KotJ

Strange Sounds, Electrophonics And Spacequakes

2012-01-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

Since the early part of January, people all across the globe have reported hearing strange sounds that have evoked perplexing amazement. Despite the fact that videos recording this phenomenon have gone viral among many alternative internet groups, they have largely been ignored in the mainstream news. What's remarkable is the consistency of these sounds. Some have described them as having an industrial quality, but as far as we know they cannot be pinned to any known industry. Others have described them as having a brass or metallic-like quality. In some cases, these sounds were recorded in wilderness areas far from any known industrial operations, making any sort of man-made origin unlikely. So the $10,000 question remains: What is causing these strange sounds?

Just to give the unfamiliar reader a feel for what we're talking about, below are some recordings of this sound from around the world:

01-17-2012 - Boulder, Colorado

01-18-2012 - Scotland

01-12-2012 - Chile

01-12-2012 - Czech Republic

01-12-2012 - Costa Rica

01-16-2012 - Strange Sounds heard worldwide (composite video of strange sound recordings)

Actually, these sounds are nothing new; they have been sneaking up on us over the last several years. They may have been with us much earlier for all we know, but either way it seems they have been steadily increasing in frequency. Every now and again you'll come across a story in the news of some disturbed locals not knowing what to make of an unexplained sound. These stories have become increasingly common the last several years. Originally, these were assumed to be isolated incidents, so local causes were suspected first and foremost. Now, it appears that this is not a geographically isolated phenomenon at all, but something worldwide in scope. In fact, there was even a map started to keep track of the sounds when a wave of them hit around March of last year, just around the time of the devastating tsunami that hit Japan.

Strange Sounds heard worldwide as of Jan 24, 2012

Unfortunately, the map has not been that well maintained. It appears that the purple marks were originally intended to be strange sound locations dating back to the early part of 2011, but people seem to have disregarded that rule and are also using purple marks for recent sounds too. (The purple marks in the middle of the ocean are actually supposed to marks within the US, in case you were wondering.) All of the blue marks appear to be from December 2011 to January 2012 and the green marks account for strange sounds heard during the latter half of 2011.

All in all, the majority of these sounds appear to be coming from the US, although this may be because the map is primarily accessible to a US or English-speaking audience; many strange sounds from other parts of the world may have gone unrecorded. The location and details of these sounds have not been followed up on as far as we know, so this map is by no means scientific. Regardless, even without making an exhaustive analysis, it still gives us a rough idea of the enormity of the situation. It's quite apparent that this is a worldwide phenomenon and not a series of isolated industrial noises. Therefore, we need to turn our attention to global factors as a possible cause.

Before we get into discussing a possible causual mechanism behind these sounds, we first need a little background on certain other concepts that, although at first glance may seem to be unrelated, could provide us with important clues about the origin of these strange sounds.

Sizzling Meteors

The fact that sizzling or hissing sounds have been heard in association with large meteors or fireball sightings has puzzled scientists since the eighteenth century. One of the first recorded instances of this phenomenon was from the astronomer Edmund Halley (the discoverer or Halley's Comet) who recorded accounts of fireball sightings from witnesses all over England. As one article describes his interviews with witnesses:

Many witnesses, wrote Halley, "[heard the meteor] hiss as it went along, as if it had been very near at hand." Yet his own research proved the meteor was at least "60 English miles" high. Sound takes about five minutes to travel such a distance, while light can do it in a fraction of a millisecond. Halley could think of no way for sky watchers to simultaneously hear and see the meteor.

Knowing the physics of how sound travels, Halley dismissed these stories as pure fantasy on the part of the witnesses. Recently, however, researchers have taken a less skeptical approach to this phenomenon and have put some serious thought into understanding the basis for it. Colin Keay, a physicist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, is one such researcher who claims to understand the process of how meteors can be 'heard'.

According to Keay, glowing meteor trails give off not only visible light, but also very low frequency (VLF) radio signals. Such radio waves, which oscillate at audio frequencies between a few kHz and 30 kHz, travel to the ground at the speed of light -- solving the vexing problem of simultaneity.

Of course, human ears can't directly sense radio signals. If Keay is right, something on the ground -- a "transducer" -- must be converting radio waves into sound waves. In laboratory tests, Keay finds that suitable transducers are surprisingly common. Simple materials like aluminum foil, thin wires, pine needles -- even dry or frizzy hair -- can intercept and respond to a VLF field.

So these sounds from meteors work on the same principle that a regular headphone or speaker works on. In a speaker, an oscillating electromagnetic current travels through a wire that controls an electromagnet, which pushes air back and forth via a diaphram. The result is that an electrical signal from the wire is transduced into mechanical vibrations loud enough for the human ear to pick up. But headphones and speakers are not the only objects that can transduce electromagnetic signals into sound. As the article states above, Keay discovered that natural transducers are surprisingly common; a wide variety of natural objects respond easily to VLF electromagnetic radiation of a certain strength. So how exactly does a meteor create an electormagnetic signal?

To explain this phenomenon further, Keays had to look towards plasma physics for a satisfying explanation of what was causing these VLF signals from meteors. What Keays discovered was that when a meteor enters the earth's atmosphere it drags behind it a large plasma tail in the form of ionized air particles. This plasma twists and turns in a vortex pattern as it follows behind the meteor. As Keays states, "The plasma is swirling so fast that the magnetic field can be scrambled up like spaghetti." This scrambling or changing magnetic field then becomes the source for the VLF signal, which is then transduced and ultimately heard somewhere on the ground. This phenomenon of transducing electrical signals into sound is also referred to as electrophonics.

So why is the understanding of electrophonic meteors important in the context of all these strange sounds heard around the world? It seems unlikely that these sounds can be attributed to meteors. No meteor sightings have been observed alongside of these strange sounds as far as we know. Besides, the sounds produced from meteors don't match the description of the sounds heard in the videos above. Meteors supposedly make a sizzling or hissing sound, whereas most of the sounds in the videos above contain a long drawn-out metallic-like sound. We're going to have to look to other causes if these sounds are, in fact, produced via some sort of electrophonic mechanism. Although we don't have any evidence yet to suggest these strange sounds are produced by some electrophonic mechanism, let's continue along this line of inquiry and see where it leads.

Spacequakes And Magnetic Ropes

It appears that meteors aren't the only things that can cause plasma vortexes to assault the earth's atmosphere. In 2007 NASA discovered a new phenomenon via its THEMIS satellite which researchers have dubbed "spacequakes." These quakes are magnetic in nature and register on a magnetogram (a device that senses magnetic field fluctuations) similar to how an earthquake registers on a seismograph.

So what exactly is going on in the event of a "spacequake"? According to another NASA article we find that:

The action begins in Earth's magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth.

[...]

According to THEMIS, the [plasma] jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth's equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it "repetitive flow rebuffing." It's akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.

[...]

The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.

"When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet," explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. "We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment."

Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth's atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.

Here's one video that discusses spacequakes in light of these strange sounds. It's a pretty interesting watch even if the spacequakes theory isn't all that well developed in the video.

Another phenomenon referred to as magnetic ropes could also be a factor in setting up the right plasma conditions to generate electrophonic sounds too. Magnetic ropes are long magnetic vortexes or rotating magnetic fields connecting the earth (or any planet for that matter) to the sun. Keep in mind that any magnetic field implies the flow of electrical current, in this case in the form of plasma moving between the earth and the sun. Researchers have determined that these magnetic ropes are the main power source for the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. You could almost think these magnetic ropes as a planet's electrical connection to the sun; and like any electrical connection there can also be power surges from time to time.

These magnetic ropes are about as wide as the earth and connect to the magnetopause, the region above the earth where the earth's magnetic field meets the solar wind. Sometimes this region is referred to as the "bow shock." Think of it as similar to the bow wave in front of a boat as it sails through the water (see image below.) There have also been 'explosions' observed in space when a twisted knot of magnetism hits this bow shock. Perhaps explosion isn't the best description, maybe "discharge" would be the better term? Actually, NASA uses the term "Hot Flow Anomaly" (HFA) to describe these. Either way, there seems to be some similarity between these magnetic ropes and spacequakes; they both appear to be additional ways of generating plasma conditions similar to those discovered from electrophonic meteors.

Given the descriptions of these spacequakes and magnetic ropes it seems that they may be capable of generating VLF signals and thus electrophonic sounds just like some meteors do. There are simple tests that could determine whether there is an electromagnetic component that correlates with these sounds or not, but so far we know of no such tests being carried out. So the theory that these sounds are caused by electromagnetic signals is certainly falsifiable. With the help of satellite data, it may be possible to confirm or rule out the extra-terrestrial origin of these signals too.

Remember that according Keay's study of electrophonic meteors, just about any object on the ground can act as a transducer, thus turning an electromagnetic signal into sound. Perhaps there are rock formations or some other natural feature in certain locations which act as natural transducers for these signals? For instance, natural magnetism in the rocks may be enough to cause audible vibrations in the surrounding area. For such a sound to be so consistent in tone and timbre throughout the world, one would think there needs to be some sort of common transducer. Detailed map plotting of these sounds might reveal the answer to this riddle.

A Changing Solar System - A Changing Planet

For spacequakes to occur, there generally has to be an increase in solar activity to stretch out the earth's magnetic field lines causing them to "snap." The earth being bombarded by a CME (coronal mass ejection) would be one way of accomplishing this. But if increased solar activity is actually the cause of these strange sounds, then why are we all of a sudden hearing them now? Why didn't we hear more of these sounds during the last solar cycle 23 which was an order of magnitude more intense than the current solar cycle 24? Solar activity is generally measured by the number of sunspots counted (see the graph below for a comparison of the current solar cycle to the last one.) The fact is, the sun has been abnormally quiet throughout this recent solar cycle despite a small uptick in activity within the last year or so. If spacequakes are part of the overall process causing these strange sounds, then there must be another variable at play beyond just solar activity.

It seems that the next question we must ask along this line of inquiry is what, if anything, could make the earth more 'sensitive' to electromagnetic effects from space? If the intensity of the solar storms has not increased by any sizable amount, then perhaps something about the earth itself has changed?

As a matter of fact, we know that the earth's magnetic field is changing and in a very dramatic way at the moment. Not only has the north pole moved progressively towards Siberia, it is also been steadily decreasing in strength (about 10 percent over the last century.) Could we have possibly reached a tipping point where the strength of the magnetic field has become so weak that the earth is becoming extremely sensitive to electromagnetic effects from space? Could this explain why we have recently begun to hear more and more of these sounds (assuming they are electrophonic)? Of course, this then begs the question just what is causing the earth to lower its magnetic 'shields'? But that question will open up a whole new can of worms which we'll have to put aside for the moment.

