So What Do You Think These UFOs Are?

[jonbeeza]

I watched "Arrival" again the other day, a very good film IMO.

I'd like to see peaceful 1st contact in my lifetime. I don't know how it'd be received in the world, hopefully without people going nuts.

I must admit, I don't like modern American films, I do however like the silly old British and American Si Fi films.
Not watched one in years, my favourites being The thing from another world 1950s original, and night caller from outer space 1965 ( I am sure it used to be called, the night caller).

PS

A Si Fi film did not seem complete, if it did not have Edward Judd in it.

Funny thing...

Just reading Edward Judd's wiki page, and he was married to Gene Anderson, two famous names in Si Fi being Gene Roddenberry and Gerry Anderson.

 

[woof woof]

I must admit, I don't like modern American films, I do however like the silly old British and American Si Fi films.
Not watched one in years, my favourites being The thing from another world 1950s original, and night caller from outer space 1965 ( I am sure it used to be called, the night caller).

PS

A Si Fi film did not seem complete, if it did not have Edward Judd in it.

Funny thing...

Just reading Edward Judd's wiki page, and he was married to Gene Anderson, two famous names in Si Fi being Gene Roddenberry and Gerry Anderson.

I like films, I watch films from all over the world and I don't think you can generalise for example many modern American films are just awful and formulaic but some are IMO very very good. Ditto films from just about anywhere for example some British films are IMO simply unwatchable.

I liked the 1950's Thing but it drifts away from the original story "Who goes there" (a shortened version of an AFAIK unpublished story.) If you haven't read "Who goes there" you should be able to do so online free.

 

[TCR4x4]

What annoys me the most about ufo/alien speculation is that we view it with our own very limited capacities of whether it can be real..

People say there are no planets anywhere near us that can support life, so aliens are unlikely to exist..
No, there are no planets nearby that can support OUR life.. why cant aliens breathe pure methane, why do we have to think all life needs water and oxygen..

Whos to say that other life forms even exist in our knowledge of light wavelengths. There could be thousands of extra light types we have no knowledge of and can’t see. We could be surrounded by aliens for all we know if they are outside of our sight capability.

The vastness of the known universe and the probability of something else existing is just too high, there must be something else out there, but it isn’t necessarily a round spaceship and a grey big headed life form wanting to stick probes up our arses.

 

[Server Hamster]

Whos to say that other life forms even exist in our knowledge of light wavelengths. There could be thousands of extra light types we have no knowledge of and can’t see. We could be surrounded by aliens for all we know if they are outside of our sight capability.

At this point, we can generate and detect anything on the electromagnetic spectrum, from ELF radio for submarine communication up to gamma rays for particle & astrophysics. If something exists that absorbs or emits any frequency of EM radiation, we have the ability to "see" it.

 

[Box Brownie]

At this point, we can generate and detect anything on the electromagnetic spectrum, from ELF radio for submarine communication up to gamma rays for particle & astrophysics. If something exists that absorbs or emits any frequency of EM radiation, we have the ability to "see" it.

Good point.......though what we perceive as intelligible might be very alien to any 'aliens' and vice versa e.g. Arrival linguistics.

 

[TCR4x4]

At this point, we can generate and detect anything on the electromagnetic spectrum, from ELF radio for submarine communication up to gamma rays for particle & astrophysics. If something exists that absorbs or emits any frequency of EM radiation, we have the ability to "see" it.

How you know we can see everything on the EM spectrum.. we can see what we’ve discovered . How do you know there isn’t a whole other spectrum we have no knowledge of.. This is my exact point.. we say “it can’t be because of this”, but we are basing that on known facts we have discovered and science we have created over a few thousand years.

There could be whole other words that use things we have no concept of as humans. The same is true for “aliens”. Maybe they have no knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum and can’t detect anything on it.
You can’t come to a conclusion using human constructs, because there could be and quite likely is lots we don’t know and can’t detect.

 

[Ricardodaforce]

How you know we can see everything on the EM spectrum.. we can see what we’ve discovered .

Not really true. We can’t see dark matter, but we know it’s there by observing it’s effect on spacetime. We can’t see dark energy but we know of its existence due to the accelerating expansion of the universe. Those two alone make up, what is it - 95% of the known universe.
So we only see a tiny minority of what has been discovered.

 

[Nod]

But do we really KNOW it's there or do we only think that it MUST BE there to explain the effect that something is having on spacetime?

 

[Server Hamster]

But do we really KNOW it's there or do we only think that it MUST BE there to explain the effect that something is having on spacetime?

I believe that's where we are at the moment. If we find a way to detect it, we can start taking measurements and making inferences, but we can't yet* say the stuff may be capable of forming intelligent life, that's getting into "Here be Dragons" territory.

*We need some evidence, first.

 

[Nod]

But Dragons exist! OK, not in the mythical, fire breathing shape of legend but on a couple of islands in Indonesia.

 

[Server Hamster]

True, but there's no evidence to support the existence of alien dark matter dragons.
(There's also no evidence to definitively refute their existence either...)

