Well, if you’re not familiar with German dialects, this is of no use for you…
Erinnert 'r euch no an 24 uf Schwäbisch, Schtirb langsam ond ’n Todesschtern? Jetz gibt’s glei a halbe Schtund drvo: “Was wär, wenn? – d’Welt uf Schwäbisch”, am nächschta Sunndich, 11.1., um 21:15 Uhr im SWR-Fernseha!
Hier isch dr Trailer:
» Infos beim SWR
(gfunda beim Sebbi)
Now what are the results – as far as they concern myself – of the incredible TV muck, erm, “experiment” called “Uri Geller live – Ufos & Aliens” about which I reported more or less live?
A new record on Saturday that didn’t last long: WP.com-Stats counted 2826 page views (probably not 12am CET being their limit, but UTC), including 768 for the pre-report and 1120 for the live report. The best value since the start of my blog, even better than the 2549 in February – also thanks to Uri Geller.
And the highest-placed blog.
Bloggerei.de counted on Saturday until midnight 423 unique visitors1 for the live report, which was enough for no. 12 in the top topics list; there were a total of 1295 visitors on Saturday. (Which also means that another estimated 350-400 visitors were satisfied with the pre-report. Or unsatisfied and left again. Or didn’t notice the link after all.)
Addendum: Originally I had left out the data from browser-statistik.de in order to not overload this post with numbers, but since Jan, who operates the site, cried so heart-rendingly (“ 
”), I added them now: 2751 pages accessed by 1111 visitors on Saturday, 3061 pages by 2002 visitors on Sunday. Which put me on no. 9 on the charts there.
According to whos.amung.us, there were up to 53 online at the same time – even if that tool isn’t known for its reliability, it rather has outages (sometimes for hours) than counting too much.The ratings were surprisingly low, rather disastrous for ProSieben – here’s the top 5 of Saturday’s primetime (source: teletexts):
| Station | Show | Viewers aged 3+ |
Marktet share | Viewers 14-49 years |
Market share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat.1 | Chronicles of Narnia (movie) | 5.56 Mio. | 18.9% | 3.25 Mio | 27.6% |
| RTL | Das Supertalent (casting show) | 5.55 Mio. | 18.8% | 3.09 Mio. | 26.2% |
| ARD | Musikantenstadl (“folk” music) | 5.32 Mio. | 17.8% | ||
| ZDF | Unter Verdacht (TV movie) | 4.57 Mio. | 15.2% | ||
| Pro7 | Uri Geller live | 1.40 Mio. | 4.8% | 0.85 Mio. | 7.3% |
| Rerun on Sunday morning | 0.54 Mio. | 6.1% | 0.38 Mio. | 8.6% | |
Now does ARD being that far ahead of Pro7 speak for the intelligence of the TV audience or against it…?
…criticism, grumbling, call it what you want. At any rate, here I’m writing about today’s show “Uri Geller live – Ufos & Aliens – Das unglaubliche Live-Experiment” (“The incredible live experiment”) on ProSieben (Germany).
You can even have your own message sent into space – but if you’re hoping for a real reply, you’re hoping in vain, the distances are just too long, and if there actually are intelligent beings “out there”, they’d have to understand the messages in the first place. No matter how pretentious the chief spoon fiddler’s talk is (my translation):
“Anything can happen”, Uri Geller says. He, too, has a personal message for the aliens: “We open our hearts and out thoughts for you. We strongly believe that you are somewhere out there. Please show yourselves in the night of November 15. The people will look out their windows and wait for your signal.”
Be careful, Uri, when the people look out the windows, they miss the commercials, and ProSieben won’t like that!
What did ali comment at Florian’s live blogging (German) who’d also have liked to read along (translated):
But I’m already appointed for a fondue. Lots of cheese, too, but better.
Well then bon appetit – which I also wish my readers with this nice mess. After commercials with aliens in them in talk talk talk for accomodation, they’re starting overly punctual with Gödde’s and Geller’s prerecorded introduction and the Ukrainian radiotelescope, Geller promises that some of us will receive a reply, and the raven guy will take care of the soul contact – but somehow I’m missing the warning message “Don’t try this at home!” from the magic show…
A pale head with alien face tattoo on its back was briefly seen, then Gödde alredy starts with a lie by saying there will be messages sent into space for the first time – more respectable people have done so already via radio and space probes as well as more or less intentional all radio and TV stations for a long time.
But first a little film as introduction with some “c-lebrities” and Geller himself saying a few sentences. Geller says we’d deserve a true answer. From him? Impossible. Impossible in a different sense, too, the amount of applause he gets when entering the stage and reporting about his large ball of light as a child. The biggest experiment of his life is what is supposed to happen tonight – I rather think that was the test whether his cheap spoon trick would bring him success back then – and us viewers are to get pen and paper ready.
Switch to the Deep Space Center in Evpatoria/Ukraine, brief introduction of the radiotelescope – no money left for 16:9 in the recording, apparently, the presenter colleague Daniel Aminati looked quite fat. Direction of the ‘scope will be the star Hip 4872, 310 trillion kilometers away from us (32.8 lightyears, in the area of the Cassiopeia constellation). And the speed of light is “absolute madness” for him.
Or: Video of the week (or the month) that can’t wait until Sunday:
“Here Be Dragons – An Introduction to Critical Thinking”
A freee 40-minute video by Brian Dunning – watch it!
Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.
Also available on the homepage in higher quality and even as DVD image.
(via GWUP-Blog)
If you believe, the German TV station ProSieben is content with “Uri Geller live – Ufos & Aliens: The incredible TV experiment“ (about which, as I announced on Sunday, I will report here), you’re mistaken, because Nina Hagen, only by her own description “half human, half angel” and already a guest in Uri’s transgalactical telepathy take-in show, gets a timeslot for a “documentary” afterwards (all quotes my translations):
”Nina Hagen’s ufo hunt – Searching aliens in Roswell”, on Saturday, November 15, 2008, at 22.30 on ProSieben (Germany) (assuming the spoonbender and his aliens finish on time).
In her baggage: A small sunshade, a peace banner and a big load of curiosity.
And an even bigger load of prejudice. Were she really curious, she’d also be interested in the counter-arguments – but that’d be nothing to write home about for the target audience, of course.
Was there really an alien crash in 1947? Did the US Air Force really possess an “unknown flying object”? And was all that covered up by the government afterwards?
The skeptical–sensible reply, of course, is 3x no. But who are the people the shrill Berliner is asking?
Answers to her questions are given by nuclear physicists, ufo authors, visitors of the current ufo festival, and a man who claims he’s half man, half alien.
What qualifies a nuclear physicist for an alien answer? That he, Stanton Friedman, wrote a book about it and…
… frankly admits:
“I’m jealous of Nina, because I never met a ufo. For 50 years I’m examining evidence for flying saucers. Because there is overwhelming evidence that Earth is being visited by extraterrestrial spaceships.”
“Evidence”? I doubt that. “Evidence” only for those who desperately want to believe and almost obsessively ignore real evidence and critical, more plausible explanations. Which surely also applies to the other people mentioned above who were asked, including the “documentary” author herself who says about her own “ufo encounter”:
“Back then I was living in Malibu when I saw a ufo in the middle of the night. I was totally flashed.
Before or after?
Beautiful lights were beaming at me, I had not the slightest feat, magnificent energy overwhelmed me. Three beings were standing in the ufo, but none of them was moving. It was an overwhelming experience.”
Other people call things like that either (drug) intoxication – now I don’t want to allege something illegal here, but from an impartial point of view, you couldn’t rule it out –, dream or hypnagogic/
These states may be associated with sleep paralysis or other forms of sleep disturbances, including mild brain seizures. Sleep paralysis occurs in the hypnagogic state or the hypnopompic state. The description abductees give of their experience–being unable to move or speak, feeling some sort of presence, feeling fear and an inability to cry out–is a list of the symptoms of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is thought by some to account for not only many alien abduction delusions, but also other delusions involving paranormal or supernatural experiences.
So what will be the essence of this show? Surely not an objective documentary. In the style of Nina’s comment on the half-man-half-alien guy, I’d say: The viewer is absolutely manipulated. Totally nasty story.
Link tips:
Hagen photo © Tomasz Sienicki / Wikipedia
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