My Top Baker’s Dozen Anomalies: Part One

The Universe is filled with mystery. There are a myriad of things that are, but shouldn’t be, or probably shouldn’t be. Adequate explanations are not only lacking, but even the wildest possible theoretical explanations are rather thin on the ground. There often tends to be a massive divide between observation and theory. These anomalies run the range from the Universe as a whole, down to your local neck of the woods, down in fact to the realms of the microscopic. Here are a few of my favorite anomalies from the top down.

There are thousands of books, articles, documentaries, TV shows and websites that are or have been devoted to anomalies or mysteries or the unknown. From UFOs and ancient astronauts to Bigfoot to Atlantis, to ESP to the Bermuda Triangle to religious miracles, the list is seemingly endless. Some are pretty iffy; some have a good bona-fide pedigree. No two people will come up with identical lists of what to them are their top anomalies. There’s just too many that capture the imagination of the great unwashed. Different strokes for different folks. Here’s my list – at this point in time anyway.

ACCELERATING UNIVERSE: The anomaly here is quite straightforward in that there’s considerable observational evidence that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. However, logic dictates that because of the overall gravity that the Universe has, the expansion rate of the Universe should be decelerating. The ‘antigravity’ energy required to accelerate the Universe’s expansi on has to come from somewhere, and in ever increasing amounts to keep on keeping on the ever increasing rate of acceleration, yet, the Universe, almost by definition, already contains all there is and ever will be. If extra ‘antigravity’ energy is being created, it’s being created out of nothing. Something from nothing is a clear violation of the basic conservation laws and principles that form the bedrock of modern science.  

NEITH: Neith is, or was, the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. now-forever-lost satellite of our twin planet (in size if nothing else), Venus. The anomaly here is that bona-fide professional astronomers, not one but numerous celebrated astronomers, including Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712), sighted, noted and logged the existence of the damn thing and wrote up their findings in their professional journals. Okay, the time period was the mid-1600s to mid-1700s, but the professional eyeballs and the professional equipment was good enough to verify one way or the other the presence or absence of a reasonably sized natural satellite in orbit around Venus.

Of over thirty sightings of Neith, the best known and verified were in 1645, 1672, 1686, 1740, 1759, 1761 and 1764 (multiple sightings on numerous days in March). Observations over that stretch of period would seemingly rule out the ‘satellite’ being a faint star or asteroid or outer planet like Uranus or Neptune that just happened to be way beyond Venus but in the direct line of sight. Sometimes the observed phase of Neith matched the phase of Venus, which again suggests that the object was in close proximity to the planet.

Venus, inward and closer to the Sun than Earth, is a very visible and prominent celestial object when viewed from Earth, commonly called the Morning and Evening ‘Star’. We’ve all seen Venus; in fact if you know exactly where to look it can be seen in the daytime sky. Venus is far enough away from the Sun that the Sun’s glare doesn’t drown out reflected light from Venus, and presumably any objects near or in orbit around Venus. A natural satellite of Venus of any reasonable size should be readily detectable with the astronomical equipment available at the time. And so it really didn’t raise any astronomical eyebrows when Neith was in fact discovered. The anomaly here is that all and sundry were wrong. Neith doesn’t exist. Venus has no natural satellite(s). Now either all and sundry were totally incompetent and wouldn’t know one end of a telescope from the other, or else Neith really existed but somehow exited the local neighborhood. If that’s the case, then Neith wasn’t natural at all but under intelligent control, and not by any terrestrial intelligence. What Neith was, and where it disappeared to, are major anomalies. 

DRAGONS: The anomaly here is that if dragons and dragon-lore was the product of just one culture at say one particular point in time, the concept could be easily dismissed. But when they appear in every culture, from ancient times even up through the 1700’s when they were still part of natural history, then one needs to pay closer attention. That’s all the more so since dragons were taken very seriously indeed. In China they were the emissaries between the gods and the emperor, and woe beholds any of lesser rank that wore a dragon image on their person. Dragons and dragon-lore form a major part of what passes for science-fantasy today. There’s probably no child over the age of five who can’t wax lyrical and tell you all about dragon-lore. The best guess scenario is that while dragons may be considered mythical today; they certainly were not, not too awfully that many generations ago. If that’s the case, if dragons were really real once upon a time, then the anomaly is – no fossils. 

