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Plasma physicist and nuclear weapons specialist John Brandenburg has an out-of-left-field theory about two gigantic hydrogen bomb-type nuclear explosions that supposedly took place on Mars within last hundred million years. He points to overabundance of radioisotope Xenon 129 that results from fission of heavy nuclei as evidence. Xenon 129 is a signature of nuclear explosions and exists in Earth's atmosphere because of the atmospheric nuclear testing and plutonium production that had gone on in the twentieth century. It is also made in supernova explosions as a result of intense neutron bombardment and is therefore embedded in asteroids and meteoroids within the Solar System. John Brandenburg claims that the only way the amount of Xenon 129 that is inferred from 1976 Viking Mars mission data and verified by mass spectrometer on Curiosity rover could have been produced in the distant past is by the way of nuclear explosions. No meteor showers could explain this because meteors contain both Xenon 129 and 132 in equal quantities and the amount of Xenon 129 contained within them is tiny and gets released only at very high temperatures. Mars has 2.5 times more Xenon 129 than Earth's atmosphere prior to 1937 (no nuclear production) and the meteorites. He points to two sites on the Red Planet where the hypothetical explosions took place: in the Northern plains in Mare Acidalium at approximately 50N, 30W, near Cydonia Mensa and in Utopia Planum at approximately 50N 120W near Galaxias Chaos.
He was a recent guest on The Space Show, where he reiterated his theory. It's a long podcast and nukes on Mars talk starts at 47 minutes into the show.
Here is a link to his paper and his website.
He also gave a presentation to a packed auditorium at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2016 about a different theory of his:
Mars in one Month: The GEM theory of Energy and Momentum Exchange With Spacetime and Forces Observed in the Eaglework Q-V Thruster
Wacky, but interesting, no?
(Score: 5, Informative) by jimtheowl on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:53PM (12 children)
1) "The new images of the Face at Cydonia Mensa confirm eyes, nose, mouth, helmet structure with additional detail of nostrils and helmet ornaments being clearly seen in new images with details at appr oximately 1/10 scale of the face."
- I see no such confirmation, but more importantly, there is no reference provided regarding where this "confirmation" supposedly comes from. In fact, the list of reference provided at the end of the paper is unindexed.
2) "New imagery confirms the pyramid structure seen in Vikingimages of the the D&M pyramid and new high resolution images show evidence of collapsed brickwork."
- The D&M pyramid does look interesting, but again, there is no provided evidence for “collapsed brickwork” or anything else.
I thus quit reading at that point. If someone has the time to dig through the bullshit to find if there is something solid to look at, feel free to point it out.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:58PM
I'd rather see stories found by bots than ACs'
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:03PM (8 children)
Classic disinfo technique.
Someone gonna notice this in the public data sooner or later, we are willing to pay money to have it to be later, therefore pay a guy a lot of money to link it to something utterly unrelated yet ridiculous like the earth being flat.
The conclusion mutters some stuff about entrenched opinions and there is a lot of truth to that. If a mars rover ran over a lichen that slowly visibly grew back, we would have to wait for all the present scientists to die off and be replaced until the result would be accepted.
The paper is highly detailed. Something "nuclear fission" happened on Mars. The sci fi occams razor seems to be self destructing civilization thermonuclear war, but I'd propose nuclear powered space alien (space probe? or "manned"?) visitation. And knowing the neighbors would flip their shit when they discover it a couple million years later, there's probably an interesting time capsule buried at ground zero. Which was already a 1960s novel /movie plot, but it just seems so reasonable...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @08:19PM (3 children)
Yes, I like VLm's theory much better, because it has less details, and so is easier to swallow. And VLM is much more sane than this guy, even if he's a little bit Nazi.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 10 2017, @08:38PM (2 children)
a little? Who exactly do you think is to the right of me? Although politics doesn't really matter in the context of physics, tech, conspiracy theory, historical examples of weaponized conspiracy theory, etc. Aside from the lefties endlessly think the nazis though the earth was hollow and Antarctica would make a great "conquer the world base" although I don't understand the point of going to Antarctica is you have a perfectly good base in Germany.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @04:35PM
You mean the loonies, left / right doesn't matter. I'm getting tired of the constant political barrage as a casual thing here.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday October 11 2017, @10:04PM
The reason has something to do with a pyramid, which indicates a lost civilization, which implies technological secrets, which lead to power. Do your research.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 11 2017, @11:56AM (3 children)
The same scientists who would immediately publicize any evidence of life on Mars to justify their lives' work? Nonsense.
