Moonage Spacedream

Atlantis found ( again )?

This is pretty cool. Not sure what exactly it is tho.

Now, some are speculating it’s Atlantis. Seems a little farfetched to me for several reasons. First of all, let’s look at what Atlantis supposedly looked like:

‘At the centre of the island, near the sea, was a plain, said to be the most beautiful and fertile of all plains, and near the middle of this plain about fifty stades inland a hill of no great size… There were two rings of land and three of sea, like cartwheels, with the island at their centre and equidistant from each other… in the centre was a shrine sacred to Poseidon and Cleito, surrounded by a golden wall through which entry was fobidden…

There was a temple to Poseidon himself, a stade in length, three hundred feet wide, and proportionate in height, though somewhat outlandish in appearance. The outside of it was covered all over in silver, except for the figures on the pediment which were covered with gold… Round the temple were statues of all the original ten kings and their wives, and many others dedicated by kings and private persons belonging to the city and its dominions…’

On each of these ring islands they had built many temples for different gods, and many gardens and areas for exercise, some for men and some for horses… Finally, there were dockyards full of triremes and their equipment, all in good shape…’

Now, the problem we have here immediately is this thing is a rectangle, not circular in any way.  Now, this rectangle in itself is not necessarily a problem, but the size of it is.  It’s 100 miles wide.  In order for it to fit the description Plato gives Atlantis, the circular rings would have to be HUGE.  Probably 1,000 miles wide in order to fit a 100 mile wide object in it.  In simpler terms, it would have to be the size of the United States in width.

It’s an interesting feature for sure.  Now, Google doesn’t substantiate anything it gets.  It gets it straight from the source.  There’s no way that I know of other than contacting the source of the pictures to see if it’s accurate, an anomoly, a corrupted piece of data, or what.  But, if anyone wants to give me a million bucks or so, I’d love to go down there and see what it is!

Heck, no sooner than I post this CNET has to come right behind me and ruin it all:

Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.

Man on Mars?

This pic is creating quite a stir:

It’s kinda small because it’s been cropped from this pic:

I have several initial thoughts on this thing:

For starters, I can NOT believe someone zoomed in so close as to find this anomoly. 

Secondly, noted astronomers and the like have immediately debunked the claim that this is a Martian by asserting that the image is a rock cropping a few feet from the Rover.  In other words, it’s too small to be much of a living thing.  And, since NASA has been unable to find any semblence of life, even microbial, they must be right huh?

Thirdly, it doesn’t look like a Martian, it looks like Bigfoot.

Lastly, this whole scenario gave me deja vu.  Namely, I was gazing into the Mojave a few years ago.  Well, this is what I was doing:

Off in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.  I didn’t stop for the night.  I just thought that must be a rock in the distance.  No life would hang out here, it’s nothing but dirt.  However, seeing the image of the man on Mars, I thought, that pose looks kinda familar.  I mean, how many life forms strike a casual pose in a desert?  So, I, like whoever the very bored person who zoomed in on the Rover pic did, zoomed in a LOT closer on my old pic of the desert rocks right about where the shimmering light was.  This, is what I found:

It all became clear to me then.  The man on Mars is me.  And, more importantly, the reason NASA has found no intelligent life on Mars is because they’re rolling around the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Stephenville Texas UFO?

All over the news is the story of dozens of people in Stephenville, Texas seeing a UFO.  In this day and age of just about every person having a cell phone or gadget with a cheap digital camera in it, did one single person in Stephenville think to get a pic of this thing?  That sure would be real cool to see.  Got one.  See the comments below.  Special kudo to Anthony!

New Dinosaur discovered in Antarctica?

Here’s the headline:

New Dinosaur Discovered in Antarctica

Sounds exciting huh?  I mean, visions of Jurassic Park started racing through my mind. Business ideas started popping up.  Who wouldn’t want to see a dinosaur?  This could be HUGE!

Alas, it’s just sloppy writing.  The dinosaur isn’t all that new, it died about 190 million years ago.  It wasn’t even discovered recently.  The only thing that happened to make it “new” was it was given a name, Glacialisaurus hammeri.  Big whup.

