PLEASE NOTE:
*
Date sent: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 17:01:07 -0800
From: Danica Anderson <danica@tcmnet.com>
Send reply to: danica@tcmnet.com
Organization: Northstar Life Services
To: Bob Kobres <bkobres@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Copies to: GVERSCHR@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU,
cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: The Wabar crater
Bob Kobres wrote:
>
> In the 1930s there was actually a good deal of interest in
the possibility that
> people could fall victim to impact events. The news that we
may finally have a
> recent smoking gun is great!
>
> bobk
>
> From: "The Path of a Comet and Phaethon's Ride,"by
Bob Kobres, The World & I
> (ISSN 0887-9346) Vol. 10, No. 2 (Feb. 95): 394-405. Also
available at:
> http://abob.libs.uga.edu:80/bobk/phaeth.html
>
> Kulik's find revealed that colliding space debris could do a
great deal of
> damage yet leave little long-term detectable evidence to
indicate that an impact
> had occurred. Some implications of this fact were recognized
by a few
> investigators almost immediately. Astronomer C.P. Olivier,
writing of Kulik's
> discovery for Scientific American, stated in the July 1928
issue:
>
> In looking over this account, one has to admit that many
accounts of events in
> old chronicles that have been laughed at as fabrications are
far less miraculous
> than this one, of which we seem to have undoubted
confirmation. Fortunately for
> humanity, this meteoric fall happened in a region where
there were no
> inhabitants precisely in the affected area, but if such a
thing could happen in
> Siberia there is no known reason why the same could not
happen in the United
> States.
>
> Newly discovered impact craters were big news in the early
thirties; some large
> structures had been discovered in Australia (Henbury
Craters), and British
> explorer James Philby was, in 1932, led to find some
impressive and actually
> fairly recent craters in the Arabian Desert (Wabar Craters)
by a guide who sang:
>
> >From Qariya strikes the sun upon the town;
> Blame not the guide that vainly seeks it now,
> Since the Destroying Power laid it low,
> Sparing nor cotton smock nor silken gown.
> (Philby, H., 1933: 157)
>
> That same year geologist Frank A. Melton and physicist
William Schriever, both
> of the University of Oklahoma, finished a lengthy study of
the unusual features
> revealed by the flying camera two years earlier. They
reported their findings at
> a 1932 meeting of the Geological Society of America, and
these were published
> the following year in the Journal of Geology, under the
title "The Carolina
> `Bays'--Are They Meteorite Scars?" (vol. 41: 52-66)
Later that year (1933),
> Edna Muldrow captured the attention of Harper's Monthly
readers with this
> opening paragraph:
>
> What would happen if a comet should strike the earth? We do
not like to dwell on
> that possibility, it is true; yet such evasion arises mainly
because we are
> human and it is human to shun the unpleasant. So we bolster
our sense of
> security by the assumption that what has not happened will
not happen. This
> assumption is false. The truth is that the earth in the past
has collided with
> heavenly bodies, and the more serious truth is that it may
collide again.
>
> After informing readers of Melton and Schriever's work,
Muldrow concludes her
> six and a half page article, "The Comet That Struck The
Carolinas," with a
> rather graphic "if" scenario:
>
> If the disaster of the Carolinas should repeat itself in the
vicinity of New
> York City, all man's handiwork extending over a great oval
spreading from Long
> Island to Ohio, Virginia, and Lake Ontario would be
completely annihilated.
> One-half of the people, one-third of the wealth of the
United States would be
> completely rubbed out. The world's greatest metropolis would
lie a smoking ruin,
> . . . . Only a few broken struts set awry and throwing
lengthened shadows across
> sullen lagoons would survive as reminders of the solid
masonry of the city . . .
> (Muldrow, Edna, 1933: vol. 168: 83-89
>
> In 1937, near-Earth-asteroid Hermes, which could impart much
more destructive
> energy into the biosphere than the global nuclear arsenal is
capable of
> releasing, was observed to have missed Earth by less than
seven hours.
