UFOs and What to Do Seattle Post-Intelligencer Take a look at an interesting article we found.
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Robbie's Search for UFOs The Sun Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Curt Flood was as much of a pioneer as Jackie Robinson, yet for some reason he never got the credit he deserved.
 by DreadPirateRoberts |
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 by J. Peterman |
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 by nachista |
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April 18, 2008
Welcome to the strange case of the German scientist, Ernst Chladni, who, in his 1794 tome, with the catchy title of "On the Origin of the Pallas Iron and Others Similar to it and on Some Associated Natural Phenomena," released a firestorm of controversy.
In case you didn’t get around to reading it yet, he concluded that there was scientific evidence that meteorites had their origin in outer space. An astonishing concept since meteorites were thought to be of volcanic origin, coming from something scientists of the day could understand: the earth.
In other words, Chladni had rocks in his head.
You might say Chladni’s belief then was akin to believing in UFO abductions today, or parapsychology, or that gas will ever see three dollars again.
At one point the ridicule became so intense that many museums with meteorites in their geology collections trashed them. It took noted scientist Jean Baptist Biot, who had a small crater named for himself on the Moon, to say Chladni was right. It also helped that a few of the disbelievers actually saw a few meteorites come crashing down from the skies with their own eyes.
Yet, there’s no mention of Chladni in any science books today. Neither is there any mention of the lesson that was learned. Namely, that most of us believe only what we can see.
So what are we to make of some of these items we regularly snicker about? Turns out that there are quite a few people, besides Hollywood, who actually believes in UFOs and aliens.
Although disc-shaped flying objects have been recorded since the Middle Ages, the first highly publicized sighting was by Kenneth Arnold in June 1947. He was a great merchandiser. He not only created the term "flying saucer," but unleashed thousands of copycat sightings across the world. The sightings were so common that the term was changed to UFO.
According to a recent Roper poll, an estimated 19 million Americans say they have seen an unidentified flying object, or UFO. Another 4 million people claim alien spacecraft have abducted them.
These finds haven’t quite spread to the scientific community yet, but there are a few
brave scientists today, with their head in those same stars, willing to speak out.
Although Professor Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI institute, contradicts the Roper Poll, he contends that while we haven’t seen them yet, rest assured we’ll be seeing aliens soon. And his partner Dr. Barrett, invoking Moore’s Law, claims we’ll see aliens by 2025.
(I frankly think I’ve seen a few lately, mainly reading the news.)
Dr. Frank Drake has more than a law; he has his own equation, appropriately called Drakes Equation. It’s a means to estimate the number of worlds that might harbor beings with the technology sufficient to communicate across the vast gulfs of outer space.
On another subject, while it is tempting to ask why aren’t all the psychics at Las Vegas or the nearest racetrack, some of them are gainfully employed by the police department — supported by our taxpayer dollars.
An affirmed skeptic myself, I’m going to hedge my options and try to keep more of an open mind. I believe Ernst Chladni would have wanted me to.
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For some years I had as my screen saver the program from SETI-at-Home where my computer worked on...
Apr. 18, 2008 5:03 PM
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tpawlowski said...
New worlds yet to be discovered. New findings in science to be uncovered by inquisitive minds. WE are limited only by the scope of our imagination. The curious mind will always seek to explore the unimagined. We survive by the great minds of
unsatiable quest.
One thing about the Drake's equation is that you can make it agree with whatever opinion you have. If you think there is live everywhere in the galaxy, you give a large number of stars, and/or a high percentage of stars that could support life. If you are a pessimist, you fiddle the numbers to show that no life exists in the galaxy except for us.
Now, it may just happen that there is life elsewhere in the galaxy. Fine, let's give a nice round figure of 2. Us, and Them. Fine, so "they" happen to live 5,000 light years away. What if SETI receives a "wow" signal form them? We sent a message back, something along the lines of, "Hi There!" 5000 years go by. They get the message. 5000 years go by, and we get a, "Hey! How are you guys doing way over there? By the way, our civilization is about to die, because we just created a super-virus trying to cure cancer, and we really blew it. Nice knowing you."
The problem here is with the lifespan of an intelligent species. How long will human beings live, (and be able to communicate with radio waves?) Will humanity live 10,000 years? 20,000 years? Who knows?
So, if we ever DO find aliens to communicate with, and the lifespan of a communicating civilization is on the order of 20,000 years, we may only have a, "Hello there," "ok, bye!" kind of conversation.
Space is really, really big. No, I mean REALLY big. If the center of the Milky Way is 28,000 light years away, 5000 light years away is right in our neighborhood, and that is still very far.
Spinner said...
For some years I had as my screen saver the program from SETI-at-Home where my computer worked on analyzing data from the Puerto Rico telescope, trying to find a pattern in radio transmissions. I felt I was making a statement in my very small way. But to expand on this topic and look at all cutting edge science, we as Humans have always had a difficult time accepting new concepts: the Earth is round, the Earth is older than 6000 years, germs cause disease, evolution. Isn't it more interesting to think that if we were so wrong about these things, why should we think all knowledge is now set in stone and there is nothing new to learn about out there? Wow! That just frees up our imaginations for all sorts of possibilities! For instance, we keep looking for water as some sort of footprint of life on other planets. We used an environment of water to evolve our sort of life, why should that be the only option? Which then brings up the question, in the broadest sense, just how does one define "Life"? And on and on...
more on the honor rollI, too, am an affirmed skeptic. As to the existence of intelligent life in the universe and UFO's I'm just curious. First, let's take the so-called Roswell incident. The aliens were smart enough to create a ship and fly many light years to earth, but they crashed. I'm not too impressed.
However, what would concern me is whether their friends are on their way to find out what happened. Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty to disband our supply of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Just because they might look like E.T. or a furry Ewok doesn't mean they will be fun to deal with. Does anyone remember the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" or the Klingons? Will we have a visit from the "Jedi" or will it be Darth Vader and the Dark Side?
Just curious but still skeptical. I'm keeping an open mind but I'd like to "keep the shields up". Lets hope E.T. didn't call home.
I believe that we haven't discovered all that there is to discover here on our Planet Earth. To think that there are beings out there in the vast cosmos will always intrigue.