... data base as valuefree as possible. It is this value-free aspect of the Catalog of Anomalies plus the eclectic nature of my search that makes my endeavor not only entertaining but liberating. I will now explain what I mean by "liberating," and why this feature of anomalistics might be scientifically useful. Unless you have been comatose the past several years, you must know that the entire outlook of science is in flux. The words "chaos" and "complexity" are the current buzz words. They betoken, finally, the formal recognition by science that nature is frequently: Unpredictable (as in weather forecasting beyond a few days) Complex (as in any life form) Nonlinear (as in just about all real natural phenomena) Discontinuous (as in saltations in the fossil record) Out-of-equilibrium (as in real economics) Eroding fast are the philosophical foundation stones of the clockwork universe: the idea that nature is in balance, that geological processes are uniformitarian, that life evolved in small, random steps, and that the cosmos is deterministic. My view is that anomaly research, while not science per se, has the potential to destabilize paradigms and accelerate scientific change. Anomalies reveal nature as it really is: complex, chaotic, possibly even unplumbable. Anomalies also encourage the framing of rogue paradigms, such as morphic re-sonance and the steady-state universe. Anomaly research also transcends current scientific currency by celebrating bizarre and incongruous facets of nature, such as coincidence and seriality. However iconoclastic the pages of this book, the history of ...

... would redress things, making the universe "perfect" -- at least as far as human aesthetics are concerned. (Other entities might yearn for asymmetry, who knows?) Anyway, Mirror Matter is defined as being palpable and could also be that "missing mass" or "dark matter" that astronomers need to explain why spinning galaxies do not fly apart. Mirror Matter could also account for some mysterious terrestrial phenomena such as that unaccountable lack of a significant crater in Siberia, where the 1908 Tunguska blast leveled a huge forest but hardly disturbed the ground. Recently, Mirror Matter has been invoked to explain the ups and downs of terrestrial biodiversity. R. Foot and Z. Silagadze propose that the 26-millionyear periodicity in terrestrial extinctions -- claimed to be present in the fossil record -- is due to a solar-system planet made of Mirror Matter (and therefore invisible). This postulated planet has a period of 26-million years and regularly gravitationally jostles the Oort Cloud of comets on the periphery of the solar system. These jolts unleash torrents of devastating comets upon the inner solar system every 26-million years, thereby blasting the earth and its sensitive biological cargo. This supposed Mirror-Matter planet happens to be the conceptual double of a Normal-Matter, hypothetical planet named Nemesis, which was proposed in the 1980s to account for the same periodical extinctions in the fossil record. However, diligent searches did not locate Nemesis. Of course, if Nemesis were made of Mirror Matter, as now proposed, it would have escaped telescopic detection then and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Sort of Crop Circle Ball lightning reports are very common, but here is one worth recording because of its unusual physical effects. It was investigated and reported by O. Stummer. In May or June of 1988 or 1989 around 2 P.M . CEST, Mr. Alois Fuehrer, a farmer of 38 years from Jungschlag, a small village south of Ottenschlag, northern Lower Austria, 850 meters above sea level, returned early from fieldwork because a heavy thunderstorm moved in from the north-west. Fuehrer stood in the open on a wooden plank at the rear of the diesel tractor driven by his father. The vehicle had passed the last Ottenschlag houses southbound, when he noticed a falling object. It was round, 20 centimeters across, and "seemed to come down like a toy balloon", vertical, soundless, without rotation. It was brilliant white, a steady light, and had "something like a smoke trail". Only 20 to 30 meters to the right of the tractor and of the road, after 4 to 6 seconds, the object hit the surface of a green summer barley field, flashed up and "exploded with a loud, very high pitched bang". Mr. Fuehrer said "this was no thunder", and noticed no heat or pressure wave. However, what he felt caused panic--a tingling, and his hairs stood on end on his head ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Curious Phenomena in Venezuala The description of a truly remarkable phenomenon recently appeared on Scientific American's web page. It also surfaced in an article by G.D . Kaswell in the journal Infinite Energy. These re-appearances in the current literature of this well-known anecdote allow us to revisit it here. It is well worth repeating, even though many anomalists have had it in their collections for decades. (In fact we recorded it in 1974 in vol. G1 of Strange Phenomena .) As you read the following quotation from an 1886 issue of Scientific American, remember that the event described occurred almost a decade before the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity. Although ball lightning was recognized in 1886, the first UFO flap was still 70 years in the future! The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities: During the night of the 24th of October last [1886], which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo [Venezuela], were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house. The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Saguenay Earthquake Lights November 1988-January 1989. Saguenay region of Quebec. During this period, a total of 67 quakes were recorded. The foreshock (November 23) registered 4.8 ; the main shock (November 25), 6.5 mmlg. Many after-shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ...

