April 19 - Kimball & Stevens

[Ezechiel]

My point being that Earth is not necessarily a particularly good target for colonisation.

75% of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs with dicey habitable zones. My instincts tell me we're under pressure.

When you're in the market for a new home, the golden rule is location. Ask any real estate agent LOL.

You want a planet with solid foundations, a good magnetosphere and experience helping primitive life forms attain sentient status. This is it guys: 'Planet Earth' the water planet.

Why waste energy terra-forming a planet eons away from liveability. Just get rid of those pesky human locals, change the curtains, get a new skin and you've got your dream planet right here for a fraction of the cost. This makes total economic and cosmic sense

After spending billions of years toiling around a dying dark sun, you bet these pale large eyed types are dreaming of a day sipping an epsilonian cocktail watching a golden sunset on earth.

All this abduction, cattle mutilation, surveying, probing, O'hare type visitation behavior points to one thing guys: We're about to be replaced here ... pick a date. Hmmmmm. 2012 sounds just about right !

 

[jpw.in.wi]

I realize this program was more of a fun "General Freewheeling Chit-Chat"--to borrow a label from the forum--than a strict factual analysis of the "ghost phenomenon," but even so, at one point using a Ouija Board TM (by Parker Brothers) as a tool for reaching out to a ghost, and inviting in a "psychic" (not the kind who do readings over the phone, though) to "cleanse" a house?

Has someone else already razzed Mr. Kimball about this?

 

[hollystevens]

75% of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs with dicey habitable zones. My instincts tell me we're under pressure.

When you're in the market for a new home, the golden rule is location. Ask any real estate agent LOL.

You want a planet with solid foundations, a good magnetosphere and experience helping primitive life forms attain sentient status. This is it guys: 'Planet Earth' the water planet.

Why waste energy terra-forming a planet eons away from liveability. Just get rid of those pesky human locals, change the curtains, get a new skin and you've got your dream planet right here for a fraction of the cost. This makes total economic and cosmic sense

Lol this is all very true! Although sometimes you really just want the location, so you bulldoze the existing house and build a new one. Takes a bit longer, but you get exactly what you want for a home .

 

[Paul Kimball]

I realize this program was more of a fun "General Freewheeling Chit-Chat"--to borrow a label from the forum--than a strict factual analysis of the "ghost phenomenon," but even so, at one point using a Ouija Board TM (by Parker Brothers) as a tool for reaching out to a ghost, and inviting in a "psychic" (not the kind who do readings over the phone, though) to "cleanse" a house?

Has someone else already razzed Mr. Kimball about this?

Razz away, but as I said on the show my two best friends both report very strange - and in one case downright frightening - experiences with oujia boards. These are people with MAs and law degrees - normal, sensible, and in one case not interested in the paranormal in the least (the other is interested, to a point). So, do I think they were channeling the spirits of the dead, or a demon, or whatever? No. But do I discount their experiences out of hand? No.

As for psychics, again, I'm highly skeptical - but I don't discount the possibility that someone may be able to access some form of paranormal ability.


Lastly, everyone should remember that it's a television show, not the National Academy of Sciences.

 

[Kevin Daly]

75% of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs with dicey habitable zones. My instincts tell me we're under pressure.

When you're in the market for a new home, the golden rule is location. Ask any real estate agent LOL.

You want a planet with solid foundations, a good magnetosphere and experience helping primitive life forms attain sentient status. This is it guys: 'Planet Earth' the water planet.

Why waste energy terra-forming a planet eons away from liveability. Just get rid of those pesky human locals, change the curtains, get a new skin and you've got your dream planet right here for a fraction of the cost. This makes total economic and cosmic sense

After spending billions of years toiling around a dying dark sun, you bet these pale large eyed types are dreaming of a day sipping an epsilonian cocktail watching a golden sunset on earth.

All this abduction, cattle mutilation, surveying, probing, O'hare type visitation behavior points to one thing guys: We're about to be replaced here ... pick a date. Hmmmmm. 2012 sounds just about right !

Personally, I think the probing is just something they like to do.

 

[hollystevens]

I realize this program was more of a fun "General Freewheeling Chit-Chat"--to borrow a label from the forum--than a strict factual analysis of the "ghost phenomenon," but even so, at one point using a Ouija Board TM (by Parker Brothers) as a tool for reaching out to a ghost, and inviting in a "psychic" (not the kind who do readings over the phone, though) to "cleanse" a house?

Has someone else already razzed Mr. Kimball about this?

Sure have! (Love the photos btw...) But then I realized that we're really dealing with something that we have absolutely no solid information about. There are no facts, only experiences and observations. So, for the sake of curiosity, why not try all potential avenues and see what happens? You can't start cutting possibilites out when you don't have the means to prove or disprove any of them.

 

[Paul Kimball]

I would add that I am the first to say that neither a psychic nor a oujia board could be taken as any sort of objective evidence. However, as Holly notes, much of what we do is for our own personal experience (as we also noted on the Paracast), and by that measure I agree with her that anything is fair game, at least once, if it's something that we think might be interesting.

