{"id":39964,"date":"2018-08-01T07:11:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T06:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=39964"},"modified":"2018-08-01T07:11:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T06:11:47","slug":"archive-2315","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-2315\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive 2315"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>PLEASE NOTE:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Information circulated on the cambridge-conference network is for<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>scholarly use only. The attached text may not be reproduced<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>or transmitted without prior permission of the copyright holder.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>*<br \/>\nDate sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 13:30:17 -0400 (EDT)<br \/>\nFrom:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Benny J Peiser &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nSubject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NEO RESEARCH &amp; ACTIVITIES IN FRANCE<br \/>\nTo:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nPriority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL<\/p>\n<p>NEO RESEARCH &amp; ACTIVITIES IN FRANCE<\/p>\n<p>Should you have further information regarding to Neil Forsyth&#8217;s<br \/>\nquiry, please be so kind and get in touch with him directly<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<br \/>\nfrom: Neil Forsyth &lt;Neil.Forsyth@ANGL.unil.ch<br \/>\nDear Benny<\/p>\n<p>There was a good, basic programme on Swiss-French Television last<br \/>\nnight about the possibility of collision with NEOs and the network in<br \/>\nFrance, partly in Lyon, organizing to take action. Talked about past<br \/>\ncollisions, the 94\u00a0 Jupiter impact, Tunguska, etc. I think it was<br \/>\nmade for the local channel, but focused on activity in France.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately I didn&#8217;t copy it, but have asked a friend who works for<br \/>\nthe same team to come up with a tape and also to let me know what the<br \/>\nterms are if other channels want to buy it.<\/p>\n<p>Did you get any other info about it? Are you in touch with the<br \/>\nastronomers and people in France?\u00a0 There was nothing about<br \/>\nSpaceguard, by the way.<\/p>\n<p>Best<\/p>\n<p>Neil Forsyth<br \/>\nUniversity of Lausanne<br \/>\nCH-1015 Lausanne<br \/>\nSwitzerland<br \/>\n+41 21 692 29 88<br \/>\ne-mail: Neil.Forsyth@ANGL.unil.ch<\/p>\n<p>Editor<br \/>\nThe European English Messenger<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/>\nDate sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 11:15:31 -0400 (EDT)<br \/>\nFrom:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Benny J Peiser &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nSubject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 WILLIAM COMYNS BEAUMONT: BRITAIN&#8217;S MOST ECCENTRIC &amp; LEAST KNOWN<br \/>\nCOSMIC HERETIC<br \/>\nTo:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nPriority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL<\/p>\n<p>WILLIAM COMYNS BEAUMONT (1873 &#8211; 1956)<br \/>\nBRITAIN&#8217;S MOST ECCENTRIC AND LEAST KNOWN COSMIC HERETIC<\/p>\n<p>By Benny J Peiser<br \/>\nLiverpool John Moores University<br \/>\nSchool of Human Sciences<br \/>\nIt is generally believed that the American scholar and founding<br \/>\nfather of meteoritic studies, H.H. Ninninger, was the first<br \/>\n20th century scientist to have associated mass extinctions with<br \/>\ncosmic impact catastrophes. In his paper &#8220;Cataclysm and Evolution&#8221;<br \/>\n(Popular Astronomy 50\/1942, pp. 270-272), Ninninger reviewed the<br \/>\nnew research on Apollo asteroids and the handful of the known (and<br \/>\nrelatively small) meteorite craters. He added one and one together and<br \/>\nhypothesises that<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[&#8230;] it is not at all improbable that the Earth bears many<br \/>\nscars of far greater dimensions than the largest known<br \/>\nmeteorite craters. [&#8230;] If the dimensions of the lunar<br \/>\ncraters are to\u00a0 be taken as any indication of the sizes of<br \/>\nthe bodies that the Earth has encountered, then there must<br \/>\nhave occurred great changes in the shore-lines, the elevation<br \/>\nand depression of extensive areas, .[&#8230;] Violent climatic<br \/>\nchanges would have resulted, locally at least, from the heat<br \/>\nof the impacts and from changes in the content of the<br \/>\natmosphere. Many general changes might have resulted from a<br \/>\npossible shifting of the poles, in the cases of the largest<br \/>\nimpacts. These changes would have necessitated faunal and<br \/>\nfloral readjustments. Species would have disappeared and new<br \/>\nones would have developed to take their places. Changes in<br \/>\ngeographical range would have brought about new adaptations,<br \/>\nand we should expect, in general, just those breaks in the<br \/>\nseries that are actually found in the rocks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>That was back in 1942. It took almost 40 years, when, in 1980, Luis<br \/>\nAlvarez and his colleagues arrived on the stage of mankind&#8217;s global<br \/>\ndebating club, before the scientific community was ready to engage in<br \/>\na general discussion about Ninninger&#8217;s original suggestion. Harvey<br \/>\nNinninger, however, was not the first 20th century catastrophist to<br \/>\nspeculate about impact triggered mass extinctions. As early as 1925,<br \/>\none of Britain&#8217;s leading scientific publishing houses (Chapman&amp; Hall)<br \/>\nreleased a rather inconspicuous book (&#8220;The Riddle of the Earth&#8221;) by<br \/>\nWilliam Comyns Beaumont, an English super-eccentric, in which he<br \/>\nanticipated most of the current neo-catastrophist paradigm:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Geologists all agree that the termination of the later<br \/>\nTertiary Age witnessed one of these startling and<br \/>\nrevolutionary changes on the face of the earth, and I submit<br \/>\nthat the occasion of such a change and of all the sudden<br \/>\ngeological ages was due to the fall of enormous bodies of<br \/>\nmeteors, or, perhaps, to the earth&#8217;s appulsion with a great<br \/>\nsolid body falling through space, and that such a body or<br \/>\ncollection of bodies came from the direction of the present<br \/>\nnorth-east, fell mainly upon a certain position of the<br \/>\nNorthern Hemisphere, occasioned vast earthquakes, and<br \/>\ndeposited not only certain mountain ranges but also<br \/>\nvolcanoes, causing among other matters the sinking of some<br \/>\nland and the uprising of others.&#8221; (Beaumont\/Way 1925, 90)<\/p>\n<p>The book, which was, as far as I am aware, never reviewed in any<br \/>\nscientific journal or newspaper, fell out of the press still-born.