Stonehenge acoustics, and beyond

Yesterday, the BBC News reported on the work of researchers into the acoustic properties apparently designed into the layout of Stonehenge. 

The article, entitled "Neolithic acoustics of Stonehenge revealed by academics," describes a theory put forward by scientist Dr. Steven Waller in February of this year (it actually fits into the extensive and important acoustical work he has been doing for years at sites around the world, and ties into material on Stonehenge that he published at the end of 2011), which the BBC article describes as "suggesting the design of Stonehenge could have been inspired by music."

In fact, however, the theory of Dr. Waller is much more amazing than that (the author of the BBC article seems to have missed it, as that is as much description of Dr. Waller's work as it gives, with no later elaboration). Based on my understanding of Dr. Waller's written paper describing his November 2011 presentation to the Acoustical Society of America, as well as the remarkable slides he has posted from his presentation on the subject from February of this year, Dr. Waller's theory might be better described as arguing that Stonehenge is actually a physical representation of acoustical wave-patterns! Specifically, it mirrors a two-point sound-wave interference pattern. 

This is an amazing assertion, and Dr. Waller's research, as well as the research of two academics also mentioned in the article, appears to support such a hypothesis. The other two researchers who have now spent several years studying Stonehenge and acoustics are professors Rubert Till of Huddersfield University and Bruno Fazenda of the University of Salford (both in England). Here is a link to an article from 2009 describing some of their findings, and here are links three segments (part one, part two, and part three) from a television show discussing their work (along with over-dramatic narration and actors dressed in furs and skins reinforcing the idea -- stated in the narration -- that Stonehenge was built by primitive stone-age people just learning the first rudimentary skills of farming and beginning to gather in villages).

The work of all three researchers suggests that the site's acoustics may well relate to the use of drumming and even to altered states of consciousness (such as rhythmically induced trances), and to changes in brain-wave activity. Dr. Waller's other work in particular demonstrates the unmistakable connection between shamanic activity and acoustically unusual sites (natural echoing chambers, canyons, and caves, many of which are decorated with significant rock art). Dr. Waller's website Rock Art Acoustics discusses the art and acoustics at many such sites in the American Southwest and West, as well as at the Caves of Lascoux and other sites in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, Australia and the Pacific.

The fact that so many of these sites seem to incorporate both celestial imagery or alignments (Stonehenge contains strong alignments, and the Caves of Lascaux contain celestial imagery, for example) and that Dr. Waller and the other researchers believe their acoustics may be connected with altered brain-wave activity, states of consciousness, or shamanic activity, is extremely significant. 

In her book Approaching Chaos, Lucy Wyatt (whose work is discussed in this previous post) presents evidence that sophisticated incorporation of acoustic principles in ancient structures enabled the use of sonic and ultrasonic vibration that may have played a role in the very purposeful rituals that took place at those sacred sites. The heart of these rituals was a shamanic journey undertaken by a leader in search of beneficial knowledge for rest of the civilization. She points to evidence offered by many researchers suggesting that the Great Pyramid may have incorporated such sophisticated acoustic principles, and notes that other ancient structures around the world, including those on Malta, may have as well (158, 161-165). See this previous post for a discussion of some strong evidence that the ancient temples on Malta incorporate deliberate acoustical manipulation in their design.

Lucy also points out the power of acoustic vibrations to create physical patterns (such as in a thin layer of sand upon a metal disc), something that John Anthony West also discusses in his examination of the evidence of extremely sophisticated knowledge in ancient Egypt and the parallels between these patterns and ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean designs (see for instance the discussion in this previous post and this previous post, as well as of course his indispensable book Serpent in the Sky). Dr. Waller in the slide show linked above makes the insightful observation that, if ancient monuments such as Stonehenge are physical incorporations of acoustical wave-patterns, this could explain the numerous traditions found around the world insisting that ancient megalithic sites were erected by mystical figures using sound (often a flute)!

This appears to be an incredibly important line of investigation. The power and importance of music and chanting has been explored in many previous posts on this blog (see here, here, and here to begin), and the possible connections between acoustics and shamanic activity at these sites suggested by the work of Steven Waller, Rupert Till, Bruno Fazenda, and Lucy Wyatt sheds tremendous new light on the power of sound, and they are to be congratulated for it (and encouraged to continue!). 

The high level of sophistication required for the depiction in massive stone of wave-interference patterns, as well as the achievement of finely-tuned acoustical effects in these megalithic sites, and even the simultaneous incorporation of precise solar and astronomical alignments in the very same structures, also provides compelling evidence that the knowledge that originally informed these monuments was probably not the product of neolithic early farmers as described in the conventional academic narrative and depicted in most popular drawings and shows.

Anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

April 18 is the anniversary of the terrible San Francisco earthquake of 1906. While official records are not extremely accurate, it is now believed that over 3,000 people lost their lives in the quake and the devastating fires that raged afterwards.

The earthquake itself is estimated to have been between 7.9 and 8.25 in magnitude. Previous posts such as this one have discussed reasons to believe that the commonly cited causative mechanism for earthquakes, namely the constant drifting of tectonic plates, is incorrect.

The hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown cites extensive evidence which suggests that the entire model of drifting continental plates is flawed, and that it does not do a good job of explaining evidence regarding the depths of earthquakes or the distribution of earthquake depths around two general groupings, deep and shallow.

Dr. Brown points out that "Plate tectonic theory claims that earthquakes occur when plates rub against each other, temporarily lock, and then jerk loose. If so, why are some powerful earthquakes far from plate boundaries?" Several previous posts, such as this one and this one, have discussed the question of earthquakes far from plate boundaries.

