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Starcraft
In his book, Unidentified Flying Objects: Starcraft, Der Voron has offered an extremely well-researched and detailed report of incidents that have occurred all across the globe, from many different eras. Ancient writings may have been the first indication that 'we are not alone,' and Der Voron cites several of these sources as examples. Such statements originate from many different countries and in different continents, from ancient times to contemporary, from Indian tales of events that took place in the wilds of Kipling country to experiences related by a German artillery gunner during World War Two. Reports of 'unidentified contact with objects of undetermined origins' have been filed in government offices from the plains of South America to the fjords of Norway and the steppes of Asia.
Highly annotated and illustrated with fascinating examples of starship models and their possible makeup, armaments and defensive mechanisms (according to some data belonging to U.S. government research on alien starcraft), this ambitious work offers a wealth of documented information on not only Starcraft, otherwise known as 'Flying Saucers,' but the types of extraterrestrials that have flown them. All aliens are not created equal, as their many varied depictions and origins in historical writings attest. The author's use of a plethora of written documentation ably enhances his description of personal civilian and military accounts of those who have had some kind of interaction with these objects.
Also explored in great detail is the intelligence of our sea life, mainly as that intelligence relates to dolphins and the octopi of our deepest oceans, and how they, in turn, can be used in the search for extended knowledge of the universe surrounding our planet. How and why these creatures have gained such highly specialized communication skills and how it is that an octopus can experience an event and not only remember it, but learn from it, is explored, and commented upon as it relates to man's search for a higher intelligence.
While replete with scientific data, terms and information, this work by Der Voron is nevertheless highly readable and extremely illuminating for the common reader with no prior knowledge of extraterrestrial existence, while at the same time it provides hours of reading material and documentation to keep the more knowledgeable busy.
Der Voron's conscientious effort to dig deep for his sources shows in his detailed reports, and his data gathering and willingness to share that information is a challenging endeavor in which he has aptly succeeded. The existence of extraterrestrials is an immensely interesting topic, one that will be explored for years to come, and this work can provide an invaluable asset to any stargazer's bookshelf.
If this review intrigued you, you may want to see this interview with the author of this book in Weekly Universe. You can purchase Unidentified Flying Objects: Starcraft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Perhaps it's just me being hung over or too lazy to read the actual story, but I started to think I'd see something about the Zerg.
What kind of book on Starcraft doesn't mention the zergs?
Starcraft? Can he use that?
Good video game at least
Mod appropriately
I read Slashdot for the
To first post!
A Google search on this guy reveals that he's just another wacko looking for conspiracy theories.
I almost was ready to sacrifice my vacation to the blizzard gods. mmmm, zerglings.
an octopus can experience an event and not only remember it, but learn from it
;)
Off topic, yes, but I wonder how they know this? What cognitive research has been carried out on octopi? Octopus-Ink blot tests, I'd imagine
Also, how do they know that goldfish only have a three-second memory span? Do they observe goldfish watching MTV all the time?!
It's not the aliens that are going to be the problem, it's that our rebel leader will sell out one of our psychic operatives and leave her to be captured by the aliens.
Nothing is unique in an infinite universe. Including humans.
That couldn't be the case; it would violate the prime directive!
Just when I thought a book was written based on the thick storyline surrounding Blizzard's excellent RTS game. :P
Ray Kurzweil has hypothosized that the chances for intelligent life are very slim, as they would have already spread their intelligence throught the universe, as we "should" within 300 years. ....well...at least its a good read.
m em elist.html?m=3%23534
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=
I'd like to hear the opinion of the Protoss on his origin theory.
But the book neglected to go into the past of the Zerg and the Protoss. I mean, they do share some common history, and fans of the games know some of it, so why not explore it? Also, there was no real need for so much Terran history. They're us afterall.
while it's easy to make jokes about Area 51 or Roswell, there is certainly a basis for those jokes and rumors.
that amounts to say 'there are certainly UFOs looping around the earth'. Whee, one more book I won't read.
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
In that google search, there's a handful of reviews posted on other sites. All the reviews are by this same person (Denise M. Clark). Is this guy the writer of the book, posting reviews under another name to try and get some publicity?
Damn...and I thought it was a book about this Starcraft.
Assumes people are genetically engineered by Aliens.
RIIIIGHT, okay pass the pills, pass the needles and pass on.
Next on Slashdot "Creationism explained", "Why computers are actually alive" and "Einstein, what a moron".
News for nerds, or bollocks for brains ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Don't forget about killer whales, if we don't work hard to ensure their continued existence as a species, aliens may send a probe out looking for them...
Swannie
:q!
that when I read this I'd see something about theBubbler.com. We have aliens in Wisconsin. I know, when I worked in the stone quarry before getting my programming job at Plexus, I worked with a ton of illegal aliens from Mexico. Of course, if you really want to write a book about aliens, then you might as well write about some of the geeks that frequent Slashdot or the Wisconsinites who frequent theBubbler
Isn't 'Starcraft' trademarked or something? Does he want vivendi on his ass?
If scientists are having heated debates about the existence of aliens, and not about more likely problems of the world, then I'd be a little worried.
Well, heck, how can you argue with impeccable logic like that. And lots of things did happen. Sun rose, sun set, grass grew, leaves fell. Obvious signs of alien visitors. The signs were right in front us all the time.
Ack!
/. eats pointy brackets for lunch
"My life for [protoss homeworld's name]"
Forgot
Are we alone?
"If you find yourself struggling with loneliness, you're not alone. And yet you are alone. So very alone.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Octipusses are smarter then hell. I am not a researcher, but ive see some info on this. They can do problem solving, learn stuff, and come people put them in the range of dogs and cats for intellegence. Their brains are huge for their size.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
There are markedly fewer alien sightings.
What makes us so fucking special that someone would pack the whole brood into the starcruiser and trudge all the hell way over to this 'hood to gawk at a bunch of monkeys?
1) The guy sounds like a sub-atomic particle. Muon, Voron...
2) He names his book after a popular video game containing alien characters. Coincidence?
3) In the book, he assumes things that aren't known to be true, such as "Aliens exist". This allows him to avoid things like, eh, facts.
4) It was reviewed on Slashdot, home of unbiased content!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Remember "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Clearly, we need a new icon for this type of story. What picture would work for "you've got to be fucking kidding".
The quote "Something had to have happened in these places and many others throughout the globe to engender such speculation and argument" is a perfect example of the logical fallacy at work here. This is what is meant by "begging the question."
This review could have been made much shorter by just quoting a book review that has been (perhaps apocryphally) said to have been written by Abraham Lincoln: "For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing that they like."
highly readable and extremely illuminating for the common reader with no prior knowledge of extraterrestrial existence
... make me ill. How can we go from the scientific proposition that extraterrestrial life and exists to the unscientific speculation and leap of faith demanded in these volumes?
In other words read this book, and you'll know ET exists, too.
I have no doubt there are UFO's. I think it's far more than likely there is life "out there." But conspiracy theories about simmering gov't schemes to keep us from the truth
Also explored in great detail is the intelligence of our sea life
OK, there's a creative twist. Methinks they needed more pages to call it a book.
The author's use of a plethora of written documentation ably enhances his description of personal civilian and military accounts...
"Plethora" actually means excess or superabundance. Here the plan appears to be that if you pile enough of it on...
