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“Extraterrestrially galactical” or rock-bottom gall?

by cimddwc · 2008-11-05

I Want To Believe

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.”

Nina Hagen “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/hypnopompic halluzinations. Quote from SkepDic:

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:

Skeptic’s Dictionary: UFOs and extraterrestrials, alien abduction, Roswell.

Hagen photo © Tomasz Sienicki / Wikipedia

Uri Geller live, three “Aliens” and no UFOs

by cimddwc · 2008-11-02

Dies ist nur der Vorbericht zur Sendung.
» Zum Live-Bericht hier klicken!

This is just the preliminary report for the show.
» To go to the live report, click here!

At least that’s what I expect from the show “Uri Geller live – Ufos & Aliens: The incredible TV experiment” on Saturday Nov 15, 2008 at 20:15 on ProSieben (Germany). For the guests can be labeled “aliens” in a way:

mysticism eccentric and (as ProSieben calls her) “world star” Nina Hagen – who really can be called “not of this world”;
Ancient astronaut dreamer and “Swiss success author” Erich von Däniken – in his “theories” also floating a little too high above reality (and also, being Swiss, an alien in Germany);
and “The Next Uri Geller” winner Vincent Raven – with his really alien performances.

Well then, as I did for the magic shows with Geller’s gibberish called “The Next Uri Geller” I will have a look at this concoction (and hopefully survive it) and report live or at least shortly after the end of the show, maybe with an intermediate update or two. (Though the English version will probably take a little more time.)

ProSieben writes about this show (all quotes my translations):

Uri Geller doesn’t doubt the existence of extraterrestrials:
“All my life I believed in ufos and aliens. Everyone should look up to the sky in a cloudless night and ask himself: Is it really possible that we’re alone? I think nobody can tell.”

The chief spoon bender, however, forgets to distinguish between life somewhere in space and actual visits here on earth – he probably thinks that everything is “just around the corner” and can be reached easily.

In a unique experiment, he wants to try to establish contact

That’d better be null-ique – certainly it won’t be an experiment that deserves this name, but instead the next of Geller’s dumbing of the masses. With an audience in the millions. Where “The Next Uri Geller” still had the somewhat entertaining magic tricks from the contestants, this show can only become some kind of “freak show”…

Together with the audience, the world-famous mystifier will send messages over a radio telescope into space. What will be the replies?

None. At any rate, not in the next few years. Anything else can only be tricks. The TV DIGITAL magazine writes about this teensy-weensy problem (emphasis mine, translation too):

In 1974, the astrophysicist Frank Drake in Arecibo sent a message towards the star cluster M 13. However it will only arrive there in 20000 lightyears[sic!]. Since Uri Geller doesn’t want to wait that long, he will rely not only on radio waves in the show, but also other means: “I need the viewers’ assistance”, the mentalist living in England says. “With the collective power of our thoughts, we will be able to establish contact. This has never been tried before.”

Never tried before? Geller indeed came up with a new trick after all those years?? A miracle! But probably all that’s new is that it’s pretended aliens instead of people who are the pretended telepathy transceivers.

But no matter how they will stage that, I had received the true greetings from the aliens back in September – thanks to spacetime loops.

Let’s have Erich von Däniken give the last word (from an interview in the TV DIGITAL):

You believe, like Uri Geller, that aliens exist. When will we be able to meet the aliens?
“The Maya in Central America have given a date for the return of their gods, i.e. the extraterrestrials. If you believe in this calendar, then it’s December 21, 2012. But you have to convert their date to our calendar. A very insecure thing.”
What a luck for you, for you could be nailed down to it otherwise, couldn’t you?
“Yes, and then everybody says: Neener-neener! [Ätschbätsch!]”

Which is also what all these guys can say whenever they find more people who believe their balderdash…

This is just the preliminary report for the show.
» To go to the live report, click here!

The longest line of song lyrics (and a good song, too)

by cimddwc · 2008-10-20

58 words in one line are quite a lot, aren’t they? It looks like this (together with the line before that ends with “single”):

And if anyone can show me just one example in the history of the world of a single
Spiritual or religious person who has been able to prove either logically or empirically the existence of a higher power that has any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for there moral choices or that there is any reason – other than fear – to believe in any version of an afterlife

And as you can see, the contents are good, too – it’s “If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)” by Tim Minchin, here’s the video: