zeptember

I’m going to start recording stories from my Ma and classic quotes from my Dad, so I’ve added the respective Journal categories.

Tonight I was talking to Ma on the phone about the Utah mine collapse, and she started going off about how the government should be in there scanning underground to locate the miners. “They know where the miners are, don’t think They don’t! They’ve got the technology, They’ve had it for years! What, do they think we’re all stupid or something?” She went off about why the public would not be surprised if the government unleashed its technology which can see miles underground and spy on everyone, because “we already know what the government is capable of”.

Usually, within a half an hour on the phone with my Ma, one of two things happens; either she’ll put on her tinfoil hat so to speak, or she’ll start in with all the God shit.

This time, it was the tinfoil hat. When I told her that I’m sure that the government and the mining company are doing all they can with the technology available to them, she scoffed, and launched into a story about when she saw the government in action blowing up stars - she saw it with her own eyes from the backyard of the unibomber shack house I grew up in.

Her story went something like this:

It was several years ago in the summer and J [my brother's wife] was cooking dinner - this was back when your brother was working at Ford’s - and I was holding one of the babies. I took the babies outside and was pointing up at the sky, saying “look at the shiney stars! Aren’t they pretty?” And then I saw this triangle… of stars… the one on the left shot something up towards the star at the top of the triangle, and then the other star did the same thing, and then it splattered, and it lasted several minutes - the splattering and it was really bright. This was in the SouthEastern sky, looking from the backyard.

I said, “so what you’re trying to say is, the government was up in space practicing blowing up stars.”
She cackled, and said no one ever believes her. I told her millions of people looked up at the same sky at the same time she did - SOMEONE somewhere would have reported this, wouldn’t they? She laughed again and told me she’s used to no one believing her. I asked what the government was doing up there in space. She said “probably blowing up the aliens” and laughed again.

I told her I would start calling her Mulder, which of course made her laugh again (she’s seen The X-Files) ;).

Determined that SOMEONE else would have seen what my Ma had seen that night, I began getting all factual on her.

I told her that she said she was holding a baby, but she wasn’t sure which one. I surmised then that since she referenced a baby, it could have been my second nephew, because my first nephew was born in 1994 and the second nephew was born in 1998. I speculated that the toddler would have been the more demanding one around dinner time, so she was likely holding him. I then announced that the year must have been around 1999.

She also said there was a triangle of stars.

So I searched Google for “triangle stars splatter”. No luck on the first few pages. I tried “triangle stars explosion”. Not much better luck. I then tried “triangle star explosion” and lo, on the first page of the search results, I got The Sky Tonight — July 23-25,1999, which notes:

A Nova in Aquila

July 24, 1999: On July 13, a Japanese astronomer discovered a fairly bright nova in the constellation Aquila the Eagle. I say “fairly bright” because, although it is not expected to reach naked-eye visibility, it may be glimpsed by those using binoculars or a small telescope.

Aquila is well up in the southeastern evening sky by 9 o’clock, where we see it flying ever northward through the thick of the summer Milky Way, crowned by its brightest member, the bright white star Altair. This part of the Milky Way has a reputation for producing a fair number of novae (though not nearly as many as the region around the galactic center). A nova consists of a close binary star system in which one star - a white dwarf - draws off gas from another normal star. The gas accumulates in a disk around the white dwarf, and from there spirals down onto the surface itself. Within 10,000 to 100,000 years, enough gas accumulates to trigger a thermonuclear explosion - the nova outburst. When such an explosion occurs, these stars, which are normally quite faint, can increase their brightness by as much as ten magnitudes.

As of July 19, the Aquila nova had a visual magnitude of 8.8. It’s possible that it may get slightly brighter, but if it does, it won’t last long. Within a few weeks, its brightness will quickly decline to its prenova magnitude.

Sky Note:

That bright star you may have seen hanging in the eastern sky between 1:30 and 2 a.m. is actually the planet Jupiter. And just 12 degrees below and to the left is the fainter planet Saturn.

The Summer Triangle

July 25, 1999: As dusk settles tonight, look halfway up into the eastern sky and you will see three bright stars arranged in a large triangle. This star pattern, well known to experienced skywatchers, is called the Summer Triangle.

Highest in the sky around 9 p.m. is Vega, a blue-white star whose name

means “swooping eagle.” Vega is not only the brightest luminary in the

Triangle, it is also the fifth-brightest star in the sky (not counting the Sun). Vega is the brightest member of the constellation Lyra the Lyre the harp of Orpheus. You can probably just see the other five stars of the group that make a triangle at one corner of a parallelogram.

Northeast of Vega is Deneb, which is Arabic for “tail.” Since its name

means tail, it must represent the tail of something - in this case, Cygnus the Swan. Cygnus is one of the more distinctive summer constellations, though many prefer to call it the Northern Cross, a 17th-century Christianized version of the star pattern.

