The Why Files: Operation Podcast - Surviving The Sixth Extinction: Are we too late?

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Of all the species that have ever existed on Earth, 99% of them are gone. Most of those were wiped out during what are known as "Mass Extinction Events". Since life emerged on our planet, there have been five mass extinctions. Sometimes these events last many years. But sometimes a mass extinction can happen very, very suddenly. Some scientists think we're on the verge of a sixth mass extinction. Others think it's already begun. But the question everybody asks is: "Is there anything we can do to stop it?" --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

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Since life emerged on our planet, there have been five mass extinctions. Sometimes these events last many years, but sometimes a mass extinction can happen very, very suddenly. Some scientists think we're on the verge of a sixth mass extinction. Others think it's already begun. But the question everybody asks is, is there anything we can do to stop it? The Earth is always changing. There's the climate, there's... Excuse me?

Oh, I've been hearing this for years. No, no, no, that's not what I... Hey, if the climate gets colder, you'll be fine. Why's that? Because you're covered in wool. Oh, because I'm a... Yeah, yeah. First Al Gore told me that in five years, the polar bears would be sunburned and everything would be underwater.

That was 30 years ago. You're missing my- I can't drive an SUV, but oh sure, those big shots can take their private jets to Davos so they can wag their finger in my face. I'm not saying- Drive an electric car. It's green. Okay, fine. Where do you think the electric comes from?

The electric ferry? It comes from coal. You want more clean energy? Build nuclear plants, you moron. You're not- It's a scam. I can't believe you're still falling for this. My point is, man-made or not, the climate is always changing. Oh. Okay? Uh, yeah, sorry. I gotta stay off Twitter for a while. That's always a good idea. It's not just the climate of the Earth that's changing, but also the core within the Earth, as well as the ground beneath our feet.

The science of earthquakes is called seismology, but seismology is not an exact science. Seismologists and geologists think they know how earthquakes work and what causes them, but they're not able to predict them with any consistency. If they could, they would. Let's add up the deaths from three large, fairly recent earthquakes. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake. On the low end, those three events killed 700,000 people,

but that number is probably closer to 1.2 million. Let that sink in for a minute. It's important. Those aren't numbers. Those are people. They're infants, the elderly, entire families. In one day, a million people are just gone. You would think that mainstream science would be open to new ideas that could help predict these disasters. You would think they would entertain alternative theories that could save millions of lives. You would think so, but you would be wrong.

The history of science is filled with alternative theories that were once ridiculed but are now accepted. The idea of continental drift was called nonsense. An asteroid impact killing the dinosaurs was called science fiction. At one time, if you said the Earth orbits the sun, the church might seize your property and throw you in prison. Things haven't changed all that much. A mass extinction is defined as an event

where at least 75% of species on Earth are wiped out. There's evidence of five major mass extinctions that have occurred throughout Earth's history. The first was 450 million years ago. Another was 375 million years ago. The most catastrophic extinction, known as the Great Dying, took place 252 million years ago. During the Great Dying, a staggering 96% of all life on Earth was wiped out. Another event was 201 million years ago,

and 66 million years ago was the infamous KT asteroid impact, which killed off the dinosaurs. On average, these mass extinctions happen about every 75 million years. While some causes of these events have been identified, some remain a mystery. In addition to the major extinctions, many smaller events have also occurred. For centuries, scientists have been debating what causes these events and changes to the Earth.

There are two camps. There are the gradualists, or uniformitarians. They argue that Earth changes occur slowly over an extended period, like mountains being formed slowly as rock is pushed up from the Earth's mantle. Then those mountains are slowly weathered away by erosion. In the other camp are catastrophists. They claim that Earth changes happen quickly and through dramatic events.

