176 results found.
... layer just above the horizon, one sees alternating thick and thin sections due to the perspective. The thick portions will appear brighter than the thin sections. As for the origin of this postulated rippled layer; no one is sure. Gravity waves may be involved. (Herse, M.; "Waves in the OH Emissive Layer," Science, 225:172, 1984.) Comment. As described in our Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. luminous atmospheric waves are, on rare occasions, visible to the naked eye. It is possible that the bandedsky phenomenon is related to the infrared waves. For more information on the book just mentioned, visit: here . Rippled emissive layer around the earth. The variable optical path near the horizon could create luminous ripples to a ground observer. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Listening With The Feet "Male white-lipped frogs exhibit conspicuous behavioral responses to calling conspecific males that are nearby but out of view. Since the calls often are accompanied by strong seismic signals (thumps), and since the male white-lipped frog exhibits the most acute sensitivity to seismic stimuli yet observed in any animal, these animals may use seismic signals as well as auditory signals for intraspecific communication." (Lewis, Edwin R., and Narins, Peter M.; "Do Frogs Communicate with Seismic Signals?" Science, 227:187, 1985.) Comment. Rabbits often thump the ground to communicate, but their thumps are thought to be sound generators rather than vibration generators. From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... problem emerges downstream from Red Butte at Pierce Ferry. There we find 200 meters of Hualapai limestone, which has been dated at 8.7 million years from a thin layer of volcanic ash within the limestone. When this limestone was laid down, the geology is emphatic that no large, sediment-carrying river was in the vicinity. Most geologists agree that the lower end of the Grand Canyon was not active around this time. No one knows where the Col-orado River was flowing at this period. Some say southwest from Peach Springs; others point to a northwest route into Utah. All the likely alternate routes face serious geological obstacles such as lava barriers. What does seem certain is that the stock explanation of the formation of the Grand Canyon is incorrect. It was not steadily ground out, cutting everdeeper as the whole region was slowly elevated. Actually, geologists believe that the region stopped rising over 50 million years ago. Where, then, did the sediments from a 450-kilometer canyon and the wide areas surrounding its rims go? The present exit of the Colorado near Pierce Ferry was blocked until fairly recently while the Hualapai limestone was being deposited; and other routes don't look too promising. (Rice, R.J .; "The Canyon Conundrum," Geographical Magazine, 55:288, 1983.) Comment. Moral: beware of facile explanations. The data presented, in fact, make one wonder whether all of the erosion might have occurred quite recently (perhaps when the great submarine canyons were cut?), using the Colorado ...
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... shape and thickness of the piece exactly match the hole that was left behind, just like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, though it was rotated about 20 degrees." There are no marks left by machinery in the area; and the sides of the hole reveal dangling roots, indicating that the slab was torn out rather than cut out. A final item of possible interest: on October 9, there was a small quake, magnitude 3, with the epicenter 20 miles southwest of the hole. (Anonymous; "A Rare Phenomenon Moves Earth," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 25, 1984. Also: many other papers, mostly in the west.) Comment. The quake mentioned was quite small. Large quakes, however, have been known to toss boulders out of the ground, leaving large holes behind. See Category GQHl in Anomalies in Geology. This Catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... irrigation canals. (4 ) Unexplained are many flat-bottomed oval pits up to 182 feet long, 55 feet wide, and 13-18 feet deep. Some surmise they were ball courts. (5 ) Also puzzling are rectangular earthen mounds, 75 x 95 feet at the base and 12 feet high, with flat adobe-covered tops. (Adams, Daniel B.; "Last Ditch Archeology," Science 83, 4:28, December 1983.) Reference. The Hohokam canals and those built by other ancient peoples are presented in our Handbook Ancient Man. For details on this book, visit: here . Section through two Hohokum canals, showing original canal profile (bottom) and final profile after long use. Sedimentation eventually raised the canal bottoms above the original ground level. (Illustration from Ancient Man) From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bermuda Triangle In Orbit Every time the British research satellite Ariel 6 passes over British Columbia and the Caspian Sea, something turns off the high voltage power to two of its experiments, leaving a third power supply unaffected. Even more eerie is the discovery that the sun must be shining on the ground for the phenomenon to occur. The radio commands controlling the switching are coded on a 5 kHz subcarrier superimposed on a l48.25 MHz carrier. The frequencies and coding are so highly specific that it is hard to imagine how the spurious commands arise. Also peculiar is the finding that the undesired switching can be prevented by simply beaming the pure carrier at the satellite just before it enters the two mystery zones. (Schwartz, Joe; "Mystery Beams Affect UK Satellite," Nature, 280:25, 1979.) Comment. This is only the latest in a long series of mysterious spacecraft electronic problems. From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A PREHISTORIC TVA?The Hohokam Indians lived along the Salt River Valley, in Arizona, about 300 BC to 1450 AD. They constructed a network of irrigation canals that is certainly one of the wonders of the Ancient New World. Early investigators recorded more than 500 kilometers of major canals and 1,600 kilometers of smaller ones. (Less than 10 kilometers of these remain intact today.) One of the main canals was 3 meters deep, 11 meters wide at ground level, and 14 kilometers long. Old and recent aerial photos show traces of an incredibly complex irrigation network. W.B . Masse, the author of this article, is very impressed by the earth-moving task but even more so by the degree of social coordination and control that must have been exerted all along the Salt River Valley in building and regulating the use of this remarkable canal system. (Masse, W. Bruce; "Prehistoric Irrigation Systems in the Salt River Valley, Arizona," Science, 214:408, 1981.) Reference. Many other ancient canal projects are described in our Handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering information here . Composite map of canals near Tempe