Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars - 2012

 

Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars

In December 2007, I wrote about a transit of Mars that brought the red planet close to Earth. Also in that article, I discussed the “Face on Mars” (FOM), first photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

Since its discovery on low-resolution images from the Viking 1 orbiter, scientists have argued that the FOM is a natural phenomenon. The FOM, they said, was an eroded mesa viewed in oblique sunlight. In 2001 and again in 2003 new orbiters focused high-resolution cameras on that supposed eroded mesa. Again, scientists concluded that the FOM was a figment of hopeful human imagination. Imagine that.

On August 6, 2012, I watched the Olympic women’s gymnastics apparatus finals on NBC. At 10:30 PM PDT, I switched over to watch NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover stick its landing on the surface of Mars. Flipping channels back to gymnastics, I watched as an American woman missed her landing. Although I cannot say which act was more difficult, the Mars landing is more portentous, as it may lead to discovery of life on Mars.

On one hand, NASA and other scientists had steadfastly denied any life-connection to the FOM. On the other hand, the same scientists were optimistic that instruments on the Curiosity rover would discover precursors to life on Mars. It reminded me of the 2012 supposed discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Switzerland. At that announcement, three hundred mostly agnostic or atheist scientists wept over the supposed discovery of “the God particle”. Suffice to say that scientists are an unreliable source of information on where life came from or even what it is.

Hoping to see a review of the best current and historical English pop music, I tuned in to the London Olympics Closing Ceremony. Although the presentation was a bit erratic, it was full of energy and everyone was having fun. Only later did I discover that a preview of some idiotic NBC sitcom had preempted a live performance by the Who and others. I wonder which brilliant NBC executive made that decision.

For me, the highlight of the London Olympics Closing Ceremony was a live performance by John Lennon. Dead since December 8, 1980, I was shocked to see him singing again, live and in person. As his song played, actors on the Olympic stage began pushing large white blocks all about. Shaped like puzzle pieces, I could not imagine what the blocks might symbolize.

Then, an aerial shot revealed what I had suspected all along. The actors in Olympic Stadium had replicated the famous Face on Mars. That face, of course, was of John Lennon. Presaging his death by almost four years, John Lennon had concocted to place his face on Mars. As John Lennon so aptly sang, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it's easy if you try, no people below us, above us only sky”. Now, almost twenty-two years after his death we see that he has been up there all along. And remember, all you need is love.

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By James McGillis at 11:00 AM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

When It's Dry, You Can't Swim The River - 2009

 

When It's Dry, You Can't Swim The River

 

At Midnight MDT on September 17 - 18, 2009, we honored the second anniversary of the Quantum Leap. With that and the equinox of September 22, 2009 now past, it is a good time to take stock, and write about our feelings.

 

Today, we wandered around our backyard, using a garden hose and nozzle to water the dry spots. If not everyone yet knows, the Western U.S. is experiencing a long-term drought, with no end in sight. How little water can one household use and still have green lawns? With a twenty-five percent price hike in local water prices here in 2010, we shall find out. Moreover, the drying of the Earth continues apace.

 

Do two giant dust storms hitting Sydney, Australia this week foretell of Mars-like, planet-wide dust storms here? Yes, but do not let that bother you. As you travel on your local freeway, go ahead and “floor” the gas pedal of your hybrid automobile. If you think you are getting a real bang for your hydrocarbon buck, remember that in the end, we can fool ourselves, but we cannot fool Mother Nature.

 

Just this week, scientists discovered that Mars has a large subterranean ice sheet, holding as much pure, crystallized water as our Greenland Ice Sheet. Whether ice or water is basking  in the sun, as it does here on Earth or it is hiding cartoon-like, beneath the surface of Mars, by human standards that is a large amount of water.

 

Last night, as we drove our 400+ horsepower Nissan Titan truck several miles to pick up a pizza, we rolled down the windows and listened to the evening wind whip around the inside of the cab. Since squirrels and children often appear in our headlights at dusk, we allowed the heavy truck to roll slowly down the hill. There, on our left, was a man with his garden hose gushing water into the street. After hand watering our yard for several weeks, his artificial deluge seemed out of place.

 

“You can’t do that anymore”, we called as we rolled past his position. In our town, you can drive a gasoline-powered truck several miles to pick up pizza, but you cannot open a spigot and let water gush out the end of your garden hose.

