Orgone Research » Science

Funny Rocks and Pharyngula

Matt — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:53:51 +0000

This morning I read an essay on Pharyngula by the popular blogger and prominent atheist PZ Myers. Someone sent him photos of a funny shaped rock and asked him for his interpretation. This reminded me of an episode that occurred to me some years ago.

First off, some background. Some years ago I interacted online with a man named Anton Wroblewski. At the time we were both interested in elements of the Bigfoot issue. Dr. Wroblewski is perhaps best known as the individual who analyzed the Skookum body impression as that of an elk. As you can see by his CV, he has a PhD in geology as well as masters in stratigraphy and vertebrate paleontology.

I finally met Dr. Wroblewski in March of 2010 when he visited Seattle.

It’s great to know people with genuine expertise, as you can ask them questions! Some years back I had been walking along Alki Beach here in Seattle. I started noticing funny shaped rocks, or perhaps teeth, in the sand. I picked a few up. Since my educational background is a BS in pharmacy, I really didn’t know what I was looking at. Were they rocks? Were they fossils? Were they eroded teeth? Why did they have little pits? I’ve always been a curious person so I decided to follow up on what I found. I sent Anton a photograph of the specimens. He thought they were intriguing, but wouldn’t speculate further without examining them. I packaged up the strange samples and sent them off. He examined them and suggested they were not fossilized shark teeth as I had fantasized, but simply funny looking eroded rocks. Well, no harm no foul.

I was appalled to see how differently PZ Myers chose to react to someone who sent him photos of a strange rock sample:

“He also sent me these photos in much higher resolution. Why? Because he’s an ignorant nudnik. These things look nothing like the brain of any creature that has ever existed, unless maybe it’s the lopsided lumpy non-functional excrescence found inside the crania of creationists.”

I’m sure that a celebrity such as Myers is often the target of cranks that send all sorts of things. Yet how do we know that this individual was an “ignorant nudnik” or a legitimately curious person?

It’s doubly disturbing to consider that Myers is an instructor at the university level. Does he behave like this to his students? There is already an enormous social pressure in classrooms against asking questions. No one wants to look foolish by asking a “dumb” question. You can see this social pressure in action when people add meta-data to their questions with the preface “this may be a dumb question but…”

There are excellent resources on the Internet for those without personal access to PhDs. One that comes to mind is AskMeFi or Ask Metafilter. One of the things that keeps a resource like that functioning is close moderation. Personal attacks like asserting the questioner is an “ignorant nudkik” are not tolerated. I’ve used AskMeFi to help me gather information about such strange things as “Mountain Marbles.” For those who are particularly wary of publicity, it’s possible to ask questions anonymously.

While it’s perfectly reasonable to dismiss those questions that are not asked in good faith, it’s unfortunate to see mockery and dismissal used by someone like Myers who should know better. Of all people, Myers should be well aware of how much pain and misery in the world is caused by ignorance. Inherent in asking a question, ANY question, is the admission of ignorance. When the very act of admission of ignorance is mocked, as Myers is doing, it creates a chilling effect for those who might wish to learn.

POSTSCRIPT:

While out exercising today, it occurred to me the individual who sent the photos may have not specifically ASKED Myers what the rocks were. Upon carefully re-reading the post, it appears that the individual concluded that the inorganic sample was “mineralized brain.” Heck, I can relate, I thought I might have found “fossilized shark teeth.” Without specific clarification, we can’t know what exactly the individual claimed.

How to Turn a Right Handed Pair of Scissors into a Left Handed Pair

Matt — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:11:12 +0000

Easy, just beam up from the Halkan planet during an ion storm and come aboard the “mirror” Enterprise!

Actually there is another way that really works, but the real message here is about examining things that we take for granted during our day-to-day lives. First off, what makes a pair of scissors “handed” in the first place? It’s more than just a molded handle that fits comfortably into a right hand or a left hand. It has to do with the topology of the shears so that they are held together during closing.

Consider how your right hand closes when you cut with a pair of scissors. The handles apply force across a revolute joint which acts as the fulcrum for two levers. But there is more going on than just a simple up and down movement, and this is the key to “handedness.” Your hand is applying a torque or slight twisting force across the fulcrum which helps keep the shears held together. Where does this torque come from? It’s part of the movement your hand makes as you close the scissors.

A pair of scissors is held between the thumb and the fingers when cutting. When the scissors are fully closed the thumb is on the outside of the fingers. Thus the hand is essentially forming a fist, the most fundamental motion of a hand with an opposed thumb.

