2012 - The end is coming........again!

[taksraven]

Just had a look at the trailer for this disaster film.

http://www.movie-list.com/trailers.php?id=2012

I thought it looked promising until I saw who the director was, then I knew it was going to be more heavy handed crap.

I do believe the philosophy that they preach in the trailer though, that if world leaders knew that the end was really nigh, they would probably do nothing and not tell us about it. I think that lots of people suspect this.

If anybody does want to read a subtle, end of the world tale, read "The Last Night of the World" in Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". This story is a nice contrast on the typical "End of the world" story.

Taksraven

[anime52k8]

so, Day after tomorrow with even more agenda to it? sounds like crap, pass.

Edited December 10, 2008 by anime52k8

[CoryHolmes]

Day After Tomorrow wasn't that bad...

[big F]

I do believe the philosophy that they preach in the trailer though, that if world leaders knew that the end was really nigh, they would probably do nothing and not tell us about it. I think that lots of people suspect this.

The goverments would do just that Build a nice cozy bunkers somewhere and fill them with food and supplies and playstation games and then invite only the "best" people to come join them. Oh wait they did that in the film Deep Impact. One thing is for sure if word got out society would F%*K it's self up long before the actual end.

Could turn out to be a good no brainer popcorn flick.

At least its not a remake

[Ghost Train]

From what I've read, the 2012 date is just the end of another cycle of the Mayan calendar, there is no explicit mention that it is the actual end in any Mayan text. Even though the Mayans had remarkable mathematical and astronomy knowledge, the Year 0 of their calendar is dated to about 3,000 BC, which we know can't be true as overwhelming evidence shows that the Earth itself is 4.5 Billion years old. So we can all put our tin-foil hats back into their protective vacuum chambers.

Regarding the lack of entries beyond 2012, ,maybe the calendar maker decided to quit all of a sudden and become a pastry chef, who knows XD.

Now, about the film... just looks like another "Day After Tomorrow" to me.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Ghost Train

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

People with little imagination like Roland Emmerich are always pushing the visuals to win the box office, but this is too ridiculous to be even funny. What's next? A planet sized bucket of water from outer space pours over the Earth?

[Garou Kuroryuu]

At least its not a remake

QFT.

However, the basic premise has been done over and over. Place your bets as to how original this treatment could be.

The trailer looks good in the FX departments. My personal bet on it is actually really low as for originality. However, I agree with Big f. Should be a good no-brainer weekend movie.

[reddsun1]

Meh, just not been much of a fan of films produced/directed by Emmerich. I've just found those movies [stargate, Godzilla, ID4, etc.] consistently underwhelming from a character/story viewpoint; "bubble-gum for the mind."

Saw the trailer though, with the poor monk in the mountains running for the bell. Found the concept to be rather frightening, actually. Not the special effects, mind you--but the premise of it: looking up one day to see as prodigious and grand as a mountain range like the Himalayas, about to be swallowed up entirely, and the whole horizon filled with unending, black, cascading seas...the whole notion of it is really rather frightening. If you saw something like that coming down on you, what could you do, other than sh*t yerself and collapse in a drooling heap? Meh, must be getting soft in me old age....

Interesting that the trailer includes: "find out the truth. google: 2012" If you do so, you'll get all sort of hits; of course there's the Mayan Calendar related stuff. It'll also pull up hits with some way-out-there sites/blogs/etc dealing more with Judeo-Christian based references including the "Nephilim," which interestingly enough have some uncanny parallels with Macross/protoculture themes.

[crescens]

This might be an interesting movie ;] Emmerich is one of the not many that actually can bring us a good movie.

*stalks this thread*

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

The ancient giants of all the old myths = heroes of greek myth. The bad guys who taught man all the methods of fighting and were trouble makers.

After the biblical flood the survivors of the giant race who managed to live through it had to be hunted down by the good guys because they were a threat to the non-genitcally modded version of humans.

If man on earth is the fallen nature of humans after adam and eve got kicked out of eden, (we lost our ability to live 1000 years) then the nephilim would be he angels that fell from their position who came down with us.

I actually had a post about that here on macrossworld a looooong time ago hehe. I was trying to tie the ancient giant legends with the macross story of alien giants who were warlike. At the end of macross the date reads 2012 so perhaps the world will get destroyed by a laser bombardment and then the survivors will have to start anew? The sdf-1 could be thought of as the macross equivalent of the Ark but without all the different kinds of animals brought with it for preservation.

The zentradi don't have six toes and six finger though..

Edited December 10, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Ghost Train]

The ancient giants of all the old myths = heroes of greek myth. The bad guys who taught man all the methods of fighting and were trouble makers.

After the biblical flood the survivors of the giant race who managed to live through it had to be hunted down by the good guys because they were a threat to the non-genitcally modded version of humans.

