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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 Anomalous High Altitude Luminosity (AHAL)When meteors plunge into the earth's upper atmosphere, friction with the air causes them to incandesce and burn up. The smaller ones are completely consumed. A few bigger ones reach earth and are renamed "meteorites." So far, all of this is well-understood. But when meteors begin to burn up much above 100 kilometers, a problem arises. The air there is normally much too thin to cause incandescence and burn-up. Observational anomalies are abundant. Two Leonid fireballs were seen glowing at 160 kilometers by Japanese scientists. In 1998, a Dutch team in China detected bright Leonids at 200 kilometers! In addition, some Russian reentering space-craft began glowing well above 100 kilometers. ANAL is a solid phenomenon. Of course, the density of the upper atmosphere does increase somewhat when solar activity is high. Atmospheric gravity waves can also cause the atmosphere to bulge out. But these effects are inadequate to explain all observations. R. Spalding, at Sandia National Laboratories, ventures that ions in the upper atmosphere are electrostatically attracted to meteors and create light when they collide with them. A. Ol'khovatov suggests that "plasma instabilities" may be involved. To learn more about these, go to the latter's web site at: www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/3240/ (Ol'khovatov, Andrei; "Anomalous High ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil Deposits And Rotary Phenomena Sometimes obscure and unlikely correlations lead to new insights. In this context, we are obliged to mention a most improbable connection proposed by chemical engineer S. Mori in a paper presented at the Spring 2000 meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Mori suspects that oil and gas deposits are linked to the origin of tornados! In his paper, Mori said that positively charged oil deposits underground establish polarity with negatively charged oxygen ions at the surface. When a thunderstorm passes over the oil field, he thinks this subsurface polarity links up the with electric polarity established between clouds and ground, creating the vacuum that spawns the tornado. Over the years, Mori said he's built a data base of about 8,000 tornado hits in the United States for comparison with the location of known oil and gas deposits. He said that studies in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Texas found a high correlation. (Lore, David; "Underground Oil One Twist in Tornado Theory," Charleston Dispatch, June 8, 2000. Cr. J. Dotson.) Comments. There have been numerous reports of electrical and burning phenomena associated with tornados. See GWT1 & GWT2 in Tornados, Dark Days. The oil-sodden lands of the Persian Gulf can be correlated with another sort of rotary phenomena: the strange phosphorescent wheels of light that have been seen many times swirling in the shallow waters of the Gulf. See GLW ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Planetary Conjunctions that Changed the World On May 17, 2000, five solar-system planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) plus the moon slowly wheeled into a tight 19 arc. It was a notable heavenly conjunction. All manner of natural catastrophes were predicted but failed to materialize. It has been this way down recorded history. Universal deluges were anticipated during similar conjunctions on September 14, 1186, and February 19, 1524, but the weather refused to cooperate with the planets. Humanity survived nicely. This does not mean that historical upheavals are never correlated with planetary conjunctions. If a society believes strongly enough in the power of the stars and planets to shape human destiny, events may be correlated with the heavens. Such was the case in ancient China. In China, the "Mandate of Heaven" concept has been used since ancient times as both a framework for history and a guide to future actions. The basic idea is that Heaven awards ruling power to a sage-king because of his virtue. His descendants remain as Earthly deputies until they become corrupted, whereupon outraged Heaven gives signs in the sky that the Mandate has passed on to a different sage-king to continue the cycle. Three transfers of the Heavenly Man-date marked the beginnings of the Hsu, Shang, and Chou Dynasties. In fact, the tightest grouping of the five visible planets in the period from 3, ...
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... in the Standard Model?" Nature, 380:19, 1996. Also: Walker, Gabrielle; "The Secret Heart of a Quark," New Scientist, p. 17, February 17, 1996) Comment. If quarks can be split, perhaps their fragments can, too. Do any fundamental particles really exist? Who knows? We started a couple millennia ago with earth, air, fire, and water. We then found atoms, then protons, then quarks. There may be no floor to the universe; it's quicksand all the way down. There may be no roof either, because astronomers are finding ever larger clumps, skeins, and assemblages of galaxies. Matter could be infinitely ag gregative as well as infinitely divisible. From Science Frontiers #105 ... quarks and gluons. Quarks, you see, are held to be the smallest building blocks of matter and now they had all been found and cataloged. The collection was complete. But a storm cloud has now appeared on the event horizon, casting a shadow on the solidity of the quarks themselves. Are they really fundamental; that is, indivisible? Fermilab scientists now wonder, for when they crash protons into antiprotons head-on at very high energies, the resulting debris clouds display an anomaly. Some of the supposedly indestructable quarks seem to have fragmented, too. The collision energies seem high enough penetrate the integument of the quarks if they are divisible. There may be other explanations of the deviation from theory, but right now quarks seem a bit more fragile than they did just a ...
