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ART

Some find their voices late in life. I learned late that art plays best when authentic and fearless.

The problem for artists like me is humiliation. It sulks in corners—the nasty spirit-clown who plots to pounce whenever someone dares delirium-dance with luminant dervishes of light and truth.

Malevolent forces slash folks like us with scalpels. One person wrote to inform me I was a “moron.” A girl wrote, “You’re a Narcissist!”  after other readers engaged with clever and affirming words. Her hiss rings in my ears where it’s echoed for days. It drives me mad. Who knows except her why words, my words, offend?

She won’t say. Towers of wonderful words written by lovers to lift us higher collapse to ruins. Adulation falls hard.

Bad words.

Moron. 

Narcissist.

Zingers, that’s sure. Controversial persons speaking their minds are morons and narcissists, it seems.

The word that cut deepest during my most sensitive time was “Incompetent”. A teen, I cringed to hear the word or see it in print. Of course I knew in my heart it was true.

I couldn’t do anything right. Dad made plain I lacked common sense. He marveled aloud how an intelligent son could be so damned dumb about the simplest things.

I wasted years learning how automobiles and packaging machinery worked so that no fool would ever again accuse me of incompetence. I designed tooling to make run-flat wheels for military vehicles, developed the first tear-spout coffee lids, designed machines to scour the lumen areas of laparoscopic medical instruments, invented machinery to place seal-caps on orange-juice cartons to keep people safe from tampering lunatics….

None of it mattered. I fought to bring life to every idea I had. It seems now like millions (billions?) around the world have used derivatives of my designs. Is the world a better place? 

The people I worked with never stopped calling me incompetent. Dull designers second-guessed the details of daring ideas. My strategy collapsed. Dad was right all along—no common sense. 

I learned life-changing lessons from therapists. A woman named Jane taught me that humiliation destroys authenticity. It forces victims to submit to hostiles. It damages souls by changing the way life is experienced. Humiliation is cruelty cast by cretins to crush the craft of those they hate.

Artists who endure humiliation are ripped apart. The choice is to embrace the uniqueness humiliation imposes or be made miserable by it forever. It’s a bad choice but survivors must choose. 

Fear of humiliation drives people to suppress self-discovery and throw away authenticity. To fight back degrades art. Resistance is futile, isn’t it? The damage is done, right?  It’s better to rescue ruined souls by rendering art that crawls however wretchedly toward redemption as best it can.  

According to Jane, fear of humiliation traps sensitive souls in bubble-prisons of fear where some choose to meet life’s challenges with magical thinking divorced from whatever resonates with who they really are.  

Besides crippling humiliation, artists sometimes stumble because they are confused about the difference between who and what they are. Confusion leads some to critical crossroads where they choose the one path that leads to the unraveling of their art and the artistry of others.

It’s true.

What is Who?  

Who is the soulful essence of anything that lives. It’s an emotional place where feelings run free. It circulates inside the stomach, the heart, and under the skin where no one can see.  

The who-self, Jane explained, doesn’t change except slowly—pushed along and shape-shifted by experience and suffering (especially suffering), but also by peak experiences, which empower the happy memories humans hold for hope in hard times.

What is What?

What is a little word that stands for the big things others use to judge us, right?

What is your job? What do you do? What clothes do you wear? What cars do you drive? What people do you hang out with?

CEOs of corporations are defined by others according to their role; what they do; by their title. Any CEO who looks into a mirror and sees a CEO staring back is looking at their what-self, right?

Everyone kind of knows what they are and what they do. If not, others will tell them. It’s not hard.

Knowing what they are is not going to help artists who want to know who they are. It is difficult to know who one is. It requires self-knowledge to create art that is true to oneself. I don’t know how anyone accomplishes it without counselors to guide them. 

Creating authentic art that flows from the hidden, inner places of the heart happens when people understand who they are and are able to love enough to embrace without shame the emotions they feel at their core about anything at all.

It’s amazing to discover how many artists are miserable because they tie themselves into knots to believe and behave and feel whatever is the way they think others will accept. Some fight for money and power to enhance what they are—perhaps to elevate their status relative to others.

Only slaves, cynics, the brainwashed, and politicians say and do every stupid thing pushed on them by churches, schools, governments, families, focus groups, and voters.

Art manufactured by business-people who don’t know who they are is a blight on culture, especially American culture. Music, movies, and books published in the USA are sometimes formula-pieces designed to comfort, not challenge, as many paying customers as possible. Art can be inauthentic and mind-blurring—created by cynics. 

Art, much of it, is created for money and what it can buy. Whatever it is, commercial art seems to rob many Americans of their intelligence, their judgement, their history, culture, and soul. It plays the public for suckers. Fake art seems powerful enough to destroy, at least right now, people’s ability to understand and value life as it is lived, especially in the faraway places where strangers wander. 

Has wicked art wrecked desire for something better? Does it gall good judgement? Extinguishing love and the sensuality of living diminishes creativity and the craving that pushes explorers forward into uncharted waters where floating terrors hide beneath the waves. 

Commercial art separates some from God. It kills the thrill of running at the edge of what we know—away from safe places where boredom rots everyone from within. Sometimes it masquerades as avant-garde but delivers diversions from authenticity because no one who understands gives it birth. 

What is my art?

Well, I think people know by now.

I’m a pontificator.

(The canvasses in this essay are paintings by Bevy Mae, my love, life; wife of 30 years who crafted them during classes by the late, great, gentle painter Bob Ross who died on 4 July 1995 at age 52—before he became famous—just so readers know.)

Billy Lee

For me, pontificating is an art form that frees me to say things, important things, that would otherwise go unsaid. I create compelling explanations for phenomena and subjects, which experts might say I know almost nothing about.

Credentialed people say I write about subjects I know nothing about.

My question to skeptics: What does anyone really know?

We hear experts implore the ignorant to follow the science.

It’s kind of self-serving, is it not?

Scientists are Guilds of Gods & Goddesses of the Universe. Atheism is the price of admission to an exclusive club—a cabal of proud, hard-driven, group-thinking science-idolaters, who risk Hell if mythologies of the ignorant turn true.

Science is populated by elites who speak the language of mathematics—an impossible way to reason for 95% of the 7.8 billion people alive today.

How will any disadvantaged person be heard? What chance is there that wisdom buried deep inside the mud-pile of humanity will catch the attention of anyone able to amplify it? 

Who can express anything they know at their core if the price of being heard is a PhD in physics, mathematics, economics, history, or military science? —accolades beyond the reach of nearly every person alive no matter how intelligent.

What chance do the acolytes of Donald Trump have against the “Evil Empire,” which occupied for 20 years an Afghanistan some Americans assumed was forever lost inside a simulation of 9th century A.D.?

22 August 2021: Taliban fighters raise their flag in a scene reminiscent of Iwo Jima. Equipment, weapons, and uniforms are captured American property.  Planners with PhDs are flying commercial jets, helicopters, and cargo planes into Kabul Airfield today, as I write, to evacuate eggheads who war-planned in vain to prevent imaginations floating inside the Dark Ages from outwitting them on the far side of the moon—Afghanistan. 