Forgive me for skepticism, but speculations like these are not a whit different from theories that man did not land of the Moon or that President Bush orchestrated 9/11, and so on. They sound kind of interesting, suggestive evidence can be shown, but the web of speculation leads nowhere. I'm tired of con artists like this.
I emphasize that these people are not mere wackos, if they are wacko at all. They are scam artists who do not deserve your money. Visit the good old library instead, or drink deep of the wonderful nonsense available for free on the Web.
You'll also enjoy this similarly excellent piece.
How did this get categorized as Space news? Until there is hard evidence that UFOs actually exist, then it will forever be viewed as a fragment of a person's imagination.
Even if UFOs really exist, what makes people so inclined to believe that they are chariots of alien civilizations? And while we're going paranormal, why can't we consider alternative reasoning such as UFOs could possibly be ghosts from the future. Do ghosts have to be from the past to be considered as ghosts in the sense of the word?
However, like most people I think that a more logical explanation for UFO sightings is that it is some glitch in the sky... strange manifestation of star/sunlight, mini auroras, heck even mutant glow-in-the-dark birds for all it could be.
Seemed more feasable if compared to a Starcraft theory IMHO.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
The only motivation I can figure out is that the book shares part of its name with a popular RTS. This is more off topic than our usual off topics.
The ancient astronaut theory, though not DEBUNKED, has often rested in shaky evidence, assumptions, and outright hoaxes. The Dropa hoax being a classic one - and toss in Strichin's bizarre mutilation of mythology, or Von Daniken's questionalbe ideas . . . the support for it isn't enthusing.
A good look at some of the Fortean Times issues will go a long way into putting these theories in perspective.
What's next, one of David Icke's books here? Bring on the Reptillians!
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
They have a free summary (cliff notes) of this book at Worksucks.tk
I can use this Starcraft book to hold up that rickety table in my Startcraft RV. That will keep the PC still while I play my Starcraft game. This is just what I needed so I could enjoy the ultimate Starcraft gaming experience!
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
Is a search engine necessary to find out that someone writing "non fiction" with the assumption aliens exist is not quite right in the head? This is news for psychos, not nerds.
From a dozen years ago, in bio class I think. Really amazing.
Now, what I really wanted was some footage and nervous response from the perspective of the hapless crustacean. Can you imagine? No! No! Go away! Argggghhhhhhh!
That's what the translated crop circle in my wheat fields says!
"the author claims that modern man was genetically engineered by aliens"
If I'd engineered most of the people today, I'd be embarrased to admit it.
A bone of contention, in that there isn't any. As Sagan said, all it takes to prove this is one artifact -- doesn't even have to be magical hi-tech, just having a different isotopic balance than terrestrial would be proof of extra-terrestrial origin. But in the thousands of claimed "contacts", not one single artifact has been left -- not an alien cigarette butt or Coke can. It's obviously a massive conspiracy.
Fucking kooks like this is why real SETI gets such a bad rap.
The poster claims:
> it's easy to make jokes about Area 51 or Roswell, there is certainly a basis for those jokes and rumors. Something had to have happened in these places and many others throughout the globe to engender such speculation and argument
Lots of people speculate and argue that Elvis is still alive. Something must have happened to engender such speculation and argument. Therefore I have proven that Elvis is not dead (or is undead).
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Even more interesting, a Google search for the phrase "The existence of extraterrestrials has long been a subject" gives 3 pages of hits.
I guess that doesn't necessarily invalidate the book review, but it does show that this isn't a review from a slashdotter to the slashdot community, which is what I thought the slashdot book reviews were. Maybe I was wrong, I dunno.
The accepted non-lunatic-ufo-watcher explanation of Area 51 is that it's an Air Force testing grounds for top secret new aircraft - the next generations of things like the SR-71. I believe slashdot had some coverage not that long ago about the unveiling (finally) of the Aurora test craft, which matches many of the "spacecraft" description from Area 51 watchers. Aurora is nifty, but it's clearly not alien inspired, just human engineered.
11*43+456^2
The obvious sequel to this book will be:
Starcraft: Brood Wars
Zergling Rush!!!
...I was having a discussion with an intelligent, but credulous acquaintance who had just read a book by someone from one of the "respectable" UFO organizations (APRO or NICAP, I don't remember which).
He was extremely impressed by a very detailed report on some UFO fragments that had been shown to be some kind of metal of such extreme purity that it could not possibly have originated on Earth. The metallurgical tests had been conducted by a respected scientist in some university in South America.
I was arguing that with UFO reports, you cannot rule out the possibility that they were just made up in whole cloth. He thought this was unlikely. I suggested that we try to contact the scientist who had done the tests and find out what he had to say.
Of course, the book itself was written in a popular style without any formal citations or references you could follow up... just a line or two mentioning "Professor so-and-so in the Department of Metallurgy at the University of Sao Paulo," or wherever it was.
Well, we were at the University of Wisconsin, which has a fine library, and with a little investigation we found that the library actually had _the faculty/student directory_ for that university, and it was only a couple of years old.
Needless to say there was no listing for the cited "scientist," and, indeed, no department that seemed to match the department in which he was supposed to have worked.
My friend was shaken, but not convinced. After all, this wasn't some fly-by-night organization we were dealing with, this was APRO. (Or NICAP).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Look closely: Der Voron. DER VORON. Is that a HUMAN name? By the Great Sceptre of Nebulon, what does it take with your species?
You'd think that you would have clued in with Erik Van Daniken, but, noooooo. SO WE'RE TRYING AGAIN. And we'll KEEP trying until somebody down here finally gets it right!
Look, I'll spell it out for you: The whole reason for the secrecy is... oops, boss is coming...sorry, got to go.
LOOK TO THE SKIES. WAIT FOR THESE SIGNS: YIELD. DO NOT WALK. DEER CROSSING.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
I forgot to say: this was in the seventies...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You know, no matter how you run those numbers, I keep wondering why anyone would bother to visit us, even if they could? What's here for them?
That's particularly so if we assume that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. Given that, I'd be interested in seeing some speculation on the average distance between spacefaring worlds. Great distances between these worlds would dampen chances for discovery, much less travel.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
1. Claim that the missing link can't be found because the missing link is an alien. ...
2.
3. Profit.
Amazingly close to der Moron.
If Denise Clark is this guy's pseudonym, he should learn from Jon Katz, and just post reviews or treatises of oddball logic under his own name. Before long, he will have legions of devoted fans.
-- Len
I'll just stick to real, factual intellectual works that will actually expand my horizons about science and astronomy. Among the books I own are "The Demon Haunted World", "Cosmos", and "Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan - "A Breif History of Time" by Hawking, and "Black Holes and Time Warps" by Kip Thorne. Why anyone would waste their time on such utter non-sense and psuedo science is beyond me.
Is it the wicked extraterrestrial tyrant Xenu?
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Universe.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
among other things, the author claims that modern man was genetically engineered by aliens.
Hmm, funny. I thought modern man was genetically engineered by God...
For as long as man has realized that there are boundaries he can see, but can not effectively explore, his imagination has run amok and placed all manner of fanciful creations into them. "dragons be here" can be found on unexplored maritime areas on old maps, yeti signs are found in impassible mountain ranges, and sirens in the ocean depths.
This doesn't mean that there aren't monsters in these areas, mind you, but rather than man's propensity to create them in his mind usually results in more monsters than actually exist. The unexplored regions of space today are no different than the middle of the atlantic 400 years ago.
