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NORTH KOREA, IRAN, AND GENERAL MATTIS’ ODD STATEMENT

In the past couple of days I've been indulging in some really wild high octane speculation, and I want to do the same today by recalling a story I've referred to before, and which has again been brought to my attention by G.B.

You'll recall that a strange series of events occurred prior to North Korea literally "coming to the table" and those historic meetings between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump. There were all sorts of "preparatory events" if one is willing to indulge in some speculative dot-connecting. For example, there was the explosion at the Chinese chemical plant in Tianjin, an explosion that I blogged about because of its inherently peculiar signature. You might recall that pictures were taken of the site after the explosion showing a remarkably deep crater. Indeed, the crater was more like a narrow cone than the type of crater that would result from a chemical explosion. This led some on the internet, me included, to speculate that perhaps the plant had been taken out by a so-called "rod of God" kinetic weapon launched from space. Many speculated that this was the USA "sending messages" to China, but I was a bit more skeptical of the "who" than the "what", though I entertained it as a possibility.

Then came the earthquakes near North Korea's nuclear facilities. You might recall that this collapsed  the mountain where much work was carried out, and we were told that it was "tired mountain syndrome," i.e., that the North Koreans had so honeycombed the mountain with tunnels and galleries that the earthquake collapsed it. As tensions between the USA and that country mounted, Mr. Trump's rhetoric became very bellicose.

And then there was this very strange event:

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis Weighs Using “Kinetic Weapon” On North Korea

And in this article from 2017, there is this:

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis hinted at using a kinetic weapon on Tuesday while discussing tensions with North Korea when he made a Freudian slip.

Mattis was asked whether there was “any military option the US can take with North Korea that would not put Seoul at grave risk,” Mattis responded, “Yes, there are, but I will not go into details.”

Later during the press conference, another reporter questioned Mattis and caught him off-guard:

“Just to clarify, you said that there were possible military options that would not create a grave risk to Seoul,” a reporter asked. “Are we talking kinetic options as well?”

“Yes, I don’t want to go into that,” Mattis responded.

What Mattis was referring to was this system, outlined later in the article:

However, the U.S. also has other kinetic weapons in its arsenal that would allow Trump to “totally destroy North Korea” — one of weapons system is the “Rods from God.”

What is the Rods from God? The “Rods from God” is a part of the directed energy weapon family; it’s a kinetic energy weapon.

The rods are directed munitions, the higher you are (the greater your distance from the planet), the greater the kinetic energy you have.

In 2004, published in Popular Science, Eric Adams writes:

A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods–up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter–that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes’ notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second–comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it’s buried deep underground. The two-platform configuration permits the weapon to be “reloaded” by just launching a new set of rods, rather than replacing the entire system.

In the final analysis Mattis' apparently inadvertent answer to the reporter's question is capable of two explanations: (1) He was deliberately putting out disinformation to the effect that the USA has already deployed such weapons in space, when it really hadn't, in order to bluff the North Koreans and force them to the table, or (2) he was admitting, apparently inadvertently, that it already has them and has already deployed them. Either way, if the intention was to force the North Koreans to the table, it worked, and for a very simple reason: no nation would want to take the gamble that the USA was not bluffing, not even North Korea.

Which brings us to Iran and a strange pattern in evidence once again. During the recent dramatic increase following the US drone attack on General Sulemeini, an earthquake occurred near that country's reactor facility. That could be merely a coincidence, as Iran is in an earthquake "hot zone," and tremors at or near the facility are a common occurrence. But the occurrence of a strong quake in the context of political tensions and events also fits another pattern that we've seen at work before: sell offs of Indonesian sovereign bonds without any explanation, and then, a week later, an earthquake and the dreadful Indonesian tsunami. Then there was the new government in Japan, requests for the USA to shut down its base in Okinawa, and the then US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' threat to Japan to change course, or there would be dire consequences. Then came the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. These types of events have led other researchers and I to posit the hypothesis that "natural events" in highly charged political contexts are probably not natural events, but the use of exotic technologies to send messages.

If this whole line of high octane speculation be true, then hovering in the background of the current tensions is General Mattis' remark, which no doubt the mullahs in Tehran are quietly and covertly pondering. And that quiet pondering might issue in "sudden and inexplicable changes of direction" just as it apparently did in North Korea's case.

And there's another party probably watching all these developments in Beijing, because, after all, to build out silk roads and railroads across Eurasia, there's one overriding problem: Railroads are permanent features on the landscape, and can thus be pinpointed for interdiction, and rods of God would certainly do the trick.

Just a thought.

See you on the flip side...

QUANTUM TUNNELING AND OPENING PORTALS

This article is a bit of fun, but also quite serious, and it seems apropos of the season that when Christians are celebrating the ultimate "portal opening" that scientists are  trying to come up with their own version. This story was spotted and shared by J.K. (thank you), and since we've discussed such topics many times in our vidchats and occassionally in public blogs on this site, it seems appropriate to do so again.

The fun part of this article comes from the fact that it's a tabloid newspaper, The NY Post, that's reporting it from last July:

Scientists are trying to open a portal to a parallel universe

In spite of the headline here, that scientists are trying to open a "portal", the experiment involves, I rather suspect, something else entirely, namely, quantum tunneling. Here's what's said about the experiment:

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in eastern Tennessee are trying to open a portal to a parallel universe.

The project — which has been compared to the Upside Down in the Netflix blockbuster “Stranger Things” — hopes to show a world identical to ours where life is mirrored.

Leah Broussard, the physicist leading the experiment, told NBC the plan is “pretty wacky” but will “totally change the game,” ahead of a series of experiments she plans to run this summer.

Broussard’s experiment will fire a beam of subatomic particles down a 50-foot tunnel. The beam will pass a powerful magnet and hit an impenetrable wall, with a neutron detector behind it.

If the experiment is successful, particles will transform into mirror images of themselves, allowing them to burrow right through the impenetrable wall. (Emphasis added)

Now why do I suspect that this is about quantum tunneling and not "opening portals"? Because quantum tunneling is the phenomenon whereby small atomic or sub-atomic particles somehow burrow their way through impenetrable barriers, usually very thin ones. In classical pre-quantum mechanical era physics, they should not be able to do this. What's interesting here, however, is that the "wall" appears to be thicker, and that the experiment is predicated on a hypothesis that many have thought to be the reality behind the phenomenon: the creation of "mirror images" of the particle impacting the barrier emerging on the other side of it. In other words, the particle doesn't really burrow through the barrier, but rather, knocks a particle in the barrier - a mirror image of itself - loose. In a way, it's a kind of entanglement. What  the article is suggesting is that this experiment is being conducted on much larger levels and scales than previous tunneling experiments, perhaps to see if the tunneling phenomenon itself can occur at much larger scales than hitherto thought. If so, then it would dovetail nicely with recent experiments demonstrating that entanglement itself can occur at much larger scales than previously thought.

