| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
GCW - you seen this?http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080514/tuk-hundreds-of-ufo-sightings-in-uk-45 dbed5.html | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Oooh you can be a cruel man, Mr T. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
They were talking about em on Radio 4 this morning, the Today Programme. new files released or something, the late Lord Hill Norton's complaints that thigns weren't being dealt with seriously enough. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
AH! the angelic half breeds that have followed me into this realm. They shall now find me! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
Imagine a person who was really half alien and grew up in Britain just being an oddball, not being quite right. Imagine if it happened in the 19th century a few times and the relatives are still among us, knowing they don't feel part of it but not why. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
SOB! It's like you know me. How do you poo, again? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.100.43 |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080620/tuk-britain-police-ufo-offbeat-a7ad41d.htm l | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
GcW is under enough strain with his move to suburbia without this, Tony. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Sigh. Yet more teasing stories. What are they waiting for? I had this idea that UFOs were traffic from from the future being shunted through time to avoid a multiple pile up. The traffic in the future might be so bad that they have to use the fourth dimension to get important dignitories to work on time. Chortle. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
A slight detour. What interests you apart from literature, Albie? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I used to mess with music. Don't go there. I don't know if I have any other interests. Conspiracy theories and all that paranormal stuff. I don't hang glide or do motor cross or anything like that. I enjoy the works of Dirty Sanchez. You probably know them, being welsh. HAHAHAHAHA. And I play my XBOX 1. MERCENARIES is a good game. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Musically I enjoyed PAVEMENT and MOGWAI (for a bit). Now I like to listen to emotive power ballads from the past. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Do you know what a Dirty Sanchez is, Albie? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"You probably know them, being welsh. HAHAHAHAHA." Yes, I also know Tom Jones, Katherine Z Jones and Ceris Matthews. Not. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.52.195 |
Qwuerweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelleeeeesssssss-er! Norfolk is soooo much easier baby. Hi Griff me ol'leak - hows things? Sorry I ain't been around, I have been writing a new album. Move to Suburbia is now complete. Tony, I can't open that link, what the gist of it? gcw | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.4.67 |
No, Albie! Listen to Mogwai again. The upcoming new album and EP have tracks under the names of 'I love you, I'm going to blow up your school' and 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased by the Police and Loses His Slut Girlfriend', which can only bode well. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Hiya, GCW! Wondered where you'd been. Thought the suburbs had got you. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.52.195 |
Wotcha Mr.Lynch! - I am settling into the 'burbs quite nicely, my new album will reflect the atmos.... gcw  | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
What swingers parties and neighbourhood watch? Brr | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.52.195 |
...Stepford Wives.... gcw  | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Wheelie Bins . . . | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Countdown begins . . . | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Berni Inns . . . | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Here are two UFOs I photographed just a few weeks ago: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/clacton_ufo.htm | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
You believe, then, Des? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Well, I believe in Unidentified Flying Objects... unidentified by me so far. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>No, Albie! Listen to Mogwai again. I will if they move away from miserable music. They produced some fine and weird Math Rock sounding tunes early on like Stereo Dee and Yes, I Am a Long Way From Home. The same thing happened with Dave Pajo/Aerial M. Miserable music is so much easier to make, I suppose. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Sure they weren't seagulls, Des? gulls caught in mid flap can look quite odd. What did you see at the time? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
I saw nothing at the time. I just happened to take the photo for my Cone Zero website showing one of the buildings used there as from a distance. It was only later I spotted the UFOs. My wife thinks the first one over the pier is a seagull. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.52.195 |
I seem to be becoming a magnet for little green men theories.... Just for the record....Like Des I have seen a UFO...An Undentified Flying Object. Nothing more, nothing less. gcw | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.247.154 |
