March 25, 2007

• The French know it's out there.
• "Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet. Shapeism rears its ugly head.
• I kinda want to believe....
• im in ur anis probin ur stoolz No idea why, but I've wanted to do one of those for a while.
• You know, the correspondant (who wants no less than $30,000 for his camera and rights to the photo!) is quite right when he says this object is 'not fake'. It's a seagull.
• That would be awesome if someone were to pay thirty grand for a photo of a seagull.
• Well, once I saw her face ...
• I'd sell this one of a seagull-shaped UFO for much less. Actually, I wish I would have had the presence of mind to position the shot to do some forced perspective with the bird over the opera house because it then would have looked like a giant seagull flying over Sydney.
• alumroot: That is possibly the best picture of a silver gull I have ever seen. Even better than this one:
• (Actually, that's a herring gull. A startled one).
• yeah, that's a cool pic, alumroot.
• When it comes to UFO photos, you can have lots of fun at home: Thrown hubcap #1, Thrown hubcap #2. Pix brought to you by some pranky Penn State students.
• You can't fool me with your psudo-saucers! *has another beer OHHHH, LOOK! That flying saucer lost a hubcap!
• A few decades ago, my freshman college roommate and I were taking a walk around the (very dark) campus and we paused to sit down and look at the stars. This was a very small school in a remote location so the skies were very clear. Something... to this day I have no idea what... crossed the sky at a definitely unnatural speed. It was about the size of a dime at arm's length but elliptical, and appeared to have lights. There was no sound. We both saw this, and after a brief exchange of "what the...?" we basically hiked as quickly as possible back to the dorm and never discussed the sighting again, ever. Since we had both declared ourselves non-believers at some point prior, I think we just couldn't process what we'd seen. I still have no idea what it was. But do I believe? Uh, I believe I saw something I could not identify, and that's about it. Haven't seen anything similar since.
• While the mathematical probability of other advanced intelligences in the universe is large, and my personal thoughts are that the garden spots of the universe are chock full of life? The idea that ETs have visited us is unlikely - the distances involved are just too great. Even if our Grey friends were able to come up with a sweet way to bypass the speed of light, there comes the point - why would they come? In a universe of possibilities, we're just not that interesting. It'd be like the Elohim going way out of their way to visit Uncle Earl's trailer park in Lower Buttholia, Mississippi. Humans, by and large, need to get over the idea that we are super extra special.
• Perhaps they visit not to see the humans, but perhaps the whales? Or the elephants? Or the horses? *takes a shot with GranMa* My own experience... I was also lucky to observe ball lightening. It was a spinning blue sphere that flashed downwards from the sky, stopped mid-air about 20 feet from the ground, spun momentarily, then sputtered off upwards to disappear within seconds (about the size of a basketball). This was after a heavy snowfall in North Carolina. One of those strange magical moments in my life, as it happened while my girlfriend, at the time, and I were laying in a big snowdrift, exchanging a long dramatic kiss... Oh boy!
• One problem with observing objects in the sky is that it's very difficult to guess how far away they are. That's why those hubcap photos look so impressive. A small object close by moving slowly can easily be mistaken for a big object far away moving fast. I did see a funny object in the sky once. It was shiny and metallic and moving across a blue cloudless sky. Don't know what it was but to leap to the conclusion of visiting aliens isn't justified. In the end the only way to reach that conclusion is SMDA: Show Me the Dang Alien.
• It's also fascinating how the reports of UFOs rose in concert with the rise of the aviation industry. There are what? a million airplane flights crisscrossing the continent every week? Shiny metal objects with lights.
• reports of UFOs rose in concert with the rise of the aviation industry. And photography and self-publishing and "Hard Copy" and the idea that it's not all that crazy to say you saw something. Which may or may not be anything.
• You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
• Enough of this serious talk. Let's go out and throw some ball lightning around!
• *steps up to the plate, waves bat, waggles butt
• *spits, rubs dirt on hands, adjusts crotch*
• reports of UFOs rose in concert with the rise of the aviation industry. This is normal - it's only after we have identifiable flying objects that we can have unidentified ones. Prior to this, they were all WTFITFOs.
• Prior to this, they were all WTFITFOs. Prounounced, "AAAAAIIIIIIGGGHHH!!"
