Discussion
TheHeretic said:
Satellites, planets, aircraft, atmospheric conditions making things change colour, or flash, and so on.
Yeah I know. I've spent hundreds of hours watching the skies over the years in both the daytime and night. My Dad was an Amateur Astronomer and I'm pretty interested in Aviation.I've been lucky enough to have seen some pretty cool stuff in the skies. Aurora ( not the plane ), large mass meteors, space debris burning up, countless satellites etc.
But ..... In my life time their has been 3 things I cant explain.
TheHeretic said:
Well, go on... Describe them! 
Ok then .... Difficult but i'll try ...About 1979. Sat in a big easy chair looking out across fields. Getting towards dusk and in the distance their is a huge bank of Cumulus tinged with red and gold. I would estimate they were probably around 24-30 miles away. Out of the top edge of this Cumulus appeared a brilliant white light which was at least as bright as Venus at its brightest. It travelled vertically upwards in a horse shoe shape and then back down into the cloud. All this happened in about 6 or 7 seconds. Long enough for me to be sure it wasn't something happening closer. It must have travelled a fair few thousand feet upwards so must have been moving at a fair few knots.
About 1981. Been to the local shop with my Dad. Walking to the car I looked up and directly above us was a 747. Said to my Dad theirs a Jumbo their and the split second I had finished the sentence a brilliant white ( can you see a pattern developing here )light appeared about a fingers length behind it ( as I was looking from the ground ) out of nowhere. It matched speed for about 2 seconds then slowly travelled towards the aircraft. When it appeared to be under the starboard wing it stopped for about 3 seconds then continued along the same path for a further 2 seconds or so. It then accelerated to god knows what speed and disappeared.
About 1983. Looking out across the City. Bright afternoon in daytime. In the distance I see a brilliant stationary white light. I'm with my Dad. It's that bright that we think its an aircraft heading straight for us with its landing lights on. We wait for a minute or so to see what he's doing with his landing lights on but it doesn't get any closer. Another minute or so passes and nothing happens. It's difficult to judge the distance distance and height. It could be 30 miles away and 40 thousand feet or it could be 10 miles away and much lower. It's certainty no closer than 9 or 10 miles. Were at this point speculating about what it could be. Balloon etc but it's not moving. As this discussion is taking place the light starts to move from right to left. It travels about a foot ( in our view from the ground ) at about the same speed you would see an airliner moving when cruising. It then stopped dead for about 5 seconds and then dropped vertically about the same distance but in about a second. It really shocked us both and then we were very excited. My Dad ran into the house to get his Binos as the light started travelling from right to left again at about airliner speed. Before my Dad could get a bead on it the light just faded away.
So no little green men i'm afraid. Just some strange aerial phenomena I cant explain.
nick heppinstall said:
TheHeretic said:
The first one could have been a flare, or something of that like.
The second could have been another aircraft crossing behind at a different angle? Maybe further away, and higher, something like that?
The 3rd could simply be an aircraft?
Maybe The second could have been another aircraft crossing behind at a different angle? Maybe further away, and higher, something like that?
The 3rd could simply be an aircraft?
TheHeretic said:
Similar characteristics do not mean that we will look the same. Other planets will have a different gravitational pull, different chemical composition, different historical, geological events, and so on, and so forth.
Perhaps this is the only way it can pan out ie humans are the natural end product? Non earth like environments may give rise to nowt.TX.
Edited by Terminator X on Thursday 27th December 17:27
Terminator X said:
Perhaps this is the only way it can pan out ie humans are the natural end product? Non earth like environments may give rise to nowt.
TX.
You realise that Earth-like includes some pretty harsh, and diverse environments? High pressure, toxic, heat, cold, and so on? What suggests to you that Earth is unique, and what makes you think we are end products?TX.
TheHeretic said:
Similar characteristics do not mean that we will look the same. Other planets will have a different gravitational pull, different chemical composition, different historical, geological events, and so on, and so forth.
Imagine an alternative 'goldilocks' planet (of which there will be very many in our own galaxy IMHO). It's variables such as chemical composition, atmosphere depth and composition, planet size (gravity), temperature ranges, etc. etc., would give rise to a dominant species perhaps only vaguely akin to humans. The gravity aspect alone could produce giants or flea sized creatures.
I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' lengthy detailing of a vast fleet of hostile spacecraft sent to Earth to deal out death and destruction, only to be snapped up by a dog in one gulp when they finally arrived.
I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' lengthy detailing of a vast fleet of hostile spacecraft sent to Earth to deal out death and destruction, only to be snapped up by a dog in one gulp when they finally arrived.
Edited by fausTVR on Sunday 30th December 21:40
TheHeretic said:
Terminator X said:
Perhaps this is the only way it can pan out ie humans are the natural end product? Non earth like environments may give rise to nowt.
TX.
You realise that Earth-like includes some pretty harsh, and diverse environments? High pressure, toxic, heat, cold, and so on? What suggests to you that Earth is unique, and what makes you think we are end products? TX.
TheHeretic said:
Similar characteristics do not mean that we will look the same. Other planets will have a different gravitational pull, different chemical composition, different historical, geological events, and so on, and so forth.
this. We just happen to be the organism that is currently best at replicating itself and surviving.It is reasonable to suspect that the rules of natural selection will apply on any other planet with life. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that, as on earth, certain forms will be best able to take advantage of a particular environment. This is why unrelated animals can look very similar.