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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 Statistical Astrology No matter how severely scientists demonize astrologers, statistics keep piling up suggesting that season-of-birth can influence human traits and talents. When one relects upon this matter, a rational, cause-and-effect chain is not far out on the lunatic fringe. After all, a pregnant woman's body responds to varying temperatures, changing amounts of sunlight, seasonal foods, and varying physical activity during the year. Such effects can be felt in utero, too. Many of the multitudinous studies looking into the season-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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does The Earth Breathe?In a superficial sense, the answer is certainly YES. By way of illustration, when a low-pressure area moves in, higher-pressure air residing in deep wells and caves comes rushing out (" exhaling")! Attach a whistle to a likely well and you have a "weather well" that warns of the impending change. The exhalations of large caves (" blowing caves") can be copious and strong; so much so that some aeronautical pioneers tested their airplane models at cave mouths. In a deeper sense, there are new measurements suggesting that the earth's solid crust also contracts by minute amounts in an annual cycle. For example, 50 GPS (Global Positioning System) stations in northeastern Japan detect east-west contractions of the crust of about 50 millimeters/year. The compressions are 15% faster in the fall and 15% slower in the spring. The same rhythmic squeezing has been discerned in a 150-meter tunnel dug into granite bedrock in the same region. To these instrument measurements can be added the strong tendency of some major volcanos to erupt in the fall when the biggest squeeze is on. The analogy of toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube is inescapable here! The cause of these annual "breathing" cycles is uncertain. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Earth's Breathing Lessons," Science, 291:584, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects nnnbbbbbvccccccxzzzzzcvbn,;/////ppooo If you found the above message on your home-PC screen after returning with a cup of coffee, you have a cybercatastrophe on your hands. A feline friend has just ambled across your keyboard. In a worst-case scenario, cat curiosity may have caused your computer to crash. It is urgent and imperative that you install a program called "PawSense" that can detect pawprints -- and -- block further inputs. PawSense will also post the message: "Cat-Like Typing Detected." It will in addition generate sounds known to be very annoying to cats. You can regain control of events by typing the word "human." Sure, this is all pretty funny, but just how does a computer distinguish between paw-generated input and the gibberish present in e-mail addresses and the like? The rationale behind PawSense recognizes that cat paws are so broad that they actuate groups of adjacent keys simultaneously. (Mirsky, Steve; "C -A -T -T -T -T -T -T -T ," Scientific American, 282:26, March 2000.) Comment. Please note that we have refrained -- with some difficulty -- from introducing "cat-and-mouse" humor! From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Viruses as Ancient Artifacts HTLV-1 is a blood-borne retrovirus that causes leukemia in about 3% of those carrying it. In southern Japan, roughly 4% of the populace are afflicted with this virus, so are some isolated groups living today in Columbia and Chile. Does this correlation prove that South America received settlers from Japan in the distant past? Such a biological linkage would augment pottery evidence from Peru and, especially, Ecuador where Jomon-style pottery 4,000-5 ,000 years old has been found on the coast. However, the HTLV-1 virus also could have been introduced to South America by more recent visitors. Is there any way to fix the timing of HTLV-1 's introduction to South America? Actually, there is. The DNA in viruses is not as durable as pottery shards, but it does hang around for a while, as seen is recent efforts to ex-tract DNA from from frozen mammoths for possible "revival" of the species. A team of Japanese and Chilean scientists has been searching for DNA surviving in 104 mummies deposited in South America's arid Atacama Desert 1,200-1 ,500 years ago. Two of the mummies still retained DNA; and one of them included shards of DNA from HTLV-1 . This certainly doesn't prove trans-Pacific diffusion, but it helps. (Holden, Constance; "Backtracking ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Burps of Death Not only did the poor dinosaurs have to contend with an asteroid impact and a lurch of the poles, but also with the possible ignition of voluminous methane burps. 65-million years ago. This was the time of the well-publicized, but still hypothetical, asteroid impact. It is said to have wreaked havoc on our wounded planet and, especially, the dinosaurs. Volcanos spewed out vast lava fields and filled the air with greenhouse gases and dust. It was a bad time for many life forms. Actually, It may have been far worse than generally advertised. In addition to the volcanic activity and climate change, the shock of the asteroid impact could have been sufficient to destabilize the immense amounts of methane hydrate that have long been locked up, frozen and dormant, in oceanic sediments all over the world. According to this scenario, once the shock of the asteroid impact released the methane from its icy prison, it rose to the surface of the oceans in a world-wide burp. Methane, unfortunately for the dinosaurs and many other life forms, is highly flammable. Lightning could have ignited it almost immediately if it was concentrated enough. A colossal firestorm might have then enveloped the entire planet. The whole atmosphere could have been afire. This, according to B. Hurdle and colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory, who speculate that the dinosaur hegemony may ended suddenly in flames rather than ...
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... made its appearance regularly every night, always rising at the same place, nor did it stop its course either by rain or storms. It was sometimes visible by day, but it was very remarkable that it never did any damage except in the night. The flames were in no way violent, but its continuance at last consumed everything that opposed it. Those few scientists who have mused over this curious old account have concluded that the "fiery exhalations" resulted from the spontaneous ignition of marsh gas; that is, the flames were will-o '- the-wisps, albeit relatively powerful ones. Will-o '- the-wisp theory states that marsh gas (mostly methane) also contains phosphane and traces of diphosphane (P2H4). The latter gas reacts spontaneously with air and ignites the methane, creating weak blue flames. The New Scientist article mentioned a parallel modern occurrence that is new to us and worth recording here. In 1997, a dramatic series of spontaneous fires burst forth in the town of Moirans-en-Montagne located in the Jura mountains of France. No details were presented although emanations of natural gas were suspected. (Pentecost, Allan; "From the Deep," New Scientist, p. 89, August 26, 2000.) Comments. We classify will-o '- the-wisps along with other nocturnal lights in GLN1 in Lightning, Auroras...., where one can find doubts about the standard explanation of these phenomena that was presented above. The region of Wales that experienced the fiery exhalations in 1693 ...
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... of cameras recorded the same final burn-up heights. The most startling observation was a meteor that the TV camera detected at roughly 200 kilometers altitude. The highest observed Leonid meteor with initial mass of about 1 kg started radiating at an altitude of almost 200 km. The origin of meteor radiation at such high altitudes is still not well understood and more detailed observations will be needed, including near-infrared spectroscopy. (Spumy Pavel, et al; "Atmospheric Behavior and Extreme Beginning Heights of the Thirteen Brightest Photographic Leonid Meteors...," Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 35:243, 2000. Cr. R. Spaulding) Comment. As in SF#125, we must add that sounds are sometimes heard emanating from these anomalously high meteors, even though there is no air in which sound can he propagated. 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. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mud Springs Regurgitate Ancient Fossils Mud springs in Wiltshire, England, may be the only ones of their kind on the planet. The Wiltshire mud springs are cold. They are not hot and steaming like those seen where geothermal heat is close to the surface, as in New Zealand, Java, and Yellowstone. They are also unique in their entrainment of subterranean fossils and bringing them to the surface. "There is no explanation of the way the springs ooze a pale, cold, grey mud to the surface, forming blisters that spurt high into the air. "Neville Hollingworth of the Natural Environment Research Council said: 'They are like a fossil conveyor belt bringing up finds from the clay layers below and then washing them out in a nearby stream.'" The fossil conveyor belt yields bones of marine reptiles, oyster shells, and the remains of sea creatures that lived during the Jurassic, about 165 million years ago. Some of the bivalves still retain their organic ligaments. Geologists wonder what forces squeeze the mud to the surface like toothpaste from a tube. (Nuttall, Nick; "Mud Springs a Surprise after 165 Million Years," London Times, May 2, 1996. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... which begins at the lower limit of human hearing -- about 20 Hertz. Just enough sound energy seeps over the 20-Hz limit to be heard by sensitive human ears during periods of intense activity. Another natural infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. But this is surmise. Actually, the air is full of infra-sound emanating from still-unidentified sources, as indicated in the figure. Humans may not hear infrasound, but a form of "mountain music" seems to have a mysterious, depressing effect upon some of us. Some infrasounds that last for as long as several days have been triangulated to distant mountain ranges and tend to occur when winds blowing over them exceed a certain speed. This effect may be a low-frequency version of the aeolian tones produced by the cyclic eddy shedding that occurs when wind flows around obstacles. The reported increase in the incidence of suicides during episodes of warm downslope mountain winds (called Chinooks in the western U.S . and the Fohn in the Alps) may be due to some as yet unknown pressure fluctuations with 20- ...
