Posts Tagged ‘Outer Space’

The distance seperating the stars are so vast that it would take a very advanced civilization—perhaps thousands or even millions of years more advanced than ours—to bridge those distances. In other words, any extraterrestrial civilization that visited us, hypothetically or in reality, would be using a technology that we can only dream about here on planet Earth.

Most life forms in outer space are probably microbial, but a handful of them may be advanced enough to actually reach us. Now, from their perspective, we humans are the microbial life and we would simply not be that interesting to them. I think this is one reason aliens don’t come here and say, “Take me to your leader, Earth man.” An extremely advanced civilization visiting humans would almost be like humans going down to an ant hill and telling them: “I bring you computers, I bring you nuclear power, I bring you knowledge…” Most of the time we simply step on them instead.

Stephen Hawking’s recent statements in his new series “Into the Universe” on the Discovery Channel have stirred up quite a few news stories in the past week. In fact, I will be appearing on Larry King Live tonight (4/30) at 9 p.m. EST to speak about these statements. In the series, Hawking says: “If intelligent alien life forms do exist out in the vastness of space, they might not be the friendly cosmic neighbors the people of Earth are looking for. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach. If so, it makes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits would be?” Hawking adds: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships…having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.” In closing, he says that all of our efforts to search and contact aliens could ultimately end in our own destruction.

So how many advanced civilizations could there possibly be? Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, astronomer Frank Drake had the idea of searching for radio signals from intelligent life (intelligent enough to make radio broadcasts, that is) in outer space. Drake’s equation is taught in every elementary astronomy course as a reasonable scientific estimate of the probability of intelligent races throughout the galaxy. It tries to estimate (N), which is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication may be possible.

In order to calculate this number, a variety of factors come into play, such as:

• The average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
• The fraction of those stars that have planetsThe average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
• The fraction of the above that actually go on to develop lifeThe fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
• The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
• The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space

As Carl Sagan explained the Drake equation in his series “Cosmos,” the number of technological civilizations should literally number in the millions (in our galaxy alone). This view is challenged by the Fermi paradox, which contrasts that expected number with the fact that ET hasn’t phoned us yet, and perhaps suggests that technological civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly.If Hawking’s predictions haven’t scared you off, there are a variety of projects which allow you to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

One of the most popular is that of SETI@home which is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data, “donating” your idle computer time to the task. Originally intended as a short-run project with hopes of attracting 50,000 participants, it ended up achieving over 5 million downloads, with 1/3 of those users using it at any given time. Thanks to this program, SETI can use millions of computers around the world to analyze data from telescopes in real time—a feat it could never have performed otherwise because its researchers are limited by the computing power they have on site. If you are interested in helping narrow down the search and using your home computer to help analyze signals from outer space, please download the BOINC program and start searching today. Who knows, your computer could be the one that discovers the signal that ultimately proves the existence of advanced life forms in the universe.

So why haven’t they visited or conquered us? No one knows, but I think:

• There are plenty of uninhabited planets with valuable resources to exploit, so they will likely leave us alone.
• They might be benevolent since they have had thousands to millions of years to work off their aggressive tendencies.
• Most likely, we are not on their radar screen. We may be too insignificant for them to make formal contact.

We’ve all seen the portrayals of aliens in the movies—including “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Fire in the Sky,” “The Alien Trilogy,” “Predator,” “Independence Day,” and “War of the Worlds”—and how most are unpleasant, making for much more interesting plots on the big screen. Let’s hope that if in fact we have a visit from an extraterrestrial civilization, it’s more like the one in Stephen Spielberg’s “E.T.” than one in which aliens try to blow up the planet and consume all our natural resources before we even have a chance to finish eating our popcorn.    Special thanks to  Big Think.com  and  Michio Kaku.

KEN PFEIFER  MUFON NEW JERSEY      WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG

“Usually there’s an explanation,” said Matott, 48, who has studied outer space as a hobby for most of his life.

The time the incident occurred and reports that the lights flew across the sky from the south to the northeast indicated the international space station had been spotted, he said, a theory that has now been confirmed by NASA.

“As it passes over, it is the brightest thing in the sky, depending on your visibility,” Matott said. “It tends to generate UFO reports.”

