Why Would A UFO Need An Engine...?

[Anonymous]

Re: Re: Why Would A UFO Need An Engine...?

That's not true - there are a few cases from the 50s and 60s when abductees were shown the engine of the UFO. Also, the entities that abducted police patrolman Herbert Schirmer in 1967 described how their engine worked. Others have been told the basic principles of how the craft work.

And do they? Actually work, I mean?

T ?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Engine...

They appear magical, but then as Arthur C Clarke pointed out, any sufficiently advanced technologgy is indistinguisable from magic.

I'm reminded, something from a Pro-UFO arguement I've come across from time to time... It's quite a familiar sentiment.

100 or so years ago the established view on the idea of Man Powered Flight was generally held to be a flight only of fancy.

Nevertheless, so the arguement goes, in practice that turned out not at all to be the case.

But I'm wondering. Though the cavass and chicken wire box-kite contraption the Wright Brothers flew proved beyond question that Man Powered Flight was indeed not only possible, but did it, what they build really does bear very little resembalance to the sleek lines and clean angles of the more familiar aircraft you and I take for granted today.

altitude wise it bearly got off the ground, and in terms of speed....? A chap could run faster than that thing flew.You'd never confuse the thing with the Concord, or the B2 Stealth Bomber.....

And yet the principals that underly all three and every other winged aircraft the world over are all exacatly the same as that ricketty little thing with its lawnmower driven prop and its boat propeller bolted on the end of it.

The problem that occurs with so very much of Ufology is that, in being based wholly upon whatever credible eyewitness accounts there are, what the witnesses are seeing is the UFO equivalent not of the Extra-Terrestrial version of the Wright Brothers first ricketty little winged crate, but the Concord, and the B2 and all the other possible later developements which followed on.

Basically, in trying to understand UFO's people tend to go at it in the exact same terms of basically trying to reinvent flight. Only instead of focusing on the underlying principals necessary to make it possible, they're consistantly trying instead to begin by first inventing the Concord...

Then trying to understand how the damn thing works.

....Funny old world, init?

>sniff!<T

 

[Jerry_B]

Re: Re: Re: Why Would A UFO Need An Engine...?

And do they? Actually work, I mean?

What do you mean? Are you suggesting they're some sort of scenery piece to help convince the abducted person(s) that the entities have 'proper' working engines for their craft? Or, if not, one would gather that they do actually work in some way. In the quoted Schirmer case, the UFO was taking power from nearby power lines (or so it was described to Schirmer anyway).

There are also several occasions where witnesses have seen a UFO's crew involved in repair work - in one instance they claimed to have retained a piece of material from the scene.

 

[Anonymous]

And if the UFO is some sort of 'geo-magnetic glider,' what sort of engine would be used for guidance? Using the Earth's own magnetic field as an engine of propulsion, fair enough.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Why Would A UFO Need An Engine...?

What do you mean? Are you suggesting they're some sort of scenery piece to help convince the abducted person(s) that the entities have 'proper' working engines for their craft? Or, if not, one would gather that they do actually work in some way. In the quoted Schirmer case, the UFO was taking power from nearby power lines (or so it was described to Schirmer anyway).

Actually Jerry, I very much doubt I'm saying absolutely anything of the sort. There's a chap in Brazil, claims he was taken on board a UFO and allowed to mate with the female members of the crew. There's that French chap, wears a lot of white. Claimes a UFO came down one day and Jesus stepped popped out of it and revealed to him Ancient Star Wisdom, and wants him act as the Ambassador for some form of colalition of Interplanety Species....

There's more. Lots more actually. Exactly which one of these peoples testiments am I exactly supposed to believe?

They all sound so terribly, terribly plausible. I generally find myself somewhat hard pressed to choose.

There are also several occasions where witnesses have seen a UFO's crew involved in repair work - in one instance they claimed to have retained a piece of material
from the scene.

Which you have personally seen?

If someone, an Airforce or Commercial Pilot say, claims they have seen something tearing through the sky traveling terribly fast, change heading impssibly quickly, scoot off again..... Someone who has some degree of experience of actual avionics and can be trusted to give a reasonably accurate account of such trivia as course, bearing, heading etc...

Someone who possibly has a something to actually loose by making the statement, yet still taking the time to file a proper report and putting their signiture on it.

This can be something I can pick over and in a good many ways find compelling. The reason? The reports are clear and matter of fact, they are detailed yet lack supposition and embelishment.

Inshort, they are something one can consider to be reasonably credible in origin.

If that exact sort of person were to then co on with the idea, and proceed to tell an elaborate yarn of exactly the sort you bring attention to in your reply, personally I dismiss them.