Graph showing the decrease in earth's
magnetic field over the past century

The fact is, we're not alone in terms of being the only planet to experience strange once-in-a-lifetime occurrences as of late. It appears that the whole solar system has experienced odd anomalies over the past several years. Many visible changes to the outer planets have been observed; changes that were once thought to be quite rare. Here's a small, but by no means complete, list of recent news items from around our solar system:

A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn
CREDIT: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Pluto May Have Grown a Tail

Bizarre Hexagon Spotted on Saturn

Cassini Captures Images and Sounds of Saturn Storm

Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists are stumped as to why

Mars getting warmer, may have quakes

New Research Finds Venus’ Winds, They Are A-Changin’

Taken as a whole, could these anomalies be indications that the electromagnetic environment of the entire solar system is changing? It appears there is definitely something going on "out there," the effects of which are only beginning to be noticed down here. Could these strange sounds be one noticeable effect brought on by the earth's changing electromagnetic environment? (Which is ultimately connected to the electromagnetic environment of the whole solar system.) The theory outlined above suggests that this is a possibility. On a much less scientific note, it hasn't escaped our attention that the brass or metallic-like quality of these sounds could in some way be related to the "trumpets" mentioned in the Book of Revelations - a work largely describing the destruction of the earth via comets. Could these strange sounds be the harbingers of something much worse lurking on the horizon? We'll have to wait and see, but for now we can only sit tight and keep our eyes (and now ears) to the sky.

Time Research - Part 1 - The Temporal Landscape

2012-01-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

Are prophecies a relic of ancient times when specified visionaries communed with the gods? Or does the same process of "divining the future" still manifest in the modern world among ordinary people too? The answer seems to be closer to the latter given that people from all walks of life still report having precognitive experiences before major disasters. Case in point: many people appeared to experience prophetic dreams just prior to the 9/11 attacks. In fact, Osama Bin Laden is allegedly quoted in a video released shortly after 9/11 saying that "[he] was worried that maybe the secret would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dream." Apparently, a number of Afghan locals were having visions of planes flying into buildings around the time leading up to 9/11 and word was getting around [1]. Whether you believe Osama Bin Laden was actually responsible for 9/11 or not, the uptick in precognitive dreams fitting a common description just before a major disaster should raise an eyebrow or two.

One of the most widely cited books on the topic of dream precognition is John Dunne's An Experiment with Time. Instead of dressing up precognition in religious overtones, as many authors of Dunne's time treated the subject, Dunne hypothesized that the phenomena of dream precognition was due to the properties of time itself. He envisioned time as a landscape; and that when the barriers of linear time dissolve (such as during sleep) this landscape of time opens up and one can view past, present and future simultaneously.

Probably the easiest way to understand Dunne's idea of this time landscape is by the analogy of a book. In a book the entire story is written down and every part of the story is accessible by just turning to the right page. However, when one reads a book the story unfolds sequentially giving the illusion of linear time - even though we could easily skip around to any part of the book we desire. It would be silly to think of the story writing itself as one reads it, yet this is typically how people view the everyday concept of time. That isn't to say that every detail of our lives is already written down from the moment we're born, but maybe more of it is written down than we generally believe.

Perhaps you're one of those people who skips ahead to the very last page of a book to see how it ends. And perhaps you've also been disappointed to find that the last page makes little sense without having read the whole book first. Maybe this "skipping ahead" in a book to catch a glimpse of the ending might be a good analogy to precognitive dreams. To experience a precognitive dream, one must a.) retain a large memory of dreams and b.) connect some dream to a real-world happening. In other words, just like skipping ahead in a book, unless we understand the larger context to place the dream/story, it's unlikely it would make any sense. It might be that precognitive dreams are quite common, but that they are generally regarded as randomness and then forgotten. The experience of deja vu is often described as an intense sensation of already having experienced a certain situation, setting or feeling. Could partially forgotten memories of dreams be the basis for some deja vu experiences too?

Dunne also attempted to show that these precognitive dreams are more common than generally believed. He gives numerous examples of precognition from his own dreams, the most notable being a dream he had of the erruption at Mount Pelée in 1902:

In the spring of 1902, I was encamped with the 6th Mounted Infantry near the ruins of Lindley, in the (then) Orange Free State. We had just come of trek, and mails and newspapers arrived but rarely.

There, one night, I had an unusually vivid and rather unpleasant dream . . . about an island which I recognized as an island of which I had dreamed before --an island which was in imminent peril from a volcano. And, when I saw the vapor spouting from the ground, I gasped: 'It's the island! God Lord, the whole thing is going to blow up!' . . . Forthwith I was seized with a frantic desire to save the four thousand (I knew the number) unsuspecting inhabitants. Obviously there was only one way of doing this, and that was to take them off in ships. There followed a most distressing nightmare, in which I was at a neighboring island, trying to get the incredulous French authorities to dispatch vessels of every and any description to remove the inhabitants of the threatened island. I was sent from one official to another; clinging to the heads of a team of horses drawing the carriage of one 'Mounsieur le Maire', who was going out to dine and wanted me to return when his office would be open next day. All through the dream the number of the people in danger obsesses my mind. I repeated it to everyone I met, and, at the moment of waking, I was shouting to the 'Maire', 'Listen! Four thousand people will be killed unless----'

I am not certain now when we received our next batch of papers, but, when they did come, the Daily Telegraph was amongst them, and, on opening the center sheet, this is what met my eyes:

VOLCANO DISASTER
IN
MARTINIQUE
TOWN SWEPT AWAY
AN AVALANCHE OF FLAME
PROBABLE LOSS OF OVER
40,000 LIVES
BRITISH STEAMER BURNT
One of the most terrible disasters in the annals
of the world has befallen the once prosperous town
of St. Pierre, the commercial capital of the French
island of Martinique in the West Indies. At eight
o'clock on Thursday morning the volcano Mont
Pelee which had been quiescent for a century,
etc., etc.

But there is no need to go over the story of the worst eruption in modern history [2].

