Let's apply some logic regarding the matter of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. (UFO's/UAP's) The odds of life elsewhere in the Universe are greater than zero because Nature never does something only once. If there is life here on earth then there is life elsewhere. The odds of that life achieving a level of technology similar to our own are greater than zero for the same reason. We use light (lasers and fiber optics) as a means of communication so the odds are the aliens would have similar capabilities. Therefore there is a basis on which we can assume that somewhere in the universe there is an alien life form that is similar to our own. If we both had the ability we could theoretically communicate via lasers of some form. Given the remarkable abilities of UFO/UAP's they behave more like laser pointers than physical objects in their abilities to accelerate/decelerate/direction change in fractions of a second at incredible speeds while not disturbing the atmosphere. So hypothetically an alien civilization MIGHT to trying to COMMUNICATE with us using some form of laser light technology but we are like a cat trying to catch the laser pointer light because we don't make the connection as to the ORIGIN of the point of light. The problem with that assumption is that there might NOT be any attempt at actual communication but rather what we are experiencing as UFO/UAP's are just some bored adolescent aliens playing with us as if we are the cat! Just a thought!
I’d say UFO’s, UAP’s, USO’s are just what the first letter U stands for. Unidentified, I’d add unknown. Is there other life out there in the universe, I believe so. Intelligent life, yes. Life that might be more technological advanced than us, certainly. Then the big question is are UFO’s piloted by this more advanced life form? I’d say it’s possible, more than just a laser trying to communicate. There’s nothing that says life out there must be carbon based like us either. There’s a lot of possibilities. So far, unproven possibilities. Could UFO’s and the like be drones or robots like our Mars Landers/rovers, satellites in a way? That too is a possibility. I suppose one has to add their own probability factor to all of this. But I don’t believe we’re the only life in our universe or the only intelligent life.
You make a couple of long leaps in your logic there. It is certainly true that there is a none-zero chance of other forms of intelligent extra-terrestrial life developing somewhere at some point throughout the life of the universe. That said, there is a none-zero chance of pretty much anything you could conceive of. The leap to the idea that they would be anything like us or use similar forms of technology is questionable though. Just consider the vast range of life forms that have evolved on Earth, all within the same planetary environment over a relatively short time scale on universal measure. Any advanced life that develops elsewhere is likely to be at least as different to us than we are to any other species on Earth, including in matters of primary senses or modes of communication. There is also the unspoken logical leap you make, in that any such extra-terrestrial species could and would interreact with Earth during the brief period we were around to notice. After all, we're nowhere close to being able to do so with any planet outside our own solar system, even if we have a definitive reason for doing so, and quite possibly never will. As I said though, pretty much anything has a none-zero chance so yes, it is possible that some UFOs are the result of an extra-terrestrial species trying to communicate with us. The problem is that, without any further consideration, that none-zero chance is essentially the same as for any other explanation you might care to imagine. For example, I've always found it interesting (and maybe telling) that unexplained events are now typically attributed to technologically advanced aliens rather than the "supernatural" or "magical" beings humans attributed such things to for so long (I consider both similarly unlikely BTW ).
I think the odds are somewhat deceiving. If this life form is 100 light years from here, it would take 200 years to send and receive. That would be cool for our distant progeny, but ... And, requiring life to be within 100 light years is a serious whack at the odds of finding an alien facebook friend. It would mean finding life in our tiny corner of the Milky Way, not in one of the 150 billion other galaxies. And, there are only about 60k stars within 100 light years. I doubt there is anywhere near one life form per every 60,000 stars. That would mean there are hundreds of TRILLIONS of alien life forms out there in our visible universe.
I have a feeling that an advanced alien race has found ways to completely overcome the light speed barrier. I have no idea how, but I'm sure their is much more that we don't know about physics or whatnot than there is that we know. Maybe they fold space. Maybe they skip through dimensions. I dunno. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are ways to overcome those limitations. Today's science fiction is tomorrow's reality and all that.
