URGENT HEALTH UPDATE

SWINE FLU IS HERE!

Adams County to give briefing on suspected swine flu case

FRIENDSHIP, WI (WKOW) -- Adams County Health officials will give a briefing Thursday morning about a suspected case of swine flu.

The briefing is set for 9:00 a.m. at the Adams County Health and Human Services Building in Friendship. We will have a 27 News team at the news conference and we'll tell you what they say plus updates on the case, here on our web channel during the day and on 27 News at 5:00, 6:00 and 6:30.

The Adams County Health Department sent the following news release on Wednesday night.

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The Adams County Public Health Department has been alerted by Dr Seth Foldy, State Health Officer that there is a probable case of Swine Flu in Adams County.

According to Linda McFarlin, Adams County Health Officer, they have not yet received a confirmation of a positive result from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and have stated that they should have results by the end of the week.

The adult male visited another part of the U.S. and presented symptoms upon his return. Officials said he is being isolated at home and doing well. Others who had contact with him are taking proper precautions.

"These laboratory-reported cases indicate that it is probable that swine flu is active in Wisconsin and serves as a reminder to everyone to take precautions if they haven't already done so," said Dr. Foldy.

source....

Mars Rover Has Amnesia

Humans aren't the only forgetful ones. The Mars Rover Spirit "had a bout of temporary amnesia" on Friday, NASA officials said today.

They have no clue why. And the recalcitrant robot has not offered any clues.

The event is part of a string of problems dating back to an unexpected computer reboot that Spirit initiated a week ago. Another reboot occurred this weekend after the amnesia trouble.

Here's how NASA describes the robot's forgetfulness: Spirit unexpectedly fails to record data into the type of memory, called flash memory, where information is preserved even when power is off. Spirit has had three of these amnesia events in the past 10 days, plus one back on Jan. 25.

Officials don't know if the amnesia is related to the reboots.

The most recent reboot put Spirit back into an autonomous operations mode in which the rover keeps itself healthy, according to today's statement. Spirit experienced no problems in this autonomous mode on Sunday.

The rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., revised plans today for regaining Earth control of Spirit's operations and resuming diagnostic and recovery activities by the rover.

"We are proceeding cautiously, but we are encouraged by knowing that Spirit is stable in terms of power and thermal conditions and has been responding to all communication sessions for more than a week now," said JPL's Sharon Laubach, chief of the rover sequencing team, which develops and checks each day's set of commands.

During the past week of diagnostic activities, the rover has successfully moved its high-gain dish antenna and its camera mast, part of checking whether any mechanical issues with those components may be related to the reboots, the amnesia events, or the failure to wake up for three consecutive communication sessions two weeks ago.

Spirit, and its rover twin Opportunity, finished their three-month prime mission on Mars five years ago and have kept operating through multiple mission extensions.

Officials aim to get Spirit back to full operation or, if something is broken, at least get it going in some capacity.

"For example, if we do determine that we can no longer use the flash memory reliably, we could design operations around using the random-access memory," Laubach said.

Spirit has 128 megabytes of random-access memory, or RAM, which can store data as long as the rover is kept awake before its next downlink communications session.

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News From The Observatory

Prom: The kids sure look nice!


Tweet! Tweet!


The blossoms freeze off this yellow bush almost every year. Knock on wood, this year it hasn't yet!


Snoopy taking in the spring sunshine.


The weedy pasture is getting green now.


I dug "Old Blue" out of the shed yesterday, pumped the tires up and oiled the chain. I started out to ride around the block, but the east wind was so strong. I made it halfway across the eastward leg of my ride, turned around and came back.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Flu Special

On Coast to Coast AM 4/27:

George Noory hosted a special edition of C2C with examination and analysis of the recent swine flu outbreak. 2nd hour guest, Dr. Gary Ridenour suggested that this virus could further mutate and become even more dangerous. We could see mass school closings and work outages in the U.S., he said, and in a worst-case scenario, 5-15 million people could die. He estimated there was a 40% chance that the new virus was man-made, and was released either accidentally or intentionally.

Appearing in the latter half of the show, Alex Jones and Stephen Quayle both agreed the new swine virus was not natural. It's a "genetically altered bioweapon," possibly being "beta-tested in the field" to target specific races, Quayle contended. Jones cited experts in the field, pointing toward the virus being designed, and he noted how unusual it is for a flu virus to start out of season, and not come from the East.

Quayle suggested the virus may be part of a global plan to reduce the population, and that the mysterious deaths of microbiologists in recent years could be connected to this outbreak-- scientists who could help stop a pandemic were taken out. Jones posited the idea that flu fears could be deliberate hype by the government in order to distract the public from other issues.

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ISS Tomorrow Morning

30 Apr -0.4 03:18:39 NNE 31

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Rural residents getting smoked about proposed wood stove regs

Regulating wood burning outside of Missoula's Air Stagnation Zone is one matter.

But a proposal to change air quality rules throughout the county to meet new, more stringent federal standards for the soot-like byproduct of combustion is opening a Pandora's box of objections in rural Missoula County.

“A lot of it is being sensitive to the fact that people don't like to be told what they can and can't do,” Guy Hanson said.
Hanson understands new burning requirements are needed. But he doesn't like some of those being proposed, and he freely admits he's biased.

He owns the Axmen, and is in the business of selling wood burners, including a kind that the new regulations would not allow as written.

“I've got about a million dollars a year in sales and three full-time employees who sell outdoor wood heaters,” Hanson said.

The big furnaces, basically insulated fireboxes, are often used on farms and ranches to heat multiple buildings. In very recent years, they've become efficient burners that emit little pollution, according to Hanson.

They're not regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Thus, the City-County Air Pollution Control Board wouldn't allow their installation anywhere in Missoula County under the proposed regulations.

“We have a boiler that sits outside (the Axmen) that produces 160,000 BTUs of heat and 6.4 grams of emissions per hour,” Hanson said. “But you can have a stove that would sit in your house and produce a fourth as much heat but 7.5 grams of emissions and it could be put in.”

“Arbitrary and capricious,” is what he calls it.

It was Hanson who paid to have 1,000 postcards mailed to people in the Frenchtown area, cards that warned them they “may no longer have the right to burn wood” if the new regulations are approved.

The mailers were the impetus for a jam-packed community council meeting April 9 at the Frenchtown Fire Station. It was so crowded, in fact, that it had to be conducted in two sessions because the people who showed up far outstripped the station's occupancy limit of 120.

“A lot of people were pretty mad coming into the meeting, and I think justifiably so,” said Jim Carlson, environmental health director for the Missoula City-Council Health Department. “At least it would be justifiably so if those things that were on the postcard were true. But they're not.”

“Any time people are told they're not going to be allowed to burn, they're not going to be allowed to have barbecues. � Why shouldn't they wrinkle their hackles?” said County Commissioner Michele Landquist, who attended the Frenchtown meeting.

Once Carlson and Ben Schmidt from the health department explained things, “it seemed to calm the crowd down,” Landquist added. “But there were still an awful lot of people questioning the way in which the data was collected for the air quality board to base their opinions or decisions on.”

“They wanted to know why we think Frenchtown has to be involved in this, and that's a good question,” said Schmidt, an air quality specialist. “Because in the past they haven't had to be.”

Now, the EPA wants fine-particulate pollutants - called PM 2.5 - reduced to almost half the levels allowed before December 2006. And those tiny invisible particulates are, under EPA's definition, “regional pollutants.” They stay in the air longer and disperse farther than their big brothers, PM 10s.

Schmidt said existing data indicate that Frenchtown shares Missoula's dirty air, microgram for microgram.

“We affect them, they affect us. We're all in this together,” he said.

Since 1999, filter-based monitors have been placed and replaced at various stations around the county. Every third day, on a nationwide schedule, the monitors are activated to collect particulates for 24 hours. Those are then sealed in a special cassette and, in Missoula's case, sent to a testing lab in Wyoming.

Last year, the EPA approved the beta attenuated monitor, or BAM, that measures and reports PM 2.5 levels in real time. One has been in operation since last November at Missoula's Boyd Park, a block west of South Russell in the Russell School neighborhood. A second BAM was installed in east Frenchtown in January.

