Fun thoughts on the evolution of alien civilizations/technology

While channel surfing last night I came across Star Trek the Next Generation, in particular the episode "First Contact" (no not the Star Trek movie with the same name) where Capt. Picard and his crew are getting ready to initialize first contact with a culture about to achieve warp travel.

For some reason this episode got me wondering how an alien civilization would evolve technologically. My main thought was whether or not they would potentially go through the same stages of technology we did, or whether they'd skip over some, or discover electricity and in a manner of decades make it into space. Or perhaps they might venture into completely different branches of technology.

For example, steam, which really had a lot more potential then we really explored in my opinion. Sure a lot of it was powered by coal when we were using it originally, but I'm other heat sources could be used. Who knows, as we speak there could be steampunk aliens marauding through the galaxy.

There is of course also a chance some might go down some more bizarre route, like biotechnology. Maybe it would even be technology, but the way they evolved physically. The best comparison would be the Xenomorphs from the Aliens movie series, or the Zerg from Starcraft, the later being the best example.

Anyways...I'm really just wading in the shallows here because there is more then likely an infinite variety of ways in which an alien civilization could evolve technologically, making it to hard to think about in this heat. Later.

A new look at an old book: The Bible, Annunaki, and gods, oh my!

I'm currently attempting to read my way through the entirety of that ancient tome known as the Bible (currently in the book Numbers) just for the sake of it. I'm actually finding it quite entertaining, especially after having read The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin, which is causing me to look at it (the Bible) from a slightly different angle. There are also some oddities in the Old Testament, particularly in Genesis and Exodus that lead me to believe God was/is a being with a physical form and no, I don't mean Jesus.

From the start you get the idea that God was literally here on Earth appearing in person to people (which John claims is impossible in the New Testament by the way). You can hear him walking through the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve saw him. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and a few others I haven't mentioned saw him. He also bizarrely appears in a "meeting tent" to Moses in a couple books of the Bible. Whilst God is in the tent, there is a cloud of smoke and fire around it as well.

Now, why if God is omnipotent/omnipresent, does he need to appear in a meeting tent? Also why the smoke and fire around the tent? It would seem to me that while he should be able to just appear/speak to whoever he wants to without need of a tent to hide his presence; simply making himself visible and heard only to the ones he wants his presence known to without having to put on a big show.

There also seems to be many references to the existence of multiple gods in the Old Testament (here's a really interesting post on someones blog, I found about this), ones where God (well technically the Lord as the Christian versions of the OT calls him. I really want to get a copy of the OT in english, but with the Hebrew words for God/gods remaining in their orignal state so I can better understand the possible contexts) recognizes the apparent esistence of these other gods. It's even mentioned that he passes judement on them.

For some reason I can't help, but wonder if these "other gods" are possibly related to the Annunaki/Nefilim of Sumerian myth, even possibly being the aliens Zecharia Sitchin proposes them to be. With them basically pretending to be gods, perhaps the real God (the Annunaki did believe in a creator from what I understand) decided to come into the picture and correct a mess the Annunaki started.

I think there is a bigger picture in all of this that is slowly coming together the more I read. Perhaps I ought to dig more into some of the other religions that were around at the same time Judaism was the big shot monotheistic one. In particular I want to get a hold of some books on Sumerian/Babylonian myth that are not skewed in Zecharia Sitchin's (although I do want some more books of his. I feel some of his research is more credible then many give him credit for) ideas, and also some on Zoroastrianism, which shared many of the same concepts with Judaism.

Oddly, I don't fully know why I'm so interested in this, but I have an urge, almost a need to keep digging into it. Things seem to get more strange the farther I dig to, so I think that puts it right up my alley. Who knows, perhaps I wind up so close to the truth that I go mad in all to Lovecraftian manner, which would be kind of cool. Although I'd feel sorry for my family, since I'm crazy enough as it is.

The Moon Part 3: Moon Madness and the Great Hoax

Werewolves are a staple of medieval folklore and horror movies, but while there may not be any real ones running around (although there could be, but that's another post) during the full Moon, there are reasons to wonder if the full Moon does have an effect on mankind. After all, why wouldn't it? It already affects the tides of our oceans and inspires dogs, wolfs, and coyotes to howl, so why wouldn't it affect humans?

It has been reported by many people that things tend to go nuttier during full Moons. For instance, crime rates have been said to go up, hospital/ER visits increase (as one of my regular readers, Autumnforest of Ghost Hunting Theories, has noticed at her job), and sometimes physical and mental effects have been reported. Even cultures in the past seem to have recognized the possible effects of the full Moon on people. The terms lunacy and lunatic (both of which basically mean crazy) come from the name of the Roman Moon goddess, Luna.

Most people however, seem to pass it off as nothing, but hogwash, just like some seem to pass off the idea that we've been to the Moon as hogwash. That's right, there are those who believe that the Moon landing which happened on this day 40 years ago (7-20-69) is nothing, but a big hoax by the US government.

