Debunking Humor...

For a moment I thought I was onto something... but alas, the resemblance is only superficial.

llama ball.jpg

(Comparison of scan Maussan's shiny new ball with yet another %@$&$#* llama skull)
 
Newbie UFO podcaster, Chris Ramsay, posted this request. Not a scientist in sight. Yeah, baby, Post Malone and Robbie Williams have all the answers. So funny. Clearly ZERO effort to have a serious discussion.
Screenshot_20250528_091913_Chrome.jpg
 
RTM said:
To quote Spinal Tap: nobody knows who they were, or wot they were doing.
Click to expand...

I'm going to use RTM's comment as my thinly-veiled excuse to post the following clip, taken from a documentary of the epic British heavy metal band Spın̈al Tap on tour in the USA (This is Spinal Tap, 1984, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Spinal_Tap).

Even if metal isn't your thing, it might be worth watching...

The clip starts with the manager discussing some Stonehenge-inspired stage scenery with a contractor.

Note for people who grew up with a rational measurement system (i.e. metric);
in United States customary units and British Imperial units one inch (25.4mm) can be written as 1", 1 foot (304.8mm) as 1'.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg5Ovdu6bOE

It is possible some of the claims made about Stonehenge in the song's lyrics are culturally or historically inaccurate, or just plain nuts, and therefore legitimate subjects of discussion here.
 
John J. said:
Note for people who grew up with a rational measurement system (i.e. metric)
Click to expand...
The USA has had decimal currency for yonks, while I am old enough to remember ha'pennies, shillings, florins, farthings (which my mother claimed were only good for keeping up your stockings if the little rubber button came off the garter belt), sixpences, half-crowns, thruppenny bits...

Nope, you have no reason to be smug about the metric system now! :D
 
John J. said:
I'm going to use RTM's comment as my thinly-veiled excuse to post the following clip, taken from a documentary of the epic British heavy metal band Spın̈al Tap on tour in the USA (This is Spinal Tap, 1984, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Spinal_Tap).

Even if metal isn't your thing, it might be worth watching...

The clip starts with the manager discussing some Stonehenge-inspired stage scenery with a contractor.

Note for people who grew up with a rational measurement system (i.e. metric);
in United States customary units and British Imperial units one inch (25.4mm) can be written as 1", 1 foot (304.8mm) as 1'.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg5Ovdu6bOE

It is possible some of the claims made about Stonehenge in the song's lyrics are culturally or historically inaccurate, or just plain nuts, and therefore legitimate subjects of discussion here.
Click to expand...

Over the last couple weeks I have been listening to lectures by a British Professor called Ronald Hutton. His specialty is paganism, folklore etc., he had a very interesting one on druids looking at historical sources and modern perceptions etc. Spinal Tap were not that far off with the "no one knows what they were doing".
 
RTM said:
Over the last couple weeks I have been listening to lectures by a British Professor called Ronald Hutton. His specialty is paganism, folklore etc., he had a very interesting one on druids looking at historical sources and modern perceptions etc. Spinal Tap were not that far off with the "no one knows what they were doing".
Click to expand...

Where would one find these? Sounds interesting.
 
RTM said:
he had a very interesting one on druids looking at historical sources and modern perceptions etc. Spinal Tap were not that far off with the "no one knows what they were doing".
Click to expand...

Yes. Going off-humour-thread for a minute, IIRC there are no known surviving Druidic texts or teachings, even in translation (e.g. recorded by Roman sources).
There's no evidence of any Druid connection with Stonehenge.

Circular earth constructions/ stone rings started being built and used at the site in the Neolithic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Later, people of the Bell-Beaker culture, who seem to have largely replaced (or at least subsumed) the Neolithic pastoralist/ farmer population, added to the site, notably including the trilithons- the pairs of upright stones capped with a lintel.

Though we know practically nothing about the beliefs of these two populations, I think it's interesting that the Beaker people adopted, and adapted and extended, Stonehenge for their own purposes.
The last major planned (non-destructive) changes to Stonehenge pre-date the arrival of Celtic language speakers by several centuries, possibly a millennium.
 
