Category: Science & Skepticism

That’s Natural Selection For You

I was off for the first week of July. When I came back on the 9th, I found the nest on the cathedral tower had ben abandoned. My theory—shared by my neighbour, who’d also been keeping an eye on the birdies—was that the metal surface on which the nest was built just got too hot, and the chicks cooked. (Yeah, it’s not always survival of the fittest. Sometimes it comes down to dumb luck.)

Hey, I haven’t blogged about seagulls in a while, have I?

I was off for the first week of July. When I came back on the 9th, I found the nest on the cathedral tower had ben abandoned. My theory—shared by my neighbour, who’d also been keeping an eye on the birdies—was that the metal surface on which the nest was built just got too hot, and the chicks cooked. (Yeah, it’s not always survival of the fittest. Sometimes it comes down to dumb luck.) A gull came by every now and then for a week or so… was it a parent? Do they remember their babies, and grieve? Come to think of it, I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it.

The family at 650 Richards is doing great, though. Huey, Louie and Dewey (or should that be Athos, Porthos and Aramis? Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar?) have a whole roof to explore, with a good mix of sun and shade provided by the chimney and the surrounding buildings. For example, at this time of year our own building’s shadow falls on that roof between 10AM and a little past noon. For most of the afternoon, though, there’s no shade but the chimney, and that’s where they spend their time. Which just supports the “cooking on a hot metal surface” theory. It looks like seagull chicks are a lot more sensitive to heat than cold and rain: they’ll generally avoid direct sunlight, but wet weather doesn’t seem to bother them much.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the adults feeding them. This one time a couple weeks ago, the mommy/daddy just spit up a glistening chunk of half-digested fish half the size of the baby’s head, which the little darling just scarfed right down. Yummy! I noted that the other two didn’t pester the adult for food that time. And later, I noticed one of them was quite a bit smaller than the others. Being polite doesn’t pay in a gull’s world! The runt kept its baby colours (light brown with darker brown spots) for longer too, while its siblings grew a nicer light grey and white coat (now followed by plain medium brown feathers on their wings). Though as of now their heads are still spotted brown.

The chicks are big now, as big as crows. In the early days, there’d always be one parent standing guard nearby while another hunted, but now the chicks are mostly left alone. That’s okay, I’m sure they can take care of themselves now, and the parents must be working full time to feed their hungry maws. And holy shit, their wings have gotten huge in the last few days! They almost have adult proportions. Still can’t fly, though: the best they can do is a flapping run. I guess their muscles are still too weak, or their flight feathers still haven’t grown in.

But ah, my babies are growing up. Soon, I expect the parents will come by less and less and they’ll start fishing for themselves. And will they remember their nursery? Maybe one of them will build another nest on the same spot next year, and complete the circle of life. Or they’ll get eaten by a bald eagle. That’s another circle.

And I hope they stay away from the bell towers. Those places are deathtraps.

The Blessed Event

They’re here! They’re here! The eggs on the bell tower have hatched sometime last night, and the nest is now home to three adorable seagull chicks.

Bell tower? Yep: in the last couple of weeks I noticed another seagull nest, built on the southwest corner of the Cathedral’s taller bell tower. But since it’s almost exactly at eye level with my work, I couldn’t see the eggs.

They’re here! They’re here! The eggs on the bell tower have hatched sometime last night, and the nest is now home to three adorable seagull chicks.

Bell tower? Yep: in the last couple of weeks I noticed another seagull nest, built on the southwest corner of the Cathedral’s taller bell tower. But since it’s almost exactly at eye level with my work, I couldn’t see the eggs.

However, I could see the eggs at 650 Richards. Most of the time a gull was sitting on the nest, but I was lucky enough to catch them switching off. Yes, apparently seagull parents take turns sitting on the eggs. That surprised me, though in hindsight it shouldn’t have. I’d just assumed (sexist me!) that the female sat, and the male went off hunting and fed her. Just because I’d never seen him do it was not evidence against my theory.

So that was on the 11th, the day after my last seagull entry. I saw them switching, grabbed the binoculars, and briefly gazed in wonder upon three dark greenish-grey eggs, blending in wonderfully with the earth/moss nest. Without binoculars, I would probably have missed them, and definitely couldn’t have counted them.

And then… I waited. A couple times I saw them switch, or the sitting parent would get up to stretch its legs a bit, and I’d confirm that, yep, three eggs. Still not hatched. A few times I saw the gull pick at the nest, rearranging the mossy bits. Damn, how boring must it be if even the seagulls get antsy? Then again, they would get easily bored, wouldn’t they? They’re creatures of wide open spaces, surrounded by dozens of their fellows all the time. Must be hard to just… sit.

Wednesday, June 13th: a half-dozen gulls drove off an eagle. It was majestically soaring higher than the tallest skyscrapers, higher than seagulls normally fly, but it was still too close for comfort.

Wednesday, June 20th: hey, it’s panting. A panting seagull, how about that? But I guess it’s boiling, sitting like that in full sunlight. And since birds don’t sweat, it’s got to bleed off its excess heat somehow. Makes sense, right? Yet one more thing I never thought about.

As of today the first clutch of eggs haven’t hatched (I assume, since they’re still being sat on). But that’s okay, because I’m being wildly entertained by the tower chicks. Again, I need binoculars to see them because their down is a dark mottled grey-brown, excellent camouflage. And they’re surprisingly mobile for their age. I’d imagined bald little chicks, nothing but huge open beaks constantly begging for food from mama. But these kids are happily waddling along, exploring their home (all three square feet of it), occasionally begging for food, but mostly just… being babies, y’know? Walking around, looking around, preening their down, bumping into things and each other, always watched by one or more parents. They’re not quite alike, which is also interesting: it looks like one is quite a bit darker than its siblings. Natural selection at work. The ones who blend it best with their surroundings are less likely to be eaten.

A few times a chick would try to fly. Props for already having the right instincts, but it just amounted to them hopping up and down while flapping their useless little wings. Still, I laughed out loud because OMG SO CUTE!!!!!

Now I can’t wait to see them really learn to fly. In fact I’m tempted to buy a telephoto lens just for that.

And now they’re shacking up

Well, that answers that question.

A couple of weeks ago I wondered where the two gulls would settle down. Turns out they settled down right on the roof where they consummated their union. At least I assume it’s the same couple—not to sound speciesist or anything, but seagulls all kind of look alike to me.

Well, that answers that question.

A couple of weeks ago I wondered where the two gulls would settle down. Turns out they settled down right on the roof where they consummated their union. At least I assume it’s the same couple—not to sound speciesist or anything, but seagulls all kind of look alike to me.

So on Monday, they were tearing up bits of the moss growing on the roof (I’m almost positive it’s 650 Richards St, one of the buildings adjunct to the Holy Rosary Cathedral) to make a dandy little nest right next to the chimney, affording them a bit of shelter against the wind and the rain. They needed it, too, because the weather this week has been pretty bad for the season.

The female (I assume it’s the female) has spent all her time in the nest, moving only to change direction or readjust her butt. The male spends most of his time away, probably hunting. Since the female isn’t getting her own food the male must be feeding her but I’ve yet to see it. It might just be happening a couple of times a day, when I’m not at work. When he is nearby, he usually stands on the chimney or at the edge of the roof looking around, hardly ever getting close to the nest. Interesting. I’d expected more… maybe not affection, but at least contact from time to time. But there you go, that’s just mammalian bias.

On Tuesday the male fought off a crow, who’d probably seen the nest and came looking for eggs. It was a gorgeous aerial battle, with the black bird and the white bird swooping around and snapping at each other for a few minutes. And you know, seagulls are pretty darn nimble. They don’t usually need to be, but the buggers can turn on a dime with just little twitches of their great big wings.

The male stayed near the nest for a couple of hours after that, obviously on high alert, but there were no more marauding crows. I noticed he was picking at its right wing a lot. At first I thought he might be injured, but it looked like he was just preening his feathers. What would happen if it were injured, though? Could the female make it as a single mom?

I don’t know, but she probably wouldn’t need to. On Friday the male was in another fight, this time with another seagull. He got to keep his territory (such as it was) but it made me wonder: what if it had lost? Was the other male (I assume it was a male) making a play just for the real estate or the female as well? And if the latter, would it destroy the eggs as soon as she laid them and force her to mate with him? Other species do this. It’s nasty, but it makes perfect sense from a natural selection perspective. No sense in spending energy raising chicks that don’t carry your genetic code.

I don’t know if the female has started laying eggs yet. I’ll bring binoculars tomorrow.

Today I saw two seagulls doing it

Heh. Well, it’s that time of year. They were on a roof, across the street and a few storeys below my window. The male was sitting on top of the female for a couple of minutes after a co-worker pointed them out. Just… sitting there. Not moving, no bamp-chicka-bamp music. Then he flapped his wings a bit, and the female scooted out from under him. They hung around the roof for a couple of hours. Frankly I was a bit disappointed, but I assume they enjoyed it, and that’s what counts, right?

Heh. Well, it’s that time of year. They were on a roof, across the street and a few storeys below my window. The male was sitting on top of the female for a couple of minutes after a co-worker pointed them out. Just… sitting there. Not moving, no bamp-chicka-bamp music. Then he flapped his wings a bit, and the female scooted out from under him. They hung around the roof for a couple of hours. Frankly I was a bit disappointed, but I assume they enjoyed it, and that’s what counts, right?

I wonder where they’re going to build their nest. Gulls traditionally build them along the coast, right? Then again, the water is just a short hop from downtown in three out of four directions. Wherever they settle down, I wish them luck.

PS: it looked like the male was a bit larger than the female, and its wings a bit darker grey. Interesting. I never thought there was any sexual dimorphism in gulls, but there you go.

Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell

Okay, I wasn’t going to write about Falwell’s death… but then I thought, what the hell, all the cool kids are doing it. Let’s start with a stirring eulogy by Christopher Hitchens:

Okay, I wasn’t going to write about Falwell’s death… but then I thought, what the hell, all the cool kids are doing it. Let’s start with a stirring eulogy by Christopher Hitchens:

“People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.” Ha! Yeah, Hitchens is kind of an obnoxious asshole who loves to hear himself talk sometimes (seriously, “Chaucerian frauds”?). But when he’s right, he’s right.

Marc Adams came to SFU in 1998 to talk about his experiences growing up gay in a fundamentalist Baptist environment. Adams had gone to Falwell’s Liberty University. He survived—not all gay students did.

Marc talked about Kent, a student who was kicked out of Liberty for being gay. Even though they were in the same prayer group together, Marc was too busy trying to “become straight” to reach out to Kent. They never talked about being gay, not even as Marc helped Kent carry his suitcases to the curb. Marc feared a close association with Kent would arouse suspicions about his own sexuality. “A couple months after that I got a letter from him in the mail and the first thing he said was that his parents obviously did not kill him, but they did throw him out of the house and he was living on the street. He told me though, that he had found a way to cure himself of his homosexuality, that he had been able to do it, and he left a phone number for me to call. And so I called the number and it rang to his parents house and his brother told me how Kent had, just a couple days earlier, broken into their house and taken one of his father’s guns, and blown off the back of his head.”

I remember some members of the audience were in tears during Adams’ talk. Me, I wasn’t crying; I was angry. If I’d had the power, I would have cheerfully burned Liberty University to the ground right then. Though he didn’t pull the trigger, Falwell and his followers are to blame for filling that boy’s head with lies, fear and shame, making him feel he had no other options.

Here’s something I didn’t know: before getting into the homophobia and anti-abortion business in the 70’s, Falwell used to be a segregationist. From a sermon he made four years after the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education:

“If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made,” Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. “The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

Falwell’s jeremiad continued: “The true Negro does not want integration… He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.” Falwell went on to announce that integration “will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city,” he warned, “a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife.”

Not too surprising from a little toad (thanks, Christopher!) whose other career highlights include bigotry, lies, corruption, and the outing of Tinky Winky. Blaise Pascal wrote, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Falwell spent his life proving Pascal right, and inspiring others to do the same. He was a monster and a creator of monsters. The world is better off without him.

PS: This will blow your irony meters. Apparently, Fred Phelps (yes, that Fred Phelps) will picket Falwell’s funeral. For real. Damn, that’s too funny.

Yeti Crab

Coolest-looking crab ever.

It lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Pacific. It’s different enough from known decapods (in both physiology and genetics) to rate its own genus and possibly its own family. And it’s fuzzy.

Coolest-looking crab ever.

Yeti Crab

It lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Pacific. It’s different enough from known decapods (in both physiology and genetics) to rate its own genus and possibly its own family. And it’s fuzzy. Read more on the yeti crab (Kiwa Hirsuta) here.

