My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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DrW wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 5:52 pm
Physics Guy,

Thank you for your technical contributions to this discussion, especially for your earlier tutorial on some of the math and physics of relativistic travel. Relativity continues to delight.

Aside from the propulsion energy problem, there is another consequence of relativistic speed travel that I have not seen mentioned yet on this thread. That consequence is the fact that even in the vacuum of interstellar space, a near light speed spaceship would encounter enough gas and dust particles at high enough velocity that the collective energy of such collisions would eventually ablate or melt pretty much any available material. Ablation and melting are already a problem at 0.2c. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3 ... 357/aa5da6

Many of the reports of flying saucers claim that they are spinning. One can imagine that constant rotation would distribute the craft/particle collision energy around the perimeter (constantly changing leading edge) of the craft reducing heating and ablation and thus increasing the speed that they could safely travel in space.
Yes! This is a consequence that few people realize or stop to consider, and is rarely addressed even in science fiction literature written by authors such as Asimov, Poul Anderson, etc., who are actually highly qualified, professional scientists and surely must realize this. In the Star Trek series, however, they make passing mention of or at least imply that their starships' deflector shields are needed and used, not just to defend against hostile attacks, but also just to protect them from severe damage and even destruction from high speed collisions with the matter that exists even in the highly rarified, nearly perfect vacuum of interstellar space as they move through it. This is yet another reason to doubt that UFOs are actually alien, interstellar spaceships (unless, of course, some kind of hyperdrive or warp drive precludes the necessity of having to move through ordinary space at high relativistic speeds).

In one science fiction story I read by Arthur C. Clarke, colony ships powered by tapping nearly limitless zero-point energy and moving at high relativistic speeds protected themselves by pushing iceberg sized masses of ice ahead of themselves as ablative shields. In the story, one of these ships carrying a cargo of cryogenically frozen colonists was forced to make an unscheduled, emergency orbital stop at a previously colonized world to replace their too severely depleted or damaged ice shield. I forgot the name of the story. I think I read it long ago in Isaac Asimov's science fiction magazine.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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So far on the thread, I have not seen mention of a 2020 documentary on the subject of the UFO phenomenon that was very well done. It's entitled "The Phenomenon" and is available on Amazon. The documentary examines unidentified aerial phenomenon with testimony from high-ranking government and NASA officials, as well as many others, some of whom might be a surprise, from Christopher Melon, to Bill Clinton to Harry Reid.

Here is a link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onEXmLX2ZZQ, which is unfortunately a bit over the top and not reflective of the quality of the actual documentary - the best I've seen on the subject. While edited and delivered with a bias toward UFOs being extra-terrestrial, the film nonetheless cuts through legacy policies of official denial with genuine photographs, film clips (some recently declassified) and credible first person narratives. Appearing in the film are a former astronaut, government officials, military and civilian pilots and senior military officers going back to 1947.

The two images that caught my attention most in the film were (1) the clear photograph of a 'gimbal' type craft on film compared with (2) the image of the 'gimbal' craft on the the forward looking IR targeting display of the US Navy F-18 Super Hornet.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/2 ... -detection

The film emphasizes the apparent UFO interest in both US and Russian nuclear weapons capability starting shortly after the first detonation of nuclear weapons in 1945. Some of the best documented UFO encounters have been at nuclear weapons bases in the US, UK and Russia.

In talking about some of this stuff with younger people, I'm sometimes surprised at the lack of relevant context and background information they have on the subject (from the mid 1940s to the 1970s). This documentary goes a long way in addressing that situation.
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"Errors in science are learning opportunities and are corrected when better data become available." (DrW)
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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Dr W
So far on the thread, I have not seen mention of a 2020 documentary on the subject of the UFO phenomenon that was very well done. It's entitled "The Phenomenon" and is available on Amazon. The documentary examines unidentified aerial phenomenon with testimony from high-ranking government and NASA officials, as well as many others, some of whom might be a surprise, from Christopher Melon, to Bill Clinton to Harry Reid.
It was a very fine film!
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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I'm going to go broke if people keep recommending Amazon documentaries.

That was a good one to watch with a beer. They earned their money, packing all that material together. The section near the end on the materials was interesting; that was a new one for me.
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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I’m watching it right now. Thanks for the recommendation.

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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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Here is a random thought on the subject. If more recent UFO interest in planet Earth were indeed prompted by development and use of nuclear weapons as The Phenomenon documentary implies, then the flying saucers showed up in an impossibly short time.

The time between the early atmospheric test shots in the US as well as the first military use in Japan (1945), and the first publicly acknowledged sighting of a formation of flying saucers (1947), was only two years. The extraterrestrial hypothesis would seem to be ruled out by this timeline.

The closest star system to Earth is Alpha Centauri, which is just over 4 light years away. Known physics does not allow for the nuclear detonation indicators to even arrive at Alpha Centauri, or associated planet(s), in the two years between between 1945 and 1947 when the UFOs first showed up (or at least allowed themselves to be observed). Even if a technologically advanced civilization had FTL technology, would they be able to cause the nuclear detonation signals to propagate faster then the speed of light? If not, a civilization on the closest possible home planet would not have even known about the nuclear explosions on Earth for a little more than 4 years, proper time.

