Hybrids, DNA, and the glow cats from hell

One of the most powerful pieces of evidence of our common ancestry with every other life form on Earth is that we all read the genetic code the same way.  The RNA codon chart, the work of such giants in the field of genetics as Marshall Nirenberg, Francis Crick, and James Watson, works equally well for every species from bacterium to petunia to wolf spider to human.  It's the basis of genetic engineering; you can take an embryo of a cat, and insert a gene from a jellyfish that in the jellyfish produces a phosphorescent protein, and with luck and skill you will end up with...

... The GlowCat from Hell.

His name is "Mr. Green Genes."  No, I am not making this up.

The cats' genetic decoding mechanisms read the DNA in exactly the same way as the jellyfish did, and therefore assemble the glow-in-the-dark protein in precisely the same way.  Put simply, every organism on Earth speaks the same genetic language.

It's why, as I was discussing with some students just last week, Mr. Spock is vastly improbable.  That a DNA-based life form could arise on another planet is entirely plausible; the building blocks of DNA, called nucleotides, are apparently rather easy to produce abiotically.  But the likelihood that the decoding protocol would have evolved precisely the same way on Vulcan as it did on Earth, and therefore result in two species that can interbreed, is about as close to impossible as anything I can think of.   So however tantalizing a plot element it was to have the tortured, half-emotional and half-stoic First Officer struggling to control his human side with logic, it's much more likely to be a simple biological impossibility.

If the extraterrestrials even turn out to be humanoid, and have the right... um... equipment to engage in some hot alien/human bow-chicka-bow-wow in the first place.

Interestingly enough, given the morning's rather odd topic of conversation, that yesterday afternoon I ran into a website that claims that not only are human and alien DNA compatible, but that we are hybrids already.  Well, at least some of us are. F rankly, it's a little hard to tell what exactly the writer is claiming:

Civilizations from parallel realities and parallel dimensions similar to our own reality have been manipulating human DNA from the beginning of our recorded history and it is highly likely that all of this activity over the decades is the visually elusive air traffic of beings involved in one singularly focused mission involving humans.  This genetic program is a part of our human history, it is here with you and I now and will continue flowing down line into humanities future.  It is time to accept the fact that we are hybridized humanoid beings with alien DNA.

The problem is, human DNA is pretty much like the DNA of any other terrestrial species, as I mentioned earlier.  There's nothing alien about it.  But this doesn't stop the owner of the website, The Hybrids Project, from claiming that we're somehow... different.  And getting more different all the time:

Hybridization of a conscious humanoid appears to be quite complex.  Evolution is not ruled out, but there is a point at which highly advanced humanoids begin to upgrade other humanoids.  The benefits of this process would, at its simplest, be the perpetuation of life, intelligence and consciousness.  This is a logical expectation within an infinite multiverse and likely a process that spans countless worlds and vast expanses of time as we know it.  Earth is but a part of the process and not the process itself.  We will come to realize that we are part of a larger galactic family and the relatives are coming to introduce themselves.

I have to admit that we certainly could use an upgrade, given some of the behavior we like to engage in.  But the kind of thing that this website goes on to describe isn't, as far as I can tell, much of an improvement.  The alien species he describes are all a little... sketchy.  We have the Tall Grays and the Short Grays, who differ only in size and otherwise are your typical bald, skinny gray aliens with enormous black eyes.  Then there are the Tall Whites, which are bald, skinny white aliens with enormous blue eyes.  None of these, frankly, are my type.  I'm more attracted to plain old humans, thanks.

At least a bit more appealing are the Tall Blonds, the male version of which looks a little like Orlando Bloom.  But then, finally, we have the Mantid Beings, which are just horrifying.  The idea of a human/mantid hybrid would imply that there was some way for a human to have sex with what amounts to a giant grasshopper, a mental image which I really didn't need to have bouncing around in my skull.  (And about my decision to pass it along to you: "You're welcome.")

By the way, if you're curious to see what any of these things look like, I encourage you to peruse the website, which is chock-full of artists' depictions and is really highly entertaining.

