Saturday, January 2, 2010
Weird But Unverified Tales
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Ufo Sighting In Markovo
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Friday, December 25, 2009
Quirky 1947 Roswell Rhodes Arnold And Solar Flares
Looking for a perturbation in the "force" for 1947, I stumbled upon an internet lie by The Wanderling at the site of Anna Jones that states the Roswell "crash" was caused by solar flares:
Bang Clothed in for that site and "article."
It seems to me that solar flares are as talented of an explanation as any for the 1947 prompt in flying saucer incidents, actual and jagged.
But it is unaided one explanation for the epidemic of flying saucer sightings and hoaxes.
Like I am proposing is that the electrically charged bursts from the Sun caused quite a few relatives to conflate their annotations of usual things in the sky for sensible objects of an complex considerate.
This is what happened to Kenneth Arnold; he saw a flight of pelicans, a flight of classic Services jets, or a figment of the imagination and held it was a pile of "saucer skipping aircraft."
The Maury Isle interval was either a conclusion of a misperception or the launch of addled minds that were afflicted by the 1947 solar rush deviation. I approve the following.
William Rhodes (or Rhoades) either saw and photographed a strange object in the sky over his Phoenix house in 1947 or he contrived a photo so he was completed morally tense by the swarm of electrical impulses caused by the famous solar rush activity of 1947.
Ah, you plague, but at home are two passages on the accomplishment of sun spots and solar flares on the mental knack of humans:
Conglomerate Bulletin of Biometeorology
Mass 43, Build 1, 31-37, DOI: 10.1007/s004840050113
Essential Article
The things of extra-low-frequency atmospheric intimidation oscillations on human mental activity
A. A. Delyukov and L. Didyk
Marginal atmospheric intimidation oscillations (APO) in the extra-low-frequency diversity beneath 0.1 Hz, which mostly permit fluently, can attach human mental activity. This phenomenon has been observed in experiments subsequent to a group of 12 signal volunteers unfasten to experimentally produced APO subsequent to amplitudes 30-50 Pa in the frequency band 0.011-0.17 Hz. Exposure of the subjects to APO for 15-30 min caused honest changes in discord and short-lived take back functions, examination rate, and mental direction compliance. The character of the respond depended on the APO frequency and rationality. Continuing APO promoted stanch mental activity, accompanied by an increase in breath-holding chunk and a slower epitome rate. On the other hand, quasi-chaotic APO, rigorous to the natural perturbations of atmospheric intimidation, disrupted mental activity. These annotations intend that APO might be to a degree loyal for meteorosensitivity in humans.
Feverish solar cycles temper the primacy and plainness of mental complaint
George E Davis Jr.a,,, Walter E Lowellb, 1,
Organization a Augusta Emotional Ability Host, Medical center Toll road, P.O. Box 724, Augusta, ME 04332, USA
b Fluster of Maine, Demarcation of Behavioral and Developmental Navy, Augusta, ME 04332, USA
Standard 18 Splendid 2003; Ensign 10 November 2003. Accessible online 21 January 2004.
Abstract:
This paper hypothesizes that the parallel of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) from the Sun predisposes humans to polygenic mutation agriculture basis mental complaint (MMI) and other disorders of neurodevelopment. In further, the differentiation in the parallel of this radiation acts to stress exempt systems, possibly mediated by cytokines, ensuing in regulating clinical expressions of mental complaint and autoimmune disorders. Organisms can refashion to chronic high-intensity UVR by producing melanin and by retaining more or less pigments. We found that 28% of 11-year solar cycles imitate absolutely firm solar flares fashionable which UVR is 300% supervisor acute and correspondingly supervisor detrimental than normal. Out of a keep pace with of six firm cycles in the previous 250 living, four hold occurred in the previous 55 living, possibly explaining the outward increase in the primacy of MMI in recent decades. UVR is 10 epoch supervisor mutagenic than ionizing radiation to nuclear DNA, and all the more detrimental to mitochondrial DNA. However, regulating light as manifested by seasons stresses resourcefulness to UVR, possibly straight an exempt feature. We show that the neighborhood of the Flatten having the most UVR, appropriate to the most differentiation in that light, is at 54+/-~10^0 (N or S) room. Correspondingly, the most insinuate damage from light occurs in the middle of the Equator and the Poles, not at the Equator itself. The human brain, our most worth mentioning constituent of resourcefulness, hardship be able to come through ecological differentiation, subsequent to proud in agreement to the environment ensuing in law. Useless law to UVR (and possibly other types of radiation) consequences in mutation, which can imitate neuro-chemical abnormalities manifested by MMI. We work out that the cocktail of parallel and differentiation in UVR serves as a global modulator of MMI.
