For my first post, let’s look at a cool little program I ran across the other day. Celestia is a kind of planetarium for your computer. The cool part is that you aren’t confined to the viewpoint from Earth – Celestia allows you to zoom in on other planets, stars, galaxies, even spacecraft. You can follow them around or set out among the stars by yourself. Various labels make it easy not to get lost, something I wished I’d figured out a while ago. A word of warning: whirling around in-program gave me motion sickness. Bring dramamine.
If that’s not enough, you can download add-ons, including various fictional spacecraft and locales. I’m looking forward to my 2001 monolith orbiting Jupiter. [ISS image borrowed from David Reverchon]
I believe that we are not existing ALONE. I had been fishing here in the northern fjords of norway two years back and what I had seen I shall never forget. I had cast out my line near the river fork when I had caught a flint of sparkle within the corner of my eye. The thing descended down to about 60 feet above my boat. It was clear and smooth metallic and void of any markings. I hovered there above me for two or three minutes before it sped away at a terrific speed. As far as I can remember most vividly, it was circular and contained a visible hump on top. I had the strange and uncanny feeling that I was being watched and scrutinized. During the past I had laughed at those other people and their stories of ufo. I will never laugh at them again.
Sincerely yours, an American in Norway
Ronald Eck