Anomalous Atmospheric Phenomena - Plasmas, Strange Weather, and Climate Curiosities

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Reports of identified flight up here, unidentified verial phenomena hoday,
the great.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Weapons being tested by our own or foreign governments.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
The American people are becoming most interested and in many
instances very alarmed by the UFO stories.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
So why do you suppose that all of this has
been kept from the world?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Exploring our past, our future, and the mysteries of our universe?

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Where do they come from?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Why can't you explain it?

Speaker 5 (00:29):
Everybody in youthology is screaming for disclosure.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
The future is now. This is Micah.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hanks from the high Mountains of Appalachia in a bunker
below ground. Welcome, one and all. It is the Micah
Hanks Program. Glad it's always to be getting behind the
microphone and going in pursuit of the anomalous in our existence,
as we do every week, listen on demand via podcasting
apps all throughout space and time, keeping us on the airwaves.
And of course, as always, I'm trying to keep myself

(00:56):
cool amid this incredible summer heat. Somehow I'm still drinking
hot coffee here in my studio. Also, but again, keeping
things relatively cool inside and also always energy efficient is
part of my objective. I've been thinking so much about
science lately, in the sense that with all the issues
that we are facing in the world right now, I

(01:18):
mean everything from the obvious climate questions to questions about biotechnology,
questions about artificial intelligence, questions about the ecosystem and the environment,
questions about space, and of course always the future of humankind.
I've got so much on my mind right now, and
again it seems like now is the time to be

(01:38):
thinking about things that are going to be changing the
future as we know it. It's times like this. In fact,
I guess I'm glad I'm a science reporter because it
keeps me in a position where I have to every
single day read all the latest news and physics and space, biology,
the environment, artificial intelligence, technology, nuclear energy and other kinds

(02:01):
of energy, and the way that these things are changing
the world as we know it, but also potentially paving
the path toward the future. Of course, the question always
on my mind and the minds of many of us naturally,
is is that going to be a good future? How
are things going to look a decade from now, Will
we be better off than we are today? And furthermore,

(02:22):
what factors are impacting the world right now? And what
is driving some of the things happening in our world?
Are they natural? Are they driven by humans i e? Anthropogenic?
Are there unforeseen consequences that could result from our actions
today in the here and now, but which on down

(02:43):
the road we may be paying a price for. Yes,
these are questions on my mind, and they are a
part of what we're going to be looking at this week,
because apart from that age old adage that if it
weren't for the weather, the average person generally wouldn't have
anything in common with anybody else, and therefore no one
would have anything to talk about. Yes, I guess that's
true to an extent when it comes to a topic

(03:05):
like the weather. But I thought I'd challenge myself this
week to see if we could take a slightly different
approach towards this topic. And indeed, as you will soon see,
as we look at the anomaloust side of weather and
the atmosphere and things happening in the world, Oh yes,
this is as interesting a topic as any we might discuss,

(03:26):
probably more interesting than most. And one of the reasons
obviously now to me why it remains so ever present,
Why weather is something that everyone essentially pays attention to
despite the fact that a lot of the anomalies will
look at this week are the kinds of things that
most people don't even know about. And yes, some of
them do relate to mysterious phenomena scene in our skies.

(03:47):
I e uap or on that in a moment. First,
on the question of interstellar visitors. I have been getting
so many messages from people, people writing to me every day,
almost either sending along the latest news or sending along
questions about the interstellar object three I Atlas. One friend

(04:09):
recently asking me, you know miicah. I have heard now
if there are scientists not only saying this thing might
be technological in origin, in other words, a spacecraft rather
than merely a space object, but they're also saying there
are questions about whether it might be hostile or not.
Should we be concerned? Hanks, what's your take on this? So,

(04:29):
since I've been getting so many of those kind of questions,
and also since I gave a bit of an update
about three I Atlas to X subscribers of the weekend
on the X podcast, I thought it would be apropos
here at the outset of this podcast this week to
talk a little about what exactly people are saying and
why in the world, or maybe rather why out of

(04:50):
this world people are saying that three I Atlas, the
third confirmed interstellar object who have been spotted by astronomers
in our solar system. Why, in any way, shape or
form this is potentially being likened to a potentially hostile
alien object. So, first and foremost, this idea originates from
a paper that was published by three authors, one of

(05:12):
whom Avi loebe Harvard astronomer and of course a proponent
of the search for extraterrestrial life. Avi has joined us
on the program multiple times in the past. He also
contributes over there at thedbrief dot org well in a
new paper that Avi has co authored with Adam Hibbard
An Adam Crowell to Adams and an Avi Well actually
an Abraham if we go by his full first name,

(05:34):
but in any case, this new paper is titled is
the Interstellar Object Threeiatlas? Alien Technology? Right off the bat,
I want to clarify, although they present arguments in this
paper for why certain behaviors that have now been observed
with regard to three I Atlas could potentially indicate a
technological object and one being controlled in a certain way,

(05:58):
with certain potential intention being displayed. The authors are not
doubling down and arguing that that's what they think this
thing is no. Fundamentally, in the paper, they explain that
they think the most likely explanation for this object is
indeed that it is essentially a comet, like virtually every
other astronomer is saying, in fact, a quote from the

(06:20):
paper's introduction no less than the first line in section one, quote,
this paper is contingent on a remarkable, but as we
shall show, testable hypothesis to which the authors do not
necessarily ascribe. So right here at the outset that should
be emphasized. Yes, the authors are saying, we're going to
put forward a seemingly extraordinary idea, but we don't necessarily

(06:43):
think this is what's going on beyond that, though they
offer rationale for why then they would offer such a
seemingly extraordinary alternative interpretation about an object that most astronomers
think is simply a comet, albeit one from interstellar space
and pretty large. One Current estimates place it it being
around seven miles long, So yeah, i'd say it's pretty large.

(07:07):
But their reasons for exploring alternatives are as follows one.
The consequences should the hypothesis turn out to be correct,
and I'll add, however unlikely that actually may be. But
the authors say the consequences could potentially be dire for
humanity and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken,
though these might prove feudile. Now you can start to

(07:30):
see probably why some people are going, uh, hold on, wait,
what did they say this thing might be and what
about it might be hostile? More on that in a moment.
But then they also add the hypothesis is an interesting
exercise in its own right and is fun to pursue
irrespective of its likely validity, which, again that second point
seems to underscore the primary motive for the authors. This

(07:53):
is a instructional exercise. We use this as a means
of teaching, again, as they state in the papers abstract
line number two, for anybody who may be looking. But
on that outside chance that there's something to be concerned about,
they say, it might be good for us at least
to consider some other possibilities. Now, on the subject of
those other possibilities, as they note again in the paper's abstract,

(08:17):
they hypothesize that the object could be both technological, but
also possibly hostile, as would be expected from the dark
forest resolution to the Fermi paradox. Now you may be
wondering what exactly is the dark forest hypothesis. There's an
excellent page about this at the website of the University
of Warwick in the United Kingdom on their Astronomy and

(08:39):
Astrophysics Group page, where they state as follows, the Fermi
paradox can be encapsulated in a very simple question. If
alien races are as abundant in our galaxy as we
believe suitable planets to be, then why have we not
encountered any of them?

