UFO over layout causes arguement...

[Autobus Prime]

Several months ago I built an N scale size flying saucer about three inches in diameter, painted it silver and hung it over in the corner of my layout.

TL:

Flying saucers? What flying saucers? 

I commend you on your excellent model of swamp gas, mass hysteria, and the planet Venus.

Now, if you're modeling Mars, PA you have every reason to include an alien spacecraft:

http://www.purvisbros.com/mars/saucer.jpg

I haven't gone in much for alien craft, although I have been known to include 1:72 Saracen horsemen visiting the gas station, and some of my scale vehicles are indeed "more than meets the eye".  (for instance, look at my blurry house photo in the Cheap Trains thread)

[Bapou]

FYI, when I was 12 or 13 back in the late '50s in Chicago, my parents and I were standing in front of our grocery store on a weekend morning.  We heard "jets" in the sky and at that time we all looked up (jet planes were not a common occurance).  Well, we saw a long tube shaped object (that could have been the profile from our viewpoint, meaning it could have shown us only its side) very high in the sky, and the military jets were "escorting" it. They were visible to us for a short time - but long enough to know that we had never seen anything like this before.  Soo, they all disappeared from our view. 

My Dad (WWII tank commander) had no idea what it could be, and said "there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know about" - words that stuck with me to this day.

Of course we checked the papers the following day, and didn't find anything. 

My point is, for those naysayers of what "can't be", tell them to have an open mind or ????

Hey, ENJOY,

Mobilman44 

Well fighter jets often escort planes that flew into "no-fly zones" (such as over a high priority military base or in these days over Washington D.C. and other citys) and escort them out (or shoot them down if they don't cooperate).

And yes I have jokes on my layout:

 

This is the caretaker on my diorama.

 

[snagletooth]

 

 

Unfortunately, the idea that another race could climb out of the primordial ooze billions of years ahead of us, curve space at will, arrive here on earth with predictable regularity, and still can't remember to turn the flipping landing lights on the flying saucer's exterior hull off for a stealthy approach doesn't even cut the mustard on the Maury Povich show.

Now that's funny. If they're traveling faster than the speed of light, what do they need exterior lights for anyway? Superman doesn't go around wearing a bulletproof vest!

yeh, but the gun itself is more dangerous... it could poke your eye out.  Or at least leave a really big bump on your forehead.

True, Superman doesn't wear a bulletproof vest, but, when the bad guy runs out of bullets and in desperation, throws the gun at Superman... Superman does raise his arms and ducks to fend off the larger slow speed metal missle.

[Semper Vaporo]

 

 

Unfortunately, the idea that another race could climb out of the primordial ooze billions of years ahead of us, curve space at will, arrive here on earth with predictable regularity, and still can't remember to turn the flipping landing lights on the flying saucer's exterior hull off for a stealthy approach doesn't even cut the mustard on the Maury Povich show.

Now that's funny. If they're traveling faster than the speed of light, what do they need exterior lights for anyway? Superman doesn't go around wearing a bulletproof vest!

True, Superman doesn't wear a bulletproof vest, but, when the bad guy runs out of bullets and in desperation, throws the gun at Superman... Superman does raise his arms and ducks to fend off the larger slow speed metal missle.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Cant even have a little fun. How many guys have a dinasaur hidden on the layout. Most visitors just laugh and go on.

Dave

 

Guilty.

[chatanuga]

On my last layout at my parents' house, I had an occasional giant spider stalking my town and the occassional giant centipede.

Kevin

http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html

[jondrd]

 You can choose your friends, family members you're stuck with.

 

    Jon

[loathar]

Wolfgang-GODZILLA!!!

Blue Flamer- The whole thing about planets outside our solar system is pretty cool! They've already cataloged about 200 in other star systems.

[Teamanglerx]

When I first got back into model railroading about a year ago I was looking at various personal websites.  I ran across one where the guy had a whole story line with a fighter plane shooting a UFO down and then the guys from the X-Files show finding it.  It was pretty cool.

[wedudler]

No UFO, but a dead one

 

This newt came into the basement and dried out.

Wolfgang 

[vsmith]

Tracklayer, just be glad he didnt see your layout and shrug "Oh, you play with trains?"

Some say these visitors are here to guide our development to a higher intellegence of being, some say they are here just to study us like an ant colony, personally I tend to agree more with Calvin.

[Blue Flamer]

With 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 100 billion galaxies in the Universe, the idea that intelligent life evolved elsewhere doesn't bother  me a bit.

My two cents...

And don't forget those countless numbers of planets that may be circleing those 100 billion stars.

IF, we are alone in this great vastness of space, some Supreme Being, (read God in my particular case) has played one great big joke on we mortals and we have not gotten the joke yet.

Bottom line is, IT'S YOUR RAILROAD, PLAY WITH IT AS YOU SEE FIT AND HAVE FUN.  

Blue Flamer. 

[BlueHillsCPR]

As for life on other planets...  Hmm.  I've heard it suggested that if intelligent life visits us it has to be peaceful, because otherwise it would have destroyed itself long ago.  I'm not sure, but it sounds comforting.  After all, we humans are not peaceful, and we've already mastered the technology to destroy our planet, yet we've not made it any farther than the moon.  I would suggest we need to work on our own attitudes toward each other before we spread our violence to other planets.  That may sound hypocritical (heck, I'm a military officer), but I've been around enough to see we need some serious work.  I think we will eventually get there.  Thanks to the information age, so much of the end-state of violence has become so highly visible, there is a growing revulsion to it.

Perhaps some day there will be intelligent life right here on Earth!

Wow!  Very well said Dave.

IMHO, just becasue you are a military officer does not mean you necessarily agree with the historical and seemingly ongoing human need to conquer or with political agendas but with that said lets not have this disintegrate into a political thread.

[Dave Vollmer]

I have a sense of humor (I think...!) but when it comes to my layout, I've limited my humorous scenes to two; one is a man making a mad dash to the gas station restroom from his obviously hastily-parked car, and the other is a dog tugging on a postman's mailbag.

This is not to say I take model railroading too seriously, but I did work very hard to convey a sense of the PRR and its environment from its glory days.  To me, a UFO, a dinosaur, or Death stalking someone would destroy that effect.  The "potty emergency" and "angry dog" scenes are quite plausible yet still draw giggles at train shows.

As for life on other planets...  Hmm.  I've heard it suggested that if intelligent life visits us it has to be peaceful, because otherwise it would have destroyed itself long ago.  I'm not sure, but it sounds comforting.  After all, we humans are not peaceful, and we've already mastered the technology to destroy our planet, yet we've not made it any farther than the moon.  I would suggest we need to work on our own attitudes toward each other before we spread our violence to other planets.  That may sound hypocritical (heck, I'm a military officer), but I've been around enough to see we need some serious work.  I think we will eventually get there.  Thanks to the information age, so much of the end-state of violence has become so highly visible, there is a growing revulsion to it.

Perhaps some day there will be intelligent life right here on Earth!

[dinwitty]

That's what I was thinking...  What prototype were you following when you built the model space craft?  Your friend was probably just irritated that you didn't use the right paint scheme, and the dynoflectors were more appropriate to the phase three model, when the serial number was clearly that of a phase 1.

 

Lee 

I PM'd him the blue prints to the one I arrived in. And everyone knows dynoflectors are obsolete.

 

So hows life on Mars there? I heard there were some snoopy robot vehicles bugging everybody up there making funny noises and digging into the ground.

[mobilman44]

Good Morning,

I learned at a young age never to say "Never" or "Impossible".  Mankind has only touched the surface of "all knowledge".  

IMHO, any logical person would consider that: our Sun is a medium sized star (FACT), and that it is known that there are millions/billions? of other stars out "there" (also a FACT), and it is a very high probability that many/most (?) of these other "suns" have planets revolving around them.  Therefore, who is to say that life could not exist on at least one of those bodies???

FYI, when I was 12 or 13 back in the late '50s in Chicago, my parents and I were standing in front of our grocery store on a weekend morning.  We heard "jets" in the sky and at that time we all looked up (jet planes were not a common occurance).  Well, we saw a long tube shaped object (that could have been the profile from our viewpoint, meaning it could have shown us only its side) very high in the sky, and the military jets were "escorting" it. They were visible to us for a short time - but long enough to know that we had never seen anything like this before.  Soo, they all disappeared from our view. 

My Dad (WWII tank commander) had no idea what it could be, and said "there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know about" - words that stuck with me to this day.

Of course we checked the papers the following day, and didn't find anything. 

My point is, for those naysayers of what "can't be", tell them to have an open mind or ????

Hey, ENJOY,

Mobilman44 

[BlueHillsCPR]

Evening folks.

Several months ago I built an N scale size flying saucer about three inches in diameter, painted it silver and hung it over in the corner of my layout. Then the other day a family member comes over to visit and sees the saucer and starts in on me saying - You really don't believe in UFOs do you?... Uhhh, yes. As a matter of fact I do. I just can't believe that out of that vast galaxy of ours out there filled with with billions of stars that we're the only intelligent beings there are, let alone the billions of other galaxies in the universe. However. I do realize that because of the great distances and the speed of light limit that we may never meet oneanother or even be able to communicate because of the differences in out technology. Anyways, from there it went into religious beliefs and all of that and we had to shut the subject down. Oh well. Each to their own.

By the way. As for the speed of light limit, they use to think that the sound barrier (750 mph) was as fast as an aircraft could fly. We found out that's not true...