Also on the website are all sorts of descriptions of abduction experiences, in which Earthlings were captured and brought on board ship and examined, probed, and worse by various members of these alien species.  The hybrid children thus produced, the website tells us, "are quite different and far more advanced than you and I and thus are currently living off world out of harm's way."  Which is pretty convenient. A ll of the kids I see on a day-to-day basis seem like regular people to me.  None of them have gray skin or black eyes or look like Orlando Bloom or a giant praying mantis.

Fortunately.

So, anyway.  As much as I love the idea of extraterrestrial life, the tales of abduction and hybridization and so on seem to me to be not only delusional, but biological impossibilities.  Much as some people don't like the idea,  Homo sapiens forms nothing more than a tiny little blip in a continuum with other terrestrial life forms -- any interesting features we have, like our (relatively) large brains, are perfectly well explained by the evolution and genetics we already understand.

Which, in some ways, is too bad.  Mr. Spock was kind of cool.  And if I'm wrong, let me just mention to any alien life forms who might be looking in my direction; I'm already spoken for.

*******************************

As will be obvious to any long-time readers of Skeptophilia, I have a positive fascination with things that are big and scary and can kill you.

It's why I tell my students, in complete seriousness, if I hadn't become a teacher I'd have been a tornado chaser.  There's something awe-inspiring about the sheer magnitude of destruction they're capable of.  Likewise earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires...

But as sheer destructive power goes, there's nothing like the ones that are produced off-Earth.  These are the subject of Phil Plait's brilliant, funny, and highly entertaining Death From the Skies.  Plait is best known for his wonderful blog Bad Astronomy, which simultaneously skewers pseudoscience and teaches us about all sorts of fascinating stellar phenomena.  Here, he gives us the scoop on all the dangerous ones -- supernovas, asteroid collisions, gamma-ray bursters, Wolf-Rayet stars, black holes, you name it.  So if you have a morbid fascination with all the ways the universe is trying to kill you, presented in such a way that you'll be laughing as much as shivering, check out Plait's book.

[Note:  If you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Hybrids to the rescue

Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news, courtesy of a professor at Oxford University.

The good news is that climate change is being taken care of.  All of the worries about ice sheets melting, sea level rise, and stronger storms can be set aside.

The bad news is that in order for all this to happen, humans have to be willing to have sex with aliens.

I wish I was making this up.  Young-hae Chi, a professor of Korean at Oxford, has published a book called Alien Visitations and the End of Humanity, in which he tells us that there are already some human/alien hybrids walking around.  There are four categories: small, tall and bold, insect-like, and scaly with cold, reptilian eyes.

What I'm wondering is, if there are all these hybrids walking around, why haven't I seen any?  Although I have to admit the first two categories are kind of vague, and Stephen Miller could easily fit into the last one.  But at least there aren't any insect people around, which is a good thing, because that'd be fucking creepy.

Still from "The Web Planet," from season two of Dr. Who.  Okay, these weren't so much creepy as ridiculous, especially considering the really annoying chirping sound they made.

"[T]hey come not for the sake of us, but for the sake of them," Chi says.  "[For] their survival, but their survival is actually our survival as well — the survival of the entire biosphere."

How exactly this works, or the specifics of how making lots of human/alien hybrid babies is going to stop climate change, Chi never says, and it sounds like he may not be clear on this himself.  "I'm looking for more evidence to support my view," he said.

I'll just bet he is.

Of course, even if there are intelligent aliens visiting the Earth, there's a serious problem with the hybridization claim, and it goes beyond supposing that humans and the aliens have the right combination of orifices and pokey-outy-bits to make it work from a mechanical standpoint.  While it's possible that extraterrestrial life would be DNA-based -- DNA and RNA nucleotides seem to be relatively easy to make abiotically, and are likely to be common in the universe -- it is extraordinarily unlikely that they would read it the same way we do.  The "translation chart," from which you can use the sequence of a messenger RNA molecule to determine the amino acid sequence of the protein it makes, is thought to be arbitrary, and there's no reason why even if there is some RNA-to-protein correspondence on the Planet G'zork, it'd be the same one we use.  (I emphasize the word thought in the previous sentence.  How the translation chart evolved, and whether it actually is arbitrary, is one of the unsolved problems of biological evolution.  If the translation chart was constrained to evolve the way it did, it might be that the decoding process is fairly uniform throughout the universe...  but I doubt it.)

