Are you suggesting Elon Tusk might be an alien!?

Ha! He is a bit odd..

Irony much? There isn't even a googol of atoms in the observable universe, much (MUCH!) less a googolplex.

A googol is 10 to the hundredth power, a one followed by 100 zeroes. Written out: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

A googolplex is 10 to the googol power, a one followed by a googol of zeroes. If you could write a zero on every atom in the universe, you'd run out of atoms before you finished writing out a googolplex.

(And a "Googleplex" is Google's campus...)

Let me put it this way: compared to a googolplex, the number of stars in the universe is zero, rounded off.

My point being that googol and googolplex are precise mathematical terms, not just buzzwords meaning "some huge number." I agree with Ben's point. I just couldn't let such a howling error followed by "Math much?" go uncommented.

Relativity-ly speaking

Well said. The military personnel are very credible and understand exactly what they are viewing or seeing. Or cannot make out what is going on.

Oh how about "a lot"?

Also we can only see exoplanets whose orbits cause an occlusion across their star. Any angle off and we don't detect them. So yeah.... Lots of shit out there. Including space snakes.

this is a good balanced discussion

I believe firmly that there are plenty of alien species. Probably thousands or millions of civilizations in this galaxy alone(especially over the lifespan of the galaxy). Alien species that visited this planet? Not likely a single one. Let's say that there are 100,000 space faring races RIGHT NOW. That's 1 civilization/40,000 stars in the Milky Way. We have only about 76 stars within 100 light years(we haven't been broadcasting loud enough for long enough to actually reach this distance, but it's a nice round number that represents an overestimation) of us. Even if our broadcasts were not so attenuated in that time/distance to be background noise, the odds are astronomically high that no one is there to hear it. And even if they could hear us, unless our understanding of physics is actually wrong(and not just imprecise to some degree), they won't be here for a while. At relativistic speeds, a rock you could toss around your yard would hit like an atom bomb. Assuming that they managed to survive the trip, that they decided to visit us and had a ship capable of interstellar flight sitting around ready to go, you are looking at decades of time to prepare and start. Once started, they would have to spend time accelerating and once here, slowing back down so as not to smack into something inconvenient, like a planet.
We're looking easily at a century long effort, at best. And they choose to hide and skulk once here?
Even multiplying that number of species into 1 million, you are looking at 1 civ/4,000 stars. Still sucky odds. And that's assuming that these are all races capable of making that trip. If it were species at a level like ours, no real chance at all. And anything outside of 100 light years(400 billion stars - 76, remember) won't even know that there is a species here to visit. They would be making an expensive, dangerous blind trip to an unremarkable star for....some purpose?

Now, if we imagine that they are "transcending the material plane" or some Stargate SG1 magic in order to get around the fundamental physics problem, then we shouldn't pretend that we are talking about science and math anymore.

That's all just the physics of the trip. If we look at the proof that is being discussed here, it's far from conclusive about anything. I've already discussed my UFO story here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/did-you-see-that-ufo#post-3971984
And none of this even touches on human activities. We know that people go out of their way to create hoaxes(hell, my friends and I in high school were building a hoax saucer out of a glow in the dark plastic dome, some tarps and a lot of mylar helium balloons when sanity prevailed and we decided that a farmer's buckshot or a stint in jail for trespassing on a field weren't fun sounding). We know that human perception is easily fooled, and memory is easily altered over time(a good primer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036S4EYQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect). You get a group of people together and let them discuss an ambiguous event, and you will find that their memories tend to conform to each other, even when they were divergent at the outset. Hence the need for unambiguous physical proof.

And that's not counting real world tech that is in use right now. A drone that doesn't have to contend with squishy human bodies can do some impressive things. That's just the declassified stuff. What do the governments of the world have that they aren't talking about and testing?

I've seen plenty of weird things that would qualify as paranormal if I hadn't taken the time to find the actual causes. Full body apparitions in this house(weird reflections off of my new glasses), sliding and falling items(slick surfaces that look flat but aren't, slightly concave glass bottoms that allow dishes to "float" on condensation), audio and visual pareidolia, etc. Heck, most "hauntings" can be explained by infrasound, which is fascinating, but not paranormal. (if you don't know what that is, here is a good start: http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/ghost-in-machine.pdf). We're talking feelings of paranoia, dread, being watched, stuff moving on its own, visual effects like apparitions. Build your own infrasound generator and you can create a haunting at will. Likewise, I suggest that people who think that they live in haunted houses find a way to detect infrasound and look for it when the haunting is active. You may literally be a dirty exhaust fan away from an exorcism.

Anyway, that's my view. An open mind does not mean accepting bad evidence or bad logic. If we prove that aliens visited earth, great. I won't be holding my breath.

I think if he returns fire and again uses the pithy “math much” he simply destroys your well written & down to earth explanation.

I agree the odds are highly unlikely - but not zero
That 1 in billion chance can still mathematically happen

also .. a lot of arguments are assuming occupied ships..
My assumption is unmanned drones .. in the same realm of the space probes we use
These things, if alien, could be probes with highly advanced artificial intelligence launched eons ago

Great thread! I've always been a huge skeptic, but I love this topic. Especially now that we know the Gov't admits there are things in our restricted airspace that is far beyond our military's control. The implications of this phenomenon, are terrifying to say the least. We are not the most powerful force on the planet or even our own airspace, and apparently we never were. I think the only safe assumption is that since these UFOs possess such amazing tech, they couldn't possibly belong to either of our (US) enemies, Russia or China. We clearly would have been trounced by either one of them at this point if they had access to that level of tech.

Since none of us peons will ever really know what it is that the most secretive parts of our government has created or discovered, I suspect these UFOs are most likely a black ops program. But If that's true, and it is one of ours, then of course that raises several other question. How did they develop such other worldly tech? What else are they capable of and why hide it from the masses? Why not let the world benefit from what would be a new dawn in human civilization? We'd be a type 1 civilization, overnight.

With that being said, I wouldn't be shocked if it's something of this Earth, that has always been here, but is not man made. To think that we could have been sharing this planet all along with a far superior civilization would be mind blowing. I don't expect any more bombshells, but I am looking forward to the report next month. I just hope they give us some real "red meat" details in their briefing.

All you guys throwing your math probabilities around, can throw that shit out the window. Obviously, these things that are being observed, defy our understanding of physics, so it's kind of a weak argument to use our knowledge on physics to explain them away or talk about how impossible they are mathematically. Our limitations as a civilization might not be universal.
Hubris is a dangerous thing, especially when dealing with the unknown.

There's a spider in my shower right now. I see it every time I go to the bathroom. I have a few choices...

1. Leave it be
2. Kill it
3. Carry it to the outdoors

My intention is always 3, but the shower is located in the basement and as soon as I'm done relieving myself I forget about my thought experiment and go about the rest of my day, failing to bring a suitable vessel back to rescue the spider.

Then I started to realize that perhaps 3 might even be inconveniencing the spider. There are no predators in its current location (other than me), and it seemingly has a source of food (the drain?) since it's sustained itself for at least a month.

I don't regularly use that shower. If my wife would happen to need it and I forget to carry out 3 by then... unfortunately for the spider, option 2 is suddenly in play.

Point being I imagine intelligent life capable of traveling the universe may treat us in much the same way. We're probably not really worth their time. If we become worth their time, it's likely because they need our resources. That might be a problem for us..

This is highly irrational, to say the least.

It's not obvious at all. That's kinda the point, no? I'll stick with physics and math until there is some actual empirical evidence to the contrary(and, no, shaky cam video and anecdotes do not empirical evidence make).

Indeed, it is. Do I need to point out yours?

To be clear, I wasn't trying to be antagonistic towards Ben. I'm simply pointing out that "lots of life in the universe" != "ET visits earth."

That only ameliorates some of the problems. Even assuming that only non-biological life is interstellar(a valid assumption, IMO), it doesn't change anything else in the equation, except maybe the amount of time to accelerate on both ends of the trip.

