It
was with shock and sadness that 80
learned of the death of Douglas Adams
at the relatively young age of 49. Adams was most widely known for "The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - a madcap romp through
space and time mixing philosophy, space opera and a wonderfully sharp sense of
humor. The Guide began life as a radio serial on the BBC's Radio 4. It was
particularly well suited for that medium which allowed the mind's eye to supply
the pictures of Adams' characters and incredible events. It survived translation
to TV surprisingly unscathed but Adams had great trouble attempting to turn his
masterwork into a screenplay for the movies as the freewheeling plot style did
not fit well into the confines of the format. It is reported that he had
finalised a movie treatment shortly before his death. The book version was a
huge success becoming that rarity in the publishing world - a five book trilogy
- and is most definitely recommended reading.
Adams
wrote other novels, featuring Dirk Gently, the holistic detective, and a book on
endangered species, "Last Chance
to See". He enthusiastically embraced the world of computing
and in particular the internet, also producing a computer game,
Starship Titanic. He was a great evangelist for the power of
networking and shared information, for more of which and many other things go
here. A lesser known work is "The
Meaning of Liff", (with John Lloyd) which has reduced 80
to giggling hysteria on more than one occasion. There are numerous tributes on
the web from, amongst others Richard
Dawkins. Also well worth a regular look is h2g2,
the nearest thing the real world yet has to the Guide itself. Adams’ own web
pages, with many links to tributes, can be found here.
In
a coincidence reminiscent of the side effects of the Infinite Improbability
Drive on the the day Douglas Adams died the Minor
Planet Center, a branch of the International
Astronomical Union, named an asteroid Arthurdent
after the hapless (and planetless) ape descendant whose wanderings, amongst many
other things, are chronicled in “The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. There is a school of
thought (called Angie) that rightly feels the name Dentarthurdent
would perhaps have been more appropriate. (If you need to ask why read the
Guide.)
Recently
there appeared in various news and discussion postings notice of a meeting at
the prestigious National Press Club in
Washington DC. "On Wednesday,
May 9th 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and
scientific witnesses will come forward……to establish the reality of UFOs or
extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and resulting advanced
energy and propulsion technologies. The weight of this first-hand testimony,
along with supporting government documentation and other evidence, will
establish without any doubt the reality of these phenomena, according to Dr.
Steven M. Greer, director of the Disclosure
Project which is hosting the
event." This sounds like high-powered stuff, the event also
being webcast - certainly worthy of 80's
attention. But wait, surely Dr Greer sounds familiar? Yes it is that
Steven Greer, leading light of The Center for
the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence looked at in a past view,
Taikonauts, Burl
Ives, Beauty and Hygiene. At that time Greer was on about his Close
Encounters of the Fifth Kind Initiative, the core principle of which was -
"1.
ETI and Extraterrestrial Transports (UFOs) have been and currently are in
contact with human society. "
This
would seem to indicate that Greer is rather prejudging the situation, to say the
least. His latest venture, which hosted the Washington pow-wow, The
Disclosure Project is "a
non-profit research organization,... calling for open Congressional hearings on
the UFO/Extraterrestrial presence............. " The meeting
was attended by a variety of apparently highly qualified individuals although it
should be noted this in itself does not guarantee any great knowledge or
impartiality. (The website lists astronaut telepath Edgar
Mitchell and the UK’s Nick
‘not very important ex-minor government worker’ Pope.)
Greer, whose day job is as an emergency room physician in Virginia, himself was
portrayed on the CSETI website in May 2000 thus " Dr.
Greer is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on the subject of
extraterrestrial intelligence.... "
This would appear to be based solely on Greer's own opinion of himself
and one not necessarily shared by others in the UFO community. The CSETI website
has changed into a shadow of its former self and is now little more than a
pointer to The Disclosure Project which is where Greer seems to be now directing
his energies. (It should be noted that by this 80
does not mean the zero
point energy derived from alien technologies that will be the saving of the
world - another of Dr Greer's interests.)
