Wealthy Space X Partner Believes UFO's Among Us

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Sworn testimony is typically transcribed in writing and requires a witnessed signature and opens the person up to perjury charges.

I know what it is and know why in general usage. My point is that if I saw something very shaky like a UFO sighting, I wouldn't be putting my hands on the Bible and making testimony under oath. And, if I had to under a job requirement, well, so be it. But, a shaky story is still a shaky story. I realize we have to put trust in military personnel, but there still are things to consider.

Perjury happens all the time. An oath isn't, unfortunately, a flawless preventative for lying. A military or police uniform does not preclude lying, or lying under oath, or ordering someone else to lie under oath. Even sweeping perjury aside, there's a difference between perception and fact. Remember the blind men and the elephant? They weren't lying. Their perceptions were just different. Testimony under oath isn't immune to mistakes, either.

When we see these stories in the public, we have to ask why. Was the classification subsequently rescinded? Are the oaths of secrecy lifted? Are confidentiality agreements null and void? Are we being fed a story here? A fiction? On so many YouTube interviews or TV interviews, we are handed these people and supposed to just swallow who they are without any corroborating evidence whatsoever. I'm the first to admit I love the stories. But, that's what I have to admit they are, barring better evidence, stories. We have billions of cell phones in the world, surveillance footage everywhere, and telescopes pointed up at the sky. I'd like to see something better than what we've seen so far.

And, if you do confirm who is speaking or writing, caution is still needed. Stanton Friedman and John Brandenburg have real expertise. One smells like an agent of disinformation and/or a disturber, though, and the other smells like a crank. Heck, even Phil Plait swallowed his foot, all the way up to his thigh, one day on a first year physics matter on national TV.

And yes, TV is nuts. The same people that claim we needed alien help to build ancient stone monuments think we also got to the moon and found secret bases there and have sent people to Mars decades ago.

Speaking of considering the source, I bet Bob Lazar wishes he was born twenty years later than he was. He could have fed us his garbage so much more easily over Twitter and YouTube than he ever could have done through newsgroups and sketchy publishers.

 

[BalticBob]

Originally Posted By: buster
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
How about "we don't know?"


We don't and that truly is the bottom line. My personal "belief" based on the many credible testimonials that fall outside the realm of weather/space debris etc. is that something is probably interacting with our world but it simply can' be identified.

Millions of people believe in much more ridiculous things globally where there is little evidence at all.


Like early oil changes and Castrol.

 

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Sworn testimony is typically transcribed in writing and requires a witnessed signature and opens the person up to perjury charges.

I know what it is and know why in general usage. My point is that if I saw something very shaky like a UFO sighting, I wouldn't be putting my hands on the Bible and making testimony under oath. And, if I had to under a job requirement, well, so be it. But, a shaky story is still a shaky story. I realize we have to put trust in military personnel, but there still are things to consider.

Perjury happens all the time. An oath isn't, unfortunately, a flawless preventative for lying. A military or police uniform does not preclude lying, or lying under oath, or ordering someone else to lie under oath. Even sweeping perjury aside, there's a difference between perception and fact. Remember the blind men and the elephant? They weren't lying. Their perceptions were just different. Testimony under oath isn't immune to mistakes, either.

When we see these stories in the public, we have to ask why. Was the classification subsequently rescinded? Are the oaths of secrecy lifted? Are confidentiality agreements null and void? Are we being fed a story here? A fiction? On so many YouTube interviews or TV interviews, we are handed these people and supposed to just swallow who they are without any corroborating evidence whatsoever. I'm the first to admit I love the stories. But, that's what I have to admit they are, barring better evidence, stories. We have billions of cell phones in the world, surveillance footage everywhere, and telescopes pointed up at the sky. I'd like to see something better than what we've seen so far.

And, if you do confirm who is speaking or writing, caution is still needed. Stanton Friedman and John Brandenburg have real expertise. One smells like an agent of disinformation and/or a disturber, though, and the other smells like a crank. Heck, even Phil Plait swallowed his foot, all the way up to his thigh, one day on a first year physics matter on national TV.

And yes, TV is nuts. The same people that claim we needed alien help to build ancient stone monuments think we also got to the moon and found secret bases there and have sent people to Mars decades ago.