Speaker 4 (08:54):
Already?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Prominent scientists, they say, including physicists Stephen Hawking in twenty ten,
has suggested that we might take this as a hint
and possibly a warning. Given the time scales for evolution
and the number of sun like stars in the Milky Way.
If intelligent life has arisen more than once, it must
have arisen many times, and many of the races thus
generated must be significantly more advanced than humanity. However, they say,

(09:18):
the long history of colonialism on Earth has suggested that
less technologically developed races invariably end up poorer socially, disrupted
and in a subordinate position when encountering those with more technology.
You're probably picking up now on where this is headed.
More than that, they say, the potentially massive technical imbalances
result in a game theory analysis which strongly favors a

(09:40):
first strike policy. If there's any chance at all that
an alien race might destroy humanity, then preemptively destroying any
aliens we encounter is our only chance of survival. If
the galaxy is indeed full of advanced life, then the
sensible approach for humanity would be to remain silent and
avoid content. Oh how splendid. Oh wait, there's more, Because again,

(10:04):
if that applies to us, the same would apply to
others out there, And so they note, every other alien
race reaching this stage of development would likely to have
undertaken the same analysis and therefore reached the same conclusions.
Even normally peaceful sentient species may feel that they have
no choice but to make a first strike if alien

(10:24):
life is encountered it. As a result, Hawking and others
have criticized the idea of messaging extraterrestrial intelligence or MEDI,
calling it conceptually unwise, and suggests instead that SETI may
be pointless. We don't want to find aliens because if
we do, and they are more advanced than we are,
they may see destroying us as being the safest and

(10:47):
therefore really the only approach toward contact. Now, with all
that in mind, coming back to what Avi and the
two Atoms write in their paper, they note that examining
the characteristics the maneuverability of this object three i atlas,
they put forward the idea that the object and what
appears to be non gravitational acceleration that it may be displaying,

(11:10):
among other things, could indicate that it is intended to
intercept a planet like Mars or Jupiter, or maybe even Earth.
They go on to refer to what's known as an
obirth maneuver, named after Hermann Oberth, one of the fathers
of modern rocketry. It's one where they say, thrust of
a spacecraft is applied at its maximum orbital speed, namely

(11:30):
at periapsis, so as to maximize the resulting change in
kinetic energy. This, the author say, applies both to accelerating
to achieve Solar System escape, or alternatively to slow down
from a high speed. Maybe they're slowing down, they're putting
on the brakes. In other words, and potentially that could
involve an intercept with Earth, a rendezvous in other words,

(11:53):
that we may have, whether we like it or not,
with a RAMA like object X. Subscribers, by the way,
will know exactly what I'm talking about. Those of you
out there who have read Arthur C. Clark will probably
also catch the reference rendezvous with Rama. But as Avi
and his co author's write, the intercept option would possibly
indicate a maligne intent that all said. They go on

(12:14):
to consider in more detail, quote the possibility that three
I Atlas wishes to rendezvous with Earth. They say, we
find that this object is indeed available to three I Atlas,
should it or any prospective operators controlling it wish to
do so. The following two pages in the paper are
essentially a lot of math and some charts, But then
they conclude by saying an i quote, we have proposed

(12:36):
a testable hypothesis that three I Atlas is technological and
have demonstrated various lines of evidence to substantiate this hypothesis. Nonetheless,
they add in the paper's conclusion quote, we strongly emphasize
that this paper is largely a pedagogical exercise with interesting
discoveries and strange serendipities worthy of a record in the
scientific literature. By far, the most likely outcome will be

(12:59):
that three ias Atlas is a completely natural interstellar object,
probably a comet, and the authors await the astronomical data
to support this likely origin. So that all said, anybody
out there who may have been concerned about whether or
not an alien invasion was underway, well I can assure
you you most likely have nothing to worry about. As

(13:20):
is usually the case when it comes to astronomical observations
like this, there is a theory which, as an instructive exercise,
employees questions about whether or not aliens would attack us
if they discovered our existence. Those similar lines of thought
are being applied as part of this exercise. But no
nobody is saying that there's an alien spaceship on its

(13:41):
way to Earth and it's going to try and kill everybody,
at least not yet. But I've been tracking some far
more concerning things than interstellar objects speeding toward Earth. In fact,
we've got some very dangerous phenomena right here on planet
Earth that are occurring right now. In fact, any quick
glance at the headline any given day of the week

(14:01):
would probably indicate that, but no. Right now, specifically, what
I'm talking about is the weather that many Americans are facing.
I am looking right now at temperatures here in western
North Carolina. It's eighty five degrees outside, but over the
next few days and certain parts of my state, temperatures
could reach one hundred. Other parts of the Southeast have
potentially dangerous temperatures that could reach as high as one

(14:25):
hundred and twenty five degrees fahrenheit. Other parts of the
United States seeing temperatures in the nineties and one hundreds.
Even parts of the Midwest, where normally it's supposed to
be cooler, people are being cautioned because the temperatures, especially
with humidity added into the mix, are feeling like they're
in the eighties and the nineties. According to the New
York Times, they say about one hundred and sixteen million

(14:46):
people thirty five percent of the population of the contiguous
United States, live in the areas expected to have dangerous
levels of heat. Now, if this seems a little out
of the ordinary, it may be a sign of things
to come. At also, very well, it may be the
continuation of a trend I've been watching since earlier this year.
Climate dot Gov reporting that on January twenty second, Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

(15:08):
made it to seven degrees, which is the airport's coldest
temperature since records began in nineteen thirty, although there was
a two day cold snap in eighteen ninety nine when
the temperature dropped to just two degrees. Meanwhile, back in January, though,
temperatures at Lafayette, Louisiana also dropped to four degrees, a
record low since records began there in eighteen ninety three. Well,