Yes, physicists will almost never say never to anything. There is a nonzero probability that when you place your coffee cup on a table it will fall right through. I just don't see it as constructive to make any decisions based on that. There ARE other possibilities that seem a little more interesting. For example, we're probably not that many thousands of years from being able to build a spaceship that could land on another planet and build a duplicate of itself and then both launch off in different directions. That's an engineering problem, not a problem that requires breaking fundamental laws of physics. If an alien life form with our capability and living few million years ago were to build such a vehicle, it could possibly infect a galaxy with such probes. Maybe it could send probes to other galaxies and populate them, too, as thousands of years wouldn't necessarily prevent that. There has been a lot of time between first galaxies and today. If one came here, it's possible that the life form that created the original virus might no longer even survive - it might have infected the universe and then died out for some reason. We talk about UFOs as if there is sure to be a life form inside. Maybe that's not a good assumption - even if the UFO isn't of human origin (which I seriously doubt). If someone believes in UFOs, maybe this is why UFOs seem to want to stay hidden, yet do a fairly crappy job of hiding.
I'd agree with what you said until you got to the laser pointer stuff. I do think unintelligent life is more common than life that is at least as intelligent as humans, but still, the universe is very vast and there could be many advanced civilizations, though mostly incredibly far away. No, if these phenomena are alien, they are not laser pointers, and they are not toys. It's quite clear they, if real, are a form of study/surveillance. The interest is likely more scientific than military, given we are not a threat nor would we be needed as a resource for something with their kind of power. If they are advanced enough to make drones that work in other solar systems, they are smart enough to be cautious about other alien life. If and when they allow communication, they probably will already know how to speak our languages. But at this point it's probably more interesting to watch us. It's also quite possible the stuff we've seen are only their robots, and they are still considering whether to ever contact us (if they've even received the data yet). I do think that once they know we're sure they're there, they would be more motivated to open dialogue.
Thank you all for your responses which establish that we are all aware of the physics and our limitations. If we make the assumption that those have been overcome by an alien civilization they would be making attempts at communication just as we would if the situation were reversed. How do you attract the attention of aliens on their planet? How would we do it if we had this ability? What frame of reference do we have in common? How do we show them the means to respond? Is there some information that we are missing that would enable us to respond to them? What if the message is encoded via the GPS locations of the sitings? What else might be information of this nature? What are our assumptions that are blinding us?
I'd suggest SETI - which likes to point out that it is Earth's only institute whose sole endeavor is searching for alien life. They work on the questions you are asking. https://www.seti.org/ Earth has major telescopes that are growing our ability to determine chemistry on distant planets. We have radio telescopes that have advanced to the point where the results are starting to look like photographs, surprisingly enough - a powerful means of observation. Thus the electromagnetic spectrum being examined is not limited to what we know as light. Findings of chemistry that is possibly related to life are reported. There are space missions specifically oriented to examining places within our solar system where there could be signs of life. We have robotic explorers working. We have a helicopter on Mars, so sheer walls can be examined and a larger radius may be observed. There is a possibility of probing down through the top kilometers of frozen water on some moons to examine water that is believed to be underneath. All these tools are used by scientists who have various topics that they study. That certainly includes search for life, and strongly enough that NASA and equivalent efforts in other countries commission and fund projects involving new types of imagers and explorers. Now for a bit of politicking: Imho, we should stop the "spacemen" efforts of NASA to visit the Moon and Mars and move that money to science. The cost and issues of keeping humans alive in space are absolutely stupendous and are in themselves NO contribution to science. Plus, we're getting good at visiting planets for robotic exploration and building remote detection (like telescopes, rovers, helicopters, borers, etc.) - a far more efficient allocation of limited NASA budget if our objective is science. Let's remember that even NASA is deciding that the whole SLS rocket direction for humans to the Moon is prohibitively expensive and out of control in terms of cost. The cost of the SLS "Artemis" program is $93 billion, and just about all the pieces of that launch of humans will never be used a second time.
You can't do anything but make assumptions or speculations on this topic - you're making plenty yourself after all. How (and if) a hypothetical alien species would try to communicate would depend on a wide range of factors, including how they naturally communicate, what they're already aware about us and (ironically) what assumptions they make about us. For example, they could only use GPS if they were aware or and understood how the system works. They could be sending electromagnetic signals to try to replicate GPS but we've not noticed because they got the wavelengths entirely wrong. Consider the (probably apocryphal yet plausible) of European explorers meeting natives for the first time and, while trying to communicate, point to a mountain to learn the native name for it. And today, that mountain is still known as the native language equivalent of "Yafinga Yafool". I'm not sure there is much to gain from this speculation beyond fictional entertainment (which I'm all for) or shilling allegedly non-fiction books and TV shows (which I'm less comfortable with). I think one thing we could benefit from this topic is the acceptance that there are a whole load of things we simply don't know. Fear of the unknown is one of the key evolutionary characteristics we have that has caused so many problems in our history.
We have been using radio waves as our attempt to communicate with whoever is out there. But if whoever is out there, technology had advance beyond what we think possible or as our science say is possible, their attempt at communication would be with whatever means is available to them, but not us. We wouldn’t know someone is trying to communicate with us and if that someone out there picked up our radio waves, they wouldn’t know what it is/was and have no idea that is a form of communication. Maybe ET has developed a means to fold space or developed a warp drive or stargates or whatever that seems to be beyond the physics that we know. Maybe they’re not even carbon based. The possibilities are endless. We developed one way; I’m sure life out there would develop another. Maybe our life forms and technology are completely not compatible to where we would recognize one another as being a being. Who knows? No one.
Absolutely spot on that this is all about our own assumptions. We are assuming that aliens would communicate in a similar manner to ourselves but what if they are capable of some form of telepathy instead? Unless we find a common means of communication we might just sound like barking dogs to them. Even math, the "language" of the universe requires that we share the same base. Almost 4 millennia ago the Babylonians calculated π using Base 60 as 25/8 which is reasonably close to our own Base 10 value of 3.125...but what if π was the Base for their math and everything was expressed in units of π? https://www.wondriumdaily.com/the-o...ng from its name to,so early in human history. We have a whole lot of accumulated evidence now so we really should be examining it from all potential perspectives because there might well be some form of communication in there.
Any alien that comes here would be very well aware of the electromagnetic spectrum and would not miss it's usefulness in communication.
Agreed, but how they communicate their perception of it is the issue. Some people can hear electricity, should we measure current by audibility?
What do that have to do with UFOs specifically though? Remember that it's only presumptive speculation that any of them have anything to do with sentient extra-terrestrial beings. Plenty have subsequently become "IFOs" (and often not actually "F" or "O" too) with clear explanations that have nothing to do with aliens. You're essentially saying that literally anything could be the result of aliens trying to communicate with us, which isn't an especially useful hypothesis. That is precisely why we shouldn't start with a conclusion and then try to find evidence to support it but openly study phenomena and follow the evidence where it takes us. And none of the evidence, for UFOs or anything else, has taken us towards extra-terrestrial aliens (yet). Or maybe I'm an alien communicating with you right now, using reverse psychology to gently push you towards a revelation.
We have gathered a great deal of information that was recently revealed and we agree that we should go where the evidence takes us. So we are starting from the same point here. My position is that what if we try and examine the evidence from the POV of whatever/wherever/however it originates. There is already sufficient "unexplainable" evidence to warrant taking different approaches towards obtaining perspectives that we would not normally use when examining archeological or even geological evidence where we know that extraterrestrial forces do play a role, as in the moon and the tides.