Imagine a small rod held between the inside of the thumb and the outside of the fingers as you make a fist with your right hand. Which way would it rotate? With a little bit of visualization you can see it would rotate clockwise, as seen from above.

Conversely, the same rod held in the same position of a left hand would rotate anticlockwise, as seen from above.

Now we get to the secret. Notice I qualified the assertion about the rotations with “as seen from above?” That’s because if we see a rotation from the other end, or from below, it is seen to rotate in the opposite direction. Besides the shape of the handles, a right handed scissors is designed for a clockwise torque and a left handed scissors is designed for a counterclockwise torque, as seen from above.

Instead of beaming into the mirror universe of Star Trek, we can “see from below” by turning the shears around! When right handed scissors are held normally in a right hand, the applied torque is clockwise as seen from the revolute joint. When held with the blades facing backwards in the right hand the torque is applied counterclockwise as seen from the revolute joint. The best way to understand these issues is to simply hold a pair of scissors in your hand and feel for yourself the forces involved. Holding a pair of shears backwards is totally goofy for practical purposes, but the goal here is to illustrate what’s really going on.

Daniel Loxton’s Evolution

Matt — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:12:53 +0000

I purchased several books while I was at TAM 9 in Las Vegas, one of which was Daniel Loxton’s recent book Evolution. Ostensibly written for kids, it’s a winner both for its accessible scientific content and its artistic merit. I finished reading the book thinking how much anguish I could have avoided if I were exposed to a book like this when I was about 15!

The scientific concepts are explained simply and fundamentally. On page 17 the process of natural selection is broken down into just three simple steps. Because the fundamental principals are so powerful and encompassing the explanatory power is enormous. Loxton uses straight exposition as well as question and answer to explain the phenomena that result from the simple principles of natural selection. Much to the book’s credit, a number of these questions directly address classic creationist arguments against evolution. Loxton devotes two pages to the question “how could evolution produce something as complicated as my eyes?” I found this particularly moving, as I had been exposed to creationist literature as a child that raised this same point. Oh, to have had this book as a youth! Not content to simply give an abstract rebuttal, Loxton provides two examples of creatures that have functional “eyes” with lower structural complexity than human eyes. One is the chambered nautilus, which I was not familiar with even as scientifically literate adult.

I had the benefit of speaking to Daniel at the meeting after I had read his book. Indeed, he told me that he often writes for kids in such a way as to provide resources that he wished he had as a youth. I suspect that many young people who read this book will have been exposed to creationist concepts, so it’s entirely appropriate that the perennial arguments are addressed.

This book is also an artistic triumph. There are multiple forms of illustration, including landscape photography, conventional illustration, digital illustration, and photographed sculptures. Clearly an illustrated book on evolution should include depictions of extinct species, often extinct for millions of years. In most cases Loxton created a digital illustration and composited it into a photographed background. This techniques has multiple risks, all of which Loxton has overcome. First off, the animals must be believable, both in gross morphology and surface texture. On both counts the illustrations work. The fine skin detail on the stubby-legged creatures on page 31 is stunning. Even the convoluted textures on the foreground plants are outstanding. I spoke to Daniel about this specific issue and indeed he devoted a great deal of effort into producing believable textures.

Most of the digitally created animals are composited into landscape photographs. Artistically this runs the risk of looking like a typical Hollywood CGI action movie. To look realistic, a composited scene must have a single focal plane, as that matches how the human eye works. All too often in shoddy CGI images both the foreground image and the background plane are in perfect focus. Thankfully Loxton chose to have his foreground animals in focus and his backgrounds correctly out of focus. His composited images also exhibit correct aerial perspective with regards to luminosity and detail.

The conventional illustrations are obviously quicker studies. Loxton has a unique drawing style in which his lines are particularly bold. Despite this his illustrations are able to convey a surprising depth of subtlety, as in his illustration of a woman on page 44. Though it’s a small drawing, there is a hint of epicanthic folds in eyes of the figure. At points, though, the luck runs out, as on page 15 where the outlines of a boy’s hands are so thick it’s slightly distracting.

Not content with a two dimensional triumph, Loxton exhibits his skill as a sculptor on page 32. A hominid’s head is shown with strong lateral lighting. Loxton used a Crayola sculpting compound for a resounding success. There is some digital post processing occurring in this image, and if I recall correctly the eyes were digitally composited in. Once again, Loxton’s attention to surface detail is seen in the bust, as well as his own self confidence in his creation to allow it to be seen in a strongly lit close up.

