Platypus: Calling card of the gods ??

[schticknz]

Here's a wee thought that came into the stuff and nonsense that is my brain a few nights ago.

What if, and this is a big what if of vast proportions, ancient astronauts came to Earth and seeded us but left us a calling card: the humble PLATYPUS.

A calling card of what?, I hear you screech to noone in particular. How about Genetic Engineering for one thing, bucko.

The Platypus is a strangely strange wee beastie of high strangeness proportions, and has just had its genomed unscrambled (see this link for instance:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7385949.stm)

Scientists are now looking at it and seeing bits of this animal and bits of that animal, and it seems to be bits of reptile, bits of bird, bits of mammal etc.

What if these ancient astronauts decided after engineering (or fiddling around with the dna of) the human race thought:

Well we've sorted out the (mad as snakes but) main species on that planet for the next X million years, lets have a beer, get some dna, throw it all together and leave an unnecessarily strange lifeform on the planet as a sort of puzzle and calling card ... just for a laugh!!!

What does the humble paracast audience think ... would an alien race be that 'human'?? Or is this all just a wee bit too silly .

schtick ... who will now expect a few reads, will expect some people to say to themselves, "well blow me, he may be onto something there" or "bwaahh haa haaa haaa haaa what a butt-munch" ... but will of course not even reply just to say "bwahhh ha haa haaa what a butt munch you are, you silly person, you".

 

[The Pair of Cats]

Schticknz. The ancient astronauts assembled the platypus just after they sampled the results of producing halleucinogenic mushrooms.

 

[Frozen E.T. Burrito]

Considering that I've pondered this very thing a few times, I'd have to say that I agree... it does indeed seem to be a very, VERY interesting little "clue" that's been "left behind". All it takes is one good example of something that totally defies explanation by the evolutionary standards to "prove" an actual intelligent design.

 

[pixelsmith]

schticknz bwahhh ha haa haaa what a butt munch you are, you silly person, you.
no one else has ever thought of this... wow you are amazing. lol.

 

[schticknz]

schticknz bwahhh ha haa haaa what a butt munch you are, you silly person, you.
no one else has ever thought of this... wow you are amazing. lol.

See told you someone would . I have the powers of mentalism and I can also bend spoons ... with a very large hammer of course, but I can bend them

And ... I may have got there after everyone else but I did get there in the end. And I was the first to start a thread on the Platypus in these here forums in the entire history of the universe ... so that must count for something, no??

I still think it is an interesting question, however. Did evolution really come out with such a strange animal as the platypus just sort of accidentally? ... or was it really the product of an advanced civilisation with a bizarre sense of humour??

I have a strange feeling that evolution was helped a long a wee bit by outside parties. Nothing supernatural like the creationist nonsense but scientific extraterrestrials with the ability to play around with dna as if it was lego bricks.

There are soo many things that I think preclude the creationist view of the world. There are so many odd animals that I believe noone with a superhigh intellect could even imagine. Look at all those cool deep sea creatures. I cannot believe that God said to himself (well there was noone else to talk to ... and I'll go past the bit where I say, "and talking to yourself is the first stage of madness" ):

"Hmmm ... got a great idea for a creature that lives in those deep oceans I created on Tuesday morning. Get one of those fish creatures. Put really big pointy teeth in it, blow it up to the size of a football (for anybody who doesn't hear this since they don't exist yet, a football will be a round ball thing ...) and stick a fishing rod on its head ... hmm ...that might work a treat"

The strangeness of nature I believe precludes even the the idea of creationism.

 

[CapnG]

I dunno if you ever watched the show, schticknz but there's an episode of Robot Chicken that has a bit about the platypus. God sits at his workbench (covered in various eyes, limbs, feathers, etc) looking bored and begins mucking about. Moments later the dust settles and there sits a platypus. God rubs his chin and then shrugs uttering "Meh".

Morale of the story: even supreme beings phone it in every now and then...

 

[Raevenskye]

"....sheesh.... I have all this this left over duck, beaver, rat, and opossum....hmmm....maybe I can do something creative with it...."

 

[banning]

LOL well i can only think of one thing... that the beings that came to earth and jerked off and created the Platypus just for a laugh better hope the Platypus doesn't multiple to much and grow in numbers. They may rebel saying things like, "What were you thinking?!?"... "We're the laughing stock of nature". HAHA kind of like the poor kid in school with a weird name

Im foreseeing and amazing movie for hollywood with this one. The rise and fall of the Platypus.

