03.28.2004/V1,I4
Here we gnaw on Universe and discuss the taste.
En le Rongeant - Terrible Trio - Climate, Comets, Energy - how it might unfold.
Part 2 of 4
We start with the wildly Fantastic (part 1),then to the merely improbable (part 2), then the completely likely (part 3, the worst). In part 4 the denouement, those elements we have in place this year.
Dancing Comets. Watch out for the blue ones!
"They can't all be freaks." Janet Waller said, pausing the coffee at her bottom lip as she continued to follow the link on the monitor...
PURVIS, Miss. (March 18,
2004) —
A freak dam burst destroyed more than 40 homes and severely damaged more than
20 others last week in southern Mississippi.
Dam
disaster
Costly extremes of weather will become the norm, study suggests
Tim Radford, science editor
Monday January 12, 2004
The Guardian
Freak Summers
She continued sipping the nuclear a-nut wimp latte (extra-hot, almond, decaf, soymilk) as she read link after link. The rain alternated with small pellet hail in pelting the windows of Mitnik's Cafe in Yelm where Janet was a regular, early morning fixture at the computer in the corner. Mitnik's Burger Barn and Internet Cafe was the only place she could get her on-line fix when she was in Yelm at the JZ Knight/Ramtha School of Enlightenment. "You'd think that Ramther would have broadband available so a body could do something during the breaks', she complained to her husband as they stood in separate lines at National airport while waiting to board their separate planes and head off to separate vacations. She to Ramther's school, and Boyd off to the Wilds of Wyoming (really Montana, but Boyd couldn't think of any macho adjectives for Montana, so he always said he spent his summers in the Wilds of Wyoming....).
They had taken their vacations in May this year, an unusual three months early. Boyd worked for the White House as a minor level functionary, and of course, had August off when the President was at the Ranch. This year though, Boyd suggested that they move their vacations up a few months, 'oil prices are up' he had said, meaning that the price for plane tickets could be expected to rise. Boyd paid attention to things. All the little things, like the tendency for WH staffers to have their own small (1000 gallon) strategic petroleum reserves of gasoline. He and Janet could did not have the room for gas storage, but Boyd noted that every one was keeping their large tanks full (he did scheduling as part of his clerking work), so he made a point of filling the tank on their Toyota. And planning for cheaper vacation tickets by going earlier in the year.
In spite of the problems, Janet was able to get the time off and reschedule her class at The Enlightenment Center in Yelm. On the third day in residence, enjoying the great and surprisingly hot, spring weather in Greater Downtown Yelm which consisted of her hotel, and the Mitnik Cafe down the road from JZ Knight's place. All the locals, including Old Missus Mitnik who had lived in Yelm since 'before it became a town', all said she was so lucky to be here this time, this year, as the weather was incredible. Even 'the mountain', as the local's referred to Mount Rainier, was co-operating by 'being out' most days. Before coming to Yelm, she had never thought of mountains as being either 'in' or 'out'. She soon noticed that the morning greeting changed a bit. "Morn'ng Miz Waller. Mountain's out." would great her as she entered the Cafe. "Yes. Mountain's out." she would agree, and then her latte would be brought over to the table in the corner where she could tap back into the world.
Not that Yelm wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't the world. She doubted it had ever even been in the world. But she had had one of the best times of her life on water at the nearby, Olympia Wooden Boat Fair. She had gone for a three hour cruise (yes, they all did joke about Gilligan's Island) in an umiak, a strange kind of boat made as a skin stretched over a bent wooden frame. It was tremendous. They had sailed very fast in light winds out of Budd inlet where the Boat Fair was being held, the noise of the crowd rapidly disappearing into the slap-slap-slap of the water against the boat's skin. Then out around somebody's Point over to a wildlife sanctuary where she had her first close encounter with eagles. And blue herons. And seals. And it was ever so pleasant as she wrote to friends back in the sweltering spring in DC that was so hot this year that paint was peeling from the walls in apartments left during the day with air conditioning turned off. The weather was hot here in south Puget Sound, she wrote, but more reasonable due to the breeze on the Sound during the sail. And it was still coolish in the morning and late evening, but she could see the flat plain that Yelm occupied, down the Nisqually River from the Eastern Slopes of Mount Rainier could get HOT.
