Moontanman

Warm blooded reptiles? Such as...?

Leatherback sea turtles maintain their body temps above ambient, as do great white sharks and tuna. Even some insects maintain their body temps above ambient temps. Some snakes generate enough body heat to brood their eggs, keeping them above ambient temps.

Warm blooded is a relative thing and even mammals do not always keep their body temps up, some birds, hummingbirds come to mind, lower their body temps to ambient temps at night when they cannot feed. Many mammals lower their body temps when they are inactive.

Sorry, I think I've missed something. How do we know lies were told? Or are we guessing that what we were told are lies?

We know lies were told because the people who told them have admitted to it. We know that science or the testimony of scientists was used to make the lies look "scientific". Ridicule with the look of science was used so that all the UFO sightings would look ridiculous.

We know because there was never any effort to study UFOs only to ridicule them and use the idea of science to make them look like mundane events even though the explanations themselves had no real connection with science or reality.

We know because scientists who worked for the military came out and said the explanations were faulty and not connected with any real scientific scrutiny of the evidence.

Now what the lies were covering up is debatable but the ridicule attached to the idea of UFOs in general prevents this from happening on any realistic basis. This ridicule has resulted in the media circus that surrounds and pervades the entire issue of UFOs to this day.

When you are in contact with the Earths surface you are traveling at the same speed as the earths surface. simply levitating above the earth does not negate that speed. So you would tend to travel with the Earths surface any way you look at it. I'm not sure what the speed difference between the surface of the earth and two feet higher is but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't put you half way around the planet as fast as an airplane would take you.

Just pointing out - lies are not the same as secrets. Some things the government holds as secret, that doesn't mean it's actively lying to its citizens. And it doesn't make it automatically bad, either, depending on why the secret is kept. Classified intelligence information should be kept secret as to not blow sources. This isn't lying, and the government is doing that all the time, and not many find this to be a malicious act for the sake of power. That's why oversight exists (whether or not it's deployed or utilized correctly is a different issue).

 

~moo

No one is equating lies with secrets here. Lies are not the same thing as secrets but lies are told to protect secrets. In this case we do not know why the lies were told, only that lies were told. Science was used to show lies as being the truth. There could be many reasons for the lies, no excuse for using science to confirm the lies, no excuse to keep up the lies to cover secrets that no longer matter if indeed the lies were used to cover up military secrets.

If I might butt in wrt the scientific studies. I have long thought that a large element of psychology has been ignored by the UFO community.

 

I agree that psychology is a big part of the whole UFO/Alien Visitation/God/Supernatural phenomena.

 

The various studies undertaken by the USAF and others were, as is now apparent, whitewashes. The question has to be asked "Why?" Why go to the effort?

 

Now consider the historical context. The Cold War was in full swing and Communism was gaining in many nations. The peoples of the West were reliant on their militaries, and specifically the US Military to defend their airspace.

 

Neither militarily nor politically would it have been acceptable for a study into the phenomenonto come to a conclusion that in effect said "They are here. We don't know who they are, we don't know what they want. We have no idea if they are hostile or not. And if they are hostile, we can't catch them or do anything about them anyway. But everything is fine."

 

Such conclusions would not have gone down well with anybody. Given the historical context, are the results of the studies any real surprise? A study of incursions into Western airspace by supposedly unknown and possibly hostile vehicles could not come to any other conclusion.

 

I would add that after 50 odd years of continuous denial and debunking it is now psychologically impossible for any Western military to change their tune.

 

 

I agree, once the decision was made to ridicule instead of study it took on a life of it's own. Being right is very important to Governments in general the USA in particular. I honestly think at first the people in charge just could not accept the idea of any technological superior aliens visiting us for any reason.

 

In the military and other parts of government it is standard practice to chop off the head of the bearer of bad news and when you have the power to do so you can insist on reality follow your own preconceptions regardless of the consequences.

 

Likewise, whether or not the USAF was in possession of a "crashed" object, after 1949 it had to be vigorously denied. If the Soviet Union had for one minute thought that the US indeed had such a craft, WW 3 would have followed instantly. Immediate Soviet attack would be required simply because if the US had such an object and had time to study it, they would gain such a technological advantage as to remove the Soviets as a military force.

 

 

I have my doubts about this, Mutually Assured Destruction is the same no matter who has the space craft. Possession of a space craft would have just made the position of the one who didn't have it worse and the idea of war even less likely to have an outcome that would be positive to the attacker.

