CHAPTER 4. MIRACLES

This story is the first of the miracles I have included in my memoirs.  The others will follow in the next several weeks.  Below, I define what I consider to be a miracle.  This first story is very hard to believe, but I assure you, the event happened as I present it here.  I still shake my head when I relive the event in my mind.  I have included detailed events which lead up to the miracle.  I feel this is necessary because other things happen along the way which I also consider to be miracles.  Look for them as you read the story.

Before I get into the actual stories of where miracles have taken place in my life, I feel that it is necessary to define what I call a miracle.  In general, a miracle is usually defined as something that takes place that could only happen through divine intervention.  Examples in the Bible would be when Jesus fed over 5,000 people with a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish, when He walked on water, and when He was resurrected from the dead, just to name a few.  We don’t see these types of miracles anymore, but miracles still do occur, nonetheless.  As a believing Christian, as I stated early on in these memoirs, I do not believe in coincidences, luck, or “it just so happened.”  God is in control of all things.  In the stories I present in this chapter, they all have so many rare or unusual things to happen and that these things had to happen for the event to turn out as it did, defies all odds.  As you read them, look for instances where people do things that people do not normally do, where the odds of something happening as it did are greatly against it, where timing of related events are unbelievingly “lucky”, and where there just does not seem to be any rational explanation to explain what has happened.
In the end, I am almost sure that you will agree with me that miracles really have happened in my life.
I would also like to mention that in the Near Death experiences related in earlier posts, I feel that God was certainly watching over me in each one of those cases
THE LOST 45 MINUTES OF MY LIFE (1967).  Of all the stories included in this chapter, this one is by far the most bizarre and difficult to explain.  The narrative given is on the long side because so many miraculous things happened along the way.  As you read this event, keep in mind that it is absolutely true.  This event did occur in my life as I have presented it here.
The year is 1967, and I am assigned to the Sea Ice Branch of the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO).  At this time, I was a very junior scientist in the field of arctic oceanography.  My area of specialty was using remote sensors to determine various physical properties of the sea ice.  In other words, we were trying to measure such properties as height of the ice, its age, and its thickness, to name a few, without actually coming in contact with the ice; hence, the term remote sensors.  The sensors we were interested in were always mounted in aircraft or on satellites.  My supervisor, Robert Ketchum, and I had just completed an involved test over the arctic ice pack using high resolution photographic cameras, a laser profiling system, a forward-looking infrared scanner, and a K-band side-looking radar system.  This was an exciting data set, because nothing like it had ever been collected before.  In other words, it represented what scientists call a seminal data set.  To help us with our analysis, two scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Dr. Robert Mennella and Dr. Richard Hollinger joined our team.
As mentioned above, I was by far the junior member of this team.  Mr. Ketchum had vast experience in remote sensing of sea ice, and Dr. Mennella and Dr. Hollinger were internationally recognized remote sensing experts.  Because they were so busy with other projects, it fell on me to do most of the analysis.  I also did the majority of the technical report writing.  I have to say here that I did not do it all.  These 3 men provided much advice and editorial review of the manuscript.  It was truly a team effort.
When the paper was completed, we had already selected the international Journal of Glaciology as the peer-reviewed journal that we would submit the paper to for consideration.  Now, it was necessary to define the authorship of the paper.  I naturally assumed that I would be listed as the fourth author since I was junior to them.  As I mentioned above, this was seminal research.   Nothing like it had been done before.  Senior authorship is very important in the scientific community, especially for new research.  Much to my surprise, they all felt that I should be the senior, or first-listed author.  I was dumbfounded.  Each of them had a viable argument to be listed first.  But they did not put forth their arguments, and they insisted that it should be me.
After quite a bit of internal review of the paper at NRL, we were allowed to submit it to the Journal of Glaciology.  What normally happens during this process is that the journal’s primary editors review the paper and determine if it is worthy of possible publication.  This process can take months.  To our surprise, we received a letter within a week or two that the paper might be accepted for publication pending review by selected peers in the field.  Then, lo and behold, about a month after submission, we received a letter accepting the paper for publication.  As I read the letter, I was extremely excited.  I was going to get on my resume my first published peer-reviewed paper.  Then I read on to paragraph 2.  They wanted to include the paper for presentation at the upcoming international symposium in July at Cambridge University in the U.K.  That was only about 2 months away!  And it was at Cambridge University!  And it was at an international meeting of scientists from around the world!  As many people are, I was petrified to speak in public.  I had little or no experience doing this.  I was panicking.  I called a meeting of the three others and gave them the good news.  I then expressed my inexperience and fears to them.  I asked if any of them would be willing to give the paper at this prestigious symposium.  They all had conflicts with the dates of the symposium and could not.  It was on me.  I wondered how “unlucky” I was that all 3 of my buddies had other important meetings to attend during that week in July.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was.
I knew the work that I had to present.  After all, I had analyzed the data and had defined the results into the paper.  I got busy practicing my talk.  At the time, I had a high-quality Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder on which I recorded my talk and played it back.  I could not believe how bad I was.  I sounded nervous, I would forget important points, I could not seem to get it into the required 20 minutes, and I just seemed unsure of myself.  I was convinced that I was going to embarrass myself, my co-authors, and both the Naval Oceanographic Office and the Naval Research Lab.
Well, as time has a habit of doing, it quickly passed, and July was soon upon me.  I believe that I lost about 10 pounds during this time.  But I made it to Cambridge and to the symposium.  It was a 5-day event with Monday being mostly administrative and Friday being summary and wrap up.  I was scheduled to present our paper on Wednesday morning.  Honestly, I do not remember too much of Cambridge, England.  I guess I was too busy practicing my talk.
This is where my story gets bizarre.  On Wednesday, I remember sitting in my chair on the right side of the auditorium.  The gentleman before me on the agenda was on the stage giving his talk.  The next thing I remember was that I was in the same seat, and the guy after me was on-stage giving his talk.  That I was dumbfounded is an understatement.  What had just happened here?  I could not remember giving my talk.  Had I even given it?  I did have small snippets of memory, however.  I remember being in bright lights looking out at the audience and seeing silhouettes of hundreds of people; and I sort of remember looking at a brightly lit screen.  But that is all I remember.  I still was not sure if I gave my talk or not.  But that uncertainty was shortly answered when just before lunch a secretary for the symposium came to me and said “Dr.” Tooma, would you please review the transcript of the question and answer period following your talk?  We want to be sure that we don’t misquote you”.  Q and A?  I didn’t remember any questions put to me, much less my answers.  I nervously read the transcript, and the questions put to me were good ones.  Happily, my answers were what I would have wanted to give.  I had given the talk.
In the next day or so, I was approached by several researchers from different countries.  All told me how much they enjoyed my talk, and a few said that they were doing related work, and would I consider writing a joint paper with them.  I was still in a state of shock over what had happened.  I gave these gentlemen the stock answer that I would have to get approval from NRL before I could work on a joint paper with a foreign national.
This event had a profound effect on my professional career.  Initially, following the symposium, I was still nervous about public speaking.  But shortly thereafter, I became more sure of myself and my confidence grew.  The fact that I was the senior author of an oft-cited paper did not hurt either.  For years, I pondered what happened during that lost 45 minutes of my life.  I now know with all certainty that God was watching over me, and through the Holy Spirit He had got me through a terrible ordeal.