Greetings! I travelled a thousand light-years to peer up your ass!
7 May 2006 by Sean
So a few weeks ago I stopped into a convenience store in my neighborhood and chatted it up with my friend R. He works there behind the counter and, like all intelligent people stuck in dead-end jobs, he hates it. R. is from Jordan, speaks five languages and has had an interesting life (at least until he got stuck in this shit job). He can speak about religion and politics and culture with a wide range of knowledge and insight. He considers himself an atheist/agnostict.
But that night a few weeks ago, I walked into the store to catch him watching a “documentary” about “U.F.O.s” on the “History Channel.” You know the channel, the one that actually considers ghost stories history, too?
I made some contemptuous remark about the program while grabbing a bag of peanuts. R. looked at me. “What, you don’t believe in U.F.O.s?” he asked.
I always have the same answer for such a question: “Do I believe it is possible for a flying object to be unidentified? Sure. Do I believe it is an alien spacecraft from a distant star system? I think I would choose a million other explanations before I would choose that one. And I would need a lot more proof than a fuzzy picture.”
A 5-minute back-and-forth insued. He claimed there was “a lot of evidence.” I asked where this evidence was. We discussed the fact that aliens and alien spacecraft seem to only show up in remote rural places with poor lighting — revealing themselves inerrantly to people with faulty camera equipment. And they never abduct anyone logical. If you were trying to learn more about the human race, given the choice between Mikhail Gorbachev and Whitley Strieber, who would you abduct? And what kind of knowledge could possibly be gained from an anal probe, anyway?
Of course, there is always an answer, and R. had all the standards: they damage the film in the camera through some kind of energy beam, they want to go undetected so they stay away from cities, they have abducted Mikhail Gorbachev, he just doesn’t remember! It was sad. A man I thought had powerful critical thinking skills was exhibiting none at all.
Well, move over Mr. Strieber, the U.F.O. nuts have a new poster child: Gary McKinnon.
Snippets:
GM: There was a group called the Disclosure Project. They published a book which had 400 expert witnesses ranging from civilian air traffic controllers, through military radar operators, right up to the chaps who were responsible for whether or not to launch nuclear missiles.
They are some very credible, relied upon people, all saying yes, there is UFO technology, there’s anti-gravity, there’s free energy, and it’s extra-terrestrial in origin, and we’ve captured spacecraft and reverse-engineered it.
SK: What did you find inside Nasa?
GM: One of these people was a Nasa photographic expert, and she said that in building eight of Johnson Space Centre they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. What she said was there was there: there were folders called “filtered” and “unfiltered”, “processed” and “raw”, something like that.
I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.
But what came on to the screen was amazing. It was a culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that definitely wasn’t man-made.
It was above the Earth’s hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.
This thing was hanging in space, the earth’s hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.
SK: Is it possible this is an artist’s impression?
GM: I don’t know… For me, it was more than a coincidence. This woman has said: “This is what happens, in this building, in this space centre”. I went into that building, that space centre, and saw exactly that.
SK: Do you have a copy of this? It came down to your machine.
GM: No, the graphical remote viewer works frame by frame. It’s a Java application, so there’s nothing to save on your hard drive, or at least if it is, only one frame at a time.
SK: So did you get the one frame?
GM: No.
SK: What happened?
GM: Once I was cut off, my picture just disappeared.
SK: You were actually cut off the time you were downloading the picture?
GM: Yes, I saw the guy’s hand move across.
What? It was a Java what?? You gotta be kidding me. How stupid do you think we are? You were smart enough to hack into a NASA computer but you didn’t know how to take a simple screenshot? And it was some kind of Java app that was feeding you some kind of digital still image from some kind of archive, yet an analog hand came out of nowhere and turned the image off?
Somebody’s been getting stoned and watching too many old episodes of “Mission Impossible.”
7 May 2006, on 11:23 pm
Yeah, like you could take a “low resolution” 4 bit colour pixelated image and stil see all that detail. And folders labelled “filtered” and “unfiltered” are not the same as “real true secret things” and “government cover up - okay to show around to your friends”.
8 May 2006, on 6:12 am
But of course, EoR — why go through the trouble of hiding something behind a wall of brilliantly difficult to crack code if in the end the hacker has to spend a whole lot of time differentiating between “U.F.O. Secret Cover-Up Pics” and “Staff Xmas Party Polaroids?”
8 May 2006, on 6:24 am
Well surely everyone knows why the aliens don’t talk to us. It’s because we’re made of meat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-NAvPzdjj0
8 May 2006, on 6:54 am
Turn me over, I’m done on this side.
8 May 2006, on 11:01 am
It drives me batty when the History Channel, the NatlGeo channel, and the ferXsake Discovery Science Channel run this crap. This all belongs on the Sci-Fi Channel.
