Abandoned, salt-encrusted structures

on the Salton Sea shore at Bombay Beach. Wiki photo

is

The Salton Sea is a weird place. I think I have written about it before. I visited there when my husband and I were traveling across country in our VW van. It is strange, creepy and spooky. The place is definitely an anomaly.Interestingly, it was the one place we felt the most unsafe. We had camped in remote areas many times. We camped at the Mexican border, we camped in cities such as Miami and New Orleans. At the Salton Sea, we felt acutely uncomfortable, and the feeling worsened as night fell. We tossed and turned and remained in a fitful state until finally at 3AM my husband said, "Are you awake?" I said "Yes." He asked me if I felt creepy. What we were actually feeling was frightened, a supernatural kind of fear when the hairs on the back of your neck raise up and your heart is pounding a little. We decided to close up shop and race outta there. We made LA by dawn.I read in the news last night of a terrible rotten-egg smell that has been wafting from the Salton Sea all the way to LA. Initially, Los Angelenos did not know it came from the US's largest inland sea, because it is so far away from LA- about 150-195 miles. A strong Rotten Egg Smell had Southern Californians plugging their noses and crying foul Monday as air quality investigators scrambled to determine if the sulfurous scent was coming from the Salton Sea."Today they have made that confirmation."After a day of "odor surveillance" and other scent-based sleuthing, Southern California air quality investigators confirmed Tuesday what they had already expected — that a pungent, rotten-egg aroma that stretched across the region came from the Salton Sea. Investigators from the South Coast Air Quality Management District collected air samples, modeled weather patterns and measured hydrogen sulfide levels to determine that Monday's stench came from the saltwater lake 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles, as strong winds from a storm churned the water and stirred up foul-smelling gasses from the lake bottom, where they normally are trapped."They don't know why the smell escaped the lake bottom. The scientists said the "likely" cause was a fish-die-off. LOL, there's that word "likely" again, which I read more and more often when scientists are quoted in attempting to explain the inexplicable.The smell issueunusual. The LA Times reports , "We now have solid evidence that clearly points to the Salton Sea as the source of a very large and unusual odor event," said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. How unusual? As late as Monday night, AQMD officials weren't even sure it was scientifically possible for a malodorous scent to trek the distance the Salton Sea's fumes did. So they asked an air quality modeler to use sophisticated computer modeling to find out if it was "theoretically possible" for a stench to fly that far. "I think we've shown it was theoretically possible," said Sam Atwood, an AQMD spokesman. "But this is just something we did not expect.""Atwood said AQMD inspectors collected air samples that contained hydrogen sulfide."Hydrogen sulfide is part of the sulfur cycle. Sulfur is also known as brimstone. Wikipedia explains : "sulfur (Latin sulphur) was known in ancient times and is referred to in the Torah (Genesis). English translations of the Bible commonly referred to burning sulfur as "brimstone", giving rise to the name of 'fire-and-brimstone' sermons, in which listeners are reminded of the fate of eternal damnation that await the unbelieving and unrepentant. It is from this part of the Bible that Hell is implied to "smell of sulfur".So the weirdest and demonically spookiest place on earth I've ever visited smelled of brimstone so bad that it wafted almost 200 miles, and still smelling strongly, plagued the residents of the city where Hollywood is.Hmmm.There IS evidence of geothermal activity that's also visible. There are mudpots and mud volcanoes on the eastern side of the Salton Sea. Right, mudpots at Salton.Today the Ukrainian city of Lviv was in the news. Residents there are complaining of a rotten egg smell . It is really pungent, apparently. "The smell has gotten so bad that many residents have begun wearing face masks and keeping children and asthma-sufferers indoors when the odor grows particularly ripe'. Residents in Point Place in Ohio reported a month ago about a rotten eggs smell. "For over a year, District 6 City Councilman Lindsay Webb said, she's been getting regular calls, emails, and social media messages from constituents concerned about a smell emanating from the direction of the city's Hoffman Road Landfill, which is just northwest of Point Place. Most of those people, including Ms. Webb, believe the landfill is responsible for what's been described as a stench of garbage or rotten eggs."In Revelation 9:2 we read that hell will literally be on earth. "He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft".The verse doesn't say anything about a smell but I am sure that a sulfurous smell will accompany the demons' release along with all that smoke.God's signature use of hail, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, and "brimstone" (sulfur) are well-known throughout history.The KJV of the Bible offers many examples of the phrase "fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulfur (British spelling, sulphur). In Genesis 19, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah for their immoral homosexuality via a rain of fire and brimstone. In Deuteronomy 29, the Israelites were threatened with the same punishment if they abandoned their covenant with God. Divine judgments involving fire and sulphur are prophesied against Assyria (Isaiah 30), Edom (Isaiah 34), Gog (Ezekiel 38), and all the wicked (Psalm 11). The ultimate book of wrath, Revelation, shows God using the punishment with fire and brimstone throughout. Here is one example..."And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10, KJV)In Ezekiel 38:22-23 the Gog-Magog war, God saves Israel by raining down brimstone. "With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. 23So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord."Interestingly, in Isaiah 30:33, the breath of God is compared to brimstone: "The Breath of Jehovah, like a stream of Brimstone, doth kindle it.""Brimstone," used to be the common name for sulfur. The word when used today is almost exclusively in allusions to God's fiery wrath. SulfurBrimstone. When the people of SoCal smell that distinctive "rotten egg" smell, it is sulfur, or brimstone. Brimstone is the language of God.Are we listening?