True, I may be missing out on some vital and terribly important nugget of information here. Some key, which will help me unravel and solve the Mystery that is the UFO.

But I'll live.

Toodles,

T

 

[Anonymous]

And if the UFO is some sort of 'geo-magnetic glider,' what sort of engine would be used for guidance? Using the Earth's own magnetic field as an engine of propulsion, fair enough.

The Earth's a ball, it spins. In being deployed in an equatorial orbit, the only direction it needs to move in is longditudally North or South.


In producing a magnetic field of its own, that field has two polarities. The resistant polarity it ensures stays underneith it to intervien between it and the Earth. The other, attracatent pole forms above the vehicle facing away from the Earth. This polarity is attracted to the considerable portion of the Earths magnetic field which remains above it.

In loosing sufficient orbital inertia it's attractant polarity is allowed to be influenced by the Earths magnetic field. That field has a flow in direction, running North to South.

By allowing itself to slow down suffiently enough, the vehicles mass would be allowed to be carried along with the direction of that flow Northward.

In short, the vehicle can track longditudally.

Why does it stay up in the air?

Even if you never did actually do that thing, in pratting around with a couple of magnets as a child, of getting the one to float on top of the other by mounting the one up on a simple spindle as in a Spinning Top, giving it a good hard twist to get it to spin and then introducing it into the field of the magnet you want to float it on using a small plastic tray of some kind, the principals at play in this are all perfectly demonstrable from simply observing the behaviour of two merely independant magnets held in each hand.

It's all a perfectly common misconception that, in bringing two magenets of like polarity together, the magnets themselves are producing some degree of electro magnetic force as expressed by the ressistance that is felt to occur and increase between the two as you bring them closer together. The fact of the matter remains however, that this is simply not the case.

Magnetic fields don't produce anything by way of significant force in this endevour. The strength of the resistance that occurs is actually being produced by you yourself in that very action of bringing the magnets into the sort of proximity they themselves would really rather you didn't.

The strength of that resistance is directly proportional to the amount of force you your self have to apply in order to put them in that position.

At the onset, when you you first place the magnets so as each of their respective fields first com into contact, thaough palpably there, there is no actual appreciable strength in the resistance which is actually felt. It is only with going foreward from that point and physically bringing the magnets closer together that the degree of magnetic resistance that occurs goes up.

The exact strengths of the individual magnets themselves make no differance to this. This is merely how magnets behave.

Putting the same thing into context, the very same thing would be expected to occur between a vehicle producing it's own magnetic field and the Earths. When looking for a motive means by which the magnets themselves can be physically brought together, Gravitational Force would indeed appear to be the most obvious and abundant source to use.

If we try thinking about the prospect of using electromagnetic resistance between the Earth's magnetic field and that of another magnet from the start point of trying to both initiate and exploit that in some way whilst down here on the Earths surface, although such resistance does in fact occur, the amount of Gravitational Force acting on any given magnets physical mass is simpley too strong to in anyway overcome. Hence reason why, no matter how much you might want them too, magnets don't just simply float mysteriously off the ground.

However, in looking at the same proposition being initiated at a point in orbit above the Earth, the amount and degree of Gravitational Force that is being applied to any given mass in that position is drastically reduced in comparison to the state of affairs which exists down here.

Near Earth orbit is a micro gravitational enviroment. Hence the rate at which Gravity can compel any given mass to aquire an acceleration in earthward inertia substancially negligable at the very onset. The need for such a Vehicle in this possition to be required to have to be producing anything like a particularly huge and spectacularly powerful electro magnetic field of its own in order to induce field resistance between it and the Earths not necessecary at all.

Something with the field output of your average firdge magnet in these particular circumstances is perfectlt sufficient in order to get the job done.

Thus, as Orbital Inertia becomes gradually diminished, provided that rate of decreace is kept within parity of the rate at which Gravitational Force increases over diminished altude from a micro-gravitational enviroment down to a possition of being in 1 full Earth Garvity, the resistance between the two fields in question remains preserved.

Garvitational Force, though still perfectly present and in acting upon the Vehicles mass continues throughout to do so, however because the resistance between the Vehicles magnetic field and the Earths exists to interveen between the two, Gravity is thus prevented from that force being expressed as an increase in the Vehicles earthward inertia, as would otherwise most usually happen in the same set of circumstances but with nothing there present to interveen.

In short, through this, a Vehicle applying this principal for these specific ends is allowed to gain control over it's descent considerably prior to first hitting atmosphere in that way facilitating the possibility of a far slower, and therefore far safer atmospheric entry.

