UFOs

[thirdcrank]

I've a childhood memory of the song Two little men in a flying saucer which I now see was an Ella Fitzgerald number but the version I remember was by Alan Breeze on the Billy Cotton Band Show, with slightly different lyrics eg

They flew over Britain
Where ev'ryone was sittin'
List'ning to the radio...

[Jdsk]

My grandchildren taught me this, but I didn't know that there was an Ella Fitzgerald version.

Thanks

Jonathan

[Psamathe]

Do I corfirm Godwin's Law if I raise the simulation hypothesis here ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis. I don't see it as something to believe or disbelieve, rather an interesting idea.

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

I find it hard to believe we are the only 'intelligent' life form out there.I have never seen anything unexplainable with my own eyes but for sure there are things that make you think.

Monty Python questions your assertion that we are intelligent…

[pwa]

It is probably best if we don't encounter other life forms with a bit of intelligence. Dolphins are considered one of the more intelligent non-human lifeforms on Earth but that doesn't mean we always show them respect.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58555694
Sometimes I despair at mankind.

[sjs]

It is probably best if we don't encounter other life forms with a bit of intelligence. Dolphins are considered one of the more intelligent non-human lifeforms on Earth but that doesn't mean we always show them respect.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58555694
Sometimes I despair at mankind.

Indeed. The assumption that advertising our presence is necessarily a good idea seems naive.

[Hellhound]

To think that travel from a planet outside our own solar system to Earth is possible requires reliance on discoveries in physics that we have not made and which may never be made because they are not there to discover. You might as well say that one day a human will be able to walk through a brick wall as if it isn't there, but we don't know how yet. It doesn't matter how intelligent another lifeform is, it will still have to operate within the laws of physics.

Within the laws of our physics Is it beyond the realms of our intelligence to believe there are things we just might not have the brain capacity to understand?
As I said arrogant to think we are the most advanced life form out there.

Physics is universal, but we don't know all of it yet. And it could well be that physics dictates that there is no way for mortal life to get from another inhabitable planet to Earth. It certainly looks that way at the moment.

Our Physics as we know it maybe Universal or rather we believe it to be but how do we know that what we know isn't just the tip of a much larger iceberg?
If you keep comparing possibilities with what we know or believe we know then the possibilities are limited.That is the arrogance of mankind!
There is a possibility that all our Science is completely wrong outside our little part of the Universe.

[Jdsk]

There is a possibility that all our Science is completely wrong outside our little part of the Universe.

What are you including in "our little part", please?

Thanks

Jonathan

[Mick F]

Speed of light is 186,000miles per second.

It takes the light from our sun, which is about 93,000,000miles from us, takes 500seconds to reach us ....... over 8minutes.

Nearest star (other than our sun) is 4.3lightyears away ............... meaning the light from it takes over four years to get here at the speed of light. Alpha Centauri has no planets.

Nearest habitable planet is how far away?

[Jdsk]

Nearest star (other than our sun) is 4.3lightyears away ............... meaning the light from it takes over four years to get here at the speed of light. Alpha Centauri has no planets.

Nearest habitable planet is how far away?

Alpha Centauri is a system of three stars. One of those stars (and the closest to us) has two known planets. One of those planets is in "the habitable zone".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri

Jonathan

[Psamathe]

Speed of light is 186,000miles per second.

It takes the light from our sun, which is about 93,000,000miles from us, takes 500seconds to reach us ....... over 8minutes.

Nearest star (other than our sun) is 4.3lightyears away ............... meaning the light from it takes over four years to get here at the speed of light. Alpha Centauri has no planets.

Nearest habitable planet is how far away?

Depends which way you go. London to Australia, how far must you travel? (Ans: depends on the route you take).

People put a lot in the speed of light being "constant" but what about during Cosmic Inflation or that distant bodies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light ...

And it reflects the strengths of science that we can learn more about things and admit that previous assumptions were not 100% (e.g. Type 1a supernovae being treated as standard candles then finding there are different mechanisms giving different brightnesses ...)

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

Expansion of space itself makes things appear to move faster than the speed of light, they don't do so in local space.

The speed of light is constant with a couple of fairly benign and one slightly larger assumption.

It's also a hard limit for anything with mass (technically there could be a bunch of particles that only exist *over* the speed of light, but that's somewhat unlikely.

[merseymouth]

Hi Thirdcrank, Giving your age away telling of listening to Alan Breeze with Billy Cotton and his band! Bet you also remember bill Cotton racing at Brooklands? "The Right Crowd and No Crowding". TTFN MM

[reohn2]

There's a(slim)possibility that UFOs are a developed system of flight by a terrestrial superpower such as China or Russia or even the USA playing a double bluff.
Were that the case,how does it explain sightings over centuries?

OTOH if we assume to know everything there is to know about science we only show ourselves to be ignorant and undeveloped enough to be arrogantly idiotic.
True science AFAIA is a quest for knowledge and as such is constantly evolving,so a theory today can be superceded tomorrow when a greater knowledge is obtained,even if it isn't fully understood.
We shouldn't forget that Einstein's theory of relativity was considered to be a crackpot idea by a lot of the cscientific community of his day,only later was it proven.

From what I understand there's a LOT humanity don't know,take dimensions,the ordinary wo/man on the street are only aware of three or four,from what I've read,and I lay no claim to understanding the theory behind it,there are many more dimensions eleven at last count I believe .
If that's the case then could UFO's possibly be from another unknown dimension that's able to move through those other dimensions?
Another idea is that UFO's could contain AI technolongy so far advanced from our understanding as to literally 'blow our minds' to try an understand how they work.

If another form of intelligence from elsewhere(wherever that might be),has got past the stage of evolution the human race now finds itself presently it would needed to have transended the pettiness and stupidity the human race finds itself in now eg; war(particularly Nuclear war),famine,potential destruction of our ecosystems,etc,etc.
These '(sentient)beings' would be far superior to us on so many levels as make us look like the idiots we are,yes we're clever to a point(but still learning),though wisdom is sadly lacking in most of the human consciousness IMHO and again I make no claims to any form of superior wisdom.

There appears to be a lot of UFO activity wherever there's Nuclear weapons or war practice,there's possibly good reason for that.

Whatever,one thing's for sure,their existence cannot be denied.

[Jdsk]

We shouldn't forget that Einstein's theory of relativity was considered to be a crackpot idea by a lot of the cscientific community of his day,only later was it proven.

Which one... the special theory or the general theory, please?

Thanks

Jonathan