 

Effects on the environment are cumulative, but not always obvious. The marshes in Iraq’s once Fertile Crescent region are dry now, blowing away as dust. As far from our home as that may be, is there cause for alarm? Historians and scientists believe that the Fertile Crescent was the original model for the biblical Garden of Eden. Some say that the area was the cradle of human civilization.

 

Our climatic conundrum reminds us of an old cartoon about two natives, shown running away from a ferocious lion. One turns to the other and says, “At least I only have to run faster than you.” Many on this Earth have yet to learn that we share this place with many life forms, including a newly discovered one, which is water, itself.

 

Once we realize that every fractal drop of water is precious, our attitudes toward it will change. During his October 2003 exhibition, Dr. Masaru Emoto, of Japan, ushered in a new age in water crystal photographic techniques. Recognized as the originator of the international Hado water research program and movement, Dr. Emoto’s water crystals “showed the imprint of energy signatures on water”. To produce his beautiful images, Dr Emoto uses DPE (Direct Photo Etching) technology, introduced to him by Doi Photo (now Doi Technical Photo of Yurakucho, Japan). What we divine from Dr. Emoto’s photographic lens is that water is alive.

 

If you were to ask the average person which natural resource issue has the greatest potential impact on our economy and society, many would say, “Global Warming", followed closely by "Future shortages and the increasing price of oil”. How many of us would say, “Global drought and the end of surface water on Earth?” As valuable as liquefied fossil fuels have been to our recent economic and cultural past, we cannot drink any combustion fuel.

 

When Midwestern corn states had an opportunity to insinuate ethanol, distilled corn into our gasoline supply, they leapt at the chance. Few motorists today know how much corn-fuel they are burning in their hybrids. Fewer still have contemplated how much water, diesel fuel, coal and natural gas are used in concocting that fuel. Our political system allows corporate farming interests to sell us a stealth fuel at a subsidized and hidden cost. Ill-conceived plans such as that, which neglect the realities of life on Earth, cannot long stand.

 

Now, the West faces a fuel vs. water challenge far greater than the corn-to-fuel decisions made in the past thirty years. The economies of shale mining and fuel-conversion processing require both water and fuel on an unprecedentedly large scale. Individuals and corporations who promote such plans continue to avoid the issue of water usage. If the American public is not made aware of the oil-shale water use issue, we may all be in peril.

 

After blasting and crushing the oil-laden rock at their 15,000 acres of approved mining sites, old-energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell plan to mix the crushed rock with water, and then transport the resulting toxic chemical slurry to their processing plants. Those plants will find it too expensive to detoxify the slurry, so the watery residue will meet its demise in vast settling ponds. During processing, more water will vanish from cooling towers, for dust suppression and for other industrial uses.

 

What water source in the West is large enough to allow such a withdrawal without any commensurate return? Since it will spoil their argument in favor of shale-fuel, “oil-shale conversionists” avoid answering that question. Neither above nor below ground in the Four Corners states does such a volume of water exist, other than in the Colorado River. With continued declining annual flows, both the Upper and the Lower Colorado Basin are already “over subscribed”. Regardless, oil-shale advocates continue to ignore the arguments against using Colorado River water, all the while pretending that there is some other untapped water source available to them. There is not.

 

Therefore, a great people will soon have a choice to make. The choice is – are we ready to give up the Colorado River and its living water in exchange for obsolete, yet somehow seductive liquid fuels? To do so, would be to accept a rape of the land not seen since strip mines overran and destroyed much of Appalachia.

 

Crossroads are interesting things. When we reach one, we can continue forward, or we can divert to another course. Often unrecognized, we can also make a conscious choice to turn around and go back the way we came. In our current case, "going back” implies that we might see water as a beautiful living thing. If we are able to do so, we might save its life on Earth and our own.

 

As we conclude this article, the LA Times has several new and interesting facts. Scientists confirm that where ocean water abuts either Greenland ice or Antarctic ice, the glaciers are thinning faster than previously expected. In another story, two large western power providers (Pacific Gas & Electric of California and Public Service Co. of New Mexico) are quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The reason for their withdrawal is the Chamber’s hard line stance against any new climate legislation.

 

This proves that a change of consciousness can happen in America. As we watch the polar ice caps slip like water through our fingers, decision makers at some greenhouse gas-emitters realize that they and their children must live in the same world that they are helping to create.

