Tag: Non-fiction

Squatchy Encounters July 10, 2016October 3, 2017

The Bigfoot Hunter

Okay, I’m serious about Bigfoot. It may not make some people happy that I’m mixing the classical physics of Electric Universe with a crypto-legend like the hairy-man, but from my perspective, I’ll be seen as crazy by fewer people for believing in Bigfoot than in a Grand Unified Electrical Theory. Nobody understands magnetism, not even physicists, but everyone gets the boogey-man. My approach is to go for the truth and damn the torpedoes.

Besides, I saw one…it’s leg anyway. It screamed like a banshee and scared the shit out of me. So, how can I undo that. Enjoy the story.

The Bigfoot Hunter

What? You thought it was me? Not on your life. There isn’t a gun big enough to make me feel safe. I send Ginger out. She’s fearless – just look at that face. Here she is in her element:

DSCI0135 — Ginger on the trail of Bigfoot

You can see the determination. See the furrow in her brow… look out, Bigfoot! I have a theory they avoid people like the plague because we keep dogs. The hairy-men hate dogs.

The Hunt

Ginger and I traveled to a little known place in Arizona where the creatures are known to make an appearance now and then. I’m not saying where it is, but it’s a large mountain that looks like this one. We arrived and found a beautiful camp by the lake.

Now I need to give a little back-story as to why we came to this particular place. That is, besides the many reported sightings, encounters, local legends and Apache lore that attest to its presence.

I camped at this lake a few weeks ago with my friends, Bean and Bobblehead. During the night, around two or three AM, a pick-up truck left a campsite across the lake from us and roared past in a hurry. This woke me up.

A few minutes later I heard loud banging across the lake from the direction the truck came from. Each campsite is equipped with a steel bear-proof food storage container – you can see it in the picture of the campsite. The banging sounded like someone was taking a baseball bat to one of these steel boxes. There were three, or four loud bangs, a pause, more bangs, another pause and more bangs. Then a high pitched, “hoo, hoo” like a chimpanzee shout.

Soon after, Ginger crawled out of the sleeping bag and looked at the tent door. I thought she needed to potty, or get water, so I unzipped the tent. She immediately crouched low, dropped her ears and tail, and growled with deep, serious intent out the opening. She almost never growls and I’ve only heard her do that when fending off a mean dog, or one of the meth addicts in our neighborhood. I don’t know how she can tell a meth addict from anyone else. Same way we do, I guess, because they’re scary.

Anyway, she then turned around and slunk into the bottom of the sleeping bag. I didn’t hear anything, but I shut the tent real quick.

Now, I know this could have been some inconsiderate campers. Nevertheless, on the drive down the mountain I kept my eyes out for any strangeness. Deep, dark, old growth forests have plenty of weird things going on. Humans don’t generally notice because we are as incompetent in the woods as some presidential candidates are with State secrets. But there is strange and there is high strangeness. I saw high strangeness.

So did Ginger. She was the one who had to go back and see more. See, she’s been watching Bigfoot YouTube videos with me for years now. She fashions herself a canine BoBo.

It all started after my own encounter in California (read the “Encounter” if you want that story). When I began to research Bigfoot, Ginger was in my lap, soaking-up all the same information. It’s really quite astounding if you take the time with an honest, open mind to look into it. I know that is almost impossible to do – have an open mind that is – because most people don’t look into anything. They are told everything.

What everyone is told is that the “credible people” who say they’ve seen a Bigfoot are simply mistaken. They likely saw a bear and the “other people” are just nuts. Well there are those, no doubt. But what they don’t say is the improbability of so many hunters, hikers, sheriffs, forest rangers; people educated both in the woods and in schools, who swear they have seen one, or experienced some encounter that isn’t otherwise explicable.

Plus the fact there is absolutely no ecological, or biological reason they can’t exist. After all, we have fossils of large bipedal hominids and apes, we carry Neanderthal and Denovisan DNA in our genes, we have living gorillas, orangutans, chimps, several other apes, and more still being found as recently as the last couple decades, so it isn’t even improbable.

The other thing that pisses me off to no end is every time someone does a documentary on Bigfoot, they bring out some Biology professor in a bow-tie to tell us all how wrong we are to think there is an undocumented ape in the woods. I’ve never seen one of these professors who looked like they could keep a campfire lit, let alone find their way back from the privy without a GPS. We have millions of undocumented people in this country. Who’s to say there aren’t a few thousand hairy ones living where few people dare to go.

Well, Ginger knows all this. That is why she insisted we go camping at that lake again. We couldn’t take Bean, or Bobblehead and their dogs, because they just drink beer and this was to be all business as far as Ginger was concerned. I agreed, because I knew I could take some great photos of the Arc Blast features on the mountain. Besides, there is no saying “no” to Ginger.

We chose this particular campsite because it was the location we heard the banging. It was the farthest down the road, next to the dam and at least a hundred yards from the next campers.

We left on the fourth of July. This was strategic on two counts. First, all the holiday campers would be leaving that day and we like our solitude. Second, all the Bigfoot should be ready to raise hell now that the firework wielding, beer soaked campers were gone. We thought the Skeezamen ( a local name) might even venture to the lake now that it was quite after the long weekend. I can’t help but think that crawdads would be one of their favorite snacks – its one of mine.

The camp-site was outstanding, the closest to the lake, with a view and even a little landing next to the dam. Behind us the hill climbed to a peak forested with big Ponderosa and lots of fallen wood for the fire.

Our calculations were excellent as far as timing. We passed dozens of trucks going down the mountain. When we arrived at the lake there were only four other campers in the entire campground. We met our closest neighbors, who were staying over from the previous day. They kind of looked happy to see someone else in the campground.

After the usual chores of setting up camp, collecting wood and starting a fire, Ginger sniffed flowers while I relaxed with a cold refreshment and watched the setting sun turn the ripples on the lake monochrome. The evening was cooling, but I was still okay in a tee-shirt.

Two people were fishing the opposite shore in a canoe as I walked down to the landing to enjoy the breeze in the fading light. It was then I heard the chimps again. That’s when I took this picture with the camera pointing in the direction the screams were coming from. I tried to record the sounds, but all I captured was my own breathing.

The time before, what I heard was a “hoo, hoo” yell, like a playful chimp might make. This wasn’t playful. It was screaming, hoots and occasional low grunts that went on for about twenty minutes.

As I listened, Ginger sniffed flowers until I said, “Do you hear that?” She finally perked up and listened. Across the lake, the people in the boat were jostling about, trying to row back to the boat landing. I can’t say whether it was because of the screams, or because it was getting dark, but they seemed to be trying to hurry away from the other shore.

I heard other campers from that direction blowing air horns, as if to chase off a bear. The air horns were no louder than the screaming.

The noise ended. It was not coyotes. I cannot believe it was humans. It was way too loud and continuous. Who screams and hoots and growls for twenty minutes. I don’t think a human can even make some of the sounds we heard.

I built-up the fire and began fixing dinner. We didn’t hear anything else that night, except a skunk that invaded the camp and made a stink.

In the morning, I fired up a big coffee and loaded Ginger in the StRange Rover. It was time to go searching. As we drove out of the campgrounds, we passed by the creek that fed the lake. That was where the screams came from. It was dense forested wetlands that an army could hide in.

We drove about five miles to the end of the road and then followed a four wheel drive trail to some undeveloped campsites. This was a pretty wild area, but I didn’t see anything out of ordinary. We drove back another ten miles the other way. Here is where I saw the strangeness before. For about a five mile stretch near the lake, there were unusual tree breaks and tree structures I noticed the previous trip.

Strangeness

Trees fall over. Trees break; blown by winds, hit by lightning, wounded by fire. There are many ways a tree can fall and be left leaning against another, especially in an ungroomed, old growth area like this one. But there seemed to be a pattern.

Ginger and I scouted several areas where the trees seemed arranged non-randomly. There were several areas where there were these crosses formed from broken tree trunks. They faced the road squarely with lots of other disturbance around them; a profusion of broken limbs, stumps and trunks leaning against other trees.

Often, the trees were wedged between other trees.

So, yes..that can happen naturally, but what about this?

This one is wedged and bent sideways between trees. Here are more views of the same tree. It did not fall this way without help.

The top left picture shows the base of the tree stuck in the ground. The bottom left shows the broken tip wedged between the bigger trees. The big picture show how it crosses like a barrier next to the road.

There were more elaborate structures, too. These trees are bent to the ground and held down by logs.

There are two trees still rooted and bent over in arches, another laid over in the same direction and one pressed against the trunk of the center tree like a spring. Two logs are laid over all four to hold them down. Well, it seems odd to me. Ginger wouldn’t get out of the car. She was bored with tree structures.

I was fascinated though. My engineer mind tried to decode a plausible natural cause. It couldn’t. Here is another that defies logic.I suppose this could have fallen in a wind this way. If it was the only one like it I would even assume so, but there are several broken, bent or wedged in improbable positions like this in clusters. Note all the other leaning trees nearby. Here are more views of the same trees.Ginger was getting annoyed I was looking at trees. She wanted to look for Bigfoot. She doesn’t make the connection with trees because she’s a dog. Dogs don’t look up. If it had been a turd on the ground, or something fun to pee on, she’d have been more interested.

Here is another.Notice how the leaning trees are held down by the broken tree? They should not have been in the line of fall if this had been wind or snow. That’s how they always seem to fall in this particular area though.

Of course I didn’t get a picture of the best one I found. It was a large trunk of a tree wedged into a standing trio of live trees, but it had branches that wrapped both direction behind the other trees. In other words, it could not have fallen there without snapping those big branches. It looked like it was shoved between the trees, bottom first.

As I examined it, looking for the right camera angle, rock clacking began in the woods not far away. I left without a picture.

So all of this was pretty interesting to me, but Ginger wasn’t impressed. She wanted something to growl at. After an exhausting day searching the forest, we returned to camp and settled down for the evening. At least I did. Ginger wandered off on her own.

Bad Daddy

After all that time I walked in the forest, she sat in the StRange Rover and slept. Now she wanted to go hunting for the Skeezamen. What the hell, I thought. I’m pooped. I wasn’t too nice about corralling her back to the campsite. I even spanked her and it made her mad. So she trotted up the hill and disappeared.

It was dusk, so this action worried me. I climbed the hill after her, all the way to the top. The reverse side of the hill was a cliff. It dropped all the way to the valley floor. I’m talking a drop of about five thousand feet, nearly vertical. It was like looking into the Grand Canyon. If she went down that slope, I knew she wasn’t coming back up.

Not only are these woods legendary for the Skeezamen, but it has the largest bear concentration in the State, not to mention cougars, bobcats and venomous things of all types. I was worried.

Twice more I combed the mountain in the dark with a flashlight. I really didn’t care about any chimp noises at this point. I didn’t hear anything anyway. I even turned the light out to listen – for some reason I seem to hear better that way. Nothing.

I crawled into the tent and left the flap open and the fire burning so she could find her way back. I woke at first light to the sound of a crow. Crows are ubiquitous in these mountain. They caw all the time, part of the forest background noise. This crow was being answered by another. Every time it cawed, another answered. Only the answer was more of a cow than a caw.

It is said that Bigfoot like to mimic animal calls and even people talking, only they aren’t very good at it. They make the right tones, but can’t get the inflections right. I have wondered if this is true, or just an excuse made by TV Bigfoot hunters who don’t have any other “evidence” to point to – you gotta make a show.

This crow made me think twice about that. But I was in no mood to ponder. Ginger had not returned. I climbed the mountain three more times, crossed the dam and followed the stream as far as I could. No sign of her.

By eight AM, other campers were up cooking breakfast. I hoped she’d found shelter with one of them and was at their camp waiting for bacon. For a little dog, she can eat lot of bacon. I packed my kit and drove to each one. No one had seen her.

Brave Ginger

Ginger and I are very attached. She’s a weird dog, but also the smartest, warmest dog I’ve ever known. By warm, I mean warm. Mexican aristocrats bred Chihuahuas to sleep with because they were better than hot water bottles. This is how we sleep, with her curled against my back to keep us warm.

I returned to the empty camp despondent. I feared at this point she must be dead. There were too many wild and hungry things out there a city dog had no notion of. She’s never slept a single night outside of a bed.

I could not bear the thought of her lost on that vast mountain, alone, defenseless and scared. I could not bear the thought of leaving and never knowing. I realized, I would need to notify the Forest Service, the Humane Society and post flyers around the campground – all in futility. I decided I would wait until noon before leaving for the nearest town.

And then a miracle happened. She slunk out of the tall grass a few feet from me, head down, a bit torn-up and bloody and terribly frightened. I wiped my tears as she came to me. I thought she was afraid I would be mad. I wasn’t of course and promised her I’d never spank her – or any dog – again.

I don’t think that is what made her scared. After driving home with her in my lap, she was still subdued for days. She wouldn’t leave my side. I think she was traumatized being lost in the woods.

I don’t know where she slept that night. One camper who I’d talked to flagged me down as I left the campground and asked if I’d found her. He said she had approached his camp just after I’d been by earlier and he was looking to tell me. I said, thanks she was with me now and wondered from which direction she’d come. He pointed to the opposite side of the lake from the campground.

Apparently, she’d been lost in the ravine below the dam and came up on the wrong side, then circled the lake to get back. It was a close thing. She was really lost and likely only found her way back by the sounds and smells of the campground that morning. Really a miracle considering all the creatures out hunting food like her at night.

More Bigfoot hunting will have to wait for the fall. I don’t think I’ll take her next time. I’m investing in a .44 magnum and a hot water bottle instead. She wasn’t much good at finding the wild Skeezamen anyway. Or was she?

A.D.Hall 7.9.16

Electric Earth July 3, 2016October 3, 2017

After Dark at EU2016

This was to be my first EU conference. As I left Tucson on I-10, the temperature was hot. Arizona in June is like Venus. Temperatures always hover above 100ºF, but when it exceeds 110ºF, it’s life threatening.

First, you seem to stop sweating. You still release sweat, but it evaporates immediately and you remain dry as a bone. There is no moisture in the air. No matter how much water is consumed, lips chap, pee turns orange and scratchy salt crusts form in armpits.

It got hotter and dustier as I traveled north into the Phoenix basin. When I arrived in Mesa at noon, it was 120ºF in the shade.

Since I was a speaker and a last minute addition to the roster, I went straight to the auditorium to get checked out on the A/V system. I needed to know how it worked right away, because I didn’t have my presentation committed to memory. I needed to know if I could read my notes on the screen at the podium, or if I’d need to carry a sheaf of papers, or simply stand up there and look foolish. The last time I gave a presentation, flip charts were the state of the art.

Before I could do that, I found Susan Schirott. She took me under wing, stray cat that I was, and gave me the low-down on the conference.

Susan introduced me to the EU. I found Thunderbolts while surfing the web, became convinced for reasons too numerous to get into now and contacted Susan to pitch a guest blog. Susan gave me that opportunity and made everything else happen. I simply had to write what I learned and she handled the rest. Susan is the engine of Thunderbolts, but made time to make sure I was taken care of.

We’d had a bit of drama over adding my presentation at the last minute, including my own moments of high anxiety. Susan let me know the current status and that things were okay. She got me settled in and at ease.

The A/V system turned out to be a piece of cake and gave me all the capability to present that I could hope for, if I could just remember which buttons to push. So, unable to stand there forever pushing buttons to get used to the mechanism, I retired to the bar to relax and trust to fate.

Conference bars are where the action is, in my humble opinion. You have to see the presentations, of course. At least most of them. And you have to socialize in the halls and workshops, but the bar is where people let down their shields. I was to be here for three days, followed by the geology tour for another two days. I hardly knew anyone in the EU community. This seemed the best place to be.

My first encounter was with a young couple from the Phoenix area. Since I wore a speaker ribbon on my name tag, but few people had heard of me, I had a brief advantage. It rose people’s interest, which I need since I’m an introvert. But they didn’t know what to ask since they didn’t know what I was there to talk about. It allowed me attention and still a comfortable anonymity.

I was vague about my presentation, simply saying it had to do with geology and some electrical features. This raised the mystery. They assured me they would watch me speak. So far things were working well – two attentive listeners would be at my talk and I hardly had to do anything. They even bought my beer.

Then a bloke bounded up to our table and began hugging everyone around. I’ll call him Leo. In fact, I’m going to call everyone in this story Leo. I have to protect the innocent. More importantly, I have to protect myself.

Every Leo was different. Every Leo was interesting. Every Leo is my brother and sister, now, but that is getting ahead of the story. Leo came from British Columbia, Montreal, New Brunswick, Colorado, California, UK, Australia, Belarus, Germany, Tibet and at least one from another planet. Leo wore tattoos and buzz cuts; tie-dyeds and chinos; safari hats and bandanas; piercings and goatees; or in one case, a beaded, braided fu-manchu. All points on the globe, all types of people, representing a common interest in our Electric Universe.

This Leo was from the UK. UK Leo sat down and immediately ordered a beer, and I ordered a second. Little did I know at the time, UK Leo would be at the bar every time I went there. UK Leo, I recognized eventually, was a professional beer drinker.

As we got acquainted, a certain cadence set into our discussion. His thick accent was impossible to understand. So I would say, “uh huh”, when I thought he’d made a point. He would reply, “eehah, mate?” because he couldn’t understand me either. In other words, we were perfect drinking partners – the burden of making sense wasn’t on us.

The young couple left. I don’t think they understood UK Leo either. He and I talked nonsense through our beers and then I left to circulate. At the bar I spotted Southern Comfort Leo. Southern Comfort Leo was someone I wanted to get to know, because I’d seen him present in a video of the previous year’s EU conference. His topic had direct bearing on mine. He held court at the corner of the bar, a place only a talkative person would take.

I sidled up beside him to see if I could start a conversation (it’s not something I’m very good at). I call him Southern Comfort Leo, because when I asked where he was from, he listed every southern State he’d ever lived – which was all of them. He said he’d “been around.” Much to my surprise, starting this conversation was easy, and he bought my beer.

I still had the advantage of anonymity, so the talk centered around him and his work. I simply listened to the fascinating work he did and the kind of information he got from it. Others joined us. We held court like Norm Petersen and Cliff Claven at the corner of the bar. But as the evening wore on, the crowd dwindled until there were just four of us left. Room Mate Leo, Boorish Leo, Southern Comfort Leo and me.

As I found with all EU conference participants, they are fiercely independent thinkers who fear no topic. In this case, our conversation turned to God and the relative merits of belief in HIS existence. Dangerous ground for a late night at the bar.

Leo held a belief in God’s existence, while the other Leo disagreed. As it became heated, Southern Comfort Leo wisely took his leave, begging the need to rest for his morning presentation. I was to speak in the afternoon, so I stayed.

Having been raised by a devout Christian mother, I have a respect for most beliefs provided it doesn’t involve hacking heads off. So I attempted to mediate the rougher edges in the conversation, but to no avail. Boorish Leo launched into a devastating destruction of Room Mate Leo’s character flaws, which the younger Leo had guilelessly laid bare for our examination.

We finally agreed to disagree around four AM. Leo and I, being room mates dragged ourselves, shirttails hanging, to the room. The emotions scraped bare at the bar were still bleeding however. Leo and I continued to talk in the room, he giving me intimate glimpses into his troubled yet valuable life. Valuable because he’s brilliant, curious and courageous – the earmarks of an EU scholar. Troubled because he carries baggage – we all do.

I noticed the sun was shining through a gap in the curtain. I sealed the gap before we finally gave up talking and went to sleep. I woke in time to catch Southern Leo’s talk mid-morning.

The conference room was a comfortable place. Dark, with a casual and attentive audience and the most interesting subjects to hear about, delivered by some of the most knowledgeable people in the world. What could be better. I lost myself in the ambience, surprisingly relaxed, without any building apprehension for my own talk that afternoon.

In fact, my talk went well. I think. Except the lights were blinding my sensitive eyes, which were only closed for an hour and a half that morning. Remember that when you watch the replays on Thunderbolts.

I did almost electrocute myself trying to drink some water with the microphone at my lips. It could have been a great display of Arc Blast – the subject of my talk, had I thought of it. I didn’t trip at the podium, or say anything stupid as far as I can remember.

Following the talks, I and my brother Richard, who was attending the conference to graciously provide moral support, and even more gratifying to me – learn more about our Electric Universe, met-up with Susan. Our timing was perfect, because she and David were heading to dinner with another speaker and an attendee who seemed to have a long association with the EU.

It was a delightful dinner. My brother, a former PR and public affairs professional, enjoyed trading anecdotes about conference organization with Dave and Susan while I stuffed my face with baked grouper. Dave Talbott is a sincere and gentle-hearted man who kept the conversation light and engaging. He suffered a dozen questions about Velikovsky and EU that he must have answered a zillion times before, but he spoke with absolute enthusiasm about the things he champions.

