Aliens

[homeforsummer]

I'd be very interested to hear more from those who think that Aliens only exist in movies. I suspect they aren't aware quite how large the universe is...

I think ancient people had to have more of a collective because they didn't have the technology we have today to make life overly easy (this is not to doubt the technology of ancient man though). I can sit at a desk and do all my work with little or no physical effort what-so-ever. I just move my fingers and my work gets done. I don't need to rely on others to accomplish my task. And even if I did have to dig a ditch, I'd just use a backhoe. There is no relying on the guy next to me to give me a hand.

In a forever streamlining world I think it gets easier and easier to focus on the individual rather then the collective. Look at all the stuff we have made just for us, the personal computer, the personal music device, the personal pan pizza, the list goes on and on.

There was also a limitation in the spread of information and ideas. Today I can just on the internet and talk to people all over the world but back then there was very minimal contact with others outside your region...or at least this is what we currently believe. Based on current archaeological data and anthropological theory I'm not 100% sure on that. I'm not sure we, I, give the ancients enough credit for global exploration. But at any rate, even with the best case scenario the spread of information would have been slow. There wasn't time for a new way of thinking to branch out in a given culture. You were in your community and you had to make it prosper.

It's an interesting idea to look at for sure and I'm not entirely sure how to approach why it happened. Realistically I still don't think beings from another world had anything to do with it, but you never know.

I'd agree with this. If I were to summarise my own thoughts, i'd say that:

- Literacy and numeracy were much less common in those days. Those who were literate and numerate immediately had authority over and respect from those who weren't.

- A significant proportion of people believed in the Gods. Powerful people can manipulate this belief with great ease. They can say "God told me to do this" and hundreds of thousands of people will believe them. They could virtually get away with claiming they were Gods themselves, and the masses would do anything in belief they were appeasing the Gods. You want a pyramid built? You got it. Whether the people were enslaved or not you could guarantee that these hundreds of thousands would step to it, for fear of angering the Gods if they were unco-operative.

 

[Touring Mars]

Given what we now know about universe and the physical processes that occur within it, it is a bold (and almost certainly wrong) statement to make that life is unique to Earth. At every possible opportunity, our studies of the universe have provided more and more compelling reasons to believe that alien life is extremely probable. The scale of the universe alone makes the idea of life being unique to Earth utterly ridiculous. But add to that what we know about the tenacity of life on Earth - that it established itself early in the planet's history and has survived here ever since - and you have another compelling reason to believe that life is probably ubiquitous.

It is critically important to distinguish between "life" and "advanced civilisation", and to remember how differently these two things can possibly be detected. The single most compelling reason to believe that life is not abundant in the universe is our complete lack of any evidence that there is any at all, but there are very simple reasons for this - so far, we have only been able to directly study the tiniest fraction of extraterrestrial locations for signs of life (meteorites, comets, the Moon, Venus, Titan and Mars) and have been limited to looking for signs of advanced civilisation (like light or radio transmissions), and even this is in its infancy.

Our own planetary history provides a good illustration of the problem of the external detectability of life - life has existed here for > 3,000,000,000 years, but until now it was only detectable by direct exploration. Our current status as an externally detectable "advanced civilisation" has only existed for about 100 years i.e. an alien civilisation located 100 light years from us and equipped with a decent radio receiver would (only now) be able to detect our presence without having to physically travel the 1 quadrillion kilometers (!) to visit Earth and "see" us first hand. Of course, there are 'only' a few tens of thousands of stars within this 'detectability bubble' that is emanating from Earth - in other words, to the vast majority of the hundred(s) of billions of star systems in our galaxy, we are totally invisible. For me, this is as good a reason as any to explain why we are not detecting any other civilisations - not because they are not there, but simply because their 'detectability bubble' either doesn't reach us, or perhaps has already passed us by.

Of course, the fact that life on Earth has been and still is largely undetectable from a distance begs the questions of how an alien civilisation could not only detect our presence, but actually visit us on purpose (given the vastly longer lengths of time it takes to physically travel through space) and hence why any alien visitors would be so interested in us, let alone turn up equipped with rectal probes (or the facility to make rectal probes once they got here). It also begs the question of why an alien civilisation more technologically advanced than ourselves (a safe assumption, based on their ability to visit us compared to our inability to detect them), would undertake the truly colossal task of visiting us just to stick things up our bottoms...

 

[Dotini]

Touring Mars[/B];3658445]The single most compelling reason to believe that life is not abundant in the universe is our complete lack of any evidence that there is any at all, but there are very simple reasons for this - so far, we have only been able to directly study the tiniest fraction of extraterrestrial locations for signs of life (meteorites, comets, the Moon, Venus, Titan and Mars)...

Our current status as an externally detectable "advanced civilisation" has only existed for about 100 years i.e. an alien civilisation located 100 light years from us and equipped with a decent radio receiver would (only now) be able to detect our presence without having to physically travel the 1 quadrillion kilometers (!) to visit Earth and "see" us first hand.


Of course, the fact that life on Earth has been and still is largely undetectable from a distance begs the questions of how an alien civilisation could not only detect our presence, but actually visit us on purpose (given the vastly longer lengths of time it takes to physically travel through space) and hence why any alien visitors would be so interested in us, let alone turn up equipped with rectal probes (or the facility to make rectal probes once they got here). It also begs the question of why an alien civilisation more technologically advanced than ourselves (a safe assumption, based on their ability to visit us compared to our inability to detect them), would undertake the truly colossal task of visiting us just to stick things up our bottoms...

Touring Mars, thanks for your informative and interesting post. It gives rise to several comments and questions.

Firstly, the panspermia theories of astronomer Freddy Hoyle and the high altitude balloon experiments of Dr. Chandra Wickramsinge (sp?) suggest that hardy microbial life might be floating virtually everywhere in outer space, and some of it slowly drifting down through the upper levels of the stratosphere. Wickramsinge et al have captured have captured several sets of samples in their balloon experiments, and have excited the biologists and astronomers with their promising results.

Secondly, your admonition of the truly vast distances separating us from our nearest stellar neighbors is to me the most convincing argument as to why UFO's or flying saucers of the nuts-and-bolts variety could not be here. To that could be added the sheer energy required to travel between star systems. I've heard it said that all the combined energy sources on planet Earth would not be sufficient to propel a single vehicle at near-light speeds to the nearest star.

Thirdly, your two references to rectal probes by aliens, even though apocryphal and in doubting, raises the potentially emotionally disturbing issues of alien abductions and cattle mutilations. No doubt most claims of abduction emanate from very disturbed people and their irresponsible hypnotherapists. Cattle mutilations could be accounted for as a covert epidemiological survey of mad cow disease by an agency of the US government, possibly AFOSI.

Finally, I'd like to ask if you've seen the movie about The Men Who Stare at Goats. This raises the question of psychic spying and the whole issue of "spooky action at a distance", to use Albert Einstein's words. Experiments in the realm of subatomic particle physics have apparently proven that particles, when split and sent off into different directions at light speed, are still somehow entangled and have the ability to communicate with one another. If (big, big IF here), alien intelligences were able to master this science of instant psychic communication across galactic distances, and further able to practice macro-effects, commonly known to us by the words psycho-kinetics, psychokinesis, "spoon-bending" a la Uri Geller, poltergeist effects exhibited by disturbed children, psychic healing or even healing by common prayer, then this would open up an whole new realm of possible explanation for reports of anomalous data.

Respectfully,
Dotini

 

[Touring Mars]

I haven't seen the film, but I do recall seeing the documentary by Jon Ronson on which it is based - all I remember about it was that a US general convinced himself that he could walk through walls because matter is mostly empty space, and then proceeded to smash his face off the wall when he ran into it. This anecdote neatly summarises my feelings on quantum weirdness - while we might not fully understand the physical reality of nature, we do have a pretty solid (pardon the pun) grasp of how macrosized objects (like bodies and bacteria) are constrained to within certain limits of physical possibility. Although the electrons in my body can and indeed are in more than one place at a time, I am not, and probably never will be...

