S27E22: Red Planet Hiccup: Perseverance's Dusty Dilemma and the Sherlock Conundrum

[00:00:00] reader. Some people may call it the Simple Life. You know it's anything but simple. There's

[00:00:06] always work to be done. Grass to mine, gravel to spread, gardens to chill, snow to blow,

[00:00:11] hay to bale, bales to stack, host to dig, loads to haul and you need a reliable, versatile,

[00:00:17] easy to use tractor for every season. Do it all with a John Deere 5 Series tractor. Contact

[00:00:23] your local John Deere dealer to learn more.

[00:00:25] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 22 for broadcasts on the 19th of February 2024.

[00:00:39] Coming up on SpaceTime, technical issues hit NASA's Mars Perseverance rover was Snowball

[00:00:45] Earth caused by an asteroid impact winter. And the next generation NASA space suit now

[00:00:52] being tested in microgravity. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:58] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:01:16] Mission managers and engineers are working to resolve a technical issue which is seriously

[00:01:23] affecting NASA's Mars Perseverance rover. They're trying to stabilise a dust cover

[00:01:28] on one of the car size vehicle's science instrument cameras. Data and imagery from

[00:01:33] Perseverance indicates that one of two covers designed to keep dust from accumulating on

[00:01:38] the optics of the Sherlock instrument remains partially open. In this position the cover

[00:01:44] interferes with science data collection operations. Mounted on the rover's robotic arm, the scanning

[00:01:50] habitable environment with raymen and luminescence for organics and chemicals instrument, better

[00:01:55] known as Sherlock uses cameras, spectrometer and a laser to search for organic compounds

[00:02:01] and minerals that have been altered by watery environments and maybe science of past microbial

[00:02:06] life on the red planet. Sherlock is NASA's main data collection instrument on Perseverance

[00:02:12] which has been exploring Gizro crater since February 2021.

[00:02:17] Last month mission managers determined that the cover was oriented in such a position

[00:02:21] that some of its operations simply could not be successfully undertaken. Ever since then

[00:02:26] an engineering team has been investigating to determine the root cause of the problem

[00:02:31] and search for a possible solution. To better understand the behaviour of the cover's

[00:02:35] motor, the team have been sending commands to the instrument that alter the amount of

[00:02:39] power it's receiving. With the cover in its current position, the instrument cannot use

[00:02:44] its laser on rock targets and so it can't kill its spectroscopic data. However, imaging

[00:02:50] microscopy can still be done using the wide-angle topographic sensor for operations in engineering

[00:02:55] at an earnest Watson. It's a colour camera on Sherlock that's used for taking close-up

[00:03:00] images of rock grains and surface textures and which operates using a different aperture.

[00:03:06] Already making its way to explore an area known as Beehav Giza, the six-willed robotic

[00:03:10] rover, marked its 1,000th Martian day or soul on the red planet back in December. That's

[00:03:16] more than 300 souls beyond its primary mission.

[00:03:20] Since the rover's landing back on February 18, 2021, Sherlock scanned and provided rich

[00:03:25] data on 34 rock targets, creating a total of 261 hyperspectral maps of those samples.

[00:03:33] Experience uses a radioisotope power system. Its desire is based on NASA's other currently

[00:03:39] operating rover on the red planet, the Mars Curiosity rover, which is still going strong

[00:03:44] after more than 11 years or 4,000 souls on the surface of Mars.

[00:03:50] This space time.

[00:03:52] Still to come was Snowball Earth caused by an asteroid-impact winter and we look at the

[00:03:57] astronomy of Britain's ancient standing stones. All that and more still to come, on

[00:04:03] space time.

[00:04:06] A new study claims that Snowball Earth events which cover the planet in ice for thousands

[00:04:26] of years could have been triggered by an impact winter caused by a large asteroid strike.

[00:04:31] The findings reported in the journal Science Advances provides a new option for a question

[00:04:36] that's been stumping scientists for decades about these most dramatic climate shifts in

[00:04:41] Earth's history. Climate models have known since the 1960s that if the Earth became sufficiently

[00:04:46] cold, the high reflectivity of its snow and ice could create a runaway feedback loop.