• What about this Dogon tribe and the so-called Sirius-B mystery? *dons an amphibian mask and beats chest*
• Those doggone Dogon. Wherein we find that the guy behind this tale, Robert Temple (author of The Sirius Mystery) doctored evidence to make things fits his theory. "...Nowhere is this better shown than in a Dogon sand diagram of the complete Sirius system, shown in the illustration redrawn here from a paper by Griaule and Dieterlen. Its description, given in the caption from information by Griaule and Dieterlen, is clearly symbolic; Temple chooses to interpret it literally. On pages 23 and 25 of his book he gives his own modified version of this diagram, retaining the symbol for Sirius, one of the positions of Sirius B, and the surrounding oval; all else is omitted. .He then interprets the surrounding oval meant to represent "the egg of the world," as the elliptical orbit of Sirius B around Sirius A, even though the symbol equated with Sirius B is drawn as lying within the oval, not on it. This is Temple's basis for saying that the Dogon "know" Sirius B orbits Sirius A in an ellipse." (my bold).
• But, no! I want to believe in the amphibian-like alien overlords! *tosses sacrificial offering of rice and beans to appease the skeptics*
• I see your beans, and I raise you one amphibian.
• The story of the Dogon and their legend was first brought to popular attention by Robert K.G. Temple in a book published in 1977 called The Sirius Mystery. Science writer Ian Ridpath and astronomer Carl Sagan made a reply to Temple's book, suggesting that this modern knowledge about Sirius must have come from Westerners who discussed astronomy with the Dogon priests. The priests then included this new information into the older traditions. This, in turn, mislead the anthropologists. This is a possibility considering Sirius B's existence was suspected as early as 1844 and seen was through a telescope in 1862. It doesn't seem to explain a 400-year old Dogon artifact that apparently depicts the Sirius configuration nor the ceremonies held by the Dogon since the 13th century to celebrate the cycle of Sirius A and B. It also doesn't explain how the Dogons knew about the super-density of Sirius B, a fact only discovered a few years before the anthropologists recorded the Dogon stories. And also the Hopi say spacemen brought us corn. Y'know, for the beans and rice. So nice!
• *slides pile of beans forward* I'm all-in!
• Uh-oh. i got nothing.
• Wouldn't we be red-faced if there was a God, and he was from Saturn or Mars? How embarrassing!
• Let's recap what we know so far: We were visited by Hopi aliens from Sirius B. They sprinkled us with corn, rice and beans. God is from Mars and he drives a Saturn, seagull grey with flashing lights. Most of the saucer sightings can be explained by amphibious ball lightning and crotches, except for one or two which blew the hubcaps off the aviation industry. Did i miss anything?
• The hexagonal thing.
• And the giant eyeball.
• The hexagonal thing and teh giant eyeball. Uh, right, ok. *fiddles with theory* Well, neither of those concepts appear to fit. So i'll just pretend you guys didn't mention it.
• It happened to me again last night! Second time in my life I saw something that I would classify as teh UFO. And as with my first experience last summer, it occurred in somewhat similar circumstances in that I was taking the kids out in the double stroller for a walk. This was about 8:00 pm PST, so the sun was already down - the night sky was crystal clear. My son likes to point out the moon (it's quite cute actually, he refers to the crescent moon as banana moon!); we were walking along and he called out, "Dad, banana moon!" I looked up and started to casually mention that, "the moon is actually about to be full..." when suddenly a round object, that appeared to be solid white, whisked across the sky at an extreme speed. There were no lights, just a perfect round white shape... I lost sight of it as a tree eventually obstructed my view, but at the last moment it appeared to fade away as I caught a glimpse through the branches. I stood there in disbelief. And then I continued on with our walk. Recalling my experience prior, and wondering what the hell I just saw.
• The lad didn't see it?
• A meteor maybe? Some of those fireballs can be quite amazing.
• Not sure if my son saw it or not, but he's only 2 and a half years-old... He probably wouldn't give it much thought if he had, as everything that moves amazes him at this age. I didn't ask him, as he didn't appear to act surprised. There was absolutely no light coming from this object, other than ambient light reflected from its surface. It appeared to be a solid white object, moving extremely fast (much faster than the meteor in the great video you linked, StoryBored) through the dark night sky. And that's all I know. Weird. I'll chalk it up as one of those unexplained things, and will probably remember it on occasion.
• Mrs. SMT is also having a grand time teasing me over this latest spotting. She kept pointing to planes in the sky tonight, saying to my son, "Look, maybe your dad will see a UFO!!" :(