2023-#1: Weirdness in Review: 2023
The last twelve months have spawned a swarm of strange news stories. When the news is at maximum weirdness it seems to come out of the Twilight Zone and involves cryptids, aliens, UFOs, and radical shifts in our understanding of the universe. A classification for these news weirdies is their location: on Earth, in this solar system, or out in the universe somewhere. And 2023 served up weird stories for each of these…
We have previously covered strange lightning and mirages (see 2021-#1: Strange Phenomenon). But in 2023 “earthquake lights” received coverage. Earthquake lights were seen in August in Morocco before the earthquake, and they have been photographed in Peru. Earthquake lights happen before earthquakes occur but only along major fault lines. The prevailing theory is that before an earthquake the extreme pressures along a fault line releases static electricity that travels up interacting with minerals, such as crystals, resulting in the earthquake lights. They may appear in the sky or directly coming out of the ground like ghostly flames. Imagine a mad scientist planning to harness the mysterious energies of earthquake lights…
A second weird news tale was highly publicized: the diminutive alien bodies presented to the Mexican senate. One of those bodies sure looks like a neatly formed and potentially delicious tiramisu. What is not widely known about the tiramisu alien mummies is that they were previously presented to the Peruvian attorney general who studied them and did not eat them, determining exactly how they were recently constructed and what they were made out of - vegetable and animal material, so not tiramisu.
NASA recently announced a potential asteroid impact in 152 years, in September. The asteroid, Bennu, has a 1 in 2,700 chance of striking this planet with the force of twenty-two nuclear bombs, or the equivalent force of 22 billion capybaras. It was announced that the destruction would be the size of Texas, not necessarily that Texas is its target though. Since this has a low chance of happening, there is another weird news story of something much more tangible found on this planet.
This year a new life form was discovered, in the depths of the ocean in Antarctica lurks a Lovecraftian horror. The new species found looks like an alien octopus-jellyfish crossbreed named, “Promachocrinus kerguelensis.” They have 20 arms and an actual photo is below. Simply put, the aboleth, a dungeons and dragons monster, has been discovered to be real.
The second category of weird news stories is located within the solar system but off this planet. These days constant discoveries are in the news. Recently detected lightning on Venus might be caused by meteorites, a magnetic field effect, something unknown, or just might be lightning. A moon of Jupiter, Europa, was found to have carbon meaning that the oceans of this moon could have life. What has not been found in the solar system has always been in the news but covered a lot in 2023: a hidden planet. Nibiru is the name of the hidden planet some claim is in our solar system, perhaps on an opposite orbit as the Earth, blocked by the sun. Such a planet could have the same elements as the Earth, an atmosphere, water, and life. What if all these tin can flying saucers seen in the 1950’s that couldn’t survive interstellar travel are really spacecraft from a hidden planet within our own solar system, from a secret alien race that watches us.
The third category for weirdies is out in the universe beyond this solar system. It is a good time to be alive to learn about these discoveries. About a month ago it was announced that gases were detected on a planet 110 light years away that are only produced by plankton. Yes, it sure seems that in 2023 life on another planet has been found, on a water world. We can only hope that a flood of data comes in the future about this planet, named K2-18b.
Just in the last few days a major discovery was made within the Orion Nebula. 540 free floating planets were discovered, just wandering about in outer space without stars. 80 of these planets are Jupiter-sized and are gravitationally bound to each other, planetary duos. These 80 planets have been named, “Jupiter Mass Binary Objects,” or JuMBOs. It is recommended to sharpen that telescope image on these objects, after all, don’t animals travel in pairs? Didn’t the Star Wars series, Ahsoka, just include giant space-dwelling lifeforms, giant whales named Purrgil?
In 2023 the Webb telescope produced images that show galaxies and black holes existing too early in the history of the universe. The Webb telescope has seen back so far it may be starting to pick up supermassive dark matter stars at the outer fringes of the universe the size of small galaxies, yes - stars the size of galaxies. It seems to suggest that the Big Bang was not the start of the universe. Maybe the Big Bang was just a chain of supermassive dark matter stars all exploding. Maybe the universe is much older and more mysterious than we can imagine. A few supermassive dark matter stars could have survived and are at the fringes of the universe right now driving the expansion of the universe.
All this in one year! This year they even found a giant question mark in outer space. Who knows what weirdies will be found in the next year? Unfortunately the statement, “who knows what the future may bring?” is now a false statement. That’s because this year computer models predicted that in about 250 million years from now, mammals will go extinct on this planet: and that means humans. In 250 million years all of the continents will form a supercontinent, Pangaea Ultima, resulting in the temperature rising significantly. This, of course means that the reptiles will rise once more, and that the dinosaurs will eventually re-evolve and therefore ruling the Earth before us and after us…. Wow, 2023 has really delivered some weird news, what a great year!