Ancient Aliens?

Discussion in 'History' started by Scarecrow, Apr 12, 2009.

  1. eric_appleby

    eric_appleby Member+

    Jun 11, 1999
    Down East
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    That's the fratboy aliens.
     
  2. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    When was flying faster than the speed of sound considered impossible in the same way as flying faster than light is impossible? As in woven-into-the-fabric-of-the-universe impossible?
     
  3. Scarecrow

    Scarecrow Red Card

    Feb 13, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually there was quite a stir over the first attempts at breaking the sound barrier over whether it was possible or not. It was a topic that was covered while I was in the Navy working in Avionics. There is an actual physical barrier that is passed when you break the sound barrier.

    As for woven into the fabric of the universe THEORY, it I admit beyond my knowledge how Einstein came up with it, but again it is a THEORY not a proven fact. It would be very interesting to see what happens IF we ever are able to build any vehicle that could even approach the speed of light to see just how accurate the theory is. After all, theories have to be proven before they can be called Fact.

    The other aspect of all this is that we assume that if their is life out there that they must be at the same level of advancement as us, however it is quite possible and very likely that there have been multiple races out there that have lived and died out long before we even came to be. Who knows who is out there, they could have been around far longer then us and may have found ways to travel vast distances in ways we cannot conceive.

    I just find it shockingly conceded that as a species that has only figured out how to fly in the past 100+ years that we can say for certain what can and can't be done when it comes to how fast we can possibly travel.
     
  4. Scarecrow

    Scarecrow Red Card

    Feb 13, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [ame="http://www.scribd.com/doc/14348208/Einsteins-Relativity-Modern-Physics"]Einstein's Relativity - Modern Physics@@AMEPARAM@@/docinfo/14348208?access_key=key-1k5u32ngsroozb84vsh0@@AMEPARAM@@14348208@@AMEPARAM@@key-1k5u32ngsroozb84vsh0[/ame]

    An interesting read.

    http://www.universetoday.com/2008/07/03/theory-of-relativity-passes-another-test/

     
  5. NYC_COSMOS

    NYC_COSMOS BigSoccer Supporter

    Jan 13, 2007
    Queens, NY
    Club:
    CA Vélez Sársfield
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    [ame="http://www.scribd.com/doc/128869/Nibiru-the-12th-Planet-Zecharia-Sitchin-1976"]Nibiru the 12th Planet Zecharia Sitchin 1976@@AMEPARAM@@/docinfo/128869?access_key=i92yiv8y7ngu6@@AMEPARAM@@128869@@AMEPARAM@@i92yiv8y7ngu6[/ame]

    Scarecrow, read and enjoy.
     
  6. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    That's not a problem, that's just the way science works. All ideas are open to being falsified at any time, and are never "proven" to a point of never being questioned again. But there are degrees to this. Do you accept that disease is caused by germs? That matter is made up of atoms? These are also scientific theories, which have both passed countless tests but are not, nor will ever be, proven. We just go through our days without questioning them because so far there hasn't been a reason to. It's the same with the speed of light. It is vital to our understanding of the universe, and used every day in the building of modern technology. Maybe someday someone will come up with a deeper understanding of space-time, but to do so would require exceptional new theories and experiments. Just wishing it were not so because it makes you unhappy isn't enough.
     
  7. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    We haven't even begun to develop the technologies we would need to travel faster than the speed of light. There's no way we can do it by simply moving through space in any sort of conventional way. As I understand it (and I'm sure this is a gross oversimplification (sue me, I'm a liberal arts major)) as an object's speed increases, so does its mass. As it approaches light speed, its mass approaches infinity as does the energy needed to keep accelerating. Therefore, it's not physically possible to travel faster than the speed of light. This is not a fact in any doubt whatsoever in mainstream science. As the link you posted points out, Einstein's work has been subject to 100 years of experimentation and it seems to be holding its own.

    So anyway, in order to travel faster than the speed of light, we need to find a way that doesn't depend on moving through space. Something like hyperspace, warp drives or stable wormholes or other things that are, sadly, pretty much just science fiction at this point. Is it possible that other, more advanced civilizations have discovered these technologies and popped around for a visit. Yeah, it's possible. I'd even really like for it to be true. But having some good evidence would be really nice.

    And the word you meant to use was "conceited." I had to read your sentence several times before I understood what you were trying to say.
     
  8. NYC_COSMOS

    NYC_COSMOS BigSoccer Supporter

    Jan 13, 2007
    Queens, NY
    Club:
    CA Vélez Sársfield
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    When you root yourself in disbelief then nothing is possible.
     
  9. Scarecrow

    Scarecrow Red Card

    Feb 13, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No no, I understand that. My premise is that I don't want to say something is impossible when we are just beginning to understand what it is we are dealing with. Science to me has always been about separating fact from fiction and being able to conclusively prove the findings. Thus my resistance to the theory that we cannot travel faster then light.