<br \/>\nWithout any feedback from the scientific community, Beaumont<br \/>\nturned to even more eccentric theories. In his next book, &#8220;The<br \/>\nMysterious Comet: Or the Origin, Building up, and Destruction of<br \/>\nWorlds, by means of Cometary Contacts&#8221; (Rider &amp; Co), published in<br \/>\nLondon in 1932, Beaumont &#8211; almost prophetically &#8211; summed up his<br \/>\nconclusions of more than 20 years of cometary research:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The science of meteorism is of utmost importance to the<br \/>\nworld. It is in fact the only philosophical science of real<br \/>\nimportance because modern astronomy largely reduces itself to<br \/>\nmathematical calculations as to the relative distance of<br \/>\ncelestial bodies, and these seem to have little practical<br \/>\nvalue to anyone. It uses geology where geology is useful and<br \/>\ndiscovers its weak spots as it does vulcanism and seismology.<br \/>\nIt explains much of the past which archaeologists and<br \/>\nbiologists cannot do, and reveals a great deal of the future.<br \/>\n[&#8230;] Meteorism will teach us the origin and evolutions of<br \/>\nplanets. Meteor impact explains the existence of mountain<br \/>\nranges not internal &#8216;crinklings,&#8217; the existence of volcanoes,<br \/>\nearthquakes, the land surfaces, the seas, and the very air we<br \/>\nbreathe. Nothing else does. Meteorism explains the creation<br \/>\nof species, of great saurians, reptiles, mammals, fish, birds,<br \/>\nand insects, as well as the origin of the human species. It<br \/>\nmay astonish my reader if I assert that species are still<br \/>\nbrought periodically by meteor agency into our world, and<br \/>\nthat also plagues and pestilences come from a similar source.<br \/>\nBut I will produce the evidence to such effect.\/ In spite of<br \/>\nthe vast importance of the subject meteorism is scarcely<br \/>\nrecognised as yet as a science. No encouragement is given to<br \/>\nthe student to prosecute a subject which if it did no more<br \/>\nfor humanity would doubtless save many thousands of lives by<br \/>\nthe mere establishment of principles of meteorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>70 years ago, nobody took such heretic ideas seriously. Charles<br \/>\nLyell and Charles Darwin&#8217;s theory of gradualist uniformitarianism was<br \/>\nstill the scientific dogma of the day. Without any response,<br \/>\nBeaumont&#8217;s interest turned to even more occult ideas such as<br \/>\nhistorical catastrophism and revised ancient history.<\/p>\n<p>I have recently published a brief paper on Beaumont&#8217;s ideas on<br \/>\nhistorical catastrophism and their influence on Immanuel Velikovsky&#8217;s<br \/>\nsimilar speculations (see attached text below). Some day, the<br \/>\nfantastic, bizarre and almost forgotten history of 19th and 20th<br \/>\ncentury catastrophism, in it scientific, religious and occult forms,<br \/>\nwill need to be written. It is quite a story.<\/p>\n<p>Benny J Peiser<br \/>\n=======================================================================<\/p>\n<p>from: Chronology &amp; Catastrophism Review. Journal of the Society for<br \/>\nInterdisciplinary Studies 1996:2<br \/>\nWILLIAM COMYNS BEAUMONT (1873 &#8211; 1956)<br \/>\nBRITAIN&#8217;S MOST ECCENTRIC AND LEAST KNOWN COSMIC HERETIC<\/p>\n<p>By Benny J Peiser<br \/>\nDid Immanuel Velikovsky knowingly present ideas someone else had<br \/>\ndeveloped many years earlier? While this question seems<br \/>\nbizarre even to his most ardent opponents, it was recently raised<br \/>\nin a paper by Robert Stephanos (Stephanos 1994). Hardly anybody<br \/>\nhas ever questioned the originality of Velikovsky\u2019s flawed ideas<br \/>\nof planetary catastrophes in historical times. While some critics<br \/>\nhave underlined that Velikovsky was mean with his acknowledgements of<br \/>\nearlier catastrophists (Michell 1984, 142), and others have stressed<br \/>\nthat the claims of Velikovsky\u2019s originality were spurious because<br \/>\nearlier authors had written about cometary catastrophes (Bauer 1984,<br \/>\n215ff.), many still believe that Velikovsky was the first proponent<br \/>\nof planetary catastrophism in this century.<\/p>\n<p>The reader of Alfred de Grazia\u2019s book Cosmic Heritics (de Grazia<br \/>\n1984) will therefore be surprised to learn that the first modern<br \/>\ncatastrophist was inn fact a British super-eccentric, William<br \/>\nComyns Beaumont, who is hardly known today but was a top-ranking<br \/>\nEnglish editor. Some of his ideas seem quite quite mad &#8211; e.g. the<br \/>\nidea that the Egyptian dynasties up to the 13th century B.C. ruled in<br \/>\nSouth Wales and that Jerusalem was originally located in Edinburgh<br \/>\n(de Grazia 1984, 138). In view of this, readers may regard the<br \/>\nrelative obscrurity of this bizarre catastrophist as rather fitting.<br \/>\nYet one\u2019s surprise turns into sheer amazement when we read that<br \/>\nWilliam Beaumont &#8211; with the exception of his matchless biblical<br \/>\nexegesis &#8211; had developed almost identical ideas to those of<br \/>\nVelikovsky and some of his ideas were published 25 years before<br \/>\nWorlds in Collision appeared in print. In fact, Beaumont had<br \/>\npublished no less than three lengthy books on colliding planets,<br \/>\ncometary catastrophes (which he associated with the Exodus<br \/>\ncatastrophes), and revised chronologies &#8211; all of them published<br \/>\nbefore Velikovsky entered the cosmic arena (Beaumont 1925, 1932,<br \/>\n1946). De Grazia lists Beaumont\u2019s main ideas as follows (de Grazia<br \/>\n138\/39):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The geology of the world&#8217;s surface is largely catastrophic.<br \/>\n2. The catastrophe was caused by a cometary collision.<br \/>\n3. All geological formations were shifted as a result.<br \/>\n4. Cosmic lightning played a major role.<br \/>\n5. Hydrocarbons were present in cometary tails.<br \/>\n6. Ancient chronology was several hundred years too old.<br \/>\n7. The Ancient calendars had to be revised because of the<br \/>\ncatastrophe.<br \/>\n8. Many species were extinguished catastrophically.<br \/>\n9. Religion was born in cometary worship and tied to phallic<br \/>\nforms because of the shape of comets.<br \/>\n10. Fear of cometary collisions is inherited by mankind.<br \/>\n11. Vermin were deposited by comets which also provoked<br \/>\nplagues.<br \/>\n12. Deities from Egypt, Greece, Meso-America, and elsewhere<br \/>\nwere identified with planets.<br \/>\n13. Pyramids were both astronomical observatories and<br \/>\n&#8220;air-raid shelters&#8221; for nobility and kings.<br \/>\n14. Planet Saturn, as a comet caused ihe Noachian Deluge.<br \/>\n15. The Atlantis date (ca. 9500 B.C.) given by Plato had to be<br \/>\nshortened.<br \/>\n16. Extensive legendary evidence pictures the &#8220;hairy,&#8221; &#8220;bearded,&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;blazing stars&#8221; that were comets.<br \/>\n17. Stonehenge, Avebury Circle and similar monuments were<br \/>\nastronomical instruments.<br \/>\n18. Central American legends (and cultures) were contemporaneous<br \/>\nwith those of the Old World.<br \/>\n19. The intercalary &#8220;five evil days&#8221; were cursed because they<br \/>\ncoincided with a world disaster and the ending of an age.<br \/>\n20. The serpent, dragon, winged-globe, caduceus, and other<br \/>\nancient symbols are traceable to cometary catastrophes.<br \/>\n21. Religious festival are dated by cometary catastrophes.