The
upshot of the Disclosure Project meeting would appear to be a return to UFO
roots, the world of grainy, indistinct photographs and mysterious lights in the
sky. Conspicuous by their absence were testimonies of abductees and alien-human
breeding programs. Most sightings of UFOs are capable of explanation with only a
few per cent lacking in evidence one way or the other. To 80
this residue is just that, a residue where there is not enough evidence for an
informed judgement - but to UFOdom this leads to the ah-ha factor. If the
residue cannot be explained - ah-ha! it must be UFOs, aliens, whatever. And it
was this tired old argument that seemed to be behind the trumpeted meeting in
Washington, helped by a liberal dose of Greer's pompous self publicity and a
touch of X- Files style conspiracy and paranoia. To quote Greer "We
know lethal force has been used to keep this secret" The idea
that the US, or any other government for that matter, could sit on a secret such
as alien contact for over 50 years, even if backed up by “lethal force”,
strains credulity even more than tales of saucer folk themselves.
In
the interest of some kind of balance a trip to the Disclosure Project website is
called for. First though, what about that webcast, which 80
missed ? Apparently even many of those who actually logged on were not much
wiser. "According
to the management of ConnectLive.com, (providers of the webcast service for
Disclosure Project) they were hit by sophisticated jamming. They had never
experienced anything like it in the hundreds of webcasts they had conducted. It
was not hacking and it was not the result of not enough bandwidth capabilities."
Note that this appears to be Greer's
spin on events not reflected by ConnectLive.com's own statement and shows
his trademark paranoia. For those wishing to endure it the press conference is
archived at http://www.connectlive.com/events/disclosureproject/
The
history of the Disclosure Project - in effect that of CSETI - is that of one
man's brave crusade to amass enough evidence of alien/government interaction
from various witnesses in order to " place
this matter in front of the public, the media, and our elected representatives
so that the full truth may be disclosed, so that those Earth-saving technologies
now classified may be released, and so humanity may enter a new chapter in its
evolution as one of many people in the cosmos." Others in the
UFO world do not see Dr Greer in the same flattering light, as in this piece
posted to the ufomind.com mailing
list back in 1999 when the Disclosure Project was just a gleam in CSETI's
eye. " Steven Greer - Millennial
Cult Leader. If you are ever wandering the neighborhood of Asheville, N.C., at
night and see a group waving flashlights at the sky, you may have stumbled upon
Dr. Steven M. Greer and the Center for Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Greer, an emergency-room physician, takes groups of UFO enthusiasts out into the
wilderness, where they encourage UFOs to land with a combination of lights and
positive thinking. Greer is convinced aliens want to share technology with
humanity in the new millennium but that the federal government is hostile to
them and that "black ops" programs have attacked flying saucers."
More evidence of in-fighting in the UFO camp with particular reference to the
crusading Dr Greer is found in an interesting page from UFORC
(UFO Research Coalition). It is interesting to note that Greer's claims, whilst
still revealing him to be a
self-aggrandizer on the scale of say, Uri Geller, are toned down a great deal
for his Disclosure Project persona. For example, this from UFORC, about CSETI's
(ie Greer's) Project Starlight…..
CSETI
was described as "The Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial
Intelligence, the only worldwide organization dedicated to establishing peaceful
and sustainable relations with extraterrestrial life forms. " Its RMIT
training programs promised to teach "how to initiate contact with ET's and
vector in their space craft". CSETI investigation teams were described as
"having successfully made contact with extraterrestrial craft and guided
them into their immediate geographical area." The immodest claim was made
that "the unanticipated rate of success of these efforts suggests that
CSETI's ultimate plans to make contact with and put a human team aboard an ET
craft will soon be realized." Project Starlight was described as "a
one-year project to prepare the world for this first formal contact between
human beings and extraterrestrial intelligence Completion of this Project should
occur by summer 1994, and preferably by the spring."
80
wonders how many of Project Disclosure's witnesses, braving the dangers of
"lethal force" to tell the truth to the world, were aware of Greer's
past history of ridiculous
claims. Project Disclosure on the face of it looks pretty daft but it is
dwarfed by Project Starlight. In case you ask, did Starlight achieve its aims of
contact with ET? All 80
can say is not so that anyone noticed. It is also highly likely that Project
Disclosure will meet with the same degree of success. Still, the sales of the
video of the meeting and the edited transcripts will perhaps be of some comfort.
As
a relief from Greer’s world saving fantasies, try an interesting and
informative UFO/Alien website. ufoworld
is definitely worth a look - recommended
One
of the most prominent of those claiming to possess psychic powers is the
conjuror and self-publicist Uri
Geller, mentioned in passing above. Performing tricks that can be
easily duplicated under the same conditions by such as James
Randi, Geller appears to have made a comfortable living peddling his
paranormal claptrap, at times aided and abetted by such luminaries as David
Frost. Geller's photogenic and engaging manner has ensured he is still a fairly
frequent guest on various TV shows of an uncritical nature. For those of us who
have followed Geller from his spoon bending beginnings to his middle/new age
crystals and 5 CD set on the powers of the mind the whole unedifying story from
the Geller point of view is here. "
Every thing you
EVER wanted to know about Uri Geller is HERE! " Quite so and
much, much more. The sole aspect of this website that 80
views with anything other than a jaundiced eye is the statement that an
unspecified proportion of his take goes to the Save The Children Foundation.
(Let us hope this has more of a factual basis than the psychic hogwash) Much
more to 80's
taste is Uri
Geller in Detail* which provides a somewhat different view of the
aging psychic whizkid - recommended. Here are a few of his less than spot on
sporting predictions and a report of an Israeli magistrates court. Sadly this
site is a tad skimpy, barely skating the surface of its fascinating subject but
still worth a visit. A different style of appraisal of Geller is to be found at
the ever dependable Skeptic's
Dictionary which also has a quote from the above mentioned James Randi,
" If Uri
Geller bends spoons with divine powers, then he's doing it the hard way."
Randi has long been Geller's premier critic, easily demonstrating the invalidity
of his claims. Still, Geller, like a bad penny, continues to crop up in the
media and no doubt will continue to do so until he is taken to another plane -
and then still possibly after that. For those of you with a higher nause
threshold than 80
there is the unedifying spectacle of the Michael
Jackson - Uri Geller webpage.
*(Before
the View is sent on its way all the links are checked ‘one more time’. Since
writing the above the “Uri
Geller in Detail” pages have gone, to be replaced by a page stating “
The
pages 'Uru Geller In Detail' have moved to a site hosted
by the James
Randi Educational Foundation. “. Here at present the trail ends and 80
is waiting to hear of the new location of the page, so far an enquiry to the
Randi Foundation has not clarified matters. When the address becomes available
it will be added to this page in the
Past Views section
of 80’s
website.)
And
finally..........remember the Face
on Mars? Thanks to the latest
images from the Mars Global Surveyor
spacecraft currently orbiting the Red Planet the Face is looking pretty rough -
which although bad for a Face is not that surprising for a rocky outcrop.
(Technically a mesa - rocky tableland or plateau) Will these latest pictures
have the slightest effect on the likes of Richard Hoagland and the Enterprise
Mission? Er....no, beyond the usual claims that NASA and other
ill-intentioned agencies are once more trying to hoodwink us all. The Face
drivel has been
promulgated by various groups ever since the fateful Viking pictures were
received way back in 1976 and a new set of images is hardly going to change
that. The amazing thing to 80
is that NASA has been sufficiently irked to image the Cydonia Mensae area on
more than one occasion purely to address the Face Fantasists. Mars is a
fascinating and as yet little understood planet from which there is much to
learn and 80
for one is looking forward to the results from the Mars
Odyssey spacecraft currently headed that way. Only this time let us not
waste time pandering to the delusions of the Hoaglands of this planet. The Face
is a ROCK
- live with it. (not to mention the Pyramid, the City, the Trailer Park etc.)
As
has been stated elsewhere taste is not a factor in 80’s
selection of pages and they should be viewed at your own peril (see
Geller-Jackson above). That having been said, how about jewelry made from the
dung of Australian fauna? Try The
True Blue Roo Poo Company – you won’t be disappointed.
Not to be outdone is Jesus.com
– what are these people thinking of? At least one can understand the thinking
behind this next one, “This
is The
Home Of The Celebrity Dead Pool.
Stiffsville. Death Central. We make fun of famous people and the people who make
them famous (i.e. you), and our main instrument of ridicule is our contest, The
Lee Atwater Invitational Dead Pool. It's a simple enough premise (with a bunch
of details attached to it) and it goes like this: Pick ten famous people you
think might die between January 1 and December 31, 2001. Each entry costs you 15
bucks, and at the end of the year, the list with the most dead celebs wins
$2001.00 in cold, hard, American currency.” Like the disclaimer
says – taste is NOT a factor - which explains this final atrocity -
Men Who Look Like
Kenny Rogers – ‘nuff said.
"Science
has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than
right any day."
(Slartibartfast,
Designer of Coastlines
"Everybody
wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." (Joe Louis)
"It
is better, of course, to know useless things than to know