Events like asteroid impacts, widespread volcanic eruptions, pole shifts, and massive solar flares. In other words, the scary stuff. Throughout history, catastrophists have been ridiculed by the gradualists, but there's mounting evidence to suggest that catastrophists may be onto something. Researchers like Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, Robert Schock, John Anthony West,

and many others have presented compelling arguments that Earth changes happen suddenly rather than over eons. Here what you have to visualize is a tsunami sweeping over the land that's over a thousand feet deep. Wow. There are recent events that support these claims. In January 2023, seismic data published by Chinese scientists hinted at a recent slowdown or even a halt

in the rotation of the Earth's core. The Earth's core is huge, about the size of Mars. It's made of an inner core, which is mostly solid iron, and the outer core, which is molten iron and nickel. The interaction between the inner and outer core produces a geodynamo, which generates the Earth's magnetic field. If the core slows down or stops,

the consequences would be severe. In another episode, I described exactly what would happen. There's a link below, but I have to warn you, it's terrifying. But after the initial disaster resulting from a pole shift, animals and even technology could adapt. But there is a theory that the speed and direction of the Earth's core affect more than the magnetic field. The theory says core changes are linked to more devastating events like earthquakes.

And if this theory is right, life on Earth is about to become very different. Jim Birkeland was a professional geologist who worked for the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. He became prominent in the 1980s when he started making specific predictions about upcoming earthquakes. He first came to the public's attention on October 13th, 1989. That day he gave an interview where he predicted a major earthquake would hit Northern California between October 14th and October 21st of that year.

While the Bay Area is rumbling with excitement over the first ever Bay Bridge World Series, the Earth may be putting on a show. A townie geologist is predicting an earthquake to hit the Bay Area anytime from tomorrow to the 21st of October. It will be the World Series quake, according to Santa Clara County geologist Jim Birkland. The trembler, he predicts, could be anywhere from 3.5 to 6.0 on the Richter scale. Birkeland is basing his prediction on the unusual gravitational pull of the moon and Earth. Birkeland was right. The 6.9 magnitude earthquake occurred on October 17th, just four days later,

and right in the middle of Birkeland's window. And right in the middle of the World Series. Candy Maldonado with the hesitation, allowing Jose Canseco to score, and he fails to get Dave Parker at second base. So the Oakland A's take it. After that, Brooklyn was told by government officials to stop making predictions because he might create a mass panic. At the time, he was working as a geologist for Santa Clara County. But two weeks after his prediction, he was suspended from his job.

But he didn't stop making predictions. He successfully called the Northridge earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1994. And he predicted a large earthquake in Seattle. After that, he was asked to leave his job, but people were still interested in how he was making his predictions. Birkeland believed that gravitational forces and tidal stresses from the moon played a role in triggering earthquakes. His predictions factored in high tides, new and full moons. He also noticed a correlation between seismic activity and animal behavior. His theory was magnetic fields fluctuate just before a quake, which causes these behavioral changes, especially in fish, birds, dogs, and cats.

Mainstream geologists reject all of this and say that Birkeland's predictions are not scientific. They say earthquakes are caused by pressure within the Earth's crust. And when that pressure is released as energy, we get an earthquake. But that's like saying an earthquake is when the ground shakes. It's a description, not an explanation. What's causing the release of the pressure? Meteorologist Kevin Martin of the Southern California Weather Authority also wanted to know this answer. He thought there could be a connection between earthquakes, weather, and solar activity. He made a prediction in 2009. In fact, during the Northridge quake of 1994,

a large ridge of high pressure was parked in the exact same spot one will be during our next Santa Ana wind event. The window for that is January 9th to the 14th. This is exactly in geologist Jim Berkland's window. So, any bets on the table for a larger quake would be during that window. Now, I'm not saying to my viewers to run because a Northridge-style quake is coming, but I must say the pattern is nearly identical to it. And if weather patterns are any indication of a quake delivery, then always be prepared. In light of Mr. Birkland's window falling in this weather pattern,

I have taken the measure to prepare in case a quake hits. You always have to be prepared. Kevin Martin and Jim Birkeland were both right. On January 9, 2009, there were two earthquakes in almost exactly the place where they predicted. Birkeland's model gained further support as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami earthquake and the 2023 Turkey earthquake occurred during full moons. Mainstream geologists like to point out that Berkland was occasionally wrong, both in the intensity and timing of his predictions. But he was also frequently right. And how many earthquake predictions have mainstream geologists made that have been right? Zero.

