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06 Nov 10 - 03:10 PM (#3025323) Subject: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp LANCASTER COUNTY - A large rectangular craft was reported July 23, 1999, resting on the ground at 11:31 PM. The craft was approximately 150 feet long and 50 feet wide with windows and antenna. The witness stated, "About midnight I decided to begin driving back to Philadelphia from my aunt's house in rural Lancaster County. When I went out side to leave, I saw a huge object sitting in a field directly across from her front door. It was as big as a football field judging by the nearby trees. "The craft lit up like daylight with lights all around the bottom and windows with bright bluish/white light inside. At first I thought someone had put up a large 'double wide' mobile home in the couple hours I was visiting my aunt. Then I realized the object was larger than any mobile home, and would be as large as four of these put end to end. I also noticed a number of antennas and other 'garbage' sticking and jutting out from the top and sides. "I ran back inside. My aunt came out and was a bit shaken by all this. I was pretty scared too, but I was intrigued. It was just weird. We watched for ten minutes as the craft began making a very low sound. Like a buzzing wire that isn't plugged into the stereo correctly, but with more variation in pitch and allot deeper. You could feel the vibration in the pit of your stomach and my aunt felt sick. "The craft then began to lift off the ground and turn. I could clearly see it was a rectangle as it slowly turned its narrower side towards us. The craft turned off some of its lights and began moving steadily upward in an awkward wobbling motion, almost as if it was too heavy to support its own weight. We were not that far away when the sound became more intense. "My aunt went back inside for fear that the craft might crash. It managed to lift off vertically and turn itself 90 degrees after reaching about three times the height of the tops of the trees. Then for about 25 to 45 seconds it began shaking wildly. It began to accelerate like the space shuttle, but only with that low humming sound not a rocket's roar. "After it started shooting upwards it was nearly out of sight within 10 minutes, becoming nothing more than a slowly moving star. I called the local TV station and they knew nothing about it and suggested I call the sheriff's department. I did and they said they had a couple reports of odd lights in the sky and they passed them to MUFON. Afterwards, I was firmly shocked. "I have never believed in this stuff until now and I feel we are about to be taken over. I got a very 'sinister' feeling from that object. Like it was scouting for a place to set up operations in the future or something. I felt it was a giant processing center." |
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06 Nov 10 - 03:12 PM (#3025325) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp While it is certainly possible that the above witness made up a sighting based on the following, it doesn't seem likely and, if he did not, what do we make of both sightings? This earlier incident took place during the time that the vast section of the Midwest was under one of the most extensive and disturbing UFO flaps ever recorded which occurred in the mid-70s. From Maine to Virginia to Michigan to Montana to Nebraska to New Mexico were record reports of UFO sightings, phantom helicopters, cattle mutilations and incidents like the following from Fawcett's and Greenwood's 1984 book, "Clear Intent": January 21, 1976 – 2100hrs – 12 miles outside Fairfield, Montana. Bill Link (pseudonym) stated to investigators that he and his wife, a brother, his two sons and a daughter saw on that night. The following are excerpts from Link's statement to the police: We first spotted them from the house. My boy saw them first just as we turned in to go into the house…It didn't look strange to me. My wife, boy and little girl stayed out, and pretty soon she said, "Come out, Bill. Look at these. They're really funny!" So I went out there, and by this time there is a row of trees down the road about three-quarters of a mile. Well, by this time, these lights were coming back and forth out from behind this row of trees. And they appeared at the time to be landing in the field and taking off and landing in the field and so forth. So we watched them for quite a while, probably twenty minutes, there with the field glasses on. About this time we saw two red blinkers down on the highway and I said, "Well, somebody has reported it to the sheriff or somebody is out there now with a patrol car watching them, so we'll go down too." So I think I took the two boys and jumped in the pickup and as we turned the corner off our approach on the main highway, why, these red things that we thought were patrol cars, they then floated off the highway over this field, still blinking or they were then. So we drove on down there and then, as we approached the field where they had went, why we saw this structure that looked like a hotel. A two-story hotel sitting out there in the field and the other lights were grouped around it. About four sets of lights grouped around it. [The object that resembled a hotel] had a rectangular shape, you could see the outline of it. You couldn't see the outline till you put the field glasses on. [Link stated he was about 500 yards from the object.] Then you could see the dark outline. There were, there were lights, windows, I'd say about…there were two rows of those and they appeared to be probably, oh, five to six feet high, and maybe two or three feet wide. With no…that is standing on end like this….Single pane windows. No divisions at all in them. …[T]hey were the full length of the machine. Well, they come about…they were…there was none in the exact corner of it. They started in a ways from each end of it. In the meantime, these other lights seemed to be kind of affiliated with it, 'cause they grouped around it. They would come up close to it and then they would leave, hover about it, and rapidly change places, and then they would appear to set down right in the stubble and then they would…some of them would die down to a very dim light and then we would watch them for a while and they would flare right back up very brilliantly… |
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06 Nov 10 - 03:18 PM (#3025335) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack the Sailor >>While it is certainly possible that the above witness made up a sighting based on the following, it doesn't seem likely and, if he did not, what do we make of both sightings?<< If by "we" you mean you and me, one of us doesn't give a crap. |
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06 Nov 10 - 03:30 PM (#3025348) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth Man the barricades! It's the Borg!! Don Firth |
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06 Nov 10 - 03:30 PM (#3025350) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Two of us, Jack. |
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06 Nov 10 - 03:33 PM (#3025354) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: JohnInKansas To inject a musical note, attention is directed to the well-known line about: "...the tallest ladder I ever tried to climb." John |
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06 Nov 10 - 04:02 PM (#3025377) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Ah, but you'd give a crap if you were there, wouldn't you, Jack? "Can it possibly be real if I haven't seen it?" says the skeptic, the guy who apparently already knows all he wants to know, the guy who wasn't there. Yes, it can! It may be real. That remains to be determined. I saw some apparently alien vehicles in the late 60s, and I gave a crap. You would too if you'd seen them. They did not at all resemble the ones in the above reports. I find such reports veru interesting, but I draw no final conclusions from them at this time. I am always puzzled by the intransigence of people who react negatively to anything they don't already believe in and take for granted. Do they feel threatened? Or do they just have a very limited capacity for attention to anything they didn't think of themselves? |
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06 Nov 10 - 04:25 PM (#3025392) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp My interest in the reports derives from the unusual aspect of them and yet others report the same thing when it seems highly unlikely that one was copying the other. Sure, that could be the case but the likelihood of it is questionable. I have no interest in cases that are utterly unique but when you have numerous reports that are highly unusual and yet similar to one another and there is virtually no chance that the witnesses were copying from any of the others, you have admit that something is going on that can't be explained as hoax, delusion or mass hysteria. I also have no interest in people who claim threads as this are interesting. Think what you want, I don't care. But I do have to question why you participate since your input is negligible. |
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06 Nov 10 - 04:26 PM (#3025394) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack the Sailor >>Ah, but you'd give a crap if you were there, wouldn't you, Jack?<< No, not really. |