    But that is beyond my limited knowledge and brain power as to how to do such a thing. That's why I posted the links about the theory of relativity and how they are working to find out if it holds up or not. For me I am a bit of a Sci-Fi geek and I just think that there are things out there that we just don't comprehend or rather have not discovered yet. Hubble has done a tremendous job of showing us things that we thought were impossible or rather improbable.

    It is a quest for knowledge and understanding. I look forward to what the future may hold in this area and what else we will discover.
     
  10. Scarecrow

    Scarecrow Red Card

    Feb 13, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sorry about that last, you are correct conceited was the term I meant to use. Sadly for all I read, my writing skills are not what they should be when it comes to using correct spelling and terms. :eek:

    And I agree, as I understand it you are correct in the theory and how matter and energy react as you get closer to the speed of light.

    I think wormhole research is the way to go, but again I am limited in what I know of this field. In a not so related field, they have been able to transport, as in for simplicity's sake Star Trek, photons from one location to another. As often is the case, Sci-Fi becomes the precursor to Sci-Fact.

    I just think that we are at the dawn of learning how the universe works and that the possibilities are endless. It is an exciting time to be sure. Maybe one day we will see something that takes us to the next level.
     
  11. bit_pattern

    bit_pattern New Member

    Oct 30, 2009
    Lot's of footnotes doesn't equal undeniable. I don' mind Hancock as far as these nutters go but he takes things wildly out of context and draws all sorts of unsupportable conclusions from those very same footnotes. And there are plenty of examples where, to his credit, he has admitted in later books that he was dead wrong about some of his interpretations. I think he has matured a lot since Fingerprints though, th last book of his I read 'Supernatural' is a much more convincing read, he's given up on the alien angle and is instead looking at shamanic cultures and their apparent ability to contact supernatural beings that don't exist in this material plane. Apparently his experiences with shamanic rituals like Iboga and Ayahuasca ceremonies (both intense hallucinogens) has given him new perspective on the issue.

    The rest of these people are cranks and hacks though, that completely misrepresent the real facts to fit their nutty preconceived contentions
     
  12. trojanman1user

    trojanman1user Member+

    Dec 28, 2007
    Thanks for the new book. I'll look into it. And you're entirely correct about him twisting the facts to fit his arguments. I will say the overall concept is interesting though
     
  13. GloryHunter10

    GloryHunter10 Red Card

    Aug 29, 2009
    Helsinki
    Club:
    FC Internazionale Milano
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  14. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Boy, that's a really strong statement. Probably correct, but stated with a lot more certainty than I'd be comfortable with. I mean, categorically it's a non-provable statement.

    However, it's almost certainly true, and a strong argument that FTL travel is impossible is actually related to this thread. There is exactly zero chance we have been (or even more improbably, still are being) visited by aliens and we didn't know about it. "Chariots of the Gods" is a fun read (at least it was when I was a kid, and it certainly got gears turning), but the fact of the matter is all of his stuff doesn't hold up under serious investigation. In fact, there is nothing in our historical record more advanced or capable than what we have now, and we don't have spaceflight. If a FTL-capable civilization made it here, there would be evidence. Clear, indisputable evidence. Instead, there is evidence that ancient cultures were more clever than some of us give them credit for. (Ancient people weren't any less smart than us; they just had less accumulated knowledge.)

    Now, given the fact that there is zero real evidence that we've been visited by ET, and given the fact that evidence is mounting that the building blocks for life turning into life might actually be pretty common, I'd suppose that virtually guarantees statistically that there are other forms of intelligent life out there in our gigantic universe. Odds are also then good that we aren't the most advanced. And given the relatively tiny time span we've been around - just a few 10s of thousands of years (about 195k years ago are the first signs of H. sapiens; 150k years ago Eve, just 10k years ago farming - and the planet is 4.5b years old, with life appearing 4000m years ago!) - the implication is that, if possible, virtually every intelligent life should have FTL capability within a cosmological eyeblink. So, to summarize, huge numbers of star systems with intelligent life, most of them probably as old or older than us, and zero evidence that any of them have made it here.

    IMO, that strongly implies that yes - FTL is impossible due to the rules of the universe. If it weren't, somebody probably would have been here by now, and they definitely would have announced their presence (if humans were here at the time - which is admittedly a small window in the overall history of the planet, but still an exceptionally long time given how quickly we've gotten to local area spaceflight after inventing farming).
     
  15. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    It is a provable statement, and you don't need to go fully the speed of light to prove them. There are many effects of a massed object accelerating that get absurd at the point it reaches the speed of light (like increased mass and time dilation) and we can detect those in things moving slower than the speed of light.
    You also have the problem of space being really, really big. No one would even think to visit us unless they have seen our radio broadcasts, and those have only reached out about 100 light years in all directions, which is pretty tiny galactically speaking.
     
  16. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Really? What makes you say that? What sort of evidence? If the method of travelling is sufficiently advanced, we might not even recognize the evidence if we saw it. And if they didn't want to detected, it's probably that they wouldn't be.

