Author Topic: UFO News  (Read 8770 times)

CatamaranSailor

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UFO News
« on: June 25, 2019, 09:51:14 AM »
I've always been interested in the UFO topic. Enough to read news reports and occasionally a book if it appears to be written by someone with some common sense (someone like Stanton Friedman). However lately it seams as if there have been some seriously startling admissions by the military and other sources. The "Tic Tac" UFO encounter that the US Navy confirmed is simply amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRgoisHRmUE

Just curious if anyone else follows the topic. I became interested about 20 years ago when I had my own sighting.

GuitarStv

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2019, 10:01:54 AM »
Yeah, there was a lot of UFO interest about 20 years ago.




:P

matchewed

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2019, 02:10:02 PM »

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2019, 02:16:51 PM »
I try to stay as grounded as possible and I am generally a dedicated skeptic. But the tic tac UFO is hard to explain. And whenever there are first-hand accounts of UFO sightings by navy/commercial pilots with no credibility issues and no motive to lie, it is hard not take them seriously.

As for the UFO's being extraterrestrial in origin, that's a REALLY big stretch. For visitors to enter our solar system, they would need a grasp of science and technology far, far beyond ours. Of course, is that even a stretch? What if they are hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us? Could anyone argue that humans have a total understanding of what is physically possible and what is not?

So, you are just going to tease about your own sighting? How about some deets? Why do I feel like I just created a post that will be used to discredit any argument I make on the MMM forums forever? lol

simonsez

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2019, 08:28:19 AM »
Nice vid!

Bob Lazar was just on Joe Rogan if you want to learn more about his experience at Area 51/S-4 involving a stable version of Moscovium (element 115), alien craft, gravity waves, college transcripts allegedly being erased, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2019, 08:38:49 AM »
Nice vid!

Bob Lazar was just on Joe Rogan if you want to learn more about his experience at Area 51/S-4 involving a stable version of Moscovium (element 115), alien craft, gravity waves, college transcripts allegedly being erased, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

Stuff You Should Know did a great podcast on Area 51. They speculated that the government would purposely expose an employee to all sorts of sham alien evidence as a test to see whether he could keep secrets. Apparently, on more than one occasion, an employee at Area 51 was left in a room, alone, with open folders containing information about alien space craft. It seems unlikely to me that the government would be careless with such "evidence."
« Last Edit: June 26, 2019, 08:40:25 AM by eljefe-speaks »

simonsez

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2019, 10:11:25 AM »
Nice vid!

Bob Lazar was just on Joe Rogan if you want to learn more about his experience at Area 51/S-4 involving a stable version of Moscovium (element 115), alien craft, gravity waves, college transcripts allegedly being erased, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

Stuff You Should Know did a great podcast on Area 51. They speculated that the government would purposely expose an employee to all sorts of sham alien evidence as a test to see whether he could keep secrets. Apparently, on more than one occasion, an employee at Area 51 was left in a room, alone, with open folders containing information about alien space craft. It seems unlikely to me that the government would be careless with such "evidence."
Ha, that to me is scarier on some levels.  The black ops arm of the government/military (viewed as a singular cold and calculating ruthless entity rather than made up of very imperfect and highly varied humans) creating elaborate ruses involving billions of taxpayer dollars confusing the military and general citizenry on myriad occasions just to test the loyalty of some nerds behind top secret doors.  I mean, the FOIA request took EIGHT years (2005->2013) just to acknowledge that Area 51 exists as a base.  It's a curious place with crazy experimental aircraft, it's just ripe for speculation.

I find it all fascinating, though including new military aircraft (the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space annex is my fave museum in DC) as well as Fermi's Paradox.  I'm not here to claim absolute truth one way or another, I'm very agnostic about extra-terrestrial life (as with many topics).  As Gandalf says, we have questions that need answering!

CatamaranSailor

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2019, 09:12:57 AM »

So, you are just going to tease about your own sighting? How about some deets?

So...I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was certainly unusual. Here's the story: My (then) girlfriend (now wife) and I were driving from the Four Corners area down to Silver City, New Mexico. We'd left late and were on a two lane state highway. I'd been driving for quite a while, it was around 2:30 am, when I started getting drowsy. The road we were on was rural and the moon was full, so good visibility.  I pulled over to the side of the road (the nose of the car was pointed due south) and got out to stretch. That's when "the object" caught my attention. It was a solid ball of white light. It was just visible on the horizon and my first though was that it was a helicopter searchlight. I kept stretching, but also kept my eyes on the light. Now, the sky was absolutely clear and the stars were brilliant. We really were in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing that I noticed (other than the light itself) was that whatever it was was hauling ass! Everyone has seen helicopters in the sky and you get a sense of how they fly and how fast they traverse the sky. This thing was just cresting the horizon as I was getting out of the car and in the time it took my to stretch my shoulders once or twice, it was directly in front of me. Now, a couple of things happen in rapid succession...I turn my head and tell my wife (who is still in the car...I'm outside with the driver's door open) "Hey, look at this." The car was a tiny Geo Metro, so she leans over the console and can see the ball of light in the sky looking out the drivers side door. I turn my head back and am looking up at the ball of light. That's when I realize how low it is...maybe 300-500 feet in altitude. I'm not positive about that, but I can testify it was definitely very close to us. I then realize that it is totally silent. A helicopter at twice that altitude is still loud as shit. This thing is making no noise at all.

