Kimberly Rackley is a gifted psychic and a very good friend of mine. She has had a lifetime of paranormal experiences, including multiple, terrifying encounters with the Men in Black. In terms of her early MIB encounters, Kim said in an interview I did with her: “Since I was a teenager I’ve always had the same dream and then, of course, I didn’t know what they were. Two Men in Black would come through my bedroom window and take me away to a place that’s underground. They would sit me in a chair, with this green light that comes down over the chair. If I would reach out with my arm, it would electrocute me. It would send energy up my arm. Then, I would find myself back in bed again. I had that dream since I was probably fifteen. This was when I was living in Florida. Then, after that, they went away. Not until I was probably, I think, thirty-two was when they started to come back. From being a teenager to now, this has probably happened about fifteen or sixteen times.”

Kim adds: “They are always in black and they are very tall – probably six-five. There’s no structure to the face; no cheekbones; none. I could see where the face should be, but it would look melted, like putty. That’s what their faces always remind me of: Silly Putty; white Silly Putty. There are no eyes. And, you could see where there would be an outline of a nose and a mouth, but there’s nothing actually there. If you put a stocking over your face – like a bank-robber – it would look exactly like that. That’s just how they look. When I see them, it’s like their skin is not skin. The face moves, like a vibration, like a frequency. So, it’s like they appear solid, but they’re not solid at all; they’re an energy.”

She had far more to say: “When you’re dreaming, everyone automatically goes to the astral plane; but most people aren’t even aware of that. On the astral plane there are different levels. Some people call them different degrees: different degrees of Heaven, different degrees of Hell, and different degrees of the astral plane. Any other entities from another realm can open doors to our astral plane, when we are sleeping. So, with the right frequency, you can get on the astral plane. It doesn’t matter if you’re a being from Heaven or Hell, they can all access the astral plane. So, I think some of those dimensional beings have the frequency codes to access the astral plane and that’s how they meet their agenda with people who are dreaming. That’s how they get into my dreams – the guys in black.

“Every person has what you could call an imprint. It’s a frequency. Everyone has a soul imprint which identifies them specifically. So do angels. And so do demons. But, once they have your imprint, it’s like an ID code. Once they have it they can find you. Anywhere. People told me that when I moved to Texas from Florida in 2016, the dark stuff would stop, because they wouldn’t be able to find me. But, they still found me. That’s really when I began realizing that the whole soul imprint thingis probably true.”

It was in late June 2016 when Kim had one of her most terrifying encounters. On June 22, Kim told me: “Had an experience last night / morning. A little drained this morning. Freaked me out. I was awoken by what seemed like thousands of voices that were excited and upset. I sometimes hear the astral plane at night but this was crazy. I need to make it stop so I lift into astral and all these entities are everywhere in agitated state. I ask what’s wrong and they all circle me and then this being, very tall and slender, in a black suit but with a long coat comes straight for me. The entities circling me close in tighter. They are trying to protect me. But he pushes them away with a flick of his hand and I’m suddenly back in my body. There, in my room, was the man. He had the same non-aura energy, like MIB. He pointed at me and the place in my wrist where the previous MIBs always try to place a chip in me started burning. Then I passed out. I feel electric inside, like I’m going to jump out of my skin and I’m nauseated. Kind of frightened. I look like death” (Ibid.).

Later on, Kim got back to me and wrote: “If you feel like death warmed-over then you most definitely look like death warmed-over as I discovered this morning when I ungraciously made my way to the bathroom. You would feel and look the same if you experienced the more than unnerving events I had. Yours truly is still trembling, not quite certain if it is from the panic of the frightening encounter or the electrical jolt received. Being a medium I am not fearful of the supernatural or unearthly, but there is one thing that has filled me with terror since I was a child and that is the MIB. I’ve told the story of my repetitive MIB encounters before but it needs repeating because I believe it is significant to the most recent encounter.”

More from Kim: “From the time I was eight and witnessed a glowing figure slightly similar to a grey walking down the hallway of my home, I have been subject to frequent MIB visits. These visits are always from the same two men, mostly in my dream state until I began realizing my abilities as a medium and then the visits would occur in meditation or altered states of consciousness. Never before this newest encounter has one been a physical encounter. The two men come to me, usually appearing through my bedroom window. My normal MIB’s resemble ninja’s or soldiers, always in black skin-tight clothing or fatigue uniforms, and always with the aura of intense panic. They will point at me and say ‘No, Kya, not yet.’ I have no idea why they call me Kya. Is it too much to hope for that they have me confused with someone else? I also have no inkling of what ‘not yet’ signifies. They then pull up a holographic ball where they show me that I will be taken away and put in this metal room, underground. The room has one single chair and surrounding me is a bluish force field. Sounds like a science fiction movie, right? Then they point at my right wrist, and a chip appears under my skin. They vanish, leaving me always in full panic mode.

