The UFO/UAP coverup continues

[Laird]

In other words, if you are dissatisfied with the world as it is, you can pin your hopes on future discoveries, such as faster-than-light travel, that might change it.

That's a (bad-faith?) misrepresentation of my position. While I am dissatisfied with the world as it is, it is for different reasons than you represent: reasons to do with injustice, suffering, and cruelty.

"Hope" has nothing to do with my position on UFOs, which I've arrived at simply by assessing that which I've seen of the available evidence and determining that mundane explanations fail.

I think it’s sad when conspiracy theories becomes part of such hope.

And I think it's sad when paradigm-shifting phenomena are dismissed on spurious grounds.

I will refrain from commenting more on this as I realize there’s strong feelings on this subject.

The strong feelings arise out of the facile objection you presented. If you had had something meaningful to offer, then you might have given me cause to reassess my position. Instead, you're simply waylaying and obstructing the inquiry into truth. That's justified cause for annoyance.

Please don't feel that you need to refrain from commenting if you do have something considerable to offer, which, by the way, includes such observations as that our current scientific understanding precludes faster-than-light travel: while I don't think that that observation is conclusive, it's certainly relevant, whereas "These phenomena can be explained as balloons or kites" is inane tripe.

[Laird]

An extremely arrogant assertion followed by justification for wishful thinking.

As with sbu's reference to "hope", your reference to what I "wish" for is a misrepresentation, for the same reason.

It's curious that you refer to reasoning as arrogant. Reasoning is how people explain why they believe what they believe. If you think a person's reasoning is fallacious or otherwise flawed, then it's open to you to point out how and why. It seems to me that the true arrogance is dismissing offhand another person's reasoning without explaining what you think is wrong with it. You do this regularly, including recently to @nbtruthman re intelligent design, who (admirably, in my view) takes the time and trouble to explicitly outline his reasoning, and who explicitly challenged you to explain what you thought was wrong with his reasoning. Up until now, you have (arrogantly) ignored his challenge.

You are more like @David001  and @nbtruthman  than I could ever have imagined!

Yes, they, too, present their reasoning for the positions that they hold. I'm quite content to be compared to them in that respect.

That's a (bad-faith?) misrepresentation of my position. While I am dissatisfied with the world as it is, it is for different reasons than you represent: reasons to do with injustice, suffering, and cruelty.

"Hope" has nothing to do with my position on UFOs, which I've arrived at simply by assessing that which I've seen of the available evidence and determining that mundane explanations fail.


And I think it's sad when paradigm-shifting phenomena are dismissed on spurious grounds.


The strong feelings arise out of the facile objection you presented. If you had had something meaningful to offer, then you might have given me cause to reassess my position. Instead, you're simply waylaying and obstructing the inquiry into truth. That's justified cause for annoyance.

Please don't feel that you need to refrain from commenting if you do have something considerable to offer, which, by the way, includes such observations as that our current scientific understanding precludes faster-than-light travel: while I don't think that that observation is conclusive, it's certainly relevant, whereas "These phenomena can be explained as balloons or kites" is inane tripe.

Okay, I will apologize for labeling your motivation as 'hope.' When I was a kid, I was the biggest Star Wars fan ever and have read literally every science fiction book written in English, including the works of Frank Herbert (and his son), Philip K. Dick, Alastair Reynolds, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Peter F. Hamilton, Fred Hoyle, and many others. I studied general relativity with the singular hope of understanding how wormholes might one day unlock gateways to other star systems. For me personally, there was this 'hope' that a whole new dimension of wonder would one day become real. Then, suddenly one day, I just became a realist. I will never fly to a different star system, and the thought of it makes me sad. Now I own a dobsonian telescope and studies the night sky with it. Quite intriguing to watch Saturn’s rings with your own eyes, but it’s not exactly the same.

Please don't feel that you need to refrain from commenting if you do have something considerable to offer, which, by the way, includes such observations as that our current scientific understanding precludes faster-than-light travel: while I don't think that that observation is conclusive, it's certainly relevant, whereas "These phenomena can be explained as balloons or kites" is inane tripe.

I would say my position is inline with your last sentence. The evidence that strictly points to a nuts-and-bolts hypothesis is questionable, the evidence there are retrieved vehicles even more so.

OTOH the idea that every witness - even the ones we entrust in military engagement - is mistaken or lying seems unjustified because there are no serious a priori grounds to dismiss the phenomena.

*Something* of interest is happening, what that is remains a mystery....

[Laird]

Okay, I will apologize for labeling your motivation as 'hope.'

Thanks, and apology accepted.

When I was a kid, I was the biggest Star Wars fan ever and have read literally every science fiction book written in English, including the works of Frank Herbert (and his son), Philip K. Dick, Alastair Reynolds, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Peter F. Hamilton, Fred Hoyle, and many others.