But at the very end of the article, there's a statement that forms the matrix for today's high octane speculation:

However, there wouldn’t be an alternate version of you. Current theory, the outlet explains, only hypothesizes that mirror atoms and mirror rocks are possible — and perhaps even mirror planets and stars.

It's that statement that I take is the clue for the idea that the tunneling phenomenon may work at larger scales than once thought. But it's that statement that "there wouldn't be an alternate version of you," that really sent my high octane speculation motor into overdrive, for what it suggests is that there's no reason to expect that conscious intention has anything to do with the tunneling phenomenon.

Here I beg to differ, and strongly suspect that the exact opposite might be true. After all, at the heart of quantum mechanics is the Uncertainty Principle that one cannot measure the position and momentum of an electron at the same time, one must choose one or the other. And it's that act of choosing one or the other than put the Observer squarely in the center of modern physics,for before an  experiment is even performed, one has already determined the quality of its outcome based on that choice. This has led to a whole new focus on the Observer not only within physics, but within scientific studies of "the paranormal" (for want of a better expression). Anyone familiar with the work of retired materials science professor at the University of California, Dr. William Tiller, will be familiar with the astonishing results of his experiments in the ability of mere human intention to alter material or chemical states with measurable results. Similar experiments were performed during the USA's  covert and highly classified "remote viewing" experiments of the 1970s and 1980s.

Now apply that idea to the tunneling phenomenon: could it be rendered more, or less, efficient by human intentionality? I suspect so, and if I can think of it, rest assured, they have too, but we'll probably never hear about the results of those experiments...

See you on the flip side...

 

 

 

USAF GENERAL: HIDDEN SPACE TECH?

There's been a lot of space news recently, from studies increasingly questioning whether or not so-called dark matter actually exists, to a quiet debate on whether or not the U.S.A. should disclose at least some of its hidden technology. That debate may have been more or less recently settled as a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General, Steven Kwast, has recently given a speech, and authored an opinion piece, which has had some circles of the internet buzzing with speculation. And since speculation is what we do here, and since these two articles were sent to me by all sorts of people, this story became one of this week's "must blog" topics. The article was written earlier this year in March, and more recently, General Kwast spoke to Hillsdale College.

Here's the two stories, and thanks to all who sent these along:

Space diplomacy: A better way to combat China's challenge

Recently Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow Raising Claims About Advanced Space Technology

What has many on the internet buzzing are two comments being made in these two articles. From the first article:

To avoid this, the United States needs a more robust national focus on space and a strategy that enables the diplomatic use of space as a whole-of-society approach. What if, in addition to GPS, the United States and its allies provided 5G global broadband access with assured freedom of access anywhere in the world for pennies? What if the United States brought life-giving payloads and personnel to bear to within a half-meter anywhere in the world within about 30 minutes of launch? What if the United States underwrote the security of allied spacecraft and managed collection of global space debris? All of this is within easy technological reach today. Enabling technologies such as fully-reusable launch vehicles will increasingly expand this capability as costs begin, in time, to approach those of aviation. (Emphasis added)

What raises the eyebrows here is the claim to be able to deliver "life-giving payloads and personnel" to "within a half-meter anywhere in the world within about 30 minutes of launch". Of course, that capability has existed, in one form, since the late 1950s and 1960s, and it's called the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. And certain Kwast has framed his remarks in such a fashion as to suggest that something similar is in mind when he refers to "fully-reusable launch vehicles." In other words, we're to think in terms of sophisticated rockets, perhaps with a launch-and-land capability.

But then there's this remark from his address to Hillsdale College:

Kwast ultimately makes the case that the United States must be able to bring kinetic power, non-kinetic power, and informational power to the battlefield cheaper and faster than its adversaries in order to ensure strategic advantage in space.

Around the 12:00 mark in the speech, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:

"The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour."(Emphasis added)

One must assume that General Kwast would not be talking about such things publicly without having cleared it first with higher-ups. Indeed, given the recent discussion on whether or not the USA should publicly reveal some of the technologies it has secretly developed, it could be argued that Kwast's remarks are an indicator that the decision has been taken to do so. His comments about space diplomacy could therefore be interpreted that the revelation of these capabilities is a component of a wider diplomatic policy beginning to emerge.

What interests me, however, are the technological implications of his remarks. In the above remarks, for example, General Kwast appears to confirm the existence of kinetic weapons with his reference to "kinetic power." Many have long suspected that the USA may have weaponized space already with so-called "rod of God" kinetic weapons, able to generate enormous explosive energies simply through the sheer velocity of high masses impacting the surface of the Earth. Some, for example, speculated that the explosion at the Chinese chemical plant at Tianjin may have been a demonstration of such a weapon, and I was one of those considering it. More recently, during one of the North Korea kerfuffles, an American general stated that "all options" were on the table. A reported was overheard to ask if that included "kinetic weapons," and the general's simple response was, "Yes." President Trump himself may have got in on the act with his own comments about highly destructive weapons that were not nuclear in nature.

What intrigues me even more, however, are the implications of his remarks at the end of the above quotation: "This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour." What intrigues me here, though I readily admit that it is more than possible I am parsing his words too closely, is that the mention of reusable launch vehicles is entirely missing from the context, as is the mention of "life-giving payloads." Nor is it entirely clear from his remarks that the delivery to "any other place in less than an hour" means necessarily a delivery to a place on the planet Earth. Indeed, he seems to go somewhat out of his way to mention "planet Earth" as the point of sortie, but does not repeat the phrase in the target phase of his remarks: "to any other place" is what he says, not "to any other place on planet Earth."