[00:04:52] That would create more sea ice and even colder temperatures until eventually the planet would

[00:04:57] be completely covered in ice and snow. These very conditions, a nodal have occurred at

[00:05:02] least twice during Earth's near protozoeic era between 720 and 635 million years ago.

[00:05:10] However if it's to explain what initiated these periods of global glaciation which

[00:05:14] have become known as Snowball Earth events have been inconclusive.

[00:05:19] This theory who's centered on the idea that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere somehow

[00:05:23] declined to the point where snowballing began. Another popular hypothesis involves changes

[00:05:30] in the Malanchovit cycles which dictate the tilt of Earth's axis and changes in the

[00:05:34] shape of Earth's orbit around the sun. And yet another possibility involves changes

[00:05:39] in ocean currents and landmass heating caused by continental drift.

[00:05:43] This study's lead author Min Min Fove from Yale University says they decided to explore

[00:05:48] an alternative possibility. What if an extraterrestrial impact caused this climate change transition

[00:05:54] very abruptly, what astronomers refer to as an impact winter?

[00:05:58] To work out what would happen, the authors used a sophisticated climate model which represents

[00:06:03] atmospheric and oceanic circulations as well as the formation of sea ice under different

[00:06:07] conditions. They then applied their model to the aftermath of a hypothetical asteroid

[00:06:12] impact in four distinct geological periods in the past. The pre-industrial period before

[00:06:18] 150 years ago, the last glacial maximum 21,000 years ago, the Cretaceous period around 66

[00:06:26] million years ago and the Neo-Proteozoic Epoch between a billion and 542 million years

[00:06:32] ago. For two of the warmer climate scenarios, the

[00:06:35] Cretaceous and pre-industrial, the authors found that it was unlikely that an asteroid

[00:06:40] strike could trigger global glaciation. After all, we had one of those when the chicks

[00:06:45] of blue basteroids slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, that ended more than 75% of all

[00:06:50] life on the planet, including all the non-avian dinosaurs. But for the last glacial minimum

[00:06:56] and Neo-Proteozoic scenarios, when the Earth's temperature may have been cold enough already

[00:07:00] to be considered a nice age, an asteroid impact just might have been enough to tip the Earth

[00:07:05] into a snowball state. Surprisingly, they found that given sufficiently

[00:07:10] cold initial climate conditions, a snowball state after an asteroid impact could develop

[00:07:15] over a global ocean in just 10 years or so, with sea ice at the equator reaching 10 meters

[00:07:21] in thickness. Now by comparison, the Arctic Ocean today averages sea ice thickness between

[00:07:26] 1 and 3 meters. As for chances of an asteroid induced snowball

[00:07:30] Earth period in the years to come, all the authors say that's highly unlikely to global

[00:07:36] warming. This space time. Still to come, the astronomy behind ancient

[00:07:42] Britain's standing stones, and NASA testing their next-generation spaces for the International

[00:07:47] Space Station in microgravity. All that and more still to come, on Space Time.

[00:07:53] All across Europe, including the British Isles, there are standing stones, ancient

[00:08:14] monuments, dating back thousands of years. There's always been mystery associated with

[00:08:20] the likely origins of these. From Stonehenge to Orkney, these standing stones which predate

[00:08:26] the pyramids have been a source of wonder and speculation. Were there religious monuments,

[00:08:32] or an astronomically linked agricultural calendar?

[00:08:35] A few years ago, scientists at the University of Adelaide were able to statistically prove

[00:08:40] for the first time that the earliest standing stone monuments in Britain, the Great Circles,

[00:08:46] were constructed specifically in line with the movement of the Sun and Moon some 5,000

[00:08:51] years ago. Their research, published in the Journal of

[00:08:54] Archaeological Science reports, used innovative two- and three-dimensional technologies to

[00:08:59] construct quantitative tests of the patterns of the alliance of the standing stones.

