Technologically/Intellectually Superior Aliens: "Unpleasant Visits"?

[Moontanman]

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.

[mooeypoo]

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

[Moontanman]

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.

[JohnB]

I have my doubts about this, Mutually Assured Destruction is the same no matter who has the space craft.

 

Not quite. MAD was a concept that came later when the arsenals became huge. During the 50s and 60s a conventional war with a nuclear sideshow was still a possibility. Both sides believed that there were "winnable" scenarios. This was exactly the reason that Stalin was murdered, he intended a nuclear first strike against the US for the glory of communism. Fortunately his underlings weren't so sure. Also note the movements of Soviet nukes into Poland leading up to the spring of 1976. A nuclear war forestalled by a very brave and patriotic Polish officer of the General Staff.

 

Also note that MAD only works if the destruction is mutual. If the US had such a craft and could reverse engineer the tech to the point of being able to make a number of their own capable of extreme speeds, then the Soviet arsenal becomes obsolete. The missiles could be shot down by these "Super Planes" and the war would be over.

 

The only way to prevent being so technologically outgunned would be to attack immediately, before the US had time to take advantage of the tech that had fallen into their hands. I add that the reverse situation is also true, we would have attacked to prevent Mach 25 Soviet bombers appearing in our skies.

 

Either way the choice would have been simple. Fight now while we have a chance, or later when we have no chance.

[mooeypoo]

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.

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?

[Moontanman]

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.

[mooeypoo]

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.

1. Who admitted to telling which lies?

2. What was used to make the lies look 'scientific'?

3. How do we know the above is true and not a lie on the part of the government, which, we establish, lies?

 

I don't mean to dismiss anything, btw, I'm really not sure I understand, so I want to clarify. I wasn't raised in the USA, where the UFO mythos (as in 'epic', not necessarily as a myth) is very common.

 

Where I come from, we don't really have that all that much. So don't take my questions as ridicule. I'm trying to understand what we *have* vs. what we're inferring, and how good the bases are upon which we make these conjectures.

 

 

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.

Who? I only heard rumors so far, I didn't know there were actual people. And do they have proof?

 

Now, I am aware that the immediate reaction can be "of course they don't have proof, the government hides them!" but we all know that one of the most effective things about science is that it's repeatable. Even if the "hard proof" is hidden, a whistle-blower should have *something* to show, otherwise it makes it a bit difficult to see if the whistle blower isn't just doing that for attention, or if what they're saying is true.

 

In short, if you decide you distrust what the government says, then you need to make that distrust 'fair' and distribute it to anyone who makes an unsupported claim. Your conclusion should be based on the evidence; we should examine the evidence, one by one if we have to, and try to reach a conclusion.

 

One good evidence might be enough, while a billion crappy evidence are worthless.

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.

There's ridicule attached to a lot of things, but in this case, the ridicule is often because the claims are so outlandish that they require quite a big evidence base. When those aren't supported, then ridicule tends to follow.

 

I dont' mean to ridicule, but you need to understand that I'm not going to make a judgment without evidence that matches the claim made.

 

If I told you that the moon is wobbling, it's a claim that isn't too outlandish; you will probably require a relatively small proof. If I told you that the moon is made of cheese, you'd require a MUCH larger proof for it, right?

 

By suggesting that UFOs are alien visitations, you're already assuming that (a) aliens exist, (b) they're intelligent, © they came here, (d) they don't want anyone to know they come here, (e) they are able to communicate, scheme, (f) professional scientists cannot detect them, (g) but they crash-land or accidentally expose themselves -- and many other assumptions.

 

There's such a multitude of assumptions that accompany the claim that UFOs are alien visitations that the claim requires an equally large evidence to be accepted or even considered scientifically.

 

 

~moo

[Moontanman]

1. Who admitted to telling which lies?

2. What was used to make the lies look 'scientific'?

3. How do we know the above is true and not a lie on the part of the government, which, we establish, lies?

 

I don't mean to dismiss anything, btw, I'm really not sure I understand, so I want to clarify. I wasn't raised in the USA, where the UFO mythos (as in 'epic', not necessarily as a myth) is very common.

 

Where I come from, we don't really have that all that much. So don't take my questions as ridicule. I'm trying to understand what we *have* vs. what we're inferring, and how good the bases are upon which we make these conjectures.

 

Aren't you originally from England? If so the UFO mythos is just as active there as the USA.

 

 

Who? I only heard rumors so far, I didn't know there were actual people. And do they have proof?

