Anything unusual that happens or is rumored to have happened at, around or in the general vicinity of Geneva is often blamed on the Large Hadron Collider and its maker, CERN. That was the case once again this week when photos and a video appeared on the Internet allegedly showing strange clouds over the LHC. Has a portal to another dimension been opened or is this just a case of panic in the precipitation?
The video is ominously titled “What portal did CERN open now? Strange Clouds Hover Above the LHC” and was produced and uploaded by Freedom Times Fighter, a website that describes itself as “A Research organization that exposes the end times, and the powers that be who seek our demise.” In the interest of keeping church, state and scientific apocalypses separate, we’ll attempt to focus here on the scientific side.
The photos were reportedly taken on June 24th, 2016, by three photographers on a walk together: Joëlle Rodrigue, Dean Gill and Christophe Suarez. Weather reports for that date show .67 inches of rain but no unusual weather was noted. The quality of the photographs is exceptional and the narrator of the video addresses this by assuring that the images have been examined and are genuine and unedited. It doesn’t say how that was done but the photographers have other fine photos on their pages. They also didn’t report seeing anything unusual other than a really cool storm.
The video says that the photos were taken on the same day as the AWAKE experiment was supposed to begin. That conspiracy-generating name actually stands for the Advanced Wakefield Experiment and is (according to CERN) “the world’s first proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment. Besides demonstrating how protons can be used to generate wakefields, AWAKE will also develop the necessary technologies for long-term, proton-driven plasma acceleration projects.” While CERN announced the first proton beam commissioning on June 16th, nothing seemed to occur on June 24th.
Anything having to do with clouds over CERN brings up the CLOUD experiment and this is no exception. CLOUD is the Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets experiment which uses a special cloud chamber at the Proton Synchrotron to “study the possible link between galactic cosmic rays and cloud formation.” The experiments are conducted completely inside the cloud chamber. Only the knowledge of possible links between water droplets, cosmic rays and climate change can escape.
So, what dots are we trying to connect here? Some high-quality photographs of storm clouds over Geneva on taken on June 24th by three photographers who happened to be walking together with their cameras. CERN is in Geneva. CERN is conducting acceleration and cloud experiments. An “end times” web site linking the photos and CERN with climate change and apocalyptic predictions. Interesting? Yes. Portals or Armageddon? A few more dots closer together would help.