If life in the universe is as common as a median of one intelligent race per galaxy, and apparent-faster-than-light travel is possible, then it would seem likely that at least one extraterrestrial lifeform would have visited us. The probability of this may increase with the number of intelligent lifeforms per galaxy.
But there's just not enough data to come up with anything beyond a purely speculative hypothesis
We just discovered our first extrasolar planets in 1992, so let's not pat ourselves on the back for having 100% complete knowledge of everything possible in the universe just yet.
> Aliens are easy to detect if they are anywhere nearby.
Oh, honestly. We can't even detect a stealth aircraft a couple hundred miles away. Submarines can go undetected for months at a time. Asteroids are spotted after they pass between us and the moon.
I suspect alien stealth tech would be at least as good as our own.
The amount of energy required to operate a submarine or stealth fighter is less than a trillionth trillionth the amount needed to propel a starship. Asteroids don’t emit energy. That energy is easy to detect upon deceleration into our solar system.
And the limit of speed of light is a basic cosmological principle. Faster than light speed travel would violate all principles of our universe, it couldn’t exist in it’s present form.
> The amount of energy required to operate a submarine or stealth fighter is less than a trillionth trillionth the amount needed to propel a starship.
In a trillion trillion times the volume. You could also have a seemingly inert asteroid that lobs out small probes as it passes through a system for fairly minimal energy signature.
> And the limit of speed of light is a basic cosmological principle. Faster than light speed travel would violate all principles of our universe, it couldn’t exist in it’s present form.
Both relativity and quantum physics came about because we found stuff that violated stuff we thought were principles of our universe.
It will go down in evolutionary biology that electing a dysfunctional leader is a sign of surplus and superiority for any group. Assuming it survives the resulting Armageddon...
By the way, if you stop and think about it, you'll realize how much effort it is to "stay in one place" if you have some kind of anti-gravity drive. For instance, right now, I'm sitting at a Starbucks in New Jersey. From my point of view, I have not moved during the last 8 seconds. And yet, planet Earth just moved front-to-back over a point on its orbit around the Sun. And the Sun is rotating through the galaxy at about 40 kilometers per second. So long as you are constrained by gravity, you don't have to worry about this. But what if you had an anti-gravity drive, such that you never experienced gravity? Can you imagine the incredible effort it would take to remain in a "stationary position" if that position was, from your no-gravity perspective, moving very fast, in several dimensions? That's why this jumped out at me:
"The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction"
We should exactly expect a craft to be "jumping around erratically" if it has an anti-gravity drive, yet is also trying to stay over "fixed position" relative to another object that is rapidly spinning (the Earth).
And boiling or frothy water is, again, exactly what water should look like if it is being effect by anti-gravity:
"The disturbance looked like frothy waves and foam, as if the water were boiling."
If you could wave a magic wand and make all gravity on Earth stop, the ocean would rapidly disappear into space, and as it did so it would look as if it was boiling.
If you had an antigravity drive, the only reason you would bounce around is if it’s poorly calibrated.
And if you had one, why would you travel all the way to earth and not say hello? Your power would be so immense you could wipe out life on this planet if you chose. You have zero reason to hide.
Say these were aliens with an antigravity drive. They may be scientists who do not want to disturb the phenomena they are observing. They might have a Starfleet like noninterventionist philosophy. Perhaps the objects are unmanned probes akin to the ones earth sends into space.
Yeah but in all fairness, even among humans, so many people go by those names. If Ford Prefect had paid a bit more attention when he first arrived, he might have gone with one of those as well, instead.
the only reason you would bounce around is if it’s poorly calibrated
It's likely that there is no way to calibrate it correctly. If you don't have the benefit of gravity to hold you at a specific point of space/time, then where would you get the coordinates that would allow you to remain in a specific spot, especially when that spot is moving rapidly, relative to a previous spot in space/time?
If you had a powerful enough computer being fed comprehensive enough sensory data, I think it would be trivial to stay in one spot relative to something else (e.g. the Earth). I mean, if you had some kind of fairly magical propulsion device and could also ignore gravity.
