Can the study of UFOs be scientific?

dimreepr · May 9, 2018

22 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Once you get past the idea that planets are necessary the possibilities open up drastically. I think it's quite possible that artificial habitats are very common throughout the Milky Way. The only technology you need that we can't really use at this time is fusion. Once you have controlled fusion, planets and stars become redundant at best. Several alien civilizations could be operating in the Sun's Oort cloud and we would never know unless they decided to check us out due to simple curiosity.

I think the idea that ftl is needed before you can star travel is kinda like saying you need supersonic aircraft before you can visit another island in the Pacific.

I think the idea that has influenced me the most in this subject are RV's, if you have a reliable RV you don't really need a house nor does it matter if it takes weeks to get to someplace. You are carrying your "world" around with you as you travel. If an RV owner was capable of stopping near a source of raw materials and building another RV and then traveling on would be a bit more accurate analogy...

The idea of ftl and vast interstellar empires has sparked our imaginations for many years but the reality will, IMHO, be a bit less flash and more substance than star trek...

This video is by Isaac Arthur a physicist and futurist who seems to have my thought patterns down pretty close...

Some of these ideas come across much better when explained in a video than simply reading about them. Some really good productions are coming out of youtube! Of course the nonsense is still there as well...

You have your answer in the first 90 seconds of the video, why would an alien bother with Earth since it already has complex, intelligent life?

Moontanman · May 9, 2018

21 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

You have your answer in the first 90 seconds of the video, why would an alien bother with Earth since it already has complex, intelligent life?

My answer? Yes the answer to why we seldom see them but they can have access to us without FTL? If such an alien presence is currently nearby then you would not expect them to pay much attention unless of course they were curious and did scientific research on newly emerging civilizations. Observing us from drone platforms would fit in rather well with the basic UFO phenomena and the crazier parts would fit in well with the human tendency to exaggerate...

Of course none of this is anything but speculation unless there is a way to falsify the speculation and we do have at least one avenue of investigation. If aliens are present in nearby space then we should be able to detect them assuming they have to follow the physical laws of the universe. They or their ships and habitats should give off copious amounts of waste heat. Hiding this waste heat from reasonably powerful detectors would be difficult...

dimreepr · May 9, 2018

2 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

If aliens are present in nearby space then we should be able to detect them assuming they have to follow the physical laws of the universe.

Then why is FLT not equally possible?

Moontanman · May 9, 2018

4 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Then why is FLT not equally possible?

FTL requires technology that so far remains beyond any engineering capabilities we are currently capable of or can even predict.

dimreepr · May 9, 2018

5 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

FTL requires technology that so far remains beyond any engineering capabilities we are currently capable of or can even predict.

Sorry, I misread.

16 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

If such an alien presence is currently nearby then you would not expect them to pay much attention unless of course they were curious and did scientific research on newly emerging civilizations. Observing us from drone platforms would fit in rather well with the basic UFO phenomena and the crazier parts would fit in well with the human tendency to exaggerate.

If being the operative word, if they can, if they happen to be here (nearby), if they want to, if we don't detect them, if etc...

StringJunky · May 9, 2018

24 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

FTL requires technology that so far remains beyond any engineering capabilities we are currently capable of or can even predict.

Lightspeed requires infinite energy for a massive object. Nature prevents it, not engineering.

Edited

Edited May 9, 2018 by StringJunky

Moontanman · May 9, 2018

10 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Lightspeed requires infinite energy for a massive object. Nature prevents it, not engineering.

Edited

Well exactly, the fact that the maths can be worked out say nothing about the actual doing of things like warp drive or worm holes...

23 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Sorry, I misread.

If being the operative word, if they can, if they happen to be here (nearby), if they want to, if we don't detect them, if etc...

Well you do have a good point, my main reason for this line of speculation is to show the idea of it being improbable if not impossible is simply not true and in fact would be quite easy to do. We just have to get past all the science and fiction that seems to show how we would do this and get back to what is likely to be done. Once you put aside all the impossible and improbable ideas the fact remains that we should be able to detect these "aliens" if they are here. an alien habitat giving off orders of magnitude more heat than a natural object should would be a big clue detecting such a heat source out to the Oort cloud would be difficult but doable...

StringJunky · May 9, 2018

14 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Well exactly, the fact that the maths can be worked out say nothing about the actual doing of things like warp drive or worm holes...

If the maths doesn''t add up, nobody's going to stumble on it accidentally; wormholes start at 10^-33centimetres.

