All About UFO's

[Mikig]

I think that is BS. We were not looking for ionizing radiation. Were were not looking to overturn Newtonian gravity. We were not seeking to overturn Maxwell.

The conservative accumulation of data forced reinterpretations.

If aliens were flitting around faster than light, reality would exhibit local weirdnesses. It is possible that aliens could arrive before the evidence of their departure, but they would have to do something to stop at our doorstep, and that would be as disruptive as their departure.

I will be a little more polite and civil than you in my response. What I'm saying is that we think like humans, inhabitants of the earth, with human knowledge, and with human scientific and cultural preparation. We are talking about other systems, possible, not yet known, of other forms, of other worlds of other galaxies, of other places totally unknown to us... we cannot even imagine what is out there, because our knowledge is based on awareness of an estimate: there are 100 billion galaxies in the “observable” universe…..we, of all this, know 50,000 stars……when we talk about the universe we talk about dark energy, and dark matter, which however for now we hypothesize composition and functioning…..we are looking, we are hypothesizing, we are experimenting, we are observing, we are reasoning….and yes, we are waiting for something,….what? if we only know an infinitesimal part of what surrounds us?

 

[Mikig]

But, really, after everything we've experienced so far, would that even make a difference? I mean, would we even notice between the tic-tac-shaped objects drilling perfect holes in cattle and making pretty patterns in cornfields?

I'm sorry but coming from another galaxy and sometimes having to use a very common translator we don't always understand the question in its original intention!

what do you mean by what we experienced "so far " are you perhaps referring to what experience we have to draw from the circles in corn fields, and holes in livestock?

 

[oceansize]

I have no answers to give, but only questions to ask.

We are human-centric, so we think of the UFO as a species that is between a cat and a man, green, that experiences the same life impulses as us, that uses telepathy like Mr. Spock or that eats rats like the very bad guys in Visitors or that looks like a cute puppet like ET.
But if it were an inhabitant of a planet with a different chemical composition to ours, atmosphere and soil, are we sure that it could be as we have always imagined them?
they could be substantially different, with different purposes and different capacities... they could be made of light, or gas, they could be non-thinking, like jellyfish, or they could be living stones... who knows….

one thing seems certain to me: we have always looked for and imagined our similar ones on a carbon basis, but we don't know if and what could exist on other chemical bases...

Only carbon has the ability to produce the complex molecules necessary to act as chemical messengers and thus life as we know it. Silicon is the next best in that regard, but has very limited ability to form the long chains and complex structures necessary. Now, you may imagine that life could exist on say, an electronic level - but then we run the risk of disappearing down the we live in a computer simulation rabbit hole

 

[Petrushka]

Only carbon has the ability to produce the complex molecules necessary to act as chemical messengers and thus life as we know it. Silicon is the next best in that regard, but has very limited ability to form the long chains and complex structures necessary. Now, you may imagine that life could exist on say, an electronic level - but then we run the risk of disappearing down the we live in a computer simulation rabbit hole

Seventy some years ago, Fred Hoyle wrote a novel about a naturally evolved electronic spacefaring intelligence. I reread it recently. It’s still pretty cool. A bit more recently, Arthur Clarke wrote the 20xx books, which envisioned intelligences composed of pure energy.

Scientists are not unimaginative.

 

[oceansize]

Seventy some years ago, Fred Hoyle wrote a novel about a naturally evolved electronic spacefaring intelligence. I reread it recently. It’s still pretty cool. A bit more recently, Arthur Clarke wrote the 20xx books, which envisioned intelligences composed of pure energy.

Scientists are not unimaginative.

Coincidentally, Fred Hoyle predicted a resonant state for the production of carbon in stars, without which there might be no carbon based life forms.

 

[solderdude]

What it comes down to (all aspects including all the theorizing) is that it is all based on speculation and nothing (or just fractions) on facts or undeniable evidence.
Just people putting forward some ideas and others disagreeing or agreeing.

We have not even discovered all that lives on our own planet nor figured out how parts of our own bodies and, if real, our souls work and here we are imagining what could live light-years to light ages away and travels here through theorized wormholes etc.

I understand it is frustrating for believers that hope anytime in the foreseeable future all our knowledge will be revealed.
And (just theorizing, as it is fun and comfortable to imagine things) even then what would we really 'know' other than some, or just one, unknown device might be shown when not deemed 'safe for the public to know' but not its purpose nor its origin.

Just another parallel with audio. Imagining something and then believing it is true because we observe it with flawed senses and enjoy it.

 

[Petrushka]

What it comes down to (all aspects including all the theorizing) is that it is all based on speculation and nothing (or just fractions) on facts or undeniable evidence.
Just people putting forward some ideas and others disagreeing or agreeing.

We have not even discovered all that lives on our own planet nor figured out how parts of our own bodies and, if real, our souls work and here we are imagining what could live light-years to light ages away and travels here through theorized wormholes etc.