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06 Nov 10 - 04:40 PM (#3025401) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Oh...yes, you would. Trust me. It shakes people up at a very deep level when they see things they cannot recognize, fathom or explain. No one is immune to being affected by such an incident. I had absolutely no belief in or interest in "alien" vehicles prior to the first sighting I had. Afterward, I was very interested and have remained so. I've only had 2 such sightings in 62 years of life...but have read a great many accounts of other sightings and have spoken to many people personally who've had sightings...including civil air personnel. |
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06 Nov 10 - 04:46 PM (#3025408) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Q (Frank Staplin) Last night I had the strangest dream I'd ever dreamed before-- Come now, nibble a little peyote and really see some oddities. |
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06 Nov 10 - 05:05 PM (#3025423) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack the Sailor Nope, I've seen lots of things I couldn't recognize or explain. (most of it people mind you ;-)) I just leave it at that. Now if they were to offer me gold or the plans and patents to alien high tech, or even a ride, I might be excited. |
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06 Nov 10 - 05:10 PM (#3025429) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp Things like that will change you. One of my brothers is a hard-headed, hands-on type of guy. He's not given to flights of fancy and has shown no real interest in unexplained phenomena. He's the type who likes to work with his hands rather than his head. Back in the early 90s, I was trying my luck with EVP or electronic voice phenomenon. If you record static off the radio or TV or even listen to the natural noise of a piece analog recording tape, you might hear voices said to be those of the dead. Sometimes they even say their names. I got interested in it after reading a book by Konstantin Raudive. I recorded a lot of static but never heard anything. I decided there was nothing to it. I explained it to my brother but he expressed very minimal interest. About 4 years ago, he called me up and asked if I had ever experimented with taping static to hear voices of the dead. He seemed to remember me doing this. I said yes but that I never heard anything. He said he ran across an article on it and he and his wife tried it out. They recorded some wash off the TV and were listening back. They didn't notice anything. The next day, though, he came home from work and his wife told him there was one little instant in the tape where she thought she heard a voice saying, "Ferguson." They listened to the tape again and at the designated spot, my brother said there did indeed seem to be a voice. He listened to it several times but thought is was saying "Jurgenson." It was saying something before that but he couldn't make it out. He kept playing it back and listening and he thought the voice was saying, "Friedrich Jurgenson." His wife typed the same into a search engine and they found out to their astonishment that Friedrich Jurgenson was the very founder of EVP! He was shocked out of his wits and called me on the phone and his voice was shaking and he was stuttering. I'd never heard him that way before. I know my brother and he wasn't faking. He couldn't have learned the name from me because I didn't even recognize the name. If he had said the voice announced he was Raudive, I would suspect that maybe he heard it from me some years before and it surfaced in his mind some years later (although I was pronouncing it wrong). I never mentioned Jurgenson to him and didn't even know who he was myself. I only had a passing interest in EVP which I promptly wrote off and this back around '90 or '91. I saw my brother a couple of weeks later and asked him about it. He said he found an EVP forum online and wrote of his experience there. When he checked the next day, there were several responses all saying, "So you heard it too?" He is now a firm believer in EVP and truly believes ol' Jurgenson's spirit was communicating to him. Now, I don't care if anyone believes his story although I've never known my brother to ever have any interest in this kind of thing before but he definitely believes it and it has changed him profoundly in that aspect. He even says he never would have believed it if someone else told him the same story he told me and would have written it off as overactive imagination. He not only now believes it but has an intense interest in the subject--something that never would have happened without an experience to motivate him. |
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06 Nov 10 - 05:45 PM (#3025449) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Richard Bridge Willie the Weeper - verse II. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:05 PM (#3025468) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 "And on the way home you'll look into the sky once more and notice 5 orange lights all moving very, very slowly, first in a row, then above each other, then below, then back in a row..and you'll tell yourself that they're just planes stacking up for Exeter Airport, but then you'll notice that there are no landing lights showing on any of them, unlike the plane that has just whizzed past in front of them...and you'll pull over in Ottery St. Mary car park, get out and watch those five orange stars suddenly rise higher and higher, faster and faster, all at exactly the same time, until they become the tiniest of dots..and then they'll just disappear all together from the naked eye...and you'll get back in the car....not the slightest bit worried or spooked...but left with a sense of deep understanding that some things can never quite be explained....." I wrote that on the BBC F&A board, 5 years back now, in August 2005, as the end to my post about 'Beautiful Days' festival which is held in Escot Park, East Devon, just down the road from Sidmouth... It is exactly what I saw, exactly what happened. From that moment on I changed my mind about UFOs and I stopped thinking somewhat arrogantly, that we are all alone in the Universe. It was amazing to see, truly amazing. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:16 PM (#3025475) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. It's a shame cameras are so scarce and cumbersome, otherwise people might be able to produce credible evidence. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:26 PM (#3025487) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp So, smokey, name for us a photograph or piece of film of a UFO that you accept as genuine. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:32 PM (#3025491) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Either the subtlety of your question eludes me or you've completely misunderstood my comment.. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:45 PM (#3025510) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 "It's a shame cameras are so scarce and cumbersome, otherwise people might be able to produce credible evidence." I never carry a camera with me, and my mobile phone is...just a phone, which I can barely figure out anyway. There was no bigger sceptic than I, Smokey, but I know that I saw something pretty darn unusual that night, as did my children and their father, for they were all in the car as well.. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:54 PM (#3025524) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Not getting at you, Lizzie, lots of people have seen stuff, it was just a general comment which happened to be after your post. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:56 PM (#3025527) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Tens of thousands of photos and a great many films have been taken of what may have been alien vehicles. The standard reaction of the skeptic is to reject the photo or film as "a fake", thereby maintaining his negative faith on the subject. I know of no skeptic who was ever convinced by anything except a direct encounter with what he thought didn't exist or an official statement by Big Brother. Photos mean nothing to such people nor do films. The only thing they would accept, short of a direct experience of their own, would be an official declaration by the government and media that aliens exist and are visiting us. They trust Big Brother, apparently. I find that funny and sad at the same time! ;-) Big Brother is one of the least trustworthy sources you can find out there, because what Big Brother does has to do with holding onto money and power...NOT keeping you and me accurately informed about anything. |
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06 Nov 10 - 06:58 PM (#3025529) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp ///Either the subtlety of your question eludes me or you've completely misunderstood my comment../// There are a huge number of photographs and film footage of UFOs and it's obvious from your comment that you don't accept any of them. And that's fine, I don't either. But then don't turn around and ask why no one produces photographic evidence that you know very well you're not going to accept. |
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06 Nov 10 - 07:01 PM (#3025534) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Point me at some, and please don't make assumptions about me. |
