Our meditations have managed to somewhat stabilize the positive path towards the Event. A few days before exact Eris-Pluto heliocentric square meditation on August 31st, cloudships and rare multiple rainbows appeared in Taiwan: The So...
Tag: Antarctica (page 1 of 3)
Our meditations have managed to somewhat stabilize the positive path towards the Event. A few days before exact Eris-Pluto heliocentric square meditation on August 31st, cloudships and rare multiple rainbows appeared in Taiwan: The So...
Since my last Cintamani update, the Cintamani grid on the surface of the planet was strengthened significantly.Two pieces were strategically positioned on certain key points in Antarctica: Many pieces are now being positioned on the ocean floors ...
Since I have released intel about the Cintamani stone, many pieces of this sacred stone have found their way into the hands of dedicated Lightworkers and Lightwarriors and will serve as transmitters of energies of compression breakthrough at the...
Free the Colonies! activation is coming soon. In order for people to have more understanding about the situation in our Solar System, I will explain a few things about various breakaway civilizations and their space programs.
In late Atlantean times, both Light and dark forces were openly present on the surface of the planet. When this planet was occupied by the Chimera and the Archons 26,000 years ago, all other interest groups with any significant power were forced to leave the surface and literally go underground.
The Light forces have then built their own network of underground cities and this network was holding the Light for the planet in the last 26,000 years. In various modern intel sources, this network is called the Agartha network, the Shamballa, the underground kingdom of Light…
The dark forces have also built their own network of underground dwellings and they have allied with Dracos and Reptilians already living in certain locations underground. They have been keeping the darkness for this planet in the last 26,000 years. Various modern sources were calling this network Shamballa, the Agartha network, the Naga kingdom, the Patala… So if anybody speaks about the Agartha network, you need to discern clearly which network they are referring to.
Throughout the course of the last 26,000 years, many of the most advanced members of various surface civilizations have broken away from their societies and joined the underground positive Agartha network. Among them were paleolithic Gravettian shamen, Egyptian high priests, Minoan Goddess worshipers, Greek Pythagorean disciples (forming Hav-musuv breakaway society under Death Valley in California), Roman Auguri, Maya, Inca and Hopi groups, 17th century German explorers in South America, the Marconi/Fulcanelli group in the 20th century…
The positive Agartha network had their own space program with fleet of flying disks, traveling throughout the Solar System and beyond, contacting other positive extraterrestrial races. Their freedom of movement through the Solar System was severely limited due to Chimera-imposed quarantine status of this Solar System and planet Earth especially.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the positive Pleiadians from Aldebaran have decided to assist humanity in achieving spaceflight and overunity in order to help them set free from Chimera and Cabal control. By telepathic contact through Marija Orsic of the famous Vril Society they have given instructions how to build a working spacecraft. Unfortunately, the Vril Society was taken over first by the Jesuits through their Rothschild agent Adolf Schicklgruber (Hitler) and later directly by the Chimera through their agent Karl Haushofer. Here it is interesting to note that the original positive Vril Society was financed by the Esterhazy family, which is a positive White Nobility Templar family from Hungary that claims its origin from the Sirius star system. Although the original Vril project of the Light forces has failed short-term, in long term it has given enough technological knowledge to humanity that we will now be able to defeat the Chimera.
The Chimera controlled the development of the German Nazi secret space program that went into two directions.
The more secret part of the German space program was led by Hans Kammler. Kammler was cooperating with the Green Men (an underground Draco breakaway civilization). Under Kammler, the Nazis have built a network of underground tunnels and bases in Greenland, Argentina and Antarctica. They have further expanded their territory by building colonies on the Moon, Mars and asteroids. Pumped with Nazi supremacy ideology, they foolishly believed that they can challenge the Dark Fleet (Orion/Draco/Reptilian interstellar complex). In severe battles during mid-1950s, all Nazi space colonies were completely wiped out from this Solar System by the Draco/Reptilian fleet.
The official Nazi space program was developed by Wernher von Braun. He was later paperclipped into the US along with many other scientists and absorbed into the US military-industrial complex. They have developed both the official NASA space program front and the more secret Solar Warden program (from more military faction of the Cabal) and Corporate space program (from more corporate faction of the Cabal), together with deep underground military bases. Both Solar Warden and the Corporate space programs were interconnected, but deeply compartmentalized. At the top, they were guided by the Unholy Four (Kissinger, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld).
In 2012, the Light Forces have cleared all those secrets space programs, along with all deep underground military bases such as Dulce, Area 51 and Pine Gap. Most of the top brass in these space programs was taken to the Galactic Central Sun as they have committed grave crimes and were unwilling to accept the Light. Most of the supersoldiers participating in these programs were good people that genuinely believed they are defending the Earth against the alien threat. The vast majority of them have joined the positive Alliance fleet in this Solar System and are now assisting in MOSS.