Groan... not another book extoling the virtues of anal probing...
Egad, this woman does like this book. No fewer than 13 reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (repeated here and here), 14?.
My first thought was the Denise M. Clark was a shill, but if she is, she's incompetant. By using the same name over and over, it becomes easy to track her down. My next thought was that she was a UFO nut trying to spread the word. Possible, but she has reviewed many other books.
My new theory is that she's desperately trying for fame through the unlikely technique of publishing reviews on as many sites as possible. (Check out her web page, "The on-line home of author/reviewer Denise M. Clark". Either that, or she's a space alien here to prepare us for use as slaves and food for her hideous grey masters. If it's the former, she's wasting our time. If it's the latter, I suppose that would could as news for nerds.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
When it comes to UFOs, I don't hold much of them or people that believe in them. I lived in the aria of EAFB in CA and there where some rumors of the military having one there and if you drove up towards Las Vegas you could see sings for ALIAN FREE JERCKY. I'm not quite sure what that was supposed to be. As to "something happening" I can only say that nothing happened where I lived, there was nothing and is nothing But there is of course on reason some people see UFO. BEER The reason for my typos, bad grammar and even posting to a topic this bad, isn't beer the greatest?
Unidentified Flying Objects: Starcraft
Unidentified? Is this guy on crack? Just click on the Stargate and it says exactly what kind of Protoss units you can create.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Well, one of these is her website,, ("The on-line home of author/reviewer Denise M. Clark -- If you love action in your romance, this is the place for you!") where you find she has some kind of "editorial services" in that you can get her or her friends to review your book.
And an article on the book is at an even weirder site, weeklyuniverse.com, with some extracts on how aliens genetically engineered Cromagnons. (They must have, because there is no missing link!).
He is also trying to sell the concept of a film at this address
Why don't we just ask him what he is up to? His email address is: dervoron@linkeseite.zzn.com
Carl Sagan said it first, and I agree. I -want- to believe in extra-terrestrial life forms; I fully support and believe in SETI.
However, until I see -proof-, not silly "the government is out to get us" conspiracy theory stuff, I ain't buyin. Show me a radio signal from a remote star! Please! That's something that would be both very hard to fake, -and- something very hard to hide. Barring something along those lines, or equivilently hard to forge, and easy to prove, I ain't buyin.
weren't they supposed to make some ufo-related documents public a few weeks ago, I read something like that on slashdot, anyone got a link?
If UFOs/aliens exist, prove it. Show me the "starcraft". Show me the alien. Give me the proof, and then I'll believe it. Science is not based on secondhand accounts and shady eyewitness reports (at least, not the good, solid science). As another poster pointed out, using this same logic, I could prove Elvis is still alive:
(1) There are eyewitness accounts of Elvis walking around after his death.
(2) QED, Elvis is alive.
That's ridiculous. That's not science, and that's not how human knowledge progresses.
"UFO-ology" and "cryptozoology" don't deserve to have "ology" attached to them.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
Well, that would explain a lot about my family....
... *sigh* Since I've admitted this on /. and around the net before, I might as well make a fool of myself and admit it again. In September of 1994 I saw a silver disc shaped object in broad daylight perform outrageous maneuvers. Yes, I was completely sober. No, they weren't lights in the sky. No, it wasn't a balloon, helicopter, or airplane at an odd viewing angle.
/. And honestly, I think there would be value in trained University scientists conducting a new investigation into this phenomena, preferably privately funded. I have no idea what this is about, but now I think something worthy of investigation is going on.
What I saw:
At the time I had just moved to Cincinnati and was driving back from a flea market with two other friends. We had just stopped at a gas station to fill up the van in which we were driving. The driver (a female) stepped inside to pay the bill while my other friend went inside to take a leak. I stepped outside and walked away from the van (and gas pumps) to smoke a butt.
Looking past the road was a large grass covered crest which dropped down and then much farther back came up into a tree covered hill/mountain. I noticed what I first thought was a silver balloon, about the size of a quarter of my thumbnail at arms length, bobbing and spinning sort of, just hovering. As I was watching it began to descend, wavering like a leaf, coming down back and forth very slowly. It was at this point that I thought that it was behaving strangely, so I watched closer. It abruptly stopped and hovered for a bit longer. Then it jumped toward me (determined by it growing larger in my field of view to maybe half to two thirds my thumbnail), jumped straight up at high speed, and then abruptly crossed from the left to the right of my horizon in a large arc, diminishing in size as it moved until it disappeared from a point into nothingness (which I take to mean it moved farther away from me as it crossed the sky). This happened *very* fast - a second or two, no more. What struck me about the last abrupt movement is that it didn't appear to accelerate at all. Since I must assume it behaved under the laws of physics, this means the acceleration was so fast and at such a high G-force, that it happened outside the limitations of my awareness - which would certainly have crushed any occupants inside.
Since I have only one pair of eyes, and the object was far enough away to be focused at infinity, there's no way to determine distance or size. I have NO FUCKING IDEA what I saw. No one else saw it and I have no way to "prove" that what I saw is anything but a mirage or some other visual illusion and/or artifact of the eye. Like all eye witness accounts (whether in court or in circumstances such as these) lack of corroboration should equal disbelief on the reader's part. I would only request that those who reply to this at least assume I am telling the truth about the events I witnessed, even if you believe that what I saw is some sort of visual illusion or misinterpretation of the events.
All I will say is that I believe I witnessed a physical object move in ways I've never seen anything else move, prosaic aircraft or not. I did not see any occupants inside the object, nor was I "abducted" or any of that shit. This statement does NOT mean I believe aliens are buzzing our skies. But it has decidedly shaken what was once my opinion that UFO's aren't even worth discussion time, never mind scientific analysis. I'm quite bothered by what I saw, and more to the point I'm bothered by the instant assumption that those who see these kinds of things are a kook for simply having viewed and publicly stated their accounts. Which is why I'm reluctant to post this. I bet I'm not alone. But WTF, this is just
JMO,
--Maynard
I'm all supportive of the possibiliy of Extra-Terrestrial life.
However, this guy really doesn't go about things too intelligently. As, soon as I read the following quote in the post I realised this is a total waste of time.
"Something had to have happened in these places and many others throughout the globe to engender such speculation and argument."
So let me get this straight... because a few people started a rumor about area51, and others promptly fell victim to these rumors.. that means SOMETHING must of happened? Right...
Are you telling me because so many religions believe in god, that this means there must be some sort of god?
Like anything else, our race feels lonely... some people NEED to believe in god, just like they need to believe in aliens. It's not about proof, or science. It's about hope.
I (and others) are simply comforted by the idea that there are other curious civilizations out there, that are alone the way we are.
--Zuchini
That's a minor modification of Fermi's paradox. The great physicist Enrico Fermi observed that an intelligent race should be able to colonize a galaxy-sized region of space in around 1 to 10 million years, even without faster-than-light travel.
The argument runs like this: one planet sends colonies to several neighboring star systems, then each of those colonizes their neighbors, and so on. The region of colonization expands cubically with time (because the radius of colonization is directly proportional to time).
Fermi said, since 1-10 million years is very short with respect to the age of the galaxy, we should see evidence of intelligence everywhere. So, if intelligent life is common, where is everybody?
