The electromagnetic pulse. It's the big, bad boogeyman of the electronic age where we depend on a constant stream of communication and connection. Everything stops – instantly. EMPs are often used in pop culture (particularly any time Magneto wants to take over the planet) to caused widespread destruction and to control a population by plunging them into a new Dark Age. What's the likelihood of such an event happening? Would an EMP do any damage at all? Let's take a look.

What is an EMP and what causes them?

An EMP is a sudden burst of electromagnetic radiation that follows a nuclear detonation. EMPs are not exclusively caused by nuclear weapons, but ones large enough to cause wide-scale disruptive are most likely to occur by from nuclear rather than typical chemical-based explosions. EMPs come in three different forms, classified as E1, E2, and E3.

E1 pulses are by far the most devastating, and result from gamma radiation emitted from a nuclear detonation that removes electrons from the surrounding air. These electrons careen into the Earth's magnetic field and are forced down towards the planet. This process creates a very strong pulse aimed directly at the surface that carries enough strength to exceed the breakdown voltages of many electronic devices. It is very important to note that E1 pulses are only produced by a detonation that is significantly high enough in altitude in which electrons can interact with the Earth's magnetic field.

E2 pulses are also caused by gamma radiation and follow within in a fraction of a second of an E1 pulse, and are akin to those produced by lightning bolts (so they would be protected by typical surge protectors). The final pulse, an E3, is different in nature from the previous two in that it results from a shifting of the Earth's magnetic field, and would continue until the magnetic field re-settled, similar to what occurs with a solar flare.

It's all in the altitude

If a nuclear weapon is detonated at significant altitude (30 plus miles above the surface), an E1 would be followed in quick succession by an E2 and E3, with the results of the extremely devastating E1 pulse possibly removing the protection in place for the others. The altitude necessary would mean that an EMP was the desired detonation after-event. If the detonation happens at ground level or several kilometers above ground, no E1 pulse will occur, but the E2 and E3 pulses will still follow the detonation.

With the E1 portion of the pulse being the most significant contributor to an EMP attack, the payload of the nuclear weapon is less significant than the altitude of the detonation if a country or organization desired to conduct an EMP attack. In testimony to the House National Security Committee in 1997, Gary Smith, the director of Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University, spoke on the radius of devastation that would occur from a high altitude EMP. The testimony stated that a detonation at 300 miles above the surface of the Earth would result in an E1 pulse that would cover an area the size of the United States along with most of Canada and Mexico.

EMP testing during the Cold War

There have been at least two series of EMP tests, Operation Fishbowl carried out by the United States over Hawaii and the K Project carried by the USSR over the skies of Kazakhstan. Both tests used high altitude nuclear detonations to create a limited E1 pulse and measured the subsequent damage, as this was a major fear in the early 1960s while both countries were in the shadow on the Cold War. Both tests resulted in the disruption in electrical systems, with hundreds of streetlights in Hawaii being blown, civilian telecommunications disrupted, and military monitoring equipment sent off scale in the process of detonating the Starfish Prime portion of Operation Fishbowl.

The U.S. Government seems to think we are currently unprepared

The United States EMP Commission was formed in 2006 to survey civilian reaction to an EMP disturbance. The commission found civilian infrastructure to be woefully lacking, including healthcare systems, along with a poor vision on the military's protection against an EMP attack in the years after the Cold War.

In 2010, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory commissioned a 168 page document that would anticipate the events of an E1 pulse, The Early-Time (E1) High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and Its Impact on the U.S. Power Grid. In addition to pointing out weakness after weakness in infrastructure and connectivity of the U.S. power grid. These weakness included the purveyance of unmanned substations and poorly sheltered (if sheltered at all) control cables, which would serve to further carry the negative effects of an EMP. The document has the following ominous statement:

    A major concern is simply that we have not really experienced such an event yet (an E1 HEMP attack), and there is not a good way to simulate such an attack on a widely distributed network.

Verdict: We'll be camping for a while

This is a tough one, as even our government admits they don't really know what would happen and they think we are woefully unprepared. I just don't find this to be a heartwarming notion. Civilization may not be sent to the Dark Ages, but there would almost certainly be significant, wide scale disruptions in power and communications until our power infrastructure could be restored. I would argue that we would certainly be living in a mid-1800s world for several days, if not weeks, with little knowledge of what was going on in the rest of the country and world. That's a scary thought – be prepared for an extended camping trip, with lots of hot dogs, pulp and ink books, and being unable to use your iPhone as a flashlight.

Source: io9/Keith Veronese
http://io9.com/5847513/could-an-electromagnetic-pulse-send-us-back-to-the-dark-ages

On March 11, 2011, a huge earthquake occurred off Tohoku Japan, which in turn unleashed a massive tsunami that battered the Japanese coast. The ensuing devastation left thousands dead or homeless, and damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant, leading to one of the worst nuclear disasters the world has seen since Chernobyl.

