I wrote all the articles that were seen here for quite a little while. I was interviewed by some students, and you can see the result here.

SEE my presidential gray hair! HEAR my hoity toity accent! KNOW what I actually look like! In the interview, I talked about how Jesus was an ass bandit and my experiences smuggling drugs through airports.

At university, I did a course in business and management. This was not a whole lot of fun, and I wished I’d done English. My first job upon graduation was for the infamous Barings Bank. I worked in Human Resources, and when the company crashed, the first sign of trouble was when someone asked for the phone number of the head guy in Singapore at what would have been 3 a.m there.

Me overseeing an examination at one of the best high schools in Thailand.

I got into IT while working for Barings, which had become known as ING Barings when ING bought the company for one pound. When ING’s interest was announced, someone said ING was crap, like the post office. I said, “Hey! There’ll be synergy!”

I became an IT contractor, and was rich but miserable. Then, I thought I should have done computing at university. I was once rejected for a job in Sydney because I was “too flamboyant.” (“Someone who wears green tartan suspenders to a job interview probably isn’t going to fit in here.”)

When the bottom fell out of my corner of the market, I became an English teacher. I started to wish I’d done English at university again. University students in Bangkok complained that I was “too enthusiastic” and company students in Prague complained that I was “too theatrical.”

I’m now attempting to eke out an existence from writing. I charge $25 per 500 words, if you’re interested. I also do voice work and proofreading. My email address is timothychilman@yahoo.com.

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<I’d still like suggestions as to things to write about, to the email address above.>

On June 30, 1908, a 120 foot-wide chunk of rock entered the atmosphere above central Siberia traveling at around seven miles a second, heating the surrounding air to 44,500°F. It appeared as a huge fireball almost as bright as the sun which moved across the sky. At 7:17a.m. local time, it exploded with a great flash at an altitude of about 28,000 feet. NASA said this was due to the pressure and heat of the object.

Some people say the explosion at Tunguska had as much power as a thousand nuclear weapons, but a better estimate is that it was three times the power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

Estimates of the power of the blast vary, with some saying it was as much as that of a thousand atom bombs. The best estimate, however, is probably that of Ari Ben-Menahem in 1975. Using seismographs of the Tunguska event and the Zemlya and Lop-Nor nuclear weapon tests, he concluded that the explosive yield was 12.5 megatons, plus or minus 2.5, which is three times that of the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima. Seismic activity was measured as 5 on the Richter scale.

Storage huts in the vicinity were devastated by fire, and metal within was deformed by the heat. An eyewitness reported that a thousand reindeer, the mainstay of the local Evenki people, perished, but no people died as the area was sparsely populated by hunters and trappers. Had the event occurred over a city, hundreds of thousands of people would have died. If the event had taken place four hours and 47 minutes later, St. Petersburg would have been obliterated.

The taiga (coniferous forest) near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River was devastated: an estimated 80 million trees were felled between 20 and 25 miles around (F.J.W. Whipple 1934) and thousands burned in an area of more than 1,300 square miles. Kridec (1960) described the fires in the vicinity as “unnatural.” A shock wave circled the Earth twice. People were knocked from their feet and windows 400 miles distant broke. Seismic stations across Eurasia registered the blast, and it was detected by the recently-invented barograph in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Mount Wilson Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory reported a decrease in atmospheric transparency that lasted for months.

In 1966, Kridec reported: “All the inhabitants of the village ran out into the street in panic. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching.” Old men thought they were about to die, and donned clean shirts for the occasion. One even took the drastic step of having a bath.

S.B. Semedec was at the Vanara trading post. He said, “Suddenly in the north sky… the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire… At that moment there was a bang in the sky and a mighty crash… The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or of guns firing. The earth trembled.”

Kridec (1966) reported that a train engineer said he felt “a kind of strong vibration of the air,” then heard a “roar” which he took to be “an earthquake or some other natural phenomenon,” and which frightened him sufficiently that he halted his train, believing it had left the rails. When he arrived at a station, he requested an inspection to determine the problem.

Kridec also reported that a farmer in the Kezhma area (around 125 miles south of the impact site) said, “At that time I was plowing my land at Narodima. When I sat down to have my breakfast beside my plow, I heard sudden bangs, as if from gun-fire. My horse fell on its knees. From the north side, above the forest, a flame shot up. I thought the enemy was firing, since at that time there was talk of war. Then I saw that the fir forest had been bent over by the wind and I thought of a hurricane. I seized hold of my plow with both hands, so that it would not be carried off. The wind was so strong that it carried off some of the soil from the surface of the ground, and then the hurricane drove a wall of water up the Angara [a seiche perhaps]. I saw it all quite clearly, because my land was on a hillside.”

Two days after the event, the Irkutsk newspaper reported:

Peasants saw a very bright body in the sky.

“…The peasants saw a body shining very brightly (too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish-white light…. The body was in the form of ‘a pipe’, i.e. cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon, in the direction in which this glowing body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground (which was covered with forest at this point) it seemed to be pulverized, and in its place a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones or from gunfire was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time a forked tongue of flames broke through the cloud.”

For two days after, newspapers could be read at night in London, 6,213 miles away. Noctilucent clouds are formed of ice particles at extremely high altitudes in very low temperatures. The same phenomenon arose days after the launch of the space shuttle, Endeavor, on August 8, 2007, and after other launches in 1997 and 2003.

The Russian government made no immediate attempt to investigate the event, as nobody had been harmed and with the first Russian revolution taking only three years earlier, the authorities had other things on their minds. In 1921, the Russian Academy of Sciences appointed Leonid Kulik, the chief curator of the meteorite collection of the St. Petersburg museum, to lead an investigatory expedition. Harsh conditions forced the expedition to be aborted. Another three expeditions were led by Kulik, with the next being in 1927. Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that locals were, initially, reluctant to speak to Kulik about the event: “They believed the blast was a visitation by the god Ogdy, who had cursed the area by smashing trees and killing animals.”

The expedition found the going difficult in the face of cold temperatures and insufficient funds for supplies and equipment, but eyewitnesses were questioned and newspaper articles collected.

A photograph of trees knocked over by the blast at Tunguska, taken on one of the expeditions led by Leonid Kulik

Those 80 million trees were in a radial pattern. At ground zero, trees were upright, but stripped of limbs and bark. Yeomans said they were “like a forest of telephone poles.” The same phenomenon was noted 37 years later at Hiroshima.

Kulik was amazed that there was no impact crater. Yeoman said there was no crater and no fragments of an extra-terrestrial object because the object was consumed by the explosion, however a crater has been tentatively identified. A team of Italian researchers used acoustic equipment to investigate the bottom of Lake Cheko, around five miles north of the suspected epicenter of the explosion. The study was led by Luca Gasperini, a geologist of the Marine Science Institute of Bologne, who said, “The funnel-like shape of the basin and samples from its sedimentary deposits suggest that the lake fills an impact crater.” He said that his team’s findings indicate that a 33 foot-wide fragment of the object kept traveling in the same direction after the explosion. The team’s work was published in the August 2007 edition of the journal, Terra Nova.

This theory can be criticized. A previous expedition by Russian scientists concluded that Lake Cheko formed prior to 1908 based on sediments at the bottom of the lake. Gasperini’s team counters that these older deposits were already present at the time of the impact. William Hartmann, senior scientist of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the Italian team’s findings were “exciting” and warranted further study, but that if one large fragment hit the ground, there would also be thousands of smaller fragments, which many searches have failed to find.

The asteroid, 253 Mathilde

It has been suggested that there was little debris from the object because it was an asteroid like 253 Mathilde, which was photographed by the Near-Shoemaker space probe in 1997. Mathilde is a pile of rubble whose density is close to that of water, so it would explode and fragment in the atmosphere, leaving only the shock wave to reach the ground. NASA asteroid expert, David Morrison, said the object was not a “dirty snowball” because such a thing would have exploded tens of miles above the surface of the Earth, and U.S. satellites have been observing such explosions for decades. Morrison believes the theory of a comet “persists out of inertia.” It is possible that the lack of debris is because the explosion was nuclear.

So, what hit Tunguska? As well as a piece of rock, it has been suggested that it was a mini-black hole (Jackson and Ryan 1973), although there is no sign of its emergence at the other end of the Earth. Anti-matter has also been suggested (Cowan, Alturi, and Libby 1965), however such an explosion would result in an increase in atmospheric radiocarbon, but analysis of a tree near to ground zero found no such thing. Gratifyingly, it is possible that a UFO was involved.

Russian scientist, Yuri Lavbin, is the president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation in Krasnoyarsk. The Foundation consists of 15 enthusiasts who include mineralogists, physicists, chemists, and geologists. He has researched the Tunguska event for 12 years. The Foundation has paid regular visits to the area since 1994.

Lavbin’s team concluded that the object moved from west to east, and not from the southeast, as is traditionally believed. This is more in tune with the stories of witnesses. They used satellite photographs to identify search areas.

Yuri Lavbin believes the explosion at Tunguska resulted from a collision between a comet and a UFO.

Lavbin posits that the explosion was caused by the collision of a comet and a UFO six miles above the surface of the Earth. He says that an expedition to the Podkamannaya Tunguska river in July 2004 found two strange, black, cube-shaped stones which were five feet wide and had been hidden by trees. Lavbin says these “are manifestly not of natural origin” and chemical analysis supported him. They are, he said, composed of a material similar to the alloy used to make space rockets, long before such substances existed. According to Lavbin, these were part of the UFO.

Anna Skripnik of the meteorites committee of the Academy of Sciences said that in Siberia, where oil is extracted, it is often possible to find heaps of fragments of various machines. Dutch space historian, Geert Sassen, said, “They might have found some parts of the fifth Vostok test flight.” This crashed near Tunguska. Phys.org, the popular science news website, reported that the cubes contained iron silicate and an unknown material, which latter rules out these explanations.

Lavbin’s team also found a massive, white stone “the size of a peasant’s hut” atop a crag in the center of the devastated forest. Locals refer to it as the “reindeer stone” and it was frequently mentioned by eyewitnesses. It is composed of crystalline matter atypical to the region. This, Lavbin said, was part of the core of the comet. A 110-pound piece was sent to Krasnoyarsk for analysis.

Quartz slabs bearing strange markings were also discovered. Lavin said that no technology exists which could make such images on crystal, and that ferrum silicate found at the site could not be produced on Earth.

Science fiction writer, Aleksandr Kazantsev, was the first to suggest a UFO hit a comet, but Soviet scientists rejected the proposition and he was forbidden from conducting further research. After 17 years of research, prominent Soviet scientist, Alexei Zolotov, said the event was caused by the nuclear explosion of a UFO, as reported by TASS in mid-October, 1976.

Valery Uvarov, head of the Department of UFO Research at the National Security Academy in St. Petersburg, is answerable to two people who are answerable to President Putin. He said in an interview with UFO magazine that the Tunguska explosion was caused by the collision of a meteor and a “missile.”

Lavbin believes this to be the case. He said, “I am fully confident and I can make an official statement that we were saved by some forces of a superior civilization. They exploded this enormous meteorite that headed toward us with enormous speed.”

Many witnesses reported that the object in the sky had a very low speed and changed course, which would eliminate the possibility of a comet. Science writer, T.R. Le Maire, said that the body came from the south but changed course to head east, before changing again to head west (Le Maire 1980). Professor F. Zigel also said the “meteorite” changed course.

Potapovich, who acted as a guide for Kulik, said that his brother’s hut was flattened by the explosion, which caused most of his reindeer to flee. He then suffered a long illness (Kridec 1966). It has been reported that other people and animals in the area were also struck down by a strange sickness – possibly radiation sickness. Trees of the second generation after the explosion exhibited higher growth rates than normal – possibly mutation.

In the 1950s and 1960s, expeditions to Tunguska found microscopic, glass spheres in the soil which contained high proportions of nickel and iridium, which occur at high concentrations in meteorites. In 1962, silicate globules and microscopic pellets of magnetite were found at Tunguska, and these were believed to be extra-terrestrial in origin. More recently, researchers claimed to have found higher levels of cosmic dust particles in Greenland ice cores which were dated to 1908.

Tunguska today

The fact that the object in the sky changed course and the height of the explosion indicate that it was not a meteorite, but there is enough evidence to show that it was not of terrestrial origin. The radial pattern of felled trees, the lack of meteor fragments, the sickness of people and animals in the area, and the abnormal growth of later trees suggest the explosion was nuclear. The cube-shaped stones of unnatural origin and the marked quartz slabs indicate alien technology. There was a UFO at Tunguska in 1908, boys and girls.

Bibliography

“Russian Scientist: UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth.” Fox News. 27 May 2009. 24 June 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522217,00.html.>
“Tunguska Event: New Details and Sensational Theory.” Phys.org. 13 August 2004. 24 June 2012. <http://phys.org/news819.html.>
“Forscher melden Fund von Ufo-Resten.” Der Spiegel. 13 August 2004. 24 June 2012. <http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,312983,00.html.>
“Mystery space blast ‘solved’.” BBC. 30 October 2001. 24 June 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1628806.stm.>
“The Tunguska Impact – 100 Years Later.” NASA. June 30, 2008. 24 June 2012. <http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska/.>
“Tunguska event an actual UFO crash site.” Pravda. 22 September 2006. 24 June 2012. <*.>
Brazo, Mark W. and Austin, Steven A. “The Tunguska Explosion of 1908.” Institute of Creation Research. n.d. 24 June 2012. <http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_sa_r05/.>
Oberg, James. “Russians add new twist to old UFO myth.” MSNBC 12 August 2004. 24 June 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5686713/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/russians-add-new-twist-old-ufo-myth/.>
Valsecchi, Cristina. “Crater From 1908 Russian Space Impact Found, Team Says.” National Geographic News. 7 November 2007. 24 June 2012. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/071107-russia-crater.html.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

During the Cold War, rumors emanated from behind the Iron Curtain to the effect that the Soviets were attempting to spy using paranormal abilities, and 40 institutes were involved. Soviet success was a “low probability/high impact” event. Information was sketchy and based largely on rumor from sources that were second-hand or worse, some of which were reliable and some not. The U.S. military wished to ensure they were not left behind in this respect.

The result was the Stargate Project, which ran from the 1970s to 1995 – officially. It built upon earlier research by the American Society for Psychical Research, the Stanford Research Insitute, and other, similar organizations.

In the 1960s, U.S. scientists found that concentrating negative thoughts on mold inhibited its growth.

In the 1960s, American scientists had discovered that focusing negative thoughts on mold inhibited its growth – perhaps gypsies’ curses worked. In one study, 151 of 194 mold samples showed inhibited growth when concentrated upon in this manner. The food poisoning bug, E.coli, was also shown to be susceptible.

The Stargate Project is not to be confused with the Jedi Project, where U.S. soldiers attempted to kill animals using their minds, which is formally known as Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems. The Jedi Project was the subject of the film, The Men Who Stare at Goats, which starred George Clooney and Ewan Macgregor. At first, dogs were used for experiments, but soldiers could not bring themselves to attempt to kill them. Less-appealing animals such as goats and pigs were later used. A young Uri Geller was asked to kill a pig, but was a vegetarian who respected life. One soldier, special forces Sergeant Glenn Wheaton, said another soldier was able to kill goats, and that Wheaton saw him do it.

The headquarters of SRI International

SRI International, formerly the Stanford Research Institute, split from Stanford to become an independent, not-for-profit organization. According to Jim Marrs’ book, Psi Spies, the interest of one employee, Dr. Harold Puthoff, was aroused in the 1970s after he read a book about Soviet psychic experiments, Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain. He began to investigate psychic phenomena for his employer. One of the psychics used in the SRI experiments, Ingo Swann, was believed to have genuine psychic abilities. Swann is credited with coining the term, “remote viewing,” to describe a structured approach to what would otherwise be known as clairvoyance.

Someone at the CIA had also read that book, and so the CIA made contact with SRI in 1972 regarding the matter. So began Project Scangate, which was later known as Grill Flame, Sun Streak, and eventually Stargate, and was based at Fort Meade in Maryland. The first man chosen for the project was army intelligence officer, Joe McMoneagle. In an interview, he said, “If someone would have told me we think you are psychic and we want you in this program, I would have told them, ‘What, are out of your gourd?’” McMoneagle and a group of other men had been gathered and asked of paranormal subjects. McMoneagle believed the Army should investigate the paranormal, which answer must have pleased those who interviewed him as he was soon subjected to psychic testing, for which he showed great aptitude.

One of the many tasks assigned to the Stargate Project was the search for Colonel Quaddafi.

The project has been reported to have included up to 22 remote viewers at its peak. McMoneagle came to see the project as worthwhile: “We proved to be quite useful ‘spies’.” McMoneagle said the project was highly successful. It was instructed by almost every intelligence agency to obtain information concerning enemy bases, terrorists, missing fighter bombers, hostages in Lebanon, Iraqi targets in Gulf War I, Soviet energy weapons, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, narco-trafficking off the coast of the United States, KGB moles in the CIA, foreign testing of weapons of mass destruction, and a kidnapped general. The project is also known to have tried to locate Colonel Quaddafi and locate a missing airplane in Africa. Per McMoneagle, the tasks assigned were often cold cases more than a year old and all other means of intelligence collection had failed, but Project Stargate provided new information within hours that was accurate 22 percent of the time.

