Are there really monsters?
: . : EarthLife : . :
What's at the bottom of the ocean?
: . : Well, it's a well known fact that there is life on this planet. I hope that it is. This world is in a pretty sorry state if some people fail to notice that. The question is, what is life, what is intelligent life, what does it mean to be human, and . . . whatever else comes up in the process of this. You might be saying, "Aren't all of these questions already answered, except for what it means to be human?" I say quite the contrary. Quite the contrary. It's a lot to answer, and to answer to, so no doubt this will be the longest article yet. Many people like to rest in the knowledge that this world is such a friendly place, that we already understand it all, so we aren't in any danger. Maybe we aren't in any danger, but we definitly don't understand it all, so just sit back and learn.
: . : "What is there to learn, we already know about all of the life on this planet." If you're saying this, I'm afraid that you have been dreadfully mislead. There is so much life that we have yet to discover on this planet that it is just staggering. Underneath the oceans there is almost as much life to be discovered as there has already been discovered above the oceans. The floor of the ocean, although deep, highly pressured, and cold, holds more food than one could ever imagine. We have yet to extensively (or even usefully) explore the bottom of the ocean. All we really know about it is a few shots from deep sea cameras by national geographic, and the basic topographical shape of it, thanks to radar, and most recently, to NASA. What we have seen are the wierdest, most diversified bunch of creatures ever laid eyes on. Things that don't have eyes because they have never been in the presence of light. Things that would explode if they were taken out of the water. Things of beauty, and things so ugly it can hardly be imagined as being life. There is so much left to see, but we just can't get down far enough to look at it all.
: . : Alright, alright, so it's too deep to look, so what? What could be down there of any consequence? Most ocean life specialists (marine biologists and the like) believe that there are giant squids down there that could put to shame the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Are sea monsters a myth? Some would say that they had to have existed at some point due to the overwhelming amount of reports of them by sailers in days gone by. Maybe they just wanted a story. Maybe not. Would it be so inconceivable that some life would remain under the oceans after the meteor struck and killed the dinos? They wouldn't bothered by an ice age all the way down there. Possibly just forced to move closer to the surface. Life has no limit on size under the ocean, as the blue whale has so eloquently proven. So, if there are sea monsters (let's just call it Leviathan, just to make things easier), why don't we see them anymore? They're almost extinct.
: . : Larry Niven, one of the most scientifically revered science fiction writers of our century, theorizes that any giant underwater creatures, or Leviathans (we're talking Giant) may have gone extinct because we hunted their only source of food to near extinction. Of course we didn't hunt them to extinction, their too big, and live far too deep under the ocean. If one were to actually come in contact with one and attempt to harm it with some little whale harpoon gun, it would no doubt smash the boat do detritous like pieces. Although, it is an obvious fact that if you take food away from an animal, it will either die or adapt. Something that big cannot adapt because it lives in the only ecosystem large enough to support it, so it must die. The sperm whale dives deeper into the oceans than any other whale, so deep that they delve into an entirely different eco-system. No one really knows how deep they dive because it's too deep to follow, most of the time. At one point in this planets history, this whale was so abundant that it was found all over the atantic ocean, running into ships and causing trouble in such ways. Man found it's body parts very useful, so we hunted it to near extinction well over 100 years ago. If there were any deep sea creature that actually preyed on these giant animals, the Leviathans would have eventually starved. An odd way of killing something off, but totally plausable.
: . : Are they really gone? Some would quite quickly say "No" to that. There are still reports of sea monsters from time to time. What about Loch-ness? Maybe that's one of the last ones. Since they would be deep water creatures, it would be very rare for them to surface and be seen, and to come close to land, they would have to be in very deep, cold, murky water to find it hospitable (oddly enough, like the loch).
: . : A lot of crazy stuff happens on the seas. A lot of people have disappared over the years. This is usually, by the over-rational mind, attributed to pirates. Yes, there are still pirates on the ocean, and even more than there were back in the day of wooden boats. They are sneakier, and far more ruthless, and carry advanced weaponry and tracking systems. Not what you remember pirates being, now is it? Everyday, millions of dollars are lost on the high seas from piracy, and sometimes large multinational corporations actually hire pirates to attack their competitions shipping lines to weaken them at pivitol moments. Sound ruthless and immoral? Of course it does, because it is.