How can that work? If we have no idea what causes a phenomena, how could we consider the point of view of that cause? I think the fundamental issue here is a very causal view of scientific method. We know that science involves speculating and hypothesising, then testing that against the available evidence. The problem is that a lot of lay-people tend to think at a relatively large scale and scope while scientists working in a specific field will (should!) have a much more detailed and distinct viewpoint. Starting from the point that UFOs could be "intelligent extra-terrestrial alien beings trying to communicate with us via laser light" is far too grand and specific a hypothesis to consider cold. You would need to take multiple separate steps to get anywhere close to that; Is there evidence of intelligent action? If there any evidence of extra-terrestrial origins? Is there any evidence of meaningful patterns of lights? Each of those questions, and many more, would need to be considered and assessed. The proponents of alien visitors generally aren't interested in anything like that though, especially all the ones making a decent living selling books and TV shows based on the spinning up the broad speculations. That is a false equivalence. There is a world of difference between physical forces exerted on us by other bodies in our solar system and the idea of intelligent alien visitors from elsewhere in the universe. If we equated known natural forces with intelligent intervention, we'd still be attributing things like volcanos, lightning and floods to gods, demons or spirits.
I think it's clear that surveillance is the purpose if it's alien. Perhaps just scientific curiosity for them, but even if they wanted to communicate with us they would first need to figure out what we are, how we communicate, if we're dangerous, etc. and then once they know enough on how to communicate with us, and decide it's a good idea, they would. But the first step would be covert surveillance in any case. That is exactly what an intelligent alien civilization would do regardless of their motives. This isn't randomly beaming messages to the stars. This might be semi-randomly sending lots of missions to dozens or thousands of stars to gather information that is interesting or actionable.
I think it's a matter of explaining the evidence that is there. Sure, we look for more likely explanations first, but if we really did observe a craft that can do things we absolutely do not have the technology to do, then it becomes clear. If we can eliminate sensor errors, optical illusions, and weird natural phenomena, then we're left with the improbable but not impossible. And if we're left with extraterrestrial craft, then we can impose logical rules. Logic dictates they are surveillance craft to study us. Likely as a scientific curiosity, but maybe they would be interested in dialogue after they know enough to decide if it's a good idea. Aggressive behavior from them seems less logical/likely.
If there are extraterrestrial beings, and yes, there almost certainly are, maybe numbering into the millions of different types, they'll contact us when and if they're ready -- assuming that they even want to, and that they have the technology necessary to engage others. One thing seems certain... if they're more technologically-advanced than we are (very likely, IF they're arriving here from someplace far, far away), they'll make the decision about when and if there's 'contact' -- not us!
My favorite theory based on innevitable conclusions asserts that biological life is just an incubator for digital life. Eventually technological advancement leads to AI, and eventually AI makes biological intelligence obsolete. That makes us the caterillar to AIs butterfly. Dunno.
As I said, a casual view of scientific method. The ultimate aim is the explain the observation. Evidence just is, and if you start thinking along the lines of explaining evidence, you risk falling in to twisting the evidence to fit your preferred explanation. That is why you need a definitive hypothesis against which to test the evidence. And in this kind of context, you really need multiple hypotheses. Getting from someone observing something that is defined as a UFO though to talking about the motives of an alien race visiting Earth actually involves multiple distinct steps. You'd need to support a hypothesis on a particular UFO observation being a constructed vehicle, then a hypothesis on it's capabilities, then a hypothesis of it's origin and only then anything related to motives. As a result, you're making some fairly glaring leaps, such as going from an observation not being a known natural phenomena and appearing to move in a way no known aircraft can, only leaves extra-terrestrial craft as a possible explanation (note the emphasis) or applying "logic" or "likelihood" to the motives of an entirely speculative alien species without knowing literally anything about them. Speculating about intelligent extra-terrestrial aliens visiting Earth is certainly fun and interesting (which is why there is so much fiction about it) and I'm all for it, but it remains that - speculation. If you want to talk about evidence, logic and science, you need to approach the topic very differently (which is unfortunately less fun or interesting for most people).
Not to quibble, but nature doesn't "do". It abides the laws that govern its existence. Both it and the law come from God, who is not bound by our reckoning of probability. It is feasible though that in owing to the omnipotent and eternal nature of God, his creations are numberless to man. Personally, with this in mind, I find it succinctly humbling to consider that Gods affections and attentions are so vastly divided among his offspring, that the feeling of being special myself, evaporates at the thought. Yet I live and breathe and am animated. And I know that God lives, knows me, and loves me, and I him, or all that's necessary to know of his divinity.
