by Edgar J. Steele
February 24, 2003
 

First, a couple of current items that don’t warrant extended discussion. Well, actually, they do, but I’ll leave that to others for the moment.

We’ve all heard about little Jessica, the girl whose first heart/lung transplant was botched because of mismatched blood types. She got a second transplant a few days ago, but has just died. The mother wants the doctors to go to jail. Massive civil lawsuit sure to follow.

What you didn’t hear is that she and her mother are illegal aliens, spirited across the Mexican border specifically to get Jessica free American medical treatment.

Reportedly, 16 Americans die each day for want of transplants. Jessica got two inside one week.

It seems uncaring to complain about this state of affairs, but what about the two Americans who died this week because they didn’t get the heart/lung combinations given to Jessica? You haven’t heard a thing about them, have you? What if one of those was your father, mother, husband, wife, son or daughter?

Second, did you notice the media smoothly follow the lead of Bush the Second in characterizing our impending adventure in the Middle East as an endeavor to "disarm" Iraq? What happened to our being concerned about only "weapons of mass destruction?" Of course, whatever happened to our pursuit of Osama, for that matter? "Disarm." Amazing, isn’t it? Nothing up his sleeves, ladies and gentlemen...

Something else truly amazing is taking place in the solar system at this moment. A huge comet is rounding the sun, a comet twice the size of Jupiter (about 22 times the size of Earth). Some have seen it at sunrise and sunset; otherwise, it is not visible because it is occluded by solar glare. Essentially, it is coming from behind the sun and was first observed by NASA less than two months ago.

NASA’s solar observatory has released a number of pictures of this comet, but those stopped just as a huge coronal mass ejection (an event which is to the hydrogen bomb as the hydrogen bomb is to a firecracker) erupted from the sun toward the comet. Some call these things "sunspots."

This comet is passing within 9 million miles of the solar surface. In celestial terms, that is a very near miss.

You haven’t heard about this, have you?

Remember the hullabaloo over Hale/Bopp and Levy/Shoemaker? They were pikers by comparison with what has been dubbed Comet "NEAT."

Why all the silence this time?
I have read a good deal of speculation on several different internet sites. Some see it as biblical prophecy fulfilled (see Revelations - you might agree). Some consider this to be "Nibiru" or "Planet X," foretold by the Mayans as passing through the solar system every 3600 years or so. Some consider this simply to be an awesome photo opportunity.

Some say the strange weather on Earth lately is the result of an effect caused by the sun which in turn is responding to Comet NEAT. Electromagnetic fields reach hundreds of millions of miles into space, you see, and are generated by all celestial objects. Influences occur at distances far in excess of that between the sun and comet Neat or, for that matter, between Earth and comet Neat.

The sun has a regularly-repeating solar "sunspot" activity cycle of approximately 11 years. 2000 was to have been the most recent peak. Solar activity, rather than dropping off in year 12, as it always has, has continued to rise ever since.

Earth’s magnetic field has been weakening in an accelerating fashion of late. The North Pole, which wanders anyway, has traveled almost as far in the past 20 years as it did in the 100 years prior to that, when it was located in Canada’s northern Yukon Territory.

Some hypothesize that Earth’s poles reverse when its magnetic field reaches zero. The geological record proves the poles have shifted many times down through the history of the Earth (metal flakes in lava align with the magnetic field, to be frozen in place when the lava cools, you see, just like the needle in a compass). Coincidence? Perhaps.

Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it is something. If something, it could be the most significant occurrence in recorded human history.

Generally, the concern is not that Comet NEAT will strike Earth or even come near us (though I have yet to see a good description of its path relative to Earth). Rather, the concern is for the effect upon us through the electromagnetic interaction between it and Earth and the Sun. There is a secondary concern that something this huge could have smaller objects following in its wake, or that pieces of it broke off during the massive solar flare when it passed near the Sun, pieces that might find their way to Earth. "Planet buster" asteroids can be as small as 1/3 mile in diameter.

Just five days ago, a Rand Corporation (government think tank) scientist, Dr. Geoffrey Summer, publicly stated that secrecy would be the best option if it were discovered that an asteroid were about to hit the earth:

"Overreaction not just by the public but by policy-makers scurrying around before the thing actually hits because we can’t do anything about it anyway ... to a large extent you are better off not adding to your social costs."

NASA’s official photographs of this comet:

For the moment, my question is, "Why is there no media coverage of Comet NEAT?"