All in all, this book is a winner. It explains a powerful scientific theory in elegantly simple ways. It touches on creationist arguments without being contentious. The illustrations are superbly integrated with the text, and are an artistic triumph. This book needs to be in every school library.

Update: Some time after this review was written, Loxton’s book generated some controversy but went on to win a literary award.

Thoughts on Thixotropy

Matt — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:40:51 +0000

I think I first encountered the term “thixotrope” in conjunction with epoxy and the additives you can mix it with. I remember reading about fumed silica, and was amazed that such a product could be created and sold commercially that was so small in particle size. I’ve worked with fumed silica, and indeed it is an amazing substance.

I suspect that other people might conceptualize the property of thixotropy much like I did, and imagine that it’s a property of a material. But if you look at the definition of thixotropy, at least that given by Wikipedia, you notice that it’s a property of “certain gels or fluids.” What got me thinking about this is that a material can become more or less thixotropic depending on its physical state.

I remember sitting at a Mexican restaurant in LA with some of my cousins back in the summer of 1984 and one of my cousins was pouring a carafe of frozen margarita mixture into a glass. He tipped the carafe higher and higher, but the icy mixture still wouldn’t flow. All of a sudden the mixture started flowing catastrophically, at least as far as the glass and table was concerned… One of my other cousins remarked something to the effect that “he wondered if that was going to happen.”

If I understand the concept of thixotropy correctly, then I believe that water is a sort of “auto-thixotrope” in that it’s a material that can become thixotropic depending on its physical state. A fine grained ice slush, like that in a Slurpee or a margarita, exhibits thixotropy. Neither ice nor water by itself is thixotropic, yet a mixture of the two is.

Perhaps I should qualify the last concept, as when I think about it, I suppose that a block of ice would behave differently physically than the same mass of ice broken up into cubes. Perhaps snow is thixotropic, as I think an avalanche might qualify as an example. So now I have to wonder if particle size, particle shape and temperature are factors as well. With water, or more accurately snow or ice, you have further complications conceptualizing this, as you have the molecular lattice structure on the microscopic scale, as well as the “particle” size and shape on the macroscopic scale. The drink in your hand behaves differently as a material depending on the size and shape of the ice “particles” inside. A Slurppe pours differently than Kool-Aid with ice cubes.

So it makes more sense to me how the definition of “thixotrope” is constructed broadly, to encompass “certain gels or fluids” and not strictly as a property of a material. There is a lot more going on than one simple physical property.

I remember a physics class in college where I was introduced to the fact that there was an entire branch of materials science known as “rheology.” At the time I was amazed that an entire branch of science could be devoted to such an esoteric thing as fluid flow. Now it makes more sense, as I can begin see how complex it really is!

Laser Pointer Switch Modification

Matt — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:02:54 +0000

Most consumer grade laser pointers come with a momentary switch. Some people might want to have a conventional on/off switch instead, say for photography. Here’s a quick and easy modification that requires no switch replacement or re-wiring.

Start by wrapping tape around the barrel of the pointer right next to the button switch. Build up the tape to a height of about one millimeter. Don’t wrap with a lot of tension, or you may experience the dreaded “tape creep.” Wrap two bands which will act as retainers to keep the modified switch from sliding up or down the barrel.

Find a zip tie that’s roughly the same width as the momentary switch button. The zip tie I’m using is about 5mm wide. If you use a wider zip tie, your tape retaining bands will have to be moved aside to the same width as the zip tie. Encircle the zip tie over the barrel in between the tape retaining bands. Contract the zip tie until you come near the button, positioning the zip tie locking lug over the button. As the zip tie contracts, it will form a teardrop shape, with the locking lug forming the pointed end. Carefully contract the ratchets of the zip tie until the lug almost touches the button but does not turn it on. This is the new “off” position, and should look like this:

Rotating the tie will remove the slack under the locking lug and depress the momentary switch. This is the new “on” position, and looks like this:

Cut off the excess “tail” of the zip tie, and you now have a reasonably elegant on/off switch.

I was able to use my modified laser to capture this image, which is a green glass sculpture in Seward Park here in Seattle:

Thoughts on the Moon Illusion

Matt — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:04:17 +0000

Several years ago, I was a juror on a trial in which Goeffrey Loftus was an expert witness for the defense. He testified regarding the fallible nature of eyewitness testimony. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the ex-husband of noted memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus. In an effort to discredit Loftus the prosecution asked whether Loftus had also investigated the moon illusion, which of course he had. It was an obvious appeal to the lowest common denominator intellectually, as there are always going to be those who have no idea what the moon illusion is, therefore the study of it must be “loony.”

