Aliens and FBI

[zapatos]

44 minutes ago, swansont said:

That’s just an argument against alien invasion, not against the strategy of keeping silent. Also the solar systems don’t have to be 10,000 LY apart. 

 

It's an argument against Dark Forest, which includes the concept of "wiping out all potential threats".

[swansont]

20 minutes ago, zapatos said:

It's an argument against Dark Forest, which includes the concept of "wiping out all potential threats".

My understanding of DF is the fear that one or more civilizations might want to wipe everyone out, not that all of them do. So it includes hiding from potential threats, and being hesitant to attack because the time (and therefore technology) lag.

https://www.iflscience.com/the-dark-forest-hypothesis-an-unsettling-explanation-for-why-aliens-havent-made-contact--59407

None of that implies FTL travel.

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

My understanding of DF is the fear that one or more civilizations might want to wipe everyone out, not that all of them do. So it includes hiding from potential threats, and being hesitant to attack because the time (and therefore technology) lag.

From your link:

Quote

Given these factors, the book suggests, all intelligent life is left with the safest course of action: to wipe out any other lifeforms before they can do the same to them. 

There may be a hesitancy to act according to DF, but ultimately that seems the goal.

5 minutes ago, swansont said:

None of that implies FTL travel.

Agreed. But without it the chances of being successful in eliminating another life form goes way down using the 10,000 LY example @Markus Hanke provided.

[swansont]

49 minutes ago, zapatos said:

From your link:

Also from the link

This doesn't mean that we haven't heard from other species because they have all been wiped out, the book argues. If even one species out there acts like this, it makes sense for all others to keep quiet, and not advertise their existence to others.

However there is one factor that the book expands on, that though wiping out others before they can do the same to you is the most rational course of action, aliens may not do it for practical reasons. Say you send out a fleet of destroyers to another star system. By the time it gets there, your fleet will remain at the same technological level you sent it, while the people you are attacking will have advanced by centuries or even millenia.

As such, it may be beneficial to most civilizations to simply sit out there like many other forms of benevolent lifeforms, all hiding themselves in the forest in fear.

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Say you send out a fleet of destroyers to another star system. By the time it gets there, your fleet will remain at the same technological level you sent it, while the people you are attacking will have advanced by centuries or even millenia.

As such, it may be beneficial to most civilizations to simply sit out there like many other forms of benevolent lifeforms, all hiding themselves in the forest in fear.

Yes, that is the point that both @Moontanman and I are making in our responses to @Markus Hanke. If you don't have FTL attack speed and it takes you at least 10,000 years to take a shot at your opponent you are putting yourself at risk.

Edited December 11, 2022 by zapatos

[Markus Hanke]

14 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Wouldn't FTL be necessary for the dark forest hypothesis to be valad?  

No, just the opposite - the entire scenario rests on the assumption that the laws of physics as we know them (specifically Special Relativity) cannot be circumvented, irrespective of your level of technological development.

If it was possible to communicate FTL over large distances, then the parameters of the game will change fundamentally - you could then talk to the other races, observe them in real-time, ascertain their intentions, negotiate, and come to an agreement as to continued peaceful co-existence. Game theoretically, this will then become the most rational course of action. You could call this the “Bright Forest” scenario perhaps - it’s a situation where you can see the others, observe and study them, and find some way to coexist. 

The problem is that, given our current knowledge of physics, this scenario is ruled out on fundamental grounds.

8 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Without FTL the idea of invading another planet becomes a many thousands of years effort.

It’s not invasion, it’s annihilation. That’s not the same thing at all, because the latter is done from a distance. This is in fact disturbingly easy - all you need to do is fire a small, dense projectile (say for example a chunk of dense metal the size of an aircraft carrier) at just the right high-relativistic speed at the target planet. The speed must be just right - too slow and it won’t have the necessary oomph, too fast and it will likely punch right through the target and out the other side. But if it’s done right, all the kinetic energy should become free on impact. With catastrophic results.

Of course this will still take time (and some accurate and reliable maths) to execute, given the distances involved, but it’s doable. All you need is enough energy, and some mechanism to sufficiently accelerate and aim your projectile, which shouldn’t be too difficult for an advanced civilisation.

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

If you don't have FTL attack speed and it takes you at least 10,000 years to take a shot at your opponent you are putting yourself at risk.

Yes. But game theoretically, in a scenario like DF, it is still the best and most rational among all realistically available options. What are the alternatives? You could just do your level best to ensure you remain invisible and undetectable to everyone else (hide); or you can simply not do anything and hope that the others won’t attack you due to ethical considerations (hope). Or you can take a gamble, and broadcast a message of the type “DON’T ATTACK WE ARE PEACEFUL” in all directions, and hope that anyone who picks it up will believe you. How credible such a message would be, given the state of current affairs here on Earth, is another question; and sending such a message would be like lighting a beacon, since everyone will know exactly where you are located.

So it’s basically attack, hide, hope, or come out of hiding and show yourself. None of these are pretty, but it can be shown that pre-emptive attack will maximise your chances of survival in a game like this.

[mistermack]

7 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

What are the alternatives?

What your scenario doesn't take into account, is the almost certainty that in less than 200 years, we will have some kinds of colonies in space. Probably numerous giant space stations, and industrial colonies on the Moon etc. So if aliens want to destroy us that way, their time is running out fast. 

And vice versa, if we wanted to strike at far-off aliens using your method, it would only work if they had not yet mastered living off-planet. Thats not very likely, if their progress was as rapid as ours. 

We've gone from being Earth bound to landing machines on Mars in just over 100 years, which is nothing in real time. The aliens could easily be a million years ahead of us, in mastering space living, so wasting their planet would probably be a complete waste of time. We would just be creating an enemy for no gain. And of course, that enemy could have friends, who are even more advanced than they are. You could be making yourself a target, for a NATO like alliance. 

[Moontanman]

36 minutes ago, mistermack said:

What your scenario doesn't take into account, is the almost certainty that in less than 200 years, we will have some kinds of colonies in space. Probably numerous giant space stations, and industrial colonies on the Moon etc. So if aliens want to destroy us that way, their time is running out fast. 

And vice versa, if we wanted to strike at far-off aliens using your method, it would only work if they had not yet mastered living off-planet. Thats not very likely, if their progress was as rapid as ours. 

We've gone from being Earth bound to landing machines on Mars in just over 100 years, which is nothing in real time. The aliens could easily be a million years ahead of us, in mastering space living, so wasting their planet would probably be a complete waste of time. We would just be creating an enemy for no gain. And of course, that enemy could have friends, who are even more advanced than they are. You could be making yourself a target, for a NATO like alliance. 

I agree, I think the "Dark Forest" hypothesis is nothing but paranoia unchained.  

[zapatos]

8 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

So it’s basically attack, hide, hope, or come out of hiding and show yourself. None of these are pretty, but it can be shown that pre-emptive attack will maximise your chances of survival in a game like this.

Sounds like the Prisoner's Dilemma. Attacking your opponents may not result in the best possible outcome, but it does ensure you are unlikely to suffer the worst possible outcome.

[swansont]

17 minutes ago, mistermack said:

What your scenario doesn't take into account, is the almost certainty that in less than 200 years, we will have some kinds of colonies in space. Probably numerous giant space stations, and industrial colonies on the Moon etc. So if aliens want to destroy us that way, their time is running out fast. 

And vice versa, if we wanted to strike at far-off aliens using your method, it would only work if they had not yet mastered living off-planet. Thats not very likely, if their progress was as rapid as ours. 

We've gone from being Earth bound to landing machines on Mars in just over 100 years, which is nothing in real time. The aliens could easily be a million years ahead of us, in mastering space living, so wasting their planet would probably be a complete waste of time. We would just be creating an enemy for no gain. And of course, that enemy could have friends, who are even more advanced than they are. You could be making yourself a target, for a NATO like alliance. 

This time line assumes that we were discovered just recently. If one takes this scenario at face value, you destroy all alien life, not just advanced civilizations - you don’t give them the chance to become a threat. That expands the response time by hundreds or thousands of years. The time it took us to go from earth-bound to landing on the moon depends on when you started the clock. It could be millions of years, if you go from bipedal, tool-using creature.

You could entertain the idea that the K-T extinction was an annihilation attempt ~65 million years ago.

