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Speaker 1: Let's start this week's classic episode with a question. What

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Speaker 1: would you do if you woke up one day and

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Speaker 1: all your electronic devices simply didn't work. You couldn't log

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Speaker 1: onto any website, you couldn't get the lights to switch

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Speaker 1: on in your house, and of course, your phone was bricked.

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Speaker 1: This might sound like the plot of many dystopian science

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Speaker 1: fiction films, but it could one day become science fact.

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Speaker 1: You see, it turns out that the angry massive star

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Speaker 1: that feeds all life on Earth could one day become

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Speaker 1: the instrument of our own civilizations destruction. If a single

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Speaker 1: powerful enough solar flare hits the magnetosphere of Earth, the

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Speaker 1: human species could be thrown back into the Stone Age.

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Speaker 1: Join us as we explore the fact fiction and tear

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Speaker 1: refying possibility of solar flares and the end of the

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Speaker 1: world as we know it from UFOs two, Ghosts and

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Speaker 1: Government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You

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Speaker 1: can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to now. Hello, everyone, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt and I'm Ben, and that makes

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Speaker 1: this stuff they don't want you to know. And today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the magnificent nuclear powered sphere that's mostly

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Speaker 1: made up of hydrogen and helium, and it's been burning

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Speaker 1: for over four and a half billion years, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of weird to think. You know, when you think

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Speaker 1: about what a year is, I have a hard time

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Speaker 1: comprehending an entire month. Well, yeah, that is a long time.

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Speaker 1: Although it feels like January came and went already, which

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Speaker 1: is a little weird. Yeah, I feel as there were

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Speaker 1: time travelers are ripped them winkles. We've become unstuck in time.

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Speaker 1: But even if we were to travel to the very

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Speaker 1: beginning of Earth's origins, we would still be running into

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Speaker 1: that massive ball we call the sun. Uh. A little

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Speaker 1: funny fact about the Sun, well might be not funny

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Speaker 1: to some people. It is responsible for all of the

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Speaker 1: life that we know. The Sun's energy feeds the very

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Speaker 1: It's the entry level of the world's life forms, and

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Speaker 1: without it we would not be alive. So if you

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Speaker 1: want to trace the origins of your existence, uh, in

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Speaker 1: you're going by the energy, then you are going to

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Speaker 1: inevitably run into uh. The solar energy that plant forms

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Speaker 1: taken and it later filters down to you and the

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Speaker 1: things that you eat. And you can cause an atmosphere

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Speaker 1: to form so that any kind of plant life or

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Speaker 1: you know, even earlier than that. Right, and so I

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Speaker 1: know we're making the sun. Look right here, it sounds like,

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Speaker 1: you know, an online dating profile for how awesome the

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Speaker 1: sun is and how much it will take care of

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Speaker 1: it in the day. Yeah, and it's it's all nurturing

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Speaker 1: and stuff. Uh. Also, the sun has a dirty open secret,

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Speaker 1: which is that in a few billion years, uh, this

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Speaker 1: awesome stellar parent it's a pun. Sorry, somebody put in

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Speaker 1: the bad pun music. Okay, I earned it. I will

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Speaker 1: be the last one. But like one of those awesome

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Speaker 1: parents who occasionally goes on a horrific binge of mass murder,

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Speaker 1: the sun will expand and destroy the planet. That is

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Speaker 1: not supervillain hyperbole. It will literally destroy planet Earth. We've

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Speaker 1: got a while before it happens. But we also, uh,

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Speaker 1: we also have some uh some other sun shenanigans that

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Speaker 1: pose a much more clear and present danger. To steal

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Speaker 1: the title of a movie, it's correct, every once in

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Speaker 1: a while, that sun gets a little angry. Little parts

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Speaker 1: of it get angry. When when I say little, I

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Speaker 1: mean several hundred times the diameter of Earth angry. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense, though it does make sense

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Speaker 1: because it's a way to show the scale of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: A small disturbance in the force of the Sun is

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Speaker 1: uh probably going to be several times larger than the

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Speaker 1: Earth anyway. And one one thing that we need to

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Speaker 1: hit real quick or the basic facts. Right, So, how

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Speaker 1: far away is the Sun? The Sun is about eight

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Speaker 1: I think it's around eight light minutes away from the Earth.

