Do you believe in UFO?

[Nando]

Be careful with one line quotes. "Of course it is possible" does not mean "yes".

The full Hawking quote also says "Personally I believe ... we have not been contacted".

I did not take that piece out on purpose, i found the quote as is and posted it.
Obviously he never says yes it´s a fact or no it´s not a fact, it´s an interesting quote but definitely one of the least interesting out of the ones i posted.
Again, it´s pretty hard to ignore all of the quotes, there´s obviously a phenomenon here but it seems every single government is very very reluctant to do anything about it.

Just the fact that after we started blowing nuclear bombs, UFO reports increase massively and that certain nuclear sites have been shut down at the same time they reported a UFO makes me wonder if we are perhaps being watched, just to make sure we bald monkeys don´t blow the place up...

Maybe there is an inter-stellar government or Legion that consists of several advanced civilizations and that they are more or less waiting for us to get our act together.
(and not just us but there are probably a lot of other planets and civilizations that are in the same stage of evolution as we are)

[Websta]

If alien technology, all derived from the crash at Roswell, was used to make all those things - and they didn't make a hover board, I'm pretty upset. Where's my hoverboard?

It might just come sooner then you think...

Keshefoundation.org

If technology were derived from a saucer crash at Roswell - a saucer that would have to have been capable of faster than light travel - we should have much more impressive technology.

[Pandamasque]

If technology were derived from a saucer crash at Roswell - a saucer that would have to have been capable of faster than light travel - we should have much more impressive technology.

Define 'we'.

[Websta]

yes it is plausible to believe that the US government could have kept FTL travel technology underwraps as there is no need for it at all at the moment, but the incredible power source used to fuel such travel would almost surely have been utilised publicly.

I guess it could have taken them over 70 years to reverse-engineer it and the experiments being conducted at the NIF are the fruits of the labour so far. But I doubt it

[Nando]

If technology were derived from a saucer crash at Roswell - a saucer that would have to have been capable of faster than light travel - we should have much more impressive technology.

No i don´t think we would.

If we find an energy source that can replace oil. It won´t see the light of day until Oil really has run out.
Why? Because corporations make billions upon billions from oil.

Having a technology that costs 5 dollars and lasts for 10 years is not something anyone would make money off of.
We live in a corporate world and it´s basically run by corporations.

You can see it in everything. Like DuPont and hemp. Or the propaganda movies like "Refer Madness"
It´s all because of corporations not being able to make money.

Besides, back to the saucer thing. Assuming one crashed the US military have the technology.
This is not something you put out commercially if you are a nation that wants to stay superior compared to the rest of the world.

No you keep it under lid, develop it, learn from it and perhaps use it in black projects and military superiority.

[Nando]

Things like fiber optics, computer chips etc etc, these are fairly harmless.

Releasing saucers with anti-gravity means a country can be at your border in 10 minutes, bomb it and be back in 10 minutes.

It´s just a MASSIVE change in how we would live our lives. fiber optics isn´t.

[Websta]

If we find an energy source that can replace oil. It won´t see the light of day until Oil really has run out.
Why? Because corporations make billions upon billions from oil.

Having a technology that costs 5 dollars and lasts for 10 years is not something anyone would make money off of.
We live in a corporate world and it´s basically run by corporations.

You can see it in everything. Like DuPont and hemp. Or the propaganda movies like "Refer Madness"
It´s all because of corporations not being able to make money.

I disagree strongly with this - oil corporations earn a very small profit on every gallon of oil we buy. They could make a much larger profit margin if they didn't have to drill oil out of the sea bed, transport it thousands of miles around the world, refine it, transport it another couple of thousands of miles and then pay the government a massive petrol tax (in some countries at least). If a company could produce energy out of sea water (fusion power), they could cut prices by 50% and still massively improve their profit margins. The US government would be sitting on the world's most profitable technology and would be be able to earn massively more than the income they get from fuel taxes on fuel companies. I am no economist so I don't really understand the implications of instantly destroying every fuel company around the world, but I don't think it would be enough to stop the US from milking that cash cow. They would be completely independent of international oil supplies as well, an enormous political advantage.

