I for one...
...etc, etc, etc...
NASA has set the interwebs a-tremble with a teasing announcement to the global media that a news conference will be held in Washington DC on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life". The space agency's routine ploy of trailing major briefings in advance has …
Given the infinite vastness of the universe (and hence the inevitability of intelligent life therein), the law of probabilities means that in an alien language it's certain the Nicole's innocent sounding phrase actually translates to:
"Bow before us alien underlings. We intend to launch an invasion force at our earliest possible convenience and you'll be sorry, mark my words"
I'm pretty certain that the 'revelation' due this week will be that they've spotted an alien invasion fleet intent of having a bit of a pre-emptive strike.
Like most government agencies, NASA is obsessively secrative. It keeps things secret that aren't even worth keeping secret. Boring everyday stuff.
We are unlikely to see any "big" releases from NASA until it stops labelling the small stuff as being confidential, and shredding all and sundry rather than allowing the tax paying public to find out that something trivial happened 50 years ago that nobody really cared about at the time, and which people care about even less now.
It'll be yet another one of those vague things such as they've found methane or some compound that on Earth is only produced as a result of rotting bacteria or something, all of which means there might be the potential for the possibility that life could have or did once exist elsewhere, but there's absolutely no proof or even solid suggestion that it ever did.
It's like watching a cheap & nasty version of Timeteam, where they find a manky old conker in the middle of a field and start talking about it as though it has Henry VIII's fingerprints all over it and is almost certainly the six-er that flew off the string when he used it in Hampton court whilst playing against Catherine Parr, causing his wife to shout out "Stampsies, you tart!".
She was beheaded shortly thereafter, hence the popular Engish saying "always let the king win otherwise he'll pop a cap up yo ass".
If this information isn't taken from Wikipedia, could someone kindly add it?
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard
or tough.
and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
and you feel that you've had quite enouuuuuuuuugh...
Just
re-
member that your standing on a planet that's evolving,
and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour...
That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,
the sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
are moving at a million miles a day.
in an outer spiral-arm at forty thousand miles an hour
of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
it's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,
but out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.
We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,
we go 'round every two hundred million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,
in this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
in all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light you know;
twelve million miles a minute, that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!
So Julian's WIkileaks news will be overshadowed by the fact that some boffin possibly might have found the merest hint of a bit of moss on some distant planet!
Well whoopie-do! We have a shedload more problems down here that need dealing with first, before we start buggering up other "strange new worlds"!
I suspect that the wikileaks itself is a distraction, possibly to push through tighter internet controls, or justify new offensive electronic measures.
The content is no doubt annoying and disruptive to the international powers, but it seems to have been limited to a tolerable margin of irritation.
This may be a distraction to divert certain bodies of people from noticing the sleight of hand behind the original distraction?
I'm going to go stand in the snow for a while until the confused thoughts settle and melt into the slush that is my mind.
I wanted to see how aliens might translate nicole's message so I simulated it by sending it through Google Translate and back, via Korean, Welsh and Albanian. Message reads:
"Hi im nicole. I am this when my ambition is to do, and I hit it show.i, West End stage, with a small television and theater, and also would not want to see the mind has nothing to do one day love kkokgwaneun or one of the main part of extra care and I love what I want to show the doctor. However, laters.Nicole X"
I think that makes more sense than the original.
I've got a more accurate translation of what she meant
"Hi I'm Nicole, I want to be an actress because Heat magazine has told me that's the pinnacle that a young girl like me can aspire to. However, due to my obvious lack of talant and understanding of the English language I'll probably just end up getting my baps out on page 3, and noshing off a footballer in a Romford nightclub".
/social commentary
It does not have to be SETI or Mars. Cassini is still at it. There have been rumblings of a possible chemical cycle on Titan, and Enceladus is belching things that could turn out to be revealing. My money is still on Europa, but it seems unlikely that news on it would erupt now - we need to go ice fishing.
Kepler is probably more likely than SETI to turn up something interesting a long way away. The first finding there is likely to be a planet right where we would want it temperature wise. Then the hunt begins for water, oxygen and methane in said atmosphere.
so you can fucking bet it won't be about that. probably be about them thinking of designing a new telescope which may or may not increase the chances of finding extra terrestrial life which may or may not be out there. said telescope to possibly go into service in 2035. but it might not do.
For gawd's sake, NASA and SETI are part of the consensus reality that makes people "collectively" a bunch of morons .The irony is that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that the Earth and humanity have been effectively "quarantined" for decades, but most of the population aren't aware of it. Our galactic quadrant is probably teeming with life, but we're like ants in a hill, and oblivious to most things around it. Non-terrestrials must really be having a good laugh at our collective stupidity.
"It'll be another bit of gravitational wobble maths that has a signature that has led an artist to draw exactly what a new earth like planet that they've just theorised/"discovered", actually looks like in fine detail, complete with alien creatures this time." ... Bod Posted Tuesday 30th November 2010 13:48 GMT
Right on the money, Bod ...... Here is the SMART Picture showing the Extent and Density of Cover with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive Intellectual Service Provision :-) ....... http://amanfrommars.blogspot.com/2010/11/101129.html
And another smile, : -), because your disbelief does not hinder ITs Relentless Progress into Fields of Sublime Supreme Control....... with Temptingly Provocative and Disarmingly Promiscuous Power Memes for that Creative Cosmic Energy Flash Blast which always Driver the Special Event Horizons with ZerodDay Ones in the Immaculate Novel Beginning.
Having previously detected a tenuous Oxygen atmosphere around the Saturnian moon Rhea, further analysis shows that the unaccounted for carbon dioxide present could not have been generated by any known natural means. Either some entirely novel chemical reaction was taking place...or there was life.
