Moontanman

I think you'll find this is the very reason the idea that aliens would want our planet is unlikely. For bugs to be big enough to be "us" on another planet would take conditions of less gravity greater pressure and more oxygen. Vertebrates didn't take the land from invertebrates because of chance. Vertebrates are simply better at exploiting dry land in large size than animals with exoskeletons. Vertebrates are better at low oxygen less support or higher gravity environments than invertebrates, the evolutionary record clearly shows that when oxygen levels fell at the end of the Carboniferous age body size of insects fell while vertebrate body size went up. But even if you disagree with that why couldn't "bugs" be humanoid? Why wouldn't an alien have a body with the forward appendages free to manipulate objects, a head with two eyes set so they are close to the brain so there is less delay times between them and the senses of the brain. when I say humanoid I am using the term loosely. At least as loosely as taking the idea of streamlining an animal for hi speed water travel. Even deep sea animals are streamlined in a similar way if they expect to swim fast long distances, even birds are streamlined but they more closely resemble rays than fish. If you had an intelligent preying mantis it would technically be humanoid by this definition. Actually centauriod but even insects conform to the rules of head brains and eyes and hands. Only on Star Trek are humanoids sexually atractive... well except for CMDR Riker and Captain Kirk, them boys have no standards They could catch crabs!

Why did I think of AC/DC when I read the title to this question? Negative and positive charges probably had more to do with vast clouds coming together than magnetism, larger atoms formed from stars not particles in clouds coming together, good luck with selling the idea of magnetism and gravity being the same thing.

Zolar, Michael, see my post above for reasons why aliens might be interested in us. BTW zolar why do they have to be a super civilization? Why couldn't they just be a nuts and bolts civilization much like us? More advanced technology but still within the realm of what we understand to be real and factual. I think the idea of God like beings has been beat to death with no real basis for it except people thinking there is no end to technology and all barriers we currently think of as being laws will be broken. Why would be assume FTL is possible and aliens would be so far advanced from us we would be ant like? Have any ants launched rockets lately? Ants have been around for more than 100 million years, no rockets yet, no fire at all. How ever we can communicate on some level with chimps who have rudimentary technology. I don't think we can expect aliens to be super beings by any definition of the word. Our kind of technology would require beings much like us and unless they wanted to fool us I see no reason why we would see them as super beings. I posted this in another thread but maybe it belongs here.

No telling where aliens might keep thier brains Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged There is a school of thought that says that intelligent technological beings would be humanoid at least. Much like tuna sharks, dolphins and Ichthyosaurs shared traits brought about by their environment the ability to use tools the way we do might result in aliens that are much like us, not star trek like us but similar body shapes, limb placement and such. Personally i think centaur like creatures are more likely.

I think the Miss Universe pageant is more appropriate You got my vote mooey! I've alwasy found intellegence to be beautiful. Wow look at the brains on that girl!

We need to go to the moon and mine that helium 3, aneutronic fusion is the future! Has to be true, being able to generate clean power with out part of it being difficult is just too good to be true

What would we see if we were to detect aliens inside our solar system? WISE is looking at infrared but would it really detect an alien base or colony? How much power would aliens really have to be leaking to be seen by WISE or is WISE even capable of detecting aliens unless they set off a nuclear device of some sort? How far away could we detect a nuclear explosion of say one megaton? Would we have to be lucky and looking in the right direction? How far away could the mark one eyeball see a such an explosion? How much thermal energy does one of our own nuclear power plants give off as waste heat? How far away could we detect one of our own nuclear power plants? I guess what i am asking is what would we need to be looking for? And could we detect them by accident or would it take a search that specifically looked for certain things that could not be natural, we do not expect to see, and we normally simply do not look for?

