Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

I did once see a light in the sky I couldn't explain..UFO??

Maybe..maybe not..

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

That's what I love about these threads Mups, as Gumbud said somewhere else when talking about astrophysicists, "Your guess is as good as theirs" That I firmly believe, only difference is they're paid $100,000 dollars a year for their guesses, (I checked). When it comes to the great beyond we know precious little and it's open season all the time to say what you think, I love reading what other ordinary folks think about the whole thing, and nobody can prove you right or wrong no matter how outlandish your theories seem.
I often wonder what they used to say in the old European taverns before the western world was discovered, go too far out and you'll fall over the edge, or there are terrifying monsters out there waiting to devour you, first thing they did when they eventually got there was kill the natives and rob their gold, the human race will never change will it. My opinion is they will never get off this planet and live, so I think any creatures out there are safe enough from us, thank God for that.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

Thanks Jem. Let's hope you're right.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

I'm yet to be convinced of the existence of UFOs as such, but I am absolutely convinced as to the existence of life on other planets, especially now that we have direct observational evidence of extrasolar planets and it seems that they are far more common than previously thought.

Forget for now the possibility of 'exotic' life forms based on non-carbon chemistries or even energy based life forms, they must remain purely speculative for now. For carbon based life to exist it must have evolved in an environment where liquid water exists, the so-called "Goldilocks" region around a star ... not too cold and not too hot.

We also need a stable 'main sequence' star with a life in the tens of billions of years range to give life time to emerge and evolve. Giant and supergiant stars are too energetic and too short lived.

We can't know the exact figures but let's assume that one percent of all stars have planets and that one percent of all planets orbit in the 'Goldilocks' zone and that the orbit is not too eccentric. Then in our galaxy which consists of about 300 billion stars, that gives us about 30 million planets with the potential for life to have evolved. It's pure speculation on my part but I believe that where there is the potential for life to evolve than given time it WILL evolve. Let's assume that only one percent of all evolved life manages to evolve intelligence of some sort and is not wiped out due to various natural disasters, comet collisions, nearby supernovae etc, that leaves about 300,000 possible civilisations that exist or have existed in the past.

These assumptions may be (and probably are) wildly out either way, but, at least statistically, other civilisations MUST exist 'out there'.

There are probably more than 200 billion other galaxies in the observable universe.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

Very interesting post Rob.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

Thanks Jem, this is a pet subject of mine.

Now we need to address the subject proper of this post ... UFOs. It seems to me that given the light speed barrier which, apart from one or two anomalies, is still unbreakable as far as we know, there are only two possible alternatives for other civilisations to have reached us, non-relativistic travel taking many centuries of subjective time for the travellers or alternatively, relativistic travel (close to the speed of light) which would take advantage of time dilation effects and make possible a subjective journey time many times shorter.

FTL travel in normal space to my mind will forever remain impossible although current theory at least leaves open the theoretical possible use of 'worm holes' to circumvent somehow the enormous distances involved. Also it might just be that the Einstein/Lorentz equations somehow break down close to the speed of light but so far there is no evidence that they don't hold true.

Given this, it's difficult to imagine that UFOs actually exist, the effort involved would be phenomenal and what do they do when they get here? Abduct a few humans and slaughter some cows and then NOT make proper contact? Either they would wish to observe us without interaction or they would want to make full contact, not with some poor sod on a lonely road!

Just my opinion of course.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

18 years ago, my Husband and I saw a UFO passing over our House, we were not the only ones to see it, and a reporter came down to interview us and he also said he saw it. (see article).

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

What a thrilling experience for you Susan, especially when you were not the only one to see it, something to remember for a lifetime, lucky you.

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

It's not only the distances involved - time-spans also feature, because compared to the total life-span of the Earth, humans have only existed for a fraction of a second, and the necessary knowledge we have gained is an even smaller time-fraction. After all, the dinosaurs lived longer than we have so far. The chances of another equal civilization close enough to travel here being at the same stage of development at the same time is remote to say the least. Life - yes - but not as we know it Jim...

Re: Happy U.F.O. Day!

It has been suggested that to find possible civilisations 'out there' then we're looking for the wrong things. Assume a civilisation lasts long enough to outgrow the energy supply capabilities of a single planet and assume it cannot escape its own solar system, then population and resource pressure would drive it to utilise the total power output of its own star. This could be achieved by a sufficiently advanced civilisation building some sort of Dyson construct to capture and utilise all the energy of the star. I'm not suggesting the so-called 'Dyson Sphere', a shell around the star, as this would be orbitally unstable, but maybe a series of orbiting smaller, though still vast, discs.

The discs could be constructed by dismantling the rocky planets, asteroids and cometary matter and forming a number of relatively thin discs, each in orbit around the star. The resulting surface area could be as much as a million times that of an Earth sized planet and with suitable photo-electric devices would produce electrical power sufficient to sustain the civilisation for many thousands of years. It would require the concerted effort of the whole civilisation to achieve this, which would in itself take many thousands of years to complete ... perhaps by the use of automated self sustaining and self replicating 'factory machines', 'von Neumann' devices or nanotechnology.

From interstellar distances this would appear as a very large star like object, emitting radiation in the far infra-red, as waste heat radiated from the outer surfaces of the constructs.

Of course mankind could never construct such a system as we could never co-operate with each other on such a scale and over such a timespan.