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Space Weather: Its impact on Earth & Implications for business

Lloyd's of London is the world's leading insurance market providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories. They state: "A major space weather event in the approaching solar maximum could cause widespread disruption for unprepared businesses. Lloyd's 360 Space Weather Report Produced by Lloyd's and RAL Space, aims to increase awareness of space weather as a global risk."

Click report cover image icon for executive summary only.

Download full Lloyd's Report, in .pdf format, Original copy here

Original source link below:
Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business
Lloyd's, November 2010

Ready.gov – Space Weather
Ready.gov, April 2012
The term "space weather" refers to the variable conditions on the sun and in space that can influence the performance of technology we use on Earth. Extreme space weather could potentially cause damage to critical infrastructure – especially the electric grid – highlighting the importance of being prepared.

In order to protect people and systems that might be at risk from space weather effects, we need to understand the causes of space weather.

The sun is the main source of space weather. Sudden bursts of plasma and magnetic field structures from the sun's atmosphere called coronal mass ejections (CME) together with sudden bursts of radiation, or solar flares, all cause space weather effects here on Earth.

Space weather can produce electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, and even causing wide-spread blackouts. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning, intelligence gathering, and weather forecasting.

Comment:
This is affectively a Ready.gov advice sheet on Space Weather.. For the naysayers, solar storms are nothing new, but it is the fact that the transmitting properties of space have changed and therefore if we get huge solar coronal mass ejections coming our way, then they will have a bigger impact. This is combined with the issues that Earth's magnetosphere (magnetic shielding) is less affective. Earth's magnetic shield has "cracks" in it as well as sometimes there are massive breaches where the magnetic field affectively disappears on the daylight side. What this means is the planet can be "zapped" by large large flows of charged particles from the Sun (BIG electrical shocks) and if this is too severe there is a danger of national power grids being knocked out. Of course on a personal level, every single brain on the planet is also getting some big shocks too as the big and small shocks are detected by human brains that are wired into the environmental Schumann Resonances – but there are other environmental signals that humans can pick up that are not so beneficial. I wrote about this in my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spirtual Evolution and nothing has changed in my analysis. Now, we only have more revelations from the space agencies about geomagnetic conditions getting worse and worse. The planet is now regularly ringing like a bell with spacequakes.



Best of the Blog - Space Weather & Electromagnetic Chaos News Archive

Angry NatWest and RBS customers vow to vote with their feet
The Guardian, 30th June 2012
Angry customers are switching bank accounts in their droves, following the IT problems at the RBS group and the scandal surrounding Barclays' interest rate manipulation. The Co-operative Bank, one of the few unsullied by the latest scandal, has seen a 25% increase in online applications week on week.

A poll on the Guardian Money website that started on Friday is asking readers whether they are fed up enough with their bank to switch accounts. By the time of going to press it had a "yes" response from 77% of the nearly 2,000 who had voted.

Who can blame them? Many at Natwest, RBS and Ulster Bank are suffering another weekend without money, as the problems at the group mean customers are still without access to their bank accounts. Barclays, meanwhile, has been caught up in the double scandal of Libor manipulation and the mis-selling of financial products to small businesses.

Comment:
What a shambles.... A major bank penny pinching itself into oblivion...


NatWest: No end in sight for IT glitch fallout
ZD Net News, 27th June 2012
An unknown number of NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank customers are continuing to experience problems with payments into and out of their accounts, with no timeline for when systems will be completely back to normal, RBS has warned.

Significant problems facing Ulster Bank customers are likely to continue for at least a week, and a minority of NatWest and RBS customers still have unprocessed transactions, RBS said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Progress towards a completely normal service is likely to be affected by the significant stress on the system over recent days," RBS said.

Comment:
I am starting to think that people talking about this being a Black Swan event might be right, due to lots and lots of prior bad management decisions resulting in a total meltdown.... But even so, there needed to be a trigger and at the moment it looks like we have been provided with a convenient and quite unbelievable story... Whatever, due to my own IT background, this RBS/Natwest fiasco is an off the charts shocker.... the scenario of even daily backups being corrupted (hard to believe but that is what I have read) means that they must have been forced into a disaster recovery mode, but disaster recovery after 3 nights worth of batch is nearer to being apocalyptic than just a normal 'disaster'.... I just feel stunned by the extremely poor management, the total ineptness and stupidity of this being ALLOWED TO HAPPEN... BUT, this event is nothing compared to what will happen if there is a major space weather event and parts of the power grid and communication satellites that supports million of people and businesses are ALLOWED to be destroyed... I have not come across anyone prepared to state that space weather might corrupt hardware and software on a large scale, but I think the biggest risk is power supply and damaged transformers knocking out computer installations... As far as space weather is concerned, people who need to be aware, still don't understand the consequences of living in a high energy plasma environment... I talk to people but the attitude is 'people are not interested in something like that' like you are offering them a new variety of ice-cream or something.... The concept of no electricity and millions dead within 1 year is totally beyond their comprehension... too many people are too short-sighted.... even when millions of lives are at risk... Then there is the problem of too many clowns and jokers in charge, who can't see the obvious even when it is obvious... I am a visionary, I realised some of the major implications of space weather nearly 8 years ago... so far it's been one friggin' joker and clown after the next.... This is extremely depressing for me...



Was RBS brought to its knees by ONE junior IT technician? 'Inexperienced operative' in India blamed for meltdown that wiped £1.7bn off bank shares
Daily Mail, 27th June 2012
A junior technician in India caused the RBS computer meltdown which froze millions of British bank accounts, it was claimed last night.

The 'inexperienced operative' erased a massive swathe of information during a routine software upgrade for the Royal Bank of Scotland and its subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Bank, according to reports.

The worker was understood to have been part of a team recruited in Hyderabad after the bank laid off more than 20,000 UK staff and outsourced work abroad.

Comment:
This story is impossible to believe.... no IT professional in the financial sector will believe this story, because there is no reason for a " junior IT technician" to even need to touch CA-7 for any reason unless this was a deliberate act of sabotage and then that is another story.... these are two comments from 844 at the Daily Mail.
What a load of rubbish. They really expect us to believe that one person had the authority in such a low position to cause this? When will they admit they have lost control even if only for a short while.

- Barry, Chelmsford, 27/6/2012 20:41

CA-7 is a job scheduling package, and an upgrade of it wouldn't require any 'technician' inexperienced or otherwise to need to do anything with transaction data. The DM reporter, um, reporTERS, here plainly haven't researched if what they claim happened, is even credible.

- Chris, Hounslow, 27/6/2012 20:40
As I have stated, it does not matter any more HOW this IT disaster was caused, but I find it far easier to believe this was an unfortunate disaster caused by space weather, than to accept that it took 3 days for someone to notice that a database of 15 million bank accounts had been corrupted.... This is now the real problem and something I would have never have believed could have happened.... The worse I would have expected is the need for disaster recovery that might have lost a few hours of normal banking and that is it.... Heads need to roll....



Chaos not over yet as Ulster Bank struggles with backlog
Belfast Telegraph, 26th June 2012
The banking crisis that has brought financial turmoil to thousands of people has dragged into a second week with customers facing further frustration after Ulster Bank said it will take until Friday to clear the backlog.

Bosses have said that they are not exactly sure how fast the build-up in unprocessed payments will be cleared, but that it is likely to take the rest of the week. [..] customers facing further frustration after Ulster Bank said it will take until Friday to clear the backlog.

Meanwhile, an Ulster Bank account holder contacted the Belfast Telegraph to say ATMs in Armagh were issuing extra cash to people making withdrawals using Ulster Bank cards. customers facing further frustration after Ulster Bank said it will take until Friday to clear the backlog.

"The accounts weren't being updated, so if your balance was £20, you could take £20 out over and over again," he said. "Some people were lifting thousands of pounds out of cash machines."

Comment:
There have been reports of people walking into different branches and taking out their own money, it is only fraud if there are not enough funds in the account but ATM machines dispensing cash to people without funds is fraud.... I think the fallout from this fiasco is so bad that I believe the RBS/Natwest group of banks is finished.....



DAVID Lyon's IT Blog -- Who Broke the Bank?
Inverclyde Now, 26th June 2012
[...] Reports are beginning to circulate that a large factor in the situation has been the relocation of much of the RBS IT department to off-shore centres. The source of these reports are comments being made on other articles claiming to be ex-staff of these departments, giving insight into what actually happened.

The RBS system is a patch-work of different systems developed between 1969 and 2012. Although many of the services offered today are virtually instant, with processing done on demand, there are still legacy systems in place that require overnight batch processing to handle older non-instant transactions. Once each evening, the system goes offline and processing of the day's batch workload begins throughout the night.

What appears to have happened here is that the software upgrade went horribly wrong and overnight batch processing has failed. [...]

The initial problem should have required so many failures in so many redundant backups and secondary systems that the probability of it happening becomes astronomical. The subsequent reversal of the change that caused the problem should have taken hours, or a day at maximum.

However... they managed it. They have created the biggest failure of a "modern" financial system in UK history, spanning 7 full days and affecting customers across the country without any clear plan or set expectation of when service would be restored. In the meantime... house purchases have fallen through, flights have been cancelled, business deals have evaporated, bills have gone unpaid. All that's missing is a plague of locusts or a Monty Python foot from the clouds.

Comment:
This is article is written by an IT professional who understands the intricacies of managing old legacy systems developed over 4 decades.... The author is blunt about the foolishness of getting rid of experienced staff and employing 'cheap' whiz kids in India who are totally unfamiliar with role of nursing these old legacy systems.... Because I worked in this exact same environment, I will admit I am shocked beyond belief.... I am even thinking the initial fail could have been sabotage but this explanation still does not make sense because a massive failure was duplicated for three days before anyone noticed.... this is incompetence on a huge scale... Even if this was caused by a cosmic ray shower or even electromagnetic interference, somebody should have noticed that a database of 10 15 million bank accounts had been corrupted.... Well, the last working day of the month looms and then this is all going to get much much worse....



NORWAY: Large banks and network problems today
VG.no News, 25th June 2012

Northern Bank now having technical problems with ebanking.
Twitter, 25th June 2012



How NatWest's IT meltdown developed
Guardian's investigations suggest bank's problems began on Tuesday night when it updated key piece of software called CA-7 The Guardian, 24th June 2012
[...] "It seems whoever made the update to CA-7 managed to delete or corrupt the files which hold the schedule for the overnight jobs, so they did not run, or ran incorrectly," the programmer told the Guardian. "They have backed out from this change, but now are trying to play catch-up, and have been doing so for a few days." [...]

"It seems whoever made the update to CA-7 managed to delete or corrupt the files which hold the schedule for the overnight jobs, so they did not run, or ran incorrectly," the programmer told the Guardian. "They have backed out from this change, but now are trying to play catch-up, and have been doing so for a few days."

But by Friday, when the fix was implemented, three sets of batch runs had failed. If a batch fails badly – as here – then all of the transactions, including the payments in and out of accounts, are "rolled back" to the starting point, as if it had never run. The set of transactions from Wednesday was then added to the pending list on Wednesday, and attempted to run in the early hours of Thursday; that too failed. By the time the fix had been done, there were three days' worth of unimplemented transactions queued up. [...]

Price said that any software update would first have been subjected to quality assurance and user acceptance testing before being implemented.

Comment:
Here we are told that an established computer management system called CA-7 (I guessed right that this stands for Computer Associates 7 because they are major software supplier to big companies....), that has run for years suddenly became corrupted, but they cannot identify by whom or what. Well, it is a fact that NOBODY has to update computer software for it to be corrupted because this can be done by cosmic rays or electromagnetic interference... What is most shocking is that IT Staff (ops or operations) are supposed to monitor these jobs to see that everything has run properly and in most HUGE computer installations, there are IT staff working 24/7 that normally would monitor that jobs run according to plan. If there is a fail, then someone 'on call' can be called in the middle of the night to fix a problem, backing out updates and restarting jobs.... I know because this was part of my job description and I have been called in the middle of the night.... Now, I am really struggling... IF NatWest were stupid enough to do away with IT Staff monitoring jobs overnight then they should not be surprised at this massive fail.... IF this scenario is correct, (and I can hardly believe it) then I think the sacking should start at the top and not at the bottom.... but that is just my opinion.... Let me think.... IF there was a new update to an important computer management system, that is a good enough reason to have people watching very closely to make sure there is not a failure and people would be on site, or even watching jobs running from home and/or 'on call'.... I worked for a very large insurance company in the UK and that is what they did... Seriously, I can't believe that however this fault occured, it seems that the management of overnight batch updates was totally inadequate. In summary we are told that NatWest got rid of experienced staff and outsourced to India and the result is that nobody noticed 3 nights of batch failure.... are the bosses at Natwest crazy... This is completely bonkers...



Oi! NatWest, I want my money: How young schoolteacher called Natalie Westerman is being bombarded with complaints on Twitter
Daily Mail, 25th June 2012
"A young schoolteacher has received a barrage of abuse from angry banking customers because her internet profile is called 'NatWest'."
The madness of the crowds, especially when it comes to money....



Royal Bank of Scotland-Nat West computer glitch: Computer says no
Our lives depend on systems like the one that crashed at NatWest, yet no one knows how vulnerable we are to future attacks and malfunctions, says Misha Glenny.
The Telegraph, 25th June 2012
The Royal Bank of Scotland rode the storm of chronic financial mismanagement by drawing on the taxpayers' boundless generosity during the banking collapse of 2008. But what billions in bad loans couldn't do, an apparently tiny computer glitch might yet achieve.

Over the next couple of weeks, the bank's senior management will be biting their nails as they wait to see how many of their account holders at NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank consider pulling their custom. A simple flaw in a routine upgrade seems to have knocked the bank's entire system off-kilter.

Already, there have been reports that doctors in Mexico threatened to turn off a dying girl's life-support because NatWest did not transfer money owed to the hospital looking after her. [Is this true?...]

It is, however, far from alone. In late 2011, and again in May this year, HSBC customers were unable to withdraw cash due to a computer malfunction. And the worrying truth is that almost all the basic infrastructure of our society is now controlled by computers. A similar glitch elsewhere could stop water flowing through our taps, food being delivered to supermarkets, electricity to our houses, or cash to our ATMs.

Comment:
As I have already stated, this "glitch" is a good thing because people realise just how quickly their lives can be turned into complete chaos by the use of computer systems that I believe are now vulnerable to space weather. I have read comments and even whole articles from 'conspiracy theorists' about RBS gaining some liquidity... and then there are those blaming incompetent IT staff, but that is besides the point. Millions and millions of people have now been forced to think about their absolute trust in technology, if they do some research they will find that other banks are regularly having problems too.... I have also read a comment about this being a black swan event... well I disagree, because when I first read about space weather I realised that this celestial deluge was going to become catastrophic if people did not realise that we needed to do business differently on this planet. There are others out there too who started campaigning about the power grids after the Quebec fail in 1989...Anyway, that is why I came up with my slogan, The terms and conditions for living on planet Earth have changed! Once I realised the seriousness of all this, I dedicated my life to explaining the implications of energy driven evolutionary change, but I have been on my own seeing what to me was completely obvious.... Now, it seems that we have finally hit a nerve in a UK.... I think this is better than a total blackout, because it gives people an opportunity to start really thinking about what needs to be done differently....



Ulster Bank backlog to remain until end of week
Irish Times, 24th June 2012
Ulster Bank has said the backlog affecting 100,000 of its customers will not be resolved until the end of the week.

The bank said clearing the backlog was "taking significantly longer than expected" and, as a result, customer accounts would not be fully operational tomorrow. Read reaction to the Ulster Bank problems here.

While customers affected to date have mainly been those paid weekly or making one-off transactions, monthly salaries are due to be paid next week.

Comment:
Another week? I think there will be riots first if this is true....

The 'problem' that netted RBS an extra £73bn of liquidity
The Slog, 25th June 2012



Natwest glitch: RBS chief Stephen Hester faces pressure to explain fault to public
Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Natwest owner the Royal Bank of Scotland, was under pressure last night to give a public account of the breakdown of the bank's computer systems as politicians and small businesses attacked the bank's failures and the crisis entered its sixth day.
The Telegraph, 24th June 2012
Mr Hester admitted yesterday in an email to staff that RBS was not "out of the woods" with the bank drafting in thousands of staff over the weekend to try to deal with the issue. It now looks likely that the cost of the bank's technical problems will run into tens of millions of pounds.

In his first public statement over the disruption to 12 million business and personal customer accounts of both RBS and its subsidiary, NatWest, which began on Tuesday night, Mr Hester told the bank's staff that there was "more hard work ahead".

Comment:
Many people want to know what this "systems outage" actually means but now the Natwest website has gone down, probably due to high traffic.... NatWest Woes Continue As Website Crashes This is a serious meltdown, I am even thinking this might even cause rioting.... Well, people must realise that this fiasco is nothing compared to what will happen if there is a major geomagnetic storm and electricity supplies are permanently lost for millions of people... because absolutely nothing will work.... Please see previous warnings from space weather experts Space Weather News & Reports. Even if there is not a major storm the Sun is behaving very strangely and we are vulnerable to different types of space weather that can effect electronics and computers.... HoPersonally, I am most disappointed that people who claim to understand the signs of the times have failed miserably in providing a real technical explanations for what is happening to our world and failure to realise the importance of maintaining a strong society for the good of all.... Few seem to realise this is a test of spiritual intelligence and that the winner takes all mentality will not work in our changing world.... National power grids do not just work for one home or even a survival complex... Unfortunately, it seems that there are not so many interested in reality or the future of mankind....



PratWest charges YOU for bank chaos
The Sun, 24th June 2012
I thought the headline was highly indicative of what many people are thinking...



RBS-NatWest bank meltdown rolls on: Branches to open on Sunday, customers STILL can't get wages - and it may last until next week
This is Money, 22nd June 2012
"The problems with account access now rank as one of the worst technical failures at a British bank. Up to 12 million people have been affected by the major computer error which was triggered when a software upgrade was being installed to the payment system. They have resolved the 'underlying problem' but it could be early next week before all the problems have been dealt with and all payments catch up."

NatWest payments glitch 'one week old', not days
Computing.co.uk, 22nd June 2012
"The payments glitch that has affected the computer systems of NatWest, Ulster Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was caused by an RBS Group systems upgrade that went wrong and has been affecting some customers since Friday 15 June, Computing can reveal. [...] Some readers who have contacted Computing say that problems started a week ago, when they were unable to access their accounts online and were told that this was due to a technical glitch."



NatWest to open all weekend as problems persist
BBC News, 22nd June 2012
The problem is understood to have arisen after staff tried to install a software update on RBS's payment processing system, but ended up corrupting it. The underlying technical issue has now been resolved, according to a source within RBS.

Comment:
I don't believe 'IT staff' caused a corruption of a payment system because a software update would have been tested in a development environment... I have worked in a very large computer installation so I know about testing procedures and how to backout problems.... I can believe that an OK software update was somehow corrupted by being placed on a corrupted piece of hardware or even the software update itself was transfered and corrupted somehow... For me this is impossible to believe this was caused by IT staff and I would be shocked in the extreme if this was true because this kind of procedure is just too routine... the banks can afford people with many many years of experience...



NatWest glitch goes on: Millions of customers still unable to access money that was paid into their accounts two days ago
Daily Mail, 22nd June 2012
* NatWest open banks early as they battle to deal with angry customers
* Customers STILL reporting that salaries are not being paid in and payments are not being made
* Up to 12 MILLION customers are being affected by the problem
* V Bank are unable to say when the problem will be fixed
* NatWest say the problem was NOT caused by hacking


Up to 12 million NatWest and RBS customers are still unable to receive money or pay bills because of a major technical fault.

Many were blocked from taking money out of cash machines, while others had internet supermarket food deliveries stopped after payments were rejected yesterday.

Debit cards were barred at tills, including hotel checkout desks, airports and petrol stations. Today people were discovering that their salaries had not been paid in because of the problems.

Comment:
These major computing failures most publicly associated with banks just keep on happening... I think banks are vulnerable because they heavily rely on a lot of technology that can be corrupted and then problems can escalate and as money is involved, people get more upset.... The Blackberry server induced failure went on for 4 days and then there has been quite a few major Amazon Cloud computing services failures too in recent years... I have been looking for some definitive "official" answers to these recent bank failures but so far I have not found anything significant, maybe I need to find some techie websites, but Blackberry IT staff were sworn to secrecy.... I suppose nobody wants to tell the truth that cosmic rays corrupting hardware and software is now becoming a major issue... (What can people expect when Earth's magnetic shielding is breaking down.... this is so obvious..... ) One of the Amazon Cloud failures was actually due too lightning knocking out both primary and secondary power supplies and an "electric deviation" caused by the strike traveled along the power feed wires to knock out the control system that would normally have triggered backup generators in the data center... Then there have been many other problems associated with power outages caused by a variety of different scenarios, but it interesting that Amazon Cloud have tended to provide proper detailed technical explanations, unlike the banks... Whatever, people need to understand that we cannot completely rely on technology in these worsening cosmic conditions.... In a way these "glitches" must be considered as ways of waking up more people to the fact that the cosmic, geomagnetic and electromagnetic environment is making our technologcal infrastructure very vulnerable. Btw, some people believe that chemtrailing is principally about protecting electronics, certainly observational evidence in Europe does suggest that there is more planes creating artificial clouds when large sunspots emerge and it is suspected they might unleash their fury.... Interestingly, it seems that scientists may have found more subtle signs to help them predict the behaviour of the sun and decide to spray up the skies to scatter secondary cosmic rays... All the press release from NASA in the last few years need to be read and properly understood by any skeptics out there.... People have been told in no uncertain terms what is happening to our world.



NatWest – outdated technology the cause of this weeks problems?
IFA Magazine, 22nd June 2012
This is just some speculation... When you consider that people not being able to get access to their own cash and being left stranded there should be more detailed information available about what went wrong...
RBS and Natwest hit by a major systems failure
The Inquirer, 21st June 2012
UK BANKS RBS and Natwest have been hit with a major IT systems failure, which means both banks are unable to make any payments.

The issue was first uncovered on Twitter after users took to the micro-blogging network to complain that they were unable to access online banking or make payments. It's now been found that the failure caused a delay in a number of people receiving their wages, if their employer happens to bank with either the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) or Natwest. [...]

RBS told The INQUIRER in a statement, "We are currently experiencing technical issues which mean that a number of customer account balances have not yet been updated and some of our online services are temporarily unavailable. [...]

Update
Natwest has tweeted, "We will be keeping over 1,000 NatWest branches in all major towns and cities open until 7pm tonight to assist customers," although there's still no word as to when its computer systems will be back up and running.

Comment 2 :
For those who think that I have jumped to conclusions about whether this was caused by a cosmic ray, I would first like to defend IT staff by saying that I worked in large IT departments for about 10 years most of that with one major insurance company and IT staff know how to prevent computer system maintenance or software upgrades causing complete catastrophe.... This was most likely a server failure, exactly the same failure that caused RIM to lose $54 million on the four-day global BlackBerry outage... However I will admit this might not been a cosmic rays because it seems that stray "magnetic interference" from the Earth and even the Sun is also a common issue too with computer systems. According to Wikipedia:
Electrical or magnetic interference inside a computer system can cause a single bit of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) to spontaneously flip to the opposite state. It was initially thought that this was mainly due to alpha particles emitted by contaminants in chip packaging material, but research[1] has shown that the majority of one-off ("soft") errors in DRAM chips occur as a result of background radiation, chiefly neutrons from cosmic ray secondaries, which may change the contents of one or more memory cells or interfere with the circuitry used to read/write them.
Wikipedia: ECC Memory
Now we are living on a planet that is experiencing a more challenging cosmic environment and geomagnetic chaos with electromagnetic energies flowing into and off the planet due to space weather, it is no wonder that we are seeing more and more hardware and software related computer failures. Mitigation is possible, but costly...

Comment:
At the moment, it seems even the big banks are taking cosmic rays frying electronics, computer hardware and software as a joke, but obviously as space weather worsens, less and less people will be laughing.... Please note in the archives there have been arguments between Microsoft and hardware manufactureres for who is going to pay for radiation hardened chips.... well, somebody has to pay up because soon this situation will be intolerable... see archives for more information, Best of the Blog - Space Weather, Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos .

NatWest online banking meltdown: Millions of customers unable to move money or pay bills as accounts freeze
Daily Mail, 21st June 2012
"Around 100,000 UlsterBank customers have also reported difficulties. NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and UlsterBank share a number of internal computer systems.
So they have had this problem all day....



Ulster Bank computer breakdown means some customers won't be paid today
Indepenent.ie News, 21st June 2012
Why are people so angry? This is what life is like in a high energy plasma environment when Earth's magnetic field and the solar system's magnetic shield (heliospause) is no longer providing enough shielding against galactic and solar cosmic rays... Unless we change how we do business on this planet, then it is going to become non-stop electromagnetic chaos, the number of these reports is clearly accelerating...


  • Cars vs. cosmic rays
    MSNBC Cosmic Log, 2nd April 2010 Flashback!

    Diagram from The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (2007)
    by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder.


    Could cosmic rays affect electronics here on Earth? Yes, absolutely. Could cosmic rays be what's causing the mysterious accelerator problems in Toyota cars? Maybe. That's one of the reasons why a NASA engineering team has been called in to assist in a federal investigation.

    The team - drawn from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, or NESC - serves as the space agency's rapid-response unit for engineering expertise. It was set up in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, in response to investigators' concerns that NASA didn't have an independent safety watchdog.

    Comment:
    The solar wind used to be described as a bullet proof vest that batted away most cosmic rays but now it's flagging at an all time low and the heliospheric current sheet is flattening out, NASA are expecting if this happens cosmic rays will go up another 30% above the current high, see Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High! The European Space Agency ESA) have told us straight that the Earth's magnetic field is full of rifts and occassionally disappears on the daylight side see, Multiple rifts in Earth's magnetic shield but at the time, they had forgotten to update their own tutorial that tells us that we don't have to worry about cosmic rays as we are protected by Earth's "strong magnetic field". So far, space agencies appear very coy about providing any statistics about how much protection is now being provided in comparison to historical levels. However, the ESA did claim that there is no need to worry as the Earth's atmosphere acts like a bullet proof vest but if that was true, then we would not have the influence on cloud formation and 10,000 muons (secondary particles generated from primary cosmic rays) would not be passing through our bodies every minute. It is also worth noticing that scientists have been telling us that there are discreet sources that seem to be 'targetting' Earth and even talk of dark energy sources that are being directly aimed at Earth. At the time, these reports were noted, but it has to be said they have been mostly short on quantitative facts and figures. However, we do know there is an issue as international efforts have been set up to monitor the situation as described in my book, Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism and Spiritual Evolution. Please note: Thinking positively does NOT stop cosmic rays.

    Reasons For Mysterious Computer Crashes
    Rense.com, 20th May 2007 Flashback!
    Do you get that "blue screen of death" on your PC now and then for no reason, requiring you to reboot? Does your Apple give you that infamous fatal error message requiring you to re-boot? You're not alone. Defective software can certainly cause these events to happen. The hardware industry is now pointing their finger at Microsoft - while Microsoft points their finger right back in a very crafty way.


Detroit man gambles away $1.5 million accidentally given by ATM
Yahoo News, 19th June 2012
Ronald Page seemingly had it made when Bank of America unintentionally changed his account status, allowing the 55-year-old man to make unlimited ATM cash overdraft withdrawals.

But ABC News reports that Page, who in reality had only $300 in his checking account, used the accidental loophole to withdraw more than $1.5 million–losing it all on gambling.

And even worse for Page, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit says he is now facing 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of theft of bank funds, $1,543,104 in total between December 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009.

Comment:
This story made me laugh, compulsive gambler Ronald Page took out $1.5 million in 17 days to fritter away before the bank noticed.... LOL

Reality check: When the power grid goes down, all grid-tie solar systems will go down with it
Natural News, 16th June 2012
(NaturalNews) A lot of people believe they are becoming "power independent" by installing grid-tie solar systems, but what many don't realize is that virtually all such systems are designed to actively go offline when the power grid goes offline.

A "grid-tie" solar system is one that ties into the power grid, pulling electricity from the grid when needed, then pushing excess electricity back into the grid when the local customer isn't using the full capacity being generated by PV panels (photovoltaic). As long as the grid stays up, it's a clever solution because it reduces or even eliminates the customer's electric bills while generating "clean" energy.

Because of the very fact that these systems are tied into the power grid, however, they all have a safety feature that disconnects them from the grid when the grid goes down. In other words, if the power grid goes offline, your entire grid-tie solar array becomes instantly useless and you can't power a laptop computer even if you have $100,000 worth of solar panels sitting on your roof. In a grid-tie system, they all are instantly shut off.

Comment:
Simply, TPTB do not want people independent, if and when it hits the fan, they want as many people as possible desperate, because desperate people are much easier to control.



GPS loss kicked off fatal drone crash
New Scientist News, 18th May 2012
Hopes that a new breed of commercial drones can be easily integrated into civilian airspace have been dashed after it was revealed that the loss of the technology likely to make it all possible - automatic GPS navigation between waypoints - led to a fatal accident last week.

The news comes after the maker of a surveillance drone that crashed into its control truck in Incheon, South Korea on 10 May, killing one of the company's engineers and injuring the two remote pilots, has confirmed that loss of the aircraft's GPS signal was an initiating event in the accident. But in preliminary findings ahead of an official report from the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board in Seoul, drone maker Schiebel of Vienna, Austria says that the GPS outage should not have led to loss of control of the aircraft, alleging that the remote pilots had reacted erroneously when GPS was lost. [...]

Comment:
Space Weather is making the use of GPS very difficult due to excessive turbulence in the ionosphere that disturb the accuracy which is GPS is supposed to produce. Hence, there have been various reports from the military and other major users in the last five years or so declaring that users must not become overly reliant on this technology, see archives for major reports and important relevant articles.



Germany train crash: Three die in Offenbach collision
BBC News, 13th April 2012
See archives for link to the Lloyds of London Executive Summary section 5:. Space weather can also disrupt pipelines and railway signals



Sat-nav directions leave lorry wedged in Bristol street
BBC News, 27th March 2012



Information on the GOES-15 outage
WUWT, 22nd March 2012



Unexplained explosion caught live on Phoenix news broadcast
Yahoo News, March 2012



Underground Explosions Force Crews to Cut Power in Downtown Erie
Erie TV News, 8th March 2012



Southern Poland train crash leaves six dead
BBC News, 4th March 2012
Three serious rail crashes in 2 weeks? See below...



1 in 8 Chance of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020
Wired News, 29th February 2012
The Earth has a roughly 12 percent chance of experiencing an enormous megaflare erupting from the sun in the next decade. This event could potentially cause trillions of dollars' worth of damage and take up to a decade to recover from.

Such an extreme event is considered to be relatively rare. The last gigantic solar storm, known as the Carrington Event, occurred more than 150 years ago and was the most powerful such event in recorded history.

That a rival to this event might have a greater than 10 percent chance of happening in the next 10 years was surprising to space physicist Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, who published the estimate in Space Weather on Feb. 23.

Comment:
That is quite a quote: 'It's like being able to see a cyclone coming but not knowing the wind speed until it hits your boat 50 miles off the coast.' This is from the abstract of the paper: On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events
In this study, we analyze several measures of the severity of space weather events (flare intensity, coronal mass ejection speeds, Dst, and >30 MeV proton fluences as inferred from nitrate records) to estimate the probability of occurrence of extreme events.

By showing that the frequency of occurrence scales as an inverse power of the severity of the event, and assuming that this relationship holds at higher magnitudes, we are able to estimate the probability that an event larger than some criteria will occur within a certain interval of time in the future. For example, the probability of another Carrington event (based on Dst < -850 nT) occurring within the next decade is ~12%. We also identify and address several limitations with this approach. In particular, we assume time stationarity, and thus, the effects of long-term space climate change are not considered.
How interesting, someone has admitted in print that there is an awareness "of long-term space climate change". Yes, what that means is that we can't use the past to predict the future because the properties of space have changed. As far as the Russians are concerned, there has been a change in the "transmitting" properties of space, which means that major blasts of space weather will provide more effective "zaps" or electrical shocks to Earth...



3 Via employees die in Ontario derailment
CBC News, 27th February 2012
Via Rail has confirmed that three of its employees, all in the locomotive section, died in a train derailment in the southern Ontario city of Burlington on Sunday afternoon.

"There's no question it's very tragic. We're a relatively small company, we're a family, we know everyone by name," said Via chief operating officer John Marginson, speaking to reporters at the scene.

"We certainly feel for the families of the colleagues that we lost," said Marginson, who added that there was no fuel leak at the site. The derailment involved five cars as well as the locomotive.

"It's very premature to speculate … but obviously something went very wrong," he said.

Comment:
Two in a week.... here they are saying that it will take a year to investigate, why so long? This is a reminder because I have no evidence that this was caused by space weather.
Executive Summary
5. Space weather can also disrupt pipelines and railway signals

It can cause problems such as corrosion on pipelines and incorrect signal settings on railways. Again, there are means to mitigate these effects, but they usually require keeping back-up systems, which adds to operational costs.

Rail transport
Railways show how technological change has increased the risk from space weather. Steam trains from as little as 50 years ago were not vulnerable to space weather, but modern electric trains are. The most obvious vulnerability of rail transport is the dependence of many routes on electrical power. However, another emerging effect of space weather on railways is that it can drive additional currents in railway signalling systems (communicated via the rails). [...] Recent studies of signalling problems in Russia provide evidence of problems caused by the great magnetic storms of 1989 and 2003, and they show how the problem is growing as more routes adopt electric signals.60 It is important that operators in all countries, and not just those in the northern latitude, are aware of the increased risk of space weather and the potential effect it can have on the signal systems so that engineering staff can monitor and resolve operational problems as quickly as possible.

Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business
Lloyd's of London, November 2010


Argentina train crash in Buenos Aires kills 49
BBC News, 23rd February 2012
"At least 49 people have been killed and more than 600 injured in the worst train crash in Argentina in 40 years, officials say."

Four injured as helicopter breaks up landing in Brazil
BBC News, 24th February 2012 Do not miss watching this!
"Officials believe the helicopter experienced ground resonance, which happens when the rotor is working while the helicopter is on a level surface."
Hmmmm.... Looks like the helicopter landed at a vortex point when energies were in some major flux... I don't see there is any other explanation...



Power failure forces reactor shutdown at Brunswick plant
Star News Online, 23rd February 2012



'Complacent' MoD Warned Of Space Risk [UK]
Sky News, 22nd February 2012
A space attack by a hostile country or terrorists could bring down the UK's power supply and the threat should be taken more seriously, the Ministry of Defence has been told.

If a nuclear device was detonated 500 miles above the earth, it could generate an electro-magnetic pulse which could wipe out electricity and telecommunications.

The Commons Defence Committee has accused the MoD of being "complacent" about the risks and wants it to ensure the UK's infrastructure could withstand an attack as a "matter of urgency"

The UK Defence Committee also warned a "space weather event" is more likely to take place and could have a similar effect.

According to the report, the Government currently considers the chances of this happening in the next five years to be "moderate to high".


Comment:
Finally, the knives are coming out.... Enough people with something call a brain have realised that new measures need to be taken, it is a matter of self-preservation... Yes, they are warnings of a military attack as an excuse to get the funding, but the efforts of an itsy bitsy country like Iran is no comparison to the cosmic forces bearing down on planet Earth. For anyone new to space weather, please watch the August 2011 NASA video below to see why space scientists are shocked about the solar tsunamis coming from space.
  • Spacecraft Sees Solar Storm Engulf Earth
    NASA Science News, 18th August 2011
    August 18, 2011: For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.

    "The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."


UK vulnerable to 'space weather events' and space-fired weapons, say MPs Defence committee report says government must approach threats with seriousness they deserve
The Guardian, 22nd February 2012
Britain is vulnerable to attack from space-fired nuclear weapons and "space weather" – the result of changes in solar activity – and the government is not doing enough to combat its potentially devastating impact, a cross-party group of MPs has warned.

The likelihood of a severe space weather event has "the potential to cause damage to electrically conducting systems such as power grids, pipelines and signalling circuits", says a report by the Commons defence committee, which also claims Britain would be vulnerable to attack from space-fired weapons.

It describes space weather as a "naturally occurring phenomenon that can impact upon the Earth's environment in ways that are detrimental to key technologies in operation in space, the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth".

Comment:
It looks like more people are taking space weather much more seriously.... good! See archives for previous comments and links to major space weather reports, Best of the Blog Space Weather.

Britain at risk from 'GoldenEye' electromagnetic pulse attack from space Space Weather, MPs warn
The Telegraph, 22nd February 2012
Please spare us the James Bond fantasy stuff... FFS LET'S GET REAL!



'Doomsday' scene stuns drivers in Russia
9 News, 7th February 2012
It looks like a scene from an apocalyptic film – the night sky illuminated by a massive ball of light as John Lennon's song "Imagine" plays on the radio.

The video, recorded on a dashboard camera in the Moscow region of Russia, shows the moment an electrical substation exploded in front of drivers on a busy highway.

Comment:
I don't believe the official report of this being caused by a transformer but it's not hard to believe that a transformer might have been affected and blew up as a consequence, hence people losing their power... I believe this is the same phenomena that we have seen before in Forth Worth (Dallas), Japan. Portugal and Brazil and a few other places where the flashes of light turn the sky different colours. Here, the sudden blaze of light is nothing like a transformer fire (see YouTube) and I would even suggest it is closer to a quakelight except quakelights don't turn the sky into different colours as we saw spectacularly in Forth Worth and there was no associated earthquake. If you have not seen the Fort Worth video then you must to appreciate that something extraordinary is happening.... Well, can you imagine driving and being blinded by that kind of light... I am still wondering whether the term 'apocalytic' is appropriate but I suppose it is... This appears to be a new geophysical phenomenon but only if it can't be categorised as a new type of quakelight. For details of similar events go to, Best of the Blog - Space Weather, Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos



The Bermuda Triangle... of Cambridgeshire: Villagers living near Army barracks locked out of their cars 'by mystery high-frequency radio waves' [UK]
Daily Mail, 3rd February 2012
Residents living near an Army barracks say their village green became a mysterious 'Bermuda Triangle' after their remote-control car door locks were by jammed by radio interference.

Motorists in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, say the locks on their cars refused to work when they parked at the village green.

Modern push-button ignitions were also scuppered by the unknown, eerie interference. Radio experts first noticed the problem when they met in the village pub last week and discovered they were all locked out of their vehicles.

Some members of the group had to get lifts home and return with manual overrides.

Comment:
I don't know why The Daily Mail reported: "This is the first time an English village has experienced mysterious electronics failures." This might be technically true but I think folk in the small town of Windermere might take exception to having their troubles ignored... see below: Whatever, it does seem like the frequency of similar electromagnetic inteference (EMI) events are increasing in the UK... See previous comments, but I think I will repeat the fact that I suspect that Army barracks, the same as airports are located at energy vortexes to improve communications... Hence, it conveniently hides what is really going on as torrents of energies continue to spiral down out of the sky. If you want to argue with this analysis, you need to show me a geomagnetic map with the locations of Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) flow before I will change my mind. See also: Garage Door Openers Stop Working On Entire Missouri Block [US].

Mystery of the 'Windermere Triangle', where traffic lights decide whether cars unlock [UK]
Daily Mail, 12th February 2010

The black hole of Britain! Mystery as heating, doorbells and showers stop working in sleepy village (near 'top secret' military base)
Daily Mail, 5th January 2012



Local Paper: "News could be catastrophic for San Onofre" nuke plant in Calif. – Over 800 tubes show damage – Multiple pipes may have burst – Still can't determine size of leak
Energy News, 2nd February 2012
The lunatics ARE running the asylum...



Indian teacher stunned by $10bln bank balance
Yahoo News, 20th January 2012
An Indian high school teacher, with a monthly salary of around $700, was astounded when a routine online check of his bank account showed a balance of almost $10 billion.

Parijat Saha, from the town of Balurghat in West Bengal state, said he had checked his State Bank of India account online last Sunday to confirm reception of a 10,000 rupee ($200) interest payment.

"Instead I saw this astronomical amount," he told AFP by telephone. The account showed a balance of 496 billion rupees.

Comment:
I am sure someone would have noticed eventually.... But this must have been a stray cosmic ray causing a bit flip. Something that will continue to get worse as the cosmic radiation from space continues to flood our world and affect unshielded electronics.



Costa Concordia captain's detour to please waiter flagged on Facebook
Herald Sun, 19th January 2012
[...] Amid news of the difficult rescue, it emerged that the captain of the stricken Costa Concordia allegedly performed a 'sail-by' stunt for a staff member that was flagged on Facebook. And while the human drama unfolded inside the Costa Concordia's wrecked remains, crews outside installed anti-spill booms to prevent a possible ecological disaster resulting from the fully-fueled ship hitting rocks near the island of Giglio and then slumping on its side.


Dangerous detour flagged on Facebook
What caused the 17-deck behemoth carrying more than 4000 passengers and crew to veer into the barrier Friday night has not been positively determined.

But the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the captain, Francesco Schettino, allegedly performed a 'sail-by' close to Giglio's rocky shores to please his head waiter, Antonello Tievoli, 46, who comes from the island. [...]

"That's enough, we have to stop treating these ships like they were simple vaporetti," said Clini, referring to the boats that ply the canals of Venice.

Comment:
This is a good status update... Basta! The Italians will understand the sentiment.... If this is true then the captain might have sailed to close to the island and hit an unchartered rock.... a massive fail based on expecting GPS to be 100% accurate which it is not....

Costa Concordia Passenger: Titanic Theme Played As Ship Hit Rocks
Huffington Post, 18th January 2012



Accusations that captain left ship early investigated [Updates]
MSNBC News, 15th January 2012
Summary: Two of the 129 Americans who escaped injury when a submerged rock brought down a cruise ship shortly after departing an Italian port Friday tell TODAY's Lester Holt that the crew appeared was unprepared and unsure about emergency procedures.

Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET:
Two more bodies were recovered from the capsized Italian cruise ship, raising the official death toll to 5, as investigators looked into accusations that the captain abandoned ship early. The bodies were recovered by divers at the emergency gathering point near a restaurant area. Fifteen people are still unaccounted for.

Updated at 10:10 a.m. ET:
Two survivors of the Italian cruise ship that hit a reef are among those who said the captain abandoned ship early. A prosecutor earlier said he's investigating those allegations.

Comment:
This is quite an emotional report. What else can I say, GPS is unreliable. It does not matter if you are driving a car or steering a massive ship or even an oil tanker at sea, you cannot take GPS for granted (see previous horror stories of people driving into lakes etc, tankers with holes etc), but if you steering a ship or a tanker and are in a narrow navigation channel, it is especially important to pay attention. If people bother to look, they will find there are a lot of documents detailing the problems with GPS caused by space weather and warnings by the military. The UK military have even started to do military exercises without GPS and boaters are being warned to learn how to use a compass again because they cannot rely on GPS. Since most people don't seem to be interested in reality, I suppose we can expect more of the same.



Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio [VIDEO]
BBC News, 14th January 2012
Three people are confirmed dead after a cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 people ran aground off Italy. There were scenes of panic as the Costa Concordia hit a sandbar on Friday evening near the island of Giglio and listed about 20 degrees.

Most people reached land by lifeboats but some swam to shore. At least 50 people have not yet been accounted for, Italian officials say, but they caution that the passenger list may not be fully up to date. Coast guard vessels are combing the waters around the ship, while divers are searching the submerged decks.

Comment:
My first thought was space weather due to the many different reports but the photos provided by the Daily Mail and talk of an electrical failure may imply other scenarios. So far, we have conflicting reports that do not make sense, how can hitting a sandbar cause a 30m hole? The Daily Mail photo has a caption "Rocks embedded in the ruptured side of the Costa Concordia reveal the extent of the damage to the hull" here, and that is a lot more like it..... If the electronics failed then why was the cruise ship left crippled to run aground by hitting rocks? What caused such a massive ship to destabalise? At the moment there are two scenarios: 1. A complete GPS fail or 2. The ship might have had it's electronics knocked out by an natural electromagnetic pulse. In the Daily Mail photo center right here you can see what looks like some kind of some kind of vent of bubbles or even signs of a volcanic eruption. We do know that there are electrical discharges are associated with volcanic eruptions and this will explain the sound of a boom too. So, possibly when the electronics were knocked out, the ship drifted into the rocks. Whatever, I still think the captain will be blamed in either case because he should have known they were too close to underwater rocks from his experience of being in this location and the ship turning over. At the moment, I am assuming this was not any kind of human sabotage and just the cruise ship was in the wrong place and the wrong time. Due to the serious ebb and flow of cosmic and terrestrial energies on our planet, we can expect chaos.

Dozens of passengers 'still missing' and three dead after luxury cruise liner carrying 4,200 people capsizes off the coast of Italy [PHOTOS]
Daily Mail, 14th January 2012

UK News Report: Italy's Costa Concordia: 'People started to panic'
YouTube, 14th January 2012
This ship worker tells us that people behaved attrociously and started to push and shove to get on the lifeboats as people wanted what THEY wanted. People could not wait for the lifeboats and jumped into the water and then had to wait to be rescued hence risking heart attacks, broken bones, hyperthermia and drowning. There was no interest in women and children first..... In a society of people with the mentality of it's all about ME, ME, & *ç%"+ ME, that should be no surprise.

Dozens Missing After Cruise Ship Capsize [Sky News Video]
Sky News, 14th January 2012
Still unbelievable.... In the 2nd report here the presenter asks the question about the navigation systems.... As I have been stating for at least 3 years. Normal GPS is becoming unusable due to space weather.



Power outage in Turkey affects millions
MSNBC News, 14th January 2012
ISTANBUL – A Turkish state-run news agency says a power outage has left millions without electricity in Istanbul and five other cities. [So how many millions affected is that?]

On Saturday, Istanbul – a city of more than 12 million – was left without heating or electricity for several hours, and its subway and tram system were closed down. The Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed officials, said the outage was due to the breakdown of a power transformer near the northwestern city of Bursa. It said the cities of Sakarya, Kocaeli, Tekirdag, Kirklareli and Edirne were also affected.

Comment:
I suspect Turkish power grid operators are not watching out for space weather induced dangers.... News of the Imbalance long termers will realise that there tend to be clusters of certain types of accidents and news events that can be associated with space weather and the Earth's magnetosphere being in poor shape. As I have already explained, I have been watching the NICT magnetosphere simulations and I was surprised with the news of the C-class solar flare disturbing radio communications. Now there are reports of strange sounds (I have not bothered to list all the reports), so I am assuming that geomagnetic currents were induced and knocked out a major transformer.... . Check the NICT movies, the magnetosphere has been flooded with energy in the last week on and off. I have been checking NASA's Integrated Space Weather Analysis system (ISWA) and the magnetosphere standoff was hit on the 12th and then again on the 13th (see below). According to NASA; "Under quiet condition the magnetopause is 10 RE to 12 RE away from Earth." So reaching 8 RE is not so bad, as hitting geosynchronous orbit at 6.6 RE is considered dangerous for satellites. RE = Earth Radii



Village where nothing works after electrical signal failures [UK]
Villagers were left unable to use their showers, doorbells and even car key fobs for several days in the latest case of suspected wireless interference.
The Telegraph, 5th January 2012
Families in Kingsclere on the Hampshire-Berkshire border, spent much of the festive season without heating after the failure of household systems which rely on digital technology.

One family, the Smiths, were baffled when their heating, shower, doorbell and even their car's remote-control door locks refused to work. They then discovered similar problems were being experienced by their neighbours.

Chris Smith, whose wife's birthday on Christmas Eve was ruined by the systems failure, spent more than £250 trying to fix the heating and shower but neither worked until late on Dec 27

Comment:
So far, there have only been a few of these stories here and there, but I expect this electromagnetic interference problem to get worse. Energy is pouring onto the planet and is being absorbed at specific energy points, that are often called portals or vortexes. (I have seen a very interesting geomagnetic map of the UK where geomagnetic currents flow into and out of the ground. Actually, I was pleased to see that at least some quarters are taking space weather seriously.) So, even though engineers say they can pin-point certain devices that they say are causing the interference (in this case nothing has been proven), I imagine the real issue is that somehow the signals are being amplified. Possibly, there are new carrier waves that are delivering these signals or simply, the same signals are coming from space and they coincide. This is the reality of the electromagnetic chaos on this planet and I expect things to get worse.

The black hole of Britain! Mystery as heating, doorbells and showers stop working in sleepy village (near 'top secret' military base)
Daily Mail, 5th January 2012



Power Grid Failure: Severe Storms Led To Sewage Spills Across State [US]
The Hartford Courant, 31st December 2011
While power outages during Tropical Storm Irene and the October snowstorm left much of the state in the dark, they had a less-publicized but possibly more damaging result – millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled into waterways throughout Connecticut when backup power systems failed at waste treatment plants.

The 47 spills reported to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, ranged from 42.7 million gallons of partially treated sewage dumped into Long Island Sound in Stamford to 250 gallons of raw sewage poured into the Farmington River in Simsbury. The reports were filed to the DEEP during the two storms so state officials could monitor possible environmental issues.

Nearly all of the spills were caused either by flooding during the tropical storm or by power failures coupled with malfunctioning backup generators.

Comment:
Just a little of the expected chaos when the electricity power grid disappears.



Man wins £37m fruit machine jackpot... but is offered £60 and a free meal instead
Daily Mail, 12th December 2011
A gambler who thought he had won £37million on a fruit machine has been offered a free meal and £60 instead, after casino bosses said the jackpot was due to a 'software error'. Behar Merlaku, 26, played the winning machine at a casino in Bregenz, Austria.

Despite only getting four of the slot machine's five required matches, Mr Merlaku was told he had won the massive jackpot - complete with a winning bell and flashing screen. However when he went to claim his prize, the Swiss player was instead offered the money and meal by casino bosses after they refused to pay out.

Now the disgruntled 26-year-old is to launch a lawsuit in Austria next month to force the casino to honour the 'win', which Mr Merlaku's lawyers says he is entitled to because of the what machine said.

Comment:
This seems to happen on a regular basis, someone woman thought she had won $42 million, which was reported in March 2010.... Was this caused by another stray cosmic ray switching bits and bytes?



Mystery fault strands cars at Tesco
Yorkshire Post, 8th November 2011
Electrical interference at a supermarket petrol station is forcing drivers to push their cars off the forecourt as it causes chaos by immobilising their vehicles. Motorists filling up at Tesco in Clifton Moor, York, have been left puzzled by the mysterious defect, which is leaving some drivers unable to start the engine.

But strangely, the problem, which has been reccurring for over six weeks, stops as soon as cars are pushed off the forecourt. Martyn Lamb, 54, has been having trouble while filling up his Ford Focus since September.

Comment:
In the archives, there are at least one other example of a zone in the UK where there are major issues with electromagnetic interference EMI, that could be natural (energy portals) or a more mundane artificial cause. To be honest, it amazes me with the high levels of EM pollution that there are not more problems. What's more as energy levels rise across the planet, we can expect more of the same kind of issues.



Twitter storm as HSBC systems crash affects millions across UK
Daily Mail, 4th November 2011
SBC was today hit by a nationwide systems crash thought to have affected millions of customers. The bank's cash machines, branches, debit cards, and internet banking services all stopped working at 2.45pm after a computer glitch.

The outage lasted more than two hours, with frantic HSBC staff finally finding a fix at 4.50pm. Earlier, a Twitter storm erupted with worried customers saying they could not withdraw money from HSBC cash machines and their cards had been declined in shops.

Comment:
Oh well, we did have an X2 solar flare that would have affected Earth's atmosphere and Earth's magnetic shielding (magnetosphere) is in quite poor shape these days... Well, since so many major banks are having problems with their technology (see link below), we can only presume that the electromagnetic smog combined with cosmic rays and cosmic radiation is now starting to have quite a detrimental effect... It is most likely that due to space weather and Earth's weakening defences, things are likely to get far worse and if modern society is going to survive we need to do things very differently in the future.



Solar flare could unleash nuclear holocaust across planet Earth, forcing hundreds of nuclear power plants into total meltdowns
Earth Matters, 26th October 2011
(Natural News) Forget about the 2012 Mayan calendar, comet Elenin or the Rapture. The real threat to human civilization is far more mundane, and it's right in front of our noses. If Fukushima has taught us anything, it's that just one runaway meltdown of fissionable nuclear material can have wide-ranging and potentially devastating consequences for life on Earth. To date, Fukushima has already released 168 times the total radiation released from the Hiroshima nuclear bomb detonated in 1945, and the Fukushima catastrophe is now undeniably the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization.

But what if human civilization faced a far greater threat than a single tsunami destroying a nuclear power facility? What if a global tidal wave could destroy the power generating capacities of all the world's power plants, all at once?

Such a scenario is not merely possible, but factually inevitable. And the global tidal wave threatening all the nuclear power plants of the world isn't made of water but solar emissions.

Comment:
I actually blogged the original version of this article but a Dutch friend sent me this new link. As part of my response I wrote:
"...we have created a nightmare on this planet by our total reliance on electricity and national power grids that are now vulnerable to space weather. This scenario does not have to happen, but at the moment, most people are not taking Space Weather seriously enough. It was only 1 month ago exactly that there was a CME that created ground currents in Norway and the last warning came 44 minutes from when the ACE satellite picked up the blast and for the CME to travel the last 1 million miles to hit our planet. How hard is it to comprehend that the planet is being 'zapped' by the sun?"
For those who are new to this website, PLEASE watch Perfect Disaster: Solar Storm (2006), as this documentary-drama explains the signs that tell us that space weather is getting much worse. Then you will know a little more about why we have had some amazing auroras, 2 satellites dropping out of their orbits within a month of each other, why satellites are malfunctioning, why mobile phone networks sometimes fail, why GPS is failing, why there are so many computer glitches, why there are so many electrical transformers blowing up, why there are so many more blackouts, why there are so many pipeline leaks and explosions, etc... My message has always been about a need to wake up and start changing how we do business on this planet because the conditions in space have changed dramatically and our cosy little existence on Earth cannot stay the same. What's more, humans are electromagnetic so we are being affected by the chaotic electromagnetic and geomagnetic environment. Further major reports from space agencies, governments and big business can be found at Best of the Blog - Space Weather & Best of the Blog Space Weather & Electromagnetic Chaos



MoD Halts GPS Jamming After Safety Complaints
Eweek Europe, 11th October 2011
A huge naval exercise has been banned from using GPS jamming technology after safety complaints

A major naval exercise off the coast of Scotland has been ordered to stop using GPS jamming technology after complaints it is endangering the lives of fishermen and is disrupting mobile phones.

The Nato exercise, dubbed 'Joint Warrior', involves the military forces from 14 countries and is taking place off the west coast of Scotland.

As part of the operation, Global Positioning System (GPS) services were jammed in a radius of 20 miles around the various warships. GPS Jamming. Apparently, the Royal Navy had issued warnings last month and in early October that GPS in parts of Scotland would be disrupted during the naval exercise.

But according to the BBC, Western Isles fishermen said the first they knew was when their equipment went offline last Friday. And it seems that the military's GPS jamming also impacted mobile phones, Internet connectivity as well as satellite TV. Following the fisherman's complaints, the jamming of GPS has been suspended, and the Royal Navy said the military would seek to address safety concerns.

Comment:
If you have read enough space weather reports written by military and civilian organisations, you will find that space weather has the ability to jam satellite signals and create false signals coming from satellites, that in affect are the equivalent of terrorist jamming. In an article for the Air Force Times, Schwartz warns against dependence on GPS, dated 23rd January 2010, and it seems there has been a major change of heart about the military use of GPS. This is a new dispensation, dependency on GPS accuracy is now a thing of the past.
The Air Force's top uniformed leader thinks the military is too dependent on global positioning and must develop an alternative to the navigation system to reduce its vulnerability to enemies.

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz delivered his warning about the government's satellite constellation Jan. 20 at a national security conference in Washington but also assured his fellow defense leaders that Air Force scientists are working to develop other navigational technologies.

"Global positioning has transformed an entire universe of war-fighting capability. Our dependence on precision navigation in time will continue to grow," Schwartz said in the opening address to the conference, sponsored by the Institute of Foreign Policy and Tufts University's Fletcher School. "It seemed critical to me that the joint force reduce its dependence on GPS aid." [...] Schwartz told the audience he fears reliance on GPS could paralyze operations if an enemy blocked the GPS datalink or – even worse – programmed U.S. satellites to send the wrong coordinates.

"Our operations cannot grind to a halt for a degraded or denied system," he said. "Our reliance on information technologies, for example, is very well known."

Schwartz warns against dependence on GPS, Air Force Times, 23rd January 2010
I have already quoted from the Lloyds Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business report already once this week, but I will repeat it again, hopefully after the recent media focus on space weather in the last few weeks, I believe there must be some new website visitors who would be interested to understand the implications of what is happening. Thus we read:
Businesses should avoid reliance on satellite navigation as the sole source of position data.

"The major risk is the potential to lose the satellite navigation signal completely. We expect that disturbed space weather conditions will become much more common in the period from 2012 to 2015 due to increasing solar activity. Therefore it is likely users will experience a loss of signal more often. In such cases, we may expect major position errors to arise, perhaps comparable to those caused by the transmission of competing radio signals, known as jamming. For example, a recent jamming test in the UK showed position errors of up to 20km. Businesses should avoid reliance on satellite navigation as the sole source of position data. It is essential to have a second system that uses a different technology. A good example is the enhanced-LORAN navigation systems, such as that now being deployed in the UK."

Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business
Lloyd's of London, November 2010
Please do not be fooled, space weather IS the biggest enemy to Military operations and hence the encouragement to start learning how to do without, hence the need for military exercises. Space weather is cosmic energies frying satellites and swamping our planet, it is clear that things are getting far worse, as there has been some interesting examples of major technological failures, see archives, but please note: I have been listing biological failures too for quite some time.



BlackBerry outage blamed on 'extremely critical' network failure (Video)
CNN News, 12th October 2011
(CNN) -- Millions of BlackBerry users remained without service on Wednesday as a three-day service outage spread to North America, causing massive frustrations for people who rely on these smartphones for business and personal communications.

"BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning," Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, said in a statement. "We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available."

The outage now affects people on every continent but Antarctica, according to the company's statements. [...]

There are about 70 million BlackBerry users worldwide. RIM has not commented on how many users are affected, but reports suggest the number of users without some sort of service has climbed into the millions.

Comment:
I have to say this is now impressive.... I thought the Blackberry phone with an image of lightening was quite appropriate...

BlackBerry outage day three: RIM explains what went wrong
Silicon.com, 12th October 2011
It's amazing how many of these major embarrassing service outages are blamed on software upgrade failures. I have worked as an analyst in large computer installations, there are procedures that are supposed to eliminate this kind of failure. This is one of the reasons why I simply can't believe the explanations that are being given to the media. I can presume that the issues are really related to corrupted software/hardware (due to cosmic rays switching bits and bytes) that cannot be easily detected until something goes dreadfully wrong and be dealt with quickly due to the fact that the corruption has duplicated itself in some way.... I could be wrong but so far, nothing I have read provides an adequate explanation.

Softbank Server Glitch Damps iPhone 4S Launch
Wall Street Journal, 14th October 2011
"It's usually a jubilant day for design-sensitive tech geeks and Softbank Corp. whenever a new Apple Inc. product hits store shelves, but a technical glitch damped enthusiasm Friday. [...] The launch of the iPhone 4S in Japan was interrupted when Softbank – the main service provider for Apple products in the country–suffered a server glitch that temporarily suspended sales nationwide. A company spokesman said the servers were unable to process registration information."
The techie blues has hit again!



'I'm switching to iPhone': Fury spreads as BlackBerry glitch rolls into third day in Europe, Middle East and Africa
Daily Mail, 12th October 2011
# Sir Alan Sugar: 'In all my years in IT biz, I have never seen such a outage as experienced by Blackberry. I can't understand why it's taking so long to fix'
# BlackBerry spokesperson refuses to confirm how many of its 70million users were affected
# Jokes emerge on Twitter at firm's expense: 'What did one BlackBerry user say to the other Blackberry user? Nothing'

BlackBerry users in the UK were hit with service disruptions to their smartphones for a third successive day after an unexplained glitch cut off Internet and messaging services.

Sir Alan Sugar tweeted, 'In all my years in IT biz, I have never seen such a outage as experienced by Blackberry. I can't understand why it's taking so long to fix.' Former political spin doctor Alastair Campbell said, 'Some free advice. Explain while you fix. Apologise when you have. Recompense after.'

BlackBerry's official UK account, meanwhile, stated 'Message delays were caused by a core switch failure in RIM's infrastructure. Sincerely sorry but now being resolved' - despite the fact that widespread reports say that the problems are still occurring. BlackBerry has not explained why back-up systems have failed to solve the fault, or why it has repeatedly assured customers the fault had been fixed when it has clearly not.

Comment:
Well, Earth's magnetic field is breaking down (see the lastest magnetosphere images) and we have less protection against cosmic rays because the ionosphere has lowered dramatically too... (The solar wind flagging, which is another level of defence that is declining too), so, people need to start realising that our modern technological world is no longer going to work smoothly... Switching smartphones is not the answer because all companies that rely on computer installations and data centres will be having the same type of problems. It will be random hits that just keep occuring... I agree with Sir Alan Sugar, I can't understand why this outage is taking so long to fix and reminds me of the recent Amazon Cloud problems, see archives. At the moment, all the warnings coming from the space agencies and insurance companies about understanding the impact of space weather does not seem to have filtered down to enough people. Really, I need a technical assessment, but techies prefer to talk and explain what happened long after all the heat has dissipated...

Second outage deepens BlackBerry crisis
Millions of BlackBerry mobile users endured a second day without access to the internet on Tuesday, despite a claim by the firm behind the smartphone brand it had "restored" online services in the wake of a similar collapse on Monday.
The Telegraph, 11th October 2011
"When RIM publicly acknowledged the second failure, at around 4pm, it revealed that users in India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina were also cut off from online services. "Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays," RIM said in a statement. "We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused." "
  • Massive Solar Blast this afternoon? Oct. 11
    YouTube, 11th October 2011
    "Solar Blast with 7 hours of video Missing."
    This is just weird and I don't know if it is related, but 7 hours of missing data is suspicious, I believe that something very interesting happened, but I think it is related to the properties of space and not specifically anything strange with the Sun... This is strange, I have just find this at extinctionprotocol.com but apparently it was taken from spaceweather.com.
    More turbulence ahead? The farside region of the Sun where a monstrous explosion occurred is rotating Earthward. We've also noticed sunspot clusters have also formed in larger patches on the Sun over the last few weeks. Growing sunspot 1313 is crackling with C-class solar flares. A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Oct. 15th. –
    Spaceweather.com 11th October 2011
    Below is the NOAA/U.S. Air Force summary for 11th Oct.

    # Prepared jointly by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA,
    # Space Weather Prediction Center and the U.S. Air Force.
    #
    Joint USAF/NOAA Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity SDF Number 284 Issued at 2200Z on 11 Oct 2011
    IA. Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 10/2100Z to 11/2100Z: Solar activity has been at very low levels for the past 24 hours. Region 1313 (S15W13) remains the most magnetically complex region, but has failed to produce any notable activity. Early in the period, two new regions rotated onto the visible disk, around the southeast limb, and were numbered as Region 1316 (S12E56) and Region 1317 (S26E68).
    SWPC Solar Activity Report and Forecast updated daily at 22:00.



NYSE Recovers From Fire at NJ Data Center
12160.info, 10th October 2011
The New York Stock Exchange says it expects a normal trading day after a small fire Sunday at its data center in Mahwah, New Jersey, which supports computer systems that are critical to the U.S. financial markets. The NYSE says the incident briefly interrupted connectivity for some customers, but should have no impact on its trading operations for Monday.

"On Sunday, there was an isolated electrical fire that was quickly extinguished within a single computer cabinet at our Mahwah data center," the NYSE said in a statement. "The incident, which resulted in no injuries, affected communications connectivity to 58 customers who have been notified that we are testing all systems and expect completely normal operations for Monday's market open."

The 400,000 square foot data center in Mahwah serves as the nerve center for the NYSE"s electronic trading operations. The facility is staffed around the clock by employees trained to respond to electrical fires and other emergencies. Like most major data centers, the NYSE facility has systems that monitor temperature in data halls and provide alerts in the event of sudden changes. Data centers also are equipped with sensitive fire detection systems triggered by the presence of smoke or heat, which tie into fire suppression systems.

Comment:
I know there is a focus on Anonymous making threats, but the thing about Anonymous is that it is anonymous and any Tom, Dick and Harry can make a threat and nobody is non the wiser... Anyway, I am more interested in these electrical fires that seem to be hitting at random, because it seems that the source of these electrical fires does not seem to have any interest in the financial standing of the owners... Well, with the breaks and breaches in the magnetosphere, I am quite sure managers of important electrical installations should "Expect Us..."



Canadian Satellite Malfunction Leaves Thousands Without Communications
Space.com, 7th October 2011

A satellite malfunction left thousands of people across parts of rural northern Canada without communications services and grounded dozens of flights Thursday (Oct. 6), according to Canadian press reports.

Officials with the Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat Canada said the malfunction began at 6:36 a.m. EDT (1036 GMT), when its Anik F2 communications satellite suffered a "technical anomaly." The glitch affected satellite-served communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut territory, according to Canadian communications provider Northwestel.

Comment:
Well, the Earth's magnetosphere was breached and so filled up with particles (image left) but not enough to push the boundary between Earth's magnetic field (magnetospause) and outer space to geosynchronous orbit (image right), which then becomes a major problem with satellites being exposed to galactic cosmic rays. Whatever, conditions in space were hostile enough to cause a software glitch with the Anik F2 satellite.



UPDATE 4: Telesat satellite malfunctions
Ottawa Business Journal, 6th October 2011
Ottawa firm hopes to restore service late Thursday

Thousands of Canadians are without telephone, cable and Internet service following a malfunction on a Telesat-owned-and-operated satellite.

A problem on Anik F2 knocked out northern long-distance telephone and Internet service in 56 northern satellite communities starting just after 6:30 a.m. Thursday. Cable television service on the satellite is also disrupted across the country, including customers for Shaw Direct. The Canadian Press' wire service and data services for mining companies are similarly affected.

"There was an issue on the spacecraft, and it went into safe mode," said John Flaherty, a spokesperson for Telesat, in an OBJ interview. "It shut itself down and turned itself towards the sun. The solar arrays can keep the batteries charged, and nothing happens to the spacecraft. We've been in contact with the satellite and are in the process of essentially rebooting it."

Engineers are hoping to bring it online by the end of Thursday, he added. This is the first outage Anik F2 has experienced since its launch in 2004. "This type of thing rarely happens, and that's why it gets so much attention – because it's so rare and there are so many people affected by it."

Comment:
This is a major problem because the general public get to find out that services that they take for granted are not guaranteed due to worsening conditions in space. Maybe, the use of the word 'rare' might refer to the satellite communication industry having to work very hard maintaining their services despite the challenges imposed by space weather and it's 'rare' that the general public become aware of the issues caused by space weather.



DISH Network experiencing satellite outage
13 wthr.com, 14th September 2011
DISH Network's Ciel 2 satellite (at 129 degrees), which carries many HD local and national channels including WTHR HD and all other Indianapolis local HD channels to DISH customers, has shut down. Eyewitness News spoke with DISH Network's operations center and they have no idea what the problem is or when their HD satellite might be back in operation.

The issue seems to be a pretty major nationwide DISH HD outage and may be prolonged.