I’ve read a number of essays regarding the moon illusion, some written prosaically and some highly technical. In all the work I’ve read on the subject, I’ve yet to come across what I believe is a rather simple possible explanation, and one whose fundamental principles were understood several hundred years ago!

At this point I need to make an admission. I have failed to do the serious bibliographic work required to get an essay like this taken seriously. I don’t have a degree in psychology or art history so some might dismiss my musings due to lack of credentials. I accept that, yet I’m convinced that my suggestion is at least plausible. Please take this essay for what it is, a suggestion, a preliminary sketch of an idea, not a rigorous argument.

For those not familiar with the moon illusion, it’s the psychological phenomenon whereby a full moon on the horizon seems unusually large; larger than when it’s high in the sky. Astronomers are quick to point out that it’s not an astronomical phenomenon, and defer to psychologists and those specialized in human optical and spatial perception.

For many people “perspective” in art means spatial perspective, i.e. how is three dimensional space depicted? But there is also “aerial perspective” which is (roughly) what effect the atmosphere has on perception of objects at a distance.

Let’s take a look at two paintings from the Renaissance, which will hopefully demonstrate what I’m talking about. The first is Giovanni Bellini’s Pieta’. Obviously the figure of Christ is the focus of the painting, but carefully examine the hillside behind Mary. It doesn’t seem quite “right,” does it? It almost feels composited, as if George Lucas had created it.

Now compare Bellini’s painting to Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks. The rocks in the far distance are far more realistic, and part of the reason why is that Da Vinci’s work was more attentive to aerial perspective than Bellini’s.

When objects are seen at great distances in our atmosphere, they are seen through large masses of air. This tends to do several things. It reduces the contrast of the object as compared with objects at close range, and it reduces detail.

A weird counter-example is how astronauts walking on the moon have reported underestimating the length to big boulders seen at a distance. Da Vinci understood this hundreds of years ago, and astronauts of the 20th century discovered it for themselves: The mass of air between one and a distant object affects one’s spatial perception of the object’s distance.

So how does this factor into the moon illusion? When the moon is at the horizon, several factors are in effect. First off one is looking through a greater mass of air than when the moon is high in the sky. Just like the distant rocks in Da Vinci’s painting, the moon has less detail than when it’s high in the sky. Because the full moon rises not long after the sun sets, the moon also has less contrast against the still-illuminated sky in which it rises.

In my opinion, these two characteristics are sufficient to trigger the brain’s natural perception that the moon is at a great distance. From there our brains naturally adjudge the object to have great absolute size, thus the perception that the moon is larger at the horizon.

In my opinion, the moon illusion is nothing more than a rather unique example of the brain’s natural reaction to aerial perspective.

A Self Test for False Memory

Matt — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:01:53 +0000

Everyone knows that people, including themselves, can be mistaken. Our egos get bruised when we are confronted with our own mistakes of memory, and we often secretly believe that our memory is better than that of others. In day to day life, being mistaken is usually no big deal, but when it comes to the criminal justice system, it becomes a vitally important subject. Just how accurate is eyewitness testimony?

Only quite recently in the history of psychology has this phenomenon been studied in a careful and scientific way. One of the most well known researchers on the subject is Elizabeth Loftus. In the course of Loftus’ research, she went as far as to introduce false memories into test subjects; fortunately the false memories were of a benign nature!

Skeptics often point to the fallibility of eyewitness testimony, as much of what constitutes “fringe science” is based on eyewitness accounts of transient phenomena.

I believe that it’s important for anyone seeking to develop their own critical thinking skills to learn about the phenomenon of false memory. While there is now a great deal of information available on the Internet and in various books and magazines, I should like to offer a simple test that anyone can do that should really drive the point home.

As an aside, I’d like to share how I discovered this. It was quite by accident. Back in the mid to late 1970’s VCRs were expensive and uncommon. Hollywood resisted distributing movies on tape for years. In many cases, the only way you could see a film more than once was either if it was shown on television, or else if it became a “cult” movie and shown at midnight in a theater.

I remember seeing the movie Tommy when it was originally released. At the time, I was really only familiar with the song Pinball Wizard, which was a big radio hit. As time went on, I became a huge fan of The Who, and bought as many of their albums as I could. Several years after its original release, Tommy was re-released as a midnight movie. I waited anxiously to see it, and would re-play certain scenes in my mind’s eye again and again. I remember being particularly taken by the hang-gliding scene during the song Sensation.

