The "evidence" will largely fit in four categories.
1) Descriptions in what are thought to be the oldest written texts by man still in existence
2) Discovery of archeological sites which demonstrate characteristics, including high levels of radiation, consistent with an atomic explosion
3) Physical evidence (changes in the sand) similar to those found at the site of current day atomic explosions
4) Evidence of depleted uranium with plutonium products
The following item appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on February 16, 1947 (and was repeated by Ivan T. Sanderson in the January 1970 issue of his magazine, Pursuit):
Atomic Explosions Produce Glass
When the first atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico, the desert sand turned to fused green glass. This fact, according to the magazine Free World, has given certain archaeologists a turn. They have been digging in the ancient Euphrates Valley and have uncovered a layer of agrarian culture 8,000 years old, and a layer of herdsman culture much older, and a still older caveman culture.
Recently, they reached another layer of fused green glass. It is well known that atomic detonations on or above a sandy desert will melt the silicon in the sand and turn the surface of the Earth into a sheet of glass. But if sheets of ancient desert glass can be found in various parts of the world, does it mean that atomic wars were fought in the ancient past or, at the very least, that atomic testing occurred in the dim ages of history?
This is a startling theory, but one that is not lacking in evidence, as such ancient sheets of desert glass are a geological fact. Lightning strikes can sometimes fuse sand, meteorologists contend, but this is always in a distinctive root-like pattern. These strange geological oddities are called fulgurites and manifest as branched tubular forms rather than as flat sheets of fused sand. Therefore, lightning is largely ruled out as the cause of such finds by geologists, who prefer to hold onto the theory of a meteor or comet strike as the cause. The problem with this theory is that there is usually no crater associated with these anomalous sheets of glass.
Brad Steiger and Ron Calais report in their book, Mysteries of Time and Space, that Albion W. Hart, one of the first engineers to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was assigned an engineering project in the interior of Africa. While he and his men were traveling to an almost inaccessible region, they first had to cross a great expanse of desert.
"At the time he was puzzled and quite unable to explain a large expanse of greenish glass which covered the sands as far as he could see," writes Margarethe Casson in an article on Hart's life in the magazine Rocks and Minerals (no. 396, 1972). She then goes on to mention: "Later on, during his life he passed by the White Sands area after the first atomic explosion there, and he recognized the same type of silica fusion which he had seen fifty years earlier in the African desert."
Interestingly, Manhattan Project chief scientist Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer was known to be familiar with ancient Sanskrit literature. In an interview conducted after he watched the first atomic test, he quoted from the Bhagavad Gita:
"'Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.' I suppose we all felt that way."
When asked in an interview at Rochester University seven years after the Alamogordo nuclear test whether that was the first atomic bomb ever to be detonated, his reply was,
"Well, yes, in modern history."
David Hatcher Childress
in Nexus magazine
LIBYAN DESERT GLASS
Pieces of Libyan Desert Glass weighing as much as 16 pounds are found in an oval area measuring approximately 130 by 53 kilometers. The clear-to-yellowish-green pieces are concentrated in sand-free corridors between north-south dune ridges. The origin of this immense deposit of glass has been attributed by some to ancient nuclear explosions and alien activities, but investigating scientists have always been satisfied with a meteor-impact hypothesis. A recent study (abstract below) also opts for this explanation, although no one has found a crater of suitable size or other supporting evidence.
More on Libyan Desert Glass
Libyan Desert Glass is found widely scattered over an area 130 km north to south by 53 km east to west. The Libyan Desert of Egypt is one of Earth's most remote and inhospitable regions. Uninhabited, windblown and foreboding, the Sand Sea, near the Gilf Kebir Plateau, was nonetheless the site of a remarkable discovery in 1932.
The Egyptian Desert Surveys under the able direction of Englishman Patrick A. Clayton (1896-1962) recovered specimens (about 50 kg) of an unusual, often beautiful, translucent to transparent, yellowish-green gem-like, high silica natural glass.
