Curious? Take a look . . .

VOYAGERS TRAVELS

2020-11-27T00:40:00.023-08:00

(6) Voyager 1 has now left our solar system! The news we have been waiting all year to hear has finally been announced, Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space.

Scientists claim Voyager 1 entered interstellar space more than a year ago. Study claims Voyager 1 left the heliosphere around the 25th of August 2012. The reason for the delay in the announcement was because they wanted to be certain, all the data needed to be checked. After careful analysis, scientists are confident that Voyager 1 has left our solar system and is now the first mission to explore interstellar space, the space between our star and the next. Interstellar simply meaning in between stars.

* * * * * *

Voyager 1 and 2 were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to explore the outer planets of our solar system. Each spacecraft held a self-contained system that carried its own power generation system, propulsion system, communication equipment, and scientific instruments. The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn, including a close look at Saturn's rings and the larger moons of the two planets. Voyager 2 was supposed to act as a backup to Voyager 1. If Voyager 1 failed when taking pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, NASA was prepared to alter Voyager 2's path to follow Voyager 1's trajectory. It would cut off the Uranus and Neptune option, but still, preserve the possibility of some pictures. The mission was intended for five years, but after a succession of fascinating images returned by Voyager, NASA decided to extend the mission. This new mission was to explore the outer planets of our solar system and then eventually to go on and enter interstellar space.

On the 20th of August 1977, Voyager 2 was the first to launch, followed by Voyager 1 sixteen days later. Even though Voyager 2 was launched earlier, Voyager 1 had a faster flight path and arrived at Jupiter four months before its sister craft.

THE GOLDEN RECORD

Onboard Voyager 1 and 2 NASA placed a message, kind of a time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials.

The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this, they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music.

Now Voyager has left our solar system, it will be forty thousand years before it makes a close approach to any other planetary system. As Carl Sagan has noted, "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

This picture was taken by Voyager 2 on the 18th of September 1977. The image of crescent earth was the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft. The Earth is many times brighter than the moon so the moon was artificially brightened so that both bodies would show clearly in the prints. At this point, Voyager was 7.25 million miles from Earth.

5th March 1979 - Voyager 1 makes its closet approach to Jupiter

9th July 1979 - Voyager 2 makes its closet approach to Jupiter

JUPITER

This stunning image of Jupiter captured by Voyager 1 shows its moons, Io on the left, and Europa on the right.

Image taken from Voyager 1

This image captured by Voyager 2 shows Io.

Image taken from Voyager 2

A closer image was taken showing Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Altogether the Voyagers took over 33,000 pictures of Jupiter and its five major moons.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is a gas giant, the biggest planet in our solar system. It is more than twice the size of all the other planets combined, and if it was 80 times more massive, it would have become a star rather than a planet. Jupiter is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of methane, ammonia, hydrogen deuteride, ethane, water, ammonia ice aerosols, water ice aerosols, and ammonia hydrosulfide aerosols. The most obvious feature of Jupiter is of course its Great Red Spot, a giant hurricane of gases swirling around constantly. At its widest, the Great Red Spot is three times the diameter of the Earth, and its edge spins counterclockwise around its center at a speed of about 225 miles (360 kilometers) per hour. Its magnetic field is nearly 20,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field.

Astronomers have been looking at this giant planet for more than 300 years, from the earth, but now we could get up close and personal with the aid of the Voyager spacecrafts. What we now understand about Jupiter is that important physical, geological, and atmospheric processes go on in the planet, its moons, and magnetosphere that were new to scientists.

The biggest surprises came from Jupiter's many moons, one in particular, Io, the discovery of active volcanism on the surface. It appears that activity on Io affects the entire Jovian system. Io seems to be the primary source of matter that is apparent throughout the Jovian magnetosphere, (the region of space that surrounds the planet). Sulphur, oxygen, and sodium, erupted by Io's volcanoes and spurted off the surface by the impact of high-energy particles, were detected at the outer edge of the magnetosphere. Particles of the same material are also present inside Io's orbit.

For me, the most exciting moon is Europa, instantly recognizable by its cracked surface made of ice. Scientists believe that this moon may hold water underneath its cracked surface, and it is the movement of the water that causes the ice to crack. This might just be the place in our solar system, where life may have taken hold.

Europa - One of Jupiter's moons

The colourful image came from Voyager 2 during its close encounter on 9th July 1996. Voyager 2 took many detailed images of Europa. One scientist famously said, "the moon looked as smooth as a billiard ball."

Continuing on their journey, by using the powerful gravity field of Jupiter, both spacecrafts hurled it selves on to Saturn.

12th November 1980 - Voyager 1 flies by Saturn

25th August 1981 - Voyager 2 flies by Saturn

SATURN

Image of Saturn taken by Voyager 1

In this image of Saturn captured by Voyager 1, on the 3rd of November 1980, at a range of just under 8.1 million miles we see Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione.

Image of Saturn taken by Voyager 1

On leaving Saturn, Voyager 1 managed to snap this famous picture of the dark side of Saturn, unseen from the position of Earth.

Image of Saturn taken by Voyager 2

This true-color image, captured by Voyager 2, on 21st of July 1981, also shows the moons Dione (the small dot at left) and Rhea (lower right) near Saturn.

URANUS

On January 24, 1986, Voyager 2 has the first-ever encounter with Uranus. It came within 81,500 km (50,600 miles) of the planet's cloud tops.

Voyager 2 radioed thousands of images and huge amounts of scientific data on the planet, its moons, rings, atmosphere, interior, and the magnetic environment surrounding Uranus.

Uranus, 5.7 million miles from Voyager, 17th of January, 1986.

Uranus has 27 known moons, 14 named. Some are half made of ice.

Information from:-

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/science/uranus/

Voyager 2's images of the five largest moons around Uranus revealed complex surfaces indicative of varying geologic pasts. The cameras also detected 11 previously unseen moons. Several instruments studied the ring system, uncovering the fine detail of the previously known rings and two newly detected rings. Voyager data showed that the planet's rate of rotation is 17 hours, 14 minutes. The spacecraft also found a Uranian magnetic field that is both large and unusual. In addition, the temperature of the equatorial region, which receives less sunlight over a Uranian year, is nevertheless about the same as that at the poles.

Uranus's 5 largest moons Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.

The two largest moons are Oberon and Titania. They were first discovered in 1787, by William Herschel and named after Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ariel and Umbriel were the next to be discovered by William Lassell, who had been the first to see a moon orbiting Neptune. They were named after Shakespeare's, The Tempest.

Miranda was discovered in 1948 by Gerard P. Kuiper, at the McDonald Observatory in western Texas.

In 2014 Noah Hammond, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Rhode Island told Space.com, "Miranda has a really bizarre, deformed surface. It's a really beautiful and exotic moon."

Voyager 2 discovered 10 more moons within a month of arriving at Uranus.

Voyager 2 image shows Uranus's moon Puck.

Puck was discovered in December 1985 in images sent back by Voyager 2, during its flyby of Uranus. Puck is named after a mischievous sprite in William Shakespeare's, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

On January the 25th, 1986, Voyager 2 took this farewell shot of the crescent of Uranus, from 600,000 miles away.

Voyager 2 shows the crescent of Uranus

NEPTUNE

Voyager 2's view of Neptune, 57,000,000 kilometers (35 million miles) away.

On the 25th of August, 1989, Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe Neptune.

Neptune is a gas giant, along with Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. They have no solid surface but possess huge atmospheres.

Voyager 2 returned the first colour images of Neptune.

Colour image of Neptune, taken by Voyager 2 in 1989

Voyager 2 traveled 12 years at an average velocity of 19 kilometers a second (about 42,000 miles an hour) to reach Neptune, which is 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Voyager observed Neptune almost continuously from June to October 1989.

The average temperature on Neptune is about minus 200 degrees Celsius (minus 392 degrees Fahrenheit).

Neptune's Rings

The storm system on Neptune rotates counterclockwise.

Neptune has 14 known moons, one being Triton.

Neptune's moon Triton

A parting view of Neptune and moon Triton, taken by Voyager 2

LEAVING OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Voyager 2 followed a course below the ecliptic plane and headed out of the solar system. NASA renamed the mission, Voyager Interstellar Mission and put Voyager 2's instruments into low power mode to conserve energy.

Voyager 1, on leaving our solar system, turned and took one final image, the famous Pale Blue Dot. The pale, blue dot is Earth.

