Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I think I saw a UFO!!!!
- Thread starter Music_Producer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Mr. Anderson said:
But what's the point in creating 'super strong, super intelligent' human beings? If it's possible for us to hit this evolutional ceiling, surely it's possible that any other form of life can too? And if this other form has existed for eons, perhaps they've already hit it?
And that's where the science fiction theory starts - the aliens become super-intelligent, their planet becomes over-populated, they come to Earth in search of new resources
Oh man, I'm feeling the need to dust off my pre-DVD (
) copy of Independence Day.I wonder if they have crappy movies on other planets too.
I wonder if aliens believe in aliens.
jayscheuerle said:
Right, but it is not so much about "ruling" as it is about intelligence (required for developing technology). From our observations here on earth (which is unfortunately our only source for this kind of information) we can gather that it takes a lot of time for primitive lifeforms to evolve into intelligent beings. And it takes this beings an awful lot of time to figure out enough science stuff to build spaceships (especially the laws-of-physics-defying kind of spaceships that are required for interstellar travel).
So if aliens were to come to earth (I very much doubt this, we're in the middle of nowhere anyway), it is very likely that they had a headstart of a couple of billion years in the evolution race to be able to do so.
Anyway, all of this gives us another reason to believe that we probably won't ever be visited by aliens: How can any species survive long enough to figure out space travel?
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Mr. Anderson said:
Prepare for genetic engineering to have its own version of global warming. We'll start something with dire runaway consequences and get in a heapload of trouble. Our biggest problem is a species is thinking that we're so much smarter than we are, that we can do anything if we try hard enough. Our "whoops!" factor is high and our history tends to repeat itself since we have a belief that we're smarter than the generations before us (and besides, SEEING is believing, not reading about it).
Keep sci-fi on the bookshelves. It's good, clean fun, but simply fuels speculation of the possible, not probable..
.:*Robot Boy*:. said:Ok, so assuming that these other species/aliens/extra-terrestrials/whatever are more evolved than us, does that mean that they are more intelligent? Let's suppose that they are more civilised, and live in some kind of harmony with one another (I'm not a left-wing hippie-type, I swear), that doesn't necessarily mean that they are technologically advanced, does it?
It just seems to me that everyone who believes in aliens also believes that they are capable of traveling light-years through space, subverting the laws of physics, etc, etc.
Isn't it possible that these philosophised 'beings' may not live in the kind of environment that allows for any kind of creation. We rely on materials (metal, silicon, plastic, etc) to create things that we consider to be advanced technology. If these resources don't exist on other planets, how could any other species (highly advanced, or otherwise) be expected to create anything?
Just trying to provide some kind of antithesis to the tired "they're smarter than us" logic
Well yes, that's a very valid point of view
Evolution doesn't make you smarter, human intelligence is pretty much a side effect of it. It's not like evolution is a person with the goal to turn every species into a technologically advanced ape. 14 billion years of evolution wouldn't necesarilly result in intelligent species. You're right
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
.:*Robot Boy*:. said:
Evolution has no ceiling, but for all we know, the next beneficial evolutionary leap might be some sort of trade off, like a gene that protects against UV or Avian bird flu, yet lessons our memory or ability to make intuitive leaps. Dumber may be in our future if it helps us as a species live longer. Cockroaches are an evolutionary success story. They've stayed relatively the same for millions of years. Our history is scattered with upgrades, so I'm guessing nature isn't satisfied with us yet. We need work.
If you subscribe to the theory that the planet is the central organism, we may be making it sick too often and it may come up with a way to neutralize our presence for its own sake..
floyde said:
I agree. I think it's very narrow-minded to assume that, just because aliens have had the potential to exist for millions of years, they are more advanced that us. Even if they were super-intelligent, they still have to obey the laws of physics.
No matter where they are, or what they are, they have to have a fatal flaw. That's just the way 'nature' works.
Sure its all sci-fi right now - but my point was that aliens have had the time and opportunity to do this and probably things we even haven't thought of.
As for humans and genetic mucking about - its going to happen and there will be mistakes, that's for sure
Without going to far down a side topic here - intelligence with out morality won't get you that far, so more work will need to be done with that later. The only thing is its not genetic
D
As for humans and genetic mucking about - its going to happen and there will be mistakes, that's for sure
Without going to far down a side topic here - intelligence with out morality won't get you that far, so more work will need to be done with that later. The only thing is its not genetic
D
Mr. Anderson said:
That's an interesting point. Even if aliens are 80 years ahead of us, we can't even begin to comprehend what they would know.
When I think of technology, I think of computers. I think about how far processing power has come, and the impact that the increase of performance over price has had on the way the world works. But what comes next? Is there anything after digital technology?
I don't know what my point is. I guess it just fascinates me that I can comprehend life after PPC, life after Intel, life after Microsoft
... but life after digital technology is totally mind-blowing.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Mr. Anderson said:
Of course, if they're a million years ahead of us and a million light years away, any contact we'd be getting from them now would be from when they were at our current age.
They could have also blown themselves to smithereens, which is something we HAVE thought of.
It's also a grand assumption that aliens have had time or opportunity.
Mr. Anderson said:
Well... we've done pretty darn well without it. Some would say that even attempting genetic engineering is amoral. Same with using stem cells. Or animal testing. Morality is subjective and we often shape it to fit our goals.
Our best chances of finding alien life our right here in our own solar system, on Mars, Europa, maybe some other moons. I'm just hoping Bush's silly Moon/Mars venture/political boner doesn't eat up all the funding for programs that could help answer these real science questions. It would be the greatest discovery since time began to identify a completely different form of life.
You guys need to do a little research, they have been here a long time. Just open up your Bible and there is all kinds of stuff flying around Moses and Jesus. Also the manuevers these things have been seen doing would indicate a massless drive of some sort. Not conventional affected by gravity or inertia.http://www.ufoevidence.org Good place to do a little research. We have been visited and our Govt knows this in the deep deep depths of Pentagon dark projects and Darpa.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Dont Hurt Me said:You guys need to do a little research, they have been here a long time. Just open up your Bible and there is all kinds of stuff flying around Moses and Jesus. Also the manuevers these things have been seen doing would indicate a massless drive of some sort. Not conventional affected by gravity or inertia.http://www.ufoevidence.org Good place to do a little research. We have been visited and our Govt knows this in the deep deep depths of Pentagon dark projects and Darpa.
Do you smoke your own stuff? Cuz if so, I needa get me some!!
.:*Robot Boy*:. said:
that is only if you assume there is A race of aliens.
If there are many (most likely possibility), than would be a safe bet to imagine we are somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as 'sentient beings' go.
All the species that never developed space travel in some form, we wouldn't know about. Same goes for the ones who did, but not in a time/space frame compatible with any sort of contacts with us, or who wouldn't be 'interested' in contacting us (which makes more sense every day
). Therefore, we are left with technologically advanced aliens that are interested in planet earth.
If they were upfront about it (friend or foe) we'd know.
If they were secretive (like to study us, pretend to be a divinity or stuff like that), than there might be the odd 'incident' or 'sighting', but we'd be just reaching now the technological stage where we could find out anyways.
You bet, dont everyone? I guess every single pilot that has ever reported a UFO was making it upjayscheuerle said:Do you smoke your own stuff? Cuz if so, I needa get me some!!
Pic
Allright, to answer a few questions:
1. No, I'm not schizophrenic, nor do I have a brain tumor.. nor had I ingested some sort of hallucinogen. I did notice 2-3 cars slowing down, I am sure the people in there were looking at it too. I just don't know if they took pictures or what, I simply wasn't paying attention to them!
2. It wasn't the moon, it was not a jet, yes I know what a launch looks like .. a rocket launches straight up or at an angle.. it doesn't hover for a bit, look like a 50-100 ft huge ball of intense bright light like someone was shining a monster spotlight down on you.. move around slowly.. and then 'swirl' a bit and just disappear.
You can't understand or grasp it because you haven't seen it. I don't believe in ghosts, aliens, God, etc.. I don't. Yes I do consider the fact that extraterrestrial life *may* exist but, why they would want to travel millions of light years to visit a planet who's inhabitants are destroying themselves.. is confusing. Hey, maybe they just took a little sightseeing tour.. who knows?
I finally transferred the pic from my motorola cell phone (which i took when i saw it) to my treo.. and then to my powerbook. The picture shows the last stage .. the 'swirls' after which it just vanished. I wish I could have taken a picture of that bright spotlight like image.. but I was kinda frozen and had a million thoughts running in my head such as "What? What the f@ck is that? Military aircraft? Can't be a chopper.. that light's almost 20 times bigger than any police chopper searchlight.. um, solar flare? no.. if it is then the sun's somehow gotten realllllly close to us.. just an aurora? no .. um.. "
Nothing can explain that huge bright light..if I was a religious person I would probably have said "God shone His light down upon me! I am blessed!" because that light was humongous..
I can't attach the pic here for some reason (gives me some sort of error) so I am giving you a link to my website where I posted it:
http://www.vishaljrecords.com/mac.html
There will always be people who will try and rationalize something like this, and I am one of them! But what I saw last night, just doesn't fit into any category at all.
Allright, to answer a few questions:
1. No, I'm not schizophrenic, nor do I have a brain tumor.. nor had I ingested some sort of hallucinogen. I did notice 2-3 cars slowing down, I am sure the people in there were looking at it too. I just don't know if they took pictures or what, I simply wasn't paying attention to them!
2. It wasn't the moon, it was not a jet, yes I know what a launch looks like .. a rocket launches straight up or at an angle.. it doesn't hover for a bit, look like a 50-100 ft huge ball of intense bright light like someone was shining a monster spotlight down on you.. move around slowly.. and then 'swirl' a bit and just disappear.