 

[whiteflyer]

Virtually all UFO sighting before the 1980s were round, then all of a suddenly lot of triangular shaped UFO, just remind me again when the USAF started to fly F-117 Nighthawk , that's right 1983


Now the idea that there is no other life in the universe is barmy to me, with billions of stars with planets orbiting them the odds of life on some is huge, We know even from our planet and new deep sea surveys that life can and does live in what a few years ago we'd class as inhospitality environments.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

with billions of stars with planets orbiting them the odds of life on some is huge,

Possibly. On the other hand consider that we have no real data to go on other than our remote viewing of Mars and Venus, neither of which currently appears to have any recognisable form of life. Even if Mars did harbour life at one time, given the evidence of free water in the past, the conditions were such that the life would have died out relatively soon after its appearance.

Currently, our theories of the origins of terrestrial life presuppose certain very specific conditions, which lasted for a limited period and then changed in response to the development of biology. Some theories suggest that the origin of life can only occur in such specific conditions that only one planet in a galaxy will provide those conditions. In an infinite universe, this still allows for an infinite number of life bearing planets but they would be seperated by distances so great that interaction would simply be impossible.

Then again, a Ferengi ship could already be in orbit, just waiting for us to develop something worth trading for...

 

[Pound Coin]

Now the idea that there is no other life in the universe is barmy to me, with billions of stars with planets orbiting them the odds of life on some is huge, We know even from our planet and new deep sea surveys that life can and does live in what a few years ago we'd class as inhospitality environments.

Of course that idea is barmy. The Universe is so huge that there will be 'life' somewhere else. In the past. In the present. In the future.

We will never know though, unless you can travel faster than light.

We have this carbon, dual helix life here, now. We are in the process of destroying it.

Who cares if Elon Musk can live on Mars (8 billion people cannot) what he should be doing is concentrating on here, as we all should.

 

[TCR4x4]

Possibly. On the other hand consider that we have no real data to go on other than our remote viewing of Mars and Venus, neither of which currently appears to have any recognisable form of life. Even if Mars did harbour life at one time, given the evidence of free water in the past, the conditions were such that the life would have died out relatively soon after its appearance.

Currently, our theories of the origins of terrestrial life presuppose certain very specific conditions, which lasted for a limited period and then changed in response to the development of biology. Some theories suggest that the origin of life can only occur in such specific conditions that only one planet in a galaxy will provide those conditions. In an infinite universe, this still allows for an infinite number of life bearing planets but they would be seperated by distances so great that interaction would simply be impossible.

Then again, a Ferengi ship could already be in orbit, just waiting for us to develop something worth trading for...

You are basing "life" on needing what we think life needs again. Who's to say there isn't life that doesn't need anything we do.
Are we humans so vain we think life can only exist with water and oxygen?

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Who's to say there isn't life that doesn't need anything we do.

The question then becomes: what evidence do you have that life (self organising, self replicating structures) can be based on anything other than Carbon/Oxygen/Nitrogen based molecules?

Are we humans so vain we think life can only exist with water and oxygen?

There is no vanity in basing assumptions on the information that you currently possess. To base assumptions on fantasies that have no evidential basis is vain, in both senses of the word.

 

[TCR4x4]

The question then becomes: what evidence do you have that life (self organising, self replicating structures) can be based on anything other than Carbon/Oxygen/Nitrogen based molecules?
There is no vanity in basing assumptions on the information that you currently possess. To base assumptions on fantasies that have no evidential basis is vain, in both senses of the word.

There is no evidence currently but that doesn’t mean it can’t be so. Wasn’t that long ago we didn’t think flight was possible, or electricity... but they happened

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

There is no evidence currently but that doesn’t mean it can’t be so.

This is true but the principle of "Occam's Razor" advises us not to make assumptions based on what we don't know.

If we have evidence that "A" is possible and no evidence that "B" is possible, then we should favour "A". Of course, if evidence is then found that "B" is possible, then we would re-evaluate the matter in question. To put it another way: a hungry man in an orchard full of apples should eat the apples and not go looking for a pear tree.

 

[TCR4x4]

This is true but the principle of "Occam's Razor" advises us not to make assumptions based on what we don't know.

If we have evidence that "A" is possible and no evidence that "B" is possible, then we should favour "A". Of course, if evidence is then found that "B" is possible, then we would re-evaluate the matter in question. To put it another way: a hungry man in an orchard full of apples should eat the apples and not go looking for a pear tree.

True, but billions of people live their lives by something that has no evidence whatsoever. People die for it, countries go to war over it.

Personally I’d place more faith in there being life outside of our universe than a omniscient “creator”.

Each to their own, but the universe is so vast, even the bits we know about, it just seems highly unlikely there is nothing else living in it.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

but the universe is so vast, even the bits we know about, it just seems highly unlikely there is nothing else living in it.

I agree with you.

However, to quote Arthur Conan Doyle in "A Scandal in Bohemia"...

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

Hence: we should simply speculate on the data we have and not on the data we lack.

 

[Fuji Dave]

The Universe is billions of years in diameter, so I think you could safely say that there is more Life out there.

 

[Nod]

But in all probability, not as we know it.