... very differently years later. One theory goes like this. It seems that every time an old memory is pulled into consciousness, the brain takes it apart, updates it and then makes new proteins in the process of putting the memory back into long-term storage. The fact that new proteins are made means that the memory has been transformed permanently to reflect each person's life experiences---not the memory itself. (Blakesley, Sandra; "Brain-Updating Machinery May Explain False Memories," New York Times, September 19, 2000. Cr. D. Phelps) Ruminations. This all sounds reasonable, but it assumes that memory is stored in a protein medium of some sort. It is hard to imagine how, say, the multiplication table, can be recorded on a protein "hard drive." Are the bits representing the multiplication table encoded in a line of proteins of different types or in their sequence or, perhaps, their three-dimensional configurations? Does anyone really know what our brain's hard drive looks like? Maybe memory is hologrammic. And when a memory is pulled off the mind's hard drive, how is the information conveyed to the central processing unit, assuming there is one? Is it all done through nervous impulses, or are proteins transferred bodily. This computer analogy is probably incorrect. Nature is probably cleverer than PC makers! The demonstrable fact is that human memory is malleable, and this seems anomalous in terms of the evolution paradigm. Wouldn't the survival of an organism be better served by ...

... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What's Up There?Some Leonid meteors are not behaving the way meteors should. They begin to burn up well above 100 kilometers where the atmosphere is too thin -- essentially a good vacuum -- to cause frictional heating and consequent vaporization. We mentioned this conundrum briefly in SF#125. We now have the scientific details at hand concerning the supporting observations made during the November 1998 Leonid bombardment. The observations were made by an international team in China. Photographic cameras were employed as well as an all-sky TV camera equipped with an image intensifier. All photographed meteors began to visibly burn up below 130 kilometers, but the TV camera consistently picked up the same meteors at higher altitudes. Both sets of cameras recorded the same final burn-up heights. The most startling observation was a meteor that the TV camera detected at roughly 200 kilometers altitude. The highest observed Leonid meteor with initial mass of about 1 kg started radiating at an altitude of almost 200 km. The origin of meteor radiation at such high altitudes is still not well understood and more detailed observations will be needed, including near-infrared spectroscopy. (Spumy Pavel, et al; "Atmospheric Behavior and Extreme Beginning Heights of the Thirteen Brightest Photographic Leonid Meteors...," Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 35:243, 2000. Cr. R. Spaulding) Comment. As in SF#125, we must add that sounds are sometimes heard emanating from these anomalously high meteors, even though there is no air in ...

