'It's not that I want to believe – it's impossible not to'
November 2, 2013 4:01 AM   Subscribe

 
You're twisting my melon man
posted by MrMerlot at 4:34 AM on November 2, 2013 [9 favorites]


Sure, I'll take it. Plenty of lights I'm not sure what they are. Mostly I assume they're planes though.
posted by solarion at 4:38 AM on November 2, 2013


I read that first comment as "You're twisting, my melon man," a phrase I'm going to use often now.
posted by etc. at 5:57 AM on November 2, 2013 [4 favorites]


MORNING MADE.
posted by Kitteh at 6:03 AM on November 2, 2013 [3 favorites]


Fair enough, he has spent much of his life off his head, but he insists that any time he's seen anything otherworldly he's been clean and sober.

Well of course. Occam's razor, and all that.
posted by randomkeystrike at 6:15 AM on November 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


If Shaun Ryder only ever sees UFOs when he's clean, imagine what he sees when he's off his nut.
posted by afx237vi at 7:00 AM on November 2, 2013 [6 favorites]


Surveillance drones, all of them!
posted by LogicalDash at 7:43 AM on November 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


He has my vote for Earth's ambassador to the planets. There are a lot worse candidates.
posted by arcticseal at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


I wonder if there were any new mind blowing movies about "close encounters" back when this guy was 15? Just a coincidence I guess.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:51 AM on November 2, 2013


Did you see any while filming your new show?

We got some other [footage] that looks like something out of Star Wars, wearing Star Wars helmets, coming out of a cloud on what looks like Pogo Sticks. They then realise they are being filmed and go back upto the cloud and disappear.

History TV is not quite what it set out to be, I'm guessing.
posted by heyho at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2013 [3 favorites]


I saw a UFO once, a classic silver flying saucer, in broad daylight. Watched it for about 10 minutes with binoculars and without. Strangest thing I ever did see and still can't explain it to this day. I was also a huge Happy Mondays fan so this post is awesome.
posted by Caskeum at 8:16 AM on November 2, 2013 [4 favorites]


It pleases me that in the photos he's looking more and more like Yoda.
posted by billiebee at 8:17 AM on November 2, 2013 [3 favorites]


The UFOs apparently swapped his body with Uncle Fester's.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:19 AM on November 2, 2013 [2 favorites]




Boeing 747
posted by cenoxo at 8:39 AM on November 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


Clearly it's a slow news day round here.
posted by Twang at 8:52 AM on November 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


can i just say that i absolutely loved him on "i'm a celebrity"? cuz i did.
posted by nadawi at 8:52 AM on November 2, 2013


My melon man was twisted long ago.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:21 AM on November 2, 2013


Can this ever be as good as Danny Dyer's I Believe in UFOs, though?
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 9:36 AM on November 2, 2013


Now I may have worked in a garage in Manchester back in the day and may have at some point been visited by Mr Ryder who needed some work done on his VW Golf. There may, or there may not, have been a very large number of LSD tabs kept in a yellow pill-shaped container in the left hand glove box. Now if this series of events were a true and accurate recollection from my far-away youth, it might lead one to believe that Mr Ryder's belief in UFOs could perhaps be related to his prior drug use.

I for one couldn't possibly comment.
posted by longbaugh at 10:33 AM on November 2, 2013 [9 favorites]


UFO enthusiasts are often lumped in with groups like scientologists, what’s your view on scientology?

It’s a load of bollocks, really. Considering that there are some very very clever people that believe in scientology, you have to ask: what is it? It was started by a science fiction writer, who was a taxi driver in the 1950s. One of the things they believe is that there is life in the universe, and that’s great, but some of the other stuff they go for is not my bag. Why these very clever and very rich people are into scientology is a mystery to me.
How do you know when your religion is bullshit? When its inherent craziness is a bridge too far for Shaun Ryder. (God bless 'im.)
posted by scody at 12:21 PM on November 2, 2013 [7 favorites]


If you can ignore the terrible production, Jonny Marr has a great story about being 'kidnapped' by Shaun Ryder and the Happy Mondays.
posted by jimmythefish at 1:01 PM on November 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


It's impossible, or at least illogical, not to believe that there is other intelligent life somewhere out there, but unlikely we will ever encounter it.
posted by walrus at 2:00 PM on November 2, 2013


This xkcd settled the question for all time. Period.

Randall did a credible job with an earlier one, but like its namesake the Drake Equation, I contend that a large number of the probabilities are more WAG than SWAG, and could be off by orders of magnitude - each.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:52 PM on November 2, 2013


This xkcd settled the question for all time. Period.

and yet people still shop at Walmart
posted by philip-random at 10:41 PM on November 2, 2013


Sure people carry more cameras around these days, but an object flying in air, a typical cell phone camera with a wide-angle lens is not going to take a conclusive picture of anything. Go outside and take a picture of a passing plane with your cell, then get out your magnifying glass to find that pixel on your monitor. And at night it's a whole other level of difficulty. And people generally don't lug around tripods. Etc etc.
posted by zardoz at 1:22 AM on November 3, 2013


Space cadet sees spaceships. Pictures at eleven.
posted by Decani at 1:35 AM on November 3, 2013


When I had my full on Fortean encounter I was so shocked I didn't even think to get my phone out (and being so nervous/excited and given the short time window and lack of experience using the phone's camera I would probably have screwed up taking the photo anyway even if I'd tried)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:25 AM on November 3, 2013


Shaun Ryder and Black Grape on TFI Friday, performing Pretty Vacant. (NSFW) This went out in the early evening, god love him.
posted by marienbad at 3:25 AM on November 3, 2013


I thought one of the revelations of the recently declassified "area 51" documents was that the Air Force habitually slapped "weather balloon" on just about everything, including credible citizen sightings of spy planes that never really existed until the Soviets shot them down.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:19 AM on November 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


My favorite sighting before "greys buggering everyone" became the dominant myth: aliens giving out pancakes.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:20 AM on November 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


And it looks like the whole thing is on the 'tubes... Step On! Shaun Ryder on UFOs: History Channel (UFO Documentary 2013)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:45 AM on November 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


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