UPDATE: co-author admits it is a “horrible mistake”, see below – Anthony
From the you’ve got to be effing kidding me department.
First, I apologize to my readers for the headline. Read on and I think you’ll see it is justified. The headline is paraphrased from the article and the paper to give you the flavor. I have reproduced the passage used by the Guardian and provided a link to the full paper below.
First, the Guardian story: (h/t to reader “a jones”)
Now the paper, peer reviewed and published in Acta Astronautica titled:
Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis
Seth D. Baum,1 Jacob D. Haqq-Misra,2 & Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman3
1. Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University.
2. Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University
3. NASA Planetary Science Division
Acta Astronautica, 2011, 68(11-12): 2114-2129
Here’s the relevant passage:
A preemptive strike [from extraterrestrials] would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.
Words fail me. Truly this is science fiction, and not the good kind. I have a feature called “Climate Craziness of the Week”, this may be the all time winner.
Read the entire paper here (PDF)
================================================================
UPDATE: Former Economist sci/tech reporter Oliver Morton chips in with this in comments, it seems a “horrible mistake” was made by the co-author. Still no word on how this passes peer review.
http://paleblueblog.org/post/9110304050/some-important-points-of-clarification
So here’s the thing. This isn’t a “NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation.
…
But I do admit to making a horrible mistake. It was an honest one, and a naive one… but it was a mistake nonetheless. I should not have listed my affiliation as “NASA Headquarters.” I did so because that is my current academic affiliation. But when I did so I did not realize the full implications that has. I’m deeply sorry for that, but it was a mistake born our of carelessness and inexperience and nothing more. I will do what I can to rectify this, including distributing this post to the Guardian, Drudge, and NASA Watch. Please help me spread this post to the other places you may see the article inaccurately attributed to NASA.
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They would have performed better research if they had just gone through back issues of Astounding/Analog Magazine from 1940 to 1970…
How about an alien preemptive strike on Penn State and NASA GISS. Save us all the trouble.
Was that James Hansen, playing the part of the Soviet ambassador?
At 8:08 PM, Casey writes:
Maybe in one of Christopher Anvil‘s humorous stories. But in the rest of John W. Campbell‘s Astounding/Analog? Not even in that editor’s most profoundly “Dean Drive” and Dianetics periods of nuttiness.
As a science fiction story line, this NASA/Penn State global warming plot doesn’t even merit as low B-grade schlock. The aliens are more likely to applaud us for adding desperately needed and essential CO2 plant food to our atmosphere, demonstrating constructive and beneficial humanity as an excellent steward of our beautiful planet earth!
OK…. maybe that’s a little bit schlocky also, but I’m a ‘glass is more than half full, with good sipping liquor’ kinda guy!
I have to wonder from the article that if that’s the best we can do in the thinking department those Aliens would simply step on us and keep on going.
Your Tax dollar at work… surprised there isn’t another Nobel prize in there somewhere. After all Al Gore got one for his scence fiction.
Keep moving nothing to see here.
Farmers from Outer Space. They came in green suits, they looked so nice and smiled a lot.
They promised utopia, plenty to eat, easy money, free healthcare, plenty of nifty gadgets and
the life of Riley.
Nobody recognized them, until they began harvesting. By then, it was too late.
The remnants hid in caves, and painted pictures of the game they hunted when the Aliens were away transporting more of the harvested. Oh, we forgot to tell you….they were last seen 14,000 years ago. They went into suspended animation in the Antarctic and Greenland, waiting for the next big melt.
Something went wrong during the Younger Dryas, and their reanimation mechanism malfunctioned due to a virus planted by infiltrating humans posing as harvest collaborators.
Lately, there have been strange stirring deep in the vast expanses under the Antarctic Ice Cap. Greenland too. Some strange cores from the bedrock there are raising eyebrows. As usual, the institutions sit on the findings, keeping them hidden. But, all that is about to change. Thier reanimation is being triggered by the opposite conditions: the end of the Interglacial. Ancient texts recently discovered have fallen into the wrong hands: They plan on selling us to the Alien Harvesters in exchange for spacecraft technology.
They’re coming.
/ end script
Got cave?
Another, perhaps more realistic possibility would be that Aliens destroy Pennstate and NASA for defamatory statements about them.
If five drug-crazed fools sat in a laboratory for 10 days to come up with the dumbest possible AGW story, they couldn’t come close to this.
It must be a hoax.
Here’s some information that may help people see the reality of our past.
The truth which can stand on its own.
Gods are an extraterrestrial race of beings.
Barbara Joy O’Brien – Co-author of ‘Genius of the Few’
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/videoBJOB.php
Exposing the Lost City of ENKI
http://jewels2012ascend.blogspot.com/2011/01/discovering-oldest-manmade-structure-on.html
by Angelique Serrao
July 14, 2008
from WendagForums Website
A stone calendar that is apparently older than 75 000 years has been discovered in Mpumalanga.
Adam’s Calendar – as it has been named by the two South Africans who discovered the find – is reportedly the oldest man-made structure on Earth. This astonishing claim, which could set the scientific world in a spin, has been made in a picture book which is being released worldwide on Monday.
————————-
http://www.squidoo.com/ufo-coverups
UFO Quotes from Presidents, Astronauts, Senior Military and more. UFO Cover Up? These people say YES.
————————-
People need to get out of species adolescence and become eager and ready for alien society because it’s plain to see they( Jesus,Enki,EA plan to keep their promise of return to be our savior from the comming destruction.