Generals don't mangle words; orders have to be carefully written so as to be entirely clear to the subordinates receiving them. Many months ago I blogged about the case of another American general who gave a speech to young officers about the future need for soldiers to be ready to combat "little green men." Those words, in the context of all the talk then occurring about space and the need for an American space force and space command, carried a certain weight and implication, notwithstanding the attempt of some to spin them as well-known  US Army code and slang for Russians dressed in their green camo fatigues. If the general was referring to that, then he was making his words do double duty, for he would also fully know how his words would have been understood in the wider culture.  I suspect we're dealing with a similar phenomenon here: General Kwast has carefully constructed his words, to allow for a full range of interpretative possibilities, both terrestrial and off-planet. Much more importantly, the omission of any reference to "reusable launch vehicles" from his second set of remarks may indicate that other even more exotic technologies are also in play...

See you on the flip side...

NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE NEFARIUM NOV 20 2019

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Space... the final frontier... at least, it may be for NATO. But Joseph has some suspicions about what may be behind this latest attempt to expand NATO's remit:

NATO To Make Outer Space Next "Operational Domain"Space is essential to NATO’s defence and deterrence

Space is essential to NATO’s defence and deterrence

NATO Defence Ministers approve new space policy, discuss readiness and mission in Afghanistan

THE CIA REMOTE VIEWED MARS IN 1984

This was passed along by S.B., and it's definitely worth pondering. Most of the readership of this website is familiar with the USA's and Russia's remote viewing projects of the 1970s and 1980s. These projects were conducted in the greatest secrecy, and revealed some rather astonishing results, not the least of which was that humans possess, to varying degrees, a kind of natural faculty of being able to envision very remote locations and times simply by "tuning into" them according to certain carefully worked out protocols. There was nothing psychic or "occult" about it, but rather, it appeared to be a component of the natural rational faculty of human nature itself.

As is now known, the CIA sponsored a remote viewing of Mars in 1984, and here's the original document:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001900760001-9.pdf

While the reviewer is not known according to the document, it is now assumed to be Joseph McMoneagle, one of the early and most successful of the US covert and secret remote viewing projects:

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vision_remota/esp_visionremota_35.htm

The initial coordinates given to McMoneagle were 40.89 degrees north and 9.55 degrees west on the planet Mars. This is where it gets interesting, because in the protocols of "coordinate remote viewing," the actual physical appearance of a site are not known to the viewer. All he or she is given is simply a set of coordinates, and then told to draw a picture, or describe what he or she sees there.  What's remarkable about this set of coordinates is that the CIA was really asking McMoneagle to view the Cydonia region on Mars, home of the celebrated "Face" and "D&M Pyramid". McMoneagle described, as one can read, seeing not only pyramidal forms, but massive dust storms, and then very tall thin "people," a point in itself intriguing, for given Mars' much lower gravity than Earth, it is possible that its inhabitants, if any, might have been comparatively taller.

McMoneagle goes on to describe other pyramidal structures as structures from storms. He again describes a tall thin and ancient people, who realize their species is dying, and that it sent a group to look for another place to live, after a major cataclysm of some sort which he describes as "cosmic."

So why am I bothering you with this? After all, while interesting, it's only one document recording one such session. Beyond the transcript itself, we're told nothing of the session's specific protocols, nor if there were any follow-up sessions.

But I rather suspect my reasons for bringing this to the attention of the reader are evident: whatever one may think of such things as remote viewing, the fact that US intelligence was willing to resort to it as a means of space exploration means that in all likelihood this session was not a one-off, nor that McMoneagle was the only such viewer involved. In all likelihood, other viewers were tasked with viewing the same coordinates in the same time, and their results were probably not shared with the viewers, but correlated by those running the sessions. They could thus be used to determine landing sites and so on. And one may be relatively certain that similar experiments were being run in the Soviet Union, and in every other space program, as well.

But there's another possibility, one that surely must have occurred to those running these types of experiments, and that is suggested by the phenomenon of "coordinate viewing at a distance" of millions of miles, namely, that if there is a faculty in human nature permitting such things to be done, then that faculty may also hold the key to exotic means of propulsion as well. This implies that perhaps one reason that we're told the remote viewing program was "shut down" was simply that the program was not shut down, but rather, shunted into far more secret programs of research into exotic propulsion technologies.

Or to put it country simple: if it was part and parcel of a secret space program in 1984, you can bet your last nickel that it's a part of that secret space program now.

See you on the flip side...

 

 

CHINA’S EARTH-MOON FREE TRADE ZONE

This very important, and very intriguing, story was spotted and shared both by C.J.M. and G.B., and this one has my high octane speculation motor running in overdrive. The context? China wants to establish an Earth-Moon free trade zone that it estimates would net that country about $10 trillion in revenue. But there's something that caught my eye. Here's the Zero Hedge version of the story:

China To Establish $10 Trillion Economic Zone In Space

And by way of comparison, the RT version of the story:

Space economy: China wants to set up $10 trillion Earth-Moon economic zone

If one compares the RT vs Zero Hedge version of this story, one notes some rather significant omissions from the RT version. The question is, why. When one reads the Zero Hedge version, there are perhaps some hints, if one contemplates the implication of certain statements carefully:

... Beijing's next project to boost commerce is more ambitious than anything seen on earth before. Literally.

According to the Global Times, China plans to establish an Earth-moon space economic zone by 2050, which is expected to generate $10 trillion worth of services per year. The zone will cover areas of space near Earth, the moon and in between.

Bao Weimin, director of the Science and Technology Commission of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, revealed the ambitious plan at a seminar last week on the space economy, Chinese media reported Friday. CAST is a state-owned company focused on researching, making and launching carrier rockets, satellites, spacecraft and space stations.

Perhaps because by 2050 all of China will be one giant free trade zone (even though the US Trade war will still not be over), the proposed zone will cover areas of space near Earth, the moon and in between, Weimin said, adding that companies involved in basic industries, application exploration and development will feature at the zone, which will focus on three key fields: interspace transport, space resource detection and space-based infrastructure.

In a report on developing earth and moon space, Bao shared his thoughts on the economic potential in this field and pledged that the country would study its reliability, cost and flight-style transportation system between the Earth and moon, The Science and Technology Daily reported Friday.

He pledged to complete basic research and make a breakthrough on key technologies before 2030 and establish the transportation system by 2040. By 2050, China could successfully establish an earth-moon space economic zone, he said.

In other words, while the US contemplates a Green New Deal, China is set to counter with a "Space New Deal", which would likely cost tens of trillions too.

I've deliberately refrained from italicizing the two points that caught my eye, for the purpose of pointing out that there were indeed two points that caught my eye, and I'm wondering if they caught yours as well. Here is the relevant portion of the quotation again, this time with the emphasis on the two points:

In a report on developing earth and moon space, Bao shared his thoughts on the economic potential in this field and pledged that the country would study its reliability, cost and flight-style transportation system between the Earth and moon, The Science and Technology Daily reported Friday.