So while I like Mr. Spock and Deanna Troi and B'Elanna Torres as much as the next Trek geek, that sort of thing is pretty certainly impossible.

Anyhow, I'm thinking that Dr. Chi is just making shit up, and should focus on his Korean classes and leave the astrobiology to the astrobiologists.

Still, it'd be nice to do something about climate change.  I mean, our current "leaders" are doing bugger-all, so maybe we should all welcome our alien overlords.  Although I draw the line at having sex with them.  I'm open-minded and all, but I do have my limits.

**********************************

This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is for any of my readers who, like me, grew up on Star Trek in any of its iterations -- The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss.  In this delightful book, Krauss, a physicist at Arizona State University, looks into the feasibility of the canonical Star Trek technology, from the possible (the holodeck, phasers, cloaking devices) to the much less feasible (photon torpedoes, tricorders) to the probably impossible (transporters, replicators, and -- sadly -- warp drive).

Along the way you'll learn some physics, and have a lot of fun revisiting some of your favorite tropes from one of the most successful science fiction franchises ever invented, one that went far beyond the dreams of its creator, Gene Roddenberry -- one that truly went places where no one had gone before.

On the universal genetic code, glow kitties, and human/alien hybrids

One of the most powerful pieces of evidence of our common ancestry with every other life form on Earth is that we all read the genetic code the same way.  The RNA codon chart, the work of such giants in the field of genetics as Marshall Nierenberg, Francis Crick, and James Watson, works equally well for every species from bacterium to petunia to wolf spider to human.  It's the basis of genetic engineering; you can take an embryo of a cat, and insert a gene from a jellyfish that in the jellyfish produces a phosphorescent protein, and with luck and skill you will end up with...

... The GlowCats from Hell.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The cats' genetic decoding mechanisms read the DNA in exactly the same way as the jellyfish did, and therefore assemble the glow-in-the-dark protein in precisely the same way.  Put simply, every organism on Earth speaks the same genetic language.

It's why, as I was discussing with some students just yesterday, Mr. Spock is vastly improbable.  That a DNA-based life form could arise on another planet is entirely plausible; the building blocks of DNA, called nucleotides, are apparently rather easy to produce abiotically.  But the likelihood that the decoding protocol would have evolved precisely the same way on Vulcan as it did on Earth, and therefore result in two species that can interbreed, is about as close to impossible as anything I can think of.  So however tantalizing a plot element it was to have the tortured, half-emotional and half-stoic First Officer struggling to control his human side with logic, it's much more likely to be a simple biological impossibility.

If the extraterrestrials even turn out to be humanoid, and have the right... um... equipment to engage in some hot alien/human bow-chicka-bow-wow in the first place.

Interestingly enough, given the morning's rather odd topic of conversation, that yesterday afternoon I ran into a website that claims that not only are human and alien DNA compatible, but that we are hybrids already.  Well, at least some of us are.  Frankly,  it's a little hard to tell what exactly the writer is claiming:

Civilizations from parallel realities and parallel dimensions similar to our own reality have been manipulating human DNA from the beginning of our recorded history and it is highly likely that all of this activity over the decades is the visually elusive air traffic of beings involved in one singularly focused mission involving humans.  This genetic program is a part of our human history,  it is here with you and I now and will continue flowing down line into humanities future.  It is time to accept the fact that we are hybridized humanoid beings with alien DNA.