: . : Sometimes these disappearances cannot be explained by piracy, though. Sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes, it's the Bermuda Triangle. Ah yes, the Bermuda Triangle, the Alien and Conspiracy theorists dream. It's everything someone looking for unsolved mysteries could ever want. Or is it? Are the disappearances really all that impossible to explain? Maybe we actually know why boats disappear there frequently. "Wouldn't I know about that?" I'm afraid not. It was classified for a while, and when it became declassified, as it usually is for some reason, the information just didn't spread very well at all. Only being declassified for a few years, I suppose you have an excuse for not knowing.
: . : If you think that it's the US military stealing boats, think again. The military has actually lost boats there, but they don't like to admit it. Until they actually lost some of their own, they didn't care if it was real or not, so they just denied it was even happening, not caring enough to investigate. Then things got personal. Planes disappear, and so do boats. How could one phenomenon do both of these things? They decided to look into it. What they found may disappoint your conspiracy seeking mind.
: . : Under closer inspection with deep sea subs, they found that the water at the bottom was very cold. Unusually cold. So cold that the water was too dense to move much. This heavy, cold water is sitting on top of a layer of thick mud, which is sitting on top of what seems to be the world's biggest heap of fish crap, which extends for most of the size of the triangle, if not in whole, in patches. There is a very thick layer of fish body parts and excrements, and being chilled and compressed. When this garbage decomposes and gets that cold under that much pressure, it's starts to release gas. Unbelievably massive amounts of gas. The most important ones being released are carbon dioxide (the stuff you breathe, but suffocates you in large amounts) and methane (stuff you shouldn't breathe, that suffocates and poisons you in moderate amounts).
: . : Now, the problem is, all of this is still covered with this mud, being heavily compressed by the cold water. This gas is being squeezed so hard that it's actually in a partially liquid form. It's only when a massive amount of gas builds up in any given spot that it has sufficient pressure to burst through. There is so much gas by this time that when it bubbles up, it basically turns the water above it into foam. Do things float in foam? No. Do engines work in C02 and methane? No. Can humans breathe? No. They pass out almost instantly. The ships just drop to the bottom of the ocean like there wasn't even anything underneath them, the plane engines stall, and they fall in too. When the boats hit the bottom, and the water comes back, they either become lodged in the mud, and quite possibly smashed to bits by the water returning, or float back up to the surface, with or without most of its crew. Scarry thing, but it happens.
: . : Now, what about on land. Now that I've tried to undermine everything else that you believe in, there must be something on land that we have discoved, right? I don't think so. Big-foot? How could something so large ever hide from thousands of over-zealous hunters for all of these years? They would have to be incredibly intelligent. They would have to hide in totally inconceivable ways, and quite frankly, if you ask me, it's just not possible. So, is there any intelligent life here that we don't know about? Depends on your definition of intelligence, I suppose. There are some really intelligent animals out there . . . if you can call them animals.
: . : We're not the only ones who can speak, or use sign language. Some apes have been taught. Some know as much as over 100 sign words, and will draw well-coloured pictures with crayons and pencils. Is that intelligence? Most primitive African tribes will tell you that monkeys are even smarter than apes. They say that if you throw a spear at an ape, it dodges it; if you throw a spear at a monkey, it catches it and throws it back at you. Well, that's scary. Okay, so monkeys are pretty smart, but does that make them human? What is it to be human? Scientists and evolutionists once said that it is our capacity to use tools. Monkeys throw things that they know will hurt (sharp/heavy things) when hunting or fighting. Okay then, they change it to, the capacity to make tools. Crows carve small hooks from wood to pull bugs out of trees, and some can even converse in a limited, but basically cognitive way, in english. Most people say that whales and dolphins speak to each other in very advanced languages as well.
: . : So, what is it to be human? Just to be a smart animal? To go crazy with the whole tool ideal, and totally depend on created devices? There's really only one thing to rely on anymore, and that is soul. We believe, and always have believed ourselves to have souls. How do we know that other animals don't think the same thing? We don't, for sure. So, what are you? A creation of God? A random bunch of molecules? A smart animal? What are you? I would say that it is our dominion over the earth that God granted us, that makes us different, and souls that He entrusted us with, and that it is us that He wants to know, and be close to.
: . : There are some pretty crazy things going on on this funny little ball of dirt. What is really happening? I don't know all of them for sure, and it's up to you to decide for yourself. The information is here, and in many other places. Look into it and figure it out, why don't you?
