Slashdot Mirror
Jordanian Mayor Angry Over "Alien Invasion" Prank
krou writes "Jordanian mayor Mohammed Mleihan has taken a dim view of local newspaper Al-Ghad's April Fools prank, which saw a front page story claiming that 'flying saucers flown by 3m (10ft) creatures had landed in the desert town of Jafr.' The paper claimed that communication networks had gone down, and people were fleeing the area. The mayor called the local security authorities, who combed the area, but they were unable to find any evidence of the aliens. Mr Mleihan is now considering suing because of the distress it caused to residents: 'Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents. People were scared that aliens would attack them.'" I guess they've never heard of Orson Welles in Jordan.
The mayor is a retard!
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
1. Jordanians (and possibly, by extension, all Arabs) have a hilarious sense of humor.
2. Politicians EVERYWHERE are absolute morons
This has to go down as one of the best ever. If they evacuated it would've been insane. This teaches you to be skeptical of "truths" handed to you on a platter by the media.
I tell you what though - they'd never try this in Saudi Arabia. They'd end up executed for sorcery.
They were mars-born nazis that got cover when security raided the area. Thanks to the mayor, the danger of nazi occupation is now gone!
You’re an idiot and everyone knows it... but if you sue them, by golly, you’ll show them who’s boss and you won’t look like a buffoon any longer.
Except... you will.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
So he'd be happy if aliens were actually invading?
When some radio station you normally trust starts reporting a hoax it takes a while to figure out it's a hoax. It's happened several times.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2005/06/29
Why do we have to change the rules just because some idiots are finding brand new unforeseen ways to be stupid?
...screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre?
Stop fueling my silent rage.
Oh, and apparently this no longer applies exclusively to the USA...slightly modified, of course.
Living With a Nerd
The urban legend that sprang up, about ignorant people believing that the radio broadcast of War of the worlds was real, is one of the most pervasive and believed myths in modern times.
It was fuelled by the newspapers and magazines of the era, who didn't like radio much and were keen to portray it in a bad light.
As anyone who has heard the broadcast knows, the show was frequently interrupted by voice overs telling you that you were listening to a dramatisation.
No doubt though, there will be those on slashdot who will also continue to perpetuate this legend as historical fact.
citation please.
It was his fault. He should have dropped his inferior culture and converted to saxonwesternism long ago.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
Sure...
"Later studies suggested this panic was less widespread than newspapers suggested. During this period, many newspapers were concerned that radio, a new medium, would render the press obsolete. In addition, this was a time of yellow journalism, and as a result, journalists took this opportunity to demonstrate the dangers of broadcast by embellishing the story, and the panic that ensued, greatly." see Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future By Stanley J. Baran, Dennis K. Davis
Robert E. Bartholomew suggests that hundreds of thousands were frightened in some way, but notes that evidence of people taking action based on this fear is "scant" and "anecdotal".
See - Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. pp. 217ff.. ISBN 0-7864-0997-5.
And for a slightly more amusing take on the myth :
http://www.cracked.com/article_18487_6-ridiculous-history-myths-you-probably-think-are-true_p2.html
That enough citations for you?
As anyone who has heard the broadcast knows, the show was frequently interrupted by voice overs telling you that you were listening to a dramatisation.
Not quite. Up until last year, my parents had a record (33) of the entire broadcast. There were only three times the announcement was made that this was a dramatisation(sic) and not real. Had someone come in at any other time, they would not have known it wasn't real.
I should have saved the record from the yard sale, but I debated what I would do with it in the ensuing decades other than holding on to it as a curious memento of the broadcast.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We have to create some rules for the real idiots... like how they can win a Darwin award.
Typical backwards community stuck in the 19th century. Not unlike Mississippi.
Wikus escorted the prawns away quickly, that is why they could not find any evidence of them.
A later study, which had no actual evidence and just supposes a lot of things, is supposed to contradict writings from the same timeframe as the event?
No, you'll have to cite better than that.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Well, if the US ever finds a reason to go to war with Jordan, all they need to do is to carpet bomb the place with old copies of "The Weekly World News http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_World_News ."
The Jordanians will be to dazed to put up a fight.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Well, let's see...
You said that it was a "myth" that people believed the War of the Worlds broadcasts were real, and implied that nobody hearing them could possibly believe that.
Your citation only says that some reports of fear were overstated by newspapers with an agenda, and yet it acknowledges that "hundreds of thousands were frightened" (compared to a U.S. population of about 130M at the time).
Nope, not enough citation for your claim.