We can make all kinds of arguments like: alien intelligence leaves no trace of itself, isn't interested in us, or isn't interested in exploration. However, the one data point we have (ourselves) is very bad at cleaning up after itself, isn't shy at all about going after resources wherever they exist, and is very keen on exploration. There's no reason why other intelligence would be significantly different.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
fu stfu i sed no zerg rush wtf!!!!1!!!
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I enjoyed the first game so much, wonder when Blizzard is going to make a second one... I've even been playing through the original games single player missions again under Wine.
Chris
My life for aidur! Oh wait we are talking about the game right? :)
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
/. REALLY needs to start posting porno on slow news days. I for one prefer my masturbation to be physical not mental.
I have no doubt there are UFO's.
If you mean UFO's like, "hey, what the fuck is that dot in the sky?" I agree.
If you mean UFO's like, "wow, look at that tractor beam pulling up Homer Simpson, no wait, too tractor beams," then I have to wonder how you have NO DOUBT they exist.
I mean, there is no legitimate evidence whatsoever.
"And like that
What picture would work for "you've got to be fucking kidding".
How about a bald bare foot?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Either that, or she's a space alien here to prepare us for use as slaves and food for her hideous grey masters
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
And what about Studio 54???? How many aliens have been there?
Hey - mod this guy up - "insightful"!
-doh!
That or they just find it amusing to put on the fancy dress costumes and buzz the planet.
Hell maybe it's just one immortal alien on a mission.
PS: If you don't get the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy references, go read one of the pre-requisites for visiting a geek haven.
All you nerds watch Star Wars and Star Trek, and you like open-source. Do you like an open mind?
Disclosure Project
Zecharia Sitchin
Richard Hoagland
You've not enough minerals...
There is another special that shows an octopus navigating a maze on a daily basis. The octopus gets faster and faster each day because he remembers the layout. So the scientists then place moving gates and walls. The octopus quickly learns the timing of these to enable himself to get to the end of the maze (and to the food) in as fast a way as possible.
Octopus are damn smart. Compared with Kia birds they may be the next most underestimated animal on the planet.
--- I do not moderate.
ST:TNG had an episode where Picard went traipsing off looking into microscopic anthropology, or something like that, that his professor was researching when he died.
Picard runs into Klingons, Romulans, etc. and they have a showdown in a cave where Picard and Beverly plug a chunk of junk into the tricorder that then produces a video from our "parents" who "seeded" our galaxy with DNA to start all of the races in ST.
So, now that it's all cleared up, what is this guy trying to come up with now that Roddenberry didn't "discover" first?
Coldmist
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
>"the author claims that modern man was genetically
>engineered by aliens"
>If I'd engineered most of the people today, I'd
>be embarrased to admit it.
Why do you think the aliens are *HIDING* from us?
How do you know that the spectrometer reading from Pioneer 10 of Jupiter - and beamed back to earth via radio - is accurate and correct?
There are some things you will know in your lifetime, there are many more things you will not know, and there are alot you will think you know, but, in fact, do not.
Scientific method is one thing. Closing your mind to possibilities is another.
Do UFOs exist? Yes - we have Radar and thousands of visual and video and still photography sightings and recordings to prove it.
Can we make absolute conclusions about them being controlled by some intelligence? No. Can we come to the conclusion that alien intelligence does not exist based on what we know about UFOs? No.
Limiting yourself to hypotheses you agree with, and excluding those that you disagree with is not the scientific method. At some point in every science you must establish what you believe about the system in question (measurement at the subatomic level, and seeming contradictions for example). Understanding this contradiction is the essence of life.
"The more you learn, the less you know..." - George Harrison - The Beatles (may he rest in peace)
Were the aliens big breasted, like Troi??
Klass is an idiot. He makes small cash off books and other products his peddles. The real proof is online.
What I have noticed is that most people who publish on this subject are too polarized. It is hard to get the full story.
I think this comes about because mostly extreme statements and opinions sell. A conclusion-free book is not "compelling". Therefore, either you paint everybody as a saucer-happy hullicinator, or propose top-secret cover-ups if you want to sell books. The skeptics over-emphasize the silliness of "bad" cases, and the believers over-hype the bad cases. Both seem to ignore the best cases for some reason. Probably because they are kind of boring in comparison, dispite being better documented or better observed (more independent witnesses).
The only author who seems to take a more balanced view is Jacques Vallee. But even he seems to speculate too much, having some funky pet theories.
I think the subject deserves serious-minded scientific attention. The military-sponsered studies appear to be an attempt to rid itself of being the official handlers of the subject (probably out of embarrassment and press attention they don't know how to handle) rather than people genuinely curious.
Even Carl Sagan falls victim to some of the "traps of skeptics". He "over thinks" about what alien technology or beings should look like and act. He will say things like, "The abductees must be wrong because the alien medical tools are too bulky. They should have smaller tech if they are advanced." This is sloppy reasoning because we have no idea what such tech would really be like. Perhaps that instrument packs 10,000 medical exams/procedures into one device. (It is not proof for, but not against either.) And, his attitude is Holier-Than-Thow.
It is such an emotionally-charged subject that getting the real scoop is tough. Too bad.
Table-ized A.I.
Really, the New Scientist article is quite good, and I can see where this probably happens all the time, whether it's in hard science, social science, or in this case pseudo-science. People don't take the time to check that their sources are being accurate or honest, and so misinformation easily spreads...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
...life this planet has produced capable of utilising technology. Maybe all the "Aliens" are a previous species from this planet that relocated to let us evolve in peace. Just as wacky as any other theory.
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...nor was I "abducted" or any of that shit...
Not that you know of, you mean.
Does a large dish antenna pop out of your ass at inopportune times?
You might have been abducted by an alien.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
UFO-loon Denise M. Clark wrote about a UFO book that discusses "the intelligence of our sea life, mainly as that intelligence relates to dolphins". Slashdot user Swannie attempted to make a humorous startrek IV reference by adding "Don't forget about killer whales". Others have pointed out that this was an inaccurate Trek reference. I'd like to add that it was also silly because killer whales are in the family delfinidae; i.e. they are dolphins, and as such were not "forgotten" by Ms. Clark's statement.
FWIW, I think it is safe to assume that either Ms. Clark or the author of the book she reviewed is fond of David Brin's Uplift Wars series, and in particular the intelligent dolphins in his book Startide Rising. They ought to expand their reading just a little and familiarize themselves with Brin's essay from Otherness where he talks about the public's refusal to accept that language research has simply not shown dolphins to be as clever as we wish them to be.
For interested parties - This is a very cool book. It is an odd combination of short sci-fi stories grouped by topic along with intelligent non-fictional essays that discuss the same issues. Brin uses the above cetacean language example as a jumping off point to discuss Americans' obession with behaving as though other people's ideas, even ones that are not supported by the facts, ought to be treated like they equal merit.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
We can make all kinds of arguments like: alien intelligence leaves no trace of itself, isn't interested in us, or isn't interested in exploration. However, the one data point we have (ourselves) is very bad at cleaning up after itself, isn't shy at all about going after resources wherever they exist, and is very keen on exploration. There's no reason why other intelligence would be significantly different.
The answer may lie in what I call the "technological horizon" (no discontinuity implied) or Verner Vinge calls the "technological singularity" (discontinuity implied but not necessarilly required). Given the exponential increase in human knowledge and technology (stoppable only through the fall of civilization or the widespread adoption of intellectual property law, patent law in particular, something which arguably most intelligent spieces would be smart enough to avoid), it may be that the period of time when a species would be interested in physical exploration of the universe is relatively short (measurable perhaps in mere decades), before their interests (and their very existence) moves on to another state beyond, or perhaps orthogonal to, our current ability to comprehend.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
ZERG RUSH LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
kekekekekekekek ^__________________^
Read this book and know your otherworldy legacy.