Now they will assist in the final operations to liberate our Solar System from last vestiges of darkness, the Chimera bases and implant stations.
The completion of these operations will have extremely beneficial impact on the geopolitical situation. Therefore I would ask as many people as possible to support the operations by meditating on May 30th to ensure that the whole process will take place as peacefully and as harmoniously as possible:
The Youtube videos for this activation have been prepared in 23 languages.
English:
German:
Dutch:
Danish:
Italian:
Spanish:
Portuguese:
Romanian:
Hungarian:
Russian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7ZVuxEfnVs
Czech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWMdIgoDbqw
Polish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7ZVuxEfnVs
Czech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWMdIgoDbqw
Polish:
Croatian:
Slovenian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10rFTtzLg2A
Hebrew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iuc1rIaPU8
Turkish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLkxtO7kLI
Farsi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxyFBScEgcg
Arabic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdtM_7TxM8
Japanese:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10rFTtzLg2A
Hebrew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iuc1rIaPU8
Turkish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLkxtO7kLI
Farsi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxyFBScEgcg
Arabic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdtM_7TxM8
Japanese:
Chinese (traditional):
Chinese (simplified):
Translation into other languages, especially Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi is still needed so more videos can be made. Please send your translations of the Free the Colonies! text toparlagisas777@gmail.com.
The Breakthrough for our Solar System is here, Earth comes next!
Jack Hanna is the Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and the host of Jack Hanna’s Wild Countdown and Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild television shows.
Primatologist Jane Goodall's recent statement calling for the closing of zoos and aquariums such as Sea World obviously has big money wildlife theme parks very nervous. Firing back with their side of the debate is Jack Hanna, Director Emeritus (which means now retired) of the Columbus Zoo, through a Time.com feature story penned by Hanna entitled, Jack Hanna: What Zoo Critics Don’t Understand, a one-sided dialogue of pro-zoo and pro-aquarium absurdity. Isn't it funny that so often those who possess, let's say, cagey attitudes towards human and animal rights believe it is the rest of us who don't 'understand' something, and if we could just find a way to understand, then we'd see things their way.
This weak and quite scattered opposing view offered by Hanna begins its argument against animal rights supporters and their efforts to free wild life from their theme park imprisonment by first declaring just how popular zoos and aquariums are with folks. Oh well, gee, say no more Jack. Popular? Slavery was pretty popular with some folks too, perhaps we should rethink that whole abolition thing? Do go on. And on Hanna did just that.
This weak and quite scattered opposing view offered by Hanna begins its argument against animal rights supporters and their efforts to free wild life from their theme park imprisonment by first declaring just how popular zoos and aquariums are with folks. Oh well, gee, say no more Jack. Popular? Slavery was pretty popular with some folks too, perhaps we should rethink that whole abolition thing? Do go on. And on Hanna did just that.
Realizing quickly the only direction this lopsided piece could possibly go from that genius insight, I bit down hard and finished the article, which to me read more like a paid endorsement from those establishments that profit greatly from the abduction, caging, and exploitation of defenseless animals. I made it all the way to the point where the popular wildlife celebrity, whose biggest talent appears to be how he makes so many immediately see how the world was such a better place when Steve Irwin was in it, actually said that animals need to be in cages because there's not enough room for them in the wild. Here is the segment written by Jack Hanna as posted on time.com.
"Critics say the only place animals belong is in the wild, but those boundaries are shrinking each day. Having traveled the world, the only places I consider truly “wild” are Antarctica, parts of the Amazon and some places in Africa. Even in Africa, the “wild” places tend to be national parks with guarded boundaries. Animals face many challenges, including habitat loss, poaching, severe weather, and war. The “wild” is not necessarily the idyllic place people imagine..."
And you have just the 'idyllic place' for animals at your Columbus zoo, don't you Jack?
Greg Giles
From heraldscotland.com
By Victoria Weldon
IT'S been described as science fiction made real - but now, just as the final selection process gets under way for the folk with the right stuff to make a manned mission to Mars, scientists have dashed the dreams of planet Earth by warning the journey will probably never happen and will end in disaster if it does.
Privately run space exploration programme Mars One wants to send four people to the red planet for the rest of their (probably not very long) lives and film it for reality TV in order to help finance the endeavour.
Thousands have set their sights on becoming the first settlers to land on the planet - and have now been whittled down to a short list of 100, including a Scottish PhD student - but with questionable technology, a lack of funding and an unrealistic timeframe, experts claim it is a "suicide mission".