 

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

 

In response to many "flying saucer" sightings (later unidentified flying objects), the United States Air Force established Project Sign in 1948; this later became Project Grudge, which in turn became Project Blue Book in 1952. Hynek was contacted by Project Sign to act as scientific consultant for their investigation of UFO reports. Hynek would study a UFO report and subsequently decide if its description of the UFO suggested a known astronomical object.

 

When Project Sign hired Hynek, he was initially skeptical of UFO reports. Hynek suspected that UFO reports were made by unreliable witnesses, or by persons who had misidentified man-made or natural objects. In 1948, Hynek said that the "the whole subject seems utterly ridiculous," and described it as a fad that would soon pass.[3]

 

For the first few years of his UFO studies, Hynek could safely be described as a debunker. He thought that a great many UFOs could be explained as prosaic phenomena misidentified by an observer. But beyond such fairly obvious cases, Hynek often stretched logic to nearly the breaking point in an attempt to explain away as many UFO reports as possible. In his 1977 book, Hynek admitted that he enjoyed his role as a debunker for the Air Force. He also noted that debunking was what the Air Force expected of him.

 

Hynek's opinions about UFOs began a slow and gradual shift. After examining hundreds of UFO reports over the decades (including some made by credible witnesses, including astronomers, pilots, police officers, and military personnel), Hynek concluded that some reports represented genuine empirical observations.

 

Another shift in Hynek's opinions came after conducting an informal poll of his astronomer colleagues in the early 1950s. Among those he queried was Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet Pluto. Of 44 astronomers, five (over 11 percent) had seen aerial objects that they could not account for with established, mainstream science. Most of these astronomers had not widely shared their accounts for fear of ridicule or of damage to their reputations or careers (Tombaugh was an exception, having openly discussed his own UFO sightings). Hynek also noted that this 11% figure was, according to most polls, greater than those in the general public who claimed to have seen UFOs. Furthermore, the astronomers were presumably more knowledgeable about observing and evaluating the skies than the general public, so their observations were arguably more impressive. Hynek was also distressed by what he regarded as the dismissive or arrogant attitude of many mainstream scientists towards UFO reports and witnesses.

 

Early evidence of the shift in Hynek's opinions appeared in 1953, when Hynek wrote an article for the April 1953 issue of The Journal of the Optical Society of America titled "Unusual Aerial Phenomena," which contained what would become perhaps Hynek's best known statement:

 

"Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there ... any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn't, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public—not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists?" (Emphasis in original)[4]

 

 

In 1953, Hynek was an associate member of the Robertson Panel, which concluded that there was nothing anomalous about UFOs, and that a public relations campaign should be undertaken to debunk the subject and reduce public interest. Hynek would later come to lament that the Robertson Panel had helped make UFOs a disreputable field of study.

 

It was during the late stages of Blue Book in the 1960s that Hynek began speaking openly about his disagreements and disappointments with the Air Force. Among the cases where he openly dissented with the Air Force were the highly publicized Portage County UFO chase (where several police officers chased a UFO for half an hour), and the encounter of Lonnie Zamora. A police officer, Zamora reported an encounter with a metallic, egg-shaped aircraft near Socorro, New Mexico. Zamora witnessed two humanoid occupants of the craft, and in its apparently hasty departure, the craft left physical evidence of its presence. As of 2007, no entirely adequate explanation has been presented that would contradict Zamora's account—in fact, in a secret memo for the CIA, Blue Book's director at the time, Major Quintanilla, expressed his own bafflement at the case. Hynek described the case as a potential "Rosetta Stone" that might unlock the UFO mystery.

 

 

In late March 1966, in Michigan, two days of mass UFO sightings were reported, and received significant publicity. After studying the reports, Hynek offered a provisional hypothesis for some of the sightings: a few of about 100 witnesses had mistaken swamp gas for something more spectacular. At the press conference where he made his announcement, Hynek repeatedly and strenuously made the qualification that swamp gas was a plausible explanation for only a portion of the Michigan UFO reports, and certainly not for UFO reports in general. But much to his chagrin, Hynek's qualifications were largely overlooked, and the words "swamp gas" were repeated ad infinitum in relation to UFO reports. The explanation was subject to national derision.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e

 

In May 1955, Vallée first sighted an unidentified flying object over his Pontoise home. Six years later in 1961, while working on the staff of the French Space Committee, Vallée witnessed the destruction of the tracking tapes of an unknown object orbiting the earth. The particular object was a retrograde satellite - that is, a satellite orbiting the earth in the opposite direction. At the time he observed this, there were no rockets powerful enough to launch such a satellite, so the team was quite excited as they assumed that the Earth's gravity had captured a natural satellite (asteroid). A superior came and erased the tape. These events contributed to Vallée's long-standing interest in the UFO phenomenon.

