# UFO Theory and Middle Ground. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073 "2019-01-19T21:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/121 "2019-01-28T13:43:20Z")
To me the thing is UFO’s DO occur and the idea they are from another planet, another time, or another dimension, are just another possibility. I mean really strange craft fly across the sky or even land. Sometimes even near air force bases, and nobody knows what the heck they are. The pilots, the people on the ground, the people manning the radar - just dont know. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/122 "2019-01-28T16:19:05Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Yes; it is a particularly intractable rule, too. You can’t hide an active, heat-emitting spaceship in space except by being a long way away, in time and in space. Yeahbut aliens who’ve figured out how to get around the speed of light restriction would surely have the technology to get around those pesky laws of thermodynamics. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/123 "2019-01-28T16:20:06Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > To me the thing is UFO’s DO occur and the idea they are from another planet, another time, or another dimension, are just another possibility. I mean really strange craft fly across the sky or even land. Sometimes even near air force bases, and nobody knows what the heck they are. The pilots, the people on the ground, the people manning the radar - just dont know. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/124 "2019-01-28T16:29:57Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > When I say aliens “millions of years” ahead of us, many people don’t appreciate the scale of what we’re talking about. Technological progress is likely to be a sigmoid curve- after a while you meet the limits of growth, then you literally can’t get anywhere any faster. > [@](#): > > That’s why it’s important to make the distinction between “Very clearly and explicitly impossible according to fundamental laws of physics” and “Utterly impractical; would require stupendous amounts of energy and solutions to a plethora of massively difficult engineering problems”. > The former problems are insurmountable (although I expect in at least some cases a fuller understanding of physics may show a few black-and-white situations are actually not quite so). > But many of the latter kind will become absolutely trivial to such a species. > They will have moved on to solving problems that are unknown-unknowns to us a long time ago. > > The “wishful thinking” part is whether a species will ever get to this point. In the ‘Fermi Paradox’ thread I made the mistake of discounting the phenomenon of a growth curve; you can access vast amounts of energy and resources in the early parts of the growth process, but later on this growth must slow down, simply because of time and distance. So I’d expect to see a lot of middle-sized civilisations, exploiting their local resources efficiently - but if they get too large, the’d stagnate. The amount of energy, resources and computing power that they could devote to a problem or project would start to show diminishing returns, so they’d never be able to command enough energies to do the really interesting stuff. And in any case we don’t even see any evidence of these middle-sized, exponentiating empires - if they had magic tech, their cities would glow as bright as stars in the dark light years. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/125 "2019-01-28T16:32:12Z")
I’ve read all about the various sightings near air force bases, both in the US and elsewhere. Like so much else the sightings do not stand up to scrutiny. Read Ian Ridpath’s excellent analysis of the Rendlesham Forest incident, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/126 "2019-01-28T16:45:05Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > To me the thing is UFO’s DO occur and the idea they are from another planet, another time, or another dimension, are just another possibility. I mean really strange craft fly across the sky or even land. Sometimes even near air force bases, and nobody knows what the heck they are. The pilots, the people on the ground, the people manning the radar - just dont know. Inserting aliens from another world into situations when you don’t the what the cause is yet? “I don’t know who robbed the liqueur store last night-could be aliens!” “Who put a dent in my car bumper when I was at the store? Could be aliens.” “I’m not quite ready to accept the blame for global change, because aliens be be the cause” “I wouldn’t be too quick to blames the Russians for illegal voter influence until we can rule out aliens.” ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073/127 "2019-01-29T05:32:18Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Technological progress is likely to be a sigmoid curve- after a while you meet the limits of growth, then you literally can’t get anywhere any faster. Yep, could be…we have no way of knowing or when it might happen. (although of course if there’s a point where we can make accurate predictions about every phenomenon that we are aware of we might suspect we’ve reached the end) > [@](#): > > In the ‘Fermi Paradox’ thread I made the mistake of discounting the phenomenon of a growth curve; you can access vast amounts of energy and resources in the early parts of the growth process, but later on this growth must slow down, simply because of time and distance. So I’d expect to see a lot of middle-sized civilisations, exploiting their local resources efficiently - but if they get too large, the’d stagnate. The amount of energy, resources and computing power that they could devote to a problem or project would start to show diminishing returns, so they’d never be able to command enough energies to do the really interesting stuff. Yep, but as you’re implying, even just from what we know, those diminishing returns will not kick in until we’re talking about a civilization harnessing energies, resources and data processing rates many, many, many orders of magnitude greater than humans have so far mustered. But when we’re talking about vast interstellar empires then, yes, from what we know, the distances involved will cause many inefficiencies and perhaps growth will slow. However bear in mind how old the universe is and how long it’s likely to survive into the future: I don’t see how you get from growth \*slowing \*to there being a barrier to doing the really interesting stuff. > [@](#): > > And in any case we don’t even see any evidence of these middle-sized, exponentiating empires - if they had magic tech, their cities would glow as bright as stars in the dark light years. Sure and that’s the paradox. The paradox exists whether or not a person is as optimistic about the possibilities as I am. Even a species a couple centuries more advanced than humans could probably litter the galaxy with 0.5c bric-a-brac in a relatively short time. Why don’t we see it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ufo-theory-and-middle-ground/828073.md?page=6)