Mount Pelée eruption in 1902

Given the events surrounding this dream, it would be difficult to classify it as anything other than precognitive. However, most precognitive dreams aren't as explicit as Dunne's dream given here. Most dreams are coded in subconscious symbolism, obscuring the the intended meaning to the dreamer. The dream that isn't shrouded in this way is a rare event indeed. Perhaps this general obscurity has to do with the mind's unfamiliarity with this dream or time 'landscape', as it were? Or perhaps like real-world explorers, one must start by creating a journal to help navigate such unfamiliar territory. In fact, many people report that keeping a dream journal increases the clarity of their dreams enormously. It also helps one retain the memory of dreams longer, which is one of the obvious prerequisites for experiencing a precognitive dream. It seems that dreaming is more like an art that takes practice to perfect.

In addition to Dunne's work, the Maimonides group carried out a large set of experiments to test for ESP and precognition in dreams. The members of this group included Montague Ullman, Stanley Krippner, and Charles Honorton at the Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, NY; they performed dream research during the mid-1960s to early 1970s. For the most part, the Maimonides research was focused on testing for ESP evidence in dreams, but some of their experiments evolved into the area of precognition too. The basic protocol for their experiments was to put a 'receiver' in one room and have that person go to sleep. This person was then asked to record any dreams they might have upon waking. Another person, the 'sender', would then reside in another room concentrating on some visual target (usually a piece of artwork) and told to mentally "send" this image to the receiver sleeping in the other room. In some experiments multiple senders were used. An interesting example of a multiple sender experiment involved the use of the audience at a Grateful Dead concert.

Many of the experiments carried out by the Maimonides group involved a man named Macolmn Bessent. Bessent was considered a gifted psychic, and had studied at the London College of Psychic Studies for many years under the guidance of many other psychics. In some of these experiments the protocol was changed so that the sender wouldn't actually 'send' anything to Bessent at the time he was dreaming, but instead act out some scene once he woke up. In these cases multiple volunteers were used to act out some yet-to-be-chosen scene. As usual, Bessent would record his dreams throughout the night - the transcripts of which would then be sealed before the target scene was chosen and acted out. The essence of the experiment was to test for precognitive abilities in the dream-state, since nobody knew ahead of time what scene it was they were supposed to send to the dreaming Bessent.

Hospital Corridor at Saint Remy
by Vincent Van Gogh

In one particular case, the chosen target was the scene of Vincent Van Gogh's Hospital Corridor at Saint Remy. When Bessent woke up, he was greeted by the Maimonides group and addressed as Mr. Van Gogh. As he was led through a corridor where doctors were laughing hysterically in the background. He was then forced to take a pill and disinfected with a cotton swab. As expected, the transcript of Bessent's dreams from the previous night revealed a similar scene. In his dream Bessent described "a patient attempting to escape, while many people dressed in white coats - doctors and other medical staff - were hostile to him." [4]

The Maimonides dream laboratory was ultimately closed in 1978 due to lack of funding. By that point they had amassed a total of 379 trials with a 83.5% success rate of present and future dreams. Although these experiments carried out by the Maimonides research group demonstrate that dream ESP and precognition is within the realm of human abilities, it still doesn't shed much light on the mechanism behind this ability. For this we have to continue exploring the theoretical side of dreaming, states of consciousness and time itself.

As far as theory goes, modern physics shouldn't have a problem with the concept of precognition since Einstein's Theory of General Relativity regards time as the 4th dimension. However, ask most physicists today and they'll likely deny the possibility of anyone being able to 'see' into the future. Most will tell you the reason has to do with the speed of light being a limiting factor on how fast we receive information. Of course, this assumption only takes into account our five known senses and what we know about how they operate. But the dreamer is not limited to the known sensory organs it seems. Certainly the eyes do move during REM sleep - that time when dreams are usually most intense - but what the dreamer sees and experiences during this state cannot usually be attributed to any stimulus in his nearby environment. In fact, when the dreamer experiences an external stimulus of some sort (like a siren sound for instance), it is often interpreted as something completely different in the dreamstate.

Likewise, dreams cannot always be construed as some surreal manifestation of waking thoughts or imagination either. People often attribute a certain reality to their dreams, just like they would describe any other experience right out of their waking lives. As precognitive dreams show, the information given in some dreams cannot be attributed entirely to the images and memories stored in the mind of the dreamer alone - it must be coming from some external source too. But if this is the case, then where does this outside information that transcends our normal view of linear time come from? As physicists point out, it can't possibly come from light (or electromagnetic waves). Is "information" itself a more basic substrate of the universe? If so, what is the biological mechanism that allows our consciousness to sometimes tap into this 'landscape', or field of pure information? This is a question we'll have to return to at a later time. For now it might be useful to mention another perspective on this 'landscape'.

T.C. Lethbridge discusses the topic of dreams in his book Power of the Pendulum. He arrived at his views on dreams through personal experience and through a very clever dowsing technique using a pendulum. He demonstrated through the use of a pendulum how there exists another level of reality superimposed over our own - a reality where time as we know it does not exist. Like Dunne, Lethbridge concluded that dreams provide access to this timeless landscape beyond our waking world. He gives examples from his own dreams of time flowing backwards, accelerated time and glitches in the normal flow of time. He also talked of dreams being of two main types. The first being a sort of mental wandering where the mind paws over thoughts and problems taking place in one's life - a "drowsy dream" as he calls it. This is the type of dreammostly discussed in psychology as it is understood today. The second type is what he calls a "true dream" which seems to originate outside of the dreamer; precognitive dreams being a subset of these. Although, as is often the case, these two types of dreams can be mixed together as well. As he states:

