‘
Well, today is the day, once again, that the world won’t end. I’m shocked, shocked, that the comet fragment predicted to hit in the Atlantic causing a seismic event and an ensuing tidal wave hasn’t materialized.
Of course, the day’s not over yet. But I’m pretty sure how this will turn out.
Anyway, the purveyor of doomsday this go-round, Eric Julien, will no doubt mostly disappear into the noise until some new event comes along that he, or someone else, can scare people about. The one lingering question will be, was he honest, or was he a conman? It’s hard to see how he could make any money off this, so I’m guessing he is an honest man. Wrong, and seriously scientifically deluded.
Still, I can’t help thinking he blew it in another way, too. Given that he had a vision that the Earth would be destroyed on May 25, 2006, he shouldn’t have gone with a comet to destroy the Earth. He should have gone with the Vogons! After all, today is Towel Day.
Don’t Panic image from grnluvbug. Towel tip to sanguinity, a commentor on the Pharyngula blog for the heads-up — literally — on this one. And as an aside, that comet in the cartoon above… to me, it looks like John Kerry. It’s actually from a newspaper back in 1910 when Comet Halley passed the Earth.‘
May 25th, 2006 at 2:03 am
I can’t believe I’m actually having a towel hanging from a pocket in my trousers right now.. It’s checkered blue and white, and rather small, ideal for taking with you and to use for a nearly infinite number of usefull things.. Thanks for pointing it out!
May 25th, 2006 at 3:38 am
Well I woke up this morning and now I have to mow the dang lawn. I held off until the end of the world but since the end is over I guess its back to the real world. I kept telling my wife to hold off on the honey dos since the comet was going to hit. Since there would be a tidal wave though I did feel fairly safe in Utah, although my boat was ready. Why can’t those crackpots ever be right?
May 25th, 2006 at 3:44 am
I just got the absolutely most stupid response yesterday when I was trying to convince someone the world wouldn’t end:
Right… it has absolutely nothing to do with the overwhelming evidence against the world ending today, and everything to do with the fact that I’m too embarassed to be wrong about something so I’m just ‘playing it safe’…. riiiiight.
May 25th, 2006 at 4:01 am
Are you guys saying I built that huge shelter for nothing? Darn!
Sigh. That some people believe it is pretty sad.
May 25th, 2006 at 5:46 am
I wonder if anyone will see the Moon in the Morning Sky today and get it confused with the errant comet about to hit????:)
May 25th, 2006 at 5:53 am
Speaking of unlikely disasters, I went to see “Poseidon” the other day (on an IMAX screen, no less). As a movie review, I’d say, “Don’t bother.”
But while watching the movie, I noticed a bit of Bad Astronomy. It’s New Years Eve and people are celebrating aboard the huge luxury liner Poseidon, except Richard Dreyfus. He’s outside by the rail hoping for a very important phone call on his cell phone at midnight. When it doesn’t come, he’s despondent and about to jump over the rail when he sees a huge wave blotting out the full moon near the horizon.
Ahem. Midnight? Full moon near the horizon? Wow, this really is some kind of disaster!
May 25th, 2006 at 5:55 am
Are you reading this?…
Well? Has the world ended yet?……
May 25th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Can we re-schedule? Today is really bad for me.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:04 am
Can we reschedule? Today is really bad for me.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:06 am
Sorry for double post. Was getting some strange errors.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:11 am
But it is Thursday today
That was when DA said the Vogons demolished the Earth.
Vogons
Comet
Towel Day
Anyone seee the connect here?
Neither can I
Roll on 26 May 2006
May 25th, 2006 at 7:13 am
[…] (via Bad Astronomy Blog) […]
May 25th, 2006 at 7:23 am
It’s a miracle! God has once again shown his infinite compassion by sparing us from absolutely certain death-by-comet. I guess all you atheist comet-skeptics feel pretty silly about now.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Knowing the world will end tomorrow is a good excuse to get seriously drunk tonight. Unfortunately, tomorrow you won’t be quite sure whether it’s ended or not. Though you’ll probably wish it would.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:34 am
“This must be Thursday… I could never get the hang of Thursdays”
May 25th, 2006 at 8:04 am
“-Oh my God!!! We did it!! the leaders went in reverse!! it was entirely our doing!! greetings everybody, we managed to send them so many positive vibrations they finally realised how wrong they were to destroy our planet!!!