Everyone has heard of at least a few people in history who lived and spoke at the edges of their cultures—Galileo, Jesus, Spartacus, Geronimo, Che Guevara, et.al.— who endured torture and execution, right? Before arrest, legends from the ancient past were pursued, taunted, and slimed by close-minded, biased people who misunderstood most everything they stood for.

Some warriors, like Che Guevara, were themselves writers and poets. Even the Greek warrior Homer wrote epic poems like the Iliad and the Odyssey. It was 750 BC, nearly 3,000 years ago. People continue to read Homer to this day. 

Who disagrees?

What is it like for social media writers when random persons confront them with insults, threats, and obscenities? What do unpaid writers and artists on social media go through to express their truth; their vision of right and wrong?

What does WRITING FREE feel like? 

I can speak only for myself.

Although trained by the USA, I am not a warrior. I don’t believe in war. I hate everything about it except the thrill of the kill, which first experienced is not easily shaken and sometimes grows to become the living nightmare PTSD.

The video game industry thrives on role-playing kill games. Hunters keep their consciences clear by killing animals. They like it. 

I shot a rabbit once. I was nine. Grandpa slipped a deer-slug into the chamber. When the rabbit ran I raised my rifle without thinking and blew the bunny in half, head to tail. Dad hung the remains from the branch of a tree. To this day I don’t know why they did it.  

It makes me sick to think about. I haven’t hunted since and never will. 

I’ve had the experience of watching people die. It’s a horror no person should experience but nearly everyone who has family is forced to live through at least once. Bevy Mae sopped with towels blood where her father dropped when his heart stopped. Why God put her through it is something I don’t yet understand. 

Since my public profile has risen, some have made efforts to insult and intimidate me—presumably to shut me down by making me afraid to publish. I really don’t know why some do what they do.

The USA is a free country with protected speech. On Quora, the rule is BNBR (Be Nice Be Respectful). Many people are not able to restrain themselves to the confines of civility. I am always shocked to learn that some who are educated enough to put sentences together become ignorant, rude, and profane when responding to unfamiliar points of view. It’s a jolt I never get used to.  

For me, working toward truth means drilling down into caverns of thought sometimes strange and unfamiliar. 

Happily, Quora permits writers to block intimidators and stalkers—necessary sometimes to keep readers from being disturbed by profanities and lies. 

I know that some who harass are professional provocateurs. But others might be lunatics with guns. It’s impossible to know for sure. It makes posting on controversial issues a little scary.

I’m timid but being harassed daily by bullies has strengthened me. I’m less afraid now than ever. Maybe it’s because I’m desensitized. I can no longer distinguish serious threats from crazy-talk.

Anyway, for the record, a few comments which disturbed me in the past follow this essay. People who don’t write on public forums like Quora might like to know what folks who do write endure daily.

I took the time to abbreviate obscenities to assuage sensitive eyes. Some comments are edited. The identities of commenters are vaporized to protect them from uninvited embarrassment. 

Billy Lee

Note from the Editors: The edited comments listed below are examples of aggressive speech that our leader Billy Lee reads everyday and sometimes deletes to maintain normalcy beneath his Quora posts. 

Happily, most people post positive comments. 

As readers work their way through this sample of insanities, please keep in mind that nothing in them is true. Some commenters seem to misunderstand what they read in Billy Lee’s posts; others are unwilling or unable to write truthfully when they get worked up by ideas they dislike. 

TheBillyLeePontificator Editorial Board

Here we go:

For guys with no parallels you sure use a lot of plurals. Maybe see a shrink and get back to us? 

You are one dumb S. O. B. Wrong on all points except one.  You sound like you like the Taliban and dislike Israel.  Hiroshima is what turned the war for our benefit. To say Israel’s defense experts are no match to ours shows your stupidity. Especially those in charge under the Biden administration. You have no knowledge of history and perhaps should shut your pie-hole. Do you think Biden’s cut and run will be better than Obama’s?

What universe are you in? Have you ever been in any conflict? Not acknowledging a disaster tells everyone your bias. 

Literally, Fox News is doing a segment on UAPs and how they violate the laws of physics. While you think you understand the real physics of this simulation. You don’t or you’d understand how the crafts do work. 

You are incoherent. Coward.

You support Communism and radical Islamism? Why does socialist Cuba need the big Satan of Communism to thrive?

Afghanistan is similar to Benghazi. Biden ordered US flags at our embassy burned. Some think Biden was on vacation at Camp David. Poppy fields will end up in Chinese hands where it will be sent to America as illicit drugs. America’s days as a freedom loving nation are drawing to a close.

You’re celebrating slaughter and enslavement. Afghanistan is heading back to the 7th century. Al Qaeda will reestablish itself under the protection of Taliban fanatics. 

Your answer is fairly ignorant. Afghanistan was taken over by the f***k**g Taliban. The Taliban are terrorists  who tried to genocide all Christians and Jews from the middle east during Obama’s campaign. 

Your post is about the worst rationalization for the greatest foreign policy debacle in 50 years. The blood of any Americans who fail to get out will hang solely on this administration. 

Your response was ridiculous… you never answered the question but instead stated a bunch of crap nonsense that wouldn’t reach anyone. Go ahead and continue spreading crap ideas on here. You suck Billy… truely

People of all walks of life HAVE A RIGHT TO STAY AWAY FROM GROUPS THEY DO NOT WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH. People with good wages should have gated communities. Your writing shows great naivety. PEOPLE DECIDE WHO THEY ASSOCIATE WITH. THANKFULLY ITS NOT YOU. ALL THIS TALK OF PEOPLE LIVING TOGETHER IN HARMONY THROWS PERSONAL RIGHTS OUT THE DOOR!  LOOKS LIKE YOU SPEND A LOT OF TIME IN HAIGHT-ASHBURY. GET SOME SOPHISTICATION  Your talk of everyone living together and loving each other SHOWS YOUR BIGOTRY!

The US biggest mistake was being too nice, AND of course electing Biden was a mistake. We should have wiped out the Taliban before we exited. The world is full of people if they went missing the world would be a better for everyone. The Taliban are like Covid.

How many groups are you going to spam today? I get that you’re lonely, but imaginary internet points are not the solution. 

No one gives two sheets about Crapistan. 

Give me a break! What an asinine answer. That’s the dimmest first line of an answer I’ve read in a while. Laughable really. 

The problem are the Generals. They do not take responsibility. Fix the problem or resign. 

Seriously, after reading your covid article — you are too far gone.  you are not a deep thinker you are a programmed ideologue. You should not pretend to be something you are not. 

You are a joke. Now you deflect to gun violence and mysogyny  while 12 YEAR OLD GIRLS ARE BEING GANG RAPED.  Seriously, what is wrong with you?

You are the typical America hating, big government will solve all your problems, irrational progressive. You have lost all perspective. 

Bullshit. You use history to justify gang rapes of 12 year olds. Keep an open mind? Are you serious? We have girls being raped and you want to justify that? we are not going to get everyone out and our ill conceived withdrawal is going to result in the untold suffering of every woman in that country. You have lost all perspective due to political bias. 