[00:09:05] The study's lead author, Gail Higginbottom, who at the time was the visiting research

[00:09:08] fellow at both the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, says nobody

[00:09:13] had statistically determined that a single stone circle was constructed with astronomical

[00:09:18] phenomena in mind prior to this research. In other words, up until then, it was all

[00:09:23] just speculation. So, Higginbottom and colleagues examined the

[00:09:27] oldest great stone circles built in Scotland, Kalamish on the Isle of Lewis, and Stennis

[00:09:33] on the Isle of Orkney, both of which predate Stonehenge's standing stones by around 500

[00:09:39] years. What they found was a great concentration of alignments towards both the Sun and the

[00:09:44] Moon at different times in their cycles. It's important to remember that 2000 years

[00:09:49] later in Scotland, much simpler monuments were still being built that had at least one

[00:09:54] of the same astronomical alignments found in the Great Circles. The stones however are

[00:09:59] not just connected with the Sun and the Moon. The authors also discovered a complex relationship

[00:10:04] between the alignment of the stones, the surrounding landscape and horizon, and the movements

[00:10:09] of the Sun and Moon across that landscape. Higginbottom says it was the final proof they

[00:10:14] needed that ancient Britons connected the Earth to the sky with their earlier standing

[00:10:19] stones, and that this practice continued in the same way for some 2000 years.

[00:10:25] By examining sites in detail, the authors found that about half of the sites were surrounded

[00:10:29] by just one landscape pattern, and the other half of the sites were composed of the complete

[00:10:34] opposite. And these chosen surroundings would have influenced the way the Sun and the Moon

[00:10:39] was seen, especially in the timing of their rising and setting on special days, like when

[00:10:44] the Moon appears at its most northerly position on the horizon, which only happens every 18.6

[00:10:50] years. For example, at 50% of the sites, the northern horizon is relatively higher and

[00:10:56] closer at the southern horizon and the summer solstice sun.

[00:10:59] rise is out of the highest peak in the north. And at the other 50% of the sites, it's the southern

[00:11:05] horizon which is higher and closer than the northern and the winter solstice sun rises out of these

[00:11:10] highest horizons. Higginbottom says it appears the people of the day chose to erect these giant

[00:11:16] stone monuments very precisely within the landscape and in relation to the astronomy they knew.

[00:11:21] She says they invested a tremendous amount of effort and work to do so,

[00:11:26] which tells modern day scientists about their strong connection with their environment and how

[00:11:31] important it must have been for them. 'Most certainly as far as individual statistical evidence for

[00:11:36] individual circles as opposed to looking at groups of circles for example this is the first time

[00:11:41] that we've actually been able to confirm that individual circles have a complex array of

[00:11:47] orientations regarding different parts of the solar and lunar cycles and other reason for that

[00:11:53] is that when people were looking at the stone circles previously they used to look at just the

[00:11:57] orientations that they thought hit on the sun or the moon and they ignored those that didn't.

[00:12:02] So even if they tried to do some kind of assessment on it they weren't approaching it in a very

[00:12:08] fully sound manner. So now we can conclude that we've done that and we've got excellent results

[00:12:14] where both the circle of Kalanish, which is on the west coast and the Isle of Lewis of Scotland and

[00:12:21] Orkney, the stone circle and this most certainly say 97.7% sure that they are set up in regards to

[00:12:30] astronomical phenomena. And how did you do the research? So we had two approaches.

[00:12:35] The first one was we had to do a very specific statistical test that was developed by my colleague

[00:12:40] Roger Clay. How much debt in depth would you like me to go into that? Couple of lines? Well we're

[00:12:47] dealing with something that was 5,000 years ago when these things were first set up.