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

 

You could entertain the idea that the K-T extinction was an annihilation attempt ~65 million years ago.

All these theories of planet destroyer aliens seem rooted in one particular human flavor of paranoia.  As @Moontanman noted.  I find the Bright Forest scenario vastly more probable, that civilizations that reach a high technology level rely on cooperation, curiosity, and a propensity for trade and intellectual exchange over annihilating.   For all the bad chapters in human history, violence and warfare per capita have plummeted in the past few centuries (I think Stephen Pinker has a graph of this) and less warlike nations have discovered the mutual profit of peaceful trade vastly outweighing the gains of war.  (Putin is notable in how much he is an outlier, and presides over a shrinking economy which will soon have the GDP of a third world country). Even very primitive H-G bands are now trading woodcarvings or orchid bulbs for cellphones and tools.  If our human civilization manages to get through the nuclear weapons phase and the relics of xenophobia and ancient religious hatreds, we will emerge as a curious and friendly outpost of sentience that can actually assemble the brainpower and economic engines needed for starfaring if that's still seen as desirable.  And I don't believe we will cling to the Stay Silent option, which is the belief system of a mouse not a human. 

I think Fermi's "where are they" relates to the limiting factors in the Drake Equation, not to a galaxy of trembling nervous nellies.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by TheVat
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[swansont]

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

For all the bad chapters in human history, violence and warfare per capita have plummeted in the past few centuries (I think Stephen Pinker has a graph of this) and less warlike nations have discovered the mutual profit of peaceful trade vastly outweighing the gains of war. 

The number of deaths is down, but the number of conflicts is up. One factor, I suspect, is economic.

https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

Armies are smaller, but the cost of deployment per combatant is much higher than it used to be.

Another is advances in medicine, which reduces fatalities and also has an economic impact, if one’s society cares for its wounded soldiers.

So it’s possible one contributing reason countries avoid escalation is because they can’t afford it.

Interstellar war would have a really large economic impact.

[Markus Hanke]

16 hours ago, mistermack said:

so wasting their planet would probably be a complete waste of time. We would just be creating an enemy for no gain

Yes, that’s a good point. I should remind you though that the concept I described about relativistic projectiles was just my own idea of the simplest possible way to go about this. Obviously, if the target civilisation is spread out, then this would call for more sophisticated tactics.

15 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I agree, I think the "Dark Forest" hypothesis is nothing but paranoia unchained.  

No, it’s just game theory. I kind of come from the opposite direction - I find the assumption that all advanced civilisations must necessarily be ethical and/or benevolent to be questionable. It is also a very dangerous assumption, should you get it wrong. Of course I would want the more benevolent scenario to be the case, but…well.

12 hours ago, TheVat said:

I find the Bright Forest scenario vastly more probable

I’m personally hoping you are right. Unfortunately, Bright Forest (which btw isn’t an official term, it’s just something I came up with in my last post) relies on these civilisations either being able to effectively communicate and thus come to an agreement that ensures peaceful coexistence; or on there being some kind of universal ethics that is somehow shared between all highly developed forms of life, even prior to contact, and which prevents someone acting like in the DF scenario.

Effective communication is highly constrained by the laws of physics, as described in my last post, and also by the compatibility problem. Basically, if you aren’t reasonably close to one another, both in spatial as well as psycho-cultural terms, then meaningful communication will be extremely difficult. I find it exceedingly unlikely for this not to be the case, unless the galaxy is swarming with intelligent species in close proximity who have somehow all managed to work around the compatibility problem.

As for ethics, there’s really nothing at all we can say, since we ourselves are the only available data point. So I can’t guess as to any probabilities here.

12 hours ago, TheVat said:

And I don't believe we will cling to the Stay Silent option

It’s too late for this anyway. We’ve been unwittingly bleeding all manner of obviously artificial EM radiation out into the cosmos, so if there’s anyone within a radius of ~100LY or so who cares to monitor these EM bands using sensitive enough receivers, then they will already know that we are here.

For better or worse, the stay silent option is no longer available to us.

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, Markus Hanke said:

It’s too late for this anyway. We’ve been unwittingly bleeding all manner of obviously artificial EM radiation out into the cosmos, so if there’s anyone within a radius of ~100LY or so who cares to monitor these EM bands using sensitive enough receivers, then they will already know that we are here.