After dinner, of course, Rich and I retired to the bar, while the sensible people went about other business, like sleep. After one drink, my brother left to meet his son in Scottsdale, leaving me with the Leo’s again. It was pretty much the same crew, UK Leo, Southern Comfort Leo, Roommate Leo and me. Many other Leos were there, too.

This night was less talk and more drinking. Those of us who were speakers had finished our talks and were ready to unwind. Everyone else was just ready. Michael Claridge-Leo strode in with an electric bicycle to show off. The evening was a hoot, everyone in cheery little clusters around the bar and outside at the pool..

The day had been hot and it began to take its toll. People drifted away to bed, leaving only dead-enders. You know us by now. Leo and I had both shifted from beer to vodka at this point, so my recollection may be out of sequence. What I recall is that Leo began speaking gibberish.

We were having a perfectly rational conversation when he suddenly became agitated, and in perfectly articulated English said something that made absolutely no sense. It was as if Neil DeGrasse Tyson had entered his body. I hadn’t the foggiest notion what he was talking about, but it seemed urgent. Then he simply walked away.

The remainder of us carried the night to a quiet conclusion after the waiters stacking chairs refused us any more post closing drinks. We retired to our rooms, confident that, except for the hotel staff, we were the last people standing and our duty had been satisfied – to be the last people standing – somewhat stooped, but standing.

When I arrived in the room, I found Leo. Leo was passed out in the bathroom, undressed, pants around his ankles. This was not the behavior I expected from Leo. I immediately became suspicious. There was a pool of fluid on the floor. I shook him by the shoulder and called his name. He slid to the floor like a greasy snake, taking the toilet seat with him.

I won’t go into any more detail. It took a good two hours to get him to bed. There was a period of time he simply stood, incapable of moving. Dehydration, heat stroke and vodka don’t mix. I gave him water.

Leo was only the first of the heat casualties. The sun was peaking through the blinds again when I finally laid down. The damn thing wouldn’t stay down. It was already up and blazing people into an ultraviolet-brain cooked stupor and I hadn’t had a wink of sleep yet.

Eight AM came , literally, in the blink of an eye. I met my brother and we enjoyed the talks, seeing almost every one. Incredibly, I never felt tired even though that auditorium could lure a meth addict to sleep. All of the talks were good.

After the banquet there was a gathering at the bar. I happened to join in. Imagine that… Leo was there, too. All of the Leos, in fact. This was the big finale. It wound down as the sun rose and it was too late, or perhaps too early…whatever, to buy beer at the Circle K. I spent my time engrossed in conversation with a charming Leo from UK, this one a female, about documentary film making.

There wasn’t much point in sleep now, since the Geology tour was leaving in less than two hours. UK Leo said he’d just wait-up. I slept until the vans were running downstairs. I had time to simply bundle my kit in a wad and run downstairs and throw it in the StRange Rover. The vans were just loading, so I ran back inside to Starbucks. I wanted to kill the person in front of me ordering a triple mocha hoopla-drip machiacappucinoamericano hand-blended smoothy with sprinkles. After what seemed like a month, I ordered my BIG coffee (I refuse to say Grande) and shuffled out to the StRange Rover and fired her up. I pulled into last place in the caravan and waited.

There is a mathematical rule that relates the number of people in a party to the time it takes that party to actually do anything. It is called the ‘milling factor’. The more people there are, the larger the milling factor becomes by logarithmic scale. If there are enough people, the milling factor will prevent anything from happening and the situation devolves to chaos. With well over twenty people the milling factor was enormous.

As I watched light refract through heat blistering off the hood, the StRange Rover’s vinyl dashboard disintegrated before my very eyes in the UV, X-ray and gamma radiation from the Sun. The organizer and leader of our caravan, Herr Leo, was circling the vans attempting to get people inside and strapped in.

Some folks refer to this as ‘herding cats’. I disagree. Cats tend to scatter and move. High milling factor creates a kind of paralysis where people just stand and stare at each other, waiting for someone else to make a move. Milling has a more bovine nature to it. My BIG coffee was almost finished when the vans actually started rolling. Now I had to pee. I held on because I wasn’t about to run inside when everyone else was finally ready, so we took off on the Geology tour.

Southern Comfort Leo joined me in the StRange Rover at the first stop. It was my first chance to pee and survey the group I was with – in that order. I noticed all of the essential Leo’s, meaning the drinking ones, were on the geology tour. We must run in crowds, I thought, mutually attracted by intense heat, miles of driving, lack of sleep and an excuse to party every night.

As I focused my bleary eyes (I don’t think Leo would have climbed in with me if he knew how much sleep I’d had in the past three days) I saw geologic features I’d written about. I was going to point them out to Southern Comfort Leo, when Leo pointed out to me what he’d been noticing. Leo in the car ahead was swerving off the road occasionally.

Why would Leo do that, I wondered. We found out a few miles later, when on a steeply diving switchback road with no shoulder, Leo in-the-car-ahead, swerved off road and punctured his tire. As it happened, he was passing-out from dehydration and heat. Apparently he came from a place where air conditioning is not a life support system.

He was bundled in the back of a van to re-hydrate and sleep, while someone else took over command of his car, now driving on a spare. We spent a couple of hours getting a new tire for Leo in-the-car-ahead and ended up split into two groups somewhere in Verde Valley because of lunch preferences. We regrouped in Oak Creek Canyon, just past Sedona. Here, everyone cooled their feet in the water under the shade of cottonwoods at Oak Creek’s shore.

The heat, the fact we hadn’t made it to Meteor Crater that day, Leo in-the-car-ahead’s travails, all melted away as the group laughed and splashed in the creek. It was a fine moment. All of the Leo’s felt better. We were all Leo now. Regrouped and refreshed, the caravan drove on to Flagstaff.

As the group checked-in to the motel and got settled, Southern Comfort Leo and I walked to the bar/restaurant across the parking lot to have a cold one. UK Leo joined us next, then others drifted in. I hadn’t paid much attention, but did notice an older gentleman sitting alone drinking beer at a table in the back.

The Leos and I stood at the bar, while all the other Leo’s congregated at a table behind us. I heard a commotion and turned around to see the distinguished looking gentleman sprawled on his back. Several of our Leo’s were attending to him.

I said, “who’s that guy?” to our little group at the bar, but they paid me no attention, struggling as they were to understand each other – Southern drawl vs. UK soccer slang. I sipped my beer and surveyed the situation. The man was still prostate, being given wet towels and water. Someone was calling 911. What else could I do. I sipped my beer. “Do you guys see what’s happening behind us?” I asked. This time I broke through and they turned to look. “Why that’s Seattle Leo,” said Southern Comfort Leo.

I vaguely knew we were to meet Seattle Leo in Flagstaff. I didn’t know details though, so hadn’t connected the distinguished man at the back table with being a Leo. As the paramedics wheeled him away, I said something lame like “take care” and laid my hands over his. They were cold as ice. Our third victim of heat stroke.

One part of our group driven by Colorado Leo, or as I thought of him: the spitting image of Jeff Bridges, were eclectic Leo’s from around the world. They decided to camp-out in the National Forest instead of staying at the motel. They were a lively and entertaining bunch, so some of the motel Leo’s and I decided we’d visit their camp for a few beers.

They were camped somewhere in Coconino National Forest. Since Coconino National Forest covers approximately 1.8 million acres, I thought our prospects of finding them dubious. Nevertheless, we took two cars, bought some beer and departed Flag for the ‘campground’ they were supposedly at. They weren’t. The location was the Forest Service headquarters. No campground in sight.

This called for an unmanly admission that we didn’t know where we were going and needed directions. A cell phone was produced. I’m not sure if it was a bad connection, or if UK Leo was doing the talking. In any case the directions seemed uncertain.

We tried, but eventually gave up and parked in a dense, dark forest of Ponderosa and Spruce. I kept my eye out for bears and Sasquatch. At least we had beer and other essentials among us, and we stood in the dark and talked about magnetism, mountains and made a toast to Michael Steinbacher. A freight train roared past within a hundred yards of where we stood. It must have been a mile long and it left us feeling pumped from the noise and vibration.

I was driving, so only sipped on my beer. Still, lack of sleep had me seeing pinpoints of light in the corners of my eyes as we drove back to the motel. I followed Room mate Leo as he missed the exit and drove around the longest way conceivable to get back on track. I was almost beside myself thinking we’d entered a never ending road somewhere in the twilight zone. The Leo’s in my car had turned into bobble-heads and didn’t seem to notice we were being sucked back to Sedona, no doubt by the vortex.

I got a solid night’s sleep, rooming with Sacramento Leo. It’s usually a little strange to sleep in a room with a stranger, but in this case my head hit the pillow and didn’t lift until Leo belatedly advised me the vans were ready to roll in five minutes.

No time to shower – day three. I was beginning to stink. Well, not really. I stunk. You either stink or you don’t, there’s really no ‘beginning to’. I felt some pity for my StRange Rover-mate, Southern Comfort Leo.

After that first devastating day of heat, others began to notice – in addition to how bad I smelled – how I always parked in shade if I could find it, or aim the car away from the sun so the seats didn’t blister my ass when I got back in. At 120ºF, a car’s interior surfaces exposed to sun can reach 195ºF. By comparison, pork is considered safe to eat at 145ºF. I don’t comb my hair either, otherwise I’ll get a sunburned part. Tricks of the desert rat.

Our intrepid leader, Herr Leo, stepped up to a major feat of organization at meteor crater, advising us of the time to regroup. Things went smoothly until I had the sudden urge to (once again) use the bathroom at the last minute, hence I was the one who held up the group. It’s no fun walking out of a restroom, zipping up your fly, while thirty people sit in a parking lot staring at you.

I learned a lot about Michael Steinbacher on the trip. What a vagabond life he led, and how many loyal friends he had who gave him a couch, or bed, and traveled with him to rocky, windswept corners of the southwest, looking at evidence of the vast catastrophic forces that shaped our planet.

It gave me a tremendous morale boost. I recognized in the stories about Michael something I’ve found to be true for me. To truly clear the eyes of mud… to see things clearly for what they are, demands a rejection of convention.

I gave up income, home and stability to find the Electric Universe. Hanging on to what people expect of you will keep you locked into their paradigm forever. All notion that theoretical science explains anything at all had to be discarded and understood as a gross misinterpretation of the physics that govern our universe. I had to disconnect to see that.

Michael understood and looked at landscape in a way no one else had really captured. His inspirations inspired many more. We came to spread his ashes at the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon. Herr Leo had selected Geology Point as an appropriate place. It was.

Being a generally agnostic group to begin with, and knowing Michael was too, there was not much in the way of spiritual context. Herr Leo and a couple of the female Leo’s took a moment to reflect on Michael’s influence in their lives and his appreciation for truth.

Truth does exist. We could see it with our own eyes in the canyon. The obvious carving of scalloped edges in the ninety degree, boxed side canyon we stood above spoke more to the validity of Michael’s interpretation of geology than anything anyone could have said.

I spoke with Michael’s friends about the formation of the Grand Canyon. I agree with Michael’s assessment, in general. The canyon was carved by an explosive current locked to the river’s channel. I’d looked into, and written about breccia pipes; karst-like formations of broken rock that fill vertical tunnels emanating from a limestone formation above the inner gorge. These breccia pipes emerge from the ground all over the south rim, concentrated along the rim and even split open in places along the canyon wall.

My belief is these were the result of current flows from the inner gorge that blasted out the stubby, 90 degree angled side canyons by coursing through the limestone aquifer and up through the crust, forming the breccia pipes. Everything I saw standing over Geology Point confirmed my intuition, and Michael’s hypothesis, which I think conforms with mine. It made me feel good we laid his ashes there.

The canyon left me uplifted, but feeling small, knowing how few are the people who even fathom what we could see.

Herr Leo took the caravan speeding down an empty two lane road to Utah, past miles of open country I wanted to walk through. Shallow canyon fingers dipped right away from the roadside, to disappear into dark cavernous gorges that led a mile deep to the Colorado. How were they formed – not by water erosion. There is no evidence of water erosion on the walls of the Grand Canyon – anywhere, except the very lowest reaches of the inner gorge – the only place the river has ever flowed.

The only evidence given for water erosion creating the canyon is that there is a canyon there. Ergo, typical mainstream circular logic says it must have been carved by water. It ain’t evident in the rocks though. A fact neatly and blithely ignored by geologists.

We crossed the Little Colorado and skirted the Navajo Nation, heading north. At Cameron, Arizona we stopped for lunch. It made sense, since one of our Leo’s was named Cameran-Leo; wrong spelling, but close enough to earn a sandwich. This was also where I departed, leaving to drive home to Tucson through the best part of Arizona, Highway 191. I’ll tell about that in a moment.

I hate goodbyes. This one didn’t hurt though. I knew I would be seeing these Leo’s again.

Every Leo hugged me. There wasn’t a single hand shake, or fist bump. Just hugs. It was a striking moment for me, when Sacramento Leo gave me a memento from Michael. Something Michael raised on his own, infused with his love of life and our world. I fired it up as I drove alone to Kayenta.

As the StRange Rover hummed along, the sun began to set on a landscape I could only imagine had been etched. Magnificent undulating, layered and cap-rocked dunes scalloped and gouged around the edges. A different electrical scarring than I’d been studying. Something to look into in the future.

Near Kayenta is where Dave Talbott’s photo of a petroglyph was taken. The one Tony Perratt identified as a plasma instability – rock hard evidence of an aurora in the ancient sky that our ancestors witnessed. I marveled to myself that his paper had been published over a decade ago and so few people had even noticed. Yet it gave up so much truth. It was the very thing that had brought me to look into EU.

As I drove through Tsegi, I looked into the canyon. Tsegi Canyon holds deep mystery for me. This is where the Kayenta Anasazi – the Pueblo people of Northern Arizona spent their final days in cliff dwellings, before, in sudden diaspora they fled to Mexico. Something like the Exodus.

What happened? Why did they live in the cliffs? Mainstream theories of drought and infertile crops is simply a weak and unintelligent answer to the true plight of the Pueblo people of the Four Corners area. Scientists blame everything on climate change now – that’s the paradigm. Something else happened to the Pueblo in 1100 to 1300 AD, when after living in the open for centuries, they turned to living under rocks before simply leaving the area, en masse.

They were either hiding from something from above, or below – lightning perhaps, or a swarm of hungry bigfoot (cannibal demons in the native Hopi) come down from the San Juan’s. I don’t know which yet, but I’m going to Tsegi some day to figure it out and write a novel about it.

As I looked into the deep reaches of the canyon, the setting sun shone through, framed by the vertical, black canyon walls and sheets of illuminated virga hanging from the clouds above.

It was damned ominous looking, but spectacular. A few miles beyond Kayenta, there is a mountain feature visible from the road I had used an image of in my presentation. I knew it was there and hoped to see it under the full moon. I couldn’t see it though, because storm clouds blocked the light. Too bad.

I continued non-stop through Navajo lands because I had to. There are no Motel 6’s on the Res. Nor is there any alcohol. Two reasons to keep driving. As I drove South from Four Corners past Canyon De Chelly, the StRange Rover rolled over giant fingers of the Chuska mountains that stretched across the desert. In the sky, the clouds made giant feathered strokes of lichtenberg figures. I knew the land under my feet looked the same, and it was no coincidence.

After a night in a cheap motel along I-40, where I closed thick drapes and slept late, I departed on my final day. This I knew would be an epic drive. Highway 191 (renamed because Highway 666 seemed to disturb some people) runs down the eastern edge of the State. It is an age-old corridor for migration and trade. The Anasazi traded with the Aztecs along this route. It led to the region’s giant center of trade, Chaco Canyon. The Puebloans retreated on this route during the diaspora.

It was used by Coronado and the conquistadors, when they came as the first tourists to the Grand Canyon. Renegades and outlaws used this trail in the days of Apache wars and stage coach robberies.

It climbs into the White Mountains through lava fields and hills that appear like huge, low windblown dunes. Near St. John there is a lake right off of the highway, named Lyman Lake. I turned in to look at the State Park campsites and take a break. As I drove in a sign pointed to a road that said “Petroglyph Trail.” I made the turn and parked at the trail head.

It led into some small hills on a peninsula in the lake. The hills have a cap rock that is black with patina on the top surface. Broken blocks of it are scattered down the hillsides. On these I found a perfect ‘squatter man’ pecked into a flat, patina covered block.

I also noticed the patina appeared to be burnt onto the rock’s surface. There were marks of hot ablation, as if a sheet of flame had seared the cap rock from above. I wondered if it was a thing people had witnessed. Perhaps that is why they chose this place to commemorate the auroras that surely would have preceded such a flash.

A few miles further up the road, I passed volcanic cinder cones and rode over vast lava flows. On the lava flows, lightning began to strike. It flashed with an almost constant frequency, close enough to hear the peel of thunder, but far enough to enjoy the show. I pulled to the side on a hill and lowered my tailgate to watch – the reason I drive the StRange Rover is it has a classic drop-down tailgate – essential for such moments. I also celebrated Michael’s green thumb again as I watched the lightning strike and listened to the thunder. It was a fitting spectacle to end the journey and my formal introduction to the Electric Universe.

Thanks to Leo’s gift of Michael’s homegrown, I missed my turn in Springerville, and drove fifteen miles into New Mexico on Highway 60 before I realized I was going downhill when I should be going up. Things were going too well, I suppose. Where I turned around was a dirt road to Luna, New Mexico. I was in a curious feature of land I had spotted on Google Earth before. The dramatic sweep of land before me was a shallow valley, closed in by windswept dunes of sandstone. The name Luna was appropriate. This trip just kept giving surprises. I didn’t take the road, but committed to coming back, to Luna, to the Leo’s and to uncovering the simple majesty of our Electric Universe.

StRange Rover Leo.

Update: Leo is now engaged to Leo. I have confirmation, so feel free to announce it. And I thought I was having fun…apparently not as much as those two.

Electric Earth February 27, 2016October 3, 2017

Leviathan – Part Two

The stories in the Bible present a fascinating picture of mankind’s worldview in ancient times. We tend to apply our worldview when interpreting the stories, which makes the stories seem unreal. Catastrophic floods that covered mountains, storms raining brimstone from the sky. And Leviathan, rising from the sea, shooting fire and lightning – it seems ridiculous. The events are portrayed affecting the entire known world and nearly wiping out its inhabitants.

Regional disasters occur all the time. Typhoons and earthquakes kill thousands every year, but it’s thankfully, almost always, someplace else. We can say, chances are it won’t happen here. We rally to support the victims, clean up the mess, then try to forget. Only the victims retain a fear and memory of the true horror.

The local impact on early agrarian civilizations might have seemed as though the world had come to an end. Science generally attributes the ancient stories to regional disasters like we experience today. James Hutton, a Scottish geologist in the eighteenth century, many refer to as the “Father of Modern Geology”, originated the prevailing paradigm that Earth’s crust was formed by slow natural processes identical to those we see today over geologic time. Myths of catastrophe don’t fit the paradigm, so are regarded as the unreliable product of superstitious imaginations.

The paradigm is called Uniformitarianism. Through observation and reasoned inference, Hutton theorized Earth’s geologic history could be determined by understanding how processes such as erosion and sedimentation work in the present day. His concept, that “the present is the key to the past” as a consequence of subtle influences acting over billions of years, has been challenged ever since by catastrophists.

Catastrophists look at diffuse geological evidence that can’t be explained by subtle forces acting over billions of years – events that would have impacted mankind greatly – and treats mythology as a body of corroborating evidence. The accounts recorded in the Bible are just one set of stories repeated through time by cultures around the world. Their paradigm is “the past is the key to the present… and the future”.

Catastrophists commonly attribute cometary impacts, or supervolcano eruptions as the destructive forces behind the stories. These are phenomena consistent with the mainstream scientific view since they are phenomena science acknowledges has occurred in Earth’s past. Their ideas primarily depart from the mainstream over the notion any such events occurred in Mankind’s experience.

Electric Universe theory establishes a different paradigm altogether because it recognizes and accounts for electromagnetic effects in it’s cosmology. It also recognizes the stories as witness accounts of real events that can be understood with scientific inquiry using classical, empirically verifiable physics. It presents new possibilities to explain the stories of mythology and understand the environmental context of the ancient’s worldview.

