The Illuminati and other Conspiracy Theories thread

Do you think the Illuminati is real?

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Dotini
Recently a gilt 17th century British military uniform button was found at ~150 feet down in the Oak Island money pit. On the hypothesis the money pit was dug by the Royal Navy, some wag drew a line from a Knights Templar tower near to Scotland through the money pit and it hit the Newport Tower at the other terminus.
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That's the thing with fixed landmarks, they're often used to denote other intangible areas. If your landmark source is "the whole world" then you can put a line to pretty much anything. Still, on balance the Oak Island pit deserves good investigation and it'll be fascinating to see the results of a proper survey.

Dotini
Then he speculated the Newport Tower might be a geodetic marker guised as a Rosicrucian Temple built by freemasons under the direction of the Royal Navy.
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Nope, the lime mortar dating puts it pre-Royal-Navy by a margin. And it isn't disguised as a Rosicrucian Temple, it's clearly a mill. That's confirmed by examination of historic sources. After its use as a mill it became a munitions store/lookout post, that's where the British Military connection comes in proper.

Dotini
The Oak Island money pit has spawned many speculations!
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Good, that's how theories are discussed and explored :)

Dotini
There is a stone wall, many miles long, near to San Francisco which some have speculated to be of 15th century Chinese origin.
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"Some" meaning Professor Fryer, 1904, I think. Lichen-testing (not available to the venerable Prof) puts their assembly era at around 1840. Clearing grazing by piling the stones into containment structures goes back a long time in Europe, it's not unthinkable that the early cattlemen in the US were creating exactly the same kind of drystone walls for exactly the same reasons.

There may be other discussable evidence for Chinese trade with pre-America but those walls aren't it.
 
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TenEightyOne
There may be other discussable evidence for Chinese trade with pre-America but those walls aren't it.
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Royal Navy submarine commanding officer Gavin Menzies wrote a couple of books regarding such possible contact entitled "1421" and "1434", the former a NY Times bestseller. I've read both, but understand Menzies is not a professional writer and perhaps has retracted some of his claims or speculations. I also have another of his bestsellers which documents the Minoans as the source of the Atlantis legend.
 
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Dotini
Royal Navy submarine commanding officer Gavin Menzies wrote a couple of books regarding such possible contact entitled "1421" and "1434", the former a NY Times bestseller. I've read both, but understand Menzies is not a professional writer and perhaps has retracted some of his claims or speculations.
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Following the collection of sources in his Wiki doesn't inspire great confidence, nor does the story of him parking an RN Sub in the side of a US destroyer :)

As I said earlier (and as another writer implies in the Wiki) it's good to have theories to discuss. Sometimes a theory is disproven and it's time to move on... Menzies' sino-historical bablings seem to be firmly in the "disproven" or "absolutely zero evidence" category.

Dotini
I also have another of his bestsellers which documents the Minoans as the source of the Atlantis legend.
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If that was one source rather than claiming the source then that could be quite interesting, tales of underwater cities (and great floods and visitations of plagues) are a feature of the histories of a number of civilisations. Does Menzies quote any evidence or is this another vision that follows his bump-on-the-head courtesy of USS Endurance? :D
 
TenEightyOne
If that was one source rather than claiming the source then that could be quite interesting, tales of underwater cities (and great floods and visitations of plagues) are a feature of the histories of a number of civilisations. :D
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To be clear, the only source of the Atlantis legend is Plato, who said Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, thousands of years in the past, and of continental scale. That all rules out Minoans/Crete/Santorini from the start.
 
Dotini
To be clear, the only source of the Atlantis legend is Plato, who said Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, thousands of years in the past, and of continental scale. That all rules out Minoans/Crete/Santorini from the start.
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You're right insofar as a place called Atlantis goes, but other cultures/religions have also had stories about cities in places-they-shouldn't-be destroyed by hubris and the unholy ambition of men. Babel's one that springs readily to mind.
 
TenEightyOne
You're right insofar as a place called Atlantis goes, but other cultures/religions have also had stories about cities in places-they-shouldn't-be destroyed by hubris and the unholy ambition of men. Babel's one that springs readily to mind.
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Is San Francisco another, built over a major fault?