“I know you are wondering about the chip. I have yet to discover its purpose but each occasion that they place the chip, I immediately remove it. Alien or dimensional implants are more common than you might imagine and can be detected when you are in the theta state. These implants have an etheric vibration which means they can be removed etherically as well. This newest encounter was much different than the above so let me get on with the story. I was awoken around 4:00 a.m. to a thousand voices in my head. It is quite common for me to hear the astral plane but this was like a war going on. I know I have to stop the voices before I end up on Zany Street with men in white coats chasing me. I lift up to the astral where I find the entities in an agitated and anxious state. Curiously they are all gathered in a very close proximity to each other.”

The story continues: “I ask what is wrong and the entities immediately circle me. I am not afraid as I have been to the astral many times and have friends here. Suddenly, a very tall man comes from the mist. He is in a black suit and wearing a long coat. The man is whitish-gray, bald, and no facial hair; yeah, not even an eyelash. I’m filled with immediate panic because I see no aura or residual of life force energy. The same non-energy I see with the MIB. However, there was an electrical charge around him which is something I always see around the MIB of my past encounters. The entities attempt to tighten the circle around me but the being in black swipes them away with a flick of his hand. I fall back into my body, sit up and to my horror the being is standing in my room. He raises his arm, palm out and I am jolted with a shot of intense energy. I pass out.

“When I awaken, it all comes flooding back to me. My body feels as if I am going to jump out of my skin and I am nauseated. I realize that the astral voices may have been attempting to warn me and certainly they were trying to protect me. This indicates that whatever the MIB are, even the astral plane is aware and afraid of them. Could it be that my recent talk with [you] on this very subject have triggered this encounter? I believe the MIB have every account of who attempts to reveal them. I’m always left with sheer panic and more questions after an encounter with the MIB. The panic I experience however, won’t stop me from seeking the truth nor will it stop me from being who I am or doing what I do.”

Kim’s most recent experience reads as follows: “The encounter happened when I was at the Free Comic Book Day in Folsom, California on June 12, 2017. I was staying with a friend; it was the first night I was there and I went to be about ten-thirty; I was so tired. Usually, I wake up about every forty-five minutes or so; it’s just how I sleep. But, that night, I slept for four hours straight, and then I just suddenly woke up, because I felt something pulling at me; something was tugging at me in the bed. I sit up and on the right side of the bed and there are two of the men. They had that pasty skin; the Silly Putty again; the bank-robber-stocking look. And they pointed at me and said: ‘It’s time to come.’ I was like: ‘I don’t think so!’ So, I went to turn around to the front of the bed, to psychically try to make them go away. To push light at them. And, the next thing I know, literally my feet were pulled out from under me. I was dragged off the bed to the door of the bedroom. Then, they were gone; it was over. I don’t remember anything after that until the morning.”

As Kim’s extensive, decades-long encounters with the Men in Black demonstrate, there is nothing positive about the MIB. They are among the most disturbing of all entities that lurk in the realm of Ufology.

One of the often-cited explanations for alleged UFO sightings is ball lightning, a rare natural phenomenon which remains somewhat of an unsolved mystery despite centuries of reports and several attempts by scientists to explain it. The unexplained electrical phenomenon appears as luminous orbs ranging from pea-sized to several meters across that can last up to several seconds. Reports of ball lightning are often connected to thunderstorms, but not always. There are numerous reports of ball lightning floating straight through walls, dancing around ship masts, traveling down electrical lines, or even inside submarines. 

It’s generally accepted that ball lightning is some unknown type of electrical discharge that can form under certain specific circumstances, but its true nature remains somewhat of a mystery. The latest scientific study to take a stab at the ball lightning phenomenon was published this month in Optik, a scientific journal devoted to the research of optics, light, and electrons. In this current research, Vladimir Torchigin from the Russian Academy of Sciences claims that ball lightning isn’t lightning at all, but instead a “bubble of light” trapped inside a thin sphere of air.

As it turns out, whenever any particle absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation, it ‘jiggles’ slightly from the force. This latest research claims that whenever traditional lightning strikes, it can cause air molecules to jiggle in just the right way to trap photons in a rotating pressurized sphere of air if just the right conditions are met. According to the study, the “intensity of the rotating light is more than a billion times greater than that of the light propagating in a straight line,” leading to ball lightning’s incredible luminosity.

Torchigin seems pretty confident that he’s finally solved the ball lightning mystery, writing that “we have shown that the behavior of a light bubble and ball lightning are the same, and there are no mysteries in the behavior of ball lightning. The question of the nature of ball lightning resolved.” Has the mystery actually been solved?

Whether or not it has, I’m all for this research – think about it: if we can learn the mechanism by which ball lightning is created, we could theoretically find ways to create it for ourselves. Remember that weird story about Russia’s secret “dome of light” weapon? Sounds pretty familiar. Could we harness these “bubbles of light” to create our own ball lightning?

A recently discovered gaseous planet called NGTS-4B – or better known as the “Forbidden Planet” – is almost the same size as Neptune (20% smaller than Neptune and three times the size of Earth) and is around 920 light years away from Earth. There’s one major problem with this planet: it shouldn’t exist.

Located in a region of space called the “celestial desert”, the planet has a surface temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius (or 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). With a temperature that hot, the atmosphere on the planet should have evaporated since it’s so close to its star. But incredibly it still exists and it orbits around its star every 1.3 days.

(Not NGTS-4B)

It’s also the first exoplanet to have been discovered in the Neptunian Desert, which is an area close a star where no Neptune-size planets have ever been located. Being that close to its star, the planet’s gaseous atmosphere should be completely evaporated; leaving it with nothing more than a rocky core, but NGTS-4B still contains its gassy atmosphere.

It was first discovered when telescopes that were run by the University of Warwick noticed the planet when it passed in front of its star as the brightness of the star dimmed by 0.2 percent. Researchers are baffled as to why the planet remains in existence being so close to its star. They do, however, have some theories, such as the planet ended up in its current position within the last million or so years; or that the planet was once much bigger than it currently is and it’s continuously getting smaller as the atmosphere is evaporating.

(Not NGTS-4B)

Dr. Richard West, who works in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick, said, “This planet must be tough – it is right in the zone where we expected Neptune-sized planets could not survive,” adding, “It is truly remarkable that we found a transiting planet via a star dimming by less than 0.2 percent – this has never been done before by telescopes on the ground, and it was great to find after working on this project for a year.”

This incredible discovery has researchers looking for more possible Neptune-sized planets surviving so close to their host star. “We are now scouring out data to see if we can see any more planets in the Neptune Desert – perhaps the desert is greener than was once thought,” West stated

For years – or perhaps even for centuries – the Men in Black have been elusive, fear-inducing figures who hover with disturbing regularity upon the enigmatic fringes of the UFO subject. They nurture and weave their very own unique brand of terror and intimidation. Like true specters from the outer edge, the MIB appear from the murky darkness, and roam the countryside provoking paranoia and fear in their notorious wake, before returning to that same shrouded realm from which they originally oozed. Very often traveling in groups of three, this definitive trinity of evil seemingly appears and disappears at will. They are very often seen driving 1950s-style black Cadillac’s. Particularly strange is the fact that most of the witnesses say that the cars of the Men in Black vanish almost impossibly quickly. It’s almost as if the vehicles of the MIB are beamed aboard UFOs. Maybe, that’s not too far from the truth.

As bizarre as it might sound, there are a number of reports on record of black cars (A) entering and exiting UFOs late at night; and (B) of apparent aliens exiting UFOs and getting in cars. Yep, I know: it’s really weird. Back in 2009, longtime Ufologist Tim Beckley shared just such a story with me. Tim said: “I remember one incident where I was lecturing and a gentleman – a professor at the college where I was lecturing – came up to me  and told this story about how he was driving outside of a town in Michigan. It was rather late at night,  and he saw these lights in the woods. He pulled over, and there was no other traffic coming in either direction, but there was already another car parked at the edge of the road.”

Tim continued: “He described seeing some sort of ship in the distance – a UFO. A group of human-like aliens got out of the UFO, walked to the car – which was a Cadillac, or something like that. He watched them and could see they looked human. They just got in the car and drove off. But then, a couple of weeks later, he sees one of the same guys in a supermarket. These reports sound farfetched, but there’s so many of them of what seem to be aliens being able to move among us.”