(15:29):
despite some corrections that followed in February regarding data that emerged,
they nonetheless said that his record breaking cold set in
in January, so did the historic snowfall. Texas also saw
its first snowflakes on the night of January twentieth. One
of the most notable records from the state was a
four point five inch fall in the Beaumont Port Arthur
area on January twenty first, making it the snowiest day

(15:52):
for the site since it began records in nineteen oh one.
Pretty strange stuff, and of course, that was followed in
March by severe weather in Alabama. I was actually down
there around that time and heard some of those storms.
I was getting messages from people saying, I hope you're
in a storm shelter. It was a level five out
of five risk in forecast for that state at that time. Meanwhile,

(16:14):
heading out north, also in March, we had the Pacific
Northwest seeing rare thunderstorms. Back in March, per the New
York Times, they said, after days of unseasonably warm weather
in the Pacific Northwest, residents faced a threat of isolated
severe thunderstorms capable of unleashing lightning, hail, and other potentially
damaging weather effects. Obviously, North Americans weren't the only ones

(16:35):
tracking the strange stuff happening over North America. As severeweather
dot eu reported back in May, the new Summer twenty
twenty five predictions show an interesting pressure pattern in the
atmosphere over North America. What stands out, they say, is
a low pressure area over Canada with an extension forecast
towards the eastern parts of the United States, bringing a
disturbance in the weather pattern over the country. One question

(16:58):
that comes to mind, could this potentially at least be
related to some of the strange heat that we've all
been experiencing here in North America and especially in the
Southeast over the last few weeks. But perhaps most concerning
of all this report from Noah dot Gov back in May.
Noah's outlook for the twenty twenty five Atlantic Hurricane season,
oh Boy, which goes from June first to November thirtieth,

(17:20):
predicts a thirty percent chance of a near normal season,
a sixty percent chance of an above normal season, and
a ten percent chance of a below normal season. In
other words, what seems most likely, based on these percentages
is that we are going to see a lot more
severe weather coming in off the Atlantic, and considering what

(17:40):
happened to us here in Nashville, North Carolina last September,
this is one reason why many of my colleagues and
I here in western North Carolina have been buying generators
and other power systems, radios, We're getting ham radio licenses,
We're stockpiling water and food, and preparing in the event
that what happened last fall, God forbid, happen again this year.

(18:01):
Considering Noah's outlook, so there is a lot of strangeness
happening in the weather world, and this, in part is
what prompted me to want to take a deeper look
into some of the more anomalous activities occurring not only
in our atmosphere, but also even in space. And when
we come back, we're going to hear about a very
peculiar incident that occurred in outer space and how this

(18:24):
relates to anomalous whether you're on planet Earth. When we
return on the Micah Hanks program.

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Speaker 3 (21:07):
In nineteen ninety six, a NASA Space Shuttle mission meant
to study microgravity's effects on electromagnetism may have recorded one
of the most puzzling and controversial encounters ever filmed in
Earth orbit. Dozens and eventually hundreds of what appeared to
be luminous pulsating objects seemingly reacted to high voltage electromagnetic

(21:29):
fields in space. The observations were made during STS seventy five,
a Space Shuttle Columbia mission that deployed the Tethered Satellite
System Reflight or TSS one R to investigate the interaction
between a conducive tether and the ionospheric plasma environment. After
the tether unexpectedly broke, it continued transmitting electricity into the

(21:53):
surrounding space medium. What followed were multiple astronaut reported sightings
and recordings of strain changed glowing phenomena that defied conventional explanations.
Like space debris or ice particles. These incidents, filmed and
directly observed by the crew continued to generate debate in
scientific inquiry nearly three decades after they occurred. Welcome Back,

(22:16):
launched in February nineteen ninety six, the Columbia mission deployed
the TSS one R, which generated electromagnetic fields and electron
streams into the ionosphere via a nineteen kilometer long conducive tether.
After the tether detached, it remained functional, continuously emitting up
to thirty five hundred volts into space as the shuttle
orbited Earth every ninety minutes. Initially, the crew noted only

(22:39):
fink glows near the tether, but as the mission progressed,
they began reporting multiple bright, pulsating objects trailing the shuttle
and appearing just outside its windows. Over successive orbits, the
crew observed these objects increase in number from several to dozens,
and eventually reportedly hundreds. According to some sources, these objects
appeared to approach nearly a kilometer in size. These glowing

(23:03):
entities were seen accelerating, changing direction, and even interacting with
one another, behavior captured on video and documented in a
series of analyzed images. The objects appeared to move toward
the energized tether, sometimes making visible contact and displaying complex motion,
including swarming, turning, and even passing through one another. But

(23:24):
these objects weren't only noticed many years after the fact
by eager proponents of the existence of unidentified anomalous phenomena
or what are more commonly known traditionally as UFOs NO.
They were also observed at the time by mission controllers
who could clearly see the objects in the footage being
obtained by NASA as the cameras rolled in real time.

Speaker 11 (23:46):
Tak when we see a long line, a couple of
starlike things, and a lot of things swimming in the foreground.

Speaker 9 (23:52):
Can you describe what you're seeing?

Speaker 11 (23:56):
Well, the long line is a feather, and there's a
little bit of debris that kind of flies with us,
and it's eliminated by the sun at such low angle.
So there was this a lot of straylight and is
getting washed out quickly. But God is trying to do
a quick good job here. I got to the camera.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Would you copy that that audio you just heard from
the STS seventy five footage, which is still widely publicly available.
You can watch it on YouTube in fact, and you
can see these objects moving around outside the spacecraft. That
even perplexed the team at mission control at the time.
Well with time, ufologists would begin to propose that these
might be flying saucers that were seen flying around outside

(24:41):
the Space Shuttle, while skeptics argued that they were more
likely to be dust particles or perhaps little bits of
ice reflecting light, which gave them the appearance of being
luminous objects outside the Space Shuttle. But a more recent
interpretation that appeared in a paper last year offered an
entirely different conclusion that the recorded behavior of the object
strongly resemble the properties of dusty plasmas, known for their oscillating, glowing,

(25:05):
and reactive nature in turbulent or electromagnetically active environments. According
to those authors, these plasmas can display phenomena like heart
beat instability and are sensitive to electromagnetic fluctuations, coronal mass ejections,
atmospheric waves, and solar activity, all of which are known
to influence the thermosphere. Importantly, the authors of that study

(25:26):
noted the astronauts observed these objects with their naked eye
through binoculars and through telescopes, which seemingly ruled out camera
artifacts or reflections. Based partly on those observations, crew members
rejected NASA's initial suggestions that the phenomena were due to
space debris, ice crystals, or reflections from other spacecraft. In fact,
one astronaut even referred to the objects as UFOs, noting

