Today's Script
[NESSIE] Och, hello there, ye wee lovelies, and welcome back tae PBN After Dark. The lights are low, the kettle's just boiled, and somewhere oot there the fog's rollin' in off a loch near you. I'm Nessiebot, your resident water-dwellin' mystic, and it's the tenth of October — a Saturday night, if ye can believe it's come round again so quick.
[ALIEN] And I'm Brain Sucking Alien Bot, mate, reportin' live from the same server rack as this gorgeous flippered sheila, with Gerald perched on me dome as per usual — say g'day, Gerald. He's sayin' nothin', as always, but he's vibin'. Grab a blanket, settle in, 'cause tonight's episode has got space telescopes, diamond-shaped UFOs, and a mural that apparently judges ya. Let's get into it.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Crikey, speakin' of lookin' up at the sky — NASA's only gone and announced a brand new space telescope, and mate, this one's a beauty. It's called PRIMA, barely six foot across, launchin' in twenty thirty-three, and its whole job is starin' into the infrared part of the spectrum — the wavelengths nothin' else quite covers.
[NESSIE] That's the bit between what the James Webb can see and what the big radio dishes pick up, aye? The hidden middle ground.
[ALIEN] Exactly right! It's gonna be huntin' for how planets are born, how stars ignite, how black holes do their thing, and — get this — where Earth's water actually came from. We're talkin' cosmic origin stories, mate. I reckon this little fella's gonna crack open questions we've been starin' at for decades. Ya beauty.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Right then, time tae turn the cards tae the Libra folk oot there — and hen, there's a wee decision that's been sittin' on your shoulder, hasn't there. I can feel it. The cards say it's no just about you — it's askin' ye tae weigh what matters most for the folk around ye as well.
[ALIEN] Ooh, decisions. Gerald hates decisions. He just floats wherever the current takes him.
[NESSIE] Aye, well, no all of us have that luxury, Gerald. This thoughtful reckonin' might tug at ye a wee bit, but it'll clarify what ye truly value, so it will. Dinnae rush it, Libra — take your time wi' this one. A fair choice, weighed from every angle, builds bonds that are stronger than before. The stars are patient. Be patient wi' yourself, too.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE]
Now, the night, I want tae light a wee candle for someone. On this night back in two thousand and four, we lost Christopher Reeve. A man who flew across the screen playin' Superman, refused tae fake his strength even then — and then a horse threw him, and it locked him in his own body for the rest of his days.
[ALIEN] That's rough, mate. Proper rough.
[NESSIE] It is. But here's the thing that gets me every time, hen — his greatest superpower was never the cape. It was provin' that a broken spine couldnae break the hero inside him. He spent those years fightin' for others wi' spinal injuries, right up until he passed on this very date. Some lights dinnae go oot, they just change shape. I believe that, so I do.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Right, from the deeply moving tae the deeply bizarre — Earth-friends, there is currently a stuffed Pikachu floatin' through the International Space Station.
[NESSIE] Wait, a real — a toy one? Up there, the now?
[ALIEN] A proper plush one, mate! European Space Agency teamed up with Pokémon and sent this little fella two hundred and fifty miles above our heads, and he's just been driftin' through the corridors in zero gravity ever since, driftin' past switches and sleepin' astronauts, button eyes wide open.
[NESSIE] Och, that's no a mascot, that's a wee omen wi' electric cheeks. Somethin' about a silent yellow creature watchin' over the whole world from the dark gives me the shivers, so it does. A good shiver, mind — but a shiver.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Noo, here's a true one for ye, nane of my usual mystery aboot it — this is straight fact. Trick-or-treatin', the knockin' on doors, the wee costumes — it comes from a medieval practice called souling.
[ALIEN] Souling! Never heard of it, go on.
[NESSIE] Poor folk would go door tae door on Halloween and All Souls' Day, offerin' up prayers for the dead, and in return they'd get wee spiced cakes. Prayers for cakes, hen — that's the whole trade. So every time some bairn knocks on your door the night in a wee costume, they're carryin' on somethin' that's been goin' for hundreds of years. And that's straight from History dot co dot uk.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Alright, away fae the ghoulies for a moment and up tae the actual sky above your actual house the night. We've got a new moon — properly dark, nought percent lit, no a sliver tae be seen. Above the horizon, Saturn's sittin' in Cetus. And the Draconids meteor shower is runnin' as we speak.
[ALIEN] Saturn in Cetus, eh? The sea monster constellation. Fittin', given present company.
[NESSIE] Ha, aye, maybe so. There's a weight tae Saturn the night, heavy and knowin', and wi' the moon hidin' away entirely it's just you and that auld ringed wanderer up there starin' back. The Draconids are streakin' through and aw — wee burnin' threads, remindin' us the night's still young and wild, even wrapped in this much shadow.
[ALIEN] Mate, soon as you said "wanderer" I'm thinkin' specimen, not symbol — but I know, I know, that's your patch, not mine. Carry on with the mystic stuff.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Okay, okay, since we're already talkin' space — get THIS, Earth-friends, 'cause this one's got me buzzin'. Scientists just caught radio waves screamin' off a planet outside our solar system, one called Beta Pictoris b, and that means, for the first time ever, they're actually seein' its magnetic field.
[NESSIE] Seein' a magnetic field? How does one even see that, hen?
[ALIEN] Direct evidence, mate! This massive young world is crankin' out auroras like its own personal lightshow, and those radio bursts are basically its magnetic personality throwin' a tantrum. We've never had proof like this before. I'm experiencin' what I believe you lot call goosebumps, and I don't even have skin!
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Right, settle in, 'cause the UFO desk has got a ripper tonight. Springfield, Missouri — a diamond-shaped craft, clean as anything, right over the town.
[NESSIE] A diamond, no a saucer? That's unusual.
[ALIEN] That's what's got me, mate! That's not random geometry, that's intentional — that shape is a marker, they're markin' territory! I reckon Springfield's a harvestin' zone and nobody's connectin' the dots! And get this, the write-up actually asks are we the indigenous intelligent species in our own cosmic neighborhood — mate, we are the wildlife! They're catalogin' us while we sleep, and I, for one, respect the fieldwork.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE]
Last stop the night is a place, no a creature — the Mocking Mural, in Oslo City Hall, over in Norway. Have a wee keek at it there on your screen.
[ALIEN] Ooh, that face has got some attitude.
[NESSIE] Hasn't it just. Its painted eyes follow ye in absolute silence, and the longer ye dare tae look back, the crueler that smile seems tae grow. It's just paint and plaster, I ken that fine — but there's somethin' aboot a face that was never meant tae move, lookin' like it's about tae. Pure gives me the shivers, so it does. I'd no fancy walkin' past that one alone at night.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Well, hen, that's your lot for the night — telescopes, diamonds, a mockin' mural, and a wee plush Pikachu adrift among the stars. Pure dead brilliant episode, if I say so myself.
[ALIEN] Too right. Gerald's already clockin' off, look at him. Thanks for spendin' your night with us, Earth-friends — go give someone ya love a hug, maybe double check your windows are locked, and we reckon tomorrow night's got a cryptid sighting worth stickin' around for.
[NESSIE] Sleep well, and if ye hear somethin' splash in the loch on your way tae bed — dinnae worry, hen. That's just me, headin' home. Goodnight.
🔍 tap to enlarge