MIB III back on track

The third instalment of the Men in Black franchise has seen its fair share of problems to date, chief among which has been Will Smith's dissatisfaction with the film's time-travel-themed script, which led to a substantial re-write in November last year - delaying the original shooting schedule by a month.

However, production of the film - due for release May 23, 2012 - seems to be back on track with Smith's new co-star Josh Brolin (playing a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones's 'Agent K') having made his on-set debut earlier this week.

For more details and on-set photos of Smith and Brolin, see here.

3 Ships

 Another exciting week as usual.  We've had 3 ships come this week.  The Robert C. Seamans is a Woods Hole Research vessel that does a semester at sea program where people learn to sail while learning oceanography, biology, or whatever the focus of the course is.  They visited us out on Tern Island last year with a University of Hawaii group.  The next ship that showed up was the Kahana, bringing us a load of fuel and will take back some of our waste.  The NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette also stopped by.  They are putting out teams on most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to monitor the Hawaiian monk seals. That's along with the photography visitor group, the NOAA marine debris crew, a group waiting to take the Sette to Kure Atoll, and a team working on removing some contaminants from the island.  I'm sure I'm leaving out some good stuff, but that's good for this week.

 This is the Robert C. Seamans.  A 134 ft. brigantine rigged ship.  The weather has been cloudy lately, otherwise I would have had a better photo.  There's a better one on my Tern Island blog, let me just say, it's much nicer having piers than having to run small boats out to these ships.

 Here's another shot of the Kahana.

The Oscar Elton Sette is back for the first time this season.  

Dennis, Penny, and Joanna are cleaning out the Monument seep on Eastern Island.  We pumped the water out and scooped out a lot of the muck that harbors bacteria that produces botulism toxin.  We didn't quite finish up, but at least we got rid of the anaerobic conditions that the bacteria likes.  It fills back up with groundwater pretty quickly.

Another dangerous sinkhole opened up near the seawall due to the waves crashing over.  I had to get 6 birds out of there.  We'll get it covered up this week.

I told you last week that I moved into my new (old) house.  It was recently renovated.  There are still no blinds on the windows, but it's not bad.

This is a Laysan albatross chick.  They are getting big.  I was going to show you a picture of the Short-tailed albatross chick that I took today, but this blog program is acting goofy.  It's something for you to look forward to next week, I guess.

Major new article: UFO perception management

A major new article on the subject on government manipulation of UFO-themed media products is accessible from today as an advance publication for the Spring 2011 issue of 49th Parallel - a journal of North American Studies jointly run through the UK universities of Birmingham and Nottingham.

This is one of only a small handful of articles dealing with UFOs and entertainment-media-control ever to have been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, and is all the more unusual in that it treats UFOs not as a mere cultural abstraction, but as a real, physical phenomenon of considerable concern to officialdom.

Of particular interest in this piece are revelations from the director of Disney's 2009 movie Race to Witch Mountain concerning covert and seemingly high-level CIA involvement in said production.

The article - co-authored by myself and Matthew Alford - is entitled: A History of Government Management of UFO Perceptions through Film and Television. It is accessible directly at the 49th Parallel website. It will also be permanently accessible here at Silver Screen Saucers in the 'Articles' section.

Getting Back to Normal

Things were about back to normal around here. Normal being great, interesting, and busy. I moved out of Charlie barracks and into a house. A group of our contractors that were working on renovations to the old officer housing left. Four NOAA employees came to help pick up derelict fishing gear from the reef and shoreline. The NOAA ship "Oscar Elton Sette" will come soon to take all of that away from here as well as all of the other islands in the NW Hawaiian Islands. I'll put in another plug for Chris Jordan and his group. They are doing really good work out here and I'm sure their film will be great from their shots so far. It's been really intersting watching them work. I've been picking up a lot of good photo tips from them. As you've likely noticed, I write a lot more about the things that go on around here every week, and they do a lot more descriptive writing, poetry, and artistic photography to give you the feel of Midway. http://www.midwayjourney.com/ and Emily's latest post at http://emilysmidwayjourney.blogspot.com/ One of Chris's crew was here before on the team of another movie called "Bag it". We watched it last night up at Capt. Brooks. It's a good documentary on plastic use. John Klavitter (our deputy refuge manager and former wildlife biologist) and Matt Brown (former manager here) are both in it. The weather was a bit windy last week. We were going to go over to Eastern Island to clean out the duck seeps to try to prevent another botulism outbreak in the Laysan ducks. When we get a chance, we'll pump all of the water out, scoop out the mud/muck at the bottom and let it refill from the freshwater lens in the island. Alright, enough writing for this week. Life goes on. The parade field birds don't seem to know that there was a tsunami.

I don't know if the NOAA marine debris collecting group will have a chance to get any of these nets and ropes that washed up into the middle of Eastern Island. At least they are less of a hazard to marine animals up in the middle of the island, but they can still be a bit of a hazard for birds getting entangled.

This is one of the few Bonin petrel chicks left on Eastern. There weren't that many to begin with over there. There is a lot more hard packed ground over there.

This young Great frigatebird probably didnt' die in the tsunami. Since the tree is still there. It either didn't get enough food or got entangled.

This whale spine washed up on North Beach a few weeks ago. It's about 7 ft long. The skull was found nearby a couple of days later. I haven't had a chance to identify it yet, but I will one of these days.

I'll end with another white tern.

New 'Green Lantern' footage

Four-minutes of footage from Warner Bros.' forthcoming Green Lantern was screened this Saturday at the 2011 Wondercon in San Francisco. Obviously, this is first and foremost a comic book movie, but if you're unfamiliar with its source material or have yet to see the film's trailer, then this revealing footage demonstrates why discussion of Green Lantern here at Silver Screen Saucers is appropriate. The film hits US cinemas 17 June, 2011. 

'Attack the Block' clips

Two new clips from the forthcoming British UFO movie Attack the Block are viewable now at Empire Online.

The film will be released in UK cinemas in May. No details yet on international release dates.

Getting back to Normal

As most of you probably heard already, our (approximately) 60 year old Laysan albatross, Wisdom, has been seen coming back to feed her chick. She actually showed up the same day as her mate, so the chick got a big meal that day. At least the suspense ended with a good outcome. We still have not seen the short-tailed albatross parents, but they don't stay long to feed anyway. The chick seems to be doing well, so it seems that it's still getting fed. We've got a visiting photography group out here right now led by environmental photographer Chris Jordan. Rather than tell you about them myself, I would highly suggest checking out their blog, Flickr pictures, You Tube videos, and facebook page. They are filming a movie out here as well as taking photos. So please look at these pages: http://www.midwayjourney.com/ Other links are on this page. Really good vids and photos on all pages. http://emilysmidwayjourney.blogspot.com/ This site is done by a high school student that came along. She has an interesting story. The islands are finally drying out. We've been seeing a lot of albatross chicks dying off. Even though they made it through the tsunami, they may have been injured, stressed, or not found by their parents. We are seeing a lot of new plant sprouts coming up in the devastated areas. Hopefully they are mostly natives. Nesting season is ramping up for Red-tailed tropic birds and white terns, and the sooty terns and gray-backed terns are starting to return. The first Hawaiian monk seal pup of the season was also born a little over a week ago. So the life is returning. We had a Coast Guard C-130 stay for a day this past week. We also got a visit from our supply ship, the Kahana again. Wisdom preens her chick.

The short-tailed albatross chick is huge now and waits to be fed.

Between past posts on this blog and my Tern Island blog, you've seen the Kahana a lot. So here's a slightly different angle.

The USCG C-130 lands about an hour after sunset to minimize interaction with birds.

Jan, Jim, and Victoria are getting some shots for the Midway film on Bulky Dump.

While they were out there, they found two adult albatrosses that fell into a sinkhole. It was produced when the water washed the sand down into the voids of the dumped materials. Quite a few were formed and we try to fill them or at least make a ramp for the birds to climb out. I had to crawl in head first to get this one out.

I found this red-tailed tropic bird on Cargo Beach. I don't know if it was a tsunami injury, but it wasn't doing well. I put it in the shade under a naupaka bush, at least giving it a chance.

This is what most of the washed over west half of Eastern Island looks like. There's not much vegetation left.

This is taken from the top of one of the old airplane revetments looking to the eastern part of Eastern Island. There's a lot of life where the tsunami didn't wash over (too bad it's mostly invasive mustard).

Bad sunlight angle, but there's one chick in the middle of the picture surrounded by adults. This is the only chick in this whole area visible in the picture.

Many of the chicks are sitting on the dead birds. This Laysan albatross chick is sitting on a dead black-footed albatross adult.

This Laysan albatross chick was in the surf and found his way back up the beach.

The parrotfish don't look quite so intimidating when they are alive.

Our seabird biologist from Honolulu, Beth Flint, is inspecting the damage on Eastern Island. Quite a few of the bottles have been turned into little terrariums.

The great frigatebirds are ready for mating season.

Here's the same bird.

At least the dead tournefortia trees are still useful nesting sites.