Aruging with a friend about UFO's

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2008-01-24 07:20pm

Gullible Jones wrote:OmegaGuy: consider for a moment that a) stars are fucking far apart, b) galaxies are really fucking far apart, and c) as far as we can tell, we're the only civilization in our galaxy that's discovered radio, if there's even any other civilization - or macroscopic life - out there.

About radio, there was a bit about it on the discovery channel or something, but apparently radio waves dissipate into noise after a light-year or so. So listening for radio messages from outer space is pretty uselesss.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-01-25 12:18am

We could always refer lazerus' friend to the expertise of this gentleman:

Axiomatic · Post by **Axiomatic** » 2008-01-26 03:12am

What I've never been able to figure out is why aliens bother traveling for hundreds of lightyears just to screw with the minds of random lonesome bystanders. Do they really have nothing better to do with their galactic wisdom than to hang around for a few minutes, waiting to be noticed, then giggle at the UFO report?

Must be some sort of post-scarcity civilization if they can waste resources like that just to fuck with us.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2008-01-26 08:00am

Axiomatic wrote:What I've never been able to figure out is why aliens bother traveling for hundreds of lightyears just to screw with the minds of random lonesome bystanders. Do they really have nothing better to do with their galactic wisdom than to hang around for a few minutes, waiting to be noticed, then giggle at the UFO report?

Must be some sort of post-scarcity civilization if they can waste resources like that just to fuck with us.

Wasn't there something like that in HGTTG?

Twoyboy · Post by **Twoyboy** » 2008-01-26 08:30am

OmegaGuy wrote:
Axiomatic wrote:What I've never been able to figure out is why aliens bother traveling for hundreds of lightyears just to screw with the minds of random lonesome bystanders. Do they really have nothing better to do with their galactic wisdom than to hang around for a few minutes, waiting to be noticed, then giggle at the UFO report?

Must be some sort of post-scarcity civilization if they can waste resources like that just to fuck with us.
Wasn't there something like that in HGTTG?

Hehe, yep. I think they were called "buzzers" or something like that. Ford Prefect talks about them, saying they dress in shiny clothing, glue antennae on their head and swoop down on some isolated part of a planet which hasn't made extra-terrestrial contact in front of some hick farmer making "beep beep" noises. He goes on to say it's "quite childish really".

Axiomatic · Post by **Axiomatic** » 2008-01-26 09:41am

Twoyboy wrote:
OmegaGuy wrote:
Axiomatic wrote:What I've never been able to figure out is why aliens bother traveling for hundreds of lightyears just to screw with the minds of random lonesome bystanders. Do they really have nothing better to do with their galactic wisdom than to hang around for a few minutes, waiting to be noticed, then giggle at the UFO report?

Must be some sort of post-scarcity civilization if they can waste resources like that just to fuck with us.
Wasn't there something like that in HGTTG?
Hehe, yep. I think they were called "buzzers" or something like that. Ford Prefect talks about them, saying they dress in shiny clothing, glue antennae on their head and swoop down on some isolated part of a planet which hasn't made extra-terrestrial contact in front of some hick farmer making "beep beep" noises. He goes on to say it's "quite childish really".

Huh. I forgot about those. All I could remember was that immortal dude who went around insulting people alphabetically.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2008-01-26 04:11pm

There could be millions of inhabited planets elsewhere in the universe, but that wouldn't justify stories of naked grey bipeds coming to Kansas so they can kidnap and anally probe guys who drive pickup trucks drunk.

Methinks this could be a convenient cover story to explain away *ahem*, consensual entry by a far more mundane and better known fellow sentient being.

darthbob88 · Post by **darthbob88** » 2008-01-26 05:33pm

Justforfun000 wrote:
There could be millions of inhabited planets elsewhere in the universe, but that wouldn't justify stories of naked grey bipeds coming to Kansas so they can kidnap and anally probe guys who drive pickup trucks drunk.
Methinks this could be a convenient cover story to explain away *ahem*, consensual entry by a far more mundane and better known fellow sentient being.

I might be thicker'n most, but you are suggesting that instead of a Roswell Grey probing the victim, it's Robert Gray?

As for the OP, remind your friend that the plural of anecdote is not fact.

darthbob88 · Post by **darthbob88** » 2008-01-26 05:36pm

Ghetto Edit: By that last, I mean that it doesn't matter how many people say "It's an alien spaceship", how many people talk about alien abductions and probing, how many anecdotes you have on your side, what matters is reasonable evidence and hard fact. I would rather have a minute of film than 100 people saying what they saw.

TheKwas · Post by **TheKwas** » 2008-01-26 06:04pm

Shinova wrote:
Gullible Jones wrote:OmegaGuy: consider for a moment that a) stars are fucking far apart, b) galaxies are really fucking far apart, and c) as far as we can tell, we're the only civilization in our galaxy that's discovered radio, if there's even any other civilization - or macroscopic life - out there.
About radio, there was a bit about it on the discovery channel or something, but apparently radio waves dissipate into noise after a light-year or so. So listening for radio messages from outer space is pretty uselesss.

I'm pretty sure that this is bullshit.

