UAP - Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
- Thread starter altodevil
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It does make sense though. Everyone thinks the Titanic was sunk by a lettuce, but it's way more likely it clipped the top of an underwater "skyscraper".
There's another 5 predator movies.
Wait, so you're not talking about National Health Insurance?
4. Not sure watching 25 Predators join a twitter pile on has much cinematic appeal. Although still better than the 3rd one.
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I suppose it's one of the only explanations that would explain an advanced civilisation travelling across the vastness of cosmos utilizing technology that would break the laws of physics as we know it to visit a small planet to look at nuclear technology.
You are a monkey among other monkeys in a pen in a zoo. Every day, you see humans come by your pen, do a bunch of weird stuff, look at you, take pictures, sometimes drop weird things into your pen, etc. And then they leave. They sure seem interested in you and what you and your monkey friends are up to, don't they? It's all about you.
But remember, you're a monkey among other monkeys in a pen in a zoo. Your pen is one of dozens, your zoo one of thousands; and these humans have concerns like mortgages, promotions, an upcoming tinder date, etc. that you can't possibly conceive of. They may be there on vacation, to pass the time, etc. till they get right back to their regular business.
But sure, it's all about you.
Blame the US military and intelligence communities. They love their acronyms.
We live in a world where billions believe in an Invisible Man In The Sky and are willing to step on others because some tome from the Bronze Age told them to. Yet the existence of NHI (an almost certainty, whether or not they are here) is your last straw?
But how would you know what they'd do?
You laugh, but I grew up on Carl Sagan (massive UFO skeptic BTW). Writing about ETI, he said to justify SETI that, while he could conceive of aliens visiting this planet, it had to have happened millions of years ago given the age of the Earth and the Universe. So he concluded that our best bet to contact them is via radio. Never made sense to me. If they came here in the past, why not now? And what about von Neumann probes. Why should these not still be present 'nearby'?
Funny thing? A subset of SETI researchers is now pivoting to looking for probes in the local neighbourhood ("multimessenger SETI" by Avi Loeb).
why do you think we can't see von neumann probes?
the most plausible answer is everything is too far away right?
which also is the most likely reason there's no known scientific evidence that we've been visited
I reckon it's possible we've been probed though (not a physical probe, but "probed" in the star trek sense).. but even that might be very unlikely as they'd need to find us first.. but seeing as we've been sending signals into the atmosphere for several decades you never know
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You seem to have quite a rational view of this, which I applaud.
One thing I really struggle with is calculating the odds of sentient life on another planet (ignoring for a moment whether they could make it to earth). The universe is so vast that it seems like there should be another planet somewhere that can support life. But what are the chances of life developing from early unicellular organisms?
I didn't say we can't see von Neumann probes. Quite the opposite actually. The problem is, if I'd said that to peers decades ago, no one would've taken it seriously. All their eggs were in the radio basket. If you're not looking for the needle in the haystack, you'd have to be extremely lucky to find it.
And would we even recognize them as such if we found them?
Also, we are already mapping our local neighbourhood for planets and their compositions. A sufficiently advanced technology 'nearby' (not necessarily planet-based) will likely have done the same ages ago. Earth has had bio-signatures for billions of years. They likely know we are here.
Here's Prof. Sara Seager's take (ignore the ridiculous thumbnail):
I like that she goes observation/signal verification first, then hypothesis/conclusions later.
I think however unlikely it is that life can begin on any given planet, the odds are probably still 99%+ that it's happened somewhere
the unknown variable we can't feasibly calculate accurately is the odds of life developing on any given planet.. but we do know it's extremely unlikely due to a number of factors, including the fact we haven't seen any yet
now I have feckall clue obviously but I'd hazard a guess the odds are under say, 10 billion to 1, and even then it still works out as near enough a mathematical certainty given the numbers at play
if I had to bet my life on it I'd say there's a lot out there, it's just so far away we'll likely never see any of it
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I know you didn't say it but we haven't found any yet hence me asking. You must have a theory?
If we saw one we might not know what it is but we'd for sure know that it was designed by intelligent life
will check out that clip in a bit cheers
You would have to be exceptionally ignorant to even think, let alone suggest with any degree of certainty, let alone absolute certainty that there is no life anywhere but earth. Especially when there are still areas of our own planet we haven't explored. Around 80% of the worlds seas and oceans remain unseen or touched by humans, and there are still a few places on land too, mainly Antarctica and South America.
Given the unimaginable size of the Universe and all its galaxies and incalculable number of planets, saying there isn't any life on any of them is just sheer lunacy. It's especially narrow minded to think like that when the last NASA ROVER mission found evidence of 4 indicators that point heavily towards the possibility that there could previously have been Life on Mars.
We all recognize that the universe is large in space. But it is also large in time. Unlikely things happen in it all the time, to steal a quotation.
Latest research published in July this year shows that the last universal common ancestor lived about 4.2 billions years ago, so roughly 300 million years after the Earth formed. And that it was surprisingly complex (similar to modern prokaryotes), and lived within an established ecosystem. We can infer then that, provided conditions are right, life will emerge very quickly/easily (ignoring panspermia). The question is, what are those 'right conditions'? We haven't found them on any planet in the Solar System other than ours. So far anyway. Is this telling us something? Or do we need to keep looking?
I'd argue we have (hence why I'm in a UAP thread, hehehe).
But suppose UAPs are hogwash. I'd still argue that it might be difficult to tell if we have an alien technology provided that technology wants to make itself unknown to us. Also, keep in mind that we've only just started looking (same argument for radio-SETI).
Life outside Earth..Sure, why not..INTELLIGENT LIFE outside Earth..highly unlikely..What if the intelligent life is an UNIQUE event in this Universe?
Careful. I didn't say that.