The problem is, human DNA is pretty much like the DNA of any other terrestrial species, as I mentioned earlier.  There's nothing alien about it.  But this doesn't stop the owner of the website, The Hybrids Project, from claiming that we're somehow... different.  And getting more different all the time:

Hybridization of a conscious humanoid appears to be quite complex. Evolution is not ruled out, but there is a point at which highly advanced humanoids begin to upgrade other humanoids. The benefits of this process would, at its simplest, be the perpetuation of life, intelligence and consciousness. This is a logical expectation within an infinite multiverse and likely a process that spans countless worlds and vast expanses of time as we know it. Earth is but a part of the process and not the process itself. We will come to realize that we are part of a larger galactic family and the relatives are coming to introduce themselves.

I have to admit that we certainly could use an upgrade, given some of the behavior we like to engage in.  But the kind of thing that this website goes on to describe isn't, as far as I can tell, much of an improvement.  The alien species he describes are all a little... sketchy.  We have the Tall Grays and the Short Grays, who differ only in size and otherwise are your typical bald, skinny gray aliens with enormous black eyes.  Then there are the Tall Whites, which are bald, skinny white aliens with enormous blue eyes.  None of these, frankly, are my type.  I'll stick with plain old Earth women, thanks.

At least a bit more appealing are the Tall Blonds, the male version of which looks a little like Orlando Bloom.  But then, finally, we have the Mantid Beings, which are just horrifying.  The idea of a human/mantid hybrid would imply that there was some way for a human to have sex with what amounts to a giant grasshopper, a mental image which I really didn't need to have bouncing around in my skull.  (And about my decision to pass it along to you: "You're welcome.")

By the way, if you're curious to see what any of these things look like, I encourage you to peruse the website, which is chock-full of artists' depictions and is really highly entertaining.

Also on the website are all sorts of descriptions of abduction experiences, in which Earthlings were captured and brought on board ship and examined, probed, and worse by various members of these alien species.  The hybrid children thus produced, the website tells us, "are quite different and far more advanced than you and I and thus are currently living off world out of harm's way."  Which is pretty convenient.  All of the kids I see on a day-to-day basis seem like regular old people to me.  None of them have gray skin or black eyes or look like Orlando Bloom or a giant praying mantis.

Fortunately.

So, anyway.  As much as I love the idea of extraterrestrial life, the tales of abduction and hybridization and so on seem to me to be not only delusional, but biological impossibilities.  Much as some people don't like the idea, Homo sapiens forms nothing more than a tiny little blip in a continuum with other terrestrial life forms -- any interesting features we have, like our (relatively) large brains, are perfectly well explained by the evolution and genetics we already understand.

Which, in some ways, is too bad.  Mr. Spock was kind of cool.  And if I'm wrong, let me just mention to any alien life forms who might be looking in my direction; I'm already spoken for.

Starchild skulls and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

Today's question is: at what point has a person made so many absurd claims that we are justified in no longer listening to anything (s)he has to say?

It's the skeptic's version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."  There are people who have repeatedly trotted out wild stories, stating that they have proof -- and then the proof turns out to be faked, misinterpreted, or just plain nonexistent.  Unfortunately, though, this doesn't impel them to do what most of the rest of us would; apologize, issue a retraction, retreat into an embarrassed obscurity.  No, many of these people become belligerent and combative, and back off for a short time only to issue further bizarre claims, stating that this time it'll be different, this time they really have hard evidence.

I ask the question because of an article that has been making the rounds lately about the so-called "Starchild Skulls," a collection of elongated skulls that were discovered by archaeologist Julio Tello in Peru in 1928.

The skulls are odd-looking, there's no doubt about that.  But the ancient peoples of western South America are known to have practiced frontal skull flattening, by attaching two flat boards to the front and back of an infant's head.  So that should have been that.

That probably would have been that if it hadn't been for Lloyd Pye, who declared that the skull was of a human/alien hybrid (he's the one who nicknamed it the "Starchild Skull").  Pye was an author and lecturer who frequently expounded on this topic and other fringe-y areas of science/pseudoscience, speaking with great authority despite apparently having only a bachelor's degree in psychology and no other particular qualifications as an expert.  But Pye died of lymphoma last December, and it seemed like the whole thing was dying down.

