- cross-posted to:
- ufos@lemmy.world
- uap@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- ufos@lemmy.world
- uap@lemmy.world
This week, the director of the U.S. government’s UFO analysis office stated that there is “evidence” of concerning unidentified flying object activity “in our backyard.” According to physicist Seán Kirkpatrick, who heads the congressionally-mandated All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, this alarming UFO activity can be attributed to one of two extraordinary sources: either a foreign power or “aliens.”
To be sure, the ramifications of either would be significant. But Kirkpatrick’s comments, which come as he is about to retire after a 27-year defense and intelligence-focused career, are more intriguing because he also says that “none” of the hundreds of military UFO reports analyzed by his office recently “have been positively attributed to foreign activities.”
At the same time, Kirkpatrick and senior defense officials have ruled out the possibility that secret U.S. programs or experimental aircraft explain the phenomena.
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I would posit a 3rd possibility:
We already know our solar system is kind of at the ass-end of the Milky Way and distances to get here are VAST. So any intelligence with the capacity to get here would likely find little of actual interest here.
So what advanced technology WOULD have a vested interest in a) studying our culture and b) maintaining as little interference as possible?
Future humans. Somebody cracked time travel and, like good scientists, are studying their ancestors. Just like we use archaeology and paleontology.
If we cracked time travel then it’s equally possible some other advanced race did too and traveling long distance isn’t an issue if you can manipulate time. Still could be aliens.
Yeah, it’s wild how everyone goes “aliens” when the expansion of the universe sets the vast majority of it as inaccessible without FTL travel, our own signals of life haven’t reached very far yet, and the same underlying tech to travel FTL would also mean traveling in time.
So we have things flying around in formations similar to our own tech and behaviors but seemingly more advanced and showing considerable interest in humans.
Time travel at least deserves to be on the discussion table as much or more than aliens.
Time travel to the past is orders of magnitude more unlikely than alien life existing at the same time as us. We know interstellar travel is physically possible, just very difficult, while our current knowledge of physics shows that time travel to the past is physically impossible.
I think it’s more likely that if these objects are extraterrestrial that could be uncrewed drones meant to perform basic science/reconnaissance. It’s even possible the civilization that launched them is long dead due to the distances involved and that’s why they aren’t contacting us.
That said, I also wouldn’t assume that we’re uninteresting. Any form of life that demonstrates intelligence is probably rare, so simply observing us out of curiosity would make sense too.
You misunderstood.
The issue isn’t whether it’s possible to travel interstellar.
It’s that the rate at which the universe is expanding means that even if you could travel at the speed of light, the majority of the observable universe could never be visited. Traveling slower than the speed of light, and even more is permanently inaccessible.
Additionally, we’ve only been generating ‘interesting’ signals that could be detected for only around 100 years.
Assuming those signals could still be read somehow at a decent signal to noise ratio maximally far from us, that’s still only around 10,000 star systems within a 100 light year radius around us.
Given the speed at which less than light speed interstellar travel would occur plus the time to reach us after receiving an interesting signal, and you are talking about maybe around a 30 light year radius that’s practically the range at which any alien life would have received a radio signal from Earth and been able to arrive to check it out.
Given credible sightings go back to the mid 20th century, that reduces the practical range to more like a 10 light year radius to get a signal and come check it out using conventional interstellar travel.
There’s like 30 star systems in that range.
I like this idea, but it doesn’t hold up either. We know that time travel is technically possible, but only in one direction - you can only move forward in time, never backwards. So, if a craft left earth and set out into that vast ocean of space only to return after a good long time of visiting other worlds, those aboard that craft would return to an earth that has experienced much more time passing. To those on the ship, it would appear that the ship really wouldn’t have been gone for that long, while to those of us poor saps stuck in the gravity well, a metric crap ton of time would have passed on earth before we’d ever see that ship again.
Edit: After thinking about this some more, the exception to this would be if a craft left earth tens of thousands of years ago. If that were the case, they could be returning now to a world completely unknown to them, which would absolutely warrant an observation-only kind of reaction. However, we don’t have a whole lot of evidence for a lost-in-time advanced society. There’s a couple of interesting things that have popped up in history, sure, but nothing to suggest a civilization advanced enough to have achieved space travel, so again, though it’s not outside the realm of possibility, it’s extremely unlikely.
If they could do that why do they get caught? They would presumably know from the historical records us seeing them.
Depends on how time travel works.
What happens if you think of it more along the lines of Everettian many worlds?
You can go back in time to a point that’s n moments before your own time and accurately represents the universe at that point in your history, but then as soon as you are there you start splitting off into a new fractalization of timelines.
Which would also make it effectively impossible to get back to your own time or influence its events.
I am alright
deleted by creator
From everything we know interstellar travel in less than generational time scales is all but impossible.
The only thing that is more improbable from our current knowledge of physics is…travel back in time.
Occam’s razor: The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.
So we have three possibilities.
A foreign power
Aliens
Time Travel.
…
The boring reality is that it is the first one. A foreign power.
If the videos of the tic tac object are accurate, as in what was recorded was really there, I disagree. These things can drop from 80k feet to sea level in a second with no obvious signs of propulsion and no control surfaces.
Even if you don’t believe in UFO’s this is important because we need more government transparency.
So it’s either aliens (which we don’t know if they exist) or a foreign power (which we’re pretty sure do).
That’s a tough one.
Notice that “aliens” is in quotes. The modern way to talk about this stuff among those who follow it is to reference it as a phenomenon and not necessarily aliens specifically.
I find the UFO community to mostly be insufferable, but there does seem to be something to all of this. Either there is some super advanced tech in the hands of humans, or something else is going on.
It does not seem like there is a simple answer. And there might be multiple answers.
Or the third option they’re not allowed to say, which is they’re ours.
You should have kept reading the article. “But Kirkpatrick’s comments, which come as he is about to retire after a 27-year defense and intelligence-focused career, are more intriguing because he also says that “none” of the hundreds of military UFO reports analyzed by his office recently “have been positively attributed to foreign activities.””
So what?
How does that mean aliens? Or even the possible explanation of “aliens”? You haven’t raised the probability of that explanation at all.
I could equally say that it’s angels.
Arguing with UFO junkies is pointless.
This is just God of the Gaps with aliens. It’s ok to say “I don’t know”. Use an overactive imagination for something useful like writing fiction.
Well, isn’t that a given? If we could attribute them to specific foreign activity, then they wouldn’t be unidentified anymore, would they?
Yeah because if they had been positively attributed, they wouldn’t be unidentified objects any more.
Maybe it’s the Vulcans. I hope so.
Can this nonsense be left to the conspiracy communities?
This isn’t news.
What? It’s a real part of the government and real laws are currently being made about it.
This isn’t a “local farmer saw something weird” report.