-Oh, Eric, you were soooo right!! thank you so so much for pointing out what we had to do stop them from doing the unthinkable…
-Thanks, you know, I just wanted to “save some lives”…
-Well, Eric, you did it, yes, you did it.”
That was an excerpt from a conversation that will take place tomorrow between Mr. Julien and a pack homeless, hungover, unemployed people. I know it because an alien told me so last night in a dream.
And you, skeptics, why do you want to stop him from having such a wonderful day, feeling like the true hero that he is?? you’re just mean, skeptics, that’s what you are.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Just don’t let the Vogon captain read you any of his poetry – a fate worse than death!
May 25th, 2006 at 8:22 am
“-Oh my God!!! We did it!! the leaders went in reverse!! it was entirely our doing!! greetings everybody, we managed to send them so many positive vibrations they finally realised how wrong they were to destroy our planet!!!
-Oh, Eric, you were soooo right!! thank you so so much for pointing out what we had to do stop them from doing the unthinkable…
-Thanks, you know, I just wanted to “save some lives”…
-Well, Eric, you did it, yes, you did it.”
That was an excerpt from a conversation that will take place tomorrow between Mr. Julien and a pack homeless, hungover, unemployed people. I know it because an alien told me so last night in a dream.
And you, skeptics, why do you want to stop him from having such a wonderful day, feeling like the true hero that he is?? you’re just mean, skeptics, that’s what you are.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Well, at least we got an earthquake in Stockholm this morning. A “2″ on the Richter scale, no less!
May 25th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Yes, because of course “positive vibrations” can alter the orbit of interplanetary objects.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Tom K-
Just FYI, on June 11th this year, the full moon will be remarkably low, at a declination of -28 degrees, or about 18 degrees above the horizon from here in Toronto at its highest point. I haven’t seen Poseidon, but I’ve seen the commercial, and the moon looks like it’s about half-a-dozen moon-widths above the horizon, so you’re right, it is crap. But it *could* have been right, if the movie were set off the north coast of Norway in midsummer, which I guess could be Australian New Years.
May 25th, 2006 at 9:06 am
aiabx-
I thought about different latitudes, so I checked for something above the Arctic Circle - Barrow, Alaska. In 2006 on April 13 moonrise is at 23:08 and on August 9 it’s at 23:29 - that’d put the moon about 13 or 8 degrees above the horizon, respectively. Of course it still wouldn’t be December 31, as per the movie.
Plus the sky would be pretty light as sunset for those dates are 21:36 and 23:34, respectively.
It’s definitely Bad Astronomy, but whaddaya expect from a movie?
May 25th, 2006 at 9:46 am
I’ve seen the full-moon-rising-at-midnight thing in other movies too. I want to say it’s in “It’s a Wonderful Life”…? Will have to double-check.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:07 am
…this means I have to go to work on Friday
May 25th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I think I have this end of the earth thing figured out.
He’s not talking about this universe.
He’s talking about an alternate universe.
Clues are found on the first of his website. The part that says:
“UPDATE WEDNESDAY MAY 23, 2006:â€
He’s in a universe were his Wednesday is on our Tuesday!
Now there is no telling when the earth is going to end.. Damn!!
May 25th, 2006 at 11:55 am
It occurs to me that he may be a conman: he has two books out, after all. While the aren’t directly about this event, that I can see, I’ll bet cash dollars that he’s sold more of them thanks to the proverbial waves he has made. Other people have certainly do outrageous things as publicity stunts, after all. OK, yes. I’m cynical. But I doubt this nonsense is costing him a lot of money, so it might well be worth the effort in profits.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:59 am
It occurs to me that he may be a conman: he has two books out, after all. While the aren’t directly about this event, that I can see, I’ll bet cash dollars that he’s sold more of them thanks to the proverbial waves he has made. Other people have certainly do outrageous things as publicity stunts, after all. OK, yes. I’m cynical. But I doubt this nonsense is costing him a lot of money, so it’s quite possibly worth the extra book sales.
