We’ve made it through Elenin which kinda fizzled out like a damp sparkler and we’re into 2012 and yes change is in the air with the NEW LOOK Rational Mystic Blog….
Ok, so I know January is all but over, however I have been neglecting this blog – mostly because of the work that has been going into Penwith Radio in general and The Real Twilight Zone in particular. I really hope you’re aware of both!
So. to kick things off in this new blog I thought I’d share a couple of skeptical videos – something that I hope will draw comment and provoke discussion.
The first is from Skeptic Michael Shermer
And the second from the magician turned skeptic – James Randi
Yes I admit it – I come clean… I am part of the conspiracy!!!
Well I guess I must be as I seem to be constantly commenting on the numerous conspiracy theories ‘out there’ with what I hope is some kind of rational perspective. You see I refuse to let even my mystical self wallow in unchallenged rhetoric – surely self development and empowerment on all levels is about questioning and discovery?
So what am I rambling about now?
Well the 2012 stuff (which I have written and podcasted about before) is still ensnaring people in a web of misinformation leading to panic. I read on one website that NASA were even fending questions like ‘should I kill my children now to save them the pain of the devastation to be wrought by 2012′?
I guess if the emotional damage was caused by the plot of the movie 2012 the maybe BUT if the concern is one of death from the skies, global earthquakes and world wide tsunami then….. perhaps not.
The latest bit of hysteria seems to be generated by Comet Elenin which is due to ‘come close’ on October 16th – so close to Samhain (Halloween) yet a couple of month before 2012!
There are SO many questions and that bastion of academic learning and scientific enquiry YOUTUBE is full of the information you need to know but that scientists are keeping secret!!!
Well actually all of the answers are out there – nope not ‘out there’ but on the world-wide-web – if you want to look outside of your conspiratorial bunkers.
Information Point 1:
Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin discovered the innocuous little comet on Dec. 10, 2010, at International Scientific Optical Network’s robotic observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico.
Presently the comet is a faint smudge of light in deep sky exposures. By late August comet Elenin should be visible to the naked eye as a dim “fuzzy star” with a tail. Over a few weeks the visitor will speed across the spring constellation Virgo and toward Leo on its outbound leg.
I can’t find the specific reference for the origin of this ‘plot’ of the path of Elenin – but it does seem to fit the general consensus. It shows the closest ‘pass’ at .23 AU – an AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun (that’s around 93 million miles).
But I have seen this video and on some sites it is attributed to NASA - together with this claim…
“NASA’s put a video up in their Buzzroom about Elenin, but it is not there anymore [it is on YouTube]. It was probably pulled down more due to its amateur nature rather than as part of any grand conspiracy theory, but the relative silence by NASA and the mainstream media regarding Elenin has the Armageddon chatrooms abuzz with theories of doom and gloom.”
A NASA Video - ummm …. I somehow think not!
Information Point 2:
As I write now the Comet is at least as far away from Earth than the Sun is – that’s 93 million miles or so Also, it is important to know that Comet Elenin is a loose agglomeration of volatile ices and dust a few miles across. It is therefore one hundred billionth the mass of our moon. (The relative difference is roughly the same as the mass of a mosquito vs. the mass of an oil supertanker.).
So any of the claims that this comet has ‘already’ caused global shifts, earthquakes, tsuman’s and triggered polar shifts is nonsense.
Information Point 3:
Current published NASA and other Astronmical Association sources confirm that the comet will pass no closer to us than 84 times the Earth-moon distance. Comet Elenin will sweep nearest to Earth on Oct. 16 at a distance of 21 million miles and be moving fast enough to travel the distance from Earth to the moon in under five hours!
Not close enough for an object if it’s size to have any major gravitational effect upon the Earth – certainly nothing of the scale suggested by the 2012 doomsayers. Besides applying Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity, this means the comet’s tidal pull on Earth — at closest approach — will be approximately one-hundred trillionth the force of the moon’s tidal pull on Earth.
Information Point 4:
Comets and Planets don’t get on!.
This is an interesting comment from a real astronmers website – you know the folks that look at the sky, study it and have some kind of expertise in the workings of the solar system.
“What’s more, comets get the worst end of the deal when they venture near larger bodies — just like that mosquito slamming into the supertanker
Some comets dive-bomb the sun routinely. What happens? They disintegrate into pieces.
