Originally published at: Australian authorities warn locals to stay away from the mysterious metal cylinder on the beach | Boing Boing
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Mysterious cylinder that appears to be part of a space craft?
Let’s get someone to sneeze at it.
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My thoughts precisely. Has anyone checked to see if it’s labelled: ‘Warning: contains Martians’?
Although they wouldn’t stand a chance against the local wildlife.
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It’s never a good idea to fool around with large metal cylinders or spheres that wash up on the beach.
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I, for one, welcome our new bass-slapping overlords.
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Obviously The Man just wants to hoard the succulent hydrazine for himself.
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A Redditor picked it out as part of an Indian rocket yesterday:
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1515q3w/comment/js6wa7z/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
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That’s good news for anyone coming near it. The third stage uses solid fuel rather than the scary duo of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide burned in PSLV’s second stage.
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It appears to be full of industrial calcium in its purest form. Folks should definitely stay away from that, we don’t want a Helvetica Scenario.
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Probably not necessary. The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million-to-one.
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I’m both embarrassed and amused at how long it took to realize you weren’t talking about abusing a fish.
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Well at least it’s not America pissing off Australia with falling space debris this time.
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I prefer all my scenarios in Times New Roman.
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Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
- Terry Pratchett
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Well, if you’d heard this clip, you wouldn’t have wondered 
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That album is so damned addicting. Once I hear any little piece of it, I feel compelled to listed to thw whole work!
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At least we sent them a fine for littering
Unfortunately the fine was paid by a radio station in 2009.
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A colleague in the '90s at Rocketdyne once got exposed to a propellant at our Santa Sue Field labs. MMH? NTO? One of that lab’s experimental high-energy propellants being fiddled with back then? We didn’t know, but exposure to something hazardous was strongly suspected as he had been supporting an associated program. All we definitely knew was that something was very wrong as he walked into our department after about a month of absence from his own department: His entire body had… inflated. Even his hands. Blown up from his normal small slim frame. Compounding his situation, his wife and their little daughter (for reasons unknown to the rest of us) had left to stay with her parents in Japan. This was just a week before Christmas and the poor dude was alone. Several of us in his and our department got together and told him to buckle up for a guys-only night out on New Years Eve. We showed up at his place in suits and topcoats. He, in jeans, saw us, turned around to change into something else (kid’s toys still strewn about the living room floor; sad), and came back properly dressed for a long night at the Universal City Walk (theaters/good restaurants/band venues/crowds) at the Universal Studios Hollywood. Later, hugs and handshakes and well wishes at midnight. Fucking chemicals.
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Are these ‘authorities’ dumb? Obviously part of a rocket… they could at least say that, no? Instead of some salacious mystery object. ohh, ahhh… what could it be?
Then they say keep away because whatever it is, could be dangerous (it could also be perfectly safe if you take an optimist view).
For good measure, these same authorities don’t do squat to remove it, or post a guard around this potentially dangerous item. The public and media can come down for days and poke around.
Are these the same authorities who warn about goblins under your bed so don’t look, cower under the covers in fear?
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Yeah. We had Questions for the kid who started the rumour it was gonna fall on our school…
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