Virtually every major city and nation in and around the Mediterranean region were destroyed over a few short years of the late Bronze Age. Sometimes the destruction was total, and sometimes only the palace/temple was destroyed, indicating rebellion by the people (at misrule?)
 
Dotini
Is San Francisco another, built over a major fault?
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Maybe so, but its use has has been pretty-much continuous over 5,000 years. It's plausible that land has been lost (and/or gained) of course, but that would be par for the course in most coastal regions.

Dotini
Virtually every major city and nation in and around the Mediterranean region were destroyed over a few short years of the late Bronze Age. Sometimes the destruction was total, and sometimes only the palace/temple was destroyed, indicating rebellion by the people (at misrule?)
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The collapse of the Aegean empires may indeed have been contributory to Plato's fable.
 
TenEightyOne
fable.
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Yes, fable. Not a literally true history, but a story composed by Plato to teach a lesson?

The Aegean might not be the only previous civilization from which Plato or Solon drew inspiration ...Perhaps Doggerland?


The red line marks Dogger Bank, which is most likely a moraine formed in the Pleistocene[8]
As ice melted at the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, sea levels rose and the land began to tilt in an isostatic adjustment as the huge weight of ice lessened. Doggerland eventually became submerged, cutting off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 6500 BCE.[6] The Dogger Bank, an upland area of Doggerland, remained an island until at least 5000 BC.[6][9]Key stages are now believed to have included the gradual evolution of a large tidal bay between eastern England and Dogger Bank by 7000 BC and a rapid sea-level rise thereafter, leading to Dogger Bank becoming an island and Great Britain getting physically disconnected from the continent.[10]

A recent hypothesis postulates that much of the remaining coastal land was flooded by a megatsunami around 6200 BCE, caused by a submarine landslide off the coast of Norway known as the Storegga Slide. This suggests: "that the Storegga Slide tsunami would have had a catastrophic impact on the contemporary coastal Mesolithic population.
 
Dotini
Yes, fable. Not a literally true history, but a story composed by Plato to teach a lesson?

The Aegean might not be the only previous civilization from which Plato or Solon drew inspiration ...Perhaps Doggerland?

The red line marks Dogger Bank, which is most likely a moraine formed in the Pleistocene[8]
As ice melted at the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, sea levels rose and the land began to tilt in an isostatic adjustment as the huge weight of ice lessened. Doggerland eventually became submerged, cutting off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 6500 BCE.[6] The Dogger Bank, an upland area of Doggerland, remained an island until at least 5000 BC.[6][9]Key stages are now believed to have included the gradual evolution of a large tidal bay between eastern England and Dogger Bank by 7000 BC and a rapid sea-level rise thereafter, leading to Dogger Bank becoming an island and Great Britain getting physically disconnected from the continent.[10]

A recent hypothesis postulates that much of the remaining coastal land was flooded by a megatsunami around 6200 BCE, caused by a submarine landslide off the coast of Norway known as the Storegga Slide. This suggests: "that the Storegga Slide tsunami would have had a catastrophic impact on the contemporary coastal Mesolithic population.
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Doggerland is a more distant possibility for Platonic inspiration, imo. The Storegga Slide hypothesis is a strong one and much supported by recent sub-marine archaeology as allowed by the combination of state-of-the-art survey technology and the expansion of the North Sea gas fields. Human exploration of the North Sea is difficult as it's a) always veeeery cold and b) relatively shallow over much of its area and c) strongly tidal. B&C combine to cause, I'm told, difficult diving currents.

Petrified forest has been found some distance from the coast - not surprising given that the coast in that area can recede by 6 metres per year.

For context I've added myself to your map as a red dot :)

250px-Doggerbank.jpg
 
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TenEightyOne
It turns out that some often-watched parts of the internet bilge areas think Sandy Hook was an entirely fake event. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-39194035.
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Oh for 🤬 sake.

This is why things like the Bowling Green "massacre" aren't actually funny. Because once someone in power starts down that road, it's a really short path to revisionist history of real events.
 
What has been cleaning the Rovers on Mars? Covert astronauts? Aliens? Poorly understood electric phenomena?