For better or worse, the stay silent option is no longer available to us.

Current thought would seem to favor the idea that radio leakage is constrained to less than 2 light years except for powerful sources like Arecibo or military radars accidentally sweeping over us as they probe objects nearby to them. Things like cosmic dust, gas, plasma, and magnetic fields would absorb any "EM Leakage" but we have seen sources that resembled military radar or radio telescopes being used to image objects that would be nearby to them.

Then there is the problem of our own signals getting dimmer over time as the efficiency of the receivers becomes ever more effective requiring less power from the broadcast. 

We do this and there is no reason others wouldn't do it as well. But such em signals wouldn't repeat and so would not be considered candidates for intelligent signals. The WOW signal would be considered as such and other signals we have detected but never repeated. 

It is often said that Radio telescopes could detect a signal from across the universe or some such nonsense but that is assuming an intentional signal with very high power beamed directly at us. We have done that only twice that I am aware of and the signal was short and wasn't repeated and so if we had detected such a signal it would have been dismissed. 

[Markus Hanke]

49 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Current thought would seem to favor the idea that radio leakage is constrained to less than 2 light years except for powerful sources like Arecibo or military radars accidentally sweeping over us as they probe objects nearby to them. Things like cosmic dust, gas, plasma, and magnetic fields would absorb any "EM Leakage" but we have seen sources that resembled military radar or radio telescopes being used to image objects that would be nearby to them.

Then there is the problem of our own signals getting dimmer over time as the efficiency of the receivers becomes ever more effective requiring less power from the broadcast. 

We do this and there is no reason others wouldn't do it as well. But such em signals wouldn't repeat and so would not be considered candidates for intelligent signals. The WOW signal would be considered as such and other signals we have detected but never repeated. 

It is often said that Radio telescopes could detect a signal from across the universe or some such nonsense but that is assuming an intentional signal with very high power beamed directly at us. We have done that only twice that I am aware of and the signal was short and wasn't repeated and so if we had detected such a signal it would have been dismissed. 

All very good points +1

Just in case it came across differently - I am not trying to be argumentative about any of this. The reality of the situation is that we are all speculating here; there is really no hard data available to us to privilege any of the possible solutions to the Fermi paradox over any other, never even mind the issue of us not even knowing the complete set of all possible solutions. I simply think that DF is a scenario that, based on what we do know, and based on certain mathematically considerations, cannot be readily dismissed - as unsatisfying and scary as it is.

But truth be told, this is one issue where I would genuine love to be proven entirely wrong

[Intoscience]

17 hours ago, swansont said:

You could entertain the idea that the K-T extinction was an annihilation attempt ~65 million years ago

A good point.

Rather than build and aim a projectile towards a planet why not redirect an asteroid. At least this way there is less obvious evidence of an intentional attack.

In fact why not redirect lots of naturally forming objects.

One could even argue (conspiracy theory alert) that  Oumuamua was a failed attempt. 

23 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

All very good points +1

Just in case it came across differently - I am not trying to be argumentative about any of this. The reality of the situation is that we are all speculating here; there is really no hard data available to us to privilege any of the possible solutions to the Fermi paradox over any other, never even mind the issue of us not even knowing the complete set of all possible solutions. I simply think that DF is a scenario that, based on what we do know, and based on certain mathematically considerations, cannot be readily dismissed - as unsatisfying and scary as it is.

But truth be told, this is one issue where I would genuine love to be proven entirely wrong

Agreed,

I think since we are speculating and things like FTL have been mentioned. Then it would not be out of the realms to consider any sufficiently advanced technology that is capable of lightspeed may also be capable of forming and utilising wormholes. This would be a far more efficient method to observe and make a much better planned attack from. 

I can easily imagine an advanced alien technology detecting our presence via radio signals even far into our future. Then they form a wormhole close enough by to observe us temporally simultaneously to see what stage of technology advancement we are at.  

