Some alien updates

1. Retired airmen recently discussed UFO sightings at nuclear facilities around the country, going back decades. Testimony of trained professionals like this is always interesting because they know much better what they could be looking at than the average person. Then again, seeing this stuff near military bases (and high-security ones at that) always makes things difficult. On the one hand, it makes sense - that's exactly where you'd expect aliens to hover. On the other hand, it's exactly where you'd expect new military technology to be. We've reached an impasse and all we can really do is speculate. I found it interesting that (1.) there was malfunctioning of the nuclear systems themselves, (2.) this apparently happened to the Soviets too, and (3.) UFOs were seen decades ago doing things we still can't do now... even if this was secret new military technology, you'd think that something we saw a long time ago would be used and known about now.

2. The UN apparently appointed an official ambassador to alien visitors. The only problem is, the appointed ambassador appeared to be out of the loop on the decision, and SETI has some bruised egos over it.




All of this is great stuff because right now I'm reading Lovecraft's The Whisperer in the Darkness (1931) - which is a part of his transition from supernatural horror stories to science fiction and explicit extraterrestrial stories. In The Whisperer in the Darkness, we're faced with the fungi from Yuggoth (also the subject of an earlier poem by Lovecraft). Yuggoth is intended to be Pluto (identified in the book as the undiscovered planet beyond Neptune) which was discovered in February 1930, the very month Lovecraft began writing the story. I'm really enjoying it - it's shaping up to be one of my favorite stories from him yet - better even than The Shadow Out of Time, which I enjoyed a lot.