By Yoichi Shimatsu
Exclusive to Rense
Permission to Repost With Full Credit
8-31-16

The sudden deaths of a herd of reindeer in Norway’s Telemark region is another puzzling incident in a string of Arctic region die-offs that cannot be attributed to conventional causes such as an epidemic or mass poisoning. Due to their categorical exclusion of effects of radioactivity on the atmosphere as a probable cause, the scientific establishment and news media have resorted to pinning the blame on an lightning strike, despite the absence of a grass fire or cracks in the ground around an impact point, known as a Litchenberg figure. (An English translation by AFP from the Norwegian NRK press release is posted at rense.com/general96/reindeer.htm )
 
For the defense, I argue here that the Norse deity of lightning and thunder, called Thor, is innocent of charges.
 
These noble creatures, associated with the benevolent figure of Santa Claus, are the victims of a gamma-ray surge primarily from radioactive isotopes from Fukushima, accelerated by cosmic rays. This is a second-generation tragedy caused by the nuclear power industry, since the herd’s predecessors had to be destroyed en masse due to fallout from Chernobyl.
 
The continuing threat of intermittent fallout from Japan and also from the Leningrad nuclear plant on the Baltic over the past five years is being amplified by a long-term trend of increased flows of cosmic rays streaming through the newly formed Arctic ozone hole that rapidly expanded in spring 2011 following the March 2011 Fukushima airborne radioactivity releases. (See graphics on expansion of the Arctic ozone hole at theozonehole.com/arcticozone.htm and my article critical of the NASA cover-up www.rense.com/general96/arctic.html)
 
Radioactivity escaping from reactor containment into the global environment acts in strange ways unforeseen by physicists and nuclear engineers. The Fukushima effects on the Arctic region are on a magnitude beyond the imagination of those nuclear physicists who assured the world public of the safety of atomic power. Since the 2011 meltdowns in Japan, flows of tritium have fragmented the polar icecap, transforming that once solid sheet into a vast puddle of ice cubes that is destabilizing weather patterns over a Northern Hemisphere, wreaking havoc with winter tornadoes and temperature extremes. (my fly-over photos and analysis: www.rense.com/general96/arctic.html )
 
Ever since Fukushima radioactive drift eliminated the protective shield of ozone over the Arctic, cosmic gamma rays have been streaming down in ever-greater concentration. Some of these high-energy protons from deep space collide with  clusters of man-made nuclear isotopes (from Fukushima and other nuclear facilities) trapped in the moisture of clouds and fog, resulting in a process called cosmic-ray spallation. These collisions split the nuclei of reactor-sourced isotopes to release fast high-energy particles. Due to cosmic origins of cosmic rays (primarily comprised of gamma rays), these split particles are called cosmogenic nuclides. The colliding cosmic rays can also break apart the nuclei of atmospheric gases to create life-threatening radiation, including alpha, beta and gamma rays.
 
Lighting flashes between clouds also generate gamma-ray bursts, which are flows of positive-charged protons. These atmospheric bursts are powerful enough to create antimatter. These different sources of gamma radiation, along with other types of radiation, can be released in lethal cascades of radioactivity onto the tundra and steppes, and even further southward to the temperate forests and plains.
 

Since many wildlife species are already at a tipping point due to constant dietary intake of radioactive contamination carried to their natural habitat by the wind from Fukushima, the combination of cosmic gamma rays, cosmogenic nuclides and cloud-sourced gamma burst is the final blow to the defenseless wildlife.
 
Surges of gamma rays and cloud-born isotopes onto radioactive habitat are what has been exterminating full-grown mammals, northern birds and insects from the Arctic region to the temperate zones of North America and the Eurasian continent, while harming the reproductive health of survivors. Contrary to blanket of official censorship, what we are witnessing is the fast start of a global extinction event.
 
