Oregon is now well on it's way into summer with the daily temperatures now reaching into the mid 80s. Now, ordinarily that doesn't bug me one bit, but here in my section of Oregon it gets humid and uncomfortable during the summer months, only getting worse as they drag on. Bizarrely this time of year in Oregon, everyone loves. They spend all winter complaining about the rain, or in the case of this last one, the snow, but love it when they are able to go outdoors without coats or umbrellas during the summer. However, this is accompanied by "Oh it's such a nice day, but to hot." which in my opinion completely defeats the concept of "Nice day." All that pales in comparison though to what happened in the early months of 2004 in Caronia, Italy, where for no apparent everyday items would catch fire.
At first they were electrical items and many began to search for reasons, such as power surges. However the phenomenon, as reported by some witnesses, even affected items that were not plugged into walls, including unplugged items, battery operated items, and possibly even standard non-electrical furniture.
Throwing another twist into it all cars and cell phones began having issues as well. In particular, car alarms would go off for no reason, or as reported in one case, the engine turned on when all the doors were locked and no one was in it. And all incidents ranging from the fires to the unusual car and phone behavior only seemed to occur when people were present to witness it.
So what was happening there in Caronia? No one really knows. Many blamed it on supernatural causes, such as demons or aliens. Others thought some bizarre natural phenomenon such as electric charges released from the Earth. And some thought someone was playing a game with Tesla style inventions. Till this day however no satisfactory answer has been found.
Sources and Further Reading:
Investigating Mysterious Fires in Italy - Unknown Country
Spontaneous Fires Break Out in Italy UPDATE: It Happened Before - Unknown Country
Caronia - Wikipedia
The mysterious fires of Canneto Di Caronia - Everything2
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
What will happen if SETI has found something?
SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program may have found something, and the news is beginning to spread it's way across the infoweb.
It seems that a possible laser pulse signal has been found by an astrophysicist in Australia. Like the famous wow signal however, it's only been detected once, but that was enough to the scientist double checking everything and searching for a repeat of the signal. They need to double check and make sure it's not like a glitch, space noise, or some unknown space phenomenon, so don't get your hopes up that SETI has actually found ET (that is assuming of course that ET hasn't already found us.).
Let's assume for a second however, that this is indeed the signal that all the world has been waiting for. What does it mean for mankind?
One of the most popular ideas is that it will crush most modern religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones. Unfortunately it probably would due to the fact most proprietors of those faiths don't realize that there is nothing making ET incompatible with their religions. Overall the idea of a God and aliens is completetly compatible, it's just humanity's interpretation of religion that makes in uncompatible.
On the technological side of things, will we be able to interpret a signal from an alien species? Yet alone one that has a completely alien form of communication or language? After all, we'd have nothing to compare it to, that is assuming that the species communicates in a vocal way like we do. For all we know, they could squeak, click, or even fart to communicate.
The one obvious thing is that we will not be able to communicate back and forth with them, even if they are capable of doing so (as they point out in the article as well). Signals take hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years to travel between galaxies and stars. That also means that even if we could communicate back with them, they might not even be there when our return signal reaches their planet.
Or picture this; what if their signal was the one and only that they could send in a vain hope of getting help from another species as some disaster that was about to destroy their planet, or wipe out life on it? Wouldn't that be an ironic twist?
Finally, for those of us who believe in UFOs, would this get us any more credability? Doubtful in my opinion, unless of course this whole signal thing is a setup to release advanced UFO tech.
Imagine that the government has had ongoing communications with ET for years through years. If Roswell or any other UFO crash was indeed alien or if Eisenhower did meet with aliens during his term, we could be have been releasing alien tech for decades as some have theorized. And if the world's governments wanted to just jump the gun and go as high tech as possible while skipping generations of technology, why not claim to have found an alien signal? After all, if they've been covering up as many have assumed, they could claim they interpreted this signal SETI picked up and say it was instructions for advanced technology from "peaceful space brothers".
Anyways, those are my thoughts on this...what are yours?
