Canadian Politics Today

Beyond Politics => General Discussion => Topic started by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 01:46:18 pm


Title: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 01:46:18 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_UFO_videos

What to make of this now?  There's been no suggestion there's something mystical or magical going on, that the phenomenon isn't technological and either of alien origin or resulting from glitches and shortcomings in our technology.

If it is alien it's pretty cool. They must have inertial dampeners to be able to accelerate suddenly up to what some estimate is 60000 MPH and stop just as suddenly apparently without turning pilots/passengers into a thin pasty film on a 'Tic Tac's' bulkheads. This suggests an ability to manipulate gravity.

I'm curious about their politics and what we might be able to speculate given what we do know about them. They don't seem to be too strictly bound by a Prime Directive given they've revealed themselves to us. At the very least they've been careless about being seen or they simply don't care.  Why they're here could be motivated by many things but the fact we're here is probably quite important.  We've been making enough radio noise for long enough now that there's an expanding sphere of radio noise nearly 300 light years across containing almost 6000 stars.  Given our discoveries of exoplanets and inferring that every star has at least one planet we can't rule out the possibility we revealed ourselves to them first - there have been scientists who've expressed concern that we've been careless about that but what's done is done.

I wonder what they think of us?  Are we merely interesting from their scientific view or are we perhaps threatening in some way?  We're an interstellar species now, we've sent our signature and our spacecraft beyond our own solar system. That could have political and perhaps military implications for other species and civilizations around us.  Perhaps we're technologically advanced enough that we can't and shouldn't be left alone.  The differences in types of 'craft' is interesting too, perhaps they represent different factions or countries from one alien society or there could be several species visiting and studying us. Perhaps we have our supporters and detractors amongst them struggling with moral and ethical issues raised by our emergence on the interstellar scene.  Are they here to save us from ourselves or themselves from us?  Given our history the most graphic of which is probably as available to them as us thru our transmissions it could be we represent what a quintessential monster from outer space looks like. Invasive, militaristic, expansionary, venal, amoral etc etc. It probably doesn't help many of our religions and nations few themselves as chosen being's with a divine centric view of the right to be complete **** towards others.  But then perhaps our supporters see something better and more noble that's worth saving and valuing. 

I always preferred science fiction over fantasy, was fascinated by our space endeavours and astronomical discoveries.  I have a telescope and love looking out there.  I wish I could live long enough to see how thigs turn out.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: guest18 on May 24, 2021, 02:04:15 pm
It's all in the Urantia Book. Apparently.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 02:07:42 pm
Nah...I don't buy it - To Serve Man (a cookbook) is clearly more plausible. Like I said fiction over fantasy.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 02:43:51 pm
Our radio waves would have only extended to a radius of around 120 light years. Anyone receiving them would need to travel in excess of light speed to be here by now. Possible but unlikely. As Carl Sagan said, We live on a small planet orbiting an average star on an arm of an average galaxy. Why would anyone even be looking here?

Unexplained phenomena for sure but it hasn't been established that they are even objects.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: guest7 on May 24, 2021, 03:35:02 pm
There was a fellow on TV a few days ago explaining some of them.  I can't remember which channel, and I can't find the video on line either. (Cue Twilight Zone theme?)

The "USS Russell" video was the easiest.  There's a triangle in it, acting strangely.  For a triangle, anyway.  But it's viewed through a triangular apperture, apparently, and is also out of focus.  (There are a couple of stars off to the left of the object in question that also appear triangular, and appear to confirm his contention)

The "GIMBAL" video is also a FLIR video, and he said it can be explained by the object being a heat signature from the rear of a jet travelling in the same direction as the camera, with the movement attributed to the gimbal on which the camera is situated.

The "GOFAST" video, he put down to parallax.

He said he would come back on to explain others.  I'm keeping an eye out.

I did read that Fox News said we should all be very concerned, so I'm really quite relaxed about the whole thing.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 04:56:23 pm
I'm very relieved that Fox said we should be concerned.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 04:57:48 pm
Our radio waves would have only extended to a radius of around 120 light years. Anyone receiving them would need to travel in excess of light speed to be here by now. Possible but unlikely. As Carl Sagan said, We live on a small planet orbiting an average star on an arm of an average galaxy. Why would anyone even be looking here?
A radius that small would indicate we've only been broadcasting for 60 years. We've been at it longer than that I think. In any case the sphere encompasses thousands of stars. I would think they'd be looking because we've said 'here we are'.

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Unexplained phenomena for sure but it hasn't been established that they are even objects.
Well, it's probably only a matter of time and I suspect there will be more effort put into figuring it put. Congress is going to be briefed and its hard to imagine them just leaving it alone if its discussed in terms of national security.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 05:17:10 pm
A radius that small would indicate we've only been broadcasting for 60 years. We've been at it longer than that I think. In any case the sphere encompasses thousands of stars. I would think they'd be looking because we've said 'here we are'.
Well, it's probably only a matter of time and I suspect there will be more effort put into figuring it put. Congress is going to be briefed and its hard to imagine them just leaving it alone if its discussed in terms of national security.

The first trans Atlantic radio broadcast was about 120 years ago. Using that as a baseline, radius would be 120 light years.
Our own searches for extra terrestrial radio waves can only cover small parts of the galaxy at a time and only for limited periods. Separating what might be generated by beings from noise is also a problem.

As far as we know, light speed is a universal speed limit that is only exceeded in science fiction.

There are enough complete wing nuts in the US Congress that I will be pleasantly surprised if we get much more than entertainment.  Jewish space lasers anyone?
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 05:39:17 pm
The first trans Atlantic radio broadcast was about 120 years ago. Using that as a baseline, radius would be 120 light years.

Wouldn't it be 240 if the signals go in all directions? 120 would be straight line from Earth to the edge of the sphere, surely our fast-as-light radio signals have been broadcast in every direction by now.

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Our own searches for extra terrestrial radio waves can only cover small parts of the galaxy at a time and only for limited periods. Separating what might be generated by beings from noise is also a problem.

As far as we know, light speed is a universal speed limit that is only exceeded in science fiction.
Yes, so far as we know. Who knows what might be possible given the inertia-less behaviour exhibited by UAP's? It suggests a mastery of gravity which is something we still barely understand at the moment.  As for teasing out details from noise we're getting pretty clever at teasing out details of planets from within the glare of their stars and it's been postulated be able to even detect things like industrial pollution from spectro-analysis.

Perhaps some Tic Tac will land in front of a rover on Mars or the moon or leave a graffiti-like "Kilroy was here" sign for us to scratch our heads over.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 06:07:17 pm
Wouldn't it be 240 if the signals go in all directions? 120 would be straight line from Earth to the edge of the sphere, surely our fast-as-light radio signals have been broadcast in every direction by now.


They wouldn't be any farther from earth than 120 light years in any one direction. If you drop a rock in water, the ripples radiate outward the same distance in every direction. If extra terrestrials who could travel at light speed picked up our signals from that distance and left immediately, it would take them another 120 years to get here.

Quote
Yes, so far as we know. Who knows what might be possible given the inertia-less behaviour exhibited by UAP's? It suggests a mastery of gravity which is something we still barely understand at the moment.  As for teasing out details from noise we're getting pretty clever at teasing out details of planets from within the glare of their stars and it's been postulated be able to even detect things like industrial pollution from spectro-analysis.

Perhaps some Tic Tac will land in front of a rover on Mars or the moon or leave a graffiti-like "Kilroy was here" sign for us to scratch our heads over.


The reason they are now called UAP's is because they are unidentified phenomena, calling them objects is conjecture.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 06:31:44 pm
They wouldn't be any farther from earth than 120 light years in any one direction. If you drop a rock in water, the ripples radiate outward the same distance in every direction.
True but they would travel 120 light years in every direction meaning the total from the farthest direction to the opposite would total of 240.  The point I was really making is that our signal has reached thousands of star systems. 
 
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If extra terrestrials who could travel at light speed picked up our signals from that distance and left immediately, it would take them another 120 years to get here.
You're assuming they're limited by the speed of light or that our signal hasn't been received and boosted even farther at faster-than-light speed. Its a safe assumption though given what we know but given what we don't know appears to be at the heart of this issue its certainly open to conjecture.

Quote
The reason they are now called UAP's is because they are unidentified phenomena, calling them objects is conjecture.
As are the possibilities I'm raising.  I'm certainly hope the conjecture about aliens and advanced sci-fi technology is real and possible, it's something I've imagined and been interested in since I was a kid. Don't get me wrong, I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to dispel fantastical thinking in my circle of acquaintances and I've taken real pains to ensure my own thinking is appropriate in the sense that it's based in reality and not illusion/delusion.  I'd love if it was real but I'm not about to place faith in it. I hope Congress throws a shitload of science and money at researching it.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 07:16:16 pm
True but they would travel 120 light years in every direction meaning the total from the farthest direction to the opposite would total of 240.  The point I was really making is that our signal has reached thousands of star systems. 
 You're assuming they're limited by the speed of light or that our signal hasn't been received and boosted even farther at faster-than-light speed. Its a safe assumption though given what we know but given what we don't know appears to be at the heart of this issue its certainly open to conjecture.
As are the possibilities I'm raising.  I'm certainly hope the conjecture about aliens and advanced sci-fi technology is real and possible, it's something I've imagined and been interested in since I was a kid. Don't get me wrong, I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to dispel fantastical thinking in my circle of acquaintances and I've taken real pains to ensure my own thinking is appropriate in the sense that it's based in reality and not illusion/delusion.  I'd love if it was real but I'm not about to place faith in it. I hope Congress throws a shitload of science and money at researching it.

It will still only have travelled 120 light years from earth.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 08:40:53 pm
It will still only have travelled 120 light years from earth.
That's right. And what is the radius of the sphere formed by radio waves travelling outward 120 light years in every direction? 
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 24, 2021, 09:11:24 pm
That's right. And what is the radius of the sphere formed by radio waves travelling outward 120 light years in every direction?

The radius us 120 light years, the diameter is 240 light years. Aliens will only be hearing the ones coming at them, not the ones going in the other direction.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 09:18:19 pm
The radius us 120 light years, the diameter is 240 light years. Aliens will only be hearing the ones coming at them, not the ones going in the other direction.
Meaning the sphere is 240 light years across and contains thousands of stars. You could have agreed to that while pointing out my error but oh well. In any case its still interesting.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on May 24, 2021, 09:34:19 pm
This is such a strange issue.  There's 2 possibilities:  this is real OR the US gov is punking us, ror more specifically, China and Russia.  Why else would you deny UFO's for a century and then start leaking classified footage all of a sudden?

Tom DeLonge, an ex-member of the band Blink 182, is a UFO believer and professional enthusiast trying to educate the public on the "truth" that real UFO's exist.  He claims to have had meetings with high level members of the Pentagon who have told him they've had contact with aliens.  I believe that he believes everything he says.

It's totally possible that the US gov is punking Tom, unbeknownst to him, to help him spread their propaganda.  But really, we don't know anything for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfjwOXTDWVc

Even weirder:  Former Canadian Minister of National Defense (1963-1967) Paul Hellyer claims that the US gov told him they've had contact with aliens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFl29Uos9K8
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 09:55:27 pm
This is such a strange issue.  There's 2 possibilities:  this is real OR the US gov is punking us, ror more specifically, China and Russia.  Why else would you deny UFO's for a century and then start leaking classified footage all of a sudden?

Tom DeLonge, an ex-member of the band Blink 182, is a UFO believer and professional enthusiast trying to educate the public on the "truth" that real UFO's exist.  He claims to have had meetings with high level members of the Pentagon who have told him they've had contact with aliens.  I believe that he believes everything he says.

It's totally possible that the US gov is punking Tom, unbeknownst to him, to help him spread their propaganda.  But really, we don't know anything for sure.

Even weirder:  Former Canadian Minister of National Defense (1963-1967) Paul Hellyer claims that the US gov told him they've had contact with aliens.

Isn't the issue plenty interesting enough on its own merits? I'm reminded of that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where that fellow pipes up about Bigfoot during a meeting about UFO's.

No doubt the day the aliens land in an official public capacity it will be attended by a veritable freaker's ball of every crackpot with a pot to bang on.

The problem with conspiracy theories of course is that most of them often contain elements that have at least some basis in reality i.e. governments are sneaky, paranoid and systematically avoid transparency and accountability.  That's probably the mother of all rabbit holes right there.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on May 24, 2021, 10:23:35 pm
Isn't the issue plenty interesting enough on its own merits? I'm reminded of that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where that fellow pipes up about Bigfoot during a meeting about UFO's.

