THE DANGERS OF VOLCANO TOURISM

HOT ASH HORROR 

Haunting pic shows US couple’s loving selfie moments before being buried by hot ash from White Island volcano

Liz Little

10th February 2020, 11:53 am

A CHILLING photo has emerged of a smiling tourist couple just moments before they were buried alive in New Zealand’s White Island eruption.

Rick and Ivy Kohn Reed, who suffered critical injuries in the December 9 tragedy, shared the final photo taken of them shortly before the killer eruption.

GOFUNDME.CO

The last photo taken of Ivy Kohn Reed and Rick Reed before the deadly White Island volcano eruption

REUTERS

The volcano erupted suddenly, sending 12,000ft plume of smoke and rock into the air

The American couple look relaxed and happy during their day trip to New Zealand’s White Island, posing for the camera while steam rises from the crater behind them.

Just 15 minutes later, the popular North Island tourism destination erupted underneath them, burying the pair under hot volcanic ash and toxic gases

21 tourists were killed in the tragedy, and another 26 seriously injured.

The couple shared the image on a GoFundMe page as part of their efforts to raise money for their medical treatment and rehabilitation following their miraculous survival.

GOFUNDME.COM

The American couple have expressed gratitude for the support shown from family and friends following the tragedy

GOFUNDME.COM

Rick Reed (pictured, right) faced three separate surgeries in a New Zealand hospital after suffering burns to 30% of his body

In her first public comment since the tragedy, Ivy wrote: “This is the last picture taken of us before our lives changed forever.”

“Approximately 15 minutes after this was taken, the White Island volcano erupted, burying us in hot volcanic ash and toxic gases.”

“Our dream vacation turned into a nightmare that we are still trying to comprehend.”

The American couple spent almost eight weeks in a New Zealand hospital receiving critical care treatment after the eruption.

MICHAEL SCHADE/ MAGNUS NEWS

A photo taken from a boat that had left the island just minutes before the volcanic eruption in New Zealand

A chilling final photo from inside the crater appears to show a group trekking through the volcano moments before it erupted

MICHAEL SCHADE/ MAGNUS NEWS

A helicopter is seen on the island after the volcano erupted covered in ash

They have both undergone gruelling skin grafts and it’s understood Rick faced three separate operations after suffering burns to 30 per cent of his body, including his hands, legs and face.

He also required physical therapy to help him start walking again as a result of his injuries.

Ivy had two surgeries for burns to 20 per cent of her body, including her hands, face and right leg.

The American couple were recently airlifted home to the US to continue with their recovery from the severe burns they suffered.

Ivy wrote it was a “scary time” as she and her husband tried to come to terms with their life-changing injuries.

She then thanked those who had offered “support, prayers, good wishes, cards, texts, messages and calls”, saying they had “helped us through some tough days.”

But she added: “The next year will be the hardest of our lives while we try to rehab and regain as much functionality as possible.”

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Global warming and volcanic activity

By: Rodel D. Lasco - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / February 09, 2020

The recent spate of volcanic eruptions around the world has people asking if this is connected to the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. The eruption of Taal Volcano brings this issue closer to home.

There are at least two ways that volcanic eruptions are linked to climate change.

First, it is without doubt that volcanic eruptions could alter global temperatures because of the amount of ash and gases they emit to the atmosphere. The classic and world-famous case of this was the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. When that long-dormant volcano erupted in 1991, global temperatures cooled by an average of 0.6 degrees Celsius over the months that followed. According to the Nasa Earth Observatory, this was because the volcano spewed about 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it reacted with water to form a layer of aerosol particles. These particles scatter globally due to strong stratospheric winds and absorb incoming solar radiation, which, in Pinatubo’s case, led to global cooling for more than a year. In addition, it has been shown that sea level correspondingly becomes lower as a result of cooler temperatures. Taking inspiration from what happened during Pinatubo’s eruption, there are nascent attempts to emulate the global cooling effect of volcanic eruptions through solar radiation management (SRM). For instance, in Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, scientists are exploring the possibility of injecting aerosols into the atmosphere as a cost-effective way of reducing the amount of radiation coming from the sun, thereby depressing the Earth’s temperature. Clearly, there are many technological and social issues that still need to be resolved before this technology becomes a reality, such as its effects on rainfall patterns and climatic extremes. Given the controversy surrounding SRM, it may not even come to fruition at all.

