UFO's & UAP's: Is the Truth Out There?

[prairiedruid]

Probably the only way we find intelligent aliens is by receiving their broadcast signals. We've been broadcasting TV signals into space since the 1930s; one of the first being a Hitler rally. The distances involved mean that we can't directly communicate but can passively watch their version of TV.

 

[MisterBadger]

[Scene: A village somewhere on the eastern seaboard of North America, sometime about 400 years ago]...

No, it wasn't a spirit vision. I saw it, as clearly as I see you all now. It was like a huge canoe but high like a hill, with three trees growing up out of it, so tall they were among small white clouds. And there were beings similar to us but different coloured, climbing up and down the tree trunks and branches on ropes or vines, like spiders on their threads... and no, I haven't been smoking plants of any description. You know, others have seen them before me. More than in our fathers' or our grandfathers' time. And I don't care if you've gone out fishing every day for 40 years and have never seen a dam' thing - all I know is what I saw. There may be another world beyond the Great Water. Maybe these beings come from there...

[Laughter]

 

[jpmcwjr]

<< Snipped bits out >>

The never know part is based not just on the insurmountably immense distances George cited but also the time scale of creation. Just our crappy little galaxy dates back over 13 billion years; the universe is about twice as old. There has been almost infinite time for countless intelligent civilizations to rise, fall, and utterly disappear.

Our little galaxy, our known universe, etc..... What if the universe were infinite? Or so large and expanding so rapidly that it approaches infinity. (Is anything infinite?)

A neat thought experiment is to consider the possibility that intelligent life existed here on Earth an almost unimaginably long time ago. What traces if any would remain and would we recognize them if we saw them? This MIT article appeared just before the pandemic and is a fun read:

Good read, and I guess I conclude - there could have been many civilizations that came and went on our earth before we and the Dino's existed.

But a question: Article stated that something had a half life of 80,000,000 years: How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

[Extra points for explaining it in under 500 works, with no links.]

 

[Searock Fan]

I don't know which would be more incredible, that alien exist, or they don't.

 

[bullet08]

What if we are the aliens that killed off Neanderthals and dinosaurs? After the party and enough meat, you brain had huge brain fart and forgot all about it?

 

[Chasing Embers]

What if we are the aliens that killed off Neanderthals and dinosaurs? After the party and enough meat, you brain had huge brain fart and forgot all about it?

Not even a huge brain fart. It only takes a couple of generations to forget history.

 

[Chasing Embers]

How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

They can only use educated guessing. The once gold standard of carbon dating is even flawed.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I don't know which would be more incredible, that alien exist, or they don't.

Without delving into theology, science says that the rise of life here was infinitely unlikely. The chances of it happening again elsewhere borders on impossibility.

 

[jpmcwjr]

This question still stands:

But a question: Article stated that something had a half life of 80,000,000 years: How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

[Extra points for explaining it in under 500 works, with no links.]

 

[woodsroad]

This question still stands:

But a question: Article stated that something had a half life of 80,000,000 years: How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

[Extra points for explaining it in under 500 works, with no links.]

Measure the rate of decay, assume it’s linear, and multiply.

 

[Chasing Embers]

This question still stands:

But a question: Article stated that something had a half life of 80,000,000 years: How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

[Extra points for explaining it in under 500 works, with no links.]

Even with calculations decay is random and calculations are only probable.

 

[MisterBadger]

Measure the rate of decay, assume it’s linear, and multiply.

That's quite an assumption, though.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Measure the rate of decay, assume it’s linear, and multiply.

Even with calculations decay is random and calculations are only probable.

How the hell do you measure decay when its half life is 80 million years?

Of course it's calculated and results only probable, but with those numbers how do you even start?

 

[woodsroad]

How the hell do you measure decay when its half life is 80 million years?

Of course it's calculated and results only probable, but with those numbers how do you even start?

Alrhough I retired from my post as head of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab nearly three weeks ago, I’d say that you need to use powerful machinery.

 

[woodsroad]

That's quite an assumption, though.

I never claimed accuracy, just a methodology.

 

[brian64]

I never claimed accuracy, just a methodology.

I'm pretty sure methodology is all that matters these days...as long as you've got big money behind it.

 

[woodsroad]

I'm pretty sure methodology is all that matters these days...as long as you've got big money behind it.

Accuracy is like Truth. There’s just so many versions to choose from!

 

[brian64]

Accuracy is like Truth. There’s just so many versions to choose from!

 

[Searock Fan]

What if we are the aliens that killed off Neanderthals and dinosaurs? After the party and enough meat, you brain had huge brain fart and forgot all about it?

There have been studies that indicate we probably interbred them away. Today about 20% of the population contains some Neanderthal DNA.

 

[Searock Fan]

How the hell is that measured and then calculated?

cypherin...