2012 Blog » Solar Storm

Updates on Drew Maras and Michio Kaku

Robert Bast — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:38:20 +0000

Suspected on killing a couple and a police officer, before being gunned down was Drew Ryan Maras, an author who was working on a book covering conspiracy theories and 2012 when he died.

BlogTalkRadio are replaying their interview with Drew from September last year:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radionsearch/2012/02/01/drew-r-maras-rest-in-peace

Meanwhile physicist Michio Kaku has spoken out again about the risk of a solar flare removing the technology of the last hundred years from our lives. Yet Congress has not approved the funding that would keep the USA safe from harm. His weekly video is titled We Are Sitting Ducks for Solar Flares

Updates on Drew Maras and Michio Kaku is a post from: 2012 Blog

Trailer: The Carrington Event

Robert Bast — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:03:18 +0000

The above trailer is for a TV series in development. Here’s the official synopsis for The Carrington Event:

Joseph Carrington runs an organic mini-farm on the outskirts of a large, southern town. His rustic lifestyle means he is a bit removed from his family: his wife has spent the last decade pursuing a career in pediatrics; his teenage daughter, Tracy, wants nothing more than to be moving on with her life in a big city; his 10-year-old son has been raised on television, video games and abundance.

It´s a typical day of drama and duties when a solar storm cuts power to the farm. Soon after they discover that all electricity and communications in town are at total blackout as well: Cell phones do not connect, battery powered radios get only static, nothing is transmitting from television networks. There is no way of knowing what is happening outside their encapsulated environment, except by word of mouth.

All things in the outside world descend into chaos without electricity and communications. Resources diminish. For most a struggle of life and death ensues. The family must pull together and overcome their differences. They must discover what is happening and how they can survive.

I really hope they picked up by a TV network, because, well, developer Rob Underhill explains:

When I was on Empact Radio, one of the coolest things that was said was at the ending, where he said, “Well I really hope your show gets picked up, because you could have a panel of the top scientists telling you that the doom and gloom is coming, but no one is going to care. But, if you do a popular TV show on the event, everyone is going to pay attention, and something might actually happen.”

It could be a great TV series, and one for 2012ers and Preppers to watch, but the awareness it would bring to this NASA-warned possibility could literally save millions of lives. Here’s a few more quotes from Underhill, from an interview.

Yes, we based a lot of it off of the NASA reports and other expert opinions on how things would transpire. And then he had to decide how to take some of that and just turn up the dial from the actual Carrington Event.

In just a few days the jails are full. The town police -the sheriff – he has to start deputizing people to keep up, and that causes problems of course. And they have their own problems at the jail, because you know they stop getting outside communications, the water’s not running and so that becomes an issue. Then of course, people only have about a couple of days worth of food in their house, so everyone wants to raid the store to stock up as much as they can. So there are a few times that we visit the major store in town where there are people causing problems from the very outset and also later on. Then, we also have some gang factions that start to get opportunistic as well.

Trailer: The Carrington Event is a post from: 2012 Blog

X2-Class Solar Flare – But Don’t Worry!

Robert Bast — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:19:38 +0000

There are several doom’n'gloom news services out there that report every solar flare as if it will cause the end of the world.

SpaceWeather.com has informed us:

Departing sunspot 1402 unleashed an X2-class solar flare today, Jan. 27th, at 18:37 UT.

Now X-class flares are the worst, but they range from X1 to X9:

X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.

To put today’s flare in perspective, this is from SolarHam.com:

The latest solar flare ranks # 7 in the list of strongest solar flares during Cycle 24. Below is the updated list showing flare size, date, year and sunspot number.

