The Forbes-Aspinwall Mission

Fun Fact: On March 15, 1863, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles met with my Great- something grandfather William Aspinwall and John Forbes at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to discuss sending the two to England to buy suspected Confederate gunboats, specifically two ironclads under construction by Laird Brothers. For plausible deniability of what would be a covert action in direct contradiction to both Lincoln administration policy and international law, Chase only told two other people in the Union government about it.

To lay groundwork, Forbes and Aspinwall personally funded the English activities of Lincoln’s spymaster Thomas Haines Dudley, whose network quickly identified a number of potential targets.

Chase provided $10 million in 5-20 treasury bonds to obtain capital in England. Forbes sailed on March 16, and Aspinwall came two days later, bearing his trunks full of bonds. where in early April Forbes and Aspinwall obtained a £600,000 ($3 million) loan from Baring Brothers. Unfortunately, on April 7 the Times of London reported on their mission, which rendered it less than stealthy and ultimately, unsuccessful. However, Confederate agents never seemed to catch on that it was a Union-sponsored mission and in fact, it was 40 years before the truth was known.

The Forbes-Aspinwall Mission was successful in working with Dudley on counter-Confederate espionage. They remained in Europe until the end of June, 1863, during which time Forbes went to Germany and Aspinwall to France, where they were almost certainly at work in an effort to recruit foreign soldiers.

Aspinwall, incidentally, was a friend and advisor to General McClellan, and not particularly a fan of Lincoln, with whom he disagreed on economic policy.

“Men are governed by steel or gold.”

–William Aspinwall

Introducing the Traverado PED

Introducing the world’s first ever scientifically proven precipitation enhancement device (PED) for small and midsized farms. The Traverado PED© is based on research conducted by the US Army and is the only method of increasing rainfall that works on a small scale—right over your crops.

The story of the Traverado PED© is one of coincidence, research and discovery, and for inventor Dr. David Traver Adolphus, it started one day in fourth grade.

On that overcast day, his school held one of their periodical air raid drills*. When the big siren on the roof went off, David joined his classmates under their desks, and waited for the all-clear to sound. So he had plenty of time sitting under there to think, and to look out the windows, and then to wonder: “Why did they always seem to hold air raid drills when it rained?” A seed was planted.

The seed didn’t sprout until years later, when Dr. Traver Adolphus saw a magazine article about new military technologies, including non-lethal pacification devices. One was a “sonic disabler,” which was supposed to incapacitate people through the use of specific frequencies broadcast through tone generators at high volumes. But the Army had a problem: The idea worked just fine in a lab, but when they tried it in the field, what they got instead was …fog.

Following up on the research, it turned out that the Army’s sonic weapon (SW) was emitting frequencies that just happened to coincide with the natural resonance frequency of water. Those emissions in the 32-42khz range are far higher than what humans can hear and would normally not have any discernible effect, but the Army eventually discovered that in combination with the audible high frequency tones around 10,000hz generated by the SW generator, they were setting up a standing wave in the atmosphere. Invisible to the naked eye, it both excited the water molecules present in natural humidity, and kept them suspended.

All the Army was interested in was eliminating the problem, and the odd side effect was forgotten. Until the light went on in Dr. Traver Adolphus’ head. Could this be why they had all those rainy days in school?

In 2002, Dr. Traver Adolphus acquired a surplus engine-powered siren and began small-scale experiments in a warehouse equipped with a commercial misting system. He quickly ran into a problem. He could easily tune his early PED prototypes to produce measurable precipitation, but the parameters varied by the minute. The frequencies needed both to establish a standing wave and to cause the excitement necessary for droplet collusion into precipitable size vary with factors including dust and other atmospheric conditions. After years of experimentation, the Traverado PED emits a continually changing tone. It covers the complete frequency spectrum needed for the effect, and with a repeated oscillation, droplets can't fall out of suspension until they overcome their weight threshold--in other words, until they're heavy enough to fall as rain.

Field testing and calibration of an early experimental Traverado PED©

Broadcast in a 135-145dB range (depending on the tone), it’s well within the range of some commercial machinery, and in most communities is permitted under Right-to-Farm laws.

There are other proven rain-producing methods, such as cloud seeding, but only the Traverado PED© is targeted at YOUR farm. Once unit—no larger than a home wood boiler with included 240VAC power supply—can cover 25 or more acres, depending on cloud deck height, humidity and wind. Timing also varies with conditions—in some cases, it can start to rain after as little as 90 minutes of operation.

Only the Traverado PED© is actually installed at YOUR farm, where YOU need it most. Multiple units with overlapping fields of coverage are possible, but must be properly calibrated to avoid sine interference. Or, it can even be redeployed to another location on your farm as your crops rotate or your needs change. All Traverado PED©s come with a service contract to ensure they stay properly calibrated. All YOU need to do is confirm with the included remote weather station that conditions for droplet formation are possible, and hit the remote starter.

The Traverado PED© is not magic. It can’t create rain from a clear blue sky. All it does is mimic the natural processes that normally happen far above ground. But when you have those clouds that just won’t drop a drop, a Traverado PED© can make them open up.