Occam's razor would be that we simply don't know why the alleged xenon isotope imbalance has occurred rather than conclude that it's aliens.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:29PM (2 children)
There's quite a lot of isotopic evidence, not just one Xenon isotope, that seems to fit one way we know of, to generate exactly that peculiar signature, but it requires at least an industrial era civilization to produce at great effort, and unless the biologists and geologists have gotten it horribly wrong we were not here to do it, so somebody else did it ... I mean I'm just saying "magic" and "miracle" is possible but its fascinating that the least unlikely, least unrealistic cause is aliens setting off bombs.
Its an interesting "active SETI" idea for a paranoid space faring culture to plant something artificial but noticeable along the lines of "you must be this tall to go on this carnival ride" and then see what the young species does in response. If they produce a Klingon conquering fleet of space battleships, however pitifully crude babys first 1.0 spacecraft, then the paranoid old civilization can nuke em from orbit just to be sure because thats a species thats gonna be a PITA.
If we're being observed its probably a good idea to act in a reasonably sane manner when provided with a really weird artifact like this.
Another novel interpretation is a fraction of billion years ago some neighbor thought it would be intimidating to us, and perhaps anyone else, to observe the nuking of a distant planet, to keep someone (us?) in their place. Kinda like how the USA nuked a bunch of pacific islands, not because we thought badly of the islanders, we didn't really think of them at all, it was more of a demonstration for others far away and for all time of what we can do when we feel the need. "Now I'm not saying you can't send infectious interstellar nanobots to our planet, because clearly you can and have, but before you send the next wave, turn your telescopes to the uninhabited fourth planet in the Sol solar system, jus sayin..."
Or a sci fi book plot thats a bit over done is you transmit a SETI signal hundreds of millions of years ago "Yo for a good time make a plutonium sphere 100 Kg mass its perfectly safe and a good time but wait theres more for this limited time SETI offer, if you order and build it today, it also provides eternal life, infinite gold, bitcoins, and lots of light" and that's one way to test gullibility or something like that. I'm just saying if there's space aliens then there's probably Ferengi, probably more of them than Klingons, and getting blown up is probably morally and ethically better than getting economically screwed by the Ferengi.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:13PM (1 child)
I disagree. There's a lot of spin here on the current isotope evidence, but I strongly disagree that it fits in "one way".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @12:17PM
Well, what is there? fission byproducts (appears to be no negative info so far), random chance (appears unlikely, but possible), creationism as a test of (which groups?) faith, and the ever popular "unknown".
Another interesting sci fi book plot... benevolent aliens know there's a a rough patch that industrial civs go thru when they invent nuclear weapons but before they have robust multi planetary solar system scale civilizations where they can get wiped out, so policy is any planet with life more advanced than algae gets a lifeless neighbor planet nuked the crap out of so the young civilization can get scared straight by paranoia about world wide nuclear war, which would hurt a bit until you get multiple planets at which time people can avoid diversity which causes wars by simply moving to planets too far away from each other to fight. OR they're anti-benevolent aliens and they observe this strategy usually backfires. Hmm. Either would make an interesting book.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @08:15PM
And, there is no mention of the canals, or of John Carter! What kind of scientists are they letting into the academic journals these days? Oh, he wasn't? Presentation? His own web site? Did he take into account the Electric Universe Theory? Well, at least it is not an aristarchus submission.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 11 2017, @12:27PM
Loved the NdGT recap of an early astronomer's publication accurately charting the Newtonian movement of the planets, followed up by an in-depth line of deductive reasoning that led to the widespread cultivation of hemp on Jupiter....
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