True, taking oneself too seriously isn't the greatest thing. One has to have at least a little self-respect in the morning, or what's the point?

Well, it produces fulgurites in loose sandy soil, not so sure about in other soil types, since fulgurites are basically a brittle glassy material carved by the strike as electricity flows down and in or up and out. I think it's up and out, actually. Though I'd have to check up on that again.

Hmm. M'kay... To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever dug up the craters on the moon or the spiders on the moon to check for fulgurites. So, let's not use the fallacy of lack of evidence ONE WAY OR THE OTHER to put a big X through the theory. There's no proof for OR against. As far as validity, outcome is neutral until evidence one way or the other is found. Lack of checking or ability to check (have you been to Mars with a shovel lately?) does not imply refutation.

Ohh puh-lease. Don't give me that line of garbage about lack of education. You know next to nothing about my background and education, if anything at all. Just as I know next to nothing confirmable about you. And I don't subscribe to the academic elitism argument either. People with multiple PhD's aren't the only ones who can make valuable insights into physical phenomena. Many people with little to no physics background have made observations on their own time, at their own expense, and ended up starting miniature revolutions based on their findings. I'm not putting myself at that level, in any way shape or form. It's just been shown on many occasions that academic elitism is a false premise on its face. Tht's not to say that unquilified people never make mistakes or mad calls. To the contrary. But to be dismissive based on an academic or intellectual elitism argument is just as bad as doing bad science. this discussion has been had many times in many forums, so I'll end that diatribe there.

http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060907lunarcraters.htm
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060908lunarcraters2.htm

Among other articles, these make fairly cogent arguments regarding ray craters, not least of all the fact that the rays appear to NOT be linear rays as would generally be expected from ballistic impact. Rather they are often arcing or even a bit jumbled/overlapping.

(One can see clearly the "snaking" ejecta patterns at the top of the image. NOT linear, and NOT consistent with an impact imparting momentum in a specific direction.)

To the contrary, we tend to see ray systems that are snake-like. and extend in all direction from the crater. Amusingly, on my own I wonder if every crater formed is formed by a meteorite or asteroid that hits it just dead on like it wants to pass right through the exact center of the planet? Or do we ever see craters that are deformed in any way shape or form in accordance with a "glancing blow?" IE, rather than coming in perpendicular to the surface, does an impactor ever come in at an angle? If so, why does all of the "ejecta" not get ejected along a preferential direction of the ballistic object's momentum. IE, why do we always see rays from craters traveling in 360 degrees from the impact point, if they're ejecta? Why don't we see craters that are elongated with ejecta paths along the direct of momentum of an object. Why does it look like every asteroid hits the moon or other objects in the solar system at basically a right angle from the ground perpendicular from the surface? I mean the only "rays of ejecta" we ever see are in ALL directions from craters. And where we see crater chaining we see no ballistic impact ejecta along the direction the craters are aligned. We only see smoothly sculpted holes in the ground. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at a photo and see what's missing. But it takes a rocket scientist to see "rays of ejecta" where in fact there are often gullies and ravines or flat terrain, INSTEAD OF built up piles of sediment as would be expected of ejecta.

Long story short, there are people who disagree with conventional theory and DO make quite cogent scientific arguments on specific points of contention (this one among others). Whether the end results are correct remains to be seen and I reserve judgment until the results are in on ACTUAL tests. All things with a grain of salt, of course.

That said, good night everybody. Until we meet again. Must sleep sometime.