May 25th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Tom K sez: “Ahem. Midnight? Full moon near the horizon? Wow, this really is some kind of disaster!”
It seems the only phase ever shown in films is full. I think it must be in the Screenwriters Guild bylaws or something. Also, Halloween and Christmas Eve always have a full moon.
Speaking of this particular bit of Bad Astronomy, in the late ’80s I was in Disneyland. We always try to eat dinner at the “Blue Bayou” restaurant (the only quasi-nice place in the park). For those of you who have never been there, it is set up like the back veranda of a southern mansion in the antebellum south and you are having a late evening dinner. The illusion is pretty complete with the heat and humidity higher than normal for indoors, frog and cricket sound effects, and fireflies (artificial, of course) flitting about in the bushes separating you from the river where folks just starting the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride drift by.
To complete the illusion, there is a setting crescent moon on the horizon, about four or five days old. There was something subconsciously bothering me about this all through dinner until I realized that the wrong face of the moon was lit. The points of the crescent were pointing to the horizon rather than away from it. To my wife’s supreme embarrassment, I pointed this out to our waitress (after 25 years these “nerd moments” still bother her). However, the next time we were at the park, about 5 years later, I noticed that the moon had been fixed! It was now a waxing gibbous, maybe 10 days old, and the correct face was lit up. Of course, with that phase just setting, that means we were eating dinner at about 4 AM, but, to my wife’s infinite relief, I let this little subtlety slide.
- Jack
May 25th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
There was an article in Sky & Telescope a few years ago titled, “What’s Wrong With A Gibbous Moon” or something to that effect. It was about the preponderance of full and crescent moon depictions in paintings, with only a couple of known instances of a gibbous moon. I don’t recall the conclusion they came too - I’m guessing it’s something along the lines that a gibbous moon just looks too much like a badly done full moon.
May 25th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Well…its just 2 hours till the day *ends* (its 10.00 PM here in Geneva). After that all will be safe - atleast for this half of the world :-).
May 25th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
You know, the time factor is a bit silly. May 25, but what timezone? I’m still waiting for the crash here!
May 25th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
…Excuse the double post, but is it just me or the savelivesinmay.com website is down? I get “Bad request (Invalid Hostname)”
May 25th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
It’s down. You can still get it from the Google Cache, though.
May 25th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I’m here in Charleston, SC. When is this supposed to hit today again. Do I have time to get a snack?
May 25th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
11.15 PM in Geneva, Switzerland…and counting…come on, come on…just 45 minutes more and I’ll be out of danger….
May 25th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
The website is not merely down… it’s returning a page saying “Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)”.
That means that the website was hosted on a shared server at some hosting provider, and the pages have actually been *pulled*, rather than the server being offline for some reason. This isn’t a technical problem…
I’m shocked, shocked to discover this, as you can imagine.
[snort]
May 25th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Apparently on Eric’s web site was affected by the tidal wave.
jbs
May 25th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Related humor:
“So I rented a movie called “Armageddon,” and if an asteroid’s coming towards us, you don’t have to blow it up. All you have to do is slow it down long enough for our country to rotate out of the way. Once again, Canada gets a free ride.” - Emo Philips
May 25th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Well, it is supposed to hit the Atlantic Ocean. The last time zone to contain any of the Atlantic Ocean is Central Standard Time (-6 UTC/GMT/Zulu time), which includes the Gulf of Mexico and some of the Atlantic coast of Central America. So at midnight CST there is no way it can hit its predicted target. In order for it to hit the east coast of the US today it would have to hit before midnight Eastern Standard Time (-5 UTC). I guess by Midnight at the International Date Line (-12 UTC) we know we are safe even if the comet is way off-target.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
I am so dissapointed, I went through the trouble of ripping REM’s End of the World song from my CD and making it my ringtone for my cell. Now the world doesn’t end!?!? Oh well, at least I still feel fine!
