Space cubes

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that we survived (1) the Rapture, (2) the Mayan apocalypse, and (3) the 2012 Christmas shopping season.  The bad news is that the Borg are on their way.  [Source]

At least, that is the claim of such pinnacles of rationality as David Icke and Alex Collier, both of whose names you may have seen once or twice in Skeptophilia before.  Icke, you may recall, is the one who believes that American public schools are being run by aliens; Collier, on the other hand, claims that there was a giant alien/human war back in the 1930s, which none of us have heard about because the war propelled us through a rip in the space-time continuum into an alternate timeline, and now we have to try to get back into our correct timeline, without even being able to consult Geordi LaForge for advice.

Now, because two minds of this caliber are clearly better than one, Icke and Collier have teamed up to analyze the data coming in from NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), and have come to the terrifying conclusion that the Borg cube has arrived, and is hovering menacingly just inside the corona of the sun.

So, let's just take a look at some of the photographs in question, whatchasay?

Spokespeople for NASA say that these images aren't of a giant cubical spacecraft; they're basically just blank spots where there's missing data.  Icke and Collier aren't convinced, however.  They take the evidence from the photograph, which consists solely of a couple of blank squares, and come to the only conclusion you could draw from this:

The cube is a "GOD" (Galactic Obliteration Device) launched by an evil alien race, which is coming to Earth to destroy it as per the Book of Revelation Chapter 21, wherein we find out that the "City of God" that is supposed to descend during the End Times is square in shape, and since squares are kind of like cubes, this thing is going to come to Earth and the Borg are then going to annihilate the human race in the Battle of Armageddon, which fulfills the scriptural prophecy even though I've read the Book of Revelation and I don't remember any mention of the Second Coming of Locutus.

Apparently, this idea didn't originate with Icke and Collier, but was the brainchild of the LLF (Luciferian Liberation Front).  Which gives it ever so much more credibility, given that this is the same group of wingnuts who believe that the biblical story is literally true, except that Jesus was actually a superpowerful cyborg from another planet.

Of course, Icke, Collier, and the LLF aren't the only ones who have weighed in on the anomalous squares in the SOHO photographs.  Scott Waring, of UFO Sightings Daily, thinks that the cube is a giant spacecraft, but that it doesn't have anything to do with either the Borg or the Book of Revelation.  No, Waring said, don't be a loon.  There are two other, much more likely, possibilities: "Such huge objects are present either because the sun is hollow or because energy is being harvested from the sun."

Oh.  Okay.  That makes all kinds of sense.

My own personal opinion is that NASA should hire someone whose sole job is to scan their photographs, looking for ones with glitches, dead pixels, missing data, and so on, and make sure that those flawed photographs never make it online.  We rationalist skeptics have enough trouble keeping everyone's eye on the ball without goofed-up pics from NASA making it worse.

Of course, if NASA did hire someone to do this, Icke, Collier et al. would eventually find out about it, and then there's be allegations of a conspiracy and coverup designed to keep all of us from finding out about the impending alien invasion.  Accusations would be leveled.  The word "sheeple" would be used.

You can't win.

Repeat offenders

If there's anyone I owe a debt of gratitude to, here at Skeptophilia headquarters, it's the woo-woo frequent flyers.  Where would I be without Dirk Vander Ploeg's pronouncements about psychic telepathic alien Bigfoots, and how Lord of the Rings was actually a historical document?  Or Alfred Lambremont Webre's claims that President Obama has visited Mars, and that the US government has already developed long-distance space and time travel?  Or Diane Tessman's missives to the world about the Celestial Convergence, which she claims are the musings of a super-intelligent alien named Tibus?

None of the repeat offenders, however, has provided me with quite so much wonderful material as Alex Collier, the Canadian woo-woo extraordinaire who claimed last year that the Earth was about to be attacked by the Borg (apparently they changed their Collective Mind), and also that there was a huge alien/human war in the 1930s, which none of us know about because during the war we were summarily catapulted through a rip in the space/time continuum into another timeline, and now we have to get back, which will be difficult without the assistance of Geordi LaForge.