... was sometimes visible by day, but it was very remarkable that it never did any damage except in the night. The flames were in no way violent, but its continuance at last consumed everything that opposed it. Those few scientists who have mused over this curious old account have concluded that the "fiery exhalations" resulted from the spontaneous ignition of marsh gas; that is, the flames were will-o '- the-wisps, albeit relatively powerful ones. Will-o '- the-wisp theory states that marsh gas (mostly methane) also contains phosphane and traces of diphosphane (P2H4). The latter gas reacts spontaneously with air and ignites the methane, creating weak blue flames. The New Scientist article mentioned a parallel modern occurrence that is new to us and worth recording here. In 1997, a dramatic series of spontaneous fires burst forth in the town of Moirans-en-Montagne located in the Jura mountains of France. No details were presented although emanations of natural gas were suspected. (Pentecost, Allan; "From the Deep," New Scientist, p. 89, August 26, 2000.) Comments. We classify will-o '- the-wisps along with other nocturnal lights in GLN1 in Lightning, Auroras...., where one can find doubts about the standard explanation of these phenomena that was presented above. The region of Wales that experienced the fiery exhalations in 1693-1694 also saw another "flap" of less-destructive luminous phenomena in 1904-1905. These were the Egryn Lights, which were ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Carolina Beach Booms January 25, 2001. North Carolina coast. About 11 PM, residents of Wilmington, North Carolina, just north of Cape Fear, were startled by deep booms that shook houses. Anxious residents from Wilmington to Bladen County telephoned the National Earthquake Information Center, in Boulder, Colorado, to report the supposed seismic activity. But instruments recorded nothing of the sort in the afflicted area. The booms had a different source. (Anonymous; "Coastal Residents Jolted by Mysterious Booms," Lincoln Times-news, January 29, 2001. Cr. G. Fawcett via. L. Farish.) Comment. Such booms have plagued the North Carolina shore for many years -- perhaps centuries. (SF#73) Rather than earthquakes, the booms are more likely due to the spontaneous detonations of methane "burps" rising from destabilized methane hydrate, which exists in large quantities off the Carolina shores. (SF#100) The Carolina booms probably are, therefore, analogous to the "mistpouffers" heard along European shores and the famous Barisal Guns of India. From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Official foo-fighter records revealed The famous foo fighters of World War II were bright balls of light, about a foot in diameter, of different colors, that appeared mostly over Germany to both German and Allied pilots. Although the foo fighters could maneuver around and through bomber formations with apparent ease, they were nuisances rather than physical threats. Most of the foo-fighter reports made by Americans came from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. Recently a microfilm roll containing the Unit History and War Diary of the 415th was obtained from the U.S . Air Force. We quote below three incidents found on Frames 1613 and 1614. The year is 1944: "December 18. In Rastatt area sighted five or six red and green lights in a 'T ' shape which followed A/C thru turns and closed to 1000 feet. Lights followed for several miles and then went out. Our pilots have named these mysterious phenomena which they encounter over Germany at night 'Foo-Fighters.' "December 23. More Foo-Fighters were in the air last night...In the vicinity of Hagenau saw 2 lights coming toward the A/C from ground. After reaching the altitude of the A/C they leveled off and flew on tail of Beau (Beaufighter -- their aircraft, Ed.) for 2 minutes and then peeled up and turned away. 8th mission -- sighted 2 orange lights. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets The two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are 318 and 95 times more massive than the earth, respectively. Being so weighty they strongly perturb the orbits of comets, deflecting many away from the inner solar system, where we reside. Calculations by G. Wetherill, at the Carnegie Institution, reveal that if Jupiter and Saturn were only 15 times the mass of the earth, the earth would have been devastated every 100,000 years by giant comets, instead of about every 100,000,000 years, as indicated by the geological record. Under such intense bombardment, it would probably have been difficult for advanced life forms to develop. (Croswell, Ken; "Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets," New Scientist, p. 18, October 24, 1992.) Comment. Reasonable as the foregoing assertion sounds, we do not really know what stimulates the development of new life forms. Actually, the fossil record reveals that some biological "radiations" occurred soon after great geological upheavals. That the Jupiter-Saturn "shield" was and is not completely effective is indicated by the heavy debris traffic mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Steens Mountain Conundrum The layered lava flows of Steens Mountain, in southeastern Oregon, have preserved video-like records of the earth's magnetic field as it switched from one polarity to another about 15.5 million years ago. The scientific "instruments" here are the cooling lava flows. As they solidify from the outside in, a process taking about 2 weeks for a 2meter-thick flow, the lava is magnetized in the direction of the field prevailing at the moment of solidification. We would thus have a 2-week continuous record of the behavior of the earth's field. Ordinarily, we would not expect to see very much change in 2 weeks; even a reversing field is thought to take thousands of years to complete its flip-flop. However, at Steens Mountain, when the field reversed 15.5 million years ago, the lava flows suggest that the field's axis was rotating 3-8 per day -- incredibly fast according to current thinking, in fact a thousand times faster than expected. The conundrum (one might call it a scientific impasse) arises because the flowing electrically conducting fluids that supposedly constitute the earth's dynamo would have to flow at speeds of several kilometers/hour. No one has ever contemplated molten rock moving at such speeds in the core! (Appenzeller, Tim; "A Conundrum at Steens Mountain," Science, 255:31 ...

... No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Europe's mystery people The researches of R. Frank, a scholar at the University of Iowa, suggest that the Basques were far-advanced in navigational skills and other aspects of technology long before the rise of the Roman Empire. The Basques, she believes, are the last remnants of the megalith builders, who left behind dolmens, standing stones, and other rock structures all across Europe and perhaps even in eastern North America. Two facts set the Basque peoples apart from the other Europeans who have dominated the continent the past 3,000 years: (1 ) The Basque language is distinctly different; and (2 ) The Basques have the highest recorded level of Rh-negative blood (roughly twice that of most Europeans), as well as substantially lower levels of Type B blood and a higher incidence of Type O blood. Some probable technological feats of the Basques or their ancestors are: Stonehenge and similar megalithic structures oA unique system of measurement based on the number 7 instead of 10, 12, or 60 Regular visits to North America long before Columbus to fish and to trade for beaver skins. Recently unearthed British customs records show large Basque imports of beaver pelts from 1380-1433. The invention of a sophisticated navigational device called an "abacus." (No relation to the common abacus.) (Haddingham, Evan; "Europe's Mystery People," World Monitor , p. 34, September 1992. Cr ...

... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Taos Hum Over the years, we have reported on the British hum (SF#36) and the Sausalito hum (SF#42). The latter has been attributed to mating toadfish in the harbor; the former to an underground network of gas pipelines. We have resisted reporting other hums. However, a recently reported hum possesses some interesting features. It is called the Taos hum, and it has been bothering some sensitive individuals in the U.S . Southwest: "More than a dozen people living in an area from Albuquerque to the Colorado border said in July 1992 interviews with the Albuquerque Journal that they had heard the lowlevel hum. "A Denver audiologist said that she had recorded a steady vibration of 17 cycles per second with a harmonic rising to 70 cycles per second near Taos. The low range of human hearing is 20 to 30 cycles per second." (Anonymous; "Defense Dept. Denies Link to Taos Hum," Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1993. Cr. L. Farish.) Some residents of Taos are plagued by this machine-like sound that grinds away 24 hours a day, with only occasional respites. Some cannot sleep; others complain of headaches. Most people, however, cannot hear the hum at all. Nevertheless, it is there. Instruments pick it up. In fact, they have even recorded a higher-frequency component that pulses between 125 and 300 cycles per second. The cause of the hum is ...

... 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 Meteoric "dust bunnies"All around the world, watching through the long nights, is a band of dedicated meteor observers -- mainly amateur astroomers. Collectively, they record many meteor showers and fireballs; all quite respectable astronomical objects. But sometimes fuzzy, rapidly moving luminosities appear, as in the following paragraph written by J.S . Gallagher: "Diffuse luminous objects moving at angular velocities similar to those of meteors were observed during over 200 hours of meteor watching in 1991. They fell in three broad categories: arcs, patches, and 'meteors' similar in appearance to comet comas. Though I at first dismissed the possibility of their being related to meteors, I reconsidered this relation after eliminating other possible causes such as reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy ...