 

[Poi]

Thanks out loud to Holly for the Kaku video interview. It's a great follow up to something Paul said in the interview last week, something about things "bleeding through." I find stuff bleeds through on a fairly constant basis, but I'm not talking about every day experiences, just those that pertain to things I find important at any given time. I hear better those bits of intuition that affect my physical welfare, for instance.

To some extent, the content for what bleeds through must have roots in what I choose to focus on, answers to questions, the existence of paranormal entities, etc. Some answers I never get, however. Still makes me wonder if we aren't supposed to be forever curious.

But Kaku sort of explains how those ghosts may bleed through one timeline to another. And if all is based on frequency and what we are able to attune to at any given time, we probably do have choice in the matters. Either that, or we are individually talented in attuning to some frequencies when others lack talent in the same area of expertise. Hey, maybe both and more.

Maybe we should call all those paranormal entities "timeline aliens" as they are only a part of our reality for short instances. Whirlpools in time, the lines that fork, may have short lifespans even though the whirlpools recur and produce the same frequencies? Or maybe the whirlpools are constant, but we can't sustain the ability to attune to different frequencies for very long.

Weird route to go so far in trying to give some credence to dreaming, I know, but Paul seemed to dismiss dreams as artifacts of a totally human condition which would place our dreaming selves on a frequency that is basically stable. At least I find a dismissal of dreams to be such. Apologies if I got that wrong, Paul. You didn't elaborate in the first half of the show and I had to leave before I could finish hearing the rest.

Sure, we probably do work out "real" world (whatever that means) issues in our dream lives, but I don't think we can discount frequency exploration in dream states either. I've had too many instances where information "bleeds through" in my dreams. In a recent dream, several months back, I was informed I need to pay attention to what information bleeds through in my waking life in order to safely navigate this recession/depression. It's probable that I was simply reassuring myself, but that answer may be too simple and a dismissal of what really occurred. Those thousands of Americans who dreamt of large buildings blowing up prior to 9/11 suggest otherwise.

I think we lack sufficient scientific study of dreaming which might aid the understanding of all things paranormal. Robert Moss, a prolific dreamer who chronicles his adventures in dreams, met a young girl in his youth in a dream. The two continued to meet in dreams for decades before they met each other in a waking state. Each remembered their adventures and have written books confirming those experiences from their perspectives. They continue to dream together and call each other for confirmation of the events. That's the closest example we have of the weird science of dreams, but I don't think we can igore it.

I don't meet aliens in my dreams, but I think I understand why other people might. I've met a ghost in the waking state and two in the dream state, one leaving the artifact of fresh cigarette smoke in my bedroom when I awoke. I think frequency has everything to do with the odd things I've experienced, awake and asleep. Maybe we'd have clearer perspective if we studied the parts we dismiss.

 

[marmer]

Apropos of the Ouija board discussion: My daughter stumbled across this and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Favorite line: "This is gonna be loud!"

 

[Stillborn]

I did an experiment with some friends involving a Ouija board when I was a teenager. Long story, I've talked a little about it already in other threads. In short, I blind folded the people touching the board and ask the "entity" to read my mind. It did. I wasn't touching the board. It also gave some predictions that came true, told us what people were wearing we were on the phone with etc.. I recently found the initial owner of the board on facebook, and might inquire more about this "entity" that seemed to harass her. She told us about some stuff involving a ghost etc. and that is why we tried out her Ouija board to begin with. It's been a very long time since we've spoke, so not sure I just want to come out with that subject as an ice breaker, but hopefully I can think of a tactful way and get some info. in the future.

 

[Artyom]

Whew - I guess I've just browsed the whole thread! I hope I haven't missed it - I mean the list of equipment you use, Paul
So, quick question (c) David - where and when we'll be able to take a look at the list of the audio equipment you use to capture audio footage :question:

 

[Ezechiel]

Lol this is all very true! Although sometimes you really just want the location, so you bulldoze the existing house and build a new one. Takes a bit longer, but you get exactly what you want for a home .

From an alien perspective you can do that if the target planets' radiation, photonic levels, gravity... etc. are compatible to their home world. Otherwise you're facing morphological adaptation issues for your specie. When the difference is too great, the adaptation may require adjustments at the genetic level. (Which would explain abductions and samplings (mutilations) and the experimentations documented by abductees)

When humans migrate to mars they'll be losing bone mass due to lower gravity. This means they can't return to earth without re-adaptation to our gravity levels. Astronauts on the ISS lose bone mass every day they stay on the station, which is a major problem.