Copyright (c) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All citizenship distant.
Therapeutic Hypotheses
Mass 62, Assignment 2, February 2004, Pages 207-214
As for Roswell, it seems that no matter which happened on the road to that town in 1947, no matter which not other-worldly very usefully, but no matter which sensible - a military idiosyncrasy of quite a few considerate - or a confluence of mental disturbances caused by solar rush activity, mental disturbances that caused quite a few Roswellians to act out and act upon the mental constructs and aberrations that were produced by solar rush activity supported by the fix of an all but neutral idiosyncrasy of quite a few considerate.
That is, quite a few Roswell looker-on, out of all proportion stimulated by solar rush activity, ended up deed things and experiencing things that were not real in any function suspicion. That, sideways subsequent to the addition hysteria or "group hallucinatory" oath, can proceedings for the extrapolation that is now familiar as The Roswell Criticism - a dubious meme based very on criminal mental configurations and disturbances, underscored by a military incident that had whoosh to do subsequent to an extraterrestrial advance or crashed flying turn.
One can instinct the data of solar rush activity for 1947 and other time-frames to see if solar flares or sun-busts influence proceedings for other hallucinated UFO episodes: The Hummock abduction, the Pascagoula merriment, or the Travis Walton kidnapping.
Moreover, intrusions of hoaxed raw materials or confabulated videos, photographs, and stories influence be traced to an swarm of solar rush activity fashionable the time such contrivances are conceived.
Two recommended reports/books on solar flares and two papers on solar flares:
Bang at home for Fashion One - a PDF
Bang at home for Fashion Two - as well a PDF
RR
Ufos Re Malmstrom Afb Missileufo Incident March 1967
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
There May Already Be Aliens On Mars
ALMOST everywhere you go on Earth, you encounter alien species that were introduced - often inadvertently - by humans. Now it seems possible that we have done the same to Mars. Despite stringent rules designed to prevent contamination, Earth microbes may have reached the Red Planet.That might look like a blow for efforts to detect Martian life. But, ironically, it may end up being the opposite. Some planetary scientists argue that if contamination is already likely, we should now throw caution to the wind (see "Overprotection may be hampering hunt for Mars life"). The strict rules actually hamper the search for life by adding unnecessary costs to missions, they say.Is there a case for relaxing the rules? Perhaps. If Mars has its own life, it should be different enough from Earth life for us to recognise it. If it doesn't, any bugs we find will be recognisably terrestrial. In either case, Earth life will struggle to colonise Mars. Recent arrivals are unlikely to thrive in the harsh conditions, and the possibility of them outcompeting any natives is about as likely as parrots colonising Antarctica and ousting the penguins.However, many life-detecting experiments rely on picking up whiffs of gas or traces of chemicals rather than finding life itself. Any relaxation of the laws must rule out the chances of earthly contamination leading to infuriating false positives.There's another factor too. While governments of most spacefaring nations have agreed to abide by the rules, the law is unclear on private companies such as SpaceX and Mars One, who are hoping to beat national agencies to Mars. Mars One has declared that it will play by the rules if it ever succeeds in starting the first human colony on Mars. But others may not follow suit.Elsewhere in the solar system, though, sterilisation rules remain vital - especially for icy moons such as Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Titan, which are the best hopes for finding an independent origin of life.If a spacecraft crashed or melted through Europa's shell into the ocean beneath, it could have fatal consequences for everything living there. The only thing worse than not finding life - if it is there - would be finding it after we've destroyed it.
"This article appeared in print under the headline "Is there Earth life on Mars?"
Sorce
High Level Of Ufo Sightings Over The Uk
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Loch Ness Case Not Closed
Not only is that but the Nessie brand recognised worldwide. I once showed a picture of a brontosaurus to a young Russian and asked them what it was (my aim was to elicit the word `dinosaur`), `Nessie` came the confident reply. The mystery is now an Octogenarian and its anniversary was recently celebrated in Drumnadrochit on the shores of the Loch. Most of those present were firm disbelievers, however.
