I smell a spoof

[AlanC]

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5175235/Oumuamua-alien-probe-BROKEN-engines.html

I browse thru my Google News looking for something interesting that doesn't involve politicians, sports figures, reality "stars", or Hollywood and I see this article. I have read several stories about the cigar shaped object and looked at the artist rendering which probably looks nothing like the real object.

As I read I get a whiff of spoof. I'm thinking these scientists are telling the reporters what they want to hear. Or if science reporters are anything like sports reporters, they ask the dumbest questions and instead of correcting or discouraging wild speculation, they let it off the chain a little.

What say ye? Are the "scientists" having a little fun with the reporters- and us?

[Marshall]

Dr Wright suggests that the object could be a 'Von Neumann probe' - a theoretical self-replicating spacecraft that visits star system


Would that be related to an Alfred E Neuman probe?

[dradtke]

He claims that object's movement is the same as a craft whose engines failed.

Which would, or course, be about the same as a rock.

[millring]

How crafty.

[brucemacneill]

Having seen the artist rendering and having read Leonard Nimoy's "I am Spock" I know that in fact the object is a "Space Turd".

[david]

Dec 13, 2017 12:04:43 GMT -5 AlanC said:

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5175235/Oumuamua-alien-probe-BROKEN-engines.html


What say ye? Are the "scientists" having a little fun with the reporters- and us?

I do think that Dr. Wright is likely having some fun, both to see if the reporter was gullible enough to report it and/or maybe to get the public interested in science and space.

[mnhermit]

Dec 13, 2017 17:40:16 GMT -5 brucemacneill said:

Having seen the artist rendering and having read Leonard Nimoy's "I am Spock" I know that in fact the object is a "Space Turd".

That's no way to talk about William Shatner

[Village Idiot]

I love this statement from the article:

Dr Jason Wright from Penn State University suggests that a broken alien spacecraft move in exactly the same way as the interstellar comet.

Well, he was able to give us that information!

[jdd2]

Long ago I read a sci fi book about some folks who had rendezvoused with a comet. Most interesting were the crew that had disappeared, and premonition of the remaining crew that those folks were living elsewhere within the comet, surviving off mold and other things growing inside it.

[Doug]

Well I know it's a space ship cause I was beamed up, probed, and returned. 

All them aliens is hot chicks.