If man on earth is the fallen nature of humans after adam and eve got kicked out of eden, (we lost our ability to live 1000 years) then the nephilim would be he angels that fell from their position who came down with us.

I actually had a post about that here on macrossworld a looooong time ago hehe. I was trying to tie the ancient giant legends with the macross story of alien giants who were warlike. At the end of macross the date reads 2012 so perhaps the world will get destroyed by a laser bombardment and then the survivors will have to start anew? The sdf-1 could be thought of as the macross equivalent of the Ark but without all the different kinds of animals brought with it for preservation.

The zentradi don't have six toes and six finger though..

Partially correct XD. The Nephilim were described in greater detail in the Book of Enoch, a non-canonical Christian text (yep, one of the earliest cases of Retcon lolz ) It describes the fallen angels and their designs on the realm of humankind. The descendants of the fallen angels and the human wives they took, were referred to as the Nephilim.

In recent years this has become a favorite topic of tin-foil enthusiasts trying to suggest how aliens impacted the genetic & social evolution of mankind - which people with IQ greater than 50 find absolutely reprehensible and amounts to a thinly veiled form of racism: what I don't understand I attribute to aliens.

Now this isn't meant as an attack on anyone on MWF , with fiction it's all good and golden, but applying this theory to real life: fail.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Ghost Train

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Alien giants built the pyramids. They were bored and had nothing to do.

Edited December 10, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Scream Man]

i loved Stargate and Independance Day. Both fun movies! Also liked The patriot, Day after Tomorrow and Universal Soldier (Ok US less so, but still...)

Ill check this out.

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

Alien giants built the pyramids. They were bored and had nothing to do.

Amen.

[ntsan]

2012: the day Megaroad launched! The end

[Ghost Train]

Alien giants built the pyramids. They were bored and had nothing to do.

The pyramids are the prime example of what I was referring to.

I've never heard anyone suggest that the Roman aqueducts, the collosium, or any examples of superb Greco-Roman engineering (the foundation of Western civilization) were built by aliens... and it's unreasonable to suggest such a thing, because said projects were somewhat well documented.

However, whenever a non-Western archeological point of interest is examined - Easter island, Chichen Itza, the pyramids, it's always end with "OMG, those heathens COULD HAVE NEVER possibly had the intelligence, the technology, and the basic understanding of science to pull such a thing off!" This is precisely why those alien interferance theories are insulting to people from said cultures who originally built the object in question.

We think that knowledge and technology progresses in a linear fashion, but in reality once a foundation is established, technology builds upon itself at an exponential rate. A good example is the science of flight. The Kittyhawk flight was in 1903, and the moon landing occurred in 1969. To go from being able to barely lift yourself from the ground for a few seconds to landing people on the moon in about a lifetime illustrates this perfectly, and suggests that ancient people building remarkable things is not a crazy notion.

As for Romald Emerich, his last movie 10,000 BC shows a hint of this stink. Although it's never explicitly stated, the king is assumed to be of alien origin (yes yes even though his blood is red).

[bigkid24]

First time I've seen the trailer. Interesting.

[anime52k8]

Day After Tomorrow wasn't that bad...

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! yes it was

From what I've read, the 2012 date is just the end of another cycle of the Mayan calendar, there is no explicit mention that it is the actual end in any Mayan text. Even though the Mayans had remarkable mathematical and astronomy knowledge, the Year 0 of their calendar is dated to about 3,000 BC, which we know can't be true as overwhelming evidence shows that the Earth itself is 4.5 Billion years old. So we can all put our tin-foil hats back into their protective vacuum chambers.

Regarding the lack of entries beyond 2012, ,maybe the calendar maker decided to quit all of a sudden and become a pastry chef, who knows XD.

Now, about the film... just looks like another "Day After Tomorrow" to me.

the year 2012, specifically December 20, 2012 is going to be the the last day of B'ak'tun 13. at which point the mayan long count date 12.19.19.17.19 roles over to 13.0.0.0.0 and b'ak'tun 14 starts. (the long count calander is a little odd, as it works in base-20, except for the second set of numbers from the end, which is base-18, first set on the right is days, then winal's wich are like months, then tun's which are years.)

there are predictions made by the Maya after 2012, in fact they have predictions all the way up to the late 4700's. the year 2012 is mostly significant just in the Popol Vuh, which contains a creation myth in which the world was created 3 times unsuccessfully before the world we live in was created, and each previous world ended on 12.19.19.17.19 i.e. December 20, 2012.

and in the myth, the previous worlds were ended because the creator gods weren't able to create humans successfully. things finaly worked on the forth try, (our world) so our world won't tend.

So now you know.

Alien giants built the pyramids. They were bored and had nothing to do.

no they didn't. the Pyramids were built by parasitic aliens who were using them as landing platforms for there space ships.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Yeah but I'm not a racist though: I don't care how smart someone thinks they are. I just think nobody knows absolutely everything. Sometimes knowledge is destroyed to benefit those who want to have exclusive right to it. Sort of like a guy who kills another guy who knows the location of a treasure and wants to keep all the treasure for himself. Less for others, more for him.

