7 ms·

Which is more likely? a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is visiting us right now. or b) The people making

Which is more likely? a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is visiting us right now. or b) The people making these claims are wrong. While a) isn't impossible, b) seems so much more likely. Also if they have the technology to cross interstellar space, surely they have the technology not to be detected by us?

postalrat 3y ago
c) An alien civilization can trivial visit Earth and has been for thousands of years. You make a lot of assumptions how difficult it wouldv be to visit and even why they would be here.
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  I assume that interstellar travel is really difficult for any civilization. That assumption is based on my knowledge of physics (relativity in particular).
  - cronix 3y ago
    > That assumption is based on my knowledge of physics based on your knowledge of known physics. We're still adding to the periodic table...
    - krapp 3y ago
      >We're still adding to the periodic table... That doesn't violate known physics in any way.
      - cronix 3y ago
        Very true, but the point is it just shows there's a lot we don't know still that an advanced civilization might and likely have already discovered and learned to harness/control.
    - glenstein 3y ago
      >based on your knowledge of known physics. Right, and for exactly that reason, it enjoys the advantage over competing theories.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      We're not still adding to the periodic table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson , 118, was synthesized in 2002, and confirmed in 2015 and I don't think anybody is actively working on making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununennium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununennium or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbinilium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbinilium for lack of resources right now. If somebody is aware of groups actively working to synthesize above 119 please let me know.
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    Why is it difficult? You just point and shoot. Will take a long time but you will get there in the end.
    - thekevan 3y ago
      I thought that way 3 or 4 years ago. PBS Spacetime has quite a few great videos about that. (Videos by actual physicists and astrologers.)
    - hermitcrab 3y ago
      First you need an incredible amount of energy to get even a modest mass out of the earth's gravity well. Then you you need a truly fantastic amount of energy to get it up to a fraction of the speed of light. Then you need an equally fantastic amount of energy to slow it down again at it's destination. Then you run into time dilation effects, which diminish the usefulness to the sender of any information they are going to get back (due to the delay).
      - jay_kyburz 3y ago
        My point was that you don't need to go fast if you have plenty of time. You just need to get out of gravity which we can do.
        hermitcrab 3y ago
        Going slowly has it's own issues. If it takes you 100,000 years to cross the space between 2 stars, you are going to need a lot of energy/food to keep your crew/robots/computers going - because there isn't going to be much solar energy available. Also is any civilization going to invest the effort to create a probe/mission that they are not going to hear back from over that sort of time-scale?
tomatotomato37 3y ago
Extend that too: a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is able to visit in a manner that doesn't create a second sun in the sky Seriously people underestimate the ludicrous energies involved in near-c travel. Even with engines off at those speeds the interstellar dust undergoing nuclear fusion off your hull will give you away
- z3phyr 3y ago
  Why near c travel is assumed?
- paulddraper 3y ago
  But what if it's 0.5c travel? That's a massive difference from 0.99c travel
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    Agree, visitors may have traveled for millions of years to get here. We should not project human timescales on aliens. Humans as we know them today will never visit other galaxies, but our AI descendants almost certainly will.
    - Sunspark 3y ago
      If you have 20 million years and don't mind waiting, you can send probes to every system in the galaxy at sub-light speeds.
- chasd00 3y ago
  Idk what’s so special about the speed of light/causality, in an alien universe it may not even be relevant. When talking about alien intelligence and technology literally everything is on the table.
  - 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
    > literally everything is on the table Right, they could have ridden dragon-unicorn hybrids through a magic portal made from the dust of black hole centers. That's what you mean when you say "literally everything is on the table." Or, start drawing lines for me if you disagree.
chasd00 3y ago
To be fair, COVID escaping from the one and only lab capable of doing that kind of research in the area seems the most likely too. However, the best evidence so far points elsewhere. Sometimes the unlikely circumstance turns out to be the real one.
DrBazza 3y ago
Occam's razor. Even at non-relativistic speeds self replicating robots could have visited every star system in the galaxy within a few tens of millions of years. We haven't seen any evidence. Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on. If aliens can travel even a light year, they almost certainly also have the technology to not crash.
- thekevan 3y ago
  >Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on. This is key in why I was much more optimistic of finding any of those paranormal items than I was 10 years ago. I hope I'm wrong.
- BobbyJo 3y ago
  There are zero indisputable photos of 99.9999999% of things that happen on earth. I mean, even if you have 10 separate people seeing the same thing and someone videoing, that's still disputable. You'd need a stadium of observers and several camera rigs before photo/video evidence would be the necessary level of "sure" to be considered indisputable when it comes to UFOs.
- exegete 3y ago
  Agree with everything you’re saying except the cameras in phones. Cameras in phones are advanced but most do not have kind of optical zoom. Try to take a picture of a plane flying overhead with your iPhone or a bird. It’s hard to get a clear photo of something so far away.
  - hermitcrab 3y ago
    But surely you can get a clear shot over your shoulder as you are being probed? ;0)
repler 3y ago
there could be life in our solar system or at the bottom of our own oceans
ddalex 3y ago
Or c) we live in a simulation, and simulation admins break the 4th wall sometimes to leave us gifts... from Jeanne D'Arc to UFOs
- ausqb 3y ago
  and Shazaam!
troyvit 3y ago
Can't there be a c) of "Who the hell knows, but there's a lot of evidence piling up." I'm with you in that I don't believe that an alien civilization that has overcome challenges of FTL, etc. would come to Earth to apparently joy-ride. There's something else that's causing trustworthy individuals to make these claims. At this point I just call it "magic" until a better word comes along. One theory is that these bogeys have been here as long as we have and are basically automated tests, sort-of like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It's ridiculous, but less ridiculous than a). The more I think about it, flying octopuses from Europa is less ridiculous than a).
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  The spacefaring octopuses from Europa aren't going to be impressed with this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781
- NemoNobody 3y ago
  Who said anything about a joyride? The whistleblower clearly is implying that we are being spied on.
  - troyvit 3y ago
    Oooh I didn't catch that. I think that's funny. Given the limitations of FTL, etc., that'd be the equivalent of me canoeing across the Atlantic to spy on a nest of rather dull shrews. I should clearly read what he's saying.

