Curiosity

The amazing feat of safely landing the one-ton Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars has captured our imaginations and pushed forward the boundaries of science, promising to expand the horizons of what we know about our solar system and the universe.

After the so-called "seven minutes of terror," in which the hurtling piece of high-tech equipment entered the thin atmosphere of Mars at speeds of 13,000 miles per hour and then deploying a super-sonic parachute to slow its descent to a mere 200 miles per hour, the rocket-powered sky-crane platform holding Curiosity broke loose from the parachute and maneuvered itself into position to gently lower the two-point-five billion dollar vehicle to the surface, where it landed on its sophisticated tires and Lego-toy-like suspension system.

Here is a link to an article containing a good video showing the innovative landing maneuver, and here is another link to an excellent ten-minute video discussing Curiosity and its mission, as well as some excellent description of the Gale Crater on Mars that was selected as the site for Curiosity's exploration.

Here is a more detailed discussion about the 96-mile-wide crater and why NASA selected that site as the most promising location for investigation into the question of "whether, when, and for how long Mars might have been habitable," in the words of Mars Science Lab Deputy Project Scientist Joy Crisp (the Curiosity rover is also known as the Mars Science Lab or MSL).

The purpose of the Curiosity mission is to discover evidence that Mars could once have supported life, and the presence of water is crucial to that investigation.  Gale Crater contains intriguing evidence of ancient liquid water on Mars, as well as a massif in its center that might preserve in its layers some clues regarding where this water came from and where it might have gone.

The question of large volumes of liquid water on Mars in the ancient past is a tricky one, and one that presents numerous difficulties for conventional theories, as discussed in detail in this blog post from a year ago entitled "Let's go to Mars!"  Not only are conditions there extremely inhospitable to liquid water, but the evidence appears to suggest that even in the ancient past, Mars did have cycles of rainfall and evaporation like we have on earth, because as NASA scientist Dr. Joseph Boyce explains, "If it was atmospheric, such as the rain here on Earth, there should be a lot of tributaries flowing into the channels. There aren't. Oh, there are a few, but not nearly as many as there should be."

That previous post also points out that the massive terrain features on Mars that appear to be the product of huge flows of liquid water show signs that the water flowed through each channel only once, not for long periods.  This suggests a catastrophic event, rather than long millions of years of activity.

As it turns out, the hydroplate theory of West Point graduate and retired Air Force officer Dr. Walt Brown, which explains so many of the geologic features on our planet, also suggests a solution to the puzzling water features on Mars.  He posits that the violent eruption of trapped water beneath earth's crust which flooded the earth actually launched debris and water into space, where it became asteroids and comets, and (for the debris that encountered them) spattered the face of the moon, Mars, and even Mercury (all of which have crater patterns on one side which are markedly different from the crater patterns on the other side).

Dr. Brown discusses the evidence in our solar system which supports this explanation on this page and this page of his book, among other places.  His website contains the entire text of his book for anyone to access free of charge.  

Dr. Brown notes that the force of the catastrophic release of the water that he believes was trapped below the surface of the earth prior to this flood event would have been equivalent to 1,800 trillion one-megaton hydrogen bombs (see note 89 on this page).  This force could certainly have launched huge amounts of earth and water beyond our planet's orbit.  In fact, Dr. Brown points to evidence suggesting that most of the crust that originally lay above what are now the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas was completely blasted away (see note 92 on the same page).

While this may or may not be the explanation for the strange features on Mars and other bodies in our solar system, it should certainly be considered.

Wouldn't it be remarkable if Curiosity finds part of the Mediterranean crust on Mars?

August 6

One of the most famous NDEs ever caught on film

Yesterday, we examined some of the stunning implications in Chris Carter's outstanding examination of the subject of Near-Death Experience (NDE) and the implications of the NDE on the concept of consciousness.