No doubt the day the aliens land in an official public capacity it will be attended by a veritable freaker's ball of every crackpot with a pot to bang on.

The problem with conspiracy theories of course is that most of them often contain elements that have at least some basis in reality i.e. governments are sneaky, paranoid and systematically avoid transparency and accountability.  That's probably the mother of all rabbit holes right there.

Maybe I'll need to see them with my own eyes.  Either way, right now they aren't affecting my life in any way (that I know of) so it's not even worth worrying about whether true or not true.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 24, 2021, 11:03:16 pm
Maybe I'll need to see them with my own eyes.  Either way, right now they aren't affecting my life in any way (that I know of) so it's not even worth worrying about whether true or not true.
I get that, I kind of feel the same way about commie submarines apparently sneaking around off the coast.  I've heard tales of boats suddenly being hauled backwards and under the waves by submarines caught in their trawls so I suppose there is that.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 25, 2021, 12:13:50 am
I don't know. Our sun is a G type star. From what I can find out astronomers have identified 512 G type stars within 100 light years of Earth. Space is a big place.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: kimmy on May 25, 2021, 10:17:03 pm
I'm not an engineer, but one thing I am aware of is a principle called "Shannon's Law".   It's an information theory principle based on the principle that a communications link's usable data capacity is relative to its signal-to-noise ratio.  If we are talking about 1920s-level radio technology transmitted across interstellar distances, the signal-to-noise ratio is basically dogshit and the usable data capacity is also dogshit and therefore a hypothetical alien intelligence would be unable to distinguish between our transmissions and literal dogshit.

 -k
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: wilber on May 26, 2021, 12:08:45 am
And yet this is what we are trying to do with things like SETI and other searches for extra terrestrial life.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: kimmy on May 26, 2021, 12:24:11 am
And yet this is what we are trying to do with things like SETI and other searches for extra terrestrial life.

Shannon's Law is a real thing.  Marconi's famous trans-Atlantic "s" transmission will, as it reaches the forefront of that 120 light-year radius you mentioned, be pretty much indistinguishable from "fzzzzz" or any other random noise propagating through the cosmos.

 -k
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: Omni on May 26, 2021, 12:48:16 am
I flew "fing wings' and so mostly at lower altitudes. but I did have a thing swirl around me at low level over a flight in Labrador. It seemed a little bit more tan just a flash from too many beers at Suzies las night. Ya know, Makkovik. But anyway I'm still here.
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: waldo on May 26, 2021, 01:58:06 am
There was a fellow on TV a few days ago explaining some of them.  I can't remember which channel, and I can't find the video on line either.

given the examples you mention, I'm quite sure you (and I) saw the same segment (I think I saw it on CNN) - "skeptical investigator" guy reviewing... explaining... UFO sightings was Mick West. A most interesting twitter feed (https://twitter.com/mickwest?lang=en) covers those same examples
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: eyeball on May 26, 2021, 10:02:33 am
I'm not an engineer, but one thing I am aware of is a principle called "Shannon's Law".   It's an information theory principle based on the principle that a communications link's usable data capacity is relative to its signal-to-noise ratio.  If we are talking about 1920s-level radio technology transmitted across interstellar distances, the signal-to-noise ratio is basically dogshit and the usable data capacity is also dogshit and therefore a hypothetical alien intelligence would be unable to distinguish between our transmissions and literal dogshit.

 -k
Does the strength of a signal make a difference?  There were some pretty powerful commercial radio transmitters being employed by broadcasters in the 50's.  I remember reading that the first Howdy Doody shows were broadcast from one powerful transmitter and will likely be the first radio signals anyone might receive. They'd be out about 70 light years now.

I also wonder how the signals that must have been generated when atmospheric nuclear bomb testing was underway would be interpreted - as more random naturally generated noise or would they carry a sign that indicated their artificial origin?
Title: Re: UFO's
Post by: guest7 on May 26, 2021, 05:21:38 pm
given the examples you mention, I'm quite sure you (and I) saw the same segment (I think I saw it on CNN) - "skeptical investigator" guy reviewing... explaining... UFO sightings was Mick West. A most interesting twitter feed (https://twitter.com/mickwest?lang=en) covers those same examples

Yes, that's the guy.  I thought he made sense, the short time he was on.  I'll have to look further into what he has to say.

Shame really.  I'd like it to be aliens.