GREEBLINGS - AN ENGINEER'S GUIDE
Have you ever wondered what causes computer bugs or why socks vanish and coat hangers and plastic carrier bags breed? Perhaps you are laboring under the misconception that socks are the larval form of the wire coat-hanger? Well wonder no more. The cause of such mysteries is a race of extra-dimensional extra-terrestrials which is rapidly colonising Planet Earth. Most people are ignorant of the menace to mankind represented by a greeblings invasion.
Know your enemy! The very constitution of these unarguably vile creatures makes them one of the most fiendishly difficult to know.
Greeblings are believed to result from a massive population explosion on a planet in the distant galaxy Andromeda (M31) following a rise in stellar radiation (Galactic Warming). Their arrival on Earth is due to an evolutionary advantage which enables greeblings to migrate as a form of "life, but not as we know it". Greeblings have spread in ever-widening waves originating at M31. The outermost wave of this latest migration has now reached Earth. It is possible that previous greebling migrations caused the various mass extinctions in our planet's history e.g. the dinosaurs. This is upheld by the fact that some water-living life-forms survived each extinction - it is known that greeblings appear to dislike water in its liquid state.
Greeblings can do without food and water and can exist for long periods of time in a pure-energy form. The purpose of their outward expansion is to colonize new planets when the population density on their home planet reaches critical mass. Greeblings are basically interstellar lemmings. Once they reach a suitable planet, and as yet we do not know their preferred planetary conditions, they revivify in forms appropriate to local conditions. These changes take place in timescales inconceivable to humans. Greeblings should be viewed as a more or less a constant presence, predating this universe and probably existing past its inevitable end.
Revivification is the only point in their life-cycle where they might be visible to certain humans under certain conditions. As yet scientists have not pinpointed the exact conditions needed. Such revivified, or larval, greeblings may be mistaken for the innocent young of native animals. In many countries, greeblings are responsible for sightings of 'faerie folk' such as trolls. At this stage, they are consummate mimics as part of their overall survival strategy. This mimicry behaviour is not motivated by malice, or even conscious thoughts. Scientists have not yet ascertained whether greeblings exhibit conscious thought, since the creatures themselves seem to exist in a state 'beyond consciousness'. The term "extra-conscious' has been coined for this purpose.
Greeblings can and do communicate with each other. It is believed that they form close familial and mating bonds during their sexually reproductive phases and that they are solitary during the asexually reproductive phases of their lifecycle. Their overall pattern of life lacks the complications that typify human relationships.
In their current evolutionarily unstable state, a greebling has almost no mass. Greeblings vary in size from about 3 cm to about 5 metres across at "physical" maturity. However greeblings do not really have a definite size or mass, they are more like diffuse electron probability clouds. The incorporeal life-forms encountered in episodes of Star Trek (those which are portrayed as clouds or pinpoints of life) are migratory greeblings whose journeys have intersected with that of the USS Enterprise. It is more accurate to think of greeblings as giant probability "waves". Although our own physically biased perceptions and language mean we describe greebling as existing at a point and having a size, all we can know for sure is that there might be a greebling occupying the indicated part of the space/time continuum (e.g. the kitchen ceiling) at right angles to our reality and that its extra-dimensional "body" might by the size of a dust-mote or might fill the entire kitchen i.e. we might actually be inside the greebling! In their adult form, greeblings merely intersect with our physical reality.
Greeblings spend most of their time engaged in an activity called "gravity sliding". This provides sustenance through the "friction" between the greebling and gravity. Gravity sliding is a process of controlled falling. Dogs and cats can perceive greeblings dripping from the ceiling, where they cling tenaciously, so as to prolong the final descent through the gravity field of the earth and thus obtain the maximum amount nutrition from their "slide". Greeblings are generally silent, however, the friction caused by a gravity-sliding greebling results in an extremely high frequency sound, audible to dogs and cats. No human has seen or heard an adult greebling but for reasons we do not yet understand, dogs and cats can easily sense greeblings at any stage of the greebling lifecycle.