Today, we feature an actual film clip (above) from one of the most famous NDEs ever caught on camera: a man who has been "mostly dead" all day but who is able to tell Miracle Max (with the help of a bellows) that he needs to be revived for the sake of True Love.

As most readers are no doubt aware, the "mostly dead" man in the clip above was placed in that condition by the dastardly Prince Humperdink, using a horrible vacuum device manufactured by the evil Count Rugen, after Humperdink threw the switch to a truly terrifying setting of 50 (a setting so intense that it caused even Count Rugen to exclaim, "Not to 50!").

While that was, of course, a cringe-inducing moment, the deliberate brain operation performed on a patient in another extremely famous NDE case is only slightly less terrifying in the details of the events that led to the subject being placed in a situation that could only be described as "mostly dead." This operation took place in August of the year 1991, twenty-one years ago this month -- and almost four full years after the release of the "mostly dead" scene shown above (which came out in September of 1987).

That 1991 operation, known as a "standstill operation," was performed on a young woman named Pam Reynolds, who had suffered a major aneurysm on the wall of the basilar artery on the base of her brain. This famous operation is discussed in detail in Chris Carter's Science and the Near-Death Experience, as well as in a book by cardiologist Dr. Michael Sabom entitled Light and Death. During the operation, in order to relieve the life-threatening pressure on the aneurysm and then enable them to operate, the surgeons would have to reduce Pam's body temperature to sixty degrees Fahrenheit, stop both her heart and her breathing, ensure that all electrical activity in her brain had stopped, and then drain all the blood from her head (Carter 221).

According to the description by Dr. Sabom, Pam was given general anesthesia at 7:15 am, her skull was cut open by a bone saw at 8:40 am, her blood was re-routed to a cardiopulminary bypass machine through her femoral artery and vein at 10:50 am in order to cool her core temperature, her heart was arrested at 11:05 am with injections of potassium chloride, her body temperature was measured at "a tomblike 60 degrees Fahrenheit" at 11:20 am in the words of Dr. Sabom, and then at 11:25 am -- as described by Dr. Sabom -- "the head of the operating table was tilted up, the cardiopulminary bypass machine was turned off, and the blood was drained from Pam's body like oil from a car" (Sabom 43, cited in Carter 223-4).

The operation itself is unbelievable -- the fact that Pam recounted a detailed NDE after the successful surgery and her revival is even more astonishing. The fact that she was able to accurately describe the appearance of the bone saw (her eyes were taped shut and she had been unconscious for over an hour before that instrument was even uncovered on its table) and the conversation during the search for her femoral artery and vein (which did not take place until 10:50 am, and which would not be expected to be heard since she had form-fitting earplugs in each ear producing rapid high-decibel clicking so that the surgeons could monitor her EEG to see if her brain was processing sound signals at all) makes her particular NDE account even more stunning.

If anyone deserved to be described as "mostly dead," it was the patient in that particular operation.

While there are skeptics who have tried to question the implications of the Pam Reynolds operation, the fact is that her particular near-death experience -- as astonishing as it is -- counts as only one of literally thousands of such accounts.

Accounts like these have tremendous implications for our understanding of human consciousness and the question of whether consciousness is in fact dependent upon the physical mechanism of the brain, as Chris Carter discusses in his book.

The descriptions of the state of Pam Reynolds' brain during her NDE, and the accurate descriptions she was able to provide from a consciousness that appears to have continued during some portion of the time that her brain was being drained of blood and measured as having no responsive activity, suggest that consciousness may not be dependent upon the brain in the way that most hard-core materialists continue to insist must be so.

In fact, the sheer number of NDE evidence suggests that the continuation of consciousness for someone who is "mostly dead" may not be only the stuff of fairy tales after all. In fact, it may be the materialists who are clinging to a fantasy in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

Chris Carter's Science and the Near-Death Experience

Below is the text of a review I recently published regarding Chris Carter's remarkable book, Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death.