Mythology presents a consistent story…

In Norse mythology, Ragnarok is the story of apocalypse, and it echoes many aspects of Revelations. Rangnorok is also presaged by signs. First, three years of uninterrupted winter, called “Fimbulvetr” when the world is plagued by immorality, famine, and wars that set brother against brother. The wolf Skoll devours the sun, his brother Hati eats the moon and the stars disappear. A red cock appears to herald “the end” while a second rooster crows to the gods and a third rooster raises the dead. Heimdall blows his horn and signals that Rangnorok has begun.

jormundgond — The Norse dragon from the sea, Jormungand

The Norse armageddon takes place on the plains called Vigrid, where man and gods battle until Jormungand, the furious serpent, emerges from turbulent seas spitting fire and lightning onto the Vigrid plains, dragging huge waves as it writhes its tail and sprays poison. Earthquakes break the bonds of the wolf Fenrir, freeing it to wreak death and destruction across the land.

It’s almost exactly like Revelations in many of its descriptions of natural calamities, including lightning-spitting dragons from the sea dragging tidal waves behind. The Bible even repeats stories first told by the Sumerians. Sumerians first recorded the story of Gilgamesh and the great flood, Sodom’s destruction and others almost identical to those in the Bible.

Plato tells of “destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire” in the Timaeus. He attributes a world-altering event to “a shifting of the bodies in the heavens, which move ’round the earth.” The Iranian Bundahish says, “planets ran against the sky and created confusion.” The Chinese attribute catastrophe to planets moving “out of their courses.” Ancient obsession with changes in the sky; fear and awe of the planets, and attribution of godly power to them; and the belief those gods wreaked destruction on Earth – are sentiments universal to ancient cultures.

Yet, look outside at the night sky. Can you even tell which of the pinpoint lights up there are planets? Do they even stand out among the stars? Except for the brightness of Venus and that planets move in different patterns and don’t twinkle, there isn’t much remarkable going on. In a Uniformitarian cosmos the crazy actions attributed to the gods of myth seem like a big stretch of the imagination. But things were happening then that we don’t understand.

In Part One, the visions of prophets as real visual occurrences caused by highly energetic auroral events in the earth’s magnetosphere were examined. Plasma instabilities produced, or simulated in the laboratory by Anthony Peratt are the “Rossetta Stone” to understanding the visions, stories and iconography of the past that recorded those electromagnetic storms.

What caused them may have happened in a number of ways and it may have happened a number of times. A Langmuir sheath like that surrounding the Earth – the magnetosphere – forms a double layer of magnetic fields with plasma current sheets sandwiched between. The sheath protects Earth from direct electrical interactions, shielding us from cosmic radiation and solar flares. However, if a foreign body such as a planet, or comet with a different electrical charge penetrates the double layer, electrical discharge will occur.

The interactions can occur at huge distances. The magnetosphere is stretched into a teardrop by the flow of Solar winds. The Earth’s plasma sheath forms a tail which stretches all the way to the moon. Comets likewise have tails of plasma streaming away in the solar wind, as do the other planets and moons in the solar system. Electromagnetic interactions begin when the plasma sheaths interact, meaning the foreign body can be millions of miles distant when its plasma sheath interacts with the Earth’s.

Solar effects may aggravate the event further, adding unwanted energy to the magnetosphere, because the Sun, too is reacting to the foreign body. Dramatic evidence of the electromagnetic effect of two bodies of dissimilar charge coming together is obvious in this short NASA video of a comet striking the Sun:

The Sun issued a massive electromagnetic discharge (coronal mass ejection) in response to the comet which was just a tiny spec in relation to the Sun’s size and mass. This is due to the extreme energy released by the electrical potential of the bodies as they connected. There is no other way to explain the energies involved. This isn’t the only time this has been witnessed.

In fact it happens a lot. Here’s one more from BPEarthwatch.

Any close pass of a large body within the planetary region can generate severe electromagnetic storms on Earth without impacting Earth, or even scraping the atmosphere.

The electromagnetic geometry inside the Earth is less well known…

Current enters at the polar cusps (the magnetic poles) and is also induced by currents in the magnetosphere. Increased current in the magnetosphere will increase current within the Earth as well – it’s all connected circuitry.

An electric field, along which current flows, is like water in that it takes the path of least resistance. But unlike water, electricity does not obey gravity. It’s force is 39 orders of magnitude greater than gravity, so gravity is inconsequential. For electricity, the path of least resistance is the path of highest conductivity.

In solids, conductivity is greatest in solid metals like silver and copper, because they feature an atomic lattice structure with an abundance of free electrons. In ionic material, like water containing salts, ionized gases, or compounds of molten fluid metals, a net motion of charged ions can occur. This is electric current by ionic conduction – also known as plasma.

Inside the earth, magma is a conductive plasma…

Volcanic lightning is evidence of the electrical nature of volcanoes. The cause of volcanic lightning is thought to be static charge buildup in the ash cloud, similar to how thunderstorms are believed to result from static charge buildup from colliding ice particles. But according to Martin Uman, co-director of the University of Florida Lightning Research program, based on his observations, static buildup can’t explain the energies involved:

“As the plume started going downwind, it seemed to have a life of its own and produced some 300, more or less, normal [lightning bolts] … The implication is that it has produced more charge than it started with. Otherwise [the plume] couldn’t continue to make lightning.”

The energy for the lightning is coming from ionized magma. This is apparent in the following video of Sakurajima Volcano in Japan, which shows sustained lightning as the plume forms only moments after eruption.

Because magma is a plasma, the paths of least resistance for current through the crust are the magma chambers that produce volcanoes. In fact, a volcano should be considered the blister of an anode carrying current.

During a severe geomagnetic storm, whether caused by the passing of a large comet, a planet, or a solar super-flare, currents ramp-up throughout the system. Magnetic fields intensify and voltage differentials increase. The normal paths of electrical discharge between earth’s crust and its conductive plasma sheath respond. Conductive paths in crustal faults stimulate earthquakes. Magma becomes energized, heating and expanding, causing volcanoes to erupt. Thunderstorms and destructive winds are amplified. These are the catastrophic disasters that follow signs in the heavens.

But what of Leviathan – the lightning spewing dragon from the sea…

To begin, note that earthquakes and volcanoes congregate along the seams of Earth’s tectonic plates.

The rift zones along tectonic plates look like the seams on a baseball, sinuously winding, more or less, north to south between the polar regions. According to theories of earth currents, including those of Nicolai Tesla, the Earth’s circuitry naturally forms three phase currents. Three phase implies a Wye connection develops for inductive current between the earth and space. The typical morphology of subduction trench and rift zones supports this.

Trenches form where subduction occurs at the edges of continental plates, as the seafloor dives beneath the continent. The common features according to the current accepted tectonic theory is shown below. The trench is straddled by volcanic regions where offshore, volcanic magma chambers are excited by convection currents in the molten core. Magma feeding continental volcanoes is excited by the friction-heat caused by subduction. What causes tectonic plate movement, or for that matter, volcanoes, is not well understood. Mantle plumes are believed to be the primary cause, but recent studies don’t provide much evidence to support the theory and it’s become a controversial issue.

Accounting for electricity leads to an entirely different understanding of Earth’s geology as part of a solar system circuit. Theory of how Earth’s internal circuits work is summarized in this brief Thunderbolts.info video:

The key take away is current flows through the Earth’s core from the poles, and forms inductive Wye connections at hot spots, reaching up like sea urchin spines from the core. Different hot spots are energized based on dynamics of the whole system. Assuming the Wye connections emerge as volcanoes in Earth’s plasma circuit and some very interesting ideas emerge.

Rising magma can be understood as the current path of the Wye connection to surface, creating volcanic blisters that straddle the plate boundary.

Normally, discharge through the atmosphere to the plasma environment in space is seen as lightning, sprites and gamma ray bursts – they are displays of the electrical coupling of Earth and space.

In the violence of an extreme geomagnetic storm, current in the plasma sheath and plasma currents in Earth’s crust become energized, raising potential differences between the regions to billions of volts. As charge builds it manifests additional, more extreme discharge phenomena.

The Wye connections on a modern induction transformer are carefully engineered for perfect electrical balance, to withstand surge currents and to prevent harmonic resonance. Earth’s currents are imbalanced. In the “normal” times that we live, the energy is dissipated by the largely non-threatening continuum of thunderstorms, earthquakes and volcanoes around the world.

In a major power surge, the imbalance becomes amplified, overloading the circuits and causing a new phenomena to occur: Leviathan.

To understand Leviathan, two more simple electrical concepts are important to understand: surface conductivity and arc burn. Also, remember that electric fields follow the paths of least resistance – paths of greatest electrical conductivity.

Surface conductivity is a highly conductive path in the vicinity of solid surfaces where a layer of counter ions of opposite polarity collect in a charged environment. Ions build-up near current flows and highly conductive materials, such as minerals and water due to a phenomena called the Corona Effect. A layer of ionic concentration results, surrounding the solid surface. The self-organizing, electromagnetic properties of plasma forms a double layer over the surface of the solid, providing a pathway for arcing currents. Surface conductivity is why electric arcs preferentially craze across the surface of an object. Lightning discharges skirt the outside skin of an airplane for the same reason.

Arc burn occurs when an arcing fault, or short circuit current passes through air and ionic gases, as it does in a surface conductive path. Arcing generates temperatures over 35,000°F. Extreme pressure is generated by the near instant thermal expansion of air in the arc stream as it’s heated to four times the surface temperature of the Sun. The vaporization can cause an explosive blast and pressure wave in excess of 1000 psi. No contact is required with an arc burn as the electricity ionizes air particles to complete the circuit. Damage occurs from the searing hot blast.

To get a visual idea of a surface conductive discharge on a stellar scale, watch this video of a solar flare and note the following details:

The bright, giant looping feature and sprays are electric currents. Astronomers unschooled in plasma and electricity often refer to these as magnetic field lines, but the magnetic fields surround these currents and are not visible. These are electrical currents discharging in arc mode – in other words, solar lightning bolts.
Note the arcing discharges that seem to come from nowhere above the surface charge on the right of the loops. They alternate direction to and from the source and fire large plasma bolides at the surface.
Note the rain of flaming plasma falling from the loop current. These are not falling due to gravity, the loop diameter is much bigger than Earth. The raining drops are dense plasma flows in the current sheet “dropping” to the surface much faster than gravity could accelerate them.
The huge spray of plasma shooting horizontally to the right, skimming just above the photosphere is a lightning bolt in a surface conductive layer. This is a Solar Leviathan. Put it on full screen, it’s the coolest video ever.

Leviathan on Earth is barely a spark in comparison, but an Earth scale arcing plasma would have devastating results, leaving indelible marks as evidence. In a fault current between volcanic anodes, lightning would streak horizontally along a surface conductive path.

In the sea, the path follows the hard mineralized bedrock of the seafloor, beneath layers of non-conductive silt. The explosive energy of rock and seawater vaporizing around it would blast the silt layers away, exposing the bedrock.

At land’s edge, it breaches the water, streaking across land in a searing sheets of lightning to the volcanic field on the continent. As it leaves the sea, it drags with it a tsunami of water, sand and rocks.

Arcing across land it throws off charged whirl-winds of ionic dust and bollides of molten rock. The preferred path is where water flows. Mineralized water contains ionic material, is highly conductive, vaporizes easily to form a plasma and provides an interface with bedrock where a surface conductive path can form.

The discharge follows rivers and streams, arcing through valleys and canyons. It dives below ground to follow subsurface channels, explosively ripping away the land leaving giant divots surrounded by hills of ejecta. It arcs through ionized air over arid, waterless deserts, searing the ground and launching meteor-like bollides of dense, intensely hot plasma.

This is precisely the description of Leviathan. Physical evidence for surface conductive fault currents can be found on Google Earth.

Sub-sea canyons are one trace of Leviathan’s passage…

Subsea canyons exist all along the continental margins. Originally assumed to be carved by river outflows, geologists eventually realized most canyons don’t actually connect with rivers. They generally occur miles from shore behind regions of undisturbed sediments. Current theory says they are formed by sand falls and land slides on the sloping sea floor. As the sand falls, water entrains with the falling sand to form a dense plug of fast moving turbidity that erodes the seafloor down to the hard basement rock.

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Sand falls do occur and turbid waters have been witnessed flowing through sub-sea canyons. There are even sand deltas at bends in some of these canyons as proof. But deltas are not always found, in fact they usually aren’t, and the deltas that are known don’t relate in size to the volume of sediment carved from the canyon. So what came first, the canyon, or the sand fall?

Turbidity can’t explain common features of canyons either, such as their length. Many canyons extend for hundreds of miles. They commonly follow extremely sinuous paths, display odd networks of tributary channels and often extend well beyond the steep slope of trenches to meander miles across the shallow slope of the abyssal plain. Turbid water scraping the seafloor will create friction, warming as it dives into deeper, much colder water along the seafloor. The temperature difference should cause the warmer water to diffuse into the surrounding cold, reducing its density and causing sands to fall out. It begs the imagination that turbid water currents could maintain coherence for several hundred miles into the icy depths of the abyss.

Most significant of all, however, is the way they are attracted to volcanoes. Almost invariably they extend into a zone of sub-sea volcanoes and seamounts (ancient volcanoes). Turbidity can’t explain that, since the turbid water theory has the canyons leading to the volcanoes, not away from them.

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The canyons are actually emanating from the sub-sea volcanoes, reaching for shore and the continental volcanoes at the other terminal of the Wye. The evidence of their passage continues on land.

Astroblemes are the scars of the Dragon’s bite…

Astrobleme is a term for an ancient crater. Typically, craters are recognized as round depressions with raised rims and central peaks, thought to be caused by meteorite impacts. Another type of astrobleme can be created by an air-burst meteor, when no rocky meteorite material actually impacts the ground. Instead, the meteor explodes in the upper atmosphere and its solid matter atomizes to form a bolide of plasma. The plasma fireball carries the same speed, trajectory and energy as the original meteor, and essentially blow-torches the earth, creating an astrobleme. The “crater” in this case is typically a long oval blast zone around a hogback hill. The hill is built by supersonic winds being sucked upward more violently than the central updraft of a thermo-nuclear mushroom cloud.

Meteor researcher, Dr. Mark Boslough and his team at Sandia National Laboratory have simulated the effects of an air-burst meteor. At 21 seconds into this video, the simulation records the plasma fireball’s downward blast, which melts the ground with forty-thousand degree plasma, pushing a shock wave that impacts with thousands of psi.

The center of the fireball rebounds violently upward, shearing a column of updraft in the opposite direction to the blast. This supersonic updraft, Dr. Boslough theorizes, vacuums molten ejecta into the strike zone, leaving the characteristic air-burst astrobleme – a linear hill with a sharply peaked ridge and distinctive triangular buttresses on the flanks, surrounded by an outwardly blasted zone of ejecta. The phenomena is discussed in great detail by “Craterhunter,” a non-uniformitarian geophysicist who wrote this well written article, A Catastrophe of Comets.

His simulations and research show how a bolide, screaming into the atmosphere at a low angle, can blister a mountain in a searing instant. These mountains are seen all over the world. It is a bold and unconventional theory that realistically describes these types of hills much better than conventional geology.

The conventional geologic explanation for hills such as these is the Horst-Grabben theory. Horst-Grabben is the Uniformitarian explanation for basin and range lands found around the world. Regions of parallel curva-linear hills and valleys, according to mainstream theory, are created by tectonic expansion – in other words, the region is pulling apart – and then subsiding into deep valleys. The hills are remnants of the former land elevation, left due to oddly banked fault lines and shaped by millenium of assumed sedimentation, craton expansion, grabben subsidence, uplift, folding, slumping and erosion to arrive at these odd basin and range landscapes.

mexico1 — Triangular buttresses – Mexico

Dr. Boslough has tossed this theory on its ear by correctly identified the distinguishing feature of a bolide astrobleme – triangular faces of repeating dimensions that are not adequately explained by any slow, Uniformitarian process.

The repeating pattern of triangular faces display fractal-like repetition in shape, size and frequency. They flank linear hillsides all over the world, across slopes from near horizontal to vertical, and across rock types from sandstone sediments to igneous and metamorphic, yet they keep the same basic patterns. The repeating patterns are in no way random. They show harmonic geometric progressions in size and shape. The following slides of arid mountains in Iran should dispel any notion these features are the result of eons of random wind and rain:

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Dr. Boslough’s work demonstrates how a plasma bolide can sear the Earth, leaving an astrobleme with these features. It falls short however, in providing a complete explanation. Electromagnetism is needed to complete the analysis of the marks of a Dragon’s teeth, as the Daily Plasma prefers to call these triangular buttresses.

Dragon’s teeth are a consequence of reflected shock waves – interference patterns of super-positioning pressure ridges formed by the shock waves of the passing bolide. The chevron pattern of the reflected waves can be discerned in the atmosphere trailing the F-18 in the photo above. Shock waves travel in any medium; gas, liquids, solids as well as electromagnetic fields and plasma.

bullet — Shadowgrams of two small explosive charges encased in solid containers. Shock propagation (left) and reflected shock patterns (right). Photographs courtesy of Gary S. Settles.

Reflected shock waves create the chevrons, plain and simple. Supersonic flow produces harmonic reflected shock patterns as the waves reverberate the medium in interference patterns of temperature, pressure and density. No random process of geologic faulting, rain and wind, over millions of years, could possibly produce these nearly identical harmonic chevron patterns in the diverse variety of climates and rock strata they are found on around the world. Dragon’s teeth can only be the result of a violent supersonic blast event. The idea they are created by meteors from space doesn’t hold-up, either.

A rain of bolides from comet fragments, or an asteroid will travel in a specific trajectory – that’s physics – they can’t land at odd angles to each other, or follow sinuous paths across hundreds of miles of terrain. Yet that is what is seen.

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These are the scars of Leviathan, not comets or asteroids. Surface conductive fault currents made these blisters. They occur where the fault current, after following the sea-floor and blasting sub-sea canyons, emerged on shore with a tidal wave and locked its path to the plasma rich environment of rivers and wetlands, seeking volcanic fields inland. To cross arid lands, the path of least resistance is the surface conductive double layer that forms in the atmosphere. The arid desert is where Leviathan spits plasma jets across the land, searing blisters and blasting divots.

Electromagnetic forces produce additional effects…

Untitled5 — Ground level inflow carries material to form linear hills. Reflected shock waves mold harmonic patterns of Dragon’s teeth

Unlike a meteor bolide, electrical current doesn’t fly straight, yet it has the extreme energy to create the same temperatures and pressures as a large meteor from space.

As it arcs across the land it will be drawn to conductive soils; minerals and moist regions, to skip, branch and gouge divots. Ionized material it carries will fire-off as bolides that strike land and leave teardrop astroblemes.

Magnetic fields around the plasma current will induce rotation along the horizontal axis of its flight, modifying the speed of the winds. This effect will cause some hills to be pushed over, shallower on one side and steeper, with more distinct dragon’s teeth on the other. It blows the ejecta blanket asymmetrically, and it may carve a valley longitudinally down the center of the hill. These are features typically seen.

So, let’s return to the Levant in Biblical times, to see the evidence for Leviathan…

The primary Earth currents involved come from the Indian Oceanic Central Ridge, where the Indian and Somalia tectonic plates meet. The current forks its path, up the Persian Gulf where it arcs onshore, forking again to follow the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. On the opposite side of the Arabian plate, the other fork follows the rift of the Red Sea, where it hits land and forks at the gulfs of Suez and Aqaba.

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The current rose from the sea, seeking to discharge to volcanic fields ashore. The huge Harrat Ash volcanic field in Syria was active around 2500 B.C.

The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the LORD’S vengeance, and the year of recompence for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. Isaiah 34: 6 – 10.

Idumea lies between the Gaza strip and the Dead Sea, stretching south to the Negev desert.

It isn’t the only mention of burning pitch and brimstone in the area. Most scholars agree Sodom and Gomorrah, and allied cities Admah, Zeboim and Bela, were on the plains north, or south of the Dead Sea, or along its southeastern shores. Several archaeological digs contend to be the fabled cities. Evidence of catastrophe has been found, including tektites and balls of pure sulfur burnt into mud walls – conclusive evidence for a rain of brimstone.

A chain of astroblemes across the northern Sinai and Negev deserts explains the holocaust. As charge built in the two forks of the Red Sea current, they tried to bridge, shorting across the land in bolides of thermonuclear hot plasma. Take the tour:

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The Bowls of Wrath…

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. Revelations 16: 1- 12.

Current surged up the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to volcanic fields in Turkey. These are still active volcanoes, with evidence of latest activity around 1,500 B.C. As the discharge dissipated near the ends of the forks, bolides of ionic matter splattered across ancient Babylon:

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…And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done’. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Revelations 16: 13-21.

