49 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalistics At The Aaas Meeting At the recent Boston meeting of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), at a session entitled "The Edges of Science," P. Sturrock dealt with the "gray areas" of science -- what we call "anomalistics." In particular, Sturrock explained why mainstream science does not clasp anomalistics to its breast. "' They are uncomfortable,' he said. 'Your friends may doubt your judgment. You may lose the respect of some of your colleagues. You will get no funding. You will have difficulty publishing your work. Your boss may think you are wasting your time.' "And, he added, 'If you don't have tenure, don't even consider it.' "But the reasons why there should be serious consideration of at least some anomalous phenomena, Dr. Sturrock said, include the fact that 'the gray area of science is the crucial area... You may -- perhaps without knowing it -- start a scientific revolution.' "Also, he added, 'You may be honored -- posthumously.'" (Orndorff, Beverly; "Scientist Stresses 'Gray Areas,'" Richmond Times-Dispatch , February 16, 1988. Cr. L. Farish) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Diamonds are an anomalist's best friend The diamonds we mine today were, according to prevailing wisdom, formed about 3 billion years ago, at depths of 150-300 kilometers, where pressures of 725,000-1 ,000,000 psi are believed to exist. After lengthy cooling periods, the crystalized diamonds were transported to the surface by fluid, lower-melting-point rocks, such as kimberlite. Many South African diamonds are mined from kimberlite pipes. Diamonds are never pure carbon; they always contain some nitrogen and boron. Occasionally, they harbor tiny radioactive impurities; usually alpha-particle emitters in the uranium-238 decay chain. Alphas emitted by these impurities have well-defined energies and penetrate the diamond matrix only so far. If one examines a diamond with a high-power microscope (say, at 100 x), one can see concentric rings surrounding the impurities. These dark radiohalos or "pleochroic" halos have specific radii and can be used to identify the radioisotopes that produced them. So far, so good; but: "The fact that fully formed, optically visible internal radiohalos in diamonds are now presented casts a considerable shadow over current theories of diamond genesis." Actually, the radiohalos pose three challenges to diamond-genesis theory. Problem 1. The half-lives of the halo-creating radioisotopes are measured in thousands of years rather than the billions prescribed for crystallization. ...
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... . I believe my collection is unique. It transcends modern computerized data bases in its very wide time frame and its focus on the anomalous and curious. The present book is recent sampling of the kind of material that goes into the Catalog of Anomalies . The Catalog of Anomalies represents my personal attempt to assemble the riddles of science and, given a large array of them, to discern some meaning implicit in the melange. On the practical level, which as a self-employed researcher I cannot avoid, my priorities have had to be as follows: Goal #1 has been the satisfaction of my own curiosity; Goal #2 has been the marketing of enough books to support my research, for no government offices or private foundations seem at all interested in supporting this new discipline of "anomalistics"; Goal #3 has been more altruistic: the anticipation that there may be something scientifically useful in all this. But, even if there is not, the quest has been fulfilling in itself. Some mainstream scientists may recoil at the thought of 40,000 anomalies and curiosities. Surely nature cannot be that enigmatic and cryptic! Actually, I must stress that my search is stil far from complete. Anomalies -- those observations that do not yield to mainstream explanations -- are ubiquitous and proliferate. I have trawled through only a small fraction of the English-language scientific journals; thousands of volumes of specialized, less-known, publications gather dust untouched. Among them are unexamined books, monographs, informal papers, and popular publications. Foreign-language sources have only ...
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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 IS THERE TRUTH IN THE GRAINS? Scientific creationists often come up with fascinating minor phenomena in geology, which, as far as most geologists are concerned, have already been satisfactorily explained and are now forgotten. Creationists exhume these tidbits because they can sometimes be interpreted as support for a "young earth" or some other cornerstone in creationist thinking. Of course, the true anomalist has a broader appetite, savoring any unexplained phenomena, regardless of which theories they support or undermine. But that is enough palaver, creationist D.E . Cox has resurrected the quartz-sand-grain anomaly: "Uniformitarian geologists, and many creationist geologists as well, interpret sandstones as sedimentary or aeolian accumulations of sand grains. Quartz arenites, for example, are supposed to be detrital accumulations of quartz grains derived from pre-existing formations. The source rocks may have either been igneous or sedimentary, but ultimately most quartz grains in sediments must have an igneous parent rock, probably granite, since this is the most abundant igneous rock on the continents. The quartz derived from granite is characterized by the presence of tiny mineral inclusions. Crystals of mica, rutile and tournaline are common. In sandstones formed from granite-derived quartz grains, mineral inclusions should be evident, but they are rarely present in sand-stones." The accepted explanation of this apparent anomaly is that the inclusions in fresh, granite-derived quartz grains so weakened the grain ...