Enter Brian Foerster, who has jumped the "Starchild Skull" back into the news with an announcement that there has been genetic analysis of the skull and the results show that it is "clearly not human:"

It had mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far. But a few fragments I was able to sequence from this sample indicate that if these mutations will hold we are dealing with a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Then Foerster says that he's not releasing the results of the DNA analysis quite yet, but he will do so "soon."  This was when my eyes started to narrow suspiciously, because it reminded me of... someone... someone who'd pulled the same trick before...

So I started to try to find who it was that Foerster gave the samples to for genetic analysis.  And guess who it turned out to be?

Melba Ketchum.

Yes, dear old Dr. Melba Ketchum, she of the genetic analysis of Bigfoot, whose results were so abysmally bad that she refused to release them for months, issuing periodic tantalizing press releases about how groundbreaking they were -- only to have them labeled as bogus during the peer review process when she finally did submit them.  Undaunted, she created her own scientific journal specifically to publish the rejected paper.  Then, when the paper was published, it turned out that amongst her source citations were one that actually demonstrated the opposite of what she claimed it did, one that was about hoaxes... and one that stated, outright, that it was written as an April Fool's Day prank!

My general feeling is that Dr. Ketchum has effectively used up all of the benefit-of-the-doubt she deserves.  The fact that she is still at the whole "we have the data, and it's convincing, but we're not going to show it to you" illustrates to me that there is no particular reason we shouldn't laugh right in her face, and by extension, in Foerster's.

I think we need a corollary to Carl Sagan's ECREE Principle (Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence).  Let's call it PHRREE -- Proven Hoaxers Require Really Extraordinary Evidence.  It may be that this time, finally, Melba Ketchum has the goods, and she'll be vindicated.  I think I'm to be excused if I am inclined to doubt it.  And given her track record, it is incumbent on her to prove herself -- using the time-honored and reliable road called "peer review."  And until such time as she does that, and has her and Foerster's "research" published in a reputable scientific journal, I think we're well within our rights to ask them both to shut the hell up.

Cosmic infidelity

Here in the United States, we are all too aware that politicians can sometimes act in an erratic fashion.

Just recently, we had the candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia claim that you shouldn't do yoga, because you'll end up possessed by Satan; a state senator from Louisiana who asked in a public hearing why, if evolution is true, you don't see bacteria turning into humans; and a state representative from Iowa who claimed, in print, that we should follow the biblical rule that allows parents to execute rebellious children (although, in his defense, he did say that he thought that the instances where it was carried out should be "rare").  Just last year, the Republican candidates for Congress seemed to be in a heated competition to see who could make the most bizarre, offensive statement about women, with the odds-on favorite being Richard Mourdock of Indiana, who said that if a woman was raped and got pregnant, that was "something that God intended."  (Mourdock ended up losing to Joe Donnelly, who was able to keep his foot out of his mouth and won the general election to the Senate.)

So, we're no strangers to politicians who make fools of themselves, sometimes in very weird ways.  After all, Dan Quayle's vice presidency was one long derpfest, to the point that comedians and cartoonists went into a protracted period of mourning once he was no longer in office.  But no one here in the US, I think, can beat a British politician who has been in the news recently...

... for claiming that he had sex with an alien and fathered a hybrid child.

The Northern Echo has reported more than once on Simon Parkes of Stakesby, who serves on the Whitby Town Council, and who seems to have a screw loose even if you judge him by American standards.  Beginning with the fact that he claims to have been abducted by aliens, not once, but many times.

"The only thing I can remember after that is it saying to me you will never be hurt, your will never be harmed," Parkes claimed in an interview for an upcoming documentary called Confessions of an Alien Abductee.  "I think I am fairly clear in my head that I am being monitored [by aliens] very closely and if there is anything that’s seriously about to happen or does happen then I am fairly confident in my own mind that they will intervene, they have in the past."