May 25th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
In case anyone wants to know, I just fired off a letter (email) to Mr. Eric Julien. We’ll see if he has the decency to respond or even read it. If anyone wants to know what I wrote let me know.
~Thanks
May 25th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
the web page is back up - with an update.
Apparently May 25th wasn’t a completely rigid date, but just the midpoint of a “48 hour window”.
One day at a time…
May 25th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Greetings from May 26th! We’re still alive here in Australia (OK, I know it is still May 25th in UT but only for another 30 minutes).
Guess I’ve got no excuse for not finishing those papers I’m writing now so it is back to work.
May 25th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
8:33 PM Atlantic time….skys clear with few clouds….slight chance of IMMINENT DOOM!!! And pollen counts are low.
May 25th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Wait… This update, that the very precise time he originally gave is the mid-point of a 48-hour window…
If it’s a 48-hour window, then its mid-point is 24 hours before it ends. So that end would be midnight tonight, GMT. Which is about 50 minutes ago.
Prophets of doom have a habit of revising their dates, but it must be a first for the revised date to be in the past before anyone knows about it….
May 25th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Oops, make that 1 hour 50 minutes - forgot I’m on BST…
May 25th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
No a comet hasn’t hit us yet but more insanity from our government as it looks like we are quietly giving our sovereignity to Mexico.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I tried logging on to www.savelivesinmay.com, but the web page is gone.
How in heck am I supposed to know when to panic???
May 25th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I tried logging on to savelivesinmay.com, but the web page is gone.
How in heck am I supposed to know when to panic???
May 25th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
www.savelivesinmay.com is back!
Read up this from the website!
—-
UPDATE MAY 25, 2006:
According to informed sources, contacts in the American intelligence services confirm the existence of a time window of 48 hours, centered on May 25th at midnight GMT, for the impact a comet fragment south of the Azores.
This corroborates information of an evacuation exercise of the U.S. Congress to occur later in the day of May 25th, information which reached us this morning.
As a measure of precaution, I suggest the authorities do the utmost to protect the populations of the Atlantic coastlines. — Eric Julien
—-
Okay! Now what is THAT supposed to mean? 48 hours? And of course, the government works in the shadows! BIG CONSPIRACY! THE PEOPLE MUST NOT KNOW! GASP!
May 25th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
I predict the world will end at 12:31 PM UTC on 26 May… or at least that is the midpoint of a 10 billion year wide window in which the world will end.
I know that sounds like a lot, but when you consider how long 10 billion years is since the beginning of time, it’s not so big.
On a more serious note…
According to informed sources, contacts in the American intelligence services confirm the existence of a time window of 48 hours, centered on May 25th at midnight GMT, for the impact a comet fragment south of the Azores.
Now, I’m just a physicist by education, not an astronomer, but I’m pretty sure that the calculations to determine if a chunk of orbiting crap was going to strike the Earth, they’d have a window a LOT smaller than 48 hours? Maybe a 48-hour window if the calculation is made months or years in advance, but certainly within a few weeks of the event, people would know pretty exactly, yes?
I almost wrote “it’s not rocket science” but I suppose that it is, technically, rocket science, but it’s well understood and not especially difficult rocket science, I think.
In 48 hours, the planet will zip around in its orbit some 30 km/s * 86400 * 2 = about 5.1 million km. That’s a huge margin for error on Julien’s part. So I bet that when the comet doesn’t hit the earth, he comes out with “well it passed into the 5 million km that the earth passed through and we narrowly missed it because we’re so uber and God is badass, yadda yadda” or words to that effect.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Well, it looks like it is all over. The 48 hour window has been up for almost 3 hours and we are still here.
I should probably also point out that “American intelligence services” would not be using the term “GMT”, they would be using “UTC” or “Zulu time”.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
I’m still wondering, the website’s back, but not online forum. Guess it’s not supposed to matter now what people think since we’re all dead.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Oh, and to add to what Squid said, it should also be pointed out that in the 48-hour window Earth would make very close to 2 complete rotations. If they can only narrow the impact down to a 48 hour window, how could they possibly know it is going to hit near the Azores. Even assuming the Earth was not orbiting the Sun, or if the comet was somehow matched to Earth’s orbit, if they were off by even 1 hour it would mean that the comet’s impact site would be off by nearly 1000 miles (well over 1000 km). If they were off by 12 hours it would hit the opposite side of the world. Yet he says the window is for hitting “south of the Azores”. So somehow the comet must hit the exact same spot on the Earth no matter what part of the Earth happens to be facing it when it arrives. How is that even possible?
