Blogs / Bad Astronomy

The other day while at the gym, the TV was showing CNN. I couldn’t see the screen clearly, but the segment was about unusual clouds in New York… and how some people saw Michael Jackson’s face in them. At the time I thought the segment was serious, but in fact it was Jeanne Moos doing her gag schtick, as you can see on You Tube:

If you’re wondering about the actual MJ shot, here you go:

That’s a screen grab from the video. I suppose it looks a bit like Jackson, though, like most examples of faces in the clouds, it looks more like Lou Ferrigno. Or maybe a zombie. Take your pick.

Incidentally, the clouds in question here are called mammatus, and are actually quite common here in Colorado, and I’ve taken a lot of pictures of them, like the one shown here. I remember the first time I ever saw mammatus clouds; I was in Maryland and the remnants of a hurricane had swept through. The clouds were like little bulbs hanging down, and I had never seen anything like it before… so I’m not surprised that people freaked out a little.

But I wonder, just how many people really did think this was a sign of some sort?

Sham-on!

Tip o’ the sequined fedora to Skeptical Teacher.

I can rant and rail against homeopathy, how it’s useless, how it’s nothing more than water, how there is no real methodology or mechanics behind it, how it’s been shown over and over not to have any efficacy over the placebo effect…

… but sometimes simple mockery is the best way to sway people’s hearts.

Tip o’ the 30C vial to Bruce hood at SuperSense.

What must aliens think of us when they pick up our TV signals?

Abstruse Goose decided to figure it out:

I wonder what Lrrr from Omicron Persei 8 would say?

Tip o’ the brain slug to David Woods.

He wasn’t the King of Kings of Pop, but he can still thrill a greasy drip pan.

Now c’mon, that’s pretty good. It looks a whole lot more like Michael Jackson than pretty much any Jesus sighting. The key is to know who it is supposed to be before you are told, and that’s clearly the Moonwalking man. My Lenin is IMO better, and yet to be beaten, but still. Hooooo hoo! Bauw!

Tip o’ the sequined fedora to Carlos Cardoso.

Are you an exhausted antiscientist? Has railing against the mainstream science paradigm got you down? Making up "facts" is tough, and it’s tiring CONSTANTLY TYPING IN CAPITAL LETTERS, using different color fonts, and don’t forget all those exclamation points!!! Not to mention comparing scientists to Hitler and Himmler, and yourself to Galileo and Einstein.

And of course, your mind is soft and not used to real work, so you need to take constant breaks.

Have I got the time-waster for you! Head (haha, as you’ll see in a sec) on over to Discovery Channel’s Faces of Mars jigsaw puzzle page! There, staring right back at you, you’ll find three clear indications that transhuman aliens from the future dimensions of light have visited the Red Planet and have left us signposts/warnings/idols/guaranteed-money-makers-if-you-yell-loudly-enough.

You’ll have hours of fun here, but be warned: when you finally put the pieces together, you’ll have an actual coherent picture. Don’t be scared, though. Reality sometimes has a way of creeping into even the best conspiracy theory. So sit back and enjoy it. When you’re done, you’ll be in hoag heaven.

Some of the secondary and tertiary news sites (the kinds with "Buy your Estonian bride online!" ads) are saying that a bank in Latvia called Kontora will give people loans for up to roughly $1000. Not bad, but the catch? You have to sign over your immortal soul.

First, I think this is a bad deal for them in many cases. I know that as collateral, for example, my soul may not be worth all that much. It’s been through a lot and is no longer in mint condition — more like poor-to-fair, with some tears, and stains… and I’m pretty sure the binding is missing.

Second, um, how do they collect? I’m sure we’ve all heard of harassing phone calls and the occasional broken knee from the collection guys. I don’t see how this might work though. What kind of extraction tool would they use? A scythe? A golden trump? Beating me with a Pearly Gate?

And third: if they did try to collect, I would declare moral bankruptcy. What can they do? In my case, it’s an act of God.

Tip o’ the halo to Jamiebb.

Astronomers — even skeptical ones with a sense of humor and an eye for pareidolia — can miss things. In this case, I can hardly believe I somehow dropped the pigskin on this one.

Back in April, I posted an incredibly beautiful picture of sand dunes on Mars taken by the HIRISE camera. Here’s the picture:

Wow. I mean really, wow!

The thing is, I was so drawn to the dunes that I missed something that, in retrospect, makes moi a bit of a fool. Look to the middle right; see that raised dome? Yeah? Well, look a little closer:

See it? Maybe this comparison will help vous.

It’s so obvious! And what makes it worse is as soon as I saw it I knew why it was there… all you have to do is look at this image of the Martian surface taken by the Viking 1 orbiter back in the 1970s…

It’s all clear to me now. It’s not easy being red.

Sigh. Pareidolia is certainly subjective, of course, but as a wise swine once said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."

Tip o’ the hand puppet to BABloggee Ken Arthur for notifying me of my oversight. Tip o’ the heat shield as well to the Tampa Bay Skeptics for the Kermit pic.