>
> By 1940, Harvard Astronomer Fred L. Whipple had adduced
comet Encke as a remnant
> of larger parent body which had been in a short period
(around 3.3 years) low
> inclination (3.6-16 degree) orbit for between five and
twenty thousand years; a
> long present spectacle for our ancestors as the comet
progressively broke up
> creating the still active Taurid meteor streams (F.L.
Whipple 1940).
>
> Obviously, there was, half a century ago, sufficient
rational for academia to
> take a serious look at the plentiful body of lore which
spoke of fire raining
> destructively from the sky. What happened? Perhaps it was
the break in scholarly
> continuity caused by World War II; maybe the subject became
virtually taboo in
> the wake of the well-publicized flap over the myth based
theory of Immanuel
> Velikovsky. Regardless of why circumstances retarded the
academic pursuit of
> understanding this fascinating and arguably important
influence on human social
> development, recent astronomical evidence emphasizes the
need to give this
> subject proper attention.
>
> > Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 05:47:58 -0600 (CST)
> > From: GVERSCHR@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
> > Subject: The Wabar crater
> > To: Cambridge-Conference@livjm.ac.uk
>
> > Notes on The Wabar Meteorite Crater in the Empty
Quarter of Saudi Arabia
> >
> > by
> >
> > Gerrit L. Verschuur
> >
> > It seemed fitting that I first opened the book
containing an account of the
> > discovery of the Wabar meteorite crater in the Saudi
Arabian desert by
> > candlelight during a power outage. After all, a hefty
smack upon our planet by
> > a small asteroid would force the survivors into using
candles for many years to
> > come.
> >
> > The book in question tells a remarkable tale about how
an obsessed man by the
> > name of H. StJ. B. Philby back in 1932 managed to
arrange a camel caravan across
> > the largest total desert in the world, the so-called
Empty Quarter of southern
> > Saudi Arabia. His book entitled The Empty Quarter was
published in 1933 and its
> > frontispiece shows a photograph of meteorite crater
"A" at Wabar, and labeled as
> > such, a revelation that comes as a surprise to those of
us who grew up learning
> > that by the late 1950s the only meteorite crater in the
world was in Arizona.
> > Little did we know that overwhelming proof for the
existence of a meteorite
> > crater lurked in a book familiar to Arabian scholars, a
book that makes
> > fascinating reading today.
> >
> [snip]
>
> > A few days after I met Saba I came across PhilbyOs book
and then a program was
> > shown on TV about the lost city of Obar in the Empty
Quarter. It had allegedly
> > been destroyed by fire about 1500 years ago. The
program did not mention Wabar
> > nor impacts, but it did show that Obar has been
identified, a hundred miles or
> > so from Wabar it turns out, and the evidence that Obar
was wiped out in a sudden
> > cataclysm is apparently very strong. The city walls had
been blown down and
> > everyone had been killed.
> >
> > Putting one and one together suggests to me that the
inhabitants of Obar were
> > victims of the impact that created the Wabar craters
and that legend
> > subsequently confused the story.
> >
> > It is up to someone more expert than I to complete the
study of this impact
> > event and its subsequent affect upon the local tribes
and their legends.
> >
> > To me it is very striking that in the TV production
OThree Minutes to ImpactO
> > Mike Baillie and Michael Rampino discussed the possible
impact origin of the
> > atmospheric veil of dust that occurred around 540 AD.
Is it merely fortuitous
> > that ShoemakerOs estimate of the Wabar crater ages
places the event(s) around
> > 500 AD? Is it possible that at the time the planet was
subjected to a stream of
> > meteorites that caused a global event?
> >
> > FYI. Dr. Michael Saba who led the expeditions to Wabar
several years ago also
> > lives near Memphis, Tennessee, in my neighborhood. He
says that Shoemaker was
> > planning to write up his observations at Wabar but I
have not yet seen that
> > report.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Bob Kobres
>
> email= <bkobres@uga.cc.uga.edu>
> url= http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
> phone= 706-542-0583
The folk tales, stories from the stari babas (Serbian for
grandmothers-wise women) have threaded into their fables about
how the
great mother from the heavens split the face of mother earth in
the land
of our brothers in the north (Russia translated in Slavic means
Northern
Slavs, Yugoslavia means Southern Slavs)with a holy rock....it has
been
told that these wise women of the villages would tell infertile
women to
sit on the huge rocks or dipping valleys (craters???) to become
pregnant.....gifts from the heaven. I agree these all aren't
fabulous
fabrications...some have some truth in them......In my work with
Siletz
Indians in Oregon, they have handed down stories of the green
light,
rainbows hitting the waters...they are a coastal Indian tribe in
Oregon................
*
Date sent: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 10:52:54 -0500 (EST)
From: HUMBPEIS <B.J.PEISER@livjm.ac.uk>
Subject: Letters to The Times <fwd>
To: cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk
Priority: NORMAL
On Thu, 13 Mar 1997 10:25:18 +0000 "Murphy, Mike"
<mike.murphy@newsint.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear Sir,
> It has come to my attention that you are inviting your
> readers to write letters of support or disagreements with
your theories
> to the Editor of The Tinmes. I have no argument with this,
but would
> suggest, with the best will in the world, that our
organisation is at
> the moment not sufficiently advanced in the use of email for
us to
> accept the flow of letters this might well bring forth.
Might I suggest
> you ask your readers to WRITE (ie, a true letter, via the
Post Office)
> to the Editor, who will of course consider every offering
for potential
> publication.
> Best regards,
> Mike Murphy, Internet Editor, The Times
>
>
*
Date sent: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 05:47:58 -0600 (CST)
From: GVERSCHR@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
Subject: The Wabar crater
To: Cambridge-Conference@livjm.ac.uk
Notes on The Wabar Meteorite Crater in the Empty Quarter of Saudi
Arabia
by
Gerrit L. Verschuur
It seemed fitting that I first opened the book containing an
account of the
discovery of the Wabar meteorite crater in the Saudi Arabian
desert by
candlelight during a power outage. After all, a hefty smack upon
our planet by
a small asteroid would force the survivors into using candles for
many years to
come.
The book in question tells a remarkable tale about how an
obsessed man by the
name of H. StJ. B. Philby back in 1932 managed to arrange a camel
caravan across
the largest total desert in the world, the so-called Empty
Quarter of southern
Saudi Arabia. His book entitled The Empty Quarter was published
in 1933 and its
frontispiece shows a photograph of meteorite crater "A"
at Wabar, and labeled as
such, a revelation that comes as a surprise to those of us who
grew up learning
that by the late 1950s the only meteorite crater in the world was
in Arizona.
Little did we know that overwhelming proof for the existence of a
meteorite
crater lurked in a book familiar to Arabian scholars, a book that
makes
fascinating reading today.
At Wabar there are several impact craters spread over a mile or
so of desert,
one of them discovered in 1994 by Dr. Michael Saba who organized
expeditions to
the site. In 1995 Saba convinced Eugene Shoemaker to join him in
yet another
trip to Wabar, a trip that had Shoemaker totally astonished by
the perfection of
the craters and the abundance of tektites and meteorite
fragments, one as large
as a camel, found there.
It was Michael Saba who recently introduced me to the amazing
tale reported by
Philby, a British eccentric who was obsessed with the desire to
venture into the
desolate region guided by Bedouins who knew where the ruined city
of Wabar was
to be found, a ruined city that is constantly brushed by sand
dunes so that
sometimes it can hardly be seen at all. But then this city of
legend was never
really a city but an impact crater.
Desert legend had it that Wabar had been destroyed by fire from
the sky in the
manner that Sodom and Gomorra were wiped off the face of the
earth, and for much
the same reason; inhabitants were having too good a time and
needed to be
punished.
One of Philby's guides knew enough of this legend to recall a
song describing
the details of the event that created the strange structure in
the desert. The
song told of the ruins of old castles which still ringed the area
and blackened
pearls which were spread beneath the sand, evidence of the past
wealth of the
extinguished inhabitants of that city.
