Slashdot Mirror
The Story of My As-Yet-Unverified Impact Crater
tetrahedrassface writes "When I was very young, my dad took me on a trip to his parents' farm. He wanted to show me 'The Crater.' We walked a long way through second generation hardwoods and finally stood on the rim of a hole that has no equal in this area. As I grew up, I became more interested in The Crater, and would always tell friends about it. It is roughly 1,200 feet across and 120 feet deep, and has a strange vibe about it. When you walk up to it, you feel like something really big happened here. Either the mother of all caves is down there, or a large object smashed into this place a long, long time ago. I bought aerial photos when I was twelve and later sent images from GIS to a geologist at a local university. He pretty much laughed me out of his office, saying that it was a sinkhole. He did wish me luck, however. It may be sinkhole. Who knows? Last week I borrowed a metal detector and went poking around, and have found the strangest shrapnel pieces I have ever seen. They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dish-washing detergent. My second trip today yielded lots of strange new pieces of metal, and hopefully, one day the truth will be known. Backyard science is so much fun. And who knows; if it is indeed a cave, maybe Cerberus resides there."
Why does this remind so much of The Story of Barbie Head Archeology...
How about taking a bit down to the geology department at the local university? Find out what the crater actually is. It could be important :)
You might be right at most of your points but there is no need to talk an enthusiastic person down like that. I for one am glad that people who haven't even studied this matter take interest in their local area and try to find out what it actually is.
I agree though that you should always go for the most logical assumption first.
Cut the stone with angle grinder, polish the cut, show us the picture. Meteorites have quite distinctive texture.
Also try getting some shavings from the inside of the lump and heating them strongly in a flame (a small blowtorch is ideal for this). The color of flame created will indicate what metals/metal ions are involved (OK, cruder than using a spectroscope, but easy to do with stuff that many people have lying around).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Why are you using abusive language to a complete stranger, just because he doesn't know as much geology and chemistry as you do? Perhaps you should think about attending a course on anger management.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
But that's the thing! He's not taking an interest! He's literally in the process of making up an urban legend.
I mean the parts are all there - "I've known about a place where weird stuff happens since I was a kid. I went to a well-established authority figure and he laughed me out of his office! Then I went back to the place where weird things happen and I found all sorts of strange artifacts! Oh my gosh! Tickets are $5 a person."
Seriously, give this guy another couple of years and he'll have found ancient Mayan ruins (nevermind the fact that the Mayans never came up here) complete with alien doohickies.
It's like this: taking an interest is looking at what's actually there. This guy is clearly only looking at what he wants to see. The overblown, sensationalist Slashdot summary is just a symptom of underlying delusions of mystery, and honestly fits perfectly with the generic urban legend narrative.
In fact, I bet you anything the geologist did absolutely nothing even remotely like laughing the poster out of his office - the poster e-mailed the geologist some pictures; physically being inside someone's office is a prerequisite for being laughed out of it, and honestly it doesn't work that at all if you interpret the sentence as a metaphor (I mean how do you know the geologist was laughing at you in an e-mail? Is it perhaps because at some level you know that your claims are, in and of themselves, laughable?). However, that phrase fit the story so perfectly we're expected to overlook this detail.
> there is no need to talk an enthusiastic person down like that
Wish I could pass some of my users on to you. They're really enthusiastic about things, I can tell you. Almost enough to make up for their utter lack of understanding or their complete inability to understand even basic concepts.
Sometimes a good mental kicking is the best you can do for them, not to mention yourself.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
(Apparently) unlike you, the submitter acknowledges the possibility of being wrong, and still has a childlike fascination for the things we all know too much about to be inspired by. Also, we have yet to know what was meant by "mailed" and whether or not a subsequent office visit took place. Your post seems to reveal more about your own assumptions than the submitter's.
Does it not rain there?
Surely if the metals reacted to water they would have had the chance by now.
Eschew Obfuscation