Professional Advice Regarding Protecting Yourself in a Pandemic

Professional Advice Regarding Protecting Yourself in a Pandemic
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

Professional Advice Regarding Protecting Yourself in a Pandemic

March 2009 Update: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=2233
April 2009 Update: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=2581

Index:

1. Introduction
2. Self-Quarantine Memo from a NBC Protection Expert
3. Fourteen Preparedness Points
4. Other Preparedness Steps

Introduction

Natural Solutions Foundation has recently identified a potential for the near-term release of a Weaponized Avian Flu. With circumstantial evidence, “connecting the dots” we decided to bring this warning to our members, making this information available so you may be forewarned and prepared. This may never come to pass; publicizing the possibility may forestall it.

You can read about our analysis at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=750 - however, in this posting we concentrate on what you can do about the threat. While the threats are many, we know the solutions are natural…

We received the following information about Preparedness and Quarantine from some of our supporters and have brought together other preparedness information for this posting. We do not know if (under a declared emergency) you will be permitted to self-quarantine and avoid mandatory vaccination or treatment; we offer this information with that caveat.

Some of this information was provided to us from a retired NBC government. employee (NBC = Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical).

Since retirement, he has gone on to teach preparations to people on warfare and pandemics. He is also a CERT trainer and travels abroad to teach other countries what to do in earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Please take advantage of what this man has to offer, as we forward his information, with his blessings, to you.

Index

Expert Opinion Memo:
Quarantine, Quarantine, Quarantine

I have been asked repeatedly about how to quarantine properly and so this private memorandum is being written to respond to that question.

The first thing we need to consider is why we are quarantining. Remember quarantine is due to a biological event and not a chemical or nuclear incident. For these last two you should be sheltering in place. A proper quarantine will protect you from what ever it is you are trying to protect against, henceforth there will be discussing different stages of quarantine.

1. The first and most basic stage is to go home lock the doors and stay there. DO NOT try to seal up your home with duct tape and plastic as you will not have enough oxygen to breathe within a very short time. This method is used for chemical events where you need to be indoors for a very short period of time. Most quarantines will last days if not weeks and months. At this stage you can actually go out in to your front yard or back yard and breathe the air just fine just as long as you do not breathe someone else’s air that might be infected with an airborne communicable disease or virus. This could include certain animals and insects, all depending on the biological involved.

All infected people should remain a good distance (minimum 20 feet) away from you and anyone else sheltering with you. Anyone (again including certain animals and some insects) that has been in a possibly infected area should be kept separate (quarantined separate) from you until they have sought proper medical attention (if it is available) and been cleared or they have run the course of waiting the required length of time to be sure that symptoms will or will not show up.

Remember in most biologicals symptoms do not show up for several days.

[Note from NSF: we have been examining the historical record for latency and infectious periods (for example, for the 1918 pandemic and for the unweaponized Avian Flu). The latency period could be up to 2 weeks. Our current best estimate is that people will start to notice symptoms as soon as a week after disbursal of the pathogen; the disease will, if especially virulent, cause death within 72 hours of first symptoms. For example, if the pathogen were released, say, on August 23rd, people would start to notice symptoms by the end of the Labor Day Holiday (Labor Day is September 1st this year). By the time most students are back in school, say, September 5th, the media would begin to notice and the public authorities would be empowered to act, we suspect, within 72 hours of mass media notice (we believe the alternative media might "get wind" of the impending pandemic a day or a half day earlier). That brings us to September 8th. We can expect national "lock down" and Martial Law within a day or two, as people panic to obtain food and protection. End of Internet communications; possibly of telephone as well. We note that the "Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccine" is scheduled to be delivered to the United States from the Chinese pharmaceutical plant where it is being made during August.]

For mothers and other care givers wishing to attend infected persons, especially children, during this time, a full biological protection mask, gown, and gloves should be used and then disposed of properly. This really should be avoided at all costs but trying to tell a mother she cannot care for her children is sometimes near to impossible. Exposure time should be set at a bare minimum. The proper shielding garments to be worn would be a disposable non-breathable (Tyvek) suit (available at most paints stores), a tight fitting (with two straps) N-95 or N-100 dust mask, and latex or rubber gloves. All of this needs to be disposable. A better face mask with biological filters is suggested.