The Missoula monitor is connected to airnow.gov, which displays a continually updated color-coded map of all networked BAM readings on the nationwide system.

It's too soon to draw conclusions from the BAMs. But Schmidt said filter-based measurements in the past have indicated air quality in Frenchtown is similar to that in Missoula.

Same's true in Seeley Lake. For years, a filter-based monitor there registered pollutant levels far below the old EPA threshold of 65 micrograms of PM 2.5 in a 24-hour period, and the health department was ready to take it down. But when the standards were lowered to 35, Seeley was on the brink, and so the gauge remains.

“They're a different airshed, I agree with that,” Schmidt said of the Seeley and Swan valleys. “But with the nature of that valley - it's so narrow and everything - they still have inversions, just like all western Montana valleys. We need to take some measures, especially if growth continues, to make sure they stay under the standard.”

Hanson pointed out the proposed regulations leave many questions unanswered. How much will installation permits cost? Who will administer them? What department will enforce them?

He's heard the claim that the licensing of wood burners is a ploy by the county to make money. Carlson pooh-poohed that.

“We've got plenty of regulations to enforce without additional ones,” Carlson said. “It would be our preference not to have to do this, seriously. Enforcement is never fun and passing new regulations is never fun, but it's important.”

If the county is judged a non-attainment area by EPA, large industries that operate under separate emission guidelines would be subject to expensive restrictions, Carlson said. If you think the proposed rules are odious, wait until the federal government takes over the scrubbing of Missoula's air.

“It means a lot of money, a lot of work and a lot of regulations,” he said.

As for the outdoor wood boilers that Hanson sells at the Axmen, Carlson agreed they're worth discussing.

“That's part of the process of adopting regulations. We'll take a good, hard look at the information, and if it looks like those devices are comparable to other kinds of devices that we want people to be able to continue to use, then we'll make adjustments in the proposal,” said Carlson.

A public hearing in front of the Air Pollution Control Board, originally set for May 20, has been postponed until after three open houses are held on dates yet to be determined. One will be in Lolo, one in Seeley Lake and a third probably in Clinton, Carlson said.

“We'll have a number of staff people at these meetings, and people can go around to different stations and get an opportunity to have one-on-one conversations,” Carlson said.

The approval process is “very long,” he added. New regulations must be approved by county commissioners, the Missoula City Council and the state Board of Environmental Review.

“But the key board is the Air Pollution Control Board,” Carlson said. “The others basically have a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”

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The Season Is Changing

I could feel it in the air this morning. A more humid, warmer, summer-like air. The barn swallows and rose-breasted grosbeaks just got back from their summer homes. It's been awhile since I've had the woodstove running much above idle, even at night. Generally every year the last day I have a fire in the stove for the season (until the nights start to get cool in late August/early September) is Memorial Day weekend. It's funny how the weather works out pretty close to the same every year.

I'm starting to think about Morel mushrooms and fishing now!

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

28 Apr -1.3 04:00:32 NW 41

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

The beautiful crescent Moon

The beautiful crescent Moon stands in the west as darkness falls. It sets a couple of hours after the Sun. The "dark" portion of the Moon is visible as a ghostly gray silhouette. It is illuminated by "earthshine" -- sunlight reflected from Earth.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge Waking Up

Click the thumbnail to hear the sound of the Refuge waking up from winter.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

27 Apr -0.9 03:35:39 ENE 38

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

The planet Mercury

The planet Mercury is a little below the Moon at nightfall. Although it looks like a fairly bright star, it is low in the sky, so you need a clear horizon to spot it. As the sky darkens, the dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster will become visible between the Moon and Mercury.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Not your average brain.

Einstein's cerebral cortex has a number of unusual features that might be related to his genius in physics.

When a rare genius like Albert Einstein comes along, scientists naturally wonder if he had something special between his ears. The latest study of Einstein's brain concludes that certain parts of it were indeed very unusual and might explain how he was able to go where no physicist had gone before when he devised the theory of relativity and other groundbreaking insights. The findings also suggest that Einstein's famed love of music was reflected in the anatomy of his brain.

When Einstein died in 1955 at Princeton Hospital in New Jersey, his brain was removed by a local pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who preserved, photographed, and measured it. A colleague of Harvey's cut most of the brain into 240 blocks and mounted them on microscope slides. From time to time, he sent the slides to various researchers, although few publications resulted. Harvey, who moved around the United States several times in the course of his career, kept the jar containing what remained of the brain in cardboard box. Finally, in 1998, Harvey--who died in 2007--gave the jar to the University Medical Center of Princeton, where it remains today.

The first anatomical study of Einstein's brain was published in 1999, by a team led by Sandra Witelson, a neurobiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Working from Harvey's photographs, which were all that remained of the whole brain, Witelson's team found that Einstein's parietal lobes--which are implicated in mathematical, visual, and spatial cognition--were 15% wider than normal parietal lobes. The team also found other unusual features in the parietal region, although some of these were questioned by other researchers at the time. One parameter that did not explain Einstein's mental prowess, however, was the size of his brain: At 1230 grams, it fell at the low end of average for modern humans.

Now Dean Falk, an anthropologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has taken another crack at the brain. Working from the same photographs and comparing Einstein's brain with a set of 25 previously published photographs and measurements of brains from cadavers, Falk claims to have identified a number of previously unrecognized unusual features in Einstein's brain. They include a pronounced knoblike structure in the part of the motor cortex that controls the left hand; in other studies, similar "knobs" have been associated with musical ability. (Einstein had played the violin avidly since childhood.)

Like Witelson's team, Falk found that Einstein's parietal lobes were larger; comparing the photographs of Einstein's brain with a second previously published set of 58 control brains, Falk also identified a very rare pattern of grooves and ridges in the parietal regions of both sides of the brain that she speculates might somehow be related to Einstein's superior ability to conceptualize physics problems. Indeed, during his lifetime, Einstein often claimed that he thought in images and sensations rather than in words. Einstein's talent as "a synthetic thinker" may have arisen from the unusual anatomy of his parietal cortex, Falk concludes in her report in press in Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience.

Yet Falk concedes that her interpretation is still hypothetical. Marc Bangert, a neuropsychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, seconds that reservation, saying, "It is very speculative, but this is what one has to deal with given the data available, some old photographs." Frederick Lepore, a neurologist at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, says that Falk appears to have accurately identified a number of new features in the physicist's brain, and he finds the correlation between the motor cortex "knob" and Einstein's violin training to be "persuasive and intriguing." Nevertheless, Lepore says, he is "uneasy" with the suggestion that Einstein was a "parietal genius" who thought strictly in images and sensations, citing among other evidence his superior school grades in Latin and the sciences and mediocre marks in art and geography.

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Castle Rock Family ATV Club Earth Day ATV Route Clean-up in Necedah Wildlife Refuge

We cleaned about 30 miles of ATV routes in the wildlife refuge today. It was just the right day for it. Not too hot, not too cold, no dust, and not a drop of rain all the while we were out there. I missed out on the meal afterwards, because I had to hurry home and see my little girl off to her first prom, in a limo even! I made it home just in time, less than 5 minutes ahead of the limo.

Here they are, the refuge beautification team! (President Swiney holding an authentic Necedah National Wildlife Refuge souvenir candy bar!)


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

26 Apr -1.5 04:42:10 W 44

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Orion, the hunter

Orion, the hunter, is low in the west as night falls. Start looking for it about 30 minutes after sunset, when its two brightest stars will begin to shine through the twilight. Rigel is quite low in the sky, but Betelgeuse is much higher.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

News From The Observatory

The Dippers. I don't think they're as exciting as Orion, Taurus, The Seven Sisters, or the Summer Milky Way, but hey, they're always visible every night all year.


M13 globular star cluster. This picture took me a week to complete! It was fun though, as usual, out under the stars. It's amazing how something so far away is picked up at all by my little camera!