The only really significant differance between this model, and what one can observe from the interactions of bringing a couple of magnets closer together in ones hand, is that, no matter quite how much fuss the individual magnets make about it and their fields try to resist the effort, you can always increase the degree of force you can apply in order to successfully over come that resistance and bring the actual magnets into direct physical contact together...

Gravitational Force however, is a constant.

Provided electromagnetic resistance is successfully preserved and gravititational force isn't allowed to over come it as the Vehicle decends from it's originally micro-gravitational enviroment to that of 1 Full Earth G: 1 Full Earth Gravity is all the Gravitational Force the Earth's mass is actually capable of expending upon any such independant mass acting under it's influence.

Thus, if the Vehicle doesn't aquire a significant increase in it's Earthward inertia prior to that point, after that point is reached, it won't.

Exactly the same as when you may have pratted about with a couple of magnets as a kid and gotten the one to float on top of the other by causing the magnet you wanted to float to spin first and then introduce it down into the other's magnetic field, thus overcoming the tendancy of the one magnet wanting to flip the other over and causing its attractant polarity to allow magnetic attractance to occur, the preservation of altitude through using this means becomes perfectly possible as an equal consequence of using it.

This is not some form of Antigarvitational Propulsion. This is neither Anti-gravitational nor is it Propulsion of any kind. It is however, an application of just boring old, plodding, mundane 19th Century Applied Physics.

Exactly the sort of stuff Ufology contends isn't adequate in any way at all to explain a thing like a UFO.....


G'night

T

--

schnor - edit, altered the text size - a large amount of text in size0 is tough to read, plesse try to keep it to a minimum

My appologies, message understood. Won't happen again. With the amount of wordage I managed to pack into that, I had the feeling if I left it on normal size the damn thing'd run on for even more of forever than it does.... Thanks for the time and the trouble.

Appreciation.

T

 

[Jerry_B]

Throaty - I'm not trying to apply any form of logic to what a UFO is and what's inside it, and who says whatever about it (whether it's the witness or the apparent occupant). I was just pointing out that entities from UFOs have gone into a little detail about how the UFO works, and some have shown what powers their particular craft.

Whether any of it is true or not, I don't know. I don't assume that if a military or airline pilot sees a UFO they're likely to be a better witness for understanding what's going on. If you look back, for example, at the sightings listed as 'unknowns' from Project Blue Book, military and civil aviation personnel are just as likely to report odd craft with a variety of designs moving in a variety of ways.

And as for those like Schirmer, his claims may be just as wild as Vorhilon's but I don't see the point of lumping all witness testimony together - what's 'seen' is too varied to point to any overlying structure. Contactees and cults derived from UFOs should probably be set aside from this melange because they do have certain amount of an internal 'logic', as do those that refer to greys and their particular type of abduction.

But as for plausibility - well, that's in the the of the beholder IMHO. Such things aren't any more concrete whether a pilot or a normal joe in the street sees a UFO. Just because a pilot has a better grasp of things that move through the air and has a reputation to protect doesn't mean that their testimony is any more 'real' or legitimate. Quite a few policemen in the UK, US and elsewhere have claimed to see a variety of quite unusual UFO-related phenomena without losing their jobs The whole subject of UFOs and what goes on when they are apparently seen by the witness does not get any more concrete if the witness is a professional or not. Instead, a pilot (for instance) may frame what he sees in the context of what he knows, so the report he makes reflects that knowledge.

And, to add to the discussion vis a vis gravity, etc. - there is one case where the UFO occupants told a witness that we humans get things wrong. We try to go up against the force of gravity, whereas the UFO occupants claimed that their craft went 'sideways' to it

 

[Anonymous]

And, to add to the discussion vis a vis gravity, etc. - there is one case where the UFO occupants told a witness that we humans get things wrong. We try to go up against the force of gravity, whereas the UFO occupants claimed that their craft went 'sideways' to it

..... Mmmmmm, I see the plot thickens. Sideways eh? Now that's the sort of idea that I can like.... : )

Jerry, please do believe me when I say I do know what you mean, and in really all the most important ways I do actually agree, quite despite ehatever degree of wither I may onoccasion be prone to express about certain aspects of the business.

You're right, the subject of plausibility does indeed rest upon the individual to judge, on that from me you'll get little arguement. I myself am a person not at all wholly taken with the idea's associated with UFO's at the best of times. I'm alright in terms of general principals, but as soon as talk gets down to the minutest deatails of the very specific's..... Usually all my head wants to do is bail.

For myself, and I means this in the very broadest possible sense, there's a whole case of othersness I associate as going along with the subject which, personally, I'm not at all terribly impressed with. That's a very awkward way of putting things, so perhaps I should possibly try to explain.

