It’s a bit disturbing when you remember something clearly but can find no trace of it online.
It’s a good reminder that the world is full of mystery, facts, theories, genius, stupidity, events, and ideas we’ll never know about. It’s easy to forget this and assume history books and the expansive reach of the internet have everything interesting catalogued. But the vast majority of things ever spoken, done, or even written, are not accessible to us.
The other day I suddenly remembered a researcher of some kind who came to town and gave a presentation at a church when I was a kid. He had a theory that the earth used to be surrounded by a dome of ice. This was a pretty detailed theory, and he even brought all kinds of props like casts with footprints of humans and animals.
The dome, he said, caused the atmosphere of earth to be much richer in oxygen than it is now, and possibly pressurized like a hyperbaric chamber. He claimed dinosaurs like the T-Rex and Pterodactyl could not run or fly in our current atmosphere, given how small their lungs were relative to their bodies. He also claimed humans were much larger and lived much longer in these conditions.
Oh, the sky was also tinted pink under the dome. I don’t remember why, but it had a magenta hue. He produced several bits of evidence for this – references in stories and writings, etc. He also said that this particular magenta hue had some neurologically calming effect on humans and animals, and hence they were less violent and lived in harmony.
The biblical flood event entailed the melting and/or crashing down of this ice dome. He referenced Woolly Mammoths found flattened in ice with undigested buttercups in their mouth as proof that they were squished by a chunk of the collapsing ice dome.
One of the reasons I remember all this is because, per an offhand comment this guy made about being able to get the same calming effect as this dome with magenta tinted glasses, my mom got some for my dad, who has a head injury and no short term memory and sometimes gets agitated and repeatedly yells for lunch. My siblings and I found it delightful when he would be sitting there with these “calming” glasses on, yelling loudly in agitation. Of course we never let my mom live it down.
Anyway, I went to look this guy up. His name was Rick Tingle as far as I can remember. Granted, I only searched about 20 minutes, but I tried so many phrases and nothing at all – nothing remotely close – came up. Except one post in Reddit where someone was describing the theory and said they heard it as a kid but couldn’t find anything about it or remember who the guy was. No one there had any answers.
It was one of those startling moments where I had to wonder what else have I experienced in my life that I completely forgot? Or what else do I remember that no one else will ever encounter because all proof is now gone?
The world is bigger than the internet and history books. And much weirder.