<br \/>\n22. Cometary conflagrations are the origin of coal deposits.<br \/>\n23. The ancients had a true 360 day year.<br \/>\n24. The planet Venus underwent great changes in color, diameter,<br \/>\nfigure, and orbit in the time of Ogyges.<br \/>\n25. Quetzalcoatl (Coculkan-Hurakan) commemorated the cometary<br \/>\ndragon for the Meso-Aniericans.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Beaumont\u2019s theses are almost identical to those of Velikovsky. Yet<br \/>\nBeaumont developed and published them as early as the 1920s and<br \/>\n1930s. Could this extraordinary similarity have been a freak<br \/>\naccident? If this correspondence was not a\u00a0 fluke, how could it be<br \/>\nexplained? &#8220;Could Velikovsky have read and forgotten Beaumont\u2019s<br \/>\nbooks?&#8221;, de Grazia (1984, 139) asked. De Grazia tried to reconciliate<br \/>\nthe evidence with the fact that Beaumont\u2019s style and method were<br \/>\nentirely different from Velikovsky\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>De Grazia pointed out that &#8220;too many of Beaumont&#8217;s conclusions are<br \/>\nthe same to explain them as sheer coincidence&#8221;. He therefore<br \/>\nspeculated as to how this parallelism could possibly be accounted for:<br \/>\n&#8220;I guess that either in the 1920s or 1930s, when Velikovsky was in<br \/>\nPalestine, the books [by Beaumont], published in England and dealing<br \/>\nwith matters of interest to the Near East, made an appearance in the<br \/>\nbookstores and were seen by Velikovsky&#8221; (De Grazia 1984, 140).<\/p>\n<p>According to de Grazia, Beaumont\u2019s early books were not held by<br \/>\nColumbia University Libraries and only Beaumont\u2019s third book, &#8220;The<br \/>\nRiddle of Prehistoric Britain&#8221; (published in 1946), appeared in the<br \/>\nColumbia University library catalogues, and &#8220;By that time &#8216;Worlds in<br \/>\nCollision&#8217; had been written&#8221; (De Grazia 1984, 140).<\/p>\n<p>However, according to de Grazia, &#8220;a note exists in his [Velikovsky&#8217;s]<br \/>\narchive, mentioning having read Beaumont\u2019s 1932 book; the note<br \/>\ndismisses the work. Yet Velikovsky expresses his wonder whether<br \/>\nBeaumont had gotten his (V\u2019s) ideas by telepathy&#8221; (de Grazia 1984,<br \/>\n140). But how could Beaumont have borrowed Velikovsky\u2019s ideas as<br \/>\nearly as 1925 or 1932 (let alone by means of telepathy) when &#8211;<br \/>\naccording to Velikovsky\u2019s own account &#8211; Worlds in Collision was only<br \/>\nconceived in 1940? De Grazia was suspicious: &#8220;Could there have been a<br \/>\n\u2018Bridie Murphy Effect&#8221; which might explain Velikovsky\u2019s rather<br \/>\nirrational accusations against Beaumont?&#8221; (de Grazia 1984, 140). Had<br \/>\nVelikovsky simply \u2018forgotten\u2019 that he had already come across<br \/>\nBeaumont\u2019s books (or ideas) in the 1920s or 1930s?<\/p>\n<p>In hindsight, de Grazia was much too quick to rule out direct<br \/>\ninfluence. He failed to check whether Beaumont\u2019s books were stored in<br \/>\nthe Public Library on 42nd Street, the other big library which<br \/>\nVelikovsky had frequently used during the 1940s. It holds all of<br \/>\nBeaumont\u2019s early books, so they were readily available to Velikovsky<br \/>\nduring his ten years of research.<\/p>\n<p>References<\/p>\n<p>Bauer, H.H. (1984), Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public<br \/>\nControversy (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois<br \/>\nPress)<br \/>\nBeaumont, W.C. [=Appian Way] (1925), The Riddle of the Earth (London)<br \/>\nBeaumont, W.C. (1932), The Mysterious Comet (London: Rider &amp; Co)<br \/>\nBeaumont, W.C. (1946), The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain<br \/>\n(London\/New York\/Melbourne\/Sydney: Rider &amp; Co)<br \/>\nBeaumont, W.C. (1947) Britain the Key to World History<br \/>\n(London\/New York\/Melbourne\/Sydney\/Cape Town: Rider &amp; Co)<br \/>\nBeaumont, W.C. (1948) A Rebel in Fleet Street (London: Hutchinson&amp;<br \/>\nCo)<br \/>\nde Grazia, A. (1984), Cosmic Heretics (Princeton: Metron)<br \/>\nMichell, J. (1984), Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions (London:<br \/>\nThames &amp; Hudson)<br \/>\nStephanos, R.C. (1994) Catastrophists in Collision: Did Velikovsky<br \/>\nborrow from Beaumont\u2019s original works? In: Fate [March 1994],<br \/>\n66-72<br \/>\nVelikovsky, I. (1950), Worlds in Collision (London: Victor Gollantz)<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WILLIAM COMYNS BEAUMONT<br \/>\nJERUSALEM IN SCOTLAND AND OTHER FINDINGS OF A REVISIONIST GEOGRAPHER<\/p>\n<p>By John Michell<\/p>\n<p>from John Michell: Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions<br \/>\n(London: Thames and Hudson 1984), pp. 136-143<\/p>\n<p>In the winter of 1910 Dr Orville Owen of Detroit was engaged in the<br \/>\nGreat Baconian Treasure Hunt around Chepstow Castle. He was hoping to<br \/>\ndiscover valuable relics concealed there by Sir Francis Bacon,<br \/>\ntogether with documents proving his authorship of the works of<br \/>\nShakespeare. Owen&#8217;s excavations in the bed of the river Wye became a<br \/>\nrallying point for mystics and adventurers and soon attracted the<br \/>\npress.\u00a0 Keenest of the journalists was a leading staff-writer on the<br \/>\nDaily Mail, William Comyns Beaumont. He agreed to contract with Dr<br \/>\nOwen for the results of the treasure hunt to be reported exclusively<br \/>\nin his paper and arranged to write a series of articles about the<br \/>\ndiscovery of Bacon&#8217;s hoard. Beaumont had an advantage over other<br \/>\njournalists in being himself a confirmed Baconian. He fell readily<br \/>\nunder the spell of Dr Owen, developed complete faith in his cipher<br \/>\nand, even after the search was abandoned with nothing to show for it,<br \/>\nremained a true believer. Years later he wrote a book, The Private<br \/>\nLife of the Virgin Queen, upholding the established belief among<br \/>\nBaconian decoders, that Francis Bacon was the natural son of Queen<br \/>\nElizabeth.<\/p>\n<p>Baconianism, however, was the most conventional of Comyns Beaumont&#8217;s<br \/>\nheresies. None of the other unusual thinkers mentioned in this book<br \/>\ncan rival him in the number and strangeness of the unorthodox<br \/>\ntheories he propagated. Like lgnatius Donnelly he believed in<br \/>\nAtlantis and in the past destruction of civilization on earth by the<br \/>\nimpact of a comet; but to these theories he gave peculiar twists of<br \/>\nhis own, and in the field of speculative geography his imagination<br \/>\noutreached even that of the great Minnesotan.<\/p>\n<p>Born in 1873, Beaumont went to public school but avoided university<br \/>\nby accepting the post of private secretary to a rich American<br \/>\ndiplomat. He travelled with his employer to India, America and other<br \/>\nparts of the world, meeting many of the important people in politics<br \/>\nand finance, and began his career in journalism as foreign<br \/>\ncorrespondent to the New York Herald. His next job was at Newcastle,<br \/>\nwriting for a local paper. There he met the daughter of an old<br \/>\nCatholic family from nearby County Durham, and proposed marriage. Her<br \/>\nfamily objected, not because of religion &#8211; Beaumont had earlier<br \/>\nconverted to Catholicism &#8211; but on account of his poverty. So the<br \/>\ncouple married in secret, and immediately parted, the bridegroom<br \/>\ngoing off on a mission abroad while the bride returned innocently to<br \/>\nher family. It was three years before they met again, by which time<br \/>\nBeaumont had obtained a good position in London, on the Daily Mail.