Racism is an ugly thing, based more in classism that any reality of skin color, skin color is just easier to recognize than trailer park trash. I grew up in the deep south, I've heard every argument for and against racism than anyone could possibly know who didn't grow up here. In my 55 short years what I think it's all boiled down to is the real human need to feel like you are fundamentally better than some one else, anyone else. What this guy is doing is trying to tap into that feeling of "I have to be better than some one else in a fundamental way" I think it's a cheap shot against what libertarians stand for and it appeals to the worst in us all. I can't honestly side with any particular political ideology due to having a brain that understands that nothing is black and white, right or left, or even right or wrong from all points of view. In a working society there has to be both limits and freedoms, all sides have to be viewed and the best parts of each used until society changes so that they are no longer necessary. I would say a great many "white" people are glad they no longer need to live the lie of racism/choice. I know people of color are glad the lie is no longer fashionable at the very least. Society seems to churn out these people of absolutes on a consistent basis, luckily for "us" and I mean everyone of all ideologies it has been increasingly difficult for this type of person to form their cult of personality. However, while I honestly believe in freedom of the individual over the power of the government I know that the freedom of the individual cannot be allowed to become the power of the government. There has to be limits on the power of both individuals and the government, this guy is capitalizing on the reality that most people don't understand what their own personal idea of freedom would result in if given free reign. (I'd probably be stoned and naked most of the time ) He has shown he not only doesn't have a true belief but that he is unwilling to face the results of having his purported belief. As for gun control i am an avid pro gun person but on the other hand i would not even think of carrying a gun into a restaurant where the owner objected to me carrying one. personal choice also comes with personal responsibility, something the whole of our society doesn't seem to understand unless it conforms to their personal world view.

Kudos to JohnB for a excellent lay out of the problem. Time traveling Frisbees is a bit much, they don't even look like Frisbees. I agree that something has been going on for millennia, what no one knows, but dismissing it frivolously seems insulting to the people involved at the very least It is also evident that pictures are not required to make a sighting significant in regard to the sighting being unconventional.

I have to agree, having been on the "highly skeptical" side of this debate many times that one is very difficult to explain away.

The idea of a spiral horn in the middle of it's forehead is a dead give away, no cloven foot animal can have such a horn, horns invariably come in pairs in cloven hoofed mammals. It's how they are put together, much like a dragon with six appendages, No Earthly vertebrate has or ever has had six appendages, cloven hoofed mammals are not put together like that, they always have two horns and animals like horses with non cloven hooves have no horns at all. A clear photo of a big foot that has been shown to not be a hoax and witnessed by several people would cause me to give it credence. Lets take a look at these multiple assertions. Pretty obvious if they are visiting Again necessary if they are visiting. Yes This is debatable, much of the obtuse nature of the phenomenon could indeed stem from aliens being so different they cannot effectively communicate with us. Same as above Again this seems to be a part of the above two. This is a separate issue and has not been asserted by me or anyone else in this discussion and has even less evidence to back it up. We are able (with far effort than we are willing to give) to travel huge interstellar distances with the technology we already have, i don't see this as a problem. Most of these are separate assertions and have little or no bearing on the basic premise of UFOs needing to be studied scientifically. Occam's razor is not universal law and no one has asked that UFOs be accepted as aliens visitations with out study. if i had evidence of a Bigfoot would you not think it worthy of investigation or would you use Occam's razor to dismiss it out of hand? While my basic contention is that they are more likely to show up that most people consider possible i understand it requires evidence, i just say the evidence for the most part is being dismissed and or ridiculed to the point no one can take it seriously. I think you are making some huge assumptions here considering the evidence we already have. As I said before Occam's razor is not a law of the universe, unlikely events do happen, we need to keep this in mind. I doubt this, you have already said that Occam's razor says we should ignore these reports because they are so unlikely. But we do have evidence for it, just because so far it's not absolute is not reason to assume UFOs should be ignored as an object of real scientific investigation. Actually i think this is stretching the idea of Occam's razor past it's limits to preserve a world view that it too rigid to allow the speculation that some of the evidence does indeed point to non terrestrial technology. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes but what was the resolution of any photographs that were taken. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged How would you tell a pinpoint light source of an alien space craft from a small asteroid? There are thousands of them we can even see, alien space craft would just look like asteroids unless they were moving in an unnatural way and most would probably follow natural orbits much of the time to save energy. Asteroids, on the other hand, are about as cold as deep space and so would be very hard to see (distinguish from background of the same color). That's why they are hard to find. I happen to agree with this, alien colonies should shine quite bright in the very far infrared and active space craft should shine quite brightly in the near infrared. the latter assumes they would be actively accelerating much of the time and the former assumes they are close enough to really be seen or that they waste energy enough to be seen. I have to also ask are we really looking that hard. How much of the solar system has been looked at and if such an anomaly was found would it be written off as some sort of natural phenomenon? Even a nuclear explosion wouldn't be obvious unless we happened to be looking in that direction. Possibly they use mass drivers to get around and show very little infrared because they do not waste energy like we would? Could one of our own probes be detected at the distance of the asteroids by infrared?

