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Pre-Sputnik Earth-Orbit Glints
- DoctorOetker 1y agoI don't believe these constitutes evidence of alien technology, but I do believe we should explain such observations (regardless of what it turns out to be: doctored data, natural phenomena,...) It bothers me that for increasing distances the explanations requier ever bigger or stronger reflectors, but objects much closer to the telescope are not considered. A spec of dust temporarily illuminated (lightning? artificial light? etc.) or myriad of other explanations are not explored. We should first try to figure out possible explanations by reasoning, but in a worst case scenario, if relating the sensitivity of the old telescope and modern observation proves too tenuous, there is always the last resort of reconstructing the telescope as it used to function, and have a modern telescope observe the same field of view. Then we could relate the statistics from old pictures to currently observed statistics. The whole process should be reproduced, the same film development process,... This also reminds me of the story of the film manufacturer (was it Kodak?) detecting the start of man-made nuclear radiation levels. At first they thought something was wrong in their manufacturing process. To improve the likelihood tests for the orbit parameters don't just include the Earth shadow, but also the Moon shadow.
- DoctorOetker 1y agoAlso, when filtering the imagery for "glints" was the only data used the consecutive imagery taken back then? I.e. are we certain it's not the other way around: a real object (star, comet,...) being obscured? I.e. there are 3 types of imagery to compare: the 2 consecutive images displaying a putative glint, and for example current imagery showing an actual star for example.
- zeagle 1y ago“the space around Earth generated ~340 glints per hour mostly from brief (<0.04s) glints of sunlight off of at least roughly 6-14cm equivalent ideal circles” I don’t think this is the smoking gun the author thinks it is. This is near 3 million objects observed per year. Logically how could there not be some conclusive evidence in the decades of observation and launching satellites?
- vintermann 1y agoEspecially, if they could wink in and out of existence to watch our nuclear explosions, and clearly don't want to be seen if they're aliens, why couldn't they invest in a little black paint?
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y agoFor the same reasons certain airplanes are painted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-flash_white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-flash_white
- throwmeaway222 1y agoIt corresponds with this famous UFO sighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_inci... I've been watching Ross Coulthart who has been interviewing the main author of the paper. It's aliens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylw_NRxJEgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylw_NRxJEgM
- ceejayoz 1y ago> the main author of the paper Which paper?
- throwmeaway222 1y agoThe one in the story https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_m...
- cossatot 1y agoRocks could be potential sources. Crystals that large are by no means rare, with feldspars being the most common on Earth and perhaps on most rocky planets (quartz is well known of course but I think would be rare without the magmatic fractionation that happens due to plate tectonics, which is perhaps unique to Earth in the solar system.) Volcanic glass (eg obsidian) is also shiny and by no means rare in the solar system. Many asteroids are also metallic, and perhaps metal crystals or fracture planes could produce reflectors of the right size. But maybe it’s just aliens.
- ceejayoz 1y ago> On Earth today, correcting for water, glints are strong indicators of human spaces, due to our many flat reflecting surfaces. Followed immediately by a picture of water and an icy tree, lol. "Correcting", indeed. "Correcting for expenses, I'm very wealthy!" > three good LLMs told me we are pretty sure Ah.
- perihelions 1y agoI don't understand why there's so many starving astronomy PhD's and yet HN prefers to read astronomy blogposts written by amateurs asking ChatGPT5 what the astronomers think. Can't HN just link to competent peoples' writing instead?
- ceejayoz 1y agoBecause the astronomy PhDs would know these transients on sky surveys are entirely normal, and how we spot asteroids etc. And that our solar system has trillions of little chunks of water floating around it. "This is normal" makes for boring reading.
- ljf 1y agoAt first I was interested, then I read their other blog posts...
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y agoDoes it matter when they link to their source, right at the top, which points to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_m... ?
- ceejayoz 1y agoAnyone can upload papers to ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283268416_Conditioning_of_Space-Time_The_Relationship_between_Experimental_Entanglement_Space-Memory_and_Consciousness_Journal_of_Nonlocality_Round_Table_Series_Colloquium_4 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283268416_Condition... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331977356_The_electronic_song_Scary_Monsters_and_Nice_Sprites_reduces_host_attack_and_mating_success_in_the_dengue_vector_Aedes_aegypti https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331977356_The_elect...
- DoctorOetker 1y agoI just tried to start fact checking, but the referenced dataset at http://svocats.cab.inta-csic.es/vanish/ http://svocats.cab.inta-csic.es/vanish/ doesn't seem to provide the time of recording (unless its the tiny unreadable markings) How was the analysis done without timestamps on the observations available in the dataset?