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Speaker 1: That's terrifying. Well, yeah, it's terrifying. It's also nice because

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Speaker 1: it's warm any war, we get that fresh sunlight. We're

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Speaker 1: in the the old Goldilocks zone. Uh. Then we also

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Speaker 1: need to talk about how hot or how much energy

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Speaker 1: it produces. Let's go how hot? How hot is the

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Speaker 1: Sun at the core? So right at the core, it's uh,

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Speaker 1: it's over. It's greater than fifteen million degrees kelvin kelvin

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Speaker 1: not celsius. He's a bit of warm. And we also

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Speaker 1: know that, in addition to hydrogen and helium, the Sun

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Speaker 1: is composed of some very strong magnetic fields. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what keeps the whole system going. And sometimes

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Speaker 1: those magnetic fields get a bit disrupted, you'll have it's

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Speaker 1: tough to really paint a picture, but you have to

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Speaker 1: think about it as for me, at least, this helps

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Speaker 1: when you think about it as these electromagnetic coils that sometimes, uh,

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Speaker 1: they tighten a little bit, they get a little tangled,

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Speaker 1: and they tighten up, and that's when you'll see something

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Speaker 1: called the sun spot, where it's a little dark on

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. And if you if you

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Speaker 1: go check out the Solar Dynamics Observatory, you can get

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Speaker 1: a really good picture of what I'm talking about, um,

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Speaker 1: and those are the places that people who observed the sun. Uh, astronomers,

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Speaker 1: they really get a little nervous when you see, especially

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Speaker 1: a large sun spot or a sun spot that's kind

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Speaker 1: of in a cluster. Right. Yeah, we do know that

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Speaker 1: sun spots tend to occur more towards the equator of

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Speaker 1: the Sun, and we know that observation of sun spots

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Speaker 1: dates back pretty far. Several thousand years ago. Astronomers in

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Speaker 1: China noticed sun spots. So the twelfth century BC a

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Speaker 1: thing called the Book of Changes because all the good

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Speaker 1: book titles weren't taken by that point, so you can

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Speaker 1: still have really cool names like that. Uh, they recorded

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Speaker 1: a sun spot. They said the Sun was yellow at

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Speaker 1: its rising and a black vapor as large as a

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Speaker 1: coin was observed at its center. And then on the

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Speaker 1: other side of the world, the Aztecs UH ruling Mexico

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Speaker 1: before the Spaniards arrived, also paid attention to the Sun

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Speaker 1: and its cycles and it's sun spots. Now, sun spots

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Speaker 1: are not actual thing, and human beings have been aware

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Speaker 1: of their existence, if not there um causes for a

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Speaker 1: long time. And now that we know that the causes

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Speaker 1: come from magnetic disturbances and the Sun's force, uh, we

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Speaker 1: also have learned a couple of other things. We've learned

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Speaker 1: that they're on a cycle, right, that the Sun has

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Speaker 1: a cycle. Every eleven years or so, it hits what's

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Speaker 1: called a solar maximum, and that's when these solar flares

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Speaker 1: are much more likely to occur in clusters, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And and the reason that they're a little scary is

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Speaker 1: because they have the potential to cause some serious harm. Uh,

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Speaker 1: two planet Earth. They also have the potential to cause

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Speaker 1: harm to a lot of our electronics. Um. And I

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Speaker 1: guess that's really our communications because they, like I was saying,

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Speaker 1: they coil up, and they coil really tightly. And sometimes

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Speaker 1: they'll just release and and base nothing will happen. There

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Speaker 1: won't be any kind of craziness on the on the Sun.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes if it goes past the breaking point and

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Speaker 1: basically those coils snap back in place, you'll have a

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Speaker 1: solar flare. Solar flare will occur. Yeah, and a solar

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Speaker 1: flare is a the easy way to find it if

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Speaker 1: you're looking at it through a telescope, it would be

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Speaker 1: a sudden brightening observe over the Sun's surface or the

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Speaker 1: solar limb. And uh, this is a huge release of

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Speaker 1: energy UM. The number that I found for it was

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Speaker 1: six to six times ten to the Jewels. It's yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's crazy because it's it's not only releasing light and