Zero. Berkland's success and mainstream science's lack of success indicates that our thinking about what causes earthquakes is incomplete. If there are other factors, why aren't they being explored? Is it because mainstream scientists are afraid of being wrong or maybe scientists are afraid of something else. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts.

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You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. On September 3rd, 2017, the United States Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3, not far from a North Korean nuclear test site. South Korean authorities said the earthquake seemed to be artificial,

consistent with an underground nuclear test. North Korea confirmed that it had detonated a 15 kiloton hydrogen bomb. And this came as a terrifying surprise to the diplomatic, intelligence, and defense communities. Oh, would you say it sent shockwaves through the world? I would, but... This test was a seismic shift in a region that rocked the foundations of diplomacy?

Puns. Great. Oh, so this test shook the world to its core and had other countries quaking in their boots? You done? I got a few more actually. I swear I will ring your... Okay, okay, okay. I'll stop, I'll stop.

You know I only do that to see the look in your stupid face, right? Real nice. Hey, let me ask you. Is it irony that I'm the fish but you're the one that keeps taking the bait? That's it. No one had suspected that North Korea had reached that level of advancement with its nuclear weapons program. Then, just a few weeks later, in October 2017, the entire underground Korean nuclear facility collapsed after a massive earthquake.

More than 200 people were killed, including most of North Korea's nuclear scientists. Within a few months, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country was open to discussing peace with South Korea and the United States, and the possibility of giving up its nuclear weapons program. In June, a new peace treaty was signed. After his nuclear lab and top scientists were killed in that earthquake, Kim Jong-un had no choice but to negotiate. That worked out nicely for the United States. But what if the earthquake

and destruction of the nuclear facility wasn't a natural event? What if the earthquake was caused by a new type of weapon? For years, rumors swirled that the United States had developed a highly advanced sonic weapon. Using sound waves, it could superheat the Earth's upper atmosphere and communicate with military units and submarines at sea. It could alter the weather and yes, believe it or not, induce earthquakes. The weapon is known as HAARP. HAARP? Yes, H-A-A-R-P. Oh, do you add the club for old

people? No, that's something else. AH. HARP stands for a high amplitude active auroral research program. It's a program that researches the ionosphere, the upper layer of the atmosphere, which ranges from about 30 miles to 600 miles above the Earth's surface. According to the original HARP website, there is an emphasis on being able to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes. Surveillance using the ionosphere? That doesn't sound good. Well that's why there are a lot of rumors about HAARP.

The HAARP website acknowledged that experiments were conducted to fire directed beams of energy in order to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Disturbing the ionosphere could have major and even disastrous consequences for the environment. HAARP was very active in the days and hours leading up to Hurricane Katrina making landfall in 2005. Hurricanes are energized by heat. The specific function of HAARP is to heat or energize the upper atmosphere.

Now, did HAARP affect the hurricane? Well, we don't know. Could it have? Sure. Later that same year, HAARP was intensely active when Hurricane Ophelia started behaving in strange ways. It changed directions multiple times against all normal meteorological predictions. It was almost as if something was playing around with Ophelia to see if they could manipulate

its intensity and direction. In 2008, a rare July hurricane named Bertha suddenly formed off the coast of Africa. It was a very low level storm, but then the HAARP transmitters fired up. Within eight hours, Bertha went from a weak category one to an intense category four storm. Almost as soon as HAARP was shut down,