The discussions for and against the existence of aliens visiting earth are all compelling. Being into astronomy I tend to believe in the math/science end of the discussions. The distances to travel just from Proxima Centauri lends credence to the fact that it is nearly impossible to travel to earth in a relatively short time.
But I can’t get past the advances humans have made in just 80 years. We know nothing compared to what we will know in the next 200 years and that time frame is just a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.
So firmly believing that with the amount of stars in just our galaxy and the amount of planets circling those stars, intelligent life must have developed elsewhere. How far advanced those civilizations are is certainly an unknown.
Inter dimensional travel is also a topic that science has delved into and that too cannot be ruled out to explain some of the phenomena that the world has seen for hundreds of years.
And there is always the religious aspect that God created earth and maybe we are totally unique in intelligent life.
While I believe in the science end, I have always hoped that I’m wrong and there is something outwardly happening.

Well, for one you're much more eloquent than I could ever hope to be...I'm impatient, even in posting. I liked your post, it was well written. I forgot one of the biggest problems of space travel after speeding up is how to slow down once you get to one's desired destination. I think finally most of the posters here are in agreement, life may exists in multiple places in the galaxy, intelligent life less, intelligent life with near light speed travel capabilities even less so.

I wonder if the Government will utilize Accoustic Trap Diplays for the big reveal. ?

https://wonderfulengineering.com/new-multimodal-acoustic-trap-displays-3d-images-that-are-responsive-to-touch/

Everyone will want to shake hands with our distant friends...

Thanks you. I spent decades debating such things with a decidedly non-skeptical parent, so I've had to think about and research these things for years.

Ok so let's accept aliens exist and move to the next stage of discussion (which should have happened decades ago IMO).

Dr Greer contends that most UFOs are human in origin, as part of military psi-ops to build an 'aliens are a threat' case to justify spending in preparation for inter-galactic war (which fits with recent coverage). I mean, as if we'd win such a war anyway... He argues that aliens are NOT a threat and we need to engage them peacefully. I don't know about the former, given Darwinism, but the latter seems a smart strategy, a bit like singing hymns to praise God so he doesn't smite you.

2013 mock congressional hearing (run by 6 ex-Senators & Dr Greer): ''Citizen Hearing on [UFO] Disclosure". The entire thing can be watched here (I bought a DVD boxset years ago that I'm sure is still available; there are also 'death bed' testimonies being released regularly as Roswell and other witnesses die off):

https://www.youtube.com/CitizenHearing

Website: https://www.citizenhearing.org

With recent (partial) Disclosure, shit just got real. If it is, I'd like the alien energy tech to be released before we suffocate to death. There is a clear environmental imperative currently.

https://siriusdisclosure.com/energy

There will be hell to pay if the US and other governments have indeed suppressed this (and other) tech, not necessarily alien in origin of course. I don't really care about the UFO malarkey, what I really want to see is the release of suppressed tech, of which there is likely a lot, some of which might turn out to be useful. Greer sent a dossier on the 'alien energy' issue to Obama after his inauguration. Nothing happened sadly.