Chris Carter's examination of the documented accounts of near-death experiences -- and his analysis of the implications of this corpus on our understanding of human consciousness -- should be essential reading for everyone with a mind and a body. His analysis is sober and decisive, which makes the remarkable conclusion that the evidence appears to suggest all the more compelling. He carefully examines the evidence and thoroughly presents the various theories that have so far been advanced to explain this evidence, including those of the most committed skeptics. He gives full weight to the various objections and probes those objections to see whether they have merit, demolishing most of them in the process (and giving them their due if to the extent that they present valid alternative ways of understanding the evidence).

The book's calm and dispassionate presentation of the descriptions of NDEs themselves is gripping, and the accounts (often in the words of the survivors and occasionally in the words of attending surgeons and physicians) are unforgettable. This aspect of the human experience should not be hidden from the general public and this book belongs in everyone's home library (and should be translated into as many languages as possible).

Finally, Chris Carter's analysis of the implications for the question of "consciousness" is both important and fascinating. He is eminently qualified for the task, and characteristically thorough and articulate in his discussion. This analysis actually is arranged in the first half of the book, so those who hunger to read the moving accounts and discussion of NDEs could go to them first and then dive into the question of consciousness, while those who choose to read it straight through may want to start right back at the beginning after reaching the end the first time, because the weight of the evidence offered by the NDE discussion makes the discussion of different theories of human consciousness seem all the more vital.

This book truly possesses the potential to advance our understanding of what it means to be human.

This really is a book that everyone possessed of a body and a brain should have an interest in examining. Furthermore, its subject is by no means off-topic to the general subject matter covered in this blog, as the boundary between the worlds of life and death is absolutely central to much of the ancient cosmology of the celestial world, discussed for example in this previous post.

Chris Carter's book is an intriguing analysis of the subject of the NDE and its implications. Part I of the book provides a fascinating and important analysis of the question, "Does consciousness depend on the brain?" He points out that NDEs provide some of the strongest evidence refuting the strict materialist dogma that consciousness depends on the brain. Some of the most fascinating discussion in the book concerns the possibility that, rather than somehow producing or manufacturing consciousness, the brain actually functions as a receiver or a transmitter of consciousness, or even perhaps that "the brain functions as a selective inhibitor of consciousness" (100).

The descriptions of actual NDEs, which begin in earnest in Part II of the book (chapters seven through seventeen) are stunning all by themselves. During this portion of the book, Chris Carter provides scholarly and thorough analysis, and then examines various theories which have been proposed to try to explain the NDE evidence while still asserting that consciousness depends upon the physical mechanism of the brain. He provides a clear assessment of the strengths of each the various materialistic explanations, and points out ways in which the weight of the evidence from NDEs appear to undermine those materialistic explanations.

This subject, as well as one of the most famous NDEs on record (which is discussed thoroughly in Chris Carter's book) was visited earlier in the blog post entitled "The ideology of materialism."

Finally, the book concludes with an amazing discussion of deathbed experiences from both recent history and older records, in which persons who actually did not recover reported experiences and visions quite similar to those documented in thousands of NDE accounts. Chris Carter's analysis of the similarities (and differences) -- and the implications of these similarities and differences -- is original and important.

This is a book that demands the serious attention of everyone who is interested in the question of consciousness. Furthermore, it is the second in a trilogy by Chris Carter discussing scientific evidence bearing on the question of consciousness, following the first book in the series entitled Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics (which is discussed in this previous post).

The third book in this trilogy is due out at the end of this month. It will be called Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness. While it appears that it will spend quite a bit of time discussing apparitions (which I find somewhat scary to read about, as I mentioned in this previous post), I'm sure I will be sitting down to see what Chris Carter has to say in the third book of this outstanding series soon after it hits the market.

