I find this concept really interesting and confusing at the same time. Consider that within plasma laboratories, we can observe certain fundamental morphologies that naturally result from the existence of charge density. Plasmas naturally form double layers, which tend to protect a plasma's charge. The double layer leads to the formation of plasma filaments. We see within the laboratory that plasma filaments tend to exhibit long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with one another. This causes the filaments to twist around one another like a braided rope. Within the plasma laboratory, we observe these complex twisted transfer charged particles very efficiently. They are called Birkeland Currents.

We see these braided filament plasma structures in space too, like in the Cygnus Loop ...

http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hd1080p_screen/heic0712g.mp4

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/070103cygnusloop.htm

Braided ropelike plasma structures are the fingerprints of electromagnetic activity. When you see plasma behaving this way, you need to make sure that you're not trying to use fluids-based equations to understand/model it.

It's interesting that the same thing can be done with respect to radio waves. I'm actually a little bit confused as to why this works for radio waves. When Birkeland Currents do this, they require the existence of a plasma medium, and the structures do their thing in the lab because of the existence of the ionization. The plasma both responds to magnetic fields and creates its own due to the right-hand rule. But these guys seem to be saying that they can create these structures within the Earth's atmosphere in the absence of a plasma medium (?). With Birkeland Currents, the collimation occurs because the flow of charged particles generates a magnetic field.

I'm not getting something. Any plasma physicists out there??? Is HAARP creating an ionized pathway for the signal through the atmosphere?

I realize that Slashdotters are exceptionally anti-creationist. So am I. But, this site is really quite fascinating. In the same way that you wouldn't put your hand up in a religious person's face, we should still listen to the evidence they point to. Once you read this theory, religion doesn't really have much to do with it at all!

I'm quite sure you will see whatever it is you want to see in it. People generally appear to like to confirm their pre-existing beliefs. That's why it's generally a good idea to introduce people to alternative ideas. It provides a more useful context to begin with. In a general sense, the confidence exhibited by Slashdotters on the topic of cosmology is not really shared by a lot of mainstream astrophysicists. Quotes are not hard to come by to demonstrate this fact.

Speculating a little bit, SETI is not receiving signals because ET is most likely inside of the diffuse atmosphere of brown dwarf stars. Planets can orbit within the glow of a brown dwarf. You cannot transmit radio signals through a plasma double layer like that, so ET doesn't even know what stars are inside of this environment. All he can see in his sky is a red glow and possibly vortex-like plasma formations. The perpetual harvest that surrounds him deprives him of any desire to contact us anyways. Why would you try to contact aliens when you are in the Garden of Eden? Brown dwarf atmospheres contain copious amounts of water, which when combined with the perpetual glow from the sky, would cause the entire planet to explode with life.

We have a pretty good idea that this is happening because it appears to be what happened to the Earth as well. Humans were alive to testify to it.

Sounds pretty absurd to you, I'm sure. But when you dig into the details, it's a pretty interesting theory for SETI's failure.

I love how somebody labeled you as "flamebait" for pointing this out. I mean, that's a fairly uncontroversial statement you made there. The Electric Universe is almost entirely based upon the observations of the glow discharge in a plasma laboratory. It shouldn't really be all that controversial.

The notion that we cannot build a simple, workable cosmology based upon the observed behavior of the glow discharge within a plasma laboratory is quite a stunning allegation once you actually educate yourself on the behavior of glow discharges. We can explain EVERY enigmatic feature of the Sun by just observing glow discharges. Kristian Birkeland used nothing more than plasma in a vacuum chamber 100 years ago to replicate numerous astrophysical observations. Anthony Peratt has demonstrated that galaxies are the natural result of large-scale twisting Birkeland Currents. We plainly see that spiral galaxies are oriented like beads on a string, as if they are connected by transmission lines. The writing is already on the wall. You guys just don't know what is being alleged, so the evidentiary support for the Electric Universe just goes right over your head.

It never ceases to amaze me that people don't consider it important to observe the behavior of plasmas within the laboratory when accounting for the behavior of plasmas in space. It's really pretty mind-bending when you consider that the visible matter in space is 99.999% matter in the plasma state. THEMIS has already demonstrated that Birkeland Currents connect the Sun and Earth. The existence of Birkeland Currents clearly violates the premise that space plasmas are magnetized fluids. You can create any cosmology you want by manipulating your models for space plasmas. We have VERY GOOD REASON by now to suspect that the models are extremely flawed.

The entire dominant paradigm demands the overly-simplistic, erroneous application of magnetohydrodynamics models in order to minimize the importance of plasma's electrodynamic properties in astrophysical observations. Hannes Alfven warned the astrophysical community as he was receiving the Nobel Physics prize. Many astrophysicists don't even know what he said in that speech to this day, as if it was never even said. It's quite scandalous.

So long as you imagine that the dominant paradigm is working well, you'll never be motivated to learn about competing paradigms. But you won't ever find any fault in the dominant paradigm if you never actually listen to what the critics are saying. Once you have even a general grasp of what the two paradigms say, it's really rather funny to watch the astrophysicists spin enigmatic observations. They use enigmas to spur interest with the public in the mystery of space. But, the enigmas are never really treated as the predictive failures of the model. They always propose some ad hoc mechanism as a solution, which complicates the model. Our understanding of space is steadily, week after week, becoming more complex. If we were on the right track, we would be seeing a simplification -- not a complexification, if you will. Most of the time, they are actually doing nothing more than binning enigmas into the result of black holes, dark matter or magnetic fields. The public is left with the false impression that progress is being made. But when you dig into concepts like magnetic reconnection, you start to see a willingness to accept metaphysical concepts (that magnetic fields can store and release energy) in order to ignore the more established link between electric currents and magnetic fields.

Most people never investigate deep enough into the issues to even notice the serious problems with our dominant paradigm -- which is rather perplexing for a group of people like Slashdotters. You guys are the engineers of this world. You should put more faith in your ability to understand and critique the astrophysicists. They are saying things that directly violate your own educations -- particularly if you are an electrical engineer. But, you guys appear to accept just about whatever it is they say without question. Somehow, it became acceptable for astrophysicists (whose models tend to be highly deductive and lack experimental basis) to contradict plasma physicists on the behavior of plasmas. It's really quite extraordinary to watch.

This debate will one day eventually explode in the public's awareness and people will go over forums like these in order to understand how all of this could have happened. Astrophysicists will eventually claim that they never actually disagreed that space plasmas could conduct electricity, and that the Electric Universe is still wrong. They will refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong. But we will have the numerous records of EU advocates on forums across the globe to testify to the fact that people were being incredibly lazy in their dismissals of the EU arguments.

Let me guess: You don't have a clue about how a glow discharge works, do you?