I understand it is frustrating for believers that hope anytime in the foreseeable future all our knowledge will be revealed.
And (just theorizing, as it is fun and comfortable to imagine things) even then what would we really 'know' other than some, or just one, unknown device might be shown when not deemed 'safe for the public to know' but not its purpose nor its origin.

Just another parallel with audio. Imagining something and then believing it is true because we observe it with flawed senses and enjoy it.

We have massive evidence that physics is the same everywhere. And space is full of molecular precursors to life as we know it. Life is going to be carbon based, almost certainly RNA/DNA based. Because this is what chemistry does when undirected.

There is a difference between being open-minded and empty headed.

 

[solderdude]

We have massive evidence that physics is the same everywhere. And space is full of molecular precursors to life as we know it. Life is going to be carbon based, almost certainly RNA/DNA based. Because this is what chemistry does when undirected.

There is a difference between being open-minded and empty headed.

Most likely, bordering to certainly, yes, but that is the least uncertain part of all this.

Most likely (assumption based on rationale) there are also more planets teaming with life and even intelligent life outside of our solar system.
Most likely well beyond our (an their) reach when considering the speed of light being a scientific limit.
That is unless all the hypothesis of FTL travel are true but this is all speculation.

The unanswered part is whether or not any of them, or technology of theirs, playing hide and seek with jet fighters and buzzing around in the sky. Are occasionally crashing and in the hands of some organization in the US (or elsewhere) which is kept secret.
This is the 'guessing' and 'believing' part of this whole UFO/UAP thingy.

 

[Petrushka]

Most likely, bordering to certainly, yes, but that is the least uncertain part of all this.

Most likely (assumption based on rationale) there are also more planets teaming with life and even intelligent life outside of our solar system.
Most likely well beyond our (an their) reach when considering the speed of light being a scientific limit.
That is unless all the hypothesis of FTL travel are true but this is all speculation.

The unanswered part is whether or not any of them, or technology of theirs, playing hide and seek with jet fighters and buzzing around in the sky. Are occasionally crashing and in the hands of some organization in the US (or elsewhere) which is kept secret.
This is the 'guessing' and 'believing' part of this whole UFO/UAP thingy.

Now that nearly everyone on the planet carries a camera all the time, we get pictures of bolides.

 

[antcollinet]

There is a difference between being open-minded and empty headed.

To quote a phrase - "Keep an open mind - but not so open your brain falls out"

 

[Mart68]

Ruling out FTL travel does not rule out some of the more extreme possibilities:

If they are Von Neuman machines then they haven't needed to travel faster than light to get here. They could have started out a billion years ago.

Likewise if they are interdimensional, or if we are in a simulation and they are not operating by the limits set by the code that governs us.

Also possible that they are from a prior earth civilisation, the remnants of which are based on our moon, or other moons, or Mars, or deep in the ocean, or under Antarctica.

So even if we can rule out FTL travel there are other, admittedly highly improbable, scenarios.

 

[Petrushka]

Ruling out FTL travel does not rule out some of the more extreme possibilities:

If they are Von Neuman machines then they haven't needed to travel faster than light to get here. They could have started out a billion years ago.

Likewise if they are interdimensional, or if we are in a simulation and they are not operating by the limits set by the code that governs us.

Also possible that they are from a prior earth civilisation, the remnants of which are based on our moon, or other moons, or Mars, or deep in the ocean, or under Antarctica.

So even if we can rule out FTL travel there are other, admittedly highly improbable, scenarios.

I think interstellar travel is only possible with entities that can hibernate for thousands or tens of thousands of years. So I buy AI as a possibility. What I can’t swallow is the possibility that governments can keep secrets. More specifically, that aliens would collude with governments to keep secrets.

Would make the whole thing so shabby.

 

[Peterinvan]

Since we are close to developing sentient androids (Mr.Data), why would we want to put a fragile human out into space?
I would expect any sentient visitor from space to be some form of intelligent robot, not a carbon based life form.

Physicists are still trying to understand time-space warps and "what is on the other side of a black hole". Heck, now they say that dark matter theories are being de-bunked. I would expect visitors from far far away to travel through a "worm hole" of some sort.

 

[Mart68]

I think interstellar travel is only possible with entities that can hibernate for thousands or tens of thousands of years. So I buy AI as a possibility. What I can’t swallow is the possibility that governments can keep secrets. More specifically, that aliens would collude with governments to keep secrets.

Would make the whole thing so shabby.

Secrets have been kept in the past. Enigma, Manhattan Project. It's not impossible.

Also plenty of supposed whistle-blowers have come forward. They just aren't believed.

If 'aliens' was really the secret, it's so hard to believe that the secret effectively keeps itself.

 

[Petrushka]

Secrets have been kept in the past. Enigma, Manhattan Project. It's not impossible.

Also plenty of supposed whistle-blowers have come forward. They just aren't believed.

If 'aliens' was really the secret, it's so hard to believe that the secret effectively keeps itself.

I think your scenario requires the aliens to collaborate with the government, and only crash near military testing facilities.