 

I like this from Vallee

 

Five specific arguments articulated here contradict the ETH:

 

unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the earth;

the humanoid body structure of the alleged "aliens" is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel;

the reported behavior in thousands of abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race;

the extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded human history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon; and

the apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives.

 

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

 

Air Force Regulation 200-2,[41] issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object ("UFOB") as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a "possible threat to the security of the United States" and "to determine technical aspects involved." As to what the public was to be told, "it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB's when the object is positively identified as a familiar object," but "For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved." [42][43]

 

 

It has been claimed that all UFO cases are anecdotal[30] and that all can be explained as prosaic natural phenomena. On the other hand, it has been argued that there is limited awareness among scientists of observational data, other than what is reported in the popular press.[3][31]

 

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.

 

Now, I am aware that the immediate reaction can be "of course they don't have proof, the government hides them!" but we all know that one of the most effective things about science is that it's repeatable. Even if the "hard proof" is hidden, a whistle-blower should have *something* to show, otherwise it makes it a bit difficult to see if the whistle blower isn't just doing that for attention, or if what they're saying is true.

 

No, not being made up, what do you mean hard proof?

 

In short, if you decide you distrust what the government says, then you need to make that distrust 'fair' and distribute it to anyone who makes an unsupported claim. Your conclusion should be based on the evidence; we should examine the evidence, one by one if we have to, and try to reach a conclusion.

 

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.

 

 

One good evidence might be enough, while a billion crappy evidence are worthless.

 

We would have to actually investigate the evidence before we can actually say crappy or good.

 

There's ridicule attached to a lot of things, but in this case, the ridicule is often because the claims are so outlandish that they require quite a big evidence base. When those aren't supported, then ridicule tends to follow.

 

I dont' mean to ridicule, but you need to understand that I'm not going to make a judgment without evidence that matches the claim made.

 

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.

 

If I told you that the moon is wobbling, it's a claim that isn't too outlandish; you will probably require a relatively small proof. If I told you that the moon is made of cheese, you'd require a MUCH larger proof for it, right?

 

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.

 

By suggesting that UFOs are alien visitations, you're already assuming that (a) aliens exist, (b) they're intelligent, © they came here, (d) they don't want anyone to know they come here, (e) they are able to communicate, scheme, (f) professional scientists cannot detect them, (g) but they crash-land or accidentally expose themselves -- and many other assumptions.

 

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.

 

There's such a multitude of assumptions that accompany the claim that UFOs are alien visitations that the claim requires an equally large evidence to be accepted or even considered scientifically.

~moo

 

Again you are making the assumption that all UFOs are aliens not me, i have never made that assumption with out caveats anywhere.

[mooeypoo]

Aren't you originally from England? If so the UFO mythos is just as active there as the USA.

No, I'm originally from Israel.

 

Before we go on, though, this stopped my at my tracks, and I need a resolution before I put time into examining any evidence for any claims:

Again you are making the assumption that all UFOs are aliens not me, i have never made that assumption with out caveats anywhere.

 

Either I don't understand the claim, or you're shifting the goal post.

 

There's no doubt that "UFOs" - as Unidentified Flying Objects - as in, things we see but don't know what tehy are - exist. I wrote that multiple time. The claim taht seems to stick in this thread (and the other one),though, is that those UFOs are not a collection of human-made/natural objects that we just didn't recognize what they are yet, but rather non man-made objects. Namely, alien visitations.

 

"Evidence" (we will discuss what accounts for evidence and what doesn't later) were given to show that alien crafts were visiting the earth. How am *I* the one jumping to assumptions? I'm merely repeating the claim made.

 

But your comment above seems to suggest that it's not about aliens visiting the earth. This, potentially, makes this entire discussion moot, so the first thing we need to do, is for you to make your claim clearly.

 

~moo

 

BTW: If your problem is the word "ALL" it wasn't *I* who put that word there, it's you. I don't have a problem with "some" of the UFOs being suitable to your claim - it's still a big, gigantic, multiple-assumptions claim. And it still requires big evidence.

[Moontanman]

No, I'm originally from Israel.

 

Before we go on, though, this stopped my at my tracks, and I need a resolution before I put time into examining any evidence for any claims:

 

 

Either I don't understand the claim, or you're shifting the goal post.

