Discussion
Ivo Shandor said:
zek said:
There are compelling pictures, but not available to the public:
The Calvine incident is a good example:
The 6 pictures were due to be declassified this year, but the MOD have now said the records will not be released until 2072 :
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-k...
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/6144270/ufo-...
Well that's irritating.The Calvine incident is a good example:
The 6 pictures were due to be declassified this year, but the MOD have now said the records will not be released until 2072 :
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-k...
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/6144270/ufo-...
Interesting podcast from a respected journalist on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3kxeU_oDE&t=...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3kxeU_oDE&t=...
Just a few thoughts on this:
- no good photos? It’s really difficult to photograph something moving quickly especially if you aren’t prepared with a mount etc.
- space is massive and the only things we see reflect light. There will be countless objects in our solar system basically invisible to us as they may not reflect light. If you painted your satellite black it’d be invisible to all but the most determined observers.
I’m not overly worried about aliens coming here. There’s no practical reason to. If you have the technology to travel between stars there is nothing interesting on earth. Exotic minerals? Water? All more abundant and easier to access in the asteroid belt.
One concerning thing though is, if they have a restaurant industry and like the taste of exotic food! Otherwise the only reason to visit would be research. Or enslavement. But not materialistic concerns. Not sure I’ve made myself any more comfortable now...
- no good photos? It’s really difficult to photograph something moving quickly especially if you aren’t prepared with a mount etc.
- space is massive and the only things we see reflect light. There will be countless objects in our solar system basically invisible to us as they may not reflect light. If you painted your satellite black it’d be invisible to all but the most determined observers.
I’m not overly worried about aliens coming here. There’s no practical reason to. If you have the technology to travel between stars there is nothing interesting on earth. Exotic minerals? Water? All more abundant and easier to access in the asteroid belt.
One concerning thing though is, if they have a restaurant industry and like the taste of exotic food! Otherwise the only reason to visit would be research. Or enslavement. But not materialistic concerns. Not sure I’ve made myself any more comfortable now...
John145 said:
Just a few thoughts on this:
- no good photos? It’s really difficult to photograph something moving quickly especially if you aren’t prepared with a mount etc.
- space is massive and the only things we see reflect light. There will be countless objects in our solar system basically invisible to us as they may not reflect light. If you painted your satellite black it’d be invisible to all but the most determined observers.
I’m not overly worried about aliens coming here. There’s no practical reason to. If you have the technology to travel between stars there is nothing interesting on earth. Exotic minerals? Water? All more abundant and easier to access in the asteroid belt.
One concerning thing though is, if they have a restaurant industry and like the taste of exotic food! Otherwise the only reason to visit would be research. Or enslavement. But not materialistic concerns. Not sure I’ve made myself any more comfortable now...
How useful would human slaves be to aliens able to cross interstellar distances? If they have cracked FTL then their physics must be so far in advance of ours that surely a human slave would be like us having a chimpanzee slave. Novelty value perhaps but requiring so much training that it wouldn't be worth it. Practically speaking slave labour is only really economically viable where mechanisation isn't practical. I find it hard to believe that if you can build an FTL starship you still have any problem that can be solved by slave labour. - no good photos? It’s really difficult to photograph something moving quickly especially if you aren’t prepared with a mount etc.
- space is massive and the only things we see reflect light. There will be countless objects in our solar system basically invisible to us as they may not reflect light. If you painted your satellite black it’d be invisible to all but the most determined observers.
I’m not overly worried about aliens coming here. There’s no practical reason to. If you have the technology to travel between stars there is nothing interesting on earth. Exotic minerals? Water? All more abundant and easier to access in the asteroid belt.
One concerning thing though is, if they have a restaurant industry and like the taste of exotic food! Otherwise the only reason to visit would be research. Or enslavement. But not materialistic concerns. Not sure I’ve made myself any more comfortable now...
Similarly to restaurant food - which I suspect you were joking about. What's the probability of extra-terrestrials having the ability to digest anything from Earth? There are lots of humans who still can't digest cows' milk. At any rate, if for some reasons humans did turn out to be a delicacy the alien farmers would likely collect some with the ideal characteristics for breeding and then go home again. So we'd have to expect the bulk of "abductions" to be of 20-30 year old females. Probably those with certain characteristics indicating suitability for breeding. Did all the contestants make it back from Love Island?