Click here to enlarge top photo.
LOCH NESS REVISITED.
I grew up in the Nineteen Seventies. This was a time when there was an explosion of paperbacks on all sorts of paranormal questions: I was immersed in that trend. It was also the Golden Age of Loch Ness research and both Tim Dinsdale and Nicholas Witchell had books out about it. For me however, they took third place to UFOs and Ancient Astronauts and I never succumbed to `Nessiephilia`.
Several years ago, maybe just out of nostalgia, I felt some pangs of regret at this gap in my knowledge. After all, here was a world mystery on my very doorstep. So it was that I began to read up on the claims surrounding the Loch Ness story. I did so with the zeal of a Sixth Form schoolboy doing last minute swatting for the exams. I took on all comers: sceptic and believer alike. Then I visited loch Ness itself. I drew some of my own conclusions, which I will divulge later.
Ever one to buck the trend, my interest coincided with the phenomenon reaching a new low ebb. Reported sightings of the creature diminished to single figures per year. There were headlines announcing the death of the monster. Few books were published about it. There was a rearguard attempt to found a Loch Ness Fan Club, but that sank almost as soon as it emerged. It seemed that the issue had gone the way of the `Bermuda triangle`, consigned, even by paranormal enthusiasts, to having been a passing craze that could not withstand contemporary scrutiny.
DAMP SQUIB.
If you look at it squarely the loch Ness tale can indeed be seen to be -as we say in England- a whole lot of `Scotch mist`. From the get go the whole matter has been tainted by hoax after hoax after hoax. This is, in itself, is nothing new to those in paranormal investigation. However, here it is all the most spectacular evidence which has been shown to be the handiwork of tricksters. Take the most iconic picture of the Monster, the so-called `Surgeon's photo` from 1934. This is the image which has determined what we imagine the monster to look like, but has been all but proven to have been a trick since 1992. (Not that this stops the picture from being endlessly recycled!) The most recent `good photo`, taken in November of 2011 by the skipper George Edwards, has likewise been discredited. Fellow monster hunters, no less, recognised it as being a fibre glass model used in a TV documentary.
Following eight decades of research then, all we are left with is a handful of photos, the least dubious of which are inconclusive (such as the one shown above, which nobody has troubled themselves to debunk). There are many sightings, of course, but most of these revolve around nothing more than a quick glimpse of a hump in the water, or agitation on the Loch's surface. No physical evidence has been recovered, still less anything like a carcass.
It would be all too easy to conclude, then, that the whole of the phenomenon is but a bit of local folklore blown out of proportion by the press and television. It has been kept afloat by wishful thinking, and, of course, by the glee of the local tourist industry.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER.
Yet Loch Ness does not stand alone as far as rumours of aquatic monsters go. Get a marker pen and draw a band across the Northern Hemisphere stretching from Canada, through Scandinavia and then onto the Russian Federation: this is all Lake monster territory. Nor are these Nessie copy-cats, as many of them predate the fame of the Loch Ness Monster by many years. Lake Champlain, on the border of America and Canada boasts `Champ`. Lake Okanagan has `Ogopogo` which was first mentioned by the Native Americans. The Russian Federation has a monster in Lake Khaiyir in Siberia, to name but one.
Loch Ness, a gash through the Highlands twenty seven miles long and 800 feet deep, is a small lake on a global scale. The fame of Nessie must surely rest on the fact that (apart from Britain being an English speaking country) Loch Ness has a special ambience and comes complete with a Gothic-style ruined castle.
Either all of the lake monster claims worldwide equally lack substance and are the product of some kind of collective Jungian mythology, or there is a colony of undiscovered creatures in many of the fresh water lakes of the Northern climes.
What shines through, when reading Loch Ness literature, is the sensible and non-sensationalized nature of most of the eye-witness stories. I will not insult the reader by trotting out the old clich'e about how they come from `all walks of life` and how some of them are policemen, etc. This is true, but it is the consistency of the descriptions which is notable.
What colour is the Loch Ness Monster? Ask a child to draw a picture of Nessie and they will reach for the green crayon. After all, the postcard pictures of Nessie are green, as are the fluffy toys. This is probably because many people imagine the monster to be reptilian, and reptiles are green. That is not what people report though. What people report is something which is black or gun metal grey. They are not just rehashing what has been drawn from popular culture then.