I once knew a guy named Ed (extremely-trivial-yet-perhaps-not-so-tangent: he was best friends at one time with Mark Mothersbaugh, and was the producer [or one of them?.. can't quite remmeber] on Devo's early albums; when you think Mark Mothersbaugh, think Church of the Sub-Genius, and you see how it might not be so irrelevant...) who would take camping trips during which, as a hobby, he'd try to perfect the fine art of fake UFO photos (flinging objects he'd created in the air and photographing them, etc., this in the days before digital phtography); he'd then disseminate them through the community, or try to, never letting on to the truth. Anyway, the day I see it on the 6:00 news, is the day I'll believe in UFO's as anything other than a delusional episode involving a misunderstanding by credible eyewitnesses of very down-to-Earth events... or deliberate tomfoolery.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
Mark Mothersbaugh wrote the theme to Clifford the Big Red Dog. And Rugrats. I know that because it's one of the few songs I memorized all the lyrics to. I believe, btw, but I don't know if they're aliens. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
I hate guys who do the faking thing, btw, and the crop circles. I mean, why? It's so mean. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Has anyone ever written a book about a serial killer who murders crop circle fakers and leaves their bodies in the circle mutilated to look like aliens did it? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080625/tuk-ufo-sighting-security-probe-needed -45dbed5.html | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>Has anyone ever written a book about a serial killer who murders crop circle fakers and leaves their bodies in the circle mutilated to look like aliens did it? Don't think so, Albs. But it sounds vaguely like the episode of MIDSOMMER MURDERS I always seem to catch whenever it's on. Mind you, they all look the same . . . | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
He's an astronaut, but seems he's getting a lot of his info from UFO researchers: 24069817-5001021%2C00.html,http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,240698 17-5001021,00.html (You may have to cut the gumpf before the http: on that first link) http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc533.htm What to think? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081106/twl-nasa-joins-ufo-sighting-craze-41f21e0.ht ml | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
And speaking of bullshit... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
WuyIoughtta! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081020/tuk-real-x-files-reveal-close-encounters-dba 1618.html | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.225.194.173 |
There's been a plague of sightings around Huddersfield teh last six months. But most are attributable to Chinese lanterns. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.171 |
These don't sound like lanterns... http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20081219/tuk-mystery-lights-over-the-midlands-45dbed5 .html | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.162 |
Hey tony - you read this? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090108/tuk-strange-lights-as-turbine-damaged-6323e 80.html | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.121.214.11 |
If a UFO is suddenly Identified does it becom an FO? an if it the lands, is it an O? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Just seen the pics on the news. Looks like one blade fell off and hit another on the way . . . Conflicting reports about whether the fallen blade is missing or not now. A good fun story, though. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Weber: If it stops flying and ceases to be an object, is it a U? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.241 |
If something big's flying, and it's unidentified, but you can't tell if it's an object or not, is it a big F-U to you? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.192.136 |
Eamonn Holmes was going on about it this morning. Even the professional skeptic could only surmise that it was a meteor strike, which seems only slightly less likely than a pan-dimensional spacecraft. It's very very odd, this one. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
The footage of the lights could be of anything really. Turbines are prone to shearings now and again, and one blade would easily hurt the other. But usually thee's signs of damage ocuring, and they're regularaly checked. The "missing" blade was there all along, on the ground, and they've taken it off for analysis. But a meteor could be a possibilty. My money would be on mechanical failure r a nutter with a homemade RPG. Mind you, if the space aliens are using sat-nav . . . | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.162 |
You know these things are so perplexing and take up so much of our thoughts and yet we can never know them. I wonder at my wonder of such incidents when I realise they are essentially dead ends. If ufos are out there they'll be too smart and always hide, till we can take them, till we are bored with fantasy and imaginative things, have assimilated all the odd ideas we are capable of. I think. Funny, but there must be three types of person regarding ufoes; the skeptic who derides, the open-minded sort who is happy to be proved either way, and the gullible. Or are there permutations? Maybe it's evolutionary; which of these types will affect the world in what way? Who is more use to it? The dreamer? The dafty? The pragmatist? I was watching some turbines this morning and thought if a blade fell on another it would perhaps dent it once, but not mangle it. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.220.82 |