McMoneagle said the project took an interest in UFOs, and he had remote viewed ETs himself. His experiences found their way into various of his books telling of his time as a psychic spy. Swann was another who wrote of remote viewing extra-terrestrials in his autobiography, Penetration: The Question of Extra-terrestrial and Human Telepathy. Swann claimed to have remote viewed alien bases on the far side of the moon.

When remote viewing was attempted, the results were not revealed to the viewer, as it was feared the person’s confidence would be damaged if they knew they had been incorrect. Feedback of any kind was rare, and all observations were generally secret, despite feedback improving performance.

Shielding a target made no difference to the quality of remote viewing. Testing was conducted using a beacon and viewer. The beacon went to a remote location or examined a photograph or other object, while the remote viewer attempted to describe what was observed. Mostly, the beacons were looking at photographs in National Geographic. A single judge compared the viewer’s report to what was observed and judged whether the venture had been successful. The use of a single judge was perhaps unwise. Results were better when the remote viewer described a target instead of selecting one from a list. It was doubted whether a person needed to act as a beacon.

Swann and Harold Sherman claimed to have remote-viewed the planet Mercury.

The project scored some misses. Swann and Harold Sherman claimed to have remote-viewed the planets Mercury and Jupiter, and Russel Targ and Puthoff said their remote viewing was vindicated by the findings of the Mariner 10 and Pioneer 10 spacecraft. Isaac Asimov found that 46 percent of the men’s claims were wrong. James Randi said that only one in 65 of the pair’s findings was a fact that was not obvious or obtainable from reference books. Swann had claimed to have perceived a 30,000 ft range of mountains on Jupiter, when no such thing exists. Swann later suggested that he had been viewing another planet.

The project, however, certainly achieved some success, which was detailed in McMoneagle’s book, the Ultimate Time Machine, and Paul H. Smith’s work, Reading the Enemy’s Mind: Inside Star Gate America’s Psychic Espionage Program.

In January 1980, McMoneagle predicted the launch date of a newly-constructed Typhoon class submarine four months in advance.

In January 1980, McMoneagle predicted the launch date of a newly-constructed Typhoon class submarine four months in advance. Satellite photographs provided confirmation. Smith said that this was not the only occasion where McMoneagle made predictions months ahead of events.

Keith Harary of the Stargate Project predicted the release of hostage Richard Queen, who had been seized at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The prediction was made three weeks in advance, and correctly described the medical problem which occasioned the release. Harary had said, “He seems to be suffering from nausea. One side of his body seems damaged or hurt.” Queen suffered from multiple sclerosis and other conditions which affected one side of his body. The episode was not mentioned in The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities, the book Harary wrote with Russell Targ. Smith said that the hostage became enraged when told of the U.S. government’s advanced warning, as he believed the information could only have been obtained if the CIA had an agent who mixed with the hostages.

Paul H. Smith believed that he had predicted the attack on the USS Stark on May 17, 1987.

Paul H. Smith believed that he had predicted the attack on the USS Stark on May 17, 1987. He said he had been correct regarding the motive, location, and method of the attack. The session had produced a 30-page document which included sketches of the ship and other diagrams.

One serial criminal who was apprehended had been described by Stargate remote viewers. He was jailed. Twenty years later, the subject supplied information that verified the remote viewer’s statements almost exactly. Reference was made to the case in the film, Suspect Zero.

According to McMoneagle, remote viewing of UFOs was not requested by government agencies. He did, however, recall viewing an object at an eastern bloc base. The object was saucer-shaped and flew at 4,000 miles per hour at 13,000 feet. It made a sharp 90 degree turn. He later discovered that the Air Force had obtained pictures of an unidentified flying object traveling at 3,900 miles per hour at 11,000 feet which had made a sharp turn to the right.

Pat Price was a remote viewer who had been a police officer serving in Burbank, Calif. He believed there were four underground alien bases on Earth, and offered his reports of these locations to Puthoff. His most well-known remote viewing success occurred when he was asked to remote view a highly secret Soviet military base in Semipalatinsk in Siberia, a very remote area. Price described a succession of non-existent features, including men in space suits. Price did not see oil derricks. He said they had been disassembled, however satellite photographs disproved this. He did, however, observe a 150-foot tall mobile gantry crane which ran on tracks over an underground building, a feature that was present and very rare. He made a number of detailed sketches. Targ said, “This trial was such a stunning success that we were forced to undergo a formal Congressional investigation to determine if there had been a breach in National Security. Of course, none was ever found, and we were supported by the government for another fifteen years.”

Paul H. Smith was the principal author of a remote viewing manual. Articles he wrote about remote viewing have since appeared in UFO Magazine while his articles about remote viewing and dowsing have appeared in The American Dowser. His book, Reading the Enemy’s Mind: Inside Star Gate: America’s Psychic Espionage Program, was the book bonus feature for the March 2006 Reader’s Digest.

A feature of the region of Cydonia on Mars, which McMoneagle was asked to remote view. Note the studious avoidance of mention of the Face on Mars.

McMoneagle was asked to remote view the Cydonia region of Mars. He gained the impression of an advanced civilization which had experienced a catastrophe millions of years ago. His drawings matched features on the Martian surface.

In 1995, the CIA called upon the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to evaluate the Stargate Project. For the sake of balance, one study was conducted by a believer and another by a skeptic. Both were familiar with research in the field. Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics at the University of California, said, “It is clear to this author that anomalous cognition is possible and has been demonstrated. This conclusion is not based on belief, but rather on commonly accepted scientific criteria.” She found that gifted subjects scored between five and 15 percent greater than chance, which Utts said was “far beyond what is expected by chance,” although there was much irrelevant information and successes were vague.

Utts speculated that the five regular senses detected change, and that perhaps the same could by accomplished psychically: targets containing a large degree of change, for instance variations of color, were more successfully identified by remote viewers than were other targets. Utts said that psychic abilities were inborn, and could not be produced by training. Only one percent of people were skilled at remote viewing. Utts said it would be better to study why psychic ability exists than to study whether it existed. Utts had co-authored papers with physicist Edwin May, who replaced Puthoff as the head of the Stargate Project in 1985, and so was not disinterested.

In the other study, Ray Hyman of the University of Oregon acknowledged that the test results were greater than chance and there were no glaring flaws in the testing technique, but added that Utts’ conclusion that ESP was real was “premature and that present findings have yet to be independently replicated.”

The surface of Mount Weather, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations.

One success described in the AIR report concerned two remote viewers who viewed a secret, underground installation in West Virginia. This is believed to have been the notorious Mount Weather installation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations, which is said to house a complete duplicate of the Federal government for use in the event of a national catastrophe. One remote viewer named personnel and codewords connected to the base, which prompted a full investigation into a possible leak. Hyman suggested that the remote viewers happened to already know of the base, which does not explain how some of their findings were secret. Another task was the remote viewing of North Korea, where railway tunnels were observed, and information was obtained which was not known to the U.S. government. Six remote viewers were judged to perform significantly better than the others.

After the Iran/Contra affair, there was greater scrutiny of “hip pocket” operations that could prove embarrassing to U.S. intelligence agencies. The $20 million dollar project was canceled because although a statistically significant effect was observed, it was unclear that remote viewing had been demonstrated and what had been achieved was vague and of limited applicability. The CIA took the ESP out of espionage.

Scientists do not believe in extra-sensory perception. A survey of members of the National Academy of Science in 1992 found that 77 percent did not believe in psychic phenomena. The public, on the other hand, definitely does. In a poll by Gallup in 2005, 75 percent of Americans said that they believed in paranormal phenomena, with 41 percent believing in ESP.

Given the length of time for which Osama bin Laden evaded justice, some work evidently still needs to be done on this remote viewing business.

Mere funding of research into psychic spying does not entail that it must have been valid. The U.S. government has funded many projects that have never been proven effective, with two of the better-known examples being abstinence-only sex education and the Star Wars program. The actions of the Stargate Project, the Jedi Project and others, however, suggest that psychic spying works, although given the length of time for which Osama bin Laden evaded justice, some work evidently still needs to be done.

Bibliography

“Nuke the Moon: 5 Certifiably Insane Cold War Projects.” Cracked.com. 23 October 2009. 18 June 2012. <http://www.cracked.com/article/153_nuke-moon-5-certifiably-insane-cold-war-projects/.>
“Remote Viewing.” Skeptic’s Dictionary. n.d. 18 June 2012. <http://www.skepdic.com/remotevw.html.>
“Testing Psychic Abilities of SG Operatives.” Parascope. n.d. 18 June 2012. <http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/starGate01.htm.>
“The Application of Extra-Sensory Perception to Intelligence Collection.” Cambridge University. n.d. 18 June 2012. <http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/lectures/stargate2004.html.>
Olsen, Geoff. “Spying sight unseen.” The McMoneagle Blog. n.d. 18 June 2012. <http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/pub/news/95jul07-vc.html.>
Penman, Danny. “The Real Story of the Men Who Stare at Goats.” News Monster. n.d. 18 June 2012. <http://www.newsmonster.co.uk/paranormal-unexplained/the-real-story-of-the-men-who-stare-at-goats.html.>
Radford, Benjamin. “Fringe Science and the Secretive Project Stargate.” Live Science. 18 September 2008. 18 June 2012. <http://www.livescience.com/5103-fringe-science-secretive-project-stargate.html.>
Rojas, Alejandro. “Government Psychic Spies and Extraterrestrials.” Huffington Post. 7 May 2012. 18 June 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alejandro-rojas/allen-telescope-array_b_1492515.html.>
Smith, Paul H. “Reading the Enemy’s Mind: Inside Star Gate, America’s Psychic Espionage Program.” New York: Forge, 2005. Print.

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<So we had the one about the Kama Sutra, the one about pubic shaving and the one about spontaneous human combustion. This one, however, could in no way be said to be about conspriacy theories. I did, however, read a few times that a blog shouldn’t restrict itself to one subject, so here we are. Couldn’t someone suggested something for me to write about, to the email address above?>

Thailand has the second largest number of transsexuals in the world, after Singapore.

Since 1978, the United States has seen but four cases where the penises of men were severed, and there was one episode in each of Australia and Canada and three in Sweden. Thailand, however, has seen at least 100 since 1978. Thailand has the second largest number of transsexuals in the world, after Singapore, making it a center for gender re-assignment surgery. Penis re-attachment has become another specialty.

The phenomenon is known in Thailand as a “Bangkok haircut” and also “feeding the ducks.” This latter comes from one episode more than twenty years ago where a wife cut off her husband’s penis and threw it into a duckpond. To prevent the possibility of re-attachment, penises in Thailand have been not only fed to ducks but buried, fed to a dog, boiled, chopped up, or attached to a hot air balloon.

Polygamy in Thailand was banned in 1935, but it is widely believed that men have a right to a mistress, known in Thai as a mia noi – “minor wife.” While many Thai men regard this as an inalienable right, wives increasingly disagree. Wives objecting to extra-marital liaisons are generally the perpetrators of genital severance. Thai wives are not well treated, with the World Health Organization reporting that 44 percent have been abused by their partners, 20 percent have been abused sexually, and 12 percent were injured during pregnancy. Thais do not like to pry into the relationships of others and their culture applauds women who perform self-denial. In one high profile case, a university lecturer received a two-year suspended sentence after beating his wife to death with a golf club and umbrella. The penis, meanwhile, is revered as a symbol of fertility, and phallic symbols are often found in homes, temples, shops, and shrines.

Dr. Surasak Muangsombot’s most difficult case was that of a man whose wife cut off his penis and threw it into a septic tank.

Dr. Surasak Muangsombot works at Paolo Memorial Hospital in Bangkok and specializes in penis re-attachment. He and his team have reunited more than 30 penises with their owners. His most difficult case was that of an angry wife who cut off her husband’s penis and threw into a septic tank. He warned the patient of the risk of septicemia, but the patient said he wished the operation to be attempted so he could at least die with his penis. Fifteen hours had elapsed since the penis was cut, while it is popularly believed that eleven hours is the maximum if re-attachment is to be attempted due to tissue death. The operation was a success.

While it is possible to re-attach penises, only around half function as well as they did before the injury. No babies have been born to men who underwent the operation. Replacement penises can be created from skin and arteries taken from elsewhere in the body. None of Dr. Muangsombot’s patients were farang – foreigners. He believes this is because Thai women do not wish to “cut off their bankroll.” He advises that a severed penis be put in a thermos. Dr. Muangsombot previously specialized in re-attaching fingers. He has trained 56 students in penis re-attachment.

Recent headlines spoke of 48 year-old Catherine Kieu Becker of Garden Grove, California, who was accused of severing the penis of her husband. She introducing a soporific to his dinner, tied him up as he slept, and then cut off the organ while he was conscious using a “very sharp” 10-inch kitchen knife. When police officers came to her home, she told them her husband deserved it. Court records show the couple were divorcing, and suggest the husband initiated the process. Although Becker put the penis into a garbage disposal unit which she switched on, a police lieutenant said there was a possibility that it could be re-attached. In practice, however, this was not possible.

In Bangladesh, 40 year-old mother of three Monju Begum cut off the penis of a man she said tried to rape her. She brought the penis to a police station in a plastic bag as evidence. The man, neighbor Mozammel Haq Mazi, said they were having an affair, but he refused to abandon his wife and children. Re-attachment was, in this case, not possible.

Kim Tran, 35, of Anchorage, Alaska, cut off the penis of her 44 year-old boyfriend using a knife.

On 19 February 2005, Kim Tran, 35, of Anchorage, Alaska, cut off her 44 year-old boyfriend’s penis. The boyfriend was married to Tran’s aunt. The pair had argued about the man’s refusal to split up with his wife. They had sex, during which Tran tied the man’s hands to a window handle. She then cut off his penis using a knife and flushed the organ down the toilet. When police arrived, they called maintenance staff, who retrieved it. It was then re-attached.

Early in 2005, the penis of a 44 year-old Chinese male was cut off in an accident which left him with a half-inch stump. Doctors at the Guangzhou General Hospital transplanted a penis taken from a 22 year-old man who was brain dead. Four days later, the man’s wife cut it off.

In 1994, Nelu Radonescu was the subject of a routine operation upon a testicular malformation in the Romanian capital of Bucharest. During the surgery, Dr. Naum Ciomu, who lectures in anatomy, accidentally cut the patient’s urinary channel, and lost his temper. He cut off the man’s penis, sliced it into pieces, and then angrily departed the operating theater. When he was tried for grievous bodily harm, Dr. Ciomu admitted that he “over-reacted.” The penis was reconstructed from tissue taken from Mr. Radonescu’s arm.

In 2001, Amin Meiwes met Bernd Brandes in Rotenburg, Germany, after placing an advertisement at the Cannibal Cafe website for a “well-built 18 to 30 year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed.” Brandes called at Meiwes’ abode, and asked him to bite off his (Brandes’) penis. Meiwes could not accomplish this, and resorted to a knife. Brandes attempted to eat part of the penis uncooked, but was unable as it was “chewy.” Meiwes sliced the penis and fed some to his dog. He ensconced himself in the reading of a Star Trek novel for three hours as Brandes bled to death in his bath. Meiwes supplied Brandes with sleeping pills, alcohol, and pain killers, before kissing him and then stabbing his neck.

In the course of the next ten months, as advertized, Meiwes consumed as much as 44 pounds of Brandes. His arrest came in December 2002. He had made a video recording of his activities, which has been shown to journalists but not to the public. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment after an appeal by prosecutors. In jail, he has turned to vegetarianism.

In 1994, it was reported by the Chinese Guangxi Daily newspaper that a man living in Henan province had to pay a fine of 3,000 yuan ($472 at the current rate) after his wife produced a third child, contravening China’s “one child” policy. The child was a son, while the other two were daughters. The man joked about having to pay so much money “just for this little penis.” In jest, he suggested it be cut off. While he tended his fields, his two infant daughters cut of the boy’s penis with a knife, after which the boy bled to death. When the father returned, he became enraged and beat the girls to death with a shovel, before committing suicide by drinking insecticide. When his wife discovered what had transpired, she became hysterical, and ran naked into the street, screaming the names of her dead children and husband.

John Bobbit

The best-known instance of penis amputation was that of John Bobbitt in 1993. He had a volatile relationship with his wife, Lorena, and she claims he abused her emotionally, sexually, and physically. One night, Mr. Bobbitt arrived home very drunk. She claims he raped her. Afterward, she obtained a knife from the kitchen, entered the bedroom, and cut away more than half of her husband’s penis. She left the house, threw the section of penis into a field, and called 911. The penis was found, packed in ice, and later re-attached.

