The Exotic Legend of the Dark Knight Alien Satellite Meets Mundane Reality (space.com) 41
Slashdot reader alaskana98 writes: In what has become a stubborn sibling to the 'Face on Mars' phenomenon, the legend of the Dark Knight alien satellite has persisted for years and is the fascinating story of a seemingly mundane NASA photo tied together with reports of seemingly mysterious radio waves captured in the early days of radio, all combining to make the ultimate space conspiracy theory.
It goes something like this — an ancient alien space probe, dubbed the 'Dark Knight, has been long orbiting Earth and covertly monitoring its blissfully unaware inhabitants for mysterious purposes for roughly 10,000 years. Flash forward to the 1899, where technological pioneer Nikola Tesla, while experimenting with radio technology in his Colorado laboratory supposedly captured mysterious emanations from an unearthly object. Later in the 1920's, Norwegian engineer Jørgen Hals found that radio signals he transmitted were being echoed back to him a few seconds later, something called 'long delayed echoes' — still unexplained to this day. It has been proposed that these echoes were signals being relayed back to earth by something called a 'Bracewell Probe', a hypothetical automated spacecraft sent out with the goal of making contact with other intelligent species.
Flash forward to 1998, an unassuming photo from the STS-88 mission in 1998 to attach the U.S. module to the Russian portion of the ISS captured a tantalizing glimpse of an unnaturally geometric shape menacingly loitering toward the bottom of the frame. To true believers, this was evidence of an ancient probe keeping tabs on the earthly locals. Combined, these disparate events swirl together to create the stuff of dreams for the ardent conspiracy theorist and even the causal sci-fi buff. Ultimately, the object in the STS photo was most likely a thermal cover. The radio waves Tesla heard? Likely natural radio emisions of a natural or terestial source.
Space.com took a deep dive into this myth and explored how it — and the - dark knight myth has taken a hold on the imaginations of those who find themselves peering out into the inky blackness of the night and wonder to themselves "are we being watched from above"?
It goes something like this — an ancient alien space probe, dubbed the 'Dark Knight, has been long orbiting Earth and covertly monitoring its blissfully unaware inhabitants for mysterious purposes for roughly 10,000 years. Flash forward to the 1899, where technological pioneer Nikola Tesla, while experimenting with radio technology in his Colorado laboratory supposedly captured mysterious emanations from an unearthly object. Later in the 1920's, Norwegian engineer Jørgen Hals found that radio signals he transmitted were being echoed back to him a few seconds later, something called 'long delayed echoes' — still unexplained to this day. It has been proposed that these echoes were signals being relayed back to earth by something called a 'Bracewell Probe', a hypothetical automated spacecraft sent out with the goal of making contact with other intelligent species.
Flash forward to 1998, an unassuming photo from the STS-88 mission in 1998 to attach the U.S. module to the Russian portion of the ISS captured a tantalizing glimpse of an unnaturally geometric shape menacingly loitering toward the bottom of the frame. To true believers, this was evidence of an ancient probe keeping tabs on the earthly locals. Combined, these disparate events swirl together to create the stuff of dreams for the ardent conspiracy theorist and even the causal sci-fi buff. Ultimately, the object in the STS photo was most likely a thermal cover. The radio waves Tesla heard? Likely natural radio emisions of a natural or terestial source.
Space.com took a deep dive into this myth and explored how it — and the - dark knight myth has taken a hold on the imaginations of those who find themselves peering out into the inky blackness of the night and wonder to themselves "are we being watched from above"?
One time wonders (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is to say when we build new things, it is really easy to introduce error and experimental artifacts. That is why people duplicate and verify and hopefully make different mistakes. No one has to purposefully fabricate these false results. It is just the nature of trying new things. The people back 30 years ago did not set out to fabricate the myth of table top fusion. They just got a bit too publicity hungry and released results that any ethical scientist would have held back on.
Re: (Score:2)
Peer review FTW!
Alternative title - don't get too worked up over some random "groundbreaking" paper on arxiv.
