Free Republic

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati have found evidence of a cosmic cataclysm 1,500 years that may be responsible for the downfall of the Hopewell Culture. The Hopewell Culture was a widely dispersed set of pre-Columbian Native American populations connected by a common network of trade routes from 100 BC to AD 500 in the Middle Woodland period. The researchers found evidence of a cosmic airburst at 11 Hopewell archaeological sites in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley in the United States, which rained debris down into the Earth’s atmosphere creating a fiery explosion around 1,500 years ago...

It's no secret that many U.S. environmental groups have become more strident and ideological during the Obama residency. But you may be surprised just how extreme they have become. In early October, a national network of environmental groups - called Stop the Frack Attack (STFA) - held a summit in Colorado to discuss their campaign strategies. The STFA alliance is led by Earthworks and includes other well-known national activist groups, such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Food & Water Watch. Dozens of smaller groups, which routinely serve as the face of national groups in state- and...

High in the skies over Kazakhstan, space-age technology has revealed an ancient mystery on the ground. Satellite pictures of a remote and treeless northern steppe reveal colossal earthworks — geometric figures of squares, crosses, lines and rings the size of several football fields, recognizable only from the air and the oldest estimated at 8,000 years old. The largest, near a Neolithic settlement, is a giant square of 101 raised mounds, its opposite corners connected by a diagonal cross, covering more terrain than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Another is a kind of three-limbed swastika, its arms ending in zigzags bent...

An activist who was using his position on Colorado’s oil and gas task force to push for a New York-style ban on oil and natural gas development has given up on the fringe proposal for lack of support, according to documents released by state officials overnight. The proposal’s demise is yet another defeat for national anti-fracking groups in Colorado, such as Food and Water Watch and the Sierra Club, which are desperately trying to reboot their failed campaign for an effective statewide oil and gas development ban. It’s also a reminder of how outside of New York, the “ban fracking”...

The four trucks moved under the cover of darkness, each hauling the block-like shape of a mobile Scud missile-launcher into the western deserts of Iraq, from where they could target Israel. As the Herald drove from Baghdad to Amman on Friday night, the convoy of Saddam Hussein's most feared missiles loomed out of the night as another piece of his defence plan being set up in the face of an imminent United States attack. At the end of the 1991 Gulf War international forces set about destroying all of the Iraqi President's long-range Scud missiles, but he is thought to...

Octagon Earthworks’ alignment with moon likely is no accident Tuesday, February 13, 2007 BRADLEY T. LEPPER The Octagon Earthworks in Newark is one remnant of the Newark Earthworks, recently listed by The Dispatch as one of the Seven Wonders of Ohio. Earlham College professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn demonstrated in 1982 that the walls of this 2,000-yearold circle and octagon were aligned to the points on the horizon, marking the limits of the rising and setting of the moon during an 18.6-year cycle. The implications of this argument for our understanding of the knowledge and abilities of the ancient...

Art Appreciation/Education: Visit to NY I: Robert Smithson and James Turrell: Monumental Works of Earth and Light I recently went to NYC for a conference and delivered a paper which mostly dealt with the works of James Turrell. While in NY, I was able to see many galleries and a few museums, most notably the Whitney, which had shows on the work of Oscar Bluemner and Robert Smithson. I just posted John Haber’s review of the Bluemner show and am integrating ideas of Robert Smithson here. Robert Smithson was born in NJ in 1937 and was so fascinated with minerals...