The same held true for comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that was ripped apart by tidal forces when it ventured too close to Jupiter. When the comet pieces plunged into Jupiter in 1994, the planet simply belched a few mushroom clouds from titanic impact explosions.
On May 11, 1983 comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock swept within 3 million miles of Earth –- one of the closest comet approaches in modern times. The visitor looked as big as the full moon and sped across a wide swath of sky in just a few days.
That same day saw an explosion of protests in Santiago, Chile against the decade-long rule of General Augusto Pinochet. Unless you’re an astrologer, the comet’s influence was not to blame.
The closest ever-recoded flyby of Earth was comet Lexell in 1770, which passed at 1.4 million miles. On Jan. 26th that year a magnitude 9 earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America.
Similarly, many coincidences will happen this year that people will want to blame on comet Elenin.
The most bizarre link is that the comet’s closest approach to the sun happens on the 10th anniversary of the combined terrorist attacks on the U.S. “Is it a coincidence that Elenin could be seen as “Elevennine” (9/11 backwards)?” asks one conspiracy website.
In the cosmic scheme of things, comet Elenin is simply a nice target for backyard sky watchers to follow. But Earth as a planet isn’t phased at all.”
But does this satisfy the conspiracy buffs???
Clearly not… this was taken from a comment on a YouTube video…
“E.L.E.N.I.N. = Extinction Level Event Niburu Inbound Now. ELE pronounced like ellie, means extinction? level event. “Leonids” are meteors associated with a comet. So there’s your Leonid Elenin. Someone pointed that out to me and I see the connection, pretty clever code name.”
Ummm …. how about this one then …. P.R.A.T. – Poorly Reasoned Asinine Thinking
I mean all this fuss over a Comet – I wonder why there’s not as much conspiratorial humbug and posturing about Vesta!
Vesta is much bigger than Elenin and so much bigger…. V.E.S.T.A is of course a VERY EXCITABLE TERRESTRIAL ANNIHILATOR …..
Vesta is 530 kilometers (330 miles) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt and on n July 16 the asteroid will about 188 million kilometers (117 million miles) from Earth.(source NASA/JPL)
But still the Rapture is upon us and Elenin the messenger of doom…
“Scripture tells us God will use asteroids &/or comets chunks of the rebellious angels’ planet in future judgment.An impact originating in outer space will likely B the climax of the Gog / Magog War Rebel angels were judged with a blast of giant stones from Rahab destroying the civilization at Cydonia that once gave glory 2 God. According to Mosaic law stoning was the prescribed means of execution for those guilty of? idolatry, apostasy, blasphemy, divination, adultery, juvenile rebellion”-
YouTube subscriber
Information Point 5:
There are claims that NASA has taken down references and projections re the comet adding to conspiracy speculations. Well as of right now I can say that the information is there….
Apparently the real risk comes from the gaseous tail of the comet. OK, so the comets tail is said to be around 900,000km in length and if you believe at least one internet source … has a fleet of UFO’s hidiing within it but is this a cause for concern?
The science of comets is well document and since the tail of a comet is largely ionised gas (not rocks and moons and dare I say flying saucers) it has been suggested that the “entire tail of a typical comet, at Earthly pressures and temperatures, would fit into a good-sized briefcase.”
If I am being correct then a comet of course has two tails – one of gas and one of ‘dust’. The latter if coming close the atmosphere of a planet will simply burn up and may well result in a nice meteor shower.
Now here’s the thing – all of the diagrams you will see on YouTube about the approach of Elenin are oversimplified – they have to be. More importantly they are TWO-DIMENSIONAL so the relative positions (and implied closeness) of the comet and the Earth is not shown clearly. My point …. well again I defer to an experience astronomer…
“The comet actually passes above our orbit, missing Earth in the vertical direction by some 2.4 million miles. The chance for an impact is zero. Even stray meteors are extremely unlikely. We’re close but not that close. Keep this in mind too – comet tails point away from the sun. When Elenin and Earth are closest, its tail will be directed back and away from us…”
I think the point is that there are plenty of things to distract us from the real issues and challenges for our survival, If some of the creative energy put into the more outlandish of the conspiracy theories was put into solving global problems of war, hunger, poverty then perhaps the human race would be free to evolve. Again, the conspiracy advocates would have us believe that these issues are actually the consequence of other agencies – P2, NWO, Reptilians and the such – and folks like me are just the defenders of some secretive regime.