Comment:
Hmmm... there has been geomagnetic storm activity for the last few days and it looks like a satellite might have been knocked out... See the sidebar on the News of the Imbalance blog, for the K-index that has already calmed down considerably.



Massive blackout hits California, Arizona and Mexico
BBC News, 9th September 2011
A massive power cut has caused blackouts in the US states of California and Arizona, and in Mexico. Five million people were without power on Thursday, with many likely to remain out of service for another day or two.

There was traffic chaos. San Diego was the worst affected city, where all outbound flights were cancelled. An investigation is looking into why the blackout spread from Arizona, where a piece of equipment was switched off. Extreme heat may be a factor.

Comment:
There are reports that the electric companies are trying to blame an employee for a poor infrastructure design that can cut the power to 5 million people in one fell swoop. In reality, how can internal maintenance procedure allow such a MASSIVE outage to occur? Whatever, I wonder how many people have died in this debarcle?

Outage affects 6 million in Calif., Ariz., Mexico
Yahoo News, 9th September 2011
Very strange.... the numbers keep going up!

SoCal reactors trip offline – Most extensive power outage in state history – Massive explosion heard near substation – First time entire system has been lost – 5 million affected
Energy News, 9th September 2011
So, was this caused by another transformer explosion, like all the others that have occured recently?



Power outage triggered after high-voltage line is tripped
LA Times, 8th September 2011
The Southern California blackout was triggered after a 500-kilovolt high-voltage line from Arizona to California tripped out of service, officials said Thursday afternoon.

The transmission outage severed the flow of imported power into areas of Southern California, said California Independent System Operator, known as ISO, which oversees the state's electrical grid.

Officials at ISO said they were working with utilities in Southern California, Arizona and Mexico to restore power. Officials said the blackouts could last for hours.

Comment:
Hmmm.... MASSIVE BLACKOUT.... There has been many strange geophysical events in this area in the last few weeks too... This is a continuous blog keeping people updated about what is going on. Press conference video on latest updates.

Blackout shuts down San Onofre nuclear reactors
LA Times, 8th September 2011
The blackout affecting large swaths of San Diego County led to a shutdown of two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Gil Alexander, a spokesman for Southern California Edison, said the power outage did not cause any safety issues. Alexander said a fluctuation in power caused the reactors to shut down at 3:38 p.m. but that the overall plant continues to have power. He said the system worked as it was supposed to during a loss of power.

PHOTOS: Blackout leaves 1.4 million without power
LA Times, 8th September 2011
"More than 1.4 million customers lost power during a blackout in the San Diego area Thursday afternoon. San Diego Gas and Electric officials said the outage appears to have originated in Arizona and the outages extended across Southern California and into Arizona and Baja California."

Massive power outage in San Diego/Orange County/Tijuana/Parts of AZ
The Watchers, 8th September 2011
"An SDG&E spokesman said just before 5 p.m. that the outage could last into Friday after a "large switching station" in Arizona was knocked out. A "cascading event" overwhelmed the system, leading to "too many outages in to many places," he said. The Escondido and Otay Mesa power plans were to be brought online first, "working from the inside out." Many radio stations are out. "We don't know what happened to the line, all we know is that the line is out. We don't know exactly why it went out. We have no indication that there is an act of terroriusm at this time."


Massive blackout hits California, Arizona and Mexico
BBC News, 7th September 2011
A massive power cut has caused blackouts in the US states of California and Arizona, and in Mexico. Five million people were without power on Thursday, with many likely to remain out of service for another day or two.

There was traffic chaos. San Diego was the worst affected city, where all outbound flights were cancelled. An investigation is looking into why the blackout spread from Arizona, where a piece of equipment was switched off. Extreme heat may be a factor.

Comment:
There are reports that the electric companies are trying to blame an employee for a poor infrastructure design that can cut the power to 5 million people in one fell swoop. In reality, how can internal maintenance procedure allow such a MASSIVE outage to occur? Whatever, I wonder how many people have died in this debarcle?

SoCal reactors trip offline – Most extensive power outage in state history – Massive explosion heard near substation – First time entire system has been lost – 5 million affected
Energy News, 7th September 2011
So, was this caused by another transformer explosion, like all the others that have occured recently?



Congressman: Emergency diesel generator was inoperable due to flooding at Maryland nuke plant where transformer exploded during hurricane
Energy News, 31st August 2011
Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey's letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, August 29, 2011: (.pdf) link



(Right click for larger image)
Comment: Seriously gobsmacking.... please download and read the complete letter, there were NUMEROUS nuclear plants affected... This is the highlights from this letter. How are we going to survive on this planet when people refuse to recognise the increasing impact of Space Weather triggering more and more Earth change? It is not as if we are not getting enough warnings.... Energy News has many more links to the latest on the Nuclear Radiation Madness.



Virginia Nuclear Plant Loses Power After Quake
Wall Street Journal, 23rd August 2011
A nuclear power plant in central Virginia has lost offsite power in the wake of a 5.9 earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., U.S. nuclear officials said. The North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, is now using four diesel generators to maintain cooling operations. The plant automatically shut down in the wake of the earthquake.

Comment:
Here we go again... Have they got 4 hours or 8 hours of backup power before meltdown and there must be some damage to the facility that is only 12 miles away from the epicentre of such a large earthquake...




Lightning no longer blamed for Amazon data center outage
Utility retracts earlier diagnosis, continues investigation.
Data Center Dynamics, 15th August 2011
The power outage that brought down a portion of an Amazon data center in Dublin, taking down along with it the virtual infrastructure of a number of the company's Cloud customers, is no longer believed to have been caused by a lightning bolt.

In a detailed online account of the outage, the Amazon Web Services team wrote that the utility whose transformer went down on the morning of 7 Aug. had taken back its initial diagnosis of the culprit, when it said a lightning strike had caused the outage, but had not offer an alternative explanation. [...]

Regardless of the cause of the utility outage, the company's Dublin facility failed to switch to back-up generators as it was supposed to when utility power is lost. The AWS team said it believed the facility's programmable logic controllers were at fault for this.

PLCs synchronize the electrical phase between generators before feeding power into the facility. In last week's case, however, a PLC at the data center detected a ground fault, which caused it to fail to complete its task, the AWS team believes at the moment. [???]

Because of the PLC's failure, backup generators for most of the data center were disabled and there was not enough power to continue running all the servers. [...]

A 110kV 10MW utility transformer serving the data center failed around 10:40 a.m. About one hour later, Amazon technicians were able to bring some of the back-up generators online by phase-syncing them manually.

Comment:
So, there was current coming from the ground (GICS) that completely negated any efforts to deal with normal electrical input? Another report says it was similar to what happens when a electrical wire becomes earthed. An earth provides a reservoir of charge and GICS can use the earth connection to come up through the ground and damage a transformer, so I don't know enough to be 100% sure what happened but the fault completely negated any efforts to deal with normal electrical input and some customers across Europe had to wait for three days to get their computing facilities back again....ouch! This is what Amazon Web Services customer management had to say:
The service disruption began at 10:41 AM PDT on August 7th when our utility provider suffered a failure of a 110kV 10 megawatt transformer. This failure resulted in a total loss of electricity supply to all of their customers connected to this transformer, including a significant portion of the affected AWS Availability Zone. The initial fault diagnosis from our utility provider indicated that a lightning strike caused the transformer to fail. The utility provider now believes it was not a lightning strike, and is continuing to investigate root cause.

Summary of the Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, and Amazon RDS Service Event in the EU West Region
It's absolutely amazing to me that more people are not making the effort to deal with the consequences of the planet becoming highly charged. There are anomalous electric currents flowing where they are not normally expected and we are now seeing the affect with transformers blowing up on a regular basis. Our modern technological infrastructure is being affected as charge continues to build up. This is happening because over the last 20+ years, the Earth has been receiving massive solar blasts called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and solar flare magnetic energy. We are talking about thousands of billions of tons of plasma (charged sub-atomic particles) and the equivalent of thousands of billions of megaton nuclear bombs worth of magnetic energy. Fortunately, some electrical engineers woke up in 1989 after the Power grid failure in Quebec, Canada when a geomagnetic storm knocked out a major transformer and 6 million people lost power for 10 hours in winter. So, as it becomes increasing obvious that there is a problem with anomalous electric currents (GICs), more electrical enginneers are making efforts to increase general awareness of the problem, see archives. People are being affected, but most don't realise it yet, however I am sure that will soon become completely obvious too, I still wonder about the man who created 'burnt footprints' see archives.

Amazon outage described as 'worst in cloud computing history' - 08/17/2011
CenterBeam Industry News, 17th August 2011



Shell detects second Gannet Alpha North Sea leak point
BBC News, 16th August 2011
Shell says stemming a second leak at its Gannet Alpha Oil platform in the North Sea is proving to be a challenge A second leak point has been found in the flow line beneath the Gannet Alpha oil platform, 113 miles (180km) off Aberdeen.

Shell has been dealing with the release of an estimated 216 tonnes - 1,300 barrels - from a leak near the platform discovered last week. The oil company said it was working to tackle what was described as a "second pathway" of leakage.

Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell's exploration and production activities in Europe, said: "The leak source remains the same. The initial release path was stopped, however the oil found a second pathway to the sea.

"Since then we have been working to find the source of the much smaller flow of hydrocarbons. It had proved difficult to find because we are dealing with a complex subsea infrastructure and the position of the small leak is in an awkward place surrounded by marine growth.

Comment:
See below:

Crude Awakening ~ Summer 2010
Jane Fulton Alt, Fine Art Photography, July 2010



North sea oil spill 'worst for a decade'
The government estimates oil leak could involve more than 1,300 barrels but claims it has been greatly reduced The Guardian, 15th August 2011
The flow of oil from the worst spill in UK waters in the past decade, at one of Shell's North Sea platforms, has been "greatly reduced" but not yet stopped completely, the government said on Monday.

Conservationists warned that the leak could harm bird life in the area, at a delicate time in their development, as the oil company worked to minimise the damage.

Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said: "We know oil of any amount, if in the wrong place, at the wrong time, can have a devastating impact on marine life. Currently thousands of young auks – razorbills, puffins and guillemots – are flightless and dispersing widely in the North Sea during late summer. So they could be at serious risk if contaminated by this spill." [...]

Green campaigners said the incident raised questions over the safety of oil companies' plans to drill in deep water in the Arctic, as the North Sea is generally supposed to be the safest in the world in terms of spills. Ben Ayliffe of Greenpeace, which has been campaigning to stop further oil-drilling exploration in delicate environments such as the Arctic, said: "The North Sea is supposed to be ultra-safe – we are told spills can't happen there. Shell is looking to move into the Arctic where an oil spill would all but impossible to clean up. Events in the North Sea should give the company pause for thought."

Comment:
Will the Coastline of the UK soon be awash with oil because TPTB refuse to negotiate with reality? The North Sea is not directly underneath the auroral electroject that surrounds the North pole but it seems that it is now close enough to be affected by the heightened geomagnetic activity associated with space weather and large electric currents flowing through the sea. Oil companies are now having major problems with protecting their pipelines against space weather and it will only get worse as space weather starts to dominate our reality here on Earth.

From the Finnish Meteorological Institute we find specific details about General information on ground effects of space weather (GIC) and the following specifically about pipelines.
Space weather effects on ground systems

Large electric currents are continuously flowing in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. When hitting the magnetosphere, a disturbance in the solar wind produces a change in the current system, in which the magnetospheric-ionospheric coupling plays an important role. The geomagnetic field brings the disturbance in particular to high latitudes resulting in visible auroras and in an intense ionospheric current system.

The variations of magnetospheric and ionospheric currents are seen as geomagnetic disturbances or storms at the Earth's surface. In accordance with the basic electromagnetic theory, a geomagnetic variation is accompanied by a geoelectric field. The structure and intensity of the geoelectric field is greatly dependent on the Earth's conductivity structure, smaller conductivity implies larger electric fields. Although the auroral electrojet system is of particular importance concerning geomagnetic disturbances, similar effects may also be experienced at lower latitudes.

Pipelines

Buried oil and gas pipelines are prone to corrosion, which may occur at points where an electric current flows from the metal into the surrounding earth. To avoid corrosion, pipelines are covered by an insulating coating and equipped with a cathodic protection system that tries to prevent electric currents leaving the pipeline.

GIC flowing along pipelines are accompanied by voltages between the pipeline and the Earth. Voltage variations related to GIC can easily exceed the cathodic protection potential making the protection thus invalid. Today's coatings cause larger GIC-related pipe-to-soil potentials, thus significantly increasing the risk of corrosion at defects in the coating. How much pipe-to-soil voltages induced by space weather effects really increase the corrosion rate of a pipeline is anyhow still a somewhat open question.

Besides a direct contribution to corrosion, geomagnetically induced pipe-to-soil voltages are a nuisance when measuring cathodic protection parameters and making control surveys. The measurement results may be completely incorrect and thus lead to erroneous conclusions.
General information on ground effects of space weather (GIC), Finnish Meteorological Institute

Chinese oil spill half the size of London went unreported for a month
It has taken a month and an 840 square km oil slick, but the government has finally admitted to a seabed leak from wells in the Bohai Sea The Guardian, 7th July 2011



Oil slick is heading to British coast after North Sea pipeline leak
Daily Mail, 14th August 2011
An oil slick measuring 50 square miles is heading for the British coastline after a North Sea pipeline started leaking. Crude oil has been spewing from the pipe on the seabed, at a depth of 300ft, sparking fears of a threat to marine life.

Shell admitted on Friday night that crude oil had been leaking into the sea from beneath its Gannet Alpha rig, 112 miles east of Aberdeen, since at least Wednesday.

Comment:
OK, it seems the corrosion of pipelines in the North Sea is now a major problem and space weather is the cause, see below for more information.

Oil and gas spills in North Sea every week, papers reveal
Documents list companies that caused more than 100 potentially lethal – and largely unpublicised – leaks in 2009 and 2010
The Guardian, 5th July 2011
Reference 1:
"Abstract. Geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) flowing in technological systems on the ground are a direct manifestation of space weather. Due to the proximity of very dynamic ionospheric current systems, GIC are of special interest at high latitudes, where they have been known to cause problems, for example, for normal operation of power transmission systems and buried pipelines."

April 2000 geomagnetic storm: ionospheric drivers of large geomagnetically induced currents
A. Pulkkinen1, A. Thomson2, E. Clarke2, and A. McKay3
Annales Geophysicae (2003) 21: 709–717 c European Geosciences Union 2003
link

Reference 2:
"Abstract. Geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) in technological systems, such as electric power transmission systems, oil and gas pipelines, telecommunication cables and railway equipment, are a manifestation of space weather at the earth's surface. In power systems, GIC cause saturation of transformers, which may lead to problems in the operation of the system, and even to a collapse of the whole system and to permanent damages of transformers. The best-known GIC effect occurred in March 1989 when the Québec province in Canada suffered from an electric black-out for about nine hours. The corrosion rate may be increased in pipelines when GIC flows from the pipe into the soil, and the associated voltages can disturb pipeline surveys and the cathodic protection. This paper summarizes GIC effects on power systems and pipelines."

POWER AND PIPELINES (GROUND SYSTEMS)
Risto Pirjola, Ari Viljanen, Olaf Amm and Antti Pulkkinen
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Geophysical Research Division [1999]
link


Verizon Site Mischief Cuts Police Phone Service
State Trooper Says Someone With Keys Went In Underground Vault
WTAE Pittsburg News, 12th August 2011
LEMONT FURNACE, Pa. -- State police in Uniontown said a 29-hour loss of landline phone service was caused by an act of criminal mischief when someone went into locked underground Verizon vaults and shut off the power.

Trooper Timothy Kirsch said there was no forced entry at the sites on Main Street and on Route 119 in Lemont Furnace, near the Penn State Fayette campus. Police believe whoever shut off the power had keys.

Police are trying to determine if the incident, which began at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, is related to an ongoing strike by Verizon landline workers.

The local state police barracks was without phone and computer service for 21 hours, police said. Calls had to be forwarded to dispatchers who worked out of another barracks several miles away.

Comment:
Really? And nobody with keys could turn the power back on? Well, I don't believe it....(I am starting to sound like the character Victor Meldrew), the planet is charging up and additional currents will be flowing through the ground, but the US seems to have more of a problem than other countries due to an aging infrastructure, poor maintenance and geology that encourages currents to build up. I am thinking this might be related to the surge (excuse the pun) of transformer fires in the last week or so that might be related to the latest bout of space weather. For more info, please read the references above about Geomagnetic Induced Currents (GICs).

Transformer fire sparks large emergency response, traffic jam in Dongan Hills
silive.com, 4th August 2011
"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A transformer caught fire outside a strip mall in Grasmere just before 5 a.m. this morning, sparking a smoke condition and traffic jams heading for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in time for the morning rush hour."

Waldorf-Astoria Has Small Electrical Fire
NY1 News, 4th August 2011
"An electrical fire broke out Thursday at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but it was quickly brought under control."

Workers Hurt In Deadly Substation Blast Identified
Out-Of-State Contractor Dies In Explosion, Fire At Substation
WESH Orlando, 8th August 2011

Electric Substation Burns In St Joe County
wtvbam News, 9th August 2011
"CONSTANTINE -- Engineers for Midwest Energy Cooperative say they have never seen anything like this. A mysterious fire destroyed an entire power substation and left 12-hundred customers in White Pigeon and Constantine in the dark for much of Monday evening."

Hanson Place Manhole Fire Causes Temporary Evacuation
The Local, 14th August 2011
"We got a tip from a reader today about an electrical manhole fire outside the Shirley A. Chisholm State Office Building at 55 Hanson Place, near the corner of South Elliot Place. [...] Two manholes, one by the Shirley Chisholm Building and the other in the middle of the street on Hanson & South Elliot, were billowing smoke. Loud clanging noises & booms were echoing in the street and sometimes flames would shoot out of the manholes. Firetrucks and firefighters came out and shut down the street & were standing by."

Failures on aging Northeast rail system spur delays, worries
Philly.com, 14th August 2011
"Power failures, a transformer fire, and last week's derailments in New York have stranded thousands of riders and demonstrated the problems with old power lines, congested tunnels, and deferred maintenance.

Flanders transformer fire leaves more than 1300 customers without power
Riverhead Local, 14th August 2011
"A transformer fire on Flanders Road this morning left 1385 customers without power according to the Long Island Power Authority."



Riots, wild markets: Did space storms drive us mad?
Reuters News, 12th August 2011
(Reuters) - Rollercoaster financial markets and the worst riots Britain has seen in decades have made it quite a week for a time of year that is usually so dead the newspapers are filled with "silly season" tales of amusing pet antics.

Everyone is pointing fingers -- at blundering politicians, hooded thugs, disaffected youths, bumbling police and greedy bankers -- but could the cause for all the madness really be the star at the center of our solar system?

Comment:
The fact that space weather has the ability to unbalance people is the reason why I started to make my tremendous efforts to 'make a difference', but others people's indifference has been hard to cope with.

Thousands riot in China's Guizhou province: Xinhua
Raw Story, 12th August 2011

Riots Spread To China
YouTube, 13th August 2011



Power back on in the Annex -Toronto [Canada]
Globe & Mail, 5th August 2011
Close to 8,000 people were without power in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood for more than an hour on Friday afternoon.

The outage began at about 2:30 p.m. when power shut off for 7,700 people, said Toronto Hydro spokesperson Alexandra Stadnyk. Power had been restored to all customers as of 4:50 p.m. Initially a portion of the affected area, containing all but 600 homes, was restored at about 3:45 p.m. [...]

The outage was caused by damaged equipment at a transformer station, according to Toronto Hydro.

Comment:
OK, if only 8,000 people lost power due to a transformer then I think they managed to escape far worse but the geomagnetic storm is not over yet. According to spaceweather.com the storm hit around 18:00 UT (Universal Time) and half an hour later, power was lost in Toronto (Timezone UTC/GMT -4 hours). It will be interesting to see what experts decide to say about what happened.



Flights hit by air traffic delays
BBC News, 8th August 2011
Some flights into London airports were delayed because of problems with air traffic control equipment. A spokeswoman for Air Traffic Control (NATS) said its usual monitoring system had failed and flight details had to be input manually. The system was restored at about 09:00 BST. The spokeswoman apologised for any disruption caused to the airports, including Heathrow and Stansted. Most of the flight delays were less than an hour.

Comment:
Space Weather? Problems caused by space weather do not have to occur at the time of the main geomagnetic storm because substorms can reverberate around the planet. For an analogy, geomagnetic storms are like Earth's magnetic field being hit like a bell and the impact causes ringing for some time afterwards.

Computer failure stops morning papers
New Zealnd Radio News, 2nd August 2011
"A major computer failure at Fairfax Media prevented the publication of several newspapers on Tuesday morning."
Computer failure due to cosmic rays can occur at any time...



Phone Glitch Helps Inmate Bond Himself Out Of Jail
Deemable News, 1st August 2011
An inmate confined to the Lake County Jail in Tavares, Florida, made a surprise discovery that he used to his advantage to bond himself out of jail.

32-year old Larry Stone was incarcerated since April of this year after being arrested on property-crime charges. On July 7th, Stone discovered a glitch in the inmate fund accounts which he then used to accumulate enough money in his account to cover the price of his bond.

Stone placed a phone call using the jail's payphones, a call that typically costs about $20 dollars to complete, but when the line went unanswered Stone hung up. Based on how the phone system is designed, whenever a call goes unanswered the money spent on the call is automatically deposited back into the inmate's account. So Stone immediately dialed to check his balance, only to discover that he now had more money in his account prior to placing the call.

Comment:
Oh well, some people will take advantage, like other computer system glitches that involve 'free' money.... Opportunities will only increase too, as more computer systems fail when compromised due to the increase bombardment by cosmic rays.



Emergency shut down at power station [NZ]
stuff.co.nz, 30th July 2011
A computer failure has caused the emergency shut down of a geothermal power station in the Far North. Northland Police responded to reports of "strange noises" coming from Ngawha Power Station, east of Kaikohe, tonight.

Russell Shaw, chief executive of Top Energy which operates the power station, said a computer failure and subsequent pressure build-up caused unusually loud noises. Top Energy rebooted the system when the station initially failed due to the computer glitch. This caused geothermal fluid to flow through the pipeline, Shaw said.

"That caused a greater pressure than we would of normally operated at. "It was a very safe shut down but it did mean quite a lot of pressure was released and there was noise which was noticed by local villages."

Comment:
I can only presume this was caused by a stray cosmic ray, as there is no mention of the usual excuse of computer system upgrades or computer maintenance gone wrong. So, it seems this company were in completely reliance on a computer system with inadequate emergency procedures in event of computer failure to manage a geothermal power station. Well, someone needs to tell the Top Energy management that Space Weather is now an issue and computer hardware can be easily corrupted as our planet is being flooded with cosmic rays, such that bits and bytes can be turned on and off at random. Due to Space Weather, this is the new reality of life on planet Earth and computer hardware companies will need to start selling radiation hardened electronics, similar as those used in satellites in order to have electronics that can be used in the harsh cosmic environment of space. At the moment, I don't have enough information to make a link with the blast of X-rays from the sun due to the M9-class solar flare at 0209 UT, see below for more details and related reports of EM chaos.

A strong M9.3 solar flare took place
The Watchers, 30th July 2011
"Sunspot AR1261 unleashed a brief but strong M9-class solar flare on July 30th at 0209 UT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash:"

Power surge sets off alarms in Hastings [NZ]
stuff.co.nz, 30th July 2011
"Hastings police were inundated with phone calls from concerned residents tonight after a power surge set off alarms throughout the city. A police spokeswoman said the power surge activated numerous home alarms and the Civil Defence warning system."

Power cut causes Sydney flight delays [Australia]
stuff.co.nz, 30th July 2011
"Power has been restored at Sydney International Airport, but flight delays are expected to continue. Power was lost from about 9.40am AEST (11.40am NZT) to 11am AEST and was restored shortly afterwards, a spokesman from Sydney Airport Corporation said."
The time of the power surge is 9.30am (AEST) which is UTC + 10 hours. This means there is no link with the M9 solar flare but it might have been caused by an earlier spike of cosmic radiation due to solar flares that have been crackling for the last two days.

SHAPE-SHIFTING SUNSPOT: Three big sunspot groups are rotating across the Earth-facing side of the sun. One of them, AR1261, is morphing into a circular ring. Click on the image to view a 24-hour movie: The magnetic field of this shape-shifting sunspot is crackling with C- and M-class solar flares, including a powerful M9-blast to begin the day on July 30th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of more such flares during the next 24 hours. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments. spaceweather.com 30th July 2011



Bullet train crashes in China; at least 35 killed
LA Times, 24th July 2011
Lightning strikes a high-speed train, which loses power and is rear-ended by another train on an elevated track in Wenzhou. The safety of the national network has been called into question after a corruption scandal.

At least 35 people were killed and scores were injured Saturday when a bullet train in eastern China lost power after being struck by lightning and was rear-ended by another train, state news media reported.

The crash sent two passenger cars careening off an elevated track in Wenzhou, a city in Zhejiang province. State television showed video of rescue workers in a steady downpour pulling bloodied passengers out of a car standing on its end and leaning against a bridge.

Comment:
It's the struck by lightning and losing power that makes me wonder... These bullet trains work by magnetic levitation of which there are two types in operation and a third in the experimental stage.

* For electromagnetic suspension (EMS), electronically controlled electromagnets in the train attract it to a magnetically conductive (usually steel) track.
* Electrodynamic suspension (EDS) uses permanent magnets which create a magnetic field that induces currents in nearby metallic conductors when there is relative movement which pushes the train away from the rail.

Train signalling is affected by Space Weather (see Lloyds 3600 Space Weather Report, November 2010) , but I am very surprised that these supposedly high tech trains can be crippled by lightning.



Mediumwave back-up to cover two serious fires in FM Towers in Netherlands (Video)
Critical Distance, 15th July 2011
Rather spectacular fire this afternoon in the TV/Radio/Mobile mast in Hoogersmilde in the province of Drente. A fire broke out at 12 hrs UTC in the top section of the mast which houses antennas, leading to its total collapse as shown in the video above around 90 minutes later.

No-one was injured. The area around the mast was cleared by the police but it is farmland and no damage was done to property. A horse was slightly wounded by some of the flying debris. The video was made by the local Radio and TV station, RTVDrenthe.

Engineers working in the tower discovered the fire and concluded it was unsafe to continue. They evacuated the tower and called the emergency services. Fire fighters were quickly on the scene but it quickly became obvious that there was little chance of fighting the fire, since it occurred 80 metres above the ground.

Comment:
I was not going to mention this but I got an email from The Netherlands telling me there had actually been three separate fires in three different tv/radio station towers. Well, we know at least one of these towers had ELECTRICAL problems that started the fire in one of the towers and The Netherlands were subject to some severe stormy weather at the same time. I can only presume there were too many charged particles in the wind... I think it is curious, but the way things are going on this planet with quickly deteriorating geomagnetic conditions, this should be NO SURPRISE. As I have been saying for a long time: Expect the Unexpected!



Sat nav takes woman into lake
Orange News, 15th July 2011
An Austrian woman looking for a short cut to a bathing lake got that sinking feeling when her satnav took her straight into the water. Fire fighters had to be called in to pull out driver Petra Lang's van with a mobile crane at the Grundlsee Lake, near Bad Aussee, before it could pollute the water.

Ms Lang, 27, from Salzburg, managed to get out without help before the van sank. "She insisted the satnav system was to blame - she said she typed in that she wanted to go to the lake - but got closer than she intended," said one rescuer.

Comment:
Yes, there is ample evidence of just how 'zombified' some people are, and in this case, they could not even engage their brain enough to comprehend that that they were actually driving into a lake and this has happened quite a few times now... Yes, there is a problem of road changes not being updated or were actually incorrectly added into the mapping system used by GPS systems but so what? Drivers are supposed to pay attention to road conditions. As I have written many times already, GPS is unreliable due to the apalling geomagnetic conditions on this planet that can now render GPS satellite navigation systems completely useless. This has got so bad that the US military are publicly contemplating giving up using GPS completely. The implications are incredible.... So, for those who value your lives, BEWARE!



Mount Etna eruption closes airports and 'knocks clocks 15 minutes fast'
Daily Mail, 11th July 2011
An eruption by Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily left a nearby airport closed and ... locals turning up early for work.

The volcano spewed lava on to its south-eastern slopes on Saturday afternoon and winds swept ash further afield, stopping flights at Catania's Fontanarossa airport. The strong eruption - Etna's fifth since the beginning of the year - was shortlived, but left the airport closed overnight.

Bemused Sicilians, meanwhile, were quick to blame the volcano after thousands noticed that their clocks were running 15 minutes fast. The fast forward time keeping has affected a wide spectrum of digital clocks and watches - from computers through to alarm clocks. It was spotted when large numbers of locals started turning up for work early, and a Facebook page was organised for those involved to compare notes.

Comment:
Some great pictures, but again we have the phenomenon of clocks running 15 minutes faster which must be considered a major anathema in Italian and especially Sicilian culture, where people pride themselves on never turning up early for anything... So what is going on? Well there must be some electromagnetic effects associated with the volcanic eruption, but since Etna is always erupting, something new has been added to the mix and this may be related to the weakness of Earth's magnetosphere coupling with the volcanic eruption and generating electromagnetic pulsations that are forcing clocks to speed up (I am even considering more concepts because the information has to be integrated with what we already know is taking place). This is getting extremely interesting.... I would be interested to know whether there is also an affect on the human biological clock... see previous comments on this subject.

Space weather risk to airlines
TG Daily, 8th November 2010
"There's growing evidence that space weather modulates the performance of power grids, producing excessive vibration and heating that can permanently damage transformers."
It's the excessive vibration that might be of interest... so can we speculate that excessive Space Weather (substorms) might set off some volcanic eruptions?



Cockpit audio details chaos after hole rips in Phoenix plane (Video)
ABC 15 News, 5th July 2011
PHOENIX - The Federal Aviation Administration released dramatic audio recordings Tuesday between air traffic controllers and pilots aboard Southwest Airlines flight 812. The two sides worked together on April 1 to get the plane on the ground after a six-foot hole ripped open in the fuselage .

The recordings indicate Southwest Flight 812 started out just like any other. But a few minutes in to the Phoenix to Sacramento flight, the pilot declares an emergency. "We lost the cabin," the pilot can be heard saying. The roof of the Boeing 737 had ripped open, leaving a gaping hole.

Comment:
This is an update. As I have said before, my previous assumption when this kind of event occured was to suspect space weather in the form of meteroids hitting a plane, but to hear this could be due to poor plane maintenance in my opinion is even more disturbing. Anyway, I did a google news search for emergency landing this week but I decided I did not have the apetite to go through all the reports looking for space weather suspects, it is simply too much work.



AP EXCLUSIVE: Power grid change may disrupt clocks
Yahoo News, 24th June 2011
WASHINGTON – A yearlong experiment with the nation's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers – and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast.

"A lot of people are going to have things break and they're not going to know why," said Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, one of two official timekeeping agencies in the federal government.

Since 1930, electric clocks have kept time based on the rate of the electrical current that powers them. If the current slips off its usual rate, clocks run a little fast or slow. Power companies now take steps to correct it and keep the frequency of the current – and the time – as precise as possible.

Comment:
OK, we had the strange phenomenon in Italy with clocks jumping 15 to 20 minutes a day and now the US authorities are warning they will be running an experiment by adjusting the power grid frequency, but it all sounds very fishy to me.... [Update: 18th July 2011 There is an idea floating around that this is about damage limitation. Indeed, they are concerned about Space Weather but it seems they may be able to mitigate damage by operating different segments of the grid at different frequencies. Well, this idea actually sounds realistic because there is obviously great concern about Space Weather and the impact of a geomagnetic caused by a Coronal Mass Ejection generating an electromagnetic pulse that could fry hundreds of transformers. I also suspect that Earth's magnetopshere is now in such a weak state that means worsening geomagnetic conditions on Earth.]

Whatever, this is a most interesting development... Looking around for some intelligent comment on what was happening in Sicily (see links below), it seems that there are lots of different opinions but fluctuations on the grid by an external cause and clocks and watches being remotely incorrectly updated by atomic clocks were the most interesting. You could explain both of these two aberrations by interference from Space Weather. The atomic clocks in GPS satellites in orbit around the Earth cannot provide the accuracy they were originally designed for because they rely on stable geomagnetic conditions in the ionosphere to transmit signals that can be accurately timed and these days that is just not possible. Electromagnetic pulses would effect the power grid (and atomic clocks if they were not being shielded enough?) when a solar flare erupts and high speed radiation blasts through the Earth in minutes from the Sun, (the magnetosphere is not much of a cosmic shield these days) so, I would suggest that continuous strange clock runs and slowing down could be caused by geomagnetic substorms that can be considered like geomagnetic aftershocks reverberating around Earth, but places that act like portals or vortexes for electromagnetic energy and particles would be most effected. Here is the Corriere della Sera (June 8th) article translated from the Italian using Google translation.

Clocks in Sicily Mysteriously Jump Ahead
SOTT News, 9th June 2011
"For over a week, the digital clocks in Catania have been perplexing owners by skipping ahead 15 to 20 minutes every day."
Our reality is just getting more and more strange... There has been quite a lot of discussion on forums about this clock phenomenon, there are some intelligent comments here but I don't have time to investigate...

It hertz when you do that – power grid to stop regulating 60 Hz frequency
WUWT, 25th June 2011
Intelligent comment here

All forward 20 minutes a day: The mystery of the Sicilian clocks
Corriere della Sera, 8th June 2011
[...] "The People's Network had thought well to electromagnetic fields related to Etna, although this would be valid only for Catania, while some have even mentioned the effects of solar winds."

