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Psychologists regularly demonstrate that nearly all normal humans experience optical illusions. I would suggest that the mindset of the person experiencing such an illusion has a significant effect upon their interpretation of it.
For example, I don't think I would have imagined Saturn was the masthead light of a large ship if the incident had occurred ten years earlier.
By the time we took our trip to Namu, GPS receivers had become portable, inexpensive and reliable. Before the almost universal reliance of cruising sailors upon GPS, celestial navigation was required.
When I first arrived at Kwajalein in 1991, you would see sailboat owners out at dawn, noon and dusk practicing the measurement of the sun, moon, stars and planets with their sextants. The effective use of a sextant requires skill, especially when the user is on the pitching and rolling deck of a cruising sailboat. As the Earth and the planets move in their orbits, different stars and planets become available for use in celestial navigation. Regular practice keeps you aware of the sky picture for the particular season of the year and configuration of the solar system. I believe that if I had been practicing sextant sights regularly, I would have been conscious of where and when to expect to see Saturn.
As it was, I had left off intensive practice with the sextant a few years before, once I had gained confidence in the accuracy and reliability of the two GPS receivers I owned and used aboard my boat. Between practice sessions, Venus might have moved from evening star to morning star. Having sailed frequently off the coast of California, where large fast moving ships are a constant hazard*, I had formed the habit of scanning the horizon for lights, and keeping careful track of their position.
My ignorance of the sky picture, and my deeply ingrained habit of looking out for approaching ships conspired to make me think Saturn was an approaching ship. My friend Jim had similar experience, except his cruising ground had been the Gulf of Mexico.
Given the widespread belief in previous alien visits to Earth and the nearly universal occurrence of optical illusions, I would expect there to be millions of cases each year of sightings which the observers experienced as flying objects, moving in unexpected, perhaps even non-physical ways.
MUFON reports that they receive about 10,000 UFO reports per year, about 3/4 of which are revealed upon investigation to be due to identifiable, non-alien causes.
People are regularly convicted of crimes and sentenced to jail due to eyewitness evidence, which later proves to have been unreliable.
RNJ
* Watching an aircraft carrier pass below you at flank speed while you stand on the Golden Gate bridge, then following its progress as it passes the Potato Patch out in the ocean, and makes a 90-degree turn to port, with the resulting 15-degree roll to starboard from the centrifugal force, is an impressive sight, even for a non-sailor.
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
Here's a link to one of the four MUFON TV shows.
Thanks Richard!
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
ABC News reports a survey by National Geographic which estimates that 77% of Americans believe there is evidence that aliens have visited Earth.
There seems to be a need among many modern (and presumably educated) people to believe in visits by extraterrestrial beings, all evidence to the contrary. Witness the popularity of that charlatan and fraud Erich von Daniken and his "belief" that the Nazca Lines in Peru were airfields for alien ships. He had many other ideas about aliens, but his take on the Nazca Lines was the most bizarre.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Piwin)
Hi Piwin,
Little experienced with youtube I assumed much of commercial productions to be found there, but as it seems now that is not the case, unfortunately.
What I found today maybe be possible links (which I couldn´t check for internet limitations). On one site it says: "Where to Watch Sky: 531 Virgin Media: 273 BT: 330 TalkTalk: 330" Then there is this: http://www.history.com/shows/hangar-1-the-ufo-files
Thank you for your comment; level-headed as usually. I assume you havn´t seen my question on page No.2?
Bill,
What you say is true. But what is also true is that there exist many people who consider themselves educated, approaching the topic with conviction if not aggression for supposed "evidence" of nonexistence, which actually makes for a claim more unfounded than what UFO-sightings maybe categorized for.
Being skeptical is healthy and appropriate, being aggressive is another thing. Being aggressive means mere worshipping of opinion and besides to lump witnesses like me who sighted uncommon appearances not in the desert or on the ocean where optical phenomenon may be tricking on you, but under clear conditions. Viewers who may have been or still are skeptical and who were far from anticipating anything thelike until sightings made.
Witnesses who one fine day could just as well be you. What would you do if you saw something moving across the sky from one point to others within a blink of an eye? Would you deliver yourself to the nuthouse? Or would you like to see deaf people wiping off sobriety of your past for to have cheap harmony and fun among themselves? (On the internet such can be shrugged off easily, but some pragmatic and sincere folks will have had it with their surrounding and been hurt.)
For several reasons, I would think to be just as cautious like within other fields should be the take of actually educated minds. -
Unless someone finds out a way for everyone to watch the MUFON series, I guess the discussion here is done for me.
But there is another topic, that Piwin already mentioned here, which is of great actuality and immensely interesting. Artificial general intelligence appears to be a subject that might be moving our fate around like nothing else, and sooner than expected. It could either be the new hydrogene bomb inside a Russian roulette colt, or blessing for men and planet. By now chances are far greater with one of the two potentials, and we may want to have an idea as to why.