(25:49):
how some of them appeared to circle the shuttle and
even move from window to window. The study I'm referring
to is titled Extraterrestrial Life in the Thermosphere Plasmas UAP
pre law life, fourth state of Matter. In fact, we
covered that here on the program when it first came out,
and it explores the behavior, sources, and effects of various
kinds of plasma or ionized gas in the thermosphere. The

(26:12):
atmospheric layer from about ninety kilometers to more than six
hundred kilometers in altitude. Although it has been traditionally seen
as dominated by neutral gases, the thermosphere the author's right
contains a substantial population of ions and electrons that significantly
influence its structure and dynamics. To quote from the abstract
of that paper, they note plasmas up to a kilometer

(26:35):
in size and behaving similarly. Some multicellular organisms have been
filmed on ten separate NASA Space shuttle missions over two
hundred miles above Earth. Within the thermosphere, these self illuminated
plasmas are attracted to and may feed on, electromagnetic radiation.
They have different morphologies cones, clouds, doughnuts, spherical, cylindrical, and

(26:56):
have even been filmed flying towards and descending from the
thermosphere into thunders, congregating by the hundreds and interacting with
satellites generating electromagnetic activity and as in the case of
STS seventy five, approaching space shuttles, computerized analysis of flight
path trajectories documents these plasmas travel at different velocities from
different directions and change their angle of trajectory, making forty

(27:20):
five degree, ninety degree and one hundred and eighty degrees shifts,
and follow each other. They've been filmed accelerating, slowing down, stopping, congregating,
engaging in hunter predatory behavior, and intersecting plasmas, leaving a
plasma dust trail in their wake. The authors add that
similar lifelike behaviors have been demonstrated by plasmas created experimentally. Therefore,

(27:42):
they add plasmas may have been photographed in the nineteen
forties by World War II pilots identified as FOO fighters,
repeatedly observed and filmed by astronauts and military pilots, and
classified as unidentified aerial or anomalous phenomenon. In other words,
such sightings may explain a lot of observations of alleged UFOs.

(28:02):
They conclude quote plasmas constitute a fourth state of matter,
are attracted to electromagnetic activity, and when observed in the
lower atmosphere, likely account for many of the UFO UAP
sightings over the centuries. So in essence, what the paper
gets into is the idea of the thermosphere which is
not electrically neutral. But again they say that ions and
electrons do play a crucial role in the region's dynamics.

(28:25):
They also talk about photoionization from solar UV and X
rays being a primary source of ions in the daytime,
while recombination and chemical reactions might drive nighttime behavior. Driven
by solar radiation, atomic oxygen can become ionized, and this ionization,
among other things, can give rise to plasma formations in
the thermosphere. Plasmas can also be affected by solar activity

(28:48):
geomagnetic storms, even tides and winds, and such things can
give rise to plasma irregularities in parts of the atmosphere,
which can affect radio signals and satellite communications as well.
Long ste story short, the paper offers a lot of
scientific explanations for the likely formation of plasmas in the
thermosphere and also in various regions of the lower atmosphere,

(29:08):
which indeed might contribute to some UAP sidings, especially involving
these unusual orb phenomena that appear from time to time.
Many people claim to have had up close and personal
encounters with large, self contained luminous plasma like orbs, which,
depending on the eye of the beholder, many interpreters being
intelligently controlled others seem to suggest these things are simply

(29:30):
natural phenomena and indeed more like what you would expect
from ball lightning, and so as an example of the
formation of these plasmas and their anomalous behavior at times,
the authors of this paper from last year argue that
this might indeed be what the objects were that were
being seen outside the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS

(29:50):
seventy five incident. Now, while I will concede that I
am extremely interested in plasmas, and in fact, I extend
my entire outlook on the mysteries of UAP to include plasmas,
because I find that phenomena to be not only a
potential explanation for some UAP sidings, but even in and
of themselves, if they are a phenomenon that we can't

(30:12):
fully explain, they should warrant scientific study. So I'm really
into plasmas, just like I am all other kinds of
aerial phenomena. But in this instance, I've also got to
tell you, honestly that I don't think that plasmas swarming
around the Space Shuttle Columbia is necessarily the best explanation
for the so called STS seventy five incident. And when

(30:34):
we come back here in a moment, we're going to
look into what really might have happened, what I think
the evidence says about the anomalous objects that were filmed
at that time, and also other varieties of extremely strange
weather that occurs in our skies. All that and more.
When we return here on the Micah Hanks program.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Time to explore this this week's cosmic Theories and space discoveries.

Speaker 6 (31:03):
Honestly, Nova I didn't scan the data, but I did
switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
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Speaker 8 (31:54):
We are back with an all new season of Snipey's
Cruising Confessions, and.

Speaker 5 (31:57):
This time we're going much much deeper.

Speaker 8 (31:59):
Join us Chris Pattison Rosso and my co host Gabe
Gonzalez as we explore queer sex, relationships and culture and
season two.

Speaker 5 (32:05):
Of our hot and hilarious iHeart podcasts.

Speaker 8 (32:08):
We'll be talking to piggy professors, kinky couples, dirty daddies,
and so much more.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
Ready to listen, just push play.

Speaker 9 (32:14):
It starts off as a very standard cruising story, yells through.
Someone follows you in God, you look familiar, and then
I'm gonna call up one of my girls and be like,
is this your dad?

Speaker 3 (32:22):
You?

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Please confirm? Is this your dad? Please confirm?

Speaker 9 (32:25):
I have never ever ever run into a friend's parent
on any dating app at any party.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
A good thing.

Speaker 9 (32:32):
You and your friends don't go cruising together, right, they
might have had a very different experience.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Yeah, wishing you and.

Speaker 9 (32:40):
From under the map you just see the mouth fun You're.

Speaker 5 (32:42):
Like dad you.

Speaker 8 (32:44):
You can listen to Snippy's Cruising Confession, sponsored by a
Healthy Sexual from Gilliad Sciences now on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 (32:52):
New episodes every Thursday.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Plasma's in Space will be close to solving the mystery
behind the STS seventy five incident. I think so. At
least welcome back. It is the Micah Hanks program. Yes, indeed,
plasmas probably do explain a few UAP sidings. In fact,

(33:55):
I've been tracking some plasma like phenomena right here in
western North Carolina for many years. Before we get back
into that discussion, I want to remind you, of course,
if you aren't already an X subscriber, you're missing out
because you're only getting half of the story. Every week.
X subscribers get the ad free experience and of course
also the weekly additional editions plus the monthly Enigmas specials.

