posted 07-25-2001 02:05 PM            

Thermit provided a URL to an article on this topic by Joel M. Skousen, http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/skousen/2001/07013.htm which I shall excerpt here for future reference.

quote:

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There are two main types of weapons capable of generating EMP. The more powerful are nuclear weapons set off above the earth's atmosphere that give off huge amounts of free electrons. As these electrons blast through the atmosphere, they cause a huge wave of energy, called a Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (NEMP), to blanket the earth below. As this electromagnet wave passes through power lines, telephone lines, or any electrical conductor (like the electrical cord leading to your TV or computer) it cause the electrons in the wire to be rapidly displaced and shot down the line, setting up a powerful and near instantaneous surge that blows out everything in its path.

This is the type of EMP attack will most likely be used by Russia immediately before a direct nuclear strike on the US. Its function will be to knock out communications and other vital electrical equipment in the US to help ensure the success of the nuclear strike. Perhaps the only warning you will ever have prior to a Russian nuclear strike is a widespread blackout of electricity, radio, and TV, and damage to your computers and phones. An EMP pulse has a rise time of less than 2 nanoseconds so it jumps through surge protectors that aren't designed to clamp down on such a rapid pulse....

The attack that occurred in Hartsville could not have been a high-altitude NEMP because such an explosion would have affected an area about 300-500 miles in diameter. Smaller, non-nuclear tactical pulse weapons have been invented that use powerful electrical capacitors and antennas to direct blasts of EMP energy toward localized targets on the ground. The Hartsville phenomenon could have been caused by a tactical EMP weapon mounted inside something as benign looking as a tractor-trailer rig.

Some have hypothesized that the power surge could have been caused by a HAARP (High frequency Active Auroral Research Program) transmission. I don't think so. The HAARP system is not capable of concentrating a narrow beam of energy into a small area such as the Hartsville incident. For those who are unfamiliar with HAARP, it controls a huge radio transmitter system consisting of 180 crossed dipole antennas arranged in a rectangular, planar array, and linked to a powerful 3.6-million-watt transmitter . It is located near the town of Gakona (150 miles NE of Anchorage) just off of Hwy 1. For some official pictures and views of its purported research purpose see: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/.

The HAARP antennas are oriented to be trained upward. Ham radio operators can track when HAARP is operating because it interferes with or completely dominates the radio frequency spectrum around 3.39 Mhz.

Weather modification is a remote possibility, but unlikely due to the non-directional nature of HAARP'S antenna array and the fact that even 3.6 million watts would not even put a dent in the weather's natural energy equation. There is a theory, however, that links HAARP transmissions to the chemtrails being spread over certain areas by military tanker aircraft that could be plausible. If the chemtrails were testing minor concentrations of biological or chemical warfare dispersants, as still suspected, why would they be laying them down at 30,000 feet of altitude where they could drift hundreds of miles before settling to the earth? On the other hand, if those aerial spray patterns were laced with metallic based reactants that could interact with the HAARP transmissions to alter weather, then there might be a correlation between the non-specific transmissions of HAARP and the specific targeted areas of chemtrails (which have included almost every part of the US at one time or another). I've witnessed at least two chemtrail incidents (and as a pilot, I know the difference between regular condensation trails and these chemtrails)....

...According to the patent the HAARP system is capable of generating a concentrated particle beam of ionized particles in the upper atmosphere that in turn generates a electromagnetic pulse that bounces back and forth between the North and South poles--creating, in effect, an umbrella shield against a Russian missile attack....There are several tactical military factors that make this kind of a missile shield highly unlikely or ineffective:

1) The shield, if effective, would only affect a narrow beam of space extending from the North Pole, downward over the HAARP antenna in Alaska, then over the Pacific ocean east of Hawaii to the South Pole. The thickness of the channel is relatively small, and its height is related to the frequency employed. The Brother Jonathan website postulates that even though the channel itself is relatively thin, super low frequencies can lower the HAARP shield sufficient to affect any missiles traveling under the arch of the pulsing shield. At least that's the theory.

2) Computer controls on most missiles are only used in the guiding phase--not once the missile goes ballistic. An exception is MIRVed missiles, with multiple warheads, which also use electronic controls to initiate warhead separation. Thus, only MIRVed warheads would be threatened. Straight ballistic missiles with a single warhead with contact detonators could potentially survive any amount of electromagnetic energy in their path once they passed the boost phase.

3) Because of the location of HAARP, ICBMs would only be vulnerable to this narrow shield over Alaska if they were launched in Siberia. Missiles launched in Moscow would travel over the polar route eastward near Greenland and would bypass the HAARP shield. Within a year or two, most of Moscow's ICBMs will be mobile so HAARP shields would have to be erected all along the Canadian border to be effective against Russia's ability to bypass it.

4) The HAARP antenna array could be easily defeated by conventional attack such as sabotage, low flying cruise missiles, or visual aerial bombing from Russia, since the area is not heavily defended. A Russian missile attack could then be launched without interference.

5) The US has developed electronics for satellites, bombers and missiles that are hardened against EMP. The Russians claim to have the technology too.

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posted 07-25-2001 03:51 PM            

"There are two main types of weapons capable of generating EMP. The more powerful are nuclear weapons set off above the earth's atmosphere that give off huge...."

[Everything in this paragraph is, as far as I know, true. Skousen is correctly interpreting what's been known in the scientific community regarding nEMP for over 50 years.]