He pledged to complete basic research and make a breakthrough on key technologies before 2030 and establish the transportation system by 2040. By 2050, China could successfully establish an earth-moon space economic zone, he said.

In other words, while the US contemplates a Green New Deal, China is set to counter with a "Space New Deal", which would likely cost tens of trillions too. (Emphases added)

So in addition to costing trillions of dollars, China is studying the cost and "reliability," meaning the risk factors of such a trade zone. The implications of these statements is therefore rather stunning. Consider the cost-risk assessment angle alone. For China to be willing to invest such heavy long-term financial commitment, that will run to the trillions, must mean that on the positive-asset side of the balance sheet, there must be much "up there" both in terms of resources and commerce that outweighs any outlay. Ferdinand and Isabella did not invest massive amounts of their own money in Columbus on a lark: the dividends, they knew, far exceeded the outlay. The question is, what in terms of resources and more importantly, commerce, are the Chinese thinking about? Obviously, control of lunar resources for resale to terrestrial customers would be a huge monopoly, one requiring, incidentally, the minimalization of risk or threats to that commerce from any other party, requiring therefore a similar commitment to studying and developing the means of deep space protection of that trade, i.e., China's plans require the weaponization of space. But does China have in mind a free trade zone for "non-terrestrial" customers? Perhaps...

But there's something else about that cost-risk assessment that caught my eye, and that was Mr. Bao's pledge to "make a breakthrouogh on key technologies before 2030," and that strongly suggests that China is looking at transport technologies other than chemical or even nuclear rockets, for after all, those things, for all the sophistication that technology can bring to them, remain essentially risky technologies; they're prone to failure, open to sabotage, tend to blow up on launch pads, and so on. Additionally, the return cargoes they can carry are small. Some other method is needed, and that will require "a breakthrough on key technologies."

So China has from one point of view admitted it has its own "secret space program," one investigating more exotic methods of propulsion, and additionally, it's literally and to coin a pun banking on those technologies. In this respect, it's essential to recall that a few years ago China did its own successful test of the so-called electromagnetic or microwave drive. Perhaps in their experiments they obtained certain results that they are not sharing. Maybe, for example, they modified that EM microwave field by rotating it... who knows? But one does not spend trillions to make trillions in an Earth-Moon free trade zone, just on chemical rockets...

See you on the flip side...

CO-ORBITAL OBJECTS AND ET MONITORING

V.T. spotted this one, and it's one of those articles that make you go "hmmm...". In my case, I'm not only going "hmmm," but my suspicion meter is into the red zone bordering on purple. But we'll get back to today's high octane speculative suspicion in a moment.

The article concerns itself with recently discovered "co-orbital objects" which have at least one scientist wondering if they might be "extraterrestrial probes" put in place to monitor us:

Newly Discovered “Co-Orbital Objects” Could Be Extraterrestrial Probes Watching Us

The article begins by noting the anomaly:

The Facts: A recently published paper by Physicist Dr James Benford in the Astronomical Journal hypothesizes that newly discovered near-Earth objects (there are many thousands) might be a hub for extraterrestrial 'probes' to monitor the human race.

It goes on to offer this:

Physicist Dr James Benford, a member of SETI, recently published a paper hypothesizing that we are perhaps being monitored. The study was published in the Astronomical Journal.

There are many who share this belief, including former Senator Mike Gravel, who said in an interview that ‘Something is monitoring the planet, and they Are monitoring it very cautiously.’ I personally believe that our race has been known about for a very long time and we are indeed being monitored by an extraterrestrial presence. Why? Well, perhaps the planet is more important than we are. Perhaps we are a threat to others and the planet? There are a number of different scenarios one could hypothesize.

Dr. Norman Bergrun, a scientist and engineer who was part of NASA’s voyager program and worked at NASA for decades at the Ames Research Centre,  made it a clear point in his book, “Ringmakers of Saturn” to emphasize that these objects (which are intelligently controlled, according to him, by extraterrestrials) have probably been around much longer than we have. He also states that if there was any ill intent towards our planet, something probably would have happened by now .He also worked at Lockheed Martin where he managed the Polaris missile tests. Unfortunately, he recently passed. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of his book from one of his family members.

I share the belief that if there was any ill intent or that the ET presence represented some sort of threat, something would have already happened by now.

And toward the beginning of the article we get the usual "disclosure spin":

On the other hand, we have a great deal of information that has yet to hit the mainstream alluding to the fact that we, or at least some of us, know for a fact that we are not alone, and have been privy to the evidence suggesting that we have been visited in the past, and are being visited now.

This evidence comes in the form of witness testimony from astronauts like Dr. Edgar Mitchell, for example, who has told the world on multiple occasions that deep within the Department of Defense and the Military Industrial Complex, it’s well known that we are being visited and have been visited, and that a massive cover-up has been on going for a number of years. Dr. Brian O’Leary is another great example of an astronaut who has spoken out. There have been multiple insider leaks, as well as academicians and hundreds of high ranking military personnel from around the world who have also said the same thing.

...

Louis Elizondo, a former high ranking Department of Defense official and part of the TTSA academy that released multiple videos of UFOs from the Navy (which the Navy recently confirmed were real) has said that he believes these objects are extraterrestrial, but officially, they’ve purposefully stayed away from this question because a lot of people have “feelings” towards it.

Needless to say, I have problems with all of this kind of analysis, and that's the subject of today's high octane suspicion. In case you haven't noticed, there's been a slight "uptick" in this type of UFO reportage lately, even in the lamestream media. No less than the New York Times, for example, reported on the Louis Elizondo story, with its accompanying videos and pictures. Color me skeptical simply for the reason that we have known " connections between that paper, and between Elizondo, and that "community", and everyone knows that the the intelligence "community" doesn't lie, right? And as for Mitchell and O'Leary, we have a similar epistemological problem, for as astronauts they are connected to the government, and this government has never lied about anything, right, with maybe the exception of the JFK assassination, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, the BCCI scandal, Iran Contra, the financial meltdown and bailouts, the missing trillions of dollars, and a few other minor things. So if tomorrow the government would suddenly "come clean" and announce the presence of ET, why should anyone believe them on this one issue? (And there's that pesky problem mentioned by Richard C. Hoagland in his book Dark Mission, that there are indicators that the Apollo astronauts may have been deliberately subjected to some sort of mind and memory manipulation. And those techniques and technologies certainly exist and did exist at the time. But I digress.)