Edited May 9, 2018 by StringJunky

Moontanman · May 9, 2018

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

If the maths doesn''t add up nobody's going to stumble on it accidentally; wormholes start at 10^-33centimetres.

FTL depends on things like negative mass and negative energy, until we can demonstrate they exist FTL is just a pipe dream...

Moontanman · June 15, 2018

This is an interesting video on colonising the oort cloud, doesn't agree with me completely but it is a very comprehensive coverage of the idea.

beecee · June 28, 2018

On 4/22/2018 at 2:20 AM, Moontanman said:

To some extent I feel like I am beating a dead horse but here goes.

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-worthy-scientific.html

Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study:

Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.

As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-worthy-scientific.html#jCp

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I most certainly am not "terrified" if the answer to the question of "are we alone" is no.....In fact if such was shown beyond doubt to be no, we are not alone, I would be incredibly excited, and hopeful of a close encounter of the third kind before I kicked the bucket.

Moontanman · June 28, 2018

1 hour ago, beecee said:

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-worthy-scientific.html

Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study:

Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.

As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-worthy-scientific.html#jCp

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I most certainly am not "terrified" if the answer to the question of "are we alone" is no.....In fact if such was shown beyond doubt to be no, we are not alone, I would be incredibly excited, and hopeful of a close encounter of the third kind before I kicked the bucket.

It's amazing these discussions always seem to end on evidence or supposed lack there of. I ask for a definition of what the evidence would have to be, I provide it and the goal posts mysteriously shift...

I will ask again what would you consider to be evidence worth pursuing? (not you specifically beecee) I provide what is considered to be a accurate and detailed account of a complex sighting and i get people cherry picking the low hanging fruit while ignoring the meat of the issue. Yes I'm a bit cranky today but the fact remains that i have not intentionally ignored any of the possibilities and I always accurately report the info as it is written in official reports. Some sightings do indeed suffer from an embarrassment of data yet they remain inexplicable due to the level of investigation allowed by the powers that be. Yes, i am saying that investigations have been suppressed, this cannot be denied. Whether or not the suppression was nefarious or just incidental to the incredulity of the people investigating is the real question.

The original investigative report was the only one not tainted by suppression and it decided that interplanetary spacecraft was the most likely explanation. Whether or not that was a reasonable assumption was never debated but ended by a man who had no scientific credentials and he did it just because of his own personal incredulity. Is personal incredulity a reason to stop any investigation much less what should have been a scientific investigation?

beecee · June 29, 2018

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

It's amazing these discussions always seem to end on evidence or supposed lack there of. I ask for a definition of what the evidence would have to be, I provide it and the goal posts mysteriously shift...

I will ask again what would you consider to be evidence worth pursuing? (not you specifically beecee)

Hya Moontanman! I believe I have shown in my time on this forum, that [1] I am not some cynical close minded person, and [2] I am not some gullible, impressionable person who aligns with what he secretly deep down would like to be true.....I'm near certain solely on the weight of numbers and the stuff of life being everywhere we look, that we are not alone. I also understand that time and the vast distances involved would work against any inter-planetary, or inter-species contact. All I want is the extraordinary evidence to convince me and scientists of all pursasions, that Earth has been visited and/or that we are not alone. Personally, I desperately and truly would like someone to show me that.

Or to put that in another way, what I find extraordinary, is the fact that the claims of it [aliens] existing near earth, or having visited Earth, can be so genuinley and scientifically easily overlooked, derided, doubted, and unnoticed by any scientist worth his salt.[If it weren't true]

I'm not entirely convinced by your argument of continued colonisation etc, but as I have mentioned previously, [1]Any Alien visitation would be by advanced beings. [2] Advanced beings tend to be far less aggressive and domineering as our own species has generally shown since our progression/s from the middle and dark ages, [yes the occasional drawback is sometimes still apparent with our own species] [3] A space faring advanced civilisation would not really want of anything that is not readily found throughout any planetary system,[4] If we have been visited, why not have they made that official? [I'm not sure the analogy of humans to ants really holds any water...we obviously are at a stage where our own scientific advancement is obvious] [5] How many kinds of weather phenomenon can take effect within Earth's atmosphere, [I was mildly surprised at what I saw while researching] and are there others simply due to a specific type of atmospheric disturbance that as yet we have not seen?] The hexagonal shape of the polar atmosphere around Saturn is one analogy that took some explaining.[6]Why the continuing flittering in and flittering out again? without any point [4]

Like I said Moontanman, I really and truly would like some extraordinary evidence showing me the confirmation that we have been visited and/or that we are not alone.