Armageddon – the plains of Megiddo – the final battle. The Suez current arced across the floor of the Mediterranean. Two paths are apparent, the Beirut Canyon, leading to beach at Tripoli, and the Akhziv Canyon, landing on the plains of Megiddo. The current sheet flashed across the plains, dragging a tidal wave of sea and sediment, carving canyons across the plains with the back-flow. The current sheet connected with current flowing up the Jordan valley, near the Sea of Galilee, and seared across the desert of Syria, leaving long, snaking astroblemes.

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In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. Isaiah 27: 1

The surface faults wreaking havoc in the Levant had to finally make connection to space. That lordly lightning bolt dissipated the charge and halted further calamity.

The psychology of near extinction; the profound sorrow, fear and guilt of the survivors that resonates through history and shapes our minds today, derives from these events. The history of the Bible and other ancient mythology should be taken seriously. It tells the historical context of real events to those capable of removing the blinders of convention. Because there is profound truth within reach, quite obvious proof, when one sees the universe is electric.

Nature manifests energies we can only imagine. We have never experienced its full wrath. But understanding the cause, and that it’s not God’s wrath, might help us get over the guilt we did something wrong. Electromagnetism has its own laws and they are based solidly in science.

Non-fiction February 20, 2016September 30, 2017

Willie Jo Hall

December 27, 1914 – February 16, 2016

Willie Jo Hughes’ life began on a farm in Amity Arkansas, running barefoot and riding buckboards before there were cars.

Hardened by dust bowl, depression, poverty and war, she grew strength and resilience no modern man knows… and a smokey, dark-eyed beauty, one never sees anymore…

She didn’t smile much, but boy, did she love sombreros…

She married a dashing man, who liked cool cars – James Weldon Hall, October 30, 1937…

From Dallas to Tucson, they came in 1938, to raise family – five boys, with mixed results – four retards and one prince…can you tell which is which?

With her husband and sons, she traveled the world…

But nothing in life was more important than blood. Brothers Vern and Harold, and young sister Faye…

And grandchildren and their children…. who love her, so, so very much, today…

We thought she was ours always – our matriarch, our compass and cause of our being…

But she’s gone to her Lord. Rest in peace, Mom. We love you and will always miss you…

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Updates to The Daily Plasma and “Leviathan – Part Two” will publish in a week, or two.

Electric Earth February 3, 2016October 3, 2017

Leviathan

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns, ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Leviathan, portrayed in the Bible as a destructive force from the sea. It’s a central theme of the Old Testament, from the dragon’s description in Job:

By his neesings (sneezings) a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. Job 41: 18 – 21

To the strange visions of apocalypse described in the New Testament book of Revelations:

… and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. Revelations 9: 17 – 19.

The devastation described is widespread and horrific:

Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away… … Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. Isaiah 24: 1-6.

Is this just a description of earthquakes and volcanoes draped in superstitious embellishment, or is it an attempt to describe something profoundly catastrophic in the only terms conceivable – an utter rebuke from God that destroyed all but the faithful who obeyed the warning:

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. Isaiah 2: 19 – 21.

The warnings come in visions preceding the apocalypse – shining bright figures in the heavens signaling an impending disaster:

And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two- edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. Revelations 1: 12-16.

Later followed the survivors repentance and shock at the destruction:

Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore? Isaiah 64: 9-12.

Modern science considers such stories dramatically embellished, superstition laden descriptions of the same world we see today, told by ancient witnesses at a loss to explain nature otherwise. But what if they are a description of incredible events, so catastrophic they were recorded as a warning for future generations. Is there a modern and scientific ways to look at the bizarre and disconcerting biblical stories of profound catastrophe, including dragons from the sea that shook the Earth and spread destruction?

“Mankind is a species with amnesia.”

Catastrophists say we have forgotten our past in a kind of collective PSD, in denial of traumatic events that nearly wiped us from existence. The stories are beautifully memorialized in mythology, particularly in the Bible, and in ancient cultures throughout the world. Vivid descriptions: hails of coal and fire, blast furnace winds, earthquakes, lightning, channels of water opened to bare the foundations of the world and seas that covered the mountains – they don’t seem to depict normal earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and bad weather. The events roll together in a chain of widespread catastrophe unlike anything we experience today.

Perhaps one reason it’s given little notice, except by a few, is the truth buried in the mythology is too painful to contemplate. The survivors recorded the calamities, attributed the cause to mankind’s transgressions and their survival to their own righteousness. As the distance of time progressed, mankind dissolved these stories into fictions, to hide from terror portrayed and to return to the behaviors warned against. The danger is this amnesia leads us to disregard past events that may recur in the future. With an open mind to the notion of Electric Universe theory, and dispensing with preconceptions of religion, guilt and past scientific misinterpretation, it is possible to give a realistic natural explanation for these incredible biblical events.

In Part One, this essay breaks down the “visions” that predicted catastrophe. Part Two will examine the apocalyptic forces of nature that followed. Sorry if this disappoints anyone, but answering the question, “was God involved,” or validating the concept of God’s existence is not in the framework.

Visions of Apocalypse

From the Book of Genesis, Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending, and so began the story of the tribes of Israel. Ezekiel reported:

…Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. Ezekiel 1: 1.

The exceedingly strange visions he witnessed warned of a catastrophe to befall mankind as a rebuke for its rebellion against God’s word, its false idols and lurid whoredom. John of Patmos records visions of apocalypse in Revelations, where he witnessed figures in the sky – angels, scrolls and candlesticks, and he heard trumpets blowing which he attributed to God’s word.

Visions from heaven are a key piece of the Bible story, presaging calamity and affirming righteousness. The visions were not hallucinations, nor the fanciful imaginings of spiritually entranced minds, nor the psychedelic effects of drugs. They were real light shows in the sky caused by severe geomagnetic storms. To understand the light show, let’s first review some Electric Universe theory.

We begin with an understanding that Earth’s toroidal geomagnetic field is the consequence of external electric currents from the Sun. Solar current is captured by the Earth’s magnetosphere, and funneled down through the magnetic poles, to deep within the Earth itself.

Geodynamo_wikipedia — Image courtesy of NASA – Magnetic field lines defining Earth’s magnetosphere

Mainstream science denies the obvious and attributes the magnetosphere to a “dynamo” effect of the earth’s molten core. The dynamo theory, however, has many problems that dispute its validity. Foremost is the chicken and egg dilemma the theory poses. According to the theory, current is the result of Earth’s magnetism, which is likened to a bar magnet in the earth’s core. This bar magnet in a rotating, orbiting, tidally stressed planet generates current that strengthens magnetic fields which increases current in a feedback loop. But what gave the earth a magnetic field in the first place? There had to be a current first, and this isn’t explained by a dynamo.

There are other problems with the dynamo theory. Why didn’t the dynamo wind-down millions of years ago as earth’s core cooled – physics says it should have. How does a molten iron core carry magnetism when magnetism is a consequence of the crystalline structure of the metal – molten iron has no crystalline structure – it cannot be magnetized above its Curie temperature.

Dynamo theory holds that the geomagnetic field is internally generated. So, why does it fluctuate in strength and flip polarity in a cyclical pattern tied to solar cycles? Scratch the surface of the dynamo theory and it’s obvious all the pieces aren’t there. There is no successful, comprehensive dynamo model.

EU Theory understands it differently and far more successfully. No dynamo is generating the geomagnetic field. Electric current is generated by the Sun, and this external solar current is flowing around and through the Earth, forming a plasma sheath appropriately called a Langmuir sheath, but which is generally called the magnetosphere. Since the advent of space based satellite observatories, evidence of this Sun-Earth connection is indisputable. Investigation into its dynamics is building understanding with each new observation.

The following images are a small sampling of real time data collection from the iNtegrated Space Weather Analyisis (iSWA) system coordinated by NASA. They portray 1) Earth’s magnetosphere in reaction to solar wind, 2) Solar current sheet within the planetary region of the heliosphere, 3) Electron current density in Earth’s ionosphere, and 4) Earth facing coronal mass ejection (CME) propagating through the solar system.

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The images represent pieces of a larger picture affecting our planet that includes solar alignment within the galactic plane, galactic space weather, planetary alignments, coronal holes, solar flaring, sunspots and other cyclical electromagnetic solar events.

The Solar wind is a sinuous rotating current sheet called a Parker Spiral that mimics the rotation of spiral galaxies. This current sheet is a feature of the Sun’s heliosphere, which itself is an electromagnetic sheath around the Sun – repeating in fractal fashion the way the magnetosphere sheaths the Earth.

ftes-flux-transfer-events-300x300 — Image courtesy of NASA – Berkeland currents are electric currents in plasma shielded in a self organizing conduit of wrapped magnetic fields. Berkeland currents generally form in twisted pairs. The self organizing nature of plasma is why it is named after blood plasma, because it encapsulates and protects itself like a blood cell. Astronomers find them delivering massive current flows throughout the solar system, galaxy arms and inter-galactic space.

Plasma physicists recognize that polar aurorae are electromagnetic plasma currents, called Berkeland Currents, delivering energy from the constant flow of current in the heliosphere. That energy doesn’t stop when it hits the ionosphere. There is a big planet inside with a conductive molten interior and a faulted, inhomogeneous crust that produces complex paths for ground currents.

EarthAtmosphere-2_lg — Image courtesy NASA

Lithosphere, ionosphere and heliosphere are electrically coupled. Between Earth and the ionosphere is a dielectric atmosphere that causes the system to act as a charged capacitor. The result is weather, earthquakes and volcanoes.

The current density varies. In fact, the Sun is in transition to low activity now, called a grand minimum, when sunspots are reduced and the associated CME activity is less. Coronal holes and their effects are more prevalent. At the same time on Earth, the magnetic field is weakening and moving towards a polar shift. The geomagnetic field has weakened by approximately 9% in the past 170 years. Paleomagnetic studies indicate it was much higher in earlier times. The Levant is one region where paleomagnetic evidence exists indicating the region’s magnetic intensity may have been as high as three times stronger 3000 years ago than it is today.

parker — Parker Spiral – Image courtesy NASA

This suggests electromagnetic forces had a far stronger influence in the past and produced earthquakes, volcanoes and weather unlike anything we’ve experienced in recent history. The tales of Leviathan suggest a force of nature far more sinister and destructive as a result of severe geomagnetic storms:

And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. Revelations 11: 19.

Revelations gives a concise catalog of visions that presaged and accompanied Leviathan. In it John, a prophet is imprisoned on the island of Patmos where he sees a vision of apocalypse. He hears a voice saying, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, what thou seeest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches…” The vision begins when he sees seven golden candlesticks, one of which appeared like the “Son of Man” with hair white as snow and eyes like flames, holding seven stars in his hand. Out of his mouth came a two-edged sword. John is told the candlesticks represent the seven churches and the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.

NASA photo of a Sprite

Paracas Candelabra, Pisco Peru

The candlesticks are a description of plasma discharge events seen in the sky similar to the “Sprite” shown above (left) that NASA photographed above a severe lightning storm. Apparitions like this have been recorded by people around the world in petroglyphs, geoglyphs and pictographs. Some have been dated from 10 to 12,000 BC, based on carbon and luminescent dating of incidental organic artifacts. Most are indeterminate because of the difficulty in obtaining an age from rocks. Some researchers believe multiple events occurred from four to twelve thousand years ago, which is consistent with many civilizations that recorded them in one fashion or another, including the Maya, Easter Islanders, Nazca, Australian Aborigine’s, North American Natives and many more.

The giant hillside intaglio in Pisco, Peru shown above (right) is probably the finest example reproducing the image of a candlestick-shaped plasma instability. Pottery artifacts found at the site date to the Paracas people in 200 BC, although the geoglyph could be much older. It is generally believed to represent the lightning trident of Viracocha, the pre-Incan god who came from the sea and was worshiped as the god of the sun, thunderbolts and storms, much like Neptune, Poseidon and Leviathan.

Dr. Anthony Peratt, Director of plasma physics at Los Alamos Laboratories, recognized many petroglyph figures resemble plasma instabilities he studied in the lab. Using a network of volunteers worldwide to catalog petroglyphs, and performing supercomputer simulations of high energy plasma instabilities, he found plasma images that correspond to the majority of enigmatic, ancient petroglyph images found around the word.

A plasma instability forms as current from the Parker Spiral charges the magnetosphere surrounding the planet. We see this current flowing at the poles in the aurora, as electrons impact oxygen and nitrogen in the ionosphere causing a soft billowing glow in the night sky. As current density increases, however, as in a severe geomagnetic storm, the plasma’s magnetic sheath tightens around the current, pinching and increasing the current density and accelerating the electron flow. A bright column forms, much larger, brighter and longer lasting than any aurora, or thunderstorm generated phenomena that we witness today.

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A plasma instability, or Peratt column, is essentially a cosmic lightning bolt. The shapes, colors, brightness and motions change over time as current densities and magnetic field strengths vary.

A plasma current emits light in three modes – dark current, glow mode and arc discharge. Dark current has low current density yielding few ion collisions, so emits no visible light. Glow mode is what we see in the aurora, a soft colored glow in a rarefied atmosphere. Discharge arcs are lightning bolts, resulting from the magnetic fields surrounding the current squeezing it to extreme density and relativistic speeds, called a z-pinch. In arc mode the plasma emits ultra bright light and x-rays.

As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Ezekiel 1: 13 – 14.

In the diffuse plasma of space, the jagged spark we see in the atmosphere takes a more fluid, columnar shape. The columnar plasma discharge is surrounded by stacked plasma toroids that evolve into cup and bell shapes as the edges of the toroids warp up and down. The number of toroids can vary between three and nine and can resemble anything from chalices to ladders. Various other forms exist as well, depending on the nature of the plasma and the currents in it. Spirals, lines and figures are anthropomorphized as human figures and various animals with odd horns and antlers in petroglyphs around the world which match the plasma forms.

“Squatter Man” is depicted almost identically in thousands of petroglyphs around the world, as shown in the slides above and in the collage of pictures below. Often seen accompanied by spirals and wheels, as the plasma discharge evolves, it’s legs and arms appear to splay upwards and downwards as the toroids warp – just as Ezekiel describes it:

And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. Ezekiel 1: 26-27.

Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber. Ezekiel 8: 2.

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. Ezekiel 1: 15-16.

This is why Revelations, like Ezekiel, portrays a series of apparitions including the four horsemen, the lamb, the scrolls and the cups. The “seven cups of wrath” from Revelations are seen in the slide show image of a petroglyph above (1st slide, left side) labeled “Kayenta, Arizona.” It represents another empirically reproducible image in the evolution of a plasma instability.

Dr. Peratt extensively documented the instabilities and how they are accurately represented in ancient petroglyphs in “Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity” (IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 31, No. 6, December 2003.)

The images recorded in the bible and numerous ancient petroglyphs are recorded throughout history:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Revelations 12: 1.

IMAG1332 — Our Lady of Guadalupe, by Ted DeGrazia

That precise image was also seen in 1510 by a poor Mexican farmer. He reported it to his priest and it is today known as “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” It is another anthropomorphized description of a high energy aurora that shows up in petroglyphs of strange entities with elongated bodies, surrounded by stars and shining halos.

On December 16, 1737, a remarkable event was seen and documented across Europe, but today it is nearly forgotten. This was the time of “light nights”.

In Naples, Padua and Bologna, Italy, a bright, red, flashing light was observed in the north after sunset, as if the air was on fire. The red cloud emitted rays of red and white with dark streaks. A bright red column appeared, which curved to arc across the entire sky, becoming more vivid as it rose higher.

Stars shone bright in the midst of the light. After 8 p.m. the red light was interrupted by several vertical columns of a bright yellow color. In the south, where the sky was clear, there were fireballs. Several persons reported a stench in the air. The phenomena continued well into morning.

In Edinburgh, England, at 6 p.m. the sky was in flame. An arc of red light reached from the west, over the zenith, to the east. The northern border of this light was tinged with a blue color. It gradually stole along the face of the sky, until it covered the whole hemisphere.

In Sussex, it began as a pillar of light at about 6.15 p.m. After ten minutes, part of it divided from the rest, and never joined again. In the next 10 minutes it described an arc. At 8 p.m. it re-emerged in the north and made an arc from east to west, and went away to the south.

In Kilkenny, Ireland a great ball of fire appeared in the sky for an hour, then burst into pieces with an explosion that shook the island, set the whole hemisphere of sky on fire and “burned most furiously, till all the sulfurous matter was spent.”

Similar phenomena were witnessed in Russia and North and South America in subsequent days. These descriptions are of a strong geomagnetic event, but they do not come close to the kind of visions reported in the Bible.

Peratt notes that normal aurora are produced by currents in the megaampere range. The Peratt columnar images captured in petroglyphs would have required gigaamperes of current, significantly higher than anything experienced in modern history. His research engaged a global team of volunteers who used GPS positioning to catalog virtually every petroglyph in question world-wide. Eighty-four types of recurring petroglyph images were identified as aurora depictions found on every continent except Antarctica. He also discovered, by common orientation the petroglyphs recorded the aurora(e) occurred in the southern hemisphere and would have extended hundreds of thousands of miles into space. Their energies could have kept them visible for months, years, or even decades, allowing would-be prophets ample time to ponder their meaning, build idols and instigate a few sacrifices.

Sprite – NASA Image

Gobleki Tepi circa 10,000 BC

So this explains the visions, but what about the Leviathan itself?

To begin with, Peratt describes the evolution of the instability reaching arc discharge mode and emitting a wash of x-rays. Anyone exposed could suffer blindness, burns and radiation sickness, or even death. But the real damage came from the bowels of Earth itself.

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! Revelations 8: 7-13.

It was a bad day. Leviathan – Part Two will examine it closer.

Electric Earth January 9, 2016October 3, 2017

Dragon’s Breath

Meteors are a cosmic experience everyone shares…

Who hasn’t looked up on a clear evening and watched falling stars at least once in their life. Most meteors people see are sand grain-sized. A big, flaming streak across the sky from a brick-sized object is an event remembered.

If the dragon is the archetype of ancient symbols for the comet – the classic harbinger of doom-and-destruction – then scattered fragments zipping into Earth’s atmosphere are its breath on the back of the neck. Meteors are the spine-tingling frisson of something bigger out there.

An estimated 100 tons of meteoric material enters Earth’s atmosphere daily. With the ubiquity of digital cameras on dash cams, surveillance cameras and cell phones, large bolide events are captured regularly now. It is somewhat disconcerting to see how scary a large event can be.

As a reminder, review the Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013. Footage comes closer and closer to the epicenter as the video progresses:

This event is the largest in recent times, but it pales in comparison with past events like Tunguska, and certainly to the ancient events that left craters around the world.

Famous Craters…

The largest is Vredefort dome in South Africa. Measuring 185 miles across, scientists believe an asteroid blasted out the giant crater 2.02 billion years ago.

vredefort6969_700x — Vredefort Crater, South Africa

The oldest known crater is found in Greenland. Believed to be 3 billion years old, it left a 62 mile wide impact zone from a meteor estimated at 19 miles in diameter.

Most infamous of all prehistoric events is the Chicxulub crater, since it is widely thought to have caused mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago, ending the age of the dinosaurs. Its current size is 93 miles across, but some estimates put its original diameter at 150 miles.

As simple as they may seem, meteors are not at all straightforward to understand. It has only recently been recognized that air-bursts are typical for larger meteors. Controversies over cometary, or asteroid origins of a particular events go on for decades. Whether some craters are from impact, or volcanic origin is also disputed. And Craters – Impact or Electric – Hard to Tell and The Antipodal Moon, are articles that discuss craters on the moons and planets of the Solar system that are odd, unless electrical discharge is considered.

Mysterious Bolides…

Conventional wisdom in the past, as well as physics, suggested the larger the rock entering the atmosphere, the more likely some of it’s mass will hit earth intact. Even though the stresses of heat and pressure that build while plunging into the atmosphere can break-up a large body, smaller pieces should slow and cool, to fall and leave a field of meteorite debris.

Chelyabinsk and other historic events exhibit behavior that have caused many scientists to rethink meteor impacts – the apparent energy of the events and other strange phenomena. The anomalies indicate an electric influence not fully understood by mainstream science (because they think with gravity, which is a slow and ponderous way to think).

The Daily Plasma will look at three events of recent times, and the mysteries of their occurrence through the perspective of Electric Universe theory: Chelyabinsk, Comet Shoemaker-Levy and in greater detail, Tunguska.

Chelyabinsk – February 15, 2013

We discussed in Electric Siberia, that the original estimate of the Chelyabinsk meteor’s size, based on observation, had to be upped by a factor of 1,000 when data streamed in showing it was 30 times more powerful than Hiroshima, on the order of a 500 kiloton blast. The power exhibited when Shoemaker-Levy struck Jupiter surprised astronomers, too. And the destructive energy of Tunguska, an order of magnitude bigger than Chelyabinsk – without leaving a crater, or meteorite debris – is still a puzzle after a century of scientific study.

The screaming Chelyabinsk fireball glowed 30 times brighter than the sun at one point, burning the skin and retinas of those below. Only 0.05% of the original rock has been accounted for as debris. The largest piece was found in nearby Lake Chebarkul, weighing 650kg. It’s assumed intense heat and shock vaporized the rest.

Most strange, however, is this meteor anomaly, in which the video clearly shows a bullet of plasma accelerating from the meteor tail, to out and beyond the meteor’s head. There is no “gravity” explanation, or exploding rock theory that can slingshot a chunk from behind, to ahead of the meteor. This can only be a plasma event.

A meteor’s tail is plasma – ionized gas, both from the surrounding atmosphere and the ablating meteor material, not to mention the ionosphere it passes through – there is no controversy in this. The implication of a forward jetting plasma, however, is that an electrical field exists ahead of the meteor. The plasma bolt, or plasmoid seen shooting forward, is following an electric field, accelerated by magnetic fields, indicating the meteor is already in contact with a positive earth charge like a lightning bolt.

Witnesses reported crackling sounds as the meteor passed overhead, which implies the sound traveled at the speed of light. Acoustic waves don’t go that fast. This phenomena is evidence of the meteor’s electric field instantaneously inducing sound by creating a static electrical response from objects on the ground as it passed overhead. The sound people heard is the static discharge from the objects nearby.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy – July, 1984

Comet Schoemaker-Levy provided the scientists with surprises, too. One of which was the small amount of planetary water revealed during impact. Models of Jupiter’s atmosphere predicted fragments penetrating a layer of water that they would detect in the impact zone.

Astronomers did not observe anything close to the predicted amount of water following the collisions, and studies found that fragmentation and complete destruction of the fragments probably occurred in a much higher altitude air-burst than expected, well above the depth of the water layer.

Another anomalous finding came from radio observations that revealed synchrotron radiation from the region of the impacts. Synchrotron radiation is most often associated with high energy electromagnetic plasma instabilities and particle accelerators, where relativistic electrons interact at velocities near the speed of light.

Following the impacts, aurora-like plasma emissions were detected near the impact region, and also antipodal to the impact site with respect to Jupiter’s magnetic field. Aurora’s are another electromagnetic plasma effect – and they were seen on the side of Jupiter’s magnetosphere opposite to the impact.

Astronomer’s theory for the aurora is based on a somewhat convoluted process of reverberating shock waves between atmospheric layers of the Jovian atmosphere. But the antipodal event indicates an interaction between the comet’s electric potential and Jupiter’s magnetosphere, an expected phenomena for bodies of differential charge coming in contact.

Tunguska – June 30, 1908

Tunguska is remarkable for its electrically induced phenomena. Its cause is widely believed to be an asteroid about 120 feet in diameter, traveling about 33,500 miles per hour. During its quick plunge, the 220-million-pound space rock heated the air surrounding it to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit. At a height of about 28,000 feet, the combination of pressure and heat caused it to fragment and annihilate itself in an air-burst, producing a fireball with energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima bombs.

The resulting shock waves registered on sensitive barometers as far away as England. Dense clouds formed over the region at high altitudes which reflected sunlight from beyond the horizon. Night skies glowed, and reports came in that people who lived as far away as London and parts of Asia could read the newspaper outdoors as late as midnight.

Locally, hundreds of reindeer were killed, but there were no human deaths reported as an immediate consequence of the blast, although one individual did die later from injuries. The explosion created the effects of a magnitude 5.0 earthquake, causing buildings to shake, windows to break, and people to be knocked off their feet 40 miles away.

The blast, centered in a desolate and forested area of mixed permafrost and semi-permafrost near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia, was so remote, that twenty years passed before the mineralogist and meteorite expert Leonid Kulik, from the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Museum finally reached the blast zone. On three separate occasions his expeditions investigated the area and obtained eyewitness accounts.

The explosion leveled an estimated 80 million trees over an 830 square-mile area in a radial pattern from the blast zone.

Because the object exploded high in the atmosphere, it left no crater. At ground zero, tree branches were stripped, leaving trunks standing up. But at distances from roughly 3 to 10 miles, the trees were blown over, lying with tops pointed away from the blast.

The closest humans were herders camped in tents roughly 30 km from ground zero. Local Evenk natives who live an ancient, traditional life hunting, fishing and herding reindeer in the area were at first reluctant to discuss the event with the St. Petersburg scientists. Many Evenki’s seemed to believe the event to be a spiritually induced punishment – a curse on the region, and perhaps, carried a sense of shame.

One man, forty miles away at the Vanara trading post witnessed the blast as he was launched from his chair:

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“I was sitting on the porch of the house at the trading station, looking north. Suddenly in the north…the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire. I felt a great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire… At that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash… I was thrown twenty feet from the porch and lost consciousness for a moment…. The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled…. At the moment when the sky opened, a hot wind, as if from a cannon, blew past the huts from the north. It damaged the onion plants. Later, we found that many panes in the windows had been blown out and the iron hasp in the barn door had been broken.”

Another witness said:

“I saw the sky in the north open to the ground and fire poured out. The fire was brighter than the sun. We were terrified, but the sky closed again and immediately afterward, bangs like gunshots were heard. We thought stones were falling… I ran with my head down and covered, because I was afraid stones may fall on it.”

Herders camped approximately 30 km away, and likely the closest humans to the blast zone, related that:

“Early in the morning when everyone was asleep in the tent, it was blown up in the air along with its occupants. Some lost consciousness. When they regained consciousness, they heard a great deal of noise and saw the forest burning around them, much of it devastated.”

“The ground shook and incredibly prolonged roaring was heard. Everything round about was shrouded in smoke and fog from burning, falling trees. Eventually the noise died away and the wind dropped, but the forest went on burning. Many reindeer rushed away and were lost.”

One older man was reportedly blown about forty feet into a tree, causing a compound fracture of his arm, and he soon died. Hundreds of reindeer were killed and campsites and herder’s huts in the area were destroyed.

Reports show agreement on several facts…

Three initial blasts occurred, followed by one smaller one, and then a series of explosions and tremors which persisted for several minutes like an artillery barrage.
An 830 square mile area of forest was completely flattened, with trees blown down radially away from a butterfly pattern impact zone. Areas within the zone are indicative of individual blasts from a cluster of at least four major explosions.
Witnesses stated they watched “the sky split in two” and before impact saw a “blueish-white celestial body” in the sky.

The only debris found so far that can be meteorite fragments are tiny glass nodules embedded in the fallen trees, which are consistent in makeup with stony asteroid fragments that have been super-heated. Glass nodules are also created by lightning and electrical discharge. (Recent searches in the area have turned up three small rocky meteor fragments from nearby streams, but experts point out that these could be common meteors from any time before, or since the Tunguska event and cannot be correlated to it).

So where are all the fragments of the asteroid that was estimated to weigh some 100,000 tons?

Vaporized, they say – or atomized into dust and tiny gravel.

At first, scientists believed, because the meteorite did not strike the ground or make a crater, the object might be a weak, icy fragment of a comet, which vaporized explosively in the air, and left no residue on the ground.

More modern analysis indicates a dense rocky body of a certain size range can also atomize in an air-burst, leaving few large pieces. In 1993 researchers Chris Chyba, Paul Thomas, and Kevin Zahnle studied the Siberian explosion and concluded it was a stone meteorite that exploded as it belly-flopped into the atmosphere. They claim the meteor experienced a strong mechanical shock that exploded in a fireball leaving only a cloud of fine dust and tiny fragments. The ground blast was the effect of the meteor’s shock wave propagating from the air burst.

Blast Energy Controversy…

Some researchers of the Tunguska event dispute this. They claim the type of kinetic energy event described could not produce the kind of blast zone found at Tunguska.

Any moving object has energy because of its motion. That energy is technically called “kinetic energy.” Kinetic energy is mathematically expressed by the equation, mv²/2, where m is the object’s mass and v its velocity.

Because the velocity is squared, high velocity imparts huge energy to even a small mass. Think of bullets. Throw one and it bounces off the target, fire one from a rifle, and… well, you get it.

Meteors travel 60,000 mph, or more, so that is very fast. According to the theory of an atomizing explosion, it is this kinetic energy that explodes the meteor.

Victor Korobeinikov, a member of the Russian Academy of Science Institute for Computer Aided Design and a team of associates has shown a meteor’s kinetic energy alone could not have produced the Tunguska blast zone. They concluded the internal energy of the Tunguska meteor had to be involved siultaneous with its kinetic energy to produce the radially patterned forest fall. Kinetic energy alone could not “explode” quickly enough to create the observed effect on the trees. The hypothetical Tunguska air-burst meteor had to act like an enormous block of explosive.

Korobeinikov concluded that the blast pattern required a predominately spherical air-shock wave to create it. The momentum of a kinetic energy induced shock wave from a disintegrating meteor must carry the momentum of the meteor, due to conservation of momentum. The simulations showed this type of shock wave produced a conical blast pattern. To achieve the spherical pattern of Tunguska required practically all of the air-shock to be produced from a complete and instantaneous explosive release of its internal energy.

The models also showed the epicenter should have experienced extremely high temperature from a kinetic air-burst and incinerate any organic materials at the epicenter. Yet many groups of trees survived in the blast zone and many trees showed no evidence of any burn, while ignition of wood bedding was reported up to 34 km away.

Besides the missing meteor fragments and Korobeinikov’s research, other, stranger things were reported:

no eyewitness reports of a meteor “tail”
disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field
a geomagnetic storm and aurora displays before and after the event
a reversal of soil magnetization
an electromagnetic pulse, similar to what would be created by a nuclear explosion
accelerated growth of plants after the event
up to 60% of survived trees in some areas near the epicenter with lightning damage
spots of melted sand and soil
radiation-like burns on exposed victims
15 micrometer anhedral carbon particles that are likely micro-diamonds, that show a chemical make-up representing terrestrial values, and not an extraterrestrial signature. Micro-diamond are an expected result of an explosive plasma discharge event.

Also, in 1908, German Professor, Herr Doctor Weber of the University in Kiel, was monitoring the magnetosphere for auroras. As he recorded in the Astronomische Nachrichten (Astronomical News), he didn’t detect aurora, but he measured a constant, steady vibration in magnetic declination for several hours over the same daily time periods three evenings prior to the Tunguska event. The signal ceased after the event. He ruled out local interference.

Terrestrial Theory…

Andrei Yu. Ol’khovatov, a Russian scientist, has proposed the interesting and plausible theory that Tunguska was a geophysical event caused by tectonic processes. He analyzed the nature of earthquake tremors, as reported following Tunguska, and concluded they were not caused by the meteor blast, but were the cause of the event itself.

He points to the many eyewitness reports of odd luminous phenomena, such as light columns, stripes, lightning, flames and the sky glowing red, rather than the witnesses claiming a streaking meteor with a tail. According to his research, no one reported a trail of any kind behind the “fireball” in the sky, as would be evident from a large meteor.

An unusual glow in the sky was first observed days before the event. Beginning on June 23, 1908, atmospheric phenomena were observed in many places of Western Europe, the European part of Russia and Western Siberia indicating geomagnetic activity. They gradually increased in intensity until June 29 and then reached a peak in the early morning of July 1st. These anomalies included frequent formation of noctilucent clouds and bright auroral twilight. After July 1, these effects decreased exponentially.

A surge in tectonic activity can produce various optical effects in the atmosphere: luminous columns, stripes, lightnings, flame, glowing sky, etc. Exploding “meteors” are among them.

Earthquake Lights…

Tunguska witnesses reported three different trajectories depending on where they stood, which is evidence of an earthquake event. Each of the witnessed trajectories is above a main tectonic fault, according to Ol’khovatov. The eastern trajectory superimposes on the Beryozovsko-Vanavarskii fault, the south-eastern trajectory projects on the Norilsk-Markovskii fault, and the southern trajectory is over the Angaro-Khetskii and Angaro-Viluiskii faults. They intersect inside the Vanavara circle geologic structure.

Ol’khovatov also points to reports of simultaneous auroral glows along these faults far from the immediate blast zone and near other major geologic features. He believes earthquake lights – plasma phenomena in the atmosphere caused by tectonics – are what witnesses saw emanating from the faulted regions, not an extraterrestrial bolide. This explains the various trajectories reported and other un-meteor-like observations.

A study in the journal Seismological Research Letters studied the type of quakes that generate plasma events and found they are tied to a specific type of temblor in areas where certain geological formations occur. Though the lights are rare, researchers have documented 65 examples.

A witness described one event that occurred while he was sitting in front of his house during a cool night. Suddenly the air got so hot that he couldn’t breathe. The extreme heat lasted for 20 minutes when a bright light lit the whole ground like sunshine, as if a “chamber had opened in the sky.” Next he heard a great noise like thunder, and the air moved left and right. Four shocks lifted him and others out of their seats, and the buildings around them collapsed, less than 30 seconds after the bright light appeared. Earthquake aftershocks lasted for 40 days.

At the Russian town of Kola, February 21, 1873, witnesses say the sky darkened and an enormous crimson fireball came from the eastern sky and vanished in the west, immediately followed by an underground jolt that kept shaking the earth for 5 minutes.

Another “meteor” flew at low altitude in a blast of wind over the Russian town of Chembar on January 4, 1886, exploding on the road outside of the town with a loud thunderclap and killing an innocent horse. The frightened coachman said a fiery serpent killed the horse. About 15 minutes after the explosion an earthquake struck the town.

More recent events include:

1931, Tama Hills, Japan during an earthquake “a fireball rose in the sky and disappeared. A sound like ‘Bah’ was heard.” The lower sky was colored pink-red for some time afterwards.
1931, South Hyuga, Japan, during an earthquake a fishing boat 50 km off-shore began to pitch violently before a large pillar of fire shot up from the surface of the sea.
In the mid-1960s at Matsushiro, Japan, earthquake lights were photographed for the first time.
1974, Kiangsu Province, China, immediately before an earthquake hit people saw a bright streak in the sky, with sparks of lightning dancing across it. The spectacle went on for 3-4 seconds.
1975, Liaoning Province, China, fiery columns, balls, and a “flame” shot into the sky at the time of the earthquake.
1976, Hopeh Province, China, the Tangshang earthquake was preceded by a bright flickering light in the distance, said witnesses. Instantly it transformed from red to silvery blue, and then lengthened into a blinding white strip that darted across the sky and went out immediately. At the time of the earthquake an engine driver saw lightning in the form of 3 blinding light beams, followed by 3 mushroom-shaped smoke columns.
1976, Lunling, China, two Chinese seismologists observed a fireball about 50 meters in diameter, 200 meters away for almost half an hour.
1988-1989, Quebec, Canada, in connection with the swarm of earthquakes many luminous phenomena including sparks, diffuse dawn-like glow and auroral bands were witnessed. Fireballs a few meters in diameter reportedly popped out of the ground in a repetitive manner. Others were seen several hundred meters in the sky. Some observers described luminous droplets, rapidly disappearing a few meters under stationary floating fireballs.
2007, Pisco, Peru, a naval officer saw pale-blue columns of light bursting four times in succession out of the water as a magnitude-8.0 earthquake struck. Security cameras in the city captured images of the lights as well.
2009, L’Aquila, Italy, seconds before an earthquake pedestrians saw flames of light 4 inches high flickering above the stone-paved Francesco Crispi Avenue in the town’s historical city center.

Some events have been witnessed by scientists. Chinese seismologists observed a small fireball originate from the ground 100 meters from where they stood. At first about one meter in diameter, it shot up to a height of 10 or 15 meters and shrunk to ping-pong-ball size, then curved over in an arc, resembling a meteor. The light dimmed and brightened, small wisps of white smoke swirled, and a slight crackling sound was heard. A small funnel-shaped hole in the ground was found at the place where the fireball appeared.

Chinese seismologists observing the phenomena discovered that more fireballs occurred along intersections of river beds and faults. Investigators of “streaks of bluish white color” seen before the 1995 Kobe earthquake found the trace of a 1,000 amp electric current across an area of about 1000 sq. cm.*

In 2002, a meteor exploded over the Vitim River basin estimated to produce a 5 kiloton blast. Researchers found a 40 square mile area flattened much like Tunguska, where the meteor was found to have exploded overhead. Most unusual, the area was suffering a power blackout during the strike, but when the meteor flashed overhead, the grid was activated by the electrical field of the meteor. Residents’ lights flickered on a few seconds, while crackling was heard and electrical discharges sparked along the tops of metal fences. Many people reported effects of radiation.

In general earthquake lights can manifest as comet-like fireballs, pillars of light, a shooting flame, spheres, patches and bands in the sky, all-sky luminous flashes, auroras, odd clouds exhibiting colors and sparks, black objects and many others. They are often reported as UFO’s.

In an Electric Universe…

That comet Shoemaker-Levy was, in fact, a comet, or that Chelyabinsk was a fragment of one, or a chunk of asteroid, is not really at question. The understanding of what comets are and what kind of “impacts” they, or asteroids can cause when screaming into Earth’s atmosphere is interpreted differently, though.

The EU solar model is that the Sun is not a fusion balloon as suggested by accepted theory, but an anode, or positively charged body in a negatively charged “atmosphere” – the heliosphere – energized into a stable arc discharge from vast electromagnetic currents in the Milky Way.

The Earth is also a charged body, with it’s own electromagnetic field that receives energy from the Sun’s radiating currents. We see these currents at the magnetic poles, where they occasionally are energized to a glow mode, or aurora when solar “winds” are strong.

The mechanism that carries current across vast distances in the vacuum of space are plasma streams called Birkeland Currents. That the polar aurora are Birkeland Currents was discovered and published by Kristian Birkeland in, coincidentally, 1908, the year of Tunguska.

In this model, there is little difference between an asteroid and a comet. The idea that comets are fluffy ice balls is an unnecessary convention of mainstream science to explain things they don’t comprehend. Both asteroids and comets are rocky bodies, and direct observations by exploratory spacecraft confirm this with every new piece of data.

The difference is in the degree of negative charge they carry. Comets orbit the kuiper Belt in the far reaches of the heliosphere and are, therefore, far more negatively charged than an asteroid that orbits in the inner Asteroid Belt. When a comet enters the increasingly positive influence of the Sun, it begins to electrically erode, producing the iconic tail that streams away in the solar wind.

The consequence is that the meteor’s energy includes this charge differential, so when it approaches Earths influence there is a discharge between the meteor and earth. The energy is far greater than the kinetic energy of the meteor alone. It is also vectored along the electric field created between earth and the meteor, as well as throughout the geomagnetic field to deliver that energy to earth. This explains why Chelyabinsk and Shoemaker-Levy surprised researchers with their power.

The energy released not only includes the kinetic and internal energy of the meteor matter, but the responding energy of the Earth. The plasma events, such as synchrotron radiation and auroras are a natural consequence of such an event. So too are tectonic responses from the Earth’s internal geomagnetic field.

This can explain the spherical blast pattern of Tunguska and the anomalous seismic, aurora and lightning phenomena witnessed. It can explain the selective burns in and near the blast zone, which is very hard to explain otherwise. The mainstream theory of an air-burst shock wave would scorch the blast zone completely, which did not happen.

It is likely Ol’khovatov is partly correct in the tectonic origins of the Tunguska event. More likely, a bolide was involved, but in an event that occurred while geomagnetic influences were already at work, perhaps because of the meteor’s approach.

Wallace Thornhill discusses meteors and the possible cause of Tunguska in the context of EU theory:

“Do meteors burn up from air friction or from electrical discharges sparked by short-circuiting a double layer? Are the streaks of light hot air or lightning? Are the noises shock waves or electrically transduced sounds? Are meteorites etched by friction or by electrical discharge machining? Are they slowed to a soft landing by air resistance or by electrical forces? Why do we find meteorites where there are no craters and craters where there are no meteorites? Is “impact” an obsolete idea to be replaced with “arc scar?”

“In my view, earthquakes are an electrical phenomenon. The Earth is electrified beneath the surface as well as at the surface and can suffer “underground lightning.” That causes most earthquakes, I believe. To have a good argument for the fireball as the cause of the other effects I would like to see the precise timing of each event. I would also be interested to see if any anomalous signals were picked up by stations or any other electromagnetic monitoring of the atmosphere. I say that because to be the cause of the earthquake the fireball must discharge to the Earth in some fashion. That would result in a radio signal similar to that of lightning or sprites. William Corliss in his Sourcebook Project collected reports of “Earthquakes and Electricity” which would be useful to examine. For example in an early report from the Journal of Science, 20:7, 1884, by Arthur Parnell we find that from 490 earthquake cases, 156 were associated with thunder, detonations and rumblings, 73 with meteors, and 15 with lightning flashes that had nothing to do with thunderstorms.”