I know it's not absolute but most skeptics assert the US Air Force studies were indeed scientific, it's certain the US Air Force did. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Don't many theories start out as an argument from ignorance? I would like to say the ETI idea behind UFOs should not be called a theory. At best it is a hypothesis but even if it is an argument from ignorance isn't that reasonable considering what we are discussing?

You've just made my point, most UFO studies do indeed start out with a presupposed conclusion. the US Air force did this when they studied UFOs especially after the first few years. They could not allow the idea of something they could not control to exist so they made the data fit presupposed ideas instead of allowing the evidence to speak for it's self. Dr Allen Hynek was big supporter of approaching the UFO phenomenon with no preconceptions, he at first worked for the air force debunking UFOs but later changed his mind and asserted that UFOs deserved serious study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Allen_Hynek Many popular self styled skeptics do the same thing, they start out with the supposition that all UFOs are explainable and they have an inordinate amount of influence in society. To me they are just as bad as the true believers who hawk everything is alien. there has to be a medium that allows investigations with out the baggage of ridicule associated with the subject. It would seem the whole subject is an either or thing and there is no middle ground.

My take on this is that a civilization expanding out would loose any need for planets early on. Alien planets would be highly unlikely to be useful to an alien biology due to things like trace elements or biology that incorporates toxic chemicals. On the Earth we have organisms that use arsenic in place of phosphorus, mercury could easily be too abundant on an alien planet for us to use it, something simple as allergens could make an entire planet useless to us. Lots of trace heavy metal element possibilities and this ignores the possibility of pathogens. Artificial colonies made from materials already in orbit make much more sense than trying to adapt an alien ecosystem. artificial colonies would also seem to be the first step in realistic interstellar travel. Using this slow boat methods of colonization an alien species could occupy the entire galaxy in a few million years, a mere blink in cosmic time. If such a civilization formed 10 million years ago they would already be here, already using the resources of the solar system. Hiding from an emerging civilization would just make good sense, studying them to see how they can coexist or even be manipulated makes good sense as well. Religion seems to be a good way to manipulate primitives and it's also possible that attempts at communication could result in religion centering around the aliens even if they didn't want it to happen. it's also quite possible that aliens could be so different from us psychologically they have problems communicating with us. dolphins are thought to be intelligent and even have a language but we cannot really talk to them.

First of all aliens are possible, it's fairly easy to suppose alien life forms, even aliens significantly different from us. But Unicorns cannot exist, physiologically they are not possible, they are made up of parts of many different creatures that are not related in any way, like winged flying dragons they simply cannot exist on the earth. A real unicorn, it satisfies almost every parameter of the legend hairy, cloven hooves. (horned horse is modern idea) except it is a surgically altered groomed goat. One of my favorite UFO debunk examples was a UFO that was reported by several people as a glowing ball of light several meters in diameter, it stopped automobiles and turned off their head lights. It also burned objects and left at a high rage of speed. official explaination... Ball lightning, one totally unsupported idea invoked to explain another, no matter no thunderstorm was in the area. At the time and even now there is no scientific explanation of ball lightning, lots of hypothesis but no sustainable theories. UFO investigations have suffered badly from dismissive people who simply could not allow their world view to be altered by anything but conventional explanations, they cannot even say the evidence points away from the conventional. rarely the explanation is inexplicable much less unknown technology.

Mooeypoo, this I time I honestly do not understand what you mean, do you expect aliens to move planets? To build structures so large they can be seen at the distance of the asteroids or the kuiper belt. i propose such objects would be dark to absorb energy to start with which would make them very difficult to see. I doubt structures large enough to be seen from the earth. As King pointed out aliens could indeed be as close as the far side of the moon and we would have no clue. Not proof or evidence of course but hiding would not be difficult and as I wonder how far away we would be likely to see even a Star Trek sized space craft, especially if we weren't looking for it. (Length, 642.5 Meters. Width, 467.0 Meters. Height, 137.5 Meters) or even the torus of John Varley series of books Titan, Wizard, and Demon. 1300 kilometers across but only 250 kilometers thick it was also very dark, almost black to absorb energy since it was so far from the sun, edge on it would have been very hard to see. I know fictional accounts but they give us some perspective on the possibilities. but as I mentioned earlier this would not be the first party these aliens have attended, hiding would most likely be something they have done many times when a solar system contained a planet that contained complex life and a emerging civilization. I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just don't understand why you would assume aliens would be so obvious.

