Why can't all walls be Greenpix media walls?

Battlebot aficionados might not take to Pleo, but dolphins certainly do.



(Thanks: Reality Carnival.)

I realize it's probably an aerospace thing, but is it absolutely necessary that this prototype military airship have buttocks?

A stargate unexpectedly materializes in my local library!

I laughed in spite of myself when chuckling videographers set fire to Tickle Me Elmo. But somehow this just feels wrong.

Two recent cellphone pictures:

Funny how almost every picture I take seems to fit this blog's color scheme.

Blog of the day: MemeMachineGo!

I just realized that Scientology's Xenu bears a decided resemblance to the "Flatwoods Monster."

Coincidence?

;-)

Natalie Merchant performs "Verdi Cries," my favorite track from "In My Tribe":



What's this have to do with UFOs, you ask?

Absolutely nothing.

Plasma-Powered Hovercraft Patent

The patent shown is for an aircraft to be powered off the ground using a plasma technology. Subrata Roy, a University of Florida aerospace engineer, proposes the existing technique of passing a magnetic wave through a conducting fluid can produce a force strong enough to lift an aircraft off the ground.

This is tantalizingly similar to descriptions of some UFOs. I wonder if a magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system could stall car engines . . .

Will Phoenix Mars Rover Disappear Like the Last Mars Polar Lander?

Phoenix, an even more badass version of the current Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, will hit the Martian north pole. (Sadly, it can't look for the dead Polar Lander, because that rover was headed for the South Pole.) If all goes as planned, it will immediately dig into the icy tundra and take samples to see what the deal is with all that ice. Could it be turned into potable water for future colonists?

Sorry, the Phoenix is not a "more badass" version of the Mars Exploration Rovers. It's not even a rover.

What do I have in common with Richard Dolan, Nancy Birnes, Ted Roe, Nick Redfern, and Jeff Ritzmann (aside from an interest in UFOs)? We're all contributing to Culture of Contact, a tag-team blog spearheaded by Jeremy Vaeni. Take a look!

New SETI post:

The Roswell Controversy

If popular wisdom is to be trusted, the Roswell case incorporates everything an investigator might need to conclusively establish an extraterrestrial origin for UFOs: exotic hardware and alien bodies--hardly the sort of evidence one might expect from even the most ambitious of hoaxes. And the government's schizophrenic stance on the reality of the event positively begs speculation about some form of high-level cover-up--what nuclear physicist turned UFO researcher Stanton Friedman has repeatedly described as a "Cosmic Watergate."

The events at Roswell in the summer of 1947--dawn of the modern era of UFO sightings--constitute a daunting mystery that has come to adopt the trappings of myth.

More fascinating Soviet space illustration here.

MoMA exhibit dies five weeks into show

One of the central works in the exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (until 12 May), Victimless Leather, a small jacket made up of embryonic stem cells taken from mice, has died. The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened.

RIP, creepy mouse-jacket.

Harnessing sunlight on the cheap

Rather than aiming for a smooth parabolic surface that would bring the sunlight to a perfect focus, the dish is being made with 10-inch-wide by 12-foot-long strips of relatively low-cost, lightweight bathroom-type mirror glass. The frame is assembled from cheap aluminum tubing, with holes drilled in precise locations using a simple jig for alignment, so that the struts can be assembled into a framework that passively snaps into just the right parabolic curvature.

Mysterious UFO Death Not So Mysterious

For those who've missed The Keyhoe Report's revealing account, Greg Bishop sums up the latest developments in the Sarbacher/Strieber tale.

Upside Backwards has just posted an interview with me right here.

Melting glaciers release toxic chemical cocktail

Decades after most countries stopped spraying DDT, frozen stores of the insecticide are now trickling out of melting Antarctic glaciers. The change means Adélie penguins have recently been exposed to the chemical, according to a new study.

The trace levels found will not harm the birds, but the presence of the chemical could be an indication that other frozen pollutants will be released because of climate change, says Heidi Geisz, a marine biologist at Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester in the US. She led a team that sampled DDT levels in the penguins.

She worries that glaciers could release an alphabet soup of chemical pollutants into the ocean, including PCBs and PBDEs -- industrial chemicals that have been linked to health problems in humans.

NASA Considers Manned Asteroid Mission

The asteroid mission would act as a "stepping stone" for future planetary missions to Mars and beyond. This three-month trek would provide vital technological, psychological and practical clues to what a manned deep space mission would face. Landing on an asteroid will be very difficult (due to the tiny influence of gravity on such a low-mass body), but it would provide an opportunity for astronauts to mine for water ice, use it for consumption and convert it into its component hydrogen and oxygen (for fuel and breathing). These tests would be essential before sending man on a long-term mission to Mars.

