BS: UFOs in the news

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 10 - 04:29 PM

I want one of those damn scout ships, dammit!! Just one!! They've got thousands of them!! They could spare just one!! I promise to stay in the local cluster. Until I am more experienced...



A

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 10 - 11:46 AM

Ha! ;-) If I could meet those alien guys, I think there is a very good chance that I would volunteer as an exchange student to share cultural values and go and live with them instead for at least awhile. I have a feeling there'd be a lot of useful stuff to learn from them. Would I tell the Earthly authorities here about it? No! I have no desire to place myself in the hands of people so untrustworthy and authoritarian as we have in charge here on this planet.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 10:40 AM

MONTREAL (CBC) - A mysterious object in the sky over Montreal this week is getting a lot of attention, including from a respected Montreal doctor who believes he saw something "out of this world."

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Several people in the Cote St. Luc neighbourhood called authorities early Wednesday morning about a strange blinking light hovering high in the sky.

Dr. Cleve Ziegler, an obstetrician-gynecologist, spotted the object when he was driving home from work around 12:30 a.m. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"There were many little sparkly red and blue lights. It had a changing shape, morphing from something that looked triangular to something that looked like a trapezoid. It was not a stable shape," Ziegler told CBC News.

"It was coming closer and [then moved] farther, it was turning and rotating."

He then saw other people looking up at the same thing, including a man who told him his wife was so spooked that she scurried home.

"I'm a guy who spends a lot of time in the country in the summer. I have seen satellites. I've seen falling stars. I know what a plane looks like. None of those things had the trajectory or motion that this did," said Ziegler.

Ziegler called police, who had already received several other calls about the mysterious object in the sky. He forwarded a dark, poor-quality video he took on his cellphone to authorities.

He admits the video doesn't do justice to what he saw.

"What I saw was compelling, unusual and you had this visceral sense looking at it that this is a once-in-a lifetime thing," he said. "At a risk of sounding Hollywood and shlocky, it was kinda not of this world."

Theories about what was in the sky Wednesday night have already started circulating among astronomy buffs and experts.

Andrew Fazekas, a director at the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, said the object was likely of this world.

"From the description, definitely I would say it is not something astronomical. It's not a satellite. And it's not a star or anything like that," said Fazekas.

"It could have been some sort of balloon. Strobe lights on a private plane? A powerful laser?"

Fazekas said the sightings are getting a lot of attention.

"It is starting to make the rounds and getting viral because people are naturally interested in unidentified things in the sky. People are drawn to it," said Fazekas.

Montreal police received several calls about a mysterious object in the sky after midnight Wednesday morning.

Const. Daniel Lacoursière said Trudeau Airport reported nothing on the radar in that area at the time.

He posed another theory. Around the same time, helicopters were buzzing around the site of a fuel spill at the Port of Montreal in the other end of town.

Ziegler said he doesn't believe in extraterrestrial life, but thinks he did see something otherworldly.

"It's not like I want to believe this," he said.

*****

My comment: Of course not! No one wants to believe anything they don't already believe. That's human nature, and always has been. ;-) Dogs are like that too, but on a bit simpler level. They don't like change in their established beliefs and routines...unless it is a change THEY have proposed.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 11:21 AM

Stephen Hawking was right. Leave the aliens alone. Don't try to contact them, make eye contact, board their vessels, mess with their alien babes or dudes. Don't make trouble for them in any way. Just let those aliens be, and let them pass by undetected (so they believe) on their way back home.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 02:14 PM

Well, that was generally good advice for Natives who encountered European explorers, wasn't it? Avoid 'em at all cost! ;-) The trouble was, they KEPT ON coming regardless.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 03:47 PM

"Well, that was generally good advice for Natives who encountered European explorers"

I'll mention that to Stephen Hawkins, the next time I see him....if he has the time to spare from speculating on the nature of the Universe, now and before there was one.

Europeans were invasive species, not really aliens....Their heads were not big or pointy, and they did use non lethal probes (except for their sexual weapons). OK, maybe the surveyor Samual Holland had an odd shaped head? samuel Holland

Lessons I have learned is once an invasive species takes root, there is no getting rid of it....and they often thrive and overtake the native species.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 03:55 PM

Sorry about the mass of pictures in my last post. This is Samuel Holsamuel holland, close up land.

I post this in case you confused him with the picture of the guy in tights, next to the cat.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: frogprince
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 10:56 PM

A bummper sticker, as mentioned tonight by Bill Staines:

"Buckle Up; it makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car".

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 05:49 AM

How timely.........

