UFOs – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Finally Saw the Movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still”

We watched the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” today. It was made in 1951 and I’d never seen it. Sena thinks she did a long time ago. You can watch it on the Internet Archive. Similar movies didn’t make much of a splash, some of which you might remember:

“The Sacking of Punxsutawney Phil”: An expose of how the groundhog gets fired because it can’t reliably predict when spring begins.

“The Loser Always Pays the Bill”: A delightful comedy about two guys who play Rock, Paper. Scissors 30,000 times to decide who pays for lunch.

“Let’s Get Stewed to the Gills”: An experimental film in which 3 college freshmen find ways to cope with higher education by pouring beer in everything they consume.

Anyway, the movie is about an extraterrestrial named Klaatu and his robot Gort who land in Washington, D.C. to warn everybody that it’s best not to blow up Earth and other nearby planets with nuclear weapons unless you want the robot cops like Gort from Venus to spank everybody in sight.

I can’t poke fun at this movie like I do with all the Svengoolie films. The story is fascinating, the acting is superb, and it’s been called one of the 12 greatest science fiction films of all time by none other than Arthur C. Clarke (according to Wikipedia). The cast includes Michael Rennie as Klaatu, Patricia Neal as Helen Benson, and Sam Jaffe as Professor Jacob Barnhardt.

It was based on a short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, which you can read in its entirety on the web because the person who posted it says there’s no record of copyright currently on file.

I read “Farewell to the Master” and I can say I’m glad the movie used the name Gort instead of Gnut for the giant robot.

Now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m still inclined to speculate that maybe Frank E. Stranges got the idea for his book “Stranger at the Pentagon” from it, but there’s no way to prove it. If you google the name of the character Valiant Thor in Stranges book, you’ll get photographs back of a man who happens to be an Australian actor named Cody Fern who was on a TV show I’ve never seen, “American Horror Story.” He played Valiant Thor and this contributes to the lore surrounding a fictional character and tends to give it a sort of semblance of reality. Stranges contributed to the mystique by presenting the events in the story as historical fact.

But the importance of the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is the warning to the leaders of the nations of the world in the early days of the Cold War (and even today) that playing with nuclear matches is a bad idea.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pentagon

So, just for laughs I sometimes watch Ancient Aliens (you know, the UFO show with the hair dude). Last night, they were talking about some guy named Valiant Thor as if he were a real person. Maybe some of you know about the book, “Stranger at the Pentagon,” which you can read for free on the Internet Archive. I just quickly clicked through the pdf of it and it’s pretty interesting. The one I saw had sections about Men in Black (MIB) in it, which of course means Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are even older than we think.

It was written in 1967 by Dr. Frank E. Stranges and it’s supposedly a story of an extraterrestrial named Valiant Thor who presented to the White House in the 1950s and spoke to President Eisenhower and others, giving the urgent message that Earthlings need to shape up or the planet would be destroyed.

OK, the spoiler is that there’s no evidence this ever happened, although many people, like Fox Mulder, want to believe.

I want to believe, too but there’s no official record Vai (as Valiant Thor is sometimes called in the book) ever lived at the White House, although maybe he snorted something you can sometimes find in the White House but nobody officially will admit that ever happens either.

One person stated that the idea for the book might have come from the 1951 film “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Artificial Intelligence (who always butts in to my web searches) doubted it’s ever been on the Svengoolie TV show, but I found a Facebook post from 2025 which called it a “Sven fan favorite.” It’s probably never been on Svengoolie because it’s far too classy. There’s an interesting article about it on Turner Classic Movies but I don’t know if TCM ever showed it.

As near as I can tell from just from what I’ve read on the web about this movie is that it was made in the early Cold War days and it’s really sending a message to mankind warning them away from killing everybody and the planet and instead strive to establish peace in the world. It’s long been regarded as a cinema masterpiece.

Did it influence Dr. Stranges to write the book “Stranger at the Pentagon”? I don’t know, but some people think so, judging from one social media comment. I think that person might have been put off by the attempt to make it sound like it was historically accurate, which is what many people seem to think.

In my opinion, the whole yarn about Valiant Thor is fiction that, while not historically accurate, is compelling enough to make you think about how important it is for national leaders and people who live on the planet to try and clean up our act. Efforts to make this story seem like it actually happened backfires and misses the point.

By the way, none of this has anything to do with Bigfoot.