Wait -- I thought the Moon was the logical "stepping stone."

Growing rooms, buildings & cities

Using Rhino3D, high-density foam and an algorithm that mimicks the growth patterns of microscopic structures, they create a sprawling matrix of three-dimensional structures that can multiply indefinitely without sacrificing stability. Is this the organic-algorithmic city of tomorrow?

Photos of Hiroshima from the Robert L. Capp Collection

The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb.

Watch "Green Porno," Isabella Rossellini's Nod to Insect Sex, Online

Isabella Rossellini knows her bug sex. The Italian model and film star wrote, directed, and starred in "Green Porno," a series of films detailing the sex lives of various bugs, arachnids, and molluscs.

(Via BB.)

So this is what happens when you hang out with David Lynch.

30 Years Of Man's Life Disappear In Mysterious 'Kansas Rectangle'

As haunting as his story may be, Kevin Corcoran is only one of hundreds of people who, for unknown reasons, have had years or even decades of their lives utterly fade away in the mystifying region. Still, most cases lack any hard evidence: The few known photos from inside the Rectangle show only a flat, blank emptiness, stretching unremarkably to the horizon.

;-)

New SETI post:

UFOs, Aliens and Consciousness

Some will doubtlessly argue that I'm over-thinking the controversy. Maybe the ETH will triumph by virtue of its simplicity; after all, aliens from space--strange as they might be--are consistent with known physics. Speculating about the role of consciousness and the very nature of "real," on the other hand, might seem abstruse or even like an effort to apologize on behalf of the phenomenon itself.

Like colossal eviscerated insects set into motion by black magic and undistilled whimsy, Theo Jansen's creations move with a strange mincing precision that's simultaneously delightful and profoundly creepy.

Watch out -- they might be coming for you.



For more, click here.

William Gibson scores another point.

UFO Celebrity Death Match - Results!

In which I get my ass kicked by Nick Redfern over live radio. This is one MP3 I'll be downloading.

The Keyhoe Report relates new findings regarding the death of Robert Sarbacher and the bizarre tale reported by Whitley Strieber in "Breakthrough."

The truly interesting part? While Strieber's credibility takes a rather powerful hit, the case for clandestine governmental interest in UFO research is bolstered by an unanticipated source. A must.

If there's anything better than retro images of tri-finned rocketships it can only be the unexpected discovery of paleo-transhumanism.

Take a look:

Streamlined Humans (1934)

This article from the July 29, 1934 Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden, UT) imagines the streamlined human of the future. In the piece, Count Sakhnoffsky proposes the alteration of humans to fit the new, fast-paced society of the future.

While I admit to a special affinity for the alien/UFO meme, this image is not without some Fortean relevance. After all, what are the ubiquitous "Grays" of UFO lore if not streamlined humans, spared the clumsy encumbrances that distinguish people from their extraterrestrial counterparts?

The Grays, real or imagined, represent an audacious feat of minimalism -- to the point that some researchers (convinced of their objective reality) have posited they they're literally fetal, the attempt of a truly alien intelligence to interact with us by using a recognizable -- if grotesque -- human template.

Pat Condell on the tyranny of faith:

In this clip, Terence McKenna discusses cephalopods, chromatophores and the potential of creating an information-rich visual communications medium to replace our addiction to spoken language.



The possibilities are dizzying to consider; it's no particular surprise that the idea of fundamentally altering our primary mode of communication is among the most neglected of transhumanist propositions (usually taking a backseat to body augmentation).

Interestingly, we seem to be on the brink of making some meaningful strides in the direction on McKenna's scenario. The clip posted here, for example, invites us to consider autonomous subdermal animation as a platform for erotic expression.

Ten thousand years from now (but 25 would do)

The modern icon of the flying saucer didn't actually penetrate our culture until 1947, when amid much confusion the term was publicized in relation to UFO sightings (the term UFO itself would take some more years to come by).

There were some examples and reports of discoidal flying objects before that seminal year, some even used the iconic expression. But there was no concept (much less mass sightings) of flying saucers as a kind of Universal design for alien spaceships. Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers used rockets. Alien Flying Saucers, that's a post-1947 cultural icon.

That's why depictions of discoidal aircrafts and spaceships before 1947 are of special interest. They are not that rare, actually, but each one of them should make you say wow.

Eye implants in human trials

Researchers have gone from a 4×4 grid (16 'pixels') in 2004 up to a 60-electrode version that was implanted in two men recently. While not quite in Geordi Laforge territory, it's a big step up from complete blindness. After enough practice, the earlier patients were able to distinguish between eating implements at a dinner table, so it'll be interesting to see what these guys can do. The 3rd generation will be designed with about 600 electrodes, and they’re hoping that patients will be able to read.

The catch?

So far, this will only work for people who have lost vision, not for people who were born blind.

I picked this up at the library:

I'll read just about anything with a paleo-futuristic cover illustration.

We should have at least one base on the Moon by now. We should be on our way to Mars and drawing up plans for crewed expeditions to the Jovian moons.

Instead, we get this:

This site's got it all: improbable yet elegantly rendered vehicles, seductive pin-ups and visual futurism worthy of Syd Mead. Jump in!

(Hat tip: Sex In Art.)

Unidentified Flying Human Freaks The Hell Out Of Mexico

Mexico's latest UFO, filmed hovering over the mountains of Nuevo Leon City, Mexico, looks like an airborne woman. The video shows a floating figure gliding horizontally across the tops of the mountains. She even appears to walk off a cliff at one point and is suspended in air.

"Looks like an airborne woman"? Looks pretty amorphic to me. Given Mexico's penchant for UFO sensationalism, is it too much of a stretch to speculate that we're looking at a remote-controlled balloon or similar gimmick?

Gorgeous photos of houses consumed by kudzu.

Enough surfing. I'm going to bed now.

Boring blog news:

No, I haven't tired of the new masthead; I've merely put it in storage while I devise a way to display it properly. (I'm pretty sure I know how, too -- but if I keep experimenting I'll be up half the night with relatively little to show for it except, possibly, mutilated HTML.)

So in the meantime I'm reverting to the Blogger's sky-blue default banner. But rest assured something better's on the way.

(Thanks to Blues Tea-Cha for the not inconsiderable help.)

Update: I've reinstated the resized gray masthead (for now).

If Hieronymus Bosch had designed playgrounds . . .

Man pushes creation of panel to prepare city for space aliens

"It is important because if you're driving down the highway and you saw a crash of a small spaceship and a car or a bus full of kids, you really wouldn't know what to do," Peckman said Thursday. "Do you wait for the hazardous materials experts to show up because of potential contaminants from another solar system? What do you do? People really don't know."

(Via The Anomalist.)

This presents an ethical dilemma. Suppose an ET craft unaccountably roswells into a school-bus. Who do you attempt to rescue first, the aliens or the children?

Estonia's Digitized Garbage

Bruce Sterling writes:

Here on BEYOND THE BEYOND, we don't normally post raw, unsolicited press releases, but you ponder the motives and thinking behind an effort like this, and it's actually kind of scary. I'd be betting good money most of these Google Earth-tagged illegal dump sites date to the Soviet era. So you've got this Estonian cybergreen millionaire's web 2.0-style participatory scheme to scrape his nation's surface clean via orbital oversight... Russia would never dream of a campaign like that. USA, way too sloppy. Even Sweden Finland and Norway would be hard put. Ultra-tidy, public-spirited Switzerland maybe, but gee whiz... who are these people?

Cutting-Edge Cardboard Interior in Greece

Dubbed "Papercut", the project was a collaboration between the fashion designer and dARCH Studio. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to interior design, synthesizing elements of fashion and architecture into a streamlined, self-illuminated, biomorphic installation that was handmade using all eco-friendly materials.

Wait . . . is that thing street-legal?

(Hat tip: Loving the Machine.)

Captivatingly "Mad Max"-like homespun trucks. (Somehow, the Russian example just looks Russian.)

Mongooses 'can sniff-out landmines'

This headline evokes some delightfully morbid imagery. I wonder if PETA's on the case . . .

"The long-term prognosis is not very optimistic."

(Tip of the hat to Nick Redfern.)

My new SETI post lists ten alien movies deserving of your time. (I immediately regretted neglecting "The Man Who Fell To Earth" and "Alien.")

Gaia Hypothesis: Could Earth Really be a Single Organism?

When you stop to think about it, our planet does act like a huge organism. If you look at the interrelationship between plants and atmospherics, animals and humans, rocks and water, a complex pattern of symbiotic processes seem to complement each other perfectly. Should one system be pushed out of balance by some external force (such as a massive injection of atmospheric carbon dioxide after a volcanic event), other processes are stimulated to counteract the instability (more phytoplankton appear in the oceans to absorb the carbon dioxide in the water). Many of these processes could be interpreted as a "global immune system".

Could Gaia be sentient in some unrecognized sense? If so, how might it communicate (assuming it wanted to)? In David Brin's "Earth," Gaia achieves self-awareness via the electronic nervous system we call the Internet, but perhaps it doesn't need anything so fragile or human-friendly. A global consciousness might manifest in the planet's ambient EM field, in its chemicals, in the molecular architecture of its organisms.

Ever wonder what a Chick tract would look like animated? You know what to do.