Half a century ago, a unique proposal was made to the American National Science Foundation: it was suggested that a large hole be drilled through the ocean floor, with interest in reaching a mysterious area that exists between the Earth’s crust and the inner mantle called the Mohorovičić discontinuity. Drawing its peculiar name from the Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić, who first discovered the area in 1909, the “Moho” remains an area of interest to seismologists, though the initial proposals for what became known as “Project Mohole” never received full support, and were canceled in 1967 by the U.S. Congress.
Granted, listeners of the weekly Gralien Report Podcast are already familiar somewhat with the Moho, and it has indeed remained an item of interest since the late sixties when Project Mohole was officially canceled. In fact, the Soviet Union’s Kola Institute later sought to reach similar depths when they began drilling a tremendous hole reaching an ultimate depth of 40,220 feet, during a project that lasted more than 15 years that resulted in what was officially dubbed the world’s deepest hole at the time. Though a greater degree of success was achieved by the Russians, this project, much like previous attempts by the U.S., was eventually abandoned also in 1989.
While in the absence of such projects, the Moho’s intrigue continues, and there are other strange and startling possibilities pertaining to this curious area of the inner Earth that boast possibilities of the Fortean kind. For instance, could there actually be cavernous areas within the Moho, and if so, what would be the potential for organisms to thrive in such areas? Is it really purely science fiction to suppose that there could be more to the deepest depths of the Earth than soil, stone, magma, and other elements known to exist there?
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For several weeks now, we’ve been enduring extreme danger in broadcasting, as two warring factions of the severed Hadal empire have battled against one another… with your friendly neighborhood Gralien Reporters caught right in the middle of the conflict. On this week’s edition of the show things finally come to a head… and Micah, along with Producer Chris Heyes and Engineer Matt Oakley, come face-to-face a violent legion of Hadal Imperialists. Will the crew make it out of the bunker alive, or will they succumb to the forces of evil that exist within the Hollow Earth?
The Gralien Report Podcast for July 25, 2011 (Click to Launch Player)
The pulse-pounding story will continue during hour three of this week’s Gralien Report Podcast… but in the meantime, here are some show notes pertaining to the news the guys did manage to cover before the Gralien Bunker was breached by denizens of the Dero Kingdom…
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The so-called “humanzee” (sometimes also called a “chuman”) refers to the hypothetical offspring between a human and a chimpanzee. Though our two species are similar enough, in theory, to result in successful hybridization, such an experiment has never actually taken place, primarily for ethical reasons. After all, if a being is created that further adds to the blurring between the proverbial lines of human and animal, how should that creature be treated? What if an accident were to occur as a result of mishandling, or if the “manimal” were to behave in wild and erratic ways that could be dangerous to others? Conversely, what if the individual were intelligent enough to exist within society; having only one human “parent”, what rights and laws would be applicable to this individual?
Indeed, there are a number of questions… and those are only a few pertaining to hybridization between humans and our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. However, there are many other possibilities considering the vast array of fauna available on Earth, and previous tests in China and elsewhere involving combining of human stem cells with those of goats, as well as recent propositions that might allow integration of human brain cells into mice, are again raising the red flags of ethical outcry.
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On this week’s edition of The Gralien Podcast, we discussed sea serpents, and the theory that some of the oceanic monsters described by witnesses may actually be undiscovered varieties of giant eels. Upon hearing this, one of our listeners, Amber Terrell, shared the video above with us, which shows a larger than normal eel larvae swimming through the ocean. As you can “clearly” see (pun intended), the creature is nearly perfectly translucent, making these creatures both difficult to spot in the water, as well as potentially difficult to identify based on a mere fleeting glimpse. But that’s not all… Read more of this entry…
