I try to be nice. There is so much anger, animosity, and raw feelings that permeate our public discourse these days that I make a conscious effort to avoid harsh words or emotional tirades. But I just read something that makes me question whether the government leaders of a certain country didn’t decide to replace their brains with pudding.
As a pseudo-astronomy buff, I like to keep up with space exploration news and astronomy developments. It’s a low grade hobby of mine. Now imagine my horror when I came across an article in Reuters that says a space probe launched by Japan seven years ago recently returned to Earth, landing in Australia. On board is the dust from an asteroid.
Do I have to spell this out?
Anyone in their mid-30s and older will immediately recognize at least one of the dangers we now face. What short memories we humans have. Either the Japanese Space Agency is ignorant, or they’re purposefully forgetting what happened when the Venus Space Probe, as documented in the Jan 9, 1977 Six Million Dollar Man Episode Death Probe, made its way back to earth. That thing nearly destroyed our $6 million dollar bionic man. You can’t trust anything that’s gone to space and then come back. Where has it been? I’m pretty sure that there’s a proven scientific hypothesis out there that states if a computer goes out unattended into space, it will become sentient and it will run amok. And the Japanese just plopped this probe down in the Australian Outback somewhere (probably sucking up locals and hanging them up into pods of some kind). And forget about building another bionic man. It cost 6 million dollars back in the 1970s. At today’s rate, he’d be way over a billion dollars and be required to run off of green technology. And a wind-mill powered bionic man isn’t very mobile.
But let’s say for a second that Steve Austin’s dire warning to us isn’t enough. Maybe, against all odds, the Japanese Death Probe didn’t develop a psychotic intelligence and it isn’t bent on destroying all carbon based life forms. There’s the other well known threat that comes from the reported asteroid dust payload this probe is carrying: Zombies. The link between zombie outbreaks and asteroids has been pretty well established for some time.
Think I’m making this up? Well, Mr. Rational Thinker, the latest example of this happening was in 2007 near Carancas, Peru. Classic zombie-making events occurred there, by the numbers: 1) Meteor strikes. 2) Residents get sick from mysterious illness. 3) Strange attacks occur shortly thereafter. 4) Governments of the world completely fail to admit that there is a zombie outbreak (and we all know that when the government doesn’t admit to something, that something is definitely going on).
This makes me think: what if the probe is alive and there’s a brewing zombie outbreak? Nuts. If we cordon off Australia, that might slow down the zombies. But if the probe starts replicating, then…great.
Well, we had a good go of it. Nice knowing you all. I’ll be stocking up my bunker over the next few weeks to try and ride out the outbreak. If you’re in the neighborhood, don’t bother stopping by. Particularly if you’re a robot replicant. Or craving brains.
