Star Gazer – Comet Elenin and other fables

By PAUL DERRICK

With my BA, MSW, and PhD degrees in the behavioral sciences, one would think I should have greater insight into a certain perplexing human behavior, one that overlaps with my vocational field of astronomy. In the two decades I’ve been writing “Stargazer” and presenting astronomy programs, I’ve been asked numerous times about “threats” to us and our planet, mostly relating to things from outer space. And even though I do my best to allay such fears, some people continue to accept uncritically what they read on the Internet.

One of the latest is Comet Elenin which, according to various Internet stories, might not be a comet at all but rather a “rogue planet” larger than Jupiter, or maybe a brown dwarf star which has entered our solar system. And it’s going to rain all kinds of havoc on us September 26, 2011 – or is it October, or maybe November, or sometime in 2012? Depends on which crackpot you read.

Some claim it might crash into Earth. Others say even if it misses, its gravitational pull will cause devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. And if that doesn’t happen, then its powerful magnetic force will bring about changes in Earth’s tilt, and perhaps even cause a pole shift. And why aren’t we reading more about this in the mainstream media? Because there is a government conspiracy to keep it hushed lest the masses (that’s us), panic.

Wow, that’s a lot of worry about Comet Elenin which is, in fact, a small chunk of rocky ice less than three miles in diameter that will pass 21 million miles from Earth on October 16. The worry is all the more remarkable given the fact that Venus, which is close to Earth’s size, regularly passes nearly that close to us, and nothing happens – no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no pole shifts – nothing beyond giving us a beautiful “evening star” or “morning star.”

Elenin is just the most recent of such fables. Perhaps you’ve heard of Nibiru, Planet X, the aliens who crash-landed near Roswell, NM, or the 2012 Maya prophecy, to name but a few. And while I find no credible evidence to support any of these, I recognize that such stories hold a certain fascination – even for me.

As a teenager in the 1950s, I was captivated by amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein’s book, “The Search for Bridey Murphy,” about the woman who under hypnotism was “proving” the existence of reincarnation by revealing information from her supposed previous lives. And there were the countless UFO “sightings” reported in the news that always made my ears perk up.

Then in the 1970s I was attracted to Erich Von Daniken’s books, especially “Chariots of the Gods?” in which he set out to prove that many seemingly mysterious occurrences were the work of ancient astronauts thousands of years ago. But as much as I wanted to believe these things, they simply didn’t hold up to critical scrutiny.

Most of the Internet-based fantasies in recent years seem to deal with threats to us and our planet – asteroids, comets, rogue planets or whatever – on paths to destroy poor, hapless and helpless us.

That’s not to say there is no chance of a large space object impacting Earth – it’s happened many times before in Earth’s history and will certainly happen again, although probably not in our lifetime. There are efforts underway to find and track all near Earth objects (NEOs) that might pose a threat to Earth. To date none have been found that justify seriously worry. If and when any are found, it is unlikely our government, or any other, would try to keep it secret or be able to if it tried.

Even though these Internet-fostered, imagined threats can almost always be easily dispelled by scientific evidence, they still attract some folks like iron to a magnet. Many seem to want so strongly to believe them that no evidence can budge their thinking and my behavioral scientist self has trouble coming up with a satisfactory answer to “Why?”

Perhaps these stories simply entertain us, just as we’re entertained by novels, movies, and science fiction – even when we know the stories aren’t true. But that seems only a partial answer; it doesn’t explain why many people apparently really want to, and do, believe these fictions.

If they are attracted by ideas of drastic and dramatic threats to us and our planet, they need look no further than the many real threats we face, like our endless wars, or the tragic misdistribution of wealth, or our species’ role in global warming, or our overpopulating, trashing, and depleting the finite resources of our planet. These are real horror stories, so why aren’t there more Internet warnings about things that are truly threats to our well being and survival? Why does there seem to be so much denial about these dangers?

Ah! Denial. Maybe that explains the curious behavior of our gullibility to fanciful dangers. Perhaps by dreaming up and preoccupying our thoughts with imagined threats, which deep in our subconscious we know or strongly suspect aren’t real, it makes it easier to ignore those threats which, deep in our subconscious, we fear are real and which scare the living daylights out of us.

Maybe this explains our curious behavior, or maybe it doesn’t, but there’s no denying we’d be better off applying our mental energies and other resources to thinking about and dealing with real perils rather than imagined ones. That, of course, is a no-brainer, but how to make that happen – well, that’s something else again. And while my college degrees still don’t give me the satisfying answers I’d like, they helped me learn to think critically and inoculated me from the gullibility and magical thinking that afflict so many of our fellow sojourners on planet Earth.

Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Stargazer appears twice monthly. Paul’s website (www.stargazerpaul.com) contains an archive of past Stargazer columns, a schedule of his upcoming programs, star parties and classes, and other basic stargazing information. Contact him at paulderrickwaco@aol.com or 254-723-6346 or 918 N. 30th St., Waco, TX, 76707.