Dr. Brown also notes another important problem with the continental drift model. In a paragraph entitled "Drifting versus Shifting," he points out that the continental drift model and the hydroplate theory each posit a very different type of force to explain earthquakes. The drift model proposes a continual force, which builds up over time and eventually leads to slippage or other sudden release of energy, while the shifting model proposes a disturbance -- an unusual force that acts suddenly.

While each of these two propositions could explain the slippage along the San Andreas Fault that occurred during the 1906 earthquake, there is some evidence which seems to support the hydroplate explanation and not the tectonic explanation. Dr. Brown notes:

Shallow earthquakes sometimes displace the ground horizontally along a fault, as occurred along the San Andreas Fault during the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Western California slid northward relative to the rest of North America. The San Andreas Fault has several prominent bends, so just as two interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle cannot slip very far relative to each other, neither can both sides of the curved San Andreas Fault. Furthermore, if slippage has occurred along the San Andreas Fault for eons, friction should have greatly heated the sliding surfaces. Drilling into the fault has not detected that heat.

This is an extremely important data point, and one which strikes a telling blow against the tectonic explanation. If it were the only data point that seemed to oppose the tectonic theory, it would not perhaps be so damaging, but in fact there are dozens of other powerful data points which are very damaging to the tectonic theory but which seem to support the hydroplate theory. Some of those which have been discussed in previous posts include the arc-and-cusp shape of deep ocean trenches, the unexpectedly low gravity readings scientists have measured over deep ocean trenches, and the difficulties the tectonic theory has in explaining the location of Antarctica (did it all move south on one plate, and if so then how to explain the severe sediment displacement found in the mountain ranges of Antarctica?), as well as the earthquakes far from boundaries mentioned above, and the bimodal depth distribution of earthquakes that Dr. Brown discusses in the passages linked above. The existence of Lake Vostok in Antarctica seems to pose some serious difficulties for the conventional tectonic theory as well.

Another problem with the idea of constant continental drift should be clear to anyone who has studied the rather precise alignments that still exist in ancient structures around the world, including the Giza pyramids, Stonehenge, the passage mounds of the Boyne River Valley in Ireland (such as Newgrange and others), and the ancient megalithic temples of Malta.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States, with appalling loss of life. It serves as an awful reminder of the devastating power of earthquakes. We should insist on continued research and analysis into the true cause of earthquakes, and should be wary of those who insist that our current theories are beyond questioning.

The shamanic tradition in ancient Egypt

Here's a link to an interview on Red Ice Radio with Lucy Wyatt, author of the book Approaching Chaos (2010) as well as the website of the same name.

The interview is in two parts, the first of which has been titled "The Bronze Age City Builders" and the second of which is titled "The Hermetic and Shamanic Tradition."

The topics covered are both fascinating and important, and resonate with many of the subjects that I have noticed and discussed on this blog in the past, although I only recently became aware of Lucy Wyatt's work.

One of the most interesting to me is her assertion of the possibility that many of the ancient texts of ancient Egypt, which were almost universally assumed to describe the journey of the soul after death, actually describe the out-of-body journey (or astral travel) that the pharaoh would take on behalf of his people during life, a practice that survives in the shamanic traditions found in many parts of the world even to this day.

Following and building upon the work of Jeremy Naydler, her work points out the many references in the Pyramid Texts to ascending ladders, flying upwards in the form of a falcon through successive celestial worlds, and other hallmarks of shamanic tradition the world over. This is a connection which I also believe is extremely clear and extremely important, and which I first learned about through the work of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill (1969), discussed in this previous post.

Other previous posts on the subject of the important aspects of lost (or "largely forgotten") civilization that have been preserved in shamanic tradition around the world include:

• "Time, music, and the planets (and the shaman connects all three)"
  

• "Shamans and cosmology, continued"

• "Spiritual meaning of the dismemberment myths?"

and

• "Thoughts on the winged man of Uppaakra"
  

Lucy Wyatt's interview discusses the possibility that the pharaoh prepared for this dangerous and powerful journey his entire life, which he would undertake during the private portion of the Heb Sed Festival, usually inside of a specially-built pyramid, perhaps with special electrical properties enhanced by gold accoutrements (gold being a good conductor of electricity). She notes that among Tutankhamun's burial possessions was a gilded bed designed for his Heb Sed festival. She also notes that the process may have involved some sort of psychoactive substance, possibly derived from gold, and proposes an Egyptian connection to alchemy that is slightly different from that proposed by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887 - 1961) which is discussed in this previous post.

She also suggests that it is possible that the qeni garment which the pharaoh donned during this ritual may have been designed to protect his heart from stopping if electricity was indeed involved in this out-of-body travel of his life essence, and that the "opening the mouth" ceremony described in detail in many ancient Egyptian may have been designed to prevent the pharaoh from swallowing his tongue during this experience.

Another interesting point she makes in her interview is the similarity between the intensive preparation the pharaoh would undertake prior to this shamanic journey and the intense training found in the Buddhist monastic tradition -- and in fact the remarkable similarities between ancient Eygptian and Buddhist thought are also explored in this previous post.

According to her hypothesis, this shamanic connection is no mere sidelight of history: Lucy finds evidence to believe that the original archetype for cities was accessed shamanically, rather than as a natural progression from simple farming villages. She notes that archaeological evidence suggests that shrines and ritual are the beginnings of the ancient Mesopotamian cities (Ur, Uruk, Eridu etc), not market places. Similar evidence can be found all over the world.