My other problem is one which I've addressed previously, and that is the assumption that the "visitors" pose no threat. If they were a class III civilization on the Kardashev scale, probably not. But if class I or II, then maybe they do, especially if one factors in my speculations that humanity has already achieved the ability to engineer systems on planetary and perhaps even stellar scales. If that's the case, then one might be looking at a kind of "interplanetary" version of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Don't get me wrong: if the ancient cosmic war hypothesis, and its corollary, the ancient Versailles Template hypothesis, is true, then it stands to reason the victors would establish a network to "watch" the planet and its scrappy inhabitants to make sure they don't break out of the quarantine-demilitarized zone around some celestial version of the demilitarized Rhineland. And while we're speculating, there's also always the possibility that "they", like some celestial France, have simply grown tired and too weary to confront the upstarts across the river.

See you on the flip side...

HUMAN “ENHANCEMENT” AND THE TRANSHUMANIST SPACE AGENDA

There's a school of thought out there that has been gaining some traction in the past few years, and it's time to pay attention to it. That school of thought thinks that (1) the future of humanity is in space, and that we must "go to the stars", and (2) in order to do so, we need not only (a) exotic new technologies, things like ion propulsion, warp drives, "anti-gravity" and so on, but also (b) a fundamental "enhancement" or modification of the humans destined to do so. It is point (2(b)) with which we are concerned today. It could, perhaps, be argued that this point is the fusion of the transhumanist agenda with that of space. It's important to distinguish what's going on here, between the "technology traditionalists" - and I would definitely number myself in that camp - and the "transhumanist space explorers", which are newcomers in a certain sense to the debate on space.

For the "technology traditionalists", the idea of a sustainable and permanent human presence in space and an interplanetary extension of that presence is not possible without the achievement of exotic propulsion and artificial environment technologies. As I've stated on many occasions, chemical rockets and tiny little "space capsules" simply are not going to be adequate to the job. If you've wondered why, with all the talk of missions to Mars and space hotels and asteroid mining and returning to the Moon, nothing is ever actually accomplished towards those ends of any real practical nature, this is why, and everyone in the space agencies from India, to China, Russia, Japan, and NASA knows it. This is why NASA has a whole division investigating exotic propulsion technologies, including the idea of warp drives. In fact, as I've indicated on a number of occasions and blogs, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has made it a goal that the USA be "warp capable" in a century.

But the newer approach is that which I'm calling the "transhumanist space explorers," who admit the need for all the exotic propulsion, but who are also arguing that a sustained and permanent human presence in space requires not just the exotic technological modifications of our ideas of propulsion and space travel, artificial environments, life support, habitats, and so on, but also of the human being himself. It is this meme that one sees increasingly being argued and advanced in recent years, and the following article shared by G.L.R. can be seen as a kind of summary of this school of thought:

Why Human Enhancement is Necessary for Successful Human Deep-space Missions

The opening abstract says it all:

The principal challenges lie in current space technology and engineering which includes the protection of astronauts from the hazards of working and living in the space environment. These challenges may lead to a paradoxical situation where progress in space technology and the ability to ensure acceptable risk/benefit for human space exploration becomes dissociated and the rate of scientific discovery declines. In this paper, we discuss the predominant challenges of the space environment for human health and argue that development and deployment of a human enhancement policy, initially confined to astronauts – for the purpose of future human space programmes is a rational solution to these challenges. (Emphases added)

And there's much context to suggest that the authors of this paper - Konrad Szocik and Martin Braddock - may have something quite fundamental and perhaps "drastic" in mind:

In this paper, we argue that human astronauts should be augmented for deep-space mission at the pre-launch stage in an alternative way from that offered by space agencies today. Current procedures include the inclusion of countermeasures such as diet, exercise, pharmaceuticals and anti-radiation shielding. Pharmaceutical efficacy may be limited to missions which are not longer than 2 years which may challenge a human mission to Mars which may last about 3 years. Astronaut augmentation may include a human enhancement programme based in part on genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics and cognitive science adaptation (Roco and Bainbridge 2003Roco, M.C., and Bainbridge, W.S., 2003. Converging technologies for improving human performance: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Chien and Wagstaff 2017Chien, S. and Wagstaff, K.L., 2017. Robotic space exploration agents. Sci. Robot, 2, eaan4831.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Gao and Chien 2017Gao, Y. and Chien, S., 2017. Review on space robotics: toward top-level science through space exploration. Sci. Robot., 2, eaan5074.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). If we assume that the space environment may require enhancement of future astronauts, it is essential to ensure a clear rationale11 The issue of rationale for human missions to Mars and other human deep space missions is discussed in detail in Szocik (2019Szocik, K., 2019. Should and could humans go to Mars? Yes, but not now and not in the near future. Futures, 105, 54–66.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).View all notes for doing so as sending astronauts to such a hostile environment without consideration of appropriate countermeasures is unethical. Accepting that enhancement is a necessity, and assuming a favourable cost–benefit analysis, parameters such as invasiveness, reversibility or heritability must be considered. This will take into account long-term effects such as the risk of irreversibility of enhancements.

THe authors then discuss various methods of achieving this 'enhancement', including genetic modification, pharmaceutical enhancement of cognitive abilities, and so on. And lest the extent of their idea is not understood, toward the end of their article they state this:

What types of artificial capabilities could or should be applied to astronauts in future? One of the most desirable capacities in space may be living without a life support system. This opportunity would require breathing unaided in the Martian atmosphere but as terraforming appears even more challenging than previously thought, the only currently achievable solution is the life support system, at either an individual level or a population level such as in a biosphere.

In the final analysis, what their paper is really arguing is that space affords the opportunity to "enhance" humanity - that it to say, modify it so fundamentally - that one may question whether or not the result remains human. Indeed, from their point of view, it is an ethical requirement. One can easily see how the whole transhumanist-alchemical agenda of crawling back up the ladder from animal, to vegetable, to mineral man could be rationalized by an appeal to the necessity for it in order for humans to function in space: need to function in a radiation rich environment? modify the human genome by splicing in the genes of those plants and bacteria that actually feed on radiation; need a stable food supply? Splice in the genes responsible for photosynthesis in plants (and thereby make "green men"). Need to be able to expand cognitive function and inter-personal communications? Make the perfect cyborg-human with built-in bio-computer interfaces, chip the brain. Need to be able to make quick surgical repair of damaged cells and body parts? Fill the lymph and circulatory system with nanobots able to do so, and so on.