Edited December 12, 2022 by Intoscience
spelling

[mistermack]

As far as the Fermi Paraxox goes, there's a factor that's not immediately obvious. Here as humans on Earth, we have a sample of one, and evolution has produced a being capable of science and industry. So it's tempting to assume that that will happen elsewhere. But the fact is, we humans are an incredible evolutionary freak. Take away the homo genus, and what's left? The highest form of intelligence is Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans. 

It looks likely that there is a natural ceiling for intelligence that we have freakishly blasted through, and as yet, nobody knows why that happened. Chimpanzees and Gorillas and Orangs have pretty much the same mental capabilities as our common ancestor had ten million years ago. They certainly seem to have hit a natural ceiling in the intelligence stakes. Whales and Dolphins are brainy, but nowhere near capable of any tech. 

So it might well be the same on other planets that have produced life. There might be millions or billions of Earth-like planets, but they might all produce nothing more intelligent than a Chimp.

In any case, if the intelligent life came from water-living animals, I think it's very unlikely that they would be able to make stuff, in the way that we can. How could you progress to industry, without oxygen in the air, and fossil fuels in the ground? 

Earth might be a one-in-a-billion freak, in being suitable for developing technology, and humans might be a one-in-a-billion freak in the intelligence stakes. We just don't know, having just a sample of one to go by. 

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

There might be millions or billions of Earth-like planets, but they might all produce nothing more intelligent than a Chimp.

Yes, but evolution continues to function, meaning those chimps will continue to evolve - what will they look like in another million years?

[mistermack]

10 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, but evolution continues to function, meaning those chimps will continue to evolve - what will they look like in another million years?

That's the important question. What I'm saying is that we are pre-inclined to guess that evolution will naturally produce an increase in their intelligence, but there is no reason to assume that. Our own increase in intelligence was driven by an unknown factor, and is freakish in nature. About nine million years ago, we had a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We diverged, and evolved many differences, but the Chimpanzees etc of today show very little difference from the last common ancestor. If they haven't changed much in nine million years, why would they change significantly in the next million? 

Intelligence in the form of a big brain has costs as well as benefits. It's naturally less robust, and uses a lot of energy, and causes a lot of deaths in childbirth, and needs an extended period of vulnerable childhood to develop. There are many good reasons why there should be an intelligence ceiling. Most evolutionary scientists acknowledge that our own case is extremely freakish, and the evolutionary benefit that caused our brain expansion has still not been discovered. 

In fact, up to fairly recently, our species struggled to exist, and were easily outnumbered by the hordes of less intelligent species. Study of our dna indicates that the population numbers of our ancestors dropped dangerously close to extinction levels, whereas monkeys etc were easily outcompeting us.

If we HAD gone extinct, at one of those bottleneck points, our example of one civilisation would have been zero, and the argument that intelligence has a natural ceiling would look like common sense. 

Other hominid cousins with enlarged brains all went extinct, only our line actually made it, so the cost/benefit equation didn't work out for them.

[TheVat]

9 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

 

As for ethics, there’s really nothing at all we can say, since we ourselves are the only available data point. So I can’t guess as to any probabilities here.

 

I guess one can describe Earth as one data point, though it does have a multiplicity of civilizations with some variety in their ethical systems.  So we can look at them, through history to present day, and see how some systems prosper more than others.  While this is a meager data set, with regard to a galaxy, I was suggesting some guesses could be made.  One guess, as I posted earlier, is that societies that favor trade over genocide are far more likely to thrive and develop planetary cooperatives that can afford space travel.

It's fair to say my guess is a hypothesis maybe only testable by potentially exposing ourselves to possible "Borg" collectives or other threats.  

Or there may be a natural ceiling for intelligence,  as @mistermack discusses.  And we may find an empty galaxy, so far as big-brained toolmakers are concerned.  Speaking as one of the big-brained toolmakers, I predict this is something we will try to determine even with the risk that the answer will disappoint us.  At some point, if we are not finding any signs of intelligence, we might disseminate Von Neumann machines that could massively replicate and survey every star system.  (Could some UFO sightings actually be of such devices?)

Edited December 12, 2022 by TheVat

[Moontanman]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

I guess one can describe Earth as one data point, though it does have a multiplicity of civilizations with some variety in their ethical systems.  So we can look at them, through history to present day, and see how some systems prosper more than others.  While this is a meager data set, with regard to a galaxy, I was suggesting some guesses could be made.  One guess, as I posted earlier, is that societies that favor trade over genocide are far more likely to thrive and develop planetary cooperatives that can afford space travel.