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... feet. As the cloud took on the character of cumulonimbus incus and gradually covered the entire sky, thunder could be heard more and more loudly. The flock of sheep grazing in the deep valley gathered together just as they do before sunset because they too felt the approaching storm. At 16 UT the first raindrops fell. A weak shower of rain followed, and then loose-structured 20-mm-diameter discs of ice. Soon afterwards what was to be 30 minutes of "sky fire" set in. Stone-like pieces of ice streamed to the ground, very heavily and violently. Some of the hailstones were the size of a nut or plum. Within minutes a white carpet covered the plateau of Padis at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 feet), and the air grew very cool. The landscape was covered by a milky-white veil of fog which rose from the cold ground to a height of 1 to 1.5 metres to embrace the whole dolomite plateau. Then for three minutes the hailstorm paused, before restarting! It lasted for 55 minutes, and it was in these freezing conditions that I began studying and classifying the pieces or balls of ice. See author's sketches of the remarkably varied shapes of hail. (Kosa-hiss, Attila; "Hailstorm at Padis-Plateau, Romania," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 25:96, 2000.) Comment. The perennial question is: What mechanism in a hailstorm generates untold millions of copies of a suite of different, often complex, ice ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects Beware of Rapidly Ascending Armadillos After watching armadillos awkwardly snuffling for tidbits, one might conclude that these "little armored ones" are not too bright and certainly no threat to humans. But armadillos possess a remarkable defense mechanism you should be aware of. Not all of them curl up into tight, nigh-impenetrable balls when threatened as the field guides promise us. Instead, some suddenly jump straight up -- as much as 8 feet high! Woe be to anyone hovering over armadillos favoring this type of defense. Broken noses, loosened teeth, and black eyes have been inflicted by these armored projectiles. Another unexpected habit of the armadillo is its crossing of small streams by walking along the bottom underwater. It can swim if necessary and gains buoyancy by filling its intestines with air. (From Biological Anomalies: Mammals I ) (White, Robb; "Armadillos, and Dangerous," Natural History, 109:86, July-August 2000.) 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 for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... as it often happens, closing one book opens another and the new one is even harder to close. Below, we present three examples where finality (closed books) seems to be proclaimed too quickly. On occasion, the night side of Venus (which goes through phases like the moon) seems to glow softly and subtly. For some 350 years, keen-eyed observers have seen this phenomenon through their telescopes. Nevertheless, the effect is so elusive that many astronomers doubt its physical reality. Additionally, it is easy to doubt the existence of the ashen light because good explanations are as elusive as the light itself. During the past decade, two scientific nails have also been driven into the ashen-light coffin: Spectrographic studies of the upper atmosphere of Venus do detect some nighttime air glow, but it is much too weak to account for the abundant telescopic observations from earth. The Cassini spacecraft did not detect any high-frequency radio noise typical of lightning when it passed close to Venus in 1998 and 1999. This put an end to the surmise that the ashen light was due to rapid, widespread lightning occurring deep inside the planet's thick atmosphere and then blended into a steady glow by atmospheric scattering. (Anonymous; "Case for 'Ashen Light' Weakens," Sky & Telescope, 101:27, May 2001.) Comment. It seems that the ashen-light phenomenon is within an Angstrom Unit of being closed; first, because instruments cannot detect what the human eye sees; and second, and more important, science knows of no ...
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... , 1867. Chatham, England . On the afternoon of Monday the 4th, between the hours of three and four, I witnessed a very extraordinary sight in the heavens. I have not heard of any one hereabout having seen it. The facts are as follow: -- At the time above mentioned I was passing by the Mill by the Water-works Reservoir. On the gallery I noticed the miller uttering exclamations of surprise, and looking earnestly towards the west. On inquiring what took his attention so much, he said, "Look, sir, I never saw such a sight in my life!" On turning in the direction towards which he was looking, the west, I also was astounded -- numberless black discs in groups and scattered were passing rapidly through the air. He said his attention was directed to them by his little girl, who called to him in the Mill, saying, "Look, father, here are a lot of balloons coming!" They continued for more than twenty minutes, the time I stayed. In passing in front of the sun they appeared like large cannon shot. Several groups passed over my head, disappearing suddenly, and leaving puffs of greyish brown vapour very much like smoke. The Editor of the journal added that several others had observed the black discs and concurred with Beveridge's description. (Beveridge, James E.; "An Extraordinary Phenomenon," Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, 2:130, 1867.) From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 William ...