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ruphus)
Thank you Ruphus. It's on YouTube alright. It's just that, given the subject matter, it's up there amongst myriads of other stuff, a lot of which seemed questionable so I wanted to know exactly what I was looking for.
A few years ago, a friend of mine steeped in Eastern religions asked me to devote an hour of my time to watch a presentation by Bruce Greyson. The topic was "consciousness without a brain". One of the lines of argument he elaborated on had to do with reincarnation or, as he put it, "memories of previous lives". I remember being surprised by some of the evidence he put forth (I was expecting all of it to be first-person accounts, but, well, there were many other things he took into account). What struck me the most however was that his approach remained as serious and scientific as could be. There are reasons to debate the validity of his evidence, but listening to someone who looked deep into this issues, while placing all of the right caveats in the right places, opened up for me the possibility that it may be more complicated than I had first assumed. Prior to this I had just jumped on the bandwagon of people who call consciousness "an emerging property". Now I consider to be a point of mystery, yet to be resolved, because, even if it is indeed "an emerging property", I have no idea what that actually means (the idea is that at some point, information systems get so complex that consciousness arises, but the fact that it arises at all is still a mystery...). Though I don't share Greyson's conclusions, his presentation did change my attitude towards the issue. I no longer simply dismiss it entirely, I listen but with a great deal of caution. Anyways, all of that to say that I suspect there are also serious minds looking into these UFO issues, but I doubt they will get very far without the hard evidence that science requires to validate a theory (the famous "show me the body"...). On a side note, it also brings up interesting questions about the relationship between reason and belief. I'm less and less sure that the two are inherently opposed. It seems possible to "take and advance" on reason or "make a wager" while maintaining a reasoned approach. In fact, most of us "reasonable" people do this all the time and I'm not exactly sure when this spills over into the realm of belief. Of course, I am not saying there is no difference at all between the two, only that the boundaries that separate them may be more porous than they seem.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Piwin)
Hi Piwin, I recall my cousin (academic computer scientist) in the late seventies / early eighties telling me of a new thesis of that time, based on electrical values of particles, which would basically parallel the buddhist assumption of consciousness diverting and finally bundling into a universal whole. I must say that the idea of awareness residing in everything, with consciousness being merely extract, always felt somehow catchy to me, but that would just be a feeling. And latest findings about plants´ reactions / sensations and communication already indicate that we ought to allocate the residing of awareness beyond of how we used to. ... Or that late bit about bacteria which will jointly prepare themselves before attack and ...-can you believe it- which among themselves have individuals who take advantage of the community by sparing themselves the hazzles of producing required poison and wait for the majority to do the job.
To me the idea of emerging property appears plausible, and I used to wonder about scientists who thought it absurd for AI to develop consciousness. (Until a handful of years ago, which seems to have changed meanwhile. Ai´s potential self-awareness appears to be counted in these days.) About characteristics of consciousness I have no clue, but seeing joint consciousness like with ants or termites (the indiviual having no idea, but the community has) ... anything could be possible, including consciousness without brain.
I don´t understand however why you seem to handle the two as mutually exclusive.(?) The one might explain the coming about of individual consciousness, the other the interwoven being of individual "unit" with universal intelligence. No? In respect of hard evidence on UFOs. If what MUFON files claim is true: Imagine a nation wide task force that was to immediately remove all dead bodies they can find. Then one could be having a hard time proving killings as well. BTW, within the Hangar 1 episodes there are several footages shown. One showing an UFO evading a missile fired at it. If that be digital film these days at least secondarily authencity should be detectable through pixel peeping. Another one besides shows two jets hunting an UFO and next you see them coming back through the screen, this time the other way around, with the UFO hunting the jets. That was when I was quite amused.
Asides, in respect of a comment that faulted amateur clips low quality, there are several likely reasons. Majorly cropping as you may expect it from original material that was not prepared for zooming on object and thus cropped in post. Cropping means drastic loss of resolution and pixelling, especially with digital consumer material of the times until ~ 5 years ago. I guess for satisfactory proof amateurs would need to pull out their FF device with at least a 500 mm tele mounted on it. And if it be comparable to my experience, you´d hardly opened you photo bag before its over. In my sighting of those 3 simultaneous objects for instance the companion I called to come out on the balcony and watch couldn´t make it on time with bridging the distance of ~ 12 meters from the bedroom. However, she being of that kind who will purposely not rush when called by a guy. Further there have been alleged takes that wouldn´t need cropping. To the contrary, in one case the camera had to be panned 160° by one member of personnel to capture a huge object over an US power station. What it´s good for however when footage gets confiscated.