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... Science Frontiers The Unusual & Unexplained Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy From the pages of the World's Scientific Journals Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics 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. Subscriptions Subscriptions to the Science Frontiers newsletter are no longer available. Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book , and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books. The publisher Please note that the publisher has now closed, and can not be contacted. Designed and hosted by Knowledge Computing Other links Science Frontiers On Line Browse or search over 2100 free reports, and discover the unusual in archaeology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geophysics, mathematics, psychology and physics. Search site for: Science Frontiers: The Book and Science Frontiers II An indexed compilation of the first 86 issues of our Science Frontiers newsletter, and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An offset solar halo of 28 Anomalists should not perfunctorily dismiss unusual halo phenomena as trivial and/or boring. The laws of atmospheric optics have no room for the phenomenon described below. It is just as anomalous as ball lightning, although perhaps not as exciting! The 22 halo on the left is common and nonanomalous. However, optical theory has no room for the offset 28 halo on the right. June 22, 1993. North Cornwall, UK. "A 22 halo [the well-explained type] was very prominent, with the sector DCE being exceptionally bright and the colours quite strong. On the right-hand side of this, a larger but fainter halo could easily be seen, having a diameter of about 28 (see figure). It was white in colour. The sector CB was the brightest, sector BF not so bright but easily seen, but the sector AF could be seen only with difficulty. The halo was not seen to penetrate the 22 halo at either points A and C and so it could not be stated positively that the halo would have passed through the Sun, although it looked as though this would have been the case. The centre of the 28 halo had an altitude approximately the same as that of the Sun. The phenomenon lasted for about 20 minutes, although the 22 halo lasted for at least another hour." (Miles, Howard; "An Unusual Solar ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Superorganisms: From Simplicity To Complexity Superorganisms are biological entities made up of large numbers of simpler entities that have banded together to perform functions they cannot do as individuals. Termite mounds are often mentioned as superoganisms. But here we examine colonies of organisms that are much simpler and much smaller than termites. What entices the anomalist to attend to superorganisms? Here are two of the several questions superorganisms raise. How do superorganisms evolve properties that its constituent individuals do not possess, such as mobility, unique sensors, and even a modicum of intelligence. Since superorganisms do not reproduce as superorganisms, how can natural selection operate on these superorganisms? Salps. Books dealing with the unexplained sometimes include a photograph of a huge marine creature identified as a sea monster. This famous photo is real and so is the monster in it. But this creature is not reptilian; it is really a salp, a colonial tunicate. Tunicates are tiny, primitive marine organisms usually classified as invertebrates. Some species of tunicates have somehow acquired the habit of aggregating in immense numbers to create long, hollow, snake-like tubes called "salpa." Salps may reach lengths of 45 feet, with diameters of 3 feet. No wonder they are falsely identified as sea monsters. Structurally, the tunicates comprising the salp are embedded in a gelatinous wall facing inward. Each possesses a siphon that pumps nutrient-carrying sea water. Working in unison, the tunicates create ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Curious Phenomena in Venezuala The description of a truly remarkable phenomenon recently appeared on Scientific American's web page. It also surfaced in an article by G.D . Kaswell in the journal Infinite Energy. These re-appearances in the current literature of this well-known anecdote allow us to revisit it here. It is well worth repeating, even though many anomalists have had it in their collections for decades. (In fact we recorded it in 1974 in vol. G1 of Strange Phenomena .) As you read the following quotation from an 1886 issue of Scientific American, remember that the event described occurred almost a decade before the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity. Although ball lightning was recognized in 1886, the first UFO flap was still 70 years in the future! The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities: During the night of the 24th of October last [1886], which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo [Venezuela], were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house. The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar Model Confirmed, But Standard Model Crippled A persistent astronomical anomaly (well-covered in SF#112 and earlier) has apparently been satisfactorily disposed of. Even staunch anomalists will have to close the book on the solar-neutrinodeficit problem. No deficit really exists because the neutrinos emitted by the sun change while in flight from a type that is easy to detect to a type that is difficult to register experimentally. The total number of neutrinos reaching the earth is what it should be according to theory but we have not been able to detect them all. This neutrino schizophrenia has now been confirmed, and our theory about how the sun works is safe. But the erasure of the solar-neutrinodeficit problem tells the particle physicists that neutrinos do indeed change type, which implies that they possess mass. But anomalies are sometimes contagious. The Standard Model of particle physics, so successful in many respects, is now ailing. It asserts that neutrinos cannot change types and do not possess mass. (Seife, Charles; "Polymorphous Particles Solve Solar Mystery," Science, 292:2227, 2001. Weiss, P.; " Physics Bedrock Cracks, Sun Shines In," Science News, 159:388, 2001.) Comment. Without question, we have here an experimental triumph, but the undermining of that pillar of physics, the Standard Model, is a high price to pay. We have closed one book ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Way Of Looking At The Universe Here is an excellent survey of American archeoastronomy from Canadian medicine wheels to Mesoamerican aligned structures. To the anomalist, the most interesting part of Aveni's review paper is found in his comments about the world view of the Precolumbian Americans, particularly the Maya. That the Maya were acute astronomers is beyond question. They had even developed a correction scheme to keep Venus' 584-day canonical cycle on track with its true synodic period of 583.92 days. Their predictions of the position of Venus were accurate to 2 hours in 481 years! Not bad for a civilization that did not seem to have any conception that the planets revolved around the sun. The Maya, in fact, did not seem to care what made heavenly bodies move; they only wished to predict their appearance accurately. Instead of developing celestial mechanics based on gravitation and laws of motion, as we have done, they were content with numerical algorithms; that is, ways of computing a desired result. Their astonishingly accurate predictions of Venus, solar eclipses, and other astronomical phenomena evolved from cycles of numbers advancing each day like interlocking gear teeth. These algorithms gave them no insight into cause and effect, but they got the right answers. They needed no physical laws, just patterns of numbers. It was a different way of comprehending and dealing with the universe. (Aveni, Anthony F.; " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How old is the los lunas inscription?Volume 13 of the Epigraphic Society's Occasional Publications (one of two volumes for 1985) contains several articles of great interest to anomalists with an archeological bent. We have space for only two in this issue of SF. In the first of these, Barry Fell deals with the criticism that the now-famous Los Lunas (New Mexico) inscription cannot be the work of ancient Hebrew-writing visitors to the New World because it employs modern punctuation marks. Fell counters this by reproducing several ancient texts that use similar punctuation conventions, thus blunting this attack on the antiquity of the Los Lunas inscription. For readers unacquainted with the Los Lunas inscription, it consists of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) engraved in ancient Hebrew on a large basalt rock near Los Lunas, NM. In the second paper, geologist G.E . Morehouse comes to grip with a second criticism leveled at the inscription; namely, that the engraving looks fresh and lacks the patination characteristic of great age. Morehouse concludes that the freshness actually derives from the frequent, recent scrubbing of the inscription (with wire brushes on some occasions) to improve its visibility. Taking this into account, Morehouse estimates the age of the Los Lunas inscription by comparing its weathering with a nearby 1930 inscription. Conclusion: the Los Lunas inscription is much older than 1930. Any length of time from 500-2000 years or ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Something Strange Is Going On!Where? "Everywhere, of course," is the answer of any anomalist worth his or her salt. Especially, though, something strange in going on with prime numbers. In an homage to the revered mathematician P. Erdos, who died September 20, 1996, D. Mackenzie mentioned a theory Erdos published in 1940 with M. Kac. This theory states that a plot of the number of prime factors of very large numbers forms a bell curve -- almost as if these numbers were "choosing" their prime factors at random. Alluding to a assertion Einstein is said to have made, Erdos commented: "God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers." (Mackenzie, Dana; "Homage to an Itinerant Master," Science, 275:759, 1997.) Cross reference. The distribution of prime numbers is more than strange, see the plot in SF#42/332. What do prime numbers have to do with the real world? Are math and natural science really separate, unlinked disciplines? Pythagoras, 2,500 years ago, decided that: "All is number." He may be right. A strange connection seems to exist between prime numbers and quantum physics. On one side of the chasm that supposedly separates math from physics, we have the prime numbers and the Riemann zeta ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Elliptical Halos Original drawing of the halo of Hissink, observed at Leiden. January 26, 1977. In the catalog Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows, we list nine cases of elliptical halos. Such observations are anomalous becaouse the only wellexplained elliptical halo is formed when the lower and 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Did humans evolve in siberia? Tractors of the gods? Astronomy Jovian lightning or cosmic short circuit? Target earth Biology Flies fly into frogmouth's mouth Is immortality only a mutation away? The world before our world Geology Back to siberia: the biggest flood? Diamonds are an anomalist's best friend Unidentified light Geophysics Crop circles not hoaxes: a correction Expanding luminescent rings Chilean astronomer reports unidentified atmospheric phenomena Chemistry and Physics High temperature suppresses radioactive decay Chaos at the amusement park ...
