A certain remark by Mick West that appeared in the original version of this essay is really central to the discussion:
"For one thing, the very largeness of the universe that kind of guarantees life exists also makes it very difficult for life to travel from one solar system to another."
Consider the number 6. Without context, it seems small. If we're told it represents a distance of 6,000,000 miles, it becomes staggering. If we're told it represents six light-years (roughly the distance, if memory serves, between Earth and the nearest potentially earth-like planet), it loses its power to stagger because the string of zeros is replaced by a unit which we can't hope to comprehend. We’re not talking about flying saucers nipping over from Mars.
The notion of a spacecraft comparable in size to a terrestrial aircraft traveling a light-year while sustaining life within it, even in suspended animation, is a non-starter. Something I might start to believe is that a mother ship comparable to a small planet has made that journey of eons and then dispatched reconnaissance craft in the vicinity of Earth. But in that case, why haven't we detected the mother ship; why haven't we detected incoming reconnaissance craft, if we can detect them when they're already in our atmosphere; and why do they crash, when they must have been designed by a highly advanced civilization?
Isaac, your admitted wish to believe Grusch is understandable and admirably honest in itself. I love UFO stories as I do ghost stories, but we need to be happy consumers of the stories without believing in the phenomena. Please don't get out ahead of this any further. It's a telephone game of hearsay, wishful thinking, and the logical fallacy of arguing from authority (Grusch, professional pilots, etc.). Intelligence agencies have contained some great eccentrics over the years. Pilots know their jobs, but they’re not therefore the experts we need. The current sensation is going to leave behind a lot of red faces and memory-holed articles.
Extraordinary claims certainly do require extraordinary evidence.
In this case we know that the laws of physics as we understand them apply throughout the universe, with of course some substantial limitations such our need to understand dark matter/energy. If these aerial phenomena are outside known earthling physics we can have no understanding of them. So how can we have a basis to understand and reverse engineer them?
One big problem is that there is no way to convince folks that these stories are erroneous. They will not believe the words of anyone, they will consider it just be part of the continuing coverup. And some will always want to exploit the inability to negate the idea. There are many contemporary examples of this. Pedophilia in pizza parlors, Q anyone?
These fads have grown and receded several times in my memory, and were especially prominent in the 1950's at the dawn of the fear and uncertainty engendered by the rise of nuclear weapons. Sure there are things in the sky that some individual cannot understand. But the step to ET is one for the movies not reality.
A certain remark by Mick West that appeared in the original version of this essay is really central to the discussion:
"For one thing, the very largeness of the universe that kind of guarantees life exists also makes it very difficult for life to travel from one solar system to another."
Consider the number 6. Without context, it seems small. If we're told it represents a distance of 6,000,000 miles, it becomes staggering. If we're told it represents six light-years (roughly the distance, if memory serves, between Earth and the nearest potentially earth-like planet), it loses its power to stagger because the string of zeros is replaced by a unit which we can't hope to comprehend. We’re not talking about flying saucers nipping over from Mars.
The notion of a spacecraft comparable in size to a terrestrial aircraft traveling a light-year while sustaining life within it, even in suspended animation, is a non-starter. Something I might start to believe is that a mother ship comparable to a small planet has made that journey of eons and then dispatched reconnaissance craft in the vicinity of Earth. But in that case, why haven't we detected the mother ship; why haven't we detected incoming reconnaissance craft, if we can detect them when they're already in our atmosphere; and why do they crash, when they must have been designed by a highly advanced civilization?
Isaac, your admitted wish to believe Grusch is understandable and admirably honest in itself. I love UFO stories as I do ghost stories, but we need to be happy consumers of the stories without believing in the phenomena. Please don't get out ahead of this any further. It's a telephone game of hearsay, wishful thinking, and the logical fallacy of arguing from authority (Grusch, professional pilots, etc.). Intelligence agencies have contained some great eccentrics over the years. Pilots know their jobs, but they’re not therefore the experts we need. The current sensation is going to leave behind a lot of red faces and memory-holed articles.
Extraordinary claims certainly do require extraordinary evidence.
In this case we know that the laws of physics as we understand them apply throughout the universe, with of course some substantial limitations such our need to understand dark matter/energy. If these aerial phenomena are outside known earthling physics we can have no understanding of them. So how can we have a basis to understand and reverse engineer them?
One big problem is that there is no way to convince folks that these stories are erroneous. They will not believe the words of anyone, they will consider it just be part of the continuing coverup. And some will always want to exploit the inability to negate the idea. There are many contemporary examples of this. Pedophilia in pizza parlors, Q anyone?
These fads have grown and receded several times in my memory, and were especially prominent in the 1950's at the dawn of the fear and uncertainty engendered by the rise of nuclear weapons. Sure there are things in the sky that some individual cannot understand. But the step to ET is one for the movies not reality.