Now here is where it gets freaky. All of these thoughts are running through my head ("It's low," "It's silent,") and by now my wife is looking at the object as well. Up until now, the ball of light as been moving, fast. In the time it take me to point it out to my wife it's continued across the sky. We're both looking at it when (I swear to God) the damned thing stops and backs up. It looked just like someone backing up a car. The solid ball of light backs up and is now directly in front of me (I'm facing east) and parks itself.

I should say at this point, my wife is the most reasonable, rational person on earth. She is thoughtful and intelligent and can deal with just about anything.

My wife freaks. I will admit my stomach dropped as well. "Get in the fucking car!" she screams (to this day my wife does not cuss very often).

I get in (no longer drowsy) and we get moving. For twenty minutes, the ball of light paced us. The road continued due south, but the object would zip around us..first in front, then the drivers side, then the passenger side, then behind us. It was incredibly quick. Then boom...it's gone. We don't even see which direction it went.

Obviously, we are both shaken. To this day, my wife hates talking about it. It's not that she's worried people will think she was crazy, it's because (and she'll say this herself) it was truly one of the most terrifying things she's ever experienced.

It certainly scared me too, but I was really fascinated as well. It's why I became interested in the topic.

Now again, I'm not saying aliens. But I will say, in a court of law under penalty of perjury, it was not: an airplane, a helicopter, Venus (or any other planet). It moved like no aircraft I've ever seen and I really felt like it was intelligently controlled.

Really, as far as sighting go, it was pretty tame. But the fact that it stopped and backed up and then proceeded to basically f*ck with us for 20 minutes is something I still try to explain rationally to myself.

Milkshake

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2019, 09:49:37 AM »
It was a solid ball of white light.

The first thing that I noticed (other than the light itself) was that whatever it was was hauling ass! [...] I then realize that it is totally silent.

Up until now, the ball of light as been moving, fast. [...] the damned thing stops and backs up. [...]The solid ball of light backs up and is now directly in front of me

[...] but the object would zip around us..first in front, then the drivers side, then the passenger side, then behind us. It was incredibly quick. Then boom...it's gone.

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Ball Lightning.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2019, 11:06:55 AM »
Nice vid!

Bob Lazar was just on Joe Rogan if you want to learn more about his experience at Area 51/S-4 involving a stable version of Moscovium (element 115), alien craft, gravity waves, college transcripts allegedly being erased, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

Stuff You Should Know did a great podcast on Area 51. They speculated that the government would purposely expose an employee to all sorts of sham alien evidence as a test to see whether he could keep secrets. Apparently, on more than one occasion, an employee at Area 51 was left in a room, alone, with open folders containing information about alien space craft. It seems unlikely to me that the government would be careless with such "evidence."
Ha, that to me is scarier on some levels.  The black ops arm of the government/military (viewed as a singular cold and calculating ruthless entity rather than made up of very imperfect and highly varied humans) creating elaborate ruses involving billions of taxpayer dollars confusing the military and general citizenry on myriad occasions just to test the loyalty of some nerds behind top secret doors.  I mean, the FOIA request took EIGHT years (2005->2013) just to acknowledge that Area 51 exists as a base.  It's a curious place with crazy experimental aircraft, it's just ripe for speculation.

I find it all fascinating, though including new military aircraft (the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space annex is my fave museum in DC) as well as Fermi's Paradox.  I'm not here to claim absolute truth one way or another, I'm very agnostic about extra-terrestrial life (as with many topics).  As Gandalf says, we have questions that need answering!

No, the suggestion was that they probably have some uber top secret shit there, but you are not going to get to see it until you pass some tests.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2019, 11:23:19 AM »
It was a solid ball of white light.

The first thing that I noticed (other than the light itself) was that whatever it was was hauling ass! [...] I then realize that it is totally silent.

Up until now, the ball of light as been moving, fast. [...] the damned thing stops and backs up. [...]The solid ball of light backs up and is now directly in front of me

[...] but the object would zip around us..first in front, then the drivers side, then the passenger side, then behind us. It was incredibly quick. Then boom...it's gone.

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Ball Lightning.

Uh, followed the link, and ball lightening has exactly as much scientific evidence as extra-terrestrial UFO's.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2019, 11:34:19 AM »
Yeah, there was a lot of UFO interest about 20 years ago.



:P

OK, hate to be that guy, but STRICTLY as the devil's advocate, I wonder what kind of jump in shark sightings was caused by Jaws. Yet sharks are real and always have been.

GuitarStv

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2019, 11:35:58 AM »
I was convinced that I saw an alien when I was about 14.

It was about 8 or 9 in the evening and very cold (about -45C).  The wood stove was running low and my job was to get the kindling/firewood in the evening.  So I grabbed my coat and headed to the back porch.  At the back door I saw our dog (a small spaniel) standing, staring in the kidchen looking right at the solid wood door and growling.  Which was weird, because she rarely growled at anything and was never interested in things that were going on outside.