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John J. said:
Though we know practically nothing about the beliefs of these two populations, I think it's interesting that the Beaker people adopted, and adapted and extended, Stonehenge for their own purposes.
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It's hard to imagine another group of people coming into an area, seeing what there was of Stonehenge, and NOT wanting to use it in some way. But we simply have no way to know what that is.

I'm fond of archaeology (and in more recent years I've enjoyed the British program "Time Team", although I didn't know about it when it was new), and I always question the assumptions of people who think they know what something was for, and what ancient people believed. There are simply too many variables in human behavior over time, and those who try to fit newer superstitions or myths onto older civilizations may be completely wrong about their intentions. Think, for example, what the researchers of three millennia from now would make of those massive "temples" we call football stadiums...
 
In re Druids:
External Quote:
The Druids were a religious and social order that flourished from the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD.
http://www.classichistory.net/archives/druids

External Quote:

The earliest portion of Stonehenge dates to approximately 2950-2900 BC.
...
Stonehenge Period II (c. 2900-2400 BC)
...
Stonehenge Period III (c. 2550-1600 BC)
https://www.aboutstonehenge.info/stonehenge-construction-periods

Whatever else can be said about the Druids (which is not much, what we "know" about them is from the writings of their enemies), they had nothing to do with building Stonehenge.

Ann K said:
It's hard to imagine another group of people coming into an area, seeing what there was of Stonehenge, and NOT wanting to use it in some way. But we simply have no way to know what that is.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and that continues to happen, see: Modern "Druids" at Stonehenge at the Solstices...
summer-solstice-ceremony.png
 
Ann K said:
It's hard to imagine another group of people coming into an area, seeing what there was of Stonehenge, and NOT wanting to use it in some way. But we simply have no way to know what that is.
Click to expand...

I guess the alignment of the Heel Stone with the rising sun at summer solstice, as viewed from the centre of the stone circle, would've been useful in calendar terms.

I totally agree about some interpretations of archaeological finds and what they might tell us about ancient people's beliefs (particularly pre-literate peoples who don't feature in the history of literate neighbours, if they had any).
Sometimes I wonder if it says more about "us" than "them".

In so many ways people everywhere, and perhaps everywhen (at least since behavioural modernity) are so similar.
Humans have little genetic diversity as a species, and an adopted child from any ethnic group can learn the language, customs and technologies of any other (as far as I'm aware), as can many adults.

But beliefs, cultural norms and morality change over time and from place to place. Traditionally scholars in Europe have seen the Classical Greeks and Romans as the forebears of European culture, but those societies had practices that would horrify most of us.
Our knowledge of the beliefs of earlier cultures, with small, dispersed centres of population and no written records, is wholly based on the purposes we allocate to their artefacts and sites, e.g. there are impressive animal carvings at the Turkish site Göbekli Tepe. Presumably animals had importance/ salience for the people of that culture, but what they actually believed, we have no idea.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JMartJr said:
see: Modern "Druids" at Stonehenge at the Solstices...
summer-solstice-ceremony.png
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
Where's Suetonius Paulinus and the men of Legio XIV Gemina when Britain needs them?
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_conquest_of_Anglesey)
 
RTM said:
Over the last couple weeks I have been listening to lectures by a British Professor called Ronald Hutton. His specialty is paganism, folklore etc., he had a very interesting one on druids looking at historical sources and modern perceptions etc. Spinal Tap were not that far off with the "no one knows what they were doing".
Click to expand...
It's a fine line between clever and stupid.
 
Ann K said:
It's hard to imagine another group of people coming into an area, seeing what there was of Stonehenge, and NOT wanting to use it in some way. But we simply have no way to know what that is.