Even the fact that the reported accounts of seeing the monster have gone down could be taken to indicate that the public were always reporting something they actually saw. If now they are seeing it less it might be because the phenomena itself appears less.
Many of the photos of the monster may have been debunked, but there is one piece of evidence which has not been for sure: Tim Dinsdale's minute long cine film, taken on 23rd April 1960,. This shows something crossing the water. Nobody has yet cried `hoax`, although some say it was just a motor-boat.
THE PLESIOSAUR DEAD-END.
If there is anything that has done harm to the credibility of the loch Ness monster it is the idea that it might be a relict plesiosaur. It was this paradigm which captured people's imaginations, much in the same way that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis for UFOs has. However it is a hypothesis that has not been the front runner for some time. For one thing if Nessie were such a dinosaur it would be seen many more times than it is, as it would be having to come up for air again and again.
There have always been other contenders as to what Nessie might be. These include a long necked seal, a giant otter, a mutant fish, a brachiopod, and a species of giant salamander. As much as mainstream naturalists are loath to be seen to give any quarter to Nessie, the discovery of any of these animals would hardly shake science to its foundations. Of course, others claim Nessie is a ghost or a time traveller....
FIVE OLD CHESTNUTS (ROASTED).
In the absence of organisations like the defunct Loch Ness Investigations Bureau, and their corresponding figureheads such as Tim Dinsdale, discussion of the subject has decamped onto the internet. This does offer some advantages. It also means, however, that a lot of half-truths often get repeated. This owes to the fact that people are less liable to refer back to hard copy publications in this area and so shibboleths grow up. Here are five of such half-truths:
(i) "No-one believes in the Loch Ness monster anymore"
The grain of truth behind this is that the previous generation of Nessie hunters have died, moved on or retired. Tim Dinsdale and Sir Peter Scott are both no longer with us. Nicholas Witchell, as `Royal-Correspondent-for-the-BBC`, is something of an establishment figure, and is rather tight-lipped about Loch Ness nowadays. Adrian Shine now makes a living through being a sort of resident rent-a-quote sceptic. Rupert Rhines has announced his retirement from the field of active duty - an act which coincided with his claim that Nessie had become extinct.
There is, however a new generation of Nessie believers. Roland Watson has a brilliant website devoted to Nessie and has written on water horse myths in Scottish Lochs. Paul Harrison wrote an encyclopaedia on Nessie and is still out there. Meanwhile, Steve Plambeck proselytizes on behalf of the Monster as a Giant Salamander.
(ii) "Countless searches for the Monster have found nothing."
If you watch a few television documentaries about the search for Nessie it would be easy to gather the impression that the length and breadth of the Loch is being regularly swept using all means possible. On the other hand, if you really pay attention you will notice that it is the same initiatives that get name checked time and again. I believe that you could count the number of serious searches of the Loch on the fingers of one hand. These, too, have been lightly staffed and minimally funded. The two biggest searches have probably been operation Deepscan in 1987 where a flotilla of small boats trailed sonar equipment up and down the Loch, and Project Urquhart in 1992 where a scientific vessel was used. Both of these, incidentally, did track unknown objects in the Loch.
(iii) "The phenomenon is a creation of the Nineteen Thirties."
Yes. The term Loch Ness monster was coined in the Nineteen Thirties. The publicity machine which surrounds the issue got into gear then. The first recorded modern sightings happened in the Thirties. This may owe to the fact that a new road had been built around the loch in that decade offering new access to the area.
That said if you read and dig a little you will come across mentions of something ado in the loch prior to that period. Some of these are retrospective but some not. There had been talk of a `beast` and ` large fish` in the loch for some time and the earliest Thirties sightings were framed in this context. Also, as the writer Roland Watson has pointed out, there was a folklore tradition of Water Kelpies -horse-headed creatures -being associated with many Lochs of Scotland a long time before the Thirties.
(iv) "The whole thing is just a tourist con."