That's impressive. I read a fair bit of sci-fi as a kid/teenager, including from several of those names (Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke) among others, but far from every single book they'd each written, let alone very single English sci-fi book unqualified!

I studied general relativity with the singular hope of understanding how wormholes might one day unlock gateways to other star systems. For me personally, there was this 'hope' that a whole new dimension of wonder would one day become real. Then, suddenly one day, I just became a realist.

If it's not prying, can you describe what prompted your sudden switch to realism?

I will never fly to a different star system, and the thought of it makes me sad. Now I own a dobsonian telescope and studies the night sky with it. Quite intriguing to watch Saturn’s rings with your own eyes, but it’s not exactly the same.

That does sound sad. I also get how natural it must have been to project your own apparently profound personal experience onto me.

[Laird]

*Something* of interest is happening, what that is remains a mystery....

Agreed, and whether it even entails faster-than-light travel is itself unknown.

That's a (bad-faith?) misrepresentation of my position. While I am dissatisfied with the world as it is, it is for different reasons than you represent: reasons to do with injustice, suffering, and cruelty.

"Hope" has nothing to do with my position on UFOs, which I've arrived at simply by assessing that which I've seen of the available evidence and determining that mundane explanations fail.


And I think it's sad when paradigm-shifting phenomena are dismissed on spurious grounds.


The strong feelings arise out of the facile objection you presented. If you had had something meaningful to offer, then you might have given me cause to reassess my position. Instead, you're simply waylaying and obstructing the inquiry into truth. That's justified cause for annoyance.

Please don't feel that you need to refrain from commenting if you do have something considerable to offer, which, by the way, includes such observations as that our current scientific understanding precludes faster-than-light travel: while I don't think that that observation is conclusive, it's certainly relevant, whereas "These phenomena can be explained as balloons or kites" is inane tripe.

I emphatically agree. Inane tripe.

If it's not prying, can you describe what prompted your sudden switch to realism?

I think the lack of any real progress made me lose hope. In many ways, those of us experiencing the digital revolution have nothing to complain about, though, but smartphones and AI do not pave the way to the stars.

Physics is not being very cooperative here with my dream. Let's consider the state-of-the-art spacecraft, the Starship. It burns approximately 4000 metric tons of fuel to lift 150 metric tons to LEO, which is about 100 km above the surface. It will reach a maximum velocity of approximately 28,000 km/h. But hey, 28,000 km/h is way too slow to even escape Earth's gravity well and fly to, e.g., Mars. So, it will need refueling with additional thousands of tons of fuel. Now comes the next issue: accelerating to a velocity allowing Starship to escape Earth and traveling for about 8 months is not enough fuel-wise. It will need additional tons to decelerate just to get back into orbit. This little example is just to explain how incredibly costly any manned mission even to Mars is going to be. Imagine the millions of tons of chemical fuel needed just to accelerate to a fraction of the speed of light for any manned vessel (there’s also the issue with the huge amount of radiation any biological being will be exposed to when leaving Earth's magnetic shield for any longer duration).

Secondly, let's consider wormholes and derived ideas. These so far only exists as mathematical solutions to a set of differential equations known as Einstein's field equations and there something similar for other theories of gravity. There's however no real evidence supporting their existence, and if they exist, they come with their own set of problems as mathematically they enable time travel, which immediately opens a paradox. Then there’s the infeasibility of implementing a wormhole as “negative” energy will be needed to create one. Negative energy would mean less energy than empty space - highly improbable to exist at least on a macroscopic scale. We will need lot of negative energy likely in range of a black hole range in order to bend spacetime in such an extreme manner.

All taken together, I no longer hold any hope we will go anywhere. Mars may be the peak of human endeavors but I’m not very optimistic it’s going to happen as we seem to prioritize military and conflict instead.

Okay, I will apologize for labeling your motivation as 'hope.' When I was a kid, I was the biggest Star Wars fan ever and have read literally every science fiction book written in English, including the works of Frank Herbert (and his son), Philip K. Dick, Alastair Reynolds, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Peter F. Hamilton, Fred Hoyle, and many others. I studied general relativity with the singular hope of understanding how wormholes might one day unlock gateways to other star systems. For me personally, there was this 'hope' that a whole new dimension of wonder would one day become real. Then, suddenly one day, I just became a realist. I will never fly to a different star system, and the thought of it makes me sad. Now I own a dobsonian telescope and studies the night sky with it. Quite intriguing to watch Saturn’s rings with your own eyes, but it’s not exactly the same.

I think that all we know for sure at this time is that there is a substantial history of UFO/UAP sightings that have definitely not been plausibly conventionally explained and where some of the sightings at least superficially look very much like somebody else's hardware.