After the 1932 discovery of Libyan Desert Glass, only two other expeditions (both of the 1930's) were undertaken to the location until 1971. This later exploration involved three scientists stopping over for only two hours and collecting some 24 samples of the glass. During this brief visit, the expedition accidentally found the site of a forced landing of an Egyptian aircraft with the remains of nine men.
The failure of Egyptian authorities to find the downed airplane for over three years is solemn validation of the remoteness of this arid region. In light of the foregoing, it is perhaps remarkable that a greater abundance of Libyan Desert Glass has been made available recently for collections and study than at any time since its discovery 65 years ago.
Libyan Desert Glass is classified by most meteoriticists with the group of curious natural glasses known as tektites. In 1900, Professor Franz E. Suess of Vienna coined the term tektite from the Greek tektos meaning "melted or molten."
Tektites are compositionally restricted, high silica, natural glasses distinguishably different from other, volcanically derived, natural glasses. Tektites range in size from microscopic (less than 1mm) to macroscopic weighing many kilograms.
They exhibit a marvelous range of colors from water clear, gem quality, deep forest greens of moldavites to the soothing pale to dark yellow and yellow-greens of Libyan Desert Glass as well as the stygian, impenetrable black of Australites.
Mankind has wondered about, and cherished, these enigmatic, exotic objects for hundreds of years, perhaps much longer. In the Cro-Magnon Venus of Willendorf site (Austria), dated at 29,000 BC, small moldavite flake blades were found (now lost!).
The earliest written records come from mid-10th century China referring to the black, shiny objects found after rainstorms as lei-gong-mo, "inkstones of the thunder-god". Australian Aborigines called Australites ooga, "staring eyes". The origin and source of tektites remains a mystery.
This Libyan Glass Object was Found in King Tut's Tomb
... in relation to all other tektite groups, Libyan Desert Glass exhibits a noteworthy number of unique attributes.
Lowest refractive index: 1.4616
Lowest specific gravity: 2.21
Highest silica content: 98%
Highest lechatelierite particles: fused quartz
Highest water content: 0.064%
Highest viscosity: almost 6X greater than Australites at the same temperature
Other unique attributes: Color, Bubble types: 100% of included bubbles are lenticular or irregular.
There is no evidence whatsoever, of atmospheric aerodynamic shaping and it is therefore presumed that Libyan Desert Glass formed as a melt sheet of some sort, possibly by meteoritic impact some 28.5 millions years ago. Recent French studies concluded that meteoric elements in the glass, of almost chondritic proportions, "points to an impact origin".
Interestingly, the inclusion of the high number of lechatelierite (fused quartz) particles in Libyan Desert Glass also points to an extremely high, up to 1700 C, formation temperature. Impacts of large bodies at high velocity are certainly capable of creating such high temperatures.
But, the central issue in determining the impact origin of tektites remains, that is, how to transform a mass of crushed rock into a homogeneous and relatively bubble free liquid which rapidly cools to a glass. Even the commercial production of glass takes many hours to relieve the melt of its volatile components. No partially melted material, or target rock inclusions, have ever been found in Libyan Desert Glass.
Furthermore, other known impact glasses (impactites) such as Darwin Glass are bubbly, frothy, scoriaceous and contain partially melted materials. So the controversy continues.
Scientists Discover Six Ancient Zones of Depleted Uranium with Plutonium Products:
If you could go back and read the news and scientific articles at the time, you could contrast the shock, dismay and confusion caused by the initial announcement that nuclear material had been mined in the past and that the byproduct plutonium had been created at Oklo.
In 1972, a French analyst named Bougzigues working at the Pierrelatte nuclear fuel processing plant detected a small but significant change in an important ratio between Uranium 235 and Uranium 238. The proper ratio is well known and well established in that field so that the change indicated that something way out of the ordinary was going on. The initial suspicion was that someone had included spent fuel in with the recently mined ore. This was quickly ruled out because there was no radiation signature associated with the mystery uranium.