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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 The Nether Universe Of Life Bacteria well-adapted to high temperatures have been brought up from oil wells thousands of miles apart. All indications are that these bacteria are indigenous to the wells; that is, not introduced by the drilling fluids. What is most interesting is the fact that these bacteria are all closely related despite their remoteness from each other. They not only look and behave alike, but they also share 98.2 % of their 16S ribosomal RNA sequences. M. Magot asks what an anomalist would ask. "For example, where are these bacteria from? How did they succeed in colonizing these habitats?...Are these microorganisms directly descended from bacteria that were trapped during the formation of the oil, or accompanied its migration through tens to hundreds of millions of years? Did they arrive in the oil field later as a consequence of aquifer activity? What is their mode of maintenance and development in their environment?" (Magot, Michel; "Similar Bacteria in Remote Oil Fields," Nature, 379:681, 1996) Comment. Bacteria have also been extracted from mineral-charged fluids circulating in drill holes over 12 kilo meters deep and also in deep aquifers. There must be an unexplored universe of life thriving not only beneath our feet but also - quite possibly - beneath the forbidding surface of Mars. Reference. Examples of life thriving at great depths in the earth may be found ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The pit-zodiacs Schagen-Muggenburg lies 50 kilometers north of Amsterdam. The Muggenburg part of the town name is only a few years old. Before it was built, archeologists were allowed to explore the meadows making up the construction site. L. Therkorn, an archeologist from the University of Amsterdam, led the exploration team. The digs yielded artifacts going as far back as 300 AD, when this region was sparsely populated by farmers. However, if Therkorn et al had dug up only these old bones and pottery shards, we would not be writing this for SF! For anomalists, it was the pits -- old pits that had been filled in and that seemed to be arranged in an intricate pattern that mirrored the star constellations making up the classical Greek zodiac. But this revelation didn't come until later. After all, pits are common in archeology. Often they contain just rubbish, sometimes human remains. "But the pits at Muggenburg are different. There are 57 of them, each about a meter wide and deep, extending over about half a hectare [about 1 acres] They were certainly not used for storage because the level of the groundwater is too high. Nor were they used as dumps; archaeological evidence shows that they were filled in shortly after they were dug, and some have very little in them." It was only when Therkorn mapped the pits did she see that they ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The giant landslides of hawaii The island of Hawaii. The offshore stipled areas show the major submarine landslides. Application of the distance scale proves their immense areal extents. Depth contours are in kilometers! The heavy dashed line marks the axis of the Hawaiian Deep. Most landslides are not anomalous, but some of those that occurred on the flanks of the Hawaiian Islands are so immense that anomalists should at least take note of them. J. Moore et al have been mapping and sampling huge blocks of rock that slid off the sides of Mauna Loa in the socalled South Kona landslide. These blocks of lava and basalt are truly giants. One was measured at 10 kilometers in length, 300 meters in thickness. Some of these colossal chunks of rock slid 80 kilometers (50 miles) out to sea during the late Pleistocene. Imagine the tsunami (tidal wave) this landslide must have generated! (Moore, James G., et al; "Giant Blocks in the South Kona Landslide, Hawaii," Geology, 23:125, 1995.) Comment. The South Kona landslide, or one like it, and the resulting tsunami might account for the curious distribution of sand dunes along the coast of New South Wales, Australia. See Science Frontiers #85. From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is the paranormal only a set of subjective experiences?Anomalists usually interpret paranormal phenomena as indications that our knowledge of the human mind and how it interacts with other minds and the socalled material world is sadly deficient. But some psychiatrists see paranormal phenomena as merely symptoms of mental disturbance and nothing esoteric at all. Such a view is supported by studies employing interviews with members of society at large. In a revealing but demystifying study of 502 residents of Winnipeg, C.A . Ross and S. Joshi found: (1 ) That so-called paranormal experiences are very common indeed, with 65.7 % of the interviewees reporting having had them. The most common were deja vu (54.6 %) , precognitive dreams (17.8 %) , and mental telepathy (15.6 %) . Many reported experiencing more than one of the 13 different types of paranormal phenomena included in the survey. But do survey statistics prove that such paranormal phenomena are truly objective? The real nature of paranormal experiences, according to Ross and Joshi, lies in the close ties these paranormal phenomena have with dissociative phenomena (i .e ., automatic writing), hypnotic phenomena, and childhood traumas. They theorize: "A model is proposed in which paranormal experiences are conceptualized as an aspect of normal dissociation. Like dissociation in general, paranormal experiences can be triggered by trauma, especially childhood physical or sexual abuse. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Something Rotten At The Core Of Science H.F . Horrobin is a long-time critic of the anonymous peer-review system used in the scientific community. Most anomalists will readily subscribe to his complaint: The core system by which the scientific community allots prestige (in terms of oral presentations at major meetings and publication in major journals) and funding is a non-validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance. Given the fact that most reviewers are likely to be mainstream and broadly supportive of the existing organization of the scientific enterprise, it would not be surprising if the likelihood of support for truly innovative research was considerably less than that provided by chance. (Horrobin, David F.; "Something Rotten at the Core of Science," Meta Research Bulletin, 10:17, June 15, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... chain trending toward Australia. Sea levels were lower 900,000 years ago, but Flores was still 19 kilometers away. How did our ancestors cross this water barrier? There is no evidence whatsoever that these hominids built boats. How about simple rafts? Possibly, but there is another way. They swam the 19 kilometers (12 miles)! Many modern humans can paddle this far and it seems reasonable that ancient peoples could, too. Another water barrier may have been crossed by African swimmers a million or so years ago. Their artifacts are found in southern Spain. Did they swim across the Strait of Gibraltar rather than trek the long land route through the Middle East and across mountainous southern Europe? These possible aquatic feats of our ancestors are not in themselves enough to strongly interest an anomalist but when they are coupled to another recent discovery they add weight to a much more fascinating speculation that early hominids were once marine mammals -- or at least nearly so. More important to this radical thesis than human swimming prowess is the recent scuttling of of the vaunted paradigm that modern humans began evolving only when they split from the forest-dwelling primates and invaded the African savannahs. It now seems that the regions once thought to have been savannahs were actually heavily forested when the human Great Leap Forward occurred. Anthropologist P. Tobias now ventures that modern man really began evolving when he escaped the heavy competition from other primates in the dense forests and took to the seacoast , which was a wide-open niche. There, in the coastal waters, the "aquatic ape" swam ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Saturn's latest burp In late September, 1990, a large white spot appeared on Saturn. Soon, this blemish spread into an oval 21,000 kilometers in length. By early November, it had developed into a planet-encircling band. Apparently, Saturn had "burped," expelling hot gases from its interior. [Saturn emits 50% more heat than it absorbs from the sun.] So far, this is not too beguiling to the anomalist. But now it seems that other white spots, not as large, have been recorded in 1876, 1903, 1933, and 1960. Could the white-spot phenomenon be periodic--like a percolator? More food for thought is found in Saturn's orbital period around the sun: 29.4 years -- not too different from the potential "burp" cycle! (Anonymous; "New White Spot on Saturn Grows, Changes," Science News, 138:325, 1990. Also: Brown, William; "Giant Bubble of Gas Rises through Saturn's Atmosphere," New Scientist, p. 22, October 20, 1990.) Reference. Historical observations of white spots on Saturn are covered in our handbook: Mysterious Universe. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ) do not coincide with any known craters. Unfortunately, Mellish's drawings of his craters were destroyed by fire a year before the Mariner-4 flyby. However, Mellish's verbal descriptions of the craters are very convincing; and his honesty and accuracy are well-known. So, if anyone really did see pre- Mariner Martian craters, it was probably Mellish. (Sheehan, William; "Did Barnard & Mellish Really See Craters on Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 84:23, 1992.) Comment. Actually, the Martian craters are not the focus here; rather, it is the tyranny of a paradigm that blinds humans to objective realities. Are there other phenomena that we do not perceive because we know they cannot exist? Need you ask this anomalist? From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biogeology It is accepted that every cubic centimeter of the topsoil beneath our feet seethes with thousands of microorganisms. It is less well known that life's domain extends down much further. The hard rocks and strata of earth's crust -- seemingly sterile and inert -- are continuously being transformed by bacteria and other life forms. In fact, it was easy to find three examples of such processes from the literature collected from the past two months. Although the discoveries reported below may seem dull to anomalists ued to more exciting fare, it may well be that life from "inner space" has been and will be more important to humankind than life from "outer space," as implied in third item! Bacteria and placer gold. "Lacelike networks of micrometresize filiform gold associated with Alaskan placer gold particles are interpreted as low-temperature pseudomorphs of a Pedomicrobium -like budding bacterium. Submicron reproductive structures (hyphae) and other morphological features similar to those of Pedomicrobium occur as three-dimensional facsimiles in highpurity gold in and on placer gold particles from Lillian Creek, Alaska." In short, bacteria help create placer gold deposits. The author believes that bacterioform gold is widespread. (Watterson, John R.; "Preliminary Evidence for the Involvement of Budding Bacteria in the Origin of Alaskan Placer Gold," Geology , 20:315, 1992.) Microorganisms and iron deposits. At least 500 million years ago ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Molecular clock places humans in new world 22,000-29,000 bp This is welcome news for anomalists who have been searching for a way to demolish the 12,000-BP (years Before Present) barrier erected across the Bering Land Bridge by the archeological establishment. But don't uncork the champagne yet, because molecular clocks are not like Big Ben. Here's what has happened: A. Torroni and some colleagues at Emory University have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of members of seven linguistically related tribes in Central America called the "Chibcha speakers." Assuming that the homogeneous group separated from the other Amerind tribes 8,000-10,000 years ago, the Emory group found that their mtDNA had mutated at the rate of 2.3 -2 .9 % per million years. (Note: this works out to 0.0022-0 .0029% per thousand years -- a very small amount to measure accurately!) Next Torroni et al measured the mtDNA of 18 other tribes throughout the Americas and, using the mutation rate just mentioned, computed how long ago these peoples had diverged from a common ancestor. The result: 22,000-29,000 years ago. The Emory study was published in the February 1, 1994, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . All this is very well, but suppose that the tribes had ...
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... waist level. Now that's a lot of energy for a subatomic particle! Because cosmic rays normally lose energy as they collide with photons in their cosmic wanderings, astrophysicists believe that "the big one" had to have a recent, nearby origin in order to still be so energetic. But no one has any idea where it could have come from or how it might have acquired so much energy. Somewhere out there in nearby space there may be a natural particle accelerator orders of magnitude more powerful than our biggest earthbound atom smashers. (Anonymous; "The Deepening Mystery of Cosmic-Ray Origins," Sky and Telescope, 87:12, May 1994.) Comment. Actually, the source of "the big one" need not have been nearby and recent. All anomalists will recognize that this is an assumption based upon the particle's extremely high energy when it hit the earth. Why couldn't the particle's original energy have been much higher than 3 x 1020 ev? Then, it could have wandered for eons. After all, it is apparent that we are already dealing with an accelerating mechanism far beyond terrestrial experience. Who's to say what its real potential is? Reference. Cosmic-ray anomalies are cataloged in category ATF in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit here . From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Might diamonds be dead bacteria?How can something as beautiful, pure, and crystalline as a diamond be made from dead, disgusting bacteria? In truth, all diamonds are full of impurities and curious microscopic structures. (See: "Diamonds Are an Anomalist's Best Friend" in SF#92.) The main constituent of diamonds is carbon, but even chemically pure carbon is contaminated in a sense. The contaminant is light carbon; that is, C12 , which is an isotope used preferentially by living organisms. Some diamonds, it is found, contain anomalously large fractions of C12, which suggests they have an organic origin. Some diamonds also contain sulfide inclusions that have sulphur-isotope ratios also symptomatic of a biological origin. The specific diamonds suspected to have an organic origin are the so-called "eclogitic" diamonds. These diamonds may have obtained their carbon and impurities from bacterial communities that once lived around hydrothermal vents that existed along ancient mid-ocean ridges. Subsequent metamorphism (heat and pressure) turned the masses of bacteria into eclogitic diamonds. So, those sparklers of yours may just be clumps of billion-year-old bacterial corpses! (Nisbet, E.G ., et al; "Can Diamonds Be Dead Bacteria?" Nature, 367:694, 1994.) Definition. Eclogites comprise a class of metamorphic rocks formed at extremely high temperatures and pressures. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rubber Duckies Chase Nike Shoes Across Pacific Remember that amusing item in SF#84 about the 80,000 Nike shoes that were lost overboard in the Pacific in 1991? These shoes washed ashore months later in Canada and Alaska, carried thousands of miles by prevailing currents. Well, it's happened again. This time, eleven steel containers fell off a cargo vessel in the North Pacific near the International Dateline. The containers released 29,000 bath toys: duckies, turtles, froggies, and beavers. Ten months after the spill (January 10, 1992), the first yellow duckies washed ashore in Canada. These spills are useful in charting ocean currents but, except for wry Fortean content, are of little import to anomalists. However, there is one prediction of the computer models that is worth noting: Some of these bath toys may make it through the Bering Strait, across the Arctic Ocean, down past Greenland, and onto Atlantic shores. So, keep your eyes open at the beach! (Anonymous; "Rubber Ducky Armada Crosses Pacific," Science News, 146: 254, 1994. Carlton, Jim; "Tub Toys Are Ducky Ocean Researchers," Wall Street Journal, September 30, 1994. Cr. J. Covey) From Science Frontiers #97, JAN-FEB 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The Egyptians Were Here!" It is written by R.A . Jairazbhoy, like G. Thompson an ardent diffusionist and author of the recent book Rameses III: Father of Ancient America . No need to ask what Jairazbhoy's position is on the issue! The second article is a rebuttal to the whole Egypt-in-America business by E. Lurio. His title: "Point: No Egyptians in Ancient America." Lurio is also the author of the 1990 book: A Fractured History of the Discovery of America . Lurio concludes: "Sorry folks! It just ain't so." Finally, G. Thompson comes to the fore again with: "Counter Point: Egypt's Role in Ancient America." Thompson's latest contribution to the anomalist's library is: American Discovery . We have to warn readers that the issue is contaminated with frauds and wishful correlations on one hand and, on the other, by derisive dismissals of artifacts and epigraphy that really may be legitimate. From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... shell as the growing edge moves on." All well and good, but some seashells have intricate patterns that require modellers to imagine traveling waves of excitation, oscillating chemical systems, signals that travel faster than chemical diffusion, and longrange synchrony employing a "global control element." These patterngenerating schemes are clever and rather successful on the theoretical level. Indeed, the seashell modellers are rather smug about their accomplishments. (Hayes, Brian; "SpaceTime on a Seashell," American Scientist, 83:214, 1995.) Comment. The seashell modellers, of course, do not have to explain how or why "global control elements" evolved. The biological rendering of "long-range synchrony" is left unexplained. Although humans will pay large sums for intricately patterned seashells, the anomalist must ask why these patterns exist at all? Why are they beautiful? Of what use are the patterns to the sea-shell inhabitants who cannot appreciate them? From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... universe, redshifts are proportional to recessional velocity, distance from the observer, and age. From the redshifts, it seems that the quasar epoch spanned the period 1.9 -3 .0 billion years, based on an age of 15 billion years for the universe. Assuming the accuracy of this scenario, cosmologists now have to explain why quasars were born and flourished in such a narrow time slot. Did something fundamental change in the universe between 1.9 and 3.0 billion years ago? (Kaiser, Jocelyn; "Epoch of Quasars," Science, 269:637, 1995. Wilford, John Noble; "New Survey of Sky Finds Most Quasars are Equally Ancient," New York Times, August 8, 1995, Cr. J. Covey) Comments. Anomalists cannot fail to remark that the above discussion hinges upon four concepts: black holes, an expanding universe, redshifts as measures of velocity, and the Big Bang. Each of these ideas is plagued by discordant observations. The "epoch of quasars" is, therefore, a fabric woven from controversial threads. Two thoughts important enough to mention: (1 ) The idea of a quasar epoch is consistent with the quantization of red shifts mentioned by Tifft (SF#50/ 95); (2 ) Our personal speculation that a quasar epoch might involve a change in the fundamental properties of time, matter, and space -- something like a cosmic phase change (See SF#74/329.*) Apparently, something was basically different in the universe 1.9 - ...
