But it wouldn’t be surprising - it’s not a big step from alien abduction to committing armed robbery.* :eek:
*even if it’s only to raise gas money to get home.
Relevant and appropriate audio and video for the thread.
Some of the ‘unexplained’ reports were later explained by U2 and A-12 flights. I suspect that this is partly what Chronos meant, since the Air Force were certainly keen to avoid any mention of these secret projects. By promoting the myth of ‘flying saucers’ they hoped to avoid any suggestion that some of the weird events in the sky were caused by reconnaissance planes.
For something to even rise to the level of a theory, requires evidence and falsifiability (defining the conditions under which something could definitively be declared false). Any hypotheses that has no actual supporting evidence, nor can be falsified is absolutely 100% fiction. Don’t get me wrong – it’s fun to make up stories. But those stories are worthless without evidence plus falsifiability, because you can substitute almost anything else other than aliens into the narrative, and it would be equally believable.
That said, there are people who do SERIOUS investigations of a lot of claims (as I said, they don’t rise to the level of theories). The problem is, though, that there are probably thousands of ideas that need to be investigated, that actually do have at least some evidence in support of them, and so any time spent on investigating UFO and Ancient Astronaut claims is not all that valuable.
It’s less about whether something is plausible, and more about the fact that people are using the ‘God of the Holes’ type argument “Well I don’t know, therefore Aliens”. As I said, you could substitute anything you want for “Aliens” and the narrative does not gain or lose any of its credibility, making that narrative, essentially useless. Substitute ‘the CIA’ or ‘Russia’ or ‘Time Travellers’ for Aliens, and you have just as compelling a story.
Plus, unfortunately, the proponents of these ideas make so many cognitive and logical errors that it’s absurd. I’ve debated people on the subject and what it comes down to is that they cannot imagine that people are actually capable of building big things. I’ll point out that the same arguments that they make for something like the pyramids, could equally be applied to the skyscrapers of Manhattan Island – the main difference is that many people who are still alive have actually witnessed those skyscrapers being built and we have the building of them on film. So no man in his right mind would claim that the Empire State Building was built by aliens. The fact that ‘you can’t imagine something’ IS NOT A GOOD ARGUMENT.
If extraterrestrial aliens exist, they are too far away to visit us unless they have mastered some technology which goes beyond sci-fi. The nearest stars with possible planets that might support life are many light years away. If the aliens want to visit us, they have to travel at near light speed to get to us. The only alternatives at our current level of comprehension are something weird involving quantum mechanics or worm holes.
Travel apart, why would they visit us? Depending where they are, there are sure to be nearer planets, from their point of view. Or we aroused their interest after an extraterrestrial SETI project picked up our radio signals and deduced that they were not of natural origin. All well and good, but that presupposes an advanced civilization that has already lasted a goodly time and just happens to coincide chronologically with ours. Now that is a very long shot.
So they found us. What then? We would be a scientific curiosity that would be closely examined. Anyone capable of intergalactic travel would in all probability not need the resources of the earth. Unless they wanted a zero-impact visit and made every effort to be unseen, surely they would announce themselves?
Unidentified flying objects? The name says it all. Aliens visiting the earth? I’m still waiting for any hard evidence.
Though I don’t believe UFOs are evidence of intergalactic visitors, I always find this kind of reasoning to be presumptive and faulty. This presumes that any visitors would have the same motivations, desires, and assumptions that we have. We can’t reasonably expect that from a being and culture wholly unknown to us.
We might be a scientific curiosity to them, or we might be no more interesting than an anthill seen by someone taking a hike in the countryside. In the latter case, they could be stopping by for a little look to see what this little planet is up to and then moving on. Maybe they don’t announce themselves because we are inconsequential to them. I don’t announce myself to the bee hive I see in the forest. I might stop and look, but they’re so beneath me in terms of intelligence, communication, and relevance to my existence that there is no point in me making contact. (Plus, it might hurt. Aliens might think the same thing.)
And we don’t have any way of knowing if Earth resources would be of interest to them, because we know exactly zero about them. Sure, the capability of intergalactic travel suggests that they would be far ahead of anything we know in technology, but that doesn’t mean we know what their beings and culture need in terms of resources. They wouldn’t necessarily be just another group of human beings from a distant copy of Earth. We don’t know what they would be or what they might need.
None of this is an argument in favor of the existence of life elsewhere, and certainly not an argument in favor of UFOs being evidence of such life. But assuming that any such beings would act as we would in exploring the universe seems a faulty argument.
If I can take a step back to discuss this kind of question in general, ISTM there is this common feeling that we are living under some kind of scientific tyranny, and it’s about time that we open our minds to spirituality, alien visitors, paranormal phenomena, whatever.
But in fact humans have spent most of their history “wanting to believe”. Looking at things skeptically is the new kid on the block, and despite how incredibly successful it has been, many people still seem to find it unnatural.
Or, let’s put it another way: even if scientists are unwilling to study UFOs, that doesn’t prohibit any individual or group choosing to research them. If something concrete was found, then scientists would certainly be interested.
But very clearly, all such research has been a complete dead end.
This is incorrect. There are a number of plausible “slow” ways to conceivably travel between worlds: generation starships, unmanned probes etc.
Also, even if your premise were true, there are plausible ways to accelerate to relativistic speeds without needing to assume new physics.
Thank you for the article and the link. I love newspaper hoaxes and fads of the 19th century.
Depends on your definition of “interesting.” Science fiction and letters to Penthouse can both be interesting and can share a level of plausibility (none) while quantum mechanics can be intensely dull.
