In September 1859, the Earth was struck by an awe-inspiring coronal mass ejection (CME). Astronomers observed; a brilliantly bright white flare exploded out from the sun, and auroras were seen as far south as Cuba and Jamaica.
[1] This massive solar event wreaked havoc on electrical equipment across the world; telegraph wires burned off their poles, streams of fire poured forth from electrical circuits, and telegraph lines remained operative even with the batteries disconnected.
Today, electronics are way more than they were in 1859. Almost every home in the developed world is connected to an electrical grid, billions of people rely on satellites for communication, and vital supply lines depend on electricity to operate. It’s been estimated that an Electro=Magnetic Pulse attack on the United States would utterly obliterate the American energy grid and starve 90 percent of the US population. The effects of an EMP blast are similar to those of a Coronal Mass Ejection, except that a powerful enough solar blast would disable the entire planet.
How many of us are truly ready for such an event to occur? How would society and culture be affected in the long term if the Earth was hit by an electromagnetic blast like the solar storm that narrowly missed us in 2012? If all of our electronic conveniences were destroyed in the blink of an eye, modern civilization would be exposed to be as flimsy as a tinfoil hat.
With proper warning, communications
satellites can be turned off before a solar storm hits the Earth. But the first stage of a CME slams into the Earth within 8 minutes, leaving no time to prepare. In this initial stage, electromagnetic radiation would block satellite signals by altering the composition of the atmosphere. With communications knocked out, it would be impossible to prepare satellites for the next stage of a solar storm. Most communications satellites wouldn’t survive the bombardment of high-speed charged particles that follows immediately behind the initial flash of light from the sun.
Military forces around the world rely on satellites for communication. Millions of monetary transactions are processed by satellites every day. People in rural areas require satellites to connect to the world, and
pilots use satellites to navigate airplanes. If the second stage of a CME were to knock out the global satellite communication system, it could take months, more likely; years to bring this network back online.
While the first two stages of a massive solar storm are bad enough, the third and final stage of a CME dwarfs its precursors in terms of sheer destructive potential. Long after the radiation and charged particles associated with a CME have already made landfall on the Earth’s electromagnetic shores, a multi billion ton cloud of gas and super hot plasma would still be rushing inexorably toward us at an average speed of 3.5 million of miles per hour, taking about 24 hours to arrive.
The atmosphere protects us from being directly affected by a CME. But all hell would break loose on the surface of the
planet upon contact of this mass of expelled solar matter with the Earth’s magnetosphere. Power transformers would explode all over the world, instantly plunging millions into darkness. Power lines would sag and snap, and all electronic communications systems would fail. In the case of a powerful enough solar storm, every single electronic device in the world could be destroyed instantaneously.
The planet would be without electricity, and masses of people who have been taught for generations to rely on
electronics and depend on the system would suddenly be deprived of all those benefits.
The average person has no idea how to fend for themselves in a real disaster situation. Even those with a temperament suitable for such a feat have rarely amassed the means to achieve off-the-grid
survival for an extended period of time.
Not only would a massive CME take down millions of phone and cable lines that serve as carriers for
Internet signals, but a powerful solar storm could also fry servers in critical data centers. If, for instance, Google or Wikipedia’s servers were destroyed, it wouldn’t be much consolation to reconnect to the Internet after our long time in the dark.
Though physical records still exist of the knowledge that mankind has amassed throughout the centuries, it wouldn’t take long for books to become fuel for fires instead of the mind if a power outage lasted more than a week. If a strong enough CME were to strike the Earth, the slate of human history could potentially be wiped clean.
If the systems of our world came crashing down, those who survived would be incapable of returning to the old world even if it were magically resurrected. They would be ready for something new.
After the cataclysm, truths which have been obscured could be divulged. Technologies that have been suppressed could be revealed. The remnants of
humanity would band together, remade by the experience of watching the world end.
Though most don’t contain any electronic components,
human bodies are also connected to the Earth’s magnetic field. An electromagnetic aura surrounds the human body, and the nervous system carries signals with electricity. In 2014, a scientific study suggested that the risk of stroke increases during geomagnetic storms, and the potential effects of a powerful solar storm on the human body don’t end there.
Researchers have pointed out that dozens of
ancient cultures believed that a massive solar event would propel humanity into an evolved stage of consciousness. Many of these cultures refer to this event as a “solar flash” and predict that those who survive this event will ascend into a state of being in which the hidden mysteries of the mind, such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and levitation, are available to all.
Ref; S. Popejoy