If I say a giant man visited me in a ship took me to his leader, I then recieved instructions on forming my own tribe on planet earth and then was show the giants' planet's technology level to prove it existed to me, and then I was brought back to earth, yet nobody was there to witness it or document it, doesn't mean it never happened right? Doesn't mean I'm dumb. Just that I can't prove it for other scientists and historians. Of course this never happened but I'm just saying what if? What's so scary about having alternate explanations for things?

Some stuff is kept secret from people. How do you know aliens are not out there right now hovering around in space using the latest in stealth technology watching us like ants while eating popcorn. You don't. You've never gone to space to verify this first hand have you? You've read about it in books, watched documentaries about it, maybe even heard rumours of conspiracies going on with government to cover up what's up there from tin foil crowd. But is it possible we are all being lied to? Nobody who has never been allowed to go to space will be certain either way. Just like nobody who was ever involved in building an atomic bomb would ever know such a weapon existed until it was used for everyone to witness back during the second world war. (it might have just been a scare tactic)

I'm not trying to convince you either way, just saying that people who have alternate interpretations and explanations of things may not be as crazy as they seem. They just might not have the ability to prove something due to plausible excuse like: the evidence was destroyed, the camera footage was confiscated, the scientists that stumbled upon the hard evidence mysteriously died or kept in a prison away from the public etc etc etc.. You got to have an open mind to understand that real conspiracies do exist, regardless of how many false theories of conspiracies are out there. If we did encounter an alien visitation in ancient times, I can already see some good reasons they'd not want to expose themselves to humans: 1. they might be scared of us. 2. we might be scared of them, causing panics. 3. the technology is too dangerous, only the elite or people we deem responsible should be allowed to have this information which could be misused - kind of like nukes in the hands of a madman. 4. It might get stolen and copied and then used against us. 5. from the aliens POV: "we are hostile beings so what advantage is there letting our enemy know we have arrived, any more than a enemy spy would want to announce his arrival?" etc etc...many other reasons to hide.

Maybe if there was a hostile race of beings in ancient times, the planet just wasn't habitable so the ships are just containers to keep the beings alive, kinda like how iron man relies on his suit to keep his heart going? So because of that, the aliens must live elsewhere ruling from a base a long distance? (with human representatives on earth fulfilling their plan of world domination?) Far fetched? maybe. But "what if?" Why is it that people assume it is not possible at ALL with 100% certainty when they haven't even explored space themselves or seen anything beyond what is directly in front of them? Can it not be possible that say a murder or a crime goes unsolved with no witnesses to witness it? The killer able to get away and the crime remain an unsolved mystery simply because of lack of evidence or trail leading to the person involved? You can't say you know absolutely everything and there's nothing left for future generations. Knowledge grows as new information is added and people discover new things.

Anyway if the end really does come in 2012, the prophets of doom won't be able to say: "I told you so" and the skeptics will be able to say "haha you are so full of poo!" so either way those who doubt have nothing to lose.

Edited December 11, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

And oh I don't believe in the global warming message in the day after tomorrow BTW.

Personally I think that's a conspiracy in and of itself to destroy industrialised living. It's just a power grab for those who believe the world is overpopulated and need a way to limit what the unwashed masses can do. (ie just another form of control - the real green movement is being hijacked by those with a depopulation agenda. youtube search for "Alternative 3" conspiracy theory for some interesting documentaries or click here. .

Edited December 11, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Roger]

I thought The Day After Tomorrow was really pushing the limits of credibility. I have a hard time believing in super-intelligent storms that go around destroying famous landmarks.

[taksraven]

The pyramids are the prime example of what I was referring to.

I've never heard anyone suggest that the Roman aqueducts, the collosium, or any examples of superb Greco-Roman engineering (the foundation of Western civilization) were built by aliens... and it's unreasonable to suggest such a thing, because said projects were somewhat well documented.

However, whenever a non-Western archeological point of interest is examined - Easter island, Chichen Itza, the pyramids, it's always end with "OMG, those heathens COULD HAVE NEVER possibly had the intelligence, the technology, and the basic understanding of science to pull such a thing off!" This is precisely why those alien interferance theories are insulting to people from said cultures who originally built the object in question.

We think that knowledge and technology progresses in a linear fashion, but in reality once a foundation is established, technology builds upon itself at an exponential rate. A good example is the science of flight. The Kittyhawk flight was in 1903, and the moon landing occurred in 1969. To go from being able to barely lift yourself from the ground for a few seconds to landing people on the moon in about a lifetime illustrates this perfectly, and suggests that ancient people building remarkable things is not a crazy notion.