postalrat 3y ago

c) An alien civilization can trivial visit Earth and has been for thousands of years. You make a lot of assumptions how difficult it wouldv be to visit and even why they would be here.

hermitcrab 3y ago
I assume that interstellar travel is really difficult for any civilization. That assumption is based on my knowledge of physics (relativity in particular).
- cronix 3y ago
  > That assumption is based on my knowledge of physics based on your knowledge of known physics. We're still adding to the periodic table...
  - krapp 3y ago
    >We're still adding to the periodic table... That doesn't violate known physics in any way.
    - cronix 3y ago
      Very true, but the point is it just shows there's a lot we don't know still that an advanced civilization might and likely have already discovered and learned to harness/control.
  - glenstein 3y ago
    >based on your knowledge of known physics. Right, and for exactly that reason, it enjoys the advantage over competing theories.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    We're not still adding to the periodic table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson , 118, was synthesized in 2002, and confirmed in 2015 and I don't think anybody is actively working on making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununennium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununennium or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbinilium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbinilium for lack of resources right now. If somebody is aware of groups actively working to synthesize above 119 please let me know.
- jay_kyburz 3y ago
  Why is it difficult? You just point and shoot. Will take a long time but you will get there in the end.
  - thekevan 3y ago
    I thought that way 3 or 4 years ago. PBS Spacetime has quite a few great videos about that. (Videos by actual physicists and astrologers.)
  - hermitcrab 3y ago
    First you need an incredible amount of energy to get even a modest mass out of the earth's gravity well. Then you you need a truly fantastic amount of energy to get it up to a fraction of the speed of light. Then you need an equally fantastic amount of energy to slow it down again at it's destination. Then you run into time dilation effects, which diminish the usefulness to the sender of any information they are going to get back (due to the delay).
    - jay_kyburz 3y ago
      My point was that you don't need to go fast if you have plenty of time. You just need to get out of gravity which we can do.
      - hermitcrab 3y ago
        Going slowly has it's own issues. If it takes you 100,000 years to cross the space between 2 stars, you are going to need a lot of energy/food to keep your crew/robots/computers going - because there isn't going to be much solar energy available. Also is any civilization going to invest the effort to create a probe/mission that they are not going to hear back from over that sort of time-scale?