Physics is often counter-intuitive. 1. Take two long, thin strips of paper. 2. Hold them at the top so they dangle vertically. 3. Make a prediction as to what will happen to them if you blow down in between them. 4. Perform the experiment and compare your results with your prediction. Common sense is just a set of rules which hold in the special case of the planet we've evolved on. It isn't necessarily universally applicable. A blade Actually, what really made me think it might be a flying saucer was that the skeptic's explanation was so feeble, so improbable, that he seemed to be on the ropes. I know the burden of proof isn't on him, but still... Someone described a luminous, diffuse light with tentacles of light dangling down from it, almost like a living creature. *shudder* *wow* | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.220.82 |
I meant to finish the third paragraph: Common sense is just a set of rules which hold in the special case of the planet we've evolved on. It isn't necessarily universally applicable. A blade may react strangely with to a single blow is it's rotating. We can't tell with common sense alone. We have to run simulations. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.162 |
I thought that, about the skeptics arguments being feebler than the witness'. I had an imagie in my mind the other day of an alternate reality that accepted ghosts and such 'bunk', and had electric ipod-like gizmos that gave them tarot readings and starsign stuff. I suddenly felt like a very calm world, settled. I don't know if that's good but it felt nice. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>Actually, what really made me think it might be a flying saucer was that the skeptic's explanation was so feeble, so improbable, that he seemed to be on the ropes. I know the burden of proof isn't on him, but still... Of course, if there are such thigns as flying saucers, then it becomes a decent hypothesis. But if there aren't such thigns, the sceptic's point of view is going to be more likely, however unlikely. It may be a stealth robot or something, if not mechanical failure. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.223 |
We know that flying flying saucers exist. Kenneth Arnold saw them. "It may be a stealth robot or something..." There you go again! Now I'm more persuaded it was the footprint of something stepping between universes. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.162 |
The thing, is, the minute you get excited about things like ufos folk seem almost determined to step on the idea, crush your hopes. It's like giving room to your dreams is somehow something to be suppressed. Not that Mark is doing this - he just so badly wants to believe that he doesn't want to be fooled. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.223 |
It's natural, if someone feels very strongly about something, to adopt an opposing stance. A desire for balance and symmetry are programmed into us. This is lovely: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/01/theres_a_small_cafe.html | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.162 |
That's absolutely beautiful. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
The US says it doesn't test fly craft over open countryside and built-up areas, and definately not outside US territory. But my girlfriend's mother saw the Stealth bomber zooming over a crowded holiday beach years before it was openly revealed to exist. Lots thought it was a UFO. She always said no, it was a plane. I'd say it's in certain folk's interest to keep UFOs a worthwhile subject in the news -- especially if the people who see them are made to look dumb. Kenneth Arnold, of course, didn't see flying saucers, but craft that skipped in the air like saucers. Bugger, innit? Any of you see the shows on the Hubble telescope? Breathtaking magnitude of the universe is purely stunning. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.231.208 |
Again, I tell you about a person I used to know, who went with his wife and children into deep northern California woods, to take fake photos of UFOs, and distribute them as eyewitness sightings. It was his capricious wicked gleeful personality to do so (he was very much into the Church of the Subgenius - being, again, very close at one time to Mark Mothersbaugh - and it's all like something they would do). Hey, just because I may not buy anything regarding UFO sightings, doesn't make me a cold-hearted non-imaginative lackluster cynic. Just because you don't believe in what passes for UFOs, doesn't mean you don't believe in, say, the existence of extraterrestrial life... or the Easter Bunny.... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
The existenc eof extraterrestrail ife is likely, I think. Yet I've no proof, other than the vastness of the universe. So it's kind of faith to say that. Intelligent extraterrestrail life is another matter. I think civilisations probably ereach a stage where they destroy themselves through religious nutterdom or else realise the universe is pointless and so are they and thus allow themselves to die out through breeding less. That or the universe is just really hostile. Which of course it is. Everything's trying to kill us. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.10 |
