Technologically/Intellectually Superior Aliens: "Unpleasant Visits"?

[insane_alien]

capn, remember, those infrared telescopes and such are looking for incredibly weak signals (really quite ridiculously weak and could be outshone by the body heat of a termite a few thousand miles away.) anything big enough to shunt a craft around at the accelerations commonly seen in 'alien sightings' is going to produce an elephantine amount of waste heat and be bright enough to appear on the wide angle detectors at the very least.

[mooeypoo]

If I look at a "spot" 50 lightyears away, I will definitely see something passing a light-hour away. Most definitely. And I would know it's close, too. Immediately, I will know.

 

You don't look at a "spot" in space. You look at an expanse. Vast expanse. With multiple instroments that look at multiple angles, far and close.

 

There's no way we would've missed multiple anomalies repeating over hundreds of years.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The Spitzer infrared space telescope can get, at best, 5 minutes of arc on one of its detectors. There is no way you could survey the entire inner solar system with that sort of telescope.

 

I'd again like to point out that our asteroid and comet belts are poorly explored. The Oort cloud hasn't even been directly observed, and new objects are detected in our asteroid belt all the time.

 

It'd be ludicrously easy for something to wander about the solar system unnoticed. We haven't even detected all the mundane things out there, let alone the weird bits.

[mooeypoo]

Spitzer isn't the only one, just like SETI isn't the only one. We're looking at multiple angles from all accross the world all the time. Do you really think we would miss a fleet of aliens (or even a single ship that sends smaller ships down to earth) that is on *close proximity to earth*? Who are visiting us for hundreds of years, it seems? All over the world?

 

You really think we would never spot a *SINGLE* actual proof - a *GOOD* quality video, as opposed to crappy quality of the type that can be whatever (specially today, where everyone has a camera and video camera on his cell).

 

Hundreds of thousands of amateur and professional astronomers look up at the skies. Really? We would miss *AALLLLLLLLL* anomalies that are related to alien visitors, they're that good? and yet they're that incompetent as to get caught, frequently, it seems, by crappy video cameras.

 

Don't you see how many assumptions you would need to make for this to make sense?

[King, North TX]

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.

 

It IS "historical fact", as it is something that can be proven true or false.

 

Just like Homer's "Troy" was historical fact before "Heinrich Schliemann" started digging. It didn't take him finding it, to make Troy's existence a fact. It took finding it to 'prove' it as a true fact.

 

There's plenty of support for this assertion, we just haven't laid hands on the solid evidence that brought these pictures, paintings, and carvings into being.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

There have been incidents of UFOs being detected on radar. There have even been cases of amateur astronomers seeing things that looked like UFOs through their telescopes. But expecting ordinary telescopes to detect alien spacecraft is wrong. They don't necessarily produce visible light, they're small, and they're supposedly quite fast, meaning they'd never show up on a long exposure (like every telescope uses).

 

In any case, this is an argument from ignorance.

[King, North TX]

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

 

Who were the last 'normal citizens'/non-military personnel to see the dark side of the Moon?

[mooeypoo]

Who were the last 'normal citizens'/non-military personnel to see the dark side of the Moon?

First off, there's no "Dark side" to the moon, all sides get the same amount of light every month (other than a particular crater at its bottom, which is always dark). NASA (yeah, government) sent a probe there recently, but the entire world saw the explosion of fumes and water that resulted. We don't trust one source in science, as you should know. Specially not in something like astronomy and astrophysics, that usually are relatively easy to verify all over the world.

 

Second, any item or object that has an engine, produces heat. We would detect this heat just by looking at the close side of the moon, because it's close enough. Any item or object next to the moon for a large period of time would affect the wobbliness of the moon (which does wobble, and we *CAN* detect its wobbliness to an EXTREMELY accurate level). Any item or object at the far end of the moon would emit radiation. Unless it's dead - completely. No heat, no communication, no movement.

 

And that is without taking into account that the "UFO" sightings, if they are alien visitations, mean that items *DO* go *out* of the far side of the moon, which means we WOULD Be able to see them ,because there are people (like me) who look at the moon almost every night, with a strong enough binoculars (or telescopes) to spot satellites. And there are many numbers of stations on Earth that permanently observe the moon all over the earth (that is, not just when it's night in the USA), that don't belong to any one government and, more often than not, are completely private.

 

 

 

Assuming that these aliens stay at the far side of the moon and are still undetected requires *a very large* number of assumptions on top of assumptions, and considering the fact they seem to be detected quite a large amount of time on the earth (via supposed 'ufo sightings') it also requires assuming those aliens are reckless.