It also ran without any commercial breaks which also made it seem more genuine to the people who tuned in late. The exaggerated level of panic is the only thing that was an urban legend.
No evidence. No proof. They don't exist and never did. That doesn't mean there isn't life on other planets, just that as far as we know about the laws of physics, it would take quite a long time and a real effort on the part of any society to want to do it. You'd think Jordanians would be a tad more modern.
See - Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. pp. 217ff.. ISBN 0-7864-0997-5.
Please post more citations on Meowing Nuns. I, like, need them for a research project or something . . .
. . . or is this just Hentai stuff, and not real nuns?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What does Citizen Kane have to do with it? Perhaps you meant H.G. Wells?
-josh
You might want to stay off the Internet every April 1. It can be a little confusing (and annoying).
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
There were no aliens... but there were probings.
I remember studying the horrors of the Eugenics movement but I have to say... everyone of those people... might do us some good to keep dumb people from having too many kids who will also grow up to fear alien invasions from flying saucers...
Score +1 for the Idiocracy again... So far this week we are at a record of 33 points for the idiocracy and it's only Tuesday...
I mean even if there were aliens attacking, LOOK UP and if the skies are clear... no aliens in flying saucers. It's not like he reported INVISIBLE ALIEN SAUCERS... Right?
If common sense is common, then those that lack it lose their common link to the rest of us...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Wow, how culturally sensitive of you.
I guess you've never heard of Abdelsalam al-Majali. (Sure, I'll wait while you look it up...)
Slashdot, let this be a lesson to you. If your April Fool's day jokes earn you an intervention by authorities, get children out of school for a day, and result in a possible lawsuit against your organization by an official political body, then you are doing it right.
Anything less just falls short.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Run! He'll eat us all!
-- Boycott Shell
In the cold, jaundice glare of reality, the following scenario would most likely occur. The Aliens would go about their business doing what they came here to do. Mayor Mohammed, may, be contacted by the Aliens. But as sure as the sun comes up the morning, Government representatives from all over this planet would be approaching, very quickly, to the landing site. The optimal solution to consider is getting places for the diplomats to stay. Worst case scenario is that it won't matter. Best case scenario, investing in the local business; fast.
But the one question that all 7+ Billion of us should be asking is, "Why there?"
If I had a nickle for every moron who posts "Citation please" I'd be a fucking millionaire.
Unlike these jackasses, I don't think everyone on Slashdot is posting lies or misconceptions.
I suspect that these imbeciles often do and expect that everyone else does too.
Now aliens know when to invade... on April Fools day
Yeah, I heard an original copy once as well, and while it was dated, it had all the hallmarks of journalism from its period. I can see easily how people tuning in at the wrong moment might have thought it was the real thing. -There were segments where the reporter was doing the whole, "I don't know if anybody is still receiving this, but. . ." thing with explosions and ray guns sounding off all around him. Keeping in mind also that the jury hadn't even been assembled, let alone come to any decisions regarding the whole UFO thing at that point in our history.
Further, I don't know what the state of radio drama was at that time, but Orson Wells was certainly an innovator and he might have been breaking entirely new ground with such a story-telling technique. Sort of "Blair Witch", except with audiences having no emotional/intellectual defenses built up through past exposure to similar stories.
Though, on the other side of the coin, I can also see how the story of people being frightened would be a very, very easy (and fun) thing to exaggerate in the telling. Just look at how headlines get pumped up around here. While the shape of media has changed dramatically over the years, it's still humans selling the 'scoop'.
-FL
They are just trying to cover up the fact that aliens really did land in that desert. You shouldn't trust everything the media says.
Mada mada dane.
http://socialprotest.com/jordan-the-truth
Knowing some from that generation, do remember that not everyone heard the opening disclaimer, and that some of them didn't stay glued to their radios to hear the latter ones.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
because you know, when the aliens to invade, I am sure the first priority is to set a frontpage, insert some nice ads, print it, distribute it...
At least the Orson Welles scare was over the bloody radio.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Big Media trying to badmouth a new information distribution medium because they can't control it and fear becoming obsolete?
Man, things were pretty bleak back then, good thing nothing like that happens these days....
May we live long and die out
Common sense, not so common actually.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Of course they were frightened. It was a horror story.
Their initial shock however wore off as soon as they heard one of those frequent interruptions stating it was a radio play.
And they say we're ignorant of their culture?
At least we have self-righteous idiot leaders in common.
Check it out.