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

25 Apr -2.2 04:16:58 S 65

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Polaris Grants $46,500 to ATV Organizations

To complete the third year of the company’s T.R.A.I.L.S. grant program, Polaris Industries announced the granting of $46,500 to five organizations in five states. In more than three years, the Polaris T.R.A.I.L.S. Grant Program has granted $746,557 in funds to local, state and National ATV Clubs. To date, Polaris has assisted 83 organizations in 42 states across the U.S.

The first of its kind in the ATV industry, the ‘T.R.A.I.L.S.’ grant program was launched in January 2006 for ATV clubs, associations and grassroots groups. ATV riders and the trails they use are the lifeblood of the sport and Polaris aimed to create a program to help.

The T.R.A.I.L.S. program makes funds available to not-for-profit national, state and local organizations in the United States to ensure the future of legal ATV riding.

T.R.A.I.L.S. stands for:
T = Trail Development
R = Responsible Riding
A = Access
I = Initiatives
L = Lobbying
S = Safety

The grant program encompasses two main objectives – promoting safe and responsible riding, and preserving access. Funds can be used by organizations for trail development and maintenance projects, safety and education initiatives, lobbying and other projects to increase and maintain land access.

“Polaris continues to see increasing interest in our grants program,” said Matt Homan, vice president and general manager of the Off-Road Division at Polaris. “We continue to be committed to the organizations who work diligently to ensure the future of our sport.”

The grants ranged from $7,000 to the maximum $10,000 and will be applied toward: trail development, improvements, expansion, education and the construction of an ATV safety course.

The sixth round of T.R.A.I.L.S. grant recipients are:

Local Organizations
Long Island Recreational Trails Conservatory (New York)
Balsam Trail Blazers ATV Club (Minnesota)
Birdseye Mountain ATV Club (Vermont)

State Organizations
Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Association

National Organizations
USDA Forest Service- Ironton Ranger District (Ohio)

For more information on the ‘T.R.A.I.L.S.’ grant program and an application form, visit the Polaris Web site at www.polarisindustries.com and click on “Riders,” then select “Right to Ride.” http://www.pi54.com/ATV/PDFs/TRAILSGrantAppForm.pdf

Grant applications are reviewed two times per year -- in March and September, with corresponding submission deadlines of March 1 and September 1. Organizations must have 501c3, 501c7 or non-profit organization status. Project funding, or matching funding, from other sources is an important criteria to be considered for a T.R.A.I.L.S. grant.

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widespread triangle of bright stars

A widespread triangle of bright stars climbs into view in the east this evening. About an hour after sunset, look for yellow-orange Arcturus, the second-brightest star visible from most of the United States. Well to its lower right is blue-white Spica, with Regulus far above them.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

24 Apr -1.7 05:23:26 WSW 49

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

23 Apr -1.9 04:58:02 SW 57

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

APOPHIS PRE-ANNIVERSARY

Twenty years from now, on April 13th, 2029, asteroid Apophis will buzz Earth only 18,300 miles above the planet's surface--well inside the belt of geosynchronous communications satellites. At closest approach, the 300-meter-wide asteroid will shine like a 3rd magnitude star, visible to the unaided eye from cities in Africa, Europe and Asia. There is a small chance (1 in 45,000) that the 2029 encounter will bend the asteroid's orbit so that it returns to Earth and actually hits the planet on April 13th, 2036. Experts believe that future observations will probably rule out a collision. Nevertheless, NASA and others are thinking about asteroid deflection strategies ... just in case.

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EARTH DAY Clean-up

Castle Rock Family ATV Club Members and Interested Parties:

REMINDER: EARTH DAY Clean-up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The CRFAC will meet on April 25, 2009 at 10:00am at the Vets Hall in Necedah
for our annual route trash and clean up in and about the Refuge and the
Necedah area.

Following the cleanup activities (about 1pm), the CRFAC will hold a
membership meeting and potluck at the Vets Hall. CRFAC members are asked to
bring a dish to pass. The club will furnish the meat, etc. as in the past.

Hope to see you there!!!!!!!!

For the Board of Directors
Dale Swinehart, President

Roger

Moon will cover Venus

Venus, the "morning star," is to the lower left of the Moon at first light tomorrow. After sunrise, the Moon will cover the planet for a while. Even though it takes place during daylight from most of the U.S., it is visible if you know where to look. Binoculars provide the best view.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

The Dire Future

On Coast to Coast AM 4/9/09:

Remote viewing teacher Maj. Ed Dames discussed some current cases of his Matrix Intelligence Agency, as well as issued some dire warnings over future events. Here is a rundown of what he sees coming:

# In five to six months a powerful quake, probably in the 6.5 to 7 range will hit near Carson City, NV. (see article below for further details).
# In that same time frame, Israel will attack Iran, in what he called an "Armageddon"-like situation.
# The global economic collapse is just beginning and will be especially bad this summer. Gold will rise in price to $2000 an ounce.
# A coming Bird Flu epidemic will further damage the economy.
# The North Koreans are going to use a nuclear weapon, and the Chinese will allow it. This will further tax US military forces.
# Within five years, the solar "killshot" will occur, with the sun emitting some very large solar flares. The first series of flares will take down all electrical infrastructure. People may need to be underground, and have fresh sources of water to survive.
# ET races have been observing humankind. Another race similar to humans in appearance will help us rebuild after the catastrophes.

source....

Woman, 83, Has 66-Year-Old Bike Stolen

A thief in Maine stole a 66-year-old bicycle that belonged to an 83-year-old woman. Ruth Slovenski got the blue Huffy bicycle as a gift when she was a teenager in 1943. The bike was stolen after she left it unlocked Saturday during a visit to a nursing home in Lewiston, a southern Maine city of about 35,000 residents where Slovenski lives.

Police said Slovenski had left the bike near a mailbox. When she went back to it two hours later, the bike was gone.

The bicycle has wide fenders and a large metal basket. A nursing home security video shows a man wearing a hat and dark clothing riding off on a bike that fit that description.

Police said Slovenski told them the bike had great sentimental value.

source....

Lyrid meteor shower

The Lyrid meteor shower is at its best the next couple of nights. On the down side, it is not one of the year's best showers. But on the up side, there is no moonlight to interfere with the show.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tomorrow Morning

21 Apr -1.6 05:39:21 SW 50

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Judge hits Morris County UFO hoaxers with fines, community service

The two Morris County men who staged a series of UFO hoaxes earlier this year were brought down to Earth in Morris Plains municipal court today.

Municipal Judge Michael Carlucci fined Chris Russo, 29, of Morris Plains, and Joe Rudy, 28, of Chester, $250 each and sentenced the two to 50 hours of community service for creating a disturbance.

Between Jan. 5 and Feb. 19, Russo and Rudy released helium balloons with traffic flares tied to them on five separate occasions in what they called a "social experiment" to debunk the pseudoscience of UFOs.

They set the balloons aloft from a field in Hanover Township, later calling a local television station to report the red lights.

On April 1, they published an article and series of videos on the website eSkeptic explaining how and why they created the hoax.

But one day after the expose, Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi held a press conference condemning the hoax, saying the floating balloons posed a potential fire hazard and could have interfered with air traffic at nearby Morristown Airport.

In court Tuesday, Carlucci accepted a plea deal from Rudy and Russo's attorneys to cite the pair for an ordinance violation. He ordered the pair to serve their community service for the Hanover Recreation Commission, working specifically with youth.

"If you were a pair of 17-year-olds, I would tell you to grow up," Carlucci said to the men. "You're not 17."

Bianchi said he was satisfied with the outcome of the case.

"Throughout we were concerned that what was now a joke could turn into a tragic situation," he said. "It was a tremendous waste of police resources and posed a serious fire threat to homes, wooded areas, and posed a significant danger to air traffic, and tied up valuable 911 resources.

"In mitigation, however, since these defendants stopped their actions once authorities asked them to, have led otherwise law-abiding lives, did not contemplate that their actions would cause harm, and since they were cooperative with investigators, I believe that the plea to a municipal ordinance violation with a fine and community service and no criminal record, serves the deterrent effect in this matter to punish this conduct in a measured way," he added.