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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 Geomagnetic Storms And Human Health Psychiatric admissions. Since the work of T. Dull and B. Dull in 1935, other studies have reinforced the suspicion that solar activity and the resultant geomagnetic activity are associated with human health problems. Here is the abstract of the latest study found: "Numbers of first admissions per month for a single psychiatric unit, from 1977 to 1987, were examined for 1829 psychiatric inpatients to assess whether this measure was correlated with 10 parameters of geophysical activity. Four statistically significant values were 0.197 with level of solar radio flux at 2800 MHz in the corresponding month, -0 .274 with sudden magnetic disturbances of the ionosphere, -0 .216 with the index of geomagnetic activity, and -0 .262 with the number of hours of positive ionization of the ionosphere in the corresponding month." (Raps, Avi, et al; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LXIX. Solar Activity and Admission of Psychiatric Inpatients," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 74:449, 1992.) Comment. The above correlations are significant, but who knows how these parameters operate on the human body? Cancer recurrence. Another possible health correlation was explored by H. Wendt in a paper presented atthe 1992 European meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, in Munich. In this paper, Wendt claimed a correlation between the incidence of cancer recurrence and geomagnetic storm activity. Hopefully, further details will soon ...
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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 When The Chips Are Down M.A . Persinger, an indefatigable investigator of terrestrial correlations, has identified another: "The hypothesis that sudden commencements of global geomagnetic activity (' sudden impulses') could induce anomalous changes in onboard computers and facilitate commercial aircrashes was investigated. During the years 1988 and 1989 the mean daily occurrence of a commercial disaster somewhere in the world increased from 0.06 to 0.12 within 24 hr. of a sudden commencement. When numbers of sudden commencements per month were correlated with eight major categories of catastrophes (including air disasters) only aircrashes, primarily occurring during maximum computer-dependent flight conditions, ... significantly correlated (. 54) with numbers of sudden commencements but not with the average monthly geomagnetic (aa) activity." (Persinger, M.A .; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LXVI. Geomagnetic Storm Sudden Commencements and Commercial Aircrashes" Perceptual and Motor Skills , 72:476, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 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 Official foo-fighter records revealed The famous foo fighters of World War II were bright balls of light, about a foot in diameter, of different colors, that appeared mostly over Germany to both German and Allied pilots. Although the foo fighters could maneuver around and through bomber formations with apparent ease, they were nuisances rather than physical threats. Most of the foo-fighter reports made by Americans came from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. Recently a microfilm roll containing the Unit History and War Diary of the 415th was obtained from the U.S . Air Force. We quote below three incidents found on Frames 1613 and 1614. The year is 1944: "December 18. In Rastatt area sighted five or six red and green lights in a 'T ' shape which followed A/C thru turns and closed to 1000 feet. Lights followed for several miles and then went out. Our pilots have named these mysterious phenomena which they encounter over Germany at night 'Foo-Fighters.' "December 23. More Foo-Fighters were in the air last night...In the vicinity of Hagenau saw 2 lights coming toward the A/C from ground. After reaching the altitude of the A/C they leveled off and flew on tail of Beau (Beaufighter -- their aircraft, Ed.) for 2 minutes and then peeled up and turned away. 8th mission -- sighted 2 orange lights. ...
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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 More Mouse Engineering Shortly after writing in SF#79 about the "Ancient Greek Pyramids" and the Saharan mice that construct small pyramids of pebbles to extract moisture from the air, we serendipitously ran across the following: " Australian Native Mice . The species P. chapmani builds low mounds of pebbles over its burrow systems, and P. hermannsburgensis may use these mounds after they are constructed. The pebbles are of a uniform size and cover a large area, often a meter in diameter. The pebbles are probably collected both by excavation and from the surface. Some local mammalogists believe these are used as dew traps. Since the air around the pebbles warms more rapidly as the sun rises than do the pebbles themselves, dew forms on the pebbles by condensation. As the areas in which these mounds are found are quite dry, except after a heavy rain, these dew traps solve the problem of water shortage. Local farmers use the many pebble mounds for mixing concrete. It is believed that the ancient people of the Mediterranean region used a dew trap method comparable to that of P. chapmani ." (Nowak, Ronald M.; "Australian Native Mice," Walker's Mammals of the World , Baltimore, 1991, p. 820.) Comment. Now we must decide between at least three possibilities. Since the Australian native mice and Saharan mice are many thousands of miles apart, we have: (1 ...
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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 The Florida Rogue Wave Very little has appeared in the scien-tific literature about the huge wave that crashed ashore at Daytona Beach, Florida, on July 3, 1992. Apparently, the scientific community is happy with the landslide explanation, but there may have been a different sort of disturbance. First, the basic data: "A wall of water as much as 18 feet high rose out of a calm sea and crashed ashore, smashing hundreds of vehicles parked on the beach and causing 75 minor injuries, officials and witnesses said. "An undersea landslide apparently caused the 27-mile-long rogue wave late Friday night, a federal seismologist said yesterday." The seismologist cited, F. Baldwin from the U.S . Geological Survey, estimated that the wave was 18 feet high and 250 feet wide. (Anonymous; "Rogue Wave Smashes into Beach," Hawaii Tribune-Herald , July 5, 1992. Cr. H. DeKalb.) Rumors of a falling object. The landslide theory sounds good, but there have been rumors that another phenomenon was involved. B. Stein, of Orlando, has reported the testimony of a boater, who was far offshore at the time: ". .. the boater came forward with the information that, shortly before the time of the wave, he was in his boat about eight miles offshore. He watched as a distant object approached across the sky ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fluid Injection Causes Luminous Phenomena "The first recorded sighting of earthquake lights (EQL) dates from 373 BC in Greece. The same report mentions extensive underground rivers, but it has taken over 2300 years and the development of statistical methods to suggest a connection among fluid pressure, earthquakes, and geophysical luminosities. Many of the sightings are treated as mystical experiences, depending on local cultural values. In Denver and Rangely, Colorado, and Attica, New York, these sightings correlate with earthquakes and injection of fluid into the earth for waste disposal or secondary oil recovery. In the New