If you enjoyed this article, please “like” or leave a comment.

Additional links of interest:

International Meteor Organization

MeteorSeti.org

JPL/NASA – list of meteor streams

*For details see “Geophysical Research Letters” v.25, p.2721 (1998).

Thunderblogs December 23, 2015October 3, 2017

Lensing by Refraction…not Gravity?

bulletcluster_comp_f2048-590x426

Hubble looks for dark matter in colliding galactic clusters using theory of gravitational lensing. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al.; Lensing Map: NASA/STScI; ESO WFI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al., of the Bullet Cluster.

Big Bang cosmology has it’s challenges – it also has it’s challengers.

Re-posted courtesy of Thunderbolts.info.

The EU community is a challenger to the standard gravitational model, believing space-time to be a misinterpretation of the Universe. The things we see in the Universe – from large scale filamentary structures connecting galactic clusters, to Earth’s climate and meteorology – are plasma phenomena driven by electromagnetic forces. In fact, as discussed by Wal Thornhill in his EU2015 conference presentation, “The Long Path to Understanding Gravity” , even gravity can be seen as a manifestation of electromagnetic forces.

EU Theory is not the only challenger to standard gravity theories, however. Many gravity-based theories also challenge the mainstream from within their community. It is unfortunate we have a separation of communities at all, since it is scientific progress that suffers. Nevertheless, alternative ideas still abound and the theories often comport more with EU Theory than with their parent gravitational model.

Professor R. C. Gupta at the Institute of Engineering & Technology in Lucknow, India has presented such a theory in a paper entitled,

“Bending of Light Near a Star and Gravitational Red/Blue Shift: Alternative Explanation Based on Refraction of Light.”

The paper asserts that the theory behind gravitational lensing – one of the evidentiary “proofs” of General Relativity – is wrong, and that the lensing effect is caused by refraction through the “atmospheres” of stars and galaxies.

The paper also presents the mathematical basis for refraction, and shows refraction closely predicts the same lensing effect as attributed to gravity.

It is a plausible theory based on the presence of plasma atmospheres that we know pervade stellar and galactic formations at every scale. The paper shows that a stellar, or galactic atmosphere will bend light, just as it is refracted by crystal, or water as the light passes from low density medium to a higher density medium.

It is the kind of simple answer based on classical physics and the known behavior of electromagnetism that EU Theory rigorously requires, unlike the General Relativity concepts that require magical unseen mass and energy.

The idea that refraction causes the lensing effect traditionally attributed to Relativity has also been proposed by Dr. Edward Dowdye, Jr., a physicist and laser optics engineer formerly with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Dowdye derived the mathematical solution for lensing using refraction instead of gravity, as he presented at the EU2012 conference.

Ed Dowdye points to the fact that observations of solar lensing are in the plasma ionized atmosphere of the Sun, as predicted by refraction, and not at varying elevations from the mass of the Sun as predicted for gravitational lensing. He also points to the lack of gravitational lensing observed in the stars rapidly orbiting the Milky Way’s galactic center. He writes, “..evidence of gravitational light bending at the site of Sagittarius A*, as is predicted by the light bending rule of General Relativity, is yet to be observed.”

The standard model theory predicts a massive black hole at the galactic center. Astronomers have observed stars in fast elliptical orbits around the galactic center for over a year, some having completed entire orbits. Although the stellar orbits are cited as indirect evidence of a black hole, and the validity of General Relativity, they do not exhibit the predicted optical distortion to indicate gravitational lensing.

To test for refraction as the cause of lensing, Dr. Gupta’s paper suggests no lensing effect will be seen near a body without an atmosphere. This may be difficult to observe given plasma pervades space to a greater degree than often recognized. Even our distant planet Pluto has been found to have a substantial atmosphere and a cometary tail of plasma streaming from it.

Another test is to look for chromatic aberration in the light bent through refraction. Diffraction is a natural consequence of refractive lensing, spreading the colors, as in a prism. General Relativity predicts no diffraction with gravitational lensing, since gravity warped space-time should bend all wavelengths equally. General Relativity theorists suggests the lack of diffraction in lensing is evidence their theory is correct. Yet Einstein Rings are blue.

An Einstein Ring is a special case of lensing when the focal point of distant light is directed at the observer to create a ring of light around the intervening galaxy. The blue color is an indication of diffraction.

Predictably, instead of looking at classical physics for answers, General Relativity theorists are developing ad-hoc theories to explain how light is diffracted by gravity to make the Einstein Rings blue. At the same time, of course, they maintain no diffraction as evidence lensing is gravitational, and not refractive. How contradictory. But that is what happens when a theory relies on math instead of observation.

Dr. Gupta asserts we don’t know the refractive index, or the density of the matter light passes through, so may not be measuring the small diffusion that results in all cases. Let’s hope Dr. Gupta gets the attention he deserves to test his theory.

Remarkably, the paper goes on to postulates that gravitational attraction is only between material bodies – bodies with mass – and that light waves have no mass, so cannot be affected by gravity.

The long held assumption of General Relativity, that the speed of light, c is constant, is also challenged by his theory, as is the cause of gravitational red/blue shift in light witnessed from distant galaxies.

These ideas are also predicated on refraction, because the energy of light is not changed by refraction.

Max Planc’s equation for quantum energy is,

E = hν

Where E is the quantum energy of light, h is the Planck constant and ν is the frequency of light.

Frequency ν is expressed in terms of the speed of light c, as ν = c/λ, where λ is the wavelength of light.

Hence, E can be expressed as,

E = hc/λ

General Relativity assumes c to be constant, and red/blue shifts occurs because light gains gravitational energy from a body as it passes through its gravitational influence (E goes up). With c constant, and the total energy of the light rising, the wavelength of light must go down (blue shift). Conversely, the energy is reduced as light escapes a gravitational field and the wavelength goes up (red shift). Wavelength varies inversely with frequency if c is constant, because ν = c/λ.

What this paper postulates, is that no energy is gained from gravitational forces by a mass-less light wave. So E remains constant, and no change in frequency occurs; and E = hν stays constant as light passes a massive body in space.

Instead, c, the speed of light is slowed by the medium it passes through, and hence wavelength, λ decreases (blue shift) since λ = hc/E. Conversely, red shift occurs when light leaves a dense medium into the vacuum of space, because c increases, so λ increases.

That’s an easy concept to grasp. General Relativity does not like to use such simple and classical explanations. It requires mind-bending concepts of things we can’t see, or explain – like gravitational distortions in space-time.

General Relativity is the stalwart theory behind almost all theoretical astro-physics. Einstein proposed gravitational lensing as one of three tests. The standard interpretation of red-shift as a measure of recessional velocity is another. Refraction theory could pull both of these legs out from the old, rickety three-legged stool.

EU Theory can agree with refraction as a cause for lensing. It suggests, however, that the “atmosphere” for refraction is the classic ether of James Clerk Maxwell’s field theory, as derived by Oliver Heaviside.

As Wal Thornhill explains in “Towards a Real Cosmology in the 21st Century”, the Electric Universe theorizes neutrinos form the ether and provide the mechanical substrate of the universe. Neutrinos have mass, albeit infinitesimally small, and envelop stars and galaxies in a density gradient which causes refractive lensing.

At the time Einstein developed the theory of General Relativity, the pervasiveness of plasma was not known, nor had neutrinos been observed. It was thought there was no medium to cause refraction in the vacuum of space. Now, we know about the electromagnetic plasma environments of stars and galaxies. We know neutrinos pervade space. It is inconceivable, in accordance with the classic physics of light and optics, that light passing through a medium does not experience refraction.

Gravitational lensing is used to study the presence of “dark matter” in galactic clusters. If refraction is the actual cause of lensing, a major assumption driving the dark matter search would be swept away. Critics suggest it is because of such assumptions, that after decades of searching, dark matter remains dark – because it does not exist.

This issue matters to all of us, as pointed out by John Moffat, an eminent doubter of dark matter and the concept of a constant speed of light, within the mainstream community.

“It may be that ultimately the search for dark matter will turn out to be the most expensive and largest null result experiment since the Michelson-Morley experiment, which failed to detect the ether.” – John Moffat

The search for dark matter is more than 80 years old. The presence of all the known, observable, detectable, normal matter — the stuff in the standard model — cannot account for the gravitation “observed” according to General Relativity. Despite abject failure to find dark matter, General Relativity theorists are convinced it is out there.

If the gravitational model theorists would consider the neutrino as the normal matter that pervades space and provides the structure for field theory to act upon, and that charge separation is the driving force shaping our Universe – they might explain the things they keep scratching their heads over without the invention of stuff that is not known, observable, detectable, normal matter.

Likewise, a listen to Dr. Gupta’s refraction theories might lead to successful experiments that would enlighten our understanding of the Electric Universe, as well.

In the words of one of the great philosophers of Saturday Night Live, Roseanne Roseannadana, “Let me tell ya Jane, it’s always something. It’s just one thing, after another…”

Rarely is any phenomena the result of any one thing. Lensing is an optical phenomena that can be arrived at from many different angles – no pun intended. That one can derive it’s effect with an equation based on the gravity of a body light passes, per General Relativity, or through the known optical effect of refraction through changing densities of the medium it passes through, whether that medium is an atmosphere of ionic material, or an ether of neutrinos, points to the fact that we are missing something at the fundamental level in the relationships of gravity, mass and matter.

It also points to the maleability of mathematics to describe anything – even dark matter, black holes and square pegs in round holes.

As Dr. Gupta has shown similarly with known optical science, answers are found with classical physics. We just need a science community to look at it.

Dyatlov Pass November 19, 2015October 3, 2017

The Haunting Mystery of Diatlov Pass – Part Two

Part 1 left the group inside the tent with a screaming Yeti outside.

The growling and screaming became incessant. Semen Zolotorev composed his breathing. Instincts and experience took over the chaos in his mind. Suppress the panic. Panic wasn’t helpful.

Yeeaarghh…Yeeaarghh…Eeeaaghhh!

He peered through a slit in the tent, “Snuff the lamp, I can’t see.”

Igor doused the light. The tent went pitch black. “What do you see, Sascha?”

“Fuck-all,”

“Something is moving up slope, along the ridge. I see it from this end,” said Yuri. He had his head halfway through a cut in the tent.

Semen did the same thing. He had to see what was there – he had to see where they were. Ten years in the Great War…and he’d lived. One of the lucky to survive that bloody hell. Every comrade he fought with died. He’d held their bloody heads in his hands. The fucking Nazi’s couldn’t kill him – he wasn’t going to die on this mountain.

He gripped his knife tight. “If they attack, we fight back,” he said. He thought, these kids will panic soon. There was only one way to defend an attack like this – saved his ass every time – charge the attacker. Take his momentum away. Make him panic. “Igor…Georgyi…Nicolai…Aleksi. Arm yourselves.” Semen found a ski pole and blindly cut, trying to make a lance.

Whomp…something hit the tent. Zina screamed…bodies jostled…Whomp…Semen grabbed someone by the arm, “We go…now!”

He ripped his way through the tent wall and ran screaming. The others, confused, exposed and frightened, tore their way out and ran downhill. Igor stayed with Semen. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“The filthy pigs are cowards. Do you smell them?”

“But where are they, Shascha? I don’t see anything,” said Igor.

Yeaarggh!

“There you are, you bastard!”

Igor watched Semen disappear in the dark, running with his knife raised. He heard a muffled grunt, then silence.

He found Semen on the snow, on his back, staring into space.

Dazed, Semen stared where a moment ago, he’d looked straight in it’s eyes. Glowing eyes. He’d felt the knife leave his hand, firm to the hilt, as the eyes blinked and vanished in the night. No matter the size of the thing and the blinding darkness, he’d put the knife between its ribs. Knife-work was like riding a bicycle.

“Semen, are you okay?” Igor helped him to his feet.

“I got it, Igor,” he said. “That will teach them to mess with a Cossack, eh?.”

“The others have run. Let’s go. We need to stay together.”

Yeeeaaaarghhhh…Yeeeaaaarghhhh…Eeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaghhhh!

“It sounds pissed-off,” said Semen. “Didn’t like the poke in the belly.”

“Sascha! We go now to the others. Now!”

“I’m with you, comrade. Lead the way. Fuck it’s cold.”

Igor picked up the trail of the party and followed it down slope. He tried to jog. His wooden feet made him stumble. He realized they were freezing. “I’m in socks, Semen. My God, I’m in my socks!”

“I have my Burkas. They’re wet. My feet are cold.”

“Shascha. What will we do?”

“Stay with me, I have nine lives.”

“Good, there are nine of us.”

“I may have used some…”

“What, Sascha?”

“Nothing.”

The grunting and growling behind them was constant, but it didn’t pursue. They walked as fast as they could, with feet like blocks of wood. The nerves were alive, though. Searing cold brought stabbing pain with every step. Igor began to think of options. He didn’t know if the others were okay. No option, but to reach them first.

Semen listened to the growls. He tried to hear individuals in the cacophony behind him. It reminded him of the Moscow zoo. The fucking monkey cage – that’s what it sounded like. A monkey cage full of freight trains. How many were there? He counted four – distinct, for sure. Maybe five.

“Igor!”

“Is that you Zina?”

“Igor, we are in the trees.”

“I’m coming. Don’t show yourself – just keep talking. I hear you.”

“We are under the trees. I see you coming, Igor. Across the field, you are coming to us.”

“Is everybody here?” he asked, as he and Semen arrived. The party huddled beneath a cedar tree. Igor hugged Zina.

“We’re cold, Igor. We don’t have shoes,” said Georgyi.

“Everybody stand on wood, or bark, or something. Get off the snow.”

“We are. It doesn’t help! My feet are wet, and…the wind.”

“What happened, Sascha? What happened just now?” said Aleksi.

“The fucking Snowmen attacked,” said Semen…”What?”

“I never saw anything.”

“You ran. Why didn’t you stay and fight…we would have chased them away. Now, we are stuck down here. You hear their screams, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what I hear,” said Aleksi. “Damn! Why are we out here. Because a snowball hit the tent?”

“A Snowman hit the tent. What are you saying?”

“Shut-up,” said Igor. “We need a fire. Luda, grab that piece of wood. Nicolai, behind you is more…everybody.”

“What if they see it?” said Yuri.

“They’re animals. They don’t like fire,” said Semen.

“How do you know anything?” Aleksi said.

“I know,” said Semen.

“Put the fire behind the tree,” said Igor. “We’ll sit around it.”

They gathered a pile of bark and needles, sticks and branches together. They huddled in a circle around the tiny clump of debris.

“Let me,” said Semen. “Give me the matches, Georgyi. We can’t fuck around.”

“I’ll do it, Sascha,” said Igor.

“Okay, first everyone get around. Let us block the wind before you strike the match, Igor.”

“I am, Sascha. Okay, I’m lighting it now.”

Igor held the match, breathless and steady beneath the pine needles watching them glow and curl. They didn’t burst into flame, though. He tried again.

He tried two matches together, and the needles erupted into bright plasma. “Okay, okay. it’s going,” he said. He blew a steady wind to make it grow.

They all adjusted positions, grabbing branches and bark to sit on around the tiny fire. They began adding wood. Georgyi and Yuri scouted for more. They couldn’t sit still and hung over the fire to warm between runs to collect wood.

The fire blew out. Igor used a box of matches relighting it. Yuri and Georgyi kept feeding it, but the wind mercilessly consumed the meager bits as fast as they could replenish them. They began breaking dead branches from trees. Green wood smoldered and made Lyudmila’s eyes sting – already dry and windblown. Tears froze on her lashes.

The growling came loud again. Barks and shrieks filled the wind.

“You see, Aleksi,” said Semen. “That isn’t wind. That’s Snowmen. At least five of them, maybe six.”

“I hear it,” said Aleksi. “Okay, I hear it. I still didn’t see anything. What if it is just wind?”

“Are you stupid?” said Semen.

“Are you? Because of you, we are freezing in our sock feet. Did anyone else see a Snowman?”

No one spoke. They stood shivering, looking at Semen in the glow of the fire. “I saw it watching us in the pass – I told you,” he said. “I took a picture.”

“I believed you,” said Yuri. “I heard it, too.”

“I thought you were joking,” said Igor.

“You saw one of the Mansi,” said Aleksi. “Snowmen are a myth, Sascha.”

“They are up there. I saw one as big as Goliath. I just…you don’t believe anything unless it comes from the Party – you can’t think for yourself. What do you think is making that noise?”

“Why are they getting louder?” Zina asked. “Are they coming?”

“They see the smoke and hear us breaking wood,” said Sascha. “They know where we are – and they are letting us know.”

“How do you know about Snowmen, Sascha. You said you know,” asked Lyudmila.

“I know what happened in the war. That’s what I know.”

“She means Snowmen,” Aleksi insisted. “What do you know?”

“A company of men I knew. I wasn’t with them – comrades up the line. We shared our meals sometimes. I know what happened to them.”

“What?”

“You were still in short pants when this happened. We died like flies in the war. Sick, frozen, starved. Stukas, machine guns, grenades…tanks. Fucking Tiger tanks. Shit, blood, puss, piss, snow, mud. That’s all we knew. No one made up scary stories. We already lived a nightmare.

“They were sent to carry messages. From the Front to the Commandant. He was way back somewhere, some village brothel no doubt, so they were gone a few days. Of course, they never returned. But they weren’t killed by the enemy. Not a human one, anyway.

“We found them in a gully. It was a kill. Fresh. Rocks, as big as…as big as an ice box were thrown on top of them. No human could do it. The feeding was the thing, though. Bones cracked and sucked dry. Heads and legs pulled from the joints…pulled like a piece of taffy.”

“Maybe it was bears, or wolves, after an earthquake.” said Nicolai. “Pulled like taffy. Wolves would do that.”

“The war made humans and animals into scavengers…and predators. Forage from the country was ravaged by the war. But meat was plentiful. I saw comrades eaten by pigs, dogs, goats, wolves, rats and foul. This wasn’t wolves. Believe me. I saw wolves eat men. It was a common thing. What happened to these comrades was different. Not even humans eat humans like that.”

“There you go again, Sascha. How would you know.”

For once, Semen stayed silent. His memory would make them shudder if he explained. The irony struck him funny – they would fear me more than the Menk.

Finally he spoke, “The other soldiers – some of them knew. They were from the Taiga. They said a Menk will follow you in the woods. At night, they take the high ground and throw rocks. They don’t want us in the forest. The Mansi told you, Igor. I heard them.”

“They just said it’s a dangerous place,” said Igor. “Gor Otorten – they call it ‘Don’t Go There,’ or something like that.”

“They said the Menk killed elk. They saw the fresh kill. Do you have any idea what a kill like that looks like? Five hundred pound animals torn apart by the bare hands of those beasts. Bones as big as your head snapped in two.”

Georgyi huddled into the fire, dropping a few sticks on the flame. He shivered uncontrollably. “I’m so cold!”

“Luda, your foot is burning. Take it out…you can’t feel the flames your feet are so frozen.”

“I can’t feel my toes.”

“We need to get to shelter,” said Semen.

“We could go to the depot,” said Rustem

“What, and play your mandolin? There’s nothing there for us and it’s way over the mountain. Look at you shiver. You can’t even walk.”

“Just trying to think of things….”

“It’s okay Rustem, we need to think of something,” said Igor.

“We need shelter from the wind. Look, we need a hole to climb into. We need to…”

“We need to go back to the tent,” said Zina.

“You don’t hear that? They’re still there,” said Semen.

“Maybe they won’t hurt us. My grandma said she knew of them. My mother told me don’t listen because it was old women talk. Grandma said they just want us to leave them alone and they take care of themselves. Let’s go back and get the blankets and our boots and skis. Let them scream all they want.”

“They hit the tent and you screamed bloody murder – that was you wasn’t it?” said Semen.

“It was just a snowball. It scared me.”

“Well, I thought it was pinching your head off. I beg your pardon.”

“I want to go to the tent,” said Zina.

“I’ll go,” said Rustem. “I have a shoe.”

“Don’t go back there. I’m finding shelter. We can survive the night. They will go away when the sun rises,” said Semen.

“Zina, let Rustem go. He can bring us supplies. Stay here and sit on my lap. Stay warm,” Igor pleaded.

Rustem Slobodin stood and walked away, before anyone could say more.

