Think you were abducted by aliens? Researchers say it was a dream

By: Matthew Jackson, Source: Blastr.com

Thousands of people have been brave enough (or crazy enough, depending on whom you ask) to come forward in the last half-century with tales of alien abductions in the dead of night. It’s a widespread phenomenon, but researchers are adding fuel to the skeptic fire with claims that what you think of as a real experience was really just a “lucid dream.”

Results from an experiment last fall by the Out-of-Body Experience Research Center in California show that out of 20 volunteers, 35 percent of them were able to have out-of-body experiences in which they encountered aliens. Lead researcher Michael Raduga said that the participants were all coached to “separate from their bodies” every time they were half-awake during the night, and some of them actually got somewhere.

James Cameron promises his Battle Angel project ain’t dead yet

By: Matthew Jackson, Source: Blastr.com

Ever since we heard over the weekend that James Cameron is super dedicated to the Avatar franchise, we’ve been wondering what’s to become of his long-awaited big-screen adaptation of Battle Angel Alita. Is the project doomed? Cameron himself has just weighed in, and he says no way.

Over the weekend Cameron declared to the New York Times that he’s in “in the Avatar business. Period.” He elaborated that he’s got no plans to pick up any new scripts or produce any new flicks from other filmmakers. Apart from documentaries, deep sea exploration and asteroid mining, he sounded devoted to nothing else but two (maybe three) more visits to Pandora.

NASA’s $300 million plan to send 6 probes hunting Martians by 2018

By Matthew Jackson, Source: Blastr.com

A few months ago, we heard that NASA’s determined to launch some kind of new Mars mission by 2018 regardless of budget cuts. Now a proposed plan for just such a mission has been revealed, and it’s one of the most ambitious searches for Martian life yet.

The Biological Oxidant and Life Detection (BOLD) Mission calls for six 130-pound pyramid-shaped “penetrator” probes to impact the surface of Mars at six different points, embedding themselves at least four inches into the Martian soil to search for life beneath the Red Planet’s irradiated surface. If approved, BOLD will be the first Mars mission dedicated to solely to a life search since NASA’s Viking landers in 1975, and proponents argue that this time there’s a much greater chance of conclusive results.

Maurice Sendak, author of ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ dies at age 83

by Stephan Lee, Source: EW.com

Beloved children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak died today at the age of 83, according to the New York Times. The cause of death was complications after a recent stroke. A true creative force with singular vision, he rose to international prominence in 1963 with his classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are, which tells the story of a mischievous young boy who escapes to an imagined world full of wild forests and fanged beasts. Following his first publication in 1947, Sendak wrote and illustrated dozens of best-selling and critically acclaimed titles in addition to designing sets for operas and producing TV series based on his books.

Guillermo Del Toro says Prometheus killed his Mountains of Madness`

By Don Kaye, Source: Blastr.com

Director Guillermo Del Toro has revealed that his personal dream project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, may finally be dead once and for all. And Ridley Scott killed it.

As previously reported, Del Toro spent 12 years developing a big-screen version of Lovecraft’s classic novella only to see Universal Pictures pull the plug last year after balking at the film’s R-rated horror content and massive $150 million budget. But although Del Toro still held out hope at the time of getting the movie made some day, that hope may now have faded for good.