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “Dracula” (1931)

So, the upcoming Svengoolie movie is “Dracula” released in 1931 starring Bela Lugosi. They tried to get George Burns to star in it, but he refused to take the cigar out of his mouth long enough to put the fangs in.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this classic vampire flick in which the story differed from the Bram Stoker novel in that Soupy Sales was substituted to play Renfield who traveled to Transylvania instead of Jonathan Harker to sell real estate to Count Dracula. This, of course, could only be accomplished by contacting the extraterrestrials to create a wormhole in which time travel could be accomplished by bending the wormhole tightly enough to snatch Soupy from the future, which was lucky because it prevented him from making the disastrous on-air joke in 1965 in which he “suggested” to kids to get “green pieces of paper” (money) from their parents and mail it to him.

If you don’t remember the story that way then you’re either suffering from the Mandela Effect or the ETs got to you as well.

Anyway, except for the switch in characters, the action goes pretty much to plan the way Stoker wrote it up except for the ironic issue of Lugosi actually being quite fond of garlic which led to him eating the stuff while filming in addition to filching it in between takes and taking it back to his trailer to share it with Lon Chaney, who was feeling pretty bad for not getting the Dracula role in the first place because, despite it being offered to him first, he was later rejected because he couldn’t stop turning into the Wolf Man at inopportune moments during the screen test when the cue card person kept turning the card upside down. His growls sounded inside out, which struck the director as silly, which got him laughing so much he got the hiccups.

Anyway, Lugosi got the part and he’s remembered for unforgettable lines like the ones below:

Count Dracula: This is a very old wine. I hope you like it.

Renfield: Aren’t you drinking?

Count Dracula: I never drink since I took the pledge.

Well, I may have got a couple of details wrong, but that never hurts anything.

Try to Lift Just One Eyebrow Without Picking Your Nose!

I ran across a couple of interesting articles today and I thought I’d pass this along. One article is about kids who pick boogers out of their nose and eat them. Another is about how to lift one eyebrow only.

I bet a lot of people try to learn how to lift one eyebrow. I also bet that nobody would ever admit they pick their nose and dine on the boogers. Well, I never picked my nose but when I was in the 1^st or 2^nd grade, one of my classmates used to do this. The teacher would get really mad because no matter how many times she told him to stop, he would just do it anyway.

He tried to be sneaky about it, but pretty soon the whole class could catch him at it. We could barely get through class because we were so busy spying on him-and gagging when we caught him.

I tried to see if I could lift just my right eyebrow. I wondered if I could do it without much practice because I had surgery to repair a retinal tear on my right eye a few years ago. Does it look like my brow on the right is a little more wrinkled? See what you think. And can you tell if it’s more prominent if I stick an extraterrestrial up my left nostril? Examine the photos carefully. Take your time and get back to me. I did not eat the ET, I swear.

Groundhog Day Finally Explained

Well, by now everybody has heard the official news about what Punxsutawney Phil saw this morning since it’s Groundhog Day. On the other hand, the unofficial news is this: for some reason he saw extraterrestrials instead of his shadow. I know about it only because a drunken official calling me from the Pentagon spilled the beans to me and abruptly hung up just before he passed out.

Apparently, they were looking for a decent rib joint, which they’re always on the lookout for after traveling halfway across the galaxy.

You have to question the ETs preference for using so much fuel and creating missing time and hallucinations for thousands of people gathered for this time-honored and totally bogus event which the editors of The Old Farmer’s Almanac repeatedly try to debunk in a futile attempt to educate us about the seasons.

What almost nobody knows is that recently declassified government documents obtained by Brer Rabbit has led to the discovery of yet another conspiracy to hoodwink the American people about the ETs preoccupation with finding the best BBQ rib joint in the galaxy, which is genetically linked to their inability to distinguish humans from woodland creatures whose only real purpose in life is to dig holes in the ground so they can secretly write books circulated only amongst groundhogs about how silly it is for humans to call them ridiculous names like “whistle pigs.”

The truth is groundhogs know perfectly well how the seasons change and it has nothing to do with them—it’s all about the tooth fairy. But…ETs can’t handle the truth, as Col. Jessup has repeatedly pointed out in countless memes and gifs over the years.

We can only hope this deplorable state of affairs will be rectified when scientists eventually back engineer and reverse the polarities of the device (which is, trust me, stored in a cardboard box in a garage in Area 51) ETs use to hypnotize the criminals amongst their own kind into endlessly flying around in their souped up Tic-Tac UFOs in the absolutely pointless search for the perfect rib joint—all because the ET leaders can’t come up with a better solution to close the gaps in their worthless criminal justice system.

I hope I have made all this clear. Happy Groundhog Day!

The Extraterrestrial and Mutilated Soybean Hybridization Program in Iowa

After watching a number of TV shows about extraterrestrials (ETs), I had this vivid dream about ETs invading Iowa.

Apparently, I had somehow driven out on some highway that was not clearly marked, maybe Highway 20 which the National Weather Service always mentions as a sort of boundary line between a howling, disastrous tornadimohurricannibalistic storm and utter tranquility a few miles north of us.

I got out of the car and noticed up in the sky a gigantimonguous craft shaped like a triquetra. It was eerily silent as it passed just inches above my head and it glowed multiple colors like the NBC peacock.

Suddenly, 3 beings who resembled the 3 stooges (except their heads were tiny) floated out of the craft and took me hostage. They kept arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to exsanguinate me and then fuse me with a soybean plant they had previously mutilated. Apparently, they had tipped a few cows in the process and slipped in the pasture, falling into an area full of cow pies.

I told them they smelled bad and suggested they try Mando, the deodorant that is nothing like the scented stuff which, if you apply it, is exactly like turning up your car radio when the engine rattles—hey, it just masks the problem.

I guess that hurt their feelings and they told me they were going to stick some kind of implant in my nose so they could track me because they could hear my nose whistle and find me anywhere. I told them I’m allergic to ET implants and I would just sneeze it out. I had them there.

Then they tried to communicate with me telepathically but I knew how to counter that trick. I just thought really hard about good barbecued ribs, which made them hungry. They asked me where they could find a decent rib joint and I told them how to get to Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack in Iowa City.

So we head on over there and I help them order. They weren’t sure what to drink, so I suggested water because I saw this trick in the movie, Signs. It didn’t work as I expected and they just acted like they were drunk.

Then, of all things, they wanted to go to Area 51, and we just zipped over there. On the way, they picked up Bob Lazar who drew pictures of them. He asked me why they had barbecue sauce all over their faces and I just told him they had bad manners.

Finally, I woke up and I swear I’m going to limit how much kale I eat next time.

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “Flight 7500”!

The upcoming Svengoolie movie this coming Saturday is “Flight 7500.” It reminds me of one of our vacation trips when Sena asked for an extra bag of peanuts from the attendant, who promised she would return with another bag—and never did. Sena’s never forgotten that.

I think that’s kind of how things go on airplanes. I’m not big on airline food and not keen on flying at all. I remember sitting next to an elderly guy (Har! Look who’s talking!) who was probably more nervous about flying than I was (as if that were possible).

As we were taking off, he pressed a little button on his hand or his wrist (can’t remember exactly) that was attached to a wristband. I remember thinking it might have had something to do with acupressure points. I looked this up today and it turns out that there’s a point called Union Valley and it’s in the webbing between your thumb and index finger. Or maybe it was the Inner Frontier Gate point, which is about 3 finger widths below your wrist. I know it wasn’t the Shoulder Well point because that can induce labor. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t pregnant.

Anyway, this movie looks like it could make you nervous. It was released in 2014, which is pretty unusual for Svengoolie. On the other hand, it’ll be the Sven Squad that’ll be in charge of it because Svengoolie is taking the night off. I gather he’ll be doing that once a month now. The Sven Squad members are Nostalgiaferatoo, Imp (Ignatius Malvolio Prankenstein who calls Svengoolie his uncle), and Gwengoolie. They usually do the 2^nd film of a double feature—which I can’t stay awake for.

I think Nostalgiaferatoo and Imp will play rock, paper, scissors more than 30,000 times to see who does most of the talking about the movie.

Anyway, the gist of the plot is that passengers start to feel a little queasy after their in-flight meal of beef jerky and turnip pastries and start hallucinating little monsters out on the wings which they keep telling the pilot about who is a little too busy to pay much attention because he’s distracted by the half-dozen or so UFOs zipping around just outside the front window which dodge the windshield wipers so fast it reminds him of the Men in Black movie in which Nick can’t clean off the bug parts of the big dragonfly that hits his window, so he has to take a break and orders his copilot to run back into the cabin and slap some of the passengers who are playing around with a Ouija Board and dousing rods, conjuring up demons who are demanding macaroni and cheese with Pepto-Bismol sauce, cheating at dominoes, and wondering when William Shatner is going to sign up for a sequel to the Twilight Zone smash hit, “And Don’t Call Me Shirley,” featuring a dozen or so nuns who are slapping the hysterical passengers who are unable to open the restroom door because Bigfoot is having THE USUAL PROBLEM of constipation from too much beef jerky…OK, I guess that’s not exactly how the movie goes, but I’m close!