Anyway, back to consideration of reason and belief. Undoubtedly, reason being demanding and objects so complex that barely anything is carved in stone. And the fragility of a perspective hardly ever allows actual objectivity. Yet, different deal of energy on investigation and an actual will to explore makes for a line between that and what commonly stands for shared belief. (I know, you meant the kind of unintentionally deceiving belief that can interfere into observation, thought however to take a chance on the manifest kind of precondition.)
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ruphus)
quote:
I don´t understand however why you seem to handle the two as mutually exclusive.(?) The one might explain the coming about of individual consciousness, the other the interwoven being of individual "unit" with universal intelligence. No?
Could be. I honestly don't know. Consciousness remains an utter mystery to me. I believe people in the field use rather precise definitions and I'm not sure, for instance, that the reaction of plants you described, would be considered anything close to consciousness. It suggests that they have feedback loops and recoil from "pain" but I'm not sure it allows us to say anything more. I agree that on an intuitive level it makes sense that it'd be an emerging property. But then again, it really doesn't explain how it appears. A similar issue is that of the emergence of life. We understand the ingredients but have yet to discover how it actually happens. I seem to recall they have made some promising attempts at creating life from non-organic ingredients but nothing conclusive at this points. Perhaps they'll pull it off some day and perhaps they'll do the same with consciousness, but at this point it's really just conjecture.
Since we're on space-related issues, I'd remind those who may have forgotten that there will be quite a few identified flying objects in the sky these coming weeks. The Perseid meteor shower is supposed to be exceptional this year, with unusual amounts of meteors (possibly close to 200 per hour), peaking sometime during the night of August 12th to 13th. It's always a good opportunity to go out in the wilderness and snuggle up in a sleeping bag, lay back and watch nature at work. If any of you out there happen to be in Andalucia for the summer, there are many places to watch the meteor shower from. One of the most promising just might be Sierra Nevada. They are planning to open the Pradolano ski lift (brings you up to around 2 700 meters altitude) up until 1 am. The more passionate stargazers won't worry about getting down before dawn. I missed most of it last year since it's pretty much always cloudy in Brittany, but I fully intend to make up for it this year!
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Posts: 14805
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
The MUFON people seem quite reasonable, as does the person they first interview for the Fayetteville, North Carolina episode.
With all due respect, nothing at all reasonable neither the witnesses nor the team of "investigators". If this is the tv show Ruphus is referring to, it's more hoaky than I thought, even for HIM. I was going to go into my reasons with this story point by point, but it's truly ridiculous.
And to Ruphus, sorry if I sounded aggressive about it earlier, the problem is the derailment from what I believe to be a serious and important topic to this alien encounter nonsense. I have no problems with the reality that UFO phenomenon exists. But when you attempt to correlate UFO sighting to "alien encounter", it is two separate and unrelated topics. The alien encounters topic is a sleep disorder (i.e. Psychological) phenomenon, the UFO is a weather or astronomical or aircraft identifying issue, and the connecting unrelated pieces of info with a narrative is a creative artistic activity (conspiracy theory). Mufon folks CLEARLY have already made this correlation, and are SEARCHING for the "best evidence" that supports a non reality. None of these 3 topics have to do with the topic here and the pseudo science consciousness stuff just will take us to the socialism vs capitalism aruguements all over again eventually. Alien megastructure possible discovery is moot issue if one wants to open an argument that we have already "been visited" in the past. So how about we deal with real stuff as per topic?
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
socialism vs capitalism
Is that still a thing? I thought it was like "nature/nurture", one of those apparent dichotomies that had been left on the wayside years ago.
For the topic at hand, well there's really nothing to add as long as there aren't any new observations. It'll have to remain a question mark until then.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
The MUFON people seem quite reasonable, as does the person they first interview for the Fayetteville, North Carolina episode.
With all due respect, nothing at all reasonable neither the witnesses nor the team of "investigators". If this is the tv show Ruphus is referring to, it's more hoaky than I thought, even for HIM. I was going to go into my reasons with this story point by point, but it's truly ridiculous.
As you might deduce from my posts on this thread, I am highly skeptical that aliens are visiting Earth, and people are sighting their space craft.
I suspect that the tales told by the witnesses result from the misinterpretation of something they saw. I don't have any evidence that they didn't see anything. They seem genuinely puzzled, and maybe a little frightened.
I feel that most of the people I deal with on a daily basis are delusional about some subjects. But they are rarely offensive about most such subjects. Neither were the Fayetteville people. Perhaps I should have said, "inoffensive"?
I try to allow for the fact that in all likelihood I am personally delusional about some topics, though I don't dwell on it much. I try to conduct myself so as not to give offense or cause trouble for others.
