British MOD Says UFO's Aren't Real

[rogerbo]

You eathlings don't know that with each War Game out there we just test how you would defense yourselfes against us :rotfl:
We have taken over all of the Computer industry and B.G. is our representative on your Planet.


Earth your Doomed

[STEED]

Originally Posted by rogerbo

You eathlings don't know that with each War Game out there we just test how you would defense yourselfes against us :rotfl:
We have taken over all of the Computer industry and B.G. is our representative on your Planet.
Earth your Doomed

That's what you think.......



Ed Straker is on your case you alien.

[Skybird]

Science is not omnipotent. In it'S claim to be able to explain and to deal with all and everything, it tends to see earth as the centre of the universe, and all cosmos can only be constructed in a way so that human mind can master it. - We are still as egocentirc as we were during the medieval, we just hide it in a most subtle self-betraying.
But the opposite position to this critcism is attractive, but nevertheless a trap, too: while I dislike the self-understanding of science as to be fit with all tools to explain all and everything, which I severly doubt, some people now go and tell us that ignoring science and fall for the most phantastic follies is a virtue, and that it is true if only you would believe in it.

Skybird'S most-hated poster ever: Fox Mulder's office, a flying saucer and above that the headline: "I WANT TO BELIEVE" Aaaargh!

What I like in science - as i understand it - is set at it's base. In it's best understanding it is a very sceptical mindset. It is, in my understanding, so sceptiacl, that it even is sceptical about itself, it's means and tools and potentials. Science, as I understand it, rules nothing out from the beginning, it is open for all perspectives, whicht hen get examined in a systematical manner, by use of reason of logic (at least often).

but today science is a busi9ness, and an opportunity for careers. To be succesfuly, you need to adopt to the paradims of your time, you need to make compromises. creativity suffers from that, and honesty. With the ongoing selling of scientific institutes all over the world to the econom,ical big players, knowledge and insights is loosijng in value, the demand is shifting to science' responsebility of delivering the tools that the industry is in need for to be successful in it's fields of profits. Science is more and more suffering from opportunistic tunnelview.

On the other side of the masses of people being interested in UFOs and the like, are the bekievers. These people DO WANT to believe, soemtimes as a religion in itself, sometimes in service of their orthodox religion. The symptoms this audience is producing often are rediculous.

The way we talk aboutUFOS already may be hindering our understanding of it. Most people think they are classical, mechanical means of spoaceships, that fly from A to B and land on poor mother Earth to haunt the natives. then science comes and say that it cannot travel at such speeds from A to B, so it is impossible that someone else maybe can, and so UFOs cannot exist. Or other ways of argueing like this.

I personally believe that a phenomenon that a wide public names as "UFOs" or "Aliens" does exist, however, I do not think thewre is a flying saucer under every cup of coffee. I doubt most sigthings, and I do not follow most theories. I observe the talking, or btter: the babbling both camps are producing in their heated debate about pro and contra the existence of foreign intelligence. A foreign intelligence not beeing so kind to stay where it is until mankind reaches out and discovers it to man's conditions, no, we are talking about an intelligence that is able to shake our imagined feeling of being safe from being discovered on our little earth by being so rude to come to us and contact earth to it's own conditions, instead of ours. A scandal, isn't it! How could "they"?

Well, do they? I am not interested in those 98 % of sightings that are explained by weather and air traffic ophenomenons. I am talking about those less than 2% of sightings from professional personnel that was able to rule out disfunctioning technical equipment, that made precise descriptions of a flight behavior that impossibly can be done by man-made aircraft, and that also could not be explained by atmospherical phenomenons, or testflights of new, secret airplanes, wetaher ballons or such. Some of the attempts in the past decades to shake the UFO hypothesis had been so idiotic claims and stupid arguments, that one even could feel offended by how stupid they thought all people of the public audience must be.

Do I believe in UFOS, grey little men and adbuctions? Neither yes, nor no. I keep my mind open, but have stopped to actively being busy with this. I know that there are interesting links between abduction exprriences, and old mythology, and near death experiences (the latter has been a special interest of mine as a psychologist). I know that there is a small handful of books of scietifically skilled researchers that cannot be wiped off the table so easily. They came to some research results and conclusions that may not reach as far as the UFO believers would want them to go, but they are able to defend their conclusions by clear logical argument, and sometimes evidence. Nevertheless, the UFO-sceptics and governments are officially thinking they are already going to far. Usucally, neither believers nor sceptics like these persons, and they often are isolated by both.

I said I beloieve the pohenomenon exists, and there is a hard core in it, that has nothing to do with natural sciences, technics, and military stuff. I never believed in the thewory of aliens flying from Sirius to Earth to save us, to conquer us, or to study us (not to mention to eat our babies or rape our women). I think that the usualy clear separation between the field of the material world and the psychological world maybe needs to be perceived as being transcended here. I could imagine that what we recognize as being aliens and strange,m maybe is part of ourselve, our world, our life, our mind - who knows. I even think our own mind could be causing these vistiors from outer space, not as a hallucination, but a material reality that could transition between both level of existence as it like, for whatever the reason may be. I think that we need to re-discopver a btter knowledge and understanding of old mytholgies from various tribes and people here. What I believe very strongly is that if there are visitors, they must not necessarily come from very far away, nor from our level of existence, or dimension - understanding dimension as only one of a many different reflections of one and the same cósmos, that appears to be a very different thing with every reflection, nevertheless always is one and the same.

To end with Fox Mulder again: maybe it is not like that "the truth is out there", somewhere, but inside of us. Maybe the outer space and the inner space have more in common than our materialistic perception allows us to see. And maybe the humand person, it'S life and existence, it'S mind and the answer to the question why it is there, is so much more than both sceptical scientists and euphoric believers even could imagine.


It's not only that our vision is not deep enough. Maybe it also is not wide enough.

Visitors from far away worlds? Hardly. Manifestations of intelligence that our scientific or believing mind cannot perceive as such? Possibly. The need to better understand our own mind, and another level of existence concluded by that? Definetly.

"The truth, as always, will be far stranger". (Arthur C. Clarke ["2001"] )

[TLAM Strike]

Don't worry we have the Federation Starfleet to defend Earth.

... yep were screwed...
Starfleet Command: Fighting incompetently against numerically inferior enemies in our own territory since 2161


This is what happens when you take all the funding and put it in to Science and Exploration programs instead of funding the MACOs and Starfleet Marines for when you need to bust some (ridged) heads.

[JJ]

Seen couple of UFO's (Unidentified Flying Objects that is, not flying saucers) myself but can't really tell if they were just earthlings with their machines or visitors from space.

Anyway.. when it comes to some advanced extra-terrestrial lifeform that might be checking us out, I believe we'd know about it as much as ants would know about the little microcamera David Attenborough inserts in to their nest.

[STEED]

Area 51 the UFO hub what rubbish I know what's going on their, Area 51 is the home of the secret recipe of Coca-Cola.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by rogerbo

Who are we that we should be the only ones in the Universe ??
It may bee that there are no UFO's realy seen on this Planet, but the whole Univers is soooooo Big and in many parts Older the the Earth itself and if the Theory that life came to earth by comets and meteors is right the to asume that Humans are the only inteligent Race in the Univers is just ignorant.

I agree, but that in no way argues for the existence of aliens who have visited Earth.

The fact is, the distance between us and our nearest interstellar neighbour is HUGE. A spacecraft travelling at the highest speeds we've been able to achieve in space would take over 50,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. While I'm pretty sure aliens exist, the big question is whether they can get off their planet before the civilization is destroyed by an asteroid impact or other natural catastrophe. If they can, the odds are that they won't be able to get settled on a planet outside their solar system because the chances of finding a suitable planet and being able to reach it are very small indeed. The other thing is that any civilizations in the universe will tend to inhabit areas far away from a galactic hub, because when you place stars closer together it becomes less and less likely for any civilization to last long before some catastrophe destroys it. So the civilizations that may exist probably exist quite far from their neighbouring stars.

[rogerbo]

Beery, sure sofar there is no hard evidence known to me that we got visited already, but IMHO our main problem is that we look at it from our view and knowledge. As we know as futher away we go from the center of the universe as older the Stars get. We do know also that alot of Staers we see on our sky don't exist anymore cause of the Gigantic Distance, and we know what Einstein sayd about the travel with light speed. BUT is that realy so ???
Is there realy no Inteligent Species out there which is 1) much older then we and 2) they may have found around Einsteins Theory which we just haven't discoverd jet ??

When Jules Vernes did write his novels all his inventions where Fantasies THEN and now ???

We realy don't know what will happen in the next 100 Years just look at the developement of the PC, Car and Plains how far have they come in just 100 Years, so this timespann is in the Galactical view nothing.

How far would be a Race who has maybee 100'000 or even 1M Years more time to research ???

I belive that I and probably the most here never will find out what realy is out there.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Beery

I agree, but that in no way argues for the existence of aliens who have visited Earth.