Mrs. Bobbitt was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She founded Lorena’s Red Wagon, which aims to prevent domestic violence. Mr. Bobbitt appeared in porn films and was a minister of the Universal Life Church in Las Vegas. He has been arrested seven times for offenses which range from assault to grand larceny.

More than 20 years ago in Thailand, the penis of Songphong Nammwan was cut off by his wife while he was drunk, as she was unhappy that he had a mistress. Mr. Nammwan’s penis was thrown into a sewer, so re-attachment was not possible, but a substitute was constructed from muscle, skin, and vein grafts. Even then, he had some fortune: if the cut is too near to the pubic bone, there is nothing to which a new penis can be attached. Mr. Nammwan said, “As a men we consider the penis as the highlight of our lives. If we lose it, it means we die while living.” He remains married.

Some time prior to February 1977, a mentally ill 21 year-old American male obsessed with guilt over his sexual feelings cut off his penis using a razor. He went to a hospital carrying the amputated body part, and it was put on ice. The world’s first ever penis re-attachment operation was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital. Full function was restored.

Grigori Rasputin was poisoned, shot, beaten, and then had his penis cut off, after which he was thrown into an icy river.

A group of aristocrats killed Grigori Rasputin because they feared his hold upon the Tsarina Alexandria. It is widely accepted that Rasputin was poisoned, shot, beaten, and then had his penis cut off, after which he was thrown into an icy river. Various fanciful stories circulate supposedly featuring the severed organ. A museum in St. Petersburg claims to possess the penis, which is a foot long. The owner of the museum has claimed that looking at the penis will cure a man of impotence.

William Chester Minor served as a surgeon in the army of the Union during the War of Northern Aggression (you know, 1861-1865). After his experiences, he developed schizophrenia. He resigned from the army and moved to London, where he shot dead a man who was unknown to him. He was declared not guilty of murder due to insanity and was confined to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. He had a private income, and acquired an extensive library. He became a major participant in the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, finding quotations to illustrate rare words. In 1902, he cut off his penis because he believed it was the source of his impure thoughts.

Napoleon is reputed to have had a very small cock.

An autopsy was performed upon Napoleon Bonaparte after he died in 1821. Some body parts were removed. His penis was described as “small.” No eyewitness recounted that the penis was removed, but various parties have claimed to possess it over the years.

Bibliography

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“First penis transplant reversed after two weeks.” MSNBC. n.d. 15 May 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14905485/ns/health-mens_health/t/first-penis-transplant-reversed-after-two-weeks/.>
“Guangzhou Wife Cuts Off Cheating Husband’s Penis” China Daily. 3 August 2009. 15 May 2012. <http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-643469-1-1.html.>
“Is this the foot-long preserved penis of Rasputin?.” Metro. n.d. 15 May 2012. <http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/746637-is-this-the-foot-long-preserved-penis-of-rasputin.>
“Lorena Bobbitt, 15 Years Later.” CBS News. 11 February 2009. 15 May 2012. <http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500185_162-4207517.html.>
“Mia Noi – Having a second wife or other girlfriend in Thailand.” Living in Thailand. 27 May 2011. 15 May 2012. <http://www.livingthai.org/mia-noi-having-a-second-wife-or-other-girlfriend-in-thailand.html.>
“Mother’s Little Helper.” Snopes.com. n.d. 15 May 2012. <http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/helper.asp.>
“The Meiwes case.” Fortean Times. 23 November 2003. 15 May 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13853.>
“Woman snaps and Snip! Man loses manhood.” Pravda. 31 May 2011. 15 May 2012. <http://english.pravda.ru/society/sex/31-05-2011/118070-snip_snap-0/.>
Leidig, Michael. “Stressed doctor cuts off patient’s penis.” Daily Telegraph. 21 January 2007. 15 May 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1540135/Stressed-doctor-cuts-off-patients-penis.html.>
Martinez, Edecio. “Calif. wife Catherine Kieu Becker, accused of cutting off husband’s penis, appears in court.” CBS News. 14 Jult 2011. 15 May 2012. <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20079403-504083.html.>
Maugh II, Thomas H. “There are options for penis repair after mutilation.” Los Angeles Times. 15 July 2011. 15 May 2012. <http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/15/news/la-heb-penis-repair-07142011.>
Moore, Wendy. “The Broadmoor Files: Victorian Britain’s most shocking crimes revealed.” Daily Telegraph. 8 November 2008. 15 May 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3407272/The-Broadmoor-Files-Victorian-Britains-most-shocking-crimes-revealed.html.>
Rubacher, Richard. “John Wayne Bobbit and the Bangkok Haircut.” Magick Papers & Nightlife Thailand. n.d. 15 May 2012. <http://www.magickpapers.com/blog/?p=62.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<I’d still like suggestions as to things to write about, to the email address above.>

Newt Gingrich: “By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

In December 2011, while seeking the Republican nomination for President, Newt Gingrich declared: “By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” He was met by a mixture of laughter and applause. He said that if the base could amass 13,000 American residents, it could apply for statehood. He had chosen his audience well. He spoke to a large audience at a Holiday Inn Express in Florida, where thousands lost their jobs when the space shuttle was withdrawn from service.

Gingrich was widely denigrated. He was labeled Newt Skywalker. Mitt Romney, the leading contender for the Republican nomination, said Gingrich’s was “a big idea but a bad idea.” Fellow failed candidate Rick Santorum, who is now inextricably associated with anal sex, said that anyone who speaks of “brand new, very expensive schemes to spend more money” was “not being realistic.” John McCain, who unsuccessfully contested the 2008 election, said, “I think we ought to send Newt Gingrich to the moon and Mitt Romney to the White House.” Jon Stewart said, “Did he start with a Death Star and get kind of reigned in?” Slate magazine lambasted Gingrich’s “wasteful, scientifically unsound plan.” It was said that while Gingrich wished to reduce the number of marijuana smokers, they must have constituted his key audience. Gingrich had told reporters that Ron Paul would never be the Republican nominee because he “avoids reality.”

Gingrich was not entirely without support. Chuck Norris liked the idea. That internationally-respected journal, the Denver Post, ran a guest commentary entitled: “Newt Gingrich’s moon base is not a loony idea.” The terribly right wing British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, said Gingrich’s plan was “an inspired idea that would reverse America’s enfeeblement.” A 67 year-old retired shuttle worker who was present for Gingrich’s speech said, “Probably the best speech I’ve heard in this political season so far. Visionary.”

Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau

Gingrich’s idea, however, was not new. Three-star General Arthur G. Trudeau led the 7th Infantry Division during the Battle of Pork Chop Hill during the Korean War. In March, 1959, he wrote: “A lunar outpost … is of critical importance to the U.S. Army of the future.”

Trudeau was instructing the Army’s chief of ordnance to formulate a proposal for a “manned lunar outpost” to “protect potential United States interests on the moon.” If the United States established a presence on the moon before any other nation, “the prestige and psychological advantage to the nation will be invaluable.”

The study, Project Horizon, planned to establish a moonbase by 1966. The time was less than a year since the Soviets had astounded the United States and the rest of the Western world by launching the Sputnik satellite. The United States was behind in the Space Race. A 118-page monograph produced by the Army in June, 1959, said, “To be second to the Soviet Union in establishing an outpost on the moon would be disastrous to our nation’s prestige and in turn to our democratic philosophy.” The Soviet Union had already proclaimed that it would get to the moon by 1967. There was some urgency involved.

A U.S. moonbase was proposed in 1959.

The United States planned a moonbase which could accommodate between 10 and 20 people and allow for further exploration of the moon and the rest of space and “military operations on the moon.” The Army believed there were no known technical barriers to the establishment of a moonbase and that Project Horizon “should be a special project having authority and priority similar to the Manhattan Project in World War II.” The nation that invented the atomic bomb could surely put a few soldiers onto the moon.

Construction materials would be transported by 40 launches of the multi-stage Saturn II rocket, which was then in development. It was envisaged that orbiting space stations would be used as waypoints.

The would be two variants of a lunar landing vehicle. The first, for direct trips from the earth to the moon, would carry almost 6,000 pounds, while the second, which would be refueled in low-earth orbit, would carry almost 50,000 pounds. 490,000 pounds of cargo and 266,000 pounds of supplies were thought necessary for a moonbase.

Scientists suggested that natural caves be sealed with pressure bags to create habitable spaces on the moon. Caves would also provide protection from meteorites and temperature extremes. Drawings in the Army study depicted a buried cylindrical structure. Power could be generated by solar or nuclear means.

Supporters of Project Horizon held that the ultimate goal should be the deployment of weapon systems and sensors. Now, intercontinental ballistic missiles can reach any target within half an hour, and satellites provide detection capabilities 24 hours a day. Any enemy – undoubtedly guys rushin’ around with snow on their boots – would have the greatest difficulty in reaching the moon, and a U.S. military presence could neutralize any forces which might land. The situation would, of course, be reversed “if hostile forces were permitted to arrive first.” The United States could, it was said, establish “an operations lunar outpost by late 1966” if “initial manned landings” occurred in the spring of 1965. The cost would have been $6 billion. Any moonbase would have been protected by low-yield nuclear weapons and landmines. The landmines would release steel balls on command, and not by pressure.

“The moon provides a retaliation base of unequaled advantage.”

In January, 1958, one star General Homer A. Boushey delivered a speech to the Aero Club of Washington, D.C. It was reported by U.S. News & World Report under the title of: “Who Controls the Moon Controls the Earth.” He said, “The moon provides a retaliation base of unequaled advantage.” He said that the Soviets would have to launch an attack on the moon two-and-a-half days before attacking the United States. Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee early in March, 1958, three star General Donald L. Putt said that missiles could be launched from deep shafts on the moon.

Many “Systems Requirement” studies were carried out, demonstrating that many people were involved with the endeavor. These studies cannot now be found, nor can memos, letters and other documents associated with them. It is possible copies may lie in neglected government archives or in the garage of a retired Air Force officer who illegally took a copy home.

The most probable explanation for the paucity of these studies is that they fell victim to the reforms of Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. His minions applied systems analysis to weapons systems, and a great number of the Air Force’s more chimerical wishes were canceled. McNamara became better known for his involvement with the Vietnam War, where he gave his name to the McNamara Line. Officially known as the Strong Point Obstacle System, it was a network of obstacles and acoustic and motion sensors to hinder and monitor movement from the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnam’s northernmost province of Quang Tri. Starting from his appointment in 1961, however, McNamara put paid to a number of dubious and costly programs, of which a military moonbase was surely one.

Records of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, which was later absorbed by NASA, detail a study of the feasibility of a moonbase.

There is, at least, information about one study into the feasibility of a moonbase, SR-183, in the form of comprehensive notes taken by Edwin P. Hartman and stored at the National Archives regional office for southern California at Laguna Niguel, to the south of Los Angeles. Beginning in the early 1950s, Hartman headed the Western Support Office of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, which was later absorbed by NASA when it was created in 1958. He was the representative of NACA and then NASA in southern California.

By the early 1960s, NASA sent representatives to the factories that were constructing the Saturn and Apollo space vehicles. Hartman would visit aerospace companies, be briefed on their work, and then report to his superiors. His observations were meticulous, and even more valuable in view of the fact that so many corporate records were never preserved. He spoke not only of ongoing projects, but the personalities of those involved and the financial situations and organizational and other problems of the companies involved.

Toward the end of March 1959, Hartman attended a number of briefings at the Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles. These related to work on SR-183 by industry teams. Hartman said there were four teams: Republic Aviation and Systems Corp. of America; Boeing, Westinghouse, and Aerojet Nucleonics; North American Aviation’s Missile Development Division and RCA; and Minneaopolis-Honeywell and United Aircraft Corp. Lockheed did not participate, despite having the most active space program in the shape of the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite program which was funded by the Air Force. Lockheed had bid for the studies but was not selected, possibly because it was believed to be overextended.

Hartman missed the final briefing by Minneaopolis-Honeywell and United Aircraft Corp. Information regarding SR-183 was leaked – or possibly officially given – to Aviation Week magazine, but this contained less detail than Hartman’s observations. Hartman said, “The companies that undertake SR studies for the Air Force do so largely at their own expense.” There would have been much of that – many people were involved. Hartman, however, pointed out that the U.S. government ended up indirectly footing the bill “as the income of most aircraft companies comes mainly from the government.” The lack of documentation can be explained by the fact that very little was passed to government officials, and what there was would probably have been marked as industry proprietary.

The objective of SR-183 was “to determine a sound and economical approach for the establishment of a manned intelligence observatory on the Moon.”

Hartman said that the objective of SR-183 was “to determine a sound and economical approach for the establishment of a manned intelligence observatory on the Moon.” The moon, he said, was “a favorite vantage point from which to observe enemy actions in space” and that its low gravity made it “a good platform for launching defensive vehicles.”

The teams had had only six months in which to work and almost no experience of spaceflight, and so arrived at ideas which were unrealistic to the point of what Hartman termed “fanciful.” Some of these ideas persist, and are no more realistic. Hartman wrote: “There is not much of a general nature to be said about the presentations except that they all seemed a little fantastic.”

Per Hartman, “The Douglas presentation was the briefest, most pessimistic and most down to Earth – if a lunar venture may be so described.” He was least impressed by the Boeing/Republic briefings and noted that “all of the presentations suffered greatly from a lack of basic knowledge about the subject discussed.” He said some of the concepts described were “of little value” other than the intellectual stimulation they evoked. But he did believe the exercise was worthwhile because it made companies devote thought to space missions, and the realization that many tasks were better performed from orbit was very useful. Some of the ideas developed for Project Horizon were used in the Apollo project.

Boeing and some other contractors advocated the basing of nuclear missiles on the moon. Boeing saw humans landing on the moon in 1963 and construction of a moonbase beginning in the mid-1960s, with the base becoming operational by 1970. Any base could be excavated by bombardment from space, which Hartman described as “hard landing.” 116 men would have reached the moon by 1973 at a cost of $30bn by the close of 1967. Apollo put 12 men onto the moon at a cost of around $24bn and never seriously contemplated a moonbase.

North American considered that a moonbase could be used to collect signals intelligence, surveil the earth, aid navigation, and relay communications. Identifying a Soviet ICBM silo with 90 percent certainty would require a three-foot resolution, which would have required a massive telescope. North American’s team said that the design of a base was “wide open,” which Hartman took to mean “no-one knows anything about it.”

Like Boeing, the Douglas group believed that observation from the moon and “aid in facilitating retaliatory strikes” were the best reasons to construct a moonbase. Douglas also suggested that the moon could house an easily transported spinning liquid mercury mirror, which significantly reduces the cost of building a telescope, although leaves it unable to change its direction of observation. Douglas believed that the moon was better than satellites because it was more stable, a harder target to attack, possessed exploitable natural resources, and provided a more natural environment for humans due to gravity.

The design for a moonbase proposed by Douglas was later changed to that of a space station, and was used in the Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles.

Douglas proposed a design for a moonbase which was later suggested for a space station, a scale model for which was acquired by the team which produced the Star Trek television series. It appeared as the K-7 space station in The Trouble with Tribbles, one of the most popular ever Trek episodes.

In contrast to their North American counterparts and more in tune with reality, the Douglas team decided that collecting signals intelligence from the viewpoint of the moon was “far-fetched.” They said that observing ICBM launches from the moon was not possible, but a satellite could do so using an infrared telescope. This was the approach adopted by the Air Force a decade after, although TRW rather than Douglas was given the task.

The team from Republic was the only one to say that prestige was a major reason for the establishment of a moonbase. More concrete reasons were observation of the weather, enemy movements, and space vehicles; retaliatory bombardment; scientific use; and as a base for interplanetary missions. The Republic team noted that the moon was so distant from the earth that it was a less-than-ideal observation platform: the earth could be observed ten times better from orbit, if only the problems of stabilization and direction could be resolved, as Lockheed later did. In common with Douglas team, Republic concluded that collection of signals intelligence was impractical. Republic found the most promising reason for a moonbase to be retaliation.

Republic found that the plants best suited to cultivation on the moon were lettuce, soybeans, peanuts, and corn. Water might be extracted from rocks. Republic did say that it would be extremely challenging to develop a closed ecological system. Communications would be a problem as the line of sight was short, and signals would have to be relayed by satellite. The moon would only be able to view half the earth at a time, so satellites would still be required, making a moonbase less of a boon.

The contractors knew precious little of the problems of working on the surface of the moon, even when problems should have been obvious. They were concerned over the danger of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, but did not mention the cosmic rays which had been discovered at the beginning of the century. They believed lunar dust might be problematic due to static electricity and “dust traps,” but were unaware that it was exceedingly abrasive. Proposals for underground bases proved wildly optimistic in view of the fact that Apollo astronauts had the hardest of times merely putting flagpoles into the ground.

If water and oxygen could be obtained locally, the operating costs of a moonbase would be significantly reduced.