 

Instant attack would be imperative to avoid giving the US the time to study the craft. UFO or not, truth or not, denying the existence prevented nuclear holocaust.

 

I disagree, instant attack would have just brought instant annihilation, a positive outcome would have been just as unlikely to both sides.

 

Yes, governments lie, but don't assume that this is done out of malice or stupidity. There can be very good reasons if a bit of thought is given to the topic.

 

Often the original lie is a good thing in the short term but long term lies only get weaker and less likely to have a positive outcome. In this case the original lie has completely stopped all scientific inquiry into something that should be very interesting to science from psychology to astronomy but the subject is assumed to be bullshit from the beginning and no one dares to swim upstream to really investigate the subject at all.

 

Any attempt to even discuss the subject is met with ridicule and hostility, the paradigm of the military white wash has resulted in no one being able to approach the subject seriously under any circumstances, the popular media insures this will always be true.

What is wub?

Wub a dub dub? Three men in a tub? Then what Phi said

You got ugly feet dude, i have to ask, as has everyone else you come in contact with i am sure, what were you thinking! Guns and automobiles, two deadly things people take for granted and believe only they can operate them safely. De-cocking a loaded gun while you are walking, oh yes great idea for sure.

I give you points for allowing others to use you as a bad example, most people wouldn't be willing to admit to a mistake like this one, much less allow others to learn from it too, so go the extra step dude, never do this or anything else foolish with a gun again! Get a gun with a de-cocker! I am glad you didn't do anymore damage but please use this as learning experience!

Does the moon have gases trapped inside it's rock?

I am sure it does, there is evidence that at one time the moon was volcanically active, billions of years ago but for all practical purposes the moon lost any gases it might have had literally billions of years ago.

It does have traces of certain gasses, some might come from meteorite strikes or even active active volcanic vents but to us it's a quite good vacuum.

I'm not sure if there any gasses the moon might have that are heavy enough be held by it's gravity.

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here is a link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_the_Moon

I was wondering how exactly an atmosphere forms. I was looking around and to me it sounded like it's just gas pulled in by gravity. Also is the Moon's gravitational pull large enough to keep it's own atmosphere?

The Earth has what is known as a secondary atmosphere, volcanic gasses left over after the hydrogen and helium escaped.

Gravity is what holds an atmosphere down but it's not an either or type thing. if you could somehow give the moon it's own atmosphere it could hold onto it for many thousands of years. The gases escape slowly over time, the lower the gravity the faster they escape.

I remember when streaking was a popular "thing to do" now streaking could make you a sex offender and public enemy #1

Shouldn't these people be institutionalized rather than jailed?

 

Also... sex offender is such a broad category. It can apply to ridiculous cases of statutory rape, such as an 18 year old having sex with a 16 year old, or even cases where minors make sexually explicit pictures of themselves available either through MMS (i.e. mobile phone text messages w\ pictures) or over the Internet.

 

I think the entire nature of a "sex offender" needs to be revised.

I agree, sex offender comes very close to defining anyone who has sex that you do not approve of. The nude pics of post pubescent minors being porn or illegal is definitely questionable. As a society we go from allowing just about anything sexually to allowing almost nothing sexually, the bar has moved a couple of times just in my lifetime.

As in most things the extremists seem to get the attention they want and the rest of us follow along because we don't want to be labeled by the extreme as part of the problem.

In other news, no one dies of old age in the US anymore. It is no longer considered a valid cause of death. Why? Its a lazy answer.

There is always something to blame death on other than old age?

ok ok I'll give it a rest!

King, North TX, I am very sympathetic to your assertion that historical references should carry more weight than they do. But if modern eye witness testimony and actual photos that have been investigated and shown not to be fake do not hold any weight i have to admit that historical accounts would seem to have to hold even less value.

The real problem here is that UFOs/alien visitation has never really be investigated with real science. The real hoax is the assertion that these sightings have been scientifically investigated when in fact the government hired scientists to try and make their own cover up seem scientific.

What appeared to the general public as scientists investigating the cause of UFOs wasn't. What was really happening was the government insisting on hired scientists to prove their assertion that UFOs are never anything more than silliness. The government approved studies always came back with what the government wanted to hear or they were fired and new people were hired to say what the government wanted said.