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we know more than you seem to claim we do. Not just the government. Or any one particular government, or any one particular private institution. We're talking about a conspiracy that, if happening, involves almost any concievable country on earth, any private institution with an available telescope, even those who are at war against one another, and any and all educational institutions that teach physicists how to calculate pertrubations, wobbliness of the moon, wobbliness of the earth, and advanced mechanics, in general, of the solar system.

 

How many assumptions does it take to assume that UFOs, on the other hand, are misinterpreted natural or man-made objects, knowing (and having *proof*) that our brains consistently deceive us specifically in these instances?

 

Occhams' razor is sharp in this case. Again. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far, we've had assumptions, on top of assumptions, on top of assumptions that require more and more and more assumptions, each more incredible than the next.

 

That's why, before I even look at the evidence, I'm having a hard time with this idea. I am not saying it's impossible, i'm saying it's improbable, specially in light of much simpler - much more reasonable, well explained, well known - phenomena that can explain the entire deal.

 

~moo

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

There have been incidents of UFOs being detected on radar. There have even been cases of amateur astronomers seeing things that looked like UFOs through their telescopes. But expecting ordinary telescopes to detect alien spacecraft is wrong. They don't necessarily produce visible light, they're small, and they're supposedly quite fast, meaning they'd never show up on a long exposure (like every telescope uses).

 

In any case, this is an argument from ignorance.

The argument isn't about whether or not "UFOs" exist - we all know there are objects sighted that were unidentified. The argument here is whether or not assuming they're alien visitors is scientifically valid.

 

Argument from ignorance being one reason why it's not, occham's razor being another, and the fact remains: extraordinary claims (and this *IS* an extraordinary claim) require extraordinary evidence. Grainy video that no one can replicate and more times than not proven to be faked does not count as evidence, and it definitely does not count as extraordinary evidence.

 

 

~moo

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Second, any item or object that has an engine, produces heat. We would detect this heat just by looking at the close side of the moon, because it's close enough. Any item or object next to the moon for a large period of time would affect the wobbliness of the moon (which does wobble, and we *CAN* detect its wobbliness to an EXTREMELY accurate level). Any item or object at the far end of the moon would emit radiation. Unless it's dead - completely. No heat, no communication, no movement.

Weeeelll... let's see here. Let's suppose the alien spacecraft is about Space Shuttle size, making it around 80,000kg. Now, the moon is 7.3477 × 10²² kg, with a radius of 1,737.10 km. Let's assume it's a perfect sphere for a moment.

 

Suppose the alien spacecraft is sitting on the surface of the moon. The distance from the center of the moon to the barycenter of the new system is:

 

[math]r_1 = a \cdot \frac{m_2}{m_1+m_2}[/math]

 

where m₁ is the mass of the moon and m₂ is the mass of the spacecraft, and a is the distance between them.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_Mass#Barycenter_in_astrophysics_and_astronomy

 

The result? The barycenter will be 2.36 × 10^-20 kilometers away from the center of the moon. That sort of wobble would be completely undetectable.

 

Heat emanated on the other side of the moon would also be undetected, because of its albedo and its huge mass. Radio signals are blocked by the moon, of course, and spacecraft that do go out there don't listen to the entire spectrum.

 

And that is without taking into account that the "UFO" sightings, if they are alien visitations, mean that items *DO* go *out* of the far side of the moon, which means we WOULD Be able to see them ,because there are people (like me) who look at the moon almost every night, with a strong enough binoculars (or telescopes) to spot satellites. And there are many numbers of stations on Earth that permanently observe the moon all over the earth (that is, not just when it's night in the USA), that don't belong to any one government and, more often than not, are completely private.

Ground-based telescopes cannot resolve satellite-sized objects near the moon.

 

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/FOX.html

Groundbased telescopes also have to look through the murky and turbulant atmosphere so without corrective techniques that are just now becoming common in large telescopes (called adaptive optics), a telescopes resolution is limited by the atmosphere to about 0.5-1.0 arcseconds (3600 arcseconds are in one degree and 360 degrees around the whole sky). That limits groundbased telescopes to a resolution of about 2 kilometers on the moon. From space, a telescope is limited by its diffraction limited resolution. For the Hubble Space Telescope, that is a little less than 0.05 arcseconds or about 90 meters at the distance of the moon. To resolve the LM descent stage which is about 10 meters across, one would need to have a resolution better than 10 meters, perhaps 2-3 meters which means we need a telescope some 30 times larger than the HST in orbit around the Earth to resolve the largest equipment left on the moon.