I'm fond of archaeology (and in more recent years I've enjoyed the British program "Time Team", although I didn't know about it when it was new), and I always question the assumptions of people who think they know what something was for, and what ancient people believed. There are simply too many variables in human behavior over time, and those who try to fit newer superstitions or myths onto older civilizations may be completely wrong about their intentions. Think, for example, what the researchers of three millennia from now would make of those massive "temples" we call football stadiums...
Click to expand...

"It looks like the ancient Ingerlunders had at least 20 different regional religions, some with exotic middle-eastern influences... "
 
Ann K said:
Think, for example, what the researchers of three millennia from now would make of those massive "temples" we call football stadiums...
Click to expand...
I'm a Carolina Panthers fan -- so presumably they'd conclude that that I worshiped a strange cat-god whose rites included ritualized disappointment and sadness, and an odd baptism that combined aspersion AND submersion:
wetfan.gif


(That's not me, by the way, but I was there for that game. We won.)
 
FatPhil said:
"It looks like the ancient Ingerlunders had at least 20 different regional religions, some with exotic middle-eastern influences... "
Click to expand...

Took me a while to get this, slow on the uptake as I am...
For non-football (soccer) fans: The English Premier League has 20 clubs competing each season, some with foreign ownership (including middle-eastern interests).

Although by many measures the Premier League is the most popular and successful football league in the world,
a minority opinion is that it lost all credibility following the relegation (booting-out) of Southampton Football Club (the Saints) towards the end of the 2024-2025 season, based solely on the arbitrary metric of their losing 30 out of 38 matches over 9 months.

FC_Southampton.svg.png
 
John J. said:
Although by many measures the Premier League is the most popular and successful football league in the world,
a minority opinion is that it lost all credibility following the relegation (booting-out) of Southampton Football Club (the Saints) towards the end of the 2024-2025 season, based solely on the arbitrary metric of their losing 30 out of 38 matches over 9 months.
Click to expand...
Well, they were only booted out after the season ended, as the bottom 3 teams always are. But they were predictably in that set quite early.

For comparison, the Bundesliga relegates the bottom 2 teams, and the 3rd worst team plays off against the third best team in the 2nd league, which, if they make it, have proven to be able to beat a (now former) Bundesliga team; Southampton did not have to do that when they advanced to the Premier League from a similar position in 2024.

flying-soccer-magic-ball-frisbee-deformation-ufo-football-flat-throw-disc-with-6-led-light-803...jpg
 
Last edited:
Mendel said:
But they were predictably in that set quite early.
Click to expand...
How very dare you Sir!

Saints aim to entertain; there's no dramatic arc if they show their brilliance from the start of the season and continue that way.
I mean, how boring it must be being e.g. a Liverpool/ Arsenal/ Man City fan. Win after win after win; where's the suspense?
Southampton, er, just left it a bit too late to demonstrate their true skills this time round. Late as in not during the football season.
 
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John J. said:
How very dare you Sir!

Saints aim to entertain; there's no dramatic arc if they show their brilliance from the start of the season and continue that way.
I mean, how boring it must be being e.g. a Liverpool/ Arsenal/ Man City fan. Win after win after win; where's the suspense?
Southampton, er, just left it a bit too late to demonstrate their true skills this time round. Late as in not during the football season.
Click to expand...
My best boozing buddy here is a huge 'pool fan, and I'm a lowly watford fan (however, I think Salah is one of the most fantastically talented players to have ever graced a football pitch). Occasionally the teams cross paths, but only very occasionally. We went to the pub together to watch such a match. It was a historic match because:
External Quote:
The Reds had won their past 18 Premier League games and another at Vicarage Road would have made history as the longest winning run in the English top flight.
Imagine his reaction (you can't, no, really, you can't), and mine (you can), when...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51595064
 
John J. said:
How very dare you Sir!