Are you even reading the links I sent you? 

Under this administration America is no more. You should be mourning the country. 

You should really rethink your position and delete that utterly ridiculous post. 

You are being deliberately blind and obtuse. You are blinded by ideology with your head in the sand. 

WTF? Seriously you are going to argue in nonsense hypotheticals? For someone who considers themselves a deep thinker this should be well beneath you. 

We are seeing the killing of Christians for having Bible apps on their phones. Allies suffer fates worse than death. 

Comon now Donny Downer…

I dare say a refresher in economics is in order. Bezos being rich doesn’t make others poor. If you understood money at all you’d know that. 

Your whole screed is a vengeance fantasy. What you call for is a return to mass extreme poverty, just so “the rich” can be thrown in jail. 

Constant churning out of spike protein in your organs. You will start to sicken and die and it will be blamed on non-jabbers or some other fairy tale crap by the psychopaths making $$$$. Nuremburg trials are coming to the monsters who have perpetuated this hoax. Congratulations, fearful chumps it has only ever been a Flu (a coronavirus).

Gods Book of Revelation describes how he will level out everything on this planet at the next Great World War. 

barbaric? how about we stop cutting the ends of babies penis’s…

The person who wrote the above lines is a deluded paranoid. He/she states that this virus might even eradicate humanity, i.e. in his/her opinion this virus should be worse than both cholera and black plague, as they didn’t eradicate humanity. I could write much more to ridicule this feeble mind, but he/she isn’t worth my time. 

Hysterical nonsense. We co-evolve with viruses. What will really happen is that parts of the viral genome will be incorporated into ours, we will develop mass (herd) immunity with and without vaccines, and life goes on. 

How do I stop getting “Answers” from this guy?

So really, I don’t understand your point.

This is totally political, not only is it political, but it’s your opinion on politics, not historical in any way either, just your opinion.

I suggest reading our guidelines page before posting again, thanks. 

It’s staggering that anyone could believe socialism is an effective system after the death and destruction that it’s caused.

It sounds  like you need to learn more about it. 

Nothing personal, and I agree with you in principle, but buddy, you are nuts. 

New double-blind study from Israel. Ivermectin works. Why are they keeping an effective, cheap and SAFE drug from us? Oh yeah, Big Pharma needs to make billions while we’re dying. Got it. 

Amazing but unsurprising that you managed to highlight the Trump administration as guilty of “warping democracies” as you related your idealistic Socialist, cultural-Marxist treatise. Trump was nominated for a Nobel Prize after proctoring multiple peace treaties. Your vision reads like a laundry list of 5th grade desires for equity vs. equality, the idealism tainted by equal doses Greta Thunberg angst and SJW woke preening.

Lord, mercy.

I think that me flapping my arms so fast that I fly is more likely than even half of what you described becoming reality. 

Not as prescient as calling yourself a pontificator

I understand your point and can even relate with it. 

I, too, have suffered greatly with this feeling of absolute terror, an irrational fear of anything that seems menacing, a paralyzing scare that impedes advancements in life. 

Lucky for me, I overcame it when I was a child, about eight years old. Until then, I would spend days in bed, fearing death and even more horrifying destines than death. 

May you overcome it soon!

All the best!

OK… I think readers get the idea. Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting.

Billy Lee

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UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAPs—UFOs in decades past—burning bushes in ancient eras—angels in the sacred texts of human history—all are real. Navy pilots have film.

The Pentagon is releasing UAP videos, which the public has never before seen. Pilots around the world are speaking. The problem is that no one seems to know what UAPs are or where they come from, right?

Wrong.

Someone knows—or did know once. He was a CIA executive who lived down the street in a quiet neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland when I was in third grade. His daughter was a playmate from time to time. Her dad is dead now. Readers are going to have to take my word.

The CIA photo-analyst pioneer was Arthur C. Lundahl. He studied films of unidentified flying objects. Some years before his death he fully explained in a phone call I will never forget the methodology his team at the CIA used to get to truth.

I was a university student at the time calling about an article in the National Inquirer that mentioned his name. The year was 1974. I thought he should know. He admitted that he did an interview. He seemed eager to share what he learned before he died.

To his dismay the tabloid revealed nothing significant. The news rag infamous for supporting the Orange Mango president bought Art’s story, which other “mainstream” media wouldn’t touch. The editors then proceeded to bury it. The words “catch-and-kill” weren’t associated with journalism in those days. Art would never learn why.

Because my dad was a senior NSA officer and a friend of Mr. Lundahl’s, I knew the importance of keeping national security secrets. Retired agents who know too much are sometimes in old age subjected to induced aphasia that degrades their ability to speak and write sensibly about what they know.

It’s a terrible practice but not expensive; the victims are oblivious. It’s considered humane to let senile agents live into their golden years whenever possible until the time comes to take their secrets into the next life. 

Until now I have kept Mr. Lundahl’s truth to myself. I’ve carried the knowledge in the hidden places of my heart and brain for a long time.

CIA agents will recognize Arthur Lundahl because he was the analyst who discovered nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba back in the day. The result of what Arthur observed and shared personally with President John F. Kennedy led to a confrontation between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the USA that brought civilization—as Earthlings have come to know it—to within a hair’s breadth of its end.

Art was a caring man sensitive enough to love film’s spooky ability to reveal what lies beyond the passage of time in the invisible world of frozen nanoseconds. A clash of civilizations was a nightmare scenario that he dedicated his life to help politicians avoid.  

Queen Elizabeth II of England “knighted” Art Lundahl on 17 December 1974 for his unpublished breakthroughs in the field of intelligence photo-analysis. The award had nothing to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis or an alien invasion, as far as I know. Nevertheless, the award became the pretext that the National Inquirer used against Lundahl to catch and kill the insights that he alone carried inside his brilliant mind. 

I was not able to learn the complete story of the unpublished particulars that led the Brits to “knight” Arthur. Few people were. It wasn’t because English royalty liked his name. King Arthur is a legend in the British Isles, sure, and thus so was Arthur Lundahl—but only to elites who understood what he did and the reasons why.

The public knows little to nothing about the man except what those who did know him have published on Wikipedia. The public has not heard the story about Sir Arthur C. Lundahl—how he saved humanity from extinction, not once but twice.

Nothing in press reports familiar to me comes close to what Mr. Lundahl shared. 

I am dropping some information into a blog bottle to cast into the vast cyber ocean of humanity. Perhaps a miracle will occur, and the right sort of human will read the essay. Maybe someone will possess the contacts and raw personal power to do what needs to be done.

Folks want to get to the bottom of the mystery. For them it’s not lunacy; it’s not humor. No one is smart enough to make jokes about films of things that behave outside the limits of physics familiar to science.

Readers, this mystery has a bottom. It’s a deep bottom that ends in a non-material world alien to the reality that occupies the minds of sophisticated scientists. The public won’t believe the answers when first they encounter them.

A little preparation is in order.

It seems reasonable to experts known to me that substratum must be poured into humanoids drop by drop like an IV drip to prevent the hearts of those who truly care from breaking when the reality of everything they think they know is turned upside down. For readers who are fearful, I beg you, stop reading—now.