constructed from aerial photographs. From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Sounds From An Australian Fireball On April 7, 1978, a very large fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales. Seen by hundreds, it generated many high quality reports. Fifteen of the written reports mentioned anomalous sounds -- hisses, hums, swishes, and crackling sounds heard simultaneously with the visual sighting. Such sounds are anomalous because the meteor is tens of kilometers high and real sound would take a minute or more to reach the ground. (The sound from a detonating meteor is often heard several minutes later.) Keay is convinced of the reality of the anomalous sounds and suggests that the highly turbulent plasma in the meteor wake generates powerful electromagnetic radiation at audio frequencies. This intense radio energy reaches the earth at the same time the visible light does. It may be converted into sound as it interacts with the surface and the observer. (Keay, Colin S.L .; "The 1978 New South Wales Fireball," Nature, 285:464, 1980.) Reference. Sounds from high-altitude meteors (" electrophonic" sounds) are covered in GSH2 in our Catalog: Earthquakes, Tides, Anomalous Sounds. Information on this book is posted here . From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 1: September 1977 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightning Superbolts Detected By Satellites The Vela satellites carry optical sensors for the detection of terrestrial nuclear explosions. Four Vela satellites keep the entire earth under constant surveillance. In addition to nuclear explosions, these satellites register many intense lightning flashes. Some of the flashes are over 100 times more brilliant than average. Only about five of these "superbolts" occur for every 10 million flashes registered. Superbolt flashes have relatively long durations (about one thousandth of a second) and do not appear to be confined to the upper levels of the clouds. A large fraction of the superbolts are recorded over Japan and the northeast Pacific during intense winter storms. Ground observations during these storms reveal occasional very powerful discharges of long duration from positively charged regions near the cloud tops to the ground. In contrast, typical lightning arises from negatively charged regions of clouds. (Turman, B.N .; "Detection of Lightning Superbolts," Journal of Geophysical Research, 82:2566, 1977.) Reference. Many of lightning's anomalies are described in Chapter GLL in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #1 , September 1977 . 1977-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 3: April 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Marsh gas or the planet venus?October 16, 1976. Aboard the m.t . Farnelia, Barents Sea fishing grounds. Observers, Skipper H. Powdrell and Mr. G. Christmas, Radio Officer. "At 2307 GMT while I was visiting the wheelhouse, the Skipper pointed out to me an object flying across the sky. It had already been in view for some five minutes or more and was first observed on a bearing of 140 T heading due North. I first sighted it on a bearing of 050 T. "Observation was constantly kept by myself and the Skipper with the aid of binoculars from the time I first sighted the object. It could be described as being a brilliant light travelling at a very high altitude, leaving a bright Vshaped trail of rays which could be likened to the sun's rays as they would appear from behind a cloud. However, they were very much smaller due to the height and were also horizontal. The object followed a course from south to north to be astern of us at 2308. It then commenced to come back along its course while losing altitude. I would point out here that there was no visual evidence of the object actually turning back but rather as though it had been put into reverse. "The appearance and shape of the object was now changed, becoming totally circular in shape, still losing height and coming closer. The outer edge of the circle ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Infections From Comets Astronomer Fred Hoyle notes that pandemics and plagues have generally appeared very suddenly and unexpectedly, sweeping the globe with hard-to-explain swiftness. Noting in passing that comets have always been considered bad omens, he postulates that cometary matter may actually contain bacteria and viruses that infect the earth's populace as the planet passes through cometary tails. Recent spectroscopic studies of interstellar matter and comets themselves indicate a richness of life-associated compounds that infers that outer space might well be the breeding ground of simple life. The authors review some of the strange history of epidemic diseases and wonder if their theory of germbearing comets might not satisfy the data as well as the more common hypothesis of random mutation and genetic recombination. (Hoyle, Fred, and Wickramasinghe, Chandra; "Does Epidemic Disease Come from Space?" New Scientist, 76:402, 1977.) From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Giant Ball Lightning June 8, 1977, Fishguard, Dyfed, West Wales. A brilliant, yellow green, trans-parent ball, the size of a bus with a fuzzy outline, floated down a hillside. Slowly rotating, it seemed to bounce off projections on the ground. It flickered out after 3 seconds. (Jones, Ian; "Giant Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology U.K ., 2:271, 1977.) From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , reports (in pretty good English): "A large circle appeared in the doublyfenced compound of a Radio Nippon transmitting station near Tokyo. At the same time the survey protection equipment of the transmitting system worked abnormally. This shows that the circles effect is not simply a matter of hoaxing. It was the night of 31 August 1991 when the survey protection equipment (electromagnetic-noise warning detector) of the transmitting system of the Radio Nippon station in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, worked seventeen times during 40 minutes from 2.00 a.m . (that is, on 1 September). This is a wholly abnormal occurrence because the survey protection goes off only once a week on average. Next morning one of the staff discovered a 10-metre circle in the doubly-fenced ground of the Radio Nippon station. The grass in the ground was pushed down, but without leaving a clear spiral mark. The ground area is approximately 20,000 m2 , and three antenna towers are located in the ground. The fences are formed by 2.5 -m -high wire netting and the station was watching for 24 hours. There were only two men in the station, and they were in a watching room for eight hours from 10.00 p.m . to 6.00 a.m .. Moreover, I can add that neither of the men had ever heard of the circles effect at that time, so that after the discovery of the grass circle the next day they did not report it for 40 days. By the way, there ...
