List Members, Olaf Jansen made the following comments about seeing purple skies. As the inner sun was climbing higher, we can assume that he and his father were rather far into the funnel-like opening. "Clouds and mists would at times almost, but never entirely, hide its location. Gradually, it seemed to climb higher in the horizon of the uncertain purpley sky as we advanced." Get it - a purpley sky. The sky at high altitudes is purple because the light hasn't passed through enough atmosphere to arrive at the blue part of the spectrum yet. It is still violet. Mr. Cater writes that the opening is huge and that the middle part is filled with space. This is because the atmosphere only extends up to 45 miles above the surface at most. So if there are a few hundred miles of opening across the neck, then the atmosphere won't stretch across. But right at the neck I wouldn't be surprised if the atmosphere were thin. In fact, if the atmosphere gets sucked in and blown out, then I would expect it to get thin at times, such that the light only descends to the purple or violet band. This description by Olaf- at that point of his journey, the neck area of the opening - lends creedence to the whole tale. How would he have known to make a point like that about the light band way back at the turn of the centruy 100 years ago?
Dean
Related thread: Olaf's Description — Related to the November 2014 "Olaf's Description" post