Speaking of which!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 08:12 AM

That's nice of the U.N., GfS, but it seems a bit behind the times to me. I think contact was made at least 5 decades ago.....just not "officially" for public announcement, that's all. Sounds to me like the U.N. might be making some minor preparations for the possibility of revealing openly to ordinary people some of what the government intelligence community has known about for a very long time.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 09:05 AM

The tone taken by all of the news organizations is very different this time. They seem more defferential and respectful of witnesses and experts.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 09:10 AM

Veni, Vidi, Velcro, I came, I saw, and I stuck around

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:13 AM

////Ha! ;-) If I could meet those alien guys, I think there is a very good chance that I would volunteer as an exchange student to share cultural values and go and live with them instead for at least awhile. I have a feeling there'd be a lot of useful stuff to learn from them. Would I tell the Earthly authorities here about it? No! I have no desire to place myself in the hands of people so untrustworthy and authoritarian as we have in charge here on this planet. /////

Their bacteria and yours would probably kill you both. One reason I don't believe in aliens coming here is that they would be so susceptible to our germ-borne diseases that they would have little hope of surviving. Look what happened to the Indians when the white man came here--nearly wiped out by smallpox, measles and cholera.

The second problem is that two earthlike planets independently forming humanoid life and being in close proximity and at the same time is so completely out of the question that it isn't worth consideration. Two such planets would certainly never know of the others existence and probably billions of years would separate them as well as vast distances.

I don't know what UFOs are and don't care but they are not humanoid visitors from another planet.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 12:25 PM

Ignorance is a state of mind located between I don`t know and I don`t care.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 12:56 PM

LOL! And then there's complacency..."If I don't already know about this, it's not worth knowing about."

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 01:20 PM

And,
"I think, therefore I subsist"

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 04:01 PM

I think, therefore, I'm done!

Little Hawk, I know its late, but the story just broke the day before, or within 24 hours prior to my post. Thought I'd just throw it in.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: gnu
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 04:52 PM

Well, I just wanna know if they're women have tattoos and pierced nipples and such. If not, I may check out retirement there.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 05:22 PM

You mean their women. I think they've progressed far beyond that sort of barbaric embellishment.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 06:55 PM

Alien church sues pope

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 04:57 AM

"Their bacteria and yours would probably kill you both."

There may be some truth in that. I suspect that even if there are earth-like planets in our local volume of the Galaxy, and that they are inhabited by intelligent beings (by no means impossible),their habitats are likely to be different to ours in significant ways. I'm thinking in terms of radiation burden, atmospheric composition, gravitational field, biochemistry etc.

I've often wondered if we're more 'tied' to this planet than we imagine. Is it possible that humans could never thrive away from the planet Earth or that aliens could never thrive away from their homeworlds?

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:11 AM

Those are all interesting possibilities to theorize about. We can't be certain about any of them, however. The thing that makes me pretty confident that aliens are visiting us in spite of these various theories as to why they shouldn't be able to is the sheer weight of incidents and very credible witnesses that one finds if one bothers to seriously investigate the issue...rather than just stating an established belief that is based upon convention, habit, and faith.

Oh, and the other thing is: direct personal experience. I have seen craft in the sky which could only have been 1 of 2 things:

1. alien vehicles of an advanced technology that is way beyond ours.

or...

2. secret vehicles made by our own government utilizing a technology utterly beyond anything they're telling us about...and then flown rather recklessly over areas easily visible to the ordinary public, without apparently having any worries over "breach of security" in so doing.

The former case seems far more likely to me than the latter. But it could have been either, I suppose. If it was the latter case, then the government must want to trick us into believing that there are alien vehicles visiting here, while simultaneously denying that there are! And that again seems quite unlikely to me. ;-D I think it far more likely that they don't want us to know that there's something out there far more advanced than them, and that they can't do anything about it. The government does NOT like appearing weak or helpless to deal with something...and they DO like keeping various matters top secret, for their OWN protection and control of the situation.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: gnu
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:23 AM

Yes, LH, I did. Glad someone is proofing my posts. Send me an invoice and eye'll pay it immediate attention to it.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:54 AM

Ewe betcha!   ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:08 AM

////I've often wondered if we're more 'tied' to this planet than we imagine. Is it possible that humans could never thrive away from the planet Earth or that aliens could never thrive away from their homeworlds?///

In order for humanoids to form on another world requires not only an earth-like planet--which isn't enough by itself--it requires a virtual exact duplicate. Think of all the things that happened on this planet to make human life possible. If even one of them didn't happen or had occurred differently, we wouldn't be here.

This planet would have to have our gravitation for which we are specifically evolved (look what happens to the bones of astronauts who spend too much time in weightless conditions). They have to have our sun and be the same distance from it. Their planet has to be 3/4 saltwater, it must have similar landmasses and polar caps in order to regulate its temperatures and climates as does our oceanic conveyor belt--just the destruction of the Greenland ice cap is threatening the belt which will pretty much destroy us if it ever stops.

