Need A Good Laugh...This is Hilarious

Kane · #1 (**permalink**) 08-12-2003, 01:46 PM

As far as I know this is absolutely genuine, and totally Hilarious!!!

Subject: Radio Conversation

> >The following is the transcript of an ACTUAL radio
conversation in October 1995, between a US Navy ship off the coast of England, and
The British Coastal authority. The transcript was released by the MoD on 10/10/95.

> BRITS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid a collision.
> > > > > > >
> AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North,to avoid a collision.
> > > > > > >
>BRITS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
> > > > > > >
> AMERICANS: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
> > > > > > >
>BRITS: Negative. I say again. You will have to divert your course.
> > > > > > >
> AMERICANS: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > BRITS: We are a lighthouse. F**k off.

A true Story !!!!!

globalhostinggroup · #2 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 12:03 PM

So did they turn?

Clicken · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 01:48 PM

Kane,

I laughed, then cried.
***********

I looked at your site, it is very sharp!

Would you post a review for us? I would do the same for you!

Thanks,

jdiben · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kane

A true Story !!!!!

No. It was a joke originally printed in readers digest decades ago. I think the original version had a U.S. Ship (not an aircraft carrier. the story was printed before the use of carriers) and a Canadian lighthouse.

Still funny though.

globalhostinggroup · #5 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 02:29 PM

But did they turn?

Kane · #6 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 02:47 PM

Yeah I guess so.

And from what I have managed to find out, it is a true story. My uncle who worked for the MOD found some links to the original transcipt released my the MOD, I will see if I can find them and post them.

Anyways at least it made ya laugh :)

wenwilder · #7 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 03:35 PM

Origins: The story of the self-important aircraft carrier captain getting his well-earned comeuppance at the hands of a plain-speaking lighthouse has been making the rounds on the Internet since early 1996. Most writeups purport to be transcripts of a 1995 conversation between a ship and a lighthouse as documented by Chief of Naval Operations.

It ain't true. Not only does the Navy disclaim it, the anecdote shows up in a 1992 collection of jokes and tall tales. Worse, it appears in Stephen Covey's 1989 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and he got it from a 1987 issue of Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute.

It's likely far older than that, because another reader mentioned he saw it passed around as a photocopied joke in the late 1960s while serving aboard either the USS Dixie or USS Truxtun. That certainly agrees with the opinion of Navy sources (as quoted in the news article later on this page); they place the story as being thirty or forty years old.

Slightly different versions name different ships as the one which unwillingly gained a lesson in the unimportance of self importance. Having debunked this tale a few times themselves, the Navy has a web page about this legend, one that answers what three of the commonly cited ships were doing at the time this supposedly occurred.

The Navy's take on this crazy bit of faxlore is contained in the following 1996 newspaper article:

Quote:

The source of that story, which the Navy swears is untrue, is not known. It's a joke that has been floating around for at least 10 years, and maybe 30 to 40 years. Some think it originated in a humor column in Reader's Digest. Nobody knows for sure.
But for the past four months the story of the ship and the lighthouse has been passed along, as gospel, by comedy talk-show hosts, lazy newspaper columnists and clueless cyberspace jockies until it has taken on an air of the apocryphal. It clings to Navy lore like that old captain from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." And, like Coleridge's haunted captain, the Navy is having a real tough time getting this albatross off its neck.

This week the story was repeated by The New York Times News Service, quoting a Canadian newspaper. Last week it was read to a global radio audience on Michael Feldman's popular Whad'ya Know? program on Public Radio International. Earlier, the same network's Car Talk program aired the tale.

In the story's current form, the ship is identified as the carrier Enterprise. In the past it involved a battleship. A version that arrived via e-mail in Norfolk this week from the U.S. Air Force Academy identified it as the "aircraft carrier Missouri." There is no such carrier. The Missouri is a retired battleship.

Various versions carry little embellishments. An amateur-radio buff communicating via the Internet said it happened in Puget Sound. A columnist in the Montreal Gazette said it happened last fall off the coast of Newfoundland. A columnist in North Carolina quoted a local man as saying it happened off the Carolinas.

"It's a totally bogus story, but over the last four months we've gotten at least 12, maybe 18 calls from different media sources trying to confirm that," said Cmdr. Kevin Wensing, an Atlantic Fleet spokesman in Norfolk. "Unfortunately, some of them don't check it out. They just repeat it.

"The first time I heard of it was - oh, let's see, how long - about 10 years ago or so, I think. "That story's so old," Wensing said, "it probably started out back in the galleon days, or back when there was a big lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt."

Dutifully, when all those reports about the carrier Enterprise began to surface, the Navy had to follow procedures and check it out.

