Article: "Belief in Aliens Can Turn Deadly" (livescience.com)

[grmcdorman]

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070607_bad_dark_side.html

It's a short article, summarizing four specific cases where woo - specifically alien woo - believers flipped out. One is the well known Heaven's Gate; the other two I hadn't heard of before. Mind you, the last doesn't appear to have any connection to alien woo, but rather religious woo.

Not much other meat to the article; the author's position does seem to reflect that of most skeptics here.

One can, of course, make the argument that the belief in woo is the symptom, not the cause; personally, though, I think that it's a cause often enough to be a problem.

[Fnord]

What's wrong with believing that extra-terrestrial aliens exist? Nothing.

What's wrong with believing that extra-terrestrial aliens have visited Earth? Nothing.

What's wrong with believing that extra-terrestrial aliens are even now plotting to abduct your daughter for breeding purposes? Nothing ... much.

But act on those beliefs and you may end up wearing a tailored jacket in a quiet room surrounded by friendly staff, and all the thorazine your system can handle for the next 20 years to life.

Just keep quiet, stay alert, trust no one, and keep a camera handy.

[tek]

Yeah, I'm not sure if something like:
According to his lawyer, Norman believed his victims were space aliens who were trying to abduct his daughter.
could be blamed on "believing in aliens." It seems like some sort of paranoia/mental disorder, and aliens are just the form it happened to take with that person. It probably would have been demons in a previous century. In fact, I would say for almost all of those cases, the woo beliefs are more the symptom, as you say, of other psychological or sociological ills.

The standout case is the last one, where "exorcists" killed a nun. It stands out because the "exorcists" could have been relatively well adjusted folks, but the source is the woo beliefs is an institutionalized religion(though the belief in exorcism is a small subset).

[slyjoe]

Welcome to the forum tek :)

[tek]

Thanks :)

[Cainkane1]

Aliens exist. They are just to far away to ever have come here and we can never go to them either.

[RenaissanceBiker]

Just keep quiet, stay alert, trust no one, and keep a camera handy.

A camera? You keep a camera handy. I'll keep a hot lead thrower handy.

[grayman]

Aliens exist. They keep coming to the U.S. to do the jobs Americans don't want to do.

[grmcdorman]

Aliens exist. They are just to far away to ever have come here and we can never go to them either.Just a couple of nitpicks here: first, we don't know they exist (woos aside); secondly, it may be possible to go to them - but not practical (think multi-generational interstellar spaceships).

[jezzedout]

Aliens exist. They are just to far away to ever have come here and we can never go to them either.

I'd probably rephrase that to say, aliens likely do exist, they are just too far away to ever have come here and we can't currently go to them either.

Currently, there isn't any credible evidence that aliens exist at all, but logically speaking, there's a pretty good chance they do, but are simply too far away to have traveled here. To say that we can "never" go to them seems a little extreme to me. I don't believe it will happen in my lifeitme, however, at some distant future point it might be possible.

Regarding the cases noted in the article... I do believe someone has to have a degree of mental instability to act out in such a violent way. Many people believe in woo topics, but you don't find them acting out violently. So, in these cases, I don't believe it's the belief in woo as much as it is the propensity towards mental instability in the individuals mentioned. Just my opinion.

[Azure]

Interesting.

Thanks for posting!

[Achán hiNidráne]

Here's a case from New Mexico from a few years back:

http://www.courttv.com/trials/henning/background.html (http://www.courttv.com/trials/henning/background.html)

They recently made an episode of CSI based on this case.

[jezzedout]

Here's a case from New Mexico from a few years back:

http://www.courttv.com/trials/henning/background.html (http://www.courttv.com/trials/henning/background.html)

They recently made an episode of CSI based on this case.

The A&E program "City Confidential" profiled this case a few years back and repeats it every so often. It is an interesting case, as the mistress, who was manipulated into participating in the murder of her lover's wife, was a believer in practically every type of woo, not to mention overly trusting, probably very much in need of some companionship and attention in her life. The dead wife was by all accounts a lovely lady. It's tempting to think of the mistress as something of a victim as well, except for the fact that she willingly disregarded all logic and reason, and took everything she was told at face value, despite attempts by friends to make her aware of what a dangerous fraud her lover was. Whatever her reasons, it was a conscious choice and it's hard to feel badly for her, particularly in light of the fact that an innocent woman is dead. :(

[Fnord]

What gets me curious is why use bleach?