Voyager 1's Pale Blue Dot

CROP CIRCLES . . . . Here lies the TRUTH

2020-11-26T23:04:00.003-08:00

(5) I have always had an interest in crop circles ever since I was a little girl, they were so pretty. Now I am older and have looked into the meaning of these crop circles, I am even more intrigued by them. Are these images made by something from outer space? Are they messages? The answer to both of these questions is yes! Yes they are made from something or someone not of this planet and yes they are messages, that we are getting very good at interpreting. When I started looking at the evidence I was amazed and you will be too.

One of the first questions everyone wants to know is, "Are they hoaxes"? Well, you decide! I don't think they are as they are far too elaborate, there are never any mistakes and no-one has yet proved them to be faked. There have been hoaxers who claim to of made them but they themselves were proved to be fakes. The scientific evidence taken from the crop circles also proves that nothing on this earth could have made them. You have also got to remember that the genuine circles are produced in one night in darkness, there has never been half a circle found next morning. There have been circles that have been added to over a period of nights but the added bits actually make them even more complex.

Here is an extract from Crop Circles Secrets http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/ on what happens to the crops of a crop circle.

"In genuine formations, the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes in its crystalline structure and mineral composition. The expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks!

Crop circles also show evidence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sacred sites such as stone circles and pyramids. And like all temples, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles – a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the stems has been heated from the inside. In genuine crop circles, there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Ratio – the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry – those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; affecting the proper function of compasses, cameras and mobile phones; the frequencies are also known to affect aircraft equipment."

The 2nd question everyone wants to know is, "How are they made"? Here is a video of a crop circle being produced by 2 'orbs', it was filmed back in the 1990s. This video has been proved to be genuine and at least 80 witnesses have said they have seen similar 'orbs' making crop circles.

VIDEO: crop circle forming

Now, let's look at some of the most brilliant crop circles you will ever see. The first one for me has to be the Mayan Calendar and what it is telling us about 2012. Basically, in 2012, there will be an alignment of planets, the earth to the sun and it will happen on 21st Dec. 2012. The Mayan Calendar predicts this event, it is the end of the Mayan Calendar, which is why perception believes it is the end of the world but it does not necessarily mean that. Crop circles also predict this event, here is the Mayan Calendar:-

The year 2012 and the Mayan Prophecy of the shift of the ages is symbolized with the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in 2012 by the masters of celestial knowledge, timekeepers of ancient times. The Mayans had deep knowledge and understanding of the natural cycles of time in which life evolves. Here are some more crop circles related to the Mayans.

2012 Mayan Crop Circle, Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire 9th August 2005


The Mayan Wheel Crop Circle: Silbury Hill, Wiltshire 2-3 August 2004


Mayan Crop Circle: Woolstone Hill, Oxfordshire 13th August 2005


Quetzalcoatl Mayan Headdress 2012 Crop Circle: Silbury Hill 5th July 2009

This circle appeared on 22nd July 2011 at East Kennett, Nr Avebury, Wiltshire, England. Notice the center is very much alike to the center of the Mayan Calendar crop circle from Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire on 9th August 2005. The outer parts of the circle seem to represent the pyramids. Here are some interesting ideas of what it could mean, taken from

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/nonflash.html

π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. π is approximately equal to 3.14159 in the usual decimal positional notation. Many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve π, which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants.

1st June 2011 Nr Barbury Castle, Wiltshire, England

This crop circle in a barley field near Wroughton in Wiltshire is a coded version of pi., the experts say it is the most complex crop circle ever seen in Britain. The pattern appeared on 1st June 2011, near Barbury Castle, an Iron Age hill fort above the village of Wroughton in Wiltshire. Initially, crop circle enthusiasts were stumped as to its meaning and even a number of experts said it was 'mind-boggling'. Then retired astrophysicist Mike Reed saw a photograph of it and made the mathematical link. He said the crop pattern 'clearly shows' the first ten digits of pi, which is used to calculate the area of a circle using the formula Pi r squared.

Nr Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, England 4th July 2011

This latest crop circle has the crop circle world all abuzz. It’s about 300 feet long, found in Honey Street field near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, England. The crop circle appears to be another complex structure depicting the mathematical number Pi, all the way out to 10 decimals!

Are they telling us that they use the same mathematical functions as we do?

Milk Hill, Wiltshire, 12th Aug 2001

4th-dimensional hyper-cube (Metatron's cube) or tesseract. A crop circle in the form of a double (six-sided) Triskelion, composed of 409 circles and 878 feet across.

In 1974 NASA sent a message into space from a radio tower. The Arecibo message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope on 16 November 1974. It was aimed at the globular star cluster M13 some 25,000 light-years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony.

Dr. Frank Drake, then at Cornell University and creator of the famous Drake equation, wrote the message, with help from Carl Sagan, among others. The message consists of seven parts. This is a picture of what the message would look like. The numbers one (1) through ten (10) The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth A graphic of the Solar System A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish.

Then in 2001 two messages appeared in a field close to a radio station very similar to the one our message went from.

21st Aug 2001, Nr. Chilbolton radio telescope, Hampshire, England

Human Face

15th Aug. 2002 Nr. Sparsholt, Hampshire in England

Message in binary code:-

Beware the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises

Much pain but still time

There is good out there

We oppose deception

Conduit closing

Here is a video explaining the meaning of the face:-

Video: Crop Circles Decoded

July 18, 2002, Avebury, England

14th August 2008, Bedfordshire, England

Sacred star tetrahedron. Centre star tetrahedron, Metatron's cube, triangles on outside = cosmic radiation. Star tetrahedron and Metatron's cube = evolution.

Pentagram sacred geometry for 5 elements fire, earth, air, water, light. The basic design for one of the largest buildings on earth, The Pentagon.

West Down Gallops, nr Beckhampton, Wiltshire 4th July 2009

Cosmic holy bird = dark rift, cosmic radiation changes DNA. There are a number of circles that are predicting DNA changes in 2012, due to the radiation from the sun when the earth lines up with the sun.

17th June 1996, The East Field, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire

Nr Waylands Smithy, Oxfordshire, England 29th May 2009

Earth's magnetic field changes into the shape of a "jellyfish" when it is impacted by a severe solar storm. This crop circle is over 600 feet long.

Aug. 1991 Milk Hill, England

Freemasonic script - APPONO ASTOS. We are opposed to cunning and deceit.

Overton Down, Avebury, Wiltshire, England 18th July 2011

Roundway Hill Wiltshire, England 23rd July 2011

Etchilhampton Hill, Wiltshire, England 25th July 2011

In some crop circles Uropium, Tellurium, Iodine 126, Bismuth 205, Protactinium 230, Vanadium 48, and Yttberbium 169 are found, which are not found in nature and are only synthesizable by a synchrotron.

There are more than 200 crop circles made every year, all over the world. It's a fantastic way of communicating with us as they will not have our language but they do use our mathematical system. Whoever it is that produces these circles keep trying to give us warnings of future events, which for me means they can't be that bad.

UFOs IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE . . .

2020-11-25T17:41:00.004-08:00

(4) UFOs, Unidentified flying objects!! We all presume when we hear the word UFO that it must be extraterrestrial, but as we all actually know, it just means Unidentified! Or does it? From looking into the phenomena of UFOs, I have found a startling amount of evidence to suggest we have been visited by extraterrestrial UFOs for a very long time.

When UFO sightings are reported, the majority of them can be explained, but there are about 29% of sightings that cannot be explained. Most of these reported sightings come from pilots, astronauts, and cosmonauts. Why would we disbelieve them? These people are very highly educated, they are not attention seekers or mentally disturbed in any way. So why don't these reports get taken seriously? I don't know the answer to that, I can only presume that until you see a UFO with your own eyes then it can be hard to take the word of someone else. The reports probably are believed, but what can anyone do! I suppose it's a case of, "Thank you for reporting it, there's nothing we can do so we'll now file it away!" The X Files comes to mind. Believe this though, there are a lot of X files out there, some of which I will talk about here and if you are not a believer already, you will be after reading this blog, if you are still a non-believer then you are one of those people who will only believe it when an alien comes up to you and taps you on your shoulder and says "Hi Earthling".

Phoenix Lights

There is one famous sighting which occurred over the skies of Phoenix, Arizona, USA on 13th March 1997, named the Phoenix Lights. This UFO sighting was seen by thousands of people, including the Governor of Arizona, who denied seeing it at the time, he even mocked the reports as ludicrous. He has come forward since and admitted that he did see the lights that night. He didn't admit it at the time, he claims, as he didn't want people to panic, but I suspect it was more to do with not wanting to be ridiculed. Which makes sense.

Here video footage taken on that night:-

Phoenix lights 1997 - Original UFO footage

These lights were also seen over Nevada and the Mexican state of Sonora. The lights were described as being in a triangular or V-shaped formation that was underneath a massive, V-shaped, black craft, unlike anything that anyone had ever seen before.

V-shaped craft over Phoenix

The United States Air Force tried to explain away the reports as flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft that was apparently on training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona. I think the problem with that explanation is:- flares fall downwards and don't float across the sky as over 10,000 people reported. The lights traveled for hundreds of miles, flares don't travel that far. Another question comes to mind, wouldn't you think the people of Arizona would be used to seeing flares being dropped, seeing as the 'dropping of flares' has been going on since 1941? Also, who would drop flares over a populated area? So, I think that excludes that theory.

Another explanation for the lights that appeared that night, was a top-secret military craft. Again, there are a lot of flaws in this explanation. If top-secret, then why fly at low altitude over a populated city so that thousands of people can see it? Why not fly over the hundreds of miles of empty desert around Arizona? Also, every airport in the country (USA) is surrounded by a Class B airspace, a protective zone, no aircraft including Military aircraft can enter Class B airspace, without communication and clearance from air-traffic control. What flew over Phoenix on 13th March 1997, clearly violated Class B airspace when it entered without communication and clearance. It also violated minimum safety altitudes requirements and flew across one of the busiest airports in the country, undetected by radar. Go figure!! In my opinion, this was not an Unidentified Flying Object, it was an Extraterrestrial Spacecraft.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin

Are you a believer yet? No? Then, how about this account from Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.) one of the first men on the moon alongside Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 mission 1969. Apollo 11 was not alone in space...

Buzz claimed that a sphere-shaped object traveled alongside Apollo 11, most of the way to the moon. Neil Armstrong, Buzz, and Mike the pilot, all watched this object through the window, for some time. They had asked Euston how far away the rocket boosters were. About 4000 nautical miles away, responded Nasa. Buzz, Neil, and Mike knew that this object was much closer than that. They made the decision not to relay to Euston what they were seeing as the air-waves were public and they didn't want Nasa to abort the mission. So they kept quiet, watched it for a while then got some sleep, until their return for a debriefing. They were told not to speak of it, for fear of ridicule.

Buzz has never claimed it was an alien spacecraft that was traveling alongside them, on the way to the moon. All he is claiming is that something was there, it was unidentified and is still unidentified.

Many astronauts and cosmonauts have seen unidentified objects in space. Here is some footage from NASA's secret transmissions. Watch for the interest around the MIR space station, plus lots of other activity just above the earth.

NASA's secret transmissions

Disarming of Nuclear Weapons

Another interesting account of UFOs comes from retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas. He claims that on 14th March 1967 whilst on duty as Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander at the Minuteman ICBM site, 85 miles from Malmstrom Air Force Base in central Montana, a UFO was sighted at the facility by the security guards. Robert Salas took a phone call from a frightened guard above ground. The crews manning the missile facilities were assigned to duty shifts where they were locked underground for 24 hrs. On this morning there were two guards above ground, they had received a phone call to say that something unidentified had been seen above the facility and to keep a look-out and report anything they see. Sometime later the security guards did witness something, a 40-foot saucer-shaped object pulsating with a red light. They saw most of the missiles they had under their command suddenly go offline. Later it was discovered that the targeting systems were the only components affected. The guard immediately reported it to Captain Robert Salas.

Captain Salas immediately went over to his commander, Lt. Fred Meiwald, who was on a scheduled sleep period. Salas woke him and began to brief him about the phone calls and what was going on topside. In the middle of this conversation, they both heard the first alarm klaxon resound through the confined space of the capsule, and both immediately looked over at the panel of lights at the Commander’s station. A ‘No-Go’ light and two red security lights were lit indicating problems at one of the missile sites. Lt. Fred Meiwald jumped up to query the system to determine the cause of the problem. Before he could do so, another alarm went off at another site, then another and another simultaneously. Within the next few seconds, they had lost six to eight missiles to a ‘No-Go’ (inoperable) condition.

Robert Salas said that the only thing that might be able to affect the heavily shielded electronics (which were robust 1960s components, not fragile silicon circuits) was a very strong electromagnetic pulse. He knows of nothing then or now which could penetrate the underground facility, much less selectively shut down the targeting systems of so many missiles at once. Another UFO appeared over a nearby facility on the same night, with similar results.

The Boeing Company, which built the affected components, conducted tests to try and reproduce the shutdown incident. Nothing conclusive was found, apart from a very specific pulse sent to one of the logic circuits, which worked 80% of the time it was tested. How this sort of electrical impulse could be sent to such a specific component at the same time to so many missiles was never determined.

This is not the only incident of UFOs being spotted in the skies above missile facilities and for missiles to be disarmed.

Sighting in England

One of England's most significant Military UFO sighting happened at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk on three consecutive nights in late December 1980.

On this particular night, US Air Force security patrolmen John Burroughs and Budd Parker were by the east gate of RAF Woodbridge. They spotted a strange craft and at first thought, it was an airplane about to crash, but soon they realized that the craft was hovering downwards and eventually landed in the woods. They could see a pulsating mass of coloured lights, described by witnesses as looking like a Christmas tree. John Burroughs quickly phoned the base. It was 2 o'clock in the morning and there should not have been any aircraft in the vicinity. Within minutes, security patrol Sergeant Jim Penniston was on his way by jeep, driven by Herman Kavanasac.

When they arrived they too saw the strange craft. They could see lights flickering through the trees. Jim Penniston, who took command, tried to persuade Burroughs and Parker that a plane had crashed and was blazing out of control, but the two patrolmen knew that what was out there had landed and not crashed.

Budd Parker stayed at the gate while the others went into the forest. There was some kind of strange electrical field pervading the woods, the radio contact with the base began to break down. Jim Penniston ordered Kavanasac to stay back near the road so they could use him to relay messages to the main base. Penniston and Burroughs continued deeper into the forest, it was at this point that the air became alive with energy, crackling as if within a thunderstorm, even the hair of the men stood on end, and their skin began to tingle.

Jim Penniston has said since the incident, "It was definitely not in Jane's book of World Aircraft". He described it as a conical object about the size of a small car, floating on beams of light (others reported seeing thin legs) only 30 cms or so above the ground. It had a strange, misty aura and on its side were black marks that could have been writing. As the men tried to get closer to the object they described it as like trying to walk through treacle, as they could not seem to close in on the object. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and the craft soared up into the air.

Penniston and Burroughs claim they came close to an object that was like nothing they had ever seen before. As Airman (later Sergeant) John Burroughs insisted, "I do not know whether this was some kind of machine under intelligent control or a fantastic natural phenomenon, some rare kind of energy. What I do know is that it was nothing mundane. There are no words that can adequately describe the wonder of what we saw".

The following morning signs of the UFO's presence were found in the forest. Many trees had their tops broken and three holes were found in the frozen soil in a triangular formation, matching the location of the legs seen beneath the UFO the previous night. An A-10 plane that flew over the site at dawn picked up infra-red radiation pouring from the forest.

That night there was an officers' party at RAF Bentwaters. Lieutenant Bruce Englund came into the room and told the base commander Ted Conrad that 'it' was back. As Conrad was just about to present an after-dinner speech, he asked his deputy, Lt Col Charles Halt, if he could sort out the matter. Deputy Base Commander Halt (later promoted to Lt Col Halt) gathered a team of skilled men, including Sergeant Nevells of the 'Disaster Preparedness' team, and took a Geiger counter to measure radiation. Halt also took a dictaphone to help him make notes. Englund gathered some gas-powered arc lights and the small party of men ventured out towards the edge of the base.

A security cordon was set up around the perimeter of the woods to prevent any curious airmen or local villagers from getting in the way. An hour earlier a security patrol had spotted strange lights floating in the sky above the forest, but these lights had quickly disappeared. On entering the wood, the colonel was told that the UFO was no longer visible. However, the gas lights seemed to keep cutting out and he had to send someone to get more from the base.

The team's radio communication both to the base and with each other was showing static interference, similar to that experienced the night before. Burroughs, hearing what was happening, decided to join the null but there was nothing unusual to see, except for a few stars and the pulsating light of the Orford Ness lighthouse and the Shipwash lightship further to the south. The men took several soil and tree bark samples as well as making radio observations of what they found.

Out of nowhere, all hell broke loose. Noises could be heard in the background as Halt cut in sharply telling his men to 'slow down' and take it carefully. The UFO was back! It had been spotted at 1.48 a.m. by a group of men who had ventured deep into the forest, which included John Burroughs and Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, who describes how the glowing light rested on a pillar of yellowish mist and split in the middle like a rainbow produced by a prism. Halt and his team had spotted the craft by now and said he initially considered mirages or weather-induced temperature inversions. Now the area of light resembled a huge eye with a dark center. The group of men followed the light through the woods, crossing a farmer's field and stumbling through a small brook.