 

There's no doubt that "UFOs" - as Unidentified Flying Objects - as in, things we see but don't know what they are - exist. I wrote that multiple time. The claim that seems to stick in this thread (and the other one),though, is that those UFOs are not a collection of human-made/natural objects that we just didn't recognize what they are yet, but rather non man-made objects. Namely, alien visitations.

 

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.

 

 

 

"Evidence" (we will discuss what accounts for evidence and what doesn't later) were given to show that alien crafts were visiting the earth. How am *I* the one jumping to assumptions? I'm merely repeating the claim made.

 

Their is indeed evidence that is impossible to explain any other way.

 

But your comment above seems to suggest that it's not about aliens visiting the earth. This, potentially, makes this entire discussion moot, so the first thing we need to do, is for you to make your claim clearly.

~moo

 

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.

 

BTW: If your problem is the word "ALL" it wasn't *I* who put that word there, it's you. I don't have a problem with "some" of the UFOs being suitable to your claim - it's still a big, gigantic, multiple-assumptions claim. And it still requires big evidence.

 

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.

[Mr Skeptic]

Their is indeed evidence that is impossible to explain any other way.

 

That is what is called an argument from ignorance. People have said exactly the same thing, over and over, throughout the millenia, as evidence for god's existence. And yet now, with more knowledge, some of those same arguments seem ridiculously silly.

[Moontanman]

That is what is called an argument from ignorance. People have said exactly the same thing, over and over, throughout the millenia, as evidence for god's existence. And yet now, with more knowledge, some of those same arguments seem ridiculously silly.

 

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...

[mooeypoo]

Moontanman, again, you keep claiming people don't even look INTO those things - that's false. These incidents *ARE* checked, are reserched, and there *ARE* solutions for them more often than not. The fact that the scientific community (that researched many of those claims) doesn't jump up every time a repetitive claim is raised doesn't mean no one has *ever* tested them.

 

I do agree that anything we don't know deserves to be examined scientifically. On this, it seems, we agree.

Many of those UFO sightings were indeed researched and checked and many were resolved. It's not like the scientific community runs away from them as if it's poison.

 

 

~moo

[Moontanman]

Moontanman, again, you keep claiming people don't even look INTO those things - that's false. These incidents *ARE* checked, are reserched, and there *ARE* solutions for them more often than not. The fact that the scientific community (that researched many of those claims) doesn't jump up every time a repetitive claim is raised doesn't mean no one has *ever* tested them.

 

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

 

A 1951 Cosmopolitan article, prepared with Air Force cooperation and encouragement, lashed out at the "screwballs" and "true believers" who thought they were seeing flying saucers. In the decades to come, others would accuse UFO observers of every conceivable social crime or mental disorder. As a result, only a small minority of witnesses would ever report their sightings, and many who did soon lived to regret it. In 1977 a group of professional debunkers warned The New York Times that belief in UFOs is not only irrational but also dangerous; if sufficiently widespread, civilization itself could collapse.

 

In the better-known version, the proof arrived in the sky southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, at 2:45 A.M. on July 24, 1948. To Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitted, pilot and copilot respectively of an Eastern Airlines DC-3, the object at first looked like a distant jet aircraft to their right and just above them. But it was moving awfully fast. Seconds later, as it streaked past them, they saw something that Whitted thought looked like "one of those fantastic Flash Gordon rocket ships in the funny papers." It was a huge, tube-shaped structure, its fuselage three times the circumference of a B-29 bomber, and with two rows of square windows emanating white light. It was, Chiles would remember, "powered by some jet or other type of power shooting flame from the rear some 50 feet." The object was also glimpsed by the one passenger who was not sleeping. After it passed the DC-3, it shot up 500 feet and was lost in the clouds at 6,000 feet altitude.

 

Although Chiles and Whitted didn't know it at the time, an hour earlier a ground-maintenance crewman at Robins AFB, Georgia, had seen the same or an identical object. On July 20, observers in The Hague, the Netherlands, watched a comparable craft move swiftly through the clouds.

 

It took investigators little time to establish that no earthly missile or aircraft could have been responsible for these sightings. Moreover, with independent verification of the object's appearance and performance, there seemed no question of the witnesses' being mistaken about what they had seen. In the days following the sighting, Project Sign prepared an "estimate of the situation" -- a thick document stamped TOP SECRET -- that argued that this and other reliably observed UFOs could only be otherworldly vehicles. But when the estimate landed on the desk of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, he promptly rejected it on the grounds that the report had not proved its case.

 

In short order Project Sign's advocates of extraterrestrial visitation were reassigned or encouraged to leave the service. The Air Force then embarked on a debunking campaign interrupted only for the brief period between 1951 and 1953 when Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, who took an open-minded approach, headed the official UFO project. Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge (1949-1952); Project Blue Book, established in March 1952, succeeded Project Grudge. Practically until the day the Air Force closed down Project Blue Book in December 1969, it denied that such a document had ever existed, even when former UFO-project officers swore they had seen or heard of it. No one could produce a copy of the document, however, because the Air Force had all copies burned.

 

At least one source disputes this account, on the authority of Capt. Ruppelt, who tells it in his memoir of his Project Blue Book years, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956). Years after the original incidents, a retired AMC-assigned officer (now deceased) claimed that Project Sign prepared two drafts of the estimate. The first draft referred to what the officer remembered as a "physical evidence" case in New Mexico. When Vandenberg saw this reference, he demanded its removal. The second draft, with the offending paragraphs deleted, argued its case solely from eyewitness testimony -- of which the Chiles/Whitted encounter was an impressive example. Vandenberg could now claim that, in the absence of physical evidence, no proof existed.

 

A long time would pass before civilian investigators learned of this New Mexico physical-evidence case. It would turn out to be one of the most important incidents -- perhaps the most important incident -- in UFO history. With these revelations would come the belated realization that ufology has two histories: a public one and a hidden one.

 

 

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

 

Judging from the Air Force's press notices, Project Blue Book had the UFO problem well in hand. But in reality, for almost all of its nearly 20-year existence, it was a low-priority operation headed by a lower-ranking officer. A well-funded but highly classified project (even now its name is not known) handled sensitive UFO cases. The staff for Project Blue Book was small and, according to astronomer J. Allen Hynek (Project Blue Book's scientific adviser), less than hardworking. Nonetheless, the Air Force regularly assured reporters, who then uncritically passed the line to newspaper readers, that thorough, scientific investigations had proved the nonexistence of UFOs. In a 1968 letter to the project, Hynek leveled several charges against Project Blue Book: It lacked the trained personnel necessary for the job, had conducted "virtually no dialogue" with the "outside scientific world," and employed statistical methods that were "nothing less than a travesty."

 

 

In 1958 Keyhoe got hold of a leaked Air Force document that made it clear that officialdom considered the Kinross incident a UFO encounter of the strangest kind. The document quoted these words from a radar observer who had been there: "It seems incredible, but the blip apparently just swallowed our F-89." The following year, in conversations with civilian ufologists Tom Comella and Edgar Smith, M. Sgt. O. D. Hill of Project Blue Book confided that such incidents -- he claimed Kinross had not been the only one -- had officials worried. Many, he said, believed UFOs to be of extraterrestrial origin and wanted to prevent an interplanetary Pearl Harbor. Cornelia subsequently confronted Hill's superior, Capt. George T. Gregory, at Blue Book headquarters. Gregory looked shocked, left the room for a short period, and returned to state, "Well, we just cannot talk about those cases."

 

The 1952 Washington D.C. UFO Incident

A few minutes before midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1952, an air traffic controller at National Airport in Washington, D.C., noticed some odd blips on his radar screen. Knowing that no aircraft were flying in that area --15 miles to the southwest of the capital -- he rushed to inform his boss, Harry G. Barnes. Barnes recalled a few days later, "We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed. . . . [T]heir movements were completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft." They moved with such sudden bursts of intense speed that radar could not track them continuously.

 

Soon, National Airport's other radar, Tower Central (set on short-range detection, unlike Barnes' Airway Traffic Control Central [ARTC]), was tracking unknowns. At Andrews AFB, ten miles to the east, Air Force personnel gaped incredulously as bright orange objects in the southern sky circled, stopped abruptly, and then streaked off at blinding speeds. Radar at Andrews AFB also picked up the strange phenomena.

 

 

The sighting*s and radar trackings continued until 3 A.M. By then witnesses on the ground and in the air had observed the UFOs, and at times all three radar sets had tracked them simultaneously.

 

Exciting and scary as all this had been, it was just the beginning of an incredible episode. The next evening radar tracked UFOs as they performed extraordinary "gyrations and reversals," in the words of one Air Force weather observer. Moving at more than 900 miles per hour, the objects gave off radar echoes exactly like those of aircraft or other solid targets. Sightings and trackings occurred intermittently during the week and then erupted into a frenzy over the following weekend. At one point, as an F-94 moved on targets ten miles away, the UFOs turned the tables and darted en masse toward the interceptor, surrounding it in seconds. The badly shaken pilot, Lt. William Patterson, radioed Andrews AFB to ask if he should open fire. The answer, according to Albert M. Chop, a civilian working as a press spokesperson for the Air Force who was present, was "stunned silence. . . . After a tense moment, the UFOs pulled away and left the scene."

