Mars to Get Closer than Ever in Recorded History in 2003
Fri Nov 8, 2002, 8:50 AM ET
Mars recently emerged into the morning sky and has begun an orbital dance with Earth that will, over the next several months, lead to the best viewing opportunity since Neanderthals looked skyward.

At 5:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, 2003, Mars will be within 34,646,488 miles (55,746,199 kilometers) of Earth. This will be the closest that Mars has come to our planet in about 73,000 years, based on detailed computations by Jean Meeus of Belgium.

At the close approach, the Red Planet will be brighter than Jupiter and all the stars in the night sky, outshone only by Venus and the Moon.

Mars
Ancient Roman god of war and protector of Rome, second only to Jupiter in importance. His festivals occurred in the spring (March) and fall (October). Until the time of Augustus, Mars had only two temples in Rome. His sacred spears were kept in a sanctuary; on the outbreak of war, the consul had to shake the spears, saying "Mars vigila!" ("Mars, awake!")

Afghanistan wakes after night of intense bombings
October 7, 2001 Posted: 11:19 p.m. EDT (0319 GMT)
(CNN) -- Daylight broke over Afghanistan Monday after hours of intense bombing by U.S. and British forces overnight, the first strikes in an international campaign to flush out suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and punish those who have protected him.

WAR BEGINS: U.S. attacks 'target of opportunity'
Associated Press Writer, Thursday, March 20, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Anti-aircraft tracers flashed across the skies of Baghdad and explosions sounded in the city at dawn Thursday as President Bush launched war against Saddam Hussein.

"We cry for Baghdad," said civil servant and part-time Baghdad historian Abdel-Jabar al-Tamimi. "Tonight, we shall be awake waiting for the bombs to fall, but we will also remember that God is stronger than oppression. Wars come and go, but Baghdad will remain."

    Here is bit more interesting comet research.  It includes some dramatic images of a comet's [NEAT] close encounter with our Sun, a CME which appears to possibly effect the comet's trajectory and NASA's declaration that the comet does NOT pose a threat to Earth.  Some have equated this comet incident with Nostradamus' Century 2, Quatrain 46.  If this or any other comet or asteroid were found to be on an impact trajectory with Earth would you want to be told or would you want your Government to lie to you?

Amateur stargazer discovers doomed comet
Tuesday, 29 August, 2000, BBC
"No one expected to find all these comets when we launched Soho nearly 5 years ago," said Doug Biesecker, a solar physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Only comets that pass perilously close to the Sun catch Soho's attention.

Comet returns after 37,000 years
Wednesday, 19 February, 2003
A recently discovered comet makes its closest approach to the Sun.

Promising New Comet Called NEAT Graces Evening Sky
31 January 2003
Comet NEAT has already shown itself to be an oddball, so before projecting what NEAT might do, a little history is in order.

The I.A.U. Circular No. 8010, dated Nov. 6, 2002, stated that Steven H. Provdo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported the discovery of a new comet as part of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's NEAT program. NEAT is an autonomous celestial observatory searching for and studying asteroids and comets that roam the same region of the solar system through which Earth orbits.

Misleading so far
Another well-known comet expert, John Bortle of Stormville, New York, has also been carefully following comet NEAT.
"This object has already proven a bit of an oddball," Bortle says, adding, "its appearance and apparent development have misled many folks so far."

The first predictions indicated that the comet would dutifully brighten as it approached the Sun, possibly reaching second magnitude (the brightness of Polaris, the North Star) at perihelion. At that time however, the comet would be positioned just six degrees from the Sun in our sky and would be hopelessly drowned-out by the brilliant solar glare.

But during December, a curious thing began to happen.

Amazing Live Images: Sungrazing Comet Possibly Hit by Solar Eruption
By Robert Roy Britt, Senior Science Writer, 18 February 2003
The SOHO spacecraft is currently generating spectacular images of a recently found comet called NEAT as the icy body circles the Sun and appears to have been struck by a massive solar eruption. The chance encounter could lead to new discoveries about the interactions of comets with hot, charged particles billowing from the Sun.

NEAT is putting on what may turn out to be the most remarkable comet show ever witnessed by SOHO, which has photographed more than 500 comets rounding the Sun.

"It is far the brightest and largest comet seen," Paal Brekke, SOHO deputy project scientist, told SPACE.com

The comet, officially C/2002 V1, should be visible in SOHO's LASCO-3 camera through the pre-dawn hours Thursday.

A solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), appears to have hit the comet Monday, Brekke said. Scientists think they observed a kink propagating down the comet's ion tail.


Alleged NASA Cover-up of Menacing 'NEAT' Comet Threat is Pure Bunk, Experts Say
28 February 2003, Space.com
Internet accounts of a comet, supposedly bigger than Jupiter and possibly bearing down on Earth, have concerned citizens e-mailing astronomers and journalists worldwide asking if the end is finally nigh. True to form, the rumors also include allegations of a cover-up by NASA.