Dinosaur Dance Floors

Dinosaur tracks fall into the category that archaeologists call "trace fossils," which describes any sort of preserved marks made by an ancient animal while it was still alive.  Two very interesting collections of dinosaur tracks have been discovered fairly recently and both were dubbed "dinosaur dance floors" due to the number of tracks preserved there and the number of different animals which apparently made those tracks.

The photograph above is from a site discovered in 1994 in Bolivia, about 20 miles from the town of Sucre.  It contains over 5,000 tracks in a bed that has been tilted upwards at a seventy-degree angle from the level.  Almost three hundred different animals may be responsible for the different trace fossils here, including a singular track running for almost 1,140 feet created by a young Tyrannosaur nicknamed "Johnny Walker" by archaeologists.  Here's another web page discussing the "Dinosaur Dance Floor" site in Bolivia.

More recently, geologists from the University of Utah discovered a site in northern Arizona whose impressions were previously believed to be potholes caused by weathering but which are now thought to be dinosaur tracks as well.  Although some paleontologists continue to disagree that the markings are actually dinosaur tracks, this photograph from the site appears conclusive, as do some of the "tail-drag" marks which are very rarely preserved where dinosaur footprints are preserved (leading some scientists to argue that dinosaurs somehow held their mighty tails aloft when they walked).

How were dinosaur tracks preserved in what is now stone, anyway?  This question is actually one that remains difficult to answer under conventional models, and one that scientists continue to work on.  It is so difficult to imagine conditions that would allow such trace fossils to be preserved that scientists use the term "Goldilocks" or the "Goldilocks effect" to underscore that a multitude of factors must all be "just right" in order to lead to track preservation.

The hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown provides a more comprehensive solution for the mystery of dinosaur tracks and other trace fossils, and one that can explain many of the puzzling aspects of such fossil sites quite well.  He discusses dinosaur tracks in particular in the important chapter of his book dealing with the phenomenon of liquefaction, which has been examined in previous blog posts dealing with the layering found at the Grand Canyon (not far from the Arizona "dinosaur dancefloor").

Regarding the creation of fossilized dinosaur tracks, Dr. Brown explains:

Almost all trackways moved uphill, and traces of the animal’s bodies are never found, even as fossils. Obviously, thick sediments must have gently and quickly blanketed the footprints to prevent their erosion—but how? Evolutionists have difficulty explaining what protected these delicate footprints. How did it happen? During the early weeks of the flood, flutter amplitudes were large enough for the crust to rise repeatedly, but slowly, out of the flood waters. [See “Water Hammers and Flutter Produced Gigantic Waves” on page 188.] Frightened animals—and sometimes dinosaurs—scampered uphill onto the rising land, each leaving footprints. Minutes later, the crust again submerged, allowing sediments falling through the thick muddy waters to blanket and protect the prints while the rising water swept the animals’ bodies away.

This explanation describes a scene of terror, far different from the "happy scene at the water hole" described in most conventional literature discussing collections of dinosaur track fossils.  It explains many puzzling items of evidence, such as the lack of dinosaur fossils in the vicinity of so many tracks made by so many different dinosaurs (which is mentioned by Utah geology and geophysics professor Marjorie Chan in this National Geographic article about the Arizona dance floor).

It would also explain the piling of sand around the edges of the tracks described by some observers, if moving water was present when the animals were trying to escape.  Perhaps it would even explain the lack of tail drag marks noted at most fossil footprint sites around the world. 

Dr. Brown also points out that in some dinosaur fossil track sites, including the one in northern Arizona, the animals appear to be facing in one direction and moving laterally, as if being pushed by moving water flows while they tried to walk.  This web page from the State Geologist of Arizona contains a photograph of the northern Arizona site along with a drawing which appears to illustrate one set of tracks that might be interpreted as an animal walking while being forced laterally (the State Geologist of Arizona does not make this claim -- that is an interpretation that I am offering for the evidence shown on that particular page).

