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'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

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Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#51

Post by DonHopkins »

sushisource wrote: post #25
jonstokes wrote: post #15

I totally buy it that there is no such thing as an "unidentifiable alloy." I also buy it that journalists, not being materials scientists or indeed scientists of any sort, do not know the difference between an "alloy" and "a hunk of some hard material," so at some point they wrote down "alloy" because the word sounds exotic, like something you'd find at Area 51. This happens in the press /all the time/. Journos get s…

Yeah, if you are willing to buy that they have something stored they can't identify, this is the most logical explanation. That said, I would still buy that there are probably almost no materials that we couldn't at least get a handle on. If they were truly incomprehensible it would likely be because they were the result of manipulating properties that we don't even know exist yet (higher dimensionality, etc, whateve…

A Pentium chip would probably seem like an incomprehensible material to Alan Turing (and not just because of the awful instruction set), because even though all the materials were known at the time, the design and fabrication techniques and mind-bogglingly fine granularity and complexity of how they are combined hadn't been conceived of yet.

I agree the reporters probably flubbed the word "alloy" for lack of a better understanding of science or a better term to describe it.

An integrated circuit is a fine grained combination of several different kinds of metal and other materials, but they're meticulously arranged and sandwiched together, not just melted together into an alloy.

At what point do you draw the line between nanotechnology and alloy, when you have the technology to 3d-print each and every atom?

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#52

Post by Osmium »

colordrops wrote: post #39
Osmium wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as saying it was impossible that there were materials being stored that we couldn't identify[0], not that the existence of the materials themselves was impossible. The point being that if these materials exist it should be quite straight forward to identify them, and if they're 'unknown' then that's simply because no one's taken the time in a lab to figure it out. [0] To be charitable, I have no doubt that…

I think your interpretation of the article is incorrect, but to address your point: > I have little doubt we can figure out what they are without much trouble. How can you be so sure of that? Have we learned pretty much all there is to know about material science and physics at this point? Do you think someone from 500 years ago could analyze a microchip or some superconducting ceramic? Do you think we could figure o…

> How can you be so sure of that? ... Do you think we could figure out a material designed by a being a million years in advance of us?

It's a fair question, but I'm pretty sure we could. We have constraints: we know the object can be stored in a warehouse, we presumably can infer it can be touched, and can be seen.

Even if it were of alien origin, wondrously advanced, made of some kind of matter that fits outside our standard model of the universe, we would at least know it interacts with light, with the electromagnetic force. We understand that force very well, so we could still characterize it. And that's if it's something deeply weird; deeply strange. (And if it were really that bizarre, it'd be the discovery of the century and obscene to keep it locked up in a warehouse somewhere.)

Far more likely, it's just made up of atoms (which is what we'd expect, given its temperature and density are within the realm of 'objects that can exist on earth in a warehouse'), and then we can use all our normal techniques just fine and it's not a problem.

> Do you think someone from 500 years ago could analyze a microchip or some superconducting ceramic?

Again, to emphasize, this is a valid question -- but we've already gone past that threshold. We can see individual atoms now, so there's not much further to go when it comes to the question of what things are made of, at least to a rough approximation.

However, the next question would be "can we make it?" and the answer to that is very different. If someone gave us some electronics from the future, we could still find out what it's made from quite easily. Understanding how it works and how to re-create it would be vastly more difficult, and possibly beyond us. But this is true of the past too; there were ways of making steel and concrete in the distant past that we've long lost the knowledge of how to make.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#53

Post by QAPereo »

joering2 wrote: post #48
QAPereo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth risking prison over? That sounds like a gambler who loses, not someone who managed to amass and retain wealth.

Harry Greed is best at his game and has many years to prove it. Little people get away with little crimes here and there, a big fish like Reed knows what he's doing. Same goes for even bigger fish like Clinton. $300 millions thru foundation happen to be founded by pure luck exactly in the time she was helping them score business deals. Its a very careful game but they know what they doing!

Thats a great story, thanks.

Edit: /s for clarity

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#54

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

valuearb wrote: post #19

There is a very simple explanation for why the alloys are so mysterious. Harry Reid was able to get the program funded, and directed most of the $22M in spending to one of his closest backers, Robert Bigelow so he could build a fancy warehouse. If that fancy warehouse wasn't storing super valuable alien artifacts it just looks like Reid filling the pockets of a close friend with government monies, and people might th…

Just think about what you are saying. Even if you don't like Reid, you should know he didn't get to where he is by being an idiot.

Does it make sense to make your most SHADY kickback deal based on Aliens??? Something that will get TONS of press coverage even with nothing fraudulent going on.

If Reid was looking for a quid-pro-quo, he would be working with the Mega Resorts on the strip (MGM, Caesars, and even Republican Steve Wynn). His decisions could massively benefit them, and sitting as an honorary member of their board could be profitable.

When you go to rob the bank you drive the easiest to forget, most common looking, plain colored mid-sized sedan. You don't drive an Ice Cream Truck blasting death metal.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#55

Post by mustacheemperor »

daodedickinson wrote: post #30
valuearb wrote: post #19

There is a very simple explanation for why the alloys are so mysterious. Harry Reid was able to get the program funded, and directed most of the $22M in spending to one of his closest backers, Robert Bigelow so he could build a fancy warehouse. If that fancy warehouse wasn't storing super valuable alien artifacts it just looks like Reid filling the pockets of a close friend with government monies, and people might th…

There's much discussion about To The Stars between the Blink-182 frontman and John Podesta in the emails leaked by Wikileaks. If their interest isn't genuine, I can only imagine they're working for / are aliens. Podesta got his start in politics by trying to get the US gov to cough up everything it knew about UFOs.

That's the only explanation you can imagine for why a rock musician and a ufo geek might have emailed each other about the ufo program?

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#56

Post by DonHopkins »

reaperducer wrote: post #27
jonstokes wrote: post #15

I totally buy it that there is no such thing as an "unidentifiable alloy." I also buy it that journalists, not being materials scientists or indeed scientists of any sort, do not know the difference between an "alloy" and "a hunk of some hard material," so at some point they wrote down "alloy" because the word sounds exotic, like something you'd find at Area 51. This happens in the press /all the time/. Journos get s…

> a building in Vegas with some kinds of materials that have strange properties and we don't know where they're from or who made them or how A lot stranger things have been found hidden in Vegas buildings than alien artifacts. Just a few weeks ago it started raining cheerleader uniforms in downtown Las Vegas because a demolition crew pulling down a hotel hit a sealed-off room filled with thousands of them.

It sounds like you're joking, but you aren't!

It'd kind of beautiful, actually.

https://vitalvegas.com/excavators-hit-mother-lode-wtf-las-ve...

It makes me wonder what it will look like when they tear down the building storing old Star Trek: The Experience junk. The UFO conspiracy theorists are going to have a great time with those photo.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#57

Post by greggarious »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #54
valuearb wrote: post #19

There is a very simple explanation for why the alloys are so mysterious. Harry Reid was able to get the program funded, and directed most of the $22M in spending to one of his closest backers, Robert Bigelow so he could build a fancy warehouse. If that fancy warehouse wasn't storing super valuable alien artifacts it just looks like Reid filling the pockets of a close friend with government monies, and people might th…

Just think about what you are saying. Even if you don't like Reid, you should know he didn't get to where he is by being an idiot. Does it make sense to make your most SHADY kickback deal based on Aliens??? Something that will get TONS of press coverage even with nothing fraudulent going on. If Reid was looking for a quid-pro-quo, he would be working with the Mega Resorts on the strip (MGM, Caesars, and even Republic…

>If Reid was looking for a quid-pro-quo, he would be working with the Mega Resorts on the strip (MGM, Caesars, and even Republican Steve Wynn). His decisions could massively benefit them, and sitting as an honorary member of their board could be profitable.

Are honorary board members paid?

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#58

Post by colordrops »

Osmium wrote: post #52
colordrops wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your interpretation of the article is incorrect, but to address your point: > I have little doubt we can figure out what they are without much trouble. How can you be so sure of that? Have we learned pretty much all there is to know about material science and physics at this point? Do you think someone from 500 years ago could analyze a microchip or some superconducting ceramic? Do you think we could figure o…

> How can you be so sure of that? ... Do you think we could figure out a material designed by a being a million years in advance of us? It's a fair question, but I'm pretty sure we could. We have constraints: we know the object can be stored in a warehouse, we presumably can infer it can be touched, and can be seen. Even if it were of alien origin, wondrously advanced, made of some kind of matter that fits outside ou…

> We can see individual atoms now, so there's not much further to go when it comes to the question of what things are made of.

That may be true but also seems like a strong assumption and doesn't fit with our current trajectory of understanding. A paradigm shift in physics which replaces fundamental notions, such as the nature of fields, could make the current understanding become seem a rough approximation just like relativity did to Newtonian mechanics.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#59

Post by donald_knuth »

As a former scientist well practiced in x-ray diffraction it has been really fun watching these blatant flasehoods spread. We have mastered identifying the atomic structure of materials.

Sadly spreading these claims is how these programs self propegate. Luckily they don't do much real damage other than misleading the public and wasting government funding.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#60

Post by coldtea »

hyperbovine wrote: post #43
anigbrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes for a great story until you consider the fact that bigelow is rich and $22 million is small change to the billionaire set that Reid has had on speed dial for years. Enormously elaborate schemes to launder relatively small amounts of money are only plausible to people who think $22 million is a vast fortune.

That's the difference between billionaires and you and me: the billionaire thinks $22m is a lot of money.

Considering billionaires who pay such money just for a year's worth of transportation or a single party or wedding reception, you'd be surprised...

Or you're probably thinking of Scrooge McDuck

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