You can't understand or grasp it because you haven't seen it. I don't believe in ghosts, aliens, God, etc.. I don't. Yes I do consider the fact that extraterrestrial life *may* exist but, why they would want to travel millions of light years to visit a planet who's inhabitants are destroying themselves.. is confusing. Hey, maybe they just took a little sightseeing tour.. who knows?
I finally transferred the pic from my motorola cell phone (which i took when i saw it) to my treo.. and then to my powerbook. The picture shows the last stage .. the 'swirls' after which it just vanished. I wish I could have taken a picture of that bright spotlight like image.. but I was kinda frozen and had a million thoughts running in my head such as "What? What the f@ck is that? Military aircraft? Can't be a chopper.. that light's almost 20 times bigger than any police chopper searchlight.. um, solar flare? no.. if it is then the sun's somehow gotten realllllly close to us.. just an aurora? no .. um.. "
Nothing can explain that huge bright light..if I was a religious person I would probably have said "God shone His light down upon me! I am blessed!" because that light was humongous..
I can't attach the pic here for some reason (gives me some sort of error) so I am giving you a link to my website where I posted it:
http://www.vishaljrecords.com/mac.html
There will always be people who will try and rationalize something like this, and I am one of them! But what I saw last night, just doesn't fit into any category at all.
A point we may be missing is they dont have to travel long distances to get here. In fact they could have tech that makes it very easy. As far as your ufo goes Musicproducer that was the Minotaur rocket putting up another mission. Nice photo but is clearly the rocket. Distinct color trail plus you can read about at Space sites.
wow that picture is crazy, if that is a UFO then its oddly shaped
im not saying they have to be shaped like a saucer or anything but that thing is just a curved line...
i dont know what that is
im not saying they have to be shaped like a saucer or anything but that thing is just a curved line...
i dont know what that is
The rocket? That could explain a lot of things, but the spotlight? Where was it launched from? And how did that big spotlight remain stationary, move about slowly (I dont mean up) .. and then just disappear? Like I said I have seen launches before.. a few in the evening leaving the smoke, the colors, etc and this.. just.. doesn't seem to be close to it. Trust me I would love to assure myself that it was a rocket launch.. but damn, I hope they don't have any more launches like that!! Still skeptical..no, i still can't believe it.
jiv3turkey748 said:
Hell it was odd..that was when it just vanished..was lucky to snap it right then. Ahhh if I had only clicked the bright spotlight then all of you would have been flummoxed! I stood outside my house for like an hour or so with a video camera, and a digital cam.. to see if 'it' came back. Never did.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Dont Hurt Me said:
Right, and monkeys could fly out of my butt.
The point is that there are a whole lot of maybes, mights and coulds, but we also have repeatedly viewed and confirmed laws of physics that have NEVER been broken (which is why we call them laws). Information moving faster than the speed of light is one of these. Skip the theoretical wormholes and hyper-drives, if something is coming here, it's traveling a VERY LONG DISTANCE. If you're going to make modes of transportation up, why not just let them get "beamed" here, like in Star Trek? Why not let them be completely invisible to us? Why not have them.... look just like us... take over our bodies... from pods...
Seriously, why is it easier to believe that an alien being travelled billions of miles to annoy some Earthlings than it is to believe in worldwide hallucinations or 50 cameras all recording something that was never there. At least you can put odds on the chances of stuff like that happening. People can believe that everyone on Earth having a simultaneous identical hallucination is impossible, but are willing to accept that another planetary creature has involved culture and intelligence and manufacturing ability and space-faring capabilities and physical-law circumventing technology and THEN picked out our little planet on the rim of the Milky Way to visit purely for the purpose of creating havoc and speculation? Huh? That boggles the mind...
This is the rocket launch and..
Ok I surfed for that Minotaur launch.. and that took place at 7.24 pm PST. I saw this at 8.20 pm PSt.. thats almost an hour. Did the rocket take an hour to get into orbit? Notice this pic:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/minotaur/stpr1/images/04.jpg
You can see its still dusk (7.20-30 pm) In CA, its like that till about 7.40-7.45 and then its dark. Doesn't make sense. Maybe the minotaur came back!!
Ok I surfed for that Minotaur launch.. and that took place at 7.24 pm PST. I saw this at 8.20 pm PSt.. thats almost an hour. Did the rocket take an hour to get into orbit? Notice this pic:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/minotaur/stpr1/images/04.jpg
You can see its still dusk (7.20-30 pm) In CA, its like that till about 7.40-7.45 and then its dark. Doesn't make sense. Maybe the minotaur came back!!
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
That looks a lot like the shuttle rocket trails I saw illuminated after sundown. They remain up in the sky for sometime (like clouds) after the rocket passes and they would disappear pretty quickly once they were out of the direct line of the sun.
Very cool to see nonetheless.
Very cool to see nonetheless.
- Status