From Moons to Moonbats

From US Newswire :

A former French military air traffic controller claims in a recently published journal article that UFO sightings can be correlated with nuclear weapons testing. Eric Julien served in the French Air Force for five years as an air traffic controller and later went on to become a senior airport manager in France. He analyses data gained from a number of sources available in France that point to UFO activity in the vicinity of nuclear weapons tests. He claims that a clear correlation exists between the 2419 nuclear tests on Earth from 1945 through 1998, and 140 cases involving radar and visual sightings of UFOs. In the article, released in the April edition of the Exopolitics Journal, he also studies the correlation between alleged UFO crash/retrievals and nuclear testing. Julien argues that the common view that UFOs pose a security threat to humanity is very likely misplaced. He concludes that it may be more likely that nuclear testing poses some kind of security threat to UFOs, and this is real reason for frequent UFO sightings on Earth.

Eric Julien is author of two books recently published in France dealing with UFOs and the scientific principles used by their extraterrestrial occupants to navigate through space and time; La Science des Extraterrestres (JMG Publications 2005), and Enfants des Etoiles (JMG Publications 2006). He claims that nuclear testing interrupts the space and time continuum in ways that makes humanity a direct threat to extraterrestrial civilizations that have the ability to navigate the corridors of space and time.

OK, just a harmless nut, right? Couldn't possibly be taken seriously?

Eric Julien will be speaking about the threat posed by nuclear weapons testing to the extraterrestrial inhabitants of UFOs and the implications for world peace at a conference titled "Extraterrestrial Civilizations & World Peace" in Kona, Hawaii, June 9-11, 2006. Other conference speakers include the former Canadian Defense Minister, the Honorable Paul Hellyer; and a former United States Ambassador, John MacDonald.

OK, so maybe he is speaking along with formerly powerful people left-of-centre. But that's a coincidence, right?

Again from US Newswire :

Eric Julien, a former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, has completed a study of the comet 73P Schwassmann- Wachmann and declared that a fragment is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around May 25, 2006.

Possible. As I've blogged about before, there's a lot of dangerous stuff out there, and without doing the maths, I can't say what the probability is. He may be right.

Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system's ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the "Missing Earth" crop circle was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies. He links this crop circle to May 25, 2006, and identifies the comet Schwassmann-Wachman as the subject of higher intelligence communications.

Er... right.

Julien argues that the kinetic energy of even a 'car sized' fragment will impact the Earth with devastating effect. He concludes the May 25 event is tied in to the Bush administration's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences.

So the "crop circles" and the forthcoming disaster are All Bush's Fault. Well, that puts him in good company, a lot of people quite genuinely believe that George Bush is responsible for all the world's ills, solar eclipses, the Black Death, and so on. He's the Anti-Christ you see.

Julien predicts that the comet collision will occur in the Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, and generates 200 meter waves.

In the local vicinity, yes. But when Skylab (an object rather larger than a car, but with approximately the same mass as a car-sized chunk of ice) hit Australia, few people noticed. It's no big deal, except in the immediate vicinity, even though the comet is coming in with a higher velocity. Not a healthy place to be if you're within a few kilometres, but no 200 meter waves hitting Tokyo, San Francisco etc, 200 micrometres is more like it. That's assuming that the size is much larger, so a "car-sised" chunk actually makes it through the atmosphere, you'd need a 100 meter sized chunk to start with for that.

Taking a car-sized chunk to start with, and assuming worst case (50km/sec entry speed, 90 degree impact angle), let's run the numbers through the Asteroid Impact Effects Calculator, for a hypothetical observer 5 km away.

Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 5.00 km = 3.10 miles
Projectile Diameter: 2.00 m = 6.56 ft = 0.00 miles
Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 50.00 km/s = 31.05 miles/s
Impact Angle: 90 degrees
Target Density: 1000 kg/m3
Target Type: Liquid Water of depth 10000.00 meters, over typical rock.

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 5.24 x 1012 Joules = 0.13 x 10-2 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth is 0.6 years

Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 97900 meters = 321000 ft
The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 61400 meters = 201000 ft
The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 46.9 km/s = 29.1 miles/s
The energy of the airburst is 6.38 x 1011 Joules = 0.15 x 10-3 MegaTons.
No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.

A Bang of 0.15 Kilotonnes, 150 tonnes of TNT, at 200,000 ft. Not exactly Earth-shattering.

Julien concludes that "each person with this information has to take responsibility to warn potential victims."

Consider Yourself Warned. There are Moonbats with Bush Dreangement Syndrome, and they share platforms with some powerful figures on the Left.