Oh well, guess I’ll cruise some more for the next big discovery.

Well, I am curious about one part of this story that’s tossed aside as an afterthought.  Dinosaurs lived primarily in tropical environments.  If Antarctica ( called Gondwana then even though there were no people there to call it anything ), was that warm 167 million years ago, long before man existed, and, ( follow me here ), it’s very cold now, but man has destroyed it because of global warming, what caused it to be so warm then?  And, if it happened then, why can’t it be happening now?

Yeah, I know, only flat-earthers and UFO believers connect the dots like that.  But, it does seem like a kind of obvious question to ask.  Doesn’t it?

Which came first, Christians or Greeks?

The View is a tv show that has offered the world all kinds of insight into what really goes on in the world.  A while back we learned that fire can’t melt steel.  I need an image here:

Now, we learn that Christians predate Greeks thanks to Sherri Shepherd:

“Keep in mind that probably when [Epicurus] was around, there was no Jesus Christ stuff going on,” said co-host Whoppi Goldberg said.

“They still had Christians back then,” Shepherd interrupted.

“They had gods,” Goldberg said.

“They had Christians,” Shepherd insisted. “And they threw ‘em to the lions.”

“I think this might predate that,” Goldberg said.

“I don’t think anything predated Christians,” Shepherd shot back.

Behar then piped in.

“The Greeks came first, then the Romans, then the Christians,” she said.

“Jesus came first, before then,” Shepherd said.

“No, not on paper,” Goldberg sadly said, meaning the Bible.

Just for chucks and giggles, a timeline of the great civilizations prior to the assent of Christianity:

By their definition, there were approximately thirty-something “great” civilizations before 1AD.  1AD is the year Jesus was born.  Now, she can take most people’s word for it, or she could just visit Rome or Athens and see some of the stuff that’s there.  Even the source of her confusion, the Bible, clearly refers to the Romans throughout the entire book.  Therefore, it would seem, that the Romans HAD to predate Christians since the Bible is the documentation of the Christian revolution.

I just can’t wait to read about the next amazing piece of logic The View will offer.

When Photoshopping goes bad

A couple of weeks or so I posted the Chang’e 1’s picture of the Moon on my Bowie blog because they named their spaceship after a Bowie album.  That was about as exciting as I thought the story would get.  Here it is again:

I post it again here for a different reason.  The story got strange.  Several noted astronomers couldn’t help but notice there were strange things about the pic.  Originally, it was kind of upside down.  The Chinese explained that fairly well.  Then, there were things where they were not supposed to be.  Like a little crater.  The Chinese claimed they had discovered a new crater.  Emily Lakdawalla solved that one.  It seems the pics came back in strips and they cut and pasted it together to make what it is we see.  Apparently they didn’t do a very good job.  So, the bottom line is nothing terribly exciting has come from the Chinese venture to the Moon.  Which is sorta how I felt in the first place.

And, in the immortal words of Bowie, who this whole adventure seems to reflect his earlier works, this whole thing seems to have turned to face the strange.

( This is not an endorsement of Photoshop, I use that generically as the process used.  )

UFO’s just keep popping up all over the place

Well, maybe not physically.  But, they might be soon.  The latest round started when Leslie Kean of the Coalitio0n for Freedom of Information sued NASA regarding the crash of something in Pennsylvania in 1965.  He contends it’s a cover-up.  A judge made NASA give him all their documentation.  This could be interesting.  In what way, I don’t know.  But to say the least, UFO peeps are always interesting.

Which leads us to the next headline, Dennis Kucinich claims to have seen a UFO.  Now in defense of Dennis, he had a witness.  That would be Shirley MacLaine.  She says they saw it in her book you have to pay for to read.  Needless to say, the combo of Kucinich and MacLaine have led a lot of otherwise less vested peeps to truly believe there was something flying over their heads that evening.  However, because he’s still running for President of the United States of America, and therefore would gain control over NASA if elected, this has very serious implications that I think a lot of political pundits have not considered.  According to who you ask, LOTS of people believe in UFO’s.  If Kucinich harnesses that voter bloc, well, let me just say things could get interesting in the weirdest possible way.  Kucinich is kinda nuts if you ask me.  Of course, that does not mean squat whether he can be elected or not.  Remember Jimmy Carter?  Hmmm?  See where I’m going with this?  Before you claim I’m as screwy as Dennis, Shirley, or Jimmy, read UFO Politics at the White House: Citizens Rally ‘Round Jimmy Carter’s Promise.  I haven’t, but the title sounds like what I want to get across.

Now, the reason I am going this route is because there’s a circle forming here.  And it looks suspicious to me.  I might actually be forming my first full-blown conspiracy theory here.  Follow me with this, it’s not too difficult.  Kucinich is running pretty much dead last in every poll imaginable.  His only real issue is pushing the button how far out there he is.  Nothing is moving this guy out of dead last.  Whatever he had to say was largely ignored in a hailstorm of publicity for Hillary or Barack.  Now, all of a sudden, just before primary season starts sprinting to the finish line, “evidence” from NASA is compelled to be released to the public that MIGHT prove Kucinich isn’t completely off his rocker ( on this one issue anyway ).  And, NASA releases THIS pic today:

What’s that look like huh?

I look for NASA to start dropping those out of the sky right before the California primaries.

Bigfoot or a bear?

This pic is making the rounds right about now:

Some people are claiming it’s bigfoot or sasquatch.

I think it’s a very sick bear.

Did life on Earth come from space?

There is a long held theory that life on Earth evolved from life forms raining down on Earth from other places.  So far, there isn’t any proof of this, it just sounds logical.  However, we might have some proof in the making right now:

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a “strange odor,” local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

“Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned,” he said.

Now, my non-experienced thinking is this is one of two possibilities.  First, and most likely, it’s fumes caused by the intense heat of the meteorite.

Second, and more intriguing to me, is it could be some virus from a far off galaxy.  Pretty cool huh?  Pretty unlikely tho.

A third possibility of course, it could be some man-made experiment where a meteor was planted with a mutated gene and it crashed back to Earth.

Roswell just won’t go away…….

Not too long ago, I was referred to in an unflattering way by Al Gore ( et al ):

…the people who still say that global warming isn’t real are actually in the same boat with the flat earth society. They get together and party on Saturday nights with the folks that believe the moon landing was in a movie lot in Arizona.

Since what Al said made basically no sense, Phil Plait gave him an assist:

Well, he meant Nevada, not Arizona, since that’s where Area 51 is, but other than that he’s dead-on.

The assumption there possibly by Al, and definitely by Phil, was that people who don’t fully buy man-made global warming political correctness hook, line, and sinker, are as crazy as people who believed anything happened at Roswell sixty years ago.

Well, this year’s lunacy surrounding Roswell comes in a different form:

Lt. Walter Haut was the public-relations officer at the base in 1947 and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Col. William Blanchard.Haut died in December 2005, but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death.

Last week, the text was released. It asserts that the weather-balloon claim was a cover story and that the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar.

There’s a lot more to the text. But, I just think it’s kind of curious how such a very brief incident sixty years ago seems to have such long legs. I’m sure just for writing this I’ll get taunted even more by the folks who think Area 51 was a movie lot in Arizona.

Meanwhile, and completely unrelated, Al Gore’s having awareness concerts all over the warming globe. If you’re lucky, you can win a dinner with a band that never existed……
And while you’re having that dinner with the band that never existed, you can have a few chuckles with the band that never existed over the issue people can’t confirm for sure, and if that’s not fun enough, finish it off discussing yet another person who claims they were there at Area 51 or, try to figure out where the moon landing movie lot in Arizona actually is.

What’s really neat about the story too, is apparently the alien scraps were hauled off to Fort Knox. Now Fort Knox is also mentioned prominently at Al’s buddy Phil’s blog as well. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from ( drum roll please ), Kentucky’s latest landmark, the Creationist Museum.

Amazing how the entire universe seems to center on Kentucky of late.