Fracking, wastewater injection wells, and earthquakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titanic, premonitions, and the nature of consciousness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

























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

The ancients and the electromagnetic spectrum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on mushrooms and the Bread of God

Recently, an article appeared in Fierce Biotech Research magazine entitled "Deadly mushroom defeats human pancreatic cancer in mice."

The article explains that a study by a German research team found that the toxin from one of the most dangerous mushrooms known to man -- the Amanita phalloides mushroom, commonly known as the "death cap" in English -- may be extremely effective in halting the growth of pancreatic cancer tumors (so far, only in mice).

The death cap is responsible for most human poisonings worldwide, and probably throughout history as well. Its poison, known as α-amanitin, turns off the protein synthesis in cell tissue. Typically, this toxin causes severe damage to the liver as that organ tries to filter it out of the bloodstream, often to the point that the irreversible damage is done before the victim even notices any serious symptoms.

In the recent study, human pancreatic cancer cells were transplanted into mice. Then, the powerful toxin of the Amanita phalloides was coupled with an antibody in the hopes that the antibody would seek out the specific proteins in the tumors and shut them down, without roaming through the rest of the mouse's tissues and shutting them down as well (especially the liver). Antibodies are extremely important in biotech research, because they typically have a strong affinity for a specific protein category, and can thus be used to target specific cells.

According to the article, a single injection of the powerful α-amanitin toxin (coupled with the antibody) into the subject mice halted tumor growth. After a second dose, 90% of tumors targeted by the poison-antibody combo were "erased," without any measurable damage to other (non-targeted) tissues.

This is an incredible development, although it must now be seen if the results can be achieved in humans. The article does state that, prior to testing it in mice, similarly positive results were achieved in cell cultures of cancer cells in Petri dishes.

This amazing research also calls to mind the research of Paul Stamets, discussed in this previous blog post. In his talks, as well as in his writings available online at his website, Mr. Stamets emphasizes the important health properties that fungi, including mushrooms, can provide, including medicinal properties (many of which we no doubt have yet to discover).

In an article entitled "Novel antimicrobials from mushrooms," Mr. Stamets says:

Fungi and animals are more closely related to one another than either is to plants, diverging from plants more than 460 million years ago. Diseases of plants typically do not afflict humans whereas diseases of fungi do. Since humans (animals) and fungi share common microbial antagonists, such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, humans can benefit from the natural defensive strategies of fungi that produce antibiotics to fight infection from microorganisms. Hence, it is not surprising our most significant anti-bacterial antibiotics have been derived from fungi. 2.

Now, in addition to fighting microorganisms, it appears that fungi may become an essential weapon in stopping the out-of-control growth that characterizes cancer. Note that in the second of the two videos embedded in that previous blog post discussing the work of Mr. Stamets, some similar evidence of the possible effectiveness of fungi against a different form of cancer is offered. Whether you believe this is because fungi are more closely related to humans because of Darwinian evolution or not, this is amazing and hopeful.

That previous post about mushrooms also linked to the work of some authors who have argued that psychadelic mushroom species may have played a crucial role in ancient ritual and mystical experience -- even arguing that the miraculous manna described in the Hebrew Scriptures may have been some sort of mushroom that appeared at dawn among the dew.

Some of those authors note the fascinating fact that psychoactive mushrooms appear to have been referred to as "The Bread of God" by widespread cultures in both the Old and New Worlds.

In the New Testament Gospel of John, chapter 6, Christ specifically identifies himself with the manna of the Exodus, saying:

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then they said unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

And again, later in the same chapter:

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Special thanks to former paratrooper and world-famous organic farmer Dan V. for alerting me to the report of the Amanita-antibody research.

Titanic and the Fall of Civilizations

Just published on Amazon: "Titanic and the Fall of Civilizations," an essay on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, exploring the concept of "situational awareness" and the parallels for civilization as we know it.

The concept of situational awareness is one introduced by the military, particularly the US Army, during the past fifteen years as an invaluable tool for tactical planning and analysis. Situational awareness refers to having a true picture in one's mind which corresponds to the actual reality of the enemy situation, the terrain situation, and the capability of the friendly forces. Due to factors of human organizations and human psychology which famous military tactician Carl von Clausewitz called "the fog of war," the mental picture can diverge quite drastically from reality in all three of these areas, leading to lack of situational awareness and often to disaster.

This relatively new military term is invaluable for the analysis of the Titanic disaster, because it is quite clear that loss of situational awareness -- and the failure to correct the mental picture in spite of six wireless messages received on the fateful day of April 14, 1912 -- led to the collision with the iceberg and the grievous loss of life (over 1,500 lives lost, with only 700 survivors).

After an analysis of the use of situational awareness as a tool for examining the Titanic catastrophe, the essay explores evidence that we may have formed a similar incorrect mental model of our own civilization's history, one which has led to a mistaken belief that forward progress is our natural birthright, and which ignores salient evidence (or pushes it to the margins) that could help us avoid a catastrophe of similar magnitude.

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This is an essay, not a full book. It contains about 5,000 words. Hope you find it valuable -- if so, please consider telling others with a short review.

ASIN: B007RAQ7TY

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

Aligned stones, V-shaped notches, and massive but subtle sculptures found in India, New Zealand, and Peru

In the previous post, we looked at some of the amazing (and not yet widely-studied) ancient megaliths of India, and noted some remarkable parallels with constructs around the globe -- including in places quite unexpected based on the assumptions of conventional history, New Zealand in particular.

We noted three undeniable similarities between constructs in India and constructs in New Zealand:

• first, these ancient stones draw lines pointing to significant events in the sky, such as the rising of the sun on the solstices and equinoxes, and probably to important lunar and stellar rising points as well.
• second, these ancient stone structures are sometimes found in conjunction with "V-shaped notches" in the natural horizon, such that certain stones give the observer the correct place to stand in order to see the sun rise (or set) through the notch on significant days.
• third, the ancient builders of these stone complexes apparently enjoyed doing a little manipulation of large stones nearby in order to create monumental sculptures, which themselves are often oriented towards the rising sun, such as the lizard shown at a site in India, and a craggy, bearded face in New Zealand.

These correspondences are remarkable enough just between India and New Zealand, two parts of the globe generally considered to have developed without ancient cultural exchange between the two of them, according to conventional "isolationist" theory. However, what is equally remarkable are the similarities this list of elements suggests to a site in yet another supposedly isolated part of the globe -- this time in Peru, at Ollantaytambo, near Machu Picchu.

In a series of articles published on Graham Hancock's website, author and researcher (and skilled boatwright) Brien Foerster argues that the megalithic structures conventionally supposed to have been built no earlier than the 12th century AD may be far more ancient than that (although the Inca may well have extended the most ancient sites with later construction and terracing of their own). For Mr. Foerster's discussion, along with plenty of impressive photographs, see:

• "A brief history of the Incas; from Rise, through Reign, to Ruin"
• "The Disappearance of the Children of Viracocha"
• "The Disappearance of the Children of Viracocha (Part Two)"
• "The Disappearance of the Children of Viracocha (Part Three)"

Then, in a "Part Four" to the above series of articles, Mr. Foerster addresses the important site of Ollantaytambo, "Ollantaytambo: House of the Dawn, an Underestimated Inca Monument."

As can be seen from the articles above, Ollantaytambo contains solstitial alignments (to the June solstice, which is winter in the southern hemisphere where Peru is located), V-shaped notches, and a massive craggy face carved into the mountainside (see page three of Mr. Foerster's article on Ollantaytambo). That face, shown below as well and also seen in other photographs on the web such as here and here, is about 300 feet tall and traditionally believed to represent Tunupa or Viracocha.

Mr. Foerster's important arguments about the ancient origins of many of the most massive megalithic structures go beyond the scope of this particular blog post, but they are well supported with extensive evidence. He will be discussing some aspects of his work at the upcoming Eternal Knowledge Festival at the end of this month in England.

The scope of this post, however, is to point out the clear connections between the stone sites in India, New Zealand, and now Peru in terms of the presence of solstitial and equinoctial alignments, the use of V-shaped notches, and the presence of massive stone sculptures utilizing the natural surroundings.

