbols, motifs, and writings, many of which come from anomalous times and/or places. R.W .B . Morris, an authority on prehistoric rock art, has contributed an article comparing the cup-and-ring motif, as found in Great Britain, with that found in North America. Since this stereotype motif decorates the rocks of all continents, save Antarctica, and since the hey-day of cup-and-ring engraving was 3-5 millennia ago, this unique design suggests the worldwide diffusion of culture thousands of years ago. A cup-and-ring engraving consists of a hollow or cup anywhere from 4 to 30 inches in diameter, surrounded by 1 to 9 rings. The rings may be gapped, with a narrow groove running through the gaps from the outside. (See the illustration,) Cups-and-rings have been found at over 700 sites in Great Britain. Most date between 2200 and 1600 B.C . The cup-and-ring is much rarer in the States. A few are known from Alabama, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Texas, and doubtless other states. In contrast to the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why didn't galileo resolve saturn's rings?Several times in SF and our catalogs, we have intimated that Saturn's rings may be of recent vintage or perhaps have changed in historical times. In this vein, K. Fabian writes about an interesting inconsistency: "In the early 17th Century, Galileo discovered that the planet Mars goes through a minor gibbous phase. Even in its maximum gibbous phase, Mars is 88% illuminated. Quoting James Muirden in the Amateur Astronomer's Handbook, 'It is remarkable that Galileo was able to make out the phase with his tiny telescope.' "Even more amazing, in my opinion, is that Galileo, while he was able to resolve the slight phase of Mars, was unable to resolve the major ring around Saturn. Mars is a difficult object in a small telescope, while Saturn is easily resolved as a ringed planet in even a 40-mm spotting scope at 30X. Why did the rings of Saturn elude Galileo, while the more difficult Martian phases did not? Perhaps at the time of Galileo the rings of Saturn were much more difficult to observe than they are today." (Fabian, Karl; personal communication, September 9, 1988.) Reference. For more on the many anomalies of Saturn's rings, see ALR in the catalog: The Moon and the Pla nets. Description here . From Science Frontiers #60, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Stone Rings After worrying so much above about possible scientific blunders, it is pleasant to relax with a minor geological (perhaps "archeological") anomaly. In Green Ridge State Forest, in Western Maryland, are found 150-200 annular piles of sandstone rocks. All lie on the western slope of Polish Mountain. No one seems to have a good explanation of their origin. Archeological digs have not unearthed any human artifacts. From a photograph of one ring, we estimate an outer diameter of 15 feet, and an inner hole 5 feet in diameter. The height of the rock ring is perhaps 2 feet. The sandstone rocks are generally slab-like. A popular theory states that the rocks were piled up to protect apple trees. (Anonymous; "Rings of Stone Pose Mystery in Md.," Washington Post, June 26, 1988. Cr. J. Judge.) Comment. We have classified this item under GEOLOGY because these rings could be periglacial phenomena; that is akin to patterned ground. Periglacial structures are occasionally found in the Appalachians. From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Three Planetary Notes From Saturn. Micrometeorites constantly chip away at Saturn's C-ring. Using current micrometeorite-flux estimates, the age of the C-ring is between 4.4 and 67 million years. Compared to the purported age of the solar system, 4.5 billion years, Saturn's C-ring (and perhaps the other rings, too) is a brand-new feature. Where did it come from? Is it related to the icy comets that seem to be raining down steadily on the earth's atmosphere? (Northrop, T.G ., and Connerey, J.E .P .; "A Micrometeorite Erosion Model and the Age of Saturn's Rings," Icarus, 70:124, 1987.) From Mars. Inside the vast Valles Marineris Canyon complex, Viking Orbiter photos have picked out wind-blown patches of dark material. These patches are strung out along faults for some 200 kilometers. Astronomers believe they are volcanic vents, which are a scant few million years old. (Anonymous; "Recent Volcanism on Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1985.) Comment. Another of the surprisingly large number of youthful features in the solar system. From Europa. The surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean satellites, seems to be covered with a relatively smooth veneer of ice. Beneath this frigid ...