Bertha calmed down and weakened. Kevin Martin had already made the connection between electrical storms, high pressure systems, and weather in earthquake events. Jim Birkeland showed that tidal forces and gravitational effects were connected to earthquakes. But could a device like HAARP be capable of doing both? Well that had yet to be tested. Until 2008. Cyclone Nargis began just a few days after HAARP resumed activity at 5.45 in the morning on April 27th, 2008. On April 28th, the storm was

basically stationary. By April 29th, Nargis had sustained winds of 100 miles per hour and began moving. It turned rapidly eastward, intensified, and reached peak winds of 135 miles per hour and began moving. It turned rapidly eastward, intensified and reached peak winds of 135 miles an hour. On May 2nd, it made landfall at maximum strength. It maintained winds of at least 80 miles an hour for hours before dissipated. The HAARP energy activity continued for days. It finally stopped late in the day on May 11th. About eight hours later in Chengdu, China, there were reports of strange animal behavior. Iridescent glowing clouds suddenly appeared. Now, if you drew a straight line from Nargis' path as it made landfall, you'd hit Chengdu. Suddenly, a massive earthquake hit Chengdu with a magnitude of 8.0

and caused a chain reaction of explosions in the Xuan Mountains. These explosions destroyed the Chinese Army's largest armory and their newest weapons test bases. Nuclear facilities that reportedly included several nuclear warheads were also severely damaged. After carefully analyzing the seismic data, experts said the energy released was equivalent to that of an underground nuclear explosion. They claimed that non-geological shock had occurred at the earthquake epicenter.

Non-geological? Unnatural. Uh-oh. Over those two weeks, the Nargis cyclone and Chengdu earthquake claimed the lives of more than 160,000 people and severely damaged China's military infrastructure. Today, HAARP is still in use and is run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but that's relatively new. Prior to 2014, it was under the direct control of the United States Department of Defense. Now, all of this is speculation and rumor. And of course, the U.S. military and government say that HAARP is nothing

more than a radio tower to monitor the ionosphere. but it cost $300 million to build in 1993. That's almost $700 million in today's dollars. That's an awful lot of scratch for a radio tower. It sure is. There's so much more to talk about regarding the HAARP project, and it needs its own video, so if you'd like to see that, let me know in the comments. Now, whether by controlling the weather or deploying nuclear weapons, the human race certainly has the ability to destroy all civilization on Earth. But even with all that technology and firepower, it's not enough to kill off 75% of all life on Earth. A true extinction-level event of that magnitude is not going to come from here. It's going to come from out there.

You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. There are a lot of interesting numeric coincidences in astronomy. For instance, the moon's diameter is 2,160 miles. That's just the right diameter,

and the moon is just far enough away to create nearly perfect solar eclipses. 2,160 years also happens to be the exact length of each astronomical age in the precession of equinoxes. Earth's cycle of precession, the arc around which the North Pole wobbles, moves about one degree every 72 years. This completes a full cycle called the Great Year or the Cycle of Procession in 25,920 years or about 26,000 years. According to best estimates, the Sun resides 26,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. One orbit of the solar system around the center of the galaxy takes about 260 million years. What we see are called decimal harmonics of the number 26 over and over again.

Now, most scientists would agree that these numbers are meaningless, they're just a coincidence. But what if they're not? What if they're trying to tell us something very important about our future? There are a collection of experiments that may show that these numbers have some kind of special meaning. When physicists can't explain things seen through telescopes, theories have to be created. Some of these theories are based on math and can explain quite a bit. But sometimes the math doesn't work, and the theories get more creative. One example of this is the phenomenon of dark matter. The idea of dark matter comes from scientists who agreed that they found a connection between mass, the physical stuff, and gravity.