Once a home has become infested, it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to get rid of them. Nothing available for pest control services is efficacious against inter-dimensional or extra-dimensional life-forms. Greeblings breed prodigiously, reproducing by both sexual and asexual means, and do not seem to fear deathl. It has been hypothesised that death for a greebling is simply a change from one state to another. Alternatively they may simply reincarnate. Greeblings are the most sophisticated evolutionarily unstable species yet studied. A dead greebling gives off an unpleasant, putrid odor which is impossible to pinpoint because it seeps into our reality from extra-dimensional space. It is sometimes described as "fetid socks" or "beer-fuelled farts".
Greeblings are not especially harmful physically, but in sufficient numbers they can cause annoying problems with household appliances, plumbing, electrical systems, vehicle engines and computers. Transient or intermittent faults in such systems, especially faults which "go away on their own" are almost always due to an accumulation of greeblings. They are familiar to computer staff and software engineers as "bugs" and to others as "gremlins" (this being a corruption of the word "greeblings") and the film Gremlins actually attempted to portray (albeit poorly) these creatures.
They may possibly be responsible for the accumulation of dust bunnies due to dust being attractive to their weak electrical field. This electrical field may be either positively charged or negatively charged and may play some part in their reproductive strategy or in gravity sliding. There are numerous theories about the greebling's appetite for odd socks and stray ballpoint pens, and their habit of emitting things that closely resemble wire coat hangers and plastic carrier bags as waste products through their ability to convert energy into matter and vice versa.
There is every reason to believe that parallel research conducted by agencies of various world governments have information far beyond what is generally known. as usual, it can be assumed that this research is motivated by a desire to harness the powers of the greeblings as an energy source, a weapon or possibly in the quest for instantaneous matter transport systems.
ENGINEERS, ROBO-PETS AND THE RISK OF GREEBLINGS
Notional Inquirer, Thurs March 9th, 2000
: Robo-pets are advertized as the ideal pet for engineers. Throw away those pet rocks on your lab-bench and get yourself a real robotic dog or cat. No mess! No fuss! Unlike a real dog or cat a robo-pet contains real working parts! It has real electronics and real mechanical gizmos! No more veterinarian visits - it's fixable by any real engineer!No more guessing what kitty or poochie is going to do next - whether that silent stare is due to hairballs or simply a sulk because you bought a cheaper brand of pet food (in fact 365 cans of the cheaper brand so you could take advantage of that $3 bulk purchase discount). A robo-pet can actually be programmed not to do those irksome unpredictable pet things like piddling on the rug or clawing the couch. You can actually turn it off! When a new generation of chips appears, it is upgradable. If you're a software engineer you can even program it to do useful tasks around the lab.
Too good to be true? It certainly is.
Unlike real pets, electrical-electronic devices attract greeblings. The more sophisticated the artifice the more greeblings it attracts. The irritating bugs or glitches in the present generation of PCs and laptops are due to the small concentrations of greeblings they attract. Just imagine how many greeblings a sophisticated electronic pet will attract.
What are greeblings I hear you ask. This is not surprising - many engineers are still unaware of the greebling threat to Earth technology. Greeblings are the bugs in computer systems. Greeblings are the reason the Mars Lander didn't land. Greeblings are the reason the Hubble Telescope gave fuzzy pictures. If it suffers from gremlins then you've got greeblings!
Greeblings are invisible entities, 1 inch - 205 inches in diameter, of extra-terrestrial origin. They merely intersect with our world where they are attracted to technology. A minor build-up of greeblings causes minor malfunctions, power fluctuations and transient and intermittent faults in devices as varied as electrical equipment, car engines, computers, domestic appliances, household electrics and plumbing. A major build-up of greeblings can black out an entire city and cause the earth to wobble on its axis. Greeblings hovering in the Earth's atmosphere may be responsible for global warming.
