BORDERIX
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE
    Why are moths attracted to light?

    Why are moths attracted to light?

    Robotics researchers have a duty to prevent autonomous weapons

    Robotics researchers have a duty to prevent autonomous weapons

    Access to water features can boost city dwellers’ mental health

    Access to water features can boost city dwellers’ mental health

    Inequity takes a toll on your gut microbes, too

    Inequity takes a toll on your gut microbes, too

    A quantum computing future is unlikely, due to random hardware errors

    A quantum computing future is unlikely, due to random hardware errors

    Why it seems like your friends have more to be thankful for

    Why it seems like your friends have more to be thankful for

    Trending Tags

    • SPACE
      • All
      • Antartica
      • Blog
      • Earth
      • Exopolitics
      • Mars
      • Moon
      Avebury, UK and the Cydonia Mars Complex Connection

      Avebury, UK and the Cydonia Mars Complex Connection

      The Face on Antartica

      The Face on Antartica

      The UFO Spotter Navy pilots used Raytheon tech to track a strange UFO

      The UFO Spotter Navy pilots used Raytheon tech to track a strange UFO

      The Nimitz Encounters

      The Nimitz Encounters

      Australia’s part in 50 years of space exploration with NASA

      Australia’s part in 50 years of space exploration with NASA

      Why won’t scientific evidence change the minds of Loch Ness monster true believers?

      Why won’t scientific evidence change the minds of Loch Ness monster true believers?

      Trending Tags

      • HEALTH
        Limited eating times could be a new way to fight obesity and diabetes

        Limited eating times could be a new way to fight obesity and diabetes

        What’s in a title? When it comes to ‘Doctor,’ more than you might think

        What’s in a title? When it comes to ‘Doctor,’ more than you might think

        The true cost of growing old in America

        The true cost of growing old in America

        The company that makes OxyContin could become a ‘public trust’ – what would that mean?

        The company that makes OxyContin could become a ‘public trust’ – what would that mean?

        Why your generic drugs may not be safe and the FDA may be too lax

        Why your generic drugs may not be safe and the FDA may be too lax

        The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale

        The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale, an effort to learn from millions of health records

        Trending Tags

        • POLITICS
          An ‘ungovernable country’ with a power vacuum

          An ‘ungovernable country’ with a power vacuum

          India’s plan to identify ‘illegal immigrants’ could get some Muslims declared ‘foreign’

          India’s plan to identify ‘illegal immigrants’ could get some Muslims declared ‘foreign’

          ‘Stop-and-frisk’ can work, under careful supervision

          ‘Stop-and-frisk’ can work, under careful supervision

          Why Americans are staying put, instead of moving to a new city or state

          Why Americans are staying put, instead of moving to a new city or state

          Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon

          Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon

          Haitian migrants face deportation and stigma in hurricane-ravaged Bahamas

          Haitian migrants face deportation and stigma in hurricane-ravaged Bahamas

          Trending Tags

          • LATAM EDITION
          No Result
          View All Result
          • HOME
          • SCIENCE
            Why are moths attracted to light?

            Why are moths attracted to light?

            Robotics researchers have a duty to prevent autonomous weapons

            Robotics researchers have a duty to prevent autonomous weapons

            Access to water features can boost city dwellers’ mental health

            Access to water features can boost city dwellers’ mental health

            Inequity takes a toll on your gut microbes, too

            Inequity takes a toll on your gut microbes, too

            A quantum computing future is unlikely, due to random hardware errors

            A quantum computing future is unlikely, due to random hardware errors

            Why it seems like your friends have more to be thankful for

            Why it seems like your friends have more to be thankful for

            Trending Tags

            • SPACE
              • All
              • Antartica
              • Blog
              • Earth
              • Exopolitics
              • Mars
              • Moon
              Avebury, UK and the Cydonia Mars Complex Connection

              Avebury, UK and the Cydonia Mars Complex Connection

              The Face on Antartica

              The Face on Antartica

              The UFO Spotter Navy pilots used Raytheon tech to track a strange UFO

              The UFO Spotter Navy pilots used Raytheon tech to track a strange UFO

              The Nimitz Encounters

              The Nimitz Encounters

              Australia’s part in 50 years of space exploration with NASA

              Australia’s part in 50 years of space exploration with NASA

              Why won’t scientific evidence change the minds of Loch Ness monster true believers?

              Why won’t scientific evidence change the minds of Loch Ness monster true believers?

