Observing Nature, Greek philosophers painstakingly recorded various incomprehensible phenomena. Thus, they found that the last quarter of the lunar cycle coincides with an increase in sexual activity in marine animals. Even Aristotle noticed that the ovaries of sea urchins swell at a full moon, and described the life cycle of these creatures in such detail that zoologists still call their chewing organ "Aristotelian lantern". Cicero said that the number of oysters and other molluscs increases or decreases depending on the phase of the moon. Pliny asserted the same.
But in the Soviet encyclopedic dictionary of 1988 edition to the concept of "sleepwalking" there is the following comment: "The name is from false ideas about the influence of moonlight on a person." But he wrote about sleepwalking back in 400 BC. e. such a recognized authority as the father of medicine Hippocrates.
But fact is a stubborn thing. Doctor E. Andrews from Talahassee (USA) became interested in the statistics of bleeding after tonsil removal, since some patients after this simple operation had to be returned to the clinic. After examining over 1,000 such cases, the physician found that over 80 percent of bleeding crises occurred on the full moon.
Oscar Collier, a successful literary agent from New York, arranges auctions that sell publishing rights to manuscripts only on full moon days, and he does not do so out of superstition. I just found that trading is much more lively on a full moon!
Collier and Andrews are not the only ones who have noticed that many people are affected by the moon. Policemen, firefighters, ambulance doctors know that when the lunar phases change, they have the most work. It is on these days that the number of suicides, murders, deliberate arson and other crimes increases sharply.
The well-known boxer Mohammed Ali also preferred to fight on the full moon, honestly admitting that these days he is "maddened" and is able to "grind his opponent into powder".
The famous killer of the 19th century, Charles Hyde, assured at the trial that he was innocent, since the young month drove him to madness. And he committed crimes in an unconscious state. Hyde did not convince the judges and was sentenced to death, but acquired literary immortality: Robert Louis Stevenson made him the hero of his novel.
And in our time, he found a follower: recently on television there was a story about the new Russian Chikatilo, who specialized in the murders of couples in love who come by car to the forest for love affairs. Investigating the cases of these unmotivated killings, the police determined that they occur mainly on the full moon! Folk legends claim that some people turn into ghouls at full moon. The most famous proponent of the theory of "lunar madness", which he calls the "Transylvanian syndrome" (according to the same legends, it was in Transylvania that many vampires were found) is the American psychiatrist Arnold Lieber. In his book Lunar Effect, he writes that the gravity of the Moon affects our internal biological "tides" in the same way it affects the waters of the seas and oceans. Some of the people do not notice her, and,Thank God, they are in the majority, but the Moon drives some to madness and death.
Promotional video:
As evidence of his theory, Dr. Lieber cites data collected in the states of Ohio and Florida. Overwhelming statistics show that the number of murders, especially unmotivated, on the days of the full moon increases dramatically.
The most famous in the field of lunar-terrestrial relations are the experiments of the American biologist Frank A. Brown, professor of biology at Northwestern University. After receiving his Ph. D. in biological sciences from Harvard University, Brown worked for a time at a biocenter in Bermuda. There, for the first time, he directly observed two completely surprising facts: the appearance with monthly periodicity of schools of Bermuda shrimp and clusters of the Atlantic glow worm. The most remarkable thing about these phenomena was their confinement to certain phases of the moon.
But since the ocean itself is an excellent indicator of the influence of the moon on earth processes, Brown decided to conduct a biological experiment where such an influence of the ocean was excluded.
Spending the summer at the Buds Hall Marine Biological Laboratory, he discovered the presence of tidal rhythms in local oysters and a small crab. For further experiments, the choice fell on oysters.
The oysters harvested from a sandbank in New Haven, Connecticut, were transported in a dark tank to Evanson, Illinois. There they were placed in trays of sea water and placed in a dark bunker. During the first days, they continued to open their shells to their maximum during the highest tide in New Haven. However, by the end of the second week, the oysters completely changed their rhythm and began to open their shells as much as possible when the Moon was at the zenith and nadir (opposite the zenith point). Some strange physical factor associated with the Moon acted not only through the walls of the bunker, but also through the thickness of the globe!
In the future, Brown complicated the experiments, using not only marine animals, but also mammals, as well as plants. The experiments were carried out in sealed chambers isolated from external influences. Pressure, humidity, temperature and illumination in them all the time remained constant. For greater objectivity, not behavioral reactions, as in oysters, were investigated, but some metabolic indicators, in particular the acidity of the blood, were recorded. Hundreds of observations have revealed a remarkable fact: in all experimental animals and plants, the metabolism was carried out in a cycle that coincided with the lunar calendar! The cycle ended by the time of the new moon and grew, reaching its maximum in the third quarter of the lunar month.
Biologists have tried to articulate the idea that experimental animals sense directly the gravitational radiation of the moon. As a confirmation of this idea, the reaction of oysters to the Moon in nadir was indicated, since even the thickness of the entire globe is not a screen for gravitational waves (more precisely, fields, since gravitational radiation has not yet been unambiguously registered).
Of course, you can talk as much as you like about the influence of the moon on all life on Earth, referring to the personal experience of doctors, artists and boxers, but as long as there is no objective criterion for the impact of our satellite on biological processes, all this will be perceived by scientists as a kind of lunar astrology.
And yet the biologists were at their best. American G. Burr studied biocurrents in animals and plants. The experiments were very simple: two silver-plated nails were driven into a tree and the electric potential between them was measured using a conventional galvanometer.
Taking daily measurements, he unexpectedly discovered that there was a jump in potential twice a month, not associated with any external factors. Burr measured temperature, humidity, pressure, and illumination in parallel. None of these factors were associated with the observed potential spikes. But he discovered, like Brown, a clear connection with the lunar phases!
Burra's colleague L. Ravitz conducted similar experiments with humans that could provide additional information. Hundreds of measurements have shown a clear relationship between mood and potential difference. When it increased, the experimental people showed apathy, uncertainty, irritability. When the same people fell, there was a complete change of mood: well-being, enthusiasm, a tendency to communicate. Strange changes in electrical potential occurred every 14-17 days and exactly coincided with the moments of the new moon and full moon.
When Burr and Ravitz compared their results, it turned out that the stress diagrams in the organisms of the experimental people completely coincided with the analogous diagram for trees! It turns out that all life on Earth lives according to the same lunar rhythm!
Since physicists actively resisted the idea of gravity as an acting factor, biologists began to talk about some unknown radiation associated with the Moon (by analogy with the unknown Z-radiation of Chizhevsky for a similar effect of the Sun on the biosphere).
The person who finally managed to fix these mysterious "moonbeams" was our compatriot, an engineer from Ulyanovsk, Vladimir Belyaev. By a lucky coincidence, he used to work on special-design pendulum instruments designed to register gravitational variations (such instruments are used, for example, in geophysics for ore exploration).
In its simplest form, such a device, called a torsion pendulum or torsion balance, is a small disc or "dumbbell" suspended from the finest silk thread. The force of gravitational interaction is determined by the angle of twist of the thread.
Engineer Belyaev once decided to improve the device and hang the disk on a thread devoid of elasticity, which should have dramatically increased its sensitivity. After ten years of persistent searches, he discovered such a thread in nature - it was the web of one of the spider species. The disk suspended on it could continuously make thousands of revolutions in one direction without twisting the threads.
Belyaev's device, which he named "Delta", was made taking into account the previous experience of working with gravimeters. The thread with the disk was suspended in a glass vessel, which, after evacuating air from it, was filled with ammonia vapor. The vessel was located deep underground on an earthquake-resistant base and was surrounded by three solid screens - copper, water and asbestos, designed to reliably shield from electromagnetic radiation, including heat. From 1972 to 1976, the operation of the device continued around the clock, which made it possible to reveal very interesting and unexpected patterns. In particular, in a week or two it was possible to predict major earthquakes anywhere on Earth. But we are now interested in something else. As Belyaev himself notes, “from month to month, from year to year, observations have confirmed the connection between the Delta readings and the direct direct“radiation”of the Moon,not related to tidal events (i.e. 12-hour cycles). During the full moon, 2- and 4-hour cycles were recorded, about which science today practically knows nothing … And what is more important: at the end of the full moon, on days when, it would seem, the sensor should not have recorded such strange bursts, it still fixed. Why? It began to seem that the entire Universe is sending its signals to Earth in this range. But there is not a single observatory in the world where such radiation would be registered! "that the entire Universe is sending its signals to Earth in this range. But there is not a single observatory in the world where such radiation would be registered! "that the entire Universe is sending its signals to Earth in this range. But there is not a single observatory in the world where such radiation would be registered!"
What kind of radiation is it? Since the engineer Belyaev carefully screened his "Delta", only two factors known to science can affect it: gravitational variations and ponderomotive forces of ultra-low-frequency electromagnetic fields, which can freely penetrate through these screens. Proceeding from Ockami's principle, any exotic such as neutrinos and hypothetical Okhatra "microleptons" does not count, but Akim's torsion fields remain questionable, especially since Belyaev discovered two completely inexplicable effects: his "Delta" reacted to a person entering the basement, and, which is quite unbelievable, to splashing outside the basement walls from a glass of 10% ammonia solution (let me remind you that ammonia vapors are filled with a sealed vessel in which Delta is enclosed). That is, ammonia molecules somehow influence their “colleagues” at a great distance and through impenetrable screens! So it is worth paying attention to the device of engineer Belyaev for those who are experimenting with torsion fields.
In the meantime, scientists have not figured out the lunar radiation, we can only recommend the police to increase their vigilance on the full moon, and women should not go for walks alone in deserted places.
XX century. Chronicle of the inexplicable. Opening after opening. Nikolai Nepomniachtchi