I have always known that I was special. I have know this in the darkness of my childhood bedroom, in the silence of my high school isolation, in the stirring of hormonal urges beyond the reckoning of men. Beneath my skin flows the blood of aliens. Within my cells the DNA of the Starborn has lain dormant. But no more.
Even know, as I begin to know my latent powers, I am unprepared for the weight of their significance. My hearing has become supernatural. Many are the nights I lay in bed listening to the thump of bass, unsure if it is from the apartment above me, in a home blocks away, or the headphones of my neighbor. I am changed. My eyes have become perfect. I can see heat, it's soft waves distorting the air above pavement. I see small particles in the air, tiny creatures framed against the blue sky, spots of light appear before my eyesordinary man could possess. At times a shiver after glancing at the sun, no doubt my eyes analyzing its roiling surface. I have senses that no mortal could possess. Sometimes a chill passes through my spine and bumps appear along my arms, my hair stands on end. Somewhere in the universe a great things has happened and my alien blood cries out in despair. I yearn for the cosmos.
Der Voron has given me hope. No longer must I feel alone, perhaps these things that I have felt and seen are not unique to me. Perhaps my isolation is at an end. Alien brothers, reveal yourself without fear of reprisal. I welcome you with open arms.
From: Operative "Bob"
Level: Highly Sensitive - Do not forward
Another book has come out dealing with some of our operational mistakes. This one has the usual mistakes though.
Unfortunately, this one was reviewed on slashdot, a large internet bulletin board site. A number of the participants have way too much time to think about this and have made some insightful comments.
So I've taken the precaution of inserting the usual misleading messages about Natalie Portman, Beowulf Clusters and the MPAA. This should cause the topic to drop off in a day or two.
"Bob"
PS - Please send down a computer technician specializing in archaic systems. I've been having problems with this device posting to the wrong addresses.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? --Abraham Lincoln
He was extremely impressed by a very detailed report on some UFO fragments that had been shown to be some kind of metal of such extreme purity that it could not possibly have originated on Earth. The metallurgical tests had been conducted by a respected scientist in some university in South America. I was arguing that with UFO reports, you cannot rule out the possibility that they were just made up in whole cloth. He thought this was unlikely.
IIRC, it was the purity of the material rather than the content. It is tough (at least when they found it) to manufactor the given substance to such purity. However, with a big enough budget, it was *not* out of reach of current technology, some researches had condluded.
It is indeed curious how such a pure substance made its way to a not-so-rich area of the world, but not "proof" of anything. Perhaps a secret superpower plane crashed or exploded, spreading around high-tech materials. Bleep happens.
Table-ized A.I.
All your DNA belong to us!
"Der Voron is nevertheless highly readable and extremely illuminating for the common reader with no prior knowledge of extraterrestrial existence" That's, what, the whole planet?
Let's take a walk down Denises' review and look for a few key mistakes:
1) extremely well-researched and detailed report; Highly annotated and illustrated; a wealth of documented information; a plethora of written documentation ably enhances his description; Also explored in great detail; replete with scientific data; provides hours of reading material and documentation;
All this and more in 139 fun filled pages of nonsense! Do you really believe that in a book almost half the size of Stephen Hawking's 'the universe in a nutshell' we get the science of intelligence, intelligent life, explanations for UFO's (along with not only documented 'events' but replete with diagrams and POSSIBLE starship models and what they're made of! WOW!) and the science to back it up? I scoff, but only because my horoscope says star people are stealing my brainwaves.
2) How and why these creatures have gained such highly specialized communication skills
Yes indeed. Somewhere in those 139 pages is the answer that oceanographers and biologists everywhere have been looking for for the past umpteen years. Right. The book is listed under both 'self help' and 'entertainment'. I suggest you get more of the first, and realize the impact the second has had on your sense of reality.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
A someone else mentioned, they did "lobster in a sealed mason jar" tests with octopi. Octopi averages less that 30 minutes to figure out how to get the jar open and get the lobster. They did another, even more amazing test: they put two tanks side by side, one with an octopous that had learned how to open the jar and in the other tank a octopus that had never seen a jar before. They gave the lobster in a jar to the experienced octopus and it opened the jar in 30 seconds. The other octopus watched this event with interest (probably wanted that yummy lobster!). They then gave a lobster in a jar to the new optopus. He opened it in less than five minutes, mimicking the technique used by the experienced octopus.
This is one of the very few repeatable cases of a non-mammalian life form learning from the experience of others.
The octopus (and its close kin) are among the most intellegent non-mammals on the planet. Rivaled only by the corvids (ravens, crows, magpies, etc...).
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Does anybody else think that his parents gave him that name? Also, did anyone else notice that his two names are inseperable in the review? This guy is probably the leader of one of those doomsday cults.
-- Len
MIB: Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter, Jr., thought he saw a UFO once, but it's been proven he only saw the planet Venus.
...thee. Before I knew it, I was aboard the hover vessel, and was heading not into outer space, but into inner space, towards the Earth's molten core, for that is the domain of the third alien, whose name, he soon told me, was lord Kinbote."
Roky: I'm a republican.
MIB: Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.
Roky: I know... what I saw.
MIB: Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception, yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing? Mr. Crikenson, your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder, and I wouldn't flaunt your ignorance by telling anyone that you saw anything last night other than the planet Venus, because if you do, you're a dead man.
Roky: You... can't threaten me.
MIB: I just did.
Roky: This is what they wanted me not to show anyone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pack.
Mulder: If we have any questions, where can we find you?
Roky: You won't find me.
Mulder: "I sat in my stalled truck frozen in terror, watching as this third alien attacked the other two gray aliens. And then it happened... the thing that forever changed my life..."
Behemoth: Roky! Roky! Be thou not afraid. No harm will come unto thee.
Roky: What do you want with me?
Kinbote: Your efforts are needed for the survival of all earthlings.
Roky: How can I do that?
Kinbote: Come. I shall showeth...
Mulder:
"Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know. There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say, "Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing." There's just you, me, the Cat, and a lot of floating smegging rocks. That's it. Finito."
-Lister from Red Dwarf
It's "octopuses" or, if you want to get all classical and pedantic, which apparently you do, "octopodes".
At least you guys skipped the oh-so-highbrow double "i" for once... Thanks for that.
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Erm, at least I don`t need a voice in my head to tell me how to mod - MORON.
It's not really that simple. We always seem to assume that intellegent life will be living in our galaxy at the same time we do. Other than the "first biillion year limit" (there simply wasn't enough heavy elements in the universe for the first billion years to support technological societies), there is no reason to assume that any alien intellegent species will be alive today.
Homo sapiens sapiens have trod upon this planet for some 70,000 years. In a universe 15 billion years old that is less than the blink of an eye. Tenns of millions of intellegent spieces may have risen and fallen into extinction long before we arose.
We may also be the first intellegent species to ever make it this far (not likely, but you never know). Consider that life has slithered across this planet for the last 3.5 - 4 billion years and we have only been around for 70,000 of those years.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The author is a nutcase and a crank, so is the reviewer.
