Wow, was I wrong - The Bear and Badger

M0stly harm13ss

Yossarian wrote:

Awesome, I'll take two. Smallest size you have, plox.

Two? Mutant!

djchump

Jacuzzi_Jackson wrote:

I doubt they were chinese lanterns, but they could have been. As i've said they moved in a controlled, precise way and they scattered in different directions before vanishing which would suggest it wasn't the wind moving them. But thats besides the point - why are you being a bitch about it? I don't think they were aliens, you've decided that for me. And thats what you are mocking me for, something you'd added to what i said yourself. Self serving mock tactics. I can play that game too. Its obvious from what you said and your attitude that you wet the bed regularly, and for that you deserve mocking. Lol bed wetter.

/sigh

My initial point about the daftness of the often seen leap from "I saw something and I don't know what it was" to "I saw what I believe to be aliens from another planet" was as a PS - it was an aside and a daft joke about the shitness of Sheffield.

But you very much did suggest the link to aliens with "I'm not sure they were aliens...".Â
I can understand where you're coming from and that you meant to say something like "I'm not saying they were aliens, because that would be ridiculous ... but I don't know what the lights were" - but that's not what you said. Maybe you genuinely didn't have even the slightest inkling that it could be aliens and you've expressed yourself badly, or maybe you think there was even a slight chance that interstellar visitors had come to Sheffield, but I thought you had more of a sense of humour and would see that I was just having a joke about Sheffield being shit.

As I said, this thread was made for admitting to the silly things we used to believe (mostly it seems when we were kids and didn't know any better) - as you can see, I haven't been mocking the stuff people thought when they were kids.

Yossarian

I won't use them both at once, but once I've used one, the decontamination process can take a few days.

Mod74

Kow wrote:

It's certainly true that aliens arrived in time of modern technology and indeed interest in space. Just a coincidence of course.

Aren't there cave drawings of 'spaceships'. Could have sworn Sagan visits one in his series. Or maybe I'm confusing that.

Rev

Jacuzzi_Jackson wrote:

I got all your jacuzzi needs covered. The mini hand jacuzzi. The tiny ear jacuzzi. The popular sexy bits jacuzzi.

Also now for dogs.

hmmm. Only one problem.. I dont smell too good wet.

Kow

@mod You're thinking of Prometheus.

Anyway, the idea may be that any kind of phenomenon from solar activity to misfirings in the brain, etc etc would be interpreted as whatever is current to local civilisation and culture.

djchump

Well, the argument would be that there's cave drawings or egyptian carvings or Mayan whatevers of shapes and symbols that, after the permeation of UFOs as alien craft as a meme from 50's scifi, have been interpreted as "spaceships", but prior to the scifi literature, were interpreted differently or were just completely insignificant.

A cuneiform of man holding arms aloft to the sun in praise gets reinterpreted as a man being taken aboard a spherical spaceship and the like.

[Deleted User]

Kow wrote:

@mod You're thinking of Prometheus.

chuckle

Mod74

It's perfectly reasonable that when science finally worked out/proved that the night sky wasn't just a blanket with pin pricks in and was in fact full of billions of planets that could host life things that didn't seem significant were looked at with new understanding.

Mod74

Kow wrote:

@mod You're thinking of Prometheus. Anyway, the idea may be that any kind of phenomenon from solar activity to misfirings in the brain, etc etc would be interpreted as whatever is current to local civilisation and culture.

Never seen it

Also, fuck you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts#Shklovski_and_Sagan

Kow

Yeah, that's the point. New discoveries are integrated into culture and used in modern mythology. The idea of alien abductions makes sense within a modern mythology, demons and fairies don't. They may both originate in the same phenomenon, though.

Vastik

djchump wrote:

PS - I still can't get past the idea that, because someone has seen something in the air that they can't immediately identify (hence, U.F.O.), that that in any way hints to aliens from another planet! "I'm not sure they were aliens or anything..." Well, I'm entirely 100% sure they *weren't* aliens, because if there's an extra-terrestrial race with the intelligence and technological ability for inter-stellar travel across the light years of empty space between their home planet and ours (and the necessary social stability to have survived long enough to reach to that technological point), then they sure as fuck ain't going anywhere near Sheffield.