Mars One believes it can achieve a manned mission in 2024 - sooner than NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russians or Chinese, and on a fraction of their budgets.
If the project does go ahead, the crew would have to make it through nine months of interplanetary travel without being killed by mishap, radiation - or each other.
And even then, a recent study suggested they will only last 68 days on Mars before dying - due to lack of food and water.
However, Anu Ojha OBE, director of the UK National Space Academy Programme, has warned the applicants not to get their hopes up as the mission is unlikely to ever leave the ground.
Ojha said: "Obviously this is something that has captured the public's imagination, and Mars One obviously has a great PR team, but space engineering obeys the laws of physics not PR."
Mars One is the brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp who was inspired by the images of Mars sent back by the Sojourner rover in 1997, when he was a student.
Lansdorp, who will not make the journey himself, has an impressive team working on the project including former NASA employees Dr Norbert Kraft, who specialises in the physiological and psychological effects of space travel and space architect Kristian von Bengtson.
Physicist Arno Wielders, who previously worked for Dutch Space, is also on board, as well as a number of other advisers from around the world with backgrounds in space engineering, science and technology, marketing, design and television production.
The ultimate aim is to see a large, self-sustaining colony on Mars, but Ojha, who is also a director at the National Space Centre in Leicester, said there are three major stumbling blocks for the mission: technology, funding and human psychology.
"In terms of technology, it's pushing the absolute boundaries and there seems to be a lot of technological naivety on the part of the people running it", he said.
"There are some elements that seem reasonable, but overall it's concerning, and the timescales are also questionable."
While Mars One is planning the one way mission for 2024, NASA, with its long established expertise and technology, is looking to be able to send humans to Mars and bring them back again by the mid 2030s.
This is estimated to cost up to as much as £100 billion (£64.9bn) for the space agency, while Mars One believes it can do it for an optimistic $6 billion (£3.9bn) - and there are even questions over whether or not they will be able to achieve that much funding.
The private enterprise is hoping to raise money through a TV deal and additional funding from the exposure that will bring the project.
Last year it said it had teamed up with programme makers Endemol, but the Big Brother creators recently pulled out of the deal claiming they were "unable to reach agreement on the details of the contract".
Mars One did not respond to questioning by the Sunday Herald over its funding, but its website showed that as at January this year, it had raised just $759,816 from donations, merchandising, and a crowdfunding campaign.
It is unclear what other funding the project has.
Ojha said: "The business model has so many holes in it, it's shaky to say the least. And when you ask them how much money they have raised, they say it's still ongoing. The time scales and the business model - they're completely unrealistic."
Mars One plans to send several unmanned rockets to Mars ahead of the 2024 mission, with the first of these scheduled to take place in 2018.
These will include missions with robots to find a suitable location for a base and assemble it ahead of the humans' arrival.
The project claims it will use only existing technology for the mission, buying in materials from proven suppliers including Lockheed Martin or SpaceX.
The equipment involved includes several simulation outposts for training, a rocket launcher, a transit vehicle to take the crew to Mars, a Mars landing capsule, two rovers, a Mars suit and a communications system.
However, experts have warned that much of this equipment has not been fully tested.
Physicist professor Todd Huffman is a big supporter of attempting a manned mission to Mars, but he also has serious concerns about Mars One, claiming it is "scientifically irresponsible".
He said: "The plan stretches the technology in many places.
"The launch vehicle they want to use has not actually ever launched yet, let alone make a trip to Mars.
"The living spaces have not been made nor has it been tested whether they can be robotically assembled and by what kind of robot.
"A suitable site would also need to be found for the living spaces and the details of how water extraction will take place have not been understood.
"If you assign a 90 per cent chance to success to each of those things, all of which are necessary for human survival, you end up with about a 50 per cent chance of failure, ending in the death of the colonists - and that would likely not make good television."
He added: "Unless we [wait for] quite a lot of technology and exploration to happen first, it is basically worse than a one-way ticket for the colonists - it is almost surely a suicide mission if carried out within this next decade."
Although most scientists believe the mission will not go ahead, some have also warned of the psychological impact on the people selected for the mission if it does.
Ojha said: "The thing that's really captured the public's imagination is this idea of it being a one way trip, but this brings another set of problems in terms of human psychology.
"The longest period a human has spent in space is 438 days - they're talking about sending people on a one way trip.
"Lots of the people I've seen interviewed, they're really excited about taking part, but have they really thought about what they're doing and what the implications are?
"I would tell them to go to Antarctica for six months in the middle of winter and that's about 1 per cent of what they'll be experiencing on Mars.
"Human psychology is far more fragile than we think."