[00:12:51] So obviously the sky was different then you had to account for all that and also the landscape

[00:12:58] although the hills were there nevertheless the landscape may have appeared different in terms

[00:13:02] of vegetation and that sort of thing. All these environmental factors need to be considered as

[00:13:06] well. So what did you basically do? Yes so first of course we did run our programs to ensure that

[00:13:11] we knew exactly where the sun and the moon were rising and setting at the times that these stones

[00:13:17] have been shown to be erected as scientific dating has shown for them to be erected and then on top

[00:13:23] of that we looked at or examined the possibility of the vegetation cover in the areas and basically

[00:13:30] certainly for western Scotland it was shown that there was either very very open kind of like a

[00:13:36] scrub land equivalent and partial very very open basically particularly on western Lewis very very

[00:13:44] open and western Scotland generally and on Awkeny during that time it would have been much the

[00:13:49] same so when there were trees it was very open or sometimes just open patches in these two

[00:13:55] particular areas and we've looked at other areas individually. Is it difficult to put a date on

[00:13:59] these things? How does one date start? You can't use carbon dating for stone I guess so you're looking

[00:14:04] at something which is buried somewhere near it I guess. How did you do it? Actually I didn't do

[00:14:08] it but other people. So for example a gentleman by the name of Patrick Ahsmore did excavation of

[00:14:14] Cavendish and they looked at the different times that specific stones were erected or not and other

[00:14:21] activities around the stone circle so they confirmed the different kinds of dating you do us through

[00:14:28] burnt material so for example wood or bowing and both have been found at Stennis and Cavendish.

[00:14:35] That gave scientists a pretty good idea of when these things were erected I guess the fact that

[00:14:39] we're seeing these sorts of stone circles throughout what we now call the British Isles but also we'll

[00:14:45] see them in parts of Europe as well. Are we looking at and I know this isn't your specific area of

[00:14:50] expertise but are we looking at something which was a fairly literally a broad church I guess

[00:14:54] something that was practiced over a wide area. Certainly standing stone monuments were placed

[00:14:59] over a wide area. Right from Ireland until Eastern Europe and beyond in fact India,

[00:15:06] China, other places right through at slightly different times. Standing stone circles though

[00:15:12] certainly not as prevalent as perhaps stone rows or single standing stones and

[00:15:18] stone circles are most prevalent in the British Isles, western Europe, Spain, Portugal, I've got

[00:15:24] few in Scandinavia. No confirmed circles in Germany but lots of standing stones. The circles tend to

[00:15:30] be part of a burial monument as opposed to a separate standing stone circle but there are great

[00:15:35] patches through the European continent where people chose to continue building their monuments

[00:15:40] in wood and earth. So there's a very interesting division there between the groups of people who

[00:15:45] adopted the Megalithic culture and those who didn't. Does it go with trade? Haha interesting

[00:15:50] question. I think that in the very very early days of when for example agriculture was first

[00:15:57] coming in through Europe I think that that is a possibility I think it would have been trade but

[00:16:02] also the movement of peoples because sometimes people brought this different and the new it's

[00:16:08] called the Neolithic sort of agriculture and the new stone age coming through parts of Europe

[00:16:13] such as southeastern Europe and moving through central Europe and other times it was trade so

[00:16:19] it would have been a combination. Nothing simple I'm afraid sorry I'd like to say

[00:16:22] with them but it's not. Show them as important. Yeah exactly. We like to try and keep it simple

[00:16:28] but then reality overtakes us. Yeah there's always caveats in any sort of research. Absolutely

[00:16:34] I agree with you for later. What got you interested in this? What got me most interested in it was

[00:16:39] when I first saw a very tiny tiny article in Scientific American many years ago on the

[00:16:45] standing stones of Scotland or one one in particular and my colleagues said to me

[00:16:50] why don't you do this for your PhD. Maybe you could really solve some of the issues so

[00:16:55] it all began there and I have been addicted to it ever since. Moving through from monument

[00:17:01] to monument and place to place across Scotland and branching out now through the British Isles

[00:17:05] and parts of Europe to see whether or not how much there is a connection between the peoples

[00:17:10] and culturally of those who are using standing stones. It's been a lot of work in Australia

[00:17:15] looking at Aboriginal astronomy and the role that the night skies play in Aboriginal culture

[00:17:20] and one thing I've seen by looking at that is that it simply mirrors what's happening everywhere

[00:17:25] else in the world. Is that what you're seeing? If you're certainly referring to the idea that

[00:17:30] people were closely wedded to the night sky and the day sky as well I would say absolutely

