‘Human sacrifice’ staged at CERN's Shiva Statue

[brainpanhandler]

Not sure if this has been mentioned:

According to the OP the Statue of Shiva is located between buildings 39 and 40.

The statue is on permanent display in the square between buildings 39 and 40, a short distance from the Main Building.

https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737?ln=de

Looking at various photographs this appears to be true. Building 39 is a hostel. So are 41 and 38.

From the CERN Housing Service page:



http://smb-dep.web.cern.ch/en/CERN_Housing

This places the ritual near where people visiting for all the reasons people visit CERN would be staying. Another DATA point that perhaps suggests a prank as that is where the young people on campus would be housed. That's not the only way to see that I suppose.

Evangelical Christians have taken an interest in CERN, well before this apparent mock human sacrifice. Opening the gates of hell and all. Trying to suss the origins of the universe from some source other than the Holy Bible. Eeevil scientists. Might that explain the choice of this prank? Freak all the nutty christians out?

This woman is from Tennessee, the American South. Very polite.



Does anyone else feel like the person recording the video of the ritual is likely an American?

[MacCruiskeen]

Does anyone else feel like the person recording the video of the ritual is likely an American?

bph, I have now heard a couple of people describe his accent as 'American' and a couple of others describe it as 'English'. This kind of baffles me. To me he sounds definitely Australian. His Aussie accent is pretty strong. It's especially noticeable in his vowels when he says "What the fuck?", but also in the expletives at the end.

That should make him even easier to identify. There can't be all too many Australians there.

- The video was posted before, btw, and discussed briefly. I'll find the page and link to it. - Here, on p.5.(Ha! It was you who posted it and I who discussed it.)

[stickdog99]

"Staged"? "Spoof"? "Prank"? Well, OK, if you say so...

‘Human sacrifice’ staged at Cern, home of the God Particle

Cern says that the ritual could undermine the actual science that goes on at the organisation

The Independent, Aug 18th 2016

Andrew Griffin 42 comments

A human sacrifice has been staged in the grounds of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, the home of the God Particle.

A video circulating online shows hooded figures apparently engaging in a ritual, staged under a huge statue of a Hindu deity, at the end of which a woman is stabbed.

But the footage appears to have been recorded as part of a prank by scientists at Europe’s top physics lab, which serves as the home of the Lagre Hadron Collider. The identity and motives of those behind the video hasn’t yet been discovered.

In the footage itself, multiple people are shown wearing long, flowing black robes – and one appears to have hiking boots on underneath. They are depicted walking around, before a woman moves onto the floor and is apparently stabbed.

As that happens, the person who is supposedly recording the video appears to react – firing out expletives and apparently running away, which causes the camera to move away from the scene before it is cut off.

The ceremony took place under the large states of the Hindu deity Shiva, which permanently stands at the complex. In both the video and real life, it is lit from below – which means that a huge shadow is cast across the building behind.

The Shiva statue was a “gift from India to celebrate its association with Cern”, according to the institution’s website.

“This deity was chosen by the Indian government because of a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the ‘cosmic dance’ of subatomic particles,” the organisation says on a website unrelated to the prank. “India is one of CERN’s observer states, along with the USA, Russia and Japan.

A Cern spokesperson confirmed that the video had been filmed there, but said that it had been made without permission or knowledge. Cern said that it doesn’t “condone this type of spoof” because it can “give rise to misunderstandings about the scientific nature of our work”.

[...]


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 96881.html

I can't help wonder why the Nick Berg video did not this same video appraisal.

[stickdog99]

This guy too, the one in the raincoat. Doesn't he realise that all opinions are equally valid??

I'm going to just chalk it up to cultural differences. Maybe in the UK the normal reaction to disagreeing with someone is to insult them (is doss cunt appropriate?), share a pint, and then move on. Maybe that's jerky behavior over there, too, and Mac is just a jerk.

I live in the American South, where I guess people are more polite about things (they keep the real bad stuff behind closed doors, don't you know). If I'm having a discussion with someone here, on the street or in the office, and a person starts in the way you do, it causes an argument and eventually a fight. Being rude in the South starts brawls.

Likesay, cultural differences.

[MacCruiskeen]

I can't help wonder why the Nick Berg video did not this same video appraisal.

Yeah, the contrast is really striking, isn't it? Instant unanimity and gimlet-eyed insistence. That Guardian screed really goes all-in to make it absolutely clear What To Think About This Fake Prank Spoof Joke Video Which Is Definitely Not Real:

As that happens, the person who is supposedly recording the video appears to react – firing out expletives and apparently running away ...

(Shurely that should have been "apparently happens", "apparent person" and "apparent expletives"? Sloppy work, Guardian.)

[MacCruiskeen]

Mac said:

Another point: Notice the lighting, a permanent fixture there which is designed to cast giant shadows of Shiva in several directions, upwards, onto several walls.

(It's a distinctly creepy effect in itself. Why would CERN want that? How would it tend to affect the mentality of people working there at night? It's not exactly a cheerer-upper.)

It's Art. Public Art. A gift. Shiva represents the cosmic cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Yes, Blue, I do know that it's art Art, Public Art, a Gift. And I do know what Shiva represents. That's why I said all those things myself, earlier in this thread. But thank you for Thank You For The Reminder, Nonetheless.

My point was about the lighting, as you can see in the post you just quoted, if you examine it with a powerful microscope.

About the security issue. I doubt if they are monitoring all 300 (where did that number come from?) cameras 24/7. Guards are human. It was the middle of the night.

