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The UFO Community Still Believes—And Science Is Starting To Listen

Nobody knows how many saw - most got on with their lives no doubt - the three that are known to Budd Hopkins form a significant part of the book and the fourth is Perez De Cuellar.
Except as reported by others Perez Cuellar denied such an event and the '2 agents' never have come forward publically as far as I know.
 
Well..I never heard of that website nor Mr Cowen....seems a bit obscure to me.
But I suppose any public awareness is better than none.
 
But Bloomberg is quite well known and he writes for them. I find it strange that he would cover such a contentious subject. I guess he knows much more about economy that I, but probably I know more about UFO history (and I'm a melancholic non believer, who grew up with UFO books):
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-02/ufo-sightings-u-s-military-takes-them-seriously-you-should-too?srnd=opinion&utm_content=view&utm_medium=social&cmpid==socialflow-twitter-view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter

This sound too much like old-style, cold war Ufology to me, and I think Tyler Cowen is not skeptical enough:
For the last several years, the U.S. military has observed an increase in what it calls “unexplained aerial phenomena.” The rest of us may know them by their more common name — unidentified flying objects — and we should all strive, as the Navy is doing, to take these reports more seriously.

Sometimes, according to the Washington Post, well-trained military pilots “claimed to observe small spherical objects flying in formation. Others say they’ve seen white, Tic Tac-shaped vehicles. Aside from drones, all engines rely on burning fuel to generate power, but these vehicles all had no air intake, no wind and no exhaust.” They also appear to exceed all known aircraft in speed and have been described by a former deputy assistant secretary of defense as embodying a “truly radical technology.”

But the rest of the article is OK and the last paragraph is a classic UFO hypothesis.
 
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Not to get conspiracy minded, but I think that the US (and others) have been monitoring ufo sightings and reports for a very long time...since at least the late 50's but especially later when modern surveillance equipment came into use. I suspect it's just been done quietly within the govt itself and without much public awareness. I have always believed that the US military ,etc 'knows' quite a bit about the ufo enigma but has kept what they have under wraps. I'm not convinced by any means they have figured it out or have dead aliens and ufo parts ,but that they have a good deal of information(data) they have never shared.
 
Not to get conspiracy minded, but I think that the US (and others) have been monitoring ufo sightings and reports for a very long time...since at least the late 50's but especially later when modern surveillance equipment came into use. I suspect it's just been done quietly within the govt itself and without much public awareness. I have always believed that the US military ,etc 'knows' quite a bit about the ufo enigma but has kept what they have under wraps. I'm not convinced by any means they have figured it out or have dead aliens and ufo parts ,but that they have a good deal of information(data) they have never shared.

They know more than us for sure - but don't forget that information is fragmented over time - sits with different agencies - is muddled with their own disinformation - and many times what they see or know, they probably don't understand.
 
I should also point out that panspermia is one of the least likely explanations for the arrival of life on Earth, simply because stars are very, very far apart.
 
panspermia is one of the least likely explanations
Always liked that one. :(
Oh well. Now I can get on with the real and true paradigm in which all life in the universe is descended from a hive-minded mycological bacillus.
 
I should also point out that panspermia is one of the least likely explanations for the arrival of life on Earth, simply because stars are very, very far apart.
But at some point in the life of the Universe, they were a LOT closer together. Life may have originated early and spread throughout that early Universe. So... maybe life is everywhere in the Universe now, but we can't see it because of the vast distances?
I'm just saying we shouldn't close off our minds to the possibility of panspermia.
 
I just think it's a very likely theory, that's all. I am a fan of the idea.
 
During the history of the Earth, the stars of the Milky Way galaxy have not been significantly closer together, so that doesn't work. Remember that the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, long after the inflation period.

The only significant window for interstellar panspermia was during the time when the Sun was sill within its birth cluster; I think I may have mentioned this possibility in an earlier post, suggesting that a few other stars spread thoughout our galaxy might also have related lifeforms. But we are going to have to look long and hard to find them, even if they still exist.
 
During the history of the Earth, the stars of the Milky Way galaxy have not been significantly closer together, so that doesn't work. Remember that the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, long after the inflation period.
The stuff of panspermia may have been flying this way long before Earth or the Solar System was formed.
Life did seem to arise on this planet very early on.
This little part of the Universe isn't shut off or compartmentalised. STUFF is flying about in all directions.
 
Two other versions of the panspermia theory are also possible, assuming that there have been interstellar aliens in the past. One is 'directed panspermia', where aliens deliberately spread lifeforms from system to system, choosing the most suitable planets and modifying them if necessary.
The other is accidental panspermia, where they leave behind microbes by accident or carelessness, like the Apollo diapers left on the Moon.

Both of these possibilities pose the question- what happened to the civilisation that planted these microbes, more than 4 gigayears in the past?
 
The stuff of panspermia may have been flying this way long before Earth or the Solar System was formed.
Life did seem to arise on this planet very early on.
This little part of the Universe isn't shut off or compartmentalised. STUFF is flying about in all directions.
But when you calculate how much stuff needs to be flyng around in order to infect even one solar system, it exceeds the expected amount by many orders of magnitude. Star are just too far apart, and the interstellar medium is too thin.
 
