Accordingly, use of huge scalar (electromagnetic) weapons is a double-edged sword. Unless carefully employed, use of the weapons could cause a terrible backlash to the user as well as the victim, and even accidentally cause the destruction of the earth itself.94
One may even envision the use of a scalar weapon to acoustically oscillate an entire planet beyond its ability to damp the enormous cascade of quantum potential energy to the point that it would explode.95 Bearden himself is quite alive to this disturbing potential for the weapons:
(If) the discharge happens to tickle the Sun and Moon’s feedback loops the wrong way, you’ll get convulsions of the earth, mighty burps of the sun raining fire and brimstone on the earth, and a violent increase in the interior heat of the earth’s molten core, with a concomitant eruption of that core right up through the mantle....
(Whenever) one activates a large scalar (electromagnetic) weapon, one immediately places the entire earth in deadly peril. The slightest misstep, and it’s curtains for everyone. And it’s curtains for the earth as well.96
It takes only a little imagination to see that this principle could be pressed even farther, to the inability of the planet to damp its violent, scalar-induced acoustic cavitation. The planet would consume itself in a violent explosion making a hydrogen bomb look like a firecracker.
But in any case, as Bearden makes abundantly clear, scalar weapons possess planet-busting potential.
Any number of mechanisms now suggest themselves for how one might access scalar phenomena, for these are specifically, as has been seen, vorticular and non-linear in nature. One might construct a “template” allowing one to unleash the tremendous electrical energy in a planetary system or to create enormous plasma discharges striking a planetary surface. Alternatively, one might use that energy itself to create powerful longitudinal standing waves in a target. In either case, there would be enormous electrostatic displays and acoustic cavitation in any planetary target just prior to its explosion.
And this brings us back to plasma cosmology, and to the “problem of Peratt.” And the “problem of Peratt” is simply that he maintains that ancient observers recorded precisely such displays - beyond those of a mere aurora borealis - on a celestial scale.
B. Petroglyphs and Anthony Peratt: Plasma Paleophysics
Peratt’s work is quite the crucial matter for any investigation of paleophysics along the lines of Alfvén’s plasma cosmology, for not only is Peratt a respected physicist, but more importantly, his paleophysical investigations and comparisons of ancient American Indian petroglyphs with laboratory plasma discharges has been published in a series of papers in peer-reviewed journals.97 Two of these papers - “Evidence for an Intense Aurora Recorded in Antiquity,” and “The Origin of Petroglyphs” - were published while Peratt was associated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, raising the question of whether or not his work and that of his fellow scientists at Los Alamos might involve such paleophysical investigations.98 And a glance at his other research interests would tend to support that view, for these “include numerical and experimental contributions to high-energy density plasmas and intense particle beams, inertial confinement fusion, explosively-driven pulsed power generators, lasers, intense-power-microwave sources, particles, high-energy density phenomena, new concepts in space propulsion and high-performance computing,” as well as his interest in plasma cosmology and cosmogony.99 Peratt is consequently no light-weight New Age prognosticator. On the contrary, his interests and associations would seem to suggest in the strongest possible fashion that someone, somewhere in the corridors of power in government black projects is seriously interested in pursuing the avenues of paleophysics research that his investigations outline.
Plasma Physicist and Cosmologist Anthony Peratt
But what exactly has Peratt uncovered? Peratt himself puts the case with all the understated succinctness of a scientific abstract: “Based on the compilation and analysis of the order of 50,000 digitally recorded petroglyphs, we have identified several dozen general categories of instabilities of a highly non-linear plasma column generally associated with multi-mega ampere Z-pinches. This suggests that prehistoric man recorded the occurrence of an intense and long-lasting aurora.” 100 By means of a “direct comparison of the temporal evolution of experimental instabilities with petroglyphs” Peratt demonstrates that “nearly all archaic carvings match the phenomena that might be produced in an intense and long-lasting aurora.” 101In other words, the seemingly meaningless stick figures of many petroglyphs are not meaningless at all. They are the accurate recorded observations by humans of immense electrical and plasma phenomena on a celestial and planetary scale.
As if this were not enough, Peratt is even more explicit in his lengthy article, “Characteristics for the occurrence of a High Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity,” which appeared in the Dec 6, 2003 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. There Peratt states quite unequivocally that “it is found that a great many archaic petroglyphs can be classified according to plasma stability and instability data. As the same morphological types are found worldwide, the comparisons suggest the occurrence of an intense aurora, as might be produced if the solar wind had increased between one and two orders of magnitude, millennia ago.”102
For our purposes, this implies three significant things:
(1) There is concrete worldwide evidence of a massive aurora phenomenon on a planetary scale from human prehistory, implying the existence of a physics able to produce such a phenomenon;
(2) human beings existed contemporaneously with this phenomenon, or other intelligent observers existed who passed on their knowledge to subsequent humanity; and,
(3) humans more or less accurately recorded it in the form of certain petroglyphs.
The last point is the most significant, for it is not yet an argument for the case that they may have accurately understood it, much less have produced it.