It is important to remain quarantined for the suggest length of time that the certain biological requires. This will vary from biological to biological. This means no going to the store or to work or church or school or . . . STAY HOME.

2. The second stage is for more serious conditions where being around certain biologicals, even on the other side of a locked door, posses a more serious problem. Usually at this stage a gas mask with a biological filter is needed instead of a simple N-95 dust mask. Be wary of official warnings as when to move to this level.

3. The third stage is the most serious and nothing other than a level one suit is necessary. Again be wary of official warning as when to move to this level although the common citizen should never be involved with such procedures that would require this level.

What more can I say about this other than . . . STAY HOME. If you prepare now you can do this. It really is not that hard.

Index

Fourteen Point Protection Plan

1. Have a Family Call-out Plan. When the pandemic starts, activate the Call-out plan - calls out to every family member to get everyone home ASAP.

2. If still on the road and/or in public, pull out gas mask, with bio-filter, from kit in auto.

3. Keep radio tuned to local stations you trust for local updates.

4. Upon arriving home, start quarantine process by bringing everyone inside including pets.

5. Put a “Quarantine” sign on front door.

6. Start bio-in-house filter.

7. Set up decontamination station in garage with drapes, shower, gloves, masks, and gowns.

8. Set up isolation rooms for possible sick family members and guests

9. Start everyone on immune system boosters. [Note from NSF: see www.Organics4U.org to find some good natural solutions to immune system support. We believe the alleged "Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccine" may very well be dangerous and would be very careful about voluntarily receiving it.]

10. (a) Check all electrical (solar, 12 volt, and battery) systems in case of loss of power.

(b) Check water supplies, have everyone shower daily until loss of water pressure.

(c) Check on possibility of working from home.

11. Request over the phone for advanced homework assignments for school age children to be sent over the Internet

12. Check with contacts you trust for updates on problem.

13. Call your neighbors, on the phone, for distribution of information sheets to neighbors upon confirmation of problem.

14. Prepare to pull out alternative heating/cooking/lighting/sanitation measures to be used.

[Some language has been modified to fit our format.]

Other Steps You Can Take

Dr. Laibow recently taped a message on preparing for an Avian Flu Pandemic:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=742

Index

The Five Points she raised in the video are:

1. Eat Organic; take Dietary Supplements. A strong immune system is your best defense; toxins and GMOs are immune system suppressors.

2. Become Informed. Stay Informed. Join the Health Freedom eAlert

3. Have an Exit Strategy. Pre-plan with your family how to react and how to reach safety. Do you have your passport and other means of identification?

4. Learn about Natural Remedies. Consider Vitamin C, Ionic/colloidal Silver, Immune Supporting Herbs, such as Echinacea. Sound Health and other energy support.

5. Support Natural Solutions Foundation so we can keep you informed.

She also taped a message about Genetically Modified Food. The points raised are also valid when preparing for a pandemic. http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=729

Remember to stockpile enough food for you and your family for several weeks.

We believe that this threat can be averted by public awareness. We need your help to get this message out… being prepared will allow more good people to survive; being prepared will reduce the likelihood of this pandemic occurring.

We urgently need your recurring tax deductible donations to allow us to distribute this information.
Please make your donations here:

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189

Get as many people as possible to join the Health Freedom eAlert system so they can be kept updated on the threats to health and freedom, pass along the information, further viralizing it. You can join here:

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=187

The viralization of this powerful information is our best tool to prevent succumbing to pandemic hysteria!

Please distribute widely: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=752

Index

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Avian Flu, Medical Hazards, Vaccination, Weaponized Avian Flu . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice

MUST SEE VIDEO:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7418041.stm


Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice

By David Shukman
Environment correspondent, BBC News

A Canadian expedition found the new cracks

Dramatic evidence of the break-up of the Arctic ice-cap has emerged from research during an expedition by the Canadian military.

Scientists travelling with the troops found major new fractures during an assessment of the state of giant ice shelves in Canada's far north.

The team found a network of cracks that stretched for more than 10 miles (16km) on Ward Hunt, the area's largest shelf.

The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change.


Satellite image of Ward Hunt Ice Shelf cracks

One of the expedition's scientists, Derek Mueller of Trent University, Ontario, told me: "I was astonished to see these new cracks.

"It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away," Dr Mueller explained.

According to another scientist on the expedition, Dr Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa, the new cracks fit into a pattern of change in the Arctic.

"We're seeing very dramatic changes; from the retreat of the glaciers, to the melting of the sea ice.

"We had 23% less (sea ice) last year than we've ever had, and what's happening to the ice shelves is part of that picture."

When ice shelves break apart, they drift offshore into the ocean as "ice islands", transforming the very geography of the coastline.


Ayles Ice Island (BBC)

Mission to Ayles Ice Island
Last year, I was part of a BBC team that joined Dr Mueller and Dr Copland as they carried out the first research on Ayles Ice Island, an iceberg the size of Manhattan.

It has since split into two, each vast chunk of ice now 400 miles (640km) south of its original position.

The rapid changes in the Arctic have reignited disputes over territory.

The Canadian military's expedition was billed as a "sovereignty patrol", the lines of snowmobiles flying Canadian flags in a display of control.

After the record Arctic melting last year, all eyes are now on what happens to the sea ice this summer.

Although its maximum extent last winter was slightly greater than the year before, it was still below the long-term average.

Greenland ice lakes drain at speed of Niagara Falls

Greenland ice lakes drain at speed of Niagara Falls
19:00 17 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Mason Inman

Lakes on the surface of Greenland's ice sheet are draining through the kilometre-thick ice and roaring to the bedrock with a flow rate exceeding that of Niagara Falls.

The worry has been that with further global warming such meltwater would increase and have a catastrophic effect on the ice sheet, lubricating its base and making it slide quickly into the ocean. But a new study suggests that the meltwater's effect is not as strong as feared.

In the summer months, the surface of Greenland's ice sheet melts and the water pools on top, forming many lakes that are kilometres across. Researchers knew these lakes could drain quickly, but it wasn't clear exactly how they drained nor how fast.

Ice fracture
Sarah Das of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US, and colleagues camped out next to a 3-kilometre-wide lake in western Greenland. In July 2006, their seismometers picked up rumbles from the ice, then 30 minutes later the water started draining.

The entire lake was swallowed up in about an hour and a half. "The most surprising thing was the speed," Das says. "I didn't think it would happen that fast." The scientists think the weight of the water created a fracture in the ice that then opened the entire one-kilometre thickness.

Summer rush
Once at the base of the ice sheet, the water seems to have drained away within a day. "It was either tapping into an existing drainage system or forming a new system" at the base of the ice sheet, Das says.

To get a broader view of how such water is affecting Greenland's ice, Ian Joughin of the University of Washington, Seattle, US, led a separate study using satellite images and GPS measurements. His team assembled the first map of the movement of the ice sheet and glaciers in Greenland, and found that each summer, the ice sheets slid toward the ocean 50 to 100% faster than they did during the rest of the year.

However, glaciers, which already flow much faster than the surrounding ice sheet, speed up by less than 15% during the summer, according to the study.

Nonetheless, the lubrication from the meltwater could make Greenland lose from 10 to 25% more ice over the 21st century than if this effect was not at work, Joughin and colleagues estimate.

"The good news is that increased melting [with continued global warming] doesn't seem like it's going to cause a runaway effect like some people had predicted," Joughin says.

Added lubrication
However, global warming does seem to be substantially speeding up glacier flow through other means, he argues, such as warmer oceans that are eating away at glaciers' feet.

"I agree that at present, the lubrication of the ice sheet margins by meltwater will have a substantial but not catastrophic effect," says Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

But Steffen thinks that the meltwater could still speed up some glaciers more than it does others. He points to Greenland's so-called Dead Glacier, stagnant for decades until it recently became active, which speeds up by 80%t during the summer.