That number came from the CERN website, as I mentioned while posting the link to that section of that website earlier in this thread. And yes, there is a dedicated on-site Surveillance Centre, where all the surveillance cameras are centrally administered - as I said, while posting that very link, at the very same time on the very same page of the very same thread.

Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for. (And yes, my patience is endless. That is a duty imposed upon me by a Higher Power.)


"Nae bother. Naw, I can manage fine, it's a doddle."

[brainpanhandler]

Does anyone else feel like the person recording the video of the ritual is likely an American?

bph, I have now heard a couple of people describe his accent as 'American' and a couple of others describe it as 'English'. This kind of baffles me. To me he sounds definitely Australian. His Aussie accent is pretty strong. It's especially noticeable in his vowels when he says "What the fuck?", but also in the expletives at the end.

I hear that now.

- The video was posted before, btw, and discussed briefly. I'll find the page and link to it. - Here, on p.5.(Ha! It was you who posted it and I who discussed it.)

About that video... I wonder if Christian evangelicals showing up and proselytizing is a rare or a common occurrence.

If common and people working and studying at CERN frequently run into these people then that might suggest inspiration for the ritual.

[guruilla]

Evangelical Christians have taken an interest in CERN, well before this apparent mock human sacrifice. Opening the gates of hell and all. Trying to suss the origins of the universe from some source other than the Holy Bible. Eeevil scientists. Might that explain the choice of this prank? Freak all the nutty christians out?

Which is eerily reminiscent of the recent ASS prank, or "prank," discussed elsewhere.

So then the hooded "pranksters" weren't real Satanists, only, er, "satanists." Still, either a theme's emerging or I'm turning into a Christian. Or maybe just a "christian."

[MacCruiskeen]

About that video... I wonder if Christian evangelicals showing up and proselytizing is a rare or a common occurrence.

If common and people working and studying at CERN frequently run into these people then that might suggest inspiration for the ritual.

Yes.

But. They had no fear of the guards and cameras? And they had no worries about being kicked off the course in disgrace? Ten of them?

[PufPuf93]

Evangelical Christians have taken an interest in CERN, well before this apparent mock human sacrifice. Opening the gates of hell and all. Trying to suss the origins of the universe from some source other than the Holy Bible. Eeevil scientists. Might that explain the choice of this prank? Freak all the nutty christians out?

Which is eerily reminiscent of the recent ASS prank, or "prank," discussed elsewhere.

So then the hooded "pranksters" weren't real Satanists, only, er, "satanists." Still, either a theme's emerging or I'm turning into a Christian. Or maybe just a "christian."

No prank but from the 9th post of the first page of this thread; conservative Christians believing an art installation of Shiva was a portal of evil into their community.

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/sm ... temid=3883

The Redding Siva Nataraja

The "Dancer" stirs an artful clash of church and state

The people of the peaceful town of Redding in Northern California have always been conservative, and proud of it. Many of these good, honest, hard-working folks probably don't think much of most "modern art", perhaps for good reason. But the probationary, one-year installation in 1999 of an abstract sculpture named Dancer right in front of Old City Hall Arts Center, now an art museum, near the middle of downtown Redding kicked up more than a normal amount of aesthetic controversy. Actually, the clash did not have much to do with art, that "human effort to supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature" as Webster puts it. It was more about religion. When word got out that Dancer was a contemporary rendering of the Hindu God Siva, a few Christian townpeople got really riled.
etc.

[PufPuf93]

No, you answered them for them, just not very satisfactorily and at inordinate length, i.e., by pointlessly tacking exactly the same non-answer onto every question Siebert raised and CERN in fact left totally unanswered.

Please.

You failed to note that my sarcasm was pointed directly at CERN (not you) and how CERN chose to (not substantially) answer the questions.

[Novem5er]

About that video... I wonder if Christian evangelicals showing up and proselytizing is a rare or a common occurrence.

If common and people working and studying at CERN frequently run into these people then that might suggest inspiration for the ritual.

Yes.

But. They had no fear of the guards and cameras? And they had no worries about being kicked off the course in disgrace? Ten of them?

THIS JUST IN - College Kids Engage in Risky Decision Making that Imperils their Future. More at the top of the hour.

[brekin]

Geeks did this with less thought than is happening here. We may hold CERN in some regard as a scientific institution but I'm sure students/interns/employees working/studying there after awhile just see it as there campus/workplace. Instead of a flash mob singing Adele songs somebody was inspired by the Shiva statue to do something a little more off kilter, probably while watching Eyes Wide Shut one night. Knowing a mock sacrifice would probably garner more clicks then some light saber battle or Dr. Who skit we are now here, acting like CERN is trying to open the portal to bring Hellboy through. That really is the best theory going right now.

I really have not read anything remotely valid that this is a "warning" of some type or accidental exposure of anything remotely bordering on genuine.

Of course as I type this I am holding nothing but pure sunshine for everyone who may disagree. Further, if I could I'd buy everyone a Coke on this thread, nay, the whole board, wait a minute, the whole world! I would. But I don't think my credit would allow that. I'll check with Uncle.

But I think I could swing a small meet up at CERN in front of the statue in question if others are up for a rendition of the song. I think it would even be cleansing. But please dress in white in your native costume. I'll bring the Coke.

[MacCruiskeen]

These were not your average braindead TV-addicted beer-vomiting fart-lighting date-raping all-American yahoos, November. These were a small select elite of high-flying physics students with a rare, brief opportunity and a lot to lose.

[MacCruiskeen]

If they were in fact students. We don't even know that yet, because CERN hasn't condescended to tell us.