March 19, 2006: Comets and Catastrophes - James McCanney
Podcast: The Art Bell ArchivePublished On: Tue Dec 30 2025
Description: Art Bell welcomes physicist James McCanney to discuss his plasma discharge comet model and its implications for Earth. McCanney argues that NASA's Stardust mission results prove comets are not dirty snowballs, as the returned samples contained calcium-aluminum inclusions formed at extreme temperatures rather than ice. He notes that the Deep Impact mission's spectrometer data showed Comet Tempel 1's nucleus was too hot to support water in any form.The discussion expands into planetary catastrophism, drawing on ancient legends from the Hopi, Mayans, and Egyptians. McCanney explains his theory that large cometary objects passing through the solar system discharge what he calls the solar capacitor, producing devastating electrical effects on nearby planets. He contends that Mars once had oceans and an atmosphere stripped away by such an encounter, and that similar events have shaped Earth's history through mass extinctions and ocean displacement.Art presses McCanney on how much warning humanity would receive if a large dark object approached Earth. McCanney estimates it could range from years to mere weeks depending on trajectory and speed. He discusses the Vatican's comet-hunting telescope in Arizona, government tunnel-boring projects, and his own proposals for space colonization as a survival strategy against extinction-level events.
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