GPS Technical Description
GPS Fleet Solutions, June 2011
"Changing atmospheric conditions change the speed of the GPS signals as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere. Correcting these errors is a significant challenge to improving GPS position accuracy." [....]
Control segment

The flight paths of the satellites are tracked by US Air Force monitoring stations in Hawaii, Kwajalein, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, and Colorado Springs, Colorado, along with monitor stations operated by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The tracking information is sent to the Air Force Space Command's master control station at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is operated by the 2d Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS) of the United States Air Force (USAF). 2 SOPS contacts each GPS satellite regularly with a navigational update (using the ground antennas at Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, Kwajalein, and Colorado Springs). These updates synchronize the atomic clocks on board the satellites to within one microsecond and adjust the ephemeris of each satellite's internal orbital model.The updates are created by a Kalman Filter which uses inputs from the ground monitoring stations, space weather information, and other various inputs.
So how do you take precise measurements when it's hurricane force conditions in space?



Tesco Bank customers remain locked out of accounts following migration glitch
Computer Weekly, 23rd June 2011
Tesco Bank customers are still unable to log into accounts following a migration glitch.

Customers faced difficulties logging into accounts earlier in the week when Tesco Bank systems crashed as it migrated savings and loans accounts from in-house systems at its former partner Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The company said the process was complete and its online banking system had returned to normal service.

But a spokesman for Tesco Bank confirmed some customers were still experiencing difficulties.

Comment:
There tends to be many reports of computer 'glitches' after the Earth's magnetosphere has been under pressure due to a blast of solar radiation. Since I have worked in a large computer department developing computer systems, I know the procedures for system/data migration and I don't believe banks and other important installations are having these massive regular and embarrassing failures due to human error. More recent computer 'glitches' below:
  • UPDATE: NYSE Euronext Aims To Solve Glitches As Trading Hit Again
    Wall Street Journal, 21st June 2011
    The technical glitch on Tuesday disrupted trading in a wide range of markets, including Amsterdam's AEX and Brussels' Bel-20 benchmark indexes. In Paris, trading in some stocks and bonds was suspended while the market for derivative products was unaffected, said Caroline Tourrier, a Paris-based NYSE Euronext spokeswoman. In Lisbon, meanwhile, trading in exchange-traded funds was disrupted. [...] It was the second straight day that trading on NYSE Euronext's markets was disrupted. On Monday morning the operator suspended all trading between 0700 GMT and 0800 GMT because of a "technical problem." NYSE Euronext declined to say whether the problems are related.

  • SunTrust glitch doubles some bills
    Customers charged twice for transactions
    Atlanta Business News, 22nd June 2011
    A technical glitch that caused some SunTrust Banks customers to be hit twice for bills paid online appears to have also affected other transactions, the bank said Monday. The technical problem not only affected certain customers with automatic withdrawals through SunTrust's online bill paying system, but other "client-initiated" transactions as well, Hugh Suhr, a spokesman for Atlanta-based SunTrust, said in an email.

  • Time Warner Cable fixes glitch in digital phone service
    Kansas City Star, 22nd June 2011
    "Time Warner Cable digital phone customers saw outages throughout most of Wednesday in scattered markets across the U.S., including Kansas City."

  • Irishman sues State Department over diversity lottery glitch
    Irish Central, 22nd June 2011
    But the couple's happy plans were short-lived. A glitch in the State Department's computer system would deem the results null and void. Some 22,000 were informed they had been mistakenly told they were eligible for green cards. The State Department announced that the selection was not a true random sampling of the 15 million people worldwide who applied for the lottery between October 5 and November 1 of last year.

  • Southwest Airlines Computer Glitch Prevents Access to Sale Prices
    Travel AOL, 24th June 2011


Tesco beer price glitch leads to mayhem in the aisles Security guards called in to control lager-loving shoppers as computer error cuts cost of top-brand drinks to £4 for 24 bottles
The Guardian, 23rd June 2011
Tesco customers have been taking the store's "Every little helps" slogan literally after discovering a computer pricing glitch in a drinks promotion.

Shoppers on Wednesday morning were surprised to be charged only £4 for 24 cans or bottles of leading brands of lager such as Budweiser, Carling and Fosters, which were discounted for a special promotion. [...]

Tesco confirmed the error but said it had been corrected by 1pm and had only surfaced in some parts of the UK. A spokesman said: "There was a temporary systems glitch which was resolved shortly after it was discovered. The offer was two packs of beer for £16, saving customers £4. However, the system briefly put the items through at the discount of £4."

Comment:
This is most likely a human induced error but people going crazy to save money on non essentials is quite normal...



Venezuela darkened by power outages
Despite its energy wealth, Venezuela is plagued by power blackouts.
Global Post, 18th June 2011
CAGUA, Venezuela – Blessed with huge oil and natural gas reserves as well as massive rivers that power hydroelectric dams, Venezuela is energy rich. So why do the lights keep going out?

In 21 of the country's 24 states, blackouts and power rationing are keeping thousands of businesses, schools, hospitals and neighborhoods in the dark.

Besides dragging down the economy, the energy deficit has become a political problem for President Hugo Chavez, who plans to run for another six-year term in 2012 but whose government has been unable to solve the problem. [...]

Now, the government is pointing fingers at the opposition. In speeches, Chavez often claims that electrical plants are being sabotaged by his political foes to make his government look bad. [...]

"Any business that doesn't have a generator," Power says, "is at the mercy of government officials who decide when to turn the electricity on and off."

Comment:
Over the last few months and years, UK authorities have been stating that power will become a precious commodity and people will get it only when it is available. Then this week, the US and UK announced they will switch off national power grids if they think they will be burned out by a geomagnetic storm caused by a blast of charged particles from the Sun. Hence, I think the situation in Venuzuela makes an interesting case study for those who are seriously interested in what life will be like in the near future if we don't start to do business differently.



Computer glitch grounds United Airlines travelers Airline says systems have been restored; passengers allowed to cancel or rebook without penalties
MSNBC News, 18th June 2011
Thousands of travelers were stranded at airports around the United States Friday night after a computer failure of United Airlines' reservation system.

United spokesman Charles Hobart confirmed the outage and said the airline apologized to customers. A statement released by the airline did not say what caused the computer issue or how many passengers or flights were affected.

Comment:
This is happening so frequently that I am now wondering whether the computer 'glitch' is just the generic excuse, but I have written about various Space Weather relate issues concerning airports before. I need to find a nerd website in the geekosphere to confirm what I think is happening but I too busy at the moment. Whatever, maybe it's a coincidence that Earth got hit by a glancing blow from a CME, see below:

WEAK IMPACT: A sharp gust of solar wind hit Earth's magnetic field today, June 17th, at approximately 0230 UT. This probably signaled the arrival of a CME en route from the sun since June 14th. The impact did not spark a significant geomagnetic storm, so bright auroras tonight remain unlikely. Spaceweather.com - 17th June 2011



Delta Airlines emergency landing on remote Pacific Island
ETN News, 17th June 2011
A Delta Airlines Boeing 747-400, registration N669US, DL-277 from Honolulu,Hawaii (USA) to Osaka Kansai(Japan) with 359 passengers and 19 crew, was enroute at FL360 about 300nm southeast of Sand Island/Midway Atoll (USA), when the captain's windshield cracked prompting the crew to divert to Sand Island's Henderson Field - runway length 2410 meters/7900 feet.

The aircraft hit two birds while on approach to Henderson Airfield on Midway Islands causing damage to a flap, the airplane continued for a safe landing about one hour later. [...]

The airline said the aircraft suffered a "major crack" in the windshield. Given the condition of the windshield the crew could not wait for the landing until after dark, but had to land still in daylight.

The FAA said, there was no loss of cabin pressure but the damage was sufficient to divert to Midway Atoll's runway that serves as an emergency strip for the Pacific.

Comment:
I simply can't keep up with the repeat events warning us that the electromagnetic environment is getting more and more intense. I keep thinking of the metaphysical messages I read in the past warning people that the changes would mean that some people would literally fry because they would not be able to handle the intense electrical activity. Now we know about space weather and the evidence suggests the celestial downpour is turning into a deluge of epic proportions.



Telenor's Norway Mobile Network Partly Down
Wall Street Journal, 10th June 2011
STOCKHOLM (Dow Jones)--Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) said Friday its mobile telecommunications network in Norway is partly inoperative due to a technical fault, but gave no indication of when it would be rectified.

According to a statement on Telenor's webpage that was released at 1245 GMT, the company said it is experiencing problems with its mobile network that affects both mobile voice and SMS services. Fixed telephony isn't affected by the fault, the company said.

On its Facebook-page Telenor said "large parts" of its mobile network in Norway was inoperative, as from 1100 GMT. The company said there hasn't been a complete outage, but added that voice and data traffic "has been significantly reduced" and that the flaw affects Telenor's customers and other operators which use Telenor's mobile network. Norway's Telenor has three million mobile subscriptions in Norway, according to the company financial statement for the first quarter 2011.

Comment:
So.... the timing here is very suspicious with this being the exact time that the NICT simulation of ACE satellite data, a fairly reliable early warning system for space weather, reported a white-hot magnetosphere at the time the Norwegian mobile communications system went down and it's not fixed yet, more than 36 hours later.
To make matters worse, Telenor's mobile telephone network broke down Friday afternoon, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without telephone and text messaging (SMS) capabilities. In Oslo, the Get cable TV network also broke down. It was unclear whether the communications problems were also weather-related and Telenor apologized profusely on national radio, using a good old-fashioned land line.
Source: Rain wreaks havoc, phones hit, too
Views and News from Norway, 10th June 2011



Breaking: US Airways Computers Crash Nationwide: All Flights Grounded
NYC Aviation, 10th June 2011
US Airways' computer system–including their website–reportedly crashed Friday evening, crippling the airline's flight check-ins nationwide and leaving hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers grounded.

According to at least one US Airways employee, their corporate email was also inaccessible. The Phoenix-based carrier did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Comment:
Maybe this is a casualty of the CME that hit Earth just before 13:00 UT, where the magnetosphere bombardment seems to have steadily got worse for the rest of the day. Not surprisingly, the NICT real time simulation of the earth's magnetic field shows that Earth's shielding (magnetosphere) has failed. This is the worse that I saw after only taking a brief look NICT Magnetosphere Pressure - 10th June 2011 at 22:49: 11 UT. Well, this was only suppose to be a glancing blow...



Flight VY8366 intercepted by Mirage 2000 (Video)
YouTube, 31st May 2011
Vueling Flight VY8366 from Malaga (AGP) to Amsterdam (AMS), around 21.30 CET intercepted by a [French Air Force] Mirage 2000 on May 27, 2011.

Comment:
According to one of the YouTube comments: "The aircraft lost communications for a short time during flight so when that happens, an interception happens, thanks to 9/11." Well, I think this is one of the most amazing videos I have ever seen... So, was this caused by Space Weather knocking out high frequency radio communications, since it was only for "a short time"? Really, this video takes your breath away, awesome.... I'm sure the passengers were told what was happening and the arrival of the jet would have been quite an exciting experience, a great bonus.... Anyway, it's interesting that we have had two stories about fighter jets accompanying domestic aircraft in a week, but in very different circumstances....



Power Outage At Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport
CBS Minneapolis News, 21st May 2011
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A power outage at Terminal A of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has left several jetways inoperable. The Metropolitan Airports Commission said the outage is affecting concourses A, B, C and D. The concourses are currently using a backup generator to power lights for safety, but for now, the jetways are inoperable.

Those who are onboard flights are being deboarded and ushered onto buses. Officials are working with police and the TSA to ensure everything remains secure during the outage. A few flights have been delayed. Authorities say they don't know if the outage is weather related but electricians and Xcel Energy are working to get the power back on.

Comment:
The above is from the old version of the story that has also been updated with a new headline. The latest version tells us the blackout lasted 6 hours and 250 planes had to be diverted which I think can be considered as major disruption. Well, there seems to be a pattern appearing of blackouts at airports and authorities KNOW it is probably related to atmospheric effects... Curiously, the new version has no mention of the weather.... Well since there is 100 - 300 volts per meter normally. but a dust devil can generate 4000 volts per meter at ground level, we know there can be a huge variation in electric fields but the evidence is stacking up that airports seem to be more vulnerable in the increasingly intense electromagnetic conditions on Earth....



Windscreen cracks during flight over Norway, Smoke fills cockpit
SOTT News, 12th May 2011
English Translation: SAS-flight forced to turn around after drama in midair. "The captain couldn't speak with us because he was wearing an oxygen mask," passengers report.

A SAS flight on its way from Oslo Gardermoen airport to Stavanger airport had to return this afternoon to Gardermoen due to smoke in the cockpit and a cracked flight window.

Unusually enough, these two things occurred simultaneously. It is too early to say why smoke developed in the cockpit. As a rule, it's about cabling or smoke entering from outside, but this can only amount to speculation, says Kenneth K. Vikse, communication director at SAS, who emphasizes that the passengers never were in danger.

Comment:
Hmmm... We do not get an explanation here, but since this is now a recurring problem there is a suggestion of overheated windscreen heaters short-circuiting and this implies an excess of electrical charge coming from somewhere. From the details provided in the articles below, maybe we are seeing an increase in this kind of incident, especially relating to take off and landing because of intense electric fields charging up windscreens. I am even wondering whether airports are especially vulnerable because we are seeing more and more stories of blackouts at airports and I have even been at the airport in Stavanger, Norway when they had to turn off the x-ray machines because there was "too much electricity in the ground", I know because I asked and got a truthful reply. This is interesting to consider when we know that even planes that are parked up have had their windscreens shattered... Anyway, maybe we are seeing more indications of Space Weather and worsening chaotic electromagnetic conditions on Earth, see more below.

Update

Piezoelectric Fires in the Heating Elements of Airplane Windshields (PHOTOS)
humanresonance.org, 12th May 2011
Analysis: "...the short timeframe whithin which these events occurred suggests that in fact standing waves of infrasound resonance were responsible for shattering the many windshields. Low-frequency concentric radar anomalies centered exactly on the Denver Int. Airport have been reported on various occassions, and can also account for the other events like this case over Norway. The research presented at this site reveals that the airport is being subjected to an inaudible infrasound resonance being erratically transduced by the pyramids of the world, in a pattern of heightening intensity that will culminate in the events of December 22, 2012."

Air Safety: 22 windshields cracking on 14 aircraft during a 90 minutes
Aviation Today, 5th March 2007
In Air Safety Week dated 26 February ("Thirteen plus One") we reported upon some of the likely causes of the 22 windshields cracking on 14 aircraft during a 90 minute period at Denver International Airport on 16th February last. The Denver-based NTSB lead investigator Jennifer Kaiser has now come up with an FOD explanation that she thinks "flies".

It's a natural phenomenon according to Jennifer. "The only commonality across aircraft type, operator, location, time and phase of flight was the wind and weather," Kaiser claimed. Despite aircraft being parked in different orientations, fine particles of grit were being swept along by gusts as high (at one stage) as 48 mph claims Kyle Fredin of the National Weather Service. On one parked aircraft, a CRJ 700, all four cockpit windows were cracked. Either the grit, or the wind, was turning corners.
Now this one incident throws a whole new light on the situation....

FAA probes shattered windshields on American Airlines jets
WFAA TV News, 29th March 2011
The Federal Aviation Administration confirms that it's looking into why cockpit windshields on two American Airlines jets overheated and cracked in mid-air. The latest incident happened Saturday on a Boeing 767 international flight to New York.

Two weeks ago, the pilot of another American Airlines 767 wide-body jet diverted to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with the same problem – a cracked windshield.

In both cases, electrical systems in the windshield heaters short-circuited and burned portions of the window. The Wall Street Journal reported 38 similar incidents over the last decade



Electrical explosion jolts Westwood
The blast at an underground transformer vault near UCLA sends up flames and smoke and propels a manhole cover into the back of a Metro bus. No passengers are injured. LA Times, 18th May 2011
An underground electrical transformer vault exploded Tuesday in Westwood near UCLA, sending smoke and a plume of flame shooting up from the street and propelling a manhole cover into the back of a Metro bus, Los Angeles city fire officials said.

The bus driver was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and treated for a "stress reaction," Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Marc Littman said.

None of the 25 passengers on board were injured, even though the back of the bus was passing over the manhole when the cover blew, shattering the vehicle's rear windows. [...] "We heard this big boom," Schmidt said, noting that she looked out a window and saw a "big plume of fire and brown smoke coming from the street."

Comment:
I am still looking at this, but there is now a very long list of recent transformer failures mainly in the United States. A transformer vault is a structure or room in which power transformers, network protectors, voltage regulators, circuit breakers, meters, etc. are housed, hence when they explode, they can be extremely danagerous. The videos of this incident just shows smoke after the loud boom and fire but not a massive flare up or a light show. The United States has poor level of maintenance for their infrastructure but I do believe we are seeing a stronger electrical connection taking place between the ionosphere and the Earth, especially in places with a weak ionosphere. The Russians told us in 1997 the weakest place was over the United States with the ionosphere at 10km high, but since then, NASA have made it known the ionosphere dropped even more at solar minimum and then never recovered. I have not seen any maps of the depth of the ionopshere all over the planet but I am sure it must exist... Click icon for more information.

Westwood electrical explosion injures bus driver
ABC7 Local LA News, 18th May 2011

Why do Transformers Explode?
Transformer Protector Corp
"A one-year research project led to the discovery of 730 transformer explosions in the USA only Click for document #5. Many experts anticipate that the number of failures will increase significantly in the near future, from 1% in 2001 to 2% in 2008 Click for document #17. In addition, the shorter lifetime of new transformers will sharply increase above this rate after 2008 Click for document #18."
You have to contact them for the documents and no doubt they will charge, but the numbers here are high and so it seems there has been a massive increase in failures or there is two systems of counting 'failures'.



Cathay Pacific Airbus 330 makes emergency landing in Singapore (Video)
'God, save our flight! Give us your protection!' passengers pray
MSNBC News, 16th May 2011
SINGAPORE – Terrified passengers aboard a blazing jetliner prayed together before the plane made an emergency landing on Monday. An engine on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 caught fire in midair.

Cathay Pacific said the jet, bound for Jakarta with 136 passengers on board, landed back in Singapore "without incident" just before 2 a.m. It said the crew shut down the engine after receiving a "stall warning."

Comment:
Chaos.... read the story, stating that the plane landed "without incident" is terrible way to downplay this... fortunately the passengers survived... I'm glad they started praying... There will be no attempt at analysis here, because some expert opinion is needed...



Power cuts strike Northern Territory homes [Australia]
Herald Sun, 13th May 2011
HUNDREDS of Darwinites may have slept through their alarms this morning when power was cut across several suburbs. Power and Water have since restored power to some homes in the affected areas. However, it will still be 1-2 hours before full restoration. Power and Water spokeswoman Lorraine Hook says power failed in Fannie Bay, Stuart Park, Parap, Ludmilla, and Coconut Grove about 5am.

Comment:
I am still looking at reports but it does seem there was a sweep across the globe of power cuts over the weekend (13th-15th May) and transformer blasts across the United States that might be associated with the planetary line-up of 5 planets plus our moon. The transformer failure across the US is quite interesting because it seems that there is documentation that tells us that 19 per year was the average between 1997 - 2001 which makes the Fort Worth incident and the others since, even more interesting.

Anyway, we must remember that the whole solar system is now highly charged and according to Russian scientists the transmitting properties of space has increased. I would have thought electromagnetic disruptions are most likely a few days either side of this alignment. The Interactive 3D model of Solar System Planets and Night Sky at the website www.solarsystemscope.com used to generate the image above. It helps us visualise why more scientists are seeing the rationale and the observational data that links up how earthquakes can be triggered by external cosmic events. Basically, earthquakes can be triggered by changes in the sun-Earth environment affecting the magnetic field of the Earth. More reports and info below:

Power Outage In Greece
Wham 1180, 15th May 2011
"It affected around 2600 customers in areas that included Latta and Long Pond Roads."

Flights delayed in Malaysia airport blackout
AFP, 15th may 2011
"KUALA LUMPUR – National carrier Malaysian Airlines said Sunday 13 of its scheduled flights had been delayed and over 300 bags left behind following a "total blackout" at the capital's international airport. "Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) suffered a total blackout early this morning. Although it was restored within a short period of time, it had resulted in several flight delays," the airline said in a statement."

Lights go out in parts of Toronto's financial district [Canada]
Globe & Mail, 16th May 2011
"Parts of downtown Toronto were without power Monday morning. Seven large business customers in the financial district and downtown core were affected by the blackout, which began around 9:30 a.m. Power had been restored to five of the buildings by 11:30 a.m."

Cruise ship loses power at sea [nr Sweden]
MSNBC News, 16th May 2011
"The England-bound MSC Opera lost power in the Baltic Sea on Saturday. A problem with the electrical panel caused an engine power outage, stranding the ship's 1,716 passengers without lighting, water and access to working toilets. [...] The ship left Southhampton, England, on May 7 and stopped in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki and St. Petersburg. The 10-day cruise was cut short on Saturday, and the ship was towed to Nynamshamn, a port near Stockholm, Sweden."
If this was geomagnetically induced failure then it is due to large currents flowing through highly conductive sea water , see graphic.
  • US National Grid Outage Central
    National Grid US, May 2011
    I used this link to check if rumours of outages in the northeast on the 15th were true

  • Analysis of Transformer Failures in the US between 1997 - 2001 ( .pdf, 2003)
    BPL Global, 2003
    A document supplied by the International Association of Engineering Insurers presented at the 36th Annual Conference – Stockholm, 2003

  • America's Failing Infrastructure
    YouTube/CBS, 3rd September 2010
    "The American Society of Civil Engineers issues a report card every 4 years on the state of America's infrastructure. In the last two report cards, the nation got a D. Richard Schlesinger continues the series "CBS Reports: Where America Stands" with the state of America's infrastructure." Report Card = D, this might be a good explanation for why there will be a lot of geomagnetically linked problems to come in the United States causing an acceleration of problems in an already poorly maintained infractstructure.

  • www.poweroutages.org


Amazing video shows transformers exploding in Fort Worth --United States--
Yahoo News, 11th May 2011

FORT WORTH – As storms rolled through the Metroplex Tuesday night amateur photographer Brian Luenser had his camera trained on the sky and captured some amazing photographs of lightning raining down on the city of Fort Worth.

Luenser, who lives in downtown Fort Worth's Tower building, went to his balcony with camera in hand as the storm rolled in. "I love taking pictures of storms and lightning," said the amateur photographer. And with his vantage point from the 34th floor he has a view of the world that few people get to see. [...]

Then at about 9:30 p.m. Luenser caught an amazing light show on the ground as power transformers began to explode. One by one the transformers lit-up in an unbelievable chain reaction that lasted about thirty minutes.

"It was definitely a right-place, right-time kind of moment" said Luenser as the sky glowed a brilliant blue, red and orange from the electrical flashes. "It looked like World War Three was going on below."

After the event was over about 5,000 people were briefly without power according to Oncor. Most of the power has since been restored.

Comment:
I am so impressed with this event that I am ranking it at the same level as the Norwegian Spiral. These are my initial thoughts but I will modify my opinion if new information makes me change my mind. First of all, the locals on the ground are talking about fireballs as below:
FORT WORTH -- Fire and police dispatchers were busy Tuesday night answering calls about "fireballs" in the sky and on the ground in east Fort Worth. Several transformers were struck by lightning in east Fort Worth Tuesday night, Oncor spokeswoman Jeamy Molina said. [...]

Star-Telegram columnist Bob Ray Sanders said that whatever it was, it was dramatic.

"I've seen lightning strike, and this was no lightning," he said. "It may have been precipitated by lightning strikes." Sanders said he was at his home, which backs up to Randol Mill Road, when he saw "blazes up in the air." "I saw fire in the sky and on the ground," he said. "I saw 10 or 12 explosions. It was like someone was dropping bombs."

'Fireballs' reported in east Fort Worth
Star Telegram, 11th May 2011
If this was supposed to be transformers exploding, then why are there so many lights still on -- no major blackout, there is no sound of explosions, but we can hear the birds chirping? The lights are all different colours and look more like party/disco lights because of the extreme luminosity. There is a lot of good videos of transformers blowing up on YouTube to make comparisons and there cannot be so many transformers in such a small area that keep silently exploding. When this video was taken I can see no storm, no lightning but I see orbs in the sky... the first instance can be see at [0:18].

So, I wonder whether a more conventional explanation would be quakelights? The problem with the explanation of quakelights is the reports that people saw fireballs dropping.... I have a completely unconventional explanation too... maybe we were seeing a war of the gods...

Fort Worth Explosions - Brian Luenser Upload
YouTube, 11th May 2011

Update 13th May 2011

NHK World: Two 7.4 Japan Earthquakes April 7 2011 with a strange blue flash Tsunami warning (Video)
YouTube/NHK World, 7th April 2011

7.4 Japan Earthquakes April 7 2011 (a closer look)
YouTube, 8th April 2011
Comment:
Please note the identical phenomenon reported at Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture during the strong 7.4 aftershock in Japan reported by NHK World on the 7th April. At the time I suggested the pulsing bright blue light could be a quakelight, but there is a need for more evidence about what exactly was going on at Fort Worth before making any more comparisons.

Update 15th May 2011

The Blackout of Portimão, Portugal --Portugal--
YouTube, 15th April 2011
Translation: "On the night of 14 to 15 there was a blackout in Portimão accompanied by strange flashes in the sky throughout the city, this is the video".
Comment:
OK, we have dogs barking, traffic noise and the commentary of people making the video, but no sound from the spectacular colourful flashes, exactly the same as the event at Forth Worth, Texas. Hence, I am now willing to state we may have the start of a new type of 'quakelight' phenomenon, that is not necessarily associated with earthquakes.


Update 16th May 2011

Fireballs in Fort Worth
YouTube, 15th May 2011
Finally, we have a collaborating video for the event at Fort Worth from a different angle, again no sound of exploding transformers... but we get a commentary and the sound of traffic.

Massive Awesome Explosions 15 MAY 2011 Brazil --Brazil--
YouTube, 15th May 2011
"Large explosions occurring at 15 MAY 2011 at 19:50"
Comment: Again, we have pulsating lights and lights flashing in the same locations that light up the whole sky. There is no obvious sound of explosions but there is the sound of heavy traffic when it's raining, the rumble of thunder and people shouting and screaming, which is hard to imagine would be enough to stop the sound of massive explosions. I tried to translate the YouTube comments from Portuguese into English and some state there was a noise of electricity so maybe there was some hissing and crackling. One commentator stated there was "interference on mobile phones including the computers". A comment about a ufo is not from an eye witness and the statement must be considered as just speculation. Basically, the mystery is deepening... so we await further info to appear..."



Alabama Tornadoes Spur Nuclear Emergency
Pure Energy Systems News, 29th April 2011
The Brownsferry nuclear plant has had all 6 major 500kV lines to it cut by the recent tornadoes, requiring the emergency cooling system to run on several thousand gallons of diesel fuel per hour to keep three large nuclear reactors, each 2X the Daiichi size, from melting down.

I live in Madison, Alabama about 20 miles as the crow flies from Brownsferry Nuclear plant operated by the US-TVA. On Wednesday 27, 2011 There was a massive tornado outbreak in North Alabama. Rest assured I am ok. My home is fine and my family is fine. However; North Alabama and the US-TVA is not fine at all.

All 6 major 500KV lines from Brownsferry were cut by the tornadoes. This is a major event because this means that the US-TVA now has 3 large (2X Daiichi Japan size) nuclear reactors which are running on backup generators which are eating several thousand gallons of Diesil fuel an hour. Should these fail we are into a Daiichi situation. The US-TVA is now admitting that these essential power lines will take more than 15 days to replace. I have bad news, they will take at the normal rates of usual repair 2 years to replace. Rather than go into all that can go on with the economy just look at the nuclear potential.

If this situation is not restored to power lines the TVA plant at Brownsferry may well explode and burn down like Daiichi's plants have done. It is of the same design only bigger.

Comment:
Not even 1 month later.... this is what US Homeland security had to say on 31st March...

U.S. reactors have weaker back-up batteries than Fukushima Daiichi had
Homeland Security Newswire, 31st March 2011
"Almost all American nuclear power plants have backup batteries that would last only half as long as those at Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi plant did after a tsunami knocked out power there; just eleven of the U.S. 104 plants had eight-hour batteries, and 93 had four-hour batteries; the batteries are not powerful enough to run pumps that direct cooling water, but they can operate valves and can power instruments that give readings of water levels, flow and temperatures."

Comment:
And to think, 1 week before the Fukushima crisis, a US nuclear engineer was trying to wake up authorities about the need for better backups for nuclear plants during an emergency, see archives... See previous report below (28th) about the Alabama Brownsferry nuclear plant...



TVA loses all power transmission lines in Alabama and Mississippi, Browns Ferry Nuclear plant forced into emergency shutdown
Times Free Press, 28th April 2011
Wednesday's storms took out all of TVA's electric power transmission lines in Mississippi and North Alabama, and forced Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant unto diesel backup power and into emergency and automatic cold shutdown.

Bill McCollum, the chief operating officer of Tennessee Valley Authority, said it may be weeks before power can be restored to all of the 300,000 customers whose power is supplied by the federal utility. "With the level of damage we have, it will be – we hope it will be days until we get most of the customers back on, but it will be weeks before we've fully repaired all of the damage," he said.

McCollum said the reactors, now being cooled by backup diesel power, are safe. He said the spent fuel pools also are being cooled by backup diesel power and are safe.

Comment:
I wonder how frightened people have to get before they realised that our puny technological infrastructure is not going to stand up to the massive Earth changes coming our way and that we are going to have to do business differently on this planet to survive. At the moment, it's really looking like we are a boxer that has been forced onto the ropes, but we are still ducking and diving trying to prevent the knock out blow. When are world controllers going to get it?



NTSB: Loose rivets found in plane with hole
Associated Press, 25th April 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Investigators trying to determine why the roof of a Southwest Airlines jet cracked open in flight have issued preliminary findings suggesting there may have been flaws in the riveting work when Boeing built the plane 15 years ago.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that some of the rivets used to bind the Boeing 737's aluminum panels together were sunk in holes larger than the rivet shafts. The holes weren't lined up correctly and were misshapen, not round, the board said.

It didn't offer any conclusions and said the investigation is continuing.

Comment:
Well, I used to suspect Space Weather was starting to have a real impact with so many airplane incidents, but I am finding out slowly that a lot of these incidents are manmade... Hence I will continue to link up reports when I find them.

Hole reported aboard plane before emergency landing
Passengers say blast heard on Southwest flight; FAA cites 'rapid decompression'
MSNBC News, 1st April 2011
YUMA, Ariz. – A Southwest Airlines passenger jet flying from Phoenix to Sacramento, Calif., made an emergency landing in Yuma, Ariz., Friday after experiencing "rapid decompression," the FAA said. Pasengers said they heard a blast that may have opened a hole in the plane's roof. [...] Some passengers aboard the plane said there was a hole in the cabin and that forced an emergency landing.



AA 737 Makes Emergency Landing
My Fox DFW News, 20th April 2011
DALLAS - An American Airlines 737 made an emergency landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday. Flight 1646 touched down at about 11:10 a.m., shortly after departing for Miami.

Emergency vehicles escorted the aircraft to a gate. A cabin pressure issue prompted the plane to return to North Texas, an official said.

Comment:
Now I am curious due to all the recent emergencies with the same problem... More related information below:

  • Emergency landing for Mumbai-bound flight at city airport
    Times of India, 30th March 2011
    AHMEDABAD: 144 passengers had a close shave when cabin pressurization system of a Mumbai-bound Spice Jet flight had a technical snag mid-air on Tuesday.[...] "The system pumps compressed air into the aircraft cabin to maintain a safe environment, for crew and passengers to protect them from the risk of hypoxia and other physiological problems that occur in thin air on higher altitude. But when the plane was near Ahmedabad the system started showing problems and we took permission for an emergency landing," said a Spice Jet official. So, what is really happening?

  • Reports Detail Incidents of Korean Air, Asiana Jets
    WSJ, 31 March 2011
    " Japanese air-safety investigators have released separate reports about a pair of hazardous in-flight incidents involving Korea's two largest airlines, and the findings reveal significant mechanical malfunctions and pilot mistakes. One of the reports details a Korean Air Lines Co. Airbus A300 jetliner that suffered a rapid cabin decompression over Nagoya, Japan, in June 2009 due to malfunctions of its air-conditioning and related systems, according to an English translation of the Japanese Transportation Safety Board's findings."
    So this has been going on for some time...

  • When the Pressure's Off, Unexpectedly
    Aviation Week, January 21 2009
    "A review of 390 accidents involving business jets from 1991 through 2007, along with 811 incidents from the FAA's incident database, revealed that pressurization problems were the fifth most common mechanical failure. The incident database contained 41 reports of malfunctions with the pressurization system, of which 24 resulted in emergency descents. And it took just a few quick moments to find an additional 68 "rapid decompression" events in NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) records involving business jets, along with so many more related incidents described as "loss of cabin pressurization" there was no point in continuing the count."
    So, in 16 years there was 24 emergency descents or 1.5 per year. So, I think it's easy to see there has been a dramatic increase in recent years....

  • Aviation Accident Tracker
    The Aviation Herald
    A good website to keep track of the larger airliner incidents


US Nuclear Plant Without Power After Hit By Tornado – Two Reactors Without Electric – Thousands Of FEMA Workers Deployed
Alexander Higgins, 18th April 2011
Breaking news coming across the news wires now.
The US Nuclear regulatory commission has reported that an "unusual event" has occurred after a Nuclear Power plant was hit by a tornado in Virginia causing it to lose power. It was the same loss of electricity that caused the Fukushima disaster leading to the meltdown of the reactors.

Updates will be posted here as they come in.
Update: 3:29 PM – The Guardian reports that Thousands of FEMA workers have been deployed to the area and two nuclear reactors are without power running on diesel generators as workers rush to restore power.

