Category: News

My fan club from Budapest, Hungary checked in today!

These guys, Gabor and Kornel were one of the first distributors in Europe to sell the PYRO FireWire card my company, ADS Tech developed in 1999.

PYRO was the first IEEE 1394 OHCI FireWire card in the World!

They sold thousands of cards. If you knew what Hungary was like in 1999 you would realize what an incredible feat that was.

At the time, I thought their company was an established distributor in Hungary. Years later, I learned that they formed the company to sell PYRO and ADS was the first supplier for the company!

They are still in business today, so good on them!

Today they sent these photos with ASTEROIDS!

It’s wonderful to have support from friends around the world!

Thanks Guys!

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Mike McCoy will be a guest on Coast to Coast AM this coming Wednesday February 12^th

10PM to Midnight

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/ 

I’ll be discussing the dangers asteroids pose to Earth, how to defend Earth from asteroid bombardment and how to survive an impact.  

You can listen on the iHeart Radio app – just search for KFI-AM Los Angeles to listen live!

Coast to Coast AM airs on over 600 stations in the US, Canada and Mexico and is heard by three million listeners weekly.

A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained phenomena.

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Atlas Obscura, one of my favorite sites on the internet focuses on the odd, weird, and obscure has discovered the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ the same bridge in my book, ASTEROIDS!

Atlas Obscura included the Bridge to Nowhere located in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles in a roundup of eight bridges to nowhere.

Here’s what they wrote:

The Bridge to Nowhere is a truss arch bridge that was built in 1936 just north of Azusa, California in the San Gabriel Mountains. The bridge spans the East Fork of the San Gabriel River and was intended to connect the San Gabriel Valley with Wrightwood, California. During its initial construction, Los Angeles County claimed that the bridge and connected highway would be one of the most scenic roads in America.

Unfortunately, these thoughts quickly changed when the East Fork Road, which provided access to the bridge, was washed out during a massive flood in 1938, just two years after the bridge’s completion. The entire project was then abandoned, and the bridge was left forever stranded in the middle of the Sheep Mountain wilderness, without having a single car ever cross it.

Today, the bridge is only accessible by a 10-mile round-trip hike, which ascends to 2760 feet while crossing the riverbed six times. Parts of the old asphalt roadway can still be found along the East Fork Trail, as well as a number of concrete slabs which formed the foundations of bridges that were also destroyed by the flood. Despite its popularity, the trail frequently gets washed out and can be very dangerous. There have been a large number of deaths along the San Gabriel River due to travelers crossing the rough waters en route to the bridge.

The Bridge to Nowhere remains one of the most bizarre artifacts of the San Gabriel Mountains. What began as a significant state transportation initiative slowly became a desolate destination for hikers and bungee jumpers. The connected road and nearby bridges may have been crushed and ruined by countless floods, but the Bridge to Nowhere remains true, unused, and alone in the wilderness.

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Imagine if the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko landed on Los Angeles.

The comet is approximately 2.7 miles by 2.5 miles at its longest and widest dimensions and speeds through space at 84,000 miles per hour.

Like other comets, 67P probably originated in the Kuiper belt and was ejected towards the interior of the solar system.

There is no risk of 67P crossing paths with Earth, but if it did, it would be a very bad day for Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California.

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My PR agent, trying to get more coverage for ASTEROIDS-Bridge to Nowhere, asked if there had been any recent asteroid near misses with Earth. Here’s what I found:

Jan 1, 2020 – Bus-size asteroid will buzz Earth at 18,400 mph on Jan. 2 – The event is set to occur just three days after five sizeable NEOs flew by the Earth on the same day.

Jan 6, 2020 – ROCKY HORROR! Asteroid that could have caused ‘Violent Sky Explosion’ powerful as 30 nukes zips past Earth. 

Jan 25, 2020 – A 32-Foot Asteroid Skimmed Earth from Very Close by Shortly After It Was Discovered. The asteroid was traveling at an incredible speed of 22,800 mph and buzzed Earth from only 37,200 miles away. The object was discovered less than 24 hours before its close flyby of Earth. Yikes!

Jan 26, 2020 – “City-Killer” Asteroid Nearly Hits Earth – it came closer to the Earth than the moon this week.

The space rock, named Asteroid 2019 OK, came hurtling toward Earth at a speed of nearly 15 miles a second. Astronomers admit they had no idea the giant rock was headed our way, because it came from the direction of the sun and only became visible a few days ago. 

It looks like 2020 will be a busy year for asteroid flyby’s. It’s only a matter of time before one smacks us!

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the reviews for ASTEROIDS. Give it a read and let me know what you think. If you like the book, please share with your friends and family.

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Last weekend I hiked up to the Bridge to Nowhere. It’s not a fictional bridge created for my book. It’s a real place! The Bridge to Nowhere was built in 1936 and spans the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. It was meant to be part of a road connecting the San Gabriel Valley with the town of Wrightwood. The road was under construction when it was washed out during the great flood of March 1st, 1938. The road project was abandoned due to the floods leaving the completed bridge stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Reaching the bridge these days requires a five-mile hike on a rugged trail climbing over rockslides, granite boulders, darting past prickly Yucca plants, and crossing the San Gabriel River several times.