Ok, maybe so. But where is today's trademark high octane speculation? Well, for one thing, we've heard this story before. In fact, we've heard it thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of years ago. The wars of the "gods" or of the angels and demons might not be mere metaphor, but an actual physical cosmic reality. Those ancient texts also say something else: we once lived a whole lot longer. And they also say something else yet again: that at some point, those gods or angels or demons, came down from their heavenly perch and mixed and mingled with us, and some would argue that we were genetically "tinkered with", and that we(or at least, some of us), now, are the result of that experiment. So the real question, for those lending credence to such ideas, is this: were those ancient "enhancements" made for precisely the same purpose, to permit a permanent "human" interplanetary presence? Or, conversely, were they made by the "interplanetary powers that were" to prevent it?

See you on the flip side...

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMM…”: INDIA’S LOST ...

India, as regular readers of this website are aware, is making a huge push to become a "space power" in recent years, having successfully made no less than 28 launches in a week, a few months ago. Stop and think about simply the management and logistical problems associated with doing so many (successful) launches in such a short time, even for a country like India with some of the finest scientists and mathematicians in the world. Messages were definitely being sent with that accomplishment, namely, that India can put a bunch of stuff up in space - in, say, an emergency - if it has to.

But like Israel, it recently lost, then (unlike Israel) found again, a lunar lander - Vikram - which it was attempting to land near the south pole of the Moon. As it turns out, there are a few things about this that are a little "puzzling," and as one might guess, they're the subject of today's high octane speculation. For one thing, nations other than the US, China, and Russia seem to be having a spot of trouble getting their landers down safely on Luna. Israel, for example, recently lost its lunar probe. But in the case of India's Vikram, all sorts of things have me wondering. For example, the selection of the south pole, ostensibly because it is looking for water strongly suspected to be there in craters, in the form of ice. But I have to wonder if there were possibly some other explanations for India's interest.

For example: recall  NASA's "L-CROSS" mission a few years ago. Remember that one? NASA built up a lot of public hype about the fact that it intended to deliberately crash the L-CROSS near the south pole of the Moon, and we were all led to believe that the impact would be so great that one could see it "live" from the Earth, the message being "get out your telescopes and binoculars and cook the popcorn, this is going to be big fun!" Sure enough, L-CROSS slammed into the Moon alright, but... next to nothing, and certainly nothing visible from the Earth. But there was an unusual signature, that of something that had broken through a hard surface only to encounter empty space below. That, anyway, was the explanation of the alternative research field's well-known space and science analyst Richard C. Hoagland, who posted an extensive analysis of the (non-) event on his website, enterprisemission.com. To make a very long analysis and story short, what Mr. Hoagland argued was that the impact did not have nearly the visibility that it would have had had it impacted something solid, rather than something with an empty space beneath it. Later, it was discovered that all sorts of unusual stuff had been kicked up by the impact as well. And, lest we forget, Mr. Hoagland thought it extremely unusual and perhaps significant that "L-CROSS" may have had a sinister significance, for if one "crosses" four "L's" one gets... a swastika. So that provides a bit of a context for why, perhaps, India wanted to land its Vikram lander in the region... perhaps it was intending to explore for the possibilities of hollow spaces - caverns or other structures beneath the surface. Indeed, it rather strains the imagination to think that India was not aware of more than a little strangeness about NASA's L-CROSS mission.

Which brings us to Vikram itself. As most now know, India lost contact with the lander during its final descent phase, and then later discovered that its probe had indeed landed, but that it was probably not in any shape for them to make contact with it. Prime Minister Mohdi then appeared at a press conference with the project's head, when he made a point, on camera, to turn to the gentleman, hug him warmly, and tell him that it was not his fault. We'll get back to the idea that Mr. Mohdi may possibly have been sending messages with that statement. But first, J.H. spotted this graph of the lander's descent, and passed it along to me:

The comment accompanying this graph in the email said it all: "Fascinating amount of 'hang time'" for the last portion of Vikram's descent. Indeed,  less than a kilometer from the lunar surface, apparently all contact was lost, and the Vikram crashed into the surface. "It's not your fault."

Now, before I crawl way out past the end of the high octane speculation twig once again, and speculate far beyond any publicly available evidence, take a look at this story shared by K.B.:

Orbiter has spotted Vikram lander, signals elusive: Isro

Consider for a moment the implication of the article, that India is somewhat optimistic about picking up the Vikram's transponder signal, and is trying to establish communications with the probe, even though it does not know the exact condition of the probe. Then consider this story shared by M.W.:

US Air Force Begins 2019 Space Wargame

Firstly, note this from the end of the article:

The scenario depicts a notional peer competitor seeking to achieve strategic goals by exploiting multi-domain operations.

Additionally, the scenario also includes a full spectrum of threats across diverse, multi-domain operating environments to challenge civilian and military leaders, planners and space system operators, as well as the capabilities they employ, Air Force officials said.

The Schriever Wargame 19 team is conducting this wargame on behalf of Air Force Space Command, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Last year's Schriever Wargame, which also took place at Maxwell Air Force Base, lasted two weeks.

And then note this curious thing about the author of the article:

Leonard David is author of the recently released book, "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom orFacebook. 

As one might imagine, the timing of this wargame, of this drill, to coincide with the landing of India's lunar probe near the south lunar pole - site of NASA's L-CROSS (non-) event - I find more than a little curious. In fact, you can call me crazy, but I think it's downright suspicious. As many people in the alternative research field have pointed out, drills or wargames are often used to cloak or piggy-back very real operations. Think only of 9/11. Then there's the fact that the author of the article, Leonard David, wrote a book on the new space race to the Moon. Couple that with the drill's ostensible purpose of depicting "a notional peer competitor" (like India, maybe?), and you get the idea.

Or to put it country simple: was this first wargame/drill of the US Space Command used to cloak an actual "take-out" of India's lunar probe? Possibly, for there is that graph of Vikram's descent, where everything appears to be going fine until the last kilometer or so, when India loses contact. And then there's Prime Minister Mohdi's public statement and behavior to the head of India's space agency: "I know it's not your fault."  Perhaps Mr. Mohdi wasn't merely making a public show of support for his space agency's chief, but also sending a message: it was someone else's fault.

See you on the flip side...