This mentality of finding something conventional to blame UFO sightings on no matter how silly the finding was upset many of the scientists hired to debunk UFOs as well as some scientists not connected to the investigations in any way other than recognizing that Science did not work that way.

The ridicule and derision piled on the idea of UFOs and alien visitation by the government studies influenced all other studies and made the idea of "it's already been done" widely held in the science community even though it is blatantly untrue.

The very few independent studies done of a few of the serious sightings left the researchers "deeply puzzled" and wondering why the sightings had been dismissed so easily.

Again, your definition of proof seems to be very fluid. You're presenting a painting that (a) can be interpreted in various ways (I don't see it, for instance) and (b) even if it *does* display somerthing unique, you have no way of knowing if it's not a reinterpretation of an event the painter didn't understand (not necessarily alien).

 

Were you talking to me with this one mooey? I gave no painting as an example of anything.

 

I find it interesting that the picture is classified as "Special Features/Characteristics: Famous Person, Witness Photo" -- neither of which have any reliability in *ANY* scientific discussion (not even in court, honestly), and the photo isn't a photo. It's a painting, so it's not even *pretending* to be unbiased; a painting is done by a person, it's always an interpretation of an event.

 

Again, no picture or painting was given by me as evidence of anything. I was referring to the back story.

 

This isn't proof, guys. It's a story that someone interpreted to say what they want it to say. How can you classify this as any sort of real evidence for alien visitation?? There's no substantiation.

 

 

I was just showing what I thought King might be referring to as evidence of metallic disks in antiquity, not proof of anything.

 

 

 

On top of that, the "original" link is no longer working.

 

Not what i was trying to show to begin with.

 

BTW, just so I won't be accused of not reading the page -- please go over the entire text, and notice, that the entire thing has "No reference". Every bit, and the only references that do exist, reference to *biased* sites ('ufovisitations' / ufofiles/ etc) That's not science, guys.

 

My contention is that science has never investigated UFOs or alien visitation on any wide spread or official scale ever.

 

But this was not offered by me as proof of anything, i was just trying to show some of what King is referring to. Lots of those metallic disk sightings have been "reported" as occurring in antiquity but none have any thing to back them up but paintings and semi official records.

 

Since no eye witness, official account, painting or photo can ever be evidence I see no reason to use them as such. Again i was just providing a reference to metallic disks in antiquity, nothing more.

 

And whenever the stories doesn't *quite* add up, the author of the article claims that the different interpreters didn't understand one another. Nitpicking what to excuse and what not to excuse doesn't give too much legitimacy to any of it, honestly.

 

~moo

 

I'm not sure why "different interpreters" making mistakes in their interpretations is a problem. In lots of cases not involving UFOs differing opinions between interpreters compounding mistakes has been accepted as why differing accounts vary, sometimes wildly.

 

Truly i was just giving an example of where the idea of metallic disks King was referring to came from in ancient writings, i wasn't trying to assert they were proof of anything but that metallic disks had been reported.

The magnetic machine was constructed by the inventor from Poland.

You can read the article on his website: http://www.andrzejstruski.com/articles_66_The-magnetic-machine.html

 

It is the only construction of this type in the world.

This smells of spam to me.

Where does that appear in which historical document?

 

I am having a bit of difficulty with ancient-anything human even *using* the word "metallic" in describing something they aren't sure what it is, even if it was metallic.

 

But yeah, where is this from? I'd love to read the original context.

 

~moo

Here is one account, not sure if it's what King is talking about.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case491.htm

Well, I have cookies.

Why didn't you say so to begin with all powerful ydoaPs!

Both. I split them via my will through technology.

Not quite supernatural now is it? So far I have zero desire to worship you ydoaPs

I routinely split atoms. How much more power do you need?

Do you split these atoms via technology or just force of will?

Yes.

Is this a contradiction or am i not reading it correctly?

Wasn't Jesus quoted as saying that the second coming would occur before the generation present had died?

The point that aliens have to have somewhere to do maintenance. An alien hanger, if you will. Their repair tools will also need repair/replacement.

 

Beieve it or not that is where i was going with this.

 

Maybe, but I hear you can kill a shuttle with a pencil.

 

 

Thats more to do with it having to be so light to function due to it being chemically powered.

