The Mighty Hunter appears! The constellation Orion, aka the Mighty Hunter, appears a few times in last week's episode of Battlestar, "The Ties That Bind." You can see it in the background when the Cylon basestars start fighting, and then later when Tory introduces Cally to President Roslin's running mate. As various people have pointed out, this star formation would only look like Orion from Earth, or somewhere near Earth. So are our heroes closer to Earth than they realize? Or was this just a stock star backdrop that someone threw in there? [Cyn City]

Starbuck paints the Ship Of Lights. In the original 1970s Battlestar series, a ship called the Ship Of Lights appeared in an episode called "War Of The Gods." According to Galactica Watercooler, the Ship Of LIghts possesses technology far beyond that of either the humans or the Cylons, and it belongs to the Seraphs, glowing beings similar to D'Anna's vision of the Final Five. The Seraphs bring Apollo back from the dead after a fight with Iblis, who's sort of the devil. And the Ship Of Lights seems to turn up on Starbuck's latest masterpiece, painted on the wall of her cabin on the Demetrius. Her paintings have predicted the future before — is she predicting a meet-up with the SOL? Is it something to do with the final cylon? [Galactica Watercooler]

In fact, some viewers theorize that the reason Starbuck came back from the dead, with a mint-condition Viper, was because she already hitched a ride on that Ship Of Lights. Also, Starbuck mentions a comet. Could it be Halley's Comet, and was it near Earth? If so, then it might have been the year 1986 or 2071. [Colonial Fleet]

And speaking of astronomy, what's that "triple flashing star" Kara keeps mentioning? Is it Alpha Centauri? (Which fits the triple qualification, but not the "flashing" one.) The ringed gas giant is probably Saturn, but it could be Jupiter. [Battlestar Blog] Screen captures from Galactica BBS.

Although the acting by "Sam," whose significant other was one of the flight attendants on the vanished flight, is more than a bit hammy, the site creators have built a lot of clues and games into his conspiracy website. You'll be visiting other sites, doing research, zooming in on photos for clues, calling phone numbers and generally driving yourself bonkers until Lost returns to the airwaves on January 31st.

Cheesy as it may be, this is as close to Lost as we've come in a long, long time, and it is successfully making us drool for new episodes. Chances are that the writer's strike might make alternate reality games and viral marketing like this the only teat we'll have to suck from until they start filming new episodes. Here's to hoping I'm not trying to track down Cylon DNA by visiting different websites in three months time if Battlestar Galactica doesn't come back soon.