November 17th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Report from the Guardian UK
Richard Luscombe in Miami
Sunday November 11, 2007
The Observer
For four decades, residents of the tiny Pennsylvania town of Kecksburg have told their story of strange blue lights in the sky one winter’s evening and a fireball crashing into woods.
On 9 December, 1965, they say, they saw armed soldiers cordoning off the area and a large metallic acorn-shaped object bearing strange hieroglyphics driven off at speed on the back of a lorry. They talk of menacing plain-clothes officials visiting homes and warning local people not to tell anyone of what they saw.
read more
October 19th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Seen at ABC News Australia - A lobby group of climate skeptics is to send every British school a copy of the film The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial film that claims climate change is a myth.
The film caused a storm when it was screened in both Britain and Australia because it swims against the scientific consensus espoused by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Last week some British sceptics failed in a legal bid to stop every school being sent a copy of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning climate change film An Inconvenient Truth.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Government had decided every high school student should see it.
British climate skeptics target schools in Britain
Related:
Oil firms fund climate change denial
Greenhouse gas climate change the greatest swindle?
October 19th, 2007 at 1:38 am
Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Reports on Climate Change and Risk Reports. Lloyd’s reports that the insurance industry should start planning and modeling now for a higher level of losses across the world by the middle of the century as both the severity and frequency of weather events increase. The alternative - waiting until definitive scientific pronouncements on impact at a regional level or likelihood of catastrophic change are available – seems like an increasingly risky strategy.
Excerpt from the Lloyd’s 360 Rapid Climate Change Report:
“Until now, we have tended to think of climate change as a gradual phenomenon which will take place slowly over a long period of hundreds – or perhaps thousands – of years. In turn, this thinking is likely to influence how we forecast and prepare for climate related loss, with the impact expected to be felt evenly over time, and any increase in loss taking place incrementally. In fact, the latest science presented in this report suggests that climate change is likely to bring increasingly dramatic, and possibly rapid, effects at a local level, which differ in their intensity and even in their outcome. In addition, a growing number of potential feedback mechanisms within the climate have the capacity to cause tipping points in the system and speed change further. While we cannot yet determine what the exact impact of climate change will be, the evidence is increasing to suggest we will see tangible change within our lifetime, and insurers and business should begin to consider and prepare for the range of outcomes now.”
With a wealth of new research becoming available recently, the global insurance sector and the wider business community should factor the latest science into its business planning.
- Global warming is not only changing the average climate, but will also make it more erratic which should be of particular concern to the insurance industry.
- As climate change takes hold, insurers and businesses should therefore keep a close watch on future developments, and be prepared to revise their longer term strategies regularly.
- While not all of the increased risks may result in huge losses which significantly damage the capital of the insurance industry, increased unexpected attritional losses could certainly impact financial performance on a regular basis.
Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Rapid Climate Change Report
Lloyd’s of London’s FINAL 360 Climate Change Report
October 17th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Oct 4 2007 - Shrinking ice ‘locked into spiral of decline’ by Darren Devine, Western Mail
DRAMATIC new evidence showing that ice cover on the Arctic Ocean has fallen to its lowest level recorded proves the area is “locked into a spiral of decline”, a Welsh scientist said last night.
Bangor University Oceanographer Dr Tom Rippeth, who has a team doing research in Arctic, says the polar ice cap has shrunk by almost a third compared with its size this time last year.
Research from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reveals that at 4.2m sq km the cap has shrunk by an area about seven times larger than the UK.
When compared to the typical September ice coverage for the 1960s and 70s the change is even greater, as the cap has shrunk to about half the size it was then.
Over the past 10 years the polar ice cap has never been observed to shrink by more than 0.2m square km, but this year has fallen by more than 1m square km.
Dr Rippeth insists the magnitude of the fall is clear evidence of how global warming is changing the planet.
He said, “The magnitude of the decline in arctic ice cover has taken everyone by surprise. It’s far too big to be a result of natural variability and tends to suggest that we are actually locked into a spiral of decline.”
link
October 17th, 2007 at 3:52 am
“Night-shining” clouds are bringing a mystery that NASA has now made a mission to study- these hauntingly beautiful noctilucent clouds were previously restricted to the poles but are now being seen over Colorado. This photograph here was taken over the Juneau, Alaska, ice field in 1998.