So, I pushed past her and went into the dark back door.  Sometimes when it's really cold you see weird fog stuff happening as heat and moisture leak away from the house, and this was the case on that night.  There was foggy mist kinda thing that I could sort of make out from the light leaking through the back door and it flowed towards me as I opened the door from the back porch to our garage (the wood pile was on the other side of the garage.  I felt for and then flicked on the flourescent light and waited the twenty odd seconds for it to warm up.  It came on in one big flash and I was standing about 6 ft away from a bright pink alien - about 7 and a half ft tall, naked, extremely skinny looking, with big black eyes, super skinny looking (maybe 100 lbs) surrounded by mist, right in the door of the garage.

I screamed, slammed the door, and ran back into the house.  My parents asked me what was going on, and I told them.  My dad headed out to the garage to see what was going on.  No alien.  No tracks in the fresh snow outside.  I then had to go get the firewood through the alien-free back porch, garage, and wood shed.  I was not allowed to watch the X-Files for like a year afterwards.  (Which frankly, seems kinda reasonable now.)  At this point, I'm 100% certain that this was some sort of trick of a hyperactive imagination, maybe something to do with fog from the house and the flickering fluorescent light.  Was dead certain that aliens were real and I had an encounter with one.  Because what aliens want to do his hang out in small town garages at -40 to spook children.  :P

GuitarStv

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2019, 11:36:52 AM »
Yeah, there was a lot of UFO interest about 20 years ago.



:P

OK, hate to be that guy, but STRICTLY as the devil's advocate, I wonder what kind of jump in shark sightings was caused by Jaws. Yet sharks are real and always have been.

Sharks are certainly real . . . but I betcha that many of the sightings in that jump you describe were not.

partgypsy

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2019, 01:12:42 PM »

gtrsteve I think I would be totally freaked if something like that happened to me!

I am a skeptic but love hearing stories. My great uncle actually worked at Ames research lab including stuff that was classified for years), and my uncle worked for a time for the government, one of the things he would do was re-map areas, so he got to fly back and forth over area 51 because they were going to increase the no fly zone above it. The only thing he heard was that there was experimental craft, of what design, who knows but no other dirt.

My creepy story was when I was a kid I slept on a 2nd story bedroom with my sister and we had a window facing the backyard between us. One night I woke up and heard the ringing of a bicycle bell which I thought was odd (it was like 2 am in the morning) and then I realize I hear a scratch, scratch on the window. I first froze in fear, thinking what could be scratching on a 2nd story window? But then realize it must be a branch and fall asleep. Anyways when I woke up I remembered after breakfast to check out my bedroom window, and there was no way a branch could have been scratching. Fast forward a few years later, I tell my sister and she freaks, because she said one night she woke up, and actually saw a hand reaching from the window towards me while I was sleeping. And she said it was like the hand realized she was there, and withdrew. She swears up and down it is true. 

the only other "ufo" sighting was, I was at a party in a yard adjacent to a large field bordered by trees/woods. We were hanging out in the evening and at some point someone notices a light. It is round white light, can't tell how far away it is, but it is not moving like an airplane or satellite. We watching moving stopping, going up and down in the sky until a crowd was watching it.  At some point it disappeared or zipped off. The following day it was in the news (other people saw it), but I don't remember what the official explanation was.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 01:18:50 PM by partgypsy »

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2019, 01:32:51 PM »

As for the UFO's being extraterrestrial in origin, that's a REALLY big stretch. For visitors to enter our solar system, they would need a grasp of science and technology far, far beyond ours. Of course, is that even a stretch? What if they are hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us? Could anyone argue that humans have a total understanding of what is physically possible and what is not?

It isn't that extraterrestrials would need a grasp of science & technology far, far beyond ours - its' that what we know about physics and biology would have to be fundamentally wrong.
To paraphrase someone else, 'anyone who thinks there is no other life outside our planet does not comprehend how large the universe is - and anyone who thinks extraterrestrials could visit our planet do not comprehend how large the universe is'

Sending even a car-sized object our of our solar system is hard, but we've accomplished it.  Sending a similar object to another system at a speed where it would arrive in under a thousand years is several orders of magnitude beyond our capabilities.  Launching the same object with the ability (i.e. fuel) to slow down once it arrived near a new star is something we can't even get to work under even the most optimistic of napkin scenarios.  Either the spacecraft has to weigh at most a couple of grams and travel much, much faster than anything we've ever dreamed up, or the 'visitors' need some way of surviving deep space for countless millennia.  Either that or faster-than-light travel must be possible, against our understanding of physics.

GuitarStv

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2019, 02:38:29 PM »

As for the UFO's being extraterrestrial in origin, that's a REALLY big stretch. For visitors to enter our solar system, they would need a grasp of science and technology far, far beyond ours. Of course, is that even a stretch? What if they are hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us? Could anyone argue that humans have a total understanding of what is physically possible and what is not?