To answer this I can only refer you to my own visit to the loch in 2006, (in the winter I should admit.) I stayed in a hostel in Inverness, the nearest town to the Loch. During my time there I did not meet a single other person who had any interest in the mystery associated with the region. In fact most people I met were young Australians and Kiwis exploring the Highlands in order to get in touch with their imagined roots. A tour bus that I took around the Loch, which advertised itself as telling us the truth about the monster confined itself, for the most part, to lectures on local Scottish history. In the Inverness tourist Office I could only find one small pamphlet on the Loch Ness Monster. As for doing some monster hunting, apart from Dores and Urquhart Castle which are built up areas, I found it very difficult to gain access to the Loch at all. To do so I had to climb over barriers scramble through undergrowth like a trespasser, which I may well have been. All in all I had the impression that the Scottish tourist board is playing down the monster aspect of things in favour of it being a good area to fish, and its colourful history.
In 2004 there was jovial talk of an English rival to the Scottish monster. In Lake Windermere in the Lake District in England there were a few alleged sightings between 2004 and 2006. A questionable photograph was duly produced which looked like a caricature of early Nessie photos. The creature was even dubbed Bownessie after a region in the area. To the best of my knowledge there have been no more reported sightings since 2006. If this was an attempt to drum up tourist interest in Lake Windermere by manufacturing a monster legend, as I suspect it was, then it failed. The lesson? You cannot pull a monster out of a hat, unless there is already a core phenomenon there.
(v) "The BBC has disproved the existence of the Loch Ness monster."
This one is faintly surreal. I have heard of `trial b y television`, but the British Broadcasting Corporation is not there to hold court on the existence of unknown animals! The facts are that in 2003 they aired a programme on the Loch Ness question. Most of this was given over to disproving the notion that a plesiosaur could thrive in the Loch. As we have seen, they would not get much argument on that from many contemporary believers. They also conducted another sonar search of the Loch which was done in stages rather than in one sweep. They declared, with some triumph, that no dinosaur had been found down there.
Is sonar the magic mirror that some imagine it to be? Subsequent to that event a cruise skipper called Marcus Atkinson, in September 2011, reported a sonar reading of something large and unidentified in the Loch. If we are to take the BBC's findings seriously then surely we must take this on board too, as well as the positive results from Operation Deepscan from 1987.
A PERSONAL VIEW.
Life tells us not to swallow too much Received Wisdom. I was told at school that the giant squid was most likely just a denizen of Jules Verne's fantasy. Of late, however, the same giant squid has been feted by the marine biological establishment - photographed, interviewed and invited to staff parties.
Considering loch Ness as but a component of Lake Monster mysteries in general, I find it easy to conceive that there could be some fire behind all the smoke. First of all, nothing I have read leads me to believe that there is any psychic aspect to this affair: I think we are looking at a corporeal flesh-and-blood animal. Secondly, I would place my bet on it being either a very large eel or giant salamander: that is, not as exotic as we might want, but exotic enough. Thirdly, I think we should consider anew the possibility that it might be a solitary being that gets into the Loch from the outside.
In general I can only concur with Arthur C. Clarke: `On Tuesdays and Thursdays I believe in the Loch Ness Monster`*.
NOW OVER TO YOU.
By all means be a sceptic: but do check out the following signposts to belief first:
There are two books, written by scientists which I can, without hesitation describe as works of science too. The first by Roy P. Mackal is widely seen by believers as the best book written on the Loch Ness Monster: The Monsters of Loch Ness ( Chicago: The Swallow Press, 1976). The second by Henry Bauer, an Austrian chemist, is called The Enigma of Loch Ness (University of Illinois Press, 1986). These points out the difficulties one encounters in honestly investigating the question.
Steve Plambeck has a blog in which he examines the idea that Nessie might be a species of giant salamander. This can be found at THELOCHNESSGIANTSLALMANDER.BLOGSPOT.COM. This does show that some original thinking is still being directed at the question.
Last, but by no means least there is a must-see site by the redoubtable Glasgowboy (AKA Kevin Rowland, I believe) which sets itself out to debunk the blander Nessie debunkers and does so with genial intelligence, even if some of the arguments are a little laboured at times. This can be found at LOCHNESSMYSTERY.BLOGSPOT.COM.
[* Quoted from memory. The remark appears in his TV-tie in book Arthur C. Clarkes Mysterious World, circa 1981]
Other references.
Randles, Jenny Truly weird: Real-Life Cases of the Paranormal (London: Collins & Brown Ltd, 1998)
EDWARD CRABTREE
April 2013
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