Interesting Photographs

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Asperatis Clouds, New Zealand:

Asperitas clouds are a type of cloud formation recognised as a new form by the International Cloud Atlas in 2017, the first cloud formation added since 1951. They appear dark and stormlike, one site describing them in the following terms:

“In layman’s terms the clouds look downright apocalyptic — these are the clouds you’d expect to see on Judgement Day, or in the lead-up to an alien invasion. One look at these clouds and you know something very bad is coming.” 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/24/15049766/undulatus-asperatus-asperitas-cloud-pattern-formation

Click on the above link to see more photographs and some videos.

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The town where everyone wears a gas mask:

Miyakejima is an inhabited volcanic island located approximately 160 kilometres south of Tokyo, Japan.

It is subject to high levels of volcanic activity that causes poisonous gas to leak from the earth. There have been six volcanic eruptions in the last 100 years and In 2000 the 3,600 residents of Miyakejima were forced to evacuate when the worst eruption took place, also causing over 17,500 earthquakes. The eruptions continued for 2 years but in 2005 the government lifted the ban on residing there. About 2,800 former residents chose to return. They found an apocalyptic scene of wasted land, dead trees and rusted cars. They also had to wear gas masks. Residents must carry a gas mask with them at all times and must don the masks when sulphur dioxide levels reach a certain level. Nearly a third of Miyakejima remains permanently off-limits and the government conducts regular health checks and enforces age restrictions in certain areas. 

Funnily enough, gas mask tourism has proved popular, with disposable masks sold at ferry stations and local stores. Visitors can also take tours of abandoned houses, flattened cars and a school gym half-destroyed by lava, as well as hot spring baths.

Does this look like a scene out of Planet of the Apes to anyone else?

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The end of the Earth:

The above pic is of the Bunda Cliffs, at the edge of the Nullarbor Plain, on the coast of the Great Australian Bight:

The Nullarbor Plain is an area of flat, arid or semi-arid country on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world’s largest single piece of limestone, covering an area of 270,000 square km and extending 1,000 km from the east to the west, so flat that the Trans Australian Railway runs across its surface for about 483 kilometers in a completely straight line. It ends at the Bunda Cliffs, a 200-kilometer-long precipice curving around the Great Australian Bight.

The word “Nullarbor” means “No trees”. I will look into why it is called that.

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Afghanistan then and now:

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The man who refused to salute Hitler:

August Landmasser pictured in the crowd at the launch of the naval training vessel Horst Wessel in 1936, an event attended by Hitler. Landmesser is the only person in the crowd refusing to give the Nazi salute, instead standing with his arms crossed and a grimace on his face.

Landmesser was born in in 1901 and joined the Nazi Party in 1931, hoping it would help him get a job, In 1935, he became engaged to Irma Eckler, a Jewish woman, as a result of which he was expelled from the party. They registered to be married in Hamburg, but the Nuremberg Laws enacted a month later prohibited marriage and relations between Jewish and non-Jewish persons. On 29 October 1935, Landmesser and Eckler's first daughter, Ingrid, was born.

The above photograph was taken on 13 June 1936.

They failed in an attempt to flee to Denmark and eventually August was arrested and sentenced to hard labour for two years in a concentration camp. He never saw Irma again. 

Irma was detained by the Gestapo and held in a prison where she gave birth to a second daughter, Irene. Their children were initially taken to the city orphanage. Ingrid was later allowed to live with her maternal grandmother; Irene went to the home of foster parents in 1941. 

Released in 1941, August was drafted into a penal infantry battalion in 1944 and sent to the Croatian front where, six months before Germany's surrender, he ended up missing, presumed dead. His body was never recovered.

Irma was taken to the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in February 1942, where she was among the 14,000 killed.

In 1951, the Senate of Hamburg recognised the marriage of August Landmesser and Irma Eckler. Their daughters split their parent’s names, Ingrid taking their father’s and Irene keeping their mother’s.

The ship “Horst Wessel” that everyone is saluting was claimed by America as a war prize after WWII. It was recommissioned as a Coast Guard Cutter, renamed “Eagle” and it is still in service.

The first and only photo of the family, June 1938. Although it was forbidden for them to meet, they appeared together in public, putting themselves at exceptional risk.