UFOs, ET, and other speculation

[warpus]

Well, the likelihood somebody believes ET is involved usually comes down to their assessment of how commonly/rarely life originates and to what extent it spreads.

I'm convinced that the universe is full of life. We find key amino acids in meteors all the time, and from what I understand they are made of some of the most common elements in the universe. Maybe there's no other life in our solar system, but I bet it's all over the place out there somewhere.. and we'll probably even find some on Mars & Europa.. and maybe elsewhere in our solar system.. but we'll see about that..

I also think that it's likely rare to ever to evolve to anything like us - apex predators with opposable thumbs and large brains. The reason we are the way we are is.. well, it was basically a whole bunch of accidents on our evolutionary timeline. At one point we were even down to as little as 1,000 humans in existence anywhere.. but we adapted and survived.. and here we are, with our large brains, social structure, naked skin, and other oddities.. and we could still wipe each other out before we get to the stars..

IMO it's rare for life to get to something like us.. but the universe is so huge that rare would still give you a whole bunch of advanced civilizations all over the place.. Whether it's 1 per galaxy to 15 per galaxy.. or whatever.. They are probably out there. Humans are freaks of evolutionary pressures, but there's probably other freaks out there.

They could be very far though. Very very far, even if there's a lot of them.. due to the size of the universe, which we don't even know.. So.. Yeah, I don't exclude "aliens from another planet" as an answer, but I have to admit .. until there is some sort of evidence that we can study and peer review.. I am going to have to go with "probably natural or human-made phenomena"

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I live in southern Spain at the Atlantic coast and when i was a kid at school I used to heard stories about strange green lights falling from the sky into the sea after the sunset, which subsequently was properly related to extraterrestrial activities etc, etc, very in vogue back then.

That was like 30 years ago and naturally since then i forgot such stories which were nothing but children fantasies.

However around a couple of months ago, i was walking for the beach about half a hour after sunset, and watched exactly that kids at school said, a pretty big green light falling very quickly off the almost black sky into the sea, far offshore.

Probably some kind of meteorite with such a composition that makes it emit intense green light while burning you would say. Yes, of course that looks like the most probable explanation, the amazing thing is how exactly it fitted what i always thought was a product of children's imagination only, and how some truth can exist behind the most unlikely stories.

 

[Samson]

I live in southern Spain at the Atlantic coast and when i was a kid at school I used to heard stories about strange green lights falling from the sky into the sea after the sunset. That was like 30 years ago and naturally since then i forgot such stories which were nothing but children fantasies or exaggerations.

However around a couple of months ago, i was walking for the beach about half a hour after sunset, and watched exactly that kids at school said, a pretty big green light falling very quickly off the almost black sky into the sea, far offshore.

Probably some kind of meteorite with such a composition that makes it emit intense green light while burning you would say. Yes, of course that looks like the most probable explanation, the amazing thing is how exactly it fitted what i always thought was a product of children's imagination only.

Did it look anything like this?

The green flash is a phenomenon that occurs at sunset and sunrise when conditions are favorable, and results when two optical phenomena combine: a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight. As the sun dips below the horizon the light is being dispersed through the earth's atmosphere like a prism. As the light passes through the familiar Roy G. Biv of the spectrum, sometimes a flash of green can be seen for a few seconds.

Why the American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the visible spectrum as "the familiar Roy G. Biv" I do not know.

 

[Sarin]

Why the American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the visible spectrum as "the familiar Roy G. Biv" I do not know.

A joke I guess. Abbreviation RGB, when pronounced while drunk, might sound a bit like that.

 

[Samson]

A joke I guess. Abbreviation RGB, when pronounced while drunk, might sound a bit like that.

I googled it, it is a mnemonic for 7 colours of the visible spectrum, but I do not see why they would use it.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Did it look anything like this?

The green flash is a phenomenon that occurs at sunset and sunrise when conditions are favorable, and results when two optical phenomena combine: a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight. As the sun dips below the horizon the light is being dispersed through the earth's atmosphere like a prism. As the light passes through the familiar Roy G. Biv of the spectrum, sometimes a flash of green can be seen for a few seconds.

Why the American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the visible spectrum as "the familiar Roy G. Biv" I do not know.

No, that is the famous green ray. It can be seen when the atmosphere is very clear. Some days more some days less or none at all. I have seen it many times. What I saw was totally different: a big light falling vertically from nearly the zenit into the sea. It was a long time after the sunset. A meteorite probably.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Did it look anything like this?

The green flash is a phenomenon that occurs at sunset and sunrise when conditions are favorable, and results when two optical phenomena combine: a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight. As the sun dips below the horizon the light is being dispersed through the earth's atmosphere like a prism. As the light passes through the familiar Roy G. Biv of the spectrum, sometimes a flash of green can be seen for a few seconds.

Why the American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the visible spectrum as "the familiar Roy G. Biv" I do not know.