THE UK, AUSTRALIA, ITALY, (AND CHINA) AND SPACE…

There's a strange article out of Australia that a regular reader, J.D., shared, and it has my mind working at the end of the high octane speculation twig. The story concerns Australia and its space program. Normally, most people don't think of Australia as a country with much of an interest in space, nor infrastructure to sustain a large space program. We'll get back to that point in a moment, but just for the record, Australia, like most of the Allied countries in World War Two, made off with some Nazi technological loot in the form of a few V-2 rockets. So the interest has always been there. In the period after the war, Australia was the place chosen by Great Britain to test its independently developed a-bombs and later, h-bombs. More recently, there is quiet discussion in Australia about developing its own nuclear weapons, but that's another story for  another time. The point of all this context is simply this: while the space infrastructure might be small, the talent pool is not, and things might be set for that small infrastructure to expand in coming years, and dramatically so. Again, we'll get back to that. Here's the story that J.D. caught and passed along:

Space jobs goal 'realistic' despite inclusion of lawyers, submarine builders and NBN workers

What caught my eye in this article and set me off on my trek to the end of the high octane speculation twig, was this:

Australia's fledgling space agency has "actually been noticed" by the international community, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

But questions remain over whether Australia can meets its goal of trebling jobs within the local space sector inside a decade.

Mr Morrison revealed the Australian Space Agency featured in talks with UK and Italian counterparts at the G7 meeting in France overnight.

He said he was "thrilled" and that there was a "keenness" from the United Kingdom and Italy to engage.

The Agency's goal is to add 20,000 jobs to the space sector (estimated to currently employ 10,000 people) by 2030. (Emphasis added)

This little bit of news - that the United Kingdom and Italy - expressed an interest in Australia's space agency during the recent G7 summit caught my eye, for those two countries are of course the two countries most at odds with Berlin ...er... the European Union. Recent events in Italy  might change that in the short term, as the leader of the M5s party has entered into negotiations with the Democratic party to form a new coalition with (you guessed it) recently retired prime minister Giuseppi Conte as the prime minister. In the long term, however, if there is a return to the policies of Berlin Brussels, that government, I suspect, will not be long for the world, even for an Italian government. Which leaves Italy once again with the problem of with whom to do business, and what kinds of business it wants to do. Space is a natural choice, and if Italy does leave the EU, or modifies its commitments to it, its participation in the European Space Agency my be modified. In other words, in or out of the EU, Italy needs to not put all of its space eggs in one basket. Enter Australia.

Then there's the United Kingdom, and the new Johnson Government. As I will review in the News and Views from the Nefarium, Mr. Johnson has requested that the Crown suspend parliament in order to prevent any last minute law-making which would prevent a hard Brexit on October 31st. This the Queen has done. Mr. Johnson has reiterated his commitment to move forward with Brexit and demonstrated it by his request (though, as I shall mention in my News and Views, I suspect there might be some factors in play that run a bit counter to the public narrative). A hard Brexit would mean the departure of Great Britain from the European Space Agency, and for the British aerospace industry, a replacement has to be found. Prior to the Brexit referendum, I predicted that if indeed British voters approved a Brexit, that the response would be to revivify the Commonwealth in the form of a trading (and cultural) bloc, and this appears to be what might be behind these talks. So herewith a small prediction: look for Australia to beef up its space program - and especially its satellite launching capability - with bi-lateral trade and technology deals, and particularly with Britain.  Italy, I suspect, will come along eventually.

Hovering in the background here, of course, is China, and from the geopolitical point of view, Australia needs that expansion of its own independent space capability, which such agreements could provide. If and when Trudeau's government falls in Canada, watch for some interesting meetings on space matters to take place between the big three of the Commonwealth: the U.K., Australia, and Canada.

See you on the flip side...

FRANCE ANNOUNCES IT WILL WEAPONIZE SPACE WITH LASER SATELLITES

There's more space news out folks, courtesy of this story shared by K.M. And it's very intriguing space news at that, because France has announced that it plans to deploy satellites armed with powerful lasers to protect French space-based assets, and this comes shortly after the French President announced the formation of a French space force:

France to launch ‘fearsome’ satellites ‘armed with powerful lasers’ into space

There's more than meets the eye behind these lines:

It sounds like something out of a James Bond adventure, but France is to launch satellites armed with ‘powerful lasers’ into space.

The French Defense Minister Florence Parly said France was not being sucked into an arms race - and insisted the satellites would only be used to defend French space vehicles.

She said that the creation of a new French ‘space command’ announced by the president was central to a strategy to bolster defense capabilities, rather than offensive.

'If we want to be able to carry out real military operations in space, then we need to develop the ability to act alone,' Parly said, speaking at the Lyon-Mont Verdun air base.

'We reserve the right and the means to be able to respond: That could imply the use of powerful lasers deployed from our satellites or from patrolling nano-satellites.'  (Emphasis added)

The rationale here is almost exactly the same as that behind President De Gaulle's decision to develop an independent French thermonuclear and strategic missile capability back in the late 1950s, the so-called force de frappe: France, if it was to remain truly sovereign and independent, and not subject to the dictates of Moscow or, more importantly, Washington, had to have the capability to "act alone" (to quote the current article) and to possess the "right and the means to be able to respond" (to quote the current article once again).  As a result, France, which could not destroy either country "several times over" did develop the capability - which it still has, incidentally - to deal a crushing and perhaps fatal blow to both. It was the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine, French-style.

Something similar is operating here, particularly in the light of Mr. Trump's announcement of an American space force.

But there's something else operating, and it's even more important. Recently Europe completed a build out of its own financial clearing system independently of the American-dominated SWIFT system based (conveniently enough) in Brussels. Russia and China have been putting the final touches on their own system, and the Japanese of course have a clearing system in widespread use in the western Pacific, think of it as their World War Two "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," version 2.0. All of these clearing systems are heavily reliant upon space-based communications assets, and they need to be defended. The real question is, defended from whom? The answer, given recent opposition to American unipolarism, is that they need to be defended from American space-based weapons.

So where's the high octane speculation here? So far, there isn't any. These countries are acting in their national interests, and that's to be expected. The real question, in France's case, is whether this capability is to be included in the common European military that Paris and Berlin have signaled they want to create. That remains to be seen, but with the integration a few years ago of large French and German defense contractors (See: German, French defense companies to merge) it could be that this is another step in military integration. If not - and time alone will tell - then one can expect similar moves from the other European powers to  create their own space forces.