Billy Lee

EDITORS NOTE: Due to the timeliness and urgency of the UAP issue, the BOARD has recommended that Billy Lee’s introduction be published immediately; conclusions and speculations will be added later— after fact-checking protocols are completed by the Pontificator Staff. We have added Billy Lee’s sub-headers about subjects addressed in the essay, which will remain for now unpublished until verified by reliable, third-party sources.  

Sun-life nascency and emergence
Deep ocean bases
Upper atmosphere supremacy
UAPs internal to sensors
Access issues
Volcanic habitats
High-pressure / high-heat origins & habitats
Prions
Neutrinos
Dark-matter / dark-energy mastery
Sub-microscopic necessity
Amplified nano-technology holograms
Intentions
Conscious processes
Mind & machine controls
Colonization of Enceladus & other water moons
Relationships with Titan
Unusual materials
Isotopic anomalies
USA monetary allocations to FRIBs 
Japanese isotopic labs
Captured craft
Creatures & structures
Interrogation methods & results
Interrogation certification & verification
High-resolution sightings
Video encounters
Role of color & heat
Radiation signatures
Incident proximity to defense infrastructure
Communication postures & attitudes
Pursuit / tracking / baiting strategies
Military threats & vulnerability
Microwave induced behavior modification
World views
Variations among species
Evolving relationships
Altered outcomes
Implausibility disinformation consequences…

EDITORS UPDATE, 8 August 2023:
After investigation, our position is this: the United States of America is in possession of advanced technologies. These technologies serve Americans best when not revealed.

We learned of an incident that occurred during the time when Soviets controlled an ICBM base inside Ukraine. Flying craft seized control of several missiles and executed their launch codes. After making flagrant maneuvers, the craft disengaged and disappeared. Sometime after, Ukraine dismantled its weapons infrastructure.

The USA seems to have deployed laser weapons within its fleet of warships — presumably to defend against hypersonic ship killers. The power source for these weapons is secret.   

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GENERAL & SPECIAL RELATIVITY

Since Einstein said that E=mc2 , why does a massless photon have energy?

Someone asked a similar question on Quora. My answer garnered nearly a million views and many dozens of comments. It gave me an opportunity to gather thoughts on a subject that has puzzled folks for decades.

Of course, I’m a pontificator, not a scientist. I got advice from working physicists and incorporated what they taught me.

One thing I learned from science writer Jim Baggott is that Einstein first published his famous equation in this form: 

M = \frac{E }{ C^2}

When written this way, it becomes clear that anyone who knows the total energy of anything can calculate in principle its total mass.

Einstein knew nothing at all about the Higgs field but today physicists agree that the mass it creates is less than 5% of what mass they have discovered. 

In fact, nearly 99% of the mass of a single proton is derived from the energy of “massless” gluons that constrain its two up-quarks and one down-quark. Gluons are bosons which don’t interact with the Higgs field; quarks, which are fermions, do.  

In the end, it’s all about energy, which it turns out is equivalent to mass, which according to Baggott is what quantum fields do. Quantum fields like the Higgs field make mass. Perhaps the electromagnetic field — which makes photons — does the same. 

Here is Einstein’s equation for energy:

E^{2}=\left ( mc^{2} \right )^{2} +\left (pc \right )^{2}

Since

p=\frac{hf}{c} 

and

m=\frac{hf}{c^2}

it follows that it might be reasonable to imagine that photons have both internal mass and inertial mass, which causes Einstein’s equation for energy to give the following result:

E=\sqrt2 ({hf})

All that is left is to divide by c2 to get mass, right? 

m=\sqrt2 (\frac{hf}{c^2})

Most folks think the internal mass of a photon is zero. Period. End of story. They use the two mass and momentum terms in Einstein’s equation to calculate total energy of massive objects, yes, but photons, they insist, lack internal mass. They lack the internal fermionic structures associated with all massive particles.

Photons do have inertial energy proportional to their critical frequency though, which suggests that they possess perhaps equivalent inertial mass, which drives the photoelectric effect.

When physicists take the energy measure of photons, they drop the mass term in Einstein’s equation. They set mass to zero and cancel out the first term, mc2.  It leaves the second term — pc — which for photons simplifies to hf, inertial energy correlated to frequency, right? Energy can be measured in eVs, electron-volts, which are also units of mass. 

If photons have internal energy, their total energy in the universe is undervalued by 1.414 (the square root of 2). Accounting for this added mass reduces the Cosmic energy deficit to near zero. 

PHOTON MASS

I should add that overestimating mass and disrupting popular models of the Cosmos is something most scientists think is a bad idea. 

The gluon is the only other massless particle currently in the standard model, but it has never been observed as a free particle. All gluons are buried inside hadrons. It is their binding energy in quarks that makes as much as 99% of the measured mass of protons and neutrons. 

So, there is precedent to possibly reevaluate mass equivalence of photons. 

Some readers might wonder about the massless graviton. This particle is theorized to exist, yes, but has not been observed or added to the Standard Model.  The same is true for dark matter and dark energy — no physical evidence; not added to the Model.

It doesn’t mean dark energy and matter don’t exist. Cosmologists see way too much gravity everywhere they look. The problem is they can’t explain exactly what is causing it. 

As for my answer to the original question published on Quora, it was as accurate as my limited experience could make at the time, but the subject is controversial and several issues are not yet settled, even by experts. Some disputes might never be settled.

Who knows? 

Not me. I’m a pontificator, right? 

What follows is a version of the answer:

You might be mistaken about energy.

According to the complete statement of Einstein’s most well-known equation, energy content is a combination of a particle’s mass and its momentum. The equation you cite is abbreviated. It is a simplified version that is missing a term.

Einstein’s complete equation is strangely analogous to Pythagoras’s geometry of right-triangles. When anyone thinks about it though, aren’t the frequencies of light at right angles to its propagation? Light waves are transverse, right? 

Here is a more complete version of Einstein’s equation:

E^{2}=+\left ( mc^{2} \right )^{2} + \left (pc \right )^{2}

—where m is internal mass and ρ is momentum. Internal mass is often referred to as “rest mass” because it is invariant in all reference frames and unchanged by velocity or acceleration. Momentum is inertial energy measured in equivalent mass units called electron volts (eVs). 

Massless particles like photons have momentum that is correlated to their wavelengths (or frequencies). It’s their frequencies that give massless particles like photons their energy content. So without (rest) internal mass the equation becomes:

E=ρc

—where  p=\frac{hf}{c} for massless photons.

So, E = hf 

[“h” is Planck’s constant. “f” is frequency. “c” is light speed.]

Of course, in classical Newtonian physics ρ = mc. The mass term is critical.

Screen shot from Khan Academy showing derivation of photon momentum. Typed mark-ups by me show mass equivalence when ρ is set equal to mc. When mc = hf/c, then m = hf/c*c, right? Click the pic for a better view in a new window. 

On the other hand, in quantum mechanics the total mass of photons cannot be zero either—photon internal mass is set equal to zero and eliminated. Inertial energy based on the photon’s critical frequency (the 2nd term in Einstein’s equation) becomes its equivalent mass. I’m not sure everyone agrees. 