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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 DID A HALF MILLION METEORS FALL ON THE CAROLINAS?The Carolina Bays get scant notice in the literature these days, but E.R . Randall has rescued them this undeserved obscurity. "For years, people living along the Carolina coast have marveled at a series of strange, oval-shaped depressions in the ground called 'Carolina Bays.' "From the air these shallow, marshy bogs created a landscape that resembles the pockmarked surface of the moon. They crisscross each other in a chaotic tapestry, but at ground level are hardly noticeable because of thick forests and semitropical swamplands. "Highways and modern housing developments have all but obliterated thousands of the bays, leaving them visible only to trained eyes. "Still, it is estimated that no fewer than 300,000 such bays, ranging from a few feet across to almost two miles in diameter, dot the East Coast landscape from southern New Jersey to northeastern Florida. One source places the number at more than half a million." Map showing areas of abundant Carolina Bays and frequent meterorite finds. However, meteorites are rare in the areas of the bays. Floyd continues with a brief history of the Carolina Bay region and then reviews some of the theories of origin that have been proposed. Two now-discarded mechanisms of formation invoked: (1 ) immense schools of spawning fish; and (2 ) icebergs stranded as the Ice Ages waned. In presenting today ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 157: Jan - Feb 2005 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Discovery of a hidden chamber in the Great Pyramid? Who are what was writing over a million years ago? Astronomy The cosmos is 'unspeakably bizarre' -- if you accept two premises No canals but glassy tubes instead Biology Snowflakes of the sea Ground-squirrel infrared countermeasures The shapes that determine time and memory Geology Geyser-type action of the Oklo natural nuclear reactors Geophysics Rogue waves Pwdre Ser falls again Psychology The profundity of sleep Physics Something's the matter with matter Who digs the Higgs? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 153: May - Jun 2004 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology 5,500-year-old Clusters of Stone Pillars Rock Art and Rock Music Bog Butters Astronomy Parallel Double Meteor Trails Martian Bunnies? Inflation Inflated Biology Genome Fusion in Radically Different Species Animal Fasting in the Wild Nanotubular "Highways" Connect and Trap Cells Geology Hydroplaning in Geology Sand Dunes Invisible at Ground Level Another "Cookie-Cutter" Event Geophysics Will-O -The-Wisps Sicilian Sparks Psychology A Strange Property of Hyperlexia Chemistry The Darwinian Breeding of Nanostructures One "Pathological Science" May Not Be So Sick After All! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 149: Sep-Oct 2003 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stringware Old Viking Bones Lied Astronomy A Bridge too Faint The Dark Side of Cosmology Biology The Sweet Sex The Seventh-Story Paradox Great Walls make Divergent Neighbors Liver Delivery Life's Lethal Quality Control? Life's Biochemical Enforcers Geology Natural Ground Patterns on Two Planets What Caused a Global Planation Event? Geophysics Strange Object Observered during Thunderstorm Giant Electrical Jets Flash up into Ionosphere Horizon-to-Horizon Bioluminescent Bands Psychology When Coming Events cast Psychic Shadows before them Sleight of Hand Physics More Light at the end of the Tunnel ...
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... . 93, April 11, 1998.) Mummified llamas yield superior wool. The wool found on a group of mummified llamas that had been sacrificed and buried some 1,000 years ago in Peru had hair far finer than cashmere and far superior to that of modern llamas. The ancient Peruvians apparently knew how to breed their animals to accentuate certain features. Their secret was lost during the Spanish conquest. (Anonymous; "Mummified Llamas Yield Superior Wool," NEARA Transit, 10:6 , Spring 1998.) Telestomping elephants. Elephants, rhinos, okapis, and even some birds use infrasound (frequencies below 20 Hertz) for communication. At a recent meeting of the American Acoustical Society, University of California researchers reported that elephants also send low-frequency acoustic signals by stomping the ground. Almost inaudible in the air, the sounds travel through the ground and can be picked up by ground microphones. It is thought that this communication channel has a range of as much as 50 kilometers -- far greater than the sounds could be perceived in the air. Supporting this notion, anecdotes say that elephants somehow know when other elephants are being killed far, far away. They run in the opposite direction! But how do they detect the stomping sounds if they travel through the ground? (Anonymous; "Stomping Ground," New Scientist, p. 25, December 13, 1997.) Some sperm are immense -- and nutritious. Fruitflies smaller than a tomato seed pro-duce sperm almost 6 centimeters (2 .3 inches) long. These can be ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bouncing Ball Lightning Autumn 1940, Berwyn Mountains, North Wales. The percipient in this unusual ball lightning sighting was a Mr. H, who was schoolmaster at Sandyhurst College. "While out walking he was caught in a violent thunderstorm on the side of a hill with a scooped valley below. Ahead of him perhaps 300 feet distant, a bolt of lightning struck a tree with a sharp explosion of noise. Almost immediately a sphere six inches in diameter appeared from the direction of the strike and began to bounce across the ground towards him like a rubber ball. Climbing the hill under its own energy, the object rolled in a parabolic path and hit the ground every ten or twenty feet, climbing up to about three feet in height with each 'rebound'. Every time it hit the ground there was no sound, but a puff of greyish smoke or vapor was emitted. The object got to within about 50 feet of Mr. H before it suddenly vanished. This allowed him to have a good look at it at close proximity. He says that it was completely round and was a smokey-grey colour." (Anonymous; "Ball Lightning in Lancashire and North Wales," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 23:139, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do woodcocks "grunt" for worms?Earthworms have a potentially fatal habit: When they detect vibrations propagating through the ground, they quickly squirm their way to the surface. Perhaps they think a mole is tunneling after them, or maybe rain is beating down above. Whatever goes through their "minds," they emerge on the surface in response to vibrations and may be snapped up by several species that know their weakness. Human fishermen know the worms' weakness and "grunt" for them in several ways; say, by drawing a notched stick across the trunk of a small tree to generate vibrations. Wood turtles are said to "stomp" for worms. (SF#65) Kiwis and Kagus also stomp for their dinner. (Kagus are rather strange birds found in New Caledonia.) We have just learned that Woodcocks will beat their wings against the ground to coax earthworms within range. (Hennigan, Tom; "A Wonderfully Bizarre Bird," Creation/Ex Nihilo , 19:54, September-November 1997.) Comment. Woodcocks seem to lure worms to the surface in still another way: They "bob" or "rock" their body in a most peculiar manner. It is thought that the resulting pressure waves are transmitted to the ground through their feet and that these bring their favorite prey to where they can be grasped. (Marshall, William H.; "Does the Woodcock ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Force Is With Them The communication loop between earthbased ground stations and interplanetary spacecraft allows extremely accurate measurements of the radial velocities of these distant man-made machines. As these spacecraft hurtle toward the fringe of the solar system, the visible sun dwindles to a small, bright point, and its gravitational field falls off as the inverse square of the distance. At least that is what is supposed to happen. Four far-flung spacecraft, (Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Ulysses, and Galileo are experiencing a mysterious decelerating force not encompassed by the Law of Gravitation. It's a tiny force, but it seems to be real. Making it even more puzzling is the fact that it is decreasing according to the inverse of distance from the sun rather than the inverse square. Is it a non-solar force? Is it "new" physics? Or maybe just an artifact of the spacecraft and ground-based equipment? The fact that four spacecraft feel its tugging suggests the force is real. But the motions of the distant planets do not seem to be affected by it. So, everyone is perplexed. (Schilling, Govert; "Spacecraft Motions Puzzle Astronomers," Science, 281:1581, 1998. Seife, Charles; "If the Force Is with Them...," New Scientist, p. 4, September 12, 1998. Browne, Malcolm; "After Study, ...
