Greg Bishop reports a puzzling UFO-related dream and asks readers to arrive at their own interpretations.

Here's mine: Nick Redfern is an alien!

A robotic tuatara in New Zealand

The goal is to help conservation managers to the genetically fittest, most productive males. But what will happen if a female tuatara discovers that the robot is an impostor?

Perhaps that's a question best answered by the ghost of Philip K. Dick.

"HEAVEN'S GATE Is Resurrected With New Followers"

Oooh, this is going to be good!

Today's my lucky day (so far -- and since it's not even 1:00 AM I guess that's not saying much): I just found a site devoted exclusively to David Cronenberg's film version of J.G. Ballard's "Crash."

(Thanks, Ballardian!)

It looks like I'll be "reuniting" with Greg Bishop, Nick Redfern and Paul Kimball for a most interesting DVD venture. Paul's masterminding this one, so check his blog for updates.

Mars rover finds "puddles" on the planet's surface

A new analysis of pictures taken by the exploration rover Opportunity reveals what appear to be small ponds of liquid water on the surface of Mars.

The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet's thin atmosphere.

If confirmed, the existence of such ponds would significantly boost the odds that living organisms could survive on or near the surface of Mars, says physicist Ron Levin, the report's lead author, who works in advanced image processing at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Arizona.

This is big. Nevertheless, anyone with an eye toward the anomalous probably saw this one coming at least a few years ago. While the claim will be refuted by some, I predict it will win out in the end.

There's liquid water on Mars -- not just short-lived subsurface "leaks," but almost certainly standing puddles of the stuff. The solar system just keeps getting more interesting.

As if we needed more evidence that Americans are in dire need of an intellectual upgrade:

Americans believe in both evolution, creationism: poll

Asked their views on whether human life is a result of God's creation or a product of evolution, one quarter of Americans chose both conflicting theories, a poll suggested Friday.

"All told, 25 percent say that both creationism and evolution are definitely or probably true," USA Today said.

At least simple ignorance is fairly easy to understand. But believing in Creationism and evolution simultaneously strains comprehension. My guess is that it's the ontological equivalent to channel-surfing: we want to watch two programs at the same time so we jump back and forth so rapidly that we fail to appreciate either and come away with our heads spinning from an overdose of disparate pixels. And then it's off to McDonalds and the local megaplex.

The Mystery of the Drones (Whitley Strieber)

Regarding the unusual appearance of one of the alleged "drones," Strieber remarks:

In fact, it is so exotic, so strange, its design so 'movie-like,' that, if it is an alien object, then I think it has been intentionally designed to make us think it's a special effect, right down to the writing seen on the object in the Chad photos, with its resemblance to Klingon and some other science fiction movie letterings.

Like most of Whitley's posts, this one if filled with an appealingly paranoid sort of logic. And to a degree I can relate, as my book-in-the-works, "The Cryptoterrestrials," depends to an extent on the reader's willingness to speculate and temporarily dismiss entrenched biases about what the UFO phenomenon is (or isn't).

That Strieber can transform the "drones" into a source of wonder (however tepid) is a testament to his imagination. But the photos in question remain to be authenticated; indeed, we don't even know who took them.

Strieber's essay notwithstanding, the overwhelming odds are that we're witnessing yet another soon-to-be-forgotten online hoax.

Blog of the day: Bit Babble

Bear robot rescues wounded troops

The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) can scoop up even the heaviest of casualties and transport them over long distances over rough terrain.

New Scientist magazine reports that the "friendly appearance" of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease.

(Via Beyond the Beyond.)

Let me make sure I understand this. You're a US Marine. A suicide bomber self-detonates and the next thing you know you're lying face-down in a pool of blood somewhere in Iraq. Perhaps your intestines are oozing out. You'd scream, but half your face has been melted by the blast. Suddenly, a chimeric metal beast with the head of a teddy bear emerges from the smoke and billowing sand.

And then you manage a pained smile -- because you know that everything's going to be just fine.

Here's the museum scene from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," a movie that obsessed me in my pre-"Blade Runner" days; I always felt a schizophrenic kinship with both Ferris and Cameron. The music is a gorgeous interpretation of The Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get Want I Want" (below).