Then there's marine volcanic activity which is vital to our planet. In spite of all the trouble our underseas volcanic and tectonic activity causes, be grateful we have it because our planet is a dead one without it.

Then there's stuff like asteroids and comets hitting earth that made human life possible. This other planet would need the same type cataclysms of the same size causing the same effects. Too much or too little would eliminate our chances of our ever appearing on earth.

Then there's the moon. We always talk about how important the sun is to life but the moon is just as important. It determines the 23.5 degree tilt that our planet must have in order for us to live and which this other hypothetical planet would have to have. That means that planet must also have our moon. Here's the problem: our moon appears to be a complete fluke. It is 1/4 the size of earth--no other planet we have ever observed has a moon that large in relation to its own size. Jupiter's largest moon is like 1/80th of that planet's size. Mars's two moons are dinky compared to Mars. Moreover, our tilt is constant because our moon's orbit is almost perfectly circular--something not observed in any other moon which have very elliptical orbits. If our moon's orbit was elliptical our planet's tilt would be constantly changing due to the moon's gravitational pull which would make human life impossible. Then there's the issue of the tides. This other planet has to have our tides which we are evolved for.

This hypothetical earth-like planet would have to have an ozone layer which is essential to our continued survival. It would have to have our flora and fauna. It would also need our microbes (just one example is the bacteria that live in our gut without which we cannot digest out food).

These are just a tiny smidgin of just how earth-like this other planet would have to be in order for human life to have any chance of appearing there. THEN, you're talking about this planet having formed at the same time and general locale as ours so that these denizens could visit our own when, in fact, even two such planets forming anywhere in the known universe (of which we have cataloged more than 80 billion galaxies) at any time would be wildly coincidental to put it very mildly.

Yes, we are obviously tied to this planet. For a scientist to conjecture that humanoid life is visiting this planet is basically thumbing his nose at evolution. We are specifically evolved for this planet's circumstances. It could hardly be any other way. Those who think we are being visited by humanoids have simply grown up watching too much Star Trek and too much Lost In Space.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:26 AM

That's all interesting stuff you're saying, Josep, and you may be right. We may be as tied to this planet as you say we are. Or we may not.

To assume, however, that other hypothetical sentient beings in this utterly vast Universe are for some reason all unable to travel through deep space and visit here is a pretty large leap of assumption to make. And what would such an assumption be based on? A leap of faith, I'd say. And why would they necessarily have to be "humanoid"?

The thing I've noticed all my life, Jospep, is this. Most people start out wanting, for whatever reason, to hold certain beliefs and wanting very much not to change those beliefs. It's an emotional position that they are taking, based upon familiarity. They then set about using their powers of reason to concoct numerouos arguments which appear to bolster that emotional position...and those arguments usually sound relatively plausible. The human mind can make just about anything sound plausible if it wants to.

Bertrand Russel demonstrated that once in a supposed dialogue he did between "God" and "Satan". Each presented their view of why they were right about existence and the other was wrong. He argued brilliantly for both of them, just to demonstrate how clever the human mind is at concocting apparently seamless lines of argument on any position. ;-D We are brilliant creatures, but we're also quite capable of defending utterly erroneous positions, and in very good faith too.

This could be true of people on either side of the UFO debate.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:34 AM

///2. secret vehicles made by our own government utilizing a technology utterly beyond anything they're telling us about...and then flown rather recklessly over areas easily visible to the ordinary public, without apparently having any worries over "breach of security" in so doing.///

I suspect you even realized as you were typing that how baseless your speculation is. If these are secret craft, well then, of course they're not going to tell us what they are capable of--not much of a secret. Secondly, what breach of security are you referring to? Could you quote it for us? There's no breach of security. If they fly them where you can see them, it's because they want you to see them. Why? Because they have a vested interest in keeping the ET hypothesis going. So when you see one, they naturally have no comment.

Then we have to entertain the possibility that these craft are remotely guided and unmanned and so can engage in aerial acrobatics that a manned craft couldn't. We have to entertain that these craft are not craft at all but projections similar to a laser pointer. Suppose someone projects an image into the sky by some secret technology and "waves" the "pointer" all over the place--what happens? The "craft" appears to be doing fantastic and incredibly reckless maneuvers no craft can do. You can shine a flashlight on a wall in a darkened room and observe the same thing. It would account for no sound and no breaking of the sound barrier. It would account for how they sometimes explode silently. Because if that technology exists, what does it mean? It means UFOs are a big mind game being played on us. And then we have to ask why? And that starts to get a lot scarier than ETs and grays ever could be. It would also explain why we are no closer to solving UFOs than we ever were and why we have no more proof of aliens than we ever did despite what works out statistically to be about 3 million landings in the last 20 years not to mention claims of anywhere from 3 to 3 million abductees in America alone. Impossible. We are being manipulated. That could be, couldn't it? Yes, it could.

But have you dared to think these things through? No. And if you haven't, how do you propose to get to the bottom of it without at least eliminating this possibility? To eliminate it, you have to first entertain it as a possibility. That means you have to seriously consider how it could work.

Then there's the Jungian hypothesis of what UFOs are that is also, I think, highly worthy of consideration. Have you ever bothered to look into it? I doubt it because you're too busy trying to find aliens behind every rock and tree. There's nothing behind those rocks and trees. So where are you going to look now?

That's the question you have to ask yourself: "If I proved the ET hypothesis is false, what am I left with?" And I would suggest that you start looking into those possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:48 AM

I'm simply mentioning possibilities when I say that, Josep, not declaring that any one of them MUST be the final truth on the matter. And that's what you're doing too, you're mentioning possibilities. I think mutual respect is a good basis for having a reasonable discussion, wouldn't you agree?

Yes, I have considered all those things you mention...the possibility that people are seeing remotely guided vehicles...the possibility that people are seeing projected images of some kind...even the possibility that people are seeing some sort of interdimensional "visitations" that are not physical at all in our Universe, but are nevertheless visible here as phantoms, so to speak. Then there's the Jungian thing, also quite interesting.

I HAVE dared to think all these things you mention, Josep, and yes, they raise a lot of interesting questions, but I do not possess the monetary or technical or governmental resourses to remotely imagine that I can find the final answers to those questions. I can only wonder about it, and I can continue to look into the matter with a good deal of curiosity, and I can hope that the human community in general finds those answers in time.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:10 PM

This, I think, is the starting point:

"If I eliminated beyond any and all doubt the possibility of ET, of secret govt craft or technology, intra-dimensional visitation, etc. what that put a dent in the number of sightings that pour in every year?"

If the answer is no then you have to weed out the hoaxers, the nutjobs and the misidentification of ordinary craft or phenomena. If there is the merest possibility of a sighting being attributed to any of these things, you get rid of it. What are then left with? There will be a tiny percentage that still can't be explained. And you have to start with those.

That's your starting point. Just those few cases would be a lifetime's worth of work.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:25 PM

...or it could be inter-dimensional travel as well...that could explain why nuke missile bases have experience shut downs of their systems. Perhaps, total destruction in this dimension, would affect another dimension's physics as well.

Or, two opposing sides, playing out a 'chess game' on earth, perhaps a material challenge to a spiritual, or unseen power!

Something to think about!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:05 PM

"Just those few cases would be a lifetime's worth of work."

Yes, they would indeed.

One simply does the best one can with ALL the information at hand, and that's the best one can do. It would be best to approach the subject with as little prior prejudice as possible, in order to remain reasonably objective.

I had prior prejudice before my first sighting of these unusual craft in the sky. My prior prejudice at that time was: I didn't believe there were ANY alien interstellar visitors coming here. I didn't believe it, because I thought I was such a smart guy that I already knew the score! I am now somewhat prejudiced in the opposite direction and I think there very probably ARE alien visitors coming here, having had experiences of my own which radically altered my original opinion. ;-) Not surprising, if you think about it. I am definitely willing to change an opinion in the face of direct experience which challenges that opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:10 PM

Little Hawk, I guess opinions CAN and DO change..a sign that you're still amongst the living. The things I posted, are just possibilities, though,..howbeit, based on 'other' related items. I'm not SURE, myself, but I could share a couple of things I've SEEN, and or/experienced, along the way. That being said, have I actually SEEN a UFO?..No, not that I could say with certainty...but I have talked with those who have made such claims...with some interesting co-incidents to somewhat give their claims, the possibilities of validation.....anyway, Yo-Ho!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:34 PM

I never saw a UFO craft of any type. I am a skeptic, but dont rule out one could visit someday....likely looking very different from what folks claim they see.

But, in the 70's, while travelling in the dark early morning, with my girl friend of the time, from Utah-Montana northword to Alberta, we experiences an odd thing.

A ball of light (lookled like a whoite round ball of light) dodged around from the sourrinding fields to the front of my car for about two hours. It would come close....just in front of the car, then would suddenly move off to the sourrounding landscape, always visable to us. In fact, the light seemed to be teasing us, dodging near and far, as we looked at it directly, or looked away. Then, it just dissapeared.

We were not on any substance, and had not driven long hours, nor were we tired.

