I have to say, I can never figure out my feelings on stuff like this. Selling Alien Abduction Dogtags is a clever idea; people who know it’s a joke will get a laugh, but people who are gullible might think it’s a good idea. Y’know, Just In Case.
Taking money from people like that seems so unfair… but then again, caveat emptor. And maybe taking money from True Believers is better than letting them spend it on UFO conferences and other nonsense. Maybe someone could point them to my Amazon book store…
Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to BABloggee Lee Sphar.
January 13th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I love the money back guarantee if you are not returned safely to Earth while wearing your Location Earth Dog Tags…
It has to be a joke!
January 13th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction
January 13th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I guess a few bucks for dog tags are better then drinking a sionide cocktail so you can catch a ride on a commet. I hope its a joke but something tells me people will take it seriosly anyways… lol
January 13th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
But the map on the tag is wrong… It could only work if the Mediterranean dissapeared, and a huge river formed across Russia. And it only points to the United States
LOL
By the way, Phil… Did you read my request for permission to translate some of your posts into Spanish? It’s on the AAS #9 post, before the last comment. And perhaps in your SPAM mail folder, too
January 13th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
It’s pretty cute (though DarkSapiens has a point about the accuracy of the map), but oh my God, whoever chose the colors for the page should be shot. My eyes hurt.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I’m gonna send one to Hillary! because all she is doing is taking up space.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I would never NEVER figure out what those dogtags mean, and I’m from Earth! How the heck are aliens suppose to figure it out? What was NASA thinking when they made Pioneer 10?
January 13th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
…Well, wouldn’t it be better to sell chastity belts to protect ourselves against unwanted implants and probes you know where?
And that can’t work. They’ll try to find a solar system with 9 planets! PLUTO’S on that thing!
January 13th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Funny as a joke, but they wouldn’t work. The map to our star is indicated by the pulse frequency of various pulsars. This requires a standard unit of time to measure. The original plaques defined this unit by using a diagram of the hydrogen atom. As this diagram is missing from the dogtags, they would be useless.
Then again if you are seriously worried about alien abductions incorrect dogtags are probably the least of your worries.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
This would be redundant information for the aliens that abducted you since they plainly know quite well where they were when they abducted you. It would only be informative to the other aliens that abducted you from the aliens that abducted you from Earth. Now them’s some looooong odds.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
NASA people figured that the aliens who found pioneer 10 would be bigtime geeks like them. Not Klingons, for example, who would blow it up out of boredom,
January 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Maybe it’s an ad from the future when Africa has crashed into Europe, closing up the Mediterranean
January 13th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I’d rather have my towel.
Now, if I could get the information printed on a towel…
January 13th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
A total hipster-UFO believer could have the whole thing (including a diagram of the hydrogen atom) tattooed on their body. The aliens have been known to take away Earthling’s clothes.
But then again, just get a crop circle tattoo and you’d at least be returned to Kansas or England.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I support this product and/or service.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I don’t need no stinkin’ dog tag. I’m an astronomy geek. Surely they have a nice three D map with variable POV. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be able to say “take me to the star nearest to that POV”. Once there, finding Texas is easy!
January 14th, 2008 at 1:33 am
From the looks of that map, they’re going to return you somewhere in Mississippi. Maybe it’s best to stay abducted.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:59 am
They probably figure you were abducted from Mississippi, and had the strong smell of alcohol on you. It’d make a good conversation piece.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:42 am
So will this stop those little grey people coming into my room at 3AM every morning? I tried holding up a copy of Bad Astronomy in from of me, much like one would hold up a crucifix to ward of Vampires, but I lost it.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Say what you will — I’ve been wearing this dogtag for the last five years, and I’ve never accidentally wandered off this planet yet.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:22 am
BA, you can look on this kind of thing either as a jokey gift, or as a stupidity tax.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:28 am
The map is wrong as it still lists Pluto as a planet!!!
January 14th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Or both!
January 14th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Hmmmm… that’s an idea. A credit-card sized replica of the Voyager plaques…
January 14th, 2008 at 8:46 am
What’s up with that map?
Anyway, clearly these tags are unnecessary – you’ve never heard of an alien abductee who *didn’t* come back, have you?
January 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Reminds me of a joke computer engineers created in the ’60s, where mass memory storage was extremely limited(a 200 kByte core memory from Univac sold then for $ 40,000.00). We designed a block of wood with 600 MBytes of storage and, for security purposes, was WRITE only. If you could prove you lost data, you got your money back.
Of course, it WAS quite expensive,,,
GAry 7
January 14th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Sorry to break it to you, but Alien abductions are all localized. Anybody who tells you aliens take you on some grand tour of the universe are filthy liars. Aliens are only interested in abducting people for the purposes of intimidating them. I imagine wearing the dog tags would only upset the aliens. I mean how would you like it if somebody started telling you how to do your job? ‘Yeah I’m from Earth.. So don’t lose me now’
The aliens would probably dump them on a different planet just to spite them.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I got my parents a set of those years ago. They thought they were hysterical.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I have an Area 51 ID badge.
Maybe I should sell it on ebay?
January 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Aliens land. They abduct a guy. He demands they take him to a star named after him and pulls out his $40.+ “International Star Registry” “official” document.
The aliens laugh. “Never heard of that,” they say. “We can however use the names from your International Astronomical Union.” They open a floating electronic holographic page. “Hmmmm, Let’s see, your star looks like its HR 7001.” “Welcome aboard Mr. HR 7001.”
January 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Dude, I love your blog, but using “teh”? So not funny. Not even in a deliberately ironic sort of way.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Gotta love any product that uses comic sans to get its point across.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Sticks wrote:
“The map is wrong as it still lists Pluto as a planet!!!”
Whoa, three exclamation marks. Calm down, take a deep breath…
While it is true that Pluto is not a planet, it is still out there, and it is still a dwarf planet. Maybe the dogtags didn’t have space for the word “dwarf”?