Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume 1 Number 415
Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume I Number 415
Friday, May 31st 1991
Today's Topics:
Re: HARD COPY BOOBOO!
Re: Alien Life
Re: (none)
Re: Alien Life
Re: GREEN FIREBALLS
Re: GREEN FIREBALLS
More on Hoagland's Mars
Lunar Transient Phenomena
Lunar Transient Phenomena, (2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul.Mcavoy@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Paul Mcavoy)
Subject: Re: HARD COPY BOOBOO!
Date: 29 May 91 01:14:00 GMT
I bet that episode brought a lot of viewers and Commercial Cash though!
( a TAdd bit of Sarcasm )
--
Paul Mcavoy - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Paul.Mcavoy@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David.Villa@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG (David Villa)
Subject: Re: Alien Life
Date: 29 May 91 02:44:00 GMT
Paul, there are just so many unknowns operating at once that to impose a
limitation of alien existance based on their shape should not be done. It
could be possible that in the basic operation of the Universe, as we know
it, the only planets capable of sustaining life is an enviroment identical
or very similar to our own. In which case, an alien life form would be very
similar to our own shape and size. Evolution knows it's stuff. We were
shaped like this for the very good reason that it was the most functional
form for our environment. Maybe this form is a close 'standard' to beings
at our stage of evolution. Obviously, for beings who have susperseeded
imprisonment in their own solar systems, they would be beyond us in
evolutionary progression, hence maybe the slightly different appearance.
This is PURE speculation of course and blind assumption. This is in no
way a standard I go by but just an aspect to think of. Also, another theory
to puzzle over is, if the Big Bang theory is true in itself, the Universe,
or at the very least the galaxy, would have originated from the same source
at roughly the same time. Because of this, all systems capable of sustaing
life would be progressing at about the same time but maybe not the same rate
due to the differing environment. From this point, it is basically a matter
of circumstances as to which life-forms leave the others behing, discover
the technology to travel to other unknown areas of space, discover other
races of beings and do what they wish with them.
Look at what we did to the American Indians and before that the Inca,
Aztecs etc. It is a pattern in our history to take severe advantage of a
people of lower technology who differ from you. Do you think this all would
change if we attained the ability to travel through space to different
worlds? What do you think would happen if we discovered a planet of beings
no more advanced then the American Indians of our past who's environment was
rich in a newly discovered element we do not have but can use? Do you think
we would give them equal rights and not interfere with their culture in a
distructive manner? Of course not. This is not human nature unfortunatly.
--
David Villa - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: David.Villa@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: James.Clark@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG (James Clark)
Subject: Re: (none)
Date: 29 May 91 05:07:00 GMT
Paul, I think that if the aliens look similar to us, we might be able to
explain it by reasoning that life needs to be sustained on a liveable
planet... Earth is such an example of a planet that has the proper
characteristics to support life. It would seem to me that another planet
capable of sustaining life forms would have to be similar to this in most
ways, in structure. Therefore, if Earth is the model of a "living" planet
that we have to work with, then why can't we assume that the creatures would
evolve in similar ways?
The Earth creatures evolved to suit their environments... if there are
similar planets supporting life elsewhere, then who's to say that the
creatures there didn't evolve in a similar way to suit a similar
environment?
That's one of the problems I had with the movie "They Live." Although I
thought the movie was great, it bothered me that the aliens that had
infiltrated Earth lived on a home planet where the atmosphere was made up
mostly of carbon-monoxides and crap that we would consider smog and deadly.
I seriously doubt that any living creatures, I don't care what galaxy they
are from, could conceivably breathe in acids productively and still be able
to live while breathing oxygen. I think that life is universal and needs
pretty much the same criteria to exist.
--
James Clark - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: James.Clark@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: James.Clark@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG (James Clark)
Subject: Re: Alien Life
Date: 29 May 91 05:16:00 GMT
Hmm. That's basically what I said!
Therefore, you must be correct! :)
--
James Clark - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: James.Clark@f2704.n206.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve.Gresser@paranet.FIDONET.ORG (Steve Gresser)
Subject: Re: GREEN FIREBALLS
Date: 29 May 91 17:17:00 GMT
->mention it, I seem to recall having used some shoebox
->device to observe the eclipse I saw durring my pre-school
A shoebox will do fine. Put a piece of paper on the "far" side of the box
and a pin-hole on the "sun" side. Point the pinhole towards the sun so that
the dot of the sun falls on the paper, and most of what is on the paper is
shadow. Better yet, get a BIG refrigerator box and put it upside down with
a small hole in it, then get inside of it upside-down so that it's real
dark. Take a friend, and you can turn your average natural phenomenon into
a really cheap date!
Steve
--
Steve Gresser - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Steve.Gresser@paranet.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve.Gresser@paranet.FIDONET.ORG (Steve Gresser)
Subject: Re: GREEN FIREBALLS
Date: 29 May 91 17:21:00 GMT
Not that I don't love to talk about the eclipse coming up, but I think we
have wandered off-topic here. Thank you for your replies to my messages, I
shall not reply to another on this topic. Thank you again.
Steve
--
Steve Gresser - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Steve.Gresser@paranet.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: More on Hoagland's Mars
Date: 29 May 91 19:45:00 GMT
****************************************************************
ParaNet File Number:
Reprinted from Air & Space Smithsonian, June/July 1991.
FACE OFF
In 1976 the Viking I orbiter, flying some 1,100 miles above Mars,
photographed a region called Cydonia. Close inspection of one
frame revealed what looked like a human face gazing soulfully
into eternity. A Viking project scientist showed the image to the
press, dismissed it as a trick of light and shadow, and the Face
On Mars was forgotten-for a while.
Three years later, Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar,
computer imaging specialists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Maryland, analyzed a computer enhancement of The Face
and decided it merited a serious look. Science raspberried them,
but it was too late. A new subculture had been born. Today, two
groups-the Mars Project in Santa Cruz, California, and the Mars
Mission in Wytheville, Virginia-exist solely to push the idea
that The Face and nearby structures may be monuments left by a
long-vanished intelligent civilization.
Of the two groups, the latter, founded by science writer
Richard Hoagland, is the more energetic. Hoagland wants NASA to
reshoot Cydonia when the Mars Observer returns to the planet in
1993, and he pursues this vision with zeal reminiscent of Burt
Lancaster in The Rainmaker. Like many people involved in
missionary work on behalf of fringe topics, Hoagland believes
he's being thwarted by higher-ups intent on muffling the truth.
In this case, the higher-ups are at NASA. In a 1989 letter to
Representative Robert Roe, then chairman of the House Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, Hoagland charged that
"political obstacles, within...NASA have blocked serious
consideration of this evidence for 13 years." The latest-alleged
outrage involves the cancellation of a documentary called
"Hoagland's Mars" that was produced by NASA's Lewis Research
Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
Hoagland's version of what happened goes like this: In March
1990 he was invited to Speak to a group of Lewis employees.
During that visit, Lynn Bondurant, educational programs chief,
interviewed him about The Face with a documentary in mind.
Hoagland was pleased to learn that Bondurant would "give our work
a fair airing, putting it in context of the history of Mars
explorations." The program was scheduled for a January 6, 1991
satellite transmission for PBS stations, says Hoagland, when NASA
"pulled the plug." Why? Because "the planetary science community
hit the roof. They were absolutely furious that this subject was
going to be legitimized." Now, Hoagland says, the program is
being recut to "put me in the same camp as Percival Lowell-as a
well-meaning buffoon."
A source close to the production says the program is being
revised "to present other views on The Face." That's probably a
good idea, because the script I have doesn't present the full
pageantry of Hoagland's ideas. It covers his belief that the
arrangement of The Face and surrounding structures reveals
encoded mathematical constants, but it fails to mention his
wilder extrapolations. Hoagland and geomorphologist Erol Torun
argue in a self-published paper that the constants give a
startling insight into planetary physics. The theorizing gets
pretty dense: "The 'tetrahedral geometry'...is revealing an
equivalent higher-order mathematical topology: i.e., a
vorticular'two-torus'energy flow.... "
The bottom line is this: the entities who built Cydonia were
trying to tell the universe about a "new physics" that may
involve "a hitherto unknown relationship between two of the four
basic forces of the Universe-gravity and electromagnetism: i.e.,
a 'Unified Field.'"