tomatotomato37 3y ago

Extend that too: a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is able to visit in a manner that doesn't create a second sun in the sky Seriously people underestimate the ludicrous energies involved in near-c travel. Even with engines off at those speeds the interstellar dust undergoing nuclear fusion off your hull will give you away

z3phyr 3y ago
Why near c travel is assumed?
paulddraper 3y ago
But what if it's 0.5c travel? That's a massive difference from 0.99c travel
- jay_kyburz 3y ago
  Agree, visitors may have traveled for millions of years to get here. We should not project human timescales on aliens. Humans as we know them today will never visit other galaxies, but our AI descendants almost certainly will.
  - Sunspark 3y ago
    If you have 20 million years and don't mind waiting, you can send probes to every system in the galaxy at sub-light speeds.
chasd00 3y ago
Idk what’s so special about the speed of light/causality, in an alien universe it may not even be relevant. When talking about alien intelligence and technology literally everything is on the table.
- 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
  > literally everything is on the table Right, they could have ridden dragon-unicorn hybrids through a magic portal made from the dust of black hole centers. That's what you mean when you say "literally everything is on the table." Or, start drawing lines for me if you disagree.

chasd00 3y ago

To be fair, COVID escaping from the one and only lab capable of doing that kind of research in the area seems the most likely too. However, the best evidence so far points elsewhere. Sometimes the unlikely circumstance turns out to be the real one.

DrBazza 3y ago

Occam's razor. Even at non-relativistic speeds self replicating robots could have visited every star system in the galaxy within a few tens of millions of years. We haven't seen any evidence. Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on. If aliens can travel even a light year, they almost certainly also have the technology to not crash.

thekevan 3y ago
>Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on. This is key in why I was much more optimistic of finding any of those paranormal items than I was 10 years ago. I hope I'm wrong.
BobbyJo 3y ago
There are zero indisputable photos of 99.9999999% of things that happen on earth. I mean, even if you have 10 separate people seeing the same thing and someone videoing, that's still disputable. You'd need a stadium of observers and several camera rigs before photo/video evidence would be the necessary level of "sure" to be considered indisputable when it comes to UFOs.
exegete 3y ago
Agree with everything you’re saying except the cameras in phones. Cameras in phones are advanced but most do not have kind of optical zoom. Try to take a picture of a plane flying overhead with your iPhone or a bird. It’s hard to get a clear photo of something so far away.
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  But surely you can get a clear shot over your shoulder as you are being probed? ;0)

repler 3y ago

there could be life in our solar system or at the bottom of our own oceans

ddalex 3y ago

Or c) we live in a simulation, and simulation admins break the 4th wall sometimes to leave us gifts... from Jeanne D'Arc to UFOs

ausqb 3y ago
and Shazaam!

troyvit 3y ago

Can't there be a c) of "Who the hell knows, but there's a lot of evidence piling up." I'm with you in that I don't believe that an alien civilization that has overcome challenges of FTL, etc. would come to Earth to apparently joy-ride. There's something else that's causing trustworthy individuals to make these claims. At this point I just call it "magic" until a better word comes along. One theory is that these bogeys have been here as long as we have and are basically automated tests, sort-of like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It's ridiculous, but less ridiculous than a). The more I think about it, flying octopuses from Europa is less ridiculous than a).

hermitcrab 3y ago
The spacefaring octopuses from Europa aren't going to be impressed with this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781
NemoNobody 3y ago
Who said anything about a joyride? The whistleblower clearly is implying that we are being spied on.
- troyvit 3y ago
  Oooh I didn't catch that. I think that's funny. Given the limitations of FTL, etc., that'd be the equivalent of me canoeing across the Atlantic to spy on a nest of rather dull shrews. I should clearly read what he's saying.