Wow, the story that keeps on giving.

I wrote about the Phoenix lights recently: it was a "UFO" formation seen over Phoenix, Arizona in 1997. Even though a lengthy investigation revealed that without a doubt, the lights seen that night were flares dropped from military airplanes, people refuse to let go.

The latest step back from reality comes from… wait for it… former Arizona Governor Fife Symington. Yes, the governor of an entire state says that the lights were from UFOs. And not just literally UFOs — that is, unidentified objects — but actual alien spacecraft.

Hey, I didn’t elect him.

He was interviewed on TV and CNN did us all the favor by putting it on the web. Watch it and be amazed. A guy who ran the government of a whole state says he thinks that (unless the military comes forward with an explanation — which, of course, they already have) these were actual little green men.

Now, ex-Governor Symington may be forgiven — maybe — because he’s just another guy duped by the credulous thinking in this country. What really gets me steamed is that CNN played this up as if the lights really were UFOs. In that video linked above they actually said that we still don’t know what these lights were over Phoenix that night.

Read this next part carefully, folks:

THEY WERE MILITARY FLARES.

There was in fact a squadron of planes flying in that area that night. They did in fact drop flares with little parachutes so they took a long time to fall. These flares were in fact seen to disappear over the mountains as they fell. A young man saw the planes through his telescope (but has been almost totally ignored by the press). The pilot of one of the aircraft has in fact come forward to say these very things.

CNN has no excuse for the uncritical reporting of this. A Google search on "Phoenix Lights" returns the Wikipedia entry as the first result, and the flares explanation is clearly delineated there.

Now it turns out the story is a little more complicated; there were UFOs seen over the whole state that night, and not just in Phoenix. I have received some snarky emails from UFO folks about that. What could those have been?

Uh, I hate to break it to you folks, but they were airplanes too. Timothy Printy has the whole story, in a LOT of detail.

This kind of stuff makes me nuts. Why do people cling so tenaciously to fantasy? I would love to have conclusive evidence of alien life. And I mean love it; it would be the greatest thing ever. Ever. The problem is, people jump so massively to conclusions that they can sprain their brains in the process.

Shame on you, CNN, for perpetuating this. And shame on CNN reporter Gary Tuchman for not doing his research.

Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to the folks at JREF for the links and the many people who emailed me!

NASA hasn’t been doing so well in the public relations department lately, if you hadn’t heard. George Deutsch, Lisa Nowak, budget cuts, some odd management decisions… NASA could use a PR boost.

The funny thing is, when they try it themselves they tend to screw it up. Many are the times that manned spaceflight PR from NASA comes across as, well, uncool. Unhip. Square. Not every time, of course, but sometimes I watch the press conferences for the space station, for the Shuttle, for the Moon intitiative, and I cringe. I know that in some manners NASA has lost its way, but I wonder what they can do to recapture that feeling of zest, of adventure, of can-do.

Then something comes along, something that brings those feelings back. Something that is honest, and good, and feels right.

Enter Damaris Sarria. She’s a young aerospace engineer for Boeing who works at the Kennedy Space Center. She wants to be an astronaut, and she decided to document her voyage on a blog, How I Am Becoming An Astronaut.

She is a wonder. Cheerful, dynamic, energetic, enthusiastic, and seemingly honest about her mission: to fly in space. "It’s my ultimate goal, my dream" she says, and reading her writing, I believe her.

NASA can’t buy that kind of PR. But I think that’s a good thing. Let Ms. Sarria do this on her own, untouched by the PR machine. She benefits by being honest, we benefit by reading about her life, and NASA benefits too. She makes them look good.

But most of all, she makes me feel good. She reminds me of why I like space exploration in the first place. It’s cool, it’s fun, and it’s exciting. I hope she does become an astronaut, and I hope she keeps on telling us all about it.

Update (March 23): In a weird coincidence, Ms. Sarria’s blog is featured in a Florida Today article today. Nice timing!

Wow, I may have to push PZ out of my "favorite biologist" spot. After all, PZ never wrote a fawning review of my book like Carlo Artieiri did on his blog, Musings of a Mad Biologist (caution: contains one naughty word, but I hope people agree with his sentiment).

Actually, it’s weird. When I set about writing this site, I had no plans to write a book. But after a few years I started thinking about it, and decided to write magazine articles first to get my name out there and work at being a writer. Then I wrote the book, and it’s sold reasonably well. But with the site, the articles, and even the book, it never occurred to me that it would be a source of inspiration for others. That’s probably true for most books; if you set out to write an inspirational book you wind up writing some pablum that eventually gets plugged by Oprah. I wouldn’t mind an Oprah plug, but I would be in truly awful company (anyone who makes a Dr. Phil joke in the comments will have their IP banned).