Even in the sail, Mount Rainier dominated. From off the mouth of the Nisqually, all she could see was the mountain reaching up into the light, high clouds off to the east. It was something less than reassuring to be told by the boat's handler that at that very moment, they were right over the epicenter of the 6.8 quake that struck the area in 2001. She had seen the damage still at the state Capitol building as their tour bus drove through Olympia and down to the docks. The driver had pointed out how many of the buildings were still either being fixed or awaiting repairs. "The new bridge is open, though", he had said, pointing out the gleaming white concrete bridge that spanned a finger of Budd Inlet.
Today though the clouds had moved in and the mountain was not out. Rain pelted the windows, Janet sipped her latte, and read articles about all the 'freak' accidents occurring in the last few weeks. It was one dam breaking after another. If not a dam breaking, it was a train derailment. If not a train derailment, it was a 'freak' wind storm sinking boats. If not wind, then water flooding where it shouldn't.
There is a high risk of floods from Sunday to Tuesday. In the southern
part of the island, in places like Boat Quay, tides are expected to
peak at 3 m in mid-afternoon.This is the wettest March fortnight on record and it has already seen
the island soaked with 552mm of rain, beating the 1913 record, said
the National Environment Agency's meteorological services division.More rain is forecast for the next two weeks.
Last week's heavy rains and high tides caused floods that caught many
unawares, even those who have been in the area for years and who had
received the flood alert.
Janet was puzzled. Freak weather was freak weather, but as an actuary, her stomach was telling her the numbers were not adding up correctly. Freak meant, by its definition, a statistical outlier or anomaly. Yet, each article from all the sources she read all claimed the event or incident was a freak. All of them used that word. It got her puzzled, and she popped open a browser to do a quick search on 'freak' plus 'weather'. She was just starting to type in restrictions to narrow the search to only that week, when the computer started to avoid her fingers. It actually jumped away from her hand has she set out to type the 'y' in May. Her hand holding the latte started to shake. Slowly, then with jerks. Janet was instantly aware she was having a stroke. Her head was rushing with a great noise and her body was shaking all over, bouncing actually, her heels leaving the floor, she was convinced she was going to faint. She turned toward the young woman at the counter who seemed to be shouting something incomprehensible when she should have been paying attention to Janet's stroke symptoms.
"Earthquake.EARTHQUAKE! RUN OUTSIDE!" The woman yelled and ran out the nearby door.
At first it took a second for the words to penetrate the rushing noise filling Janet's brain. Then, with the registration that everything was shaking, she started jerkily making her way through the tables toward the exit door. It was thinking that she was having a stroke that delayed her from reaching the understanding that it was an earthquake, and probably saved her life.
Just as Janet pushed the door release bar down and the door open, it was slammed with a huge force. The door pushed her back violently into the narrow cafe. She bounced across the vibrating floor until she was able to grab onto the cash register on the counter. She was able to stay stable relative to the floor, although everything was bouncing around, at least Janet did not bounce into tables or chairs. The thought dawned that she thought earthquakes did not usually last very long and this seemed to have been going on for minutes. It was at that point that a darkness passed in front of the windows of the Cafe as the building itself was violently, in one huge shove, sent over on its side and seemingly 'floating' down a river. Janet clung to the cash register until a sudden bang shuddered through the building and the counter gave way. She fell into the midst of the churning mass of furniture and fixtures and likely lost consciousness.
***
Ingemar Anzeus guided his small boat, Venus, through the choppy waves. He was nervous as he knew he was near shore and being a sailor, land scared him unless it was under his feet. His dog Pluto, a large red setter, braced himself on the bed in the small cabin and tried to sleep in spite of the choppy action of the boat. He had complete faith in Ingemar's ability to return them to peeing-land, and dry-food-land and so decided to best use his time sleeping.
Ingemar was not so sure this time. Conditions were quite wild, and while a Swede, and a north seas sailor, and a boat builder, Ingemar realized that he and Pluto were deep in it this time.
The storm had come out of no-where. Almost knocking Venus flat and forcing Ingemar to react to a storm that seemed to appear out of the night sky unseen until it was just there. Lightening spiting out at the small boat like bullets out of a machine gun. With every wild wave would come world-illuminating flashes as lightening in fantastic colors raced across the sky from the northern horizon in all directions south.
Riding it out under bare poles, Ingemar had virtually no control over the boat. He rose as high as he could when the waves pitched the boat up, hoping to see something to guide him to port. Each time, for the three hours that the lightening flashed, and large waves and winds gripped the boat, Ingemar looked without result.
He and Pluto had left Sweden days ago, sailing out the North Sea and down the Channel headed for the sunny coasts of France, and a viewing rendezvous with the May comets which were only to be visible to those lucky enough to live south of 45N latitude. Retired, Ingemar realized he had no one to object to his leaving, and he always wanted to see three comets at once, a once in 13,000 years event the newscasts said, so what the hell, at early morning turn of the tide on May 3rd, it was off to South of 45N. He got the Venus stocked with human and dog food, and Pluto barked them out of Gothenborg, and away toward England, and the channel.
It had been a great sail down until just off the coast of Brest, France. That is when the sudden storm had hit. Ingemar was used to squalls, but this was more like a hurricane of light as the globe wore a crown of lightening that was very high in the atmosphere, seeming to force the jet stream winds down, and in turn, force sustained winds down to the surface of the ocean. The heavy winds drove the waves before it like animals stampeding before fire. The saving grace was the lightness of his boat. Bobbing uncomfortably, but not swamped, Ingemar merely wanted to guide the Venus to shore, any shore, English, French, he was beyond caring. The tiller work in the storm was demanding, Ingemar was tired, sore, and wanting a beer. Even Pluto was showing signs of nervous fatigue. Pluto had never been a fan of lightening or thunder. Ingemar was thankful that the lightening was so high that there was little if any thunder noise which made it through the howl of the winds. The last thing he wanted was to have to cope with Pluto in a thunderstorm.
After over three hours of fighting the storm, Ingemar was able to catch a brief glimpse of what seemed to be the shimmer of a lightening bolt off what he thought might be the Cliffs at Dover. If so, at least he knew where he was, though it was shocking to think that the storm had driven him so far back north. He was standing on the seat as the Venus was raised up on the peak of a wave, looking for what should have been the lights at Brighton, when the boat was tossed about. He wasn't quite sure where he was relative to the previous sighting when just over 'there', the ocean suddenly disappeared.
Ingemar was not convinced that he was seeing what he thought he was seeing until the terrible realization that the noise of howling winds, now was being overwhelmed by the roar of water rushing over the edge of the world.
Ingemar hurled himself down to the seat, hurriedly fumbled a rope through the safety harness on his vest, and then through Pluto's personal dog floatation device. Then, as he tried desperately to locate another place for the rope to tie to the boat, he realized with a start that they were starting to slide down the wave backwards. Unlike previous troughs in the storm, Ingemar could feel the boat righting out into a swift current instead of trying to ascend yet another wave, aft first. This time, it was like the Venus just slid off the quay into the smoothest river ever. Ingemar was very afraid.
In his experience, there are only two kinds of calm, smooth waters, either very becalmed going-nowhere sort of lazy day waters, and very fast rivers in channels. The storm raging over his head put the lie to the idea of a sudden calm, even an eye, and when Ingemar strained his eyes in the flashes of lightening, all he could see was a large hole eating the ocean a few miles in front of his bow. He tightened his grip on Pluto as they accelerated along into the middle of a large rushing torrent about to plunge over the edge of the world. The noise rose beyond hearing until he was shouting at Pluto and mostly himself to be calm, the little boat rose up a bit, and then plunged over the edge with most of the water of the world roaring its displeasure in their ears.
***
Re'jion des Rios walked slowly in the thin Andean air up to the top of the path leading down into Lago Sarmiento (photo 2) in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine at the southern most point of Chile. The jewel of the Chilean park system, Parque Nacional Torres del Paine was part of the Massif Paine, a large area of shear granite walls that rise up from the floor of the Patagonian plain as though lifted suddenly by giant fingers. These medium tall peaks, as Andean mountains go, still maintain a 'topping' of the sedimentary soils of the valley floor below. Chilean scientists expect that it will take another three thousand years to wash the thick, formerly ocean sedimentary layers off the pristine, gleaming granite spires. Re'jion was born and raised in the thin air, and while he walked with his head bowed, it was not as he took the site for granted.
Re'jion (also known as Dal'e, or uncle), was hiking up from his village to the high lake Sarmiento for an extended stay. He carried a backpack whose main strap crossed over the soft padded flap on his thick llama wool hat. He had all the gear he would need, and though meager, especially by comparison with the large encampe's taken up for the touristas who came in the summer, Re'jion still carried enough to be a burden. Unlike most other mountain systems in the world, there are no foothills to the Massif Paine, merely the grain covered plain running suddenly into mountains like shag carpeting running abruptly into a tall gray wall.
Re'jion was tired by the time he reached Lago Sarmiento. It was a long hike for anyone. His wide, tanned face was glistening lightly in the cold air as he set his pack down next to the calm waters, cupped high in the granite spires. The sun was setting below his feet as he looked at over the plain from the edge of the path. He watched it slowly sinking into the ocean waters, and quickly set about making a small fire in his diesel can stove (old can, bent to hold pots, with a smaller can with diesel and soap flakes - homemade sterno) for his dinner. A quick dip of the fingers into Sarmiento's icy cold waters in homage, then to food. A bit of canned tomatoes and squash with water and dried fish for a soup, and some of his wifes' sunday bread. A small bit of cacao bean for chewing on afterward, as he lay back in his insulated sleeping bag. Re'jion had placed his bag so that he could lay at an angle, as it was his peoples custom to not sleep prone, and his interest was the night sky, not sleeping. He had coffee boiled the night before and allowed to steep all night with sugar cane and cinnamon before being placed gently into several mason jars. It would see him through the night.
Re'jion had been summoned to Sarmiento by a figure in his dreams several days ago. A dark silhouette he thought to be his father, had come unbidden into his dreams to squat near his dream fire in his dream house and tell him to prepare to go see 'them'... for they come. And one will be blue, as was told years past to Re'jion the boy by his great uncle now long dead and mummified by the cold winds hidden in the dark crevasses deep in the Massif Paine. Re'jion had walked ce-va with his father and his father's two brothers as the three men carried his great uncles body up toward burial in the old fashion, as was still done in those days, in spite of the frowns of the priests and government men. Re'jion's great-uncle had served as shaman to his people for decades, and they honored his wish to be placed deep in the 'veins of Apu' (god of the mountains) when he died. That day, so long ago, Re'jion, and all those not essential in the burial ceremony stayed at Lago Sarmiento while his great-uncles body was secreted away to dry.
"They come." his father had said in Re'jion's dream. "And one will be blue. Prepare."
So Re'jion walked up the long trail to the lake, and settled in to 'greet' the visitors. An educated man, though mostly self taught, Re'jion read for pleasure, and in spite of working as a bearer and guide for most of his 58 years, he was very knowledgeable of things not involving mountains. One of the things he knew was astronomy. He first took up astronomy to refute his wifes' insistence on using astrology to guide virtually every facet of their lives together. Over the years, experience and wisdom set in to his bones, and he eventually gave up trying to change her, and decided to love her instead. After that his interest in astronomy waxed and waned like the phases of the moon, but in recent years, it had returned.
At first Re'jion had noticed that the Massif Paine was not well. And if the mountains of the Massif which were the tail bone of the spine of the world were not well, it was fitting that the world could not also be well. He also easily noticed that the sun was not well either. But none of his companions wished to see it, so he spoke less of his concerns about the spine and the light of the world, and instead turned to reading. Perhaps humans elsewhere were not as blinded by their lives as his family and friends.
He read newspapers for all accounts of the world demonstrating that it was un-well. He read them so frequently, pouring over them so diligently, underlining almost every word, that his patient wife started to lose her patience and would huff and puff and clean him right out of the house, his hastily grabbed newspapers flapping behind him like the wings of a disturbed and departing goose. So he read outside, looking up at the stars when the planes-that-painted-the-sky with cobwebs would permit the sky to be viewed.
Not that Re'jion or his wife or any of his neighbors in Oly'me, the tiny town nestled at the base of the easterly edge of the Massif, had seen many geese in the last few years. This was one more sign that the earth's spine was not well. That, and the hundreds of other items he had read in the last three years, made him acutely aware that what astronomy told him was likely true. That indeed there were to be two visible comets coming in from the south in the summer of this year, the first of the last nine to exist in this, the last of the katun, in the Tzolkin of his ancestors. Re'jion knew that The Long Count of his people, begun 5104 years previously would complete in 9 years, and that this year, 2004, there were to be no less than three comets. Two were to be visible to him in May, and the third in September. He was looking forward to the one in September, as it was to be very close to earth, only a million kilometers away, and it was a tumbling, cavorting rock that should sparkle brightly in the southern sky. He was not so thrilled about C/2001 Q4 and its distant fellow-traveler, c/2002 T7.