Roy G. Biv is the mnemonic for the colors of the spectrum:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

I suspect that many people who hate Pride flags have no idea that they're based on the basic colors of the spectrum. After all, it's science, to which many of these hateful people are opposed.

No, that is the famous green ray. It can be seen when the atmosphere is very clear. Some days more some days less or none at all. I have seen it many times. What I saw was totally different: a big light falling vertically from nearly the zenit into the sea. It was a long time after the sunset. A meteorite probably.

It seems suspicious that none of these "meteorites" ever seem to fall on land. Meteors don't really care where they land when they enter a planet's atmosphere, and neither does physics. The ones in your vicinity must be uncommonly considerate not to inconvenience anyone on land.

Have you asked any astronomers about it (I've no idea if you have anyone local or if you have access to a planetarium or university that teaches astronomy)?

 

[Rg339]

Yet they left no evidence (and I'm not going to credit rock paintings resembling Louis Vuitton handbags as "evidence"). Sagan's minimum requirement for evidence is a tangible object that could not have been created on Earth, using any technology we have currently or did have in the past. He's not asking for made-up chemicals (ie. Star Trek's "unobtanium" that's commonly used in that franchise's technobabble). He just wants solid evidence of something that could not have been created by humans or any other native lifeforms here.

Professor Garry Nolan at Stanford began testing materials alleged to be UFO debris early this year. He’s said two have dramatically altered isotope ratios, but nothing as yet that is beyond human make.

Not expecting much. He got the materials from Jacques Vallee, and I don’t have much trust in Vallee. Not huge on his speculation, which, I feel has sorta lended legitimacy to some poorly thought ideas regarding UFOs. In the UFO culture, Vallee, imo, is the guy who heralds the arrival of all kinds of paranormal thinking(no offense to paranormal believers).

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Roy G. Biv is the mnemonic for the colors of the spectrum:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

I suspect that many people who hate Pride flags have no idea that they're based on the basic colors of the spectrum. After all, it's science, to which many of these hateful people are opposed.


It seems suspicious that none of these "meteorites" ever seem to fall on land. Meteors don't really care where they land when they enter a planet's atmosphere, and neither does physics. The ones in your vicinity must be uncommonly considerate not to inconvenience anyone on land.

Have you asked any astronomers about it (I've no idea if you have anyone local or if you have access to a planetarium or university that teaches astronomy)?

No. There is an observatory near where i live though. Anyway this is the only meteorite i have ever seen, beyond the typical shooting stars. Maybe the kids exaggeratted the whole thing and from a single event they invented many. Or perhaps they only observed Samson´s green flash and turned it into another totally different thing, Who knows. The curious thing for me is how children fantasies turned reality sudenly.

 

[Rg339]

While I’m thinking of UFO culture/mythology, I should mention the Barney and Betty Hill alien abduction claim.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_and_Betty_Hill

I have previously avoided mentioning alien abduction, not in my OP nor subsequent posts. I think it’s the sorta thing that has long pushed legitimate scientists away from studying the field - many of whom believe ET life somewhere is likely, who would like to study the field, but fear damage to their reputation. It’s part of the mythology, though. Should probably mention it. It’s sorta interesting as a cultural artifact, regardless of the disputable validity of the claims.

Make of it what you will. It’s the thing that really popularized the Greys and Zeta Reticula as an idea.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

While I’m thinking of UFO culture/mythology, I should mention the Barney and Betty Hill alien abduction claim.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_and_Betty_Hill

I have previously avoided mentioning alien abduction, not in my OP nor subsequent posts. I think it’s the sorta thing that has long pushed legitimate scientists away from studying the field - many of whom believe ET life somewhere is likely, who would like to study the field, but fear damage to their reputation. It’s part of the mythology, though. Should probably mention it. It’s sorta interesting as a cultural artifact, regardless of the disputable validity of the claims.

Make of it what you will. It’s the thing that really popularized the Greys and Zeta Reticula as an idea.

I'd been looking for the episode of Cosmos that mentions them, and found not only a clip, but the entire episode!

This is Episode 12 of Cosmos, "Encyclopaedia Galactica" (can't embed it here, dammit; it's only watchable on the YouTube site). It talks about Betty and Barney Hill, Jean-Francois Champollion and the Rosetta Stone, Arecibo, the Drake Equation (I've already posted that clip, but here's the entire scene), Sagan's hypotheses concerning extraterrestrial communications and exploration of the galaxy, the hypothetical existence of an "Encyclopedia Galactica" (in one of his Ship of the Imagination sequences), and an update from 1990 (the Cosmos series was originally broadcast in 1980).

Bonus if you watch the whole thing: lots of gorgeous music composed by Vangelis.

I don't know what results, if any, were found by the searches Sagan mentions in the update. That was 32 years ago, and I admit that I haven't kept up with that information.

And of course we no longer have Arecibo (yes, one can mourn for a radio telescope).