<br \/>\nThe marriage was successful, and so was his career.<\/p>\n<p>He became an intimate aide to the newspaper&#8217;s proprietor, Lord<br \/>\nNorthcliffe, and made his name over many years in Fleet Street as<br \/>\nfounder and editor of numerous journals concerned with politics<br \/>\nand the arts. As editor of The Bystander he was the first to publish<br \/>\na story by Daphne Du Maurier, who was his niece, his sister&#8217;s<br \/>\ndaughter.<\/p>\n<p>To the public eye Comyns Beaumont was handsome, talented, worldly,<br \/>\nwell-connected and the last sort of person one would normally suspect<br \/>\nof heresy. Yet in his mind strange ideas were brewing. Some are<br \/>\nhinted at in his autobiography, A Rebel in Fleet Street, which is<br \/>\nmostly an account of his professional career, but also includes<br \/>\nwarnings about a Zionist plot to subvert the British Empire and a<br \/>\nbrief outline of his unusual opinions on earthquakes and volcanoes.<br \/>\nIn 1909 he had been to the scene of a disastrous earthquake at<br \/>\nMessina in Sicily, which had killed 200,000 people the year before,<br \/>\nand had come to believe that all such upheavals were caused by<br \/>\n\u2018meteoric impacts which in turn are closely related to cometary<br \/>\nmovements\u2019. That belief was the cornerstone for Beaumont\u2019s<br \/>\nrevolutionary theories of history and geography.<\/p>\n<p>Family reminiscences tell of Beaumont returning from work to his<br \/>\nlarge, comfortable house and, after dinner, retiring to his study<br \/>\nfor long spells of reading and writing. His main subjects were<br \/>\nmythology, early history, geology and ancient astronomical records.<br \/>\nIn all of them he found convincing evidence that the earth had<br \/>\nsuffered many cataclysms in the course of its history, the most<br \/>\nrecent having occurred in about 1322 BC. These were due to bits of<br \/>\ndismembered planets striking the earth in the form of giant comets<br \/>\nand altering its size and orbit. When his children asked about his<br \/>\nwritings, he terrified them with tales of collapsing worlds and the<br \/>\nprediction that a monster comet would crash to earth in December<br \/>\n1919. The uneventful passing of that date only intensified his belief<br \/>\nin the rest of his theories &#8211; as is invariably the case with doomsday<br \/>\nprophets &#8211; and in middle age he published two books on world<br \/>\ncatastrophes, directing them at geology professors who unanimously<br \/>\nignored them. It was not until he was retired and over seventy that<br \/>\nhe undertook the great work of his life, a massive trilogy in which<br \/>\nevery supposed fact about ancient history was overturned.<\/p>\n<p>In the first of the series, The Riddle of Prehistotic Britain,<br \/>\nBeaumont identified the British Isles as Atlantis, the original<br \/>\nparadise and cradle of the Aryan race by which civilization was<br \/>\nspread to all other lands. Some of its members were giants,<br \/>\nresponsible for building the great rock piles on the tors of Devon<br \/>\nand Cornwall, and among them were skilled artificers who invented<br \/>\nbombs, firearms and flying machines. Their merchant navies traded as<br \/>\nfar afield as South America, and everywhere they planted colonies.<br \/>\nNationalistic writers of many different countries have made sweeping<br \/>\nclaims for their own people as the original culture-bearers; but, in<br \/>\nthe audacity of his pretensions on behalf of the British, Beaumont<br \/>\nsurpassed them all.<\/p>\n<p>He stripped the entire ancient world of its history, myths, culture<br \/>\nand sacred sites and transferred them wholesale to Britain. Egypt and<br \/>\nits Pharaohs were not, as commonly believed, located in North Africa<br \/>\nbut in western Scotland. Also in that land were ancient Greece,<br \/>\nIsrael and Babylonia with all their legendary heroes. Mount Olympus,<br \/>\nthrone of the gods, was really Ben Nevis, the first site of Athens<br \/>\nwas the town of Dumbarton, the battle of Thermopylae was fought at<br \/>\nGlencoe, and Ur of the Chaldees flourished near the Stones of<br \/>\nStenness in the Orkney Islands. From that former Atlantean centre<br \/>\nAbraham migrated to Wiltshire and settled near the stone circle at<br \/>\nAyebury, which Beaumont identified as Mizpah, Thebes, the dragon\u2019s<br \/>\nteeth sown by Cadmus, an astronomical temple to Saturn and the image<br \/>\nof a destructive comet. Having appropriated the whole of antiquity<br \/>\nfor Britain, Beaumont had the problem of finding enough British sites<br \/>\nto accommodate the cities and landmarks of many different lands. This<br \/>\nhe solved by giving each of the prominent places in Britain several<br \/>\nnames from a variety of ancient cultures.<\/p>\n<p>The conspiratorial cast of mind which caused him to perceive a<br \/>\nZionist plot against Britain a so revealed to him the extent to which<br \/>\nthe Old Testament had been tampered with. The Holy Land was not<br \/>\noriginally Palestine but in the British Isels and a part of<br \/>\nScandinavia which, in antediluvian times, was separated from Britain<br \/>\nby a narrow stretch of water known to antiquity as the Hellespont.<br \/>\nThe destruction of Atlantis, Noah\u2019s flood and similar catastrophe<br \/>\nlegends all over the world referred to one and the same event, the<br \/>\nfall of a huge double comet made up of fragments from a collapsed<br \/>\nplanet. It landed in Scotland, not far from Edinburgh which in those<br \/>\ndays was called Jerusalem. The accident was considered a miracle<br \/>\nbecause Jerusalem was then under siege by a colonial army, equipped<br \/>\nwith superior firearms and led by a brilliant but sinister character<br \/>\nwhom Beaumont identified simultaneously as Moses, Zoroaster, Silenus<br \/>\nand Odin. By the storms, floods and earthquakes which followed the<br \/>\ninvading host was destroyed, and so was much of Atlantis-Britain. The<br \/>\nbulk of the comet increased the size of the earth and knocked it<br \/>\nfurther away from the sun, lengthening the period of its orbit from<br \/>\n360 to 3651\/4 days and altering its climate. The British Isles, which<br \/>\nhad previously enjoyed sub-tropical weather, became cold and misty.<br \/>\nMany of the surviving population migrated south, founding colonies<br \/>\nwhich they named after districts of their homeland, Egypt, Israel,<br \/>\nGreece and so on. Yet the stricken lands of the North continued to be<br \/>\nthe centre of world culture. Jerusalem was rebuilt on its ancient<br \/>\nsite in Edinburgh, York flourished as Babylon, Lincoln as Antioch,<br \/>\nLondon as Damascus, Bristol as both Sodom and Tarshish, and Bath as<br \/>\nthe Philistine city of Gath. The Holy Family settled near<br \/>\nGlastonbury, where Jesus was born, and his entire mission took place<br \/>\nin Somerset, then known as Galilee.