USS Greeneville (SSN-772), a Los Angeles-class submarine, is the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for Greeneville, Tennessee. The contract to build her was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on 14 December 1988, and her keel was laid down on 28 February 1992. She was launched on 17 September 1994, sponsored by Tipper Gore, and commissioned on 16 February 1996, with Commander Duane B. Hatch in command.

Looking over the recent history of this ship and you will see two words most of all; incident and collision. Personally I’m not sure I would want to be assigned this ship with its history of bad luck, most of which happened in the course of a year. Lets start with the most famous and by far the most deadly. February 2001 the Greeneville crashed into and sank the Japanese High School Fishing Vessel Ehime Maru. The Ehime Maru was a high school fishing training ship. The Greeneville in the process of “showing off” to some important civilians managed to come up out of the water and crash directly into the fishing vessel. The ship then sank within 10 minutes. This was a decent sized ship at 191 feet and 500 tons (photo). It was on a 74 day trip with 35 people on board, 10 of which were killed when it sank, including four high school students. The Commander didn’t get a full court martial, which I believe he should have gotten, instead he was forced to retire.

Six months later the Greeneville ran aground while entering port causing significant damages and a delay in her deployment. In this case the only cost was money and lives. Several people were removed from duty over this incident. Then five months later the Greeneville collided with the USS Ogden tearing a decent hole in the Ogden and causing several thousand gallons of fuel to spill out. Again, in this case the only cost was money.

Clearly the Greeneville has some bad luck on it but to be fair it hasn’t really sunk any ships or killed any high school students or leak gallons of fuel into the ocean since 2001. Maybe the Navy had enough and the ship finally has its act together. It amazes me that in 2001, with all our technology, we can launch a ship into space but the Navy hasn’t completely mastered bringing a submarine to the surface without, you know, crashing and sinking another ship.

USS Greeneville on Wikipedia
Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville Collision on Wikipedia

For those interested, here is the distress call made to the Coast Guard after the collision with the Ehime Maru, listen here.

A Hippogriff is a legendary creature, supposedly the offspring of a griffin and a mare.

Legendary creatures, mythical beasts and other worldly beings are always of interest to me. It’s just amazing these creatures that somebody creates an unbelievable amount of time ago and have so much history, back story and information for them to be legendary. The Hippogriff in particularly has been around since at least 1516. That is just about 500 years for this creature to still exist in the minds of many. Granted the Harry Potter books did help spread the Hippogriff legend a little further in recent years. There are a lot of information out there about the Hippogriff’s and if your interested in legendary creatures I encourage you to seek them out.

Hippogriff on Wikipedia

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for the full 72-second duration that Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again.

If you could relive any 72 seconds over again, for SETI I’m sure it would be on August 15, 1977. SETI discovered a radio signal that is said to be literally out of this world. What could this signal have been? It has never been detected again. Some say it could have been a moving alien spacecraft and explains why it wasn’t detected again. Others have said it could have been a rotating lighthouse type source set to emit one burst. Of course others have said it came from Earth or was human-made, but we will forget about those people. 

My personal thoughts on the signal is that it was from alien origin, whether from a spacecraft or a satellite, etc. That one of their signals (probably one of many) had a once in a lifetime travel in where it was sent at just the right time and just the right location to managed to be bounced all the way to our solar system. Aliens exist. Personally I have no doubt that they are out there and one of five things are taking place in which we have not seen/heard from them.

1. They are not more intelligent then humans and therefor have most likely not left their own planet and are unable to signal beyond their system. 
2. They have not yet evolved into an intelligent species and could still just be micro organisms, but still life none the less.
3. They are of the same intelligence as humans and have not managed to travel very far beyond their own planet.
4. They are in a far far distant galaxy and both them and humans are a long time away from being able to signal or travel that distance, if ever.
5. and of course that they have made contact several times and are currently apart of a huge coverup.

Granted it could just be that they scouted Earth, observed humans and thought about making contact but we scared them off. With all the fighting, wars and bad scifi movies that depict us killing aliens. Either way, they are out there (that sounds cliche) and in somebodies lifetime one of us will make contact. If Futurama is believed to be a documentary about the future (as it should be) then the future with humans and aliens will be awesome. In other words, you can’t stop the signal and we will one day hear it again.

Wow! Signal on Wikipedia

The Smiley face murder theory is a theory advanced by two retired New York City detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, that a number of young men found dead in bodies of water across several states over the last decade did not accidentally drown, as concluded by law enforcement agencies, but were victims of a serial killer or killers.

Murder theories always make for interesting reads. In this case its a more recent theory where the deaths of 40+ college males are believed to have been murdered rather then drowned as their deaths were ruled. The name comes from graffiti found near the alleged dump sites of the killers.

As with any theory there are two sides, many people including the FBI have conducted research and currently do not believe that there are serial killers at work in these cases.

Smiley Face Murder Theory on Wikipedia

In the “War of Currents” era (sometimes, “War of the Currents” or “Battle of Currents”) in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison’s promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.

AC vs DC, otherwise known as the War of Currents was a battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, with George Westinghouse. This was no simple battle as indicted by Edison’s smear campaign full of disinformation about alternating current including killing of cats, dogs, cattle and horses. Edison didn’t exactly play fair, which led to the first electric chair being used in New York to show that AC was deadlier then DC. 