The truth, it turned out, is perhaps more amazing than the
legend. There never
was a city at Wabar. Philby, and more recently SabaÕs several
expeditions,
found that the ÒruinsÓ are really mounds of fused sand melted
by the blast that
dug the craters, the largest of which is 150 meters across, the
newly discovered
one only 11 meters.
Shoemaker estimates that the impacts may have occurred about 1500
years ago. We
can rest assured that the skies over Arabia must have been lit in
glorious
splendor as the rocks from space crashed into the uninhabited
realms of the
Empty Quarter. The sounds of the impact would have been heard all
over the
Arabian Peninsula and the hearts of the wandering tribesmen would
have been
filled with terror at this manifestation. No doubt the
"ruins" were first found
soon after the impacts, but it wasn't until the mid-nineteenth
century that
fragments of the meteorites reached the British Museum (even
though the curators
were not sure where the material originated back then), by which
time the Arabs
had been doing a brisk trade in Òblack pearlsÓ found at Wabar,
perfectly
spherical tektites, a few of which can still be found at the site
today.
I have seen a video made my Michael Saba during one of his
expeditions, a video
that featured Eugene Shoemaker expressing awe at the site. Saba
has a fantastic
collection of tektites and meteorite fragments from Wabar. With
hindsight, I
find it astonishing that there was ever any argument about the
origin of
tektites because here the evidence that they are terrestrial
objects formed by
impact events is overwhelming. They lie arrayed around these
craters in close
proximity to the meteorite fragments. They are doubtless abundant
here because
the desert sand was molten to form the black glass which did not
splash very far
from the craters.
To get back to Philby. He first began his desert exploration in
1918 when he
skirted the northern border of the Empty Quarter from east to
west. On that
trip he learned from one Jabir ibn Faraj of the Murra tribe of
Bedouins about
mysterious ruins in the depths of the desert where a great block
of iron as
large as a camel protruded from the sand. Philby doubted he would
ever see that
fabled site, yet he was led to it.
Two other explorers, a Major Chessman in 1924 and Bertram Thomas
in 1931, also
went in search of the ruins but did not find them so Philby
doubted there was
much left for him to do. Yet he was a man obsessed with the need
to explore the
empty expanse of desert, a classic example of wanting to go there
just because
it was there. Due to political upheavals and lack of funds the
time was not
ripe for his own expedition. While he waited for the opportunity
to travel, he
converted to Islam and settled down in Mecca and became friends
with the King
Ibn Sa'ud. It was the King who kept Philby's hopes alive saying
that it was
time to explore the farthest reaches of his empire.
While paying court to the King and obsessively planning to make
his journey,
Philby heard the news of Thomas's crossing of the Empty Quarter
"with great
disappointment," a spectacular understatement. Soon
thereafter the King bade
Philby go at once. His book, replete with photographs of sand
dunes and impact
craters, tells of his subsequent journey.
To cut a long story short, his guide led him to the Wabar crater
in the middle
of nowhere. Subsequently it turned out that tektites and
meteorite fragments,
some quite large, had a century before already been carried out
of the region by
the Bedouins and sold, some of which reached the British Museum.
(How that
happened is related by Philby.)
A few days after I met Saba I came across PhilbyÕs book and then
a program was
shown on TV about the lost city of Obar in the Empty Quarter. It
had allegedly
been destroyed by fire about 1500 years ago. The program did not
mention Wabar
nor impacts, but it did show that Obar has been identified, a
hundred miles or
so from Wabar it turns out, and the evidence that Obar was wiped
out in a sudden
cataclysm is apparently very strong. The city walls had been
blown down and
everyone had been killed.
Putting one and one together suggests to me that the inhabitants
of Obar were
victims of the impact that created the Wabar craters and that
legend
subsequently confused the story.
It is up to someone more expert than I to complete the study of
this impact
event and its subsequent affect upon the local tribes and their
legends.