 

The argument isn't about whether or not "UFOs" exist - we all know there are objects sighted that were unidentified. The argument here is whether or not assuming they're alien visitors is scientifically valid.

 

Argument from ignorance being one reason why it's not, occham's razor being another, and the fact remains: extraordinary claims (and this *IS* an extraordinary claim) require extraordinary evidence. Grainy video that no one can replicate and more times than not proven to be faked does not count as evidence, and it definitely does not count as extraordinary evidence.

 

Oh, I certainly agree. It would be very difficult to prove that aliens have indeed visited the Earth. You're taking the skeptical position that there's not enough evidence to believe it.

 

However, you're going past skepticism. You've started to try to debunk all the evidence brought forth, and as I have shown above, you're resorting to explanations that don't actually make sense.

 

A skeptic doesn't go lobbing out explanations and trying to debunk everything. A skeptic looks at the evidence and says, "well, I dunno. It could be a lot of things. Why don't we try to figure it out?"

 

A skeptic doesn't go, "this can't possibly be true, so how can I debunk it?"

Edited May 22, 2010 by Cap'n Refsmmat
whoops, units

[mooeypoo]

Oh, I certainly agree. It would be very difficult to prove that aliens have indeed visited the Earth. You're taking the skeptical position that there's not enough evidence to believe it.

 

However, you're going past skepticism. You've started to try to debunk all the evidence brought forth, and as I have shown above, you're resorting to explanations that don't actually make sense.

 

This is the third time you're doing this, which makes it even more annoying, capn. Please stop putting words in my mouth. I *REPEATEDLY* stated that I don't dismiss anything outright, I would like to see the evidence first. I "debunked" the evidence I already knew was checked out (min min lights, etc). And the current discussion isn't about debunking; it's explaining why - to begin with - this assumption that UFOs are aliens visiting the Earth is extraordinary and - in light of the fact that we haven't detected *ANYTHING* unusual, bordering on preposterous.

 

You have a knack for keeping your mind overly open, which is great, just be careful not to let your brain fall out. I understand that you want to keep balanced discussion, but in this case, the evidence are so insanely lacking so far, that we need something *BIG*.

 

My latest few posts was an attempt to explain why what I would require as evidence is bigger than what I would probably require as evidence for less extraordinary claims.

 

That's not going beyond skepticism, Cap'n, that's being scientific. I'm not dismissing anything, but I'm not going to pretend like we don't know anything either -- OR that these claims were never ever ever tested, either.

 

The facts are:

• We see quite a lot of our visible universe, and we observe a our near space constantly, from various places on earth.
  
• %99.9999999 of the cases where UFO sightings were tested scientifically, a solution that is not alien was discovered, proven, and was able to be reproduced.
  
• There were many instances where UFO "sightings" were faked, and proven to be faked.
  
• Today's technology allows almost anyone to take relatively great-quality pictures or videos of almost anything. Amazing how such sightings are always grainy, lacking light, and are never on time. EVER. Even statistically, someone should be taping a good video by now.
  

 

At some point, you have to state where you put your resources. If you claim the moon is made of cheese, then as a good skeptic, you shouldn't dismiss it outright; however, if a vast amount of cases show you are probably wrong, *and* a vast amount of observation is against it, *and* what we know of physics prevents it - then at some point, you dismiss this claim until there is some seriously extraordinary proof to show otherwise.

 

This is what's happening in the case of alien visitations and UFOs.

 

UFO sightings *are* researched. Not all of them, no, but many. *MANY*. And every time we check into a claim (most of them are pretty repetitive, we can assign many of them to recurring spacial phenomena we know well) the claim turns out to be either natural or man made.

 

Add to that the fact that in our current day and age, technology gives almost anyone the ability to look up into the night's sky -- all over the world -- quite far, or quite accurately close, and yet we have not a SHRED of evidence there's anything remotely anomolous out there.

 

All these add up to show how far fetched the idea is.

 

At some point, the claim of alien visitation just seems so preposterous, that you require equally extraordinary evidence.

 

I didn't dismiss anything, I was making exactly this point. It isn't going beyond skepticism, it's being scientific.

 

We have no proof that unicorns don't exist, either. They might, why not? Maybe they're perfectly good at hiding really really well. At some point, though, the claim just becomes laughable - no simple picture would convince you of the existence of unicorns, will it? You will require something more. A life specimen, perhaps. Something more than what you would require to prove, say, that a certain type of trout exist.