“They’re angry at us. Don’t go up there,” Semen said, then turned and walked into the trees.

The party sat in silence. Yuri climbed the tree and looked for Rustem. He broke branches to get a view. The campfire died. He looked down and saw everyone drowsing. He heard a thunk in the distance. He also thought he heard a sigh. He strained to look between the branches.

Semen came back from the trees. “I found a place.” He looked at the group. Georgyi slumped over his knees, his hand in his mouth, still. The others shivered and held each other.

Yuri yelled from the tree. “I don’t see Rustem anywhere,” he said.

Semen saw Yuri was shivering uncontrollably, hanging on the tree for dear life. “Can you see the tent?” he asked.

“I can’t tell what is happening up there,” he said. “I see things, but I don’t know. I can’t focus my eyes.”

“Get down then, Yuri,” Semen said.

“I’ll stay here,”he said. “Something is coming. Rustem is coming back.”

Lyudmila get up. Aleksi, Nicolai, Georgyi get up. I know where to go.”

“Coming Sascha. I’m coming,” said Nicolai.

“I’m going to the tent,” said Zina. “I’m cold and tired.”

“I’m coming.” said Igor. He was speaking to Zina. He didn’t recognize anyone else.

“Georgyi won’t move,” said Lyudmila. “He’s not moving, Sascha.”

Semen pulled Georgyi’s head back, “He’s dead. Take his clothes.”

“Huh?”

Aleksi hadn’t moved in twenty minutes, except to pull his feet from the fire when they started burning. He leaned over Georgyi and stripped the pants off with his knife. “Wrap these on your feet, Lyudmila.”

Zina and Igor stood. Zina walked away and Igor followed. He stumbled after a few steps, and started crawling.

Semen led the others into the trees. He held the hand of Lyudmila. Aleksi held her other. Nicolai followed, asking, “How’d you know Georgyi is dead, Sascha?”

“When they are like that, they are dead.”

Yuri looked below him. Everyone was gone. Where did they go?

Where did everyone go?

They left the tent. Apparently with the clothes on their backs, plus the camera Zolotorev carried on his neck. Strange thing isn’t it?

They assembled together at the cedar, then ended in three different directions. Some left the tree, some stayed and died – or died and stayed – nobody knows. Certainly they were together under the cedar for some time. The evidence is they had a fire. Clothing, removed from Krivonishenko, was found with Dubinina and Zolotorev in the ravine. Three went for the tent, four went for the ravine, and two stayed, dead already, or nearly so. How the party split has bearing on some theories, especially where there is speculation a rift occurred in the group as the cause of the entire tragedy. But there is no evidence to indicate a different sequence of events.

There is every evidence they were trying to control their fate. They built fire and sought shelter. They climbed a tree – for whatever reason. That is an extraordinary expenditure of energy under the circumstances. For what? To get firewood? To see the tent? Were they hiding from something that was after them, or just hiding from the wind? The mystery deepens.

Anomalous bits of evidence lead to dead-ends. The answer demands consistency.

A number of anomalous bits of evidence, superficial connections, hearsay, unsupported anecdotal information from various people connected to the party, or the investigation, assumptions and fabrications fog the story. Some have merit and some are red herrings.

Radioactive clothing is a case in point. Dubinina and Zolotorev wore clothing found by Geiger counter to have a surface dusting of a radioactive material. Analysis indicated Beta radiation. Lantern mantles used at the time contained Alpha radiation, so although it’s a perfectly convenient explanation, it doesn’t work. The engineering students worked in laboratories at the Ural Polytechnic Institute, however. Zolotorev didn’t, but he wore Dubinina’s contaminated coat. So it is likely a laboratory is the source of the radioactivity.

It is interesting that the bodies were even scanned with a Geiger counter. It wouldn’t be normal practice, but this was no normal case. The fact of the radiation and use of the Geiger counter has supported theories of cold war espionage, to UFO’s. The Daily Plasma thinks it is a red herring, although other aspects of these theories are more interesting.

First, a theory actually examined by the investigators. Mansi tribe retribution for trespass, or some other injustice. The Mansi became suspect when investigators found the four injured in the ravine and decided they had a murder on their hands. The Mansi however were cleared. If there were any merit to the idea Mansi were involved, surely, the on-site law enforcement investigators would have found it.

Along these same lines, the possibility escaped convicts from a nearby prison camp found them and killed them. Throw in the radiation and Zolotorev’s somewhat sketchy military past, and you have espionage, either with American spies killing them in a meeting gone wrong, where one of the party intended to pass off the radioactive materials (as evidence of nuclear tests), or where the Soviets caught the spies in the act of meeting the Americans. There were such things going on in the remote parts of the U.S.S.R. during those tense, Cold War years and distrust over nuclear developments.

No evidence of anyone approaching the tent was found. The only footprints were those of the party. Nothing appears stolen. Money, supplies and valuable camera’s and gear seemed untouched. Escaped convicts would take things, unless they were depraved killers just climbing a mountain looking for victims on a freezing night. None of the party had connections to imply espionage, except some mystery over Zolotorev’s role at times during the war, yet nothing surfaces to show he’s a spy.

Orange Fireballs

Much is made of orange fireballs seen in the sky in the weeks preceding and during the tragedy. Theories range from secret Soviet weapons testing to UFO’s that the group somehow ran afoul of. The scene and injuries were not consistent with an explosion, and no collateral blast evidence of any kind was found.

This photo, claimed to be the last on the party’s rolls of film, provides no useful information. It could be the orange fireball, but it could also be an overexposure from an accidental, unfocused shot.

Alien visitors, assumed to be far advanced technologically, could have a focused-beam weapon to cause injury to some and leave the others to die of exposure. Based on the first person reports of humans who claim a “third kind” encounter, however, alien contact never involves such violence. It typically involves an abduction. Victims often report odd lights, amnesia, loss of time, disorientation and alien harassment, including uncomfortable anal examinations, pieces of material injected into their skin and telepathic examinations. There was no evidence found related to abduction, or alien visitation. Some metal found near the site that raised suspicions of rockets, bombs and UFO’s were identified as pieces of radar equipment unrelated to any such event.

The orange lights, of course, may have been seen. Plasma events caused by atmospheric electrical phenomena could have been the “orange lights,” reportedly seen in the Dyatlov vicinity on that night by another expedition approximately 20, or 30 miles away. Similar sightings occurred for weeks prior, according to several local sources. These things happen in Siberia all the time.

The only way an electrical phenomena is understood to inflict injury is by a discharge. Common lightning can shatter tons of rock in a single strike, as recorded on mountain tops. The night was windy, and stormy and lightning could have occurred. High voltage injury, as experienced by transmission voltage workers will generally blow a limb off, or knock the victim to the ground, with death caused by the fall. Except for some unusual burns on hair, and clothing, which was likely caused trying to huddle and shield the fire from wind, there is little to suggest injuries were from a high voltage event.

Most of these theories don’t explain the scene as a whole. Why would orange fireballs cause them to leave the tent, for instance. One could imagine looking out the tent in amazement, but why leave it. The one scenario that has plausibility is if, in the wind and storm charged atmosphere, static charges built, causing their hair to rise, perhaps causing the tent to glow with St. Elmo’s fire. This could have signaled an impending lightning threat to the experienced mountaineers, and caused them to seek shelter in the trees.

But what then? Did they wait out the storm only to find they were too far exposed and frostbitten to return. Three of them dying because they fell into the ravine, or ironically, lightning struck them as they sheltered from it, killing them with rocky shrapnel. It is a chain of events that could have occurred. The heart of the matter lies with a closer examination of the injuries.

Before doing so, one final theory finding a popular following since the recent publication of “Dead Mountain” by Donnie Eichar. It is really a variation on these themes, but with an interesting causation. Infrasound caused by a known wind phenomena. A Kármán Vortex Street (named for Hungarian physicist Theodore von Kármán) can form when wind of a certain speed hits a dome-shaped mountain top, like Kolhat Syakhl. Vortices spinning off the obstructing object produce whirlwinds that could generate infrasound and an ear-splitting roar like an approaching avalanche..

Infrasound is low-frequency, lower than 20 Hz, below the audible range for most people. Infrasound will cause uncomfortable effects such as nausea, confusion, anxiety, and perhaps in particular combinations of power, resonance and frequency, even more damaging effects, essentially rattling the bones. Such direct effects to the body may have unhinged their state of mind, and the vibrations, or an audible roar caused them to believe an avalanche was approaching. It is assumed once out of the tent the sequence would be similar to the lightning scenario, including a fall into the ravine.

In part three, the focus will be on the corpus of wounds to the victims, in addition to individual cause of death, looking for patterns offering some conclusions. Further examination of the lethal wounds will be necessary. Some discussion of hypothermia and the dramatization will continue.

Postscript: At the end of Part One the reader was promised excerpts from the journals. The Daily Plasma prefers writing to cut and paste, and writing leads to unpredictable results. They simply fell out of the scope of the article as it developed. There is no clue to the mystery in them, other than notable exceptions that belong in Part Three.

Thank you.

Dyatlov Pass November 12, 2015October 3, 2017

The Haunting Mystery of Dyatlov Pass – Part One

The Dyatlov Pass Incident – a grim, yet tantalizing true mystery.

Semen Zolotorev pushed his face into the howling wind. Spindrift stung as he crawled out of the tent, standing as he cleared the flap.

“Close it,” he heard Lyudmila’s muffled shout.

“Ya,” he mumbled, as he pushed fabric into her reaching hand. She tied it shut, cutting out the dim light from within. He turned the flashlight on, found his way to the edge of the snow platform, and began the process of undoing three pairs of pants. He had to pee.

It took him some time, undoing the ski pants, then the second and third pair beneath. The temperature was -15°C, but shit, the wind! The soft leather burkas on his feet were getting covered in wet snow. He wanted to do this quick.

dyat trees — *The scene from Kholat Syakhl.*

He looked across the snowfield – the snow swirled and raced across the slope, hugging ground until catching and drifting against scrubby trees a few hundred meters below. He’d been watching those trees earlier.

His spine shivered with the cold. To his bladder, he said, “Ughh, come on, let go before we get frostbitten.” He felt strangely uneasy, but managed to make a stream. He enlarged the steaming hole, swinging his hips to widen it.

Something caught his eye – a dark motion in the trees. He turned to look directly at it, and saw nothing but trees in the wind.

The trees were sparse, dwarf pines growing along a drainage to the forest below. They were 200 meters away across an empty snowfield on the flank of Kholat Syakhl – the “Mountain of Dead” as the local Mansi tribesmen called it. The Mansi tried to persuade them not to come here.

On that day, Semen began thinking they were right. He saw a dark object move in the trees. Did I see that? he thought. He peered into the gloom, straining to see movement against the white gleam of snow at the tree-line.

“Huk,” his breath hitched as he saw something move against the wind. He turned off the flashlight. It’s beam only reflected blowing snow. “I see it.” He ran back to the tent, dropping the flashlight and pushed at the flap, bowing it inward until he found the tie and yanked it loose. He flipped it away and dove inside in one fluid motion.

dyatskis — *Dyatlov Party on their final day of the trek.*

“Hey, you Cossack. don’t run me over.” Lyudmila squeeled, closing the flap behind him and buttoning it against the wind.

“It’s out there!”

“What? Did you leave a turd?” asked Yuri.

“I saw it in the trees. I told you! It’s watching us,” Semen sat and stared at his eight comrades. His face was white.

“What did you see, Sacha?” asked Igor Dyatlov, the expedition leader. He used Semen’s nickname. Semen never liked his given name – “You know what that means in English?” he’d say.

“Yarwoooooooow”…a howl rose above the scream of the wind, trailed off, and then…”Yaaaaghhhh,” a gut-churning growl seemed to vibrate the tent.

*Digging the platform to pitch the tent.*

“Sacha, what was that,” asked Zina.

“I told you, it’s out there,” is all he said.

“I don’t believe it,” said Aleksi. “That was wind. Stop joking with us, Sascha.”

“It’s out there. You just heard it,” Semen said.

“What do we do?” said Zina.

Semen was digging in his backpack. He brought out a camera.

“Are you going back out?” asked Rustem. “Where is my camera – I want to see.”

“Don’t go out,” said Igor. “Did you really see it, Sascha? Are you sure?”

“You just heard it didn’t you? It’s down the hill in the trees.”

“What? It’s coming at us?”

“No, it’s down in the trees,” Semen pointed towards the pass they had traveled that afternoon.

dyattentbefore — *The tent earlier in the trip.*

“The sound came from above.”

“That’s what I heard, too. It came from above us.”

“Yaaaaaghh!”

“No, it’s that way. It’s getting closer.”

“Yaaaaaghh!”

“How many are there?”

“Yaaaaaghh!”

“Don’t open the tent.”

“Yaaaaaghh!”

“We need to see.”

“Cut a slit above your head.”

“I’m making a slit too. I hear something over this way…”

Of course, no one really knows what they said to each other. No one really knows what happened.

igordyatlov4 — *Igor Dyatlov – expedition leader.*

The date is February 2, 1959. The place is a mountain-side overlooking a wooded valley that will come to be known as Dyatlov Pass. The party, nine trekkers led by 24 year old Igor Dyatlov, are four days into a ski trip to Mount Otorten, deep in Russia’s Ural Mountains. Camped on the snow-blown slopes of the neighboring peak, Kholat Syakhl, they intend to reach their goal on the following day. That day never comes for these nine trekkers. As Rod Serling would say – they had entered the Twilight Zone.

The story of the Dyatlov Pass incident was not widely known outside of Russia until the 1990’s. The Soviets didn’t allow information to escape to the west unfiltered, and there was no way to filter this story to make it look good. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the release of records, it is now widely known as the most disturbing and haunting mystery of modern times.

At first look, the story is uncomfortable. The nine healthy, young and experienced explorers left the safety and warmth of their tent and belongings, even their shoes, on a moonless, stormy night where temperatures are believed to have reached -18°C (-4°F) with a 20 to 30 knot wind. They then traveled a mile into the forest only to die of exposure and horrific injuries.

Avalanche is the rational culprit according to many. Why else would they abandon the tent in such a hurry without shoes. How else would the rib cages and skulls of three of them suffer blunt trauma, likened by the coroner to the energy of a high speed car impact. But searchers found virtually no physical evidence of an avalanche. What they did find only puzzled them more. In fact, each piece of evidence only added layers of mystery. The events that caused their deaths have become the focus of many theories, books, movies and documentaries.

The dramatization in this article is one possibility.

On February 26, a search party found the tent. Footprint evidence still remained of eight, or nine individuals leading from the tent down the slope in a more, or less, orderly trail. The searchers did not take care to preserve the scene properly, not yet realizing it was the scene of horrific tragedy – perhaps even murder.

dyatlov footprints1 — *The footprints of the Dyatlov group leaving the tent. Their feet compressed the snow and subsequent winds left the prints in bas-relief.*

The footprints ended five hundred meters from the tent, the snow and wind having covered them beyond that point. The searchers saw no other footprints on the snowfield.

Two searchers looking for a place to camp near the treeline approached a promising clearing near a large cedar, where they would have a clear view of the tent above and the surrounding slopes. Under the cedar, they found another camp – occupied by two of the trekkers.

They were frozen stiff, laid side-by-side, wearing only underwear and no shoes.

Searchers using metal poles to probe the snow found two more bodies, between the cedar camp and the tent, as if these victims had died attempting to get back to the tent.

Another body was found between the two returning to the tent. Examination showed he had a cracked skull, but the injury wasn’t deemed fatal. It was determined all five of the trekkers died of hypothermia – frozen to death. This one must have fallen at some point, or been hit by something.

A view of the tent as the rescuers found it on Feb. 26, 1959. The tent had been cut open from inside, and most of the skiers had fled in socks or barefoot. Photo taken by soviet authorities at the camp of the Dyatlov Pass incident and anexed to the legal inquest that investigated the deaths. — *The tent as rescuers found it on Feb. 26, 1959. It had been cut open from inside, and most of the skiers had fled in socks.*

The situation looked fairly obvious at first. The trekkers must have been buried by an avalanche – or heard one coming – and cut their way free of the tent to seek shelter in the trees. Because of the freezing temperatures, and the fact their cold weather gear was left in the collapsed tent, they quickly succumbed to the elements, unable to return to the tent on their frozen feet.

But if an avalanche hit them, why were their footprints still visible leading down the hill. Why was the tent still partially standing. Why were tent stakes and ski poles still standing, and the tent fabric – torn and collapsed – only covered with a small amount of snow. Why did they run straight downhill in the obvious path of any avalanche they were escaping. Why didn’t they run across slope to escape, as anyone experienced with avalanche knows. Why did they even camp so high on the mountain, instead of in the trees a mile away where there was shelter from the wind. Why did they keep walking a mile with no shoes, which likely took twenty, to thirty minutes under the conditions they were in. Avalanches happen in a few minutes, why did they go so far before attempting to go back to the tent. These questions must have begun to concern the searchers. And there were still four more trekkers to find. Where did they go?

The search expanded. Helicopters and government officials came to replace the volunteer search party. Two months passed and the weather warmed. On May 4, snow melt exposed a piece of fabric in a ravine, 75 meters from the cedar tree. The searchers brought in shovels.

Thirteen feet down in the ravine, under twelve feet of snow, the four missing bodies were found. The autopsy of these individuals turned the investigation on its ear.

They had built a small den in the ravine to get out of the wind, with a cedar platform to keep them off the snow. There were even patches of clothing to sit on. But they weren’t found on the platform. The bodies were huddled together, several feet away. Only one died of exposure, like his five comrades found earlier. The other three died a different way. Two had crushed ribs and one a crushed head. These injuries were fatal and appeared to have occurred in the ravine.

Surely an avalanche might have done this. Many believe that to this day. But to many, the evidence just doesn’t fit that theory. The evidence suggests a more gruesome scene.

If an avalanche hit their tent while they were inside, as they relaxed after their evening meal, the impact of the snow could have crushed three of the party, leaving the others to dig out and save them. But if that occurred, why would they leave shoes and heavy ski jackets behind. Surely, after the avalanche was over, they needed warm clothes.

Perhaps they heard another avalanche coming – or thought they did – and rushed away to safety. But how, if three of them had suffered fatal injury, were they able to walk away? Eight footprints were found, and likely a ninth, leading from the tent in an orderly file. Some prints deviated from the path, but rejoined. They could have carried one party, perhaps piggyback, but there were still eight of them able to walk.

The investigation indicates it is unlikely they were injured in an avalanche. What follows is a description of the victims, how they were found and the causes of death. The descriptions and photos are horrific, so put your spooky hat on.

Igor Dyatlov, 22

Expedition leader, experienced trekker and athlete. Igor studied Radio Engineering at the UPI University in Sverdlovsk. He designed the small stove that was used to heat the tent used on the trek. Igor was respected as a leader: thoughtful, methodical and well organized. He courted Zina Kolmogorova, another member of the trek.

Dyatloff_Igor — *The autopsy indicated Igor died on his stomach.*

Igor was the third to be found. He wore a fur coat unbuttoned, a sweater, long sleeved shirt and ski pants over inner pants. He had only one pair of socks, woolen on the right and cotton on the left. No shoes. He carried a pocket knife and a photo of Zina Kolmogorova with him.

He was found 300 meters from the cedar, apparently on his way to the tent when he died of exposure. This photo shows his corpse as it was found, after the snow was removed. The autopsy indicates he died face down. There is no explanation why they found him on his back.

Georgyi Krivonishenko, 24

Graduated from UPI University in 1959, Krivonishenko was one of two bodies first found under the cedar tree. He was dressed in a shirt, long sleeved shirt, swimming pants, pants and a torn sock on his left foot. No shoes.

dyatdeadcedar2 — *Doroshenko (left) and Krivonishenko.*

He lay beneath the cedar next to Yuri Doroshenko. A camp fire was next to them that they apparently had trouble keeping lit in the wind.

The cedar itself had been climbed. Branches were broken-off fifteen feet high in the tree. Whether this was to supply firewood, or some other reason isn’t clear. Searchers reported there was adequate firewood on the ground.

Investigators noted the pattern of high broken branches appeared on one side of the tree, as if someone had broken them to clear a view to the tent.

Yuri Doroshenko, 21

The other body under the cedar, Doroshenko was a student of the UPI university. He once dated Zina Kolmogorova and remained good friends with her and Igor Dyatlov.

Doroshenko was found in a short sleeve shirt, vest, knit pants and shorts over pants. His pants were badly ripped with one large hole on the right and a smaller on the left. Pants had tears on the inside of the thighs. On his feet he had a pair of wool socks. The left sock was burned. He wore no shoes.

