The term “UFO” is not synonymous with “alien craft”! It simply means that the flying object was not identified.
I believe you when you say you’ve seen UFOs. I believe that you saw something you couldn’t identify. I do not, however, believe that it was an alien craft. Beyond that, I suspect that someone could have identified it as a weather balloon, or a type of aircraft you weren’t familiar with, or lens flare, or what have you. But calling an object, or an anomaly in a photo, a UFO is like aying your favorite soup is “du jour”. If you can prove that it was alien craft, you’ll be the first to do so, but then you’ll be obligated to call it “alien craft”.
(And don’t give me “flying saucers”, either. If there are other lifeforms capable of interstellar flight, I doubt that their craft is saucer shaped. Our spacecraft isn’t, because we’ve found the conical shape to be most aerodynamic (if that’s the correct term). The laws of physics would be the same for other species, no matter how they otherwise differ from us.)
I’m not sure that conical shape would be all that benificial to a craft that spends 99.999999% of it’s time in space and 0.000001% of it’s time investigating Earth, especially since the craft would need some advanced hyperspace FTL drive.
SHAKES: Mr. Rilch listens to Coast to Coast most evenings. Someone called in last night who kept saying “UFO, UFO UFO” until I was ready to chew glass. No, I don’t have a problem with the topics discussed on the show; just with this one moron who was apparently stuck in the 1950s.
kanicbird: By all means correct me on physics and aerodynamics; I never said I knew anything about either one. I just happen to gag on the drive-in-B-movie term “flying saucer”.
Ah, well, you know where that comes from don’t you? Some pilot back in the 40’s saw a UFO…that is, saw something out of the window of his plane that he could not indentify . He descibed it as…well I can’t remember but his discription of the object (actually I think it was objects) was not at all scaucer shaped. He then went on to say the movement of the object(s) as being like “a saucer skipping across the water”…I’m assuming, like a skipping stone.
The term got used in some media account and from then on people started seeing UFO that looked like saucers :rolleyes: .
Seems to me that a saucer shape makes more sense all around, although at a certain size a sphere seems even better.
The conical shape was designed (WAG) because all the thrust was from one direction, making that the back end, which means you have to have a pointy front end, right? Different means of propulsion would free you from that constraint, and you could build the ship based on other criteria: interior architecture, and atmospheric reentry, if any.
And if you do spend the majority of your time traveling at very high rates of speed through space the only resistance you would encounter is the occaisional speck of debris floating around in space. And since you are travelling at a high trate of speed you would want to deflect that debris instead of hitting it with a blunt surface. The sharp slope of a saucer’s surface would do that quite nicely.
Once you hit the atmosphere you would want to present a flat wide surface in order to slow descent . The bottom of a saucer does that pretty well too.
So a saucer is a very possible craft for space travel.
Thank you Rilchiam! I’ve been railing against this for years. Sadly with little effect. I’m sure that many people have seen flying things they cannot personally identify, but to make the leap that it therefore must be aliens from another planet is ridiculous.
lol, me too…I have admitted somewhere on this board that i have seen a UFO - but since I didnt follow up, whether or not it was actually the meteorite hitting earth close by which is what I surmised it actually was, it is an actual UFO [i never did manage to identify it as a meteorite=)] but I do not consider it even possibly a flying vessel from anwhere [terrestrial or extraterrestrial] =)
Drives people nuts=) I love it when I am at a SF convention and someone drags over someone who is a rabid saucer nut and tells them I have seen a UFO also…the nutcase is thrilled to find someone else who has seen ET and is shocked when I tell them INSISTANTLY that I think I saw a meteorite=) and they insist that the government or men in black must have gotten to me=) <evil grin>
Um, probably not. Deflecting debris works OK if you’re talking very moderate speeds. At the kinds of speeds that junk travels in space, it won’t make a bit of difference what shape your hull is, unless it’s made out of something amazingly tough. The kinetic energy of even a grain of sand traveling at a few thousand kilometers/second would be enough to ruin your day. Not to mention that you can’t guarantee that the space junk is going to approach along the plane of your aerodynamic profile. It’s just as likely to come from above or below.
You reminded me of a funny story my fiance told me once.
He works in TV and some of his co-workers were doing some kind of a shoot. One of the woman (has many degrees, is supposed to be smart) saw an airplane. It was a military plane (no, I don’t remember which one). We live and work near a Reserve Base. We see these planes EVERY DAY. So anyway, this woman saw the plane and freaked out. She thought it was a UFO. By UFO, I mean and alien spacecraft. Her co-workers thought she was kidding - until she started talking about calling the police! It’s as if it was the first time she ever looked up in the sky. These planes are big. How can you never notice them before?
[Dork Hat On]
Well Duh! Aren’t you forgetting that the saucer would be travelling at WARP speeds, far above the velocity of the average particle? The kinetic energy from such a collision would OBVIOUSLY counteract ANY collision not along the profile.
And really, does it make a difference with the radiant forcefields used by today’s inter-stellar spacecraft?
Geez man! PAY ATTENTION
[Dork hat still on for some strange reason]
. He descibed it as…well I can’t remember but his discription of the object (actually I think it was objects) was not at all scaucer shaped. He then went on to say the movement of the object(s) as being like “a saucer skipping across the water”…I’m assuming, like a skipping stone.