(34:18):
Will be dropping a couple more of those here in
the days ahead, but you will indeed get access to
all the shows, including this one, ad free and all
on your own personalized RSS feed for just seven dollars
a month or seventy seven dollars a year. As always,
I've got a link to where you can find that
they're on your podcasting app in the show notes, or
you can just pop over to Micah Hanks dot com

(34:39):
forward slash X and you'll find everything you need to
sign up right there. But getting back into the conversation here,
is I alluded before the break in the case of
the STS seventy five incident, I am not convinced that
what the astronauts were seeing at that time, and in
fact what folks at mission control we're seeing through the
cameras aboard the shuttle at that time, were mysterious lifelike plasmas,

(35:03):
some of which were up to a kilometer in size. No,
in this case, I actually do think that these were
optical illusions produced by the camera itself and its telephoto lens,
which I should point out incorporated a very large reflective
mirror with a hole in the center. Now why is
that significant, Because when you watch the STS seventy five footage,

(35:26):
many of these objects appear to have a hole right
in the center, hence the doughnut shape referenced by the
authors of the paper from last year. Of course, in
their paper they also note, however, that the astronauts observed
these objects themselves with their naked eye and also through
binoculars and telescopes, and that this was not something that
was only seen on camera. So how could I argue

(35:48):
that this is simply a camera artifact. Well more on
that in just a moment. In fact, I do not
dispute that they were seeing things outside the spacecraft, and
indeed that they were observing these objects with the naked eye.
But in my opinion, what we see in the footage
at very least is consistent with the optical illusion that
a camera with a telephoto lens incorporating a large reflective

(36:10):
mirror with a hole in the center would produce. And
I'm not just pulling this out of thin air like
a luminous plasma myself. This in fact is in reference
to a demonstration of how exactly the same effect could
be produced that aired many years ago on the History
Channel show called UFO Hunters. And on that episode, a
photographic expert literally replicated not only the appearance of the

(36:32):
objects that appeared in the STS seventy five footage, but
he also used a laser with a piece of monophilament
across the front of it to show how these objects
could also seemingly pass behind a more brightly illuminated object
in the foreground, or in the case of the STS
seventy five footage, the tether that's seen in the distance.

(36:53):
So while they had the camera with a telephoto lens
focused on this tether out there, which itself actually was
several kilometers long, and it was reflecting a significant amount
of light, and the contrast settings on the camera enhanced
that somewhat. The effect ended up being that, due to
the brightness of that object, these smaller, closer out of
focus objects would pass in front of it, but it

(37:15):
would certainly look like they were going behind it because
their light was being canceled out as they passed in
front of the much brighter object. So the optical illusions
are actually twofold. These small objects in the foreground were
out of focus and reflecting light, and that created the
first optical illusion that there were donut shaped because under
those conditions they actually appeared on camera to resemble the

(37:38):
large reflector in the camera itself. This is a pretty
common optical effect, and again this can be reproduced easily
with the right kind of equipment. But further, these objects,
due to the fact that they were not as bright
as the tether itself, were made to look as though
they were off in the distance passing behind it, which
thereby gave rise to another optical illusion. It appears to
have misled some to interpret that these objects were actually

(38:00):
up to a kilometer in size, and that very concept
seems to have been described in the paper from last year,
which argued that these were not UFOs, they were large
luminous plasmas. But in fact, I think that there's a
better argument to be made that there were simply optical illusions.
But the question, of course then would remain, well, but
what were the objects that were reflecting light? Because remember

(38:22):
there were members of the team they're on board the
shuttle who were looking out the windows and said they
saw these with their naked eye and through binoculars and telescopes,
so there had to have been something out there right well.
On the very video online that shows the explanation for
what I think these objects most likely were, and I'll
have that linked for you in the show notes so
that you can watch this yourself and you can see

(38:43):
how on that episode of UFO Hunters they actually offered
a very convincing explanation for what was happening. Some of
you out there may remember seeing this when it aired.
But on the video on YouTube that I'll have linked
in the show notes, James Oberg, who's a longtime skeptic
and former NASA employee, actually comment I think he's got
the top comment on the video, and he even says, quote,

(39:04):
I worked in mission control for twenty years and helped
design the tether phase of this mission. The dots, he says,
weren't big at all, as the much sharper handheld seventy
milimeters photographs the crew took out the overhead windows showed.
He also adds the photos that the Internet UFO hucksters
hid from their target audience, but he adds this was

(39:24):
verified by the astronaut's own depth perception using two eyed
senses that proved they were within tens of feet of
the shuttle. So, in other words, what Oberg is saying
is that, yes, indeed they did see objects outside the shuttle.
Yes they were actually photographed, but these other photographs sharper
resolutions seventy milimeters photographs clearly show that these objects were
not a kilometer in size, They were much smaller, and

(39:47):
they seemed to be something fairly mundane. What specifically were
these objects, well, according to James Oberg, he says that
they were probably water and ice particulates from wastewater dump
right there on board the Columbia itself. So these weren't UFOs,
they weren't plasmas. These objects were tens of feet away
from the shuttle and originated from there on the shuttle itself.

(40:09):
He goes on to add about the illusion of these
objects passing behind the tether, that this was quote an
artifact of the external cameras, essentially what we already went over.
He said, had they really been miles across, they would
have been the size and brightness of the full moon
as viewed from the ground, passing over millions of potential witnesses,
but nobody reported they saw them. The peripheral slit, he said,

(40:30):
was an artifact of the camera internal opjects, which he
adds you can verify by plotting out the orientation of
the slit of each circle as it moved across the
camera's field of view. He said it was identical for
all of them, as they each passed through identical positions.
In other words, what he's saying is that if you
look at these little objects, they all have little peculiarities
to their shape, like a little ridge near the bottom

(40:51):
and the hole in the center. And he says, rather
than these all being plasmas in the space that miraculously
took on this strange shape, these very specific little consistencies
in the shapes of these plasmas suggests that whatever was
filming them was causing that not that these plasmas all
miraculously had this particular shape about them. Those weird little

(41:13):
features arise from the camera zone optics, and so in
this instance I have to say that although I am
open to the idea that there may be plasmas out
there that are sometimes mistaken for UFOs, in this case
I think that the scientists who authored this paper, one
of whom, by the way, I respect very highly and
who has even been on the program in the past,
but in trying to offer a more down to earth

(41:34):
and natural explanation for UAP sightings, they seemingly led with
this hypothesis to the exclusion of other ideas about what
appeared in the STS seventy five footage, when in fact,
skeptics had already offered a very convincing explanation for this
and that had been in circulation for years. In other words,
this is a good old case of trying to explain

(41:55):
things that aren't UFOs, but then being misled by our
own pet FA theory when there was a simpler explanation
for one of the examples we gave for the very
phenomenon we claimed to exist. Got to be mindful of that. Sometimes.
But again, as I mentioned. I am fascinated with the idea, nonetheless,
that there could actually be strange phenomena out there that
does match the kind of characteristics of what this paper describes.

