It was the 71st Anniversary of the Battle of Midway this year. We didn't have anyone fly in for this one, but we have really only had big ceremonies on the 5 year marks. We had most of the island population out, as we did the week before on Memorial Day. There wasn't that much else going on this week. Without volunteers and visitors, all we do is work, and I try not to get too detailed about that. Just the interesting stuff.
John Klavitter says a few words at the Battle of Midway Memorial on June 4.
Sam made a few more flower arrangements for the memorial.
I've been seeing the Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins quite a bit lately on the trips to and from Eastern Island.
This Masked booby was sitting on a nest on Eastern Island. There are only about 2 or 3 nests a year at Midway.
Another building shot. This is the old Delta Barracks by the dining facility.
It's been cloudy a lot lately, so the sunsets over North Beach are nice when the clouds break a little.
Roland Emmerich’s Centropolis Entertainment has bought the rights to what Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr describes as “an alien invasion storycontaining hot-button science elements.” Titled Emergence, Centropolis will bring the story to the big screen as “a large scale contemporary science fiction film,” and Emmerich himself will direct.
The pitch for Emergence was written by Nic Kelman, best known for his 2003 bestselling novel, Girls. Deadline points out that Kelman holds a Bachelor of Science from MIT and speculates that the writer’s scientific background will notably inform the plot for Emmerich’s film. “This [Emergence] falls into the latest trend encompassing films like the Christopher Nolan-directedInterstellar, which melds narrative storytelling with grounded science theory.”
Quite what scientific angle Emergence will explore in relation to alien invasion is unclear at this point, though it may be notable that, while at MIT, Kelman majored in Brain and Cognitive Science. Does this mean we might see an alien movie finally getting to grips with the strong psychic aspects of alien encounters commonly reported by UFO witnesses? Time will tell, but not for a while yet as no release date has been announced. Expect 2015 at the earliest. In the meantime, Emmerich has two Independence Day sequels to deliver.
We had a nice Memorial Day Ceremony with most of the island population. We'll have another ceremony for the Battle of Midway on June 4th. There are no visitors coming out this year, so we'll just have island people again. I know that the Navy is going to be having a commemoration at the Navy Memorial in Washington D.C. this week.
Believe it or not, this is most of the island population right now.
One of the Thai employees, Sam, made this flower display and lei.
These are 5 inch guns that are at the memorial.
I gave kayak training to a few people who haven't had it yet. Penny, Liz, and Darren are flipping the kayaks to make sure they can get back in before they go out on their own.
The albatross chicks like the new air conditioning units at my house.
This White tern found an interesting spot for an egg. Ric and Tim won't be able to use their hose for a couple of months.
Another nice week. Not for any extra reason other than it's great out here. We've been getting a bit of rain lately which makes for some very muggy days, but it's still pretty nice around here. I'm taking a lot of trips to Eastern Island, checking for Laysan ducks with botulism. A sick one was found last week. We fixed him up with some anti-toxin and food and let him go on Thursday. We've got a small Memorial Day ceremony planned for tomorrow, so I'll show you some photos of that next week.
This is the view across Eastern Island with the old airplane revetments in the background. The verbesina removal is going well over there.
The Brown noddies like to gather on the pier on Eastern.
This White tern thought this albatross chick was a little too close for comfort. It was kind of funny that the tern would only snap at the chick when it was looking the other way, not when it was an inch from that big bill.
That albatross chicks look kind of pathetic in the rain when they still have down.
The old officer houses that were built in the 50's have all just been renovated. They don't look much different on the outside, but have new windows and doors, as well as better flooring and furniture. Charlie barracks is being renovated with non-asbestos tile and a sprinkler system, so everyone had to move out of Charlie and into houses for the next couple of months.
M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi survival movie After Earth features an elaborate back-story unhinted at in its trailers involving multiple extraterrestrial species.
io9.com reports that After Earth’s recently-released companion book United Rangers Corps Survival Manual reveals an intricate fictional historical narrative leading up to the events of the film.