Scientists say there is absolutely no danger and call the suggestions of cover-up false and even silly.

The inaccurate portrayals on various Internet sites range from suggestions that the comet's electromagnetic field will drastically alter Earth's weather in coming days to even wilder notions that it is not a comet but instead the long-missing and hypothetical "Planet X." In some accounts the object is destined to fulfill dire Biblical prophecy.

The rumors are all based on a comet called NEAT, discovered late last year and imaged in mid-February by the SOHO spacecraft, which is operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency.

Asteroids and Secrecy: If End is Nigh, Do You Want to Know?
By Robert Roy Britt, 24 February 2003
Suppose a giant asteroid is heading toward Earth right now. Impact is certain. The consequences are expected to be globally devastating, with the human race among the casualties. The chances of doing anything about it are zero, the government decides.
 
 Would you want to know?
 
According to some articles, the U.S. Government has been advised to withhold information of a catastrophic impact, were one ever found to be imminent. The Times of London put this headline above its story: "Don't Tell Public of Doomsday Asteroid."

Atlantis

    As I believe the primary goal here may be to scare people and not kill them I'm theorizing that the comet (or another) will impact the Atlantic ocean sometime in the future.  The massive sea waves that result will threaten to wipe out the east coast of the United States as well as other Atlantic coastal countries such as England.  However I'm guessing, again from films and the bible that the sea waves will suddenly stop just before impact.  Such an event occurred in the director's cut of the film 'The Abyss'.  In the film one character attempts to explain the extraterrestrial's control of a water 'tentacle' by suggesting they have the ability to 'polymerize' water.  I wonder how many people saw this as a possible explanation for biblical miracles such as Moses parting the Red Sea and Jesus walking on water?  How about the sinking of the mythical city of Atlantis?  The second article sites research, backed by physical evidence that supports the theory that Atlantis and its culture were destroyed by multiple asteroid impacts around 1200 BCE.  It’s like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together once you’ve decided that forcing the pieces together that don’t match isn’t the right way. The evidence should be followed and not the opinions of established academics.

Update on Underwater Megalithic Structures near Western Cuba
Copyright © 2001 Linda Moulton Howe, November 19, 2001
November 19, 2001 Havana, Cuba - The story about a possible megalithic site half a mile down off the western tip of Cuba first broke this past May when a Reuters News Service reporter interviewed the deep ocean engineer who first reported unusual sidescan sonar of the discovery. Her name is Paulina Zelitsky.
...
This week I talked with both Paulina Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig and learned that in addition to the sonar images, this late summer they were able to get some light and a videotape camera down to the underwater site in a Remote Operated Vehicle known as an ROV. Over the past several months, I have had an agreement with Mr. Weinzweig in which I can discuss their progress with the site, but will only report publicly when I have permission.

"IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN SAY ON THE RECORD THIS MORNING THAT I CAN DO SOME KIND OF AN UPDATE?
For the record you can say that the Center for Marine Archaeology and Anthropology at the Cuban Academy of Sciences is currently analyzing video data which we have from the perimeter of the site from megalithic stones. They are working on inscriptions that they have detected on these stones and they are analyzing them at this time.

AND YOU MENTIONED POSSIBLY THE SAME KIND OF LOOK AS THE PERIMETER STONES AT STONEHENGE? THAT KIND OF RECTANGULAR LOOKING?
Yes, the same kind of stone that you see on Easter Island and in Stonehenge. Very large and smooth and light colored that bear no relationship to the surrounding ecology. And also there is evidence of smooth cut and fit, that is one on top of another, as if the basis of a pyramid or large building.
...

There was a huge gap in knowledge between Plato's and Solon's time and what happened in Atlantis. Because we now know that when the Bronze Age stopped suddenly around 1200 B. C., that for the next 400 years at least there was a period of profound Dark Age. There was no more writing. There was no more building of cities. The population of the world had decreased phenomenally. There was widespread burning. The entire Black Forest of Germany was incinerated. Every, not virtually, but every known archaeological site in the Near East and Asia Minor were burned. It is now understood that there was a major catastrophe of which Atlantis was only a small part that whipped around the world in a band literally from about Iceland to oh, say, the middle of North Africa. It affected North America, went right through the Pacific.

There was a symposium of archaeo-astronomers back in 1997, not New Age people at all, in England, in which they found that probably the greatest natural catastrophe human beings ever witnessed was around 1200 B. C. And that was when two or more comets, including Haley's Comet, converged in the skies over earth and showered the world with a barrage of asteroids and meteors that pushed human beings to the brink of extinction.

