Area 51 is notorious in the UFO conspiracy world due to the Roswell Incident and the US government’s secrecy about the whole palaver. In addition, some locals have claimed to be abducted by aliens(!). Meanwhile, some former Area 51 workers have given interviews claiming that there really are aliens in the world’s most secretive air force base.  Today, Snippets of Interesting begs the question: What really goes on in Area 51?

How Close Can You Get?

Although you can see the base on Google Earth many claim it has been ‘distorted’. And getting inside personally? I’m afraid you won’t get further than the warning signs. I think we can conclude that access to the base is limited.

The Theories

·         Used for the storage, examination and reverse engineering of alien spacecraft, including the  apparent remains of the Roswell incident

·         Energy weapon testing site

·         Manufacture of new spacecraft based on alien technology

·         Meetings with aliens

·         Development of weather control systems

·         Development of time travel and teleportation technology

·         Creation of unusual and exotic propulsions systems

·         Home to a shadowy one world government

The Conclusion

I can conclude that Americans watch too many movies and have imaginations that distort their already twisted view on their world. Area 51, a conspiracy? Nope. I don’t know about you, but I found that time travel and one world government thing at the end really ridiculous. However, I have to admit, if these theories were real that would be massive, the news would stay on the same story for months. Unfortunately they are not and that’s the end of that!

What Happens When You Die?

Well, I have no idea! However some peoples’ hearts have stopped beating before being restarted moments later. Below are some of the feelings and sights they say they experienced after they died. Obviously I can’t prove if these people were reliable and thus telling the truth, and I’m certainly not going to try(!), but it does make some interesting reading.

1.    They hear or feel a sound, a ringing or bells or buzzing or music in their ears or in their head, a whistling, roaring or whirling feeling.

2.    The floating feeling of detachment from the body, an almost inexpressible feeling of freedom and exhilaration.

3.    Floating above their body and looking back down on it from above or a distance, watching the life-saving and/or resuscitation efforts of doctors, nurses or rescuers.

4.    Hearing the voices of those present and even the pronouncements of their own death.

5.    Yet a feeling of weightless perfect peace, complete painlessness, warmth, comfort and relaxation.Sometimes they feel lonely at first.

6.    Then they feel a movement like they are moving very rapidly through a long narrow dark tunnel, hollow or valley.

Are We Sleepwalking Towards Nuclear War?

In late May this year the Global Peace Index 2011 results were released to the public. These were their key findings:

• The world is less peaceful for the third straight year
• Due to an increased threat of terrorist attacks in 29 nations
• A greater likelihood of violent demonstrations in 33 countries
• Arab Spring unrest heralds biggest ever change in rankings, Libya tumbles 83 spots
• Iceland bounces back from economic woes to top ranking
• Somalia displaces Iraq as world’s least peaceful nation
• Violence cost the global economy more than $8.12 trillion in 2010
• US peacefulness shows minimal change

Depressing, but widely predictable, research.

Indeed, I’m sure you would agree with most of these results. And, thinking about it, the world is just going to go from bad to worse. You might frown at my pessimistic attitude or even endorse it. Either way, many argue we are in the ‘perfect storm’ of global conflict possibilities:

·         Dwindling resources – As countries struggle to pay the cost of imported raw materials, will they turn to their war hungry military chiefs? Was Iraq 2003 just that? Things can only get worse as fossil fuels are greedily used up at a frightening pace. Unless science can come up with solutions, war beckons.

·         Global warming – A worrying reality that’s been ignored in these times of awful, but necessary, austerity. Although The West is making some progress, China is building one coal station a day. Global warming may lead to a war of water in arid countries, especially South America and the Middle East. To add insult to injury, analysts are predicting a Middle Eastern arms race, global warming or not.

·           Arab Spring  - Although only short term in the grand scheme of things, Libya and Syria in particular have faced the wrath of government brutality. Will it end, or enter into a new phase of government crackdown? Only history will tell.

·         Changing power – We live in a time of developing economies powering on at full steam, whilst the old world of the west stagnates. However, the USA’s military stubbornly refuses to stand down, blinded by the thirst for power and serving a country that many believe is ‘on the way down’. And, as we know, when someone is threatened their first instinct is to fight back. ‘Losing is not an option’ may be a typical Hollywood cliché, but that’s a policy that American presidents may choose to follow in the next 100 years. And that’s something that’s almost guaranteed to get ugly.

