Why do they keep writing this story over and over and over?
06/14/2012
"Alien earths may be plentiful" This one and the variant about life probably existing on a jillion other planets. They never have any real evidence, and although the details may vary (like the stuff about the metals here), it's always nearly pure conjecture and speculation.
The fascination of the modern secular mind with this stuff is in itself fascinating. It's a little sad, really: as if this is their last possible refuge for hope that the universe is not pretty much a dead place.
As Walker Percy asked in Lost in the Cosmos: "Why is Carl Sagan so lonely?"
Posted by: Craig | 06/14/2012 at 01:19 PM
Very good Craig.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 06/14/2012 at 01:37 PM
I had forgotten that, and I've read that book at least twice. Been a while, though. Time to read it again.
Posted by: Mac | 06/14/2012 at 01:46 PM
I was thinking about Lost in the Cosmos when I read the post, how Percy's aliens thought we were such a mess.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 06/14/2012 at 03:01 PM
Read this if you have some time, it might change your mind:
http://www.amazon.com/Close-Encounters-Fourth-Kind-Conference/dp/0140195270/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339704174&sr=8-3
The author was a legit journalist, definitely no kook.
Sorry, anytime anyone mentions aliens I have to plug this book. :-)
Posted by: Noah G. | 06/14/2012 at 03:11 PM
I'm resolutely agnostic on the question of whether there is intelligent life out there somewhere. But I'm skeptical that it's behind the UFO stories, which I admit are not easily dismissed. Among other reasons, the philosophy that these advanced beings seem to dispense pretty frequently is pretty straight 20th c gnosticism, from what I've heard of it.
Posted by: Mac | 06/14/2012 at 07:10 PM
I've seen a UFO myself (in the strict sense), but I'm not in any way inclined to identify it as an alien spaceship.
Posted by: Paul | 06/15/2012 at 06:00 AM
Do you mean just that you didn't know what it was? I saw one of those a while back, but eventually it got close enough for me to see that it was some kind of balloon. Or do you mean it was really strange and didn't have a plausible explanation?
Posted by: Mac | 06/15/2012 at 10:12 AM
Something like this (only with yellower lights), hanging in the air well too high off the ground to be street lamps, in a place with no tall buildings, rather low for an aeroplane, and with no sound of a helicopter. I was driving and turned the car to get a better look, but then they were gone. All I could think was "I wonder what it could have been" and "I'll bet its things like that that give rise to UFO stories". I'm sure there's a perfectly ordinary explanation, but I have no idea what it might be.
Posted by: Paul | 06/15/2012 at 01:37 PM
Your clock didn't stop or anything like that, I presume?
This makes me want to watch some old X-Files episodes. Although I expect you're right and there is some ordinary explanation.
Posted by: Mac | 06/15/2012 at 02:01 PM