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Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat... What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the p
by matthewwiese 8y ago
Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat...
What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too?
One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who needs difficult shit like invisibility when we can just pound the earthlings' pupils with light so they can't see us well! Nevertheless, has always made the skeptic in me raise my eyebrows recursively.
- Scriptor 8y agoProbably some sampling bias there. If there wasn't a bright light (whatever caused it), then chances are a person wouldn't have seen it at all.
- dktp 8y agoCan't report the invisible ones if we can't see them
- krapp 8y agoDevil's advocate: the aliens may simply not care about being seen, or they may be aware that they can operate "in the open" with plausible deniability from a skeptical public and governments being unwilling to admit their existence.
- pokemongoaway 8y agoOr what about the CIA picking a pop singer to disclose their top secrets? "Space invasion" might be the next big psyop!
- smudgymcscmudge 8y agoMost UFOs aren’t don’t turn out to be alien spacecraft, so it stands to reason that most UFO sightings won’t behave like alien spacecraft.
- flukus 8y agoMaybe the alien version of anthropomorphism? If they and most galactic species eyesight was in the infra-red red range then the might not think of hiding light in our visible spectrum. Imagine if exhaust from our cars gave off visible light? We'd want to change that pretty quickly.
- tyingq 8y agoI don't personally give much thought to what ants think as I tromp around the lawn. I tend to think a species advanced enough to get here may find us similarly unimportant.
- ebcode 8y agoThat's a familiar argument, but I just realized that it mistakes scale for evolution. I imagine that if there are aliens, they are closer to the scale of a human than an ant.
- dylan604 8y agoBut wouldn't an intelligent species capable of inter-galactic travel have some of the Federation style rules to obey? Don't interfere with a less intelligent civilization for fear of disruption or whatever? I'm not sure they would consider "us" unimportant. There's clearly some sort of "intelligence" with all of the radio energy emanating from this rock. If they sat back and observed for quite a bit of time, they would at some point be curious and want to study. Hence the probing. What's this hole for, let's find out. Plus, you'd want to dissect a couple of specimens to study it. After that, you start messing with the subject to see how it behaves/reacts.
- isostatic 8y agoJust like Spain didn’t interfere in South America, or Britain in Africa. Why would there be non interference when even Star Trek doesn’t have it half the time (Borg, dominion, ferengi, etc)
- krapp 8y ago>But wouldn't an intelligent species capable of inter-galactic travel have some of the Federation style rules to obey? Don't interfere with a less intelligent civilization for fear of disruption or whatever? Even in the fictional universe of Star Trek, most intelligent civilizations couldn't care less about the prime directive, and even the Federation disregards it when it's convenient. There's no reason to assume that aliens in real life should necessarily conform to a modern human moral ideal about "non-interference with primitive cultures" just because they're intelligent.
- ken 8y agoEven if we assume that "UFO" means "space alien", it doesn't seem puzzling to me. Answer 1: selection bias. Obviously the only ones that people see at night are those which have lights. We aren't going to hear about the ones that people don't see because they're dark. Answer 2: alien apathy. You've flown a million light years to spy on some great apes who aren't even sure you exist. Who cares if a few of them get flashed with bright lights, while you're looking around? They don't even have flying saucers yet, so it's not like they could chase you.
- weberc2 8y agoYou can generalize answer 1 even further. For all you know, there are hundreds of UFOs all around you that just have very advanced cloaking technology and only a few that don't. :)
- mrleinad 8y agoClearly they don't care much about the prime directive
- narag 8y agoAnd 3: the light is a unavoidable side effect of their propulsion system.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoYou ever see those guys that put neon lights under their Hondas? What if it's just the cosmic version of that? Genuinely can't tell which one of us is applying Occam's Razor here...
- mikeash 8y agoThey’re anti-collision lights. They have to be really bright to be effective at interstellar speeds.
- weberc2 8y agoInterstellar speeds certainly must be in excess of the speed of light (or those creatures are chill with cruising for thousands of years), so they wouldn't do much good. :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bonzini 8y agoThere's always time dilation...
