All About UFO's

[somebodyelse]

Serious question, prefer straight answers.

Who here has seen an undidentifiable something in the sky themselves?

No, but I've had a few situations where it's taken a while to work out what's going on, and that informs my view on how likely people are to misinterpret what they see. Take navigation lights at sea at night - it's hard to judge the distance, but when you think you know which lights are from one vessel and which are from another your brain tends to stick with it, even as their relative movement makes that interpretation increasingly implausible. There can be a big chunk of confusion before settling on another interpretation that makes sense of the new relative positions. In the air there's more height variation, and things can move a lot faster, so more scope for confusion. Experienced people are more likely to get it right, but they do still make mistakes.

 

[somebodyelse]

And he will prove it to you. A very poor example. Water boils at 213°F in a fairly typical anticyclone.

Or ~199°F in Mexico City - the caveat about 'at standard pressure' is more obvious if you live at altitude.

 

[Axo1989]

Serious question, prefer straight answers.

Who here has seen an undidentifiable something in the sky themselves?

Me personally, no.

 

[Axo1989]

You may have missed my wink. I think we agree though. Real Science welcomes challenges to its theories. "Science" that censors is propaganda not Science. The "settled science" mantra is meant to discourage dissent. Thats never good. If some wacko comes out and says water boils at 213 not 212 you tell him to prove it not censor him. When he cant it just reinforces the fact that water boils at 212. I'll leave it there otherwise I may get accused of being political

I did catch it but couldn't interpret where you were going. I don't think testing scientific hypotheses and experimental findings is essentially political (though certain instances may have unavoidable implications) and agree it's a desirable (or essential) part of the process. But if you meant 'unsettled' in the Christy-Koonin-Spencer sense, then the contrarianism is presumably politico-economic. We can't really get into that here.

Oh please . Humans are fallible and are sinners. I hear the same types of comments about people being hypocritical about attending mass. If only non sinners attended Mass there would be nobody there including the Priests !

Ok 'sinner' is a particular religious framing that would be of interest to adherents and/or in theological contexts, I don't think it's useful otherwise, or here particularly. We can't really get into that here either.

 

[AudiOhm]

I saw a flying saucer many years ago, a friend of mine pinched a waitress's ass...

Ohms

 

[pinger]

I did catch it but couldn't interpret where you were going. I don't think testing scientific hypotheses and experimental findings is essentially political (though certain instances may have unavoidable implications) and agree it's a desirable (or essential) part of the process. But if you meant 'unsettled' in the Christy-Koonin-Spencer sense, then the contrarianism is presumably politico-economic. We can't really get into that here.



Ok 'sinner' is a particular religious framing that would be of interest to adherents and/or in theological contexts, I don't think it's useful otherwise, or here particularly. We can't really get into that here either.

Fair enough.

 

[Taiga]

I am surprised that this July 1st discovery has not yet been posted here.

Mysterious interstellar object could be an alien SPACECRAFT

A mysterious visitor from another solar system could be an alien spacecraft, according to a leading Harvard astronomer.

www.dailymail.co.uk

“Professor Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, says it is 'difficult to understand' how the object could be so large unless it is either a comet or an alien craft.

While Professor Loeb says that follow-up observations may prove the object to be a naturally forming comet, an alien spacecraft remains a strong possibility.

'If it is not a comet, then its large brightness would be a big surprise and potentially signal a non-natural origin, perhaps from artificial light,' he told MailOnline.

However, other astronomers say that much stronger evidence would be needed to prove the solar system has its first alien guests.”

First Oumuamua (2017), then Borisov (2019), and now 3I/ATLAS have been discovered as visiting objects from outside our solar system. I suspect that with our newer and ever more sensitive systems for surveilling the skies, many more extrasolar interlopers will be discovered. These objects may be numerous, but extremely faint. Moreover, our ability to characterize faint objects by their chemical fingerprints, orbital elements, etc. keeps improving.

Link to July 8, 2025 preprint paper on the initial findings:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.05226#page5

 

[somebodyelse]

Unsurprisingly there's no mention of alien spacecraft in the preprint paper - just comparisons to Oumuamua, Borisov, comets, centaurs and trans-neptunian objects. The Daily Mail isn't exactly known for factually accurate reporting, especially if the facts get in the way of a good story. I can imagine the interviewer pressing the aliens angle hard, and a scientist saying we don't have enough data to rule that out yet.

 

[PierreV]

One of the reasons it escaped detection in the initial captures (which have now been reassessed and backtracked) is that its orbital parameters were a bit above the expected range (eccentricity > 6 for example). Since we detect moving objects by either synthetic tracking (stacking images in order to increase SNR but doing all stacks in all directions and for a set of possible speeds and angles) or variations of blinking (detecting differences in images taken with some delay), we are heavily dependent on the choice of parameters as they limit the search space. The parameters of many detection pipelines are now adapted to allow for the detection of more peculiar movements. There's still a computational limit on what we can detect though as the search space increases exponentially when parameters increase.

Now, to keep the spirit of this thread, even if it is a comet, shows the expected spectrographic features of a comet, seems to have a tail, we can not prove that there is no governmental conspiracy hiding the fact that it is a very advanced ship, masquerading as a comet, piloted by demonic entities, originating from an alternate timeline in an alternate universe.

 

[Plan9]

One of the reasons it escaped detection in the initial captures (which have now been reassessed and backtracked) is that its orbital parameters were a bit above the expected range (eccentricity > 6 for example). Since we detect moving objects by either synthetic tracking (stacking images in order to increase SNR but doing all stacks in all directions and for a set of possible speeds) or variations of blinking (detecting differences in images taken with some delay), we are heavily dependent on the choice of parameters as they limit the search space. The parameters of many detection pipelines are now adapted to allow for the detection of more peculiar movements. There's still a computational limit on what we can detect though as the search space increases exponentially when parameters increase.

