| Title: | Psychic Phenomena |
| Notice: | Please read note 1.0-1.* before writing |
| Moderator: | JARETH::PAINTER |
| Created: | Wed Jan 22 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Tue May 27 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 2143 |
| Total number of notes: | 41773 |
Being the summer solstice and all, it's a good time to go out
into the field looking for sunset alignments of stone structures.
It's exciting when you find one, and, they are as subtle as can be -
you can easily walk right by a very significant site.
Last night, I went exploring with a friend, who, by looking
at contour maps of the area, detected some geographical features
which looked "hot". We were walking down an avenue which ran parallel
to a road and looked very much like an old railroad bed. If it was,
whoever cleaned it up did a good job - not a single tie, spike,
pole or rail was evident anywhere. This bed was cut into the land
and happened to run in the direction of the summer solstice sunset.
We came upon a large split rock sitting up on the left bank
of this avenue. Just before the location of the rock, about 50ft
before, there was a semicircular embrasure in the bank, on the same
side as the rock. By centering yourself in the semicircle and looking
through the crack, "the sun will drop right through the crack in
that rock" my friend said. The sun hadn't quite set yet, so I took
a look, and kicked some leaves aside to steady myself. Sure enough,
right beneath my feet, there was a small rock marking the place to
stand. ("small" meaning it probably weighed 200lbs...)
About 10 minutes later, when the sun had further set, standing
with my feet to either side of the marking rock (I'm tall...) the
sun appeared exactly within the crack in the large split rock. It
was like looking through a gunsight! Inspecting the split rock,
we saw that part of it had been placed "just so" to help define
the crack. A big stick was lain across the top of the crack, and at
the "moment", the sun was completely bordered by the stick, and
the crack in this rock, observed from the marked position. These
rocks looked old, of course, the actual age of the site is really
indeterminate.
My friend says that 7 days from now, the sun will not set in
that crack, nor will it have done so 7 days previous to yesterday.
So it seems possible that native ancient peoples of this land had
means to mark the change of the seasons, through using observation points
such as the one we found last night! To everything: Turn-Turn-Turn!
Joe Jas
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 770.1 | Why? | MGNLIA::KASPER | Life is like a beanstalk, isn't it... | Tue Jun 21 1988 12:37 | 11 |
This is interesting, but I have a question. It ancient folks did construct these landmarks to measure the change of the seasons (or whatever), how did they know before it was constructed that it should be constructed in a certain way in a certain place? ie, what did they use to measure the event before they had built these sites, and if they did have a way to measure, why did they have to build the site to measure something they could measure with out it??? In other words (hopefully less jumbled), what told them that June 21st at some precise time was the beginning of summer soltice so they could build these sights to measure it? Terry | |||||
| 770.2 | Eureka! | CLUE::PAINTER | Tue Jun 21 1988 15:06 | 12 | |
That's it! A DEJAVU Field Trip!
Remember the field trips back in school? This time we wouldn't
even need chaperones!
If we somehow tie it into learning more about computers, perhaps
we could get our cost center managers to approve it.
Joe Jas - great idea.
Cindy
| |||||
| 770.3 | not a hard problem | ERASER::KALLIS | Don't confuse `want' and `need.' | Tue Jun 21 1988 15:35 | 22 |
Re .1 (Terry):
>This is interesting, but I have a question. It ancient folks did construct
>these landmarks to measure the change of the seasons (or whatever), how did
>they know before it was constructed that it should be constructed in a
>certain way in a certain place? ...
Actually, that's not difficult; it just takes a _lot_ of observation.
Over time, any culture will notice which of the days is "longest"
and which is shortest (this is independent of a specific calender,
BTW: every 182 1/2 days would bring you to the opposite solstice
(or between equinoxes, for that matter). So, over a course of several
years, by studying shadow lengths, the ancient folk could determine
the orientation of a solstice shadow, and when it was shortest,
extend the line through, oh, say, the rock, via sighting, etc.
That's approximately the way it was done in all cultures.
To put it another way, at summer solstice, shadows are shortest
at Noon.
Steve Kallis, Jr.
| |||||
| 770.4 | Sounds Interesting | CIMNET::PIERSON | on vacation 23/7-6/9 | Wed Jul 06 1988 21:33 | 9 |
Re: Field Trip, good idea, if soon, otherwise I'm off to
Colorado for Tesla Society.
Sounds like an actual alignement, but if you like, give me
a location and I can check for Old RR grades in my RR reference
stuff.
thanks
dave pierson
| |||||
| 770.5 | Any other lines? | CIMNET::PIERSON | on vacation 23/7-6/9 | Fri Jul 15 1988 21:27 | 9 |
Added thought, on .0.
It would be interesting to check for other alignments.
"Mystery Hill" seems to have several, some centered to a common
observation point, some "off in the bushes, and not obvious without
a certain amount of leaf shuffling. I believe multiple sight
lines are fairly common at such sites.
thanks
dave pierson
| |||||