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UFOs & Aliens

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Do aliens and UFOs exist? (Two choices which you can change.)

Aliens do exist (over 70% sure). (UFOs are manned and are not just robotic drones.)
3
18%
Aliens don't exist.
4
24%
I'm not sure about aliens.
1
6%
UFOs are alien-made (over 90% sure).
4
24%
UFOs are man-made.
3
18%
I'm not sure about UFOs.
2
12%
 
Total votes: 17

Fossil
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Fossil »

To be realistic for a moment, for a brief period of time twice recently I really hoped that I really might witness something really rare but interesting in the night sky:

first, a supernova, if Betelgeuse the red giant in Orion actually was about to explode at the end of its life, because it had dimmed significantly and genuinely in the last months of 2019. But perhaps not after all, because the dimming might just have been due to the expulsion of a cloud of gas and dust in our direction. So the best guess for that wondrous event, far enough distant not to be likely to sterilise this planet but close enough to provide an amazing light show, has gone back to "sometime within the next 100,000 years"; gee, thanks for that.

second, another naked eye comet. How many of these have you seen in your lifetime? Fingers of one hand territory. A promising one, Atlas, has just disintegrated and so will not appear in the north-western sky above the horizon after sunset for the next few weeks. Thanks again.

I remain hopeful that the western sky will remain clear of cloud after sunset towards the end of May, enough to grant me a brief view of Mercury next to Venus, for perhaps only the first time in my life, please?

Talking of supernovae, when you think of the age of the universe, approx 13.8 billion years; and the time required for second and later generation stars to create significant amounts of heavy elements, "quite a few billion years" perhaps; and considering also the time required for complex life to have evolved in this part of the Milky Way Galaxy using those heavy elements, the age of the solar system, approx 4.5 billion years; then weigh in all the chances against the same process occurring lots of times everywhere in far distant galaxy clusters, not just due to extinction by nearby supernovae, and you begin to realise that it may just be possible that we are the first "intelligent" life to have evolved, anywhere.

In other words we may well be alone. Enjoy it while you can.

Cheers

Fossil

Brian-H
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Brian-H »

In our galaxy, the number depends on the values you assign to R∗ , fp , ne , fl , fi , fc , L in the Drake equation

N = R∗ x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space


The range of results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equ ... of_results is between 1 and 15,600,000


And that is only for our galaxy, so doesn't include other galaxies.

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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by John-B »

Fossil wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 2:10 pm
Talking of supernovae, when you think of the age of the universe, approx 13.8 billion years; and the time required for second and later generation stars to create significant amounts of heavy elements, "quite a few billion years" perhaps; and considering also the time required for complex life to have evolved in this part of the Milky Way Galaxy using those heavy elements, the age of the solar system, approx 4.5 billion years; then weigh in all the chances against the same process occurring lots of times everywhere in far distant galaxy clusters, not just due to extinction by nearby supernovae, and you begin to realise that it may just be possible that we are the first "intelligent" life to have evolved, anywhere.

In other words we may well be alone. Enjoy it while you can.

Cheers

Fossil
Another factor against the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere is that there have been five mass extinctions on Earth so far, and in all of those phases there were plenty of large animals, birds and fishes but life only advanced to the point of finding food and shelter and reproducing. There was no need to advance any further. No phase except our's progressed to thinking about other things. Something caused our brains to become more intelligent.

Brian-H
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Brian-H »

fi in the Drake equation takes that into account

There's also no reason that apes (then humans) wouldn't have evolved anyway, with or without extinction events. Indeed it could be arugued either way, whether extinction events slowed or accelerated the result of humans.

What makes humans unique, is not brain type or brain size, but the opposing thumb and forefinger. It was that evolutionary ability that enabled us to develop tools and weapons (to kill animals originally), and then to settle down and grow crops. The latter (wheat in particular) enabled us to use carbohydrates as prime food source, which are best at feeding the brain.

Vortex O'Plinth
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Vortex O'Plinth »

Brian-H wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 2:40 pm
.....What makes humans unique, is not brain type or brain size, but the opposing thumb and forefinger......
Not exactly unique - there are 232 other species of primate and they all have not only opposable thumbs but opposable 'toes' as well!
Nick

"Don't bother with the Air & Space Museum - there's nothing to see.......".

Brian-H
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Brian-H »

Vortex O'Plinth wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 4:08 pm
Brian-H wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 2:40 pm fi in the Drake equation takes that into account

.....What makes humans unique, is not brain type or brain size, but the opposing thumb and forefinger......
Not exactly unique - there are 232 other species of primate and they all have not only opposable thumbs but opposable 'toes' as well!
"Primatologists and hand research pioneers John and Prudence Napier defined opposition as: "A movement by which the pulp surface of the thumb is placed squarely in contact with – or diametrically opposite to – the terminal pads of one or all of the remaining digits." For this true, pulp-to-pulp opposition to be possible, the thumb must rotate about its long axis (at the carpometacarpal joint). Arguably, this definition was chosen to underline what is unique to the human thumb." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb

There are many primates, and in fact other creatures, that have pseudo-opposable thumbs but their dexterity is not as fine as our hands enable us to be. This came about when our distant ancestors started to walk upright on the hind legs, thus enabling the hand to evolve to be able to make things that no other animal can do. Whilst this was a dangerous step in evolution (pardon the pun) it eventually paid off, big time.

So in the Drake equation, fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations) is the part that represents a species that develops a civilisation , and arguably something like our human hand is vital.

Fossil
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Fossil »

Just to add a further note to this discussion, the topic of the liklihood of intelligent life having evolved elsewhere in the universe was part of the discussion on a recent episode of BBC Radio 4's "The Infinite Monkey Cage" with Brian Cox (not the Scottish actor, the other Brian Cox) and Robin Ince. I'm only an occasional listener to this, but to my surprise the opinion of one of the contributors to the discussion was the conclusion that the chances of all the lucky breaks that contributed to the evolution life on the earth occurring anywhere else among a total of approximately a billion trillion stars was so unlikely that we might indeed be alone. So we should stop arguing on social media immediately.

An example of one of the most important chances is the extraordinary stability of the sun's activity for over 4.5 billion years, considered to be extremely unlikely in the middle stages of a yellow dwarf star's life, our sun having existed for about half its pobable lifetime so far. There are many, many more such unlikely chances.

You may not consider this a serious contribution to the discussion, but it may be interesting listening as it was for me while driving home; you can hear it on the BBC Radio website, look up the Infinite Monkey Cage series 22, the episode entitled 'The Sun'.

Very interesting!

Regards

Fossil

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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Petelang »

I do wonder, given what we see in the daily news and particularly of late in relation to Covid 19 spikes in various towns, do we really consider the human species to be "intelligent life"?
Peter
Peter Langridge
Cloud Nine Classic Weddings, Nottingham.

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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by John-B »

A lot of events that are ascribed to aliens are just events by humans who were a lot more intelligent and adventurous than we thought. Recently I saw a programme which showed videos of Egyptian hieroglyphs on a mountain in Australia which are over 4000 years old, and a boomerang in an Egyptian tomb.

Similarly, there was a picture of Sumerian text on a rock in South America over 4000 years old when the local people had no written language.

Since early humans spread out from Africa across Persia, China, North Russia, Bering Straits, West America to South America there must have been trading routes both ways over the next 70,000 years - plenty of time for ideas to filter around the world. Also by going across India, down via Indonesia to Australia, or just by sailing the oceans.

I would like to believe in aliens, but I think most modern events are just American special black ops. They must have been experimenting with nuclear powered anti-gravity electro-magnetic craft in 1950s which were dangerous and too expensive to bring into general use. Several members of the public got severe radiation burns watching a strange craft that hovered over the road in front of their car. Other flying saucers were closely escorted by unmarked black helicopters which indicates American experimental craft.

How did ancient Egyptians know about helicopters, tanks, planes and submarines as shown below?
Egyption-Aircraft-Heiroglyphs.jpg

Brian-H
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Re: UFOs & Aliens

Post by Brian-H »

Fossil wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:59 pm You may not consider this a serious contribution to the discussion, but it may be interesting listening as it was for me while driving home; you can hear it on the BBC Radio website, look up the Infinite Monkey Cage series 22, the episode entitled 'The Sun'.
It's very relevant. I'll try to remember to listen to that over the weekend https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr ... des/player
But from my point of view, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with an estimated visible diameter between 170,000 and 200,000 light-years , estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars. Thus nobody can say that our star (the sun) is unique in our galaxy (the Milky Way).

Petelang wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:48 pm I do wonder, given what we see in the daily news and particularly of late in relation to Covid 19 spikes in various towns, do we really consider the human species to be "intelligent life"?
Peter
Plus the dreadful way that our species treats this planet in general anyway. I've got quite a bit to add but too busy at the moment. Suffice to say that the Doomsday Argument suggests that the human species is half-way through its lifetime, so will start to decline soon and be almost extinct in about 10,000 years from now.

John-B wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:01 am Several members of the public got severe radiation burns watching a strange craft that hovered over the road in front of their car. Other flying saucers were closely escorted by unmarked black helicopters which indicates American experimental craft.
That'll be the Cash-Landrum incident, debunked in 2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-Land ... stigations

In December 2018, Brian Dunning investigated the case and reported his findings on the Skeptoid podcast. He found that Cash's doctor's notes attribute her hair loss to the autoimmune disease alopecia areata, that her other symptoms could be caused by illness that started before the incident, and that Landrum's only documented illness is developing cataract in one eye.

Dunning concludes: In my experience, it's completely plausible that Cash and Landrum wrongly, but honestly, placed the blame for their health problems onto whatever they saw; and even pushed the truth a bit trying to get the Air Force to pay for it. When you believe in your heart that the Air Force did something wrong that harmed you, you don't necessarily feel that it's wrong to exaggerate evidence — like seeing the words Air Force on the side of the helicopters, adding on symptoms to people who didn't have them, even faking sunburn spots on your arm — as long as it's in pursuit of what you believe to be a just settlement


John-B wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:01 am
How did ancient Egyptians know about helicopters, tanks, planes and submarines as shown below?
They didn't. The quote below is from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_hieroglyphs

The "helicopter" image is the result of carved stone being re-used over time. The initial carving was made during the reign of Seti I and translates to "He who repulses the nine [enemies of Egypt]". This carving was later filled in with plaster and re-carved during the reign of Ramesses II with the title "He who protects Egypt and overthrows the foreign countries". Over time, the plaster has eroded away, leaving both inscriptions partially visible and creating a palimpsest-like effect of overlapping hieroglyphs.

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