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Huge Unidentified Organic Blob Floating Around Alaska
Z80xxc! writes "The Anchorage Daily News reports that a 15 mile-long blob of unknown, 'gooey,' probably organic material is floating past communities on Alaska's North Slope. The US Coast Guard sent pollution experts to investigate, who determined that it was not an oil spill or other type of pollution, but were unable to determine what it is. A sample is currently being analyzed by experts in Anchorage, while the blob is following the current northwards."
It's probably a shoggoth.
Someone tell Sarah Palin to go for a swim!
Someone let rosie o'donnell into the ocean?
it was probably caused by global warming though.
It's that thing that killed Tasha Yar!
I took this job on a crab boat, I was on there for like 2 months, there wasn't any internet, I forgot to pack any Playboys, I finally found an old SI Swimsuit issue in the galley....I didn't know there would much!
- Randy Marsh
Dreamcatcher imminent?
Quick, someone give it a jellybean!
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It looks like a bunch of seaweed and an algal bloom.
Too obvious?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Alaska's fucked.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
welcome our new gooey overlords.
but seriously, it's probably garbage stuck together with some sort of fungus or something.
weinersmith
...."ALIENS!"
Al-Gore warned you all that global warming would awaken man-bear-smogmonster, and now his dire warning has come to pass! Take shelter people of Earth, only Godzilla can save us now (assuming the Japanese don't kill the giant lizard who always saves them, God(zilla) knows why the hell they always try to kill the lizard who always saves their ass.)
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Why am I suddenly reminded of Caddyshack?
So you see there is a big, slimy thing floating in the water and you don't like it.. What do you do?
a, Take probes, issue some press reports and analyse it while letting in float around.
b, No nothing, let someone else deal with it.
c, Clean up the god damn ugly slime before it starts to eat Alaska, and analyse it later.
d, Make a documentary on how the big unidentified slimy thing ate Alaska and make profit with it.
I can see it from my back porch!
and puked.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Let's see. RingTFA says "A mysterious glob of unknown material up to 12 miles long has appeared off Alaska's northern coast." Later, "spotted a long strand of the stuff and followed it for about 15 miles, shooting video from the air." Slashdot headline says "a 15 mile-long blob of unknown, "gooey", probably organic material"
Reading is FUNdamental!
yeah - its in the tagline: from the real-reason-Palin-resigned dept.
It might be The Stuff!
Could this be the scandal that led Palin to retire?
...Steve McQueen froze it and global warming thawed it.
rj
...quick, build a bridge to it!
You know the conservative attention whore is going to try to capitalize on this somehow,... like trying to connect this blob with the second coming of Christ, or the rapture, or something? Or, she'll go for the Ghostbusters explanation, saying that the blob contains all the evil left wing energy from California that's been seeping into the Ocean over the past 50 years from all the liberals and fags. She'll then hire the FagBusters from Kansas, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, arm them with unlicensed nuclear accelerators, to come up with a solution. Naturally, our only defense against this will be some dickless guy from the EPA,... ;-)
The article stated it was "up to 12 miles long" and that a team "followed it [by helicopter] for about 15 miles." Granted, the average digestee probably does not care if the blob devouring him is 12 or 15 miles long.
We're done here.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
She knew she couldn't do what had to be done as the Governor so she resigned in order to put together a rag tag group of misfits with the skills necessary to save the world.
One Family, One helicopter, One Mission.
Coming this summer! The Palins Hunt in...
Die Nature Die!
Insert pithy comment here.
She was advised to create a Blog, but heard blob
The power vacuum left by Palin is attracting all kinds of scum.
Then again, I'm in Philadelphia and have no idea what whale blood looks like....but it looks like it should be whale blood.
It ate a goose, could be the start of a biological grey-goo scenario.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Is this true?
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
If it screams, get the heck out of there...
My completely scientifically unfounded guess would be that it's what's left of some sort of bio-matter that was trapped long ago and was pushed up by warming waters or released from receding ice.
But it's not 2012 yet!
"It's pitch black when it hits ice and it kind of discolors the ice and hangs off of it," Brower said. He saw some jellyfish tangled up in the stuff, and someone turned in what was left of a dead goose -- just bones and feathers -- to the borough's wildlife department.
I knew I shouldn't have had those beans.
... The Blob!
Beware of the blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of the blob
-The Five Blobs
Yes it's true. The EPA guy man has no dick.
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." - Einstein
Yes it's true. This man has no dick.
I question democracy as a suitable way to form a government if she does that and yet STILL gets votes. Because then it's obvious that stupid people must not take part in important decisions, like, say, forming a government.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe it came from a herd(?) of whales during mating season with a severe lack of females.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
what does Fox Mulder says about that ?