So it amazes me when people get so much out of the book. It started small, but you never know where it’s going to go. And if you are reading this and wondering if there is a book in you, my advice is: start writing. I am the laziest guy alive (ask anyone who knows me– anyone) and I wrote one. You can too.

Thanks Carlo!

Note: While poking around del.icio.us about astronomy, I saw someone else who links to my site. They were saying something nice too, but the irony was too, well, delicious not to mention here. The emphasis is mine.

I always hate people misquoting stuff or talking bad science, probably because I find myself doing that exactly. Phil Blait corrects many popular, but incorrect astronomy beliefs.

<Professor Farnsworth>Good news, everyone!</Professor Farnsworth>

More Futurama is coming!

OK, so maybe the news is a little old, but c’mon. Futurama!

Let me be frank: I love this show. Love love love. I sometimes think I am Philip Frye, though marginally smarter, and possibly worse with women.

The bad news is I have to wait until 2008. But I can do that for 16 new episodes.

All hail Hypnotoad!

Update (Thursday night, March 22): So I’m checking the links coming into the blog, and what do I see, but this web page. And I’m thinking, hey, that’s cool: Wil Wheaton reads BA. And then I think, HOLY HALEAKALA, WIL WHEATON READS MY BLOG!

Tremble before me, for verily, I rock.

BABloggee nowoo reminded me of something: Venus and the moon are very close in the sky right now. I happened to catch them an hour after sunset, and they make a lovely couple.

But this propitious pairing allows you to try something that is in general very hard to do: see Venus in the middle of the day! By itself, Venus is tough to spot when the Sun is up, but the Moon — even when a thin crescent — is a lot easier. It’s not easy, just easier.

If you go out in the afternoon, say 3-ish or so, Venus and the Moon will be close to due south. How high above the horizon they are will depend on your position; go to Heavens Above to see where they will be (enter your coordinates or the nearest city and it’ll do the rest for you). Look for the crescent Moon… use binoculars if you have a pair (but be careful not to look anywhere near the Sun; I won’t be responsible for boiling aqueous humors).

Once you spot Venus in binoculars, keep your head and eyes in the same position and lower the binocs. Bang! Venus.

Well, again, this ain’t easy, and may take you a few minutes. But doing this method allowed me to see Venus in broad daylight many years ago. I’m hoping to be able to do it this time too, weather permitting.

Hey! I almost forgot: the vernal equinox is here! It happened at 00:07 Universal Time (5:07 p.m. Pacific time) on March 21, a few hours ago as I write this.

Yes, you can stand eggs on end. But yes, you can do it at any time of the year. No, it’s no easier on the vernal equinox. No, I don’t care if your egg fell over a few minutes after the equinox. Yes, I stand eggs up all the time, and yes, they stay standing up until I knock them over or someone walks by and vibrates the floor.

Update (7:00 p.m. Pacific time): Well, that’ll teach me to go to dinner! A few minutes after the abort, the folks at SpaceX figured out what happened: sensors said the fuel was too cold. Well, that’s enough to fix. They waited a little while! A phone call interrupted my dinner: a friend was telling me the launch was two minutes ago! Figures. Evidently, the second reached 300 km, which was the objective, but (for reasons I don’t yet know) it re-entered the atmosphere. According to Space Pragmatism, Elon Musk (head of SpaceX) said that 90% of the goals were achieved, so this was an excellent day for the company.

My congrats to the whole team!

Update (5:07 p.m. Pacific time): NUTS. Aborted. I’ll have more info later.

OK, SpaceX has reset the launch of the Falcon 1 rocket for 5:05 Pacific time today (Tuesday). I have heard they are loading the liquid oxygen into the tanks right now. The weather looks good, too. Let’s hope they do it tonight!

Yesterday’s launch abort was due to a software glitch; nothing serious (it was a minor difference between how simulations are run and how real hardware behaves; a reality in testing that can be totally innocuous or can lose you your ship). They decided to take a day to breathe and make sure the fix was correct, and they are ready to go now — just an hour or so from when I write this.

Updates will be posted in this entry as I hear them.

Update 1 (4:29 p.m. Pacific time, T-37 minutes): NASASpaceFlight (not a NASA site) has a lot of info on this launch and the payload. Basically, the rocket is launching a package that provides information on how the rocket is performing. The second stage of the rocket will be placed into a low-Earth orbit, and they’ll be getting telemetry on it.