I like the idea of robot policemen. And it's a daft argument, like that of believing or not in ghosts, that you just have to decide on in your heart of hearts and keep to yourself. I told my son tonight that if you tell a person you saw a UFO and they are skeptical you feel like a fool, and if you tell a person and they go overboard in believing you...you feel like a fool. It's one of those subjects. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Ho ho. Yup. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.223 |
Methane discovery could mean life on Mars http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/01/15/mars.methane/index.html | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
This and the chap's attendant postings are pretty thorough about the supposed UFO. http://abusingthenews.blogspot.com/2009/01/americans-are-dafter-than-we-are.html | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>Methane discovery could mean life on Mars It's a follow up to something that's been recorded before. Very exciting though. Yet not uunexpected now. Life's looking good for Mars. UFO. Reports on telly now say that the windmill wasn't struck by lightning or ice build up a contributory factor. But the way the story's run is very funny; will keep a few UFOlogists busy and in print for a while. Alas, it'd be more fun if a UFO had hit it . . . | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.97.255 |
Loads of strange goings on around me :>) http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/sense_of_place/ghost_stories/index.shtml | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.152.164 |
"I've got a bit of a sixth sense..."! Hahahaha! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.97.255 |
Mmm - I feel a story coming on about Kingswell woods. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.97.255 |
And a Muuhhahaha to you Mick. Spelling of some is a little poor methinks. Not you - the little mites :>) Felt like correcting them. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.97.255 |
I like the one. "i saw a big ghost that was black and looked wet." | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.212.166 |
I just saw the Mars story on the front cover of The Sun. NASA has been draining funds from important experiments to search for life in space for years, because they think that'll keep them popular with the public and hopefully stop their budgets getting slashed again. They're chasing the public opinion of bovine Americans rather than shaping it. What really infuriates me is that the USA might have been able to afford to do hard astrophysics at the frontier of human knowledge AND search for life AND help distribute retro-viral AIDS medicine in Africa AND fight global warming AND world hunger if they hadn't spent over half a trillion dollars to have a hundred thousand civilians murdered in the Iraq war. Not an original thought, but one that bears repeating, I think. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.212.166 |
Of course life on Mars would slow down our space programme's immeasurably. I think the UFO could be real, though. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.212.166 |
"...programmes..." | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.169 |
Here's the missing ingredient between the sources conjectured, and the sightings themselves - it's not a mystery, it's called: everyone is fucked up on drugs, excuse my French. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.7dc137c08d972555bef6dfd9a7353bb0.401 &show_article=1 | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
A lot of files have been released by the goverment today. Some very convincing stories, as well as some dumb ones. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.169 |
Let me clarify my statement: If there are hundreds, thousands, of sightings of UFOs, and yet no credible/tangible/clear/irrefutable/nightly-news proof yet surfaced of the existence of UFOs, then one must assume that most of them are not credible. BUT, one could boil off the 99% froth, and indeed, come to a conclusion that one or two or a handful, are indeed, "unexplained." If a visitor from another planet is frequent = we'd know; if it's infrequent = extremely very super few credible sightings. So, in conclusion, all the others are a cocktail of: TV shows and movies + whatever drugs in the system + mental excitation = UFO sighting. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
So all there is to do with this world, the best we can do, is wash out our crisp packets. That's as good as it gets. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.169 |
I'm not sure what a crisp packet is, but please don't wash out any more, Tony - defy society, the government, the Earth, the Universe, and the demiurge that scewed it all up to begin with, and just throw the !@#@! crisp packets in the trash - and flip off the Queen while you're at it. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Does no one here read 'Fortean Times'?!?! The explicable stuff is all "will to believe" psycho-social (mainly inspired by Hollywood movies and TV shows like 'The X Files') while the so far 'inexplicable' stuff is a mixture of electromagnetic atmospheric phenomena tentatively labelled as Earth Lights and deliberate misinformation campaigns by both sides during the Cold War. Alien life does exist but the odds of it ever having reached Earth (in any other form than microscopic spores or bacteria - but that's a whole other story) is so infinitesimally small as to be ALMOST inconceivable. Unless, of course, we were the Aliens all along...  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.169 |
