FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
All the latest updates on astronomical own goals, mystery drones and apocalypse cows
INTERSTELLAR METEOR [FT425:6]
Last year, Harvard Astronomer
Avi Loeb led a controversial expedition to the waters off Papua New Guinea in search of what he believes to be a meteorite from outside the Solar System that could be the remains of technology from an alien civilisation. Even if it was not alien tech, it would still have been only the third interstellar visitor to the Solar System ever detected, and the only one to actually hit Earth, so was still worth investigating.
Loeb used a recording from a seismometer on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea to conclude that the meteor hit the Earth with a speed consistent with an interstellar object, and to deduce the location in the nearby ocean where its remains might be found. His team then collected debris from the seabed (without the permission of the Papua government) which led Loeb to conclude that the elements contained in the tiny metal spherules he found “may reflect an extraterrestrial technological origin”. Other scientists have strongly rejected this conclusion and have instead presented evidence that suggests the spherules have a completely terrestrial origin and are a commonplace component of coal ash.
Now, a team from John Hopkins University has claimed that the seismic data Loeb used was not from a meteorite, but was “almost certainly” generated by a truck on a road adjacent to the seismometer. “The signal changed directions over time, exactly matching a road that runs past the seismometer,” says planetary seismologist Benjamin Fernando. “It’s really difficult to take a signal and confirm it is not from something. But what we can do is show that there are lots of signals like this, and show they have all the characteristics we’d expect from a truck and none of the characteristics we’d expect from a meteor.” This not only means that the suggested extra-solar origin for the meteor is in doubt, but it also means that it didn’t land anywhere near the area searched by Loeb’s team. “The fireball location was actually very far away from where the oceanographic expedition went to retrieve these meteor fragments,” said Fernando, who estimates the meteorite ended up over 160km (100 miles) from Loeb’s search area. iflscience.com, 8 Mar 2024.
HAMPSTEAD WITCH HUNT [FT327:26-27, 361:24, 376:9]
While the early 1990s heyday of Satanic child abuse (SCA) hysteria is long behind us, it still occasionally rears its ugly head, with a case currently going through the courts in Glasgow showing many of its typical characteristics. Before that, in 2015, it was a case in Hampstead that was making headlines. Then, a yoga instructor named Ella Draper and her partner Abraham Christie attempted to win a custody battle with Draper’s former partner by torturing and brainwashing the children into making florid accusations about an imaginary Satanic cult run by their father. This was supposed to involve drugged babies being routinely sent by courier services such as TNT and DHL to London from abroad to be sacrificed, blood being drunk from babies’ skulls and shoes being made from their skin by the owner of a local shoe repair shop. Accusations made online swiftly expanded to include parents and teachers at the children’s school and other local residents, including a clergyman, growing ever more lurid as they did so and becoming incorporated in the QAnon/ Pizzagate conspiracy ferment in the US.
Although police quickly exploded suggestions that any kind of ritual abuse was taking place, it did not stop the story becoming a conspirasphere staple, with crowdfunding being done to enable “investigators” to “kick down doors” and rescue children from their “abusive” parents. In March, a Channel 4 documentary, Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax, examined the story and heard directly from some of the parents affected, revealing how some of the perpetrators were tracked down and named, enabling them to be prosecuted and imprisoned. One mother, played by an actor voicing her words in the documentary, said, “These conspiracy theorists set up a website where they shared research about us. They made videos exposing the ‘connections’ between us. They connected dots that weren’t really there. And these were intelligent people. They weren’t stupid. They were highly educated people… they targeted groups who believed the government is corrupt, social services are corrupt, the Earth is flat. They planted the seeds and waited for it to go viral.” She decided to infiltrate the conspiracy groups and try to identify the perpetrators. One was located “because we had an architecture expert in the group who could identify the south London clock tower behind him [in his videos].” This resulted in the man being jailed for nine months for harassment. “Other people, we identified through their voices,” she says, and one was found by watching “hours and hours of mad videos about dolls until this woman opened a package with her name on it.”
While Draper and Christie went on the run and have not been caught, Sabine McNeill, who acted as an unqualified “legal advisor” to the couple, was sentenced to nine years in prison for her part in orchestrating the plot. American blogger Rupert Wilson Quaintance, 38, was also jailed, for nine months, after travelling from his home in Charlottsville,Virginia, to harass people he believed were part of the imaginary paedophile ring. D. Telegraph, 10 Mar 2024.
RED HEIFERS [FT373:44-47, 425:49, 436:24, 440:7]
Four of the five red heifers imported from America to Israel are ready for their ritual slaughter. The fifth was disqualified when she developed a few white hairs. According to tradition only an unblemished red heifer may be sacrificed and burnt to ashes as part of the process to rededicate and rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The ashes are biblically mandated for purification in a range of situations. Without the red heifer ashes, priests and Levites currently in training with the Temple Institute are disqualified from serving in a future rebuilt Temple. Furthermore, with all the bloodshed on the Temple Mount down through the centuries, the Mount itself must be cleansed before the Temple can be built. The slaughter is scheduled for a date in the spring of this year and while most secular Jews have little interest in the rebuilding of a temple, others see it as heralding the arrival of the Messiah.
Meanwhile, Hamas is watching the developments closely, according to the website Prophecy News Watch. A major part of their motivation for the October attacks, it is claimed, was seeing steps being taken towards rebuilding the Temple on the Temple Mount, which today is occupied by the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most sacred site in Islam.
DRONE SWARMS [416:18-19]
Sensitive US installations continue to be buzzed by mysterious and elusive drone swarms, with the latest being Langley Air Force Base on Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia. This is a particularly important area for the US military, being home to the large Norfolk and Newport News Naval Bases as well as Langley. Langley is one of the few air bases to fly F-22 stealth fighters, while Norfolk is home to around half the US aircraft carrier fleet. An Air Force spokesperson said, “The installation first observed UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] activities the evening of December 6 [2023] and experienced multiple incursions throughout the month of December. The number of UASs fluctuated and they ranged in size/configuration,” adding that “None of the incursions appeared to exhibit hostile intent, but anything flying in our restricted airspace can pose a threat to flight safety.”
Despite the area having one of the most concentrated groupings of US defence assets anywhere, the Air Force completely failed to prevent the unknown drones operating with impunity from 6 December until at least 19 December. It seems that the Air Force response included repeated combat air patrols by F-16 fighters supported by aerial refuelling tankers and the use of one of NASA’s advanced WB-57F aircraft, which flew regular circular missions over Langley during the period. NASA has three WB-57Fs, which are research aircraft equipped with arrays of advanced imaging equipment and sensors, and periodically loans them to the Air Force for specialised missions.
None of this seems to have had any impact on the drones, which remained both uncatchable and in action over Langley, with all attempts to locate their operators also apparently unsuccessful. The increased response to these incursions compared to earlier drone swarm events reflects the US military’s growing concern about their inability to deal effectively with drones, even on their own soil. They find this particularly worrying in the light of how effective the technology has been in Ukraine, where drones are being increasingly used by both sides and have been shown capable of destroying large and expensive military hardware and infrastructure at very little cost (see FT439:22). twz.com, 15 Mar 2024.