Simon Parkes of Stakesby, communicating with the Mother Ship via interpretive dance

But it gets even more interesting, because Parkes doesn't just get to chat with the aliens, he gets to mate with them.

No, I am not making this up.  Apparently Parkes' interactions with extraterrestrials includes four-times-a-year jaunts up to a waiting Spacecraft of Love, where Parkes gets to engage in some serious bow-chicka-bow-wow with an alien woman named "the Cat Queen."

"My wife found out about it and was very unhappy, clearly," Parkes said.  "That caused a few problems, but it is not on a human level, so I don’t see it as wrong."

I think if I told my wife that I wouldn't be home for dinner because I was heading up to the spaceship to have sex with "the Cat Queen," she would react in a way that was significantly past "very unhappy."  I think she would call the men in the white lab jackets to come pick me up.

"Make sure you bring along your tranquilizer rifle," I can hear her say.  "I think you're gonna need it."

But of course, a general rule from biology is that sex leads to babies, and Parkes' liaison with "the Cat Queen" was no exception.  They have a hybrid child, Parkes said, whose name is "Zarka."

Oh, yeah, and Parkes' actual mother is a nine-foot-tall alien with green skin and eight fingers per hand.

Parkes as a child, interacting with Mom

What is astonishing about all of this is that nobody much seems to mind.  "Ha ha," they all seem to say, over there in Whitby.  "That Simon Parkes, he certainly is a character."  He apparently has been babbling about aliens for years, long before his election to the Town Council in 2012, and everyone pretty much shrugs it off.

So, anyhow, that's the news from the UK.  I must say, for the record, that I rather prefer their variety of wacko to ours.  Parkes seems harmless enough, and one article about him states that he is the "most active member of the Town Council," which is (after all) what he was elected for.  All in all, if you  have to choose between politicians who are crazy, dumb, or bigoted, go with crazy every time.

At least the crazy ones are kind of fun to watch, which is more than I can say for the dumb and bigoted types we seem to be dealing with over here on the other side of the Atlantic.

Twinkle, twinkle, little Starseed

Regular readers of Skeptophilia may remember that a few months ago, I posted about the phenomenon wherein various people with a fairly tenuous grasp on reality become convinced that they are aliens.  (See my post here.)  They prefer the term "Starseed," however, so that they will not be confused with the more prosaic kind of illegal aliens, which could result in their being arrested by INS and deported to Alpha Centauri or something.

One of my criticisms of the whole Starseed thing was that it relied entirely on "feeling;" you determined that you were a Starseed because you "felt like you were," and even what star system you were from was ascertained from looking at a star map and seeing which one "felt right."  My conclusion was that the entire thing seemed predicated on a lot of wishful thinking.

Well, I'm happy to say that I now have come across research (even if I am twitching a little just from calling it that) that approaches the issue a little more analytically.  (Source)  However, if you are understandably reluctant to read the article itself, for fear that your brain will turn to Armour Potted Meat Food Product, I will summarize its main points for you below.

In its opening paragraphs, the article makes a good point, an objection that I wish I had thought of in my first post; if Starseeds are really superpowerful aliens in human form, sent here on a mission to improve humanity and heal the Earth, why don't they just go ahead and do it?  It's not like we see humanity showing much sign of improvement most days, such as might be evidenced by a drop in the ratings for Jersey Shore.  And as far as healing the Earth, I don't think I have a whole lot of confidence that's happening either, however you might define the word "healing."  And you'd think that the author might conclude from this that the people who claim to be Starseeds are actually just regular humans who might profit from some antipsychotic meds.

But no:  the actual answer, he says, is that Starseeds are alien losers:

I personally think that all Starseeds are actually outcasts are social rejects, prisoners are whatever part of their society they wanted to remove. The idea is that aliens vastly outlive us and they know the soul is immortal, so to punish or remove someone they find unpleasant to say the least, they must erase their memories and trick them into thinking they are on a mission to save Earth. Even when a Starseed remembers who they are, the aliens they last were, will return to contact that person and tell them they have a mission to keep them from wanting to return home. When a Starseed like myself doesn't do this mission and completely reject the idea and finds out what actually happened, the aliens will go as far as to threaten violence to keep them trapped on Earth.