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06 Nov 10 - 07:29 PM (#3025559) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp There are literally thousands of photographs online--take your pick. |
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06 Nov 10 - 07:54 PM (#3025576) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack Campin Kindly bugger off to www.rate-my-schizo-delusion.com or somewhere. |
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06 Nov 10 - 08:26 PM (#3025592) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Just show me one clear picture - that's all I ask. |
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06 Nov 10 - 08:42 PM (#3025600) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray 5 orange lights all moving very, very slowly, first in a row, then above each other, then below, then back in a row..and you'll tell yourself that they're just planes stacking up for Exeter Airport, but then you'll notice that there are no landing lights showing on any of them, unlike the plane that has just whizzed past in front of them...and you'll pull over in Ottery St. Mary car park, get out and watch those five orange stars suddenly rise higher and higher, faster and faster, all at exactly the same time, until they become the tiniest of dots..and then they'll just disappear all together from the naked eye.. Lizzie - I've seen any amount of such lights in the skies these last few nights - they are, of course, Chinese Lanterns. We watched a formation of 8 earlier on doing pretrty much what you describe above. |
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06 Nov 10 - 09:24 PM (#3025621) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Charley Noble For some reasons we haven't even seen fireflies here in Maine for a couple of years. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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07 Nov 10 - 12:18 AM (#3025687) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: The Fooles Troupe Why does this BS section here attract so many 'conspiracy theory' proponents? |
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07 Nov 10 - 12:36 AM (#3025696) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Is that a euphemism? |
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07 Nov 10 - 03:47 AM (#3025740) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 "Lizzie - I've seen any amount of such lights in the skies these last few nights - they are, of course, Chinese Lanterns. We watched a formation of 8 earlier on doing pretrty much what you describe above." Sorry, I strongly disagree with you on this one. I'm well aware of Chinese Lanterns, one almost set my tree on fire last year.(they look pretty but they're dangerous things) These were five lights, exactly one underneath each other, in a line. Chinese lanters don't form into straight lines or formations, you know...they don't 'all meet up in a certain place' even if they're let off into the sky at the same time. These were bright, large lights which stayed very close to one another, even when they were moving direction. And when they started to disappear they went upwards, straight upwards, staying in that same line. All four of us watched it happen..we'd pulled over because we couldn't believe what we were seeing and wanted to watch more closely...We watched them change their pattern, then re-form back into line...spellbound... They moved upwards slowly at first, then faster and faster, ALL at exactly the same time...Whoosh! and within seconds they were gone. They ascended fast, keeping their line exactly. It was a very clear night, there were no clouds to be seen, just stars...so our eyes could see far up into the sky....but they disappeared in no time at all, unlike a plane that you eye can keep track of for quite some time in a clear sky...or a 'chinese lantern' being carried on the wind..The speed with which they suddenly disappeared was scary to be honest... I told you that a plane went past them, and that had the flashing landing lights you'd expect to see, but this was something very different, Suibhne. |
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07 Nov 10 - 05:00 AM (#3025748) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Chinese lanters don't form into straight lines or formations, you know...they don't 'all meet up in a certain place' even if they're let off into the sky at the same time. One of the truly amazing thing with Chinese Lanterns is that they follow the winds in formations. Even in pairs they're an impressive sight, moving with a very particular purpose, altering speeds and ascending in perfect co-ordination and appearing to meet up in one place, depending on your point of view. Like I say, we watched a squadron of maybe 8 of them last night over Fleetwood and the effect was quite mesmerising but then again were used to seeing them - some people still report them as UFOs, which on a subjective level of course they are, until you know what they are. Nothing you've said here suggests otherwise. UFOlore operates as part wild-fire folklore and part religious orthodoxy. I've been fascinated with it since childhood (likewise Ghostlore, Christianlore, Paganlore, Fairylore Green Man-lore etc. etc.) but have yet to be convinced that there's any basis to any of it other than the human need to believe. In the end it all comes down to subjective experience on the one hand (which is always mundane) and objective interpretation of that experience on the other - which is where the folklore kicks in. On QI the other night it was asked how is it that whenever anyone draws an alien, they invariably draw the classic Grey? Do Greys actually exist? Or is it because they are a folkloric figment of our collective cultural imaginations? If human history tells us anything it's that we have an amazing capacity for making stuff up & convining ourselves it is real. There are no flying saucers*, just random lights in the sky becoming figments of our collective imaginations, and all the more fascinating because of it. * Not yet anyway, but if they ever did get here we'll know about it, for better or (more likely) for worse. Meanwhile - keep watching the skies! |
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07 Nov 10 - 06:33 AM (#3025771) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 The lights I saw were not lanterns..but if you prefer to think otherwise, please feel free to do so. |
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07 Nov 10 - 07:02 AM (#3025776) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray This is interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvx4Dnu-NDU These are obviously Chinese Lanterns yet the faithful need to believe they're something more. Lots of other examples up there, but this is exactly what Chinese lanterns do. |
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07 Nov 10 - 09:01 AM (#3025816) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: VirginiaTam Sometime between 1977 and 1979... my then husband and I one night, were approaching Charleston WV from some distance, when we both saw a really strange orange lighted object, oblong in shape, hovering over the cityscape. Then driving into a dip on the highway, the view of city and the object could no longer be seen, obscured by hills, trees. We just shrugged and didn't think more about it, until we got close enough to Charleston to pick up a local station on the car radio, which was abuzz with reported similar sightings. Wonder if it was something to do with this Mothman Never saw anything before that and never since. And that is all I'll say on the matter of "visitors." |
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07 Nov 10 - 11:49 AM (#3025909) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp ////On QI the other night it was asked how is it that whenever anyone draws an alien, they invariably draw the classic Grey? Do Greys actually exist? Or is it because they are a folkloric figment of our collective cultural imaginations? If human history tells us anything it's that we have an amazing capacity for making stuff up & convining ourselves it is real. There are no flying saucers*, just random lights in the sky becoming figments of our collective imaginations, and all the more fascinating because of it.//// You make the same mistake as believers: UFOs are piloted by aliens from other dimensions or beings from other planets. An idiot should know that cannot be true. But there are UFOs and they ain't no Chinese lanterns. |
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07 Nov 10 - 11:58 AM (#3025913) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: greg stephens Sorry, Lizzie, they were Chinese lanterns. Possibly let off by Seth Lakeman and Show of Hands, but still Chinese lanterns. |
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07 Nov 10 - 11:59 AM (#3025914) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk On what basis would you assume that it is impossible for aliens from other dimensions or beings from other planets to visit us? Are other dimensions impossible? How do you know? Are aliens on other planets impossible? How do you know? Is faster than light speed impossible? How do you know? Is it impossible that aliens might have developed a means of interplanetary or intergalactic travel which we don't know anything about yet? How do you know? What do you base your certainty of a stated impossibility upon? Seems to me that it stands on a platform of conventional assumptions and nothing else whatsoever. Every society stands on a platform of conventional assumptions. Just look back through history. Those assumptions have, again and again, been proven wrong through new discoveries...yet each succeeding generation pats itself on the back in the certainty that it now KNOWS THE SCORE! Ha! Ha! The vanity of man, I call it. |
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07 Nov 10 - 12:32 PM (#3025933) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Richard Bridge Lizzie, if you had paid attention in stead of daydreaming about Lady Guinevere at school, maybe you'd be able to use a phone. |
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07 Nov 10 - 12:34 PM (#3025940) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk I thought she was daydreaming about Sean Connery... |
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07 Nov 10 - 01:11 PM (#3025972) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack the Sailor For me it comes down to one thing. Why would someone travel hundreds of light years and then show themselves only to some and in such a vague way? It just isn't plausible. |
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07 Nov 10 - 01:56 PM (#3026003) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Why do we travel into the depths of jungles, the deep ocean, and inhospitable deserts, and wretchedly cold mountaintops, to show ourselves only to some (animals) or to no one at all! .... and in such a brief way? Because we want to know, that's why! ;-) We want to go where we haven't been and see what's there. That doesn't mean we stay for very long. When a scientist or an avian hobbyist goes to the jungle to look at birds, he doesn't show himself to every damn bird in the whole jungle! He looks at a few birds, his curiosity is satisfied, his data is written down, some photos are taken, and then he leaves. Gosh! It just isn't plausible, is it? ;-D If one can travel hundreds of light years, that would mean thousands of possible planets to visit. Maybe hundreds of thousands of possible planets. Maybe millions. How long would one spend looking at each one? Well, maybe not long, but one would probably be most interesting in those places that had observable forms of life on them, I would think. Why is it so hard to understand why others would do what we would do immediately...if we only had the capability to. We don't at present. All we've managed to do is to go very briefly to the Moon and to put some little unmanned vehicles on or near a few other nearby planets. We're rank beginners at space travel. Yet many people seem to think we're the only ones doing it. That is what just isn't plausible. |
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07 Nov 10 - 02:35 PM (#3026032) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp I've gone over in previous threads why no aliens are visiting us from other realms whether planetary or dimensional. The flying buildings, if they are factual, could certainly be something built by our government. The light wheels in the ocean I can't say but I haven't ruled out natural phenomena. It doesn't have to be anything revolving, it could simply be an illusion of it. I don't bother with photos and footage of UFOs because it's so easy to fake. There might be a few that can't be explained but I don't have the patience or resources to try and root them out. I think everybody can agree there are machines the govt has that we don't know about but that we are bound to see from time to time and that the govt isn't going to say, "Yes, those are ours." They have a vested interest in keeping ET going. In fact, I believe the govt started it with the Roswell incident. The best way for the govt to keep it going is to constantly deny it or simply say, "No comment." As soon as they do, we instantly resort to ET again. Talk about being controlled by Big Brother. If aliens are visiting us, we would have proof of it by now. We have none and will continue to have none because it isn't happening. There are other aspects that could be at play such as Jung's ideas about UFOs. This has been ignored because the public is so heavily infused with ET that they can't think in any other terms. It might be a purely "psychic" phenomenon as I believe to be the case concerning Mothman, the mad gassers, the phantom shooters, etc. in which case we ignore that aspect at our own peril. |
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07 Nov 10 - 02:55 PM (#3026045) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray But there are UFOs and they ain't no Chinese lanterns. Some are Chinese Lanterns, others are earth lights, eye floaters, air craft, planets, birds, space debris, weather balloons, perhelia, meteorites etc. etc. Anyway, back to the first Star Trek film on Film 4... |
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07 Nov 10 - 03:11 PM (#3026056) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp And some are craft built by our own govt. Learn it and accept it. |
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07 Nov 10 - 03:16 PM (#3026059) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Yeah, sure the government has secret vehicles they're not telling us about. That's part of it, all right. I don't think it's all of it. "If aliens are visiting us, we would have proof of it by now." I think we have mountains of proof of it by now...MOUNTAINS!...but....if the powers that be don't officially release any of that proof to the public and the media, and deny that it exists, then the public can't see that proof, can they? Yes, it might be a psychic phenomenon, as you say, but many incidents suggest it is more than that. Yes, the government might have arranged Roswell, and might be using the ET stuff to misdirect people from other things they're doing. Those are possibilities. You think they're doing a coverup to distract us with ETs that don't exist? Maybe. I think they're doing a coverup to prevent us believing in ETs that DO exist...because it would massively change public consciousness and threaten the present political status quo. It would make our governments look weak and dishonest and undependable, and they don't want to be seen that way. You must be able to see that they could have strong reasons for adopting either of those coverup policies. In the end, though, when it comes to this subject or any other, everyone just believes or favors what they would rather believe or favor, and that's an emotional decision on their part. They interpret info on that basis. I'm not a bit reluctant to admit that I have an emotional bias in favor of a Universe with many intelligent lifeforms living on many worlds, and some that can visit us. I like that idea. If you don't, well...(shrug)...that's up to you. You'll go on believing whatever you want to...and so will I. |
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07 Nov 10 - 04:18 PM (#3026095) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp There isn't any proof because that kind of thing simply can't be kept a secret. I brought up before that Jacques Vallee had fed all the landing data into a computer (he is a computer scientist after all) and calculated how many landings there have to be to make this data comprehensible. The conclusion is that most take place at about 3:00 am in remote areas and are not seen by anyone. It works out to 150,000 landings a year meaning about 3 million over a 20-year span. So the evidence should be overwhelming if this were the case. That aside from the fact that 3 million landings in twoscore years is absurd. Ain't happenin'. |
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07 Nov 10 - 04:52 PM (#3026110) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk "that kind of thing simply can't be kept a secret" Oh, sure it can. Anything can be kept a secret. Not that you can't prevent some people from talking about it or writing a book about it...but you can certainly prevent the authoritative mainstream from talking about it while they focus obsessively on bullshit like O.J. Simpson or Tiger Woods or the "Surge" in Iraq or whatever. The public has a very short attention span. You just make sure it's occupied with other things most of the time...and it is. The evidence is, in fact, absolutely overwhelming by now, but the mainstream authoritative sources (the military, the government, the mass media) simply don't bother recognizing it officially, or announcing it, and that's all that's necessary to keep it "a secret" (meaning it's not precisely a secret in the literal sense of the word, it's just below most people's radar, that's all). I didn't see "landings". I saw flyovers, and they were not at 3 AM, therefore I gather they're not in Mr Vallee's data. ;-) God knows where he thinks he could get "all the landing data"...from whom, pray tell? Astronauts, airline pilots, and leaders of countries have spoken about seeing what they believed were alien craft. It's NOT a secret, it's just not paid attention to or officially acknowledged by Big Brother and our the mass media. It's ignored 99% of the time by our mass media, and that effectively keeps it "a secret". As I said, you're just believing what you want to believe. And so am I. And that's just fine. I don't talk about this stuff because I think it'll make any difference if I do, I just talk about it because I'm interested. Period. |
