Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) passed away 15 years ago today. Sagan was a gifted astronomer, astrophysicist, writer, and evangelist of science; he was best known for his TV series Cosmos, and his novel Contact, which was later made into a movie. Both dealt with the big questions of science (including are we alone?), and humanity’s place in the cosmos — about finding meaning through the scientific method, and experiencing wonder in the process. Sagan was a tremendously humane man, whose warmth and generosity of spirit exude a comforting glow that has inspired a generation of scientists, and now a generation of artists. In the years since Sagan’s death, the rise of the internet and tools to remix and share media have led to hundreds of videos based on Sagan’s work. — the man inspired a tremendous amount of creative work.
A new viral video sweeping the Web appears to show a person getting struck by lightning — twice. In the footage, purportedly taken from a security camera, a bright flash zaps the unfortunate man causing him to collapse to the ground. After a few moments he apparently recovers and walks off, only to be hit a second time a few feet from the first strike…
Here’s a great example of how Web video has transformed folklore.
This video of a supposed ‘Dead alien’ found in Russia is currently doing the rounds on YouTube. The story goes that a UFO crash was sighted in the Irkutsk region of Siberia a month ago and that the ‘corpse’ in this video was subsequently found in the snow.
Is it real? Well – that’s unlikely, but as Mulder’s poster in The X-Files
