World, Writing, Wealth discussion

This thread is about the things on the shadowy edges of our world, the spirits, cryptids, lights in the sky, and all of the other things that don't quite fit. Please post your personal stories and links to reports of the strange which make it into the press.

Feel free to politely critique and debate the posts in this thread. All that I ask is that you eschew posting fictional accounts and links to tabloids. There are enough oddities to be found without making them up.

So, what's weird?

I'll begin this thread with one of my encounters.

In January of 1999, I was working as a second shift stocker at a local grocery store. It was normal for me to get home around midnight, and that night was no different.

After parking in the driveway, I got out of my car and looked up into the southern sky. Orion was high above some nearby trees. I was noting to myself how bright the stars were in the clear, cold air when I noticed a small white light moving from Orion's belt towards Sirius. At the time, I thought that it was a satellite.

As I was watching, the light suddenly changed its direction of travel. It made a sharp turn towards Betelgeuse. Then it plunged towards Eridanus.

I was stunned. These were not banking turns. Nor did the light seem to come to a stop then accelerate in a new direction. No, the light just suddenly changed direction, without slowing.

It kept zigging and zagging between the horizon and the Ecliptic until I lost it in the Pleiades.

Any satellite that maneuvered like that would be accelerating wildly and burning massive amounts of fuel. Further, satellites are seen near sunset and dawn, when they can reflect sunlight from around the Earth's curvature. This was around midnight.

The other possibilities that came to mind were a plane or insects. It was a cold January night, so I discount insects. And there were no other marker lights to indicate an aircraft, so I discount an aircraft.

Any ideas?

Sounds like UFO. Maybe extraterrestrials approached us back in 99.

I've witnessed premonitions come true, apparent telepathy when people think exactly the same, very improbable coincidences and instances of karmic retribution

Nik wrote: "Sounds like UFO. Maybe extraterrestrials approached us back in 99."

My grandfather was a naval aviator and an avid sailor who made it a point to teach me celestial navigation. Further, as an avid sportsman I have spent thousands of hours staring up at the night sky. It's safe to say that I'm familiar with most normal things in the sky and several unusual things, but all I can say with certainty is that I don't know what it was.

A few years later I was hanging out with a friend in his backyard. He was an Air Force veteran who was interested in astronomy, so I was pointing out a few constellations. Suddenly he said, "Look a satellite."

When I looked, the satellite made a sharp 90° turn and disappeared. My friend was stunned. He kept saying, "Satellites don't do that."

Keep looking up...

Nik wrote: "I've witnessed premonitions come true, apparent telepathy when people think exactly the same, very improbable coincidences and instances of karmic retribution"

Any tales which you want to relate?

J. wrote: "Keep looking up......"

In childhood used to find Ursa Major and Polaris, while now enjoy Orion and Sirius during winters, as well as our planets... No UFOs

J. wrote: "Any tales which you want to relate?..."

We wanted to buy tickets to a movie theater for the night next day, but a lady suggested not to, saying "who knows what can happen till tomorrow's night". Next morning I had a car accident. Can be premonition, can be a coincidence..
There were a few more from her...

Well done, J. if you can find and recognize Eridanus :-)

A pilot friend of mine once saw an odd libght that moved across the night sky far faster and made a sharper turn than any aircraft could manage, however there is the problem that at night you can't really tell distance so it is not entirely convincing. Exactly what it was is unknown, and I suspect there are many other sightings like that.

Nik wrote: "J. wrote: "Any tales which you want to relate?..."

We wanted to buy tickets to a movie theater for the night next day, but a lady suggested not to, saying "who knows what can happen till tomorrow'..."

I've had dreams which later came true, leaving me with a creepy feeling. But they tend to be in familiar locations and about people I know, so I figure that my subconscious is reading trends. Then I'm focusing on the hits and forgetting all of the misses.

Ian wrote: "Well done, J. if you can find and recognize Eridanus :-)"

Eridanus is right next to and below Orion, so it's easy for me to find.

In winter, the first thing I look for in the southern sky is Orion's belt. Following the line of the belt eastward takes you straight to Sirius. Following it westward takes you through Taurus and on to the Pleiades. Once you learn that line you can master the related constellations by just learning one more each night.

I found that when memorizing the constellations, their stories make for excellent mnemonic devices. For instance, Orion the Hunter is with his dog, Canis Major, on the edge of the river, Eridanus. Hiding at his feet is the rabbit, Lepus.

But I may be weird.

Nope, not weird. That seems like an excellent way of memorising.

Of course I prefer to look towards the northern shy for Orion.

Ian wrote: "Nope, not weird. That seems like an excellent way of memorising.

Of course I prefer to look towards the northern shy for Orion."

Oh that pesky line. One night I would like to see the stars rotate around the Southern Cross.

If you are down below here, you would find it easily. The other constellations to the south are more tricky because there are far more stars you can see. And in a few ten million years or so, I guess there will be no Southern Cross, so get in quick.

Thylacoleo Sighting?
https://youtu.be/uImds-XA48g

While I think that the existence of extant Tasmanian Tigers is about a coin flip, the Marsupial Lion's survival has much longer odds.

I read somewhere they have reconstructed the DNA of a Dodo. Resurrection on the cards??

Ian wrote: "I read somewhere they have reconstructed the DNA of a Dodo. Resurrection on the cards??"

Maybe, but probably not for decades.

My concern is the epigenetic data. Without that, we could have a perfect genetic sequence but no way to control expression.

Typical scientists trying to play God without any thought about the consequences of their actions. These creatures became extinct for a reason and we have no right to reintroduce them. If we do so, it'll mess with the greater order of things and the eco systems.

Anyway, haven't either of you watched Jurassic Park?

Beau wrote: "Typical scientists trying to play God without any thought about the consequences of their actions. These creatures became extinct for a reason and we have no right to reintroduce them. If we do so,..."

The reason for the extinction of the dodo was us. They're extinct because we messed with their ecosystem.

Ahem, yes, well...umm...

Dangerous precedent to set though. Also worth noting that, by all accounts, man's introduction of other species into the dodo's environment hastened their demise. Same thing happened with red squirrels in England. Unnecessary tinkering with nature.

According to some, we are in the early part of a "great extinction" because we have removed so much habitat that certain species cannot survive. If the Vegans had their way, animals like sheep and cows would become extinct.

Ian wrote: "According to some, we are in the early part of a "great extinction" because we have removed so much habitat that certain species cannot survive. If the Vegans had their way, animals like sheep and ..."

I'm not sure there's any doubt Ian that we're in the midst of the sixth extinction. While we can debate the causes, what we can't debate is the sheer number of critically endangered species who are on the brink. As an example, there are so few Right Whales left, that scientists can actually give each one a name. Very sad indeed.

Then of course, consider that certain insects are also endangered. Insects! Who multiply faster than anything else are endangered. This planet is in big trouble :(

‘We’re closing in on them’ says UFO expert on Pentagon findings
https://myfox8.com/offbeat/were-closi...

Spooky Britain: how ghosts became a national obsession
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...

From the northern end of Beau's island:

Witches look to restore reputation after centuries of persecution
https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/wit...

Hope springs eternal.

Back from the dead? Elusive ivory-billed woodpecker not extinct, researchers say
https://www.theguardian.com/environme...

Is a New Jersey high school causing brain tumors?
https://youtu.be/Jdv91iIFIKc

J, I'm unable to link to your post as I'm on my phone but re your 3rd to last one, it sent shivers down my spine reading about evil witches on Easter Sunday...but I'll have a look at it tomorrow :)

J., I had the same experience of watching a light moving across the sky and then making a right turn at high speed. Glad to know someone else has seen this.

As for spooky occurrences, the night my grandmother died, I felt her comforting presence at the foot of my bed. I knew it was her. Of course, I can't prove it.

Scout wrote: "J., I had the same experience of watching a light moving across the sky and then making a right turn at high speed. Glad to know someone else has seen this.

As for spooky occurrences, the night my..."

It is a bit of a relief to read the accounts of others who have seen weird lights in the sky. Without some corroboration, one can start to doubt one's own mind.

As for sensing the presence of a dead relative, the closest that I've experienced was a little disturbing and hopefully all in my head.

My grandfather had suffered significant cognitive decline before the end. None of us could stand the thought of puting him in a care facility, so his care became a family endeavor. We spent many nights up and down with him.

For months after his passing, I would wake up in the early hours having heard him yell, fall, or knock something over. I spent hours searching for what made the noises.

I was relieved when relatives commented on being woken up by noises. Then a friend who had nursed his wife through her terminal cancer put my nerves at ease when he said that he had experienced the same thing, and it had lessened over time.

The noises abated. Now I sleep through the night. I guess that it was in my head. My subconscious was replacing the expected noises with imaginary ones. Once I got used to quiet again; my subconscious let it go.

Did you see it? Viewer spots ‘UFO’ during Timesaver Traffic report
https://www.news4jax.com/features/202...

From the Times of Israel:

Israeli-American physicist: Meteor that hit Earth in 2014 could be alien tech
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblo...

There is reasonable evidence it was an exo-body - trajectory and velocity, assuming they are correct, but "made" - no evidence at all as far as I know.

Worth extracting from the bottom of the ocean to check

We have a man who wants to spend millions of dollars just to get a lump of rock :-)

That's because you assume it can't be an alien tech. If the likelihood makes sense, it's surely worth spending. Billions of USD, for example, are spent on drilling in search for new oil fields, which turn out empty

Ian wrote: "We have a man who wants to spend millions of dollars just to get a lump of rock :-)"

Compared to an extra-solar object, lunar rocks are downright mundane, but we have spent millions of dollars per ounce to acquire them.

We may have spent billions of dollars on drilling for oil and found the deposits empty, or inadequate, but before the drilling the company doing it would have carried out a lot of geological exploration and sonics will have shown the presence of a structure that could have found oil. In short, there was a sound reason to drill and there was a realistic probability that oil would be there. As an aside, there often is some - just not enough.

Actually, lunar rocks are very interesting from the scientific point of view, For example, why does the moon make anorthosite? Why are the isotopes the same as Earth when all modelling shows that the Moon has to be mainly the impactor? In any case, the US did not spend billions of dollars to collect moon rocks - it spent them to put the USSR in its place.

Ian wrote: "Actually, lunar rocks are very interesting from the scientific point of view, For example, why does the moon make anorthosite? Why are the isotopes the same as Earth when all modelling shows that the Moon has to be mainly the impactor? In any case, the US did not spend billions of dollars to collect moon rocks - it spent them to put the USSR in its place."

1.) You do realize that your first few sentences are a major endorsement for going after that meteorite? We have been studying the moon for as long as we've been in existence, yet just a few Moon rocks have raised a ton of questions which we wouldn't have thought to ask otherwise. Just imagine what questions a rock from another solar system might raise.

2.) No, we landed men on the Moon to put the Ruskies in their place. Then we sent up a dune buggy just to rub it in. The excess cargo capacity needed to bring back the rocks was a ton of money spent for science.

My comment on that is that the moon rocks have actually provided a ton of answers. I have been looking at that since I am just about finished editing the second edition of my "Planetary Formation and Biogenesis". The Moon provides very important evidence on how planets, etc form and I have probably referenced at least two dozen scientific papers on this (the whole book has 1150 referenced scientific papers). The important thing about the moon rocks is we know exactly where they came from, and they were uncontaminated by Earth. The rock under the Pacific, if we could find it, would provide no clue as to where it came from, and since there may be several possible rocks, we won't even be sure we have the right rock. It will have been in seawater for quite some time, so it will be contaminated with marine stuff. I agree it might be interesting if we could be sure where it came from, but it would require a lot of money to be sure we could find it, and in my opinion, there are better uses for that money.

OK, USSR and Ruskies are not quite the same. My argument is the project was not primarily for science, and the rocks were just added in because it seemed reasonable to do it that way. Had it been for science they would have sent geologists to collect them, and only the last mission had anyone who could claim to be competent in geology. I can understand the thinking. That project was very risky. Test pilots, etc, can handle the risks. A person there only as a geologist would have no idea what they were and would be a nuisance other than when everything was going right.

If we don't pull it up we'll never know.

If we pull up a rock, what will we know? It will almost certainly be a lump basalt, maybe with some iron in it. Its isotope ratios will be different from Earth is it is the meteorite, but so are all meteorites.

Assuming in the face of something new that exploration would be costly and uninteresting, would seriously cut the tempo of revealing the secrets of the universe

No, my argument is if you have limited money to spend, spend it somewhere where you will get the maximum probability of learning something. In the second edition of my ebook "Planetary Formation and Biogenesis" which should be out in a a couple of weeks, I name something over a hundred questions than need answering, and many of them could be answered in a laboratory now, others need better telescope time, while other need more ambitious effort, like digging on Mars in certain spots where water once lay and analysing the deeper material. My aim is to get the best value for the money spent, and try to do work where the answers will specifically answer a question as opposed to merely fill the filing cabinet with more data that does not really tell us anything.

The $1m challenge: ‘If the Turin Shroud is a forgery, show how it was done’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...

Just an aside. I had a really high fever back in 2000, and the secrets of the universe were revealed to me. Of course, when I came to my senses, I couldn't remember anything but floating in a black infinity dotted with stars. Probably not interesting to you, but I still feel I have those answers somewhere inside. When I remember, I'll share:-)

Scout wrote: "Just an aside. I had a really high fever back in 2000, and the secrets of the universe were revealed to me. Of course, when I came to my senses, I couldn't remember anything but floating in a black..."

42?

:)

Was human evolution guided by Ancient Aliens®️, or were our ape ancestors tripping on 'shrooms?

A Contemporary Reappraisal of the Stoned Ape Hypothesis
https://www.academia.edu/22060350/The...

Uh, Nik... Is there something you would like to tell us? Not judging; just curious.

Russian Media Accuse Ukraine of Using 'Black Magic' as Invasion Falters
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-medi...

Black magic matters. As they say in russian- a bad dancer 🕺 is impeded even by his balls. But surely such an extraordinary warlord as putler would overcome a petty disturbance as b.m. and NATO weaponry