Oh!  That makes perfect sense to me now.  Earth is actually like an intergalactic prison colony, and aliens are sent here for punishment.  I suppose there's some logic to this, especially if you've spent much time in Newark.

But by far the best part of the article is when the author quotes some facts and figures from Brad Steiger's highly scientific book, The Star People, which allows you to figure out the likelihood of your being a Starseed in a more statistically sound fashion than just closing your eyes and pointing to a random place in a star atlas.  According to Steiger, you may be a Starseed if you:

• Have compelling eyes.
• Have lower than normal body temperature.
• Were an unexpected child.
• Have chronic sinusitis.
• Have hypersensitivity to electricity or electromagnetic force fields.
• Experience buzzing or audio tone prior to a psychic-spiritual event or warning of danger.
• Have "flying" dreams.
• Feel that children and animals are attracted to you, and form strong attachments to pets.
• Felt Earth mother/father not real parents.

Well, personally, I think that I have drop-dead sexy eyes, although I will admit that I might be a little biased in that regard.  I am very sensitive to the cold, I was definitely an unexpected child, and I have pretty frequent sinus problems.  The next two are "nos," but I did have flying dreams as a child, and dogs and cats both seem to be magnetically attracted to me.  As far as my parents not really being my parents, I look exactly like my dad, so I think it's a big no on that one.  So all in all, my own results are a little equivocal.  But Streiger goes on to quote some statistics, obtained heaven-alone-knows-how:

• 88-92% have lower body temperature than the norm
• 92% feel a tremendous sense of urgency to fulfill their missions
• 65% are female: 35% are male
• 90% have experienced a sense of oneness with the universe
• 83-94% have chronic sinusitis
• 32-34% have extra or transitional vertebra
• 97% have hypersensitivity to sound, light, odors
• 70-87% have swollen or painful joints
• 93% have pain in the back of the neck
• 84% adversely affected by high humidity
• 71% have difficulty dealing with/or expressing emotions
• 74% report out of body experiences
• 57% perceive auras
• 63% have experienced a white light during meditation
• 50% believe that they receive some form of communication from a higher source
• 50% have accomplished dramatic healings on themselves and others
• 38% practice automatic writing
• 60% have perceived spirit guides
• 75% have experienced clairvoyance, clairaudience
• 57% have made prophetic statements or experienced prophetic dreams or visions that have come to pass
• 38% have been visited by an angel
• 37% reveal the manifestation of a Light Being
• 35% feel that they have been blessed by the appearance of a holy figure
• 50% are convinced that they have a spirit guide or angel
• 40% admit to having had an invisible playmate as a child
• 20% once spotted an elf or "wee person"
• 34% are certain that they have encountered alien entities of an extraterrestrial or multidimensional level
• 55% report an intense religious experience
• 72% claim an illumination experience
• 90% have experienced telepathic communication with another entity, physical or non-physical from another realm.
• 48% have seen a ghost
• 42% have connected with a deceased loved one
• 76% believe in reincarnation and have past life memories
• 37% have survived a life-threatening illness
• 34% have been involved in a severe accident or trauma
• 55% have had near death experiences
• 78% believe that have lived on another planet and can tell you about it
• Some are aware of parallel existence at this time in other worlds
• 86% believe in miracles
• Most believe in a God or creator energy source
• All believe in life on other planets

The majority of these seem to me to be ample qualifications for being fitted out for a jacket with extra-long sleeves, in my opinion, although a few of them are just weird.  Especially, what's the thing with the arthritis, sinus problems, and dislike of high humidity?  Are Starseeds actually elderly retired aliens from Planet Scottsdale, or something?  Of course, I didn't see any mention of golf, driving Buicks, or wearing plaid shorts with loafers and knee socks, so maybe that isn't right, either.

Be that as it may, there's our handy checklist to see if you're from another planet.  Given the author's surmise that Starseeds are alien convicts, if you are one, it's probably best if you don't tell me about it.  If you did, and the Intergalactic Police showed up at my door and threatened to vaporize my pets if I didn't tell them everything I know, I probably would rat you out rather than let that happen.  No offense, but I Form Very Strong Attachments To Pets, if you get my drift.  Wink wink nudge nudge.

The naughty naughty Nephilim

In further exploration of beliefs for which there is no evidence whatsoever, today's topic is: Nephilim.

What are the Nephilim, you might ask?  Well, amongst other things, they are the subject of Scott Alan Roberts' new book, The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim: The Untold Story of Fallen Angels, Giants on the Earth, and Their Extraterrestrial Origins.  In order to save you the money of buying this book (even the Kindle edition costs $9.34), allow me to explain that the Nephilim are apparently the result of angels having sex with human women, which resulted in a race of giants.  The whole thing seems to have come out of a couple of lines in the bible, especially Genesis 6:4, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward -- when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."  They're mentioned in Numbers 13:33 as well:  "We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

So, the Nephilim were big dudes, evidently.  Exactly how big is uncertain.  Be that as it may, Scott Alan Roberts has examined the evidence (two passages from the bible) and come to the only possible conclusion: the "angels" mentioned in Genesis 6:4 as the fathers of the Nephilim were outer space aliens, and the Great Flood happened to destroy these "demonic hybrids" and remove all traces of alien DNA from the human gene pool.

Oh, okay.  I mean, my only question would be: seriously?  You can tell all that from two bible passages?  And I thought that angels didn't have sex, given that they don't have the required, um, equipment?  I distinctly remember in a highly scientific documentary I saw, the movie Dogma, the angel Metatron drops his drawers and lo, it was revealed unto me that although he hath wings, he hath no wang.

But I digress.

A complete lack of evidence, as I've stated before, never seems to discourage some people, and this hasn't stopped various folks from yammering on at length about the Nephilim, not to mention the sex lives of aliens and/or angels.  Take a look, for example, at this site, which not only claims that the aliens had their way with human women back in the Bronze Age, but omigod it's still happening today:

Dr. John E. Mack, who needs no introduction to UFOlogists, has stated that the alien abduction scenario seems to be a program for the development of a hybrid race. This very fact lends support to the theory that the abduction scenario is the modern resurgence of the Nephilim breeding program. Pregnant women are abducted only to find the foetus has been removed from their womb. In some cases they are reunited with their hybrid child in future abductions. Men are forced to engage in sexual activity with hybrid females, or have their sperm removed from their bodies. If there is any truth to theses alien abduction claims of literally thousands of people across the world the demonic plan of creating yet another hybrid race is already in action... It seems pretty clear we may have entered “the Days of Noah”.

Well, speaking of Noah, I'll borrow a line from Bill Cosby:  "Riiiiiight."  I don't know about you, but this is the first I've heard of guys being forced to have sex with "hybrid females;" and you'd think that if pregnant women suddenly woke up to find their babies had vanished, it would kind of make headlines, you know?  So once again, we run headlong into the speed bump of "no evidence."

Anyway, that's today's post about the naughty Nephilim, sneaking into your house to steal your sperm and/or your hybrid children, lo unto this very day.  The whole thing leaves me wondering if today's Nephilim are as big as the ones in the bible.  I'm thinking in particular of my younger son, who is 6' 7", and next to whom I verily seemeth as a grasshopper.  On the other hand, the hypothesis that he is a human/alien hybrid is confounded by the fact that he looks a lot like me, so the likelihood of his being anyone else's son is pretty slim.  And I can vouch for the fact that his mother is who she claims to be, i.e., not an alien.

At least, as far as I know.  Those aliens are pretty tricky.  Maybe my ex-wife is really from another planet.  Maybe I was abducted in 1982, and was held on board a UFO for sixteen years, and used as part of a captive breeding program.  It's as good an explanation for my first marriage as any other I can think of.