It is the Easter weekend and all is well….
Local–Weather here has been early summer….80s high and mid 70s lows….it is disgusting. But people are delirious at the temps so they can frolic on a contaminated beach….
Personal–Not much to report…still battling with health issues and trying to stay out of the weather.
Let us begin with the big news for scifi fans….
We have a new moon mission and could be the start of something big…..
The Fifth Dimension is possible….not the musical group from the 70s but rather a real 5th dimension….
Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.
While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, research published in The European Physical Journal Cin 2021 is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the long-lasting dark matter problem within particle physics.Our knowledge of the physical universe relies on the idea of dark matter, which takes up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Dark matter is a kind of pinch hitter that helps scientists explain how gravity works, because a lot of features would dissolve or fall apart without an “x factor” of dark matter. Even so, dark matter doesn’t disrupt the particles we do see and “feel,” meaning it must have other special properties as well.
That brings me to the multiverse…..all things comics….Marvel, DC, etc but is it just imagination or is it real?
The idea of a multiverse – a hypothetical collection of all possible universes – is one that science fiction fans love to explore. But does the multiverse actually exist?
To answer the question of whether the multiverse is real, we first need to agree on what it means for something to be real. As an astrophysicist who studies cosmology – the large-scale history and structure of the universe – and the philosophy of physics, I’ve thought about this question more than a few times over my career.
The most immediate definition of “real” might be that you can see and touch it. My lunch is real in this sense, because I can taste it and you can hear me chewing it (hopefully not too loudly). So “real” might be defined as something you can perceive with at least one of your five senses.
But that would leave out a lot of things that are also real. The microwaves that heat up your food are real, but you can’t directly perceive them – only their effect, heated food. So some real things you can “see” only indirectly by the evidence they leave behind. The existence of dinosaurs is another example – you can see only their fossils.
So, you can ask two versions of the question of whether the multiverse is real. One: Can you see, hear, touch, smell or taste it? Two: Even if you can’t, is there any evidence of its effects?
As long as this is my scifi section for this week…..how about this bit?
A recently declassified CIA document confirms that after Soviet troops shot down a UFO in 1987, the aliens turned 23 soldiers into stone.
In March 2026, a rumor resurfaced on social media claiming that a declassified CIA document confirmed that aliens turned 23 Soviet soldiers to stone after a UFO was shot down.
The caption of one Instagram post (archived) sharing the claim said the alleged incident happened between 1989 and 1990, “when a Soviet military unit allegedly shot down a low-flying saucer-shaped UFO during training exercises.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cia-document-aliens-soviet-troops/
Are you buying this?
More on UFO…..and Donny says he will release proof…..and then a dude disappears….
Police in New Mexico are knocking on a lot of doors in the hunt for a missing former Air Force general with a high-level UFO background. The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office says investigators have reached out to more than 600 homeowners near the Albuquerque residence of retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, asking for security camera footage or any information that might pinpoint his movements since he vanished on foot on Feb. 28, leaving his phone behind, per the New York Post. Despite dozens of tips, authorities say they still have no confirmed sightings. Early on, they noted they were concerned for McCasland’s safety “due to his medical issues,” per Fox News.
A Silver Alert is in effect for McCasland, who once led research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, overseeing classified space weapons programs. That role, and his expertise on alleged government knowledge of extraterrestrials, has drawn wider attention to the case. Journalist Ross Coulthart called the disappearance “a grave national security crisis” on his podcast, tying its timing to President Trump’s recent call for the Pentagon to prepare UFO-related files for release, per NewsNation. The sheriff’s office, working with the FBI, says it continues to pursue every lead and is urging anyone with information to contact its Missing Persons Unit or submit tips online.
Where did he go?
The American government now has an official site for UFOs…..