    What makes you say that aliens "definitely would have announced their presence"? You have absolutely no basis to make such a statement. We can speculate until we turn blue but in no case can we use words like "definitely." The fact is that we don't have a ********ing clue.

    Further, actual experimental evidence that FTL travel is impossible is a lot more compelling than the string of assumptions in your post. I desperately want us to develop FTL travel but I'm also mellow that it's not gonna happen. But that's because of an understanding of our own science and the limits of our current technology and not by extrapolating from flimsy assumptions about the habits and motivations of aliens who might or might not have visited.
     
  17. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    My understanding is that while FTL travel is impossible, FTL communication is not; at which point the definition of "travel" gets a bit mushy, as virtual travel might be possible where physical is not...

    And as Larry Niven says, it is theoretically impossible-- but the other guy may use a better theory. Its only a couple of decades since we found the theoretical errors which assured us that bumblebees couldn't fly...

    Also, you can go a long, long way in a lifetime at .99 lightspeed, which is definitely possible. Alpha Centauri takes about half again as long to reach as Magellan's voyage lasted. Now imagine a race with the lifespan of carp or bristlecone pine...

    And I think it was Haldane ? who suggested that our solar system has:

    1. A planet whose face is always to the sun.

    2. A planet with a moon of planetary size whose face is always to the planet.

    3. The remains of a planet destroyed by the tidal forces of two other planets.

    4. A ringed planet.

    5. A huge planet with an enormous permanent hurricane.

    6. A planet which orbits well outside the plane of the ecliptic and may be a captured maverick.

    and then asked "When you go to Yellowstone are you there to look at the geysers and rock formations, or did you go to talk to the bears?"
     
  18. NYC_COSMOS

    NYC_COSMOS BigSoccer Supporter

    Jan 13, 2007
    Queens, NY
    Club:
    CA Vélez Sársfield
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    I think that this is where you hit it on the head. If you have a race of immortal aliens, then FTL travel is irrelevant. In tablets recovered from the Sumerian empire, there are references to beings that while on earth aged at a quicker pace. Worried about their accelerated aging, beings from their home planet assured them (while visiting earth), that a cure or treatment was available to get rid of their premature aging signs.
     
  19. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I dunno about anyone else, but I went for the bears.

    Our solar system is ********ing cool - it will be a long time before there aren't lots more nifty things to learn. For the past couple of weeks the Science channel has been showing a lot of documentaries about the solar system. Some dealt with the search for life, some dealt with the various probes we sent out (V'ger, Galileo, etc), some were even more specific. Just last night there was one about Europa. Some dudes in Colorado made a life-size 3-d graphic representation of its topography. You could pretend you were freakin' walking on Europa (without having to worry about tumbling into giant frozen crevasses.)

    And yes, I take your point that the whole FTL thing isn't as cut-and-dried as it might be. I was just trying to say that the way Foos arrived at his conclusions was ridiculous. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
     
  20. bit_pattern

    bit_pattern New Member

    Oct 30, 2009
    That's the depressing thing about space travel, even if you could travel at light speed it would still take thousands of years to get anywhere of any consequence anyway.
     
  21. argentine soccer fan

    Staff Member

    Jan 18, 2001
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    So first we work on increasing our life span, then we genetically alter our capacity for tolerating boredom, and then we travel.
     
  22. bit_pattern

    bit_pattern New Member

    Oct 30, 2009
    If playing Civ4 has taught me one thing it is 'stasis chamber'
     
  23. argentine soccer fan

    Staff Member

    Jan 18, 2001
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Humans have done many dumb things, but sending those radio broadcasts has to be one of the dumbest ever. Who knows what's out there? We have a nice cozy isolated solar system full of resources. I'd say the last thing we want to do is advertise it.
     
  24. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think you can say that we have no reason to believe that it's possible to travel faster than light because everything we know about the universe indicates that the rules don't allow it. But I think you have to allow for the possibility that we don't know all the rules (and any exceptions there might be).

    OTOH, space gets a LOT smaller if you can travel FTL. And I suspect that FTL-capable societies would spend virtually all of their time visiting places that are good candidates for life. If FTL is possible, and if there are FTL capable civilization(s) in the Milky Way, then it seems incredibly unlikely that we would be overlooked, despite the fact that we only turned on the beacon in the last 100 years.

    Let's put it this way - I think we're more likely to see Jesus return than have a visit from ET (and I'm virtually certain there are other intelligent species out there). So it should be pretty obvious that I think FTL is very unlikely.
     
  25. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You stumble across another intelligent species, and you sneak around their house instead of saying "hey, what's up?" Or, like the crazy-ass scenario that started this thread, you obfuscate what you are while interacting with the people in the house, or as "abductee" people believe, you steal people off the planet, perform ridiculous tests, and then put them back... without leaving any actual evidence. Ridiculous.

    I mean, do you really think any exploring alien civilizations are going to follow the Prime Directive?

    Well no shit.
     

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