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Speaker 1: releasing X rays and raise um. It also has the

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Speaker 1: potential to cause something called a coronal mass ejection or

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Speaker 1: a cm E. And that's where it gets really hairy

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Speaker 1: for the Earth, right, Yeah, because the Earth, like the Sun,

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Speaker 1: has its own magnetosphere, and this magnetosphere is also sensitive

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Speaker 1: to uh disturbances from the Sun's magnetosphere. Because again, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the scale of the Solar System, let alone the galaxy,

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Speaker 1: the Sun and the Earth are really really close, we're

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Speaker 1: pretty much bumper to bumper, and uh that's that's a

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Speaker 1: great spot, except when these kind of things happen. So

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Speaker 1: you and I did a video episode on this that

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Speaker 1: really caught both of our interests, and we did it

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Speaker 1: a while back. Right, And here's the question, This is

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Speaker 1: the question we're gonna answer in this podcast, Matt. Is

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Speaker 1: it possible that a CME could destroy Earth's selectronics? Yes,

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Speaker 1: is the answer. Okay, because the CME is essentially a

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Speaker 1: magnetic shock wave that's being sent out from from the

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Speaker 1: Sun and depending on where it's headed, if it's headed

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Speaker 1: towards the Earth, you can have some serious issues. So first,

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Speaker 1: let's think about what's floating around outside on the let's

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Speaker 1: say in space really close to Earth. We've got all

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Speaker 1: these satellites and modern civilization depends on these for a

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Speaker 1: number of things, right, a ton of things. And if

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Speaker 1: you have an electromagnetic disturbance that could say, was powerful

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Speaker 1: enough to shut down some of those electronics, which it

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Speaker 1: can be, that's not good. Right, Yeah, I would say

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Speaker 1: that's that's apocalyptic. But it's not just satellites. Uh, those

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Speaker 1: are important, and the lack of communication would be a

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Speaker 1: terrible thing. But it also has a potential to knock

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Speaker 1: out the entire energy grid, which is pretty insane when

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Speaker 1: you think about because depending on where it hits, with

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Speaker 1: the severity with which it it's it can it has

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Speaker 1: the potential to a cme to essentially fry some cables

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Speaker 1: that are going from your power plants, say, to the

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Speaker 1: rest of the grid. And if that happens, you can

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Speaker 1: have a rolling blackout, which which could be really bad

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Speaker 1: because if it if it occurs, then you can have

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Speaker 1: basically copper wire being fried throughout an entire region of

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Speaker 1: the U S. And we're just speaking about the U

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Speaker 1: S right now because that's the model that I've looked at. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that well, we also have the North American model

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Speaker 1: that can kind of incorporate parts of Canada. So so

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Speaker 1: we know that when a grid is effective, when a

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Speaker 1: power grid is affected, it's frighteningly easy to produce a

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Speaker 1: domino or a snowball effect. So because the grid supplies load, uh,

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Speaker 1: if it has too much of a load, that it's

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Speaker 1: just as bad as it not having enough power. When

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Speaker 1: one segment of this system is destroy a then this

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Speaker 1: means that other segments of the system will be hit

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Speaker 1: with things. Uh, The way that the rolling blackout occurs

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Speaker 1: is that different chains of the power system are trying

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Speaker 1: to fight an increasing number of anomalies. You know, so

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Speaker 1: we said a domino effect, right, so when you knock

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Speaker 1: out one domino, it's next to other dominoes and annox

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Speaker 1: him out sequentially. UM. I don't want to scare anybody

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Speaker 1: into thinking that the entire North American power system is

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Speaker 1: a house of cards, but I do want people to

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Speaker 1: realize that if the right solar flare or excuse me,

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Speaker 1: the right CMME hits at the right time, then we

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Speaker 1: will lose terrestrial power. And this this is where I

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Speaker 1: could get a little apocalyptic. All right, So, so well

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Speaker 1: we're talking about disrupting power. You know, it's tempting to think,

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Speaker 1: oh man, what a what a crappy inconvenience, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: have to read a book, go outside? What is that?

