Aliens

Beam Us Up
The following thread was abducted (or unravelled) from a newsgroup,
and originally entitled 'Alien Attacks'.

I know it's not a common problem, but since there are hundreds of messages per day discussing almost non-existent non-issues like getting stuck behind bikes for five minutes at a time, and killer pavement cyclists, I thought I'd ask. What do people do while cycling, to avoid being abducted by aliens in flying saucers using spooky green tractor beams?
Glenn

I tend to use tinfoil under my cycling cap. I have known others who have tried other metals, but you don't see them around any longer.
Bob

I second this, but must suggest that Reynolds is the preferred brand name. Copper wrist bands also seem to help. Don't use lightning rods. This can invalidate your insurance.
John

As the only person who has apparently had the experience of being abducted by aliens, I feel I should share my defense mechanism, which worked infallibly. I merely told them I knew Dave Mayall, and they admitted that alien life already existed on Earth and let me go.
Burt the bike

But you haven't had the pleasure of meeting me.
Dave

Ah, but the aliens have.
James

I find riding along in a diamond-encrusted white Elvis jump suit deters them. He is, after all, their commander. And they all live on Jimi Hendrix's Moonbase with Glenn Miller and Lord Lucan. Watch out for the new non-phenomenon, Driller Killers on Recumbents!
Stephen

I ride a Marin Full Suspension. The vast number of other riders using them gives them just too much choice and they usually then look for somebody on something a little less common.
Dave

Cycle well out from the kerb, dominating the lane. It is important to assert yourself as a road user; do not let traffic conditions suck you into dangerous manoeuvres or spacecraft. If you are ever attacked by aliens, do not cycle on the pavement to avoid them: this is annoying to pedestrians and gives cyclists a bad name. Although you may feel safer in one, there is no obligation to use the green tractor beam -- you have just as much right to use the main tractor beam as other traffic does. Always wear a helmet: they are easily strong enough to protect you against collision at light speed, as well as all forms of alien attack including the big long probe things they might use. Of course, in such incidents the police will invariably take the side of the alien, labelling the abducted cyclist as a hallucinating weirdo.
Thomas

I slipstreamed a spooky green tractor (John Deere). Does that count?
BugBear

Use a Brooks leather saddle. Aliens hate the smell of Proofide.
Roger

Bugger all. When they see me huffing, puffing and sweating they figure I wouldn't survive the trauma of the green tractor beam and are therefore not worthwhile.
Peter

Thank you. I now have your intergalactic references (e-mail addresses in your low tech world). We will be collecting you all later. Resistance is useless.
Zog
PS. We need some female examples. Why is it only the males have replied???

Sexist Alien Pig. 'Dave' can be a girl's name too.
Live Long and Prosper.
Dave

If you have some male and female pig samples too it would be even better. I have never heard 'Dave' used as a woman's name.
Zog

You've never seen me in a dress.
Dave

A 3v lithium cell concealed in the rear hub creates an electromagnetic field in the spokes, which are distributed tangentially and can interfere with most types of tractor beam. The polarisation of these waves depends upon the amount of wheel dish and the lacing pattern. Shorter spokes throw off a larger field, but longer spokes throw it further. Double butted spokes have the advantage of a variable magnetic field along their length, which really fools the aliens! Try to ensure that your wheel's angular velocity is such that the EM waves are in antiphase which the tractor beam... a selection of close ratio sprockets should help. You are aiming to give off waves that are a multiple of the wavelength of green light (405nm?).
Rich

You silly person!! Everyone knows the tractor beams are BLUE.
Carol

Ahh -- the female specimen we need.
Zog

Several months later this theme was revisited in another newsgroup, rec.bicycles.misc

An interesting bit of work on a topic of great importance to all of us. However, the solution is easily at hand for a select few. A couple of years ago, Troxel manufactured a small number of helmets with a titanium shell which was designed with dimples like golf balls. Though purportedly these helmets are aerodynamically superior, the real reason for their manufacture was to protect against alien tractor beams.

I am one of the fortunate few to be in possession of one of these helmets, and so far I have not been successfully abducted.

However, lest anyone be sceptical, I can say truthfully that many times while riding, it has felt like there were Alien Tractor beams pulling me from behind, slowing me down drastically. But with the help of my Trusty Titanium Troxel I have been able to break free and burst forth with new vigor and energy.

Anyone still doubting this only has to reference the results of the various Time Trials I have ridden. It is clear that from my times that the only possible explanation is that Alien Tractor Beams are slowing me down.
Jon

http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
Pete

Pete's contribution, a simple URL, undoubtedly opened a doorway of perception to some readers. To others, such as Eric, below, it was old news. But first we reproduce the relevant passage from Lyle Zapato's shocking site, which details the tangential but still vexing problem of mental domination and offers a solution: the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. [Special note to British readers: aluminum only has one 'i']:

Because of aluminum's psychotronic-deflecting properties, it has also been used by mind-control agents to aim and focus their signals. For example: the small aluminum pyramid at the top of the Washington Monument obelisk (which towers over Washington DC) is used as a focal point for the dissemination of mind-control throughout the Capital. Stations run by the FBI, NSA, Disney, the Secret Service, and others are scattered around the Capital beltway, within line-of-sight of the Washington Monument. These stations aim their psychotrons at the top of it, which amplifies and radiates the signal out to affect the Course of the Empire. (This is also why the One Dollar bill has an all seeing eye over the pyramid on the back, with the phrase "New World Order" in Latin. It symbolizes the true nature of the American Democratic Process.)

It's definitely true about the Washington Monument. All you have to do is cycle along the Mall, and you will see dozens of people staring as if hypnotized at the ominous obelisk. Doubtless the aluminum cap has something to do with it. But did aliens build it to control tourists, or is the truth more subtle?

What is the first (well, the second) thing that a cyclist notices about the Mall? Well, that's a rhetorical question. It's obviously the bicycles. Dozens of them, operated in near perfect synchrony with the many carefully designed roads surrounding the obelisk, AND MOST OF THEM HAVE ALUMINUM RIMS.

This is not a coincidence.

This is clearly a foresighted plan on the part of the Monument's builders to forestall alien invasion. These giants of engineering realized that if enough rotating aluminum were arrayed around a central focus, that the resultant psychotronic field would repel even the most determined attempts at invasion.

Of course this was the SDI of the 1880s. Even though the builders of the Monument were aware that aluminum rims would be a much later development of bicycle science, they knew that it would come. So they built it. The Monument, that is.

What is the most egregious military failure in American history? Vietnam? Korea? The Somalia thing? No, it was the burning of the capital city during the War of 1812. That sucked, and that is why it became necessary to turn to strategic materials to prevent a repeat. Since the construction of the Washington Monument no alien power has successfully attacked the capital. In the Civil War even the deterrent effect of a half-built Monument was sufficient to forestall Confederate aggression, because they knew that the aluminum capstone was ready for instant deployment.

But the builders knew that a great power was rising in the East, and they knew that the power of the aluminum capstone alone would not be enough.

"No," they said, and I paraphrase, "We must surround the mighty obelisk with rotating rings of aluminum, many of them." This, they felt, would channel the deterrence. But there were few rotating rings of aluminum at that time. Most of the rotating rings were made of steel, and some were made of wood.

As time went on, the educational efforts of the builders began to take hold. "Earth Versus the Flying Saucers" graphically illustrated what could happen to the capital if not enough aluminum were available.

So, as was shown in earlier crises, industry pitched in to ensure that enough aluminum rims were available. By 1975, the average road bike in the Nation's Capital had aluminum rims, and by 1990 the steel rim was all but a memory -- just in time for the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been argued elsewhere that when the steel rim lost market dominance in the US, the Soviet Union fell.

Such is the power of aluminum, and we happily cycle along under the aegis of the mighty Monument, little knowing that we are on the rim of history.
Eric

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