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... these complaints with a case of adequate strangeness. T.M . Olsen has investigated a bizarre observation from Kentucky. The date was September 28, 1996. "Vance C. Johns, a secondary-school horticulturist, lives a rural area east of Louisville. Sometime between midnight and 1:30 AM, he got up to use the bathroom and saw a strange object outside his bedroom window. His wife, Florence, keeps the drapes open on the center of three picture windows, and he immediately opened the other drapes for a better look. The open view through the windows, which face south, is of a grass lawn sloping to a curved driveway. This 0.8 -hectare cleared area is devoid of trees and other objects. Two large, automatic floodlights illuminate the ground around the entire house, and under a full moon, it was bright enough to read a book. The night was clear and about 10 C with no noticeable wind. No aircraft were in the area. "At a distance of 14 m (measured after the incident) from his vantage at the bedroom window, there appeared on the lawn an object resembling a common railroad cross tie but oriented in a vertical position, with one end on the ground. It was matte black, 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 m high and 30 - 35 cm wide. The sides were smooth with a well-defined corner joining the west and north sides. The view of the top showed the west and north top edges were also welldefined. The object appeared solid but ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Green Thunderstorms Anecdotes abound that exceptionally severe thunderstorms may appear to emit an eerie, sickeningly yellow-green light. Skeptics scoff at this notion. The excited observers were deluded, or they made it all up. This is, of course, the same knee-jerk response greeting UFO reports and accounts of many other anomalies. Thunderstorms, however, do have an objective existence. And it turns out that a few storm-watching meteorologists have also seen greenish thunderstorms. Such professional testimony is usually dismissed as due to the reflection of greenish ground vegetation by the storm clouds or, perhaps, the effects of sheets of hail preceding the storms. In 1995, F.W . Gallagher et al decided to settle the matter. They chased likely looking thunderstorms armed with a spectrophotometer. Many storms later, they proved, first of all, that some thunderstorms are definitely green. In fact, some gradually change from blue to green in the space of half an hour. Their ground observations, plus more spectrophotometer data taken from aircraft, refute the theory that the green color is from reflected vegetation. Hail may contribute to the green color but is not required. In sum, green thunderstorms really do exist, but no one yet knows where all the green comes from. (Gallagher, Frank W., III, et al; "Green Thunderstorms Observed," Amer ican Meteorological Society, Bulletin, 77:2889, 1996 ...
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... Australia. Here is the text accompanying the sketch. "Another cave introduced a fresh problem. Fronting it, high up on the vertical face of a cliff, and unreachable without mechanical aid, had been carved out of the solid stone a human head in profile, which I show. It was 2 feet long and 16 inches across, and 1 -inch thick; and I leave my hearers to say whether it is not a striking and distinguished face. It is absolutely different from the heads of modern Aborigines. The worn edges of the cameo, where it joined the rock-surface, seemed to mark a long interval since it was carved; the difficulty of carving it where it stood must have been immense -- unless, indeed, the rock face had been near the ground at the time, and the ground had worn away since -- which, again, would probably imply antiquity. "What a problem this Caucasian face presents! Is it that of some stranger from Europe long ago -- perhaps before the Portugese or Spanish visitors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? In all probability European ships traversed the Pacific before the days of Balboa; for Greek columns are found in an island of the South Seas; and the prevalence of small-pox among the Australians when we first settled there is said -- with what truth I must leave pathologists to decide -- to postulate previous residence of Europeans amongst them." (Thornton, S.; "Problems of Aboriginal Art in Australia," Victoria Institute, Journal of the Transactions, 30: ...
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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 Levitation And Levity!New Scientist's "Feedback" page, our favorite source for remarkable insights into cosmic phenomena, noted recently that the magazine Omni had announced the winner of its "Theories" contest. The winning entry was revolutionary, to say the least. In the words of the inventor: "When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground." There is a deep profundity in this arrangement. S. Voss recognized immediately that a perpetual motion machine had been proposed. He set out to find a flaw. Somehow, energy was being supplied to keep the cat-toast armature turning. Voss observed that any practical cat-toast motor would have to be suspended over a very expensive carpet, for the simple reason that the probability of the toast landing buttered-side down is well known to be proportional to the cost of the carpet. (Linoleum is very poor in this application.) Furthermore. to maintain the machine's efficiency, the rug would have to be frequently cleaned of falling cat hairs. Carpet cleaning is energy-intensive, and it is here that energy must be supplied, thereby nullifying the perpetual-motion claim! (Anonymous; New Scientist " ...
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... Valley have lured them out of their ivied halls. We quote from the abstract of a report seen in the mainstream journal Geology . "Sharply angular boulders as large as 320 kg [700 pounds] sit on the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California; trails leading to them indicate that the rocks have moved large distances. The process has never been witnessed. Although high winds and a wetted surface seem necessary, controversy persists about the need for other conditions, especially ice sheets. On the basis of experiments with a wetted Racetrack surface (soft mud about 3 cm deep), we find the effective coefficient of friction to be surprisingly high, about 0.8 . Movement by wind alone of moderate-sized (20 kg) rocks with cubic shape requires sustained winds close to the ground of about 80 m/s (about 180 mph). Larger flat-lying rocks require much higher winds." The authors of this paper, J.B . Reid, Jr., et al, precisely mapped a large number of the enigmatic tracks. Their maps revealed many "mated pairs" of rocks, whose curving tracks matched near their origins to within a few centimeters, even though the tracks were separated by up to 830 meters (over 0.5 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 ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Accelerating Universe Many laymen are uncomfortable with the idea that the entire universe originated at an infinitesimal point and is now expanding away from this cosmic navel. Many astronomers are equally disturbed by the recent discovery that all these fleeing stars and galaxies are not being reined in by the force of gravity. In fact, observations of distant supernovas indicate that this exodus of matter is actually speeding up. Some universal repulsive force, it seems, is operating on very large scales of distance. From an unknown somewhere energy is being added to all constituents of the cosmos. The universe is more than a cloud of debris flying away from the Big Bang's Ground Zero. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the ken of our primitive instruments, is a fount of energy of which we know nothing. All this is a serious challenge to our understanding of space, time, and matter. Cosmologists are now appealing to quantum mechanical "shimmers," to "X -matter," and to a property called "quintessence." (Glanz, James; "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279:651, 1998. Also: Glanz, James; "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work," Science, 279:1298, 1998.) Comment. When theorists toss around terms like "X -matter" and "quintessence," you can be sure that the basic laws of the universe are still ...