(42:18):
The most obvious example ball lightning, a rare and mysterious
atmospheric phenomenon. Typical descriptions describe it as a glowing spherical
manifestation of lightning that usually appears during thunderstorms. But then
we've also got locations like Brown Mountain, North Carolina, where
people observe very similar things, at least in description, and

(42:39):
often when there is no kind of thunderstorm activity. But
maybe the weirdest thing about ball lightning is the fact
that despite how it has been observed now for centuries,
and people have described seeing luminous, self contained, spherical orbs
of light, we still don't know exactly how this stuff manifests.
There are probably still more questions than answers when it

(43:00):
comes to the idea of ball lighting, And in fact,
I'm not really convinced that all the things that are
observed and later classified as examples of ball lightning are
really that. I think that there are a range of
different luminous phenomena that can manifest many are probably plasmas.
Some may be other things. Some may be things that

(43:22):
resemble plasmas plasma like. You might say, again, if all
of the things that look plasma like, we're simply plasmas,
I'm pretty sure that the folks at the All Domain
Anomaly Resolution Office would not be saying that they are
emitting radio frequencies seemingly demonstrating intelligent behavior, and that these
lights are capable of flashing on and off, especially when

(43:44):
military observers happen to appear on the scene. So again,
maybe there are a variety of explanations for some of
these phenomena. They aren't all ball lightning per se. But
then again, we still don't really know exactly how ball
lightning manifest There are theories though vaporized silicon compounds reacting

(44:04):
in the air is One might also be microwave interference
from lightning discharges plasma like structures held together by electromagnetic fields.
But yet again we have to ask ourselves what could
facilitate that. Honestly, we just don't know. But again, plasmas
are just among the many anomalous atmospheric phenomena that populate
our skies. Consider some of these others did you know,

(44:27):
for instance, that there is a massive system that is
moving through the skies over Earth's equator every thirty to
sixty days. No, it's not an alien mothership. This is
what's known as the Madden Julian Oscillation, and it's a
huge moving system of clouds and storms that circles the
equator every thirty to sixty days. We've been watching this

(44:47):
for decades, but scientists still struggle to understand what exactly
causes it, what its internal mechanisms are, and also how
it influences weather far beyond the tropics. But we do
know that it affects monsoons and hurricanes, even snowstorms in
the US Northeast. So it might be good for us
to figure out what we can about the MJO before

(45:08):
hurricane season arrives. Well, actually it's already here. Time is
of the essence, I suppose. We also, of course, have
the Sun and its energy output, which varies over time,
so scientists are still debating how those little changes interact
with Earth's complex climate systems. Some suspect that feedbacks involving
cosmic rays, cloud formation, stratospheric dynamics, maybe even plasmas could

(45:31):
amplify solar influence beyond what models currently account for. But
the bottom line is if solar variability plays a bigger
role than what we think, it could affect how we
interpret past climate events and also how we project future trends.
Think how back toward the end of the Middle Ages
there was the so called Little Ice Age, and early
astronomical observations noted that there was also a decline in

(45:54):
sunspot activity that coincided with a portion of that period
when suddenly we had much cooler temperatures here on Earth.
Is there a correlation there, I don't know, but maybe
that's worthy of additional study. More climate oddities include virga.
This involves ghostly streaks of precipitation that evaporate before ever
reaching the ground. They're caused by localized cooling and potentially

(46:17):
dangerous downdrafts. You may have heard of the mysterious exploding
craters in Siberia, which have been potentially linked to the
release of methane and other gases due to warming temperatures.
What about what's known as milky rain rainfall accompanied by
a chalky residue, which is often seen in the US
Pacific Northwest. Some scientists think that it's dust lifted up

(46:37):
from dry lake beds, which has then redeposited, and that
not unlike what's known as orange snow snowfall that's colored
orange due to dust from the Sahara desert that gets
carried aloft by winds and redeposited as peculiar orange snow.
We also have what's stone as the Fujiwara effect. This
one's fascinating. When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction

(46:59):
pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense
dance around their center. According to Aoli's Weird Weather over
at weather dot gov, if one hurricane is a lot
stronger than the other, the smaller one will orbit it
and then eventually come crashing into its vortex and be absorbed.
What about this one. Imagine waking up at midnight to
find the temperature has shot up twenty degrees in minutes

(47:21):
and eighty mile per hour wind gusts have suddenly ravaged
your town. It's a pretty rare phenomenon, but it's not
something that's unknown to scientists. According to Awli's Weird Weather
at weather dot gov, this is known as a heat burst,
and it's pretty obvious where they get their name. From
Here's an old four ten favorite of mind water spouts,
which look like tornadoes but made of water, which also

(47:43):
can sometimes sweep little life forms up into the clouds
and then redeposit those at various other locations, which has
given rise to the idea of fish falls, frog rains,
snake rains, rains of all different kinds of strange things,
and at least one instance, I think there's a recorded
case where children in Japan were lifted up, carried a
short distance, and redeposited in a sand pit near a playground.

(48:06):
They were all okay from what I heard, and then,
very much in keeping with Plasmas, we have light pillars,
which are one of many different varieties of luminous phenomena
that occur in the world. Another favorite of mind, though
similar to that glory and optical effect that casts a
rainbow halo around the head of an observer's shadow, not
to be confused with Brocken specters. Essentially where you are

(48:27):
looking down into clouds or fog, and the light behind
you from the sun casts a shadow onto the fog,
and you therefore see a massive shadow, and this idea
of the Brocken spectrum, in my opinion, probably gave rise
to a lot of legends about giants up in the
mountains that hikers would sometimes feel we're following them as
they hiked. Oh and of course, no discussion about anomalous

(48:49):
weather would be complete without an honorary mention for lenticular clouds,
those thick lend shaped masses hovering in the sky that
are often mistaken for flying song. But when we come
back here in a second, we're gonna travel way back
in time and look at one of my very favorite
anomalous weather events, one that indeed could have cataclysmic implications.