<\/p>\n<p>In the second and third parts of his trilogy (Britain the Key to<br \/>\nWorld History and the still unpublished After Atlantis: the Greatest<br \/>\nStory Never Told) Beaumont closely identified the geography of<br \/>\nSomerset with that of the Holy Land. Glastonbury was Bethel, the<br \/>\nfortress of Abraham, the birthplace of Christianity and the original<br \/>\nsite of the Garden of Eden. Its Tor hill was formerly known as Mount<br \/>\nTabor, and it was to this spot that Joseph of Arimathaea sailed from<br \/>\nJerusalem (Edinburgh), navigating the inland waters of Somerset, then<br \/>\ncalled the Red Sea, after passing through the Bristol Channel or Sea<br \/>\nof Galilee. On his route was the land of Gadara, situated at Clifton<br \/>\nnear Bristol, where the Gadarene swine had earlier plunged into the<br \/>\nAvon Gorge near the present Suspension Bridge.<\/p>\n<p>The Romans invaded Britain for the sake of its rich minerals, and at<br \/>\nabout the same time they are recorded as having besieged and<br \/>\ndestroyed Jerusalem. The Emperor Hadrian, who built the famous wall<br \/>\nagainst the Picts and Scots, was also active in the campaign against<br \/>\nthe Jews, and several of the Roman generals were said to have served<br \/>\nboth in Britain and at Jerusalem, even though the journey from<br \/>\nBritain to Palestine was long and arduous. In Beaumont\u2019s opinion they<br \/>\ndid not have so far to travel, because Jerusalem in those days was<br \/>\nstill situated at Edinburgh. This became one of the main pillars of<br \/>\nhis thesis. Ancient descriptions of Jerusalem, he found, applied far<br \/>\nmore closely to Edinburgh than to the \u2018squalid and provincial\u2019 city<br \/>\nin Palestine.\u00a0 Arthur\u2019s Seat, for example, was more worthy to be the<br \/>\ntrue Mount of Olives than the insignificant hill which now bears that<br \/>\nname, and Beaumont was gratified to discover that a seaside suburb of<br \/>\nEdinburgh, Joppa, had the same name as the traditional port for<br \/>\nJerusalem. The London Daily News (13 November 1950) published<br \/>\nBeaumont\u2019s offer to conduct any qualified archaeologist round Britain<br \/>\nand prove to him \u2018that this island and not Palestine is the Holy Land<br \/>\nof the Bible\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>If Beaumont was right, the obvious question is why everyone else<br \/>\nshould believe that Jerusalem and the Holy Land were always where<br \/>\nthey are today. Beaumont\u2019s answer was that Britain was systematically<br \/>\nrobbed. Among those responsible was Hadrian, who moved Athens away<br \/>\nfrom Dumbarton, not only in name but physically, transporting some of<br \/>\nits finer buildings for re-erection in Mediterranean Greece.\u00a0 But the<br \/>\nmain culprit was Constantine the Great. According to Beaumont he was<br \/>\na Yorkshireman, by upbringing if not birth, and his mother, Helena,<br \/>\nwas the daughter of that popular British ruler, Old King Cole. He was<br \/>\nthus well aware of the true location of Jerusalem, at Edinburgh, but<br \/>\nhe found that fact inconvenient. It was too far from his own capital<br \/>\nin Asia Minor. He engaged therefore in one of those grand<br \/>\nconspiracies so dear to the heart of Comyns Beaumont, tricking his<br \/>\nold mother into finding the supposed True Cross in Palestine and<br \/>\nannouncing that on that barren spot was the Jerusalem of old. He then<br \/>\ngathered together the writings of every ancient and contemporary<br \/>\nchronicler, destroyed every text that placed the Holy Land in<br \/>\nBritain and severely censored those documents he spared. Beaumont<br \/>\ncompiled a long list of classical works known to have existed but<br \/>\nnow lost, and suggested that they had fallen victim to Constantine\u2019s<br \/>\nliterary purges because they did not fit in with his new pattern of<br \/>\nsacred geography. All that has come down to us of the original early<br \/>\nhistories is a few doctored fragments.<\/p>\n<p>Religion had no interest for Beaumont personally, since in his<br \/>\nopinion all legends of gods and their interventions on earth could be<br \/>\nexplained in meteorological terms. Successive cataclysms, caused by<br \/>\nfalls of comets, had traumatic effects on the minds of their<br \/>\nsurvivors and on the human memory over many generations. Stone<br \/>\nmonuments were first constructed as places of refuge from an<br \/>\nelemental upheaval, and later to record the event and placate the<br \/>\ngods. Records of the most recent disaster, identified as such by<br \/>\nBeaumont, included the ancient Golspie Stone of Sutherland and other<br \/>\nmonuments of the same period and district, bearing mysterious carved<br \/>\nsymbols, notably a pair of linked circles which he took to be an<br \/>\nimage of the double comet of 1322 BC. Cometary impacts were preceded<br \/>\nby strange disorders in nature, such as earth tremors and volcanic<br \/>\neruptions, which were remembered in\u00a0 history as portents of divine<br \/>\nwrath.\u00a0 Thus he interpreted the Old Testament stories of the plagues<br \/>\nof Egypt and the destruction of Pharaoh\u2019s host in the Red Sea as<br \/>\nreferences to the great disaster, described in other myths as the<br \/>\nruin of Atlantis and Noah&#8217;s flood, caused by the fall of a comet on<br \/>\nthe northern part of Britain.<\/p>\n<p>In deriving all religion, mythology and the history of our era from<br \/>\none single cataclysmic event, Beaumont produced a simplified,<br \/>\nmaterialistic theory of cosmology with the same type of appeal as the<br \/>\nbelief in extra-terrestrial origins of culture, pioneered by Brinsley<br \/>\nle Poer Trench and popularized by Erich von D\u00e4niken. Yet Beaumont\u2019s<br \/>\nreputation and the sales of his books never approached those of the<br \/>\nlatter author. An evident reason is that he buttressed every item in<br \/>\nhis thesis with such a large body of evidence that much of his<br \/>\nwriting, despite its stunning originality, was inclined to be<br \/>\nlong-winded and tedious. No doubt also the times were against him.<br \/>\nAmong contemporaries, however, he was not entirely without allies.<br \/>\nThe psychic archaeologist, J. Forster Forbes, also wrote books<br \/>\nshowing the British to have been culture-bearers to the world as<br \/>\nheirs to the wise Atlanteans, and Beaumont\u2019s work found favour among<br \/>\nsome of the British Israelites, even though his notions on the<br \/>\norigins and destiny of the British people were diametrically opposed<br \/>\nto their own. But in his lifetime he attracted no significant<br \/>\nfollowing, and it is only recently that his works have found a<br \/>\nchampion, a man prepared to devote his life to the restoration of<br \/>\nJerusalem to Edinburgh.<\/p>\n<p>In 1975 a Comyns Beaumont society was incorporated at Philadelphia,<br \/>\nPennsylvania. Its founder and moving spirit was Mr Robert C.