 

Because the evidence must accomodate the claim, and in this case - much like the case of the unicorn - the claim is a build-up of so many assumptions, each so preposterous on its own - that the required evidence should be equally as extraordinary.

 

I didn't say this can't possibly be true. I said this is unlikely, and it is.

 

~moo

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

This is the third time you're doing this, which makes it even more annoying, capn. Please stop putting words in my mouth. I *REPEATEDLY* stated that I don't dismiss anything outright, I would like to see the evidence first. I "debunked" the evidence I already knew was checked out (min min lights, etc). And the current discussion isn't about debunking; it's explaining why - to begin with - this assumption that UFOs are aliens visiting the Earth is extraordinary and - in light of the fact that we haven't detected *ANYTHING* unusual, bordering on preposterous.

I'm not trying to put words into your mouth. I'm stating what my impression of your words is.

 

The facts are:

• We see quite a lot of our visible universe, and we observe a our near space constantly, from various places on earth.

As I pointed out above, diffraction limits mean we could never directly observe a small spacecraft in our solar system, even when as close as the moon.

• %99.9999999 of the cases where UFO sightings were tested scientifically, a solution that is not alien was discovered, proven, and was able to be reproduced.

Do you have a source for this? How many UFO sightings have been investigated scientifically, and how many have just been investigated by bored people on the Internet?

 

As a note, Project Blue Book had a statistical analysis done of 3200 UFO reports, and they were able to explain roughly 69% of cases. 1.5% of cases were deemed psychological (crazy people made it up). And strikingly, the higher the "quality" of a case (more evidence, more detail), the more likely it was to be classified as of an unknown cause. In the end, 22% of sightings were deemed of unknown origin, including 35% of the high-quality cases. Hardly 99.99999%.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book#Project_Blue_Book_Special_Report_No._14

 

• There were many instances where UFO "sightings" were faked, and proven to be faked.

Fair enough, but that doesn't prove they're all fake, as I'm sure you'd acknowledge.

 

• Today's technology allows almost anyone to take relatively great-quality pictures or videos of almost anything. Amazing how such sightings are always grainy, lacking light, and are never on time. EVER. Even statistically, someone should be taping a good video by now.
  

In my experience, few cameras have the zoom capability to focus on, say, an airliner and get a decent image. Many will be confounded by the bright sky and underexpose the airliner, and others won't be able to zoom in far enough to get the image.

 

You're looking for extraordinary evidence, which is great, but at the moment I don't think extraordinary evidence would be easy to get. It's just too hard.

 

UFO sightings *are* researched. Not all of them, no, but many. *MANY*. And every time we check into a claim (most of them are pretty repetitive, we can assign many of them to recurring spacial phenomena we know well) the claim turns out to be either natural or man made.

Could you cite this?

 

By which I mean: who investigates them? Where are the results published?

 

I have never seen an honest investigation of a UFO apart from the Air Force's work back in the 60s.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Cap'n Refsmmat

[mooeypoo]

I'm not trying to put words into your mouth. I'm stating what my impression of your words is.

It feels like you're trying to stir things up. How 'bout you give me a bit of the benefit of the doubt, read what I said throughout the thread before you claim I am being non skeptical.

 

As I pointed out above, diffraction limits mean we could never directly observe a small spacecraft in our solar system, even when as close as the moon.

And as I've pointed out, if we were talking about a single ship - or a small number of ships - then your point would be right. But we seem to be talking about *hundreds* of ships throughout the centuries, if not much much more. Not only would we have been able to spot something, statistics would dictate we'd be spotting something -- ANYTHING -- anomalous that would require more explanations.

 

We are looking at the skies quite a lot, and we should've spotted something anomalous that would - most definitely - lead to further investigation of the region, and would yield further anomalies (even *after* the ship leaves an area, you would spot remnants of it, if you looked).

 

Nothing was found in the past many many years of investigation. Not a peep. Nada.

 

That doesn't say alien visitations are impossible, and it doesn't say they don't exist. It makes them that much more unlikely, though.

 

Do you have a source for this? How many UFO sightings have been investigated scientifically, and how many have just been investigated by bored people on the Internet?

Either one is fine, since I said 99% of those that were investigated were found to be man-made or natural, not 99% of all UFO sightings. I do have a few sources, but I'm not home, I'll have to get back with the sources on this.

 

This isn't very different from the stories of bigfoot. There's no definitive study 'debunking' bigfoot. And the animal may very well exist. However, the multitude of fake evidence (that turned out to be definitively fake), the fact there are no traces of such an animal when those *should* exist, and the fact that most accounts of it are unsupported, render the claim unlikely.