The presence of chlorine bleach (Sodium Hypochlorite or NaClO) or bleaching powder (Calcium Hypochlorite or CaClO) in a blood sample would be a "dead" giveaway that the sample was meant to be hidden. NaClO, and its cousin CaClO are mineral salts. That is, they are solids in their normal state, but are easily dissolved in water.

Once the water evaporates, some residue is always left behind in sufficient quantities to be detected. Not to mention that the organic compounds in blood are not always chemically degraded sufficiently to avoid detection. Haemoglobin is a fairly tough molecule, and DNA is buried deep within a cell, surrounded by several different type of protein that must be broken down in turn.

Chlorinated bleaches act by breaking chemical bonds or converting them to weaker bonds. The resulting solution is acidic, and tends to degrade fabrics.

Better to use an oxygenating bleach on blood and tissue samples; something like Hydrogen Peroxide, Sodium Perborate, or Sodium Percarbonate. These compounds act to "burn" the organic molecules by saturating them in Oxygen. They also tend to be less reactive with - and thus less degrading to - fabrics and upholstery.

Besides, Hydrogen Peroxide doesn't leave a "bleachy" odor or solid residue. Once it evaporates, it's gone.

[Delusions_O_Grandeur]

Ah, extraterrestrial aliens. One of my favourite topics. To get you started, follow this link. it leads to an article in science magazine about a recently discovered exo planet like Earth.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/316/5824/528b

Science mag doesn;t give acces to non-subscribers but at least the page title and header will tell you what to look for if you want to persue this. I got to do some work right now, otherwise I would have done it myself and topped the thread off with links to studies on the likelyhood of finding a planet like earth where life actually has formed. (They also need a primordial soup)

[Fnord]

Journalists seem to take a wide view when describing a world as "Earth-Like." For instance, about a month ago I read an article describing another one.

Click this link for the article. (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070424_hab_exoplanet.html)

"An Earth-like planet spotted outside our solar system is the first found that could support liquid water and harbor life, scientists announced today ... The new planet is about 50 percent bigger than Earth and about five times more massive. The new "super-Earth" is called Gliese 581 C, after its star, Gliese 581 (http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=070424_gliese581_02.jpg&cap=The+star+Gliese+581%2C+located+20.5+light+year s+away+in+the+constellation+Libra.+Credit%3A+Digit al+Sky+Survey), a diminutive red dwarf star located 20.5 light-years away that is about one-third as massive as the Sun."

Five times the mass means five times the gravity, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong on that one.

What would 5Gs do to the planet's atmospheric evolution? More hydrogen, pehaps? Thus, more ammonia and methane? Obviously, I'm speculating here.

But my point is that the writer of this article starts out by saying "An Earth-like planet..." and goes on to describe how truly un-Earth like it really is.

Journalists ... :rolleyes:

[Lensman]

No, 5 times the mass doesn't imply 5 times the gravity, the Earth is about 81 times the mass of the moon but has only about 6 times the gravity.

Jupiter has about 318 times the mass of the Earth but only about 2.5 to 3 times the gravity.

[casebro]

No, 5 times the mass doesn't imply 5 times the gravity, the Earth is about 81 times the mass of the moon but has only about 6 times the gravity.

Jupiter has about 318 times the mass of the Earth but only about 2.5 to 3 times the gravity.

Is the relatively lesser gravity on the bigger planets due to the surface being farther from the center of mass?

[Fnord]

There has to be formulae for determining relative radius and surface gravity on a world, given the relative mass (5x) and assuming the same density as Earth (5.519 g/cm^3).

Any takers?

[Cuddles]

Is the relatively lesser gravity on the bigger planets due to the surface being farther from the center of mass?

Yes. When talking about gravity in the context here what you actually mean is the surface gravity. If two spheres have equal radii but different mass, the more massive one will have higher surface gravity, proportional to the difference in mass. Since more massive planets tend to be bigger as well the surface gravity is less, but will still usually be more than a smaller planet.

The gravitational field is given by U = Gm/r2
If the mass is 5 times more and the radius is 50% more, the field at the surface will be U1 = G(5m)/(3r/2)2
So the surface gravity will be 20/9 times bigger, or approximately twice as strong as Earth.

PS. Sorry about the equations, I don't know this Latex stuff.

Edit: This assumes that "50% bigger" means the radius is 50% bigger. If they mean the volume then it will be different, although this is unlikely.

[Lensman]

Wot Cuddles said - I vaguely remember (my memory isn't so good these days & I no longer have the books in question - they got losted some time ago) the equation from reading some of Dr Asimovs popular science books.