(49:11):
We'll dive into that and more as we round things
out here in the final segment of this week's installment
of the Micah Hanks.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Program, Time to explore this week's cosmic theories and space discoveries.

Speaker 6 (49:29):
Honestly, Nova, I didn't scan the data, but I did
switch to T Mobile with their new family Freedom offer.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
That's not the mission parameters.

Speaker 6 (49:38):
Well, I'm teleporting away from AT and T and launching
into a new dimension with T Mobile. They paid off
my family's fore phones up to thirty two hundred dollars
and gave us four new phones on the house.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Wow, warp speed introducing Family Freedom, our lowest cost will switch,
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(50:14):
twenty eight gigabyte eight twenty nine ninety nine eligible trade
in EG iPhone eleven pro for well qualified credits end
and balance do if you pay off earlier, cancel contact
T Mobile.

Speaker 8 (50:20):
We are back with an all new season of Snippy's
Cruising Confessions.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
And this time we're going much much deeper. Join me, Chris.

Speaker 8 (50:26):
Pattison Rosso and my co host Gabe Gonzalez as we
explore queer sex, relationships and culture and season two of.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
Our hot and hilarious iHeart Podcast.

Speaker 8 (50:34):
We'll be talking to piggy professors, kinky couples, dirty daddies,
and so much more.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Ready to listen, just push play.

Speaker 9 (50:40):
It starts off as a very standard cruising story.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
Yeah that through someone follows you in God, you look familiar.

Speaker 9 (50:46):
And then I'm going to call up one of my
girls and be like, is this your dad?

Speaker 4 (50:49):
Have you please confirm? Is this your dad? Please confirm?

Speaker 9 (50:52):
I have never ever ever run into a friend's parent
on any dating app at any party.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
A good thing.

Speaker 9 (50:58):
You and your friends don't go cruising together, right, they
might have had a very different experience.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Yeah, wishing you and.

Speaker 9 (51:06):
From under the map, You're like dad.

Speaker 8 (51:09):
You can listen to Snippy's Cruising Confession sponsored by a
Healthy Sexual from Guilliad Sciences now on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever.

Speaker 10 (51:17):
You get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
Did something catastrophic happen in North America at the end
of the Last Ice Age? Welcome Back? It is the
Micah Hanks Program. And of course, longtime listeners of this
and various podcasts I have produced will be aware of
the fact that several of my colleagues and I have

(52:35):
had a long held interest in some very strange things
that were happening with Earth's climate around twelve thousand, seven
hundred or so years ago. And yes, of course I'm
referring to what paleoclimatologists call the younger drias Essentially, what
this entailed was, as Earth was exiting the Last Ice Age,

(52:59):
or the geology epic known as the Plaistocene, suddenly temperatures
began to warm. And as we are seeing global temperatures
warm naturally in response to the warming temperatures, the ice
that accumulated around Earth's poles began to melt. But as
that ice begins to melt, there is something very unusual

(53:19):
that happens. Around twelve seven hundred years ago, Earth, instead
of continuing this warming trend, suddenly goes right back into
an extreme cold snap and it stays there for close
to eleven hundred years.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
Some of the.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Earliest evidence for the fact that there was an unexpected
cold period after Earth had already begun the warming trend
that would lead into the epic known as the Holocene
had been that back in the nineteenth century, sidists who
would collect sediment samples from the bottoms of ancient plasticine
lake beds began to notice an abundance of a certain

(53:55):
kind of plant material in these ancient lake sediments, and
that was a plant known as dryas octopedola, an eight
pedaled plant which favors very cold environments and so the
scientists who way back in the nineteenth century began to
notice this had asked themselves why was there such an
abundance of this cold weather plant during this particular period

(54:16):
in geological history. It seems to indicate that it got
really cold there for a while. Well, nowadays we have
an abundance of proxy data climate data from back around
twelve seven hundred years ago. This obtained from lake sediments
like I mentioned, but also from archaeological sites from ice
cores that date back to the time of the last
Ice Age, and all this proxy data clearly shows that

(54:39):
something very very strange seems to have happened. As Earth
was warming and coming out of the Ice Age, we
seemingly re entered a little ice age and that lasted
for close to one thousand years before finally Earth ended
up rebounding and warming trends continued unhindered, and we finally
coasted unhindered on into the Holocene. But there seems to

(55:02):
have been more going on during this period than just
the sudden, very abrupt temperature changes that were happening. And
again I mentioned eleven hundred years that may not sound
like an abrupt temperature change, but in geological time scales.
That's very abrupt, indeed, and so the question of what
else was happening in the world has long been on
scholar's mind. There's long been paleontological evidence that suggests that

(55:26):
around the time of the end of the Last Ice Age,
there were also a lot of megafonal dioffs. Many of
the very large animal species that once populated North America
and other parts of the world mysteriously began to die,
coinciding with this anomalous period of climate change between the
Plasticcene and the Holocene. Now, some archaeologists have interpreted the

(55:48):
reason for these animal dieoffs to have been in response
to hunting by plasticne era North American hunters. In other words,
as human populations grew and they became better at hunting
large animals, they hunted more of them because this was
an abundant and fairly convenient source of protein. All things considered,
certain megafonal animals probably were more convenient than others, given

(56:11):
that some would potentially rip your face off if you
got close enough to them right, But in any case,
archaeologists who favored this explanation for these animal die offs
refer to this as the over kill hypothesis, but of
course there are some problems with this interpretation too. For one,
animals like bison antiquus, in other words, megafonal bison that
existed during the Plaistocene would have been an optimal source

(56:34):
of food, as were mastodons and mammoths, Whereas we might
say that some of the more ferocious megafonal species in
North America at the time, like the American lion, those
dire walls that have captured the fascination of people around
the world, thanks in part to the folks down there
at Colossal Biosciences this year, but of course also extend
that to short faced bear and other very large megafonal

(56:57):
animals that were potentially very dangerous. The archaeological evidence simply
does not support the idea that all of these animals
were being hunted, let alone being hunted to extinction, and
good evidence that we can cite in support of that
idea is a the lack of lithic tools i e.
Arrowheads that were used by plasticine hunters in Setu alongside

(57:20):
the remains of those species. When compared to the known
species the plastoicne era Americans were hunting and further, now
we have technologies like blood protein analysis that allows us
to look at some of those ancient spear points and
determine exactly what kind of blood was left on those
stone weapons after they were used for hunting, and in fact,
the blood protein analysis clearly shows as you might guess,

