"Illumined Black" Back in Print (updated: 9/27)

 

Wormhole - photograph of a local KC, MO sculpture - 2000, Mac Tonnies.

"What does the mind experience when severed from the body?

What are the ultimate limits of artistic expression in a post-human age?

These intriguing questions and more are answered in Mac Tonnies' macabre, mind-expanding collection of science-fiction short stories... 

Originally published in 1995, Illumined Black was a sensation among the science-fiction community. Mac Tonnies was a radical new voice in the genre, and his storytelling — combining JG Ballard, Philip K Dick, and internet-age verve — was a breath of fresh air"

This new Solar Press edition of Illumined Black greatly expands on the long out-of-print first-edition, containing both the original 9 story 'Illumined Black' collection, and 9 new stories collected from magazines, ezines, and the Mac Tonnies archive — including 'One-Hundred Years,' Mac's apocalyptic magnum opus, originally published in Flurb #3 (edited by cyberpunk godfather Rudy Rucker)."

- Several quotes from the Solar Press "Illuminated Black" page announcing its new edition of what was the first publication of Mac's fiction. (The original edition is inset left, above, and is discussed in this post.) Mac was all of 20 years old at the time, but, already his aesthetic sentience was boiling over with new forms.

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Black is back!

Think of it as a belated gift for Mac's 50th birthday, projected forward in time: the republication of Illumined Black in a new package (inset right).

Aesthetically, I feel that Mac would've preferred one of his own illuminations gracing it's cover... like his photograph "Wormhole" circa 2000, (cropped and rotated). But, well, I was not in the loop on this one.

Regardless, this is good news, and long overdue! The addition of new material is a special treat. My thanks go out to all involved, and, as ever, to Dana Tonnies, who enabled the news to appear here.

(More good news below the jump)

50 Years Ago Today...

Credit: Space Universe by Digital Dreamscape.

Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multiverse!

Mac would've turned 50 today; a sobering thought for myself and, I suspect, for those who knew him. But, I think, turning 50 would not have been as big of a deal for Mac. For one thing, I believe he'd remain eternally youthful at heart. I also imagine he'd possibly be a crypto currency multi-millionaire by now. And, that would be a good thing, but, I have my doubts about how comfortable he'd feel living in the present political climate in the country in which he was born. All that comes to my mind is how much he enjoyed visiting Paul Kimball in Nova Scotia.

He loved Nova Scotia.

About today's AI video, well, it's a cool, ancient-future kind of thing with plenty of magnificently designed spaceships. I know Mac would appreciate the spaceships. What got me is the frame they chose to present the video. It isn't merely a weirdly attractive image, it's Golden.*

Would Mac love AI? I wonder. (My guess is that he'd love the videos for sure and might want to create his own. For more spacecraft from Digital Dreamscape try this Stargate-themed offering.)

Below are some links for further entertainment. It seems, in spite of the "present political climate" science is flourishing. So, if science (and art) are flourishing, Mac would probably assume things weren't too bad... especially if he was a multi-millionaire! ;-)

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Photos show the cosmic calling of extraterrestrial enthusiasts at Indonesia’s UFO Festival

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New Research Finds That ChatGPT Secretly Has a Deep Anti-Human Bias

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How far will AI go to defend its own survival?

"Recent safety tests show some AI models are capable of sabotaging commands or even resorting to blackmail to avoid being turned off or replaced."

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The ‘dead internet theory’ makes eerie claims about an AI-run web. The truth is more sinister

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Scientists discover new type of life form living in the human body

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"Third state" of existence between life and death confirmed by scientists

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A 'Third State' Exists Between Life and Death—And That Suggests Your Cells Are Conscious, Some Scientists Say

“But the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a ‘third state’ that lies beyond the traditional boundaries of life and death.”

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* In other words, if ever an image needed a Phi-shell this would be it. See the Golden Meme footnote in Clouds, Time & Spiraling Planes.

AI Alchemy

 

The cicadas are in full swing today. At least, the metallic drone-like sound is similar. However, last night, I noticed a weird, overly large green bug outside on the cement wall of the motel - a kind of alien grasshopper - which was weird enough to be an AI confection. I have just learned via Google, however, that the katydid makes shorter sounds, not the long, extended pneumatic-drilling whine of what is the annual NM cicada I am currently hearing.

