MoD's UFo dept closes down

Well i doubt there was much effort\resources going into this so no loss there and yes of course there is other life out there but lets be honest if your able to watch us as a species would you really want to have anything to do with us.

[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by Earl of Bronze

Well. If the human race is the only (alleged) intelligent life in our galaxy, never mind the universe as a whole. Then it's a terrible waste of space....

Someone's been watching Contact again - and why not, it was a good movie, reasonably faithful to Carl's excellent novel.

It makes sense for the MoD to close down the department, if for no other reason than that if we are getting visitors, there's nothing we can do about it because the ability to come here at all across light-years directly implies considerably more advanced technology than ours and, indirectly, weapons capability we can't possibly defend against. Note that I'm not touching the conspiracy theories; as Terry Pratchett pointed out, given their track record in terms of keeping terrestrial secrets, it seems unlikely they could conceal extra-terrestrial ones (though I must admit I think Project Blue Book was a smokescreen). It's possible there is something going on. But I've no real idea as to what.


My opinion? While I don't think they're necessarily coming here, I'm pretty sure they exist, on the grounds of the Theory of Mediocrity if nothing else.

To explain: we're pretty sure, from observational evidence, that the laws of the Universe are the same irrespective of where you are in the Universe (except in a black hole, but if you're in one of those you have a whole other set of problems rather more pressing than the issue of intelligent life...). Thus if, for example, you mix 2 volumes of hydrogen with 1 volume of oxygen and provide a spark, you'll get 1 volume of water, and this is true whether you're on Earth, a planet in the Andromeda galaxy (2.2 million light-years away and, I gather, getting closer) or anywhere else you happen to name. From this it seems likely that stars of similar age and spectral class (approx. 5.5 billion years, G2) will have similar planetary systems, because the laws of physics that dictate the formation of such systems are the same. Bear in mind, too, that ours is a very common type of star; there are millions in our galaxy alone.

From this, it seems likely there are other planets similar to Earth, i.e. life-bearing. Surely, therefore, at least some must have life similar to ours. True, we were lucky to have Jupiter (which acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner and thus prevents the inner planets from being bombarded by space debris to such an extent that they'd either be smashed to bits or never get a chance to form in the first place) and the Moon (which stabilises the Earth's natural tendency to wobble on its axis and thus allows the formation of a reasonably stable climate), but still.

Why haven't we detected them? Several possible reasons (other than, duh, they don't exist to be detected):

1) They're not as advanced as us and therefore don't have radios and the like, thus no detectable transmissions.

2) They are as advanced as us, if not more so, but they're either too distant for us to have detected their transmissions yet or they're too distant for their transmissions to reach us at all (stellar dust, nebulae etc. interfering and scattering the radio waves, plus the good ol' inverse square law).

3) They're more advanced than us, and thus have already passed through the radio-transmission stage. They have developed tight-beam transmissions and technologies such as cable, and thus there are no transmissions for us to detect - we developed radio telescopes too late to pick them up. It's happening here; in a century or so this planet will likely be radio-silent, except for the occasional natural burst. So maybe other civilisations have already reached that stage.

4) They're secretive, for whatever reason, and don't want to be detected.

5) Any combination of the above, and/or all of them, and/or others we can't even guess at.

It is the height of hubris and arrogance - though ironically all too human - to assume that it's just us. I suspect that the reason people don't want to believe otherwise is that if we're not unique then we're no longer special, privileged, whatever.

My own feeling is that if they're right, the Universe is a far lonelier place than it should be, and that thought is one of the few things that scares me to the bone.

Why would they come here? Oh, no no no no no, I'm not touching that one either.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by budwieser

What are others opinions about UFO`s or life on any planets on this forum?
I`ve never seen one or been abducted but i do believe that we can`t be the only planet with life on it in all of the billions of planets and galaxies.
Anyone else got any thoughts on this.?

*** Cough ***

http://www.daves-world.co.uk/ufo/ufo_index.html

*** Cough ***

---------- Post added at 17:03 ---------- Previous post was at 17:03 ----------

Also google "The Drake Equation"

The Drake equation states that:
where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* is the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

---------- Post added at 17:10 ---------- Previous post was at 17:03 ----------

When they where making the film Independence Day, they wanted help from the US Military, but the US Military would only help if they took out all references to AREA 51.

Which until a few years ago offically did not excist.