These theories are backed up by Cambridge expert, Nicholas Boyle, who believes that 2014 will be the deciding year of the 21^st century.

“Everything, in the end, may depend on whether America can act more imaginatively to that decline than Britain was able to do in the years before 1914”, he claims.

"My thesis is that we have got another crisis to come, and you can already see that in the questions being raised over the debts of nations rather than private credit debts.”

If the 21^st century does leave a legacy of poverty and debris behind, it will just follow the pattern of history. For example, in the last 500 years there has always been war and violence in the early part of their respective centuries. In fact, each period of violence started between the first 14-17 years of the new centuries. From world war 1 to Napoleon, it’s all part of one big pattern, according to Professor Boyle.

Whether we are in the calm before the storm or at the start of a new era of global cooperation, the 21^st century will be a substantial challenge to a brave new world. Bring it on. 

Future of Humanity

There is often a huge arrogance in humans, and that’s understandable, we have of course achieved things that animals aren’t even capable of dreaming . We have gone to the moon, created mile high skyscrapers and we have brutually stopped anything that could threaten our existence with deadly efficiency (vaccines for example). However, scientists say that humans will reach their optimum intelligence level in just 30 years. Then we may just realise that we aren’t as superior as we thought we were.

Given this 30 year rule it’s unlikely we will hurtle through space in a Starship Enterprise as half cyborgs in 500 years, it’s more probable that we will just evolve backwards.

So why won’t we all have flying trainers and be teleporting to work? The answer comes from that annoying brain of ours. Research suggests that the brain is unable to increase in size based on the fact that we would it would need more bloodflow (that would mean a bigger heart). Even if our heart did increase in size the brain would still stop evolving as the larger brain size would slow down our connections and messages. 

Unfortunately the above facts and other factors mean that we will be slipping into stupidtown, getting dumber and dumber forever. This will bring an unwelcome return to our primal instincts in a challenging future. The prospect of dwindling resources will bring in greed and therefore war, nuclear war. In addition, our reliance on drugs means our immune systems are already spiraling into a deadly decline, making us more vulnerable in a global epidemic.

It suddenly seems like we have go to do a lot of work in the next 30 years, because without genetic engineering, I would give our species another 1000 years to live. 

The last evidence of humans will be broken plastics, Mount Rushmore, Bronze statues, satellites and radioactive material. Maybe, some alien race will discover one of our last satellites, and look upon on Earth as a dying star, about to enter into a fresh, healthier new age.

*Please note, I’m not a scientist, this is just information I’ve tried to gather as accurately as possible!!

Want a Trip into Space?

…that would be $200,000 dollars, sir. This is of course Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space tourism wing, where passengers will climb aboard for 3.5 hours and receive 6 minutes of weightlessness. Unfortunately, you will have to wait till 2012, but it looks like it would be worth the wait!

There are four ships in the new generation Virgin space fleet with two carriers (‘mother ships’) and two suborbital spacecraft, who have all gone through testing phases.

At present there is only one space port,’Spaceport America’ (below), which is still under construction. Designed by URS and Foster and Partners. However, in future there will be a Spaceport Sweden and there a rumours of a Spaceports in Dubai and Scotland.

There are already bookings from 430 people from all over the world. And success is crucial in this project, especially with its investment figure: $100 million dollars. In addition, Virgin galactic is expected to be the first space tourism company in the world. Virgin, from selling records to breaking records. 

A Brief Guide to...the End of the World!

We’ve all watched the big Hollywood blockbusters, featuring the cliches of girls, explosions, giant tsunamis and other ridiculous special effects sequences (and yes I’m thinking of Roland Emmerich films such as ‘2012’ and ‘Day After Tomorrow’), but how likely is one of these treacherous events? Movies have often capitilised on man’s fear of the big apocalypse, but most watching never consider themselves facing the nightmares of the doomed characters in these visual, but not intellectual, masterpieces.

