Astronomers Find Unusual Pockets of Energy in Our Solar System

Something big is going on at the center of the galaxy, and astronomers are happy to say they don’t know what it is.  A group of scientists working with data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope said Tuesday that they had discovered two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The bubbles, they said at a news conference and in a paper to be published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal, extend 25,000 light years up and down from each side of the galaxy and contain the energy equivalent to 100,000 supernova explosions.

Odd.  I've never heard of anything like it.  And I'm not sure what they mean by "energy."  Normally, that term is not used to refer to a substance hanging around, but to refer to stored energy, so they must be referring to energized particles of some sort.  They say it isn't dark matter, and isn't anything else they have seen before.

The strange part is the sudden observation of these large pockets.  the observers claim that they did not notice them, before, but is it possible that these pockets of energy simply weren't there until now?  Perhaps something is causing this change in our galaxy.

Something Suspicious About the Chilean Miners

I am very glad that the Chilean miners are being rescued, and it's a credit to the country that they were able and willing to spend the money and time it took to find those men (after they had officially been declared dead) and to rescue them.  This is good news.  But there's more - and some parts of the story we will never truly know.

Mine shafts have a long history of strange activity.  In 1945, a a section of the Belva Mine (located in Pennsylvania) caved in and left many miners trapped.  They were frightened, but they soon noticed a door open in the cave and a man holding a lantern assured them that rescue was coming - and disappeared back into the door.  (No one ever comments on the nature of that door.  Did the trapped miners try to open it themselves?  Did the door blend in with the wall?  And no word on why the man wouldn't let them escape through his door - or bring them any food.)  There are many stories of such underground men being encountered by modern diggers - but no evidence, unfortunately.

There are also some very widely accepted stories about hidden tunnels all over the Earth.  This site lists U.S. military bases and their tunnels that lead to other bases in other states; I don't know if any of it is true, of course. But I do know that you can do an internet search for "hidden underground passages" and find something for just about every part of the world.  These tunnels are normally attributed to something far more ancient and mysterious than the government, however.

And, who can forget the Shaver Stories?  Richard Shaver published some stories about going underground and meeting with strange people called the "Deros" who were not so kind as the fellow who helped the Belva Miners in 1945 - instead they ate people.  His stuff was published as fiction, but written as if it were true.  He would maintain that it was true until he died, and this lead to a very enduring following.

So, we're left with a rather spotty legacy of miners seeing strange things and stories of underground caverns.  What does this have to do with the Chilean miners?  Probably nothing, but there are few loose ends in their story.

For starters, these men were in the in the mine for two whole months - that's the longest anyone has ever been trapped in a mine and survived.  We are told that they survived by rationing food and eating small bites every other day, and they even had some food left over when they were rescued.  Is it possible that they had some help?  The doctor who made contact with them was impressed at their level of comfort, and we've seen that they are rather cool-headed about the ordeal.

But what's really suspicious is the gag order these men have agreed to.  Before being rescued, these men were asked to sign an agreement saying that they would never talk about the first seventeen days they spent in the mine.  We are told that this is because of the secretes that they told: since they thought they would die, some of them told stories about having affairs and other things that were secret.  But, if this is being kept a secret, how could the press know about it?  And is it really necessary to make them sign something like this before rescuing them?  It's very odd.  Did they see something, or did they find something they were not supposed to see?  And could it have anything to do with why the Chilean government was so quick to claim that the men were dead and hold a funeral for them?

The truth is, unless one of these mens breaks their agreement, we'll never know what went on in that cavern before they were rescued.

500 Foot Long Crack Forms in Michigan - No Explanation

Eileen Heider was relaxing in her recliner when she began to feel the chair vibrate.  An explosion was heard and when she ran out to check on it she noticed a large crack had formed along her property.

Heider and neighbors heard an explosion-like sound Monday morning. Heider found the nearly 200-yard-long crevice, which measures five-feet deep in parts, Tuesday. (source)

So far, a gas eruption has been ruled out, but nothing else developed on this odd story all week.  There's no fault line nearby, and no history of geological activity like this.

Here's a video, wherein a local man says his large pile of wood was knocked over in the explosion:



Since there's no crater, we can probably rule out ordinary explosives.  No one has located an epicenter, yet, so we've got nothing to go on.  Could there be a geyser or a volcano forming?  That's pretty rare, but so is this incident.  Also, there's a situation called Bradyseism in which the ground shudders like this due to underground magma fluctuations.

There's also the liquification phenomenon (which has been mentioned on some comment boards) where the ground suddenly acts like a liquid and sucks things up.  Supposedly, this sort of thing happened a long time ago on an island inhabited with pirates, and many of the criminals on the island were trapped in the ground after it hardened and became meals for local animals.  It's very creepy, but I don't see anyone describing that sort of thing, and it's a phenomenon that is usually observed in loose sandy soils - not clumpy moist soil with vegetation.  Also, liquification isn't known to cause audible explosions.

But this sort of speculation is all we have, right now.  Maybe we'll get some more answers, or maybe this mysterious crack in the ground will always haunt us.

Happy Halloween! The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass...

In happened in 1959 when a group of experienced Ski Hikers in Russia left on a hike and, except for the one hiker who got ill and turned back, did not return. Investigators were skeptical that entire team of experienced explorers could be lost completely, but when they finally launched an investigation they were horrified at what they found.



The campsite was a disaster and bodies were found all over the place. (It took months to find them all even after the campsite was found.) The tents showed evidence that the some of the campers had exited their tents by tearing a hole in the back of the tent, instead of going out the front flap. Some of the hikers were found nearly naked, as if they felt the need to exit the tent into the unforgiving cold as quickly as possible. Whatever frightened them was scarier than being exposed to the Russian winter and gave them the impression that they needed to tear their tents apart to escape.

The bodies were strange in themselves. There were no obvious signs of trauma on their dead bodies but some of them had head wounds and other internal damage that would seem to be a cause of death. Authorities said that it would take an impact similar to getting hit by a car to cause the internal injuries that were discovered. Oh, and the bodies had a peculiar orange glow about them. The bodies showed a high level of radiation when they were tested. (I should add that UFO's were sighted in the area that evening, but I almost hate to include that. Gotta' be thorough.) It doesn't help that many of these details were suppressed by the Russian government.

To make things worse, the official cause of death is an 'unknown compelling force'. Creepy.

Here's more information:

Skeptoid Article
Neatorama Article
Russian site with many photos