A new scifi idea from the real Universe, anyone? Glass rain may give planet blue hue And here I thought raining methane into methane oceans was weird. Now we have glass rain, that's just too much.
That's interesting because my love of space took another step forward. Who needs silly unsupported beliefs about the paranormal when normal is so fascinating?
I lived in a house with a haunted driveway... Weird as heck, but other people saw the spectre at the exact same time as I did. No 'beliefs' or 'unsupported' here.
That is amazing! Between glass rain and ice-volcanoes, every new discovery of what's out there just makes me hunger for more.
Too bad no one has ever provided evidence of these things they believe they saw. If they could they'd get the million dollars in James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge. And lest you try to claim the challenge is rigged, I know James Randi personally, belong to the JREF, and I know the money exists (because I know where it came from and where it is kept) and the challenge is real and scientifically valid. People have tried and failed to produce any actual evidence of ghosts, ESP, clairvoyance, dousing, faith healing, homeopathy, and a very long list of other bizarre claims. While the people who make millions off grieving and desperate people like John Edward and Sylvia Brown have refused to put their claims to the test. The bottom line, I believe you saw something. Everyone before you who tried to actually collect and present evidence that what they concluded was paranormal has been unable to do so. So it's your conclusion I doubt, not your observation. Once all those wonderful ghost stories lost their charm for me, the real Universe got way more exciting.
Yes, because two people seeing someone walking down a driveway with fresh snow on it, the individual disappearing and there being no footprints is somehow something 'scientifically' explainable. I doubt that catching evidence of things like this is possible and the very idea that we can explain everything in the universe is pure hubris. I myself dismiss the vast majority of 'paranormal activity', but watching someone walk down your driveway without leaving footprints? And having someone else see the exact same thing with you? You can't rationally dismiss that. It is impossible for it to have been a hallucination and unless someone has invented levitation, it is physically impossible for someone to have physically been there. The logical explanation is that it was something paranormal.
The universe is truly full of wonder. Too bad humanity seems stuck in navel gazing mode. Instead of brimming with enthusiastic bravado- 'let's go there' of the 1960's has been replaced by- 'let's take a picture'. Still a cool picture.
I'm just jazzed that we're on the cusp of truly seeing these planets. The whole orbital wobble, while perfectly real evidence of the existence of extra-sola planets, just isn't the full Monte, is it? I want to SEE!!!
We're getting closer. Till we got wobbles, many scientists were consigned to thinking we'd never see other worlds at all. Science amazes.
It's a really cool description of a planet. Not at the top of the list of places to go, but still fascinating.
I would like to read a written account of the incident. It sounds very interesting. Can you describe the person you saw? Were they facing you or walking away? I confess that I am somewhat of a skeptic but I also possess the desire for something more and can be captivated by such unexplained phenomena.
There are rational explanations that can be used to dismiss any supernatural force in that scenario. The individuals could both be lying; one or both could be subject to suggestion; the footprints were there but weren't seen from the vantage point of the witnesses; etc. Those are all at least as logical as that is was supernatural, and arguably more so.
It's amazing the details astronomers can extract from planets just from varying wavelengths of light. Well speculative details anyway.
The logical explanation is that it was something paranormal. Logical and paranormal can never be equated. But aside from that nit picking, I, like GingerCoffee absolutely believe that you are being genuine about what you saw. Just hear me out when I start talking about how deceptive our senses can be. My brother suffers from sleep paralysis. He can sometimes see himself lay down in bed, he can't move anything except his eyes and he feels like something is pressing down on his chest. This sure as hell sounds like something paranormal and he even described it as an out-of-body experience. Yet this phenomenon can be explained scientifically. A much simpler illustration of the deceptive power of the brain is when you are standing on a railroad. You VERY clearly see the two lines of the railroad MEET in the distance, yet you also know that the tracks are straight and that the bars that make up the railroad never meet at the horizon. Once again, you see something yet it isn't the reality, it's just perspective. This might sound a bit too simple, but its true, the two lines never meet, yet you see very clearly with your own eyes that they do. In short, what you see is NOT what you get. Yet another example are deja-vu's. The brain can recognize objects like chairs, tables etc. Sometimes however, a scene is registered (and stored in memory) but the "recognize" trigger doesn't fire. So imagine you are looking at a table, your brain is (for less than a millisecond) taking in this object but, accidentally, not recognizing it. Then, a millisecond later, the same scene hits your eyes, this time your brain does recognize the table. But something else happens as well. Your memory goes "AHA, I have seen this before". That is true, it did see it, a millisecond ago. This creates the illusion of deja vu. Your brain simply failed to fire the recognize trigger, stores the event and then recognizes the scene a fraction of a second later, thus making it feel as if you have already seen the scene (which, again you did, just a millisecond ago). Now you might want to talk a bit about the circumstances of what you witnessed as well. Was it dark? Foggy? Had you been feeling sleepy that day? What were you doing before? Were you already thinking about anything paranormal/out-of-the-ordinary? Any and all of these factors may have contributed. Focus is crucial. I sometimes have people tell me how they were thinking about someone then came across that very person. That's because their focus is on that person, now that they have met them, it stands out as curious, but if they wouldn't have met, they would've stopped thinking about that person and have a normal day. Here is something you can do to test this: - Set a timer for 20 seconds. - When you start the timer count all things red in your direct surroundings. - Start the timer AFTER 20 seconds have passed answer me the following question: Spoiler How many blue objects did you count? That little expirement demonstrates why you see everyone driving a porsche if you just bought one yourself. It's why you will see the number 3 everywhere if you decide to focus on it. What am I after? I am after the fact that if you were already sensitive to "the paranormal" (aka you might've seen a show about paranormal events, read a book about it or have talked about it with a friend, this may even be as far back as several months before you saw that person on your driveway.) you are likely to witness/experience it. Do you know why stage hypnosis works so well? Because the volunteers are (as the word volunteer implies) very eager and willing to be put under hypnosis. Don't underestimate the power of your own mind to deceive itself. I can rattle of alot more examples but I think you get the point (even though you may disagree).
I actually thought this was a sci-fi setting made up by someone... until I read the rest of the comments and realised the link was to an article and not some fanfic site. This would be an awesome place to write a sci-fi in!
Same thing that happens when a glass object hits another glass object.. ive no idea what that "thing" is because I've never seen glass hit glass:O
Interested parties should probably take up the paranormal phenom in another thread, it's off topic here, and, it's one of those discussions that never ends. So, back to raining glass, here's the published paper: The deep blue color of HD 189733b: albedo measurements with HST/STIS at visible wavelengths Reading the paper, it looks like the planet would look blue if we were close enough to see it, and glass rain is only one possibility.
Person was only a shadow, walking towards the house down the driveway. I went outside when no one came to the door and there was nothing there. No footprints, no person.