Having made this last all-important observation, however, it is highly suggestive and paradoxical that Peratt himself begins the main text of his article in the following fashion:
On July 9, 1962, the United States detonated a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear device in the atmosphere 400 km above Johnston island. The event produced a plasma whose initial spherical shape striated within a few minutes as the plasma electrons and ions streamed along the Earth’s magnetic field to produce an artificial aurora....
Concomitant with the artificial aurora was a degradation of radio communications over wide areas of the Pacific, lightning discharges, destruction of electronics in monitoring satellites, and an electromagnetic pulse that affected some power circuitry as far away as Hawaii. 103
In other words, it is only with the rise of modern physics and its associated technologies that such large scale plasma and aurora phenomena can really be understood at all, since only these technologies allow it to be artificially produced and studied in the laboratory. That the “laboratory” in this case was the entire earth’s magnetic field and a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb detonated atmospherically should give one pause as to just what the implications may really be for an ancient human observation of similar large-scale auroral effects.
In any case, having begun his article in this thought-provoking fashion, Peratt passes immediately to a scientific consideration of the characteristics of auroral plasma columns and displays. These plasma instabilities come in two basic forms and may be observed over a wide range of electromagnetic frequencies.104 The first type of instability is a “column” of many varieties of toroidal or vorticular structure. The second basic type is a “sheet.” Peratt notes that the first type may have dimensions of “hundreds of kilometers in diameter,” while sheets may be as wide as tens of kilometers.105 The red, green and blue auroras that occur naturally in the earth’s atmosphere are easily explained as the natural result of atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere “de-exciting” from their plasma state.106
In producing the various “mini
-plasma” geometries in the laboratory, data was obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy “pulsed-power facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia national Laboratories.” Additionally “high-explosive generators” from the United States and Russia also contributed to the data set. Currents ranged from a few hundreds of kiloamperes to approximately 150 mega-amperes.107
Most notably, the geometries themselves were “generated by applying high-voltage pulses to gas-puffs to simulate an aurora-like plasma inflow... and concentric plasma sheets formed by nested cylindrical foils to produce high-velocity shock waves.”108 The beautiful and evocative geometries that resulted were “a few centimeters in diameter and 203 centimeters in length.”109
But what has this to do with petroglyphs? And what has any of it to do with paleophysics and the possible thesis of an ancient interplanetary war?
Again, Peratt points the way in his paper, for in spite of its scientific technicality, its real focus is not on the plasma geometries themselves, but on their uncanny resemblance to these ancient petroglyphs. Notably, Peratt focuses his attention on petroglyphs thought to be dated from 10,000 to 2000 BC.110 This is significant, for it may provide yet another anchor point for any eventual dating of the “war” scenario, and as we shall see, it falls within the latest possible temporal window for the cataclysmic events.111
In the presentation of Peratt’s comparison of petroglyphs and the geometries of plasma instabilities, I will rely on the excellent summary of his work provided by comparative mythologist David Talbott, and Australian physicist Wallace Thornhill, from whose masterful and provocative book, Tunderbolts of the Gods, this chapter takes its name. Talbott and Thornhill’s study is an apt summary of
Peratt’s extensive research, reprising its more salient points and greatly expanding upon its cultural and historical implications.112
One of the most common of the petroglyphs is the so-called “Squatter Man,” an apparently humanoid stick figure with two dots to either side of its “torso.” Found worldwide, the most common forms are early American Indian versions.
Native American Indian “Squatter Man” Petroglyphs
Such nomenclature, assigned to these pictographs by anthropologists who could view such cultures as nothing other than “primitive,” may have missed the point entirely, according to Peratt, for they may be indicative of a columnar plasma instability, indeed, bear an uncanny resemblance to it.
Peratt’s Comparison of a Three-Dimensional Plasma Instability on the Left, with its Two Dimensional Analogue on the Right (photos found on p. 22 of Talbott and Thornhill’s Thunderbolts of the Gods)
As the above comparison indicates, the “Squatter Man” petroglyph may be nothing more than the recorded two dimensional observation of a vast auroral display, with the two dots to either side of the torso representing the various toroidal forms such instabilities may take.
Yet another such comparison is the “stacked torus” columnar instability seemingly indicated by yet another petroglyph.
Pictograph from Kayenta, Arizona.
As the above interpretation of Talbott and Thornhill indicates, this petroglyph, from an American Indian site at Kayenta, Arizona, not only gives another verifiable connection to plasma physics but also demonstrates that “primitive” man may not have been as primitive as we have been led to believe, but was an accurate recorder of phenomena and events he witnessed. This highlights a very significant question, for if these ancient human observers were accurate recorders and observers of such phenomena in their myths and art works, why would one argue, as catastrophism does, that they accurately record such awesome celestial displays, and yet dismiss them as mere metaphor-makers or inaccurate recorders, when those same cultures often indicate that such displays are the result of the wars of the gods, fought with weapons of lightning and stones? We will return again and again to this point throughout this work.