What the heck are you discussing?! If there was such a thing as an antigravity device, there are so many unknowns, that to even pretend we can have the slightest cue about if or how it could be calibrated, is just ... weird.
Even with hypotheticals, we can still think it through as clearly as possible. If gravity is a warp in space time, and you are able to unwarp spacetime, then where are you relative to someone inside of the warp? We can set aside the whole subject of gravity and simply treat this as a math problem, involving topology. If we imagine there is a way for you to unwarp a location on a manifold then you are... where? According to all we know, the situation would be ambiguous.
If I was a member of an advanced civilization, I'd definitely want to hang out with weird bags of water, who's only claim to fame is designing, constructing, and testing, ways to destroy most life on the planet.
Several related articles and outright dupes have been on the front page at the same time. We don't need that, of course, so for now let's keep the discussion concentrated at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940674. If someone has a better idea and we can do it in an orderly way, let us know.
You're linking to a different article. This article was about 2 airmen having a specific encounter, the other article is about Congress and the funding of the overall UFO program.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 78.2 ms ] threadBut there's just not enough data to come up with anything beyond a purely speculative hypothesis
Faster than light travel is impossible.
Aliens are easy to detect if they are anywhere nearby.
We just discovered our first extrasolar planets in 1992, so let's not pat ourselves on the back for having 100% complete knowledge of everything possible in the universe just yet.
> Aliens are easy to detect if they are anywhere nearby.
Oh, honestly. We can't even detect a stealth aircraft a couple hundred miles away. Submarines can go undetected for months at a time. Asteroids are spotted after they pass between us and the moon.
I suspect alien stealth tech would be at least as good as our own.
And the limit of speed of light is a basic cosmological principle. Faster than light speed travel would violate all principles of our universe, it couldn’t exist in it’s present form.
In a trillion trillion times the volume. You could also have a seemingly inert asteroid that lobs out small probes as it passes through a system for fairly minimal energy signature.
> And the limit of speed of light is a basic cosmological principle. Faster than light speed travel would violate all principles of our universe, it couldn’t exist in it’s present form.
Both relativity and quantum physics came about because we found stuff that violated stuff we thought were principles of our universe.
Even our current theory seems to permit workarounds like wormholes or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive.
Should HN just truncate query strings?
Trump will of course be reelected in 2020. In 2024 he'll be succeeded by Martha Stewart.
Paris Hilton for 2032.
"The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction"
We should exactly expect a craft to be "jumping around erratically" if it has an anti-gravity drive, yet is also trying to stay over "fixed position" relative to another object that is rapidly spinning (the Earth).
And boiling or frothy water is, again, exactly what water should look like if it is being effect by anti-gravity:
"The disturbance looked like frothy waves and foam, as if the water were boiling."
If you could wave a magic wand and make all gravity on Earth stop, the ocean would rapidly disappear into space, and as it did so it would look as if it was boiling.
And if you had one, why would you travel all the way to earth and not say hello? Your power would be so immense you could wipe out life on this planet if you chose. You have zero reason to hide.
Who knows?
It's likely that there is no way to calibrate it correctly. If you don't have the benefit of gravity to hold you at a specific point of space/time, then where would you get the coordinates that would allow you to remain in a specific spot, especially when that spot is moving rapidly, relative to a previous spot in space/time?
These are Experts here.
Show some respect.
It could also be:
1. Device starts. 2. Map data not yet available. 3. Oops. Erratic movements. 4. Map data now available, device stable.
Kinda sequence of steps.
Yeah, why not, those arrogant pricks.
If I was a member of an advanced civilization, I'd definitely want to hang out with weird bags of water, who's only claim to fame is designing, constructing, and testing, ways to destroy most life on the planet.
Yeah, great times, for them, I'm sure.
In such cases, rather than dedicating two front-page slots to it, we leave the main piece up and link to the auxiliary one in the comments.