It isn't that extraterrestrials would need a grasp of science & technology far, far beyond ours - its' that what we know about physics and biology would have to be fundamentally wrong.
To paraphrase someone else, 'anyone who thinks there is no other life outside our planet does not comprehend how large the universe is - and anyone who thinks extraterrestrials could visit our planet do not comprehend how large the universe is'

Sending even a car-sized object our of our solar system is hard, but we've accomplished it.  Sending a similar object to another system at a speed where it would arrive in under a thousand years is several orders of magnitude beyond our capabilities.  Launching the same object with the ability (i.e. fuel) to slow down once it arrived near a new star is something we can't even get to work under even the most optimistic of napkin scenarios.  Either the spacecraft has to weigh at most a couple of grams and travel much, much faster than anything we've ever dreamed up, or the 'visitors' need some way of surviving deep space for countless millennia.  Either that or faster-than-light travel must be possible, against our understanding of physics.

It is a mistake to apply human logic to a truly alien species.  You don't know what their motivations or physiology may be.  A life form that can suspend it's life for periods of time, or that ages on a geologic scale wouldn't care nearly as much about spending thousands of years in transit.  There are examples of both here on Earth . . . animals which exhibit negligible senescence, and bacteria capable of reviving after thousands of years of dormancy.  We have no idea what could be possible from something truly alien.

big_owl

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #17 on: June 27, 2019, 02:51:20 PM »
I feel like everybody in this thread needs to read The Three Body Problem trilogy.  Those books are life changing when it comes to your perception of the universe and alien life. Time to stop advertising our presence into the cosmos...

BlueMR2

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2019, 04:43:12 PM »
I've seen some truly crazy things in my life (one of them had a second witness in another room).  I've also had some rather spectacular group sightings of amazing things from incredibly reliable (downright boring) people reported to me.  Of course, I have also been able to debunk a very large portion of the reports I got.

I really do not believe that there is alien life anywhere in the universe.  I see no solid evidence to allow me to believe it's there and we have too small a sample size to even begin to extrapolate.  However, there are some very strange things that happen which someday I someday hope get an explanation!

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2019, 05:35:08 PM »

As for the UFO's being extraterrestrial in origin, that's a REALLY big stretch. For visitors to enter our solar system, they would need a grasp of science and technology far, far beyond ours. Of course, is that even a stretch? What if they are hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us? Could anyone argue that humans have a total understanding of what is physically possible and what is not?

It isn't that extraterrestrials would need a grasp of science & technology far, far beyond ours - its' that what we know about physics and biology would have to be fundamentally wrong.
To paraphrase someone else, 'anyone who thinks there is no other life outside our planet does not comprehend how large the universe is - and anyone who thinks extraterrestrials could visit our planet do not comprehend how large the universe is'

Sending even a car-sized object our of our solar system is hard, but we've accomplished it.  Sending a similar object to another system at a speed where it would arrive in under a thousand years is several orders of magnitude beyond our capabilities.  Launching the same object with the ability (i.e. fuel) to slow down once it arrived near a new star is something we can't even get to work under even the most optimistic of napkin scenarios.  Either the spacecraft has to weigh at most a couple of grams and travel much, much faster than anything we've ever dreamed up, or the 'visitors' need some way of surviving deep space for countless millennia.  Either that or faster-than-light travel must be possible, against our understanding of physics.

It is a mistake to apply human logic to a truly alien species.  You don't know what their motivations or physiology may be.  A life form that can suspend it's life for periods of time, or that ages on a geologic scale wouldn't care nearly as much about spending thousands of years in transit.  There are examples of both here on Earth . . . animals which exhibit negligible senescence, and bacteria capable of reviving after thousands of years of dormancy.  We have no idea what could be possible from something truly alien.

This is pretty much what I meant when saying we'd have to fundamentally rethink what we assume about biology.  It's unlikely to be bipedal, large carbon-based organisms with physical analogs to the animalia kingdom here on earth like almost all sci-fi culture dwells on.  we're talking about hypothetical organisms which not only can survive thousands-upon-thousands of years in transit, but that actually want to and have the capacity to do so.

To be fair I think its far more likely the biology exists somewhere more condusive towards interstellar space travel than humans is far more likely than us just being completely wrong about the physics involved.

big_owl

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #20 on: June 27, 2019, 05:50:24 PM »
I've seen some truly crazy things in my life (one of them had a second witness in another room).  I've also had some rather spectacular group sightings of amazing things from incredibly reliable (downright boring) people reported to me.  Of course, I have also been able to debunk a very large portion of the reports I got.

I really do not believe that there is alien life anywhere in the universe.  I see no solid evidence to allow me to believe it's there and we have too small a sample size to even begin to extrapolate.  However, there are some very strange things that happen which someday I someday hope get an explanation!

Man how do you come to that conclusion when there are trillions of stars and galaxies?  I'm thinking life is all over the place out there.

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #21 on: June 27, 2019, 06:27:14 PM »
I really do not believe that there is alien life anywhere in the universe.  I see no solid evidence to allow me to believe it's there and we have too small a sample size to even begin to extrapolate.  However, there are some very strange things that happen which someday I someday hope get an explanation!