From his reading, Q4 presented challenges as its orbit may cause earth to breathe its tail for some months. This he found worrying. That is, until he was told in his dream that 'one would be blue'. That had him scared.
Re'jion had a particular interest in blue comets as his families oral history included much in the way of 'warnings' to the folk should blue comets come. There were specific stanza's in the old songs, sung in the old words, about where to be when the blue ones come calling. And their effects on the world. Re'jion shuddered, not over the warnings, as all the songs sung of savior in the veins of Apu, but rather, of trying to get his wife to leave her comfortable house and her broom and her teevee soap-operas'. She would not like his idea. So when his dream-father came, he went up into the mountains alone. "For a view" he had said.
It was early May yet, so still plenty of time before perigee of either comet, and good for a long stare into the sky. The sky's had been clear recently, a gift from Apu confirming his mission in his heart as he had climbed to the lake. Laying there, in his large mummy bag, propped against a tall outcropping of ocean fossils frozen in time on the top of a granite spire protruding next to the lake, he looked like some absurd caterpillar, sipping coffee warmed over the little fire now just coals. Facing south, he waited patiently, breathing out puffs into the cold night air, it finally came into view, the leading edge of Q4's halo, and then slowly, the whole comet and tail became visible. It shimmered slightly in the dark in Re'jion's old eyes and in the cold, but he was sure it was not white. It was blue. It was even worse than that, the more he looked, the more he was convinced, Q4 had a long narrow blue spike leading it into the night sky. Not a good sign. Neither was the flashing light that came from behind Re'jion, from the north, from seemingly far far away, barely making the sky brighten, hesitatingly, but enough to affect his night vision. He watched the flashes for a few moments, then turned his head back to Q4. "Watch out for the blue ones", the old songs said.
***
For Janet, coming back to consciousness was lovely. The paparazzi loved her. They chanted her name in melodic rhyme, and flashed their cameras non-stop. She basket in the glory of their flashing adoration, that is, until she moved her neck to give them a profile. The pain sent her jerking awake with a scream in her throat. She hurt everywhere. Jerking in reaction to neck pain started a cascade of pains and spasms that rolled through her body. Once her eyes were open, smarting and stinging, she realized where she was, but was still concerned about the flashing of the paparazzi cameras..from overhead.
Looking up, she realized that it was the cafe door...well, hole, over her head. The door was missing. She was apparently lying opposite the door, in the inner curve of the diner's counter, on the remnants of the large ceiling fan and the espresso maker. She was hurt, disoriented, but not damaged, merely bloodied and bruised, though alive, and starting to get really really pissed at those damn camera-men. Why didn't they help her instead of just standing up there flashing those damn cameras...a sudden large flash cured her of the cloud of illusion around her head. Those were lightening flashes. Giant blue ones only it looked as though they were running across the sky and not from the ground up....
Janet took the better part of an hour to collect the rest of her wits, get a drink of some sort of latte mix, stuff some soaked biscotti past her bruised lips in response to her stomach's demands. "Needs must as the devil drives" she said to herself. Boyd's favorite saying. He picked it up from somewhere and said he discovered what it meant working at the White House. 'Needs must as the devil drives'. She said, choking down some more soggy bread.
All the while, the flashing continued, but strangely, there was no noise. It was only after stumbling around as the scarce calories made it to her stomach, that Janet realized she was deaf. Couldn't hear a thing. It was hindering her stumbling over debris trying to discover a way out of the wrecked Cafe. That and a body racked with pain.
She did make it out. Discovering a corner that was filled with rock and sand and soil, right where the computers had been, she climbed the hill of mud and sticks and rocks to the wall, now the ceiling and climbed out what had been the large front window. She was in a wonderland of chaos. Nothing was familiar. It was light, but night. The flashing of the lightening was chaotic but frequent to constant. At intervals large, long blue flashes ran from the far south, up over her head, extending far to the north of Mount Rainier.
Janet had half expected not to find the mountain there and was relieved to find it, eventually, though apparently miles away from where she started the day. Janet and the cafe were up against a line of hills near what had been a river mouth. It sort of looked like the bird preserve she had visited in the umiak boat, but now it was a hollowed out, mud covered ravine leading to a lake of mud and debris of all kinds that extended far out into Puget Sound. Once she realized it was the Sound she was looking at, Janet knew it had been no earthquake. She was over 30 miles by car from where Yelm had started out the day, and there was a flat sea of mud in all directions except behind her. Mount Rainier was what gave her the first clue. It was not as she had remembered it. It hadn't exploded, it had melted. Most of the snow was gone, and long scars trailed down its sides. There were no trees visible where there had once been nothing but forests. It was all mud.
"It was a lahar". She said to herself, though she could hear it, she could feel her vocal chords complaining. She had remembered reading some tourist literature on the flight in..about Mt. Rainier's lahar warning system. Too bad it did her no good, she thought ruefully. "Probably had something to do with that!" Janet pointed up at the lightening.
Janet watched the lightening from the side of the cafe, laying back against the mostly intact siding, seeing the flashes distinctly, as they seemed to light the world. She leaned back and ate soggy biscotti dipped in bottled orange juice, occasionally having fleeting thoughts of Boyd, but they instantly triggered her worry switch so she pushed them away, and wondered if there was thunder along with the lightening flashing around the world.
***
Ingemar knew there was noise. It surrounded him, encased him and Pluto, swirling as a cork in a barrel of champagne suddenly opened. The noise nearly drove him mad, crushing into his skull until he almost took his arms from around Pluto, then he realized dimly what his friend must be enduring and he quickly wrapped his watch cap around Pluto's head, plugging his ears. "Hope this helps" he said, or at least he thought he said it. Who could tell in the noise of hell opening and eating the ocean.
It wasn't hell, it was actually a 'freak' storm that rose as a hurricane in northern waters, and swept back up the English Channel breaking through the sea wall protecting the Netherlands, and pushing Ingemars' small boat along like a cork. Ingemar and Pluto bounced over the top of the ridge of water that poured through the breach in the dikes guarding Holland, and were swept into a violent slurry of ground up everything mixed with water. It was horrific. Mostly, Ingemar was unable to distinguish anything clearly. Several times in the flashing of the lightening high overhead, blue shadowed humans or animals would briefly appear before his eyes only to be swept back into the grinding mix that carried his boat along at tremendous speed inland, racing toward Germany, supported on a giant wave of mud, metal, bones, soil, all lubricated with most of the water from the English Channel.
***
Re'jion stayed awake all night, slowly sipping coffee long since cold, and watching the progression of the comet Q4. It's thin blue spike had become longer, bolder, and more neon, much like the signs at the hotels in the Parque. It shimmered and for a while seemed to pulse in sympathy with the world girding lightening coming from the north.
As the sun's rays broke the eastern horizon, Re'jion expected Q4 to calm down, and disappear with the other night sky dwellers, but this morning, he was quite wrong. In fact, Q4 seemed to gain strength from the rising sun, becoming b0lder with the blue spike in front of the comet's long glowing blue tail seeming to grow, thinly at first, but then with more bulk and broader shoulders as it reached way out into space. "Not a good sign", though Re'jion. He was packing up his gear, starting the long walk back to fetch his wife and the others in the village. It would not be long now.... maybe days before Q4's spike reached earth. Time to get the old woman out of the house and up into the hills where the songs say humans lived safely when the blue ones came before. Surely she would go now, what with the lightening last night, and the now daylight visible blue comet. Surely she would recognize the need now.....well, probably not. As an old married man, Re'jion knew deep in his bones it would be a struggle. She liked her nice warm house, and her teevee with its soaps.
***
The issue of blue comets is interesting at several different levels. Those cultures in the past which were astronomically aware, and passed down records for modern humans (*including the worldwide phenomena of petroglyphs of which there are millions), as a rule thought comets to be bad omens, and especially did not like the 'blue' ones. James Mccanney, raspy astrophysicist, has suggested in his books that the blue comets are blue due to the electric fields which form as they act as either 'grounding points' or 'transfer points' for solar electric conduction. This fits with historical evidence including much found in Meso-american song tradition as well as records from the Ural mountains, and northern India. In all cases, blue comets or visitors (may be the inspiration for the blue gods of Hinduism as rendered especially within the Mahabarata), are described in terms that today are applied to electricity. The idea of shock, hairs standing up (see many of the petroglyph depictions of humans and they all have halos of standing hair during certain periods as though the human was within a large static electric field), and many other components of electricity (including welding, fusing) apparently predate our discovery of electricity by several thousand years. The depiction of fluorescent bulbs being used by ancient (pre-dynastic) Egyptian tunnel borers, as well as batteries of various forms being found in 'pre-historic' artifacts suggests that humans and electricity go way back together, in spite of our modern hubris that ancestral humans were ignorant cave dwellers.
Basically the idea of the solar system as a giant electric circuit is easily supportable. Further, the idea that an intrusion of a solid, conducting mass into the electric circuit will disrupt its smooth functioning is clear both at our levels of electric circuit production, and at the solar system level. It is just logical that a new conductor inserted into the circuit will alter its behavior.
Such alteration of behavior can extend from the currently experienced increase in both visible light/heat from the sun as well as recently recorded rises in electrical energy striking earth. The scenario played out above is one of a world-spanning electrical event that triggers pan-global lightening, as well as local storms of varying nature. Further, the many glacial lakes, and glacial masses themselves are at risk from the electrical influences. Not only are they vulnerable to sudden temperature increases, but also earthquakes as their is a correlation between electrical inputs to earth and both earthquake and volcanic activity. The immediate trigger for lahar activity might be the rock will heat up rapidly through electric grounding (tall spots like mountains get the brunt of it), melting the glacier from below, creating a weakness in the ice, and providing a lubricating layer of water for the flow to start. But that is not to discount the possibility of direct action of high-altitude, sheet lightening.
The answer has been available
for 30 years! It was provided by an engineer, the late Ralph Juergens, of Flagstaff,
Arizona. In a brilliant series of papers that would not be published in a mainstream
scientific journal, he showed that flowing liquids are not adequate or even
necessary to explain river-like channels on planets and their moons. He showed
how the strange features of those channels could be simply scaled down and matched
against the kind of damage caused by powerful lightning strikes on Earth. So
even if Mars had surface moisture in the past its vast channels were not carved
by rushing water.
Lightening scars created Grand Canyon on earth and Valles Marineris on Mars
Large scale lightening storms are known in modern times but are nothing compared to what has been described in ancient literature. The problem with modern humans has been that they have said, 'well we don't see such things now, so those old-fart-ancient writers were ignorant-superstitious fellows who really did not mean that they saw a lightening bolt go from the north pole [or pole star] all the way down to the Egyptian pyramids'. Modern humans are taking their special case world view of a very narrow few thousand years, and extrapolating all kinds of things about Universe that are simply not supportable.
Many of the things that modern humans discount, are shelved as myth and discounted. So far, at least in the last dozen years, there is increasing evidence that perhaps such myths ought to be taken out for a new look, especially in light of recent cometary experience.
Since comets are not large snowballs, and the tail is not ice being blown off, but rather is solar system elemental dust being accreted to the 'grounding' point of the comet (much the way the IonicBreeze air filter works, or the negative ion generators), then there is every reason to suppose that pan-solar system electric fields and disruptions can/will occur, or perhaps, are occurring now.
Much of the recent solar strangeness, such as its willy-nilly (seemingly) abandonment of all previous cycles is likely caused by the large scale electrical disruption of what-ever-the-hell is sending all the comets our way. By some estimates, as many as 354 comets (called sungrazers) have actually plowed into the sun since January of 2003. This is not a good sign.
Further, the month of May has two large(ish) comets about, and September brings Toutatis, the Whirler (so known due to its tumbling, gyrating, spinning that leaves many of its orbital elements mere guesses).
Will Q4 go blue? Absolutely no way of knowing at this point in time. But we will find out in May.
Will it matter if Q4 goes blue? Probably not. As will be seen in part 3, comets are not good neighbors even if they don't go blue in the face.
Part 3: Damn Magnets! Poles Flip!
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Links of supporting information.
Super Nova + comet petroglyph - Note that a common stellar theme runs through petroglyphs found in the Americas. This theme is replicated world wide, and seen repeatedly in high-plateau areas, or very high mountain areas.
Helicopter, modern machines in ancient Egyptian art
Sun and Planets in rock art - some odd conclusions in the text, such as the ancient man NOT wanting to depict the sun/planets as they appeared. Rather it is more likely the modern interpretation of the rock art is wrong, and those symbols are really comets with electric fields in evidence.
Planet ice ball - note that they don't talk about the causal element/event for the continental break up...
Asteroid Itokawa - note that recent orbital plots show a decrease in the distance from earth orbit, but it is after earth already has past that spot.
Electric action in wake of galaxy collision - note the blue field left behind in this event.