The Stone Snake

This is pretty neat.

Of course, there’s a lot of speculation as to what this stone snake was actually for. Was it indeed the site of religious rituals? What kind of religion did humans have 70,000 years ago? What did they believe, and how did they express it? How much of a language did they have, to tell each other stories?

This is pretty neat.

Of course, there’s a lot of speculation as to what this stone snake was actually for. Was it indeed the site of religious rituals? What kind of religion did humans have 70,000 years ago? What did they believe, and how did they express it? How much of a language did they have, to tell each other stories? Maybe language didn’t play a big part; still, the collective art of a giant snake is pretty good evidence of abstract thinking (because you have to imagine a snake before you carve it out of the rock)—as is the sacrifice of the spear points, which seem to have been deliberately burned or blunted, because you wouldn’t make a ritual out of it unless you expected something in return: good weather, good hunting, lots of children, or just the Snake God generally smiling upon you.

Actually, that reminded me of similar happenings in the bogs of Northern Europe. I saw an exhibit on them at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa a few years ago, including a bit on how precious objects were ritually “killed” (e.g.: a pot would have a hole punched through it) before being placed in the bogs.

And I’ll tell you something else: I’ll never look at money thrown in fountains the same way again.

Around The World In Eight Minutes

I just finished reading Jules Verne’s 1886 novel Robur-le-Conquérant. Quite an enjoyable little book, though not really Verne’s best. I did appreciate all his exploration of the science behind the Albatross, Robur’s wondrous flying craft—Verne’s work is meant to educate as well as entertain, and I’m a sucker for a good science history lesson.

I just finished reading Jules Verne’s 1886 novel Robur-le-Conquérant. Quite an enjoyable little book, though not really Verne’s best. I did appreciate all his exploration of the science behind the Albatross, Robur’s wondrous flying craft—Verne’s work is meant to educate as well as entertain, and I’m a sucker for a good science history lesson. And I’m no engineer, so I can’t say how far-fetched it really is, with the seventy-four counter-rotating propellors to provide lift and the two large propellors at fore and aft for horizontal movement, but it’s clear Verne’s done his homework: he spends a couple of pages describing in great detail past research into heavier-than-air flight. There wasn’t any practical success by 1886 (and wouldn’t be for quite a few years), though certainly not for lack of trying.

I won’t nitpick the Albatross’ fantastically sturdy materials, nigh-indestructible parts and impossibly efficient batteries; that’s just hand-waved away by reason of Robur being a brilliant engineer. Which is okay: this was a time when scientific knowledge and engineering moxie were basically super-powers in their own right. Likewise, I’ll just sigh and try to ignore Verne’s chauvinism and racism: non-Europeans are almost all depicted as savage brutes or, at best, ignorant bumpkins: Prudent’s Black servant, Frycollins, is a stereotypical Coon character, contributing nothing to the story except a bit of tiresome comic relief. Again, sign of the times. I guess that stuff was funnier a hundred years ago.

The plot is nothing to write home about, and has a few gaping holes. We never find out what makes Robur (you know, the title character) tick, or why on Earth he’d kidnap Prudent and Evans—revenge? pride? to increase the numbers on his island hideaway?—and take them on a trip around the world. But whatever the reason we’re glad he did, because we the readers get to go along for the ride.

And what a ride it is. Here we have a flying machine that can go up to 200 km/h, more than twice as fast as the fastest trains of the day and, as Verne notes, fast enough to go around the world in just eight days, cross oceans and wilderness with the greatest of ease, and carry a small crew in perfect comfort. It’s hard to imagine now just how mind-blowing that must have been: back then there were no flying machines except balloons, which weren’t much good for long-distance transportation. Trains were pretty fast but not always terribly safe, and of course were limited by rails.

I think this is what science-fiction is all about: to see how technology and science can make possible whole new kinds of stories. Forget the plot: stories like this helped make the world a lot smaller to Victorian readers. And it’s hard to imagine just how big the world was back then. In those days it would have taken me days instead of hours to travel from, let’s say, Vancouver to Ottawa, and that’s if I could afford a train ticket. To communicate with my family in Ottawa I could have sent a telegram, or used one of those newfangled telephone machines—assuming the infrastructure reached to the West Coast, which is doubtful. If I was curious about some faraway place, I could go to the library or bookstore (or, if I were rich enough, my own books). If I were really lucky, there’d be photographs. Nowadays I have at my fingertips a vast information network undreamed of by even the most delirious futurologists of the 19th century. I can easily look up any information on the places the Albatross visits and follow its path on Google Earth™.

The journey begins in Philadelphia. On to Quebec City (which Verne calls «la capitale du Canada»—though that was only true for a few years), then Montreal with the Victoria Bridge, and Ottawa with its Parliament. Next is Niagara Falls, then Chicago and Omaha, Nebraska—just a few decades old then, and rightly called “The Gateway to the West,” being the point of origin of the developing railway system linking the eastern States with California.

We see Yellowstone Park, whose mountains, lakes, wildlife and famous geysers Verne describes in loving detail—despite never having seen them. He also notes (remember, educate as well as entertain!) that it was the first U.S. national park. On to Salt Lake City with the brand-new Mormon Tabernacle. We then cut straight across Nevada and northern California into the Pacific.

At this point Robur takes us straight north to Alaska (with a bit of gruesome and gratuitous whale-hunting in the North Pacific), across to Kamchatka in far eastern Siberia, south to Tokyo—formerly called “Edo”—followed by a quick hop over Korea and the Yellow Sea to Beijing. Then, southwest over the Himalayas, passing by Srinagar before heading west into «Caboulistan»—probably referring to Afghanistan, whose capital is Kabul. Herat (now an Afghan province, but then an independent kingdom) is also mentioned. Verne calls it «la clef de l’Asie centrale,» and alludes to the struggles between Great Britain and Russia for control of the region. I thought it was an interesting look at long-ago politics, until I remembered that region is still being fought over. The USSR invaded in 1979, then the US in 2001. Plus ça change…

Tehran comes and goes, followed by a jaunt north across the length of the Caspian Sea, passing by Astrakhan, then north to Moscow and St-Petersburg. We cut straight across the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia in a line joining Stockholm and Oslo (then called “Christiania” after its founder King Christian IV). South to Paris, further south to Provence, Rome and Naples, and then we leave Europe.

Tunisia (a French protectorate at the time) is the first stop on the North African coast. We travel west to Philippeville (founded in 1838 and probably named after the reigning French monarch of the time, Louis-Philippe; it’s now called “Skikda” since Algeria gained its independence in 1962). Algiers follows, then Oran.

Southeast into the Sahara, with notable milestones the towns of Laghouat and Ouargla, and south to Timbuktu. The novel mentions «le Soudan;» this doesn’t refer to present-day Sudan, but to a French colony which formed present-day Mali in 1960. Our exploration of the African continent ends in Dahomey where Robur and his crew kill a lot of evil Africans. That part reminded me of the scene in Verne’s earlier novel Five Weeks in a Balloon, where Dr. Fergusson’s team witness a battle between two cannibal tribes. One of the explorers, revolted by the goriness of the fight and the gratuitous snacking on still-warm flesh, shoots one of the cannibals dead before the balloon flies out of range. Both of these scenes, in two novels a quarter-century apart, similarly exaggerate the evilness of “Darkest Africa” and implicitly assert the rights of Westerners to swoop in (literally, in both cases) and act as judge, jury and executioner to people or kingdoms they don’t like. Plus ça change…

After leaving Africa, the Albatross heads straight to Tierra del Fuego, passing between the islands of St-Helena (where Napoleon I died in exile) and Ascension; it flies along the Strait of Magellan to Puerto Hambre (French: «Port-Famine») in Chile, then briefly turns south towards Antarctica, which was then mostly unexplored. Verne repeats various hypotheses about what’s really at the South Pole: is it a continent, an archipelago, or a sea of ice like the Arctic? Nobody knew, back then. Since it’s July and therefore winter in the southern hemisphere, the Albatross turns back up the coast of Chile until the Chonos Archipelago. They are then driven south again by a hurricane, pass over the south magnetic pole near the 78th parallel, almost get killed by an erupting Mount Erebus, but eventually regain control and end up in the Chatham Islands where the kidnappees manage to blow up the airship. And then they go home, assuming Robur to be dead.

There. Wasn’t that fun? Personally, I had a hell of a time looking up all these interesting factoids—and finding out Verne may have been wrong or out of date in a couple of spots: Ottawa, not Quebec City, was Canada’s capital in 1886—but maybe Verne was being patriotic, since Québec is French and Ottawa isn’t. Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868—but maybe he used its old name to heighten the drama. I do suspect he made up the location of the south magnetic pole. As far as I know it was never measured directly in his lifetime, though the north magnetic pole was pinpointed in 1831 (around 70º N 97º W). Then again, I don’t know what theories were floating about regarding Earth’s poles and their movement. And to be fair, most of his other facts, calculations and trivia are very precise and up to date. Even if Verne didn’t add to the store of human knowledge, at least he fed the fires of imagination in many hearts and minds. Though I take the internet and rapid travel for granted, and have flown back and forth across Canada many times, there’s still so much of the world I haven’t seen.

Robur may have given me a few ideas.

Comic Book Review: Seekers Into The Mystery

They say confession’s good for the soul, so here goes:

I’ve read The Celestine Prophecy.

Yes, that’s right. Me, the hard-nosed skeptic. Well, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I was a bit more interested in the woo-woo side of things. And in my defense, I didn’t really know what the book was about until I actually read it.

They say confession’s good for the soul, so here goes:

I’ve read The Celestine Prophecy.

Yes, that’s right. Me, the hard-nosed skeptic. Well, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I was a bit more interested in the woo-woo side of things. And in my defense, I didn’t really know what the book was about until I actually read it. See, sometime in 1995 I’d heard about this new Vertigo series called Seekers Into The Mystery, to be written by J.M. DeMatteis (who’d also written Moonshadow, which at the time I loved); it was described as “X-Files meets The Celestine Prophecy.” Well, that was enough to pique my interest. I really liked X-Files, I liked J.M. DeMatteis so to get the proper feel, I also decided to read Celestine. Continue reading “Comic Book Review: Seekers Into The Mystery“

Take Us To Your Leader

A little while ago, during our usual post-Taijiquan-class lunch, the conversation somehow briefly turned to UFOs. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but our teacher brought up some UFO video clips on YouTube that he found intriguing; he said he had a hard time seeing how they could be faked, and wanted my thoughts. I was surprised he’d bring this up as worthy of consideration, since he’s a huge skeptic.

A little while ago, during our usual post-Taijiquan-class lunch (and let me make a totally free and unsolicited plug for Craig’s Cafe, whose yummy food, excellent service and eclectic music have won our loyalty for years), the conversation somehow briefly turned to UFOs. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but our teacher brought up some UFO video clips on YouTube that he found intriguing; he said he had a hard time seeing how they could be faked, and wanted my thoughts. I was surprised he’d bring this up as worthy of consideration, since he’s a huge skeptic. Then again, he is the one who recommended What The Bleep Do We Know to me, so maybe he has a bit of a blind spot for some kinds of pseudoscience. I watched the videos as promised and gave him a critique of each, which I’m reproducing here in slightly edited form.

I knew about the alien autopsy from a few years back, but this painfully boring alien interview was news to me. Sadly not news were the mounds of sloppy logic, lies and half-truths, shallow New Age mysticism, shoddy special effects and spooooooky music. I don’t know who among the interviewees was in on the scam, but it doesn’t matter. This is all crap I’ve heard before, mostly in connection to the excellent computer game Deus Ex, whose plotlines involved conspiracy theories about MJ-12, Area 51 and the Bavarian Illuminati.

Prophet Yahweh looks like a grade-A nutbar (and, from what I can tell, has now dropped the UFO summoning schtick and fallen back on religious cultish end-times preaching). That thing he “summoned” could be almost anything; note, though, that it seems to be floating lazily in the wide shots, zipping about only when the camera zooms in on it. But this “zipping” is totally consistent with a shaky camera, especially since there are no clouds against which to measure the motion. Verdict: it’s a balloon.

Incidentally, though the announcer says the TV station chose the time and place for the summoning, there’s no telling what kind of negotiations went on behind the scene. For example, how much notice did they give Yahweh, so he or an associate could set up at the park? What restrictions did the kook give them, and how much veto power did he have? When Yahweh applied for James Randi’s $1M challenge he initially set out a lot of very silly conditions. So if the station was going through a slow news day or, worse, a producer was already a believer in this loony, I could totally see them agreeing to all those things and more, then not telling the viewers just to make it look more miraculous.

This looks like a crashed weather balloon. The resolution’s horrible, but there seems to be something hanging under the “saucer,” and something else trailing behind. Also, it looks like it’s fuller at the beginning, becoming flatter after the bounce without losing its basic shape (i.e.: nothing’s broken off). The trailing stuff might be equipment, but is more likely escaping gas.

This was a commercial for last year’s Sarajevo International Film Festival. Likewise, this was a commercial for scifi.com

This very short clip is quite cool. Amazing what the they can do with remote-control toys nowadays, isn’t it? We’re seeing it right from the side, so we don’t what its horizontal cross-section is. Most likely, it looks like one of these things.

This seems to be part of some woo-ish documentary on Nazi experiments with antigravity, or something. Googling a bit, I found out the British guy is called Nick Cook, and claims to have found evidence for some sort of Nazi super-weapon. There’s also a bit about the Philadelphia Experiment. The engineer, Tim Ventura, seem to have similar far-out ideas about antigravity and such—which is a shame, since the hovering dealie we see in this clip really does work, and looks to be based on real-life science.

This one, I admit, is the most startling of the bunch. But it seems even some UFO nuts think it’s a model or CGI, so the chances are pretty good there’s a down-to-earth explanation.

So there you go. Pretty slim pickings, isn’t it, if you’re looking for evidence of extraterrestrials—the sci-fi equivalent of weeping statues, or seeing the Virgin Mary on a Chicago underpass. Then again, to the true UFO believers (not including my Taiji teacher, incidentally) mere evidence isn’t too important. What matters is that they want little green men (or little grey men) to be real, and this makes them unable to properly distinguish reality from bullshit. They let their imaginations (fed by cheap sci-fi and a bare minimum of genuine science) run wild, seeing “orbs” in dust motes when they take flash photography, and a potential extraterrestrial invader or anal prober in every unexplained light when they drive at night. Simply because, to them, a world with those beings is more exciting than a world without.

I can relate, though. I’ve been a huge sci-fi/fantasy fan since I was a young ’un, devouring hundreds of books and short stories (good, bad and in between) over the years. Also, I was playing Dungeons & Dragons before I turned ten, and kept it up regularly from my early teens well into university. I tried my hand at writing a couple of times—nothing memorable, just the kind of cliché sword-and-sorcery an enthusiastic but inexperienced teen would write, though it was fun. And the best part: for years I actually fantasized about being contacted by aliens. Basically, the story went that I was one of a select group of young humans, taught various mental powers and given access to ultra-sophisticated technology. We were the next stage of human evolution, destined to change the world and eventually lead humankind to a bold future amongst the stars.

Those fantasies—naive and derivative though they were—held all my dreams of a better life, a better world, even ones I couldn’t articulate or admit to consciously. Most obviously, there were purely self-centered wishes of being selected by higher beings, being given great abilities, being special, which is just what a kid with abysmally low self-esteem wants. Then there were Star Trek-inspired visions of a universe where diverse alien species lived in harmony, and humanity could eventually grow up. And though I was still deep in the closet, my fantasy self was bisexual, with a committed girlfriend (in an open relationship) but enjoying occasional casual sex with guys. But for the longest time I just didn’t get the message: the truth about me—the real truth, not fantasy truth—was buried under miles of denial. I won’t speculate why I was bi and not gay in these fantasies: maybe I couldn’t accept not liking girls? Maybe deep down I saw bisexuality as the ideal situation? Who knows?

So yes, I know what it’s like to yearn for an exciting universe full of magic and wonder, so unlike the universe I lived in everyday. But even then I knew that when I opened my eyes, when I turned off the TV, the real world was still there. No amount of mere wishing could change it, and that’s how it should be. It took me a long time to realize that the real world is much better than any fantasies I can dream up. Yes, it’s more frustrating, more complex, less predictable. But it’s also more rewarding. Sure, I can’t travel to other star systems, or move objects with the power of my mind. There’s bigotry and war and general stupidity. But doing something about it, working to improve the world and myself is ultimately more satisfying that dreaming of benevolent aliens. Unless you actually start believing in those aliens, despite the evidence, and—fortunately—I could never manage that level of self-delusion.