May 25th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
How is that even possible?
UFOs behind the comet steer it, and they hate the Azores because there aren’t any good crops in which to make circles.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
It’s worse than that; since the Earth moves in its orbit by over a million miles a day (as you note), if you can’t nail down the time to within a few minutes (off the top of my head I think about 15) you can’t possibly know that the thing will hit us at all. If the alleged comet crossed the Earth’s path 15 minutes too early, the Earth wouldn’t be there yet, and 15 minutes too late and we’d already have passed that spot.
Of course, this isn’t remotely the most loony thing about this story, but it’s always a giant red flag when anybody claims to be able to predict a collision but can’t tell you exactly when. It simply isn’t possible to know that a collision is going to occur and not know precisely when it will occur…
May 25th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
You know, I was kinda hoping the world would end so I could get a nice weekend. Instead, here I am at work…le sigh.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Ah well, better putter off to work then…
May 25th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
I think I know where the comet fragment impacted. As pointed out above, the “savelivesinmay” website was temporarily offline and the forum is still out. I guess the fragment was so small that all it did was destroy or disable a webpage and a forum, and send a few ripples throughout cyberspace. Perhaps Mr. Julien’s website is located in the Azores?
May 26th, 2006 at 5:18 am
Just thought of this…nothing was said about the
“End of the world” or lack thereof on CNN yesterday.
I guess this stuff only shows up on a slow news day!
May 26th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Good grief!
May 26th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Hmmmm….
Is it just possible that Mr. Julien is a fan of “Hitchiker’s Guide” and has done this hooey just to celebrate Towel Day?
As I was reading the posts I was thinking about the Azores impact and the 48 hour window inconsistency. Then I came on Evolving Squid’s and Black Cat’s posts and my faith in science and humanity was restored!
Rich
May 26th, 2006 at 7:55 am
I took a cruise once and cellular phones don’t work in the middle of the ocean, or anywhere far from a shore that has cellular towers or repeaters or whatever they are.
May 26th, 2006 at 8:01 am
And no it get worse, as if the end of the world wasn’t enough, women are hoping to avoid giving birth on june 6th of this year so as to not have the antichrist. I thought the number was suppose to be 666 not 06/06/06. Do I hear the church lady here?
May 26th, 2006 at 8:11 am
B.A.: I am so disappointed… Upon dropping down the back of a pick-up truck with a beer cooler at hand, I was so looking forward to enjoying mass destruction.
May 26th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Dang, no wonder I had trouble keeping up with the doomsday scenario. I thought it was supposed to be TROWEL day. I’ve been carrying this thing around and digging in the garden,,,
Oh, are Y’All still there?
As I recall, the Christian bible says something to the effect,” No man will know the time or day of my coming,,,”
I think that pretty much precludes the running around, hiding under rocks or atop mountains that usually follows the announcement of some doom soon to come. Another way of saying this is,” You’ll never see the piano that has your name on it,,,so,,,BE HAPPY!”
Gary 7
PS On the other hand, global warming IS something we can affect,,,but that is predicted by REAL scientists and is peer reviewed.
May 26th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
May 26th; we’re still here and its almost 4pm. I was washing my car yesterday thinking when the tidal wave was going to hit so I wouldn’t have to do that. Darn! It’s raining again and as someone pointed out above now they are all freaking about about 666 but RAD is correct its not 666 its 06/06/06; the 0s and dashes count for something not to mention Nostrudumas’ thing of the world ending in 2014. I wonder what Mr. Julien is doing today? I wonder if his car got egged by anyone. Or is he coming up for a new way to warn the public of impending doom?
