Solar Megastorm Threat Level: Shockingly High

It was 1 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1859, when the skies above North Carolina turned blood-red.

“It seemed brightest exactly in the east, as though the full moon, or rather the sun, were about to rise,” an eyewitness told the Charleston Mercury.

“The sea reflected the phenomenon, and no one could look at it without thinking of the passage in the Bible which says, ‘The sea was turned to blood.’”

At the same time, people all over the world were experiencing strange and frightening phenomena.

Sparks erupted from telegraph machines, shocking operators and setting papers ablaze…

The skies all over the planet pulsated with red, green and purple light…

In Boston, it was so bright that folks could read their newspapers. And according to History.com, “In Abbeville, South Carolina, masons awoke and began to lay bricks at their job site until they realized the hour and returned to bed.”

You’d forgive folks for thinking that the world was about to end. But this was no biblical prophecy come to pass.

It was just regular old space weather.

Here Comes the Sun

“Space weather” is the deceptively boring term for massive explosions of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation on the surface of the sun, also known as solar flares.

This radiation hurtles through space at millions of miles per hour… and usually bounces harmlessly off our atmosphere.

But the solar event that occurred on Sept. 1, 1859, was no regular solar flare.

What is now known as the Carrington Event — named after the scientist who observed it — was the largest and most dangerous solar event in recorded history.

Now, when a solar flare strikes, the effects are similar to an EMP (electromagnetic pulse).

So in the mostly pre-electric world of 1859, the destructive effects that swept the planet during the Carrington Event were relatively minor.

Telegraph operators reported that streams of fire were pouring forth from the telegraph circuits… telegraph paper spontaneously combusted… and one operator was struck by an arc of lightning that shot out from his telegraphic equipment.

The following morning, the telegraph systems were down all across North America — totally fried by the EMP.

I know that hardly sounds “minor.” But the telegraph system, while important for the delivery of news, wasn’t integral to citizens’ daily survival.

After all, what did it matter to a cattle rancher or the men working down in the quarry if the daily news wasn’t coming in from New York?

Their world of 1859 simply wasn’t dependent on electronic systems and appliances…

But ours is.

The End of Life as We Know It

A lot has changed since 1859.

The world of 2018 runs on electricity.

It’s in our homes… our pockets… and pulsing through billions of wires that crisscross our entire country.

We store our wealth on computers… run our businesses on computers… keep track of our debts and earnings on computers.

It’s not something most folks ever really think about. But our entire economy is run by and maintained by computers.

If a Carrington-level event were to strike today, we’d be thrown back to the Dark Ages in an instant… and our way of life as we know it would be wiped out.

Satellites and planes would drop out of the sky.

All records of money stored in banks and invested in the stock market would be wiped out.

We’re talking about a total societal collapse here.

Depending on the type of event, we could have anywhere between 24 hours and two minutes to prepare for the attack.

Twenty-four hours would give organizations enough time to shut down as much of their electronics as possible and disconnect from the grid.

But with just a two-minute… or even two-hour warning, our entire electric infrastructure would be totally destroyed…

And the fallout would be devastating.

According to the nation’s leading experts on EMP events, 90% of Americans would be dead within the decade from starvation and disease.

Countdown to Catastrophe

Large solar events like the Carrington Event occur only a few hundred years or so.

But the last event was more than 150 years ago. And according to the senior scientist at Predictive Science Inc. in San Diego, California, there’s a one in eight chance of a catastrophic solar megastorm by 2020.

Let me say that again.

One in eight.

If a plane had a one in eight chance of crashing, you sure as hell wouldn’t get into it.

So what can we do?

Well, this week we’re going discuss how to prepare for an event like this… and how to prepare your finances for a disaster of this scale.

Until then, if you agree, disagree or have any topics you’d like us to investigate, you can email me right here.

All the best,

Owen Sullivan
Editor, Money & Crisis

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