Perhaps the Galactic Federation has posted a mother ship on station near our solar system to keep an eye on us and dispatch drones for a closer look now and then. It's either that or some pretty fantastical FTL or interdimensional technologies, or less likely still, an undetected and advanced civilization on, or very near, Earth.

UFO phenomenon have been a fascination since the age of nine when flying saucers were sighted visually, and showed up on radar, over Washington DC. Since it's pretty clear that the Christian God does not exist, flying saucers seem to be the next best universal imponderable.
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"Errors in science are learning opportunities and are corrected when better data become available." (DrW)
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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DrW wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:02 pm
Here is a random thought on the subject. If more recent UFO interest in planet Earth were indeed prompted by development and use of nuclear weapons as The Phenomenon documentary implies, then the flying saucers showed up in an impossibly short time.

The time between the early atmospheric test shots in the US as well as the first military use in Japan (1945), and the first publicly acknowledged sighting of a formation of flying saucers (1947), was only two years. The extraterrestrial hypothesis would seem to be ruled out by this timeline.

The closest star system to Earth is Alpha Centauri, which is just over 4 light years away. Known physics does not allow for the nuclear detonation indicators to even arrive at Alpha Centauri, or associated planet(s), in the two years between between 1945 and 1947 when the UFOs first showed up (or at least allowed themselves to be observed). Even if a technologically advanced civilization had FTL technology, would they be able to cause the nuclear detonation signals to propagate faster then the speed of light? If not, a civilization on the closest possible home planet would not have even known about the nuclear explosions on Earth for a little more than 4 years, proper time.
Excellent points, unless our planet has been under continuous observation for centuries or even millennia by highly advanced ETs, as some ufologists claim.
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

Post by Physics Guy »

The problem of space not quite being empty is indeed serious for high-speed travel. If you're traveling at close enough to light speed a bug splat on your windshield can be like a supernova. Even the few stray atoms out there can make a lot of heat.

On the other hand it may in principle be possible to harvest the interstellar medium for fuel—the Bussard ramjet idea.
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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Anyone else catch the simulcast of "UFOs Declassified Live" https://www.tvinsider.com/show/ufos-declassified-live/ on the Science Channel and Travel Channel on Thursday evening?
The Pentagon’s recently released report on UFOs—or as they call them, UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena)—continues to generate TV analysis, including a three-hour blowout across Discovery’s linear platforms. Josh Gates (Expedition Unknown) hosts the three-hour event, questioning top experts from NASA and government as well as pop-culture figures including The X-Files creator Chris Carter as they sift through the inconclusive evidence and speculate on what’s still out there. (Simulcast with Science Channel and Travel Channel)
More ads than information, but interesting to hear what representatives from the military, government, professional science and lay civilian observers had to say on the issue. One main take-home point was the fact that, in the modern era, UFOs showed up in force in 1947, two years after the first nuclear bomb detonations. The first reported sighting was a 9-saucer formation near Mt. Rainier by a private pilot, followed two weeks later by the saucer crash near Roswell NM. Panelists on the show pointed out and confirmed that UFOs continue to be attracted to areas where nuclear weapons are stored or deployed. The point was also made several times that there is a great deal of UFO information that remains classified.

Encounters of UFO swarms or clusters near nuclear powered carrier battle groups, including nuclear powered attack submarines, were discussed in some detail. There was never-seen-before-on-TV footage of sightings near nuclear facilities in Russia, and confirmation that UFOs had demonstrated the capability to take control of nuclear armed ICBMs in their launch silos to as to make them inoperable in the US or, according to a report from Russia not discussed, initiate a launch sequence that had to be manually aborted.

The other video I had not seen before showed a UFO that could transition for air to water with no apparent disturbance of the surface and no apparent change in speed during or after the transition - a transition made more than once during the clip. (One wonders if the UFO data that remains classified indicates that UFOs could shadow nuclear missile boomers subs underwater. Now there is a sobering thought.)

Another surprise was to hear a senior government intelligence official (CIA) say that he believed the UFO phenomenon was one that we were incapable of understanding at this point, implying interdimensional or other exotic mechanisms.
_________________________

Physics Guy, thanks for the mention of the Bussard Ramjet concept. Sounds as if the proposed mechanism is not yet ready for prime time. Didn't see an explanation of where the energy would come from to establish and maintain the electromagnetic field needed for particle ionization and scooping.
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." (David Hume)
"Errors in science are learning opportunities and are corrected when better data become available." (DrW)
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Re: My Take on the UFO Craze Hitting Us Now

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Physics Guy wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 10:49 am
The problem of space not quite being empty is indeed serious for high-speed travel. If you're traveling at close enough to light speed a bug splat on your windshield can be like a supernova. Even the few stray atoms out there can make a lot of heat.

On the other hand it may in principle be possible to harvest the interstellar medium for fuel—the Bussard ramjet idea.
Yes, Poul Anderson brilliantly developed this idea in his novel, Tau Zero which was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1971. I trust you are probably familiar with it.

ETA: I once read an essay (I forgot where or how long ago I read it or who the author was) discussing Bussard ramjets and the possibility of highly advanced civilizations using them for interstellar travel. According to the author, they would produce enough light and radio frequency energy to be easily detectable by our most advanced telescopes, and would be indistinguishable from quasars, and could easily be very much closer to us than we would calculate based on the doppler shift of their spectrums due to their relativistic velocities.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
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