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The U.S. government isn't like your household because (unlike your household) the U.S. government controls its own money supply. And debt isn't necessarily bad. Debt incurred on things like building roads and providing education pays itself back manyfold. It's debt that accumulates because we...

I can see the Mary figure (or something that could be interpreted that way) looking at it straight on. Since that appearance vanishes from a different point of view (whereas a statue or a detailed image would I think still be recognizable) it seems like more of a psychological effect. By the...

Re the "Mary" sighting, when I turned my head sideways the object/figure/whatever didn't look human at all. More like a saucer shape (!) with a purple-ish outline and darker areas at either end. Some sort of optical effect + a bit of psychology I think.

I had mixed reactions. I found myself agreeing with his politics more than I thought I would, even though I'm a progressive rather than a libertarian like I understand Ventura to be. Thought the conspiracy theories were nonsense though and I still don't like Ron Paul.

Abduction experiences may be a SYMPTOM of psychosis. Or they may cause psychosis as CapnG suggests. Or if the abductions are in some sense "real" maybe people with mental problems are being targeted for some reason. We should include all reports until we have better ideas about what's happening...

It's interesting how we view "intellectual" property differently from most other forms of it. If I make a table and give/sell it to someone (or even just leave it by a dumpster) I basically give up all rights to it. Whoever gets the table can pass it on to someone else, take it apart and use the...

I'm in my mid-50's myself, so yeah, I understand the press of time on these things! I hope I at least live to see the discovery of life elsewhere, however we do it. There's been a lot of speculation about life spreading on meteorites from Mars to Earth, and vice versa. The thing about Mars is...

We can search for life on Mars (and elsewhere) with unmanned missions, for a fraction of the cost of manned ones. There may be good reasons for manned flights to Mars (although missions to nearby asteroids would make more sense), but searching for life isn't one of them. As for it being a...

IIRC (I'm open to correction) Newton's main contribution was recognizing that a single force could account both for the motions of planets and the behavior of objects near the Earth, and describing that force mathematically. Earlier science thought these things were the result of separate...

A couple of points, in addition to the excellent ones made by Stephen Dedalus. Science and religion do not necessarily conflict, any more than science and poetry necessarily do. If scientists insisted that we can't talk about "Dawn with Her rosy fingers" because it's "really" just sunlight...

There's already an Invitation to ETI (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) for aliens who might be monitoring the internet: Invitation to ETI: Hello, ETI

This fellow (I think he's been on The Paracast) has a database of reported encounters with strange humanoids, including shadow people: Humanoid Sighting Reports Journal of Humanoid Studies The reports are arranged chronologically and you can do a text search, but I didn't immediately see a...

My big memory of Earth Day 1971 was it being the first time I worked up the nerve to ask a girl out. And the first (of many) times I got turned down...

Most of what I read when I was a kid besides factual stuff was historical fiction and sci-fi. You could learn a lot about the Roman Empire (say) from an adventure story about a Roman soldier, while also being entertained. But the 'classics' were mainly written for adults and don't really...

I don't want to go off-topic either, but you might be interested in the story of Wallace Fard (or Ford; even his name is uncertain) who purportedly founded the Nation of Islam. When you look at the questions surrounding the life (and even existence) of a man who lived (if he did) in major cities...

I remember reading "Flying Saucers, Serious Business" back in the 60's, as well as an early book by Jacques Vallee. Plus one of my grandparents apparently had an interest in the paranormal, since there were copies of "Fate" magazine and even a book called "The Hollow Earth" lying around their...

"Hoax" means a deliberate attempt to deceive. My wife is a devout Catholic, and based on what I've seen of her church the people there (including the priest) are sincere. I don't share their beliefs but they aren't lying about them.

IIRC, yes, only some fraction of star systems will have planets that cross in front of their star so that Kepler can detect them. However the sample will be large enough that good estimates can be made of the overall numbers, sizes, etc. of planets in the galaxy. Here's the Kepler website. It...

A little OT, but dogs are probably the closest thing to a non-human intelligence that we have for sure communicated with. We can recognize each other's emotions and to some extent convey commands/requests. And apparently dogs can do some things that even close relatives like wolves can't. Like...

She doesn't make any statements at all about his personal conduct other than as it concerns his research. As a screed by an angry ex-wife it would actually be restrained. It's a lot more fair and balanced than a number of other ex-wife-tells-all writings I've seen over the years. edit...