Speaking of considering the source, I bet Bob Lazar wishes he was born twenty years later than he was. He could have fed us his garbage so much more easily over Twitter and YouTube than he ever could have done through newsgroups and sketchy publishers.



The I looked at most of the FOIA UFO docs they were so redacted as to be utterly meaningless. Who really knows what happened, but why would the gove black out 7/8ths of a doc?

In spite of my enthusiasm for the subject I am quite skeptical myself. The only reason Im not a 100% skeptic is because of the few things Ive seen myself.

Lazar - yeah this guy. Problem is if a guy doesn't tell the truth about things we can all go check how can we believe he is telling the truth about things we cannot?
Friedman - always interesting and yes qualified, but he's retelling others stories
Hynek a paid agent of disinformation himself.
Von Daniken is a book seller and the guy with the B52 hair is a crackpot.

The base guys coming forward about the silos - this seems to have more than the usual amount of meat to it.

Halt - believes he witnessed a genuine alien presence, so its him and those he say have given sworn testimony and his word vs the debunkers.
It may not have been aliens, and anything you can't define is a UFO, but I dont believe they saw a lighthouse.

Nickfresh - wouldn't any active serving member be "enlisted" ?
I should have used the term actively serving miiltary personnel

Fun chatting.

UD

 

[Astro14]

I'm still looking up the incidents you mentioned, Uncle Dave. Nothing to say on those, yet.

But for clarification, a general name for someone serving in military is "service member". One who has served is a "veteran", regardless of the length of that service.

Officers are commissioned, generally, and a base Commander is usually a Colonel or Captain, referred to by paygrade as an O-6. That's pretty senior. Paygrades above that are General or Admiral, respectively. Officers, as commissioned members of the military, serve until they resign, or their services are no longer needed. It is an indefinite commitment which has been codified in Title 10 U.S.C. Warrant Officers are also commissioned for specific skills and duties, and their ranks fall below Comissioned Officers, but above enlisted members.

Enlisted members of the military join under a defined contract period. Sailors, airmen, or privates, for example, ranks that we have all heard, are the most junior enlisted. Their contract ends when stipulated, a term of enlistment. They can "re-enlist" for another specified term, and so on, and as they promote, you'll see more senior enlisted with ranks like sergeant, or Petty Officer (USN) all the way up to Master Sargeant or Master Chief. Generally, the senior enlisted ranks are referred to as "non-commissioned officers", often abbreviated as NCO. They are still subject to the term of enlistment.

So, it would be correct for the Deputy Commander of a base to be referred to by his title, "Deputy Commander of XXX", or by his rank, "Lieutenant Colonel" or generically as "an officer". A group of military members with varying ranks would be easiest to refer to as, "servicemen".

We do have higher expectations for the more senior, or higher ranking, members of the military. Commissioned officers in general are held to very high standards of behavior, which is why it makes news when one of them falls short of that standard. Not all of them are flawless. They can be prosecuted for comduct that would be considered pretty common, or just plain nobody's business, in the civilian world.

E.G. if your boss asked you if you wouldn't mind dropping him off at the car dealer that is on your way home, at your convenience, you probably wouldn't think much about it. In the military, that is abuse of a subordinate and could lead to a reprimand from his superiors, or worse.

With that, I'll return to the Newtonian discussion. And offer that your use of the term "non-Newtonian" is still confusing. What you describe; acceleration to 500MPH in a second, if it is actual acceleration, and not just perceived acceleration, would require fantastic forces, but it's still Newtonian.

A rifle bullet accelerates from zero to a few thousand MPH in milliseconds, but it's Newtonian motion, where F=MA and the result of the size of M with the size of F results in a very large A. Even an F/A-18 gets from zero to 200 MPH in about two seconds via steam catapults. Old technology, classic Newtonian motion, but with pretty incredible results. Observed without normal reference points, or against a shifting background, that everyday occurrence might appear to be even more fantastic, and fit the description of incredible motion described by many UFO witnesses.

We've found, in the interviewing of witnesses of aircraft accidents, that witnesses often get speeds and altitudes wrong by several order of magnitude. That's a factor of one hundred to one thousand in error. And that's based on daylight observations with normal perspectives. If people get the motion of everyday objects, airplanes, that wrong, it's difficult to give credibility, even to sworn testimony, of speed estimates of UFO witnesses.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
The I looked at most of the FOIA UFO docs they were so redacted as to be utterly meaningless. Who really knows what happened, but why would the gove black out 7/8ths of a doc?