X6.9 – August 9 2011 (1263)
X2.2 – February 15 2011 (1158)
X2.1 – September 6 2011 (1283)
X1.9 – November 3 2011 (1339)
X1.9 – September 24 2011 (1302)
X1.8 – September 7 2011 (1283)
X1.7 – January 27 2012 (1402)
X1.5 – March 9 2011 (1166)
X1.4 – September 22 2011 (1302)

The Carrington Event of 1859 is described well by Scientific American:

At 11:18 a.m. he witnessed an intense white light flash from two locations within the sunspot group. He called out in vain to anyone in the observatory to come see the brief five-minute spectacle, but solitary astronomers seldom have an audience to share their excitement. Seventeen hours later in the Americas a second wave of auroras turned night to day as far south as Panama. People could read the newspaper by their crimson and green light. Gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and ate breakfast at 1 a.m., thinking the sun had risen on a cloudy day. Telegraph systems became unusable across Europe and North America.

The two solar flares led to a pair of CMEs. Coronal Mass Ejections are what we really need to worry about, and two hitting Earth at the same time (again) would be catastrophic. A new article from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers describes the possible effects of another major solar storm:

Luminous fingers of intense red, green, and violet light flicker and pulse across the northern and southern skies like a vast cosmic conflagration. Within minutes, millions of people are tweeting, texting, and blogging about the wondrous sight. But then the sky turns a deep blood red, and fascination turns to panic.

…Those huge currents disturb Earth’s normally quiescent magnetic field, which in turn induces surges of current in electrical, telecommunications, and other networks across entire continents. Streetlights flicker out; electricity is lost. A massive planetary blackout has occurred, leaving vast swaths of North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia without power.

Within a few months, the crisis has deepened. In many areas, food shortages are rampant, drinking water has become a precious commodity, and patients in need of blood transfusions, insulin, or critical prescription drugs die waiting. Normal commerce has ground to a halt, replaced by black markets and violent crime. As fatalities climb into the millions, the fabric of society starts to unravel.

While it is easy to dismiss Patrick Geryl, Lawrence E. Joesph and myself as scaremongers, when serious engineers tell us that the fabric of society could unravel, people should pay attention.

NOTE: The Carrington Event meant the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Panama, and generally speaking the bigger solar storms are mean auroras are seen closer to the equator. The ancient Mayans could have kept track of visible auroras and noted a pattern, enabling them to predict a storm for 2012.

X2-Class Solar Flare – But Don’t Worry! is a post from: 2012 Blog

Solar Storm Causes Pole Shift?

Robert Bast — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:44:27 +0000

Planetary magnetic fields are generated by flows in the hot, liquid iron cores of the planets. Measurements made by Mariner 10 in 1974/75 showed that Mercury also has a magnetic field. According to the standard models, the dynamo effect in its metal core should generate similar field strengths to those on Earth. Mercury’s magnetic field is 150 times weaker than that of our planet, however. This has recently been confirmed by the Nasa space probe Messenger.

How can the large discrepancy in the field strength be explained? This question has now been answered by a group headed by Karl-Heinz Glassmeier at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The solar wind – a constant stream of charged particles – plays a significant role. At an average distance from the Sun of only 58 million kilometres – around one third of the distance of the Earth – Mercury is much more exposed to these particles.

“We must keep in mind that Mercury stongly interacts with the surrounding solar wind,” says Daniel Heyner, lead author of the article published in Science and doctoral student at the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) in Katlenburg-Lindau. This interaction drives strong electrical currents in the magnetosphere of the planet, whose magnetic fields counteract the internal dynamo effect.

It’s really hard to gauge from the article whether a short-term change in the solar wind could cause our magnetic poles to flip, but it sounds like it could at least be the trigger. Or to put it another way, a massive spike of particles from the Sun is unlikely to have zero affect of the core of Earth.

Solar Storm Causes Pole Shift? is a post from: 2012 Blog

USDA Behind Bird Killings / Hoekstra on EMP

Robert Bast — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:25:26 +0000

This time last year there was a lot of talk about mass animal die-offs. These things happen from time to time, but the cluster of events made it newsworthy. Turns out some mass deaths can be attributed to deliberate poisoning by US authorities:

A recent mass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota was traced back to the USDA which admitted to carrying out a mass poisoning of the birds.

