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. <> -- 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 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. <> -- 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************************