Journal references: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1153360, 10.1126/science.1153288)

Climate Change - Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit our continually updated special report.

Volcano Deep Down Could Be Melting Greenland’s Ice

Volcano Deep Down Could Be Melting Greenland’s Ice

A thin spot in the Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to melt Greenland’s ice, scientists at the Ohio State University feel.

According to them, the "hotspot" is located in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

The researchers don't yet know how warm the hotspot is, but if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could enable the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea.

To measure actual temperatures beneath the ice, scientists will have to drill boreholes down to the base of the ice sheet-- a mile or more below the ice surface. The effort and expense make such measurements few and far between, especially in remote areas of northeast Greenland.

"The behaviour of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change," said Ralph von Frese, leader of the project and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

"However, to effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts, too,” he added.

Von Frese's team combined gravity measurements of the area taken by a Naval Research Laboratory aircraft with airborne radar measurements taken by research partners at the University of Kansas.

The combined map revealed changes in mass beneath the Earth's crust, and the topography of the crust where it meets the ice sheet.

According to the researchers, below the earth’s crust is the mantle, the partially molten rocky layer that surrounds its core.

The mantle is so hot that temperatures just a few miles deep in the crust reach hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit, von Frese explained.

"It could be that there's a volcano down there. But we think it's probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice," he said.

The ice thickness, the temperature at the base of the ice, and ground topography all contribute to the forming of an ice stream -- a river of ice that flows within a larger ice sheet.

In recent years, Greenland ice streams have been carrying ice out to sea faster, and ice cover on the island has been diminishing.

Once the ice reaches the sea, it melts, and global sea levels rise.

"Where the crust is thicker, things are cooler, and where it's thinner, things are warmer. And under a big place like Greenland or Antarctica, natural variations in the crust will make some parts of the ice sheet warmer than others," von Frese added.

The ice sheet in northeast Greenland is especially worrisome to scientists. It had no known ice streams until 1991, when satellites spied one for the first time.

Dubbed the Northeastern Greenland Ice Stream, it carries ice nearly 400 miles, from the deepest interior of the island out to the Greenland Sea.

The newly discovered hotspot is just below the ice stream, and could have caused it to form, the researchers concluded. But what caused the hotspot to form?

"It could be that there's a volcano down there. But we think it's probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice," said von Frese.

Collaborator Kees van der Veen, a visiting associate professor of geological sciences and research scientist at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State, said: "Our map is the first attempt at quantifying spatial variations in geo-heat under Greenland -- and it explains why the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is where it is."

For now, the researchers are combining theories of how heat flows through the mantle and crust with the gravity and radar data, to understand how the hotspot is influencing the ice.

Once they finish searching the rest of Greenland for other hotspots, they hope to turn their attention to Antarctica.

Timothy Leftwich, von Frese's former student and now a post-doctoral engineer at the Centre for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, presented the study's early results on Thursday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Source-ANI
SRM/P

The new European Union - the Empire Returns?

December 13, 2007

James Lewis

With the signing of the Lisbon Treaty on December 13, 450 million people are now under a new, single government, called the European Union, headquartered in Brussels. Individual countries like Britain and France are yielding their national sovereignty to a new Über-nation. Without ever putting it to a vote of the people, the ruling classes of Europe have pushed through a constitution under the heading of a "treaty," because it was voted down in the form of a Constitution by the people of France and the Netherlands two years ago.

The new Lisbon Treaty will give EU centralized control over:

civil and criminal law,

justice and policing,

immigration,

public services,

energy and transportation,

tourism, space, sport,

civil rights,

public health and
the EU budget

In addition, a centralized EU foreign ministry and a centralized EU military are already well advanced. Most EU countries already use the single currency, the euro.

According to Prof. Anthony Coughlan,

"This increase in EU powers would simultaneously increase the personal power of the 27 national politicians who make up the Council of Ministers by enabling them to make further laws behind closed doors for 500 million Europeans, while taking power away from the citizens and national parliaments."

