Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

João Luís (thank you!) points this interesting video that appears to show some iridescence and general awesomeness.

The description on Youtube does not seem very credible, but the language spoken does seem to suggest it comes from Indonesia. We have already presented some clouds of wonder here in Forgetomori, mainly pileus clouds, but this looks like a different phenomenon.

It’s not just a cloud. It’s an amazing cloud. The fact it’s “just” water droplets and probably crystals in suspension, illuminated in a certain way to produce such a beautiful effect is much more amazing than the idea that it’s a (badly) disguised alien spaceship.

But that’s just a matter of opinion. If you know exactly what type of cloud this is, do share your knowledge in the comments.

“max is here
max is in control
max is probably creating something big for it

max is the solution for you
max is what you want
max is on top

max is cool because despite the fact that his father yells at us every time we’re there
max is so smart
max is not the killer

max is still in control
max is good for that kind of thing
max is no angel

max is useless hahahaha
max is not max
max is down

max is over”

Does that make sense? It’s the story of the rise and fall of dictator Max, by Max Jahnke. If it sounded a little strange, it’s because all the sentences were extracted from Googlism, which in turn extracted them from the web. Those are all unrelated snippets of text from across the web compiled into one story.

The results from Googlism can be hilarious, but most important to us, there’s something here in the fact they can be selected and organized to make a somewhat coherent short story. As it happens, another friend, Murilo Queiroz, also has a son named Max, and he got into it, creating a beautiful and quite long story from Googlisms which is actually related to his son.

A whole lot of meaning from random snippets of text extracted from the web.

If you are into Forteanism long enough, you may have realized a lot of coincidences and mystical synchronicities work like this. There’s a whole ocean of not entirely random things: that’s the web. Then a phenomenon filters this randomness into something less random, but the phenomenon in itself is not expected to produce meaning. That’s Googlism.

Then comes our minds. From Googlisms some quite amazing “coincidences” can be found. We can find meaning where there is none. Or better yet, there was none. We actually created this meaning the moment we think we saw them there all along.

Some of these ideas were discussed previously in Mind under matter, but even if you don’t quite swallow this pill, how about finding what story lies in the Googlisms for your name? Do share them in the comments.

Or are they hoaxed fakes? Fact is, they are amazing works by “The Faking Hoaxer”. Keep reading for much more, including making ofs and ghosts.

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Philosoraptor actually stumbled upon a deep philosophical question, with consequences affecting mathematics, our own mind and – to some – even God. Think about Pinocchio’s paradox: the way by which the contradiction arises from self-reference was what Kurt Gödel used in 1931 to prove his Incompleteness Theorem, amongst the most important scientific discoveries of the past century.

Marcus Dominus quotes the “World’s shortest explanation of Gödel’s theorem", by Raymond Smullyan, and as it’s indeed short, I reproduce it in full:

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“Nuit Blanche, City of Paris
Mirror ball, 1000 mirrors, 7.5 meters in diameter.
The spectacular view of the starry sky has long been a source of delight and curiosity, but the abundance of artificial light in urban areas produces a glow that covers the stars in the firmament. The largest mirror ball ever made was suspended from a construction crane 50 meters above the ground to render the starry sky to the citizens of Paris for one night in the Jardin du Luxembourg during the Nuit Blanche event.”

It’s a work by artist Michel de Broin, and if you’re a hardcore UFO buff, you may have had an instant association with the “Battle of Los Angeles”:

There are more images on LifeLounge, including this one which is a photomontage with the classic UFO photo:

Why didn’t Broin mention the Battle of LA when there is this image clearly referencing it, I don’t know, but it’s definitely a fun piece of art.

As for the Battle of LA in itself, the famous photo does seem to show at first glance a classic flying saucer profile while the searchlights seem to be stopped by something we would assume was solid, but that may be misleading as the photo is certainly taken with a long exposure, as can be seen by the many shell explosions recorded on it.

Was there actually something solid there? Bruce Maccabee thinks so. But then, don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence that the object would have approximately the same width that all the searchlights combined seem to wrap around exactly?

I suspect the famous photo and the apparent solid object could actually be the result of the movement of the searchlights, explosions and smoke from the explosions captured in a relatively long exposure at night. Maccabee considers the idea, but discard it with quite reasonable arguments.

Then again, they are not that conclusive. It’s an unsolved, intriguing case, that could be smoke, could be an alien spaceship, could be… something else.

And now it’s art. [via MAKE]