Once you understand Gods are an extraterrestrial race of beings and get past the primitive concept of “God” and understand why the Gods left all those carvings in stone was for those of us who are enlightened enough to read and understand them, as they cannot be altered, unlike the Bible.
Yet there are those who still swear by the Bible, in any of its myriad versions, as the revealed word of their “God” have to ignore or deny the clear fact that the Old Testament was a skewed and forged theo-political rewrite of a far more ancient document, the Enuma Elish, dating from at least Sumeria, which was not theological at all.
—————————–
China, Belgium, Spain, Chile, Uruguay and and now Mexico have officially acknowledged the alien presence
—————————–
ENUMA ELISH
http://www.mindspring.com/~mysticgryphon/enuma.htm
——————————
What else other than a space craft can the “fiery chariot” is,which is described so vividly in the “Book of Ezekiel”were?
“Third Book of Enoch” that the Lord kept his “Shekinah” at the entrance of the Garden of Eden until the days of Enoch when he abruptly left for his heavenly
abode,
The Anunnaki-Sumerian (gods?) are the same as the Greek/Roman and Egyptian, and some also in other cultures… just with different names. ie. Enki/Ea/Ptah, Ningishzidda/Thoth/Quetzalcoatl, Enlil/Yahweh.
Once you read a bit on the subject you will soon come to realise that the Anunnaki were/are real flesh and blood individuals capable of prolonging their life-span indefinately.
“The Truth About Enki”
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=5247
THE TURTH ABOUT ENKI by John F. Winston
http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/bulldada/X0011_JWHIST.html
Messages From Enki: Humanity’s Father
http://www.enkispeaks.com/Essays/11Enki&NinmahMakeGirlsTillSheCurses_2.html
http://www.neilfreer.com/SRINDEXPAGE.html
WHITE PAPERS
Sapiens Rising: Beyond The Babel Factor
Exponential Evolution: A Manual For Futants
The Alien Question: An Expanded Perspective
Zen In The Art Of Spiritual Machine Maintenance
Genetic Exploration: An Expanded Perspective
————————
Those who from heaven came down and made the Garden of Eden at Eridu
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/videoBJOB.php
—————————————————
Eridu photos from british museum
http://tinyurl.com/24z44u2
http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_the_world/middle_east_programme/iraq_project/eridu_photos/page_1.aspx
————————-
Everything you Know is Wrong
Lloyd Pye – Everything You Know Is Wrong 1.6
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/45266/Lloyd_Pye___Everything_You_Know_is_Wrong_1_6/
Related Articles by Lloyd Pye:
Human Origins – Part 1
Human Origins – Part 2
Darwinism vs. Creationism
Life’s True Beginnings
Our Earliest Human Ancestor?
Carpenter Genes
Mystery Skulls
http://www.starchildproject.com
Anyone else notice the whole alien/ufo thing is getting a lot more media attention lately? When did they decide to start treating it as an actual threat like these morons with this article? NASA involving itself is just ridiculous. They’re just trying to scare us with something else now that no one cares about CAGW.
We come in peace.
[Post enhanced.☺ ~dbs]
They’ve got to be taking the piss at this point. It’s pretty obvious that you receive citations and funding based on including the global warming tag on your paper. Take that rationale to its logical (and comedic) extreme and this is the result.
They’ve lost it in the same manner that Hitler lost it in his final days. In a total fantasy world, surrounded by itchy sycophants. Amazing.
I swear I’ve seen this movie before …
Yes, it was Keanu Reeves’ biggest dud.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
An alien spacecraft of sorts arrives in New York City. Aboard is a human-like alien and a giant robot of immense size and power. The alien identifies himself as Klaatu and says he has come to save the Earth. When the friendly, PC woman scientist, learns exactly what he means when he says he is there to save the Earth (destroy mankind), she tries to convince him to change his intentions.
Paging Josh, come in Mr Josh please. Cartoon essential for this thread!
TWE says:
August 18, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Unconfirmed reports scattered about that something along the lines of a staged Alien landing is afoot.
Funny how NASA is so eager to boot Elenin, but is quick to drop tantalizing hints of extraterrestrial visitation. It mixes like oil on water.
And if Gilligan couldn’t do, Jersey Shore most assuredly will.
Smokey said:
Nah, they would run out of ammo and fuel for the aircraft pretty quickly.
Maybe I have had a bit too much of the Old Pulteney tonight but I cannot believe anybody actually wrote this as a serious endeavor. Somebody, somewhere planted this article and The Guardian picked it up or The Guardian knows it is crap and printed it anyway. I especially liked the section about not broadcasting anything that could tell the Aliens about the biological make up of humans. Isn’t that what we broadcast every hour every day?
Thanks Barry Day, I just lost several IQ points from clicking one of your links.
“A preemptive strike [from extraterrestrials] would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand.”
The proper way to look at this enormous threat to mankind is that we as humans must do everything in our power to advance ourselves as quickly as possible to get up there and whoop ET before he knows what hit him.
We should all definitely consider implementing Plan B.
I’m surprised no-one read any of the comments in the Guardian, those who say this must be a late night (relaxant inspired ?) brainstorming session are spot on, as the explanation by one of the authors shows;
—————————–
“So here’s the thing. This isn’t a “NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation.”
http://paleblueblog.org/post/9110304050/some-important-points-of-clarification
Some how if NASA gets a transmission:”We are the Borg.Resistance is futile.Prepare to
be assimilated.” I do not think it is because of AGW…
Though I could see AlGore and Mann for instance as Borg….