Elmwood WIsconsin

These chapter talks about the UFO encounters that occured in Elmwood Wisconsin.  Some were not very freindly and gave pause to fact that most people assume that alien enounters are friendly.  They may not be.  It also documents on man's obsession about creating a landing strip for the aliens to come and land in Wisconsin and what a boon it would be to the economy of the town,
 On to Chapter 26.

...back to our regularly scheduled program

Chapter 22 begins with a man and his dream. In this chapter Tom Webber has a dream about the people of Elmwood not welcoming the alien visitors that seem to be arriving at that town.  In the next chapter he goes to visit the mayor.

He does mention electromagnetism and I have always thought that the reason ufo are always seen near trailer parks is because of the metal. All that metal must give off a large signal and of course to add some more weirdness. Stonehenge is said to have been built where a whole bunch of electromagnetic lines converge.  Pretty cool huh?

Phew! It all works out (kinda)

Well, leave it to Carl Sagan to smooth things over.  It seems that both he and Senator Proxmire were both worried about nuclear technology. Carl brought up the L in Drakes equation and the senator realized that if there is an advanced civilization, that they have survived without blowing each other up and that maybe we could learn from them.

While reading this I recalled a book that mentioned how Jane Goodall would talk to people about their viewpoints and see  how she could help them meet their concerns without harming animals.  Blessed are the Peacemakers :-)

Chapters 18 discusses about how alot of the people on the SETI project, now that it was funded, were technologically advanced but didn't really have the passion. Basically they were engineers trying to solve interesting problems, not that they believed in the extraterrestrial being.

I also thought that this entire book talks about how we were looking for aliens.  However, I haven't heard anything about what we are doing to contact them. Are we sending signals as well? I hope that it least mentions this in the book at a later point.  Of course their was a section in Codes and Ciphers about this as well.

OMG

Chapter 16 starts out with Senator Proxmire You Can Do It! Senator Proxmire's Exercise, Diet, and Relaxation Plan

proposing that we elimated funding for the project of SETI in 1981 because of funding issues. I am sure that the government used that funding for much more necessary items because we always fund welfare and Hud and we all now how successful THOSE programs are!!!

Back then NASA was able to look to the space shuttle program for solace. Unfortunately, where can the space shuttle scientist turn to now?

However, Drake added a new element to his theory in honor of the senator

P= How many elected office does an advanced technological civilization have that are scientifically ignorant?  If the answer is P=1, no need to waste your time :-)

Oh well. Maybe Chapter 17 will be more enjoyable.

Chapter 15

This chapter begins with defining some of the rest of the terms of Drake's Equation
Fl= the planets that develop life
Fi=planets that have intelligent life

It points out that man is not the ONLY intelligent life on this planet
It also mentions that pressure is good, kind of like the Nike commercial :-) If organisms don't feel the pressure of predators or lack of food, they never have a reason to evolve into something else.

Fc= planet with life that have the ability and desire to communicate.

They use the examples that creatures may have the desire to communicate and are intelligent like dolphins, but can't build a radio telescopes, because they may not biologically be able to (i.e. flippers) Then again, who know how long and far a dolphins clicks can be heard?

L= how long the civilization capable of intersellar communication last

Chapter 14

In Chapter 14, I learned that Carl Sagan was a member of the Order of the Dolphin. Pretty Cool huh. They got  their name, allegedly, because one of the scientists noted the fact that dolphins were highly intelligent beings here on Earth and we can't communicate with them. Therefore, should we be able to communicated with more advanced beings?

It also mentions the Drake Equation which is N=R* x Fp x Ne x Fl x Fi x Fc xL

N is the number of technologically advanced civilazations.

R* is the rate of star formation

Fp is the faction of starts with planets

Ne is how many planets orbits the stars have an environment for life

I enjoyed the last paragraph because it put into perspective about how precious life is. Just one or two degrees of difference in the Earth's rotation and we would never have developed.

Back again

Chapter 13 introduces us to Drake of the famed Drake equation. ( I even heard of it on the Big Bang Theory) It was pretty interested and mentions that they did hear some noise from a star that may have been from ET but it couldn't be confirmed because they also heard it with another instrument which meant it could have been a man made noise.

Glad I am back to reading these books. I hope this helps me complete my project.  Like Winston Churchill said "Never, Never give up"

Oh yeah, one really neat thing is that while I was visiting my brother in Blue Ridge, I watched the movie Horton Hears a Who and it seemed appropriate.  Horton is the only one that can hear the whos. Kind of like these scientist trying to hear alien life. Only they can hear it, but will people believe them. Don't know if that was Dr. Seuss' intention but thought the correlation was pretty interesting.

MEH

Well, I'm a little disappointed with Chapter 12.  Not really disappointed because it is interesting. However, it mainly talks about Morrison and deciding on the frequency to search for alien transmissions.  It does seem that it takes the book into a different direction. Still interesting to know though.

Interesting

To me it was interesting that the book mentioned that Lowell believed that there were canals on Mars that were used to carry water. Now, science has shown that there used to(?) be water on Mars. 
It also discusses how to travel to spaces similarly to what Carl Sagan just talked about on the episode of Cosmos that I just watched.
Chapter 12 will begin discussing the ruse of radio astronomy.

Finally we get to SETI

Chapter 10 introduces us to Phillip Morrison the professor at Cornell University who thought of using radio waves to search for Extra-terrestrial life.  He was listeningto Bach music at a concert there when a number or events congealed in his mind to come up with using radio waves instead of gamma waves as a signal to other universes.
They then discuss some of the other ideas people had to contact other "people"- planting trees in right triangles, flaming ditches, etc.
One of these people was Precival Lowell who built the Lowell Observatory in Arizona . Pretty cool huh?

Chapters 7 & 8

Chapter 7 talked about projects Moon Dust and Blue Fly. However, these were scrapped because no UFO were recovered. I always wonder if the UFO that people see are really just new aircraft that other countries have made, esp. in the 1960's, that the USA didn't know about yet.

Chapter 8 discussed how General Pfautz was very animated in talking to the UFO working group about how the US would benefit from alien technology. Then Colonel Phillips said that the information was compartmented and that Compartmented Information was a classification higher that Top Secret.  Of course if that is true, how does the author know about it?
The author and general have an arguement where the general thinks the author told the head honchos that he mentioned the working group and 1983. The author says that he never told anyone that the general mentioned the group because the general didn't.  Such drama queens.

Chapter 9 will start part III- the order of the dolphin.  I remember reading a little bit about that the last time i tried to finish this book.

Chapter 6

This chapter told about the CIA's report  The Investigation of UFOs and how there seemed to be in the early years a dichotomy of information given out. Classified information said one thing and those for viewing said another. Basically that the Air Force publicly had everything under control and explaned. However, they also were concerned that the objects may be a danger to national security.
It mentions Project Blue Book where the Air Force investigated over 13,000 cases abd had different groups look at the different types of "evidence". One thing was that photographs were sent to Eastman Kodak Company. That is where my father worked :-) I am sure that they sent them to the headquarters in Rochester, NY and Dad did not work on anything but the connection is neat.
On to Chapter 7!! Shouldn't be long now... there are only 39 chapters total.

Part II- The beginning

I am begining the book Out There by Howard Blum again. I am on chapter 5 which begins part II- The burrowers. Part One was mainly about the governments unofficial/official group to investigate UFO sightings.  Heavily leaning on the military for obvious reasons.  Hopefully I will be able to finish book. Try, try again.  I have decided that I will have to read 10 pages in this book before I can read the other book I am reading "for fun".