GHOSTS: The anomaly here is that you’ve had hundreds of thousands, probably even millions, of observations of ghosts or ghostly manifestations since recorded history started being, well, recorded. Sightings of apparitions or specters or spirits, whatever, have been made and reported from every possible type of person from every possible walk of life. They can’t all be mistaken. The fly in the ointment is that all of this is without there being the slightest shred of physical, chemical or biological theory that can back up the sightings. There is just no way a deceased body can split in two and end up being half dead (the part that’s buried or cremated) and half animated (the ghost), yet the ghost, since it is animated, it can been seen and heard and interact with the surrounding environment after all, must be composed of matter and energy which presumable had to have been part and parcel of the original body to start with. As such the ghost needs to feed to replenish that matter and expended energy and no doubt perform related bodily functions. No physics or chemistry or biology known to mankind can manipulate a deceased body’s matter and energy in such a way as to account for that body’s ghost.

So ghosts are all observation with no adequate theory to support them (unlike say the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis which has solid theory to back up the possibility). There is no viable way of splitting a body up into two whole (matter and energy) parts at least one of which is viable (alive) and that applies equally to out-of-the-body experiences and near-death experiences. Another question: If that were possible, why stop at two (the ghost and the dead body; the out-of-the-body body and the body it came from; the near-death body and its animated counterpart) – why not a trio or thirty or three hundred ‘clones’?

OLMEC STONE HEADS: Associated with the long since defunct cultures of the Olmecs, the first major civilization of the Americas, were multi-ton solid stone heads – just the heads; in the round. Anomaly one – nobody has any real clue why the Olmecs carved out these stone heads which would have taken quite some considerable effort. Anomaly two – the parent stones, weighing many, many tons, had to be transported from mountain quarries multi-dozens of miles away without benefit of the wheel or beasts of burden, through swampy jungle terrain; how was this done? Anomaly three – though the Olmecs were natives of Mexico, the stone heads look absolutely African, and there was no apparent cultural contact between Africa and Central America BCE.

SHAVED NAZCA RIDGE: On the dissected Plain of Nazca (or Nazca desert or plateau) in Peru, there is a famous landmark, or marks – the ‘carvings’ or etchings of dozens of images on the Plain than can only be appreciated or even recognized for what they are from the air, which is how they were discovered in the 20^th Century. The ground images aren’t the anomaly since it’s not difficult to construct them and their purpose was probably meant as a message or homage to the gods up in the Nazca version of heaven.

The minor anomaly is that in addition to the etched pictogram images there are many lines, even parallel lines, etched in the pebbly desert that run straight as arrows for long distances, purpose unknown, though some sort of obscure astronomical alignment might be their purpose. That’s still a theoretical option though obvious astronomical alignments have not passed muster.  

The real anomaly here is that one of the ridges in the local area has had it’s top lopped off, resulting now in a flat surfaced ‘ridge’, a surface as smooth as a baby’s bottom as if a hot knife sliced through soft butter. All other ridges in the area look like well natural ridges. Now the first bit is how. This flattened ridge is not a natural formation so presumably humans flattened it.  The second bit is why. It must have been a massive undertaking removing not dirt or soil or sand but solid rock for reason(s) unknown to us. The third bit is that there is no debris field or piles of rubble left over from the leveling. The rock must have been carted away, expending yet more time, effort and energy. Something is screwy somewhere. Erich von Daniken, of ancient astronaut fame, thought the flattened surface of the now ridge-less ridge could’ve served as a ‘runway’ for flying saucers, but that seems equally screwy. As I say, this is anomalous, full stop. 

To be continued…