I don't think we can make the unbridled assumption that "they" have always been here without explaining what you mean by always. This idea borders on the supernatural and if indeed "they" are supernatural then all bets are off. Other wise "they" if real, had to come from somewhere, at some point. If no where else then they must have come from the earth and are part of some earlier civilization. Just saying they have always been here opens a can of worms as big as the alien can. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I understand what you mean by detecting them but I doubt alien would make gravitational perturbations we would readily see as alien. I figure aliens would be mostly in the kuiper belt to start with due the abundance of volatiles there mixed with rocks and iron. Well preposterous or not it's little known fact that SETI cannot detect a planet like the earth around alpha centauri unless they were intentionally broadcasting to us. The idea of the Earth being detectable out to the limits of our radio capability in time is false. the signals that escape the earth diffuse into the galactic radio back-round due to interference by dust and gas within 1 or 2 light years. http://www.seti.org/Page.aspx?pid=751 Most if not all SETI type investigations depend on aliens wanting to be found, intentional signals sent to attract attention. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/58042/title/Can_you_hear_me_now%3F Only a dedicated signal beamed almost directly at the earth would be detectable, admittedly such a beam could be detected across the observable universe if enough power was behind it but it would have to be a dedicated beam, simple leakage would not be detectable by our own technology. Hiding even local signals would be relatively easy to do by simply using more efficient means of communication such as lasers or masers. while I ma sure we could come up with a way to detect local alien, infrared to detect factories would be my best idea, i doubt we have done much of that and the infrared signals would be tiny places, very far off. it would take a dedicated search to find such small sources of radiation. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6255-chances-of-aliens-finding-earth-disappearing.html It's been suggested we have already detected such evidence but so far it is being assumed to be natural even though no known processes could be producing it. Extreme high energy cosmic rays have been suggested as coming from much closer than they appear because they cannot come from far away due to predictions of the theory of relativity. Of course no one really takes the aliens explanation seriously. Near by aliens could explain lots of things, their reaction to us could be old hat having encountered new civilizations many times as they slowly colonize the galaxy. Such a civilization could easily have been in operation for tens of thousands even millions of years. Going into "stealth" mode when a new race turns on it's radios could be standard practice to them, it would make sense to keep "aliens" from interfering with their civilization.

I know there is a theoretical minimum possible temperature but is there a theoretical maximum possible temperature as well?

ok http://science.howstuffworks.com/alaska-ufo.htm BTW, the stuff i took the time to put in my last post was not generalizations, much of it was quite specific. http://science.howstuffworks.com/senator-russell-ufo.htm Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedThis site BTW, makes several claims in the first page that are totally lies or at best misdirections of the truth. This link is nothing but ridicule 101 http://www.skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html This is simply a lie. Condon's report has been almost universally shown to be nothing but a grand show of starting out with a preconceived notion and doing everything possible to prove it while ignoring all evidence to the contrary This makes the grand assumption that aliens either have to do what we think they can the way we say they must or it totally ignores the possibility of slow boat type aliens. His assumption is easy to sweep away and has long been shown to be simply an unreasonable objection.

Oh but that is exactly what i am saying, the only people who have really investigated UFOs was the military and they did not investigate, all they did was debunk. they looked for anything they could remotely blame any UFO sighting on, the evidence didn't matter to them. Even then there were sightings they couldn't possibly blame on Venus or hoaxed photos these were covered up and never investigated by anyone. only the freedom of information act ever disclosed these sightings they were not scientifically investigated either. http://science.howstuffworks.com/ufo-government.htm The reality is the situation is that UFOs were not investigated and often off the cuff remarks with no basis in any kind of investigation were used to discount the wittinesses. this is just one of many such dismissals by the government. yes, they do run like they are poison, nothing can sink a scientists career faster than investigating UFOs. the ridicule started by the military to try and make any one connected with UFOs look stupid has taken on a life of it's own. Same link as above. Bold text is my doing. I could literally write yet another book about how the government lied and covered up UFO evidence and ridiculed those who didn't go with the flow. People lost their jobs for insisting on the truth over the official slant on the subject.

My name is an old nickname I got from being caught laying out in the full moon on the beach naked in the winter time by some friends. (Yes alcohol was involved) They asked me what I was doing and I answered getting a moon tan, Moontanman seemed to stick.