For further reading on this very important theory, one which has wide-ranging implications, be sure to check out Lucy Wyatt's book, as well as the excellent and extensive article she published on the Graham Hancock website here.

Also, you can learn more about her work at the upcoming Eternal Knowledge Festival in Suffolk, England, taking place on April 27 - 29.

I believe it is abundantly clear that Lucy Wyatt's work provides a very important perspective on ancient civilization in general and ancient Egypt in particular, one that is very different from the conventionally-understood view, and one that reveals that ancient civilizations may have been far more scientifically advanced than most scholars currently believe, sciences which we moderns (for all our vaunted technology) can barely comprehend.

Titanic

On this fateful day 100 years ago, 14 April 1912 at approximately 2340 hours, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and began taking on water. Less than three hours later, at 0220 hours on 15 April 1912, Titanic would sink beneath the surface forever. Only 710 of those on board would survive: the other 1,514 passengers and crew would perish.

The collision itself can obviously be attributed to a loss of what military professionals call "situational awareness" (this very useful concept and term has since spread to many other fields, because it is an extremely valuable tool for any situation requiring analysis, particularly the analysis of situations requiring decisions in conditions of uncertainty, especially decisions in which mistakes could entail grievous loss of life or property).

In a military environment, situational awareness entails having an accurate picture of the friendly situation, the enemy situation, and the terrain situation. While this may sound easy, it is not. The famous strategist and military analyst Carl von Clausewitz once said, "in war, everything is simple, but the simple is difficult." Anyone who looks back on complex situations such as the command of a massive trans-Atlantic liner or any combat situation in history and says to himself (or herself), "but it was so obvious! that should have been so simple!" should take care to fully understand this insightful observation by Clausewitz.

It has in the past been the case that a battalion or brigade commander has begun a battle at the US Army's most sophisticated force-on-force training centers thinking that all his subordinate units are ready to go, only to learn later that one of his tank companies actually began the battle with critical shortages of ammunition. This would seem to be impossible -- impossible that it would actually happen, but even more unbelievable that the commander would think everything was just fine when in reality the situation was completely different from the picture in his head. This is an example of being unaware of the true "friendly" situation.

It is also quite often the case that the enemy in a combat or training situation deliberately feeds hints that he is doing one thing, only to do the opposite. It is understandable that the friendly commander might interpret the data points he sees as confirming the picture he wants to see in his mind. When the enemy suddenly shows up out of a totally different direction than the friendly commander anticipated, reality comes crashing in and corrects the false picture that the friendly commander had been carrying around in his mind (although often by then it is too late). This is an example of being unaware of the true "enemy" situation.

Again, it is often the case that a friendly commander will believe that his unit can advance through a certain piece of terrain (perhaps a riverbed that affords him a concealed avenue of approach) but when his vehicles actually try to negotiate that terrain, they discover that they get bogged down in soft wet ground and cannot proceed. Conversely, there are times when a commander will conduct analysis which leads him to believe that a certain avenue is impossible for the enemy to negotiate, only to discover too late that the terrain could be traversed by the resourceful opponent (this happened to the Germans at Pointe du Hoc in World War II, when the US Army Rangers demonstrated that there is literally no terrain that cannot be negotiated by a well-led group of Rangers). This is an example of having a failure of situational awareness regarding the terrain.

In the case of Titanic, it is quite obvious in hindsight that the mental picture of the "friendly" capabilities was altogether too optimistic. Everyone knows that the ship was believed to be "unsinkable" by many -- an unfortunate description in the prestigious British journal Shipbuilder published at the occasion of the launching of Titanic's sister ship Olympic in 1910, which declared that these ships were "practically unsinkable" (Daniel Allen Butler, 11). As Daniel Allen Butler says in his 1999 history Unsinkable: The Full Story of RMS Titanic, "Before long, and perhaps inevitably, the qualifying adjective was forgotten by the general public" (11).

This failure of situational awareness is related to the egregious failure to provide enough lifeboats for everyone aboard. As Chris Berg of the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia wrote in an article entitled "The Real Reason for the Tragedy of the Titanic" (and as Butler's 1999 book also points out), the reason for this terrible failure of situational awareness stemmed from the belief that lifeboats were not needed for every passenger, because they were primarily used to shuttle passengers to rescue ships. This was exactly how they had been used in the relatively rare incidents in the decades prior to the Titanic disaster.

As the Clausewitz quotation above cautions us, we should be very careful to avoid falling into the trap of believing that we would have seen the true situation where those alive in 1912 failed to do so. As Daniel Allen Butler writes:

If builders, owners, and officers of the Titanic were complacent and overconfident, they were simply reflecting the attitude of every shipping line in the North Atlantic trade. If the passengers believed that the Titanic was indeed unsinkable, it wasn't because they had succumbed to the blandishments of the shipping line's advertisements or the pronouncements of the experts: in the forty years prior to the Titanic's maiden voyage, only four lives had been lost on passenger ships on the North Atlantic trade. Imagine how blithely air travel would be regarded by present-day travelers, who usually seem to express little enough trepidation about the hazards of commercial flying, if the major airlines possessed a similar safety record. never had any form of transportation been so safe and hazard free. xi.

As for the "terrain," so to speak, we now know that an extensive and dangerous field of ice stretched across Titanic's path, much further south than the captain anticipated (he had already adjusted his course ten miles further south based on warnings received, but not far enough).

