Still Looking for Intelligent Life in the Universe

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Has anyone else been following this story? A star has been spotted between the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra during a joint survey of 150,000 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope and amateur astronomers. They have been looking for signs of planets circling these stars. What is unusual about this star according to an article in the Atlantic, The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy, is that there was a strange light blocking pattern seen that may indicate not a planet but a very large alien made structure or structures that are blocking the light of the star as it orbits around it. The SETI Research Center at UC Berkeley is planning on pointing a very large radio dish toward the star in January to see if they can pick up any electronic transmissions. This is scary to me because what if it is an alien structure and they get wind of us pointing our listening devices toward them. And then decide to see who is listening. Dr. Michio Kaku says that if this is an alien structure, it may be as big as our planet Jupiter, and they are far advanced to our civilization. I think I am going to start wearing an aluminum foil hat.

Tin_foil_hat_2 via wikipedia

I was still hoping to see another form of intelligent life here on earth close up last weekend, whales. I was a bit disappointed in my whale watching expedition. I went out on a whale watching boat this past Sunday with my daughter. It was a beautiful sunny day off Monterey for the most part. We did hit some fog out at sea on the way back to Monterey Bay harbor. I had high expectations and I think that was the problem. I expected to see huge whales breaching right near the boat. I wanted to get fantastically exciting photos. I realize now that you do not get to see breaching whales close up every day and that taking a photo, from a boat that is moving up and down, of whales and other sea life who are also moving up and down and various other directions requires luck and probably the talent of a professional photographer and at least a camera with a telescopic lens. Our whale watching was originally planned for Saturday but was canceled by the tour company due to rough weather at sea. So on Saturday I attempted to find the Monarch butterflies and found some at the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary. There were not many near ground level and I had to look through a telescope, assisted by a sanctuary worker, at the top of a eucalyptus tree. She helped me get a nice photo through the telescope as well.

One of the things I learned on the whale watching boat is when the guide sights a whale or other interesting sea life and calls it out, all the people go to that side of the boat and, unless you are fast, it is hard to get a good view. Like when he sighted a pod of orcas and a dolphin stampede. That’s right, I said a dolphin stampede. The dolphins were in the hundreds and were stampeding because they knew the orcas were around. The stampede caused a large patch of turbulence and some of the dolphins were leaping out of the water. Unfortunately some of them swam straight to the orca pod. Next the orca pod is chasing a dolphin and it did not end well for the dolphin. I am glad I did not see it all close up. Then we went out quite a distance in the ocean to off of Moss Landing. We saw some Humpback Whales, dolphins and sea lions there. We saw a whale in the distance do a partial breach, saw others spouting and some flukes. A dolphin popped up doing a partial breach, called spy-hopping, as well. Later we went to a different location and saw the orca pod again. The guide called the large male orca “Fat Fin.” This orca had already been identified by scientists. The whole trip was about 4 hours. This is a video from the Monterey Bay Whale Watch website. We did not have the owner or her dogs on our tour. Their research vessel was near us at the different viewing locations.

And here are a few of my photos:

Monarch Sanctuary
A few monarchs here
View through telescope at Pacific Grove Butterfly Sanctuary
Beautiful Daughter
Hike along beach at Point Lobos
Research vessel
Dolphins off Moss Landing
Guide with Telescopic Lens taking photo of Orcas

This is my contribution to Stream of Consciousness Saturday hosted by the intelligent Linda G Hill.

SoCS badge 2015

39 thoughts on “Still Looking for Intelligent Life in the Universe”

  1. LifestyleswithLia

    Deborah! I can imagine you hoped to see breaching whales but I think your pics and your descriptions of what you saw are super cool!! Wow, nature up close and personal to say the least, with dolphins vs. orcas …. And oh how pretty those butterflies:) The pic through the telescope is very interesting!
    And how lovely your daughter is:) I liked the bench with the wings!
    Have a fabulous weekend!
    *Lia

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Deborah Drucker Post author

      Thanks so much Lia! Yes it was a nice trip and it made me wish I lived closer to Monterey because then I would be able to have a better chance at seeing more whales and that gorgeous coastline. Have a fabulous weekend too my dear! ❤

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  2. JoAnna

    Thanks for the tips and warnings. They’ll come in handy when I get to the whale watching part of my bucket list. In the mean time, I’m collecting aluminum foil and hoping for the best.

