A long time ago I was witness to a case of mistaken identity that came close to having disastrous results. This took place at the first home I remember living as a child. I was still quite young, 5 years old or so, I think, and had two older sisters and one younger brother.
Our family had close relationships with several of our neighbors. On this particular day, we – my mom and us kids – had been somewhere with another neighbor family. They dropped us off at our house and as we walked up to our front door, we all saw it – an animal in the flower bed that was next to the front steps. My brother, who is 2 ½ years younger than I am, toddled towards this animal, calling “Kitty, kitty, kitty” and holding out his hand.
Well. This creature did bear some resemblance to a cat – a long-haired black and white cat – but it definitely wasn’t what any of the rest of us would call a kitty.
All of us girls were struck dumb with shock and horror, because we knew what could happen if our brother tried to pet the animal. I was too scared to move but luckily my mom was not. I rarely saw my mother running, but she did then – and the sight of my mom sprinting and snatching up my brother before he could get closer to this creature would have made me laugh out loud, if I hadn’t been so frightened.
Somehow we managed to all get in the house without anything disastrous happening. Later, I heard that the cute black and white animal was probably rabid, so who knows what would have happened if my brother had managed to get close to this “kitty.” Oddly enough, now my brother has a special way with cats, but I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what is and what isn’t a kitty and will never again mistake a skunk for a cat.
(skunk photo: Kevin Collins / CC-BY 2.0)
When have you been involved in or witnessed a terrible case of mistaken identity?
The Curiosity mission continues to amaze. Not only is it technically sophisticated, it is well documented. Just as with a dad at Disney World, the video camera is constantly running on so we can always remember how much fun the kids had when we went on that long, long trip! Here’s dad’s note in his vacation journal:
By far the highlight was that huge, huge drop off of Space Mountain. I got some great HD footage from the moment our darling little Curio dropped his heat shield. I told him not to dangle it underneath us, but some kids just won’t listen! In the footage, you can watch it fall all the way down, just like last year when my right sandal dropped into the kids’ barnyard from the State Fair Sky Glider. Good thing we noticed which corn stalk it landed next to so we could go back and get it! On this Space Drop, though, there was no doubt the whole point of the ride was to shake you loose. And it worked. Curio has assured me he’s not going to go on a roller coaster ride like that ever again. From now on, it’s 50 feet at a time, and then only if we go very, very slowly!
Too bad there was no camera positioned to get our shocked expressions. It felt like we were going to crash right into the Mars! As it was, we got covered in red dust. Yuk! But if anyone saw us coming in, I’ll bet we made an impressive (and funny) sight!
The directors of the Curiosity mission on Mars are planning a road trip for the rover. Just like so many of us do in late August, NASA will pack the family in the car and go sightseeing. Even though we just got done spending what felt like YEARS in space, we have to look at something new? Can’t we just stay in one place?
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Apparently not. In this case the new attraction is named Glenelg, which has some interest for the scientists because three different kinds of terrain intersect there. I don’t know the textbook terminology for it, but basically there’s some stuff that looks like it could be bedrock, some other crater marked stuff that might be quite old, and lots more of the stuff that Curiosity landed on.
Glenelg is a palindrome, and the planners named it thus because Curiosity will visit the spot twice. Once on the way to the base of Mt. Sharp, and once on the way back.
This is how engineers amuse themselves.
Following the travels of Curiosity will be fun if you are the sort of person who happens to find driving very slowly and looking at rocks delightful. Teenage joyriders may lack the patience for this particular trip, but we have the mission planners to thank for giving us a nice variety of rocks to enjoy. Rocks, boulders, outcroppings, chunks, lumps. Mars Rover watchers will see plenty of terrain and will learn many new words to describe dusty red nuggets over the next weeks, months and years.
Here’s what I’m waiting to find out – when Curiosity starts claw at the ground with its shovel, will we say it is digging holes in the Mars?
If a similar rover from another civilization was sent to Earth on a quest to explore some scenic spot where multiple kinds of terrain intersect, I’m certain its mission planners would land it at the Lengby Rest Area in Polk County, Minnesota.
The Red Triangle Inside A Circle Marks Our Landing SpotThere’s Landing Space Between These Metallic Outcroppings!
There are lots of good reasons for curious aliens to do this. For one, there’s a flat parking area, so their rover can be lowered onto an even surface. It would be a particular challenge for the engineers to pick a location that’s empty – my recommendation is to go for one of the first spots you come to – far away from the trash cans, the commode, and vending. But those exciting features could be part of a future road trip for the Earth Rover, once it has found its bearings and established a link with the home planet.
Those New Chryslers Just Get Uglier and Uglier
And there’s summer tourism, of course. People up from the Cities would take pictures of the extraterrestrial machine as it takes pictures of them. Actual aliens would be off-putting and we’d ignore them as long as they ignored us, though we’d talk behind their backs and make all sorts of unflattering assumptions about them. But if they sent their machines, well, that kind of space traveler is a little more approachable. I’ve been to the Minneapolis Auto Show. If it has four wheels, it will draw a crowd.
But the best reason is that Minnesota is home to four different biomes and all four of them come together within a few miles of that potty break paradise between Erskine and McIntosh. There’s Coniferous Forest to the Northeast, Tall Grass Aspen Parkland to the Northwest, Prairie Grassland to the West and South, and Deciduous Forest to the South and East. What a treat for an automated rover sent from a place like Tatooine, which we all know is a desert planet in a binary star system. Those parched taxpayers would want to get their money’s worth, and the Lengby Rest Area would deliver. All this different terrain to look at!
The only problem – the Lengby Rest Area is situated in the median, so the machine will have to cross Highway 2 to get to the good stuff. But that’s just another kind of scientific discovery – do Minnesota drivers brake for exploratory robots? Sometimes you have to go there to find out.
Trail Baboon 