Are UAPs/UFOs finally being taken seriously?

[StringJunky]

There's too many people that arbitrarily believe in alien-occupied ET UFO's. The confirming evidence needs to be solid.

Edited June 11, 2023 by StringJunky

[swansont]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

There's too many people that arbitrarily believe in alien-occupied ET UFO's. The confirming evidence needs to be solid.

Put another way, the evidence has to be as solid as for any other phenomenon. You don’t get to lower the bar just because you want it to be true.

[StringJunky]

10 minutes ago, swansont said:

Put another way, the evidence has to be as solid as for any other phenomenon. You don’t get to lower the bar just because you want it to be true.

Definitely, especially things of this nature. Until people can find a way around c, it's not happening... in my limited knowledge. That doesn't mean they aren't 'there', but it does mean they aren't likely to be in detectable proximity. Is that a reasonable position?

Edited June 11, 2023 by StringJunky

[Genady]

37 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Until people can find a way around c, it's not happening

Unless they are wandering aliens, without a mother planet, not sent from somewhere, but rather living in their ships, generation after generation, while moving from place to place. Nomadic aliens.

[swansont]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Definitely, especially things of this nature. Until people can find a way around c, it's not happening... in my limited knowledge. That doesn't mean they aren't 'there', but it does mean they aren't likely to be in detectable proximity. Is that a reasonable position?

It certainly requires more insisting that the limitations of c aren’t a problem. Rigorous analysis instead of hand-waving, just as happens in science.

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Unless they are wandering aliens, without a mother planet, not sent from somewhere, but rather living in their ships, generation after generation, while moving from place to place. Nomadic aliens.

Even then, an analysis is required.

 

[Genady]

28 minutes ago, swansont said:

Even then, an analysis is required.

Sure. To start with, I guess such aliens wouldn't be biologically anything like us, but rather organisms with an extremely slow metabolism. More like trees that live for thousands of years.

[StringJunky]

26 minutes ago, Genady said:

Sure. To start with, I guess such aliens wouldn't be biologically anything like us, but rather organisms with an extremely slow metabolism. More like trees that live for thousands of years.

If their metabolism is extremely retarded relative to us, then they will not be developed as us. Would they?

[Genady]

19 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

If their metabolism is extremely retarded relative to us, then they will not be developed as us. Would they?

What do you mean "developed as us"?

[StringJunky]

49 minutes ago, Genady said:

What do you mean "developed as us"?

the start point for everything was 13.7B years ago. It's taken 13.7billion to get where we are today in development. If you assert a slower-metabolizing organism, it's evolutionary progress will likely be much slower than ours. Basically, the idea doesn't parse for me.

[Genady]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

the start point for everything was 13.7B years ago. It's taken 13.7billion to get where we are today in development. If you assert a slower-metabolizing organism, it's evolutionary progress will likely be much slower than ours. Basically, the idea doesn't parse for me.

I don't see why biological evolution would be correlated to the age of the universe. Constrained, yes, but correlated? I don't say that it happened, but I don't know why it couldn't happen (unlike the c problem.)

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Sure. To start with, I guess such aliens wouldn't be biologically anything like us, but rather organisms with an extremely slow metabolism. More like trees that live for thousands of years.

Slow trees that develop articulated appendages and muscle, handle combustibles and smelt metals, fabricate machinery, run advanced physics laboratories and particle accelerators, and all the other stuff that leads to technology for interstellar propulsion and spacecraft design?  I don't see this at all.  Pehaps I am misunderstanding the analogy to trees?  

[Genady]

Just now, TheVat said:

Slow trees that develop articulated appendages and muscle, handle combustibles and smelt metals, fabricate machinery, run advanced physics laboratories and particle accelerators, and all the other stuff that leads to technology for interstellar propulsion and spacecraft design?  I don't see this at all.  Pehaps I am misunderstanding the analogy to trees?  

I did not mean an analogy to trees at all. Just an example of long living organisms. (I don't use analogies and metaphors usually.)

Even slow metabolism is not necessary, just a possibility. Another possibility is their natural ability for long hibernations. I'm sure there are many more.

[StringJunky]

19 minutes ago, Genady said:

I did not mean an analogy to trees at all. Just an example of long living organisms. (I don't use analogies and metaphors usually.)

Could you name a slow-metabolizing, intelligent organism on this planet? The two states are energetically at odds. 

[Genady]

Just now, StringJunky said:

Could you name a slow-metabolizing, intelligent organism on this planet? The two states are energetically at odds. 

On one hand, we have only one data point for life. It does not mean much.

OTOH, I've just added above,

23 minutes ago, Genady said:

Even slow metabolism is not necessary, just a possibility. Another possibility is their natural ability for long hibernations. I'm sure there are many more.

 

[Externet]

Please delete if improperly posted. 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Externet

[StringJunky]

49 minutes ago, Genady said:

On one hand, we have only one data point for life. It does not mean much.

OTOH, I've just added above,

 

On Earth we have millions of datapoints of all species classes and we can find out how common high intelligence is paired with low metabolism. I think we can reasonably extrapolate that to other worlds. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by StringJunky

[Genady]

20 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

On Earth we have millions of datapoints of all species classes and we can find out how common high intelligence is paired with low metabolism. I think we can reasonably extrapolate that to other worlds. 

Perhaps the "low metabolism" idea was bad. Let's drop it. The "nomadic aliens" idea still stands.