[00:17:37] that the sky itself you know in different ways of course because Indigenous people of Australia

[00:17:42] often looked at the dark spaces in between the bright white lights so to speak and they

[00:17:48] had their shapes and their dream time connected to these identities and they then mirrored

[00:17:55] what happened to them in their dream time on earth as well. And overseas ethnographically

[00:18:01] you have very similar models but with constellations and I think that in ancient times that people

[00:18:07] were very closely or prehistoric ones or very very closely connected to their landscape. They

[00:18:11] had to be because it was a life and death situation and it was their full-time living space. You pay

[00:18:17] attention to what's going on if you're living in it. Is it just for agricultural purposes or is

[00:18:22] there more to it than that? All we really have are the stones. There's no written work associated

[00:18:26] with this. What do you surmise from what you've done? I think there are two very important things

[00:18:32] going on that they're both tightly entwined and that is I think that the standing stones are in

[00:18:38] places that people already knew about but at these places and I'll explain this because it's

[00:18:43] something that we haven't really touched on is that the standing stones and Britain at least

[00:18:47] are in very specific places we've discovered which allow you to view the sun and the moon

[00:18:52] from very specific perspectives. So for instance you can at the half of sight see one perspective

[00:19:00] and loosely speaking and at the other half of the sights another perspective and so the first

[00:19:07] perspective is that when you're standing at your stone circle that you will have the northern horizon

[00:19:13] very high and quite close to you relatively. The south will be very distant and low compared to

[00:19:19] the north. The summer solstice sun will rise out of the highest peak in the north east out of this

[00:19:25] range or hillock or mountain depending on the landscape and set in the the high mountain in the north

[00:19:31] west. If you turn south the winter solstice sun will rise and set out of little hills or they could

[00:19:37] be mountains at a great distance from the southeast and set into a hill in the southwest and often

[00:19:43] it will travel over water to do so and so you have all these amazing setups that they've done that

[00:19:49] can only be viewed at these specific locations and what we discovered that we discovered that for

[00:19:55] scores of sites in western Scotland which are Bronze Age about 1,500 BC so that's about 3,500

[00:20:02] years ago and we now know those two great circles we talked about at the beginning have the same

[00:20:07] setup and so to get back to your question therefore they know about these places already so I don't

[00:20:13] think that they're already agricultural because as soon as they built standing stones they already

[00:20:19] knew about those places before agriculture had come agriculture was coming into that area

[00:20:23] around the same time. They will mainly are herders but they did do some agriculture but it wasn't as

[00:20:29] big as it was down south so to speak I think that what they've done is actually represent

[00:20:34] their cosmological understanding of the universe and through these standing stones and how they see

[00:20:39] the sun rises set out of those very special setups that they've done they're showing themselves and

[00:20:44] it represents the site that they understand that the universe works as a cycle and that

[00:20:49] their the cycle of themselves work as opposition so you've got day and night the sun rising in the

[00:20:54] north for example at some of Solstice the full moon that can only rise in the south at the

[00:21:00] summer solstice if it's at its most extreme rising and setting point which only occurs every 18.6 years

[00:21:07] and all these kind of complicated things go on enough information in fact that they could even

[00:21:12] if they wanted to predict the clips that they knew about that sort of thing so there's more

[00:21:16] to it than that's the nearly thing. It's a very detailed culture isn't it? It is very detailed and

[00:21:22] and very and very complex very complex and it's also linked to the cult of the dead because you

[00:21:28] will always find the dead associated with standing stones. Oh that was my next question are there

[00:21:33] burial sites nearby so I guess you've just answered that. Yes and in very very different ways when

[00:21:39] they're associated directly with the standing stones they're very frequently

[00:21:43] cremated dead and you get parts of people's bodies placed cremated bones that is placed in

[00:21:50] the socket of the standing stones so they put them in before they put the people in or parts of

[00:21:55] before they put the standing stone there and then they may also

[00:21:59] put a cremation burial inside a jar and bury that next to the standing stone or it may in fact be