Man how do you come to that conclusion when there are trillions of stars and galaxies?  I'm thinking life is all over the place out there.

It seems like everywhere we look we find oodles of planets.  The Keppler mission only worked for a fraction of the time it was supposed to, scanned just one tiny fraction of our galaxy (one galaxy among hundred(s) of billions) and detected over 2,600 planets. 
A bit outdated, but here's a graphic of our known "closest" neighbors.  Seems like there's a potential crap-ton of 'earth-like' planets just in the milky way.

Leisured

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2019, 11:06:54 PM »
interesting video, and I have read the first two of the Three Body Problem trilogy. Interesting ideas, but bad as a novel. Liu Cixin believes that even advanced aliens will insist on expanding, even if that means destroying other species. Liu overthinks these matters, and other thinkers believe that there are lots of alien civilisations, all living quietly on planets in orbit round a long lived stars, and limiting their numbers.

We have been broadcasting radio and television for nearly a century, but the further these signals spread from Earth, the weaker they get, and I suspect that even advanced aliens a few light years away will not be able to detect our broadcast signals against the radio noise of the universe.

I am Australian, and when English settlers arrived in Australia, they learned that Australian Aboriginals had seen sailing ships passing south along the east coast of Australia, and thought the ships were moving islands. Impossible - until it happens.


big_owl

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #23 on: June 28, 2019, 04:21:16 AM »
interesting video, and I have read the first two of the Three Body Problem trilogy. Interesting ideas, but bad as a novel. Liu Cixin believes that even advanced aliens will insist on expanding, even if that means destroying other species. Liu overthinks these matters, and other thinkers believe that there are lots of alien civilisations, all living quietly on planets in orbit round a long lived stars, and limiting their numbers.

We have been broadcasting radio and television for nearly a century, but the further these signals spread from Earth, the weaker they get, and I suspect that even advanced aliens a few light years away will not be able to detect our broadcast signals against the radio noise of the universe.

I am Australian, and when English settlers arrived in Australia, they learned that Australian Aboriginals had seen sailing ships passing south along the east coast of Australia, and thought the ships were moving islands. Impossible - until it happens.

Well they are translate from Chinese so I'm cutting them some slack on novelization. But you need to read the third one, the last half of the third book is an order of magnitude better than any other alien contact book I've ever read.

Leisured

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #24 on: June 28, 2019, 04:38:37 AM »
Thank you for the tip, Big Owl.

As a boy in the fifties, I remember the surge of reports of UFOs, most from the US. One possible explanation is that aliens had put a spy satellite into orbit round Earth, perhaps centuries ago, watching the advanced regions of Earth. Once the satellite detected an atomic test, (Trinity July 1945), the aliens knew that Earth had crossed an important threshold, and was worthy of further study.

This is of course just speculation.

An astronomer might, by chance, see the satellite pass across his telescope's field of view, so the satellite could be disguised to resemble a rock. As humans move out into space, the alien spy satellite would move to higher orbit. If a small proportion of UFO reports are real, this does not mean that UFOs are manned by aliens. UFOs could be robots, remotely controlled. Aliens might be the size of mice, say.

This is plausible, but of course need not be the truth.



nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #25 on: June 28, 2019, 06:40:16 AM »
Thank you for the tip, Big Owl.

As a boy in the fifties, I remember the surge of reports of UFOs, most from the US. One possible explanation is that aliens had put a spy satellite into orbit round Earth, perhaps centuries ago, watching the advanced regions of Earth. Once the satellite detected an atomic test, (Trinity July 1945), the aliens knew that Earth had crossed an important threshold, and was worthy of further study.

This is of course just speculation.

An astronomer might, by chance, see the satellite pass across his telescope's field of view, so the satellite could be disguised to resemble a rock. As humans move out into space, the alien spy satellite would move to higher orbit. If a small proportion of UFO reports are real, this does not mean that UFOs are manned by aliens. UFOs could be robots, remotely controlled. Aliens might be the size of mice, say.

This is plausible, but of course need not be the truth

What I can't wrap my head around is why autonomous/robotic UFOs would be so damn big. Most of the reports are of objects as big or often much larger than our own military aircraft, flying at incredible speeds, or crash sites that indicate an object of significant size.  Why would mouse-sized aliens build something so large?  If alien space-craft are around (and particularly if they are robotic drones) I'd expect them to be tiny - way smaller than the clunky drones we currently build. It gets back the immutable laws of physics - (i.e. Netwons laws, e.g. F = M*A). In short: very big objects take very large amounts of energy to move around (especially in a gravity well like Earth's).

As for the atomic bomb tests 'alerting' aliens that we had crossed some critical threshold... meh.  I think we see that as a much bigger accomplishment than any space-faring species would. It's not like having the capabilities to split an atom has suddenly allowed us to venture off our tiny rock of a planet, let alone get out of our own solar system.  I think the 'critical threshold' would be much more advanced than anything we've come unp with yet, like the ability to beam genetic information across lightyears and have it translated into our squishy carbon-based frames again.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #26 on: June 28, 2019, 07:05:17 AM »
I feel like everybody in this thread needs to read The Three Body Problem trilogy.  Those books are life changing when it comes to your perception of the universe and alien life. Time to stop advertising our presence into the cosmos...