Hard Work to Correct (Score:3)
...when we build new things, it is really easy to introduce error and experimental artifacts.
Absolutely true but the problem is that finding and correcting these issues requires a lot of hard and often not very interesting work. It's a lot easier to just invent aliens and it makes for a far more fun story than some subtle feedback effect that requires a year of hard work to track down and fix.
Re:One time wonders (Score:4, Informative)
Absolutely agreed. That's why it's bothersome that journals prefer new results rather than repeated studies. Publish-or-perish in a world where verification has difficulties getting published means you get very little verified. Maybe there are now journals which specialise in repeated studies and conflicting data.You really have to have them if meaningful review is to be possible.
Medical research (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe there are now journals which specialise in repeated studies and conflicting data.You really have to have them if meaningful review is to be possible.
Yes, (almost) litteraly:
Nowadays, there are databases where medical studies can get registered ahead of time (random example: clinicaltrials.gov [clinicaltrials.gov]), so that:
- the protocol it-self can get commented on
- Even if there is no final peer-reviewed paper published in an established peer-reviewed journal because it's not interesting (given that The Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine [wikipedia.org] doesn't run anymore), there's still somewhere where you can check to see that results have been negative, failed to get replication, etc.
So it used to be:
Doctor releases some "miracle medical cure X" with a single paper and a small group. That's the only thing that you'll see in literature.
So it might give the false impression the "X" does work, but is an underdogs that has been neglected (only 1 result! that's because "Big Pharma(tm)" doesn't went this competitor!)
Now it is more:
- Nature will still not be interested in your "X failed to show results" paper.
- But the original X paper will get heavily criticized on PubPeer. By scientist that notice the mistakes and bias (or worse: the manipulated data) that led to the initial results.
- Databases will contain multiple failure to reproduce.
So know it looks like "X only showed result in a single badly designed result a mid a large corpus of studies that failed to show result".
But, somehow conspiracy theorist will still manage to explain how all this was orchestrated by Big Pharma(tm)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a major improvement. I'm not sure all the sciences do that, but that's definitely the right direction.
Re: (Score:2)
You got that all wrong. You did actually find the true speed of light. It was the aliens that control your professor that fiddled with your follow up experiments that showed the speed of light that they want us to believe.
Likewise, the grad student did come up with an innovative new theory on making superconductors but again the aliens used mind control to convince him that there was an error in the code so that he wouldn't pursue the issue further.
These meddlesome aliens have been holding us back for mille
Education system failed (Score:4, Interesting)
We don't teach kids how to apply reasoned skepticism, how to use statistics to establish context, how to investigate, explore and experiment, and how to be balanced. Instead people in their adult age are fallen to Dunning-Krueger and start believing BS like Flat Earth. To them one or two mad dog on youtube is the equivalent of an army of educated and qualified scientists. Some ignorant fool's guy's loud voice, interestingness, and funny faux "straight talk" personality is more believable than multiple PhD scientists. People who couldn't pass basic science in school think they are on equal levels as experts in the field.
Re:Education system failed (Score:4, Interesting)
We all learned to cite sources in a bibliography in our school papers, possibly scientific references if we did advanced STEM degrees. Then once people started making things up and putting them in videos, somehow we collectively forgot that we can open our mouths and ask for that same standard of references. Hell, I'm willing to consider *anything* if it's on PubMed [nih.gov], and if someone can't clear a bar that low, I'll tell them that I very reasonably have to assume it's fanfiction rather than fact until I can get references to *any* information published someplace where the author and publisher are both publically staking their long-term credibility on its accuracy.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a good start, but it's only a start. If repeat studies struggle to get published, which is often the case, then the reliability of the paper is difficult to quantify. Peer review is important, but there's a huge difference between a study being repeated but not getting published, a study never being repeated because it can't get published, and a study not being repeatable at all.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a problem with that that few people seem to talk about. That's the problem of "proof texting". It's actually really easy to cobble together a bunch of citations that support your viewpoint, even if it's wildly out-of-step with the mainstream.