 

As papers, politicians, and public clamored for answers, the Air Force hosted the biggest press conference in history. A transcript shows that the spokesperson engaged in what amounted to double-talk, but the reporters, desperate for something to show their editors, picked up on Capt. Roy James' off-the-cuff suggestion that temperature inversions had caused the radar blips. James, a UFO skeptic, had arrived in Washington only that morning and had not participated in the ongoing investigation.

 

Nonetheless, headlines across the country echoed the sentiments expressed in the Washington Daily News: "SAUCER" ALARM DISCOUNTED BY PENTAGON; RADAR OBJECTS LAID TO COLD AIR FORMATIONS. This "explanation" got absolutely no support from those who had seen the objects either in the air or on the radar screens, and the U.S. Weather Bureau, in a little-noted statement, rejected the theory. In fact, the official Air Force position, which it had successfully obscured, was that the objects were "unknowns."

 

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.

 

I do agree that anything we don't know deserves to be examined scientifically. On this, it seems, we agree.

Many of those UFO sightings were indeed researched and checked and many were resolved. It's not like the scientific community runs away from them as if it's poison.

 

 

~moo

 

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.

 

In fact, during the Washington events traffic related to the UFO sightings had clogged all intelligence channels. If the Soviets had chosen to take advantage of the resulting paralysis to launch an air or ground invasion of the United States, there would have been no way for the appropriate warnings to get through.

 

Determined that this would never happen again, the CIA approached Project Blue Book and said it wanted to review the UFO data accumulated since 1947. In mid-January a scientific panel headed by CIA physicist H. P. Robertson briefly reviewed the Air Force material, dismissed it quickly, and went on to its real business: recommending ways American citizens could be discouraged from seeing, reporting, or believing in flying saucers. The Air Force should initiate a "debunking" campaign and enlist the services of celebrities on the unreality of UFOs. Beyond that official police agencies should monitor civilian UFO research groups "because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking. . . . The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind."

 

The panel's existence and its conclusions remained secret for years, but the impact on official UFO policy was enormous. In short order Project Blue Book was downgraded, becoming little more than a public-relations exercise.

 

 

The Condon Report on UFOs

In 1966 the Air Force sponsored a project, directed by University of Colorado physicist Edward U. Condon, to conduct what was billed as an "independent" study. In fact it was part of an elaborate scheme to allow the Air Force, publicly anyway, to get out of the UFO business.*

 

 

 

The official text of the controversial Condon Report, billed in J969 as the last (and negative) word on UFOs.*The Condon committee was to review or reinvestigate Project Blue Book data and decide if further inve*stigation was warranted. As an internal memorandum leaked to Look magazine in 1968 showed, Condon and his chief assistant knew before they started that they were to reach negative conclusions.

 

Bold text is my doing.

 

Condon sparked a fire storm of controversy when he summarily dismissed two investigators who, not having gotten the message, returned from the field with positive findings. In January 1969, when the committee's final report was released in book form, readers who did not get past Condon's introduction were led to believe that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified on the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." Those who bothered to read the book found that fully one-third of the cases examined remained unexplained, and scientist-critics would later note that even some of the "explained" reports were unconvincingly accounted for.

 

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.

Edited May 20, 2010 by Moontanman
sp

[mooeypoo]

The fact *you* don't know of the investigations that were done doesn't mean no one's looking into it. I am in the middle of studies, so I don't have a lot of time pulling out all the resources, but I suggest we just go over the evidence one by one, as we're supposed to, instead of talking in general and stating things that are (to say the least) innaccurate.

 

Not just the government investigates UFO sightings, Moontanman. I know of at least 3 groups that do that, according to the scientific method, and have nothing to do with government. Skeptical groups take those topics on *ALL THE TIME*.

 

Here's a bit of info - GENERAL info. http://www.skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html

It has a lot of books and references about incidences that *were* invesigated. I suggest we stop making definitive judgment until after we reviewed specific evidence.

 

Feel free to raise *SPECIFIC* evidence, and we can start going over it. Otherwise, this generalization is getting tedious and (to be perfectly honest) very annoying.

 

~moo

[Moontanman]

The fact *you* don't know of the investigations that were done doesn't mean no one's looking into it. I am in the middle of studies, so I don't have a lot of time pulling out all the resources, but I suggest we just go over the evidence one by one, as we're supposed to, instead of talking in general and stating things that are (to say the least) innaccurate.