              Trending Tags

              • HEALTH
                Limited eating times could be a new way to fight obesity and diabetes

                Limited eating times could be a new way to fight obesity and diabetes

                What’s in a title? When it comes to ‘Doctor,’ more than you might think

                What’s in a title? When it comes to ‘Doctor,’ more than you might think

                The true cost of growing old in America

                The true cost of growing old in America

                The company that makes OxyContin could become a ‘public trust’ – what would that mean?

                The company that makes OxyContin could become a ‘public trust’ – what would that mean?

                Why your generic drugs may not be safe and the FDA may be too lax

                Why your generic drugs may not be safe and the FDA may be too lax

                The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale

                The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale, an effort to learn from millions of health records

                Trending Tags

                • POLITICS
                  An ‘ungovernable country’ with a power vacuum

                  An ‘ungovernable country’ with a power vacuum

                  India’s plan to identify ‘illegal immigrants’ could get some Muslims declared ‘foreign’

                  India’s plan to identify ‘illegal immigrants’ could get some Muslims declared ‘foreign’

                  ‘Stop-and-frisk’ can work, under careful supervision

                  ‘Stop-and-frisk’ can work, under careful supervision

                  Why Americans are staying put, instead of moving to a new city or state

                  Why Americans are staying put, instead of moving to a new city or state

                  Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon

                  Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon

                  Haitian migrants face deportation and stigma in hurricane-ravaged Bahamas

                  Haitian migrants face deportation and stigma in hurricane-ravaged Bahamas

                  Trending Tags

                  • LATAM EDITION
                  No Result
                  View All Result
                  BORDERIX
                  No Result
                  View All Result
                  Home SPACE Exopolitics UFO

                  Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study

                  by Borderix
                  March 30, 2019
                  in UFO
                  0
                  Spread the love

                  Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.

                  As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, “You have absolutely no idea what is out there!” The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.

                  Cover of the October 1957 issue of pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. This was a special edition devoted to ‘flying saucers,’ which became a national obsession after airline pilot Kenneth Arnold sighted a saucer-shaped flying objects in 1947.

                  I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.

                  With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there’s plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.

                  The Fermi paradox

                  The nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi was famous for posing thought provoking questions. In 1950, at Los Alamos National Laboratory after discussing UFOs over lunch, Fermi asked, “Where is everybody?” He estimated there were about 300 billion stars in the galaxy, many of them billions of years older than the sun, with a large percentage of them likely to host habitable planets. Even if intelligent life developed on a very small percentage of these planets, then there should be a number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Depending on the assumptions, one should expect anywhere from tens to tens of thousands of civilizations.

                  With the rocket-based technologies that we have developed for space travel, it would take between 5 and 50 million years for a civilization like ours to colonize our Milky Way galaxy. Since this should have happened several times already in the history of our galaxy, one should wonder where is the evidence of these civilizations? This discrepancy between the expectation that there should be evidence of alien civilizations or visitations and the presumption that no visitations have been observed has been dubbed the Fermi Paradox.

                  This photograph was taken in Wallonia, Belgium.
                  J.S. Henrardi

                  Carl Sagan correctly summarized the situation by saying that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The problem is that there has been no single well-documented UFO encounter that would alone qualify as the smoking gun. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that many governments around the world have covered up and classified information about such encounters. But there are enough scraps of evidence that suggest that the problem needs to be open to scientific study.

                  UFOs, taboo for professional scientists

                  When it comes to science, the scientific method requires hypotheses to be testable so that inferences can be verified. UFO encounters are neither controllable nor repeatable, which makes their study extremely challenging. But the real problem, in my view, is that the UFO topic is taboo.

                  While the general public has been fascinated with UFOs for decades, our governments, scientists and media, have essentially declared that of all the UFO sightings are a result of weather phenomenon or human actions. None are actually extraterrestrial spacecraft. And no aliens have visited Earth. Essentially, we are told that the topic is nonsense. UFOs are off-limits to serious scientific study and rational discussion, which unfortunately leaves the topic in the domain of fringe and pseudoscientists, many of whom litter the field with conspiracy theories and wild speculation.

                  I think UFO skepticism has become something of a religion with an agenda, discounting the possibility of extraterrestrials without scientific evidence, while often providing silly hypotheses describing only one or two aspects of a UFO encounter reinforcing the popular belief that there is a conspiracy. A scientist must consider all of the possible hypotheses that explain all of the data, and since little is known, the extraterrestrial hypothesis cannot yet be ruled out. In the end, the skeptics often do science a disservice by providing a poor example of how science is to be conducted. The fact is that many of these encounters – still a very small percentage of the total – defy conventional explanation.

                  The media amplifies the skepticism by publishing information about UFOs when it is exciting, but always with a mocking or whimsical tone and reassuring the public that it can’t possibly be true. But there are credible witnesses and encounters.