I think therefore it is very possible that intelligent alien life, if it exists, could look similar to us.
They could, but unlikely I think. How many insects look like us, bacteria, fish or reptiles? An extinction event could easily have wiped our ancestors out, just as the big Dinosaurs were, etc. Our faces, and that of mammals are in this configuration simply because that is the configuration that our distant ancestors had. There is nothing to say that something on another planet would have a 'head' so to speak. Basically, the variation we have on this single example we have to work with is unbelievably vast, and that all sprang from a single line. Any of those lines, extinct or not, could well have proved successful had the environment been slightly different, and the 'end product' could well be 8 legged, or a flying critter, and it would be considered the top critter.
It is a fluke that we are here at all, and the assumption by some, (not you chaps, just talking in general), that alien life will be humanoid in some way is a tad absurd. People talk about the opposable thumb being vital, and yet some folks get along quite dextrously without.
nature is an amazing thing, and evolution equally so, but the pattern of things on earth is so intricate in its path since whatever happened to splurge life on this planet, that it is highly unlikely that anything would folow the same path. Survival benefits on planet X would be very different, even if it was only slightly deviating, I reckon.
It is a fluke that we are here at all, and the assumption by some, (not you chaps, just talking in general), that alien life will be humanoid in some way is a tad absurd. People talk about the opposable thumb being vital, and yet some folks get along quite dextrously without.
nature is an amazing thing, and evolution equally so, but the pattern of things on earth is so intricate in its path since whatever happened to splurge life on this planet, that it is highly unlikely that anything would folow the same path. Survival benefits on planet X would be very different, even if it was only slightly deviating, I reckon.
You could well be right. I am making the assumption that another planet that could support life would be similar to our own. Of course this may not be the case. I guess it would be possible for life to exist using completely different building blocks to what makes up life on earth. This would allow for life on very un-earth like planets and you would expect life to look very different.
The problem is that until you meet one it is all supposition.
What if the dinosaurs on Earth had not been given the heave ho for example? They were not really going up in the world thinking ranks, much past "food, eat it", and "run away". What if our supposed ET planet never gets past this point? Maybe no gas giants shooting at us and so on.
What if the dinosaurs on Earth had not been given the heave ho for example? They were not really going up in the world thinking ranks, much past "food, eat it", and "run away". What if our supposed ET planet never gets past this point? Maybe no gas giants shooting at us and so on.
I thought I saw a UFO many years ago, I was driving down a deserted dual carriage way in the middle of the night in thick fog, I saw ahead of me 4 bright orbs in a diamond formation and a beam of light descending down from the middle, I slowed down and felt my heart pounding through my chests. Then I sighed deeply, cursed at myself for being a silly t
t as I realised it was a ISL (Identified Street Light).
t as I realised it was a ISL (Identified Street Light).TheHeretic said:
They could, but unlikely I think. How many insects look like us, bacteria, fish or reptiles? An extinction event could easily have wiped our ancestors out, just as the big Dinosaurs were, etc. Our faces, and that of mammals are in this configuration simply because that is the configuration that our distant ancestors had. There is nothing to say that something on another planet would have a 'head' so to speak. Basically, the variation we have on this single example we have to work with is unbelievably vast, and that all sprang from a single line. Any of those lines, extinct or not, could well have proved successful had the environment been slightly different, and the 'end product' could well be 8 legged, or a flying critter, and it would be considered the top critter.
It is a fluke that we are here at all, and the assumption by some, (not you chaps, just talking in general), that alien life will be humanoid in some way is a tad absurd. People talk about the opposable thumb being vital, and yet some folks get along quite dextrously without.
nature is an amazing thing, and evolution equally so, but the pattern of things on earth is so intricate in its path since whatever happened to splurge life on this planet, that it is highly unlikely that anything would folow the same path. Survival benefits on planet X would be very different, even if it was only slightly deviating, I reckon.
I read an article on this subject some years ago when the discussion centred on how aliens would appear to us. There were a number of authors each covering their own point of view and we had suggestions of almost pure mentality, Fred Hoyle's cloud, and even an object indistinguishable from a rock at first glance.It is a fluke that we are here at all, and the assumption by some, (not you chaps, just talking in general), that alien life will be humanoid in some way is a tad absurd. People talk about the opposable thumb being vital, and yet some folks get along quite dextrously without.
nature is an amazing thing, and evolution equally so, but the pattern of things on earth is so intricate in its path since whatever happened to splurge life on this planet, that it is highly unlikely that anything would folow the same path. Survival benefits on planet X would be very different, even if it was only slightly deviating, I reckon.
There were a couple of articles by evolutionary scientists, one of which was based on convergent evolution. His or her suggestion was that if the circumstances, i.e. the environment and especially the history, were identical then aliens would have one head, two arms and a requirement for underarm deodorant.
They were emphatic that evolution had laws in exactly the same way as gravity does. They are not just guidelines.
However that was just an introduction, throw away statements presumably thought to be inarguable. They then went on to point out that there are any number of variations that could change the structure fundamentally.
The theory was then that man had been forced to walk upright because of tall grass. We had to watch out for the lions and our food stuff as well. Whilst the term butterfly effect wasn't it was implicit.
I can't remember many of the examples that he used but one suggestion was that as most animals have four legs what forced us up onto two might well not be a factor in an ideal world.
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