After spending some months in trying to collect and study dreams, various points became clearer. The first is that the distinction between true dreams and what we might call drowsy thinking, is not at all sharp. Much of what we usually regard as dreaming is just a slipshod form of re-thinking recent events and problems. We turn over memories and we fuss over half-realized difficulties. This kind of thinking is not true dreaming at all, but it can become mixed with it and you can spend a lot of drowsy thought in turning over a real dream. The true dream can come through the other condition like a sudden beam of bright light. You can also experience one dream cutting clean through another. I think it is reasonable to regard the two states as being subconscious and superconscious. The subconscious is lower than true waking thought and the superconscious is something at a higher level, which we pass through when going still higher in sleep. The astonishing thing about the superconscious is that it appears to know about many matters which have not yet happened at all. [3 p36]

T.C. Lethbridge

Lethbridge puts forward the idea that dreams are composed of levels, or layers, where one must pass through one level to get to the next . Like Dunne, he also set out to record his dreams each night to uncover evidence for future happenings. Although the dreams he describes were mundane compared to Dunne's disaster prophecy, several of his dreams showed disjointed scenes that related to his activities on the following day or week that he had no prior knowledge of.

Lethbridge also notes that sometimes it seemed like his dreams were being played through a film projector of sorts. He regards these dreams as "flash and strip" type dreams. These dreams could be played at different speeds, backwards and sometimes problems or glitches would occur, just like on a regular film projector. He thought that this might offer a clue as to the mechanism behind precognitive dreams:

We have one fixed point in this problem, which is that dreams often contain elements drawn from future time. This cannot be evaded [...] A possible answer is that this earth life is not real and we are now going over something which has been lived already. If this were so, then it would perhaps be possible to go into the place where the film was projected and look it over both forward and backward shots (just as you can unroll a cinema film and examine it when it is not being shown). Could this be what happens when we go to sleep? Do we just go into the projection room and look over the film? If so there must be an infinite number of people looking over an infinite number of films at the same time.

If we take this idea and examine the flash and strip types of dream, there appears to be some confirmation. So many of them seem to resemble the results of people trying out stills and little strips of film on projectors of some kind. They often appear to do it inexpertly and shots stick or come on back to front.

If there is any truth in this idea, it could begin to give us remarkable thoughts of what may be happening in the next zone, for it suggests that there may be mechanical projectors there not very different from those we know here. This is a long way from the old idea of people sitting on wet clouds and twanging harps, yet it seems to be a more practical possibility. [3 p40-41]

In addition to dreams, it appears that hypnosis can also be used to access information about the future. In the book Mass Dreams of the Future, Chet Snow describes the hypnosis research he collaborated with the late Drs. Helen Wambach on over a period of eight years. During this period they took thousands of volunteers and 'progressed' them into the future using hypnosis.

Past life regression hypnosis is well known in some circles and is supposedly a way for people to access hidden memories of past lives. This practice assumes that there is a soul, or some part of of a person that survives physical death to be reborn. It also makes the assumption that we can only access what's in the past. But if the past and future exist simultaneously in a "landscape" as hypothesized above, then there should be a way to 'remember' the future too. What Snow and Wambach attempted to do was just that with their volunteers. They wanted to see if people could 'remember' future lives that supposedly hadn't happened yet.

They carried out their research by putting volunteers into a light trance state and progressing them to a specified target year. Once they were in this state they were asked some basic questions about their lives and their environment. They decided to choose the years 2150 AD and 2300 AD as targets for the large majority of their research. They discovered that there were three main conclusions that could be drawn from the stories given by these volunteers under hypnosis:

Most of humanity will live in just four environment types: First: sylvan, ecologically-sound creative and spiritual communities widely scattered in temperate zones; Second: hi-tech cities dependent on domes and other artificial protections against a harsh exterior environment; Third: isolated, rustic settlements of people who have forsaken technological solutions to Earth's problems, returning to a simpler, less-complex life-style; and Fourth: space-farers who inhabit artificial space stations above the Earth, or build protected colonies on nearby planets like Mars.
The emergence of clans or tribes of people born with enhanced telepathic and other psychic powers.
A period after 2300 AD, known as the "Outward Wave," when humanity will no longer be bound either by this solar system or by present-day concepts of 3-D reality.

Whetherthese conclusions reflect the beliefs and biases of Snow and Wambach is hard to tell. What's interesting, however, is the fact that thousands of peoples' future lives basically fit within the framework of four general future scenarios. Given that, it seems difficult to justify all these stories solely as the product of the volunteers' imagination. It could be that some of these future scenarios reflect the ambitions, biases, or fancies of the volunteers involved, but that doesn't appear to explain why they are so consistent. Perhaps, like the dreamers checking out future film clips of their current lives, these individuals were accessing potential futures too, but on a much broader scale. While it might not be that any one of these future scenarios are set in stone, it shows that some part of our future may already be partially written, just like with precognitive dreams.

Given all of this, it seems reasonable to conclude that certain states of mind - whether dreams or hypnosis - do offer us a glimpse of some higher reality where linear time is no longer a barrier. This implies that our concept of time is either flawed or at least simplified in the extreme. Unfortunately, the problem with this whole discussion of dreams, hypnosis and the properties of time is that it is all very subjective. There is no way to put the content of dreams or hypnosis to any sort ofdirect measurement. On the other hand, studying time from the standpoint of modern physics using direct measurement techniques, while possible, is problematic for other reasons too. Even though in the examples above some information is clearly being communicated from the future into the present, modern physics still dogmatically asserts that this cannot be possible. We have no theoretical framework for this phenomena and how it relates to our biology and ultimately consciousness itself. Quantum Physics is starting to break down this long-held belief that no information can travel faster than light, but there remains an untapped treasure trove of interesting time experiments that have gone unnoticed in the eyes of official science.