Read the whole story at Earth-Issues

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Congressman Pete Hoekstra was recently heavily involved in US Intelligence:

Mr. Hoekstra, as a former Chairman of the HPSCI one of the best informed men in the world, will share his views on the global threats Americans face, now and in the future. Here is a rare opportunity for our audience to question the man who, until recently, was taskmaster of our nation’s spy agencies.

On Wednesday, noon Eastern time he speaks with EMPact Radio, a weekly broadcast devoted to educating people about the risks of an EMP attack, from foreign powers or the Sun. Check out their previous guests – quite impressive!

USDA Behind Bird Killings / Hoekstra on EMP is a post from: 2012 Blog

2012: Transit of Venus

Robert Bast — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:01:01 +0000

The planet Venus was important to the Maya civilization, who developed a religious calendar based in part upon its motions, and held the motions of Venus to determine the propitious time for events such as war. They named it Noh Ek’, the Great Star, and Xux Ek’, the Wasp Star. The Maya were aware of the planet’s synodic period, and could compute it to within a hundredth part of a day. (source: Wikipedia)

The Transit of Venus is pretty much the same as a solar eclipse, except that it is Venus passing in front of the Sun, and not the Moon. The other key difference is that from our point of view Venus appears much smaller in the sky, and it will not blot out the Sun:

Transits of Venus only occur roughly every 100 years, in pairs that are 8 years apart. The first of the current pair was in 2004, and the second is on June 6, 2012. That will be last transit until 2117. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Long Count calender ends just a few months after a transit? If the use of the winter solstice was symbolic, then the transit could be what the ancient Mayans were warning us of?

Orthodox science tells us that solar eclipses do not affect our planet (they do, but only a little), and the same logic applies to a transit. As with planetary alignments, the gravity involved is negligible. We can rule out gravity. That leaves two other possibilities:

electrical interference, as in the electric universe
interruption of the solar wind

According to Immanuel Velikovsky, in Worlds in Collision (pages 166-168) it was common for ancient peoples to describe Venus as having a tail. In Mexico it was called the “star that smoked”, and the Chaldeans said Venus had a beard. In the Talmud it says “Fire is hanging down from the planet Venus”. The Arabs and Babylonians called it “the one with hair.

Proponents of the electric universe will tell you that Pioneer discovered that Venus has an electrically charged plasma tail.

Nothing happened during the transit of 2004, but this time around we are nearing the solar peak, so that might make difference. Perhaps a solar storm in conjunction with the transit is meaningful? According to the research of Will Hart, historically transits seem influential:

1518 / 1526 – Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519. The Aztecs were already fearful that something bad would happen.
1631 / 1639 – after sunspots being on the increase for 300 years, in 1640 they ceased for 70 years, causing the Little Ice Age.
1761 – 1769 – nothing mentioned by Hart, but in 1761 it seems every country was at war.
1874 / 1882 – Krakatoa erupted in 1883.

I believe people should be especially prepared and vigilant for 6 months either side of Dec 2012, and being ready this June would be prudent. The Maya had a keen interest in Venus, the Aztecs expected the worst during transits, and of course we are now already in the fateful year of 2012…

2012: Transit of Venus is a post from: 2012 Blog

Ancient Mayans Could Measure Solar Activity

Robert Bast — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:19:43 +0000

Many ancient cultures knew of planets that could not be seen with the naked eye, and therefore it is possible they counted sunspots as well. Yet there is a far easier way to keep track of solar activity: the Aurora Borealis (or northern lights) is a crude indicator that anybody can use.

“…northern lights activity may be taken as an indicator of the solar activity level.”
Solar Activity and Earth’s Climate, by Rasmus E. Benestad – page 166

Crude it may be, but keeping a count of when the Aurora Borealis is visible could be enough to spot long term patterns of solar activity.

Modern science has only been monitoring solar storms for two centuries. Ancient cultures that existed for a much longer period of time could have noticed a pattern that we are unaware of. Such a pattern could point to major solar activity in late 2012.