Second, scientists are beginning to investigate whether a warming climate could trigger more volcanic activity. The evidence so far is sparse to warrant any definitive conclusion. For instance, Swindles and co-workers (2018) showed that volcanic activity in Iceland increased as a result of glacier melting, such as those associated with global warming. However, they also found out that there could be a lag time of hundreds of years before the effect is felt. In another study in Canada, researchers showed that glacier melting could lead to catastrophic landslides in volcanoes. Unfortunately, there are no research data available on the impacts of climate warming on volcanoes in the tropics.


Still, the relationship of weather and extreme climatic conditions with the impacts of volcanic eruptions is well-established. Heavy rains and typhoons can exacerbate the destruction wrought by volcanoes, as we witnessed during Pinatubo’s lahar rampage. The destruction caused by mud and debris flow from Mayon Volcano because of Typhoon “Reming” is another example. In Taal’s case, wind intensity and direction determine which cities and municipalities are affected by ashfall.

All of these show the intricate interconnectiveness of the world we live in. We can no longer afford to be ignorant or skeptical of what is happening to the world around us. Now more than ever, we need to pay attention to the health of our planet

* * *

Dr. Rodel D. Lasco is a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) of the Philippines. He is the executive director of The OML Center, a foundation devoted to discovering climate change adaptation solutions (http://www.omlopezcenter.org/).

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Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters'
When the U.S. government tapped the academic to help investigate UFOs, he was initially a skeptic. But not for long.

GREG DAUGHERTY

UPDATED:JAN 15, 2020 ORIGINAL:NOV 19, 2018

It’s September 1947, and the U.S. Air Force has a problem. A rash of reports about mysterious objects in the skies has the public on edge and the military baffled. The Air Force needs to figure out what’s going on—and fast. It launches an investigation it calls Project Sign.

By early 1948 the team realizes it needs some outside expertise to sift through the reports it’s receiving—specifically an astronomer who can determine which cases are easily explained by astronomical phenomena, such as planets, stars or meteors.

For J. Allen Hynek, then the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory, it would be a classic case of being in the right place at the right time—or, as he may have occasionally lamented, the wrong place at the wrong one.

READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government
The adventure begins



Dr. J. Allen Hynek with Police Chief Robert R. Taylor of Dexter, Michigan going over a county map spotting where the flying objects were seen, 1966.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Hynek had worked for the government during the war, developing new defense technologies like the first radio-controlled fuse, so he already had a high security clearance and was a natural go-to.

“One day I had a visit from several men from the technical center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, which was only 60 miles away in Dayton,” Hynek later wrote. “With some obvious embarrassment, the men eventually brought up the subject of ‘flying saucers’ and asked me if I would care to serve as consultant to the Air Force on the matter… The job didn't seem as though it would take too much time, so I agreed.”

Little did Hynek realize that he was about to begin a lifelong odyssey that would make him one of the most famous and, at times, controversial scientists of the 20 century. Nor could he have guessed how much his own thinking about UFOs would change over that period as he persisted in bringing rigorous scientific inquiry to the subject.

“I had scarcely heard of UFOs in 1948 and, like every other scientist I knew, assumed that they were nonsense,” he recalled.

Project Sign ran for a year, during which the team reviewed 237 cases. In Hynek’s final report, he noted that about 32 percent of incidents could be attributed to astronomical phenomena, while another 35 percent had other explanations, such as balloons, rockets, flares or birds. Of the remaining 33 percent, 13 percent didn’t offer enough evidence to yield an explanation. That left 20 percent that provided investigators with some evidence but still couldn’t be explained.

