How are they a threat if they don't pose any harm apart from being very weird and get people a little spooked? Maybe they're just doing reconnaissance and surveying the Earth so maybe they can occupy it once we're gone?
I think UFOs as aliens from outer space are a Columbus situation: if they really exist and are here then the differential between their capabilities and ours is so great that we cannot do anything against them.
That analogy of Columbus and the old world conquering due to technological superiority isn't the reason that they were able to colonize and subdue the new world. Diseases and plagues were the reason. 90% of the native peoples where wiped out by the diseases and plagues that were inadvertently carried here. It was not a case of deliberate biological warfare but an accident that allowed for such complete colonization.
Had the new world contain diseases and plagues for which old worlders had not developed resistance to or ways of dealing with then there might have been a completely different outcome. As plagues would have traveled back across the Atlantic resulting in Black plague levels of death.
"1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" documents the many superior technologies that "New World" civilizations had over the European invaders:
* Cotton clothing - superior to Wool and Flax clothing that was hot, scratchy
* Clean cities - European streets had sewage flowing in the gutters. They were shocked at well developed urban centers with no public sewage issues
* Canoes - Lighter, faster, and more agile than European wooden boats
* Advanced Agriculture - They invented tomatoes, corn, potatoes and many more varieties that quickly became staple food in Europe (Polenta, Pizza, etc in Italy) and Africa (sweet potatoes)
Populations have been chronically under estimated. Various civilizations (Inca, Maya, etc) probably millions of people each, which then had a 95% die off rate when exposed for the first time to European diseases. These spread virally across civilizations to areas where no Europeans had yet visited.
Book was written in 2006, so I don't know what the current state of our understanding of the Americas history is.
Perhaps the leaks are a peace-keeping tactic and this is just part of the bluff. Starting a rumor that someone has startlingly advanced military technology might keep everyone from igniting too large a conflict.
6 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 27.7 ms ] threadHad the new world contain diseases and plagues for which old worlders had not developed resistance to or ways of dealing with then there might have been a completely different outcome. As plagues would have traveled back across the Atlantic resulting in Black plague levels of death.
You get the point, though. And we don't know what they could do regarding diseases or other nasty stuff...
* Cotton clothing - superior to Wool and Flax clothing that was hot, scratchy
* Clean cities - European streets had sewage flowing in the gutters. They were shocked at well developed urban centers with no public sewage issues
* Canoes - Lighter, faster, and more agile than European wooden boats
* Advanced Agriculture - They invented tomatoes, corn, potatoes and many more varieties that quickly became staple food in Europe (Polenta, Pizza, etc in Italy) and Africa (sweet potatoes)
Populations have been chronically under estimated. Various civilizations (Inca, Maya, etc) probably millions of people each, which then had a 95% die off rate when exposed for the first time to European diseases. These spread virally across civilizations to areas where no Europeans had yet visited.
Book was written in 2006, so I don't know what the current state of our understanding of the Americas history is.