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News From The Observatory

M48 Star Cluster


Wide-field view of Saturn at lower right of center, Mel 111 star cluster at upper left of center.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Mystery creature bites, claws family's SUV

LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. -- A mysterious creature leaves its mark, ripping a vehicle to pieces.

"Oh man," exclaimed 8-year-old RJ Gilliam. "I saw the car. I was like, 'What in the world happened?'"

Scratches, bite marks and holes -- that's the surprise the Gilliam family of Lincoln County found in their driveway on Sunday.

"I didn't hear anything," said SUV owner Holly Gilliam. "That scares me, too. Why didn't I hear something?"

The unknown creature destroyed the brakes.

"You know where you can get spotlights, there's big giant holes where it ripped them out," said RJ.

Whatever damaged the 2004 Saturn Vue ripped through fiberglass and caused thousands of dollars in damage.

"I can't see somebody's pet doing that," said RJ's mother.

"Maybe a bobcat or a coyote," the 8-year-old offered as possibilities.

Experts couldn't say for sure what caused the damage.

"They came out and said they'd never seen anything like it and took pictures," said Holly Gilliam.

Whatever it was, it has paws. It left its muddy prints on the hood, no bigger than tennis balls.

"I would have never thought anything could do that," said RJ. "And if it did that to the car, what could it do to me? I'm going to be in the lookout to see if anything is coming at me."

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FIRE! FIRE! - again

About 60 acres, one of the airplane pilots said. I didn't specifically hear that any houses were lost, sounds like they were doing a pretty good job of saving them. Many were evacuated. This one will smoke for a few days, I'm sure.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

UFO technology might shield against ‘solar storm’

UFO technology might provide the best shield for Earth against a devastating solar storm. The potential death of millions of Americans alone from severe space weather was predicted in the March 23, 2009 New Scientist article, “Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe”. This kind of electromagnetic storm could happen as early as 2012. It would likely be catastrophic for the major power grids and everything connected to them.

One way to prevent this catastrophe might be found in technologies used by extraterrestrial vehicles (UFOs). These vehicles are assumed to use zero point energy and other advanced technologies. These technologies are known to draw unlimited free energy from the quantum vacuum. By drawing from the quantum vacuum, they might also be super-conductive.

A unique feature of super-conductive materials is called the Meissner Effect. “The Meissner effect (also known as the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect) is the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor.” - Wikepedia. It can also can be seen at work in ’levitation’ (see second photo), which might also come into play with UFOs.

The Meissner effect is known to occur at super-cooled levels. But ‘room temperature’ superconductors are being developed. This means the Meissner effect might also occur with room temperature super-conducting materials used in advanced clean energy technologies. The combination of the Meissner effect with these special materials and the clean energy devices using them, might be the ultimate key to protecting Earth against a devastating solar storm by expulsion of the magnetic interference.

Whistleblowers with the Disclosure Project have already confirmed the existence of zero point energy technology that has been back-engineered from crashed UFOs. The technology, they say, is being kept from the public by the military and by government contractors. One of the main goals of the X-Conference 2009 is to compel government officials to release UFO ‘X-files’ on energy technologies of extraterrestrial origin. The conference will be held at the Gaithersburg, MD Hilton from April 17-19.

It does not matter if the super-conducting materials and clean energy technologies come from humans, like Tesla, or extraterrestrials. Projects are already underway to bring these technologies to market within 1-3 years. This could happen even under normal circumstances with adequate funding. But if the projects are fast-tracked and on a scale that America uses for war, the technologies could reach the market within months.

A couple of related articles (below) have referred to this prediction of global catastrophe by suggesting the immediate development and application of advanced clean energy technologies. They propose that these technologies can supply energy to buildings without connecting to major power grids. But getting “off-the-grid” is only part of the solution.

Clean energy supplied by wind and solar through the major power grids would be as vulnerable to disruption by a solar storm as energy based on dirty fossil fuels or nuclear power. Even renewable energy sources that are “off-the-grid” and serving individual buildings would not be immune to disruption.

Time is of the essence. The immediate objective should be to apply the Meissner effect to zero point energy technologies using room temperature super-conducting materials. The benefit of this kind of global clean energy revolution might just save the planet during a massive solar storm.

Pumping billions of dollars into propping up or even replacing obsolete energy grids and primitive energy technologies is a waste of time and taxpayers money. These ‘UFO’ and human designed technologies should be aggressively developed and implemented with a “do or die” attitude. Then, even if the solar storm does not happen, a rapid global transition to clean, abundant energy will still have been achieved. Without a great sense of urgency, politicians and the energy industry will continue to drag their feet.

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News From The Observatory

M36 & M38 star clusters. I think the one's stars are arranged in a 5 point star shape. The other is somewhat cross shaped.


This morning's daytime Moon.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Having a bad day? Cheer up, it could always be worse!

Gamma-Ray Burst Caused Mass Extinction?

A brilliant burst of gamma rays may have caused a mass extinction event on Earth 440 million years ago—and a similar celestial catastrophe could happen again, according to a new study.

Most gamma-ray bursts are thought to be streams of high-energy radiation produced when the core of a very massive star collapses.

The new computer model shows that a gamma-ray burst aimed at Earth could deplete the ozone layer, cause acid rain, and initiate a round of global cooling from as far as 6,500 light-years away.

Such a disaster may have been responsible for the mass die-off of 70 percent of the marine creatures that thrived during the Ordovician period (488 to 443 million years ago), suggests study leader Brian Thomas, an astrophysicist at Washburn University in Kansas.

The simulation also shows that a significant gamma-ray burst is likely to go off within range of Earth every billion years or so, although the stream of radiation would have to be lined up just right to affect the planet.

Currently WR104, a massive star 8,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, is in position to be a potential threat, Thomas noted.

But the study, which has been submitted to the International Journal of Astrobiology, isn't necessarily sending other astrophysicists into a panic.

"There is certainly no harm in looking at what a gamma-ray burst might do if it were close enough to us, as this author has done. That's the way science works," said David Thompson, a NASA astrophysicist and deputy project director on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

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After 86 years, message received

Darin Winkler was out walking the banks of the Spokane River with his kids last weekend when he saw something that looked …

Well, let me put it this way: After you hear this story, the song “Message in a Bottle” may be stuck in your head for days.

“Spring and high water brings up various kinds of things on shore,” said Winkler, who lives in the River Run subdivision on the Spokane River, just south of Spokane Falls Community College. “We saw an old flattened basketball and a bunch of bottles. Mostly they were whiskey bottles, Mad Dog 20-20 bottles, things like that. But this one stood out.”

It looked like an antique bottle, with an old-fashioned cork stopper.

So Winkler and his kids, Evan and Iris, walked up and took a closer look. That’s when they saw it.

A message in a bottle.

Winkler grabbed the bottle and took it back to his house. He carefully teased the note out of the bottle. The paper was a little damp, flaking in places, but mostly intact. The first thing he saw took his breath away: “March 30, 1913.”

Some parts of the note had deteriorated, but large portions of the pencil-written note remained decipherable.

Here’s what it says, with missing parts noted with ellipses:

March 30, 1913

Dear friend,

Who ever finds this bottle, please write in …. at Rockford, within the next two years … and let me know it …. Will put it in … Spokane … North East … state of Wa …

Yours truly,

Emmett Presnell

Rockford, Wash.

RFD #1 Box 5

Admittedly, this is not one of those storybook messages in a bottle. No map showed the buried treasure. No damsel in distress wrote it from a desert island. It contained no SOS to the world. Yet this message has its own modest story to tell.

After some sleuthing on the Internet and in the Spokesman-Review archives, Winkler was able to find out plenty about that long-ago bottle-tosser.

Emmett Presnell was born in 1892 in Missouri and came with his parents Edwin and Sarah Presnell to the Lind, Wash., area in 1900, where they homesteaded. They moved to the Rockford area around 1912 and had a farm on Rural Free Delivery Route No. 1, where they raised wheat and cattle.

