YOU CAN RELAX NOW: THAT MYSTERIOUS EQUATORIAL RIDGE ON IAPETUS IS ...
Science is a wonderful thing to behold, especially when it comes out with an "explanation" that is essentially a Chicken Little scenario. In this case, the "explanation" concerns that strange equatorial ridge on Saturn's moon Iapetus, a strange feature that, when examined closely, appears also to have three parallel "grooves" running along the summit of said equatorial ridge, which runs more or less perfectly along the moon's equator. This feature fueled much speculation in the alternative community, from Richard C. Hoagland's "A Moon with a View" to yours truly's book Cosmic War, maintaining that such features are more typical of artificiality then of natural occurrences on celestial bodies.
Now, so many of you sent me one or another version of this announcement that it would be impossible for me to thank you all individually for doing so, but I have to confess, when I read a couple of versions of this story, I just had to laugh, because the scenario being offered as a "natural" explanation for the ridge is truly a Chicken Little scenario, and for the life of me, I cannot understand how one could maintain a straight face while adhering to it. But there's a significant catch. We'll get back to that in a moment. Here's the story:
Mountains on Saturn’s Moon Iapetus Fell From the Sky
Discover magazine is, perhaps, holding its tongue firmly in its cheek, given the headline of the article, and if so, I don't blame them. Here's what we're being told is the "explanation" for the ridge(Note that, as far as I've been able to tell from the various articles, they're only explaining the ridge, not the three apparent parallel "grooves" in the Cassini images):
"It may sound like something out of “Chicken Little,” but at some point in the history of Saturn’s moon Iapetus, the sky was actually falling: Scientists reported this week that an entire 800-mile-long mountain range along the moon’s equator formed after it fell from space.
"Iapetus doesn’t feature the telltale signs of volcanism and geologic activity that typically build mountains, which had made the existence of the bulging equatorial ridge a bit of a mystery. In a new study, researchers constructed 3-D maps of the mountain range using images captured by the Cassini spacecraft. By analyzing the shape of the triangular peaks, some up to 12 miles high, researchers concluded that the mountains were created from material that crashed onto the surface of Iapetus at some point in its history."
The Discover article goes on to point out that the theory has not yet been "peer reviewed", but there it is. We're being asked to believe on the basis of a computer-claptrap model that the ridge "fell from the sky" after "rings" were formed around the planet, rings which were unstable, and which fell into the surface of the planet.
Uh huh. (What about those three parallel grooves? Were there three neatly parallel ring unstable ring systems?) Oh...hooray! those are explained too:
Topographic Constraints on the Origin of the Equatorial Ridge on Iapetus
Now, here's another presentation of the same theory:
Saturn Moon's Weird Ridge Rained Down from Space
Note the last two paragraphs of that article. Here's the first one:
"This new theory is a variant of another idea that Iapetus may have possessed its own moon that became tidally shredded to create a ring system that eventually fell to the moon's surface."
OK...a moon with a moon which became tidally shredded to form a neat ring, which was unstable, which then fell to Iapetus' surface and formed that neat equatorial ridge. (And, presumably, became shredded in such a way to form three closely bunched parallel rings in three planes which were all unstable and then fell to the planetary surface? Wouldn't the stuff whirling around in those three rings have been gravitationally attracted to each other to form one ring system(which was unstable) to fall to the surface? Come on guys, help me out here... Would Iapetus have had sufficient force to be able to shred its own moon? Can we see what the possible mass of that moon may have been? Would it have been enough to create the equatorial ridge?...)
Now, in the context of all my amateur bystander's silly questions, the last paragraph of this second article is worth noting:
"But whatever the source, it seems scientists are agreeing that Iapetus couldn't have created the mountain range without some help from up above."
I don't know about you, but that strikes me as yet another tongue in cheek remark. "Help from above?" Help implies helpers. Helpers implies intelligence. Intelligence implies...
...on yea, we can't go there. The ridge has been "explained." Perfectly natural. We have created a mechanism to explain it without having to invoke the Ockhamist principle(which does not appear to support the naturalist explanation, in my opinion). Nothing to see here.... move along, it fell from the sky after a moon was tidally shredded to form an unstable ring system which collapsed and fell on poor Iapetus....
...yea....right....
See you on the flip side...