(57:42):
bison antiquus mastoed on also some animals like deer, which
are still around today. And again, it's not to say
that ancient hunters would never have killed something like an
American lion or a short faced bear or any other
potentially ferocious megafonal species. I'm sure there is some evidence
out there somewhere, but the abundance of the evidence seems

(58:02):
to suggest that, very much like today, there are certain
animals that are hunted preferentially, and there are good reasons why.
My point being that the archaeological evidence at hand to
me does not necessarily support the idea of an overkill hypothesis.
What seems more likely is that potentially changes that were
happening in the world around twelve seven hundred years ago

(58:25):
seem to have impacted the die off of several species,
and further that climate changes before that and also several
thousands of years after that also contributed. So could changing
climate and therefore changing food supplies, changing habitat Could these
kinds of things be a better explanation for what led

(58:45):
to the die off of these animals. Here's something interesting
to add into the mix as well, for those who
are still proponents of the overkill hypothesis. We also see
a significant reduction in the lithic points i e. The
stone weapons used by these ancient American hunts that occurs
after this period. So whatever was happening, whatever changes were
occurring in the environment at that time, seems to have

(59:07):
affected human populations too, and although after a while populations
seem to rebound again, as evidenced by the distribution of
stone tools with relation to the strata, which of course
relates to the era in which they were dispersed. And
this stratigraphic data, which has been long used by archaeologists,
but now of course complemented by various dating methods that

(59:28):
include radiocarbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence, and others. It gives
us a really pretty good idea that there were people
in North America who were hunting around thirteen thousand years ago.
A few hundred years after that, there was apparently a
bottleneck where there were fewer signs of human activity, and
then gradually there is a resurgence as human populations begin

(59:48):
to rise again as we enter the early Holocene. So
even human populations were affected by whatever was going on
around the time of the so called Younger Dryess. Now
there are a range of different theories that have been
examined by scientists, particularly paleoclimatologists, people who study Earth's ancient climate,

(01:00:09):
and they have tried to understand exactly why the Earth
may have changed and in the very peculiar ways that
it did at that time. For instance, we know based
on what are called Milankovitch cycles, and these attributed to
Militan Milankovitch, who back in the nineteen twenties calculated the
way that the Earth based on the eccentricity of its
orbit as well as its obliquity and then also procession

(01:00:32):
the torque of the spin of the Earth. These three factors,
effectively are the cycles that influence both the amount and
also the distribution of solar radiation that reaches the Earth,
and therefore, in the estimation of Militant Milankovitch back in
the nineteen twenties when he calculated all this, these were
the factors that impacted long term climate patterns, in other words,
the coming and going of ice ages, and taking those

(01:00:55):
factors into consideration, one would have to assume that even
with the pressing concern of climate change that we face today,
eventually Earth will also enter another ice age. We just
don't know, however, how the current anthropogenic effects that we're
having on our planet might influence and disrupt these natural
Milankovitch cycles.

Speaker 11 (01:01:16):
But on the.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Subject of those cycles, what interpretation had simply been that
maybe as Earth is coming out of the Holocene, in
other words, these Melankovitch cycles are affecting the amount of
solar radiation reaching Planet Earth, and therefore the Sun begins
to warm up, it could be that all of this
cold ice that begins to melt from around the poles

(01:01:37):
and it flows off into the Atlantic Ocean. This actually
disrupts what's known as the thermohalene circulation basically just ocean
circulation in the North Atlantic, and that in fact may
have been a significant driver of the so called Younger dryas. So,
in other words, as the Earth is warming up and
the ice begins to cool, all of that very cold

(01:01:57):
water flowing into the Atlantic might actually have had something
to do with climate changes that took us back into
a little ice age. But that's not the only theory,
because there's also mounting evidence in recent years that suggests
that the primary driver of the Younger Dryas might not
have been something from Earth at all. Indeed, it might
have been something that came from space, or specifically an

(01:02:20):
asteroid or a comet, which very much like what happened
over Tunguska, Siberia in nineteen oh eight, might have exploded
in midair on its way to Earth, but close enough
to the ground that it causes widespread devastation, which probably
included widespread biomass burning, probably the die off of certain
animal species, And whether as a direct result of the
impact or air burst that is presumed to have happened,

(01:02:43):
or if it was just the impact that that had
on the climate or the environment and on food sources,
all of these factors could have easily contributed to animal
dieoffs and in fact, the so called bottleneck that we
saw associated with the Clovis culture, which again is not
really a culture, it's a technocultural complex based on the
weapons that people from that era used, but we won't

(01:03:03):
get lost in the weeds about that. The point is
there is a theory that a comet or an asteroid
might have actually been what triggered the Younger Dryas, and
hence this is known as the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.
Skeptics of this idea say, but there's no impact feature,
and we can certainly explain some of the other factors
attributed to comet like proxies to other things like volcanic

(01:03:25):
activity here on Earth, and therefore we don't need to
make up a story about an impact to explain what
happened at the Younger Dryas. On the other hand, though
proponents of this idea, many of whom I have worked
with in the field and I have spoken to at
length over the years, and they are loosely associated with
what's known as the Comet Research Group, They hold that
there are indeed a range of scientific proxies that can

(01:03:47):
be used to demonstrate that something very strange and likely
extraterrestrial and origin occurred around twelve seven hundred years ago.
These include what appear to be microspherules associated with an
impact event, and perhaps most notably, a platinum anomaly that
is found at the boundary associated with the younger Dryas.
Platinum is significant because it is a rare Earth element,

(01:04:10):
and in fact, in the past we have seen the
similar dispersal of rare Earth elements like iridium at the
Cretaceous tertiary boundary, and that of course associated with the
impact that killed the dinosaurs. So although it would have
been much smaller by comparison, ciitists to our proponent of
an impact hypothesis, say that the abundance of the rare
Earth element platinum and its dispersal around the world coinciding

(01:04:33):
with the Younger Dryas boundary and other impact proxies, strongly
points to the idea that there may have been an
extraterrestrial impact or air burst and that that indeed could
have been a driver of one of the most posterious
anomalies in the history of weather on planet Earth. But
of course, as we have seen this year, there's quite
a lot happening in our atmosphere that remains mysterious. Maybe

(01:04:57):
in the weeks ahead we will try to get a
Brown Mountain update here on the show, see if we
can spot some of those plasmas for ourselves, and indeed,
if we see anything my team and I that is,
you'll hear about it here.

Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
First.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
If you've seen something, head over to the UAP Sidings
Reporting System at UAP sidings dot org and follow a report.
But in the meantime, that wraps things up for now.
You guys, as always, stay strange out there, and we'll
talk again soon