To me it is very striking that in the TV production ÒThree
Minutes to ImpactÓ
Mike Baillie and Michael Rampino discussed the possible impact
origin of the
atmospheric veil of dust that occurred around 540 AD. Is it
merely fortuitous
that ShoemakerÕs estimate of the Wabar crater ages places the
event(s) around
500 AD? Is it possible that at the time the planet was subjected
to a stream of
meteorites that caused a global event?
FYI. Dr. Michael Saba who led the expeditions to Wabar several
years ago also
lives near Memphis, Tennessee, in my neighborhood. He says that
Shoemaker was
planning to write up his observations at Wabar but I have not yet
seen that
report.
*
From: Bob Kobres <bkobres@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Organization: University of Georgia Libraries
To: GVERSCHR@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
Date sent: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 11:00:31 EST
Subject: Re: The Wabar crater
Copies to: cambridge-conference@livjm.ac.uk
Priority: normal
In the 1930s there was actually a good deal of interest in the
possibility that
people could fall victim to impact events. The news that we may
finally have a
recent smoking gun is great!
bobk
From: "The Path of a Comet and Phaethon's Ride,"by Bob
Kobres, The World & I
(ISSN 0887-9346) Vol. 10, No. 2 (Feb. 95): 394-405. Also
available at:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu:80/bobk/phaeth.html
Kulik's find revealed that colliding space debris could do a
great deal of
damage yet leave little long-term detectable evidence to indicate
that an impact
had occurred. Some implications of this fact were recognized by a
few
investigators almost immediately. Astronomer C.P. Olivier,
writing of Kulik's
discovery for Scientific American, stated in the July 1928 issue:
In looking over this account, one has to admit that many accounts
of events in
old chronicles that have been laughed at as fabrications are far
less miraculous
than this one, of which we seem to have undoubted confirmation.
Fortunately for
humanity, this meteoric fall happened in a region where there
were no
inhabitants precisely in the affected area, but if such a thing
could happen in
Siberia there is no known reason why the same could not happen in
the United
States.
Newly discovered impact craters were big news in the early
thirties; some large
structures had been discovered in Australia (Henbury Craters),
and British
explorer James Philby was, in 1932, led to find some impressive
and actually
fairly recent craters in the Arabian Desert (Wabar Craters) by a
guide who sang:
From Qariya strikes the sun upon the town;
Blame not the guide that vainly seeks it now,
Since the Destroying Power laid it low,
Sparing nor cotton smock nor silken gown.
(Philby, H., 1933: 157)
That same year geologist Frank A. Melton and physicist William
Schriever, both
of the University of Oklahoma, finished a lengthy study of the
unusual features
revealed by the flying camera two years earlier. They reported
their findings at
a 1932 meeting of the Geological Society of America, and these
were published
the following year in the Journal of Geology, under the title
"The Carolina
`Bays'--Are They Meteorite Scars?" (vol. 41: 52-66) Later
that year (1933),
Edna Muldrow captured the attention of Harper's Monthly readers
with this
opening paragraph:
What would happen if a comet should strike the earth? We do not
like to dwell on
that possibility, it is true; yet such evasion arises mainly
because we are
human and it is human to shun the unpleasant. So we bolster our
sense of
security by the assumption that what has not happened will not
happen. This
assumption is false. The truth is that the earth in the past has
collided with
heavenly bodies, and the more serious truth is that it may
collide again.
After informing readers of Melton and Schriever's work, Muldrow
concludes her
six and a half page article, "The Comet That Struck The
Carolinas," with a
rather graphic "if" scenario:
If the disaster of the Carolinas should repeat itself in the
vicinity of New
York City, all man's handiwork extending over a great oval
spreading from Long
Island to Ohio, Virginia, and Lake Ontario would be completely
annihilated.
One-half of the people, one-third of the wealth of the United
States would be
completely rubbed out. The world's greatest metropolis would lie
a smoking ruin,
. . . . Only a few broken struts set awry and throwing lengthened
shadows across
sullen lagoons would survive as reminders of the solid masonry of
the city . . .