Lying further south and forming the apex of the Summer Triangle is bright white Altair, the leading light of Aquila the Eagle. (I mentioned this constellation in yesterday’s Skywatch installment.) In nearly all ages, Aquila has been known as a bird of prey. The Arabic name for this constellation, al-Nasr al-Tair, the Flying Vulture, is where we get the name of its brightest star.

The Summer Triangle remains visible in the evening skies until late

November, when it stands over the west-northwest horizon at sunset with Deneb marking the apex and Altair and Vega forming the base.

Sky note:

Altair and Vega are fairly nearby stars at 16 and 25 light-years,

respectively. Deneb, however, lies over 1,500 light-years away.

I was so excited to show Ma the truth of what she saw - the Summer Triangle! Alas, she refused to accept this as truth! She told me I was crushing her, ruining it for her - that she’s STILL sure it was the work of the insidious government , and that they have such super technology - THAT’S why They can still find the miners, but are ruthless and don’t care.

Uh…huh.

This is not the first time Ma has acted this way, nor is it the first time she’s jumped to such ridiculous conclusions regarding astronomy. She’s been insane for a VERY long time.

I’m slowly writing a book based upon my childhood journals. Here’s an excerpt:

9-25-84
Dear Diary,
I am sorry I haven’t written in so long. There has been nothing special. Last night though, we had a sizigy. it was at Eleven o’ clock and that’s when the moon lines up with the Earth and the Sun. A sizigy happens every 100 years or so. Some times it can cause serious damage to the Earth. Lord knows why! Anyway, I was just outside and I was studing the clouds. They were moving fast! They were moving fast this morning, too. I’ll be right back. Hi! I’m back again. Whew! It’s Pouring out there! And I have Real, raindrops to prove it!

Now, I was 13 years old. I only knew the word syzygy because my mom explained it to me. I didn’t even know how to spell it. I wrote, “A sizigy happens every 100 years or so. Some times it can cause serious damage to the Earth.”

After reading my old diary entry, I got to thinking that I should confirm whether this astronomical event really happened back in September of 1984.

I looked up the word syzygy and learned from wikipedia that “In astronomy, a syzygy is a situation where three celestial bodies are positioned along a straight line. The word is usually used in context with the Sun, Earth, and the Moon or a planet, where the latter is in conjunction or opposition. Solar and lunar eclipses occur at times of syzygy, as do transits and occultations. The term is also applied to each instance of New Moon or Full Moon when Sun and Moon are in conjunction or opposition, even though they are not precisely on one line with the Earth.

The word is often loosely used to describe interesting configurations of planets in general. For example, situations when all the planets are on the same side of the Sun, as occurred on March 10, 1982, are sometimes called ’syzygies’, although they are not necessarily found along a straight line.”

Then I found out from an astrology website (remember, the year was 1984 so my mom should not have been practicing astrology anymore if she was a Fundamentalist Christian) detailing “The Jupiter Effect”, that from 1982 – 1984 there would be a strong possibility of massive damage to the Earth due to earthquakes because of several planets lining up on one side of the sun. Further, the authors of The Jupiter Effect wrote, “this phenomenon only recurs every 179 years”.
Hence, my information from my mom that “A sizigy happens every 100 years or so.”

Next, I looked up lunar eclipses and solar eclipses, and found that there was no eclipse on the date of my diary entry.

I then found out from Astronomy Cafe that as of December 20, 1984, the planets Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury would line up on one side of the Sun, with Saturn on the other side of the sun. But that “Grand Conjunction” as they call it was still three months away as of my diary entry, AND it does not meet the definition of a syzygy, which is three celestial bodies lined up.

Then, I looked up the Phases of the Moon for 1984 and found out that September 25, 1984 was the date of the New Moon.

Finally, I googled words and terms for a bit, and found nothing special on September 24, 1984. So what were we out there looking at, then? I wish I could go back in time to provide details in my diary.

I believe that my mother was trying to understand astronomy and astrology from glossing over several materials over a period of time, and she came to the wrong conclusions. Further, she passed this off to a child as factual information, and who was I to question the info, with neat sounding terms like “syzygy”?

I also believe that my mother leaned on her alarmism and told me “sometimes it can cause serious damage to the Earth”, therefore causing me to fear (I kept checking the sky and was afraid as to why the clouds were moving so fast).

And you see something here - this is how mythology is born. It’s very interesting. This is why I studied Social Science - I get off on this - the spread of Disinformation that leads to entire belief systems and mores and cultures. It’s fascinating and terrifying. It shapes and destroys lives at the same time.

Oh yeah - and today is Ma’s birthday. She’s Leo the Lion. I sent her a basket of flowers with asters, carnations, mums and baby’s breath. She scolded me as usual for sending her any form of gift.
That’s me mum.