THE BIG RETORT

Somewhere in the cosmos a tiny blue planet receives an alien signal. A researcher writes "Wow!" Nearly forty years lapse. It quickly passes into legend and UFO lore. TheBigRetort investigates a mix of signals. (Picture. The View at Hilly Fields. Copyright (c) TheBigRetort.) In August 1977, a researcher with SETI - Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - claims to have noted an unusual signal that is said (by some) to have emanated from a far-flung civilisation somewhere in the cosmos. The "Wow Signal" has entered the global lexicon but it was never authenticated and there is still to this day much debate about its alien credentials. Be that as it may... TheBigRetort notes an infinite number of details that have expunged the down-to-earth facts in the telling and retelling of this interstellar tale, which makes it all really - rather - curiously... human. 'Curious' in that the computer printout contains a handwritten date; 'rather' in that it ma...

A science paper predicts that a nearby red-star system known as Gliese 581 is the likely candidate for an extrasolar habitable world. Two years on, the alien world is indeed discovered. TheBigRetort The recent discovery of another pale-blue spot in space, which is currently circling a 'nearby' star system known as Gliese 581, has created a bit of a stir on planet Earth. But the real value is in how it was actually 'encountered'. In fact as far back as two years ago physicists Rhett Zollinger and John Armstrong addressed the ‘possible’ existence of an undetected lower mass planet inside the Gliese 581 star’s Habitable Zone; due to what the two termed ‘the dynamical stability evolution of the system‘. The pair compared studies of the three known planets in the Gliese 581 system. Of these two of the three known planets 'C 'and 'D’ were located at the edges of what is euphemistically called the Goldilocks Zone. That's the zone where water is like...

Sir Alan Sugar may feel even he has gone a bit too far if he hires former Marine Christopher Farrell. TheBigRetort lifts the lid on the Knuckleduster Sniper. Styling himself as ‘a former marine’, Christopher Farrell pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing an offensive weapon when he appeared at Plymouth Crown Court some years back. When arrested Farrell was found to possess an extendable baton and a knuckleduster in his car - and was later branded a liar by the Judge. Prosecutor Paul Frost said that around 6.30pm on February 3, police acting on a phone call visited Farrell's home and waited for him to arrive. His wife claimed he had hit her with the knuckleduster, drawing blood. They searched Farrell's blue Mercedes for weapons. They found an extendable baton and a knucklesduster. Farrell, then 28, told police they were there "trinkets" from his days in the force. The former Marine had bought the baton in the USA and the knuckleduster in 2001 in Afghanistan, but ...

Many scientists in the United States and worldwide are furious that the space agency NASA has apparently allowed a small body of Kepler scientists to sit on data that may confirm if another Earth-like planet lies within 'lens' reach of our solar system. (That's anywhere light years away.) But could the leaking of the discovery made by the Kepler scientists be due to a simple glitch in the machine? It has been argued that more time was needed for Kepler scientists to confirm the discovery of over 140 Earth-like exoplanets. Apparently the 'yearly' transits of these planets needed to be confirmed by additional research, an investigation that would, under Earth-like circumstances, take three years. Apparently it takes our planet one whole year to go around the sun and back again. It takes three such years then to confirm the findings? Not so. Dimitar Sasselov, an investigator with the Kepler group itself - accidentally on purpose? - released some of the findings to a sp...

A Texan aged 63 has won at scratch-off card games every two years since 2006. In 1993 she also won a lottery bringing her total winnings to over $20m. Which is amazingly coincidental. But what if a seemingly ordinary person somehow managed to narrow the odds and beat the system, goddamnit? An American newspaper might say slim pickin's. TheBigRetort says ... Joan Rae Ginther’s luck began in 1993, when she won $5.4 million dollars on a game known as “Lotto Texas“. Another win thirteen years later in 2006 netted her $2m. Curiously, every two years since that date, she has won at scratch off games, two cards having been bought at her local store. In 1993 she won $5.4 million; the odds: 1 in 15.8 million; in 2006 she won $2 million in a scratch off game; the odds: 1 in 1,028,338; in 2008 she won $3 million in a scratch off; odds: 1 in 909,000. Her latest win in 2010, also a scratch off, was for $10 million; odds of winning: 1 in 1,200,000. In fact experts contend that the odds of winnin...

Could Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, be involved in a gigantic cover-up? If so, he's going down... and not just in the eyes of the voter. TheBigRetort has uncovered evidence which may suggest that the recent furore over the new identity of Jon Venables may be designed solely to conceal the possibility that he has ALREADY been convicted. of a serious offence involving children long before it was announced. Just think it through for a minute.... Venables is amongst one of four people in Britain protected by what are termed ‘Mary Bell’ injunctions. Bell was convicted of the manslaughter of two boys in 1968 and given anonymity after her release. The recipients receive lifetime protection of their real identities. It was recently reported in the Daily Mail that a ‘tight-knit group alone knows the new identity of Jon Venables. It operates in a culture of ‘extreme secrecy’, so even the arresting officers may not have known who they had in their cells. However, theBigRetort believes that...

The Sun newspaper and Operation Trident. TheBigRetort discovers the (black) gangland shootout that never was. On the 1st January 2010, at approximately 5am, following a New Year’s celebration at a family owned pub, Darren Deslandes, a 34-year old housing officer, was shot dead by a black assailant. (His younger brother “junior” still lays critically injured in hospital fighting for life.) "Wild West-style shootout,” the Sun proclaimed in bold writing, with the usual nodding unspoken emphasis to the scum involved. [Sun report, since removed, http://tinyurl.com/yjb82y4 .] Or so a lazy staff reporter intimated… Far from being gun-wielding, drug dealing black street thugs, Darren Deslandes and his brother Junior were only armed with a good education and a loving family, one that had provided foster care for nine children. In fact Darren and Junior were (if anything) plucked out of the air by one piece of prima fascia 'evidence' that stands out on a three-pronged fork: they...