The Air Force was loath to use the term “unidentified flying object,” so the mysterious 20 percent were simply classified as “unidentified.”

In February 1949, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge. While Sign offered at least a pretense of scientific objectivity, Grudge seems to have been dismissive from the start, just as its angry-sounding name suggests. Hynek, who played no role in Project Grudge, said it “took as its premise that UFOs simply could not be.” Perhaps not surprisingly, its report, issued at the end of 1949, concluded that the phenomena posed no danger to the United States, having resulted from mass hysteria, deliberate hoaxes, mental illness or conventional objects that the witnesses had misinterpreted as otherworldly. It also suggested the subject wasn’t worth further study.

Project Blue Book is born

That might’ve been the end of it. But UFO incidents continued, including some puzzling reports from the Air Force’s own radar operators. The national media began treating the phenomenon more seriously; LIFE magazine did a 1952 cover story, and even the widely respected TV journalist Edward R. Murrow devoted a program to the topic, including an interview with Kenneth Arnold, a pilot whose 1947 sighting of mysterious objects over Mount Rainier in Washington state popularized the term “flying saucer.” The Air Force had little choice but to revive Project Grudge, which soon morphed into the more benignly named Project Blue Book.

Hynek joined Project Blue Book in 1952 and would remain with it until its demise in 1969. For him, it was a side gig as he continued to teach and to pursue other, non-UFO research, at Ohio State. In 1960 he moved to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to chair its astronomy department.

As before, Hynek’s role was to review the reports of UFO sightings and determine whether there was a logical astronomical explanation. Typically that involved a lot of unglamorous paperwork; but now and then, for an especially puzzling case, he had a chance to get out into the field.

There he discovered something he might never have learned from simply reading the files: how normal the people who reported seeing UFOs tended to be. “The witnesses I interviewed could have been lying, could have been insane or could have been hallucinating collectively—but I do not think so,” he recalled in his 1977 book, The Hynek UFO Report.

“Their standing in the community, their lack of motive for perpetration of a hoax, their own puzzlement at the turn of events they believe they witnessed, and often their great reluctance to speak of the experience—all lend a subjective reality to their UFO experience.”

For the rest of his life Hynek would deplore the ridicule that people who reported a UFO sighting often had to endure—which, in turn, caused untold numbers of others to never come forward. It wasn’t just unfair to the individuals involved, but meant a loss of data that might be useful to researchers.

“Given the controversial nature of the subject, it’s understandable that both scientists and witnesses are reluctant to come forward,” says Jacques Vallee, co-author with Dr. Hynek of The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. “Because their life is going to change. There are cases where their house is broken into. People throw stones at their kids. There are family crises—divorce and so on… You become the person who has seen something that other people have not seen. And there is a lot of suspicion attached to that.”

READ MORE: The 5 Most Credible Modern UFO Sightings

Eyes on the skies—and the Soviets



Dr. J. Allen Hynek (right) pointing out a spot on a globe to fellow scientists while discussing the path of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 1957. (

Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

In the late 1950s, the Air Force faced a more urgent problem than hypothetical UFOs. On October 4, 1957, the U.S.S.R. surprised the world by launching Sputnik, the first artificial space satellite—and a serious blow to Americans’ sense of technological superiority.


At that point, Hynek had taken leave from Ohio State to work on a satellite-tracking system at Harvard, notes Mark O’Connell in his 2017 biography, The Close Encounters Man. Suddenly Hynek was on TV and holding frequent press conferences to assure Americans that their scientists were closely monitoring the situation. On October 21, 1957, he appeared on the cover of LIFE with his boss, the Harvard astronomer Fred Whipple, and their colleague Don Lautman. It was his first taste of the national celebrity, but wouldn’t be the last.