By the way, Carl Sagan used to say, re the “portraits” of aliens that people draw or recall, that it seemed strange to him that a true alien species wasn’t more interesting looking than Earth’s cockatoo. Go, Carl. You’re much missed.
8 May 2006, on 11:03 am
And also, Sean, excellent headline, way excellent.
8 May 2006, on 11:20 am
catherine: By the way, Carl Sagan used to say, re the “portraits” of aliens that people draw or recall, that it seemed strange to him that a true alien species wasn’t more interesting looking than Earth’s cockatoo.
Ramen, catherine; I seem to recall an article in the Skeptic magazine (is it Skeptic Inquiry, maybe?) theorizing that the “gray” type of alien abductees claim to see the most is actually our brain’s template for recognizing our mother’s face in infancy - basic ovoid shape, large eyes to draw the focus, etc. Not very alien at all when you look at it from that perspective…
8 May 2006, on 12:19 pm
Ramen, catherine; I seem to recall an article in the Skeptic magazine (is it Skeptic Inquiry, maybe?) theorizing that the “gray” type of alien abductees claim to see the most is actually our brain’s template for recognizing our mother’s face in infancy - basic ovoid shape, large eyes to draw the focus, etc. Not very alien at all when you look at it from that perspective…
Eve, I didn’t know that, thanks. Is “Ramen” a greeting in a language other than English? I didn’t know that about the mother template, interesting. And it’s Skeptical Inquirer. They do a great job with pseudoscience, but they don’t seem to get it about animal rights - a humanist bias, I guess.
8 May 2006, on 12:22 pm
“Is “Ramen” a greeting in a language other than English?”
Do they have Ramen noodles outside the US?
8 May 2006, on 1:42 pm
Thanks on the headline, Catherine. It pretty much sums it up in terms of how I feel about the ridiculousness of it. Don’t get me wrong… I’m with Dr. Sagan. I desperately want to see contact happen. It’s just that I want it to happen for real, not just in a crappy science fiction writer’s career-saving con job.
8 May 2006, on 1:50 pm
Scientific notation is inadequate to describe my disgust at the media treatment of UFOs over the years. Only in ufology, would a third hand story with no physical evidence to back it up be treated as a “documented UFO sighting”. Whenever you press UFO fans about PHYSICAL EVIDENCE for these visitations, it is always hidden by the government conspiracy. The whole arena reminds me of a guy with whom I attended high school whom always told the teacher that they dog ate his homework.
All the UFO “investigators” that I have seen interviewed on these make-believe documentaries all have their minds made up, so what exactly are they investigating? Although a few of these programs provided a balanced treatment of the topic, more were openly exploitive. Ufology is merely a new religion and it is as far removed from logic and rationality as any other.
8 May 2006, on 3:22 pm
True enough: but wouldn’t it be a kicker, if the ‘intelligent designer’ turned out to be an actual alien? Some of the ID’ers might take a header off a building over THAT 1!
(coupla episodes of TNG come to mind, + the works of George R. R. Martin).
I mean, theology is built on the presupposition that we’re all alone in the universe.
If life were discovered elsewhere, wow. Can you imagine the xtian frenzy? Yippee-skippy.
Till the positive is proven, the negative’s a given.
Till then, fingers crossed.
8 May 2006, on 3:44 pm
I never did buy that benevolent beings from beyond our solar system. Who have come here to??? Kidnap and rape and all that anal probing we hear so much about. I say we all put on our tin foil helmets, lure them in and kick their skinny little bug eyed asses and then JACK OURSELVES A STARSHIP.
8 May 2006, on 3:44 pm
George R.R. Martin wrote Fevre Dream, one of my favorite fantasy books. Steamboats, the Missippi River and vampires. Fun read.
8 May 2006, on 4:35 pm
My main problem with the aliens visiting us issue was that if these creatures were so technologically advanced they could travel through space over and over again and remain by and large undetected by the world in general just so that they could study us, couldn’t they do a better job of it than traumatizing subjects and subjecting them to invasive and just plain weird surgeries? And the other theory that they’re here because they’re a dying race who needs to inseminate our females with their genetically hybrid offspring is even more of a stretch; despite its fabulousness, sex is not the most efficient means of procreation/reproduction!
I haven’t been able to find an online reference to the “mother template” theory, but it would make as much sense as anything else - other than actual aliens visiting us, that is.
8 May 2006, on 7:15 pm
My main problem with the aliens visiting us issue was that if these creatures were so technologically advanced they could travel through space over and over again and remain by and large undetected by the world in general just so that they could study us, couldn’t they do a better job of it than traumatizing subjects and subjecting them to invasive and just plain weird surgeries?