And yes, I most certainly do agree that further proper, intense scientific investigations into this phenomena is desired.

Edited June 29, 2018 by beecee

Moontanman · June 29, 2018

2 hours ago, beecee said:

Hya Moontanman! I believe I have shown in my time on this forum, that [1] I am not some cynical close minded person, and [2] I am not some gullible, impressionable person who aligns with what he secretly deep down would like to be true.....I'm near certain solely on the weight of numbers and the stuff of life being everywhere we look, that we are not alone. I also understand that time and the vast distances involved would work against any inter-planetary, or inter-species contact. All I want is the extraordinary evidence to convince me and scientists of all pursasions, that Earth has been visited and/or that we are not alone. Personally, I desperately and truly would like someone to show me that.

Or to put that in another way, what I find extraordinary, is the fact that the claims of it [aliens] existing near earth, or having visited Earth, can be so genuinley and scientifically easily overlooked, derided, doubted, and unnoticed by any scientist worth his salt.[If it weren't true]

I'm not entirely convinced by your argument of continued colonisation etc, but as I have mentioned previously, [1]Any Alien visitation would be by advanced beings. [2] Advanced beings tend to be far less aggressive and domineering as our own species has generally shown since our progression/s from the middle and dark ages, [yes the occasional drawback is sometimes still apparent with our own species] [3] A space faring advanced civilisation would not really want of anything that is not readily found throughout any planetary system,[4] If we have been visited, why not have they made that official? [I'm not sure the analogy of humans to ants really holds any water...we obviously are at a stage where our own scientific advancement is obvious] [5] How many kinds of weather phenomenon can take effect within Earth's atmosphere, [I was mildly surprised at what I saw while researching] and are there others simply due to a specific type of atmospheric disturbance that as yet we have not seen?] The hexagonal shape of the polar atmosphere around Saturn is one analogy that took some explaining.[6]Why the continuing flittering in and flittering out again? without any point [4]

Like I said Moontanman, I really and truly would like some extraordinary evidence showing me the confirmation that we have been visited and/or that we are not alone.

And yes, I most certainly do agree that further proper, intense scientific investigations into this phenomena is desired.

Again i would have to ask realistically what would such evidence be? To be honest I'm not sure myself, once you get into the idea of "extraordinary evidence" you come very close to saying no evidence would do short of a landing on the white house lawn.

I have been told that radar returns of a solid unknown object would be evidence until I show that such evidence is quite common.

Then it's one radar could give false returns but more than one independent radar would be evidence until i provide it.

Then it's well military pilots or other trained observer would at least be suggestive until I provide that, hell astronauts have claimed to have seen them.

From my perspective the goal posts always change until they are so far away or so high nothing could possibly be "real evidence"... I am almost willing to bet a live alien walking into the white house would be dismissed by moving the goal posts yet again.

So I ask, what would "extraordinary evidence" look like?

One reason i keep harping on the 1952 washington dc sightings is that it contains everything I've been asked to show as evidence yet it is dismissed out of hand. the air force's explanation was so obviously yanked out of their combined rectums with little thought to anything more than smoothing it over so people would stop asking hard questions it made the air force look comical in the light of today's standards. No experts agreed with the air force except the air force's experts and even many of them broke ranks. People who later said they thought it was all hokum became believers those nights and thought the air force was insulting people's intelligence.

On top of all that completely independent and unaffiliated multiple civilians reported seeing the very same things on those nights. At the very least a very poor job of investigation made the whole thing seem to be much more than what was claimed by the military...

Edited June 29, 2018 by Moontanman

beecee · June 29, 2018

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Again i would have to ask realistically what would such evidence be? To be honest I'm not sure myself, once you get into the idea of "extraordinary evidence" you come very close to saying no evidence would do short of a landing on the white house lawn.

So I ask, what would "extraordinary evidence" look like?

Sydney Opera House forecourt landing?Some Alien excreta, Alien instrument/s, Alien body parts, Something of obviously completely Alien origin. And again, why not the white House lawns? or the Opera House forecourts? Or some other official government world wide property or public meeting place......

Moontanman · June 29, 2018

9 hours ago, beecee said:

Sydney Opera House forecourt landing?Some Alien excreta, Alien instrument/s, Alien body parts, Something of obviously completely Alien origin. And again, why not the white House lawns? or the Opera House forecourts? Or some other official government world wide property or public meeting place......

Why not? Who could possibly predict alien motivations We can't even predict human behavior and about the only thing we can say is that obviously their motivations are somewhat obtuse when compared to human motivations. I think by now it should be apparent that they intend to be as cryptic as possible or maybe.. hell I can't even make up motivations that could accurately describe what we see other than to simply describe what we see.

Alien body parts? We cannot accurately say the "things" we see in the sky have bodies or parts, I happen to have my own prejudices in this. The wilder the sighting becomes the less creedence i give it. As soon as anthropomorphic aliens come into the picture my bullshit meter pegs off the scale. Anal probes on some deserted back roads or simply "beaming" into your bedroom at night and whisking you away for some genetic mixing of what should be a completely different biosphere. We should be far more closely matched to pine trees than aliens. If they can do these things right under our noses then they come very close to qualifying as gods and any efforts we make to figure this out should be shunted to the televangelists. I tend to stick with the more "mundane" if an alien spacecraft sighting can be called such.

Anything beyond physical craft that have to follow the same laws of physics as we do are virtually impossible to do anything about but speculate.

I would tend to stick to the hardest evidence, a simple unknown light in the sky is meaningless so is some redneck getting an anal probe while making out with bettylou on a side road...

I like to compare it to bigfoot, we have maybe one film/picture of bigfoot that is clear enough to really beggar the imagination. The Patterson film i think it's called, I remember the first time I saw it, my jaw hit the floor! WOW! Had to be real who in their right mind would travel that far into the wilderness carrying a costume and film it from horseback is such an amature way? Every frame of that film has been dissected by amateurs and professionals alike. Scientists have literally traveled the world to figure this out, motivated by one film made by two guys of somewhat questionable repute. That film is fake, a hoax, a man in a costume, the man who wore it has been identified and he admitted to it. The costume, so realistic at the time has been busted, even to the point of people coming forward to admit to making such a costume for the guys who made the film. The entire idea of bigfoot is based on on old legends, quick glimpses of something walking upright in the woods. Interestingly the most convincing sightings overlap black bear territory quite accurately.

Then you have the problem of a population large enough to propagate without genetic bottlenecking and if there is a population where are the road kills? In the US everything eventually ends up as road kill. Even animals unknown to science (subspecies really) have been found in road kill. Humans show up regularly in road kills, from bears to moose to humans road kill can be used to chart what animals live where. The "evidence" for bigfoot is much thinner, several orders of magnitude thinner than evidence for nuts and bolts UFOs. Yet both amateurs and professionals continue to beat this dead horse seemingly desperate for every scrap of anything. While there is some derision on taking bigfoot seriously many professionals continue to study this in their spare time based on almost nothing! I know shit from shinola, bigfoot is not shinola...

The main problem with UFOs, IMHO, is the paranormal aspects of it, from the contactees of the 50s, to the anal probes of, the 60s and on, to the world wide hoaxing of UFO sightings on youtube today, a huge amount of bullshit surrounds and covers any possible truth. The signal to noise ratio is ridiculous but it doesn't completely cover up the signal.

Most of the UFO phenomena is bullshit, I grew up on a farm in the mountains of WV, I know bullshit when I see it, in fact I know horse shit, cow shit, chicken shit, dog shit, deer shit, racoon shit, muskrat shit, mink shit... I know my shit, and under the layers of shit in the UFO phenomena lies something else. I'm not sure what but I want to dig it out, clean it up and run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it... Far too many people try to polish a turd when it comes to UFO sightings, i am not afriad to point out that a polished turd is still a turd and most of the current body of UFO sightings are definitely not shinola. But there remains a small body of data that will not go away, cannot be explained despite an embarrassment of data and evidently drives the US Air Force to lie and decieve not to mention suppress any real scientific study of the phenomena by ridicule and spreading the idea of incredulity... Literally the first real study of UFOs was dismissed due to the incredulity of the commanding officer who had no idea what a real scientific study was or should be...

Being dismissed out of hand is getting old, tackle the data honestly, it's the least we can do...

Endercreeper01 · June 29, 2018

If you accept witness sightings of UFOs, there is no reason not to accept witness sightings of other phenomena.

Acknowledging witness sightings of UFOs opens the door for other phenomena to be acknowledged based on witness sightings.

Once witness sightings become valid for one phenomena, they become valid for other phenomena as well.

