arc

OK then, the transition of a mythical reptilian creature in ancient times to the iconic alien in the modern era is the product of a broad social construct? I'm going to need some details on this. You're not going to win this that easy.

Were those hung under the outside edge of the deck adjacent the girders. To fatten it up, so to speak, to make it look more stout, and in a ironic twist, appear safer?

Hey, I'm setting out a pretty low bar to clear here. All I have to find is a reasonable physical instigator to a fairly rare but rather specific hallucination phenomena. With all of the similarity between these accounts it is essential to find a physiologic mechanism to counter the rather dubious claims of so many alien "nationalities" needed to be accounted for, not only in the numbers of alien encounters, but also the variation in their physical appearance. A true mechanism for these no doubt hallucinations would diminish the credibility many people give to these incidences. Agreed.

Hey Acme, That link you posted, http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/03/07/innate-fear-of-snakes/, is from March 7, 2008. It expressed the general understanding at the time that suggested and expressed ambiguity as to a mechanism. "The final problem that ‘innate’ brings up is the question of the mechanism that produced the trait. In much of the discussion, there’s an assumption that there must be a ‘gene for’ something if it is ‘universal’ and ‘innate’ (although I find no evidence of genetic explanations in the fear of snakes story). In fact, there’s never much discussion of the actual mechanism that might turn an alleged gene into an innate trait. What sort of protein might produce fear of snakes? What parts of the brain would it interact with? Do we see any mutations of it that produce other similar phenomena? In other words, there’s a ‘black boxing’ of mechanisms, an unwillingness to think about how the trait might actually arise in a developmental context or function in an organism." This new research appears to provide such a mechanism. http://www.npr.org/b...r-just-for-them And the researchers found something remarkable in the pulvinar, a part of the brain's visual system that's unique to people, apes and monkeys. "There are neurons that are very sensitive to snake images and much more sensitive to them than the faces of primates" The new study appears to explain Mineka's own research showing that even monkeys raised in labs where there are no snakes can quickly learn to fear the reptiles. But it's still unclear whether the brain response of the monkeys in this study showed they were truly afraid of snakes or just had an innate ability to recognize the potentially venomous reptiles. Your reference to reptilians lead me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reptilian_humanoids "The list of Reptilian humanoids in world mythology" from the above link shows that there has been an unbroken chain of human experience with these apparitions. A hallucination would be the likely precursor to the creation of a mythological reptilian humanoid/god. A continuity from our earliest historical memory would support this idea of a biologic/evolutionary source for hallucinations involving green reptilian like creatures. For people to have such a historical context to this, as you said meme, would suggest our human ancestors had the same hallucinations, and I would suggest that they may originate in the same "pulvinar, a part of the brain's visual system that's unique to people, apes and monkeys."

Well, according to the link, the fear of snakes is fairly well supported by the research as being a hardwired evolutionary holdover of the human brain. Check out the other SFN thread and the link. It is unlike any other "irrational" fear that humans have, those monkeys had never seen a snake in any situation, yet their vision center's pulvinar, reacted to the visual stimuli with a greater regard than any other. Certain people who have no geographic or historic experience with snakes will have an over reaction to snake stimuli. Even an inanimate object that remotely resembles a snake may induce a highly irrational response. The theory goes that as hominids evolved better vision the snakes evolved better camouflage. In response to this our vision center looked for certain key recognition signals that the brain would quickly react to, rather than just stare and try to define what is maybe directly in front of them. The brain developed a hardwired template for snakes to initiate a reaction long before it could visualize the snake. My idea is this leftover evolutionary attribute is what allows people to fill in the blanks with regards to the alien physiology that we know so well within our culture. It is the vision center overriding the conscious brain in these subjects, an hallucination originating from the a stimuli in the pulvinar that the mind takes and quickly constructs the image from. This would explain the rather standard uniformity of the aliens, similar yet different in each case. A construct of the imagination of each individual or in some cases the group, but using the template subconsciously to highly standardize the hallucination. This seems a more logical answer to the variation of alien physiology than the Earth is simply a rest stop or roadside attraction along some intergalactic superhighway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Harder For me this is the artist. We all without a doubt have seen his work as children in books. https://www.google.com/search?q=heinrich+Harder&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=2Vk3U5DMJcLcyQHVs4H4Cw&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=1517&bih=714&dpr=0.9 I'm fortunate to own a small landscape by him. Sadly though no Cambrian sea life, dinosaurs or even more recent animals, just flora and terra. Oh well, still treasure it.