Florida Man News!

We saw the news story about the Florida Man who recently got busted by the cops in Ormond, Florida after he stole a BMW and when he was stopped for going 130 mph (about 5 mph over the local speed limit), he thanked the police for saving him from the extraterrestrials who evidently had teleported him into the BMW. Well, that explains everything!

This is just further evidence on top of what has already been thoroughly documented by Dave Barry in his 2016 documentary book, “Best State Ever; A Florida Man Defends His Homeland.”

Did you hear about the blackout in Florida?

People were stuck on the escalators for 4 hours.

I used to have a ton of Dave Barry books. I got hooked on his humor shortly after I graduated from Iowa State University back in the 1980s. I was in a post graduate program in Medical Technology in a Des Moines hospital and back then you could always find a newspaper on some tables in the cafeteria.

Over the years, I lost many of his books during moves. Sena would ask me something like “Do you really still want all these Dave Barry books?” I knew better than to say “These are very important examples of timeless prose exemplifying humor literature that will be excavated in the distant future by archaeologists who will preserve them in hermetically sealed glass bookcases so people can admire the covers.”

I just threw them out. Please don’t tell Dave.

Anyway, I have managed to preserve a photo of Florida Woman, taken in Miami many years ago. Let this be a lesson to you: never call your wife “Florida Woman” unless you want to live the rest of your life in a refrigerator packing box—although you can use duct tape to seal off those cracks to keep the wind and snow out.

Did you know there’s a song titled “Florida Man”? Believe it or not I heard it a couple of years ago on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK radio. It’s by Selwyn Birchwood who is from—that’s right, Tampa, Florida. The song was released by—you guessed it, Alligator Records.

And here’s Iowa Man:

Jim with 48 inch pusher plow shovel and new coveralls

Men in Black 5 a Thing Now?

I just saw something on the web which look like Men in Black 5 could be for real. Supposedly, maybe, I dunno—but I hope so.

It may be more than a rumor, but there are doubts about whether Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will reprise their roles as Agents K & J respectively. Sony Pictures may or may not be confirming this depending on what article you read. Maybe somebody is drafting a script but I’m not sure.

I can’t confirm whether Frank the talking pug will be in it, but I doubt it because I think he passed away. Agent K will get around pretty well in a plutonium powered mobility scooter and Agent J will take Serutan (remember, that’s Natures spelled backward!) just before pressing the little red button.

Serleena will not stick her 3-foot-long green tongue into Agent K’s ear. I can never stand to watch that part.

Yours truly might be involved—but I really can’t say at this time because I’m still negotiating my contract.

Thank you for your time.

Thanksgiving Day 2025 Tabloid News!

Today is the day for the 2025 Thanksgiving Day Tabloid News and you better believe this paper’s got issues. Eat turkey, watch football, take a nap from all that turkey.

This post’s title was inspired by (what else?) lines from the first Men in Black movie:

Agent K: [at newsstand] We’ll check the hot sheets.

Agent J: *These* are the hot sheets?

Agent K: Best investigative reporting on the planet. Read the New York Times if you want, they get lucky sometimes.

Agent J: I cannot believe you’re looking for tips in the supermarket tabloids.

Agent K: [front-age article about farmer’s stolen skin] Not looking for. Found.

Anyway, today is a special day because we’re waiting for some new items: a premium Cribbage Wars board from Ebonwood with resin inlays. We’re also waiting for extra pegs. These acrylic and brass pegs just shipped from the United Kingdom, which doesn’t charge tariffs. Michaud Toys makes a game board they call Cribbage Rumble (actually the same game as Cribbage Wars), but they’re currently not shipping to the U.S. because of the tariff situation.

We’re still playing Cribbage Wars on our economical little board with tiny peg holes. We’re finding out we like it so much we’d prefer a larger board so we can at least see what we’re pegging without a magnifying glass.

Sena still wins most of the games. I’m working on my strategy.

Happy Thanksgiving!