... deliberate misinformation campaigns by both sides during the Cold War. ... And yet more fodder for my increasing disbelief in nuclear weapons, the tenuous nature of our mission to the Moon/space in general.... What better rumor to be circulating for NASA (jolly as it limp-wristedly tries to swat them), than that "aliens are among us"?... and the implicit conclusion: that if those dirty rotten space bastards can get HERE from THERE, then by God, we'll get THERE from HERE!... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
Yeah, the world is as dull as dish water. Without these wonders it really is just stuff appearing and then going away again. If we cannot wonder I see no point whatsoever in it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.169 |
You don't need aliens standing beside you in the redwood forests, at the base of Mount Shasta, along the rocky shores off Arcata, just to confine myself to some spots in northern California - you don't need aliens anywhere near you, to feel the world can still be light years from dishwater.... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
I'm not saying Alien life hasn't reached Earth... I'm only saying not in the form spoonfed to us by the media and other powers that be. If it be intelligent Alien life then it must be inextricably linked with our own origins i.e. we are the Aliens (the alternative would be just too unwieldy a coincidence). As for unintelligent alien life - I believe it could very well be showering down around our heads at this very instant. I fully expect microscopic life to be discovered on Mars. Being so close to us the odds are as astronomically high as holidaying little green men from Alpha Centauri are low - and an increasing number of respectable scientists agree with me! | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.79.235.202 |
Ah, it's the old Fermi Paradox, innit? If there was intelligent life in the universe, it should be noticably obvious: engineered stars, etc, and even at sub-light speeds, they should be around. And yet they don't seem to be. So does that mean there are no smart succeful, long-lived alien civilisations? Suggests there's either something we're missing about the universe, or the universe is very hostile. I'm afraid it's probably a combination: few smart long-lived civilisations and a hostile universe. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.182.250 |
You may well be right, Mark - there has to be that combination of other civilisations and ours being around at the same time. "Does no one here read 'Fortean Times'?!?!" Read it? I'm in it... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
That's some claim to fame Mick!! I'm a long-term addict of the magazine - the finest publication on the market. Are you serious? I believe the reason we haven't detected alien civilizations so far is because of the sheer scale of the Universe and the extreme rarity of life developing and then surviving long enough to develop intelligence and a technological civilization. That we are here proves it is possible and that the Universe must be infinite proves it must have happened elsewhere but the odds of it being within detectable range are just too low. That we haven't detected those civilizations that must have developed aeons before life on Earth arose points to two possibilities: either it is physically impossible to bridge the interstellar gaps or they have been here all along - this is the Fortean in me talking. Here's another wild thought... the one monumental coincidence that has always struck me about our home world is that we just happen to have one Moon of exactly the right dimensions and distance away to appear precisely the same size as the Sun in the sky. Two inconceivably unlikely scenarios on the one small planet points to either one stupidly huge coincidence or a sign of intelligent purpose...  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.15.230 |
... or a sign of intelligent purpose... And that would be, exactly?... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.182.250 |
Are you serious? (Un)fortunately not, Stephen! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
'Here's another wild thought... the one monumental coincidence that has always struck me about our home world is that we just happen to have one Moon of exactly the right dimensions and distance away to appear precisely the same size as the Sun in the sky' Yes. I agree. We need look for no bigger clue. It's like coincidence (only the good ones); it's not what the coincidence is saying, it's that it's SAYING it that matters. I find them to be like those builder's marks you get on stones; it's like whatever is at the heart of stuff is saying hi, it's ok. Sometimes I think this anyway. Was watching The Others witht the kids last night when my middle son (autistic spectrum) suggested ghosts need to scare us because it was their way of staying latched on to the world, their way of keeping hold. He felt they need our energy, the energy generated by fear or intense emotion. I thought it was an amazing idea. Great film, btw. Lots of nice stuff in the grace notes. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.125 |
If it be intelligent Alien life then it must be inextricably linked with our own origins i.e. we are the Aliens (the alternative would be just too unwieldy a coincidence). As for unintelligent alien life - I believe it could very well be showering down around our heads at this very instant. Stephen: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE57H02I20090818 | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
The fact we exist, Craig, is like your moon landing thing again; sort of COMPLETELY unbelievable. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.125 |
The fact we exist, Craig, is like your moon landing thing again; sort of COMPLETELY unbelievable. Until that moment we no longer do - when (by definition) we no longer believe - because we no longer are. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
Stop starting my day with depressing stuff. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.125 |
Remember, Tony - this is the first day of the end of your life.  As it is, there's a 50% chance you'll die any given day, you know... either you will, or you won't.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
Screw that. I believe in the survival of the will! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Earth is the only place in the Universe we have unequivocal proof that life, intelligence and a technological civilization developed. The Sun and the Moon appearing the same size from the surface of the Earth had profound significance for the development of intelligence and religious belief on Earth. It implied there were two equal forces in the heavens; one that ruled the day and the light, and one that ruled the night and the darkness. It also gave us the potent symbol of the Moon's perfect eclipse of the Sun - imagine the effect that must have had on primitive man! Whether this significance is anything other than one astoundingly monumental coincidence or a sign deliberately put in the heavens to "speak to us" is something I can't comment on because I don't know for sure. I merely point out the facts and the probabilities. Interesting though...  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
I've just ordered this book and found this review, which quite nicely addresses almost everything here; http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n02/mant01_.html | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Read the books of Charles Fort. If ever the cosmic prankster had a voice it was he. Damned facts and probability are the "two fingers up" to our attempts at scientific rationality in an infinite (and infinitely unknowable) Universe. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.243 |
Not sure, Stephen.... The flaw in the argument, say, of those who stare at the heavens and say (and assuming, as many do, the Universe is filled with dead planets), "Billions of universes out there, and yet how amazing it is that here there's life!" is that that's actually not amazing at all: rocks can't imagine, so the only place you could ever feel the amazement, is on that single life raft. The Sun and the Moon appearing the same size from the surface of the Earth had profound significance for the development of intelligence and religious belief on Earth. There is simply no basis for this: I agree with you that I think it might have been that way, but absolutely no one can verify this at all. As it is, I've always found it quite amazing that, in our current world - wherein many things survive in all religions from centuries and ages and eons past - virtually nothing has survived of "Moon worship." The Moon is a dead rock in the sky, to virtually all the world's current religions - it holds no important significant religiously-vital place - there are no annual celebrations under the Moon, to the Moon, etc. Can anyone name one? Or the Sun, for that matter. Perhaps it was significant that the Moon was the same exact size as the Sun. It would have been more significant, if one of the clearly-seen pattern of stars in the sky, formed a face, staring down at us. Lack of that pattern, doesn't argue against a pattern-maker. A perceived pattern in the Moon and Sun's equal size, doesn't argue for it. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"The Moon is a dead rock in the sky, to virtually all the world's current religions - it holds no important significant religiously-vital place - there are no annual celebrations under the Moon, to the Moon, etc. Can anyone name one?" The date of easter is based on the phases of the moon so that probably counts. this was of course hijacked from the old pagan Oestre, or whatever it was called, which makes that also a form of worship based on the moon. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.243 |