Emmett then went on to join his brother Karl in a big cattle and wheat operation about eight miles southwest of Cheney. He farmed there for the next 60 years. He never married and never had children of his own. He lived on the farm with his brother’s family, according to nephew Tom Presnell, 86, now retired in Spokane.

When Tom was asked this week to describe his late uncle, he said, “Emmett was a real dependable person. He lived a pretty clean life.”

Emmett would have been about 20 when he got the notion to send out a message in a bottle. We can surmise that he was out tending cattle on the banks of Rock Creek or Hangman Creek when he decided to launch that bottle downstream (those two creeks are feeders of the Spokane River). Or maybe he was having a weekend picnic somewhere on the Spokane River itself.

Winkler’s theory is that the bottle got washed up on a bank or into a tangle of logs, and stayed high and dry for most of the next nine decades, thus explaining its relatively good condition. Recently, possibly even last year, high water may have refloated the bottle and sent it down the river to where Winkler found it, directly across from the old Natatorium Park.

When Emmett died at age 85, on May 13, 1978, in a local nursing home, that bottle was probably still stuck in a riverbank somewhere. We doubt if Emmett would have even remembered launching that bottle.

Yet, on behalf of Winkler and his kids, we would like to send our own message out into the unknown:

Emmett, we finally found your bottle.

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Leo

Leo, the lion, stands almost directly overhead about two hours after sunset. Leo's brightest star is Regulus, at its southwestern corner. The stars stretching north from Regulus form a backwards question mark known as "the sickle."

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

The Great UFO Hoax of 2009

If you prefer to keep a little magic in your life—by which I mean believing in the possibility of UFOs—then read no further. For I am going to tell you about the latest UFO hoax.

You may remember the sightings of a UFO over Morristown, N.J., in January, which was blogged about and even captured on video that has been posted to YouTube as clips from TV broadcasts and an amateur astronomer.

Last November, Joe Rudy and Chris Russo, two 20-somethings, were sitting around discussing pseudoscience and the many people who believe one or another form of it. Rudy describes himself as “an avid reader of Skeptic magazine” who teaches science and gives private music lessons. Russo works in sales and says he “intends to continue his quest to spread reason and truth, one pseudoscience at a time. “We had always had a strong interest in why people were so easily fooled by such irrational superstitions as psychic ability, spiritual mediums, alien abductions, and the like,” they write. So they “set out on a mission to help people think rationally and question the credibility of so-called UFO ‘professionals’.”

They cooked up a spaceship hoax “to show everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are, along with investigators of UFOs.” They used five feet of fishing line to tie flares to each of five three-foot helium balloons and launched them from a field on Jan. 5, 2009. “Once all five balloons were ready for takeoff (with our fingers on the verge of frost bite),” they write, “we struck the 15-minute flares and released them into the sky in increments of fifteen seconds,” filming the UFOs as they floated away.

Media coverage was extensive. A lot of it featured Paul Hurley, a pilot, and his family, who appeared on several news broadcasts describing the strange lights they saw in the sky. (For some reason, reporters find pilots’ UFO sightings especially believable.) Rudy and Russo repeated the performance four more time, gaining media coverage for each. Conspiracy Web sites and radio shows covered the sightings, but “the icing on the cake came when the popular History Channel show UFO Hunters featured the Morristown UFO as their main story one week,” the duo recall. “Bill Birnes, the lead investigator of the show and the publisher of UFO Magazine, declared definitively that the Morristown UFO could not have been flares or Chinese lanterns.”

This was the pair’s main quarry, to expose the foolishness of UFO “investigators.” They write: “Are UFO investigators simply charlatans looking to make a quick buck off human gullibility? ... If a respected UFO investigator can be easily manipulated and dead wrong on one UFO case, is it possible he’s wrong on most (or all)\of them? Do the networks buy into this nonsense, or are they in it for the ratings?”

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Followed by..........



MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY: DISTRICT ATTORNEY TO CHARGE UFO HOAXERS

Prosecutor plans press conference on UFO hoax claims

Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi will conduct a press conference to discuss the claims by a pair of Whippany Park HS alumni that they staged a UFO hoax involving road flares and balloons earlier this year.

Earlier this week, the two men posted videos online that demonstrated how they used flares and balloons, launching them to create the illusion of red-lighted UFOs hovering over Morris County five times in January and February.

The mysterious lights made headlines across the U.S.

Authorities have said the flares and balloons could have interfered with air traffic in the region, including Newark Liberty International Airport flight patterns, and also posed a fire hazard as they floated over homes in the Morristown area.

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$800 electric bill prompts switch to wood stove

Couple fill yard in quest to lower costs

The more than $800 electric bill Russell Duntz and his fiancee, Julia Lovejoy, received in October pushed them to take action and find a more inexpensive way to heat their home.

They paid to install a wood stove that a friend gave them, cut wood from a friend’s property in Voluntown and another friend’s property in Norwich and starting piling it in their front yard.

And piling. And piling still more.

Now, nearly every inch of the tiny front yard of their home on McKinley Avenue, along with the front porch and most of the even smaller grassy space in the back yard, is filled with wood piled higher than the surrounding stone walls.

It’s just one example of the everyday efforts people in Eastern Connecticut are making to cope with the economic meltdown.

There’s at least 10 cords in the front yard, a fairly startling sight for a streetside neighborhood just outside downtown. Another five or six cords are in the backyard.

“People come by and they are amazed because we have so much wood,” Lovejoy said.

Duntz said people ask, “What are you, crazy?”

Their efforts have paid off, even if the wood stove meant they had to move a dining table from the kitchen into an entryway. The electric bill dropped by $600 in March, they said.

Janine Saunders, spokeswoman for Norwich Public Utilities, said while she cannot comment on specific accounts, an $800 electric bill in October is highly unusual. She said customers in such situations can call NPU’s energy efficiency team at (860) 823-4514.

Duntz, a group home director for the state Department of Mental Retardation, admitted the wood piles make for an unusual sight. But he said he keeps his home warmer than most people.

The couple bought a pickup truck for $800 so they can haul wood and prepare for next winter.

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Spring Has Sprung!

The first flower of the year! Which reminds me, this is the last crocus I have. We'll have to plant more one of these years.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

News From The Observatory

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy. The hardest one I've done so far. It's so tiny and faint and far away.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Polaris Enters Agreement with Robby Gordon

NASCAR and Off-Road racer to help with product development and marketing initiatives

Polaris Industries announced the company has entered into a marketing and product development agreement with famed NASCAR and three-time Baja 1000 Trophy Truck winner, Robby Gordon.

The three-year agreement includes Gordon providing insight on future products and promoting Polaris’ RANGER RZR Side-by-Sides. Gordon’s vast knowledge of off-road vehicles, from a racing perspective and through his product development experience gained from building his own trophy trucks and accessories with his company, Robby Gordon Off-Road, will be a valuable asset in creating and promoting new RANGER RZR Side-by-Sides and accessories.

“I am very excited to be involved with Polaris. They are the leading American manufacturer in consumer off-road vehicles. The RANGER RZR and the RANGER have set the standard in side-by-side vehicles. At Robby Gordon Off-road, we have built the fastest, most elite off-road vehicles in the world. We are excited to share this technology and knowledge with consumers through our partnership with Polaris,” said Robby Gordon.

A common name in NASCAR, Gordon grew up riding and racing off-road vehicles. He won the first off-road race he entered and went on to win various off-road championships. His passion for and success in off-road racing brought him to building his own trophy trucks and accessories, and creating Robby Gordon Off-Road, an aftermarket truck wheel, tire and accessory store. Gordon’s accomplishments include three Baja 1000 Trophy Truck victories and becoming the first American to win a daily stage of the Dakar Rally, when it was a 16-day 5,700-mile race from Barcelona, Spain to Dakar, Senegal, mostly in vehicles he built himself. Polaris believes Gordon’s off-road successes and product knowledge will be invaluable in the development and promotion of their RANGER RZR Side-by-Side business.

