Aliens or us?

[Eclogite]

How do you know aliens are fictional (where's your proof?) or is this your badge of belonging? (prejudice or belief [same thing]). Are you a follower of other peoples ideas (fashion) or a leader of your own thoughts (free spirit or cat person/or party faithful (dog person/ pack member)?

I won't presume to answer these questions, directed to Ron, on Ron's behalf. However, since my reaction was much the same - what are greys? Surely not those fictional alien things - I feel it appropriate to answer for myself.

 

How do I know the aliens are fictional? I don't. Just as I don't know that the Earth revolves around the sun. However the weight of evidence, from many sources, strongly favours the notion that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun - and that greys are the product of overactive imaginations; peculiarities in the neurology of humans; gullibility; etc.

 

You ask is this rejection of the bizarre, the abnormal, the unconventional, my badge of belonging? Not especially, although it may help in identifying me as an individual who values objective observation, thorough analysis, contemplation and exploration of alternatives, and a demand for rigour in assessing any hypothesis. If this is indeed a badge, then it is one that I shall wear proudly.

 

You go on to suggest prejudice and belief are the same. I cannot agree. Prejudice is a view held in advance of a proper appreciation of the facts. A belief is based upon such an appreciation. The two are quite different.

There is no problem, in my book, with holding a prejudice, as long as this is always held very lightly, with a large Provisional stamped upon it.

 

You also ask "Are you a follower of other peoples ideas (fashion)." Again I find myself at odds with your basic definitions. In the sixties I followed the ideas of J.Tuzo Wilson on the infant field of plate tectonics not because they were fashionable - which they were becoming - but because they answered very nicely many questions that had plagued geology for decades. I am sure most people can think of similar examples.

 

In summary the issue I have with the thesis of the opening post is that I find it highly unlikely that greys exist anywhere other than in the minds or imaginations of certain persons. As such, contemplating their origin in the real world seems somewhat fruitless.

[paigetheoracle]

Well Eclogite I can't argue with that (Defence of RonThePon). More explanation needed by me (defining your terms) and enough given by you. Thank you! (and goodnight, literally - at least in my part of the world (UK)).

 

Sorry Ron, no real offence meant.B)

[ronthepon]

Surely, surely you're not confusing my question with an assertion? I asked the question because I was not sure of what greys mean.

 

Well, Eclogite said it, but I have to talk too.

 

First of all, it is wrong to say that aliens do not exist, without actually finding proof that they don't. After all, it is a big universe.

 

How do you know aliens are fictional (where's your proof?)

There is no proof. How can there be a proof for a negative statement? When I say there are no greys, it's because no body has observed and documented them convincingly.

Now I can prove that there do exist 'fictional aliens'. Hell, I can conjure one up right now if you ask me to.

 

or is this your badge of belonging? (prejudice or belief [same thing]).

Not the same thing, as Eclogite said. I'll not talk on this...

 

Are you a follower of other peoples ideas (fashion) or a leader of your own thoughts (free spirit or cat person/or party faithful (dog person/ pack member)?

Supposing I was a mixture of both? What about you? You may feel that aliens do exist, but you fail to give hard, solid and definite proof. Almost all the 'proof' that does exist can be explained with more realistic theories, or be attributed to hoaxes.

 

The whole concept of aliens has come up with the willingness of the people to believe that they do. You want to believe that they do. So, you attribute some mysterious phenomena to extraterrestrial life. This was done in the past also, but early men. The difference was that they thought of 'gods'.

 

I oppose the thinking of these people. I want to find a reasoning that does not involve new and speculative ideas about things that have never been directly observed. If all else fails, I will still not shout "alien!". Neither will you shout "God!".

 

True science is based on neutrality (being open to discovery) as is Socratic method in philosophy (questioning/open enquiry), not stagnant certainty i.e. 'Everybody knows' generalities/resting on your laurels.

And pseudoscience is based on the exploitation of this neutrality. Till there is some proof, and proof as solid as stone, nothing is 'true'. It is all a logical reasoning, or explanation to describe a phenomena. It is your desicion, wether you accept the description, or refuse to. I refuse to believe in greys because they are made of the same stuff as 'god'.

