You ain't gonna believe this one...

One of my favourite literary characters is Lazarus Long from Robert Heinlein's `Future History` series of books and stories. Large numbers of wonderful quotes (many of which I have appropriated for my own use) have been attributed to him, and one of the best is:

Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity

I get reminded of this regularly, but I think that the following story really takes the biscuit. The headline reads:

Giant Mystery Skeleton Satellite Images, Discovered on Google Earth

Hmmmm. Well, I have been fascinated by Google Earth for some years now, and on one occasion found a beached whale image on the cost of Namibia, so I suppose that to find the skeleton of a whale - or even an elephant, might not be quite that impossible. So I read on.

Views of Mystery Object Help Confirm Skeletal Shape. A mysterious object rises out of the bleak Saudi Arabian wilderness, and by most accounts it looks like a giant insect skeleton in satellite photographs. Now, almost a year after its initial discovery, three-dimensional views of the object are helping define its actual shape.

C'mon guys. I want a description. What animal has left these singular remains? By this time my imagination is working overtime, and I am beginning to hypothesise the bones of a long dead species of megafauna, or a dinosaur, so - excitedly I read on...

In anyone's estimation, the object's size is indeed enormous, extending 1,900 feet from head to tail, with an upper torso about the size of a football field.

Oh for goodness sake. What is this nonsense? It turns out that this is some idiot fundamentalist claiming to have found the bones of behemoth of the Old Testament. It is idiots like this who give us Christians a bad name. No wonder everyone hates us!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1495627/giant_mystery_skeleton_satellite_images.htmlStereoscopic