 

Not impossible. Unlikely. There's a difference.

 

And the UFO claim is in the same basket. Not impossible, in the least. Just very - very - unlikely.

 

It seems to me, though, that we're going backwards a bit in this particular case. We need evidence *FOR* alien visitations, not evidence they don't exist. Right?

 

As a note, Project Blue Book had a statistical analysis done of 3200 UFO reports, and they were able to explain roughly 69% of cases. 1.5% of cases were deemed psychological (crazy people made it up). And strikingly, the higher the "quality" of a case (more evidence, more detail), the more likely it was to be classified as of an unknown cause. In the end, 22% of sightings were deemed of unknown origin, including 35% of the high-quality cases. Hardly 99.99999%.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book#Project_Blue_Book_Special_Report_No._14

Again, the fact we can't explain something doesn't mean it supports the proposition. It just means we can't explain it.

 

Argument from ignorance is far from proof, and since we require extraordinary evidence in this case of extraordinary claims, it's *far* from sufficient.

 

Fair enough, but that doesn't prove they're all fake, as I'm sure you'd acknowledge.

Of course not. But there are very few propositions in science that have 100% anything. Everything is based on plausibility -> research -> establishment -> change -> and so on. There is a claim. You test for its plausibility, then check for evidence, and judge if there's any sense in continuing.

 

I gave the example of the unicorn for a reason. There's no evidence showing unicorns don't exist - as science rarely deals with what doesn't exist, but rather with what does exist.

 

How far would you investigate the unicorns claim? How far would it take until you dismiss it practically, if not entirely? The fact you dismiss a claim practically means you won't waste resources until you get a reason to. It doesn't mean you make the claim that it's impossible.

 

Same for UFOs.

 

They both are possible. They are also both implausible. They both need a really big reason to reconsider their scientific merit. Don't you agree with this assertion? That's all I'm saying, really.

 

In my experience, few cameras have the zoom capability to focus on, say, an airliner and get a decent image. Many will be confounded by the bright sky and underexpose the airliner, and others won't be able to zoom in far enough to get the image.

Which is why I said a simple picture isn't going to be enough, but still, it seems like most UFO sightings are either hearsay or *REALLY* crappy videos. I'm not saying this, on its own, is enough to dismiss the claim entirely, but that also explains why those pieces of evidence are not good enough.

 

The 'rant' about the better video was a caviat, really. Not relevant, I was making a tongue-in-cheek point.

 

You're looking for extraordinary evidence, which is great, but at the moment I don't think extraordinary evidence would be easy to get. It's just too hard.

Then the claim can't be proven.

However, there's also the issue of occham's razor and the fact that the assumption of visiting aliens require a multitude of assumptions, each rather extraordinary on its own.

 

Ocham's razor itself requires us extraordinary evidence to consider this assertion, as you know, since the UFO claim can be explained much easier, much simpler, with less assumptions made, by other natural explanations.

 

Do you disagree?

 

Could you cite this?

 

By which I mean: who investigates them? Where are the results published?

The majority of the scientific publications don't take these seriously, mainly for the reasons above (ocham's razor, insanely extraordinary assumptions on assumptions, and lack of evidence that should be there).

 

UFO evidence aren't published either, though, so in this point they're both under the same last.

 

I have never seen an honest investigation of a UFO apart from the Air Force's work back in the 60s.

 

 

And again, regarding the cites, I'll look for them when I get back. You should check JREF site, though, they should have a few as far as I remember, and Skeptoid.com went over a few too. I'll cite a few of the investigations when I come back.

 

 

 

 

I would like to point out, though, that even if those were not investigated, that's less the point I'm trying to make here. I think they *should* be investigated, but I also understand why scientists have no funds, time or inclination to research these at the moment - scientific research, many times, is about prioritization. This subject is indistinguishable from ferries and unicorns; there are no proof, there's no evidence where you *should* find evidence, and occham's razor wins.

 

The side for the UFO-as-visitors should bring forth something much better than what they have so far if they want to convince anyone from the scientific community to put funds, effort and research time on this.

 

Like unicorns.

 

It's about plausibility, or the lack thereof. We require all claim-makers to bring forth evidence that fit the claim. This claim is against Occham's razor, against what we see, and has no evidence. The claim makers should bring forth an incredible evidence, suitable to the incredible claim.

