NASA to start UFO investigations...

[DaviiB 104]

2 hours ago, sightseer said:

and I have a question pertaing to this thread:

It all starts with the assertion that beings who live on other planets in places so far away that we haven't detected them have chosen to come here to check in on us.  It seems quite logical that if there is one race of beings capable of this travel and exploration then there are probably at least one other race capable of the same or more, so why do they visit us and not them?  Who are we that they would visit us? (and yes I know we dont know who or what else they visit, it just seems odd that we would be anywhere on there list of travel destinations.

Great question. Let's deal with an assumption first:
 

Quote

that beings who live on other planets in places so far away that we haven't detected them

It's quite possible that they're not too far away (relatively speaking). We just don't know how to look, or what to look for. 

We may have to redefine the term 'being', and change our understanding of what constitutes 'life', or 'intelligence'

 

Quote

Who are we that they would visit us?

Some fun possibilities to ponder:

 - "Intelligent" self-aware life is rare (relatively speaking) in the universe, so it's worth observing and studying if you come across it

 - "Intelligent" self-aware life is not rare, but Earth has an interesting variety of life, so it's worth observing and studying

 - Humans are not the only intelligent species inhabiting this planet, but the other residents choose to avoid us, like a herd of animals....and we just occasionally see them coming, going and sometimes observing. While there are lots of us (7+ Billion), we're mostly concentrated in cities, so easier to avoid than you might think.

 - We're a standard run-of-the mill civilization, except we have developed and used atomic weapons. So we're drawing attention to ourselves from the galactic neighborhood.

 - "Life" did not originate on this planet.....and whoever put us here comes back occasionally, or often to check on their terrarium. 

.......or any combination of the above. 

That last two are interesting to think about, since UFO sightings started to spike after the first atomic bombs were detonated.....seems we may have gotten someone's attention.

 

DB

[sightseer 895]

maybe its us visiting ourselves from an alternate universe.  "Coherence" - a fascinating movie.

[Fielder 3,643]

The argument goes something like this: aliens are too far away to send us timely messages at lightspeed, but not too far away to visit us regularly in space ships.

Therefore that these visual sightings are likely to be UFOs is plausible. 

[birdguy 3,943]

If we are a species introduced to this planet to see how intelligent life would fare here as a species there should be control planet somewhere that is akin to Earth with the same flora and fauna but without humans so they could note the difference intelligent life would make.

Noel

[DaviiB 104]

1 hour ago, Fielder said:

The argument goes something like this: aliens are too far away to send us timely messages at lightspeed, but not too far away to visit us regularly in space ships.

Therefore that these visual sightings are likely to be UFOs is plausible. 

I'll take a stab at this:

First, we're assuming that lightspeed is truly limiting. That comes packaged with the assumption that we fully understand how physics (and the universe) works. We do not. 500 years ago, the speed of wind was limiting for ships (and therefore information). We eventually figured it out, but it wasn't in the way we thought. 

Quantum entanglement, which we do not understand, at least opens the door to the possibility of instantaneous transmission of information at any distance....lightspeed be damned. 

 

Then there's the issue of messages:

Assuming a civilization wants to send us a message..... 

What are the odds that we would even recognize it as such? Radio signals are impractical over galactic distances, so it would probably be using another method.... which we won't be listening or looking for. 

What are the odds that we would even understand a message from an advanced society? We can't just assume that they use speech to communicate....and that it would be as simple as translating a foreign language.

Think about how you would communicate with a fish. Could the fish even comprehend that you're trying to communicate... much less any of the ideas you want to express? When was the last time you stopped by the anthill in your back yard to ask the queen for permission to cross her territory? It sounds absurd, but a couple million more years of evolution and any communication, both the medium and the message, would likely be  completely unintelligible to us. 

Finally, we're assuming that they would want to communicate with us. It's obvious to us how potentially disruptive open, clear communication with an advanced race could be to human society. Maybe they know that too. You'd be hard pressed to find a scientist willing to drop right into a group of gorillas in the jungle and start communicating with them (it won't end well). 