Oxygen represents 60 percent of the mass that would have to be transported betwixt earth and moon, making it the most crucial candidate for lunar resource development. There is much water on the moon. As a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said, if water and oxygen could be obtained locally, the operating costs of a moonbase would be significantly reduced. Valuable metals could also be obtained. Helium-3, an isotope which is rare on earth, may exist in significant quantities on the moon, and would be useful to nuclear fusion, if only someone could work out how to do it. As was stated by Neil Ruzic in his 1965 book, The Case for the Moon, a wide array of activities would benefit from the vacuum of the moon. Other uses for a moonbase which have become apparent since Project Horizon are hunting for exotic subatomic particles in space and watching for asteroids that might hit the earth.

A moonbase would have been powered by nuclear reactors. Personnel stationed on the moon would need to spend a minimum of 45 minutes a day in a spinning centrifugal chamber to counteract the effects of low gravity on muscle and bone. Pregnant women would not be able to stay on the moon.

By 1961, the Air Force had produced another study named Lunex – Lunar Expedition – which proposed a 20-person moonbase, which it said could be built for $8bn. In May, 1961, President Kennedy announced that civilians would be sent to the moon before the decade was out, and no base would be built.

The launch of the Polaris ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington, in 1959, obviated any need for nuclear missiles on the moon.

A moonbase with nuclear weapons was obviated in 1959 when the US Navy launched the USS George Washington Polaris ballistic missile submarine. It was survivable, and while its missiles had less range than one launched from the moon, they could still reach any place on earth and were sufficiently accurate to nuke a city. The $64bn the Navy spent on 41 Polaris submarines and 5,000 missiles by 1967 provided a massive amount of retaliatory strength. The Air Force could have put no more than a handful of missiles on the moon.

There was no talk of lunar missile bases in the very busy deterrence theory community. By the end of the 1950s, the RAND Corporation was generating copious studies of deterrence theory. RAND’s most esteemed thinkers, including Henry Kissenger, Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter, were christened “the wizards of Armageddon” by Fred Kaplan. They wrote publicly of deterrence theory, and failed to mention lunar bases, for instance in Brodie’s seminal work, Strategy in the Missile Age, which was published in 1959. Missiles launched from the moon would take three days to reach their destination. One spaceflight magazine said that attempting to control the earth from the moon was akin to trying to control Tibet from the peak of Mount Everest. The man in the moon was never going to be nuclear-armed.

A Manhattan Project-style effort could have worked if huge sums had been devoted to it, but there was diminishing political interest in a military moonbase as consternation over Sputnik abated, and the Vietnam War consumed any money which might have been employed. In 1967, the United States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom signed the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. This forbade militarization of the moon, and is in effect to this day.

Army reports and the contractors from Republic stated that a moonbase would enhance the standing of the United States. After Gingrich’s comment, this was echoed by the Bloomfield Report and Daily Telegraph. Standard & Poor’s snatched away the AAA credit rating of the United States, whose deepest and lengthiest economic depression in 80 years began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The annual deficit is more than $1 trillion, 8.75 million jobs have been lost, and gasoline costs $4 a gallon. China is ascendant.

“We can rebuild him. We have the technology.”

A moonbase would have the same effect on the United States as the transformation of astronaut Lee Majors into the Six Million Dollar Man on television in the 1970s: “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” As happened with Majors, a moonbase would make the United States “Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

Cost and not technology is what prevents the construction of a moonbase. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a 2009 paper that a moonbase would cost $35bn to build and $7.35bn a year to run, excluding the costs of transportation. Transportation would be rather easier than first envisaged: Dr. John Hunter, once of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, showed that a super rail gun would reduce the cost of transportation to the moon to 10 percent of previous levels.

During the Apollo program, between 45 and 60 percent of Americans believed too much money was being spent on spaceflight, as was stated by a 2003 paper by the journal, Space Policy, and Apollo headed the list of program that Americans wished to see cut. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost between $3.2 and $4 trillion. The United States could get hold of some money by legalizing drugs.

There is more appetite for a moonbase now than there was for the Apollo program. In 1958, a year after the launch of Sputnik, 50 percent of the $1.3bn U.S. toy market was science fiction related. As Howard Schuman and Jacqueline Scott of the University of Michigan said, “[T]he events and changes that have maximum impact in terms of memorableness occur during a cohort’s adolescence and young adulthood.” These children are now voters. The same study asked people in 1985 what were the greatest events of the last 50 years, and space exploration came in third after the Second World War and the Vietnam War.

Let's do it!

The idea of a moonbase is grandiose. But after spending his childhood reading Isaac Asimov novels and Missile & Rockets magazine, Newton Leroy Gingrich said, “Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk were grandiose. John F. Kennedy was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am grandiose and that Americans are instinctively grandiose.” While there is no need for nukes, a moonbase would be terrific for American prestige and beneficial to science, while costing a fraction as much as activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, which benefited neither of these things. It is time for just a little grandiosity.

Bibliography

“Send Newt to the Moon.” Send Newt to the Moon. n.d. 10 May 2012. <http://sendnewttothemoon.org/post/17113421134/project-horizon.>
Achenbach, Joel. “Is Newt Gingrich’s space plan science fiction?” Washington Post. n.d. 10 May 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/newt-gingrichs-plan-for-a-moon-base-is-it-science-fiction/2012/01/26/gIQAKVC2TQ_story.html.>
Borch, Fred L. “An Army Base on the Moon.” Defense Media Network. 6 October 2011. 10 May 2012. <http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/an-army-base-on-the-moon/.>
Burns, Jack. “Guest Commentary: Newt Gingrich’s moon base is not a loony idea.” Denver Post. 8 February 2012. 10 May 2012. <http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19915899.>
Day, Dwayne A. “Take off and nuke the site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure…).” The Space Review. 4 June 2007. 10 May 2012. <http://www.thespacereview.com/article/882/1.>
Gross, Daniel. “Myth Of Decline: U.S. Is Stronger and Faster Than Anywhere Else.” The Daily Beast. 30 April 2012. 10 May 2012. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/myth-of-decline-u-s-is-stronger-and-faster-than-anywhere-else.html.>
Maxwell, Mark, Wingo, Dennis Ray, and Woodcock, Gordon. “Lunar Outpost Development and the Role of Mechanical Systems for Payload Handling.” University of Alabama in Huntsville. 10 February 2007. 10 May 2012. <http://lib.uah.edu/researchassistance/files/NNL06AE27P.pdf.>
McGlynn, Katia. “Jon Stewart Rips Newt Gingrich Moon Colony: He Wants To Be ‘Lunar Trump.’” Huffington Post. 27 January 2012. 10 May 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/jon-stewart-newt-gingrich-moon-colony-lunar-trump-video_n_1236335.html.>
Novak, Matt. “How Space Age Nostalgia Hobbles Our Future.” Slate. 15 May 2012. 15 May 2012. <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/05/space_program_s_future_and_landing_on_the_moon_how_nostalgia_for_the_apollo_program_doesn_t_help_.html.>
Pappas, Stephanie. “Five of the biggest myths about the moon debunked.” MSNBC. 4 May 2012. 4 May 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47296397/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T6QwmcV8GOk.>
West, Ed. “Newt Gingrich’s moon base is an inspired idea that would reverse America’s enfeeblement.” Daily Telegraph. 27 January 2012. 10 May 2012. <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100132961/newt-gingrichs-moon-base-is-a-inspired-idea-that-would-reverse-americas-enfeeblement/.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<As always, suggestions as to things I could write about to the email address above would be most welcome.>

RMS Titanic

Now that one hundred years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic, conspiracy theories relating to it have been rife. Some are rather crazy.

An example comes from one webpage. It said that there are only two people who were aboard the ship who survive to this day and both “claim” to have been babies and therefore too young to remember the event. How convenient, it says. It says that although some of the richest and most famous people in the world were aboard, no video was made of the sinking. How convenient, it says, although perhaps no video from 1912 is not so suspicious. It says that Abe Lincoln died on the same day, 47 years before, and the Titanic could carry 2,547 people. The webpage asks when “sheeple” will realize that they are being lied to. Hang about, that one was a joke. But it sets the mood. During an interview with Online Tonight, James Cameron remarked of a cartoon called Oliver Stone’s Titanic which said there was a second iceberg.

Survivor Emily Richards wrote in a letter that immediately before the Titanic’s rendezvous with an iceberg at 10:20p.m. on April 14, 1912: “The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to some-one else to stare (sic) the ship. It was the Captan (sic) fault.” The 24 year-old Richards and her two sons survived the sinking, but her brother was lost.

The letter was written on the notepaper of the Carpathia, which rescued survivors of the Titanic. It and another letter Richards wrote was expected to be sold at auction for $32,000. First person accounts on the notepaper of the Carpathia are exceedingly rare, so the items aroused considerable interest.

No other witness is known to have made the same claim, making Richard’s version inconsistent with dozens of others. She did not repeat the accusation in interviews or at the British or American inquiries into the sinking.

The statue of Captain Edward Smith

Captain Edward Smith was held to have died like an Englishman, going down with his ship. He was mostly exonerated by the British inquiry. He was glorified, and a statue of him stands in his home town in England.

Who sank the Titanic? Astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University-San Marcos said in Sky & Telescope magazine that the moon did it. Three months prior to the sinking, there was a full moon which could have created abnormally strong tides which propelled a series of icebergs. The moon was closer than at any point since the year 796 and closer than it will ever be again until 2257. The earth, moon, and sun were aligned, a very rare occurrence, which intensified the gravitational pull of the latter two on the Earth.

Geza Gyuk, director of the Department of Astronomy at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, said the effect would have made no more than five percent of difference. Olson countered that this would have been sufficient. John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others. They haven’t found anything significant at all.”

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it.

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it. The ship was said to be unsinkable, which was a direct challenge to G-d: people were saying not even G-d could sink the ship. The story goes that the area where Titanic sank was not one that featured many icebergs, so the coincidence of the presence of an iceberg was uncanny. The Titanic represented excessive wealth, and perhaps G-d also took exception to cutting-edge technology. It was the same as John Lennon, who was murdered after saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

Multiple iceberg warnings had been received by the Titanic, and it is doubtful that the area was not known for icebergs. At the time, Shipbuilder magazine had said that the Titanic was “practically unsinkable,” and this only became “unsinkable” with the passage of time. There is also the small matter of whether G-d exists.

It has been rumored that the body of one worker had been built into the hull of the Titanic. No evidence substantiates this, although one worker died in hospital after an accident shortly before the ship was launched. The same was said of the Great Eastern, the largest ship ever at the time of its launch in 1858, and the Hoover Dam, which was built from 1931 to 1936.

The team behind a television documentary about the Titanic said it sank because of the design of the keel.

A team made a television documentary about the Titanic and studied the keel. They found that the ship was doomed by a design flaw which accelerated the rate at which it sank, although the sinking took longer than predicted by the managing director of the company which built the ship, who was aboard at iceberg time.

The flaw made the ship vulnerable to rough seas. The team said the stern snapped when it reached an angle of 10 degrees, where previously it had been thought that the angle was 45 degrees. This could have occurred during a strong storm even if there had been no iceberg.

One of the Titanic’s sister ships, the Olympic, was built to essentially the same design as the Titanic virtually alongside it and using the same materials. It once encountered a storm so strong that a hatch cover was torn from the forecastle and hurled to a forward area of the ship, and it sailed through an undersea earthquake off the Grand Banks in 1929. No catastrophic damage was suffered. While the expansion joints of the third sister, the Britannic, were strengthened, according to the Daily Telegraph, the Olympic was not the subject of such work.

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons: the Titanic was a giant, floating, metallic wicker man. One has to admit that the bit in James Cameron’s film where Kate Winslet mimics crucifixion is quite creepy. The sinking took place around the time of the Blood Sacrifice to the Beast, when practitioners of the Left Hand Path customarily make human sacrifices. The body of John Jacob Astor, possibly then the richest man in the world, was found to be mangled, and this could have been due to ritual mutilation. Merely the timing of the sinking and the condition of Astor’s corpse do not make this theory very plausible.

It has been claimed that, as with 911, the Titanic’s end was caused by explosions. 2nd Class survivor Imanita Shelley was one who reported hearing explosions. An expedition which examined the wreck of the Titanic found a hole at the front of the wreck which appeared to have been caused by an explosion. Cold water entering a hot, pressurized boiler could cause an explosion and overheated boilers can act similarly. And then there was all that coal dust.

The Titanic has been compared to the Costa Concordia. The Titanic sank between April 14 and April 15, 1912, while the Costa Concordia ran aground between January 13 and 14, 2012 – exactly 99 years and 9 months later. Turn this upside down, and you get 666, the number of the Beast. This number is also said to be of significance to the Freemasons, although not by any source that would be regarded as authoritative. The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio, which is Italian for “lily flower,” one of the most recurrent symbols in masonry. Concordia was also the name of the first masonic lodge in Florence. Both ships had the most luxurious facilities currently available. The Titanic was the largest ship ever built, and the Costa Concordia the largest ever built in Italy and – wait for it! – it had the largest spa center ever to feature on a cruise ship. The Titanic took three hours to sink, while the Costa Concordia was on its side within around three hours. Many passengers also likened the Costa Concordia to the Titanic, with 31 year-old schoolteacher, Valeria Ananias of Los Angeles, saying, “Have you seen Titanic? That’s exactly what it was.” Some survivors said Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On was playing when the ship hit the rocks. One survivor of the Costa Concordia, Valentina Capuano, was the granddaughter of a survivor of the Titanic.

MS Costa Concordia

There are differences. The Titanic was doomed by hubris and the Costa Concordia by human error. While Captain Smith went down with the Titanic, Captain Francesco Schettino was one of the first off, causing him to be christened Captain Coward by the British newspaper, the Daily Hate, and leading to the creation of a Facebook page entitled “Francesco Schettino Captain of Costa Concordia is a Coward.” The Titanic hit something on the starboard side while the Cost Concordia hit to port. The Titanic sank in 12,460 feet of water while the Costa Concordia experienced misfortune where the water was 26 feet deep. 1,514 people from the Titanic died, compared to only 32 from the Costa Concordia. The Titanic was in water so cold that anyone immersed in it succumbed to hypothermia within half an hour, while the Cost Concordia was in quite warm water. The evacuation of the Titanic was orderly and third class passengers did not wish to be parted from their possessions, while on the Costa Concordia, one passenger said, “It was every man for himself,” with some crew members reportedly beating passengers to the lifeboats. Perhaps any Masonic connections can be ignored.

Perhaps the funkiest lunatic Titanic conspiracy theory is that people are alive to this day within the sunken ship. Video has shown that the wreck is in two pieces which will still be water-tight. Survivors could have employed the legendary British ingenuity to construct a mechanism for air filtration. There had been 2,200 people aboard, and if only a few survived, there would have been enough food for a very long time. It is alleged that ships received a transmission where the Titanic sank, saying, “We are the survivors of RMS Titanic, trapped aboard the ship on the ocean bed – if anybody can here us, for God’s sake help us.” This line gets only three hits on Google, so it is not widely alleged.

This suggestion post-dates Goliath Awakes, a television film from 1981 in which people survived on a sunken ship for 40 years, and The Watch Below, a science fiction novel from 1966 which told the same story. The food on the Titanic was mostly fresh and in cold storage.

And there we have it. We have birthers and truthers. Those who insist on subscribing to the theory that the Titanic met its end due to collision with an iceberg could be termed icebergers. Based on the overwhelming evidence presented here, might the accepted story of the Titanic be no less than a conspiracy to provoke anti-iceberg sentiment worldwide?

<An article about general Titanic conspiracy theories can be seen <An article about looney tunes Titanic conspiracy theories can be seen <a href=”http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2012/04/downright-titanic-conspiracy-theories.htm”>here</a>.>

Bibliography

“Salvagers Suggest Titanic Exploded.” New York Times. 22 September 1987. 20 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/22/science/salvagers-suggest-titanic-exploded.html.>
“Still not convinced?” The Best Page in the Universe. n.d. 20 April 2012. <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07.>
“The Titanic and God — Possibly the Greatest Conspiracy Theory of All” Common Sense Conspiracy. 14 April 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://commonsenseconspiracy.com/2012/04/the-titanic-and-god-possibly-the-greatest-conspiracy-theory-of-all/.>
“Titanic Conspiracy.” Fortean Times. 15 June 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=727691.>
“Titanic Madness!!” Fortean Times. 12 January 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28893&highlight=titanic.>
“Titanic Sinking Was An Occult Mass Murder?” DavidIcke.com. 16 October 2008. 20 April 2012. <http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=39263.>
Gayle, Damien. “Was the captain of the Titanic drunk on the night the ship struck an iceberg?” Daily Mail. 9 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112124/Letter-claims-Titanics-captain-Edward-Smith-drunk-night-ship-sank.html.>
Jones, Melanie. “Costa Concordia, Titanic 2012: Why Did the Italian Ship Sink?” International Business News. 15 January 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/281986/20120115/costa-concordia-why-cruise-ship-sink-titanic.htm.>
Lovett, Richard. “Titanic Sunk by ‘Supermoon’ and Celestial Alignment?” National Geographic. 6 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120306-titanic-supermoon-moon-science-iceberg-sky-sink/.>
Pappas, Stephanie. “Five of the biggest myths about the moon debunked.” MSNBC. 4 May 2012. 4 May 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47296397/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T6QwmcV8GOk.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<Come on, I would still like suggestions as to things to write about, to the email address above. Updates will be every two weeks until I get more ideas.>

RMS Titanic

The ill-fated ship, Titanic, was the result of fervent competition between the shipping lines, the White Star Line and Cunard. Cunard’s Mauretania performed the fastest-ever transatlantic crossing when it entered service in 1907. Cunard’s other masterpiece, the Lusitania, was launched the same year and much-praised for its spectacular interiors. Its sinking by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915 helped rope the United States into the First World War.

