Birds Falling, Letter Bombs, Dead Fish, and Magnetic Pole Shifts ..OH MY!

This week has been a strange one.  Dead birds falling from the sky in cities across the globe, dead fish by the millions turning up, and letter bombs in Annapolis.  What's next?  My friend David P. called me and said, "girl, what the hell is going on this week, everyone is in a weird mood!?"  I had to agree.  I have felt on edge for most of the week.  I know that a large part of it is probably from my return to work but it just seems like there is something in the air that is majorly amiss. As my father always used to say, it must be a full moon because all the nuts are out in full force!

Of course all of the religious crazies are starting on the whole end of the world thing.  Dead birds and fish must mean that the second coming is around the corner, right?  God knows that there couldn't just be a rational, scientific explanation about all of this! It has to be blown out of proportion and hyped up for news ratings.  I feel the world gearing up for another Y2K bout of paranoia.  Remember that?  People were hoarding water and generators because the the world as we knew it was supposed to stop in the year 2000.  I remember my boss back then was preparing a bunker with water and enough food to last for weeks.  The whole thing was just crazy.  What happened?  NOTHING. 

  Actually, one interesting theory that I read about all this dead bird business made a little sense. I also remember studying this in my oceanography class at the University of Pittsburgh.   It is a confirmed fact that the earths magnetic poles reverse every so often.  This has been confirmed by taking samples of lava flow from the ocean floor.  Lava contains a high iron content because it has oozed up from the earths core which is made of molten iron.  As you may, or may not know, iron is magnetic.  When you rub an iron bar on a magnet the iron becomes magnetized and the particles align themselves in a particular way like little compass needles pointing to magnetic north and south.  Samples of lava flow indicate that the earths magnetic poles switch on a regular basis every several thousand years and this is known because of the way that the iron particles in the core samples changed direction in different sections of the lava flow.  We are well overdue according to research. Some birds, like the common pigeon, use the earths magnetic field to orient themselves.  They have a special part of their brain that has adapted itself to do this. The theory is that if there is a shift going on that it would confuse the birds and perhaps cause them to become disoriented while flying.  A few things don't make sense though.  First of all, I don't think that fish have this type of brain function, maybe I am wrong but I have never heard of this.  Secondly, the magnetic field shift doesn't happen over night.  It takes several thousand years, so that sort of blows that theory out of the water.  My guess would be pollution or water temperature stress for the fish, and air pollution for the birds, combined with the fact that mass hysteria is being created by so much news coverage on the case in the Midwest. According to sources this type of stuff has happened in the past but was never hyped up this much in the news.  I'm sure that the conspiracy theorists and the religious nuts will all have a field day with this stuff.

As for the weird mood going around, I think that the midwinter doldrums have started to affect us all.  Its post holiday blues, cabin fever, or whatever you want to call it.  I know that I am tired of the cold and am looking forward to spring happening, when the birds start to sing in the morning, well, if they aren't all dead by then by some mysterious gas cloud, apocalypse,  or magnetic pole shift that is!   :)


To read more about magnetic pole shifts and how the earth's magnetic field works read this NASA link:


Earth's Inconsistant Magnetic Field -NASA
Bird's Use of Magnetic Field for Migration Routes
Alaska Science Forum - Salmon Use Magnetic Field to Navigate