When I was watching the film the second time, the song Sensation came on, and I was shocked to realize that my memory of the scene was quite different from what was actually on the film! At the time I was quite shaken by this experience, and had no resources available to understand how or why this had happened to me. Back in the 1970’s there was no World Wide Web, and no popular literature on the subject, at least that I knew of. I don’t know if the term “false memory” was even in use back then.

As I said earlier, people often secretly believe that their memory of events is superior to that of other people. It’s easy to see when other people make mistakes of memory, but it’s much tougher to accept that one’s own memory is not infallible. But it’s my opinion that realizing one’s one infallibility is a much better learning tool than simply seeing the phenomenon in others. The trick is to do it in a relatively painless way.

Now that most of us have either a DVD player, Internet access or both, it’s easy to perform the following simple self-test. Just pick your favorite film or TV show episode, hopefully one you have watched multiple times. Pick a scene that you feel you know well. Now, write down or at least make mental notes of certain details of a technical nature. What exactly was the character wearing? What position was the camera in? Did the camera move, or was it static? Did character X move right or left during the scene? Where was character X positioned in relation to character Y? While on the bridge of the Enterprise, did Kirk’s evil duplicate in the episode “The Enemy Within” have scratches on the right or left side of his face?

When I saw the movie Tommy the second time, the mental picture I had of Tommy hang gliding differed markedly from what was actually on the film in both the distance and angle from the camera. I’ll bet your memory is good, but I’ll also bet it’s not perfect, and that’s the point. If you’re like me, you will think you know your TV or movie scene perfectly, but you will not.

Advocates of various “fringe sciences” often buttress their claims by appeals to the good moral character or high-status job of the witness. The reality is that human perception and memory is simply not a function of one’s character or job description. My hope is that my simple thought experiment should demonstrate that “if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”

The Stripper!

Matt — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:01:42 +0000

In light of the recent kerfuffle regarding airport strip searches, I was quite surprised to discover this little gem from the dark ages of 1974. Written by Paul Wahl, it appeared in the May 1974 issue of Science and Mechanics magazine, on pages 77 and 93.

Higher resolution scans of both pages can be found here and here.

Nude air travel has been proposed as probably the best way to eliminate the skyjacking menace. Concealing a weapon would be difficult and certainly uncomfortable! This idea isn’t feasible – travelers aren’t ready for it yet- but The Stripper, Tetron’s (sic) new passenger screening device (PSD) might be the next best way of discouraging air pirates.

Is this the ultimate weapon against skyjackers?

Page 93

When a passenger carrying a weapon-size metal object, ferrous or non-ferrous, walks through the Stripper’s free form arch which contains the search coils, a red light flashes and a beeper sounds off – gotcha!

Don’t let this system’s name and the naked lady in the picture fool you. The suspect’s clothing isn’t dematerialized – no, science hasn’t advanced that far as yet. The name “Stripper” is intended to suggest that this PSD is as effective as a strip search in finding concealed weapons.

Here’s how this detector works: It operates on the principle of measuring the decay time of a magnetic field. A low-value magnetic field is established by a transmitter coil. A receiver unit samples this field with a similar coil. Then the transmitter is turned off, causing the field to decay rapidly. The rate of decay is measured by the receiver and a normal value is established for the rate. When extra metal is introduced into the field, this rate of decay changes, upsets the balance of the normal value, and the receiver produces an alarm condition. Removing the metal from the field produces the same effect in the opposite direction, providing a second chance for detection.

A totally solid state device, the Tectron PSD employs computer-like logic cirsuits (sic) to control the entire sequence of operation. The weapon sensitivity adjustment can be set so that the Stripper will detect a small pocket handgun such as a .25 automatic, but will reject a bunch of keys or other metal objects of lesser mass.

This PSD is a takeoff from Tectron’s Tramp Metal Detector used extensively in ore mines and in the aggregate industry for the protection of crusher equipment.

Currently, the Stripper is under consideration by Canada’s Department of Transport. Manufacturer of this anti-skyjacking device is Tectron Engineering, Santa Ana, California.

The Chicken Gun

Matt — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:29:33 +0000

Recently my friend Jan Gregor gave me several vintage technical magazines. One article in particular caught my eye, as it had to do with a prop seen in an episode of Mythbusters. In this case the article was about the infamous “Chicken Gun.”

If you watch the Mythbusters video, the “myth” is detailed as having been an interaction between British Railways and NASA. Well, right there the myth is a priori “busted.”

This magazine article is from 1943, which pre-dates the creation of NASA by about 15 years!

Now, to be fair, I believe that Mythbusters did useful testing in trying to determine whether it matters if a frozen chicken has different terminal ballistic characteristics than a thawed chicken. But as you can see if you compare the Mythbusters video with the REAL chicken gun, it’s clear that real researchers use unplucked chicken carcasses rather than plucked carcasses. I’m sure it was easier for Mythbusters to get their hands on frozen chickens, and I’m sure using unplucked chicken carcasses would have drawn viewer complaints.

Ruffled a few feathers as it were…

My essay is not really a criticism of this particular episode of Mythbusters. But one of my longstanding issues with the TV show is that they do a uniformly poor job of prior research into the “myths” they want to test. Or if they actually do the prior research, it’s never mentioned. Real science always includes references, but with Mythbusters we have “TV science” which almost always cuts corners.

Again, to be fair, several episodes have identified quite specific instances where the “myth” or more properly the claim originated. I thought raising a sunken boat with table tennis balls was quite an elegant episode.

A higher resolution scan of the original Chicken Gun article can be seen here.

Ba-BOOM!

Matt — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:52:31 +0000

Yesterday I was talking on the telephone when I heard them; two sonic booms. The sound was loud enough to rattle the windows of my house, though not disruptive enough to change the conversation I was having about sandblasting media…

I knew they were sonic booms because I’m 47 and I used to hear them periodically when I was a child growing up in Missoula, Montana. A sonic boom has a very characteristic sound, unlike a firecracker or a gunshot, in that it’s a double noise. This is caused by the dual pressure waves emanating from the nose of the aircraft and the tail. I remember learning this as a child, because my mother allowed me to buy a book at the Missoula Mercantile entitled something like “SST” which stood, of course, for Super Sonic Transport.

At the time, there was a great debate as to whether commercial supersonic aircraft should be allowed to fly over the United States, and this book was a timely and informative source of popular information on the subject.

After I got off the phone yesterday I drove down and bought my bag of abrasives, returned home, then got on the Internet to look for news. Indeed, two fighter jets had scrambled due to a small passenger plane having violated the temporary no fly zone around Boeing Field.

The last time I was in Missoula, I spent quite a bit of time going through the microfilm morgues of both the Mansfield and the Missoula Public Libraries. I was looking for something else, but chanced across the following news story from page five of the Missoulian, dated July 13, 1985. The text within the image is essentially illegible, so here is a transcription. Please forgive me for not including the human interest story of one Karen Simons who “likes the sound caused by military planes flying at speeds of more than 2,000 mph at altitudes in excess of 80,000 feet.”

Reconnaissance aircraft pegged as noisemakers

Supersonic, high-altitude, photo-reconnaissance aircraft out of California’s Beale Air Force Base apparently are responsible for recent sonic booms that have jarred windows and shaken walls in the Missoula area.

Staff Sgt. Cliff Davis of Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls said Friday that Air Force SR-71 “Blackbird” aircraft of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing have been flying over U.S. air space on training missions and refueling exercises.

Built by Lockheed and classified as top secret, the 107-foot–long planes fly at more than 2,000 mph at altitudes in excess of 80,000 feet, said Davis, who called them “the world’s most advanced strategic reconnaissance aircraft.”

Davis, who has been handling sonic boom complaints from Missoula and neighboring towns, said Thursday that the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command in Nebraska has been helping with complaints. Friday, however he said complaints are being processed by Beale AFB.

Davis said the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration try to choose flight corridors that avoid highly populated areas. He said Beale officials have been notified of the Montana complaints and that they’re going to try to work out the problem.

What’s interesting to me about this story is that it became news because it happened in 1985. My memory is that sonic booms were more or less gone by the early 1970’s. There’s clearly a bit of unintended irony as well, because if the story is being reported in the newspaper, with a photograph of the airplane included, it really can’t be “top secret.”

What’s disturbing about the two sonic booms over Seattle yesterday is that it caused massive telephone call overloads to the 911 emergency systems in the area. First off, it’s a testament to how lame, ignorant and fearful so many people are who would call 911 for such a thing. More disturbingly, it demonstrates to terrorists or potential terrorists how easily the 911 system can be overloaded and brought to its knees. What better way to initiate an attack than to disable the fundamental emergency reporting network?

In a less dour vein, it reminds me of a simpler time, when there were separate phone numbers for police, fire and other services. When people would see a UFO, they would often call the police, which makes me to wonder what the police were supposed to do about it; arrest the UFO?