"Yes, we talked to the Enterprise," Wensing said. "It was like, "We've heard this story and we're pretty sure that it's without basis. . . . And their reaction was, 'What? You can't be serious.' "

For the record, Adm. Mike Boorda, the chief of naval operations, released no such transcript on Oct. 10. Or any other time, said Cmdr. John Carman, a spokesman for the admiral. "It's a joke," Carman said, chuckling in disbelief. "And not only that, I've been told it's a real old joke. Like 30 to 40 years ago, that old."

Of the many flaws in the recent version, the most glaring is that there is no longer a radio crew - or any crew, for that matter - on any lighthouse on the U.S. coastline. The last one was automated 10 years ago, said Lt. j.g. Ed Westfall, the lighthouse program manager for the U.S. Coast Guard's Fifth District, based in Portsmouth.

Westfall said he, too, had heard the story for years, but he had a different understanding of its origin.

"I always thought," he said, "it was just something one of us Coasties had made up to poke fun at the Navy."

mikmik · #8 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 03:38 PM

Ya, but did it turn?

jdiben · #9 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 03:40 PM

snopes.com says it is false as does the official navy website. Even it were true I wouldn't expect the Navy to admit it, so Snopes is the best I can do. Since there is no link to the original story and any other websites accuracy could be questioned (including Snopes) I challenge anyone to find a link to a page on the official MoD, or any other governments website with the transcripts to prove otherwise.

There are plenty of real stories of military stupidity, try this one http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/07/02/c....ap/index.html

Sorry to be such a disbeliever but one of my biggest peeves is urban legends. At least this one hasn't made its way to my inbox yet.

Joe

mikmik · #10 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 03:58 PM

I've even heard rumours of UFO technology (it is far advanced, so it is from the saucer invaders, see) so small that you can hide tiny transmitters in the seams of clothing.
I won't feel safe until the meetings are held in the nude, with tinfoil sheilding implanted in the structure...LOL

labrynth_of_fire · #11 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 10:07 PM

I think the lighthouse should move XD

cooper · #12 (**permalink**) 07-28-2004, 07:22 PM

True or not, it's funny.

So did they turn?

:o)

TrafficProducer · #13 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 10:25 AM

And the score is:- BRITS 1 USA 0

But did they turn??? I think we would have heard a lot of noise if they didn't. Something like Glug, glug, glug.

minstrel · #14 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 02:14 PM

It wasn't a British lighthouse - it was a Canadian UFO. It wasn't a US carrier - it was Mikmik on a bicycle.

He didn't turn.

Now he can't even walk into a Blockbuster or Walmart because the implants set off the beepers. (AFAIK, unlike that South Park episode, there was no anal probe and no satellite dish implanted.)

This is not funny folks - Mik is very sensitive about it.

Now, can we please change the subject?

mikmik · #15 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 02:24 PM

minstrel wrote

Quote:

there was no anal probe and no satellite dish implanted

Much to my dismay!

wclew · #16 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikmik

minstrel wrote

Quote:

there was no anal probe and no satellite dish implanted

Much to my dismay!

LMAO!!

dugfresh33 · #17 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 11:36 PM

just changed my sig to conform to the new rules and thought this looked like a good place to check out the changes.

what's all this about a lighthouse swearing at a Navy ship?...

dugfresh33 · #18 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 11:38 PM

well...that didn't work.

so, were there people in this lighthouse? Is that who was swearing at the Navy ship?

dugfresh33 · #19 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 11:43 PM

does blank space count as a line?

so, I'm going to assume there were people in the lighthouse. It just wasn't very clear from the story. Well, that's a relief. I wasn't really prepared yet for a talking lighthouse...

dugfresh33 · #20 (**permalink**) 07-29-2004, 11:49 PM

minstrel,
You are downright hilarious! That was so funny!

wenwilder,
you are like a dictionary, encyclopedia, and world atlas all rolled up into one. You ought to have a web site devoted to answering people's tough questions; the real stumpers. You could call it http://reference.wenwilder.com/smart.html

very impressive.

Kane,
funny story. I'd heard it before, a little differently, but it was just what I needed to read tonight. Thanks for sharing...

minstrel · #21 (**permalink**) 07-30-2004, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugfresh33

does blank space count as a line?

I'd say no - that wouldn't be fair - they'd have to start counting the number of words and the spaces between the words and then we'd all end up running them all together and itwouldenduplookingtoallyunreadablelikethis...

So I vote no... that would be like claiming that the vacuum in space is space...

no wait... maybe that's a bad example....

I'll be back...

wenwilder · #22 (**permalink**) 07-30-2004, 01:38 AM

I thought blank space was all the space ABOVE the signature! That's what I get for thinking! Must be the vacuum between my ears that is causing the problem ;)

Talking lighthouses, now that would be a site to see. Or hear? I bet they'd sound more intelligient then talking cowboys. Have you every listened to one of them?

Cowboy talk: "I was ridin' that there bull...*spit*