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posted by martyb on Monday July 02 2018, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the Close-Encounters-of-Whatever-Kind dept.

Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study

Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.

As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.

I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.

With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there's plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.

See also: Released FAA recording reveals pilot report of a UFO over Long Island
I-Team Exclusive: Nevada senator fought to save secret UFO program

Related: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @10:39AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @10:39AM (#701265)

    what are you talking about?
    if two lines are parallel, they cannot cross. not if they are straight lines in Euclidian geometry.
    the notion of "parallel" is in fact only adequate for Euclidian geometry.
    if you're going to extend it to "lines that do not cross", then you can do that, but then THEY DO NOT CROSS.
    if you're going to say "light rays that are initially parallel can cross"... you're just playing with the definition of parallel again.

    and the fact that you can draw some lines on a piece of paper and then bend the piece of paper has absolutely no relation to what you can physically do with geodesics in the objective universe.
    even black holes (arguably the strongest perturbations of space-time observable in the universe) are nowhere near a "bend the piece of paper" phenomenon.
    and wormwholes have never actually been observed (I will admit that there are people working on trying to link observable phenomena to the concept of wormhole: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.024040; [aps.org] https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.024031). [aps.org]

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @03:58PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 02 2018, @03:58PM (#701421) Journal

    if two lines are parallel, they cannot cross. not if they are straight lines in Euclidian geometry.

    I think I found the problem!

    As Adam Savage from Mythbusters would say: there's your problem!

    Euclidian geometry is a nice hypothetical idea to think about. But it is a fantasy world that does not reflect physical reality.

    Space is curved in a dimension we cannot observe. Example, here is one of the proof of relativity. Once upon a time, there was this thing called Mariner 9. It was happy in its transfer orbit to Mars. Even happier when it got there. Given that the humanoids on Earth understood the layout of the solar system, they knew at all times how far away their baby Mariner 9 was from Earth. To prevent separation clingxiety, as with puppies, humanoids on Earth could stay in contact with Mariner 9. The line of communication, that is, the straight line between Earth and Mariner 9 would always be a known distance. But when Earth and Mariner 9 were positioned such that the line of communication came close to the sun, the apparent distance (and thus round trip time) increased quite measurably -- as relativity predicted.

    It seems that as you get closer to a massive gravitational source, like the sun, there is more space there. Let's suppose you took a few boxen of tinkertoys, and constructed a square. All four sides equal length. One edge of the square is tangent to the orbit of Jupiter. The opposite edge of the square is close to the sun. Guess what? That edge of the square close to the sun is going to need A LOT more tinkertoy sticks to complete its length than the number of tinkertoy segments at the opposite edge of the square near Jupiter.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 1) by notrandom on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:38AM (2 children)

      by notrandom (5820) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:38AM (#701743)
      • (Score: 1) by notrandom on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:42AM

        by notrandom (5820) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:42AM (#701745)

        and if you read the abstract, the conclusion is kind of meh.... large margin of error, kind of inconclusive...

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:55PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:55PM (#701921) Journal

        Thank you for pointing that out.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.