People. My 2 cents again, but humble yourselves. We're not as bright as you think. You can't fathom where our knowledge will be in 500 years or how little we know now compared to what we'll know then. Again, we can't even reconcile Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. We don't even understand gravity (we can predict gravitational force of objects, but we don't really understand how gravity itself works). Recent study of muons says "WOW", there is something weird going on and this could lead to the biggest breakthroughs in physics ever. I have little doubt we'll discover a feasible method of faster-than-light travel (some bending of space/time using an energy source we're yet to discover) some time in the future and traveling to other stars will become possible. In fact, go look up the proposed "The Alcubierre drive" (it's fascinating idea in itself). Yes, we'll need to solve the power problem but the fact that we're already proposing solutions tells me we could very possibly solve this within 500 years or less.
Now, you're wrong on how many stars we've found to date (in reference to "ThatOneDude"'s comment). We now know of 63 stars within just 5 parsecs of Earth (just 16.3 light years). There are FAR more within 100 light years. Keep in mind, V = 4/3(pie)r(cubed.) The further away from Earth the Volume of space for stars/planets to exist goes up exponentially. We've only discovered most of these in the last couple decades. Worse, scientists absolutely believe there are many more within this distance yet to be discovered, each possibly hosting numerous planets. As Ben Heck noted above, we've barely begun to discover the true number of planets orbiting these stars as currently our methods are only sensitive enough to detect the largest planets and even then they have to traverse within the plane of visibility to us passing in front of the sun they orbit. We have no clue if the average number of planets around a star is 8 (like us) or 20. WORSE YET ... How many moons orbit those planets that are just as likely as being capable of (or increasingly likely in some cases) hosting life? We have not yet confirmed a single exomoon(!!) although Kepler has identified a couple of possible candidates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exomoon) Jupiter and Saturn alone have a combined 161 known moons!! We can't even figure out if there is life on Europa and/or Enceladus here in our own solar system but we suspect there may well be!
NOW, consider this ... any advanced civilization won't just have mastered faster-than-light travel (which BTW, if the ship is bending space itself in front it, won't have to worry about the inertia of any asteroid as it will bend space around them), they would have some equally major advances in healthcare and extending life and could likely live hundreds of years (heck, we have life forms here on Earth that can live hundreds of years on their own right now without science). So, if they could make a trip to Earth at 10-20 times the speed light ... hmm, maybe that's not such a bad trip for them if they're within 100-150 light years? Now, we don't really know how many stars there may actually be within 100-150 light-years but I'll go with Ben Heck's estimation ... "a lot".
For the curious ... Red Dwarf stars in particular are incredibly hard to detect and we believe they account for 3/4 of all the stars in our galaxy. There could easily be dozens more of these within 5 parsecs of Earth.
https://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/stars/startypes.shtml
#TheyreHere

Become a member, guys:

https://www.mufon.com

I love this statement- am I alone in thinking they should add 'planet of origin'?

"MUFON does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry). disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations; We believe in a totally inclusive environment."

My only point was that these things are admittedly unknown. Expert observers have said as much. Acting like you're the smartest guy in the room isnt impressing anyone. I've also been extremely skeptical for years, but I'm not going to tell fighter pilots they dont know what they're looking at because I broke out my calculator and and it didnt add up.

So yes, it is obvious that there are objects flying around that defy OUR understanding of how they work. I'll take eye witness accounts from veteran, expert, military pilots over your self appointed declaration of expertise because you've "researched " them for years.

Our collective intelligence TODAY is nothing compared to what it will be in 100 much less 500 years, and our collective intelligence in 500 years will be nothing compared to what it will be in 1000 years. Is that more clear? I have strong confidence we'll continue to evolve, continue to increase our collective knowledge, continue innovating, and spread throughout the galaxy (if we don't blow ourselves up first.)
Others have found us before we found them.

Anything is possible. The only reason I dont think it's a hoax is because these kinds of reports have been going on for decades.

Plus there's been no reports of hostility or use of force that I'm aware of. Maybe that'll be phase 2? A staged attack with plenty of witnesses. Maybe theyll actually breakout the good cameras for that show?

If we can generate matter with negative mass, a lot of things suddenly become possible, including time travel and stable wormholes. Warp drives would be trivial. But, and this is the important bit, it's not likely that we can actually construct such things. Just because something can be modeled mathematically does not mean it can be engineered, or even actually exist. The day that that happens, I'll revise my thinking(again, not holding my breath).

I stand corrected. I was looking at one type of star. So, let's revise the scenario. I'll go with these guys: http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm
34 Giants
4 type B
76 type A
303 type F
512 type G
~1000 type K
~2000 type M
= 3929 or ~4,000 stars within a 100 ly range of earth.
That makes the odds of a species being in range 1/1000.
Not great odds. And that is making ludicrous assumptions about the strength of our broadcasts, the attenuation of the signal and intervening noise. So, it's wildly unrealistic in the first place.
And it changes nothing about anything else I mentioned.

Do you not see the assumptions you are making here? If FTL travel is impossible, it doesn't matter how advanced the race is. If it is, then we're completely wrong about physics. Again, talk to me when someone demonstrates this beyond a mathematical model, and I'll happily reconsider my position.

