Have you heard of Grid Ex II? It starts Wednesday.

You have probably not heard of Grid Ex II — the Grid Security Exercise, set for 9:30 am Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013. It’s a coordinated blackout simulation exercise being conducted throughout the United States to test readiness for such an event — not a garden variety grid outage but rather one initiated by some kind of naughty behavior, ostensibly by guys in caves or black-hat hackers.

Logo for Grid Ex II, which starts Wednesday morning.
Logo for Grid Ex II, which starts Wednesday morning.

Here is a New York Times article about the exercise that is probably getting a lot of hits today. That’s because it’s just about the only article you’ll find on the topic [I have posted a piece from a small newspaper to the comments.]

The first Grid Ex drill was run in November 2011, and from what I have been reading, this is now a biennial event, meaning it will happen every two years. The power in your area is not supposed to go out; various private and civil authorities will be pretending that it has, however.

What is the big deal? The issue that has some people concerned is not that it’s a bad idea to run drills; that is probably a great idea, assuming they’re real.

The problem is that several times there has been a drill or exercise connected to a false-flag event. ‘False-flag’ means terrorism blamed on someone else, or exploited by someone else, for some purpose other than the originally stated intent of the terrorists.

The two biggest terrorist events of the century — the 9/11 incident in the U.S. and the 7/7 incident in England — we both run the day of drills that were pretty much exact replicas of what actually happened. Part of the confusion on 9/11 was that air traffic controllers and people at NORAD were confused by the simultaneous “drill” (called Operation Northern Vigilance) and “terrorist event.”

It is amazing that this has not been a focus of much more wide-scale discussion. I know that lots of people have read The Celestine Prophesy and all, but when is a coincidence a little too much to be a synchronicity? We’re not talking about randomly hearing five Beatles songs the same day.

Similarly in London on 7/7/05, the four train stations involved in a bomb plot, allegedly conducted by homespun terrorists from up in Leeds, were exactly those that were being used as part of a government drill — that same day, same place and at the same time.

There was similar discussion about the Boston Marathon bombing on 4/15. I could not chase this down as well as 9/11 or 7/7, but a simultaneous drill and actual incident were part of the scenario that emerged. It makes sense, in a way: if lots of your first responders know there is a “drill” they will be prepared for something, and it accounts for the presence of a lot of other, unusual people on scene, such as lots guys from Blackwater. Oh, they’re just here for the “drill.”

Drills make a great cover story because you can attribute any pre-discussion that turns up on the Internet to the drill and not the real event. And if anyone picks up the signal in advance, oh, well, it’s just another one of those boring government training exercises.

Whether or not there will be an actual blackout incident coincidental with a drill (which runs all day Wednesday and half the day Thursday), the idea that the power grid is vulnerable to hacking is a profound concern, especially given that if nuclear power plants don’t have electricity, they tend to melt down. Our entire society is dependent on electricity. Looking around my apartment, the list of things that I can use without electricity includes my acoustic guitar, my pocket knife, a few candles, my bed and my Rubik’s cube.

My gas heat runs on electricity. Electricity pumps water up to my apartment. Without electricity I would have no way to watch propaganda movies that try to lie to me about electricity.

Besides terrorists, there is one little problem that ‘the authorities’ are not talking about. There is a lot of sunspot activity these days. We are having constant coronal mass ejections from the Sun — that is, energy bursts — and if the Earth is positioned in such a way that the burst aligns with a sensitive part of the grid, a lot of places could lose power. (This creates an issue for nuclear power plants, which I will be covering in Friday’s subscriber edition.)

The Very, Very Realistic Chart for Grid Ex II

Since this is a government event with many participants, there is a published schedule.

Per the official schedule, the start of Grid Ex II is at 9:30 am on Wednesday. For a location, I am using Atlanta, since that’s the headquarters of this thing called NERC — the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is the sponsor of the event. In case you see a future for yourself writing comic books or thriller movies, here is the Wikipedia page for NERC. I had not heard of this thing (which has a history back to 1968), despite having grown up doing things like reading transcripts of power grid communications.

The chart for the commencement of Grid Ex II on Wednesday.
The chart for the commencement of Grid Ex II on Wednesday.

The starting time for Grid Ex II is a hot chart. It’s not the horoscope of nothing; it is definitely something. This week, two points pass through the Uranus-Pluto square: first the Moon, conjunct Uranus and square Pluto, which you can see in this chart, and then Venus, conjunct Pluto and square Uranus, which is also clear. So this is a week when the Ur-Plu square will be highlighted by inner planets coming through its region of space.