After all, MUFON reports that, of the 10,000 or so reports they receive every year, they resolve about 7,500 of them as being the result of known, non-alien phenomena. This is a much higher score than the general population seems to have, for example, in detecting politically inspired bullsh1t. And once they have gone for the bullsh1t, too many do not hesitate to be offensive.
People are seldom offensive face to face here in Texas. Most people here avoid confrontation. My sense is that most are genuinely polite, and I respect them for it, though some may be kept in check chiefly by concern for personal safety.
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ricardo)
Ricardo,
I see. You want the thread reserved for the apparent "mega structure". Even though it remains unclear what response you were expecting on an astronomical item which experts as of now are having literally no remote clue about.
Anyway, you could had just pointed out that you liked posts exclusively related to the darkening of a star and I would had refrained from contributing.
It would had made more sense than just rushing against sightings or encounters whichs background you think to know all about already.
Same regarding fancied grasp on global matters that could allow you to classify me as falling to hoax "more hoaky than I thought, even for HIM".
For someone who accepts the Kool Aid modern times reigning powers released, fancying himself in a striving world of humane concern and credibility, which meanwhile however is covered by a solid conduct of the precise and lowly opposite; as someone who on behalf of ordinary peace of mind appears to reliably ignore prominent facts on economical, societal and political matters* should not play down minds dedicated to learning about the world independently from personal well-feeling and wishes. (*Making me wonder how you manage sailing round vast reality and what media might be consumed to keep it up.)
But as you are supposed to be in the know you can maybe answer two questions (which you missed out on clearing up before rushing ahead) for me who does not know it all in advance and who shall be leaving after your enlightening hindsight:
# What about diverse presidential events of the past that are collected and presented by MUFON; and why the change of attitude after assuming office, including statement according to which there was no power to access info?
# With all that popular chaos since so many decades why won´t the US government release their files on the matter, or at least simply declare that UFOs and lesser even ETs have never been an object? Why needless mystery-mongering?
Thank you for your kind enlightening in advance. -
Richard,
I sent you an e-mail months ago, asking whether you could possibly lend a hand to a talented student from here who stemming from a humble family needs scholarship, which again was first granted then withdrawn by an university in USA (of which I learned later on that it actually is in Texas). No reply.
Then I sent you another mail saying that the scholarship was granted again, asking whether you could possibly help him orientate there / maybe help him find a side-job, maybe learn about interesting places and such. No reply again.
With the possibility of having landed in an automatic spam filter I tried to catch your attention again twice in this thread to no avail.
Simply responding with "I have no time" or such shouldn´t have been overburdening. If the silence be intentional kind of communication you maybe not be of the style that I read and used to think of. And to me it is interesting enough to understand whether it is or ain´t intentional. Thanks.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ruphus)
Ruphus--
For the last several months I have avoided direct interaction with you on the Foro, but since you publicize your requests, I feel obliged to reply.
I received your first email, but decided not to reply. You asked whether I could assist with the scholarship application process for your student. I have neither connection nor influence with any college or university, in particular those you mention. At least two generations of faculty and administration have arrived and then retired from the two schools I attended. But there was another reason, which will become apparent.
I have searched all my email folders, including spam and trash, but find no trace of the second message you mention.
I would also have implicitly refused your second request, that I assist in mentoring the student. The university in Texas which you mention in your first email is more than 200 miles from where I live.
But that's not the main reason. Here's why: You and I have very different world views. Our opinions will inevitably vary, as would our advice to the student. So far, so good. I have friends in six European countries. They range from staunch socialists to English aristocrats. I have friends in southeast Asia from different countries, different religions and different social classes. I have friends in Micronesia, a very different culture from mine. My friends and relatives in the USA span the political spectrum from far left to far right, and the religious spectrum from fundamentalist to agnostic. There is inevitably some friction, but I manage to get along with all of them, friends and relatives alike.
The difference with you and me is that we don't get along. Over years of history on this forum and others, our discussions almost inevitably end in heated quarrels. Friends on this forum whom I see face to face have advised me simply to stop interacting with you. I eventually decided they were right.
What has this got to do with your request to help the student? I think the disagreements between you and me, and the seemingly inevitable heated quarrels would be at the very least a distraction to him. He would, or at least should, feel obliged to you as a benefactor. To succeed in school here, he must adapt to the society, at least to some degree. Your view of the society and mine differ radically. Conflicting views are okay, maybe even beneficial, but quarrels would be destructive.
And there's an end on it. That's all I have to say on the matter. Please don't bring it up in public again.
Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
RE: Alien Megastructure discovered? (in reply to Ruphus)
This thread is going way off-topic. I am shutting it down and ask (again) that we do not get personal on this forum. This is not the place. Please don't send me PMs etc. about it.
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