 

Not just the government investigates UFO sightings, Moontanman. I know of at least 3 groups that do that, according to the scientific method, and have nothing to do with government. Skeptical groups take those topics on *ALL THE TIME*.

 

Here's a bit of info - GENERAL info. http://www.skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html

It has a lot of books and references about incidences that *were* invesigated. I suggest we stop making definitive judgment until after we reviewed specific evidence.

 

Feel free to raise *SPECIFIC* evidence, and we can start going over it. Otherwise, this generalization is getting tedious and (to be perfectly honest) very annoying.

 

~moo

 

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

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This 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.

 

There are as many photographs of UFOs as there are of the Loch Ness Monster, and they are of equal quality: blurs and forgeries.

 

 

 

"…nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge...further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." –Edward U. Condon

 

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

 

"Choose the nearest star; decide how long you're willing to travel, how fast you will need to go to get there in that time, what you will have to take with you, and how many should be in the crew. Make it a one-way suicide mission if you wish. As a final step, calculate the kinetic energy that must be imparted to the spaceship to get you there in that time (one half the mass times the velocity squared.) I suggest you stay away from the relativistic limit; it complicates the calculation and won't help you anyway. The good news is that you will then sleep secure in the knowledge that UFOs from elsewhere in the galaxy are not subjecting humans to hideous experiments." --Bob Park

 

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.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Moontanman
Consecutive posts merged.

[King, North TX]

This quote/argument is the one that really REALLY bothers me...

 

"Choose the nearest star; decide how long you're willing to travel, how fast you will need to go to get there in that time, what you will have to take with you, and how many should be in the crew. Make it a one-way suicide mission if you wish. As a final step, calculate the kinetic energy that must be imparted to the spaceship to get you there in that time (one half the mass times the velocity squared.) I suggest you stay away from the relativistic limit; it complicates the calculation and won't help you anyway. The good news is that you will then sleep secure in the knowledge that UFOs from elsewhere in the galaxy are not subjecting humans to hideous experiments." --Bob Park

 

...because it completely and utterly ignores the historical fact that 'they' have ALWAYS been here...

 

There is no need that we require they be from a far off star, capable of traveling here at the speed of light. It like saying you can't prove this woman is pregnant, unless you can prove she flew to Mars recently. One has NOTHING to do with another.

[insane_alien]

see, the thing about space is, its really difficult to hide.

 

if there really was an advanced civilization in this solar system other than us then we would have detected them by now from the massive amounts of waste heat they'd inevitably produce.

[Sayonara]

...because it completely and utterly ignores the historical fact that 'they' have ALWAYS been here...

When you said "historical fact", what you were actually describing is an unsupported assertion.

 

Please don't trot out the "historical references point to alien visitation" line in response, because it's been pretty much conclusively shown in this thread already why that is unsound reasoning.

 

Strength of conviction does not translate into credibility of evidence.

[mooeypoo]

see, the thing about space is, its really difficult to hide.

 

if there really was an advanced civilization in this solar system other than us then we would have detected them by now from the massive amounts of waste heat they'd inevitably produce.

Waste, gravitational perturbations, communications, radiation, reflection...

 

We can accurately model our solar system by the tiniest pertrubations due to all the planets' locations, their moons, and occasionally-appearing asteroids.

 

One of the ways to deflect an asteroid on collision with the earth, for instance, is to have a rocket fly for a while *next to it* - the gravitational pull between the two will deflect the asteroid enough to miss the Earth. We're talking about vast distances and immense effects.

 

I am still going to go through the individual accounts, but this is one thing I find extremely unlikely: That an alien civilization is so advanced, and so secretive that we would miss *all* potential hints for it - hints that cannot be hidden by the government when hundreds of thousands of private people look at the sky every given night all over the world, independently, with quite advanced equipment, enough to recognize objects in far away *GALAXIES* - and yet this massively-advanced civilization manages to hide so well from our detection outside the Earth's atmosphere, but screws up the stuff that are supposed to be minute (compared to interstellar travel *and* hiding all the waste, radiation, communcation and gravitational anomalies produced in space) by having UFO sightings.

 

I find this claim to be preposterous. Really.

 

Impossible? No, nothing is impossible. Unlikely? Very. If those aliens really do come visit Earth, let's just say they got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

 

~moo

[Moontanman]

 

...because it completely and utterly ignores the historical fact that 'they' have ALWAYS been here...

 

There is no need that we require they be from a far off star, capable of traveling here at the speed of light. It like saying you can't prove this woman is pregnant, unless you can prove she flew to Mars recently. One has NOTHING to do with another.