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Looks Like The Fundamental Of The Geocentric Model Is Still Alive, They Still Refuse To Accept That We Are Following In The Footsteps Of Something Far Greater, Something That May Still Be Around?
No one is claiming “proof” about equatorial ridges, here, but the EU view has some merit:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/070327iapetus.htm
Oh brother as George Ann Hughes would say. Well the quackademics are at it again, but why now? How the fools get to publish this muck astounds me, one day in the future there is going to be an enormous awakening, and on that day the quackademics are going to have to eat their words.
BRING IT ON
It’s quite simple really – they espouse their diatribe to intellectually unwashed and they lap it all up lol. From my own persepective, what I find profoundly disturbing is the notion that these quackademics are actually dimwitted enough to believe themselves what they actually tell us – and want us to believe????
Off topic, but Dr Farrell, your last two appearances on the Byte Show have been compelling listening – well done!! 🙂
I prefer the Bullwinkle method(#1):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kRW7pITY5
In this particular instance(#2), I investigated the writers home
using the latest cutting-edge-science known as the “cake-crumb-scatter-pattern” identification: This works on the principle that if someone lets cake out while talking, the crumbs are ejected from the mouth at different rates, according to the syllables of words spoken. By analyzing the pattern of crumbs on the table cloth, I was able to induce that the conversation was not about the sky falling as chicken little stated; but, in fact, the tale-tell signs of an advanced civilization…
Or course these two techniques of advanced scientific journalism don’t come on the cheap…
The above youtube was a minute cartoon of Bullwinkle & Rocky doing their “Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat” routine. Yet youtube is monopolized and, as such, one of the oligarchy’s usual suspects.
Wasn’t there a find of these iron balls in a South African mine dating back two point eight billion years old with three parallel ridges on them. Sort of reminds you of Iapetus I wonder if these iron balls were fetish objects for worshipers of Iapetus back then. By the way are you following what happening in Nigeria over two hundred female physic students were kidnaped by the barbarians are us Islamic branch for wishing to become physicist. Sort of reminds you of what happen to Hypatia of Alexandria in four fifteen just they haven’t gotten out the abalone shells out to skin them alive yet.
Hi Marcos:
Yes the small round metal balls which look like Iapetus are in a South African museum and were featured in Cremo & Thompson book “Forbidden Archology”.
Possibly a child’s toy maybe, but millions of years ago, somebody here on Earth knew what Iapetus looked like, oh, that’s just a coincidence, nothing to see here, move along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klerksdorp_sphere
Marcos, during my research I uncovered that the natives observed “them” throwing balls at rocks too discover if it contained ore.
Although it is second hand, just a thought….from the slave miners
OK, the “scientists” (whoever they are?) have a theory, a narrative. Narrative does not constitutes proof!
You learn a lot of narratives at university. They’re not all true.
You need a rock solid theory of measurement, theory of instrumentation, before you can even begin to think about constructing a theory of everything, no less!
To measure the Cosmic Microwave Background you need reproducibility and resolution. They have neither. What they are measuring is emissions from water on the earth. They are measuring the FOREGROUND!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ijbu3bSqI
“Kirchhoff’s law of thermal emission (formulated in 1860) is presented and demonstrated to be invalid. This law is crucial to our understanding of radiation within arbitrary cavities. Kirchhoff’s law rests at the heart of condensed matter physics and astrophysics. Its collapse can be directly associated with 1) the loss of universality in Planck’s law (Planck’s constant and Boltzmann’s constant are no longer universal in nature), 2) the collapse of the gaseous Sun as described in Standard Solar Models, and 3) the inability of the Big Bang to act as the source of the microwave background.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hstum3U2zw
I like the way they say “scientists”. I have a degree in science but I have never been consulted about these “consensuses”.
There are 2 sciences: the one we get and the one the military gets. The military have a head start over us because their science actually works!
Application vindicates theory, mostly! They have applications we don’t even know about.
I was grateful for the chuckles it provided when I read one of these articles. But my question in all this is why these “researchers” even went there, instead of simply continuing to ignore the Great Wall of Iapetus’s existence and pretending it didn’t need an explanation.
Putting forward such a ridiculous “solution” is just drawing more attention to this incredible anomaly and all the other strangeness going on there, and making these people look like like disingenous hucksters playing the fool. To what end? What’s the payoff?