Nevertheless, it would be nice to have a serious discussion on the possibility of extrasolar life.
A number of points (I'm a biologist) that need consideration:
1) How narrow is the range of conditions that would allow life to arise? We have exactly 1 observation on this point, the Earth.
2) How broad are the range of conditions under which life might persist, once formed? Again, we have only the earth to look at, but the range of conditions found on the earth, were life is found, are broad indeed.
3) When these conditions exist, how likely are the events required for life to form? To endure? Evidence indicates that life began fairly quickly in the formation of the early earth - therefore, we are inclined to believe that these events are LIKELY. The confidence we can have in this estimate is very much open to debate.
3) Once life has formed, will it always evolve into complex life? It took aeons (billions of years) for complex life - which I define as Eukaryotic single celled organisms, which are our immediate single-celled acnestors - to arise on earth - therefore, we are inclined to believe that these events are UNLIKELY, if they happen randomly. It is possible that other events (the oxygenation of the atmosphere, for example) are effectively precursors to the rise of complex cells, and these pre-requisite events might just take a long time, but still be LIKELY. I don't think so, though.
My best guess? Yes, extra-solar life exists. However, the first extra-solar life we find will be boring to anyone other than a micro- or molecular- biologist.
Some features of the earth which might be key to any of the above:
a) An early solar event caused the formation of dense planets fairly close to the sun.
b) Our moon reduced the number of large objects that have struck the earth's surface throughout it's history.
c) The earth's temperature has always been such that liquid water can exist on the surface.
d) The atmosphere and photodensity on the early earth were such that complex molecules could exist in shallow water without being totally shredded by radiation.
e) Nonetheless, the atmosphere and photodensity were such that radiation triggered chemical events still occurred in shallow water with some frequency.
f) The earth has a seismically active core, which releases chemicals (such as certain metal ions) which might be relatively scarce otherwise, and which helps to counteract certain effects of erosion, and to sustain others for longer periods.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Area 51 is simply a military test site for skunkworks aircraft. Sure, there are UFO's all over that place. They're not alien spacecraft, but simply unidentified flying objects, super-secret military aircraft.
And the whole "alien spacecraft" meme is about the best cover story the Air Force could ever want. If everyine is trying to figure out what planet all of these weird looking UFOs are coming from, no one is trying to figure out what black-book aircraft they really are. AND the speculation has caused the former USSR to waste millions and millions of dollars researching the possibility that alien spacecraft are here.
The beauty of this is amazing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
what's up with this non-starcrack starcraft shite on /. i just wanna hear about ghost.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
> Something had to have happened in these places and many others throughout the globe to engender such speculation and argument."
Yeah, the fact that human brains interpreted the events. Excellent pattern-matchers, those.
And remember, when you apply a pattern-matcher to random data, the device *will* trigger occasionaly. Here's an at-home experiment for the kids: turn your TV to an empty channel (or whatever it takes to make it show static/snow). Stare at it for a while, and look for a face. You will see one eventually.
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
Whoops I just realized you were talking about the other quote you gave, not mine. Doh!
"And like that
As the great philosopher Calvin put it, "Sometimes I think the surest sign of intelligent life out there is that none of them have visited our planet." Or something like that...
from www.m-w.com (Mirriam-Webster):
Inflected Form(s): plural -puses or octopi
It's a shame to see such embarrassing errors when getting access to a dictionary is such a simple matter these days.
In related news, Reuters reports that a group of forward-thinking and well-respected scientists and theologians who also acknowledge that life on earth was created by extra-terrestrials are expecting the impending birth of the first cloned human, see the Reuters article: Sect Says First Cloned Baby Due in Weeks
For those of you too lazy to move your index finger, the entire article follows:
Sect Says First Cloned Baby Due in Weeks
Fri December 20, 2002 10:32 AM ET
MONTREAL (Reuters) - A Canadian cult that believes in free love and that life on earth was created by extra terrestrials said it could deliver the world's first cloned baby on Christmas day.
But the announcement by the Quebec-based Raelians sect was greeted on Thursday with anger and skepticism from experts in the field.
"I am personally disgusted," said Arthur Leader, chief of reproductive medicine at the Ottawa Hospital. "It shows disrespect for human embryos and it demeans our humanity," he said.
Brigitte Boisselier, a bishop in the sect, said their company, Clonaid, cloned a human embryo last March and a baby girl is expected to be delivered within the next two weeks and possibly on Christmas Day.
"We are well advanced and the first baby is due for the end of this year. We think it will be a healthy baby," Boisselier told Reuters.
She said 10 human embryos were cloned last spring, with five miscarrying. The four other cloned babies are expected next year.
Boisselier, 45, is a biochemist associated with the Raelians, a cult that believes life on earth was genetically created by visiting extra-terrestrials.
I'd comment on the whole free-love/aliens thing, but that would probably be too far off-topic.
Try the competition to find the best predictor of UFO report frequencies by State. Its the closest to basic science you're likely to see for a while in the area of UFOlogy.
Seastead this.
Blizzard does have a line of books named after the Starcraft video game, so I can see them going after the publisher or author. They have already won a case where no one else could name a movie Diablo.
Who knows, maybe they can use the court winnings to assemble a team to make an actual Starcraft sequel instead of this Starcraft:Ghost fiasco.
Urge to kill rising.
When I was your age we didn't have music file sharing utilities. We had to go out to a store and shoplift the CD.
When will Blizzard stop this nonsense and print "Unidentified Flying Saucers: Starcraft II"?
These are a few thoughts that have taken me quite a long time to appreciate, maybe some of you will find some use or food for thought. 1) it's very, very easy to be a skeptic. almost brainless to say, "I don't believe it, show me more proof!" Think about the last time you crossed the street: you look both ways and start walking. But, you could stand there on the corner frozen stiff and demanding more proof before taking the first step. After all, maybe a really fast car is about to race down the road and kill you. This is completely silly thinking, which is my point. You reach a comfort level and step into the street. But skeptics, whether it be Bigfoot or UFO's, can always ask for more proof. It's the safe thing to do. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, I agree. But we need another one-liner to know when to stop doubting and allow for the possibility of something extraordinary being true. Right now, there is no easy rule for this, we all just stand with hands on our hips asking for proof. Some skeptics won't believe until a UFO lands on THEIR front lawn and rings THEIR doorbell. Hey, if it happens to their neighbor, they can always ask for 10 types of proof, it's the safe way to play it. But not always correct! Just because it didn't happen to you, doesn't always mean it didn't happen at all. 2) Science is really ass-backwards about these "fringe" topics. Most scientists care about their reputations and getting published more than doing really ground-breaking research. Furthermore, any scientist who dares to even slightly investigate these topics faces brutal ridicule from their peers, who only care about their rep and getting themselves published. This causes a vicious circle because we all parrot the phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" but anyone who tries to gather proof is brutalized and thought a fool. Nice loophole, did Congress & lawyers invent this bizarre system?? Be a skeptic, just don't be a lazy, do-nothing skeptic who knows topic 'X' is a fraud, even if they've never looked into themselves. In summary, the best thing that could possibly happen is for the scientifically rigorous doubters to stop bad-mouthing their peers, roll up their sleeves, and do their own unbiased research, with no regard for success or failure. Until the scientific community grows up a bit, I doubt it will happen and we are all the worse off for it.
pot.kettle(black);
My reaction to your story isn't "Nah, that's impossible, BS" it is just "OK, but it is hard to see how this could be used in an investigation". You can't get a better answer than "I don't know".