As just a couple of examples out of many, consider the following two cases. Do you have any plausible conventional explanations?

There is the well-known Chiles-Whitted case in 1948, early in the twentieth and twenty-first century history of the phenomenon. From Wiki:

“In the early morning hours of July 24, 1948, Clarence Chiles, chief pilot, and John Whitted, co-pilot, were flying an Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-3 passenger plane near Montgomery, Alabama, at about 5,000 feet altitude. The night sky was clear with “the Moon, four days past full, shining through scattered clouds.”

At about 2:45 AM, Chiles “saw a dull red glow above and ahead of the aircraft.” He told Whitted, “Look, here comes a new Army jet job.” The object closed on their DC-3 in a matter of seconds, and both men later said they saw the object fly past the right side of their plane at high speed before it pulled “up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds.” They observed the object for a total of ten to fifteen seconds. Chiles and Whitted stated that the object “looked like a wingless aircraft…it seemed to have two rows of windows through which glowed a very bright light, as brilliant as a magnesium flare.”Both pilots claimed the object was 100 feet long and 25-30 feet in diameter, torpedo- or cigar-shaped, “similar to a B-29 fuselage”, with flames coming out of its tail. Only one of the plane’s passengers, C.L. McKelvie, saw anything unusual. He reported seeing a “bright streak of light” that flashed by his window.”

UFO skeptics later claimed it was a large meteor, but this explanation is untenable due to the obvious characteristics of an actual vehicle. The witnesses (trained pilots and good observers) would have to have been on drugs to so misinterpret what they saw and experienced.
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Then there’s the RB-47 multiple air and ground electromagnetic signals interaction case, summarized at https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/...47-ufo.htm. This has been considered one of the best UFO vehicle cases ever. A better and more detailed account is at http://www.noufors.com/the_RB-47_ufo_encounter.html .

“Possessing the most sophisticated electronic intelligence (ELINT) gear available to the U.S. Air Force, the RB-47 could handle anything.

Unfortunately, in the morning hours of July 17, 1957, over the southern United States, an RB-47 came across something it was unprepared for.

In the first hint of what was to come, one of the three officers who operate the electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment detected an odd signal. Moving up the radar screen, the blip passed some distance in front of the RB-47, then over Mississippi. Though puzzled, he sai­d nothing. However, a few minutes later, at 4:10 A.M., the sudden appearance of an intense blue light bearing down on the aircraft shook the pilot and copilot. Even more unnerving, the object changed course in the blink of an eye and disappeared at the two o’clock position. The aircraft radar picked up a strong signal in the same spot. The UFO maintained this position even as the RB-47 continued toward east Texas.

The pilot then observed a “huge” light, attached, he suspected, to an even bigger something that the darkness obscured. When the electronics gear noted the presence of another UFO in the same general location as the first, the pilot turned the plane and accelerated toward it. The UFO shot away. By now the crew had alerted the Duncanville, Texas, Air Force ground radar station, and it was soon tracking the one UFO that remained (the second had disappeared after a brief time). At 4:50 radar showed the UFO abruptly stopping as the RB-47 passed under it. Barely seconds later it was gone.

This incredible case — considered one of the most significant UFO reports ever — remained classified for years. When it became known years later, the Air Force declared that the RB-47 crew had tracked an airliner. Physicist Gordon David Thayer, who investigated the incident for the University of Colorado UFO Project, called this explanation “literally ridiculous.””

OK, consider the following:  let's accept for purposes of argument that there isn't any possibility at all of faster-than-light travel, as indicated by the current laws of physics. But the UFO sighting data stubbornly refuses to go away. So let's think "out of the box" - maybe UFOs aren’t from an interstellar spacefaring civilization (because FTL travel is impossible), but maybe they’re from another dimension, a parallel universe or maybe the future. Or maybe we’re living in a computer simulation of a universe, and the geeks who designed it thought UFOs would be kind of cool to throw into the mix.

There is another perhaps possible "explanation" for UFOs, but it is even more unlikely. This is that they are a physical aspect of this planet that we’ve observed without understanding — just as our ancestors observed the aurora borealis without knowing what it was, and endured sickness and death from invisible microbes. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first observed bacteria in 1675. It took almost two centuries before Louis Pasteur identified them in 1861 as agents of many diseases.
I 

[Laird]

All taken together, I no longer hold any hope we will go anywhere.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

At the risk of a mistaken online psychoanalysis of my own:

Is it possible that the original loss of hope was such an unpleasant experience for you that, so as to avoid the possibility of another - even worse because compounded - loss of hope, you are now disposed to avoid getting your hopes up again, and that it is that disposition which leads you to reflexively dismiss the anomalous craft which might otherwise raise your hopes?