Incidentally, I learned all of the above in about 3 minutes. Of course, you realize this would not have been possible 30 years ago (in the century I was born). I wonder if anyone has charted the effects of such rapid-fire information gathering on human life, intellect and consciousness... and, cumulatively, what we can refer to as the Collective, that is: all species of intelligence and consciousness, which we've only begun to acknowledge.

Moving right along, we arrive at another broad topic, alchemy, and why the "chemical" constituents of the universe behave like they do. Hermetically, this is the fool's journey which leads to wisdom. Does this apply to the example of AI Alchemy above with all its digitally-enhanced minerals undergoing contrived chemical reactions? Well, yes and no. But, who cares? It's eye-candy, addictive, and it's at one's fingertips... thanks to AI artist/alchemists over at Vimora ASMR.

(Note: Ah, but it's possible to do so much more with labradorite!)

Interestingly, this video was given a warning label: "Altered or synthetic content. Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated." Apparently, this was necessary because enough people were assuming it was real. I've been mistaken myself with a few AI videos and think warning labels are a good idea.

Meanwhile, the aptly named Dog Days of summer are drifting by again in the angst-ridden, hot August winds. But, although this is never a good thing - and this year it's potentially Ground Zero - we have one reason to party: it's time for Mac's 2025 birthday celebration!

See you then.

Related links:

This just found, another, cool alchemical video by AIDITOR: Virtual Lab Alchemy - The Complete Elemental Experiments.

Scientists Baffled by "Alien Mineral" That Acts in a Weird Way When Heated Up

Rebirth

 

Somewhere near the middle of this video a series of transdimensional shifts occur - worlds seamlessly spill into other worlds - which I find strangely satisfying. The video's maker -Tetouze - is also a musician and this might explain Rebirth's engaging fluidity. Enjoy!

An interesting and related article from Big Think:

The cinematograph, the “noematograph,” and the future of AI art

Hugo-winning author Ken Liu explores what early cinema and Chinese poetry can teach us about AI’s potential as a new artistic medium.

The Giant Awakens

 

The Giant Awakens, a cumulonimbus cloud formation over the Sandias, Albuquerque, NM - filtered cellphone photo - 2025, DS.

"According to the legend passed down from the Quinnipiacs, a wise man cast a sleeping spell on Hobbomock and stopped his destructive rampage. He gave him plenty of sleep-inducing oysters to eat, and the giant fell to the ground on his back, where he remains to this day, still sleeping.

But someday, the story goes, the sleep spell will wear off, and Hobbomock will awaken, hungry once more."

- Regardless of how destructive the giant is described in this excerpt of text (found here), the Sleeping Giants were primarily the good guys in Native American tales. In a similar Ute tale the Giant saves the People from an ogre and, in his honor his body is surrounded by rattlesnakes which are there to protect his remains... in case he returns.

Meanwhile, Hobbomock is in reality the steward of Nature's entities - be they plants or animals - and it's only when the People disrespect his kingdom will he become a menacing figure.

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The Giant Awakens - detail

It's monsoon season in New Mexico. It rains at least twice a day... and this is good for several reasons. One reason is that, between sudden downpours, the sky transforms into something spectacular.

This post features one cloud formation that was so bizarre, my cellphone could not capture it. Whatever I witnessed that Sunday evening hardly resembled what my device recorded. What I saw was a gigantic, ark-like cloud (visually) butting up against a nearby tree. The camera, however, saw the sequence of images found below the jump (with their time & date stamps).

(continued below the jump...)

More AI Eye-Candy: Alien Realms

 

When Alice (that is, moi) jumped down the Safe Haven portal she inevitably, but delightfully, discovered Alien Realms, the YouTube channel from which the video shown (above), Floraxis, emerged. (Also: Floraxis 2)

Well, there's absolutely no way I can resist organically designed structures so I was hooked from the very first frame. And, there's a mysterious (and lovely) alien, too... all quite delectable.

What's more, other potential worlds are also explored. Try Xylos or Vexillia. Gorgeous, gorgeous!

While Floraxis, Xylos, and Vexillia might not qualify as authentic "Safe Havens" - and I've yet to qualify the meme - they surely are worthy of a visit or two!

