This is the sort of thing I usually leave for Twitter now, but it’s so fascinating, I want to post it here.
As you may or may not know, there have been some real whoop-dee-doo crop circles appearing near Wiltshire, England over the last few weeks. (See here.) They’re the kind of thing that should be headline news, unless you’re of the opinion that these things are made by roving gangs of art student hoaxers who are very dedicated, numerous, and absurdly skillful at avoiding detection and leaving any signs. They’ve also been doing it for years! If these crop circles are hoaxes, then we ought to hire whoever’s responsible and pay them huge sums of money to run everything else. I mean, really.
But something is happening that we can run an empirical check against: not that I’m capable of supporting or rebutting this, but those who claim to see actual astronomical data in the latest odd symbols have reason to believe that they indicate the possibility of a mass coronal ejection (major solar flare) on or about July 7, 2009. These things whip and distort the Earth’s magnetic field with “solar winds,” something also shown symbolically in whatever’s taking place in those English fields. And what would this mean? I have no idea, but previous solar flares have disrupted communications, so you have to anticipate some kind of electromagnetic interference, at the very least. But why on earth would anyone or anything tell us about this in advance? Maybe not to warn us, but to make a point: if something does happen, well then… No, it still wouldn’t prove anything, just as the absence of any solar activity next week wouldn’t mean a thing, either. But a coronal ejection on the 7th would be cool as hell, wouldn’t it? [SHAZAM!]
I’m not expecting anything to happen, necessarily, but let me know if you see northern lights in Alabama or your hard drive comes up empty.
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