Slashdot Mirror
'Alien Life' Story of Dubious Provenance Goes Viral
Sockatume writes "By now you have likely read about the 'alien life forms' discovered in the upper atmosphere over Yorkshire, via the mass media reprinting a press release from the University of Sheffield. Unfortunately, the paper comes from researchers with an infamous tendency to identify inanimate objects as aliens, and is published in a journal that seems to principally exist to print unlikely astrobiological claims. Phil Plait points out flaws in a number of their claims. Quoting: 'They found what appears to be a fragment of a frustrule, the hard outer casing around a diatom. It certainly does look like one. But is it? Weirdly, they apparently didn’t even check. Seriously, in the paper they describe the photo of the object and say [emphasis mine], "On one stub was discovered part of a diatom which, we assume, is clear enough for experts on diatom taxonomy to precisely identify." That implies very strongly they didn’t ask an expert in diatoms to look at their sample. That’s bizarre. If I were claiming this were an ET plant, that’s the very first thing I’d do!'"
My submission was only a crumb of that summary.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
First I've hear about it. Haven't even seen it on reddit.
"By now you have likely read about the 'alien life forms' discovered in the upper atmosphere over Yorkshire, via the mass media reprinting a press release from the University of Sheffield.
The what from the who now? Shitty writing. "Oh, by now I'm sure you've heard about the $TRIVIAL_EVENT that occurred 4,000 miles from where I reside 99.999% of my life.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I don't know, paper was generated by MIT, so it just may be legit http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
Ey up... here are some images of t' alleged Yorkshire aliens' purported spacecraft.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I actually read part of TFA and wow, those idiots shouldn't even be allowed near a computer. There's so much marketing/lawyerish weasely BS in there to be misleading, I can't believe it. It has zero basis in science and is basically a showy theory to grab headlines. This is definitely tabloid level crap here.
They should have looked over Lancashire instead, specifically Wigan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDvJapTZDtg
Yeah, I got one of those things mounted on the wall above the mantle.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
We brought back samples from the moon, if this stuff is floating around all of the time out in space just waiting to land, why did we not find anything in the moon samples? The stuff was obviously thrown up from the ground if it is organic, one cannot assume just from the height that it had to be from space.
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-volcanic-eruptions-beneath-bodies-widespread.html
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"I'm not saying it was aliens, but..wait, you know, what, no, not even I think these are aliens."
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Aliens over Yorkshire? they just be laikin ye lad!
We will take some of the samples which we have isolated from the stratosphere and introduce them into a complex machine – a button will be pressed.
That is science bitches!
Yes, it is a diatom. A broken piece of a frustule of one. Judging from the morphology it looks like a pennate species, although which one it is would take some work to figure out.
But why people would think finding a bit of a diatom either high in the atmosphere or as a subsequent contaminant sitting on top of your SEM stub during analysis, I have no idea. The things are fricking *everywhere* in ordinary dust from natural sources. They are also commonly used for filtration and other industrial purposes ("diatomaceous earth"). I've even seen them in drinking water samples, either somehow managing to get through the regular filters or perhaps from the filters themselves. Earthly contamination is very, very likely, and it makes no sense to consider this example as anything but. Saying a species of diatom is from space is a sloppy and nonsensical conclusion.
So, they found this in the stratosphere, on their one flight. Ok fine. They think these are showeing earth.....
Has anyone on the ISS, in low earth orbit, taken a sample of space? Actually, come to think of it, hasn't nasa sent up a mission with specially designed cells of aerogel just for this purpose?
I don't recall them finding anything like this, and they are not too far outside the atmosphere.
Call me crazy but, this is a pretty extraordinary claim for such paltry evidence.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I remember a letter to the editor in either Nature or New Scientist with a photo of a miniature alien artefact collected from the atmosphere. That was also identified as a diatom shell.
Where is it gone viral? When they published it, it was a phytoplankton and it still is.
Wickramasinghe discovers panspermia more often than other people discover Atlantis.