The panspermia hypothesis has always been interesting and the possible discovery of supporting evidence is tantalising - but there are some problems with it when it comes to explaining the origins and evolution of life on Earth. Although it is known that some precursors of life abound in the universe (i.e. amino acids), and that it is possible that life on Earth could have been 'seeded' by the arrival of a prefashioned organism i.e. a bacterium frozen in the core of a comet, the opposite could just as easily be true - that life on Earth actually began here on Earth. Indeed, this latter view is entirely consistent with the evidence that we currently have. Either way, conditions on Earth would have acted as a kind of filter anyway, with only those organisms with the ability to survive on Earth being the ones who would have survived the original seeding. I reckon that it is extremely unlikely that a single type of organism would just happen to land on the unoccupied Earth and be able to survive the myriad challenges it would immediately face, let alone for long enough to solve the huge problems of how to acquire energy/resources, reproduce and thus lay the foundations for all life on Earth as we see it today. If that did/could happen - that one type of organism could survive transplantation to an otherwise sterile Earth, then I reckon that more than one type of organism would probably have done it aswell, thus begging the question of why life on Earth today seemingly originated from a single common source. Of course, it could have transpired that one type of life (i.e. life as we see it today) would drive all others out of existence, or that only one type would ultimately survive the conditions on Earth for long enough to reproduce (and thus leave any trace of its ancestral history behind). And there is also the possibility that all life in the universe is exactly the same as that found on Earth, but I think that this is highly unlikely. Alas, this is all pure speculation and none of it is based on any evidence whatsoever. Meanwhile, the evidence as it stands fully supports the view that life on Earth began here just as much as it supports any other view.

 

[magicalgin]

Almost certainly, I mean it's just too weird to be the only planet with life in the whole universe...

 

[Dotini]

Links to curious photos, interview:

http://www.bltresearch.com/robbert/ufophotos4.php
Several pages to look at.

http://www.mysterious-america.net/talbottinterview.html
Interview with author of above links.

 

[homeforsummer]

Some excellent posts, TM 👍

...the opposite could just as easily be true - that life on Earth actually began here on Earth. Indeed, this latter view is entirely consistent with the evidence that we currently have. Either way, conditions on Earth would have acted as a kind of filter anyway, with only those organisms with the ability to survive on Earth being the ones who would have survived the original seeding. I reckon that it is extremely unlikely that a single type of organism would just happen to land on the unoccupied Earth and be able to survive the myriad challenges it would immediately face, let alone for long enough to solve the huge problems of how to acquire energy/resources, reproduce and thus lay the foundations for all life on Earth as we see it today. If that did/could happen - that one type of organism could survive transplantation to an otherwise sterile Earth, then I reckon that more than one type of organism would probably have done it aswell, thus begging the question of why life on Earth today seemingly originated from a single common source. Of course, it could have transpired that one type of life (i.e. life as we see it today) would drive all others out of existence, or that only one type would ultimately survive the conditions on Earth for long enough to reproduce (and thus leave any trace of its ancestral history behind). And there is also the possibility that all life in the universe is exactly the same as that found on Earth, but I think that this is highly unlikely. Alas, this is all pure speculation and none of it is based on any evidence whatsoever. Meanwhile, the evidence as it stands fully supports the view that life on Earth began here just as much as it supports any other view.

I recall reading (in BBC Focus magazine, to which I subscribe) about an interesting series of experiments made by NASA (I think) into the probability of organisms from elsewhere in the galaxy being the ones that kick-started life on Earth.

I seem to remember they sent a mineral-ore satellite up and let it fall back through the atmosphere to simulate the intense heat of re-entry to see if organisms could have survived. One type of organism did survive, though I can't remember which. What didn't survive were bacteria, which ended up a bit frazzled. All the organisms had been buried several inches behind the front of the satellite at a depth that extra-terrestrial organisms could likely have been embedded in the comets that rained down on Earth in the earliest days of our solar system.

If I find the article, I'll reproduce a portion of it here for anyone interested.

 

[Public'sTwin]

Links to curious photos, interview:

http://www.bltresearch.com/robbert/ufophotos4.php
Several pages to look at.

http://www.mysterious-america.net/talbottinterview.html
Interview with author of above links.