<br \/>\nStephanos, an American psychologist of Albanian descent &#8211; which may<br \/>\nbe significant, in that the Albanians now claim to be the only nation<br \/>\npractising pure atheism, having pulled down all their mosques and<br \/>\nchurches; and because of their traditional associations with Scotland<br \/>\nor Alban, evident in the name of their country and their liking for<br \/>\nkilts and bagpipes. Stephanos had long been interested in theories of<br \/>\nformer terrestrial cataclysms and was an early supporter of the most<br \/>\nrecent catastrophist, Immanuel Velikovsky. When Velikovsky\u2019s fortunes<br \/>\nwere at their lowest ebb, when his writings were boycotted by<br \/>\nacademic publishers, and college professors refused to permit his<br \/>\nfantastic theories to be aired in front of their students, Stephanos<br \/>\ncame to his rescue. In 1973 he talked the authorities of<br \/>\nPhiladelphia\u2019s Temple University into inviting Velikovsky to lecture.<br \/>\nThe audience was large and enthusiastic, and Velikovskv followed up<br \/>\nwith\u00a0 a series of lectures at other colleges, also arranged by<br \/>\nStephanos. The novelty of his ideas, and the reputation he had earned<br \/>\nas a martyr through the attempted suppression of his first book,<br \/>\nWorlds in Collision, were attractive to his young listeners. But as<br \/>\nhis cult grew, Velikovsky became nervous and suspicious. He quarreled<br \/>\nwith Stephanos who, thus deprived of a cause, looked round for<br \/>\nanother. Velikovsky was mean with his acknowledgments, referring only<br \/>\nonce, in a disdainful footnote, to his great catastrophist<br \/>\npredecessor, lgnatius Donnelly, and not at all to Comyns Beaumont.<br \/>\nYet Beaumont\u2019s theory of destructive comets was the same as<br \/>\nVelikovsky\u2019s in all but some minor details. His books were hard to<br \/>\nfind, particularly in America, but Stephanos finally succeeded and,<br \/>\nhaving read them, became a convert to Beaumont\u2019s entire thesis, his<br \/>\neccentric geography included. After founding The Beaumont Society:<br \/>\nScientific Endeavours Inc., he set off for England to research<br \/>\nBeaumont\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>He interviewed members of the family, including Beaumont\u2019s niece,<br \/>\nDame Daphne Du Maurier, and his daughter, Ursula Pike, who lived in<br \/>\nTipperary. Mrs Pike had exciting news, of a kind which all literary<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/>\nDate sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:00:30 -0400 (EDT)<br \/>\nFrom:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Benny J Peiser &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nSubject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 MORE ON THE EL PASO FIREBALL<br \/>\nTo:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nPriority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL<\/p>\n<p>from: David Morrison &lt;dmorrison@mail.arc.nasa.gov<br \/>\nFURTHER INFORMATION ON EL PASO BOLIDE OF OCTOBER 9<\/p>\n<p>Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 09:00:42 -0600 (MDT)<br \/>\nFrom: Mark Boslough &lt;mbboslo@sandia.gov<\/p>\n<p>I just returned from El Paso where I spent the last 6 days with Alan<br \/>\nHildebrand, Peter Brown, Doug ReVelle, David Crawford, and a few<br \/>\nothers gathering field observations, videotapes, seismic data, etc.<br \/>\nto make a trajectory determination of the Oct. 9 event (&#8220;ground<br \/>\ntruth&#8221; for CTBT infrasound network measurements).\u00a0 We agree that this<br \/>\nwas probably a kt-class event, and we are continuing to refine the<br \/>\nentry angle, burst altitude, and azimuth of the ground-track.\u00a0 We<br \/>\nhave a preliminary fall area defined and believe that there are<br \/>\nmeteorites.<\/p>\n<p>There are at least 6 videotapes of the &#8220;puff&#8221; from the terminal<br \/>\nexplosion, from which we have gotten quantitative information.\u00a0 A<br \/>\nsecurity tape that we obtained yesterday from a business almost<br \/>\ndirectly beneath the terminal burst gives us the &#8220;flash-to-boom&#8221;<br \/>\ninterval, which will yield a precise burst altitude when we correct<br \/>\nfor atmospheric wind and temperature.<\/p>\n<p>We think that the mean recurrence interval for events of this<br \/>\nmagnitude is on the order of a month (not days).\u00a0 The frequency of<br \/>\noccurrence over a major city like El Paso-Juarez is therefore quite<br \/>\nlow, and we hope to extract as much useful information as we can from<br \/>\nthis lucky circumstance. [Morrison comment: the standard<br \/>\nShoemaker\/Spaceguard model for average frequency of kiloton events is<br \/>\nabout 10 days, consistent with Mark&#8217;s number, but more recent<br \/>\nestimates (Rabinowotz et al. in the 1994 Hazards book) increase the<br \/>\npopulation by about an order of magnitude, making their kiloton event<br \/>\nfrequency just a day or two.]<\/p>\n<p>The human reaction to this event should also concern us.\u00a0 The<br \/>\nmajority of witnesses that I interviewed along the border believed<br \/>\nthat they had seen a rocket or missile exploding. Some were worried<br \/>\nabout fallout, and many thought that Fort Bliss had had an accident<br \/>\nthat was now being covered up by the government. In one border town,<br \/>\nmany residents got sick afterwards, some with headaches, upper<br \/>\nrespiratory and allergic symptoms. This was almost certainly due to<br \/>\ndust (and probably asbestos) that was shaken out of the ceilings of<br \/>\nold buildings by the sonic boom.<\/p>\n<p>===================================================<\/p>\n<p>MORE ON 19TH CENTURY CATASTROPHISM<\/p>\n<p>From: Paolo Farinella &lt;paolof@dm.unipi.it to Duncan Steel on Byron&#8217;s<br \/>\ncomments on comet impacts:<\/p>\n<p>I have just one comment. I doubt Byron was really influenced by<br \/>\nCuvier&#8217;s catastrophist school, as you say, since at that time the<br \/>\nBritish and French communities of scholars didn&#8217;t interact very<br \/>\nclosely. More likely, Byron knew the work of William Whiston,<br \/>\nNewton&#8217;s successor at Cambridge, whose writings were widely read and<br \/>\npraised throughout the 18th century by British intellectuals<br \/>\n(including Newton himself and John Locke; Jonathan Swift didn&#8217;t like<br \/>\nWhiston and satirized his comet catastrophe theories in his<br \/>\n`Gulliver&#8217;s Travels&#8217;). Whiston was also forecasting that the<br \/>\napocalyptical prophecies of the Bible would become reality in the near<br \/>\nfuture, under the form of a comet impact which would burn the Earth&#8217;s<br \/>\nsurface and change its orbit.\u00a0 It&#8217;s no wonder for me that, given<br \/>\nByron&#8217;s heroic and romantic frame of mind, he would imagine that<br \/>\nhumankind would struggle against the impending cometary catastrophe.<\/p>\n<p>I have read Whiston&#8217;s story in the beautiful essay of S.J. Gould<br \/>\nreprinted a few years ago in his book `Bully for Brontosaurus&#8217;<br \/>\n(pp.367-381). Here and in his other book `Time&#8217;s Arrow, Time&#8217;s<br \/>\nCycle&#8217;, Gould also mentions Lyell&#8217;s harsh dismissal of Whiston and of<br \/>\nall cometary impact hypotheses in 1830. A very interesting episode,<br \/>\nwhich I think would deserve to be better known by today&#8217;s scientists.