U.F.O's

All smart remarks and jokes aside, do your believe that we are not alone in this universe? Have you seen anything you have not had an answer for?

I was watching the Dicovery channel today and they had a program on about the the Battle over LA from during WWII. Was very interesting.

it'd be arrogant of us to think we are the only ones in the universe. But I also think the odds of us crossing paths with another life form in a place as massive as the universe within our relatively short lifetimes is so small that it is bordering on impossible. 

I love Carl Sagan. What a great man he was.

I have seen 5 UFO's

3 of these incidents were reported in the media.

1 of them had at least 20 people watching

A. We are misinterpreting what we are seeing

B. We are witnessing an unexplained phenomena 

C. We are witnessing 'powered flight' of a technology we don't understand

D.  parts of all of the above

I'll get back to this

An interesting fact is the UK bookies have slashed odd on the US and British government announcing there is alien life before the end of Obama's term in office.

US bookies apparently have done the same thing... do they know something?

The thing too is with the term. Unidentified Flying Objects. 

It does not just mean Aliens and spacemen, but also the fact that one saw an object but could not recognise it as anything that person could relate it to.

Carl Sagan was an extraordinary visionary as well as his qualifications.

I reckon there are things way out there in space that must be fantastic to see albeit extremely dangerous too. 

Gravity, black holes, expanding stars,

twinn stars and of course who is in the UFOs and is there really alien bases on the moon?

Im an AustrALIEN!

I have been waiting for your input and you have not failed.

Why is it people who claim to have been abducted by Aliens invariably claim to have suffered examination via Anal probe?

Surely if an Alien can travel light years across the galaxy they can figure out the workings of a human being by more technology based solutions rather than sticking something up a drunk red necks bum? Or are they just a bit kinky?

Maybe they aren't analyzing the human body, but how we react.  So maybe they want to see how a homophobic redneck reacts to something up the pooper. 

The chance of life being created is such a small possibility that I think its possible but far from definite, but with randomness there is the chance of something unlikely happening a lot so life could be all over the place.

The question is if any life can get intelligent enough to escape a system and sustain their life before their sun explodes.  We keep getting more and more advanced but there is a chance we will a) kill ourselves or B) hit a brick wall where we cant sustain life indefinitely away from earth and as such are doomed to stay here until the planet or the sun kills us.

But I'm not a scientist so fudge knows.

I think the argument that UFOs/aliens are psychological projections of our cultural anxieties is interesting. Back in the day people had visions of seeing or being abducted by fairies (fear of the natural world) or taken to heaven/hell or seeing religious figures (fear of religion/afterlife); then in the modern world it became UFO or alien sightings (fear of technology/over-intellectualisation of lived experiences). Not saying they are psychotic episodes, more like externalised and sometimes shared projections of underlying cultural trends.

Alternatively, they exist in some real sense on another plane and are perceived by humans through whatever cultural lens they have. Back in the day: angels or fairies. Today: aliens and UFOs. Could make similar arguments about Nessie, Sasquatch, Chupacabra, or any cryptozoological beast too.

Or I could be talking a pile of bollocks. 

what is it with the Alien contact and Anal Probing anyway? Do they know something we dont? Or is it an easier way of seeing what we eat and drink like scientitst do with dead bodies or animals? I travelled at warp speed so I could kidnap so eone and stick a probe up their jacksee? I think not but when I look at footage from the ISS before NASA conveniently lose the feed, and I see objects suddenly change direction, I have to ask how the hell did that do that.

Thought I might find someone in here who can help me...

Is there anyone who has a huge interest in astronomy and knows the ins and outs really well who could help me with something?

this guy is: www.rocketlabusa.com -  Peter Beck, a Kiwi. I heard him speak about 'his project' at the Horse & Trap, Mt Eden, a few years ago. Looks like he's moved on a bit since.

I'm after a star map from a particular location from a particular moment in time. I know they can be done but also want guidance over which of the stars in that star map would have been visible by the human eye (i.e. what magnitude of brightness that would be). 

The first part is pretty easy, there are sites that do it, but need some advice on the magnitude and how planets may appear. 

there's a phone app, can't remember the name, pointing different parts of the sky give you references what you're watching.

btw how amazing is the confirmation of a planet in the habitable zone just 4 ly away from earth

"A Russian radio telescope has detected a "strong signal" coming from a sun-sized star HD16495 in the constellation Hercules, some 95 light years from planet Earth.

- see latest www.msn.com

You heard it here first.

Actually, the Russians heard it first although I wouldn't bet against some kind of alien lifeforms being present in the YF forums. 