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Short story/short film in Stephen King's Creepshow 2. These campers swim out to a fixed raft in the middle of a lake and some goop, not unlike the goop in the article, follows them. One person touches it, and it leeches up her arm and pulls her in. This sort of continues for the next 10 minutes or so until there hero and heroine make out. It's Stephen King so it doesn't end well.
My point? Don't touch it. And don't let it touch you.
Palin would never say anything like that. No conservative in their right minds would believe that the liberal energy from the West Coast would coalesce into anything smaller than a blob the size of the Pacific Ocean.
HA! I'd mod up, but I'm fresh out of points.
She wont.
Unlike Al Gore, what the parent describes is not Palin's M/O. But just for the sake of argument. If she did pull a stunt like that, then yes...I would agree with you.
Life is not for the lazy.
Right President Obama will offer to meet with the blob in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
Okay now that we have done both sides of the stupid poltical comments we can move one.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You know the conservative attention whore
Is she really, or does she just get mentioned by everyone, everywhere pointlessly, such as in a thread discussing something weird in the ocean?
You might be *part* of the problem, sir.
Seriously?
"Welcome! To access adn.com content and features for free, you must be a registered user."
First, a wag of the finger to the OP for linking to something I have to register a plethora of information just to read "for free".
Second, a wag of the finger for ADN for requiring so *much* of my information.
Here's a nice link: blob news story on juneauempire
I for one welcome our pollution mutated self-aware organic blob overlords.
Sure, but the the real question is how long has it been killing people, and why doesn't it eat their feet?
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
Is it certified?
I took a big dump overboard this morning. Sorry about that.
No sig today...
*runs up, panting*
Guys, check it out, I got a great topical Ron Paul joke!
What, we're done with the political jokes? Aw man, late to the party again...
The enemies of Democracy are
Nerds and geeks are famously socially awkward, and you're disappointed that they (we!) aren't making good jokes?
Sure, but then what are we going to do with a giant, slimy umbrella?
I was thinking that after her failed attempt to get into serious power she committed carbicyde and rolled into the ocean.
which is totally what she said
I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the solution works, then it validates her argument. And as far as I'm concerned unlicensed nuclear accelerators are the solution to *everything*, simply by virtue of their coolness.
Will you take that in a form of a Pre-paid Visa card? If someone else owed $23 quadrillion, there got to be more bad code to create the opposite error.
Palin is a punchline. Trying to add something on top of that would be redundant.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Welcome to Slashdot!
Thank you for improving the quality of our public discourse with your very splendid and worthwhile comment.
*runs up, panting*
Guys, check it out, I got a great topical Ron Paul joke!
What, we're done with the political jokes? Aw man, late to the party again...
Man, you think you're late to the party... What am I supposed to do with all these Tom Dewey jokes I had lined up?
Bow-ties are cool.
It's not oil... but it's definitely biological...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh_SC-oZLMg
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
Has any shipments of hair been lost lately?
I for one welcome our new blob overlord. And you would be wise to do so, as well. It had to be said.
It thawed out of the ice due to global warming. Kurt Russel must have missed a piece.
Where's my flamethrower!?
It's her daughters placenta.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
"It's pitch black when it hits ice and it kind of discolors the ice and hangs off of it," Brower said. He saw some jellyfish tangled up in the stuff, and someone turned in what was left of a dead goose -- just bones and feathers -- to the borough's wildlife department.
Wow, this is exactly like The Raft from Creepshow 2. If I remember right the blob in the lake ate a bird too!
I was thinking the same thing... What if more and more of Steven King's creations start showing up? If I see a clown, I'm outta here
1+2+1+1 || 1+2+2+1
I'll put my money on the swarm .
For what it's worth the book makes a nice read while hanging out on the beach ...
It's Nanotechnology run amok. Bill Joy was right. We are all doomed.
Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not.
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it!
There, fixed that for 'ya.
Ezekiel 23:20
Sarah Palin embarrasses herself far more than we could hope to accomplish. We're just jumping on her bandwagon. She's so stupid that they didn't even have to invent a persona or punch line for her for SNL - they just repeated what she said.
I really hope the evangelicals push her to the top of the GOP ticket again. They'll find out for a second time that the business party that controls the GOP can put up with a fair amount of dumb, but anyone who actually believes in literal interpretations of bronze age mythologies will not be allowed to run the country.
She may have a shot at the VP for someone younger than McCain, but they won't suffer another Bush/Cheney scenario.
The Mushroom King... someone should call the plumbers.
"Well, You could believe Mr. Pecker..."
"...the name is PECK"
"Or you could accept the fact that Alaska is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions."