You beat me to it! Those are the best sci-fi books I have ever read in my life and I was a major Arthur C. Clarke nerd in high school. I push those books on all my friends, but I guess they look too intimidating, or maybe I am too enthusiastic and come across as a nut, lol. FYI, they are considered "hard" sci-fi, meaning the author uses the rules of our actual reality.

An interesting tidbit mentioned in those books concerns decelerating out of light speed (or at least very near light speed) in order to reach your destination. If your timing is off by an infinitesimally small fraction, you would overshoot or undershoot your destination by perhaps millions of miles. Then what?

As for alien technology: I am not arrogant enough to assume our species has perfect understanding. We may be the most intelligent life in the universe. We may also look a lot like barely evolved monkeys flinging poop at each other. 

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #27 on: June 28, 2019, 07:17:18 AM »
As for the atomic bomb tests 'alerting' aliens that we had crossed some critical threshold... meh.  I think we see that as a much bigger accomplishment than any space-faring species would. It's not like having the capabilities to split an atom has suddenly allowed us to venture off our tiny rock of a planet, let alone get out of our own solar system.

Maybe it would be more of a studious interest in observing whether the species uses the technology responsibly. Maybe the vast majority of all species use the technology to destroy their own habitat.

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #28 on: June 28, 2019, 07:22:56 AM »

As for alien technology: I am not arrogant enough to assume our species has perfect understanding. We may be the most intelligent life in the universe. We may also look a lot like barely evolved monkeys flinging poop at each other.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter.  FWIW I like contemplating things like this, and I certainly don't think our species has perfect understanding (far from it).  It wouldn't be the first time that someone has called me arrogant for questioning the common narrative of space aliens (if that indeed was your intent) - but I think its a fun exercise to question these preconcieved notions based on our own biases (e.g. aliens will be air-breathing, carbon based, large fleshy organisms that move, live and eat more-or-less like we (or other animals on Earth) do).   We can also attempt to leverage basic physics with logic to deduce what is most probable, even if its not the only possibility.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #29 on: June 28, 2019, 07:29:20 AM »

As for alien technology: I am not arrogant enough to assume our species has perfect understanding. We may be the most intelligent life in the universe. We may also look a lot like barely evolved monkeys flinging poop at each other.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter.  FWIW I like contemplating things like this, and I certainly don't think our species has perfect understanding (far from it).  It wouldn't be the first time that someone has called me arrogant for questioning the common narrative of space aliens (if that indeed was your intent) - but I think its a fun exercise to question these preconcieved notions based on our own biases (e.g. aliens will be air-breathing, carbon based, large fleshy organisms that move, live and eat more-or-less like we (or other animals on Earth) do).   We can also attempt to leverage basic physics with logic to deduce what is most probable, even if its not the only possibility.

Did not mean to call you anything, hope no offense taken.

Hate to harp on Three Body Problem, but Cixin Liu ups the sci-fi game. You will not find any Star Trek aliens in there.


nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #30 on: June 28, 2019, 07:32:38 AM »

Hate to harp on Three Body Problem, but Cixin Liu ups the sci-fi game. You will not find any Star Trek aliens in there.
I'll admit I have not read it yet - but I've put it on my reading list!

GuitarStv

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #31 on: June 28, 2019, 07:37:54 AM »

Hate to harp on Three Body Problem, but Cixin Liu ups the sci-fi game. You will not find any Star Trek aliens in there.
I'll admit I have not read it yet - but I've put it on my reading list!

Me too.  Just placed a hold at the library.

Milkshake

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #32 on: June 28, 2019, 07:47:58 AM »
Uh, followed the link, and ball lightening has exactly as much scientific evidence as extra-terrestrial UFO's.

Not to derail from the original topic but from the article:
Quote
Until the 1960s, most scientists treated reports of ball lightning skeptically, despite numerous accounts from around the world.[3] Laboratory experiments can produce effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but how these relate to the natural phenomenon remains unclear.

Being reproducible in a lab is way more credible than a standard unexplained ET UFO. Also, after the 1960s scientists stopped treating reports of ball lightning skeptically. AFAIK they still treat UFO sightings pretty skeptically.

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #33 on: June 28, 2019, 09:20:16 AM »

Hate to harp on Three Body Problem, but Cixin Liu ups the sci-fi game. You will not find any Star Trek aliens in there.
I'll admit I have not read it yet - but I've put it on my reading list!

Me too.  Just placed a hold at the library.

The first one is a bit of a slog but things really improve by the second book. And by the end of the third its a complete mind fuck. I was affected physically for days after finishing it, it definitely altered my view of space..

In fact all I asked of my wife for my birthday/anniversary this year was that she read the trilogy so we could talk about them.. She was equally impressed. There's a chapter called Singer in the third book where after everything goes nuts.

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #34 on: July 09, 2019, 10:23:10 AM »
this topic ended way too soon.