 

Before all liquid water evaporates from the surface of the Earth, we might yet turn around and “go back”. If not, perhaps some future, far-flung culture will use Dr. Emoto’s DPE techniques to detect and document subterranean ice sheets on an otherwise desolate and empty Planet Earth. Will they conclude that Earth once supported life forms more diverse than water itself?

 

Together or divided, our collective consciousness will determine our future.

Email James McGillis

From Planet Mars, Comes "The Face on Mars" - 2007

From Planet Mars, Comes "The Face on Mars"...

Or is it John Lennon?

Have you noticed an intense red star rising in the east on recent evenings?  That is no star.  That is Mars.  The red planet is having a close encounter with Earth this week.  At closest approach on Tuesday evening, Dec. 18th, 2007 the two worlds will lie only 55 million miles apart.  Mars will not be this near the Earth again until the year 2016.  This information comes to us courtesy of Space Weather.  Are you ready for the view? Train your best optics on the bright red "star" rising in the east after sunset: sky map.

 

According to Astronomy Picture of the Day, very good telescopic views of Mars can be expected in the coming days as the Red Planet nears opposition on December 24th. Of course, opposition means opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky - an arrangement that occurs every 26 months for Mars.  Taking advantage of the shorter travel distance near opposition, NASA launched the Phoenix lander to Mars in August, 2007.  It is scheduled to arrive in May 2008.

 

It has been over 31 years since Mars last intruded on the mass consciousness of Planet Earth.  For those of us who were present in body at that time, we received a press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on July 31, 1976.

 

In part, it said: “This picture is one of many taken in the northern latitudes of Mars by the Viking 1 Orbiter in search of a landing site for Viking 2.  The picture shows eroded mesa-like landforms.  The huge rock formation in the center, which resembles a human head, is formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth.”

 

The Formation, later called the "Face on Mars” (FOM) appeared frequently on the covers of supermarket tabloids for several years thereafter.  More recently, in 2001 and 2003, very high resolution photos of the FOM revealed that it was “a naturally eroded mesa”, or so we were told. 

 

Once again, “science” had “disproved” evidence of intelligent life in the cosmos.  “Thank God”, said many who believe that there is higher intelligence in the universe, but are too afraid to believe that they, themselves, may be witness to such intelligence or its construction activities.

 

If I remember correctly, one cannot “prove a negative”, yet astronomers and scientists all over the world take great pride in telling us that the high resolution photos of the FOM “prove” that it is a “natural phenomenon”, caused by uplifting and erosion.  Many of our scientists offer us a negative proof by saying "a supernatural force does not exist, because there is no proof that it does exist".

 

If you see a wider smile on the FOM in the future, it is simply divine intelligence laughing, as it allows earth’s scientists to feel secure in not having discovered that which they endlessly seek – evidence that intelligent life exists beyond the confines of Planet Earth.  As the Veil thins, perhaps we shall see that extraterrestrial intelligence not only exists, but that it also has a sense of humor. 

 

March 2012, Author's note: Since release of the Disney Movie, "John Carter", A.K.A. "A Princess of Mars", there is a renewed interest in helium. In the movie, there is a city named "Helium" on the planet "Barsoom", A.K.A. Planet Mars. When Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the story a century ago, no one knew if there was intelligent life on Mars, let alone an atmosphere that included helium. Although we now know a lot more about Mars, we have learned little about proper use and conservation of our helium reserves here on Earth.

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By James McGillis at 04:40 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link

It is Time to Take Helium Gas More Seriously - 2007

From Earth to Mars - It is Time to Take Helium Gas More Seriously

 

The National Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States, holding over a billion cubic feet of Helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles northwest of Amarillo, Texas in a natural geologic gas storage formation. The reserve was established in 1925 as a strategic supply of gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Space Race and Cold War.  Even today, that facility holds fully one third of the helium reserves found worldwide.

 

On August 12, 1960, Echo 1, a 100-foot diameter metalized Mylar polyester-film balloon was successfully put into a low-earth-orbit (LEO). Although it was only a passive reflector, Echo 1 successfully redirected transcontinental and intercontinental telephone, radio, and television signals. As its shiny surface was reflective in the range of visible light, Echo 1 was visible to the unaided eye over most of the Earth. Brighter than most stars, it was probably seen by more people than any other man-made object in space. Echo 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere and burned up on May 24, 1968.

 

Shortly thereafter, some genius married the two concepts, “lighter than air” and “Mylar” to create the now ubiquitous helium party balloon.  If you walk into almost any supermarket or drugstore today, you will see variants of the party balloon reaching towards the ceiling on ribbons not unlike those that graced the birthday presents of our childhood.

 

And isn’t “childhood magic” what Mylar party balloons are all about?  First, the nearly indestructible Mylar is sonically welded into (let’s say) the shape of Santa Claus.  Once filled with helium, Santa can be used to delight young children, as they are naturally attracted to both the myth of Santa Claus and the myth of personal flight.

 

Sooner or later, the helium will migrate out of the balloon, earning the limp and ragged Santa a trip to the landfill.  There, the half-life of his shriveled body will exceed even the best preserved hotdog.  Assuming that our Santa balloon does hit the landfill, what is the harm?  Other than its near indestructibility, Mylar certainly cannot do much damage while buried in the earth.

 

Similar to learning not to swallow chewing gum, each child must to learn that if he releases his grip on his magical Santa balloon, he will float away, never to be seen again.  So, the internal battle for each child is, “How long should I hold on to the balloon before Santa is too dissipated to fly away?”  The little voice in the child’s head keeps saying “Let him go.  Santa wants to be free.” 

 

Once our Santa balloon takes flight, you can be sure that the first-time helium balloon owner will cry for the loss of his or her toy.  If that child lives in Southern California, there is an entire ecosystem that he should be crying for, as well.  That ecosystem is the probable destination of his lost balloon.

 

Having sailed WindSong, our Ericson 35 MkII Sailboat to Santa Catalina Island more than fifty times and having spent almost 100 days combing Venice Beach, California for Frito-Lay wrappers in 2003, I know where puffed-up Santa Claus and his other helium balloon friends go to die.  It is known as the Pacific Ocean.

 

Mylar and the balloon’s ribbon each are made from “Space Age Plastics”, thus they do not readily break down in the environment.  After Christmas, most balloons that wash up on shore are red or green.  After Valentine’s Day, most are red, and heart-shaped.  Post Halloween balloon trash features orange jack-o-lantern faces. 

 

What is the harm in a few (thousand) balloons washing up on shore?  After all, don’t Frito Lay snack wrappers outnumber them on the beach by one thousand to one?  Yes, that is true, but what is not often recognized is that the ribbons from the balloons become ensnared in the kelp forests (live webcam) which grow (or should I say, “used to grow”?) just offshore.

 

Once a large kelp plant becomes entangled in half a dozen or more balloon ribbons, it becomes unbalanced and its holdfast will release it into the tidal flow.  After each major storm on Venice Beach, huge kelp plants wash ashore, neatly bound up with party balloon ribbons.

 

Through its "Helium Privatization Act of 1996", the Congress of the United States directed the United States Department of the Interior to start liquidating the National Helium Reserves by 2005.  As we approach the end of 2007 that is exactly what is happening.  Although Helium and oil are valued very differently in the world economy, once the U.S. corner on helium reserves is gone, that position will be lost to us forever.

 

The rapid depletion of our helium reserves coincides with large-scale increases in Helium usage for industrial and medical device manufacturing.  So rather than “rationally rationing” the remaining supply, we are selling off our reserves as fast as we can.  As with any precious commodity, selling our helium reserves more slowly, if at all, would give the U.S. a strategic advantage in making future decisions about helium markets and usage. 

 

So what is the good news?  Helium will skyrocket in price, rather than just “floating up” as it recently has done.  If the prices double or triple, perhaps we will no longer feel the necessity to entertain our children with objects that float in the air.  If we curtail helium balloon sales, the whales, dolphins and other sea life will no longer be tempted to ingest pieces of shiny Mylar. Perhaps, the kelp forests will have a chance to regenerate, as well.

 

March 2012, Author's note: Every helium-filled Mylar cloud, it seems, has a silver lining. Since release of the Disney Movie, "John Carter", A.K.A. "A Princess of Mars", there is a renewed interest in helium. In the movie, there is a city named "Helium" on the planet "Barsoom", A.K.A. Planet Mars. When Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the story a century ago, no one knew if there was intelligent life on Mars, let alone an atmosphere that included helium. Although we now know a lot more about Mars, we have learned little about proper use and conservation of our helium reserves here on Earth.

Email James McGillis