RE: RIP Sir Patrick Moore
December 9, 2012 at 6:59 pm
(This post was last modified: December 9, 2012 at 6:59 pm by Cyberman.)
Like probably every astronomer in the UK, amateur and above, I've got loads of his books which have become well-thumbed over the years. One that he wrote in the seventies is called "Can You Speak Venusian?", about what he called 'independent thinkers', or as we would call them, 'cranks'. People such as flat-Earthers, or hollow-Earthers, or Velikovsy-followers. i haven't read it for ages, but I recall one chapter about some bloke who had contacted a race of aliens on Saturn or something. Interviewing him, Patrick asked what they were like and the guy described them as being man-sized but spherical in shape; to which Patrick said "They sound like perfect balls" and the man agreed.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