Bigger nations would get more voting power; thus Germany would be the most powerful member of the new Supernation, with 82 million people, compared to about 60 million for France, Britain, and Italy.

Brussels Journal has an entire page devoted to politicians explaining why voters should not be allowed to have a voice in establishing the new supernation. This is an overtly anti-democratic EU, established by an overtly anti-democratic political class.

The most astonishing fact is the apathy of ordinary Europeans, as shown, for example, by the trivial tabloid headlines in European newspapers; they are just not interested in the biggest political event of the last half century. Only the blogs are giving it space. Eureferendum calls it "Bollocks to Brussels!"

The closest historical precedent is the unification of Germany by Otto Bismarck in 1871. That was not a happy event, in the longer term.

The EU does not have to go the way of Bismarck's Second Reich, but it reflects very much the same aristocratic disdain of the ruling classes, and the same distrust of ordinary people.

From an American point of view, it is high time to consider withdrawing all US troops from Europe, now that it has everything needed to defend itself. US protection for Europe has outlasted its usefulness. In the future, the protection of crucial trade through waterways like the Persian Gulf should become an equally shared burden. Uncle Sam has done more than enough.

The greatest question for the future is, will the European Union be a responsible superpower? Or will it pursue the blame-America-first frenzy of the last few decades, where Europeans want to have their cake and eat it, too? The idea of exercising great power is seductive, but it does not follow that the EU will exercise it responsibly. Europe has a disastrous political history, and hasn't shown any responsibility in the last decade.

For our cousins the European people, the great question is whether they can keep their individual freedoms. The EU has shown no interested in individual rights, only group rights under labels like gender, class and race. Structurally and ideologically the EU has much in common with the old Soviet Union, as many observers have pointed out. Like the USSR, it is a creation of a power elite.

But this is no longer an American concern. As the new supernation comes into being, its own citizens will have to look after their own rights and freedoms.

This is an historic moment. The EU will unquestionably try to control American actions and policies, always under the guise of international law and the greater good. Today, Europe is the biggest source of the Global Warming fraud, and it makes no bones about its desire to subject America's economy to its own desires. We need to treat Europe exactly the way we treat China and Russia: As a different political power, with different interests, and hopefully, some common interests as well.

The biggest foreign policy challenge to the EU is the nuclear weaponization of Iran. That is also our biggest threat. Europe hasn't shown any results in its diplomatic efforts with Tehran. It remains to be seen if it can act effectively in raising the economic and perhaps military stakes.

This would be a time of unreserved congratulations if the EU were a democratic enterprise, which showed itself to be able to act responsibly in foreign affairs. After seeing European behavior in the past eight years we feel more cautious. There is a spirit of new European imperialism abroad, under the usual guise of love and compassion. Already the EU wants to expand into Northern Africa, supposedly for its "energy potential in solar and wind power." There is a great amount of boastfulness among the elites, and a considerable amount of depression and pessimism among the people. The EU is a socialist enterprise, and perhaps a social-democratic one; but that remains to be seen.

James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com

The truth is out: X-Files go public

The truth is out: X-Files go public


British UFO 'sightings' investigated by a secret branch of the MoD are soon to be revealed and officials are braced for a torrent of inquiries

Mark Townsend, defence correspondent
Sunday January 6, 2008
The Observer

Without warning, the orange UFO swooped toward them. The crew of the RAF Vulcan bomber banked hard and radioed they were being chased across the Atlantic by a large mysterious object. The incident was classified as a UFO sighting and the details were immediately locked away.

Now, 30 years later, the extraordinary encounter is among thousands of previously secret cases contained in the government's 'X-Files' that officials are to release in their entirety.

The cases, many from a little-known defence intelligence branch tasked with investigating UFO claims, will be published by the Ministry of Defence to counter what officials say is 'the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation' surrounding Whitehall and its alleged involvement with Unidentifed Flying Objects.

The public opening of the MoD archive will expose the once highly classified work of the intelligence branch DI55, whose mission was to investigate UFO reports and whose existence was denied by the government until recently. Reports into about 7,000 UFO sightings investigated by defence officials - every single claim lodged over the past 30 years - are included in the files, whose staged release will begin in spring.

