Old Project Avalon Forum (ARCHIVE)

I just stumbled across this on Andrew Scott's "Life's Science" blog and thought it was worth sharing ...

Quote:

A large object, presumed to be a comet or asteroid, has collided with Jupiter making a clearly visible impact and coinciding with the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing mission.

A nice coincidence, you may think. But I find it rather more bizarre, as you will appreciate when you read the text of a letter of mine that the renowned science magazine Nature published 15 years ago, shortly after the 25th anniversary of the first moon landing. My one and only publication in Nature read as follows:

SIR – In a recent issue, Arthur C. Clarke described as “truly incredible – one might almost say eerie” the fact that the impacts of the largest fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The fact that the impact of the largest fragment coincided, almost to the minute, with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the landing is actually only the centrepiece of a wider and more incredible set of coincidences: the first fragments of the comet hit Jupiter on 16 July (twenty-fifth anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11), and the final fragments hit on 22 July (twenty-fifth anniversary of Apollo 11’s departure from Moon orbit). So the start, climax and end of the series of impacts coincided exactly with the start, climax and end (in the sense of departure from the Moon) of the Apollo 11 mission. A recent television documentary informed me that the first SL9A impact, on 16 July, hit Jupiter at 4.18 p.m. US time (I am not sure what time standard that was). Today, I looked up the timings of the Apollo 11 mission in an encyclopaedia, and found the time of the Moon landing quoted as 4.18 p.m. US Eastern time. I am a lifelong sceptic but these coincidences interest me... - Andrew Scott Nature 371, 97 (8 September 1994) | doi :10.1038/371097c0

You see? It happened on the 25th anniversary and now it happens again on the 40th - bizarre!

My core scientific values tell me it is just another odd coincidence. My flights of fancy make me ponder if we are missing subtle communications, clearly from an intelligence that is in no rush :-)

A few days after the publication of the Nature letter I received a communication from the legendary Arthur C. Clarke, telling me he was "sure you are on to something."

I was pretty sure I was not.

Now... I wonder...

But I am still pretty sure I was not.

Although, if something happens on the 50th anniversary...

Keep an eye on Jupiter from 16 - 22 July 2019.

http://lifesscience.blogspot.com/200...ncidences.html