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... developing in the west. A horizontal, black cloud rolled toward him. Suddenly, it lifted to reveal a huge, twisting funnel advancing directly at him. He threw himself to the ground, but got a good look up into the interior of the funnel. "The outside of the tornado was spinning so fast my eye couldn't follow it, but the inside was rotating almost lazily. I could see a thousand feet up inside it. Tiny fingers of lightning lined the hollow tube." Passing over him, the funnel bounced across the lake, ripped up some trees, and was gone. (McGown, Dennis; "Letters," Time, 147: 8, June 10, 1996) Comment. The "tiny fingers of lightning" are of great interest to anomalists, because most meteorologists deny that electricity plays any part in tornado activity. Of course, there is often plenty of ordinary lightning in the accompanying storms. An observation very similar to McGown's occurred in Kansas, in 1928. (GLD10-X2 in Lightning, Auroras. For information on this book, visit here .) Today, American meteorological journals are mostly filled with articles on the computermodelling of weather systems, satellite-imaging, etc. Eyewitness accounts of unusual phenomena were common 100 years ago in the science journals. Now, we have to get them from Time! From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that lies around it. In the presence of the Earth's magnetic field, these currents generate massive forces that tug on the inner core. And because the outer core has a relatively low viscosity, the inner core can spin freely." (Stokstad, Erik; "Earth's Heart Is in a Spin," New Scientist, p. 18, July 20, 1996. The basic paper is: Song, Xiadong, and Richards, Paul G.; "Seismological Evidence for Differential Rotation of the Earth"s Inner Core," Nature, 382:221, 1996) Comments. Awesome as this gigantic natural electric motor may be, it doesn't challenge any paradigms; in fact, it reinforces current notions concerning the origin of the geomagnetic field. The anomalist, however, inevitably asks questions and makes iconoclastic connections. Why couldn't this planet-size piece of rotating machinery actually be a generator rather than a motor? The kinetic energy of the faster-spinning inner core might actually create the geomagnetic field. What happens when the geomagnetic field reverses, as it has often done according to the magnetostratigraphic record? Does the earth's motor go into reverse? If the inner core can slip relative to the crust and mantle, why cannot the crust-plus-mantle slip, too -- perhaps catastrophically? Pole-shift proponents will like this idea! *Title idea from A. Rand's Atlas Shrugged . Of course, Rand's hero was talking about a different kind of motor. From Science Frontiers #108 ...
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... 5 mile!). Apparently these mated rocks were locked into a huge ice sheet resting -- almost floating -- on slippery mud. Sustained winds blowing over the large areas of ice generated enough horizontal force to propel the ice sheets with their cargos of rocks. Measurements showed that some of these ice sheets had to be at least 850 x 500 m (about 100 acres!) in extent. That's big, to be sure, but hardly anomalous. (Reid, John B., Jr., et al; "Sliding Rocks at the Racetrack, Death Valley: What Makes Them Move?" Geology , 23: 819, 1995) Comment. If scientists would spend as much effort on marine light wheels and UFOs as they do on sliding rocks, we anomalists wouldn't have so much to write about. It's all a question of what is "academically respectable." Reference. Sliding rocks at Racetrack Playa and other localities are cataloged at ESM11 on Neglected Geological Anoma lies . For a description of this book, visit here . Two of the parallel tracks of rocks on Racetrack Playa. The parallelism suggests that the rocks were embedded in the same ice sheet. From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . 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 -- a reversal of Day's scenario. Obviously, both cannot be correct. From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 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 ...
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... ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Maize in ancient india Lanzarote: un noveau bimini? Astronomy Is the earth seeding the rest of the solar system? One of the most astonishing discoveries of modern science! A COSMIC CAUSE FOR THE OZONE HOLE? Chaotic dynamics in the solar system Biology Do right-handers live longer? John heymer still doesn't believe the stock shc explanations! Bacteria Preternaturally rapid development of photosynthesis? Geology Gentry's tiny mystery-- unsupported by geology Earlier pages in earth's history revealed Geophysics From forteanism to science Mystery at novaya zemlya Ball lightning or mirage of venus? Psychology Mystery of the idiot savant General Has the speed of light decayed? Anomalistics at the aaas meeting ...
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... , 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 British cups-and-rings, the American ones are upgapped, though otherwise indistinguishable. What is the significance of the motif? Of course, no one can say for sure. Many in Britain are near copper and gold workings. Other are associated with burials and astronomical alignments. Some European archeologists think they represent the sun or sun god. For the anomalist, the cups-and-rings hint at an ancient worldwide culture that left its signature on rocks just about everywhere. (Morris, Ronald W.B .; "The Cup-andRing Motif in the Rock Art of the British Isles and in America," Occasional Papers, Epigraphic Society , 17:19, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of 90 degrees to the surface." Six Swiss holes have been reported from the environs of Lake Geneva. The two largest are at Begnins (December 17, 1982; 18 feet across, 24.5 feet deep) and Confignon (February 3/4 , 1990; 33 feet across, 40 feet deep). Obviously, we are not dealing with minor earth-moving operations here. (Anonymous; "The Gruyerization of Switzerland," The Cerealogist , no. 3, p. 26, Spring 1991. The Cerealogist is a British publication focussing on the crop-circle phenomenon.) Comment. Could the "force" flattening the crop circles also gouge out cookiecutter holes and the Swiss cavernous pits? Additional information on the Swiss excavations and similar events is certainly required. Anomalists know from experience that for every strange phenomenon there exists a hoaxer anxious to reproduce it. Reference. Cookie-cutter holes have been cataloged in ETB7 in our catalog on topographical anomalies: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... five stages in