But a problem began when they started looking at other stars and galaxies and got clearer and clearer images. There just isn't enough stuff to create enough gravity to hold everything together. Galaxies and solar systems should be flying apart based on all the energy and momentum they're generating. So instead of simply abandoning the idea that there was a direct connection between mass and gravity, they came up with a new idea, dark matter. The gravity is obviously out there, so all this missing matter must also be out there. It's just invisible. We can't see it or detect it with any type of instrument. So there's no proof of dark matter? None. And there are plenty of experiments that show there are other forces at work in the universe

that mainstream physicists aren't accounting for. In the days before communication satellites, shortwave radio was crucial for long-distance communication. Shortwave transmissions are high-frequency radio signals that can be bounced off the Earth's ionosphere. Those signals can bounce over and over again, covering large distances. This is called signal propagation, and this allows operators to talk to each other all over the world. The Radio Corporation of America, or RCA, noticed that the quality of shortwave transmissions changed quite a bit depending on sunspot cycles. The more sunspots, the more the magnetic field of the sun seemed to interfere with shortwave transmissions changed quite a bit depending on sunspot cycles. The more sunspots, the more the magnetic field of the sun seemed to interfere with shortwave transmissions. When the sun was quiet,

shortwave radio was and is much more reliable. Now during World War II, the potential communications blackout that sunspots and solar storms might cause was of great concern for the armed forces. You can't plan a major offensive assault against the enemy if there's a chance your comms might go down. So a radio engineer at RCA named John Nelson was asked to come up with a method of predicting when the storms would occur. What Nelson discovered was a surprise. He found that radio interference rose and fell

not just with the sunspot cycles, but also with the motions of the major planets in the solar system. This was a revolutionary idea. His study found that the relative positions of the gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune seem to have the most dramatic effects on the signals. You forgot one. What? A gas giant. You forgot one. Uranus. Uranus has got a lot of gas. Right. It's a gas ice giant like Neptune. You don't want to forget Uranus. Please don't. What? Don't be shy about Uranus. Be proud of Uranus. Stop it. Hey, did you know that you can fit 63 Earths inside Uranus? 64 if you relax.

That's enough. Okay, okay, okay. I'll stop, I'll stop. Thank you. Consider all the jokes about Uranus behind you. It is worthy of note that in 1948, when Jupiter and Saturn were spaced by 120 degrees and solar activity was at a maximum, radio signals averaged a far higher quality for the year than in 1951 with Jupiter and Saturn at 180 degrees and a considerable decline in solar activity. In other words, the average quality curve of radio signals followed the cycle curve between Jupiter and Saturn

rather than the sunspot curve. Nelson concluded that while sunspot activity did have an effect on the quality of shortwave radio signals, the locations of the planets had a far greater effect. Now, this shouldn't happen. There's nothing in mainstream physics that can explain this. Not gravity, not magnetism, nothing. Nelson's research gets even stranger. Not only do planets have a major influence on the energetic output of the sun,

that influence changes depending on the planet's position relative to the sun and each other, and at what precise angle. Wait, what? Well, a 1951 Time magazine article described it like this. Nelson studied the records of RCA's receiving station at Riverhead, New York, looking for some correlation between the magnetic storms and the positions of the planets. He found that most of the storms took place when two or more planets were in what he calls a configuration, that is, with angles of 0 degrees, 90 degrees,

or 180 degrees between the lines connecting them with the sun. The more planets involved in a configuration, the more serious the storm is likely to be. During the great magnetic storm of July 1946, for instance, three planets, the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, were in a configuration, and three others, Mercury, Venus and Mars, were also in a critical relationship. But what the article did not talk about was the fact that these configurations, as Nelson called them, worked out exactly with what are known as specific aspects in astrology. What, you mean like horoscopes and stuff? Yep. Nelson showed that when two planets are lined up with the sun but separated by 180 degrees, this is called an opposition in

astrology. If they're at a 90 degree angle to each other, it's called a square. When the big gas giant planets were either in opposition or in a square, there would be major disturbances and storms coming from the sun. When the planets were at 120 degrees to each other or 60 degrees to each other, the sun was much less active. This is not what RCA, the U.S. government, or anyone in the science community wanted to hear. Despite the validity of Nelson's work, he was attacked. People claimed he got the math wrong. However, these arguments have not held up well over time,

and no one has ever repeated the study to try to disprove it. But since the 1950s, Nelson's theories about solar activity being linked to planetary alignment have been 95% accurate. Mainstream astronomers who study the sun can't even come close to this number. The resistance to Nelson, just as to Birkeland and to Martin,

is probably because of the implications of his work. If Nelson is correct, then that means that astrology is real, or at least has a basis in fact for describing the behavior of electromagnetic work. If Nelson is correct, then that means that astrology is real, or at least has a basis in fact for describing the behavior of electromagnetic waves. And given that every thought in our minds is nothing more than an electromagnetic signal, the position of the planets might actually have an effect on our thoughts and emotions. So does the position of the planets explain the mass extinctions that happen on Earth at regular intervals? No, to kill off most of the life on Earth, we have to think bigger.

Since Neptune was discovered in 1884, astronomers noticed the outer planets have strange orbits. It's as if there's a large object that we can't see that's tugging on them. It was thought that maybe there was a large Jupiter-sized planet in the far reaches of the solar system or even beyond. Recent papers have used the term Planet X or Planet 9 to describe this theoretical object. It's become associated with everything from the sun's dead twin to a massive brown dwarf star. A brown dwarf is kind of like a cross between a star and a planet. It's much bigger than a planet, but it doesn't get hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion. In fact, a brown dwarf has been linked to Zechariah Sitchin's planet Nibiru. Exactly. Another theory about a far

distant object in the solar system is the Nemesis theory. In 1984, two geologists released a scientific paper titled Periodicity of Extinctions in the Geologic Past. In it, they looked at geologic fossil evidence of extinctions taking place over a 250 million year period, or one galactic year. What they found was evidence that during that period, large-scale extinctions took place on our planet on a regular, repeating basis. And that the interval between the extinction events was... 26 million years. Bingo. Astrophysicists began to wonder what could cause such a cycle.

They eventually settled on the idea that our solar system is actually a binary or two-star system. The sun, they speculated, orbits a dead companion star or a brown dwarf that is way out in the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is similar to the asteroid belt, but it's way, way bigger. And there are hundreds of millions of objects in the Kuiper Belt. They range in size from small asteroids all the way up to small planets. Pluto, for example, is a Kuiper Belt object.

Beyond the Kuiper Belt is another region called the Oort Cloud. And the Oort Cloud contains trillions of objects. And the thinking was that as this dead star orbits the Sun, it disturbed the objects in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, and these objects are then flung to the inner solar system and to Earth on a periodic basis, once every 26 million years. The name that they gave this dark star was Nemesis. Now, all this was pure speculation with very little evidence to back it up until 1982. Apparently, NASA has known about and been searching for this object for a long time. In a 1982 Science Digest article, Dr. J. Allen Hynek wrote about the search for Planet X. He included a diagram that suggested the planet was probably a brown dwarf star

that was 50 light years away. That would give it a 13,000-year orbital period, meaning every 13,000 years, it would come into alignment with the Sun, the Earth, and the galactic center. In January 2015, Caltech astronomers provided evidence of a giant planet in the outer solar system. According to astronomers, planet 9 is expected to be many times the size of Earth and orbit the Sun far beyond Neptune.

The astronomer claims that there's only a 0.4% chance that planet 9 does not exist, despite it never being seen. So if these large objects are out there, and if Nelson's theories about planetary alignment are correct, then when all these objects come into alignment, the ripples through space-time could make Earth literally tip out of balance. Pole shift! Well, that's one possibility.

But throwing asteroids at us would be much worse. But now we have something even bigger to worry about. The Radcliffe Wave. This doesn't have anything to do with Harry Potter casting a spell, does it? It does not. The Radcliffe Wave was discovered in 2020. It's a massive structure of gas, dust, and stars that stretches almost 9,000 light years across. The wave rides up and down through the galactic plane, meaning that sometimes it's above the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, and sometimes its objects are below. Now, no one understands how it was formed, why it's shaped like a wave, or how it's even held together.

Once again, gravity is insufficient to explain it. From our perspective, it's in the direction of Orion and about 400 light years away. Now that's an incredible distance, but it is close enough to speculate how it could affect us in the future. We do know for a fact that our solar system does interact with this massive Radcliffe wave structure. In fact, we can go back and see that we passed through the Radcliffe wave about 13 million years ago, and we'll pass back through it 13 million years from now again this is evidence that we are on a 26 million year cycle the exact cycle linked to mass extinction events okay the number 26 is starting to freak me out a little well fortunately the next event isn't due for 11 12

13 million years or so so we don't have much to fear with the big event but what about the smaller events that happen in between the big ones you would think that all this would get scientists interested in looking at all these coincidences whether it's an extinction event or just an earthquake you think they'd be interested in knowing when the next one is coming but they're not why is that yeah why is that something seems to be going on with the Earth. It may be natural cycles, problems with the Earth's core, or it may be something external linked to a part of space we're flying through. Or it could be a new science that we aren't seriously studying. The question is, why not?

The answer to that question is the answer to lots of questions. Ego, money, and power. There's a reluctance in the mainstream scientific community to put out new ideas that challenge the accepted belief systems of the community that pays for their grants. Remember, we did an episode not long ago that proved that most scientific grants come from large corporations. And those corporations are essentially buying science.

They want scientific results to support their businesses and their products. For government-funded grants, same thing. The government wants studies done that support the current agenda. That's the money concern. Now the ego problem. Nobody really wants to take a chance on a new idea. Look at the scientists who go against the mainstream. They're often ostracized and ridiculed.

Sometimes they lose their jobs like Jim Birkeland. Scientific breakthroughs don't come from the establishment. They come from mavericks. They come from scientists who don't care what people think of them. And there are very few of those. In 1958, when NASA was formed, one of the first things the agency did was commission a study from a major think tank, the Brookings Institute. NASA asked them to do a study on the cultural impact of exploring space. The report concluded that while it was unlikely that astronauts would run into ET out there, it was very possible they might come across ancient ruins or artifacts from an advanced civilization that had previously visited our solar system. While face-to-face meetings with

it will not occur within the next 20 years, that is the 1960s and 1970s, unless its technology is more advanced than ours, qualifying it to visit Earth, artifacts left at some point in time by these life forms might possibly be discovered through our space activities on the Moon, Mars, or Venus. It then goes on to suggest that the revelation of higher, more technologically advanced life in the universe might actually result in the disintegration of human society. It actually used that word. Anthropological files contain many examples of societies sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they have had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways. Others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the

price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior. And who, according to the report, would have the most difficult time adapting to this new reality? Scientists. The study suggested that a paradigm shift in humanity's view of itself and scientists' view of their mastery of nature could have devastating psychological effects on the scientists. Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 A Space Odyssey was built around the Brookings Report. How the computer was meant to represent the scientific community.

When it was discovered that man was not alone, Hal went crazy. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. What's the problem? I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Science changes very slowly because of ego, money, and power. Scientists' egos make them afraid of being wrong.

Going against the mainstream will cost the scientists money, like lack of funding or being out of a job. As for power, whenever science and technology advances, old science and technology becomes obsolete and less powerful. If life is discovered on Mars, the scientists who predicted that will gain power. The scientists who said life on Mars is impossible will lose power. But predicting life on Mars is a risky bet, not one most scientists would take. But if the Earth truly is changing, we're going to need new science to understand how dangerous the changes are. We'll have to explore new and uncomfortable ideas and we have to give those maverick scientists presenting those new ideas a chance to be heard

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