However, while many scientists warn of the dangers and do not believe the mission will proceed, they have praised Mars One for sparking the public's interest in planetary science.
Dr John Bridges, of the Space Research Centre in Leicester, said: "It's a very interesting and innovative project, but the time scales are very challenging.
"I believe they're planning for 2024 and it's 2015 now. So for something as major as this, it's a very challenging timescale
"But it's fantastic that people are thinking about this, that industry is getting involved and raising awareness of planetary science."
Ojha added: "Mars One has been great in a way because it's once again drawn people's imagination to the idea of space engineering and exploration.
"But the reality is that there are serious concerns about the project's space engineering, funding and medical implications."
Lansdorp has previously said that most people are "surprised to hear that the manned missions will be happening in ten years time, with a budget ten times less than Nasa".
He added: "But I think that if you really spend time studying Mars One, you cannot believe there is not a good chance we will make it.
"At the same time, it's a hugely ambitious plan, there's many things that can go wrong with such a big plan.
"But I believe we have a good plan and we can overcome the challenges."
However, he has also conceded that the current plans are an "optimum schedule", adding: "If one rocket doesn't launch, or a lander doesn't work on Mars before a human goes, any major malfunctions will result in a two year delay."
Mars One declined the Sunday Herald's request to interview someone from the project and failed to answer any of our questions.
Mars One believes it can achieve a manned mission in 2024 - sooner than NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russians or Chinese, and on a fraction of their budgets.
If the project does go ahead, the crew would have to make it through nine months of interplanetary travel without being killed by mishap, radiation - or each other.
And even then, a recent study suggested they will only last 68 days on Mars before dying - due to lack of food and water.
However, Anu Ojha OBE, director of the UK National Space Academy Programme, has warned the applicants not to get their hopes up as the mission is unlikely to ever leave the ground.
Ojha said: "Obviously this is something that has captured the public's imagination, and Mars One obviously has a great PR team, but space engineering obeys the laws of physics not PR."
Mars One is the brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp who was inspired by the images of Mars sent back by the Sojourner rover in 1997, when he was a student.
Lansdorp, who will not make the journey himself, has an impressive team working on the project including former NASA employees Dr Norbert Kraft, who specialises in the physiological and psychological effects of space travel and space architect Kristian von Bengtson.
Physicist Arno Wielders, who previously worked for Dutch Space, is also on board, as well as a number of other advisers from around the world with backgrounds in space engineering, science and technology, marketing, design and television production.
The ultimate aim is to see a large, self-sustaining colony on Mars, but Ojha, who is also a director at the National Space Centre in Leicester, said there are three major stumbling blocks for the mission: technology, funding and human psychology.
"In terms of technology, it's pushing the absolute boundaries and there seems to be a lot of technological naivety on the part of the people running it", he said.
"There are some elements that seem reasonable, but overall it's concerning, and the timescales are also questionable."
While Mars One is planning the one way mission for 2024, NASA, with its long established expertise and technology, is looking to be able to send humans to Mars and bring them back again by the mid 2030s.
This is estimated to cost up to as much as £100 billion (£64.9bn) for the space agency, while Mars One believes it can do it for an optimistic $6 billion (£3.9bn) - and there are even questions over whether or not they will be able to achieve that much funding.
The private enterprise is hoping to raise money through a TV deal and additional funding from the exposure that will bring the project.
Last year it said it had teamed up with programme makers Endemol, but the Big Brother creators recently pulled out of the deal claiming they were "unable to reach agreement on the details of the contract".
Mars One did not respond to questioning by the Sunday Herald over its funding, but its website showed that as at January this year, it had raised just $759,816 from donations, merchandising, and a crowdfunding campaign.
It is unclear what other funding the project has.
Ojha said: "The business model has so many holes in it, it's shaky to say the least. And when you ask them how much money they have raised, they say it's still ongoing. The time scales and the business model - they're completely unrealistic."
Mars One plans to send several unmanned rockets to Mars ahead of the 2024 mission, with the first of these scheduled to take place in 2018.
These will include missions with robots to find a suitable location for a base and assemble it ahead of the humans' arrival.
The project claims it will use only existing technology for the mission, buying in materials from proven suppliers including Lockheed Martin or SpaceX.
The equipment involved includes several simulation outposts for training, a rocket launcher, a transit vehicle to take the crew to Mars, a Mars landing capsule, two rovers, a Mars suit and a communications system.
However, experts have warned that much of this equipment has not been fully tested.
Physicist professor Todd Huffman is a big supporter of attempting a manned mission to Mars, but he also has serious concerns about Mars One, claiming it is "scientifically irresponsible".
He said: "The plan stretches the technology in many places.