William S. Burroughs book covers galore!

If you've ever spent five minutes in a Starbucks you've probably seen the piles of absurdly overpriced Ethos bottled water. Buying this stuff, you're informed, will significantly help impoverished children. I've always been rather skeptical, personally. According to this spoof site, I'm not the only one.

Of course, one can always justify the obvious profit motive by claiming, truthfully, that five cents from of every bottle sold is better than nothing at all. But for $1.80 a bottle, I think it's fair to expect a bigger percentage.

Chernobyl Area Becomes Wildlife Haven

Many assumed the 1986 meltdown of one reactor, and the release of hundreds of tons of radioactive material, would turn much of the 1,100-square-mile evacuated area around Chernobyl into a nuclear dead zone.

It certainly doesn't look like one today.

Dense forests have reclaimed farm fields and apartment house courtyards. Residents, visitors and some biologists report seeing wildlife - including moose and lynx - rarely sighted in the rest of Europe. Birds even nest inside the cracked concrete sarcophagus shielding the shattered remains of the reactor.

Sometimes I get the feeling Chernobyl is the future in microcosm, a ruinous forbidden zone of abandoned technology and encroaching nature, all conspicuously human-less.

Deep Hole Found on Mars

Why do I keep reading about a single hole? The last I checked there were seven of these things -- and those are just the ones we've discovered . . .

Caves on Mars gives rise to thinking about subsurface life on the planet, notes Peter Smith, principal investigator for NASA's next outbound mission to that distant and dusty world, the Phoenix lander. The deeper and deeper you go down on Mars, the warmer and warmer it gets, Smith said, and at some point the conditions are just right where liquid water is stable.

Moreover, could caves be linked to underground fractures allowing water vapor to be trapped inside, Smith speculates, perhaps the sort of comfy environment ideal for biology.

Finally -- a scientist speculates on the potential for subsurface life. The cool part? We won't even have to dig.

Last night, after much screaming and wailing, the police came to my apartment and arrested the cretin across the haul for assault. Perhaps now I can blog in peace.

Mystery over dwindling numbers of local frogs

The ponds at Camley Street Natural Park in King's Cross, Gillespie Park in Highbury and the Hampstead and Highgate ponds are usually teaming with frogs and frogspawn at this time of year.

But Walter Roberts, of Henfield Close, Archway, said: "I've been to lots of ponds and I can't find any frogs anywhere.

(Hat tip: Nick Redfern.)

THE ABDUCTION LAMP

Abduction is a lamp for Sci-Fi fans of all ages.

A light bulb inside the metal UFO lights up the beam and the windows. The glass of the beam is frosted to distribute light in all directions.

And I thought my tri-finned lava lamp was hip.

(Thanks to Null Spin.)

Halo lighting Lancashire's hills

The first stage in the building of a "flying saucer" sculpture on the Lancashire hills, is complete.

The artwork - called "Halo" - is part of the Panopticons project to create six new sculptures which offer panoramic views across the area.

Carl Sagan muses on the fragile "pale blue dot" that is Earth:





(Thanks to Reality Carnival.)

Digital paper with interactivity and sound

"We combine paper with printed graphic codes and electronically conductive ink that is engineered to be sensitive to pressure. Then digital information is embedded in the paper, and when it is touched, the information comes out via printed speakers," says Mikael Gulliksson, project leader for media technology in the comprehensive research project.

Epilepsy fears over 2012 footage

A segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympics has been removed from the organisers' website after fears it could trigger epileptic seizures.

(Via The Anomalist.)

I swear I didn't make this up.

Support Your Local Reptoid

The concept of reptilian beings on Earth is a surprisingly widespread conspiracy theory, in which the US government and major public companies are complicit in a vast worldwide network of underground bases housing a large population of humanoid reptilian creatures called Reptoids. They speak English and are involved in every major government and corporate decision. They are variously said to either disguise themselves or actually shape-shift into humans, where they have public lives in positions of national importance. Some say the Reptoids are of extraterrestrial origin, and some say they are native to Earth, having developed intelligence before the primates, and have been secretly running things all along.

