The South Pole, December 14, 1911

December 14 is the anniversary of the first successful expedition to reach the South Pole, the Amundsen expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872 - 1928). This year marks the 100th anniversary of that expedition, and thus December 14, 2011 is the 100th anniversary of their arrival at the pole.

Amundsen's final successful push to reach the pole departed from their base at Framheim in the Bay of Whales (on sea ice -- Amundsen recorded its latitude as 78° 38'S) on October 19, 1911. In addition to Amundsen, his group consisted of Olav Bjaaland (1873 - 1961), Helmer Hanssen (1870 - 1956), Sverre Hassel (1876 - 1928), and Oscar Wisting (1871 - 1936).

Above is one of only two photographs the expedition is known to have taken on their successful journey. They erected a tent and the flag of Norway at the pole and left a letter inside in case they did not make it back alive.

They did successfully make it back, reaching Framheim again on January 25, 1912. Their success would not become known to the world until the expedition landed in Australia in March that year. The British Antarctic Expedition, led by Royal Navy Captain Robert F. Scott, which had been racing to the pole at the same time, arrived at Amundsen's marker over a month later, in January of 1912, to bitter disappointment. Scott's entire party perished on the return journey.

Fifty years ago, at the fiftieth anniversary of the race to the pole, in a ceremony held at the South Pole, US Navy Rear Admiral David M. Tyree (commander of the US Naval Support Force in Antarctica from 1959 to 1962) said in his remarks that "Scott and Amundsen added to the sum of man's knowledge; more important, they added immensely to the sum of man's inspiration."

The continent of Antarctica is extraordinarily important in terms of clues that it holds regarding the ancient history of the earth and mankind's distant past. Most significantly, it contains clues which point to the fact that the earth experienced a "Big Roll" following the events of a catastrophic global flood. Some of these clues have been discussed in previous blog posts, including "Antarctica" and "Lake Vostok."

The fact that Antarctica is covered with snow and ice is also a remarkable clue which provides evidence supporting the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown. Today, Antarctica is one of the most arid places on earth, with less than six and a half inches of precipitation per year over the entire continent on average (qualifying as a desert, which are generally categorized as places receiving less than ten inches of rain a year).

Antarctica probably became glaciated during the Ice Age which would have followed the global flood, when oceans were warmer and continents were higher, creating the conditions for heavy precipitation which would have been in the form of snow and ice in many latitudes of the world, including of course the Antarctic. Evidence which suggests seafaring humans may have mapped Antarctica's coastlines before it became fully glaciated is contained in various "portolan" maps drawn in the early sixteenth century AD and almost certainly based upon much more ancient maps. This evidence is discussed in the previous post entitled "The subglacial fjords of Antarctica."

Previous posts discussing the achievement of the Amundsen expedition can be found here and here. To see a dramatization of the race to the South Pole in the 1985 television drama entitled The Last Place on Earth, see here.

More on the Kensington Runestone and recent allegations of a hidden message in the text

About a month ago, I wrote a post about the Kensington Runestone, and a recent allegation that the runic inscription found on that Minnesota stone contains a cipher which conceals a hidden message from Olof Ohman indicating that he in fact carved the stone.

The previous post discussed some apparent problems with the decipherment, which appear to call into question the assertions that this new alleged hidden message in the text proves beyond a doubt that Olof Ohman, who found the stone while clearing his farmland in Minnesota in 1898, was playing a practical joke on the world when he inscribed it with runes.

In addition to pointing out some problems with the cipher, that post also pointed to work by anthropological linguist Dr. John Bengtson, who argues that some of the alleged errors in the inscription itself, which scholars have used to allege that the text is nothing but a clumsy forgery, have over time been revealed to be similar to runic inscriptions from Europe that are believed to be authentic. He also points to other linguistic and historic reasons which support the possibility that the stone's inscription may in fact be from 14th-century Scandinavian voyagers.

Dr. Bengtson has pointed out an additional problem with the recent theory about the runestone containing a cryptogram: the supposed hidden message points to the farmer who discovered the stone as the forger. This is actually a very significant point. It has always been problematic to argue that Ohman, a working farmer who with his wife raised nine children while working the difficult soil of Minnesota in the late 1800s, had the time or inclination to forge a runic inscription in a 200-pound rock. Now the runestone's doubters are alleging that he was also able to work a hidden cryptogram into the runic text as well.

Dr. Bengtson argues that if the stone really is a forgery, it would be farfetched to believe that Ohman was the forger. Such a project would have taken a lot of free time and a lot of research and a lot of knowledge that Ohman simply did not have the background to acquire.

