Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here Our Bookstore is OPEN Over 5000 new & used titles, competitively priced! Topics: UFOs - Paranormal - Area 51 - Ghosts - Forteana - Conspiracy - History - Biography - Psychology - Religion - Crime - Health - Geography - Maps - Science - Money - Language - Recreation - Technology - Fiction - Other - New Search... for keyword(s)   in Page Titles in Book Title/Author in Contents of Pages ---other searches--- Metacrawler Yahoo FAST Search Google Altavista Dogpile Inference Find Northern Light IWon.com MSN Search Las Vegas Sun Location: Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 2000 -> Jan -> Re: The Photon-Belt Encounter

UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Nick Balaskas <nikolaos@YorkU.CA>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:57:31 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Fwd Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 17:30:45 -0500
Subject: Re: The Photon-Belt Encounter


 >Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 17:45:33 +1100
 >From: Bill Alford <googong@interact.net.au>
 >Subject: Re: The Photon-Belt Encounter
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@sympatico.ca>

<snip>

 >Further to what Ed has posted, the Pleiades were significant to
 >the Maya. On the solstice day of May 20, 2012, at Chichen Itza,
 >the rare event of the Sun passing through the zenith at midday
 >and the Pleiades passing through the zenith at midnight will
 >occur. The date on which the Sun and the Pleiades pass through
 >the zenith depends upon latitude and changes with precession.

Hello again Bill and everyone.

Summer solstice, the furthest north the Sun gets in our sky, is
aways on June 21 (the same as a dozen years ago or a dozen years
into the future). When you say "... the solstice day of May 20,
2012, at Chichen Itza", I take it you mean when the sun is at
the zenith or it highest elevation in the sky.

Since Chichen-Itza is at latitude 20.7 degrees north, for the
Sun to be at the zenith point over Chichen-Itza it must also
have a declination in the sky of plus 20.7 degrees. According to
my ephemeris for the Sun, this occurs about three days _after_
May 20. Close but no cigar.

Both the Sun _and_ the Pleiades would be close to each other and
high in the sky over Chichen-Itza on May 20 at midday, _not_ at
midnight. Your "rare event" happens every year. No big deal.

<snip>

 >Also, on May 20, 2012, there will be a total solar eclipse that
 >will sweep across central and western North America. So the Sun
 >and the Pleiades will pass through the zenith along with the
 >Moon on May 20, 2012 at Chichen Itza in a rare precessional
 >alignment.

<snip>

There is _no_ total solar eclipse of the Sun for May 20, 2012,
just an annular one where no more than 94% of the sun will be
occulted by the Moon. Furthermore, this solar eclipse will _not_
be visible in the sky over Chichen Itza at all but will be seen
over Japan and by people on cruise ships in the northeastern
Pacific Ocean.

Never-the-less, the Moon will be very near the Sun in the midday
sky over Chichen Itza, as happens once every month anyway, but
the Pleiades, which have a declination in the sky of plus 24
degrees will _not_ be aligned with the Sun and Moon.

The Pleiades will be about 24 - 20.7 = 3.3 degrees (or about 7
Moon diameters) further north. Nothing out of the ordinary here
either. As a friend in the German military liked to say, close
is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades.  ;o)

 >FARMERS in the high Andes Mountains may have been able to
 >predict El Nino for centuries by observing whether clouds dimmed
 >the light from a cluster of stars called the Pleiades.

 >A potato farming tradition handed down from one generation to
 >the next teaches that the brightness of stars in the
 >constellation during June roughly predicted the rainfall during
 >the growing season from October to May.

I have astronomer friends who observe the sky from world class
telescopes on the Andes Mountains because of the excellent
seeing, transparency and darkness of the night sky found there
who will disagree with you. From meteorological daytime cloud
data, every day could be overcast during El Nino years and still
produce the _same_ cloudless night skies as on non-El Nino
years.

Furthermore, the Pleiades are simply a very prominent star
cluster and _not_ a constellation. They are also _not_ visible
in June because of their close proximity to the Sun - so how
would the potato farmers see them without going blind?

Regretfully, there were few facts in your e-mail and nothing
that convinced me of even a remote association between the
Pleiades and E.T.s.

Nick Balaskas