They chased it for more than an hour when, suddenly the object shot skywards, Halt reported, "Now we observe what appears to be a beam coming down towards the ground, this is unreal". Soon after, tired and wet, Halt led his men home. Strange lights were still seen above the Woodbridge base, flashing laser-like beams down into the security area of the base. Hundreds of personnel were said to have witnessed them. Local residents, such as Sarah Richardson, whose bedroom overlooked the base, saw them too. She later described them as "bands of rippling colour".

Files detailing the Geiger counter readings taken at the scene were shown to experts by Nick Pope in 1994 who assess radiation levels for the government. According to Pope, they expressed surprise at the recordings and confirmed that the figures were ten times the expected background levels.

Suspicion centered on the presence of nuclear weapons at RAF Bentwaters, which was denied by the base and the British government at the time. More than a decade later, it was admitted that this denial was untrue.

This is part of the audio recordings taken by the men that night:-

Audio recording from RAF Bentwaters

By the end of the 26th of December, US Deputy Base Commander Charles Halt and his British liaison officer, Squadron Leader Donald Moreland, were in discussions with their respective governments. A 'stand-up' meeting involving senior staff was held, and it was decided not to make any public revelations about the case. Soon, top-secret flights were arriving at the twin bases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge and staff from covert US Intelligence agencies were involved. Officers Burroughs, Penniston and the other witnesses, were cut out of the loop. So too were senior personnel at the base, even Deputy base Commander Charles Halt was not allowed to know what was going on. Had the cover-up begun? The official explanation was that the lights the men saw came from the lighthouse beacon.

There are lots of reports similar to the ones I have talked about here. There is mounting pressure from governments around the world, including Britain, for the American government to come clean and admit to Extraterrestrial UFOs. They have known about this for more than 60 years, but do not want to share their findings with the rest of the world.

After the Roswell incident, Edgar Hoover FBI wrote to the American military and asked them to hand over the craft that had crashed, but the military refused. Even the Bureau couldn't get their hands on 'it'. Hoover was informed that the “disc and balloon” were “being transported by special plane for examination” to Wright Field. Very strange in the wording of this message, which came from a man called Agent Wyly (with information related to him by the Army Air Force) and continues that it was reported to have resembled “a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector – but that “telephonic conversation had not borne out that belief.” Very curiously, this last line is omitted entirely from the 1990s Air Force Roswell Report debunking the event.

Other countries around the world admit to UFOs. China closes their airports when UFOs are hovering above and openly announce the fact that planes have been grounded due to UFO. Mexico openly admits to UFOs, they have seen fleets of crafts in their skies.

There are other life-forms out there, without a shadow of a doubt and one day we will all know about it. Look out for my next post on Crop Circles, a fascinating phenomenon.

I leave you with one final video of a man called Robert Lazar, the whistleblower from Area 51. He claims to have worked at Area 51 or rather a few miles from there, in an even more secret location than Area 51. There he says he worked on one of about eight or nine extraterrestrial space-crafts that are at this location. He describes the craft, how it works, everything. What he describes fits in with everything we already know, the radiation, the micro-waves, which also relate to the crop circles. It's a truly eye-opening interview.

Interview with Bob Lazar

Dr. Edgar Mitchell

Here is an incredible interview from Thirdphaseofmoon with Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who flew as Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission. He states that during his time with NASA he knew several people stationed at Area 51 including Robert Lazar, in direct contradiction of statements by some personnel known to have worked at Area 51, who claim that they had never heard of Bob Lazar. Dr. Edgar Mitchell also mentioned that it was apparently common knowledge (presumably amongst the US Military) that UFO's routinely visited and disarmed multiple nuclear weapons sites between the '50s and the '70s.

Edgar Mitchell interview part 1

Edgar Mitchell interview part 2

THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAMME

2020-11-25T04:09:00.003-08:00

(3) The Shuttles or Orbiters as they are officially known, were designed as the first re-usable orbital spacecraft for carrying crews and various payloads into low-earth-orbit, capable of a wide range of missions before returning to earth. The Orbiter is basically a space-plane that is able to launch using rocket assistance and maneuver as needed in orbit before re-entering the earth's atmosphere to land like a glider. Early missions included the Spacelab series jointly funded by several European nations and many satellite launches. Their most recent achievements include helping build the International Space Station which has taken more than 10 years and is now virtually complete. There is one more mission to the ISS, Atlantis, scheduled for the 8th July 2011; this will be the last shuttle mission ever. A very sad moment for all involved.

There were 6 shuttles altogether, the first being Enterprise which took off from the back of a Boeing-747 cargo plane in 1977. Columbia was the first shuttle to take-off with a rocket from the launch pad in 1981. In 1983 Challenger first launched, followed by Discovery in 1984 and Atlantis in 1985 but in 1986 disaster struck, Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into the flight because an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. Sadly, all 7 crew members were killed.

Challenger Space Shuttle crash

Challenger's smoke plume

Challenger crew STS-51-L

Many people were watching the launch live, including school children as Christa McAuliffe, the first member of the Teacher in Space Project, was part of the crew. The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics. A new shuttle was made to replace Challenger, named Endeavour which first launched in 1992. I managed to follow Endeavour's final mission on May 16th, 2011 thanks to NASA TV.

In 2003 disaster struck again, this time Columbia was destroyed on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, killing all 7 crew members. The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation the size of a small briefcase broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank (the main propellant tank) under the aerodynamic forces of launch. The debris struck the leading edge of the left-wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS), which shields it from heat generated in the atmosphere during re-entry. While Columbia was still in orbit, some engineers suspected damage, but NASA managers limited the investigation, on the grounds that little could be done even if problems were found. Since this tragedy astronauts are trained to repair any tiles on the shuttle, in space, before they re-enter the earth's atmosphere.

Below is a video of Columbia's final moments.

Last moments of Columbia

This is the insignia for STS-107

Columbia Crew STS-107

Discovery and Endeavour made their last flights in 2011 and Atlantis will be making the final flight of the Shuttle missions on 8th July 2011. All 3 remaining shuttles will be de-commissioned to be exhibited in museums. Discovery heads to the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Atlantis to Florida's Kennedy Space Center, and Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Enterprise, which is currently at the Udvar-Hazy Center, will be relocated to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. Hundreds of other shuttle artifacts will be put on display at various other museums and educational institutions around the US.

Endeavour's final mission

The final launch on the 8th of JULY 2011 and Atlantis is "go for launch"!

Final mission - Atlantis

I would like to add a tribute to astronaut Commander Alan Poindexter who died on the 2nd July 2012. He flew STS-131 Discovery on April 5th, 2010.

STS-131 Ascent Highlights

BRICK MOON

2020-11-25T02:57:00.001-08:00

(2) The Brick Moon is a short story written by an American man called Edward Everett Hale in the 19th century. It is the first known fictional description of an artificial satellite. The story is written as if it were a journal. It describes the construction and launches into the orbit of a sphere, 200 ft. in diameter, built of bricks. It was intended as a navigational aid for ships but is accidentally launched with people aboard. It also provides the first known fictional description of a space station.

Here is the short story called:-

THE BRICK MOON

PREPARATION

I have no sort of objection now to telling the whole story. The subscribers, of course, have a right to know what became of their money. The astronomers may as well know all about it, before they announce any more asteroids with an enormous movement in declination. And experimenters on the longitude may as well know, so that they may act advisedly in attempting another brick moon or in refusing to do so.

It all began more than thirty years ago, when we were in college; as most good things begin. We were studying in the book which has gray sides and a green back, and is called "Cambridge Astronomy" because it is translated from the French. We came across this business of the longitude, and, as we talked, in the gloom and glamour of the old South Middle dining-hall, we had going the usual number of students' stories about rewards offered by the Board of Longitude for discoveries in that matter,-- stories, all of which, so far as I know, are lies. Like all boys, we had tried our hands at perpetual motion. For me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they would give me chalk enough. But as to this business of the longitude, it was reserved for Q.[1] to make the happy hit and to explain it to the rest of us.

[1] Wherever Q. is referred to in these pages my brother Nathan is meant. One of his noms de plume was Gnat Q. Hale, because G and Q may be silent letters.

I wonder if I can explain it to an unlearned world, which has not studied the book with gray sides and a green cambric back. Let us try.