As far as photography goes, that first link is full of very cheap thrills, and again, falls under the "POOF" realm of UFOs: pathetically out of focus.

POOF, and it's gone.

 

[Touring Mars]

Thanks HFS 👍 Although I don't personally believe that life on Earth came about by external seeding, I reckon it is only a matter of time until evidence for life elsewhere in the universe is found. Although that evidence might support the panspermia hypothesis, it wouldn't necessarily disprove the theory that life on Earth began here...

Finally, I'd like to ask if you've seen the movie about The Men Who Stare at Goats. This raises the question of psychic spying and the whole issue of "spooky action at a distance", to use Albert Einstein's words.

I saw the film on Friday night, and it was quite good - light-hearted entertainment, but I doubt it will win many awards.Put it this way, it was better than I thought it would be, but that wasn't hard! The military are an obvious target for conspiracy theories by virtue of the fact that much of their activities are necessarily clandestine - but if the military really did develop such powerful psychic abilities, it makes you wonder why they are still so reliant on conventional methods...

 

[Dotini]

if the military really did develop such powerful psychic abilities, it makes you wonder why they are still so reliant on conventional methods...

To the best of my recollection, a gent by the name of Ingo Swann working at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) developed the remote viewing techniques used by the military. Although they did have some interesting "hits", I don't believe Col. Anthony Stubblebine's little group at INSCOM (Army Intelligence and Security Command) were ever funded nor trusted well enough to do much but experiment. It all supposedly came to an end with the cold war and reduced budgets under defense secretary Frank Carlucci.

 

[Darla Starch]

I'm sorry that I have to be rude, but this is all bulls**t. Aliens don't exist. Even that I'm a big fan of X-Files.

Nice to see you're arrogant enough to assume that humans are the only creatures in the Universe capable of rational thought, and Earth being the only place possible in the Universe to sustain life for any period of time.

Let me demonstrate something: the approximate size of the visible universe.
(All figures are approximate)

186,000 miles per second x 60 seconds=11,166,000 miles a minute
11,166,000 miles per minute x 60 minutes=669,600,000 miles per hour
669,600,000 x 24 hours=16,070,400,000 miles per day
16,070,400,000 x 365 days=5,865,696,000,000 miles per year
5,865,696,000,000 x 13.7 billion years (Approximate age of the Universe)=80,360,035,200,000,000,000,000 miles across

(Note how I chose the visible Universe. If I was to go into the true size of the Universe, I'd have to hire somebody else to figure it out, due to the formulas involved and factoring in dark energy.)

Now, with an universe approximately 80.3600352 sextillion miles across and nearly 14 billion years of time, I'm sure there is life somewhere in the universe. And even assuming one planet per galaxy has life, we're talking at least 200 BILLION planets with some form of life. It could be something as simple as bacteria, it could be a civilization so advanced that we can't imagine it. Point is, the Universe is too damn big to assume that life hasn't developed elsewhere.

 

[Exorcet]

To the best of my recollection, a gent by the name of Ingo Swann working at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) developed the remote viewing techniques used by the military. Although they did have some interesting "hits", I don't believe Col. Anthony Stubblebine's little group at INSCOM (Army Intelligence and Security Command) were ever funded nor trusted well enough to do much but experiment. It all supposedly came to an end with the cold war and reduced budgets under defense secretary Frank Carlucci.

Well, I did not watch the movie, though I might consider it when I have time, but the idea of the government/military cancelling something as powerful as remote viewing due to reduced budgets (unless it did not work) doesn't seem likely. It would be the equivilant of having stopped stealth aircraft production after the Cold War. The US likes to lead, and RV would certainly give them an edge.

 

[Dotini]

Exorcet,

Here in my little library are the books I retained on remote viewing:

Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness, by Dale Graff (former director of Project STARGATE)

Mind Trek and The Ultimate Time Machine, by Joseph McMoneagle (remote viewer for STARGATE)

Remote Viewers: the Secret History of America's Psychic Spies, by Jim Schnabel (the best book on the topic written by a reporter and not someone who was there)

Natural ESP and also Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy by Ingo Swann (NY artist and pioneer of remote viewing at SRI)

The Mind Race, by Russell Targ and Keith Harary (Targ was a scientist SRI)

According to my reading, the stated reasons for stopping the project were those cited, but it could be added that the "hits" were always spasmodic, and could never be considered as reliable as a spy on the ground or aerial photography. Information developed by remote viewers could not be considered as actionable unless verified.