To protect the privileged nuclear physics establishment in the energy industry and academia, environmental research institutes are in stubborn denial of the role of radioactivity in destabilizing the global climate and perpetrating species extermination. By their silence, biologists and environmentalists have allowed themselves to be accessories to the greatest crime on the human record of environmental destruction.
 
 Positive-charged Jolts
 
Due to the presence of radioactive isotopes and cosmic rays, the term “lightning” needs to be completely redefined. Natural lighting is a rebalancing of negative-charged electrons between the ground and the air. In contrast, gamma ray bursts are composed of extremely high-powered positive-charged protons.
 
Gamma-ray surges of 30 Gy (grays, each equivalent to one Sievert a second in passage) can quickly shut down the nervous system and cardiovascular function in mammals, without leaving traces such as burns (as from a nuclear bomb blast), scarring, internal trauma wounds and not even detectable radioactivity in the flesh any higher than background level. A millisecond burst of gamma rays can shutdown the body like switching off a light bulb. Another analogy is to be killed by a ghost that leaves no telltale evidence and disappears though the wall.

That said, the instantaneous deaths of the reindeer herd in Hardangervidda national park in the Telemark region of central Norway calls for rigorous analysis. There are striking similarities between this Norwegian reindeer incident and the die-off of saiga antelope on the Kazakhstan steppe. Some 120,000 wild antelope, approximately half of the national herd, keeled over in May from a mysterious cause, variously attributed to infectious diseases, poisoning by toxic vegetation, and chemical pollutants from rocket launches.
 
None of these suggestions can explain the widespread area of antelope mortality and therefore are unconvincing. The Kazakh steppes kill-off was preceded by unusually heavy rainfall, which led to evaporation that lifted radioactive salts from the ground into the fog and clouds. What are the sources of radioactive isotopes in Kazahkstan? These include the former Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk and the uranium mines in the Tianshan mountain range. Cosmic rays passing through the new Arctic ozone hole would trigger these cloud-borne isotopes, resulting in deadly avalanches of gamma rays down to the antelopes. (The process is explained in steps further down this essay.)
 
Herd Reductions in Canada and Alaska
 
The suggestion that lightning can fell a herd of ruminants is based on a 1972 finding in Alaska’s Brooks Range. That case for lightning was not watertight, since the bodies of the 50 dead caribou had started to decompose. In addition, the asterisk-shaped cracks in the rocky surface could have been made by an unauthorized air-to-ground missile firing from a fighter jet. (Asians who lived near U.S. military bases in Japan and Vietnam in those days are familiar with casual shootings by USAF “jet jockeys”, often with lethal consequences for playfully targeted water buffaloes and farmers.)
 
Following up on the grisly discovery of caribou carcasses by an Army helicopter pilot, meteorologist Glenn Shaw from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks suggested that a powerful lighting bolt was the likeliest cause of the Litchenberg figure, the cracks branching outward from a central strike point. This precedent-setting theory, which features in the Norway reindeer kill-off. (see http://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/mystery-dead-caribou )
 
A forgotten factor behind wildlife die-offs that demands recognition was the U.S. military’s massive nuclear bomb tests on Amchitka island, at the far end of the Aleutians archipelago. Simultaneously, the U.S. military was also conducting Operation Hard Tack, which was a series of high-altitude nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere over the Pacific with the aim of artificially charging the ionosphere to improve global radio communications. (Radio signals are bounced off the electromagnetic field amplified by radioactive isotopes. Those explosions, however, may have harmed the atmosphere’s natural capability to generate replacement ions.)
 
The Brooks Range death site far inland from the coast is at a higher elevation than the recent Norwegian die-off, and therefore closer to radioactivity-laced clouds that may have increased the killing power of normal lightning. However, isotope from nearby nuclear testing may well have caused gamma-ray based positive-charge lightning, even in those early days.
 
Steep population declines in caribou herds across Canada and Alaska over the past four decades are probably linked to a combination of isotope-poisoning in radioactive pastures and death from gamma-ray bursts, stemming from fallout from the U.S. military’s powerful nuclear-bomb tests at Amchitka. The tests codenamed Long Shot, Milrow and Canniken included the biggest thermonuclear blast in American history.
 