 

I personally don't believe in anything. This doesn't mean I'm a Nihilist or an Anarchist, just that I wait to see what comes into view and then watch it pass as a belief (The experience is the thing - I don't even believe in me! This is not about lack of self-esteem or confidence but awareness of how you can trick yourself, let alone lead other people down the garden path).

Not even the cell theory of life? Not even about the shape of the earth? Not even the fact that your body has T-Lymphocytes?

 

Then how do you explain the working of your world to yourself?

I don't mean to sound rude, but it's probably that you do not. Everything's working fine the way it is, an it will keep working. Right?

[paigetheoracle]

First of all, it's doubtful that they are aliens. Evolution is so sensitive to initial conditions, that in all of the universe, our chances for ever meeting any other life forms looking even remotely similar to us is incredibly tiny. Yet, these 'greys' have unmistakable humanoid features.

If it's possible life forms could have any form possible, why not humanoid? Look how useful it is for us and the fact that it makes us top of the animal world? Not only the brain but the body to go with it i.e. upright and with an opposible thumb (what four legged animal, could use its limbs to build anything? And what about monkeys, without opposible thumbs? True they can just about lift things but how well can they wield them? Eyes? Well we need two, to see objects in 3-D and not just anywhere. I'm sure you can think of more. Yes animals and plants could develop in any shape or form to exploit local conditions and an intelligent life form doesn't necessarily have to have a humanoid shaped body but why not is my point? It doesn't have to be excluded because other possibilities exist.

[/b]

This leaves them as time travelling humans from the future.

 

Time-travelling humans from the future should have the common sense that interfering in anything in the past could be disastrous for their own personal time-lines, and they would not risk coming back to this time. Say, for instance, their time-machine lands in some remote backwater field so as not to alert the humans. But upon arriving, they turn over a stone which wouldn't have been turned over had it not been for them. So they go about their business. A few years later, a geologist notices this stone and realizes that there's a lot of gold buried there. A gold rush ensues, and the great-great-great ancestors of the 'grey' who turned the stone now goes hunting for gold instead of what they were supposed to have done if the 'greys' didn't turn the stone. They never meet, and never have kids. The grey can't exist anymore.

 

A simple thing like turning a stone can destroy you if you go travelling back in time. My guess is that advanced future humans, or 'greys', if you will, would probably take this into account, and not bother with time travel.

 

Sensible ones, yes but look at humans, fear and 'inter-fear-ance' in our own society and you'll see why, despite the best intentions and laws to curb it, it could still happen. Then there is the scientific curiosity of 'What if?' that leads scientists to probe all kinds of areas, the more conservative of the populace would warn them against.

 

What options do this leave us with?

 

Yep - Hollywood had to make a movie where aliens featured. But they had to make the aliens somewhat human like, so that the audience can relate to them. And thus the 'greys' were born. And most successive Hollywood alien features have shown aliens with human characteristics so that the audience won't be, well, alienated from the plot. And these features have been smoothed over the years, and we have arrived at the stereotypical 'Grey' design. I guess that when we first actually do make contact with aliens, our first words will be "Bullshit - you're no alien! You don't look like one! You must be a puppet! Where's my knife, lemme cut your suit open..." and then intergalactic warfare will ensue, because we have been brainwashed as to what an alien should look like.

 

As far as I can reason it, when we do encounter our first bona fide alien, they will look, well, completely and utterly alien.

 

There is of course another possibility in that they don't look like us and aren't from our future but can manipulate our minds or their bodies, to give us the impression that they truly look like us and of course they can lie about their origins (How could we ever disprove it from our mundane backwater and with our limited abilities to travel in space (The solar system and most of that unmanned) or time? (no ability at all, just idle speculation, like most of the posts in this forum and some of the others).

 

By the way, if interested, there is another post in this forum on the same subject ('Science of Aliens' by PeteD). It's not the thread itself that is interesting but the ideas of the person he refers to in his 'book review' (Eric Julien).

 

Before somebody else jumps on the bandwagon - Yes, I am a person from the future using a time machine to visit my past ("I am Spartacus!").