Luke Warm

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #35 on: July 10, 2019, 11:46:16 AM »

Hate to harp on Three Body Problem, but Cixin Liu ups the sci-fi game. You will not find any Star Trek aliens in there.
I'll admit I have not read it yet - but I've put it on my reading list!

Me too.  Just placed a hold at the library.

The first one is a bit of a slog but things really improve by the second book. And by the end of the third its a complete mind fuck. I was affected physically for days after finishing it, it definitely altered my view of space..

In fact all I asked of my wife for my birthday/anniversary this year was that she read the trilogy so we could talk about them.. She was equally impressed. There's a chapter called Singer in the third book where after everything goes nuts.

i just started the first book. i hope it's good.

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #36 on: July 16, 2019, 06:26:46 AM »
that was a good read. i'm ordering the second one today.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #37 on: July 16, 2019, 10:59:38 AM »
that was a good read. i'm ordering the second one today.

Excellent! As was mentioned, they get better.

big_owl

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #38 on: July 16, 2019, 11:09:30 AM »
DE-HY-DRATE!!!  DE-HY-DRATE!!!

Luke Warm

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #39 on: July 16, 2019, 12:13:38 PM »
Ha!

rab-bit

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #40 on: July 16, 2019, 12:21:52 PM »
I'm intrigued, so I ordered the first  book today.

Milkshake

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #41 on: July 16, 2019, 05:45:28 PM »
I just finished the first one and put a hold on the next 2 at the library. The first one was awesome, I can't wait to read the others!

MrDelane

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #42 on: July 16, 2019, 06:14:52 PM »
I just put a hold on the first one at the library.
63 holds on 9 copies.
YEESH.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #43 on: July 16, 2019, 07:40:52 PM »
interesting video, and I have read the first two of the Three Body Problem trilogy. Interesting ideas, but bad as a novel. Liu Cixin believes that even advanced aliens will insist on expanding, even if that means destroying other species. Liu overthinks these matters, and other thinkers believe that there are lots of alien civilisations, all living quietly on planets in orbit round a long lived stars, and limiting their numbers.

We have been broadcasting radio and television for nearly a century, but the further these signals spread from Earth, the weaker they get, and I suspect that even advanced aliens a few light years away will not be able to detect our broadcast signals against the radio noise of the universe.

I am Australian, and when English settlers arrived in Australia, they learned that Australian Aboriginals had seen sailing ships passing south along the east coast of Australia, and thought the ships were moving islands. Impossible - until it happens.
If another intelligent alien civilization exists, it will almost certainly expand rapidly into the rest of the universe. Even if 99.999% of the individuals don't want to leave their home world, the remaining 0.001% that does will expand and multiply. But it's reasonably likely humans are the only intelligent life in the observable universe.

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #44 on: July 17, 2019, 07:49:32 AM »
If another intelligent alien civilization exists, it will almost certainly expand rapidly into the rest of the universe. Even if 99.999% of the individuals don't want to leave their home world, the remaining 0.001% that does will expand and multiply. But it's reasonably likely humans are the only intelligent life in the observable universe.

You're assuming a lot with this post.

- Aliens have the human tendency to multiply to fill (and then exceed) any natural constraints
- Aliens have any interest in leaving their planet
- It's possible to meaningfully compare human intelligence with alien intelligence
- Alien life is possible for us to identify

Bad assumptions lead to poor results.  As far as aliens go, we don't have remotely enough evidence (of anything) to be able to draw any kinds of conclusions.

big_owl

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #45 on: July 17, 2019, 09:31:40 AM »
If another intelligent alien civilization exists, it will almost certainly expand rapidly into the rest of the universe. Even if 99.999% of the individuals don't want to leave their home world, the remaining 0.001% that does will expand and multiply. But it's reasonably likely humans are the only intelligent life in the observable universe.

Humans are pretty intelligent and we aren't anywhere close to being able to expand to our moon yet alone the rest of the universe.  We can't even figure out how to get to the moon and establish a presence there.  It may be that it's not possible for civilizations to expand beyond some close in planets due to the constraints of physics and the distances involved.  Civilizations could all be like us, in a race against time in a doomed attempt to expand off-world before using up all the available resources on the planet. 

Has anybody ever calculated the energy required to launch a civilization into space?  I don't see it happening on solar/wind/hydro power alone.  If you don't get it done before you use up all your fossil fuels basically all that's left is nuclear.  I'm sort of skeptical that you could run an advanced society off renewables alone while at the same time mounting a large-scale attempt to get off-world.  We certainly don't seem to be in any position to do so.  Maybe if we can figure out fusion before we use up all the fossil fuels but time is running out.  Communicating your presence to the rest of the universe would presumably take a lot of energy as well, why would civilizations waste precious resources on that?  Maybe this is just the way of the universe.  It's sort of like a whole bunch of fish tanks miles apart from each other.  The fish each have their own tanks to live in but the chances of one group of fish ever getting from one tank to another are basically zero.