It's fair to say my guess is a hypothesis maybe only testable by potentially exposing ourselves to possible "Borg" collectives or other threats.  

Or there may be a natural ceiling for intelligence,  as @mistermack discusses.  And we may find an empty galaxy, so far as big-brained toolmakers are concerned.  Speaking as one of the big-brained toolmakers, I predict this is something we will try to determine even with the risk that the answer will disappoint us.  At some point, if we are not finding any signs of intelligence, we might disseminate Von Neumann machines that could massively replicate and survey every star system.  (Could some UFO sightings actually be of such devices?)

IMHO the Von Neumann probes are the most likely source for UFOs, if they are not of this planet, but such technology can equally be speculated to create actual biological beings once they arrive, even beings that look like us instead of the original creators of the probes. Once you start speculating about magical technology anything is possible as long as it doesn't violate actual physical laws of the universe. 

Another "speculation" would be that aliens do not colonise planets or even have an interest in them other than scientific curiosity. Preferring instead to use the resources in orbit of a star like asteroids, Kuiper Belt objects and small moons to manufacture artificial habitats around stars vastly increasing their population density over what they could achieve with just habitable planets. 

It's quite possible under this scenario that many different species of aliens could exist in one solar system specializing in various ways akin to an ecosystem having varying species of animals all exploiting different niches even preying on each other or living commensally and never bothering with planets and their outrageously different habitats other than possibly studying a particularly interesting aspect of a particular planet... like a planet having an up and coming civilization of its own. 

The habitats of planets could and probably would not match the habitats of other planets making them problematical to colonise. Even small differences in trace elements could make a planet uninhabitable. A change in levels of something like mercury could make a planet uninhabitable to us but not prevent life from evolving there. 

Biological problems like virus' or bacteria or biological poisons could prevent colonization of a planet but many millions of artificial habitats could be made from small objects orbiting a star with their internal ecosystems exactly tailored to the needs of the life forms that created them.      

[Moontanman]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this one or not. Reputed to be the clearest UFO picture ever taken. It was taken in 1990 by hikers in scotland. 

 

 

[mistermack]

That whole story is pretty suspect. Nobody knows who took the picture, and it's been under wraps for thirty years. It doesn't fill you with confidence, and the picture doesn't look great quality anyway. If that't the best ever, it's not saying much.

On the subject of pre-emptive strikes against hopefully all the aliens, the problem of multiple targets might be bigger than we can imagine. The targets might be in their millions, or even billions. I just looked up what animal produces the most eggs on Earth, and it's the Ocean Sunfish, that produces a whopping 300 million in a season ! 

So if the aliens were anything like that, or had advanced cloning technology, they might be able to bounce back from disaster in just a few short years, so long as a few survived. They could archive all current knowledge in a few small space stations, just as we could today, so they wouldn't need to learn everything again from scratch.

[Moontanman]

2 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That whole story is pretty suspect. Nobody knows who took the picture, and it's been under wraps for thirty years. It doesn't fill you with confidence, and the picture doesn't look great quality anyway. If that't the best ever, it's not saying much.

On the subject of pre-emptive strikes against hopefully all the aliens, the problem of multiple targets might be bigger than we can imagine. The targets might be in their millions, or even billions. I just looked up what animal produces the most eggs on Earth, and it's the Ocean Sunfish, that produces a whopping 300 million in a season ! 

So if the aliens were anything like that, or had advanced cloning technology, they might be able to bounce back from disaster in just a few short years, so long as a few survived. They could archive all current knowledge in a few small space stations, just as we could today, so they wouldn't need to learn everything again from scratch.

You are out hiking, you have a camera with you but you are not actively taking photos, suddenly a UFO appears for a few seconds... take a clear picture! I'd be lucky manage to get my camera out much less take a clear picture. 

[mistermack]

6 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I'd be lucky manage to get my camera out much less take a clear picture. 

And yet I've seen fantastic quality pictures and video of Amur Leopards and Tigers. In stark contrast to Bigfoot and Yetis and Spacecraft and ghosts.