Well, I am not claiming to be the smartest guy in the room, but I'm also not going to assume that any human being is incapable of making a fundamental error in observation, or that they can not be deliberately misled.

Before the egos blow up, no one is going to change anyone's mind here, pro or con. Honch, I don't agree with you, but I also don't want to create bad blood for a random post on a pinball forum, of all things. I'll drain the topic, grab a beer and call it a day.

No worries. Definitely no bad blood in my view even if you think my POV is ridiculous. It's just a little debate. I'm not hellbent on changing anybody's mind. I'm just open to the possibility that these things are a real life "alien" like technology.
Whether they're man made or not remains to be seen.

Perhaps these are machines that have the ability to cross over from an alternate reality? I believe the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese etc. all had the tech to start an Industrial Revolution. They just didn’t do it. Figure that’s a 2 to 3 thousand year head start on our reality if they did....

Interesting topic. Who actually believes what the gov’t says? You don’t think that they’d be hiding information from us? Imagine...they announced that they found a few ‘aliens’ from wrecks. People would lose their minds. All sorts of questions would be poring out..that messes w religions now. Nothing but fear..yes, I believe that we’re not the only ones out here/there..

I just noticed your post now..so forgive me
for the late reply....the search for radio waves is not laughable. There is good science behind it..go figure

Electromagnetic radiation is the general term for the more familiar light and radio waves, but also includes gamma rays, x rays, ultraviolet rays, and infrared. All of these forms of electromagnetic rays or waves travel at the speed of light, the fastest possible speed.
Over great distances that gas and dust absorb many types of radiation but radio waves pass through nearly unimpeded. The result is a quiet “Microwave Window” through which efficient radio communication is possible. Also Signals produced by technology for communication can be much narrower than any known astrophysical source.
https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/seti-observations

I didn't mean that the search for artificial signals was laughable. I agree that any advanced civilization would most likely be emitting some form of electromagnetic radiation. At our current level of technological and scientific knowledge, we believe searching for radio signals to be our best chance for discovery. However, since we can't be certain what technology they may be using, we may not be able to differentiate their emissions from natural sources. What I found laughable was the argument that since SETI (who focuses their attention on a relatively small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum) hasn't detected anything, they must not exist.

Really? Prove something mathematically and it's possible, period. Just because we haven't figured out how to engineer it currently does not mean we won't eventually. Again, I'm thinking about what's possible in 100-500 years from now. Extraterrestrial life could be thousands of years ahead of us also meaning we can't possibly comprehend their logic for how they would interact with us at this point.

Yes, I have an open mind that FTL is absolutely possible. You're making the assumption it's not because a guy named Einstein said so a century ago (and therefore, alien intelligence can't be visiting). However, as I noted, we have physicists already proposing a method for FTL (the Alcubierre drive) without violating Einstein's field theory so yes, I'm keeping an open mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

And, our current understanding of physics is VERY much incomplete and full of massive holes. We know there is a LOT we don't know. Give us a 'problem' and we solve it. That's what we do.
#TheyreHere

In my mind;
The shower is the entire earth, these “things” are currently the spider.

My Hypothesis: We're worth their time. First, if they've managed to evolve intellectually beyond our current state they likely do put value on intelligent life (even one so far behind their own intellect) and would not want to see us destroy such a valuable commodity (a rocky planet capable of sustaining life). So I propose they would have a need or a desire for a symbiotic relationship with us. First, they need us to maintain this planet as habitable so they can visit when need be. Second, I'm willing to bet Earth wouldn't be just an endpoint for them. It's likely just a rest stop to them traveling to even further solar systems. Perhaps they may need facilities here to work on their "ships". Repairs or otherwise. They likely wouldn't be able to transport mass quantities of certain materials and machinery needed and if they could just tell us "we need a sheet of titanium cut into these dimensions of this thickness" or "create us a facility of this size with these specifications" (lame examples, I know) and we could in turn provide that for some know-how and technological advances from them.