This particular confluence of features is not something I have seen specifically discussed previously, especially in terms of its recurrence in widely-separated locations such as India, New Zealand, and Peru. While isolationists may continue to argue that these features just happened to crop up in widely-dispersed cultures which had no contact with one another whatsoever, the specificity of these features argues differently and their concurrence in all three locations is very difficult to dismiss. Moreover, they are just one more set of evidence among piles of other evidence -- these recurrences do not occur in a vacuum.

Taken together, anyone who examines all this evidence would have to be extremely biased to dismiss out of hand the possibility that the true timeline of ancient history is very different from what we have been taught.

Important discovery of alignments among ancient megaliths of India

In a recent issue of India's Current Science ("a fortnightly journal of research"), a team of three researchers published a study entitled "Stone alignment with solar and other sightlines in South India."

In the study, Srikumar M. Menon, Mayank N. Vahia, and Kailash Rao present evidence that a group of twenty-six ancient menhirs at a site called Nilaskal Biyana ("field with the standing stones") near Byse in Karnataka contains sightlines created by two and in some cases three stones directed to the summer solstice sunrise and sunset, and the winter solstice sunrise and sunset, as well as possibly to the setting points of several important stars.

The paper, which was submitted last April and accepted earlier this year in February 2012, concludes: "this study provides the first strong evidence of a monument with intentional solar and possible stellar alignments among Indian megaliths" (2).

India contains a wealth of megalithic stone circles, dolmens, and dramatic monoliths. This website, Megaliths of India, by Subhashis Das showcases many stunning megalithic sites in India. A statement at the top of the webpage says, "Strangely they are never promoted as heritages of India and in the process are deprived of the dignity these ancient monuments demand as true relics of our country's prehistory. . . sad."

Note that a little less than a quarter of the way down the page, there is a photograph of a sharply-inclined standing stone aligned with a prominent "V"-shaped notch in the natural visible skyline of Zulzul Hill in the background. The caption reads:

The Birbir megalithic complex comprises of an inclined obelisk (at whose front I stand), one triangle facing due east, a human shaped burial cover with a North South orientation and a Recumbent Mother Goddess Form of the Zulzul Hill at the background. Note how the tip of the menhir aligned to the "V" notch of the hill in the landscape.

This technique is strongly reminiscent of the alignment of standing stones with prominent notches in the natural skyline among the megaliths of New Zealand, categorized by the insightful Martin Doutré on his website Ancient Celtic New Zealand. Among many other possible articles from his site, this one in particular highlights the frequent use of such notches in conjunction with massive boulders to this create alignments, often with the sunrise or sunset on the solstices or equinoxes.

Note also the curious stone "lizard" or "turtle" photographed just below the Birbir menhir mentioned above, made by deliberately altering a very large rock. Interestingly enough, the final two photographs at the bottom of this article by Martin Doutré shows another example of the same kind of large rock sculpture. In the case of the giant lizard cited by Subhashis Das in India, the head faces due east (towards the sunrise on the equinoxes). Similarly, the face at Whangape in New Zealand, which Mr. Doutré believes represents the god Tangaroa, also faces to the east.

Further examination of the many megalithic sites in India might turn up even more remarkable similarities to those in New Zealand. This is an extremely important line of inquiry, as these connections (as well as parallels to sites in Europe which Mr. Doutré details on his site) strongly suggest the presence of inhabitants in the islands of Aotearoa long before the arrival of the Polynesian Maori in the thirteenth century, inhabitants connected to other ancient megalith-constructing cultures around the globe (or perhaps members of a single megalith-constructing culture). The evidence presented by the skull of the "Ruamahanga Woman" suggests the same possibility.

It is also likely that additional rigorous examination of other stone circles and clusters of menhirs in India will reveal further solar and stellar alignments, as well as (most likely) encoded precessional numbers in their dimensions (Mr. Doutré points out many of these in his writings, and I note several additional examples of precessional numbers encoded in dimensions of stone circles and other sites -- some of which I believe have not previously been noted -- in my own book).

Srikumar Menon, Mayank Vahia, and Kailash Rao are to be commended for their work in advancing the understanding of the solar and possibly stellar alignments in ancient stone sites in India. We should all wish them well in their future endeavors and hope that they continue to discover more of these important clues to the ancient past.