[StringJunky]

5 minutes ago, Genady said:

Perhaps the "low metabolism" idea was bad. Let's drop it. The "nomadic aliens" idea still stands.

Of course, no probs.

[TheVat]

10 hours ago, Genady said:

Perhaps the "low metabolism" idea was bad. Let's drop it. The "nomadic aliens" idea still stands.

Interesting idea.  Since nomadic societies tend not to develop high technology, because they travel light and expend a lot of their time/energy on making camp and living off the land as they pass through, it seems likely that an interstellar nomadic society would have come from a non-nomadic civilization on a planet -- which then adopted a nomadic mode as they moved into space.  (or some segment adopted that mode, leaving behind others who prefer a more settled life)  The nomads search the galaxy, looking for the perfect martini.

[Genady]

39 minutes ago, TheVat said:

adopted a nomadic mode as they moved into space

And if they maintained this lifestyle for several thousand years, they might biologically evolve to better fit it, e.g., no need for gravity, radiation tolerance, boredom tolerance, etc.

[swansont]

Nomadic aliens need to get their material from somewhere. There’s an energy cost to this - maneuvering, going in and out of gravity wells, for both the main craft  and whatever is used for retrieval from wherever they are getting the stuff. 

Then there is the time spent these “oases” where they are using up these resources, which dictates how much material has to be obtained, and how big the ship needs to be.

That’s the analysis that always seems to be absent or glossed over

2 minutes ago, Genady said:

And if they maintained this lifestyle for several thousand years, they might biologically evolve to better fit it, e.g., no need for gravity, radiation tolerance, boredom tolerance, etc.

A being adapted to low-g would have difficulty existing in higher-g environments.

For a being adapted to much higher than 1 g, they might not have developed space travel at all, owing to the energy required to lift payloads into space.

[Genady]

41 minutes ago, swansont said:

43 minutes ago, Genady said:

And if they maintained this lifestyle for several thousand years, they might biologically evolve to better fit it, e.g., no need for gravity, radiation tolerance, boredom tolerance, etc.

A being adapted to low-g would have difficulty existing in higher-g environments.

For a being adapted to much higher than 1 g, they might not have developed space travel at all, owing to the energy required to lift payloads into space.

I was talking about evolution that occurs during the nomadic lifestyle.

[swansont]

18 minutes ago, Genady said:

I was talking about evolution that occurs during the nomadic lifestyle.

Yes. They would have trouble dropping in and visiting the surface of a planet that has higher gravity than what they’ve become adapted to. Their muscles would have atrophied and they would have a lower bone density, relative to the original state.

(the sci-fi show “The Expanse” touches on this, using 1g to torture someone who’s adapted to lower gravity)

It’s why one can infer that it’s likely that any aliens sighted on earth, if there are any, must be adapted to something close to our gravity.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

Yes. They would have trouble dropping in and visiting the surface of a planet that has higher gravity than what they’ve become adapted to. Their muscles would have atrophied and they would have a lower bone density, relative to the original state.

(the sci-fi show “The Expanse” touches on this, using 1g to torture someone who’s adapted to lower gravity)

It’s why one can infer that it’s likely that any aliens sighted on earth, if there are any, must be adapted to something close to our gravity.

Oh, I see now what you mean. No, I don't think they would be interested to drop in and visit their "mines", i.e., planets. And I don't think that any aliens have been sighted on Earth. They would rather use robots. Like we do.

[Moontanman]

Distance and time are moot points when trying to figure out some reason why they can't be here. Technology can overcome both problems, machine/AI probes could cover the distance and then use technology to recreate their own creators. No reason why this wouldn't work, printing out EBEs along with all their technology... piece of cake! 

The real problem we are facing is the quality of the data, Science is all but useless in trying to determine the solution to this problem. No one, not even the military, is actually gathering data in a way that would facilitate scientific investigation.  The problem with chain of evidence is enough to knock science out of the ballpark. Randomly gathered data by just about anyone with no standards past "I know what I saw" will not matter to a scientific investigation. 

Data gathered by the military, while possibly relevant, is simply not shared by the military. The military being so compulsively secrative that a method of "secrete writing" labeled top secrete during WW2 is still top secret even though the method is widly known and used by tennagers to writing messages to each other (well maybe when I was a teenager, before cell phones and "The Internets" 🤪) but it still shows how attached the military is to its secretes. This is one of the actual complaints NASA has with their recent investigation into the UAP phenomena... leave it to science to cut things back to their minimal state! 

I'm going to have to come down on the side of skepticism on this one, I think the "Military Secrete Complex" will stop this one in its tracks because letting the scientists in on this one aspect of "secrets saved forever" simply isn't going to happen.  Whether or not the "secretes" support aliens or not will not determine if we get to see the data.  

For those of you who rightly pointed out my status update had gone further than I meant here is the relevant post. 

Actually there is considerable confusion over what is really going since NASA threw it's hat in the ring and congress has promised whistleblowers protection from prosecution for revealing classified info pertaining to UAPs. It has come to light that at the very least the military has been hiding behind "classified" as an excuse to prevent scientists from gaining access to some evidently very interesting "things" some of which evidently include craft and parts of crafts not of this earth but the are still being a bit cagy with the idea of "extraterrestrial" Interesting videos for those who have the time. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOSEDRWXZZw

https://youtu.be/wd3LeWJS1go

https://youtu.be/IyMbXXXoulo

00:37 to 01:54 is an old VHS tape of a UFO but very interesting, several very interestings tapes in this video.