The full title of the ship was RMS Titanic. RMS stands for “Royal Mail Ship,” indicating that the vessel carried goods for the British Royal Mail. The ships of the Olympic class to which Titanic belonged were 882 feet long and a maximum of 92.5 feet wide, and were the largest ships and the largest movable, man-made objects of the time. It is said that the ship was thought to be unsinkable, but in reality, Shipbuilder magazine had said that it was “practically unsinkable.”

The ship left Southampton in England and proceeded to Cherbourg in France and then Queenstown in Ireland, before setting off for New York. First class tickets cost between $2,500 and $4,500, or $43,860 to $78,950 at today’s prices. Third-class tickets cost around $35, or $620 today. Several members of the team that had designed the ship were aboard, including the Chief Draughtsman responsible for the lifeboats.

A boarding pass for the Titanic. Photo: daveparker

Below decks were immigrants from 28 countries, of whom some had never previously encountered indoor plumbing. There were over 700 third-class passengers, more than the other two classes combined. Third-class was the largest source of profit for shipping lines. Many had sold all their possessions to afford a ticket to start a new life in the United States. Third-class accommodation was fairly luxurious and superior to that of other ships of the time: third-class rooms were enclosed and held four people who were generally strangers, and the mattresses were real as opposed to the straw-filled pallets of other ships. There were, however, only two bathtubs between all the third-class passengers. The ship’s enormous engines could be felt and heard in their rooms.

Around noon on April 14, 1912, the first of a minimum of four warnings of icebergs was received by wireless. Another came at 5:35 p.m., reporting three icebergs 19 miles north of the Titanic. Late in the evening, one hour before the Titanic’s date with destiny, another ship, the Californian, signaled: “We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” According to the Titanic Inquiry Project, the response received was: “Shut up. I am busy. I am working Cape Race.”

The iceberg which is thought to have hit the Titanic

It was a moonless and freezing Sunday night. Shortly before midnight, lookouts Reginald Lee and Fredrick Fleet neared the end of their shift when they saw the most famous iceberg in history. It has been estimated at 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long. They sounded an alarm. 37 seconds later, First Officer William M. Murdoch put the engines into reverse and turned the ship. Stopping would have taken half a mile.

At first, it seemed that the maneuver had worked. The ship appeared to not have touched the iceberg. Below the surface, however, ice had scraped the starboard hull. Rivets popped, steel plates buckled, and openings were made. At the time, it was estimated there was a 300 foot gash, but in reality there were openings of around 3.2 square feet each in six places. The liner had 16 watertight compartments, but they were open at the top. Water spilled from one to the next. Some Cunard ships were designed to avoid this situation.

Captain Edward Smith

Most of the people aboard were asleep, although a tumultuous game of bridge was afoot in the First Class Smoking room. Many people were not woken by the noise. Captain Edward Smith, a highly-popular individual who was due to retire at the end of this trip, called for Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff of Belfast in Northern Ireland, the company which had built the ship. They went below together and were horrified to find that the squash court and mail room had flooded. Titanic’s bow began to sink. Andrews estimated that the ship would be afloat for only one-and-a-half hours more. Smith ordered the wireless operators to send distress calls. It was the first time the signal, “SOS,” had ever been used.

The Carpathia was 58 miles away and at great risk, traveled at top speed to reach the Titanic. The Californian was close enough to save everyone, but the wireless operator had gone to bed. At 12:25 a.m., Captain Smith ordered that lifeboats be lowered. Lifeboats were regarded as unsightly, so the Titanic carried only 20, sufficient for half those aboard. There were, at least, enough cork-filled life jackets for all. Many third-class passengers had seen little of what lay beyond their cabins, and got lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the ship.

The band played to comfort the passengers. The legend perpetuated by films is that their last tune was the hymn, Nearer, My God, To Thee. This was the tune most commonly-cited and a colleague of the bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, said that Wallace had said it is what he would have played if he were on the deck of a sinking ship. Some accounts say the bang played popular music. James Cameron could not resist sticking with the hymn, saying, “I stole that entirely and put that into my film, because I loved it, it was such a strong part of the story.”

Survivors recounted that the stars were reflected by the sea. They said the sound of hundreds of people in the freezing water was unearthly. John B. ‘Jack’ Thayer III, the 17-year-old heir to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, said, “It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for 20 or 30 minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure.”

RMS Carpathia

The Titanic exceeded Andrews’ prediction and was not underwater until 2:20 a.m., sundering in two beneath the surface. Lifeboats did not return to collect people from the water, fearing they would be overloaded. The Carpathia arrived at 4 a.m. and began to take on what would eventually by 706 human and three canine survivors.

Which brings us on to the conspiracy theories.

The Titanic conspiracy theory put forward by Physics World blames poor engineering. The ship was rushed into service when it was difficult to obtain sufficient iron. The steel and wrought iron fasteners which held metal plates together had been inserted unevenly and by hand rather than mechanically because hydraulic presses could not be used at the bow and stern where the curve of the hull was too great. Weak rivets burst open under pressure.

The theory was based on analysis by science writer, Dr. Richard Corfield, who cited the work of U.S. metallurgists, Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke. McCarty and Foecke tested 48 rivets taken from the wreck and found them to contain a high level of slag, which makes iron brittle and more likely to splinter. So many rivets popped that a fifth compartment flooded, while the Titanic could have survived the flooding of four. Dr. Corfield claims that James Cameron agrees with him: around 100 minutes into his film is a scene where rivets pop a la champagne corks.

Dr. Corfield also said that the Titanic sank where the Gulf Stream intersects with the glacier-carrying Labrador Current. The Gulf Stream was abnormally warm due to the intensity of the summer. This, he said, concentrated icebergs “as if they were tank traps.”

British historian, Tim Maltin, also put the Gulf Stream/Labrador Current intersection in the frame in his book, A Very Deceiving Night. He said it caused a thermal inversion which distorts vision. This prevented the Titanic’s lookouts from seeing the iceberg in time. A study by the British government in 1992 suggested super refraction as the cause, and Maltin referred to survivors’ testimony, ships’ logs, and weather records.

Winston Churchill, who was voted the greatest Briton ever and has been accused of being responsible for the sinking of the Titanic

Winston Churchill was voted the greatest ever Briton in a poll by the BBC. He was blamed for the sinking of the Titanic in a book by Robert Strange, Who Sank The Titanic? The Final Verdict.

Churchill had been entered the British cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, giving him responsibility for maritime safety when the Titanic was built. Strange said that Churchill failed in his duties as he was distracted by “burning political ambition, wounded pride and the pursuit of his future wife Clementine.” “Metaphorically speaking,” said Strange, Churchill sank the Titanic.

Strange studied century-old files in the National Archives of the United States and United Kingdom. He said the Board of Trade should have revised the outdated laws governing how many lifeboats were carried. The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act dictated that the number of lifeboats was proportional to the size of the ship, but did not recognize that ships could be more than 10,000 tons. Churchill had been warned repeatedly that these regulations were out of date.

Churchill must have realized that his department for maritime safety was undermanned, badly-trained and poorly managed after the public embarrassment resulting from its handling of an inquiry into a shipping accident. He made the poorly-trained and underpaid engineer, Francis Carruthers, the supervisor of Titanic’s construction, and he failed to identify flaws. Strange also lambasted J.P. Morgan for pressuring the Harland and Wolff shipyard to build the Titanic at a cut price which led to inadequate materials, poor workmanship, and insufficient lifeboats.

J. Bruce Ismay, who was vilified as a coward for his actions during the sinking of the Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic made J. Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, one of the greatest cowards ever known. Some survivors said he was on the first lifeboat, but the ship’s barber said he only entered a lifeboat when ordered to by the Chief Officer. Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry into the sinking, said Ismay helped other passengers before leaving on the last lifeboat. Strange said, “It gave him the perfect excuse to stay close by the boats and save himself.”

The 1943 German film, Titanic, the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, and James Cameron’s 1997 epic all portrayed Ismay as a villain. Paul Louden-Brown of the Titanic Historical Society worked as a consultant for Cameron and objected to Ismay’s depiction, to be told: “This is what the public expect to see.” Ismay’s infamy was largely prompted by a campaign – a conspiracy, no less – by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, with whom Ismay had a vendetta. The newspapers labeled him J. Brute Ismay.

Another theory was recently put forward in Good as Gold, a novel by Lady Louise Patten. She is the wife of Lord Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, former chairman of the British Conservative Party, European Commissioner, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and current Chairman of the BBC Trust. She is also the granddaughter of the Titanic’s Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

At the time of Titanic’s sinking, the maritime industry was in upheaval as steam ships were replacing those of the sail variety. Each had its own steering system. Some of the crew were familiar with the Tiller Orders of sailing ships, while the Titanic used the Rudder Orders of steam ships. Under the Tiller system, pushing the tiller left resulted in a rightward turn, while under the Rudder system, turns were made in the direction of intended travel. An iceberg was sighted two miles distance and “Hard a starbr’d” was ordered. The helmsman, Quartermaster Robert Hitchins, panicked and mistakenly acted under Tiller orders, which led to impact with an iceberg.

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of the Titanic

Lightoller was in his cabin at the time, but heard of the error at a conference of four senior officers in the First Officer’s cabin after the impact. Ismay persuaded Captain Smith to continue to sail to avoid reputationally damaging delay, which caused a hundredfold increase in the quantity of water taken on. Lightoller said this was a “criminal” decision. If the Titanic had stopped, Patten said that the Titanic’s passengers could have been saved.

Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive and the only survivor aware of what had really caused the sinking. He did not reveal what he knew at the British and American inquiries because he feared for the job of himself and his colleagues. The only person he told was his wife, Patten’s grandmother, who told Patten when she was 10 years-old and lived with her. Her mother believed the story should not be told because the reputation of the twice-decorated Lightoller was at stake, but Patten decided to use it in her second novel because her mother and grandmother were both long dead and “I felt as if I owed it to the world to share the secret. If I died tomorrow then it would die with me.”

Sally Neillson, great-granddaughter of Hitchins, said he had 10 years of experience, with seven as quartermaster, and had been guiding the Titanic for four days, alternating between four hours of duty and four of rest. He would not, therefore, have been unfamiliar with the prevailing system.

The Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic

One Titanic conspiracy theory which has been much-trumpeted was put forward in The Riddle of the Titanic by Robin Gardiner and Dan van der Vat. They say it was not the Titanic which sank, but its sister ship, the Olympic. The ships appeared almost identical. The Olympic had collided with the British warship, HMS Hawke, on September 20, 1911, but was at fault and so received no compensation. So the names on the ships were changed, and the Olympic was sent into an area of sea which contained many icebergs and many other ships, to deliberately ram an iceberg and have all the passengers rescued. The most common maritime insurance fraud involves changing the identity of ships. The ship which sank broke in two at the point where the Olympic had collided with HMS Hawke.

The theory is obviously, transparently, indubitably a load of B.S. The theory is that the ship sank faster than was foreseen, when in fact it took longer. Parts of the ship, including the propeller, were found to be stamped with the Titanic’s hull number of 400 whereas the Olympic was 401.

Ray Boston, who has devoted 20 years of his life to research of the Titanic’s sinking, put forward the theory that the ship was traveling at such a high speed because of an “uncontrollable” fire in a coal bunker which began during speed trials 10 days prior to the ship departing Southampton. Coal fires were not uncommon. The inquiry was told the ship had been traveling at “high speed” – 22 knots – in iceberg-filled waters, which the inquiry declared to be “excessive” and called for additional lookouts. Ismay told the 1912 British inquiry that John Pierpont Morgan, the owner of the White Star Line, had instructed him to cross the Atlantic at full speed. Boston said this was because Morgan was aware of the fire. Morgan was set to sail on the Titanic but canceled his ticket.

J. Dilley, a stoker on the Titanic who gave evidence to the inquiry said that the fire had not been extinguished, and that there was talk among his colleagues that after passengers had disembarked at New York, fireboats would have to be summoned.

One popular story is that the Titanic sank because it was carrying a mummy.

Some people blame the Pharaohs for the sinking of the Titanic. One passenger, Lord Canterville, was transporting a sarcophagus containing the mummy of the Princess Amen-Ra. The mysterious powers of the mummy disturbed the reasoning of Captain Smith, who ignored warnings of icebergs. Again, people’s B.S. detectors will be sounding so very loudly, as Charles Haas, president of a society devoted to the Titanic, obtained the ship’s cargo manifest. While the Titanic carried refrigerating apparatus, hair nets, elastics, rabbit hair, leather, auto parts, hatter’s fur, straw, linen, and raw feathers, there was no mummy.

Another theory explaining the Titanic’s high speed is that Captain Smith was attempting to win the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the North Atlantic. The theory is refuted by the fact that the Titanic was incapable of achieving the 26 knots necessary to win the prize. The record stood for 10 years after the Titanic sank.

John Jacob Astor, who was possibly the richest man in the world and was aboard the Titanic when it sank

Some Titanic conspiracy theories are pretty silly. One, which features heavily online, is that the Jesuits wished to create the Federal Reserve to control the world’s money and therefore politics. John Jacob Astor, Isidor Strauss, owner of Macy’s, and industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim were opposed to the idea. Astor is thought to have been the richest man in the world at the time, and Strauss and Guggenheim were also rolling in it. They were coaxed into traveling on the Titanic by means which have never been explained. Father Francis Brown, the most powerful Jesuit in Ireland, was aboard but alighted at Queenstown. Captain Smith is said by rumor-mongers to have been a Jesuit, which explains why he speeded into IceBerg City despite 26 years of experience of Atlantic crossings.

Another conspiracy theory which appeared in the Ballard News Tribune goes that the iceberg was a U-boat in disguise, which was collecting information on shipping. A variant says that the Titanic was torpedoed by a German U-boat to collect insurance money, but nobody aboard the Titanic saw the trail of a torpedo.

100 years later, interest in the Titanic is unabated. Harvard historian, Steven Biel, said, “Only Jesus and the Civil War have been written about more.” Maritime specialist and Titanic researcher, Michael McCaughan said, “People are still fascinated by Titanic because it’s like a parable of the human condition: it’s a story of profit, pleasure and memorialization.” Richard Howells, Reader in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, said, “If a man in his pride builds an unsinkable ship like Prometheus stealing the fire from the gods, it makes perfect mythical sense that God would be so angry at such an affront that he would sink the ship on its maiden outing.” The story is worth telling.

<An article about looney tunes Titanic conspiracy theories can be seen <a href=”http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2012/05/looney-tunes-titanic-conspiracy-theories.htm”>yonder</a>.

Bibliography

“Royal Mail Ship.” The Free Dictionary. n.d. 8 April 2012. <http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Royal+Mail+Ship.>
“Six Theories on the Loss of the Titanic.” Ria Novosti. 4 February 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20120402/172485842.html.>
“Titanic Inquiry Project.” Titanic Inquiry Project. n.d. 8 April 2012. <http://www.titanicinquiry.org/USInq/AMInq01.php.>
“Titanic.” History.com. n.d. 8 April 2012. <http://www.history.com/topics/titanic.>
Alleyne, Richard. “Titanic sunk by steering blunder, new book claims.” Daily Telegraph. 21 September 2010. 8 April 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/8016752/Titanic-sunk-by-steering-blunder-new-book-claims.html.>
Blundell, Nigel. “Was Winston Churchill to blame for Titanic?” The Sun. 26 March 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4218801/Was-Winston-Churchill-to-blame-for-Titanic-disaster.html.>
Byers, Paul. “Titanic: 100 years of conspiracy theories.” Ballard News Tribune. 4 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2012/04/04/opinion/titanic-100-years-conspiracy-theories.>
Griggs, Ian and Bignell, Paul. “Titanic doomed by fire raging below decks, says new theory.” Independent. 13 April 2008. 8 April 2012. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/titanic-doomed-by-fire-raging-below-decks-says-new-theory-808472.html.>
Kennedy, Helen. “Titanic sinking 100 years later: Iceberg sends ‘unsinkable’ ship to ocean floor.” New York Daily News. 8 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/titanic-sinking-100-years-iceberg-sends-unsinkable-ship-ocean-floor-article-1.1057401?localLinksEnabled=false.>
Lorenzi, Rossella. “Steering error sunk the Titanic.” Discovery News. 22 September 2010. 8 April 2012. <http://news.discovery.com/history/steering-error-sunk-the-titanic-says-author.html.>
Maltin, Tim. “Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?” Smithsonian Magazine. 1 March 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Did-the-Titanic-Sink-Because-of-an-Optical-Illusion.html.>
Sinmaz, Emine. “’It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night’: Titanic survivor reveals the horrifying cries of the luxury liner’s dying victims.” Daily Mail. 8 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126944/Titanic-survivor-John-B-Jack-Thayer-III-reveals-horrifying-cries-dying-victims.html.>
Waites, Rosie. “Five Titanic myths spread by films.” BBC. 5 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17515305.>
Waugh, Rob. “Did poor workmanship sink the Titanic?” Daily Mail. 2 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124038/Did-poor-workmanship-sink-Titanic-Physicist-claims-missing-rivets-crucial-cascade-events-sank-liner.html.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

An artist's representation of the craft with which Napoleon was to invade Britain

As the 19th century commenced, Britain was embroiled in a war with France where the very survival of the nation was at stake. In 1797, a French invasion fleet embarked for Ireland, which was ruled by Britain at the time, but the weather was so violent that troops could not land.

