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... Unfortunately, the signals were so short that their information content, if any, could not be recorded. Since the bursts were not repeated (except for a second burst from Barnard's Star), some natural phenomenon may be at work rather than intelligent communicators, who would presumably be more persistent. The peculiar signals, which have never been recorded before, were discovered as part of Project Ozma II, in which radio astronomers have been listening to 21-cm radio waves from hundreds of nearby stars. (Anonymous; "Possible Messages from Space Reported," Baltimore Sun, January 29, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #3 , April 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers The Unusual & Unexplained Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy From the pages of the World's Scientific Journals Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics About Science Frontiers Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976. These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines . Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course. Subscriptions Subscriptions to the Science Frontiers newsletter are no longer available. Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book , and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books. The publisher Please note that the publisher has now closed, and can not be contacted. Designed and hosted by Knowledge Computing Other links Science Frontiers On Line Browse or search over 2100 free reports, and discover the unusual in archaeology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geophysics, mathematics, psychology and physics. Search site for: Science Frontiers: The Book and Science Frontiers II An indexed compilation of the first 86 issues of our Science Frontiers newsletter, and ...
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... Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Guides available Biology Catalogs Biology Handbook Archeology Handbook Geophysics Catalogs Geological Catalogs Astronomy Catalogs Astronomy Handbook Science Frontiers Sourcebooks Ordering details Omni Edge Science Winner December 1996 Publishing History 2007: Dark Days, Ice falls, Firestorms and Related Weather Anomalies (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution Of Cyberlife The evolvable hardware described in SF#115 is only one several efforts underway aimed at modeling life and evolution. Network Tierra. Here we have a network of 150 computers linked worldwide by the Internet. One objective is the exploration of structures and patterns of information that drive evolutionary processes. A key element is an artificial lifeform that begins as a "seed organism" (modeled as information, of course) that wanders at will among the different environments presented by the computers in the network. So far, these digital organisms are surviving and changing. (Blakeslee, Sandra; "Cyberlife Critters Evolving in Computer Network," Austin American-Statesman , November 30, 1997. Cr. D. Phelps. Minad Project. Begun in 1953, the Minad Project is pure futurism; that is, the prediction of where the computer revolution is taking us. The Minad Project envisioned three evolutionary stages: Wiring the world (already accomplished as today's Internet); The transformation of the network into a high-speed creative mechanism (the Technosphere); and The emergence of global hyperintelligence (the Autosphere). The Minad Project is now forecasting what this all means for non-silicon-based life in the 21st. Century. (Baker, Lance; "They're Taking Over," New Scientist, p.55, December 6, 1997.) From Science Frontiers #116, MAR- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects And The Machines Wept For Man Philosophers have always wondered if humans and life in general are really completely detached from the material world of non-life. Might there be unrecognized influences humans (and possibly other animals) exert knowingly or unknowingly upon inert matter? Many have been the experiments in which humans attempt to affect the swinging of a pendulum, the throws of dice, or the output of a random-number generator. The parapsychologists declare that, YES, humans can exert tiny but statistically significant influences on such devices. But other scientists and the man-in-the-street would really like to see a robust physical effect, not just a bunch of statistics. An ambitious endeavor called the Global Consciousness Project just might be able to produce a more satisfying mind-over-matter effect. This Project is conducted by a group of scientists who maintain a dispersed network of random-number generators (RNGs). A total of 38 RNG stations are presently "listening" for global perturbations in whatever medium carries the supposed human-to-matter influences. The analogy to global weather and seismological stations is appropriate here. On September 9, 2001, the Global Consciousness Project network of RNGs did indeed detect a sort of groaning in the consciousness of the planet's human cargo. The dispersed RNGs produced strings of numbers that were rather far from random, as indicated on the accompanying graph. For three days the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 126: Nov-Dec 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient Stage Design In past issues of SF we have reported on the acoustical properties of rock-art sites (SF#83 and SF#123) and megalithic chambers (SF#102). This ancient recognition and use of the properties of sound to impress gatherings of people is rather remarkable for 4,000-5000 years ago. But we must be even more appreciative of megalithic-age talents when we discover that they also wedded visual effects with acoustical engineering when staging rituals and ceremonies. In effect, they were pioneering the design of auditoriums and church interiors. This marriage of architecture and sound was studied at two megalithic sites by A. Watson and D. Keating. Since we have previously attended to the acoustics of stone chambers, we will bypass their work on the huge chambered cairn called Camster Round and focus on the recumbent stone circle (RSC) called Easter Aquorthies near Aberdeen, Scotland. That RSCs are not ordinary stone circles is seen in this quotation from the paper by Watson and Keating. "Recumbent stone circles possess a number of characteristic features that have primarily been interpreted in visual or aesthetic terms. For example, their standing stones tend to be graded in height towards the southwest, creating a visual focus for the the large recumbent block itself, which lies between the two tallest stones. The recumbent at Easter Aquorthies is elaborated by two stones which project from its inner face to form an alcove. ...
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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. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Elliptical Halos Original drawing of the halo of Hissink, observed at Leiden. January 26, 1977. In the catalog Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows, we list nine cases of elliptical halos. Such observations are anomalous becaouse the only wellexplained elliptical halo is formed when the lower and upper tangential arcs of a 22 halo join together. Possibly because of the absence of appropriate theory, R. White, in 1981, suggested that the observations recorded in GEH2 were only the consequences of observational error or inaccuracy in representation of the phenomenon. (This assertion is well-known to all anomalists!) Recently, however, several elliptical halos have graced the skies of Finland. We provide below a summary of these observations, as prepared by J. Hakuma ki and M. Pekkola. First, though, we express appreciation to Hakumaki and Pekkola for a paragraph headlined SOURCEBOOK PROJECT ANOMALIES, where in effect they vindicate the approach of the Project. We now quote from the summary of their article. "In December 1987 two Finnish amateur astronomers observed and photographed a peculiar vertically elliptical ring surrounding the moon. A literature study carried out soon after this first observation brought to light ten reported historical cases of this type of rare halo phenomenon. It was found out that the existence of these elliptical halos has been uncertain to date due to a lack of photographic evidence. One indication of this is that none of the major modern works on ...