As for Romald Emerich, his last movie 10,000 BC shows a hint of this stink. Although it's never explicitly stated, the king is assumed to be of alien origin (yes yes even though his blood is red).

Its the same as how people love conspiracy theories to explain away random events like the JFK assassination, the "fake" moon landings (one of the biggest loads of crap I have ever heard in my life), and other more recent events such as 9/11. It must be some part of human nature to not always accept things at their face value, and while such attitudes have been useful in uncovering the true nature of some historical events (eg Watergate) these attitudes also have a very negative effect as people are often willing to believe some really crazy theories.

Taksraven

[taksraven]

I thought The Day After Tomorrow was really pushing the limits of credibility. I have a hard time believing in super-intelligent storms that go around destroying famous landmarks.

Just like those super-intelligent meteors in Armageddon that destroyed landmarks too. When people are high up in planes they need to look down and realise how big the earth is and how remote the chances are of landmarks being destroyed by random events.

Taksraven

[taksraven]

Yeah but I'm not a racist though: I don't care how smart someone thinks they are. I just think nobody knows absolutely everything. Sometimes knowledge is destroyed to benefit those who want to have exclusive right to it. Sort of like a guy who kills another guy who knows the location of a treasure and wants to keep all the treasure for himself. Less for others, more for him.

If I say a giant man visited me in a ship took me to his leader, I then recieved instructions on forming my own tribe on planet earth and then was show the giants' planet's technology level to prove it existed to me, and then I was brought back to earth, yet nobody was there to witness it or document it, doesn't mean it never happened right? Doesn't mean I'm dumb. Just that I can't prove it for other scientists and historians. Of course this never happened but I'm just saying what if? What's so scary about having alternate explanations for things?

Some stuff is kept secret from people. How do you know aliens are not out there right now hovering around in space using the latest in stealth technology watching us like ants while eating popcorn. You don't. You've never gone to space to verify this first hand have you? You've read about it in books, watched documentaries about it, maybe even heard rumours of conspiracies going on with government to cover up what's up there from tin foil crowd. But is it possible we are all being lied to? Nobody who has never been allowed to go to space will be certain either way. Just like nobody who was ever involved in building an atomic bomb would ever know such a weapon existed until it was used for everyone to witness back during the second world war. (it might have just been a scare tactic)

I'm not trying to convince you either way, just saying that people who have alternate interpretations and explanations of things may not be as crazy as they seem. They just might not have the ability to prove something due to plausible excuse like: the evidence was destroyed, the camera footage was confiscated, the scientists that stumbled upon the hard evidence mysteriously died or kept in a prison away from the public etc etc etc.. You got to have an open mind to understand that real conspiracies do exist, regardless of how many false theories of conspiracies are out there. If we did encounter an alien visitation in ancient times, I can already see some good reasons they'd not want to expose themselves to humans: 1. they might be scared of us. 2. we might be scared of them, causing panics. 3. the technology is too dangerous, only the elite or people we deem responsible should be allowed to have this information which could be misused - kind of like nukes in the hands of a madman. 4. It might get stolen and copied and then used against us. 5. from the aliens POV: "we are hostile beings so what advantage is there letting our enemy know we have arrived, any more than a enemy spy would want to announce his arrival?" etc etc...many other reasons to hide.

Maybe if there was a hostile race of beings in ancient times, the planet just wasn't habitable so the ships are just containers to keep the beings alive, kinda like how iron man relies on his suit to keep his heart going? So because of that, the aliens must live elsewhere ruling from a base a long distance? (with human representatives on earth fulfilling their plan of world domination?) Far fetched? maybe. But "what if?" Why is it that people assume it is not possible at ALL with 100% certainty when they haven't even explored space themselves or seen anything beyond what is directly in front of them? Can it not be possible that say a murder or a crime goes unsolved with no witnesses to witness it? The killer able to get away and the crime remain an unsolved mystery simply because of lack of evidence or trail leading to the person involved? You can't say you know absolutely everything and there's nothing left for future generations. Knowledge grows as new information is added and people discover new things.

Anyway if the end really does come in 2012, the prophets of doom won't be able to say: "I told you so" and the skeptics will be able to say "haha you are so full of poo!" so either way those who doubt have nothing to lose.

Your long posts rock, good work. I wish I had the time to be so detailed.

I just apply the logic of "since the world didn't end all of the other times that doomsayers predicted it would why should it end now?"

OR

Maybe the world DID end with those events and we did not notice.

Anyway, I took this passage from the good book, the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. I think it touches on a few of the arguments you are getting at.

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, you don't. Q.E.D.."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Taksraven

[Ghost Train]

Yeah but I'm not a racist though: I don't care how smart someone thinks they are. I just think nobody knows absolutely everything. Sometimes knowledge is destroyed to benefit those who want to have exclusive right to it. Sort of like a guy who kills another guy who knows the location of a treasure and wants to keep all the treasure for himself. Less for others, more for him.