I heard a Radiolab episode all about War of the Worlds, the original broadcast and repeat performances all over the world. "From Santiago, Chile to Buffalo, New York to a particularly disastrous evening in Quito, Ecuador." This doesn't surprise me in the least, and it wouldn't be any more surprising if it happened in Kansas or California. The backlash has been worse than the threat of lawsuits--several employees of the news agency in Quito were killed when people realized they'd been tricked and stormed the news building, setting fire to it with them inside.
Welles' point, explained by him in an audio clip during the show, was to get people to realize that they can't automatically believe what they hear on the radio or any form of mass media. It's a lesson that never sank in, which is what makes it possible to continue pulling these stunts.
Your brain is not a computer.
Is it still an Urban legend if my mother, who was a child at the time, gave a first person account of a woman running into the family's hotel and screaming that the martians were coming?
Be careful before you indicate that someone was fibbing, this is my mother after all.
Come on, 13,000 people inconvenienced? That's like a square block in New York. And what kind of mayor reacts to in a knee-jerk fashion to a story written hours ago in a newspaper?
Sure, it's anecdotal but, when I was a kid in the 70's, my uncle told me about the night of that broadcast. He was at a gas station that night in Indianapolis. Cars began coming in large numbers and a line developed. Some people were genuinely frightened. They were filling up with gas and advising everyone else there to "get out of the city because Martians were coming". They were completely serious. My uncle and his friends thought the whole thing was likely some Halloween stunt. But they also laughed at the frightened people because they reasoned that "Even if it were true, if Martians had the ability to come all the way from Mars to kill us all, wouldn't they get us in the country just as easily as they would in the city?"
So it took about one day for the gullible Jordanians who initially believed the reports of aliens to gather evidence, refute those claims, and adjust their beliefs accordingly. Yet initial expression of the Islamic religion occurred about 14 centuries ago and they still believe in an imaginary being which controls events on earth. Why is that? Why such selective application of empiricism and reason?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
pfft, it's not credible until I see a wikipedia link...
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
That's why hes now pointing the finger at the prankster. Trying to take the focus off of his dumb ass. Guess what, buddy? Now you're telling the world your a dumb ass! ~HA~HA!
They'll certainly kill you too!
I thought it read "flying saucers flown by 3M" and thought "Damn, no wonder he believed it." :P
Granted this is still anecdotal (sorry I don't have a source).
I remember in college (I think it was a comm studies class) where the professor explained the situation. The War of the Worlds radio broadcast was prefixed with a very clear message stating that it was fiction. However, there was some other really popular station/show or perhaps news report that people were listening to. When it was over, they had switched the station to hear the invasion announcement, but of course had missed the disclaimer.
Boston's sister-city in the desert.
*No foreign flora or fauna permitted.
*Possession of Lite-Brites or alien-attack stories strictly prohibited.
Enjoy your stay!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You have a moron running the town, what do you expect, seriously, call the coast guard or the army if you have any doubt, they are always up to speed with what aliens might be here, with all the radar equip they have....they would also know standard protocal for something like this should it ever happen.
There's an interesting write up here.
It doesn't fully back what he was saying, but does suggest that the media did play up the response to the show more than actually happened. Oh, imagine that. :)
What he says seems to come from the Wikipedia article, which cite this book and this book. Both books were published over 60 years after the events happened. Actual evidence shows that people did evacuate, or at least gather in Gover's Mill. There were many calls placed in to the police, radio stations, etc...
The "frequent interruptions" were 3. One at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. I have listened to the show, and that's how I recall it, but one of these days I'll sit down and listen again. Maybe in a couple years with my daughter, when she's old enough to believe. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
They say that as though today were not. The practice has become more sophisticated and better able to mislead without actually making demonstrably false statements, mostly by framing, omission of inconvenient facts, and repetition. But that's the only difference I see between the journalism of then and most journalism that happens today.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Sure this time it turned out to be a joke but just imagine if it was for instance a US special ops mission. Most of the people in Jordan beyond the capital live in remote mountaneous regions and have never seen anything more sophisticated than a goat so a US helicopter could be mistaken for an alien spacecraft. I've heard stories that during the 1967 war many Jordanian hersmen thought the God came down from the sky in fiery chariot! Most Arabs are also pretty short (about 120 cm) so a Westerner may appear unusually tall to them. Just imagine how uncontacted tribes in Papua feel when scientists hover in helicopters over them and what they think happened after they 'chased' it with arrows.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Ok, let's see if I've got this right.
On April 1st a newspaper (which was probably printed the prior day or night, and obviously written before that point) had a story that the town was being invaded by giant aliens.
There is a nearby military base.
Nobody could see anything wrong, hear any explosions, see any smoke columns, or any other signs of problems.
Not one person was running through the streets in charred rags yelling about an apocalypse.
There were no radio, TV, or phone reports from any government agency or even media coverage of this.
Nobody had called to police to report this. (Maybe to ask about it, but not report it.)
There weren't any armored vehicles rushing to the site.
You're at ground zero, and it's a nice quiet day.
No attempts were made to contact governmental authorities of any kind for verification.
No one questioned that the newspaper (which has such a huge lag time between event and distribution) had a story that near instant media didn't.
So what do these morons do? Assume it's real and hide/waste police resources... Again, MORONS !!!
(I'm directing most of this at the mayor, since he had the most capability to speak with authorities, and should be using his head for something other than a hat rack.)
At least when HG Wells did it, some people missed the part of the broadcast calling it a play, and it was over one of the "instant media" source, aka radio. Not to mention, phone systems at that time were far less capable than they are now and the landing had supposedly taken place in a rural area in the early parts of the broadcast.
By the way, the original broadcast was recorded and archived, it's really cool to listen to. I had a tape of it when I was a kid. (Actually I think it was several tapes, but it was a long time ago)
"During this period, many newspapers were concerned that radio, a new medium, would render the press obsolete."
Little did they realize that it would be the internet coming some 70 years later that would accomplish this instead.
If you turned on the radio, and heard that there was an alien invasion, nuclear attack, or whatever, would you really stay at home listening to the radio?
You know, if heard on a major radio station that ICBM's had been launched towards the US, and it was from a reliable source and sounded authentic, I probably wouldn't be hanging around in a metro area either. Of course now we have other methods for fact checking. I could (oh my gosh) go to any number of news sites, or check broadcast TV, but those were a simpler time. Television was a new technology, with only a few thousand in existence world wide. Radio was common. Phones were fairly common, but who would you call? I'd be pretty sure the important numbers would be tied up. Even if I had heard it, but couldn't confirm it, that doesn't mean it isn't true. What's the time between apogee and impact? 15 minutes? I don't want to be tied up in the mad rush trying to escape the metro area, I'd rather already be out and on my way. Expected highway speed at night with ICBM's headed for me? about 120mph. Expected highway speed once everyone else knows? < 2mph.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The truth is that the different races do have their tendencies, at least in physiology, and probably even to some small degree in personality. The "you can't have it both ways" post is appropriately contextualized and correct in this regard.
But as tendencies are tendencies rather than invariabilities, and since racist prejudgement is typically applied overbroadly, for the sake of devaluing humans, racism as it's generally conceived is a Bad Thing. Fearful, malevolent folks use the fact of racial tendency inappropriately (inaccurately) in the service of their learned fear (unfortunate formative incidents) and self-loathing (as poor self-esteem encourages in a bullying mindset -- racism is really a kind of bullying). With such "motivated cognition" (emotion-driving thinking, rationalizing, etc.), the subtle truths of racial difference are wielded as a perverse, bludgeoning tar brush.
What if one race tends to have better visual acuity? Or worse distance running? Or better procedural thinking? Or worse verbal ability? The real purpose behind everything is that we all have a good time, and that can be done totally despite these tendencies. The one thing that fucks it up for everyone is hatred of others.
Racists, quit being so fearful. Indeed, everyone, quit being so fearful. Because in your fear you become something dangerous. If you want to take action against the scary world, if you want to do something to fight the dangerousness, start with yourself.
Crying wolf will get you nowhere... But it sure is funny to watch you run around screaming in terror!!!
Please post more citations on Meowing Nuns.
Here you go! Meowing Nuns.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If I had a nickle for every moron who posts "Citation please" I'd be a fucking millionaire.
Unlike these jackasses, I don't think everyone on Slashdot is posting lies or misconceptions.
I suspect that these imbeciles often do and expect that everyone else does too.
They're often called "Wikitards" because they are taking something that is a normal part of the culture of one place (Wikipedia) and trying to apply it to another (Slashdot) as though it were universal. For the rest, I can speak only for myself. I don't assume anyone is posting lies or misconceptions, but I don't assume they're telling the truth either. If it's important to me, I look it up. If It's not important to me, I entertain the notion without regard for whether it's actually true ("If that's the case, then ..."). It's basic skepticism and I consider it a healthy thing.
It's quite rare that a single individual is in a unique position to provide the only known source of information. That's why I honestly see most of the "[Citation Needed]" memes on Slashdot and it's plain to me the person is too lazy to do their own research. It's almost always something that could easily be Googled. If using Google is difficult for the person, they'd be better off improving their basic research skills instead of asking someone else to spoonfeed information to them. That's because even if the requested citation IS provided, there is such a thing as confirmation bias. The person providing a citation might have ignored the ten other relevant citations that say something different. There's no substitute for not being lazy.
