The past two times the Mercury editorial staff has gone to Vegas in order to get ourselves drunk and throw away all of our money, I've somehow managed to trick some of my less fortunate coworkers into going to Star Trek: The Experience with me. At Star Trek: The Experience, which is hosted deep in the dusty, long-forgotten bowels of the Las Vegas Hilton, you get to pay entirely too much money (like 50 bucks or something similarly ridiculous) to ride a so-so Star Tours-ripoff ride and look at a bunch of old Star Trek props. (People get married there, too, on a replica of the Enterprise's bridge.) But hands down the best part of Star Trek: The Experience is Quark's Restaurant and Bar, where Klingons and Andorians wander about making small talk, and where you can order bullshit novelty drinks like a "Warp Core Breach" and bullshit novelty food like a "Hamborger." If nothing else, it's a really great place to get drunk off of shitty beer with blue food coloring in it Romulan Ale.

Or, rather, it was. Since all good things must come to an end (HA!), today word comes that Star Trek: The Experience is closing its super-futuristic doors, thanks to steadily declining attendance and the fact that the Las Vegas Hilton believes that more "money could be made using the space for other purposes."

The whole story's over at Trek Movie, where the comments are better than the actual article. They range from "Frak that," to "My wife and I live here in Vegas and go to SSTE about twice a week," to:

Stupid stupid mistake! I wanted to get married there. of course i needed to find someone first. This sucks!

does the words live long and prosper mean anything?

Indeed.

On this date in 1947, not far from here in the skies surrounding Mt. Rainer, pilot Kenneth Arnold spots unidentified flying objects while on a search mission for a downed military transport plane. Here’s a synopsis of events from Wired:

As Arnold recalled, the afternoon was crystal clear, and he was cruising at an altitude of 9,200 feet. A minute or two after noting a DC-4 about 15 miles behind and to the left of him, he was startled by something bright reflecting off his plane. At first he thought he had nearly hit another aircraft but as he looked off in the direction the light had come from, he saw nine "peculiar-looking" aircraft flying rapidly in formation toward Mt. Rainier.
As these strange, tailless craft flew between his plane and Mt. Rainier and then off toward distant Mt. Adams, Arnold noted their remarkable speed -- he later calculated that they were moving at around 1,700 mph -- and said he got a pretty good look at their black silhouettes outlined against Rainier's snowy peak.

During a report to the media about his close encounter, he coined the term flying saucer.

The zaniness soon began! Here’s to over 60 years of hoaxes, grainy photographs, cover-ups, X-Files, Steven Spielberg, wing-nuts, and alien autopsies. Not sure if the truth is out there, but at least it’s entertaining and maybe even a little creepy at times.


Spermatozoa, dust on the lens, swamp gas, aluminum foil Frisbees