This biography of Olof Ohman shows some details which support Dr. Bengtson's argument: Ohman was born in Sweden in 1854 and his father worked a carpentry workshop and kept a couple of cows but did not own any land. Olof's mother died when he was 17, and many of the responsibilities of raising his younger siblings fell to him. In addition, he worked with his father in the carpentry shop and no doubt would have had responsibilities involving the cows as well. By 22 he was working as a hired hand on neighboring farms.

At the age of 24, he boarded a ship bound for America, with a dream of owning his own land. He took a train to Minnesota (where many Scandinavian immigrants gravitated) and worked as a carpenter and in a steam-powered lumber mill and a flour mill. He married a girl who was a Swedish immigrant herself and the daughter of Swedish farmers. They purchased a farm in 1890, at which time they already had two young children with seven more to follow over the years. The family lived in a dugout home on the homestead for at least one year before they could erect a more comfortable structure.

There is little to indicate spare time of the magnitude required to acquire the kind of knowledge necessary create the text of the Kensington Runestone, let alone a hidden message identifying himself as the forger of such a text. The indications from the biography are of a hard-working man who had a dream of someday owning his own farm, and put in a considerable amount of effort and took a considerable amount of risk to achieve that dream.

Some might argue that some other unknown forger created the text, and then created a cryptogram which identified Ohman as the forger, but that does not really make much sense. Further, as noted in the previous post on the subject, there appear to be some problems with the supposed hidden message in the first place (some of the alleged word counts which are supposedly derived from the numbers in the runic inscription do not actually seem to point to words which will create an intelligible message at all).

Also, Dr. Bengtson points out that Ohman found the stone tangled in the roots of a large poplar tree -- he had devised a method of felling trees on the land to clear it which involved digging around the base, cutting through the roots, and then using a winch to topple the tree, according to an article on this website describing the discovery of the stone (and which includes a sketch Ohman made of the tree and the stone's location -- to reach the page in question, follow the link and then click the word "Runestone" in the left-hand menu column). This fact indicates that the stone had been buried for at least many decades. Dr. Bengtson's essay on the subject points to a 2005 study by geologist Scott Wolter which argues that the weathering on the stone indicates that the inscription is at least 200 years old (of course, as a supporter of the authenticity of the Kensington stone, some will argue that Wolter's findings are biased).

While there may be reasons to doubt the authenticity of the Kensington Runestone, it seems that the supposed hidden message identifying it as a prank by Ohman is probably not one of them. Dr. Bengtson makes an excellent point when he says that hoax theories which allege Ohman as the forger are probably on shaky ground.

It seems fair to ask if those who oppose the authenticity of the Kensington Runestone do so because they are skeptical of any European contact with the Americas prior to Columbus. If so, they should known that the Kensington Runestone is not alone, but that there are literally thousands of other pieces of evidence which indicate deliberate and ongoing contact across the oceans long before AD 1492. A list of many others can be found here.

Thanks to Dr. John Bengtson for pointing out the biggest problem in this latest attempt to discredit one of these pieces of evidence.

An excellent website explaining the lunar nodes (with animation)

The previous post discussing the total lunar eclipse mentioned the important concept of lunar "nodes."

It contained a link to another previous post discussing these nodes in some detail, and arguing that the nine-world cosmology found in many ancient myths comes from the fact that the ancients tracked with great care the motions of nine wandering heavenly "bodies": the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the two invisible lunar nodes (which are not actually heavenly bodies but which act like one when they temporarily swallow up the sun or the moon in an eclipse).

Thus, some ancient myths depict a nine-world cosmology (including the lunar nodes) and some ancient myths depict a seven-world cosmology (minus the lunar nodes). This argument was advanced by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in their indispensable 1969 treatise, Hamlet's Mill.

That previous post explained at length the somewhat complicated celestial mechanics whereby the moon's plane and the nodes move about 19.3^o to the west each year, causing them to take 18.65 years to complete a full circle of 360^o.

However, there is an excellent website which discusses these celestial mechanics with great clarity, and which illustrates the concept with absolutely outstanding graphics and animation -- perhaps the best so far for those wishing to understand the movement of the lunar nodes. To view it, visit "Eclipses and the Moon's Nodes," by Dwight Ennis, on the website of the Astrology Club of San Jose, California.

While the beautiful total lunar eclipse of 2011 has now passed, it is still worthwhile to take the time to understand the motion of the moon as it passes above and below the ecliptic in its orbit around earth. You can often determine whether the moon is above or below the ecliptic when you observe it in conjunction with one of the planets (or with a constellation on the ecliptic -- the zodiac constellations), simply by noting whether its path through the sky is above or below the path being followed by the planet or zodiac constellation.