In my universe, unscheduled descent of space objects show up as videos on TikTok, or in people’s living rooms.

 

[Mart68]

I think your scenario requires the aliens to collaborate with the government, and only crash near military testing facilities.

In my universe, unscheduled descent of space objects show up as videos on TikTok, or in people’s living rooms.

Maybe they have got better at not crashing, so all the crashes pre-date smart phone cameras and the internet?

Let's face it, it can't be easy to pilot a craft that defies the laws of physics, there's going to be a steep learning curve.

 

[WillBrink]

Seems like an update to the Fermi Paradox if I follow correctly, an attempt at calculating a probability for life on other planets, and it's not optimistic:

Kipping D & Lewis G
(2024). "Do SETI Optimists Have a
Fine-Tuning Problem?"

International
Journal of Astrobiology

1Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 W 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA
2Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Abstract
In ecological systems, be it a petri dish or a galaxy, populations evolve from some initial value
(say zero) up to a steady state equilibrium, when the mean number of births and deaths per unit
time are equal. This equilibrium point is a function of the birth and death rates, as well as the
carrying capacity of the ecological system itself. The growth curve is S-shaped, saturating at
the carrying capacity for large birth-to-death rate ratios and tending to zero at the other end.
We argue that our astronomical observations appear inconsistent with a cosmos saturated with
ETIs, and thus SETI optimists are left presuming that the true population is somewhere along
the transitional part of this S-curve. Since the birth and death rates are a-priori unbounded,
we argue that this presents a fine-tuning problem. Further, we show that if the birth-to-death
rate ratio is assumed to have a log-uniform prior distribution, then the probability distribution
of the ecological filling fraction is bi-modal - peaking at zero and unity. Indeed, the resulting
distribution is formally the classic Haldane prior, conceived to describe the prior expectation of a
Bernoulli experiment, such as a technological intelligence developing (or not) on a given world.
Our results formally connect the Drake Equation to the birth-death formalism, the treatment of
ecological carrying capacity and their connection to the Haldane perspective.

Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OxsjoOm8yJA7V3Yn_qt_sKshX8EYGT9U/edit

 

[Petrushka]

Maybe they have got better at not crashing, so all the crashes pre-date smart phone cameras and the internet?

Let's face it, it can't be easy to pilot a craft that defies the laws of physics, there's going to be a steep learning curve.

In my memory, a woman was hit in her living room by a meteorite ( don’t recall the date of the incident), and recently folks had a used battery land in the living room.

Why not the kitchen or garage?

 

[Petrushka]

Seems like an update to the Fermi Paradox if I follow correctly, an attempt at calculating a probability for life on other planets, and it's not optimistic:

Kipping D & Lewis G
(2024). "Do SETI Optimists Have a
Fine-Tuning Problem?"

International
Journal of Astrobiology

1Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 W 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA
2Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Abstract
In ecological systems, be it a petri dish or a galaxy, populations evolve from some initial value
(say zero) up to a steady state equilibrium, when the mean number of births and deaths per unit
time are equal. This equilibrium point is a function of the birth and death rates, as well as the
carrying capacity of the ecological system itself. The growth curve is S-shaped, saturating at
the carrying capacity for large birth-to-death rate ratios and tending to zero at the other end.
We argue that our astronomical observations appear inconsistent with a cosmos saturated with
ETIs, and thus SETI optimists are left presuming that the true population is somewhere along
the transitional part of this S-curve. Since the birth and death rates are a-priori unbounded,
we argue that this presents a fine-tuning problem. Further, we show that if the birth-to-death
rate ratio is assumed to have a log-uniform prior distribution, then the probability distribution
of the ecological filling fraction is bi-modal - peaking at zero and unity. Indeed, the resulting
distribution is formally the classic Haldane prior, conceived to describe the prior expectation of a
Bernoulli experiment, such as a technological intelligence developing (or not) on a given world.
Our results formally connect the Drake Equation to the birth-death formalism, the treatment of
ecological carrying capacity and their connection to the Haldane perspective.

Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OxsjoOm8yJA7V3Yn_qt_sKshX8EYGT9U/edit

Evolution has been my internet hobby for 25 years. My reading is that replaying the earth scenario would be unlikely to result in civilization. Too many coincidences required. Evolution does not have a direction or purpose.

As for non-evolutionary scenarios, Boltzmann Brains and such, I am not holding my breath.

 

[WillBrink]

Evolution has been my internet hobby for 25 years. My reading is that replaying the earth scenario would be unlikely to result in civilization. Too many coincidences required. Evolution does not have a direction or purpose.

As for non-evolutionary scenarios, Boltzmann Brains and such, I am not holding my breath.

That's the same reasoning employed by those who claim Abiogenesis could not possibly have happened here to invoke God(s) and ID for our existence. I'm not particularly dissuaded by that paper I posted but any attempts to quantify it - whether I like the outcome not - has to be supported. The author of that paper has a YT channel and comments on the paper: