What's up with UFOs these days?

[Cryptid]

Back in the 60s, UFOs were real.

People were afraid of others: Commies, gays, space aliens, and women wanting to control their own bodies. The government used this fear to mask its own experiments with advanced aeronautical technology.

Then, for 50 years, they weren't real.

People got smart about science, technology, and even politics in general.

Now, they seem to be real again.

People turned their backs on science and scientific authority. The government exploited this ignorance to mask its own experiments with advanced aeronautical technology, and to use UFOs as distractions from its own stupidity.

 

[Shevek]

My guess is that there is a "United Planets" government that is treating us the way we treat uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. I always laugh about speculation that a UFO would land with a "Take me to your leader" request, as if they were old-timey European explorers. First contact, if any, will be electronic.
There may be visitors from several places. Some might be anthropologists, here to study how species evolve into technological masters, or fail to do so. They may be waiting for the inevitable crash that results from not getting private wealth under control during the previous agricultural phase. Others may be here mostly to record a disaster for entertainment. Others may be making sure that we never get out of our solar system until we give up ideas of conquest. Another faction may just be waiting until it is legal to take over a habitable planet from the occupants before they destroy it, perhaps by quenching a nuclear war as it is launched. Most alien encounters may be with bored, rebellious teenagers who then get in big trouble.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

The only thing that I wonder about do they not have a good quality system, why so many crashes.

 

[Crossbreed]

The only thing that I wonder about do they not have a good quality system, why so many crashes.

UFO travel is still safer than driving...!

"Kids, 3D [glasses] and driving don't mix..." --Blaznee, Spaced Invaders (1990)

Related...

 

[Hypnalis]

Probability of intelligent life in the universe = 1 (assuming we actually count /lol)
Probably of more than one kind of intelligent life in the universe: unknowable.

It's impossible to extrapolate from a single observation.

Interesting fact: Earth gravity times the length of the year is weirdly close to the speed of light in a vacuum (a universal constant).

So we can ask the question: if "something" suitably powerful wanted to provide evidence of their existence, how could they do it?

 

[Tom]

If I meet aliens and they tell me to take them to our leader I know just the man.

 

[Outdated]

Probability of intelligent life in the universe = 1 (assuming we actually count /lol)
Probably of more than one kind of intelligent life in the universe: unknowable.

Now that we understand the chemistry of life and how it begins we know that life on other planets isn't just probable, it's inevitable. We've even found evidence of the same carbon rings floating through space where life can't form.

https://oertx.highered.texas.gov/courseware/lesson/1615/student-old/?task=1
The problem with finding life on other planets is a matter of timing, most people have trouble grasping the concept of geological time scales and the massive distances between stars and planets. The likelyhood of finding other life that has advanced to similar stages as us is so remote as to be almost impossible.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I remember a quote in math class in high school nothing is impossible we just don't know how to do it yet.

 

[Tom]

A curious subject, and also the amount of people who believe various things is also interesting. This is a bit older (2018) and more recent graphs show somewhat lower numbers. Aliens have visited, at 28% for example.

I guess I must be a sceptic since I do not believe any of these things are true due to lack of hard evidence.

 

[Hypnalis]

I remember a quote in math class in high school nothing is impossible we just don't know how to do it yet.

This can't be accurate, and of all places, a math class is a very strange place for such a quote.
I like the optimistic sentiment though - it would work ok in a motivational speech.

@Outdated
I can't reach that link. Do you have an alternative?

I'll stay with "unknowable" until there's hard evidence. "Carbon Rings" (I assume it's "Benzine Rings" that are common in organic molecules?) are an indication, but that kind of thing is probably far more likely to occur randomly than Symbiogenesis (the very low-probability merger that led to Eukaryotes (bacterial DNA for mitochondria in "normal" cells)).
NB: not midi-chlorians - that's Star Wars. They're mentioned a lot online at the moment because of the controversial Stars Wars TV show "The Acolyte"

FWIW, even though a probably can't be assigned, I won't be too surprised if life is found elsewhere in the universe sooner or later, even intelligent life.

Locally exceeding lightspeed might well turn out to be impossible though.
It seems the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. But that isn't going to help us get to Alpha Centauri any quicker

 

[jsilver256]

Now that we understand the chemistry of life and how it begins we know that life on other planets isn't just probable, it's inevitable. We've even found evidence of the same carbon rings floating through space where life can't form.

https://oertx.highered.texas.gov/courseware/lesson/1615/student-old/?task=1
The problem with finding life on other planets is a matter of timing, most people have trouble grasping the concept of geological time scales and the massive distances between stars and planets. The likelyhood of finding other life that has advanced to similar stages as us is so remote as to be almost impossible.

On a purely scientific basis, I'd believe in extradimensional life visiting us versus extraterrestrial. By the Copernican principle, we are likely surrounded by intelligent life on a cosmic basis. However, time dilation and energy requirements are a harsh mistress, and would leave a lot of signatures we apparently haven't detected.

But who knows what extradimensional travel looks like. Plus, it's just more fun to imagine that we're all being secretly ran by lizard people.

 

[Outdated]

I can't reach that link. Do you have an alternative?

I found that as I was replying just by doing a quick search for "life carbon ring" because I couldn't remember the term Benzine Ring.

There's quite a lot of information about it out there, but there's also a lot of misinformation as well and it's not always easy to sort the wheat from the chaff. I'm not sure why you're unable to reach that link, it's a study resource site for a university in Texas which is why I chose it, I figure a university is less likely to be spreading false information.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

another term is aromatic compounds

 

[Outdated]

another term is aromatic compounds

And Aromatic Hydrocarbons, yes.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

This can't be accurate, and of all places, a math class is a very strange place for such a quote.
I like the optimistic sentiment though - it would work ok in a motivational speech.

@Outdated
I can't reach that link. Do you have an alternative?

I'll stay with "unknowable" until there's hard evidence. "Carbon Rings" (I assume it's "Benzine Rings" that are common in organic molecules?) are an indication, but that kind of thing is probably far more likely to occur randomly than Symbiogenesis (the very low-probability merger that led to Eukaryotes (bacterial DNA for mitochondria in "normal" cells)).
NB: not midi-chlorians - that's Star Wars. They're mentioned a lot online at the moment because of the controversial Stars Wars TV show "The Acolyte"

FWIW, even though a probably can't be assigned, I won't be too surprised if life is found elsewhere in the universe sooner or later, even intelligent life.

Locally exceeding lightspeed might well turn out to be impossible though.
It seems the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. But that isn't going to help us get to Alpha Centauri any quicker

Exceeding light speed is easy if time is not a factor, currently we cannot even measure the speed
See Einstein convention.

 

[Tom]

On a tangent, it just occurred to me that in the search for a planet to potentially colonize, one with life would be interesting but probably useless to us. Too many new mircrorganisms which we have no natural immunity for.

 

[Outdated]

On a tangent, it just occurred to me that in the search for a planet to potentially colonize, one with life would be interesting but probably useless to us. Too many new mircrorganisms which we have no natural immunity for.

There's an old science fiction series of novels by Anne McCaffrey that plays on just that sort of idea. In her imaginary solar system every 200 years planetary orbits align in just such a way that they get close enough to another planet for micro-organisms to cross the void and threaten life. (Pern series)

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

That was the premise of that movie that starred tom Cruise, based on aliens trying to conquer earth.

 

[Judge]

Hollywood got it wrong in all their movies where they have aliens landing in the US, it seems the great majority of space junk keeps landing in Western Australia.

Maybe some day Malaysian Flight MH370 and Amelia Earhart's plane will wash up on those shores. A lot more likely than ours!

 

[Outdated]

We found Amelia already, but no, she was a long way from home.

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/amelia-earhart
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/29/1227574179/amelia-earharts-lost-plane-howland-island