 
Dotini
What has been cleaning the Rovers on Mars? Covert astronauts? Aliens? Poorly understood electric phenomena?
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TenEightyOne
Or one: wind?
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As Wikipedia says:

Wikipedia
A cleaning event is a phenomenon whereby dust is removed from solar panels, particularly ones on Mars, by the action of wind. The term cleaning event is used on several NASA webpages; generally the term is used in reference to the fact that Martian winds have blown dust clear off the solar panels of probes on Mars increasing their energy output.[1]
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Note the operative words there: "by the action of wind".

Dotini
Why/how do the "cleaning events" occur only at night?
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Does anyone other than some Youtube blogger of unknown credentials claim this happens only at night?
 
A look back into Washington DC sex scandals which are still being suppressed from public knowledge - and for good reason!!

 
BobK
Does anyone other than some Youtube blogger of unknown credentials claim this happens only at night?
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Yes, Rover team leader Jim Erickson of NASA JPL, Pasadena.

My guess is that the the rovers are cleaned by dust devils, likely involving an electrostatic effect. Between Earth and the atmosphere, the electric field varies in height and strength from daytime to nighttime.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6824-mystery-of-mars-rovers-carwash-rolls-on/
Rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told New Scientist that a process still not understood has repeatedly removed dust from the solar panels. “These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape,” he says.

Whatever the process, it has taken place while Opportunity was parked during the Martian night. On at least four occasions over a six-month period, the rover’s power output increased by up to 5% overnight.
 
Dotini
Yes, Rover team leader Jim Erickson of NASA JPL, Pasadena.

My guess is that the the rovers are cleaned by dust devils, likely involving an electrostatic effect. Between Earth and the atmosphere, the electric field varies in height and strength from daytime to nighttime.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6824-mystery-of-mars-rovers-carwash-rolls-on/
Rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told New Scientist that a process still not understood has repeatedly removed dust from the solar panels. “These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape,” he says.

Whatever the process, it has taken place while Opportunity was parked during the Martian night. On at least four occasions over a six-month period, the rover’s power output increased by up to 5% overnight.
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He's not saying it happens only at night, as your blogger and you are.

The obvious explanation, of course is God did it.
 
Okay, not necessarily only during the night. But probably during the night.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(rover)#Dust_devils
On March 9, 2005 (probably during the Martian night), the rover's solar panel efficiency jumped from around 60% of what it had originally been to 93%, followed on March 10, by the sighting of dust devils. NASA scientists speculate a dust devil must have swept the solar panels clean, possibly significantly extending the duration of the mission. This also marks the first time dust devils had been spotted by either Spirit or Opportunity, easily one of the top highlights of the mission to date. Dust devils had previously been photographed by only the Pathfinder probe.

Mission members monitoring Spirit on Mars reported on sol 421 March 12, 2005, that a lucky encounter with a dust devil had cleaned the robot's solar panels. Energy levels dramatically increased and daily science work was anticipated to be expanded.[33]


Video of a dust devil on Mars, photographed by Spirit. The counter in the bottom-left corner indicates time in seconds after the first photo was taken in the sequence. At the final frames, one can see that the dust devil has left a trail on the Martian surface. Four other dust devils also appear in the background.
 
TenEightyOne
Just as probably, yes. Probably, no.
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Why do you say that?

From the limited data on these cleaning events, it seems NASA regards it as a bit of mystery, but associated with wind - specifically dust devils. Dust devils are also quite interesting phenomena, and apparently seldom photographed. Since photography occurs during the day and dust devil/cleaning events are not photographed, it seems logical to think that dust devil/cleaning events might probably take place at night.
 
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Dotini
Why do you say that?

From the limited data on these cleaning events, it seems NASA regards it as a bit of mystery, but associated with wind - specifically dust devils. Dust devils are also quite interesting phenomena, and apparently seldom photographed. Since photography occurs during the day and dust devil/cleaning events are not photographed, it seems logical to think that dust devil/cleaning events might probably take place at night.
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The point is, it's almost certainly a wind-related phenomenon. And not aliens, as hinted by the original video.
 
BobK
The point is, it's almost certainly a wind-related phenomenon. And not aliens, as hinted by the original video.
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Okay, fine. But I never took the alien or covert astronaut tease as anything but a joke. The point - for me as an anomalist - is that there is a degree of mystery to it. I'm satisfied with the electrostatic dust devil hypothesis. But Martian dust devils are in themselves yet another anomaly remaining to be better understood and explained.:)
 

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