“Turns out, there are aliens in this movie,” writes io9’s Meredith Woerner, “lots of them. Different species, in fact, which sound infinitely more interesting than a boy with a spear in the woods.”
Woerner then lays out the approximately 1000 years of events that constitute the movie’s back-story:
“1908 - An alien ship crash lands in Russia. All collective world governments then keep this discovery a secret basically forever. (But they let smarties like Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein play with the remains).
2012 - NASA announces that they've invented WARP ENGINES. By secretly tapping into the alien spaceship's knowledge of the universe's "dark energy." Tah Dah!
2071 - 2072 - Earth is all GTFO, humans. No one can live here anymore, because it's poison for us, so 750,000 survivors leave on ARKS (one is named the Asimov). The Arks were created thanks to additional information pulled (over the years) from the downed spacecraft.”
After Earth (2013)
Here, then, we have yet another blockbuster movie borrowing liberally from modern UFO-conspiracy lore, central to which are ideas relating to UFO crash retrievals and top secret efforts to reverse-engineer alien technologies. Although the Roswell Incident of 1947 is most commonly associated with such ideas, Shyamalan has here chosen to reach further back into UFO history – specifically, to the Tunguska event of 1908, which involved a massively powerful and mysterious explosion in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia. Officialdom attributes the explosion to a large meteoroid or comet fragment, but UFO researchers have long theorized that an alien craft may have been involved. Clearly this theory holds great appeal for Shyamalan, whose big-budget movie will now push the Tunguska event further into popular culture, albeit in a fantastical context.
After Earth hits cinemas May 31, 2013. For the rest of the movie’s long and complicated back-story, head on over to io9.com.
Thanks to Alejandro Rojas at OpenMinds.TV for going that extra mile in seeking out the actual video chat between NASA and the cast and crew of Star Trek Into Darkness discussed but not shown in the original reporting of this story.
The previously “unnamed” astronaut referred to by Alice Eve on Jimmy Kimmel Live turns out to be Michael Fincke. Joining him in the Google Hangout was Kjell Lindgren at the Johnson Space Center and Chris Cassidy aboard the International Space Station.
Director J.J. Abrams (who also wrote and directed the UFO movie Super 8 in 2011) was unable to participate in the live event. His “alien” question to the astronauts was posed in a pre-recorded video. Abrams said:
“I wish I could be there, but I couldn’t attend, so I am doing this very important question on video, which is the following. I talked to an astronaut once who told me on one of his missions he actually did see something really strange that he couldn’t explain that made him believe in extraterrestrial life, and my question to you is. Have either of you ever seen anything that made you believe that, or something you couldn’t explain or couldn’t understand, that you didn’t really necessarily share with the public, but that you want to share with us now? Thanks”.
Fincke replied:
“That was a great question from J.J., we get that question a lot. We all want to know, ‘are we the only ones out there?’And Star Trek helps us imagine what it could be like if there were other creatures, other people, other species. I spent a whole year in space, 381 days, but it is only 240 miles up, so that’s not very far in cosmic terms. So we think as we go farther out, and into the universe, we might find something out there that we don’t know about. I have never seen anything, maybe Kjell will on his mission, but I think as we go farther out, with the inspiration we get from you guys making these great feats of imagination and excitement, the movies that you make, inspire us to be our best as human beings on planet earth.”
Star Trek Into Darkness writer and producer Damon Lindelof then commented, “What a great answer. Mike, can you confirm you have not been taken over by aliens? It felt a little too polished.”
Fincke replied, “No, I have done this before and I am an American human being who loves being part of our space program, and we all look up to you guys to inspire us.”
“Now we know something is seriously wrong,” said Lindelof.
British actress Alice Eve is convinced that NASA is hiding information about alien life. During a recent interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Eve – who co-starred in Star Trek Into Darkness and Men In Black 3 – described taking a trip to NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, Texas last Thursday, where she and her Trek co-stars Chris Pine and John Cho, as well as the film’s writer Damon Lindelof and its director J.J. Abrams, made a Skype call to an unnamed astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
"That was definitely the coolest thing we've done,” Eve told Kimmel, adding that her director had once spoken to an astronaut who believed he had seen alien life. Eve continued:
“J.J. asked this question [to the ISS astronaut], 'So have you seen alien life?'... and the response that these guys at the NASA base gave us... was so rehearsed and so clear that they had seen (aliens).”