The decision to release Whitehall's full back-catalogue of UFO investigations was taken last month after the Directorate of Air Space Policy, the government agency responsible for filtering sensitive reports, gave its permission to publish the biggest single release of documents in MoD history. Now the government fears a repeat of the unprecedented demand and the website crash experienced by the French national space agency in March when it released its own UFO files. Government IT experts are believed to have drawn up contingency plans to avoid a repeat scenario when Britain's dossiers are finally made public.

Among the first tranche of UK cases will be the official government files into the famous Rendlesham incident, dubbed 'Britain's Roswell' after the US incident when a flying saucer is said to have crash-landed in the New Mexico desert 60 years ago. On a foggy night in 1980 several witnesses reported a UFO apparently landing in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. Statements claimed the craft was covered in markings similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics and aliens emerged from it. Although a man later confessed to having staged the incident as a hoax, the files will clear up continuing speculation as to whether radiation was detected at the site after the event.

Another case reported to the intelligence branch DI55 - Britain's version of the 'Men In Black' - chronicles a series of reports sent to RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, by the crew of a Vulcan bomber on exercise over the Bay of Biscay early on 26 May 1977. According to documents seen by The Observer, five crewmen, including the captain, co-pilot and navigators, watched 'an object' approach their aircraft at 43,000ft above the Atlantic. The mysterious craft then appeared to turn and follow their precise course from a distance of four miles.

Initially, the crew said the object resembled landing lights 'with a long pencil beam of light ahead' but as it turned towards them the lights suddenly went out leaving a diffuse orange glow with a bright fluorescent green spot in its bottom right-hand corner. Then, according to signals sent back to Scampton, the crew noted a mystery object 'leaving from the middle of the glow on a westerly track... climbing at very high speed at an angle of 45 degrees'.

The Vulcan's navigator recorded interference on his radar screen from the direction of the UFO which continued for 45 minutes as the plane headed back to Britain. On return to the UK, the camera film from the aircraft's radar was examined by RAF intelligence. They found a 'strong response' from the direction of the sighting. The UFO was captured as 'an elongated shadow' of a 'large-sized' object travelling at a similar height to the Vulcan. An intelligence report sent to the MoD the same day says the crew 'were unable to offer a logical explanation for the sighting'.

Although hailed as the complete disclosure of the UK's UFO files, questions are likely to remain over whether all available information will be made public. Despite the Vulcan sighting being investigated by DI55, no details remain in the file indicating what they found or what became of the radar film.

The disclosures are more likely, claim some experts, to lend credence to the theory that such UFO incidents were, rather than alien visitations, military activities such as missile launches, testing of prototype aircraft and other activities during the Cold War.

David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and author of Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy, said: 'Something was definitely going on, but really these files show that the government did not know either. This release will be a source of disappointment or vindication for some, and embarrassment for others.

'Conspiracy theorists who believe that the various governments of the world are hiding secrets about the "reality" of aliens will see this as another whitewash effort by the MoD and will probably continue their self-sustaining "campaign for the truth", when the truth will in fact now be "out there".'

UFO researcher Joe McGonagle said: 'There will always be a hard core who believe these files were prepared for release and that there is a secret department within the military who has a separate stash of files that have not been disclosed.'

UFOs remain one of the most popular subjects for Freedom of Information requests and the release is certain to generate a massive response from the public when the files are placed in the National Archives. Clarke, who has lodged hundreds of FoI requests, recently discovered that the government was considering destroying the 24 files created by DI55 because they were contaminated by asbestos. Not only were the UFO records polluted, but a total of 63,000 files estimated at between six to 12 million pages - most of them classified as secret - were facing the same fate. Having admitted the existence of the problem to Clarke, the MoD opted to instigate a £3m project digitally to scan the files before they were destroyed. Scanning of the 24 contaminated UFO files owned by DI55 was completed last year, although it is understood that names of officials in the reports will be removed.

