OT -- Flu comes from outer space, claim scientists -- Statistically Follows Sunspot Activity in 11 Year Cycle ---

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Flu comes from outer space, claim scientists

Stuart Millar --Wednesday January 19, 2000

It made the festive season a misery for many and threw NHS policy into crisis. But the flu may have worse in store, according to scientists who claim to have discovered an alarming explanation for the epidemic - a virus from outer space.

Dismissing as dogma the conventional medical wisdom that flu is a virus passed by human contact, the distinguished astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, and his colleague at Cardiff university, Chandra Wickramasinghe, warn that we may be on the brink of a global epidemic.

In a report to be published in the journal Current Science, they claim the outbreak was caused by dust deposited high in the atmosphere by passing comets being forced down to earth by energy generated by cooler patches on the sun's surface, known as sunspots.

They reach the peak of their activity, the maxima, every 11 years, coinciding, the scientists say, with all major flu outbreaks since 1761, including the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic blamed for 20m deaths worldwide. The latest cycle began to peak in September and the maxima is due sometime this year.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 19, 2000

Answers

ROTFLMAO- Thanks snooze, and I suppose those comets have large silver wings, roar like a jetliner, and create beeeauuutiful rainbows too!!

Sagan is RITGLHPO!

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 19, 2000.


"Honey, I think I'm coming down with the space flu..." talk about an Andromeda strain...

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), January 19, 2000.

I'd like to know what BIOLOGICAL evidence these scientists are basing their theory on? Any links available? - God Bless, & All Good Things, - Jesse.

-- Jesse Brackstone (twcs@direct.ca), January 19, 2000.

Does anyone here take this journal "Current Science"? Do they have a web where they post their stories at?

I'd normally blow this kind of thing off but Fred Hoyle has a good reputation in his field. I'd like to see what he's got to say about this.

The whole point of the story, "The Andromeda Strain" was about not becoming so set in your assumptions so that you are blind to what is really going on.

There may be nothing to this but on the other hand there may be. The short piece in the news story simply has too little information in it to make any judgements at all.

............Alan.

The Providence Cooperative - A great source of preparedness information

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 19, 2000.


I wonder if anyone of the fellows ever researched the flu contagion among submarine personnel during their long term underwater missions? Or similarly confined people.

Now if the stats are right, perhaps there is something to the magnetic disposition of viri during severe geoeffective solar event cycles. Not claiming even the "slightest" expertise, but PUUULLLLEEASE! Still, strange things due!

Scotty- "Capn', there's a strange pumice like crap all over the engineering deck, AAACHOOOOOO!"

Kirk- "Damn the microbes, gimme more speed!"

Scotty- "but capn', I'm gonna blow"

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 19, 2000.



Hey, Michael. Look way south out the window.
:-(
Know anybody who'll loan us a stinger for the morning?

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 19, 2000.

There's precious little hard evidence, and those named scientists are a very small minority about as far out on a limb as it's possible to go without abandoning scientific respectability.

I think the 11 year sunspot bit has strayed in from even further out. A few years ago I was at a talk by Chandra Wickramasinghe, and as I remember the alleged correlation was with the earth passing through the tail or orbit of comets, which makes sense if you accept the primary hypothesis, whereas the sunspot cycle has no cause-effect linkage that I can imagine.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), January 19, 2000.


LOL, I think snooze meant to say: the fuel emmissions of the space ships running BEHIND the comets!

...waiting for more info, heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.


A&L-

Ya think?? Already cloud filled (?osmotically) sky. I recall the last time I saw a tanker with billowing trails coming off the wings..(December).

I can still see the coloration of the tail section, and yet the trails were so prevelant that I ran in to get a camera, but it had gone by the time I got back. No doubt in my mind, that SOMETHING out of the ordinary was/is going on. Remember, I flew for a bit in my younger years.

Keep the faith, and the preps.

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 19, 2000.


This theory, and ones like it, have been circulating for the last 10 years and have merit IMO. They seem to offer the only explanation for the "epidemiological paradox" (why a farmer in rural Idaho experiences the same incidence of viral infection as a checkout clerk in Tokyo).

-- a (a@a.a), January 19, 2000.


Cloudy now. Early this morning, clear blue sky, except two white planes flying alongside each other, each with 4 trails coming out of tails. The 2 planes created huge parallel streaks running east < -- > west (usually they run north < -- > south). Back and forth they went, south of Portland, the lines billowing, the older ones becoming very long wispyish "clouds" and hanging there for hours.

Thought this would end at Rollover ... now really perplexed ... what the heck are they doing and why? Talk about air pollution.

Now it's getting pretty dark with normal clouds and it looks like a storm brewing.

The comet-sun flu seems pretty far-out, but so do lots of things under the boring veneer of same old everyday life plodding along.

We have a new-found respect and appreciation for "normal" !
Retaining a bemused skepticism for everything but the Kleenex box ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 19, 2000.


A quote from a favorite story of mine, Dune by Frank Herbert.

"Hope clouds observation." - Bene Gesserit.

Keep in mind here folks that none of us have *read* the article yet, we've only read an article about the article coming out. Too many people making up their minds on NO evidence. When the article comes out and we read it then we can start making our minds up.