It all really comes back to that very old and very often foisted pro-UFO agrument those who profess to keep an open mind about these very and exact things can often be found to lay recourse to whenever the going usually begins to get tough:

"100 years or so ago, man powered flight was considered by the establishment of the day to be little more than a mere flight of fancy: Well, they were wrong!"

And indeed, as far as it goes, the statement as it stands remains perfectly true. But in the interests of preserveing the actual true of these such sentiments, if that truth must be told, the fact that man powered flight was indeed possible wasn't proven by those first responsible for that success by them demonstrating that fact by first constructing an areoplane with the range and fundermental flight capacities as expressed by an example of latter day design and avionics technology like the Concord, or the Boeing 747, or the B2 Spirit.

It was in fact first demonstarted by an exteamly limited, rickity little affair hardly one step removed from the actual Box-Kite it really was with a prop driven boat propellar stuck on the end of it powered by what was actually a lawn mower engine.

Nevertheless, the principal which under lie all all such subsequent winged, engined aircraft remain exactly those that were first both demonstrated and proven by this exactly such poultry, splendidly homemade rickity little affair.

But there is more to that story, and those who follow the pursuit of studying UFO's ignore it both at their own peril and often. And it is this:

In that very race to first prove that man powered flight was possible, the course was run by many, many contenders. All of whom thouroughly and consistantly mucked it up. And though we today can look back at what film footage still remains of those early attempts at what we today tend to take for granted, and find huge ammusment in watching these ludicrously put together contrivances judder and flap and blow themselves apart whilst still firmly attatched to the ground, we presume that we are watching little more than the work of fools.

But actually, we are not.

Exactly as those whom today proclaim the virtue of themselves being possessive of an open mind with reguard to the possible alternatives which may exist in opposition to what the voice of the establishment deems to be what is either possible or what in fact is not, these exact same people in their day were people of no less so true and honest intent. Exactly as their modern day counterparts, they were all intelligent, well read, aware and fully understanding of both the science of the times they lived in and the virtues and future possibilities of the technology of the day.

They were not fools, they were not idiots, most of them weren't actually insane or in anway deluded in the slightest.

And yet, when push came to shove they all, unliaterally proved catagorically to the world once and forever that they were wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Except for just two.

They weren't wrong at all about what it was they were trying to achieve and prove, but they were wrong, very, about the correct method's and ways that one can successfully actually go about proving those ends are possible.

Except for just two.

And their success wasn't down to the fact that the Wright brothers were in any way smarter, better read, or in any way different from any of the other runners in the race. The reason why they were succesful is because they themselves, unlike virtually all of their contemporaries, didn't set out to prove that man powered flight was in fact possible by being in anway terribly, terribly cleaver about it or in anyway overly complex.

They looked at the problem in the simpliest possible terms. How can I get into the air? A box-kite works, so that's the way we'll do that. Because of the size and weight it'll have to be, we'll stick an engine on it to give it a bit of a push and help keep it up there.....

And that's in fact absolutely all the Wright brothers ever did. And that is all anyone actually needed to do. Because the pricipals at work in that construstion were all perfectly well know and perfectly well understood at the time at which they applied them. And they worked, they could see them at work and putting these two things together and applying them to that specific problem in that particular order for those particular purposes was all that was necessary to demonstrate that man powered flight was indeed a perfectly achievable goal in the end.

In order to understand and be in any way able to explain how a thing like a UFO can actually be an genuine vehicle of some description and be in any way actually capable of behaving in any thing like the manner the witnesses of such things have consistantly described them as being apparently capable of, what we need to understand first is the nature of the underlying Physical Principals which can allow such a sighting to be in anyway possible in the first place.

The technology of that remains wholley secondary, and can frankly take perfectly good care of itself at a later date.

To do anything in anyway different is to be the equivalent of setting out to prove man powered flight is actually possible for the first time, but insisting that the capacities that solution is capable of demonstating equate exactly to the sorts of flight capacities equal to those of the Kitty Hawks subsequent descendants like the Concord, and the Boing 747, and the B2 Spirit....

It's a stageringly ludicrous expectation, wholley unreasonable to in any way actually attain. So why does Ufology persist in the belief that it is possible to in any way achieve this, when actually mainstream Science hasn't placed anything like so mind numbingly an idiotic a burdon of proof on the matter in the first place?

The most negative assesment Science has ever actually made about the subject of UFO's is that they remain inexplicable in conventional terms.

"Conventional Terms" in reguard to a matter concerning some form of craft observed to be present mainly exclusively in the air pertains to the likelyhood the of something demonstrating those exact sorts of ariel behavioural characteristic's being in anyway explicable in terms of artifically contructed, powered flight.

It is not an accessment which in any way rules out the possibility of UFO's existing, nor is it a statement which dictates that such things are in any way actually impossible to exist at all. Merely a straightforeward apraisal by those who actually do know a very great deal about exactly what it is they are in fact actually talking about that, whatever such things are, they aren't actually aircraft.

One would think basic common sense alone would be merely sufficient for that to be taken as read by anyone whoes ever given the reports of such fare the very cursory of glances, let alone followed the subject as an actual pursuit in some degree of actual depth for any appreciable while, and yet what does the mainstream of Ufology find itself most readily occupied with?

The pursuit of endevouring to prove Science wrong by re-inventing the principals of flight in terms of Extraterrestrial Technology and Advanced Theoretical Physicial Principals which, even if actually right, it must surely occur to even the very dimmest of individuals, if the proof of the Theory remains on the inside of the actual evidence which most principally supports the notion, ie: UFO's, the evidence itself has the disconcerting habit of buggering off in a somewhat disconcerting manner and off, off and away too the proof of the pudding with it.

So frankly all the speculations you really are ever likely to read, though cleaver and imaginative and terribly well informed and possibly, who knows, mabey one day, actually right, all remain wholly in the realm of wholey speculation and present not one jot in way of either evidence, least of all actual fact, with which to support the notion that such things as UFOs can actually be in anyway possible at all.

Unless there are to hand first both valid and applicable physical principals on which such endlessly entertaining speculations can first based. And you only get those by first paying attention to the actual matter to hand.

Now, Aliens, Interstellar Travel, Abduction, all the plethora of stuff that gets lumped together with UFO's.... As far as such stuff goes I haven't an answer, I haven't a clue. The only way I can look at the subject is in terms of, if you're dealing with something which is a Vehicle: what are the objectives associated with going about doing a thing in that particular way, how would one go about achieving those objectives....? Questions like these, straightforeward ones, I can get a handle on, I can reasonably come up with an answer to. If you ask me a question like by what means would those principals be applied, this I can happily take a stab at.

But as the the all and the rest of it.....

How much of it all is actually in anyway necessary?

My....now That's what I call a Lecture..........! Sorry old chap. Mouth ran away with me again. Happens. Do of course feel free to pick me up about it. I ceratinly would, but then I'm possibly not a terribly pleasant person to begin with. Sorry.......

All the best,

T

 

[Jerry_B]

The problem as I see it with 'nuts and bolts' ufology is that, on the face of it, UFOs that appear to be distinct structured craft aren't often seen performing such crazy manouvers. The most they do is accelerate quickly away. However, glowing UFOs, seen by night or by day, which lack the structured appearance of a machine of some sort are often seen to be making wild and erratic manouvers in the sky. Now, whether these lights are structured craft is a bit of a leap of imagination. The assumption has been made to bundle both together as the same thing as they are, on the face of it, UFOs. But in this case all UFOs of any appearance = structured craft. One thing that throws a spanner in the works is such things as earthlights - these objects are apparently capable of extreme manouvres, but perhaps only a diehard nuts'n'bolts ufologist would consider these as structured craft.

But basically, the whole subject of whether a UFO is truly a highly manouvreable alien aerospacecraft has it's own internal logic which both shoots it in the foot and sustains it at the same time. Many unknown factors can be put down to advanced technology and left at that, and we humans just don't have a grasp of the flight characteristics of these machines and what powers them becaue our knowledge is puny in comparison. Bear in mind that this amazing ET technology also for some reason lets us humans easily remember being abducted by some of those aliens that use it

Trying to figure out the whole sctick about the nuts'n'bolts approach is to chase one's tail IMHO

 

[Anonymous]

.....But basically, the whole subject of whether a UFO is truly a highly manouvreable alien aerospacecraft has it's own internal logic which both shoots it in the foot and sustains it at the same time. Many unknown factors can be put down to advanced technology and left at that, and we humans just don't have a grasp of the flight characteristics of these machines and what powers them becaue our knowledge is puny in comparison. Bear in mind that this amazing ET technology also for some reason lets us humans easily remember being abducted by some of those aliens that use it

Trying to figure out the whole sctick about the nuts'n'bolts approach is to chase one's tail IMHO

.... Mmmmmm. I myself have indeed wondered on the odd occasion quite why, other than appearing in the part of an Extra on a Speilberg movie, a Flying Saucer would feel the neccessity of bombing around all over the place lit up like a Christmass tree....

And as for the Abduction scenario, please.... Don't encourage me to get started.