(Via PAG E-News.)

The real danger with the "reptoid" mythos is that critically impaired people refuse to acknowledge that humans are more than capable of orchestrating atrocities. Never underestimate human short-sightedness and greed.

Lately I've become almost painfully aware of an undercurrent of hostility that seems to have overtaken Independence. Yesterday I encountered two automobile screaming matches at intersections -- not so much unusual as unsettling. Waiting for a light to turn near my apartment, I heard blood-curdling accusatory screams from the shabby house to my left. Whoever was screaming was loud enough to be heard from the road, and I don't think the windows were open.

Later, at home, an argument broke out in the apartment across the hall; I couldn't help but hear it, the walls being little thicker than saltine cracker. As I write, a prolonged and noisy confrontation is burning itself out down the hall.

And then there are the taunts yelled from passing cars, the spontaneous "fuck yous" and omnipresent vandalism that plague what passes for Independence's upscale shopping area (home to Barnes & Noble, my sole remaining haven). I know perfectly well none of this is unique to my hometown, but at the same time I'm startled at how pervasive it's become, as if some psychic flashpoint has been reached. It's almost sinister, like the early stage of some apocalyptic zombie infestation.

And who knows? Maybe in a Ballardian sense it is.

I haven't read a short-story collection in a long time, so tonight I started Bruce Sterling's latest, "Visionary in Residence." Next up: John Shirley's "Living Shadows."

A 2007 New Frontiers Symposium? Looks like it.

Geoengineering Comes with Huge Risks

Over the coming decades, we're going to learn what kind of impact global warming is going to have on planet Earth. If the impact is as severe as some scientists are predicting, countries might take drastic action to stabilize temperatures. But scientists from Concordia University and the Carnegie Institution think that tinkering with the Earth on a global scale - or geoengineering - is very bad idea, and could make the problem much worse.

Episode 39: Astrology and UFOs

While Pamela's away at the American Astronomical Society meeting, we brought in a special guest to help debunk some of the pseudoscience that people mistake for astronomy.

(Via Universe Today.)

Come to think of it, the Face on Mars is due for another thrashing . . .

Holocenic hominid self-extinction event

There is an instinctive negative reaction to any idea that the ideal population is less than it is now. Yet the science suggests that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth, and are consuming more resources than the Earth can produce for us each year, ultimately eating up our own future potential. Watson's sketch of sustainable lifestyles, combined with a gradual, voluntary reduction of human numbers, would avoid decimation of the human population by war, disease, and famine. In fact, much of the world (especially by surface area) is already below the replacement fertility rate, giving some hope. A global strategy less coercive and less radical than China's forced one-child policy should be possible.

I finally got to watch "Best Evidence," Paul Kimball's new documentary on the UFO phenomenon. In one hour, Kimball makes a succinct case for the reality of unidentified flying objects and in so doing offers tantalizing evidence that we're dealing with a form of intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or other. He also demonstrates that the phenomenon, whatever its origin or purpose, is taken extremely seriously by the U.S. government.

But "Best Evidence" is especially notable for what it fails to do. Unlike the majority of UFO documentaries, it doesn't confront the viewer with the usual parade of self-professed skeptics whose knowledge of the subject is limited to pop-sociological treatises on the success of "The X-Files." And it doesn't wallow in the usual controversies by invoking Roswell or probing the nature of alien abductions, as interesting as those subjects might be when addressed skillfully.

With welcome commentary by Brad Sparks, Richard Hall and Stanton Friedman, "Best Evidence" rises to the top of the UFO documentary pile by virtue of its eloquence, brevity and innate respect for a phenomenon which, unlike lesser efforts, it doesn't pretend to be able to solve.

Shark Biomimicry Produces Renewable Energy

BioPower Systems Pty Ltd., a renewable energy systems company based in Eveleigh, New South Wales, says that its bioSTREAM technology for converting tidal and marine current energy into electricity is modeled on biological species, such as shark and tuna, that use Thunniform-mode swimming propulsion.