Comment:
Hmmm.... Obviously, since the Fukushima nuclear disaster I have been seeing more stories about minor incidents at nuclear power stations in the US and Russia, but I get nervous when I hear news about reactors operating on backup. My nervousness comes from finding out that some US nuclear plant operators have been fined when their backups were not in working order and the batteries were found to have been dead for years....

U.S. reactors have weaker back-up batteries than Fukushima Daiichi had
Homeland Security Newswire, 31st March 2011
"Almost all American nuclear power plants have backup batteries that would last only half as long as those at Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi plant did after a tsunami knocked out power there; just eleven of the U.S. 104 plants had eight-hour batteries, and 93 had four-hour batteries; the batteries are not powerful enough to run pumps that direct cooling water, but they can operate valves and can power instruments that give readings of water levels, flow and temperatures."

Nuclear Agency Tests Pennsylvania Plant
Wall Street Journal, 7th April 2011
"The study, known as State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses and conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, analyzed the effects of severe accidents at two nuclear reactors: Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom plant, which has a design similar to the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, and the Surry reactor in Virginia, lawmakers said."

Surry nuclear reactors remain shut down after tornado
WTVR.com, 18th April 2011



AA 737 Makes Emergency Landing
My Fox DFW News, 20th April 2011
DALLAS - An American Airlines 737 made an emergency landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday. Flight 1646 touched down at about 11:10 a.m., shortly after departing for Miami.

Emergency vehicles escorted the aircraft to a gate. A cabin pressure issue prompted the plane to return to North Texas, an official said.

Comment:
Now I am curious due to all the recent emergencies with the same problem... More related information below:

  • Emergency landing for Mumbai-bound flight at city airport
    Times of India, 30th March 2011
    AHMEDABAD: 144 passengers had a close shave when cabin pressurization system of a Mumbai-bound Spice Jet flight had a technical snag mid-air on Tuesday.[...] "The system pumps compressed air into the aircraft cabin to maintain a safe environment, for crew and passengers to protect them from the risk of hypoxia and other physiological problems that occur in thin air on higher altitude. But when the plane was near Ahmedabad the system started showing problems and we took permission for an emergency landing," said a Spice Jet official. So, what is really happening?

  • Reports Detail Incidents of Korean Air, Asiana Jets
    WSJ, 31 March 2011
    " Japanese air-safety investigators have released separate reports about a pair of hazardous in-flight incidents involving Korea's two largest airlines, and the findings reveal significant mechanical malfunctions and pilot mistakes. One of the reports details a Korean Air Lines Co. Airbus A300 jetliner that suffered a rapid cabin decompression over Nagoya, Japan, in June 2009 due to malfunctions of its air-conditioning and related systems, according to an English translation of the Japanese Transportation Safety Board's findings."
    So this has been going on for some time...

  • When the Pressure's Off, Unexpectedly
    Aviation Week, January 21 2009
    "A review of 390 accidents involving business jets from 1991 through 2007, along with 811 incidents from the FAA's incident database, revealed that pressurization problems were the fifth most common mechanical failure. The incident database contained 41 reports of malfunctions with the pressurization system, of which 24 resulted in emergency descents. And it took just a few quick moments to find an additional 68 "rapid decompression" events in NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) records involving business jets, along with so many more related incidents described as "loss of cabin pressurization" there was no point in continuing the count."
    So, in 16 years there was 24 emergency descents or 1.5 per year. So, I think it's easy to see there has been a dramatic increase in recent years....

  • Aviation Accident Tracker
    The Aviation Herald
    A good website to keep track of the larger airliner incidents


United flight makes emergency landing after smoke reported
CNN News, 4th April 2011
(CNN) -- A United Airlines airplane ran off the runway Monday in New Orleans after the pilot lost control of the nose wheel during an emergency landing, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and an airport spokeswoman.

No one was injured in the incident, according to FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford.

The Airbus A-319, flying as United Flight 497 from New Orleans to San Francisco, was smoking from the nose and made a screeching sound as it landed, a witness told CNN affiliate WVUE-TV in New Orleans.$

Comment:
Smoke in the cockpit.... concern must be rising. OK, there have been many reports of small plane accidents, but the incidents of larger planes with major incidents is also increasing too. So, it's disturbing to find out about the mechanical faults that should not exist, nevermind the worsening conditions in the skies.
  • Instrument failure causes United Airlines emergency landing
    Airlines/Airport Examiner, 5th April 2011
    "A United Airlines Airbus 320-232, registration N409UA, encountered a catastrophic electrical failure at 4,000 feet, knocking out primary instruments about 6 minutes after a 7:05 a.m. EDT takeoff on Monday, April 4, 2011 from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), and forcing the crew to declare an emergency and return to the airport, as reported by The Times-Picayune, JACDEC aircraft incidents, CBS San Francisco, other media sources, and the NTSB on Monday, April 4, 2011."


Hole reported aboard plane before emergency landing
Passengers say blast heard on Southwest flight; FAA cites 'rapid decompression'
MSNBC News, 1st April 2011
YUMA, Ariz. – A Southwest Airlines passenger jet flying from Phoenix to Sacramento, Calif., made an emergency landing in Yuma, Ariz., Friday after experiencing "rapid decompression," the FAA said. Pasengers said they heard a blast that may have opened a hole in the plane's roof.

Flight 812 landed safely at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport at 4:07 p.m., the FAA said. There was no immediate report of any injuries among the 118 people aboard the flight.

The cause of the decompression was not known, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. An FAA inspector from Phoenix was en route to Yuma. Some passengers aboard the plane said there was a hole in the cabin and that forced an emergency landing.

Comment:
This is getting ridiculous! Big meteoroid? The skies are getting less and less friendly every day.... Folks tweeting
@BluestMuse
Happy to be alive. Still feel sick. 6 foot hole in the skin of the plane five rows behind me. Unbelievable. pics.



O'Hare-Bound Flight Diverted to Ohio With Sick Passengers
The flight landed in Dayton after four passengers apparently fainted
NBC Chicago, 1st April 2011
Four passengers apparently fainted on an American Airlines flight headed to Chicago from Washington D.C. because of a possible issue with cabin pressure.

An American Airlines spokesman told NBC News that a couple flight attendants got dizzy as the plane reached 28,000 feet and asked the pilots to drop the oxygen masks just in case. The pilots began looking for a place to land and Flight 547 diverted to Dayton International Airport, spokesman Ed Martell said.

Martell said it's not known whether the passengers fainted because of the lack of oxygen or because of the excitement of the moment. Obviously, according to this spokeman, the passengers that fainted must have come from Bongo Bongo Land and had never travelled in a plane before... Update: Flight attendent went to hospital too, so spokeman was of course talking rubbish.

Comment:
I wonder...according to American Airlines spokesman, we are told that the plane might have encountered a possible pressurization issue, shortly after the plane hit an altitude of 28,000 feet, so was there a problem with air quality at that height? Quite frankly, we know that half the air being breathed during a flight comes in off the engines and circulates with air already being recirculated inside the plane, so this certainly looks like this could have been a space weather induced problem as the oxygen in the air could have been heavily ionised. We also have to remember all the similar stories that seem to keep repeating (see archives), but as usual, any findings are often not widely circulated in the media because it's bad for business. However, the links below prove that there is a general issue with air quality.

Commercial Aircraft Air Quality Danger - Aerotoxic Syndrome
YouTube/CNN, 20th April 2010
"CNN's Allan Chernoff reports on how eight people were sickened due to an oil leak on a US Airways jet engine. A similar incident also occurred several times on a Northwest (now Delta) Airlines aircraft."

Pilot Susan Michaelis says plane fumes making passengers sick
Aviation News, 27th March 2011
"A FORMER Qantas pilot has claimed people are "getting seriously sick" after breathing contaminated air aboard aeroplanes, despite study saying fume leaks are "exceptionally rare". [...] "The whole issue of toxic air in cabins is controversial. Some pilots believe it is a widespread problem, but the bulk of pilots don't believe that," he said. [...] The Department for Transport in the UK has commissioned a study by Cranfield University that is due to be published "very shortly".Since 2006 there have been seven incidents involving toxic fumes reported to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and one to Balpa. These are where it is proved that a toxic substance had leaked somewhere on an aircraft. There were 270 engine oil incidents recorded by the CAA, where oil had leaked and fumes had entered the cabin. The Balpa spokesman said this was because air goes through the engine and into the cabin. But he said the next generation of aircraft would not use this system.



Plane with sick passengers makes emergency landing in Dayton
Dayton Daily, 1st April 2011 Update
[...] A passenger, Christina Saull of Washington, D.C., said the plane had pushed out of the gate at Reagan but had not left the tarmac when an announcement was made about problems with the air and cabin pressurization system.

Saull, who was traveling with her husband Bradley, said maintenance personnel arrived, came onto the plane and went into the cockpit. The plane eventually took off, she said.

"Halfway through the flight, the woman in the row behind us … we thought she had a seizure," Saull said. They quickly learned that woman and another woman next to her had passed out. Then some passengers who were 10 rows in front of the Saulls started complaining about smelling fumes.

"I didn't smell anything," she said. "Other passengers were complaining about being light-headed ... Five minutes later, they were announcing they were going to drop the masks." Saull said she thought the passengers were pretty calm despite the situation.

Comment:
Fumes in the cabin and a few folks don't get the oxygen masks on fast enough, it really does not inspire confidence...



Pilot finds hole in plane's fuselage; airline and FBI investigate
CNN News, 29th March 2011
FBI investigators were working Tuesday to discover what caused a small hole in the body of a US Airways jet. A pilot discovered the hole Monday while checking the aircraft before a flight, the airline said.

The puncture in the Boeing 737 airliner is the size and shape of a bullet hole, but that doesn't mean someone shot at the plane, said Amy Thorenson, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Charlotte, North Carolina. Investigators don't yet know what could have caused the hole, she said Tuesday morning. [...] The aircraft had flown to Charlotte from Philadelphia and was being prepped for another flight when the pilot discovered the hole above a passenger window toward the back of the plane, according to airline officials. The airline pulled the plane from service and called in the FBI.

Comment:
It could have been a meteoroid and since we know that Earth is being bombarded with an assortment of cosmic debris see archives, this is the most likely suggestion, but off course an airline is not going to admit that flying conditions in the atmosphere are getting worse.



United flight makes emergency landing after smoke reported
CNN News, 4th April 2011
(CNN) -- A United Airlines airplane ran off the runway Monday in New Orleans after the pilot lost control of the nose wheel during an emergency landing, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and an airport spokeswoman.

No one was injured in the incident, according to FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford.

The Airbus A-319, flying as United Flight 497 from New Orleans to San Francisco, was smoking from the nose and made a screeching sound as it landed, a witness told CNN affiliate WVUE-TV in New Orleans.$

Comment:
Smoke in the cockpit.... concern must be rising. OK, there have been many reports of small plane accidents, but the incidents of larger planes with major incidents is also increasing too. So, it's disturbing to find out about the mechanical faults that should not exist, nevermind the worsening conditions in the skies.
  • Instrument failure causes United Airlines emergency landing
    Airlines/Airport Examiner, 5th April 2011
    "A United Airlines Airbus 320-232, registration N409UA, encountered a catastrophic electrical failure at 4,000 feet, knocking out primary instruments about 6 minutes after a 7:05 a.m. EDT takeoff on Monday, April 4, 2011 from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), and forcing the crew to declare an emergency and return to the airport, as reported by The Times-Picayune, JACDEC aircraft incidents, CBS San Francisco, other media sources, and the NTSB on Monday, April 4, 2011."


Hole reported aboard plane before emergency landing
Passengers say blast heard on Southwest flight; FAA cites 'rapid decompression'
MSNBC News, 1st April 2011
YUMA, Ariz. – A Southwest Airlines passenger jet flying from Phoenix to Sacramento, Calif., made an emergency landing in Yuma, Ariz., Friday after experiencing "rapid decompression," the FAA said. Pasengers said they heard a blast that may have opened a hole in the plane's roof.

Flight 812 landed safely at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport at 4:07 p.m., the FAA said. There was no immediate report of any injuries among the 118 people aboard the flight.

The cause of the decompression was not known, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. An FAA inspector from Phoenix was en route to Yuma. Some passengers aboard the plane said there was a hole in the cabin and that forced an emergency landing.

Comment:
This is getting ridiculous! Big meteoroid? The skies are getting less and less friendly every day.... Folks tweeting
@BluestMuse
Happy to be alive. Still feel sick. 6 foot hole in the skin of the plane five rows behind me. Unbelievable. pics.



O'Hare-Bound Flight Diverted to Ohio With Sick Passengers
The flight landed in Dayton after four passengers apparently fainted
NBC Chicago, 1st April 2011
Four passengers apparently fainted on an American Airlines flight headed to Chicago from Washington D.C. because of a possible issue with cabin pressure.

An American Airlines spokesman told NBC News that a couple flight attendants got dizzy as the plane reached 28,000 feet and asked the pilots to drop the oxygen masks just in case. The pilots began looking for a place to land and Flight 547 diverted to Dayton International Airport, spokesman Ed Martell said.

Martell said it's not known whether the passengers fainted because of the lack of oxygen or because of the excitement of the moment. Obviously, according to this spokeman, the passengers that fainted must have come from Bongo Bongo Land and had never travelled in a plane before... Update: Flight attendent went to hospital too, so spokeman was of course talking rubbish.

Comment:
I wonder...according to American Airlines spokesman, we are told that the plane might have encountered a possible pressurization issue, shortly after the plane hit an altitude of 28,000 feet, so was there a problem with air quality at that height? Quite frankly, we know that half the air being breathed during a flight comes in off the engines and circulates with air already being recirculated inside the plane, so this certainly looks like this could have been a space weather induced problem as the oxygen in the air could have been heavily ionised. We also have to remember all the similar stories that seem to keep repeating (see archives), but as usual, any findings are often not widely circulated in the media because it's bad for business. However, the links below prove that there is a general issue with air quality.

Commercial Aircraft Air Quality Danger - Aerotoxic Syndrome
YouTube/CNN, 20th April 2010
"CNN's Allan Chernoff reports on how eight people were sickened due to an oil leak on a US Airways jet engine. A similar incident also occurred several times on a Northwest (now Delta) Airlines aircraft."

Pilot Susan Michaelis says plane fumes making passengers sick
Aviation News, 27th March 2011
"A FORMER Qantas pilot has claimed people are "getting seriously sick" after breathing contaminated air aboard aeroplanes, despite study saying fume leaks are "exceptionally rare". [...] "The whole issue of toxic air in cabins is controversial. Some pilots believe it is a widespread problem, but the bulk of pilots don't believe that," he said. [...] The Department for Transport in the UK has commissioned a study by Cranfield University that is due to be published "very shortly".Since 2006 there have been seven incidents involving toxic fumes reported to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and one to Balpa. These are where it is proved that a toxic substance had leaked somewhere on an aircraft. There were 270 engine oil incidents recorded by the CAA, where oil had leaked and fumes had entered the cabin. The Balpa spokesman said this was because air goes through the engine and into the cabin. But he said the next generation of aircraft would not use this system.



Plane with sick passengers makes emergency landing in Dayton
Dayton Daily, 1st April 2011 Update
[...] A passenger, Christina Saull of Washington, D.C., said the plane had pushed out of the gate at Reagan but had not left the tarmac when an announcement was made about problems with the air and cabin pressurization system.

Saull, who was traveling with her husband Bradley, said maintenance personnel arrived, came onto the plane and went into the cockpit. The plane eventually took off, she said.

"Halfway through the flight, the woman in the row behind us … we thought she had a seizure," Saull said. They quickly learned that woman and another woman next to her had passed out. Then some passengers who were 10 rows in front of the Saulls started complaining about smelling fumes.

"I didn't smell anything," she said. "Other passengers were complaining about being light-headed ... Five minutes later, they were announcing they were going to drop the masks." Saull said she thought the passengers were pretty calm despite the situation.

Comment:
Fumes in the cabin and a few folks don't get the oxygen masks on fast enough, it really does not inspire confidence...



Gov't orders utilities to prepare for tsunami with more backups
Kyodo News, 30th March 2011
The industry ministry ordered utility companies Wednesday to act within a month to prepare for a possible loss of power at their nuclear reactors when hit by unexpectedly large tsunami waves, as concerns are growing over the safety of nuclear power plants following the March 11 quake that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi complex.

They are instructed to secure vehicle-mounted power sources, deploy fire trucks that would supply water to the reactors, work out a procedure on how to deal with an emergency situation by using such vehicles, and carry out drills.

The measures are part of efforts to prevent a recurrence of the ongoing nuclear crisis at the plant in northeastern Japan, where the power grid and most of the emergency diesel generators were knocked out by the magnitude-9.0 quake and ensuing tsunami, resulting in the loss of the reactors' key cooling functions.

Comment:
Now, it looks like the seriousness of the disaster unfolding at Fukushima has finally got the Japanese authorities to wake up and provide decent backup facilities for nuclear reactors. Instead of the usually whining about additional costs, reality has finally hit home. Now, what about all national power grids utilising 'surge protectors' due to the threat of a massive flare from the sun that has already been calculated would knock out hundreds of transformers and therefore possibly effect many nuclear reactors. We know there is a problem because an article about this very same issue surfaced exactly one week before the disaster in Japan and so it's a known problem within the industry but due to penny pinching, the seriousness of the need for adequate backup power supply has been ignored.


Computer glitch causes rail chaos and delays
Sunday Sun, 27th March 2011
PASSENGERS were stuck on trains for hours yesterday after a major signaling fault caused rail chaos. The computer glitch during the afternoon led to cancellations and delays at peak time.

The East Coast Main Line was busy in both directions with Scottish football fans heading to London for today's friendly with Brazil and thousands of marchers returning home from the capital after the TUC protest. At the height of the disruption, 10 trains were stuck between York and Northallerton. Trains were also stranded outside Durham with services eventually forced back to Newcastle.

The fault meant all signals turned to red at around 1.10pm. At Newcastle Central station angry crowds waited to speak to staff and formed long queues for buses and taxis.

Comment:
It's only going to get worse... NICT is defunct because it was a Japanese scientific website and they decided to save power and not run the magnetosphere simulations and I am still getting round to finding other simulations but so far I don't like what I have found. There have been no major space weather events but that does not mean much these ways because cosmic energy is pouring in through the cracks. Update 29.03.2011 The NICT magnetosphere simulation is back in business and I'm quite pleased about that.

Braidwood nuclear plant declares 'unusual event' for power glitch
Herald News, 25th March 2011
BRACEVILLE – Operators at the Braidwood Generating Station declared and terminated an unusual event Thursday morning when power to a plant control room alarm system was temporarily interrupted. The event was declared at 10:18 a.m. and terminated at 10:47 a.m., Exelon reported. Nuclear Regulatory Commission policies require a station to declare an unusual event when there is an interruption to this system for greater than 15 minutes. Plant operators are investigating the cause of power interruption to the alarm system. Both Braidwood units continued to operate at full power during the event. Plant instrumentation for monitoring was always available to plant personnel. There was no impact to plant safety or security, officials said.

Comment:
Hmmm.....

Qantas web glitch hits Japan flights
The Sydney Morning Herald, 18th March 2011
"Australians looking for flights out of Japan should visit Qantas' website again, after a temporary computer glitch today showed flights were full, despite seats being available."



KCTV5 to re-air second half of KU-MU game tonight after sun spots cause fans to miss final minutes
KUsports.com, 5th March 2011
With just a few minutes left in Saturday's KU-MU game, some fans in Kansas and Missouri found themselves watching an entirely different game.

KCTV in Kansas City as well as KRCG in Columbia, Mo., and KMOV in St. Louis, at least, cut away from the final few minutes of the KU-MU game in favor of the Michigan-Michigan State game. Meanwhile, fans watching on other stations, like WIBW in Topeka and KWCH in Wichita, among others, were still able to see the end of the game. The Big 12 Conference said in a statement that neither local affiliates nor the conference were to blame for the problem.

In a statement on its Twitter feed, KCTV apologized to viewers and said that CBS told them the problem related to sun spots causing problems with the satellite feed from the national network.

In addition, station general manager Bobby Totsch posted a detailed explanation and apology on the station's website. In his statement, he said that sun spots led CBS to switch to a back-up satellite feed. Unfortunately, he said, CBS put KCTV and other local stations on the wrong back-up feed. [...]

Nonetheless, many Kansas fans – and Missouri fans – were outraged, and took to sites like Facebook, Twitter and even KUsports.com to voice their displeasure.Totsch also said he's received numerous calls and e-mails.

Comment:
It's finally happening, space weather is interfering with live television broadcasts.... Will this start some enlightenment for the masses? Probably not, but maybe a few thinkers will realise the implications because the whole satellite communications network is in danger of collapsing due to space junk and space weather.



The Empire Strikes Out
WUWT, 4th March 2011




I guess having electricity when you need it is sooooo last century … UK families will have to get used to "only using power when it was available". That constant electricity at home was dangerous anyhow, the unending hum of the wires can drive a man so insane that the only way to cure him is to make him head of the National Grid …

Comment:
OK, I was stunned to see this, but it seems the online version is still not available yet. This must be the version in the newspaper, that has been scanned. Obviously, this is the UK government response to the highly publicised efforts to change energy policies due to the none existent "global warming" that have largely failed and the less well understood but major problem of Space Weather possibly breaking down the existing national grid infrastructure in the future. I am blown away by this laissez faire attitude, whilst the vast majority of people do not really understand what is happening to our world.
  • Newspaper print scanned copy saved in .pdf format here
  • Newspaper print scanned copy .jpg here
  • Full newspaper scanned image here
  • This is a report by the UK government national grid agency stating that the grid is obsolete and needs to be upgraded but there is no mention of Space Weather being an aditional obstacle to the distribution of power. here

For some strange reason, this reminds me of Nikola Tesla's words that obtaining electricity was as easy as "ramming a stick in the earth in your backyard". Here people are being told that "the government "was looking for communities and individuals to take power into their own hands". Besides the double meaning here, maybe all those inventors out there with over unity devices in their garages need to start showcasing what they have got and quickly. The times certainly are changing.

2011 'crucial year for UK energy'
BBC News, 1st March 2011
At the end of this clip Steve Holliday, chief executive of National Grid, says:
"The grid is going to be a very different system in 2020/2030. We keep thinking that we want it to be there and provide power when we need it. It's going to be a much smarter system then, we are going to have to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply."
There has been some doubt that this article was genuine but all the uploaded scans prove the story is genuine and the BBC report sound clip of an interview with Steve Holliday leaves us in no doubt that in the future, UK residents are being expected to live with permanent rolling blackouts. I would add that this is only, if they have a national grid left that has not been destroyed by space weather.


Spigots Closed on Commonwealth Bank of Australia's "Free Cash" ATMs
IEEE, 2nd March 2011
Last August, a security upgrade to Commonwealth Bank of Australia's banking systems caused a day of what was called "banking chaos." Then in December, a CBA overnight file processing glitch caused a day of banking angst for 5% of its customers. Well, now Monday night's "routine database maintenance" apparently has caused a day of banking ATM frenzy yesterday. [...]

The Australian story quoted New South Wales Police state fraud chief Detective Superintendent Col Dyson as warning folks who took out more money than they were entitled to could face criminal charges if they did not return the money to the bank. Detective Superintendent Dyson was quoted in The Australian story above as saying:

"People should realise that even though an ATM has dispensed cash, they are not entitled to that money and are committing a criminal offence if they keep it... They should also realise that ATM locations are covered extensively by surveillance."

This stern warning, of course, fell on deaf ears, as long queues of up to 50 people quickly lined up in front of CBA's ATMs as individuals sought to claim their perceived windfall. Police and bank security guards had to be called in to control the crowds in some locations.

Comment:Hmmm... It says here that the ATMs were in "standby mode", which meant that the ATMs "can't identify the customers' account balance". Well, I still don't believe this so called maintenance glitch story, it sounds more like the bits or bytes representing the account balance could not be read properly (this could have been scrubbed by a cosmic ray after the normal batch processing), otherwise you would have to believe standard computer programs were not designed well enough to stop normal batch processing on a corrupted file and signal an error.

Bank of America Suffers 5th IT Glitch in Last 13 Months
IEEE, 2nd March 2011
"Bank of America's online banking system had "intermittent service disruptions" yesterday and Monday, news reports like this one at the Chicago Tribune reported. The problem's cause was said to be in a system upgrade that took place over the weekend which the bank says is now resolved. In January, BoA suffered a similar online banking glitch blamed at that time on a "routine systems change."

Additional Comment:
We are seeing a lot of technical glitches, spacewalk goes wrong at the international space station, gmail account losses, bank ATMS, telecommunications glitches



Police warn customers to return 'free money' or possibly face jail for fraud
News.com.au, 2nd March 2011
* ATMs under guard after spitting out free money
* Police warn taking money is committing fraud
* "No one has recieved free cash" - bank

IT began as a mere computer glitch but the Commonwealth Bank soon had a frenzy on its hands yesterday as customers raced to cash in on a fault in its ATM network. Hundreds of people at dozens of CommBank branches around Sydney queued up to 30-deep after social media sites went haywire with reports the bank's ATMs were giving out "free" money, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Customers with a few dollars in their accounts were suddenly able to withdraw hundreds and, as they texted and Tweeted their unexpected windfalls, the crowds quickly grew. "People were running past me screaming 'Free money! Free money!'," Punchbowl Pharmacy manager Feriale Zakhia said of the people using a nearby ATM. [....]

Police soon warned people caught withdrawing more than they owned would be traced and could face up to 10 years jail for fraud. NSW Police fraud squad commander Col Dyson told The Daily Telegraph it appeared to be the largest and most widespread incident of its type in his 32 years on the job. "It's the first I've heard of something like this happening on such a scale," he said.

"If these people know they're not entitled to the money then certainly they are committing an offence." But he said many people were probably more focused on the dash for cash than whether it was legal. "I think when they are presented with an opportunity like this a lot of people act without thinking and then repent at leisure once they think about their actions and the possible consequences," Supt Dyson said.

Comment:
Hilarious! LOL! Oh well, maybe a stray cosmic ray brought a little moment of joy for a lucky few... Since, I am watching the magnetosphere and monitoring the "glitch" reports, this is an interesting turn of events.... it's especially crazy after Lloyds of London put out their 3600 Risk Insight report in November 2010, warning businesses.... LOL! OK for a more sober analysis have you noticed the pattern of computer "maintenance" changes that are going completely wrong? I worked in a large computer department for a major insurance company in the UK and software testing and migration procedures should stop this kind of debacle. So I simply can't believe this as an excuse.



LSE's technology problems mount
FT.com, 25th February 2011
The London Stock Exchange said it had fixed a glitch that knocked out trading systems for three hours this morning as it scrambled to limit the fallout from a string of problems that have dogged efforts to bed down a crucial new trading system.

The glitch spilt over into the wider market, triggering erroneous messages from the LSE and prompting rival Chi-X Europe's systems to automatically stop trading for about five minutes, Chi-X said. Brokers said they were struggling to get orders done for customers and were forced to rely on the telephone, instead of electronic systems.

"We don't have many options. We either didn't trade or did it on the phone, based on the Chi-X prices," one broker said. [...]

The trouble started this morning after the routine auction that kicks off each trading day. That functioned for a few minutes but halted after the exchange was hit by market data problems. The delay comes the same week that Borsa Italiana, the LSE's Milan platform, was hit by a five-hour outage. The LSE was also last week at odds with market data vendors over who was to blame for technical problems that have prevented LSE prices being correctly displayed to some traders all week.

The LSE on February 14 transferred trading in UK stocks to the new Millennium system. Last week's LSE data problem centred on the data feeds that the LSE provides to distributors such as Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, Interactive Data and Telekurs, which then display prices to traders on screens, people at some of the data vendors said. It was unclear which side was to blame for the issue, which has caused "zero" to appear on screens momentarily instead of bid-ask prices used by traders to make trading decisions, they said.

Comment:
More trouble....



The Italian Market Is Still Not Trading, And Everyone's Desperate To Sell Libya-Related Stocks
Business Insider, 22nd February 2011
An update to a story we hit this morning: The Italian market still isn't trading, and according to FT there's growing anger in Italy and London because everyone wants to dump their Libyan-related stocks.

The ties between the two countries are deep, and Libya's central bank and its sovereign wealth fund own 7.2% of UniCredit, the big Italian bank.

Responding to these concerns, UniCredit fell 5% in Monday trading. Bear in mind that during the worst periods of the euro crisis, UniCredit was slammed hard like other peripheral banks.

Comment:
Just for the record, I think this is political and not environmental in origin.... For those who have not seen this, maybe we can understand a little of the attitude that some of the most arrogant Italians have, see Middle finger sculpture pops up in front of Milan Stock Exchange.

Italy stock market reopens, index declines
Market Watch, 22nd February 2011
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Trading in Italian equities opened Tuesday afternoon after having been closed due to a technical glitch, said Milan-based Borsa Italiana, part of the London Stock Exchange Group [uk: lse]. Italy's FTSE-MIB stock index was down 0.7% in recent action at 22,075.5, a day after falling 3.6% amid worries over the exposure of Italian businesses to Libya. Trading began at 3:30 p.m. Milan time, or 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Borsa Italiana said trading had been suspended due to a "technical issue on the price information systems."
That's late...



Northern Norway thrown into darkness by power outage
SOTT News, 17th February 2011
[This is a Google translation of the original article on Aftenposten.no]

Narvik, Harstad, Andøy, Lofoten and Vesterålen is dark between 8 am and 10 Thursday because of strain on the network, said Statnett. Power is now back in Northern Norway, but new areas may be switched off later in the day. Statnett says on its website that the power situation in northern Norway is very vulnerable for a break from the power line to begin again Kvandal Nordland Wednesday morning. [...]

Unacceptable "This is completely unacceptable, "said the mayor of Narvik Helge Eriksen (H) to Aftenposten.no. At 08.20 was the stream still present in the center of Harstad, although the city should have been blacked out at 08.00. The mayor was in the process of collecting municipal staff to take action.

"We should get more information, and of course we should have had longer notice of such extensive power cuts," said Eriksson. He thinks it is puzzling that the power producer Norway, which is among the world's largest energy exporters, to black out entire parts of the country at short notice.

"This is an issue I will discuss with the authorities as soon as the opportunity arises. Right now we have to deal with the situation that has arisen," said Harstad's mayor. Today it is ten degrees below freezing in Harstad and sour elements.

Comment:
Hmmm... I wonder if the Norwegians have been taking as much interest in Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICS) as the Finnish have? Please remember, spaceweather.com reported in late December 2010, that a Norwegian researcher at Lofoten was sending out info on anomalously high ground currents... Link here.



Solar flare affects shortwave radio communications in southern China
Xinhuanet News, 16th February 2011
BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- A large solar flare accompanied by electromagnetic storms affected shortwave radio communications in southern China on Tuesday, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). The CMA's space weather monitoring center reported that it had spotted the X2.2-class solar flare at 9:56 a.m. Tuesday Beijing Time. Xue Bingsen, a researcher with the center, said the solar flare caused sudden ionospheric disturbances in the atmosphere above China and affected shortwave radio communications, according to a CMA statement.

Comment:
What electromagnetic storms: substorms? We have had far worse solar flares than this, but maybe Earth's magnetic field is in far worse condition that we are being told, see the January 2010 announcement from the European Space Agency, Multiple rifts in Earth's magnetic shield. The NICT image of the magnetosphere pasted below, should also be considered too. Scientists have also stated that Earth is dropping her shields, but I think the Magnetar blasts from deep space are in fact cosmic communication telling Earth that it's time for some cosmic housekeeping. So, maybe we can conclude from this report that is there is now tremendous turbulence in the ionosphere and our radio communication systems just cannot function in the new highly unstable ionospheric conditions that occur when solar flares and geomagnetic conditions are taking place. For more information visit the Joyfire Tour, here is the link to Extreme Space Weather

Solar Flare Suspends Parts of Radio Communications in Korea
Arirang News, 15th February 2011
"The Sun emitted a strong flare on Tuesday at around 10:50 a.m. Korea time disrupting some radio communications here in Korea. According to the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, a powerful solar flare from "Sunspot 1-1-5-8" interfered with radio waves in shortwave receivers. The institute predicts a massive burst of solar wind and radiation to hit the Earth's magnetic field some time between Wednesday and Thursday which could cause further damage to electrical systems and black out additional radio communications here."

Computer Glitch Grounds United's 757 Fleet
Fox News, 15th February 2011
"United Airlines said it is in the process of temporarily grounding its 96 Boeing 757 jetliners Tuesday and into Wednesday so it can perform checks on earlier modifications it did to the air-data computers on those planes."
I have been reluctant to list this and maybe it's just a coincidence.... otherwise, one would have to imagine that United Airlines were too frightened to have their fleet of Boeing 757 jetliners in the air whilst we were experiencing the worse geomagnetic storms in 4 years and radio communications have been failing all around the planet....

ESPN Radio downed by glitch, but no format change coming [US]
Reporter News, 16th February 2011

System glitch delays 64 flights [Malaysia]
Malaysia Star, 19th February 2011
"KUALA LUMPUR: Sixty-four flights were delayed due to a three-hour partial system failure of the Air Traffic Management System that controls all departures and arrivals of aircraft at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha said the partial system failure, which occurred at 8.30am yesterday, was caused by a problem with the common database in the system. This resulted in air traffic controllers having to input the flight data of aircraft departing from KLIA manually instead of it being done automatically, he said."



LSE Tuesday Close Delayed 42 Seconds; Traders Blame Glitch -Reuters
Automated Trader, 15th February 2011
London Stock Exchange Group PLC's (LSE.LN) namesake bourse failed to stop trading immediately as scheduled Tuesday, confusing clients, who blamed a technical glitch for the brief delay, Reuters reported.

The London exchange, which ends normal trading at 4.30 p.m. (1630 GMT), before beginning its closing auction, conceded on its website that normal trading didn't cease until 42 seconds after the official close. The exchange had undergone a systemwide upgrade Monday, switching to a faster trading platform.