They come to Sheffield for the Ale. And pie.

Rev

They used to come for the steel, but now its for the strippers..

Yossarian

Kow wrote:

@mod You're thinking of Prometheus.

Anyway, the idea may be that any kind of phenomenon from solar activity to misfirings in the brain, etc etc would be interpreted as whatever is current to local civilisation and culture.

In fact, I remember seeing on a documentary somewhere that in the 50s the CIA or someone similar planted an article in Time magazine positing the idea of alien spacecraft visiting Earth, and being particularly interested in New Mexico and this kicked off the whole UFO craze. In an entirely unrelated event which just happened to occur at roughly the same time, the US Air Force moved its main centre for developing and testing experimental aircraft to Roswell.

Jacuzzi_Jackson

@DJchump - i'm past caring. If you didn't mean to be a dick then you, as you claim I, expressed yourself badly. Apologies all round, hugs and kisses, get revel out of the fucking jacuzzi he's going to stink the house out!

FIN

M0stly harm13ss

Oh nice one...the whole book seems to be available as a PDF free here....

http://www.thevenusproject.com/downloads/ebooks/Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World.pdf

M0stly harm13ss

1950's was the first time UFOs started to be seen in the classic 'saucer' shape, although this may be because of a misquote...

There was something odd about the very invention of the phrase 'flying saucer'. As I write this chapter, I have before me a transcript of a 7 April 1950 interview between Edward R. Murrow, the celebrated CBS newsman, and Kenneth Arnold, aÂ
civilian pilot who saw something peculiar near Mount Rainier in the state of Washington on 24 June 1947 and who in a way coined the phrase. Arnold claims that the newspapersÂ

"did not quote me properly . . . When I told the press they misquoted me, and in the excitement of it all, one newspaper and another one got it so ensnarled up that nobody knew just exactly what they were talking about . . . These objects more or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very rough water . . . And when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across theÂ
water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; IÂ
said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion."

Arnold thought he saw a train of nine objects, one of which produced a 'terrific blue flash'. He concluded they were a newÂ
kind of winged aircraft. Murrow summed up: 'That was an historic misquote. While Mr Arnold's original explanation has been forgotten, the term "flying saucer" has become a household word.' Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers looked and behaved quite differently from what in only a few years would be rigidly particularized in the public understanding of the term: something like a very large and highly manoeuverable frisbee.

Kow

Oh nice one.

Mod74

I don't really keep up but the 'saucer' shape isn't what most of the purported sightings seem to be nowadays, more the erratic moving lights version.

Kow

stupid auto correct

Kow

Saucers aren't fashionable anymore.

Mod74

That's the thing. You're mixing up UFO/Saucer hysteria in the 50s with retconning things that could have been spaceships in history.

Kow

No, I'm talking about using what's culturally relevant to explain things which have no immediate explanation. There's a difference between fashionable and relevant to modern culture.

Kow

dp again.

Jacuzzi_Jackson

Kow you keep posting everything twice.

Kow you keep posting everything twice.

Mod74

Kow wrote:

No, I'm talking about using what's culturally relevant to explain things which have no immediate explanation. There's a difference between fashionable and relevant to modern culture.

What do you mean by culture?

If science says that actually, UFOs are a possibility is that culture? Or are you saying aliens are just what we use in the 20/21st century to explain the unknown?

Kow

Partly the second yes. I don't think science concedes anything other than the possibility of the existence of life somewhere out there. There is no ufo evidence so it is purely in the realm of mythology, therefore interpreting ancient drawings using aliens must be part of mythology too. A modern mythology too boot.

M0stly harm13ss

Your second point Mod. Aliens are what we (and by 'we', I mean the Western World, as strangely, UFOs are not sighted as much in other cultures) use to explain unknown phenomena.

Edit: Have a look at the book I linked to on the previous page. It's an interesting read.

beano

Okay not exactly the right thread but this is an interactive what-if concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis.

WorKid

Turns out the moon is a hologram. Check the comments.

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