Thanks to Dwight Ennis for sharing his superlative illustrations and animations of eclipses and the lunar nodes with the rest of the world.

Total lunar eclipse 10 December 2011

In fewer than twenty-four hours from now, the full moon will pass through earth's shadow to create a total lunar eclipse. The next one will not take place until April 2014.

This previous post on the phases of the moon explains why lunar eclipses occur at full moons and why solar eclipses occur at new moons. This post contains some other drawings which may be of additional assistance in understanding the mechanics of the moon's orbit and interaction with the earth and the sun from the perspective of viewers on earth.

This previous post explains how the fact that the orbital plane of the moon is tilted at a 5.1^o angle to the plane of the ecliptic (the plane upon which earth, and the other planets to a greater or lesser degree, orbit the sun) creates the two "lunar nodes." These nodes are located where the two planes intersect, and this fact of the offset orbital planes explains why lunar and solar eclipses do not occur every month. The total lunar eclipse that is approaching will take place when the full moon passes through a lunar node, intersecting with the ecliptic plane.

The upcoming eclipse will be visible for observers in the parts of the world shown in the NASA map below.














For some excellent additional discussion and information about this exciting upcoming heavenly event, see the Urban Astronomer blog (which explains viewing details for the west coast of the United States and Canada), the NASA website, and this article from Sky & Telescope.

What about DNA and protein?

Here's a worthwhile video called "from DNA to protein" from the 2003 PBS series entitled DNA. It depicts in amazing graphic detail a process which is taking place in your cells all over your body almost continuously: the duplication of genetic material in the DNA found in the nucleus of a cell, and the sending of that genetic code (in the form of RNA) out into the rest of the cell in order to produce specific proteins which cells use to perform the many tasks which keep us alive.

The entire process is so complex that the producers of the video found it appropriate to add a soundtrack of whirring and clicking machines, so that the background noise gives the viewer the impression that the micro-mechanisms of the cell give off sounds like the machinery in a big mid-twentieth-century factory.

As we have discussed before, the self-replicating molecules essential to all known life (namely, DNA and RNA) pose a very serious problem for advocates of the Darwinian religion. The mechanism of Darwinian evolution involves cellular mutation plus natural selection (plus incredibly long periods of time). However, without self-replicating molecules, none of it would be possible. Thus, when asked how self-replicating molecules could have arisen, Darwinists are at a loss, as arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins articulates very clearly in the famous video interview discussed in this previous post.

Those trying to explain the arrival of a self-replicating molecule have a king-sized problem in that they cannot argue for "evolutionary" steps prior to the achievement of self-replication. Molecules which cannot replicate cannot produce a new generation of molecules which can then carry on the forward progress towards eventual self-replication. If asked "how much better will the next generation of molecules be, if the previous generation has come X degrees closer to self-replication?" the answer will be, "there won't be a 'next generation' if the previous generation still hasn't made it to self-replication." In fact, the very question contains a logical error, because the "previous generation" of molecules striving towards self-replication would not have existed either, since the "generation" before that generation would not have been able to replicate.

Thus, explanations for the origin of the first self-replicating molecule or molecules tend to invoke either the intervention of a supernatural actor, or the intervention of extraterrestrial beings (Richard Dawkins opted for the second choice). This dilemma was discussed in the previous post entitled "Supernatural or extraterrestrial?"

The video above, detailing the production of protein (proteins sometimes being labeled "the building-blocks of life" in high school science classes), brings to light another dilemma involving the origin of DNA. As Dr. Walt Brown points out in the first section of his book on the hydroplate theory, "DNA cannot function without hundreds of preexisting proteins, but proteins are produced only at the direction of DNA." This simple statement creates quite a head-scratcher for those who wish to explain the origins of DNA without any supernatural intervention.

Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory, the evidence for which is discussed in numerous previous posts in this blog, also undermines the arguments of the proponents of Darwinian evolution, in that it removes the need for hundreds of millions of years of slow processes in order to explain the geological features we see in the earth around us. Darwinian evolution is dependent upon long ages of time, and is thus built upon the foundation of the uniformitarian geological explanations put forward about a generation before the publication of the Origin of Species.

The evidence of advanced technological and scientific understanding among the mythology and archeology of the most ancient civilizations we know of (and the evidence that they might have received their knowledge from some even more ancient common ancestor-civilization) also undermines the conventional Darwinian timeline taught in schools to children from the age of 8 through college. Some of this amazing evidence -- and its connection to the geological hydroplate theory of Dr. Brown -- is discussed in the Mathisen Corollary book itself.