I do indeed take your point in considering the advantages of the more le ce fare approach the What You Are Seeing Is the Application of Technology 1000's of Years In Advance of Our Own rationale offers. It does indeed carry with a far more plesant, relaxed approach to the proceedings in comparison some of the particular aspects of the Nut's 'n' Bolts approach you describe.....

But then again, that all rather depends on what it is your average Nut's 'n'Bolter is actually banging on about going about building in the first place. As I believe I may have alluded to in my previous, the race to prove man powered flight produced any number of mechanical oddities far better suited for a walk on part in a Keystone Cops flick than than anything you'd ever be at all ever likely to ever hope to actually get to see flapping about in the sky.

The one serious disadvantage with the more layed back approach though, is y'never do actually get to know. One way or an other. And seriously the whole idea and notion of it does infact remain based upon a set of suppositions actually not in anyway proven to be the actual case at all.

Inconsequential little details like that tend to bother me.....

How do we actually know that, if we are actually dealing in that relatively tiny proportion of UFO sightings which won't go away via means of explanation in terms of other, non Vehiclular, means, that what is being seen is the application of some form of technology that is in any way actually thousands of years in advance of our own?

I'm as familiar with the numbers you can crunch out of the Drake Equation as much as the next person, and the likely hood of their being the equivalent of some mere 10,000 civilisations out there in some reguard similar to our own in comparison to the size of but one Galaxy made up of roughly a billion stars almost inconsequentially small in comparison....

But there is nothing in the numbers that in anyway simply dictates that becasue these other civilisations could indeed be out there that in comparison to ourselves they all simply have to be significantly older than our own or in any way significantly more advanced.

As far as the actual arguements go, and for all we actually do in fact know, we here on plodding old Terra Firma could equally be amongst one of the very first civilisations the Galaxy has actually seen fit to allow to exist...

Certainly, if we are basing such speculations on there being out there life significantly technologically more advanced than our own based on that notion that UFO's, in being viewed as being actual vessels of some kind, the actual behaviours of such things as described in eyewitness testimony don't in any way suggest anything like them being the product of anything so significantly greatly advanced.

Quite the actual opposite I'd say.

If you're thinking of them in terms of representations of technological advancement, you're only really looking at something two, possibly three hundred years in advance of our own technology as it stands today....

And really, in that assessment, I'd only seriously consider even that degree of advancement as a serious proposition if we are looking at such things in terms of them being in anyway associated with some other form of vehicular means carrying them here capable of such passage facilitating Intererstella transit itself.

Interms of UFO's as actual Vehicles in themselves, strickly speaking in terms of what it is actually possible for anyone to actually observe and witness by eye, you're not in anyway looking at any form of appreciably advanced technology at all.

Quite the opposite, for all the characteistics that one could in anyway consider associative only with something like a UFO, wholly 20th Century technolgy is perfectly adequate to demonstrate the principal of it. In seriously looking at the prospect of a significantly more technologically advanced developement of that, you're only looking at a thing but a few decades ahead of where we in fact are already today.

That's really one of the main problems with the notion of UFO's being representative of some form of technology thousands of years in advance of us. Frankly, if that sort of business is genuinely a thing which represents the actual technological developements possible if measured against those sorts of timescales, it wouldn't really appear that technology as it stands is in any way likely to develope terribly much further at all...

Which is somewhat disapointing. I was actually holding out on the prossibility of us all one day getting those personal JetCopters all the BigHeads in the 30's promissed we'd be all flying off to the office in by 1984.....

T

 

[Anonymous]

engine

what if its engine removes it from time so in its self it has no means of propultion it moves by time its self
speed=distance removing time makes travelling easy
thats not saying it would be some kind of h.g.wells machine it means it simply isnt in time
this would also help in avoiding any small items while travelling at great speeds in space,hitting one wouldnt be very nice.
this would explain all the strange stuff wouldnt it?:err:

 

[Timble2]

.... Which is somewhat disapointing. I was actually holding out on the prossibility of us all one day getting those personal JetCopters all the BigHeads in the 30's promissed we'd be all flying off to the office in by 1984.....

T

As a Gerry Anderson fan from the days of Supercar on I'm deeply disappointed with the 21st Century so far. Where is Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbird 2, as we were promised. We didn't even get an Eagle in 1999.

Just one space station, about to be mothballed, some slightly used space shuttles, the Russians' space craft are ancient...

Whatever happened to the future?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: engine

what if its engine removes it from time so in its self it has no means of propultion it moves by time its self
speed=distance removing time makes travelling easy
thats not saying it would be some kind of h.g.wells machine it means it simply isnt in time
this would also help in avoiding any small items while travelling at great speeds in space,hitting one wouldnt be very nice.
this would explain all the strange stuff wouldnt it?:err:

.... Hello, and sorry for the delay in answering this. Must think me terribly rude, do appologise, been a triffle distracted of late.