“Our relationship with Gordon is unique because he’ll not only promote our product but use his off-road expertise to help create future RANGER RZR vehicles and accessories,” said Matt Homan, vice president and general manager for Polaris’ Off-Road Division. “Coupling Gordon’s expertise in building and racing off-road vehicles, with the hottest-selling side-by-sides will ensure the RANGER RZR product line continues to be an undisputed leader both on the racing scene and in the marketplace.”

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Trouble In HawkeyeLand!

It's the first thing I have had go wrong with my Polaris Hawkeye ATV. Yesterday the battery went bad. It just quit taking a charge and it would make the lights blink on and off and even kill the engine sometimes when I turned the lights on. It's 2 years and one month old, and that's pretty good for an ATV battery. I've bought a lot of them over the years and that's about the longest they last.

Went to Wal-mart last night to get a new one. The one listed for it was $80, but the one I bought was $40. No way was I going to buy that $80 one. The $40 one is 3/8 inch taller than the original. Nothing a little bending of the hold-down bracket couldn't fix, especially for half the price of the other one!

More fire! This time was a car fire.


When it's dry and possibility of forest fires, this is the way my trailer looks. Note the water and shovel! I've never needed it, but I feel better just in case. Chainsaws don't normally start fires. It's usually the guy running it that does something stupid, like throw a cigarette down etc.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Deep Solar Minimum

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet—and here it is," says Pesnell.

But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:

A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites.

A 55-year low in solar radio emissions: After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."

Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.

In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected.

Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of top solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle.

Pesnell believes sunspot counts will pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013.

But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear?

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News From The Observatory

M37 Star Cluster


Or, if you prefer, the wider view:


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

2012 & Natural Time

On Coast to Coast AM 4/1/09:

The man who first introduced the date December 21, 2012 into mass consciousness, Jose Arguelles discussed how he uncovered the Mayan codes, including the Harmonic Convergence (1987), and the need to return to natural time. He was joined by Stephanie South, whose biography of Arguelles has just been published.

Arguelles believes that a solar flare will deliver a knock out punch to modern civilization in 2012. Satellites, the power grid, and communications will all go down, creating an irrevocable event, he said. The positive aspect of this is that we'll be placed back in "natural time" and the biosphere can clean itself of effects from the industrial/mechanized system, he noted.

The early Mayans did have ET-type contacts from very advanced beings, "telepathic transmissions through different dimensions where the fractal properties of a particular form remain constant through the dimensions, so they get reconstructed in the dimension where they're being targeted," he explained.

Arguelles is an advocate for the 13 moon 28 day calendar, which was one of the systems the Mayans used. Living in this natural cycle, as opposed to our irregular calendar, can bring about a harmonious shift in consciousness, he said. A person will become more spiritual, with new perceptions coming into their mind with the 28 day calendar, South added. After 2012, he sees humanity synchronizing with a cosmic civilization, and the beginning of a whole new evolutionary cycle.

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What Would the View Be Like From Within a Black Hole?

If you fell into a black hole, would you be engulfed in darkness? Could you see out beyond the event horizon? Are there wormholes inside black holes? Do black holes give birth to baby universes? Believe it or not, these questions may have been answered. Andrew Hamilton from the University of Colorado and Gavin Polhemus have created a video showing what falling into a Schwarzschild black hole might look like to the person falling in. The two researchers warn that based on our experience in the 3D world, we might imagine that falling through the horizon would be like falling through any other surface. However, they say, it's not. And likely, a person falling into the black hole would be able to see outside of the event horizon.

"When an observer outside the horizon observes the horizon of a black hole," the researchers say, "they are actually observing the outgoing horizon. When they subsequently fall through the horizon, they do not fall through the horizon they were looking at, the outgoing horizon; rather, they fall through the ingoing horizon, which was invisible to them until they actually passed through it. Once inside the horizon, the infaller sees both outgoing and ingoing horizons."

As you might expect, this work has created a lot of interest, and the servers hosting the videos has already crashed once, but now has been put on a new server. Watch several different videos. along with written commentary here.

While this work is great fun to watch and delve into, it also has great scientific merit. Calculating what the universe looks like from inside a black hole is an important exercise because it forces physicists to examine how the laws of physics behave at a breaking point. For example, near the singularity, the observer’s view in the horizontal plane is highly blueshifted, but all directions other than horizontal appear highly redshifted.

Also, the principle of locality is severely tested inside a black hole. This is the idea that a point in space can only be influenced by its immediate surroundings. But when space is infinitely stretched, as physicists think it is at the heart of a black hole, the concept of "immediate surroundings" doesn't make sense. So the concept of locality begins to lose its meaning too.

And that provides an interesting "thought laboratory" in which physicists can ask how ideas such as quantum mechanics and relativity might break down.

It also provides some other entertaining results. For example, space is so heavily curved inside a black hole that ordinary binocular vision would be no good for determining distances, says Hamilton. But trinoculars might work.

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News From The Observatory

Last Night's Moon 4/7/09


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

He Charted the Moon Before Galileo, But You've Probably Never Heard of Him

On a clear night in July of 1609, English polymath Thomas Harriot pointed his “Dutch perspective glass” toward the crescent moon. The crude lunar map he sketched from his observations dates him as the earliest person known to have used a telescope to study a celestial object, beating Galileo Galilei by nearly four months. Over subsequent years Harriot produced remarkable drawings showing the locations of the moon’s craters and what he believed to be its oceans and coastlines. His cartography was not bettered for decades. So why does Galileo enjoy lasting fame while Harriot has been all but forgotten?

“The unfortunate thing is that Harriot never got around to publishing his maps,” says Stephen Pumfrey, a professor of history at Lancaster University in England, “and it was definitely a publish-or-perish situation.” Since Harriot never publicly claimed to have been the first to observe the moon’s surface in detail, Galileo got the credit.

Historians debate what made Harriot so reticent. In a paper published in February [pdf], Oxford professor Allan Chapman argues that Harriot was well-off and “was not an agenda- or career-driven individual,” whereas Galileo was determined to rise in station through his science. But Pumfrey also notes that both of Harriot’s wealthy patrons ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London, which may have discouraged him from crowing about his controversial discoveries. “Harriot had no one to protect him, because his patrons were worried about having their heads chopped off,” Pumfrey says. An exhibition of Harriot’s maps opens on July 23 at the Science Museum in London.

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Strong Wind, Bright Moon

When the Moon is bright and the wind is strong, what do you do?

Well, take a picture of the Moon of course!


And the Big Dipper!


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Canon PowerShot SX100 IS

I purchased my Canon PowerShot SX100 IS one year ago today and have taken 10,000 pictures with it. It has been a very good camera. I have been pleased with it's performance, even exceeding some of my expectations.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

FIRE! FIRE!

I was cutting wood down on the south end today. I always carry a police scanner (or two) with me, so I heard the fire pager. A forest fire was about 1 1/2 miles directly upwind from me. Shortly after the fire departments were paged out, I could smell the smoke. Then the smoke was so thick at times that it would burn my throat. Eventually there were ashes falling on me from the sky! Not much danger though, there was a couple of roads and a large irrigation field between the fire and the woods that I was in. After I finished loading the pile I was working on, I decided to go take a look. As per listening to the scanner, they had evacuated several houses (10 buildings were threatened and two of them burned).




The D.N.R. airplane circling the fire.


The military was busy today, and I think a couple pilots might be in love. The heart-shaped vapor trails are odd.


Not a fire, but the sunset from last night.


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Ghost photo baffles experts

AN eerie image of a figure at a Scottish castle has got ghost experts spooked.

The scary shot was unearthed during the biggest ever investigation into photographic evidence of ghosts.

The picture, taken in May last year, shows a spectral figure in fifteenth century dress peering out of a barred window at Tantallon Castle in Fife.

No mannequins or costumed guides are used at the castle and photo experts have confirmed that no digital trickery was used.

Even ghost sceptic Professor Richard Wiseman admitted to being puzzled.

“It is certainly very curious,” he said.

“We ran it by three photographic experts and they said it hadn’t been Photoshopped at all.

“The figure appears to be in period costume, but we know 100 per cent that Tantallon Castle is not the sort of place that has dummies or costumed guides; they just don’t go in for that sort of thing.