This is true, but that argument didn't keep people from testing the assertions of gods existence when the idea of "what else could it be" was used. No in fact they went on and showed many other things it could have been. On the subject of UFOs were stuck in an argument of ignorance, they only way forward is to dig in and test the claims and see if indeed there are other explanations and not stop defeated when there are no other and not be afraid to speculate so that others can use your speculation as fodder to go on. Simply stopping becuase the evidence points to alien space ships is not the scientific way. You dig further until nothing is left that can be anything else but what you uncover. You might uncover some strange things about human phsycology, you mihgt disicover some strage aspects of the natural world none had known about. You might even disicover evidence that points to alien visitation but one thing is for sure, simply stopping before the real investegations are done will, yeald absolutly no new knowlege what so ever...

It was me who first used UFO as synonymous to alien visitation in another thread, i was using it as it is used in the popular way. You pointed out this was not correct and I changed my usage to the scientific definition in all other communications. Israel has it's own "sightings" as well. Quite high for such a small country. Their is indeed evidence that is impossible to explain any other way. In this thread and IMHO it's not about aliens directly but about the value of the investigations that only serve to debunk the idea of UFOs being anything but conventional things seen in an unconventional way. investigations that start out with an assumed explanation that is made to fit no matter what the evidence. this does not fit the evidence in most cases of UFOs, that assumes UFO in the original correct definition. First of all as I said above, my contention is that UFOs have not been properly investigated, the evidence was always ignored over the need to have conventional explanation. Alien visits is one of several possibilities but the idea that no UFO sighting is indicative of anything but natural phenomena is simply wrong. Even by the strict standards of science the phenomena has not been investigated properly so saying that all unidentified would identified as natural objects if only enough evidence was available is false. Lets eliminate the possibilities one by one and see what is left. Each time it comes down to no matter how good the evidence is it has to be a natural object, this world view is patently false and assumes from the get go that the ETI theory is false. Saying their are a huge number of other possibilities on UFOs (the real definition, not the popular one) is at best just a smoke screen and at worst an attempt to preserve a world view that doesn't hold water, much like the idea of religion being untouchable 50 years ago in the mainstream. Now the idea of aliens assumed to be false or at best something mistaken is the correct world view, but preservation of a world view is not good enough to to put something in the category of ridiculous, let me make it very clear, the only thing i am claiming completely is that UFOs have not been scientifically investegated as everyone seems to assume. UFOs have been explained away not investigated. there are many sightings that are simply impossible to explain any way but the ETI theory, it is still a theory but the evidence points strongly in that direction. If only one sighting was a real alien space craft then it is the most important sighting in human history. to assume all are false due to some being iffy or to preserve a world view is simply wrong. I cannot argue UFOs are alien space craft because the evidence has not been properly investigated, this also means i cannot argue they are conventional objects either. Until the subject gains some credibility no one will ever even bother to look. i will admit to some prejudice here, i cannot assert the EDI or MM theories either, even though they have been espoused by thinkers better than me. Once we investigate the evidence properly it will be easier to say what theory is best but we do have UFOs to explain, not the popular lights in the sky definition but the original definition, a unidentified object that that been investigated to the limits of the evidence and technology.

Aren't you originally from England? If so the UFO mythos is just as active there as the USA. I have provided so many links to this information, does no one read anymore? Try looking up J Allen Hynek, he is a starting point for a lot of very good info on this subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Allen_Hynek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e I like this from Vallee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object Tell me exactly what you want to read and I'll look it up, if it exists I'll find it but it may very well be we are not on the same track. No, not being made up, what do you mean hard proof? So far the idea is that the evidence was never really investigated, no intent to investigate anything ever really existed. the only thing important that was producing an explanation that was conventional. scientists were hired to provide these explanations so they would seem true based on who was giving them not based on any evidence. We would have to actually investigate the evidence before we can actually say crappy or good. So far the only claim i am making is that evidence was ignored in favor of any conventional explanation that could be made to fit, often this resulted in ridiculous claims. I make no claim as to what UFOs are, i do claim the evidence was never really used to show anything other than conventional explanations that often fit no better than simply pulling a random reason out of nothing and giving it as scientific truth. Of course but ridiculing you for making that assertion would be wrong, especially is i used a scientist to back up my counter assertion the moon is made of chalk when in reality neither of us really knows what the moon is made of. You are assuming all unknowns in the sky are UFOs, this is not the definition of UFO, secondly i am not assuming all UFOs are alien space craft, i think it's a possibility that has been ignored denied and ridiculed by the military and the media for so long it is now impossible to really know or even investigate the possibilities, aliens is only one possibility. UFO does not assume aliens but it does assume no known explanation after all the evidence has been studied. Again you are making the assumption that all UFOs are aliens not me, i have never made that assumption with out caveats anywhere.

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.