The earliest known account of northern lights appears to be from a Babylonian clay tablet from observations made by the official astronomers of King Nebuchadnezzar II, 568/567 BC.

The ancient Mayans could have easily kept track of when they witnessed the northern lights. They were visible in Mexico in 1958, and Cuba in 1989, so certainly they were visible numerous times during the existence of the Mayan civilization, or their predecessors.

I rate a solar storm as being one of the two most likely 2012 scenarios that could have been predicted (rather than prophesied) by an ancient culture – the other being the return of a comet. NASA has predicted that in 2012 the northern lights will be their most active in 50 years. Patrick Geryl and Lawrence E. Joseph agree that the Sun is a major threat in 2012, but neither has put forward such an easy to understand case for the Mayans predicting this.

Ancient Mayans Could Measure Solar Activity is a post from: 2012 Blog

In Brief: Elenin, NASA and more

Robert Bast — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:52:43 +0000

2012 Forum has been written about at Vice Magazine, where they condescendingly describe the five types of folk who visit there. By the way, that’s not my picture:
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/08/15/the-five-people-you-meet-on-the-apocalyptic-message-board/

NASA has decided to make a page that debunks Elenin. They conveniently did not address the major earthquakes that occured whenever Elenin was aligned with Earth and the Sun. And the didn’t address the idea that long period comets accumulate substantial negative charge:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-255&cid=release_2011-255

Some good news from NASA – New observations from NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO mean that they can reduce the prediction window for Earthly impacts of CMEs from 12-24 hours to 8 hours of even less. This means a greater likelihood that power grids can be shut down to protect them. See a solar storm reaching earth in stereo for the first time:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20094308-76/at-nasa-first-steps-toward-space-weather-prediction/

Lastly, major earthquakes have been very quiet again, but in the last 48 hours we have seen two 6.0+ quakes off the coast of Japan, and two near Fiji.

In Brief: Elenin, NASA and more is a post from: 2012 Blog

New Precautions for Power Grids

Robert Bast — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:13:31 +0000

According to NASA this week:

In Sept. 1859, on the eve of a below-average solar cycle, the sun unleashed one of the most powerful storms in centuries. The underlying flare was so unusual, researchers still aren’t sure how to categorize it. The blast peppered Earth with the most energetic protons in half-a-millennium, induced electrical currents that set telegraph offices on fire, and sparked Northern Lights over Cuba and Hawaii.

…As 2011 unfolds, the sun is once again on the eve of a below-average solar cycle—at least that’s what forecasters are saying. The “Carrington event” of 1859 (named after astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed the instigating flare) reminds us that strong storms can occur even when the underlying cycle is nominally weak.

Photo credit: Martin Stojanovski

An article in The Independent quotes Thomas Bogdan, director of the US Space Weather Prediction Centre, reconfirming how vulnerable the power grids of Europe and North America are:

The most vulnerable parts of the grid are the hundreds of transformers connected to power lines many miles long that can experience sudden current surges during a geomagnetic solar storm, Dr Bogdan said. “It points to a potential scenario where large parts of either North America or northern Europe may be without power from between days or weeks, to perhaps months and, in extreme cases, there are estimates that it could last years,” Dr Bogdan said.

Months and years without electricity will mean a large number of deaths. For example, no water pumped to your home. The US Government has decided not to spend any money upgrading their outdated infrastructure, but fortunately there may be a way of averting disaster – a controlled power cut. Basically, if a major solar storm is predicted, such as a “category 5″, the authorities can elect to shut down the entire grid for a day or two until the storm passes. This will protect transformers and potentially save many lives.

Hopefully this plan will be active ASAP!

New Precautions for Power Grids is a post from: 2012 Blog

Amazing Solar Flare Photo

Robert Bast — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:10:02 +0000

It was only a medium-sized flare, but still the biggest we’ve seen since 2006. It wasn’t aimed directly at us, but will be near enough to perhaps create some nice auroras in the next day or so.

The video is even more dramatic:

Amazing Solar Flare Photo is a post from: 2012 Blog