Again, there's no high octane speculation here. So what, exactly, is my high octane speculation about all of this development of other systems of international financial clearing, with their inevitably corollary, the development of space forces to protect them? To understand my high octane speculation concerning all of this, one has to ignore the Earth-based geopolitics behind it all, and look at the development whole, and independently of that geopolitics. When one does so, an intriguing picture emerges, for what is being built out is redundancy in international financial clearing, with European, Russo-Chinese, and Japanese systems being added to the American-dominated SWIFT system. Four levels of redundancy. If, for whatever reason, the SWIFT system is taken out, three others remain to step into the void. And building out such redundancy - and the means to protect them  - is exactly what one would do if one were trying to protect those planetary systems from interdiction by "someone else." In other words, what I am suggesting is that terrestrial geopolitical motivations for doing so, while legitimate, might not be the only nor the deepest reason for doing so. I'm reminded of the observation of the late Colonel Philip Corso in his well-known book The Day After Roswell, where he stated that the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine which lay behind the massive themonuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (not to mention the nuclear stockpiles of the United Kingdom, France, China, and later India and Pakistan)  was as much about deterring that "someone else" as it was about deterring each other. And while we're thinking along these lines, lasers may be adequate for defending satellites or taking others out. But the real question left unanswered in the French announcement is the frequency range of those satellite-based lasers. Might this be a cover for lasers operating in the gamma-ray range of the spectrum, for GRASERS? (Gamma-ray lasers). If so, then we're looking at a defensive capability that could easily become an offensive capability, and a potentially strategic one at that.

If that sounds like science fiction, then recall Reagan's "Star Wars" concept, and the fact that the USA at the time was talking about x-ray lasers, which would have required a nuclear explosion in space to create the x-rays to be cohered into a laser beam. The rumor at the time was that when Dr. Edward Teller phoned the White House after a nuclear underground test, he was phoning to inform Reagan that the concept had worked. The only problem with the idea was, of course, that such weapons were "one shot" affairs. But then an effect - the Mossbauer effect - was discovered that under certain conditions of acoustic stress, certain materials could be made to cohere x-rays and gamma rays into a laser beam... over and over again.

So, yes, I do suspect that behind all the denials that satellite based lasers are purely for defense, that they're not talking about lasers of any ordinary type, and that the real goal is to put weapons in space capable of an offensive and strategic use, zapping asteroids, or whatever (or whoever) else may come wandering into the neighborhood.

The USA and the Russian Federation have already made "space force" announcements, and now France has joined the club. And yes, I'm walking right off the end of the twig of speculation to say that this tends to confirm my view that this may be as much about what may be going on "out there" as it is about what's going on "down here."

See you on the flip side...

 

CHINA TELEPORTS AN ELECTRON FROM GROUND TO SPACE

This story was spotted by many readers here, and passed along to me, and for good reason, because that internet of things just took another gigantic step, for Chinese scientists have now successfully teleported an electron from the ground to a satellite 300 miles up in space:

China #1 in quantum entanglement, teleports object 300 miles Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/66601/china-1-quantum-entanglement-teleports-object-300-miles/index.html

Before you start having visions of "beaming up to the Enterprise" and the goofy Gramscian empire-disguised-as-a-federation  that it  represents, the real import here, as the story relates, are the implications for a "quantum based internet" all based on the principles of entanglement, and if I may add, non-locality.

The real implications here are thus not for any "just around the corner" Star Trek fantasias, but rather for communications, security, and most importantly, secure financial clearing, for what the article is not telling you is that the Chinese have also been successful in similar photon-quantum entanglement experiments and "teleporting" them into space, sending and receiving them accurately 900 out of 900 times. Ponder that one, for it means there's  (1) no signal to noise problem, (2) no attenuation of the signal, (3) no loss of data, and most importantly, (4) is utterly secure, for in the wonderful world of entanglement, one must know the exact waveform of the entanglement taking place. This mathematical description thus also functions as a kind of "encryption-decryption" key, making such communication methods much more secure than their current counterparts. Or at least, that's the theory (I remain skeptical of the claim for the simple reason that humans inevitably find ways around things, including the most secure bank vault. But that's a speculation for another time.)

The implications of that in turn are profound, for in a world where data, communications, and financial clearing are moving to space-based platforms, security and accurate data transmission are the key, and whoever cracks the problem first will dominate the future commercial and financial world; if you're planning to mine asteroids, or have a global currency or even several regional currencies, the advantage will accrue to that power which establishes those secure quantum networks. That "key" thus functions, in the emerging world, in a way analogous to the way navies have functioned in relationship to reserve currencies thus far: the country with the most powerful navy has been the country whose currency has reserve currency status.  Entanglement permits not only the secure and accurate transmission of data, but also its rapid transmission.

But now, as always, let's crawl to the end of the twig of high octane speculation, and speculate wildly beyond the evidence. We're in Wile E. Coyote territory here, suspended above a chasm, arms and legs flailing, with nothing beneath us but, perhaps, an animated "kerplop" waiting for us at the end of our fall. As the article avers, the Chinese have now managed to "teleport" an electron, a thing, no matter how small or tiny in mass, from one point to another. We know the progression from our elementary school physics days (that is, if they're still teaching anything about physics in our schools): electrons, protons, neutrons, then atoms themselves, then molecules...  you get the picture: the next steps in the technology tree, as we step from photons to electrons in our entanglement-teleportation experiments, will be the other sub-atomic particles, and from there (if successful), to whole atoms, then to molecules, then to... once again, you get the picture. And as I've said, if you plan to mine asteroids and have any sort of permanent presence in deep space, then chemical rockets are not - I repeat - simply are not adequate nor cost-effective to the job. The German physicist Burckhart Heim recognized this decades ago, and hence, one needs a "breakthrough" of some sort - a "warp drive" or a teleportation technology, or both - to make it genuinely practical and cost effective and (note) fraught with much less risk.

Which brings me back to the subject of yesterday's blog, and the story of an AI at Lawrence Livermore (no space-related connections there! [Cough]) that has been tasked with combing through old scientific papers looking for forgotten or anomalous data and concepts. I don't know about you, but it's a safe bet that one of the things it might be programmed to look for are clues that might help solve some of those entanglement/teleportation and "warp drive" mysteries, mysteries which might be solved by some sort of exotic matter, which, let us recall, was also one of the areas that the Livermore AI was also looking in: materials science.

See you on the (kerplop) flip side...