Madrid, Missouri, area, luminosities are highly correlated with flooding on the Mississippi River and tend to occur 9 months after high water. Enough luminosities, and radio emissions in the ULF band, are observed weeks to months before earthquakes to suggest that they be tested as a possible forecasting tool for the select places where they occur. The pattern of occurrence may delineate the progress of tectonic strain and so indicate the direction or even location of a future epicenter. Fluid moving through developing cracks may be the source of electrical energy which powers the EQL. A number of potential mechanisms should be considered, involving tectonic strain, exoelectron emission, streaming potential, EM excitation of water droplets, and the fault zone as an EM waveguide." (Derr, John S., and Persinger, Michael A.; "Fluid Injection Causes Luminous Phenomena," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar Radiation And Mental Illness Following in the footsteps of the Dulls (1933) and Friedman et al (1963), three Israeli scientists have also found surprisingly high correlations between solar activity and psychiatric illnesses. "Numbers of first admissions per month for a single psychiatric unit, from 1977 to 1987, were examined for 1829 psychiatric inpatients to assess whether this measure was correlated with 10 parameters of geophysical activity. Four statistically significant values were 0.197 with level of solar radioflux at 2800 MHz in the corresponding month, -0 .274 with sudden magnetic disturbances of the ionosphere, -0 .216 with the index of geomagnetic activity, and -0 .262 with the number of hours of positive ionization of the ionosphere in the corresponding month. Percentages of variance accounted for were very small." Quite understandably, these investigators concluded: "How to interpret properly associations of solar activity with human behaviors is yet impossible. The relative indifference of behavioral scientists to this question may reflect lack of an adequate theoretical framework relating to the question and the phenomenon." (Raps, Avi, et al; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LXIX. Solar Activity and Admission of Psychiatric Inpatients," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 74:449, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 the Atmosphere, Sweden, January 1991," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 16:273, 1991.) Comment. Of course, the author is actually assuming that a plasma was observed. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a vessel was engulfed in great waves of light floating above the sea. "At the same time as the above form of bioluminescence, there seemed to be a second type but it was difficult to pinpoint the source. The effect was that the atmosphere around the ship and extending to the horizon had some form of faint white illumination not provided by the light in the water, which was black apart from the previously described flashes. On the other hand, there was no obvious source in the sky either, which although virtually cloudless was very dark, and certainly darker than the atmosphere at the level of the ship. The only conclusion that the observers could come to was that this was a faint example of (to quote The Marine Observer's Handbook ), 'luminescence in the air a few feet above the sea surface when there is no light in the water'. This form lasted for about 30 minutes, whereas the bright flashes continued for three or four hours before they too eventually ceased." (Thompson, P.C .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 62:14, 1992.) Comment. Many cases of aerial marine light displays have been cataloged. It is assumed by scientists that bioluminescent particles are somehow carried into the air from the ocean, but there is no evidence at all for this. It is quite possible that some marine phosphorescent displays are electrical rather than biological. Additional examples and discussion of possible aerial phosphores-cent displays available in GLW3 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . ...
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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 Thousands Of Grebes Fall From The Skies December 10, 1991. Minersville, Utah. About 9:30 PM, the skies of Minersville were filled with the cries of birds. According to V. Hollingshead "They were just falling out of the sky, hitting the church, cars, the ball parks. Hundreds of them fell all over the streets. You could hear them hitting each other in the air, and hitting the ground." Minersville Elementary School Secretary S. Taylor reported that the birds landed everywhere, including the roofs of houses; they even broke some automobile windshields. Hundreds were killed, but many survived their fall and were taken to bodies of water where they could rest and take off. (Grebes cannot take off from land.) The birds were identified as eared grebes, which were migrating from Great Salt Lake to Baja California. It was theorized that a snowstorm and fog had exhausted and disoriented them. (Christensen, Kathleen; "Thousands of Grebes Fall from the Skies," Spectrum , December 12, 1991. Cr. D.H . Palmer.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cloud Plumes Natural But Still A Bit Anomalous During the mid-1980s, satellites photographed strange cloud plumes that stretched hundreds of kilometers downwind of some nothern islands, especially Bennett Island, in the Soviet Arctic. Some wondered if perhaps the Soviets were conducting tests of some new type of weapon in these remote locations. With the end of the Cold War, flights of instrumented aircraft over the islands were permitted. Data from these flights support the idea that the mystery cloud plumes are formed by air currents passing over the islands. In other words, they are only orographic or mountaincaused clouds, like those sometimes seen over the Rockies. But puzzles persist: Why are the plumes so long? Why do they form at such high altitudes -- more than 3 kilometers above the tops of the relatively small mountains on the islands? (Monastersky, R.; "Mountains Give Rise to Perplexing Plumes," Science News, 141:422, 1992. Also: Fett, Robert W.; "Major Cloud Plumes in the Arctic and Their Relation to Fronts and Ice Movements," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 925, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , 1989. This night on a cattle ranch in South Dakota, L. Hasselstrom was dazzled by waves of blue auroral light sweeping up from the horizon and meeting at a focal point nearly directly overhead. As the sky blazed, with the blue waves and crimson streamers, she heard: ". .. a distant tinkling, like bells. It came again, louder, just as a curtain of green light swept the entire width of the sky from north to south. Each time green flushed the sky, the bells rang, the sound softening to a gentle tinkle as the light died." (Hasselstrom, Linda; "Night of the Bells," Readers Digest , p. 185, April 1992. Cr. J.B . Dotson.) Comment. Note the correlation of the sound with the green portion of the aurora. July 29, 1990. On Coll Island in Centennial Lake, 120 kilometers west of Ottawa. Watching an auroral display, L.R . Morris heard the sound of the aurora: "It was a faint but distant windlike sound; which, by process of elimination, could not be accounted for by any phenomenon other than the aurora." (Anonymous; "Auroral Sounds," Sky & Telescope , 83:105, January 1992. Cr. D. Snowhook.) Comment. Auroras have been heard for centuries, but they "shouldn't be." Current theory restricts auroral activity to altitudes above 50 miles, where a fair vacuum prevails, and sound generation and propagation are impossible. One explanation for ...