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... * Stratigraphy * Inner Earth. Chapter 5. Geophysics: Luminous Phenomena* Weather Phenomena * Hydrological Phenomena * Earthquakes * Anomalous Sounds * Atmospheric Optics. Chapter 6. Psychology: Dissociation Phenomena * Hallucinations * Mind - Body Phenomena * Hidden Knowledge * Reincarnation * Information Processing * Psychokinesis. Chapter 7. Chemistry, Physics, Math, Esoterica: Chemistry * Physics * Mathematics. Comments from reviews: "This fun-to-read book may lead some to new scientific solutions through questioning the phenomena presented", Science Books and Films Publishing details: 356 pages, paperback, $18.95, 417 illus., subject index, 1994. 1500+ references, LC 93-92800 ISBN 0-915554-28-3 , 8.5 x 11. Order From:The Sourcebook Project P.O . Box 107 Glen Arm, MD 21057 USA Tel: + 1 (410) 668 6047. Ordering information Prices are in U.S . dollars. Canadian dollars and pounds sterling are accepted at prevailing exchange rates. U.S . customers should add $2 for each order under $30. Foreign customers should add $12.00 per book for airmail mail. Preface from the Book Sorry, out of print Sorry, out of print Science Frontiers II More Anomalies And Curiosities Of Nature Same format as Science Frontiers (Vol. 1) Paperback: 338 pages ISBN: 091555447X $21.95 U.S . customers should add $2 for each order under $30. Foreign customers should add $12.00 per book for airmail mail. ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Great Wall Of The Incas The Inca's ability to build with stone is well-known. But one of their most ambitious projects is rarely mentioned in the literature and is poorly investigated in the field. Probably no more than 150 miles in length, it cannot compare with China's Great Wall. Still, it is built at altitudes of 8,000-12,000 feet in extremely rugged terrain. It runs along high ridges and is studded with stone forts at strategic intervals. Even though the Inca Wall is only a few feet high, it would certainly slow down a force charging up precipitous terrain at two miles altitude. The true extent and condition of the Inca Wall is not accurately known. Only a few easily accessible sections have been checked out. The theory is that the Incas built it to discourage invasions by lowland Indians. Like all Great Walls, it seems to have met with only small success. (Paddock, Franklin K.; "The Great Wall of the Inca," Archaeology, 37:62, July/ August 1984.) Comment. The Great Wall of the Incas is located in Bolivia. There is another Great Wall in Peru that seems to have been built by the Chimu people, perhaps to defend themselves against the Incas! The Chimu Great Wall averages 7 feet in height and reaches 20-30 feet where it crosses gullies. Also incompletely explored, it ...
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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 Cold Fusion Not So Hot!The Japanese government's funding for that country's 5-year, $25-million cold fusion program will cease in March 1998. The work had been pursued at the New Hydrogen Energy laboratory, near Sapporo. IMRA, a foundation sponsored by Toyota, has also contributed financial support. Reason for the loss of government support: The program "failed to find heat generated by cold fusion." (Anonymous; "Japan Ends Funding for 'Cold' Fusion Project," Nature, 389:10, 1997.) Comment. No longer will funds-starved American cold fusion enthusiasts be able to say, "Look at what Japan is doing." We need more money to compete." From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . 1997-2000 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 On the sun, south is almost everywhere Astronomers have been shocked by the discovery that the sun has no south pole! "Instruments on board the probe Ulysses have been measuring the radial component of the solar magnetic field. The field lines were expected to become more bunched and intense as the probe approached the south pole. 'Instead, the strength of the magnetic field remained absolutely constant,' says Richard Marsden, a project scientist on Ulysses." (Anonymous; "No Solar Pole," New Scientist, p. 11, September 24, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Blue Pool Found At The Bottom Of Crater Lake "A mysterious, small aqua-blue pool of dense fluid has been discovered at the bottom of Crater Lake. "' It is bizarre, it is remarkable,' said Jack Dymond, who with Robert Collier heads the three-year Crater Lake exploration project. 'I have never seen anything like it,' he said. "The Oregon State University oceanographer said the pool, about 6 feet in depth, is approximately 3 feet wide by 8 feet long. It is near the lush white and orange bacteria mats found last summer." The murky pool of fluid was discovered during a dive in a research submarine. The temperature of the pool was about 4.5 C (40.1 F) which made it 1 C warmer than the surrounding lake water. (Anonymous; "Strange Blue Pool Found in Crater Lake," Sunday Oregonian , August 13, 1989. Cr. R. Byrd) Comment. Some lakes in northern climes still retain ancient seawater in their bottoms. Also, we have the well-publicized African lakes that suddenly overturn, producing clouds of poisonous gases. See our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Language Of Life Popular writers on biology are fond of saying that the genes and their DNA carry all information necessary for the development of an organism and the transfer of inherited characteristics. With the advent of the multibillion-dollar project to map the human genome (our genetic inventory), we have been seeing this extreme claim more often. The truth is that a map of the human genome will not tell us everything. By way of confirmation, we quote the lead paragraph from a recent article in New Scientist: "In the early days of molecular biology, during the 1950s and 1960s, scientists as much as journalists fuelled the euphoria that surrounded the cracking of the genetic code. The secret of life was revealed, so many people thought. As our understanding has grown, however, so has our awareness of our ignorance. Research at the forefront of the molecular sciences has shown that we can no longer regard DNA - the stuff of genes - as a direct and complete set of instructions for the synthesis of proteins. The evidence begins to suggest that messages in the DNA are, in themselves, no more precise than the symbols and sounds with which we communicate. As in the languages with which we are familiar, the correct sense of a message written in DNA seems to depend on the rigorous checking and correction of errors, and on the context in which they are read." The final sentence of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hardball For Keeps "Archeologists call them "balls" for want of a better word; but, after several centuries of intensive collection, scrutiny and study, nobody really knows what they are. "Imagine, if you will, a spherical piece of carved rock a little smaller than a baseball. The shape bespeaks artifice. Something -- somebody -- made it. "More than 500 of these objects have been found in Great Britain and Ireland, most of them in Scotland, near prehistoric dwelling places, passage graves and the mysterious rings of standing stones whose specific purpose also eludes the experts." Archeologists believe the balls are more than 4,000 years old. All are different; all are symmetrical with projecting knobs, six in most cases. So much for the basic data. Now let us progress (? ) to theory. D.B . Wilson suggests that the balls were really hand-thrown missiles used in bloody games played at standing-stone sites during astronomically decreed rites. (Remember the Maya had their grisly ballgames, too!) The stone balls are indeed perfectly weighted, shaped and textured for throwing at the heads of opposing players. Perhaps, says Wilson, the games had rules such that you were safe when touching a standing stone, but to score you had to run to another standing stone while fair game for the first IPMs (Interpersonal Missiles). And so on and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hums Ho!Down the years, several mysterious hums have been recorded in the pages of SF. First, there was the persistent, widespread, annoying "English hum" reported in 1977. Most famous has been the "Taos hum" in New Mexico, mentioned here in 1993, and still going strong. We presume the English hum, the Hueytown hum, and all the others are still driving those who can hear them to distraction. There have been some desultory inquiries into the sources of these hums, but no one has come up with anything more specific than engine noises, wind blowing across chimney tops (an organ effect), or some nefarious secret military project. Whatever the cause(s ), the hums have devastating effects on those particularly sensitive to them. Case 1. Take, for example, the Kokomo, Indiana, hum that started about 1999. "Almost immediately after the noise began, nearly every resident reported having chronic and severe headaches and were awakened several times at night and were fatigued." wrote Lisa Hurt Kozarovich, a freelancer. "About 30 residents said they were also nauseated and had other symptoms -- the most common being pressure or ringing in their ears, chronic joint pain, dizziness, depression and diarrhea." (Sharpe, Tom; "Pondering the Hum," Santa Fe New Mexican, July 24, 2001. Cr. D. Perkins via L. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What's ok in the mediterranean is verboten in the atlantic and the pacific Geologists and geophysicists have now satisfied themselves that a few million years ago the Mediterranean dried up nearly completely. The Deep Sea Drilling Project discovered in 1970 and 1975 that layers of evaporites existed beneath the Mediterranean's floor. In addition, over 80 years ago, the bed of the Rhone River was found to consist of river sands and gravels superimposed upon hundreds of feet of oceanic sediments. Beneath these deposits -- some 3000 feet down -- was a gorge cut in granitic rock. Other rivers emptying into the Mediterranean had cut similar gorges into solid rock long ago. No one could provide an acceptable explanation for the deep-cut gorges until the evaporites proved that the water level had been low enough for the rivers to cut the gorges subaerially. In other words, the Mediterranean's level fell several thousand feet, allowing the rivers to erode gorges much as the Colorado does today in the Grand Canyon. (Smith, E.G . Walton; "When the Mediterranean Went Dry," Sea Frontiers, 28:66, 1982.) Comment. The Med's buried gorges are obviously close cousins of the many submarine canyons found around the world's continental shelves. Most geologists strongly resist any explanation of the submarine canyons involving subaerial erosion, because no one believes the oceans ever dropped thousands of feet. True, the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Mysterious Object Winnipeg, Manitoba. "On January 14, 1983, I observed a perfectly round black orb crossing the sun. It started at 17h 54m 23s Universal Time and ended at 17h 54m 26s Universal Time and lasted three seconds. On a projected solar disk with a diameter of 18 centimetres, the object had a diameter of one-half centimeter." (Lohvinenko, Todd; "A Mysterious Object," Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, National Newsletter, 77:L19, 1983.) Comment. This object traveled too fast to be an intramercurial planet; too slowly for a meteor. Path taken by the black spot cross the face of sun. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Successful Predictions Mean Little In Science Many maverick scientists make the pages of Science Frontiers because they are the ones who deviate from the mainstream. They pursue those Anomalies that the Sourcebook Project filters from the great river of scientific literature. But enough fluvial allusions! The maverick here is, again, H. Alfven. We first met Alfven in SF#59,where we commented on his paper "Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist." Alfven is still a dissident, a scientist who has the temerity to claim that cosmic rays have a local rather than galactic origin. Even more heretical is his assertion that electromagnetic forces have shaped the universe rather than the Big Bang! The subject of this entry is not so much Alfven's conflicts with accepted scientific views, but rather whether correct scientific predictions really influence the scientific community's acceptance of theories. This, after all, is what science is all about. It turns out that Alfven has made many correct scientific predictions. (He even shared a Nobel Prize in 1970.) But, as S.G . Brush has related in a detailed article in Eos, being correct is not the same as being accepted. "According to some scientists and philosophers of science, a theory is or should be judged by its ability to make successful predictions. This paper examines a case from the history of recent science - the research of Hannes Alfven and his colleagues on space plasma ...