While the above video discusses the activity of DNA found within the nucleus of the cell, there is DNA found outside of the nucleus as well, particularly in organelles known as mitochondria, which produce a nucleotide called adenosine tri-phosphate, or ATP, which furnishes energy for the cell. This mitochondrial DNA is extremely important for tracking common parentage in humans, and becomes important in the discussion of the skull of the Ruamahanga Woman (also discussed at some length in the Mathisen Corollary book). This skull is only one piece of evidence (albeit an important one) in an enormous pile of evidence suggesting that mankind's ancient past is quite different from the simple story of linear progression from "early humans" to modern society favored by evolutionists.

The fact that the documentary above was produced by PBS (an entity which is dedicated to supporting the conventional Darwinian storyline and which can hardly be accused of endorsing "alternative" theories) makes it even more compelling. Although it is perhaps conceivable that those who watch it could continue to endorse a non-supernatural, non-extraterrestrial explanation for DNA's origins, it is difficult to imagine that those who do so can with a straight face ridicule and marginalize those who suggest other possibilities.

"The real actors on the stage of the universe are very few"

Not long ago I had the opportunity to view the movie The King's Speech, a movie which won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Director (Tom Hooper), and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler).

The movie tells the uplifting story of a man -- King George VI -- who overcomes a debilitating speech impediment and the limitations which others wished to impose upon him, through his own courage and through the friendship and perseverance of a creative and unorthodox speech therapist, Lionel Logue (portrayed by the talented Geoffrey Rush).

Just prior to the film's critical moment (the crucial radio address by the king in 1939 declaring a state of war with Hitler's Germany), the indomitable Winston Churchill provides the king with additional moral support when he states frankly that he himself has had to overcome a speech impediment, which, Churchill says, he turned into "an asset."

Not long after seeing that excellent film, I happened to be watching a movie I had seen literally dozens of times (since I have children who enjoy Lemony Snicket), A Series of Unfortunate Events (with the irrepressible Jim Carrey in one of his best performances ever, in my opinion), and only then did I realize that the stuffy Mr. Poe was portrayed by the same actor who turns in such a memorable Churchill in The King's Speech, Timothy Spall (who has played many other memorable characters in many other films -- he is seen above in the role of Nathaniel in the filming of the 2007 movie Enchanted).

It occurs to me that this phenomenon -- the recognition of an actor with whom we are familiar in one role when we see them in a different role and not recognizing them at first -- is a good metaphor for the theory put forward by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in their groundbreaking 1969 work Hamlet's Mill. The thesis of that text is the allegation that an advanced ancient civilization -- understanding astronomy to a very sophisticated degree -- encoded their scientific knowledge of celestial mechanics in the memorable myths which have come down to us, told through the centuries by those who did not necessarily understand at all what esoteric knowledge was buried within.

In that essay, speaking of the planets (whose activities as they pass through the various constellations in different combinations and configurations generate the vast majority of the familiar stories of mythology) tell us:

But obviously there is more, and what emerges here lifts the veil of a fundamental archaic design. The real actors on the stage of the universe are very few, if their adventures are many. The most "ancient treasure" -- in Aristotle's word -- that was left to us by our predecessors of the High and Far-Off Times was the idea that the gods are really stars, and that there are no others. The forces reside in the starry heavens, and all the stories, characters and adventures narrated by mythology concentrate on the active powers among the stars, who are the planets. 177.

(We have cited this passage before in this previous post; for a further elaboration of the idea of Aristotle's "ancient treasure" see this previous post, and for an example of one such myth -- namely the story of Ares and Aphrodite being captured in a tryst by Aphrodite's husband Hephaestus, see this previous post).

The point being made by de Santillana and von Dechend is that there are actually very few actors on the celestial stage -- in fact, there are really only seven -- but that among these seven, they take on just about all the varied roles found in all the various myths. Many times, they play several different roles within a single culture's mythology. For example, Hamlet's Mill explains that Prometheus, Hephaestus, Phaethon, and Kronos are all among the many manifestations of aspects of the planet Saturn. Likewise, Hercules, Ares and even Orion appear to manifest certain aspects of the planet Mars (and there are literally hundreds of other examples). Further, these same planets take on similar roles in the mythologies of other cultures (Mars appears as an impetuous strongman in mythologies from Central America to Japan, for instance).

When we watch contemporary movies and notice that certain actors seem to appear in roles that at first seem very different and even unrecognizable, but then in a flash we suddenly recognize the familiar actor, this experience is analogous to what de Santillana and von Dechend tell us is going on in mythology. The portrayal of Lionel Logue by Geoffrey Rush is very different from the role of Captain Barbossa which Rush created with such enthusiasm and verve in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, but there are similarities as well, such as a delight in language and the power of speech.