If I say a giant man visited me in a ship took me to his leader, I then recieved instructions on forming my own tribe on planet earth and then was show the giants' planet's technology level to prove it existed to me, and then I was brought back to earth, yet nobody was there to witness it or document it, doesn't mean it never happened right? Doesn't mean I'm dumb. Just that I can't prove it for other scientists and historians. Of course this never happened but I'm just saying what if? What's so scary about having alternate explanations for things?

Some stuff is kept secret from people. How do you know aliens are not out there right now hovering around in space using the latest in stealth technology watching us like ants while eating popcorn. You don't. You've never gone to space to verify this first hand have you? You've read about it in books, watched documentaries about it, maybe even heard rumours of conspiracies going on with government to cover up what's up there from tin foil crowd. But is it possible we are all being lied to? Nobody who has never been allowed to go to space will be certain either way. Just like nobody who was ever involved in building an atomic bomb would ever know such a weapon existed until it was used for everyone to witness back during the second world war. (it might have just been a scare tactic)

I'm not trying to convince you either way, just saying that people who have alternate interpretations and explanations of things may not be as crazy as they seem. They just might not have the ability to prove something due to plausible excuse like: the evidence was destroyed, the camera footage was confiscated, the scientists that stumbled upon the hard evidence mysteriously died or kept in a prison away from the public etc etc etc.. You got to have an open mind to understand that real conspiracies do exist, regardless of how many false theories of conspiracies are out there. If we did encounter an alien visitation in ancient times, I can already see some good reasons they'd not want to expose themselves to humans: 1. they might be scared of us. 2. we might be scared of them, causing panics. 3. the technology is too dangerous, only the elite or people we deem responsible should be allowed to have this information which could be misused - kind of like nukes in the hands of a madman. 4. It might get stolen and copied and then used against us. 5. from the aliens POV: "we are hostile beings so what advantage is there letting our enemy know we have arrived, any more than a enemy spy would want to announce his arrival?" etc etc...many other reasons to hide.

Maybe if there was a hostile race of beings in ancient times, the planet just wasn't habitable so the ships are just containers to keep the beings alive, kinda like how iron man relies on his suit to keep his heart going? So because of that, the aliens must live elsewhere ruling from a base a long distance? (with human representatives on earth fulfilling their plan of world domination?) Far fetched? maybe. But "what if?" Why is it that people assume it is not possible at ALL with 100% certainty when they haven't even explored space themselves or seen anything beyond what is directly in front of them? Can it not be possible that say a murder or a crime goes unsolved with no witnesses to witness it? The killer able to get away and the crime remain an unsolved mystery simply because of lack of evidence or trail leading to the person involved? You can't say you know absolutely everything and there's nothing left for future generations. Knowledge grows as new information is added and people discover new things.

Anyway if the end really does come in 2012, the prophets of doom won't be able to say: "I told you so" and the skeptics will be able to say "haha you are so full of poo!" so either way those who doubt have nothing to lose.

Now now, I didn't call anyone specifically a bigot (in fact I stated that in my last thread), I'm just saying that the idea itself has a taint of racism, but that people who believe in it don't necessarily know it. They might not be biased themselves, I guess is the way to put it. So if I came across with the wrong tone, I apologize XD.

What you say is true and I don't disagree with you. Everything is possible, and it could be that one day I'm proven wrong, and yea, definitely the governments probably hides a lot of batsh!t crazy things from the general public.

Nevertheless, between picking option A: which states that a bunch of humans s sat down, thought about it, and came up with a plan to do something awesome (given some information about how we know people lived back then), or B. aliens swooping down and teaching people how to do something, I'd go with A. That is not the same as saying I don't believe in ET's or even them visiting us. I just believe that most of the things that people attribute to aliens have perfectly good "earthly" explanations.

Finally, this is just the old geezer in me talking, but I suspect we've moved further and further into accepting ET "human development" theories because in many ways we're starting to loose the know-how on how to actually "do stuff." Everything in our world falls into the 1 click instant expectations category. We seem to be content that a black box is there, but have no curiosity to find out how the "black box" works.

Edited December 11, 2008 by Ghost Train

[eugimon]

the pyramid thing makes me laugh the most cuz there's a CLEAR evolution of the form right there in the desert.