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07 Nov 10 - 05:15 PM (#3026127) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth LH:"On what basis would you assume that it is impossible for aliens from other dimensions or beings from other planets to visit us? Are other dimensions impossible? How do you know? Are aliens on other planets impossible?" Very much to the point, Little Hawk. According to Michio Kaku, a solidly grounded theoretical physicist (several books such as Parallel Worlds and Physics of the Impossible), it may very well be that there are "multiverses," not just the universe that we know, (about which, as one scientist put in, "we know only about 4% of what we wish we knew."). Multiverses connected like a bunch of grapes, and to a degree in contact (but separated by "branes" or membranes) with each other. And as to the matter of multiple dimensions, current estimate is that there are eleven. Three we know about directly (length, width, depth) and the fourth we have a strong sense of (time). Michio Kaku and other physicists say that the math exists to prove this. And there are a number of universities and colleges (such as the nearby University of Washington) and other institutions that have astrobiology departments (also called "exobiology") dedicated to studying the possibility of life on other planets. And these folks are not kooks, they are serious, dedicated scientists in a number of disciplines. There is also the current search for terrestrial planets orbiting other stars (over a hundred planets located so far, several of which are "terrestrial" or "Goldilocks planets"—not to hot, not too cold, but just right, suitable for life as we know it.) And there is the SETI project which has been going for some decades now. And how about the Drake Equation? If you don't know what it is, it might be therapeutic to look it up and learn about it. Now—my position on this is essentially "agnostic." I don't know if there is intelligent life on other planets. Nor, for that matter, does anyone here! Nor do any of us know that there is not! Dr. Kaku came up with an interesting speculation. Perhaps what some people have perceived as "paranormal" came as the result of "leakage" from other dimensions or other universes. Or not. Don Firth |
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07 Nov 10 - 05:51 PM (#3026181) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 "Lizzie, if you had paid attention in stead of daydreaming about Lady Guinevere at school, maybe you'd be able to use a phone." Nope... It's quite simple, Richard...my brain doesn't do patterns. Gawd, I worked at The National Trust for near on 2 years, still couldn't fathom out the bloody till...same at my next place, and the one I've just left...and the one I start this week, no doubt, as it's the same 'illogical pattern' which doesn't create any pictures in my head to tell me how to do it.. If you'd paid attention at school you could have learned that all brains are NOT the same, for a reason, but of course, you wouldn't have, even if you had been paying attention,because school wants every brain to think in the same way, be filled with the same information and...of course...to be very, VERY *obedient*, which I think is your favourite word, right? Oh poo with your Chinese Lanterns, subulimey ridiculous name..I watched those lights for around 30 minutes..unless they were rocket powered lanterns which were vast and lit with a thousand candles inside...which would have made them awful heavy... Cripes it gets up me nose when folks tell me what I saw, let alone what music I should like or how I should write.. 'Obedience' ain't my thing, and that's why I'm sticking out my tongue at all those who apparently know what I saw far better than I do, even though they weren't there... So there! |
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07 Nov 10 - 06:50 PM (#3026224) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Subulimey Ridiculous Name (sic) People are fooled by these things, Lizzie - check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLgwcMxFscQ * Josepp - you're argument defeats itself: if our govt can't hide ET spacecraft (or some other sci-fi multiverse vehicles zooming along the Inca Roads) how can our govt conceal their hi-tech super-craft - and, more to the point, why? Shit, our govt can't even afford Nimrod, let alone flying saucers. No score on both counts - if these things existed, people would be seeing them in the real world, not just in the Comfort Zones of Conspiracy Island. |
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07 Nov 10 - 07:10 PM (#3026232) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 Nope, still wrong..they didn't look like that..Keep trying.. ;0) "I thought she was daydreaming about Sean Connery..." Pete Duel actually. The only man to make it into the inside of my wardrobe, where I secretly hid a newspaper cutting about him, which had his photo on...He had such a gentle face. I was so sad when he died. Oh, and The Monkees, I used to love them too, for different reasons..Happy times.. :0) |
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07 Nov 10 - 07:32 PM (#3026244) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: robomatic "gas music from Mars" Be sure to listen to the iconic Firesign Theatre: "Everything You Know Is Wrong" They said it better, they said it first And on a musical note, may I recommend Dan Bern, who solves both the purpose of aliens AND the nature of human evolution: "Aliens came, and f*cked the monkey, they f*cked the monkey!" |
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07 Nov 10 - 09:37 PM (#3026310) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp ///Josepp - you're argument defeats itself: if our govt can't hide ET spacecraft (or some other sci-fi multiverse vehicles zooming along the Inca Roads) how can our govt conceal their hi-tech super-craft - and, more to the point,//// Because they have total control over their own inventions and secrets. They don't control an outside agency with a super technology or are you going to insist that they do? It is your argument that defeats itself. ////why?\\\ Why??? Sure, let's just admit to the entire world what secret technology we have in the works. That's a great way to keep one step ahead of them. ////Shit, our govt can't even afford Nimrod, let alone flying saucers.//// Being that I watched one cavorting in the sky right outside an Air Force base for 4 hours while they did absolutely nothing about it and this was in the 60s, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you--vehemently. They build 'em, they fly 'em. ///No score on both counts - if these things existed, people would be seeing them in the real world, not just in the Comfort Zones of Conspiracy Island.//// What?? They DO see them! But like most brainwashed idiots they can't think outside the box. "Oooo, there goes ET!" Correction, there goes your tax dollars hard at work. The question is, of course, at what? I think that's a FAR more important question than Star Trek fantasies about ET and inter-dimensional nonsense. |
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08 Nov 10 - 01:41 AM (#3026415) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth No comment necessary. Don Firth |
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08 Nov 10 - 01:46 AM (#3026417) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Smokey. Wot me? Comment? |
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08 Nov 10 - 02:16 AM (#3026422) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk josepp - I do think our government has built and is flying some secret vehicles such as you allude to. So I AM capable of thinking outside that box you mentioned. However, I also think that there are genuine alien vehicles visiting, and that our government has built some of its own secret vehicles by back-engineering some of the alien technology they've recovered from crashed disabled alien vehicles recovered at Roswell and elsewhere since the late 40's...and that's where the government's new technology got its start. The government would attach the utmost importance to such a project and would do their utmost to keep it secret...or suppressed...not only because they fear the alien capabilities, but also because they wish to retain a technological edge on all the other Earth powers. And that is probably why a surprising number of other countries are spending a hell of a lot of money on independent space projects of their own. They wish to catch up to the American space technology, specially the back-engineered stuff. I have reason to believe these things, I didn't just dream it all up by myself. You are the one who can't think outside the box, because you can't admit to the possibility that we're not alone, and that other intelligent races can navigate space to here and are doing so. You are analogous to a witch doctor or a common native on some isolated Pacific island in the 1500s who insists that his little tribe on that island are the only people on the planet...or anywhere, for that matter, and are the only people who can build boats, and who refuses to believe witnesses who saw large ships with sails appear off the coast. Further, he asserts that those large ships must be just secret ships being built by someone in his own tribe! ;-) Imagine his surprise on the day the English or the Dutch finally arrive and walk up the beach to him! That's thinking in a box, josepp. It's very small thinking, that's for sure. And that is what I think you are doing. Why? Well, you already decided to, that's why. To change your mind now would mean you had been WRONG about something! And that's just unthinkable, right? Why, it could mean the destruction of your very identity!!! People might laugh at you. Even your dog could lose respect for you. Yes, I can understand why you won't budge an inch. ;-) It is indeed a VERY important question what our government is doing with its high tech stuff and why, because I consider our government far more dangerous itself than any visiting aliens who may have been here thus far. I think if the visiting aliens were dangerous, it would already be over, and we'd be a conquered race. |
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08 Nov 10 - 03:44 AM (#3026441) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Lizzie Cornish 1 Is it not just a trifle arrogant to believe that our planet is the only one with any form of life on it? I think so... And..I wonder what other 'folks' in other 'worlds' think when they see our spaceships flying across the universe? |
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08 Nov 10 - 05:11 AM (#3026473) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Here on Planet Earth we have an estimated 14 million different species of life, a mere 2 million of which having been given scientific names, and yet, saving a few absurd experiments with higher primates, we can't communicate with any of them. If life does exist on other planets, then it's a supreme anthropomorphic conceit that it will be in any way, shape or form like us... |
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08 Nov 10 - 06:00 AM (#3026492) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: The Fooles Troupe "if the visiting aliens were dangerous, it would already be over, and we'd be a conquered race" They are, and it is. They bought the media, and left Murdoch behind to keep us in control.... :-P |
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08 Nov 10 - 08:24 AM (#3026572) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Let's postulate that some alien race has discovered a scientific principle that we have yet to find (let's face it we haven't been around that long yet compared to the dinosaurs). They discover a way to travel long distances without taking any time to get where they are going. Are they going to start talking to a planetful of primitives which will mean spending ages to learn communication skills, languages etc., or are they going to go sight-seeing (whatever their version of sight-seeing is) instead? They have millions of planets to visit so they will spend time on the interesting but safe ones. They may gett round to coming back here later once they've checked that they haven't something more important to do. Perhaps they are off to save the Galaxy from collapsing into a giat black hole or something similar and are just checking us out for ideas! |
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08 Nov 10 - 08:45 AM (#3026580) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Yes, yes, but why would they be disguising their spacecraft as Chinese Lanterns? |
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08 Nov 10 - 12:07 PM (#3026779) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Nawww, the real question is "Why are the Chinese disguising their lanterns as alien vehicles?" ;-) And how the hell do you pronounce "Suibhne"? "If life does exist on other planets, then it's a supreme anthropomorphic conceit that it will be in any way, shape or form like us..." And who says that it is or that it has to be in a shape or form similar to us? If it did in some cases turn out to be similar to us, though, that could raise some very interesting questions about the evolution of life not only on this planet, but throughout the wider Universe. It could also raise interesting questions about the possible migration or controlled "seeding" of life from one planetary system to another over the last 100 million or more years...such seeding could have been done a very long time ago, and it could well be the true origin of homo sapiens on planet Earth as well as numerous other lifeforms. To merely reject that and all other possibilities which you haven't thought of yourself yet just because you haven't thought of them yourself would indicate a supreme form of conceit too, I think. Personal conceit, however, not anthropomorphic conceit. |
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08 Nov 10 - 12:19 PM (#3026791) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp ///It is indeed a VERY important question what our government is doing with its high tech stuff and why, because I consider our government far more dangerous itself than any visiting aliens who may have been here thus far. I think if the visiting aliens were dangerous, it would already be over, and we'd be a conquered race./// I agree. How long can we afford to keep looking for ET and ignore what's going on our own govt? Whatever they are up to, it can't be any good or at least we would be wise to assume so. Also I am not saying there is no life on other planets but I am saying for that life to be humanoid, our solar system has to be virtually recreated tit for tat and that is statistically out of the question. And even if it happened there would be NO CHANCE of them finding us or us finding them. Anybody who disagrees simply and grossly underestimates the size of our galaxy as well as its immense age. |
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08 Nov 10 - 12:34 PM (#3026799) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Stu "Is it not just a trifle arrogant to believe that our planet is the only one with any form of life on it? I think so..." Very true, but this observation has nothing to do with UFO's or visitations by aliens. Anyway, as I've said on other threads they're already here (a boon for the seeding theorists); have a look for these papers online: THE RED RAIN PHENOMENON OF KERALA AND ITS POSSIBLE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN Godfrey Louis and A. Santhosh Kumar Growth and replication of red rain cells at 121oC and their red fluorescence Rajkumar Gangappa1,2, Chandra Wickramasinghe2* , Milton Wainwright3 , A. Santhosh Kumar4 and Godfrey Louis4 I've posted these as clickys on a thread on ETL before but seeing as they were ignored then (obviously got in the way of a good debate) I can't be arsed to root the links out again. Here's my prediction: One day terrestrial ecosystems will be seen as subsets of much vaster solar-system or galaxy-wide ecosystems. As for life . . . there's a distinct possibility we don't recognise all forms of life on this planet; there might be lifeforms in our back gardens we don't recognise as being 'alive' in the familiar sense, but might be sentient and ancient creatures. How utterly disappointing if the aliens look anything like mankind has the wit to dream up. The reality will be far more wonderful and inspiring. |
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08 Nov 10 - 12:38 PM (#3026801) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray And how the hell do you pronounce "Suibhne"? Sweeney. And who says that it is or that it has to be in a shape or form similar to us? What I mean is given to language, culture and technology. Of the millions of species we know of, we're the only ones who do that. Otherwise - I'm way too much of a sci-fi fan to believe in any of this stuff; Quatermass and the Pit makes for a fine film, but not be taken seriously, or religiously, as some people do. It's all there in the sci-fi canon - ad infinitum - but if there is life out there, I'm guessing it'll be more Alien than Star Trek, though I did enjoy District 9. |
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08 Nov 10 - 12:49 PM (#3026809) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Jack the Sailor Show it to me on CNN. If there was any real evidence at all, Anderson Cooper's tight black tee shirt would be there. |
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08 Nov 10 - 01:07 PM (#3026825) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: VirginiaTam animal or alien? |
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08 Nov 10 - 01:20 PM (#3026834) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk "One day terrestrial ecosystems will be seen as subsets of much vaster solar-system or galaxy-wide ecosystems." Yes, that's what I would expect to happen too. Just as people on this planet once had only a very local focus...like the Native on the island who thinks there are no other people out there beyond his island...the picture has kept broadening all through our cultural history. We've found myriad new forms of life on this planet which most people once knew nothing about. I expect we will also find myriad new forms of life in space once we become adept at traveling in space. It's all out there waiting for us. We just have to go and look. Some of those forms of life will probably be more advanced than we are. If so, some of them have probably come here from time to time, both in the remote past and maybe right now. How long they would stay or what they would do would depend on how much importance they place upon us. It may not be much. We're also very dangerous people with all our weapons and our divided political paranoia. This would, I think, make alien lifeforms quite careful when and if they visited our planet. God knows, I'd be careful if I was an alien visiting here! ;-) |
