Comments on: Shocker: alien video is useless

By: denver to ufologists: we don’t want to believe » weird things

denver to ufologists: we don’t want to believe » weird things — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 16:59:41 +0000

[...] subject. The whole thing was organized by UFOlogy buffs with a little too much time on their hands, one of whom even claimed to have real footage of a classic humanoid Gray alien peeking into a bedroo…, and used this “evidence” to argue for a committee tasked with investigate UFO [...]

By: Lascas

Lascas — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:08:54 +0000

Ah cmon guys, cant u see that’s Roger from America Dad??
Obviously not a fake!

By: Vote of no confidence | Bad Astronomy | ACE GUIDE -ART-CULTURE-EDUCATION-ENTERTAINMENT

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:32:24 +0000

[...] one thing, Denver resident Jeff Peckman — the same guy who thought a really badly done video of a Peeping Tom alien was real — went around to other Denverites and got enough signatures to get an initiative on [...]

By: All These Weird Creatures » The Schmoblog

All These Weird Creatures » The Schmoblog — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:33:30 +0000

[...] body recovered? Smells like another “omg real alien video proof” situation to be honest. And why are we waiting until Friday for a press conference on this? [...]

By: Myself

Myself — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:20:39 +0000

Ain’t that a pokemon?

By: Buckaroo Banzai

Buckaroo Banzai — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:23:20 +0000

Dumbosity isn’t a word you illiterate ignoramus. If you are going to post an article like this shouldn’t you at least proof read or spell check it first? YES, you should. I find it very hard to take anything with made-up words seriously. Does anyone else agree with me here?

By: Axlotl

Axlotl — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:31:52 +0000

This is amusing and directly related to the topic:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20080529.gif

By: patschican

patschican — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:49:04 +0000

I’m with Tom and Joshua — convergent evolution is insufficient explanation. Honestly, if science discovered alien life that had an earth-like facial structure, I would abandon evolution and camp out with the IDers.

This is getting tangential, but I would love to discuss it some more. Tom, where were you discussing this earlier, and is the discussion still going on?

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:52:06 +0000

Convergent evolution isn’t sufficient explanation. Even if you had a nearly identical niche, there’s no good reason that other arrangements couldn’t handle things just as well. For example, why always have the eyes above the mouth? You could flip the order without too much trouble. And why always two eyes? While two eyes is the minimum to get decent distance vision more could have definite evolutionarily benefits even in niches very close to that of humans. For that matter, there isn’t much in our niche that requires us to have eyes on our heads at all. You could have something in the human niche with eye stalks or eyes on the ends of tentacles and that would work pretty well also.

By: F.I.D.O.89

F.I.D.O.89 — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:50:52 +0000

I know it’s true-Coast to Coast said so !

By: Tom Marking

Tom Marking — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:45:36 +0000

“So I continue to maintain that, if it has a standard face (two eyes on top, a nose in the middle, and a mouth below), it’s an Earthling.”

I used that argument in a thread not too long ago. What I kept getting thrown at me was “convergent evolution”. The trouble is in order to have convergent evolution you have to have the same ecological niche towards which to converge to. How likely is it that some other extraterrestrial planet has the same ecological niche under which hominids evolved? The likelihood is infinitesimal.

By: patschican

patschican — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:39:47 +0000

Zucchi,

The probability of evolution creating a “standard” face elsewhere, completely independent of the variables that existed on earth that played key roles in our facial formation, are so low as to be negligible. Yeah it’s possible, I suppose, just as it’s possible for me to toss a coin one hundred times and have it come up heads all one hundred times, however, Bayesian statistics states that the odds of that happening are so low, the question changes to, “what are the odds that it’s not a fair coin?” — which has much better odds.

Sure, creatures are going to have developed senses, but (1) assuming the senses are going to be our senses is presumptuous at best (perhaps they will have a more developed ability to sense electromagnetic fields, like sharks have, or some sense we have yet to perceive), and (2) assuming their sensory detectors will be similar in looks to ours, or on a face similar to ours is practically preposterous. (ah, alliteration)

So I continue to maintain that, if it has a standard face (two eyes on top, a nose in the middle, and a mouth below), it’s an Earthling.

By: MichaelS

MichaelS — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:29:18 +0000

Ade: So the peeping Tom was wearing a Punisher shirt, and is now laughing very hard at what he has caused without even getting caught. . . I think that’s the best explanation yet. It takes all the elements and ties them in pretty neatly. And I’d bet the “blinking” could be easily caused by the shirt wrinkling as the guy moved around.