Washington quietly grabbed a corner of the internet this week that’s bound to fuel speculation: Aliens.gov now belongs to the White House, 404 Media reports. A bot that tracks federal web domains spotted the Executive Office of the President registering the address early Wednesday, though the URL doesn’t yet lead to a live site. The timing comes about a month after President Trump vowed to order the release of government records related to extraterrestrial life, UFOs—now more often dubbed “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAP—and any associated programs. Trump made that promise on his Truth Social platform, saying he would tell the “Secretary of War” and other agencies to start identifying and disclosing files on what he called “extremely interesting and important matters.”
The new domain lands amid a long-running boom in official and semi-official UFO talk: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has pushed for broader declassification of UAP material; rock musician Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars outfit helped publicize Pentagon cockpit videos of odd objects tracked by Navy pilots; and Congress has held multiple hearings, with mixed results. Public fascination cooled somewhat last year after the Wall Street Journal reported that portions of the Pentagon’s UFO lore were tied to disinformation efforts meant to hide secret weapons programs. (And certain outlets seem wary of the idea that aliens.gov will bring any real information; Gizmodo calls the domain name registration simply “the next distraction from everything else” while the Daily Beast gets more explicit, calling it the “next Epstein distraction.”)
Interest spiked again in February, when former President Obama told interviewer Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are “real” but added he hadn’t seen them and didn’t believe they were hidden at Area 51—unless there was a vast plot that even excluded him. After the clip went viral, Obama clarified on Instagram that while the odds favor life somewhere in the universe, he saw no evidence during his presidency that Earth has been visited. Asked about Obama’s remarks days later, Trump accused him of revealing “classified information” and then half-joked he might “get him out of trouble” by declassifying related material. Whether aliens.gov becomes the public portal for that pledge—or remains a mysterious piece of digital real estate—hasn’t been explained. Asked about it by Newsweek, a White House press rep said simply, “Stay tuned.”
It appears I was a bit sciencey today.
Finally it is Easter weekend and a time for chocolate rabbits and such….and some of it is missing….
Easter candy shoppers in Europe may be hunting for more than eggs this year. Nestlé says an entire truckload of its new KitKat line—about 12 tons, or 413,793 bars—vanished between its factory in central Italy and a distribution site in Poland. The company said Friday that “the vehicle and its load are still nowhere to be found,” adding that it’s working with local authorities and logistics partners to track them down. Nestlé warned the theft could leave store shelves short of KitKats ahead of the Easter rush and cautioned that the bars might surface through unofficial sellers, CBS News reports.
The chocolate bars were to be distributed throughout Europe, per the AP. Each bar carries a batch code that can be scanned; if the code matches the stolen shipment, the scanner will receive instructions on how to notify KitKat, which says it will pass the information to the proper authorities. The company treated the theft as amusing but not exactly funny. “Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat said in a statement.
But the best news came from the world of entertainment…..
Reality TV, once cable’s workhorse, is now seeing more and more of its cameras turn off. MTV is ending Jersey Shore: Family Vacation and Catfish; HGTV has axed shows like Christina on the Coast; and similar cuts are happening at Food Network, TLC, Lifetime, E!, and more, per the New York Times. The number of new unscripted series in the US has dropped by roughly a third since 2022, according to research firm Luminate, with every subgenre—from cooking and travel to true crime—feeling the squeeze. Even budget-friendly reality formats are no match for the collapse of cable revenue, consolidation among media companies, and a surge in audience members heading over to YouTube and other digital platforms.
Some stalwarts still pull viewers—think Survivor, Below Deck, and the Housewives universe—and newcomers like The Traitors and Love Island USA do still break through, but networks are now far more cautious on how many shows they churn out and are leaning hard on existing brands. Workers behind the scenes describe a contracting industry: longtime editors and supervisors laid off, teams halved, workloads rising. Instead of snapping up reality shows during the 2023 Hollywood strikes, studios mostly held back, with The Hollywood Reporter and Variety starting to track the reality-TV decline soon after. Meanwhile, YouTube became a new landing spot for talent and series like Somebody Feed Phil and a planned Yolanda Hadid home design show. One veteran executive sums it up as a march toward “fewer ideas from fewer companies.”