(Muldrow, Edna, 1933: vol. 168: 83-89
In 1937, near-Earth-asteroid Hermes, which could impart much more
destructive
energy into the biosphere than the global nuclear arsenal is
capable of
releasing, was observed to have missed Earth by less than seven
hours.
By 1940, Harvard Astronomer Fred L. Whipple had adduced comet
Encke as a remnant
of larger parent body which had been in a short period (around
3.3 years) low
inclination (3.6-16 degree) orbit for between five and twenty
thousand years; a
long present spectacle for our ancestors as the comet
progressively broke up
creating the still active Taurid meteor streams (F.L. Whipple
1940).
Obviously, there was, half a century ago, sufficient rational for
academia to
take a serious look at the plentiful body of lore which spoke of
fire raining
destructively from the sky. What happened? Perhaps it was the
break in scholarly
continuity caused by World War II; maybe the subject became
virtually taboo in
the wake of the well-publicized flap over the myth based theory
of Immanuel
Velikovsky. Regardless of why circumstances retarded the academic
pursuit of
understanding this fascinating and arguably important influence
on human social
development, recent astronomical evidence emphasizes the need to
give this
subject proper attention.
> Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 05:47:58 -0600 (CST)
> From: GVERSCHR@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
> Subject: The Wabar crater
> To: Cambridge-Conference@livjm.ac.uk
> Notes on The Wabar Meteorite Crater in the Empty Quarter of
Saudi Arabia
>
> by
>
> Gerrit L. Verschuur
>
> It seemed fitting that I first opened the book containing an
account of the
> discovery of the Wabar meteorite crater in the Saudi Arabian
desert by
> candlelight during a power outage. After all, a hefty smack
upon our planet by
> a small asteroid would force the survivors into using
candles for many years to
> come.
>
> The book in question tells a remarkable tale about how an
obsessed man by the
> name of H. StJ. B. Philby back in 1932 managed to arrange a
camel caravan across
> the largest total desert in the world, the so-called Empty
Quarter of southern
> Saudi Arabia. His book entitled The Empty Quarter was
published in 1933 and its
> frontispiece shows a photograph of meteorite crater
"A" at Wabar, and labeled as
> such, a revelation that comes as a surprise to those of us
who grew up learning
> that by the late 1950s the only meteorite crater in the
world was in Arizona.
> Little did we know that overwhelming proof for the existence
of a meteorite
> crater lurked in a book familiar to Arabian scholars, a book
that makes
> fascinating reading today.
>
[snip]
> A few days after I met Saba I came across PhilbyOs book and
then a program was
> shown on TV about the lost city of Obar in the Empty
Quarter. It had allegedly
> been destroyed by fire about 1500 years ago. The program did
not mention Wabar
> nor impacts, but it did show that Obar has been identified,
a hundred miles or
> so from Wabar it turns out, and the evidence that Obar was
wiped out in a sudden
> cataclysm is apparently very strong. The city walls had been
blown down and
> everyone had been killed.
>
> Putting one and one together suggests to me that the
inhabitants of Obar were
> victims of the impact that created the Wabar craters and
that legend
> subsequently confused the story.
>
> It is up to someone more expert than I to complete the study
of this impact
> event and its subsequent affect upon the local tribes and
their legends.
>
> To me it is very striking that in the TV production OThree
Minutes to ImpactO
> Mike Baillie and Michael Rampino discussed the possible
impact origin of the
> atmospheric veil of dust that occurred around 540 AD. Is it
merely fortuitous
> that ShoemakerOs estimate of the Wabar crater ages places
the event(s) around
> 500 AD? Is it possible that at the time the planet was
subjected to a stream of
> meteorites that caused a global event?
>
> FYI. Dr. Michael Saba who led the expeditions to Wabar
several years ago also
> lives near Memphis, Tennessee, in my neighborhood. He says
that Shoemaker was
> planning to write up his observations at Wabar but I have
not yet seen that
> report.
>
>
>
Bob Kobres
email= <bkobres@uga.cc.uga.edu>
url= http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
phone= 706-542-0583