Either way, I was actually talking about fusion power (the most probable uber-power source). This would of course not be able to replace petrol any time soon given that we don't have very good electric cars and can't store the energy in the cars. But it would overnight replace nuclear power and coal power plants. It is "free energy" for the entity that controls the technology, not for the poor sucker who has to pay whatever price they ask. The USA grid receives a significant amount of power from hydroelectricity and nuclear power. Uranium isn't cheap - sea water is. That's why the EU and USA are frantically trying to build fusion reactors (you could argue they are doing this only now because they fear they may run out of fossil fuels that run the other power plants, but mainly it's because they only have the technology now). Each of these fusion research projects cost in excess of $6 billion each or some obscene figure (comparable to the cost of the Large Hadron Collider) so they are pretty damn serious about it.

If the hypothetical fuel source found in the Roswell crash were a viable replacement for fossil fuels (i.e. easily adaptable to generate mechanical power for cars), then we never would have become dependent on fossil fuels in the first place. We only become truly entrenched in fossil fuels some 30-40 years following the Roswell crash, likely more than enough time to reverse engineer what was on board.

I just don't see it I am afraid

[Shrieker]

So in light of that, can you tell me why you'd want to drop and say hi to an ant colony in a remote location somewhere in Africa... We could be as abundant and insignificant to them as ants are to us.

That's a pretty common fallacy - if humans discovered a bronze age civilisation in a nearby galaxy and we had the means to travel there with relative ease, we would most certainly travel there or send drones there out of sheer curiosity. Virtually everyday I wonder whether we will contact the intelligent life that no doubt exists somewhere in the Universe. Such intelligent life would have similar curiosities.

Then again, they would also probably be quite interested in our planet.

I'm sorry, but ultimately that was the kind of arrogance I was pointing at. You're judging things from our current pov. An advanced civilization on their way from grocery to the butcher will most probably be able to come upon civilizations like ours virtually every step of the way. Where's the significance in that ? They' might have a look, however they'll make sure we don't know about it. They'll be a lot more interested in contacting peoples much much ahead of than what we are now. It's highly possible that we as a society -to them- won't have any bigger meaning than an ant colony, and the piece of rock we live on an ordinary pebble which has a bluish tint to it.

[Websta]

So in light of that, can you tell me why you'd want to drop and say hi to an ant colony in a remote location somewhere in Africa... We could be as abundant and insignificant to them as ants are to us.

That's a pretty common fallacy - if humans discovered a bronze age civilisation in a nearby galaxy and we had the means to travel there with relative ease, we would most certainly travel there or send drones there out of sheer curiosity. Virtually everyday I wonder whether we will contact the intelligent life that no doubt exists somewhere in the Universe. Such intelligent life would have similar curiosities.

Then again, they would also probably be quite interested in our planet.

I'm sorry, but ultimately that was the kind of arrogance I was pointing at. You're judging things from our current pov. An advanced civilization on their way from grocery to the butcher will most probably be able to come upon civilizations like ours virtually every step of the way. Where's the significance in that ? They' might have a look, however they'll make sure we don't know about it. They'll be a lot more interested in contacting peoples much much ahead of than what we are now. It's highly possible that we as a society -to them- won't have any bigger meaning than an ant colony, and the piece of rock we live on an ordinary pebble which has a bluish tint to it.

That would be true of a civilisation that could traverse the entire universe at will. That is not necessarily the type of civilisation that would be visiting us.

The minute we develop FTL travel, we will visit Earth-like planets in neighbouring galaxies / our own galaxy. That is kind of the point of the technology... That is why it is not logical to assume that aliens would have no business investigating our planet. A true Universe super power would have no interest, but that does not exclude the lesser powers that are still exploring their own galaxy. And an alien species that has just developed FTL travel tech would probably be very curious about investigating the other intelligent life forms in it's galaxy.