Both countries sought to prevent the other from trading with the United States. France made noises, but could do little to enforce an embargo without a decent navy. Britain was the world’s leading naval power after Lord Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805. In 1807, Britain ordered that all ships acquire a license from British authorities before trading with France or its colonies.

A major point of conflict between Britain and the United States was impressment, where sailors could be taken from boarded U.S. ships and obliged to serve in the Royal Navy. The practice had been indulged in since the reign of King Edward I in the thirteenth century. The Navy was 140,000 strong and much deserted-from. Impressment provided half its crews. Boardings were common to check for “contraband” and deserters. Six thousand sailors fell victim. Sailors were taken who had been born British but were American citizens (“Once an Englishman, always an Englishman”) and some were actually American from the start.

U.S. maritime interests did not opposes impressment forcefully, as losing a few sailors did not significantly affect the bottom line. Trade with Britain remained extremely profitable. The country at large, however, took impressment as an insult to the flag, and tempers reached fever-pitch in June of 1807 with the Chesapeake Affair.

Sailors on the USS Chesapeake firing the one shot they managed against HMS Leopard

Four British sailors had deserted and joined the U.S. Navy. The 38-gun USS Chesapeake’s captain was aware his crew included deserters. The 50-gun HMS Leopard attempted to board the Chesapeake to search it, but the U.S. ship did not heave to. The Leopard opened fire, killing three men and injuring 18. The British then boarded and seized the four men, of whom one was later executed for desertion. Britain offered to pay damages, but even level-headed Americans were outraged.

In the United States in May, 1810, the Non-Intercourse Act prohibited trade with France and Britain. Napoleon suggested he would cease restrictions on trade, and President James Madison relented in France’s case. Measures against Britain were frequently circumvented by smuggling from Canada.

New members of Congress known as the War Hawks agitated for war. In the northwest, Britain was held responsible for encouraging Injun hostility to American expansion. After every Injun raid, stories circulated of captured British muskets and other equipment. In the south, the states of Tennessee, the Mississippi Territory, and Georgia had designs upon Florida, which was ruled by Britain’s ally, Spain. Southerners also wished to remove from play a destination for escaped slaves.

On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress to declare war. Both houses approved wholeheartedly. War was declared on June 18. To its supporters, it was the Second American Revolution. Its detractors believed Madison had been dragged into war by the War Hawks and called it Mr. Madison’s War.

Spencer Percival, the only British Prime Minister to be murdered while in office

On May 11, 1812, the British prime minister, Spencer Percival, was shot in the House of Commons (“Argh! My House of Commons!”). He was shot dead by John Bellingham, a merchant who had become bankrupt after a business venture in Russia. This is a popular trivia question, and is worth remembering. The bloodstains are visible to this day. Bellingham had entreatied Percival for help, but none had been forthcoming. Bellingham was arrested, tried, and executed within the space of a week, which was indecent haste even at the time. The jury took 14 minutes to arrive at its decision. It is said that the night before his murder Percival had a dream where he was murdered in the lobby of the House of Commons, and he told his family of it on the morning of his demise. Bellingham’s descendants own a manufacturing business in the unfashionable NotLondon area of England, and the company website boasts of the association.

Percival was a hardliner. His replacement, Lord Liverpool, rescinded the requirement for a license to trade with France days before the United States declared war. There had been a poor grain harvest in Britain, which therefore needed American provisions for its troops on mainland Europe. Madison said that had he known, there would have been no war. Had the telegraph been invented, the War of 1812 would never have happened.

When war began the army of the United States was 11,744 strong. The navy amounted to 20 vessels. At the same time there were approximately 7,000 British and Canadian regular soldiers. Canada had a population of only around half a million, and therefore less militia. There were about 10,000 militia during the war, compared to 480,000 in the United States, of which no more than half ever fought. Injuns felt they required British support to prevent American settlers from forcing them from their land, providing a source of manpower, 3,500 at its peak, which the United States lacked. Being somewhat preoccupied by Napoleon, Britain could spare only 34 frigates and eleven ships of the line.

The disunity of the country was a significant weakness of the American position. Opposition to the war was strongest in New England, which traded extensively with Britain. Many shipbuilders in Connecticut and Massachusetts constructed privateers – privately owned, armed vessels – but New England otherwise made little contribution to the war effort. Merchants in New England continued to sell provisions to the British.

Brig. Gen. William Hull, who led the first American invasion of Canada during the War of 1812

Enthusiasm for war in the west was greater and Canadian forces were weak, making it the safest theater of operations, although one with few strategic possibilities. Brig. Gen. William Hull, governor of Michigan, led the first American invasion of Canada across the Detroit River. In Canada, he issued a histrionic proclamation to the Canadian people, but sent only small raiding parties further.

The British dispatched forces to sever Hull’s communication with Ohio. Fort Michilimackinac in Michigan was seized. A dashing young officer during the Revolution, Hull had become timid with age. He overestimated British reinforcements of Fort Malden tenfold, and withdrew across the river to Fort Detroit. A column retreating from Fort Dearborn, present-day Chicago, was massacred by Injuns, who destroyed the fort. The British followed Hull to Fort Detroit, and shelled it. On August 16, when the British General, Isaac Brock, led a force across the river in the direction of the fort, Hull and his 1,600 men surrendered. Hull was taken prisoner but paroled, and was court-martialed for incompetence when he returned States-side.

The USS Constitution defeating HMS Guerriere

On August 19, around 400 miles southeast of Halifax, the 56-gun USS Constitution sighted the 38-gun HMS Guerriere. The two ships exchanged broadsides and boarding parties. On seeing an 18-pound cannonball bounce off the Constitution’s hull, one U.S. sailor exclaimed, “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!” which gave the U.S. ship its nickname of Old Ironsides. The Guerriere lost two of its masts, leaving it unable to maneuver. Its captain surrendered. The ship was so badly damaged it was set on fire and abandoned.

Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn invaded Canada with 4,000 men. Outnumbered two to one, the British retired, abandoning Forts George and Queenston. Dearborn sent 2,000 men in pursuit two days later, and they struck camp within 10 miles of the British. During the night, around 700 British attacked and beat off the Americans. Dearborn withdrew to Fort George. Around two weeks later, 500 of Dearborn’s men surrendered to a force of British and Injuns half their size.

William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana, had led U.S. troops to victory against the Injuns at Tippecanoe in 1811. Dependent on homemade cartridges and clothing, he made a move on Fort Malden. Hugely outnumbered, the British abandoned Forts Malden and Detroit. Harrison pursed the enemy with around 3,500 men. On October 5, he encountered the British around 85 miles from Malden on the banks of the Thames River. There were 900 British regulars and 2,000 Injuns under Tecumseh. Harrison ordered a mounted attack. The British surrendered and the Injuns fled. Tecumseh was killed, but Harrison could not exploit his victory as his Kentuckians wished to return to their farms for the harvest.

Tecumseh

The Injun defeat at Thames River led to the Curse of Tecumseh. It is said that either the man himself or his half-brother, Tenskwatawa, said, “Harrison will die, I tell you, and after him, every great chief chosen every 20 years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of my people.”

Harrison was elected President in 1840 with John Tyler as veep under the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” Harrison made an inaugural speech one hour and forty five minutes long, longer than that of any other President, in freezing weather. He wore no coat or hat, and caught a cold which turned into pneumonia. He died one month after his election, making him the shortest-serving President ever.

The seven presidents elected every 20 years after that died in office, which is most unlikely to have occurred naturally. The chain was broken by Ronald Reagan. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, but his surgeon said the bullet missed his heart by an inch. He was brain dead for a period much shorter than his detractors claim. Possibly, he survived because the emaciated Nancy was aware of the curse and took corrective action, consulting voodoo witch doctors and other mystics. Dubya should have died, but perhaps escaped the curse because he was not elected and was instead chosen by the Supremes.

The monument to Isaac Brock at Queenston Heights

The United States lost at the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13 after militiamen refused to enter Canada because it violated their terms of employment. Brock was killed during this engagement while leading his troops personally, and a statue of him stands in Queenston on a pillar 14 feet higher than Nelson’s Column.

Harrison made for Detroit with 6,500 men. 1,000 were sent to the small, Canadian outpost of Frenchtown, and defeated by a marginally larger enemy force on January 22, 1813. 100 Kentucky riflemen were killed and around 500 captured. Wounded American prisoners were killed by their Injun guards in the Raisin River massacre, giving rise to the battlecry, “Remember the Raisin”.

At the end of 1812, Commodore Isaac Chauncey amassed a fleet of 14 ships at Sackett’s Harbor, New York. On April 27, 1813, 1,700 U.S. troops assigned to Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn landed unopposed around four miles west of York, present-day Toronto, where a powerful warship was being built to challenge Chauncey.

The British garrison of 300 regulars, 300 militia, and 100 Injuns was bested. British troops set fire to the gunpowder magazine of the warship, the explosion of which killed 36 people including the American field commander, Brig. Gen. Zebulon Pike, who was standing in for the sick Dearborn. Almost 20 percent of Dearborn’s men were killed or wounded. U.S. soldiers plundered the city, burning many buildings. A British attack on Sackett’s Harbor while the U.S. fleet was at the other side of the lake failed after two frontal assaults.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry transferring between ships during the Battle of Lake Erie

Hull had claimed that British control of Lake Erie allowed the enemy to reinforce at will. The two sides assembled fleets on the spot: the Americans, nine ships, and the British, six. They came to blows on 10 September 1813 at Put-in-Bay. U.S. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry triumphed, and wrote: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” He was the first man in history to defeat a whole British squadron. American soldiers ransacked Canadian property.

The U.S. expedition against Montreal was one of the greatest disasters of the war. 4,000 men were commanded by Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton and 6,000 by Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson. Neither could capture Montreal alone, but the pair barely spoke. Hampton retreated after an advance party was defeated at the Battle of Châteauguay on October 26. Wilkinson retreated in Hampton’s wake. Hampton resigned from the Army shortly after.

In December 1813, the British recaptured Fort George, then crossed the river and took Fort Niagara. The Americans burned the town of Newark and a section of Queenston before departing. Newark was occupied by only wimmen and children who were made homeless in the depths of winter, and many were found dead from exposure by British troops the next day. In retaliation, the British unleashed their Injun allies upon the countryside, and the towns of Buffalo, Youngstown, Machester, and Lewiston were burned, with many American deaths.

The British blockaded Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, confining the U.S. frigates Constellation and Adams. Only small American gunboats took to the sea. The Constellation was anchored at a Navy yard at Norfolk. There were 580 regulars and militia, and 150 sailors and marines from the Constellation. The British plan was to land 800 men on the mainland and than have another 500 arrive by rowing boat. Extremely accurate gunnery by the Constellation caused the British to retreat after taking 81 casualties. The British had more joy at Hampton, whose 450 miltiamen were defeated. The town was pillaged.

Davy Crockett, who said of the Injuns at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, "We shot them like dogs."

The U.S. government had attempted to transform the society of the Creek Injuns from hunting and gathering to agriculture and from rule by clans to rule by a council nominated by whites. Inspired by Tecumseh, Creek insurgents known as Red Sticks perpetrated a number of outrages culminating in the massacre of more than 500 civilians at Fort Mims. Gen. Andrew Jackson did not take action against the 800 Injuns until he had almost 600 regulars, 2,000 militia, and several hundred friendly Injuns under his command. At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814, American regulars mounted a bayonet charge which routed the Injuns, who were hunted down. Present was a Tennessee soldier by the name of Davy Crockett, who said, “We shot them like dogs.” Only around 100 Injuns survived.

American privateers captured 1,300 British merchant ships during the war. By the opening of 1814, Britain was effectively blockading the entire coast which forced American naval ships and privateers to not venture forth. Wilkinson’s foray from Plattsburgh with around 4,000 men penetrated a whole eight miles into Canada before 200 British and Canadian troops halted it.

Brig. Gen. Jacob Brown crossed the Niagara River on July 3 and took Fort Erie, then moved toward the Chippewa River, around sixteen miles away. An advance party of 1,300 men under Col. Winfield Scott came upon 1,500 British regulars who had crossed the river undetected. Scott ordered a charge, which the British advanced to meet. At their closest, they were between sixty and eighty yards apart. The British line broke. 48 of Scott’s men died while 227 were wounded, and the British suffered 137 dead and 304 wounded.

American infantry at the Battle of Lundy's Lane

Brown followed the British to Queenston where he awaited Chauncey’s fleet, but Chauncey did not oblige. Brown withdrew to Chippewa and then embarked upon a cross-country march along Lundy’s Lane. Brown’s force of 2,900 men met 3,000 British. The battle took place mostly after nightfall, lasted two hours, and was the fiercest of the war, but was inconclusive. Scott and Brown were both severely wounded. The two British generals were also wounded, and one, Riall, was captured. Brown’s invasion of Canada ended there.

British troops burning buildings in Washington in 1814

In 1814, Britain reinforced Canada with 16,000 men who were no longer needed against Napoleon. Raids upon the American coast were staged. Eastport and Castine were occupied without resistance. On August 19, 4,000 men under Maj. Gen. Robert Ross marched on Washington. Ross’ force easily saw off 5,000 Americans five days later at the Battle of Bladensburg. The British entered Washington and burned any private houses from which shots were fired and all public buildings with the exception of the Patent Office. Burned were the Capitol and Executive Mansion, an act as shocking as the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. The latter was rebuilt and painted white – the White House. Madison’s wife, Dolley, saved a famous painting of George Washington when she fled with her husband. Governor Sir George Prevost’s 11,000 veterans of the Napoleonic Wars were defeated at Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain, source of a major tributary of the St. Lawrence River.

On September 13, 1814, Fort McHenry at Baltimore withstood 25 hours of bombardment by 19 British ships. The next morning, soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, the sight of which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry, while detained aboard a British ship some miles distant. It was sung to the tune of an old English drinking song, The Anacreontic Song. Later known as The Star-Spangled Banner, it was adopted as the national anthem of the United States in 1931.

Dismayed by the failed attack on Baltimore, Britain sued for peace. Britain promised to desist from efforts to create a buffer state of Injuns. On Christmas Eve, the Treaty of Ghent was signed.

Gen Andrew Jackson commanding U.S. troops in the repulsion of British soldiers

Unaware of moves toward peace, around 8,000 British soldiers under Maj. Gen. Edward Pakenham arrived at Lake Borgne on December 12. New Orleans, control of which granted control of the Mississippi River, was defended by Jackson and 4,000 men. 42 British armed longboats saw off the five American gunboats on the lake, allowing troops to land. The armies met ten miles south of the city on January 8, 1815. In slightly more than two-and-a-half hours, Jackson’s force defeated the British. 1,900 British were killed or wounded, while the Americans suffered seven dead and six wounded.

New Orleans is often cited as the final battle of the war, however the final engagement was between the USS Peacock and the British merchant, Nautilus. The Peacock ignored British insistence of a peace treaty, and captured the other ship after a 15 minute battle.

News of the peace deal came at roughly the same time as news of Jackson’s victory in New Orleans, causing some people to regard the war as an American victory. ABC News said, “The British lost.” The Conservapedia said, “The Americans thus achieved all their main war goals.” Had it truly been an American victory, however, the date of its end would be a national holiday. Most historians consider the war to have been a draw.

U.S. soldiers losing the War of 1812

The United States had two aims: the end of impressment and the conquest of Canada. Britain had three: to retain impressment, to defend Canada, and to create an Injun buffer state. The United States scored zero out of two while Britain managed two out of three. Impressment had virtually ceased by 1814. It ended because it was no longer needed and thousands of sailors were being discharged, and not due to American pressure.

John Hopkins University professor, Eliot Cohen, who advised Dubya’s administration on geopolitical strategy from 2007 to 2009, wrote in his book, Conquered into Liberty: “The nominal causes for which <the Americans> had fought the war had advanced not an iota.” In Forgotten Conflict, historian Donald Hickey wrote: “Far from bringing the enemy to terms, the nation was lucky to escape without making extensive concessions itself.”