A question …
Do these harbingers of doom and prophets of ‘the real truth’ offer solutions for the ills of which they speak outside of promoting their next book, their next conference, their next lecture tour. Conspiracy Theory is its own industry – perhaps funded by the same folk who the advocates claim are in charge of information…. they’re all in it together distracting us from achieving real empowerment of the human race!
Heck so what if the Elenin (Extinction Level Event) folk are right? Perhaps the world governments wouldn’t tell us; perhaps they would make secret plans…. perhaps ….
Perhaps then I should stop wasting my time on my personal learning journey and just enjoy the sun; the sea; the world and the nice things in my life before the cosmic death that is …..
So at the risk of being accused of being a government ‘patsy’ can I suggest you have a look at the NASA site where I for one think that there is more than a little expertise in things astronomical….NASA
Let’s talk Rationally for a moment. Why is it that some of the promoters of 2012 Doomsday Events are still getting away with promoting spurious conclusions from poorly researched souces?
Now, let’s dismiss from this discussinon, any talk of ‘spiritual transformations’ which may or may not occur in 2012, but keep focussed on those claims which can be verified…. this means the scientific claims.
As far as I can determine the key claims about the 2012 doomsday event are:-
The Mayans
The Mayan Calandar runs out so they ‘knew’ the world would end.
The Maya knew this because they were great astronomers and were able to ‘work things out’.
Comment:
The calendar ‘runs’ out so what?
The truth is that there are Mayan inscriptions with ‘predicted dates’ well beyond 2012 – proponents of the 2012 end really need to check their archaeology.
Yes they were ‘advanced’ and of course we shouldn’t underestimate their achievements BUT are you willing to accept these kind of comments….
“Their technology was incredibly advanced—they built structures that modern man cannot. The Mayans erected stone buildings similar to the mysterious construction known as Stonehenge and the great pyramids in Egypt. Even today, with out supercomputers and advanced mathematics and experience in building skyscrapers, scientists and engineers still can’t fully agree on how these ancient monuments were built“
The highlighted sections of this quote are worth of much thought and consideration. To the first I say ‘Really?”, to the second I would say that not agreeing with a precise method of construction is not the same as saying ‘we cannot’. The issue about agreement of construction method is more about being ‘unable to state with 100% certainty’ what was done.
The argument from ‘personal incredulity’ – just because the author doesn’t understand how something happened does not mean than no one does!
The Astronomical Evidence
Alignment with the Galactic Centre
Planet X
Polar Shifts
Comments:
Taking the last one first. Any one who has studied Geography to even an elementary level will be familiar with the idea of Plate Tectonics. What such people may also know was that this idea was also linked, or grew out of, the concept of Continental Drift – initially an observation about how certain coastlines seemed to ‘fit together’ like pieces of a large jigsaw. (Look at South America and Africa for example).
Current thinking is that the earths crust is divided into a number of relatively internally stable “plates” are blocks of earth crust. Most of the volcanism and earthquakes of any major significance occur at the boundaries of these plates. Some ‘plates’ are moving away from each other and new crust is being created on the ocean floor. Some ‘plates’ are moving together so that crust is being destroyed at these boundaries. Hence the continents, which are on some of the plates, are part of some slow, “dynamic dance” around the surface of the Earth (apologies for the flowery, poetic metaphor).
Studies of the sea-floor show a history of the Earths magnetic poles – and yes there have been regular, in geological terms, magnetic reverals – the poles shift. This is largelt due to the internal geology of the Earth; the way it acts like a ‘self-exciting dynamo; and the physics of rotating masses.
However, no matter how much I write on this topic you could say that as I am not a planetary scientist what do I know? (Well my BSc is actually in Geology and Earh Science – but of course I’m not published in that field)
However people seem to be willing to accept information from far less informed sources….
For example:-
“Planet X, or Nibiru, passed between the planets Jupiter and Mars some 7,200 years ago. According to archeological and biblical records, the Great Flood resulted from it. Not a small event (By the way, if you don’t believe that the Great Flood happened and think that it’s just some religious mumbo-jumbo, look it up online, go ahead, it’s a true story and real event). Nibiru will again pass Earth sometime between now and 2012, but on a much closer and most critical orbit–the closest yet since the last galactic alignment, almost 26,000 years ago. The passing of Nibiru can cause nearly complete melting of the poles and glaciers, drastically raising the water level of oceans resulting in horrific world-wide flooding and massive tidal waves as ice liquefies and rushes to fill the natural flow patterns present before the time it froze.”
