Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501
Sponsored by Vangard Sciences
PO BOX 1031
Mesquite, TX 75150
September 2, 1993
POTATO.ASC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This file shared with KeelyNet courtesy of Dan Davidson.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Potatoes Can See
A REPORT BY JACK SALTER
Aug.1, 1993 OF
WATERFORD MICHIGAN
In the late 60's I was working for a company, in southern Michigan,
called Space Defense Corp. The company was engaged in basic
research with most of the contracts being with NASA. The question
of particular interest to us at the time was, "What would happen to
man's biological rhythms in a long term deep space flight?"
Man has about 280 biological clocks ticking away and are more or
less associated with the Planet Earth. So if we take man and send
him into deep space, is he going to fall apart?
The plan was to take something simple, study its' biorhythms on
earth, then shoot it into deep space, then compare the biorhythm,
which would give you conjecture as to Man. After a reasonable study
the Potato was elected-it was simple, lots of data in the data
banks, and the life-blood of Americans. To help clarify the data we
elected to only fly the eye of a potato thus reducing the size of
the experiment.
Pertinent Data:
* Sample size - 1/4" diameter - 3/4" long potato eye plug.
* Oxygen consumption- 10 Cubic Inches in 90 days.
* Oxygen transducer was used to control the partial pressure
* Potato chamber was constructed entirely of aluminum to
preclude the possibility of any Lumens being able to excite
the eye.
* The chamber was pressurized to one atmosphere and maintained
to one millionth of a PSI-this is so the eye cannot sense
barometric changes.
* Ambient temperature was controlled to within three Degrees F
One of the first things that we noticed was that not all eyes
survived the plugging operation. The potato eye would go into post
operative shock as if he were trying to decide if "He" were going to
live or die. He would not take a breath for 2 or 3 days, but, if
the potato were plugged during the full moon the breathing would
start almost immediately. Thus giving more credence to the "Farmers
Almanac" saying that "if you want to have a good potato crop you
should plant in the light of the full moon".
The first of the data showed that the potato would get up at sunrise
and "Work"; do his thing until sundown. Then he would go into a
quasi-state of low oxygen consumption (sleep) until next morning.
Then the process was repeated five more times followed by a low
oxygen consumption day ;"cool it day", to put it more accurately he
worked six days and rested on the seventh! Now this brought up more
questions than it solved. How is it that all potatoes had the same
rhythm? Why were they synchronous? When did they pick the day of
rest? Was "GOD" trying to tell us something?
Over the years of study the potato appeared to be smarter and
smarter. While still locked up in the can, he still could tell
Spring, Winter, Fall and Summer. He knew the days of the week, the
time of day and the position of the moon with respect to the sun.
That potato either had a fantastic memory or was getting information
through the can.
We then decided to revise the instrumentation to put a temperature
probe directly into the potato eye. We reasoned that as he took a
breath, the O2 would combine with the starch - this reaction would
produce heat thus telling us the minute the potato took a breath.
This new instrumentation presented us with some of the old problems
of grounding, shielding, and stray fields each in turn being
answered by perseverance, except one.
Sporadic problems that seemingly come and go without an explanation
as to reason or time are the worst and hardest type to correct. The
search seemed endless. Finally we noticed that when someone new came
into the lab that the potato got hyper.
That is to say, we noticed that the breathing rate increased and
would stay elevated for several minutes after the arrival of any new
people to the laboratory. Does this sporadic problem turn out to be
Potato Memory?
Can the potato SEE through the aluminum can, remember who was in the
lab, then say to himself "that's a new face, what's he doing here"?
Then after a few minutes, think to himself "nothing new is going on,
I guess I'll go back to doing my thing".
It's time for some conjecture, what if the Potato were a supersensitive
gravity field detector? This would account for knowing
the Spring, Winter, Fall and Summer, further, the position of the
sun and moon could be accounted for. But, knowing the day of the
week?
That's a reach, but not so much if you consider everything produces
a gravity field. That the net gravitometric force is the net of all
the fields around you. When Jim, Betty, and Bob are in the lab,
they produce a net gravity field which is sensed by the Potato. Now
lets say that Judy comes into the Lab. The gravity field must adjust
which will affect the Potato as well.
Let us take this one more step, the building that houses the lab
normally has about 100 people working there, but on Sunday there may
be none to five. Which would give a lower net gravitational field
and thus the Potato does not feel the pressure to work so hard. And
all this time you thought that He wanted to go to church. One final
thought. If the Potato can't see why do we say he has eyes.
|