Upon the reading of another thread that is discussing aliens attacking our civilization, I recalled some recent threads I have posted in. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/77946-snakes/ I have formed an idea that possibly this phenomena of aliens in all of their manifestations within our world culture are linked to this primordial development in our brains, and for lack of a better analogy a "snake radar" like subconscious reaction by this above defined evolutionary holdover. Could it be driving these experiences that people have about abductions and sighting of these green aliens, an over compensation by the brain to stress and other psychological and physiological pressures. I don't know if this has already been considered by anyone. I did a search on SFN and Google but found nothing. I may have simply seen this somewhere else though.

It is difficult to solve your dilemma, I suggest you lower your initial expectations and try some alternatives first, you will likely learn some new insight into your idea. Its not a bad direction to begin with. Simpler and less complicated at first, working towards more difficult processes. 3M™ VHB™ Tape 4910 is a clear double-sided, pressure-sensitive, acrylic tape with PE film liner. 40 mil thick. Bonds high surface energy substrates. Provides handling convenience, cushioning, damping, and impact resistance. UL listing 746C. aluminum extrusion

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And to not get your toes wet.

Larry's mind swirled from euphoria as the world flew by in a blur. Could this be real! - He struggled to stifle his joyous exuberance and focus his racing mind on this wondrous creature beneath him. Its power and strength seemed oblivious to his presence as it bounded forward - Larry knew at that moment . . . . His life . . . . . His tribe's destiny . . . . Would never be the same!

I debated whether to write something or just let it talk for itself. I finely decided the least said the better.

We don't know for sure if they knew the exact characteristics of this specific weather anomaly any more than we would know whether a profound, moderate or anything in between would facilitate the refraction of radar and optical effects better or for worse, all we do know is that there was inversions on those occasions and a steamboat was positively identified by a trained crew as a radar target. This would indicate that the conditions, whatever they were specifically, were capable of refraction of radar signals. The amount of heat being remitted from the metropolitan area may itself be a contributor of an unknown degree determining the size of the urban heat dome over the city and in turn its relation to the inversion layer. This is what I find the most interesting about these events, these lights were at night. The pilots said they chased them but couldn't catch them or they were followed by the lights or even surrounded by them on occasion. It is difficult to determine anything about a light source at night, normally an objects size and distance is determined by subtle clues given over to the observers perception. We use visual clues to tell us an objects speed and size, the objects own speed is compared to ours which in turn is compared to the ground below and to distant objects in the background. From this information we are able to make reasonable assumptions as to the objects speed and size. But at night these comparisons are obscured, the information determining how far away the objects are or what their speed is are highly interdependent on each metric, let alone on how large the object is. The very fast up close no doubt appears slow at a great distance. When we were all kids we noticed while riding in a car or train at night that the Moon was racing us just outside our window. No matter what our speed the Moon always kept up with us. And when the vehicle turned the Moon fell back and chased us, and then we turned again and we then chased the Moon. We all know now that it was just an optical illusion, we were fooled by our perception of the Moon's size and its distance from us. It being massive and so far away gave it precedence over the objects in our foreground that passed by us at great speed, making the Moon look as if it matched our progress as we raced it through the night. Now we can again think about these pilots chasing these lights or themselves being chased by them or being surrounded by them as they fly along at 800+ kph. If the source of these lights are of great distance, they will appear to match the observers speed. And when the plane changes direction the lights move to new positions of orientation in relation to the pilots position. To chase them or to be chased. The refracted light beam itself can also move through the inversion layer as the light changes direction at its source causing the focal to move at great speeds through the pilots field of vision. The radius of the urban heat dome and the inversion thermal layer overlaying it will produce rapid changes in the moving lights direction and velocities. These events are most probably optical illusions that the pilots were unable to discern given the limitations of the night and unusual conditions brought on by the inversion.