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... -Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Soot And Organic Asteroids Just as we were getting used to carbonaceous chondrites and tarry comets, we have been hit with cosmic soot and organic asteroids. Truly, it seems as if the universe is one vast factory of complex chemicals. This is not a trivial observation, for it betrays a synthesizing, efflorescent cosmos rather than a universe slowly succumbing to the deepfreezing Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any of these soots and tars wafting down upon the surface of a suitable planet might initiate or accelerate life processes. Cosmic soot. A 70-year-old astronomical enigma is the origin of the DIBs (Diffuse Interstellar absorption Bands). These dark absorption bands in stellar spectra have never been correlated with known chemical compounds. Now, L. Allamandola and F. Salama (NASA-Ames) find that the DIBs may be due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons! A more digestible descriptor would be "soot," like that found in automobile exhaust and on your barbecued steak. (Weiss, Peter; "Cosmic Soot Fills Space between the Stars," New Scientist, p. 15, March 13, 1993.) Organic asteroids. Some asteroids are abnormally red. Newly discovered asteroid 5145 Pholus is 3 times brighter at near-infrared wavelengths than it is in the visible portion of the spectrum. The best explanation so far for this redness is that 5145 Pholus is veneered with organic compounds called "tholins." Tholins are synthesized when methane and other simple chemicals are bathed in ...
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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 Oxygen deprivation at high altitudes and the enhancement of reproduction ecstasy in advanced mammalian species Sex in airplanes is more fun! (Jones, David; "Romantic Airs," Nature, 379: 680, 1996) From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Acoustics Of Rock Art S. Waller has visited rock art sites in Europe, North America, and Australia. Standing well back from the painted walls, he claps or creates percussion sounds, and records the echos bouncing back. A casual observer might be tempted to call 911. It turns out, though, that rock art seems to be placed intentionally where echos are not only unusually loud but are also related to the pictured subject matter. Where hooved animals are depicted, one easily evokes echos of a running herd. If a person is drawn, the echos of voices seem to emanate from the picture itself! "At open air sites with paintings, Waller found that echos reverberate on average at a level 8 decibels above the level of the background. At sites without art the average was 3 decibels. In deep caves such as Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume in France, echos in painted chambers produce sound levels of between 23 and 31 decibels. Deep cave walls painted with cats produce sounds from about 1 to 7 decibels. In contrast, surfaces without paint are 'totally flat'." What did the ancient artists have against cats? (Dayton, Leigh; "Rock Art Evokes Beastly Echos of the Past," New Scientist, p. 14, November 28, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 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 It Came From Within Life did, that is! Forget that warm little pond where life incubated according to all the textbooks. Instead, says T. Gold, an iconoclastic Cornell physicist, life began in rocky fissures deep down in the earth's crust. The idea is not as unlikely as it sounds. Look at the most primitive life forms we know, the archaebacteria. They like heat, need neither air nor sunlight, and prosper on sulfur compounds for sustenance. Such bacteria are today found in boreholes as deep as 500 meters, in thermal springs, and around deepsea vents. Gold surmises that these archaebacteria migrated to the surface long ago, where they evolved into higher forms of life. "Gold argues, moreover, that the earth's interior would have provided a much more hospitable environment for proto-life four billion years ago than the surface would have, ravaged as it was by asteroids and cosmic radiation. And if life emerged within the earth, then why not within other planets? 'Deep, chemically supplied life,' Gold says, 'may be very common in the universe.'" (Horgan, John; "It Came from Within," Scientific American, 267:20, September 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , an 83-year-old widow who had lived alone for 15 years, complained that the occupant of an upstairs flat was excessively noisy and that he moved furniture around late at night to disturb her. Over a period of 6 months, she developed delusionary persecutory ideas about this man. He wanted to frighten her from her home and had started to transmit 'violet rays' through the ceiling to harm her and her 10-yearold female mongrel dog. Ms. A attributed a sprained back and chest pains to the effect of the rays and had become concerned that her dog had started scratching at night when the ray activity was at its greatest. For protection, she had placed her mattress under the kitchen table and slept there at night. She constructed what she called an 'air raid shelter' for her dog from a small table and a pile of suitcases and insisted that the dog sleep in it. When I visited Ms. A at her home, it was apparent that the dog's behavior had become so conditioned by that of its owner that upon hearing any sound from the flat upstairs, such as a door closing, it would immediately go to the kitchen and enter the shelter." (Howard, Robert; "Folie a Deux Involving a Dog," American Journal of Psychiatry, 149:414, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Of all the supposed sea serpents, Caddy seems closest to respectability. Not only are there many sightings on record, but the remains of a 3-meterlong carcass of an apparent juvenile specimen of Caddy was discovered in the stomach of a sperm whale. Adult Caddys are about 7 meters long. "The descriptions [of Caddy] are generally similar. They suggest a long-necked beast with short pointed front flippers, a horse-like head, distinct eyes, a visible mouth and either ears or giraffe-like horns. Often Caddy is described as having hair like a seal, and sometimes a mane along its neck." Most interesting is Caddy's body hair, which implies a mammal rather than a reptile. But if it is a mammal, how does it get air, since it surfaces so rarely? Some have suggested that the giraffe-like horns are snorkels! But E. Bousfield, a colleague of LeBlond, thinks that the tubercules reported along the animal's back might be gill-like tissues that would allow a mammal to extract oxygen from seawater! With so little hard evidence, speculation can get pretty wild. (Park, Penny; "Beast from the Deep Puzzles Zoologists," New Scientist, p. 16, January 23, 1993.) Reference. A variety of putative mammals that might qualify as "sea monsters" are cataloged in Chapter BMU in our book: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R ...
