Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Uranus To Earth: Joke's On You
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| Underneath the thick clouds of hot gas, this is what Uranus looks like. |
Dr. John Vomisa, systems manager at SETI's Allen Telescope Array, described how the contact with Uranus came by accident over two years ago.
"A network of radio telescopes around the world had been trying to pierce through the thick clouds of hot gas around Uranus and peer deep inside Uranus. To their surprise, they encountered a cluster of non-random charged particles streaming out of Uranus. Once they realized that this might be an intelligent message, they turned what they had found coming out of Uranus over to us," Vomisa said.
Over the past two years, SETI scientists worked to develop an algorithm to translate the complex signal. Beginning last June, SETI began holding regular conversations with the beings that dwell on Uranus.
Progress on these early discussions was hampered, Vomisa says, by the fact that their counterparts on Uranus seemed to be regularly breaking down into uncontrollable laughter. A spokesman for Uranus explained that this was caused by humourous word play.
"You see, our word for your planet is Drawkcab, which sounds exactly like the phrase dra kab, which means "ass whipe" in our language. Man, the papers are going to have a ball with that headline: 'Life Discovered On Ass Wipe'!" said Dickwad Pustule, speaking from Uranus.
Pustule scoffed when told that a similar joke exists on Earth about the word Uranus.
"Oh, yeah, that's really mature. We have a funny name for your planet, so now all of a sudden you have a funny name for ours. Look, maybe we had better just invade and get it over with if this is the way you're going to be."
SETI scientists discounted the notion that Uranus could attack Earth since the sheer mass of Uranus makes it unlikely that anything from Uranus could be propelled into space.
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posted by Mentok @ 9:47 a.m.,
4 Comments:
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At 10:19 a.m.,
Canadian Sentinel said...
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How do you know so much more about myanus than even I?
You aliens are weird. Always abducting earthlings and studying theirani. We'll never understand why. -
At 3:55 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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I've discovered that this piece is much funnier if you read it out loud, especially the last paragraph.
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At 3:08 a.m.,
Canadian Sentinel said...
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I saw on the news the other day that Klingons have been discovered all over Uranus. The Paperians are planning to swoop in and attempt to wipe 'em all out. But everyone knows only a good flood will cleanse Uranus of all remaining Klingons.
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At 7:10 a.m.,
A. B. Chairiet said...
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Mentok, my dear, I honest to God thought this was real for the first paragraph or so!
Damn you fancypants and your fancy trickery! ;)
Or in other words: This was hilarious, thank you. :)
~ Ash