You know then, dear world, that when you look at the North Star, it always appears to you at just the same height above the horizon or what is between you and the horizon: say the Dwight School-house, or the houses in Concord Street; or to me, just now, North College. You know also that, if you were to travel to the North Pole, the North Star would be just over your head. And, if you were to travel to the equator, it would be just on your horizon, if you could see it at all through the red, dusty, hazy mist in the north, as you could not. If you were just half-way between pole and equator, on the line between us and Canada, the North Star would be half-way up, or 45@ from the horizon. So you would know there that you were 45@ from the equator. Then in Boston, you would find it was 42@ 20' from the horizon. So you know there that you are 42@ 20' from the equator. At Seattle again you would find it was 47@ 40' high, so our friends at Seattle know that they are at 47@ 40' from the equator. The latitude of a place, in other words, is found very easily by any observation which shows how high the North Star is; if you do not want to measure the North Star, you may take any star when it is just to north of you, and measure its height; wait twelve hours, and if you can find it, measure its height again. Split the difference, and that is the altitude of the pole, or the latitude of you, the observer.

"Of course we know this," says the graduating world. "Do you suppose that is what we borrow your book for, to have you spell out your miserable elementary astronomy?" At which rebuff I should shrink distressed, but that a chorus of voices an octave higher comes up with, "Dear Mr. Ingham, we are ever so much obliged to you; we did not know it at all before, and you make it perfectly clear."

Thank you, my dear, and you, and you. We will not care what the others say. If you do understand it, or do know it, it is more than Mr. Charles Reade knew, or he would not have made his two lovers on the island guess at their latitude, as they did. If they had either of them been educated at a respectable academy for the Middle Classes, they would have fared better.

Now about the longitude.

The latitude, which you have found, measures your distance north or south from the equator or the pole. To find your longitude, you want to find your distance east or west from the meridian of Greenwich. Now, if any one would build a good tall tower at Greenwich, straight into the sky,--say a hundred miles into the sky,--of course if you and I were east or west of it, and could see it, we could tell how far east or west we were by measuring the apparent height of the tower above our horizon. If we could see so far, when the lantern with a Drummond's light, "ever so bright," on the very top of the tower, appeared to be on our horizon, we should know we were eight hundred and seventy-three miles away from it. The top of the tower would answer for us as the North Star does when we are measuring the latitude. If we were nearer, our horizon would make a longer angle with the line from the top to our place of vision. If we were farther away, we should need a higher tower.

But nobody will build any such tower at Greenwich, or elsewhere on that meridian, or on any meridian. You see that to be of use to the half the world nearest to it, it would have to be so high that the diameter of the world would seem nothing in proportion. And then, for the other half of the world you would have to erect another tower as high on the other side. It was this difficulty that made Q. suggest the expedient of the Brick Moon.

For you see that if, by good luck, there were a ring like Saturn's which stretched round the world, above Greenwich and the meridian of Greenwich, and if it would stay above Greenwich, turning with the world, any one who wanted to measure his longitude or distance from Greenwich would look out of window and see how high this ring was above his horizon. At Greenwich it would be over his head exactly. At New Orleans, which is quarter round the world from Greenwich, it would be just in his horizon. A little west of New Orleans you would begin to look for the other half of the ring on the west instead of the east; and if you went a little west of the Feejee Islands the ring would be over your head again. So if we only had a ring like that, not round the equator of the world,--as Saturn's ring is around Saturn,--but vertical to the plane of the equator, as the brass ring of an artificial globe goes, only far higher in proportion,-- "from that ring," said Q., pensively, "we could calculate the longitude."

Failing that, after various propositions, he suggested the Brick Moon. The plan was this: If from the surface of the earth, by a gigantic peashooter, you could shoot a pea upward from Greenwich, aimed northward as well as upward; if you drove it so fast and far that when its power of ascent was exhausted, and it began to fall, it should clear the earth, and pass outside the North Pole; if you had given it sufficient power to get it half round the earth without touching, that pea would clear the earth forever. It would continue to rotate above the North Pole, above the Feejee Island place, above the South Pole and Greenwich, forever, with the impulse with which it had first cleared our atmosphere and attraction. If only we could see that pea as it revolved in that convenient orbit, then we could measure the longitude from that, as soon as we knew how high the orbit was, as well as if it were the ring of Saturn.

"But a pea is so small!"

"Yes," said Q., "but we must make a large pea." Then we fell to work on plans for making the pea very large and very light. Large,--that it might be seen far away by storm-tossed navigators: light,--that it might be the easier blown four thousand and odd miles into the air; lest it should fall on the heads of the Greenlanders or the Patagonians; lest they should be injured and the world lose its new moon. But, of course, all this lath- and-plaster had to be given up. For the motion through the air would set fire to this moon just as it does to other aerolites, and all your lath-and-plaster would gather into a few white drops, which no Rosse telescope even could discern. "No," said Q. bravely, "at the least it must be very substantial. It must stand fire well, very well. Iron will not answer. It must be brick; we must have a Brick Moon."

Then we had to calculate its size. You can see, on the old moon, an edifice two hundred feet long with any of the fine refractors of our day. But no such refractors as those can be carried by the poor little fishermen whom we wanted to befriend, the bones of whose ships lie white on so many cliffs, their names unreported at any Lloyd's or by any Ross,

Themselves the owners and their sons the crew.

On the other hand, we did not want our moon two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, as the old moon is, which I will call the Thornbush moon, for distinction. We did not care how near it was, indeed, if it were only far enough away to be seen, in practice, from almost the whole world. There must be a little strip where they could not see it from the surface, unless we threw it infinitely high. "But they need not look from the surface," said Q.; "they might climb to the mast-head. And if they did not see it at all, they would know that they were ninety degrees from the meridian."

This difficulty about what we call "the strip," however, led to an improvement in the plan, which made it better in every way. It was clear that even if "the strip" were quite wide, the moon would have to be a good way off, and, in proportion, hard to see. If, however, we would satisfy ourselves with a moon four thousand miles away, THAT could be seen on the earth's surface for three or four thousand miles on each side; and twice three thousand, or six thousand, is one fourth of the largest circumference of the earth. We did not dare have it nearer than four thousand miles, since even at that distance it would be eclipsed three hours out of every night; and we wanted it bright and distinct, and not of that lurid, copper, eclipse color. But at four thousand miles' distance the moon could be seen by a belt of observers six or eight thousand miles in diameter. "Start, then, two moons,"--this was my contribution to the plan. "Suppose one over the meridian of Greenwich, and the other over that of New Orleans. Take care that there is a little difference in the radii of their orbits, lest they `collide' some foul day. Then, in most places, one or other, perhaps two will come in sight. So much the less risk of clouds: and everywhere there may be one, except when it is cloudy. Neither need be more than four thousand miles off; so much the larger and more beautiful will they be. If on the old Thornbush moon old Herschel with his reflector could see a town-house two hundred feet long, on the Brick Moon young Herschel will be able to see a dab of mortar a foot and a half long, if he wants to. And people without the reflector, with their opera-glasses, will be able to see sufficiently well." And to this they agreed: that eventually there must be two Brick Moons. Indeed, it were better that there should be four, as each must be below the horizon half the time. That is only as many as Jupiter has. But it was also agreed that we might begin with one.

Why we settled on two hundred feet of diameter I hardly know. I think it was from the statement of dear John Farrar's about the impossibility of there being a state house two hundred feet long not yet discovered, on the sunny side of old Thornbush. That, somehow, made two hundred our fixed point. Besides, a moon of two hundred feet diameter did not seem quite unmanageable. Yet it was evident that a smaller moon would be of no use, unless we meant to have them near the world, when there would be so many that they would be confusing, and eclipsed most of the time. And four thousand miles is a good way off to see a moon even two hundred feet in diameter.

Small though we made them on paper, these two-hundred-foot moons were still too much for us. Of course we meant to build them hollow. But even if hollow there must be some thickness, and the quantity of brick would at best be enormous. Then, to get them up! The pea-shooter, of course, was only an illustration. It was long after that time that Rodman and other guns sent iron balls five or six miles in distance,--say two miles, more or less, in height.