One thing that does occur to me though, is that perhaps FTL is an impossible barrier. The only way to explore being via generation ships. In which case it's just about possible that we could come a cropper. If we imagine the generation ship to be equivalent to an aircraft carrier, and what we are seeing is their long-range combat air patrol. I can just about picture it would be practical to repurpose an asteroid (seems easier than building from scratch) into a generation ship and provision it with extra fuel to launch scouts ahead once it was close (i.e. within a few thousand years!) of a suitable solar system. That is the only way I can picture a civilisation at a similar technology (and political) level to our own arriving - i.e. the sort of people who might still take things by force and enslave the population, lacking the technology to have obviated the requirement to do so. Such a ship would also likely be looking for somewhere to colonise, not just collecting resources.
However, a ship big enough to make that sort of journey and travelling on a trajectory bringing it to Earth would be so immense and so obvious that I am certain it would have been spotted in the same way we have a catalogue of a large percentage of the comets and asteroids that are on intersecting orbits with earth. It would also approach us at such a ponderous rate (even launching missiles or whatever ahead of itself) that we'd have a lot of time to decide what to do. And most importantly to establish their intentions!
Assuming advanced fusion drives and them launching their attack (i.e. unequivocally hostile) once they reached Jupiter, we'd have about a year to decide how to react. That may not seem like long and no doubt the first six months would be spent arguing, but pragmatically six months would be enough time to knock up a bunch of nuclear tipped interceptors (remembering that it's very hard to change a trajectory in space so the interception doesn't need to be amazing accurate). Existing rocket designs can already launch interplanetary probes so delivery would be possible. Triggering the devices could be a straight timer (just don't ask Boeing to do it).
Any attack fleet with technology levels only slightly ahead of our own won't have sci-fi "shields" or "phasers" so defence wise our interceptors might face railguns and old fashioned (lead) armour plating. The defenders' conundrum would be that if they fired their rail gun when the interceptors were some way off, the time for even the fastest projectile to arrive would allow us to see the projectiles and trigger the bomb ourselves - radiation and particles being as much of an issue for the unlucky crew as any actual explosive force (it's going off in a vacuum of course). If they waited until the bombs were closer they might take out the first one, but we could still easily include rudimentary code "if your radar detects projectiles heading your way, explode." and "If you don't detect the bomb ahead of you going off on schedule, explode.".
The vast distances and time to travel make it hard to defend yourself. E.g. if the inhabitants of the Americas had been afraid of the European explorers and decided to repel them while they were still at sea in their rickety ships, it's doubtful the slightly more advanced weapons on hand would have been that helpful. Nice swords and muskets you got there, shame the ship you are standing on has caught fire.
Resupply of a generation ship would also be definition be impossible. So absent magic technology that could fashion new ships and weapons out of any random material, the invading force would be on a losing logistical battle. Bit like the Germans invading the Soviet Union. Nice high tech tank you have, shame we have ten to every one of yours and we have another twenty on the production line. Did you remember to pack fuel and spare parts?
Pragmatically it seems to come down to:
1) Aliens massively more advanced than us. Therefore we can't do anything about it, so no point worrying
2) Aliens a little bit more advanced than us which puts them in a precarious position unless and until they establish a solid beach head. It would take quite a lot of cunning for them to present themselves as benevolent right up until the point where they then decided to enslave us. Not impossible, and they could use excuses such as "we can't slow the generation ship down so we have to land our people on Earth right now". But they would remain in a precarious position for a long while.
Bloody hell. I just put the rubbish out. Looked up into the sky and there was a strange orange glow in the sky. Never seen it before. It didn't move, just sat there glowing. Was dumbfounded. What the hell is it. Got my phone and opened skymap, it showed nothing. Jesus what is it?
Yeah so there is a building site opposite with a crane and it's the aircraft warning light on the crane.
Yeah so there is a building site opposite with a crane and it's the aircraft warning light on the crane.
When I was in middle school, so around 1986, I had a Commodore 64 game about a Stealth aircraft. It was pear-shaped.
A few years later the US government admitted that the SR-71 existed, and was now retired. It was still futuristic at that point, perhaps even now.
What are they using now? And what does that miniature shuttle type thing do when it's in orbit for years at a time? Maybe we'll find out in 30-40 years.
A few years later the US government admitted that the SR-71 existed, and was now retired. It was still futuristic at that point, perhaps even now.