Cloud Cities on Venus

Clouds seem to be an ongoing topic over at Trans-D these days. But, oddly enough, Cloud Cities have appeared on this blog before: in 2011, in a post introducing the work of Venezuelan artist, Tomás Saraceno. (But, the video (above) about cloud cities - which may or not be scientifically feasible (although NASA is allegedly involved)* - is of a different persuasion. However, art and science are conjoined in both examples... which leads us to a third Cloud City... which began as iCloud, a data storage service, but morphed into a digital real estate market. From the article:

"Indeed, the urban populace is now utterly reliant on cloud-based platforms, accessed via their cloud-connected devices, for everything from remote working to navigating transit systems, ordering groceries to finding a life partner. As these activities continue to feed into analytics and prediction platforms – in the cloud, naturally – the ultimate shape of these emergent, integrated urban systems is yet to be decided."

Somewhere there seems to be a meme developing here. However, for a different cloud experience see my corresponding post Growing Roses in the Clouds - A Safe Haven.

Also see the BBC's: The Amazing Cloud Cities We Could Build on Venus, and this Tomás Saraceno page.

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* (See comment section.)

The Crow-kins Unite! (New video link, April 13, 2025)

The Growing Resistance... (detail) - ceramic - 2025, BG Dodson.

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Here’s what to know about Saturday’s ‘Hands Off!’ anti-Trump protests

"The “Hands Off!” rallies are taking place in more than 1,000 cities across all 50 states, and nearly 400,000 people have signed up to attend them...

'Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them,” the movement’s website states. “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!'"

Video (above): HANDS OFF! Chicago, IL, USA, 4/5/2025) 

‘Hands Off!’ protesters across US rally against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk

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Comic Relief:

SNL - Trump Tariff Cold Open

NEW!

Trump Easter 2025 Cold Open - SNL

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Tens of thousands in France join protests against racism and far right

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Thousands of Slovaks protest in Bratislava against PM Robert Fico and his Russia-friendly policies

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Hungarian Opposition Rallies in Massive Protest Against Orbán’s Rule

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Serbia's largest-ever rally sees 325,000 protest against government

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Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the courage to brawl for the working class

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Hundreds of thousands join mass opposition protest in Istanbul

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Everywhere around the world a rallying cry is beginning to rise... against tyranny... against censorship, against incompetency and indifference to injustice. Perhaps, it's humanity's last stand before the self-designated overlords do what overlords do best: suppress... oppress... distress.

It pays to stay one step ahead. We might ask ourselves: "where will I be a year from now?" If present global trends continue - that is, the continuing disablement of the working class* - the choices we have may be limited. This applies especially to the most vulnerable members of society. (Inset left, Dodson's Scenes from the Circus of Dreams, 2023.)

How do the powerless practice dissent? First, keep in mind, no true individual, nor group of individuals is without power. We swim in the same primordial ocean. We each have the ability - and the authority - to express ourselves. And, if, within our lifetimes our autonomy is threatened, it is our responsibility to defend it. It is our right; it is our life. And, so it goes...

(Continued below the jump)

The Cosmic Web & other discoveries

Cosmic Web

First Direct Image of the Cosmic Web Reveals the Universe’s Hidden Highways

"Dark matter, which makes up about 85% of all matter in the Universe, plays a crucial role in shaping cosmic structures. Under gravity’s influence, it forms a vast, intricate web of filaments. At the intersections of these filaments, the brightest galaxies take shape. This cosmic web serves as the backbone of the Universe, guiding the flow of gas that fuels star formation in galaxies."

(Inset left is an image of my own which can be found here.)

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Credit: Florian Sterl, Sterltech Optics.

Greetings from the fourth dimension: Scientists glimpse 4D crystal structure using surface wave patterns

"A tesseract (a four-dimensional cube) and the "shadow" it casts on a plane—the quasicrystal discovered by Shechtman. According to Prof. Bartal, "The fact that a quasicrystal is a 'shadow' of a periodic crystal in a higher dimension is not new in itself. What we discovered is that the projection includes not only the structure but also topologically properties such as vortices."

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Scientists Uncover Colossal Underground Water Reservoir, Surpassing All Earth’s Oceans Combined

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Sunrise on the moon! Private Blue Ghost lander captures amazing shot after historic lunar touchdown (photo)

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World's first 'body in a box' biological computer uses human brain cells with silicon-based computing

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Gemini AI tells the user to die — the answer appeared out of nowhere when the user asked Google's Gemini for help with his homework

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Images Show Entire "Universe" of Circular Structure That Can Only Be Seen as Radio Signals

"It's comprised of radio sources so faint they have never been seen before."

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110 years later, Einstein is still winning bets – the Euclid telescope has discovered a ring in space-time

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List of top 10 eVTOL companies in 2025

"eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing)"

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Years After the Early Death of a Math Genius, Her Ideas Gain New Life

"A new proof extends the work of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, cementing her legacy as a pioneer of alien mathematical realms."

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Entity #64

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Archaeologists Followed a Sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. It Led to Secret Tunnels Under an Ancient Castle

AI Eye-Candy

When it comes to AI art many artists are still on the fence. But, one argument in its favor would have to be the amazingly beautiful Surrealism found in the AI videos of Kelly Boesch.

The video featured above is just the tip of the iceberg... many more treats can be found at Kelly Boesch Ai Art.

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Helicoid with two handles: Image credit Ulrich Pinkall.

IMAGINARY - Open Mathematics (source for the image above)

2nd CERN Art and Science Summit

The Nexus Between Art and Science: Growing a New Naturalism

Found Object: A Curious Doodle

A curious doodle - ballpoint pen on notebook paper - by an unidentified artist.
(Click to enlarge.)

(This post was originally constructed - as is - in 2021. For a number of reasons, it was stalled in draft mode... but, I found it again recently and decided to let it fly.)

"Automatic drawing... was developed by the surrealists, as a means of expressing the subconscious. In automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move "randomly" across the paper. In applying chance and accident to mark-making, drawing is to a large extent freed of rational control. Hence the drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and may reveal something of the psyche, which would otherwise be repressed. Examples of automatic drawing were produced by mediums and practitioners of the psychic arts. It was thought by some Spiritualists to be a spirit control that was producing the drawing while physically taking control of the medium's body."

- From the Wiki entry for Surrealist automatism. Inset right is a 1907 automatic painting by Spiritualist artist (and mystic) Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) found here.

"Austin Osman Spare (30 December 1886 – 15 May 1956) was an English artist and occultist who worked as both a draughtsman and a painter. Influenced by symbolism and art nouveau his art was known for its clear use of line, and its depiction of monstrous and sexual imagery. In an occult capacity, he developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self."

- From the Wiki entry for Austin Spare. For more Austin Spare see the Addendum of this Trans-D post.

"The rest of Austin Osman Spare’s life was spent in abject poverty, collecting cats that he usually spent his money feeding instead of himself, and drawing portraits of South Londoners in pubs for beer money. It was during this time that he would develop his deeply personal and unique system of magick, revolving around the use of “sigils” to unlock the buried abilitiçes of the unconscious mind, and communion with otherworldly forces through the trance medium of painting itself. Spare also claimed to regularly seek to shock his unconscious mind into trances of occult power by engaging in sex with exceedingly ugly or aged women (possibly another Spare exaggeration).

Austin Osman Spare likely would have been completely forgotten were it not for Kenneth Grant, an over-enthusiastic young man who had grown up on H. P. Lovecraft books, who never shook the conviction that Lovecraft was writing codified non-fiction, and who soon undertook a lifelong pursuit of Magick. Like Israel Regardie before him, Grant came into Crowley’s orbit, becoming his secretary in the final years of his life; Crowley obliged the young man by demonstrating occult processes like ether-assisted astral travel."

- Excerpt from Jason Louv's wonderful article: The Strange Life of Austin Osman Spare, Chaos Magician. Inset left is Spare's unique interpretation of the astrological sign of Capricorn - his own birth sign - found here.

"A symbol is in a certain mystical sense identical with that which it symbolizes. A true symbol should be a perfect vehicle for the sum total of energy which goes to inform it; it is thus equal to that which it symbolizes because its energy becomes infinite when belief in it is vital. Belief, to be effective, must be vital, dynamic; it must work subconsciously even to the extent of its denial in consciousness. When it is vitalized by being sunk into subliminal depths it bypasses the ego, is suppressed by the censor and thereby forgotten; hence desire is aroused and this exhausts the conscious content of belief. Absentmindedness then becomes the means of its apotheosis."

- Excerpt from Kenneth Grants's Austin Osman Spare: An introduction to his psycho-magical philosophy.

"I am interested only in the unknown and I work for my own astonishment."

- Via the great Surrealist - and master of automatism - Roberto Marta. whose untitled work (1965) appears above, inset right. It was sourced from his amazing website. 

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The doodle which appears at the beginning of this post was found several months ago in a book I was cataloguing for a friend. It was a tedious textbook about biological statistics entitled Biometry and the name M. Smartt was scribbled in ink on the front endpaper. My guess is that the doodle emerged in a college classroom during a particularly boring lecture, and, as for the artist, well, let's just say that he or she was compelled to escape into a more surreal, imaginal dimension. On the other hand, doodling is also known as an indirect way to concentrate and multitask.

(New text, 2/13/2025.)

The common doodle is possibly the rawest form of automatism there is. Ideally, it can bring to light the unconscious murmurings of the psyche in it's symbolic language.

For an artist or writer a doodle can be the seed for a larger creation. A good doodle is an almost magical thing, so it's not at all unusual that it would find it's way into the occult world.

As for the amazing doodle above, well, it almost seems like a narrative of a sci-fi creation myth. Not only that, you might even find bit of your own story somewhere among it's multitude of vignettes. Seriously, study it for a bit... it's teeming with symbols!

Just for fun: Doodle Art Alley.

Also see: The Garden of Earthly Delights by H. Bosch.

Odds & Ends

 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com.

Physicists Harness 13,000 Entangled Spins To Unlock the Power of the “Dark State”

"Quantum dots just became serious contenders for quantum networks. By stabilizing nuclear spins into a robust quantum register, researchers have cleared a major hurdle toward scalable quantum communication and computing."

- Via SciTechDaily.com.

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Digital image, 2006, DS.

"Welcome to Enigma, the largest alert network for UAP/UFO sightings.

Share your sighting

By reporting your sighting, you’re helping thousands of scientists, researchers, and witnesses like you crowdsolve this age old mystery."

Added note (2/16/2025): I neglected to mention it, but I heard about Enigma from an unusual source. Recently, PBS, the public broadcasting television station here in the States, broadcast its first NOVA episode devoted to UFOs. See it here.

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• Russian Scientists Develop a Plasma Engine Capable of Reaching Mars in 30 Days—Spacex’s Starship Could Become Obsolete

• Third form of magnetism, recently confirmed, could transform electronics

• When a Man’s AI Girlfriend Encouraged Him to Kill Himself, Its Creator Says It Was Working as Intended

• New type of nuclear fusion discovered: We could now produce infinite energy

• Schrödinger's Cat breakthrough could usher in the 'Holy Grail' of quantum computing, making them error-proof

• "Dark oxygen" discovery upends centuries of scientific beliefs, textbooks to be rewritten

• Cosmic first: supermassive black hole caught “turning on” in real-time

• Rare Earths and Rare Tech Podcast. Podcast #1: Canada's Rare Earth Future

 

• Microwaving grapes not just a party trick

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Cassiopeia A Light Echoes

"Even as a star dies, its light endures—echoing across the cosmos."

The 8th Day of Christmas

The Christmas Tree Cluster

"This release features a composite image of a cluster of young stars looking decidedly like a cosmic Christmas tree! The cluster, known as NGC 2264, is in our Milky Way Galaxy, about 2,500 light-years from Earth. Some of the stars in the cluster are relatively small, and some are relatively large, ranging from one tenth to seven times the mass of our Sun."

The 12 Days of Christmas

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December, 2024 Link-dump:

Jacques Vallee on the last 50 years of UFO research: “We have not learned anything new about their identity

AI-generated UFO video shows how fast visual truth is slipping away

The “Whisperverse”: The future of mobile computing is an AI voice inside your head

Is AI Art Bad?

This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.

Solar System Space Opera

Scientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension

Searching for dark matter through the fifth dimension

Team presents first demonstration of quantum teleportation over busy internet cables

Annual UFO report finds 21 cases of more than 700 received need more analysis

Experts testify before lawmakers that the U.S. is running secret UAP programs

After decades of denial, the Pentagon finally admits it’s baffled by UFOs

Negative time, discovered for the first time in history: It goes from the future to the past

Happy New Year!