Aliens

[AZPops]

Over the past few years I've seen a few enter our atmosphere! I've watched a light/s traveling acoss our sky, then for no apparent reason, disappear!

My dogs, who do not bark for no reason. Would look at a spot in the sky, then viciously bark! When that happens, I can't help but wonder what they're seeing.

There are times, I find myself on a different area of a project from where I was standing previously. My dog/s would look at me like where've you been?

I just wish one of them would give me the numbers to the lotto. You know, for my time! It's the least they can do!

[eh4]

It's funny that claiming to have seen 'ufos' can trash you in public opinion and yet anyone who spends some time watching the sky away from city light pollution is going to see some things that they can't honestly identify.

There's the general evolution of an idea of any controversy; first its ignored, then its ridiculed, then its violently opposed, and finally accepted as common knowledge. -We see that throughout human' and other social animal's behavior.

[hoffmyster86]

very good point that, everyone is very quick to dismis anything and everything, i suspect its part of the too many rats in a small space syndrome, they have to belittle everyone else in some vane hope that at least someone will beleive theyre bigguh dan you lol..

regaurding the UFO, well, tecnically if you cant exsplain it then its 'u' for unexsplained.. f.. o.. flying object, so in a sence its taking the mick out of the aspersion casters with their own spin. (hmm last laugh maybe?)

i've seen a few weird things over the years, i dare say all were exsplained sooner or later, if they do arrive, brill..lol a new series will brake out lol. it'll certainly change the game a bit, then maybe the big boss's up there in untouchable land will realise that yes theyre only one person lol..

that or the lizard leaders tale is true and theyve already landed hehehe, tbh, most people just need the idia put in their head at the right time and one way or the other they'll see the lizard lol.(usualy the asperive casters from the couch sette's.)

at the end of the day i can see the sinario where the aliens landed, put on a good show, they even brought a nintendo and a new app for the fone, but the ones they met couldnt handle what they were seeing, so shouted belittling abuse at the idiots wearing a costume untill they went away..probably thinking ''is my fly open?''

[StarHalo]

Recently had a digital phone line installed (a land line that actually goes through the internet connection), it has its own router which sits in the bedroom, which I've found throws off quite a bit of RF noise that isn't pleasant for AM radio listening; since there's no wireless interface on this router, it should be a pretty simple operation to build a Faraday cage for it, some basic aluminum screen from the hardware store stapled to a simple wood frame from the craft store, then ground it through a third-prong. So I go over to YouTube to get some pointers on building RF shielding, and here are some sample comments from the videos on the subject:

"i have been experiencing this harassment since the 90's... if you google on synthetic telepathy and mind control, you will understand how it's being done and it's purposes."


"OMG thank you, this is exactly what i was looking for. I unplug my router at night because i can't sleep but i got 23 other WiFi signals coming through my bedroom walls. I was gonna buy the shielding paint but it's still way too pricey."


"Update: Another 5 months have passed, and I remain free of heart arrhythmias, being free of WiFi in my house."

[eh4]

woah, people will say anything but those quotes do give me pause for a min.

[Wrend]

My new WLAN router and Nexus 7 seem to interfere pretty often with my wireless keyboard and mouse... Of course I did set it up to use the maximum amount of bandwidth/channels.

[H-Man]

I laugh at the RFphobics when it is claimed that non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation is significantly dangerous while the person eats a banana. The banana is more radioactive then the cellphone.

[StarHalo]

True story, bro; An article in The Atlantic:

Tin Foil Hats Actually Make it Easier for the Government to Track Your Thoughts

"In 2005, a group of MIT students, prodded by "a desire to play with some expensive equipment," tested the effectiveness of foil helmets at blocking various radio frequencies. Using two layers of Reynolds aluminum foil, they constructed three helmet designs, dubbed the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion, and then looked at the strength of the transmissions between a radio-frequency signal generator and a receiver antenna placed on various parts of their subjects' bare and helmet-covered heads.

The helmets shielded their wearers from radio waves over most of the tested spectrum (YouTube user Mrfixitrick likewise demonstrates the blocking power of his foil toque against his wireless modem) but, surprisingly, amplified certain frequencies: those in the 2.6 Ghz ( allocated for mobile communications and broadcast satellites) and 1.2 Ghz (allocated for aeronautical radionavigation and space-to-Earth and space-to-space satellites) bands."

[EZO]

Rebuttal to the MIT Tin Foil Hat study

Build one for your self and test it out! It's the only way to really know!

Please note: "It can't be stressed enough how important it is to have the shiny side pointing out. This is needed because the shiny side is most reflective to psychotronic radiation, while the dull side can actually, in certain environmental conditions, absorb it."

[Ken_McE]

The question of whether or not aliens will or ever have visited Earth comes down to one thing IMO. That would be distance. ...you realize that the distance is just too great for them to get here, even if they wanted to come here.

You and I could not cross that distance, but there is nothing in physics as we know it that says it cannot be done.

... lets say there is a system that supports life, ... chances are that they are going to be 10,000-50,000 light years away or more. How can any being possibly cover that kind of distance?

It would be hard for an individual, however a society of some kind could take it on as a group project.

Even if they could go 5 times the speed of light, which is supposedly impossible, it would still take 1,000 - 5,000 years for them to get here.......

You don't need to travel faster than the speed of light to travel between the stars, any more than you need to go faster than the speed of sound to cross the oceans. What you need is patience.

Let's assume that rather than going five times the speed of light they average a measly 1/10th of C, a speed that physics allows anyone who is willing to work for it. That would give you a travel time of of ten to fifty thousand years. You and I can't do that, but a society or a machine could.

... even if they could shorten it to 50 years or so, why would they want to spend that much of their life traveling?

They do it because after their thirteenth millenium they are getting bored, bored, BORED. They do it as an act of penance. They do it as community service. They do it to skip out on their thousand year sentence in The Agonizer. They do it to pay for some *really* old parking tickets. They do it for science. They take one for the team. They do it because they lost the coin toss. They do it because they won the coin toss. They do it because they were designed and hatched to do that one thing, and do it well. They do it because it is what they have always done. There are thousands of perfectly good motivations available. It doesn't matter (to us) why they do it.

why would they want to spend that much of their life traveling in a ...ship of limited size?

Who says they are awake and walking around?

You put yourself on ice. You meditate. You hibernate. You ruminate. You estivate. You alter yourself into a tree while you travel and grok the flow of wind and water on stone (It's not for everyone). You finish your PHD thesis. You consider the writings of B~@∛! the poet. You master a field of study, or maybe all of them. You slow down your time sense to 1/10,000 of its usual rate, crank up your sense of wonder to 100 times its usual rate, stand by the porthole and laugh at the mad whirl of stars tumbling by. You spend the time tripping the light fantastic. You attempt to set a new world record for orgies, extended, amateur, class III mixed doubles. You spend your time building an absolutely killer immersive virtual reality. Maybe after your thirteenth millenium you just plain LIKE having a century or two where nobody is bothering you on the damn phone.

Not to mention the odds that they would just happen to choose a course that brought them here, when the galaxy is so large that the odds of happening to find this particular planet is kinda like looking for a needle in a galaxy sized haystack!

They don't have to be out looking for us in particular. They just have to have the will and the means to send scouts/drones/probes/settlers/whatever out in all directions looking to see what is out there. Assuming their scouts overlap in time with our existence they would show up eventually.

[eh4]

or you just pack a bunch of water bears and various bacteria, virus into countless chunks of ice and scatter them in all directions.

[StarHalo]

Amazon has stylish UFO Detectors for only $75. Added bonus: they use plenty of LEDs..

[mvyrmnd]

Why we haven't been visited:

THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT


"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

Admin note: The story was written by Terry Bisson and apparently he has expressed that he is flattered that it has been posted by many on the internet. Still, we need to give proper credits.

Terry's own posting of it.

[Mattaus]

Weird but strangely beautiful....

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[LEDAdd1ct]

Thank you so much for posting "They're Made out of Meat."

I think that is simply amazing.

With respect to aliens, just a few comments:

1) Scientists estimate there are 100 billion (ish) planets in the Milky Way.

Link

2) Scientists estimate 17 billion of those are Earth-sized

Link

Let's say half of those at 8.5 billion are in the Goldilocks Zone.

Let's say half of those at 4.25 billion have water, which in the Goldilocks Zone would be liquid.

Let's say:

-half of those at 2.125 billion have bacterial life

-half of those at 1.06 billion have plant life

-half of those at 530 million have animal life

and half of those at 265 million have sentient life.

If our galaxy has only 265 million other intelligent forms of life, then we are
3.77358491 × 10^-7 percent


of the intelligent species in the Milky Way alone.

My guess is that 265 million is far too low an estimate.

On a related note, I recommend anything by Vernor Vinge. Great, great writer.

[EZO]

+1 on Vernor Vinge!

One of his more fascinating and perhaps frightening pieces is a work of non-fiction, written in 1993 while a faculty member at The Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego University - The Coming Technological Singularity - How to Survive the Post Human Era. - abstract: Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. - (the post meat era)

Vinge's speculations have always proved remarkably accurate and we are now twenty years into his projected time line. (Which he has since commented on...."I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.") And Vinge put forth this concept of a technological singularity long before Ray Kurzweill glommed onto the idea.

The full text of Vinge's "The Coming Technological Singularity" in its entirety can be found HERE.

[moldyoldy]

It's funny that claiming to have seen 'ufos' can trash you in public opinion and yet anyone who spends some time watching the sky away from city light pollution is going to see some things that they can't honestly identify.

There's the general evolution of an idea of any controversy; first its ignored, then its ridiculed, then its violently opposed, and finally accepted as common knowledge. -We see that throughout human' and other social animal's behavior.

Regarding UFOs and rumours of UFOs:

An old friend of mine, now deceased from lung cancer, spent more than 26K+ hours in the air as a pilot before he no longer bothered to keep track of the hours. He flew in flighters (prop & jet) in VietNam. He flew airline cargo flights to all continents. For the same airline, he flew passenger flights to all continents up to & including various versions of the 747. He also taught me more than a bit about flying light aircraft, although one time he also sat me down in the left seat of a 747 simulator and told me to "keep it in the air".... I did, but it was a bit of a white nuckle experience as the simulator reacted to my overcontrolling before I understood how sensitive the controls of a large aircraft could be.

At any rate, once we were reminiscing about the "old days" of 'looser' controls on flights - he commented rather tersely that at various times, he observed "something" in the sky, usually above him, that he would never dare to report to any authority. Why? He knew from other such report writeups the 3rd degree that those pilots were subjected to when they reported any anomalies _outside_ their aircraft.

Keep in mind that back then, transocean passenger flights would normally fly above 40K feet. I myself have been up to 44K feet and observed that the sky was, well, dark blue/black, more like the black of space! Not much air left up there, and certainly no swamp gas either.......

The point is that the pilots who obviously have the ability and experience to recognize any abnormal situation outside their aircraft in flight are not likely to report the event.

[LEDAdd1ct]

Two quick comments:

1) Why don't they fly at 40,000 feet (12,000 meters) anymore?

2) "There's something on the wing..."


Also:

1) Hawking's view

2) Russian scientist's view

[moldyoldy]

Why do airlines not fly passenger aircraft above 40K feet? There are several reasons.

1. Because the radiation is much higher up there. Most transatlantic or transpacific flights now stay at a flight level of around 34K-35K feet with variations due to turbulence and weather. At 34K-35K feet for a common transatlantic flight route, the cosmic radiation is less than 1/2 of a chest X-Ray. The Concorde flew at FL600 (60K feet) and the radiation was roughly double that at 35K feet.

The primary radiation problem is for the flight crews flying these routes regularly, not for the passengers. It was not that far back that crews flying the trans-Pacific routes wore dosimeters. The Trans-Atlantic routes usually flew at lower levels than trans-Pacific routes. It was on a trans-Pacific route that I reached 43K-44K feet in a Boeing 707 (as a passenger). For Australian airlines, per regulations, flying at/above FL490 required the presence of geiger counter! However not many passenger aircraft could reasonably reach that flight level.

For more specific radiation numbers: http://www.hps.org/publicinformation...alflights.html

Of course, during solar flares or any bursts of cosmic radiation, passenger aircraft will drop down to a still lower level.

2. Flying at higher levels usually results in lower fuel consumption. However passenger aircraft have altitude limits as well. A former popular trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific aircraft Boeing 707 had a service ceiling of 43K feet. The later Boeing 747 has a service ceiling of 41K feet except for maybe the SP version. A Boeing 737NG has a top cruise altitude of 41K feet. The classic 737 version is limited to 37-38K feet. IOW, as the understanding of flight radiation for flight crews filtered thru to the designers, the service ceilings were lowered since a higher service ceiling resulted in a higher design/build cost.

3. Another problem with flights at higher altitudes is any sudden loss of pressurization. according to one source I read, at FL400 (40K ft), the Time of Useful Consciousness is only 30 seconds for a passenger and 20 seconds for a pilot. kinda short to react to a problem and change altitude down. The common "altitude" in airliners is either 6000 or 8000 ft. At 12000 ft most people start having problems. So guessing at trained human O2 deprivation limits, the time to drop from 40K feet to maybe about 16K-18K feet is too long to stay conscious. FL450 reduces the corresponding times to 20 seconds and 15 seconds. That is short! Worse still, the lower partial pressure at those flight levels is low enough that special oxygen masks are used which force pure oxygen under pressure and only pilots might have such masks.

Fortunately depressurization is not common at cruise altitudes. The deHavilland Comet was the last aircraft that suffered catastrophic metal fatigue failure at flight altitude with loss of everyone on-board. Twice. The evaluation was rendered that the Comet broke up in air because of cracks which started around the somewhat rectangular windows. So all aircraft windows are now oval with no "corners".

=======================

Regarding Hawkings view in that link and some embedded statements from SETI managers:

Quote: " Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) Research at the SETI Institute, said that her center uses radio telescopes and optical telescopes to listen for signals of technology from extraterrestrial life. So far, after more than 40 years, there has not been a peep.

She said SETI's technology is advanced enough that it can detect signals from up to 1,000 light-years away."
Unquote.

I believe that SETI has very capable equipment, very sensitive. But SETI is looking across a signal frequency spectrum that the Homo Sapiens species thinks could be used to communicate. and what if that alien race is communicating outside the spectrum that SETI is looking for? and SETI scanners, even if broadbanded, still only can take a snapshot of the chosen spectrum. How frequently is that portion of the spectrum sampled? A real needle in the haystack of a lot of signal emissions in space!

[StarHalo]

I used to run the SETI@Home program 24/7 on my old school PC (way back in the glass CRT and steel-case-with-wires-everywhere days) until I calculated that it cost $30 a month in electricity just for that.

So when will there be SETI@Home for Raspberry Pi..

[Stream]

I Want to Believe.

[Ken_McE]

SETI is looking across a signal frequency spectrum that the Homo Sapiens species thinks could be used to communicate. and what if that alien race is communicating outside the spectrum that SETI is looking for? and SETI scanners, even if broadbanded, still only can take a snapshot of the chosen spectrum. How frequently is that portion of the spectrum sampled? A real needle in the haystack of a lot of signal emissions in space!

For a historical analogy:

Up until WW II the outside world had no idea that there was an entire civilization up in the highlands of New Guinea. There was zero contact between them and anybody else. Radio signals from the outside world were passing on every side of them, passing through their huts while they slept, but they had no knowledge of them.

These locals could have studied and scanned for every type of signal known to them - whistles, drums, semaphores, smoke signals, absolutely every everything known to man (in that place and time.) They would have seen zero evidence of anybody else because they lacked the means to pick up the signals.

Who's to say we're any different?

[LEDAdd1ct]

@moldyoldy, thank you for the detailed explanation.

@Ken, your point is well made.

It's only a matter of time.

I hope they are friendly, and I hope that they don't come with a special guide, "To Serve Man."