“I suppose it could be a visitor looking a little bit strange. Perhaps someone will come forward. Another possibility is an odd reflection of sunlight, but it does look very like a person. The explanation is not obvious.”

Tantallon Castle, a ruined fortress dating back to the 14th century, stands on a remote rocky headland near North Berwick on the East coast of Scotland. It was badly damaged in an attack by Oliver Cromwell’s forces in 1651.

Christopher Aitchison, who took the photo, said: “I was not aware of anyone, or anything, being present in my picture."

Psychologist Prof Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, who has made many studies of the supernatural, launched the investigation a month ago.

Members of the public were asked to submit ghostly images for experts to analyse, the best of which were posted on the website www.scienceofhauntings.com.

More than 250 pictures were received from all over the world and more than a quarter of a million people voted for what they considered to be the most convincing photos.

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Florida UFO reports on the rise

Florida witnesses reported nine UFO incidents over 12 days, including one triangular-shaped low fly, one large UFO followed by three smaller ones, a spherical object moving below a passenger jet, bright spirals of light, and four reports of multiple orange lights in the sky.
A March 23 report included details that a UFO in a triangle shape with eight lights was low flying near the witness.

On March 12, one very large UFO with three smaller objects nearby was spotted by a witness who was driving along I-95 toward Orlando with "different colors and different lighting patterns underneath."

A passenger aboard Air Tran flight 823 in final descent on March 14 over Orlando looked out the window and saw a "small, dull silver colored spherical object" in the air below the plane and moving in the opposite direction.

Read about these and more Flordia reports below. Following are the unedited witness reports from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database.

March 23, 2009 - Saw a diamond shape craft with 8 lights hovering.
I was driving home from work and saw out of the corner of my eye a low flying craft. I turned my head quick to look at it thinking that I was going to see a plane crash and noticed that it was not an airplane. I was just east of WalMart on highway 98 in Gulf Breeze, Florida. The craft was hovering just above the trees maybe 50 yards away from me. I was so startled that I had to pull off the side of the road. I watched it for about 3 minutes. It had eight lights. They were shaped like a diamond. Four lights made up a small diamond that was surrounded by four more lights that made up a bigger diamond around it. It just hovered there in the sky not moving. I also noticed that it was not making any noise. I had the windows down in my car and I could not hear anything. After a few minutes it just diappeared. I thought that maybe I had blinked and missed it, but I could not find it anywhere in the sky. I know that it was definitely not any kind of airplane that I had ever seen or heard of before.

March 12, 2009 - one larger ufo with three smaller ufos about 1/4 mile in front
i was headed down interstate 95 towards orlando when i saw a large craft just sitting in the sky with different colors and different lighting patterns underneath. i scanned the sky to see if there were more. i then saw three seperate small lights/orbs . the fronts of these three circles starting pulsating and reminded me of a jellyfish. the highway was loaded with cars and yet nobody slowed down or stopped (myself included) to get a better look or take pictures. my thoughts were, this was some kind of stunt because the large ship reminded me of an episode of star trek classic where a klingon or was it romulan vessel decloaked,and that is what this circle (underneath) looked like. i just kept driving down interstate 95.

March 14, 2009 - Saw small spherical orb-shaped UFO while coming in for landing at Orlando International Airport on Air Tran flight 823
I was flying from Chicago to Orlando, FL on March 14, 2009 on Air Tran flight 823. During our final descent I noticed a small, dull silver colored spherical orb in the air below the plane on the left. The object caught my eye because of its gray color and perfectly round shape. The object was at less than half the altitude of the plane. I noticed it, saw it disappear behind the wing and reappear on the other side before leaving my range of sight out of the plane's window. The object was moving in the opposite direction of our plane, slightly faster than our plane's speed. At first I thought it was a power line with some sort of identifying object, but saw no other orbs or power lines. My next thought was that it was a bird, but I later saw a bird flying below our plane. The bird was traveling in the same direction and at approximately the same altitude as the object and it was easily recognizable as a bird. After the sighting I tried to explain to myself what I had seen, but no explanation came to mind. Later seeing a bird which looked very different confirmed that I had seen something unusual and unexplainable. The object was definitely in the air and looked unusual enough for me to want to report it.

March 17, 2009 - Lights would appear then separate into two to three lights then fade out.
While staying at St. George Island Fl. Each night about 9pm while watching the stars we started to see orange lights appear. Sometimes the lights would split into two, one traveling east and climbing to a higher altitude then disapearing while the other staied fixed on the horizon and disapearing at the same time the other one did. Sometimes the lites would apear and then fade out. On several occasion we would hear jets flying out over head. Knowing of the Air Force bases close by we didn't know if there were military excersizes out over the gulf or were they chasing the lights. The lights looked like orange flares but traveled horazontaly and climbed never falling to earth as flares do.

March 23, 2009 - Spiral of lights glowing at 1-3 sec durations with lights brightening and dimmming from tail to center.
I was sitting on my back porch, which faces east, at my home on Nine Mile Road and Ashland Rd. in Pensacola, FL. A Navy base and a regional airport are located near my home. Airline and Helicopter traffic at night is common in the eastern pensacola sky.

At approx 8:30pm
A "spiral", for lack of better term, of lights began glowing a very bright red-orange in the east sky. This was not a helicopter or plane. It would glow for approx 1 - 4 sec then fade out from tail to the center of the "spiral".
I called into the house for my wife to come out and see, which she did.
The event lasted for approx 3 mins. with 10 - 30 secs in between appearances of the "spiral" in different configurations and also bouncing left and right in the sky from one appearance to another.

March 23, 2009 - Sighted object coming home from Pensacola Beach going home in Gulf Breeze.
Coming home from Pensacola beach, I spotted three lights in a row. The object seemed to turn and then it appeared to be triangular with more lights. The lights would stay on 3-4 seconds and then disappear. The object did not appear to be moving, so I assumed it was not an airplane or helicopter. I kept watching as we were driving accross the bridge and the object did not appear to move. I wached the lights go on and off in the same pattern at least 4-5 times. As we reached the end of the bridge and turned on HWY 98 toward Navarre, we looked to our left and the same lights and pattern appeared on the left side of HWY 98 totally opposite the side of the road we had seen it before. This time it seemed to be moving back accross HWY 98 back toward the water. It moved across, in front, above us, and lower behind trees. We were in a Jeep with no windows, but heard no noise what so ever. After arriving home in Midway, we looked in the sky and could see what seemed to be puffy small smoke-like clouds above us, but the rest of the sky was totally clear. Shortly afterwards we saw and heard several military helicopters going toward where we last saw the object. We were totally amazed as we continued to rule out the possibility of planes, copters, flares, ect. We came to the conclusion there was nothing we knew that could exhibit such unusual patterns of movement and light display.

March 23, 2009 - Red-orange floating dots.
in washington highschool in pensacola florida a fire alarm went off with out cause causing many people to come out. now it was around 8:30 so there wasnt very many people in the school other than janitors and orchestra practice students. when every one was out side we heard emergency response vehicles coming toward us but they circled around us torward the airport which was very strange, we were sure they were coming in response to the fire alarm. we looked toward the airport and saw orange red lights that would appear for about 4 seconds and dissapear and appear to the right about 10 - 30 seconds later. it did this about two times when a helicopter over passed us extremely close to the ground for just a helicopter to be flying around. the helicopter made a L shaped turn towards the lights.the lights appeared and dissapeared about 8 times.the helicopter then went around the area we first saw the lights.then about 2-3 min later we were facing the complete opposite direction, 180 degrees the other way and we saw the lights appear and reappear about twice and stopped for the rest of the night. pretty soon after words there was about 3-5 helicopters flying around all of the areas we had just sighted the flying dots. this was all in pensacola florida.right after the fire alarm went off, we heard a loud bass sound for about 30 second to a minute. after the dots dissapeared a large cloud seemed to cover that area.

March 23, 2009 - Red lights in the night sky.
Just over Cordova Mall near the Pensacola Airport, about four or five red lights appeared in the night sky after a fire alarm went off at Washington High School. Several people exited the building and noticed the lights in the sky.