 

 

Well, there's certainly natural sources of radiation. None that extreme on earth are natural, but we humans certainly can make much more radiation than that. We have, for example, considered making nuclear powered airplanes and rockets. Maybe someone made one in secret. I don't see why aliens would have a monopoly on this.

 

 

The US claims this particular case is not their doing in any way shape or form.

 

 

Hm, well that would certainly put a kink in the invulnerable aliens idea. Also, big flashes of radiation are not very compatible with stealth. See why I say its a bit contradictory?

 

You say invulnerable, i seem then as technically advanced enough to be much more reliable than our technology is but still a malfunction is possible.

 

Well, some people are uncertain that it was radiation. Certainly couldn't have been any pure form of radiation, as that would be incompatible with the observed data.

 

 

There is no doubt it was radiation, probably x-rays or gamma rays but the kicker in this case is the helicopters seen by several other witnesses as well. Either this was a US government test vehicle or the US gov knows aliens space craft are visiting. No other explanation makes sense if the helicopters are real.

 

 

 

Me neither. However, when myself and others stated our opinion on the topic, you decided to try to change our minds. I suppose the majority of this thread could be split to a new thread, but then it might be better to start a new one since this poll is kind of broken.

 

My bad, hard for me not to respond to ridicule of the idea. this is more to this than just silliness.

 

Well, by that definition there are no documented UFOs. By a slightly different one (no known conventional explanation), there are a few, and by the most lenient there are all sorts of UFOs.

 

 

I was told to stick to the official definition. by the official definition there are indeed UFOs.

 

A good idea, but the poll will have to be redone as many may wish to change their votes. How about we suggest a new poll here, in this thread, and then start a new poll if there are no objections to it.

 

Works for me, i know i screwed the pooch on this one for sure.

 

 

Nevertheless it is an extra premise. I have no trouble whatsoever temporarily assuming something regardless of whether there is any evidence for it. In fact, when I do proof by negation I temporarily assume a premise I know is false.

 

I will just have to agree to disagree on that.

 

I think your idea backfired: not only was no one in the least more likely to accept your premise, but actually got people to distance themselves from it and also took the discussion off track.

 

That is because of the unreasonable ridicule the subject of UFOs inspire, mostly due to the media circus surrounding it and the official government position which is not necessarily the official position by science as I have shown in the previous post.

 

If people assume only alien visits, they can choose for themselves whether they think UFO sightings would have anything to do with them or are evidence for them.

 

Works for me

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Suggested new poll:

 

Suppose aliens have been visiting Earth. Then, the aliens most likely are ...

#1 Travelers from another star colonizing asteriods

#2 Travelers who occasionally stop by to study us and leave

#3 Remnants of an early human civilization

#4 Remnants of a pre-human civilization still present in the solar system

#5 A secret, technologically advanced group of humans living hidden here on earth

#6 Time travelers from our future

#7 Travelers from other dimensions - alternate worlds

#8 Supernatural beings we might as well call Gods or God.

#9 Some other option (please specify)

 

I'm not particularly comfortable with option 7 that seems like another thread to me. Other than that it works for me.

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that would be completely unrelated to the exitance of ufo's as you well know.

 

No, not really, as I have shown there is not only real evidence bu the idea it is all silliness below looking into is not the stance of science. I tis the stance of the government and the media, not real science.

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Ok, since this thread has disintegrated into a debate about the validity of UFO reports and what they mean and how much weight such reports have been given and whether or not science has studied UFO reports i would like to add what I think is the most important aspect of UFOs and science.

 

"Hoax Theory"

 

UFOs are at the center of one of the biggest hoaxes in the history of the US government and by proxy most other governments as well if no other reason simply by saying other governments reports are less than accurate because they weren't done by the US.

 

The first two US government investigations offered a strong possibility that some UFOs were nuts and bolts space craft, probably extraterrestrial in origin. Their reports were simply not accepted by a general who said such a thing was impossible. so new investigations came back with what he wanted to hear.

 

From that time forward the actual thrust of the US government studies of UFOs was to explain them away as hallucinations, misidentified conventional objects, or hoaxes. No real investigations were undertaken, the idea was to prove they were bogus, not to investigate what they were.

 

Scientists like Dr. Allen Hynek complained about this and eventually left the government study groups, documents released by freedom of information acts verify that the government/military had no interest in UFOs other than to explain them away with the least effort.