In fact, it turns out that the Series of Unfortunate Events in which Timothy Spall portrays such a memorable Mr. Poe may be an excellent example for understanding what de Santillana and von Dechend were driving at, because the film itself features a character (Jim Carrey's Count Olaf) who pops up in one disguise after another, incredibly different, but always recognizable after a few minutes of amazement by the viewer.

This analogy may be helpful to keep in mind when negotiating the difficult but rewarding text of Hamlet's Mill.

The fossil whales of the Atacama Desert

Scientists are at something of a loss to explain the recent discovery of beautifully preserved fossil skeletons of large whales and other ancient marine creatures in the Atacama Desert of Chile, one of the world's most arid locations.

In June of 2010, during a highway widening project that is now on hold, paleontologist Mario Suarez was called in to supervise and prevent damage to any fossils, which had long been known to be present in the area, according to this Associated Press article describing the site. However, he was astonished by what began to emerge: skeleton after skeleton, now totaling more than 75 whales, including at least 20 perfectly intact skeletons, most of them of baleen whales around 25 feet in length, plus at least one sperm whale.

"In the first week, about six or seven whales appeared," Suarez is quoted as saying. "We realized that it was a truly extraordinary site."

The location of so many fossilized marine skeletons in a single location -- let alone in the Atacama Desert -- has posed something of a challenge for scientists using conventional geological assumptions. Nick Pyenson, the curator of fossil marine mammals for the Smithsonian, says he believes that "they died more or less at the same time."

Some hypotheses that scientists have come up with so far to explain the massive graveyard include an ancient lagoon in which whales and other marine life gathered which was suddenly sealed off from the ocean by an earthquake or a storm, or a giant wave or tsunami which flung the whales onto the shore and well inland. Some have suggested that massive numbers of whales may have beached themselves for some reason and perished, although the location in the high desert more than a half mile from the current shoreline indicates major geological uplift since that time. Other scientists believe that the skeletons may have accumulated over a long period of time, although exactly how or why remains a mystery.

The first question which should be asked in considering these fossils (and all the other fossils around the world) is the question of how anything forms a fossil at all. Under normal conditions, whales which die in the ocean or on the beach do not form fossils -- their remains are completely decomposed by bacteria and chemical action.

The unusual conditions required to form fossils are discussed in this previous post, which notes that the vast majority of fossils around the world exhibit evidence of rapid burial under thick sediments, conditions which would have taken place during the events surrounding a catastrophic global flood as put forward in the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown.

Explanations which rely on gradual processes similar to those which we can see going on around us in "normal" non-catastrophic conditions (such as the idea that the whales were trapped in a lagoon which slowly evaporated and left a fossil graveyard) do not account for the fact that under such conditions no fossils would be expected to remain at all.

The hydroplate theory, however, accounts for massive flows of sediments, tons of which would have infused the floodwaters escaping at high velocity during the rupture event, sediments which would then have blanketed the earth and which would have become sorted by the process of liquefaction during the flood. This process would account for the geological strata found around the globe and the sedimentary rocks which hold the world's fossils, including the whales of the Atacama. It would also clear up the problem of human remains found in strata which conventional paradigms label as hundreds of millions of years old (which conventional researchers generally ignore but which have been found in great numbers in places around the world).

It is certainly possible that many great whales and other marine creatures were overwhelmed by the onslaught of sediment-infused water during such a catastrophic event, and that many of these fossil graveyards ended up at the forward edge of the sliding continental hydroplates which slid away from the original rupture towards the newly-created Pacific basin.

There are other indications of fossil whales along what was the leading edge of the continents sliding towards the Pacific, for instance in California. In September of 2010, for instance, crews contracted by the San Diego Zoo were in the process of digging a hole for a new water tank when they encountered the fossilized skeleton of an ancient baleen whale, which conventional archaeologists declare to be 3.5 million years ago (no doubt based upon assumptions that the sediments were laid down in successive layers over millions of years, rather than during a single catastrophic event). This video shows the San Diego whale skeleton being preserved and moved by paleontologists.

Further north in California, there are numerous fossilized whale remains in the wine country around Paso Robles. One winery, Whalebone Vineyard and Winery, takes its name from this fact, and features a fossilized whale skull near its tasting room.

The hydroplate theory explanation would fit with Dr. Pyenson's suspicion that the ancient whales of the Atacama died at the same time, although there is no indication that he is aware of or partial to the hydroplate theory. In fact, if the hydroplate theory is correct (and there is extensive geological evidence which appears to support it) then it would be accurate to say that almost all of the animals and plants which produced the world's existing fossils "died more or less at the same time."