What are they using now? And what does that miniature shuttle type thing do when it's in orbit for years at a time? Maybe we'll find out in 30-40 years.
wrong_turn said:
When I was in middle school, so around 1986, I had a Commodore 64 game about a Stealth aircraft. It was pear-shaped.
A few years later the US government admitted that the SR-71 existed, and was now retired. It was still futuristic at that point, perhaps even now.
What are they using now? And what does that miniature shuttle type thing do when it's in orbit for years at a time? Maybe we'll find out in 30-40 years.
We've known about the SR-71 almost from the time it first flew back in the early 1960s. What we didn't realise until the 1980s was how stealth technology was used in its design. I saw one flying at the 1984 Mildenhall Air Show. It's sister designs, the A-12 and the YF-12 were a bit more secretive but they were known about in period - even if it wasn't 100% clear what they were up to.A few years later the US government admitted that the SR-71 existed, and was now retired. It was still futuristic at that point, perhaps even now.
What are they using now? And what does that miniature shuttle type thing do when it's in orbit for years at a time? Maybe we'll find out in 30-40 years.
Were you thinking of the Lockheed F-117?
The "miniature shuttle thing" (X-37) is a research vehicle which is used to test new ideas. It was originally a NASA project but was taken over by the Department of Defense as they had the funds and they saw it as a good platform which they could use for testing new technologies AND bring the equipment back at the end of the mission. It's not a fully operational system as such - but mainly used for research and development.
The SR-71 was announced in the 60s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq5Ahat8nro
I wonder if you are thinking of the "F-19" game? Which was based on the rumours of the (at the time still secret) F-117?
The idea of keeping the actual existence of things secret became difficult even in the U-2 days. The US originally hoped it would be invisible to the Soviet Radar but when it became clear it wasn't, there was little sense trying to hide it in the way they had been. With the SR-71 making so much noise (and heat) it was also not exactly covert.
And rocket launches are blindingly obvious so while you can conceal what your satellite does, you can never conceal it exists.
Sadly I think we'll be disappointed at any "secrets" that are revealed - the days of the government having all the toys are, I think, gone.
I wonder if you are thinking of the "F-19" game? Which was based on the rumours of the (at the time still secret) F-117?
The idea of keeping the actual existence of things secret became difficult even in the U-2 days. The US originally hoped it would be invisible to the Soviet Radar but when it became clear it wasn't, there was little sense trying to hide it in the way they had been. With the SR-71 making so much noise (and heat) it was also not exactly covert.
And rocket launches are blindingly obvious so while you can conceal what your satellite does, you can never conceal it exists.
Sadly I think we'll be disappointed at any "secrets" that are revealed - the days of the government having all the toys are, I think, gone.
I remember based on the image above the assumption was made by loads of publications that the F-117 was actually a lot shorter in length than it actually was, giving it a very "Fat" look, until more images were released showing it's dimensions better.
The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
Ash_ said:
I remember based on the image above the assumption was made by loads of publications that the F-117 was actually a lot shorter in length than it actually was, giving it a very "Fat" look, until more images were released showing it's dimensions better.
The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
Seems very inspired by MD's x-36 Stealth demonstrator.The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
Or very prophetic if it came out first.
take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:
Ash_ said:
I remember based on the image above the assumption was made by loads of publications that the F-117 was actually a lot shorter in length than it actually was, giving it a very "Fat" look, until more images were released showing it's dimensions better.
The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
Seems very inspired by MD's x-36 Stealth demonstrator.The aircraft that was alluded to was the F-19, which Revel released a model of in the '80's before the existence (and actual designation) of the F-117 was acknowledged.
Or very prophetic if it came out first.
any further reading there Eric? 7Not sure about any references to the matter now, but at the time (early 1980s) model magazines and aviation magazines covered the news that Revell had been questioned by US security agencies asking them where they had received the information that allowed them to make the model.
When the actual F-117 was revealed, it became obvious that the fuss raised over the model F-19 was a form of double bluff by US agencies to throw any potential enemies (chiefly the USSR) off the scent regarding what a true stealth aircraft really looked like.
When the actual F-117 was revealed, it became obvious that the fuss raised over the model F-19 was a form of double bluff by US agencies to throw any potential enemies (chiefly the USSR) off the scent regarding what a true stealth aircraft really looked like.
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