Posted on 06/06/2009 4:24:00 PM PDT by JoeProBono
"If, in fact, we are able to find life or to answer the question 'Are we alone?' then that certainly is grand enough and noble enough to be the enduring legacy of our civilization."
NASA statement
October 1999
The skies over Texas have been busy with spottings of unidentified flying objects in recent times, and I can't help but wonder if some of them might actually be visitors from a galaxy far, far away.
I'm sure that thought has crossed your mind, too, whether you want to admit it out loud or not. Just the chance that we are not alone is enough to pique anyone's interest.
Just days ago, a Continental Express pilot took off from Houston en route to South Carolina and had a weird experience not long after lifting off.
Reaching an altitude of 11,000 feet, still over Texas, the pilot suddenly radioed that a large object was flying 150 feet or so beneath him. The report I read on the Web site of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) didn't say what shape this thing was, but the pilot was shocked to see that it didn't show up on radar.
MUFON records indicate that another Continental Airlines pilot spotted a UFO in May of last year, very near the same area.
You don't need a map to discern that this puts these objects pretty close to our area.
On the same night that the Continental pilot was gazing wide-eyed at whatever it was, another man spotted a UFO in the skies over East Texas, MUFON says. This, according to the spotter, was a triangular-shaped craft.
And, yet another spotter saw three star-like objects over East Texas, traveling fast, then slow, then fast, on that same night.
In view of the spate of UFOs seen flying over the Stephenville, Texas, area last year, and other, less noted sightings since then, maybe we should be spending more time looking up.
MUFON's records show that the U.S. is by far the leader in sightings of UFOs, and Texas is always first or second among the states in the number of these.
Remember that guy in the old 1950s version of "The Thing?" At the end of the movie, he tells the whole world on the radio, "Watch the skies! Keep watching the skies"!
That could turn out to be sound advice.
sorry to be so bad with responding on thread.. just super covered up with life the past few months..
thanks for faithful pings & news along the way!
Well said. You left out that someone only a hundred and fifty years ahead of our technology could be living underground on Mars or other moons around other planets in our own solar system, from whence they have arrive we know not, but they wouldn’t have to have ‘warp drive’ to be here in our neck of the woods, perhaps even evolved on a more hospitable Mars eons ago.
Indeed...
You hit on a personal bugaboo of mine, which you might enjoy as theory.
It is “Any time machine is likewise a ‘space’ machine”. Though even some golden age science fiction addressed this situation, I don’t believe it’s ever been used as a plot devise.
Simply put: right now, you are hurtling through space at tremendous speed. The Earth is turning, the Earth is orbiting the Sun, the solar system is spinning around the Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way galaxy is moving in the universe. Add them all together, and you are on a very high speed vector in some direction.
And where you are this very moment is a vast *distance* away from where you were just a second ago, and where you will be in one second. So if you get in a time machine, and go a few minutes into the past or the future, it is likely that your time machine is going to explode because of the instantaneous loss of external atmospheric pressure.
However, if you do have a spaceship/time machine, you can travel great distances very fast indeed, but only in two directions.
Yet, if you distinguish yourself from the future flight path of the Earth, say your time/space machine starts flying toward another star, and you jump into the future where you would *possibly* have continued to that star, would you travel at the same *speed* you were traveling when you went into the future, or would going into the future extrapolating your *acceleration* when you jumped into the future.
That is, while the speed of an F-16 is fast, the acceleration of a mosquito taking off is far greater than that of an F-16. So if your time travel was based on the speed you were going, say 1000 mph, it would be vastly slower than if it extrapolated the continuing acceleration of the mosquito. It would be faster than the speed of light in short order.
I loved the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Felt so sorry for him.
He just wanted to rescue the woman he loved from her drunk abusive husband the Captain.
“Though even some golden age science fiction addressed this situation, I don’t believe it’s ever been used as a plot devise.” ... Um, Dude/Dudette, ever heard of a Tardis?
Thanks for the pings!
related, from my links page:
UFOs: Fermi Paradox - Are We Alone in the Universe? (thanks Conservomax)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1138670/posts
UFOs: Fermi’s Paradox II
— What’s Blocking Galactic Civilization? Or Are We Just Blind To It?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/566578/posts
UFOs: National Institute for Discovery Science UFO page
http://www.nidsci.org/articles/articles1.php
UFOs: Refuting Fermi — No Evidence for Extraterrestrial Life? (I started it)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1312384/posts
No sweat.
Thx for your kind reply and DC for your pinging the list.
While the Tardis travels through time and space, it has never been subject to the initial forces I described. That is, whenever the Doctor goes to Earth, it’s seemingly in the same location that it was the last time he visited, instead of vectored off a vast distance away.
Instead, the Tardis seems to operate in a rather static galaxy.
If it does make such relative adjustments, it is not part of the plot line.
Oh come on folks, doesn’t anyone want to discuss the fiction physics of Dr. Who? I just made a drink for myself, will no one step into the ring of exposure with me??
Oooh, I am in. let me show you how to use time travel to rob a bank.
The special theory of relativity is not a rule - it is a warning. One-way trip.
Go back to the location of the vault before it exists, go forward until it does, grab the cash, go back again, go somewhere else, go home.
(Ignores all those velocity vectors, I admit).
Never drink alcohol discussing fiction physics, save it for discussing real physics (helps out a lot when trying to understand quantum mechanics) ;^)
OBTW, the special theory of relativit thing comes from sqrt(1/(1-v^2/C^2))
It is not that the answer doesn’t exist, it is that if you find it, you won’t be coming back.
Think of it like jumping to a 5-d universe, and trying to find a 4-d speck - like finding a pencil tip in the ocean, only worse.
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