To be continued...

References

"Survey of Dreams and Premonitions about
the 9/11 Attacks on the United States", http://www.aspr.com/911survey.html
An Experiment with Time, A tribute to the dream work of J.W. Dunne, http://www.geocities.com/felixrayman/PUZZLE.HTM
The Power of the Pendulum, T.C. Lethbridge, Arkana - 1976
The Field: The Quest For The Secret Force of the Universe, Lynne McTaggart, Harper - 2008

Science 101 - Cosmic Climate Change

2012-01-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

Is it possible to go back to a time when discussions of the earth's climate had a hint of sanity to them? At this point probably not, but I'm going to take a shot here...

The sad reality is that the idea of anthropocentric global warming (AGW) has become so polarized in the political arena that there's no longer any room to scrutinize the theory or to look for alternative explanations. It seems that one has two choices: either support the draconian measures to curb CO₂ emissions around the world, or deny that earth's climate is even changing at all! While the former is based on pure hysteria, the latter is rooted in total ignorance - and both rely on an outright denial of the facts for justification. Despite the false dualism of this debate, there seems to be a third way emerging. While the evidence suggests that earth's climate is changing (rather drastically, in fact), it also appears that anthropocentric CO₂ has very little to do with it.

Despite all the jaw-flapping over CO₂, people tend to forget that this gas is not a pollutant. It's a natural component of earth's atmosphere. It's also a major component in photosynthesis, without which we would have no greenery to speak of. CO₂ is a very good thing, and the flora of this planet soak it up like a sponge giving us the gift of oxygen. There's no fundamental difference from the CO₂ generated by our respiration and the CO₂ that comes out of our exhaust pipes - it's the same chemical structure either way you look at it.

But according to proponents of AGW, this excess of CO₂ that we've dumped into the atmosphere via industrialization has contributed to a runaway warming trend - the deadly "greenhouse effect" that scientists speak of. But is this "greenhouse effect" really as dangerous as so many are led to believe?

Believe it or not, without the greenhouse effect we would all be living on a block of ice. In other words, we'd be plunged back into another ice age faster than you could say "inconvenient truth." (More on this below.)

Not only this, but CO₂ has such a small part to play in the overall greenhouse effect to be virtually negligible. We'll see below just what the main component of greenhouse gas is in the atmosphere. But for now it's best to understand that temperatures drive CO₂ levels in the atmosphere and not the other way around.

Imagine a bottle of soda pop sitting out on a hot summer day. Think of how quickly the soda goes flat sitting out in the sun as opposed to sitting in an air conditioned building or refrigerator. The fizz it loses is, in fact, CO₂. Now imagine that soda can is really all the earth's oceans combined. The vast quantities of CO₂ held in the oceans go up and down depending on the overall average temperature of the planet. The warmer the earth gets, the more CO₂ is pumped into the atmosphere. Volcanic vents and ocean life are a continuous source for CO₂ within the earth's oceans. Therefore, the warmer the oceans are, the more CO₂ is released into the atmosphere and vice versa.

To say that industrial CO₂ drives global temperatures would be like saying that a light bulb in a house controls the temperature of the home. In reality the light bulb is a heat source, albeit a small one when compared to the size of a typical home. From a limited perspective, some scientist studying the temperature trends in this house might notice that when the light bulb turns on, the temperature of the house goes up. Of course, the reality is that the homeowners just turn the heat down at night to save money and it only appears that the light bulb is driving the whole system. It just goes to show that correlation does not equal causation.

So you might ask: If CO₂ is such a small part of the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect is a necessary process that keeps us from freezing our little tushes, then what is the primary cause of this greenhouse effect? The answer is... water! Yes, water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas here on earth. H₂O, the necessary ingredient for all life, comes to the rescue once again. If not for the water in the atmosphere and at the surface, this planet would be a barren, frozen wasteland.

A good example of what this planet might be like without the copious amounts of water we currently enjoy is the planet Mars. Mars, despite receiving ample energy from the sun, still experiences drastic temperature swings on the surface which can vary from 27 °C (81 °F) to −143 °C (−225 °F) in a single day. Without any significant water vapor to speak of, Mars simply cannot hold heat. This heat holding capacity of water has a huge bearing on a planet's overall climate. Anybody who has lived near a large lake understands this "lake effect" which naturally keeps the area surrounding the lake warmer in the winter months and cooler in the summer. Basically, water acts as a large capacitor for heat storage.

The problem is that despite the greenhouse effect keeping us warm, the earth still tends toward the cooler side throughout history. Our little century of warming may be the exception rather than the norm when it comes to looking at earth's climate over longer periods of time.

The spikes show the interglacial periods.

It's known from chemical markers in ice cores and other fossil data that historically temperatures on this planet have been markedly different from what they are today. In fact, looking back over the past half-million years, it appears that we've been in a prolonged glacial period interrupted at times with interglacial spikes such as the one we find ourselves in today (see image above). The phrase "reversion to the mean" comes to mind when considering all this. Could we be headed back to a time where the earth is much cooler than it is today? Despite the stranglehold AGW has in the media and politics, there are still some dissenting scientists who believe we might be headed back into another ice age.

But if CO₂ is not the driver of earth's climate, then what is? We still haven't answered this part of the climate riddle. As it turns out, certain temperature anomalies may offer us a clue about just what the real driver behind climate change is.