LSE clients were worried the slight delay might have meant that orders destined for the auction were mixed with normal trades, triggering concerns over which had been executed, Reuters said. The LSE, which said all trades would remain valid, added it was investigating the problem.

Comment:
Wow... was this a GPS fail? More:

Traders left frustrated by fresh LSE glitch
FT, 16th February 2011
"In the latest glitch, the closing auction on Tuesday began 42 seconds later than its normal start of 4.30pm. The auction normally lasts five minutes and is designed to help set a definitive closing price for stocks at the end of the day, which helps asset managers with portfolio reconciliation and valuation. The effect was to confuse computer algorithms, triggering trades at the wrong time, sparking volatility, some market participants said. "People were trading at prices they weren't expecting to be trading at," one trading expert at a foreign bank in London said."

Comment:
To be honest, if they have been doing this 5 minute auction for years at 4.30pm, why is there a problem now? This is the London Stock Exchange, they can afford the best programmers in the world and people whose job it is to ensure quality system upgrades, so this is just completely embarrassing. Yes, I have worked on the operations side of a very large computing department and have seen some project managers who did not know how to do their jobs, but really, if this is not a GPS problem then this is looking like people need to be fired for being incompetent. OK, the real question is: where did the 42 seconds of "glitch" come from?

Sat-nav devices face big errors as solar activity rises
BBC News, 10 February 2010
"It is not just car sat-nav devices that make use of the satellite signals; accurate and dependable sat-nav signals have, since the last solar maximum, quietly become a necessity for modern infrastructure. Military operations worldwide depend on them, although they use far more sophisticated equipment."
Well, it's public knowledge that the US Military are seriously considering giving up their total reliance on GPS and the recent GPS "experiments" that took place over Florida and surrounding states indicate that there must be some severe problems related to the weakening of Earth's magnetic field and increased instability in the ionosphere.

Virgin system failure causes delays
CourierMail.au, 16th February 2011
"VIRGIN Blue has denied reports that a computer system outage caused lengthy delays and widespread passenger anger yesterday.



Blackouts hit Brazil's northeast states
CNBC, 4th February 2011
SAO PAULO - A widespread blackout hit at least seven states in Brazil's northeast Friday, raising questions about the energy infrastructure of the nation that will host an Olympics and a World Cup.

Officials and local news reports indicated the power failures began in the early morning hours and quickly spread around the massive region. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected, but it was certain to be several million. In some areas, the power was only out for a few minutes, in other areas a few hours.

Mozart Bandeira Arnaud, director of operations at the Sao Francisco Hydroelectric Company, the biggest supplier of energy in the area, told the Globo TV network the power was mostly restored by 8 a.m. and that the problem originated in a substation that fed high-transmission lines leading to three other energy suppliers, causing the failure to ripple across the region.

"There was a failure in an electronic component that was part of protection system of the substation," said Arnaud.

Comment:
So, a failure in one electronic component caused a massive power outage in Brazil.... Whatever, Brazil is not the only country that has to worry about secure a power supply, the United Kingdom is hosting the Olympic games in 2012 and the report highlighting the issue of Space Weather and the impact on the national power grid will be out soon in Spring 2011. Here are the recent NOAA space weather warnings:

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Feb. 3rd when a coronal mass ejection is due to hit Earth's magnetic field. A solar wind stream following close behind the CME could extend the action into Feb. 4th and 5th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Source: spaceweather.com - 3rd February 2010

WEAK IMPACT: Arriving a little later than expected, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Feb. 4th around 0200 UT. Although the impact was weak, conditions are now favorable for high-latitude auroras. Source: spaceweather.com - 4th February 2010




Rolling blackouts nearly statewide in Texas
weareaustin.com, 2nd February 2011
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas ordered utilities to rotate electrical outages to compensate for a power shortage linked to the extreme cold weather.

The order took effect Wednesday morning, a day after an ice and snow storm blanketed parts of Texas. ERCOT had no timetable for when the rotating outages would end.

The ERCOT region includes Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, Abilene and the Rio Grande Valley. ERCOT manages the flow of electricity to about 22 million Texas customers.

Rotating outages are defined as "controlled, temporary interruptions of electric service, typically lasting 30-45 minutes per neighborhood." Critical need customers, such as hospitals and nursing homes, are generally excluded from outages.

Comment:
So politicians, scientists and activists around the world have been claiming global warming, mild winters and snow as something of the past. In reality, we have recently seen some of the harshest winters in living memory and some people are now having to freeze, maybe literally to death to compensate for the obviously wrong stance on climate change.



Gas company explains cause of shortage (Video)
KOB.com, 3rd February 2011
New Mexico Gas Company is speaking for the first time about why tens of thousands of New Mexicans have no natural gas service. The company blames supply and demand, and a lack of pressure to push the gas through the pipelines. Power blackouts in Texas have cut off power to compressors in West Texas that feed gas into New Mexico.

Comment:
Maybe people will start to think more deeply about consequences.



Tampa Airports Change Compass Marks While North Magnetic Pole Moves Toward Siberia.
Earthfiles.com, 1st February 2011
There have been recent media headlines about Tampa, Florida's International and general aviation airports having to repaint compass markings on their runways. Geophysicists say it's because there is a general westward drift of the Earth's magnetic field in the Western Hemisphere. So for pilot safety, Tampa airports corrected runway compass marks to reflect what compasses actually read now in southern Florida.

Why don't you hear about all airports having to repaint compass marks? Because despite some of the media headlines, the changes in southern Florida are not necessarily tied to the magnetic North Pole shifting towards Siberia. Historically, all over the planet, magnetic fields have changed region to region. Airports closer to the North Pole would have to make adjustments for the moving magnetic North Pole. But since Tampa, Florida, is so far away from the Arctic, compass changes there might only be due to a regional magnetic field shift.

Comment:
It's nice to get some comment from a geophysicist who explains that it's the local magnetic field that is changing in Tampa. However we don't get much of a useful discussion and it would have been helpful to get a meaningful explanation of the term "Westward Drift.". So, I will help here. It does seem that we were given a nod and a wink that the Florida 'Panhandle' and surrounding states are now being affected by the South Atlantic Anomaly that is now HUGE! As we can see from the historical magnetic intensity maps from 1590 - 2005, there is clearly a westward drift and a changing shape of the weakest part of Earth's magnetic field. Maybe, we can link this to the strange announcement on 20th January 2011, of the military turning off GPS for tests see FAA warns of ongoing GPS issues in southeastern US due to Defense Department 'tests'. The US military (Air Force) still seem to be in charge of the GPS system, but there are now many reports that imply that GPS is now too unreliable and the military realise they have become too dependent. So whilst we know that GPS is unreliable during bad space weather, (talk about GPS being vulnerable to enemies is misleading unless you consider the downpour of celestial energies as being comparable to the arrival of the enemy), the upshot is that top senior officials are now agonising in public. Meanwhile, civilian users have been lured into a technological trap, so amongst many different examples of failure (see archives), we can cite an uptick of oil tankers crashing at sea at the same time that we know that all planes will be using GPS by 2012. More background info below:

Schwartz warns against dependence on GPS
Air Force Times, 23rd January 2010
"The Air Force's top uniformed leader thinks the military is too dependent on global positioning and must develop an alternative to the navigation system to reduce its vulnerability to enemies."

Glitch Shows How Much Military Relies on GPS
CBS News, 4th June 2010
"A problem that rendered as many as 10,000 U.S. military GPS receivers useless for days is a warning to safeguard a system that enemies would love to disrupt, a defense expert says."

Airline Industry Moves from Radar to GPS Tracking and Navigation
BrickHouse Security, 05 August 2010
"GPS navigation is a technology widely used in almost every car, whether it's dashboard navigation or built into the car directly. Noting how widely GPS is used, the question arises of why different modes of transportation like the airline industry aren't using the technology. The airline industry is currently using 70-year-old radar technology to keep track of its planes. The main problem with radar is that it can only see a plane flying over an ocean when it is within 200 miles of land. When the plane goes beyond those 200 miles the radar doesn't see it anymore and the location of the airplane has to be estimated based on flight plans and departure times. This creates a huge problem in case the plane experiences some trouble and has to carry out an emergency landing, leaving the location of the plane completely unknown the the air traffic controllers."



3 separate helicopters crashes in western Palm Beach County; 1 pilot seriously injured - Florida [US]
Aircraft were flying over vegetable farms to circulate air, keep frost away from crops
Sun Sentinel, 8th December 2010
Three helicopters crashed in western Palm Beach County early Wednesday as they tried to keep frost from damaging crops, authorities said.

One of the pilots was flown to a nearby hospital in serious condition, according to Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

The first crash happened around 2:10 a.m. on the southeastern edge of Lake Okeechobee. The Robinson R-44, registered in Miami-Dade County, crashed into a field for unknown reasons, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The aircraft was severely damaged and the pilot had minor injuries.

Comment:
Well, of all the countries in the world, I am sure most will agree that historically, the United States have put the most effort into destroying their own atmospheric shielding. See the article section: Pigs in Space - A Short History of U.S. Military Madness. NASA and the European Space Agency have made it clear that the EM environment is now completely chaotic and I have documented the relevant reports of strange new atmospheric phenomena that include plumes of plasma that are affecting GPS signals. Therefore, when scientists write hundreds of scientific and business reports, explaining how Space Weather, geomagnetic storms and cosmic rays could could effect electronics and even could cause planes to fall out of the sky, then only the truly stupid will shout loudly that China is causing all the well publicised examples of electronic failures, real or imagined. Go and check, it's quite amazing to go around the blogosphere and find those with no facts, braying like donkeys.



Panicky pilot caused passenger jet plunge
Sydney Morning Herald, 30th November 2010
A co-pilot sent an international passenger jet into a terrifying nosedive when he adjusted his seat and accidentally pushed the control column forward, an official report revealed yesterday.

The clumsy officer then panicked and was unable to let the captain, who had gone on a toilet break, back into the cockpit as the plane plunged 7000 feet (2000 metres).

The captain only saved the Boeing 737 aircraft after using an emergency code to get through the cockpit door and take the controls back from the co-pilot, the report by India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said. Advertisement: Story continues below

The 25-year-old Indian co-pilot told the inquiry he had "got in a panic situation couldn't control the aircraft, neither open the cockpit door and answer the cabin call."

Comment:
To say this sounds like a cock and bull story is to put it mildly, I don't believe the 'official' version at all... Well, I am currently reading Lloyd's Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business report and it's nice to see that the hazard warning lights are starting to flash and the bells are starting to ring loud and clear. Here is an extract from the section on Aviation:
Modern business processes and systems are increasingly controlled by software systems based on digital chips. Space radiation is a major cause of error in such devices.19, 20 Neutrons produced by energetic particles from space regularly pass through them and may flip the state of digital elements. These SEEs [Single event effects] can corrupt data and software held in chips and thereby affect the operation of systems controlled by the chip. There is a continuous low level risk of SEEs from cosmic rays and a greatly enhanced risk during severe space radiation storms.

This risk is particularly serious for aircraft systems as the intensity of radiation from space at aircraft cruising altitudes is much higher than that on the ground. A recent example is that the effects of space radiation on avionics are being considered as a possible cause of a serious inflight problem on an Australian aircraft in October 2008.21 Nonetheless, SEEs do occur at the Earth's surface, and chip vendors will stress the need to protect critical applications of their chips; for example, by use of hardened chips.22
Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business
Lloyd's, November 2010
This report sounds like Laurel and Hardy a comedy sketch, do they really expect people to believe this? Well, I have reported that cosmic rays were the likely cause of the Qantas flight QF72 incident in October 2008, see archives Best of the Blog Space Weather & Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos.

More:
Cathay Pacific 747 jumbo makes emergency landing
Sydney Morning Herald, 30th November 2010
"A Cathay Pacific 747 jumbo has made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after pilots detected a cabin-pressurization system fault."
The crew have no choice but to make an emergency landing because they rely on electronics to tell them about the health of the plane, but if electronic systems are being corrupted by cosmic rays on a regular basis, it's going make air travel much more problemeatic.



NAB computer glitch shuts out thousands of customers
ABC News, 26th November 2010
MARK COLVIN: A computer glitch at the National Australia Bank has locked thousands of customers out of their bank accounts and it may not be fixed until next week.

NAB is unsure how many of its 11.5 million customers have been affected by the problem. Pay checks have gone unprocessed and transactions frozen for two days.

The bank is under the pump to fix the problem but at close of business today, it was still unresolved.

Comment:
There is not enough details here to be certain what has happened but I am very reluctant to believe that this was simple error and we have to follow the trend of other major computer system failures in recent years that we can deduce are induced by software or hardware failures related to Space Weather.

NAB pay bungle hits thousands
Herald Sun, 27th November 2010

Reasons For Mysterious Computer Crashes
Rense.com, 20th May 2007

Update

Apparently, 11.5 million people who use National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia's biggest bank, have not been paid, can't pay their bills and can't withdraw cash, over 1 corrupt file in an incident that has beed described as "a freak computer glitch". Personally, the more glitches the better, because a few more might stop and wonder what is happening. Once the available evidence is examined, it should become obvious and the inevitable conclusion will be that our current technolgical systems are deteriorating due to the onslaught of Space Weather. There is no choice, we are going to have to do business differently on planet Earth.

Computer meltdown leaves Aussies without cash
AFP News, 27th November 2010



Qantas 'scarebus' QF32 was a flying wreck
News.com.au, 12th November 2010
  • Damage shows how close flight was to disaster
  • Engine shrapnel tore through wing, fuel tanks
  • Jet looked liked battle-scarred World War II bomber

A QANTAS superjumbo was a flying wreck after an engine exploded shooting chunks of metal through fuel tanks and flight control systems.

Last week's mid-air emergency off Singapore also badly damaged a wing, which may have to be replaced. A full list of the damage to the Airbus A380 has been revealed after it was nursed back to Singapore on three engines.

When it touched down the fuel systems were failing, the forward spar supporting the left wing had been holed and one of the jet's two hydraulic systems was knocked out and totally drained of fluid. [...] Investigators found that an oil fire may have caused the engine to explode.

Comment:
So, things were much more serious than first impressions... The list of what went wrong here is impressive... I wonder what caused the oil fire...



CNN Video: What caused engine to fail on one of world's largest planes?
CNN News, 4th November 2010
(CNN) -- Some of the world's largest airlines are conducting safety checks after debris fell from the engine of a Qantas Airbus A380 as it flew over Indonesia.

Australia's national airline has now grounded its Airbus A380 fleet indefinitely. How serious is the incident -- and what does it mean for the aviation industry?

What do we know about the Qantas engine incident?

One of the four engines on the Qantas A380, which was carrying 440 passengers and 26 crew Thursday, shut down shortly after it left Singapore's Changi Airport.

The most obvious sign of damage to the plane is that part of one engine cowling, or covering, had been blown away. Debris was later found on the Indonesian island of Batan.

Why is this being taken so seriously?

This type of incident is known as an "uncontained engine failure," explains Richard Quest, CNN's aviation correspondent. "Probably something happened at the front of the engine, it ingested into the engine, out the other side and that's where the explosion or non-containment happened."

Quest highlighted damage to the wing above the engine, including puncture marks.

"Whatever event took place in engine number two, the debris from that event exploded outwards, removing part of the cowling and, it seems, going upwards through the wing."

Quest said the debris hit the wing by the forward slats, several meters away from critical areas such as the fuel tanks and fuel lines.

"Any form of debris that leaves an engine and has upward momentum sufficiently that it can go through the wing in that sort of mode has to be taken very seriously indeed," Quest said. "That is why, in this case, Qantas has decided to ground the fleet."

Quest highlighted other signs of damage on the engine casing, including the presence of soot marks where the fan and combustion chambers meet the exhaust.

"That suggests there was clearly some sort of an event, some sort of fire," he explained.

Comment:
Hmmm... Now, it looks like the engine sucked something in and caused an explosion...

Photos: Pictured moments after 'explosion' forced emergency landing, the Qantas superjumbo with a foot-long hole torn in its wing
Daily Mail, 4th November 2010
Decent photos of the plane damage and debris

Update
Airlines Stop Jakarta Flights After Volcano Blast
Topix, 6th November 2010
Copy: "International airlines canceled flights into Indonesia's capital Saturday after a volcano hundreds of miles to the west unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century, incinerating villagers as they fled a searing gas cloud."

Disc failure almost brought superjumbo down
The Australian, 6th November 2010
"ENGINEERS say an intermediate pressure turbine disc in the No 2 engine of QF32 failed, triggering the explosion that ripped through the engine casing of the A380.

Mount Merapi Building Up To Another Krakatoa?
News Time, 6th November 2010
"Indonesia's Mount Merapi, located on the border between Central Java and Yogyakarta continues to rumble Saturday, a day after the volcano's eruptions killed dozens of people bringing the death toll to 122 with more than 200 injured since recent activity began. Merapi is Indonesia's most active volcano erupting regularly since 1548. Suitable named - Merapi is loosely translated as 'Mountain of Fire' - smoke can be seen emerging from the mountaintop at least 300 days a year."
  • Civil Aviation Forums
    General aviation forums covering commercial and civil aviation, discussing events happening in the airline and aviation industries.



Qantas grounds A380 fleet after mid-air emergency
The Telegraph, 4th November 2010
Qantas has grounded its entire fleet of A380 Airbuses after an aircraft carrying more than 400 people was forced to make an emergency landing when part of one of its engines disintegrated over Indonesia.

The flight, which originated in London and was destined for Sydney, was abandoned 15 minutes after take-off from Singapore when passengers heard a loud bang and saw smoke and sparks coming out of one engine. The pilot then informed the cabin that the engine had been shut down and the aircraft was heading back to Changi Airport. The A380, carrying 433 passengers and 26 crew, circled for an hour dumping fuel before it landed safely at Changi at 11.45am local time.

Once on the tarmac, it appeared that casing from the aircraft's number two engine was missing and parts of the aircraft's underside were blackened. [...] "This is probably the most serious incident involving the A380 since it began flying in commercial service," said aviation expert Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent of Orient Aviation magazine.

There was initial confusion after early reports said that the A380 Airbus had crashed in a western Indonesian town. Witnesses said that they had heard a loud explosion as a Qantas aircraft flew overhead and pieces of fuselage were found on the ground.

Comment:
Extraordinary! This is the latest major incident for Qantas and officials must be absolutely distraught. Obviously we need to wait for an official response but often that takes months and an announcement can often get lost amongst all the other media news. Anyway, for what it's worth I will state that NASA and the European Space Agency have already informed the world of the presence of invisible beams of electrons that can cause electromagnetic interference and air turbulence. These are the Killer Electrons associated with geomagnetic storms and then there are plumes of plasma being released from the ground that float off into space. Indonesia has 21 volcanoes rumbling away and it is most likely that there is some kind of interaction of energy between the volcanoes and space. The Electric Universe theorists have already well documented their belief of volcanoes as being part of Earth's global electrical circuit. We already know that there are satellites monitoring invisible bursts of ULF & ELF (Ultra Low Frequency/Extremely Low Frequency) magnetic field signals weeks prior to earthquakes. It is my belief that the plane flew through some kind of invisble plume of plasma and literally started to disintegrate, but please don't expect any authorities to spell this out for you, because it's bad for business. Please note the following:
"Researchers liken the plumes to smoke billowing out of a factory smokestack–except instead of ordinary ash and dust, ion plumes are made of electrified gas floating so high above ground they come in contact with space itself. "The plumes appear during geomagnetic storms and they can interfere with satellite transmissions, airline navigation and radio communications," says Fuller-Rowell. Indeed, it is their effect on GPS signals that led to the discovery of plumes over North America just a few years ago." Strange Space Weather over Africa,
NASA News, 13th November 2007.

Killer electrons are highly energetic particles trapped in Earth's outer radiation belt, which extends from 12 000 km to 64 000 km above the planet's surface. During solar storms their number grows at least ten times and they can be dislodged, posing a threat to satellites. As the name suggests, killer electrons are energetic enough to penetrate satellite shielding and cause microscopic lightning strikes. If these electrical discharges take place in vital components, the satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable. [...]

Thanks to this analysis of Cluster data, if the killer electrons happen to be ejected towards Earth, we now know that they can strike the atmosphere within just 15 minutes. Shocking recipe for making killer electrons,
European Space Agency News, 11th March 2010
  • Space-based predictions have been correct for 44 of 47 registered quakes
  • It has the ability to survey huge territories for seismically hazardous areas
  • Harbingers of powerful quakes appear around five days before the main shock
"The Russian method is based on the study of geomagnetic field variations, which induce currents in the Earth. Therefore, surface field measurements can detect the hypothetical regional changes that precede earthquakes. At the same time, intensive electric fields in places where earthquakes are brewing induce specific currents in the ionosphere.

First reported: Anomalous ionospheric phenomena were first reported in the 1960s, but they were disregarded along with astrologic predictions and UFO sightings.

The breakthrough came when the Soviet Union launched its Intercosmos-19 satellite in 1979. It detected an unusual low-frequency noise in a large area centred near the epicentre of an earthquake that occurred a few hours later. This finding was registered as a Soviet discovery and was later confirmed by other spacecraft. Earthquake prediction from space is more accurate
The Hindu Times, 25th May 2008
So, if you read the literature, invisible blasts of plasma are now a major problem and cannot be dismissed as UFOs because they are interfering with GPS amd now it seems most apparent they are interfering with planes too! So far, there has not been much interest in these invisible blasts of plasma interfering with humans!! I will also state that I downloaded the NICT magnetosphere simulation on 3rd November 2010 at 22:22:22 UT, because it was obvious that we had just had another major blast from deep space and the image was fairly impressive. Apparently, this was in fact the second of the day, so maybe this Qantas plane being wrecked is just another 'coincidence'.

Update



Power Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles
The Atlantic News, 26th October 2010
President Obama was briefed this morning on a power failure at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming that took 50 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), one-ninth of the U.S. missile stockpile, temporarily offline on Saturday.

The base is a main locus of the United States' strategic nuclear forces. The 90th Missile Wing, headquartered there, controls 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. They're on full-time alert and are housed in a variety of bunkers across the base.

On Saturday morning, according to people briefed on what happened, a squadron of ICBMs suddenly dropped down into what's known as "LF Down" status, meaning that the missileers in their bunkers could no longer communicate with the missiles themselves. LF Down status also means that various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline. [...]

We've never had something as big as this happen," a military officer who was briefed on the incident said. Occasionally, one or two might blink out, the officer said, and several warheads are routinely out of service for maintenance. At an extreme, "[w]e can deal with maybe 5, 6, or 7 at a time, but we've never lost complete command and control and functionality of 50 ICBMs." [...]

The cause of the failure remains unknown, although it is suspected to be a breach of underground cables deep beneath the base, according to a senior military official. It is next to impossible for these systems to be hacked, so the military does not believe the incident was caused by malicious actors. A half dozen individual silos were affected by Saturday's failure.

Comment:
This evolutionary change is certainly very interesting... Was this caused by Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICS) doing what they like to do? Another weak link? As we have been already told by NASA, virtually EVERYTHING on this planet is affected by Space Weather. In reality, this represents a massive celestial spring clean of universal energies and that should be of great interest to citizens of planet Earth.

Update
Nuclear Missiles Go Offline after Computer Error
CBS News, 26th october 2010
"Engineers believe that the outage at F.E. Warren Air Force Base was caused by a hardware failure in a launch control computer rather than a power failure as had been previously reported, according to a defense official with knowledge of the situation. [...]

According to the official, a launch control center computer responsible for a package of five missiles began to "ping" out of sequence, resulting in a surge of "noise" through the system. The computers interrogate each missile in sequence, so if they begin to send signals out when they're not supposed to, receivers on the missiles themselves will notice this and send out error codes.

Because the computers ping out of sequence on occasion, missileers tried quick fixes. But as more and more missiles began to display error settings, they decided to take offline all five computers that the malfunctioning center was connected to. That left 50 missiles in the dark. The missileers then restarted one of the computers, which began to normally interrogate the missile transceiver. Three other computers were successfully restarted. The suspect computer remains offline."

Comment:
Was this caused by a cosmic ray? So, contrary to initial reports, this now sounds like a cosmic ray generated a hardware failure. Nobody, will claim that 'state of the art' military defence systems are not rigorously tested, so there must have been some kind of interference. Yet, Earth's lack of cosmic shielding and cosmic rays at a Space Age high is indeed a fact and is the most likely source of interference. If this proves to be true, it will be considered as a major embarrassment and reveals that currently, nuclear weapons systems are not shielded enough against Space Weather. Since, even radiation hardened satellite electronic components can be corrupted by Space Weather, this is not unrealistic proposition. Oh dear!



'World's most advanced' nuke sub towed free
British vessel, normally undetectable, ran aground off coast of Scotland

MSNBC News, 22nd October 2010
LONDON – A new British nuclear-powered submarine was towed free after running aground off the coast of northwest Scotland on Friday. HMS Astute, the first of a new class of nuclear-powered submarines that was undergoing sea trials, became snagged on rocks off the Isle of Skye in an embarrassing incident for the Royal Navy. The Navy had to wait for hours for high tide before tugs could tow the advanced submarine to deeper water.

"Two tugs attached lines to her and pulled her free at high tide," a Royal Navy spokesman said. The submarine will be closely examined for any damage, he said. [...] The Telegraph said the $1.88 billion HMS Astute was the "world's most advanced nuclear submarine." Its nuclear reactor will not need refueling during the sub's life time in service.

Comment:
Nearly $2 billion.... how embarrassing... I wonder if there was a GPS fail when the submarine surfaced (GPS is not used at depth). What other reason would there be for a nuclear submarine to end up stranded on rocks? Due to Space Weather, it does seem like GPS is fast becoming the weakest link... From February 2009, we read: British, French nuclear subs collide in Atlantic



North Sea Tanker Crash leaks Fuel
The Sun, 12th October 2010
JET fuel was pouring from a tanker into the North Sea this morning after it was involved in a collision with another huge ship. They smashed into each other around 19 miles (30km) off the Dutch coast leaving a gaping hole in the hull of the vessel carrying kerosene. The Greek tanker Mindoro and a Cypriot container ship collided leaving fuel leaking out of a large hole 16ft by 20ft close to the waterline.

Comment:
There have been quite a few tanker collisions lately... It would be easy to explain if tankers have completely given up using the old fashion radio systems (LORAN C) and are now only using GPS, which is not reliable in unstable geomagnetic conditions. Well, it's been stormy over the last few days and we are currently in a geomagnetic storm with a magnetosphere that has "cracked open" to the cosmic elements. (Claims that Earth is not being effected by a massive filament eruption on the Sun yesterday, seem rather weak when other recent research tells us that large blasts are being directed by magnetic field lines and sometimes bounce back our way...). Anyway, the result is our magnetic shielding against cosmic and galactic forces is weak at the moment too. More news and background reports:


Video [0:25] Tanker Collision off Dutch Coast
Euro News, 12th October 2010
"A Greek tanker carrying kerosene has collided with a Cypriot container ship off the Netherlands coast. A gash several metres long has been opened in the tanker's hull at the waterline, which is leaking aviation fuel into the sea."

Forecast - Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity
NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center, October 2010
Latest summaries

Solar Cycle 24
Amateur radio space weather center

GEOMAGNETIC STORM: On Oct. 11th
spaceweather.com, 12th October 2010
"On Oct. 11th, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth tilted south, opening a crack in Earth's magnetosphere."



Man dies after satnav sends him into a reservoir
The Telegraph, 4th October 2010
A man has died in Spain after his car's satellite navigation system sent him down an abandoned road and into a reservoir.

The 37-year old drowned after following directions on the GPS device which had not been updated to show the creation of La Serena reservoir at Capilla, near Badajoz in southwestern Spain. A 38-year old passenger escaped from the Peugeot 306 as it became submerged and managed to swim to shore. The survivor told rescuers that the incident happened shortly after 11pm on Saturday when the pair were trying to find their way home from a fair.

"It appears that the vehicle's GPS device directed them down an old road which ended in the reservoir," a spokesman for the Red Cross said. "But because it was dark they didn't see the water in time to brake and the vehicle sank within a few minutes."

Comment:
As I have stated before, in stormy geomagnetic conditions GPS and SAT NAV are unreliable, but in this case, we have another case of people being lost and caught out by a poorly updated road mapping system.



English Channel collision tanker being towed by tug
BBC News, 8th October 2010
A chemical tanker which collided with a cargo ship off France's Brittany coast overnight is being towed to the French port of Brest. A French salvage team boarded the YM Uranus and a tug boat was attached at 1100 French time (0900 GMT), the ship's operator told BBC News. None of the 6,000 tonne cargo of heavy pygas gasoline escaped, V Ships said. The tanker took on water after the collision close to the mouth of the English Channel. Its crew were winched to safety by a French helicopter and no-one was injured. No heavy pygas had escaped, he said, adding that while the gasoline was flammable, it would quickly evaporate in the event of a spill.

Comment:
Another tanker collision... Space Weather interfering with navigation/GPS systems, rendering them not precise enough? If a navigation system has failed, then by the time a look-out has realised that their vessel is on a collision course, it's often too late to do anything about it.



Passengers sue Qantas and Airbus over flight scare
ABC News, 19th September 2010
Qantas and Airbus are facing multi-million dollar lawsuits from passengers and crew aboard the 2008 Qantas flight that was forced to land in Western Australia's mid-north. An American law firm has launched a claim against Airbus and the American manufacturer of a key computer component in fly-by-wire technology. And in a separate action, an Australian law firm says it will seek compensation from Qantas on behalf of more than 20 people who were onboard the flight. Aviation lawyer Peter Carter says his clients have both physical and psychological injuries. [...]

On October 7, 2008, QF72 from Singapore to Perth was travelling at 11,000 metres when the autopilot disengaged and the plane plunged 200 metres in 20 seconds. Three minutes later it plunged a further 120 metres, this time over 16 seconds. Nine crew and 106 passengers were injured. [...]

And he says the plane's pilots have joined his firm's compensation claim. "The captain, who was flying the plane at the time, is a former top gun pilot from the US Navy," he said. "He is an American and also Australian citizen. He has told me that when the plane went out of control, the computer would not give him back control of the plane and he said it was in a dive. "All he could see was the ocean. He has never been as frightened as he was at that point despite all his prior military aircraft training." Mr Wisner says the captain would like to fly again, but has been traumatised by the experience. [...]

"The claims [are] against the aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, and the manufacturer of a component called the air data inertial reference unit, which is Northrop Grumman, a US corporation. "The Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) has concluded there was a mechanical defect in this aircraft. "It certainly was not the result of pilot error, so I think we will be successful."

Comment:
We have the latest update. Well, we already know that after 13 months of investigations, air accident investigators decided that this incident was caused by cosmic rays, see Cosmic rays may have hit Qantas jet . The problem here is that people want compensation and authorities want someone to blame, so now it looks like this accident is being put down to a mechanical fault. All I can say is that the environment of Earth is quickly changing. Manufacturers never had to consider RAD-HARD (radiation hardened) components and shielding for flight electronics, in the same way that this is standard for satellite electronics in space. However, it seems this problem of electronics being effected by space radiation is becoming much more noticeable at sea level and a few car manufacturers, are also under investigation for their 'faulty' electronics. For more background info see, Best of the Blog Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos . Meanwhile, very few people are aware that bits and bytes are also being reset in their own personal hardware...



Russian pilot makes fuel-free landing
Geo TV, 11th September 2010
Copy: LONDON: Russian pilots have safely landed a passenger plane in Siberia after the aircraft lost power at 10,600m (34,800ft). None of the 81 passengers and crew was injured in the emergency landing on a disused military airstrip on Tuesday, Russian officials said. There was only minimal damage to the plane, they added. Russian blogs and social networking sites celebrated the incident as a "miracle" and the pilots as "heroes". The plane, a Tupolev-154, was en route from the Siberian city of Polyarny to Moscow when it lost power.

With the aircraft's fuel pump, navigation equipment and radio paralysed, the pilots glided the plane to a lower altitude and landed it on an airfield near the village of Izhma in the Komi region, about 1,500 km (930 miles) from Moscow. The Tupolev overshot the end of the tarmac by about 200m (656ft) before coming to a stop in a bog, Russia's general prosecutor said in a statement.

The 72 passengers and nine crew left the plane shocked but unhurt, the statement added. Russian media reported that all passengers had been flown to Moscow on another plane, with the exception of a couple who preferred to go by train.

Comment:
Hmmm... Another electronic glitch? I wonder what really happened, but yes the pilots are heroes...



Scary gaffe adds to week of airline mishaps
Yahoo News, 27th August 2010
In the middle of an otherwise-peaceful British Airways flight from London to Hong Kong on Tuesday, a terrifying announcement blasted over the speakers. The automated message warned the 275 passengers to brace themselves, because the plane was about to crash into the sea. "We all thought we were going to die," one passenger said.

Flight attendants quickly reassured the traumatized passengers that the message was a mistake, and British Airways say they are investigating how the incident could have happened. (A similar incident happened in 1999, when a "mischievous passenger" pushed the automated crash message as a joke on a flight from San Francisco to London.) This is just the latest mishap to come to light in a wild week for airlines.

Comment:
Sounds more like another electronic glitch... and blaming it on a passenger is dispicable, I mean how exactly could they activate an automated message? I would say it's been week where there have been a more than average no. of incidents related to Space Weather.



Air traffic control glitch delays European flights
BBC News, 23rd August 2010
An air traffic control problem has hit hundreds of flights using northern European airspace. Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were among the countries affected. The problem was centred on the Eurocontrol radar system, based at Maastricht in the Netherlands. Eurocontrol later confirmed the system had returned to normal capacity, but said the backlog of flights would mean delays continuing into the evening.

Eurocontrol said "equipment problems" affected its air navigation services for flights in airspace above 7,500m (24,600 ft). [...]