Recent analysis suggests that an extremely rare proximity of the moon, combined with the earth's passage through the point in its orbit where it comes closest to the sun, just a few months prior to Titanic's collision with the berg may have created larger tides which enabled larger icebergs to stray further south by April of 1912 than in previous years. This unusual situation may have in some way contributed a bit to the incorrect mental picture in the mind of Captain E. J. Smith (who had successfully plied the Atlantic for forty-five years, beginning at the age of 12, and had been the Captain of the sister ship Olympic for about a year before Titanic's maiden voyage), but as even those who proposed the exceptional-tides hypothesis are careful to state, Titanic sank because she steamed at night into an ice field her captain could have known about, and without slowing down.

Even after the collision, however, a lack of situational awareness appears to have played a decisive role. Daniel Allen Butler provides evidence that -- while the passengers may have been kept from knowing the seriousness of the situation in order to prevent a panic -- the leadership on board were not given a briefing on the grave condition of the ship, although they could and should have been. He writes, "One of the most remarkable aspects of Titanic's sinking is that very few people on board regarded the situation as serious for more than an hour after the collision -- in fact it was nearly 1:15 before Fourth Officer Boxhall was told the ship was going to sink. While no doubt Smith wanted to avoid a panic among the passengers, and quite possibly the crew as well, not letting his officers know just how serious the emergency was may well have contributed to a false sense of security among them, which in turn caused them to allow a number of the boats to leave the ship less than half full" (250 - 251).

An even more awful failure of situational awareness (perhaps not as well known to the public because not included at all in the 1997 film) involves the nearest ship to Titanic, a small liner of 6,000 tons (Titanic was 45,000 tons), the Californian. There is significant evidence that Californian was stopped at the edge of the ice field just five to ten miles north of Titanic (see map above), that her officers including Captain Stanley Lord visually saw Titanic when she first came into view at 2330 on the night of the 14th (only ten minutes before the brush with the iceberg) and in fact even tried to hail her with a Morse lamp, that Captain Lord ordered his wireless operator to tell the other ship that Californian was surrounded by ice and stopped (this message was received and rebuffed by Titanic's operator, who was busily sending a backlog of messages at the time and angry that Californian had failed to ask permission to break in), and that the officers of the Californian saw the other ship come to a stop (not thinking anything unusual about this, which is understandable).

However, after Captain Lord retired for the evening (giving instructions to let him know if the other ship altered course or moved closer), the officers on duty saw the ship extinguish its lights, and later fire eight white rockets (the distress signal). They report that they informed their captain, who told them to note it in the log, and that Captain Lord then went back to sleep. The official log prepared by the captain later did not report anything about the rockets, and the "scrap log"(a sort of rough draft log from which the official log would later be compiled) for the night of the 14th - 15th was later discovered to be missing.

Had Californian's captain perceived the true situation, or taken appropriate action, the terrible loss of life might have been completely avoided or at least greatly reduced. Afterwards, of course, the true situation became quite clear, and it appears likely he tried to hide the evidence of the rockets and to alter the reported location of his vessel to make it seem farther away at the time of the Titanic disaster. The evidence surrounding this aspect of the disaster is presented in Mr. Butler's book in a chapter entitled "Watching Eight White Rockets" and in an Appendix entitled "The Titanic, the Californian, and the Culpability of Captain Lord."

A very good source for those interested in the events surrounding the Titanic, including the inaction of the Californian, can be found online in the 1912 report issued by the US Congress entitled "Loss of the Steamship Titanic." It concludes that Captain Lord was culpable of failing to respond to the white rockets of distress. Some continue to work to exonerate Captain Lord to this day (this web page describes some of the controversy) but the weight of the evidence does not seem to be in his favor (defenders of Captain Lord have tried to argue that a third ship came between the Californian and the Titanic during the time in question, and fired off flares -- perhaps a fishing boat communicating with its longboats -- before sailing away again, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this assertion).

The human tragedy of the Titanic story is enormous in scope, and the entire story far bigger than can be discussed here. However, the perspective of "situational awareness" is extremely valuable, and one which bears directly on all forms of analysis, including the analysis that is the subject of so many of the discussions in this blog and in the Mathisen Corollary book as well. The difficulty of perceiving the true situation, even when evidence is available that should make it possible to do so, is evident at every turn. The importance of examining the data points available, and of looking at different ways to "connect the dots" (not just the first one that suggests itself) comes through quite powerfully.

There is always a human tendency to want to "confirm" the picture we have in our minds -- to confirm the picture that we want to see -- with every new data point we encounter (and to push aside those data points that might disrupt our desired picture). We see this in the events described above, but it is also in operation among supporters of the conventional theories (such as the geological theory of tectonics, or the picture of human history that involves slowly evolving and slowly progressing stages of civilization, even though substantial data points appear to call these theories into question). And, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that this tendency to want to confirm our own pet theory with every new data point cannot fail to be operative in our own mind as well.

Carefully pondering the Titanic story is therefore a very valuable exercise, and never more appropriate than on this, the one hundredth anniversary of that tragic night.

Respect -- RIP.

Note: for my most recent thoughts on the Titanic tragedy, see "Titanic conspiracy, due diligence, natural law and mind control," 04/13/2014.  

Fracking, wastewater injection wells, and earthquakes

Today on NPR it was reported that, "The U.S. Geological Survey will soon confirm that the oil and gas industry is creating earthquakes, and new data from the Midwest finds that these man-made quakes are happening more often than originally thought."