                  Why don’t astronomers see UFOs?

                  I am often asked by friends and colleagues, “Why don’t astronomers see UFOs?” The fact is that they do. In 1977, Peter Sturrock, a professor of space science and astrophysics at Stanford University, mailed 2,611 questionnaires about UFO sightings to members of the American Astronomical Society. He received 1,356 responses from which 62 astronomers – 4.6 percent – reported witnessing or recording inexplicable aerial phenomena. This rate is similar to the approximately 5 percent of UFO sightings that are never explained.

                  As expected, Sturrock found that astronomers who witnessed UFOs were more likely to be night sky observers. Over 80 percent of Sturrock’s respondents were willing to study the UFO phenomenon if there was a way to do so. More than half of them felt that the topic deserves to be studied versus 20 percent who felt that it should not. The survey also revealed that younger scientists were more likely to support the study of UFOs.

                  UFOs have been observed through telescopes. I know of one telescope sighting by an experienced amateur astronomer in which he observed an object shaped like a guitar pick moving through the telescope’s field of view. Further sightings are documented in the book “Wonders in the Sky,” in which the authors compile numerous observations of unexplained aerial phenomena made by astronomers and published in scientific journals throughout the 1700s and 1800s.

                  Evidence from government and military officers

                  Some of the most convincing observations have come from government officials. In 1997, the Chilean government formed the organization Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos, or CEFAA, to study UFOs. Last year, CEFAA released footage of a UFO taken with a helicopter-mounted Wescam infrared camera.

                  Declassified document describing a sighting of a UFO in December 1977, in Bahia, a state in northern Brazil.
                  Arquivo Nacional Collection

                  The countries of Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom have been declassifying their UFO files since 2008. The French Committee for In-Depth Studies, or COMETA, was an unofficial UFO study group comprised of high-ranking scientists and military officials that studied UFOs in the late 1990s. They released the COMETA Report, which summarized their findings. They concluded that 5 percent of the encounters were reliable yet inexplicable: The best hypothesis available was that the observed craft were extraterrestrial. They also accused the United States of covering up evidence of UFOs. Iran has been concerned about spherical UFOs observed near nuclear power facilities that they call “CIA drones” which reportedly are about 30 feet in diameter, can achieve speeds up to Mach 10, and can leave the atmosphere. Such speeds are on par with the fastest experimental aircraft, but unthinkable for a sphere without lift surfaces or an obvious propulsion mechanism.

                  1948 Top Secret USAF UFO extraterrestrial document.
                  United States Air Force

                  In December 2017, The New York Times broke a story about the classified Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, which was a $22 million program run by the former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and aimed at studying UFOs. Elizondo resigned from running the program protesting extreme secrecy and the lack of funding and support. Following his resignation Elizondo, along with several others from the defense and intelligence community, were recruited by the To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, which was recently founded by Tom DeLonge to study UFOs and interstellar travel. In conjunction with the launch of the academy, the Pentagon declassified and released three videos of UFO encounters taken with forward looking infrared cameras mounted on F-18 fighter jets. While there is much excitement about such disclosures, I am reminded of a quote from Retired Army Colonel John Alexander: “Disclosure has happened. … I’ve got stacks of generals, including Soviet generals, who’ve come out and said UFOs are real. My point is, how many times do senior officials need to come forward and say that this is real?”

                  A topic worthy of serious study

                  There is a great deal of evidence that a small percentage of these UFO sightings are unidentified structured craft exhibiting flight capabilities beyond any known human technology. While there is no single case for which there exists evidence that would stand up to scientific rigor, there are cases with simultaneous observations by multiple reliable witnesses, along with radar returns and photographic evidence revealing patterns of activity that are compelling.

                  Declassified information from covert studies is interesting, but not scientifically helpful. This is a topic worthy of open scientific inquiry, until there is a scientific consensus based on evidence rather than prior expectation or belief. If there are indeed extraterrestrial craft visiting Earth, it would greatly benefit us to know about them, their nature and their intent. Moreover, this would present a great opportunity for mankind, promising to expand and advance our knowledge and technology, as well as reshaping our understanding of our place in the universe.

                  Kevin Knuth

                  Borderix

                  Borderix

                  Next Post
                  Crop circles blur science, paranormal in X-Files culture

                  Crop circles blur science, paranormal in X-Files culture

                  Leave a Reply

                  • Facebook Comments
                  • Contact
                  • About Us
                  • Fair Use

                  © 2019 Borderix Publishers

                  No Result
                  View All Result

                  © 2019 Borderix Publishers

                  Chinese (Simplified)DutchEnglishFrenchGermanItalianPortugueseRussianSpanish