Wow! This was way more interesting and engaging than I thought it would be based on the title. I also love how they found clear evidence supporting all their hypotheses while traveling to the...
Wow! This was way more interesting and engaging than I thought it would be based on the title.
I also love how they found clear evidence supporting all their hypotheses while traveling to the site, which kept the mystery going right to the bitter end. And it was also crazy how insanely isolated the spot was once they got there. It almost looked like a totally different planet, and if they had broken down they would have been screwed, so I'm surprised they didn't take more than just the 2 trucks.
p.s. My heart was in my throat when they decided to try digging one up!
What a great share, thanks @balooga! Although it was a great telling of what curiosity with epic scope can entail, and that it even ended with a solid resolution, I still feel like Bob was the...
Although it was a great telling of what curiosity with epic scope can entail, and that it even ended with a solid resolution, I still feel like Bob was the best part of the story.
Bob Hardage, in my opinion, took on the role of an antagonist and kind of embodies a large part of what is wrong with the world today. Christophe, on the other hand, became the hero we all should strive to be. Let me explain.
Bob is the apathetic and myopic minded stumbling block we all come across in our daily efforts. As leader in his field, he is the limits on advancement. The reason we fall short so often and have become complacent with just good enough. Bob should have seen this from a mile away. Sure, he would have ended a great adventure, but imagine how often vast resources are wasted in the search of a goal or answer to a question that was already achieved or answered. It's not like the resolution of this specific issue brought monumental value to humanity, but it's scenarios like this that happen all around me and I see how painful it is to constantly redesign the wheel when you know a little interest and pride in one's effort could have made life so much easier for so many other people.
On one hand, I'm fully behind the spirit of what you're saying. On the other, let me zoom in on a detail and play devil's advocate: With my amateur geophys hat on, there's a reason he thought it...
On one hand, I'm fully behind the spirit of what you're saying.
On the other, let me zoom in on a detail and play devil's advocate:
Bob should have seen this from a mile away.
With my amateur geophys hat on, there's a reason he thought it didn't look like a sensible configuration for a seismic source... That circular borehole pattern is nuts if you're trying to get high-resolution results. The best analogy I can come up with is taking pictures of a distant object with a dozen cameras in a ring, stacking all the pieces of film together, and processing that. The different angles of the cameras will guaranteed make for a blurry picture when superimposed. With 1950s tech, it would be nigh on impossible to do "proper" analysis of a simultaneous pulse from several slightly displaced sources, and a grid config would make that sort of modeling much easier anyway. Therefore, they were definitely interpreting their result through a mathematical model that was treating the circular array of boreholes as a single source.
To support my case here, I found this review of explosives as a seismic source that links to a 1953(!) paper, groundbreaking for the time, that laid the groundwork for analyzing the results of seismic sensing, by modeling the radiation from a singular borehole source!
Why someone might make such an obviously "bad" design decision is really only obvious in hindsight... I'm spitballing here, but I strongly suspect the amount of energy they needed to pump into the ground to get any workable results at the depth they wanted and with the quality of sensors they had at the time required more explosives than was achievable with a single borehole. I.e., if you dumped it all in one hole, the energy would either blow off the top vertically, sending energy into the air instead of ground, or too much energy would go into "crumpling" rock in the immediate vicinity, distorting the results due to local variation of rock density and composition very close to the borehole (really struggling to describe this idea well - not a materials scientist). They had to make what seems today like a nonsensical design decision in order to get results at all. The comparison to early prop planes is quite apt: no aerospace engineer would think up prop planes as a form-factor from scratch given the tech we have now. I'd give Bob benefit of the doubt that this was a true breakthrough moment for the technology, and it seems quite understandable that he wouldn't identify it correctly due to the very strange (by modern standards) approach.
This is leaving aside the fact I'm shocked that the holes were preserved so well after all these years. I'd expect dust to fill them in much quicker, but I have yet to have a chance to cruise around the Maghreb in person for shits and giggles, so what do I know?
I had the same thought as well, it's really astonishing that the landscape hasn't changed all that much in over 50 years. It likely speaks to just how desolate a region that is, and now I'm...