 

In common conspiracy theories you have "men in black" visiting people and telling them things like you must never tell or other wise warning them to keep quiet. the reality was that wittinesses were often bullied and badgered into recanting what they saw not keeping secretes. The police officer of 1964 Socorro UFO encounter was badgered repeatedly to get him to recant but he never did.

 

Most people who are skeptics today think that the governments efforts to investigate UFOs was in good faith and resulted in no physical or scientific evidence of anything. This is the real hoax, the government pulled off this hoax for their own reasons but it can be seen in documents and papers that were published at the time.

 

They did intensionally steer the investigations toward simple things and dismissing people out of hand and ridiculing people was how they worked this "hoax", they were pretty open about it at the time because most people didn't realize that starting out to prove something you believe to be true is not science.

 

Modern UFO "reports" from places like U-tube and the popular media hype of UFO lends an air of craziness and makes the idea of what the government claimed 40 years ago seem very truthful in comparison with the cottage industry that has grown in popular media to see who can make the best fakes and get the most people to look. this doesn't apply to just UFOs a great many things are hyped this way now days.

 

The fact remains that UFO studies were fatally flawed by the simple notion that investigations started out with what they wanted to prove instead of starting out to see what the evidence held. Of the few official science investigations done they were often withheld critical evidence unless they were with the "program"

 

This hoax by the government has taken away all possible credibility of UFOs simply by ridicule and a single minded need to disprove any possible mystery behind UFOs. Some say it was a vast conspiracy due to the government being in direct contact with aliens who exchanged being able to travel and do as they pleased in our sky's for technology. But like most conspiracy stories it ignores a simpler reason that makes more sense in context with the times.

 

The first two investigations had the bad luck to report to someone who just refused to believe the possibility of such a thing. Like rocks falling from the sky in an earlier time the idea of nuts and bolts space craft was too far outside his world view and the idea we couldn't do anything about it was just too much. Even those reports admitted they had no solid proof just speculations based on what evidence they already had.

 

Even later independent investigation inside the government tended to side with the possibility of actual alien space craft but were always hushed up in favor of the ridicule and debunking mindset.

 

The most likely reason the government/military wanted to stop interest in UFOs was the fear that such a belief could be used in an attack and people could be induced into calling in and locking up data sources like telephones and a wide spread panic induced by the soviets this way could make the USA vulnerable to attack.

 

Even way after this was no longer a likelihood the idea that UFOs must be squashed and people must be convince they are nothing to be concerned about staggered on like lots of government ideas, they never die once they get momentum going. Then there is the almost total inability for the government to admit to being wrong, making a mistake (especially back then) was just not something the government did, they wanted the government to seem incapable of making mistakes.

 

So the whole idea that UFOs have been scientifically investigated and found to be nothing of significance is simply not true. But of course back then people did lie, they did try to fake stuff but then technology was more advanced than the fakes and the fakes were most often found. But the fact remains that very few UFO sightings were really investigated with scientific rigor.

 

Sadly I'm not sure we can go back and do most or even any over, witnesses are dead, evidence has just been thrown out due to the success of the government hoax. Now days in part due to the hoax but mostly due to the idea that faking is fun and cool and very easy and very difficult to expose the signal to noise ratio of good sightings to bullshit is far to high to figure out what is really going on if anything.

 

The hoax theory does not prove UFOs are alien space craft but it does indicate the the idea of UFOs being studied in the context of real science just didn't happen then and other than a few isolated incidents it doesn't happen now.

I think one of the problems with the interface of science in society is that the percived attitude of science is often dismissive and even ridiculing of what regular people think instead of being seen as taking the time to listen and explain. Sites like this one do a great job to bridging that problem but few regular people visit science forums.

I believe most people are capable of understanding the principles of science but the idea of science being above the average person (this is not necessarily the attitude of science in general but often outside sources amplify this for their own ends IE the media for ratings or popularity) In turn real science people often responds to the media hype instead of the reality of regular people.

The principles of science need to be brought into the common arena and things like U-tube and other popular media should be used in this way more often instead of being "lets see what we can convince people of today" The popular media has disintegrated into a circus that does it's best to get onlookers by telling them what they want to hear instead of what is correct.

Of course until regular people see soem value in not attending the circus and start looking further than what some one wants them to believe it will not happen.

Is that all it takes.

.

Pretty much yes, ydoaPs already has my respect but if he wants my worship a demonstration of power is in order...

It's right on the verge of being entertaining...