 

[schticknz]

I dunno if you ever watched the show, schticknz but there's an episode of Robot Chicken that has a bit about the platypus. God sits at his workbench (covered in various eyes, limbs, feathers, etc) looking bored and begins mucking about. Moments later the dust settles and there sits a platypus. God rubs his chin and then shrugs uttering "Meh".

Morale of the story: even supreme beings phone it in every now and then...

Ummm no I've not seen or heard of Robot Chicken (we in NZ are a sheltered lot ) but by jimminy I think I might have to track it fown on youttube or some other video sharing website now. Thanks for the heads up

[Hmm ... now there's a thought ... Robot Chicken Supreme ... Being ]

 

[banning]

I dunno if you ever watched the show, schticknz but there's an episode of Robot Chicken that has a bit about the platypus. God sits at his workbench (covered in various eyes, limbs, feathers, etc) looking bored and begins mucking about. Moments later the dust settles and there sits a platypus. God rubs his chin and then shrugs uttering "Meh".

Morale of the story: even supreme beings phone it in every now and then...

Ummm no I've not seen or heard of Robot Chicken (we in NZ are a sheltered lot ) but by jimminy I think I might have to track it fown on youttube or some other video sharing website now. Thanks for the heads up

[Hmm ... now there's a thought ... Robot Chicken Supreme ... Being ]

oh man you're missing out Robot Chicken has some funny stuff man, how about Family Guy do you guys get that?

 

[schticknz]

oh man you're missing out Robot Chicken has some funny stuff man, how about Family Guy do you guys get that?

Umm yeah we do ... but I keep missing it. Its on a 'young persons music' channel over here which I used to watch quite a bit but now its pretty tedious much of the time so I keep missing things that I may like.

Somehow I still manage to see "Ninja Warrior' and 'MXC' ... two top flight programs that are actually worth watching ... in my not so humble opinion.

But thats neither here nor there, and really not a lot to do with Platypuses

 

[banning]

oh man you're missing out Robot Chicken has some funny stuff man, how about Family Guy do you guys get that?

Umm yeah we do ... but I keep missing it. Its on a 'young persons music' channel over here which I used to watch quite a bit but now its pretty tedious much of the time so I keep missing things that I may like.

Somehow I still manage to see "Ninja Warrior' and 'MXC' ... two top flight programs that are actually worth watching ... in my not so humble opinion.

But thats neither here nor there, and really not a lot to do with Platypuses

yea but im sure the platypuses would love these shows too

 

[Graphimancer]

See, I'd buy this if the platypuses' DNA spelled out some strange code in binary. We wouldn't even have to understand the message so much as recognize it as a label put there by an ancient intelligence. Maybe it would just be a picture or logo?

Shoot, I've always wondered if their was a designor's tag of some sort in the human genome, especially in all the "junk" DNA. This sounds really silly, yet it doesn't necessarily need to be so.

 

[mike]

And ... I may have got there after everyone else but I did get there in the end. And I was the first to start a thread on the Platypus in these here forums in the entire history of the universe ... so that must count for something, no??

did you do a forum search for "platypus"

 

[schticknz]

And ... I may have got there after everyone else but I did get there in the end. And I was the first to start a thread on the Platypus in these here forums in the entire history of the universe ... so that must count for something, no??

did you do a forum search for "platypus"

No I didn't, Mike ... but now having just done one , I discovered that I was entirely correct in what I said. I saw you mention the platypus Mike in a UFO thread, but I was indeed correct in saying that I was the first to start a thread on it ... so there

But what you said Scott about the DNA holding a message or signature isn't so far fetched. Wasn't it Carl Sagan who considered the idea that the "creator's" signature may one day be found in PI (3.14 ...) ?

So why not have a signature hidden somewhere in our DNA for us to find one day when we have sufficient technology to find it? We may even find that the our entire DNA holds far more information than just our bodily makeup. We may find plans there to help us travel to the stars or how to repair all the damage to the planet we have done during our cosmic adolescence?

Who knows? ... but it don't half sound like a great idea for a novel ... damn ... I think I've just given someone the next Sci-fi best seller .

 

[CapnG]

So why not have a signature hidden somewhere in our DNA for us to find one day when we have sufficient technology to find it? We may even find that the our entire DNA holds far more information than just our bodily makeup. We may find plans there to help us travel to the stars or how to repair all the damage to the planet we have done during our cosmic adolescence?

Who knows? ... but it don't half sound like a great idea for a novel ... damn ... I think I've just given someone the next Sci-fi best seller .

I'm pretty sure at least one version of that novel already exists...

 

[Rick Deckard]

What's all this business about riddles and clues?

Are super-beings really that bored? "Hmmm, what I shall I do today. I know, I'll create an animal that's really a clue to my existence".

Why would they do that? That's even more far-fetched than "The Davinci Code".

Actually, I'm pretty certain that we're capable of finding 'clues' that just aren't there - if you try hard enough, you can find 'meaning' in just about anything. It's a distraction from the realisation that the human race isn't all that special or unique. In the grand order of the Universe, we might be nothing more than a 'disease'.

 

[ArizonaWill]

What's all this business about riddles and clues?

Are super-beings really that bored? "Hmmm, what I shall I do today. I know, I'll create an animal that's really a clue to my existence".

Why would they do that? That's even more far-fetched than "The Davinci Code".

Actually, I'm pretty certain that we're capable of finding 'clues' that just aren't there - if you try hard enough, you can find 'meaning' in just about anything. It's a distraction from the realisation that the human race isn't all that special or unique. In the grand order of the Universe, we might be nothing more than a 'disease'.

Hopefully, we are a social disease! I like the idea of causing the Grey parasites to have an itch or oozing sore.

Seriously, I agree that apologists for crop circles and other anomalies try so hard to make the phenomena logical, claiming such things bypass the conscious mind to speak to our subconscious. Well, isn't that special? These beings are super intelligent and they cannot speak to us in common linear English? You'd think they would have the ability to start with us where we are at, even if they are all the ultimate ONENESS and we are slugs in comparison.

I agree that humans can create meaning from anything. For years I worked in a grand old office building from the "gilded age". Even the restroom stalls were made of real marble with swirling patterns. My eyes could turn those veins and swirls of color in the marble into faces (e.g., Dame Edna!) and spaceships and wolves and other "messages". Yet I am 100% sure that no alien was using the restroom stall partitions to communicate with me. It was all a projection of my own mind. Yet, perhaps I should do Michael Sala a favor, and send him an email with the address of this Los Angeles office building. Perhaps he'd set up a subcommittee to decipher the exo-political ramifications of the alien messages embedded in the 4th floor men's room marble partitions. Perhaps soon, pictures of these partitions will appear on his website, along with personal accounts of transcendance attained while sitting on the throne. Of course, if there is one time I would NOT want to be abducted it would be while I was "sitting on the throne". But I submit myself to the will of Landrew (old original Star Trek reference).

 

[CapnG]

But I submit myself to the will of Landrew.

We are not OF the body...

(Shatner emphasis provided)

 

[Ron Collins]

My vote goes towards evolution. Unfortunately there were and are other examples of Monotremes (egg laying mammals). While only one other of these is not extinct (the Echidna -- spiny anteater about the size of a very small dog) there are a slew of examples from the fossil record.

1 -- Kollikodon ritchiei. Ancient monotreme, 100-105 million years old.
2 -- Ornithorhynchus anatinus (Platypus). Oldest specimen 10,000 years old.
-- Three Platypus like creatures from the Miocene (5-24 million years ago)
3 -- Obdurodon dicksoni
4 -- Obdurodon insignis
5 -- Monotrematum sudamericanum. 61 million years old.
-- Two monotremes from the Upper Pleistocene (.1-1.8 million years ago)
6 -- Zaglossus hacketti
7 -- Zaglossus robustus
8 -- Megalibgwiilia ramsayi (from the Late Pleistocene)
9 -- Megalibgwiilia robusta (from the Miocene)
10 -- Steropodon galmani
11 -- Teinolophos trusleri (123 million years old — oldest monotreme specimen.)

I'd actually love to think you were onto something, but I think an anteater and a platypus are different enough to assume that they are a tract of mammalian evolution that has been proven to be a less efficient method of delivering offspring. Thus, natural selection is systematically weeding them out. The Platypus has been isolated in its geographical locale and is subject to very few natural predators. Thus, it has had a longer run. I think that is about it. Sometimes, evolution is just weird.