Re: Education system failed (Score:2)
Why bother with the "proof texting"? It seems that collecting a sufficient number of "likes" [slashdot.org] is sufficient to convince most of the scientific illiterates.
Re: (Score:2)
And for some reason people really, really, really want to believe the craziest conspiracy-theory aliens explanation they can find rather than many alternative fairly straightforward explanations. I have some UFO-nut friends who once persuaded me to watch some UFO documentary they put great stock in. First thing I learned was that when making a UFO documentary you must never, ever, ever interview anyone who knows anything about aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, physics, propulsion technology, astronomy, engine
Re: (Score:2)
Kids? Statistics is sorely lacking in most professions! Sure, they might take a course in grad school, but it's vanishingly rare to find a person who could even tell you the difference between common procedures like ANOVA or t-test off-hand, let alone know when to apply them.
As for logic, you'll have better luck finding a competent logician in the philosophy department than anywhere else. I know a lot of programmers fancy themselves logicians, but that confidence is born out of ignorance. Grab a text bo
Re:Education system failed (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but I actually think programmers are better at logic than philosophers. You can certainly find people and domains in which that is false, and programmers are very bad at not noticing that they've failed to apply logic. But so are philosophers. And mathematicians. (I've a friend who's [well, was, these days] an excellent mathematician. Papers published in journals, etc. And he's firmly convinced that Bigfoot is real.)
As for t-tests, ANOVA, etc. In most contexts you don't have enough information to apply them.
The term "skeptic" has become so debased that it has virtually lost any meaning. (I'm only dubious about that claim because it assumes that "skeptic" was ever used with it's ostensible meaning.)
Re: (Score:2)
I actually think programmers are better at logic than philosophers.
Like I said, if you don't believe me, grab a textbook. I'm convinced that these beliefs are grounded in ignorance.
I've a friend who's [well, was, these days] an excellent mathematician. Papers published in journals, etc. And he's firmly convinced that Bigfoot is real.
You probably don't realize it, but if this is anything to go on, I'd say that you don't understand logic either. Some of the best advice I ever got: If you want to get a handle on a subject you don't understand much about, go to the undergraduate textbooks. That's what they're for.
As for t-tests, ANOVA, etc. In most contexts you don't have enough information to apply them.
I could have just as easily said "You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who could define variance". The point i
Re: (Score:2)
Unh...I've taken classes while considering a second major in Philosophy. You *can* find philosophers who apply logic well, but they are rare.
The thing about "I've got a friend".. Yeah, I know that anecdote is not the singular of data. But examples are still relevant.
Yes, it would be nice if more people were more competent in statistics. But they still couldn't use that in most situations. (OTOH, it was developed for winning at card games, so it has some relevance.) O, and don't believe variance when yo
Re: (Score:2)
You're correct, of course. It's really a comment about how he evaluates evidence. But most of the complaints about "he's not being logical" aren't literally about logic. They're about models of the world and ways of evaluating experiences. And, yes, I suspect that most of the problems stem from unchallenged axioms (but see next paragraph). But it's very difficult to be sure, because nobody thinks in logic. They may produce logic as a communications tool, but that's not the same thing.
- the fold -
This
Re: (Score:2)
It's because those lies are what they want to hear. Take climate change. Huge problem, we are all going to have to make adjustments to deal with it, might cost us money and mean we can't have the things we want. Worst of all, we might be to blame for it if we are old enough.
Then alone comes some guy who says it's all fake news, and even if it is true we can't do anything about it, and maybe it's a good thing anyway. And whatabout China! Our emissions are less than 1%...
When people hear that they want to bel
So a Vast Active Living Intelligence System? (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Arrogance in the Dark (Score:2)
For those failing to keep score, 95% of the known (which is saying very little) universe, we label as "dark".
We don't call it "dark" because the predominant color in space is black
We call it "dark" because we humans still don't have a damn clue what it actually is.
For the arrogant ones who want to claim other space theories are simply nonsense and should be dismissed, you're more clueless than you assume.
We all are.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Arrogance in the Dark (Score:5, Interesting)
Ehh. . . A lot of hetrodox physics theories dont get ignored because they dont conform with current theories. They fail because they dont conform to current data.