Now, to give the other side of the interpretation, I could see where anyone who tunes in to this event (even as just an “exercise”) could be made nervous by it, since this chart certainly looks like a “disruption” (Moon-Uranus) to the “homeland” (4th house), with a militant feel (Aries).

Note as well — late add — Uranus is the very image of electricity. It is an electrical object, the cosmic fire, complete with all these electrical inventions that surround us.

The chart also has Pholus rising. That’s the planet for the genie out of the bottle; the ‘small cause with the big effect’. They have picked a date and time for their rehearsal project that yields a rather realistic chart for what their “exercise” is enacting.

What’s going to happen this week? I don’t know. Can we prevent it? I think that by talking about it, we signal that there is awareness of the potential for a false flag event. The NSA, after all, is intercepting all of our communications, and not for nothing. I am sure they follow what is trending in email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter, but which is not splashed on the networks.

Let’s consider the spiritual angle for a moment, though.

Just the fact that we have to live in a world where this kind of thing is even a consideration, even possible — and that it’s possible some species of the shadow government would be doing it — is an atrocity and a form of psychological torture.

Time and again, I come to the reluctant observation that there is a war against the people — one that takes many forms, from various forms of criminalizing trivia to outright attacks to psychological ploys like 4/15 and turning metro Boston into a war zone overnight, which of course sent a shockwave through the entire nation and indeed the world.

Another dimension of the torture of prolonged war, be it civil or international, is a kind of ‘sleep deprivation’ — in the form of depriving society of peace of mind for any extended period of time. We’re always braced for another presumably inevitable shock. It is nearly impossible to run a civil society, or to properly organize one’s own thoughts and one’s own life, when people are always waiting for the next thing to happen, braced to be in reaction/response mode.

I think we are better off in proactive mode, as it does seem to be true that vigilance is the price of liberty.

17 thoughts on “Have you heard of Grid Ex II? It starts Wednesday.”

  1. Also seems important that this event coincides with Neptune’s station direct, which happens just a few hours after the drill’s start time. It’s all happening within the context of a cloud of fogginess and confusion – and we can expect the usual Neptunian denial and disinformation…

  2. I like all you say Patty. It seems like a conspiracy if you choose to put your energy there. And that’s buying into the other side. Choose light!

  3. Just my two cents at a risk of sounding like a nut – I loved Sarah’s tarot reading yesterday. It struck me that the trumpet is sounded throughout the bible every time a victory is at hand. The trumpets sounded for Joshua marching into Jericho. It was victory for the enlightened (of the time). Remember, it was when God lived with the people, so they must have still been using the full mind – bicameral mind. The sabian symbol for Pluto is on the sailors taming the albatross. When the 7th seal opened, there was silence in heaven and the 7 trumpet judgments began. The archons may control the elite if Barbara Hand Clow is right. Is she the one who said they control Uranus? We must not fear. What we think is part of the creative, and can be either dark or light. Choose light.

  4. Remember that NYT and many other big media outlets speak in coded language. Also this piece in the Times has the sensation of being a press release. Nobody else picked it up; and of note, I can find no news about Columbia County — and where I live shares a border with them. It was a very quiet blackout.

  5. Last week most of Columbia County, New York experienced a blackout.
    National Grid had no answers.
    Allegedly they rerouted the system as a temporary fix.
    No further explanations since.

  6. Reading through the New York Times article that has segued into the ‘what are they going to do to us next?’ topic, I found this gem:

    ‘the goal is to “educate the federal government on what their expectations should or shouldn’t be.”’

    Well, call me an optimist but I still believe education is a good thing. That some group believes any part of government is within the reach of education is reason for great hope. I wonder how far they are intending to go – negative expectations, unreasonable expectations, undesirable expectations? positive expectations, reasonable, desirable? expectations based on prior experience? based on the work and preparation that has been put in? the difference between ‘having’ expectations and ‘being attached’ to expectations? Clearly they haven’t grappled with the should/should not long enough to know it is largely unproductive, but everyone has to start somewhere!

    I do take time every now and then to marvel that anything ever works at all given the complexity of the post-postmodern world: that I can turn a tap and water comes out, throw a switch and a light comes on.

    I wonder if they could add gratitude and acceptance to the purposes of the exercise?