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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 A Bright Flying Object And Another Enigmatic Crater The curious event described in the following abstract is eerily like the fireball and suspicious "crater" mentioned in SF#110. In that incident, which occurred November 22, 1996, near the HondurasGuatemala border, there was also a detonation. "On the early morning of 1994 January 18, a very bright luminous object crossed the sky of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. From visual sightings, it is concluded that the object wasn't a meteoric fireball (bolide). A surface "crater" in Cando (close to Santiago) with dimensions 29 x 13 m and 1.5 m deep was later discovered within 1 km of the projected "impact" point of the luminous object. At this site, in addition to the topsoil, full-grown pine trees greater than 20 m high were thrown downhill over a nearby road, leaving the downslope edge of the "crater" untouched and with a steep interior wall (this would not be the case if a regular landslide were responsible for the transport). Standing trees below the "crater" showed embedded soil and plant residues up to heights greater than 3 m. No strange materials (meteorites or artifacts) were recovered in or close to the "crater"; all materials belonged to the site and were not shocked; thus an impact is very improbable. "A possible explanation capable of reconciling all of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pouring A Pyramid The ancient Egyptians may have been more clever than we thought. Instead of chipping away laboriously in limestone quarries to precisely shape the stones constituting the pyramids. they may have cast the stones from a slurry of crushed limestone and a special mineral binder. Polymer chemist Joseph Davidovits has examined the limestone casing stones that were used to face the some of the pyramids. (Most of the facing stones were removed for use in modern construction projects.) Davidovits claims that the casing stones contain minerals not found in the quarries, and that they contain as much as 13% binder material. In addition, the casing stones have a millimeter-thick coating of binder. This theory might help explain the precise fitting of the stones. Others have also analyzed the stones and oppose the claims of Davidovits. (Peterson, I.; "Ancient Technology: Pouring a Pyramid," Science News, 125: 327, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Hex On Saturn "By piecing together pictures of Saturn taken by the Voyager-2 spacecraft, David A. Godfrey (National Optical Astronomy Observatories) has discovered an unusual feature in the planet's atmosphere. His mosaics reveal a hexagon centered on the north pole. Since neither probe flew directly over the pole, the complete scene has to be created by 'stretching' a series of photographs taken from the side as Saturn rotated, then fitting them into a polar projection." The straight sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 kilometers long. The entire structure rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions, which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior. The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere. The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most astronomers seem to favor some sort of standing-wave pattern in the atmosphere; but the hexagon might be a novel sort of aurora. More extreme speculation has Saturn's radio emissions emanating from the hexagon (something we can see and which has the right rotation period) rather than from the planet's interior (something we cannot see). (Anonymous; "A Hex on Saturn," Sky and Telescope, 77:246, 1989.) Comment. Note ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psychedelic Phenomenon October 3, 1995. Strait of Hormuz. Aboard the m.v . Chilham Castle enroute Karachi to Kuwait. "At about 2240 UTC, the observers saw a strange effect in the sea stretching for approximately 100 m from the parallel body. It was a soft white light, almost strobe-like in character that pulsed irregularly. The light was bright enough to illuminate the wheelhouse deckhead and seemed to emanate from below the water, almost as if something was shining a spotlight upwards, shimmering and twirling: psychedelic projections of the 1960s were brought to mind. Curiously, the wash from the bow was not illuminated and appeared normal, likewise the wake." The phenomenon lasted for 6 or 7 minutes, faded, and then reappeared briefly. The night was clear and the visibility excellent. (Griffiths, P.J .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 66:183, 1996.) Comment. The comparison to an underwater spotlight shining upward from the depths appears frequently in accounts of abnormal marine luminescence. Note particularly the unlit bow wash and wake. In normal bioluminescent displays, so common in tropical waters, these features are bright -- as Kipling expressed so vividly: "The wake's a welt of light that holds the hot sky tame." (From: L'Envoi ) From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Strange Snow Sculptures The most familiar snowflakes are those feathery, six-armed dendritic crystals. However, snow sometimes falls as needles and plates. In GWP3 in Tornados, Dark Days..., we also catalog three observations of conical snow. These conical forms seem to be aggregates of tapered needles of ice. However, none of the foregoing shapes can surpass in strangeness the "snowflake" in the accompanying illustration. Here we see the hexagonal symmetry retained in column form and again in the plates at each end of the icy dumbbell. What those peculiar iceworms projecting from the plates are is anyone's guess. (Kaiser, Jocelyn; "Snow Up Close," Science, 289:503, 2000. Comment. It is difficult enough to explain the formation of the common six-armed flakes; the worm-terminated dumbbells are even more puzzling. What sort of mechanism in the atmosphere can scuplt such complex shapes in prodigious quantities? 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. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Megalithic Monuments In The Central Sahara Archeologists have recently made some spectacular discoveries of megalithic structures in the central Sahara. This region boasts many V-shaped prehistoric monuments as well as spiral and meandertype carvings. There are even a few cup-and-ring markings, like those so prevalent in northern Europe. Most curious are the so-called "axle-type" monuments, which consist of a central hub with two straight projecting arms. Early in 1981, the monument shown in the sketch was found in the Immidir district. It is basically V-shaped, with two sets of "auxiliary" arms, one V-type and one axle-type, both of which are detached from the hub like "spare parts." The tips of the north-south arms in the sketch are about 75 meters apart. Clearly, orientation was important to the builders of the monuments, but the asymmetry and auxiliary arms are puzzling. The stonework in these central Saharan monuments is good. Dates are elusive, but all indications are that the sites are ancient. (Milburn, Mark; "Multi-Arm Stone Tombs of Central Sahara," Antiquity, 55:210, 1981.) Reference. For more on megalithic ruins in North Africa, consult our Handbook: Ancient Man. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Manifestations of earth energy at megalithic sites?Stories have long circulated that strange phenomena cluster about megalithic sites, such as Stonehenge. Those who claim psychic powers state that earth energies (whatever they are) seem to focus at these ancient constructions. The story goes that the builders of the stone circles could also detect these natural forces and intentionally chose these spots where the energies were most powerful. "Proper" siting and orientation were doubtless important to the builders of the megalithic structures, but can modern, no-nonsense science even begin to explore these mystical, psychic claims? Given today's scientific impatience with all psychic subjects, one would not expect a scientific journal, even a popular one, to touch the subject of "earth energies." Yet, here is an article describing the use of ultrasound detectors and Geiger counters in surveying megalithic monuments for foci of earth energies. Sure enough, curious enhancements of ultrasound intensity were discovered at the Rollright Stones. At another site, the natural radiation background level was anomalously depressed. It is all very mystifying. (Robins, Don; "The Dragon Project and the Talking Stones," New Scientist, 96: 166, 1982.) Comment. This appearance of this article would be comprehensible if it were in the April 1 issue of New Scientist, but it wasn't . In truth, of course, there could be something in the "earth energy" ...