The story, entitled "Quakes caused by waste from gas wells, study finds" reports on the analysis of USGS seismologists including Bill Ellsworth, who noticed that records showed that relatively minor earthquakes in the middle of the North American continent (far from plate boundaries) were increasing dramatically in frequency beginning in 2009 and every year after that (from 50 in 2009, to 87 in 2010, to 134 in 2011).

Seismologists suspect that the tremendous increase in hydraulic fracturing -- a new technique to obtain natural gas trapped in deep shale, that has led to a natural gas boom in North America in the past five years -- may be responsible.

Fracking entails the injection of tremendous amounts of water into deep wells which go many thousands of feet down and then turn horizontal. The water doesn't stay down there forever, however -- it comes back up, and is then either processed and recycled for more fracking operations, or disposed of. While wastewater was often originally simply discharged into rivers in the early years of fracking, it is increasingly being disposed of by injecting it deep into the earth -- sometimes even deeper than the fracking wells themselves, which can be 7,000 or 8,000 feet deep (at times even deeper than that).

Deep wastewater injection wells have been used for decades to dispose of treated wastewater from municipal and industrial sources in the United States, but fracking operations produce vastly greater volumes. Scientists now suspect that the new volumes of wastewater may be unlocking existing faults and triggering earthquakes in places like Texas and Ohio which rarely experienced earthquakes in the past.

Today's report that the USGS has concluded that such deep and high-volume water injection can lead to earthquakes should come as no surprise to readers of this Mathisen Corollary blog or to followers of Walt Brown's hydroplate theory. Nearly a year ago, on May 4 of 2011, a post entitled "Earthquakes far from quake boundaries" discussed the evidence that, while it is clear that powerful geological forces are responsible for earthquakes, it is also increasingly clear that these forces are not generated by drifting tectonic plates upon a circulating molten mantle the way that conventional tectonic theory asserts.

That post pointed out that the hydroplate theory of Dr. Brown does a much better job of explaining "why earthquakes can be caused by injecting high-pressure water deep into the ground and by filling huge man-made reservoirs with water (as happened in India in 1967 and 1998 and in China in 2008 and possibly 2010)." It also noted the "possibility that the injection of high-pressure water into the ground could be responsible for earthquakes in Arkansas."

Not long after that post, another published June 8 of last year entitled "Back from the Bay Area and the San Andreas Fault" discussed in even greater detail the hydroplate theory's explanation for the existence of faults and the initiation of shallow earthquakes near faults (the hydroplate theory satisfactorily explains the existence of two distinct mechanisms for the initiation of shallow earthquakes which typically originate less than 100 miles below the surface, and deep earthquakes which originate at depths greater than 250 miles -- the tectonic theory has a very difficult time explaining the existence of these two types of earthquakes, especially deep earthquakes).

That post concluded with the statement that, "This reasoning would also explain why the process of forcing water deep into the ground at high pressures (such as for hydraulic fracking or for the harnessing of geothermal energy) has been alleged to start man-made earthquakes (see for example the article and links at this site, among many others on the web)."

Later last year, on November 7, a post entitled "Asteroids, earthquakes and lions -- oh my" discussed a series of earthquakes in Oklahoma that struck within the course of a weekend. Although news reports explained that "scientists are puzzled by the recent seismic activity," the county hit by the quakes had 181 injection wells. The post noted that, while scientists operating under the conventional tectonic theory might be puzzled by this connection, the hydroplate theory explains the origin of these earthquakes, and that Dr. Brown's published texts had been warning for many years that injecting water deep into the earth can be expected to trigger earthquakes if his theory is correct (he had written such warnings long before these recent confirmations began to crop up).

You can visit Dr. Brown's website and read his entire book about the hydroplate theory online for free. To focus on his discussions of the causes of the countless fractures in the earth's crust and the origins of earthquakes, check out his detailed examination on this page, followed by the subsequent explanation on this page.

Here's the connection between the hydroplate theory and the wastewater injection earthquakes. Shallow earthquakes are caused by forces acting along existing faults, according to the hydroplate theory and the tectonic theory, but these forces have different origins and the origin of the faults themselves have different explanations under each theory. The very existence of the countless faults in the earth's crust and mantle is better explained by the hydroplate theory, which argues that the tremendous mass imbalances in the earth during the events surrounding a global flood created the countless faults we find today (the major forces that led to faulting involved the dramatic rise of the basement mantle under what is today the Atlantic Ocean when the escaping water eroded overlying crust and removed the weight of that crust, followed by an even more dramatic collapse of the area that now form the basin of the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, as mass moved towards the Atlantic, accompanied by tremendous friction, melting, and magma production). The tectonic theory argues that the faults on the earth are produced by the pressure of tectonic plate movement, but Dr. Brown points out that many faults are parallel to the movement of plates, many are perpendicular to the movement of plates, and many even intersect with one another -- in other words, their origin and direction are not easy to explain via plate movement.

Similarly, the slippage of faults -- especially those located very far from plate boundaries -- is not well explained by the tectonic theory. However, the hydroplate theory explains it very coherently, and in a way that is consistent with the suggestion that high-pressure injection of water deep underground near faults could trigger earthquakes.

