An evening with Blorgzzzmuff and the Mars light picture controversy.

I was pretty down today, too much on my plate you could say : looking for a new computer and on the verge of buying my first non-Mac product ever; fiddling with the bikes for the son and I to be ready for a first serious Spring ride; lots of small things not going well with this blog; tax report due soon, you name it. By mid morning however, I got a cryptic call from my alien buddy Blorgzzzmuff : You guys are so funny, move to the center of the room away from massive objects, I’m buying you a drink!
I answered Yes with that small aethernet signaller he had given me way back and stood in the middle of the living room just in time to be transported. I hate that queasy feeling of being turned upside down when he picks me up ( something to do with the matter to energy to matter again shift as he/she/it assures me that the transfer itself cannot be felt no matter what the distance covered ) but was sincerely relieved to see that jovial quadruple set of patches and broad slit of a mouth staring at me. It’s one of the strangest things about Blorgzzzmuff’s species that their expressions can be read whereas I wouldn’t say as much of some others. Blah blah blah, you humans are so weird ( Blarblarblar, U U minz Rs OH wee rid as it sounded ) and in no time flat we were seated at that Betelgeuse bar he/she/it likes so much ( little time curved actually but you get the idea ).
As the fuming Altarian whiskey mugs got set in front of us by the barmaid ( not quite my usual fare as such go ), Blorgzzzmuff finally deigned to explain what was so comical about us earthlings. -”So you discovered life on Mars? Again? You’re so crazy!!”
Wait! what? I must have missed it, ( that’s what you get by being whisked off light-years to a whiskey before finishing your coffee ) what life on Mars? I answered. And my alien friend showed me the image :

Taken by Curiosity, the NASA/ESA et al rover, it apparently started a freight train of Internet rumors and conspiracy theories as soon as it was made public and before I got up and missed finishing my coffee. “Well, it does look quite strange, don’t you think?” was all that I managed to retort. “Oh come on Tay, replied Blorgzzzmuff, it is but a picture!” True enough, you’ll have to admit : only a picture and not that good of one, at that. Supposing that it is all that we have to judge by, the interpretation is difficult. Supposing it is not an instrument mishap ( say, a pixel burning up ) is there a telemetry measure to go along with it giving us a distance and consequently an idea of the size of that flare? That is extremely important in determining what kind of life we just discovered on the red planet, you know. If it is really tall for instance, it could be an eruption of Carbon Dioxide ( CO2 ) that sublimates ( turns from solid to gas directly ) during Spring. * But, if it is only a coupler meters tall, then it could be a Martian oure energy being emerging from one of the elevators leading to their underground cities/dwellings! Then again, if reduced to 50 cm, it could be a campfire surrounded by unseeing ( or immaterial ) Martian young ones roasting rockmallows and if no more than a couple centimetrs it could yet be a Martian bug farting sulfur dioxide or more mundanely methane although at the local temperatures, how it could fire up is beyond me.

“That’s what I like about you my friend, immediately responded Blorgzzzmuff, you’re first reasonable and only then stupid, contrary to your average co-speciers! Tshears!”
“HUH? What did they come up with?”
Well pretty much everything :
http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2014/04/mysterous-light-beams-from-mars-surface.html

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/04/weird-ufo-light-on-mars-nasa-responds.html

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/04/nasa-rover-captures-light-beams-coming-out-from-mars-surface-ufo-blogger-exclusive-ufo-2014-flying-saucers-and-ufos-sightings-videos-2934866.html

“That first one even went as far as to say that “… NASA could go and investigate it, but hey, they are not on Mars to discovery life, but there to stall its discovery.” giggled my friend ( with the eye patches rapidly changing hues, quite a show ).
“But that makes no sense, I countered, if they wanted to stall discovery, they wouldn’T have released the image at all?”
– “Bottoms up to that!”

That was pretty much it. We went on to discuss the ridicule aspects of Earth folks : finding flying saucers black boxes on Mars faster than Boeing 777 ones in the Indian Ocean, suspecting the existence of intelligent life elsewhere without having confirmed it down here, etc. I might have made a couple disparaging remarks about how we have stranger things going on within our atmosphere : execution by flamethrower ( http://www.euronews.com/2014/04/08/north-korea-official-executed-by-flame-thrower-over-links-to-kim-jong-uns-/ ) or accusing infants of attempted murder ( http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/04/pakistani-justice-dysfunctional-system-20144914403196684.html ) and the likes through a haze of alcohol and other volatile spirits. Blorgzzzmuff carried me back to his spacecraft and I spilled half a liter of Altarian green stuff on my carpet after the last transit down ending with a splitting headache ( at least only one, poor barmaid ) before snoozing the afternoon off and writing this Post painfully.

The way I’m feeling right now doesn’t make me quite sure of my own intelligence but compared to these UFOlks … I feel fine. And I can’t help thinking of Diogenes – of Sinope, not the Laerce guy – …

… maybe that was him on Mars, doomed to eternal errancy as the famed Jew, still shining his lantern around in search of an honest and intelligent man?
If so, I’ll have to ask Blorgzzzmuff to pick him up and bring him along next time. That will liven up the conversation.

Burp, Tay.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/white-light-mars-images-nasa-curiosity-rover-photos_n_5111905.html?utm_hp_ref=search-for-et