The mystery uranium was eventually traced back to the Gabon mine at Oklo. You need to understand that what was so incredible was that a nuclear reaction had occurred such that plutonium was created and that the nuclear reaction itself had been “moderated”! This means that once a reaction is initiated, if you want to harness the power output in a controlled manner, you had better be able to keep it from exploding and releasing all the energy at once.
This particular group of reactors was, incredibly moderated using..., water. The first modern nuclear reactors used graphite and cadmium rods to moderate their reactions. At that time, people were speculating about aliens and advanced ancient civilizations. Some months after the discovery rocked the scientific world, someone came up with a somewhat dubious explanation which over time has taken on the patina of absolute certainty. It was a natural reactor which occurred billions of years ago.
There are at least six zones of depleted uranium (usually means mined) and with plutonium as a by product! You've got to really be trying to manufacture plutonium - its a complicated process. Yet, scientists studying these zones have a priori of course, decided not to consider that man was involved:
1) They place its occurrence safely "billions" of years ago
2) They assume that a breeding reaction could occur naturally when no such evidence of that exists and creating a breeder reactor was once a technological holy grail which was difficult to achieve on purpose
3) They theorize that although it must have happened naturally in the distant past, that we need not worry about it occurring now, as conditions differ
4) Nature designed the reactor such that its spent fuel and dangerous byproducts were "contained"
Scientists use the principle of uniformism to draw conclusions about the future and the past. If they cannot use this "principle", then they can not draw any conclusions because they could not state that the conditions in the universe that exist now, always existed. Here though as often happens, they have to assume that the past was vastly different as it related to the possibility of naturally occurring breeder reactions. Again, scientists from other countries were skeptical when first hearing of these "natural nuclear reactors". Some argued that the missing amounts of U-235 had been displaced over time, not split in nuclear fission reactions.
oklo.curtin.edu.au/why.cfm"How," they asked, "could fission reactions happen in nature, when such a high degree of engineering, physics, and acute, detailed attention went into building a nuclear reactor?"
Perrin and the other French scientists concluded that the only other uranium samples with similar levels of the isotopes found at Oklo could be found in the used nuclear fuel produced by modern reactors. They found that the percentages of many isotopes at Oklo strongly resembled those in the spent fuel generated by nuclear power plants, and, therefore, reasoned that a similar natural process had occurred.
s8int.com/atomic2.htmlAnother View of the Phenomenon
Surprisingly, this uranium mine's nuclear reactor was well designed. Studies indicate that this reactor was several miles in length. However, for such a huge nuclear reactor, the thermal impact to its environment was limited to 40 meters on all sides. Even more astonishing is the fact that the radioactive wastes have still not migrated outside the mine site. They are held in place by the surrounding geology.
Faced with these findings, scientists consider the mine to be a "naturally occurring" nuclear reactor. The Oklo reactor has been documented for its importance as an analogue (a structural derivative of a parent compound) in the disposal of nuclear fuel wastes. But few people are bold enough to go one step further. As a matter of fact, many people today know that the reactor is a relic from a prehistoric civilization. It's probable that two billion years ago there was a fairly advanced civilization living at a place now called Oklo.
This civilization was technologically superior to today's civilization. Compared to this huge "natural" nuclear reactor, our current nuclear reactors are far less impressive. The question is: why did such a highly advanced civilization disappear? That's something to ponder about.
The textbook of Basic Radioactive Chemistry (C. Claire ed.) used by Tsinghua University has the following paragraph:
"The natural uranium in the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa, contains an abnormal amount of U235. It is as low as 0.29%, rather than the normal 0.72%. This means that many self-sustained nuclear fission chain reactions took place at this mine about two billion years ago. Thirteen nuclear reactors existed in prehistoric periods along the 200-metre mine bed, and they were comparable to the modern nuclear reactor in power and heat combustion. This mine had the capability of enabling self-sustained nuclear chain reactions...."
This discovery, that shocked the entire scientific community in 1972, has already been forgotten by people today.
Evidence at Mohenjo-Daro
When excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro reached the street level, they discovered skeletons scattered about the cities, many holding hands and sprawling in the streets as if some instant, horrible doom had taken place. People were just lying, unburied, in the streets of the city.
And these skeletons are thousands of years old, even by traditional archaeological standards. What could cause such a thing? Why did the bodies not decay or get eaten by wild animals? Furthermore, there is no apparent cause of a physically violent death.
These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on par with those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one site, Soviet scholars found a skeleton which had a radioactive level 50 times greater.
These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on par with those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one site, Soviet scholars found a skeleton which had a radioactive level 50 times greater than normal.
Other cities have been found in northern India that show indications of explosions of great magnitude. One such city, found between the Ganges and the mountains of Rajmahal, seems to have been subjected to intense heat. Huge masses of walls and foundations of the ancient city are fused together, literally vitrified! And since there is no indication of a volcanic eruption at Mohenjo-Daro or at the other cities, the intense heat to melt clay vessels can only be explained by an atomic blast or some other unknown weapon. The cities were wiped out entirely.
While the skeletons have been carbon-dated to 2500 BC, we must keep in mind that carbon-dating involves measuring the amount of radiation left. When atomic explosions are involved, that makes then seem much younger.
(AGAIN India.... But hey, more sources the clearer the picture... )
Giant Unexplained Crater Near Bombay
Another curious sign of an ancient nuclear war in India is a giant crater near Bombay. The nearly circular 2,154-metre-diameter Lonar crater, located 400 kilometers northeast of Bombay and aged at less than 50,000 years old, could be related to nuclear warfare of antiquity.
No trace of any meteoric material, etc., has been found at the site or in the vicinity, and this is the world's only known "impact" crater in basalt. Indications of great shock (from a pressure exceeding 600,000 atmospheres) and intense, abrupt heat (indicated by basalt glass spherules) can be ascertained from the site.
David Hatcher Childress
in Nexus Magazine
"The crater is formed in the basalt rock of thickness 600-700m (2,000 to 2,200 feet). This rock is made of many layers or flows which were laid why volcanic activity at various times, five of such flows are exposed at the crater rim. Thickness of these flows ranges from 5 to 30m. The crater is about 150m (500 feet) deep and has average diameter of 1830m (1.4 miles). The elevated rim consists of 25m of bedrock and 5m of ejecta over it. This ejecta blanket is spread over about 1350m (4,400 feet) away from the crater rim and slopes away by 2-6°. The uppermost region of ejecta contains the deposits that were melted due to the impact"
“Lonar is a place of obscurities, especially as the only meteoric crater formed in basaltic terrain. It has remained relatively intact due to low degree of erosion by environmental agents, making it an excellent model for study. However, several strange things happen here:
1. The lake has two distinct regions that never mix - an outer neutral (pH7) and an inner alkaline (pH11) each with its own flora and fauna. You can actually do a litmus paper test here and check this for yourself.
2. There is a perennial stream feeding the lake with water but there seems to be no apparent outlet for the lake’s water. And it is also a big unsolved mystery where the water for the perennial stream comes from, in a relatively dry region like Buldhana. Even in the driest months of May and June, the stream is perpetually flowing. Lonar generates questions and more questions”.
Lilyn Kamath
A Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times?
Introduction
We introduce here a remarkable theory of terrestrial catastrophism that seems to be supported by evidence that is equally remarkable. One of the authors of this theory (RBF) is identified as a nuclear scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Nuclear Laboratory.
The second author (WT) is a consultant. The authors' credentials seem so good that we must take a close look at their extraordinary claims concerning a natural phenomenon that they believe reset radiocarbon clocks in north-central North America and---potentially---elsewhere on the planet.
We will be most interested in the reception accorded these claims by the scientific community.
The claims
In the authors' words:
Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions.
The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of ^239 Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (^235 U/^238 U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (^ N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates.
Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon!
Supporting evidence
Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail.
1.) Anomalously young radiocarbon dates in north-central North America. Example: the Gainey site in Michigan. [Other map sites include Thedford & Zander, Ont.; Potts, NY; Shoop, Penn.; Alton, Ind.; Taylor, Il.; Butler & Leavitt, Mich.; and far to the north Grant Lake, Nunavut; and in the far southwest Baker, N.M. - TWC]
2.) Physical evidence of particle bombardment. Example: chert artifacts with high densities of particle-entrance wounds.
