Paul the Octopus died yesterday. As the news spread of his passing, many folks spread jokes on Facebook and Twitter about using his carcass for a good batch of Calamari. Calamari is prepared from squid in most regions, as my dad pointed out.

Whether it was just chance, or Paul was really an “oracle Octopus”, the prediction record of the eight-legged creature was more accurate than many two-legged self-proclaimed psychics.

Paul’s predictions were designed so that he was presented with two boxes containing food in the form of a mussel, each box marked on the outside with the flag of a national football team in an upcoming match. His choice of which mussel to eat first was taken as indicating his prediction of a win for the country whose flag was on that box. These predictions were correct in four of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches, and in all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup. He also correctly selected a win for Spain against the Netherlands in the World Cup Final on 11 July by eating the mussel in the box with the Spanish flag on it. His “predictions” were 100% (8/8) correct for the 2010 World Cup and 86% (12/14) correct overall. – Wikipedia

Anyway, when I heard of his passing, my mind shifted to The Beatles. I don’t know why my mind works this way, but it does. I started hearing “Octopus’s Garden” from the Abbey Road album in my head. The song was conceived while Ringo Starr was presented squid instead of fish,while on Peter Sellers’ boat in 1968. Later that day, as a related bit of trivia, the captain of the boat told him that octopuses “travel along the sea bed picking up stones and shiny objects with which to build gardens”.

I would say that I’m glad that Ringo’s order was flubbed that day. Call it synchronicity, or fate, if you’d like.

So, from there, I made a connection to the “Paul is Dead” rumour that circulated after the release of Abbey Road. According to fans, there was a plethora of evidence to support the rumor that Paul McCartney was killed in a car accident. One could hear messages like “I buried Paul” if the album was played backwards. There was even evidence from the album cover itself that were said to support these claims.

According to fans, McCartney had secretly been replaced by a look-alike Paul. Paul the Octopus has already been replaced by a look-alike octopus, also named Paul, but it is not a secret. However, in a strange twist, according to a Chinese film maker, there are assertions that Paul the Octopus died back in July, but his death was kept secret. He was replaced by a body double for the last three months. Read about the new “Paul is Dead” conspiracy theory at The Daily Mail.

“Paul is Dead” and it feels a little like Déjà vu.

Whether Paul the Octopus chose a great day to die, or it was chosen for him, yesterday’s date was very significant in Beatles history.

These are some of the things that The Beatles were up to on October 26th throughout the years, according to The Beatles Place.

1960 – The Beatles perform at the Kaiserkeller Club, Grosse Freiheit, Hamburg, West Germany.

1961 – The Beatles perform a lunchtime show at the Cavern Club, Liverpool.

1962 – The Beatles perform a lunchtime show at the Cavern Club, Liverpool. That night they perform at Public Hall, Preston, Lancashire, 30 miles northwest of Liverpool. Also appearing at this “Rock & Beat Spectacular” are Mike Berry, The Outlaws, and The Syd Munson Orchestra.

1963 – The Beatles perform at the Kungliga Tennishallen, Stockholm, Sweden. They play for two “houses.” The Beatles are second on the bill to the audience’s favorite, Joey Dee & the Starlighters although George Harrison is almost dragged off of the stage by enthusiastic fans.

1964 – The Beatles in the recording studio, Studio Two, EMI’s Abbey Road Studios, London. More recording for the “Beatles For Sale” album. Another break from their British tour spent in the studio. More recording for the “Beatles For Sale” album: “Honey Don’t” (5 takes); “What You’re Doing” (7 takes). They also record “Another Beatles Christmas Record,” to be mailed in December as a flexi-disc to Beatles Fan Club members.

1965 – The Beatles receive their M.B.E. medals from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. The media give extensive coverage to the event, with The Beatles conducting a press conference at the Saville Theatre (where they will film the video clip for “Hello Goodbye” in late 1967). According to John Lennon, The Beatles smoked marijuana in one of the palace bathrooms to calm their nerves. None of the other Beatles has confirmed this.

Whether you loved Paul the Octopus or not, a creature is dead. Play Abbey Road, if you’ve got it. Or simply enjoy a good song from Abbey Road about an octopus, written as a result of a mixed-up lunch order.

I was reading about various UFO waves in history and took quite an interest today in the ‘UFO Wave’ of October 1973.

Sightings 37 years ago were increasing dramatically across the United States. In turn, the increased sightings started to worry government officials.

“The increased sightings nationally could lead to a state of panic and hysteria and we ought to be concerned about it.” - U.S. Rep. J. Edward Roush (D-Ind.)

As quoted in the Columbus Citizen Journal
Oct. 18, 1973

So, as I was reading about the wave of 1973, I came across an article that includes UFO sightings in various parts of the country. It includes a layover in Hawaii, 37 years ago today.

I was extremely amused by it, so I thought that I would share it with you.

UFOs Visit Hawaii

The Crescent-News, Defiance, Ohio
Friday, October 26, 1973
From UPI

Hundreds of callers bombarded police and newspaper switchboards in Los Angeles Thursday reporting “shimmery, shiny” triangular- shaped objects in the sky, “just hanging up there” or moving very slowly.

Over Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, three firemen and an air traffic controller spotted an unidentified flying object (UFO), three times the size of Venus.

In Corvallis, Ore., the recent rash of UFO sightings prompted a radio station to offer $10,000 reward for the first living space visitor brought to the station.

Bob Houglum, manager of KLOO, stipulated that the extraterrestrial visitor, animal or person, “must never have been on Earth before.”

One woman caller in Los Angeles said, “From my window there’s a great big massive thing, and I’m not nuts.

“My friend called me to look and we had our mailman look. We didn’t want to seem nutty,” she said.

THEY WERE TETROONS

The objects turned out to be tetroons; plastic bags released in an air pollution study being conducted by Dr. William Perkins of Metronics Associates, Palo Alto, Calif., the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Air Resources Board.

In Hawaii, sightings have been made on several islands recently, some by newsmen, some by citizens. The latest was Thursday night, over Hilo, and was seen by firemen and an air traffic controller.

Lt. James Higashite Jr., a fireman, said it was moving east-northeast and three times as big as Venus. He said, “we are trained observers with binoculars and telescopes. It looked like a large star but it has artificial lighting.” He and two other firemen saw it.

So did Hilo airport traffic controller Harry Marks. Marks said no flights were in the area, and the object shot straight up into the sky 10 minutes after it appeared.

In Chillicothe, Ohio, Sheriff’s Deputy Dale Gillette captured a “spaceman” late Thursday night. The “spaceman” was wrapped in industrial strength aluminum foil from head to toe complete with antennae on his head.

Gillette said he found the “spaceman” in the middle of a rural road while on patrol.

“I shook my head and didn’t believe what I saw,” said a shaky Gillette.

He explained he jumped out of his cruiser, put the spotlight on the “spaceman,” who took off running. The deputy said he called for the “spaceman” to halt, then fired a warning shot.

Gillette said the “spaceman” stumbled on the road, lost his antennae. That is when Gillette captured him and took him to the Sheriff’s Department.

Officials would only say the “spaceman” was a 15 year-old youth.

Tons of gratitude to the work of the late Kenny Young, a UFO researcher from Ohio, who spent much time pulling the information together. To read more about the UFO Wave of 1973 (and there is MUCH more), visit Kenny’s website.

Last night, I heard one of my favourite songs by the 80′s band A Flock of Seagulls. It was “Space Age Love Song” from the band’s concept album about alien abduction. The song sparked random thoughts in my mind about the band, UFOs, Men in Black and aliens until I fell asleep.

This morning, I went outside and something caught my eye. I saw a flock of birds in the sky. Even with the far distance between me and the flock, I know that they were birds. There is no way that I could mistake birds for a UFO.

So, I started thinking about Kenneth Arnold. It is widely accepted that Arnold’s 1947 UFO sighting is where the term “flying saucer” or “flying disc” originated.  The term ‘UFO’ wouldn’t actually come until much later. Arnold’s sighting took place about two weeks before the famous Roswell incident. The case is noteworthy not only because of the origination of the term ‘flying saucer’, but for many different reasons.

Arnold, for those who don’t know, was an experienced pilot who was flying near Mount Rainier,WA on June 24, 1947. It was a business trip from Chehalis to Yakima, but he had taken a detour to try to locate a crashed C-46 transport plane. The detour was worth it for the $5,000 reward that was offered for the downed plane.

After searching for the plane for a while and not seeing anything, he decided to continue on to his original business destination. Then, he saw something.