And Atlantis was especially hard hit because there are two Swedish physicists, Thomas Larsson and Lars Franzen, who established in 1997 that several asteroids - I'm not talking about meteorites - several asteroids! collided in the eastern Atlantic precisely in the location of Atlantis and that is why we can explain why an island the size of Atlantis which was 6,000 square miles - it was not a continent, it was a big island. And it was destroyed. If you have an island out in the middle of the water and it's hit by several nuclear blasts at once, the chances of that thing being around are slim.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ACADEMIC WORLD THEN?
"It is stood on its ear because the academic world has been demanding for the last 100 years that anybody who believed in Atlantis believes in fantasy, they don't know what they are talking about, they are very unscientific. And beyond that, they say civilization just began 5,000 years ago very slowly in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates. Well, all of that is going to have to be thrown out! We are going to be looking at something completely different now. In other words, all of the textbooks, our entire concept of where we came from is going to have to be changed."

see also, Update About Cuba Underwater Megalithic Research, July 10, 2002, by Linda Moulton Howe

    It's interesting that while the previous article contains so much supporting evidence from a variety of sources, subsequent articles from Reuters take the  skeptical approach they do (e.g. Zelitsky 'believes', "Zelitzky's hypothesis is far from conclusive") and they do not mention the same evidence or the corresponding historical accounts.  I've also included the link to NPR's "All Things Considered" coverage in Real Audio format.

Mysterious Underwater Monoliths
» from All Things Considered, Friday, May 31, 2002
NPR's Gerry Hadden reports on a discovery in the Caribbean Sea southwest of Cuba. Monoliths -- in geometrically precise shapes -- have been found on the sea floor. They're arranged in a way that suggests it could have been done by human beings. But who would have done it and how is a mystery. (4:30)

In Cuban Depths, Atlantis or Anomaly?
Images of Massive Stones 2,000 Feet Below Surface Fuel Scientific Speculation
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 10, 2002; Page A25
HAVANA -- The images appear slowly on the video screen, like ghosts from the ocean floor. The videotape, made by an unmanned submarine, shows massive stones in oddly symmetrical square and pyramid shapes in the deep-sea darkness.

Sonar images taken from a research ship 2,000 feet above are even more puzzling. They show that the smooth, white stones are laid out in a geometric pattern. The images look like fragments of a city, in a place where nothing man-made should exist, spanning nearly eight square miles of a deep-ocean plain off Cuba's western tip.

Earl has visited Cuba and described the preliminary evidence as "fantastic" and "extraordinary." But she stressed that as a "skeptical scientist," she would assume that the unusual stones were formed naturally until scientific evidence proved otherwise.

"There is so much speculation about ancient civilizations," she said. "I'm in tune with the reality and the science, not the myths or stories or fantasies."

Probe Into Cuba's Possible 'Sunken City' Advances
March 29, 2002 06:16 PM ET, By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA (Reuters) - Scientific investigators said on Friday they hope to better determine later this year if an unusual rock formation deep off Cuba's coast could be a sunken city from a previously unknown ancient civilization.

"These are extremely peculiar structures ... They have captured all our imagination," Cuban geologist Manuel Iturralde said at a conference after a week on a boat over the site.

"If I had to explain this geologically, I would have a hard time," he told reporters later, saying examination of rock samples due to be collected in a few months should shed further light on the formation off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on Cuba's western tip.

Explorers to return to ocean floor in hopes of confirming shapes are sign of lost civilization
Wed May 22, 2002 8:43 PM ET, By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - Floating aboard the Spanish trawler she chartered to explore the Cuban coast for shipwrecks, Paulina Zelitsky pores over yellowed tomes filled with sketches and tales of lost cities — just like the one she believes she has found deep off the coast of western Cuba.

"You would not think that a reasonable woman of my age would fall for an idea like this," chuckled Zelitsky, a 57-year-old offshore engineer who runs the exploration firm Advanced Digital Communications of British Columbia, Canada.

Zelitsky passionately believes the megalithic structures her crew discovered 2,310 feet (693 meters) below the ocean's surface could prove that a civilization lived thousands of years ago on an island or stretch of land joining the archipelago of Cuba with Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) away.

Evidence for Zelitzky's hypothesis is far from conclusive, and has been met with skepticism from scientists from other countries who nevertheless decline to comment publicly on the project until scientific findings have been made available. Submerged urban ruins have never been found at so great a depth.

Zelitsky shies from using the term "Atlantis," but comparisons are inevitable to the legendary sunken civilization that Plato described in his "Dialogues" around 360 B.C.

Next stop Atlantis, Cuba
by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
..."Moreover, it could well be that at long last the mystery of Atlantis, mankind’s greatest historical enigma, is about to unfold in a most spectacular fashion."

Dark like the monolith