Our tiny planet orbits a relatively medium-sized star, in a galaxy of over 100 billion stars, among a distribution of several hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. How arrogant to be…

The author argues that the recent Congressional hearing on UFOs featured credible testimony from military witnesses that UFOs exist and the government has covered up information about them for decades. The author, a retired Navy admiral, vouches for the integrity of the witnesses. He believes society should demand that the government disclose what it knows about UFOs. This could lead to scientific advances that transform our understanding of physics and the universe. Studying UFOs could also improve international security and cooperation. The author contends that failing to study UFOs would be arrogant given how little we understand about the universe.

  • millie@beehaw.org
    2·
    1 year ago

    Personally, I think this whole thing is likely a distraction. That said, why would they land in the middle of a city? You think they want to cause a riot? Hundreds of simultaneous heart attacks?

    If UFOs started showing up over major cities without some sort of prior contact and announcement, that’d be cause for concern. We consider it a huge breach of security to have unauthorized planes in our airspace, I’d imagine that they’d take it as good etiquette not to be zooming around highly populated areas.

    • bermuda@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      The problem with your comment is you’re using our logic, culture, and military tactics to describe a scenario in which an alien race comes to earth. How do you expect them to know about these? Do you think “breach of airspace” is a galactic doctrine?

      Imagine if we found large non-natural structures in say… Neptune. Why woudlnt we want to go analyze those and take samples and figure out what’s going on??

      • millie@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        I would expect that we’d attempt to observe them as much as possible before interfering with them directly in order to avoid a disaster.

        There’s a big difference between seeing some weird looking stuff on Neptune that’s ambiguous at best and seeing a planet whose night side is lit up like a Christmas tree. Casual observation of our planet from anywhere remotely nearby makes it very obvious that it’s inhabited by a technologically advanced species.

        Idiotic as the guy in charge of them may be, we have a massive satellite network blanketing the globe at this point. There’s no way that gets missed by any species capable of interstellar travel unless it’s something capable of space travel without the accompanying technological advancement we associate with escaping a gravity well and surviving the vacuum, then having the means to cross the immense distances involved to get to even the closest stars.

        Major metropolitan areas look incredibly distinct from the surrounding wilderness, and all the lights are a dead giveaway.

        If you manage to fly all the way from another solar system to come take a look at Earth, you definitely know that it and especially its cities contain complex life. Any showing off will likely be intentional if it’s from anything more complex than something like the Voyager.