3.) Anomalous uranium and plutonium abundance ratios in the affected area.
4.) Tree-ring and marine sediment data.
The authors claim that the burst of radiation from a nearby supernova, circa 12,500 years ago, not only reset radiocarbon clocks but also heated the planet's atmosphere, melted ice sheets, and led to biological extinctions.
If verified, the claimed phenomenon would also "reset" archeological models of the settlement of North and South America. To illustrate, we may have to add as many as 10,000 years to site dates in much of North America!
(Firestone, Richard B., and Topping, William: "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times")
www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ancie ... mic_11.htm
Desert Glass Scarab. What produced the intense heat in the desert?
Tutunkhamun's Fireball, made by production company TV6, was broadcast on BBC Two on Thursday, 20 July
In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun's necklaces.
The jewel was tested and found to be glass, but intriguingly it is older than the earliest Egyptian civilization.
Working with Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat, they traced its origins to unexplained chunks of glass found scattered in the sand in a remote region of the Sahara Desert.
But the glass is itself a scientific enigma. How did it get to be there and who or what made it? The BBC Horizon programme has reported an extraordinary new theory linking Tutankhamun's gem with a meteor.
Sky of fire
An Austrian astrochemist Christian Koeberl had established that the glass had been formed at a temperature so hot that there could be only one known cause: a meteorite impacting with Earth. And yet there were no signs of a suitable impact crater, even in satellite images. American geophysicist John Wasson is another scientist interested in the origins of the glass. He suggested a solution that came directly from the forests of Siberia.
"When the thought came to me that it required a hot sky, I thought immediately of the Tunguska event," he told Horizon.
In 1908, a massive explosion flattened 80 million trees in Tunguska, Siberia. Although there was no sign of a meteorite impact, scientists now think an extraterrestrial object of some kind must have exploded above Tunguska. Wasson wondered if a similar aerial burst could have produced enough heat to turn the ground to glass in the Egyptian desert.
Jupiter clue
The first atomic bomb detonation, at the Trinity site in New Mexico in 1945, created a thin layer of glass on the sand. But the area of glass in the Egyptian desert is vastly bigger. Whatever happened in Egypt must have been much more powerful than an atomic bomb.
Impact Simulation
image - Barakat holds up one of the many, huge chunks of glass in the desert.
A natural airburst of that magnitude was unheard of until, in 1994, scientists watched as comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter. It exploded in the Jovian atmosphere, and the Hubble telescope recorded the largest incandescent fireball ever witnessed rising over Jupiter's horizon.
Mark Boslough, who specializes in modeling large impacts on supercomputers, created a simulation of a similar impact on Earth.
The simulation revealed that an impactor could indeed generate a blistering atmospheric fireball, creating surface temperatures of 1,800C, and leaving behind a field of glass.
"What I want to emphasize is that it is hugely bigger in energy than the atomic tests," said Boslough. "Ten thousand times more powerful."
Defence Lessons
The more fragile the incoming object, the more likely these airborne explosions are to happen. In Southeast Asia, John Wasson has unearthed the remains of an event 800,000 years ago that was even more powerful and damaging than the one in the Egyptian desert; one which produced multiple fireballs and left glass over three hundred thousand square miles, with no sign of a crater.
"Within this region, certainly all of the humans would have been killed. There would be no hope for anything to survive," he said.
According to Boslough and Wasson, events similar to Tunguska could happen as frequently as every 100 years, and the effect of even a small airburst would be comparable to many Hiroshima bombs.
Attempting to blow up an incoming asteroid, Hollywood style, could well make things worse by increasing the number of devastating airbursts.
"There are hundreds of times more of these smaller asteroids than there are the big ones the astronomers track," said Mark Boslough. "There will be another impact on the earth. It's just a matter of when."
s8int.com/phile/atomic3.htmlwww.bibliotecapleyades.net/ancie ... troduction