The news electrified the world. Mass religious hysteria caused Lester Haines to kick El Reg's new LOHAN fighter/bomber project into high gear. Combined with Lewis Page's new (catapult equipped) homemade nuclear carriers, they unknowingly were Europe’s last hope for salvation.
Reading the news of NASA’s discovery with alarm, aManFromMars decides that the Earthikans were getting too close to discovering the truth. Slowly, quietly, with great planning*, aManFromMars stares coldly and suspiciously down upon Earth and draws his plans against us…
*aManFromMars is actually aware that he needs a less exploitable weakness than *$@$ing water…
I think NASA were going to announce that the aliens had decided we were advanced enough to contact , up until they received that rambling piece of semi-literate gibberish penned by Nicole (X).
At that point they probably decided we weren't quite as intelligent as first thought and politely declined the offer of a weekend stay in Area 51.
Cheers Nicole.
I bet she breaks her teachers hearts every day.
Apparently fierce property speculation within the Nebulon Ring Confederation exacerbated by over-hyped complicated financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations and mortgage backed securities (baffling even the best brains of millenia old extra-terrestrial civilisations) has led to a complete meltdown of the galactic financial system.
Banking representatives from the Nebulon Ring are due on Earth this Friday for showdown talks about a bailout of their banking system, which will be made more complicated because senior Nebulon bankers are still expecting their bonuses this year.
Must the middle classes on this planet pay for EVERYTHING??
"We've now passed from silly into the completely ridiculous." ..... VMax Posted Tuesday 30th November 2010 15:07 GMT
You may like to progress and travel stages further, VMax, to realise Absolutely Fabulous for a Code Red Alert Panic and Acute Anxiety Attack.
Correct me if I am wrong, VMax ...... but does your post reflect self doubt and dismiss the possibility of truth of some fantastic discovery/journey to be revealed as experienced by Others?
"Now is surely the time for wild and colourful speculation, not dull scientific fact."
That's the only reason I read The Register. :p
I'm hoping that the Culture GCU "Well I Was In The Neighbourhood" is on it's way. In fact I bet that's what it is. Closely followed by the GSV "Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence".
Utopia here I come.
Pardon my saying this, but if it were not for S.C. your erratic, unstable and irrational civilisation would have ended at least 60 of your years ago. It is a fine line we tread, between allowing you self determination of your future from non-interference, and downright meddling to prevent a major catastrophe.
Wel Lekker-Heet Meisje S.C. Agent, operating off the GSV "I think Halo is a pretty cool guy"
interdimensional port, after all.
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/29/lhc_lead_results/page2.html:
"All the exciting ion-masher discoveries to date are to be outlined at a seminar on Thursday."
Thursday being 2 December, which also happens to be the exact same date that NASA will make their earth-shattering (inter-dimensional portal-shattering, anyone?) announcement.
Coincidence?
Must check if my HEV suit is fully charged.
Gordon - where are you?
"...am I of Norweb Federation and in escrow 7.3 brazillion Galactic Wangs is there. In gratitude of advance assistance to regurgitate these funds extramurally can I ...&c &c"
Well, you get the picture, and it's been done better by someone else already. But that's what the first SETI decoded message will say.
proberbly somthing more like the sort of crap thats usually in the national enquirer.
man sees ailen in K art
I saw... its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet... their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource they move on... and we're next. Nuke 'em. Let's nuke the bastards.
I for one welcome our new resource munching overlords....
It's long been known that Mars has an excellent defensive system which has been able to disable most planetary probes when they approach. Clearly one of the rovers has discovered one of the ground-based portions of it.
All right, here's a serious guess so that you can all point out how wrong I was later: amino acids on Titan. With lots of weasel words like "probable chemical signature" and "possible" and "likely explanation".
In a fitting combination of the tried-and-true "Aliens receive earth mass media and make contact" and current events, the announcement is LRRRR, (Ruler of Omicron Perseii 8!!) has finished reading Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" via intercepted WiFi Kindle purchases and he wants to know that if we don't intend to finish off all those Irish, could we please pass them his way.....
Back in 1996 NASA confirmed that evidence of alien life had been found.
A piece of meteoroid rock call ALH84001 has fossilised life forms on it. QED: alien life.
The original discoverer in 1984 was initially dismissed when it was first discovered but now NASA scientists generally agree it's life.
Sadly for the Media it was not green, it was dead and you needed an electron microscope to see it. So TV, Radio and the papers generally ignored this announcement.
No doubt waiting for something bigger, greener and more alive they could set their paparazzi dogs on to?
ref: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/marslife.html
I confidently predict that if we are ever contacted it will be from a machine intelligence, due to them being able to survive in nearly any system with a sun and asteroid belt once built by a civilization similar to ours (i.e. carbon based existing in an oxygen environment).
Just have to hope that they are benevolent, and settle for broadcasting data from the L2 point, or we could end up being deluged with grey goo before you can say "Nanotech Apocalypse".
AC, memo to self build an EMP gun just in case...
I hope it's not same old song and dance show and this conference will reveal something substandshal and admit we are not alone in the universe and we finally made contact with someone out there and not come out with some dumb lie to cover it up. And o yes admit interstellar travel is possible and don't lie about it.
SETI has finally managed to tune in to ET's favourite TV channel - I for one can't wait for their SciFi shows.
I can't see live communication working as the distances would be so huge it would take many years for each message to be transmitted. If we're a little but unlucky we'll find a message from ET from a 1 billion light years away (ergo their civilization expired half a billion years ago). where would that leave us? looking into the supposedly bright future of a civilization has already long died away (not that half a billion years is not good going).