This is a very, very common failing in this forum and every other forum I've read that deal with preparedness scenarios. Too many people entering into it with preconceived notions (for or against) before the evidence has been seen. Really bad science, that.

........Alan.

The Providence Cooperative - A great source of preparedness information

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 19, 2000.


I know this story is a bit off beat, but also probably far enough out there for a good laugh.

But, Hoyle is a well respected scientist. Maybe with a sense of ironic humor?

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 19, 2000.


While the correlation between sunspots/CMEs and the flu outbreaks may well exist, we would do well to consider why there is a correlation. Perhaps the sunspot activity tends to slightly increase mutations in flu virus strains...some of which are more of a problem. Perhaps there is some other explanation...

The passing comet theory is clearly laughable!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 19, 2000.


Here's what I don't get about the flu: The "experts" always say that the reason for the increase in flu outbreak in wintertime is because people are indoors more. I don't buy it.

I visited my family in Phoenix at Christmas, and every day on the front page of the paper was a report about the crowded hospitials and thinly-populated schools because of the flu. The health people were always on the news discussing how the flu was reaching near-epidemic levels.

The daytime temperatures averaged 70 degrees in Dec., and people are outside more in "winter" than they are in summer. In Phoenix, people huddle indoors in the summertime, in the AC, yet the flu season is the same as in the colder climes.

Go figure.

-- semper paratus (still_here_with@my.pals), January 19, 2000.



This is where Hoyle & Wickramasinghe are coming from...

panspermia

-- number six (Iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.


Nonsense!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), January 19, 2000.

--I like the sunspot/solar maximum.mutation theory, makes sense.

@$%$%&**^$% chemtrail theory makes sense, too, this winter at least

SOMEBODY has got to have a relative or friend who pumps this chemical into the sapray tanks, or works in the factory where it's made, or in the distribution network. All they have to do is go to some semi far away library, get on puter, and do a post through anonymiser.com to the board. A little more info would be great! Protect the source, get some info out. Break the ridiculous "code of dot mil silence" before it becomes the REAL code of silence, as in zillions croaking. Too late to think, "gee, I wuz lied to" then....

my two sneezes worth

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), January 19, 2000.


Irving -

Quite. Couldn't agree more. Poppycock and balderdash, the lot of it.

Uh, by the bye, to what exactly were you referring, old boy?

8-}

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 19, 2000.


Thanks Number Six for the Panspermia.com link. At least we now have something to work from instead of a bunch of people leaping to conclusions based on nothing more than their own ignorant suppositions. I'll be giving the site a good read tomorrow.

From my brief scan I don't see how it could work the way he's claiming it does but I may have zipped past something.

.......Alan.

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 19, 2000.


A T Hagan says - "At least we now have something to work from instead of a bunch of people leaping to conclusions based on nothing more than their own ignorant suppositions." end-

Now A T, this is not a very good way to drum up business for your site, IMHO. Perhaps you should pick up a book by ZiG Zigler to learn how to promote sales. Which by the way "IS NOT!!" acceptable here. GET IT!!!! I have pure disdain for people with ulterior motives that actually believe that we are too stupid to see through them. Now gov.com....they're good at it!

-- Michael (mikeynac@uswest.net), January 20, 2000.


A T Hagan says - "At least we now have something to work from instead of a bunch of people leaping to conclusions based on nothing more than their own ignorant suppositions." end-

Now A T, this is not a very good way to drum up business for your site, IMHO. Perhaps you should pick up a book by ZiG Zigler to learn how to promote sales. Which by the way "IS NOT!!" acceptable here. GET IT!!!! I have pure disdain for people with ulterior motives that actually believe that we are too stupid to see through them. Now gov.com....they're good at it!

-- Michael (mikeynac@uswest.net), January 20, 2000.

Now Michael, the particular post you took my text from didn't have my usual web site tag in it. My other two did, and I generally put it in where ever I post. Never had a complaint from any board sysop anywhere. I was in hurry and just forgot it in that one. You needn't go there if you're not interested. Quite a lot of free material there (in fact, the site is mostly free material) for those with an interest in preparedness.

You're proving my point quite well about people who leap to conclusion based on nothing but their own suppositions.

Until NumberSix posted that URL there was no one in this thread who mentioned they had any evidence to base any decision on for or against what Fred Hoyle is writing about except for an article mentioning the article that Hoyle has written that has not yet been published. Didn't stop several people from leaping on it and making all kinds of statements.

That's a common failing in this forum for both pollys and doomers alike.

........Alan.

The Providence Cooperative - A great source of preparedness information

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 20, 2000.


An alternative explanation:

Sunspot activity leads to cooler winters-->more people and animals are penned up together for longer peroids of time to stay warm-->more probable events where strains can mutate in livestock by coinfection of two flus originating from chicken and pigs-->more people get sick.

This is pretty far-fetched since flu and other viruses, unlike bacteria, are really really labile.

-- nowhereman (nowhereman@outhere.com), January 20, 2000.


For a version on hypothetical influenza origins related to that of Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe please see:

Influenza 1918, A Venus Connection? http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/vel/1918.htm

Bob Fritzius

-- Robert S. Fritzius (rsf1@ebicom.net), October 13, 2001.


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