Moving on, there’s the very odd tale of a man named Michael Wilcox. On the night of March 6, 1961, Wilcox had an encounter of the creepy car kind. At the time, Wilcox was living in South Miami, Florida. His home backed onto an eight-acre tomato field. At around 10:15 P.M., Wilcox saw to his amazement, through the window of his living-room, a huge object hanging low in the night sky. He described it as looking “like a Navy blimp.” He added that, “…but it was larger than any blimp I had ever seen.” Wilcox raced outside and watched with amazement as a large doorway on the craft slowly began to open. When the doorway was open to its fullest, three small, circular objects exited the craft and shot away into the darkness. But, that was only the start of things. Matters were about to get really strange.

According to Wilcox, one-by-one three black-colored Ford Galaxie cars were lowered from the UFO to the ground by “a hydraulic”-like elevator. Yes, you did read that right! When the three cars were safely on the ground, a rectangular-shaped object exited the UFO and landed in the field, adjacent to the cars. Then, something amazing happened, as Wilcox noted: Four groups of four people walked out of that same rectangular-shaped craft “and entered each car.” Wilcox looked on dumbfounded, as the cars – one after another – raced out of the field and onto the nearby road! He quickly lost sight of them as they hit South Miami’s 136th Street. The amazing encounter was over.

There’s absolutely no doubt at all that cases like the ones I have detailed above are not just controversial but way beyond controversial. Nevertheless, such accounts – of mysterious cars, of MIB, and of vanishing vehicles abound. Here’s one example and here’s another. Given that I’ve written four books on the MIB and one on the Women in Black, maybe my next book should be titled Cars in Black…

One of my home state’s most well-known unexplained phenomena was caught on camera recently by a group of researchers from Appalachian State University. The team has two cameras set up in the mountains near Morganton, North Carolina trained on Brown Mountain. For over a century, witnesses have reported strange orbs or streaks of light darting among the hills of the Pisgah National Forest around Brown Mountain, but scientists have yet to produce a definitive explanation for the phenomenon. Will we ever solve the mystery of the Brown Mountain Lights?

The Brown Mountain Lights have been covered by North Carolina newspapers for decades, and one of the earliest accounts of the Brown Mountain Lights was published in the Charlotte Daily Observer in 1913. This most recent documented took place earlier this year when one of the cameras set up by an Appalachian State research team caught a few unidentified lights on camera. See the footage for yourself.

A picture of the lights from 1962.

While the video certainly shows a few ambiguous streaks of light, it sure does look a lot like the “rod” phenomenon which occurs when cameras capture insects flying faster than their frame rate. The result is that tiny insects can appear like massive flying rods, which themselves have been the source of several studies and paranormal claims. The fact that they are caused by flying insects is still disputed by some.

Were these alleged Brown Mountain Lights merely insects? Even the video’s author notes that they are “likely lightning bugs but it’s winter.” The video was taken months before lightning bug season in North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean another insect couldn’t have reflected light from traffic in the distance. In his YouTube description of the footage, Appalachian State astronomer Dr. Daniel Caton claims the lights were captured on two different cameras, but that the second camera’s footage is unusable “due to camera quitting after a storm.” It’s always the camera, isn’t it?

Brown Mountain

While many simple explanations for the Brown Mountain Lights have been put forward over the years, they are still considered a mysterious phenomenon and are somewhat rare. A few friends of mine claim to have seen them inadvertently while camping, but then there are those who have looked for them for years and have never witnessed the lights. Still, reports and studies of other similar unexplained Earth lights around the world lend legitimacy to reports of the Brown Mountain Lights.

In Norway’s Hessdalen valley for instance, witnesses have for decades reported strange orbs of light of various colors that appear both by day and night. Possible explanations include piezoelectric discharge due to underground conductive crystals rubbing together, some unknown type of chemical combustion which can occur under extremely specific conditions, or even by ionization of air and dust caused by deposits of radioactive elements underground.

Unexplained illumination photographed over Table Rock, North Carolina

(image by Bill Fox).

What could be causing these strange, seemingly natural Earth lights? Are they indeed a natural phenomenon? It’ll take a lot more than one blurry YouTube video to get to the bottom of this mystery.