the development of the human embryo. A rich lode of anomalies exists here: cells migrate purposefully, mysterious struc-tures grow and then disappear; it is a kaleidoscope of changing structures and processes. Take, for example, the "hair stage": "The embryo is covered with very fine hair at about the seventh month of development of the embryo. The evolutionist claims that this is evidence that men came from hairy mammals like the apes. However, these hairs are unlike the hair found on apes, as they are very small in diam eter and always soft and unpigmented. This hair disappears from the body soon after birth. It is called lanugo and is quite unlike the permanent hair that grows on the human body and head..." To the anomalist, the battle between the evolutionists and creationists is secondary to the anomalies that keep cropping up without satisfactory explanations from either side. Here, we ask the purpose of the lanugo. Does it have to have a purpose? Just being there suggests purpose. Why does it disappear? (Culp, G. Richard; "Embryology - Overlooked Facts You Should Know," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 25:100, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Aristarchus blushes for clementine In SF#126, we digested an article from Sky & Telescope entitled "The TLP Myth." The strong implication was that TLPs (Transient Lunar Phenomena) are observer illusions. Anomalists instinctively bristle at such dogmatic assertions. Especially with TLPs, because hundreds of light flashes and color changes have been seen on the moon by reliable astronomers ever since Galileo made his first telescope. A satisfying rebuke to the TLP naysayers was recently delivered by JPL's B. Buratti at the October 1999 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Padua, Italy. Her specific TLP occurred on April 23, 1994. At that time, about one hundred amateur astronomers noticed a 40-minute darkening near the edge of the bright lunar crater Aristarchus. Happily, when this hundred-fold "illusion" took place, the lunar satellite Clementine was mapping the area around Aristarchus. Defying the dogmatists, Buratti scrutinized the Clementine data again. Sure enough, Aristarchus had really turned redder after the TLP reported by the amateur astronomers. Such lunar color changes are readily explained as due to eruptions of pockets of gases trapped below the moon's surface. These blow-outs can spread colored dust over areas extensive enough to be visible through the small telescopes used by amateur astronomers. (Seife, Charles; "Moon Mystery Emerges from the X-Files," New Scientist, p. 22, October 23, 1999.) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do Continents Really Drift?For geologists, Continental Drift (or "Plate Tectonics") is as vital to their scientific outlook as the Big Bang is to astronomers, or Evolution to biologists. Indeed, Continental Drift is taught as an unassailable hypothesis -- in essence, a "fact." It is, therefore, a tempting target for anomalists. Fortunately, there are some maverick geologists who are willing and able to draw up a list of arguments against the "fact" of Continental Drift. Australian P. James is one such brave soul. Here follows the abstract from one of his papers. "Anomalies in the three basic concepts of mobile plate tectonics -- sea-floor spreading, transform faults, subduction -- are analysed. The process is then extended to subsidiary aspects; sediments on a moving basement, continental evidence, mechanisms and measurements. In summation, the criticisms present a formidable and damaging document against the total framework of mobilism, both in its general concepts and it its detailed interpretations." From James' lengthy paper, we select just two anomalies that he has identified in the Atlantic where North America and Europe are supposedly drifting apart. First, repeated direct measurements of the drifting seem to be a wash; that is, there is no drift to speak of. The expansion of the Atlantic basin seems to be only 5-13 mm/year (just 20% of the predicted ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects On Cuna Writing And Its Affinities A sample of Cuna "writing" When Europeans "officially" reached the New World some 500 years ago, the "official" account states that they found that only the Mayans and Aztecs possessed writing. However, all anomalists recognize that "official" stories often sweep untidy facts under what has come to be an immense rug. One seldom mentioned and rather awkward bump beneath this rug is Cuna writing. The Cuna Indians occupied Panama and some nearby Caribbean islands at the Time of Contact. That the Cuna carved symbols of sorts on wooden boards and scribbled with natural pigments on bark cloth and paper is generally admitted, but this is not considered in the same league as Mayan writing. A sample of Easter Island "writing" from a talking board Cuna writing is ideographic. Today's average Cuna Indian can usually identify each ideogram as a bird, plant, or some other object. However, to those skilled in Cuna writing, each ideogram actually represents a phrase of about 8-10 words. The symbols thus have mnemonic value. Each wooden tablet is actually read from the lower right corner to the left. The next line up reads left to right, in socalled "boustrophedon" style. The tablets are usually songs for healing, histories, etc. In these features and general appearance, Cuna writing resembles the "writing" found on the "talking boards" of Easter Island ...
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... several people within its cavity? Such a geode was just a rumor among rock collectors until recently, when J. Garcia-Guinea, a geologist from Madrid's National Museum of Natural Sciences, followed up the leads. Sure enough, some 4 kilometers from Almeria, in north-eastern Spain, he found a veritable crystal cave. Inside, the giant geode is lined with near-perfect, transparent crystals of gypsum, some of which are 11 feet long. (Anonymous; "Giant Crystal Cave Discovered," BBC Homepage, June 12, 2000. Cr. D. Phelps. Holden, Constance; "Brobdingnagian Crystals," Science, 288:2127, 2000.) Comment. The Spanish geode merits headlines for its size, but geodes also offer grist to the anomalist. In particular, we refer to geodes found near Niota. Illinois, that are filled with solid tar or liquid bitumen. When the latter are broken open, the petroleum squirts out violently. There are no oil deposits within 25 miles, so the presence of oil-filled, pressurized geodes is a puzzle. See ESA5 in Neglected Geological Anomalies . The Almeria geode's cavity is big enough (8 x 1.7 meters) for humans to enter. From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 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 ...
