A dear and highly respected friend has let us know that a number of individuals around the world have noted they had seen something odd about the position of the Moon on or around July 19th of this year. There is a thread dedicated to this on a website that used to be quite popular in these woods, but not lately. What's more, the very fact that the thread was posted there was reason for severe scepticism and mild eye-rolling.
However, it turned out that our friend had experienced this "phenomenon" herself (and posted about it in a reply to the thread).
She said she had been "startled" by the position of the Moon compared to where it "should" have been, taking into account the normal trajectory of the Moon. It appeared to her that it rose earlier than it should have, and significantly more to the North and to the East than she would have expected.
She checked it against her faithful Stellarium, but did not notice anything particularly eye-catching. If there was an anomaly, it wasn't apparent at first sight.
That she, of all people, would claim something of the sort is unusual. It is so exceptionally unusual that we decided to record it here just in case anyone reading this may have experienced the same thing.
If you have, let us know.
Our friend said it well herself: whatever it was, it couldn't have been physical (or everybody alive would have noticed it... and not only by the position of the Moon!). Something must have affected the perception and/or perceptual memory.
N.B. There have been heavy clouds for the past few nights where this blog is currently being written, so no such observations could be made here. The only thing that could be interpreted as unusual is the fact that time - you know, the stuff that does not exist but we measure it in minutes and hours? - seems to have been surprisingly long-lasting for the past day or two. What felt like an hour turned out to have lasted no more than 15 - 20 minutes or so.
ADDENDUM (August 20, 2011):
We still don't know - and haven't really researched it it, not in depth - what could be the cause of the perceived anomaly of the Moon on the date described in the post. But it appears that something is amiss with the "secular eccentricity of Moon's orbit" (check the search results). A reader who, for some reason, wishes to remain anonymous, pointed us to a PDF article by an Italian researcher. (Beware: it is highly technical, as it to be expected.).
I must admit I am not into deciphering the technical lingo in fields that I am not particularly interested in. But somewhere a reader of this blog could be interested in it and able to understand what exactly it all means.
We were also pointed to a YouTube video bearing the illustrious name of Cornell University.
I wish said university's findings were explained in the video, but they are not. It's just images of the Moon, embellished with a few personal remarks by the video uploader, I assume.
The video, however, seems to allude to the findings of the same researcher who is the author of the article above, Lorenzo Iorio (not "Lorio"). But judging by the details provided in the article, he works for the Italian ministry of Education and Research - not for Cornell University.
Anyway, here you go.
way cool but why hate ATS?????
ReplyDeleteHello and thank you for stopping by. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone here HATES that website, or any other website. But having been its members for four years we have noticed a dramatic deterioration in the overall quality of discussion.
A few days we were reminiscing about how we stumbled on it in the first place. Two of us were discussing a very intriguing event that had happened that day, and tried to find a plausible explanation online. We didn't, but we did find what seemed like an incredibly interesting conversation that was tangentially related to our puzzle. We had never seen that website before, it was all black and white - overdramatic to my taste - but really, the quality of discussion appeared impressive. So we signed up, both of us. You know how those late summer evenings are, right? :)
We used to spend a LOT of time on that website. It is no exaggeration if I say *I* was there practically every evening. I loved it!
Then, around around two or three years ago, something happened. A change of "generation", whatever. I have no idea. Many of the members that I loved the most stopped posting. Instead, ridiculously ignorant and gullible threads started popping up with increasing frequency. (If you're familiar with the website, as I think you are, you know what I mean.)
It's not just that eventually the ignorance and the bullying swamped everything. I actually noticed that that website had turned me into a CYNIC.
That's one thing I had always hoped to avoid.
So I am avoiding it.
OK? :)
You forget all the political talk. From what I've seen it's mostly a political website now, with a few lunatic fringe threads.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the political talk...
ReplyDeleteEspecially about USA politics.
Such threads are generally dull to read in any circumstances (unless you're an American, obviously), but when they take over a site, it can become very off-putting.
Hello
ReplyDeleteI only found this site today and i must say how 'timely'!
I have become a bit obsessed (for want of a better word) with Time Slips lately and i dont know if it's because i have a bit of a fascination with 'Hauntology' which can take on many forms, namely eerie half forgotten memories of childhood like a person a place or a TV show, music.. Things that were but also never were..
But i kind of tied all this in inside my mind with time slips.. How i'd love to experience one.