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
We need to find out if this thing is dangerous to people or not!
Xaotik Designs
Awww... Multiple someones got all offended. Went from a +4 Insightful to a 0 Off-topic. Funny how the only 'valid' opinion is the liberal bias.
It is certainly this alien organism from Solaris!
NUKE IT!
It's one manifestion of the "Yrr" from The Swarm
Repent, the end is nigh!
you think you're late to the party? Marc Sanford is still trying to get a plane ride out of South America!
They sure are cute when they're little.
Have gnu, will travel.
I recall reading about a recent algae fertilization attempt to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases but that failed because the algae that the experimenters thought would sink to the ocean floor actually remained bouyant. Could this blob be the result of that experiment?
If I see a clown, I'm outta here
Better be sure and shoot them on sight. :P
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Democracy is not a suitable way to form government, that is why the US is not a democracy
This is clearly the result of man-made CO2 emissions.
Could it be caused by whales with digestive ailments?
It isn't?
Ok, then democracy might even work. Thanks for clarification, I was worried for a moment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe it grew on he bottom and came up to the surface after it got caught in a crab net. I cringe at the thought of all the resultant swearing! Possibly the truth about the 'land' bridge has finally been revealed.
Hello Cruel World
.. the US coast guard will probably classify it as a 'test or weather balloons'. We're also gonna start hearing from the UOB community, abductions, sightings, etc...
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
...it might make sense to say "floating around Alaska". Personally, I think there's some bad acid floating around up there, and a lot of people are taking it!
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
No, no, don't use vanilla. Give it the licorice flavor and we've got a space elevator! Or at least a space ladder...
Your brain is not a computer.
Didn't they drop the blob off in Antarctica or something like that? It's finally thawed out! Oh god, we were so foolish!
I'll check the computer model results. I'm sure that blobs are an expected result of Global Warming. Ummm... Is it a red blob? There are red blobs all over this map.
Hey man, back off. Do you know how hard it is to get *good* acid in Alaska.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
This thing reminds me of the blob creature in Creepshow 2's story, The Raft.
I should have said "The Knights Who Until Recently Said 'Ni'". :)
The enemies of Democracy are
Hmm, Baby Ruth.
Has anyone checked to see if Steve Ballmer fell out of an airliner on his way to a Windows 7 pre-launch in Asia?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Can't believe no one has welcomed our new Blob Overlord. Welcome Emperor Blob!
Was thinking the same thing. Was my favorite cartoon for a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Dark_Water
Seriously.
You're gonna need a bigger boat.
A filthy motherlode of ambergris? You know... from a hundred whales?
I say it's the alien black oil from X-Files
...Someone in the Republican party threw water on her, she melted, and that's what's left...
Around 10-15 years ago, the same thing happened off the Icelandic Westfjords, which is the north-west part of Iceland. At first, it was believed to be a spill of the waste matter from fish oil production, but then scientists determined it was caused by a mass death of some species of plankton, which are really small, almost microscopic crustaceans or similar. This particular species was quite oily and died off en masse because of increased sea temperatures or some such.
As I said, I can't remember any useful details, but that's more or less what happened back then, sometime near the end of last century off the coast of North-West Iceland.
J. Random BOFH
1. Maybe the satellite that crashed into the ocean in "Cloverfield" had some sort of nanotechnology in it.
2. Nanotech self replicates and converts resources into "Grey Goo".
3. Goo evolves on turbo into Cloverfield monster.
4. Humans retaliate with further nanotech that leads to the events in the novel: "Bloom" written by Wil McCarthy.
It's too late, the end is Bill Nye...
The 18-year-old or the 14-year-old? I need to let the media know whether that comment was funny or reprehensible.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
If I see a clown, I'm outta here
Better be sure and shoot them on sight. :P
They all float, you know. We all float down here.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
is a container ship captain trying to figure out what happened to those five containers full of Jello mix he was supposed to deliver.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Hey that's me surfing on the /. !
...perhaps Rush Limbaugh had liposuction?
... coincidence? I think not.
Congratulations! You have successfully pointed out that the US is a republic! What kind of republic you ask? A democratic one.
This is a democracy in that we vote for our leaders, which is what the OP was talking about. However, feel free to continue to score points with your friends by pointing out we're a republic. You know what the guy meant, cut him some slack.
It's her daughters placenta.
Tasteless!!
Hmmm... I've heard it's actually quite tasty.
DO WHAT IT SAY!!!
