Mystery Thing

by wjw on July 16, 2011

I’m still up at Taos Toolbox teaching and doing critiques, and it’s taking up most of my time, so here’s something to amuse you while I’m otherwise occupied.

What is this thing?

Is this a still from a movie? Photoshop magic? An object that exists in our world, or only in someone’s imagination?

And even if you already know what it is, you can tell us what you think it should be.

Discuss.

Ken Thomas July 16, 2011 at 7:52 pm: Looks like that thing that hangs over top of that big watch-a-call-it. You know what I mean. It was on Contact. The radio observatory they built using the whole valley as a dish.
Urban July 16, 2011 at 7:57 pm: It’s the movable part of a radio telescope hanging over the stationary primary reflector. Probably Aricebo. But if it’s a receiver, radar transmitter or a secondary reflector inside the partial golf ball I don’t know.
edi moraru July 16, 2011 at 8:37 pm: Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Looks alien because it is photographed from an unusual angle.
Nice find.
Shash July 17, 2011 at 12:17 am: I’m glad the others also identify it as part of a radio telescope. Or it’s a steampunk artichoke. But I think the radio telescope is more likely.
David W. Goldman July 17, 2011 at 7:11 am: It’s a large pointer, pointing downward to a perforated metal shield which during the 70s prevented DEA aircraft from using sight or radar to detect the small field of marijuana plants growing beneath (where significant sunlight arrived through the perforations in the metal).

At least, so I was told by a graduate student when I visited this site in the early 80s.
Kathy Hedges July 17, 2011 at 10:09 am: The Group Mind is just too quick for you, Walter. It’s the receiver at the focal point of the Aricebo radio telescope. The receiver is moveable because the telescope itself can’t be steered. The golf ball protects instrumentation from inclement weather.
Patricia R July 17, 2011 at 6:18 pm: Alien Masonic Lodge marker. Eye, inside a circle, inside a triangle.
Anonymous July 18, 2011 at 9:32 pm: Imagination FAIL
Warren Marts July 22, 2011 at 2:20 pm: High powered omnidirectional subwoofer used by Hotblack Desiato’s band “Disaster Area”. Six one-inch 50KV power cables. Maximal output 750 decimals. Did you know that sound, pure rock sound can kill?