Unexplained Out of this world!

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Bad News and Good News Rocks the World of UFOs By Rad Dewey ThirdAge Staff

Admit it. You've been fascinated by the concept of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) ever since Uncle Bernie tricked you by throwing a pie pan into the air from behind the barn and shining a flashlight on it. Well, here's the bad news. The British Flying Saucer Bureau, which has been tracking UFO sightings for half a century, is scaling back its operations due to flagging reports of saucers and extraterrestrial activity.

Now for the good news. The Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee (X-PPAC) has been lobbying Congress on issues related to UFO phenomena since 1999. Next thing you know, they'll be pushing for worker's visas for aliens -- extraterrestrial aliens, that is.

People have been caught up in a fantasy of flying saucers and space aliens since the dawn of science fiction writing. In 1898 H.G. Wells penned the classic novel "The War of the Worlds." Orson Welles (no relation that we know of) then set off a wave of mass hysteria with his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of the Mercury Theater's production of the tale. "The War of the Worlds" was made into a movie in 1953 and a TV series in 1988.

Moviegoers also got a taste of the power of visitors from outer space in the 1951 film classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still." A visitor from outer space named Klaatu warned earthlings that their planet was doomed unless they adopted peaceful ways. There's no record of our civilization ever having heeded Klaatu.

If you're a skeptic, visit the Museum of Unnatural History for some photographic "proof." Another site, this one of the Uncle Bernie pie-pan variety, shows how two 15-year-olds documented a saucer sighting.

Real efforts have been made to prove we are not alone in the universe. On April 8, 1960, NASA launched a project to search the sky with radio telescopes. The direct descendant of that program now lives on as the privately sponsored Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI).

If you want to get involved, check out the SETI@home project. You'll link your computer to a worldwide effort to examine radio signals from space. And, while you're waiting to spot some potential alien activity, sit back, relax and enjoy a cup of Flying Saucer Gourmet Coffee or Tea.

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-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001

Answers

SAR,

Hubby started running the SETI client on our three home computers about a year ago. If you are serious about running the client, get the command line client, as the other provides some 'cool' graphics that don't really mean that much and slow the processing down.

So far, we have processed about 1600. I've looked at the results of a few, and well, there seems to be some noise out there. What that noise is I can't say for sure. One that I processed had 117 spikes, and 111 of them occured within the same nanosecond (or there abouts). The spikes aren't as important as the gaussians as they are apparently pretty rare. Yesterday, I did have one that had 7 gaussians. I had only seen about 7 total in the 1600 or so we have processed.

What's the difference in a spike, gaussian, pulse, or triplet? I have no idea. Still, it is kinda interesting to be a part of the hunt.

At times, if the SETI servers are down, we'll crunch a bit of the genome as well.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001


Sheeple, I'd LOVE to do the seti thing, but hubby says not on this one.....we are having too much of a problem with connections and such. so I enjoy hearing about it, but do not have it on here.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001

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