My Trip to the Electric Universe

Truck stop near Blythe, on the California/Arizona border, July 6

We’re at some altitude here so the temperature is bearable, somewhere around 80 degrees I would guess, which is why I decided to pull over and finally start this post. Not sure why it took so long; the Electric Universe conference broke up on June 29^th, over a week ago.

Why is writing getting more difficult? I mean, theoretically, I have a lot to say. I don’t get it. Maybe I’ve been doing too much thinking (more on this in a minute)….

 

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Dave Talbott, the director and initial inspiration behind Electric Universe is a prince of a human being. Dave, in the midst of a busy busy schedule, took time out to spend with me, time that I pretty much wasted. I had so many questions, I pretty much ended up asking none. Like Anthony Peratt, a key person in the science of the Electric Universe. I really wanted to know what happened with him. Why isn’t he here? I suspect I do know, at least the basics: To put it simply, ‘They’ got to him. This is my theory.

I also feared that I would alienate myself with some of the information I wanted to pass on. I’ve never felt this way before – fear of alienating someone by pointing out a ‘truth’ (as I see it via research) is not part of my make up.

So here we go.

First an anecdote from my life on the road that I would ask you to keep in mind. (It’s now been almost exactly a year since I gave up the sedentary life for semi-random travel.)

Some months ago I was ensconced at truck stop in New Mexico – I’ve found truck stops interesting places to linger for limited periods of time; I have a theory that truckers are valuable sources of information on how the world works, in terms of infrastructure: it’s difficult to think of anything (anything physical and of any use) that has not at some point been transported via truck. Whether they know it or not, truckers know things that I would like to know.

So I’m blabbing with this trucker, exchanging road tales. This fellow was an ex-Navy Seal, trucking with his wife and his dog, living on the road as I do, and I got an immediate good vibe from him. Quickest way to sum him up is that he reminded me of a more laid back version of Jesse Ventura.

After a bit he seemed to relax around me so I asked if he’d had any memorable experiences on the road and which he’d care to relate. There was a pause and I could tell he was thumbing through his mental memoir for something notable, perhaps also calculating how much of his time I was worth.

He told me that once he was on the road in the Washington, DC/Virginia area and got a call asking if he still took serious the ‘Top Secret’ clearance from his Navy Seal days (which were now a couple decades in the past). An odd question, he thought, but replied in the affirmative, adding a ‘Sir’ as punctuation.

He was directed to a Navy base where his rig was hitched to a trailer; he was given directions of where it was going. He was told that a vehicle would be tailing him in case of any ‘problem.’ Also, if he were pulled over by a State Trooper or the like, he should call a certain number and the Trooper problem would disappear. Under no circumstances was he to open the trailer he was hauling – he was given a key to the back but told not to use it unless told to do so.

His pay would be four times ‘normal’ (by the mile).

His destination was at the dead end of a rural road somewhere in Virginia, at the base of a tree and scrub mountain. He was momentarily at a loss. The coordinates were correct but he was in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly by his rig a couple of ‘big spooky types’ appeared, seemingly out of thin air. There were no buildings or vehicles that he could see.

Then, to his astonishment, the side of the mountain opened up. ‘There was a hillside, then suddenly a huge, gapping cavern,’ he told me. The spooky types suggested he exit the rig, which he did. One stayed with him while the other drove the rig and trailer into the cavern, which, he said, was ‘big enough to handle a submarine, a boomer’ (the biggest of the nuclear fleet).’

In a few minutes his rig was driven back out of the mountain, the loaded trailer having been discharged somewhere inside. My trucker acquaintance was paid in cash and told he could go now. Right now. He did and through the rearview watched as the cavern became the mountain-side again, trees, rocks, shrubs and all.

That, in brief, is his story. When asked if he would pinpoint the locale just described he just smiled, presumably taking his Top Secret clearance seriously.

In brief: One of the things I do as a writer and filmmaker is interview people. Based on fairly extensive experience I can say that my trucker acquaintance told me the truth as he remembered it.

What does this road anecdote have to do with the Electric Universe? Please hang in for the connection.

Road Anecdote #2: Time has passed and I am now bearing down on the Electric Universe… conference that is. It’s June 22^nd (2015) and I’m on Arizona Route 17, hoping to make the Phoenix Sheraton with no breakdowns, State Trooper pull-overs, doggy crises, and so forth. It’s afternoon and I’m tired and need a driving break. Up ahead I see what appears to be a rest stop; but as I’ll soon find out, it’s more than that. It’s an educational rest stop! According to the sign, I’m going to ‘Meet the Dinosaurs.’

I take Gus for a walk in the blazing heat. After she pees I lead us to a low, nondescript building, figuring that a dose of air conditioning would be good for both of us (I have AC in the rig but have to run the generator to access it; I hate the generator).