 

[El_Machinae]

One of the more head-smacking 'obvious in retrospect' studies I enjoyed was using infrared examination of galaxies to look for galaxies covered in Dyson Spheres. There are enough statistical anomalies that we can keep looking at specific test cases, but nothing popped out quickly. If it had, we'd be at a pivot-point of our understanding of the universe. Of course, nothing insists that civilizations become Kardashev III by wrapping all their stars in Dyson spheres, but the idea is both evocative and easy-to-test, so testing it is warranted!

But never ignore the idea that local Dyson Spheres might have light emitters pointed at us, with the sole intention of making them look like merely 'natural stars! We could be living in a Dark Forest, afterall.

 

[EvaDK]

A civilization advanced enough to construct a Dyson Sphere around a star, has very likely also advanced beyond the need for one in the first place.

Fusion beats capturing solar radiation any day. To give you an idea, fusion releases millions of times more energy than fossil fuels, per quantity of mass fused or burned.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, a person rich enough to gold plate everything in his Manhattan apartment is going to be rich enough to not feel the need to!

It only takes one-in-a-million, afterall. Turns out that the gold-plating, insecure-boy is merely one-in-a-hundred-thousand.

There are 20 zeros after the 10 in the Fermi-Paradox, so anything that doesn't trim off multiple zeros doesn't actually change the odds of seeing something by very much.

 

[Samson]

A civilization advanced enough to construct a Dyson Sphere around a star, has very likely also advanced beyond the need for one in the first place.

(Fusion beats capturing solar radiation any day)

But constructing a Dyson Sphere around a star is basically doing fusion. The cool kids will be feeding matter into small black holes and capturing the Hawking Radiation, thus converting 100% of the matter into energy.

 

[EvaDK]

But constructing a Dyson Sphere around a star is basically doing fusion. The cool kids will be feeding matter into small black holes and capturing the Hawking Radiation, thus converting 100% of the matter into energy.

I believe the theoretical Dyson Sphere captures solar radiation, which might have an impressive efficiency due to its proximity to the star. But it would be nowhere near the efficiency of fusion, which is basically how a star produces energy in the first place. If you can meet the entire power demand of the United States with less than 1,000 tons of fusion fuel (which we have an unlimited supply of forever), then why construct a Dyson Sphere? Before that Sphere would be completed, our civilization would have advanced several thousand years beyond fusion power anyway. At that time, capturing solar radiation will be ancient technology. That was my point.

 

[Samson]

I believe the theoretical Dyson Sphere captures solar radiation, which might have an impressive efficiency due to its proximity to the star. But it would be nowhere near the efficiency of fusion, which is basically how a star produces energy in the first place. If you can meet the entire power demand of the United States with less than 1,000 tons of fusion fuel (which we have an unlimited supply of forever), then why construct a Dyson Sphere? Before that Sphere would be completed, our civilization would have advanced several thousand years beyond fusion power anyway. At that time, capturing solar radiation will be ancient technology. That was my point.

My point is that "doing fusion" means having a controlled fusion reaction and capturing the energy. If done at the scale of of ITER it will look something like the below. If done at the scale of a Kardashev Type 2 civilisation it looks like a dyson sphere.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think it would be worthwhile pulling hydrogen out of the star in order to slow down the fusion. A raging bonfire is a poor choice of heat, especially when you grab the logs.

 

[Samson]

I think it would be worthwhile pulling hydrogen out of the star in order to slow down the fusion. A raging bonfire is a poor choice of heat, especially when you grab the logs.

Not if you can capture all the energy of said raging bonfire. The real question is how cool can they keep the outside of the Dyson sphere, that will determine the useful energy they can extract from the hydrogen (into the Computronium?).

But as I said, the "best" way will be to extract all mc^2 energy out, rather than just the 0.7% you get from fusion. You could do that with small black holes. You are still left with the problem of how to convert high energy particles/waves into usable energy, but that is just "capturing radiation" which will be "ancient technology"

 

[MrCynical]

Not if you can capture all the energy of said raging bonfire. The real question is how cool can they keep the outside of the Dyson sphere, that will determine the useful energy they can extract from the hydrogen (into the Computronium?).

There's also the question of what practical use you're putting all that energy to. Building the absurdly large surface of the Dyson sphere to capture all the energy, only to be effectively using most of it to keep its inner surface warm (i.e. at an earth-like temperature), doesn't in itself seem all that useful. If it's simply real estate you're after, even a very slender ringworld is such an insane jump compared to any planet it's a struggle to see what you could fill it with.

I'd agree a way of getting the amount of energy a civilization needs, rather than simply grabbing all of it and then trying to find a use for it, does seem more sensible, but I'm not sure about the idea of removing hydrogen from a star to save for later. I can't help thinking that the energy required to lift hydrogen out of a star's gravity well must surely be greater than can be obtained by fusing it (no, I haven't done the maths). You'd really want something equivalent to the control rods in a nuclear reactor, to adjust the reaction in situe. To directly control the star's output to meet requirements, although I suspect that's an even more insane prospect from a physics and materials standpoint than building the solid shell of Dyson sphere.