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Post by Cranky on Jan 21, 2007 20:34:06 GMT -5
Here is a story that was first brought to my attention by my wife. which spawned this thread.
I find it hard to believe that there are THOUSANDS of people who claim to have seen UFO's and yet we have NEVER seen clear pictures of them. How many camera's are there in the planet? A billion? How come every picture looks like it is taken by a two year olds? I have 5 megapixal digital cameras in all my cars as I am sure other have too, never mind all those camera phones, so does that mean they read our minds and never come close to us? Camera shy perhaps?
If they have landed, I find hard to believe that there is an uber conspiracy by the goverment to hide them or they just conviniently never fall where normal people can find/catch them.
Quick story.....
I remember one time in Greece, I was lying in my bed and I could see out the window. I was twelve at the time and I was aware of UFO's. Well, I nearly peed in my pants to see round objects flash by in the sky. I sucked up my fear and made my way to the roof (flat roof) where I saw cars turning in and out the winding roads a few miles away. As they were turning, their lights would reflect off a very well defined overcast sky. Ergo, low flying "round objects" moving around and accelerating away at tremendous speed with no sound. BTW, one of the GREATEST sights to behold from the roof of my house was to watch lightning storm in the dark, off into the far horizen. Absolutely magnificant sight.
Back on topic....
Do you believe in UFO's? Or do you dismiss them as overactive imagination? ~~~~~~~~~~ www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/columnists/chi-0701010141jan01,0,5874175.column?coll=chi-pod-rail ~~~~~~~~~~ In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO? Video: UFO over O'Hare Airport? Published January 1, 2007 It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously. A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon. Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes? Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal. No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said. The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said. The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower. "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych. Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident. Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said. The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center. The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset. All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights. Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds. Witnesses shaken by sighting More................
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Post by Skilly on Jan 21, 2007 21:14:23 GMT -5
By definition, UFO's exist. Because any object that is not readily identifiable is a UFO.
Do I believe in extra-terrestial life? Yes. We have already identified numerous planets that are astronomically speaking the same distance and orbit from a star as Earth is from the Sun ... so why not? It would be naive to look up into the night sky and think that of the trillions of star and heavenly bodies, that Earth is the only one to sustain life. (and lets remember, life could be plant, insect, amoeba ... not just human)
Do I believe is space ships coming to Earth and spying on us? No. I find it hard to believe they would come so far and not stop ... but we have developed space travel, so why couldn't someone else.
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Post by PTH on Jan 21, 2007 23:00:15 GMT -5
By definition, UFO's exist. Because any object that is not readily identifiable is a UFO. Do I believe in extra-terrestial life? Yes. We have already identified numerous planets that are astronomically speaking the same distance and orbit from a star as Earth is from the Sun ... so why not? It would be naive to look up into the night sky and think that of the trillions of star and heavenly bodies, that Earth is the only one to sustain life. (and lets remember, life could be plant, insect, amoeba ... not just human) Do I believe is space ships coming to Earth and spying on us? No. I find it hard to believe they would come so far and not stop ... but we have developed space travel, so why couldn't someone else. Well, most of the planets deteced are the size of Jupiter, so aren't earth-like - but that's because of what we us to detect them. As to life, and being visited by life, according to how we currently understand space-time, the ditances are just too enormous, and by the time light travels to most other systems (which is how they'd know to drop in), well, we'll all be extinct. Space is huge, and is as close to being infinite as the human mind can comprehend, but most of that is essentially out of reach not only for any single person, but for all of humanity (unless we manage not to kill ourselves faster than a normal evolutionary cycle would) |
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Post by franko on Jan 21, 2007 23:00:43 GMT -5
If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the world why would they stop off in this primitive backwater?
otoh,
A spaceman came travelling on his ship from afar,
'twas light years of time since his mission did start,
And over a village he halted his craft,
And it hung in the sky like a star, just like a star...
He followed a light and came down to a shed,
Where a mother and a child were lying there on a bed,
A bright light of silver shone round his head,
And he had the face of an angel, and they were afraid...
Then the stranger spoke, he said 'Do not fear,
I come from a planet a long way from here,
And I bring a message for mankind to hear',
And suddenly the sweetest music filled the air...
And it went la, la...
Peace and goodwill to all men, and love for the child...
This lovely music went trembling through the ground,
And many were wakened on hearing that sound,
And travellers on the road, the village they found,
By the light of that ship in the sky, which shone all round...
And just before dawn at the paling of the sky,
The stranger returned and said 'Now I must fly,
When two thousand years of your time has gone by,
This song will begin once again, to a baby's cry...'
And it went la la... This song will begin once again
to a baby's cry...
And it goes la la... Peace and goodwill to all men
and love for the child...
Oh the whole world is waiting, waiting to hear that song again,
There are thousands standing on the edge of the world,
And a star is moving somewhere, the time is nearly here,
This song will begin once again, to a baby's cry...
[Chris de Burgh - A Spaceman Came Travelling]
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Post by Skilly on Jan 21, 2007 23:19:49 GMT -5
By definition, UFO's exist. Because any object that is not readily identifiable is a UFO. Do I believe in extra-terrestial life? Yes. We have already identified numerous planets that are astronomically speaking the same distance and orbit from a star as Earth is from the Sun ... so why not? It would be naive to look up into the night sky and think that of the trillions of star and heavenly bodies, that Earth is the only one to sustain life. (and lets remember, life could be plant, insect, amoeba ... not just human) Do I believe is space ships coming to Earth and spying on us? No. I find it hard to believe they would come so far and not stop ... but we have developed space travel, so why couldn't someone else. Well, most of the planets deteced are the size of Jupiter, so aren't earth-like - but that's because of what we us to detect them. As to life, and being visited by life, according to how we currently understand space-time, the ditances are just too enormous, and by the time light travels to most other systems (which is how they'd know to drop in), well, we'll all be extinct. Space is huge, and is as close to being infinite as the human mind can comprehend, but most of that is essentially out of reach not only for any single person, but for all of humanity (unless we manage not to kill ourselves faster than a normal evolutionary cycle would) This isn't true. It was last year or the year before they discovered a heavenly body that astronomers feel is a planet. It was the same relative size as Earth, and as close to another star as earth is to the Sun. I remember at the time the newspaper item said that astronomers were hesitant to announce their finding because they wanted to make sure the "planet" was orbiting this star. When they discovered it was, they made the announcement. What I remember about this was that the system was the closest one to Earth discovered to date. I believe they said it was less than 20 light years away. What would be the odds of finding an internet link I wonder ... I'll give it a try. |
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Post by Skilly on Jan 21, 2007 23:29:51 GMT -5
Found it ... Ok I had it slightly mixed up. The discovered a planet that is Jupiter-sized that orbits its star at the same distance as Jupiter orbits our Sun. Which leads to the hypothesis, do they have an earth sized planet orbiting the same distance as earth does the Sun? And it is 41 light years away ... not 20. Still possible to travel there in one lifetime. Distant Planetary System Has "Hometown" LookAfter 15 years of observation and a lot of patience, the world's premier planet-hunting team found the first planetary system that reminded them of our home solar system. comparison of our solar system with 55 Cancri system  This graphic depiction compares our solar system with a newfound planetary system, 55 Cancri. July 30, 2004After 15 years of observation and a lot of patience, the world's premier planet-hunting team found the first planetary system that reminded them of our home solar system.
In 2002, Geoffrey Marcy, astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and astronomer Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star at nearly the same distance as the Jovian system orbits our sun.
"All other extrasolar planets discovered up to now orbit closer to the parent star, and most of them have had elongated, eccentric orbits," Marcy said. "This new planet orbits as far from its star as our own Jupiter orbits the Sun." NSF and NASA have long supported the planet-hunting team.
The star, 55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer, was already known to have one planet, announced by Butler and Marcy in 1996. That planet is a gas giant slightly smaller than the mass of Jupiter and whips around the star in 14.6 days at a distance only one-tenth that from Earth to the Sun.
Using as a yardstick the 93-million-mile Earth-Sun distance, called an astronomical unit (AU), the Jupiter-like planet orbits at 5.5 AU, comparable to Jupiter's distance from our Sun of 5.2 AU (about 512 million miles). Its slightly elongated orbit takes it around the star in about 13 years, comparable to Jupiter's orbital period of 11.86 years. It is 3.5 to 5 times the mass of Jupiter.
"We haven't yet found an exact solar system analog, which would have a circular orbit and a mass closer to that of Jupiter. But this shows we are getting close, we are at the point of finding planets at distances greater than 4 AU from the host star," Butler said. "I think we will be finding more of them among the 1,200 stars we are now monitoring."
The team shared its data with Greg Laughlin, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His dynamical calculations show that an Earth-sized planet could survive in a stable orbit between the two gas giants. For the foreseeable future, existence of any such planet around 55 Cancri will remain speculative.
In announcing the Jupiter-like planet, Marcy, Butler and their team also announced a total of 15 new planets, including the smallest ever detected: a planet circling the star HD49674 in the constellation Auriga at a distance of 0.05 AU, one-twentieth the distance from Earth to the Sun. Its mass is about 15 percent that of Jupiter and 40 times that of Earth.
The discovery of a second planet orbiting 55 Cancri culminated 15 years of observations with the 3-meter (118-inch) telescope at Lick Observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. The team also includes Debra Fischer, UC Berkeley; Steve Vogt, UC Santa Cruz; Greg Henry, Tennessee State University, Nashville; and Dimitri Pourbaix, the Institut d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique, Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Marcy and Butler used a technique that measures the slight Doppler shift in starlight caused by a wobble in the star's position due to the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. By observing over a period of years, they can infer a planet's approximate mass and orbital size and period.
The star 55 Cancri is 41 light years from Earth and is about 5 billion years old. Further data are needed to determine whether yet another planet is orbiting it, because the two known planets do not explain all the observed Doppler wobbling. One possible explanation is a Saturn-mass planet orbiting about 0.24 AU from the star.
-- Amber Jones |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Jan 22, 2007 12:59:56 GMT -5
Found it ... Ok I had it slightly mixed up. The discovered a planet that is Jupiter-sized that orbits its star at the same distance as Jupiter orbits our Sun. Which leads to the hypothesis, do they have an earth sized planet orbiting the same distance as earth does the Sun? And it is 41 light years away ... not 20. Still possible to travel there in one lifetime. Distant Planetary System Has "Hometown" LookTravelling extremely fast, close to the speed of light, a cosmanot like Samsonov could get there in 45 years, lose the probe and have to return to Earth in 45 years with nothing to show for the trip. I really believe that we are too focused on life like ours. We are surprised to find that life exists in tremendous pressure without sunlight at the bottom of the ocean, under the Arctic Ice Cap, deep in caves and in the hot desert. Roaches can withstand radiation and conditions that would kill us instantly. We don't have any life forms that could flourish on conditions found on Venus or Jupiter because we don't have conditions like Venus and Jupiter. It is very reasonable that life forms exist elsewhere. I'm not certain that intelligent life exists anywhere closeby. Looking at the history of the Earth, the window of homosapiens is very small. In 4.5 billion years we have had complex organisms for a small fraction of the time. Electricity, television, airplanes, Ipods and mocha lattes have existed less than 0.000000000001% of recorded history. When sufficient intelligence exists to develop neuclear weapons and insufficient intelligence exists to stop self destructive religeous zealots, I doubt that we will still be here in another 5,000 years. By then Ipods will hold a gazillion songs, Mocha lattes will cost a gazillion dollars and Son of Samsonov will be in a 50 game scoring slump. |
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Post by Skilly on Jan 22, 2007 14:35:21 GMT -5
Found it ... And it is 41 light years away ... not 20. Still possible to travel there in one lifetime. If we discover Warp drive.  |
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Post by MC Habber on Jan 22, 2007 16:01:49 GMT -5
Found it ... And it is 41 light years away ... not 20. Still possible to travel there in one lifetime. If we discover Warp drive. Don't forget about wormholes. Also, in the lab, scientists have been able to make light go faster than the speed of light. |
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Post by duster on Jan 22, 2007 21:55:31 GMT -5
Faster than light within an optical medium. Newtonian physics say there is no theoretical limit to speed. Einstein does though, and assuming the existing methods of gathering data are correct, so far he's right..
Theorically, the amount of energy required for any vessel to even attain light speed would be phenomenal. It would require an almost unlimited power source that's portable. Gravity is the often quoted as the most plausible source. Any visitors from other worlds would have to master that technology. If they haven't, it pretty well narrows it down to wormholes or a long trip...
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jan 24, 2007 13:55:10 GMT -5
Faster than light within an optical medium. Newtonian physics say there is no theoretical limit to speed. Einstein does though, and assuming the existing methods of gathering data are correct, so far he's right.. Theorically, the amount of energy required for any vessel to even attain light speed would be phenomenal. It would require an almost unlimited power source that's portable. Gravity is the often quoted as the most plausible source. Any visitors from other worlds would have to master that technology. If they haven't, it pretty well narrows it down to wormholes or a long trip... And then there is quantum physics. Beware, beyond this point there be dragons: How little we truly know about the nature of existence. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jan 24, 2007 14:00:51 GMT -5
If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the world why would they stop off in this primitive backwater? Indeed, as one wag, sometime somewhere put it, "Why would intelligent life forms show any particular interest in a species for whom a chief occupation is killing each off by war and resource mismanagement?" Then again, perhaps the human race is merely a genetic lab experiment that is checked up on every now and again, and provides extraterrestrial schoolkids with the opportunity for a field trip. |
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