    One last: maybe the dream was that someone was actually going to blow up this planet, but because of the increased awareness among the human population that possibility couldn’t materialise, and in the end the ‘bomb’ was detonated in space to allow the consciousness-raising on earth to continue….perspective and interpretation are so important and quite flexible…

  7. This stuff only sneaks up over time on people not paying attention. I was tracking or aware of many of the issues I now cover in the late 1980s and most have a history that goes way back before that. I did the first piece addressing GMOs on Planet Waves in 1999, that would be, 14 years ago.

  8. Wow, Eric — I can’t imagine sitting with this dream for two years. Perhaps the most alarming piece of it to me (or maybe just the most accessible) is “The effects will happen over time.” I used to think the most pernicious things in our society snuck up on us — GMOs, deregulation, etc. But then there was that whole Patriot Act thing, which sped up our societal devolution process exponentially.

    I’m also struck by the notion that things of import to have on hand were: glasses, travel bag and breathing appliance. This is deeply sickening. That you would bring it out now, more so.

  9. I have kept a light shining into this premonition for several decades — at the same time, wisdom also says to double-check the emergency grab-it bag, make sure a warm jacket, walking shoes and bottled water are ready to go (in case of opportunity and/or need).
    Then back to place-holding for peace, joy, light.
    Thx E.

  10. from the article at “the edge of the world” —- “My preference is to stay connected and creative and curious rather than to pull away. I choose to embrace this moment with a sense of adventure rather than dread. This is a moment of collective awakening.” –Very wise words, Eric, made all the wiser in hindsight. Thanks as always for shining a light on the shadows in the corners.

  11. I have kept this under my hat until now. About a day after publishing Edge of the World, I got an email from a friend of Vicki Noble, the author of the Motherpeace Tarot.

    Here is the full correspondence.

    ============

    Eric,

    Author, Healer, astrologer and Feminist Spirituality Foremother, Vicki Noble asked me to send you a dream she had on Jan 6 that pertains to BETELGEUSE and the astrology you sent today. Her dream was an eerie premonition about what you describe–and synchronistically it happened on the christian day of the “epiphany…” Vicki and I have been talking about this dream for months, doing research on chem trails, etc. and have not been sure what to do about it–or what it really meant until we read your blog today. We both suspected what you described as environmental warfare and have also felt that someone else is DOING this…I will paste the dream below. Here is Vicki’s personal email: v—–@earthlink.net so you two can be in touch directly. I think you both would have a very interesting conversation.

    (Vicki is the author of Shakti Woman, Motherpeace Tarot, Double Goddess, etc…you may be familiar with her work?)

    Blessings, Laura Amazzone

    Vicki Noble’s Dream. Jan. 6, 2011.

    I am with Laura somewhere in the dark. We sit at a picnic table in the night, talking. There is a guy around, but not with us. I hear people remarking on the two red stars. I look at them and remark on how really red they are. Two red stars. It seems like a very bad omen, the more I think about it. Even though I want to like them?because they are like Mars, and I want to like Mars (it?s my ruling planet)–they look ominous, very bright red in the night sky?just not right.

    Then as I?m looking at the sky where the two red stars are, there are clouds or fog, and suddenly around the arc of the two red stars there is a red light exploding out from the center, like a big fireworks display but less dramatic, slower, expanding in slow motion. I point and get Laura?s attention, it?s an explosion, I?m

    starting to panic. But I also feel cynical like ?it figures,? it?s finally happening, they have finally done it. But what have they done??? I finally begin to make out a cloud, so I?m starting to think it?s a mushroom cloud. We?re talking about it in calm voices: It?s a bomb. It?s going to come down right on us. What should we do? What is there to do? What will happen? It?s inconceivable. Laura says, The effects will happen over time. I?m not so sure, since it?s so close, but still I don?t know how to respond.

    I suddenly realize out loud, ?They?ve blown up a planet!? ?Really?? Laura says. I?m thinking about the Asteroids and how they might have once been a planet that exploded. I say, ?Yes, they?ve really done it!?

    We?re running home to the house where we are staying. I seem to have left my glasses on the picnic table where we had been sitting. I?m worried about that. I have the applicance for my breathing which I put in the pocket of my jeans. We are back at the house now and people are suddenly running. Outside it?s noisy. I look out a window and see that the debris falling from the sky is landing on a power station nearby. All the very bright lights at the power station are exploding out. I yell, ?It?s taking out a power plant.? And the house goes dark.