Dr. Brown explains the deep forces at work which cause earthquakes:

After the flood, magma under the Pacific floor, but above the crossover depth, erupted onto the Pacific floor. (To a much lesser extent, eruptions continue today, so in those places, ocean temperatures rise temporarily, a phenomenon called El Niño.¹⁴) Magma below the crossover depth drains down into the outer core, so the outer core is slowly growing today! Simultaneously, melting is shrinking the total volume below the crossover depth, so the crust is compressing like the wrinkling skin of a drying (shrinking) apple. Also, the continents, thickened during the compression event, are still sinking into and laterally displacing the mantle. So the mantle is being squeezed downward from above and upward by the growing outer core. Mantle volume is also being lost primarily from the Pacific mantle by draining below the crossover depth and by eruptions above the crossover depth. Therefore, the mantle is shifting an inch or so a year, in general, toward the Pacific to replace that escaping volume. [See Figure 91 on page 165.] These movements and stresses produce earthquakes. Slowly shifting continents led to the mistaken belief that the entire solid mantle somehow circulates as if it were a liquid—and, over millions of years, drifted continents over the face of the earth. [To read this passage in Dr. Brown's book, go to this page, to a paragraph in the section entitled "Deep Movements During the Flood Phase"].

These forces create frictional heating along faults. From there, Dr. Brown explains:

frictional heating along the fault melts the grain-sized minerals with the lowest melting temperatures, causing them to expand, because they were above the crossover depth. (Remember: Tiny movements at the extreme pressures deep in the earth create great heat and melting.) Minerals with higher melting temperatures remained solid, maybe for decades, thereby encasing and trapping the tiny droplets of melted rock.

As more frictional heat “soaked” very slowly into the rock on both sides of the fault, the previously encased droplets of melt began to leak. Paths opened up for the expanding melt to escape upward buoyantly, allowing the highly compressed solid “scaffolding” (surrounding the focus and composed of the minerals with the highest melting temperatures) to become unstable and begin to collapse. Frictional heating instantly became extreme, so all nearby minerals suddenly melted. The result: a powerful earthquake. [To read this passage in Dr. Brown's book, go to this page].

So, Dr. Brown believes that most fault slippage occurs because the fault is unlocked due to the sudden liquification of rock along the fault due to frictional heat buildup over time. However, he notes that in addition to melted rock (magma) creating a fault movement, high-pressure water could do the same thing. In note 25 on this page of his book, he says:

Shallow earthquakes, in addition to the mechanism explained in Figure 88, may involve another phenomenon. Trapped subterranean water, unable to escape during the flood, slowly seeps upward through cracks and faults formed during the crushing of the compression event. (Seismographs on the Pacific Ocean floor have measured tremors from such seepings.)¹¹ The higher this water migrates through a crack, the more the water’s pressure exceeds that in the walls of the crack trying to contain it. Consequently, the crack spreads and lengthens. (So, before an earthquake, the ground often bulges slightly, water levels sometimes change in wells, and geyser eruptions may become more irregular.) Simultaneously, stresses build up in the crust, again driven ultimately by gravity and mass imbalances produced by the flood. Once compressive stresses have risen enough, the cracks have grown enough, and the frictional locking of cracked surfaces has diminished enough, sudden movement occurs. Water acts as a lubricant. (Therefore, large temperature increases are not found along the San Andreas Fault.) Sliding friction instantly heats the water, converts it to steam at an even higher pressure, and initiates a runaway process, one type of shallow earthquake.

This explanation reveals the reason that the injection of high-pressure water deep underground by human activity can also create a similar result.

In note 63 on this page of his book, Dr. Brown discussed the potential dangers of a proposed US government plan to drill a five-and-a-half-mile deep hole in an area of the southern Appalachians, stating that "Such a drilling project could be extremely dangerous. [. . .] major earthquakes could occur." In that discussion, Dr. Brown was concerned about the possible release of water trapped deep beneath the Appalachians, as the rapid removal of water could also trigger earthquakes (the hydroplate theory proposes that water was once trapped beneath the crust and it escaped violently to cause a temporary worldwide flood; according to this theory, we should expect to find some of the remnant water still trapped deep beneath major mountain ranges, and in fact there is some evidence to suggest that this prediction of Dr. Brown is in fact the case). Interestingly enough, in the NPR story cited above, a different seismologist, Chris Frohlich of the University of Texas, notes that removal of massive amounts of subterranean oil and gas may also lead to quakes.

The fact that scientists are now reaching conclusions consistent with the hydroplate theory, especially the possibility of a connection between the injection of water deep into the earth and the initiation of shallow man-made earthquakes, provides yet another data point in favor of the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown. In light of this new development, and in light of the hydroplate theory's superiority in explaining the even more powerful and dangerous deep earthquakes (along with the hope it offers for early warning prior to some major earthquakes), doesn't it seem obvious that professional geologists should seriously consider the merits of this theory?

---------------------

Sidenote: the fact that fracking (or, more precisely, the disposal of wastewater from fracking) may cause earthquakes does not of itself automatically mean that fracking should not be used to obtain oil and natural gas. First, fracking wastewater can be recycled and reused for other fracking operations, rather than injected into wastewater wells, and such recycling is becoming more and more common. Second, as mentioned in the NPR discussion, most of these wastewater-associated earthquakes are in the range of 3.0 magnitude -- which is difficult to distinguish from the rattling that takes place when a large truck drives down your street. Some people live in parts of the globe that experience many such earthquakes as a matter of course. It is certainly possible to argue that the benefits of any human activity must be weighed carefully against the costs, and the costs weighed against the benefits. It is not an automatic "slam dunk" either way. The purpose of the above discussion is not to argue for or against fracking, but to argue that the recent conclusion by USGS scientists and other seismologists about a connection between wastewater injection and shallow earthquakes in the middle of the United States appear to be consistent with the published predictions of the hydroplate theory.