Also note that the Condon Report which is still looked upon by most skeptics as the most comprehensive report on UFOs have a case which remains unexplained, and conclude that there is evidence for an extraordinary object (this is the single case they come to that conclusion for).
Those claiming to have a better explanation than "I don't know" will raise some eyebrows and if they offer a ahem, exotic explanation, they may see some ridicule, but I don't think any real skeptic will look at you as a kook for telling this story.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Strange how Blizzard would go after (sue) a movie, named Diablo (a well recognised, common, dictionary word, meaning the Devil) But would ignore a book called Starcraft.....
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
As you may have read today, absolutely nothing extraordinary happened to the men who opened King Tut's tomb, yet we still had to endure 80 years of speculation and argument about the mythical "mummy's curse."
... My type of story is worthless to any investigation. In fact, all first hand accounts are worthless. Interesting results from any new scientific research will be found from satellite surveilance photos, weather balloons, radar, and other such objective instruments. The past fifty years of conducting interviews and then processing these with stats have been a complete waste of time. --M
among other things, the author claims that modern man was genetically engineered by aliens
I wish they had engineered in a gene that required we have actual proof of something before we believed it was true.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
>among other things, the author claims that
>modern man was genetically engineered by aliens
did they also took care of engineering the rest of the animal kingdom? how many different animal species are out there on earth? a million? seems like those aliens are a bunch of bioengineering freaks; why don't they get a real job?
"You want a piece of me, boy?!?"
"Absolutely."
"Battlecruiser reporting."
"Need a light?"
"Never know what hit em."
"Can I take your order?"
Sigh.. oh well...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I believe those who are skeptical, yet scientifically minded should consider Occam's Razor with repect to the question of UFO's and life beyond earth. In short, The simplest explanation is that life in the Universe is abundant, and probably pollinates, if you will, in a Universal sense.
What is SIMPLER? That we are the ONLY life in the Universe and we developed on our own through an accident. We are alone. Never to be repeated. A Universal, biochemical FLUKE.
OR
That life manifests all over the Universe, and Intelligent forms of life develop on potentially millions of planets, and that SOME of them have developed technology to travel to other systems. Some of them left stuff where they went. Probably multiple places.
OR
A magically, all powerful God created the WHOLE Universe and then made one planet and put us on it. And we are alone.
It's a tough one.
Occam's History
Another page
So they reached the singularity and went poof along with John Sheridan, the First Ones, Amelia Earhart, and Judge Crater. Big whoop.
My personal whackball theory was that aliens ARE humans. I mean the odds of any species in outer space being able to locate our small ass planet AND get to it are very very small. And the odds of that species being remotely humanoid are even smaller. This leads me to randomly guess that aliens are super-evolved humans from the future travelling into the past. The whole abduction thing is just so nobody knows/believes it, and that way they wont fudge up history, just study it.
It's as crazy a theory as any, and I likes it!
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Since you brought up Star Trek, it might be worthy of mention that modern man actually was genetically engineered by aliens in the Star Trek universe, along with many other intelligent species. The common origin is the excuse for all those prosthetic foreheads.
I got in a debate with a Mormon. Basically I said your religon is a sack of steaming shit made up by a jackass. I went about it in a fun way. First I made her read the "Diamond Age" then I said what if religon is just Aliens infecting "messias" with nanotech swarms that latch onto the neurons and give visions and etc. etc. etc. So that all religon is just aliens fighting for market penetration? The "Christians are the sucker heads of KLD*&#" the hindus didn't really have to hide behind anythign they just laid thier cards on the table, and on and on.
My father tells a similar story.
He was walking through a lit parking lot one hazy evening, and he noticed these cream colored blobs off in the distance. They were swooping back and forth, and performing maneuvers no aircraft could possibly handle, at least not without turning the pilot to gel. He stood there watching for several minutes, because he was certain he was seeing real live UFOs.
Then one of them swooped down and ate a bug that was circling one of the parking lot lights.
He's had a rather skeptical view of UFO claims since.
Remember kids, lighting and atmospheric conditions can make even ordinary events like birds looking for an easy meal look odd.
But then again, I could be wrong.
the problem is correcting for differences from anecdote to anecdote in your source data. And unlike a controlled experiment, increasing your data set of eye witness accounts only increases the noise throughout your dataset. I'm pretty convinced that what I saw was a physical object, but I wouldn't base any formal conclusions on it, or any other number of accounts. So, from a personal standpoint, yes I think I saw a real thing. But from a factual standpoint I think it's worthless with which to form a factual conclusion.
We pretty much agree though. And thank you for not writing a stupid knee jerk response.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Why would aliens from outerspace come here? Out of the uncountable billions of stars, why this particular one?
On the other hand, there certainly ARE ufos. You have seen them yourself. If it is flying, and you don't know what it is, it's an unidentified flying object. I got hit in the head by a UFO at a rock concert once.
Now, I can think of one type of alien that would necessarily know of us, and would want to know more about us- TIME ALIENS.
Note that the Rosewll aliens are slender, green, and with long fingers and big eyes. Considering that merely two to five million years after pre-humans decended from the trees we are just tinkering with genetic manipulation, what will a post-human look like in TEN MILLION YEARS? I would guess that plant genes could make us no longer need food, that we would engineer big brains (and big heads to hold them), long, thin fingers to easily manipulate small objects better than we can now, big eyes to see in low light/ see smaller stuff w/o a microscope, etc.
In short, the aliens are out uber-grandchildren from ten million years in the future.
Either that, or swamp gas
-steve mcgrew
mcgrew.info
theFragfest.com
"among other things, the author claims that modern man was genetically engineered by aliens. " Actually, this is something that could be probable. At least from a christian point of view, the God in the Sky concept.. Heaven? Where did you think that is when you were a kid? Up. Know what I mean? "Something had to have happened in these places and many others throughout the globe to engender such speculation and argument." Exactly.
Mankind grew up trying to explain everything in a self centered way. Religions sprang up that separated God, man and animals. Christianity for example teaches that God made man in his image and all of the animals were put on Earth for man. In this belief system, mankind is very much on center stage and it is somewhat unthinkable that God would have created another race on some distant planet. I think that man's early beliefs are still with us today.
We really don't have enough information yet to tell if life is rare or abundant in the universe. Is life on our planet a one in a million or one in a trillion chance?
I liked the part in the movie 'Contact' where Jody Foster is explaining that if only one planet out of some very high number (I don't remember exactly) had life and if only one of those had intelligent life and so on that there would be millions of races in the universe.
It is a bit vain to think that we are anything special. However, even if there are millions of races in the universe, the universe is a VERY big place. Such great distances may separate us all that meeting beings from other races is impractical or even impossible.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The Copernican Principle, OTOH, is (roughly stated) "you're not special." Thus if your explanation of the observed movements of the planets requires that you just happen to be at the center of all this motion and observing it, it's not very plausible.
The argument "what are the odds that we're the only life in the whole frikkin universe?" seems to me more an argument against "specialness."
See, everything was going good, then Acturus had to send Kerigan down to get killed...now she's back as a Zerg and has pissed Tassadar off...this won't end well.
