The Fermi Paradox - Why we haven't been contacted by aliens

[Chief_For_Life58]

Interesting read. What's your opinion?


http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm as big a UFO buff as anybody, but I think the post WW2 technology explosion had more to do with wartime money going into tech development and then project paperclip.

I do think something happened as Roswell though. I just have no idea what, and expect that I never will. My guess is if we have ever recovered anything extraterrestrial, that we're still struggling to understand/reverse engineer it, which is my pet theory on why there has been and will be no disclosure: nobody would want to acknowledge that the phenomena is real but completely beyond our understanding and control.

Yeah I agree with all of this. I just can't comprehend how a spacecraft could make it from so far away. That doesn't mean it's not possible obviously, since my brain is very limited (even by human being standards in most cases heh)

[Just Passin' By]

Originally Posted by lcarus

Yeah I agree with all of this. I just can't comprehend how a spacecraft could make it from so far away. That doesn't mean it's not possible obviously, since my brain is very limited (even by human being standards in most cases heh)

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm as big a UFO buff as anybody, but I think the post WW2 technology explosion had more to do with wartime money going into tech development and then project paperclip.

I do think something happened as Roswell though. I just have no idea what, and expect that I never will. My guess is if we have ever recovered anything extraterrestrial, that we're still struggling to understand/reverse engineer it, which is my pet theory on why there has been and will be no disclosure: nobody would want to acknowledge that the phenomena is real but completely beyond our understanding and control.

And if it was a little tiny thing with a couple of ... guys ... in it, that must mean one of two things:

1. There was a big freakin' mother ship coasting around out there somewhere.

or

2. They figured out a way to not worry about distances and times.

Given the ship size in what we hear in pretty much every UFO report, they're not big enough for those ... guys ... to be hanging out for very long. I'm not even sure they're big enough to have bathrooms, assuming that aliens need bathrooms.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by beach tribe

That's because the military has their own space program.
Nasa is an entertainment vehicle IMO.

Wut?

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm as big a UFO buff as anybody, but I think the post WW2 technology explosion had more to do with wartime money going into tech development and then project paperclip.

I do think something happened as Roswell though. I just have no idea what, and expect that I never will. My guess is if we have ever recovered anything extraterrestrial, that we're still struggling to understand/reverse engineer it, which is my pet theory on why there has been and will be no disclosure: nobody would want to acknowledge that the phenomena is real but completely beyond our understanding and control.

I have no interest in stupid aliens. If Roswell was true they would have to be reeruned aliens. No thanks we have a bumper crop here.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

I have no interest in stupid aliens. If Roswell was true they would have to be reeruned aliens. No thanks we have a bumper crop here.

If what about Roswell is "true"?

As far as possible crashes go, I don't think technological advancement precludes either the possibility of pilot error or of mechanical (or whatever the equivalent to "mechanical" would be for highly-advanced technology) failure. Accidents will always happen. It doesn't require stupidity or reerunation, just an unfortunate sequence of events.

In any case, I don't know what the "true" story of Roswell was. There are any number of possible explanations, ranging from balloons, to US aircraft, to foreign aircraft, to something more exotic, to nothing at all. At the end of the day, I'm not going to make any assumptions because I simply don't have enough information, other than to say something happened there. I believe that's evident from the newspaper and radio reports, as well as the behavior of the Army and later the Air Force. But I have no idea what it was.

And the whole tenor of your post reminds me once again of how I am constantly disappointed by the dismissive attitude that so many scientists have with regards to this subject when they've done absolutely no research into it. Declaring something impossible without actually considering any evidence because it doesn't fit their pre-packaged world view is not science. But it is, unfortunately, reality, and we do, again unfortunately, live in a world where people are much more concerned about tenure and how they're viewed by their peers than they are in giving a legitimate mystery any semblance of honest evaluation.

The UFO research community as a whole has been polluted by crackpots and charlatans (hello Ancient Aliens and Steven Greer) and because of it the subject as a whole, as well as the people who actually do legitimate research into it are lumped in with the people trying to get the space brothers to land and take them away. And because of that, actual scientists who might actually come to some conclusions are left with very few options, basically to either mock the subject, hide any interest they may have from their peers, or be open about it and get labeled a maverick or worse.

It's a real shame, because there have been some very interesting anomalous events happening over the last century (and possibly longer).

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

I have no interest in stupid aliens. If Roswell was true they would have to be reeruned aliens. No thanks we have a bumper crop here.