 

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.

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Waste, gravitational perturbations, communications, radiation, reflection...

 

We can accurately model our solar system by the tiniest pertrubations due to all the planets' locations, their moons, and occasionally-appearing asteroids.

 

One of the ways to deflect an asteroid on collision with the earth, for instance, is to have a rocket fly for a while *next to it* - the gravitational pull between the two will deflect the asteroid enough to miss the Earth. We're talking about vast distances and immense effects.

 

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.

 

I am still going to go through the individual accounts, but this is one thing I find extremely unlikely: That an alien civilization is so advanced, and so secretive that we would miss *all* potential hints for it - hints that cannot be hidden by the government when hundreds of thousands of private people look at the sky every given night all over the world, independently, with quite advanced equipment, enough to recognize objects in far away *GALAXIES* - and yet this massively-advanced civilization manages to hide so well from our detection outside the Earth's atmosphere, but screws up the stuff that are supposed to be minute (compared to interstellar travel *and* hiding all the waste, radiation, communcation and gravitational anomalies produced in space) by having UFO sightings.

 

I find this claim to be preposterous. Really.

 

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

 

A modern TV transmitter can put out as much as a megawatt of power. Its not very tightly focused, so even though much of the broadcast energy spills into space, its fairly weak by the time it reaches another star system. Consider one of our early TV programs just washing over a planet thats 50 light-years away. To detect the "carrier" signal from this broadcast in a few minutes time would require about 3,000 acres of rooftop antennas connected to a sensitive receiver. Thats a lot of antennas, and an unsightly concept. But its not hard to build, and the aliens could conceivably do it. If the extraterrestrials were unwise enough to actually want to see the program, then theyd need an antenna about 30,000 times greater in area (roughly the size of Colorado). Ambitious, but possible.

 

 

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.

 

Impossible? No, nothing is impossible. Unlikely? Very. If those aliens really do come visit Earth, let's just say they got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

 

~moo

 

 

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.

[mooeypoo]

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.

We would see as weird, we would investigate and not let go 'till we find something. And if they're coming here for such a long time already, we'd be seeing lots and lots of weird stuff in space.

 

Which we don't.

 

 

 

You know, we discovered Pluto because of perturbations we didn't understand, and pluto isn't *that* big. We also noticed an anomaly with the inner planets - we thought that means there's another planet (Vulcan), and after checking, we saw that the anomalies (small anomalies!) were explained using relativity.

 

We see anomalies and we investigate them. We don't jump to the conclusion that they're alien, that's right, but we *DO* find a solution.

 

We don't see any anomalies that would explain visiting aliens. None.

 

 

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

SETI isn't designed for that, we have other satellites that can detect orbiting planets around stars (Check out Keppler for *one* example). Also, we're not talking about Alpha Centauri - which is 4.3 light years away. We're talking about the close vicinity of the Earth. You can see the Jupiter quite clearly with a relatively small amateur telescope. The distances we're talking about are even closer.

 

SETI looks for broadcasts. This is *one* methodology out there. The search for exoplanets and solar systems is much bigger than tht. We have satellites that DO detect planets in other stars, and very far stars (farther than Alpha Centauri) and we can detect anomalies when they are in our solar system - specially when we're talking about quite a large amount of anomalies, potentially.

 

We'd be detecting anomalies. Many anomalies. And if we don't, it's because the aliens do a DAMN good job hiding. But then, if they hide so well, they are being very bad trying to hide on Earth, it seems.

 

I find that inconsistent, to say the least. And more than weird.

 

 

~moo

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

"We haven't seen any aliens yet" is only a valid point if you discount all the aliens people claim to have seen.

[Mr Skeptic]

I really don't think we'd be able to detect alien spacecraft due to gravitational disturbances. The spacecraft should be fairly small and mostly hollow, and by design fairly light -- not comparable to even a small asteroid. On the other hand, they'd better have a good engine, which would produce heat. I don't know if it's possible to cloak a heat signature though -- it could be, if they went out of their way to cool the parts of the ship facing Earth and put big radiators facing away, but that would be a lot of trouble.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I don't think any of our spacebound infrared observatories would be searching the inner solar system, particularly with their narrow field of view. And infrared view from the ground is bad because of the atmosphere, so detecting a small hot ship may be rather difficult.

 

As for gravitational disturbances -- there are thousands of asteroids in the assorted asteroid belts that we have not cataloged. There's all sorts of junk floating around the solar system that we don't know about. Trying to find a spaceship from the gravitational disturbances would be impossible when there's all sorts of other stuff.