After careful consideration, I decided that it really does not matter if aliens, BigFoot, or even God(s), really exist or not. If they really do exist, they have so little apparent power to affect my life (as long as I do not buy anything their followers are selling, anyway) that they effectively do not affect my life. Without evidence of any effect on my life, much less evidence of existence, these things do not touch my life. So I don't think about them, unless I get to join a /. discussion on them. I have this same thought, when prompted, about any other similar thing that requires "belief". H0-ho-ho.
I've read some stuff on the net that says the 'greys' are from the 4th planet of Zeta-Reticuli 2. One star in a binary star system about 37 light years away. Here's the link. The map is some very convincing evidence.
Yuri's Revenge: Inside the Secret World of Psychics
that's john keats (1795-1821), from his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
;P
you know x-files but not that? what is this world coming to?
"I DARE you to make less sense!"
we'd better hope they never make physical contact with us, and they'd better hope we never make physical contact with them. The historical record shows that contact between different human cultures has generally resulted in a disaster for one or the other. Is there any reason to believe the situation would be any different between humans and aliens?
Didn't someone else post on /. about seeing an absurdly huge flying object move about in the night sky? It was an equally interesting first hand account (and the witness similarly did not jump to conclusions about what he saw.)
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Why does this topic always encite such a repulsive response?
Could it be that when faced with a true enigma, we do not know how to be dispassionate because what we really fear is admitting that we don't know all the answers?
How nice it must be to wander through life secure in the knowledge that you have all the answers. If you work hard at it, you can become bigotted and develop a proper level of righteous indignation as well. Keep up the good work.
Don't fear the reaper. It is all epsilon.
Completely off topic, but I felt compelled
to correct the misspelling of this archaeic
form of the 2nd person singular prononoun.
It's still alive and well in Icelandic, in the form of "ú" and to a lesser extent in other scandinavian languages and german, as "du".
So what you're saying is that the aliens are too smart to want to do anything but (silently) chill on the homeworld? As in...
... and no, I don't mean 'sliders-like' alternative histories, I mean completely different continuua, etc).
Good Lord.
Stop reading space opera tripe, read some Greg Egan or Verner Vinge, and grow your imagination a little.
The speed of light may well be an ABSOLUTE LIMIT, with no clever circumvention (wormholes, what have you) possible. However, their may well be vastly more interesting domains that are accessible (hacking into the stuff of which the universe is made at its lowest level, accessing, or constructing, alternative universes with vastly different physical constants
Perhaps the ability to access or construct a realm in which quantum limitations and speed of light limits do not apply (making vastly greater, perhaps infinite, computational resources availabel to them, to which they could upload their minds. Obviously causality would prevent them from using this as a short cut across our space, but it might free them from the doomed burnout that faces this universe, and free their minds to grow without bounds.
Of course, someone on the far side of the technological horizon is going to imagine vastly more, but even in these few moments I've managed to think of something a little more intriguing than FTL or whatever nonsense it is scurrying around your little mind.
It is entirely possible that emergent intelligences shake off the physical limits of this universe like an embryonic reptile would the shell of its hatching egg. It may not be able to make the egg any larger or more amenable to its conditions, but it is entirely capable of breaking out of it and moving on to greener pasteurs.
In which case intelligence could be reasonably common, and yet Fermi's paradox would be answered.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've got a similar story of my own. It happened in late May of 1978 in the mountains above and behind Los Angeles. I was on a three day hike/camping trip with three other guys. In the early afternoon of the second day one of the guys and I decided to climb over the ridge behind our campsite to see what was on the other side. When we cleared the top, we had a great view to the South and East whereas from camp the view was pretty much just surrounding mountains. As we were enjoying the view, we both noticed something small and indistinct sparkling in the sky a few degrees above the horizon toward the East. Over the course of maybe 30 seconds while we watched it got apparently closer/bigger and appeared to be maybe 45 degrees above the horizon. We assumed that it was moving generally in our direction as it didn't move much relative to the peaks in the background. We were able to very clearly see a featureless and generally silvery-white disc-shaped object clearly outlined against the blue sky. The sun was to our backs and we could distinctly see sunlight reflecting from the object and could then tell that it was moving toward our left (North). It passed out of sight behind another ridge or mountain. While it was in sight we talked about what we were seeing and both sighted at it along our arms to get some suggestion of size, position relative to the background, and position relative to the horizon. We agreed that it was about the same size as our thumbnails at its largest apparent size. It was in sight for a total of maybe 45 seconds total. The motion was smooth and continuous. It didn't jerk or hop around or wiggle from side to side or anything of the sort. The only sound we heard was wind blowing in the trees. When it was gone we were shaken. When we started to tell the other two guys about it, they wouldn't hear it, accusing us of fabricating the story. After we got home we tried telling a couple of other people with the same result. We decided to just shut up and pretty much have. I don't have a clue what it was
This is a form of logical fallacy called ad populum. The fact that a lot of people think something does not make it true, nor does it even mean there's good reason to believe that it's true. According to polls that are routinely conducted, an embarassing number of Americans think that the Sun orbits around the Earth, rather than the other way around? Does that then mean that their case warrants consideration? After all, if enough people think it, there must be something to it.
The fact that there have been so many claims and absolutely no verifiable evidence is a strong indication on general principles that your skepticism meter should be dialed up to maximum.
AFAIK, even today, scientists are not able to flawlessly reproduce Wootz (ultra high carbon steel, first produced in ancient India and the base for Damascene steel) - so clearly it must have come from outer-space... Gee, get real.
Yes, of course there are extraterestrials!
Universally true for all beings:
I'm necessary, all the others are extra...
Ba, Dum Bump --- Splash!
It is now time to flip off your computer.
I completely agree with that statement. --M
That is all.
Premise: Humans were engineered by aliens
George Bush is Human.
Therefore George Bush was engineered by Aliens.
I wonder if there is an Intergalactic court where we can sue the aliens for screwing up so badly..
Do you mean figment of one's imagination, not fragment?
Unidentified Flying Chunks of Brain? Eeewwwww!
Table-ized A.I.
While I know it's pointless to speculate about this sort of thing, I can't resist. Had you considered the possibility that you were merely seeing something silver falling at an unknown distance? Perhaps something thin. Let us, for the moment, put aside question of how it might have gotten there. (Although falling from a passing plane comes to mind.)
:-) Who knows. Best thing is not to take anything weird that happens too seriously. Who was it that said, "The world is not only querrer than we suppose, it is queerer than we *can* suppose."?
If it were thin, then as it fluttered in the wind, it might have appeared to change size rapidly. The main thing, is you *should not* assume it's an object unless you're really sure. You seem pretty sure about that, so the next part, is to not assume that you have any idea as to what sort of object it is. To even consider that it might be some sort of "craft" is assuming an awful lot.
But then, I could just be full of sh*t. Maybe it was Loch Nessie flying around in her special 5-dimensional glider with her favorite co-pilot Elvis.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Diamond Age is the right reference here. Haven't read it in a while, but there are some memorable orgy scenes, where data (and more) is being ... passed along between processors.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
One time we were camping in Yosemite. Slowly I became aware that there was light coming into the tent. I put my head out and basically, above the tent, was a floating round object. When I say object I mean something about 100 ft across. The weird thing is that it was semi-transparent but glowing. I could see moonlit clouds through it and yet there was definitely something there above me. It was about 80 feet away. There was no chance I could have been mistaken and I woke up my friend who saw it too. I even have photographs though they came out underexposed and fogged up in a really weird way.
But in my case I admit to making this shit up.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.