It was unidentified by us, but would not seem like anything like a craft that anyone could fit into. It was indeed puzzling to us, and to this very day.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:16 PM

Very interesting, Ed! I've absolutely no idea what it might have been. The only thing I've heard of that sounds a bit like it is St. Elmo's Fire....or the legendary capricious energy spirit called a "Will-o-the-Wisp", a thing resembling a floating ball of light that could reputedly suck quite a bit of life energy out of a person or even kill them if it came very near them.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 08:22 PM

Survival on another planet does not require that it be exactly like the earth. It would need to be very close in characteristics, but not identical.

For example, gravity. If the gravity on this hypothetical other earth were, say ten percent stronger than on earth, it would be a little bit of a strain getting around at first, but nothing a normal person couldn't get adapted to. Future generations of earthlings would probably be a bit stockier and more strongly muscled, not through any particular evolutionary changes, but just growing up in a somewhat stronger gravity would accomplish that.

Or if the gravity were lighter. Easier to get around. Which would make returning to earth a bit of a strain to redevelop one's muscular strength. Offspring might be more slender—not unlike the natives of "Pandora," the planet in the movie Avatar, which appears to actually be a satellite of a gas giant rather than an independent planet. And the huge, tall trees tend to indicate a lower gravity.

Considering the different temperature ranges that people live in here on earth, a warmer or colder planet should be no problem, provided the differences are not too extreme.

The concept of the "Goldilocks" planet. Different from earth perhaps, but not too different for it to be "just right."

Ozone layer, yes, that would be a necessity. But if a planet had oceans from being bombarded early-on by ice-bearing comets and meteorites as the earth was, oxygen-producing sea life would more than likely develop, the oxygen would interact with radiation, and an ozone layer would ipso facto undoubtedly develop. As to that sea life (pond scum from which we all evolved), I've heard biological scientists say that, given the kind of primordial soup of which the early earthly bodies of water consisted, plus the input of a bit of energy—sunlight, volcanic activity—and voila!!—organic compounds!

Life has developed in the most unlikely of places: in the deepest depths of the oceans, near "black smokers" (volcanic vents), where the surrounding water reaches 700 degrees (possible because of the immense pressures at that depth). Sunlight doesn't reach that deep into the sea, but the creatures that live there derive their energy from the heat around the black smokers.

[Where do I get this stuff? The University of Washington, just up the pike a ways, has an "Exobiology Department," and a good friend of mine works there.]

The 23 degree axial tilt actually doesn't have anything to do with the moon, it just sort of happened. Almost all planets have some axial tilt. And I don't really see that the moon has anything crucial to do with the development of life on earth. It does provide the tides, which may have initially "stirred the pot" some, but it's debatable whether that's a necessary ingredient for producing life. It IS an extraordinarily large satellite relative to most, and some have said that the earth-moon system really should be considered a double-planet.

A planet, they say, that is the right distance from its primary (its sun) to be in a zone temperate enough for there to be liquid water, and for there not to be at least some form of primitive life, would more than likely be a statistical anomaly.

Mars would be a bitch to try to live on. Too many things humans need just to survive for a few minutes. Any length of time and you'd better pack a lunch. And a fair number of other things.

Venus? Hotter than a pizza oven! No joy there. The late Carl Sagan, however outlined a plan to possibly "terraform" Venus. Large quantities of blue-green algae dumped into Venus's upper atmosphere would gradually alter the atmosphere, start producing oxygen which would interact with the hydrogen already present, eventually lead to rain, which in turn, would cool the planet and produce oceans, plus a number of other things that would make it livable for earthlings.    But it would take several centuries for this to be accomplished, so don't pack your bags yet. Also, it would be very tropical due to it's proximity to the sun. So if you're a snow bunny, forget it!

Sagan did raise the problem of ethics, however. It would not be ethical to "redecorate" an abode to our tastes if "someone else" already occupied the property (although, historically, that sort of thing hasn't stopped us from wiping out the indigenous population and colonizing the place anyway).

As to the physical aspects of intelligent aliens, I've heard many scientists say that even intelligent aliens would undoubtedly be so different from us that we may not even recognize them as any kind of intelligent beings. But then, I've heard other scientists point out that if intelligent life evolved on a planet similar to (even if not the same as) earth, they might very well look a fair amount like us. There are distinct advantages to biological symmetry. Four limbs seem a quite efficient way of doing things; three limbs would not be quite as stable and five would be a bit redundant. The placement of sense organs such as eyes and ears close to the "central processing unit" or brain is a matter of simple efficiency, and if the intelligent aliens had evolved in an arboreal setting as we did, binocular vision would be necessary to judge distances, so their primitive forebears could swing from limb to limb with less danger of misjudging and falling long distances and landing on their keisters. And standing on one's hind legs allows one to look further distances to spot prey or predators. Survival mechanisms that should work well in sufficiently analogous environments.

In a few Star Trek episodes they mentioned "The Theory of Parallel Evolution" to cover for the fact that Central Casting would have an easier time finding humans to play humanoid aliens than they would finding an actor with two heads (one for linear thinking and the other for gestalt thinking), tentacles instead of arms, and wire wheels instead of legs (although that would have been quite a snort—Jack Nicholson could have possibly brought it off!). The Theory of Parallel Evolution is not necessarily a purely science fiction concept. Gene Roddenberry was no dummy.

Quandary:    If we know that dolphins are quite intelligent, but can't figure out how intelligent, and we haven't figured out how to communicate concepts of any complexity with them, we might have some difficulty even with aliens who may look very much like we do. Physical characteristics are one thing, but cultural differences can make a big difference as well.

Douglas Adams could be right! The reasons we assume that dolphins aren't that intelligent and that we are may be exactly why they think they're intelligent, and we aren't! We invented digital watches, cell phones, politics, and war. And they didn't!

Also, GfS mentions the matter of "inter-dimensional travel." Try reading some of the works of Michio Kaku, particularly Parallel Worlds.

What if the Big Bang were a common occurrence? When a massive star goes supernova and implodes into a black hole, where does all that matter go? Could it be that it creates another "universe" somewhere else? Could it be that the Big Bang that began our universe was the result of a supernova imploding into a black hole in some super-universe? Perhaps this is a common occurrence. Each universe spawning other universes.

Perhaps "universes" (more precisely, "multiverses") would look to some super-entity outside of it all (God? Nah, let's not go there!) a bit like a bunch of grapes of infinite number, each one growing out of another, which, in turn, spawns others.

And closely packed, so that they contact each other, separated by "branes" (membranes).

And sometimes there might be "leakage" through branes!

Along with this bit of weirdness, Kaku points out that there are some eleven dimensions (the math exists to prove this, but that's way beyond my comprehension!). We have direct awareness of three, with a sense of the fourth. But the other seven are there, interlaced all around us—and through us.

Possible fleeting awareness of another dimension, or leakage through a "brane" between universes could account, Kaku ruminates, for a lot of what is assumed to be "supernatural" manifestations.

Ah, yes!! The universe (however many there might be) and the future and its possibilities are truly fascinating places!! Or are they one and the same?

Just a few ruminations. Slow day at the Skunk Works.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 08:56 PM

///I had prior prejudice before my first sighting of these unusual craft in the sky. My prior prejudice at that time was: I didn't believe there were ANY alien interstellar visitors coming here. I didn't believe it, because I thought I was such a smart guy that I already knew the score! I am now somewhat prejudiced in the opposite direction and I think there very probably ARE alien visitors coming here, having had experiences of my own which radically altered my original opinion. ;-) Not surprising, if you think about it. I am definitely willing to change an opinion in the face of direct experience which challenges that opinion. ////

I've seen them several times since I was a boy. My opinion is that what I saw were almost certainly military. They didn't look like anything military but considering that they happened outside an air force base I grew up with which showed absolutely no interest in the objects performing the "impossible" acrobatics I and several other people witnessed them doing (sometimes for as long as FOUR hours) I had to conclude that that would be because the air force base knew exactly what they were--theirs.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 09:12 PM

////I never saw a UFO craft of any type. I am a skeptic, but dont rule out one could visit someday....likely looking very different from what folks claim they see.

But, in the 70's, while travelling in the dark early morning, with my girl friend of the time, from Utah-Montana northword to Alberta, we experiences an odd thing.

A ball of light (lookled like a whoite round ball of light) dodged around from the sourrinding fields to the front of my car for about two hours. It would come close....just in front of the car, then would suddenly move off to the sourrounding landscape, always visable to us. In fact, the light seemed to be teasing us, dodging near and far, as we looked at it directly, or looked away. Then, it just dissapeared.

We were not on any substance, and had not driven long hours, nor were we tired.

It was unidentified by us, but would not seem like anything like a craft that anyone could fit into. It was indeed puzzling to us, and to this very day. ////

It's military. Saw the same type of "craft" when I was 10 or 11. Just outside the AFB I grew up next to. It performed incredible maneuvers. It would go into steep dives and then pull up and rise straight up very fast and then hang motionless for a second and then go into that harrowing, plummeting dive again. It would do this 10 time or more without stopping. Then it would hang motionless like a bright star (it could also change intensities from dim to bright to extremely bright) for several minutes. Then it would start shuffling back and forth--not turning but simply reversing direction one way and then another sometimes slow and sometimes very fast. It would also appear to shoot out sparks for 10 or 15 seconds while it would hang motionless. And this was in the late 60s. We watched it a good four hours and then went inside and it was still up there zipping around. The Air Force never sent up anything to investigate and you can't tell me they didn't see it. They couldn't help but see it but they showed no interest whatsoever. My father, two brothers and two friends were all witnesses. We looked at it through my dad's spyglass and it looked the same as with the naked eye--just a white ball of light something like a bright planet but it was definitely not a weather trick. It was an artificial object whatever it was and it had to be something military because it was right outside an air force base.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 09:33 PM

///The 23 degree axial tilt actually doesn't have anything to do with the moon, it just sort of happened. Almost all planets have some axial tilt. And I don't really see that the moon has anything crucial to do with the development of life on earth. It does provide the tides, which may have initially "stirred the pot" some, but it's debatable whether that's a necessary ingredient for producing life. It IS an extraordinarily large satellite relative to most, and some have said that the earth-moon system really should be considered a double-planet.///

It does have something to do with the moon because the moon is moving away from us and as it does so, our tilt increases. At some point the moon will move far enough away that the earth will be "on its side" so to speak.

You're also not paying attention to what I write but then this is mudcat and I realize that's how it is around here. I'm NOT talking about ALL life. I'm talking about human life. The tides act as brakes on the earth. Human beings cannot live in situations where day and night only last half as long or twice as long as now. We are adapted for the these specific circumstances and no other.
The tides slowed this planet down to where human life was possible.

There's a book called "Rare Earth" that spells it all out in excruciating detail just how unique human life is. You can't read it without discarding this idea that humanoids will be found all over this galaxy. We are likely the only humanoids in this galaxy. Event he so-called Grays are too humanoid to come from anywhere but earth.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:16 PM

Is anyone here arguing that humanoids should be found all over the galazy? I'm not. I do think, though, that there are probably lifeforms on a great many other planets in the Universe, and that some of them may well have learned advanced space travel.

I can well understand, Josep, that you interpreted the things you saw as being military vehicles, specially since you were near a military base. I might well have made the same interpretation of it that you did...or I might not have...I'd have to be there to be sure.

The objects I saw were not operating in an area near a military base. They were doing manuevers over small towns and civilian areas nowhere near any military base. I don't think the government would operate secret vehicles using publicly unknown technology in plain sight over civilian areas. I think they'd keep such operations in isolated areas where the ordinary public were not likely to witness them.

But I may be wrong...

Like anyone, I'm simply forming a conclusion based on what I feel are the greater probabilities. It seems to me more probable to me that those craft were alien than that they were ours. But it could have been either.

Or it could have been something else entirely. As you pointed out before, there are a number of possible alternative possible theories.

I also have to take into account a great deal of testimony from various trustworthy people whom I've known personally, plus civil pilots, military pilots and other military personnel, police officers, ordinary citizens, and even heads of state. The cumulative weight of such testimony in the last 6 decades leads me to believe that we are probably being visited by not just one, but several different groups of alien beings. The reason that so many of them are visiting and observing us (assuming that's the case) since the end of WWII seems elegantly simple to me: we have begun detonating atomic weapons on this planet since 1945. That may be the key to why we are getting so much attention...we have become potentially dangerous on a serious level, not just to ourselves, but possibly to other planetary systems...perhaps in ways we don't fully understand.

I think that would justify some careful surveillance of this planet. We are kids playing with fire here.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 12:26 AM

Hey!..If NEWT Gingrich runs for President...Well, with the name, "NEWT", Do ya' think we might have a Reptilian in charge?

Wink,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:30 AM

That's a scary thought, GfS! ;-) Hector Ballsworthy of the Independent Press in the UK has been warning about that for years in his fervent broadsides. He says that the Royal Family are all reptilians, and that most of the ruling class are too. I can tell you without exaggeration that I break out in goose pimples from head to foot at the thought of Newt Gingrich becoming president! I'd rather be ruled by aliens from Arcturus.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:32 AM

Come to think of it, though, newts aren't reptiles at all. They're amphibians. ;-) Amphibians are slimy! Reptiles are not.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:57 AM

What if to the 'aliens' this is their home? What if we unknowingly are sharing the earth? There are people who claim, apparently seriously, that there are beings inside the earth.

I doubt that. However.

One very early September morning I was a couple of miles from home in a wooded, remote valley when just as I crested a hill, a cigar-shaped object , maybe twice the size of a torpedo, from my left crossed the road rising to clear the trees and over the hill on my right. Although I have the description written down somewhere I no longer remember the details but there was what appeared to be flames inside the thing, and in two different places in it. The 'flames' were of different colors.

A couple of days later I spoke of what I saw to my brother who lived with our parents almost directly across the road from the sugar-loaf hill that blocked the afternoon sun from their place (I lived another mile farther on), and he said that the summer before he and another brother had been working in the fields with our father making hay, when they saw something that appeared identical to what I described travel almost over them and head for the sugar loaf and disappear through the trees and inside, they thought. He said there was no sound when it went overhead nor when it went into the trees.

So what was that?

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:09 AM

Hmmm. Well, that's another interesting possibility, Ebbie. I've also heard stuff about the "inner Earth" people, but I have no idea if there's any factual basis to it.

I think we can also consider the possibility of some form of inter-dimensional travel or even time travel.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,ebbie, housesitting
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:25 AM

Oh, and I just remembered what another brother (I had four) told me. He lived about 70 miles from me in a community not too far from Portland, Oregon that is also wooded and hilly.

He said that one time he was glassing the hillside several miles away from his house when he saw a dome-shaped craft settle down on legs (he didn't see its approach and he was too far away to hear anything) on the hillside. He said he stared at it but never saw anything leave the craft and then suddenly it simply was no longer there.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Stu
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:45 AM

"What if to the 'aliens' this is their home? What if we unknowingly are sharing the earth"

Chances are we already are: Growth and replication of red rain cells at 121 oC and their red fluorescence.

The thing is, we assume aliens are going to be like us. More than likely we're not even going to be able to recognise them if they did land on the White House lawn tomorrow morning as the will be so radically alien in form and culture we would struggle to tell which way up they were.

An alien could be a sentient gas cloud, many light years across that takes years to form a thought. We could fly right through it in a spaceship and not even realise it's existence. They might be silicone-based and need to breathe liquid hydrocarbons and eat olivine (shades of the burrowing Horta!) etc.

They might be able to manipulate the physical universe in ways we would be unable to distinguish from magic (LH's time travel might be a breeze to them).

As for greys and flying saucers - these are cultural interpretations of misunderstood or misidentified natural phenomena or conventional aircraft, even if they are secret government projects. In the middle ages they were wheels and stars, now they're spaceships; in 500 years they'll be something else.

But here's a thing (a true one too). This summer my wife and I travelled across the Atlantic and spend three weeks in the American West. The first week was spent in the field digging for dinosaurs in the badlands of the Hell Creek formation of North Dakota and Montana. On our last day in the field our two-car convoy was headed north on a highway close to the ND border when a flash of movement on the far horizon caught my eye. I watched a sleek object shoot up at an incredible speed and on a trajectory that would be impossible for a fixed wing aircraft. I pointed it out to the other four people in the car and as one of the chaps commented, it "was haulin' ". It might have been a missile or something but it was really shifting, leaving a sharp trail through the clouds but no trail in the blue sky. I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it in my life, and I've lived near airports all my life.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 12:53 PM

"You're also not paying attention to what I write but then this is mudcat and I realize that's how it is around here. I'm NOT talking about ALL life. I'm talking about human life."

Touchy!! Josep, nothing that you have written rules out the possibility of humanoid aliens having evolved on other planets. True we don't know of any planets orbiting other stars which are exactly like Earth but there is a possibility that something like parallel evolution could occur in a similar, but not identical, environment.
As a thought experiment try imagining a credible, full functioning intelligent being (which has evolved on an earthlike planet) which is NOT vaguely humanoid. I would guess that something that evolved on a world profoundly different from ours might well be different.

And, by the way, if you stop throwing tantrums and go back and read my original post you will find that I said nothing about humanoid aliens and was making a different point entirely!

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:27 PM

I see. You're talking about something that I am not talking about and yet you felt the need to put my name on it and tell me all about it as if I could care. And you wonder why I'm getting annoyed.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:49 AM

I think it is a plot of all the Governments to keep people interested in the possibility of other planets and lifeforms and other worlds in order to distract us from what is really happening (war, greed etc.)similar to when you were a child. That is not always a bad thing because we all need light relief.

Subject: RE: BS: UFOs in the news
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 08:10 AM

That is another possibility, Patsy. It has occurred to me too, that the governments might use such a ploy to distract people. I think it's more likely that they're covering up real visitations, but either alternative is possible. Governments regularly use a number of methods to focus public angst in some direction or another in order to get the public to back some fiscal policy or support some military effort or legislative change. Among those ploys are:

- stoking exaggerated fear of some other nation, as was done to justify the invasion of Iraq, for instance.

- stoking exaggerated fear of some domestic minority group

- promoting conflict between different groups in the domestic population through raising of extremely divisive issues, such as the building of a mosque at "Ground Zero", for example.

- promoting fear of space aliens through publicizing this or that incident or theory

- promoting fear of climate change or other environmental threats

And so on. Anything that makes the public fearful can also be used to strengthen the government's position, enlarge its powers, and limit civil rights. These sort of tactics have been used over and over again throughout history by governments who were intent upon increasing their control over their own public.