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agoWouldn’t an FTL spacecraft appear to be traveling in reverse and exhibit extreme redshifting to an observer on Earth?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Groxx 8y agoProbably not within the atmosphere.
- soylentcola 8y agoI can't imagine that a ship traveling faster than light through an atmosphere would do great things for said atmosphere.
- AngryData 8y agoI could also imagine aliens that might see in different light spectrums and our visible light spectrum is 'dark' to them, like how we would perceive infrared, microwaves, or radio waves without giving a second thought as to whether or not something unknown might be able to sense that random spectrum emissions. Maybe they see in microwave range, maybe they use the light spectrum much like we use our radio spectrum and just blindly broadcast it in mass quantity as line-of-sight communication technology. Maybe it is used as a scanner/detector beam source, like how we might x-ray rock samples or something to determine composition. But beyond something crazy like that, yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be spewing light as an alien visitor.
- Ptyx 8y agoNASA-engineer Paul R. Hill has written about "UFO-illumination": http://orbwatch.com/paulrhill.html http://orbwatch.com/paulrhill.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Hill
- codezero 8y agoat least two common things fall into this bucket 1. Reflections and other visual phenomenon 2. Space debris burning up on reentry (natural or unnatural)
- Joakal 8y agoCosmic radiation have been known to cause bright flashes for astronauts. Maybe this? This could also explain why several people see it too. Can cameras pick up cosmic radiation?
- darkerside 8y agoAlternative explanation: they're everywhere and all around us, but once in a while, they forget to turn the headlights off
- Kye 8y agoI've seen planes travel long distances above me with their front lights on, then switch them off once they realize they forgot. Same thing.
- aldoushuxley001 8y agoSo long as we're brushing off tinfoil hats, my pet theory is the bright lights are necessary symptoms of whatever is powering those thing. Such immense power would naturally give off lots of light.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kamaal 8y ago>>If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too? Playing the devils advocate. If the Zoo hypothesis is correct. They are probably thinking the same about us. Like. "We get so close to them, and they sometimes see us too. Just imagine how stupid they must be to not notice us or become aware of our presence." >>One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. No one I know who ever went to Safari in Africa wore a camouflage. Why should they do it?
- drb91 8y agoWell, if our the earth hasn’t already been irreversibly destroyed already, it will be extremely soon. Now might be a good time to end observation.
- ghthor 8y agoLife on earth survived the KT boundary asteroid impact. Life on earth isn't going to end from our activity, it will only end from our inactivity in protecting the earth and the sun from major cosmic impacts. We need to get out shit together and stop feeling guilty about burning all the oil. We need to do whatever it takes to get established in space and the moon, ready to deflect and close call objects. We are natures best design yet to protect itself from the dangers of space, we are one people, one planet, one sun, and we need to stand together against the cosmos, or nature will find a new guardian or perish trying.
- lloeki 8y ago> Life on earth isn't going to end from our activity Although unlikely, I can envision a plausible pessimistic runaway scenario where we turn Earth into a Venus-like world due to sheer collective stupidity over a sufficiently large timescale. Maybe not completely sterile but having only some hardened bacteria survive is hardly a hopeful outcome for "life".
- ghthor 8y agoWhile I agree about a run away scenario, o do not think were anywhere close to that. The more we look, the more redundant systems we find on the earth for maintaining balance. Nature is very resiliant, more so then we think, and it isn't going to go down without a fight. We think our pollution is bad... natures recovered from worse. We think nuclear war would end life... natures recovered from worse. Fear is the mindkiller, and the powers that are instilling fear into our civilization have another agenda. Eyes open, no fear. Nature needs us to come together and protect the earth and sun from cosmic impacts, we need to act now. Nature can handle the co2, we need to handle the comets and asteroids that are the true threat to life on the planet and in this solar system.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dylan604 8y agoWas it Douglas Adam's theory that said UFO sightings were the equivalent to space teenagers just screwing around with the primitive life forms? My question, is why do they only buzz the trailer parks and the 'very highly educated folks'?
- rbanffy 8y ago> why make itself known? Do you try to hide your existence from ants? Or flowers?
- flanban 8y agoyeah, why aren't there more sightings of invisible stuff?