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ZetaTalk: Slowing Rotation
Note: written on Jan 15, 2001 during the 2001 sci.astro debates.


Could the Earth be slowing in its rotation, as Planet X draws near, when the populace can go out at midnight on December 21st and find the constellation Orion in the proper place, year after year? Oh, the populace could go out on December 21st and find Orion in the proper position, this is not the issue. The issue is that December 21st would have moved to be later than if all the clocks were ticking along as designed, 24 hours a day, and leap seconds only inserted every few decades. Where the master clock is in the hands of the US Navy, which has been in the center of the secrecy over Planet X and related matters for almost half a century, this is not a difficult feat. All network computers in the world, ultimately, sync with the US Navy master clock, most by the networks dialing in during the night and adjusting. A second here, a second there, and it is always assumed to be the peripheral computers that are off, a bit, when an adjustment is made! Unless an individual is astute, and notices the increased adjustments required to their watches and clocks, they assume they are the problem, not the master clocks that run the world. Where clocks can be tweaked, the Moon is not so cooperative, and thus it takes longer and longer for the Earth to line up to where it can sight a full moon from the same spot.

The existence of publications on the phases of the Moon and related Eclipse projections forced the Navy to make early adjustments for the lagging rotation of the Earth. These publications rely on the Navy, the time-keeper of the world, in practice if not officially. When Planet X was located in 1983 by the IRAS team, various scenarios were played out in think-tanks, covering a multitude of aspects. As the time-keepers of the world, the Navy had already noticed a slowing rotation, so slight as to pass notice by the general public. Tasked with keeping the public unaware of the approach of Planet X for as long as possible, the Navy determined:

  1. to inject leap-seconds surreptitiously via its master clock. Since the Internet and networking computer systems synchronize with this master clock, most often on an automated basis, daily, these adjustments would be slight and pass notice.
  2. to defer scrutiny of this activity by setting aside the official leap-second insertion practice. This deferral was requested by the Navy but did not get broad support from its member community.
  3. to adjust predicted dates and times for the Moon and related Eclipses forward so that by the time alarm over the potential of a Planet X approach was under discussion around the world, the relationship of the Moon to the Earth would seem to dispel the notion that the Earth was slowing.

Thus, they changed their predicted data to assume a slowing Earth, and hoped their calculations on the rate of slowing were correct. Of key importance were publications that put out 5 year or 1 year forward stats on phases of the moon and eclipses. These publications plan their printed matter at least a full year ahead, updating with the very latest data from the Navy projections during that year. Thus, when anticipating the worst of the slowing to occur in 2002, and assuming a 5 year forward publication to be the most broadly accessed after a yearly calendar, and adding that extra year for publication preparation, and considering that 5 year forward publications for 2002 would start at the first of the year, they calculated that changes to their stats needed to be done by the end of 1994. These manipulations did two very obvious things to their stats:

  1. the actual phases of the Moon were out of sync with their stats during 1995 and for the immediate years following. However, since the public in general refers to printed matter that had been printed much earlier, and was based on Navy stats gathered prior to the manipulation, this would likely not be noticed by the public.
  2. the Navy stats related to the rotation of the Earth (the phases of the Moon and Earth Seasons), would be out of sync with past data, should someone run these numbers.
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