UFOs (now UAPs)

[SuperMatt]

Apparently they are called UAPs now. And the US Department of Defense is investigating them. Congress heard testimony all about it today for the first time in over 50 years.

The military's UFO database now has info from about 400 reported incidents

That's up from 143 incidents in a report issued in 2021. Officials partly credited reducing stigma around the issue for the new reports, many of which are older and went unmentioned at the time.

www.npr.org

Tangential bit of testimony: The head of DoD intelligence says he is a sci-fi fan and even has attended some conventions, although he doesn’t get into costume.

 

[Pumbaa]

I like going with UAP (unexplained aerial phenomena) with UFOs as a subset.

 

[Herdfan]

So who believes in UFO's or UAP's?

It is not that I think life can't exist other places in the universe (the basic building blocks for life are abundant), but the physics of space travel are what leads me to believe we will never visit them or them, us. We are hoping within the next 20 years to develop a propulsion system that will let us achieve 10% of the speed of light. That means we can make it to Earth's closest star in just a shade over 40 years. So until scientists can fix that pesky problem with E=MC^2, then we can not achieve the speed of light. And even if we could, that still means we are limited to a handful of star systems 15-20 light years to explore.

 

[Pumbaa]

So who believes in UFO's or UAP's?

Neither of those = alien spaceships.

Heck, a bona fide extraterrestrial spaceship would cease to be a UFO once it has been identified.

 

[Renzatic]

So who believes in UFO's or UAP's?

Anything can be a UFO if you try hard enough.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Neither of those = alien spaceships.

Heck, a bona fide extraterrestrial spaceship would cease to be a UFO once it has been identified.

ya but how do you identify it? I mean unless it has a flag from the planet it came from plus some map to show where it came from?

 

[Renzatic]

ya but how do you identify it? I mean unless it has a flag from the planet it came from plus some map to show where it came from?

If the pilots make contact with us, then it's no longer unidentified. We'll know it's those bastards from there on out.

 

[Pumbaa]

ya but how do you identify it? I mean unless it has a flag from the planet it came from plus some map to show where it came from?

I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve found one and identified it. Could be a while, though, complicated enough to identify terrestrial birds.

 

[Deleted member 215]

These are the important things we should be spending a lot of federal money and time on.

 

[Edd]

So who believes in UFO's or UAP's?

It is not that I think life can't exist other places in the universe (the basic building blocks for life are abundant), but the physics of space travel are what leads me to believe we will never visit them or them, us. We are hoping within the next 20 years to develop a propulsion system that will let us achieve 10% of the speed of light. That means we can make it to Earth's closest star in just a shade over 40 years. So until scientists can fix that pesky problem with E=MC^2, then we can not achieve the speed of light. And even if we could, that still means we are limited to a handful of star systems 15-20 light years to explore.

I assume, statistically speaking, that there are many advanced civilizations out there. The chances of us making contact before humans go extinct seem nearly zero.

Contact is an underrated film, IMO.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Well UFOs are back in the news again.

This David Grusch guy seems quite credible and in the position to hear about such things. But there seems to be no first hand evidence here which is quite problematic. He might think he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean he is being told accurate information. It is odd however you would lead with “we have alien craft” and not his other revolution “we have alien bodies”. I suppose the former sounds less incredible than the latter.

Part of me thinks there is a cabal I’d rather scientifically unsophisticated people in our government and military who so desperately want to believe in UFOs, almost to a religious level, that they let confirmation bias get the best of them. And this has created hysteria- which the government appears to be not immune from (case and point “Havana syndrome”)

Another part of me thinks this is some psyop, but to what end I have no idea. Maybe Putin has some secret obsession with aliens.

I don’t doubt we are alone in the universe, but the distances and time scales required to travel seem quite difficult to traverse.

 

[Yoused]

I like "UAP", because then youcan pronounce it like "whap".

 

[mac_in_tosh]

I would be fascinated if we were visited by aliens, providing of course that they were friendly, but I don't find credible all these so-called sightings. In an age when large numbers of people have quite capable cameras in their pockets, why has there not been a single clear, unambiguous photo of an alleged extraterrestiral craft? As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A blurry splotch or small points of light don't meet that standard.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

So who believes in UFO's or UAP's?

It is not that I think life can't exist other places in the universe (the basic building blocks for life are abundant), but the physics of space travel are what leads me to believe we will never visit them or them, us.

I tend to agree but I remind myself that this is all according to our present understanding of spacetime. We don't know what we don't yet know. There may be civilizations millions of years ahead of us who have overcome these limitations.

 

[fischersd]

It's probable that there's millions of civilizations out there. Many will be far more advanced than we are technologically. Maybe they've figured out how to bend space/time or create worm holes at will. If they came to visit us, it would be mostly out of curiosity to see what these primitives are up to now. Until we get our own shit together, we're not worthy of contact.

Some would suggest we've been here for millions of years....that's how many reboots? How many times have we annihilated ourselves?

We're at the "kiddie table" until we stop destroying our planet, learn to share our resources (hint: capitalism isn't it!) with one another and live in peace.

 

[Edd]

.Some would suggest we've been here for millions of years....that's how many reboots? How many times have we annihilated ourselves?

I'll need to see some proof before I buy that one, be it fossils or artifacts. Something.

 

[Yoused]

I'll need to see some proof before I buy that one, be it fossils or artifacts. Something.

​

Basically, nearly all evidence of human civilation on Earth would be gone in a few million years. The video suggests that shards of plastic would persist, but it is techically organic matter: I suspect that lifeforms (like bacteria) would develop that would metabolize it, because we already have things of the sort.

That is the window. Dinosaurs lived on the far side of the galaxy. By the time our system is back over there, it is unlikely that there will be the slightest evidence of our existence. For us to discover another civilization means we have to hit their window, which, on astronomical scales, would be like shooting a bullet across the ocean and hitting a specific hair.

In other words, if SETI were to acquire undeniable evidence of ETL, that would probably be all we would ever know about them, because we are not capable of reaching them before time has erased them from the historical record. Even with super-light travel, we could probably not get there before they were gone.

Civilization on this planet is not going to make it much longer. We are a decade or two away from complete ecological collapse, which will lead to famine, which will lead to war. By 2100, there will be less than 100 million humans alive on Earth. Probably a lot less.

It may be possible for them to rebuild some form of civilization from what they have left, but they will need effective anti-leaders to prevent them from descending into the same sort of hole we are in now. They will need a completely different social structure, that works from the bottom instead of the top. Perhaps we should be bio-engineering now toward humans with that manner of social tendency, if we do not want to be but a comma on the pages of history.

 

[rdrr]

...​

They will need a completely different social structure, that works from the bottom instead of the top.

How come the human tendency is act like pack animals and always look for an alpha leader?

No matter what leader folks end up following, those on the bottom of the power rung are never represented properly and always are left with a feeling of disillusion.

 

[Yoused]

How come the human tendency is act like pack animals and always look for an alpha leader?

It does not seem to be a uniquely human behavior pattern, as you imply. I believe part of the impetus (survival factor) lies in the fact that thinking is costly. It takes significant energy, that most individuals would rather not expend. Hence, the pack delegates the heavy-thought-lifting to a leader. The pack has to have a substantial body in order maintain sufficient genetic diversity, but at the same time must conserve resources, so the leader gets special treats for taking on the energy-intensive thinking and the stress of leadership.

It does have its practical advantages, especially in the wild. But complex human language has given rise to abstract intelligence (the two are inextricably linked together along with social behavior), and the pack structure has been abstracted out beyond its practical boundaries. It may be possible to correct this situation, to make social structure work on the practical level and not be extended beyond its practical limits. But that will take a lot of effort and major cultural upheavals.

 

[Nycturne]

I tend to agree but I remind myself that this is all according to our present understanding of spacetime. We don't know what we don't yet know. There may be civilizations millions of years ahead of us who have overcome these limitations.

One of the puzzles is that you don’t even need FTL to seed intelligent life across a galaxy if you can make self-replicating probes that seed civilizations rather than transport people. And you could do it on the order of millions of years to fill a galaxy. So if someone is out there more advanced, why haven’t they tried this yet?

That said, considering how our first forays into the solar system and beyond are probes, what are the odds that our first encounter with other intelligent life isn’t finding one of theirs?

Civilization on this planet is not going to make it much longer. We are a decade or two away from complete ecological collapse, which will lead to famine, which will lead to war. By 2100, there will be less than 100 million humans alive on Earth. Probably a lot less.

It may be possible for them to rebuild some form of civilization from what they have left, but they will need effective anti-leaders to prevent them from descending into the same sort of hole we are in now. They will need a completely different social structure, that works from the bottom instead of the top. Perhaps we should be bio-engineering now toward humans with that manner of social tendency, if we do not want to be but a comma on the pages of history.

While getting a bit off topic, I wind up thinking about this from a couple angles:

1) While an ecological collapse would be utterly disastrous, we don't have any good data (for obvious reasons) what odds a technological society has to survive a mass extinction. I suspect that there are decent odds that humans will survive such an event, but the untold suffering and death would be unimaginable.

2) What are the odds that a mass extinction doesn't "blast a crater in our racial memory" to borrow some prose from Avatar? I can't imagine that the survivors would simply dust themselves off and go "that was something right? Who wants to go roll coal in the last working pickup truck?"