It is not wrong to judge it from our POV at all as it will be the POV shared by a species that has recently developed these capabilities. It's not like a species suddenly loses that curiosity the second they develop the capability to travel to planets and investigate other life forms - they lose the curiosity after they have done it repeatedly. Who is to say that we aren't being visited by an alien civilisation in this transitional stage? (not that I think we are, but I don't agree with your logic refuting it)

And if you are familiar with the Drake equation, you will now how low the chances of an alien species being able to have repeatedly investigated other life forms on different planets is.

[Shrieker]

Fair point. But I have to say if they're capable of FTL travel, most likely they'll have the means to know everything they need to know about us without ever coming into the solar system. That is within the realms of possibility, especially when you take into account that we can more or less determine the atmospheric composition of planets light years away with our current sensors.

[Nando]

I disagree strongly with this - oil corporations earn a very small profit on every gallon of oil we buy.

It´s not anywhere near a small profit.

Net income Exxon Mobil, 41,000 billion in 2011.
It´s a huge business.

If someone can make energy out of sea water it means Exxon and all the other companies basically dies.
They will be a small small percentage of what they are today.

This is why they will fight every new type of energy source as best they can. It´s not about having to drill or ship it miles, it´s not important because the money just pours in and it will continue to pour in until they realize that it´s actually is about to run out.

If you kill that business it makes an impact not just for oil companies but governments around the world as well.
Because of the enormous taxes and what have you.

[Websta]

I disagree strongly with this - oil corporations earn a very small profit on every gallon of oil we buy.

It´s not anywhere near a small profit.

Net income Exxon Mobil, 41,000 billion in 2011.
It´s a huge business.

If someone can make energy out of sea water it means Exxon and all the other companies basically dies.
They will be a small small percentage of what they are today.

This is why they will fight every new type of energy source as best they can. It´s not about having to drill or ship it miles, it´s not important because the money just pours in and it will continue to pour in until they realize that it´s actually is about to run out.

If you kill that business it makes an impact not just for oil companies but governments around the world as well.
Because of the enormous taxes and what have you.

I meant they make a small profit on each gallon - like 20-30 cents (probably a lot less) but which obviously adds up to an enormous profit. The profit margin on selling energy from a fusion source which is cheaper to harvest would be much larger.

Cheap energy would have an enormously positive impact on every other sector of the economy - it would massively boost productivity etc. Existing oil and energy companies would not be immediately phased out either - the infrastructure to harness the alien fuel source would take decades to be established globally, although the US gov would not necessarily share it either. This technology would have powered the USA so far ahead of any other country that there is no conceivable reason to believe they would not harness it if they could. And if an alien space craft crashed in Roswell then they would have this technology.

Massive boost of economy and massive earnings from selling cheap energy and independence of international fuel sources > reducing market share of oil/energy companies in the USA, end of story.

So basically the theory of the Roswell saucer crash can only hold water if the US government agencies have been unable to harness the fuel source powering the spacecraft or this mechanism on the space craft was destroyed beyond recognition. For those just joining the thread, the space craft would have to have had faster-than-light travelling capabilities and would thus also have to have had an enormous power source. It would be inexplicable for the US to not harness this technology, so if they had recovered it, we would know about it. Therefore: most likely no crash.

[Nando]

enormous profit. The profit margin on selling energy from a fusion source which is cheaper to harvest would be much larger.

That only works if the end product keeps the same price as oil, which is highly unlikely.
If you basically have "free energy" from this new "alien" source it means it will probably be cheaper then tap water.

[Nando]

And if an alien space craft crashed in Roswell then they would have this technology.

