UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by Magical Realist, Oct 10, 2017.

  1. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Here's an extraordinarily informative article from Air Force Magazine discussing new reveals from Boeing about their Valkyrie hypersonic aircraft design. A model with new details was displayed at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics convention in San Diego recently. In the course of the article, you get fascinating comments from a top (non-Boeing) industry expert about the engineering challenges of hypersonic flight and about how Boeing seems to be addressing them. Gives a good sense of the current state of the art.

    https://www.airforcemag.com/boeing-updated-valkyrie-reveals-evolving-hypersonic-design/

    And a couple of tweets from an Aviation Week and Space Technology reporter with photos of the model

    https://twitter.com/AvWeekGuy/status/1478489605972193280

    https://twitter.com/AvWeekGuy/status/1478491208452227072

    Boeing render

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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    I'm inclined to disagree. There are some good reasons to expect, for instance, that any biological life will be based on carbon, since it is one of the few elements that allows for long chain molecules - like proteins, DNA etc. Also, it is hard to imagine life developing in the absence of liquid water.

    However, even without making assumptions about chemistry, I think we'd know approximately what to look for if we were at tripping-over distance. All life will have things like the capacity to grow and reproduce, as well as some sort of respiration process.
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    No telling what form an intelligent lifeform would evolve into over say a million yr span. The distinction between them and AI may be long gone, allowing for immortality and vast intelligence bordering on omniscience. Might even achieve FTL travel or some sort of hyperspatial wormhole. Would they seem to us as gods? (consult applicable Star Trek episode.) Would they're intentions even be remotely comprehensible to us? Does a bacteria in a petri dish understand the scientist working with it?
     
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  7. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    The universe is a very big place. Signalling delays alone rule out the possibility of any effective kind of omniscience.

    It is very interesting to speculate, however, on what post-biological life might look like, and what its goals might be.

    It seems to me that if a civilisation ever gets to the stage where accessible energy becomes essentially a non-issue for them, then the only realistic motivations for them would be to increase their knowledge and/or to enjoy themselves.
    Yes.
    Are you thinking of Star Trek's Q (no relation, I hope, to the idiotic 4-chan guy or guys that call themselves Q and spread corrosive conspiracy theories)?

    Arthur C. Clarke wrote, a long time ago, that any sufficiently advanced technology will seem indistinguishable from magic to those who are not in the know.
    We share a universe with them, so I doubt that we'd be incapable of understanding their motivations, were they to communicate them.
    Bacteria aren't thinking beings, so I think that's a bad analogy.
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    We have no record of people seeing birds shaped like 40 ft long tic tacs with no wings that stop abruptly in midair, change directions on a dime, plummet at more than 30 times the speed of sound, show up on radar, and speed away out of sight in 2 seconds.

    https://www.history.com/news/ufo-sightings-speed-appearance-movement
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2022
  9. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I've been wondering about this for some time - could it be that the almost always easy dismissal of the eyewitness claims of alien spacecraft be coming from a place where many of these skeptics aren't comfortable with the idea of alien life existing? (that could create and operate a spacecraft superior to what our planet has produced)
     
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    We do have lots of evidence of radar glitches acting like that

    Along with pilots who link visual sightings to the glitches, or even without a visual sighting add "well it must be invisible" as another attribute to the glitch

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    Last edited: Jan 24, 2022
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    That's possible, especially when the cases involve multiple eyewitnesses and camera video and radar that provide substantial evidence. The irrational persistence of denial in the face of the baffling must have some underlying motivation, primarily one that doesn't want ufos to exist. I don't know if it's a matter of defensiveness over the supremacy of human science and technology or not. Maybe it's a basic fear of the existence of irrational. But they obviously have some personal stock in ufos not existing or they wouldn't try to deny it so much.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2022
  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    skeptics Think more a case of in reality the technology required is not possible

    I'm sure skeptics have no problem with the concept of aliens existing

    One item to consider the reported UFOs are small, so I would contend even our primative technology would pick up a mother ship

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  13. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    I'd actually think that most skeptics would agree that aliens almost certainly do exist. So I don't think dismissal comes from some fear/discomfort of the consequence.
    Ironically, trying to dismiss skeptics' own dismissals by reference to a possible discomfort they may feel is to ignore the actual arguments the skeptics make, and would be an ad hominem. But I'm sure you wouldn't be looking to do that.

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  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Self-soothing rhetoric.

    The only language rational skeptics speak is evidence.
     
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  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Open yourself to the mystery..

    “You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.”
    ― Neil Gaiman
     
  16. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    'Mystery Forums' are two doors down on the right.

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    Seriously though - that would go a long way toward explaining why you're so unhappy with the dialogue you're getting here. Your agenda is not aligned with the forum philosophy. A mystery forum would probably suit you better.

    It's rather ironic - you quoting this - of all people.

    Of all of us, you are the one fighting for a preferred explanation. You've spent post after post after post trying to nail the descriptor of 'craft' to everything that moves.

    We skeptics have been saying 'no, we don't think there's enough to explain it that way. We think there is still too much possibility that it's not a craft - there's plenty of alternate possibilities - none of which we've ever claimed are certainties. Because we're OK with uncertainties.'

    UAPs don't fall into your bucket of 'craft' just because you don't like unsolved mysteries.

    Much as you don't like it, we skeptics are the open-minded ones - whereas you have a one-track mind.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2022
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  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not unhappy at all here. Just as long as I am not attacked and ad homed for my pov. You know..actual civil conversation..
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2022
  18. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You can't have it both ways. That's hypocrisy:

     
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  19. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    It's rather ironic - you quoting this - of all people.

    Of all of us, you are the one fighting for a preferred explanation. You've spent post after post after post trying to nail the descriptor of 'craft' to everything that moves.

    We skeptics have been saying 'no, we don't think there's enough to explain it that way. We think there is still too much possibility that it's not a craft - there's plenty of alternate possibilities - none of which we've ever claimed are certainties. Because we're OK with uncertainties.'

    UAPs don't fall into your bucket of 'craft' just because you don't like unsolved mysteries.

    Much as you don't like it, we skeptics are the open-minded ones - whereas you have a one-track mind.
     
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  20. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    ... says the person trying to persuade others as to an explanation...
    ... says the person that "attacked and ad homed" the skeptics for their pov.

    The irony is strong with this one.

    (doh! beaten to it!)
     
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  21. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I'm posting on the subject of ufos in the thread and the subforum set up for precisely that. If my views are subversive to the "forum philosophy", so be it. It's the right of everyone here to think freely and discuss on any topic they choose and not have to conform to some thought police.

    "Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world... On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner."
    ~Anne Rice
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2022
  22. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    And yet, when they do, you respond with "irrational", "denial", "underlying motivation", "doesn't want ufos to exist", "defensiveness", "basic fear"," some personal stock", "try to deny".

    All of which are ad homs, by the way.

    So maybe don't be such a hypocrite.
     
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  23. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Sounds like an ad hom to me. You just can't help yourself can you?
     

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