By: Zucchi

Zucchi — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:54:21 +0000

Well, an alien species *could* have a recognizable face. It makes sense to have sensory organs clustered at an extremity; and everything has to breathe and eat. Eyes are really useful, and two of them give binocular vision (in theory; doesn’t really work for me). There are a lot of possible configurations, but two eyes, some kind of nose and some kind of mouth doesn’t seem that unlikely.

Granted, though, all the popular conceptions of “aliens” tend to be distorted versions of the human face and figure.

By: Pocosin.com » Blog Archive » On a lighter note…

Pocosin.com » Blog Archive » On a lighter note… — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:39:08 +0000

[...] have been talking about this issue. While Bad Astronomy states it is a waste of everyone’s time, I liken it to a good joke–the laugh is worth the [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:57:46 +0000

Sorry that you’ll never have that ten minutes back, but it wasn’t entirely lost — I learned the cool new word “mullions”. Hope that makes you feel better.

By: Ade

Ade — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:07:38 +0000

A mate of said it looks like some dude stood in front of the window, dressed all in black, wearing a Punisher t-shirt. Actually, it really does… this isn’t an exact match, but you can see where we’re going with this

By: Ozzy Rules

Ozzy Rules — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:20:19 +0000

1. I don’t believe we are alone in the universe.
2. I consider advanced civilizations to be so far and few between that we might as well be alone in the universe.
3. Therefore, we are not being visited by alien life and if it did happen I think the scenario would be closer to “Independence Day” than to “E.T. the Extraterrestrial”.

By: bubba

bubba — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:25:19 +0000

I once watched a group of 20-something kids stare up at the night sky and convince themselves that jupiter was a ufo. To listen to them, it was moving all over the place. After I explained what it was some of them actually thought I was wrong and they continued on and on about how it was moving around, blah de blah blah.

And that’s why the world is the way it is.

>>>>Anyone who thinks CNN leans to the right needs to have their head examined. With a power drill.>>>> M. Muffin

Well, they do let Glenn Beck have a show. I don’t know if that is pro-conservative though. They might just be using him a running gag.

By: patschican

patschican — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:05:14 +0000

The thing that really gets me about all of this is you don’t even have to show how easily something like this can be faked to debunk it. All you need to do is know a bit about evolution. To wit:

If it has a “standard” face (i.e. two eyes, a nose, a mouth, in the standard places), it’s from Earth. And if you don’t understand why, you don’t understand evolution.

So all of these nonsense photos or concepts floating around mean squat if you really understand evolution. Richard Hoagland can bray about the “face” on Mars all he wants, or the “robotic head” on the moon, but the fact that both appear to have the “standard” facial structure means that, even if they are more than just natural rock formations that look like faces (as ridiculous as that concept is), they’re still from EARTH.

By: Daffy

Daffy — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:09:42 +0000

Mercenary Muffin,

I know…anything remotely critical of any Republican is simply part of the liberal media conspiracy, right?

Life must be so easy when you surrender all your intellect to the will of a political party.

By: Zucchi

Zucchi — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:42:31 +0000

I saw a beautiful UFO back in the 1970s in Texas. A shape high in the western sky at dusk, looking like a glowing amber orb, seemingly motionless. So I took a look through my refracting scope, and once I remembered that the image was inverted, saw that it was a mylar weather balloon, still bathed in sunlight at high altitude long after it was dark on the ground. But if I hadn’t been able to identify it, “alien spaceship” would have been way, way down on my list of possibilities.

By: allen

allen — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:54:36 +0000

In view of the fact that no one’s advanced a compelling reason for space aliens to cross light years of space to visit our humble planet I think peeping in windows is just as good a reason as any I’ve heard. That would certainly answer the question of why they don’t just land on the White House lawn – the Bush girls bedrooms are on the second (or is it third?) floor.

By: Ann

Ann — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:37:04 +0000

Personally, I liked the Jeff Peckhman Alien Video – Best Quality. at the you tubes. I laughed out loud through the entire thing and it is the best comment yet on the original video itself. Excellent!

By: MercenaryMuffin

MercenaryMuffin — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:02:45 +0000

Ugh. Looks like BA has become like Youtube: A great place, so long as you avoid the comments.

But then, anyone who takes such a hateful site as dailykos seriously needs to be beaten with a dead cat.