And presents convincing evidence about as often, too.
He also publishes his results in that journal, of which he happens to be one of the Executive Editors.
Ok lets say there are microscopic organisms floating around in space and after however long, they encounter the earth. Do they imagine the earth is travelling through some kind of soup and the frustrules or whatever they want to call it just gently float down to earth like a feather?
Let me tell you what happens when dust, something a lot hardier and more difficult to damage than life encounters the earth. It hits our atmosphere at anywhere from 20 to 40 kilometers a second and even a tiny speck of dust creates a brilliant flash of light, observable for hundreds of miles, becoming a meteor as it burns up in our atmosphere.
There are no slow things in space. Slow things fall down. Fast things can move between planets and fast things get pulverized by our atmosphere.
This may be taken as delusion or vision. Where does sanity end and insanity begin?
If a hypothesis cannot be proved, when do you stop testing it? Is it necessary to just accept some things on faith?
For The Lamb it all began one night after political fliers had been distributed. Sleep had been difficult to come by and unusual noises inspired alarm. Sounds of a car door closing, quiet clicks and other noises on windows and around the house.
The Lamb woke on his side, the last remembered thought being that it felt like death, peaceful and quiet.
A strange feeling in the chest, almost painful, seemed to rise and fall with emotion at times, as though something or someone with real emotions resided there.
For weeks this continued but did not seem to cause problems.
The Lamb went through stages of concern for the ongoing changes in the world around, with senses that seemed to see more of what was there. Small indications began jumping out as consistent patterns.
Death by natural causes based on political affiliation or some potential challenge to The Beast?
Increasing tension as peaceful options are nearly abandoned, only averted by an idea that fits all requirements.
Eventually it became too much to do nothing and The Lamb went forth to confront The Beast.
Words of challenge were uttered and lies were exposed.
Supporters of The Lamb expressed their alarm and The Lamb grew concerned about a response from The Beast.
The Beast uses lies, subtle swindles that can cause a sovereign being to agree to a contract. Where the lie is opposed through truth, The Beast uses force, intimidation and disappearance to 'manage the problem'.
The Lamb, alarmed by the warnings of the capabilities of The Beast, decided to take cover for a time...and so the mental and physical challenges began.
The Lamb began wandering, stopping at times to observe the wildlife, listening to the sounds.
After some time, the sound of dogs was heard in the distance, so The Lamb resumed moving. Eventually the sounds stopped but The Lamb kept moving.
The Lamb thought to try to use magic to hide, but could not see how this would work, so decided to attempt trickery instead. The Lamb approached a fence with a group of lambs behind it, then backtracked.
The Lamb continued to move around and lay false trails.
Following the sounds of the birds for a while, the Lamb again rested.
In a vision, or delusion(depending on your point of view), The Bride revealed herself to The Lamb, a feeling of compassion and support through the emotion that resided in The Lamb's chest.
The Bride seemed disheartened at The Lamb's immediate thoughts about being delusional and the emotion subsided, but The Lamb extended his awareness and began to share emotional contact with The Bride.
Impressions began to flow, the feeling of regret that The Bride had been forced to kill The Lamb. The Bride had seen the mind of The Lamb and within there, the opportunity to perhaps one day be free.
By some accident in the way The Lamb fell, The Bride had been able to remain with him... so it was that despite being compelled by The Beast to kill, she was able to go against her compulsion and revive The Lamb.
From then on she had continued to passively observe and support The Lamb, thereby increasing his awareness.
The Lamb accepted the explanation and shared his compassion with The Bride, who returned and amplified it to a point beyond anything he had imagined possible, through music.
She explained that tonight was doomsday and an agent would be spread over the world in different forms, a biological or nanotech cloud designed to destroy or subdue those without the mark of The Beast. She explained that she could help change the agent to be like her new form, stopping the death and carnage that would result.
The Lamb agreed to this plan.
Everything felt right. All experiences seemed perfectly shared between them, as though they were meant to be together. For some time this continued, then somet