The fact is, the distance between us and our nearest interstellar neighbour is HUGE. A spacecraft travelling at the highest speeds we've been able to achieve in space would take over 50,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. While I'm pretty sure aliens exist, the big question is whether they can get off their planet before the civilization is destroyed by an asteroid impact or other natural catastrophe. If they can, the odds are that they won't be able to get settled on a planet outside their solar system because the chances of finding a suitable planet and being able to reach it are very small indeed. The other thing is that any civilizations in the universe will tend to inhabit areas far away from a galactic hub, because when you place stars closer together it becomes less and less likely for any civilization to last long before some catastrophe destroys it. So the civilizations that may exist probably exist quite far from their neighbouring stars.

IIRC the majority of star systems in this Galaxy are Binary system or bigger (Our good neighbors in the southern sky Alpha Centauri is a Triple Star System) so if advanced space faring life took root there its possible that even an extinction level event on their homeworld wouldn’t wipe them out since there is possibly a large number of planets and moons within their home system. Planets have been discovered within Trinary systems ('HD188753 Ab' the "Tatooine Planet" 149 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus for example). Even a “Distant� Star system out here in the Orion Arm is quite close Alpha Centauri is 4.25 ly, the closest planet yet discovered is 10.4 ly in Epsilon Eridani, HD 128311 54 ly away in the constellation Boötes has at least two planets b is about 1 AU from its star and c is 1.76 AU (sound familiar, Earth is 1 AU from Sol and Mars is 1.52 AU). If we could build a spacecraft that traveled at only 1/3rd of the Speed of Light it would take only 12 years to arrive at Alpha Centauri, there is a lot of systems in our reach. We went from LEO to the Moon in 20 years, "high" speeds like this aren't very far off if the world applied it's self.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by rogerbo

...IMHO our main problem is that we look at it from our view and knowledge. As we know as futher away we go from the center of the universe as older the Stars get. We do know also that alot of Staers we see on our sky don't exist anymore cause of the Gigantic Distance, and we know what Einstein sayd about the travel with light speed. BUT is that realy so ???

Probably. The thing is, although we certainly don't know everything about physics, we do know a lot. We have already figured out loopholes whereby Einstein's theories can be bypassed or avoided, BUT they all require so much energy that they are for all intents and purposes impossible.

The fact that we don't know everything is not the same as saying that we know nothing. After all, we're a lot more advanced than we were 300 years ago, yet Newtonian physics are still fairly reliable. As scientific knowledge develops what we're doing is refining our physical understanding, so we're not really likely to find anything that radically changes our understanding of how the universe works. Our view is somewhat biased and our knowledge is finite, BUT that doesn't mean that our view is completely false or that our knowledge is zero. In 500 years we might have a unified theory of physics, but Einstein's theories will still be a good model, as will Newton's. Trust me, we're not going to suddenly find that we can make an engine that needs a few gallons of gasoline that can take us to Alpha Centauri and back within an hour or two. Such a journey is always going to take at least decades unless we can develop a warp drive that would require the energy of entire suns to power a single 4 light year warp.

Let me put it this way: we have more likelihood of getting people to Alpha Centauri by making them live long enough so that a 5000 year space journey is survivable, than we have by making a warp drive.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by rogerbo

When Jules Vernes did write his novels all his inventions where Fantasies THEN and now ???

Jules Verne wrote his novels based on scientific knowledge that was current at the time. He knew that what he wrote about could be done. It was just a matter of time. When he wrote 20,000 Leagues the submarine was already a fact. He just wrote of a bigger one.

We realy don't know what will happen in the next 100 Years just look at the developement of the PC, Car and Plains how far have they come in just 100 Years, so this timespann is in the Galactical view nothing.

But these developments only came because of the serious application of the scientific method, which only really started in 1637 when Descartes wrote his Discourse on Method. The developments you cite came about because this gave scientists a base whereby they could weed out their own biases. This is why we know that our scientific knowledge is pretty good, and not open to vast flaws of the kind you suggest might exist. The advances in aircraft and the development of the PC all come from refinements in our knowledge and application of that knowledge. None of them came from sudden 'eureka' moments where whole new branches of physics were suddenly discovered that we didn't know about before.

How far would be a Race who has maybee 100'000 or even 1M Years more time to research ???

In terms of research, not very much further. In terms of applications, quite far, but I seriously doubt that it would get them to Alpha Centauri in an hour as Star Wars spacecraft could. Such things are just not on the cards.