Saints aim to entertain; there's no dramatic arc if they show their brilliance from the start of the season and continue that way.
I mean, how boring it must be being e.g. a Liverpool/ Arsenal/ Man City fan. Win after win after win; where's the suspense?
Southampton, er, just left it a bit too late to demonstrate their true skills this time round. Late as in not during the football season.
Click to expand...
I guess the archaeologists of the future will be correct when they call the football stadiums "temples", and try to decipher the religious beliefs of the builders... :)
 
These grifters should be asked to sign contracts to hand over their earthly belongings upon the failure of their predictions. Watch them squirm. Any lawyers here that could draft such a contract.
Screenshot_20250603_123457_Chrome.jpg
 
Ben Harris said:
These grifters should be asked to sign contracts to hand over their earthly belongings upon the failure of their predictions. Watch them squirm. Any lawyers here that could draft such a contract.
Click to expand...
I've long believed that the correct response to such claims is "what odds are you prepared to accept, as if you offer odds I'm happy with, I'm happy to bet against you".

Put a number on your confidence, dagnammit. If you have to start *paying* for your mistakes, you'll either learn to evaluate likelyhoods better (which is better for the world), or you'll hand over all your cash to me (which is better for me) - either way, there's a nett benefit that I approve of.

There's historical precedent for this - all my web searches are failing, but perhaps some fellow brits will remember the story - back in the 80s and 90s there was a "rogue" scientist who was developing models for ultra-long range weather predictions, with the intention of being able to provide information to farmers IIRC, using secretive methods (understandable if you wish it to be the core of your money-making enterprise, but we know it very solar-oriented). However, he did want to (a) statistically prove that his methods had merit, and (b) fund his own research; so he got the Met Office (so actual experts in the field he was playing in) and a bookmaker to evaluate a range of factual, unambiguously measurable, claims about future weather/climate, and assign odds to them. He would then place the bets as he wanted, and, year after year, he would make a small profit. The statistical conclusion was that his models were indeed better than the Met Office's. This isn't Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, as I have very vivid memories of his tale - I specifically remember discussing recent news about him at a barbie with some fellow nerds (post-gradutation, so 90s, and I think we also talked about how these CompScis were working on on-the-fly 68K emulation on PPC machines for Apple, so that could probably date it quite accurately), and they responded "of course we know him - his office is just next to us in the science park"!
 
I recall Philip J. Klass making a somewhat similar offer to UFO proponents -- though for lesser stakes, recounted in one of his books... lemme Google a minute...

Ah, here it is:

External Quote:

The $10,000 offer

In 1966, Klass made an offer that stood for the remaining thirty-nine years of his life. By 1974, the offer had changed slightly, to the following form:

Klass agrees to pay to the second party the sum of $10,000 within thirty days after any of the following occur:

(A) Any crashed spacecraft, or major piece of a spacecraft is found to be clearly of extraterrestrial origin by the United States National Academy of Sciences, or
(B) The National Academy of Sciences announces that it has examined other evidence which conclusively proves that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft in the 20th century, or
(C) A bona fide extraterrestrial visitor, born on a celestial body other than the Earth, appears live before the General Assembly of the United Nations or on a national television program.

The party accepting this offer pays Klass $100 per year, for a maximum of ten years, each year none of these things occur.

Klass made this offer openly to anyone. The offer was specifically declined by Frank Edwards, John G. Fuller, J. Allen Hynek, and James Harder, some of whom were the most vocal promoters of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. One person entered into the agreement with Klass. A man in Seattle, Washington, accepted the terms in 1969 and made two annual payments of $100. Then in 1971 he wrongly claimed the prize. When it was pointed out that his claim didn't meet any of the conditions, the man let the agreement lapse. In his book UFOs Explained, Klass offered to refund the full purchase price to every reader of the book if any of the conditions of his "UFO challenge" were ever met.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Klass

Even at less ruinous risk, and with attractive odds, Big UFO promoters seemed unwilling to take the challenge. I will not speculate on why this might be...
 
Inside sources reveal that Elizondo Industries is about to release limited edition Elizondo Orbs in Acrylic display cases. Supposedly available in July from @rosscoulthart and @chrisramsay52

Price on application from the above sources
20250602_101613.jpg
 
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