One piece of data which is not well explained by AGW is the relative cooling of Antarctica over the last century despite a general rise in temperatures elsewhere in the world. As some scientists have suggested, the answer to this conundrum might be very simple: Antarctica is totally white! It reflects sunlight back into space instead of absorbing it. Without the ability to absorb sunlight, it can't warm up

Not only does snow reflect sunlight, but so do low-level cumulus clouds. The cloudier the earth is, the more sunlight is reflected back into space and thus the cooler we get. One can imagine an earth devoid of any sunlight reaching the surface would make for a very cold habitat indeed. It also seems odd that current AGW climate models do not include this cloud factor. One would think this would be pretty significant to understand and model this cloud factor.

Following this train of thought: If clouds are the main driver in global temperatures, then what on earth controls the formation of clouds? Actually, clouds might not be controlled so much from anything on earth as they are controlled by factors from space. There have been suggestions based on experimental evidence that clouds may be seeded by high-energy cosmic rays from space.

While cosmic rays might sound like something out of science-fiction, there is actually a lot of research being carried out in this area. Cosmic rays are super-charged particles traveling at relativistic speeds across the vast distances in space. It's suspected that many of these cosmic rays originate from supernovas as well as 'black-holes', but there might be other sources as well. While we might not totally understand their origin, we do see their effects on this planet and the solar system as a whole. As mentioned above, one of the main effects of cosmic rays is the seeding of low-level clouds here on earth. One could almost think of these cosmic rays as 'raindrops' from space.

If these cosmic rays control the clouds which in turn control the overall temperature of this planet, then there's really not much we can do as humans to control climate. (Other than pray to the gods, of course!) We are pretty much at the mercy of extra-solar forces that we don't entirely understand. Unfortunately, such a predicament doesn't make for the greatest political platform. There's not much that politicians, or anybody else for that matter, can do to regulate the flow of cosmic rays coming from the center of the galaxy or wherever.

Actually, the sun still has a role to play in all of this. While it's true that solar output (brightness) has not changed much over earth's history, the sun's magnetic field can and does change over long and short time periods for reasons unexplained. So how could the sun's magnetic field have anything to do with earth's temperature or even cosmic rays for that matter?

While the sun's magnetic field has no direct influence on temperature (putting a large magnet next to a thermometer does nothing in case you've ever tried it), the strength of the sun's magnetic field does act as a valve or shield for these cosmic rays. When the sun's magnetic field is weak, the shields go down and more cosmic rays flow into the inner solar system, thus forming more clouds on earth. During periods when the sun's magnetic field is strong, the shields go up and fewer cosmic rays flow into the inner solar system, thus leaving the earth less cloudy. The earth's magnetic field plays a role too, but it is dwarfed in comparison to the size and strength of the sun's. So how do we know when this magnetic shield is either up or down?

It hasn't escaped noticed that there is already a well-proven way of measuring the relative intensity of the sun's magnetic field. This is by counting sunspots. Astronomers have been keeping records of sunspots over the past few centuries, and even this short period of time has allowed us to see some trends (see image above). Sunspots are dark spots on the sun of intense magnetic activity. It has been noted that periods of low sunspot activity tend to coincide with periods of cooler climate. The Maunder Minimum which coincided with the "little ice age" is one notable example. As it just so happens, we are currently in a another sunspot minimum at the moment, and if we look at the actual data on global temperatures there has been a general cooling trend since 1998. Perhaps this sunspot dearth could play a role in the process which leads us back to another ice age?

So there you have it! An alternative theory of climate change that explains the facts with a minimum set of assumptions. The whole idea of earth's climate being dictated by the whims of the stars seems to have a certain elegance to it (which may be important for those who believe that truth and beauty should be synonymous.) Actually, there are still some anomalies that this theory doesn't explain well. It doesn't explain the more abrupt climate shifts noted in ice core samples. These shifts appear to happen fairly quickly on the order of years or less, and are often accompanied by other changes in atmospheric composition. This has prompted some scientists to suspect catastrophic events as the cause for these abrupt shifts. Catastrophism will be the focus of another Science 101 article coming up in the near future. So despite the elegance of the theory outlined above, there is still more to the climate story...

In the meantime, interested readers may want to check out the following series of videos:

Solar Activity and Cosmic Rays behind Global Warming

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Also, the book Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change also does an excellent job outlining this new theory of climate change.

"Lost World Discovered" But Is NASA Taking Note?

2012-01-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

One of many new creatures recently discovered
along the East Scotia Ridge of Antarctica.

At first glance, the idea of finding an exotic new deep-sea environment - a so-called "lost world" - and the idea finding extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe may seem to have little in common. But that is probably because we're used to thinking of life as a surface phenomena. As it turns out, the most extreme environments on earth - which are often at great depth - may offer clues about how life could exist on other planets.

The question is: if life can survive along the bottoms of oceanic vents at temperatures and pressures that surface life on this planet is woefully unequipped for, then could extreme conditions elsewhere in the universe harbor life as well? While this wasn't exactly the focus of a recent discovery made of a previously undiscovered ecosystem along the East Scotia Ridge of Antarctica, perhaps it is time to ponder such questions in light of this recent discovery. To quote the article:

This discovery is amazing, straight out of a Jules Verne's novel: scientists from the University of Oxford, University of Southampton, the National Oceanography Centre, and the British Antarctic Survey have discovered a "lost world" thriving with unknown species under Antarctica, in the East Scotia Ridge.

Researchers used a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to explore the depths of the East Scotia Ridge, which is full of hydrothermal vents which can reach up to 719 degrees Fahrenheit (382 degrees Celsius). They discovered an amazing new world packed with unknown species. According to project leader Professor Alex Rogers of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, these alien-looking white creatures are thriving in the rich chemicals ejected by the vents:

Hydrothermal vents are home to animals found nowhere else on the planet that get their energy not from the Sun but from breaking down chemicals, such as hydrogen sulphide. The first survey of these particular vents, in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, has revealed a hot, dark, ‘lost world' in which whole communities of previously unknown marine organisms thrive.