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #46 on: July 17, 2019, 10:44:44 AM »
^This.  There's two enormous challenges; gravity wells and time.  It takes an enormous amount of energy just to blast off our tiny rock and onto a nearby planet.  It takes orders of magnitude more to leave our solar system (Voyager 1/2 are the only ones that have left, and the Pioneers and New Horizons are on trajectories).  Each took several hundred tons of fuel to get them to the edge of the solar system.  But the real problem isn't even getting them out a solar system's gravity well, it's slowing down once it approaches a new system.  As it approaches another star an intersteller object will accelerate, and require even more fuel to slow down into a controlled orbit. The more massive the object, the more fuel it will need (both to exit one system and to enter another).

Time of course is the other factor - our fastest objects will still take dozens of millenia to reach even the closest stars.  Make them go faster and you need more fuel on the back end to slow down, requiring even more fuel on the front end (both grow exponentially).

I believe GuitarStv is right that we don't know enough (anythng!) about ET biology to make any real conclusions.  Interstellar travel becomes more feasible when the total mass is low, and the total time frame is very large. If aliens (or their probes) are orders-of-magnitude smaller than we are, and/or can wait orders-of-magnitude longer than we can, well that would greatly shift the equation. 
Maybe gram-size aliens who's lifespan can be hundreds of millenia wouldn't mind the trip. Human-sized aliens with human-length lifespans are going to have problems that (IMO) are insurmountable from a physics perspective.

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #47 on: July 17, 2019, 11:35:18 AM »
It is a puzzle why there are no more visible alien civilizations. One is that to get to level of intelligence where can observe from a distance, is either extremely rare, or only occurs for a relatively brief period of time. So that yes we have been looking for alien signatures (radio, unusual light patterns for stars) but really for how long? 30 years? That is so brief. Our civilization may be gone in 100, 500, maybe a thousand years once we burn through our readily available fuel sources, and then fall back to a preindustrial age. Civilizations have to transition from expansion based on things like new land, nonrenewal fuel, to some other equilibrium to survive. As we have seen on our own planet, we have not been successful so far in doing that. So maybe there was an intelligent civilization comparable to our own out there. But it was 200 thousand, or 50 thousand, or 10 thousand years ago and lasted only a couple hundred years? 

If you are asking, why haven't we seen aliens landing in our backyard, that's really not going to happen unless they have developed faster than light speed. What we understand physics-wise, say light travel is a hard limit, and it becomes more difficult the faster you get to light travel. Even traveling at a fraction of the speed of light, will take most likely lifetimes to travel to a nearby star, let alone to us. We live in a relative backwater of our current galaxy. 

eta big owl's comments are on-target. It's kind of sad, but as our universe is expanding and stars are getting farther and farther away from each other, the fish bowl metaphor is even more so true.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2019, 01:08:56 PM by partgypsy »

nereo

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Re: UFO News
« Reply #48 on: July 17, 2019, 12:54:18 PM »
It is a puzzle why there are no more visible alien civilizations. One is that to get to level of intelligence where can observe from a distance, is either extremely rare, or only occurs for a relatively brief period of time. So that yes we have been looking for alien signatures (radio, unusual light patterns for stars) but really for how long? 30 years? That is so brief. Our civilization may be gone in 100, 500, maybe a thousand years once we burn through our readily available fuel sources, and then fall back to a preindustrial age. Civilizations have to transition from expansion based on things like new land, nonrenewal fuel, to some other equilibrium to survive. As we have seen on our own planet, we have not been successful so far in doing that. So maybe there was an intelligent civilization comparable to our own out there. But it was 200 thousand, or 50 thousand, or 10 thousand years ago and lasted only a couple hundred years? 

It's been way less than 30 years. The first exoplanets were discovered in 1992 (27 years) but these were really big planets orbiting a really tiny pulsar.  We **still** lack the capability to observe any exoplanets directly; rather their detection is watching the effect they have on orbits and the periodic dimming of stars.  The first systematic, large(ish) scale attempt to find planets was with Kepler, which launched way back in 2009.  The number of planets 'discovered' in 2018 alone is greater than all the known planets from before 2010.

As for why we've not detected anything... well for starters we lack the capability to directly view any of these planets we've discovered. We've listened for radio waves but this assumes that 1) alien civiliations are using said frequencies and 2) they are powerful enough to be detected lightyears away on earth.  Both seem uncertain assumptions. As a civilzation, we've only been using radio waves for communication for  some 150 years; I'm not even convinced that we won't be using something completely different in 50 years, abandoning our current communications paradigm entirely. 



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Re: UFO News
« Reply #49 on: July 17, 2019, 12:54:48 PM »
eta big owl's comments are on-target. It's kind of sad, but as our universe is expanding and stars are getting farther and farther away from each other, the fish bowl metaphor is even more so true.

I'm not at all religious but you do have to marvel at how perfectly the current universe seems designed like that.  It's almost like something said:

"Hey, I'm giving you (life) this backyard to do what you want with.  You can make the best of it or just shit in it, the choice is yours.  There are a whole bunch of backyards out there but they don't belong to you and you can't reach them - and every day that goes by they get harder and harder to reach.  Carry on."

And circling back to the three body problem, sounds like it's best for us that this is the way.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!