It seems that a possible laser pulse signal has been found by an astrophysicist in Australia. Like the famous wow signal however, it's only been detected once, but that was enough to the scientist double checking everything and searching for a repeat of the signal. They need to double check and make sure it's not like a glitch, space noise, or some unknown space phenomenon, so don't get your hopes up that SETI has actually found ET (that is assuming of course that ET hasn't already found us.).
Let's assume for a second however, that this is indeed the signal that all the world has been waiting for. What does it mean for mankind?
One of the most popular ideas is that it will crush most modern religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones. Unfortunately it probably would due to the fact most proprietors of those faiths don't realize that there is nothing making ET incompatible with their religions. Overall the idea of a God and aliens is completetly compatible, it's just humanity's interpretation of religion that makes in uncompatible.
On the technological side of things, will we be able to interpret a signal from an alien species? Yet alone one that has a completely alien form of communication or language? After all, we'd have nothing to compare it to, that is assuming that the species communicates in a vocal way like we do. For all we know, they could squeak, click, or even fart to communicate.
The one obvious thing is that we will not be able to communicate back and forth with them, even if they are capable of doing so (as they point out in the article as well). Signals take hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years to travel between galaxies and stars. That also means that even if we could communicate back with them, they might not even be there when our return signal reaches their planet.
Or picture this; what if their signal was the one and only that they could send in a vain hope of getting help from another species as some disaster that was about to destroy their planet, or wipe out life on it? Wouldn't that be an ironic twist?
Finally, for those of us who believe in UFOs, would this get us any more credability? Doubtful in my opinion, unless of course this whole signal thing is a setup to release advanced UFO tech.
Imagine that the government has had ongoing communications with ET for years through years. If Roswell or any other UFO crash was indeed alien or if Eisenhower did meet with aliens during his term, we could be have been releasing alien tech for decades as some have theorized. And if the world's governments wanted to just jump the gun and go as high tech as possible while skipping generations of technology, why not claim to have found an alien signal? After all, if they've been covering up as many have assumed, they could claim they interpreted this signal SETI picked up and say it was instructions for advanced technology from "peaceful space brothers".
Anyways, those are my thoughts on this...what are yours?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Atmospheric Beasts
I was checking out a post today at the blog Whales in Space (the name reminds me of the scene from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where a missile is turned into a sperm whale in the atmosphere of a planet, only to gain consciousness before it plummets to it's doom.) about a UFO that looked like a jellyfish that was seen in the UK, when suddenly I felt a massive shock inside my brain. Out of nowhere, a memory appeared, and I found myself thinking about giant jellyfish and other critters flying through the air, atmospheric beasts, or what I'll call atmo beasts for short.
Now the idea of atmo beasts has really been around quite awhile. Basically, their supposed to be large, somewhat normal looking animals, that just happen to be lighter then air. That of course means they can float, which they're able to achieve without any rum, and actually makes them seem quite odd, because well jellyfish are only supposed to be able to float in water. Bizarrely though, people in the past have reported such things.
An even freakier form of atmospheric beast appeared in Crawfordsville, Indiana in September of 1891. The creature was seen on two different days, and was seen by hundreds on the second one. Described as being 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, and propelling itself with sets of flippers, the image of an oriental style dragon, is almost conjured up.
So do such creatures exist in the upper atsmospehere of our planet? Who knows. You'd think with all the planes flying around, these things would be seen regulary. Of course seeing as you can't see into clouds, yet alone while in one (what do you think fog is?) perhaps they live in there. Or perhaps they're to blame for many UFOs that are seen as Ivan T. Sanderson, a famous researcher of the bizzare, theorized.
Sources and Further Reading:
The Cryptid Zoo: Atmospheric Beasts
Subversive Element: The Crawfordsville Monster
The Crawfordsville Monster - Wikipedia
Now the idea of atmo beasts has really been around quite awhile. Basically, their supposed to be large, somewhat normal looking animals, that just happen to be lighter then air. That of course means they can float, which they're able to achieve without any rum, and actually makes them seem quite odd, because well jellyfish are only supposed to be able to float in water. Bizarrely though, people in the past have reported such things.
An even freakier form of atmospheric beast appeared in Crawfordsville, Indiana in September of 1891. The creature was seen on two different days, and was seen by hundreds on the second one. Described as being 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, and propelling itself with sets of flippers, the image of an oriental style dragon, is almost conjured up.
So do such creatures exist in the upper atsmospehere of our planet? Who knows. You'd think with all the planes flying around, these things would be seen regulary. Of course seeing as you can't see into clouds, yet alone while in one (what do you think fog is?) perhaps they live in there. Or perhaps they're to blame for many UFOs that are seen as Ivan T. Sanderson, a famous researcher of the bizzare, theorized.
Sources and Further Reading:
The Cryptid Zoo: Atmospheric Beasts
Subversive Element: The Crawfordsville Monster
The Crawfordsville Monster - Wikipedia
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Nephilim and Neanderthals
While browsing through my favorite blogs the other day, I came across a post over at The Gralien Report about none other then the Nephilim (who I also posted about just recently). Micah (the mind behind The Gralien Report) draws on some inspiration from a post by his friend Nick Redfern and the novel The Descent by Jeff Long and ponders over the possibility of the Nephilim being a species of proto-human. Basically an unknown or primitive species of human.
While reading his post a memory was sparked something I read in the book The Eaters of the Dead (also known as The 13th Warrior) by Michael Crichton. In A Factual Not on Eaters of the Dead (an essay written in 1992 that follows the story) Michael talks about how the story itself came to be, and about the various fictional and nonfictional aspects put into the story.
Now the most interesting part mentioned in his essay, is a segment where he mentions the Wendol (the villains of the story) are a relict group of Neanderthals that survived until the Vikings in the story wiped them out a thousand years ago. He also mentions, that in the decades since he originally wrote Eaters of the Dead (first published in the mid 1970s) some studies done had suggested that perhaps such relict groups Neanderthals may indeed have existed in remote locations. Could such groups of Neanderthals have been the Nephilim?
Not only could they count as being “proto-humans” (albeit not as tall) as Micah puts it, but this very possibility was also gone over in an episode of The Naked Archaeologist called “The Giants of Genesis”. Simcha Jacobovici, the shows host, concludes that the Nephilim are not giants as so many people believe, but perhaps a form of man believed to have been “soulless” (proposed to be Neanderthals in the episode) by the writer of Genesis, and goes to a cave system that shows that perhaps modern humans and Neanderthals lived together. Later in the episode some even more shocking evidence is presented, hinting at the possibility that humans and Neanderthals even mated and gave rise to what may have become the Nephilim in Genesis.
While reading his post a memory was sparked something I read in the book The Eaters of the Dead (also known as The 13th Warrior) by Michael Crichton. In A Factual Not on Eaters of the Dead (an essay written in 1992 that follows the story) Michael talks about how the story itself came to be, and about the various fictional and nonfictional aspects put into the story.
Now the most interesting part mentioned in his essay, is a segment where he mentions the Wendol (the villains of the story) are a relict group of Neanderthals that survived until the Vikings in the story wiped them out a thousand years ago. He also mentions, that in the decades since he originally wrote Eaters of the Dead (first published in the mid 1970s) some studies done had suggested that perhaps such relict groups Neanderthals may indeed have existed in remote locations. Could such groups of Neanderthals have been the Nephilim?
Not only could they count as being “proto-humans” (albeit not as tall) as Micah puts it, but this very possibility was also gone over in an episode of The Naked Archaeologist called “The Giants of Genesis”. Simcha Jacobovici, the shows host, concludes that the Nephilim are not giants as so many people believe, but perhaps a form of man believed to have been “soulless” (proposed to be Neanderthals in the episode) by the writer of Genesis, and goes to a cave system that shows that perhaps modern humans and Neanderthals lived together. Later in the episode some even more shocking evidence is presented, hinting at the possibility that humans and Neanderthals even mated and gave rise to what may have become the Nephilim in Genesis.
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