... 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 Must we die? the medfly's answer In the early 1800s, B. Gompertz, an actuary, crafted an empirical law stating that mortality rates increase exponentially with age. Later analyses of census records indicated that the situation was not quite as bad as Gompertz had supposed. Nevertheless, the death rate does increase with age; but we might be able to do something about it. Immortality might be achievable -- if we take recent medfly studies seriously. "Growing old does not increase your immediate risk of dying -- at least, if you are a fruit fly. The chances of a Mediterranean fruit fly ( Ceratitis capitata ) dying on a particular day reaches a peak and then declines, according to James Carey of the University of California at Davis and James Vaupel of Duke University, North Carolina, and Odense University in Denmark. Their results contradict the notion that the death rate rises with age in all species." The upshot is that there may be no genetic limit to an individual medfly's lifetime. And, if these results can be extended to humans, "then medical advances might eventually allow the elderly to live indefinitely." (Bradley, David; "Who Wants to Live Forever?" New Scientist, p. 16, November 14, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Mysterious Smoke In Sri Lanka "Mysterious smoke exuding from a dry river bed has produced the highest temperature ever recorded in Sri Lanka, and geologists said Friday they are baffled by the phenomenon. "The 300-degree ground temperature has caused plants to wither in the mountainous region of Diyatalawa, a tourist resort in central Sri Lanka, said D.A . Kathriarachchi, the deputy director of the Geological Survey Department. "He said scientists were puzzled because there is no volcanic activity in Sri Lanka, which lies outside any volcanic zone. "The area, about 75 miles southeast of the capital, Columbo, is 9800 feet above sea level. The villagers have been told to report any other signs of smoke in the area, but no one has been evacuated." (Anonymous; "Hot Smoke Baffles Geologists," Panama City News Herald , p. 1B, September 5, 1992. Cr. L.B . Peirce) Comment. Category ESC4, in Anomalies in Geology, describes the "Smoking Hills" of the Canadian Arctic, as well as several other places where the oxidation of iron pyrite and other exothermic chemical reactions create very hot areas in non-volcanic regions. To order this catalog, see: here . From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Voyages Of The Imagination We would be remiss if we did not record here an article by F.J . Frost, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Frost proceeds to shoot down all claims, save one, of Precolumbian contacts with the New World. He accepts only the Viking signs found at L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, dating back to about 1000 AD. Everything else: Roman amphorae in Brazil, Japanese pottery in Ecuador, Egyptian architecture in Mesoamerica, Celtic inscriptions in New England, etc.; is the product of hoaxes, misinterpretations, and sloppy archeology. Frost has no patience with the (mainly) amateur archeologists; he is not impressed by all the mountains of evidence they have collected. (Frost, Frank J.; "Voyages of the Imagination," Archaeology, 46:46, March/April 1993.) Comment. Frost's stonewalling reminds one of other negative pronouncements, such as: "Stones cannot fall from the sky"; and "Continents cannot drift." From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Is caddy a mammal?" Caddy" is short for Cadborosaurus , the speculative sea animal seen rather frequently off the British Columbia coast and as far south as Oregon. Professor P. LeBlond, University of British Columbia, recently presented a paper on Caddy at a joint meeting of the Canadian and American Societies of Zoology. Of all the supposed sea serpents, Caddy seems closest to respectability. Not only are there many sightings on record, but the remains of a 3-meterlong carcass of an apparent juvenile specimen of Caddy was discovered in the stomach of a sperm whale. Adult Caddys are about 7 meters long. "The descriptions [of Caddy] are generally similar. They suggest a long-necked beast with short pointed front flippers, a horse-like head, distinct eyes, a visible mouth and either ears or giraffe-like horns. Often Caddy is described as having hair like a seal, and sometimes a mane along its neck." Most interesting is Caddy's body hair, which implies a mammal rather than a reptile. But if it is a mammal, how does it get air, since it surfaces so rarely? Some have suggested that the giraffe-like horns are snorkels! But E. Bousfield, a colleague of LeBlond, thinks that the tubercules reported along the animal's back might be gill-like tissues that would allow a mammal to extract oxygen from seawater! With so ...

... abundant fossil evidence of so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens in Europe commencing some 500,000 years ago. Did these archaic versions of modern humans evolve into Neandertals before the Cro-Magnons (modern humans) arrived on the scene? Some paleoanthropologists now believe so. Just the other day it was generally thought that Homo erectus rather than "archaic" Homo sapiens gave rise to the Neandertals. (Hublin, Jean-Jacques; "The First Europeans," Archaeology, 49:36, January/ February 1996) Comment. We, too, are confused. Don't take these human evolutionary family trees too seriously. They change with each new "find," and these seem to come several times each year. Reference. Human evolution, as seen in the fossil record, is covered in section BHE in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. Ordering information here . How a Neanderal was pictured in an 1873 issue of Harper's Weekly. No senstive, caring, loquacious man he! From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... edge. Small flatfish, mainly immature brill, could be seen stranded and flapping in the wet sand. About a minute later, the sea started to return and quickly rose up the beach beyond where the boat had originally been launched. An hour later, the oscillation in sea level was still taking place. I determined that the period was just over three minutes and the amplitude just under one metre, the latter measured with reference to a half-submerged rock. At the time of the event, it was just after low water, there were no wind waves or ground swell, and the sea had a glassy appearance." (Kemp, A.K .; "Anglesey Seiche," Marine Observer, 63: 90, 1993.) Short-period oscillations in tidal records at Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines Permanent feature. Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines. The basic phenomenon impinging on this coast was described by F.J . Haight back in the 1920s. Haight plotted the sea oscillation in the accompanying graph. Recent studies of the Puerto Princesa seiches show that the amplitudes of the seiches are greatest every two weeks, indicating they are tied to the astronomical tides. However, they lag the lunar tide by a couple of days. Geophysicists now look to Pearl Bank in the Sulu Sea, some 450 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa, where they believe tidal currents create "internal waves" as they hit the shallow bank. These internal waves travel beneath the surface at speeds of only about 8 kilometers/hour, taking about 2 days to ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Long Before The Vikings And Polynesians Scene: Orogrande Cave, New Mexico. R. MacNeish, a respected archeologist from the Andover Foundation for Archeological Research, has charted a 30,00040,000-year-old paleonotological record of ancient camels, horses, tapirs, and other fauna found while excavating this cave. Intermixed with the animal bones are layers of charcoal (easily carbondated) and hints of human occupation. But don't we all know that humans did not arrive in the New World until 12,000 years ago? Nevertheless, there they are: (1 ) rude human tools; and (2 ) a possible human palm print. Mainstream archeologists are stonewalling again; there must be some mistake! (Appenzeller, Tim; " A High Five from the First New World Settlers?" Science, 255:920, 1992.) Scene: Inside Amerind cells. DNA analyses of the mitochondria present in the cells of North American Indian populations indicate that the Eskimo-Aleut and Nadene populations arrived about 7,500 years ago. The more geographically widespread Amerind population, however, seems to be descended from two separate influxes; the first about 30,000 years ago, the second about 10,000 years ago. D. Wallace, from Emory University, surmises that the sharply defined rise of the Clovis culture, conventionally dated from 12,000 years ago, may have resulted from the second Amerind ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEW QUASAR DISTANCE RECORD: A NEW EMBARRASSMENT A quasar has been detected with a redshift of 4.73. If this redshift is interpreted as a measure of the quasar's distance (Who would risk his reputation by suggesting otherwise?), it is 14 or billion light years away. If the Big Bang is assumed (Who would risk..etc?), this quasar is only about a billion light years from the edge of the universe. Its age, then, is only a billion years. But this stripling of a quasar appears perfectly "normal" with no signs of youth! Its spectrum indicates that even at this young age, the elements were present in the same abundances found in older quasars. And, of course, at this quasar's core there must be a billion-solar-mass black hole (Who would risk..etc.?). Current theory is hardpressed to explain this very rapid evolution of a "normal" quasar with its immense black hole. (Peterson, I.; "Quasar Illuminates the Most Distant Past," Science News, 136: 340, 1989.) Comment. Could it be that our fanatically held ideas about redshifts, black holes, and Big Bangs are wrong? You bet it could! Reference. The redshift controversy the the anomalies that create it are cataloged in: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Ordering information here ...