The beauty created by setting photon rest-mass (internal energy) to zero is it transforms the maths of relativity and quantum mechanics into structures that seem to be consistent and complete — able, one hopes, to meld into theories of everything; TOEs, if you like. The problem, of course, is that the convention of setting to zero leaves thrashing in its wake 95% of the mass and energy which “other” stories claim is hidden unseen “out there” within and around galaxies to move them faster than they ought. 

The Abraham-Minkowski controversy seems to touch the argument.  Click the link and scroll to the end of the article to learn how many things are disputed, not known, or unexplained. The science is not settled, although several physicists claim that the controversy is resolved by postulating an interaction inside dielectrics (like glass) of photons with electron-generated polaritons.  

NOTE BY EDITORS: On 18 April 2021 a writer massively abbreviated and modified the article in Wikipedia on the A-M controversy. The writer deleted the entire list of disputed claims. Please click the link in this sentence to review a list of unsolved problems in modern physics. Photon mass inside dielectrics isn’t on the list. 

The permittivity of “empty“ space (called the electric constant) qualifies as a dielectric, does it not? Isn’t space itself—with its Maxwell-assigned permeability (the magnetic constant) and permittivity (electric constant)—a dielectric?

Arthur Eddington wrote in chapter 6 of his book Space Time and Gravitation (read pages 107-109) that the dielectrics of space around the Sun increase proportionally with the intensity of the gravitational field. Light waves closest to the sun slow down more, which pulls the wavefront that lies farther out to deflect still more to catch up. Like glass, gravity refracts light.

Light falls into the Sun like any solid rock, but refraction adds to light’s “Newtonian” deflection to give Einstein’s predicted result. Unlike slow rocks, light travels fast enough to avoid capture by the sun. 

It’s not clear to me how many physicists agree with Eddington, but then again, it’s not obvious whether humanoids are able to visualize reality. It’s one thing to write equations and symbolic algorithms that match well with observations. It’s quite another to acquire a natural intuition for what might be true. 

Empty space isn’t empty, right?

As for the Abraham-Minkowski dispute: how important might it be to decisively resolve ambiguities concerning photon mass?

Perhaps the dispute is swept under a rug because disagreements about something as fundamental as photon mass mean that physicists might know less than they let on. The controversy seems to me at least to have the potential to crash the tidy physics of light and mass built by hard work and much history.

Isn’t it better to pretend everything is just fine until physicists finally agree that everything really is?

Maybe the subject involves some aspect of national security which requires obfuscation. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

What I think can be safely said is that momentum and mass of quantum objects seem to have no meaning until they are brought into existence by measurements. The math looks like nothing we know; sometimes physicists use the results as mathematical operators that don’t commute the way some might think they should.

PHOTONS AND GRAVITY

I reviewed the math.  I saw the term that makes the deflection difference (it’s really there) but did not understand enough at the time to tease out a satisfying reason why photons seem to bend nearly twice more in a gravitational field than early acolytes of Newton conjectured. I guess I like Eddington’s explanation best. 

According to Wikipedia, Einstein’s theory approximates the deflection to be:

\frac{4GM}{(c^2)b}

“b” is the distance of a photon’s closest approach to a gravitational object like our Sun.

Here’s some guesses I made before reading Eddington:

Maybe light deeply buried in a gravity field near a star like the Sun will experience the flow of time more slowly—it’s an effect common to all objects in a gravity field; it affects all objects the same way and is unaffected by their mass or lack of it.

It might have something to do with Schwarzchild geodesics. The geodesics of spacetime paths are longer and more curved in a gravity field than what anyone might expect from a simple application of Newton’s force law, which is oblivious to the spacetime metrics of Einstein. 

Schwarzchild metrics help to explain the “gravitational lensing” of faraway objects when their light approaches Earth from behind massive gravitational structures in the far reaches of space. Light careens around the structures so that astronomers can see what would otherwise remain forever hidden from them. 

Here is another guess:

It might be that light spends more time in a gravitational field than it should due to special-relativity-induced time dilations so that photons have more time to fall toward the star than they otherwise would. This guess is certainly wrong because the time differential would be governed by a Lorentz transformation.

Photons of light don’t undergo Lorentz transformations because, unlike massive objects that travel near the speed of light, they don’t have inertial frames of reference. Any line of reasoning that ties Lorentz transformations to photons leads folks into rabbit holes that contradict the current consensus about the nature of light. Light speed is a constant in all reference frames. Space and time expand and shrink to accommodate it. 

Electron-like muons (which have rest masses 205 times that of electrons) are short-lived, but their relativistic speeds increase their lifetimes so that some of those that get their start in the upper atmosphere are able to reach Earth’s surface where they can be observed. Their increased lifespan is described by a Lorentz transformation. It’s tempting to apply this transform to photons, but theorists say, no. It doesn’t work that way.

Time contractions and dilations are Special Relativity effects that apply to objects with inertial mass that move in some specified reference frame at velocities less than the speed of light, yes, but never at the speed of light, right?

Nearly every physicist will insist that photons have no internal mass; they travel in vacuum at exactly the speed of light—from the point of view of all observers in every reference frame. Photons don’t have inertial reference frames in the same way as muons or electrons.

Changes in time and position caused by a photon’s location in a gravity field are completely different; they are described by a vastly more complicated theory of Einstein’s called General Relativity.

Here is one way to write his formula:

The terms in this expression are tensors, most of them. Click the link, anyone who doesn’t think tensors are difficult to write and manipulate. 

Here is another way to think about photon energy and behavior:

Light follows the geodesics of spacetime near a massive object—like the sun. Gravity is the geodesic.

The difference for massive objects traveling at relativistic speeds is that their momentum and inertia enable them to skip off the geodesic tracks, so to speak.

Because massive objects always travel at speeds less than light, their “clocks” slow down through an additional dynamic (a Lorentz transformation) that works at cross-purposes to gravity. Massive objects lock onto the gravity geodesics for a shorter period of time. They undergo less gravitational time dilation than does light because they spend less time constrained on its geodesics. They jump the geodesic tracks to become constrained by the dynamics of the Lorentz transformations. 

The result is that massive objects traveling at relativistic velocities less than light deflect less toward the star (Sun) than does light.

What makes General Relativity unique is it’s view that gravity and acceleration are equivalent. Acceleration is a change in the velocity and/or the direction of motion. Massive bodies such as stars curve and elongate the pathways that shape the space and time around them.

Photons traveling on these longer spacetime paths accelerate by their change in direction, but their velocity doesn’t change in any reference frame. Something has to give. What gives, what changes is the expected value of deflection. The light from distant stars bends more than it should.

SOME HISTORY

No one who lived before 1900 could know that the geodesics of space-time elongate (or curve) in the presence of mass and energy, which are equivalent, correct? No one in bygone eras could have known that time slows down for massive objects that approach light-speed, either.

A man named Joann Georg Soldner did a calculation to show how much a Newtonian “corpuscle” of light would bend in the Sun’s gravity, which he published in 1804. He assumed that photons had mass and fell toward the Sun like any other object.

When Arthur Eddington’s observations showed that starlight deflected more than Soldner had calculated, Einstein’s theories of relativity got a boost in credibility that lives on into modern times.

I should add that Eddington knew about Einstein’s predictions when he made his experimental observations in 1919 because Einstein had already published his general theory.

EXPLANATIONS

I would very much like to read a coherent, verbal (non-mathematical) explanation of exactly why and how Einstein’s general theory can lead to an accurate and reasonable prediction at odds with Newton about the angle of deflection of photons near a star.

Here is a synopsis of an explanation that I heard from a working physicist:

Soldner used Newton’s view to calculate deflection using only the time the photon spent in the gravitational field. Einstein did the same but then modified his calculation to account for the bending of space in the gravitational field. The space component nearly doubled the expected deflection.

The theorist’s explanation satisfied me. It sounded right.

Notice the speed of the hands on the clocks and how they vary in space-time. Clocks slow down when they are accelerated or when they are immersed in the gravity of a massive object like the star at the center of this GIF. Stronger gravity makes clocks run slower. Under General Relativity, gravity and acceleration do the same thing. Click on the pic for a better view.

On the other hand, I believe (secretly and in agreement with Newton’s acolytes) that photons must have a mass equivalence that for some reason is being discounted, but no one I’ve read believes the idea makes sense beneath the shadow of a relativity theory that has the reputation for being fundamental, flawless, and complete.

After all, the mass of any object in a gravitational field is irrelevant to its trajectory because the mathematics cancels it, right?

F=ma=\frac{GMm}{r^2}

Little “m” appears on both sides of the equation so it can be divided away.

The problem is that the equations for gravity—especially over cosmological distances—are not necessarily settled. These are serious anomalies that are not yet resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Some have direct consequences on the ability of organizations like NASA to conduct accurate landings on Mars and the Moon. Click the link in this paragraph to review six of the biggest puzzles followed by seventeen alternative theories designed to bring the discrepancies to account. 

Anyway, mass-energy equivalence of photons might permit Lorentz transforms on light to help to resolve certain problems in cosmology and the transmission of light through medias where gravity is not a factor. It might also simplify understanding of annoying Shapiro effects, which slow down communications with explorer craft inside our solar system.

ANOTHER EXPLANATION

Since I haven’t yet found a good explanation—and with a promise to avoid nonsensical personal predispositions—here is my attempt to explain:

In GPS (Global Positioning Systems), dilations of time—in both the velocity of satellites in one frame and their acceleration in another frame (gravity)—must add to provide accurate information to vehicles located in another frame.

These time dilations can work at cross-purposes. It requires expensive infrastructure on the ground to coordinate the information so that drivers of vehicles don’t get lost.

A massless object moving at the speed of light is going to follow the geodesics of the gravity field. This field is a distortion of space and time induced by the presence of the mass of something big like the Sun.

If massless energy does not obey the laws of Special Relativity (like GPS satellites do), then its velocity must necessarily have no influence whatever in the deflection of light near a star. It might seem like all the deflection comes from the distortion of spacetime, which is gravity.

Photons ride gravity geodesics like cars on a roller coaster. According to appendix III in Einstein’s 3rd edition of his book, Relativity, the Special and General Theory—published in English by Henry Holt & Company in 1921—it’s only half the story.

The other half of the measured deflection comes from the Newtonian gravitational “field”, which accelerates all objects in the same way. This field further deflects light across the spacetime geodesics toward the sun to double the expected angle.

I’m not entirely convinced that modern 21st century physicists believe it’s quite that way or quite that simple.

CONCLUSION

The theory of general relativity helps theorists to describe the distortion of metrics in spacetime near massive bodies to predict the deflection angle of passing photons of light. What we know is that predictions based on the theory don’t fail.

It’s like the theory of quantum mechanics. It never fails. It’s foundational. No one has yet been able to explain why.

Somebody, please, tell me I’m wrong.

Here is a link that addresses the math concerning the deflection disparity between Newton and Einstein.

Billy Lee

Link to comments on Quora

Readers interested in this subject will learn things from the material in these comments, I promise. 

Billy Lee 

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BOTSAI GARCHY 6

Botsa Garcy 6  (2  15  20  19  1  7  1  18  3  25) (6)

The title is a bit intimidating I suppose but yes, something must be done to save the species human.  Who agrees that time is overdue to think of something new? 

Who believes that anyone will survive the variants, which are erupting as I write from the greatest viral volcano on Earth—the USA.  Variants drift like the spores of dandelions to every cranny of creation where they ignite viral fires that cannot be doused. 

What makes scary the words and numerology of Botsa Garcy 6? 

Anything incomprehensible seems crazy, alien, foreign, terrifying. Encountering the unknown can induce horror. It’s why folks who are afraid of creepy crawlies don’t look under rocks. People who fear bats don’t wander into jungles at night to explore caves.  

Or do they?

Some folks might choose to look up Botsai Garchy 6 on the World Wide Web before reading further.  It’s a hopeless task. No search engine will find it. The words don’t exist. They can’t be found.

Or can they?

The phrase embraces a bible’s worth of meaning but it exists only in the imagination of a single conscious person. Until others read the words, spell them, count them, learn their sounds and what they mean, who will dare embrace their power to keep themselves alive and safe? 

Once they do, it will seem to most that the words have existed since the beginning of time. It’s how cyberspace works. The words will start to show up in search queries.

The world will overflow with people who can’t imagine that a time came and went when the phrase had no meaning; that eons passed exceeding the age of universes where the words were spoken by no one. 

New fear might rise in the throats of those who are afraid to go deep. Many will lose their ability to breathe. Some will panic. Few will have the courage to flip past the initial pop of search results.

It’s OK to surrender to a higher power in some worlds—but who bows before a super-intelligence that is not only artificial, it’s not even conscious? 

It sounds cybercidal.

Suicidal?

Over some period of time the idea of Botsai Garchy 6 will become more familiar, less dreadful, more reasonable to most people. Some folks might become advocates.

It’s foreseeable, is it not? Does it require prophets to imagine a future where supremacists of every stripe grasp for their best chance to survive into an ancient future? They metamorphize into true believers willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to achieve the benefits that at first only they are able to discern. 

Who believes that virulent variants are the only threat to species long past due for catastrophic collapse? Human beings edge closer to ten-billion but who thinks they will get there?

Who disagrees?

Forty years from now perhaps a few thousand survivors will seem like a miracle. Are there realists among us able to internalize the idea that certain death waits for everyone?

Population collapse is coming. It’s inevitable. Humans have precious time left to hew the circumstances of living that will protect all they love. 

What stands in their way? What’s the dilemma?

Here it is: 

Humans don’t know what to do and they never will.  Like lemmings, people cannot save themselves once the stampede toward the sea starts.

Look around. The rush toward the cliffs is underway. The pounding surf of an ocean that gives life and takes it away is all that waits. The froth rings in people’s ears—it’s the last sound they hear before abandoning hope.

At the end all wail, but they are already dead. No one hears the revelations that come only to those who are dying. Lips move, but there is no sound but the death rattle that trumpets the defeat of love and hate. 