When the War of 1812 began, the U.S. battlecry was: “On to Canada!” By the end, it was: “Not an inch of territory lost!” Jonathan Vance, a historian at Western University in Ontario said, “The acid test is, if we hadn’t won, we wouldn’t be independent, we’d be part of the U.S.”

In 1990, Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait. They were ejected in 1991, Iraq did not lose any territory, and Saddam remained in power. Who says that was a draw?

Bibliography

“American Merchant Marine and Privateers in War of 1812.” American Merchant Marine at War. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.usmm.org/warof1812.html.>
“Battle of York: Tainted American Victory in War of 1812.” News in History. 27 April 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://www.newsinhistory.com/blog/battle-york-american-war-1812-victory-tainted.>
“Brief History of Tennessee in the War of 1812.” Tennessee State Library and Archives. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/history/military/tn1812.htm.>
“The War of 1812: Our war.” The Spec. 25 March 2012. 1 April 2012. <http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/692150—the-war-of-1812-our-war.>
“The War of 1812.” National Museum of American History. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-war-of-1812.aspx.>
“The War of 1812.”U.S. Army. n.d. 1 April 2012. <*.> <http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH/AMH-06.htm.>
“USS Peacock vs. British East India Company Brig Nautilus.” U.S. Naval Institute. 30 June 2010. 1 April 2012. <http://www.navalhistory.org/2010/06/30/uss-peacock-vs-british-east-india-company-brig-nautilus/.>
“War of 1812 Bicentennial Celebration in Baltimore.” Visit Baltimore. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://baltimore.org/arts-and-culture/war-of-1812/.>
“War of 1812: Battle of Lake Erie: Oliver Perry’s Miraculous Victory.” Historynet. 12 June 2006. 1 April 2012. <http://www.historynet.com/war-of-1812-battle-of-lake-erie-oliver-perrys-miraculous-victory.htm.>
“War of 1812.” Canadian Encyclopedia. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/war-of-1812.>
Boswell, Randy. “Canada won the War of 1812, U.S. historian admits.” National Post. 27 November 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/27/canada-won-the-war-of-1812-u-s-historian-admits/12/.>
Cruickshank, Dan. “Napoleon, Nelson and the French Threat.” BBC. 17 February 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/french_threat_01.shtml.>
Hatcher, C.J. “January 8 (1815) – Battle of New Orleans.” Examiner. 5 January 2012. 1. April 2012. <http://www.examiner.com/lesson-plans-in-las-vegas/january-8-1815-battle-of-new-orleans.>
Remini, Robert. “The Battle of New Orleans.” New York Times. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/remini-battle.html.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<After almost eleven months of weekly updates, I’ve run out of stuff to write about. The next update will be in two weeks. If anyone can suggest something, I’d be very grateful if they were to email me.>

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the phenomenon whereby a human body catches fire for no apparent reason. More than 200 cases have been reported within the last 300 years, almost always resulting in the death of the victim.

The cover of the first installment of Bleak House

In fiction, Charles Dickens wrote of a character suffering SHC in his 1852 novel, Bleak House. Dickens’ character, Krook, was a heavy drinker who found the gin he imbibed warmed his stomach rather more than usual, and then he caught fire. Dickens caused some consternation by fueling the belief that excessive drinking could cause SHC. In response to criticism that he was encouraging nonsense, in the second edition of Bleak House, Dickens wrote that he knew of 30 instances of SHC, although he mentioned only two, which had both occurred over a century earlier. He said, “I have no need to observe that I do not willfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject.” These stories likely came from Jonas Dupont’s 1763 work, De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis, which was a collection of cases of SHC, most of which involved alcohol. Alcohol, however, does not burn with the heat associated with SHC.

SHC featured in the novel, Jacob Faithful (1834) by Charles Marryatt and three novels by the nineteenth century Russian author, Nikolai Gogol. More recently, in The X Files, Scully suggested SHC in one instance, causing Mulder to remark: “Dear diary, today my heart leaped when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion.” In the film, Repo Man, a person spontaneously combusts and a government agent comments: “It happens sometimes. People just explode.” In South Park season 3, episode 2, some of the residents of the town die from SHC after holding in their farts for too long.

Famed science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke, said, “There's one mystery I'm asked about more than any other: spontaneous human combustion."

Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: a Space Odyssey, said, “There’s one mystery I’m asked about more than any other: spontaneous human combustion. Some cases seem to defy explanation, and leave me with a creepy and very unscientific feeling. If there’s anything more to SHC, I simply don’t want to know.”

SHC confounds police and fire investigators as partially burned corpses are found next to unburned furniture or rugs. Where the victim was abed, the bedding does not catch fire. No possible source of ignition such as a cigarette is present. People nearby do not report hearing cries of pain or calls for help. The body is reduced to ashes with the exception of a leg or foot, while the remainder of the room is untouched by flame. The victim’s body is generally more severely burned than is true of a normal house fire. Usually, SHC occurs indoors, and victims are often female, overweight, and alcoholic.

The human body is mostly comprised of water, and there is little within it which burns readily: only fat and methane, although these contain enough energy to entirely consume a body. During cremation, bodies are subjected to a temperature of 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit for around two hours, and even this does not break down bones, which must be ground.

If the dead person had recently eaten a vast quantity of hay infested with bacteria, it is possible that enough heat could be generated to ignite the hay, but virtually all that would burn would be the gut and intestines. If the corpse of a person who had eaten newspaper and drunk oil had been left to rot for several weeks in a well-heated room, the gut might ignite. A burning sensation in the hands, arms, or feet can be an early sign of osteoporosis. The website, The Skeptic’s Dictionary, says that osteoporotic bones burn at a lower temperature than they would otherwise, however this condition is otherwise unknown to Google.

A chemical reaction on a person’s clothing can cause fire, as in the case of a women whose clothes caught fire who had placed in her pocket a shell which was covered in sodium from a fireworks display on the beach where the shell was found. The woman later inserted a wet handkerchief to her pocket, which could have causeed the ignition of the sodium. One man left his workplace and burst into flame upon lighting a cigarette. He had been in the habit of using a compressed air hose to blow detritus from his clothing, and on this occasion he had used pure oxygen, which considerably increased the flammability of his clothing.

The body of Adolf Hitler was supposedly still identifiable after more than five gallons of fuel had been applied to it.

Many murderers have attempted to burn the bodies of their victims, but once the accelerant is consumed, the fire ceases. Adolf Hitler’s body was supposedly still identifiable after more than five gallons of fuel had been applied to it.

The wick effect has been suggested as an avenue by which bodies could burn in rooms without the whole room burning. After a body is ignited by an external source, this theory says that the body’s clothes act as a wick and fat fuels the fire, so the body burns like an inside-out candle with sufficient heat that even bones could be destroyed. No victim of SHC has ever been reported to have been nekkid. Fat contains much energy due to the presence of long hydrophobic chains.

Limbs could be left intact because the lower half of a body is cooler than the top.
Greasy stains are often reported where SHC is thought to have occurred, and these could be caused by residue from the individual’s body fat.

To illustrate the wick effect, Dr. John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute wrapped a dead pig in a blanket, poured a small quantity of gasoline onto the blanket, and then ignited it. The flames of the fire were no more than 20 inches high, so the fire did not spread, but even bones were destroyed after five hours of burning. The fat content of a pig is very similar to that of a human being (and they taste the same, too). According to Dr. de Haan, the damage to the pig was “exactly the same as that from supposed spontaneous human combustion.” Dr. de Haan ascribed the cause of SHC to murder. A National Geographic special attempted to replicate this experiment, but failed, probably because a door had been left open and the resultant draft led to the ignition of everything in the room. It has been claimed that if the room had been enclosed, as in the cases of many elderly victims of SHC, the pig would have smoldered for hours without the rest of the room catching fire.

Professor Michael Green, a retired pathologist for the British Home Office, said, “The way the body burns – the so-called wick effect – seems to me and to my colleagues to be the most scientifically credible hypothesis.” Professor Green specifically ruled out divine intervention: “I think if the heavens were striking in cases of spontaneous combustion then there would be a lot more cases.” The experiment featured in the episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation entitled, Face Lift.

The wick effect is less likely because the smoldering it features contrasts with the rapidity and ferocity of flames in cases of SHC. The combustion would not be spontaneous if, as in the case of the wick effect experiment, accelerants had been present.

Professor Green also said that there had to be some external source of ignition, and static electricity has been suggested. Professor Robin Beach of Brooklyn founded the scientific detective agency, Robin Beach Engineers Associated. One of the agency’s first clients was the owner of a factory in Ohio where as many as eight small fires occurred every working day. Beach asked each of the factory’s employees to step onto a metal plate while holding an electrode. A voltmeter gave a reading. When one worker, a young woman, stepped onto the plate, there were 30,000 volts of electricity. When the woman was transferred to an area of the plant where she did not come into contact with combustible materials, fires became much less common. The professor postulated that static electricity can build up in the one person in 100,000 who has abnormally dry skin. Explosions have been reported in hospital operating theaters where the air was filled with anesthetic vapor. The professor suggested that the skin of employees of ordnance factories be tested to ensure they would not be subject to this effect.

Beach’s theory does not adequately explain SHC, as the flames usually are found to have come from within. Also, static electricity is generated when two surfaces brush against each other, which is unlikely to result to any great extent where a person sits in an armchair.

Dr. John Fisher and Dr. Joe Nickell investigated a number of cases of SHC, and found that where the destruction of the body was minimal, the only significant source of fuel was the person’s clothes, but where destruction was widespread, other fuel sources fed the flames. If bodies are not entirely consumed, the pair claim, it is because the victims were seated, and flames move upward.

Thomas Bartholin, author of Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum

Possibly history’s first case of SHC was an Italian knight named Polonius Vorstius in 1470. He had been drinking strong wine, then belched fire in front of his parents. He died. In 1613, a pamphlet was distributed by John Hilliar named Fire from Heaven, which spoke of the incident. The episode was recounted again in Thomas Bartholin’s 1641 work, Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum, a collection of strange medical phenomena. Bartholin had spoken to Vortius’ direct descendants.

Jonas Dupont decided to write De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis after hearing of the case of Nicole Millet in 1725. She was a serious drinker who was found burned to death. Her skull, some backbones, and lower legs were unburned. The chair in which she sat, a nearby straw bed and wooden objects were untouched. Her inn-keeper husband was convicted of her murder, but the conviction was overturned after a physician who had stayed at the inn that night said it was the result of a “visitation of God.”

In Italy in 1731, the skull and unburned legs of Countess Cornelia de Bandi were found one morning. There was much soot in the room, although no evidence of fire other than on the corpse. In England in 1744, gin-loving, pipe-smoking Grace Pett was found, resembling “a log of wood consumed by a fire.” Her surroundings were undamaged. In Chelmsford, England, in 1938, Maybelle Andrews caught fire at the top of a flight of stairs before her fiance and a room of partygoers, with no known source of flame.

All that was left of Mary Reeser in 1951 was a skull on a chair and an intact foot in a slipper resting against the chair. The only damage to her flat was soot on the ceiling and walls. A pile of loose newspaper beside the chair had not caught fire. Police determined that her dressing gown had caught fire, although no flame source was found. Wilton Krogman, a professor of anthropology who investigated the case, said, “I cannot conceive of such complete cremation without more burning of the apartment itself. In fact, the apartment and everything in it should have been consumed.” He said it was “the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” that it made the hairs on his neck bristle, and that had he been alive in the Middle Ages, he would have thought witchcraft to be responsible.

In Pennsylvania in 1964, Helen Conway burned while sitting in an upholstered chair in her bedroom. Her remains were unrecognizably charred. Conway was elderly, inform, and a heavy and careless smoker whose room showed many cigarette burns, but cremation does not result from a cigarette burn. It took no more than 21 minutes for Conway to be found, ruling out the wick effect. Robert Meslin, a volunteer fireman who was present, said, “The amazing part of the incident, in my opinion, is the time element.” Meslin later became Fire Marshal. The fire chief who was present at the scene, Paul Haggarty, said he believed Conway was the victim of SHC. He said, “There is no way you could explain it. None of the firemen had seen anything like it.”

In Pennsylvania in 1966, John Bentley combusted at some point between 9p.m. one evening at his home, when his friends departed, and the morning the next day when a person called to read a meter in the house. All that remained of Bentley was a pile of ashes and a right leg next to a toilet. The meter reader noticed a strange smell and blue smoke. A metal walker was over the ash heap, with its rubber tips untouched by fire. There was a hole in the floor, but the rest of the house was unaffected. A photograph of Bentley’s remains is famous.

In London in 1967, office workers awaiting a bus around 5 a.m. noticed flames in the upper window of a building. They called police, who entered the building to find the still-burning body of Robert Francis Bailey, a homeless man. The first policeman to arrive reported that a blue flame was emitted by a four-inch slit in Bailey’s abdomen. No external source of ignition was found. Bailey did not smoke, but was known to be an alcoholic who drank methylated spirits.

Clothing salesman, Jack Angel, went to sleep in a trailer in a hotel parking lot in Georgia In 1975. He awoke four days later, with burn marks on his body. He did not feel pain, and showered and dressed as he normally would. He walked over to the hotel, and collapsed. He awoke in hospital in considerable pain. His hand was infected and had to be amputated. There was no fire damage to the trailer. He later appeared in court to sue the manufacturer of the trailer’s water heater for $3,000,000. Then, he said that he had been scalded by hot water from a pressure valve in his shower unit. The doctor who examined Angel, however, said Angel had burned from the inside out, and ie would appear he had suffered from SHC but later changed his story to allow him to litigate.

In 1980 in Wales, 73 year-old Henry Thomas burned with the exception of his legs below the knee and the skull. The clothing on the leg remnants was virtually untouched by fire. He had been sitting in an easy chair. There was a fire nearby, but no evidence that fire had spread from there to Thomas. It was suggested that Thomas’ hair had caught fire, but a police officer who analyzed the scene said he did not think a man whose hair was on fire would be unaware of the fact and could then burn to such a degree.

In London in 1982, a 61 year-old, mentally handicapped woman, Jean Lucille Saffin, burst into flames in her kitchen. Her father, sitting at a nearby table, saw a flash of light in the corner of his eye, and turned to see his daughter afire, mostly around her face and hands. He and his son-in-law put the fire out with water, but Jean died after spending eight days in a coma. The fire had lasted for only one or two minutes. No cause for the fire was found, and an unnamed policeman told the family that he believed it to be a case of SHC, although the brevity of the fire explains why no surrounding objects were damaged by fire. SHC was proposed as the cause of Jean’s death, but medical examiner, Dr. John Burton, said there was “no such thing,” and recorded no verdict.

In 1986, George Mott watched an episode of the Twilight Zone in his home in New York, and said, “Nothing weird like that ever happens to me. I wish it would.” It did. Weird New England reported that the next day, his son found the three-and-a-half pounds of bone and ash which had been his father. Mott did not smoke and no source of fire was discovered. Mott was a retired fireman.

In Donegal in the Republic of Ireland in 2010, the charred remains of 50 year-old Elizabeth McLaughlin were found in her home by her nephew, who at first thought he was looking at a burned Christmas tree. There was no fire damage other than to the immediate vicinity, which policeman Sergeant John McLaughlin (no relation) said was an “unusual aspect.” Pathologist Dr. Michael Curtis conducted the autopsy, and said there had been talk of SHC, including by the woman’s love partner at the resultant inquest, but he believed that SHC was “probably an urban myth.”

No discussion of SHC today is complete without mention of 76 year-old Michael Faherty, who died in 2011. In the United Kingdom, his tale was told by the BBC and the newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, and the Daily Hate. In the United States, it was told by ABC News, MSNBC, and the Washington Post. In other countries, the story appeared in the New Zealand Times, Asian Tribune, the Irish Times, and the Irish Independent. Online, the story featured on Slate and Yahoo.

Faherty’s badly burned body was found face down close to an open fire in his living room in Galway in the Republic of Ireland. Other than his body, the floor below it, and the ceiling above it, nothing had been damaged by fire. Forensic experts did not believe the domestic fire caused the burning of Faherty. No hint of an accelerant such as gasoline or alcohol was present, nor had any person entered or departed the house at 64 Clareview Park. Damage precluded determination of the cause of death. The West Galway medical examiner, Dr. Kieran McLoughlin, returned a verdict of SHC for the first time in his 25-year career and for the first time in the Republic, after consulting medical textbooks and enacting other research. He said, “This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.” Faherty’s daughter, Mairin, said his family was satisfied with the investigation of the case.

SHC may possibly have been at work when a man caught fire inside a private video booth at the Golden Gate Adult Superstore in San Francisco in 2011. The man ran out of the store, “engulfed in flames,” according to SFPD Lt. Kevin McNaughton. CCTV recorded the incident. Firefighters were located one block away, and they arrived and extinguished the fire. Arson investigators said it was not clear how the man had caught fire. He was treated for 90 percent burns.