    We see all the people running and helicopters coming. ?They?re air lifting people out,? Laura says, ?but Karen and I aren?t going.? I think she means her friend Karen?the?s the doctor I think, so they must have a plan. I yell, ?Okay, just tell me what to do.? I decide I?m staying too, even though the fires are a little close for comfort. I don?t really want to be herded somewhere like a refugee.

    So I?m trying to think calmly now about what I need to have on me?my other glasses, and maybe my travel bag (the small one I wear around my neck with IDs and cash) and the breathing appliance.

    I wake with my heart pounding.

  12. Do a news search on Grid Ex II and you find out very little.

    I did find one article in a newspaper in Glens Falls, NY, just south of Lake George Village, just east of West Glens Falls and near the Adirondack Northway over by Quaker Road. The seaworthy journalists at the Post Star did a report. Mozel.

    http://poststar.com/news/opinion/columns/answers-please/national-grid-to-participate-in-power-grid-drill-on-nov/article_b5db2c24-47ec-11e3-9efa-001a4bcf887a.html

    Q: Has there been any detailed information released about the national power grid drill scheduled for Nov. 13-14?

    — Karen Packard, Warrensburg

    A. National Grid will be among the participants in North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s second Grid Security Exercise, which is being referred to as Grid Ex II by those participating.

    National Grid also participated in GridEx 2011, NERC’s first drill.

    NERC is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to “ensure the reliability” of large interconnected electrical systems, such as National Grid, in the United States, Canada and parts of Mexico.

    Many of the specifics of the drill have not been made known to utilities and agencies involved, according to a National Grid spokesman.

    “At this time, we do not know exactly who from National Grid will be participating in the drill, or what work sites those employees will be from,” National Grid’s Patrick Stella said in an emailed response to a Post-Star inquiry. “We are unaware of the exact circumstances of the drill.”

    In addition to National Grid and other utilities, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology will be involved.

    During the Wednesday-Thursday drill, participants will operate from their usual places of business to simulate the response to a “disruptive, coordinated physical and cyber event,” according to Stella.

    Most of the company’s involvement will likely be focused on National Grid’s main office in Waltham, Mass. If the scenario involves upstate New York, then locations in New York state will be “engaged as needed,” he said.

    The aim, Stella said, is to test the readiness of the electricity industry to respond to a “security incident,” incorporating lessons from the 2011 drill.

    Stella, along with a NERC receptionist in Washington, said there will be no disruption in electrical service to the public.

    “There will be no shutdown or wipeout of power or electricity of any sort,” said the receptionist, who said NERC officials, who were at a conference in Atlanta this week, asked her to emphasize that to any callers to the office.

    A 30-page “after action report” on the 2011 NERC security exercise is available on the NERC website, http://www.nerc.com, under the Program Areas & Departments page. Click on Critical Infrastructure and then GridEx under the CIP Outreach heading.

  13. A close friend involved in search and rescue and captain of her local rescue squad comments:

    So what’s new?

    Remember when they did the drills over LA a few years ago, nothing spectacular happened from it but there was a large on ground presence that NO ONE civilian had any knowledge of.

    The real question is, how well does the white house generator work? I just filled my propane tank 1000g and know my generator tested well this past Saturday.

    Now prevailing winds for this coming day, if there should be toxic substances dropped on the civilian population would predict which way we shit and run, but for exit plans we seriously don’t want the average ‘wally world shopper’ to know the path out or it would be clogged! In my mind there is a reason we don’t share evacuation plans, seaweed or antibiotics!

  14. Yes that and the constant assault on the credibility of government and hence its workers, when the real issue is the credibility of the political appointees and policy makers. There is all out psychological war being waged on government workers, in addition to the shutdown threats and default threats and sequestration and furloughs.

  15. “Another dimension of the torture of prolonged war, be it civil or international, is a kind of ‘sleep deprivation’ — in the form of depriving society of peace of mind for any extended period of time. We’re always braced for another presumably inevitable shock. It is nearly impossible to run a civil society, or to properly organize one’s own thoughts and one’s own life, where people are always waiting for the next thing to happen, braced to be in reaction/response mode.”

    This is exactly what is happening to the federal workforce in the form of Congress’s refusal to enact a budget. It may not sound like a big deal to folks on the outside; after all, we always end up getting some money in the end, and we did get that two-week “vacation” for free. But I can attest from my observation and experience it is profoundly disruptive and demoralizing on the inside.

    I would love to hear the healthy ways that people manage the anxiety Eric describes so well.

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