Needless to say Edison’s campaign of misinformation and death was unsuccessful and a turning point in the battle came in 1890 when proposals came to harness the power of Niagara Falls. This was awarded to Westinghouse’s company using Tesla’s AC system. This provide to be the fatel blow to Edison and DC as alternating current began replacing direct current for power generation. In his later life he admitted his regret in not listening to Tesla and utilized alternating current in favor of his direct current.

War of Currents on Wikipedia

The Pintupi Nine is a group of nine Pintupi people who lived a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life in Australia’s Gibson Desert until 1984, when they made contact with their relatives near Kiwirrkurra. They are sometimes also referred to as “the lost tribe”.

I have always loved reading about tribes and groups who haven’t/didn’t have outside contact with the world. Although there have been many, some of which I’ll feature later in the year, the Pintupi Nine are fascinating because they were pretty much left behind by the rest of their people and remained uncontacted by the outside world until 1984.

A group of four brothers, three sisters and two mothers roamed between waterholes with spears and boomerangs. They were finally encountered by man from a nearby community. It was discovered that they were relatives who were left behind 20 years before. A short time after one brother returned to the desert while the rest remain in Kiwirrkura.

Pintupi Nine on Wikipedia

Hannelore Schmatz (February 16, 1940-October 2, 1979) was a West German mountain climber. She died of exhaustion on October 2, 1979 as she was returning from successfully summiting Mount Everest via the southern route, the first woman and first German citizen to die on the upper slopes of “Chomolungma.”

Mount Everest has claimed more then 200 people including its first woman in 1979. Mrs. Schmatz successfully climbed to the top of Everest and on her way down she died, only 100 meters short of reaching camp. Along with many others, her body remained on Everest for several years after. The southern route was known for the visibility of her body which remained leaning against her backpack with her eyes open. 

It was too dangerous to attempt to recover her body, even though it it could be seen by many. Rescue operations in the Death Zone are considered suicide. However, in 1984 two men attempted to recover her body and once again the Death Zone earned its name when both men fell to their deaths. Eventually high winds blew her body over the edge. 

I first read about this woman in an article about deaths on Mount Everest and what fascinated me was how there are many bodies that people pass by on a constant basis that remain on Everest. I knew many have died there but always assumed the bodies were recovered. With the number of deaths, four in 2010, so high I guess its difficult for one person to stay alive, let alone attempting to rescue somebody else.

Hannelore Schmatz on Wikipedia

Additional Resources
Abandoned Bodies on Everest
Are there dead bodies on Everest?

On October 1, 1931, at the end of a trading run and loaded with a cargo of fur, Baychimo became trapped in pack ice. The crew briefly abandoned the ship, travelling over a half-mile of ice to the town of Barrow to take shelter for two days, but then the ship broke free of the ice and the crew returned. The ship became mired again on October 8, more thoroughly this time, and on October 15 the Hudson’s Bay Company sent aircraft to retrieve 22 of the crew. 15 crew remained behind, intending to wait out the winter if necessary, and they constructed a wooden shelter some distance away.

The Baychimo is one of a few ghost ship stories that fascinate me. I first read about it a few years back and constantly await its next sighting or the wreck to be found. Despite being abandoned back in 1931 the ship has had several sightings including one 38 years later. Between 1931 and 1939 the ship was spotted on numerous occasions but was never captured. The last sighting was in 1969 when it was spotted frozen in an ice pack. 

In 2006 Alaska started a project to locate the ship but so far has not been able to find the ship or its wreckage. The fact that the ship was abandoned and yet continued afloat for at least 38 years is just amazing. I can’t imagine how a ship stays out to sea for that long without sinking or running aground. Was the ship really without crew for all those years or did others take over it? Is it still roaming the open seas or did the ocean finally take what had been taunting it for all those years? To be honest, I hope they never find the wreckage, if it did sink, as the Baychimo makes for an awesome ghost ship mystery.

Another read which has much more information including details on the additional sightings after the ship was abandoned can be found in Baychimo: Arctic Ghost Ship by Anthony Dalton.

Baychimo on Wikipedia

The Memorial Wall is located in the Original Headquarters Building lobby on the north wall. There are 102 stars carved into the white Vermont marble wall, each one representing an employee who died in the line of service. Paramilitary officers of the CIA’s Special Activities Division comprise the majority of those memorialized.

The CIA Memorial Wall is located at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The wall was created July 1974 for agents who died in Southeast Asia and grew to encompass any agent that qualifies upon their death.

Along with the wall is the Book of Honor which includes the year of death and the agents name, when possible. As of 2010 there are 102 stars on the wall including 40 without names. Those agents identities are kept secret even after death. Some dating back over 50 years since their death and all that marks their service to the CIA is a year and a gold star in the book. Most likely those agents will forever remain nameless, along with how they died.

CIA Memorial Wall on Wikipedia

The mediocrity principle is the notion in philosophy of science that there is nothing special about humans or the Earth. It is a Copernican principle, used either as a heuristic about Earth’s position or as a philosophical statement about the place of humanity.

I couldn’t think of a more perfect article to read to start the new year off right. The Mediocrity Principle basically says that we, Earth and Humans, are not unique and that it should not be uncommon to find other advanced civilizations in the Universe. This is also the primary principle used by SETI, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

The principle, if you accept it, basically means you are an ordinary human on an ordinary planet in an ordinary galaxy in one massive universe. If true, it means there should be countless other galaxies with planets like Earth and advanced “people” like humans. I guess the easy part is coming up with a theory, now lets find these other civilizations that are out there somewhere.

Mediocrity Principle at Wikipedia