Influenza 1918, A Venus Connection? Venus Atmosphere Temperature and Pressure Profiles Sunspot Activity, Venus Inferior Conjunctions, and Biological Events 1st Quarter 2001 Influenza Data Analysis (USA) Global Developments: Spring-Summer 2001 Influenza A(H1N2) USA Influenza Activity 2001-2002 West Nile Virus USA Influenza Activity 2002-2003 - (Part 2 has SARS information.) USA Influenza Activity 2003-2004 - (Part 2 has Special Note for June 2004.) Venus Transit: Biohazard? USA Influenza Activity 2004-2005 Calculated Dates of Venus Inferior Conjunctions Influenza 1918, A Venus Connection? Keywords and phrases Astrobiology, exobiology, Influenza, Life on Venus A summary of a large part of the material in these pages was given as Poster 32.12 at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Birmingham, AL, U.S.A., 6-11 Oct 2002. Click here to see an HTML version of the presentation. In Russian Installed on 20 Jan 2000 - Latest update 13 May 2008 Additions or changes are in bold. Copyright © 2001- 2008 Robert S. Fritzius The following three quotes are extracted from various parts of the WGBH | PBS Online American Experience webpage that is devoted to the unexplained, and, until recently, largely unheralded, 1918 influenza pandemic. "Influenza 1918 is the story of the worst epidemic the United States has ever known. Before it was over, the flu would kill more than 600,000 Americans--more than all the combat deaths of this century combined." "The recently released "National Standards for United States History" published by the National Center for History in the Schools does not include any mention of the 1918 flu epidemic." "For the survivors we spoke to," says producer Robert Kenner, "the memory is one of horror and fear--which may explain why many Americans were willing to let those few terrible months fade into obscurity. Schoolchildren know more about the Black Plague from centuries ago than they do about this episode in our recent history." These last two quotes reminds one of Velikovsky's ideas on mankind's tendency to amnesia regarding really catastrophic events over which we have no control. For later developments, see: Revisiting the 1918 flu - (PBS) and Influenza 1918 - Latest Findings - (PBS). Readers are invited to review the following article which may have some bearing (in principle) on the 1918 influenza pandemic. Invasion By Washing Water(1) by Donald R. Barber of the Norman Lockyer Observatory. The article describes a peculiar sequence of air-borne/rain-water-borne yeast-like bacterial attacks on astronomical photographic plate emulsions at a British observatory from 1937 to 1961. An underlying periodicity of these events appears to have had a significant positive correlation with the occurrences of inferior conjunctions of Venus with respect to Earth. Barber titled his original 1963 article Invasion by Washing Water (1). In it he said:

"An American suggestion that the virus responsible for endemic influenza emanated from the planet Venus, led to a fresh examination of the 1937/1948 Sidmouth data, and also to a search among the large collection of spectrograms obtained at Sidmouth prior to 1937 for earlier evidence of bacterial attack. As a result of the latter, two earlier outbreaks--one probable event in 1930, and a second well-determined occasion in 1932-- were discovered."

Note: Compared to Earth, Venus, has a negligible magnetic field. That means that the Solar Wind can disturb its atmosphere directly, and can blow away fractions of it's upper atmosphere (including airborne particulate matter) in comet-like fashion. (Added 15 February 2003.) It was found that the onsets of six confirmed Lockyer major microbial invasions occurred, on average, 55 days following strong geomagnetic storms* (time-wise) nearest to inferior conjunctions of Venus. (The shortest interval between geomagnetic storm and outbreak was 35 days and the longest was 67 days.) Seasonal effects also appeared to play an auxiliary role also as to whether or not an invasion occurred. Invasion onsets occurred only during the months May thru July.) [Paragraph was corrected and modified on 13 May 2008.] *Up until 13 May 2008, the author of this page had been erroneously identifying the delays (discussed above) as being between inferior conjunctions of Venus with earth and the Lockyer microbial invasions.

Barber came to the speculation that the bacteria responsible for the repeated photographic damage events were transported from the upper atmosphere of Venus by solar wind to earth's polar regions and, in Lockyer's case, from the Northern polar region to Southwestern England by northerly winds, reaching the ground in rain-water.

The Lockyer events were bacterial in nature but, getting back to the "American suggestion," it is of interest to note that in 1918 an inferior conjunction of Venus occurred on about February 9th. The first reported case of the 1918-1919 influenza outbreak in the United States (at Camp Funston) was 30 days later. We should be wary of implying a cause and effect relation here, but it is also of interest that the early onset of the pandemic appears to have hit in shotgun fashion across the United States. The following quote is from the poignant article Monessen and the Spanish Influenza of 1918 by Cassandra Vivian (of Pennsylvania). "On March 11, 1918, the first case of this flu was reported at Camp Funston, Kansas. By noon, 107 cases were reported at the same camp and two days later 522 cases were reported. This fast moving, air borne disease was in every state of the union within seven days." In light of a recent study, (See next paragraph.) the first sentence of the preceding paragraph should perhaps be stated as, "At Camp Funston, Kansas, the first case of this flu was reported on March 11, 1918." [Added 20 Dec 2005.] According to a recent study(2), the 1918 influenza pandemic originated in Haskell County, Kansas in January-February 1918 and was carried from there to Camp Funston by army recruits along with their family members and friends. How the new disease came to appear in Haskell County was not addressed in the study, but the the researchers stressed that no evidence was found to suggest any other point of origin. The public health issue of primary concern was that new influenza strains can "pop up" (or "drop in," from this writer's viewpoint) any where in the world. [Added 22 Nov 2005. Modified 20 Dec 2005 and moved to this location from below.] See Steve Silverman's article Bubonic Plague - Far from the deadliest epidemic which summarizes the spatially-expansive rapid-onset of this phenomenon and more information on recent studies into the event. If the Camp Funston locale in Kansas was the approximate geographical origin for the initial outbreak in the United States (whatever its source), it is difficult to imagine how such a rapid widespread distribution (all 48 states in seven days) could have occurred by means of prevailing winds or personnel transfers. I suggest that fast moving may not be the proper label for the event. I may have been premature in this judgment. See the NASA links a few paragraphs below. There are other versions of where and when the 1918-1919 flu originated. For one such report suggesting an Asian source in 1917 see: The Spanish Flu. The author of that article presents the idea that the disease was brought to the United States by servicemen returning from Europe in the fall of 1918. Actually there seems to be evidence for a global outbreak in this case. (This idea, of course, hinges on the supposition that there must have been some viral commonality among some far flung outbreaks.) The PBS Peoples and Discoveries webpage Worldwide flu pandemic strikes: 1918-1919 says that in the late spring of 1918 the Spanish wire service Agencia Fabra sent cables to Reuters headquarters describing "A strange form of disease of epidemic character in Madrid," . . ."The epidemic is of a mild nature, no deaths having been reported." (Symptoms are described.) The article goes on to mention seemingly similar outbreaks from, "Norway to India, China to Costa Rica."