So what are the odds? Here is my list of apocalyptic possibilities:

(Please note that if a 10/10 possibility means a scenario is still highly unlikely in the next 100 years. In addition, a 10/10 damage rating is complete annihilation of civilization on Earth and a 1/10 is deaths and damage running into the millions, not billions. Also, in typical media fashion, each point will analyse worst case scenario)

10. Nuclear War - Despite the end of the cold war many analysts fear a dangerous Middle Eastern Arms race encapsulating the likes of Iran and Israel. Some also see the rise of the East a threat to World peace, with focus on China, India and of course North Korea. Possibility 6/10. Comparative damage rating 3/10.

9. Global Epidemic - With the recent scare stories of Swine and Bird Flu this is an issue trending now, especially with the recent box office topping ‘Rise of the Planet Apes’ which featured a pandemic that would wipe out humans and allow apes to take over the world. Although a serious  threat, governments can do more about this than other apocalyptic, such as quarantine. Possibility 9/10. Damage rating 1/10.

8. Super Volcano - Yellowstone erupting is a well documented possibility. The eruption is predicted to be 1000 times more powerful than the Mount Saint Helen’s eruption of 1980, making two thirds of the US inhabitable and causing a giant ash cloud to block out the Sun, destroying crops and causing a financial meltdown. Fun stuff. Moreover, the eruption is long overdue in scientific terms. That means it could happen today, or in millions of years. Possibility 6/10. Damage rating 7/10.

7. Mega Tsunami - The island of La Palma just off West Africa houses a nice pretty volcano, that could cause the western slab of the island to slip into the Atlantic. This would create a a tsunami that would wipe out the North America’s Eastern seaboard, one of the most densely populated areas on Earth, bulldozing skyscrapers and causing millions of deaths. Brazil, Africa, Spain, Portugal and Britain would also be ripped apart by the wall of water. Possibility 6/10. Damage 7/10.

6. Reversal of Earth’s Magnetic Field - This wouldn’t just cause your satnav to go wrong. This would flip the North and South Pole, causing dangerous rays from space to dramatically increase cancer rates, and kill plankton, therefore decreasing the Earth’s oxygen levels. What’s more, solar flares won’t be stopped by the atmosphere’s magnetic defensive shield, enabling the flares to be free to fry the Earth. Thankfully, the ozone layer will stay intact so the ray damage would be limited, but the ozone can’t stay intact forever. I will finish this point on another worrying note: Scientists say this reversal is long overdue. Possibility 7/10. Damage 7.5/10

5. Solar Activity Variation - Increased solar activity can cause Superflares.Think of the film ‘Knowing’ . These magnetic subatomic outbursts could cause the Earth to fry, destroying everything and killing everyone, in worse case scenario. At the moment the probability of Solar flare risk is increasing, with solar activity levels reaching a peak in 2012. By contrast, decreased solar activity of just 1 percent could cause the Earth to plunge into a new ice age. Possibility 5/10 Damage 9/10

4. Rogue Black Holes - Little is known about these stellar corpses, who number 10 million and engulf other stars using pure gravity. Not even light can escape these galactic zombies. Anything from extreme climate shifts to Earth being thrown form it’s orbit into deep space could occur. Possibility 3/10. Damage 9/10.

3. Collapse of the vacuum - As the universe expands and cools, some scientists claim that new pockets of ‘false vacuum’ could appear, destroying everything. Possibility 1/10. Damage 10/10.

2. Gamma Ray Bursts - These cosmic flashes of light caused by dying stars are harmless in moderation, but when Earth is subject to a strong direct hit chaos ensues. A burst 1,000 light years away would be as big as the sun and would be responsible for a dramatic increase in skin cancer rates. Moreover, the burst would kill the puny photosynthetic plankton, thus lowering Earth’s precious oxygen levels. Possibility: UNKNOWN. Damage 8/10

1. Asteroid Impact - Films such as ‘Deep Impact’ have glorified and struck fear into viewers, and rightly so. No, don’t worry, a major asteroid strike is a highly unlikely possibility in the grand scheme of things. However, if there is a major strike life on Earth would cease to exist. In the most bone chilling event, a direct hit from a 50 mile wide Kuiper belt asteroid would wipe out everything. Not even cockroaches would make it into the new human-less age. Possibility 7/10. Damage 9/10

 

As I have emphasised, these events are all worst case scenario and hence highly unlikely. But, if one of these events do occur…Good Luck!