Please note the ‘tone’ of the above passage – does it present a considered, reflective argument.
Perhaps the following is less….. emotional…
Scientists know we our planet is aligning with the galactic equator
As stars and planetary systems, including our own approach this galactic plain the gravitational influence increases, which disturbs the stability of the planets, including earth. The passage through the most dense portion of the gravitational plain is the direct result of the devastation cycles and pole shifts that we see recorded throughout earths history.
Scientists have a theory that is quite similar to the Mayan prophecies of the planets alignment. This theory is called pole shifting, in which the position of the north and south pole change, which could cause world wide disaster, massive tsunamis could wipe out coastal cities, hurricanes on every continent, it would be major catastrophe, unlikely as it seems a Princeton University study suggest the poles have shifted before and that the north pole was in the middle of the pacific, which would put Alaska at the equator
Well the mention of Princeton University makes the whole thing seem credible, execpt it’s clear that the ‘scientific evidence’ points at polar shifs (which has mentioned above are well documented) and should not in anyway be seen to give credence to the rest of the diatribe..
Let’s look at what planetary scientists do say on these issues (the following comes from NASA)..
Q: Could phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.
Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.
Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.
Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.
And, to quote from two other sources…
The NEO Office:-
Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011
Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data.
Four planets will form a cluster on the horizon and will be best seen around dawn. They are Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars. This is a prelude many say to the end of the world in 2012 as foretold by the Mayan Calendar which in fact runs out in December 2012. The Mayans believed that the end of the world would be caused by a planetary alignment in 2012. Firstly, although generally called a planetary alignment, it’s not an alignment in the true sense. The planets cluster together within a circle 25 degrees or less in diameter but appear to be in a line as viewed from earth.
Secondly, there will be no planetary alignment in 2012. The next alignment will be in September 2040. Planetary alignments, must have taken place many times over the Earth’s long history. As American Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait says- If as most fortune tellers say such an alignment will have a strong pull on earth and its inhabitants leading to over all destructions, then several such destructions should have taken place and destroyed earth before. However, the earth is still around, as we know it. Recently similar alignments had taken place earlier in 1962, 1982, 1997 & 2000. No sort of disaster happened.
I am happy to include the references for all of the quotes in this blog – it would be reflect upon how often that happens in the doomsayer blogs….
Now the ONLY reason I’m about to launch into a couple of ’movie reviews’ is that they relate to the general theme of this blog.
Both of these movies have been ‘out’ for some time but because of work commitments I’ve only just caught up with them.
So the first – really quick to deal with.
2012
Putting the work of the CGI department aside, which was good but very unbelievable in places, the film was a romp around the tired old end of the world dramas that have been done better before. Several 1960′s Sci Fi films were superior and, to be quite honest I was disappointed by John Cusack an actor I have a lot of respect for. Not his greatest effort.
The 2012 theme played right into the hands of the ‘end of the world’ protagonists who place so much credibility in the Mayan Prophecies (see my trial podcast on 2012 earlier in this blog) and Planet X.
The science behind this film was non-existent and I guess that wasn’t the point of this movie anyway.
However 2012 in comparison to The Fourth Kind was Oscar winning material.
The Fourth Kind
Even my interest in Milla Jovovich could not save this terrible attempt at a mock-u-drama. Purporting to be based on ‘real’ events this film limps unconvincingly through a series of multiscreen depictions contrasting ‘real footage’ with ‘recreated’ footage.
A bad sign in any film is when you cease to care about the characters in it within the first ten minutes!
This film covers so many bases… alien abduction, alien experimentation, repressed memories, possession and throws in a healthy does of Sumerian rhetoric as well. AND this is the key point – it is presented as FACT, fairly convincingly to some of those I have spoken, and so serves to reinforce so many of the fluffy stereotypes people have about UFO research and the associated paranoia that goes with it.
Assuming that the film is an accurate depiction real incidents then I would immediately seek to ‘strike off’ both of the therapists depicted in the movie – particularly Dr Abigail Tyler. Their actions seemed to be so far removed from therapeutic practice that any belief I wanted to invest in the film quickly evaporated.
But what of the ‘reality’ here?
Well a quick internet search proves interesting. For example take this quote…
I did a search to discover the authenticity of the title character, Dr. Abigail Tyler, and discovered an entry in theAlaska Psychiatry Journaland a twitter account:@drabigailtyler. Both relate to viral marketing for the film. The twitter account is clearly a twitter account to promote the film, and certainly not the “real” Dr. Abigail Tyler. The Alaska Psychiatry Journal was only recently registered, in Arizona (not Alaska) and via proxy, and like the twitter account, is clearly not real.