But in this instance, it was the space program itself that caused the phenomena, according to a NASA official. NASA receives hundreds of calls every year about potential UFO sightings.

UFO Photo was taken over Florida, Uruguay on July 25, 1977 by Horticulturist Hector Delgado.

Daniel Iglesias reports, “The UFO phenomenon has manifested itself many times in Uruguay, South America. The Uruguayan Air Force (FAU) high command has declassified its files and allowed EL PAIS (The National Newspaper) to access its UFO records and eyewitness accounts.. While the Air Force commission that studies these cases has been operating for only a few decades, the UFO phenomenon in Uruguay began in 1947, and continues a rich history of seeing UFOs, according to Col. Ariel Sanchez, an Air Force officer with 33 years of active service and who presides over the UFO commission. The agency operates out of a small office in downtown Montevideo and has a computer database and print archives. There are hundreds of files in green binders under the heading “Confidential”, containing eyewitness accounts, photographs, sketches, drawings, documents and evaluations made by officials. The files consist of reports that accrue at a rate of 100 cases per year with 2100 solid reports the commission has researched and dismissed many for various reasons. Thirty years after research began, forty cases remain unexplained. These files have been kept open, and range from sightings and landings of alleged craft to abductions, where people claim to have been kidnapped by extraterrestrial entities.

The military commission’s task is to compile a record of cases and draft guidelines or conclusions regarding their veracity and origin. They have obtained solid results: “The commission managed to determine modifications to the chemical composition of the soil where landings were reported. It could be a phenomenon that occurs in the lower sectors of the atmosphere, the landing of aircraft from a foreign air force, up to the extraterrestrial hypothesis. It could be a monitoring probe from outer space, much in the same way that we send probes to explore distant worlds,” stated the officer. “The UFO phenomenon exists and I must stress that the Air Force does not dismiss an extraterrestrial hypothesis based on our scientific analysis,” said Col. Sanchez. The Uruguayan Air Force has now declassified all of its information and only the identity of the witnesses remains undisclosed. In a case in the Department of Durazno, a witness reported a UFO landing and soil analysis showed an increase in the values of minerals such as chrome, manganese, phosphorus and carbon, enabling researchers to conclude that the event had indeed been real.
In another case two reddish spheres, flew silently over the heads of two teamsters driving cattle. The objects moved at high speed in opposite directions and the vanished toward the west at high speed. UFOs are most likely to be seen in February, March, July and October in Uruguay. In February of 2009, the commission received numerous reports accompanied by digital photographs. Photographs or film are not a determining factor in any case, but rather a contribution, explains Sanchez, given the current technical possibilities for hoaxing images.

Unsolved cases have a considerable high strangeness quotient for example, the 1986, pursuit by two Pucara jet fighters over the Palmar Dam in response to the maneuvers of a luminous sphere. The pilots chased it and were about to intercept it, when the sphere flew off at a dizzying rate of speed toward Argentina. When the pilots returned to their base, the sphere reappeared over the dam. They chase it again and it vanished from sight, changing colors from red to yellow.

A similar case occurred to a group of military pilots in 1996, engaged in exercises over the Santa Bernardina Base in Durazno. They saw two luminous spheres at 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), whose presence was corroborated by the airport’s control tower. When the objects flew away, they maintained their shape and luminosity, which enabled the spherical shape to be confirmed. Minutes later, the pilots noticed their glow diminished, and only their outline was illuminated.
In 1979, a crew of a commercial airline was pursued by a powerful light that was photographed by passengers and remains unexplained. The Air Force also has visual reports of a dozen mutilated animals that may be related to Argentina, where 700 mutilated animals were found. FAU does not dismiss the possibility of an extraterrestrial event. Military statistics show that most people reporting sightings involve young men up to 45 years of age. They also indicate that cases occur in the early hours of the evening, 49% of statistics are made up of reports of luminous spheres; barely 2% include occupant sightings. Also several cases of the abduction of humans remain unexplained. One of them occurred in Playa Pascual in 1980 and involved a camper, who was suddenly taken by surprise by short beings who immobilized him and conveyed him to a vehicle, where he was subjected to a medical examination. Another “missing time” case involved a family that was driving along the road when an aircraft flew over their vehicle and landed in front of them. They were unable to account for what had occurred to them for several minutes. (Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Source:www.elpais.com.uy