Shortly after, several helicopters and emergency sirens could be heard in the area, but not sure if they were responding to the lights.

The lights faded out, then reappear in random locations in the sky several (more than five) times.

My son caught it on his phone camera, so it's kind of hard to see. At about the middle of the video you can make out a light at the center of the screen. They were joking about what they thought they might be seeing, but then quickly got excited and nervous at the thought that it really could be a UFO. The ringing noise on the video is the fire alarm from the school, but the kids say that they heard a low pitch noise--a "boom"--that continued to hum for about a minute after.

We contacted local media and authorities, but no one seems to be able to explain it.

March 23, 2009 - Thought they were fireworks!
My brother and I were riding in the car and we saw what looked like very low flying planes, until it disappeared and reappeared. There were 5 lights that would fade and disappear and then reappear and stay lit for about 5 seconds and disappear again. This continued on and we tried to follow it (heading south on Log Lake Rd. until we got to Guest? Lake) to find out what the lights were. We stopped at a good place to view the lights in front of a house where the residents were looking at the lights, too. The round lights were about the color of the orange-yellow of common street lamps and we decided they weren't fireworks, flares, helicopters, or airplanes. We live very close to Eglin AFB's and Duke Field's outlying land. I took my brother home (the opposite way we were following the phenomena) and when I came back to jump on the interstate (I-10), there were several emergency response teams coming from that way. I couldn't make out what types of response vehicles they were, though. It's a SUPER rural area, so there's nothing back there for 6 or 7 such vehicles to come from. There was no sound with this...happening. Bizarre!

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News From The Observatory

Moon 4/3/09


M35 star cluster


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Déjà vu: Where fact meets fantasy

Mr P, an 80-year-old Polish émigré and former engineer, knew he had memory problems, but it was his wife who described it as a permanent sense of déjà vu. He refused to watch TV or read a newspaper, as he claimed to have seen everything before. When he went out walking he said the same birds sang in the same trees and the same cars drove past at the same time every day. His doctor said he should see a memory specialist, but Mr P refused. He was convinced that he had already been.

Déjà vu can happen to anyone, and anyone who has had it will recognise the description immediately. It is more than just a sense that you have seen or done something before; it is a startling, inappropriate and often disturbing sense that history is repeating, and impossibly so. You can't place where the earlier encounter happened, and it can feel like a premonition or a dream. Subjective, strange and fleeting, not to mention tainted by paranormal explanations, the phenomenon has been a difficult and unpopular one to study.

Now that is changing, spurred in part by Mr P and a handful of people who, like him, have dementia and experience continuous déjà vu, and also by the discovery that there is a group of people with epilepsy who have déjà vu-like auras before a seizure. They are making it possible for researchers to catch the process in action, bringing hope that the secrets of this strange and disturbing phenomenon could finally be unlocked. Surprisingly, not only is déjà vu proving an interesting window on the peculiar ways that our memory works, it is also providing a few clues about how we tell the difference between what is real, imagined, dreamed and remembered - one of the true mysteries of consciousness.

Speculations about past lives or telepathy aside, the first biological explanations of déjà vu were based on ideas that two sensory signals in the brain - perhaps one from each eye or each hemisphere of the brain - for some reason move out of sync, so that people have the experience of reliving the same event. "Mental diplopia", as it was called, is intuitively appealing but the evidence is stacked against it. Information from the two eyes mixes very early in visual processing, long before we perceive a scene. What's more, déjà vu - rather ironically as the term means "already seen" - can occur in blind people, according to Chris Moulin, a psychologist at the University of Leeds, UK, (Brain and Cognition, vol 62, p 264). Then there are the cases of people who have had their two cortical hemispheres surgically separated in an attempt to relieve intractable epilepsy. If the mental diplopia idea were correct you might expect them to have permanent déjà vu, yet there are no reports of this happening.

A second intuitive explanation is some sort of distortion in time perception. Somehow, incoming signals must get misinterpreted and labelled with an inappropriate time stamp, making the experience seem old as well as current. If the brain's memory system is like a tape recorder, it is as if the recording head has got muddled with the playback head. It is an interesting analogy, but it does not appear to have any anatomical basis in the brain.

Now another theory is gaining credibility. Perhaps déjà vu feels like reliving a past experience because we actually are - at least to some extent. Psychologist Anne Cleary of Colorado State University in Fort Collins came to this idea via an interest in memory problems. Keen to explain instances such as when something seems to be on the tip of the tongue, or when we recognise a face but can't place it, she started looking for parallels with déjà vu. "One particular theory of déjà vu is that it may be a memory process," she says. "Features of a new situation may be familiar from some prior situation."

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bright lights

A couple of bright lights trail the waxing gibbous Moon across the sky tonight. As darkness falls, the star Regulus and the planet Saturn line up to the lower left of the Moon. Regulus is closer to the Moon, while Saturn is a little brighter.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Sirius

The V-shaped face of Taurus, the bull, points straight down at the western horizon this evening. To his left, the three stars of Orion's Belt line up parallel to the horizon. Follow them to Orion's left to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

On Coast to Coast AM 3/25

In the first half of the show, researcher Grant Cameron and activist Stephen Bassett discussed the UFO disclosure movement, and US presidents and their knowledge of UFOs/ETs.

Cameron gave a rundown on what various presidents may have known about UFOs. Here is a sampling:
# Truman-- was involved with the Roswell Incident, had the most control of all the presidents in terms of keeping secrets.
# Eisenhower-- possible ET meeting in '54.
# LBJ-- may have had meetings about the Kecksburg Crash.
# Nixon-- reportedly showed alien bodies to Jackie Gleason.
# Carter-- had his own UFO sighting; helped to open the door for Freedom of Information documents.
# Reagan-- made references to aliens in his speeches, and confirmed ETs to Steven Spielberg.

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News From The Observatory

Star Cluster Mel 111


4/1/09 Moon


- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

ISS Tonight

2 Apr -1.3 19:30:36 WNW 46

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

New watch 'tells the future'

Swiss watch-makers have teamed up with Indian fortune tellers to design a watch that claims to predict the future.

The watch features a bedpan-shaped section which turns brown when "the s*** is about to hit the fan", claim the makers.

Swiss makers Borgeaud say the bedpan turns brown when dark astral forces are about to strike and will not clear until the bad omens have passed.

The watchmakers say it will warn anyone when misfortune is about to strike.

And they are predicting the limited edition watches - there are 500 for women and 150 for men which cost more than £1,500 each - will prove a hit with celebrities and even politicians.

"It could be a hit with politicians all over the world," said watch designer Chitra Subramaniam Duella.

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The Moon scoots through Gemini tonight.

The constellation is best known for its bright "twin" stars, Pollux and Castor, which are above the Moon as darkness falls.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Venus

After spending the first three months of the year in the evening sky, Venus is just climbing into view as the "morning star." Early tomorrow, if you have a clear eastern horizon, look for it about a half-hour before sunrise, quite low in the sky.

- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill

Expedition sets off in Siberia to check Bigfoot sightings

A scientific expedition is setting out to the mountains in Russia’s Siberia to explore the recent reports of bigfoot sightings, Itar Tass reports Monday.

The two-day expedition will take scientists to the cave located 120 km off Tashtagol town in Kemerovo Region, where local hunters spotted huge human-like creatures.

“We intend to find certain proofs, study the landscape, and conclude whether bigfoots could live there,” Director of the International Center for Hominology, Igor Burtsev, told journalists ahead of the trip.

Burtsev, who has been looking for the relict hominid for over forty years, said he was sure that “bigfoots were reality”.

The local administration has so far received 14 written reports from residents of far-off villages who allegedly saw yetis near the Azasskaya cave. According to the reports, the creatures were heavyset, about two meters’ tall and looking a lot like bears. Their bodies were covered in red and black fur, and they could climb trees.

The cave that is to be examined during the expedition is several kilometers long, passing under a riverbed. Burtsev will be accompanied by ethnography professor Valery Kimeyev, representatives of local administration, and several of the hunters who reported the sightings.

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