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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 Precariously Balanced Rocks As Earthquake Detectors PBRs, such a this "rocking stone" near Peekskill, NY, signify a lack of recent quakes in the area Precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) are rather common where earthquakes have never occurred. In this sense, balanced rocks are measures of seismic stability. For example, says J. Brune, you won't find PBRs within 10 miles of spots where quakes have shaken the ground over the past few thousand years. To illustrate: "Rocks stacked in piles and balanced on their narrow ends on Yucca Mountain near the Nevada border with California, he said, have not moved in at least 10,000 years and perhaps as many as 100,000 years, judging from the depth of "rock varnish," or weathering, on their exposed surfaces." Looking for PBRs is not really as useless as it sounds, for they are indicators of stability to construction engineers planning nuclear waste disposal sites and similar projects requiring long-term seismic quiet. (Petit, Charles; "Seismologist Studies Precariously Balanced Rocks," San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 1992. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. How do rocks become "precariously balanced" in the first place? Melting glaciers and snow packs are known to ease their cargos of rocky debris gently down into unstable configurations. From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 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 A RECIPE FOR WEIGHTLESSNESS?Take fifty rings of a superconducting ceramic, 27.5 centimeters in diameter, and stack them one above the other. Chill rings to -334 F. Spin rings at 3,000 rpm. You now have an antigravity machine; any object positioned above or below the rings will be weightless! This recipe is based on a claim by Finnish scientist E.E . Podkletnov at the Tampere University of Technology. Podkletnov discovered this amazing effect when researching superconducting materials, However, he used only a single ring, which resulted in a 2% weight reduction. Since antigravity effects are probably additive, it seems reasonable that fifty rings will create a 100% weight reduction. Obviously, more than fifty rings will be required to launch spacecraft from earth! Sure, it's a wild claim, but NASA is checking it out at the University of Alabama in a project headed by N. Li. (Holden, Constance; "NASA's Fling with Antigravity," Science, 274:183, 1996. Also: Port, Otis; "Take That, Isaac Newton," Business Week , p. 42, September 30, 1996. Cr. E. Murphy.) Comment. Facetiousness aside, it is pertinent to add here that physicist P.M .S . Blackett once seriously hypothesized that a magnetic field is generated by a rotating mass, such as the sun. ...
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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. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Caves As Musical Instruments In past issues of SF, we have reported how some ancient rock art was intentionally painted on rock faces so that echos, as from a handclap, would not only be unusually loud but have some relation to the painting, as in the clatter of hooves. (SF#86) In a similar vein, some manmade chambers, such as New Grange (3 ,500 B.C .) were configured to enhance the subjective effects of ritual chanting. (SF#102) A fascinating article in Pour la Science , has described how ancient paintings in some of Europe's famous decorated caves were placed where sound resonated. To illustrate, examine the accompanying illustration of the north wall of the Jeannel Gallery of Portel Cave, in Arlege. The long, looping dotted line indicates the amplitude of resonating sound at a frequency of 95 Hertz, as the long gallery behaves like a giant wind instrument. The peak occurs smack in the center of the decorated area. At the peak, in the dotted circle, there is a rocky projection in the shape of a (hard-to-see) feline head. On the opposite wall (not shown), the same peak coincides with an ocher circle that dominates a meter-long decorated panel. (Dauvois, Michael, et al; "Son et Musique au Paleolithique," Pour la Science , p. 52, no. 253 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ball Lightning Studies The April 1990 issue of the Journal of Meteorology, some 63 pages of it, presents us with a wonderful compendium of ball lightning observations. It is un-fortunate that we have room for only a few of the many fascinating descriptions. Giant ball lightning. "The following display of ball lightning was observed by an officer at the coastguard station at Fishguard, Dyfed, West Wales, on 8 June 1977. The occurrence was at 0227 GMT, grid reference SM(12)895389. "The ball lightning phenomenon was very large and estimated to be about the size of a bus. It was described as a brilliant, yellow green, transparent ball with a fuzzy outline which descended from the base of a towering cumulus over Garn Fawr Mountains and appeared to 'float' down the hillside. Intense light was emitted for about three seconds before flickering out. Severe static was heard on the radio. The object slowly rotated around a horizontal axis, and seemed to 'bounce' off projections on the ground. It was noticed that cattle and seabirds in the immediate vicinity became disturbed." (Jones, Ian; "Giant Ball Lightning or Plasma Vortex," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 15:178, 1990.) Reference. Eighteen varieties of ball lightning are cataloged in section GLB in Lightning, Auroras. For more infor mation on this book, visit: here . From ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unwanted Noise On The Terrestrial Tape Recorder The hypothesis of continental drift and sea-floor spreading depends heavily upon the strip-like magnetic anomalies that parallel the active ocean ridges. Molten material pushing out along these ridges spreads out, solidifies, and is magnetized by the prevailing terrestrial magnetic field. Thus, the spreading sea floor becomes a "tape Recorder" preserving the record of changing terrestrial polarity over the past several hundred million years. As one drills into this thin conveyor-belt/tape-recorder, one would expect to encounter only rocks of one polarity. Not so! Some of the holes drilled by the Deep Sea Drilling Project have passed through several polarity zones. To illustrate, core 395A from the mid-Atlantic ridge is magnetized normally for the upper 170 meters, reversely for the next 310 meters, and normally again for 40 meters. Is the tape-recorder idea therefore incorrect? Some scientists argue that it is and that the whole modern edifice of plate tectonics is suspect. (Anonymous; "Testing Vine-Matthews," Open Earth, p. 28, April 1979.) From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Beware the ides of june -- and the rest of the month, too!Three astronomical events, all within the short span of written human history, lead J. Hartung to warn us that June is a dangerous month for earthlings. June 18, 1178. On the moon. ". .. just after sunset, it was reported by at least five men that the 'upper horn of a new moon split and from the division point fire, hot coals, and sparks spewed out.'" These observations have been interpreted as eyewitness accounts of the impact on the moon that gouged out the crater named Giordano Bruno, 20 kilometers in diameter. June 30, 1908. Siberia. "On the morning of June 30, 1908, a tremendous explosion deep in the Siberian taiga near