I have had the opportunity to try and talk some sense into Jan Arvid Goetesson's head at a blog I used to follow, on various topics. He is good at moving the goalposts and committing other logical fallacies in his desperation to score points in arguments, and he seems to enjoy writing in some made-up kind of Swedish that I think he believes makes him sound wiser or smarter than he is. When I asked him why he wrote that way, it only made him look ridiculous, he doubled down and increased his efforts to appear eruditely, from which point I started to ignore him, whatever he wrote on whatever topic. He's a troll. He never accepted proof/evidence against his position on anything, AFAIK.
If you wrote all this to collate and spread information then you did a good job. If you think you'll change J. A. G.'s mind then I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken. He's busy forming and formulating his next argument. He can't be bothered actually reading and thinking about what others say. Unless he sees something to nitpick on, however irrelevant to the discussion it is.
But keep writing Ola; I really appreciate and like your books and articles.
intressant artikel. Jag har också gjort efterforskningar kring Nordstream. Se @anderssonerik här på substack. Fick ditt namn av Jan Oberg som jag just pratade med med anledningen av den svenska utredningens nedläggning. Kan vi få kontakt? Jag finns på +46704208109 , mail erikandersson1@mac.com .
En undran kring i hur stor omfattning gasen kan ha bidragit till den omfattande ödeläggelsen av NS 1:s båda rörledningar. Den gas som levererades från Ryssland genom rören till Tyskland - var den gasen uppblandad med syre? Om inte - tillförde sprängämnet vid explosionen syre på något sätt, genom att spjälka upp vattnet (H2O) i syre och väte eller på något annat sätt som också faller utanför min kompetens. Funderar kring huruvida gasen i sig, utan syre, är så potent att 250 meter och 1000 ton rörledning helt kan gå upp i rök.
It is commendable that Ola Tunander responds to my question. First I want to say that I am not trying to exculpate the United States. I am only interested in the truth. Only one alternative to the Hersh-Tunander hypothesis has been widely discussed, namely the Ukrainian Andromeda hypothesis. The first step in investigating this hypothesis must be to establish whether the Andromeda hypothesis is physically possible.
(Ola Tunander suggests that a US operation and a Ukrainian operation might be part of a combined operation, with the Ukrainian operation as a cover. For the moment I discuss the Andromeda hypothesis as an actual alternative, not a cover controlled by the US.)
We do not know in detail what Björn Lund and his colleagues will present and publish. But we have their concluding sentence in the abstract: ”Newly developed models of high pressure gas emission from a damaged pipeline combined with an explosive source indicate that the pipelines were targeted with explosives of less than 50 kg TNT equivalent.” This sentence indicates that the authors, HAVING CONSIDERED ALL FACTS AVAILABLE IN 2023, say that it is physically possible that the pipelines could have been targeted with relatively small amounts of explosives. We do not know exactly what they will say and publish. We do not know whether their modelling is correct; but we do know that they have written the sentence I just quoted.
Who are these authors? I shall list their names and affiliations here. Superscript numbers were used in the abstract to indicate the authors’ affiliations to universities and institutions, but I have to put these numbers in parentheses, because I cannot write superscript characters in this comment. The authors are: Björn Lund(1), Gunnar A Eggertsson(1), Peter Schmidt(2), Michael Roth(1), Peter Voss(3), Tine B Larsen(3), Trine Dahl-Jensen(3), Nicolai Rinds(3), Andreas Köhler(4), Bettina P Goertz-Allmann(5), Celso Alvizuri(4), Ben Dando(4), Johannes Schweitzer(5), Volker Oye(4), Eric M Dunham(6), Andreas Steinberg(7), Nicolai Gestermann(8), Lars Ceranna(9), Gernot Hartmann(10), Patrick Hupe(11) and Christian Weidle(12), (1)Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, (2)Uppsala university, Uppsala, Sweden, (3)Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, København K, Denmark, (4)NORSAR, Kjeller, Norway, (5)NORSAR, Applied Seismology, Kjeller, Norway, (6)Stanford University, Department of Geophysics, Stanford, CA, United States, (7)Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), B4.3 Federal Seismological Survey, Nuclear-Test Ban, Hannover, Germany, (8)Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Hannover, Germany, (9)BGR, Hannover, Germany, (10)BGR Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hannover, Germany, (11)BGR - Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hannover, Germany, (12)University of Kiel, Institute of Geo Sciences, Kiel, Germany.
The conclusion of their abstract is not made true by the fact that the authors are well-respected scientists; they could be wrong. To claim that their conclusion must be right would be the fallacy “appeal to authority”. But their conclusion does not come from the lunatic fringe.