That's the point. Those 7/8ths of a doc could be revealing ordinary earthbound classified technology, something magnificent and out of this world, or simply the names of classified personnel.

I still can't figure Stanton Friedman. I swear some of the stuff he comes up with is just to sow confusion and paranoia among the UFO crowd. Then, the next minute, he seems a bit sincere. Like I mentioned, when Crazy Hair was talking to him, Friedman looked like he had just about enough, staring at him as if he had two heads.

With Brandenburg, I was sure he was leading some people along, but then he comes up with nonsense about thermonuclear wars on Mars.

I'd love this all to be true (at least what doesn't obviously conflict with itself and everything else). It would be so interesting. But, I'm skeptical.

Of course, the TV shows don't help; they're getting worse. Give me a bunch of UFO sightings in a book, or someone's story about alien abduction, or their Loch Ness monster sighting, or a few crazy hypotheses. I'll read them and enjoy every minute of it. But, so much of this stuff goes so far off the reservation, it isn't even good fiction.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
We've found, in the interviewing of witnesses of aircraft accidents, that witnesses often get speeds and altitudes wrong by several order of magnitude. That's a factor of one hundred to one thousand in error. And that's based on daylight observations with normal perspectives. If people get the motion of everyday objects, airplanes, that wrong, it's difficult to give credibility, even to sworn testimony, of speed estimates of UFO witnesses.


Right, I think in that aircraft that exploded over New York, lots of people thought that they saw a missile trail streaking up when it was falling down. Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable, lots of people have been in jail due to the eyewitness testimony that were later exonerated with DNA evidence.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: buster
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
How about "we don't know?"


We don't and that truly is the bottom line.

Originally Posted By: buster
Millions of people believe in much more ridiculous things globally where there is little evidence at all.

We agree on this. And I'm sure we also agree that this is a problem.

Given that, isn't it on us to be extra vigilant about our own beliefs, and to be extra careful what we do and don't endorse in conversation with others?

 

[UncleDave]

Thanks for the military classification primer.

The incident I witnessed is difficult to describe.

It was in Parker Arizona which is pretty dark at night with minimal light pollution.
It was a cool night and the road from dinner to my crib has a very slow speed limit 35-25 MPH - so we had the windows down and the sunroof open coming back from dinner.

It started out with what for all the world looked like a shooting star without a tail traveling at approximately the same perceived speed. (how fast do those go? )

We had just crested a ridge so we had a good view of the whole valley and witnessed something moving overhead and we (My buddy and I noticed it at nearly the sam e instance in time ) and saw it through the open sunroof it had a flat (seemingly down) trajectory in parallel with the road and right down the center of the hood from where we sat, instead of fading out in a fraction of a second like a meteor would it stopped moving in a parallel fashion then the object made a 90 right and slightly up trajectory covering almost the entire visible sky to my starboard side in a fraction of second stopping again at the far end of the horizon. Then it vanished.
When whatever moved past my friends head and the roof of the truck to the right I lost it out of my vision entirely until my bud pointed toward the back of the truck and out the open window where it stopped. About the time I got a visual fix on the new position it vanished. He said he nearly lost it when he blinked but just caught it.
The entire event only lasted a few seconds. It was over before sth truck came to a complete halt from 35 or so on the road.
it was so quick the gals in the back didnt see it at all.

We went over possible things that could have replicated what we saw - sometimes a high speed aircraft if heading directly away or toward you can look stopped when in fact it isn't, Could have been a reflection but there weren't and usually aren't clouds in the desert at night so thats stretch- a reflection from the river water to hard to see clouds, etcetera
We couldn't come up with anything but Im totally open to any kind of plausible explanation.

My buddy didnt sleep well for days after we had our what was that discussion.

No sound no boom no hum. Estimate the speed covering the horizon to be hundreds of times faster than any air show display Ive ever seen.

Ive never seen anything either make a direction change like that or cover that much open sky that quickly.
Been going to air shows since I been a kid & seen shuttle launches and Delta 4's launching at Vandenberg.
I should say Ive never seen anything move in real life like that,
I sold extremely high end visual effect systems to film studios and post houses and have only seen faked imagery resemble what I saw in real life

I understand the problem of speed and distance estimation during the day and night,as well as what happens with lack of reference points, and also how easily the eye can be tricked. the only real reference point I had were the parallel path of the road I was on and the limits of the horizon in each direction.
I have a hard time eyeballing speed distance estimation in 2 dimensions at sea level when boating in the ocean at night (chichis why I have a full suite of electronics) - adding the third dimension of sky makes it really hard.

My reference points to object size and relative speed an altitude would be witnessing small single engine planes flying i the are and flying into that airport in private planes at least a dozen times with a friend that had a sweet mooney 201, and another with a 420 (deathstar)

I still couldn't even begin to give you a size and altitude other than it was above the buttes and semi mountain rock formations from where we crested.

If I didnt see it I wouldn't believe it either. Not offended at all by skeptics as I am one at heart (I come from a long line of skeptical grumpy old men)

Given servicemen and pilots turn into cooks and garbage collectors when writing about UFO's I probably wouldn't say squat if I my boss asked me either, so the testimony of the Japanese 747 pilot and astronauts are quite interesting to me as some of the very few with any real weight.



UD

 

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: UncleDave
The I looked at most of the FOIA UFO docs they were so redacted as to be utterly meaningless. Who really knows what happened, but why would the gove black out 7/8ths of a doc?

That's the point. Those 7/8ths of a doc could be revealing ordinary earthbound classified technology, something magnificent and out of this world, or simply the names of classified personnel.

I still can't figure Stanton Friedman. I swear some of the stuff he comes up with is just to sow confusion and paranoia among the UFO crowd. Then, the next minute, he seems a bit sincere. Like I mentioned, when Crazy Hair was talking to him, Friedman looked like he had just about enough, staring at him as if he had two heads.

With Brandenburg, I was sure he was leading some people along, but then he comes up with nonsense about thermonuclear wars on Mars.

I'd love this all to be true (at least what doesn't obviously conflict with itself and everything else). It would be so interesting. But, I'm skeptical.

Of course, the TV shows don't help; they're getting worse. Give me a bunch of UFO sightings in a book, or someone's story about alien abduction, or their Loch Ness monster sighting, or a few crazy hypotheses. I'll read them and enjoy every minute of it. But, so much of this stuff goes so far off the reservation, it isn't even good fiction.


Never looked at Brandenberg Ill go check him out , but yeah Stanton- guy is all over the place, for sure a smart guy, if his motive is to get paid on UFO documentaries he's successful.

War on Mars? love to see the evidence for that....sounds more like comedy.

Although entertained by the subject for sure I really don't want any of it to be true, because if any of it is its likely bad news for us.

UD

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Astro14
We've found, in the interviewing of witnesses of aircraft accidents, that witnesses often get speeds and altitudes wrong by several order of magnitude. That's a factor of one hundred to one thousand in error. And that's based on daylight observations with normal perspectives. If people get the motion of everyday objects, airplanes, that wrong, it's difficult to give credibility, even to sworn testimony, of speed estimates of UFO witnesses.


Right, I think in that aircraft that exploded over New York, lots of people thought that they saw a missile trail streaking up when it was falling down. Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable, lots of people have been in jail due to the eyewitness testimony that were later exonerated with DNA evidence.


In the American 587 crash, the second deadliest in US history, there was sworn eyewitness testimony of explosions and missiles that brought down the plane. They swore to it under oath.

But what the eyewitnesses swore to didn't happen. Not at all. It was structural failure of the rudder that brought down the plane.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR0404.aspx

So, while I know you saw something, UD, I don't give a ton of credence to eyewitness reports, or sworn testimony in many UFO cases.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Never looked at Brandenberg Ill go check him out , but yeah Stanton- guy is all over the place, for sure a smart guy, if his motive is to get paid on UFO documentaries he's successful.

I think after Friedman retired from his real career, he either trolls these people as a hobby, or he gets paid to be on all these documentaries.

Brandenburg has moments where he appears to be trolling, but he seems crankier. When he was talking to Crazy Hair, once, he was leading him down the garden path of how the Casimir effect could turn Loch Ness into a time machine and bring extinct creatures to the present to be witnessed by people now, yet not actually be there, meaning the skeptics are right that nothing is there and the witnesses and believers are right and that something is there, so everyone wins. Of course, Crazy Hair was going along with this thinking this was fantastic. I'm still not sure if he was trolling him or being serious.