If Dr. Brown is correct and these tracks were not made under normal conditions (such as dinosaurs happily milling about a watering hole), then the interpretations that are often drawn from them may be incorrect (including the idea that dinosaurs typically held their tails aloft when they were walking).

In any case, the conditions at these two "dinosaur dance floors" (including the seventy-degree vertical angle of the site in Bolivia) appear to be explained quite well by the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown -- better, in fact, than by other competing explanations.

Paranormal Pizza Kitchen?

There are plenty of videos on the internet featuring people who claim to have experienced paranormal activity and showing the room or hallway where they describe what they saw or felt, but what is somewhat unique about the video above is the fact that it contains footage from a security video showing objects moving, apparently without explanation, in an ostensibly empty restaurant.

Another uncommon aspect of the above video, which was posted recently on the website of a local Louisiana television station,  is that the alleged paranormal activity took place in the kitchen of a friendly little corner pizzeria, rather than an old Victorian mansion or aging beachfront hotel.

Skeptics may say that the two large ice scoops that can be seen flying through the air to the floor in the security footage might have been pulled by someone off-camera using monofilament fishing line, or some other trickery in order to gain attention and possibly increased business, and that is certainly a possibility to investigate further.

However, the worker who claims to have found the scoops on the floor the next day and then gone back through the security footage to find the video evidence also claims to have been hit in the back by a flying bottle of Tabasco sauce and to have experienced other strange events involving moving objects while working.

Skeptics may then wonder what Tabasco sauce is doing in a kitchen where pizzas are prepared, but keep in mind that the scene of the alleged activity is in Louisiana, the home state of the flavorful hot sauce created by avid gardener Edmund McIlhenny in the 1860s.  Perhaps the pizzeria in question has a secret sauce that contains Tabasco (if so, it may be worth a visit).

While it is of course important to apply critical analysis and "due diligence" to any evidence which appears to contradict the well-entrenched models or paradigms which form the foundation for our understanding of the universe, it is also true that just because these frameworks are well-entrenched or long-standing does not necessarily mean that they cannot be incorrect or incomplete.

As more and more "data-points" of evidence turn up which appear to call the conventional model into question, it is only reasonable to keep an open mind rather than resort to dogmatic dismissal and ridicule (which, unfortunately, appears to be the first response of many defenders of the existing paradigm in many fields of human experience today).

The Upton Chamber

Special thanks to the authors of the Rock Piles blog for posting a link to the recent discussion of Professor Gordon Freeman's analysis of the Sun Temple at Majorville in Alberta, Canada.

The Rock Piles site contains a host of descriptions and photographs and links to reports about the numerous stone sites of the New England region of North America. It is truly an incredible resource for those who are interested in studying or visiting these amazing places and learning more about humanity's past.

Many of these sites are completely unknown to the "academic community," which generally ignores evidence that might threaten the dominant historical paradigm, such that many sites go unprotected and largely unstudied (except by the intrepid individuals operating outside of the mainstream of academia and publishing their work in outlets such as Rock Piles).

As I wrote in this blog after a visit to the Gungywamp site in Connecticut last year:

The fact that the academic and conventional historical community stubbornly refuses to consider any explanation for these sites that includes ancient civilizations from other continents dooms these areas to obscurity and discourages their examination by large numbers of talented thinkers who might otherwise contribute some valuable perspectives to their study. Even though there are many such sites that have been photographed and written about, there are no doubt many more which are unreported by landowners who see no benefit to talking about them, but who see several disadvantages to doing so (especially when reporting their existence invites disrespectful trespassers who deface the ancient sites and leave their junk and charred firepits all over the area). It is also a sad reality that many of these ancient stone sites have no doubt been dismantled over the centuries to furnish materials to build other structures, to clear farmland or grazing land, or simply to get them out of the way.

The cavalier treatment these important sites have received from an academic and archaeological community that jeers at any explanations other than the approved solution is a true disservice to those who wish to pursue the truth.