<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/>\nDate sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 08:52:01 -0400 (EDT)<br \/>\nFrom:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Benny J Peiser &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nSubject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NEO Grant Press Release<br \/>\nTo:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nCopies to:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tps@mars.planetary.org<br \/>\nPriority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL<\/p>\n<p>from: Linda Wong &lt;tps@mars.planetary.org<br \/>\nNEWS RELEASE<\/p>\n<p>The Planetary Society<br \/>\n65 N. Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106-2301\u00a0 (626) 793-5100\u00a0\u00a0 Fax<br \/>\n(626) 793-5528\u00a0 E-mail tps@mars.planetary.org<br \/>\nEmbargoed Release: October 11, 1997<br \/>\nContact: Susan Lendroth<\/p>\n<p>Planetary Society Grants Will Honor Shoemaker by Helping<br \/>\nAstronomers Continue the Search for Near Earth Objects<\/p>\n<p>The Planetary Society will honor the late planetary geologist, Eugene<br \/>\nShoemaker, and his quest to better understand near earth objects<br \/>\n(NEOs) with a new program called the Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object<br \/>\nGrants. The first grant recipients will be announced by Apollo<br \/>\nAstronaut and former U.S. Senator Harrison Schmitt at the Celebration<br \/>\nof Life service for Dr. Shoemaker at the U.S. Geological Survey<br \/>\nFlagstaff Field Center in Arizona on October 11, 1997.<\/p>\n<p>The grants, totaling $35,000, will be given to four researchers from<br \/>\naround the world with programs to search for NEOs &#8212; asteroids and<br \/>\ncomets with orbits close enough to Earth to pose a potential hazard<br \/>\nto our planet. Only about 5 to 10% of the estimated number of<br \/>\none-kilometer or larger objects in Earth&#8217;s orbit have been found and<br \/>\ntracked so far.<\/p>\n<p>The four recipients are Gordon Garradd, Australia; Kirill<br \/>\nZamarashkin, Russia;\u00a0 Walter Wild, Chicago, Illinois; and Bill<br \/>\nHoliday, Corpus Christi, Texas. Thirteen grant applications were<br \/>\nreviewed by a selection committee comprised of seven eminent<br \/>\nscientists.<\/p>\n<p>NEOs have crashed into the Earth in the past with devastating<br \/>\nresults. Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan was made by an object some<br \/>\n10 km across colliding with Earth 65 million years ago.\u00a0 That impact<br \/>\nprobably contributed led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.\u00a0 Even<br \/>\nfar smaller objects can wreak widespread havoc. Dr. Shoemaker&#8217;s<br \/>\nlandmark studies, extending the early work of Daniel Moreau<br \/>\nBarringer, proved conclusively that the mile-wide crater in Arizona,<br \/>\nnow known as Barringer Meteorite Crater, was caused by an impact of<br \/>\nan iron-nickel meteorite about 150 feet across with Earth nearly<br \/>\n50,000 years ago.\u00a0 Prior to Dr. Shoemaker&#8217;s work, the crater was<br \/>\nbelieved by many to be the remnant of an extinct volcano.<\/p>\n<p>Discovering and tracking all NEOs will allow scientists to better<br \/>\nunderstand these bodies and the role they play in the evolution of<br \/>\nthe solar system. Mapping their orbits will also give us early<br \/>\nwarning if any of these bodies poses a future hazard to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Garradd currently operates the only NEO observing program in the<br \/>\nsouthern hemisphere. Based in Loomberah, New South Wales in<br \/>\nAustralia, Garradd will use his Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant to complete<br \/>\na 45-cm Newtonian telescope currently under construction and to<br \/>\nacquire a larger, higher-grade imaging sensor called a CCD.<\/p>\n<p>Zamarashkin is the project coordinator for a joint Russian-Ukrainian<br \/>\nsearch program at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.\u00a0 This team<br \/>\nof scientists has been studying NEOs for 30 years and has discovered<br \/>\n910 minor bodies, 12% of the currently numbered minor planets. The<br \/>\ngrant money will be used to help construct the first element of an<br \/>\nautomatic complex to search for NEOs.<\/p>\n<p>Wild, an astronomer at the university of Chicago, leads a group of<br \/>\namateur astronomers who are conducting an NEO search from Yerkes<br \/>\nObservatory in Wisconsin. The grant money will be used to refurbish<br \/>\ntheir 24&#8243; telescope and to bring their spectrograph to operational<br \/>\ncapacity for use with a 41&#8243; telescope used for follow-up<br \/>\nclassification of NEOs.<\/p>\n<p>Holiday is an amateur astronomer based in Texas.\u00a0\u00a0 Working from a<br \/>\nhome-built rotating roof-observatory, Holiday will supply additional<br \/>\ndata to professional astronomers to help them make orbit predictions<br \/>\nfor NEOs. The grant will be used to upgrade his equipment.<\/p>\n<p>Services celebrating the life of Dr. Shoemaker will be held in<br \/>\nFlagstaff on October 11. Dr. Shoemaker was killed in a traffic<br \/>\naccident last July in Australia, where he went to study ancient<br \/>\nimpact craters.<\/p>\n<p>The Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grant selection committee<br \/>\nmembers are Richard Binzel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;<br \/>\nAndrea Carusi, Instituto di Astrofisica Spaziale; Clark Chapman,<br \/>\nSouthwest Research Institute; Brian Marsden, Harvard-Smithsonian<br \/>\nCenter for Astrophysics; Alain Maury, Telescope de Schmidt &#8211;<br \/>\nObservatoire de la Cote d&#8217;Azur; Syuichi Nakano, Japanese astronomer;<br \/>\nand Jorge Sahade, La Plata Observatorio Astronomico, Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>Observers interested in applying for future NEO grants in the program<br \/>\nshould contact the Planetary Society for an application by writing<br \/>\nthe Society at 65 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, California 91106<br \/>\nor sending an e-mail to tps@mars.planetary.org.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded the Society in<br \/>\n1980 to advance the exploration of the solar system and to continue<br \/>\nthe search for extraterrestrial life.\u00a0 With 100,000 members in over<br \/>\n100 countries, the Society is the largest space interest group in the<br \/>\nworld.<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\nLinda Wong<br \/>\nThe Planetary Society<br \/>\n65 N. Catalina Ave.