... 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 Eel Oddities Garter snakes are reknowned for their habit of congregating in large, writhing masses, but we never heard of "eel balls" until A. Gardiner mentioned them in a recent issue of the Fortean Times. "These [eel balls] are recorded in Christopher Moriarty's excellent Eels: a Natural and Unnatural History (David and Charles, 1978). Moriarity cites Pliny as the earliest historical reference. According to him, Eel Balls occur in Lake Garda, Italy, when it has been storm-tossed by the effects of the October 'Autumn star'. Smitt in his Scandanavian Fishes (1895) says that eels knot themselves together in bunches 'up to a fathom in circumference' and are seen rolling along the stream beds, or, strangely, resting in this position. On 17 August 1935, fishery scientist J.C . Medcof observed, in the outflow of Lake Ainslie in Nova Scotia, 'three splendid clumps of Eels, half a metre in diameter, 30 to a clump, knotted tightly and remaining motionless in the rushes.' Medcof mentions that Eel Balls are sometimes free floating on the surface, which suggests formation with an air pocket or some communal control of air bladders. He says that this behavior occurs before eels 'silver' prior to the spawning migration. The record of Eel Balls in Nova Scotia proves that this behaviour is not confined to the European Eel." ( ...

... 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 Earthquake Lights Observed In Canada Numerous earthquake lights (EQLs) were reported between November 1, 1988, and January 2l, 1989, in the Saguenay region of Quebec. These luminosities were associated with 54 seismic shocks recorded in this area. Most were small, but a strong foreshock (magnitude 4.8 ) occurred on November 23; the main quake (magnitude 6.5 ) hit 60 hours later. Through appeals by radio and newspapers, 52 observers of EQLs were located. They reported a wide spectrum of luminosities, some of which were very strange. In the sky, some observed silent sparkings, diffuse glows, and aurora-like stripes. For an account of the more enigmatic EQLs, we quote M. Ouellet: "Fireballs a few metres in diameter often popped out of the ground in a repetitive manner at distances of up to only a few metres away from the observers. Others were seen several hundred metres up in the sky, stationary or moving. Some observers described dripping luminescent droplets, rapidly disappearing a few metres under the stationary fireballs. Only two fire-tongues on the ground were reported, one on snow and the other on a paved parking space without any apparent surface fissure. The colours most often identified were orange, yellow, white and green. Some luminosities lasted up to 12 min." (Ouellet, Marcel; "Earthquake Lights and Seismicity," Nature, 348:492 ...