[paigetheoracle]

Another thought. Our speculation about whether other planets exists with life forms on them is just that. We are like monkeys staring out across the ocean and saying to each other "Land can't exist elsewhere or be inhabited because we can't see any evidence of it" It is arrogant to say who or what is out there or even possibly out there because we won't know until we travel ouselves 'out there'. As for the evidence of them visiting us - again we may be too ignorant to undertstand what it is we're seeing and may misinterpret it or because of their advanced technology, they may be better disguised and more shrewd at blending in than we give them credit for (In nature programs, do the wildlife experts dress in camouflage and hide in 'hides' to observe their prey or run around shouting 'There they are! Get them!', dressed in garish clothing?). A scientific expedition is not going to draw attention to itself or the observer effect comes into play i.e. the studied species don't react naturally but either run off scarred or go towards the aliens out of a sense of curiosity (fight or flight versus mirrored mutual observation: 'Who are you? What are you? What are you doing here?').:hyper:

[openmindshutmouth]

Thinking hypothetically lets say an asteriod hits earth next week and wipes out most of the population.The government has a little warning. They of course save themselves and the top scientists. The impact may have caused a virus that slows to an eventual stop our breeding or the small number of survivors is not enough for a new gene pool. Something has to be done or its hasty bannana for the human race! Now lets just for the halibut that the scientists come up with a way to make time travel possible. If we are going to become extinct do you really think we'd give a rats furry butt about the timeline? I'm sure they would take it into consideration as to not screw up things too badly. If they remember the stories of alien abduction and people who had just vanished , which people vanish all the time, they could go back and take them to the future to repopulate earth.

[CraigD]

Thinking hypothetically lets say an asteriod hits earth next week and wipes out most of the population.The government has a little warning. They of course save themselves and the top scientists. The impact may have caused a virus that slows to an eventual stop our breeding or the small number of survivors is not enough for a new gene pool. Something has to be done or its hasty bannana for the human race! Now lets just for the halibut that the scientists come up with a way to make time travel possible.

Certainly, in such a scenario, if time travel could be made to work, it would be a useful tool.

 

However, in this “little but some warning” scenario, consider these possible plans to preserve a viable human gene pool

• Using existing technology, collecting, freezing, and storing in a safe place several million individuals sperm and ova. After the disaster, using existing technology, the ova are fertilized and implanted in surrogate mothers.
  
• After the disaster, using technology currently well-developed only for a few animal species, but which is expected to be possible in the near term for human beings, collect genetic material from the remains of several million human beings who died in the disaster, inserting the collected genomes in the ova of surviving women.
  
• After the disaster, survivors develop time travel technology, which has not be done, and some theory suggest either cannot be done, or requires level-of-civilization greater technology that we currently have.
  

Which plans seem most feasible?

[openmindshutmouth]

If an asteroid was to come into earths path there would only be a limited time to react. We dont spend enough resources on looking for them. I dont beleive we would have the time to collect and freeze enough d.n.a. to do what you purpose. Also right now the world has its head up its butt with politics and war and I want my burger NOW!!! If we didnt have all that to do and we focused only on survival you'd be suprised what we can do.

[CraigD]

If an asteroid was to come into earths path there would only be a limited time to react. We dont spend enough resources on looking for them.

Earth impactor risk assessment is a difficult, technical subject, making it difficult for an non-specialist to have a confident opinion on the subject. However, I think openmindshutmouth may be making ill-informed assumptions about the resources dedicate to this search, and its effectiveness. According to NASA’s NEO program FAQs, impact probabilities are calculated 100 years into the future (with, or course, greater uncertainty the further in to the future they’re made).

[openmindshutmouth]

"Thinking hypothetically" Were the key words in my statement and theres no way N.A.S.A. can predict two asteroids colliding and sending one straifgt for us.

[openmindshutmouth]

Sorry the word was straight not straifgt.

[InfiniteNow]

If an asteroid was to come into earths path there would only be a limited time to react. We dont spend enough resources on looking for them.

Some good information available to you here if you drill-down through some of the links:

 

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/near_earth_objects/

The hazard posed by NEOs has captured the professional attention of not just astronomers but also geologists, biologists, mission planners, aerospace engineers, and even the United States Department of Defense. The public is increasingly aware that Earth resides within a cosmic shooting gallery.

[moo]

2003 info.