Well Noame is a real Alaskan town and, there have been several recorded disappearances. Actually according to published FBI files there appear to have been as many as 24 disappearances in the mid 2000′s and, you will certainly not be surprised to discover, that non of these have been attributed to alien abductions. Of course this could be because of some governmental conspiracy and if you wish to take that view then I’m afraid non of what follows will satisfy you.
When the FBI stepped in to investigate the cases, FBI profilers dismissed the rumors of a potential serial killer that many thought was stalking the residents in Nome. According to the investigation done by the FBI, “alcohol consumption and a harsh winter” was to blame for most of the missing persons reports. They had ruled out a serial killer due to the fact that most of the cases were accidents or of criminal nature. Most involved alcohol. From Anchorage Daily News for the date of June 30th 2006:
“Of the 24 cases, three are being left alone at the request of families, two had already been prosecuted criminally, and one was a snowmachine accident, said Nome Police Chief Craig Moates. In nine of the cases, a re-examination of available evidence produced “definitive outcomes, ” Moates said. He said alcohol was a common factor in those cases.”
Think about it for a moment – Alaska, remote communities, cut off from the ‘rest of the world’ for parts of the year a potential for some fairly extreme social and psychological pressures. So crime, runaways and perhaps folks simply getting lost in the harsh conditions could explain many if not all of the ‘disappearances’
So what about the archive footage?
Well the ‘interview’ between the films director and Dr Tyler is at the core of this movie. It takes place at Chapman University – a real place, which incidentally was the college the films director attended. Apost on the Chapman blogpoints the movie out as a work of complete fiction, responses to the post chastise the university for allowing the misleading use of its good name, the blog’s author responds by saying, “I wouldn’t take it too seriously – I think everyone will realize that this is a “Hollywood-ized” fictional film based on supposed “actual events.”
We can not only assume that Dr Tyler is a fictional creation (see above) but to be sure we need to consider the reality of Will Tyler – the husband whose death sets the film in motion. Well surprise surprise Dr. William Tyler of Nome does not seem to have existed either. The mysterious death of Abigail’s husband is a key element in the movie. However, the only bit you can find onWill Tyler online is on a site called the Alaska News Archive, it is a short and oddly vague obituary. The site Alaska News Archive (oddly similar to the Medical Journal Archive), is not a real news site. Again, no “about us” page. And, if you, like me, are an internet nerd, you might have looked up the registration information for the site and found that it wasonly registered in August of 2009which seems odd for a site claiming to be from 1998 on.
So what we have is a fictional film, purporting to be about real incidents, marketed by some very effective ‘viral campaigns’. Remember the film 2012 set up a website where you could enter your name onto a lottery for a space on one of the ‘arcs’, well The Fourth Kind goes that small step further in the creation of bogus journals and academic references. The last thing that the ‘paranormal needs’ is further muddying of the waters. I mean there are so many ‘woolly’ thinkers in this area anyway (see my other blog post on anti-intellectualism) that any ‘documentary’ evidence that can be collected to support their spurious claims will be appropriated and become part of their collected mythos.
For example this comment on the twotalkingmonkeys blog…
But sightings and abductions are very real with hundreds and thousands of people reporting it, photo evidence, video evidence. and even physical material analysis of objects taken out from from bodies of abductees that had inconclusive results. (materials that were radioactive and not from this planet)
How do you explain that?
If you read Communion you’ll find disturbing, shocking evidence and stories from abductees. I watched the screening of the film and got to say that i was highly impressed by the portrayal of the characters and abductees.
All I can say is bring on the BEST evidence – not anecdotal or from some popular novel – and let’s look at it honestly, fairly and calmly. Where are these artefacts? Where are these radioactive materials? How do you know that they are ‘not from this planet’?
Let’s be rational about these claims and focus on ONE piece of evidence at a time!
The Rational Mystic Daily is out! http://t.co/usXk0Ap2 ▸ Top stories today via @okeyzz @martynhaskins #, 2012/05/17
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TRTZ no 57 Nikola Tesla - Tesla a genius, capable of speaking eight languages, possessing an eidetic memory and capa... http://t.co/E3nD2R9x#, 2012/05/16