[00:22:05] next to where they bury the cremation in a stone slab. Coughram underneath the ground and put a nice

[00:22:12] stone monument over that, you know, array of a can that we call it. So the dead are associated

[00:22:18] in many different ways with these standing stones and stone henge itself is known to have many,

[00:22:23] many dead associated with it. With some standing stands I believe there's also evidence of festivals

[00:22:28] associated with that animal bones, things like that. Oh yes, we've got something very similar

[00:22:34] also happen at Stennis. So certainly nearby there may have actually been major festivals occurring,

[00:22:39] whether that's an association with the dead or not as well. I'm unsure but they've also found

[00:22:45] bones that are associated with specific seasons in relation to areas near Stonehenge and they've

[00:22:52] decided they may well have been the special gathering times that people met together for either trade

[00:22:58] or other kinds of connections between groups across a large area. Let's scale Higginbottom

[00:23:03] who at the time of our interview was a visiting research fellow with the University of Adelaide

[00:23:08] and the Australian National University. This space time. Still to come, NASA tested

[00:23:15] its next-generation international spacesuits in microgravity and later in the science report,

[00:23:20] a new study is found nearly half of all the world's migratory species are now experiencing a population

[00:23:26] decline. All that and more still to come. On space time.

[00:23:33] Some people may call it the simple life. You know it's anything but simple. There's always work to

[00:23:50] be done. Grass to mow, gravel to spread, gardens to till, snow to blow, hay to bale, bales to

[00:23:56] stack, hosted dig, loads to haul and you need a reliable, versatile, easy to use tractor for every

[00:24:03] season. Do it all with a John Deere five-searns tractor. Contact your local John Deere dealer to learn more.

[00:24:09] Well, NASA's new spacesuits for use on the Artemis program and lunar surface

[00:24:21] are still being developed and in our years behind schedule and over budget. Another space suit

[00:24:26] project, this one for use aboard the International Space Station has now finally reached the testing

[00:24:31] phase. The new extra-vehicular activity or EVA spacesuits are being developed by Rathion's

[00:24:38] Kolonzera space. Now the first completed pressure garment has undergone a system of fit and

[00:24:43] functionality tests in the microgravity-like environment of a vomit comet aircraft.

[00:24:48] These converted jet lighters achieve microgravity-like conditions by undertaking a series of steep

[00:24:54] parabolic rollercoaster-like maneuvers in flight. The test is part of NASA's rigorous plenary

[00:25:00] design review process, ensuring the new spacesuits meet all necessary system requirements before

[00:25:06] the commencement of manufacturing actual flight ready suits. The new suits will eventually replace

[00:25:11] the current spacesuits used aboard the International Space Station, which are known as the extra-vehicular

[00:25:17] mobility unit or EMU. The EMU has been the standard for astronauts task with assembling and

[00:25:23] maintaining the space station for over two decades and were originally developed for the space shuttle

[00:25:27] era. As for these new suits, they'll feature updated technologies and materials, enhanced

[00:25:33] functionality, improved safety measures and better support for an extended range of operations

[00:25:38] during spacewalks. This is space time.

[00:25:42] [Music]

[00:25:55] And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week

[00:25:59] with a science report. A new landmark study has warned that nearly half of the world's

[00:26:04] migratory species are showing population decline. The findings are contained in the first-ever

[00:26:10] report on the state of the world's migratory species by the convention on the conservation

[00:26:15] of migratory species of wild animals. The report, which was partially funded by the Australian

[00:26:20] government, found more than one in five listed species are threatened with extinction, while

[00:26:25] nearly all some 97 percent of listed fish are also threatened with extinction. Climate change,

[00:26:31] pollution and invasive species are all having a profound impact on migratory animals. But the

[00:26:37] study points out that the two greatest threats are over exploitation by humans and habitat loss,

[00:26:44] also due to human activity. New researchers found that the magma flow into the dark beneath

[00:26:51] the Icelandic town of Grindevic in November was movie at an unprecedented 7,400 cubic meters per

[00:26:57] second. A report of the journal science claims the resulting lava flow caused widespread damage.