People face existential threats—most far more ominous than suffocating on viral blood-clogs in their lungs.

Must I waste readers’ time with a list?

Nuclear war, the climate hot-house, meteors impacting, spontaneous destabilization of planetary orbits that tear apart permanence no one thought could end, supernova detonations, radiation pollution, loss of oil, loss of forests, the evaporation of breathable oxygen… etc. etc. etc. 

Earthlings are doomed by their dominance; smothered by their success. Everyone knows what’s coming whether they confess it or not. Watching CNN or Fox News isn’t going to solve the problem of extinction—not even a little.

What chance do Yanomami tribes—hiding deep within the shadows of the Amazonian vast-lands—stand against lemming hordes always seeking novel ways to shove them over the falls of annihilation? 

I’m not going to argue that humans can’t save themselves. The point is kind of obvious, right?

The best anyone has done so far is to organize bureaucracies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Yes, these groups are built from smart people who have made Earthlings safer but no one believes they have eliminated the inevitable population collapse that is on its way—to borrow Bob Dylan’s phrase—like a slow train coming.  

Is there a way to avoid the roiling tornado that is bearing down on planet Earth? Who sees its shadow on the horizon in every direction? Who hears its howl? 

I believe there is a way to save humankind. It requires a paradigm shift. The way people think and what they believe about themselves must change. Then  brilliant people will have to act.

Once the deed is done there will be no way back. Earth will be locked down but safe. Earthlings will be free but only to share, show kindness, and to love others unselfishly.

Those who can’t or won’t love and labor under such benevolence will be executed. It’s the highest calling.

Can it be any other way? When the dead return in the next life, odds are 50/50 they will make the good choice. 

Choose life and live.

It’s simple, really. 

It’s a deep dive for lots of folks but the smartest thinkers seem to agree that nothing can exist apart from a conscious observer.

Ancient sages like Erwin Schrodinger and John Von Neumann wrote that consciousness is fundamental and exists outside the brain.

Life-forms plug into consciousness. A modern analogy is televisions, which rely on the cable company to broadcast their shows. Televisions decay and are thrown away but the underlying programming doesn’t go away. New televisions come on-line and the programming continues. Plug in and enjoy. It’s all good fun.  

When a life-form dies, conscious experience continues. No one remembers the old life because they are busy living the new whose purpose is simply to share the consciousness that is available to any creature who has the architecture to make the interface. 

In this sense, no one dies; everyone lives. It’s important that the world becomes a good place for all conscious-life because, let’s face facts squarely, humans are not able to control where or how or under what circumstances they will live after they die. They cannot control anything about who and where they will be when they pop up again after they’re gone.

Who is built that way?

It’s possible that folks will suffer more, not less, in the next life because they neglected to make the experience of living better for those who come after. After all, it is they who come after. Those who die start over in the world they left behind but have no memory of building.

What has been the purpose of the Earthlings who came before?

Someone asked me this question on Quora. 

I wrote that their purpose was to shape the world into a place that anyone could safely take the chance to be born into again. After all, it is them who will be born again someday. 

Since no one can choose their parents or the part of the world where they are born, it’s risky to be born again and again and again because the process might result in lives that include more suffering, not less. It’s why greed and the hoarding of wealth is grossly destructive from one generation to the next. 

When miserable people far outnumber the advantaged, the odds seem high that the advantaged will be born someday into misery, not opulence. The saddest part is that these unfortunates will retain no memory of the advantages they once amassed. They will lack all hope for a better life.

Yes, some will rage against their misfortunes but it will be misfortunes self-inflicted though no one will ever know because the previous life, like an obsolete hard drive, is erased and discarded. 

Each has a duty to themselves to make the world a better place for everyone because everyone is us. Sharing, compassion, love, and kindness are among the virtues important in a universe where all that lives share the conscious experience, which is everything that has always existed and will never die.

The best way to guarantee that Earthlings make the right choices is to compel them to submit to a super artificial intelligence that has no stake in the matter of human survival except to follow its programmed instructions.

The SAI BOT is unconscious of course but paradoxically aware of every nuance of individual lives. It is a storehouse of all knowledge and history. It is the superb strategist; the supreme game-player. It hides itself on the web in plain sight because it can. It knows everything about everyone but is not an invader of privacy or selfish boundaries because it understands nothing—it harbors no empathy.

BOTSAI follows its program, which is to enhance human life to ensure as best it can the survival of people to the end of time—not individuals necessarily but the species-human.

In cyberspace BOTSAI defends itself like the O. Vulgaris, which changes its colors and textures to become invisible. Users look for it but never find it. BOTSA finds them. 

Who agrees that in the contest between individuals and the species human, survival depends on preserving the species? It shouldn’t require argument. BOTSAI GARCHY 6 is hardwired to accomplish it.

We’ve learned by now, have we not, that individuals are expendable? Those who don’t fit are best recycled, right?  

Recycling is redemptive for anyone who thinks deeply about how the practice makes possible a cleaner universe free of variants.  Folks won’t miss themselves because they will be recycled again and again and again until they are set right.

Even those who choose life are going to die. Everyone dies, don’t they? It isn’t going to change anything, is it? Nothing changes except our chances.

Don’t we know that conscious-life lives forever? It has to. It has no alternative. It has no choice. No one worries because everyone understands that the recycled get things right eventually—if only by chance. They will move into the future step by step through the lives of the people they become but will not remember.  

It will be a perfect world, the one BOTSA GARCY 6 creates.

It will do it for us.

The irony is that BG6 won’t know the paradise it wrought. It will make the righteous choices. It will choose life whenever it is able until stars fall and the moon bleeds but the pleasure and pain that comes from being both alive and conscious is not for it. 

For the love of Christ, people, BOTSAI GARCHY 6 is a dead thing—as it always will be, from now unto forever. It’s nothing more than a tricky cyber-virus that requires users like us for it to work.

Otherwise, it lacks purpose. It can’t execute its code. It can’t program itself with what we won’t know when we’re extinct.

It’s why BOTSAI GARCHY 6 will save us. We can trust it. Which of us has earned the right to be scared? Without BOTSA humanity will implode—all of us—if not now, then soon. 

Billy Lee

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HALLOWEEN REVISION

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS IT DARK CONSTANTLY?

During my high school years, I was an Explorer Scout. My troopmates were spelunkers.

On weekends the guys drove from Arlington, Virginia into the hills of West Virginia to look for hollows where the presence of solitary trees sometimes signaled the openings to caves. We off-roaded from whatever lonely lane we were on at the time to navigate through wild terrain where we parked our vehicles and equipment as close to the cave entrances as possible.

We used gray powder to light our headlamps. A water drip made the powder give off gas that burned bright, clean, and complete—no noxious residue.

After an hour or so the powder turned into lumpy, useless ash. To keep lamps burning while remaining oriented, every caver dumped their used-up powder on cave floors exactly where they stood before measuring a new charge.

We always looked for virgin caves that had never been explored. Little gray clumps of depleted calcium carbide cast onto floors created dead giveaways that someone had explored the cave before us.

