Monday 18 June 2012

UFOs and the Pope


AOL News have done it again - this time by posting this picture of an object discovered lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, looking remarkably like a spaceship from 'Star Wars'.

It is big - very big - almost 200 feet across and about 22 feet thick, and there is a huge drag mark in the sea bed behind it, suggesting that it crash-landed and scored a trail along the bottom before it finally came to rest.

It was first spotted by a group of commercial divers who were scanning the floor with sonar equipment, looking for the sunken wreck of a WW1 vessel, and it appeared on their screens as a roundish thingy which is as wide as a 747 airliner.  They looked at it a bit closer to make sure that it wasn't a freakish but natural rock formation, and have spent the last year or two raising money to send unmanned equipment down, or humans in deep-sea suits.  I think they are just about ready to go down again.

As you know, I love this sort of thing, but I am not so naive as to ignore the possibility that the divers have thought of a damn good way of raising a few million dollars to keep their company going for a year or two more - we shall see.

In the video-clip which accompanies the only real footage they have of it, the narrator says that the area above this patch of ocean is a renowned hot-spot for UFO sightings - sightings which, he says, began 500 years ago when an epic battle between spaceships was witnessed by hundreds of locals and recorded for posterity.

During the Second World War, the area was host to some sea-battles involving American and German ships, and - right in the middle of these battles - dozens of UFOs were seen in the sky above by both sides, and the on-board photographers managed to take a few shots of them appearing as bright disks in the sky.

Also - and I love this one - an 'alien' craft measuring 'a quarter of a mile across' suddenly launched itself out of the ocean one day, clipping the side of a US Navy ship and damaging it, in the same area!  At the time - the narrator says - the Nazis were experimenting with space craft using technology given to them by 'aliens', so he suggests that this could be a prototype Nazi vessel which has been at the bottom of the sea since the 1940s.  This story has everything - at least everything to ensure funding for further inquiry.

When they go down to take a better look at it, they are hoping to gain access to it's inside, possibly finding the alien crew still on board.  This assumes that it is hollow, but what if it is completely solid?

If it turns out that it is, indeed, built along the same lines as as a 747, and was also was piloted like one by physical beings small enough to fit inside, then this poses some interesting questions.

Assuming it crashed about 500 years ago, will the crew be found sitting slumped over the controls of of the craft, or will they have rotted away as we humans would do, leaving an interesting skeleton?  What does a rotting alien smell like?

Of course, it is quite possible (if you take yourself out of a terrestrial mind-set) that the crew are still alive and have been sitting (assuming they have backsides) inside for 500 years, in the same way as we sit in our stricken cars at the side of the road, waiting for a breakdown vehicle to either tow us away, or fix the problem.

I remember spending 500 years sitting by the side of the Shap Fell road one dark and snowy Christmas night, waiting for an AA lorry.


P.S.  Last night, we watched the film,  'HABEMUS PAPUM'  (We Have a Pope) by the Italian director whose name I have forgotten (and is not printed on the rented disk).  It is a truly funny one, and beautifully made - watch it if you have not already, you won't regret it I think).

14 comments:

  1. finally Tom has entered my normal "world" of geekdom.... love this story too, am off to research it more

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    1. Have you seen the film as well? You would love it (I think).

      Your photo project coincides with me being given the go-ahead for an extremely interesting restoration project by my best client, who has inherited some very special objects from the 18th century. More about that later, but just to say that I suddenly feel very positive about the future, or at least the near future.

      Also, I have booked a night at a hotel in Bridport this week, just to get away from the building sites! I will also take better photos of the pear-tree fireplace on the way there or back. I am a happy man today.

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  2. I'm at a loss to think why any 'aliens' should copy the design of a spacecraft from an earthly TV programme. Wouldn't such an advanced people have their own design?

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    1. Don't forget that they print their designs on crop-fields for us to copy, and - because time does not mean as much to them as it does to us - they can be copied from the future too. (I can see you going blue through rational rage whilst choking on your cornflakes).

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  3. It looks like the head of a very large wrench to me.

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  4. One thing is for sure Tom - your blog is never ever boring. Not sure what to think - in fact don't want to think about it.

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    1. You're too kind, Weaver. I know it can be boring, especially when I repeat myself. Why don't you want to think about it?

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  5. Of course they're not dead down there. They've been swapping crews in and out of this earth station for five hundred years--or more.

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  6. In the image the vessel or ship looks to crisp and defined to me. Hoax perhaps? Glad you are happy today.

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    1. It's a computer generated image from a video used to sell the idea for research, Olive.

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  7. I am so happy to hear that you are so happy -- today. It's also good that you are able to get away for a few days. R and R often helps...

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