I fully understand phases, Weber - the Jewish high-holidays are all based on phases of the Moon. I'm talking about literal MOON WORSHIP, or Moon reverence, Moon obsession - Moonyness. It's not there. There is an example of something else being literally "worshipped" - Jerusalem, which is a holy site for many, a place to seek and see and revere - it's not wholly symbolic, which is what Christianity essentially became, an abstract religion that could be practiced anywhere, not in just one place, or to one thing. The Moon is the uniter of all humanity through the ages - it's the only thing anyone anywhere at any time can look at, and link up with everyone throughout history: it's the same Moon that Julius Ceaser, Jesus, Mohammed, Shakespeare, John Lennon, gazed at. It is our tangible link to humanity - and yet, it is not worshipped or revered as would befit it. And its tremendous gravity (pun intended) is what makes me think our going to the Moon at all, just seems hard to believe, sometimes... it is so magnificent a thing, that to go there, surely, WOULD have changed history.... And to go there would seem to have been more significant, than just to watch a bunch of obese Michelin Men wrapped tin foil with fish bowls over their heads playing golf. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
I think - subtley - it is loved more than any God or whatever. Also, the moon that man went to was not that moon, if you see what I mean. Just yesterday me and my youngest son had to wait in a cafe while a bus came. We were sat by the window drinking juice and coffee, and next to us was a huge mirror. We could see the whole other side of the street through it; it was pretty great. We got to talking about how weird mirrors are, how ghostly. We said how odd it would be to see a person in the mirror who wasn't in the street, a shop that was closed or open in the reflection and open or closed in the other. I sort of had the idea that we weren't so much imagining things as becoming aware of them, as if possibilty could be pinned down rather than dreamed up. Why the moon link? Because there is more than one moon. BTW, all the while me and my son spoke, i could sense this man behind us listening avidly, and started playing up to him, really revelling in the ideas I was coming up with. I sort of wished I was him, hearing all this great stuff. Oh, there might not be aliens, but life can be pretty fun. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Think about this... how would humankind have developed if the Sun had dwarfed the Moon into insignificance or if there had been no Moon at all? That there is a Moon, in the unlikely form it takes, gave us the very concept of duality and apparent balance and control in nature. There may not be any overt sign of Moon worship in the world today but the very concept of light and dark being equally "powerful" (rather than one being the deliberate holding back of the other i.e. a tyrannical "creator") has irrevocably affected the development of human intelligence (and biology for that matter) toward a very specific choice centred moral/religious/psychological view of the Universe. Calculated design, experiment to see what happens or blind chance - who knows? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.191.22 |
It's like the 2001 monolith, isn't it? A possible mechanism, the tool that carved us. The gravitational pull of the moon must also be taken into consideration; it affects our minds let alone the sea. But then I suppose if it's chance and we got here because of it, we think the chance is miraculous, don't we? You know? That fact that we can't be 100% certain either way is possibly the biggest blessing of all. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
Of course there's aliens. We covered this when we talked about the infinite Universe. Get this stitched! http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/1/Imagining-The-10-Dimensions-652867.html | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.233.184 |
Stephen, don't mean to be cantankerous or difficult, but I agree with you in theory - but your ... the very concept of light and dark being equally "powerful" (rather than one being the deliberate holding back of the other i.e. a tyrannical "creator") has irrevocably affected the development of human intelligence... statements are simply not established, provable, or self-evident. These are fine theories, and probably supporting of many current conceptions - but you can't state them as a priori. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.8.182 |
When I was, oh, maybe 10 or 11, I read a book theorising that the moon was hollow and a big alien spaceship. I figured it must be true because it was in a book... The only reason everyone didn't know this yet was because not everyone in the world had read the book. >>The fact we exist, Craig, is like your moon landing thing again; sort of COMPLETELY unbelievable. Hmm. Tony, why don't we exist on Mars and Jupiter and Saturn? Would it be because the necessary conditions for life to evolve humna beings are only present on Earth, here and now, when the moon's where it is in the sky? And the Earth's in the 'goldilocks' zone? Given the age of the universe, the size of the universe, are we not sort of inevitable? Especially so if the multiverse exists, which it probably does. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Craig, should have made it clearer I'm talking about the effect on the emergence of intelligence in primitive man - when we first acquired the ability to question the world around us. The way the roots of personality are formed in an infant when it first realises it is a separate individual surrounded by things and others. The 'personality' of the human race in its formative stages must have been profoundly influenced by those two big globes in the sky and the primitive inferences that would have been drawn from them. This influence would continue to be hot-wired into us at a subconscious level. |