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... evidence for a statistically significant periodic component with an underlying periodicity, formally equal to 26.6 Myr, and a recent maximum, close to the present time. The cycle may not be strictly periodic, but a periodicity of 30 Myr is robust to probable errors in dating of the geologic events." The obvious question is: What could cause a 30-million-year periodicity? Internally, the earth's innards might be periodic, possibly in terms of plume eruption, mineral phase changes, core convection, etc. Externally, comets and asteroids are cyclic. Rampino and Caldeira point out that the solar system crosses the heavily populated plane of the Galaxy every 30 million years. (Rampino, Michael R., and Caldeira, Ken; "Major Episodes of Geologic Change: Correlations, Time Structure and Possible Causes," Earth and Planetary Sci ence Letters , 114:215, 1993.) Reference. We catalog crater periodicity in ETC4 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog described here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . The first is the familiar olfactory system, which humans also possess. The second channel is the vomeronasal system. In animals, each system has its own separate organs, nerves, and bumps in the brain. The function of the vomeronasal system is pheromone detection. It was widely believed that humans had long ago discarded this sensory system along evolution's trail. But a closer look at the human nose by B. Jafek and D. Moran, affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center at the University of Colorado, revealed that all humans examined displayed two tiny pits on both sides of the septum, just inside the the opening of the nose. Behind the holes were tubes lined with unique cells that could well be pheromone detectors, since they responded positively to puffs of air laden with pheromones. In conclusion, we humans actually do have a sixth sense, and we are all enveloped in an aura -- not the luminous aura of the mystics but a cloud of pheromones. Somehow, our attitudes towards others are likely affected by these pheromones. (Blakeslee, Sandra; "Human Nose May Hold an Additional Organ for a Real Sixth Sense," New York Times, September 7, 1993. Cr. P. Gunkel) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... similar to those of meteors were observed during over 200 hours of meteor watching in 1991. They fell in three broad categories: arcs, patches, and 'meteors' similar in appearance to comet comas. Though I at first dismissed the possibility of their being related to meteors, I reconsidered this relation after eliminating other possible causes such as reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy comets postulated by L.A . Frank to account for the transient "holes" seen in satellite ultraviolet images of the earth. (See SF#60 and #72 for more.) (Gallagher, John S.; "Diffuse Luminous Objects Having Angular Velocities Similar to Meteors," Strolling Astronomer , 36:115, 1992. Cr. P. Huyghe) References. The above phenomenon is cataloged in AYO8 under "Nebulous Meteors" in our book: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering information for this book and Lightning, ...
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... Near Valognes, France. A. Lunt and O. Whalley were driving a Citroen 2CV in heavy rain. Lightning in the distance only. "While the car was four to five metres from the approaching halt sign with the gears still engaged, the engine cut out. The car was brought to a stop at the halt sign and when the puzzled men found that the car would not restart they spent some 10-15 seconds wondering what to do. Then suddenly there was a huge flash, described as an 'explosion', only two metres behind and to their right as lightning went to ground in a triangular, gravelled area which formed part of the road junction system. The inside of the car and the surrounding countryside lit up brightly and, simultaneously, there was a terrific crash of thunder. Startled, the occupants stayed in the car for a minute longer without trying to restart the engine before stepping outside to raise the bonnet of the car. The engine appeared dry and there was no discernible reason for its failure. Then, upon getting back into the car, the engine started at once, since when the vehicle has given no further trouble." Of course this single incident cannot prove that the powerful electrical field preceding a lightning stroke interfered with the car's ignition system. This report is suggestive only. (Meaden, G.T .; "Impending Lightning Stroke Stalls Car Engine?" Weather, 48:29, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spider Swordplay Ventral view of D. raptor . The claws are on the tips of the bottom two pairs of legs. Greatly enlarged photos reveal them to be wicked-looking fang-like structures. D. raptor, a Hawaiian spider, has lost its ability to spin webs and therewith capture prey. This unusual spider, however, has evolved: ". .. one of the most remarkable morphological features ever found in spiders (immense elongations of the tarsal claws)." These claws, just visible on the two lowermost pairs of legs in the sketch, are employed to skewer passing insects in flight: "The spider is strictly nocturnal, spending most of the activity-period hanging upside down from silk threads. Small insects are snagged directly from the air using a single long claw. For larger insects the spider uses both long claws on legs I, or sometimes all the long claws." (Gillespie, Rosemary G.; "Impaled Prey," Nature, 355:212, 1992.) Comment. Nature has produced many remarkable creatures. They become anomalous only if they cannot be explained as the products of small, random, cumulative mutations. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop circles: a middle ground On one hand, mainstream scientists, when they deign to notice them at all, pronounce that all crop circles are the work of hoaxers, as in the article by J.W . 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 ...
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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 A Parade Of Spinning Phosphorescent Wheels October 7, 1991. Gulf of Aden. Aboard the m.v . Wiltshire enroute from Aqaba to Fujayrah. "At 1745 UTC the glow of bioluminescence was first noted around the hull of the vessel, illuminating the hull above the waterline. The passage of an area of phosphorescent wheels was recorded as follows: 1750: First large wheel of diameter approximately 15 m passed by vessel. Smell of fish in the air. 1806: Continuous wheels passing ves sel 6-8 at a time down either side. The larger wheels were of 15 m diameter and the smaller ones were about 6 m in diameter. 1811: Wheels stopped but bioluminescence still visible around vessel. 1950: Bioluminescence diminished. "The Aldis lamp was shone upon the water but gave no change, then the echo sounder was switched on and off but made no difference either. Several samples of sea water were taken which when shaken contained glowing, luminous, yellow-green specks 1 mm in size. "The wheels were turning in slow clockwise motion and the closest that any came to the ship was about 12 m. There was intense milky-white colouring in the centres which faded to pale white towards the outer limits." None of the radial spokes so common in phosphorescent-wheel reports were remarked in the Wiltshire report. Wheel rotation was also much slower than normal. One scientist supposed that the wheels were ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Giant impact-wave deposit along u.s . east coast Along the shore from North Carolina to Maryland and also into Chesapeake Bay, deep-sea drillers have charted the Exmore Boulder Bed. No minor deposit this; it is is over 60 meters thick in places and covers more than 15,000 square kilometers. In the bed are found boulders (up to 2 meters in diameter), cobbles, pebbles, and traces of tektite glass and shocked quartz. The youngest microfossils date from the Eocene, and argon dating of the ejecta yield a date of 35.5 million years, which correlates with the North American tektite strewn field. C.W . Poag et al interpret this boulder bed as follows: "On the basis of its unusual characteristics and its stratigraphic equivalence to a layer of impact ejecta at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 612 (New Jersey continental slope), we postulate that this boulder bed was formed by a powerful bolidegenerated wave train that scoured the ancient inner shelf and coastal plain of southeastern Virginia. The most promising candidate for the bolide impact site (identified on seismic reflection profiles) is 40 km north-northwest of DSDP Site 612 on the New Jersey outer continental shelf." (Poag, C. Wylie, et al; "Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 612 Bolide Event: New Evidence of a Late Eocene Impact-Wave Deposit and a Possible Impact Site, U ...