Take the electric universe guys, they are *convinced* that the reason their bizare theory is ignored is because THE MAN wants to keep them down for some reason. The reality is , if it just differed from the pack in its theories about the unknown parts of physics, it would at least have got a looking at. The reason its laughed at and ignored, is it fails to explain really basic stuff we can see with our own eyes, and in fact flatly contradicts the actual evidence. For instance, they like to claim that stars run on electricity instead of nuclear fusion. But that doesn't work , because of the staggering masses of stars. If there wasnt fusion and similar processes going on, the stars would all collapse into either black holes or neutron stars , immediately. But they don't, and the electric universe people have no way to account for that, amongst the hundreds of other areas where it fails to match the data. Of course if you try and explain that to the fans of it, they'll just accuse you of being a paid shill for BIG PHYSICS who want to lie abot the scke for *some reason*.
So yeah, most "other" space theories can absolutely be dismissed out of hand/, because they are just straight up nonsense by peop;e who not only dont understand physics, but dont even know what they dont know.
Re: (Score:3)
The reason its laughed at and ignored, is it fails to explain really basic stuff we can see with our own eyes, and in fact flatly contradicts the actual evidence. For instance, they like to claim that stars run on electricity instead of nuclear fusion. But that doesn't work , because of the staggering masses of stars.
Plus we'd have seen the giant powerline from our star to its powerplant.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, the stars wouldn't work without various electrical effects that are (or were) ignored by standard theory. The reason they are/were ignored is that they would make the models too complex to calculate, and the current models work for a large subset of the available data.
(I haven't actually looked into what they are claiming, so they might be more ridiculous than they sound to me. But I have noticed various electrical effects creeping into the "standard models" as the ability to calculate the effects i
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, and electrical forces are important. But these guys flat out deny nuclear fusion, and thats bonkers, especially when we know that the sun, for instance. A star is largely made of plasma, so its highly ionized, but as a whole, stars are electrically neutral, or pretty close to it. Electric universe however requires stars to have significant charges, and it just doesnt work.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, we don't know that a sizable amount (I'll take your word for it it's 95%) of the universe is, but how does that stop us from ridiculing the ridiculous?
It doesn't, but that is not my point. It also doesn't stop Greed from warping the truth for profit, to the demise of all, which is exactly why those who claim to be "experts", should be scrutinized. Human Greed, isn't a theory. It's rooted in several thousand years of historical fact that tends to repeat itself.
Find me another field where 95% of it is literally unknown, and yet we have claim to have "experts" in that field. In the big picture, I'm questioning why we accept that. Funny how we'll pay re
Re: (Score:2)
Umnh.. We know it's there because of gravitational effects. Actually, we know the effects exist, and gravitation is the way it fits most easily into our models. We can observe that after a collision between galaxies occasionally one of them will have less of the effect than would be expected without that collision. So we know certain things about it. We call the driver of those effects "dark matter" because it acts as if it were matter that we can't detect other than via gravitational effects.
Many "othe
The tesla radio signal was identified (Score:2)
Why in the world (Score:1)
Re: Why in the world (Score:3)
Iâ(TM)m not saying itâ(TM)s Aliensâ (Score:2)
⦠but itâ(TM)s Aliens.
I think this post (Score:2)
Is three days too late, someone made a mistake
Most likely a thermal cover (Score:2)
Exactly what I'd expect a member of an alien advance reconnaissance force to say.
It's V'Ger (Score:1)
The title is wrong. It is the Black Knight. (Score:1)
I'm just gonna run with it... (Score:1)
Combined, these disparate events swirl together to create the stuff of dreams for ... even the causal sci-fi buff.
What is "causal" science fiction? Is that where someone writes about something absolutely fantastical (but scientifically-plausible); and then, some ambiguous amount of time in the future someone makes the fantastical, seemingly almost-magical thing a reality?
I know that in this instance, it's actually a typo of "casual" -- but playing it straight here, what really would "causal sci-fi" be?