Let's say, for instance, that tomorrow we discovered a primitive society on Titan (Saturn's moon). They organize in groups, hunt/gather, have very basic technology (fire etc) and the very beginnings of language . How would we communicate with them? Radio signals would be useless.... we'd probably (correctly) assume that it's best to keep our distance and observe for a while.... and only intervene if it were for the clear benefit of their society (and wouldn't do any harm) . They might spot our satellites/probes in the night sky and wonder... "what the hell is that?". The group might not even believe the ones who saw it, and make fun of them for describing impossible things..... 

 

DB

 

[martin-w 3,234]

17 hours ago, sightseer said:

Martin - you mentioned elsewhere that magnetic fields consist of photons (I believe I have that right) - and I'll have to take your word for it but since photons have inertial mass and therefore energy and since all matter must be to some degree bipolar which I assume sets up some magnetic field around all matter and therefore there is energy flow around all matter... is it possible that this energy flow (flow of photons in the magnetic field) is what causes gravity?

any thoughts?  Have I smoked too many bongs full of fruitloops? (its a George Carlin joke)

it is a curious thing - the things 'science' is willing to accept - the lengths it will go to to find something someone claims should exist -- all while dismissing completely what many say they have seen.  Like the black swan I guess.  dark side of the moon?

 

I recall that its "virtual photons" emitted by magnetic fields not real photons. Peter would be the man to elaborate on that. 

No, photons don't have inertial mass. I know of no theory that gravity is a result of photons flowing in a magnetic field. Time dilation yes, warped fabric of space time yes. 

 

Quote

it is a curious thing - the things 'science' is willing to accept - the lengths it will go to to find something someone claims should exist -- all while dismissing completely what many say they have seen. 

 

Something science claims should exist isn't a guess, its based on evidence. Experiments are then conducted to see if that's how it really does work in the real world. "What people say they have seen" isn't evidence, its not evidence because eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, people lie, people fantasise, people exaggerate, people hallucinate, people have agendas. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by martin-w

[martin-w 3,234]

16 hours ago, dmwalker said:

I'm not quite clear (it happens a lot these days) about the purpose of self-replicating probes. The original probe lands on a moon or asteroid, creates two replicas, which then go off to the next solar system, and then just sits there sending data back to the home planet. After half a million years, the galaxy is populated with millions of probes sitting on moons or asteroids and sending back data. What is the next step? What useful data could they send from a moon or asteroid? What do the originators do with all those data?

 

Von Neuman Probes are postulated to be the most efficient way to explore the galaxy. The original "mommy probe" after its given birth to its "baby probes" carries on with its own mission, namely exploring the moon/planet/star system it resides in. Once that mission is complete its done. It's a means to explore.

Read the article I linked to. 

Now the point is, in regard to the Fermi Paradox, all it would take would be for one species to survive and not destroy itself, and to see the logic of such a method, and that species could then have a presence encompassing the entire galaxy in half a million years or less. And yet we see nothing. Unless.... UAP/UFO's are indeed some form of probe. There are answers to the Fermi Paradox as we've discussed before. 

 

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

Martin, you seem to know an awful lot about aliens, their phycology, their missions and their reasons for them, their benevolence toward us, their methods, their wants and need and what they don't need. 

Do you have information none of us are privy to or are you engaged in wishful thinking here and hoping they will be nice to us.

 

Its not about me, these ideas don't originate from me. Its speculation, but educated speculation by individuals such as John Von Neuman.

Read the article I linked to re these concepts.

As for "being nice to us", whether aliens would be benevolent or malevolent was debated way back at the start of this thread, my opinions are back there to read, they remain the same.

[martin-w 3,234]

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

I know a guy who wishes all he to take for breakfast, lunch and dinner is a pill.  Is that what you suppose the aliens would have for an energy source?

I can't imagine not enjoying handling, cooking and eating food.  I love to eat.  I make elaborate breakfasts.  I have a different breakfast menu for each day of the week.  On Sundays, for instance, it's a slice of French Toast dripping with butter and maple syrup and a couple slices of bacon; a fruit bowl consisting of half an apple, a tangerine, 8 or 10 grapes, and some strawberries; a half a 12 ounce glass of vegetable juice and a cup of Lapsang Souchong tea. 

I would never volunteer to be an astronaut because I would miss eating good food.

But if aliens have what you call an 'energy source' for meals they are missing one of the joys of life.