A bit off the alien topic perhaps....but since we are talking about alien seeding, panspermia, etc...what about just good old fashioned evolution to account for us humans?

;)
 
Don't get evolution cross-hobbled with abiogenesis; these two phenomena are very different in many ways. Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from non-life; this may have happened on Earth, or it may have happened elsewhere, and the resulting life brought to Earth via panspermia.

At the moment we don't know exactly how abiogenesis occured, or where- but even if it happened on another planet somewhere, the resulting life ended up on Earth somehow - and once it arrived here the lifeforms then started to undergo evolution. Unlike abiogenesis, we do understand the various mechanisms of evolution very well. In particular, we can compare the genetic makeup and other molecular components of every extant lifeform on Earth; and using these techniques, it can be shown that all life on Earth evolved from a single common ancestor about four billion years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
And there's no evidence of alien tampering with evolution, if that is what you mean.
 
Don't get evolution cross-hobbled with abiogenesis; these two phenomena are very different in many ways. Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from non-life; this may have happened on Earth, or it may have happened elsewhere, and the resulting life brought to Earth via panspermia.

At the moment we don't know exactly how abiogenesis occured, or where- but even if it happened on another planet somewhere, the resulting life ended up on Earth somehow - and once it arrived here the lifeforms then started to undergo evolution. Unlike abiogenesis, we do understand the various mechanisms of evolution very well. In particular, we can compare the genetic makeup and other molecular components of every extant lifeform on Earth; and using these techniques, it can be shown that all life on Earth evolved from a single common ancestor about four billion years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
And there's no evidence of alien tampering with evolution, if that is what you mean.
Yes...I meant 'abiogenesis' not evolution, but it's used pretty commonly even thought they are not the same.
I have read some articles over the years about aliens 'monkeying' with our dna/ evolution...but not seen any pieces of good evidence that convince me.
Are you up on the origin of life debates....do most scientists accept the abiogenesis theory...or are there others and movement towards panspsermia.?
 
Seeing as the UK UFO desk was manned by Nick Pope, I suspect that the UK government knows less about the UFO phenomenon than we do here on the FT forum.
I wrote to the MOD few years back, asking if they could clarify Pope's exact role in relation to UFO reports.

At the time, I did upload their reply:

201959_192255410_compress56.jpg


As opposed to such drivel as, 'the Guardian' newspaper proclaiming, 'Nick Pope used to run the British Government's UFO Project and is now recognised as one of the world's leading...'.

The facts are somewhat more mundane.

Whether Pope has profoundly exaggerated his status... for you to judge...
 
I wrote to the MOD few years back, asking if they could clarify Pope's exact role in relation to UFO reports.

At the time, I did upload their reply:

View attachment 16907

As opposed to such drivel as, 'the Guardian' newspaper proclaiming, 'Nick Pope used to run the British Government's UFO Project and is now recognised as one of the world's leading...'.

The facts are somewhat more mundane.

Whether Pope has profoundly exaggerated his status... for you to judge...

I've always found him being open that he was a bit of pen pusher and it's usually TV shows who label him as "ex-head of the UK UFO investigations", (which he never corrects).

I class him with the same guy who has the funny hair on Ancient Aliens. Not bringing much to the debate but I'm guessing if they are talking about stuff then it has to be good right?
 
Not bringing much to the debate but I'm guessing if theye are talking about stuff then it has to be good right?
Au contraire mon ami. That is one interesting question.

After much contemplation... 'It depends'.

I've seen YouTube videos, where Pope is being asked about UFO cases outwith the UK.

I don't recall him ever voicing a balanced, sceptical opinion on any of them.

Fair enough, he is perfectly entitled to be an advocate in that sense.

Does it help though?
 
It is not just Nick Pope that demonstrates the poor response of the UK military to UFO reports. The Condign Report was bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Condign
David Clarke believes that this is because the Condign Report was the work of a very small number of people in the MOD with their own private theories and preconceptions.
 
Are you up on the origin of life debates....do most scientists accept the abiogenesis theory...or are there others and movement towards panspermia.?
I like to think that I keep up with the debates.
By a strange coincidence, recently my daughter was taught by one of the leading proponents of the panspermia theory in the UK- Milton Wainwright at Sheffield uni. I got to find out what the academic community thinks of his ideas (for the most part they are not very keen).
 
I saw a UFO last summer.

I was sitting in a parked vehicle, on a sunny afternoon. Bright sun, blue sky.
I looked up. Ahead of me there was a track between two stands of trees with blue sky between them. In that gap there was a rugby ball shaped thing. It was about the width of the full moon, and half as high. The top half was grey, the bottom half bright white light. It moved slowly to the right. It only took a second before it vanished. I didn't have time to call anyone.

I also know from experience that you have to go quite a long way before you can get any clear view of the sky in that direction, so I didn't try and chase it.

And that was that.

Weird though.
 
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