A Featured article today on
Space.com.

Ya'll know what I think...
what say ye?

Do current "rigorous" astrophysics really support this?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

I linked to the Haisch article in another thread. I think he some very interesting ideas.

http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf

The www.NARCAP.org web site explains some of the stigma which attaches to the UFO/UAP problem.

While I keep Haisch's site bookmarked(and have cited him before), I'd not seen the JBIS article until this morning. And I agree; I find his ideas on the matter more balanced than most scientists'.
But your post went largely ignored (surprised?) in that other thread and since credible(?) space.com published the article today, I felt it needed its own thread.

We'll see how it goes...

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

It's an interesting piece, but it is, IMHO, a little self-contradicting
So they are saying there should be ETs all around us and we should have met them. Ok, but...
They argue that there are some (a few) high quality reports and the scientific community has just ignored them. I'm far from an expert, but that does not wash with my opinion. I've seen some serious investigations of some of these and have never seen one that was close to proving something. If these guys are scientists, and they don't like the work other scientists have done (or not done), then pick a high quality case, do an investigation, and get it published in a referred journal.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Agreed, which is why I look for such articles as this; some that are helping to lend credibility to the issue.
Don't forget that the "little green men" laugh-factor is pervasive to this day, with many giving it a low a priori probability to start. Hence, very little serious scientific inquiry has been done.
I'm optimistic, though, we continue to see these sorts of news pieces about "life out there" and ETs, and IMHO they serve as a desensitizing mechanism.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Haisch and Puthoff are desperately trying to find a way of reducing inertia, with the aim perhaps of inventing a reactionless drive;

I wish them luck, but doubt they will be successful.

This pdf
http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf
suggests that extraterrestrials might already have similar technology, making getting to Earth easier than one might suppose; they then suggest that alien intelligences would fly around the skies of Earth with all their lights on, showing themselves to small groups but hiding from the governments and scientists of the world in order to 'prepare' us mentally for eventual contact?

That seems a pretty unusual strategy if you don't mind me saying so. Dear Mr ET, we need proper contact now, not all this sneaking around.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

I'm curious, what do you mean by "desperately?"

I don't mind, but Part 6. Inferring an ET Strategy, dealt rather well with this aspect, I think. I see no reason why we shouldn't infer that an exceedingly advanced species possesses an equally advanced ethical base, lending credence to a couple of the hypotheses described. Then again, if they're anything like us, chances are they're paraoid and secretive. :wink:

Haisch's "Some Thoughts on Keeping it Secret" is relevant and interesting too.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

The ET Equation, Recalculated.


Now, I thought about posting this in the PX forum. :wink:

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Reactionless drives are fringe ideas; these people have been writing papers on related topics for years, with no results. In this paper they consider the situation that might occur if one or another of the blind alleys they have been exploring turns out to enable interstellar travel of some sort; they then extend this thinking to suggest that the bizzare apparent behaviour of unidentified aerial phenomena is 'ethical' and a prparation for eventual overt contact.
Well, many of the people who experienced the great UFO flaps of the 1950's are not prepared for contact, but instead they are nearly all dead now. There would be nothing rational or ethical about persuing such a 'leaky embargo' strategy for decade after decade;
and of couse nothing of the sort has been happening.

Despite the opinions expressed in this paper, all UFO reports are in fact the result of misidentifcation of natural phenomena or man made phenomena, hoaxes or hallucinations.
There is no need to have an extraterrestrial hypothesis at all.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

Bernard Haisch is a UFO "free-energy" crackpot. Its unfotunate his article has gotten so much media play and attention. His assertions that prevalent thinking in cosmology and physics shold have us believe that extraterrestrials are visiting earth are simply not true. In fact, its precisely the opposite. What we know about the universe and its underlying physics makes it very unlikely that E.T. is here and attempting to phone home.

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Anything may be possible, but not everything actually is. Some things are true and some things are not. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

All I know is that I dont believe we are alone in this universe, I dont even think we are alone in the Milky Way

I agree, so much space... we can't be alone!

couse that would be wasting space!

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GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

Well, the likelihood that there is extraterrestrial life eslewhere in the universe is pretty high. But for exactly the same reasons this is likely, it is improbable that E.T. has dropped in for a visit here. This is the mistake Mr. Haisch makes in his article.

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Anything may be possible, but not everything actually is. Some things are true and some things are not. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

Yeah, I believe that there are billions and billions of alien life (sentient and non-sentient) out there and millions upon millions of alien civilizations existing at the same time but STILL...I doubt that any alien race have discovered us

talking about vacuous commentary... mr "algorithms" do you have anything else besides your invective commentary to show us how exactly Bernard Haisch is a crackpot or did you just wanted to amaze us with your less than brilliant insights into the impossibilities of the underlying physics of the Universe that "we" currently know?

so according to your logic, the fact that the existence of ET life in the Universe is extremely high is proportional to the improbability of them visiting us. that is not logical at all. in fact, the mistake you made in your argument was creating a perfectly baseless and senseless oxymoron.

WHY do you consider it necessary to continue to "berate" others opinions on this board. We certainly don't do that to you. All that we've ever asked is that you provide EVIDENCE to support your claims. And it seems like every time we ask, you come back with some "form" of insult. If you don't understand why we consider "free energy" to be woowoo, just say so without the personal conmmentary.

Mr. Outcast,

I suggest that you do a little personal research on Mr. Haisch and his flight-by-night outfit he calls the "California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics."

As for my reasoning about the probability of E.T., let me explain it in simple terms...

Given the vast size and sheer scale of the universe, there may be innumerable places where life might have originated and evolved into intelligent creatures. But it is this very same vast size and and sheer scale that makes it very unlikely that any extraterrestrial intelligence would have found us and then traveled over incredible distances to drop in for a visit. The number of places and the distances we are talking about are beyond our own human comprehension. Consequently, there is an inverse relationship between the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence elsewhere in the universe and the possibility of E.T. dropping by earth to phone home.

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Anything may be possible, but not everything actually is. Some things are true and some things are not. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

I disagree.
We ourselves are already ETs.
Are you suggesting that either we are the first and only species to have accomplished this, or are you saying that no further breakthroughs in propulsion will occur, at least none that might be supported by Haisch's "fringe ideas," to make interstellar travel more feasible?
Actually, IMHO, it is those very fringe ideas that often bring about discovery. What comes to mind is a recent remark I made about how often what was once Science Fiction is now Science Fact.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill