Scargill

Archive for the ‘Weird’ Category

I’ve been thinking about aliens and UFOs recently – mainly because every time I go channel-hopping on Sky there’s some conspiracy program or other trying to prove the government is covering things up.

I’m afraid after many years of thinking about this subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that UFOs fit into the same categories as gods – i.e. wishful thinking, nothing more.

Why?

Well, that’s not to say I don’t think there ARE UFOs – a long way away minding their own business. I just don’t think there are any here – and I think SETI are wasting their time looking for radio broadcasts from space.

Part of the problem is our inability sometimes to see out of the box.. take UFO sightings for example. It’s absolutely DEAD CERT that UFOs do not come from any planet in our solar system – if that doesn’t make sense to you I’m not going to explain other than to say – go and watch Discovery channel – we’d know if there were any massive factories on these planets creating UFOs. So where does that leave us? Well, other solar systems of course.

There are so many star systems out there with planets that there are BOUND to be advanced civilisations out there and they’d need to be a pretty advanced civilisation to send out a UFO into our star system. Why? Because unless their main goal in life was wasting time, they’d have had to figure out how to go faster than light by some way – and our science says that’s pretty much a non-starter.

That’s not to say that faster-than-light travel is impossible – it’s just to say that if it is both possible and practical we won’t be doing it in the near future – and that’s the point… they would have indeed to be so far ahead of us that we could not possibly hold anything other than novelty value for them. This is real life, not Stargate (much as I like Stargate).  Indeed that’s the central plank of my argument – anyone SO advanced would be very unlikely to accidentally leave the lights on so we could spot them at night.

But more’s the point, we’ve been serious about technology for less than my lifetime – lets face it back in the 50’s we had, what BAKELIGHT and VALVES and most devices were that simple that it was actually possible for one very bright person to know pretty much how everything works. Those days have long gone. In 60 years we’ve transformed this planet and our technologies beyond recognition and we’ve only just STARTED…  We USED to send out Megawatts of easily digested signals which would go off to other worlds in time but today we send highly encrypted digital signals – mostly by methods that don’t involve powerful wide-angled radio waves. In time everything will be a mix of optical and short range radio – so we won’t be sending ANYTHING significant out to space and what we do send out will be so well compressed and encrypted – that it will look just like – well, noise. Background noise in fact.

Any aliens likely to be within range will:

a. likely have no use for us other than as zoo specimens

b. be transmitting data so complex we could never hope to read it – just as someone from the 50s could never hope to do anything useful with a DVD.

c. Be watching us from a safe distance just the military can watch us from satellites so far away you can’t tell them from stars – only much much further away and with much better resolution. they are likely now to be watching us as we decimated each other in WWII. There is no way they can see or hear what we’re doing now because the information won’t have reached them yet. They will know that anything they learn will be so old as to be useless.

And if they do need to pop down to pick up samples – they’re CERTAINLY not going to leave the lights on so we can see them coming!

I trust that knocks aliens on the head!

Peter Scargill

I’ve seen some strange creatures in my time but nothing like this caterpillar, which I just happened to notice while wandering into the house for a cup of coffee this afternoon.  Around 50mm long, he looks for all the world like a truncated snake – certainly the head and “false” eyes give that impression. 

And that’s in sunny WARK, not some strange country! According to Melanie-Jane at our office – this is an ELEPHANT HAWK MOTH CATERPILLAR – looks about right from the photos on Google!

Deed a holiday in Northumberland – then check out Hollyberry Cottage Holiday rental in Bellingham

So, for me it’s all about learning and there is SO much to learn in the early 21st century.

Sadly, learning new things is not something that appeals to much of the world and as we’re seeing, it is religion as much as science that is shaping the world (recent terrorist events being prime examples but as you’ll see below, even in America, supposedly one of the more advanced countries – there are some terrifying influences at work). Hopefully with Mr Obama at the helm over in the states things might improve a little. I can’t see him having too much time for the religious right.

I recently watched a pair of TV programs by scientist Richard Dawkin which make me wish we’d already mastered space flight – so that some of us could go and live someplace where we can be sure of continued advancement – not something I think is guaranteed in this world – the program is about his travels in America and the religious head-cases he comes across. I recommend you watch these videos, if you’re short of time stick with the second part. This is worrying and if you’ve not seen them before – an eye-opener!

The Root of all Evil? Part I

The Root of All Evil? Part II

On the same page as the first video is a link to a video featuring a guy called Pastor Richard Haggard – an utter and complete nut. Worth watching to see just how stupid people can be.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBC5L6cyq2Y]

“It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.” — Ernestine Rose