Almost immediately, a steady progression of images of carnage began to spread out to televisions all over the world. We saw the unstoppable wall of water obliterating all in its path, whole towns leveled, houses and ships thrown about like toys in a bathtub, nuclear reactors spewing ominous clouds of smoke, and unthinkable human suffering. Right there before our eyes was nature’s might laid bare in all its terrible splendor for all to look upon with shock and awe.

In the months after this tragic event, the country scrambled to repair the damage and lockdown nuclear reactors that threatened critical meltdown. As the world looked on with horror, a strange pattern of phenomena also began to emerge from the crisis, mostly hidden from the mainstream media eye. Some people were seeing not only the damage wrought by the tsunami, but also something strange that they could not explain.

The days after the Japanese tsunami disaster saw a deluge of various reports of strange, unexplained objects in the skies above the earthquake stricken areas. These reports of unidentified objects understandably caused quite a bit of buzz among UFO enthusiasts, and speculation abounded across the internet of aliens observing or by some estimates even causing the disaster.

However, were these accounts of anomalous flying objects truly caused by aliens, or did they derive from something else entirely? I find myself wondering, could the flood of UFO reports after the tsunami at least in part have its roots in something more cryptozoological in nature? Is there a biological answer to this strange flap of sightings? It seems to me that it is worth considering that perhaps it is not aliens we should be looking at, but rather what has proven to be one of the more bizarre and little discussed types of flying cryptids.

For centuries, reports have surfaced of strange creatures inhabiting the skies above us. Atmospheric beasts, or atmospheric life-forms, as they are often called, are said to be organisms that live their entire lives floating high in the atmosphere undetected by humans.  These creatures are most often described as having bodies that are semi-solid, or almost insubstantial, with some reports even claiming that they are able to adjust their density from almost immaterial and invisible to more solid, depending on as yet unknown factors.

The appearance of these atmospheric beasts varies wildly. Accounts have variously described them as amorphous and cloud-like behemoths, finned squid-like creatures, floating jellyfish, translucent, vaporous blobs, amoeba-like organisms, and even dragons. The sizes of atmospheric beasts likewise run the gamut from tiny and bird-like, to gargantuan monsters hundreds of feet long.

Although these enigmatic creatures are said to typically lurk too high in the atmosphere or to be too insubstantial to see with the naked eye, there are instances when one might become observable for some reason. Indeed, sightings of atmospheric beasts, although rare, do pop up from time to time. There has been a substantial amount of reports over the years describing unusual flying monsters that do not fit into the typical mold of thunderbirds or other flying cryptids. These atmospheric life forms have even allegedly been photographed on occasion.

In addition, the possibility of these denizens of the sky has caused speculation that they may in fact even be the direct cause of many UFO sightings.  Large ones, it is hypothesized, could be seen and reported as UFOS. There has even been some conjecture that what appear to be artificial lights reported on some UFOs could in reality be a form of bioluminescence.

The idea of these hypothetical atmospheric life forms as an explanation for at least some UFO reports is not new. The famed cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson himself was fascinated by the idea of giant animals swimming through the air above us, and wrote a good deal about them. Among Sanderson’s various hypotheses and musings concerning atmospheric beasts was the notion that many UFO reports may be in fact attributable to these sky dwelling creatures.

Indeed, when one looks at some of the photos taken of mysterious objects in the sky, it is easy to get a sense that we are perhaps looking at something biological in nature rather than artificial.

UFO author Trevor James Constable also noted in his 1975 book The Cosmic Pulse of Life, that the UFO phenomena may well be caused by the presence of some kind of goliath beasts inhabiting the skies. He further speculated that 20th century radar might disturb such creatures, causing them to become more solid and visible to the naked eye, or to drop down to lower altitudes where they would be more readily sighted.

This bit of speculation leads to the interesting notion that these creatures, if they do indeed exist, may perhaps use some sort of navigation system to maintain their bearings and find their way.  This is not such a far out possibility, as many known organisms utilize such systems. If such atmospheric organisms did in fact use some sort of navigation system, then they would possibly become disoriented when this system was disrupted, much as sonar does to some whales. If this is the case, then it would in turn lead us directly back to the tsunami disaster in Japan.

The thing is that earthquakes and tsunamis influence more than just the Earth and the seas. When the powerful earthquake hit Japan on March 11, it not only jolted the Earth, but also shook the skies above. When earthquakes and tsunamis occur, they generate surface motion that in turn can trigger waves that can shoot up all the way to one of the highest parts of the upper atmosphere, to what is known as the ionosphere. These events are known as seismotravelling ionospheric disturbances.

Recent research done in Japan has shown that the March 11 earthquake generated the largest such atmospheric disturbance ever recorded. It was an estimated three times more powerful than the next largest, which was recorded during the 2004 Sumatran earthquake.  The March 11 disturbance created waves of large amounts of electrically charged particles travelling 720 to 800 kph (450 to 500 mph) that reached up to around 350km (220 miles) above the Earth.