[00:27:04] Vertical magma dikes are a pathway often formed from tectonic factoring to subsurface molten rocks

[00:27:10] to move rapidly upwards. According to the study's authors, these findings have serious implications

[00:27:15] for hazard mitigation should the magma build up in the dikes breach the surface and produce an eruption.

[00:27:21] The ancient Think River, which flows south of the central Australian town of Alice Springs,

[00:27:28] is often described as one of the world's oldest rivers. Now a new study in the journal

[00:27:34] Vertebrate Paleontology has shown how the waterway was once teeny with bizarre animal life.

[00:27:40] And included in that was a sleek predatory lobe thin fish with large fangs and burning scales.

[00:27:47] The newly described air-breathing fish dates back more than 380 million years and has been

[00:27:53] named Harajah Karajakadekti too many. The Green Hills of Wales are not normally thought of as

[00:28:00] Sasquatch country, but reports of recent Bigfoot sightings in the area have been spreading far and

[00:28:06] wide. However as Tim Mendham from The Sri and Skeptics points out, those behind the sightings

[00:28:11] just happen to be a TV crew and they just may have ulterior motives. Always rather good Bigfoot

[00:28:17] story, the week is not complete without a Bigfoot story, but unusually that the ordinary associate

[00:28:22] big feet with the U.S. and practically every state in the U.S. has a big foot or two.

[00:28:27] Bigfoot's not big feet. Well I don't know big foot but every state America has one even Florida

[00:28:33] of Got One, Texas of Got One, it's not always in the north-west Pacific area, but Wales has one

[00:28:38] in the U.K. And Wales is not necessarily known for big foots, more known for rugby players

[00:28:44] and sheep and that sort of stuff. But there was a story, people discovered rather large footprints

[00:28:49] size 23 was described as and a nest which is basically like a little shelter made up of twigs

[00:28:55] and branches and stuff, wouldn't be much defence against the rain which Wales is also known for.

[00:28:59] But they were saying look, here we are we have this evidence of a Bigfoot which as they all

[00:29:04] described with feet about the same size as the Shaq, Shotel and Neil, the basketball player,

[00:29:09] which I think is a bit rough on Satel and Neil I don't think he has a Bigfoot, he has big feet.

[00:29:12] Anyway everyone was describing that to give you an idea of how big these footprints were

[00:29:17] and they found this layer made out of sticks etc and it was found by,

[00:29:21] intriguingly, by paranormal researchers and filmmakers working on a new TV series.

[00:29:26] About what? He asks innocently, perhaps they were researching Bigfoots and a lot of them

[00:29:30] behold they found one, or they found the evidence for them.

[00:29:32] I'm the son of myself with Shawn.

[00:29:34] I know, if only it would work out that way all the time.

[00:29:38] This got public city, it went around the world etc and people were very intrigued by

[00:29:42] big footed whales. It would be until suddenly a couple of days later someone came out and was

[00:29:45] there, "Oh, it's a hoax." They'd sort of blame me down with a feather. Someone said we actually

[00:29:49] did it but I presume it's the same filmmakers owning up that they faked the story.

[00:29:54] They built this little freaking rubbishy shelter and they into this Shaq,

[00:29:58] Neil and Neil sized footprints and they said, "It was us all the time, surprise.

[00:30:02] I think you should have left it a bit longer before revealing the hoax,

[00:30:05] unless the people revealing the hoax are actually a hoax themselves."

[00:30:10] Well that's what they want you to think isn't it?

[00:30:12] That's what they want you to think, but actually the debunking, as always the case,

[00:30:16] didn't get as much problems as the original claim.

[00:30:18] The debunking never does, there's skeptics for them, there's skeptics have to carry that.

[00:30:22] The original outlandish claim gets front page news,

[00:30:25] the debunking gets back page news, if at all,

[00:30:28] the truth is not an interesting claim, it's a lot better, a lot more fun.

[00:30:30] I can't quite understand that, but it's still.

[00:30:33] That's Tim Ondon from Australia and skeptics.

[00:30:35] [Music]

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