Titanic, premonitions, and the nature of consciousness

On this day one hundred years ago -- April 10, 1912 -- the RMS Titanic loaded the majority of her passengers and crew at Southampton, England, and departed on her maiden voyage.

Sailing from Southampton at 12 noon on Wednesday the 10th, the ship would then dock at Cherbourg, France (arriving four hours later that same Wednesday) where more passengers would board, and then left Cherbourg that evening for Cork Harbour in southern Ireland, arriving late in the morning of Thursday the 11th. There, some passengers who were only going as far as Queenstown (as the city was renamed in 1850 following a visit from Queen Victoria) departed the ship, about 130 other passengers and crew members boarded, and the ship departed on its ill-fated crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

As Titanic steamed out of Southampton on the 10th, an incident that at least one spectator found extremely ominous took place. As described in the outstanding 1998 book Unsinkable: The Full Story of RMS Titanic by Daniel Allen Butler:

The immense bulk of the liner displaced an incredible volume of water in the narrow channel, creating a powerful suction in her wake. As she approached the entrance to the channel, the Titanic drew abreast of the small American liner New York, which was moored side by side to the White Star's Oceanic. Both ships had been immobilized by the coal strike, and neither had steam up. As the Titanic passed, the suction of her wake drew the two smaller vessels away from the dock where they were tied up. The strain on the six lines mooring the New York to the Oceanic grew too great, and with a series of loud cracks they parted in rapid succession as the New York was pulled helplessly toward the Titanic. For a moment a nasty collision seemed inevitable as the stern of the New York swung to within three or four feet of the bigger liner's hull. Quick thinking on the part of Captain Gale of the tug Vulcan and prompt action on the Titanic's bridge by Captain Smith averted an accident. 41.

Mr. Butler recounts that one passenger, Renee Harris, the wife of an American theater producer, "suddenly found a stranger standing at her side, asking, 'Do you love life?'" When she answered in the affirmative, he told her, "That was a bad omen. Get off this ship at Cherbourg, if we get that far. That's what I'm going to do." According to Mrs. Harris, she laughed it off at the time, "but later she would recall that she never saw the man on board again" (Butler 42).

This was by no means the only such premonition of disaster recorded prior to the voyage of the doomed liner. While skeptics might dismiss this recollection of Mrs. Harris as something that only took on significance after the disaster, there are examples of foreboding letters that were posted to relatives prior to the ship's sailing which are more difficult to explain away.

For example, Major Archibald Butt, military aide to President William Howard Taft and also a personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt, wrote a last letter to his sister-in-law before the Titanic sailed, in which he said: "If the old ship goes down, you'll find my affairs in shipshape condition" (Butler 31).

There is also the letter sent by Chief Officer Wilde (the second-in-command of the ship after Captain E. J. Smith) to his sister which was posted at Queenstown, which said: "I still don't like this ship . . . I have a queer feeling about it" (Butler 52).

Even more remarkable is the story of a young fireman (one of the over three hundred crew members assigned to stoke or otherwise tend to the mighty engines of the ship) named John Coffey, who was seized by a sense of foreboding and hid aboard one of the tenders that pulled away from Titanic with the last sacks of mail in order to skip out on the voyage (reported in several sources including Butler 51, although some have argued that this story might be fabricated, saying his name was not listed on the ship's rosters, although it is a fact that many crew particularly those shoveling coal were not permanent White Star Lines employees but were hired by recruiters who went out looked for workers for the voyage only days beforehand, and it is also a fact that several passengers and crew for reasons of their own decided to list themselves under fictitious names).

Another remarkable story that appears to indicate accurate premonitions comes from a family traveling in Second Class, Benjamin and Esther Hart, along with their seven-year-old daughter Eva. Apparently, Mrs. Hart was besieged by a sense of impending disaster and was certain that it would strike at night, so she stayed up each night reading or knitting, and slept during the day (Butler 56).

Do these premonitions of impending catastrophe indicate that the human mind is perhaps in possession of senses beyond what can possibly described as strictly "natural" (in the sense of the natural or material world)? What physical forces in the strictly materialistic world of atoms and molecules can possibly explain the perception of an impending collision with an iceberg that still lay thousands of miles away, separated by the breadth of the vast Atlantic?

If we think about these reports from Titanic (and there are other documented instances of similar premonitions surrounding other disasters), and if we entertain at all the possibility that not all of them were simple "coincidence," then it leads to all kinds of questions about the nature of our consciousness. Is it possible that our consciousness is not simply a physical product of chemical and electrical activity in the cells of an organ we call the brain? If our consciousness is simply a byproduct of a jumble of electrical and chemical impulses emitted by a physical mass of nerves and brain cells, then how does one explain all of the premonitions described above surrounding the maiden voyage of Titanic?

This historical evidence would seem to be additional evidence to other evidence we have examined previously (see here and here, for instance) that consciousness is somehow greater than the physical matter that supposedly generates it (in the eyes of the strict materialist).

Perhaps, as some have speculated -- including American philosopher William James (1842 - 1910) and brother of Henry James (1843 - 1916) -- the brain transmits consciousness rather than generating it, in much the same way that a lens transmits or focuses light without actually acting as the source of the light, or the way an organ pipe transmits or focuses sound without actually generating or originating the sound. This fascinating subject is treated at greater length in a fascinating examination entitled "Does Consciousness Depend on the Brain?" by Chris Carter.

If what we might call the "lens suggestion" of William James is correct (or at least closer to the truth than the idea that consciousness is strictly a byproduct of the physical activity of the brain), then animals might "transmit" or "focus" similar extra-material perceptions, perhaps sometimes being more attuned, sometimes less attuned, to the same extra-material awareness that some humans can also perceive.