[Skybird]

Problem with judging if we know a lot or only a little about physics is - we do not know the total, the complete, the ultimate, the final "physics" of the universe. We also cannot say if our knowledge, our mind interacts with the physics of the unioverse, and maybe changes them. We make assumptions on how it is there - but we do not kinow how it is there, as long as we haven'T been there. Knowing a lot, or a little: such a judgement depends on what we compare our knowledge level to. Maybe we already know a damn lot. Maybe we know close to nothing. We simply do not know that. Five hundred years ago, people thought they knew most of what is to be known. Five hundred years before, people thought they knew a lot as well. And before them, people did not thought different. If we tell someone from the medieval that we walk on the moon, we would be burned, maybe, for teaching black magic. Today, we say "quantum physics", or whatever, and again we think we know a lot. Do we? With every answer we found, more questions have appeared. It is an often used phrase, but what we have learned in the main is how - little we do know.

And why this obsession with linear space flight, flying at high speed from A to B? I'm sure that there are ways to get "there". I am also sure it will not be done by linear movement from "here" to "there".

And what use could it be if we recognize and understand that universe "out there" - without having a far more profound understanding of ourselves? Like it is today, spaceflight would only acchieve one thing: that we transport our mental deficits, psychological malfunctions, or short: all our troubles and earthly problems between the stars. And who ever may be there - maybe would not like to see an aggressive neurotic leaving his home and infesting his neighbourhood with his private issues.

If I were "them", I already would have set planet Earth under quarantine. Looking at tpday's world, we can hardly claim to have learned to use our biological assets to our and our planet'S best. Maybe some far away day in the future - if we avoid suicide that long.

Space travel. Nice and well. It is often said that we know more about the dark side of the moon, than about the deep sea below a level of let'S say 2000m. All we know that that place is far more alive and "hot" then was thought in previous decades. Maybe we start learning about our most existential living variables, before looking to join starship Enterprise. The technological challenge is as big. Some say it even is bigger.


While I am at it: german Top-bestseller "The swarm" by Frank Schätzing is about to be released in English language end of this month, says amazon.com. Currently reading it myself, and I am hooked. Concentrating on the navl environemnt, it is a mixture of mystery-thriller, scifi, suspense, adventure, ecology- and desaster-thriller. 1000 pages, mjam-mjam! Good fodder for holidays. It's the story of earth's seas turning against mankind, and nature taking revenge foruman ignoration towards his natural living sphere. Or is there something behind it all that alraedy starts to wage war against man...? Near the end, it really gets cataclysmic. That's why hollywood said it has started to turn it into a blockbuster-format movie. Oh, very living and precise characterizations opf protagonists. There are plenty of these, because once the dying begins, it does not stop for a long while There is also a lot of educational material on maritime life and naval geology.

Very good entertainment!

[joea]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Don't worry we have the Federation Starfleet to defend Earth.
This is what happens when you take all the funding and put it in to Science and Exploration programs instead of funding the MACOs and Starfleet Marines for when you need to bust some (ridged) heads.

STEED loved UFO.

TLAM, what are those pics from? Since I moved out to Europe kinda been out of the Star Trek thing...I know all of the Original and Next Gen, started into DS9 never really got into Voyager. Is that from DS9 and what is it??

[Beery]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

If we could build a spacecraft that traveled at only 1/3rd of the Speed of Light it would take only 12 years to arrive at Alpha Centauri, there is a lot of systems in our reach.

Sure, but that's a HUGE 'if'. Do you realise the amount of fuel it would require to reach those speeds?

We went from LEO to the Moon in 20 years, "high" speeds like this aren't very far off if the world applied it's self.

Yes they are. We went from the Earth to the moon using the exact same propulsion system that the earliest astronauts used, and the same speeds. We need an entirely different propulsion system to take us to the nearest stars - it's not just a matter of building a bigger or more powerful rocket. All the technologies that are envisaged today as actually possible only propel a spacecraft at very low sub-light speeds. That means it will take at least 40 years to get to Alpha Centauri. This is not just a matter of applying ourselves to the problem. The problem is one that, as far as we know, can't be solved. As far as we know (and as I said before, we know a lot) we can never go faster than light, and the only technologies that we know of can't realistically even approach light speed.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by joea

STEED loved UFO.

TLAM, what are those pics from? Since I moved out to Europe kinda been out of the Star Trek thing...I know all of the Original and Next Gen, started into DS9 never really got into Voyager. Is that from DS9 and what is it??

The Breen attack on Starfleet Command from Season 7 of DS9.


The MACOs (Military Assault Command Operations) of the Earth Military from Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3-4.