Maybe they came from a planet with no wind and had never encountered it or designed for it.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Maybe they came from a planet with no wind and had never encountered it or designed for it.

Yet their rocket ships could travel. 6,000,000,000,000,000 miles in a relatively short period of time only to crash here? Bring me the smart aliens I'm sorry.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Yet their rocket ships could travel. 6,000,000,000,000,000 miles in a relatively short period of time only to crash here? Bring me the smart aliens I'm sorry.

Shhhhhhh. You're going to upset them!

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Yet their rocket ships could travel. 6,000,000,000,000,000 miles in a relatively short period of time only to crash here? Bring me the smart aliens I'm sorry.

But there's no wind in space. Wind is a game changer if you're not used to it.

[keg in kc]

What if they aren't from another star system? What if, say, Earth itself has a history of which we're not aware? What if humanity itself has a history to which we're not aware? What if civilization exists on a recurring cycle, like in Azimov and Silverberg's Nightfall, rising and falling repeatedly over the millennia? What if past human civilizations reached pinnacles even higher than our own, even spread to a degree throughout the solar system, only to destroy itself much like we've seemed intent upon doing for the last century? What if some small remnant has survived over thousands or tens of thousands of years, perhaps continued to advance? Or what if something related to it has survived, something technological or bio-engineered, not human?

There are infinite other alternatives to what something like Roswell could be. It doesn't have to be dumb aliens. Or aliens at all. Yet maybe it could be that, too. Who's to say in a hundred years or a thousand we won't come up with a way to traverse what we see as impossible distances. Or maybe whatever happened there or in other parts of the world where people have reported strange things are part of the closed environmental system here on Earth, events centered around global mechanics we either aren't aware of or don't yet understand. Maybe it really is too far to travel.

That's what makes this a true mystery, not knowing. And the important thing is being open minded or imaginative enough to even ask the question in the first place, the question of what any of the hundreds of inexplicable events in the last century may have been. Maybe we'll never find any answers. And hell, it's easier to just point and laugh, and not even try.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

But there's no wind in space. Wind is a game changer if you're not used to it.

Every planet has wind, every star has wind, every solar system has solar wind. Stupid aliens.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

What if they aren't from another star system? What if, say, Earth itself has a history of which we're not aware? What if humanity itself has a history to which we're not aware? What if civilization exists on a recurring cycle, like in Azimov and Silverberg's Nightfall, rising and falling repeatedly over the millennia? What if past human civilizations reached pinnacles even higher than our own, even spread to a degree throughout the solar system, only to destroy itself much like we've seemed intent upon doing for the last century? What if some small remnant has survived over thousands or tens of thousands of years, perhaps continued to advance? Or what if something related to it has survived, something technological or bio-engineered, not human?

There are infinite other alternatives to what something like Roswell could be. It doesn't have to be dumb aliens. Or aliens at all. Yet maybe it could be that, too. Who's to say in a hundred years or a thousand we won't come up with a way to traverse what we see as impossible distances. Or maybe whatever happened there or in other parts of the world where people have reported strange things are part of the closed environmental system here on Earth, events centered around global mechanics we either aren't aware of or don't yet understand. Maybe it really is too far to travel.

That's what makes this a true mystery, not knowing. And the important thing is being open minded or imaginative enough to even ask the question in the first place, the question of what any of the hundreds of inexplicable events in the last century may have been. Maybe we'll never find any answers. And hell, it's easier to just point and laugh, and not even try.

Then everything is a mystery. How do you know you really exist? How do you know this isn't the matrix. It's a mystery. No one knows. How do you know I'm not the frog prince of Kolab connecting to the WWW on a really big antenna.

You know how we know? Because there is 0 evidence to support either possibility. Doesn't mean a negative can be proven but your civilization repeating concept would have left clues somewhere in the evolutionary / fossil record. There is none. So the default position must be until there is some evidence to support said idea it's just that. Some semi-literate person spitballing an idea.

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Yet their rocket ships could travel. 6,000,000,000,000,000 miles in a relatively short period of time only to crash here? Bring me the smart aliens I'm sorry.

It's not their fault those damn crafts only get 12,000,000,000 miles per gallon. Shoulda got the hybrid over the gas guzzlin SUUFO.

[Bowser]

I imagine in 500 years there will be some poor entry level schlub having to go through and categorize conversations on the ancient internet. He'll come across prognostications such as these and chuckle at our primitive ways of thinking and seeing the universe.