"This is the type of EMP attack will most likely be used by Russia immediately before a direct nuclear strike on the US. Its function will be to knock out ...." (emphases mine)

[Skousen's choice of verbs here is instructive; he has long been a firm believer in the inevitability of a Russian (nee Soviet) strike on the US. Of course, he's entitled to his opinion, but he loses just a bit of credibility - at least in my eyes.]

"The attack that occurred in Hartsville could not have been a high-altitude NEMP .... Smaller, non-nuclear tactical pulse weapons have been invented that use .... The Hartsville phenomenon could have been caused by a tactical EMP weapon mounted inside something as benign looking as a tractor-trailer rig."

[I suppose so; I wouldn't be surprised that such EMP-makers exist and may well be in the inventory of many nations. But notice how Skousen, although he hypothesizes that such a device exists and could have caused the problems in Tennessee (never mind why), studiously avoids saying anything about what the most likely scenario was: a shorted transformer that caused a couple of quick-rise (< 2 nsec) spike in equipment located in the area served by that transformer.]

The rest of Skousen's article mentions many other hypotheses, none of which he says have any connection to the question at hand. One further comment he makes, though, begs a response:

"...and as a pilot, I know the difference between regular condensation trails and these chemtrails)...."

[Gosh, I'm a pilot, too (if you count a 30-year-old license and less than a hundred hours in a Cessna 150), and I can't tell the difference between "regular condensation trails and these chemtrails"; neither can any of my colleagues (more than half of which are retired military pilots).]

Note: Understand, Skousen is not lying. He is not making stuff up. But, given the way he selectively mentions some scenarios at the expense of others - and brings up subjects even he considers irrelevant to the "EMP" question (e.g., HAARP, contrails) - it seems pretty clear to me that he carefully considers who his putative audience is....

...and gives them, in his article, exactly what they want to hear. So much for scientific objectivity!

Regards,

posted 07-25-2001 04:31 PM               

Duncan, I don't see how you come to this conclusion, if you read his conclusion. Maybe you are saying he doesn't talk about it enough, as opposed to not talking about it at all?

quote:

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THE ANSWER TO OUR STORY: I spoke with the local utility and they confirmed that there was a problem at that time and date, but that it was due to a shorted transformer which caused a very high voltage spike.

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posted 07-25-2001 05:04 PM            

Ah, here it is:

EMP
Posted on July 20, 2001 at 10:33:08 PM by injun
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has197010.000/has197010_1.HTM

posted 07-25-2001 05:25 PM            

I still feel that Skousen, although he doesn't try to tie an overload to HAARP, still used the ostensible discussion of one phenomenon to talk about another one. But with my inability to read an article critically all the way through, I guess I can't complain too much.

posted 07-26-2001 12:48 AM            

The power company told Skousen, at a later date that they had a blown transformer. Why does this seem familiar?

Why is WKJM posting this:
http://www.1090wjkm.com/

quote:

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The Power Company, Tri County Electric and Bell South seem to be at a loss to explain the situation.

This is not the first time WJKM has had strange power surge problems. It has been difficult to keep computers up and running at the Hartsville studios and transmitter site.

We have called the local power company and complained to no avail. They seem to be as puzzled by the problem as we are. They have placed monitoring equipment on the lines and have seen nothing unusual.

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And then this:

quote:

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Wednesday, July 18 2001

At about 4:00 am this morning Hartsville Tennessee lost power again due to a surge/outage. This time over much of Trousdale County. WJKM and CMR's internet broadcast was brought to a screeching halt once again. We were not able to establish broadcasting until about 10:00 AM this morning. There were no injured or dead birds but we did have some computer failure.

We placed a call to Tri County Electric and the TVA but have not heard anything back from them so far as to the cause or nature of the outage. About two weeks ago we had a 4 am outage/surge. The local power company came out and removed a shortwave radio antenna that WJKM was using for Ham Radio communications in case of an emergency. We can't seem to make much progress in all this so.

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And please don't say I am supposed to take Skousen's word over Randall's.

posted 07-30-2001 10:35 AM            

Although your post was addressed to my colleague Mr. Thermit, I hope you will pardon my attempt to answer -- not on his behalf, of course.

Your last paragraph says:

"And please don't say I am supposed to take Skousen's word over Randall's."

I certainly concur with your remark. If I had been asked such a question I would say, "Certainly not! Do not take Skousen's word over Randall's. Do not take Randall's word over Skousen's, either!"

This being the "Science" board -- where we are asked by our colleague Dr. 3T3L1 to follow common scientific protocols -- we're placed in a position where, as scientists, we shouldn't take anyone's word over another's.

If Prof. Kumquat publishes the results of a study, we'd probably accept it as a working hypothesis, and then either try to replicate his study or see if anyone else has. If Dr. Doodlysquat publishes the results of the same study with different results, then we'd still want to see more studies done to see which set of results predominates.

And if we're scientists, when Dr. Doodlysquat comes out with a paper that says Prof. Kumquat's study is wrong because he is a communist or has bad breath, we'd probably blow off Doodlysquat in a heartbeat, because calling someone names doesn't prove anything one way or another.

But what do we do in this case, where we get two different hypotheses for a power outage? I don't have a clue! Perhaps we could try to see what agenda, if any, the two parties have in their comments.

From what I've read of and by Skousen, he seems to thrive on doomsday/conspiracy type scenarios; I would think that he would not go for the more mundane, commonplace explanation unless he were truly convinced that it were so.

And what is Randall's agenda, if any? I don't know; I've never heard of him. But if (and remember, I don't know) Randall has some reason for making this into some conspiracy/government secret project cause celebre, then I would assume that his comments and conclusions (since there's no way we can really verify them) are, if not false, at least questionable.

Regards,