OT: Could 2020 bring aliens next?
Obviously 2020 has been a wild year. As if things couldn't get any weirder it looks like we may be in for some major news regarding UFOs...
It started back earlier this spring when the Navy officially confirmed that the following 3 videos were real, captured by military personnel from 2004-2015 off the east and west coasts of the US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxVRg7LLaQA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY
It's pretty interesting to hear the genuine reactions of the pilots in these videos. These objects are purportedly performing maneuvers well beyond the capabilities of our current technology. It's been proposed that this could be advanced tech from another country like Russia or China, but experts have expressed doubts that either of these countries could have leapfrogged the rest of the world so drastically. In addition, Russia and China are both studying the phenomenon behind closed doors as well.
The next bit of news came several weeks back when the New York Times broke the news that the Pentagon has not only been studying UFOs under a team called the "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force" but will actually begin making some of their findings public.
Here is a link to the Department of Defense announcement: https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/
And finally, a CNN news segment where they interview a former defense official on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTdCDfEu6x0
Is it aliens? *shrug* maybe. Either way the US government has documented objects crossing into restricted airspace and that's definitely cause for concern as a matter of national security.
August 27th, 2020 at 10:14 AM ^
Ancient Astronaut Theorist Say Yes!
August 27th, 2020 at 10:17 AM ^
I have no doubt that there is life to be found somewhere other than Earth in our galaxy. Don't think we'll ever find it in the next few hundred years, but it's there. I'll be very surprised if Mars Rover doesn't find something that proves life once existed on Mars, actually. I wouldn't be surprised, either, if there is a civilization so far more advanced than us that they can send ships here to watch us. Our home is ~4.5B years old, and we've had several extinction events from which we largely had to start over. No doubt there are older planets, and who knows how their extinction events played out, or if they even had any?
What I also don't doubt is the foolishness of our global response should we be confronted by such aliens. The religious among us would be apoplectic. The military minded would argue for immediate use of nukes, and whatever other weapons we can muster. General panic would cripple most people, most communities, most autonomous states.
We would simply have to hope that our new galactic overlords would be a peaceful state. Like the Federation...
August 27th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
I have no doubt that there is life to be found somewhere other than Earth in our galaxy. Don't think we'll ever find it in the next few hundred years, but it's there.
Might be as close as Europa, if the saltwater mantle theory is true.
August 27th, 2020 at 10:41 AM ^
Wish we had the funds to build something that could check it out...
August 27th, 2020 at 1:45 PM ^
Nah...
"The religious among us would be apoplectic."
The aliens are potential converts. Never underestimate the evangelists. Sure, one may walk up to the spacecraft reciting Psalm 23:4 and get vaporized by a Martian Heat Ray the aleins picked up on the way to earth, but evangelists will try over and over to bring the Word to the aliens.
"The military minded would argue for immediate use of nukes, and whatever other weapons we can muster."
Maybe a Hollywood actor playing a general would advocate that. Rod Steiger comes to mind, but nobody is going to want to nuke the aliens unless the aliens shoot first, given they would be so far advanced technologically.
"General panic would cripple most people, most communities, most autonomous states."e
We've been conditioned with sci-fi literature, movies and TV series for over a hundred years (literature over 100 years). Some may worry that we'll be lunch, but if the aliens are peaceful in approach, most will be fine with finding out we are not alone.
All that said, I doubt we've had any official contact with any aliens, otherwise the President would have already told us he met them, he's good friends with their leader now and he's working out a trade deal this very moment.
August 27th, 2020 at 11:22 AM ^
In his album "Reality ... What a Concept," Robin Williams did a great bit, playing an old man who survived an alien invasion and describing them this way:
"They weren't the little suckers we thought they were. They turned out to be eight feet tall and Black and they were pissed."
August 27th, 2020 at 12:24 PM ^
Aliens are a hoax. It's just one being coming from Altair IV. We have it totally under control. Low ratings fake news are trying to make the alien situation look as bad as possible including panicking markets. One day the aliens will just disappear.
August 27th, 2020 at 12:50 PM ^
Do all the best people say they will disappear? Because that will make a difference. If the 'wrong' people say it, it doesn't matter...
August 27th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
2020 brought us "Jack Wagon". I can't handle anything else.
August 27th, 2020 at 1:12 PM ^
After reading some Hawking and Einstein, the possibility of being physically contacted by (or within a close proximity to) an alien/UFO is slim to none. If we assume that the rest of the universe is bound by the same laws of physics, there is no practical way to reach each other all over the universe. I mean, the closet galaxy to ours is about 25k light years away!
Unless we break a rule or law of physics where we can move faster than the speed of light, all life forms across the universe are more or less stuck where they are, with little ability to contact each other in any meaningful way.
[insert Debbie Downer gif]
August 27th, 2020 at 1:49 PM ^
Here she is...
August 27th, 2020 at 2:19 PM ^
Thanks RGard. Much needed...
August 27th, 2020 at 6:58 PM ^
My pleasure.
August 27th, 2020 at 1:50 PM ^
Oh yeah? Well, explain Warp speed then, Mr Smarty Pants!
Nonetheless, given that Relativity is real - and it is, because it's been proven many times, we must admit that we still don't understand dark matter and/or dark energy (along with a host of other phonomena). Perhaps, in our lack of understanding, there is a way to travel faster than light? It is possible that ET could have developed the sciences enough to discover this holy grail of space travel. Indeed, it could be Alf flying the UAP's in the three suspect videos.
August 27th, 2020 at 2:24 PM ^
Good point. When I read Brief History of Time by Hawking he called out the concept of dark matter that was interesting, but unproven.
The point is, if we can figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, it would break so many laws of physics that it would cause a small existential crises in the science space. Hawking would be considered a quack!
August 27th, 2020 at 3:07 PM ^
We know very little about quantum mechanics, and what we do know does not fit neatly into the Standard Theory. We have some work to do, so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that FTL travel does not break physical laws.
I'll expect that, given such a breakthrough, both Hawkings and Einstein would be glad to be known as 'fundamentally wrong' in hindsight. I'd think they'd revel in the new knowledge!
Scientists are weird...
August 27th, 2020 at 3:15 PM ^
You're right. There's so much to learn from QM. As a example, I'm looking forward to what quantum computing can bring us.
But even considering what we know, not just in QM, but in other sciences, any particle (not just a human) going faster than the speed of light would invalidate so much science out there, the reaction could be horrible. For example, per the Heisenberg uncertainity principle, if you can prove a particle can go faster than the speed of light, then the you can force the particle into a region smaller than it's Compton wavelength, which is impossible (by today's standards).
The question I always ask about these topics: is it truly a benefit for the human race to come in contact with an alien/ET race?
August 27th, 2020 at 1:31 PM ^
There's a reason why your government is suddenly giving credence to all these UFO claims.
August 27th, 2020 at 1:40 PM ^
It's not Russia meddling in the elections, it's the UFO's, right?!?!
August 27th, 2020 at 2:30 PM ^
If you are interested in this type of thing, here's something else to chew on. While not directly tied to the items in the OP, a Harvard astronomer has written a book making the argument that aliens visited our solar system:
"In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization"
Book will be released in January 2021.
August 27th, 2020 at 3:14 PM ^
Yeah, that guy is a quack. It was a rock...
August 27th, 2020 at 4:44 PM ^
The aliens are disguising themselves as aerosolized fecal plumes.
August 27th, 2020 at 6:20 PM ^
Uh everything we know about the universe is just theory. All the geniuses could be wrong. We are still finding new planets in our own solar system for god sakes. We are in the milky galaxy. Galaxies have millions of solar systems. It's thought there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe. What's 100 billion times a million? Many old theories have been shit canned the more powerful our technology gets. So Einstein and Hawking are not infallable. It was thought the universe had no end, even that may be in jeopardy it seems.
The odds say there is other life forms in the universe. Whether they can travel billions of light years before expiring is a whole other question. It may not be possible to travel faster than light. That's just one problem of space travel. Another, space debris. They say a pebble travelling 20k mph in space has the energy of a small nuclear bomb. How do you avoid space debris traveling the speed of light?
August 27th, 2020 at 11:00 PM ^
I am in the theory of "Aliens" only visit to check on us. We will not know about or be contacted by such entities until we are technologically worthy. I believe it's called the Zoo theory(could be wrong)?
My other opinion is, these aliens are actually us in the future, coming back for specifics. Quantum computing and AI, will have a huge impact in this. And once we have a great AI, we will no longer be having the great ideas, the AI will do that for us essentially.