Reading a little between the lines, one has to imagine that these people were considered very, very "creepy" by the conventional military culture.

Edit: a current story I ran across on remote viewing today:http://www.ghostwoods.com/2009/12/remote-visions-an-interview-with-lyn-buchanan-865/

Take with salt.

 

[mafia_boy]

We are not alone......

Spiral UFO puts Norway in a spin!

Let the conspiracy theories begin!

 

[Dotini]

Here's another link with different pictures and video of the same event.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html

Of the explanations offered, I liked the rocket accident one the best. It may also be a grand hoax. But perpetrated by whom, and for what? Recalling Occam's Razor, it is to be preferred that lying Russians are doing it before resorting to alien contact.

Here's a 3rd story with a Norwegian astronomer saying it was a Russian submarine rocket failure.
http://gizmodo.com/5422792/this-is-how-the-mysterious-giant-spiral-happened

Edit 4: IMHO, assuming the 1st stage leaves a green vapor trail, a Russian ICBM test suffered a failure of an upper stage, which pinwheeled.

As an anecdote, I can say that back in the 80's I went through a time when I built and launched model rockets. Once I designed, built, launched, fully recovered and subsequently re-launched a 4 stage rocket. It failed on the 2nd flight, and was never fully recovered.

 

[Touring Mars]

That is undeniably cool, but as the simulation clearly shows, it is explicable by simple physics. It doesn't explain what the object was, but then again neither does my imagination.

 

[homeforsummer]

That is undeniably cool, but as the simulation clearly shows, it is explicable by simple physics. It doesn't explain what the object was, but then again neither does my imagination.

Yeah, that simulation video sounds fairly logical. Must have been awesome to see though.

 

[Alex.]

I've seen a few UFO's but my best memory is one from my childhood. I was about 9 or 10 years old watching TV in my living room, when looking out of the window I saw a black disc, quite a sleek shape was silently gliding across the sky, about helicopter height. I'd hazard a guess at about 1/2 a mile away. It made no noise, I tried to find my mum's camera but couldnt, and the last I saw it was gliding eastwards until it went out of site.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13956752
No one with a weak stomach or who is under the age of 18 should click on this link to the Denver Post story on cattle mutilation.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wo...aim-ufo-watchers/story-e6frf7lf-1225808892785
The latest story on the Norway light show.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091209-saturn-hexagon.html
Bizarre hexagon walls on Saturn imaged by Cassini.

 

[FoolKiller]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091209-saturn-hexagon.html
Bizarre hexagon walls on Saturn imaged by Cassini.

This has nothing to do with aliens, nor is it a wall of any kind, unless you mean it in the same way you say wall of the eye in a hurricane.

From the article you linked:

Cameras aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft have captured images of a mysterious hexagon-shaped cloud formation that is likely formed by the path of a jet stream flowing around the planet's north pole.

The hexagon, which was discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s, encircles Saturn with an estimated diameter wider than two Earths. The associated jet stream likely whips along the hexagon at about 220 miles per hour (100 meters per second).

 

[homeforsummer]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wo...aim-ufo-watchers/story-e6frf7lf-1225808892785
The latest story on the Norway light show.

It's hardly the "latest story". You yourself already posted a link with a much more logical and plausible explanation... when the article comes out with tripe like:

As yet, no one has come forward to claim the phenomenon as a hoax, nor have scientists or military experts been able to explain the light show.

...despite the fact that possible explanations have come out, it's clearly just an excuse for a "crazy" story. That paper is obviously short on news today...

 

[Dotini]

I stand corrected. Thanks, FoolKiller and homeforsummer.👍

 

[FoolKiller]

It appears the Norway spiral is almost definitely a rocket incident, even though Russia denies it. They say their test failed at the same time, but deny that it made the spiral.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/10/norway-ufo-control-russian-rocket/?test=latestnews

A spectacular spiral of light was seen over the north of the country on Wednesday, prompting theories it was caused by a meteor, the Northern Lights or even aliens.

But now Russia has revealed that its latest test-firing of its new intercontinental missile ended in failure — at the same time observers witnessed the early morning light show.

As well as signaling a major setback for the country’s armed forces, the revelation provided a possible explanation for the mysterious display in the skies.

Russia's defense ministry refuses to confirme that the lights were caused by its Bulava missile, which can be equipped with up to 10 individually targeted nuclear warheads and has a maximum range of 5,000 miles.

But defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said the images seen over Norway were consistent with a missile failure.

"Such lights and clouds appear from time to time when a missile fails in the upper layers of the atmosphere and have been reported before," he said. "At least this failed test made some nice fireworks for the Norwegians."

The botched launch was the twelfth test of the Bulava and its eighth failure, which deals another blow to Kremlin's hopes that the sea-based weapon would become a cornerstone of its nuclear arsenal.

"They will have to spend quite a long time trying to make it working," said Alexander Konovalov, the head of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Assessment. "That is fraught with very negative consequences, up to the loss of the sea-based component of the Russian nuclear forces," he said.

The ministry said that a government commission was looking into the possible reasons behind the test failure.

 

[Public'sTwin]

It appears the Norway spiral is almost definitely a rocket incident, even though Russia denies it. They say their test failed at the same time, but deny that it made the spiral.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/10/norway-ufo-control-russian-rocket/?test=latestnews

My 6 o'clock news just confirmed that the Russians are acknowledging their failed rocket as a likely cause of the spiral.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...crown-moves-sunlight-30-year-winter-ends.html

Astronomical anomalies may be off slightly topic...but here's a fabulous photo of Saturn's "Hexagonal Crown".

Respectfully submitted,
Dotini

 

[Dotini]

British government takes UFO sightings quite seriously:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...ent-probed-Britains-greatest-UFO-mystery.html

Mile wide pyramid(?) hovers over Kremlin (with photo):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...837200/UFO-pyramid-reported-over-Kremlin.html

Not so good night time YouTube vid of Moscow flying pyramid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuanP2P41_I

Thousands upon thousands of UFO's have been seen. On two consecutive weekends in 1952, UFO's were seen, photographed and detected on radar darting about and hovering over the White House, and were chased by fighter jets. The Air force held a farcical "news conference", wherein their most senior officer, General Sanford, blamed it on a temperature inversion to calm public fear. Starting in 1947 and ending in 1969, the US government undertook "scientific" studies (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book), concluding that although hundreds of sightings could not be explained, they represented no threat. The UK recently closed its public files on the issue with the same bland explanation.

96% - 99% of the universe consists of "dark" (invisible) matter and energy, completely undetectable by current scientific apparatus. Its existence is inferred by the large scale motions of galaxies and star systems, and by gravitational lensing. Dark matter interpenetrates us and our world at this very moment. It's quite plausible that UFO manifestations and dark matter/energy are linked.

Respectfully submitted,
Dotini

 

[Famine]

UFO != Alien spaceship.

Hope this helps.

 

[super supra]

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object. but yeah, but the word usually used as "alien spaceship"

Anyway i have no doubt flying saucers exists, but i dont know if they are human or alien made.

I love the hieroglyphs of alien spaceships, helicopters, aliens found in ancient egypt writings.

 

[Dotini]

UFO != Alien spaceship.

Hope this helps.

Distinctly unhelpful. Nuts and bolts alien spaceships are possible but unlikely due to the vast distances and energies involved in interstellar travel. UFO's are more likely manifestations of a localized phenomenon native to the Earth. It's a great and probably important mystery which could probably be solved with the application of talents like Famine.

I'm not sure of the authenticity of those Egyptian carvings. I've heard it said they were recent additions.

Respectfully,
Dotini

 

[Famine]

Hardly - I'm a molecular biologist, not a physicist.

Anything that is in the sky that you don't recognise is a UFO. Anything. It could be a bee, a falling model of St. Peter's Basilica, a raccoon sucked up by a tornado... anything. As long as you don't recognise it and it's in the sky, it's a UFO.