Now I shall examine what Ola Tunander responded. His two first paragraphs repeat facts and opinions already known to everybody, including Björn Lund and his colleagues. Those paragraphs add nothing to the point we are discussing now, which is the NEW analysis.
Ola Tunander’s third and fourth paragraphs repeat what I have written.
In Ola Tunander’s fifth paragraph, he asks relevant questions: ”The release of pressurized gas from a ruptured pipeline would definitely release a lot of energy, but would this release of energy be directed downward to such an extent that it would initiate an “earthquake” registered 1300 km further north in the very north of Sweden? And how do we translate amplitude on the Richter scale to the amount of energy used?” The question “would this release of energy be directed downward” looks like a real question to a layman like me. I can’t answer, but we will soon see whether the new analysis will answer such questions.
Ola Tunander continues in his sixth paragraph: ”It is not obvious that the energy from a gas release will be directed primarily downwards into the earth’s crust. This has to be explained more in detail and has to be tested.” Who is asking this question? Is it the layman Ola Tunander, or is it professional experts, who have posed this question in publications? If the latter, Ola T is not providing any information about his sources for the statement that “it is not obvious that the energy from a gas release will be directed primarily downwards into the earth’s crust”. It sounds like a reasonable statement, but we need to know whether it is made by experts in the areas of seismology and physics, or by Ola Tunander.
Then comes a bombshell. I write it in capital letters: “THE FIRST REACTION WOULD BE THAT THE SCANDINAVIAN SEISMOLOGICAL INSTITUTES HAVE LET THEIR FACTUAL INFORMATION SUIT THE DOMINATING MEDIA NARRATIVE CLAIMING THAT THE CULPRITS HAD BEEN A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE IN A SAILING BOAT” (!)
Ola Tunander is suggesting (he writes “The first reaction would be”) that the “Scandinavian seismologists” (the group in fact includes Germans and a person from the United States) have engaged in scientific misconduct, by allowing political considerations to influence their analysis of the explosions in the Baltic Sea, or at the very least, that they have not been objective, and have produced an incorrect analysis, tainted of their political bias (allegedly a pro-USA political view). These are serious allegations against Björn Lund and his colleagues.
In his seventh and eight paragraphs, Ola Tunander discusses seismology in a fashion that a layman cannot have an opinion about. Only experts can respond. Presumably, all these pieces of information are known to Björn Lund and his co-authors. It is not clear who is talking in the seventh and eight paragraphs. Is it Ola Tunander, or is he basing his text on information provided by experts he has spoken to?
In his ninth paragraph, Ola Tunander writes: “I still believe that the explosives had a significant role for the seismic event on 26 September 2022, but I have not been able to find out about the relative impact of the explosives versus the relative impact of the gas release.” The question I ask now is this: is this line of inquiry – that gas pressure would not contribute much to the seismic event – driven ONLY by Ola Tunander, or by Ola Tunander backed up by experts? Which one is it?
Ola Tunander continues in his ninth paragraph: “I can only register that Swedish authorities seem to play down the seriousness of the event both when it comes to the magnitude of the explosion and when it comes to the amount of explosive needed to create this kind of earthquake.” This is another allegation, this time directed against “Swedish authorities”. Exactly which authorities, Ola Tunander? Are you referring to Swedish seismologists, or law enforcement? Where have “Swedish authorities” ”played down” ”the magnitude of the explosion” and ”the amount of explosive needed to create this kind of earthquake”? Are you referring to anything other than the new analysis by Björn Lund and his co-authors?
Ola Tunander concludes his ninth paragraph like this: ”However, whatever is true when it comes to the role of the gas release versus the role of the explosives, it does not change the general understanding of what happened: that this was a professional operation.” With that statement, Ola Tunander leaves the question I posed, namely whether the Andromeda hypothesis is physically possible.
What Ola Tunander writes in his tenth paragraph repeats previous arguments, but they are relevant. The deeper the dive, the more professional the diver has to be. I am not playing down facts that support the USA hypothesis. However, the depth of the explosions does not mean that the Andromeda hypothesis is impossible.
Ola has done a lot of valueable work, for example Det svenska ubåtskriget (About Nato submarines in the swedish archipelagio, to undermine Olof Palmes work). On my blog I have an article about this book (in norwegian).
I have had the opportunity to try and talk some sense into Jan Arvid Goetesson's head at a blog I used to follow, on various topics. He is good at moving the goalposts and committing other logical fallacies in his desperation to score points in arguments, and he seems to enjoy writing in some made-up kind of Swedish that I think he believes makes him sound wiser or smarter than he is. When I asked him why he wrote that way, it only made him look ridiculous, he doubled down and increased his efforts to appear eruditely, from which point I started to ignore him, whatever he wrote on whatever topic. He's a troll. He never accepted proof/evidence against his position on anything, AFAIK.
If you wrote all this to collate and spread information then you did a good job. If you think you'll change J. A. G.'s mind then I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken. He's busy forming and formulating his next argument. He can't be bothered actually reading and thinking about what others say. Unless he sees something to nitpick on, however irrelevant to the discussion it is.
But keep writing Ola; I really appreciate and like your books and articles.
Hej Ola,
intressant artikel. Jag har också gjort efterforskningar kring Nordstream. Se @anderssonerik här på substack. Fick ditt namn av Jan Oberg som jag just pratade med med anledningen av den svenska utredningens nedläggning. Kan vi få kontakt? Jag finns på +46704208109 , mail erikandersson1@mac.com .
En undran kring i hur stor omfattning gasen kan ha bidragit till den omfattande ödeläggelsen av NS 1:s båda rörledningar. Den gas som levererades från Ryssland genom rören till Tyskland - var den gasen uppblandad med syre? Om inte - tillförde sprängämnet vid explosionen syre på något sätt, genom att spjälka upp vattnet (H2O) i syre och väte eller på något annat sätt som också faller utanför min kompetens. Funderar kring huruvida gasen i sig, utan syre, är så potent att 250 meter och 1000 ton rörledning helt kan gå upp i rök.
It is commendable that Ola Tunander responds to my question. First I want to say that I am not trying to exculpate the United States. I am only interested in the truth. Only one alternative to the Hersh-Tunander hypothesis has been widely discussed, namely the Ukrainian Andromeda hypothesis. The first step in investigating this hypothesis must be to establish whether the Andromeda hypothesis is physically possible.
(Ola Tunander suggests that a US operation and a Ukrainian operation might be part of a combined operation, with the Ukrainian operation as a cover. For the moment I discuss the Andromeda hypothesis as an actual alternative, not a cover controlled by the US.)
In relation to the new analysis by Björn Lund and his colleagues, we are in a peculiar situation, because the analysis is gradually revealed in four steps. First the Expressen article (https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/mindre-an-50-kilo-sprangmedel-vid-explosionen-pa-nord-stream/) was published. Second, the abstract for the presentation at the AGU23 conference (https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1309004) was published. Third, the presentation will take place at the conference (16 december). Fourth, the final article will be published.
We do not know in detail what Björn Lund and his colleagues will present and publish. But we have their concluding sentence in the abstract: ”Newly developed models of high pressure gas emission from a damaged pipeline combined with an explosive source indicate that the pipelines were targeted with explosives of less than 50 kg TNT equivalent.” This sentence indicates that the authors, HAVING CONSIDERED ALL FACTS AVAILABLE IN 2023, say that it is physically possible that the pipelines could have been targeted with relatively small amounts of explosives. We do not know exactly what they will say and publish. We do not know whether their modelling is correct; but we do know that they have written the sentence I just quoted.
Who are these authors? I shall list their names and affiliations here. Superscript numbers were used in the abstract to indicate the authors’ affiliations to universities and institutions, but I have to put these numbers in parentheses, because I cannot write superscript characters in this comment. The authors are: Björn Lund(1), Gunnar A Eggertsson(1), Peter Schmidt(2), Michael Roth(1), Peter Voss(3), Tine B Larsen(3), Trine Dahl-Jensen(3), Nicolai Rinds(3), Andreas Köhler(4), Bettina P Goertz-Allmann(5), Celso Alvizuri(4), Ben Dando(4), Johannes Schweitzer(5), Volker Oye(4), Eric M Dunham(6), Andreas Steinberg(7), Nicolai Gestermann(8), Lars Ceranna(9), Gernot Hartmann(10), Patrick Hupe(11) and Christian Weidle(12), (1)Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, (2)Uppsala university, Uppsala, Sweden, (3)Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, København K, Denmark, (4)NORSAR, Kjeller, Norway, (5)NORSAR, Applied Seismology, Kjeller, Norway, (6)Stanford University, Department of Geophysics, Stanford, CA, United States, (7)Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), B4.3 Federal Seismological Survey, Nuclear-Test Ban, Hannover, Germany, (8)Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Hannover, Germany, (9)BGR, Hannover, Germany, (10)BGR Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hannover, Germany, (11)BGR - Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hannover, Germany, (12)University of Kiel, Institute of Geo Sciences, Kiel, Germany.
The conclusion of their abstract is not made true by the fact that the authors are well-respected scientists; they could be wrong. To claim that their conclusion must be right would be the fallacy “appeal to authority”. But their conclusion does not come from the lunatic fringe.
Now I shall examine what Ola Tunander responded. His two first paragraphs repeat facts and opinions already known to everybody, including Björn Lund and his colleagues. Those paragraphs add nothing to the point we are discussing now, which is the NEW analysis.
Ola Tunander’s third and fourth paragraphs repeat what I have written.
In Ola Tunander’s fifth paragraph, he asks relevant questions: ”The release of pressurized gas from a ruptured pipeline would definitely release a lot of energy, but would this release of energy be directed downward to such an extent that it would initiate an “earthquake” registered 1300 km further north in the very north of Sweden? And how do we translate amplitude on the Richter scale to the amount of energy used?” The question “would this release of energy be directed downward” looks like a real question to a layman like me. I can’t answer, but we will soon see whether the new analysis will answer such questions.
Ola Tunander continues in his sixth paragraph: ”It is not obvious that the energy from a gas release will be directed primarily downwards into the earth’s crust. This has to be explained more in detail and has to be tested.” Who is asking this question? Is it the layman Ola Tunander, or is it professional experts, who have posed this question in publications? If the latter, Ola T is not providing any information about his sources for the statement that “it is not obvious that the energy from a gas release will be directed primarily downwards into the earth’s crust”. It sounds like a reasonable statement, but we need to know whether it is made by experts in the areas of seismology and physics, or by Ola Tunander.
Then comes a bombshell. I write it in capital letters: “THE FIRST REACTION WOULD BE THAT THE SCANDINAVIAN SEISMOLOGICAL INSTITUTES HAVE LET THEIR FACTUAL INFORMATION SUIT THE DOMINATING MEDIA NARRATIVE CLAIMING THAT THE CULPRITS HAD BEEN A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE IN A SAILING BOAT” (!)
Ola Tunander is suggesting (he writes “The first reaction would be”) that the “Scandinavian seismologists” (the group in fact includes Germans and a person from the United States) have engaged in scientific misconduct, by allowing political considerations to influence their analysis of the explosions in the Baltic Sea, or at the very least, that they have not been objective, and have produced an incorrect analysis, tainted of their political bias (allegedly a pro-USA political view). These are serious allegations against Björn Lund and his colleagues.
In his seventh and eight paragraphs, Ola Tunander discusses seismology in a fashion that a layman cannot have an opinion about. Only experts can respond. Presumably, all these pieces of information are known to Björn Lund and his co-authors. It is not clear who is talking in the seventh and eight paragraphs. Is it Ola Tunander, or is he basing his text on information provided by experts he has spoken to?
In his ninth paragraph, Ola Tunander writes: “I still believe that the explosives had a significant role for the seismic event on 26 September 2022, but I have not been able to find out about the relative impact of the explosives versus the relative impact of the gas release.” The question I ask now is this: is this line of inquiry – that gas pressure would not contribute much to the seismic event – driven ONLY by Ola Tunander, or by Ola Tunander backed up by experts? Which one is it?
Ola Tunander continues in his ninth paragraph: “I can only register that Swedish authorities seem to play down the seriousness of the event both when it comes to the magnitude of the explosion and when it comes to the amount of explosive needed to create this kind of earthquake.” This is another allegation, this time directed against “Swedish authorities”. Exactly which authorities, Ola Tunander? Are you referring to Swedish seismologists, or law enforcement? Where have “Swedish authorities” ”played down” ”the magnitude of the explosion” and ”the amount of explosive needed to create this kind of earthquake”? Are you referring to anything other than the new analysis by Björn Lund and his co-authors?
Ola Tunander concludes his ninth paragraph like this: ”However, whatever is true when it comes to the role of the gas release versus the role of the explosives, it does not change the general understanding of what happened: that this was a professional operation.” With that statement, Ola Tunander leaves the question I posed, namely whether the Andromeda hypothesis is physically possible.
What Ola Tunander writes in his tenth paragraph repeats previous arguments, but they are relevant. The deeper the dive, the more professional the diver has to be. I am not playing down facts that support the USA hypothesis. However, the depth of the explosions does not mean that the Andromeda hypothesis is impossible.
In his eleventh and twelfth paragraphs, Ola Tunander writes about the movement of US aircraft. The movements of aircraft are important and interesting facts in their own right, but have nothing to do with the question I asked. I have commented in Swedish at lindelof.nu (https://www.lindelof.nu/eftersamtal-till-ola-tunanders-foredrag-om-nord-stream/).
Ola has done a lot of valueable work, for example Det svenska ubåtskriget (About Nato submarines in the swedish archipelagio, to undermine Olof Palmes work). On my blog I have an article about this book (in norwegian).
https://motstraumen.wordpress.com/2020/02/15/korleis-manipulere-ein-heil-nasjon/