One effect of these disturbances is their ability to disrupt radio and other signals, which is in fact one of the ways scientists use to measure them.  If atmospheric beasts do exist high above us, and if in fact they do use some sort of navigation system that can be disrupted by things such as radar, then what might such a large, earthquake induced atmospheric disturbance do to them?

It should be noted that the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami was not the only such disaster to be accompanied by a rash of sightings of strange things in the sky. The second largest such atmospheric disturbance, the Sumatran earthquake and tsunami of 2004, also was accompanied by a large amount of  UFO sightings. Is there the possibility that the earthquake induced atmospheric waves deriving from these disasters are somehow disrupting sensitive navigation systems of some sort of atmospheric life-form and thus bringing them down from their typical habitats?

For now we do not know if these creatures exist, so it is hard to say what is going on. One might even marvel at how something as seemingly farfetched as these proposed atmospheric organisms could even fit into our current understanding of biology. Yet the same could have once been said of other unique organisms and ecosystems we have discovered that did not fit into any known model at the time.

There was a time when the idea of thriving organisms in the cold, black, crushing pressure of the deep sea seemed just as weird. Sulphur loving deep sea vent organisms that thrive in an extreme ecosystem almost completely independent of sunlight and photosynthesis seemed at one time just as outlandish and bizarre. Indeed sometimes truth can be as strange as fiction, if not stranger.

At this point, this is of course all speculation, but whenever I read something about the apparent spike in UFO sightings following the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, I find it interesting to speculate on these possible cryptozoological implications. I cannot help but think that in this case, perhaps we don’t need to look at strange, otherworldly explanations for these phenomena, but rather the strange things that we might find right here on our own planet.

It may be worth looking at the possibility of unknown animals that in this instance lurk not within far away, unexplored forests and swamps, or the remote, murky depths of the lakes and oceans of the world, but rather in the vast skies above our heads right at this very moment.

Source: Cryptomundo
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptotourism/sky-beasts/

It is one thing to receive reports of a strange creature – whether Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or the Chupacabra – seen in one particular locale. But it’s quite another thing entirely to get multiple reports of several different unidentified beasts from one clearly delineated area! And, yet, within the field of Cryptozoology, that’s precisely what we see on numerous occasions.
 
Take, for example, England’s Cannock Chase – a sprawling and dense mass of heath and woodland situated in the county of Staffordshire. For years, an absolute menagerie of unknown animals and out-of-place critters has been seen roaming the Chase. The list is as long as it is impressively weird, and includes Bigfoot-type entities, marauding werewolves, large and exotic cats of the puma variety, giant snakes, oversized birds and much more.
 
Then there’s Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk – near England’s east-coast. In December 1980, the forest was the site of what – today – is considered by many to be Britain’s most famous UFO encounter. Over the course of several nights in the latter part of the month, numerous military personnel reported seeing UFOs, strange lights, and even alien-type entities deep in the woods. A major cover-up was put into place to hide the startling truth of the affair, claim numerous UFO researchers.
 
But, that’s not all: Rendlesham is also the reputed home of a Sasquatch-style creature known as the Shug Monkey. Big cats have been reported prowling the woods for years. As have ghostly, glowing-eyed, black dogs. And centuries ago in the waters off the very nearby town of Orford, a hair-covered, crazed creature – half man and half animal - was said to have been captured and tamed.
 
And let’s take a trip to Loch Ness, Scotland. You thought Nessie was the strangest thing haunting those old dark waters? Nope! Big black cats – similar to those seen in the aforementioned Cannock Chase and Rendlesham Forest - consider the woods surrounding the loch to be their home too. Legend also tells of shape-shifting monsters known as Kelpies skulking around the area.
 
There are even reports of large animals seen in the waters of the loch that sound nothing like the image of Nessie that most people have – namely, that of a long-necked, humped animal with flippers.
 
Moving across the Atlantic Ocean, the huge Big Thicket woods in Texas are home to ape-men, wild men of the woods, and – yet again – big-cats. The Big Thicket is also home to something known as the Ghost-Light: a spooky, ethereal ball of bright floating light that - by night - surfs the old roads that run through and around the Big Thicket.
 
And the curious list goes on and on. All of this, of course, begs a very important question? Why do certain areas of our globe seem to act as full-blown “hot-spots” for weird beasts of wildly varying types? Some researchers suggest that the areas themselves are as significant as the creatures that lurk within them.
 
A number of theorists have suggested the idea – and, granted, an idea is all it can be perceived as right now – that certain parts of our planet act as portals or “doorways” to other realms of existence (extra-dimensions, in other words), through which all of these strange creatures come as the mood takes them.
 
Sounds controversial? Yes! Many might say such a scenario sounds just too controversial. And maybe they’re right.
 
On the other hand, if such portals do exist – and one day science proves their existence – this may well go some way towards explaining why certain parts of the Earth appear to be true magnets of the monstrous kind.

Source: Mania
http://www.mania.com/lair-beasts-monster-hotspots_article_131187.html

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