This problem is reflected in the header of the Rock Piles title banner, which states: "This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public."

Fortunately, there are engaged individuals and groups who are taking steps to try to preserve some of these critically important locations in New England. One of these is the New England Antiquities Research Association (or NEARA), which along with the Upton Historical Commission and numerous concerned individuals recently concluded a six-year long effort to rescue and preserve the impressive stone chamber generally known as the Upton Chamber, in Upton, Massachusetts.

Less than two weeks ago, the Rock Piles blog posted a link to a report in the Boston Globe describing the successful completion of the Upton Heritage Park, now open to the public. This is an extremely important example of coordinated action for the preservation of a site that truly should be open to everyone. The story reports that the town of Upton spent $400,000 to purchase the acreage containing the stone chamber so that it would not become the site of a new housing development.

The map above shows part of the town of Upton, using the Google Maps terrain visualization feature. I've added a small black rectangle at the site of the stone chamber, which is located in the acreage west of Elm Street (and is accessed from Elm Street) looking northwest across the Mill Pond. This rectangle is actually too large to represent the actual chamber, but it's as small as I can make it.

The chamber itself is reached through a low entrance with a massive lintel stone across the top. Inside the entrance there is a long corridor (about 14 feet in length) leading to a circular "beehive" chamber about 12 feet in diameter and 12 feet high. Corbelled stone architecture was used in its construction, very similar to corbelled stone chambers in Ireland (where the chambers are often covered in earth, just as the Upton Chamber is). This article from November of last year has a good photograph of the entrance to the Upton Chamber, and this site contains a hand-drawn diagram of the plan of the chamber with a top view and side view.

This site also contains a photograph of the entrance to the Upton Chamber, as well as some discussion of the research of James W. Mavor, Jr. and the late Byron E. Dix, who spent several years examining the Upton Chamber, beginning in the 1970s. Through their efforts, they determined that its northwest-facing entrance provides a view of the horizon on Pratt Hill, about a mile away, and upon exploring Pratt Hill they located several mounds or cairns that provide precise markers for the observation of heavenly bodies from the vantage point of the chamber itself.

In their excellent and essential book on the stoneworks of the New England region entitled Manitou: The Sacred Landscape of New England's Native Civilization (1989), Mr. Mavor and Mr. Dix discuss the Upton Chamber and the Pratt Hill alignments in great detail and with numerous diagrams. They demonstrate that the cairns on Pratt Hill indicate the setting position of the summer solstice sun and for the stars of the Pleiades.

The map above shows the sightlines from the Upton chamber to the horizon created by the top of Pratt Hill to the northwest of the chamber, based on a diagram found in the Manitou book on page 39. Pratt Hill is now heavily wooded, but the authors explain that records from the nineteenth century indicate that it was not always so.

Their analysis suggests that the alignments may have been designed circa AD 700. They certainly believe that the chamber predates colonial settlers who began to arrive on these shores in the centuries after Columbus. While Mr. Mavor and Mr. Dix do not make this assertion, the celestial alignments, passage entryway, and corbelled "beehive" architecture are similar enough to structures in Ireland and elsewhere around the world to suggest the possibility that the Upton Chamber and corresponding cairns on the horizon of Pratt Hill might be the work of ancient Celts or other "Old World" seafarers (see discussion in this previous post, among others).

I had the opportunity to visit the Upton Chamber in September of last year (and to help the archaeologists and other individuals involved with the preservation efforts who were there that day to move a large stone that vandals had tumbled down in front of the entrance from one of the stone walls that emanate outward from the site of the chamber itself). Below is a picture showing the entrance as well as a picture I took from the impressive inner chamber looking outwards towards the entrance.

We should all be grateful to those involved in chronicling and especially preserving the sacred historical sites of the New England region such as the Upton Chamber, including those involved in the Rock Piles blog, the NEARA, the Upton Historical Commission, and should do whatever we can to support their efforts.