I want access to their systems, especially their knowledge base.

Look, Metron and his mobius chair...

69F10CA9-1195-46E9-91C8-F8C138A10503 (resized).jpeg

or they are preprogramed artificial intelligent drones / space probes sent out billions of years ago programed to find planets with any life on them, hang around for years, and report back - life forms that sent them could be to far away to reach us if they even still exist.

That remains a possibility! But my belief (obviously) has shifted enormously now that the U.S government has made a 180 on their approach to UFO's. My thinking tells me there is very much a reason they're using a new term (UAP). They do not want the historical stigma attached to UFO's to persist. Given our advances in camera phone photos and video capabilities combined with increasing zoom lense capabilities ... COMBINED with 5G technology coming online and the ability to send large amounts of data around the planet instantaneously .. they must see a need to slowly let the revelation come to light (versus us waking up one morning to incredible closeup video of alien technology). Intelligent extraterrestial "machines" (at a minimum, but I'm betting actual life) are visiting. I believe wholeheartedly we're in a process and the government absolutely has high-resolution video and photos themselves. These machines seem to have a keen interest in our most advanced technology (ie. military) and spend most of their time observing such (versus flying over subdivisions or large cities).

BTW, don't forget ... when asked on live TV if the U.S was in possession of alien technology Lou Elizondo (the former Director of the AATIP) responded "the U.S is in possession of exotic material, and I'll leave it at that".

Believers love to drag this statement out, because it sounds intelligent, but it's just fluff. It's basically just saying given a sufficiently large space of opportunity it's impossible that anything is a unique occurrence.

Fallacy. "One time, therefore many times" is not a tautology.

The previous statement has an illusion of science, but it's just faith.

Go ahead, I'm open for you to prove it with your math. This should be fun.

True believers also love to drag out being open-minded, or don't be narrow-minded. As though it's not alright to be skeptical given a lack of any convincing evidence. Even when there's evidence, it can be inconclusive. It can even be outright wrong.

Ever heard of canals on Mars? There was real evidence, and similar statements to the above were made.

They are definitely here. Most of space is very very boring. Rocky planets. Gas Giants. Stars. Incomprehensible distance. Whatever.

Inhabited planets are where the action and interest is for an advanced civilization. Inhabited planets are an oasis of Jackass in a vast desert of C-Span. Especially ours right now!

"But we're just ants to them!" blah blah blah. Once you've mastered everything in the Universe - physics holds no more secrets, interstellar space travel is open to you, mortality is a thing of the past, your physical body is no longer needed, the ultimate question whose answer is 42 has been found, what else is there? Travel to look at what the universe has to offer. Watching stupid people do unpredictable things! Reality media at it's finest - watching the real thing!

They are probably out there nudging our ant hill here and there just to see what happens. We still do, why wouldn't they?

Fun info from the 1990's.

"The movement of the UFO was not accompanied by sound of any kind and was distinguished by its' startling maneuverability. It seemed the UFO was devoid of inertia". SOUND FAMILIAR? This was the 90's ... Do you think they were witnessing advanced U.S technology?? I don't think so.

https://unknownboundaries.com/russian-general-fully-disclosed-ufos-not-of-this-world-piloted-by-intelligent-beings/?fbclid=IwAR3rPAAeROjpwqroQPXgZC4U1grSl3ts3_wc_bOPktmHvZ-TFVpUoUJGm5I

I'm thinking you're precisely the type of person who is going to go into shock and die of a heart attack when you witness alien life firsthand, lol. Sure, hundreds of credible (highly intelligent military personnel in the know) sources around the world all reporting seeing the same 'machines' or objects behaving in the same way, and it's because they all just want us in fear. Our government is now lying to us about inexplicable machines because it would just be too hard to say China has advanced weapons we don't have a response for. No, It's much better to just tell people there are advanced machiens at least 100 to 1000 years ahead of us visiting.

Who are the naive ones here?

Cuomo had a guy on a few days ago who had explanations and video to disprove most of the Air Force sightings. Very interesting but I can't find a link to it.

This is where you lost me.