Actually y'know, if Mr Well's emponymous TimeTraveler had actually have been successful in his endevour of making that TimeMachine of his work, somewhere elese in the galaxy would have been exactly where he'dve ended up....

Little chance of encountering Moorlocks and rather fetching young ladies and all the rest of it, but certainly, as soon as switch the ruddy thing on he'dve been choking on vacume within a second.

Not at all a bad suggestion really. In traveling through time only and not space, as the galaxy continues on its ever outward journey without yiou as being part of it anymore, and you physically remain in the place where the earth once was, certainly you could expect to be exactly in a completely different part of the galaxy by the time you'd actually arrive in the future..

Of course, how you actually go about traveling through time like that is one thing, but certainly, pull a stunt like that off and bingo: instantaneous interstella travel.

Well done, no get cracking and build one.

Best reguards,



T

 

[Anonymous]

Whatever happened to the future?

Oh, do believe me. I know exactly how y'feel..... Curiously unadventourous, isn't it?

Though, in a curious way, all those future-pundits back in the 40's and fifties did actually manage to get most of it right, minus the personal gyro-copter thing. They predicted the developement of the computer and the industrial robot, thus freeing people to pursue more noble endevours..... Of course, they glossed over the fact that that would be meaning a weekly hike down to the local employment exchange for most and the introduction of shorterm employment contracts and employment uncertainty forever onwards for the rest , but well..... Technologists, what do they really know about sociology?

As I believe some wag once put it: Whatever the problem, Technology holds the answer..... what was the question?

As to what happened to that glittery place they promissed us, I believe Bill Gates probably has it knocking about in a draw somewhere. After all, bugger owns practically everything else...

Super-Car eh....?! I came along round about the time of Fireball XL5 and Stingray, god I'm old.......

Reguards,

T

 

[Anonymous]

us navy

didnt the us navy build one during the second world war(philidelphia experement) ,some kind of gravity bubble,i know that its possibly fiction ,but it is a nice idea that gravity is linked to time itself.
one thought though why would you always link any type of time travel to round objects be it feilds they emit or the shape of the machine isnt it just as likely to be square or a triangle if not why?

 

[Anonymous]

stingray

dont you think that a modern day submarine would whoop ass
all over stingray and the whole continent it came from?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: us navy

didnt the us navy build one during the second world war(philidelphia experement) ,some kind of gravity bubble,i know that its possibly fiction ,but it is a nice idea that gravity is linked to time itself.
one thought though why would you always link any type of time travel to round objects be it feilds they emit or the shape of the machine isnt it just as likely to be square or a triangle if not why?

Ah, the Philidelphia Experiment.... where to begin?

Far a I recall from the legend, the experiment in question was all to do with the idea of making the emponymous ship in question, the Philidelphia, invisible..... Quite how all the time travel gubbins came into it Lord Alone knows. Not a bad film though if I recall, tacky ending but what the hey, it was the 80's......

True, tis a lovely tale. But tale would probably be the all of it. The whole idea of using electromagnetic fields to render an object invisible is something which simply isn't going to happen in the first place, fraid light isn't effected by magnetic fields one jot desipte being part of the same spectrum. Besides, even if the thing could have worked, the idea required an extreamely powerful electromagnetic field to be in operation at the time. If it could actually have worked, though the ship might have been physically invisible to the naked eye and camera, it'dve have shown up like a christmas tree on radar, and there's very little chance the people responsible for the endevour could have set out to attain invisibility in this way on the one hand, without knowing what it means radar wise on the other.

Slightly counter productive.

If there actually was a Philidelphia Experiment it most likely had something to do with radar jamming, nothing at all to do with the rest of the stuff....

As for the shape of fields being spherical and nothing else, good question. Simply put, angular forms in nature simply aren't all that common. When it comes to things like electromagnmetic fields and such, your dealing with things which measurably have surface area and describe volume, but have very little by way of depth or thickness.

Funamentally they're two dimentional, to all practical intents and purposes.

In nature 2-dimentional things aren't generally expressed as flat planes, but sperical or toreal forms instead....

And as for Gravity being an expression of Time, not at all a bad notion. Gravitation is after all an acceleration, any increase in a masses speed has an effect on its motion through time. Equally, Gravity comes for free and however it is you do end up getting from Zeta Reticuli to here and back again, the one thing I suppose you don't do in whatever methodology that entails is turn up your nose at any free accelerative force you can get your mits on.....

Assuming one has mits of course.