The death of fake reality?
Good riddance!
That does it for me….please enjoy your Easter weekend with family and friends…..and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
So the missing general was whisked off to alpha centauri in a space ship by the aliens that once turned Russian soldiers into stone? I would watch that if it was a film!
Let’s hope the end of not-really-reality TV is in sight, but I doubt it.
Why is there no voice delay when speaking to the astronauts in that capsule about to see the dark side of the Moon? And why will they be incommunicado for 40 minutes when they get there? I don’t recall that happening in 1969. When the BBC speaks to a correspondent in Jerusalem, there is a couple of seconds delay while he/she hears the whole question. Hmm…
The stolen Kit Kat bars were supposedly shaped like formula one cars as a special edition. I started to think it was an April Fool joke to advertise the brand.
I hope you feel better soon my friend.
Best wishes, Pete.
I had not thought about the voice thing….good point. Reality TV cannot end soon enough….it lowers the IQ by 20 points every time it is on…..I thought it was a joke as well…..and they are not that good to begin with….next week is my round of chemo so it will be a crappy week. chuq
IMO, space travel/stories are believable if you want them to be. No one … and I repeat … NO ONE can truly answer the question: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” But yes, imagination is a grand thing.
The whole Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland thing? Yeah, about all those conspiracy theories…. If you dig deeper into the whole story the conspiracy theories quickly fall apart. The poor fellow has been suffering from mental health issues for a while now. He’s been experiencing what was called “mental fog”, forgetfulness, memory loss, difficulty sleeping, etc. Even though his wife claims he doesn’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s it sure sounds like, well, Alzheimer’s or dementia to me. I used to work in a nursing home years ago and people with those kinds of symptoms are notorious for becoming confused, wandering off, paranoia, etc. We’re getting alerts for elderly persons with those kinds of symptoms and being lost a couple of times a month. The internet may be boiling with conspiracy theories about his disappearance being deliberate or whatever, but the fact is the poor fellow just wandered off like thousands of others with similar symptoms do every year. I don’t know if you’ve ever been involved in search operations but I have, and it’s astonishing how hard it is to find someone who’s lost.
As for the “5th dimension” and all that cosmology stuff… Popular Mechanics isn’t exactly what I’d call a reliable source of information and hasn’t been for decades. It’s basically turned into a shill for new products with “stories” that are really just product announcements and little more than paid advertising, with a few badly researched “real” stories to try to cover up the fact it’s little more than an advertising platform.
That being said, there are some very weird things going on in cosmology and astronomy in general. What’s happening is that as our technology to detect and observe what’s really “out there” in the universe improves, their theories about things like how gravity behaves, how the universe originated, and the basic structure of the universe don’t match what they’re observing and they are scrambling to try to, basically, slap bandaids on their theories to try to account for the discrepancies because, like most of us, they don’t want to admit that they fecked up and don’t really know what the hell they’re doing. So they scramble to come up with anything that they can think of to try to explain why they’re finding things that don’t agree with their mathematical models. They’re finding things like, oh, galaxies in the very early days of the universe that shouldn’t have developed until hundreds of millions of years later, a few stars that apparently are older than the universe is, that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe seems to vary and may even be slowing down. A lot of these scientists have invested huge amounts of time and money into these models they’ve developed so they’re very reluctant to admit that they might have fecked up and basically they’re grasping at straws to try to defend their investments.
I agree with you on Popular Mechanics…..I just love all these theories of everything and the grant money they are spending on liquor and broads…..LOL chuq
What happened to PM is a shame. It was a great magazine at one time, chock full of construction projects and science experiments the reader could try at home. The term “enshitification” comes to mind. PM, and Popular Science, were both enshitificied long before anyone thought of the term.
Probably the same thing that happened to the news. chuq