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08 Nov 10 - 02:43 PM (#3026917) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Thanks for that, VT - cheered me up no end! |
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08 Nov 10 - 03:16 PM (#3026954) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth ". . . for that life to be humanoid, our solar system has to be virtually recreated tit for tat and that is statistically out of the question." Absolutely untrue. The opposite, in fact. Check out the Drake Equation. I linked to it above, but here it is again, There are all kinds of different ways that life can develop (see some of the more bizarre species here on earth). But such things as bilateral symmetry, four limbs, binocular vision, and binaural hearing have immense survival advantages. It is not at all unlikely that a fairly advanced (meaning it has survived awhile and evolved over many generations) would have a basic physiological structure similar to our own. This is not science fiction, it is not my own whim, and it is not "pie in the sky." It's the opinion of a substantial number of exobiologists. Don Firth |
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08 Nov 10 - 03:45 PM (#3026979) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray It is not at all unlikely that a fairly advanced (meaning it has survived awhile and evolved over many generations) would have a basic physiological structure similar to our own. They might be physiologically identical but they still wouldn't be human. The anythropomorphic conceit here (essential to sci-fi) is to assume that all we'd have to do to be able to talk to them is translate our respective languages. Otherwise, that equation, like SETI itself, is the stuff of fantasy. |
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08 Nov 10 - 05:42 PM (#3027092) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: josepp Michael Shermer makes pretty short work of the Drake Equation. I'll leave it you to look it up. |
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08 Nov 10 - 06:24 PM (#3027130) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth Communication would be a major problem, even if an advanced, intelligent, alien (extraterrestrial) species did appear quite humanoid. I recall reading French undersea explorer and researcher Jacques Cousteau (in his first book, The Silent World, back in the early 1950s) how they took note of the porpoises escorting and cavorting around the prow of the ship and knowing that there had been very little work done on porpoises, including their physiology, they killed on and brought it aboard for dissection and research. Interesting to note that all the other porpoises backed way off from the ship and generally disappeared for a number of weeks, probably the whole pod, to be replaced weeks later by another one. Anyway, the dissection proved downright unsettling. Cousteau wrote that the internal organs looked almost identical to those of a human. The brain was practically indistinguishable—same size, convolutions, and all! And the lungs, apart from the trachea, which didn't merge with the esophagus, but emerged from the back of what would have been the neck, also looked indistinguishable from human lungs (remembering, of course, that a porpoise is an air-breather). This proved sufficiently disturbing that Cousteau vowed never to kill another porpoise. But many experiments have been conducted with porpoises involving various tests to check their intelligence. And this has proven to be a bit uncanny. Sometimes the porpoise's solution to the problem presented was different from what the researcher expected and proved to be downright ingenious. A whole different approach to solving the same problem. Carl Sagan describes how they had separated male and female porpoises into two different pools (connected) because they seemed to be a bit slow, listless, and lazy during a day's experiments. Someone in the lab noticed that the males and females were "honeymooning" a lot when they thought the humans were around, so they were separated. And someone was assigned to keep a surreptitious eye on them. A couple of nights after the separation, the porpoises had figured out how to open the latch between tanks! Then, after their nights "sport and play," they separated and re-latched the gate!! Dumb animals? I don't think so!! The big problem is that we know they are highly intelligent, but we don't know how highly intelligent. And we haven't been able actually communicate with them, nor figure out a way in which we can! Part of it is the porpoises' vocalizations are all squeaks and whistles, and as far as we can tell (??) are primarily used like sonar for underwater navigation purposes. Whether or not they communicate with each other this way, we don't know. They do seem to communicate, but we haven't been able to figure out how! And what they may make of human speech, if they can even perceive it, we don't know. So—when and if we ever encounter an intelligent alien species, either on their world (which may be a little time yet) ore our own (could be already, could be never), assuming it's a meeting in which the major theme is mutual curiosity, boning up ahead of time by picking up a set of Marc Okrand's "Conversational Klingon" language tapes probably isn't going to help much. Do I think this kind of encounter will ever happen? (If not already?). I don't know. And neither do you! Don Firth |
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08 Nov 10 - 06:30 PM (#3027135) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Little Hawk Heh! And on it goes.... Well, when you've all succeeded in proving once and for all that you are right and the other guy is wrong, send me a note, okay? I'll send you each a gold sticker and a piece of bubble gum. |
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08 Nov 10 - 06:54 PM (#3027148) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth I'm familiar with Michael Shermer—a professional skeptic. In fact, editor of "Skeptic Magazine." Neither he, nor all the other skeptics combined, have been able to make "short work" of the possibility--if not probability--of intelligent extraterrestrial species. Considering the wide latitude that Frank Drake built into the equation, estimating everything on the very, very low likelihood of something favorable to the existence of alien civilizations being the case. Yet, he comes up with a pretty impressive number. I don't have the time to educate you now, but you might try to learn something about such things as how common stars like our sun are throughout the universe (main sequence, G spectral class) and how common planetary systems are orbiting such stars. And not just main sequence stars. Many factors that astrobiologist are taking into consideration. Learn. Do the math. Don Firth |
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08 Nov 10 - 06:55 PM (#3027150) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth C'mon, Little Hawk! Get off that bus. Don Firth |
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09 Nov 10 - 04:48 AM (#3027381) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Stu "But such things as bilateral symmetry, four limbs, binocular vision, and binaural hearing have immense survival advantages." That's tetrapod-centric bunkum I'm afraid. The vast majority of living beings on the planet have no limbs at all and many of the rest far more than four, any number of eyes that have developed into several variations on the theme and vision suited to their particular lifestyle - binocular vision is no use to a mantis shrimp or a fly. "And we haven't been able actually communicate with them, nor figure out a way in which we can!" That's down to us, not them. We can communicate with captive cetaceans and do so readily (they even use iPads for the task) but are still no nearer to identifying a language apart from identification whistles (itself a contentious issue, see following link), and as the authors of this paper observe, "Human observers do not represent an unbiased filter through which one can classify the vocalizations of nonhuman animal species." That quote could equally apply to the whole 'what is alien life like?' debate, as we are so fond of creating aliens in our image as humanoid beings - it's difficult to bypass our "unbiased filter". In fact, to fully understand the remoteness of aliens being like us you have to look back at the development of life on earth, and the dominating role that chance plays in that process; our own evolution is massively unlikely, if you could rewind time to before the Cambrian explosion and press play again the outcome would be vastly different. Do it a thousand times and you'll have a thousand different outcomes, a million and you'll have a million etc etc. Apply that to the millions of planets that could support life and . . . phew! Almost unimaginable diversity. Apply that to the myriad of ways that life as we know it and life as we don't could evolve and the Drake equation begins to look a tad shaky; the variables are impossible to guess. In truth, the value of the Drake equation is in the questions it forces the observer to ask, rather than the number it generates. Loved the link VT! |
