Stories tagged extraterrestrial life

This man used to sit in dark, smoky rooms...protecting us: Now look at what you've done to him. He even had to sell his cyanide capsule.
Courtesy laurenatclemsonI’m sorry if this is the wrong forum, but I think it’s about time for some grassroots action, you know what I mean? If we, concerned Buzzers and Buzzketeers, don’t do something soon, we will have allowed a great injustice to be committed, a travesty right under our noses; a massive government conspiracy will crumble on our watch, dozens of jobs will be lost, and countless dangerous secrets will spill into the grubby hands of the unwashed masses. Yuck.

So let’s get our act together, and vote “no” on the Denver extraterrestrial affairs commission ballot initiative. Assuming we live in Denver (a quick check at the window has confirmed that I, in fact, do not live in Denver, so this one has to be up to you guys).

It seems that Denver local Jeff Peckman is hot on the heels of the government’s alien cover-up division, and he’s got a hot injection of video evidence ready for when he catches it.

Five years ago either Peckman or a friend of his (The article doesn’t make this totally clear) was concerned that he may have had a peeping Tom problem. Employing a unique new method for dealing with peeping Toms, Peckman (or, again, possibly his friend) set up a video camera on a tripod in his living room, and pointed it at the window with the night vision setting turned on. Sure enough, the camera caught a sneaky little peeper. However, the little perve turned out to be something other than a mask-free human—a large, smooth, alien looking head appears in the video, scanning the room and blinking.

As of the present time, Peckman has only released a single still frame from the video (which can be seen at the link above), but the irrefutable evidence of alien incursions into the privacy of an American home has prompted him to bring the issue to the highest levels of local government. Pending the collection of 4,000 signatures, Peckman hopes to bring a ballot initiative to the people of Denver, so that they might vote to create an extraterrestrial affairs commission.

The E.A.C. would be composed of 18 members appointed by the mayor, and tasked with defending the city, in the event that aliens, “or their vehicles,” were to arrive in Denver.

Formation of the E.A.C. would be a major blow to the government conspiracy that we have all come to rely upon. Shadowy bureaucrats would be turned out on the streets, and stripped of their abilities to protect a population that, frankly, maybe no longer deserves their tender concern.

A vote for “no” is a vote to keep us all in the blissful dark. Vote “no.”

Let your ballots do the talking.

Tags : aliens, Denver, extraterrestrial life

read more... | add a comment | share

Inside Victoria Crater: View of Martian stratigraphic layer informally named "Lyell", the lowermost of three layers found inside of Victoria Crater by the Mars rover Opportunity.
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell UniversityThe science gathered so far by the two Martian rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, suggests the Red Planet may have been a bit too inhospitable to support even the toughest forms of life.

Although strong evidence of water (at least in the planet’s past) has been found on Mars, recent assessment of the data shows it contains a much higher salt content than expected and that practically puts the kibosh on hopes of any microbes flourishing there.

Opportunity spent time recently examining strata exposed on the inner wall of Victoria Crater. NASA scientists hoped it would show a record of the ground surface as it existed prior to impact that created the crater. But analysis suggests it to be the top of an underground water table, and after reassessing earlier data, and performing some computer modeling, researchers think the environment may have been too harsh to support life.

"At first, we focused on acidity, because the environment would have been very acidic," said Dr. Andrew Knoll, a Harvard biologist who is a member of the rover science team. "Now, we also appreciate the high salinity of the water when it left behind the minerals Opportunity found. This tightens the noose on the possibility of life."

Knoll spoke at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston.

"Life at the Martian surface would have been very challenging for the last 4 billion years. The best hopes for a story of life on Mars are at environments we haven't studied yet -- older ones, subsurface ones," he said.

Lower, more ancient, geological layers may hold a more hospitable picture of a less briny Martian environment, but the current rover missions aren’t set up to examine that.

"Our next missions, Phoenix and Mars Science Laboratory, mark a transition from water to habitability -- assessing whether sites where there's been water have had conditions suited to life," said Charles Elachi, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Where conditions were habitable, later missions may look for evidence of life."

The Phoenix lander is expected to reach Mars on May 25, 2008 in an area farther north on the planet where it will study the icy subsurface for viable signs of life. The Mars Science Laboratory will launch in the fall of 2009.

Opportunity and Spirit, the two rovers operating presently on opposite sides of the Mars, were sent there with one mission in mind: finding evidence of water. The missions were expected to last a mere three months, but have far surpassed that due to the robots’ high endurance, and problem-solving ingenuity of NASA engineers back on Earth. The robots are now entering their fifth year exploring the Martian surface.

LINKS and INFO
NASA press release
BBC story
Mars info
More about Mars (with less salt)

Tags : nasa, mars, Martian life, extraterrestrial life, Spirit and Opportunity, Mars rovers

read more... | add a comment | share