Three Dimensional Model of the Kayenta, Arizona Petroglyph: Stacked Plasma Toroids
Other Petroglyphs of Stacked Toruses
C. The Divine Weapon
One of the most intriguing comparisons of Peratt’s plasma instability geometries and ancient depictions comes not from Peratt, but from Talbott and Thornhill themselves. Using the following depiction of the “divine thunderbolt” of the Babylonian god Ninurta, as commonly depicted in ancient art, they compare it to an astonishingly similar model of a plasma discharge in the laboratory.
Ninurta with Thunderbolts
Ninurta’s Divine Weapon and Plasma Discharge Compared (From p. 52 of Talbott and Thornhill’s Thunderbolts of the Gods)
Moreover, the comparison is not confined to Babylonia. The various Greek depictions of the “thunderbolts of Zeus” bear similar artistic depictions of the same plasma geometry:
Various Greek Depictions of the Thunderbolts of Zeus (From p. 53 of Talbott and Thornhill’s The Thunderbolts of the Gods)
An even more thought provoking comparison may be made of multi-tailed “pitchfork” Greek depictions of this thunderbolt, and similar laboratory generated plasma discharges:
Multi-Tailed Greek Thunderbolt “Pitchforks” (From p. 53 of Talbott and Thornhill’s Thunderbolts of the Gods)
“Pitchfork ” Plasma Discharge in the Laboratory (From p. 55 of Talbott and Thornhill’s Thunderbolts of the Gods)
While the above is but a small sample of the many fascinating comparisons drawn by Peratt, and by David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill in their excellent study The Thunderbolts of the Gods, it should suffice to demonstrate that plasma physicists have taken the paleophysical examination of ancient art to new and detailed - and in Peratt’s case, scientifically peer-reviewed - levels.
D. Evidence of Planetary Sized Discharges in the Solar System
In addition to all the foregoing considerations, there is evidence that various bodies in the solar system have suffered huge electrostatic discharges, scarring their surfaces. Such massive discharges may have been large enough to just barely be seen from Earth by man. One class of evidence that should be considered are so-called “rilles” which in mainstream planetary geological theory are the result of brief releases of running water, or, in some cases, lava. While such channels can indeed be created by such means, there are rilles that show evidence of creation by the mechanism of gigantic lightning strikes. One such rille is the Hyginus Rille on Earth’s nearest neighbor, the Moon.
Hyginus Rille on the Moon
Notice the circular “pits” in this rille. Such pits, according to physicist Wallace Thronhill, are a typical characteristic of channels created by massive electrostatic discharges.113
One of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, shows even more dramatic evidence of massive discharges, displaying a typical feature of the “corkscrew” effect of plasma filaments.
Corkscrew Dircharge Pattern on Jupiter’s Moon, Europa
Wallace Thornhill’s characterization of this type of evidence may be summarized as follows, noting the comparison of craters on planets and moons with those created by electrical discharge in the laboratory:
Both tend to be perfectly circular because an electrical arc always strikes perpendicular to a surface. Walls are nearly vertical and floors are nearly flat as the circular motion of the arc machines out the crater. Impact and explosion craters, by contrast, tend to have a bowl shape: Instead of being lifted from the surface, excavated material undergoes shock displacement, shattering and flowing in a manner similar to that of a fluid for the duration of the shock.
Another common feature of electrically generated craters, Thornhill explains, is terracing along the sides, sometimes corkscrewing down to the floor, following the rotary motion of the arc. The Moon and Mars both provide many examples of terraced and corkscrew craters.114
These considerations indicate that at one time the solar system was far more electrically active than it is now.
But perhaps the most important - and from the standpoint of an actual war having been the cause of such scarring - a s
ignificant piece of evidence for this planetary-wide scarring by massive electrical discharges lies on Earth’s closest neighbor, Mars, in the gigantic Valles Marineris, a huge canyon some four thousand kilometers long, up to seven hundred kilometers across “in some places, and up to six hundred kilometers deep.” Nor is this the only mystery to this highly anomalous planetary feature. “Approximately two million cubic kilometers of the Martian surface was removed with no comparable debris field apparent.”115
Valles Marineris on Mars: Scarred Evidence of a Massive Electric Discharge
This is not, however, the only thing unusual about the Valles Marineris.
Wallace Thornhill was first contacted by comparative mythologist David Talbott, who, investigating an ancient theme of classical mythology and knowing of the Valles Marineris, decided to get in touch with the physicist. What Talbott had noticed was the “Scarface Motif’ of some ancient myths. This motif, common to many cultures, is one of a “warrior-god, who, at a time of upheaval, receives a gaping wound or scar on his forehead, face, or thigh.” But it would be a mistake to see it as a merely “personal” wound inflicted on some mythological hero. It is, rather, the wound associated with the “celestial archetype of warriors - the god whom human warriors celebrated as their inspiration on the battlefield. In early astronomies, this warrior archetype is identified with a specific planet - Mars.”116
The Cosmic War: Interplanetary Warfare, Modern Physics and Ancient Texts Page 7