the Tunguska river caused trees over an area of 40 km in diameter to be flattened in a radial pattern and produced a pressure wave in the atmosphere which circled the Earth." June 17-27, 1975. On the moon. ". .. an unusual meteoroid 'storm' was detected by the array of seismometers placed on the moon during the Apollo missions. The peak impact rate on the moon of 0.5 -to-50-kg objects was about 10 times the normal background during this interval. Such a high rate was not recorded at any other time during the 8-year operation of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blinded By The Night Ron Westrum is a sociologist who specializes in cases where scientific data are rejected out-of-hand because they challenge prevailing paradigms too strongly. In this article, Westrum describes several classical cases where science has ultimately admitted its errors and embraced the formerly rejected data: 1. The fall of stones from the sky; 2. The existence of thousands of parent-battered children; and 3. The reality of the coelacanth. In connection with meteorite falls, he provides a wonderful quote from James Pringle, of the Royal Society: "I venture to affirm that, after perusing all the accounts I could find of these phenomena, I have met with no well-vouched instance of such an event; nor is it to be imagined, but that, if these meteors had really fallen, there must have been long ago so strong evidence of the fact as to leave no room to doubt of it at present." Next, Westrum tackles spontaneous human combustion and ball lightning, neither of which have been assimilated by science. He closes with a very complimentary paragraph on the Sourcebook Project and our Catalog of Anomalies, for which we thank him. (Westrum, Ron; "Blinded by the Night," The Sciences, 25:48, May-June 1985.) From Science Frontiers #41, SEP-OCT 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution By Numbers The following paragraph is taken from a letter to Nature by a "practising geneticist." "In the discussion in your columns about the application of quantitative methodology based on the study of evolutionary processes to the analysis of the development of human culture, there is an unquestioned assumption on both sides of that issue that quantitative theory, as expounded by practitioners such as Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Cavalli-Sforza and Maynard Smith, has been successful in illuminating and explaining the process of biological evolution and the genetic relationships between species. As far as I know, there is no evidence to support this assumption. Indeed, there is a vast number of observations unaccounted for in the extant quantitative evolutionary theories. Many of these observations (inducible mutation systems, rapid genomic changes involving mobile genetic elements, programmed changes in chromosome structure) challenge the most fundamental assumptions which these evolutionary theories make about the mechanisms of hereditary variation and the fixation of genetic differences." (Shapiro, James A.; "Evolution by Numbers," Nature, 303:196, 1983.) Comments. The "observations unaccounted for" are buried in such obscure journals as S.B . ges. Morph. Physio. (Munchen). It is pretty obvious that the Sourcebook Project is just scratching the surface. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects ALL ROADS LEAD TO CHACO CANYON Just last year, L. L'Amour came out with his novel The Haunted Mesa. It's all about the Anasazi, a remarkable people of the ancient Southwest, circa 900-1200 AD, who, as far as we can tell, disappeared rather suddenly. L'Amour has the Anasazi returning to a parallel world through a space warp in a kiva window. Archeologists have not yet found this remarkable kiva, so we must be content with the things they left behind, but these are impressive enough. A long article in Scientific American introduces us to the accomplishments of the Anasazi. We will concentrate here on their road system, but cannot let a few general statistics go by unnoticed. Of the nine Great Houses of the Anasazi in Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, Pueblo Bonito is the best studied. It covers three acres and once rose to at least five stories, with some 650 rooms. Constructed of tightly fitting sandstone blocks, each Great House required tens of millions of cut sandstone slabs. For floors, the Anasazi carried logs from forests 80 kilometers away. The Chaco Canyon Great Houses required about 215,000 trees -- quite a problem in transportation. Strangely enough, the Great Houses seem to have been used only occasionally. In fact, Chaco Canyon was too poor agriculturally to support a large, permanent community. If this is so, what ...
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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 Acoustical Pipes In Beaked Whales?Because they are relatively rare, the comings and goings of beaked whales remain largely unrecorded. These mammals are effectively toothless for predatory purposes. In fact, some marine biologists speculate that they secure their slippery prey by suddenly vacuuming them up by actuating a pumplike tongue. (AR#2 ) But how do the beaked whales find their prey in the first place? With their sonar, of course. But these superbly streamlined animals lack the huge external ears of the sonar-using bats. How do they detect the weak echoes bouncing off fleeing fish? P. Zioupos and J. Currey, at the University of York, have drawn attention to the rostrum bone that forms the beaklike upper jaw of Blaineville's beaked whale. At 2.7 grams/cubic centimeter, this bone is 50% denser than the average mammalian bone. "The bone also turned out to have unique chemical properties. It contains 35 per cent calcium by weight -- 13 per cent more than the highest value known previously. Using microscopes, the team showed that the bone is riddled with tiny tunnels. containing highly concentrated minerals." The channelled nature of this bone make it very brittle, making it unlikely that it is used as a ram in mating bouts. Zioupos and Currey propose that this uniquely structured bone is really an acoustical pipe for the beaked whales' sonar signals. (Barnett, Adrian ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Puzzling Shadows August 3, 1997. Dooey, West Donegal, Ireland. The observer, A. Evans, was on a north-south beach. "It was a glorious day with some broken cloud over the land but none out to sea. Over the period between 3.00 and 6.00pm, a total of five jets passed overhead, all leaving vapour trails. Two showed a very interesting phenomenon, because while the vapour trails extended eastwards, the trails were continued westwards in front of the planes as dark lines which stretched all the way to the horizon. It was as if the plane was running on an aerial railway. I think it significant that only two of the planes showed this phenomenon as I suspect it was heightdependent. At this time the sun was high and shining from the south-southwest." J.O . Mattsson, Lund University, surmised that the black streaks in front of aircraft were shadows of the condensation trails behind the two planes. The shadows were cast forward ahead of the planes upon the hazy, though cloudless, atmosphere above the ocean. (Evans, Alun; "Condensation Trail Shadows," Weather, 53:371, 1998.) Comment. Since the sun was high in the sky, it is difficult to visualize how a the vapor-trail shadow could be cast directly ahead of the aircraft. Hummm! We suppose that the vapor trails acted like ...