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Speaker 1: But what we're talking about, uh, could potentially be a

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Speaker 1: disaster that is unprecedented history. Think of all the people

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Speaker 1: right now just in your town whose lives depend on

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Speaker 1: a reliable stream of electricity. This would be people in hospitals,

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Speaker 1: This would be people who are maybe even driving a car,

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Speaker 1: which is something I wanted to ask you about. UM.

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Speaker 1: And then let's look at the satellites as well. So

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Speaker 1: we said losing communication, Yeah, that could be huge. Um.

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Speaker 1: The ability to communicate using satellite is the reason that

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Speaker 1: ships don't go off course. The ability to communicate that

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Speaker 1: way is the reason that planes are able to uh

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Speaker 1: land without killing everyone and crashing into each other. Now,

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Speaker 1: hold on, Ben, some people might be saying, and correctly,

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Speaker 1: I thought that radio played a big part in that

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Speaker 1: you are correct, and the X rays UV radiation from

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Speaker 1: a c m E will disrupt the ionosphere, making long

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Speaker 1: term or excuse me, long range radio communication also go caput.

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Speaker 1: And this isn't just something that Ben and I are

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Speaker 1: making up. We've we've actually seen the effects of a

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Speaker 1: CMME before. One of the one of the only major

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Speaker 1: times that it actually affected life on Earth was in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine UM, when a CMME caused a massive

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Speaker 1: magnetic fluctuation in the Earth's magnet magnetosphere, which then caused

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Speaker 1: a couple of things to happen, Like, I know, the

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Speaker 1: telegraph systems failed at the time, compasses wouldn't work, UM.

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Speaker 1: And you know that doesn't sound like anything too crazy.

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Speaker 1: I guess right now. But you have to think about

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Speaker 1: the load that was on the electrical systems at the time. Um,

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Speaker 1: it probably wasn't much at all, and they probably didn't

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Speaker 1: even get to see some of the major effects that

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Speaker 1: if that would have occurred this year or in a

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Speaker 1: year when we've had our grid the way it is now, right,

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Speaker 1: we just haven't seen it in a long time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a possible disaster that becomes more disastrous

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Speaker 1: with time. Now, we do know that there are ways

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Speaker 1: for things to be shielded from the effects of a SeeMe,

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Speaker 1: but we know that the vast majority things are not

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Speaker 1: because the potential of a SME of this magnitude occurring

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Speaker 1: is relatively rare. It's like winning a very terrible lottery,

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Speaker 1: worst lottery you've ever won, in the worst little and

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Speaker 1: the last that you might win. So uh, but I

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Speaker 1: just want to get back to what you're saying really fast.

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Speaker 1: That's the idea of losing communication and in a time

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Speaker 1: when you have no power. Also, Um, that is one

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Speaker 1: of the great post apocalyptic scenarios where you're cut off

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Speaker 1: from everybody else, you're confused, you're scared, and you can't

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Speaker 1: you don't have a good way to get food. You

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Speaker 1: don't have a good way to get to wherever you

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Speaker 1: need to get to, and you just feel cut off.

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Speaker 1: And that's when the human the human brain goes a

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Speaker 1: little crazy, and that's when you have the road Okay,

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Speaker 1: which we really that's the movie that I think about

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Speaker 1: when I think about the possibilities of a massive cme

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Speaker 1: um cannibalism, that's what I think about. Okay. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: kind of a Lord of the Flies situation. How long

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Speaker 1: would we have for before civilization collapse without the electronic underpinnings,

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Speaker 1: especially in the city. Yeah, well, the city is always

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Speaker 1: one of the worst places to be in a natural

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Speaker 1: disaster environment. And while while we are saying some scary stuff,

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Speaker 1: of course we did some due diligence and said that

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Speaker 1: the possibility of this occurring is relatively small so far

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Speaker 1: as we know. But here's the tricky part. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: let's compare to another natural disaster. This would essentially be

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Speaker 1: a natural disaster in terms of its effects. So we

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Speaker 1: know already that uh, people are having a great deal

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Speaker 1: of difficulty predicting the frequency or the strength of natural

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Speaker 1: disasters that are on Earth, which means there much easier

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Speaker 1: to observe. Uh, scientists still have a lot of difficulty

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Speaker 1: accurately predicting eruptions or earthquakes or hurricanes are rather the