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... . Anderson and R.G . Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary samples, the overall results were that means in high intensity runs exceeded means in low intensity runs by 4.38 sigma. (The probability of chance occurrence of this outcome is less than 6 x 10-6 .) Jahn also reviewed the results of other types of psi experiments which also produced positive results. Replying to Jahn, Anderson admitted that he indeed had Jahn in mind when he wrote his original article. "What my piece actually said was ...
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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 Solar activity, your mother's birth year, and your longevity "According to two scientists who stumbled on a startling statistical association -- though not necessarily a causeeffect relationship -- your life span may depend on the number of sunspots that appeared in the year your mother was born. "They found that if the sun was at a maximum in its 11-year cycle (during which the number of sunspots rises and falls), children of mothers born at that time would die an average of two to three years sooner than if their mothers had been born during the sunspot minimum." Before dismissing this fascinating correlation as "nut science," consider that the study was conducted by two established scientists at Michigan State University, B. Rosenberg and D.A . Juckett. Their report was published in the March 1993 issue of the mainstream journal Radiation Research . Furthermore, in two English studies of longevity. the same periodicity was remarked. Although the population sample in the Michigan State work was small (7552), the phenomenon appears sufficiently robust to admit to the columns of Science Frontiers! (In truth we covet bizarreness as much as robustness!) But what possible causal link might connect one's longevity with one's mother's date of birth? Rosenberg and Juckett point to the fact that when a woman is born all of her eggs are already formed. Later, they will mature and ...
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... . What deadly climatic changes must have wracked our sister planet! (Touma, Jihad, and Wisdom, Jack; "The Chaotic Obliquity of Mars," Science, 259: 1294, 1993. Also: Laskar, J., and Robutel, P.; "The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets," Nature, 361:608, 1993.) Comment. The successful evolution of higher life on earth (a presumption!) therefore seems to have depended upon the gravitational shields of Jupiter and Saturn as well as the presence of our unusually large satellite. How likely is this combination of planets and satellites in the rest of the universe? Of course, life-as-we-know-it also requires just the right kind of central star and a planet with good air and water. Perhaps lifeas-we-do-not-know-it is more likely! From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Odd Growths Found On Satellite We cautiously classify the following phenomenon as "biological," although it might well be inorganic in nature -- perhaps something akin to "whisker growth" seen in metals under some conditions. "Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are scratching their heads over how a tiny patch of something managed to grow even though it was exposed to the harshness of outer space for nearly six years. "The mystery growth has been found in a toothpick-sized region on what is known as the Long Duration Exposure Facility. The bussized LDEF was launched in 1984 and was retrieved by a space shuttle in January 1990, a few weeks before its decaying orbit would have sent it crashing back to earth. .. .. . "NASA scientists in Huntsville, Ala., discovered the growth while examining a brownish discoloration on a Tefloncovered section of the satellite. "Using an electron scanning microscope, they saw tiny, stalactite-like structures on the Teflon. Tiny means the longest were about seven microns in size. That's about one-tenth the width of a human hair. "At first NASA scientists thought the growth might be a fungus or a mold that had contaminated the LDEF upon its return. However, their tests came up negative," (Anonymous; "Odd Space Growth on Satellite Baffles NASA," Arkansas Demo crat-Gazelle , September 9, 1992. Cr. L. Farish) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Identity Still Up In The Air In 1986, we reported the discovery of bird-like fossils in Texas by S. Chatterjee, a paleontologist at Texas Technical University. Chatterjee was so certain that the fossils (two specimens exist) were primitive birds that he named the species Protoavis texensis (first bird from Texas). During the past five years, the scientific community has chafed while Chatterjee studied his finds and wrote them up. It seems that many paleontologists do not think that Proto-avis is really a bird at all, and Chatter jee has been slow in releasing details. But now his first paper has appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . Result: Many doubts still remain about the status of Protoavis. A. Feduccia: "Calling this the original bird is irresponsible." (1 ) J.H . Ostrom: "Sad to say, for all its length, little support for the claim is to be found in this paper." (2 ) J. Gauthier: While some of the bones appear bird-like, they also look dinosaurian and could represent a new type of theropod dinosaur. (3 ) For his part, Chjatterjee asserts that Protoavis' skull has 23 features that are fundamentally bird-like, as are the forelimbs, the shoulders, and the hip girdle. "His reconstruction also shows a flexible neck, large brain, binocular vision, and, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Quiet sun: violent earth When R.B . Stothers, at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, decided to look into the possible correlation of solar activity and terrestrial volcanism, he fully expected to find no connection at all. After all, what force generated by small changes in the sun's output could stir up the earth's magma from a distance of 93 million miles? Stothers was surprised. "Stothers analyzed two immense catalogs, published in the early 1980s, that list more than 55,000 known eruptions since the year 1500. Concentrating on several hundred of the moderate-to-large eruptions, he found statistically significant patterns in eruption frequency that match the solar cycle. Eruptions seemed most numerous during the weakest portions of the solar cycle." Further, there was a 97% confidence that the correlation was not a statistical accident. The only cause-and-effect explanation offered by Stothers was negative and indirect. During periods of abundant sunspots, increased solar emissions jar the earth's atmosphere slightly. Communicated to the crust, these slight taps trigger tiny earthquakes that relieve stresses beneath volcanos, thus delaying their eruptions until solar acitivity dies down. Not especially convincing! (Anonymous; "Volcanos on Earth May Follow the Sun," Science News, 137:47, 1990.) Comment. Down the years, many scientists and laymen have tried to correlate sunspots and earthquake frequency ...
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... 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 at night and the fast spin may make the vortex appear ball-shaped. Such a description suggests that Meaden may ...
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