So here we have the first clue. If life can survive without energy input from the sun, then perhaps NASA has been looking in the wrong place for extraterrestrial life. The assumption that earth is the only life-bearing planet in the solar system cannot be assumed just because the surfaces the known planets and moons appear to be inhospitable to life. To know for sure whether life exists on other planets, we must look below.

In fact, there's a book that explores this topic in some depth (pun intended) called The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold. The book explores a wide range of topics related to earth science, evolutionary biology and modern cosmology. Many of Gold's conclusions on these topics, despite being well thought out, remain controversial. Here's some of what Gold had to say on the topic of life found along deep ocean vents:

Because we are surface creatures, we are inclined to regard an ecosystem based on chemical energy rather than photosynthetic energy as a strange, if wonderful, adaptation of life. We marvel at the ecology of the deep ocean vents as a deft adjustment of surface life to an inhospitable realm. The evidence argues otherwise. Microbes and even animals are thriving at these vents; growth rates are thought to exceed those in even the most productive surface realms. If the theory of the deep hot biosphere is correct, we could infer that the microbial pioneers invaded from below. Many viewpoints would have to be changed as a consequence.

The communities of life at the deep ocean vents differ from other marine ecosystems not so much in their garish macrofauna but in their unseen microbes - the bacteria and archaea at the base of the food web. Two decades of studies have revealed that these microbes feed on molecules gushing from the vents: hydrogen (H₂), hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), and methane (CH₄), each of which can supply energy only if oxygen is available. No known animal can feed on any of these chemicals directly, but animals can feed on microbes that do. What is particularly remarkable about the deep-ocean vent communities is that many of the macrofauna seem to be dependent on symbiotic partnerships with the microbes.

Thomas Gold

One of the main ideas that Gold puts forth in his book is that we have things all backwards in terms of how life evolved. He shows that the deep subsurface environment, which he coins the "deep hot biosphere", is actually more suitable to life, but life of a different form. This form of life feeds off of chemical energy in the fluids and minerals found at great depths. This, in contrast to surface life that derives its energy either directly or indirectly from the sun and exists in an abundance of oxygen. He views this chemical metabolism as the more primative version of the two and that it was likely this form of life that came first and then later evolved into the more complex photosynthesis-based lifeforms we find today. So it may be premature to view these exotic finds along ocean vents as unique adaptations of surface lifeforms; they may represent a more primal version of life.

The other interesting point that Gold makes is that life is a network of relationships. Studying the unseen base of the food chain (i.e. bacteria and microbes) rather than the visible macrofauna might give us a better understanding of what makes life at this depth tick. The article mentions hydrogen-sulfide-eating microbes in this recent discovery, but Gold also mentions methane-eating microbes or arachaea too. The outgassing of methane along these deep ocean vents would make for a near inexhaustible supply of food for the critters that form the base of the deep ocean food chain. The macrofauna at this depth have probably evolved to where their very existence depends on these very unique microorganisms. In his book, Gold mentions a type of tubeworm, common along these vents, that has evolved to the point where it doesn't even need a mouth to feed due to its symbiotic relationship with the bacteria that live inside of it.

Now methane in its various forms is quite abundant in the universe and particularly on our neighboring planets. Therefore, it seems that the chances for finding extraterrestrial life - in the form that can feed off of methane - might be rather high. (At some depth on a given planet there will likely be a suitable temperature/pressure ratio able to support life.) However, there's still a lot of misunderstanding about where methane on our planet actually comes from.

Here on this planet we call methane 'natural gas', a rare commodity believed to be the result of millions of years of decaying plant matter. In contrast, the methane on all other planets is assumed to derive from some abiotic process that is not entirely understood. Perhaps acquiring hydrocarbon materials is a natural result of the planetary formation process? Regardless, is it not reasonable to assume that this same abiotic process that exists on other planets also exists on earth as well? Apparently, the petroleum industry is counting on a scientific illiterate public to believe that their cash cow is somehow a scarce commodity. Nothing could be further from the truth, however.

Gold makes a strong case in his book that petroleum as a 'fossil fuel' is merely a myth and that it exists in quantities that are not likely to be exhausted anytime soon. The fact that petroleum displays certain bio-markers (particularly its optical properties, which exhibit chirality or "handedness") really cannot be assumed to be the work of surface microbes working over dead plant matter eons ago. The discovery of robust ecosystems along these deep ocean vents should give us a clue that certain lifeforms can, in fact, feed off of hydrocarbons. If these lifeforms can thrive along deep sea vents where temperatures and pressures are extreme, then perhaps they also exist in underground oil fields too? Perhaps these biological signposts in liquid hydrocarbons is more likely an indicator of microbial cultures at great depth rather than some esoteric decay process that happened millions of years ago? Keep in mind, nobody has been able to synthesize liquid petroleum in the form that we find underground from decaying plant matter alone.

If Gold is correct that life began and is probably much more common at depth, then perhaps we need to reevaluate our preconceptions of what constitutes extraterrestrial life too. Chemical-based metabolisms are much simpler in design and thus offer life a wider range of possible environments. There's even some evidence that meteors may harbor certain forms of bacteria. Perhaps some of these bacteria had chemically based metabolisms like the microbes we find in extreme environments on earth? It is now accepted that complex organic molecules form a major component of interstellar dust, and some have even claimed that freeze-dried bacteria exists in this same space dust as well. Perhaps we should be asking the question where life isn't rather than where it is, since it seems to be rather ubiquitous. But to start with, if NASA and co. are serious about discovering extraterrestrial life, perhaps its time to start looking below the surface on some of our planetary neighbors.