Noel

 

Noel, it wasn't anything to do with food being in a pill form. I was referring to an alien species having the ability to make whatever materials they wanted by manipulating matter on the atomic scale. Thus, not requiring the capability to mine asteroids for minerals. 

We humans are doing this now, in a primitive way, by moving atoms using STM Microscopes. We can surmise that aliens in advance of us would be doing this with ease. 

[birdguy 3,943]

A lot of surmising and assuming in this thread Martin.  You and I are both doing it but from different points of view.  I think they would be like us in mindsets and behavior and that if one of them were walking down the street we wouldn't recognize him or her as an alien.  

Noel

[charliearon 3,017]

I actually think the "aliens" are here, and I mean here-here posting in the forums and pretending to be hummin' beanins! 👽

[dmwalker 601]

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

It's a means to explore

The example given is a probe travelling at 10% of light speed and populating the galaxy with replicates in 500,000 years. 

If the aliens have manned spaceships which can travel at only 10% of light speed, they could not reasonably travel further than, say, 50 light years.

If the aliens have manned spaceships which can travel at faster than light speed, they could reach any point in the galaxy in a fraction of the time taken by the probes.

In any case, if the purpose of exploration is to find another habitable planet or to find another intelligent species, the aliens would be most interested in their neighbouring star systems and not at all interested in star systems 1,000 light years away.

Of course, if the probes could travel at faster than light speed, they would make more sense.

[sightseer 895]

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

Something science claims should exist isn't a guess, its based on evidence. Experiments are then conducted to see if that's how it really does work in the real world.

I'm talking about thing like the Higgs Boson which was hypothesized to exist by math and then people looked for it for decades.  No one had ever seen one or claimed to have.  The almighty math where one guy found a way to prove that 1 does not equal 1 - I dont remember who that was.

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

"What people say they have seen" isn't evidence, its not evidence because eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, people lie, people fantasise, people exaggerate, people hallucinate, people have agendas. 

Yes, it really is evidence.  Major chunks of the medical field started with people making statements about things they felt.  It didnt stop doctor types from exploring these statements.  Psychology relies entirely on 'what people say".

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Most of this thread has become wild speculation and assumptions. I prefer to look at the evidence that we have, and go from there.

[dmwalker 601]

13 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I prefer to look at the evidence that we have, and go from there.

In order to "go from there", we have to make speculations and assumptions, don't we? What would your approach be?

[DaviiB 104]

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Most of this thread has become wild speculation and assumptions. I prefer to look at the evidence that we have, and go from there.

Here's the evidence we have that we can take to the bank. To be clear, this is excluding mountains of credible data from before the last decade:

• The US Department of Defense has stated that there are anomalous objects in our skies.
• These objects have been captured simultaneously by multiple sensor systems:
  • (Trained) Human observers (fighter pilots), with the naked eye
  • Trained radar officers using extremely sophisticated radar systems
  • Camera / Weapon targeting systems in multiple modes (Visual, FLIR / White hot, black hot etc etc)
• Therefore, the objects are "real", physical objects.
• These objects have been observed by these sensor systems maneuvering in a fashion that greatly exceeds any known / understood aeronautical systems.
  • To be clear....look up the "5 observables" - hypersonic speeds, instantaneous acceleration, trans-medium capability etc.
• The US department of defense has stated (in 2021) that the objects are not US technology, are not likely to be foreign/adversarial technology (Russia, China etc) and appear to lack a prosaic explanation. 
• The existence of AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) and AAWSAP, indicates that the Department of Defense was being dishonest (read: lying) for years when they claimed that UFO's didn't appear to be real, or were of no interest. They were studying the phenomenon the entire time.

 

To summarize, UFOs (UAP's) are real, physical objects, some of which appear to defy the laws of physics as we know them. The US Military is encountering them, and the Pentagon has stated that they don't know what they are, after having studied them for some time.

If we are to believe just what the Pentagon has admitted in the last 12 months......where do we go from here except wild speculation? The thought exercises are quite fun.

Especially when you bring the mountains of older data (from before the Pentagon admitted their existence), back into the mix. They seem to be trying to control the narrative by ignoring all the data from the previous 50-70 years, and pretending only the last 20 or-so years are relevant.

 

Cheers,

DB

Edited June 22, 2022 by DaviiB