All hail 70s-era Shatner! He began his career with some rather prestigious projects, appearing in
The Brothers Karamazov and
Judgment at Nuremberg, as well as some rather high profile appearance in
Twilight Zone and
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But even then, there were hints of exploitation, such as 1961's
The Explosive Generation, in which Shatner played a teacher whose job is endangered when she speaks
candidly to kids about sex. And there was 1962's
The Intruder, a Roger Corman film from 1963 in which Shatner
played a carpetbagging racist inciting violence in a southern town. (
Clip.) And, of course, there was
Incubus from 1965,
a horror film in Esperanto. (
Clip.) But, after
Star Trek, at the start of the 70s, something went haywire.
[more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie
on Nov 16, 2007 -
63 comments
Delirious Moscow: a survey on stellar and interstellar Soviet constructivist architecture, or, buildings in the time before Stalin (with pictures).
posted by Falconetti
on Oct 11, 2007 -
6 comments
We all know the
UFO Festival is coming, but with it just a week away also comes fresh news of the crash itself. Walter Haut, the former PR man at Roswell Army Airfield, filled out an
affidavit in 1993 detailing his experience with the crash. But nine years later Haut secretly filled out another, much more detailed, affidavit that was to be sealed until after his
death.
One with much heavier
implications. Seeing as how this information was first released in
book form, are we looking at a postmortem fame grab or a genuinely guilty conscience?
posted by Roman Graves
on Jul 2, 2007 -
13 comments
If you ever wanted to have an actual working M41-A Pulse Rifle (the preferred weapon of the Colonial Marines in the 1986 Documentary
Aliens), then
today is your lucky day. Many more sci-fi prop replica guides can be found
here.
posted by jonson
on Jun 3, 2007 -
33 comments
Voyager's Golden Record This is life on earth 1977 as it will appear when Voyager 1 meets life (ETA 40.000 years from now)... and finds a turntable.
Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a
phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing
sounds and images selected to portray the
diversity of
life and
culture on
Earth.
Hello, ET!
posted by Bravocharlie
on Dec 13, 2006 -
35 comments
September 30th, 2002, scientists intercepted a 10 minute radio burst from the galactic center, 26,000 Light Years away. 77 minutes passed, and it repeated. And again. The signal repeated 5 times that evening.
Some think those signals are
weird mysterious.
Others think they are
interesting mysterious.
posted by Lord_Pall
on Oct 25, 2006 -
63 comments
The NSA Bibliographies The NSA internally publishes thousands of papers every year, on every topic from spycraft to cryptography to physics & aliens (no, really!). Each year the titles of these papers gets indexed & those indexes are also published internally. The Memory Hole has made a successful FOIA request for a large number of these, spanning almost 50 years. We don't get to see the actual papers, but just the titles are fascinating - including such page turners as "Computer Virus Infections: Is NSA Vulnerable?", "KAL 007 Shootdown: A View from [redacted]", "NSA in the Cyberpunk Future", "Telephone Codes and Safe Combinations: A Deadly Duo", "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology", "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs" & my personal favorite, "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages". When you're done browsing the titles, there's a sample form you can use to request some of the documents yourself!
posted by scalefree
on Oct 2, 2006 -
10 comments
Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man. Direct Google Video link to a fruitcake-tastic half-hour film of "a symposium held at Boston University on November 20, 1972 that explores the implications of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life within the galaxy and the universe. " Well worth scrubbing through for some good moments if you don't have time to watch the whole thing.
Other cool old NASA videos on google video include
Who's Out There?, starring a cigar smoking Orson Welles squinting a lot and reading off the cue cards, and
Debrief: Apollo 8: "Happiness is bacon squares for breakfast".
posted by 6am
on May 11, 2006 -
7 comments
Aliens and Children. This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids. They successfully resisted the aliens by using a
thought screen helmet which blocks the telepathic control aliens have over humans.
posted by Robot Johnny
on Feb 12, 2006 -
35 comments
Aliens and Children. "This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the alien purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids." More goodness from our old friend,
Michael Menken.
posted by cedar
on Jun 6, 2005 -
21 comments
Yikes! In light of approaching finals do you find yourself excogitating WTHHIBD (what the hell have I been doing) over and over, and wondering if your lost time may have been due to
circumstances beyond your control? While the vindicating qualities (obviously you would have been more productive if you hadn't been somebody else's science experiment) of this alibi are usually ephemeral, it is still curious to think is all this talk of sightings/abductions/misplaced keys just a
hoax,
an elaborate cover up, or some yin yang amalgamation of the two? Is the mystery surrounding
Area 51 nothing more than conspiracy, (even if well
positioned)? To what extent are we inexorably skeptical or prepared to sort through the overflowing, spooky coffers of galactic mystery?
posted by superposition
on Dec 7, 2004 -
6 comments
Aliens Loves Predator — It's kinda like Seinfeld meets Evan Mather Star Wars videos meets online comic strip. Hey, "In New York, no one can hear you scream."
posted by teradome
on Oct 12, 2004 -
13 comments
The grays, the mantises, the snake-skins, and the hybrids are just some of the aliens drawn by children at
Aliens and Children. To note:
thought screen hats will successfully prevent abduction by the mantis-like aliens, the servants of the mantis-like aliens, the snake-skinned aliens, and the Meek-Moks.
posted by iconomy
on Apr 27, 2004 -
24 comments
Area 51, truth seekers 0. Bush reissues order keeping Nevada site secret.
I can't believe he had time to think about this with all the other shit he's stirring so hard.
posted by puddsharp
on Sep 18, 2002 -
16 comments
From the secret world of the "black budget" comes the story of a man who wants to know the truth about the army's research into anti-gravity technology and zero-point energy ("
There's enough energy in your coffee cup to evaporate the world's oceans many times over." ). Is he a
lunatic? A "
Ufologist"? Nope, he's an award-winning defense and aerospace reporter for
Jane's Defence Weekly, the highly respected magazine on international military and policy issues. In fact, he says, the loonies may be right! He thinks there probably are saucerlike flying objects, but they're not alien, they're made in the USA (who got the technology from the Nazi's - who else?). He even goes so far as to suggest that the CIA has a program to discredit people who see UFO's. I like my stories rich, and this one is
very rich. (via
Atlantic Unbound)
posted by NekulturnY
on Sep 17, 2002 -
13 comments