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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 From the sunswept lagoon Mitchener fans will recognize the above title as heading one of his chapters in Hawaii . Many Polynesian navigators did indeed set out from sunswept lagoons into the superficially featureless Pacific. How did these peoples, a thousand years ago, sail reliably from one speck of land to another, thousands of miles distant? The archeology of Oceania confirms that the Polynesians made such voyages centuries before they learned about compasses and navigation satellites. But were these voyages anomalous; that is, did the Pacific peoples possess devices or talents unrecognized today by mainstream science? For the most part, the answer seems to be NO. While the navigational abilities of the Polynesian seafarers seemed supernatural to early European explorers, it has been convincingly demonstrated -- through modern voyages -- that the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and time-passage are and were sufficient for most interisland voyages. The early Pacific navigators were adept at observing the waves, stars, birds, clouds, winds, and several other natural phenomena that carry subtle directional cues. There are, however, modern instances in which Pacific navigators bereft of the usual sensory cues seem to employ an anomalous "sense." B. Finney, in his study of the possibility of human magnetoreception, tells how one native Hawaiian navigator, though wellschooled in traditional Polynesian navigational techniques, conquered the dread doldrums on a 3,000mile voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in a way ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Identical Twins Are Not Identical Past studies of identical twins separated at birth have documented remarkable similarities between them, despite the fact that they were reared under radically different circumstances. Their physical appearances, habits, vocations, health histories, and other factors are often eerily the same. For example, two female identical twins, who had never seen each other, each wore eight rings! The upshot of such investigations is that most of a person's characteristics are genetic in origin; that is, Nature dominates nurture. But what about identical twins who are remarkably different? They can, for instance, differ appreciably in size, intellect, and behavior. In such cases, does nurture dominate nature? No! Identical twins may diverge even in the womb, where one may receive more oxygen and nutrients than the other. One also may be assailed in by viruses, bacteria, or drugs, while the other escapes. Even more drastic is the possi bility that one twin may pick up an extra chromosome soon after the original egg has split. Also, mutations may doom one twin to Down's syndrome or some other genetic affliction, while the other is unscathed. Identical twins may even be of different sex! Of course, such twins are genetically different, but they are still monozygotic (from the same egg). Blood tests will show them to be identical. It used to be thought that the small ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Our genes aren't us!Almost without exception, biology textbooks, scientific papers, popular articles, and TV documentaries convey the impression that an organism's genes completely specify the living animal or plant. In most people's minds, the strands of DNA are analogous to computer codes that control the manufacture and disposition of proteins. Perhaps our current fascination with computers has fostered this narrow view of heredity. Do our genes really contain all the information necessary for constructing human bodies? In the April 1994 issue of Discover, J. Cohen and I. Stewart endeavor to set us straight. The arguments against the "genes-are-everything" paradigm are long and complex, but Cohen and Stewart also provide some simple, possibly simplistic observations supporting a much broader view of genetics. Mammalian DNA contains fewer bases than amphibian DNA, even though mammals are considered more complex and "advanced." The implication is that "DNA-as-a -message" must be a flawed metaphor. Wings have been invented at least four times by divergent classes (pterosaurs, insects, birds, bats); and it is very unlikely that there is a common DNA sequence that specifies how to manufacture a wing. The connections between the nerve cells comprising the human brain represent much more information than can possibly be encoded in human DNA. A caterpillar has the same DNA as the butterfly it eventually becomes. Ergo, something ...
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... Science Frontiers Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects) Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects)Overview Astronomy Biology Chemistry/Physics Geology Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project A ASTRONOMY Catalog of Anomalies (Astronomy Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ...
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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 American Pygmies Today's anthropological texts say little about pygmies populating ancient North America, but a century ago, when tiny graves replete with tiny skeletons were discovered in Tennessee, controversy erupted. Were they the bones of pygmies or children of normal-sized tribes? The latter choice was made, and we hear no more on the subject -- at least on the standard academic circuits. But a few reverberations are still detectable elsewhere. V.R . Pilapil, for example, asserts that the disputed Tennessee graves really did contain pygmy remains. Not only that, but he hypothesizes that the pygmies arrived in ancient times from southeast Asia, probably the Philippines, where today's diminutive Aetas live. To support his case, Pilapil recalls B. Fell's examination of the Tennessee skeletal material. Fell noted that: (1 ) The skull brain capacity was equivalent to only about 950 cubic centimeters, about the volume of a non-pygmy 7-yearold; (2 ) The teeth were completely developed and showed severe wear characteristic of mature individuals; and (3 ) The skulls were brachycephalic with projecting jaws. Fell had, in fact, described skulls very much like those of today's adult Philippine Aetas. Another line of evidence adduced by Pilapil involved the traditions of British Columbia tribes, which recognized a tribe of very small people called the Et-nane. More significant is the oral history of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Experiments On Brown Mountain Brown Mountain, in North Carolina at the end of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain, is famous for its enigmatic nocturnal lights. In this article M.A . Frizzell summarizes the most important attempts to come to grips with this phenomenon during the past 70 years. He concludes by describing recent experiments conducted by The Enigma Project and the Oak Ridge Isochronous Observation Network (ORION). Rather than repeat once again the older published observations, let us concentrate on the Enigma/ORION work. In May 1977, ORION placed a 500,000 candlepower arc light in Lenoir, 22 miles east of Brown Mountain. Simultaneously, a group of observers gathered on an overlook on Route 181, 3.5 miles west of Brown Mountain, a favorite spot for watching for the Brown Mountain lights. Brown Mountain itself was inter-posed between the arc light and obser-vers. When the arc light was switched on, the observers saw an orange-red orb hovering several degrees above the crest of Brown Mountain. Conclusion: the majority of the so-called Brown Mountain lights, particularly those seen above the crest, are refractions of artificial lights. The real Brown Mountain lights, the mysterious ones, are those that flit through the trees well below the crest. These lights are extremely rare. Typically, they commence as a brilliant blue-white or yellow light, which tapers off to dull red before disappearing ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Edinburgh ufo a mirage?September 30, 1986. Edinburgh, Scotland. "Yvonne Westgarth looked out of a north-facing window of her house in south Edinburgh. She was amazed to see a white cylindrical object like a missile travelling westwards just above the roofs of houses opposite (as she thought). She called her husband who also saw the object. Their sketches of what they saw are shown in Fig. l. Although their descriptions differ slightly, they agree that the 'missile' had a black band around its centre. They watched the object for a period of between 0.5 min and 1.5 min (period uncertain). It was first seen almost due north and it disappeared in the west-northwest. No noise was heard." No one else reported seeing the object. A real missile was considered very unlikely. However, the object appeared in the direction of the glide path of the Edinburgh airport, where two aircraft had landed at about the time of the sighting. The witnesses were adamant that the UFO did not look at all like a plane; and that it was much higher in the sky than planes on normal glide paths, which were to be seen just above the horizon between the houses. S. Campbell, who investigated this event, suggests that the Westgarths saw an enlarged distorted mirage of a Boeing 757 landing at Edinburgh. The timing and direction were right ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Look At The Bat Creek Inscription The Bat Creek Stone. Which side is up has been a problem! The January 1989 issue of the Tennessee Anthropologist contains a long article on the Bat Creek Stone by J.H . McCullock, of Ohio State University. We rely here upon a summary written by R. Strong. "The Bat Creek Stone has generated so much controversy, yet it was excavated in an undisturbed burial mound in 1889 under the direction of Cyrus Thomas, Project Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology's Mound Survey, a part of the Smithsonian Institution. There could be no question of forgery because it was found under the head of one of the nine skeletons that were excavated. Pieces of wood presumed to be the remains of wooden earspools were preserved in the Smithsonian's collections as were a pair of brass C-shaped bracelets. Thomas immediately declared the nine characters on the stone to be Cherokee and the burial assumed to be post-contact - what else could the bracelets be but trade items or native copper?" That would seem to be the end of the story, but some language students failed to see any resemblance between the Bat Creek Inscription and the written Cherokee language. Further, C. Gordon, admittedly a proponent of early Phoenician contact with the New World, declared that the Bat Creek characters were Paleo-Hebrew, a family of languages that includes Phoenician. Then ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Going For Gold The name of T. Gold appears often in Science Frontiers. Currently, he is promoting the theory that many of the earth's hydrocarbon deposits (gas, oil, graphite, etc.) are not of biological origin but are formed rather when primordial methane outgases from the planet's interior. A vanishingly small number of geologists buy Gold's theory. Nevertheless, the Swedish State Power Authority and some private investors have been impressed enough to fund a drilling project at the Siljan Ring, a meteorite crater 150 miles north of Stockholm. There are no significant sources of biogenic hydrocarbons nearby, but oil seeps are not uncommon around the Ring. Mainstream theory cannot account for these seeps, but Gold's theory can: primordial methane streaming up through the cracked granite shield is converted, probably with the help of bacteria, into oil and hydrocarbon sludge. "Ridicuous," say the mainstreamers. Recently, the drilling program, which has reached the 22,000foot level, brought up 60 kilograms of very smelly black sludge with the consistency of modeling clay. The gunk seems to have a biological origin. In addition to the black sludge, the drillers have been encountering increasing quantities of various hydrocarbon gases as the hole went deeper. All very supportive of Gold's hypothesis. Establishment geologists are having difficulties explaining these results. They blame contamination by drilling lubricants and/or the surface oil seeps. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unconventional water detection In SF#97, we inserted a short notice about some apparently promising dowsing research being conducted by a group in Germany. A lengthy, comprehensive report of this research has been published in two issues of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. We now quote from that part of the abstract dealing with field experiments in several countries. "This report presents new insights into an unconventional option of locating water reserves which relies on water dowsing. The effectiveness of the method is still highly disputed. Now, however, extensive field studies -- in line with provable and reliable historic account -- have shown that a few carefully selected dowsers are certainly able to detect faults, fissures and fractures with relative alacrity and surprising accuracy in areas with, say, crystalline or limestone bedrock. A series of Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusam menarbeit (GTZ) projects involving this technique were carried out in dry zones with unexpectedly high rates of success. In particular, it was possible to locate a large number of relatively small underground aquifers in thinly populated areas and to drill wells at the sites where water is needed; the yields were low but sufficient for hand-pump operation throughout the year. Finding or locating a sufficient number of relatively small fracture zones using conventional techniques would have required a far greater work input." A second part of the study involved controlled experiments in which dowsers tried to detect concealed targets such as pipes. ( ...
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