re: Killer pterosaurs, scifi angle --- further adrift.....

[Allan Edels <edels@msn.com>]

Actually, that idea has been floated before - almost seriously!  (Not 
really:)

At SVP 1986 dinner, someone held up a Weekly World News (*)  that had the 
feature story:  "Martian Game Hunters killed off the Dinosaurs!"

Basically, the story is that the Martians (who had spaceships that used 
Iridium drives), came to earth to collect dinosaur big game.  For the most 
part, they collected the heads (for stuffing back on Mars???), using their 
Iridium rayguns.  Thus explaining why so many dinosaurs are "headless 
wonders".

As is usual, the Martians got greedy, and overloaded their gigantic 
spacecraft, which crashed and blew up, covering the earth with a thick layer 
of Iridium dust.  This killed all the rest of the dinosaurs.  Those animals 
that survived were lucky (i.e. birds, mammals, current reptilians, fish, 
etc.) - or Iridium dust didn't bother them.

This, of course, doesn't explain why no other Martians arrived afterwards - 
or since.  (Of course, the WWN has told us for years that Martians have been 
abducting people, so maybe they're right! :))

It also doesn't explain why Mosasaurs, Ammonites, etc. died out.

Also, Dr. Who had an explanation for the destruction of the dinosaurs - the 
Cybermen tried to crash a very large spaceship into eath, but one of the 
doctor's companions (Adric) sacrificed himself in order to cause the 
crashing ship to go back in time over 65 million years, thereby killing off 
the dinosaurs. (See, it wasn't a meteor of asteroid or comet that hit the 
Yucatan, it was a very large spaceship! :-).


Allan Edels

*  - For those who are unaware of it, the Weekly World News is a 'newspaper' 
that prints the wildest speculations about absolutely everything.  From 
aliens endorsing George W. Bush and meeting with all of the US presidents 
since WWII, to Elvis is alive stories, to JFK is alive stories.  They often 
have stories about dinosaurs, mammoths, the Loch Ness Monster (aka "Nessie") 
[and its baby!], and other cryptozoology.


> From: David Peters <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: davidrpeters@earthlink.net
> To: dinoworld@msn.com, dinosaur list <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> Subject: re: Killer pterosaurs, scifi angle
> Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 06:10:27 -0500
>
> The end times of the K/T event would have been the perfect time to go
> back in time, as big game hunters, and do your worst. Hey, they were all
> going to die anyway! And with rocks coming out of the sky and Deccan
> traps, think of the showcase!
>
> (not really my philosophy, just wanted to toss that hand grenade in as a
> sci-fi floater).
>
> David Peters
> St. Louis