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... shapes (representing more order) while the smaller spheres become more disordered. It is like watching cream unstir itself from coffee. It smacks of magic, but it is all within the laws of thermodynamics. This strange "force" exerted by entropy may explain some puzzling biological phenomena, such as the expulsion of nuclei from mammalian red blood cells before they enter the bloodstream as sacks of hemoglobin. The idea being that the increasing entropy of the proliferating hemoglobin molecules (analogous to the smaller spheres) is maximized when the nuclei (large spheres) are squeezed out of the cells altogether. (Kestenbaum, David; "Gentle Force of Entropy Bridges Disciplines," Science, 279:1849, 1998.) Comments. The red-blood-cell example presented in the article is on shaky ground, because while mammalian red blood cells do lack nuclei those of birds and reptiles retain theirs. (See BMC6 in Mammals II .) In the above context, the origin of life (more order) anywhere in the universe can be thought to be due to the "gentle force" of entropy; that is, the result of increasing disorder elsewhere. See? It's all very simple!! When many smaller spheres are added to a sytem of larger spheres, the "gentle force" of entropy "pushes" the latter into a corner and a state of higher order From Science Frontiers #117, MAY-JUN 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... (Uhrhammer, R.A .; "Seismic Analysis of the Yosemite Rock Fall of July 10, 1996," Eos, 77:508, 1996.) December 9, 1995. Southern Ecuador. "On the afternoon of December 9, 1995, a bolide exploded in the atmosphere over the Andes in southern Ecuador. Many people in nearby towns witnessed the event. They reported seeing a streaking meteor, which terminated in a loud and brilliant explosion. In some locales, the flash was noticeable even through cloud cover. The burst of light was observed by satellite optical sensors used to detect atmospheric nuclear tests. Three local seismic stations also recorded signals from the explosion...This bolide appears to be unique in that it was observed by eyewitnesses and located by both satellite and ground-based sensors." The sound of the meteor's explosion was heard at least 56 kilometers away. (Chael, Eric P.; "Seismic Signals from a Bolide in Ecuador," Eos, 77:508, 1996.) From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... We last reported on them in 1992 (SF#83), when some old Air Force records turned up. We now re-resurrect the foo fighters with an Associated Press Bulletin from 1945. "AMERICAN NIGHT FIGHTER BASE. France, Jan. 1. -- The Germans have thrown something new into the night skies over Germany -- the weird, mysterious "foo-fighter," balls of fire that race alongside the wings of American Beaufighters flying intruder missions over the Reich. "American pilots have been encountering the eerie "foo-fighter" for more than a month in their night flights. No one apparently knows what this sky weapon is. "The balls of fire appear suddenly and accompany the planes for miles. They appear to be radio-controlled from the ground and keep up with planes flying 300 miles an hour, official intelligence reports reveal. "There are three kinds of these lights we call 'foo-fighters,'" Lieut. Donald Meiers of Chicago said. "One is red balls of fire which appear off our wing tips and fly along with us; the second is a vertical row of three balls of fire which fly in front of us; and the third is a group of about fifteen lights which appear off in the distance -- like a Christmas tree up in the air -- and flicker on and off." .. .. . "A 'foo-fighter' picked me up recently at 700 feet and chased me twenty miles down the Rhine Valley," Lieutenant Meiers said. "I ...
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... their culture and agricultural know-how into these areas. The Middle East was affected, too. The traumatic experiences of the survivors may have been the basis for the Sumerian and Biblical flood stories. (Mestel, Rosie; "Noah's Flood," New Scientist, p. 24, October 4, 1997. Also: Kerr, Richard A.; "Black Sea Deluge May Have Helped Spread Farming," Science, 279:1132, 1998.) Scenario #2 . The Eltanin asteroid hits. About 2.2 million years ago, a chunk of space debris about a kilometer in diameter splashed down in the Bellingshausen Sea between Antarctica and South America. It was some splash! The splash zone was about 20 kilometers across, waves 4 kilometers high raced away from Ground Zero, and a column of salt water ascended miles high into the upper atmosphere. The TNT equivalent is estimated at 12 billion tons. Ice clouds formed and shaded the planet, causing severe climate changes. On the floor of the Bellingshausen Sea, 5 kilometers deep, lies the Eltanin Impact Structure. Today, we can still see the geological consequences thousands of kilometers from the impact point. The puzzling remains of marine diatoms in Antarctica's dry valleys may well be fallout from the cubic kilometers of seawater blasted out of the Bellingshausen Sea. More formidable were the giant tsunamis that fanned out at jet speeds toward South America and Australia. On the deep ocean these tsunamis were only 20-40 meters high, but as they approached land, they slowed and piled up into walls of ...
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... way...The early morning appeared warm, humid, and overcast. The explosive "thunderclaps" happened again, a whole series of them, and they seemed to originate up in the air and to my right, but I could detect no flashes of light, and the blasts seemed to come at random points in the sky (which was not very visible to me because of the big building looming across the lawn). I couldn't figure out where the storm cloud was that was producing these blasts, since everything was uniformly overcast, and there was no darkness moving in or evident in my field of view. From the sound of the blasts, which were very impressive, powerful noises, I pictured in my mind's eye that huge cloud-to-ground bolts of lightning must be erupting somewhere aloft and to the right and out of sight of my position at the window. But they seemed too scattered about, and then one boomed to the rear of my position, and that was soon followed by a blast slightly to the left of that one and way to the left of all the previous ones. Yet, there was no flash of lightning and no dark mass of cloud moving from right to left. "About 2 hours later, a young man who frequents that region told me that what had woken me up was not thunder but what the locals called 'Lake farts'." (Kuchar, George; personal communication, August 1996) Comment. Both the Cayuga and Seneca Guns have been blamed on eruptions of natural gas ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NAZCA ZODIAC?Although the famous Nazca lines and figures etched into Peru's Atacama Desert are assuredly not part of an extraterrestrial landing field, they still may have a stellar connection of sorts. P.B . Pitluga, of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, proposes that some of the figures may be part of a Zodiac; that is, a terrestrial representation of the constellations. Here follows an abstract of her paper presented before a meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration . "New field measurements and computer analysis link the gigantic ground drawings to the Andean tradition of dividing up space and time by cycles of the Milky Way. By including ethnoastronomy in the analysis, these conclusions differ from [those of] previous researchers. The first hypothesis tested was that the figures could be considered like labels to the lines. Of the twenty-seven figures, ten are birds, three are whales, and two are seaweed plants. Theodolite measurements revealed a non-random distribution of the directions of lines attached to look-alike figures. The second test showed a physical relationship of present-day Andean plant and animal figures imagined as silhouettes in dark spots along the Milky Way to figure-lines pointing to the rising and/or setting of the same Andean figure 2000 years ago. In the third test, all other lines extending to the desert horizon from a figure center keyed into dark spots and bright stars along the Milky ...
