Why the Electric Universe Matters

Does the truth ever change? The question is profound, because what we "know" to be "true" never seems to stop changing. The earth was once flat, the Sun once revolved around the earth, and the Milky Way was once the only galaxy. Of course, these "truths" were never actually true, but they were widely held beliefs that were accepted as "facts".

Historically, the line between belief and fact was often blurred by religious interpretations. Today, a similar confusion arises when scientific hypotheses are misrepresented as fact. The popular theory holds that the universe began 13.6 billion years ago with a Big Bang. This primordial explosion gave birth to a vast cloud of matter from which arose all of the celestial objects now observed. Out of a local concentration of matter, the Sun and its planetary companions congealed. And for several billion years, little has changed within our cosmic neighborhood.

This big picture of the universe also includes highly speculative -- and invisible -- phenomena such as black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. For too long, the scientific establishment has presented these speculations as "things we now know to be true", and media in this country have shown little or no inclination to question them. But increasingly, we see signs that this is changing. Evidence arguing against the sacred cosmological dogmas continues to mount, and many independent voices insist that theoretical science is now following a dead-end path.

Recently, one of the country's most popular science and technology websites, Wired.com, outlined a serious challenge to a key tenet of modern cosmology. Reporter David McCandless authored the article, "They Sing the Comet Electric", which noted the successful predictions registered at the Thunderbolts.info website prior to the climax of NASA's Deep Impact mission -- the collision of an 820-pound projectile into Comet Tempel 1. These predictions were based on the belief that comets are electrically charged bodies, and not the "dirty snowballs" of popular theory. If comets are proven to be electrical in nature, this could force the most dramatic re-assessment of cosmological theory since the age of Copernicus and Galileo.

McCandless displayed an even-handedness and candor rarely seen in popular media. Most journalists, perhaps afraid of falling out of NASA's good graces, are far less likely to think independently, and tend to accept official statements from mainstream theorists as unquestioned truth (see CNN's space "coverage" for a prime example of this). Not so with McCandless, who thoroughly investigated the Deep Impact event, and imparted the facts in a fair and balanced light.

McCandless wrote: "Prior to the July 4 impact, the Electric Universe group published a detailed chain of events they expected to see when Deep Impact struck comet Tempel 1...

"The prediction said there would be two impact flashes: a small flash as the projectile penetrated the comet's electrified atmosphere, followed by a huge impact flash that would be 'unexpectedly energetic'. And that's exactly what appeared to happen on July 4, in an impact that astonished NASA investigators."

The full article may be read here: http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,68258,00.html

Not surprisingly, not a single NASA scientist was willing to comment on a specific prediction by the Thunderbolts group. The one naysayer who was willing to go on the record -- Dr. David Hughes, professor of astrophysics at Britain's University of Sheffield -- offered only a dogmatic assertion advocating the dirty snowball theory. "The inside of a comet has a typical temperature of minus 100 Celsius", he stated. "Electricity on the surface of a comet? Forget about it. It's not a contender". Hughes further stated that for astronomical material to be charged electrically, it must be in the form of hot ionized gas.

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Oh, the Electric Universe matters.