[reddsun1]

Found another one of those websites delving into the whole "Nephilim" exposition with some uncanny parallels to Macross lore: http://www.returnofthenephilim.com/

Mind you, this could definitely be considered one of those "tin-foil-hat" sites; but I suppose it has some pretty serious religious/spiritual significance to some folks. Again, just thought the parallels to the [relatively little] Macross lore I'm familiar with was kinda ironic:

--"We believe that the Return of the Nephilim is a sure event yet to happen, again, in the End of Days in an open and worldwide scale. This suggestion is made according to an End Times prophecy delivered by Yeshua in the Olivet Discourse as recorded in Matthew 24:37. In the near future, just as they did in the antediluvian world — previous to the universal Flood of Noah and narrated in Genesis 6:1-2,4 — satanic "alien" beings, or fallen angels, will appear on our planet and will make widespread and direct contact with mankind with a hihgly deceptive message and purpose. It will be just previous — or during — the future reign of the Antimessiah and his deceptive False Prophet. These rebellious interdimensional beings from the heavenlies will manifest among us disguised as extraterrestrial from other galaxies, or aliens beings from another dimension or time. They will pretend to just teach mankind high concepts of science and technology, as well as the means to successfully achieve a peaceful social cooperation among the nations of the world thus putting an end to wars, hunger, plagues, etc. To attain that intent they will tell us that it is absolutely necessary to unite all the nations of the world under a new One World Government or New World Order and a New World Religion — this will be the ultimate Tower of Babel."

--"The reign of the Antimessiah most probably will arise after our first contact with fallen angels claiming to be aliens or extraterrestrials takes place. Undoubtedly, they will pretend to come as our "space brothers" or better yet, as our "cosmic parents" or "creators" who thousands of years ago had genetically altered and accelerated the slow evolution of sub-human species so creating our first ancestors."

a.) arrival of "alien" beings, prompting some to call for unified-world-government, while others form anti-unification factions

and civil-unrest/conflict ensues

b.) said "alien beings" claim to be the progenitors of mankind--albeit fraudulently, according to abovementioned w'site--through genetic manipulation, a la Protocultures

I didn't bother to keep reading that webpage to see if the guy goes on to mention whether these "Nephilim's" will arrive in giant cucumber shaped starships, or if their supposed technological gifts will include giant transforming robots, fold-boosters, or ultra-compact nuclear-fusion reactors.

So, either this guy just watched waaaay too many Robotech reruns while stoned...OR. Who knows? Maybe way back at the turn of the 80's, the original creative staff that would go on to create Macross just took inspiration for their ideas from bits and pieces of stuff they remembered from their college days, half-dozing through some anthropology or ancient-literature classes or something...

Edited December 11, 2008 by reddsun1

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Anyway a good example of how knowledge "grows" is the recent discovery of 'hobbit' humans.

Sometimes history must be rewritten if new information comes to light in future generations who find interesting stuff previous generations didn't have access to. Let's say in the future we explore further into space and find remains of humanoidal skeletons on other planets: people have got to be prepared to put their pre-existing ideas aside for a second and look at the evidence objectively. You can't think just of what you read in old books, but prepared to accept new information as it comes to light that others may not have had the opportunity to see before. Otherwise we wouldn't learn or discover anything new.

Edited December 11, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[eugimon]

history was hardly rewritten with the discovery of homo hobbitus, in fact it further supports the current theory of human evolution.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Oh but it backs up my point that just because you don't have the evidence right there in front of you, doesn't mean it must automatically not be true. (in the sense that it is a "new discovery". There could be more new discoveries in future.)

What I mean is if we do find something that challenges the scientific establishment when we actually get to explore other planets, people have got to look at that new information and be prepared to change their thinking. Let's for the sake of argument say we find human bones in some ancient alien tomb, on a distant planet. Then that must mean we may have been more advanced in technology in ancient times than we might have known originally, lost some of the knowledge, and then possibly that knowledge was kept and brought to earth. Problem is we shouldn't automatically assume we know everything. There could be more stuff we don't know. My post was pointing out that what we DO know might only be a portion of what is out there in total. By the time we find some new information.. the previous generations would not have been able to take that new info into account because of the limit of things they discovered during their lifetime. Meaning the future generation has to be prepared to look at the old in a new way when they do happen to make new discoveries. Think out the box. Not be afraid to have an open mind.

For example saying that "oh, aliens most certainly don't exist" (when we haven't even had a chance to see what's around us with our primitive technology - space is vast) is assuming you have ALL KNOWLEDGE and there is nothing new for you to discover. It's not important whether I think they exist or the guy next to you thinks they do, but on whether people have an open mind to the possibility that they don't know absolutely everything. ie "because there is no evidence, it must be BS. I'm 100% certain it's not true!" There are plausible reasons for knowledge to be kept secret or hidden from the public just like you wouldn't give away information about yourself freely if it endangered your life. This is why I find it odd that people would automatically assume that if aliens were around, they'd try to announce themselves, when most normal people are frightened of the thought of other-worldy beings coming from space. (War of The Worlds radio play is a demonstration of the panic something like that can cause) Instead it makes perfect logical sense that if you were an alien not from that land that you are spying on, you would be sneaky and hide to avoid detection. Common sense would say it's a natural survival instinct. I know that if I were to explore a planet I would be scared that other things are on it and not want anything seeing me.

