There Are Four Lights

The story of two Gorgia men who claimed to have captured Bigfoot is a little old now, but I couldn’t keep the geekdom inside me any longer. Besides, such master pieces should not be kept from the world~! My original idea was not in comic form–I would love to see a wookie costume frozen in a block of ice in a fake press conference video posted on YouTube to spoof the Bigfoot hoax. But, I’m a mangaka so all I’m (barely) useful for is drawing silly pictures.

One of my favourite podcasts, SETI’s “Are We Alone”, had an episode about the hoax, Skeptical Sunday: Bigfoot Press Conference. What I like most is how the hosts, Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley, explain a lot about what good evidence is and why what was presented at the press conference is considered poor evidence. They also did an excellent job of pointing out how the man speaking to the press was setting up the story so that what would be presented might seem more credible.

Personally, I don’t think it’s absolutely absurd to think there might be a creature lurking in the forests of North America that we don’t know about. However, I think it’s most likely that there’s plenty of alternate explanations for these sort of sightings which are far more probable. I do have a beef with cryptozoology, though. This term for the study of hidden animals triggers my woo-alarm. I can’t see how one can investigate a claim, like a Sasquatch sighting, and be unbiased if they are calling themselves a cryptozoologist. You are naming yourself after your desired result: hidden animals. Don’t regular, plain-old, everyday zoologists find new species? I betcha they do…probably by coming across evidence that suggests there might be a new creature. But, since they aren’t exclusively in the search for undiscovered creatures, they should be less likely to overlook an alternate explanation for what they’ve found.

As for myself, I’m just a mangaka and part-time cryptoboyfriendologist.

If I could be in anything else, besides a mangaka, and had a magic wand that could make me a professional in any other field, then I would choose to be an astronomer. I think, most likely, I’d like to be a planetary scientist. I bought a telescope a couple years ago and love going out in the backyard for some stargazing. The first planet I saw was Jupiter, on a really clear summer evening. The small town I live in doesn’t have much light pollution, which is nice. It amazed me that this little instrument could turn what was otherwise just a really bright ‘star’ in the sky into a glowing planet with tiny specks of moons around it. Then there’s Saturn…homg, RINGS~! Ha ha, it’s them Jovian planets that impress the ladies (or at least, this lady).

I did this little doodle a few months ago. I have since chopped off my hair. It was really cloudy and rainy here this summer, so I didn’t get to use my telescope much. My family doesn’t really seem interested in what I look at in the sky, so I mostly get excited all by me onesies, ha! Perhaps, I’m easily amused, but looking through an eyepiece at this dot in the sky and seeing a real planet really geeks me up inside and it blows my mind that it’s so big and so far away–LIKE, WOW~a whole other planet!

This past week, I spent some time in North Bay, about a 2.5 hour drive south of where I live. Usually, nerdtasticly cool people to hang out with have to be imported here, to Kirkland, for me to get the chance to chat non-digitally. But this time, I made the journey down from the k-hole and enjoy latenight caffeine beverage loitering in the Bay. If you mention the LHC around my family you either get a response of “…..?” or “Um, like, that’s totally gonna make a black hole thingy and destroy the Earth, like, omg“–so it’s nice to get away from their adorable hicksvilleness.

On the drive back up to the ‘Shire’ (this only refers to the small part of Kirkland that I’ve hobbitised with second breakfast and no adventures), I listened to the Astronomy Cast podcast. It was the first time I’d heard the show, and this particular episode was done live from Dragon Con and the discussion was from a panel that dealt with scientific facts and/or mistakes in science fiction–from Trek, Battlestar Gallactica, to Dr. Who. I really enjoyed it so I’m checking out more of their episodes!