There are certain areas in the world that are prone to earthquakes. California, Japan, and other regions sitting on fault lines all run the risk of these geological upheavals, and the people who live in these areas are well aware of it, living in a constant haze of fear in the back of their minds that one may strike at any moment. Yet there have been other areas of the world that do not face such anxiety, where earthquakes should really be one of the least of their worries, but despite this there have been anomalous quakes that have come and gone on to become baffling mysteries. Such is the case of a series of earthquakes that hit the Midwest region of the United States in the 19th century, which were not only odd that they happened at all, but also rather weird in that they are some of the most powerful quakes the country, and indeed the world, has ever seen.

The morning of December 16, 1811 probably started much as any other day in the central Mississippi Valley of the United States, yet at approximately 2:15 AM the entire region was jolted and viciously rocked by a powerful tremor which would later be determined to have originated at an epicenter in northeast Arkansas. Considering that this was the Midwest of the United States, probably the last thing that was on anyone’s mind was that they would be struck by an earthquake, and not only was it unusual, but it was exceptionally potent, measuring a magnitude of 7.5 to 7.9, causing massive damage, and felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Ohio, Massachusetts, Montreal, and Washington D.C. Even more terrifying still was that this was just the beginning, with a 7.4 magnitude aftershock striking later that same day, and unfortunately more was to come.

Over the next few months the region would be hit by more earthquakes measuring between magnitude 7 and 8, as well as countless aftershocks, until by March of 1812 the region had been terrorized by thousands of powerful temblors. Two of the earthquakes after the initial one were just as intense as the first, if not more so, such as a magnitude 7.8 quake on January 23, 1812, and the third major quake on February 7, 1812, which was estimated as being as much as a massive magnitude 8.8, all interspersed by countless aftershocks that all caused havoc, capsized boats, leveled forests, and even reshaped the landscape by forming islands, new waterfalls, massive sand boils, geysers, numerous deep fissures said to have even swallowed people alive, and creating Reelfoot Lake. What would go on to become the New Madrid Earthquakes, named after the Mississippi River town of New Madrid, would be felt to some degree over an area of around 1 million square miles fanning out from the central Midwest, and making it all even more frightening were some of the odd phenomena surrounding them.

A commonly reported phenomenon during the quakes was the presence of a loud roaring noise, like thunder or explosions, which was reported by countless locals and which made it all the more ominous. There were also reported the presence of dark clouds in the sky and a sort of foul smelling smog that descended upon the land to make breathing difficult and obscure vision, as well as the smell of sulphur and mysterious flashes of light in the sky, likely the result of a phenomenon known as seismoluminescence. Also rather unusual is that there were reports from boatmen of the Mississippi River actually flowing in the opposite direction at the time of the original quake and for up to several hours after. One rather frightening report of all of this mayhem was given by an eyewitness who illustrated the chaos:

On the 16th of December, 1811, about two o’clock, a.m., we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total darkness. The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do—the cries of the fowls and beasts of every species—the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring of the Mississippi— the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed— formed a scene truly horrible.

It must have seemed like the ends of days, and of course considering all of these strange phenomena and the fact that the Midwest region had never experienced anything like this before, there were immediately dire omens about what it all meant. Many highly religious people believed it to be a sign from God, and stated that many of the details could be found in Bible scripture. Native tribes of the area also had their theories that it was tied to their angry great spirits, and it did not go unnoticed that a comet not seen since the time of Ramses II in Egypt had arrived in the previous months and was at its brightest during the earthquakes, making it believed to have been some sort of portent to disaster.

Although the sparsely inhabited nature of the region at the time meant that the death toll was kept to a minimum, the New Madrid earthquakes were, and still are, considered to be the most powerful and most prolonged earthquakes to hit the United States east of the Rocky Mountains in recorded history, which is quite odd and surprising for an area of the United States not known for its earthquakes, and which does not lie on the edge of any of the earth’s 15 tectonic plates. Despite all of the more supernatural explanations that have popped up in the wake of the quakes, there is likely a more scientific explanation, but it is poorly understood, made even more difficult because the region has had so few earthquakes in its history as a basis of comparison.

What is now called the New Madrid Seismic Zone is a bit of an anomaly to say the least. In most cases, earthquakes occur along the edges of Earth’s tectonic plates, where friction between two of the plates sliding against or pushing or pulling each other causes the tremors, but that is not the case for the New Madrid earthquakes since they originated practically right in the center of one of these plates. There have been all manner of hypotheses for why this zone should cause these powerful quakes, such as that it is the result of magma pushing up from beneath the earth, a weakened crust in the area, the result of the release of stress at the surface from the retreat of glaciers, local changes to the mantle flow, and others.