I think UAP = NHI. I speculate that one possibility is that these may be von Neumann probes that do not care if they are seen.
But you think UAP=/=NHI = alien because we haven't seen von Neumann probes. (Correct me if I've misrepresented your position.)
Since I enjoy hypotheticals, I give you a scenario where not seeing von Neumann probes doesn't necessarily imply they don't exist in-system right now (despite my not believing that).
BTW, why jump to 'cloaking'? That's very 20th century. I can think of other ways to 'hide in plain sight'. Especially if no one is seriously looking for you.
And it isn't a competition. I'm taking a page from Gary Nolan: I'm not trying to convince anyone here. It's just fun to talk to skeptics about this stuff.
What the feck
Yeah, I thought I'd have some fun with it.
You and the Catholic Church would get along famously circa 1540. I'd keep my opinions about life outside Earth private just to be safe, though.
I speculate that UAP are built by Elephants as a joke to wind humans up. We know that Elephants have a sense of humour so there's more evidence for my theory than yours.
It was such a typical non-answer I had to make fun of it
I don't even know what a NHI is.I didn't mean to make offence I'm just having fun like you mate
Just to be clear though I think we haven't seen von neumann probes because they are too far way. I already said this a few posts ago.
The problem with calculating that is the fact that our data-set is basically 1. For all we know it could happen quite often under similar conditions or it could happen at astronomically low percentage even in what we consider ideal conditions.
It's one of those really difficult things. Given the number of exoplanets, timespan of the universe and how many similar planets exist, the probability of earth being the home of the first and only intelligen life form to form a civilization in the universe is 1 in 10 billion trillion.
Even if a planet like earth (a habitable planet with similar conditions) only had a 1 in a trillion chance of spawning intelligent life - the lifetime of the universe means that at least 10 billion civilizations have existed before us. If the chance of simultaneous civilizations developing in similar conditions is less than one in a billion there are a lot of other civilizations out there in the milky way right now.
Of course there is a non-zero chance that we are the only civilization in cosmic history and that the chance of developing intelligent life capable of civilization is in fact genuinely more than 1 in a billion trillion.
It was such a typical non-answer I had to make fun of it
I didn't mean to make offence I'm just having fun like you mate
Just to be clear though I think we haven't seen von neumann probes because they are too far way. I already said this a few posts ago.
No offence taken, bud. I come here from the fetid cesspools of reddit and Mick West comment sections so...
It's just great to question hidden assumptions and play with different scenarios then see the response from another part of the internet.
But I should think my own position re: UAP = NHI = ? is clear.
Hmmm ... okay?
Humans are intelligent life?
Why?
because BOLDED CAPSLOCKS
Yes that explains it.
Upto 5 billion habitable planets in each Galaxy and anywhere as many as 2 Trillion Galaxies out there. But yeah only one planet has intelligent life and to be honest I'm not even sure if humans really count as intelligent.
The fact you can read and comprehend what is written proves it.
It looks like intelligent life capable of the neccesary communication technology is rare enough on a spacial and temporal scale that we don't overlap, no matter how virtually certain it is that we are not the only life in the universe. Which also suggests civilisations tend to be relatively short lived
If it is only highly unlikely then it is absolutely certain, given how many millions or billions of suitable planets there are.
What if it it isn't?
BTW bolded capslock isn't an actual reason or justification.
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It looks like intelligent life capable of the neccesary communication technology is rare enough on a spacial and temporal scale that we don't overlap, no matter how virtually certain it is that we are not the only life in the universe. Which also suggests civilisations tend to be relatively short lived
It’s easy to only look at the distances involved, isn’t it, but as you rightly say it’s the timescale too, that is absolutely vast.
Arrogance is also another human trait
What are your issues with my theory?
It's easier to look at it from the opposite angle sometimes, how likely is it that our technology or signature is detected even long after our demise? If we're on the verge of a space/robotics/AI revolution then it doesn't seem as far fetched I think.
I've always thought if we were visited then it would be unmanned technology and likely it came before we even evolved. That in itself is incredibly unlikely but it's far more likely than NHI randomly showing up now.
I think a truly intelligent species wouldn't destroy its own planet and every other species.on it. I also don't think they would spend most of their time destroying each other over what is essentially variations on a theme of a concept formed thousands of years ago as a reason for control. That's the dichotomy of humans and our entire existence.
Proves what?
You have an incredibly low bar for what you consider to be intelligence.
As is hubris.
Depends on what metric you use to describe intelligent life, given human history you could argue we aren't all that intelligent!!
It's estimated that there are between 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the observanle universe, I'd say that there's an argument to be made that life on earth is just as likely to be the least intelligent as it is the most
Jellyfish and flatworks are intelligent.
Like many of you, I too believe that some sort of life forms will exist outside of our planet. Possibly in our solar system.
But where I am a lot less sure is the possibility of what we would consider to be 'intelligent' life forms.
To do that, we need to look back at how firstly life on earth first came into being.
And more importantly, when and how humanity evolved.
Were it not for the meteor impacting the earth some 65m years ago, it is highly unlikely that mammals would have become the dominant life forms and reptilian life may still have been dominant.
And as many have pointed out here, the sheer size of our galaxy and the relatively low number of stars within tens of light years from earth lead me to believe that we have not been visited by other aliens and are unlikely to be.
But where I am a lot less sure is the possibility of what we would consider to be 'intelligent' life forms.
To do that, we need to look back at how firstly life on earth first came into being.
And more importantly, when and how humanity evolved.
Were it not for the meteor impacting the earth some 65m years ago, it is highly unlikely that mammals would have become the dominant life forms and reptilian life may still have been dominant.
And as many have pointed out here, the sheer size of our galaxy and the relatively low number of stars within tens of light years from earth lead me to believe that we have not been visited by other aliens and are unlikely to be.