Well, once again we have evidence that Collier has been using his Netflix membership to watch old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, because now he's claiming that we're being bombarded by "alien orbs" whose pilots are "demonic hyperdimensional entities" who have "artificially engineered... our current space-time continuum." (Source)

As evidence, Collier produces a scrolling set of images, the majority of which are photographs of the sky with fuzzy spots of light.  One, however, is just baffling, and shows Adam and Eve (or possibly another naked couple, it's hard to be certain) being sternly lectured by something that looks like a figure from a painting by Picasso.  I suppose this represents something profound, but I'm damned if I can figure out what.

In any case, Collier says that there have been large numbers of sightings lately of UFOs in groups of three, and this is highly significant, because three is such a special number, having a great deal of emphasis in the woo-woo world because of its inherent magic, and also because it's the most convenient way to get from two to four.  The "Pagan Gnostics," Collier said, believed in the Archons, who were "demonic interdimensional and artificial life forms who appeared in threes," and after all, we know what authoritative sources on science the Pagan Gnostics are.  "To hell with Einstein," you frequently hear physicists say.  "Let's find out what the Pagan Gnostics have to say about the General Theory of Relativity."

Of course, Collier doesn't just use "Pagan Gnostics" as sources; he also calls upon that trifecta of credibility, Alex Jones, David Icke, and Jesse Ventura.  Yup, I'm convinced.

The best part of the whole article, however, and in my mind the kind of thing that places Collier in a higher tier of woo-woo than the other recidivists mentioned above, is when he starts going into why the number three is so significant:

(N)umerous researchers have presented that “3” has been a recurring theme in a path of apocalyptical destruction.  A distinctive pattern of disasters, has occurred on days, months or years which are either perfectly dividable by “3” or when divided by three produce a perfectly recurring decimal of “3”, ie 646.333333.

Fukushima occurred on 3/11; hence ‘3’.

The War on Terrorism was launched on 9/11, henceforth 9 divided by three equals ‘3’.

“Battle Los Angeles” was a movie on an alien invasion which also precisely coincided by the very day that Fukushima occurred -- 3/11.

World War I began in 1914, which is perfectly dividable by “3”.

World War II began in 1939, which results in a repeated decimal of “3”, I.e. 646.33333

If we conclude that “3” is a significant number in apocalyptical events including World War, we therefore need to look at dates in which “3” become a prominent theme.

As a result, 15 June 2012, or “6/15” becomes at least a candidate for an apocalyptical event, and would represent a “Day of Symmetry” for the archon mind; and 2012 also produces a recurring decimal of “.666” which is the “Number of the Beast”.

When I read all of this, I was torn between laughing and crying -- and of course, you've already seen what the problem is.  If you take any number and divide it by 3, a third of them will divide evenly, and a third of them will leave a repeating decimal .333....  And the remaining third will leave a repeating decimal of .666...., the "Number of the Beast."  So any date that Collier picks will work!

That, of course, is the difficulty with woo-woos in general, isn't it?  They have a totally different definition of the word "evidence" than the rest of us do.  Couple that with a general disdain for the kind of rigorous self-questioning that is the hallmark of good science -- are the correlations we see relevant?  Do they indicate a causation?  If so, what is the correct model to explain that causation? -- and you have a recipe for egregious bullshit.  And, now that the "Information Age" has arrived, they have a more effective venue for disseminating their views to the world than ever before.

Of course, one has to hope that the same mechanisms that allow quick transfer of idiotic nonsense like Collier's aforementioned numerological musings can also act to spread reliable information.  The key is to train people to recognize the difference, so they don't get suckered by wingnuts, hoaxers, liars, and charlatans... which is about as powerful an argument for teaching critical thinking in public schools as any I can come up with.