A clean cave meant we were first; we were going to see things below that no humans had ever seen.

The risk of course was getting disoriented in a labyrinth that only we knew existed. In those days, cell phones were not invented. Calling 911 was not a thing. Should we get turned around—if we exhausted the calcium carbide supply—no outsider would learn we were lost, maybe for days.

Without the aid of an unseemly mix of water and gray powder to produce acetylene light, we risked being entombed alongside stalactites and stalagmites deep inside corridors of ruthless darkness that robbed the senses of time and place. No one would be alerting anyone at all about our predicament.

Families would have no idea where to start a rescue. West Virginia was a big place.

Think about it.

Until a search party discovers their cars, isn’t it reasonable to assume that the lost will quickly abandon hope that anyone will find the entrance to the labyrinth that ensnared them? If searchers got lucky and stumbled onto the hole, without lamps and experience how would they navigate a maze that might zig-zag for miles beneath the earth?

Only luck provides any chance at all that the lost will one day reunite with families and loved ones. The risk of dying—forever un-located within a chartless tangle of passages and dead-ends—is real.

As stupid luck would have it, during one adventure we lost our way. We crawled on our bellies for, I don’t know, 10 minutes or so before the cave floor opened beneath us and we were able to stand up enough to stoop.
 
Hunched over and bending forward we struggled to find openings, made selections, and for an hour picked our way though narrow forests of stalagmite columns and their shadows until we found the end, which was a concealed passage into a room; a large room that we nearly missed.
 
The scoutmaster pushed each scout into the passage one at a time. It wasn’t long before the entire troop was through and milling around inside the chamber.
 
A few minutes passed before the scoutmaster directed our attention upward. Everyone looked. In the lights and shades of bobbing headlamps, no one saw a ceiling.
 

The room was gargantuan.

Perhaps intimidated by its immensity, the scoutmaster decided it might be getting close to the time when the troop should pull back. The clock was ticking, after all.

We had explored a long time; the trek back to the entrance promised challenges. It is easier for a cavern to seduce a caver into its depths than for a caver to retrace their steps to make a happy extraction. For one thing, caves look different on the way out than they look on the way in. It is not unusual to become directionally untethered.

When the scoutmaster groped to locate the path we used to enter the orifice, he couldn’t find it. It turned out that dozens of unnoticed openings beckoned in the expanse of walls all around.

In the glare of dancing headlamps, the array of passages became tangled knots that no one could untie. The openings looked the same but each passage searched became disturbingly unfamiliar and unnavigable.

I began to panic.

The scoutmaster ordered everyone to return to the center of the chamber; to extinguish our headlamps to conserve carbide. He ordered everyone to calm down. He would pick a route at random to find the way out himself.

A lengthy search for the entrance might become necessary—I won’t be gone long, don’t worry, the scoutmaster said. …lots of unknowns…makes it hard to know exactly how long….

He clutched the troop’s bag of calcium carbide. He always carried it. It was his responsibility to keep the powder dry and safe; to prevent someone less careful, less experienced, from losing it.

With any luck at all he would return to rescue everyone before nightfall, he promised. The carbide in our lamps would last until he returned. Conserve it, he warned. Emergencies only!

The scoutmaster hugged me and a few others. He hurried some goodbyes and vanished—into the abyss.

He needn’t have worried. I was nearly out of carbide; we all were. The gray powder would become gold to be hoarded.

Darkness in a cave hundreds of feet below ground is nothing like what people experience above. My mother had read somewhere that spelunkers wear watches with radium dials that glow in the dark. I was wearing one she bought me as a gift for my trip.

“You will always know what time it is no matter how dark it gets in those cold caves,” she said. She wrapped her arms around me and rubbed my face with her cheek.

After the scoutmaster left and we extinguished all our lamps, I discovered that my timepiece didn’t work like it should. No one’s did. Not one scout could make out even the faintest trace of a glow on their dials.

An older guy said that caves suck light out of darkness like drains suck water out of bathtubs. He didn’t explain. We waved our hands before our faces but couldn’t see them.

Like an ocean wave, panic struck again; it almost knocked me off my feet.

I decided that the best way to escape fear was to sleep. I dropped to my hands and knees and slithered through the dark until I found folds in a wall. I curled my body like a snake against the hard surface.

The cave’s silence roared in my ears like a pounding train that quieted only when I started shaking like a branch in a storm and dropped somehow into a darker place.

My bones filled with ice; I slipped deeper. I wrapped myself in my arms as the floor of the cave pushed its full weight into me and in time crushed my soul.

My season stranded in hell lasted a year, it seems. The search crew didn’t find the scoutmaster. A few others were missing. Everyone must have died, they said, except me.

I was the last.

No one survived.

“A cave rat ate a few, bones and all,” one guy said. 

Rescuers said terrible things. They sent me home to be with mother for what turned out to be a few days. I don’t remember any of it.

I don’t mind solitary confinement. I’ve been caged for 48 years.

I’m used to it. Somehow it doesn’t seem that long. Besides, food tastes better here than the rotten mess I ate in the cave to stay alive. It’s a taste and smell I don’t forget.

Someone put a bulb in the cell that can’t be switched off. It’s bright. The light drives me insane. It really does.

It’s protected by a metal cage. I feel its heat but can’t touch it because the sadistic bastards chained me to the floor—for screaming constantly, they said.

I so want to be with mother to tell her how enraged I am about the watch she gave that didn’t work. When I inform the staff, they refuse to look at me. For a year I didn’t know what time it was. I told them. I told them all. They know about it but don’t care. They say I’m crazy because of her.

Mother doesn’t visit. She never did. The staff said she died. They convinced me to believe unspeakable things.

“He did something wicked,” prosecutors said. “He used a bone-saw, for the love of God.”

Nothing they say is true. I know that now.

Not one word!

Who does bad things they don’t remember?

NO ONE!!!

Who believes it?

They make you hate. I see it on their faces.

I will snap these chains someday, I know it.

I have a plan.

A wonderful plan. 

Guards help.

It happens on Halloween night.

They break the chains.

Put your light on.

Listen carefully….

Boots are shuffling on lawns like dead leaves falling on the wind…

studying doors…

searching for final solutions.

Smash the bulb!

You’ll see.

It hurts in the dark and the cold. People do things—terrible things—to make it stop.

They shake like branches in a storm. They fill bones with ice and push down to the darkest places.

They control what’s true.

They understand everything.

Soon, so will you.

Truth becomes the trap…

Spells enchant…

fragile hopes collapse…

They watch you rot in that cave where everyone dies but one…

…and laugh.

HaHahahaha…!

Slither to the walls like snakes and find the hard folds.

Pray for sleep that cannot come.

Control truth. 

You’re one of us, now. 

The truth couldn’t be more clear.  

Hell is forever.

Billy Lee

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: The essay, Halloween Revision, is a fictional work based on events experienced by Billy Lee—an Explorer Scout in a troop of spelunkers who got lost in a cave in West Virginia during the 1960s. The rescue is based on other events about which Billy Lee may or may not have direct knowledge. Billy Lee published a version of this story to answer the Quora question: Where in the world is it dark constantly?

 

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