On the night that Titanic struck the iceberg (the collision took place at 11:40 pm on Sunday night, April 14, or within a minute or two after), Mr. Butler reports that passengers in Third Class were engaged in "another of the seemingly endless dances" when, "In the middle of the merriment, a large rat suddenly appeared out of nowhere, eliciting screams of terror, some real, some feigned, from the young women. A handful of the men dashed after the offending rodent, and the dance was under way again" (65).

The behavior of rats deserting a sinking ship is of course so legendary as to have passed into proverbial idiom, but how can one explain unease among rodents hours before a ship hits an iceberg? Again, this incident is perhaps only coincidental, taking on perceived significance only in hindsight of the disaster, and if it were the only one that was reported by the survivors of the tragedy that night it could and should be dismissed as such, but in the presence of so many other data points, it is at least prudent to consider the possibility that something other than coincidence might have been going on prior to that fateful collision.

Here is a link to another website examining premonitions of disaster prior to the Titanic, in this case mostly dealing with fictional accounts published years earlier that seemed to share numerous details with the actual voyage, in some cases remarkably many details.

Here is an even more interesting article, published in Atlantis Rising in 1999, dealing with the subject of premonitions, and detailing accounts of premonitions from other disasters as well as those surrounding the Titanic's sinking. That article also contains a helpful paragraph discussing the difference between simple fear or dread and a premonition, which says:

For most people, the difference between a fear and a premonition is that fears are vague and not unusual. Premonitions, on the other hand, seem to come spontaneously, and often with great force and clarity. In fact, for most people, the problem is not recognizing a premonition, but acting upon it.

This is an important distinction. As someone who has made hundreds of skydives and participated in dozens of military tactical airborne operations (often at night with heavy gear and sometimes in atrocious weather conditions), I can report that I have had several occasions where I experienced what the paragraph above would describe as "vague and not unusual" feelings of general fear and unease prior to some jumps, but nothing ever came of them. They were not at all specific, spontaneous, or full of "great clarity." They were just ordinary fear, not premonitions (if true premonitions even actually exist).

Perhaps some of the incidents surrounding the voyage of Titanic also fall into this category, but the number and urgency of some of the feelings of awareness of impending disaster in that incident and in others argues that we should not be too quick to dismiss the possibility that true premonitions may have been involved in some cases. Before asserting that all the examples above are only "fear" and not premonitions, note that I myself never wrote any letters of the sort mentioned above prior to any airborne operations that turned out to be uneventful, and note also that Chief Officer Wilde was a very experienced officer with many ocean crossings under his belt (and no indication that he wrote his sister with ominous letters prior to other crossings).

If true premonitions were involved in some cases, it also seems that the existence of premonitions raises other important questions about the nature of consciousness, and that the existence of premonitions is very difficult to explain with a strictly materialistic view of the universe.

For more musings on the significance of the tragic voyage of Titanic, be sure to also visit the recently-published essay, "Titanic and the Fall of Civilizations."

























Note: for my most recent thoughts on the Titanic tragedy, see "Titanic conspiracy, due diligence, natural law and mind control," 04/13/2014.  

The ancients and the electromagnetic spectrum

Here's a link to an article written by Glenn Kreisberg, an engineer specializing in the radio frequency (RF) spectrum, entitled "Did ancient humans have knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum?"

In it, the author examines evidence that ancient civilizations may have possessed knowledge of the shape of electromagnetic waves which would seem to have been well beyond any capabilities that would be possible under the conventional understanding of mankind's ancient history.

Among the evidence he offers are the similarities of the lobe-shaped chambers of the very ancient megalithic temples on the islands of Malta to the lobe-shaped radiation patterns (or antenna patterns) that characterize the properties of antennas used for transmitting or receiving radio waves at various frequencies.

We have already examined evidence in previous posts that these extremely ancient megalithic structures of Malta exhibit very sophisticated acoustic properties, which Mr. Kreisberg also touches on in his article, positing that ancient structures may have had some kind of long-distance communications function.

Mr. Kreisberg's article also mentions the possibility that depictions of dragons (particularly those in China, in which the shape of the dragon most closely parallels the shape of waves in the electromagnetic spectrum) might indicate a symbolic depiction of "an unseen force." This is interesting in light of other evidence we have seen which appears to link dragons to powerful electromagnetic discharge and possibly to plasma energy.

Most interesting, perhaps, is the examination in his article of "Irish round towers," which -- citing the work of other authors -- Mr. Kreisberg argues may have been deliberately designed to resonate at certain long-wavelength frequencies, for unknown purposes. These vibrations may have been related to positive brainwave energy (see this discussion of meditation and measurable waves produced by the brain, particularly in monks who have spent many thousands of hours in meditation). Mr. Kreisberg also suggests that these towers may have had some kind of yet-unknown long-distance communication purpose.

Finally, note that there are other indications of very subtle and sophisticated ancient ability in the field of electromagnetic sensitivity. This previous post discusses measurements by some researchers suggesting that the stones at Avebury Henge are arranged based on very subtle magnetic polarity. How the ancients could have measured that polarity and why they arranged them in this manner is still unknown.

If true, the ancient understanding of aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum would be yet another powerful piece of evidence that ancient humanity was far more advanced at a far earlier date than conventional historians will admit (most will not even discuss the possibility).

Many thanks to Glenn Kreisberg and others whose research into this important subject certainly bears careful consideration.