His nuclear war on Mars baloney had to do with certain concentrations of elements in a couple locations. Apparently, a nuclear war would be one of more than one explanation for this. For whatever reason, he decided to choose the nuclear war to hang his hat on.

 

[Nickdfresh]

I've had an interest in this stuff for a long while and used to like listening to Art Bell when he hosted Coast-to-Coast AM up until the early 2000's, now it's just not the same without his sense of showmanship and the conspiracy-buff dolt they have on now. Bell had Friedman on several times and he did lend some critical authenticity and was much saner than some of the strange people Bell had on. I suppose Friedman makes some money from UFOlogy but I can't imagine it's a fortune or anything and I think he genuinely thinks something is out there that cannot be explained by anomalies or the frailties of human perception and I don't disagree with him. I am however very skeptical of the vast majority of the "It's Aliens!" types and there is no end to hoaxes and frauds...

 

[Garak]

I was always entertained with Coast-to-Coast back in the day, too. And no, it's not anywhere the same any longer. I can't even stand it. Perhaps it's just a fun hobby for Friedman.

I doubt he's getting rich off of it, but he might be having a heck of a good time.

 

[Astro14]

Meteors, meteorites, etc. are hitting the Earth's atmosphere pretty fast. Generally, meteor showers are caused by Earth crossing the trail of a comet. So all of the rock bits slam into the atmosphere.

Earth is moving about 70,000 MPH around the sun. The comet bits have a velocity, too, that is either towards or away from Earth, so the velocity of a meteor can be anywhere between about 20,000 and 120,000 MPH. They often break up as they enter the atmosphere, leading to multiple trails. They're not consistent, but there is a normal distribution of both velocity and size. And they tend to come from the same direction in space (we bump into them, for the most part).

Speaking of which, your sighting wouldn't happened to have been in early August, would it?

Edit: I'm off a bit in velocity, but close enough.

More here: http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-faq/

 

[UncleDave]

If you are asking me no- it wasn't August as the desert is scorching in the evening in Aug.

It occurred in the last 2 weeks of April on a trip I take at approx the same time every year after a major trade show (NAB) We would have had the windows rolled up and the AC on in Aug.

The object moved over our heads at speed similar to that of a meteor and actually accelerated when it changed direction.

I would note to the sound engineer that Ive seen hundreds if not thousands of meteors in my life all traveling in logical consistent patterns all moving far faster than the sound barrier and not once have I heard a sonic boom from one.

As a kid practicing with my" Marshall Brodien Magic kit" (this should bring back some memories) I was surprised how easily people could be tricked.

Then I became a fan of James Randi and bought several of his books and delighted at how he logically debunked charlatans and film flam men with logic and wisdom.

The fun for me is in the debunking, but I have no explanation for what I/we witnessed.

UD

 

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by Astro14
We've found, in the interviewing of witnesses of aircraft accidents, that witnesses often get speeds and altitudes wrong by several order of magnitude. That's a factor of one hundred to one thousand in error. And that's based on daylight observations with normal perspectives. If people get the motion of everyday objects, airplanes, that wrong, it's difficult to give credibility, even to sworn testimony, of speed estimates of UFO witnesses.


Right, I think in that aircraft that exploded over New York, lots of people thought that they saw a missile trail streaking up when it was falling down. Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable, lots of people have been in jail due to the eyewitness testimony that were later exonerated with DNA evidence.


In the American 587 crash, the second deadliest in US history, there was sworn eyewitness testimony of explosions and missiles that brought down the plane. They swore to it under oath.

But what the eyewitnesses swore to didn't happen. Not at all. It was structural failure of the rudder that brought down the plane.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR0404.aspx

So, while I know you saw something, UD, I don't give a ton of credence to eyewitness reports, or sworn testimony in many UFO cases.




In particular I enjoy your posts, so Im copying it as the move forward conversation over a year later.
I can enjoy good conversation with you without it getting petty or personal.


Since this originally posted there have been extraordinary events fully disclosed and not even disputed by our government.

Are all witnesses and sworn testimony equal?
What a bunch of jamokes claim to see is one thing and I agree- holds little weight.
What trained witnesses see - is something else

Take the Japanese 747 pilot that ruined his careers over what he saw- whats his motivation to say anything?