 

 

~moo

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

And as I've pointed out, if we were talking about a single ship - or a small number of ships - then your point would be right. But we seem to be talking about *hundreds* of ships throughout the centuries, if not much much more. Not only would we have been able to spot something, statistics would dictate we'd be spotting something -- ANYTHING -- anomalous that would require more explanations.

But people do spot anomalous things. And nobody's figured out what some of them are.

 

Numbers don't help you get over diffraction limitation, either; so long as they don't reflect bright light at us, there could be loads of small undetected objects in the solar system. There are, in fact, in the asteroid belts.

 

We are looking at the skies quite a lot, and we should've spotted something anomalous that would - most definitely - lead to further investigation of the region, and would yield further anomalies (even *after* the ship leaves an area, you would spot remnants of it, if you looked).

Yeah, surely you'd at least spot the warp trail.

 

 

Again, the fact we can't explain something doesn't mean it supports the proposition. It just means we can't explain it.

 

Argument from ignorance is far from proof, and since we require extraordinary evidence in this case of extraordinary claims, it's *far* from sufficient.

I know this. My point was to contest your claim that 99% of investigated sightings were explained by non-alien phenomena. The Air Force was able to explain far less than 99%.

 

I gave the example of the unicorn for a reason. There's no evidence showing unicorns don't exist - as science rarely deals with what doesn't exist, but rather with what does exist.

 

How far would you investigate the unicorns claim? How far would it take until you dismiss it practically, if not entirely? The fact you dismiss a claim practically means you won't waste resources until you get a reason to. It doesn't mean you make the claim that it's impossible.

Depends. How many people are claiming that unicorns exist, and what evidence do they bring?

 

If they bring no evidence, and nobody's making the claim anyway -- as is the case now -- there's no real need to investigate. But if people start turning up blurry digital pictures of unicorns on their safari trips, it'd be fair enough to send along some wildlife photographers and biologists and see what turns up.

 

In the case of UFOs, a few investigations have been made, but there's still evidence brought forward, and much of it isn't very well investigated.

 

Which is why I said a simple picture isn't going to be enough, but still, it seems like most UFO sightings are either hearsay or *REALLY* crappy videos. I'm not saying this, on its own, is enough to dismiss the claim entirely, but that also explains why those pieces of evidence are not good enough.

That's why this is my favorite UFO incident:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident

 

I especially like how the DSP satellites even picked it up.

 

But in the end, I think we agree on a lot here. The evidence does not let you conclude that aliens definitely have visited Earth. The evidence is rather muddled and often not very good. However, I wouldn't discount a lot of the incidents as quickly as you do; there are certainly many unexplained phenomena among the hoaxes and sightings of Venus, and there's lots of things they could be. Aliens can't be ruled out, but of course they can't be ruled in, either.

[Moontanman]

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.

 

 

 

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

 

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.

[mooeypoo]

Moontanman, replace "Aliens" with "Unicorn" and then you tell me what kind of proof you would require.

[Moontanman]

Moontanman, replace "Aliens" with "Unicorn" and then you tell me what kind of proof you would require.

 

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.

[Sayonara]

It IS "historical fact", as it is something that can be proven true or false.

All those renderings of flying discs from historical texts? They're time travelling Frisbees. It's a historical FACT because the drawings are right there and the claim could be proven true or false.

 

A claim should only be considered a fact once it has been shown to be true, not before.

 

Just like Homer's "Troy" was historical fact before "Heinrich Schliemann" started digging. It didn't take him finding it, to make Troy's existence a fact. It took finding it to 'prove' it as a true fact.

It isn't "just like Homer's Troy" at all.

 

There's plenty of support for this assertion, we just haven't laid hands on the solid evidence that brought these pictures, paintings, and carvings into being.

An assertion? You just said it was fact. A fact and an assertion are very different things. But yes, it IS an assertion. Which as yet has not been shown to have any factual basis.

 

In science you cannot take a presupposed conclusion and reverse-engineer supporting material to buoy it up. This is the antithesis of the scientific method and utterly dreadful reasoning. If that's how you want to proceed, fine, but don't do so under the impression that you are engaging in anything other than a festival of fallacies.

[Moontanman]

In science you cannot take a presupposed conclusion and reverse-engineer supporting material to buoy it up. This is the antithesis of the scientific method and utterly dreadful reasoning. If that's how you want to proceed, fine, but don't do so under the impression that you are engaging in anything other than a festival of fallacies.

 

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.

Edited May 22, 2010 by Moontanman

[Sayonara]

In those cases, under those conditions, you would not be able to call those studies "scientific" either. Mind you, the USAF and sceptics may not call it that to begin with.

