I would also recommend becoming a fan of Make Magazine on Facebook. They post several links to projects on a daily basis. They can be quite entertaining and inspiring.

I wonder what we will use in place of tantalum caps. Electrolytics don't have the lifespan and most other materials don't have a high enough CV.

There _has_ to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, and it has nothing to do with aliens:

1.) U.S.A. or Russia invents a new flying technology.
2.) But they can only stick it in a ship that's small.
3.) So they use a crew of midgets to fly it around.
4.) It crashes and all the yokels who have never seen ANYTHING like this before assume it's aliens.