How do you feel about the F18 pilots testimony and television interviews as to what he tracked on video from his ATFLIR pod off the coast of San Diego?

Did you see the vid?

According to what Ive read this device and others in its group displayed incredible characteristics - the supporting aegis cruiser caught this device on its spy 1 radar descending from 60K feet to sea level in approx 2 seconds then hovering and disappearing altogether.
The scenario was described as a repeat of event previously where we tracked a "fleet" of these devices.

People always ask how come few to no vids of the events - it was interesting to see that it took the guy several tries to lock onto it with an when it was only going a few hundred MPH.

Does anyone really think the Nimitz carrier strike group mistook these for something known,Venus, a meteor shower, or swamp gas?

In terns of newtonian based physics
The device showed no detectable action reaction propulsion method, exhaust or heat signature where thrust could be coming from.
Had no wings or discernible method of providing lift - nor when it was tracked was it anywhere near fast enough to be a lifting body itself.
Seems to rotate mid flight in such a way that whatever was powering it directionally allowed it to continue identical movement.

Perhaps it is still newtonian in nature - but that newton hadn't yet learned all the rules?

It accelerated away from an F18 super hornet like it was standing still and fast enough to break track.

Where a year ago absolutely "nothing was happening" according to the government it turns out ( to no ones surprise) they were lying to us.

This whole "nothing here to see" thing is played out.

We have been lied to outright for decades about this subject.



UD

 

[cjcride]

Originally Posted by Yah-Tah-Hey
Nothing but a modern myth kept alive by individuals out to make $$$$ or gain some small sliver of notoriety,or both.

You beat me to it.

P T Barnum was wealthy and had all types of 'circus attractions' that made him/them lots of money. Some people mistakenly believe that if someone is wealthy, why would they deceive?

 

[cjcride]

Originally Posted by demarpaint
Originally Posted by bubbatime
There are aliens out there. Period. With billions and billions of solar systems, and trillions and trillions of planets, the likelihood is certain.


That pretty much sums it up. I never thought for a minute that we were totally alone.

This is quite probable. They may not be as evolved as us or they could be much more advanced. Who knows?
It stands to reason though that if they exist, they have not discovered us yet. If they could reach us they would not have to hide or sneak around from us. They would have anything they wanted on Earth for the taking.

 

[bobdoo]

There's one 'ultimate' solution to the question 'are others out there?'.

Any intelligence that can relatively quickly move among the stars will have *already* populated the galaxy they originated in. It supposedly only takes a million or so years (IIRC).

If it can't be done by a biologic life, then robotic forms could certainly do so. (And that easily explains the ultra-high G maneuvers).

I've been photographing meteors for 18 years. I live 2 miles from an airport. My house has roofline-to-knee height windows in the living room. I see air traffic all the time, including jets in the jetstream (you can see vast speed differences in west/east flights).

I've seen three UFO's. After years of conjecture, I believe the first one was a fireworks lit off at 3AM.

I watched the second one wander around over an area about the size of my hand at arm's distance. I put my camera on the tripod to get photos, and found that it wasn't moving at all. It was my body swaying in the dark!

The third one had me quite 'concerned'... By this time, I knew I couldn't rely *at all* on my unaided sight, to determine if an object was changing direction. I was shooting meteors when I saw a light through a stand of cedars (in a gap of the cedars). I could clearly see that it was wobbling all over the place in relation to the tops of the cedars. I shone my flashlight at it, and it *immediately* stopped wobbling.

Two minutes later, the prop plane landed at the airport...

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by bobdoo
There's one 'ultimate' solution to the question 'are others out there?'.

Any intelligence that can relatively quickly move among the stars will have *already* populated the galaxy they originated in. It supposedly only takes a million or so years (IIRC).

If it can't be done by a biologic life, then robotic forms could certainly do so. (And that easily explains the ultra-high G maneuvers).



That's the theory anyway, we're about 25,000 light years from the galactic center. There's the drake equation you can play around with. There's lots of limiting factors though. The most common type of stars is the red dwarf, but it turns out that one side effect is that they tend to be very active and have solar flares quite frequently and that tends to wipe out all biological life. Our G type stars aren't as common and you need it to be in the main sequence where it's relatively steady. We've probably had life on the planet for hundreds of millions of years, but none of it was smart enough to send out a probe til now.