Reguards,

T

 

[Anonymous]

Re: stingray

dont you think that a modern day submarine would whoop ass
all over stingray and the whole continent it came from?

Considering Stingray actually got to where ever it was going suspended from strings, I 'd say the likely hood is pretty strong that indeed you are correct....

However, you have to conceed Stingray's a damn sight prettier, and I don't believe any of the crew were ever made sterile from working aboard her.

T

 

[Anonymous]

electromagnetic feilds

IIRC one of enstiens theorys says that its impossible but what if the feild generated was negative,this would absorb whatever part of the electromagnetic spectrum required.
as for light if this bubble created was infact a gravity bubble light would be bent around it
possibly.:spinning

 

[Anonymous]

Re: electromagnetic feilds

IIRC one of enstiens theorys says that its impossible but what if the feild generated was negative,this would absorb whatever part of the electromagnetic spectrum required.
as for light if this bubble created was infact a gravity bubble light would be bent around it
possibly.:spinning

... Alas, makes little differeance. Photons don't react to electromagnetic fields full stop. The bounders!

Now electrons on the other hand, they do, but unfortuneately not Photons. Besides, your still left with that principal problem of, even if you could bend light in this way and achieve visual invisibility, you're still left with the problem of being perfectly radar visible...... hugely

Using a field of this sort to attempt to bend radar waves on the other hand might possibly work, but visually you'd be as invisible as everything else.

That's the fundamental problem with physics, rells you alsorts of interesting things could happen, but in the same breath litteraly tells you way it can't happen in the first place....

As to the Gravity Bubble idea, well certainly yes, the gravitational distortion of space does indeed cause light to bend around things, even allows astronomers to get a glimps of what's behind things like black holes and so forth.....

Problem is of course, were this Gravity Bubble produced by the Philidelphia actually strong enough to do that, the very least you could expect is some form of Event Horizon forming around the perifory of the field producing the distortion.

Bit of a hard thig to miss an Event Horizon. It's black for a start off, very for a second, and things have a habit of being sucked into them really rather quickly if I remember my Walt Disney films correctly.....

Nice thought though... :yeay:

Although when you think about the energy requirement such a thing as making a ship invisible would require, wouldn't it just be easier to just serupticiously go about poking the witnesses in the eyes with a pencil or something.....? You'd get the same effect, but surely to God it has to be cheaper in the long run....


Reguards,

T

 

[Jerry_B]

Well, there's gravitic lensing...

And as for the 'PE', it was pretty much demolished as a story in Fortean Times about 4 or 5 years ago. IMHO, the whole thing takes it's cue from a reported event that occured around a ship called the 'Mohican', which was harboured at Philadeliphia in 1904. The ship was reportedly surrounded by a glowing vapour which magnetized the ship and played havoc with the compass, as well as producing odd optical effects (i.e. the ship looked like it was 'on fire'). This went on for about an hour before the cloud moved out to sea.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, there's gravitic lensing...

And as for the 'PE', it was pretty much demolished as a story in Fortean Times about 4 or 5 years ago. IMHO, the whole thing takes it's cue from a reported event that occured around a ship called the 'Mohican', which was harboured at Philadeliphia in 1904. The ship was reportedly surrounded by a glowing vapour which magnetized the ship and played havoc with the compass, as well as producing odd optical effects (i.e. the ship looked like it was 'on fire'). This went on for about an hour before the cloud moved out to sea.

.... Indeed, there is. Takes a fair amount of gravitational distortion to do it as well.... I'd wadger someone would notice the other effects that went with that far more noticably than the actual "invisibility" of the thing causing it...

And whilst were on the subject, what is it with chaps and the notion of Invisibility in general? I mean, thinking about it logically from the source, Wells' Invisible Man, when you get right down to it the idea of an actual Invisible Man seriously is a truely disturbing thought.

I mean, if one was merely dealing with the notion of simply just an Invisible chap I wouldn't be all that bothered, but somewhere in all that is the inferance of that invisible chap being actually starkers at the time, and somehow, I can't see the prospect of both a naked and actually invisible man boding particulalrly well for anyone else....

Espcially the unwary about to enbibe in the act of chair sitting, for example.

It's why I always find it prudent to check apparently "empty" chairs in public places before sitting on them for this very exact reason.

As to the 'Mohican' incident, I vaguely remember reading that one. What sort of a ship was she, can you recall? I seem to recall the proposition being ventured that it had something to do with the cargo and electrically charged methane..... Mind, I'm the sort whom regulalrly checks chairs for invisible chaps so my recall possibly isn't all that great....

Ta for the story though.

Reguards,

T

 

[Jerry_B]

I think the Mohican was just a standard cargo type. I've never heard any mention about what it was carrying.