Flights over western Europe had to be cut by a quarter during the failure, which lasted from 1315 to 1330 GMT, a Swedish official told Associated Press news agency.

Comment:
Hmmm... there was also a problem in Greece on Sunday morning too. The admission that the problem only effected high altitudes implies that maybe high frequency radio signals or even GPS signals may have been scrambled due to space weather, and therefore this was not just an issue with a stray cosmic ray, see

Greek airports restore air traffic after system failure
Focus Information Agency, 22nd August 2010



Barclays' network glitch causes nationwide chaos
Yahoo News, 21st August 2010
Thousands of Barclays customers in Britain were unable to access their bank accounts or withdraw money from cash machines on Saturday after a system crash caused chaos nationwide. The problems, which began at around 1:30 p.m. British time, hit telephone and online banking services and caused frustration at retail outlets as embarrassed shoppers were forced to abandon purchases at the till.

Barclays' telephone banking centres were inundated with calls from customers, many of whom were angry at the lack of information. A Barclays spokeswoman was unable to elaborate on the cause of the problems. "We became aware of a problem earlier in the day," she said. "We apologise to customers for any inconvenience."

Comment:
Barclays's had the same problem in June 2009, so I wonder if there is a more fundamental issue with software or hardware not dealing adequately with cosmic rays. (Having worked in IT, I cannot even contemplate that Barclays have such incompetent technicians running their operations, so I have disregarded the more mundane explanations like a system upgrade failure...)



Colombia plane breaks into pieces after crash
BBC News, 16th August 2010
A Colombian passenger plane crashed and broke up as it came into land on an island in the Caribbean, injuring 114 people, officials have said. One person died, apparently from a heart attack. The Boeing 737 was carrying 131 passengers and crew when it tried to land on the Colombian island of San Andres. The passenger jet, operated by local airline Aires, was reportedly hit by lightning before it crashed. It had flown from the Colombian capital, Bogota.

Col David Barrero from the Colombian Air Force said reports suggested the plane had crashed at 0149 (0649 GMT) and that "the skill of the pilot kept the plane from colliding with the airport".

Comment:
Some are starting to comment about the no. of crashes. At the moment, even though it is clear that geomagnetic conditions are getting worse, some real work has to be done to determine this conclusively. On the 14th August 2010, Holly Deyo wrote "With 10 plane crashes in the first 11 days of August, I wondered is this unusually high?" What is worth noting is the table of statistics derived from the Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO) based in Geneva. It shows the statistics for the last decade, but it only covers aircraft carrying at least 6 passengers and they don't include choppers or military fighters. See, Shocking Number of Plane Crashes



Freedom for Minn. Man Convicted in Toyota Crash
Minn. man freed after 2½ years in prison in fatal Toyota crash reopened after carmaker's woes

ABC News, 5th August 2010
A Minnesota man who spent nearly 2½ years in prison for a fatal Toyota crash walked free Thursday, after a judge ordered a new trial and a prosecutor said she wouldn't prolong the case reopened in the wake of the carmaker's widely publicized sudden acceleration problems. Koua Fong Lee, 32, of St. Paul, jumped up and hugged his attorney after Ramsey County District Judge Joanne Smith said she had seen enough new evidence to warrant a retrial. Soon after, county attorney Susan Gaertner said there wouldn't be one.

"I think it's time to bring this very sad situation to a close," Gaertner said.

Lee's wife, Panghoua Moua, sobbed when the judge announced her decision. The couple has four children, ages 8, 5, 3 and 2, and Moua said her husband barely knows the youngest two because of his time in prison.

Comment:
This is especially interesting after Toyota is claiming that drivers don't know the difference between the brake and the accelerator. Well, I have to agree that the judge has made the right decision. Unfortunately, it's sad that innocent people have been killed and others placed in prison for a bad design fault within electronics, which is being exacerbated by the changing environment of increased cosmic rays. See previous articles and comments on this subject at Best of the Blog Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos



Family rescued after GPS blunder
ABC News, 2nd August 2010
A family of four and their dog spent four days bogged in mud in far west New South Wales after being led astray by a GPS unit. Police say the driver drove off the road while following instructions from the GPS on Thursday. They say the GPS instructed the driver to travel along a closed road near Wilcannia, and the driver ignored the road closure signs.

Weather conditions prevented police from getting to the family sooner but they were finally rescued last night. Sergeant Fisher from Broken Hill Police Station says a rescue team from Wilcannia was finally able to get them out yesterday. "[The crew] braved extremely difficult and treacherous road conditions and travelled out there," he said. "They actually slid off the road quite a few times and almost got bogged themselves." Police say the local council may fine the family for damage done to the road.

Comment:
Well, some people are going to be severely disappointed when they find out that our modern technological world cannot cope with severe Space Weather which is essentially deliveries of aetheric energy. It is a FACT that when we are experiencing the most severe blasts of space weather, GPS is unreliable and those who are hypnotised by GPS and refuse to pay attention to the real world, like signs that say ROAD CLOSED, will find themselves in trouble.



Toyota announces fresh car recall
Press TV, 30th July 2010
Toyota Motor Corp. says it is preparing for a global recall of about 430,000 vehicles in the US and Japan amid concerns over steering mechanisms. The carmaker says most of the cars involved are Avalon sedans made between 2000 and 2004, AP reported. The company said a problem with a component of its steering system could potentially cause the steering wheel to lock up.
"toyota is continuing to work diligently to address safety issues wherever they arise and to strengthen our global quality assurance operations so that toyota owners can be confident in the safety of their vehicles," said Steve St Angelo, toyota chief quality officer for North America.
Comment: It seems that there is an effort to blame drivers rather than contemplate technological failure and despite NASA'a involvment, the thought of cosmic rays interfering with electronics is still unpalatable. The facts are we are experiencing worsening cosmic conditions, as cosmic rays are at a space age high and expected to increase to levels not seen in hundreds of years. Electronics can be designed to reduce electromagnetic inteference from cosmic rays, but it's not a cheap option. More recent headlines:

Drivers to blame for out-of-control Toyotas?
New Scientist News, 14th July 2010
It's hard to believe there is an attempt to blame drivers by claiming some don't know the difference between the accelerator and the brakes. I suppose this is kind of blame game is sign of escalating Corporate Arrogance and Might is Right!

Toyota appears to do an about-face on reliability of black boxes in its vehicles
Los Angeles Times, 28th July 2010
"The automaker previously said the devices' data could not be relied upon to determine the cause of accidents, but is now citing the readings to suggest that driver error is causing sudden acceleration."



Solar EMP and the Mystery of Air France 447
Huffington Post, 1st June 2010
[...] Our conversation quickly shifted to the crash of Air France 447, an Airbus 330-200 that went down en route from Rio to Paris on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 aboard. The mystery of AF447 has been intensively investigated, but the blackbox was never found and the case was never solved.

Investigators surmise that the plane flew through a thunderstorm, causing a temperature gauge to be coated with ice and thus give false readings which in turn caused speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, to give even more false readings, ultimately tripping the cascade of failures throughout the plane's computer systems that sent AF447 into the ocean. But there are a lot of thunderstorms in the South Atlantic, and pilots who do the Rio-Paris run routinely avoid them...

The commercial pilot who approached me had heard the same scuttlebutt that I had, that AF447 had had been done in by solar EMP. When the Airbus went down it was passing through what is known as the South Atlantic anomaly, a California-sized crack in the Earth's protective magnetic field that normally protects us from solar EMP.

Beginning the day before, on May 31, 2009, and continuing through the crash date, a large sunspot and along with it an enormous plasma filament had erupted on the Sun's northwest quadrant, the quadrant from which sunstorm explosions are likeliest to hit the Earth. Had a blast of solar EMP rocketed through space, penetrated this giant crack in the magnetic field and fried some of the Airbus's electronic components, perhaps including the temperature gauge and/or pitot tubes? Depends on how well those components were protected, or "hardened." Most hardening of electronic components is done under the working assumption that normal conditions will prevail in the Earth's protective magnetic field. The South Atlantic anomaly is not "normal conditions"; it is an absence of protection.

Comment:
OK, we finally have an answer and it has taken 1 year for at least the rumours from good sources to surface. Earth had lost it's shielding from Space Weather which is weak around the South Atlantic Anomaly anyway, and the Air France 447 plane was knocked out. The explanation given here is most likely wrong and more likely to have been caused by "Killer Electrons" finding their way into Earth's atmosphere and had randomly hit and fried the plane's electronics. See the previous March 2010, European Space Agency Shocking recipe for making killer electrons article and previous entries in the archive Best of the Blog - Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos



The low-energy light bulbs that take control of your TV
Daily Mail, 12th April 2010
Some feared it must have been a problem with their remote. Others suspected ghostly goings-on. But when TV viewers complained their sets were changing channel by themselves, few could have guessed the real culprit - their light bulbs. Low-energy bulbs can make your television turn over the station at random, according to customers.< [...]

Experts say infra-red light from modern fluorescent bulbs can be 'mistaken' by electrical equipment for commands from its remote. They warn that while moving or changing the offending device usually solves the problem, the proliferation of gadgets in homes increases the likelihood of such interference. [...]

An adviser from Philips said the problem only occurred with older compact fluorescent lamps. However, the Clements have found a different brand of low-energy bulb in a different room also causes the set-top box to flick channels. Several customers have reported similar problems on internet forums.

Comment:
The green meme strikes again! OK, I would have NEVER have guessed low-energy lightbulbs could cause EMI!



Engineers 'kept in dark' on Qantas mishaps
ABC News, 7th April 2010
The union representing Qantas engineers claims details of recent incidents have not been shared with senior engineers. APESMA is calling for a full investigation by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of recent safety incidents. The union is currently involved in a pay dispute with Qantas.

This week a plane heading to London was forced to return to Bangkok with engine trouble, while a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles was delayed by a cracked windscreen. And Qantas passengers on a flight from Los Angeles were 17 hours late arriving in Brisbane on Monday night after two of the airline's jumbo jets reported technical problems.

Comment:
Well, unlike the problem with suspected EMI (electromagnetic interference) with Toyota and other car manufacturer's electronics which has become headline news, there is a similar issue with plane electronics but it is less well known for obvious commercial reasons. Yet, Australian accident investigators revealed after 13 months of effort; Cosmic rays may have hit Qantas jet . The suppression of information even between engineers may or may not be related to issues of EMI/cosmic rays, but it's a bizarre claim if it's not true.



Cars vs. cosmic rays
MSNBC Cosmic Log, 2nd April 2010

Diagram from The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (2007)
by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder.


Could cosmic rays affect electronics here on Earth? Yes, absolutely. Could cosmic rays be what's causing the mysterious accelerator problems in Toyota cars? Maybe. That's one of the reasons why a NASA engineering team has been called in to assist in a federal investigation.

The team - drawn from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, or NESC - serves as the space agency's rapid-response unit for engineering expertise. It was set up in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, in response to investigators' concerns that NASA didn't have an independent safety watchdog.

Comment:
The solar wind used to be described as a bullet proof vest that batted away most cosmic rays but now it's flagging at an all time low and the heliospheric current sheet is flattening out, NASA are expecting if this happens cosmic rays will go up another 30% above the current high, see Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High! The European Space Agency ESA) have told us straight that the Earth's magnetic field is full of rifts and occassionally disappears on the daylight side see, Multiple rifts in Earth's magnetic shield but at the time, they had forgotten to update their own tutorial that tells us that we don't have to worry about cosmic rays as we are protected by Earth's "strong magnetic field". So far, space agencies appear very coy about providing any statistics about how much protection is now being provided in comparison to historical levels. However, the ESA did claim that there is no need to worry as the Earth's atmosphere acts like a bullet proof vest but if that was true, then we would not have the influence on cloud formation and 10,000 muons (secondary particles generated from primary cosmic rays) would not be passing through our bodies every minute. It is also worth noticing that scientists have been telling us that there are discreet sources that seem to be 'targetting' Earth and even talk of dark energy sources that are being directly aimed at Earth. At the time, these reports were noted, but it has to be said they have been mostly short on quantitative facts and figures. However, we do know there is an issue as international efforts have been set up to monitor the situation as described in my book, Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism and Spiritual Evolution. Please note: Thinking positively does NOT stop cosmic rays.



Now, Even NASA Is Involved in Toyota Crisis
Wall Street Journal, 31st March 2010
U.S. regulators on Tuesday announced a broad investigation into automotive computer systems and software, which have come under scrutiny because of sudden acceleration and other reports involving some Toyota Motor Corp. cars.

An examination of Toyota's problems will be conducted by experts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, while the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the government, will undertake a separate, 15- month study into the use of computer technology in cars, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

Toyota has said there is no evidence that software or electronic systems are responsible for sudden acceleration in its cars. The company "repeatedly and rigorously" tests its software and has subjected it to outside review, a spokesman said. Electronics have led to some of the biggest safety breakthroughs in vehicles, such as antilock brakes and stability control. Software controls an ever-growing variety of functions in cars, including braking and accelerating. Increasingly, cars include software that links these systems to do things like parallel park the vehicle or remember the seat positions, temperatures and radio stations preferred by different drivers.

"Ninety percent of all innovation in cars today is driven by software," said Ingolf Krueger, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California in San Diego. No surprise then that software is sometimes to blame when things go wrong. While Toyota has received most of the attention, other car makers have had software-related incidents.

Comment:
Well, some ignoranti have tried to mock all talk of cosmic rays being the cause of the failure of Toyota electronics, but now NASA are getting involved. Of course, we know that NASA are well aware that Earth is being bombarded with the highest levels of cosmic rays since the start of the space age and this is expected to get worse. People worry about car satefy but there is no consideration that humanity is faced with rapid evolutionary change caused by DNA mutations. The New Cosmic Age where we are dominated by space and the aether is now becoming apparent. See also Video: Fox News with an interview with a former NASA engineer on whether scientists can determine cause of Toyota troubles, NASA to Probe Toyota Acceleration Problem



Woman Wins $42 Million Jackpot? Not So Fast
Colorado Woman Celebrates $42 Million Slot Machine Win Until Casino Says Machine Malfunctioned

ABC News, 30th March 2010
When the lights and bells went off at a slot machine at the Fortune Valley Casino, in Central City, Colo., Louise Chavez thought she had the win of a lifetime -- $42 million. Louise Chavez was told that her slot machine mistakenly spewed the money. But after the casino claimed the machine malfunctioned, all Chavez got was a few dollars, some free meals and a room for the night.

Colorado gaming officials are investigating the incident, but said it could be nothing more than an unfortunate computer glitch. Chavez may not see a dime.

Comment:
According to some of the commentators here, the maximum payout from a penny slot gaming maching is 215,000 dollars, so the 42 million dollar win was a real glitch. We can only speculate (please excuse the pun), that the cause was a cosmic ray.



Are Cosmic Rays Causing Toyota's 'Sudden Acceleration' Problem?
Discovery News, 29th March 2010
Toyota has suffered from crippling bad press after the car manufacturer recalled millions of vehicles to address a fault that causes an inexplicable acceleration when driving. This fault is having deadly consequences and has been blamed for more than 100 possible deaths.

The company has been busy looking for the cause of the issue, repairing mechanical faults (such as sticky pedals and floor mats) with 13 affected models, but are they looking in the right place?

Although this might sound like an "out there" theory, federal regulators are now investigating whether this 'sudden acceleration' is being triggered by high energy particles from space.

Comment:
It is unfortunate that this article does not include the latest information about the high levels of cosmic rays from NASA and the European Space Agency, but it does mention the Qantus Airbus incident that after 13 months of investigation concluded that 100 people were injured and 20 severely injured and hospitalised due to Space Weather and cosmic rays causing electromagnetic interference (EMI) see Cosmic rays may have hit Qantas jet .

However, it was a missed opportunity to reveal that high levels of cosmic rays and the lack of shielding due to the disappearance of the Earth's magnetic field that is now happening at times. Yet, this story is getting wider coverage which hopefully will create some awareness that our planet is now under severe high levels of cosmic bombardment and set to reach levels not seen in hundreds of years. The point to make is that we have some electronic systems that are not designed to cope with this level of bombardment (apparently flight electronics are supposed to deal with cosmic rays and EMI, but we are now talking about levels that have not been envisaged), so people SHOULD be aware there is a new looming safety concern. The pdf that was sent anonymously to safety investigators by a "concerned" scientist was about 60 pages long with various research papers about cosmic rays and how they can be best dealt with. Again, how are folk going to cope? You can't buy a plasma shield, you have to create your own and spiritually evolve...

Toyota Recall Might Be Caused by Cosmic Rays
Yahoo News, 29th March 2010

Some experts give their opinion, but of course decline to mention WHY radiation is more of an issue these days and no mention of the issue of costs involved in making electronic systems radiation hardened (RAD-HARD). We will learn a lot more about this as Space Weather becomes more accute.

Update
There is a useful discussion thread about what EXACTLY is going on, involving people who have worked with cars and engineers. The main thrust of the argument is what is meant by "driving by wire" and wireless. The fact that NASA have got involved implies that the issue is EMI is related to a true wireless system. See Toyota Accelerators are wireless!
The following document was sent anonymously by a concerned scientist and pointed out the random nature of these events seems to imply that SEU may be a reasonable explanation for incidents of sudden acceleration. This means that even though EMI is one possible cause of sudden unintended acceleration, it is not the only possible electronic-related cause. Several publically available scientific papers discuss the possibility of cosmic rays disrupting electronics at sea level, essentially flipping a bit from one to zero, or vice versa. This phenomenon is a "soft" error that is not detectable except through redundant electronic and communication systems. The scientific community refers to such occurrences as "Single Event Upsets," or SEUs. See Toyota and Seal-Level Single Event Upset (SEU) Phenomenon



Computer glitch turns man into billionaire
News.com.au, 29th March 2010
A FLORIDA businessman was a billionaire for five hours over the weekend. After a routine transaction Paul Fischer's account ended up with a $88,888,888,888.88 balance. He called his bank, SunTrust, to report the result. Bank spokesman Mike McCoy said a computer glitch made it appear that billions of dollars were in some accounts, but the money was never really there. Mr Fischer now plans to play the lottery using the number 8.

Comment:
Another glitch...



Cosmic Rays may be Causing Unintended Acceleration in Toyotas
US News, 17th March 2010
Like a story line straight out of a George Lucas film, reports are surfacing that cosmic rays may be responsible for the dangerous cases of unintended acceleration that have spurred the recall of millions of Toyota vehicles.

"Before you dismiss the cosmic ray theory, consider that the issue has been known since the 1950s, and airplane and spacecraft manufacturers design in safeguards that triple-check all data as a defense from such interference from space," writes Autoblog. "Later, in the 1970s, researchers found that small amounts of this radiation does indeed make it down to the surface and can cause problems with small electronics like cell phones and computers."

The possibility was brought to light by a "concerned scientist" who sent an email to the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA). The message, which is published in full on Jalopnik, reads:
"For reasons I am unable to disclose, I am anonymously submitting several publically available scientific papers that discuss the possibility of cosmic rays disrupting electronics at sea level, essentially flipping a bit from one to zero, or vice versa.

This phenomenon is a 'soft' error that is not detectable except through redundant electronic and communication systems. The scientific community refers to such occurrences as 'Single Event Upsets,' or SEUs."

The scientist goes on to state, "The reason SEUs are now relevant to the automotive industry is because electronics have gotten smaller and the required voltage levels have dropped significantly, therefore making electronics more susceptible to cosmic radiation…"
[...] Still, the NHTSA is taking the tip seriously -- adding the anonymous email to its investigation case file.

Comment:
Well, so now the effects of Earth losing it's protection against galactic cosmic rays is becoming obvious to some. People are no longer safe in cars that are controlled by electronics, especially if they live in high altitudes. It looks like space weather will soon become front page news when people realise that it's not just electronics that are being fried.



Chile plunged into darkness by power cut
BBC News, 15th March 2010
A massive power failure has plunged quake-hit Chile into darkness, stretching 2,000km (1,250 miles) and affecting up to 90% of the population. In Santiago thousands were evacuated from the Metro and the failure affected a benefit concert for quake victims. Power went out at 2050 (2350 GMT) on Sunday, when a key transformer failed, and began to return after an hour. Chile's infrastructure was devastated by the quake on 27 February that killed about 500 and cost up to $30bn (£20bn). [...]

The operators of the electricity grid said the blackout was caused by the failure of a high-voltage transformer about 700km south of the capital. Officials said the blackout was not directly related to the earthquake

Comment:
We were expecting the arrival of CMEs from the stream of comets that hit the sun a few days ago, see Four Comets Have Impacted the Sun In Just 48 Hours Causing Huge "Outburst" on Sun.

I imagine that Chile's defenses are down too, YouTube videso have again revealed quakes lights that happened prior to the Chilean 8.8 earhquake and at the moment, I can only speculate that the release of energies has caused some damage. Of course, people's energy fields are being flash fried by these huge releases of energy but very few understand the message of the need to protect the human energy field whilst all this ultra low frequency energies are being released. Note: At the moment, the GLP forum seems to be the hottest place on the web for rapid notification, discussion and analysis about space weather related info but it is noted for being a conspiracy website, where the ignorant and stupid are not stopped from making a contribution.



Mysterious garage door dilemma
WOAI News, 13th March 2010
SAN ANTONIO -- Hundreds of homeowners in the Northwest part of town can't seem to get their garage doors to open. "We were wondering why," explains homeowner John Zurita. "We have to go in out and out of the house, the remote doesn't work at all."

He's not alone. Residents that live within a five mile radius of Culebra and Portranco Road are experiencing the same problem. It's because of a radio antenna used by the National Security Agency is interfering with their remotes. A newly installed Land Mobile Radio antenna is using the same frequency as a lot of garage door manufacturers. Frequent on site testing makes some electronic household items go haywire.

"We thought it was the remote, so we spent $57 for a remote," says another resident, Nora Villarreal. "I didn't have the house keys to go through the front door, so I had to jump the fence from the house to get in." The government shut down their entire system for a month for residents to find a fix. But the antenna is back up, and so are the problems.

Comment:
I wonder if there is a new stronger frequency interfering with these electronic remotes. Unfortunately, there is no technical data with this report, but electromagnetic interference (EMI) can be expected as the EM chaos on the planet accelerates. Please note the similar problem in the UK, 'Windermere Triangle' with electronics car key fobs that sometimes won't unlock cars, (February 2010).

It is known that, high frequency electronics is vulnerable to radar, thunderstorms and Space Weather generating geomagnetic storms, cosmic rays and now "killer electrons". What about humans you ask? Yes, exactly! We have our own personal energy field that can be strengthened against the continuous cosmic onslaught, but most folk are unaware that our world is in transformation, as we "officially" enter a New Age dominated by space and the ether. Yet, the most astute metaphysical folk have been strengthening their energy field despite being unaware of Space Weather, I know because I was a teacher (2004-2007) who taught people how to do this, until I decided I wanted to know WHAT EXACTLY I was doing and WHY.



16 injured as turbulence hits U.S. plane headed to Narita
Breitbart News, 20th February 2010
Sixteen people aboard a U.S. passenger aircraft were injured Saturday morning after it ran into turbulence over Anchorage in the state of Alaska, while it was traveling from Washington D.C. to Narita, police and air transport authorities said.

Turbulence hit the Boeing 747-400 United Airlines flight 897 at 10:55 a.m., when the aircraft, carrying 264 people, was trying to descend to an altitude of 9,200 meters from 9,700 meters, according to the airport office of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. [...]

The 16 people were rushed to hospitals by helicopters and other transportation means, the Chiba prefectural police said. [...] A 50-year-old university professor from Fukuoka who was aboard the flight told Kyodo News, "The aircraft was jolted vehemently over Alaska twice or so about seven hours before its arrival." "Many passengers were tossed from their seats, bumping into the ceiling," he said.

Comment:
We have a leaky and sometimes non existent magnetic field (see the latest press release from the European Space Agency, Multiple rifts in Earth's magnetic shield), combined with standard and extreme space weather, hence air travel is a lot more hazardous than it used to be (see Best of the Blog - Space Weather & Best of the Blog - Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos ). Well, when there are enough major incidents, maybe a few more people will start to wonder what else is going on.



Riddle of the 'Windermere Triangle', where cars mysteriously refuse to unlock
Daily Mail, 12th February 2010
Some put it down to interference from a set of traffic lights, others suspect an unwitting radio ham may be responsible. The local baker even blames a mischievous ghost named Albert. Whatever the explanation, something is playing havoc with the electronic key fobs of cars in the Lake District town of Windermere.

Hundreds of visitors to the popular tourist destination have found their cars won't lock or, worse still, won't unlock after they return with their shopping.

The phenomenon - or rather the spot where it occurs - has been nicknamed the Windermere Triangle.

Comment:
It does seem like Windermere has some kind of magnetic vortex, that is often why certain locations become tourist locations in the first place. Research into magnetism would suggest that inside a magnetic vortex is a triangular area marked out by three nodes and maybe local conditions have changed to the point where electromagnetic interference (EMI) has become acute. This is all quite interesting, especially as we live in a society that has tried extremely hard to ignore subtle energies, but we are living in a time when they are becoming less subtle, if you know what I mean.



Ethiopian Plane Crash - Front Detached from Body of Plane
Naharnet News, 30th January 2010
The eight identified victims from the Ethiopian doomed plane were business class passengers, hence they were seated in the plane's front, knowing that the business class seats count 16 out of 138 seats available on the plane, An Nahar daily reported on Saturday. [...] There were conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while airborne or after it had hit the water, and officials have said there will be no answers until the data from the black boxes is retrieved and analysed.

Officials want to know why the plane veered off course after takeoff, but have ruled out sabotage.

Comment:
I have taken the liberty to change the headline. It seems that mystery still surrounds what happened here and there is no explanation yet for why the plane broke up. At the moment this is pure speculation but if the plane took off during a geomagnetic storm, where we know that compasses can swing wildly in minutes, this might explain why it immediately veered off course. This means that the airplanes navigation systems will have been compromised, and then if it was hit by positive lightning, which is 10 times worse than normal lightning, then that might have been enough to knock it out of the skies. Obviously, as I have stated before, it could have been hit by something, but it does not explain why it initially veered off course. NASA have already told us that Space Weather can effect aircraft electronics, so as the electrical environment of Earth intensifies, unless scientific research is made available, we don't know how extreme the EM environment has become.



Crew on Ethiopian flight ET409 'ignored warning and flew into storm'
Times Online, 26th January 2010
The crew of an Ethiopian airliner that crashed off Lebanon yesterday apparently flew into violent storms after failing to follow controllers' instructions to avoid them, it emerged today. "A traffic control recording shows that the tower told the pilot to turn to avoid the storm, but the plane went in the opposite direction," Elias Murr, the Lebanese Defence Minister, said. "We do not know what happened or whether it was beyond the pilot's control."

All 90 on board the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 died when the aircraft hit the Mediterranean shortly after taking off from Beirut airport at 2am. Initial reports talked of a possible mid-air explosion and a possible engine fire before the aircraft took off, but the nearby thunderstorms were seen as a more likely explanation.

Comment:
Also another Times article Storms or sabotage? The mystery of Flight 409 There is no indication which article was written first. Well, we now know that violent storms are generating gamma rays which are really extreme x-rays. Scientists are worried because of the effect on human health but there is the issue of electromagnetic interference (EMI) to consider too.

The other possibility is the plane took a fatal strike from a bolide (any object from space) as it is now a fact that Earth is a under a cosmic bombardment. We know accident investigators will only consider Space Weather when they have ruled out everything else and that can take a year, but here the suggestion that pilots refused to listen to air traffic contol is not believable. Just incase you don't believe that strange electrical phenomena is taking place in our atmosphere, how about this? YouTube video [0:46] Massive Lenticular Gamma Cloud - Indonesia This is beyond strange...



New Zealand Upper North Island Hit By Massive Power Outage -
Morning Star, 25th January 2010
WELLINGTON -(Dow Jones)- New Zealand's upper North Island, including the city of Auckland, was hit by a massive power outage affecting thousands of homes and businesses late Monday, Radio New Zealand reported.

The problem was caused by a fire in some very large trees near Hamilton and was compounded by a thunder and lightening storm, the radio reported. According to different reports, most of the country north of the city of Hamilton is without power. Radio New Zealand said national grid operator Transpower expects the situation to return to normal around 0600 GMT.

Transpower officials weren't immediately available for comment.

Comment:
The official story just does not sound credible to me, the Earth's magnetosphere took another blast today at about 5.30-6.30 UT, but at the moment, I can't verify a link with solar activity like a CME, but there has been 5 GRBs in the last week or so but again, this does not account for a spike in plasma density.



160 flights disrupted after Tokyo airport glitch
The Independent, 14th January 2010
More than 160 flights to and from Tokyo's Haneda airport were disrupted Thursday after a computer glitch hit a new air radar system hours after it was installed, the transport ministry said.

The malfunction slowed data transmissions from 10:37 am (0137 GMT) until shortly before noon, and 22 flights were cancelled while another 140 flights were still delayed as of 5:00 pm, an official said.

"The government is currently investigating the cause of the system trouble, including whether it was due to the new system being installed," he said.

Comment:
I am wondering why there are so many "glitches" at airports... see also another report from the 14th, ATC systems crash at Delhi airport, flights delayed
"The Air Traffic Control systems, which help aircraft take off and land, crashed at the Delhi International Airport Thursday evening disrupting flights since 6.30 p.m."



Nuclear reactor shutdown in NYC suburb
Press TV, 12th January 2010
One of the two active power reactors at a nuclear plant in New York state has been shut down due to an unexpected malfunction in its main electrical generator. The nuclear power reactor, Indian Point 2, went offline automatically at 4 p.m. Monday after the malfunction was spotted, Ria Novosti reported.

According to the report, the nuclear plant owner, Entergy, says engineers are trying to find the exact cause of the malfunction, adding that the plant had operated for 66 days since another shutdown in November 2009. They offered assurances that a second reactor at the plant continues working.

Comment:
Hmmm.... so of course there is no real information about the cause, so we are allowed to speculate. I wonder if this was caused by a Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC) which will become an increasing problem for power supply operators, as Earth continues to lower her shields to Space Weather and hence the massive build up of charge. Click image for detail.



2010 bug hits millions of Germans
Many in country unable to pay bills or get cash because of software problem in credit and debit cards

The Guardian, 6th January 2010
A 2010 software bug has left millions of German debit and credit card holders unable to withdraw money or make payments in shops, and thousands stranded on holiday with no access to cash.

About 30m chip and pin cards – a quarter of those in circulation in Germany – are thought to have been affected by the programming failure, which meant that microchips in cards could not recognise the year change to 2010.

A French card manufacturer, Gemalto, admitted today it was to blame for the failure, which it is estimated will cost €300m (£270m) to rectify. Gemalto, whose shares dropped by 2.6%, said it was attempting a software update, but might have to replace the cards. Gemalto-manufactured cards in other countries were not affected.

The fault has led to comparisons with the millennium bug, when experts predicted the transition from 1999 to 2000 might cause computers to be fooled into thinking it was 1900. As it was, the changeover happened without much incident.

Comment:
So some got the millennium bug..... eventually!



Spain's 8 Canary Islands airports suffer flight disruptions, delays after mystery power cut
Canoe, 5th January 2010
MADRID, Spain - Spain's national airport authority AENA says the Canary Islands' eight airports have suffered delays after an unexplained power failure at a regional control centre.

AENA says power failed between 1030 GMT and 1055 GMT Sunday and grounded 43 flights at six of the resort islands' airports. Approaching aircraft were able to land, but planes departures were disrupted, causing delays at all of the archipelago's eight airports. A number of flights from Latin America were affected.

Comment:
Another mystery power cut at an airport..... Also, Power goes out at Reagan National [Airport] outside DC Why airports?



Airport control tower blacked out by power failures
UNPRECEDENTED: Even backup equipment didn't work; plane traffic is light.

Anchorage Daily News, 22nd December 2009
All power systems failed twice Sunday morning in the air traffic facility that guides planes into and out of Stevens Anchorage International Airport via radar, the FAA confirmed Monday.

The failures included two backup systems. "This could have happened the week before when we were in the fog. It would have been an absolute nightmare," said Larry Lescanec, Alaska vice president of the air traffic controllers union. As it was, air traffic was light.

Comment:
Hmmm... here someone has decided to avoid mentioning the high levels of incompetence and instead looks to the bright side and dishes out some spin telling the world that it could have been worse.... yes, oh how wonderful!



Two million in South France hit by power cut
China View, 21st December 2009
PARIS, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Around 2 million people living in southeast France were hit by power cut since Monday afternoon after a technical incident, French power company said.

Due to a technical incident occurred in southern city of Avignon, French Electricity Transmission Network (RTE), an operator of France Electricity Group (EDF), announced in a statement that they will cut power supply to some customers in southeast regions since 14:45 local time.

RTE said the selective cut-off was in order to avoid a massive blackout affecting south departments like Provence, Alpes and Coted'Azur, adding that "2 million people" would be left in darkness.

The company expressed sorry to customers, but it didn't say how long the regional blackout will last. According to local media, many blocks in southern French city Nice and Marseilles went dark on Monday afternoon.

Comment:
It's interesting that 2 million people deprived of electricity is explained away as a "technical" problem. Thus, it is very difficult to know whether these major blackouts that are now becoming more common around the world are being caused by Space Weather. So, at the moment, I am just taking note...



Air France jet issued mayday alert close to where Flight AF447 disappeared
Investigators hope to shed light on June crash by examining why similar plane ran into difficulty last month on same route

The Guardian, 10th December 2009
France's accident investigation agency has opened an inquiry into an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris which ran into difficulties last month just miles from where another of its planes vanished in June with 228 people on board.

In an attempt to "shed light" on the crash of Flight AF447, which went missing while flying over the Atlantic, the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) said it was looking into what triggered Flight AF445 to issue a mayday signal flying the same route on 29 November. "We cannot ignore such a coincidence," said a spokesman.