Although the government remains reticent to discuss its intelligence work on UFOs, it is known that DI55 has been hot on the trail of flying saucers since the Sixties. Experts admit that they work closely with the security services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to collect and assess evidence of potential threats to Britain.

The decision by the UK to open its files could lead to the US government following suit. A group of former pilots and government officials recently urged the Pentagon to reopen investigations into claims of UFO sightings.

UFO claims

1980 Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. US servicemen claim to have seen an alien craft and its landing site.

1984 Minsk, USSR. Aeroflot pilots say they are pursued by a glowing shape.

1989 Bonnybridge, Scotland. Fire crew report objects rushing towards them before veering away at the last moment.

1990 Brussels, Belgium. Two F-16 fighter pilots recount being engaged in 75-minute mid-air chase with a UFO.

Bush Approves Army Reorganization

December 19, 2007

Bush Approves Army Reorganization

By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON — President Bush has approved what officials are describing as the most significant reorganization of American ground forces since World War II, signing off on a plan that will keep more troops than previously envisioned in Europe and add large numbers of soldiers to bases in Colorado, Georgia and Texas, Army officials said Wednesday.

The basing plan unveiled Wednesday is the final step in a detailed program for deciding where an army that is scheduled to grow by 65,000 will live and train for years to come. It significantly changes the military footprint that existed before terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and also alters a plan adopted with great fanfare by the Pentagon in 2004.

Specifically, the Army will keep one heavy brigade in Germany until 2012 and another until 2013 rather than rapidly reducing Army forces in Europe, as originally planned. Even after the return of those two brigades to the United States, two brigades will remain in Europe — one in Germany and one in Italy — along with a large contingent of service and support personnel. Altogether, the Army will sustain a total of 37,191 troops on the continent.

The commitment for thousands of extra troops in Europe was advocated as necessary to sustain training and other exercises with foreign militaries and as a hedge against risks to American security. In addition, their new housing was not yet ready at bases in the United States.

The full basing plan for the United States, Europe and South Korea was presented to Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney in the Oval Office on Monday by Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, and Pete Geren, the Army secretary.

The Army had been given presidential approval to expand its forces by 74,000 over all by 2010, including the reserve component, to meet the stress of Iraq and Afghanistan and to prepare for future threats.

Many Army installations across the United States will grow, with some of the largest expansion occurring at Fort Carson, in Colorado; Fort Stewart, in Georgia; and Fort Bliss, in Texas.

Fort Carson, Fort Steward and Fort Bliss each will receive two additional combat brigades. Additional support brigades will move to Schofield Barracks, in Hawaii; Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri; Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, also in Texas; Fort Lewis, in Washington; and Fort Polk, in Louisiana.

A full one-third of the Army will be based at different stations by 2011, which General Cody described as the largest reorganization of American troops since the 1940s. The active-duty Army end-strength by that date is scheduled to reach 547,000.

The Army’s fighting force will grow by that date to 48 brigade combat teams from 33 in 2003.

New construction to build housing, headquarters and motor pools — as well as health-care and child-care centers — will top $66.4 billion by 2013, General Cody said, stressing that the Army was paying special attention to quality-of-life issues for the all-volunteer force.

Along with 20 new brigade complexes, 69,000 barracks spaces and 4,100 family housing units, the money will pay for building 66 new child development centers.

General Cody said that under the new basing plan, combat brigades would live alongside the support, sustainment and intelligence units with which they would go to war. "They will be based as they will train and as they will fight," General Cody said.

Overseas at the end of the process in 2013, more than 16,200 American troops will remain in South Korea.

Japanese probe helps unlock riddle of sun's heat: study

Japanese probe helps unlock riddle of sun's heat: study
6 days ago

CHICAGO (AFP) — New observations of the Sun gathered by a Japanese probe may finally explain why its outer atmosphere burns white-hot in contrast to its relatively cool surface, scientists said Thursday.

The riddle of the star's white-hot atmosphere, which at several million degrees kelvin is 200 to 300 times warmer than the surface, has intrigued solar physicists for more than 50 years.