Iron is much heavier than hollow brick, but you can build no gun with a bore of two hundred feet now,--far less could you then. No. Q. again suggested the method of shooting oft the moon. It was not to be by any of your sudden explosions. It was to be done as all great things are done,--by the gradual and silent accumulation of power. You all know that a flywheel--heavy, very heavy on the circumference, light, very light within it--was made to save up power, from the time when it was produced to the time when it was wanted. Yes? Then, before we began even to build the moon, before we even began to make the brick, we would build two gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of each should be "ever so great," the circumference heavy beyond all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no temptation might burst it. They should revolve, their edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, for years, if it were necessary, to accumulate power, driven by some waterfall now wasted to the world. One should be a little heavier than the other. When the Brick Moon was finished, and all was ready, IT should be gently rolled down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the heavier wheel would have deflected it a little from the vertical. Upward and northward it would rise, therefore, till it had passed the axis of the world. It would, of course, feel the world's attraction all the time, which would bend its flight gently, but still it would leave the world more and more behind. Upward still, but now southward, till it had traversed more than one hundred and eighty degrees of a circle. Little resistance, indeed, after it had cleared the forty or fifty miles of visible atmosphere. "Now let it fall," said Q., inspired with the vision. "Let it fall, and the sooner the better! The curve it is now on will forever clear the world; and over the meridian of that lonely waterfall,--if only we have rightly adjusted the gigantic flies,--will forever revolve, in its obedient orbit, the--BRICK MOON, the blessing of all seamen,--as constant in all change as its older sister has been fickle, and the second cynosure of all lovers upon the waves, and of all girls left behind them." "Amen," we cried, and then we sat in silence till the clock struck ten; then shook each other gravely by the hand, and left the South Middle dining- hall. Of waterfalls there were plenty that we knew. Fly-wheels could be built of oak and pine, and hooped with iron. Fly-wheels did not discourage us. But brick? One brick is, say, sixty-four cubic inches only. This moon,--though we made it hollow,--see,--it must take twelve million brick. The brick alone will cost sixty thousand dollars!

The brick alone would cost sixty thousand dollars. There the scheme of the Brick Moon hung, an airy vision, for seventeen years,--the years that changed us from young men into men. The brick alone, sixty thousand dollars! For, to boys who have still left a few of their college bills unpaid, who cannot think of buying that lovely little Elzevir which Smith has for sale at auction, of which Smith does not dream of the value, sixty thousand dollars seems as intangible as sixty million sestertia. Clarke, second, how much are sixty million sestertia stated in cowries? How much in currency, gold being at 1.37 1/4/? Right; go up. Stop, I forget myself!

So, to resume, the project of the Brick Moon hung in the ideal, an airy vision, a vision as lovely and as distant as the Brick Moon itself, at this calm moment of midnight when I write, as it poises itself over the shoulder of Orion, in my southern horizon. Stop! I anticipate. Let me keep--as we say in Beadle's Dime Series--to the even current of my story.

Seventeen years passed by, we were no longer boys, though we felt so. For myself, to this hour, I never enter board meeting, committee meeting, or synod, without the queer question, what would happen should any one discover that this bearded man was only a big boy disguised? that the frockcoat and the round hat are none of mine, and that, if I should be spurned from the assembly, as an interloper, a judicious public, learning all the facts, would give a verdict, "Served him right." This consideration helps me through many bored meetings which would be else so dismal. What did my old copy say?--

"Boards are made of wood, they are long and narrow."

But we do not get on! Seventeen years after, I say, or should have said, dear Orcutt entered my room at Naguadavick again. I had not seen him since the Commencement day when we parted at Cambridge. He looked the same, and yet not the same. His smile was the same, his voice, his tender look of sympathy when I spoke to him of a great sorrow, his childlike love of fun. His waistband was different, his pantaloons were different, his smooth chin was buried in a full beard, and he weighed two hundred pounds if he weighed a gramme. O, the good time we had, so like the times of old! Those were happy days for me in Naguadavick. At that moment my double was at work for me at a meeting of the publishing committee of the Sandemanian Review, so I called Orcutt up to my own snuggery, and we talked over old times; talked till tea was ready. Polly came up through the orchard and made tea for us herself there. We talked on and on, till nine, ten at night, and then it was that dear Orcutt asked me if I remembered the Brick Moon. Remember it? of course I did. And without leaving my chair I opened the drawer of my writing-desk, and handed him a portfolio full of working-drawings on which I had engaged myself for my "third"[1] all that winter. Orcutt was delighted. He turned them over hastily but intelligently, and said: "I am so glad. I could not think you had forgotten. And I have seen Brannan, and Brannan has not forgotten." "Now do you know," said he, "in all this railroading of mine, I have not forgotten. When I built the great tunnel for the Cattawissa and Opelousas, by which we got rid of the old inclined planes, there was never a stone bigger than a peach-stone within two hundred miles of us. I baked the brick of that tunnel on the line with my own kilns. Ingham, I have made more brick, I believe, than any man living in the world!"

[1] "Every man," says Dr. Peabody, "should have a vocation and an avocation." To which I add,"A third."

"You are the providential man," said I. "Am I not, Fred? More than that," said he; "I have succeeded in things the world counts worth more than brick. I have made brick, and I have made money!"

"One of us make money?" asked I, amazed.

"Even so," said dear Orcutt; "one of us has, made money." And he proceeded to tell me how. It was not in building tunnels, nor in making brick. No! It was by buying up the original stock of the Cattawissa and Opelousas, at a moment when that stock had hardly a nominal price in the market. There were the first mortgage bonds, and the second mortgage bonds, and the third, and I know not how much floating debt; and worse than all, the reputation of the road lost, and deservedly lost. Every locomotive it had was asthmatic. Every car it had bore the marks of unprecedented accidents, for which no one was to blame. Rival lines, I know not how many, were cutting each other's throats for its legitimate business. At this juncture dear George invested all his earnings as a contractor, in the despised original stock,--he actually bought it for 3 1/4 per cent,--good shares that had cost a round hundred to every wretch who had subscribed. Six thousand eight hundred dollars--every cent he had--did George thus invest. Then he went himself to the trustees of the first mortgage, to the trustees of the second, and to the trustees of the third, and told them what he had done.

Now it is personal presence that moves the world. Dear Orcutt has found that out since, if he did not know it before. The trustees who would have sniffed had George written to them, turned round from their desks, and begged him to take a chair, when he came to talk with them. Had he put every penny he was worth into that stock? Then it was worth something which they did not know of, for George Orcutt was no fool about railroads. The man who bridged the Lower Rapidan when a freshet was running was no fool. "What were his plans?"

George did not tell--no, not to lordly trustees--what his plans were. He had plans, but he kept them to himself. All he told them was that he had plans. On those plans he had staked his all. Now, would they or would they not agree to put him in charge of the running of that road, for twelve months, on a nominal salary? The superintendent they had had was a rascal. He had proved that by running away. They knew that George was not a rascal. He knew that he could make this road pay expenses, pay bond-holders, and pay a dividend,--a thing no one else had dreamed of for twenty years. Could they do better than try him?

Of course they could not, and they knew they could not. Of course they sniffed and talked, and waited, and pretended they did not know, and that they must consult, and so forth and so on. But of course they all did try him, on his own terms. He was put in charge of the running of that road.

In one week he showed he should redeem it. In three months he did redeem it!

He advertised boldly the first day: "Infant children at treble price."

The novelty attracted instant remark. And it showed many things. First, it showed he was a humane man, who wished to save human life. He would leave these innocents in their cradles, where they belonged.

Second, and chiefly, the world of travellers saw that the Crichton, the Amadis, the perfect chevalier of the future, had arisen,--a railroad manager caring for the comfort of his passengers!

The first week the number of the C. and O.'s passengers was doubled: in a week or two more freight began to come in, in driblets, on the line which its owners had gone over. As soon as the shops could turn them out, some cars were put on, with arms on which travellers could rest their elbows, with head-rests where they could take naps if they were weary. These excited so much curiosity that one was exhibited in the museum at Cattawissa and another at Opelousas. It may not be generally known that the received car of the American roads was devised to secure a premium offered by the Pawtucket and Podunk Company. Their receipts were growing so large that they feared they should forfeit their charter. They advertised, therefore, for a car in which no man could sleep at night or rest by day,--in which the backs should be straight, the heads of passengers unsupported, the feet entangled in a vice, the elbows always knocked by the passing conductor. The pattern was produced which immediately came into use on all the American roads. But on the Cattawissa and Opelousas this time-honored pattern was set aside. Of course you see the result. Men went hundreds of miles out of their way to ride on the C. and O. The third mortgage was paid off; a reserve fund was piled up for the second; the trustees of the first lived in dread of being paid; and George's stock, which he bought at 3 1/4, rose to 147 before two years had gone by! So was it that, as we sat together in the snuggery, George was worth well-nigh three hundred thousand dollars. Some of his eggs were in the basket where they were laid; some he had taken out and placed in other baskets; some in nests where various hens were brooding over them. Sound eggs they were, wherever placed; and such was the victory of which George had come to tell.

One of us had made money!