The A330 airbus – the same model as the aeroplane which went down on 1 June – was four hours into its flight to the French capital when it hit heavy turbulence, an Air France statement said. "[The aircraft] performed a standard descent in order to avoid a zone of severe turbulence and get back to a less turbulent level of flight." The airline insists the emergency signal was not sent because the pilots believed they were in danger.

Comment:
OK, since we now have confirmation that Space Weather COULD have caused Electromagnetic Interfence (EMI) in the electronics of a Qantas flight back in October 2008, and we have seen 2 incidents in the approx. same region, just off the coast of Brazil, it is becoming more likely that this was caused by Space Weather and the known weakness of the Earth's magnetic field, referred to as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), see diagrams here for more information. What's more, I would imagine that the SAA is now probably much bigger as NASA have informed us that the Earth's magnetic field is now unstable with massive breaches, that they are unwilling to give us much detail about. Therefore we await the analysis fronm the European Space Agency (ESA) Swarm project, that is currently investigating the anomalies of the Earth's magnetic field.



False alarms wake orbiting astronauts
UPI News, 20th November 2009
HOUSTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- NASA Friday was investigating false fire and depressurization alarms aboard the shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station, officials said.

The alarms woke sleeping astronauts Thursday night with sensors indicating a fire and a dangerous loss of pressure, NASA officials said Friday. The alarms turned out to be false and the crew was never in any danger, said Mission Control in Houston, which is investigating the cause of the false alarms.

Comment:
As the space scientists keep telling us, space is far from being a quiet place. It seems that a build up of charge tripped some electronics on the ISS. There has been some stormy geomagetic events with Spaceweather.com has reporting bright auroral activity over Norway and www.solarcycle24.com reported an unsettled geomagnetic field due to a recurrent coronal hole high-speed solar wind stream.



Cosmic rays may have hit Qantas jet
Sydney Morning Herald, 19th November 2009
Archive copy: COSMIC rays are being considered by air safety investigators as a cause of two rapid descents made by a Qantas Airbus on its way from Singapore to Perth in October last year.

Air safety investigators brought down their latest report into the flight QF72 incident, in which more than 100 people were injured, finding there was equipment failure in one of three avionics boxes.

The investigators found that the box, called an air data inertial reference unit, streamed wildly inaccurate data to flight computers. Cosmic or solar radiation may have affected the unit.

''There is a constant stream of high-energy galactic and solar radiation interacting with the Earth's upper atmosphere,'' the report noted.

''This interaction creates a cascade of secondary particles. Some of the secondary particles, in particular neutrons, can affect aircraft avionics systems.''

The aircraft, with 303 passengers, made an emergency landing at Learmonth in Western Australia.

Comment:
Major admission that Space Weather could have interfered with jet electronics that caused one flight attendant and 11 passengers to be seriously injured, and eight other crew members and at least 99 other passengers to receive minor injuries.

It has taken 13 months for accident investigators to come to this conclusion and to my knowledge, this is the first major admission that Space Weather can trigger electromagnetic interference (EMI) in jet electronics. When you consider the implications, especially after what we are now being told by NASA about the leakiness of Earths defences against cosmic galactic radiation and the expected increase, the media coverage of this story is meagre. At the moment, this article will be archived in the Best of the Blog Space Weather & Electronics & Electromagnetic Chaos, and we must note as I stated in my book, "Space Weather is now a fact of life".

This is the press release link MEDIA RELEASE : 18 November 2009 - 2009/16: ATSB Second Interim Factual Report into the Qantas Airbus A330-303 in-flight upset, 154 km west of Learmonth WA, on 7 October 2008 and here is the scientific report link, ATSB Interim Factual Report No.2


Comment #2: So, now that investigators have taken 13 months to eliminate the possibility of a laptop causing a mini-tornado inside the plane, see the report at the Daily Mail, Terrifying Qantas jet plunge that left dozens injured 'may have been caused by passenger laptop' they have come to the conclusion that Space Weather could have scrambled the electronics. Interestingly, this happened at the same time as Earth was being energetically hammered. It seems that the 7th October 2008 Qantas incident, can be attributed to the Soft Gamma Ray Repeater, Magnetar SGR 0501+4516, which sprang into life on the 22nd August and over 4 months emitted a series of mega outbursts. Magnetars have been jokingly described as "solar flares on steroids" but this hides the fact that some estimate that in .2 of second, magnetars give off as much energy as the Sun gives in 250,000 years.

So, there was a major outburst on the 3rd October 2008 from another Magnetar called SGR J1550-5418 and it seems that as well as gamma-rays, x-rays, light and ultraviolet light, magnetars also magnetise dust and particles, so we were getting slammed with those too. Major and extreme space weather events can trigger substorms, so it seems that on the 7th October the Earths magnetic field could have convulsed enough to create a breach and allow in an excess of particles that caused havoc in the electronics for the Qantas flight. With this admission, we can expect further events in the future and we must now await the reports from accident investigators about the series of other major airplane incidents in the last year.

Sigh.... I would just like to point out to certain people who regularly visit my website and who are in no doubt amazed by my research. It is a bad idea to follow people who do not have any academic qualifications worth talking about, but feel the need to then extend their "expertise" into galactic cosmology, a field where scientists are still making major discoveries, at the same time that they are unsure about the possibility of major challenges for our solar system and confusing the issue with wildly inaccurate estimates. Therefore, I am proud of the fact that I choose to integrate science with metaphysics and I choose to quote "channelled" sources, because THANK GOD the sources I chose to pay attention to, have been proven to have been RIGHT, RIGHT and RIGHT!



Millions left in dark by Brazilian blackout
Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities without power for two hours after hydroelectric dam goes offline

The Guardian, 11th November 2009
A power failure has blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest country for more than two hours, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. All of neighbouring Paraguay also lost power, but for only about 20 minutes.

The Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, said Brazil's mines and energy minister, Edison Lobão. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in a country of more than 190 million people.

The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobão said strong storms that uprooted trees near the dam just before it went offline could be to blame. Rio was the hardest hit city, he said.

Comment:
There have been a number of stories in the last few days explaining the last major blackout in Brazil as being due to neglience, but in this incident on Tuesday night (10th), was blamed on "a strong storm". We are talking about two countries here, up to 60 million people being left in the dark in Brazil and 6 million in Paraguay, which lost power for the WHOLE COUNTRY. This only makes sense if there was a massive geomagnetic storm that generated a Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC) which then went on to overloaded transformers. If you check back in the archives at Spaceweather.com there have been some auroras due to the solar wind on about the 8th November but I can't check the GOES satellite X-ray flux because it seems to be out of action, hmmm.... Well, we have been warned that the Earth's magnetic field is now behaving contrary to scientific understanding and opening up massive breaches to the solar wind. Here is the link to a YouTube clip [5:13], A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field presented by Science at NASA.



Chemical alert as six passengers faint on transatlantic flight to Heathrow
The Telegraph, 31st October 2009
More than 200 passengers were at the centre of an fumes alert at London's Heathrow airport after at least six "fainted" during a transatlantic British Airways flight.

"The Boeing 777 was ordered to a remote part of the airfield after landing early this morning, where it was met by 11 fire appliances and six ambulances. The drama began as the British Airways flight BA184 from Newark, New Jersey, landed at Heathrow's Terminal 5 at about 6.50am. The crew of the flight deck had radioed ahead to warn that six passengers had fainted, amid fears that they could have inhaled some type of poisonous chemical or been struck by a mystery bug.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus boarded the plane and spent almost two hours checking for any sign of a chemical or fumes which might have caused the passengers' illness. After the all-clear was given, ambulance crews were allowed aboard and treated the passengers, who reported feeling "light-headed" and "faint" during the flight. None required hospital treatment."

Comment:
The link here with the following email was sent to me by one of my blog regulars and I think it was actually quite an interesting assessment. Leticia wrote: "I was wondering if you'd heard about the six passengers that fainted in flight to London (you probably have). Air travel seems to be getting trickier by the day. Since the beginning of the year there have been many many small plane (and helicopter) accidents that have never even made the headlines - it actually came onto my "radar screen" (intuitively speaking) back in Feb. and I monitored/listed the incidents that I found in obscure articles on the internet until it became so many that I just stopped. Even the ones making it into the major news headlines have not let up. Hmmm......"

Well, I don't think anyone will admit that there is a major problem with navigational systems but since nuclear submarines are now crashing in the middle of the vast oceans which is quite unbelievable, we have to suspect that the unstable geomagnetic environment is the cause. This is example of what Leticia has noted: 'Fireball' Off California: Coast Guard Plane, Navy Chopper Collide
*Special note* I could decide what exactly happened here but since chemicals are a dance of electromagnetic charges, and there has been no news about WHY this incident occured, I have decided to add into the archives under the Electronics & EM Chaos tag.



Schoolboy's bedroom raided after TV aerial interferes with air traffic control
The Telegraph, 28th October 2009
A schoolboy, Nickie Chamberlain, was surprised when Government officials arrived at his bedroom and confiscated his television aerial because it was interfering with planes landing at a nearby airport.

"Nickie, who is 12, had used the booster device for two years to watch cartoons, music channels and Big Brother on his 14-inch television. But three weeks ago an official from the Office of Communications (Ofcom) turned up at his home claiming the £15 aerial was affecting planes landing at Luton Airport.

According to Ofcom, pilots coming into land at the airport had lost contact with the control tower because the faulty aerial was transmitting on the same frequency as the cockpit radios. The communication problems meant pilots landing their aircraft had to scramble to change the frequency so they could continue to communicate with the control tower.

Air traffic controllers first noticed the communication problems on the flight path into Luton, which is directly over Nickie's house in Linslade, Beds., on October 6."

Comment:
I have to say this example of electromagnetic interference from a TV booster is almost unbelievable.



Static electricity worry halts NASA rocket test flight
New Scientist, 27th October 2009
Poor weather on Tuesday prevented NASA from launching a test version of the Ares I rocket it is developing to replace the space shuttle.

Ares I is designed to loft a crew capsule called Orion to low-Earth orbit. Initially it would travel to the International Space Station, but later it would act as the first leg of missions to the moon, taking a crew capsule to low-Earth orbit, where the capsule would dock with other spacecraft that would get the rest of the way there. [..]

The main problem was the risk of static electricity buildup on the rocket, which can occur when it flies through high- level clouds – a phenomenon called triboelectrification.

Such buildup could prevent the rocket from transmitting data to the ground – or worse, prevent ground controllers from activating a self-destruct system on the rocket in case it veers dangerously off course. Officials are being extra cautious about triboelectrification with Ares I-X because it is an experimental vehicle that has never flown before.

Comment:
The electrical nature of our world is being featured more in reports by NASA and the space community, as a reflection of increasing Space Weather and the continuation of the build up of electrical charge around our planet. For more technical details, see SCRUB: Ares I-X fails to beat weather for opening launch attempt



Driver fined after satnav nearly takes him over cliff
The Independent, 17th September 2009
"A driver whose car was left teetering on the edge of a cliff after following his satnav was ordered to pay nearly £900 for driving without due care and attention. Robert Jones, 43, nearly plunged down the 100ft cliff in his BMW after obeying instructions which sent him along a steep, narrow path, in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, on 22 March. [...]

Speaking after the incident earlier this year, Jones, who works as a driver, said he trusted his satnav system and relied on it for his job."

Comment:
I totally agree with the court ruling, GPS is NOT reliable! Photo gallery here



Man charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 for one pack of cigarettes
Daily News, 15th July 2009
copy: "MANCHESTER, N.H. - A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars. Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours later and saw the 17 -digit number – a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).

Muszynski says he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers and the $15 overdraft fee. The bank corrected the error the next day. Bank of America tells WMUR-TV only the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank."

Comment:
We live in a technological society that heavily relies on electronics that are not as reliant as they used to be as the shielding around our planet weakens and cosmic rays interfere with computer chips by changing bits and bytes. Hence, the above spurious result. See Cosmic threat to tomorrow's computers



Passengers hug Southwest pilot for safe landing
Hole in fuselage causes pressure-loss scare on Boeing 737

MSN News, 14th July 2009
"Charleston, West Virginia - Passengers on a Southwest Airlines plane applauded and hugged the pilot for a safe emergency landing in West Virginia after a hole measuring 1 foot by 1 foot appeared in the fuselage. Passenger Michael Cunningham, whose seat was right below the hole, told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that he was awakened by a loud roar while dozing on the flight.

"You could see the sky through it," Cunningham said. "I could put my arm out of it if I wanted to." Cunningham said passengers were calm and put oxygen masks on immediately.

The cabin lost pressure, but no one was injured. The plane, which originated in Nashville and was headed to Baltimore, landed safely Monday evening. It's not clear what caused the damage. Southwest Airlines Co. spokeswoman Marilee McInnis says the company was inspecting all of its Boeing 737-300s as a precaution."

Comment:
We are starting to see a pattern.... This could have only been caused by a meteorite, possibly pea-sized that hit the plane and bounced of and luckily, it did not hit a part of the plane that would have knocked out vital navigational electronics. The other explanation is just wear and tear and if that is the true explanation, that would put the airline in a terrible position in the eyes of the general public. Another crash, 15th July 2009 Scores killed in Iran plane crash



'I felt like I'd been electrocuted': Sole survivor of Airbus crash relives her ordeal as she is reunited with her father
Daily Mail, 3rd July 2009
"The child survivor of the Yemenia jet crash which killed 152 today spoke of her ordeal as she flew back to France for an emotional reunion with her father.

Bahia Bakari told a French government minister that she felt something 'like electricity' before the crash. 'She says instructions were given to passengers and that then she felt something like electricity ... as if she had been a bit electrocuted,'

France's government minister for cooperation, Alain Joyandet, who flew back to Paris with Bahia today, said. 'And suddenly there was this big sound. She found herself in the water - and you know the rest.'"

Comment:
Certainly, most will agree that the survival of the one 14 year passenger from this disaster is 'miraculous'. However, due to the circumstances, we have to pay careful attention to what she states. So far, there has been lots of speculation about the previous Airbus disaster, but now we have a suvivor telling us that she felt electricity and she felt like she had been "a bit electrocuted". There is no doubt that most independent researchers will come to the conclusion that the plane was hit by lightning but as we now know, new electrical phenomena like 'ion plumes', sprites and new types of megalightning are also occuring. One major problem that independent researchers face is the vagueness of major press releases by NASA and other space agencies and the need to gain access to important research. NASA are obliged by law to reveal their research but prefer to keep back certain key facts from the general public. Here, it would be useful to know just how low the ionosphere has become in certain parts of the world. The revelation that the ionosphere is 'extraordinarily' low, is just not really good enough. As the electromagnetic environment of Earth intensifies, it is likely that the preponderance of geomagnetic and new atmospheric electrical phenomena will increase. We already have scientists telling us that it's now like a 'zoo' in the region above the cloud tops, in region of the stratosphere (16-50km) that that they refer to as the 'ignor(o)sphere' because they are generally ignorant of what is happening there. For more background information see the report, Megalightning and The Demise of STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia.



Airbus could be asked to ground all long-range airliners
Times Online, 1st July 2009
"Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.

It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are flying and until AF447, no passenger had been killed in one.

Comment:
Obviously, two crashes in a month is not acceptable but if other types of planes start going down in the same region then the report below that implicates geomagnetic storms could become more plausible. The facts are that NASA have admitted that "ion plumes" are occuring during geomagnetic storms and interfering with aircraft navigation, and these have occurred over the United States and recently over Africa. See also Airbus with 153 on board crashes into Indian Ocean. We could infer this could be a world-wide phenomena and this would account for some of the very strange electromagnetic anomalies in aircraft navigation systems in recent years.

Update
'I felt like I'd been electrocuted': Sole survivor of Airbus crash relives her ordeal as she is reunited with her father
Daily Mail, 3rd July 2009



Russians order Flight Changes, after Massive Magnetic Shift downs Airliners...
Macedonia Online, 30th June 2009
"Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are saying that Russian Air Force Commanders have issued warnings to all of their aircraft to exercise "extreme caution" during flights "in and around" an area defined as Latitude 17 North [North Atlantic Ocean] Latitude 3 South [South Atlantic Ocean] to Latitude 8 North [Indian Ocean] Latitude 19 South [Indian Ocean] between the Longitudes of 46 West, 33 West, 46 East and 33 East, and which covers the greater part of the African Tectonic Plate.

The reason for this unprecedented warning, these reports state, are the rapid formations of "geomagnetic storms" emanating from the boundaries of the African Tectonic Plate that due to their intensity have caused the loss of two major passenger aircraft during the past month leaving nearly 300 men, women and children dead.

The first aircraft to be downed by this phenomenon was Air France passenger flight 447, and which these reports say that upon encountering one of these geomagnetic storms, on June 1st, near the western boundary of the African Tectonic Plate close to Brazil's Fernando de Noronha Islands, was "completely annihilated" causing the deaths of 216 passengers and 12 crew members as their plane plunged in pieces into the Atlantic Ocean.

The second aircraft to be downed occurred on the eastern boundary of the African Tectonic Plate today when another of these geomagnetic storms slammed from the sky a Yemeni Airways flight to the Island Nation of Comoros in the Indian Ocean of which of the 153 passengers and crew aboard, only 1 "miracle child" has been rescued, so far. To the catastrophic events occurring within the African Tectonic Plate it has been known for over a year with the reporting of a "new ocean" forming in Ethiopia, and as we can read as reported by Nature News Service:

"Although the birth of an ocean is an extremely rare phenomenon on the largest of historical scales, the geophysics is currently experiencing such an event. Even more dazzling, this occurs in one of the Earth's most inhospitable and arid regions, the Afar Depression in Ethiopia.

The African continent is literally unstitching itself apart just like the sleeve of an old shirt, along the area known as the East African Rift, which traverses it beginning with the southern end of the Red Sea, going through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. The molten lava beneath the Earth's surface makes it thin by constantly pushing against it, and eventually breaks it and tears it apart.""

Comment:
Do we have a Space Weather smoking gun? OK, I have never been sure of this source of information but when it's related to geophysics and not politics, I tend to be more interested in what's being released. Therefore, we have to ignore the embroidery that is evident in this article. The scientific facts are that the birth of a new ocean is a major geological event. At the same time, in November 2007 NASA reported unusual space weather over Africa and electromagnetic emissions called an "ion plume" where our scientists don't fully understand the origin. The report states:
"Researchers liken the plumes to smoke billowing out of a factory smokestack–except instead of ordinary ash and dust, ion plumes are made of electrified gas floating so high above ground they come in contact with space itself. "The plumes appear during geomagnetic storms and they can interfere with satellite transmissions, airline navigation and radio communications," says Fuller-Rowell. Indeed, it is their effect on GPS signals that led to the discovery of plumes over North America just a few years ago." Strange Space Weather over Africa.
At the same time, we also know that aircraft can be effected by very strange atmospheric conditions and we have the incident where air passengers that were not wearing seatbelts ended up floating in the air and many were seriously hurt; see report from February 2009, Turbulence Warning: 45 hurt as US-bound plane hits turbulence over Japan .

It must be obvious to many that atmospheric conditions are deteriorating very quickly as even the U.S. Airforce admit GPS is 'breaking down' and we can only assume that as many reports attest, GPS "technical difficulties" are related to the turbulence of the ionosphere that cannot be compensated for by any kind of technique. When we look at the bigger picture, metaphysical sources have been emphatic that low frequency electromagnetic emissions that act as precursors to earthquakes degrade the human energy field. Hence, we have been warned that protection is necessary and various sources are encouraging the use of sacred geometry and activation of the octahedron energy field. After 8 years of research, I am quite familiar with the supporting science and metaphysical concepts. When we consider the formation of a new ocean basin, one can only speculate that these electromagnetic emissions are on another completely different scale. Here, it is necessary to point out that NASA have stated that this is a NEW geophysical phenomena and there is a lack of sensors to detect these "ion plumes", so once again, we are in unchartered territory. It must be now obvious to many, why in this period of electromagnetic chaos, metaphysical people who have worked so hard to spiritually evolve are being warned to apply protection. As I continue to log the evidence of evolutionary change and extreme space conditions, resulting in new atmospheric and geophysical phenomena, there is no doubt that the pot is now boiling. See the Hathor message, April 2009; Chaotic Nodes: A Hathor Planetary Message through Tom Kenyon.



White House to Abandon Spy-Satellite Program
Wall St Journal Online, 23rd June 2009
"WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to kill a controversial Bush administration spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials familiar with the decision. The program came under fire from its inception two years ago.

Democratic lawmakers said it would lead to domestic spying. The program would have provided federal, state and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery – but no eavesdropping capabilities– to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism. It would have expanded an Interior Department satellite program, which will continue to be used to assist in natural disasters and for other limited security purposes such as photographing sporting events. The Wall Street Journal first revealed the plans to establish the program, known as the National Applications Office, in 2007. "It's being shut down," said a homeland security official."

Comment:
Well, obviously the thinking is; what's the point of a spy satellite program when GPS is on it's way out? The media have been remarkably quiet when you consider that military systems are likely to be crippled unless there are other systems in place that we know nothing about and even then, the same "extreme" conditions in space will be effecting those critical satellite dependent guidance systems too.



Airbus computer bug is main suspect in crash of Flight 447
Times Online, 18th June 2009
"Faulty speed readings and electronic failures were cited by crash investigators yesterday as they said they were closer to understanding the loss of Air France Flight 447 on June 1, with the deaths of all 228 people on board.

Paul-Louis Arslanian, chief of the French accident investigation bureau, said that it was too early to pronounce on the events that led the Airbus A330 to crash into the Atlantic about 1,000km (600 miles) off Brazil, but added: "I think we may be getting closer to our goal."His remarks strengthened suspicion among analysts that a bug in the computerised flight system of the Airbus could be the key to the disaster. "

Comment:
It is interesting that the explanation of electronics failure does not explain all the evidence. There were numerous other flights through this area and no reports of bad weather by other pilots. Then there is the account of two pilots who saw a flash of bright light and then we have debris spread over a very large area which indicates the plane might have been hit by something like lightning or even a bolide. The evidence suggests the plane was badly damaged, but continued flying for a while, it may even have tried to turn around but it was too badly sticken to make it. This explanation has to be considered as the US military couldn't wait to make their actions less obvious and classified all information about Near Earth Objects to the chagrin of scientists, see Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified.

We have to remember there is tremendous satellite capability to see what is taking place around the globe, even ordinary members of the public have access to Google Earth, so there is no doubt that the information that could settle this matter of an incoming bolide is available and the promptness of the US Military suggests they moved to stop this information leaking into the public domain.

Barclays computer glitch shuts down cash machines and online banking for three-and-a-half hours
Daily Mail, 16th June 2009
"Millions of Barclays customers were yesterday blocked from withdrawing cash and using internet banking after a computer glitch crashed its network. Customers using cash machines serving branches stretching from London to Scotland and south Wales were unable to take money out from around 1pm to 4.30pm. These people were also unable to use cash machines operated by other banks, while some Barclaycard cash machine transactions were also blocked.[...] A Barclays spokesman said there was a hardware failure with servers based in Gloucester. Any customer, from any part of the country, whose details were held on these servers was unable to access their account."

Comment:
Well, it most certain that as the Earth continues to lose it shielding and cosmic rays from galactic and intergalactic sources stream onto our planet, then it is inevitable that there will be increasing instances of computer failures, unless computer manufacturers start using radiation hardened computer chips which are obviously more costly. As I wrote in my book, Space weather is now a fact of life!. See also Lightning strikes Amazon cloud (honest) The dangers of sky-high computing



Chinese sub collides with sonar array towed by U.S. Navy ship near Philippines
CNN, 12th June 2009
"Tn what a U.S. military official calls an "inadvertent encounter," a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the destroyer USS John McCain on Thursday. The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide, the official said. A sonar array is a radar towed behind a ship that listens and locates underwater sounds. The incident occurred near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines. The official, who declined to be named because the incident had not been made public, would not say whether the U.S. ship knew the submarine was that close to it.

Comment:
This is now the third or even the fourth example of a submarine colliding with another object in the last two years and obviously there is something wrong with navigational systems for this to keep happening under varying circumstances. This must be causing huge embarrassment that military systems are proving to be so inept at getting their bearings correct and gives us some hints that maybe geomagnetic factors are now effecting electronics and systems that rely on electromagnetic signals in a chaotic electromagnetic environment. It seems that we will have to wait for some 'expert' opinion to find out. See February 2009 report where we read: "The Royal Navy has confirmed that Britain's HMS Vanguard and France's Le Triomphant nuclear-powered submarines, which were both carrying nuclear weapons, collided earlier this month in the Atlantic Ocean." French, UK nuclear submarines in Atlantic collision



Spanish pilot saw 'flash of white light' when French plane went missing
El Mundo, 6th June 2009
"An airplane commander who was traveling through that zone had to change his route He also informed that there were electric storms. "Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds," This is the message from the fight 974 captain of Air Comet, which was covering the Lima-Madrid route at the same time that the Airbus of Air France went missing, he wrote in his report."

Comment:
Well, the pot is certainly boiling now. Many are not aware that our planet is becoming highly electrifed as it is bombarded by Space Weather and there is the separate issue of a rain of small meteorites and other Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The evidence is clear that our planet is generating some extreme atmospheric conditions, to the point of gamma rays (extreme x-rays) being generated in clouds that can be detected 600km from their origin. Last June, lightning punched a hole the size of a dinner plate into the side of a plane in New Zealand. It must be presumed for business reasons, we only get reports of a certain percentage of incidents and sadly serious disasters. Some speculation at Discover Magazine here, Did a meteor bring down Air France 447?.



Air France mystery: possible clue in Qantas near-miss
_Times Online, 2nd June 2009
"A recent near-fatal incident involving a similar Airbus A330 could provide clues as to the cause of the Air France crash. Last October, a Qantas A330 plunged 650 feet in a few seconds after a computer malfunction which was possibly triggered by electrical interference. [...]

One theory being investigated is that signals from a nearby military communication station interfered with the air data computer. Jim Morris, senior solicitor at Stewarts Law, the aviation law firm which is representing 30 people injured in the Qantas incident, said: "Electrical systems on aircraft are designed to withstand lightning strikes. But it appears that the air data inertial reference unit on the A330 is more susceptible than it should be to electro-magnetic interference [EMI]."

Comment:
I have been waiting for an answer on the EMI interference that caused the October Qantus A330 plunge. So, if it is proven that these incidents are caused by military systems, who is going to insist that these signals are banned?



Case of Missing Jetliner Shows Technology's Limits
Washington Post, 1st June 2009
"Air travelers are trained to think that planes are stuffed with the latest high- tech aviation gear. But the case of missing Air France Flight 447 is demonstrating technology's limits. From details known so far, Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris had its last contact with Brazil air traffic control Sunday about 4:15 a.m. (10:15 p.m. EDT). The plane entered a zone of storms and high turbulence about 4 a.m., leading to speculation that the jet, an Airbus A330-200, might have been hit by lightning."

Comment:
See also, Brazilian team 'finds debris from Air France.... This report states Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, the Air France chief executive, said that the last contact with the plane came in a flurry of about a dozen automatically generated technical messages "indicating that several systems had broken down...a completely unheard-of situation". See later article above.



Mystery as Stockton cars behave oddly [UK]
Evening Gazette, 15th May 2009
"THE truth is out there! Or at least a group of baffled drivers hope it is following a morning of motoring mystery in Stockton. Residents on Leam Lane, Bishopsgarth, woke last Wednesday to find their cars' electrical systems behaving oddly. And confused driver Daniel Joyce contacted the Gazette in the hope we would get to the bottom of the problem. "It was early in the morning and a lot of people were having problems starting their cars," said Daniel, 21, who drives a Citroen Saxo. "The central locking wouldn't work on mine so I opened it manually but then the engine wouldn't start. "I ended up pushing it around the corner and as soon as I got it away from the street it would work." The puzzling problem is believed to have been caused by some form of radio, electric or satellite signal interfering or blocking the signal that some car keys send to the engine."

Comment:
At this stage, we have to presume that this was electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by a telecommunications system like a phone mast sending out a new or wrong signal. Most people can put up with something going wrong every now and again but modern society is now heavily dependent on electronics being reliable.



The Polish white van man who followed his sat-nav too closely and ended up in the middle of a lake
Daily Mail, 24th October 2008
"A Polish white van man who was too sure of his sat-nav ended up neck-deep in a lake after ignoring road signs warning of a dead-end ahead, Polish police said today. The road hasn't been used for a year after it was flooded out when an artificial lake was created. It was dark and the un-named driver had been drinking, but he still managed to miss three signs warning him there was a lake ahead."

Comment:
I have previously discussed the issue of GPS being inaccurate when there are geomagnetic storms. Here, this incidence reminds me of someone unconscious and not taking responsibility for what is happening around them. Therefore they have been lulled into a false sense of security by the hypnotic Sat-Nav that they have falsely believed is always right. Here the guidance was simply not enough and basics like watching the road and road signs were ignored until it was too late. This is a good metaphor for many people now in shock as they have blindly trusted governments and financial agencies implicity. They are now in a state of shock as many have been well and truly mislead, but the signs that we have been headed for financial catastrophe have been there for years.



Qantas mid-air drama explained
News24, 14th October 2008
"Canberra - An error in the automatic pilot system caused an Airbus jet to plummet last week, injuring scores of passengers on a Qantas flight from Singapore to Perth, Australia's air safety agency said on Tuesday.

The incident was an "unique event", but was serious enough to prompt Airbus to issue emergency guidelines to airlines worldwide operating the Airbus A330- 300 in the event of a similar emergency, Australian Transport Safety Bureau director Julian Walsh told reporters in Canberra. "Incorrect values led to the flight control computers commanding a nose down aircraft movement and the aircraft pitching down," Walsh said."

Comment:
Obviously the report is still quite vague but we are told,
"The glitch occurred in an air data inertial reference unit, which feeds information to the aircraft's main computer and had never been encountered during any previous A330-300 flights, Walsh said. The flight sensor led the computer to incorrectly determine the jet was climbing when actually in level flight..."
The question here is; are they seriously trying to tell us that software that controlled the auto-pilot has not been throughly tested.... and they have just discovered a 'computer bug'..... I have spent many years working with software packages and this statement is absolutely incredible when you consider that lives are at risk....



Computer glitch may be behind Qantas incident: ATSB
ABC News, 8th October 2008
"The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has pointed to a possible computer problem as a cause for yesterday's Qantas emergency. The Qantas Airbus was en route to Perth from Singapore when it descended suddenly, injuring more than 40 passengers. The ATSB says until it can analyse the flight data recorders it can not determine the exact cause of the problem."

Comment:
Some passengers were seriously hurt as they flew out of their seats and cracked their heads on the cabin ceiling. It's hard to imagine this was anything but a failure in hardware and not software, possibly caused by a stray cosmic ray.

Update
It is now being reported that Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) could be to blame; "...the investigation has now turned to the possibility that a laptop with its wireless function turned on, a Bluetooth mouse or an electronic game might have interfered with the aircraft's sophisticated controls." Normally, passengers are requested to turn -off all electronics during take-off and landing NOT during flights. Hence this avenue of investigation seems very strange, as the software would have most certainly incorporated overides to stop passengers getting hurt by sudden changes in altitude. See Terrifying Qantas jet plunge that left dozens injured 'may have been caused by passenger laptop'.



Researchers Say Activity On Sun Behind Dropped Cell Phone Calls
AHN Media Corp, 7 July 2007
Blame the Sun for "dropped" cellphone calls, says Math prof
Queens Univeristy, 5 June 2007
"What we have discovered is surprising and very different from the explanations that appear in most engineering textbooks....

When a solar radio flare occurs and cell-site antennae are facing the sun, the number of dropped calls that go away for no apparent reason increases dramatically, the researchers found. In one well-studied example this figure reached nine per cent, while some systems have dropped more than 20 per cent of their calls during flares. The mystery is why calls drop in the absence of flares.

"We believe that this is caused by the Sun radiating energy into the Earth's magnetic field," says Dr. Thomson. "It's one of those things that people look at and say, 'It can't possibly be,' but a lot of experts have now given a thumbs-up to this theory."

Comment:
The quotes here are from the original 5th June press release which is far more informative. This is the same disbelief voiced by electrical engineers who found out in 1989 that our energy grid infrastructure can be disrupted by solar activity. When will people acknowledge that electromagnetic human beings are affected too?



Nationwide blackout leaves Colombia in the dark
International Herald Tribune, 26 April 2007
Comment: Well, we have the first MAJOR blackout here. We are not talking about a few streets, a village or a town or city, we are not talking about a district or region we are talking about a WHOLE Country. I have stated in the past (off the record) that I hope we get rolling blackouts, country by country or at least large areas where the frequency of outages is enough so that people notice that something strange is happening and they can get ready. The last thing we want is the scenario of the lights going off and that's it with no warnings at all and they don't come back on because the computers have been fried too. For the people who don't understand why I am prepared to make these comments, then I am sorry you have not read my book....No doubt I will state this again and again until people start to realise. THE ELECTRICAL CONDITIONS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM ARE CHANGING DRAMATICALLY EFFECTING ALL LIFE ON EARTH. OUR POWER GRIDS ARE VULNERABLE TO FLUCTUATING GEOMAGNETIC CURRENTS AND AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE FROM OUTSIDE EARTH COULD KNOCK EVERYTHING OUT!!!!!

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Susan Joy Rennison, B.Sc.Hons. (Physics with Geophysics)

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Susan Joy Rennison quotes:

“Space Weather is now a fact of life.”

“We are all astronauts now!”

Tuning The Diamonds,
September 2006

“We must spiritually evolve as part of the new terms & conditions for living on Earth.”

Joyfire Tour – Evolutionary Change, December 2006

“Space Weather will force many changes in how we do business on this planet.”

News of the Imbalance,
April 2007



NASA Press Release:

“Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history.”

“We're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.”

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather
NASA News, 4th June 2010



White House Executive Order:

“Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.”

Executive Order –– Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events
The White House, 13th October 2016




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