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What annihilated 830 square miles of forest in Siberia 100 years ago? On the centennial anniversary, there's a bunch of coverage out there of the event: from the NY Times' rambling, boring coverage to Discover magazine's more succinct and fascinating piece and everything in between (here's a piece from Scientific American with lots of pics).
Here are some pretty amazing details from the Discover Magazine piece:
- The explosion likely occurred four to six miles above the Earth's surface
- The culprit was probably a meteor less than 100 feet across
- Moving at 21,000 mph, the rock unleashed a blast 1000-times more powerful than an atom bomb (somewhere between 10 and 15 megatons of TNT)
- Light from the event was visible as far away as London. And it was more than just a flash. "Londoners could still read their newspapers by the mysterious light in the night sky a day or so later."
- No extraterrestrial material was ever recovered from the blast zone
- Some speculate the explosion was caused by "an enormous upwelling of methane gas from beneath the Earth's crust."
Why are severed feet washing up on Canadian coast near Vancouver? They've been washing up for almost a year now -- five total, two in the last month -- but authorities are still struggling to come up with answers reports the Guardian UK.
Could the feet belong to 2004 Asian tsunami victims? Could they be the remains of maritime accident victims? Or are we witnessing the calling card of a serial killer? Pound360 is both fascinated and pretty creeped out by the whole thing.
Four of the feet are right feet. Three are size 12. All are fitted with a running shoe.
Could it just be a strange coincidence? Experts disagree. "This is such a highly improbable situation it begs the question of foul play," said one oceanographer. However, a police spokesperson told the Guardian, "it is a unique situation but that doesn't mean there is a link between them all."
On the NBC Nightly News yesterday, they reported UFOs over Phoenix. The broadcast version of the story was not available, but Pound360 found this.
This isn't the first time their was a mass-sighting of mysterious lights over Phoenix. In 1997, thousands watched a triangular formation coast across the state.
After investigating the latest incident, Pound360 learned they lights were probably part of a backyard science experiment of some kind. According to the Arizona Republic, a witness saw their neighbor "launch several helium balloons with flares attached to them" from their porch.
The Village Voice seemed to have this all figured out from the start. According to the NY paper, "UFOs are big business" for media companies since reporting on them brings high ratings. Pound360 hopes that works for this blog.
Yesterday morning, news of a Texas UFO sighting was the most read article at CNN when Pound360 was combing the site around 8AM. Run a search at Google News for “Texas UFO” and hundreds of articles come up, from the Washington Post to the Telegraph UK and everything in between.
Why?
CNN reports that, according to the “Mutual UFO Network,” 200 UFO sightings are reported each month. So what’s so special about the latest sighting in a small Texas town, population 17,000, called Stephenville?
Quite frankly, I have no idea. Slow news day, maybe.
According to town residents, the UFO “was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane.” And the whatever-it-was had shifting lights, which airplanes don’t have. Some observed “fighter jets chasing it,” reports CNN. One resident, who got a good look at the craft through his rifle scope, described “a very large” craft with no seams, no nuts and no bolts.
Witnesses include a pilot, county constable and others, according to the CNN report. And others in the region have reported seeing the fast-moving, big, low-flying object, too.
Officials at local Air Force Bases say none of their aircraft were present at the time of mass-sightings. And of course, one air force official has an explanation he’s “90 percent sure” of. Nah, not swamp gas or light from a meteor reflected off a windshield. Nope. Remember how residents said the craft was too big, fast and low to be an airplane? Well, Air Force Maj. Karl Lewis of the 301st Fighter Wing at Forth says it wasn’t one plane but two planes! “The object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes,” CNN reports Lewis describing. Oh, and don’t forget the sun. “"With the sun's angle, it can play tricks on you,” Maj. Lewis said.
Officials confirm a meteorite smashed into the Peruvian countryside leaving a crater 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep, according to CNN. Following the impact, “small rocks rained down… for several minutes” on the roof of one nearby house.
Following the impact, 200 villagers claimed they were sickened by fumes resulting from the event. Symptoms include headaches, nausea and breathing problems. As of now, alien embryos have not sprung from the chests of anyone affected.
Experts doubt the meteor is directly responsible for the mysterious illness. “Fear may have provoked psychosomatic ailments,” suggested CNN based on talks with scientists on the scene.
Didn’t they say the same thing about World Trade Center Syndrome and Gulf War Syndrome? At best, people claiming they suffered from these mysterious afflictions were victims of their own psychosomatic powers. At worst, they were exploring a creative way to profit from extraordinary events. But these days, isn’t it pretty well accepted that real illnesses were at play?
What did aircraft mechanics and pilots at Chicago’s O’Hare airport see on the afternoon of November 7, 2006 at 4:30PM above terminal C17?
No one is sure, but a new report from a private agency, the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCA) concluded the object was solid and a “potential threat” to air traffic at O’Hare.