Haruko · Post by **Haruko** » 2008-01-27 01:45am

TheKwas wrote:
Shinova wrote:
Gullible Jones wrote:OmegaGuy: consider for a moment that a) stars are fucking far apart, b) galaxies are really fucking far apart, and c) as far as we can tell, we're the only civilization in our galaxy that's discovered radio, if there's even any other civilization - or macroscopic life - out there.
About radio, there was a bit about it on the discovery channel or something, but apparently radio waves dissipate into noise after a light-year or so. So listening for radio messages from outer space is pretty uselesss.
I'm pretty sure that this is bullshit.

I also saw the program that Shinova alludes to. I found it an interesting assertion, so I am also interested in why you're pretty sure it's a load of crock.

Mind you, I'm just a layman, and am asking in humble sincerity.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-01-27 02:16am

Twoyboy wrote:
OmegaGuy wrote:
Axiomatic wrote:What I've never been able to figure out is why aliens bother traveling for hundreds of lightyears just to screw with the minds of random lonesome bystanders. Do they really have nothing better to do with their galactic wisdom than to hang around for a few minutes, waiting to be noticed, then giggle at the UFO report?

Must be some sort of post-scarcity civilization if they can waste resources like that just to fuck with us.
Wasn't there something like that in HGTTG?
Hehe, yep. I think they were called "buzzers" or something like that. Ford Prefect talks about them, saying they dress in shiny clothing, glue antennae on their head and swoop down on some isolated part of a planet which hasn't made extra-terrestrial contact in front of some hick farmer making "beep beep" noises. He goes on to say it's "quite childish really".

Teasers. Bored rich kids with nothing to do.

wjs7744 · Post by **wjs7744** » 2008-01-27 03:32am

Haruko wrote:
TheKwas wrote:I'm pretty sure that this is bullshit.
I also saw the program that Shinova alludes to. I found it an interesting assertion, so I am also interested in why you're pretty sure it's a load of crock.

Mind you, I'm just a layman, and am asking in humble sincerity.

Well, I've never heard anything like this before, but the intensity of radio transmissions drops of by the inverse square law, doesn't it? If so, there will be a distance at which it is indistinguishable from background noise. Not exactly scattering, but it would have a similar effect. Of course, I could be speaking bullshit too, if so I expect someone who knows better will correct me.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-01-27 04:03am

I'd just like to point out that UFO's are not equal to "spaceships from another planet". I had someone ask me once if I believed in UFO's and my answer was "Of Course", at which point the person laughed at me like I was insane. So I said, "You don't believe that people have seen things in the sky that no one was able to identify?" Unfortunately he was a security guard, so the point eluded him.

As far as aliens visiting Earth, why the fuck would they bother with us? Assuming that intelligent civilization is so abundant that it's 1) Within range of our backwards little mud ball, 2) Advanced to the point where it could come to our little mud ball, and 3) Exists at the same time as ours does (which is the biggest and most outlandish assumption IMO), then why the fuck wouldn't we have already made contact, realized we're a bunch of fucking xenophobic savages with nuclear weapons, and proceeded to fuck our shit up? And god fucking help us if they're anything like we are.

The only "science fictiony" explanations that would come close to making any type of sense are extra-dimensional craft/probes, or time traveling craft/probes. Of course since there's about as much evidence of that as there is of George Bush having a conscience, I think we can assume it's military test aircraft, drunken idiots, and various phenomena.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-01-27 11:23pm

Flagg wrote:I'd just like to point out that UFO's are not equal to "spaceships from another planet". I had someone ask me once if I believed in UFO's and my answer was "Of Course", at which point the person laughed at me like I was insane. So I said, "You don't believe that people have seen things in the sky that no one was able to identify?" Unfortunately he was a security guard, so the point eluded him.

That's rather pedantic, don't you think? While that may be the literal meaning of the acronym "UFO", it's also true that virtually everyone equates "UFO" with "alien spaceship". So unless one specifies that one is using the literal meaning of the acronym, you should recognize that your statement will be interpreted using the commonly accepted meaning of the term.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-01-28 01:14am

Darth Wong wrote:
Flagg wrote:I'd just like to point out that UFO's are not equal to "spaceships from another planet". I had someone ask me once if I believed in UFO's and my answer was "Of Course", at which point the person laughed at me like I was insane. So I said, "You don't believe that people have seen things in the sky that no one was able to identify?" Unfortunately he was a security guard, so the point eluded him.
That's rather pedantic, don't you think? While that may be the literal meaning of the acronym "UFO", it's also true that virtually everyone equates "UFO" with "alien spaceship". So unless one specifies that one is using the literal meaning of the acronym, you should recognize that your statement will be interpreted using the commonly accepted meaning of the term.

Yeah, it just annoys me that that has become the commonly accepted meaning of the term because crazy fucktards who believe in little green men were allowed to co-opt it.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2008-01-28 04:28am

IIRC, the only reason we'd know there are alien civilizations elsewhere in the Galaxy (assuming they aren't the sort to build ringworlds or move stars around - or visit our solar system) is through SETI. SETI would only detect a civilization if they were in the neighborhood - say less than 20 lightyears away - and either coincidentally transmitting on a particular band, or really wanted to be found. At the moment, I'm not sure we could detect ourselves from Alpha Centauri. If they were far enough advanced to have incredibly powerful transmitters, they might be detected from farther away, but again, they'd have to want to be found.

It would be rather embarrassing not to detect an alien civilization that wanted to be found, but we can't really do any more than that.