That´s a mere guess. We can only speculate what the propulsion system is being used in a saucer.
For all we know these saucers could be droids. If we are to believe the speeds reported by these things it would turn a human into scrambled eggs.
Unless you somehow can negate the G-force inside the saucer itself.
Much like trying to create gravity in a space ship so we can live in it.

You are so focused on finding fusion reactors in the saucers

For all we know they could be powered with pure energy, dark matter or some other form of energy because if you are trying to create FTL speeds you need an enormous amount of energy because you are essentially warping space time itself.

It´s one thing creating a fusion reactor that will run for 10 years, it´s another having it produce X amount of energy for 10 years.

[Websta]

enormous profit. The profit margin on selling energy from a fusion source which is cheaper to harvest would be much larger.

That only works if the end product keeps the same price as oil, which is highly unlikely.
If you basically have "free energy" from this new "alien" source it means it will probably be cheaper then tap water.

Ah but whoever controls the technology could undercut oil companies significantly and still make a profit. The technology would most definitely not be widely disseminated so that prices could be kept high enough to keep a profit. Or of course, the US gov could make it dirt cheap and still get increased tax revenue from the explosion of productivity that would follow. They really couldn't go wrong with it, so there would be no reason to not adopt the technology as quickly as possible (that I can see).

And if an alien space craft crashed in Roswell then they would have this technology.

That´s a mere guess. We can only speculate what the propulsion system is being used in a saucer.
For all we know these saucers could be droids. If we are to believe the speeds reported by these things it would turn a human into scrambled eggs.
Unless you somehow can negate the G-force inside the saucer itself.
Much like trying to create gravity in a space ship so we can live in it.

You are so focused on finding fusion reactors in the saucers

For all we know they could be powered with pure energy, dark matter or some other form of energy because if you are trying to create FTL speeds you need an enormous amount of energy because you are essentially warping space time itself.

It´s one thing creating a fusion reactor that will run for 10 years, it´s another having it produce X amount of energy for 10 years.

I was just using the fusion reactor as an example (truth be told, I do have a bit of a hard-on for it as I am in awe of the possibilities of fusion technology and the current experiments in this field!). Whatever energy source they had on board, I would expect there to have been some sort of development in that area.

Then there is the question of why it took until the 1990's for a Mexican physicist with no affiliation with the Roswell crash to propose a theory to explain FTL travel. Surely a NASA physicist could have proposed a very strong theory by examining the space craft design in the 50 years preceding the proposal of the "Alcubierre drive". Of course, the space craft could have been damaged beyond recognition, but I would not jump to that explanation so quickly...

You are correct that antimatter is the most likely energy source for FTL travel as it has such an enormous energy density. Antimatter and its relatives (e.g. exotic matter) are pretty much the only viable fuel sources unless the energy requirements of FTL travel were reduced tremendously. It is likely that if a saucer did actually crash in Roswell that it did use antimatter as its fuel source. If the crash were so energetic that it destroyed the structural design of the FTL tech, then there is a good chance of a containment failure of the antimatter occurring. Whatever fuel was on board for the return journey would have turned our American friends into star dust. If the fuel tanks were designed properly and withstood the impact, then the Government has one hell of a powder keg stored somewhere. I wonder if they had the sensibility to no open it back in the 50s.

Of course, these are not bulletproof counter arguments (well aside from the point I made about a lack of FTL travel theories which I think is pretty damning) as they rely on quite a few assumptions and could be explained by some conditions (unlikely conditions, but possible nonetheless). I shared these ideas just as food for thought really and I enjoyed the discussion.

The following is probably a bit harder to ignore though. We supposedly got fibre optics and microchips etc from a Roswell crash, as the legend goes - wait, they still use integrated circuits and not quantum computers or whatever in this advanced civilisation? Unlikely. And surely they had some very impressive materials technology (nanotechnology and high-tech composites etc.) - we still haven't been able to reproduce that either? I doubt the spaceship was made from carbon-fibre.