Posthuman Blues

Halifax photos 2

Despite intermittent correspondence and having read his books, I'd never actually seen Stan Friedman in person until the Symposium. It was worth the wait. Stan's a virtuoso speaker and makes a provocative case against both the "SETI cultists" (his term -- and an apt one) and the "noisy negativists" who deride the possibility that some UFOs could very well be extraterrestrial craft. Regardless of your take on the Roswell incident, one of Friedman's pet cases, there are few, if any, rational arguments against his modest proposition that technological progress comes from doing things in unexpected ways.





Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop. Greg had a hilarious T-shirt emblazoned with the head of Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite and the slogan "Follow Me" . . . not to mention one of the coolest iPod libraries on the planet. We stayed up late the night before departure listening to trippy Theremin music. I laughed myself hoarse while Greg checked his hellokitty.com email.





One of Halifax's many virtues is its preponderance of indie coffee shops. We sampled one while waiting for Paul to finish a deserved nap at his office. The woman in the back is Will's awesome wife Lisa, who kindly indulged my craving for snapshots.





What a remarkable thing to be surrounded by people who dig cryptozoology, the subtleties of the Contactee Movement, Project Blue Book, and transhumanism.