On his way he had seen Brannan. Brannan, the pure-minded, right-minded, shifty man of tact, man of brain, man of heart, and man of word, who held New Altona in the hollow of his hand. Brannan had made no money. Not he, nor ever will. But Brannan could do much what he pleased in this world, without money. For whenever Brannan studied the rights and the wrongs of any enterprise, all men knew that what Brannan decided about it was well-nigh the eternal truth; and therefore all men of sense were accustomed to place great confidence in his prophecies. But, more than this, and better, Brannan was an unconscious dog, who believed in the people. So, when he knew what was the right and what was the wrong, he could stand up before two or three thousand people and tell them what was right and what was wrong, and tell them with the same simplicity and freshness with which he would talk to little Horace on his knee. Of the thousands who heard him there would not be one in a hundred who knew that this was eloquence. They were fain to say, as they sat in their shops, talking, that Brannan was not eloquent. Nay, they went so far as to regret that Brannan was not eloquent! If he were only as eloquent as Carker was or as Barker was, how excellent he would be! But when, a month after, it was necessary for them to do anything about the thing he had been speaking of, they did what Brannan had told them to do; forgetting, most likely, that he had ever told them, and fancying that these were their own ideas, which, in fact, had, from his liquid, ponderous, transparent, and invisible common sense, distilled unconsciously into their being. I wonder whether Brannan ever knew that he was eloquent. What I knew, and what dear George knew, was, that he was one of the leaders of men!

Courage, my friends, we are steadily advancing to the Brick Moon!

For George had stopped, and seen Brannan; and Brannan had not forgotten. Seventeen years Brannan had remembered, and not a ship had been lost on a lee-shore because her longitude was wrong,--not a baby had wailed its last as it was ground between wrecked spar and cruel rock,--not a swollen corpse unknown had been flung up upon the sand and been buried with a nameless epitaph,-- but Brannan had recollected the Brick Moon, and had, in the memory-chamber which rejected nothing, stored away the story of the horror. And now George was ready to consecrate a round hundred thousand to the building of the Moon; and Brannan was ready, in the thousand ways in which wise men move the people to and fro, to persuade them to give to us a hundred thousand more; and George had come to ask me if I were not ready to undertake with them the final great effort, of which our old calculations were the embryo. For this I was now to contribute the mathematical certainty and the lore borrowed from naval science, which should blossom and bear fruit when the Brick Moon was snapped like a cherry from the ways on which it was built, was launched into the air by power gathered from a thousand freshets, and, poised at last in its own pre-calculated region of the ether, should begin its course of eternal blessings in one unchanging meridian! Vision of Beneficence and Wonder! Of course I consented.

Oh that you were not so eager for the end! Oh that I might tell you, what now you will never know,--of the great campaign which we then and there inaugurated! How the horrible loss of the Royal Martyr, whose longitude was three degrees awry, startled the whole world, and gave us a point to start from. How I explained to George that he must not subscribe the one hundred thousand dollars in a moment. It must come in bits, when "the cause" needed a stimulus, or the public needed encouragement. How we caught neophyte editors, and explained to them enough to make them think the Moon was well-nigh their own invention and their own thunder. How, beginning in Boston, we sent round to all the men of science, all those of philanthropy, and all those of commerce, three thousand circulars, inviting them to a private meeting at George's parlors at the Revere. How, besides ourselves, and some nice, respectable-looking old gentlemen Brannan had brought over from Podunk with him, paying their fares both ways, there were present only three men,--all adventurers whose projects had failed,-- besides the representatives of the press. How, of these representatives, some understood the whole, and some understood nothing. How, the next day, all gave us "first-rate notices." How, a few days after, in the lower Horticultural Hall, we had our first public meeting. How Haliburton brought us fifty people who loved him,--his Bible class, most of them,--to help fill up; how, besides these, there were not three persons whom we had not asked personally, or one who could invent an excuse to stay away. How we had hung the walls with intelligible and unintelligible diagrams. How I opened the meeting. Of that meeting, indeed, I must tell something.

First, I spoke. I did not pretend to unfold the scheme. I did not attempt any rhetoric. But I did not make any apologies. I told them simply of the dangers of lee-shores. I told them when they were most dangerous,-- when seamen came upon them unawares. I explained to them that, though the costly chronometer, frequently adjusted, made a delusive guide to the voyager who often made a harbor, still the adjustment was treacherous, the instrument beyond the use of the poor, and that, once astray, its error increased forever. I said that we believed we had a method which, if the means were supplied for the experiment, would give the humblest fisherman the very certainty of sunrise and of sunset in his calculations of his place upon the world. And I said that whenever a man knew his place in this world, it was always likely all would go well. Then I sat down.

Then dear George spoke,--simply, but very briefly. He said he was a stranger to the Boston people, and that those who knew him at all knew he was not a talking man. He was a civil engineer, and his business was to calculate and to build, and not to talk. But he had come here to say that he had studied this new plan for the longitude from the Top to the Bottom, and that he believed in it through and through. There was his opinion, if that was worth anything to anybody. If that meeting resolved to go forward with the enterprise, or if anybody proposed to, he should offer his services in any capacity, and without any pay, for its success. If he might only work as a bricklayer, he would work as a bricklayer. For he believed, on his soul, that the success of this enterprise promised more for mankind than any enterprise which was ever likely to call for the devotion of his life. "And to the good of mankind," he said, very simply, "my life is devoted." Then he sat down.

Then Brannan got up. Up to this time, excepting that George had dropped this hint about bricklaying, nobody had said a word about the Moon, far less hinted what it was to be made of. So Ben had the whole to open. He did it as if he had been talking to a bright boy of ten years old. He made those people think that he respected them as his equals. But, in fact, he chose every word, as if not one of them knew anything. He explained, as if it were rather more simple to explain than to take for granted. But he explained as if, were they talking, they might be explaining to him. He led them from point to point,--oh! so much more clearly than I have been leading you,--till, as their mouths dropped a little open in their eager interest, and their lids forgot to wink in their gaze upon his face, and so their eyebrows seemed a little lifted in curiosity,--till, I say, each man felt as if he were himself the inventor, who had bridged difficulty after difficulty; as if, indeed, the whole were too simple to be called difficult or complicated. The only wonder was that the Board of Longitude, or the Emperor Napoleon, or the Smithsonian, or somebody, had not sent this little planet on its voyage of blessing long before. Not a syllable that you would have called rhetoric, not a word that you would have thought prepared; and then Brannan sat down. That was Ben Brannan's way. For my part, I like it better than eloquence.

Then I got up again. We would answer any questions, I said. We represented people who were eager to go forward with this work. (Alas! except Q., all of those represented were on the stage.) We could not go forward without the general assistance of the community. It was not an enterprise which the government could be asked to favor. It was not an enterprise which would yield one penny of profit to any human being. We had therefore, purely on the ground of its benefit to mankind, brought it before an assembly of Boston men and women.

Then there was a pause, and we could hear our watches tick, and our hearts beat. Dear George asked me in a whisper if he should say anything more, but I thought not. The pause became painful, and then Tom Coram, prince of merchants, rose. Had any calculation been made of the probable cost of the experiment of one moon?

I said the calculations were on the table. The brick alone would cost $60,000. Mr. Orcutt had computed that $214,729 would complete two flywheels and one moon. This made no allowance for whitewashing the moon, which was not strictly necessary. The fly-wheels and water-power would be equally valuable for the succeeding moons, it any were attempted, and therefore the second moon could be turned off, it was hoped, for $159,732.

Thomas Coram had been standing all the time I spoke, and in an instant he said: "I am no mathematician. But I have had a ship ground to pieces under me on the Laccadives because our chronometer was wrong. You need $250,000 to build your first moon. I will be one of twenty men to furnish the money; or I will pay $10,000 to-morrow for this purpose, to any person who may be named as treasurer, to be repaid to me if the moon is not finished this day twenty years." That was as long a speech as Tom Coram ever made. But it was pointed. The small audience tapped applause.

Orcutt looked at me, and I nodded. "I will be another, of the twenty men," cried he. "And I another," said an old bluff Englishman, whom nobody had invited; who proved to be a Mr. Robert Boll, a Sheffield man, who came in from curiosity. He stopped after the meeting; said he should leave the country the next week, and I have never seen him since. But his bill of exchange came all the same.

That was all the public subscribing. Enough more than we had hoped for. We tried to make Coram treasurer, but he refused. We had to make Haliburton treasurer, though we should have liked a man better known than he then was. Then we adjourned. Some nice ladies then came up, and gave, one a dollar, and one five dollars, and one fifty, and so on,--and some men who have stuck by ever since. I always, in my own mind, call each of those women Damaris, and each of those men Dionysius. But those are not their real names.