    Liked by 2 people

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  3. Dan Antion

    Thanks for sharing your experience on the whale watch. My wife accompanied my daughters class on one off the coast of Massachusetts in the 90s. Largely the same experience you describe. I still enjoyed looking at your pictures. As for the aliens, if they are there and are capable of building such a structure, they already know that we’re here and they probably don’t think we’re worth worrying about.

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. Yolanda Renee

    We saw dolphins from our hotel room this last week, and I was thrilled! I can’t imagine seeing them on the ocean with whales chasing them. Besides, I get sea sick, almost did with your descriptive writing! LOL I’m glad you enjoyed your trip but sad that you were disappointed not to get the pictures you wanted.
    As for space and other intelligent life. Their best bet is to destroy our ability at voyeurism. Maybe then we’ll learn to mind our own business. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Deborah Drucker Post author

      Yes I think my expectations were very high and that kind of added to my not getting as excited as I might have. I did take a motion sickness pill before embarking. Yes this is kind of scary to think about and I hope we don’t stir anything up. 🙂

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  6. summerstommy2

    This was a great post Deborah, full of all sorts of information. I had a students years ago perform a drama piece about possible alien invasion and the need for us all to be wearing tin foil hats…she made her own and discovered the flimsy nature of hat making from tin foil.

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      2. Deborah Drucker Post author

        Sounds interesting. Yes I am pretty worry free. I was going to watch Dr. Kaku’s segment again. He seems so casual about the idea of the aliens not being interested in us. Discovering an alien civilization in our own galaxy would definitely be a game changer for earth. Talk about a paradigm shift or culture shock on a enormous scale.

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      4. Deborah Drucker Post author

        We hope that is how they would react. It would really give our planet a jolt and maybe we would stop fighting. Or there could be total anarchy. Like in The War of the Worlds or The Day the Earth Stood Still.

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      7. summerstommy2

        Well you know I have this fantasy that one day they pull up in the back yard and come in, have a cup of tea and explain the whole thing to me….seems a reasonable expectation I would think…until the NASA geeks turn up to spoil the whole event….you know the ones white suits and all that, big guns and destruction written all over their faces….

        Liked by 1 person

      8. Deborah Drucker Post author

        Sounds like a scene out of ET. I really loved that film. I think it is best to think of them as benign because what the heck could we do about it if they are so advanced. But just thinking about War of the Worlds ( the original film from the 1950s) The aliens were not benign and had greater powers that we did. But it was our tiny earth bacteria that did them in. I thought that was a really beautiful idea. That there was something built in to our earth by creation that would be their downfall.

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      9. summerstommy2

        I get all that but I agree with you that they would be benign, friendly even and maybe offer us a solution which may seriously offend the religious right but never the less potentially set us on a path away from constant greed.

        Liked by 1 person

      10. Deborah Drucker Post author

        I hope you are right! But we don’t know if they are morally superior to us or what kind of values they would have….Yikes, I think I really hope it is not aliens and just a crazy astronomical phenomenon that we had yet to learn about.

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      12. Deborah Drucker Post author

        Yes I do think there is a great possibility of other life but I don’t think I am really ready to meet it yet. The US did send out two Voyager spacecraft in the 1970s. They carried a greeting message from earth in all the earth languages, had a record of our music and animals, a diagram of the carbon atom and a map of our solar system. The two Voyagers have now reached the edge of our solar system and are continuing on. Someday an alien may find them.

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      1. morgaine620

        Thanks. Oh, yes we did. It was splendid weather. My uncle and our landlady both told us that they sometimes have snow at the end of August. But we had it hot and sunny. I hope you enjoyed your whale trip anyway – hugs Bee

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Deborah Drucker Post author

      Thank You. One good thing is that this possible alien structure is about 1500 light years away from us, billions of miles. One of the scientists from SETI wrote a post on Huffington Post about it recently and is kind of down playing it. That is could be a natural phenomenon and so on. They are still planning on listening for any noise coming from it however. Yeah, assimilate, yikes. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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