Search for it on google maps and FSX (it has a 8 mile runway IIRC.)

Re Area 51 - it wasn't unique in that - where I used to work in RAF wasn't on Ordnance Survey maps.

(btw, Area 51 must be the worst-kept secret in the world..... )

[Russ]

Reading Library of the Dead at the moment, it's fiction but it goes on the storyline that Area 51 is nothing to do with UFOs or anything connected to air travel other than a private airport for the workers. The whole 'UFO' thing is just a cover to hide whatever it is they're really doing.

[AdamD]

The most worrying part of that story is the last paragraph

He added: "Any legitimate threat to the UK's airspace will be spotted by our 24/7 radar checks and dealt with by RAF fighter aircraft."

A.k.a - Shoot first, ask questions later.

My own belief is that of the conspiracy theorists, namely that certain governments (perhaps most world governments) have already been in contact with "E.T" and make a point of not investigating any cases, because there's no need to.

There's enough evidence out there that convinced me and I'm not talking about "lights in the sky" type incidents, I'm talking about incidents like...

http://ufos.about.com/od/trianglecas.../p/belgium.htm
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights

Could be a load of nonsense, but I believe! hehe

Erm, Adam - that's not quite how it works.

If something is picked up on radar, they then query it for an IFF (identity, friend or foe) transponder. If that doesn't tally, they will send up interceptors to check it out visually (they used to do this all the time with the USSR's TU95s over the North Sea). They will then signal the unidentified transient to turn back or land - only then, if all else failed, would use of weapons be authorised.

Not quite "shoot first, ask questions later".

btw, the truth is out there - but so is a lot of tin-foil hat bolleaux.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by Russ

Reading Library of the Dead at the moment, it's fiction but it goes on the storyline that Area 51 is nothing to do with UFOs or anything connected to air travel other than a private airport for the workers. The whole 'UFO' thing is just a cover to hide whatever it is they're really doing.

The U-2, SR-71 & F117 were designed there, as well as the new aircraft, Aurora (also credited as the SR-91 Aurora).

Rumours have it that it travels faster than Mach 4, one of the docs I read said it had some tech to protect the pilot from the massive high Gs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)

Lockheed Skunk Works, where design was undertaken, was originally in Burbank and moved to Palmdale in the late 80s. The test flights were at Groom Lake, Nevada (sometimes called Area 51).

[Russ]

Guess that's why I said it's fiction then

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Erm, Adam - that's not quite how it works.

If something is picked up on radar, they then query it for an IFF (identity, friend or foe) transponder. If that doesn't tally, they will send up interceptors to check it out visually (they used to do this all the time with the USSR's TU95s over the North Sea). They will then signal the unidentified transient to turn back or land - only then, if all else failed, would use of weapons be authorised.

Not quite "shoot first, ask questions later".

btw, the truth is out there - but so is a lot of tin-foil hat bolleaux.

The russians always used to tease our air defenses, The IFF is just a box with an ID coe that tells you what it is, your flying a bomber into "enemy" airspace you will set the transponder to a civillian flight ID.

---------- Post added at 22:14 ---------- Previous post was at 22:13 ----------

Area 51 actually refers to the map reference,

[Mick Fisher]

Life must have evolved on other planets and yes there must be other Earth type planets. The Universe if not The Galaxy is too vast for this not to have occurred.

However I think, on a cosmological scale, the life of a planetary bound technological civilisation might be too short for two such civilisations to evolve at the same time in the relatively small sphere that we can monitor.

As for a technological civilisation that is not planetary bound...........

Well to visit they would have had to solve the seemingly insurmountable conundrum of space and time called superluminal transit. This would indicate an extremely high level of development so why would they ponce about buzzing fighter planes, spooking airline pilots and the rest of the nonsense accredited to UFO's. I suggest they would announce there presense openly, laugh at our non-existant means of planetary defence and proceed to take over the Planet and exploit us. Simples.

Originally Posted by Hom3r

The russians always used to tease our air defenses, The IFF is just a box with an ID coe that tells you what it is, your flying a bomber into "enemy" airspace you will set the transponder to a civillian flight ID.

---------- Post added at 22:14 ---------- Previous post was at 22:13 ----------

Area 51 actually refers to the map reference,

But when we tracked them by RDF'ing their radio transmissions from when they took off from the Long Range Air Force bases, then picked them up on radar, and the fact that civvy planes with IFF have to log flight plans, that sort of helped..