<br \/>\nPasadena, CA 91106<br \/>\n(626) 793-5100<br \/>\n(626 793-5528 (Fax)<br \/>\ntps@mars.planetary.org<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/>\nDate sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 08:47:34 -0400 (EDT)<br \/>\nFrom:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 &#8220;b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk&#8221; &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nSubject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Los Alamos Array Detects Large, Bright Meteor<br \/>\nTo:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk<br \/>\nPriority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL<\/p>\n<p>from: Ron Baalke &lt;BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov<br \/>\nPublic Affairs Office (PAO)<br \/>\nLos Alamos National Laboratory<\/p>\n<p>CONTACT: James E. Rickman, 505-665-9203 (97-155)<\/p>\n<p>Los Alamos array detects large, bright meteor: Laboratory researcher<br \/>\njoins the search<\/p>\n<p>LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 10, 1997 &#8212; Researchers at Los Alamos National<br \/>\nLaboratory were able to use an array developed to listen for<br \/>\nclandestine nuclear weapons tests to help locate a large meteor that<br \/>\nflashed in the sky Thursday afternoon above Southern New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The object &#8212; presumably a large, bright meteor known as a bolide &#8212;<br \/>\nwas seen in the skies Thursday at about 12:47 p.m. Witnesses said the<br \/>\nobject was at least as bright as the full moon or as bright as the<br \/>\nsetting sun.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The meteor made a huge sonic signal,&#8221; said Doug ReVelle, a<br \/>\nmeteorologist in Los Alamos&#8217; Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Group.<br \/>\n&#8220;They heard it like a freight train in El Paso.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Using data from Los Alamos listening stations originally set up to<br \/>\nmonitor nuclear explosions, ReVelle and other researchers in Los<br \/>\nAlamos&#8217; Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Group analyzed the<br \/>\ninfrasonic signature created when the meteor entered the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>When a meteor enters the atmosphere &#8212; or when a large explosion is<br \/>\ndetonated &#8212; it creates a sound or pressure wave that is below the<br \/>\nrange of human hearing. This infrasonic wave travels through the<br \/>\natmosphere and can be detected by special microphones that are set up<br \/>\nin an array. By looking at the time of arrival of the sounds at<br \/>\ndifferent stations and the frequency of the infrasonic boom,<br \/>\nresearchers can pinpoint the location of the source and the determine<br \/>\nthe amount of energy that created it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The data from our array puts the meteor 441 kilometers due south of<br \/>\nLos Alamos,&#8221; said ReVelle. &#8220;We&#8217;ll be looking for it in a location<br \/>\nwe&#8217;ve identified near El Paso.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ReVelle will join researchers from Canada, the University of New<br \/>\nMexico and Sandia National Laboratory on a search this weekend for<br \/>\nany meteor fragments that may have reached the ground.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The object&#8217;s infrasonic signature was equivalent to the explosive<br \/>\nyield of about 500 tons of TNT,&#8221; ReVelle said. &#8220;That means the object<br \/>\nwas somewhere around one half to three-quarters of a meter in<br \/>\ndiameter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the infrasound array at Los Alamos, researchers at the<br \/>\nLaboratory were able to narrow down the location where it may have<br \/>\nlanded pretty well.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to searching for remains of the meteor &#8212; which may have<br \/>\nexploded into tiny bits in the sky &#8212; the researchers will interview<br \/>\nwitnesses about the object: how bright it was; what it sounded like.<\/p>\n<p>The object created a brilliant light as it streaked toward Earth.<br \/>\nWitnesses in Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Albuquerque, El Paso and points in<br \/>\nbetween saw the object in the sky.<\/p>\n<p>ReVelle and the others will search all weekend for the object and<br \/>\ncollect other data as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could take weeks to find, but it could take a day or less,<br \/>\ndepending on how lucky we get,&#8221; ReVelle said.<\/p>\n<p>Infrasonic waves are very low frequency sounds that exist somewhere<br \/>\nin the realm between hearing and meteorology, ReVelle said. The<br \/>\nsounds are well below the range of human hearing, which ends at about<br \/>\n30 hertz, but actually can be detected as small changes in<br \/>\natmospheric pressure. If someone had a barometer that was sensitive<br \/>\nenough, that person would be able to see fluctuations of several<br \/>\nmicrobars when infrasonic waves arrive.<\/p>\n<p>During the 1960s and early 1970s, before the rise of the satellite<br \/>\nera, the United States Air Force operated a network of stations to<br \/>\nlisten for nuclear weapons tests. The listening stations were the<br \/>\nnation&#8217;s first line of detection for nuclear explosions worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The four arrays of listening stations operated by Los Alamos are the<br \/>\nonly infrasonic network left in full-time operation in the world.<br \/>\nThey can detect meteors that are as small as a few centimeters in<br \/>\ndiameter. The stations are useful because they can help validate<br \/>\nother non-proliferation and verification techniques, and they cost<br \/>\nvery little to operate and maintain.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Alamos stations, around since 1983, still are enlisted in the<br \/>\nnation&#8217;s nuclear non-proliferation efforts, but have provided a way<br \/>\nfor scientists to detect bolides, larger-than-average space debris<br \/>\nthat slams into Earth&#8217;s atmosphere and creates brilliant fireballs in<br \/>\nthe sky.<\/p>\n<p>Each year a number of large meteors enter the atmosphere and are<br \/>\ndetected by the Los Alamos array. Some meteors are tens of meters in<br \/>\ndiameter. ReVelle said each year about 10 meteors that are two meters<br \/>\nin diameter &#8212; with an energy equivalent of a one-kiloton blast &#8212;<br \/>\nenter the atmosphere. Most burn up or explode in brilliant flashes.<br \/>\nSome hit the ground.<\/p>\n<p>For this weekend&#8217;s search, ReVelle will join Peter Brown of the<br \/>\nUniversity of Western Ontario; Alan Hildebrand from the National<br \/>\nResearch Council in Ottawa, Ontario; a researcher from University of<br \/>\nNew Mexico&#8217;s Institute of Meteoritics; and Mark Boslough of Sandia<br \/>\nNational Laboratory.<\/p>\n<p>Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of<br \/>\nCalifornia for the U.S. Department of Energy.<\/p>\n<p>CCCMENU CCC for 1997<\/p>\n<p><em>The content and opinions expressed on this Web page do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the University of Georgia or the University System of Georgia.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PLEASE NOTE: Information circulated on the cambridge-conference network is for scholarly use only. The attached text may not be reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the copyright holder. * Date sent:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fri, 17 Oct 1997 13:30:17 -0400 (EDT) From:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Benny J Peiser &lt;B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk Subject:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NEO RESEARCH &amp; ACTIVITIES IN FRANCE To:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk Priority:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NORMAL [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}