‘Meet the Dinosaurs’ was your basic government-run roadside attraction. Compact (no wasted acreage), well-kept, clean, and orderly. The expected Jurassic wall art, faux dinosaur bones under glass cases on plinths and suspended from the overhead. Just slightly out of place was the attendant: Older guy (meaning about my age) with a beard and longish, graying hair, frumpily dressed; I got a good vibe from him as I asked if Gus was ‘all right,’ meaning to be in there. He gave her an exaggerated once over, saying, ‘Looks okay to me.’

I had an important question to ask – actually, really important, although at that moment I didn’t realize it. In fact, having had nearly two weeks to mull it over, I’m now thinking that the question might be one of those doozies with game-changing implications. But the point was, I needed to find out how learned the attendant was before asking. He sure as hell looked learned. (Remember the kindly old rich guy who almost ended the world with his genetic-fiddling in Jurassic Park? The attendant reminded me of him; much more so these days, after all the mulling.)

‘Did you like study dinosaurs and all?’ My tone was as goofy as I could muster. I didn’t want to offend him if he was not… learned in dinorsaur-alia. (On the other side of the take-offense coin: if he was learned, what was he doing manning an f-ing roadside attraction?)

The old guy (shit, right, my age) took no offense to my probe (in either direction), summoning a sigh and a ‘Yep,’ which I took to mean he had advance degree(s) in the subject at hand. (From here on, I’ll refer to him as The Prof.)

I got right to the point: ‘I recently read something interesting, but I haven’t had a chance to look into it. Maybe you can help.’ This was not strictly true: I had looked into it. For some reason I didn’t want to come on too strong; something like that. In any case, feigning some ignorance was the tack I took.

‘I’ve read that dinosaurs, the really big ones, could not have lived in earth’s gravity as it is now.’ The Prof cocked his head and seemed to suddenly take me more seriously. ‘Has to do with muscle-to-bone strength or efficiency or something. Have you heard of this issue?’

I’d heard of this ‘issue’ as peripheral evidence for the Electric Universe theory, which posits a new way of looking at gravity. One of the several essays I’d read on the subject of dinosaurs and gravity begins with this sentence:

It is a fairly easy demonstration that nothing any larger than the largest elephants could live in our world today, and that the largest dinosaurs survived ONLY because the nature of the world and of the solar system was then such that they did not experience gravity as we do at all; they’d be crushed by their own weight, collapse in a heap, and suffocate within minutes were they to.

This is one of those sentences that – in spite of its shaky construction and should you actually pay attention while reading it – has implications. No: implications. See, the truth of its factual assertions are not really arguable. But those damn implications…

The Prof just stared at me for a bit, then said, ‘I’ve heard of that, yes.’

I looked at a wall mural to my right, his left. Not sure what the animal was, but it was about 50 times bigger than an elephant. It’s head, at the end of a neck the length of half a football field, was about the size of an elephant. The Prof looked at it too. The Whatever-a-saur’s head and neck was stretched out horizontally, crossing most of the wall.

‘There’s a problem with the animal’s heart being strong enough to get his blood to his head if his head is raised up vertically.’ I know misdirection when I hear it but played along, saying, ‘Yeah, he’d faint if he raised his head, right?’

Quoting once more from the above essay, ‘The Impossible Dinosaurs’:

…the blood pressure required to pump blood up to the brain, thirty or more feet in the air, would have placed extraordinary demands on the heart (see opposite page) [Lillywhite’s article] and would seemingly have placed the animal at severe risk of a stroke, an aneurysm, or some other circulatory disaster. If sauropods fed with the neck extended just a little above heart level, say from ground level up to fifteen feet, the blood pressure required would have been far more reasonable.”

I knew what was coming from The Prof: some version of the joke wherein a guy complains to his doctor that it hurts if he raises his arm so the doctor says, ‘So don’t raise your arm.’

Sure enough, basically what The Prof said was that dinosaurs learned not to raise their heads on their long necks; this way they wouldn’t faint. (Which is why I refer to his subject-change as misdirection: On some level of utter bullshit tomfoolery, The Prof figured he could ‘explain’ the blood-pumping problem.) To which I responded, ‘Why would he have evolved a long neck if he couldn’t take advantage of it?’

In other words, what would old Chuck Darwin think of this?

My conversation with The Prof went on for a bit, then, in terms of meaningful stuff, ended thusly:

Me: ‘I don’t understand.’

The Prof: ‘Well, see, this is what happens when we do too much thinking.’

Yep, that’s what The Prof said, Piled Higher and Deeper (P.H.d) and all.

Gus and I got back in the rig and headed for the Electric Universe conference, now only a couple hours away.

I’ll get back to you on how it went, but I can tell you that, based upon it, I did a whole bunch of thinking.

Allan

Oh. Again, please try to keep in mind the anecdote of the trucker and the hole in the mountain… and the dinosaur/gravity ‘issue’….