There is a billboard on my way to work (northern minnesota) that says "Palin for president '12"
It just went up. I almost cried.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
And the award for Most Awesome Tasteless Joke in this Entire Discussion goes to ..... MoldySpore!!!! (applause)
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
This sounds like it could be the beginning one of those horrible direct-to-video Sci Fi movies. Probably starring Stephen Baldwin as the Cassandra-like scientist trying to warn everyone of the danger while the only one to believe him is a local fisherman and his beautiful daughter...
Where is X-COM team, when we need them?
Must be her new gig now that she's resigned as Gov.
We are the 198 proof..
... it's "The Blob", popularized in that old Steve McQueen flick from 1958. After all, they couldn't kill it, but it stopped when frozen. So in the end, the military dropped it somewhere frozen, presumably up there in the Arctic... that same Arctic that's melting a little more every summer. I think this is the thing Al Gore's really worried about....
You DO all know that it was standard government policy back then to crank out a cheezy monster movie as cover for all that real weirdness that was going on: big spiders, bigger rabbits, big frogs, aliens, floating brains, walking plants, evil pink robots, Bat Boy, etc.
-Dave Haynie
Everybody thought the movie "The Blob" was fiction. Well, it wasn't. Now, with global warming, the blob has thawed. My suggestion is ... stock up on fire extinguishers.
... we can move one.
Which one?
And where to?
(Score one to stupid pedantic comments!)
I am anarch of all I survey.
Something escaped the dangerous kitchen!
Why, yes! I AM new here.
Unlike Al Gore, what the parent describes is not Palin's M/O.
Let me get this straight, you seriously believe Al Gore's M/O is:
Yeah, that just reeks of Al Gore's M/O. Thanks for pointing that our - and thanks to the moderators who modded you insightful too.
My pics.
It does reek of Al Gore's M/O in that he would use any an all questionable excuse to prove GW. It's hot outside, he thinks it's GW. If it's cold outside, it's GW. That nut case even blamed hurricane Katrina on man made GW.
Oh really Al? How so? Did you have some sort of access to an alternate reality machine that *proves* if man never entered into the industrial revolution, that hurricane would never had struck? What a fucktard he is! A Disgrace to humanity for stooping so low as to politicize on a very traumatic natural event so as to seem more relevant.
I'd bet he would blame earthquakes on GW if he could get away with it. And you know what, he just might too purely for political reasons.
That sir is Al Gore's M/O. You can bank on that!
Life is not for the lazy.
It could be the 1997 bloop that the Navy picked up on their sonar equipment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop). It looked like a biological entity, but was far to big to be any known creature.
Which wouldn't rule out it being a shoggoth.
Dead whale?
Whales are pretty big things to start with, I could imagine them feeding enough microbes to set up a temporary ecosystem that would exist for a while even after the whale corpse had decayed.
I lost my sig.
Courtesy Ben Elton
... a marine orga(ni)sm.
May you consume us all...
Or maybe this is the Earth fighting back taking care of the Global Warming problem.
greg, REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!
This is clearly proof of global warming. The Blob has escaped its arctic prison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob
I wonder if a bog got trapped in a glacier, and then got thawed out or fell off in an iceberg. Can't wait to see the results.
You are not the customer.
whale jizz...
Lets find out if its edible. Organic stuff is good.
Actually, all Palin comments should be marked as "offtopic". Whoever modded me down, actually made my point. Negative comments are modded "funny" but an attempt to draw attention to the "blathering masses" gets offtopic? Keith Olberman, was that you?
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything."
In other news, Rush Limbaugh is in town for a 2012 strategy session with Sarah Palin.
The Nanocaust begins (I heard you the first time)
.
.
**Never alone with multiple personality disorder (I agree)
Well they say life originated in water with high voltage. Couldn't this be just a pre-cellular organic construct? It seems rather uneventful in that case (beyond the fact we haven't seen it before).
With all the crap in the water I am more surprised we don't see this more often.
We finally get a shot at looking at pre-cellular life and all we do is label it, put it down, send it's offspring disproportionately to die in a war, insult it, then promptly hit it with a fire hose blast during a riot. This seems like a familiar formula for hating something...
Bunch of pre-cellular racists... probably gonna capture it and put it in a zoo...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Will it blend?
It was modded down as flamebait, so it most likely wasn't visible...unless you like trolling for -1 comments.
Also, it wasn't the same joke. Mine was funny. Theirs wasn't. ;)
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
We've been gravitating to a democracy, which is causing the problems. However, back-in-the-day, and still a little bit today, the States voted for Senators and Presidents and not the people. The only democratic thing about our Federal government was the House of Representatives.
Do you ever play with your food?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R8PFvUZeLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lMEZgeyCA
No, but she can see it from her house.
-Dave Haynie
And knowing is half the battle!
GI-JOE!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs