Joe Katzman sent me this link about how Scotland has become the UFO capital of the world. There are apparently more sightings there per square mile (or square kilometer, or square furlong, or square whatever units they use in Scotland), than in any other country. I heard the story on the radio this morning. Maybe they're there for the haggis.

Oh, actually, on reading the post, I see they already mentioned that. He has a bunch of amusing comments from Slashdot, including "Come for the Haggis, stay for the anal probes."

But that's not really the subject of this post. While I appreciate links on all kinds of stories, I always get a little irritated at UFO links (though of course there would be no way for Joe to know, and this one doesn't bother me, because it's amusing, not serious).

I do so because there seems to be this linkage in many peoples' minds between interest in space and interest in the grays. I am a fanatic about the former, and have zero interest in the latter. I've spent much of my life trying to get people to take space and space technology and policy seriously, and it's immensely frustrating when you're being interviewed on some radio talk show, and you get the call from the inevitable caller wanting to know if They Are Out There, and if the Government Is Really Covering It Up, as though that has anything to do with space, or you could be expected to have useful answers.

UFOs may or may not be visitors from another planet, or dimension, but in my humble (and not particularly informed) opinion, they are not.

But what they certainly are is irrelevant to my (and many others') desire to get humanity off the planet in a big way. They are primarily a distraction, because many people, who know little about both subjects, seem to throw space activists in the same straightjacket with the UFOlogists, and make no distinction between them, and don't recognize that they are two separate subjects.

The latter are looking for the Truth That Is Out There, whereas we are looking to get out there ourselves, sometime before we shuffle off this mortal coil. One is about engineering and reality, and the other is about fantasy and hysteria and conspiracy. So until one of them shows up at my front door, and offers me a ride, with or without the anal probes (if it's the former, I'll have to think about that one real hard, unless she's really hot), I have almost zero interest in the subject.

Kind of like Columbus trying to sell Isabella and Ferdinand on bankrolling his trip, and the King leans over and says "Yeah, Chris, sounds great. Hey, have you ever seen a mermaid? Whaddaya think, are they for real or what?"

Yes, exactly.

"One is about engineering and reality, and the other is about fantasy and hysteria and conspiracy."

Actually, both are about finding a role for oneself in a grand adventure. One is based on technical (and observational) skill; the other is based on observational (and technical) incompetence.

We're all human, but some of us do very silly things.

Rand, I've been thinking of the same issue
for a while, and the best way I can phrase
it is, "It doesn't matter whether or not
the UFO's are out there, because it's certain
that there's no such thing as Galactic
Welfare."

What kind of google visits are you going to get from anal probes and kinky sex on the same day? You might want to break these topics up by a day or so just to keep the freaks out.

The first appearance of the so-called "grey" was in the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". So I can only conclude that all these people are being anal probed at the orders of Stephen Spielberg.

They were separate days. And it was kinky s3x.