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_031020.html

"Hermes orbits the Sun on an elongated path that crosses the orbits of Earth and Venus, and then curves well out into the solar system. The new observations suggest it may be larger than originally thought, perhaps about a mile wide (1-2 kilometers)."

--

"Hermes, also named 1937 UB, is capable of bringing civilization to its knees were it to smack into Earth. Scientists have now calculated that it came even closer to Earth during its years in hiding. The closest, in 1942, was about 1.6 times the Earth-Moon distance."

--

"Earth is safe from Hermes, at least for 100 years, according to computations by Chesley and his colleague, Paul Chodas. Thereafter, no one can yet say exactly what path Hermes will travel."

---

"Nowadays, various search programs routinely spot asteroids, even some no larger than football fields that zoom by closer than the Moon."

 

I wonder what effects we'd see if one of these hit the moon? Or how large of an impact would be required to knock the moon into a declining orbit?

 

Or perhaps this is too far off topic...

 

moo

[Turtle]

I wonder what effects we'd see if one of these hit the moon? Or how large of an impact would be required to knock the moon into a declining orbit?

 

Or perhaps this is too far off topic...

 

moo

 

I'm not sure we can go too far off topic in the Strange Claims. Our safe haven.:doh:

Here data on space rocks hitting the Moon.

http://hypography.com/forums/astronomy-news/4890-explosion-moon.html?highlight=moon+impact

[moo]

Ok sorry. Thanks for the link though. :doh:

 

moo

[Turtle]

Ok sorry. Thanks for the link though. :)

 

moo

 

No no...I was saying it is Strange Claims so little is exluded. Nothing wrong with your Moon observation at all. In view of the strongly held hypothesis that the Moon resulted when a VERY large object hit Earth and ripped her in two (albeit unequal) parts, the aliens may have done that on purpose to make Earth have tides and other Moon benefits to life. That is going with the aliens are the gods rather than the aliens are us coming back, but in retrospect it may be both!?:)

[CraigD]

"Nowadays, various search programs routinely spot asteroids, even some no larger than football fields that zoom by closer than the Moon."

 

I wonder what effects we'd see if one of these hit the moon? Or how large of an impact would be required to knock the moon into a declining orbit?

It’s not mechanically possible to cause the orbit of a body to “decline” in the sense of “spiraling in” to it’s primary, or move to a lower, nearly circular orbit, with a single change in velocity, from an impact or any other means. All that a single change in velocity can do is give change its eccentricity – make it a more elliptical, or a more circular.

 

We can calculate how much an impact like the 11/7/2005 impact would have changed the Moon’s orbit. Assuming a mass of the meteor [math]M_{meteor}[/math] of 2 kg and an impact speed [math]v_{impact}[/math] of 540000 m/s, for a 3 *10^11 J, or about 70 kiloton impact energy, and a direction of impact exactly opposite the Moon’s orbital direction, the change in the Moon’s speed is given by the formula for conservation of momentum,

 

[math]v = \frac{v_{impact} M_{meteor}}{M_{moon}} = \frac{540000 \times 2}{7.348 \times 10^{22}} = 1.6 \times 10^{-17}[/math] m/s

 

Using the formula

 

[math]r^\prime = \frac{r k}{2 -k}[/math]

where [math]k = \left( 1 -v\sqrt{\frac{vr^2}{\mu}} \right)[/math]

[math]r[/math] is the Moons orbital radius, 405696000 m

and [math]\mu[/math] is the Earth’s standard gravitational parameter, 398600 [math]km^3/s^2[/math],

we get a decrease in the Moon’s periapsis (closest point to the Earth) too small for my low-precision calculator to register.

 

How big an impact would be needed to make the Moon’s orbit so eccentric it grazed the earth? Using the formula

 

[math]v = \sqrt{\frac{\mu}{r}} \left( 1 - \sqrt{\frac{2 r^\prime}{r^\prime+r}} \right)[/math]

 

where [math]r^\prime[/math] is the periapsis distance, about 6390000 m (the Earth’s upper atmosphere, gives a required speed change v of about 817 m/s. This would require an [math]M_{meteor}[/math] of about 10^20 kg, about the size of Saturn’s moon Enceladus traveling at the 540000 m/s of the previous example.

 

I suspect an impact with a body this large wouldn’t just alter the moon’s orbit, but break it apart.