“Interesting,” Kimmel replied. “So you believe that there’s a party line that they’re given and they kinda have to regurgitate it?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not saying I believe that...” Said Eve. The actress then leaned in toward her host and whispered in his ear: “but I believe that.”
Eve's comments begin at counter reading 1:12 in the video below...
Rumbled: Kirk and McCoy flee alien tribespeople in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Cinemagoers who have seen the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, can no doubt recall its colourful opening sequence in vivid detail. No sooner are our bums on seats than do we find ourselves thrust into the brilliant crimson forests of an alien world, watching breathlessly as Captain James T. Kirk and Doctor Leonard McCoy flee a primitive humanoid tribe.
The Starfleet officers are in disguise so as to prevent the tribespeople from seeing their human (i.e. alien) faces and shattering their embryonic philosophical and religious paradigm. Kirk and McCoy are, as any Trekkie will appreciate, seeking to uphold their prime directive: to avoid at all costs any overt interference with the internal development of an alien civilization – especially one that is “barely out of the stone age” and which views its own culture as the center of the universe.
Alien culture shock: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
This idea of non-interference between alien cultures is one that is frequently discussed in the UFO and scientific communities. Many scientists consider it entirely plausible that any advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy would likely seek to avoid drawing the attention of inhabitants of more primitive worlds for fear of sparking religious, economic and political chaos, or even civilizational collapse. And this, say many in the UFO community, is why ET has not yet landed on the White House lawn.
Over the years, numerous alleged contactees have claimed that benevolent space folk have actually saved humanity from destruction on several occasions throughout history by quietly preventing potentially catastrophic natural disasters. Certainly there have been a great many instances when UFOs have been sighted over areas of geophysical significance – particularly active volcanoes.
It is fitting, then, that Star Trek Into Darkness explores these UFOlogical ideas in its opening scenes. The reason Kirk and McCoy (and also Commander Spock) are on the alien planet in the first place is to attempt to covertly prevent the eruption of a super volcano that would wipe-out the fledgling civilization. The starship Enterprise is hidden from the aliens’ view beneath hundreds of feet of water off the coastline as Kirk and McCoy attempt to blend in with the natives.
Things don’t go according to plan, however, as not only are the two astronauts rumbled, but their starship is witnessed by the awe-struck tribespeople in all its splendour rising majestically from the ocean. We know in that moment that their civilizational path has been dramatically altered as, soon after, they begin drawing and worshipping a crude pictogram of the Enterprise. Ancient Astronaut theory, anyone?
As if these UFOlogical allusions weren’t sufficient, the fictional alien planet of our discussion is actually called ‘Nibiru.’ As anyone familiar with the work of Zecharia Sitchin will know, Nibiru is a theoretical planet that passes by Earth every 3,600 years, allowing its inhabitants – the Annunaki – to interact with humanity. According to Sitchin, these beings were the first gods worshipped by Man.
These filmic nods to UFOlogy should come as little surprise when we consider that the screenwriters for Star Trek Into Darkness are Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Damon Lindelof. Between them, these men have written and/or produced the likes of Transformers, Cowboys and Aliens, and Prometheus– all of which owe a heavy debt to UFO literature. Indeed, Orci, for one, has made no secret of his personal interest in the UFO subject. In July, 2011, the screenwriter was asked by The Wrap if he believed in aliens. He replied in the affirmative and added: “I think the evidence clearly indicates that the government's lying about what the hell’s going on.”
It’s unclear at this stage whether or not these same writers will be onboard for the next instalment of the Star Trek franchise, but, if they are, it’s a fair bet that their fascination with UFO lore will continue to serve as inspiration in their exploration of the Star Trek universe.
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