Food for thought! ~wink~
May 26th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Well, the webpage is still up with a waffly sort of update. I tried signing on to see what was what in their forum (you can’t read any of it unless you register). The wee bit you *can* read says, “451 members have posted 0 posts within 1 topic”, which sounds like an awfully boring forum. I’ve tried twice and still haven’t gotten a validation email. Sigh…either they don’t like me on non-sight, in spite of being a frooby sort of gal who always knows where her towel is or, by strange cosmic coincidence, their server was taken out by a comet. Hmmmmm….
May 26th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Oh, dear! I’ve been validated (huzzah!), but there doesn’t actually seem to be any content. At all. No actual forums posts whatsoever. 355 members and nada. I’m somewhat confused as to the usefulness of a postless (pointless?) forum.
May 26th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
This is awesome!
For example it is known that comets are not made up of ‘dust and ice’ as was once believed, and still is by some, but are made up entirely of antimatter in some kind of solid form. It is also known that this comet antimatter represents an immensely rich energy resource, which evidence suggests might some day be harvested.
You can find this awesome scientific exposé at http://members.shaw.ca/rolfwitzsche/canada/age.html
May 26th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
This is awesome!
For example it is known that comets are not made up of ‘dust and ice’ as was once believed, and still is by some, but are made up entirely of antimatter in some kind of solid form. It is also known that this comet antimatter represents an immensely rich energy resource, which evidence suggests might some day be harvested.
You can find this awesome scientific exposé at Link
May 26th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
ack double post, my apologies.
May 27th, 2006 at 5:03 am
Hmm… I too registered at that wacky forum and got validated. But I cannot post any reply or topic. Apparently only selected members seems to be able to do that. Isn’t that just grand, can’t even try to post a comment…
I just read that someone on that forum claims that a small chunk of a comet is hurling towards the earth at at speed of 900 000 km/s… 3 times the speed of light =D… I wonder where these guys come up with all this.
My senses tells me this has got to be a big joke, no one can’t be this stupid…
May 27th, 2006 at 5:39 am
Just a quick follow up. I managed to get on their forums and posted this… of course, the forum is moderated, so the post will probably never see the light of day:
===
what-if (5/27/2006)HI ALL:
I THINK THIS INFORMACION CAN BE IMPORTANT , I WILL POST IN SECTIONS:w00t: .
CHECK THE LAST PART
May 26, 21:00 EST
A little fragment of the debris field of the comet 73P was localized some minutes ago, traveling in direction to the earth.
LATITUDE: 40N
What about 40 N? The comet is in space, it doesn’t have a latitude. It’s also moving. Or are you trying to say it’s visible from 40N on the surface of the earth? Or that it’s 40 degrees north of the ecliptic?
SPEED: 900.000 Km/s approximately
Must be very approximate… that’s three times the speed of light. If you ignore the laws of physics that pretty much say it can’t possibly move that fast since it has non-zero mass, how would you see it at all since it’s moving faster than the light that would indicate its position? In addition, if it’s 11 million km away, as you indicate below, wouldn’t it have arrived in 12 seconds at that speed?
DISTANCE: 11.000.000 Km approximately.
DIRECTION: TOWARD THE EARTH
The earth is moving at 30 km/s in its orbit around the sun, so you are suggesting the fragment is aiming at some point in front of the earth?
EXPECTED IMPACT TIME: MAY 27, BETWEEN 5-6 AM EST
EXPECTED IMPACT ZONE: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC OR THE CARRIBEAN SEA.
Orbital mechanics are pretty simple calculations. If there was an object 11 Gm away, I assure you it would be a pretty straightforward calculation to determine exactly when and where it would hit. There’s a 1500 km margin for error east/west in your statement - let alone the nearly 20000 km margin for error north/south.
Regards,
An Anonymous NASA engineer.
Must be a sanitation engineer.
> I’m curious, I asked a few questions before, but since this will be hitting the atlantic/caribbean. Does Eric Julien’s idea or theory hold any relevance to this. i.e… an earthquake or collapsing underwater volcano due to this?