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... not behave like tides or wind-driven waves.) When large pieces of the Hawaiian Islands slip into the ocean, the entire Pacific Rim is smashed by the resulting tsunamis. In New South Wales, Australia, there is geological evidence that part of this coast was scoured by a Hawaiigenerated tsunami 100,000 years ago. The postulated wave started out about 375-meters ( -mile) high in Hawaii. By the time is reached Australia, it was about 40 meters high. (SF#85) Worse waves may be on tap. A 4,760 cubic mile chunk of the Big Island (Hawaii) is breaking away at the rate of 4 inches per year. This is the Hilina Slump, and it is said to be "the most rapidly moving tract of ground on Earth for its size." The Hilina Slump can move much faster. At 4:48 AM, November 29, 1975, a 37-mile-wide section suddenly dropped 11 feet and slid seaward 26 feet. The result was a magnitude-7 .2 quake and a 48-foot-high tsunami. This was a minor of the slump. If the entire 4,760-cubic-mile block decided to break off, it would probably create a magnitude-9 quake and a tsunami 1,000-feet high. All the coast-hugging cities of the Hawaiian Islands would be swept away. And LOOK OUT Australia, Japan, and California. (Napier, A. Kam; "Landslide," Honolulu , p. 28, February 1997 ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Monarch Compasses Field experiments down the years suggest that migrating birds use a variety of strategies to chart their courses with high precision. The geomagnetic field, the sun, the stars, prominent landmarks, and even odors help guide them across the continents and open seas. But birds are considered highly evolved animals so their sophisticated navigational techniques are not especially surprising. Monarch butterflies, however, are mere insects, with tiny brains (navigation-data processors) and not much in the way of the environment sensors and internal clocks required for long-distance migration. Yet, some of these colorful insects manage to flutter up to 4,000 kilometers from the eastern U.S . and Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico. How do they do this? S.M . Perez et al have now shown that monarch butterflies are equipped with a sun compass; that is, they chart their courses by noting the sun's changing azimuth. This feat requires not only the measurement of solar azimuth but also reference to an internal clock. Humans cannot do this without artificial instruments. Furthermore, even on cloudy days, migrating monarchs fly in the proper direction (generally south-southwest). Apparently, they also have evolved a backup navigation system, perhaps a geomagnetic compass. (Perez, Sandra M., et al' "A Sun Compass in Monarch Butterflies," Nature, 387:29, 1997.) Comment. Somewhere in the tiny bodies of the monarchs are packed sun ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ball Lightning Collides With Car Summer 1991. Southern Bavaria, Germany. R. Urbanek, a teacher from Wasserburg, recalls her encounter with ball lightning. "I was with a friend in the area of Traunstein. My friend drove a minibus...150-200 meters...ahead of my car. Golf and several other cars were following behind me. It (had been) raining with heavy lightning and thunder. I did not drive at normal speed in such a weather...Then came a straight stretch of road with a bicycle path to the right, and an open wide field...Suddenly I saw a bright green, phosphorescent...ball about the size of a medical training ball, that dropped to the ground behind the minibus...It fell to the road and rolled towards me . I knew immediately it was ball lightning, and from school physics I knew a car acts as a Faraday cage. So I kept my feet to the floor mat and grabbed the wheel with both arms. 3 to 5 seconds passed until the ball reached my car. It came in a straight line, with a slight deviation to the right (as seen from my position). When the ball caught my car at the right front side, it gave the vehicle a strong shock or jerk, as if I had driven against an obstacle . All that was on the right side of me lit up bright green -- the hood, the windscreen, the instrument panel, and even the padding ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cassowary, 1; Automobile, 0 Many birds are done in by fast-moving cars. The usual avian mode of retaliation involves defecation, especially on freshly washed and polished automobiles. On occasion, though, birds will use brute force. For example, keas (New Zealand parrots) consider it their duty to pry out the rubber gaskets around automobile windshields with their powerful bills. A cassowary can be even more forceful. Recently, a motorist near Cairns, Australia, was forced to stop by a sixfoot cassowary standing in the middle of the road. He edged the car forward slowly, but the huge bird stood its ground. Then, he blew his horn. Bad move! The cassowary objected by kicking the auto, pushing the radiator into the fan, which cut a hole in it. (Anonymous; "Feedback," New Scientist, p. 104, June 13, 1998.) Comment. The flightless cassowaries are armed with sharp toenails, with which they disembowel New Guinea natives who displease them. Besides disposing of obstreperous automobiles, cassowaries are said to catch fish by wading into streams, spreading out their wings, waiting, and then closing them on sheltering fish. (From: Biological Anomalies: Birds). From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , a strange explosion took place near the Russian town of Sasova (350 km to the southeast of Moscow). After the explosion, a crater, diameter about 30 m and depth 3m, was found. At first, several ideas about its nature were proposed, but now almost all of them are abandoned, except one: that it was a tectonic (endogenic, to be exact) origin. This is proved by geophysical research in the region and a secondary, weaker explosion (a crater also appeared) taking place in 1992 in a sparsely populated area about 9 km away from the first one. For some years before the explosions, there were signs of increased tectonic activity in the region: a great number of 'fireballs' and so-called UFOs, evidence of slow ground deformation, and so on. For about several hours before the 1991 explosion, in many places, people saw numerous 'fireballs,' often accompanied by rumbling and even ground vibrations. In many houses, animals began to be anxious. Some people felt ill. Railroad communication devices failed. About 1 minute