[Moontanman]

In those cases, under those conditions, you would not be able to call those studies "scientific" either. Mind you, the USAF and sceptics may not call it that to begin with.

 

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.

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There have been incidents of UFOs being detected on radar. There have even been cases of amateur astronomers seeing things that looked like UFOs through their telescopes. But expecting ordinary telescopes to detect alien spacecraft is wrong. They don't necessarily produce visible light, they're small, and they're supposedly quite fast, meaning they'd never show up on a long exposure (like every telescope uses).

 

In any case, this is an argument from ignorance.

 

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?

[mooeypoo]

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.

Unicorns *cannot* exist? Why not?

 

Fine. Replace 'aliens' with 'bigfoot', and you tell me what proof you'd need. Is that better?

 

My point is that you seem to neglect the fact that the aliens you're suggestion are a huge hypothesis.

 

The idea that there might be alien life out there in the universe is accepted, generally, in the scientific community. It also makes sense. However, the idea of alien-visitations as UFOs, requires these multiple assertions to be made. None of these are proven. Some require a leap of faith, some require much more. But together, they're built on top of one another, and the *combination* is exponentially less likely than every one of them separate:

 

1. Aliens exist.
   
2. Aliens are intelligent.
   
3. Aliens arrived to Earth.
   
4. Aliens can communicate with us, extensively.
   
5. Aliens are sufficiently similar to humans to allow for communication and compatible thought pattern.
   
6. Aliens understand our politics, and either don't want to be visible, or agree with whatever-government(s) that they shouldn't be visible.
   
7. Aliens talk with only one government, *OR* Many governments are involved in one of the biggest conspiracies ever.
   
8. Aliens are able to travel huge interstellar distances,
   

And there are more subtle assertions the UFO claim often raises, depending which type you lean towards.

 

I keep raising Ocham's razor, and it keeps being ignored (or swallowed in the rest of the claims), but honestly, if this was about ferries, or unicorns, or bigfoot, Ocham's razor would have probably been the first item of our list of why the claim is scientifically invalid.

 

The point of this 'exercise' of switching UFO with unicorns - or ferries, or bigfoot, or [insert unlikely creature here] - was to remind everyone that the aliens in the UFO claims are much more than just a 'possible creature'.

 

While life in the universe is plausible, the idea they arrive here is less likely (possible, and less likely.. please notice my terms), and the idea they resemble us in thought patterns or the like to allow for extensive communication is even less likely (possible, and unlikely), and the idea they have enough technology to arrive to earth is less likely--- etc.

 

1 is unlikely. 2 is unlikely. 3 is unlikely.

 

1 *AND* 2 *AND* 3 are *extremely* unlikely. Much more than each one separately.

 

 

 

I'm sure each and every one of you have claims you dismiss because of occham's razor. Replace "alien visitations" with one like that. Now tell me what, in all that is science'y - is the difference between those and the aliens-are-visiting-us-UFO.

 

I'm not dismissing offhand. I'm using a scientific methodology to try and judge relevancy. I fails the test, like other claims, and it seems to me, those who make this claim forget that they use the methodology on other claims themselves.

 

I'm not trying to ridicule. I'm trying to understand. This is so preposterous, I'm having real hard time understanding how it could possibly be a proper scientifically-valid suggestion to something we can't explain, and have no evidence for.

 

If that's not 'jumping to conclusions', I'm not sure I know what is.

 

~moo

[King, North TX]

First off, there's no "Dark side" to the moon, all sides get the same amount of light every month (other than a particular crater at its bottom, which is always dark)...

~moo

 

This is just intellectual dishonesty.

 

While I'll concede that there is no "dark side" of the Moon, earthly onlookers can NOT see 'half' of the Moon's surface, and only NASA has given us that information.

 

There ARE places for 'them' to hide, that normal citizens lack access to.

[insane_alien]

This is just intellectual dishonesty.

 

While I'll concede that there is no "dark side" of the Moon, earthly onlookers can NOT see 'half' of the Moon's surface, and only NASA has given us that information.

 

There ARE places for 'them' to hide, that normal citizens lack access to.

 

i take it the russians, europeans and japanese don't count then?

 

ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos have all sent probes around the moon.

[Mr Skeptic]

As I pointed out above, diffraction limits mean we could never directly observe a small spacecraft in our solar system, even when as close as the moon.

 

How so? I can see the stars just fine, and the diffraction limit of my eye is horribly bad. If the spacecraft are hot, they should shine like a star on infrared. While yes, it would be the ultimate in pixelated video (a 1 pixel spacecraft) it should be followed by multiple sources and should act in a way that defies freefall.