Just like religious folks give their gods human attributes and characteristics, UFO fanatics give these imagined aliens human characteristics and equipment, etc. Why would one just assume that a being from another place in the cosmos would use our primitive form of surgery? All of these beliefs in gods, ghosts, demons, aliens, etc. come from where all ideas come from…the human brain. It’s just another way that shows how when people can’t explain something their imagination kicks in and they make shit up.
8 May 2006, on 7:35 pm
Regarding the History Channel and Discovery Channel UFO shows, I’ve heard talk that they know perfectly well that those UFO shows are crap. Thing is, they’re extremely cheap to produce what with no special effects and just hire some voice talent to read the script. They make a bunch of money because they’re so cheap and the advertisers are there.
8 May 2006, on 8:10 pm
I had a good friend in college who, much to my surprise, revealed that he believed in extra-terrestrial encounters, alien abductions, the whole enchilada. I was stunned and said, “Man, I believe you believe that. I always thought you were so intellectual.”
So, he says, “Well, believing in aliens in no different than believing in God!”
To which I replied, “Oh man! Don’t tell me you bought that, too!”
Thus ended a pretty good friendship. I just found it difficult to even look at him without thinking “LOONY!” It totally eroded my respect for him. But, to be fair, I have to admit that his reasoning was flawless. It is no different.
8 May 2006, on 8:12 pm
Umm… sorry… that should have read “Man, I CAN’T believe you believe that.” Doh!
9 May 2006, on 2:36 am
jimmer said:
I say we all put on our tin foil helmets, lure them in and kick their skinny little bug eyed asses and then JACK OURSELVES A STARSHIP.
yeah, baby! that’s the spirit!
9 May 2006, on 2:38 am
Audrey said:
Thus ended a pretty good friendship. I just found it difficult to even look at him without thinking “LOONY!” It totally eroded my respect for him. But, to be fair, I have to admit that his reasoning was flawless. It is no different.
Sad story… And I know what you mean. I have lost many a friend to irrational thought. But I have also gained many through rational thought, and that has helped balance it out.
9 May 2006, on 2:58 am
I recall a skit from the ‘Kids ‘N the Hall’, many years ago.
2 aliens are probing some guy on the table. 1 alien says, “What’s the point of all this?” “What do you mean?” “I mean, we come down to this planet, ALL the TIME, we do nothing but kidnap these people, we anally probe them, and for what? The only thing we’ve learned, is that 1 out of 10 of them actually enjoy it.”
(guy on table, head out from under a blanket, opens his eyes, & smiles)
9 May 2006, on 12:04 pm
My take on what alien visitation should happen is laid out in the film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” in which Michael Rennie’s Clatu (who has to be an ancestor of Spock, don’t you think) says in effect, “Blow yourselves up if you want to, but if you f–k with the rest of the universe, we’ll destroy you.” I wish someone would say that to us with the power to enforce it.
And Randy, I know it’s about money, but it still drives me nuts. Call your damned channel “The Crystals and Shit Hour” or something, don’t put the word “science” in the title. I don’t think the professional Xers necessarily believe all the crap they put out, either, but they surely know what will bring in the bucks.
9 May 2006, on 12:11 pm
“George R.R. Martin wrote Fevre Dream, one of my favorite fantasy books. Steamboats, the Missippi River and vampires. Fun read.”
Sean, have just ordered it from my library. But I’m very picky about vampire stories, so it had better be good, or I’ll be sending an anal-probing alien your way. And why do we assume alien species are as sex-crazed as we are, rather than, you know, passionate about exploring the universe, learning how to communicate with other species (i.e. the cockatoo), solving age-old mathematical problems, etc.
9 May 2006, on 12:20 pm
Catherine: I haven’t read it in 18 years, so send an Alien Anal Probe Lite™ if you’re disappointed. I remember it being long on creepy, steamy, mid-1880s riverboat life and atmosphere.
9 May 2006, on 12:26 pm
If you aren’t already, check out Thirteen Bullets. It’s a serial novel being written a chapter at a time, three chapters a week. It’s pretty good stuff. The author also has a bunch of pretty fun zombie books on there as well, and recently the latest zombie book was published in actual book form.
This is my Monday, Wednesday, Friday crack:
http://www.brokentype.com/thirteenbullets/2006/01/1.html
9 May 2006, on 3:45 pm
Randy, cool, I’ll look it up.
And for anyone who’s into zombies and hasn’t yet seen it, “Shaun of the Dead” out of England is wonderful. Funny, serious, sad, really well acted. We must learn to live with our zombie neighbors, well, as long as they stop killing us.
9 May 2006, on 3:50 pm
And for anyone who’s into zombies and hasn’t yet seen it, “Shaun of the Dead” out of England is wonderful. Funny, serious, sad, really well acted. We must learn to live with our zombie neighbors, well, as long as they stop killing us
Loved that movie, even if they did spell “Sean” wrong.
And it is surprisingly moving at times, which is not something I expected from it.
10 May 2006, on 1:00 pm
“Loved that movie, even if they did spell “Sean” wrong.”
Perhaps they wanted to be sure ignorant Americans got the shout out to the “Dawn of the Dead” films, which those who pronounced it “Seen of the Dead” would miss. But then, why not spell it Shawn? These are the questions that keep my mental skills at top performance.
“And it is surprisingly moving at times, which is not something I expected from it.” Agreed, agreed. I think this element is what takes it way beyond most freak-horror shows. And of course the presence of people like Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, etc. And the kid who plays Shaun, whom I’ve never seen before, is very good.
10 May 2006, on 1:29 pm
Perhaps they wanted to be sure ignorant Americans got the shout out to the “Dawn of the Dead” films
That was my guess, too.
10 May 2006, on 10:41 pm
Whenever I come into contact with some person that believes in alien abductions they also tend to believe that we never landed on the moon that is was all a conspiracy. I usually state the following:
“Let us pretend for the sake of argument that intelligent life out of our galaxy is a fact that we know. Now these same intelligent beings, so intelligent that they built ships that could travel to another galaxy while keeping their passengers alive came here. Here where we have only gone to the moon and sent some probes to other planets with in our own galaxy. I would think these intelligent beings would probably send probes to our galaxy and then maybe our planet because anything else would be a waste of time and technology.”
11 May 2006, on 12:27 am
P.C.: I think you meant solar system, not galaxy. Travelling the ludicrous distance between stars would be hard enough to accomplish, but travelling the insane distances between galaxies… Well, let’s just say that even with warping space, Star Trek never even went outside our galaxy (except when Q would pull some god trick).
11 May 2006, on 2:32 am
Hey, Catherine… Check it out… Bill Nighy plays Davy Jones in Pirates of the Carribean 2:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383574/
11 May 2006, on 4:58 am
Sean said:
P.C.: I think you meant solar system, not galaxy. Travelling the ludicrous distance between stars would be hard enough to accomplish, but travelling the insane distances between galaxies… Well, let’s just say that even with warping space, Star Trek never even went outside our galaxy (except when Q would pull some god trick).
You are right I had a huge brainfart, I apologize everyone. I usually check stuff in my head or through other sources before I post a comment. I see I have to be more diligent in my written words. Thanks for pointing this out to me Sean.
11 May 2006, on 7:59 am
P.C.: I think you meant solar system, not galaxy. Travelling the ludicrous distance between stars…
Well, unless you went LUDICROUS SPEED
http://www.garnersclassics.com/qspballs.htm
I suppose with enough technology we could accomplish INSANE SPEED, although I think the religious right have already patented that technology.
11 May 2006, on 10:24 am
On the subject of alien portraits, there’s a line from a William Gibson short story (The Gernsback Continuum) which I think is very apt: “Sure, I could buy aliens, but not aliens that look like ’50s comic book art.”
11 May 2006, on 12:26 pm
Randy!, Dunc, *lol*!
11 May 2006, on 5:32 pm
Skeptics’ Circle #34: the mineraliest!…
EoR at The Second Sight hosts the latest iteration of the Skeptics’ Circle, and this one is particularly impressive.
This one’s theme involves crystals and gems. The title is “The 34th Skeptics’ Circle: Critical Thinking Crystallised.” N……
11 May 2006, on 7:35 pm
That’s hilarious, Randy. I didn’t even know about the ludicrous speed joke when I said that. I only saw Spaceballs once… A long time ago, in a living room far, far away.
15 May 2006, on 11:31 am
Ramen? I’m pretty sure that’s not a greeting. It’s a NOODLE.
Aliens don’t contact us because we’re meat. It’s because. as a species, we’re STOOPID.
AS far as the fat, hairy old white guy in the sky is concerned, I’m here,
not up there,,,mainly ’cause NASA wouldn’t let me go,,,
Gary 7
9 August 2006, on 7:35 pm
[...] Back in May, Sean’s post about ufologist McKinnon under the hilarious headline of “Greetings! I’ve travelled a thousand light-years to peer up your ass!” (well worth repeating over and over again) triggered a vague memory for me of something I’d read in a skeptical magazine about the traditional “gray” alien described by abductees. Catherine suggested that it might be a Skeptical Inquirer article I was remembering. [...]
10 August 2006, on 10:03 am
Re: Shaun of the Dead
That’s a perfectly valid spelling even if it’s not
Gaelic. Shaun Cassidy from the Hardy Boys, anyone?
I’ve also met someone who spells it “Shawn.”