One of the most popular recent theories is that the quakes were caused by a spider web of fissures underground called the Reelfoot Rift, formed 700 million and 540 million years ago when the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia broke apart and split, creating a system of fissures and weakened, fractures crust deep in the earth that is possibly prone to earthquakes, although not in the traditional sense. Despite all of these theories, no one is still really sure why these powerful quakes should hit the region, and research is ongoing. One seismologist at the University of Memphis in Tennessee, Christine Powell, has said of it all:

Here, in the center of a plate, we don’t have a theory that we can attribute the earthquakes to. So in order to understand why they’re occurring, you have to think outside the box.

Whatever the reasons for the New Madrid Earthquakes may be, it was certainly not a one-time freak occurrence. Ever since these earthquakes the region has been consistently hit with numerous temblors, to the tune of about 4,000 mild to moderate quakes since 1974, and it is thought that there is a 25 to 45% chance of a magnitude 6 or greater earthquake in the area within the next 50 years, which would be devastating to the now highly populated area. In the end we are left with quite the geological mystery. How is it that not only was there a strong series of earthquakes, but also some of the most relentless and intense the country has ever seen, right out in the middle of nowhere where no earthquake should have been in the first place? It is tetament to the fact that there are still mysteries of our planet we do not fully understand, and until we do we can only wait and see if there will be another repeat of that 1811 catastrophe.

Anyone who has spent any time surfing the Internet has at one time or another seen a picture (cute or otherwise) of a meerkat suddenly standing up when it hears something. There was a time in history when this was not the case and some brave or confused meerkat probably accidentally discovered the maneuver and its benefits. Most people assume the same thing happened with the first ancient human who carefully leaned against a tree or cave wall and fell forward while moving his or her legs in order to stay upright. According to a new study, this assumption is wrong. A new paper uses geology to propose that there was a supernova bombing Earth with cosmic energy a few million years ago that caused constant worldwide lightning strikes which burned down the forests of trees out ancestors were hanging out in and forced them to the grassy ground where they learned how to stand and run from the fires and lightning. Plausible? Could this have caused the first upright meerkat brigade too?

“The observation is that there’s a lot more charcoal and soot in the world starting a few million years ago. It’s all over the place, and nobody has any explanation for why it would have happened all over the world in different climate zones. This could be an explanation.”

Professor Adrian L. Melott of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas co-authored the paper, “From Cosmic Explosions to Terrestrial Fires?” published this week in the Journal of Geology. He explains in a press releasehow he and co-author Brian Thomas of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Washburn University in Kansas built their theory on some known facts. For example, it is accepted that a layer of iron-60 deposits lining the world’s sea beds came from a very near supernovae explosion only about 163 light years away during the overlap of the Pliocene Epoch and Ice Age. That roughly coincides with the appearance of Lucy, owner of the earliest bipedal hominin species (Australopithecus afarensis) fossils ever found. Why is the iron-60 significant?

“We contend it would increase the ionization of the lower atmosphere by 50-fold. Usually, you don’t get lower-atmosphere ionization because cosmic rays don’t penetrate that far, but the more energetic ones from supernovae come right down to the surface — so there would be a lot of electrons being knocked out of the atmosphere.”

Electrons in motion is the cause of lightning bolts, but this 50-fold increase means there were a LOT of lightning bolts as a result of this atmospheric ionization and they were striking all around the world, resulting in massive fires that forced Lucy and her relatives to jump/climb/fall to the ground. Lucy died from the fall but we’re living proof that some of her kin didn’t and they eventually got tired of bloody knees and palms.

“After this conversion to savanna, they would much more often have to walk from one tree to another across the grassland, and so they become better at walking upright. They could see over the tops of grass and watch for predators. It’s thought this conversion to savanna contributed to bipedalism as it became more and more dominant in human ancestors.”

This definitely sounds plausible. Unfortunately, it causes modern humans to wonder if this catastrophic supernova-caused cosmic bombardment could happen again … perhaps from Betelgeuse, which is only 652 light years from Earth. Fortunately, Melott says that’s not likely. Unfortunately, he thinks we have bigger things to be concerned with.

“Worry about solar proton events. That’s the danger for us with our technology — a solar flare that knocks out electrical power. Just imagine months without electricity.”

Maybe we should learn how to climb trees again?