Native Alaskan residents today claim the Pentagon also conducted one or more shallow underwater test blasts off the Aleutians to create artificial tsunami and that those records are still classified as top secret due to the massive amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean. Is it any wonder that the once-magnificent caribou herds are gone forever? Or that scientists ignore these events when doing field research by failing to use geiger counters or dosimeters?
 
 Norwegians Would
 
 In contrast to reports from the Brook Range incident, photos of the Norway reindeer kill show no Litchenberg rupture patterns on the ground associated with a lightning strike. Nor are there any charred spots from lightning-ignited grass fires in the late summer season. The visual evidence suggests a electrical variant of greater complexity and more powerful than a natural lightning bolt. The suspect instrument of destruction is something more powerful than Thor’s hammer.
 
Contrary to statements from government experts dispatched to the site, the Norwegian herd was not huddled together out of fear of thunder and lightning. The images clearly show that subgroups were marching in long lines toward the lower part of the slope between the ridge and the waterline, that part of the terrain safest from a lightning strike. The herd was spread over a distance of more than 80 meters. The big bellwether, or alpha male, was leading the way about 20 meters ahead of his followers, indicating past experience in escaping lightning storms due to his ability to detect the warning signs of a rising current along tingling limbs and the spine, which raises the fur on the neck. (Wildlife intelligence is often far better than human knowledge or scientific instruments,, as recurrently proven in earthquake prediction.)
 
Compounding the error, the on-site expert (who shall go unnamed so as to spare him the shame of being exposed without Asgard) suggested the long-legged creatures were killed by lightning-caused ground current that flowed up one leg and down another. He did not specify whether the electron charge went from front legs to back or left to right, or in the reverse.
 
The problem here is that ground current, even from a nearby lightning strike, is not steady as is for example direct current (DC) through two wires into welding equipment. The slope is a mixture of boulders, water runoff channels and grass-covered soil, and so the ground current would be unevenly distributed, which would have left alive some or much of the herd. If one thinks of hikers struck by lighting, in most cases one or a few individual might be struck while others on the same path behind and ahead of them would be shaken but spared.
 
To kill 323 reindeer over an area nearly the size of football field, an unprecedented jolt of ground current would have left huge cracks centered on the major discharge points or at least caused grass fires. No such cleavage patterns nor burns were apparent on site, and therefore a standard negative-charged bolt of lightning, even at close proximity, is ruled out as the probable cause of death. The actual cause, gamma-ray surge, is dangerous enough to be a priority concern for public safety and animal welfare, and should be given research priority.
 
Cosmic Rays Trigger Radioactive Isotopes
 
So what killed the reindeer? The answer is found across the Bifrost, the fiery Rainbow Bridge to the other side of the Cosmos, as well as closer on our home planet in the nuclear bonfires of Fukushima.
 
The likeliest cause is gamma radiation released in the interaction of two sources: cosmic rays and gamma radiation released by nuclear plants, especially the TEPCO Fukushima No.1 facility. Clouds and fog containing radionuclides are the kettles where cosmic rays collide with radioactive fallout, generating cascades of high-energy gamma rays another deadly particles.

To quote a 2005 article by Maggie McKee in The New Scientist journal: “Gamma rays that flash briefly in Earth’s atmosphere during lightning storms are much more frequent and powerful than previously thought, a new study reveals. The rays, which are comprised of high-energy protons, exceed the energies (that reach Earth) of those from cosmic sources such as the explosive births of black holes. The new observations support a phenomenon predicted in 1925.”

In science fiction literature and early sci-fi movies, these gamma-ray bursts are called “death rays” shot out from ray guns. This discussion is unfortunately relevant to weapons development since the aerospace forces of the major powers have developed lethal ray technology for their secret arsenals, as if the planet is not already lethally radioactive.