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... Kensington Stone, the Newport Tower, Oklahoma runes, etc., and other evidence of further penetration into the New World are viewed with approbation, even contempt. Nevertheless, the latest number of the Belgian journal Kadath is devoted entirely to Viking (hyperboreene) contacts in South America! Now that's a far piece from Greenland. This long article (40 pages) is replete with photographs, interpretations, and translations of runic inscriptions found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. It is impossible to do justice to this mass of inscriptions here, but we will reproduce one of the figures below. (de Mahieu, Jacques; "Corpus des Inscriptions Runiques d'Amerique du Sud," Kadath , no. 68, p. 11, 1988.) Comment. To American anomalists, the frustrating part of this whole business is the need to go to foreign-language journals to escape the prison of archeological orthodoxy. South American runes are rarely mentioned in American archeological journals, and we doubt that the treasure house of material just presented in Kadath will make much of an impression on this side of the Atlantic. Why risk one's career for a few scratches on South American rocks? From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -of-birth correlations are very specialized and employ small samples. For example, English professional soccer players in the 1991-1992 season were twice as likely to have been born September through November. Mental traits are also influenced by season-ofbirth. More medical students are born April through June than can be explained by chance. Best of all (for us) is the following correlation: Perhaps the most unusual seasonal effect is found amongst scientists who support revolutionary theories. It seems that academics who were quick to support controversial theories such as relativity and evolution tended to he born between October and April. (Thomas, Jens; "Like a Virgo," New Scientist, p. 56, December 25, 1999.) Comment. So, there is a season for iconoclasts and anomalists! However, we (the editorial "we") bucked the trend. Could we have been born (unknowingly) in the Southern Hemisphere? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Submarine canyons: a 50-year perspective F.P . Shepard has devoted most of his professional life to the study of submarine canyons. These great canyons, some cut through thousands of feet of hard crystalline rock, dwarf the largest land-based canyons. No wonder Shepard was fascinated enough to spend his life collecting data and weighing possible explanations. After 50 years, he has concluded that these colossal submarine features have no single cause. Subaerial erosion, turbidity currents, submarine slumping, and faulting have all played roles. Anomalists will be most interested in Shepard's insistence that the evidence shows that subaerial erosion has played a major part in carving out the submarine canyons. This explanation is definitely frowned upon by most geologists because the Pleistocene sea levels dropped only about 100 meters according to current thinking. How could subaerial erosion account for canyons several thousand feet below present sea level? Shepard persists; the evidence is there. The continental margins must have risen and then sank back! He also points out that the Mediterranean seems to have dried up in recent geological times. Could the major oceans have dropped thousands of feet in a similar fashion? Shepard doesn't intimate this, saying only that the submarine canyons still present puzzles. (Shepard, Francis P.; "Submarine Canyons: Multiple Causes and Long-Time Persistence," American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Bulletin, 65:1062, 1981.) Reference. We ...
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... possi bility, because very early in the earth's history the surface was con tinually blasted by meteorites, comets, etc. -- a very inhospitable place. The above questions are so fascinating that we might easily neglect another vent anomaly; one involving those blind shrimp. Like many cave creatures, these shrimp dispensed with eyes long ago. This being so, how do they find the vents, those rich oases of energy and food on the otherwise bleak sea floor? Rather than re-evolve their eyes, they "somehow" grew light-sensitive patches on their backs. Apparently, these patches guide the shrimp to the vents. (Monastersky, Richard; "The Light at the Bottom of the Ocean," Science News, 150:156, 1966) Comments. Anomalists instinctively recognize that the "somehow" in the above paragraph glosses over formidable problems. We suppose that a few eyeless shrimp originally blundered into a deepsea vent, and those that were lucky enough to be favored by the long sequence of random mutations that led to the light-sensitive patches on their backs outcompeted their unlucky companions. Assuming this happened at a single vent somewhere in the Stygian darkness of the sea floor, how did the mutated shrimp find the other glowing sea-floor vents hundreds of kilometers away? Their back patches cannot be that sensitive! From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... American Indian populations indicate that the Eskimo-Aleut and Nadene populations arrived about 7,500 years ago. The more geographically widespread Amerind population, however, seems to be descended from two separate influxes; the first about 30,000 years ago, the second about 10,000 years ago. D. Wallace, from Emory University, surmises that the sharply defined rise of the Clovis culture, conventionally dated from 12,000 years ago, may have resulted from the second Amerind immigration. (Lewin, Roger; "Mitochondria Tell the Tale of Migrations to America," New Scientist, p. 16, February 22, 1992.) Comment. The 30,000-year date, however, is consistent with MacNeish's discoveries at the Orogrande Cave. Hang in there archeology anomalists, the 12,000year paradigm is melting in the warm spring sun! Scene: In the Bluefish Caves in the northern Yukon. "Arctic caves in the northern Yukon have yielded apparent bone tools carved 24,000 years ago, more than 13,000 years earlier than the earliest confirmed human habitation of the Americas, a Canadian archeologist [R .E . Morian] reported yesterday." (Petit, Charles; "24,000-Year-Old Tools Found in Yukon," San Francisco Chronicle, February 10, 1992. Cr. D.H . Palmer.) Comment. These bone tools "appear" to be worked by humans, but it is always possible that they were naturally frac tured; and this is what conservative archeologists routinely proclaim. From Science ...
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... Mound Complexes MSO CARVED ROCKS, SPHERES, COLUMNS MSO1 Boulders with Triangular Holes MSO2 Large, Precisely-Crafted Stone Spheres MSO3 Carved Columns in an Ocean Trench MSO4 Curious Arrays and Groupings of Stone or Wooden Columns MSO5 The Latte Stones of the Marianas MSO6 The Ancient Iron Pillar at Delhi MSO7 The Cement-Like Cylinders of New Caledonia MSO8 Unusual Gnomons MSO9 Stone Chairs MSO10 Curious Distribution of Large Stone Jars MSO11 Enigmatic Configured Rocks MSO12 The Haamonga Stones; A Trilithon on Tonga MSO13 Tiahuanaco's Gateway of the Sun: Incredible Stonework MSP PYRAMIDS, ESPECIALLY THE GREAT PYRAMID MSP1 Remarkable Stone and Brick Pyramids: A Global Survey MSP2 Comalcalco's Brick Pyramid and Associate Structures MSP3 Palenque's Remarkable Temple of the Inscriptions MSP4 Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Sun MSP5 The Great Pyramid: Statistics and General Anomalistics MSP6 Great Pyramid: Material Processing and Whole-Structure Enigmas MSP7 Enigmatic Structures within the Great Pyramid MSP8 The Great Pyramid as in Information Repositary MSR ANCIENT ROADS AND BRIDGES MSR1 Notable Ancient Roads: A Survey MSR2 The Chaco Canyon "Roads" MSR3 The Bimini "Road" MSR4 The Maltese "Cart Ruts" MSR5 Precocious Suspension Bridges MSS CITIES AND COMPLEXES MSS1 Unusual and Problematic Cities and Complexes: A survey MSS2 The Gungywamp Lithic Complex MSS3 Mystery Hill: America's Stonehenge MSS4 The Great Zimbabwe: A Unique Group of Stone Ruins in Subsaharan Africa MSS5 Mohenjo-dara: The First Planned City MSS6 Nan Madol: A Megalithic Venice MSS7 Large-Scale Orders of Cities and Complexes MST ANCIENT TOWERS MST1 The Newport Tower MST2 Incongruous Towers of the North American Southwest MST3 Chulpas: Stone Towers of ...
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