With Sputnik circling the earth every 98 minutes, often visible to the naked eye, many Americans began looking skyward, and UFO sightings continued unabated.
From Dr. Hynek to Mr. UFO



Dr. J. Allen Hynek, telling newsmen at a press conference that the photograph he is holding, widely circulated in the news media as a UFO spotted in Michigan, is a time exposure of the crescent moon and the planet Venus.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

By the 1960s, Hynek had emerged as the nation’s—perhaps the world’s—top expert on UFOs, quoted widely in his capacity as scientific consultant to Project Blue Book. But behind the scenes, he chafed at what he perceived as the project’s mandate to debunk UFO sightings. He was also critical of its procedures, judging the Blue Book staff “grossly inadequate,” its communication with outside scientists “appalling” and its statistical methods “nothing less than a travesty.”

The feeling, apparently, was mutual. In an unpublished manuscript unearthed by biographer O'Connell, Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla, who headed the project from 1963 to 1969, writes that he considered Hynek a “liability.”

Why did he stick around? Hynek offered a number of explanations. “But most importantly,” he wrote, “Blue Book had the store of data (as poor as they were), and my association with it gave me access to those data.”

If Hynek often angered UFO debunkers, like Quintanilla, he didn’t always please the believers, either.

In 1966, for example, he went to Michigan to investigate multiple reports of strange lights in the sky. When he offered the theory that it might have been an optical illusion involving swamp gas, he found himself widely derided in the press and “swamp gas” became a punchline for newspaper cartoonists. More seriously, two Michigan Congressmen, including Gerald R. Ford (who later became president), took umbrage at the apparent insult to their state’s citizenry and called for a Congressional hearing.

Testifying at the hearing, Hynek saw an opportunity to plead the case he’d been making to the Air Force for years, but with little success. “Specifically, it is my opinion that the body of data accumulated since 1948…deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists…for the express purpose of determining whether a major problem really exists.”

Hynek would soon get his wish, or so it seemed. Now facing greater scrutiny in Congress, the Air Force established a civilian committee of scientists to investigate UFOs, chaired by a University of Colorado physicist, Dr. Edward U. Condon. Hynek, who would not be on the committee, was hopeful at first. But he lost faith two years later when the committee issued what came to be known as the Condon Report.


He called the report “rambling” and “poorly organized” and Condon’s introductory summary “singularly slanted.” Though the report cited numerous UFO incidents its researchers couldn’t explain, it concluded that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified.” It was exactly what Hynek wouldn’t have wanted.

The following year, 1969, Project Blue Book shut down for good.
After Blue Book, a new chapter



UFO expert Dr. J. Allen Hynek holds a pipe and one of his magazine editorials while serving as technical advisor for the film, 'Close Encounters of The Third Kind.'

Columbia Tristar/Getty Images

The end of Blue Book proved a turning point for Hynek. As O'Connell writes, he “found himself suddenly liberated from the frustrations, compromises and bullying of the U.S. Air Force. He was a free man.”

Meanwhile, sightings continued around the world—UFOs, Hynek later quipped, “apparently did not read the Condon Report”—and he went on with his research.

In 1972, he published his first book, The UFO Experience. Among its contributions to the field, it introduced Hynek’s classifications of UFO incidents he called Close Encounters.

Close Encounters of the First Kind meant UFOs seen at a close enough range to make out some details. In a Close Encounter of the Second Kind, the UFO had a physical effect, such as scorching trees, frightening animals or causing car motors to suddenly conk out. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, witnesses reported seeing occupants in or near a UFO.

Though less remembered now, Hynek also provided three classifications for more distant encounters. Those involved UFOs seen at night (“nocturnal lights”) during the day (“daylight discs”) or on radar screens (“radar/visual”).

The most dramatic of Hynek’s classifications, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, would, of course, become the title of a Steven Spielberg movie released in 1977. O'Connell reports that Hynek was paid $1,000 for the use of the title, another $1,000 for the rights to use stories from the book and $1,500 for three days of technical consulting—hardly a windfall by Hollywood standards. He also had a brief cameo in the film, playing an awestruck scientist when the alien craft comes into close view.

In 1978, Hynek retired from teaching, but he continued to collect and evaluate UFO reports under the auspices of the Center for UFO Studies, which he had founded in 1973. The organization continues to this day.

Hynek died in 1986 at age 75, the result of a brain tumor. He hadn’t solved the riddle of UFOs but, perhaps more than anyone else, he had made trying to solve that riddle a legitimate scientific pursuit.

“The main thing I got from my father in this whole thing was how important it was to keep an open mind,” says his son, Joel Hynek, who as a young ham-radio operator used to record many of his father’s witness interviews. “He kept saying, ‘You know, we don’t know still everything there is to know about the universe… There could be aspects of physics that we haven’t come upon yet.’”


Don't miss the return of Project Blue Book, Tuesday January 21 at 10/9c on HISTORY.

  THE GREAT CANADIAN PHYSICIST UFOLOGIST STANTON T. FRIEDMAN

Stanton Friedman - Physicist, Lecturer, UFO Researcher

www.stantonfriedman.com

Official Home Page of Stanton Friedman -- Physicist, Lecturer, UFO Researcher.

FOLLOWED J. ALLEN HYNEK IN PROMOTING THE PHYSICS OF UFO'S

HE PASSED AWAY LAST YEAR.

The Largest Single Collection of UFO Material Is Being ... - Vice

https://www.vice.com › en_us › article › the-largest-single-collection-of-uf...

Oct 29, 2019 - Stanton Friedman in his office surrounded by files. ... spent 60 years studying the UFO phenomena and who suddenly died earlier this year.

Stanton T. Friedman, Scientist Who Tracked U.F.O.s, Dies at ...

https://www.nytimes.com › 2019/05/21 › obituaries › stanton-friedman-dead

May 21, 2019 - Stanton T. Friedman in 1978 holding a photograph of a sculpture of ... His family said he died of a heart attack at Toronto Pearson Airport on his ...

Stanton T. Friedman - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Stanton_T._Friedman

Died, 13 May 2019(2019-05-13) (aged 84). Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Education, University of Chicago (M.S.). Occupation, Ufologist, physicist. Known for, Roswell UFO incident. Website, www.stantonfriedman.com. Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019) was a nuclear physicist and ...

Died‎: ‎13 May 2019 (aged 84); ‎Toronto, Ontario‎, ...

Born‎: ‎Stanton Terry Friedman; 29 July 1934; ‎El...

Education‎: ‎University of Chicago‎ (‎M.S.‎)

Known for‎: ‎Roswell UFO incident

‎Early life · ‎Friedman's positions ... · ‎Personal life · ‎Media

UFO hunter Stanton Friedman dies at the age of 84 at ...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-7044549 › UFO-hunter-Stant...

May 18, 2019 - The world's top UFO hunter - who never saw a flying saucer in 62 years of research - has died aged 84. Stanton Friedman was worshipped by ..

UFO researcher Stanton Friedman dies after half-century effort ...

https://www.thestar.com › news › canada › 2019/05/14 › ufo-researcher-st...

May 14, 2019 - FREDERICTON—Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, has died at the age ...

Missing: stanford ‎| Must include: stanford

Stanton Friedman, famed UFO researcher, dead at 84 - CBC.ca

https://www.cbc.ca › canada › stanton-friedman-ufologist-dead-1.5135588

May 14, 2019 - Stanton Friedman, the famed UFO researcher based in Fredericton, has died. Friedman was returning from a speaking engagement in ...

Renowned UFO Scientist Stanton Friedman, Who Told ...

https://www.newsweek.com › Tech & Science › UFOs › Aliens

May 20, 2019 - One of the world's most prominent UFO researchers, Stanton Friedman, died on Monday at the age of 84. Friedman died at Pearson ...

Death of a UFO research legend: All hail Stanton Friedman

https://dgomag.com › contents

Jul 11, 2019 - The world lost one of its greats this week. Renowned UFO investigator Stanton Friedman died Monday at the ripe old age of 84 at Pearson ...

Famed UFO researcher Stanton Friedman dead after half ...

https://toronto.citynews.ca › 2019/05/14 › famed-ufo-researcher-stanton-fr...

May 14, 2019 - FREDERICTON — Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, has died at the ...