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Speaker 1: path and effect of a hurricane. We have made great

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Speaker 1: strides in um in our search for better methods of

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Speaker 1: prediction here, but we have yet to be able to

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Speaker 1: of the time accurately predict these things. And the Sun,

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Speaker 1: as close as it may be on a cosmic scale,

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Speaker 1: is far far beyond our abilities to reach it in

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Speaker 1: you know, in a practical scale, and especially to make

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Speaker 1: any kind of predictive models. Right, Yeah, But thankfully we

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Speaker 1: do have the Solar Dynamics Observatory now, and that is

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Speaker 1: one of the best best things that to come around,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, for a long time from a technology standpoint,

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Speaker 1: because now we really do we can almost see the

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Speaker 1: entirety of the Sun at all times now and before

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Speaker 1: we head out to fiddle away our free time enjoying

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Speaker 1: all the wonderful electronic goodies before the Sun destroys them all,

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Speaker 1: before the Sun destroys us all, and before we ask

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Speaker 1: you some questions, Matt, where can people go to get

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Speaker 1: more information about this? Okay? So this is where I

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Speaker 1: go every morning when I get into work, because I'm

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Speaker 1: extremely paranoid about solar flares and there the sun's activity.

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Speaker 1: I go to space weather dot com. It's a fantastic source.

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Speaker 1: You can look at everything from You can get solar

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Speaker 1: flare alerts from them on your on your phone, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty cool. Um. You can also look at the

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Speaker 1: severity of and possibility of solar flares in the next

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Speaker 1: twenty for our period. You can also go to solar

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Speaker 1: ham dot net h A M dot net and uh,

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Speaker 1: that's a really cool place. It's got some of the

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Speaker 1: best s d O image is up to date stuff.

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Speaker 1: And again it's got a CMME prediction model, which is

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Speaker 1: really cool. Again, it's not completely accurate, but it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: look at and it makes me feel better knowing that

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Speaker 1: I check it every morning. Yeah, and one last thing,

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Speaker 1: if you want to just check out the s d

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Speaker 1: O and you can look up images from the Solar

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Speaker 1: Dynamics Observatory, go to s A d O dotr G,

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Speaker 1: s FC dot NASA dot gov. It's kind of a

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Speaker 1: long one. Hope hopefully you heard that. You may have

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Speaker 1: to rewind it, but check it out. You can just

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Speaker 1: search for s d O and NASA. Well, do the

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Speaker 1: address one more time. It's s D O dot G,

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Speaker 1: s f C dot NASA dot gov. And Hey, while

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Speaker 1: you're on a computer trying to figure out if the

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Speaker 1: sun will destroy us earlier than scheduled, why not take

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Speaker 1: advantage of the time to uh, let us know what

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Speaker 1: you think about a couple of questions. I'm gonna fire

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Speaker 1: a couple off here. Uh. First, and my favorite question here?

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Speaker 1: What would you do if you woke up one day

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Speaker 1: and none of the electronics worked? Matt? Do you have

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Speaker 1: a question? Yeah? I do. Uh. If let's say you've

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Speaker 1: got an alert on your phone that there's an imminent

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Speaker 1: coronal mass ejection that's there, it's thought to be able

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Speaker 1: to take out all of the electricity, and you only

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Speaker 1: have let's say an hour or two hours before it hits,

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Speaker 1: what do you do? What's the first thing you do?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I I don't want to give

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Speaker 1: my answer away. We'll talk about this later. Oh I'm

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Speaker 1: not giving my answer away, okay. But what I would

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Speaker 1: love to give weight is the ways that you can

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Speaker 1: contact us, Matt. You and I are online all the time,

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Speaker 1: so that people can write to us at Facebook and Twitter,

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Speaker 1: where we are conspiracy stuff. You guys were on the

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Speaker 1: internet in so many places I has and that's the

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Speaker 1: end of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts

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Speaker 1: or questions about this episode, you can get into contact

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Speaker 1: with us in a number of different ways. One of

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Speaker 1: the best is to give us a call. Our number

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Speaker 1: is one eight three three std w y t K.

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Speaker 1: If you don't want to do that, you can send

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Speaker 1: us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at

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Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you

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