Today’s Jeopardy category is “Portals to Hell.” Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question. For $500, this Gateway to Hell is growing at a frightening rate of 30 meters (98 feet) per year.

“Washington D.C.!”

Sorry, that wasn’t a question.

“What is the Batagaika crater, located in the ice-covered Chersky Range in northeastern Siberia?”

Correct! It’s summer in Siberia, a season which has actually become more noticeable due to climate change. It means that Siberians are shedding clothing and the ground is shedding permafrost. In some areas, the end result is exploding pingos – ice-and-dirt-covered methane pockets whose heat-induced blasts leave large sinkholes behind. However, the Batagaika crater, about 660 km (410 miles) northeast of the city of Yakutsk, has been around for some time – long enough to grow to 1 km (.652) in length and 100 meters (328 feet) deep, and acquire the name “Gateway to Hell.”

Batagaika crater NASA image)

The Batagaika crater began forming in the 1960 when forests near the Batagaika river were cleared and permafrost began melting faster than normal. While paleontologists loved its massive exposure of Ice Age animal fossils, the steep cliffs and landslides make erosion occur even faster and land is dragged into the Gateway to Hell at an accelerated and dangerous pace, threatening everything in its path, including the homes, livestock and scenery of the local Yakutians, who first named this creation of invading resource-stealers the “Gateway to Hell.”

“The catch with Batagai is that although it survived multiple episodes of warming in the past, where the warming has been natural – in the last 50 or 60 years human disturbances have destabilised this ancient permafrost. 

“So, I guess the message is that we need to be very careful.”

Geology professor Julian Murton of the University of Sussex told the BBC that a mere 60 years of warming has exposed permafrost from 650,000 years ago — the oldest of its kind in Eurasia and the second oldest in the world. Needless to say, that’s not good.

Growth of the Batagaika crater NASA image)

“Though this may sound so far away from our daily concerns and daily life, actually it’s not just curiosity that drives the Batagai research. It’s also the applicability of the results to the ongoing environmental changes – because the past is the key to the future. And by understanding the processes that occurred in the past and their aftermath, we can adapt to the ongoing future.”

Is it too late to close the Gateway to Hell? Verkhoyansk in northeastern Siberian recorded the Arctic’s highest ever temperature this summer — 100 F (38C) – the temperature of hell to Siberians. Is having wood for your fireplace or end tables worth widening the mouth of hell?

This story continues to appear every summer, and never gets better … only bigger. How long will it be before the Batagaika crater reaches big cities … Moscow … China … India … Europe … beyond? Does humanity stop it with sandbags … or climate change reversal?

Please give your answer in the form of a question.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the world thus far with more than 16.5 million people affected and over 650,000 deaths. It’s been reported that the virus was transmitted to humans from bats and a new study has revealed an even more incredible fact about COVID-19. Apparently the virus has been circulating in bats for up to 70 years.

In a new research project where experts looked into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, they found that it evolved in bats (specifically the horseshoe bat) all the way back to 1948. Scientists that were led by the Pennsylvania State University compared SARS-CoV-2 to its closest relative in bats called RaTG13 (they are 96% similar to each other) and they found that both viruses have the same ancestor although it’s still unclear as to when SARS-CoV-2 split away from the other types of coronaviruses.

According to their studies, the scientists came up with three separate dates as to when the virus split from their ancestor called sarbecoviruses – 1948, 1969 and 1982 which indicates “that the lineage giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades,” the researchers stated.

Horseshoe bat

The experts mentioned that since the virus has been circulating in bats for between 40 and 70 years, there may be other coronaviruses out there that could potentially infect humans. As a matter of fact, I wrote an article back in April of this year that detailed six new coronaviruses that had been identified in bats. (The article can be read here.)

COVID-19 enters the human body by its receptor-binding domain (RBD) grabbing a hold of the ACE2 receptor in human cells which allows it to attack the body’s defensive mechanisms that would normally fight off the virus. In fact, SARS-CoV-2 is a thousand times more powerful than the RaTG13 virus at latching onto ACE2 receptors in humans. Interestingly, other sarbecoviruses haven’t had RBD and the closest thing they have found resided in pangolins although it isn’t believed that they were the ones that transmitted it to humans.