Near Mineral, WA, he saw a bright flashing light. He looked around, afraid that he might be too close to another plane. He only saw another plane about 15 miles behind him. About 30 seconds later, he saw a series of bright flashes flying in a long chain. He first thought that they could be a flock of geese, but ruled it out. He thought that it could be a fleet of a new kind of jet, but they didn’t look like jets to him.

Arnold took the opportunity to gauge the speed of the objects. He calculated the speed at 1,700 miles an hour, but rounded it 1,200 miles per hour, due to the impossible speeds.

At the same time, a prospector named Fred Johnson seemed to have seen the same thing as Arnold. Johnson reported the sighting, which became the very first unexplained UFO report in Air Force files. The exact same objects were reported in other cities and towns in Washington around the same time Arnold saw them, with multiple witnesses – sixteen total.

Strangely, several hundred sightings of the same objects were reported in the following days from Phoenix to Tulsa in the United States, and also from around the world. One particular sighting in Idaho on July 4th would receive even more coverage than Arnold’s. Keep in mind that this was still 3 days before the Roswell incident.

There was initially support for Arnold’s sighting, evidenced by the following statement:

“It is the present opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold actually saw what he stated he saw. It is difficult to believe that a man of [his] character and apparent integrity would state that he saw objects and write up a report to the extent that he did if he did not see them.”

The Air Force would eventually conclude that Mr. Arnold had seen a mirage.

That brought to mind the insistence of people who “know what they saw” when an official explanation conflicts with what they believe they saw.

In Arnold’s case, there have been many speculations about what Arnold saw. The speculations continue to this day, despite the multiple collaborative witnesses (in different locations) who did not even know each other. Some say Arnold saw a flock of birds, specifically pelicans. Others speculated clouds, droplets of water on his window, or meteors.

A more recent speculation about the Arnold case piqued my interest. In a blog post from 2008, Richard Carrier had a theory:

Then I realized what it was. A flock of seagulls. About half a mile away. By matching them to the hills, I had grossly misperceived their distance, and consequently I was measuring their speed against the hills, which they were in fact nowhere near. My brain didn’t recognize them as birds, so instead it did its best, and saw only ovoid spinning objects. I am quite certain that’s exactly what I saw–which means my brain was misinterpreting the data and creating in my mind a completely inaccurate model of what the objects actually looked like. Once I realized they were birds, their proper shape and motion resolved in my mind’s eye and I could see them as seagulls plain as day.

It is very interesting how the mind works, I have to agree. We can take the random shapes of clouds, for example, and our mind associates them with familiar things. At times, it can take our minds a little longer to associate something we see with something familiar.

The post I am writing today, started with hearing a song from 1983 by A Flock of Seagulls, from a concept album about alien abduction. The band actually took their name from the lyrics of another band:  The Stranglers. The Stranglers had also released an alien concept album called The Gospel According to the Meninblack. That album, released in 1978, dealt with a connection between religion and extraterrestrials.

Partial lyrics from Toiler on the Sea by The Stranglers from which A Flock of Seagulls took their name:

And when we reached the land
We went aground on the rocks
Became a wreck in the sand
Became a home for a flock
We ventured overland
Fought with the aliens
The young ones used their hands
Pointed the way to a flock
A flock of seagulls
A flock of Seagulls
A flock of seagulls

Strange how the mind works, that I made a connection, in my mind, between Kenneth Arnold and A Flock of Seagulls. Whether it is generally accepted that I have made a valid case for this connection is really up to the individual reader. To some, this post is nothing but unrelated random thoughts that make no sense.

I do have a point, though.

While I saw a flock of birds this morning, I have no proof to present to you that prove that they were actually birds that I saw. It is just what is generally accepted about what I saw. I can argue with you that I know what I saw. Similarly, whether it is sky divers in El Paso, or balloons in New York, it is generally accepted that these explanations officially represent what was seen. This is despite some insisting that they know what they saw. They saw something else.

In Kenneth Arnold’s case, he knew what he saw, and it wasn’t a flock of seagulls, he would say. He and many others know that they saw on that day. To be fair, I suppose the same respect should be given to others who also recently say that they know what they saw, despite it not being generally accepted.

What is generally accepted, however, is that this is a great song by A Flock of Seagulls from a concept album about alien abduction from start to finish. It’ s the same one I heard last night. Play it in honor of Kenneth Arnold, who knew what he saw, despite what he saw not being generally accepted.