This is leaving aside the fact I'm shocked that the holes were preserved so well after all these years. I'd expect dust to fill them in much quicker,
I had the same thought as well, it's really astonishing that the landscape hasn't changed all that much in over 50 years. It likely speaks to just how desolate a region that is, and now I'm motivated to go learn more about the geography and weather patterns of the region.
That was fun. r/HighStrangeness/ r/aliens/ r/Whatisthis/ And just to keep up the mystery the journalist's 4th post to r/conspiracy is missing... Missing 4th post
Wow! This was way more interesting and engaging than I thought it would be based on the title.
I also love how they found clear evidence supporting all their hypotheses while traveling to the site, which kept the mystery going right to the bitter end. And it was also crazy how insanely isolated the spot was once they got there. It almost looked like a totally different planet, and if they had broken down they would have been screwed, so I'm surprised they didn't take more than just the 2 trucks.
p.s. My heart was in my throat when they decided to try digging one up!
What a great share, thanks @balooga!
Although it was a great telling of what curiosity with epic scope can entail, and that it even ended with a solid resolution, I still feel like Bob was the best part of the story.
Bob Hardage, in my opinion, took on the role of an antagonist and kind of embodies a large part of what is wrong with the world today. Christophe, on the other hand, became the hero we all should strive to be. Let me explain.
Bob is the apathetic and myopic minded stumbling block we all come across in our daily efforts. As leader in his field, he is the limits on advancement. The reason we fall short so often and have become complacent with just good enough. Bob should have seen this from a mile away. Sure, he would have ended a great adventure, but imagine how often vast resources are wasted in the search of a goal or answer to a question that was already achieved or answered. It's not like the resolution of this specific issue brought monumental value to humanity, but it's scenarios like this that happen all around me and I see how painful it is to constantly redesign the wheel when you know a little interest and pride in one's effort could have made life so much easier for so many other people.
On one hand, I'm fully behind the spirit of what you're saying.
On the other, let me zoom in on a detail and play devil's advocate:
With my amateur geophys hat on, there's a reason he thought it didn't look like a sensible configuration for a seismic source... That circular borehole pattern is nuts if you're trying to get high-resolution results. The best analogy I can come up with is taking pictures of a distant object with a dozen cameras in a ring, stacking all the pieces of film together, and processing that. The different angles of the cameras will guaranteed make for a blurry picture when superimposed. With 1950s tech, it would be nigh on impossible to do "proper" analysis of a simultaneous pulse from several slightly displaced sources, and a grid config would make that sort of modeling much easier anyway. Therefore, they were definitely interpreting their result through a mathematical model that was treating the circular array of boreholes as a single source.
To support my case here, I found this review of explosives as a seismic source that links to a 1953(!) paper, groundbreaking for the time, that laid the groundwork for analyzing the results of seismic sensing, by modeling the radiation from a singular borehole source!
Why someone might make such an obviously "bad" design decision is really only obvious in hindsight... I'm spitballing here, but I strongly suspect the amount of energy they needed to pump into the ground to get any workable results at the depth they wanted and with the quality of sensors they had at the time required more explosives than was achievable with a single borehole. I.e., if you dumped it all in one hole, the energy would either blow off the top vertically, sending energy into the air instead of ground, or too much energy would go into "crumpling" rock in the immediate vicinity, distorting the results due to local variation of rock density and composition very close to the borehole (really struggling to describe this idea well - not a materials scientist). They had to make what seems today like a nonsensical design decision in order to get results at all. The comparison to early prop planes is quite apt: no aerospace engineer would think up prop planes as a form-factor from scratch given the tech we have now. I'd give Bob benefit of the doubt that this was a true breakthrough moment for the technology, and it seems quite understandable that he wouldn't identify it correctly due to the very strange (by modern standards) approach.
This is leaving aside the fact I'm shocked that the holes were preserved so well after all these years. I'd expect dust to fill them in much quicker, but I have yet to have a chance to cruise around the Maghreb in person for shits and giggles, so what do I know?
I had the same thought as well, it's really astonishing that the landscape hasn't changed all that much in over 50 years. It likely speaks to just how desolate a region that is, and now I'm motivated to go learn more about the geography and weather patterns of the region.
That was fun.
And just to keep up the mystery the journalist's 4th post to r/conspiracy is missing...
Missing 4th post
Glad to know I wasn't the only one who paused on "xtphxtph" and went looking on reddit!