The experts tended to fall into two camps, speculating that the extraordinary warmth of the outer atmosphere, or corona, was due to either miniature solar flares or atmospheric (Alfven) waves.

Several research teams had reported evidence of these Alfven waves, which could potentially heat the corona to extreme temperatures by releasing energy as they travel outward from the Sun along magnetic field lines.

But up to this point, scientists had not been able to detect the waves definitively because of the limitations of the available instruments.

The data collected by "Hinode" ("Sunrise" in Japanese), which can precisely measure small changes in the Sun's magnetic field, changed all that.

Images taken by the probe's Solar Optical Telescope suggest that the chromosphere, the region sandwiched between the solar surface and the corona, is riddled with Alven waves, oscillating at 10-25 kilometers per second.

The energy generated by the waves is sufficient to heat the corona which is probably most familiar to the layman as the white band of light that can be seen during the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse.

"We don't know how they heat the corona, and we can't be sure where the energy comes from, but we can say the oscillations have enough energy to heat the corona," said Robertus Erdelyi, a professor at the Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Centre at the University of Sheffield in England.

Erdelyi was the author of an editorial that appeared in the journal Science along with 10 research papers documenting the findings from the Hinode mission.

The satellite, launched September in 2006, has provided scientists with an unprecedented peek at the structures and magnetic fields within the Sun's high-energy plasma, thanks to high-resolution video and images captured by the satellite's spectrometers.

Researchers from NASA and the space agencies of Britain, Europe, Japan, and Norway have been analyzing the data and say it also provides clues to the origins of the solar wind, which blasts through the solar system and buffets planetary atmospheres.

A team lead by Bart de Pontieu of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, showed the Alven waves detected by Hinode are vigorous enough to accelerate the solar wind.

Separately, a US team of solar physicists observed record numbers of jets of rapidly moving hot plasma at the Sun's poles, which they believe may contribute to the solar wind.

"The large number of jets, coupled with the high speeds of the outflowing plasma, lends credence to the idea that X-ray jets are a driving force in the creation of the fast solar wind," said Jonathan Cirtain, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Solar wind can threaten telecommunications, navigation systems and electric power grids on Earth. Scientists hope a better understanding of the wind, could help people plan better for space weather.

Northern Lights' Source Found in Giant "Magnetic Ropes"

Northern Lights' Source Found in Giant "Magnetic Ropes"

By John Borland December 12, 2007 3:06:54 AMCategories: Physics An eight-month old NASA mission to unravel the source of the Northern Lights' energy has made startling progress, discovering giant magnetic "ropes" that connect the Earth to the Sun.

The NASA Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission consists of five separate satellites, along with supporting ground-based cameras. This system began observing an enormous substorm, or Northern Light event, on March 23, which helped trigger the discoveries.

The storm moved faster than anyone had expected, crossing 15 degrees of longitude in a single minute, about 400 miles per hour. The entire two-hour event released about five hundred thousand billion Joules, or about as much energy as a magnitude 5.5 earthquake, researchers said.

Which, well and good, but where did the energy come from?

Over the next few months, the spacecraft encountered what researchers call magnetic ropes, essentially bundles of magnetic fields that are twisted together like twine. The first to be mapped by the THEMIS satellites was located about 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface, in the magnetopause, and about as wide as the Earth itself.

The magnetopause is the region where the solar wind – electrically charged particles that flow away from the sun at incredible speeds – crashes into the Earth's magnetic field. The "rope" formed there and unraveled again over the course of just a few minutes, but in the process proved to be a significant conduit for solar wind energy.

Here's researcher David Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"The satellites have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun," Sibeck said. "We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras."

The scientists have also observed the equivalent of a "bow shock," as at the leading edge of a boat, where the front edge of Earth's magnetic field first encounters the solar wind. Occasionally a burst of electrical current in the solar wind will hit this "bow shock," creating an explosion, researchers said.

The team's early findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in this month.

NASA Spacecraft Make New Discoveries About Northern Lights [NASA press release]

(Image: The eerie shimmer of the Northern Lights. Credit: NASA)