There must either be credibility to many phenomena based on witness sightings or no credibility for any of them.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Endercreeper01

Scott of the Antares · June 29, 2018

In terms of the question ‘can the study of UFOs be scientific’, surely the answer would be the same as every other definition of science on these boards; repeatable and observable experiments. To my mind that means having actual possession of an alien craft, otherwise no observation or experiment can be repeatable!

I agree with BeeCee and would love to see proof before I die. I am sure that there is life elsewhere in the universe as others here have stated.

PS I saw a pair of ufo’s Last Friday at my nephews sports day. My sister in law saw one of them before they both disappeared behind a cloud. We watched the cloud to see if they re-emerged, but instead the cloud itself disappeared over the next 60-90 seconds! Could have been drones but I highly doubt it.

nice topic though Moontanman:)

Moontanman · June 29, 2018

3 hours ago, Endercreeper01 said:

If you accept witness sightings of UFOs, there is no reason not to accept witness sightings of other phenomena.

Acknowledging witness sightings of UFOs opens the door for other phenomena to be acknowledged based on witness sightings.

Once witness sightings become valid for one phenomena, they become valid for other phenomena as well.

There must either be credibility to many phenomena based on witness sightings or no credibility for any of them.

As i have said before so many times I can't count them eyewitness accounts are not what i am talking about but does anyone really think that possession of an actual alien artifact is realistic? A civilization capable of star travel will be in the habit of dropping stuff all over the place for us to find?

3 hours ago, Scott of the Antares said:

In terms of the question ‘can the study of UFOs be scientific’, surely the answer would be the same as every other definition of science on these boards; repeatable and observable experiments. To my mind that means having actual possession of an alien craft, otherwise no observation or experiment can be repeatable!

I agree with BeeCee and would love to see proof before I die. I am sure that there is life elsewhere in the universe as others here have stated.

PS I saw a pair of ufo’s Last Friday at my nephews sports day. My sister in law saw one of them before they both disappeared behind a cloud. We watched the cloud to see if they re-emerged, but instead the cloud itself disappeared over the next 60-90 seconds! Could have been drones but I highly doubt it.

nice topic though Moontanman:)

I have suggested at least one possible way to detect such space craft and there are others, others that have detected anomalies like radar contact with unknown objects. Sources actually say these objects have been detected both entering and leaving Earth's atmosphere. military hearsay really but who really cares enough to investigate?

Sometimes i really wonder if some of the old researchers were right and the military knows and is in cahoots with the aliens... not really but it is weird how it fits into the narrative so easily...

Scott of the Antares · June 29, 2018

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

I have suggested at least one possible way to detect such space craft and there are others, others that have detected anomalies like radar contact with unknown objects. Sources actually say these objects have been detected both entering and leaving Earth's atmosphere. military hearsay really but who really cares enough to investigate?

Sometimes i really wonder if some of the old researchers were right and the military knows and is in cahoots with the aliens... not really but it is weird how it fits into the narrative so easily...

Well I believe there are enough reasonable claims and sightings to make me think that there is something going on. Whether that is of unknown human activity, alien activity or an unknown natural phenomenon is unverifiable by us atm. I think a natural phenomenon would be the least likely, but that is just a personal hunch.

Moontanman · June 29, 2018

1 minute ago, Scott of the Antares said:

Well I believe there are enough reasonable claims and sightings to make me think that there is something going on. Whether that is of unknown human activity, alien activity or an unknown natural phenomenon is unverifiable by us atm. I think a natural phenomenon would be the least likely, but that is just a personal hunch.

back in the day I can see that maybe the air force was either just overwhelmed and was embarrassed they couldn't explain it or it was a cover up of some sort of secrete technology but by now you would think they would just some out and say what really was going on.

I have toyed with the idea of some sort of plasma discharge or even plasma life but that is worse than aliens really...

Moontanman · June 29, 2018

Recently i was kidding around about Oumuamua and how it was so odd it might be an alien probe. Of course it's almost certainly nothing but a rock from interstellar space but recently it was shown to be changing course slightly. when it first appeared someone from NASA or some place official had said it was moving along at predicted rates according to gravity and if it began to change speed or course it might be more suspicious. Now it's changing speed and NASA of course says it's evidently a comet and gas jets must be changing it's speed. I said Gas jets? Hell man what were you expecting warp drive?

Scott of the Antares · June 29, 2018

I was reading an article on the same Oumuamua topic myself tonight. I love these types of discoveries, and one day we might get a mind bending confirmation. It’s all good learning, whatever the outcome:)