Once you reach the bridge you might be surprised to find a very active Bungee Jumping operation. This was my third time visiting the bridge but the first time meeting the current owner of the bridge and surrounding area, Dr. Ron Jones.

Ron has operated Bungee America since 1989 which is the only government certified bungee jumping company in California and counts more than 162,000 successful jumps.

I brought a copy of ASTEROIDS – Bridge to Nowhere with me on the hike to take some photos. When I met Ron and learned that he owns the bridge, I joked that I might owe him royalties for using an image of the bridge on the book cover.

He responded that if I gave him a copy of the book, he would call it even! I was happy to give him the copy I’d brought on the hike.

Ron also confirmed there are several old gold mines in the canyon, just as I described in the book, but I doubt any have been converted into something quite like Munday’s Hide-a-way!

If you’d like to schedule a bungee jump visit www.BungeeAmerica.com

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Is this the start of something?

Is Earth at Risk?

Almost every week there is news of a new, undiscovered asteroid flying past Earth.

How long until one comes too close?

If a meteor struck Earth, how would it be portrayed in the media?

Would the government invoke the Bliss Protocol like in the book ASTEROIDS to keep the public calm and ignorant?

Three asteroids are expected to hurtle past Earth today (Sept. 9). One will pass as near as 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) — closer than any potential asteroid near-miss for the next three months.

Asteroid 2019 QZ3 flew by at 6:49 a.m. ET; asteroid 2019 RG2 follows at around 3:13 p.m. ET, and the third, asteroid 2019 QY4, flashes past at 9:10 p.m. ET, the International Business Times reported.

QZ3 is the biggest of the trio, with a diameter of 220 feet (67 meters), while RG2 and QY4, respectively measure approximately 66 feet (20 m) and 52 feet (16 m) in length, according to NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

Space rocks such as these, known as near-Earth objects (NEOS), are nudged by the gravity of neighboring planets into orbital paths that carry them fairly close to our cosmic address. But “close” in space is a relative term: At the closest point in their passage, all three of today’s asteroid visitors will be farther from Earth than the moon is, according to CNEOS.

RG2 is the fastest asteroid, speeding by at a velocity of nearly 50,000 miles per hour (80,000 kilometers/hour), while QY4 is moving at just over 17,000 mph (27,000 km/h). QZ3 is the slowpoke of the group, at 16,700 mph (26,800 km/h), according to IBT. Though QZ3 is the biggest asteroid, it is also the furthest from Earth, at a distance of approximately 2.3 million miles from our planet, CNEOS reported.

Another asteroid — 2006 QV89 — was previously thought to potentially follow a trajectory that could slam into Earth, with a 1-in-7,299 chance of an impact on Sept. 9. But experts announced in July that the asteroid did not appear in the area of the sky where it would have shown up if it were on a collision course with our planet, representatives with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a statement. 

CNEOS representatives confirmed on Aug. 15 that QV89 was no threat to Earth, and that the asteroid would instead rocket past our planet on Sept. 27 “at a comfortable distance of 4.3 million miles (6.9 million km), about 18 times the distance of the Moon.”

Currently, there are 878 NEOs that demonstrate some risk — however small it might be — of colliding with Earth, according to a list maintained by the European Space Agency (ESA). Of these, the biggest (and second on the list) is asteroid 1979 XB. Measuring about 2,300 feet (700 m) in length and traveling at more than 58,000 mph (93,300 km/h), the massive space rock is expected to come calling on Dec. 14, 2113, ESA reported.…

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Scientists have long speculated that a “planet 9,” in orbit very far from the Sun, could explain why other bodies in our solar system have strange, hard-to-explain orbits.

Now, a pair of astrophysicists are suggesting a strange twist on that idea: that a black hole — or even a number of them — could be orbiting our Sun right now, way beyond Neptune.

This week, a pair of researchers from Durham University and the University of Illinois at Chicago published a paper outlining their theory on the pre-print server arXiv. In it, they suggest that the Sun’s orbit might have captured a free-floating “primordial black hole” — and it, or they, are still out there, circling the solar system.

In ASTEROIDS Bridge to Nowhere an asteroid storm destroys everything that has man built, forcing humankind to move below the surface to survive.

But how is it feasible or believable that an asteroid storm could occur? In writing the book, I had the help of Dr. Joe Nuth of the Goddard Space Flight Center. I sent him the draft of my concept for the cause of an asteroid storm. He told me my idea was completely wrong but was quick to suggest a legitimate cause. The result is what is written in ASTEROIDS.

So, when you read ASTEROIDS Bridge to Nowhere, I hope you find comfort in the knowledge that the asteroid storm destroying life as we know it has a scientific basis. Hint; see news story above.

News story credit: Futurism.com

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ASTEROIDS-Bridge to Nowhere has been selected as a quarter finalist for the BookLife Prize in the Science Fiction category.

Wow. I’m really pleased and humbled that ASTEROIDS got this far.

Hopefully ASTEROIDS will make it to the next round and be named a semi-finalist.

Maybe you should read this book!

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