In an infamous report by the Chicago Tribune published on January 1, the words used to describe the “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) based on eyewitness accounts include “elliptical-shaped,” “motionless,” “saucerlike,” “dark gray and well defined,” “made no noise,” “metallic-looking object” and “did not display any lights”. On each of these points, witnesses were in agreement. The only things they seemed to disagree on were how big the thing was (somewhere between 6 and 24 feet) and whether or not it was spinning.
Once again, these were aircraft mechanics and pilots that saw the thing. Not accountants, teachers or waitresses. Aircraft mechanics and pilots: people that know what conventional aircraft look like.
But they couldn’t identify what ever it was they saw on November 7, 2006 at 4:30PM above gate C17 at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport.
According to the Tribune report, “All the witnesses to the O'Hare event, who included at least several pilots, said they are certain based on the disc's appearance and flight characteristics that it was not an airplane, helicopter, weather balloon or any other craft known to man.”
After hovering for a few minutes, the object shot through the cloud deck and left a circular wound, “like somebody punched a hole in the sky,” said one witness.
So what are officials at the FAA, O’Hare airport and United Airlines doing to investigate this potential threat to air traffic safety? Denying anything unusual happened, lying, making lame excuses and cracking jokes (in that order), of course.
At first, the FAA shrugged their shoulders when asked about the O’Hare incident. But when Tribune reporters filed a Freedom of Information Act request, they suddenly perked up and acknowledged one of United’s workers called the O’Hare traffic control tower to report something mysterious in the airspace over Concourse C.
Despite the FAA record, United denies any knowledge of the incident. “There's no record of anything,” a spokesperson told the tribune. The FAA has one. And according to witnesses, United actually does have a record or two. “Some [witnesses] said they were interviewed by United officials and instructed to write reports and draw pictures of what they observed.”
At least one flight controller expressed concern over the incident. "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said one worker.
FAA officials were able to control their laugher long enough to give an official explanation of what all those kooky aircraft mechanics and pilots saw: “weather phenomena.”
It’s comforting to see that FAA officials and air traffic controllers, the people closest to aircraft mechanics and pilots, take their reports so seriously. I’m already feeling safer about my next plane trip.
For the record, my interest in this subject was renewed by a recent report on the O’Hare incident by the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).
If you’re reading this near the end of July, 2007, I apologize. I know this story is everywhere, but I couldn’t resist adding this to the blog. For those who have not heard, a cat named Oscar shows up next to patients within hours of death in a Rhode Island nursing home. Check out the story at CNN.
So far, Oscar has accurately predicted death in 25 observed cases.
Even when doctors observe signs that death is near, Oscar doesn’t come in until the final hours. In one case, a doctor noticed a patient had stopped eating, was having difficulty breathing and her legs were turning blue: sure signs of imminent death. But Oscar was nowhere to be seen, so the doctor “thought his streak was broken,” reports CNN. As it turns out, the patient didn’t die for 10 hours, and during the last two, Oscar was there.
Some speculate that Oscar is picking up a scent that signals death is near. Others suggest that he’s observing something in the behavior of nurses. Still others think it has something to do with “self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person.”
If any or all of these have something to do with Oscar’s uncanny ability, if it’s so easily explained, why aren’t other cats doing this?
Something crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The rancher who found the wreckage thought it was a downed flying saucer. The local paper thought so, too. The headline of the July 8, 1947 edition of the Roswell Daily Record read, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region.” (RAAF stands for “Roswell Army Air Field). According to the article, the Army announced it had “come into possession of a flying saucer.” Shortly thereafter, the Army held a press conference, apparently, to clarify its position. It wasn’t a flying saucer, but a reconnaissance balloon that had crashed.
Since the crash, witnesses have come forward to refute the Army’s position. They’re convinced it was an aircraft of incredibly advanced technology. Some witnesses even claimed the Army recovered alien bodies. Are these people nuts? The Air Force released two reports in the nineties saying they are.
But one of the military’s own broke ranks from beyond the grave recently.
Lieutenant Walter Haut was RAAF public relations officer at the time of the controversial crash. In fact, he’s the very man that delivered the press release describing how a recon balloon, not a flying saucer had crashed near Roswell. And he stuck to that story until his death last year. Now, the text of a sworn affidavit by Haut (only to be opened after his death) has surfaced that contradicts everything.
According to the affidavit, “the weather balloon claim was a cover story… the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar,” according to a report in the Sydney Telegraph. (Did anyone see a US news source pick this up?) Not only did Haut confirm the recon balloon business was nonsense, but he claims to have seen alien bodies.
In Haut’s affidavit, he describes a meeting with base commanders where they inspected unidentifiable materials from the crash. He also revealed that there was a second, more extensive crash site that the public never learned of. Most surprisingly, he details a visit to the Air Field’s “Buliding 84,” where he saw a cigar-shaped craft approximately 15 feet in length and two bodies, partially covered by a tarp, that were about 3 feet tall and had “disproportionately large heads.”
"I am convinced that what I personally observed was some kind of craft and its crew from outer space,” read the affidavit.
