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No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#221

Post by m_mueller »

user-the-name wrote: post #219
Diederich wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video released this week shows radar contact.

It also shows basically nothing else whatsoever. I could be literally anything.

I agree about that. Basically at this moment there are two ways to interpret these releases: US government / military is trolling everybody for whatever reason (cover-up, FUD), OR you trust them and there is something very interesting out there, whether it's earthly or not. In any case though, this goes beyond just some optical illusion or camera artifact.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#222

Post by tzs »

swader999 wrote: post #47
king_magic wrote: post #14

The NY Times Headline is much more informative and interesting: > U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either Sub header: > A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge. Those descriptions are a tectonic shift on the topic from the US governmen…

"Those descriptions are a tectonic shift on the topic from the US government." Feels like we are being primed for something new to be afraid of and give our treasure to in defense of. Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I hope the script doesn't go that way.

My guess as to the reason for the shift.

1. Up until sometime in the last decade or so, the UFO sightings that were not successfully explained as natural phenomenon or optical effects that made something ordinary like an airliner appear as something else were all accidental sightings of government projects.

2. Then sightings started that the government recognized as the same technology, except not from the government. Whatever it is the government was experimenting with that occasionally led to an accidental sighting is now being experimented with by someone else, and the government does not know who that is.

When it was just the government projects getting accidentally sighted, they wanted to discourage reports and discussion to try maintain secrecy. Now that someone else is doing similar work, they want to know who and how they got the technology. They need people to report and discuss sightings so they can try to get past the secrecy of whoever is doing these new experiments.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#223

Post by gremlinsinc »

tzs wrote: post #222
swader999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those descriptions are a tectonic shift on the topic from the US government." Feels like we are being primed for something new to be afraid of and give our treasure to in defense of. Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I hope the script doesn't go that way.

My guess as to the reason for the shift. 1. Up until sometime in the last decade or so, the UFO sightings that were not successfully explained as natural phenomenon or optical effects that made something ordinary like an airliner appear as something else were all accidental sightings of government projects. 2. Then sightings started that the government recognized as the same technology, except not from the government…

Nah, it's much simpler: American's are tired of spending 10x more than all other nations combined on the Pentagon budget, solution: create an even bigger boogey-man than all other nations (what's bigger than aliens bent on world-domination), hell they don't even need to say that last bit, just insinuate aliens and they'll get twice as much $$.

That or it really IS aliens, and we're just used to not believing the Pentagon, or U.S. govt... cause they haven't always looked out for our best interests (NSA / Snowden ring's a bell).

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#224

Post by gremlinsinc »

generalizations wrote: post #118
swader999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those descriptions are a tectonic shift on the topic from the US government." Feels like we are being primed for something new to be afraid of and give our treasure to in defense of. Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I hope the script doesn't go that way.

> Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I've seen this sentiment expressed before, but it's never seemed persuasive. Seems to me that the only inherently peaceful alien race would be the one that never had the evolutionary pressure to compete for resources - and that seems like an impossible occurrence.

What resource could we have they could possibly want? I mean there's a HUGE universe out there and resources are EVERYWHERE, every element. All over the place. Seems our only use is the same as we'd have: Zoo.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#225

Post by lazide »

userulluipeste wrote: post #212
lazide wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer timescales and energy levels involved with all known methods of transportation is what makes it unlikely - at least for life on the timescales we live on. The odds someone is interested enough to spend truly mind boggling amounts of energy (literally moving hundreds of mountains worth) and hundred of years to check us out after one of those events - and not even say hi - is low. That they are also so close…

"The odds someone is interested enough to spend truly mind boggling amounts of energy (literally moving hundreds of mountains worth) and hundred of years to check us out after one of those events - and not even say hi - is low. That they are also so close - also low." How could one even begin to make that kind of reasoning? Then the conclusion estimating the low probability is based on what? If I'd have to guess, I'd…

It’s pretty simple math? We’ve only had meaningful ‘not background event’ radio transmissions for about 115 years [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_radio]. Assuming no faster than light travel or similar magic (to the earlier point), but some near light speed magic drive, even if our potential visitors had the ability (and interest) to accelerate to light speed the moment they picked up Marconi’s initial broadcast, they would have to be within about 57-58 light years or less radius of us.

There are roughly 1400 star systems within 50 light years of us [http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/50lys.html]

Which sounds like a lot. But there is estimated to be about 10 to 100 billion star systems in the Milky Way alone. So the odds that any of those stars are occupied by any excitijg neighbors is pretty low, unless the number of alien species+occupied star systems is mind bogglingly large. If there are 100 occupied star systems randomly dispersed in the galaxy meeting all these requirements, it would be one in 70,000 to 1 in 700,000 odds for instance.

Not great. And that is assuming a lot about how much energy they would be willing to expend. We’ve seen no evidence of anything resembling a Kardashev type civilization in the neighborhood.

If there is magic FTL tech, obviously everything is different. Also, who knows maybe we grew up next door to an equivalent to a intergalactic bus depot. That would also change things.

At least based on what we know now though, the tyranny of the rocket equation is rather complete, the distances involved in traveling between star systems so vast, and the energy requirements of even approaching C are so high that it is not a realistic thing to consider for life that works the way we do any time soon.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#226

Post by correcthorse123 »

fighterpilot wrote: post #174
correcthorse123 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think your points are certainly plausible, one way to overcome the filter could be removal of individuals or the concept of self which we experience. It's perhaps a bit of a lame TV trope, but something like a superintelligence could have a mind concept completely unimaginable to us. It's all in the realm of speculation of course, with any proposal having quite a risk of anthropocentric (terracentric?) biases…

It's an intriguing idea. There is something very civilizationally resilient (anti-fragile) about having heterogeneous agents upon which evolution can operate on, though. If there's only a single agent then it could plausibly get stuck in a pathological crevice in the fitness landscape which wouldn't happen in a multi-agent civilization. Although the flipside to that is a single agent won't have a tendency to extermin…

Agreed. Maybe there are ways to have a single agent and still have internal competition.

An organism (biological or otherwise) could have competing internal parts/models, and not be constrained by the mechanism by which natural selection operates now, i.e. biological reproduction.

So multiple subagents could compete within it, without posing an existential threat to the physical manifestation of the organism itself; somewhat analogous to redundant computers making decisions by consensus in e.g. spacecraft.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#227

Post by userulluipeste »

lazide wrote: post #225
userulluipeste wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The odds someone is interested enough to spend truly mind boggling amounts of energy (literally moving hundreds of mountains worth) and hundred of years to check us out after one of those events - and not even say hi - is low. That they are also so close - also low." How could one even begin to make that kind of reasoning? Then the conclusion estimating the low probability is based on what? If I'd have to guess, I'd…

It’s pretty simple math? We’ve only had meaningful ‘not background event’ radio transmissions for about 115 years [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_radio ]. Assuming no faster than light travel or similar magic (to the earlier point), but some near light speed magic drive, even if our potential visitors had the ability (and interest) to accelerate to light speed the moment they picked up Marconi’s initial…

Your math is sound, but I don't agree with all your data inputs. Specifically, that only (the engineered) radio signals would pick the attention of an alien civilization. (In fact, I think that Marconi's or most of the subsequent man generated signals, maybe with exception of nuclear detonations and such, were to faint to be picked up even from within the limits of our own planetary system.) The most obvious clue for presence of life, visible from far away, started with the Great Oxygenation Event. That enough should put Earth on anyone's map, and that happened 2 billions years ago. Achieving 100% of light speed is not possible within our current knowledge, but I assume that 20% should be for non life-carrier spacecraft, which at our galaxy's 200ly diameter gives us a cap of around 1'000 years of travel between most of the intra-galactic destinations. Even with a 10'000 technological head-start, a given civilization can devise a system to achieve galactic oversight. If there's indeed someone out there, with such a head-start, we should assume they're already watched our planet closely and maybe even getting a continuous track of our evolution.

As for "we’ve seen no evidence of anything resembling a Kardashev type civilization in the neighborhood", although you're right, it's hardly useful to think in this frame. The available means that we had so far for observing anything in far away space were and still are pretty limited, for even inert phenomena. I'd say that counting on that to spot something sentient, where things are actively engineered, which may as well include engineering for the appearance itself, is overly optimistic.

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#228

Post by lazide »

userulluipeste wrote: post #227
lazide wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty simple math? We’ve only had meaningful ‘not background event’ radio transmissions for about 115 years [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_radio ]. Assuming no faster than light travel or similar magic (to the earlier point), but some near light speed magic drive, even if our potential visitors had the ability (and interest) to accelerate to light speed the moment they picked up Marconi’s initial…

Your math is sound, but I don't agree with all your data inputs. Specifically, that only (the engineered) radio signals would pick the attention of an alien civilization. (In fact, I think that Marconi's or most of the subsequent man generated signals, maybe with exception of nuclear detonations and such, were to faint to be picked up even from within the limits of our own planetary system.) The most obvious clue for…

We’re just getting more and more hypothetical in a complete vacuum of real information though right?

If we’re trying to get something even somewhat defensible, there has to be some grounding on SOMETHING, or it’s all just fantasy.

If they spent 10k ly getting here, and the ungodly amount of energy and time it would take to do 20% of light speed over that distance, and they had since the great oxygenation event to notice us and get here (and have such a technological and energy advantage over us they were able to do it) - then why are they being seen randomly checking out military aircraft (not very smart or subtle it seems?) but never talk to anyone else? And show no other signs of existing?

Not impossible, but seems like a truly massive amount of energy and commitment of time over what far exceeds the timescales life as we know it works on to check out what could just be a puddle full of gooey algae for all they knew. And then potentially just sitting and watching for 100 million or a billion years.

At least seeing radio signals or a double flash from a nuke test means there is something like intelligent life?

Re: No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

#229

Post by userulluipeste »

lazide wrote: post #228
userulluipeste wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math is sound, but I don't agree with all your data inputs. Specifically, that only (the engineered) radio signals would pick the attention of an alien civilization. (In fact, I think that Marconi's or most of the subsequent man generated signals, maybe with exception of nuclear detonations and such, were to faint to be picked up even from within the limits of our own planetary system.) The most obvious clue for…

We’re just getting more and more hypothetical in a complete vacuum of real information though right? If we’re trying to get something even somewhat defensible, there has to be some grounding on SOMETHING, or it’s all just fantasy. If they spent 10k ly getting here, and the ungodly amount of energy and time it would take to do 20% of light speed over that distance, and they had since the great oxygenation event to not…

"We’re just getting more and more hypothetical in a complete vacuum of real information though right?"

Not really. Both of us were counting on current human knowledge, that our galaxy is this (light years) large, that the maximum speed is that of light and that an exponential amounts of energy is needed for each logarithmic increment of relativistic speed, that there is a working model for life based on what we call organic chemistry, that an atmosphere rich in a highly reactant element that is oxygen can not exist without something continuously producing it and what that could mean for an alien observer, all because, in the slim chance that we are the ones with technological head-start, that should serve as base ingredients for thinking about our long-term future external policy. I'm thinking if we are to become Kardashev type II (and above) civilization, what ought to be the best approach in dealing with an evolving galaxy? But yes, there are also aspects which are hard to think of now in more than hypothetical terms, like what would mean in practical terms to have access to (at least) a star's amount of energy and what it would be worth spending it on. To me, "to check out what could just be a puddle full of gooey algae" looks like a very important objective, and finding something underwhelming should be the desired result, safety wise.

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