Dont you hate it when
people who know what they are talking about get involved in UFO discussions.
Baffled passers-by have discovered a large, bizarre, blob-like lifeform floating in an artificial lake in Virginia. As there appeared no way in which the slow-moving, four-foot "mysterious blob" could have got into the lake naturally, the thing's discoverers - theorising that it must have come from above - have dubbed it the " …
"As there appeared no way in which the slow-moving, four-foot "mysterious blob" could have got into the lake naturally, the thing's discoverers - theorising that it must have come from above"
Therefore, it must be... a witch!
God save us from people who have to invent an explanation because they can't find the real one.
"“actually a good thing to have around......<waffle>.......it will be smelly if it’s removed from the water.”
So, an accurate summation of that little lot would be: "It's Ok.......but it smells a bit."?
As plain English goes that'll be Heart of Gold atmospheric analyser 1, Boffins 0 then.
but I do find that line to be very strange: "discovered by office worker Tracy Collier while out walking her boss's dog"
is it normal in America to have one of your employees walk your dog for you? Or is this _employee_ just someone hired to walk the dog but the boss decided that she should be in the company payroll?
in my company, I wouldn't even dream of ordering one of the employees to do some private work for me during working hours. The best I can get away with is asking for a favor from my co-workers.
P.S. IMHO, the mere fact that the boss would bring his/her dog to the office is disturbing, actually telling someone in the office to walk the dog is more so.
My boss has brought his dog in to work before, I've got a picture of it chewing on my chair somewhere. Colleagues took it out for walks in order to use it (as a puppy) as a 'babe magnet'*, so... perhaps she was out cruising by the lake?
* Disclaimer: puppies are indiscriminate and will attract a wide cross-section of the general public regardless of attractiveness or sexual preference.
...I can bring it back to an IT angle! May I present to you Jay Miner (RIP), "Father" of the Amiga:
"Jay always took his dog "Mitchy" (a cockapoo) with him wherever he went. While he worked at Atari, Mitchy even had her own ID-badge, and Mitchy's paw print is visible on the inside of the Amiga 1000 top cover."
The day aliens land in Hyde Park on a Tuesday afternoon and hold a proper press conference, and not appear to some inbred, brain-dead hicks in the back of beyond, I will give alien life some credence, until that day, UFO nuts STFU and get a life!
I am the aforementioned Charlie Schmuck. The guy who took the photo, and contacted VIMS. So, let's clear some things up.....
Yes, most people call me Chuck. It happens that how 'Merkans are.
My mother doesn't drink, but if you are ever in the Seattle area, my dad would love a free beer.
We aren't 'ordered' to walk the dog. She is our office mascot, and we do it because we love the dog. Also, it helps pass time on smoke breaks.
We didn't actually touch the blob, it was about 6 feet (2 meters) from the shore. We used a 1" x 1" piece of wood we had in our shop.
We've got some really frackin' weird creatures here already, stranger than most sci-fi writers can come up with. The platypus and slime molds, of course. Starfish that regenerate and inject their stomachs into bivalves to digest them in the shell. Colossal squid. Parasites whose larvae eat the brains of their host/victim. Spiders that eat their mates after/during copulation (may be considered extreme porn). The reproductive organs of ducks, particularly Muscovies (same). Moray eels, with their extensible secondary jaws. Etc.
Yes, nature is bonkers. Have you seen those parasites that turn the antennae of snails into PULSATING DISCO LIGHTS meant to look like maggots, and get the snails to go out in the open and get eaten by birds? The horror!
Also, the parasite cats carry that most of the world is now infected with, which changes your behaviour. This explains a lot.
I saw a mysterious swimming black thing on the Raritan River in New Jersey, USA a few weeks ago. The Rutgers University sculling team was out in drill. I was standing right at the canal entrance. Then I saw this thing floating against the tide in the middle of the river. It could very well have been one of the seed pods.