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09 Nov 10 - 06:11 AM (#3027435) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Allan C. Summer, 1967, Great Falls, Montana -- I was in the Air Force. A few of us were lounging in the barracks when we received a call from one of the "scope dopes", (radar technicians,) in the blockhouse that they had been seeing strange things on the screens. The radar was picking up what registered as unknown aircraft that sometimes traveled at speeds of 300 mph. The aircrafts, and there were at least three, as I recall, were said to make 90 degree turns from time to time at speed. Some of them had dropped below the radar. The scope dope asked if we could take a look outside to see if we could locate anything in the western sky. We did as requested, five or six of us, but didn't spot anything moving. Then we fixed our gazes on a seemingly stationary, white light that appeared to hover just above the horizon. We stared at this light for quite awhile. If it moved at all, it was all but imperceptibly. I remember one of the guys turning to me and asking me if I thought it was a UFO. I asked him if he knew what it was. He said, "No." I said I didn't know what it was either. "Therefore," I said, "it is a UFO!" |
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09 Nov 10 - 06:44 AM (#3027463) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Stu Alan - I posted this in a previous UFO thread: 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 in Montana 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. |
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09 Nov 10 - 08:12 AM (#3027503) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler I remember reading that in the fossil record before one of the major extinctions there were many animals that had a greater variety of number of limbs then occurred afterwards. So four limbs could well just be a lucky configuration. |
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09 Nov 10 - 04:46 PM (#3027880) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth Don't argue with me, Sugarfoot, argue with astrobiologists. That's where I got most of what I wrote above. Animals of any size at all tend toward four limbs. This applies to land animals, although the same thing tends to apply to aquatic ones. Count functioning fins on fish, cetaceans, et al. Squid and octopi are also bilaterally symmetrical, as are most microbiological creatures larger than a few cells, even thought they are not skeletal. A skeleton (support frame) is pretty essential to a land animal over a given size. More limbs than four tend to get in the way. But this may very well be subject to variation. Astrobiologists (exobiologists) are pretty much in agreement that, given conditions essentially analogous to those on earth (what we would consider a "Goldilocks planet" which is not too cold and not to hot, but 'just right'"—i.e., where liquid water can exist). From New Scientist by Stephen Battersby What might extraterrestrial life look like?A briefly stated view of the vast majority of scientists in the field. And this is a field in which almost all scientific disciplines are represented. The general consensus is that scientific laws are universal. Two plus two equals four, whether you are on Earth, Mars, the second planet orbiting the largest star in the trinary group Alpha Centauri, on some planet orbiting a star in the Andromeda galaxy, or some planet orbiting a star in a galaxy so far away that even the Hubble telescope can't detect it. Two plus two still equals four. Don Firth |
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10 Nov 10 - 04:49 AM (#3028158) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Stu Well, if that's what astrobiologists say they might do better to talk to palaeontologists who have some insight into the mechanics of life. "Animals of any size at all tend toward four limbs." No, vertebrates do because they are all descended from a common ancestor (a creature similar to Pikia that had four legs. To see how things might have been it's worth reading up on The Burgess Shale, we could both be sitting here typing with our five eyes and weirdly segmented bodies and lots of legs ;-) This applies to land animals, although the same thing tends to apply to aquatic ones. For the reason quoted above - we are all descended from a common ancestor (although interestingly the number of digits at the end of those limbs was variable in the early stages of tetrapod development). This excludes the millions of insect species too who are supremely adapted to terrestrial life. Bilateral symmetry is a major feature of animal life but it's not universal. Sponges are asymmetrical and many animals such as cnidarians display radial symmetry. As for the upper size limit of an exoskeleton, certainly in terrestrial and aquatic arthropods there have been bigger forms than now although I'm not sure of the reasons offhand (raised O2 levels might be involved?). As for the Battersby quote, I quite agree. See the papers I suggested people look up in my earlier post regarding possible extraterrestrial cellular life exhibiting some interesting characteristics and it's always worth Googling alh84001 . . . "The general consensus is that scientific laws are universal Two plus two still equals four." Absolutely, but that doesn't mean there is one path that all life must follow. There are endless chemical, environmental, physical variables that means chance plays a massive role in evolution. Of course aliens may exhibit convergent evolution with any number of Earth lifeforms, but chances are even they will exhibit some interesting and undreamt of variations. I might be a bit crap at getting my point over. It's worth picking this book up to better understand the roles of chance and biological contingency in evolution - plus it's a fascinating read and everything in it applies equally to alien life as it does Earthbound: Wonderful Life: Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould. |
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10 Nov 10 - 07:06 AM (#3028198) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Stu Actually, Pikia had no legs, but one of it's descendants dis - oops! Don - I got to thinking about this after I posted; palaeontologists and zoologists often enjoy speculation about how evolution might have played out if the variables had been different; check out these speculative zoology blogs: Metazoica Speculative Dinosaur Project - scroll down to see the excellent sketches on how penguins (extant dinosaurs of course) might have developed. |
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10 Nov 10 - 03:40 PM (#3028605) Subject: RE: BS: The Mysterious Flying Buildings From: Don Firth "Well, if that's what astrobiologists say they might do better to talk to palaeontologists who have some insight into the mechanics of life." They have, Sugarfoot. As I have said a number of times here, the field of astrobiology includes all scientific disciplines (including paleontology), and they all have an input into any new theory that someone comes up with. The folks involved in this field are anything but lightweights. Don't underestimate them. This is a serious field of study. I'm not trying to claim that bilateral symmetry, four limbs, skeletal structure, two eyes, two ears, etc., is the only possible model for intelligent aliens. What I am saying is a response to someone up-thread trying to claim that there are no intelligent extraterrestrials, and even if the impossible were to occur, they would not look even remotely humanoid. This is not what exobiologists/astrobiologists maintain. They don't say that this is the only possible model by any means, but the idea that no alien species would ever appear humanoid is something they reject, along with the idea that alien species would all look like they came from Central Casting and were equipped by the make-up department with pointy ears or a turtle shell on their foreheads. It's hard to imagine a sponge-like creature affixed to a rock at the bottom on an ocean and surviving on passing plankton needing to evolve much in the way of intelligence. I've spent a lot of time at various beaches, but I've never had a clam emerge from the sand and say, "Take me to your leader!" To evolve intelligence (fundamentally, a survival mechanism), a creature needs to be, among other things, mobile—and challenged in some way, so that the fittest of the species (those which survive whatever the challenge is) go on to breed even more intelligent members of the species. Basic. Whether on Earth or on a planet at the edge of the visible universe. Don Firth P. S. By the way, do not make the mistake of underestimating the speculations of some science fiction writers. Many of the best are solidly grounded scientists. Arthur C. Clarke (in non-fiction articles) has hypothesized a number of different models for intelligent aliens, from very exotic on non-earthlike planets to very humanoid (but quite different) on terrestrial planets. Orson Scott Card is also a rather ingenious (but solidly science-based) inventor of alien species. It's possible to hypothesize a humanoid appearing species which is very un-humanoid in its other aspects. Rationally, one cannot rule out anything that is not outright scientifically impossible. And the fact that WE exist PROVES that humanoid is a viable form on planets with earthlike or near-earthlike characteristics. The future may hold some amazing surprises. Or not. |