"The launch vehicle they want to use has not actually ever launched yet, let alone make a trip to Mars.
"The living spaces have not been made nor has it been tested whether they can be robotically assembled and by what kind of robot.
"A suitable site would also need to be found for the living spaces and the details of how water extraction will take place have not been understood.
"If you assign a 90 per cent chance to success to each of those things, all of which are necessary for human survival, you end up with about a 50 per cent chance of failure, ending in the death of the colonists - and that would likely not make good television."
He added: "Unless we [wait for] quite a lot of technology and exploration to happen first, it is basically worse than a one-way ticket for the colonists - it is almost surely a suicide mission if carried out within this next decade."
Although most scientists believe the mission will not go ahead, some have also warned of the psychological impact on the people selected for the mission if it does.
Ojha said: "The thing that's really captured the public's imagination is this idea of it being a one way trip, but this brings another set of problems in terms of human psychology.
"The longest period a human has spent in space is 438 days - they're talking about sending people on a one way trip.
"Lots of the people I've seen interviewed, they're really excited about taking part, but have they really thought about what they're doing and what the implications are?
"I would tell them to go to Antarctica for six months in the middle of winter and that's about 1 per cent of what they'll be experiencing on Mars.
"Human psychology is far more fragile than we think."
However, while many scientists warn of the dangers and do not believe the mission will proceed, they have praised Mars One for sparking the public's interest in planetary science.
Dr John Bridges, of the Space Research Centre in Leicester, said: "It's a very interesting and innovative project, but the time scales are very challenging.
"I believe they're planning for 2024 and it's 2015 now. So for something as major as this, it's a very challenging timescale
"But it's fantastic that people are thinking about this, that industry is getting involved and raising awareness of planetary science."
Ojha added: "Mars One has been great in a way because it's once again drawn people's imagination to the idea of space engineering and exploration.
"But the reality is that there are serious concerns about the project's space engineering, funding and medical implications."
Lansdorp has previously said that most people are "surprised to hear that the manned missions will be happening in ten years time, with a budget ten times less than Nasa".
He added: "But I think that if you really spend time studying Mars One, you cannot believe there is not a good chance we will make it.
"At the same time, it's a hugely ambitious plan, there's many things that can go wrong with such a big plan.
"But I believe we have a good plan and we can overcome the challenges."
However, he has also conceded that the current plans are an "optimum schedule", adding: "If one rocket doesn't launch, or a lander doesn't work on Mars before a human goes, any major malfunctions will result in a two year delay."
Mars One declined the Sunday Herald's request to interview someone from the project and failed to answer any of our questions.
Excerpt from space.com
By by Elizabeth Howell
In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" as a series of simulated radio bulletins of what was happening in real time as Martians arrived on our home planet. The broadcast is widely remembered for creating public panic, although to what extent is hotly debated today.
Still, the incident serves as an illustration of what could happen when the first life beyond Earth is discovered. While scientists might be excited by the prospect, introducing the public, politicians and interest groups to the idea could take some time.
How extraterrestrial life would change our world view is a research interest of Steven Dick, who just completed a term as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology. The chair is jointly sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Program and the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress.
Dick is a former astronomer and historian at the United States Naval Observatory, a past chief historian for NASA, and has published several books concerning the discovery of life beyond Earth. To Dick, even the discovery of microbes would be a profound shift for science.
"If we found microbes, it would have an effect on science, especially biology, by universalizing biology," he said. "We only have one case of biology on Earth. It's all related. It's all DNA-based. If we found an independent example on Mars or Europa, we have a chance of forming a universal biology."
Dick points out that even the possibilities of extraterrestrial fossils could change our viewpoints, such as the ongoing discussion of ALH84001, a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica that erupted into public consciousness in 1996 after a Science article said structures inside of it could be linked to biological activity. The conclusion, which is still debated today, led to congressional hearings.
"I've done a book about discovery in astronomy, and it's an extended process," Dick pointed out. "It's not like you point your telescope and say, 'Oh, I made a discovery.' It's always an extended process: You have to detect something, you have to interpret it, and it takes a long time to understand it. As for extraterrestrial life, the Mars rock showed it could take an extended period of years to understand it."
The ALH84001 meteorite, which in a 1996 Science publication was speculated to be host to what could be ancient Martian fossils. That finding is still under dispute today.
Mayan decipherments
In his year at the Library of Congress, Dick spent time searching for historical examples (as well as historical analogies) of how humanity might deal with first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. History shows that contact with new cultures can go in vastly different directions.Hernan Cortes' treatment of the Aztecs is often cited as an example of how wrong first contact can go. But there were other efforts that were a little more mutually beneficial, although the outcomes were never perfect. Fur traders in Canada in the 1800s worked closely with Native Americans, for example, and the Chinese treasure fleet of the 15th Century successfully brought its home culture far beyond its borders, perhaps even to East Africa.
Even when both sides were trying hard to make communication work, there were barriers, noted Dick.
"The Jesuits had contact with Native Americans," he pointed out. "Certain concepts were difficult, like when they tried to get across the ideas of the soul and immortality."
A second look by the Mars Global Surveyor at the so-called Viking “Face on Mars” in Cydonia revealed a more ordinary-looking hill, showing that science is an extended process of discovery.
Indirect contact by way of radio communications through the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), also illustrates the challenges of transmitting information across cultures. There is historical precedence for this, such as when Greek knowledge passed west through Arab translators in the 12th Century. This shows that it is possible for ideas to be revived, even from dead cultures, he said.
It's also quite possible that the language we receive across these indirect communications would be foreign to us. Even though mathematics is often cited as a universal language, Dick said there are actually two schools of thought. One theory is that there is, indeed, one kind of mathematics that is based on a Platonic idea, and the other theory is that mathematics is a construction of the culture that you are in.
"There will be a decipherment process. It might be more like the Mayan decipherments," Dick said.
The ethics of contact
As Dick came to a greater understanding about the potential c impact of extraterrestrial intelligence, he invited other scholars to present their findings along with him. Dick chaired a two-day NASA/Library of Congress Astrobiology Symposium called "Preparing for Discovery," which was intended to address the impact of finding any kind of life beyond Earth, whether microbial or some kind of intelligent, multicellular life form.The symposium participants discussed how to move beyond human-centered views of defining life, how to understand the philosophical and theological problems a discovery would bring, and how to help the public understand the implications of a discovery.
"There is also the question of what I call astro-ethics," Dick said. "How do you treat alien life? How do you treat it differently, ranging from microbes to intelligence? So we had a philosopher at our symposium talking about the moral status of non-human organisms, talking in relation to animals on Earth and what their status is in relation to us."
Dick plans to collect the lectures in a book for publication next year, but he also spent his time at the library gathering materials for a second book about how discovering life beyond Earth will revolutionize our thinking.
"It's very farsighted for NASA to fund a position like this," Dick added. "They have all their programs in astrobiology, they fund the scientists, but here they fund somebody to think about what the implications might be. It's a good idea to do this, to foresee what might happen before it occurs."
 |
| The 10-meter South Pole Telescope and the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) Telescope at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, which detected evidence of gravitational waves, is seen against the night sky with the Milky Way in this National Science Foundation picture taken in August 2008. |
By Ben P. Stein, Inside Science
Harvard researchers rocked the science community last March with an apparent discovery of gravitational ripples that gave credence to cosmic inflation theory – a finding that met as much skepticism as enthusiasm. Now, further analysis raises more doubts.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." This phrase, popularized by the late Carl Sagan, kept going through my head on March 17, the day that researchers involved with BICEP2, a telescope in Antarctica, made a big announcement at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The researchers reported that BICEP2 detected gravitational waves from the first moments after the big bang, a feat, which if confirmed, would open up a new field of study and would surely be recognized in a future Nobel Prize.
Gravitational waves are ripples in space and time. They're created when any object with mass accelerates. However, they're extremely weak, making them very hard to detect directly. Even for the most massive and cataclysmic events, such as the collision of two black holes, their effects, observed from Earth, are very hard to detect.
If you're looking for a detectable gravitational wave signal, what bigger event can there be than cosmic inflation? According to inflation theory, the universe multiplied its size by as much as 10 trillion trillion trillion times in the first fractions of a second after the big bang. Inflation would have generated lots of gravitational waves. In turn, gravitational waves can subtly change the properties of light that they pass through. Specifically, they can slightly affect the polarization of light, the direction in which light's electric fields vibrate. The universe's rapid expansion during inflation would have amplified the waves' imprint on the early light in the universe.
The state-of-the-art BICEP2 experiment, which uses super-sensitive superconducting sensors, could detect tiny changes in polarization in the cosmic microwave background, the very first light released in the universe, which is still reaching us today. The BICEP2 researchers reported a very high polarization signal, known as B-mode polarization after its characteristics, in the cosmic microwave background, which they interpreted as a strong gravitational wave signal in the early universe.
Detecting this polarization signal was a striking result, announced in a series of scientific talks and a press conference shortly after a preprint of the paper was posted online. Notice these last two points: announced at a press conference, and a preprint posted online. A preprint is a written paper that has not been formally reviewed by independent peers or published in a scientific journal.
Nonetheless, scientists and reporters alike reported excitement over the results. If true, they would provide the greatest experimental support yet of cosmic inflation, and the first direct detection of gravitational waves. Previously, gravitational waves have been detected indirectly, such as in observations of pairs of stars falling towards each other: they were losing energy in the form of gravitational waves.
On the day of the BICEP2 announcement, and for many days afterward, people were largely accepting the results as correct and already jumping to the implications of the BICEP2 results for what appeared to be a new era of gravitational-wave cosmology.
In writing my story for Inside Science News Service, I was fortunate to get an early voice of skepticism from David Spergel, a theoretical cosmologist at Princeton University in New Jersey. He commented:
"Given the importance of this result, my starting point is to be skeptical. Most importantly, there are several independent experimental groups that will test this result in the next year."
Spergel explained that the new gravitational wave measurements did not appear to agree with those of previous experiments, known as WMAP and Planck, unless the simplest models of inflation were replaced by more complicated ones. On the first day and week of coverage, I became very disappointed with the many commentators who disregarded or underemphasized that the earlier measurements from instruments on WMAP and Planck, which had been reported and covered for years.
Sure enough, in the weeks that followed, other researchers pointed out that the signal that BICEP2 detected may have been attributable to the polarization of light caused by dust in our galaxy. The BICEP2 team certainly knew that dust could also polarize light in a similar way to gravitational waves, but they used a model, based on the data that was available from the Planck satellite, that, the other researchers pointed out, may have underestimated the amount of dust in the part of the sky they were studying.
The BICEP2 paper underwent peer review and was published in Physical Review Letters. As a result of the peer-review process, the researchers made revisions, including removing the model that contained the lower estimates of dust based on the earlier Planck data, and thereby reducing the certainty with which they could state that they accounted for signals from interstellar dust.
During the summer, the BICEP2 and Planck collaborations agreed to work together to analyze their data, to help determine if gravitational waves had really been detected.
This week, the Planck team issued a preprint, based on an analysis of much additional data, showing a comprehensive map of dust in the sky. According to their analysis, the signal in the part of sky that BICEP2 analyzed could be completely attributable to dust and not to gravitational waves.
But, the story is not over. For starters, keep in mind the new preprint, like all newly posted publications, still needs to undergo formal peer review.
And the latest data do not completely rule out the possibility that the BICEP2 group detected a gravitational wave signal. If the evidence holds up at all, it would likely be a weaker signal, after accounting for the dust. Or, the gravitational-wave signal may completely turn to dust.
It may be possible to detect primordial gravitational waves in a different, less dusty part of the sky, or with new measurements by BICEP2, Planck or the many other experiments that are looking for them. Just as the first reported detections of exoplanets turned out to be false, perhaps this is a prelude to an actual detection of gravitational waves.
"You cannot ignore dust," he quotes from Planck scientist Charles Lawrence of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The biggest lesson, to me, is that no one should rush to make announcements and pronouncements, whether big or small, even in the face of intense competition and the alluring prospects of launching a new field of study and winning a Nobel Prize.
Scientists, and the rest of the public, should follow the time-tested scientific practice of subjecting claims to sufficient levels of scrutiny, and waiting for other groups to validate results, before making bold statements. At the very least, there have been major caveats and qualifiers in announcing new data with potentially huge implications.
 |
| An illustration by Sir Gerald Hargreaves shows a utopian scene on a cove of the mythical land of Atlantis. Many scholars think Plato invented the story of Atlantis as a way to present his philosophical theories. Photograph by Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett Collection |
science.nationalgeographic.com
By Willie Drye
If the writing of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato had not contained so much truth about the human condition, his name would have been forgotten centuries ago.
But one of his most famous stories—the cataclysmic destruction of the ancient civilization of Atlantis—is almost certainly false. So why is this story still repeated more than 2,300 years after Plato's death?
"It's a story that captures the imagination," says James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, New York. "It's a great myth. It has a lot of elements that people love to fantasize about."
Plato told the story of Atlantis around 360 B.C. The founders of Atlantis, he said, were half god and half human. They created a utopian civilization and became a great naval power. Their home was made up of concentric islands separated by wide moats and linked by a canal that penetrated to the center. The lush islands contained gold, silver, and other precious metals and supported an abundance of rare, exotic wildlife. There was a great capital city on the central island.
There are many theories about where Atlantis was—in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Spain, even under what is now Antarctica. "Pick a spot on the map, and someone has said that Atlantis was there," says Charles Orser, curator of history at the New York State Museum in Albany. "Every place you can imagine."
Plato said Atlantis existed about 9,000 years before his own time, and that its story had been passed down by poets, priests, and others. But Plato's writings about Atlantis are the only known records of its existence.
Possibly Based on Real Events?
Few, if any, scientists think Atlantis actually existed. Ocean explorer Robert Ballard, the National Geographic explorer-in-residence who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, notes that "no Nobel laureates" have said that what Plato wrote about Atlantis is true.
Still, Ballard says, the legend of Atlantis is a "logical" one since cataclysmic floods and volcanic explosions have happened throughout history, including one event that had some similarities to the story of the destruction of Atlantis. About 3,600 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption devastated the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea near Greece. At the time, a highly advanced society of Minoans lived on Santorini. The Minoan civilization disappeared suddenly at about the same time as the volcanic eruption.
But Ballard doesn't think Santorini was Atlantis, because the time of the eruption on that island doesn't coincide with when Plato said Atlantis was destroyed.
Romm believes Plato created the story of Atlantis to convey some of his philosophical theories. "He was dealing with a number of issues, themes that run throughout his work," he says. "His ideas about divine versus human nature, ideal societies, the gradual corruption of human society—these ideas are all found in many of his works. Atlantis was a different vehicle to get at some of his favorite themes."
The legend of Atlantis is a story about a moral, spiritual people who lived in a highly advanced, utopian civilization. But they became greedy, petty, and "morally bankrupt," and the gods "became angry because the people had lost their way and turned to immoral pursuits," Orser says.
As punishment, he says, the gods sent "one terrible night of fire and earthquakes" that caused Atlantis to sink into the sea.
But one of his most famous stories—the cataclysmic destruction of the ancient civilization of Atlantis—is almost certainly false. So why is this story still repeated more than 2,300 years after Plato's death?
"It's a story that captures the imagination," says James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, New York. "It's a great myth. It has a lot of elements that people love to fantasize about."
Plato told the story of Atlantis around 360 B.C. The founders of Atlantis, he said, were half god and half human. They created a utopian civilization and became a great naval power. Their home was made up of concentric islands separated by wide moats and linked by a canal that penetrated to the center. The lush islands contained gold, silver, and other precious metals and supported an abundance of rare, exotic wildlife. There was a great capital city on the central island.
There are many theories about where Atlantis was—in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Spain, even under what is now Antarctica. "Pick a spot on the map, and someone has said that Atlantis was there," says Charles Orser, curator of history at the New York State Museum in Albany. "Every place you can imagine."
Plato said Atlantis existed about 9,000 years before his own time, and that its story had been passed down by poets, priests, and others. But Plato's writings about Atlantis are the only known records of its existence.
Possibly Based on Real Events?
Few, if any, scientists think Atlantis actually existed. Ocean explorer Robert Ballard, the National Geographic explorer-in-residence who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, notes that "no Nobel laureates" have said that what Plato wrote about Atlantis is true.
Still, Ballard says, the legend of Atlantis is a "logical" one since cataclysmic floods and volcanic explosions have happened throughout history, including one event that had some similarities to the story of the destruction of Atlantis. About 3,600 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption devastated the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea near Greece. At the time, a highly advanced society of Minoans lived on Santorini. The Minoan civilization disappeared suddenly at about the same time as the volcanic eruption.
But Ballard doesn't think Santorini was Atlantis, because the time of the eruption on that island doesn't coincide with when Plato said Atlantis was destroyed.
Romm believes Plato created the story of Atlantis to convey some of his philosophical theories. "He was dealing with a number of issues, themes that run throughout his work," he says. "His ideas about divine versus human nature, ideal societies, the gradual corruption of human society—these ideas are all found in many of his works. Atlantis was a different vehicle to get at some of his favorite themes."
The legend of Atlantis is a story about a moral, spiritual people who lived in a highly advanced, utopian civilization. But they became greedy, petty, and "morally bankrupt," and the gods "became angry because the people had lost their way and turned to immoral pursuits," Orser says.
As punishment, he says, the gods sent "one terrible night of fire and earthquakes" that caused Atlantis to sink into the sea.
{mainvote}
May 7
Posted by Wes Annac
Note from Wes: I’m still on this ‘vacation’ if one wishes to call it that, which is really just a resting and absorbing of the incredibly pure energies being given while ...
{mainvote}
Source : http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/...sla_18.htm
The relationship between Tesla and Marconi is a fascinating one! While Tesla has become a popular figure to revisionist scientists in the last ten years, Marconi ...
{mainvote}
a message from Sarah-Jane Grace
Monday, 5 March, 2012
Message for March 2012
Welcome back! March looks set to be a month of fresh and inspirational energies as we begin to feel a collective and growing sense of emergence,...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
unless otherwise marked.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
— Up ↑ —
Comments