Edited December 11, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[eugimon]

Yes, thats true in general. The problem occurs when people with limited to no education decide that science is wrong and go off with stupid hare brained theories like the moon landing was faked because humans couldn't survive the trip through the van allen belt when Dr. Van Allen himself said that the idea was a load of crap.

And I do agree that a lot of people have just replaced religion for science and they treat current theories like religious dogma...

[big F]

I always remember this well said comment (paraphrased).

The Universe is infinitely large and contains and infinite amount of suns around those suns there must be a nearly infinite amount of planets so there must be some that are containing some form of life. Therefore this would lead to the possibility of near infinite permutations and possibilities of circumstances and chances life and environmental condition etc.

I always think of this when trying to understand some far fetched theory or the like, while conspiracy theories are the bread and butter of SciFi and legend there is no smoke without fire IMO. I just doubt they are as elaborate as most of Hollywood would have us believe. Not saying that your next door neighbor is from the Star constellation of Betelgeuse or anything but never say never.

I read a theory once a few years back that the whole alien thing that gathered speed in the fifties was down to a conspiracy that the powers would just get the general populaces comfortable with the whole Aliens thing and then one day they would say " Oh by the way these guys are the Aliens and they have been coming here for a while" and the general populace would just say. " Yeah tell us something we didn't already know, we all knew that you didn't invent Velcro" and then just get on with life happy in the knowledge that their neighbors were from Betelgeuse after all.

[Ghost Train]

Oh but it backs up my point that just because you don't have the evidence right there in front of you, doesn't mean it must automatically not be true. (in the sense that it is a "new discovery". There could be more new discoveries in future.)

What I mean is if we do find something that challenges the scientific establishment when we actually get to explore other planets, people have got to look at that new information and be prepared to change their thinking. Let's for the sake of argument say we find human bones in some ancient alien tomb, on a distant planet. Then that must mean we may have been more advanced in technology in ancient times than we might have known originally, lost some of the knowledge, and then possibly that knowledge was kept and brought to earth. Problem is we shouldn't automatically assume we know everything. There could be more stuff we don't know. My post was pointing out that what we DO know might only be a portion of what is out there in total. By the time we find some new information.. the previous generations would not have been able to take that new info into account because of the limit of things they discovered during their lifetime. Meaning the future generation has to be prepared to look at the old in a new way when they do happen to make new discoveries. Think out the box. Not be afraid to have an open mind.

For example saying that "oh, aliens most certainly don't exist" (when we haven't even had a chance to see what's around us with our primitive technology - space is vast) is assuming you have ALL KNOWLEDGE and there is nothing new for you to discover. It's not important whether I think they exist or the guy next to you thinks they do, but on whether people have an open mind to the possibility that they don't know absolutely everything. ie "because there is no evidence, it must be BS. I'm 100% certain it's not true!" There are plausible reasons for knowledge to be kept secret or hidden from the public just like you wouldn't give away information about yourself freely if it endangered your life. This is why I find it odd that people would automatically assume that if aliens were around, they'd try to announce themselves, when most normal people are frightened of the thought of other-worldy beings coming from space. (War of The Worlds radio play is a demonstration of the panic something like that can cause) Instead it makes perfect logical sense that if you were an alien not from that land that you are spying on, you would be sneaky and hide to avoid detection. Common sense would say it's a natural survival instinct. I know that if I were to explore a planet I would be scared that other things are on it and not want anything seeing me.

Not sure if this was directed towards me, but I'll answer anyways . First, I never stated that ET's don't exist, to quote myself:

That is not the same as saying I don't believe in ET's or even them visiting us. I just believe that most of the things that people attribute to aliens have perfectly good "earthly" explanations.

Also, never stated that I've shut my mind down to all probabilities, in fact I said that all things are possible, and even the best fool proof scientific theory on any topic is but a theory open to revision:

What you say is true and I don't disagree with you. Everything is possible, and it could be that one day I'm proven wrong, and yea, definitely the governments probably hides a lot of batsh!t crazy things from the general public.

My point is just that tin-foil enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists love to draw the alien connection way before any other more plausible explanations are established. When we study something odd in nature or archeology or any topic for that matter we try and explain it based on our existing understanding of things first and build upon that, as opposed to just completely turning a new page on research and claim that the "aliens did it." Progress and science is built upon layers of existing knowledge - ie. you must understand how gravity works before building a plane or going into space. Even if a theory is proved to be wrong eventually, the paper trail will help explain in posterity why a particular line of thought is incorrect.

And regarding the human seeding theory (that Homo Sapiens come from another world). I think it's complete BS, but hey the internet is a big democracy and I respect everyone's right to say whatever they want. I can only do my best to present evidence to challenge this.

First, creationists or other <insert colorful group> love to point towards the lack of a missing link to invalidate evolution of humans (or evolution in general). Trying to find a missing evolutionary link is akin to looking at a chain of office paper clips and asking which one is a real species, and which one is a link? It doesn't work that way. Because it's based on random mutations of DNA, evolution can go sideways, branch-out, revert, and in all directions, the particular fitness of one product against an environment is what determines which variation survives, not how advanced or primitive said species is.

