Over in the land of the free and slightly unhinged, Prof Paul Davies and Robert Wagner at Arizona State University, are trying to encourage every tinfoil-hat wearing fruitcake to scour over 340,000 (currently, but expected to top 1 million), photographs of the lunar surface in a quest for alien artefacts like, no doubt, a black obelisk bearing the mystical legend, “Fuck, but you guys sure are dumb, gullible, buggers!”
Among the torrent of drivel in today’s Guardian Davies and Wagner say:-
The easiest artefact to find would probably be a message left behind intentionally. This might be held in a capsule and left in a large fresh crater like Tycho in the moon’s southern highlands, the scientists write. Some longer-lasting messages could be buried at depth but fitted with transmitters that penetrate the lunar surface, they add.
***
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a message capsule (why a capsule?), had been left in Tycho. One who leaves a message does so in the expectation that it will be picked up – so why would it still be there? We’re asked to accept that aliens might not just leave a message, but that other aliens might forget to collect it – FFS, give me a break!
And what of this notional message capsule, left by equally notional aliens (remember SETI, anyone, and how well that worked out?)? People are expected to find something that’s maybe a few inches in size on the bloody moon? In a photo? In what possible universe is this idea even rational? Hell, it is, apparently, hard enough to spot US moon probes and lander bases,** and their locations are known.
**For those who weren’t around at the time, the base of a lunar lander served as a launch-pad for the return trip to lunar orbit, and was left behind, along with assorted crap, like the odd moon buggy.
And why leave a message at all? Space-faring aliens would surely have more sophisticated means of communication than leaving messages for each other tucked under rocks on random satellites. We can manage radio, and we’ve not even made it to Mars, yet these people think that aliens capable of interstellar travel will be leaving notes for each other? WTF?
The whole idea smacks of people clinging to their funding – even their sanity – by their collective fingernails.
Those guys need to be taken off to somewhere where the walls are soft, nice people cut up their food for them, and in case they become too excited, provide jackets that fasten up the back. Tin-foil hats can no doubt be provided.
The whole idea is 100% the purest bovine ordure. Total lunacy, in fact…
Over in the land of the free and slightly unhinged, Prof Paul Davies and Robert Wagner at Arizona State University, are trying to encourage every tinfoil-hat wearing fruitcake to scour over 340,000 (currently, but expected to top 1 million), photographs of the lunar surface in a quest for alien artefacts like, no doubt, a black obelisk bearing the mystical legend, “Fuck, but you guys sure are dumb, gullible, buggers!”
Among the torrent of drivel in today’s Guardian Davies and Wagner say:-
The easiest artefact to find would probably be a message left behind intentionally. This might be held in a capsule and left in a large fresh crater like Tycho in the moon’s southern highlands, the scientists write. Some longer-lasting messages could be buried at depth but fitted with transmitters that penetrate the lunar surface, they add.
***
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a message capsule (why a capsule?), had been left in Tycho. One who leaves a message does so in the expectation that it will be picked up – so why would it still be there? We’re asked to accept that aliens might not just leave a message, but that other aliens might forget to collect it – FFS, give me a break!
And what of this notional message capsule, left by equally notional aliens (remember SETI, anyone, and how well that worked out?)? People are expected to find something that’s maybe a few inches in size on the bloody moon? In a photo? In what possible universe is this idea even rational? Hell, it is, apparently, hard enough to spot US moon probes and lander bases,** and their locations are known.
**For those who weren’t around at the time, the base of a lunar lander served as a launch-pad for the return trip to lunar orbit, and was left behind, along with assorted crap, like the odd moon buggy.
And why leave a message at all? Space-faring aliens would surely have more sophisticated means of communication than leaving messages for each other tucked under rocks on random satellites. We can manage radio, and we’ve not even made it to Mars, yet these people think that aliens capable of interstellar travel will be leaving notes for each other? WTF?
The whole idea smacks of people clinging to their funding – even their sanity – by their collective fingernails.
Those guys need to be taken off to somewhere where the walls are soft, nice people cut up their food for them, and in case they become too excited, provide jackets that fasten up the back. Tin-foil hats can no doubt be provided.
The whole idea is 100% the purest bovine ordure. Total lunacy, in fact…