before the explosion, noise appeared in broadcast radio receivers, this soon jammed all radio stations. At a distance of up to several hundred kilometers from the epicenter, some people said that they felt a "heat wave" and suffocation. Near the epicenter, a bright flash with a duration of several seconds and an explosion (thunder and ground shock) took place. (According to some reports. at first a 'glowing object' flew down to the ground.) Probably ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Target Earth Let Jupiter take care of itself! What about us -- Terra, the third planet? A February article in Sky and Telescope begins: "Military satellites have been watching huge meteoroids slam into the Earth's atmosphere for nearly two decades." Secret until recently, infrared scanner data from military satellites have detected 136 atmospheric explosions since 1975 with yields of 1 kiloton or more. There may actually have been as many as four times this number, because the satellites are programmed to look for unnatural events, such as nuclear detonations. They often ignore extraterrestrial projectiles. Why aren't earthbound observers aware of all these atmospheric explosions? Because most are infrared events; few emit enough visible light to attract the attention of ground-based observers. However, two of these "secret" meteoric events might explain some Fortean phenomena recorded over the last two centuries. April 15, 1978. Over Indonesia. A military satellite watched a colossal daylight fireball that, for one second only, would have rivaled the sun to anyone watching from the ground below and alert to such phenomena. The TNT yield was estimated at 5 kilotons. August 3, 1963. Between South Africa and Antarctica. A huge airburst equivalent to a 500 kilotons was picked up by a worldwide network of acoustic detectors. The cosmic interloper this time was believed to have been a small asteroid about 20 meters in diameter. (Beatty, J. Kelly; "' Secret' Impacts Revealed," Sky and Telescope, 87:26, February ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The "inscribed wall" at chatata, tennessee One of our favorite anomalies over the years has been the ancient "inscribed wall" at Chatata, near Cleveland, in Bradley County, Tennessee. The above quotation marks are intended to warn the reader that said wall may not be man-made, and its inscriptions may be natural rather than artificial. An old drawing of a section of the "inscribed wall" at Chatata, TN. Note the triangular marker stone projecting above ground level. The history of the Chatata wall is long and convoluted. Discovered over a century ago, new facts are still coming to light today, as reviewed by D.E . Wirth in a recent issue of The Ancient American. The wall was originally almost completely buried. It attracted attention only because its course was marked on the surface by stones projecting from the ground every 25-30 feet over a gently curving arc about 1,000 feet long. One of these surface stones seemed to be inscribed with strange symbols. Excavations, supported at first by the Smithsonian Institution, revealed a 3-ply sandstone wall-like structure seemingly cemented together by a reddish mortar. Splitting the sandstone sheets revealed diagonal rows of markings like those illustrated. At first, both wall and inscriptions were proclaimed to be artificial. More recent studies by geologists point to natural origins for the wall, the mortar, and even the inscriptions themselves. The latter ...
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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 Crop circles not hoaxes: a correction In SF#89, when presenting T. Meaden's "middle-ground" position on the now-infamous crop circles, we stated that an earlier letter to Weather by J.W . Deardorff represented the "all-hoax" position. This was incorrect and, to be fair, we now reproduce Deardorff's letter: "Recent letters to Weather indicate little agreement concerning the crop circles mystery, except that the phenomenon is in general no hoax. Lest it be thought that Dave and Doug made them all, including over 1000 in the season of 1990 and as many as 15 in one night, consider the following crop circle streamline configurations: an upper layer, with an inward directed swirl of stems as viewed from above, and underneath a lower layer swirled outwards and orthogonal to the upper layer. This was the situation for the 17 m circle discovered by Busty Taylor at Headbourne Worthy, which appeared overnight on 1 August 1986 (Delgado and Andrews 1989). Its stem "streamlines" were sketched by Meaden and Andrews (Noyes 1990). Somehow the source-mechanism of this circle apparently first swirled every other stem outwards while leaving the remaining stems standing, then swirled the remaining stems inwards and at right angles to the layer below, again without any appreciable breakage of crop stems. "Not only does this rule out any hoax, since it defies all ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Possible Survival Of Giant Sloths In South America For many years, rumors have been filtering out of trackless western Amazonia telling of a 6-foot, 500-pound giant sloth clothed in reddish hair. Rubber gatherers of the region report that this fearsome creature emits a hideous odor and transfixes one with a paralyzing stare! It also seems impervious to spears and shotgun pellets. Natives and some cryptozoologists equate this animal to the legendary Mapinguari. P. J. Wynne's impression of South America's late-surviving giant sloth. D.C . Owen, an American biologist working with the Goeldi Natural History Museum in Belem, Brazil, has been tracking these stories. The present fossil record asserts that giant ground sloths resembling the supposed Mapinguari did occupy western Amazonia up to about 8700 years ago. To this must be added the appearance of an apparently fresh skin of the animal in 1897. Even more recently, gold miners are said to have killed a giant sloth. As with the North American Bigfoot, hard data are elusive, particularly actual specimens, dead or alive. Owen is optimistic, however. He sees his hunt for the Mapinguari as more than just another useless monster hunt: "If South America's largest terrestrial mammal has been hidden to science until 1994, what else does the Amazon have in terms of biodiversity that's new to us?" (Stolzenberg, William; "Bigfoot of the Amazon," Nature Conservancy , p. 7, July/August 1994 ...
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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 Strange phenomenon detected by radars and satellites January 12, 1994. Near Monte Vista, Colorado. At 2:55 PM local time, radars of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and satelliteborne instruments detected an unexplained "heat-radiating" phenomenon. Some sort of fire or explosion was suspected, but air and ground searches by local authorities turned up nothing. Possibly relevant: On the night of January 15, a Rio Grande County sheriff's deputy on patrol saw three helicopters, two with large strobe lights, apparently searching the suspect area. Military officials denied having any craft in the area. (Anonymous; "Officials Baffled by Spectacle on Radar," New Mexican , January 27, 1994. Associated Press item. Cr. P. Viemeister) Comment. Infrared sensors on satellites could detect "heatradiating" phenomena, but it is unclear what groundbased radars "saw." If some kind of military operation were involved, it is doubtful that radar and satellite observations would be made public. Caution advised here! From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earthquake Ripples In The Ionosphere During the January 1994 Northridge earthquake in California, the ground surface acted like a drumhead. By suddenly shoving the surface upwards by about 40 centimeters, the quake generated atmospheric disturbances that spread skyward at velocities of 1,000-2 ,200 kilometers/hour. Upon reaching the ionosphere, the waves created ripples that were detected by the array of navigational satellites that make up the Global Positioning System (GPS). (Monastersky, Richard; "Bouncing an Earthquake off the Sky," Science News, 146:415, 1994) Comment. The great 1964 Alaskan quake not only blasted the ionosphere, it generated air waves that were detected by a microbarograph at Berkeley, California, 3,130 kilometers away. See GSW2 in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. For a description of this volume, visit here . From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Satellite Spies Strange Stripes ERS-1 , Europe's remote-sensing satellite, snapped some pictures of Australia's Nullarbor Plain that have geologists scratching their heads. The Nullarbor Plain, which has long been billed as a vast, featureless desert, is crossed by five long, parallel lines, 15 kilometers wide and 600 kilometers long. These huge stripes would seem to be too big to miss, but ground-based surveys see nothing obvious. Even more curious, infrared sensors on a US weather satellite also see the five stripes. As the Nullarbor Plain cools off at night, the stripes are found to be about 2 C cooler than the surrounding terrain. Could they be fault lines? Geologists have not found any in the area. (Anderson, Ian; "Satellite Spies Strange Stripes in the Desert," New Scientist, p. 10, September 3, 1994.) Comment. Are these stripes akin to the man-made Nazca lines etched upon Peru's high desert? Not likely; they are too big. Instead, we wonder whether they might be associated with the Nullarbor Plain's massive lode of meteorites. (SF#80) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The candelabra of the andes 595 feet from top to bottom and visible far out at sea. What was the purpose behind this strange geoglyph? One of the most engimatic giant ground drawings (or "geoglyphs") in South America is seen best from several miles out at sea. Etched into a sloping hill at Pisco Bay on the Peruvian coast, this strange figure looks vaguely like a candlestick; thus, its name "The Candelabra of the Andes." The Candelabra is 595 feet long and can be seen from as far as 12 miles out to sea. Pottery found near the figure has been carbondated at 200 BC and is assignable to the Paracas Culture. Separated by 130 miles from the Nazca Plain, with its famed giant figures, the Candelabra apparently is not the work of the Nazca people. It is puzzling why that such a figure would be placed where it could be seen best by sailors. As with Costa Rica's stone spheres, the Candelabra's makers, purpose, and symbology are in doubt. The Pisco geoglyph really doesn't match the motifs in our books on South American archeology. Some archeologists say it is only a trident, but who ever saw a trident like this? F. Joseph, the author of the present article, thinks it looks like a Jimson weed! Furthermore, he states that there is a miniature version of the Candelabra drawn on a rock in California ...
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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 Looking Up Into A Tornado Funnel January 21, 1992. Near Cripple Creek, Colorado. Shortly after 2 PM, while fishing at Skagway Reservoir, D. Mc Gown spotted an ominous cloud formation 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 ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Radio Bursts "Mysterious double bursts of radio emissions, originating near the surface of the earth, have been detected by a small satellite designed to spot nuclear blasts. "Although the powerful pulses of electromagnetic energy occur predominantly at times of day favored by thunderstorms, they are not accompanied by flashes of visible light and they do not resemble the emissions generated by classic lightning." Since November 5, 1993, about 100 of these bursts have been detected by a special radio receiver named "Blackbird" mounted on the Alexis satellite. Most of the bursts have been recorded over Africa and South America, although they may also be frequent elsewhere but are drowned out by man-made radio noise from the ground. The bursts come in pairs that are separated by 40 microseconds. The frequency dispersion of the bursts indicates that the signals have passed through the earth's ionosphere before reaching the satellite. Most bursts are picked up in the afternoon and early morning. There is some speculation that the bursts may be associated with the flashes of light recently reported above storm systems. (SF#90) (Quote from: Sawyer, Kathy; "Electrodynamics: Strange Bursts from the Sky," Washington Post, February 14, 1994. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Puzzling Atmospheric Bursts Spark Interest," Science News, 145:100, 1994. Hecht, Jeff; "Satellite Tunes in to Mystery Radio Bursts," New Scientist, p. 7, February 26, 1994 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Shaky Observations Back in SF#65, we offered an item on how wood turtles stomp the ground to force earthworms out of their burrows. (When humans do this -- and they do -- it is called "grunting for worms!) Other animals also use vibrations for communication and, rather surprisingly, for cutting leaves. Malaysian tree frogs. Zoologists already knew that Puerto Rican white-lipped frogs use vibrations to communicate amongst themselves. The Malaysian tree frog can now be added to the list of substrate vibrators. The female will sit on a reed or small sapling and tap out a "come-hither" message with her toes. The message goes forth in minute seismic waves. The males detect these vibrations and proceed, sometimes in great numbers, to the source of the vibrations, and the species is thereby perpetuated. (Mestel, Rosie; "Courting Tree Frogs Make the Earth Move," New Scientist, p. 8, December 10, 1994.) Leaf-cutting ants. Leaf-cutting ants neatly excise penny-size pieces of leaves and tote them back to their fungus gardens. J. Tautz and colleagues, University of Wurtzburg, noted that the ants chirped as they sliced at the leaves with their jaws. With a little instrumentation, they discovered that during each chirp both ant and leaf vibrated at about 1,000 hertz. The vibration apparently rigidizes soft leaf tissues and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Luminous precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake In the same collection of clippings from Japan that yielded the biological precursors were several accounts of earthquake lights (EQLs). Some residents of Kobe and nearby cities saw aurora-like phenomena in the sky just before and after the quake. A Kobe firefighter observed a bluish-orange light above a shaking road that lasted about 4 seconds. A hotel employee on his way to work on Rokko mountain: "saw a flash running from east to west about two to three meters above the ground shortly after the quake. The orange flash was framed in white." Flashes of light were widely observed. (Shimbun, Yomiuri; "' Aurora' Flashes Observed before, after, Quake," The Daily Yomiuri , February 9, 1995. Cr. N. Masuya) From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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