Additionally, lots of people start with good data and then use incorrect argumentation to come to invalid conclusions. Therefore, for any non-trivial issue, good citations alone are not enough to determine the validity of a position. The couple of minutes with Google that the "[Citation Please]" folks are trying so hard to avoid to avoid is only a small part of the overall process of determining truth. That is again why I think it's about having someone else do your legwork for you and not about a genuine concern for the quality of information.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Up until last year, my parents had a record (33) of the entire broadcast.
And you never took a few minutes to digitize it, not even a speaker-to-mic rip. >:|
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
sort of a streisand effect if you look at it right. he's trying to shift the blame away from himself and is stepping into the spotlight as a result. but the error is so obvious that near 100% of the observers realize who the fool is.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
1. Is April Fool's day even a tradition in Jordan?
2. And if communications where taken out isn't it possible that a newspaper would be the only source?
Yes to you and I it is all very unlikely but considering how many stupid things I see on Slashdot everyday it only seems about average for the human condition.
Now the suing part is as stupid as that idiot town controller that threatened CentOS but the initial reaction I would put as only average.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The Mecury Theater show at the time never had commercial breaks, so even that wasn't that exceptional. Although I could see it leading to some confusion if you were just spinning through the dial.
There's a second component to the urban legend. That Welles himself was perpetrating a hoax. That he was trying to 'punk' the audience. That he didn't provide an explanation at the beginning of the show. That there weren't commercials throughout the week advertising Mercury Theater's special Halloween performance of War of the Worlds. He did and there were.
Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?
They are called UAVs, and we want them back.
Uh, yeah. Again, citation needed.
Frenchmen are a bunch of beret wearing, pea-balled wino weenies who spit on American flags. French women are slutty goddess incarnates who seduce every man on the street.
We're a bunch of elephant sized fat asses who smash McD BigMacs into our triple chinned faces.
They're all convicts.
All the gents wear top hats, walk around with boards up their ass and sip tea. The ladies wear huge foofy dresses and ride in horse drawn carriages while sipping tea.
My initial post was simply a quick response (in hind site, I should have cited a couple of sources). Seeing the parent marked as "insightful" is disturbing (though there are some accuracies).
With regard to the final comments, Jordan is noted as having a very high level of literacy and a high level of post-secondary education (including on-going research institutions). See Education in Jordan.
Anecdotally, the medical system is also superb with great focus on care and proper surgical method. No problems with the loss of appendix yet.
Don't make advanced jokes in primitive countries.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Especially if you turn in in the middle of the broadcast. You may hear what sounds like a newscaster discussing military defensive actions in New Jersey, which would would definitely be unnerving.
Hehe, Kinda sounds like the "War of the Worlds" scare. Or at least what I've heard of it from urban myth. But I digress, that mayor is an idiot, and diserves to be laughed out of office. But I wouldn't hold my breath expecting this to happen, remember the idiot City of Boston Police/Government, running around blowing up LED signs of Cartoon Network Characters? Somehow those idiots managed to turn that debacle around and successfully threaten CN (Turner) & the advertisers. I even think they continued on to start blowing up road usage meters, placed by their own road department!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_bomb_scare
I think the one you're looking for is
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog-- the procedure kills both. - Mark Twain
Ya, that's like saying some kind of investigation into the war in Iraq could possibly show that the evidence for the war was faulty. Don't be absurd.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
is a Jordanian version of Ray Nagin?
Not hard to believe considering people think that Fox News is actually "news."
The voice overs did no good for people who tuned in in between, heard what appeared to be news, and panicked, which is exactly what quite a few people did. My mother heard that broadcast.
Boston invaded by mooninites!
I can sort of understand the reaction if it was a radio or television broadcast that you walked into in the middle of it. In that case it's something that's occurring NOW and might necessitate an immediate reaction, whether over the top or not.
However, when you're reading this in a newspaper that was likely printed the night before, the question of "wouldn't I as the head of the local government have heard about this before it ended up on my front doorstep?" should have entered his mind.
Why is this modded insightful? The information was from "a trusted channel"? Are you kidding me? So government (even if we're talking municiple) should be making decisions based on newspaper articles now?
It was also and age when people implicitly trusted the media--almost as if 90% of the population back then was like the 10% today that believes every claim they see on TV or receive via email.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Orson Welles, really? How was he tied to War of the Worlds? Am I the only one here who ever read H.G. Wells? I mean, I assume that's who everyone means...?