Coincidentally, the miracle math of Cydonia conies into play
in a mind-device called the N-Machine, which Hoagland
enthusiastically promotes. Invented by physicist Bruce de Palma
(brother of Hollywood director Brian), the N-Machine, as Hoagland
puts it, "generates more energy out of the interaction
between 'space' and the hi-speed rotation of a spinning mass than
[is] required by the motors that mechanically rotate those
masses." Hoagland dares to say that from which most physicists
recoil: 'We may be talking about energy coming from nothing." He
has been flogging this miracle device on "For The People," an
overheated radio talk show in Cedar Key, Florida. Hoagland and
Chuck Harder, the show's host, get pretty imaginative. After
cancellation of "Hoagland's Mars," Harder said, "I gotta believe
one of the reasons...'Hoagland's Mars' has been put on ice has
got to be because of the Middle East thing.... Once your program
would be transmitted...the press would jump on it, and it might
steal some of the thunder from Bush's ''project.'"
Hoagland replied, 'Well, it's even more disturbing than
that....'Hoagland's Mars' is the opening gun to a whole new way
of life that taps a virtually inexhaustible energy source for the
benefit of mankind. We are about to go to war...over a resource
that is really useless."
Hoagland: buffoon or Einstein of the 1990s? Only time will
tell. For those wanting a closer look, Hoagland's own version of
"Hoagland's Mars"-with all the theories-is available from Curley
and Company, Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
-Alex Heard
END
PARANET FILE NAME: CYDONIA2.TXT
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Lunar Transient Phenomena
Date: 30 May 91 00:00:00 GMT
ParaNet(sm): Freedom of Information for a better world!
(C) 1991 ParaNet(sm) Information Service. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
ParaNet File Number:
*****************************************************************
With all of the speculation about alien bases on the moon
and strange phenomena being seen occurring around the moon,
ParaNet did some research on this and found some very interesting
artilces pertaining to this phenomena known as Lunar Transient
Phenomena. Although it is far from being proof that aliens have
set up bases on the moon, it does provide for some interesting
reading. During our search, we found a NASA publication titled
"Chronological Catalog of Reported Lunar Events." This is
contained in NASA Technical Report R-277, published in July,
1968. This document details Lunar Transient Phenomena dating
back to 1540. We will provide this document in another file, but
for now, we did find an article that details the scientific
communities concern now over this strange phenomena.
=================================================================
Reprinted from Sky & Telescope Magazine, March, 1991.
LUNAR TRANSIENT PHENOMENA
by Winifred Sawtell Cameron, La Ranchita de la Luna, 200 Rojo
Drive, Sedona, Arizona
On January 24, 1956 amateur lunar observer R. Houghton was
drawing the crater Liebig on the edge of Mare Humorum when
something bright flashed in the field of his 7-inch telescope.
The flare came from the nearby crater Cavendish, which was just
emerging from the lunar night. Closer inspection revealed that a
peak on the crater's eastern wall was repeatedly flashing.
Houghton called astronomer Brian Warner and told him what to
look for. Warner too saw the flashes and called them "so
conspicuous that they were seen immediately." The other peaks in
the vicinity remained normal.
On the night of November 2-3, 1958, Soviet astronomer
Nikolai A. Kozyrev witnessed a strange phenomenon while making
spectrograms of the crater Alphonsus with the Crimean
Astrophysical Observatory's 50-inch reflector. As he watched
through the telescope's guiding eyepiece, he saw the crater's
central peak blur and turn an unusual reddish color. The
spectrograms confirmed his visual impressions of a volcanic
event; they showed an emission spectrum of carbon vapor (S&T:
February, 1959, page 184).
On July 19, 1969, the Apollo 11 command module had just
achieved orbit around the Moon when the Mission Control Center in
Houston, Texas, received word that amateur astronomers reported
transient phenomena in the vicinity of the crater Aristarchus.
Asked to check out the situation, astronaut Neil Armstrong looked
out his window toward the earthlit region and observed an "area
that is considerably more illuminated than the surrounding area.
It just has -- seems to have a slight amount of fluorescence to
it." Although he wasn't sure, Armstrong believed the region was
Aristarchus.
Accounts of lunar transient phenomena (LTP'S) are not new.
Over the past 30 years, I have collected close to 2,000
observations dating from as far back as 557 A.D. Most are visual
reports of bright spots, flashes, hazes, and curious temporary
colorations of the lunar soil. Reputable observers such as
William Herschel, Wilhelm Struve, and E. E. Barnard have seen
them. Some LTP's have even been photographed, as well as recorded
polarimetrically, photometrically, and spectroscopically. Yet,
despite a profusion of observations and six Apollo missions to
the Moon, the nature of LTP's remains elusive and their origin an
enigma.
About 200 of some 30,000 lunar features visible in
telescopes have been recorded as LTP sources. Half have shown
activity only once. Of the remainder, a mere dozen features
contribute three-fourths of all reports. One area, Aristarchus-
Herodotus-Schroters Valley, is responsible for fully one-third of
the total number sighted.
Most LTP activity occurs along the edges of the maria, near
volcanic features, like domes, sinuous rilles, and craters with
dark halos or floors. But these regions, like the rest of the
Moon, have long been considered geologically dead. Circular maria
are large, primordial impact basins that were filled with lava
about 3 billion years ago. There is evidence, however, that
volcanism has occurred in some craters that are perhaps only a
million years old. Could the bright flashes, hazes, and colors
reported at these sites be proof that the Moon is still active?
THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LTP'S
Possible explanations for LTP's are not lacking. One of the
earliest proposals was made by Jack Green of Douglas Advanced
Research Laboratories in Huntington Beach, California. While
studying the standing levels of water and oil in deep wells, he
found that the levels varied in concert with the Moon's
anomalistic month (27.55 days, from perigee to perigee), as if
the strength of the Moon's tidal force affected the tiny cracks
in the bedrock through which oil and water move. Based on this
idea, he suggested that LTP's are degassing phenomena brought
about by the Earth's tidal effects on the Moon. Maximum
degassing, he believed, would occur at the Moon's most eccentric
apogees and a minimum at the least eccentric perigees. After
analyzing 1,200 observations, however, I could not find such a
relationship.
<<Continued in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Lunar Transient Phenomena, (2)
Date: 30 May 91 00:00:00 GMT
<Continued from previous message>
Some LTP phenomena may be caused by sunlight interacting
with the lunar soil. On October 30, 1963, James Greenacre and
Edward Barr observed red spots sparkling on the southwest wall of
the crater Aristarchus, the east wall of Schroter's Valley, and a
hill between them (S&T: December, 1963, page 316). The phenomena
was observed visually by others and recorded spectroscopically as
well. At the same lunar phase a month later, Greenacre and Barr
saw a similar event. Since sunrise on these features occurs when
the Moon is about 11 days old, Greenacre thought that the low
lunar Sun was somehow responsible. Indeed, thermoluminesence mat
be the cause. Gases in the lunar soil, frozen during the night,
could heat up and escape near sunrise.
Could high-energy solar particles impacting the Moon also
trigger LTP activity? Shortly after a large flare erupted on the
Sun in 1963, Zdenek Kopal and Thomas Rackham at Pic du Midi
Observatory in southern France photographed a local brightening
around the craters Copernicus, Kepler, and Aristarchus. Kopal
proposed that energetic particles from the flare caused lunar
rocks to fluorescence. Such activity might be expected especially
at full phase when the Moon passes through the Earth's
magnetosphere, where solar wind particles become trapped.
ANALYSIS
LTP sightings fall into five categories: brightenings,
darkenings, reddish colorations, bluish colorations, and
obscurations. When plotted against the lunar anomalistic month,
the data show that LTP activity peaks somewhat when the Moon is
moving from apogee to perigee, especially about halfway between
these points when the Moon is approaching Earth the most rapidly.
When the Moon is opposite that point in its orbit, LTP activity
is at a deep minimum. Since tidal stressed build from lunar
apogee to perigee, one might expect such a pattern.
When LTP phenomena are plotted against the Moon's phases, it
appears that the most phenomena occur around the time of full
Moon (though LTP's have been observed throughout the lunar
cycle). Also, more are seen near the sunrise line than the
sunset line, though that might be simply because far more people
observe the waxing Moon in the evening than the waning Moon after
midnight. Gaseous phenomena and anomalistic brightenings seem to
peak when the Moon is a waxing crescent.
ARE THEY REAL?
Some astronomers dismiss all LTP's as either aberrational
effects in Earth's atmosphere, changes in lunar lighting
conditions, or outright illusions. Such skepticism, however,
flies in the face of those who have devoted decades to
familiarizing themselves with the Moon, and who very well know
these common observational effects. * LTP's are localized
phenomena. They are regions or features that experience change
while the rest of the Moon remains normal.
No doubt some apparent LTP's are caused by atmospheric
effects. One is the "ashen glow." Here, sunlight scattered by
Earth's clouds is cast onto the Moon's night surface, resulting
in LTP's that simply reflect changes in the level of
illumination. Another pseudo-LTP concerns bright features
fringed with blue (north) and red (south) seen against dark
backgrounds. These probably are aberrational effects, namely
atmospheric dispersion near the observer, perhaps enhanced by a
lingering temperature inversion.
Sightings of a starlike point on the Moon may also be
disregarded as an LTP. This is the only transient phenomenon I
have ever observed myself. But I suspect it is merely a
reflection effect from flat facets on areas of large rocky
outcrops when the Sun and observer are at just the correct
angles. (High magnifications spread the light into an area
instead of a point.)
Even if we eliminate the three types of non-LTP's discussed
here, that still leaves more than 40 percent of the reports
unexplained.
There is evidence that the remaining LTP's are of lunar
origin. a substantial number of sightings were independently
confirmed. Professional astronomers have recorded them on film
and spectrograms, as well as with photoelectric photometers and
polarization equipment. Experiments on the Apollo missions
detected trace outgassings of the radioactive elements radon an
polonium, suggesting that more substantial amounts of commoner
substances were released at the same time. One experiment
possibly detected water vapor during the largest moonquake on
record (Richter 4). the epicenter of that quake was near or in
the large, fractured crater Gauss north of Mare Crisium. To me,
this is the one lunar feature that looks as if it had been
covered with a thin crust of glass subsequently shattered by an
impact.
While in lunar orbit, Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17
witnessed a flash near the crater Grimaldi west of Oceanus
Procellarum. Since he was dark adapted, it's possible he saw a
cosmic-ray flash within his own eyeball. But it's also possible
he saw a lunar event. In the past, Grimaldi had been responsible
for more than a dozen reports of flashes. The crater Plato near
Mare Imbrium is another source of flashes. Although many craters
responsible for LTP sightings have central peaks with summit
craters, Plato has none.
So the Moon may not be such a cold, lifeless neighbor after
all. It still breathes through the action of LTP's, which in my
opinion are probably gentle outgassings of less-than-volcanic
proportions. Whatever they are, thanks to the LTP's, the Moon
remains a curious place.
<<Concluded in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
********To have your comments in the next issue, send electronic mail to********
'infopara' at the following address:
UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara
DOMAIN infopara@scicom.alphacdc.com
For administrative requests (subscriptions, back issues) send to:
UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara-request
DOMAIN infopara-request@scicom.alphacdc.com
To obtain back issues by anonymous ftp, connect to:
DOMAIN ftp.uiowa.edu (directory /archives/paranet)
******************The**End**of**Info-ParaNet**Newsletter************************