Both the wick effect and static electricity can be disregarded. There is ample proof that, from time to time, human beings just, y’know, combust.

Bilbiography

“De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis.” Www.Reference.com. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.reference.com/browse/de+incendiis+corporis+humani+spontaneis.>
“Man ‘Engulfed In Flames’ At San Francisco Porn Shop.” CBS Local. 13 April 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/04/13/man-engulfed-in-flames-at-san-francisco-porn-shop/..>
“New light on human torch mystery.” BBC. 31 August 1998. 15 March 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158853.stm.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Chemistry Daily. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Spontaneous_Human_Combustion.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Economic Expert. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Spontaneous:human:combustion.html.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Nationmaster. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Spontaneous-human-combustion.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Pattaya Daily News. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/09/spontaneous-human-combustion/.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Skeptics’ Dictionary. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.skepdic.com/shc.html.>
Conradt, Stacy. “Seven Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion.” Mental Floss. 14 July 2009. 15 March 2012. <http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28878.>
Ensor, Josie. “Irish pensioner ‘died of spontaneous human combustion’.” Daily Telegraph. 23 September 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/8783929/Irish-pensioner-died-of-spontaneous-human-combustion.html.>
Hayes, Cathy. “Second case of spontaneous human combustion – Irish mother bursts into flames.” Irish Central. 14 November 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Second-case-of-spontaneous-human-combustion—Irish-mother-bursts-into-flames-133797633.html.>
Rosenhek, Jackie. “A fire within.” Doctor’s Review. 1 December 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.doctorsreview.com/history/fire-within/.>

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Was it all a load of bullshit?

The Jewish World Review declared, “If the Exodus did not occur, there is no Judaism.” It is a mitzvah – commandment – to tell the story to children. Questioning whether the Exodus occurred is rather more serious than calling into question the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Song of the Nibelungen. And so it is so much fun to ask: did the Exodus happen?

The story is that many Jews – Israelites – moved to Egypt because of famine in their land of Canaan. Eventually, their numbers grew so large that the Pharaoh came to believe they could upset his rule. He enslaved them. Under the leadership of Moses, the Israelites departed Egypt with such alacrity there was no time for their bread to rise.

When might the Exodus have happened? Kings 6:1 says it happened 480 years before the construction of Jerusalem’s temple by King Solomon – around 1450 BCE. Exodus 1:11, however, says that the Pharaoh used Jewish slaves to build the “treasure cities” – cities of store houses – of Pthom and Raamses. Scholars do not agree as to the location of Pthom, but Raamses is thought (Kitchen 2003: 255; Wood 2004; Hoffmeier 2005: 53, 55) to be Pi-Ramesse, a large, capital city which was constructed during the reign of Ramesses II circa 1270 BCE. Recent excavations show that Pi-Ramesse was built upon an earlier city, and it is possible that this is what the Babble referred to: the city of Raamses is mentioned in an inscription in the tomb of the pharaoh, Amenhotep III, who ruled from c.1391 – c.1354 BCE almost a century before Ramesses II, who ruled from c.1303-1213 BCE. The latest date for the Exodus would be around 1209 BCE during the reign of Merenptah, when an inscription of “Israel is desolate, and has no seed” was carved – Israel existed as a nation by that time. This was the only time Israel was mentioned in Egyptian records. It is generally believed that if the Exodus took place, it was during the reign of Ramesses II, between 1304 and 1237 BCE.

David Roberts’ 1829 painting of the departure of the Israelites

And how many Israelites were there? After departing Egypt, G-d asked Moses to carry out a census. Numbers 1:46 says of the adult males, “Even all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty.” Adulthood began at 14, and there were generally seven children per family, so 603,550 men with attendant wimmen and kiddies would have been around two million people all told, which is rather a lot to leave no archaeological or documentary trace.

The Hebrew word, “elef,” can be translated not only as “thousand,” but also as “family,” “tribal unit,” or “leader.” Most recent studies have taken this to mean there would have been about 20,000 Israelites.

Since the 19th century, archaeologists have been surprised to find no archaeological evidence of the Exodus, while there are traces of smaller groups of people in the same area. Despite the availability of ground-penetrating radar and satellite imagery, there is not one shard of pottery, Hebrew carving, bone, nor campsite remains. Rabbi Dovid Lichtman countered: “It is nearly impossible to find traces of large Bedouin encampments in the Sinai Desert from 200-300 years ago. So would one expect the remains of large encampments after 3,000 years?”

Slightly more than a century after the rule of Ramesses II came the turn of Ramesses III, who ruled (1186-1155 BCE). In this time there was massive construction in Egypt, and successful military campaigns on land and at sea, which is not consistent with an Egypt which had been struck by devastating plagues and lost much of its slave population.

Inscriptions on the walls of the palace of the Abyssinian emperor, Sennacherib, were propagandistic.

The Exodus supposedly occurred at a time from which much documentation has survived. The Egyptians would have preferred not to have recorded such a humiliation as the Exodus. R. Alan Cole, once a lecturer in the Old Testament at Sydney’s Moore Theological College and Singapore’s Trinity Theological College, said, “Egyptian monarchs were never given to recording defeats and disasters, and certainly not the loss of a chariot brigade during the pursuit of runaway slaves.” An example of the propagandistic nature of records at that time is the inscriptions from the walls of the palace of the Assyrian Emperor, Sennacherib. These display scenes from Sancheriv’s military campaigns of the 8th century BCE. They show decapitated and impaled enemies, but no dead Assyrians.

Some twisted re-telling of the tale would have endured, however, or a record from a private tomb. Hatsheput was the third female Pharaoh in 3,000 years, and by far the most successful female Pharaoh ever. She was one of the most successful pharaohs of either gender. She is believed to have died of bone cancer, which was possibly the result of a skin lotion she used. Her successor, her stepson, Thutmosis III, ordered the destruction of all records of her. Thusmosis III attempted to rewrite history to show that rule had passed directly from his father to him, with Hatshepsut never acting as regent. Thutmosis’ motivations were more likely to have been political than personal, perhaps to support the standing of his own son, as the censoring of Hathsheput did not begin until the end of his reign (c.1458-1425). Statues of Hathsheput were smashed. Her image was chiseled from walls. Her body was removed from its tomb. Her name was omitted from lists of kings. Evidence of her rule (c. 1479-1458 BCE) was not found until 1903. A very deliberate attempt was made to suppress record of Hatshepsut, but some images of her survived.

A deliberate attempt was made to destory all trace of the Pharaoh, Akhenaten, but it was not entirely successful.

Decades later, nearly every trace of Pharaoh Akhenaten was destroyed, as his monotheism was perceived as heretical. A great deal of the radical, naturalistic art of the period was destroyed, and buildings dismantled. His name was removed from monuments and lists of kings. But again, some trace survived, such as the Amarna Letters, a collection of diplomatic correspondence.

The 106 times the Pharaoh is mentioned in the book of Exodus, his name is not. If the writer of Exodus had but named the pharaoh, many trees would have been saved, as the subject has been done to death. But it was not Egyptian practice to name kings: the Annals of Thutmose III refer to the King of Kadesh as “that wretched enemy of Kadesh.” When Egyptian scribes listed the booty which was taken after the Battle of Megiddo, they did not name the king whose possessions they were, calling him “the Prince of Megiddo.” The Amada Stele of Amenhotep II does not name the Syrian chieftains who were defeated.

This, however, was not the practice of later Biblical writers. Shishak is mentioned by name seven times, and Neco nine times. Hence, the absence of the Exodus pharoah’s name, his praenomen, is suspicious. The author of Exodus was not writing history.

Camels are mentioned 32 times in Genesis, the first book of the Babble, and once in Exodus, the second. Camels, however, were not domesticated until between 1200 and 1000 BCE and not widely used as beasts of burden until long after 1000 BCE. Genesis 37:25, incidentally, speaks of “camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh,” which were not the main products of trade until the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Exodus 13:17 says, “G-d led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near,” but the Philistines did not establish themselves as a country until the 10th century BCE.

What was published as the Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden is known to its friends as Leiden Papyrus #344, being held at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. It was discovered in the early 1800s, written during the New Kingdom of Egypt (16th-11th century BCE) and is a copy of a document the Encyclopedia Britannica said was “perhaps” written between 1850 BCE and 1600 BCE by an Egyptian called Ipuwer.

A papyrus has been found which describes events similar to the plagues visited upon Egypt.

The Admonitions speak of events reminiscent of the plagues G-d visited upon Egypt: “Plague is throughout the land” (cf. Exodus 7:21); “The river is blood” (cf. Exodus 7:20); “Men shrink from tasting” (cf. Exodus 7:24); “That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin!” (cf. Exodus 7:21); “Trees are destroyed” (cf. Exodus 9:25); “Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire” (cf. Exodus 9:23-24); “Lower Egypt weeps… The entire palace is without its revenues. To it belong (by right) wheat and barley, geese and fish” (cf. Exodus 9:31-32); “Forsooth, grain has perished on every side” (cf. Exodus 10:15); “All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan” (cf. Exodus 9:3); “The land is not light” (cf. Exodus 10:22); “Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls” (cf. Exodus 12:29); “He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere” (cf. Exodus 12:30); “Behold, the fire has mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth against the enemies of the land” (cf. Exodus 13:21).

Renowned Egyptologist, Joachim Quack, said the Admonitions were “strikingly close to the Sumerian city laments.” When the Admonitions say “the river is blood,” they could be speaking of the Nile turning red due to large quantities of red earth when it flooded. While the similarities between the Admonitions and Exodus are striking, Egyptologists do not generally believe the Admonitions refer to the events of the Exodus, or to history at all, and it was anyway written fart oo early. This is the only Egyptian mention of anything resembling the alleged plagues.

The Sinai peninsula the Israelites crossed was strewn with Egyptian forts housing many troops to facilitate the reinforcement of Canaan, an Egyptian territory, at a time when Egypt was becoming the dominant power of the region. The writer of the book of Exodus seems to have been ignorant of these. As the Hebrew Bible says on page 55, “The Egyptians kept tight control over their eastern border and kept careful records. If a large group of Israelites had departed, we should expect some mention of it.” A papyrus from the 13th century BCE says that people could only leave if they were in possession of a permit. This papyrus mentions Succoth and Pithom, which appear in the Exodus story, but does not tell of masses of fleeing slaves.

Israeli Prime Minister, Menechem Begin, said Jewish slaves built the pyramids. Photo: upyernoz.

The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, said slaves built the pyramids and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, said the slaves were Jewish, but tombs of the builders of the pyramids of Gizeh discovered in Egypt in 2010 were evidently those of paid laborers, and not slaves. Their burial near the pyramids would not have been accorded to slaves. Melvin Konner, anthropologist and teacher of Jewish studies at Emory University, said in his book, Unsettled, An Anthropology of the Jews: “Except for the Torah text, there is no decisive proof that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, that they rebelled and walked away from the place, or that a leader such as Moses arose and took that people into the desert.” Dieter Wildung, one-time director of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum, said, “The myth of the slaves building pyramids is only the stuff of tabloids and Hollywood.”

Jews, in fact, were not present in Egypt at all in great numbers. Donald Redford, Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University, studied Egypt and its neighbors and found there was no evidence of a large population of Jews. Carmen Weinstein, leader of the Egyptian community of Egypt, said, “Were it not for the Bible, anyone looking at the Palestinian archaeological record data would conclude that whatever the origins of the Israelites, it was not Egypt.” Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog said, “The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad…. It is a later legendary reconstruction – made in the seventh century < BCE> – of a history that never happened.”

The sites where the Israelites settled in Canaan are named in the Babble’s book of Numbers. Kadesh Barnea is now Ein Qadis and Ezion Geber is in the area of Aqaba and Eilat. They were founded no earlier than 700 or 800 BCE, and have revealed not a trace of evidence of an exodus. The cities of Pthom and Raamses which Israelite slaves are said to have built never existed at the same time. Extensive excavations in Israel have shown no change in pottery or buildings consistent with a large influx of people at the supposed time of the Exodus.

Nicolas Poussin’s 1633 painting of the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea

At least 13 locations have been suggested as that of the Israelites’ crossing of the Sea of Reeds, now known as the Red Sea, pursued by the army of the Pharaoh. The story is that G-d parted the waters of the sea to allow his people to escape before allowing the waters to return to their natural state while the Pharaoh’s army was still crossing.

Self-taught archaeologist, Ron Wyatt, settled on Nuweiba, on the Egyptian coast, as the location of the Red Sea crossing. The name of the place was given as Pi-hahiroth in the book of Exodus, meaning “mouth of the gorges,” which reflects Nuweiba.

In 1978, Wyatt discovered what he claimed was a gilded chariot wheel while diving at Nuweiba at depths of 60 to 200 feet. The wheel was photographed on the sea bed, but no other objects are in the frame, so the wheel’s size cannot be ascertained. The wheel was sent to Nassif Mohammed Hassan, the Director of Antiquities in Cairo. Hassan dated the wheel to around 1400 BCE, somewhat earlier than the likely date of the Exodus. He was recorded on video saying that the finding “resembled an ancient Egyptian chariot wheel.” He is unable to provide further comment on account of being dead.

There was no coral on the wheel. Lennart Moller of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, author of The Exodus Case, said coral did not grow on gold or electrum (silver and gold), but any archaeologist who has spent time in the field would differ. Coral is an animal rather than a plant, and it derives nutrients from zooplankton and other minuscule marine lifeforms as well as sea water. Gold is toxic to mycobacterium tuberculosis but not to gold or anything else. The wheel was all-too-close to the surface for something that has lain in the Red Sea for three-and-a-half millennia. It does not have the joins seen in drawings of Egyptian chariot wheels.

The beach at Nuweiba today. Photo: watchsmart.

Moller said that the coastal slope at Nuwaiba is “within current U.S. standards for handicapped ramps.” Wyatt Archeology, the organization Wyatt left behind him, says, “Only here, on the shores of Nuweiba, does the ‘pathway’ drop off at a gradual slope of one in fourteen, to a depth of just over 850 meters. On the Saudi side the slope climbs again at a slope of one in ten.” A map produced by the British Admiralty said the sea in this area was between 2,500 and 3,000 feet deep. It would not have been practical for thousands of people and their animals to descend and ascend the steep cliffs which characterize the gulf of Aqaba. People wishing to believe the Babble say the chart is inaccurate, but no proof has been offered and the Admiralty is an internationally recognized brand which has purveyed nautical maps since 1795.

Wyatt’s wife, Mary Nell, said that the Egyptian government does not currently allow archaeological finds to be removed from protected areas, making identification of any finds difficult. Fossilized bones were discovered, but fossilization precludes carbon dating. Wyatt also claimed to have discovered Noah’s ark and the Ark of the Covenant: obviously a reliable source.

The tale of the Exodus appears to have been a folkloric creation concocted to legitimize the goal of its author: to unite the Israelites in their struggle against Egypt. Respected archaeologists, Professor Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, believe the evil Pharaoh of the Exodus story was modeled on Psamethicus I, who ruled from 664 to 610 BCE, and that the Exodus in general reflects the Egypt of the day. Finkelstein said that more than 90 percent of scholars do not believe the Exodus took place. The Hebrew Bible said that some scholars are of the opinion that a number of small exoduses transpired over several centuries, and these were combined for narrative purposes. While most Christians heard at Sunday school that Moses wrote the pentateuch, the first five books of the Babble, this is no longer believed outside the most conservative circles, and it is now commonly held that the pentateuch was the work of several authors. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that this was the result of “the many inconsistencies and seeming contradictions” of the books. The five books are now thought to have been written in the sixth and seventh centuries BCE using stories dating as far back as the 13 century BCE.

The story of Moses’ rescue from the Nile is the same as that of King Sargon of Akkad, almost one millennium before.

We have an idea of how the story of Moses arose. Cuneiform texts quote King Sargon of Akkad around 2360 BCE: “I am Sargon, the powerful king, the king of Akkad. My mother was an Enitu priestees, I did not know any father . . . . My mother conceived me and bore me in secret. She put me in a little box made of reeds, sealing its lid with pitch. She put me in the river. . . . The river carried me away and brought me to Akki the drawer of water. Akki the drawer of water adopted me and brought me up as his son. . .”

The really good thing about questioning the Exodus is that it undermines Jesus, who used the story for legitimacy and based some of his teachings upon it. Moses is mentioned 79 times in the New Testament. Jesus spoke of the Exodus in John 6:49-51, referring to the Jews eating manna while exodussing. John 1:17 said, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Jesus quoted Moses in Mark 7:10 – “For Moses said, honour thy father and thy mother; and, whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Jesus was compared to Moses in John 3:14 – “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” The spirit of Moses put in an appearance before Jesus and his disciples, Peter, James, and John in Matthew 17:1-3.

If the Exodus never occurred, Jesus was wrong. And by the way, Jonah never lived in a whale and Noah never took pairs of every animal species onto his ark.

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