I also vouch for the 'stone tape theory' too.. which theorizes in such things as buildings or land that hold 'recordings' of certain events from the past..
I'm happy to have found your site and shall be looking in for ever more..
You say that people can send in their experiences.. Is there a page where i can read them?
Many Thanks
Kev
Hello, Kev, and thank you very much for stopping by.
ReplyDeleteI love your term, "hauntology"! :)
It made ma laugh aloud because it meshes so well with, well, ontology. :-)
That's true wit.
Yes, even though we normally avoid "ghost" stories (simply because it would make the selection process almost unmanageable, considering the amount of such stories floating around)), I think there is little doubt that "time slips" are essentially of the same kind as "ghosts" and other paranormal phenomena. They are all anomalies in the "normal" sequence of events, according to the laws of physics as we know them, which is why serious scientists absolutely SHOULD study them, instead of shunning them.
The "stone tape" theory really is interesting, and we were thinking of exploring it more in depth in some future entry. I believe the theory comes from Lethbridge, a favourite author of Colin Wilson, who in his turn is one of our favourite writers on the subject. (If you haven't read his books, especially "Mysteries", I would highly recommend them!)
Of course there is also the possibility that these are interferences of other "bubble" universes with our present "bubble".
Or perhaps they are simply moments of expanded perception because the rational barriers are down for some reason.
But more on that on the blog itself. ;)
The accounts that we receive we publish here. Some of the personal stories published so far (that I can remember right now) were "Dark pitch" , Moving house", and the one with the lift/elevator (the title escapes me right now, but it's a really interesting experience).
This team's own experiences are also posted as entries (for example, The Scream" or "If these walls could sing").
In other words, we don't have a separate section for readers' personal experiences.
We have a line-up of personal stories that we haven't published yet because they are very, very short or sketchy, and we're waiting for a few more of the same kind to come in, so we can arrange them into a coherent themed entry.
A few people also leave their stories in the comments section - and one, in particular, was so interesting that we would have loved to publish it, but we don't do that without the author's permission, and the author never left an email address for us to contact her.
Again, thank you for stopping by.
I hope you come back - many times. :)
Hi
ReplyDeleteThank you for welcoming me. I definately will keep checking back.
I do believe the whole stone tape idea does hold water..
I've seen documentaries on the subject and scientifically it seems to make sense..
A program i watched explored the possibility that ancient (and not so ancient) buildings were built using stones that hold the same properties, chemically as cassette tapes..
For example they took a recording of an empty room above an old pub..
When they listened back, they could hear voices.. as if it was a room full of people enjoying themselves having a drink.. however it was noted that the pub downstairs was empty at the time of recording.
Another investigation took these scientists to an old mansion somewhere in the country where many times, visitors that stayed there, upon looking out of the upstairs hall window, would often see a woman in victorian dress jumping in a to a pond situated in the grounds of the mansion.
Usually it would be seen by the same person more than twice as if it was on a loop.
I find it interesting that under certain atmospheric conditions.. perhaps during or before an electrical storm, these kinds of natural playbacks/time slips are triggered off somehow..
You're right in saying that such things definately need more attention scientifically. I for one think there's something in it.
Anyway, a great site, and i love that whole story about the georgian mansion that keeps appearing in odd places.. I'll have to keep my eye out for that one.. ;)
Kev
Another great comment! I am tempted to publish it as an entry... (Kidding. ;))
ReplyDeleteThe trigger of so-called "paranormal" events must be electro-magnetic activity, you're absolutely right. I cannot see what else could it be, considering that the brain itself (even though the brain should never be confused with the much larger Mind) works "on" electricity, as it were, and produces it.
BTW, I think you might like the entry titled "Is it the fault-lines' fault?"
PS. That vagrant house is one of our top favourites, too. :)
I was a member of that website for 3 years then something happened to it. It just went down hill in a mater of a few weeks. I left a few months ago. I went back to day after seeing it here and it is worse now than when I left.
ReplyDeleteTell me about it!
ReplyDeleteFour years ago there were some great people there and the quality of the posts was, overall, incomparably greater than now.
I revisited it a few days ago for the first time in more than a year, but it's just not the same.
Even most of my erstwhile "friends" are no more.
(Probably have better things to do - and they're right.)
And so do you. :-)
Don't mourn it. The world is wide, wild and wonderful.
Don't waste it on a website.
And thank you so much for stopping by. :)