Because of some of his injuries, it is thought he was the tree climber, although others may have climbed it too. The tree had traces of blood and skin embedded in the bark. Residue of foamy grey fluid around his mouth led some investigators to speculate his chest had been compressed before death, which could have been the result of a fall. They did not conclude it contributed to his death, however. The cause of his death was hypothermia.

Both Doroshenko and Krivonishenko died of exposure. It is believed they were the first to die, because their bodies were still at the cedar tree, where it is believed they all congregated after leaving the tent. Others had removed some of their clothes and left to either attempt a return to the tent, or shelter in the ravine.

Zinaida Kolmogorova, 22

dyatdeadzina — *Zina got farthest from the cedar tree trying to reach the tent.*

A student at the UPI University as a Radio Engineering Major, Zina was a tough, experienced hiker. Some speculate her relationships with the men may have caused a problem that led to the incident. There is no evidence to support this speculation and every evidence they were a level-headed group that got on well together.

Better dressed than the bodies beneath the tree, she wore two hats, long sleeved shirt, sweater, another shirt and sweater with torn cuffs. Plus trousers, cotton athletic pants, ski pants, a military mask and three pairs of socks. No shoes.

Zina got closer to the tent than anyone else. She was found 630 meters from the cedar – a third of the way back to the tent. Among minor injuries, she had a bruise that encircled her torso on the right side. Her cause of death was declared hypothermia due to violent accident.

Rustem Slobodin, 23

dyatdeadrustem? — *Rustem’s body was warm enough to melt the snow beneath where he fell.*

Graduated from the UPI University in 1959, Slobodin was known as very athletic, honest and decent. He played a mandolin that he brought on the trek and left cached at a supply depot for the return trip. The group often sang to his mandolin.

Rustem wore a long sleeve shirt, another shirt, sweater, two pairs of pants, four pairs of socks. Unlike the others, he wore one boot on his right foot. His pockets had 310 rubles, a passport, a knife, pen, pencil, comb, match box and single sock.

He was the third trekker found making his way back to the tent, 480 meters from the cedar. He suffered a blunt trauma head injury, with a fracture to the side, frontal bones of his skull and hemorrhaging. Examiners deemed it non-lethal, however severe enough to cause loss of coordination due to initial shock following the blow. They determined he died of exposure aggravated by violent injury. Beneath Rustem, the ice had melted and refroze, indicting he was still warm when he fell. The other bodies did not exhibit this. Perhaps they never fell, crawling may have been the only way to move with frozen feet. Rustem at least had one boot.

Lyudmila Dubinina, 21

dyatlovdeaddubrina1 — *Lyudmila as found at the bottom of the ravine. Snow melt courses beneath her body.*

A third year student in Engineering and Economics at the UPI University, Lyudmila took many of the trip pictures and recorded events in their journal. Once, she was accidentally shot during an expedition by another trekker cleaning a rifle, and endured the painful injury well. She was known to be very outspoken.

Lyudmila wore a short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt, two sweaters, underwear, long socks and two pairs of pants. The outer pair was badly burned and subsequently ripped. She also wore a hat and two pairs of warm socks and a third sock not paired. She had a piece of Krivonishenko’s pants that were cut away from his body. She’d wrapped a piece around one foot, another piece was found in the snow.

Her injuries included four ribs broken on the right side with two fracture lines visible and a massive hemorrhage in the right atrium of her heart. On the left, six ribs were broken, also with two fracture lines.

Semen Zolotarev, 38

dyatded6 — *Kolevatov (top) and Zolotarev.*

He was the oldest and somewhat of an outsider to the group. He was a ski instructor who joined the expedition to gain performance points to achieve promotion to the rank of “Master” instructor. Born a Cossack, he distinguished himself in the brutal conditions of the Great Patriotic War a decade earlier. His real name was Semen, while everyone called him “Sasha,” or “Alexander”. No one knows why he chose to introduce himself by a different name.

The body of Semen Zolotarev was found with two hats, scarf, long sleeve shirt, black sweater and a coat with two upper buttons undone. The lower part of the body was protected by underwear, two pairs of pants and a pair of ski pants. He had a copy of newspapers, several coins, compass, and a few other items. His feet were protected by a pair of socks and a pair of warm leather handmade shoes known as “burka”. Zolotarev had a camera around his neck.

Zolotarev had five ribs broken along two fracture lines and the ribs detached from the chest wall. An open wound on the right side of his head exposed part of his skull. The chest injuries were fatal.

Aleksander Kolevatov, 25

dyatdead — *Dubinina (top) and Thibeaux-Brignolle.*

An experienced outdoorsman and scientist, Kolevatov was studying for a Major in Physics at the Sverdlovsk UPI institute and had already completed Mining and Metallurgy College. Known as a good student, he’d lived in Moscow working at the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, and later was engaged in producing materials for the nuclear industry. In 1956 he moved back to Sverdlovsk to study physics at the UPI Institute. He was respected as a leader, organized, methodical and diligent.

Medical examination found a deformed neck and an open wound behind the ear. His death was determined to be hypothermia.

Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle, 25

dyatdeadravine — *As they were found in the ravine.*

Graduated in 1958, Nicolai majored in Civil Engineering at the UPI University. He was the son of a French Communist executed during the Stalin years and was born in a concentration camp for political prisoners. He was known as a friendly, caring and open person who often set aside his own comfort for the benefit of others.

Thibeaux-Brignolle had multiple fractures to the temporal bone of the skull, radiating to surrounding bone. He died from the wound.

Yuri Yudin

The tenth member of the Dyatlov party and the only survivor, Yudin was a student of UPI. Yuri left the expedition on January 28, before the tragedy struck due to medical reasons. He passed away on April 27th, 2013. He maintained an enduring curiosity for what caused his friends death throughout his life.

Timeline of the tragedy

Examiners used estimates of travel time, life expectancy after injuries, time for survival in the extreme cold, and the remains of undigested food in their stomachs to construct a probable timeline of events. The evidence indicates they died within six to eight hours after their last meal. Exposure at those temperatures can kill in three to six hours.

4 P.M., February 1 – Party arrives on the slopes of Kyolat Syakhl. They set camp high on the snowfield away from the tree-line, as recorded by photograph. Why they camped there is unknown, but Yuri Yudin, the tenth member of the party who had earlier turned back, believed they decided to camp there to either gain the experience of a high camp, or because they were reluctant to loose altitude they would have to re-climb the following day.

6 to 7 P.M. – Group prepared and ate a meal.

7 to 10 P.M. – Group relaxed in the tent with boots off and in various stages of undress. The implication is nothing was out of the ordinary at this time. The weather was believed to be -18°C at this time in the evening, and windy. At some point, someone urinated outside near the tent.

10:00 to 11:00 P.M. – The group, in various states of undress, used knives to cut through the sides of the tent and flee downhill to the forest. Tracks indicate the group was scattered at first, but came back together part way down the slope.

11:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. – The group hides under a large cedar tree inside the edge of the forest approximately one mile from the tent. They light a fire and remain for possibly two hours trying to keep warm. Various burns on clothing, skin and hair imply they crowded the fire for warmth and probably to shield it from the wind. The fire is situated behind the tree relative to the tent. Broken branches in the cedar suggest at least one of the team climbed it to view the tent on the slopes above.

12:00 to 1:00 A.M., February 2 – Two group members, Krivonischenko and Doroshenko die from cold exposure.

Three members of the team try and return to the tent. Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin, already suffering hypothermia, fail to make it and collapse at various intervals. They are found separately at 985, 1,575 and 2,065 feet from the tree.

The four still alive take the clothes from the dead bodies of their comrades. Dubinina wraps her feet in trousers cut away from Krivonischenko’s body.

12:30 to 1:30 A.M. – Four of the skiers move 75 meters away to a ravine where they huddle together. Nicolas dies of head wounds. Dubinina dies from chest injuries and hypothermia. Alexander Zolotarev takes her coat and hat to keep himself warm.

12:45 to 1:45 A.M. – Zolotarev dies from a combination of chest injuries and hypothermia.

1:30 to 2:45 A.M. – Alexander Kolevatov, frozen and alone, dies of hypothermia.

If it could be determined an avalanche killed them, we wouldn’t have a mystery.

This is the puzzle for the avalanche theorists – the mortal injuries to Dubinina, Zolotorev and Thibeaux-Brignolle. If they were injured in the tent in an avalanche, it is highly unlikely they could have trudged a mile in snow with no shoes to the tree, and later to the ravine, apparently outliving members of the group who were not severely injured. The footprints say they walked away from the tent. There was no evidence of dragging, or anyone being carried.

dyatavalanche — *Examination of the topology shows little chance an avalanche hit the tent. If it did, it could only have hit a glancing blow.*

There was no evidence of an avalanche at the tent, either. No flow patterns, or debris from an avalanche were found. The slope angle was 23° where they pitched it, rising to 30° above and considerably shallower below. The location is not conducive to a snow build-up likely to avalanche according to terrain analysis, and even if it had, an avalanche would have missed the tent. No subsequent expeditions to the area have ever witnessed avalanche conditions at the site.

They built a platform, clearly seen in the photo shown, that left a protective cleft to shield them from snow slide – they were experienced at what they were doing. Tent poles and ski poles were found standing, with a small amount of snow not fully covering the tent.

Some have suggested an avalanche hit them after they left the tent, sweeping the four into the ravine. Such an avalanche would have also swept the other five bodies and damaged trees, for which no evidence was found. The other bodies were found with only a layer of atmospheric snow on them.

The ravine was surrounded by trees and relatively flat ground. The trees and brush at the ravine showed no evidence of avalanche.

Another theory holds they ran headlong into the ravine and broke their bones in the fall. The ravine was measured at 10, to 17 feet deep in the vicinity where the bodies were found. The slope into the ravine was at a thirty, to forty degree angle and the ravine measured 130 feet across.

The coroner concluded Thibeaux-Brignolle’s head injury to be consistent with impacting a rock as a result of a fall from a height of 6 to 10 feet, but not more. Any greater height should have broken the apex of the skull and Thibeaux-Brignolle had no apex damage. Hemorrhaging suggests that he was alive when he sustained the injury.

The broken ribs of Dubinina and Zolotorev were very similar in pattern and impact energy, as if the target of similar blows. There was little, or no external damage to tissue. Extremities most exposed to fracture in a fall, or avalanche, such as hands, arms, legs, or collar bones, were not broken.

Another speculation is the bones were perhaps fractured less severely and the weight of later snow finished the crushing as it accumulated over time. Medical examiners found the wounds to be complete before death, however. The damage was done while they were alive.

There was no physical evidence of an avalanche at the tent, or at the ravine, or having hit them in between. A fall into the ravine could have caused the injuries, but it is difficult to imagine a fall such as this. Three of four people tumbling down a forty degree slope, or breaking through ice into the ravine below is certainly possible, but the pattern of injuries is odd. Two of them suffering very similar impacts to the ribs at the sides of the chest, and one impacted on the side of the head. Three simultaneous mortal injuries from a fall that left no related external injury, or broken limbs.

In Part 2 we will examine more strangeness: more injuries and evidence, more circumstances and theories, more pictures and some journal entries – and the dramatization will continue.

Thank you.

Thunderblogs October 28, 2015October 3, 2017

Eleven Years Looking For Nada

Nada is Spanish for nothing. It’s also the number of gravitational waves found after an eleven year study, as reported by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) this week in the journal Science.

The study, led by Dr. Ryan Shannon of ICRAR, and conducted with CSIRO’s Parkes telescope, was designed to monitor radio waves from millisecond pulsars and record the arrival time to an accuracy of ten billionths of a second. By doing so, they expected to detect gravitational waves generated by colliding galaxies.

0105-4x5color.ai — Image credit NASA. Pay no attention to the Black Hole hiding in there.

According to Big Bang cosmology, and the General Theory of Relativity, super massive black holes inhabit the core of spiral galaxies. Colliding galaxies should produce gravitational waves as the black holes merge. Gravitational waves rippling across the universe should then compress space-time between the earth and the pulsar by approximately ten meters, delaying the pulsar signal a few billionths of a second…or so the story goes.

Unfortunately for Big Bang cosmologists, the pulsars never skipped a beat, pulsing on-time for the entire eleven year study. As stated by Dr. Shannon, “In terms of gravitational waves it seems to be all quiet on the cosmic front. However by pushing our telescopes to the limits required for this sort of cosmic search we’re moving into new frontiers, forcing ourselves to understand how galaxies and black holes work.”

Researchers on the team are optimistic, speculating the gravitational waves may be at higher frequencies than they anticipated, in spite of theoretical predictions. Or the energy was absorbed by intervening dust.

That is very elegant face-saving after eleven years searching without luck – the dust ate my gravity wave. The General Theory of Relativity predicts gravitational waves, yet they have never been detected. They are one of several, as yet, undetected entities posed by Big Bang cosmology.

There is another study underway by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to detect higher frequency gravitational waves thought to be generated by colliding neutron stars. This work has just begun, so will not yield results for some time. Another gravitational wave dedicated project called the Square Kilometer Array telescope, is planned for construction in 2018.

Let’s not hold our breath. While those scientists spend their lives looking for black holes and gravitational waves, let’s review what this all means in an Electric Universe.

Absolutely nothing, except a huge and needless expense. Electric Universe does not recognize General Relativity as anything more than a concept unhinged from reality. It is like a topographical map one uses to describe the shape of a mountain. It may seem to describe the shape, but it tells you nothing about where the mountain is, what lives on it, what it’s made of, or how it got there.

The General Theory of Relativity cannot even explain what gravity is. The theory is predicated on the notion that time is a scalar dimension, but how likely is this exotic guess? Time is not a “fourth dimension” to be added to the three spacial dimensions we experience. We cannot revisit the past, or zoom to the future in a souped-up Delorean.

Some people assume General Relativity and the Big Bang have been proven just because well publicized news releases say it is so. But science is only “proven” when a theory predicts an outcome that can be detected reliably and repeatedly, and alternative explanations have failed, or simply do not exist.

Nothing General Relativity predicts meets those criteria. Critics say the claimed successes of the theory can be explained by simpler means. The “discoveries” reported, such as super massive black holes at the center of galaxies, are not based on direct observation. Their existence is predicated on mathematics, but the math is that of General Relativity (circular reasoning), and the theory itself is contradicted by nuclear physics and quantum mechanics.

The subject of this image is NGC 6861, a galaxy discovered in 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. Almost two centuries later we now know that NGC 6861 is the second brightest member of a group of at least a dozen galaxies called the Telescopium Group — otherwise known as the NGC 6868 Group — in the small constellation of Telescopium (The Telescope). This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view shows some important details of NGC 6861. One of the most prominent features is the disc of dark bands circling the centre of the galaxy. These dust lanes are a result of large clouds of dust particles obscuring the light emitted by the stars behind them. Dust lanes are very useful for working out whether we are seeing the galaxy disc edge-on, face-on or, as is the case for NGC 6861, somewhat in the middle. Dust lanes like these are typical of a spiral galaxy. The dust lanes are embedded in a white oval shape, which is made up of huge numbers of stars orbiting the centre of the galaxy. This oval is, rather puzzlingly, typical of an elliptical galaxy. So which is it — spiral or elliptical? The answer is neither! NGC 6861 does not belong to either the spiral or the elliptical family of galaxies. It is a lenticular galaxy, a family which has features of both spirals and ellipticals. The relationships between these three kinds of galaxies are not yet well understood. A lenticular galaxy could be a faded spiral that has run out of gas and lost its arms, or the result of two galaxies merging. Being part of a group increases the chances for galactic mergers, so this could be the case for NGC 6861. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Josh Barrington. — Image credit NASA. Do you see Waldo – I mean dark matter?

General Relativity predicts a galaxy’s mass is largely constituted of “dark matter” that surrounds it, yet dark matter has never been detected in any galaxy. It is only assumed to exist. Likewise, the theory predicts that “dark energy” expands our universe, yet dark energy has never been detected. That is not a small issue, since we live in an age of super-sophisticated instruments. If the stuff is powerful enough to expand the entire universe, we should be awash in it. But no one knows how, or where to find it. It is just assumed to be there.

In fact, Big Bang theory predicts that we can only detect 4% of the universe – the other 96% is undetectable dark energy, dark matter and black holes. This self admission of Big Bang cosmology is telling.

Typically, when people insist they know of cosmic entities no one can see, or even comprehend, we call it faith-based religion, not science. Cosmologists have taken the practice of prophets, and declared it science.

Perhaps ‘prophet’ should be spelled ‘profit’ given the money cosmologists spend to look for invisible things.

Cosmologists need funding to build detectors for the undetectable things they insist are there, but can never find. It is a multi-billion dollar gravy-train that never ends, funded by duped politicians who dupe us into paying the bill.

Courtesy of NASA. Plasma at work in an Electric Universe.

The Electric Universe makes no predictions of undetectable forces, or entities, or Gods. It explains the things we see exactly as they are, which is plasma under the influence of an energy we understand and detect – electromagnetism. This is not an issue even disputed – the universe we see is plasma.

The stars, like our sun, are energized balls of plasma. So are the galaxies the stars reside in and the filaments that connect the galaxies. It’s as if a herd of elephants walked in the room and cosmologists didn’t notice, expecting a unicorn instead.

Electric Universe sees the elephants. All one needs is curiosity and common sense to comprehend the universe described by EU. Electric Universe explains precisely those things we actually see in the cosmos with known physics, and it predicts nothing magically strange and undetectable.

General Relativity is a failed theory. We need to move-on and pursue scientific inquiries that lead to more than science fiction. We need answers, which EU Theory proves time and again to provide.

For an overview of why General Relativity is lacking the explanations the Electric Universe can explain, see “Does Gravity Alone Rule the Cosmos,” with Physicist Eugene Bagashov.

To see an extended discussion of how Electric Universe views gravity, watch Wal Thornhill explain in, “The Long Path to Understanding Gravity.”

To understand why General Relativity doesn’t “add up”, watch this video, “Failures of Big Bang Cosmology,” by mathematician Stephen J. Crothers.

To get a comprehensive view of the role of electricity in space see, “Filamentary Networks of Electric Current Pervade Space,” presented by Donald Scott.

In conclusion, there is nothing to fear about knowing. The only demon to vanquish is ignorance.

Andrew Hall

https://andrewdhall.wordpress.com/

The Bigfoot Hunter

The Hunt

Strangeness

Bad Daddy

Brave Ginger

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Mythology presents a consistent story…

The electromagnetic geometry inside the Earth is less well known…

Inside the earth, magma is a conductive plasma…

But what of Leviathan – the lightning spewing dragon from the sea…

Sub-sea canyons are one trace of Leviathan’s passage…

Astroblemes are the scars of the Dragon’s bite…

Electromagnetic forces produce additional effects…

So, let’s return to the Levant in Biblical times, to see the evidence for Leviathan…

The Bowls of Wrath…

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December 27, 1914 – February 16, 2016

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And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns, ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

“Mankind is a species with amnesia.”

Visions of Apocalypse

The images recorded in the bible and numerous ancient petroglyphs are recorded throughout history:

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Meteors are a cosmic experience everyone shares…

Famous Craters…

Mysterious Bolides…

Chelyabinsk – February 15, 2013

Comet Shoemaker-Levy – July, 1984

Tunguska – June 30, 1908

Reports show agreement on several facts…

Blast Energy Controversy…

Terrestrial Theory…

Earthquake Lights…

In an Electric Universe…

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Big Bang cosmology has it’s challenges – it also has it’s challengers.

Re-posted courtesy of Thunderbolts.info.

Remarkably, the paper goes on to postulates that gravitational attraction is only between material bodies – bodies with mass – and that light waves have no mass, so cannot be affected by gravity.

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Part 1 left the group inside the tent with a screaming Yeti outside.

Where did everyone go?

Anomalous bits of evidence lead to dead-ends. The answer demands consistency.

Orange Fireballs

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The Dyatlov Pass Incident – a grim, yet tantalizing true mystery.

Of course, no one really knows what they said to each other. No one really knows what happened.

The dramatization in this article is one possibility.

Surely an avalanche might have done this. Many believe that to this day. But to many, the evidence just doesn’t fit that theory. The evidence suggests a more gruesome scene.

Igor Dyatlov, 22

Georgyi Krivonishenko, 24

Yuri Doroshenko, 21

Zinaida Kolmogorova, 22

Rustem Slobodin, 23

Lyudmila Dubinina, 21

Semen Zolotarev, 38

Aleksander Kolevatov, 25

Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle, 25

Yuri Yudin

Timeline of the tragedy

If it could be determined an avalanche killed them, we wouldn’t have a mystery.

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