Live data from Hacker News

Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

lweb.cfa.harvard.edu

121–130 of 216 posts

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#121
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing “alien” in the sense of “not from our solar system” with the green dudes with big eyes. I think his argument that this meteor (IM1) was not from our solar system is pretty compelling. It’s not “evidence of aliens,” it’s evidence of extrasolar origin of this particular meteor.

As long as he sticks to extrasolar but otherwise normal matter, I don't have a beef. The Oort cloud (as I understand it) is about as close to the edge of Solar you can get before it stops being our local region. Quite why you'd go beyond there, when its a) huge b) essentially uncharted waters and c) perfectly capable of providing novel chemical/isotopic materials in cometary form... His other news presence went to pr…

The sensible non-woo-woo reason is the speeds of the objects and the paths they're following; they don't match things in orbit around the sun, so aren't from the solar system. The Oort cloud reaches out more than half the distance to Alpha Centauri [1], so yes, it's distant for being in orbit around the sun, and there may be all kinds of strange materials out there and elsewhere in the solar system, but those things are not moving like ʻOumuamua. Any talk of aliens is still woo-woo as far as I'm concerned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. Unfortunately this means pretty much anything he authors can be safely disregarded as the ramblings of someone in need of psychiatric care. These nodules are the result of terrestrial geology.

> The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. What defines a good scientist is an open-minded attitude and going beyond the accepted status-quo. Who knows, maybe some aliens really contacted him in his dreams? But a scientific study has its rules anyway, and if methodology is correct, the author can believe in a spaghetti monster.

And a little common sense to understand that long distance telepathy is not an accepted scientific fact, neither explains why his brain was not fried by a source of energy powerful enough to make a long interplanetary distance call.

So if he really was spoken in his dreams, a real scientist should bet for the two non-crazy hypothesis available. 1) Just dreaming with aliens does not mean that aliens exist, 2) and being tricked by a colleague hiding in their room while he was sleeping. Because we, apes, never miss the opportunity to have a good laugh.

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. Unfortunately this means pretty much anything he authors can be safely disregarded as the ramblings of someone in need of psychiatric care. These nodules are the result of terrestrial geology.

> The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. What defines a good scientist is an open-minded attitude and going beyond the accepted status-quo. Who knows, maybe some aliens really contacted him in his dreams? But a scientific study has its rules anyway, and if methodology is correct, the author can believe in a spaghetti monster.

> Let us keep our minds open by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases.

-- Prof. Walter Kotschnig, 1940

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#125

The first author is Avi Loeb, who thinks this: > In 2018, he suggested that alien space craft may be in the Solar System, using ʻOumuamua as an example. In 2023, he claimed to have recovered material from an interstellar meteor that could be evidence of an alien starship, claims some experts criticized as hasty and sensational. > On August 24, 2023, The New York Times published an article about Loeb and his search fo…

The Chief Scientist of US Space Operations Command "confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory" [1] using "additional data available to the Department of Defense" which I assume is classified. As far as I can tell this paper isn't making any extraordinary claims about extraterrestrial intelligence [2] (which Loeb is infamous for), it's just co…

> "additional data available to the Department of Defense" which I assume is classified.

Spot on

> The 2014 meteor was originally identified as an interstellar object by Siraj in 2019 when he and Loeb were studying Oumuamua. The pair posted their findings as a preprint and submitted their results to an astronomy journal, but the paper was not accepted for publication because they used data from a NASA database that used classified information that could not be verified.

> The snag started a three-year process as Siraj and Loeb worked through a bureaucratic logjam to receive government confirmation on their findings, working with scientists and officials at NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other offices. They eventually connected with Matt Daniels, assistant director for space security at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, to get an analysis from Shaw and Mozer.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/scientific-discovery-gets-k...

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? Take a scientific report with measurements with a grain of salt? Why must an opinion cloud a scientific observation of collected measurements? Put the salt away.

I mean the measurements themselves may be fine, but the conclusions will require scrutiny.

Yep. Imho this doesn't pass Occam's razor.

Finding: "Objects with chemical composition that's unknown on Earth".

Conclusion: "Likely originated from outside our solar system".

Simpler explanations:

"Formed on Earth through previously unknown process".

"Formed elsewhere inside our solar system".

How many extraterrestrial (but inside solar system) substances do we really know? How much extraterrestrial substances have been sampled, from how many locations on how many objects, exactly? And even on Earth, do we know all processes through which materials are formed?

Yes, extrasolar origin is one possibility. The most likely one? Hmm..

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#127
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out! What are your thoughts on the latest UFO congressional hearing? Do you think these people just turned their careers and image to shambles because they just wanted some sensationalism or do you give people any benefit of the doubt?

Some things to keep in mind about these UFO hearings: 1. The reports are all second- and third- hand. To my knowledge, no DoD employee has testified to anybody in Congress that they personally witnessed extraterrestrial technology or "biologics". 2. The exception here is a "Jonathan Grey", who hasn't testified before Congress, or, for that matter, been identified; he's one of David Grusch's sources, under a pseudonym…

[flagged]

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched the hearing and had a different takeaway: There are UAP interfering with military training exercises and in American airspace, and there doesn't exist a reliable mechanism to report these or to address them given the stigma around UAP, and there should be one for safety reasons. At the very least, I felt the pilots made a compelling case here. Now, if somehow there were indeed crashed alien crafts, I wouldn…

I mean if these hearings mean that the first-person accounts can come forward and testify themselves or more solid physical evidence, then great, job done. But given the Snowden leaks and the ones where someone posted Ukranian intelligence on their Discord server or the ones where complete service manuals for military hardware are posted on the War Thunder forums... if there was more truth to it, people would've done…

[flagged]

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if these hearings mean that the first-person accounts can come forward and testify themselves or more solid physical evidence, then great, job done. But given the Snowden leaks and the ones where someone posted Ukranian intelligence on their Discord server or the ones where complete service manuals for military hardware are posted on the War Thunder forums... if there was more truth to it, people would've done…

[flagged]

Oh please.

Re: Discovery of spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean [pdf]

#130
post #61
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things to keep in mind about these UFO hearings: 1. The reports are all second- and third- hand. To my knowledge, no DoD employee has testified to anybody in Congress that they personally witnessed extraterrestrial technology or "biologics". 2. The exception here is a "Jonathan Grey", who hasn't testified before Congress, or, for that matter, been identified; he's one of David Grusch's sources, under a pseudonym…

This comment is trying to discredit David Grusch. He merely said that those potential beings might not be aliens but might be resident of earth and maybe on other dimensions. He also mentions the Vatican role on one occasion in the 40’s for a case happening in Italy. It’s quite disheartening to see this person putting himself and his career in jeopardy being discredited on the internet by anonymous people using bad f…

> He merely said that those potential beings might not be aliens but might be resident of earth and maybe on other dimensions.

That might seem like a mere statement to some, and it is, but given the context it shifts my odds of whether he's worth taking seriously quite a bit. It's not the kind of baseless speculation serious, grounded people openly make.

I'm a bit in awe of the crocodile tears shed over all the personal risk these folks are taking, somehow being famous and respected enough to be defended by anonymous people on Hacker News never gets weighed on the other side of that equation...

Post reply on HN