Why would anyone believe that? Well there are multiple reasons, but the main reason, for lack of a better term is that many feel the footage of the landings are to good to be true. They base this all on evidence that makes sense, but at the same time may only be circumstantial. One of the main pieces of evidence seems to be the flag that is planted on the first landing, which seems to wave in the wind when no wind is present on the Moon, but is however probably nothing more then an effect of the way it is mounted. Other pieces of evidence are also little details like the lighting and bizarre oddities noticed in some pictures like a famous shot that shows what appears to be the letter C on two rocks, which has led some to claim they are props on a stage.

There are also various levels of Moon landing hoax theories. Some say that we did touch down, but only once, maybe twice (possibly due to the aliens mentioned in the last Moon post) and then staged the rest. Others feel we only sent unmanned objects there and staged the manned flights. Overall the Moon landing hoax theories get very complicated and sometimes confusing.

My opinion on all this however is that we indeed went there, at least once. Why? Well there is a famous piece of footage where Buzz Aldrin, well I'll let the video speak for itself:



Now if Buzz didn't walk on the Moon, then why would he defend that he did with such force? To me that clearly shows he went to the Moon and perhaps maybe the guy on the other end of the punch now feels the same way.

Sources and Further Reading:
Moon Landing Hoax - Tinwiki
Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Conspiracy Theories - Wikipedia
Moon Landing Hoax Top 10 Reasons

Back from the trip

Back from the camping trip, but it was almost at the expense of our dog. Oscar, our chihuahua decided to take off on the dog sitter into acres of blueberry bushes just before my family made it out of town. No one could find him for hours. He came back to the dog sitters later that night however and all is well.

Other then that, those of you who wished my family and I a fun trip (thanks by the way!) will be glad to know it was. Got some fun pictures, (one I'm gonna use to make a new logo for the blog), spent time with some relatives we don't see to often, and most fun of all was playing in the water with the kids!

Anyways, after a bit more rest today I think I'll be up and blogging again by tonight, so stay tuned!

Gonna be roughing it for a few days

Gonna be going camping as of tomorrow (7-17-09) with my mother in law's side of the family meaning I'll have no internet. Also I think my wife and I are the only one with a tent amongst a bunch of RVs on that side, so compared to them we'll be roughing it for sure.

Anyways, I'll be back Sunday the 19th and expect the rest of my Moon posts then.

The Moon Part 2: Aliens?

One of the many things humanity wondered when we ventured into space is whether or not we'll run into aliens in our own backyard (meaning Earth's orbit). This was also of course one of the many things people were wondering about when we first landed on the Moon; that perhaps some other civilization was there waiting for us.

Well, that fateful day when we landed on our closest cosmic neighbor came and went with the famous line: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", but no aliens. Or at least so we thought. During that day there were a few transmissions that were possibly blocked from the people at home on Earth, except for those who had the wonder called amateur or ham radio (Which was truly wondrous and still is. Not only can you talk around the world for just the cost of a license, but you can also communicate with astronauts in space with it. I remember my Dad letting me say hi to one one time when I was a wee lad back in Colorado. Heck ham radio and CB were basically the cell phones of the past, only better then the crappy real cell phones from a decade or so ago) which were possibly able to listen in and catch what TV viewers could not hear.
According to some people who had access to that technology, this was piece of what was heard from one of the Apollo 11 astronauts:

"These "Babies" are huge, Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there, lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!"

Those lines, if true, are the only proof we'd ever need for the existence of another civilization in our solar system. Unfortunately it's not easy to prove, and despite numerous astronauts (Even some of those who have been on the Moon) coming forward and saying aliens exist most people don't believe it. Oh, and in case you were wondering why we only went six times to the Moon, according to an unverified report, it may have been because we were warned off by the aliens there.

Now one of my first thoughts when I think of the possibility of an alien base being on the Moon is "Surely some amateur astronomers would have seen it by now." however, as I mentioned in my last post, we can only see one side of the Moon from Earth. That leaves one whole side that we don't get to observe from our Earth based telescopes. Of course we have satellite pics of it now though, but according to some (like what is mentioned on this page I found) NASA may have purposely airbrushed evidence of Moon bases or other artifacts from Moon photos. Unfortunately though, unless NASA comes clean, I don't think we'll ever know what's real regarding these stories. So I suggest we cross our fingers and hope that one day the truth is finally revealed.

I only have one source since the other two sources I found were the same article found there. Kind of funky if you ask me:

Alien Presence on the Moon - UFO Casebook

The Moon Part 1

Our closest celestial neighbor excepting a bunch of man made satellites, space junk, some small space faring rocks (meteors/asteroids ya swabs) , and the International Space Station, is of course the Moon. It's big, white (well whitish) , riddled in potholes, I mean craters, and awe inspiring, or at least it's held our attention ever since humans looked up at the sky and said "Oooooo!" On the technical side, it's about 384,403km (about 238,857 miles) away from the Earth and orbits us once every 27.3 days, and is 3,474km (about 2159 miles) in diameter.

Due to it's orbit and spin pattern, the moon keeps one side to us (the side we don't see is often called the dark or far side) at all times. The result is that many people wondered what was on the other side, sparking claims of everything from aliens to secret military bases. Eventually someone managed to get a photo of the "darkside" of the Moon (I believe it was the Russians) and revealed, well nothing. That's right, nothing. There is absolutely nothing on the other side of the Moon. In fact, just take a look for yourself (just below this paragraph) and you'll see how much more boring the other side is compared to the side we see all the time.

You see nothing! It's craters aren't nearly as big and there are no secret moon bases, or at least not when the photo was taken. Of course you could also say that NASA airbrushed signs of bases or alien presences from it, but that's another post involving more then just the moon. However, since you all come here not to hear me ramble about how boring the darkside of the Moon is, I'll let you in on a bit of a secret, well sort of. The Moon might be hollow!

Besides Earth we have seismic detection instruments (things to detect earthquakes and other events large enough to rumble the Earth) in place on one other object in our solar system. If you haven't guessed it's the Moon by now, I suggest you go back to the top of the post and read everything again, since clearly you're not paying attention. Anyways, after the Apollo XII astronauts planted the seismometers and left, the stage that lifted them off the Moon fell back to the lunar surface setting off the seismometers for over an hour. This result was something no one had expected.

Another piece of evidence used in promoting the Hollow Moon theory is the Moon's own density, which on average is over 60% less dense then the Earth. That basically means that despite how big it looks, it's actually incredibly light for it's size, and in all honesty I always picture it as being one gigantic piece of basalt, which makes me wonder if it'd float in water, but it also is a potential sign that it's hollow(you know, not hollow=heavy, hollow=light, that sort of reasoning).

Anywho, that's it really, well asides from some people thinking that since it's possibly hollow, it might be artificial. That however brings up the question of who put it there and for what purpose, and whether or not it violates the copyright of one George Lucas, but that's another post and until then, I'm going to just go about assuming it's just a big basalt like space rock that can float in water, and not the Death Star.

Sources and Further Reading:
Hollow Moon - Wikipedia
Moon - Wikipedia
Hollow Moon - Tinwiki

The Moon: Intro

At the work the other day one of my coworkers got on the subject of the Moon Landing's 40th anniversary coming up on the 20th. I said "Oh that's cool." and then next thing I know she shouts back "We never went to the moon! It's a bunch of crap." and her and one of my coworkers went on about some of the evidence that people use to try and prove it never happened.

So it got me thinking and I decided that in honor of the 40th anniversary of this great, or possibly not so great event in human history, I'll do a series of posts on the Moon. They'll revolve around various theories that are out there about it such as aliens watching the astronauts there, the Moon being hollow, and even the possibility that the whole landing was faked just to prove ourselves to the Soviets.

Anyways, tomorrow I shall post the true introduction to what the Moon is and maybe get into some of it's oddball features. In the meantime I leave you with this classic image of from an old silent film.

Belated 4th of July post: Reagan speech 9-21-87

Well two days ago us citizens of the United States of America celebrated the 233rd anniversary of our independence. July 4th is also a day that brings to mind of a movie that shares the US's name for that holiday, one in which aliens invade Earth, but are later beaten on the 4th of July. I of course am talking about Independence Day (aka ID4).

Probably one of the most memorable scenes in that movie is the one where the president of the US, played by Bill Pullman, gives a speech that tries to be on par with the one Roosevelt gave after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. However, since ID4 has to do with aliens, it brings to mind a very different speech given by President Ronald Reagan on September 21, 1987.



If you were unable to watch the embedded video, Reagan basically says that the world almost needs an alien threat from outside of our world to make humanity realize that we need to work together and forget about our differences. The scary things is that he is almost right, but the bigger question is though; would it really unite us?

In all honesty I have to say I don't know. It's hard to tell how humanity would react with all of our differences of opinion and everything. Also I'm sure it would depend on how much of our communications are intact world wide in the event of an alien invasion, as well as how the invasion goes down. After all, an alien menace could very well choose to ally itself with willing nations of their choosing, potentially turning humanity against one another.

Perhaps another question raised by all this is whether or not Reagan knew of such a threat. Many people claim that the presidents or at least some of them have been privy to secret UFO/Alien knowledge. Some even think that President Eisenhower met with aliens in 1954. Of course the other possibility is that a couple of UFO sightings of Reagan's turned him into a bit of a UFO romantic, dreaming of some form of alien contact whether peaceful or violent.

Perhaps we'll never fully know, but either way, to all my US readers out there, I hope you all had fun this past 4th of July, and for all you others, I hope you had a bit of enjoyment from reading this post.