 

The diffraction limit is a problem when you want to distinguish things that are as bright or less bright, not more bright. The trouble is the more bright one will be the only thing visible, but for a spacecraft that would mean it would be the spacecraft.

 

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.

[Moontanman]

Unicorns *cannot* exist? Why not?

 

the traditional unicorn also has a billy-goat beard, a lion's tail, and cloven hooves

 

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.

 

Fine. Replace 'aliens' with 'bigfoot', and you tell me what proof you'd need. Is that better?

 

My point is that you seem to neglect the fact that the aliens you're suggestion are a huge hypothesis.

 

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.

 

The idea that there might be alien life out there in the universe is accepted, generally, in the scientific community. It also makes sense. However, the idea of alien-visitations as UFOs, requires these multiple assertions to be made. None of these are proven. Some require a leap of faith, some require much more. But together, they're built on top of one another, and the *combination* is exponentially less likely than every one of them separate:

 

Lets take a look at these multiple assertions.

 

 

1. Aliens exist.

 
Pretty obvious if they are visiting
 

Aliens are intelligent.

 
Again necessary if they are visiting.
 

Aliens arrived to Earth.

 
Yes
 

Aliens can communicate with us, extensively.

 
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.
 

Aliens are sufficiently similar to humans to allow for communication and compatible thought pattern.

 
Same as above
 

Aliens understand our politics, and either don't want to be visible, or agree with whatever-government(s) that they shouldn't be visible.

 
Again this seems to be a part of the above two.
 

Aliens talk with only one government, *OR* Many governments are involved in one of the biggest conspiracies ever.

 
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.
 

Aliens are able to travel huge interstellar distances,

 

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.

 

And there are more subtle assertions the UFO claim often raises, depending which type you lean towards.

 

Most of these are separate assertions and have little or no bearing on the basic premise of UFOs needing to be studied scientifically.

 

 

I keep raising Ocham's razor, and it keeps being ignored (or swallowed in the rest of the claims), but honestly, if this was about ferries, or unicorns, or bigfoot, Ocham's razor would have probably been the first item of our list of why the claim is scientifically invalid.

 

Occam's razor is not universal law and no one has asked that UFOs be accepted as aliens visitations with out study.

 

The point of this 'exercise' of switching UFO with unicorns - or ferries, or bigfoot, or [insert unlikely creature here] - was to remind everyone that the aliens in the UFO claims are much more than just a 'possible creature'.

 

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 life in the universe is plausible, the idea they arrive here is less likely (possible, and less likely.. please notice my terms), and the idea they resemble us in thought patterns or the like to allow for extensive communication is even less likely (possible, and unlikely), and the idea they have enough technology to arrive to earth is less likely--- etc.

 

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.

 

1 is unlikely. 2 is unlikely. 3 is unlikely.

 

1 *AND* 2 *AND* 3 are *extremely* unlikely. Much more than each one separately.

 

 

I think you are making some huge assumptions here considering the evidence we already have.

 

I'm sure each and every one of you have claims you dismiss because of occham's razor. Replace "alien visitations" with one like that. Now tell me what, in all that is science'y - is the difference between those and the aliens-are-visiting-us-UFO.

 

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'm not dismissing offhand. I'm using a scientific methodology to try and judge relevancy. I fails the test, like other claims, and it seems to me, those who make this claim forget that they use the methodology on other claims themselves.

 

I doubt this, you have already said that Occam's razor says we should ignore these reports because they are so unlikely.

 

 

I'm not trying to ridicule. I'm trying to understand. This is so preposterous, I'm having real hard time understanding how it could possibly be a proper scientifically-valid suggestion to something we can't explain, and have no evidence for.

 

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.

 

If that's not 'jumping to conclusions', I'm not sure I know what is.

 

~moo

 

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.

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i take it the russians, europeans and japanese don't count then?

 

ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos have all sent probes around the moon.

 

Yes but what was the resolution of any photographs that were taken.

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How so? I can see the stars just fine, and the diffraction limit of my eye is horribly bad. If the spacecraft are hot, they should shine like a star on infrared. While yes, it would be the ultimate in pixelated video (a 1 pixel spacecraft) it should be followed by multiple sources and should act in a way that defies freefall.

 

The diffraction limit is a problem when you want to distinguish things that are as bright or less bright, not more bright. The trouble is the more bright one will be the only thing visible, but for a spacecraft that would mean it would be the spacecraft.

 

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?

Edited May 22, 2010 by Moontanman
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