Now, to keep the spirit of this thread, even if it is a comet, shows the expected spectrographic features of a comet, seems to have a tail, we can not prove that there is no governmental conspiracy hiding the fact that it is a very advanced ship, masquerading as a comet, piloted by demonic entities, originating from an alternate timeline in an alternate universe.

Or, conversely, piloted by nice, "angelic entities" looking to help us out a bit.

 

[Jim Creek]

There is the Fermi Paradox that states there must be hundreds of millions of habitable planets in our galaxy alone. There are trillions of observable galaxies. So where are all the advanced civilizations?

Then there is the Copernican Principle which states we are not special as a species; we are no way in a special place in the Universe; no other alien species is in anyway special either.

In other words all advanced intelligent species are more or less at the same technological state as we. That is the reason no species in the Universe has yet developed interstellar travel technology.

Take that as you will.

Interstellar travel is overwhelmingly difficult. Personally, I don’t believe UFOs are real.

 

[terryforsythe]

Unless it demonstrates one or more of the five observables, I assume it's man made and explainable. That particular event, did have some curious variables to it that seemed more than simple cluster of balloons, but not enough to place it in the "true" UFO/UAP category for me.

The closest I have seen to anything exhibiting any of the five observables is the 2004 Nimitz FLIR video. But, I don't know what all of the data presented on the screen to the navigator means. Mick West claims in his analysis that the object in the video was not performing outside of what a plane can do. Others disagree. I don't know who is correct. But, the question there is why would the Navy not know it was a plane based on radar and TCAS data? And, if it was one of theirs, they certainly should have known that.

I haven't see any of the observables in any other videos I have seen. I have heard it stated that the Jellyfish object came out of the water, but I have never seen any video or other compelling evidence showing that to be the case. I think it is just made up BS, but that is speculation on my part.

The Mosul orb also looks to me to be a balloon. One company makes large silver beachballs up to 48" diameter. Fill one of those up with helium and let it go, and it seems to me it will look like what we see in the video. I can envision somebody attaching a camera to something similar and using it for low cost surveillance. I saw one person claim that it exhited two of the five observables, but I don't see it in the video. I think that is more wishful thinking.

 

[kemmler3D]

In other words all advanced intelligent species are more or less at the same technological state as we.

I think if there are a lot of advanced civilisations, this is probably not the case. It's said that life could have started very early on after the big bang, not long after the first stars formed, so some creatures could have a ~10b year head start on us.

I think if FTL travel is impossible then it's pointless to think about aliens visiting here or even contacting us. A million year journey before they even know we're here? Yeah, sure.

If FTL travel is possible (and there are countless civilisations out there) then according to the Copernican principle, as you note..
it's pointless to think about aliens visiting us, because they can visit countless more interesting places.

 

[Jim Creek]

I think if there are a lot of advanced civilisations, this is probably not the case. It's said that life could have started very early on after the big bang, not long after the first stars formed, so some creatures could have a ~10b year head start on us.

The early Universe was devoid of the heavier elements that are needed to create life.

What I have read is that when the first stars were formed after the Big Bang, the heavier elements, i.e. carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. had not yet been created. Only hydrogen and helium were available in the early Universe. The heavier elements are created when super large stars go super nova. Then the debris of heavier elements are available to form planets and carbon based life. That process took billions of years. So maybe we are not as far behind after all?

 

[Petrushka]

Life capable of civilization has existed on earth for 0.006 percent of earth’s existence. It will be extinguished in a few hundred million years, 7.5 percent of the earth’s age. It seems possible, if not likely, that within some tiny fraction of that time span, intelligent biology will be replaced by something “artificial.”

Perhaps something that can withstand interstellar travel. At achievable speeds.

But here’s the uninteresting question. Why bother?

 

[Jim Creek]

, intelligent biology will be replaced by something “artificial.”

Perhaps something that can withstand interstellar travel. At achievable speeds.

But here’s the uninteresting question. Why bother?

Artificial Intelligence is not the same as awareness of self. AI is not the same as consciousness. I don’t believe an AI entity is capable of replacing biological consciousness. That’s my conclusion which comes from my Zen Buddhist training.

 

[Audiofire]

Black project, black triangle videos. Those who want to believe can just do so. Debunkers will have to do a lot of mental work, because there is visual evidence of UFO stuff. If the debunkers then imagine the videos are real, there is a whole history of secret genius scientists or there were ETs here.

 

[Petrushka]

There’s one minute missing in the video.

 

[Taiga]

Those ETs are really clever. They only reveal themselves to people who do not know how to operate a camera.

 

[kemmler3D]

The early Universe was devoid of the heavier elements that are needed to create life.

What I have read is that when the first stars were formed after the Big Bang, the heavier elements, i.e. carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. had not yet been created. Only hydrogen and helium were available in the early Universe. The heavier elements are created when super large stars go super nova. Then the debris of heavier elements are available to form planets and carbon based life. That process took billions of years. So maybe we are not as far behind after all?

The first supernovae started happening 100My after the big bang, but even if you assume we need iodine for any life at all (heaviest element used by life on earth) the process of its formation started ~10By ago, so the clock could have started well before earth formed ~4By ago. I mean even a short one billion year head start seems potentially meaningful...

I've heard a hypothesis that life could have formed in the interstellar medium itself when the universe was much warmer and denser, but I'm not sure if that's really credible or not. But my general point is life on earth seems to have formed well after the minimum time needed.