How I am wasting time on an old story! Then some of these ladies came the next day and proposed a fair; and out of that, six months after, grew the great Longitude Fair, that you will all remember, if you went to it, I am sure. And the papers the next day gave us first-rate reports; and then, two by two, with our subscription-books, we went at it. But I must not tell the details of that subscription. There were two or three men who subscribed $5,000 each because they were perfectly certain the amount would never be raised. They wanted, for once, to get the credit of liberality for nothing. There were many men and many women who subscribed from one dollar up to one thousand, not because they cared a straw for the longitude, nor because they believed in the least in the project; but because they believed in Brannan, in Orcutt, in Q., or in me. Love goes far in this world of ours. Some few men subscribed because others had done it: it was the thing to do, and they must not be out of fashion. And three or four, at least, subscribed because each hour of their lives there came up the memory of the day when the news came that the---- was lost, George, or Harry, or John, in the----, and they knew that George, or Harry, or John might have been at home, had it been easier than it is to read the courses of the stars!

Fair, subscriptions, and Orcutt's reserve,--we counted up $162,000, or nearly so. There would be a little more when all was paid in.

But we could not use a cent, except Orcutt's and our own little subscriptions, till we had got the whole. And at this point it seemed as if the whole world was sick of us, and that we had gathered every penny that was in store for us. The orange was squeezed dry!

THE END

TIME TRAVEL

2020-11-24T23:50:00.004-08:00

(1) Time travel, everybody would love to time travel, if it were possible. Go back, maybe change a few things, sounds like science fiction but what if it wasn't, what if it could be done. Well, I think it can be done, we just need the means to do it. The ideas of how to time travel are out there but turning those ideas into a reality are going to prove to be a bit difficult, to say the least, but let's look at ways that we could time travel if we had the means to do so.

There are a number of theories on how it could be possible to time travel, one of those theories is to travel at the speed of light or near to the speed of light. From what I have learnt about physics and the laws of physics, which I may add is next to nothing but from what I gather, the laws of physics will not allow anything to travel faster than the speed of light. Why this is so I do not know but at some point, I will find out and when I do I will blog the reasons why but for now let's assume my facts are correct and it is only possible to travel up to 99.9% of the speed of light, a cosmic speed limit will prevent you from going faster.

In order to have some comprehension of the speed of light think about these examples:- If you had two people standing side by side and another person standing a distance away, down the road lets say (the distance away is irrelevant in this example). One person has hold of a torch and switches it on to shine a light in the face of the person down the road, if you can get to that person before the light from the torch reaches that person's face, then you have travelled faster than the speed of light.

Another example of the speed of light is the one we all know, thunder and lightning. Light travels faster than sound so you see the flash of the lightning before you hear the sound of the thunder. It is only one event that is happening but it appears to be two events, one being the lightning and the second being the thunder. The reason for this is because the light has reached us before the sound but thunder and lightning is actually a single event.

By travelling at the speed of light you are transporting into the future. Stephen Hawkins best describes how:- Imagine a track that goes right around Earth, a track for a superfast train. We're going to use this imaginary train to get as close as possible to the speed of light and see how it becomes a time machine. Onboard are passengers with a one-way ticket to the future. The train begins to accelerate, faster and faster. Soon it's circling the Earth over and over again.

To approach the speed of light means circling the Earth pretty fast. Seven times a second. But no matter how much power the train has, it can never quite reach the speed of light, since the laws of physics forbid it. Instead, let's say it gets close, just shy of that ultimate speed. Now, something extraordinary happens. Time starts flowing slowly on board relative to the rest of the world. Everything on the train is in slow motion.

This happens to protect the speed limit, and it's not hard to see why. Imagine a child running forwards up the train. Her forward speed is added to the speed of the train, so couldn't she break the speed limit simply by accident? The answer is no. The laws of nature prevent the possibility by slowing down time onboard.

Now she can't run fast enough to break the limit. Time will always slow down just enough to protect the speed limit. And from that fact comes the possibility of travelling many years into the future.

Imagine that the train left the station on January 1, 2050. It circles Earth over and over again for 100 years at the speed of light before finally coming to a halt on New Year's Day, 2150. The passengers will have only lived one week because time is slowed down that much inside the train. When they got out they'd find a very different world from the one they'd left. In one week they'd have travelled 100 years into the future.

So having a cosmic speed limit can actually aid time travel. By slowing down the speed of time on-board the train enables the passengers to time travel into the future. Then maybe we are supposed to time travel, as it looks to me as if the universe has given us a way of doing it by giving us a cosmic speed limit.

One of the biggest problems to overcome with time travelling at the speed of light, besides the challenge of inventing a vehicle that can travel that fast, is the fuel it would take to power a vehicle to travel that fast. The faster you go the more fuel you use so to go on the theory that you need to travel at the speed of light to time travel then we would have to find a different source of fuel.

WORMHOLES

Another theory on how it could be possible to time travel is the possibility of wormholes, even though a wormhole has yet to be discovered, scientists believe they are there. Before black holes were discovered scientists had an idea that they existed and they were right, so there is a very good chance that wormholes exist, we just need to find them and I believe we will.

In 1957 John A Wheeler, a theoretical physicist, coined the phrase, "wormhole" in his simple analogy of a worm that eats through the apple and comes out the other side, creating a short-cut through the apple. If you use this analogy in space and a wormhole has been created, in theory, you could jump through the wormhole and come out the other side, "a short-cut". You would go in through a black hole and come out through a white hole. The rest of us would be moving along in time, living each second, going through a wormhole would transport you into the future.

Hypothetical wormholes

The Einstein-Rosen bridge, first laid out by Albert Einstein and his colleague Nathan Rosen in 1935, is a scientific explanation of a wormhole. Imagine space as a two-dimensional (2D) surface, imagine this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows you to picture a wormhole "bridge" similar to the above picture of a hypothetical wormhole.

As I have said there is no visual evidence for wormholes, but on a theoretical level there are valid solutions to the equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity which contain wormholes. The first type of wormhole solution discovered was the Schwarzschild wormhole which would be present in the Schwarzschild metric describing an eternal black hole, but it was found that this type of wormhole would collapse too quickly for anything to travel through it. Wormholes which we could actually travel through, known as traversable wormholes, would only be possible if exotic matter with negative energy density could be used to stabilize them.

TRAVEL BY BUBBLE

The final theory on time travel that I am going to talk about is a more recent theory and that is to travel within a bubble in space. Two physicists suggest that a future spaceship could fold a space-time bubble around itself to travel faster than the speed of light. The idea involves manipulating dark energy, the mysterious force behind the universe's ongoing expansion, to propel a spaceship forward without breaking the laws of physics. "Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. The ship would be pushed by an existing bubble that occurs in space which is travelling faster than the speed of light but the spacecraft within the bubble is not moving faster than the speed of light. The ship would be carried along on a wave. Although if you have ever tried to surf, which I haven't but I would hazard a guess that it is pretty difficult to catch a wave on the sea, so I guess it may prove difficult to catch a wave in space.

Strange as it sounds, current evidence supports the notion that the fabric of space-time can expand faster than the speed of light because the reality in which light travels is itself expanding. Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a Baylor graduate student, tapped the latest idea in string theory to devise how to manipulate dark energy and accelerate a spaceship. Their notion is based on the Alcubierre drive, warp drive, which proposes expanding space-time behind the spaceship while also shrinking space-time in front.

The Alcubierre drive, as it's known

A spacecraft could travel at warp velocity

Some scientists believe that a total of 10 dimensions exist, including height, width, length and time. The other six dimensions exist largely as unknowns, but everything is based on hypothetical one-dimensional strings. A newer theory, called M-theory, suggests that those strings all vibrate in yet another dimension. Manipulating that additional dimension would alter dark energy in terms of height, width, and length. Such a capability would permit the altering of space-time for a spaceship, taking advantage of dark energy's effect on the universe.

The dark energy is simultaneously decreased just in front of the ship to decrease (and bring to a stop) the expansion rate of the universe in front of the ship. If the dark energy can be made negative directly in front of the ship, then space in front of the ship would locally contract.

This loophole means that the spaceship would not conflict with Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which states that objects accelerating to the speed of light require an infinite amount of energy.

However, the Baylor physicists estimate that manipulating dark energy through the extra dimension requires energy equivalent to the converting the entire mass of Jupiter into pure energy, enough to move a ship measuring roughly 33 feet by 33 feet by 33 feet. That is an enormous amount of energy. We are still a very long way off before we could create something to harness that type of energy.

So there you have it, 3 possible ways of time travel. It will never happen in our lifetime but for our future descendants who knows.