Tracklayer

Another fine example re-enforcing my fundamental belief that family, ESPECIALLY extended family, are for the most part, in all actuality, highly overated...

I gotta get me some of that there swamp gas for the layout.

[BRAKIE]

Hmm, I actually did see a UFO once, near Los Alamos in northern New Mexico. Or maybe I'd just been out in the sun too long...

In my layout room, I have a round, louvered vent that just happens to be located over the highest ridge of mountains that stretch almost to the ceiling. I often refer to it as the "UFO lurking over the San Juans."

 

That UFO was a rather large flight of lightening bugs reflected off swap gas.

USAF Project Blue Book's Book Of Explainations page 55 part C..

[Johnnny_reb]

Hint #1 NEVER EVER talk religious beliefs with anyone!

Hint #2 Remember Hint #1

Johnnny_reb

[snagletooth]

 

 

Unfortunately, the idea that another race could climb out of the primordial ooze billions of years ahead of us, curve space at will, arrive here on earth with predictable regularity, and still can't remember to turn the flipping landing lights on the flying saucer's exterior hull off for a stealthy approach doesn't even cut the mustard on the Maury Povich show.

Now that's funny. If they're traveling faster than the speed of light, what do they need exterior lights for anyway? Superman doesn't go around wearing a bulletproof vest!

[jeffers_mz]

With 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 100 billion galaxies in the Universe, the idea that intelligent life evolved elsewhere doesn't bother  me a bit.

Since Sol is a thrd generation star, giving other ancient races up to ten billion years head start on us, it wouldn't surprise me too much to see aliens that have mastered unified space-time-mass-energy, able to "violate" the photonic speed limit at will.

Unfortunately, the idea that another race could climb out of the primordial ooze billions of years ahead of us, curve space at will, arrive here on earth with predictable regularity, and still can't remember to turn the flipping landing lights on the flying saucer's exterior hull off for a stealthy approach doesn't even cut the mustard on the Maury Povich show.

My two cents...

 

[Anonymous]

Well, the speed of sound and the speed of light aren't really comparable. One is the speed that a vibration or wave travels through an elastic medium, e.g. sound, where the other is the speed of electromagnetic radiation through a vacuum, e.g. visible light. The former being of function of basic physics, the latter being a physical constant.

Regarding exterrestrial life, amino acids and organic compounds have been found both in meteorites and in interstellar clouds, so it's most likely only a matter of time until we find life on other planets.

And UFO's? I think Calvin said it best:

 

 

[snagletooth]

 Tracklayer, did the guy even give you a chance to show him you're white boxcars? Putting scale shackles in them tiny things is a worthy achivement!

[Cederstrand]

MisterBeasley...

That is TOOOO perfect. Rob

[miniwyo]

Kinda makes me thnk of the Clint Black cover of that song by Eric Idle from The Meaning of Life,

"and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, cause' i'm afraid that we've been cheated here on earth."

 

There was a guy I knew who was modelling a 1940s scene and he needed something to fill a portion of desert like area on a module..... so I thought about it for a bit, and ended up with, What about a Roswell UFO crash? He currently is on hiatus since he moved and left his modules here, but i thnik he is kinda digging the idea.

[Kenfolk]

...wonder what those little n-scale people think when they look up and see me leaning over the layout...

[trolleyboy]

On our modular club layout for shows we have woods with a flying saucer. That and a couple dinosaours, a.t.v.'s and wildlife for the viewers to find. There is a checklist and folks have a lot of fun with it. Obviously your friend isnt into model railroading, no imagination!

  We do the same thing in the club I belong to. As it relates to this thread, I bought my nephew a couple of the micro machine star wars ships + figure sets that were available about 8 or so years ago.The only thing I asked is that I got the Chewbacca from the one set . He's generally hanging out at the gas station or donut shop on the layout talking to the other HO figures.

Rob

[mlehman]

Hmm, I actually did see a UFO once, near Los Alamos in northern New Mexico. Or maybe I'd just been out in the sun too long...

In my layout room, I have a round, louvered vent that just happens to be located over the highest ridge of mountains that stretch almost to the ceiling. I often refer to it as the "UFO lurking over the San Juans."

[trainfan1221]

If I didn't live in an apartment and couldn't hang things from my ceiling I would probably have a USS Enterprise model going past for fun.  But I can't do those things.

[john galt]

i hate it when people get on you for your ideals or beliefs.  this life is to short and we only have an unknown finite number of heartbeats that will allow enjoyable living experinces, take advantage of all the things that make you smile and hold onto those that make you laugh.  soon the motor of the world will cease and the fountainhead will hold only cheap copies of others cheap copies and only a random few will do anything that will be remembered so continue within your aynonimity and rejoice that out of the millions of probables you were the one. and when others try to bust your bubble tell them its only heartbeats  itll confuse them for ever