Clinton: Faith got me through troubles

In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

Hillary condescendingly -- and oh-so-strategically -- plays the "faith" card. Please remind me not to vote for her.

Learning, Memory, and Progress toward a Living Chip

A new experiment has shown that it's possible to store multiple rudimentary memories in an artificial culture of live neurons. The ability to record information in a manmade network of neurons is a step toward a cyborg-like integration of living material into memory chips. The advance also may help neurologists to understand how our brains learn and store information.

(Via Communist Robot.)

Here's a guide to making one of the "pulse rifles" featured in "Aliens." With goofy-looking "drones" appearing in our skies, I figure it's never too late to be prepared for a xenomorph invasion.

(Thanks: Boing Boing.)

Experts: Katrina death toll still rising

The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later many in the medical community think the storm is still killing.

Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say.

[. . .]

"People with pre-existing conditions that are made worse by the stress of living here after the storm. Old people who are just giving up. People who are killing themselves because they feel they can't go on," Minyard said.

Forget that Epcot Center vacation. If you want a taste of the real future, a trip to New Orleans is definitely in order.

Brilliant!

CB2 baby humanoid robot (with videos)

On June 1, researchers from Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering unveiled a robot that acts like a human infant, which they hope may one day help scientists better understand the child development process.

The researchers have named the baby robot "CB2," and for now, it is designed to function as a 1- to 2-year-old child, gazing intently at its surroundings, squirming about on the floor and lighting up the room with child-like charm.

I've never liked human kids; apparently I don't like robot kids either.

I'm posting this embarrassingly after-the-fact, but it's worth contemplating.

Mayday 23: World Population Becomes More Urban Than Rural

There's no big countdown billboard or sign in Times Square to denote it, but Wednesday, May 23, 2007, represents a major demographic shift, according to scientists from North Carolina State University and the University of Georgia: For the first time in human history, the earth’s population will be more urban than rural.

Experts 'pessimistic' about aliens

Baart said most experts were "generally pessimistic" about finding extraterrestrial intelligence.

"I'm not optimistic. We might be alone in the universe," Baart said.

And even worse, he said, "We are in imminent danger of extinction."

Flying Saucer Music #18

I'm sure many of you have heard this one. It creeps me out, but my girlfriend thinks it's cute and feels sorry for the heartsick ultraterrestrial.

You can have your Christina Aguilera and Beyonce. I'll take Greg Bishop's playlist anytime.

Rudy Rucker YouTubes the gnarl.

Behold my new Yahoo avatar!





In time it might replace the much-beloved "laptop and skyline" image in my Blogger user profile.

Best Evidence - Big Screen Premiere

One hundred and eleven Haligonians, according to the official count by the Oxford Theatre staff, came out this evening to catch the screening of Best Evidence and Famous Monster at the historic Oxford, the last remaining non-big box, "cookie cutter" cinema in Halifax. That's roughly twice what the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation usually gets to these free screenings of local films.

Damn. I'm in in the film and I still haven't seen it. Fortunately the DVD's in the mail.

Just for fun, here's my view of Paul Kimball and photography director Findlay Muir filming me back in May of last year.





Paul appears to be beating his chest. Considering my scattered monologue on all things ufological and otherworldly, I can't say I blame him.

NASA Administrator Isn't Sure Global Warming is a Problem

It's not exactly that NASA administrator Mike Griffin denies that it's a problem, you see -- it's that he denies that it's our problem.

According to Mike, "I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

Regarding our potential ability to restore the planet's climate by curbing greenhouse emissions (which won't, by itself, be nearly enough), Griffin offers us this bit of delerium: "I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

I'll have to remember that the next time I'm crossing a busy street. Who am I to want to get out of the way of that truck? How unspeakably arrogant of me.

Fabled monster caught on video

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake. (Watch the 'monster' footage Video)

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45-feet (15 meters) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video this past Saturday.

He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Whatever the "Loch Ness Monster" is, I've never had any substantial problem entertaining the idea that it could belong to an undiscovered marine species. I guess I'm a "Nessie sympathizer." And for whatever it's worth, I predict we'll eventually discover that "Bigfoot" has a basis in zoological fact.