jonny777

Dry and bright here in North Somerset. Quite humid, but no wind. 

Toadstools are now growing in the grass at the back of the house. They must think autumn has arrived, and I suppose the weather has given that impression of late. 

A quiet day in prospect hopefully, as I partook of the ciders while watching the football on telly, and would prefer it if noise levels were kept to a minimum. 

6 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

Is a black hole the opposite side to a Big Bang?  If a universe is expanding, then it must have started from a far smaller entity such as this.

An interesting thought, and maybe you are right. 

After all, there would be a lot of mass in a black hole, but the universe has expanded to such a degree I think the black hole must have been the biggest ever known...... or was it?

The thing which intrigues me, is that the theory of the big bang derives from the discovery that all galaxies were accelerating away from us. Simple, extrapolate backwards and find the start point. 

Except that it doesn't work like that. The farthest galaxies have been shown to be accelerating away from us, but no one seems to have projected backward and assumed they would be decelerating in the past, and so would never reach the Big Bang. 

9 hours ago, brossard said:

 

 

I believe that everything that has ever happened on Earth and indeed in the universe conforms to the laws of physics.  These are a constant throughout this universe (other universes may have other laws).  I don't accept that miracles or magic happens.  Everything has an explanation.

 

 

 

John

But, is that true? Do electrons or neutrinos truly obey the laws of physics? 

What about the centre of a black hole? Can anything obey the laws of physics in there? 

Dark matter and dark energy? If we ever find out what they are, who knows if they will be obeying our current physics laws? We had to invent dark matter/energy precisely because our laws did not equate with some of what we could see in the universe. 

There are a few places in Nevada where it looks as though a different desert area has been pasted over the aerial photo. 

e.g.   https://www.google.com/maps/@38.1218082,-117.420363,24116m/data=!3m1!1e3

(I should have added - zoom out a little from that photo and the pasted area vanishes). 

Mind you, UK Ordnance Survey maps never had any detail of secret defence establishments. Roads just ended in the middle of nowhere, and internal railway systems were not shown at all. 

I only discovered this when driving regularly on a motorway to work, when one day a train of VDA (or equivalent) vans was parked on a bridge as I passed under. I thought at the time that I had no idea there was a railway there, and when I looked on my OS map of the area there was no railway there. 

Not surprising, really; as they don't want any inquisitive people poking their noses into military affairs. 

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

 

 

Your Adam and Eve reference is interesting, it's been made into a film at least once.  But you could imagine a single alien crashing to Earth, finding it habitable and it having technology sufficient to copy itself.  However, that wouldn't explain evolution of the human species unless said alien spliced it's genes with the existing H*mo species to make H*mo Erectus and kickstarting the human race.

Well, it might if the alien had some form of carnal relations with the existing species. 

In fact that might go a long way to explaining why we share 90+% of our DNA with many of the ape species on earth, but not all of it. 

But, just over 100 years ago there were press reports of 9ft+ tall skeletons discovered in parts of California. 

https://greaterancestors.com/forteen-nine-foot-skeletons/

No one seems to have come up with a satisfactory explanation of why the humans were so tall? 

On the subject of the pyramids, there are some dimensions of the structures which would lead an unbiased scientist to assume they had 'outside' help. Is it not true that the pyramids point to where the Pleiades would have been in the sky when the construction took place? Old manuscripts/stone tablets from thousands of years ago have also been said to indicate the Pleiades as the origin of people from the skies. 

https://www.historydisclosure.com/great-pyramid-giza-immense-size-mysterious-precision-dimensions/

https://mynzahosiris.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/the-pleiades-and-ancient-civilizations-article/

I don't know if ghosts are aliens playing tricks, but I don't believe sound recordist Peter Handford was prone to making up stories. 

32 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

I can't see the point of any Alien craft showing themselves by zipping past airliners / jet fighters etc. Why would they do this over many years, or are they just interstellar BMW drivers ??

 

The Universe is so vast that perhaps we will never know.

 

And this won't help

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9749081/Experts-say-Hubble-repair-despite-NASA-insisting-multiple-options-fix.html

 

Brit15

 

Don't worry. The Chinese will have a bigger and better one in a few years time - especially now they have their new manned space station up and running. 

This is the main reason why the USA want us all to hate the Chinese. They are about to take charge, and if we refuse to let them, they will stop all containers coming our way - and see how long it takes for our economies to seize up. 

This site ought to give some people a few hours worth of relevant reading matter. 

They do try and dismiss the more outlandish descriptions, but I suppose the whole point of UFOs is that they cannot be identified. 

http://www.project1947.com/index.html

As for God being a spaceman, well the book of Genesis does say that he made Adam in his own image, so he must have looked very similar to humans. 

Genesis also states that the first woman was formed from one of Adam's ribs, which ought to be the first known occasion of DNA cloning on the planet. 

However, if God is/was a spaceman; then who made God? Surely he couldn't have manufactured himself? And if he really did 'make' the solar system, he did a pretty poor job. There is no point at all in Mercury for a variety of reasons; unless that is where Satan lives.

Venus and Mars are relatively sensible, but he just let both planets go to ruin. And I see little point in creating the vastnesses of Jupiter and Saturn if they are not going to be able to support life. What a waste of time and energy. He could have made Earth, Venus and Mars each twice the size they are and took more care of them, so that once we had hunted most of our animals to extinction, we could go to Venus and repeat the process there. 

Neptune and Uranus are just a joke (well to certain people Uranus will always be a 'joke'). So D Minus for the solar system mr god-man, whoever you are. You must try harder. 

Don't try the ad hominem approach, however subtle you try and make it. 

I know perfectly well how Occam's Razor works, but  you can demonstrate your expertise on this report for starters -  

Tuesday, January 27, 1953

Grand Rapids, Mich.- Grand Rapids Press

AIR FORCE REPORTS SMALL ‘DISC’ MAKES PASS AT THUNDER-JET.

United States Airbase, North Japan— AP—The United States Air Force Tuesday night reported a small, metallic, disc-shaped object made a controlled, sweeping pass at an American jet fighter-bomber and was observed at very close range by another pilot.

The report, from Air Force intelligence files, said the sighting was made over northern Japan at 11:20 a.m., March 29, 1952, by Lt. David C. Brigham of Rockford, Ill.

It was a bright, cloudless day, Brigham said he got a very good look at the object from about 30 to 50 feet for about 10 seconds.

The pilot described it as “about eight inches in diameter, very thin, round and as shiny as polished chromium: had no apparent projections and left no exhaust trails or vapor trails.”  He said it caught up with an F-84 Thunderjet, hovered a few moments and then shot out of sight. The F-84 pilot, whose name was not revealed, did not see it.

It was the second disclosure in a week by Air Force intelligence of mysterious flying objects over northern Japan near the Russian-Siberia area.

Brigham was flying a prop-driven reconnaissance craft at 6,000 feet when an F-84 drew alongside them, he said, he saw the disc to the right of and just behind the Thunderjet.  He said it appeared to be traveling 30 to 40 miles an hour faster than the F-84, which was going 150-160 miles an hour.

“It closed rapidly and just before it would have flown into his fuselage, it decelerated to his air-speed almost instantaneously,” Brigham said in his report to intelligence officers.  “In doing so it flipped up its edge at approximately a 90-degree bank. Then it fluttered within 20 feet of his fuselage for perhaps two or three seconds, pulled away and around his starboard (right) wing, appearing to flip once as it hit the slipstream behind his wing tip fuel tank.

“Then it passed him, crossed in front of him and pulled up abruptly, appearing to accelerate, and shot out of sight in a steep, almost vertical climb.

An unusual flight characteristic was a slow fluttering motion.  It rocked back and forth at approximately 40-degree banks at approximately one second intervals throughout its course.”

When it pulled away, “It did so more sharply than a plane could have done.  Its maneuvering throughout was always clear and precise.”

13 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

And some people will believe anything and have never heard of Occam's Razor.

 

 

Occam's Razor will not work for UFO sightings because no one knows what aliens might look like (or even if they exist). 

Most reports have been classified for decades, and many more still might be for all we know. 

You would end up trying to prove that everyone mistook the planet Venus, weather balloons, contrails, hoaxes, marks on poor camera lenses, etc., etc.; simply because you do not have access to detailed evidence - or all eye witnesses are immediately branded nut jobs by those who insist any event which cannot be replicated by modern science must be a lie. 

Occams Razor dismissed the existence of sprites when they were first reported by aircraft pilots, because the only logical answer was to  assume the wildest descriptions were false. Upward 'lightning' into the Stratosphere from thunderstorms in the Troposphere? Not possible. Except that they were true, and have been filmed hundreds of times since the initial debunking. 

Is it possible that this thread might be used for a grown up discussion of a subject which some of us wish to partake in, however far fetched? 

After 13 pages, might it also be possible for the self appointed 'comedians', with their never ending puerile posts, to maybe start their own thread somewhere else? 

May I suggest the CBeebies forum? 

24 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

I automatically discount any suggestion that craft with lights on are aliens because it makes no sense.

If they wanted us to know they existed they'd land in the middle of a motorway (or in front of the Whitehouse) or take over the air waves broadcasting a message to us. 

You obviously have not read this article - 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eisenhower-met-aliens-says-timothy-good_n_1277133

Whether you wish to believe it or not is entirely up to you. I make no comment on my opinions either way. However, it does seem to have a veneer of respectability about it, at least. 

I don't think anyone can consider the number of stars in the universe, as they cannot imagine such a large number. 

After all, there are said to be 100 galaxies in the universe for every living human on this planet, and that is well big enough to be going on with. 

Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across, and so even the local distances are vast. Andromeda may be heading our way, but at the moment it is our nearest full size galaxy to the milky way; but even Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. Any super intelligent lifeform in our galaxy which may have developed a means of travel at close to light speed would still take 2.5 million years to get there if they started today. And, vice-versa; so unless they have also developed almost everlasting life, or the ability to produce multi-generations which can survive over those time spans, they are not going to get here any time soon. 

As for radio waves; we have only been transmitting for 120 years, and therefore our communications are only 120 light years distant at present. If we continue to trash the planet at the current rate, transmissions will cease within another 100 and therefore a narrow window of 200 light years will be all that any random intelligent life forms will have to know we existed at all.

This also applies to us receiving broadcasts from other inhabited planets. There may have been extra terrestrials transmitting to us during the 17th and 18th centuries, but how would we know that their planet was hit by an asteroid or their star suddenly emitted such a large coronal mass ejection that it blew their atmosphere away? 

I don't see any reason why we must be the most intelligent lifeform in the galaxy. That idea is just human arrogance. If those with vastly superior intelligence to humans were employed to scout around this part of the galaxy to see what other life could be found, they would probably jump for joy when first viewing the earth from distance, but having flown closer and seen (relative to them) our backward warmongering global lifestyle, they would have sensibly kept a wide berth and put us down as another wasted world heading for a full scale nuclear exchange. I'm sure they would immediately switch all of their communications to a channel which they know we would not be able to pick up with our primitive 'fossil fuel based' equipment. 

Allegedly, the 'dark web' is the place where lists of phone numbers of older residents can be bought and sold. I have no idea what the dark web is, or how to get there; but I suspect that being on one of those lists, which may be years out of date, is how some people get lots more phone calls than others. 

I know my Dad used to get between about 5 and 10 calls a day, which he answered religiously - at least when I was there. He was of a different generation who had been brought up to believe that a ringing phone was important and must be answered without delay. Few of my younger relatives bother with a landline these days, and if they have one they don't have a phone connected to it unless they need to use it for emergency purposes. 

So, I suspect the list of landline numbers is becoming confined more towards the age range of people who fall for the scams. 

I suppose it would be possible with modern technology to dial every number combination in the UK, but many would remain unanswered or be non-existent, and those which were not viable to the scammers could soon be struck off the list - but presumably they rest could be sold for a decent sum of money.  

I read in a newspaper article that anyone who answers these spam calls are filtered into a response list, which means they will be contacted more frequently with various scams until they find one which traps them. Then there are others who get filtered into a grey list because at one point they have given their date of birth to someone; and apparently the over-60s are more gullible, so they get put onto far more persistent call lists which can be bought by rogue companies. 

This may explain why I am shocked when staying at my brother's, how often his phone rings with time wasters. My answerphone even has a different ring tone for numbers I have moved into the non-family/friends section. The memory can only block 40 numbers at any one time, so the excess go there. It means I don't even have to bother getting off my fat backside for certain calls, even to check the number.