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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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... ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spiral-circle ground patterns in field crops G.T . Meaden has recently summarized his research into those marvelously sharp and complex designs cut into English field crops by atmospheric vortices. (Why other countries are not similarly affected is unknown.) The simple circles range from 3 to 30 meters in diameter. The central, flattened vegetation is crushed clockwise about half the time, counterclockwise in the other cases. On two known occasions, the flattening process has actually been observed. The invisible atmospheric vor tex does its work in 30 seconds or less and generates a high-pitched humming sound. The complex nature of these vortices is attested to by the rare ringed circles and multiple patterns. Both single- and double-ringed circles are known. The wind direction always alternates from central circle to first ring to second ring. The most common multiple patterns consist of large central circles flanked by two or four, smaller satellite circles, all nicely spaced. In the quintuplets, all five circles are usually flattened clockwise, but one case has presented theorists with four counterclockwise circles accompanied by a single improbable clockwise circle! (Meaden, G.T .; "The Mystery of Spiral-Circle Ground Patterns in Crops Made by a Natural Atmospheric-Vortex Phenomenon," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:203, 1988.) Quintuplet pattern in barley crop, west Wiltshire, 1987 From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC ...
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... 23rd July 1974. It had been a clear day, very hot in the afternoon. Together with Muscovites from another encampment they sat up talking and drinking tea (sic) until late in the evening (in fact until early the next morning). At 2:10 a.m . they all saw a light which at first they thought was a torch. It appeared to be 70 metres away in the undergrowth along the bank. As they all stood up the 'ball lightning' (which iswhat Mitrofanov thought it was) seemed to 'float up' from behind the bushes and move straight towards them, increasing in size. But it did not reach them; it slowly 'swam' horizontally before disappearing after 4 minutes. When it seemed to be at its nearest a ring detached itself, like the ripple of water when a stone is thrown into water. The ring vanished as it expanded, but was followed by a second ring, less bright than the first. Before it vanished the ball took on a pear shape. Just after it vanished the sky in that direction, for about 10 of azimuth, became reddish and lighter than the rest of the sky to the north. This illumination lasted no longer than half a minute. The 'ball' had made no sound and there were no traces or smell remaining. Mitrofanov did not mention hearing thunder or seeing lightning." (Campbell, Steuart; "Russian Accounts of Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:126, 1988. Journal address: 54 Frome ...
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... 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, Roy S.; "Inside a Texas Tornado," Weatherwise , 40:73, 1987.) Comment. The luminous phenomena and complex internal structure do not seem to be described by tornado theory. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... save this anomaly for another day, the one we are after now is called: The Winding Dilemma. N. Comins and L. Marschall elaborate as follows: "Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy don't have as far to go to complete an orbit as stars located farther from the center. Thus, inner stars should orbit more frequently than outer stars, resulting in a spiral that gradually winds up as the galaxy ages. But observations of spiral galaxies at various distances -- and thus at different stages in their evolution -- have shown that this is not the case. Astronomers believe density waves, stochastic star formation, or perhaps a combination of both processes may sustain or regenerate the spiral pattern." Density waves have recently been applied to explain the spiral rings of Saturn, and now to the arms of spiral galaxies. The density waves are thought to stimulate the condensation of bright new stars as they move through space. A good analogy is the bioluminescent wake of ship in tropical waters. The density waves in a galaxy maintain the spiral pattern with new stars, while the old stars die out (in much less time than it takes for them to orbit the hub) as they orbit out of the spiral pattern. Postulating density waves just raises more questions, as is often the case in science. What causes the density waves? Theory says that the density waves should damp out in under a billion years, yet we see spiral galaxies over a wide range of ages. (Comins, Neil, and Marscall, Laurence; "How ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Going For Gold The name of T. Gold appears often in Science Frontiers. Currently, he is promoting the theory that many of the earth's hydrocarbon deposits (gas, oil, graphite, etc.) are not of biological origin but are formed rather when primordial methane outgases from the planet's interior. A vanishingly small number of geologists buy Gold's theory. Nevertheless, the Swedish State Power Authority and some private investors have been impressed enough to fund a drilling project at the Siljan Ring, a meteorite crater 150 miles