Nothing will happen. More correctly, nothing did happen. This whole comet thing has been what we call, in the world of people who use their brains for something other than keeping their skulls from imploding, (expletive for male bovine feces).
May 27th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Quoting from Evolving Squid’s link:
…comets are not made up of ‘dust and ice’ as was once believed…but are made up entirely of antimatter in some kind of solid form.
The first major evidence that drove the point home, that comets are made of antimatter, was seen in 1994 when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up and the fragments collided with Jupiter… The energy output of the fragments impacting on Jupiter is said to have been in the range of 200 million megatons of TNT… Nothing but a matter/antimatter reaction could have caused this kind of hugely massive explosion.
Well, lets do the math!
According to Einstein, just under 5000 tonnes of antimatter reacting with 5000 tonnes of matter will release that kind of energy. Such a comet would be on order of twenty meters across. That seems kinda tiny to be discovered by amateur astronomers.
The comet impacted at 60,000 meters per second, if we assume kinetic energy accounted for the explosion, the mass required is just under 500 Gigatonnes. Such a comet is on the order of ten kilometers across, which seems more like a reasonable size for the comet to me.
May 27th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Sorry, the quote should be:
…comets are not made up of ‘dust and ice’ as was once believed…but are made up entirely of antimatter in some kind of solid form.
The first major evidence that drove the point home, that comets are made of antimatter, was seen in 1994 when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up and the fragments collided with Jupiter… The energy output of the fragments impacting on Jupiter is said to have been in the range of 200 million megatons of TNT… Nothing but a matter/antimatter reaction could have caused this kind of hugely massive explosion.
May 27th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Well, the website has been revised. Apparently the comet, which it seems only Eric Julein saw, wasn’t the cause of the tidal wave, it was merely an omen. The aliens are planning on launching an attack on their own sometime in the indefinite future (although they hint at either Sunday or some time next month, it isn’t very clear). There is apparently some numerology involving the numbers 123, 14, and 4 backing this up but I honestly can’t make any sense of it. Something to do with dates.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Dates! A tasty fruit. Also a very subjective method of measuring time. One might even consider it a cultural artifact. I believe we are currently using the Gregorian calendar, putting 06.06.06 on Tuesday of next week. However, if we were still following the Julian calendar, we would be past that critical date and women would be free to go into labor at will. (*smirk* like it works that way…) We could pick a wide variety of calendars, out of use (such as the Julian, or the system of runes in Scandinavia carved in large stones… or consider Stonehenge, et al…) or still in use (China still toggles back and forth between its calendar and the West; there is a lunar calendar used by the Muslim world; even older is the lunar calendar in the Hebraic tradition…) to set ‘our’ Numerology against, depending on the desired answer.
BTW, he’s changed the date. Grab your swimsuits! The Date of Impending Doom is now far more specific, including an actual time: 4:42 GMT on May 31. http://www.savelivesinmay.com/slimdocs/A-clue-from-the-stars-en.htm
Which (ahem) may or may not have already passed. Check your calendars!
May 30th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Whoa! my bollocks-blocking software caused me to get a blank page on that link.
Joking aside, one has to take one’s uncritical, non-thinking pretty seriously to produce that page.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Wow. Cool software; your own design or off the shelf.
And yet in a way, how sad. You are missing out on some *messed-up* entertainment. 
He waxes astrologic. Big time. My neck got quite a work out from all the “I can’t believe he said that” style head shaking. There are descriptions and graphs and charts all over the place.
I love this quote particularly: “I could spend several hours preparing and explaining this chart, time which is unavailable at present. If this turns out to be a significant chart, other astrologers can do a far better job than I explaining its significance. It would appear to be the most interesting event during the 24 hour period that the Sun is on 10 Gemini. The time of the event is 4:42 GMT on May 31.” And then he goes on to cross refer several major past events to previous celestial conjunctions, then compares them with conjunctions occurring this week. Ostensibly, this is unshakable proof positive of his comet theory: if it happened THEN under these “celestial conditions”, it’s gonna ferdarnsher happen NOW! What a weenie.
Have you ever noticed that the folk using the most boldface are those least worthy of serious attention?
June 1st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
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