YourAnus is a planet?

does it have moons?

"Piles" of them ;)

exo satelites are too small to detect with current technology

What about the recent discovery of a volcanoe on a mini planet? Alien bases on the moon make for good conspiracy viewing on YouTube.

Re: odds of finding other life... has everyone read about the Fermi Paradox? Very interesting.

Also worth checking out various simulation theories. Elon Musk is one prominent person in the world today who buys into this.

It's very difficult to argue against, and makes for very interesting conversation. 

On Ceres?

They believe the volcano(es) on there are the type which spew forth water, rather than magma etc. The planet appears to contain a large amount of water/ice. Quite interesting. 

Also regarding conspiracy theories, the Planet X or Planet 9 theory is gathering pace, and starting to look rather likely. 

For those who haven't heard about this, scientists have detected several items in the Kuiper Belt that have orbit paths which appear to be strongly influenced by a large body that we have not yet seen/discovered. General speculation suggests a new planet, which would be a large gas giant in the realm of Neptune's size, sitting beyond the Kuiper belt. Many are now scouring the skies looking for it. Due to the distance it would be very dark, but definitely visible via telescope. 

Europa seems to be the most exciting moon we're looking at exploring- possibly the closest climate to Earth. They believe it contains large oceans, and there are early plans to drop some sort of submarine on it to have a look under the water. 

An interesting aspect to our Mars exploration will be when one of the next planned rovers gets there, that has better digging capability. It is believed that Mars once had an atmosphere, and that since the atmosphere disappeared, radiation has burned the surface beyond recognition, down to about 2 metres deep. Once we dig below 2 metres we will get a far better picture of what the surface once used to be like. 

It's interesting that Mars and Venus are basically the two extremes of "habitable" planets, with Earth right in the middle. Mars' atmosphere has filtered away, but Venus' atmosphere has intensified. They say that Venus is what the Earth might be like when it has been completely f*cked by global warming. Venus has an intensely thick atmosphere, so that on the planet itself, there is a huge amount of pressure, and very hot temperatures. It's not very well-known but the Russians actually landed probes on Venus several times, and snapped a few pics of the surface, before the probes basically got destroyed under the pressure and heat of the atmosphere. 

Ok that's a lot of planet stuff for one day LOL

I find all this extremely interesting. 

Sounds like this was nothing in the end.

They've since taken a ton of readings from the same spot and have not been able to detect it again, they are thinking it is now some sort of anomaly - like the "wow reading" taken many years ago. 

Bummer.

Definite bummer.

It's very exciting when they find things like that.

Also another bummer is the failure of the large hadron collider to back up the statistics suggesting a new particle. They had a finding a while back, but when they started up again and tried to replicate it, they've found nothing, suggesting that was also a one-off anomaly.

Or alternatively... if you prescribe to the various simulation theories out there, you could say our master has seen that we got close to working it out so cheekily shifted the goalposts!

If you've no idea what I'm talking about there, then it's worth looking into some of the simulation theories going around. Some of them are very compelling, and extremely difficult to argue against. 

Basically the general idea of it is that humans love to simulate everything, from scientific experiments to computer gaming. As soon as we can simulate something, then we do it, millions of times over, either to have fun (e.g. gaming), or to test it to try and enhance understanding (e.g. the Large Hadron Collider, which is essentially a very miniscule simulation of the big bang).

It is assumed that should we become advanced enough to be able to simulate the creation of the universe, or even just simulate the existing universe as it is now, in a controlled way, then we would do it, probably millions of times over, to try and either advance our understanding, or for some other reason (more sinister ones probably, e.g. the Matrix film).

If this was to happen, then we have no real way of knowing if we are living in one these simulations, or if we're in the "real thing". And when you think about that further it becomes a little bit creepy... because the odds of it being a simulation versus the real thing are absolutely stacked against the real thing. There would probably be millions of simulations, but only one actuality. 

I forget the name of the guy who wrote a very good paper on this, but basically his summary was that the only way we are NOT a simulation, is if we become extinct before we are advanced enough to be able to do it. Perhaps that is the more likely explanation!

All very interesting stuff though. 

Another guy I'm becoming interested in at the moment is Robert Lanza. I have a book headed my way called "Biocentrism". I've read a lot online about this that seems intriguing. Lanza comes from a biological background - he was the guy that cloned the sheep in the 90s - but he's now moving into Physics as he has some rather interesting theories around consciousness. Cannot wait for the book to arrive. 

ps sorry for thread hijack LG!

No anything about space and time and astronomy etc is welcome. I watched Interstellar again last night. Interesting theory to be honest.

what's that?