I disagree that it makes sense. The realists among us should accept that Homo sapiens will go extinct at some point. However, if people want to believe it and get the funding for interstellar space ships so we can zip around and meet aliens like Seven of Nine, that’s cool. OTOH, for that I should’ve been an Illinois Republican twenty-some years ago, speaking of multiple things with no theoretical plausibility. (Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought this would happen to me, but I was at my first Republican gala since 1972…)
True, and pretty insulting toward everybody’s ancestors as well. But way racist.
I don’t know what aliens’ motives would be. But they either want to be noticed by us, or they don’t. And either way, if they have the technology and resources to travel between stars, then they have the resources to do that perfectly and effortlessly. If they wanted to be seen, then they could make their presence known absolutely 100% unambiguously to every human being on the planet. And if they wanted to remain hidden, there would be no hope of us detecting them even if we turned every detection apparatus available to the planet as a whole to the task, everything from 14 billion eyeballs to all of the world’s astronomical and communications equipment.
For all we know, there might be advanced aliens studying us in detail. But if so, they have no connection whatsoever to UFO sightings.
Not identical to ours, but they would be a technological civilization, which says a lot about how they think and does make them similar to us.
If the bees were sending out radio waves and building machines, I think you’d look a lot closer.
I’m assuming you think the aliens have an ftl drive. If not, they might still get here, but they wouldn’t treat Earth as a vista point, stopping for a few minutes and moving on. Any curious civilization - and those building starships are curious - would devote some study to any intelligent civilization. Unless the universe is so awash in intelligent civilizations that we are boring, in which case why has no one checked in? Assuming that there isn’t a no contact rule operative.
Interstellar travel. Intergalactic travel - millions of light years - would be real advanced.
In terms of resources, we know we don’t have anything not found in other places. Organics would be unique to us, but probably of not much interest to them. Plus, manufacturing anything would be cheaper than transporting it between stars.
I’m betting that a civilization advanced enough for star travel isn’t going to need much.
Unless they are really into Pop-Tarts or something.
Let’s pretend for a sec that the classic-you-can-find-on -Youtube “Moving five triangles in formation that seem to defy physics and are way faster than any craft we have seen” are aliens. and not something the Chinese or Russians have that they use to taunt us with sometimes**…
My feelings are…so? Nothing I can do about it. It’s just something that exists and the ultimate result is people record it and put it on YT or it makes a local paper or something. Until I see footage of a jet chasing one or a craft lands in DC…SHRUG. Anyone else feel that way?
** A dumb theory I’ve heard…that the Russians or Chinese have retrodeveloped alien tech we haven’t.
So that’s why Trump wants a Space Force; to build a Space Wall!
Everything so far as regards “sightings” indicates that these incredibly advanced alien civilization(s) do not want to have formal contact, and prefer to remain hidden in the background, studying us for unknown reasons.*
At the same time, we’re supposed to think they’re careless and sloppy enough to allow themselves to be detected, inspected and photographed, thus blowing their cover.
Something does not compute.
*Alien socioanthropologic PhD thesis research? Monitoring to see if we might become a threat? Nobly motivated to stop us from killing ourselves? Determining if we might represent a useful source of meat? :eek:
Wait, so the ability to travel really fast or to travel great distances automatically grants the ability to turn invisible? Really? Cool! When does that kick in? Does it depend on maximum speed or maximum distance? Voyager 1’s gotten pretty far away by now - has it turned invisible? Sweet!
I do have to say, it was a great oversight when they made Star Trek not to have everyone and everything in the show be completely transparent and invisible - not only would it be more scientifically accurate, it would also be much more economical to shoot! But no, they made the gross error of implying that travel and invisibility are different things and thus that separate technologies would be required for each - and that some species might have one but not the other.
So . . . they’re human? Just because they are technically advanced doesn’t make them immune to the occasional screwup.
I don’t know if you are saying this tongue in cheek or not, but I think, based on our understanding of physics and what might be possible, that even if you could get up to something approaching fractions of the speed of light you are going to have a pretty big freaking signature. There is no way you could hide that.
Of course, if we are talking about aliens from another solar system or galaxy coming here, they don’t necessarily have to fly here that fast. There are other ways of doing it that could be more stealthy. I’m unsure why on the one hand you could be sooper dooper stealthy wrt the scientific community yet allow someone with a shaky camera or phone to catch you, but aliens work in mysterious ways…
I thought I’d post this YouTube video from one of the channels I follow (Answers with Joe) that talks about this subject. He even shows 4 videos that definitely show UFOs…they are definitely flying (well, one goes into the water at one point) and they seem unidentified. His stance is essentially mine, though I can see why someone who was an advanced civilization would or might come here. Anyway, here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7pgMfzTEZc&feature=em-uploademail
I… I’m not sure how I could have been more sarcastic, actually.
I was mostly riffing on the odd notion that just because Alien civilization X developed superlight/wormhole technology, that they must therefore also have developed perfect stealth technology. The two things aren’t at all connected. Heck, as you noted interstellar travel has a pretty distinct possibility of being rather unstealthy, inherently.
Suffice to say, if you can be caught on a shaky camera, you can be caught on a steady camera. As xkxd says…
Sorry…I thought that’s where you were going, but I wasn’t actually sure. My bad. :smack:
As John Christoper said to Kirk in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” - “you guys sure have a lot of them.”
We didn’t have them when the first saucer is spotted, but now we have drones - and the aliens would have them also. Why fly your ships in the atmosphere to get spotted when you can send down nearly invisible drones, lots of them?
Unless the saucers are piloted by teenage aliens who like to UFO drag race through our atmosphere. There’s been at least one story like that.