David L. Robertson, who is a professor of computational virology at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research as well as an author of the study, explained, “SARS-CoV-2’s receptor-binding domain sequence has so far only been found in a few pangolin viruses,” adding, “While it is possible that pangolins may have acted as an intermediate host facilitating transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans, no evidence exists to suggest that pangolin infection is a requirement for bat viruses to cross into humans.” “Instead, our research suggests that SARS-CoV-2 likely evolved the ability to replicate in the upper respiratory tract of both humans and pangolins.”

While bats are immune to coronavirus, it is still highly infectious to humans and has proved to be incredibly deadly. Maciej Boni, who is an associate professor of biology at Penn State and another author of the study, revealed that this pandemic “will not be our last”, adding that “Coronaviruses have genetic material that is highly recombinant, meaning different regions of the virus’s genome can be derived from multiple sources.”

Four “sister” species of the horseshoe bat have been discovered in Africa and researchers are hoping that by studying them and the viruses they carry, they will be able to help experts properly prepare for any other possible coronavirus pandemics in the future.

“I’m not saying it’s aliens … but it’s aliens.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“The New York Times said it is.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Yes, they did.”
“Check, please!”

That conversation, in one form or another, is playing out across the U.S. and quite possibly around the world as the ‘big’ revelation by The New York Times that a secret thought-to-be-unfunded UFO/UAP investigation project in the Department of Defense still exists with funding, and some of the people mentioned in one article refer to vehicles “not made on this earth” and “actual materials” in the possession of the Pentagon

Here’s what we really meant.

Those statements were quickly addressed by former Senator Harry Reid, who said he never said the Pentagon had recovered alien materials, and by Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough, who heavily emphasized the national security nature of the project against non-traditional (non-U.S. or its known allies) spacecraft. Those responses didn’t stop the loud buzz of “It’s aliens!” activity both in the paranormal and mainstream world, so The New York Times tried to explain itself in a piece titled “Do We Believe in U.F.O.s? That’s the Wrong Question.”

“And to be clear: U.F.O.s don’t mean aliens. Unidentified means we don’t know what they are, only that they demonstrate capabilities that do not appear to be possible through currently available technology.”

Writers Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, who have been part of all of the Times announcements dating back to the original exposure of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and the release of the Navy Tic-Tac videos, refer to the well-known Margaret Mead quote about belief:

“Belief has to do with matters of faith; it has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge that is based on scientific inquiry.”

OK, so what kind of “scientific inquiry” was used by the Pentagon program to analyze the “materials” they referred to?

“Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.”

Uh-oh … it sounds like no one they talked to had actually seen the alleged recovered materials. Their own “scientific inquiry” consisted of reading unclassified slides from Pentagon briefings, including one that contained the now infamous promise that the program will in the future “arrange for access to data/reports/materials from crash retrievals of A.A.V.’s” (advanced aerospace vehicles). Then comes this nebulous and open-ended comment:

“Our sources told us that “A.A.V.” does not refer to vehicles made in any country — not Russian or Chinese — but is used to mean technology in the realm of the truly unexplained.”

We know how you feel, Al.

However, before you throw away that copy of The New York Times you were reading for free or delete the stories you read for free (yes, that’s a blatant plug to support subscription media of any and all kinds with a paid subscription), they closed with this reassurance:

“They also assure us that their briefings are based on facts, not belief.”

Well, that’s a relief … not. You can drive a truck or a vehicle from another world through the hole in that argument: no one has yet unveiled any facts supported by scientific inquiry. While The New York Times is correct to point out that they themselves did not say “It’s aliens!” nor did the Pentagon, Harry Reid or any living person associated with this ‘big’ reveal (color-coded balloons would have been a nice touch), it’s also right in chastising everyone who is screaming “It’s aliens!” No facts were revealed … yet. No one answered Margaret Mead’s questions: “What is it? How does it work?”

Until that happens, curb your enthusiasm.

“Check, please!”