{"id":431,"date":"2007-08-10T10:27:33","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T18:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/10\/aliens-steal-rare-earth-metals\/"},"modified":"2007-08-10T10:31:15","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T18:31:15","slug":"aliens-steal-rare-earth-metals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/10\/aliens-steal-rare-earth-metals\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliens Steal Rare Earth Metals!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Someone recently stole samples <\/a>of fourteen distinct rare earth metals <\/a>from a Stanford lab. Elements with wild names like ytterbium, praesodymium, and holmium.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Right away I think there\u2019s an SF\/Ufological angle to this theft. I think it\u2019s obvious to any reasonable person that a saucer alien, time traveler, or cross-brane hopper needed this stuff to build a device to get back home.<\/p>\n

Or maybe the aliens don’t need the rare earth metals to build a device, per se, but rather they plan to use them as a tonic so as to enter a certain quantum computational state of consicousness which permits a teleportation hop.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I recall that my my moldie character Andrea was getting high off rare earths in my novel Freeware<\/em>. Quoting from the Freeware <\/em>notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Andrea gets high on chelated rare-earth polymers. The rare-earth elements, also called lanthanides, are Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Lutetium. Ytterbium was first found in a mineral called yttria in the 1890s near Ytterby, Sweden. \u201cYtterbium\u201d\u009d was first applied to a substance found in yttria that was in fact a compound of the elements lutetium and ytterbium. Yttrium, though not a rare earth, resembles the rare-earth elements and is often associated with them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a relevant quote from Freeware <\/em> itself:<\/p>\n

On the sidewalk outside the Boardwalk was Monique\u2019s mother Andrea, spread softly out on the pavement like a Colorado River toad, but a toad in the shape of a giant book lying open on the ground. The Good Book. Big gothic letters scrolled across the two exposed pages. Just now the letters read, Thou Shalt Not Hate Moldies<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoldies are sentient beings with genuine religious impulses,\u201d\u009d intoned Andrea. \u201cI\u2019m interested in pursuing a dialogue on this issue. Especially with single men!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d\u009d said Monique in an encrypted chirp. \u201cOne of these days a Heritagist tourist is going to pour alcohol on you and light you. A lot of Heritagists are Christians. Do you really think they dig seeing you, like, imitate their sacred book?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cGreetings, Monique,\u201d\u009d squawked Andrea cheerfully. \u201cI am in an ecstatic state of consciousness today. A potent yttrium-ytterbium-twist compound was provided to me this morning by cousin Emuline. It\u2019s made right here in California, they call it betty, I don\u2019t know why, maybe because \u201d\u02dcbetty\u2019 is almost \u201d\u02dcytterbium\u2019 spelled backwards, well that would be \u201d\u02dcmuibretty\u2019. Monique, your mother is lifted on fine, fine, muibretty betty. But what is your request, my dear daughter?”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That’s all….for now. Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for those rare earth element thieves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone recently stole samples of fourteen distinct rare earth metals from a Stanford lab. Elements with wild names like ytterbium, praesodymium, and holmium. Right away I think there\u2019s an SF\/Ufological angle to this theft. I think it\u2019s obvious to any reasonable person that a saucer alien, time traveler, or cross-brane hopper needed this stuff to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}