How can we avert the greebling threat? Standard flesh-and-blood dogs and cats are able to sense greeblings and can neutralize the greebling threat. A robo-pet cannot neutralize greeblings. Instead it attracts more greeblings into the area. Any device with even a fraction of the artificial intelligence needed to simulate a dog or cat will attract so many, and so troublesome, greeblings that it will never truly succeed. Just think how many additional greeblings would be attracted into an engineer's home, already full of gizmos and devices, and the potential for disaster.
Imagine the predicament of an engineer who adopts an advanced model of fully functional robotic-pet and keeps it in his household for any length of time. The scale of disaster which would be caused by such an immense concentration of greeblings in a space the size of a human home is unimaginable.
Robo-pets may seem to be the technological way forward for the discerning engineer, but do not fall into the trap. Robo-pets present a serious greebling hazard. They could mark the end of life as we know it! To control existing greeblings in your home engineering environment you need a real dog or cat. See the advertisement on this page for the contact number of your nearest National Greebling Helpline switchboard.
This greebling bulletin was issued by the Area 51 Greebling Research Facility.
The National Greebling Helpline is sponsored by National Adopt-A-Pet.
GREEBLINGS - THEIR ROLE IN FOLKLORE, FICTION & FILM
A Report By Prof. Rod N. Berry of the Area 51 Greebling Research Facility
Notional Inquirer, Tues August 21st, 1999: Many of our most famous writers were inspired by greeblings. That is the theory of eminent greeblingologist Prof Rod N. Berry. Throughout history, greeblings - variably sized, usually invisible extra-terrestrials - have been responsible for sightings of faeries, trolls and other fey folk. Irish leprechauns sprites, invisible helper Brownies, various types of spirit folk in Africa and Japan, Arabian djinns and Scandinavian trolls are all manifestations of greebling activity and of the occasional rare sighting of a greebling as it intersects with our reality.
Prof Berry claims that many traditional fairy stories in all cultures are based on observation of greebling activity or occasional glimpses of greeblings themselves. Helper spirits, malicious spirits and harmless tricksters alike are greeblings since greeblings have no awareness of how their activities impact humankind. The terms goblin and gremlin are both corruptions of the term greebling. Over the centuries, a great body of greebling lore has built up and is passed on in the form of fairy tales, myths and legends. In due course, some of those myths and legends have inspired authors, poets and movie-makers
Many supposedly haunted places are actually infested by greeblings which cause local disturbances in the fabric of reality. "Magic" is almost certainly related to greebling activity, perhaps some humans have exerted weak, unconscious control over these mysterious aliens. Therefore main plot devices in great works such as Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "Macbeth" and even "Midsummer Night's Dream" (with its playful fairies) were inspired by greeblings. Greebling activity may also be the explanation for some "divine acts" and "miracles" or even for entire religious belief systems.
In our technological age, phenomena such as mysterious lights in the sky and strange humming sounds be easily explained in terms of greebling incursions into our reality. There are believed to be heavy concentrations of greeblings in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle, notorious for its disappearing ships and planes. Most of us no longer believe in fairies and find other ways to explain these manifestations. The real cause is greebling activity and manifestations of greeblings have inspired sci-fi writers and screenwriters.
Films such as "Gremlins" show clear signs of being based on greebling activity - in particular the references to malfunctioning devices. The famous "tribbles" in Star Trek are even more obviously greeblings; though visible they have many other greebling traits including a prodigious rate of reproduction and an attraction to both technology and to humans. The tribbles' resemblance to lemmings is purely coincidental.
The greeblings themselves are unaware of how they have entered our collective consciousness. They may be unaware of human kind itself. Greeblings are most easily described as "energy beings" which may, during their larval stage, take the form of native animals. They are not actually malicious and not physically harmful to humans, but their effects can damage our technology. They feed on the energy fields around computers, domestic appliances etc or by gravity sliding to cause a form of friction. Malfunctioning devices are the most obvious sign of their presence. This may be merely inconvenient in your home PC, but is far more serious in a large fly-by-wires passenger aircraft flying through an area of high greebling density (e.g. Bermuda Triangle).