I'm not cherry picking, I'm taking the reports that have the clearest evidence of a natural explanation, a scientific explanation to these events. That was a typo B-52 should have been B-25. As in the B-25 that was sent to the radar target's location and identified a surface ship. as a crew member related, "the radar had a target which turned out to be the Wilson Lines steamboat trip to Mount Vernon...the radar was sure as hell picking up the steamboat." This is a crew of six trained personnel reaching a definitive conclusion, a very accurate identification of a wayward radar signal. The jet pilots were seeing the optical effects of the same inversion phenomena that relocated the radar signals. The optical light phenomena (white lights) and radar signals are trapped within layers of atmosphere that carry the channeled and concentrated radar signal far away to remote locations and even to the surface as was the case of the B-25's observation. Again, this was during the summer's highest temperatures, the heat dome over the city would produce the best conditions for these layers to form against the cooler night air to take and receive signals in a layer that likely followed the heat dome's radius to the Earth's surface. The steamboat's vector is a good example of this effect. The jet pilots were within the layer, within the vapor that would be present due to the colder and warmer layers reaction with each other, this is the vapor that the airway beacons were illuminating. Think of it like a planetarium's dome. The airway beacons were projecting onto and more importantly within the layer of vapor which is transparent to the night sky when at 90 degrees to its surface, but refracts the brighter sweeping airway beacons that are entering this vapor dome at higher degrees of angle. These lights were coming through,sweeping the area and illuminating the vapor. They would have the erratic behavior similar to that of headlights on an interior wall of a building, sweeping and seemingly moving erratically withing the theater of the rooms interior. ​ I do not want to commit copyright infringement, but if you look closely at the images at; http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-the-titanic-sink-because-of-an-optical-illusion-102040309/?no-ist They show very convincingly how inversions can relocate optically. And within these layers radar would also travel to the surface as in the steamboat example above.The article give's a very good outline of the phenomena and how it can project visual objects great distances, and, as in the Titanic's case over and in front of an iceberg, hiding it behind a mirage of a clear horizon. Again, eliminating the background noise of questionable accounts, the available understanding of this phenomena can give resonable explanation of these events without resorting to more tenuous explanations.

I have an ACE rewards card, does that do anything here?

That was great! I can imagine that in a movie sound tract. Possibly with a spooky story line. Nice job.

http://en.wikipedia....C._UFO_incident Among the witnesses who supported Samford's explanation was the crew of a B-25 bomber, which had been flying over Washington during the sightings of July 26–27. The bomber was vectored several times by National Airport over unknown targets on the airport's radarscopes, yet the crew could see nothing unusual. Finally, as a crew member related, "the radar had a target which turned out to be the Wilson Lines steamboat trip to Mount Vernon...the radar was sure as hell picking up the steamboat." This is an extremely good eyewitness account. It is trained Air Force personnel vectored to a position that the radar said had a bogey target, and they identified a surface ship as the radar's target. This is with little doubt the work of refraction of the radar signal. "At 3 a.m. on July 27, an Eastern Airlines flight over Washington was told that an unknown object was in its vicinity; the crew could see nothing unusual. When they were told that the object had moved directly behind their plane, they began a sharp turn to try to see the object, but were told by National Airport's radar center that the object had "disappeared" when they began their turn. At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported." Project Blue Book would eventually label the Washington radar objects as "mirage effects caused by double inversion" and the visual sightings as "meteors coupled with the normal excitement of witnesses." In later years two prominent UFO skeptics, Dr. Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Philip Klass, a senior editor for Aviation Week magazine, would also argue in favor of the temperature inversion/mirage hypothesis." And optically, that same inversion will produce the effects of fast moving white lights as the beams of various airway beacons are refracted to great distances, chasing across the heat dome above the city, a veritable bubble that the optical effects play out on throughout the night. "A thermal inversion refracts light abnormally and can create a superior mirage: Objects appear higher (and therefore nearer) than they actually are, before a false horizon." ​ The ground personnel viewed the same optical effects that the Air Force personnel did. And I think the claims of saucer shapes are the typical noise that accompany such media accounts. These people are viewing a night sky illuminated by natural phenomena and imagining the missing portions that complete a narrative they can comprehend. This is a very rational explanation of these events, but it requires the gleaning of the accurate accounts like the B-52 crew and the interpretation of what the fighter pilots had seen and chased, which were likely the projection of the airway beacons from the thermal inversion on the atmospheric layers and water vapor or mist that would accompany these transitional zones. It simply comes down to this explanation being the most logical and supportable answer to this event.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sheet+metal+brake&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=_N0rU9jeCcHZoATQtIBI&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1517&bih=714&dpr=0.9#imgdii=_ Most community colleges have these machines they would probably help you out. If you can get to Portland, Oregon I will bend it on mine for free. Heating and air conditioning shops have them also, find the closest one and tell them what you need and they will probably be fairly cheap if its not to complex or time consuming.

I saw something last year on a phenomena that is essentially the same as a mirage that you would see in hot localities on land, but has been a phantom occurrence of folklore in the cold waters of ocean environments like the North Atlantic. It occurs on calm water at or near freezing air temperatures. It reflects an artificial horizon and can really distort distances between viewers and objects. This give a good outline; http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-the-titanic-sink-because-of-an-optical-illusion-102040309/?no-ist "The Titanic was sailing from Gulf Stream waters into the frigid Labrador Current, where the air column was cooling from the bottom up, creating a thermal inversion: layers of cold air below layers of warmer air. Extraordinarily high air pressure kept the air free of fog." "A thermal inversion refracts light abnormally and can create a superior mirage: Objects appear higher (and therefore nearer) than they actually are, before a false horizon. The area between the false horizon and the true one may appear as haze." I really feel that these phenomena may occur at other elevations, it just takes these conditions with these inversions to set the stage. A warm July night near the ocean that could provide a layer of cooler air may be what provide unknown radar returns and even the visual illusions of objects and bright lights from sources outside of the area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident "Ruppelt did speak with an Air Force radar specialist, Captain Roy James, who felt that unusual weather conditions could have caused the unknown radar targets." "After midnight on July 27, Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a US Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport. During the night, Lt. Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radarscopes. Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects. There had been weather targets on the scope too, he said, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them." Two more jets from Newcastle AFB were scrambled during the night. One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other pilot moved towards a white light which "vanished" when he closed in. A Capital Airlines flight leaving Washington spotted "odd lights" which remained visible for about twelve minutes. As on July 20, the sightings and unknown radar returns ended at sunrise. It would be conceivable that the airport beacons which were the primary navigational aid in those days and were quite massive and powerful, may have been brought from outside the area by refraction as described in the Smithsonian article. The Andrews Air Force Base beacons may have been the bright white lights the pilots were chasing. Or they may also be one or more of the many navigational airway beacons that formed the visual guidance system surrounding the city along the airline corridors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airway_beacon An airway beacon is a rotating light on a tower once used extensively in the United States for visual navigation by airplane pilots along a specified airway corridor. Approximately 1,500 airway beacons were constructed to guide pilots from city to city,covering 18,000 miles (29,000 km). An airway beacon has two distinct light characteristics: A revolving narrow white light beam about 5 degrees wide in azimuth and a set of fixed colored course lights of about 15 degrees width. White rotating beacon The rotating beacon features a 24 inch (610 mm) parabolic mirror and a 110-volt, 1 kilowatt lamp. spinning at 6 rpm, creating a quick 1/10 second flash every 10 seconds. In clear weather they could be seen for 40 miles (64 km). We have enough scientific understanding of these inversion phenomena to at least provide a credible hypothesis to build from and counter the extraterrestrial causes.

OK, but it does emphasize that if you were to announce through any media an occurrence on the previous night, you will have dozens of eye witness accounts for days after. Planets, stars, commercial and civilian aircraft all become part of the story. Most people will look out at the night sky and hope to see what they heard about in the media accounts, but after many "whats that over there" moments they figure out that its an aircraft or stars or possibly planets. But then there's that small contingent of "experts" who know they are looking at UFO's and any attempt to explain it otherwise is a coverup. And that noise has no doubt made its own reality separate of whatever phenomena really is at work here. I've been occasionally watching some of those shows that have examples of how your brain is tricked by optical effects, they explain how and why but I had no idea the degree that we are susceptible to optical tricks. It is truly amazing how vulnerable our minds are to what we see. Or think we see.

As would be expected - No matter where you put the selector, it always comes out on the dark side.

I rest my case.

That's the cartoon! nice, thanks imatfaal.

One has to ask, why the bright lights? Why would aliens always need to have intensely bright colored lights that can be seen from great distances. You would need them for what? This would seem to be a cry for attention, a flying "look at me look at me". But again, why? When magicians don't want you to see what they are really doing in one hand, they do spectacular distractions with the other. Andrews Air Force Base is 16 km away and likely connected to this ruse. Would this distraction be used to cover the arrival or departure of secret aircraft? Possibly something to do with evacuating the president in the time of nuclear attack? I can come up with many reasons they may want to distract air traffic control. Maybe these mystery aircraft were using technology to confuse the radar. Are they testing this technology during these events? Maybe they had observers to check the actual location of the lights to the presumed location detected by the civil and military radar. I think there are enough reasons due to the cold war's influence on government and military secrecy to give these events a more plausible and likely explanation than aliens. These lightshows give eyewitness accounts to bolster the radar evidence, If the aircraft didn't have the blazing lights then the public would have no involvement in the events other than the media accounts of the civilian air traffic control. The bright lights allow public involvement and multiple eye witness reports of the events. This would lead me more to the ruse argument. These are a few of the possible reasons as to why these UFO's would have the bright lights without the need for an extraterrestrial cause.