Weekly Weird News for July 30, 2021
Rumors might be the death of us all
As with last week, there were not many obviously weird stories that came across the news wires to grab my attention. Some of you provided helpful suggestions.
The biggest news this week is really the disconnect from reality that a large swath of the U.S. population has regarding health recommendations regarding COVID. Science was always political but it is politicized and even weaponized in ways never before seen in society. This is outrageously dangerous and there seems to be no way to reach the percentage of conservative citizens who reject all reason and logic about vaccinations and masks. They instead think it’s OK to be freeloaders on the rest of society who has been responsible for trying to limit the spread of the virus. Rejection of science, reason, and the social norms that protect us all does not bode well for the country's future prosperity. I’m trying to be positive, but it’s tough these days.
The Spreading of Vaccine Bullshit
One of the nefarious rumors has been that the COVID vaccine affects fertility, a made-up story by ex-medical professional Christiane Northrup. We already knew there was no mechanism for the vaccine to have an effect. But a new, small, study has just come out that looked at real-time response to follicle development post-vaccination. The results show no anomalies. Check out Dr. Jen Gunther's Vajenda newsletter for the scoop on this. https://vajenda.substack.com/p/study-shows-no-impact-of-covid-19
Anti-vaxxers will use any uncertainty to further their warped views. The health scare experienced by actor Bob Odenkirk is the latest news they've hijacked for their agenda. The Better Call Saul actor was diagnosed with a heart ailment. https://www.indy100.com/news/bob-odenkirk-collapse-anti-vaxxers-conspiracy-b1893566
FactCheck provides the details on a ridiculous idea spread via social media like TikTok that a business venture for Covid testing is a secret way to administer vaccinations. It's chock full of garbage but reflects a serious concern - people are freaked out by COVID and a changing world. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-posts-baselessly-link-covid-19-tests-to-vaccine-conspiracy-theory/
A New Statemen piece reminds us that anti-vaxxers aren't inherently "stupid" but are scared and latching on to conspiracy ideas in an effort to make sense of the world and feel some means of control. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/why-covid-19-conspiracy-theories-are-flourishing
Argentina's pollution-pink lagoon
One can find daily reminders of the value of environmental regulations. Industries (and individuals) will often take advantage of lax laws to save money and cause pollution incidents. A lagoon in the Patagonia region of Argentina that gets runoff from an industrial area turned bright pink. Officials say it's a result of a chemical in fish processing waste material. The region has a number of fish processing plants that causes bad smells and produce waste that is dumped into holding areas that feed the natural waterways. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210725-pollution-turns-argentina-lake-bright-pink
Jet pack man sighted again in Los Angeles
The pilot of a Boeing 747 over LAX "reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jetpack" at about 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday 15 miles east of the airport at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. Last August, two pilots reported a similar sighting and, in October, another pilot says the jetpack figure was seen. The last report of Jet Pack Jack was in December, with video captured by a passenger on a private plane. The FAA had never identified the so-called "Jet pack man". No jet pack device is known to be able to fly at this height for an extended time. It's also crazy stupid and illegal to do this. It's possible the sightings are of character balloons. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/us/lax-jetpack-man-trnd/index.html
Physicist Avi Loeb launches project to seek UFOs
Unfortunately, the WWN is not UFO-free this week with Jet Pack Jack and now this story of a media-hungry physicist who is stuck on the idea that aliens are just outside our neighborhood. Loeb popularized the idea that the space object Oumuamua was a disguised alien probe - that turned out to be wrong. Now he's heading up the Galileo project to look for physical craft with aliens characteristics. Color me unimpressed. Recall that the governmental assessment on UAPs that recently came out mentioned that data collection was not organized and thorough. That's nothing new; it hasn't changed for 50 years because the sightings are mostly eyewitnesses. Technological improvements have not helped in definitively documenting any mysterious UAP. So what would be new with this project? When will this interest in aliens subside, people? We got way too many pressing problems locally to be worried about instead of wishing for the space gods to arrive. https://gizmodo.com/newly-launched-galileo-project-will-hunt-for-alien-te-1847370246
Death of 15 yr old boy in Florida pegged as "mysterious"
I'm thinking this story may start to get attention from mystery-mongers. A seemingly healthy young man fell ill and died suddenly. The family suggested there may be a connection to a chemical smell coming from the body. A hazardous materials team has not found anything in the house. Yet, two details reported are missing important context and will undoubtedly be the focus of concern: A deputy who was in the house had trouble breathing and "authorities said" a firefighter also suffered a second-degree burn from "some kind of chemical." The problem is that these two incidents may not be related to the death at all. We do not know. Hazardous chemicals don't just disappear upon investigation. This case brings to mind the infamous "Toxic Lady" incident from 1994. https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/07/30/questions-linger-about-florida-boys-death-mystery-odor/
Northeast bird illness update
The mysterious illness that affected songbirds in the northeast US seems to be resolving. Experts in ornithology at Cornell are not alarmed by the outbreak because it doesn't show signs of being contagious since it's going away now. They reiterate the strong overlap with the Brood X cicada emergence. As the cicadas diminished, so did the bird illnesses. But the conclusions are not at all clear. https://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/cornell-experts-not-overly-alarmed-by-mysterious-songbird-sickness/article_ae73fa12-efc6-11eb-9a3f-ef82b40e923f.html
Stupid human tricks - taunting a jaguar
A very obnoxious man was injured when he went over a safety barrier and got the attention of a grumpy jaguar at the Jacksonville Zoo in Florida. Putting his hand through the fence, the big cat unsurprisingly took a swipe at the jerk. He's in the hospital with non-fatal injuries. No charges will be filed by the zoo (unfortunately) and the animal will be allowed to go about his business hopefully unharassed by people. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2021/07/29/jacksonville-zoo-jaguar-slashes-man-who-climbed-exhibit-barrier/5413465001/
Hobby Lobby owners can't do anything right
Hobby Lobby is known for being pro-religion (and anti-science) with the owners funding a Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. In the past, they have been heavily criticized and fined for illegally obtaining artifacts for this museum. Now, they have been forced to return a cuneiform tablet depicting part of the Epic of Gilgamesh that was illegally stolen from Iraq during the Gulf War. The organization was sold the item under false pretenses, however, with their long history of importing archaeological items, it seems they have no one in charge who knows what they are doing. This Smithsonian article explains the trouble with the latest artifact their history of irresponsibility. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hobby-lobby-forfeits-rare-gilgamesh-tablet-smuggled-iraq-180978314/
Police in Hawaii are using robotic "dogs"
A bit creepy, but keeping real animals out of danger, some police departments are using 4 legged remotely controlled robots to check people for fever, to enter dangerous situations, and to scan areas where it's not safe for humans (or service animals) to go. The robocops are not going over so well. (Maybe having a head would be an improvement!) But robotic assistants will become far more common out of necessity. https://apnews.com/article/robotic-police-dogs-e32e371e8776b8565f1a0f6491e55c29
Land suddenly balloons up in India creating a viral flood of misinformation
An undated video appeared on a Facebook page that apparently shows land rising rapidly out of the water in the Haryana region. The video went viral as uninformed people randomly threw out silly guesses about what was happening. In surveying all the news reports I could find, they all repeated the same speculation with no actual investigation. What's worse is that they spread the random guesses which were all very wrong. Many people said the weird and scary behavior was related to geological causes - volcanism, tectonic plate movement (earthquakes), or methane gas emissions. Others went wild and said it was global warming, CGI, or punishment from the gods. But none of those sounded plausible to me. We don't have details about the location but it looks like a large constructed containment basin for runoff. We do know that the area has had heavy rains. What I suspect happened here is a large breach in the wall and a large amount of water flowed under a liner in the pond creating a ballooning effect. This is not an uncommon occurrence but this is a really big one. What looks like "land" coming up is a thick layer of silt and clay above the waterproof membrane. If this was gas, we would have seen it escape. It's certainly not volcanic and there were no earthquakes. Natural processes don't look like this, the land would break, not bend like plastic. In the video, you can hear the men laughing. It looks dangerous but perhaps they knew it wasn't because of the location. This is another good example of news portrayed with important information missing. Also, the lazy habit "news" sources have of just quoting social media comments is reprehensible. There are too many know-nothings out there pushing insane ideas. These ideas have no business being propagated as "news". https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/video-of-land-suddenly-rising-in-haryana-stuns-netizens-287689
Huge quake in Alaska sends ripples around the world
A magnitude 8.2 quake hit offshore Alaska on Wednesday. Little damage was done because the area was sparsely populated. A tsunami warning was later canceled. Yet, as has happened with large quakes in the past, the seismic waves from the event travel around the world and show up in seismographs and other data loggers very far away. The USGS Maryland-DC-Delaware office showed that the water level in a groundwater monitoring well fluctuated some 12 inches in response to the energy wave.
Monitoring networks are able to produce data that give us important information about the interior of the earth. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/biggest-us-earthquake-in-more-than-50-years-strikes-alaska-heres-what-we-can-learn
Because quakes and volcanic activity are so widely reported today, it can seem like geological hazards are increasing. They really are not except for those related to global warming (such as storms, fires, and heatwaves). It's just that people are in proximity to these natural geo-events and we notice them more than before.