‘Night-shining’ clouds, also known as ‘noctilucent’ clouds were discovered 120 years ago - the strangely luminescent clouds have been moving slowly toward the equator and also appear to be getting brighter and more numerous, too, said David Rusch, a University of Colorado atmospheric scientist.
NASA launched a $110 million AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) mission to measure noctilucent clouds and the circumstances in which they form - which may be linked to climate change. The AIM satellite will measure air temperature and pressure, moisture content and cloud dimensions.
Noctilucent clouds appear only at night at an altitude of 50 miles up in the atmosphere; a position which lets them catch sunlight no longer visible from Earth’s surface. Normal clouds are less than 10 miles up in the atmosphere. James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University in Virginia, the NASA mission’s principal investigator reported that:
“They’re very beautiful, they look very mysterious, but aside from all that, these clouds are changing in ways we don’t understand … Observed increases in water vapor in the atmosphere - a consequence of warming - may also make it easier for the clouds to form”
Scott Bailey, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia said:
“Methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, may also be involved … Methane’s presence can increase the amount of water in the upper atmosphere, through a complicated chemical dance”
Researchers have many ideas about why noctilucent clouds are going through these changes and developments and most of them are related to global warming. NASA hopes to get answers with the AIM mission.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Found by Jennie at Neatorama:
A hunter-trapper Brian LaDoon was taking care of his pack of Husky dogs on a Canadian tundra whilst German photographer Norbert Rosing was setting up his cameras, when out of nowhere a large polar bear walked up to one of the dogs.
Brian knew that the bear had not eaten for months, and thought it was “curtains” for the dog when something completely unexpected happened: the polar bear and the dog started playing with each other! As if that wasn’t enough, the polar bear returned every night for the following week to continue playing with the dogs.
Here’s the audio slide show given by Stuart Brown about the encounter:
link
September 30th, 2007 at 1:32 am
In an article by the Canadian National Newspaper, Clark C. McCelland, a former space flight pioneer at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, issued a public statement reaffirming his past conversation with former NASA Director and Architect of the Saturn V that took man to the moon, of Wernher von Braun’s witness of alien bodies at Roswell.
Clark C. McClelland issued a photo of himself in the company of Wernher von Braun that was autographed by Mr. Braun - I guess to try to prove his case that he at least met the man.
“During my long years of service in our national space program, I was very fortunate to come to know and exchange some very exciting data with former German scientists, who had been brought to the USA under Operation Paper Clip following Word War II. These men were the elite of the German rocket programs controlled by Adolph Hitler.”
In that statement, McClelland confirmed that von Braun had told him, under oath not to reveal the information to anyone, the following information:
“Wernher von Braun explained how he and his (unnamed, for now) associates had been taken to the crash site after most of the military were pulled back. They did a quick analysis of what they found. He told me the craft did not appear to be made of metal as we know metal on earth. He said it seemed to be created from something biological, like skin. I was lost as to what he indicated, other than thinking perhaps the craft was “alive.”
The recovered bodies were temporarily being kept in a nearby medical tent. They were small, very frail and had large heads. Their eyes were large. Their skin was greyish and reptilian in texture. Dr. von Braun said it looked similar to the skin texture of rattle snakes he’d seen several times at White Sands. His inspection of the debris had even him puzzled: very thin, aluminium coloured, like silvery chewing gum wrappers. Very light and extremely strong. The interior of the craft was nearly bare of equipment, as if the creatures and craft were part of a single unit.”
That’s when I [McClelland] became lost in the moment. We returned to the awards ceremony, in which he [von Braun] participated, later bidding farewell. I went home with my head spinning from all I had heard. Keeping this quiet for many years was very difficult, especially with the temptations of having many friends and associates who believe in UFOs, ETs, etc. I never released this amazing data to Major Keyhoe and NICAP, or the public, until now. I considered my honor sacred when a vow was made.
Read more at the Canadian National Newspapers online
Related articles:
September 29th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Undergraduate student of West Virginia University, David Narkevik, was re-analysing data from the Parkes Radio telescope in Australia when he came across a five-millisecond burst of energy so powerful that it “saturated” the equipment.
Initially dismissed by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) as man-made radio interference because the burst was so startlingly strong and bright, the explosion put out a huge amount of power (10exp33 Joules), equivalent to a large (2000MW) power station running for two billion billion years and appears to have originated at least one-and-a-half billion light-years (500 Mpc) away.
Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University in Melbourne stated:
“Normally the kind of cosmic activity we’re looking for at this distance would be very faint but this was so bright that it saturated the equipment,”
Scientists having another look at the data are now convinced that the burst was in fact real and emanated from far enough away that any ordinary energy surge should have been very faint.
It is thought that the recording illustrated a catastrophic event such as two neutron stars colliding, or the final evaporation of a black hole. NASA astrophysicist Valerie Connaughton of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, isn’t sure that either of the two hypothesis will hold up, because no radio burst has ever been associated with either phenomenon to date. If this one can be linked, however, it would be a “huge deal,” she says.
With this astonishing find, researchers are now going back to review other archived data from the Parkes telescope, looking for other such anomalies. They also pointed to the construction of a new radio telescope in Australia by 2012 as a potential tool to find other such events.
Eagle Nebula, Taken from Hubble Telescope
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The discovery of the radio burst is similar to the discovery of gamma-ray bursts in the 1970s, when military satellites revealed flashes of gamma-rays appearing all over the sky. One kind—the so-called long-period bursts—was eventually identified as the explosion (supernova) of a massive star with the associated formation of a black hole, hence the assumption of this new burst’s origin; however, no radio burst was associated with that supernova.
Radio astronomer Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis says that whatever caused the signal,
“it’s bound to be exciting. [The source] is almost certainly a very high-energy phenomenon, [that is bound to] push us into exciting new realms of physics.”
A paper on the research has been published on the Science Express site.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Question and Answer session on Straight Dope in 1984 should straighten out some crooked thinking about cattle mutilations:
Letter to Straight Dope:
Dear Cecil:
The “whisperized” helicopter in the movie Blue Thunder called to mind reports of ranchers having seen silent aircraft over areas where mutilated cattle were subsequently found.
Do the facts to date point to any conclusions on who could afford to do these strange mutilations for so many years and yet remain so close to committing the perfect crime?
Is there any similar crime in history that appears to be so big, widespread, and yet so steadfastly ignored? (Ranchers seem to fall silent out of some feeling that “the walls have ears.”) –Rob T., Baltimore
Answer to Cecil:
Dear Rob:
Whenever I start to fret that earthlings are becoming so intelligent and sophisticated that I will soon be out of a job, something like cattle mutilation comes along to convince me I’m going to be in business for the next two million years.
Every year thousands of cattle die on North American ranges, the victims of diseases, parasites, predators, accidents, weirdo pranksters, and Lord knows what else. In most cases the cause of death is obvious, but sometimes it’s not.
Since everybody loves a mystery, especially if it involves mysto paranormal conspiracies, an incredible legend has sprung up about a strange force that goes around cutting the gonads off the nation’s moo-cows. Cooler heads, it is safe to say, regard such talk as the nonsense it undoubtedly is.
That’s how the article begins and let’s give you the sweetest abstracts:
“Innumerable evil agencies have been blamed for cattle mutilation. UFOs were a common target for a while, particularly since reports of mutilations often coincided with reports of unidentified aircraft.
Later it became popular to attribute the crimes to gangs of secret marauders in helicopters–maybe even U.S. government helicopters, since several outbreaks occurred near large military bases.
Other alleged perpetrators that have been fingered from time to time include: (a) Satanists, who use the cattle in some unspeakable ritual; (b) Big Oil, which uses the missing cattle organs to detect the telltale signs of nearby petroleum deposits (yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either); and perhaps best of all (c) the unconscious manifestations of the Mass Mind.
This last theory is the invention of one Thomas Bearden, a retired army officer in Alabama, who believes as follows (I quote from Maclean’s magazine):
“The mutilations are the physical manifestation of the whole human unconsciousness which is somehow aware that the Soviets will, probably within three years, invade and destroy the Western world…. Cattle are female symbols representing the U.S., and the surgical precision of the mutilations indicates the precision of the military operations to come.
“The removal of genitals and organs signifies the end of children in the Western world and the cutting off of ears and tongues predicts the end of free speech.” You bet, Tom.”
Sensible people, such as (one presumes) anyone reading this column, generally believe that the mutilations are the result of natural predators. A minority of cases are the work of brain-damaged farm boys who get ideas after reading about mutilations in the papers.
Read the rest of the article here
September 29th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Thursday, Oct. 21st 1999
In keeping with our record of cat mutilation cases, here’s a case that was determined to have been caused by ‘human hands’. The wicked shall never rest. I think the Animal Cruelty Societies are now seeking far tougher convictions for such crimes.
You must click on the picture to read the entire article.