north of Stockholm. There are no significant sources of biogenic hydrocarbons nearby, but oil seeps are not uncommon around the Ring. Mainstream theory cannot account for these seeps, but Gold's theory can: primordial methane streaming up through the cracked granite shield is converted, probably with the help of bacteria, into oil and hydrocarbon sludge. "Ridicuous," say the mainstreamers. Recently, the drilling program, which has reached the 22,000foot level, brought up 60 kilograms of very smelly black sludge with the consistency of modeling clay. The gunk seems to have a biological origin. In addition to the black sludge, the drillers have been encountering increasing quantities of various hydrocarbon gases as the hole went deeper. All very supportive of Gold's hypothesis. Establishment geologists are having difficulties explaining these results. They blame contamination by drilling lubricants and/or the surface oil seeps. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Visual Sightings Of Vortices In Britain Of late, the cereal fields of Britain have been visited by a phenomenon which flattens the crops in nicely geometric circles, rings, and even patterns of circles. The meteorologists attribute these circles to unseen vortices in the atmos phere; more radical speculators invoke UFOs and mysterious Russian weapons. Pertinent to the explanation 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cyclothems as solar-system pulse recorders Geologists can help astronomers look back in time. The sunspot cycle can be seen in variations of varves; i.e ., annual layers of sediment; and the growth rings of shells have been used to estimate the number of days in the lunar month when the solar system was younger. Cyclothems may also be useful. Cyclothems are groups or bundles of strata that repeat themselves in stratigraphic columns. A generalized cyclothem from Illinois is shown in the illustration. In the U.S . western interior, rhythmic sedimentation appears in the Fort Hays Limestone Member of the Niobrara Formation. These cyclothems can be correlated over distances exceeding 800 kilometers and are believed to be the consequence of climatic changes associated with the earth's precession and orbital eccentriciy. These rhythms have been captured in bundles of shale-limestone couplets. A bundle of five coup lets, for example, is thought to express 21,000- and 100,000-year Milankovitchtype climatic cycles, as impressed by variations in the earth's orbital precession and eccentricity. Analysis of the Fort Hays Limestone Member, however, reveals that while bundles of five couplets do occur, the number may vary from 1 to 12. Clearly, things are not clear-cut. (Laferriere, Alan P., et al; "Effects of Climate, Tectonics, and Sea-Level Changes on Rhythmic Bedding Patterns in the Niobrara Formation ...
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... in the inner solar system. (One has, of course, Halley's present mass, but must estimate its original mass!) The conclusion is that Halley has spent only 23,000 years in its present orbit! (Maddox, John; "Halley's Comet Is Quite Young," Nature, 339:95, 1989.) Comments. Admittedly, this is a pretty shaky calculation, but it accords with the calculation that Halley had a close encounter with Jupiter about 20,000 years ago. The manifest contradictions in the inferences made above from recent observations of Halley mean that we still have a lot to learn about comets, Halley in particular. One should also recall that the solar system has other features that may be youthful, such as Saturn's rings. (See ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets) For other cometary anomalies, see Chapter AC in our catalog volume: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Both catalog volumes are described here . From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , on the average, for the entire universe, the above paragraph cannot be true. The article introduced by this unqualified assertion about the evolution of the universe is really about self-organizing chemical reactions. We classify it under biology because the authors imply that some biological phenomena are self-organizing. The famous Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction is used as the prime example of chemical self-organization. First, one takes a shallow dish filled with a solution of bromate ions in a highly acidic medium. Here's what happens: "A dish, thinly spread with a lightly colored liquid, sits quietly for a moment after its preparation. The liquid is then suddenly swept by a spontaneous burst of colored centers of chemical activity. Each newly formed region creates expanding patterns of concentric, circular rings. These collide with neighboring waves but never penetrate. In some rare cases rotating one-, two-, or three-armed spirals may emerge. Each pattern grows, impinging on its neighboring patterns, winning on some fronts and losing on others, organizing the entire surface into a unique pattern. Finally, the patterns decay and the system dies, as secondary reactions drain the flow of the primary reaction." From this starting point, the implication is made that all manner of biological "reactions" are analogous and therefore reducible to nought but physics and chemistry. Some examples given of self-organizing biological phenomena are: (1 ) the sequencing of amino acids into selfreplicating structures; (2 ) slime-mold organization; and (3 ) the origin of the lens structure ...
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