One needs to look no further then the DNA evidence. Humans and most animals that inhabit this earth share 90% of the same DNA. Chimps (our closest species relative) share 98.5% DNA similarity with humans. Related to DNA is that all animals (MWF member included) pretty much have the same metabolic pathways. The way a dog's DNA is copied, transcripted, and used to assemble a protein is exactly the same a human would (this is called the Terminal Dogma btw.... Evangelion reference ).

Also, if it's not evidence enough, the vestigial structures within your own body, pieces of tissue that serve no apparent purpose like your tonsils, appendix, etc, is clear proof of man/womankind's animal ancestry. Did you know that whales have hip bones even though they have no feet?

So for the purpose of science fiction, it's all good and entertaining to write about an alien connection to the biological or social evolution of humans, but in the real world, this represents the least plausible theory of how things came into being.

Edited December 11, 2008 by Ghost Train

[Ghost Train]

I read a theory once a few years back that the whole alien thing that gathered speed in the fifties was down to a conspiracy that the powers would just get the general populaces comfortable with the whole Aliens thing and then one day they would say " Oh by the way these guys are the Aliens and they have been coming here for a while" and the general populace would just say. " Yeah tell us something we didn't already know, we all knew that you didn't invent Velcro" and then just get on with life happy in the knowledge that their neighbors were from Betelgeuse after all.

I can see this happening actually:

al13nzspacegurl > o/ hi2u

hum0nl337earth > hi, sup ^^

al13nzspacegurl > not much, just chillin, nice to meet u

hum0nl337earth > k... asl?

al13nzspacegurl > secret

hum0nl337earth > lol k... how about those yamato valks and their self destructing shoulders.

[eugimon]

Not sure if this was directed towards me, but I'll answer anyways . First, I never stated that ET's don't exist, to quote myself:

Also, never stated that I've shut my mind down to all probabilities, in fact I said that all things are possible, and even the best fool proof scientific theory on any topic is but a theory open to revision:

My point is just that tin-foil enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists love to draw the alien connection way before any other more plausible explanations are established. When we study something odd in nature or archeology or any topic for that matter we try and explain it based on our existing understanding of things first and build upon that, as opposed to just completely turning a new page on research and claim that the "aliens did it." Progress and science is built upon layers of existing knowledge - ie. you must understand how gravity works before building a plane or going into space. Even if a theory is proved to be wrong eventually, the paper trail will help explain in posterity why a particular line of thought is incorrect.

And regarding the human seeding theory (that Homo Sapiens come from another world). I think it's complete BS, but hey the internet is a big democracy and I respect everyone's right to say whatever they want. I can only do my best to present evidence to challenge this.

First, creationists or other <insert colorful group> love to point towards the lack of a missing link to invalidate evolution of humans (or evolution in general). Trying to find a missing evolutionary link is akin to looking at a chain of office paper clips and asking which one is a real species, and which one is a link? It doesn't work that way. Because it's based on random mutations of DNA, evolution can go sideways, branch-out, revert, and in all directions, the particular fitness of one product against an environment is what determines which variation survives, not how advanced or primitive said species is.

One needs to look no further then the DNA evidence. Humans and most animals that inhabit this earth share 90% of the same DNA. Chimps (our closest species relative) share 98.5% DNA similarity with humans. Related to DNA is that all animals (MWF member included) pretty much have the same metabolic pathways. The way a dog's DNA is copied, transcripted, and used to assemble a protein is exactly the same a human would (this is called the Terminal Dogma btw.... Evangelion reference ).

Also, if it's not evidence enough, the vestigial structures within your own body, pieces of tissue that serve no apparent purpose like your tonsils, appendix, etc, is clear proof of man/womankind's animal ancestry. Did you know that whales have hip bones even though they have no feet?

So for the purpose of science fiction, it's all good and entertaining to write about an alien connection to the biological or social evolution of humans, but in the real world, this represents the least plausible theory of how things came into being.

The "missing link" crap is completely bogus. There are tons of intermediate fossils labeled as "homo archaic" that run the spectrum from looking amazing homo sapien and looking more like a form of Australopithecus. There ARE intermediate forms, it's clear as day if any of those nut jobs ever bothered to do more research than open up a pamphlet geared for 7th graders. Also, for anyone who cares, do some research on human blood types (ABO) and the occurrence of those blood types in the great apes. It's pretty interesting stuff and it also pretty clearly indicates our common ancestry.

And for a real kick, there's scientists working today to unlock remnant dino DNA in birds to restore things like long tails and teeth.

It's just reeks of the giant spaghetti monster to look for some sort of outside influence in evolution when the mechanics we understand today go so far to explain the process.