 

[skunkape]

Here's a theory for what some ghosts may be...just entered my mind out of nowhere. In occult literature I have found references to a class of parasitic entities called Qliphoth. They feed on certain types of human psychic energy. They tend to frequent graveyards, possibly because the concentrated energy of lots of people mourning in one place is something akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sexual energy and terror seem to also be on the menu. Let's assume some of these entities attach themselves to certain individuals for life, living vicariously through them. If they come all the way to front, like in 'Being Jon Malkovich,' we call it possession, but as long as they lay low they just ride around with us without generally being noticed. Then one day the host up and croaks. What's a lonely disembodied parasitic being to do? They just float around pretending to be the person they were attached to, they may have, over time, actually come to believe they 'are' the host. When someone stumbles across one of these deluded, noncorporeal critters, they scare the shit of them, producing a tasty snack...or perhaps try to attach to a new host, who is more vulnerable while in a heightened state of fear. Just another of many possible theories.

 

[hollystevens]

From an alien perspective you can do that if the target planets' radiation, photonic levels, gravity... etc. are compatible to their home world. Otherwise you're facing morphological adaptation issues for your specie. When the difference is too great, the adaptation may require adjustments at the genetic level. (Which would explain abductions and samplings (mutilations) and the experimentations documented by abductees)

When humans migrate to mars they'll be losing bone mass due to lower gravity. This means they can't return to earth without re-adaptation to our gravity levels. Astronauts on the ISS lose bone mass every day they stay on the station, which is a major problem.

These are definitely complications that would have to be overcome when colonizing a new planet. I must admit, I'm not used to thinking of exobiology, although I am certainly finding the subject fascinating. My initial thoughts surround the difficulty of introducing new genes into an integrated biological organism. There is still a lot of controversy with gene manipulation and splicing in vegetation and activating dormant genes. Quite frankly, we don't know what can and will happen. But that being said, you'd think that an advanced civilization will have that figured out . What seems complicated and even theoretically impossible to us, may actually be a simple as adding "0" (in terms of mathematics). We just don't see it yet.

 

[Ezechiel]

you'd think that an advanced civilization will have that figured out . What seems complicated and even theoretically impossible to us, may actually be a simple as adding "0" (in terms of mathematics). We just don't see it yet.

Absolutely!. You can't be human-centric when addressing the ET issue.

Our current level of science can help us get a general level of understanding of an ET phenomenon by extrapolation. 2000 years ago, the level of science of the times (lol) produced biblical texts and its earth-centric perception of reality, anything outside of that scope was God or Lucifer. Poor Galileo

As far as genetics is concerned. The potential abilities of aliens could range from simple manipulation to total reconstruction depending on their level of scientific knowledge. When you're working with billions of years and the evolution of complex organisms, you can't really set a limit on what time can accomplish.

One thing you can safely say is that they're definitely moving out there, constantly pushed out as their home star blows up ... ultimately they'll get the idea and build their own artificial home world star system.

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM4TU5LARE_index_1.html

This artist’s impression shows a ‘red-giant’ star ejecting matter. Stars with masses close to that of our Sun become ‘red-giant’ stars in the later stages of their life. The radius of a red-giant star expands to a size comparable to the orbit of the Earth, and the matters at the surface of the star flows out and escapes. Dust is formed in the out-flowing gas when the temperature decreases. This mixture of gas and dust is blown away from the central star, and expands into space. The dust cloud seen by the infrared satellite AKARI in U Hydrae was formed about 10 000 years ago by an intense mass ejection, and it reached an extension of about 0.3 light years.

 

[fencejumper]

Hello

I recently heard about this TV show for Cartoon Network called "The Othersiders". Essentially teens doing their own ghosthunting. Personally I feel that it's a bad idea. I don't think teens have the maturity to deal with the subject, not to mention the risk of stumbling across something nasty. Maybe I'm being too cynical and it's all harmless. However, I think it was stated well in the podcast to the effect of "tread carefully when dealing with the unknown". I'd be interested to hear opinions from Paul and Holly since they can speak from experience. Here is the official website The Othersiders | Cartoon Network

Also, just wanted to say to Paul that I really appreciate your approach to the paranormal. I sometimes connotate "skeptic" with being dismissive of new ideas. I think you bring the word credibility. I get the sense you come with an open mind, but you are cautious with your conclusions and I respect that.

 

[David Biedny]

Artyom,

Which gear do you mean?

dB

 

[skunkape]

Absolutely!. You can't be human-centric when addressing the ET issue.

Take it from me. We're going to have to include insects.

 

[Artyom]

Artyom,

Which gear do you mean?

dB

The audio equipment Paul crew uses to capture audio footage.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Whew - I guess I've just browsed the whole thread! I hope I haven't missed it - I mean the list of equipment you use, Paul
So, quick question (c) David - where and when we'll be able to take a look at the list of the audio equipment you use to capture audio footage :question:

Video - Sony XD HD camera, augmented by a PD 170 mini-DV; there are also four DVR cameras set up on location.

Audio - I still don't know what type of audio equipment the crew uses - the network provides that; in terms of our personal recorders, they are Panasonic hand-held digital recorders. I believe that it's the RR-US360, but I still haven't heard back from our production coordinator as to exact models.

Paul