Wednesday, January 1, 2014

From a strange planet - 2

Why am I so fascinated by Scandinavian webcams? What makes them so irresistible? What is their mystery? To find an answer I looked for texts that captured the meaning and message of these enigmatic pictures. You can see and read the results below. I'm quite happy with the combinations of picture and text and there is the beginning of an answer:
  • The pictures show an unknown world, very different from our daily environment.
  • It is a far-away world, deep under water or deep in outer space.
  • There is mystery there and also some menace. Strange things can and do happen.
  • The world is inaccessible for us. We need machines to reach it and to see it.
  • Machines wake while we sleep and in the morning we read their messages and our lives are changed forever.
So I’m going to try a different approach. I’m sending you to the bottom of the sea. "The bottom of the sea? Ushikawa thought. What is this guy talking about?"
“How was the bottom of the sea?” the man asked after Ushikawa’s breathing had settled down. His voice was, as before, expressionless. “You went quite deep down. I imagine you saw all sorts of things you’ve never seen before. A valuable experience.”
This is one of the first images taken by the rover, which landed on Mars this evening. As planned, the rover's early engineering images are lower resolution. The clear dust cover that protected the camera during landing has been sprung open. Some dust appears on the lens even with the dust cover off.
The cameras are looking directly into the sun, so the top of the image is saturated. Looking straight into the sun does not harm the cameras.

Yet it is not only the great prophets and seers who have had these experiences. All over the world, people have stories to tell: of shining figures standing by hospital beds; of ordinary-looking strangers offering help in times of urgent need before vanishing, leaving no trace; and, of guardians giving support in the darkest hour. Walking with Angels offers a glimpse into the mystery and glory of this world. 
When the trucks left, the only thing to denote the scene of the crime would have been a mound of freshly dug earth half a meter high. By the following spring, the mound would have collapsed to the exact same level as the ground around it. This, too, would have been carefully calculated according to the known decay rates of human tissue and the ambient conditions of the ditch. 
There are several other types of unexplained lights observed in the valley. The light most often is a bright, white or yellow light of unknown origin standing or floating above the ground level. Sometimes the light can be seen for more than one hour. They are usually high up in the air, close to the top of the mountains or even higher.
Whatever the source of the light, or origin of the legend, the light is still there. He told me: "I first seen the light forty-years ago. It looks the same today as it did then. Now it usually stays away but it used to come right down the road, almost to the corner."
Scientists have discovered a new planetary system located 210 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. The first planet is slightly larger than our moon. Astronomers think it does not have an atmosphere and cannot support life. The tiny planet almost certainly is rocky in composition. The second planet, is slightly smaller than Venus. The third planet, is twice the size of Earth. All three planets orbit the star at less than the distance Mercury is to the sun, suggesting they are very hot, inhospitable worlds.

The light did not appear to be a simple ball but a diamond-shaped object with a hollow center and a golden hue. What was truly remarkable was the space that was just occupied a moment ago by this light, now twinkled and glowed with some form of luminosity or phosphorescence. It quite literally sparkled with energy!
The comet is seen here exiting from behind the right side of the sun, after an hour of travel through its closest approach to the sun. The comet's tail wriggles wildly as the comet plunges through the sun's hot atmosphere above the stellar surface. The comet might have been buffeted by plasma waves coursing through the corona. Or perhaps the tail was bouncing back and forth off great magnetic loops that permeate the sun's atmosphere. No one knows.
I knew someone who saw a slow moving dull red-orange glowing ball of light, travelling fairly slowly. It was easy to follow for quite a while through the countryside. They were on foot away from any towns. I think it seemed about as big as the sun looks in the sky, but was close to the ground. After it vanished they were stopped by two policemen in an unmarked black car who asked them if they had been smoking anything they shouldn't!
Sources:
webkamera.100102 + Haruki Murakami - 1Q84
webkamera.180849 + NASA
webkamera.100080 + walking-with-angels
webkamera.455931 + The Hunt for Zero Point - Nick Cook
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