The Physics of UFOs

I am sure we all have some basic familiarity with the controversy associated with UFO reports. I am probably one of the few interested persons who are completely undecided about these reports. And here is why.

Recently, I have watched and read several online evaluations by credentialed scientists concerning speculations about the physics of UFOs. These evaluations propose the hypothesis that the UFOs are of exo-planetary origin, products of a highly advanced technology.

I am disappointed with these evaluations, especially as some of them come from men whom I admire, trust and respect.

If we accept as a hypothesis (and I believe it to be a reasonable one) that there exists life on faraway planets in our galaxy, and if we accept that on some of those planets there are highly advanced technological societies capable of interstellar space travel, then there are some necessary conclusions that rule out the Hollywood scenarios about “space invaders.”

These scenarios are ludicrous because they portray the space aliens as being even more primitive than our current technology. For example, we already have stealth aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles. It is easily foreseeable that in the next few years, we will have stealth aircraft that are unmanned, or perhaps piloted by some form of robotics.

In addition to this, we have semi-secret technologies such as HAARP which portend weapons systems of the near future that will render completely obsolete our present navies, armies and air forces. Even more secret technologies are undoubtedly in process of development.

Therefore, the idea that space aliens will send vulnerable, easily detectable space ships, manned by octopoid pilots, into our airspace, and that we may then find a way to defeat them, is too ridiculous to contemplate.

As a very simple example, why would the aliens not simply redirect a few large asteroids to earth and literally bombard us “back into the stone age?” This kind of stand-off attack would be completely safe for them. So much for the idea of resistance to the aliens.

Any technology capable of interstellar travel has both methods and motivations that are vastly beyond our comprehension.

Their methods would appear to us to be almost magical. As our own technology advances at near exponential rates, our physicists are already exploring ideas such as space warping, non-local entanglement, and quantum computing.

There is therefore little doubt that a technology even a thousand years older than ours, could exterminate humanity with barely more thought than flicking a crumb off one’s sleeve. We would pose no more of an obstacle to them than does an anthill to a bulldozer.

So why has this not happened? Why are we not already extinct or conquered?

The answer must lie not only in their capabilities, but also in their motivation. To begin with, why would an alien civilization have any interest at all in conquering us? We have nothing they need. Such aliens could synthesize from hydrogen, literally anything they could desire. We would not be worth the inconvenience of the trip, much less a military operation.

The one thing that aliens might desire from us is knowledge--- not knowledge that we could give them, but rather, the kind of knowledge gained from observing a newly discovered species on the ocean floor, or observing a primitive tribe in the rainforest.

Indeed, they could already be observing us very closely, and leaving no clue as to their presence. If our surveillance technology is capable of photographing individual humans from 100 miles above the earth, then it is entirely reasonable to believe that an advanced technology could survey us in details that far surpass anything we presently have. Combine that with electromagnetic spectrum surveillance, and a space alien could for all practical purposes be at your elbow this very moment, and we would have no way of knowing this. Does a paramecium under the microscope detect the biologist?

Any space aliens could easily have been observing us in every intimate detail for millennia. And since we can have no information about them, speculation about it is futile.

This brings us to the phenomena of UFO reports by credible observers. If one were to believe that these observations were of alien spacecraft, he would have to answer all the issues raised in this piece so far. If they can get here from there, then why are they so inept as to be seen? And if they are unconcerned about being seen, why do they appear to be clumsily attempting to be undetected? Why, for example, would they hover over a busy airport for several minutes, and then suddenly run away? Why would they try to have it both ways?

The answer, I think, lies in the US Air Force’s B-2 bomber. I saw one of these things fly over a sports stadium, and I can assure you that it is an awesome sight that no television can adequately convey.

But before the existence of the B-2 became public, there were sightings by an uninformed public, and some credible observers thought that surely these machines were of no earthly technology.

Despite the best efforts of the Air Force to keep secret the B-2, the craft were occasionally seen. The Air Force cannot yet make their aircraft completely invisible, and a slip-up is bound to occur now and then.

There can be little doubt that worldwide, governments have secret aircraft under development. And despite their best efforts at concealment, there will be the occasional mistake, the occasional sighting. To maintain secrecy, perhaps there really are “men in black” who intimidate witnesses into silence, or ridicule them into shame. But they are not space aliens, even if they wish to be portrayed as such, to confuse foreign intelligence services.

These secret projects are what I believe explains UFO sightings, those that are not hoaxes or misidentified weather balloons.

As to the existence of alien spacecraft, if they do exist, they did not cross interstellar space by being so primitive that we could hope to detect them. They could be so far advanced that the craft are able to dematerialize, and to do other feats that would appear magical to our most advanced technologists.

I will issue one caveat that, however improbable, puts me into the undecided category concerning UFO reports. UFOs may be space junk. Not of course, the kind of space junk that we have in orbit around earth. But if there are (as I believe there well could be) highly advanced exo-technologies in our galaxy, then their space junk would be of a much higher caliber than ours. Several possibilities could be put forward, but one of these is the thought of an extra-terrestrial civilization that went extinct, or otherwise lost control of its technology.

Certain machines that had been slated for scrap might have somehow “gotten loose,” and gone rogue, so to speak. If so, and if not under intelligent control, such defective machines might be roaming the galaxy, and exhibiting the kind of irrational behavior that UFO reports seem to portray.

And these would be precisely the kinds of exo-technology that we might capture. An interesting conjecture, I think.

But until I am convinced otherwise by incontrovertible evidence, the best reason I have for believing in extraterrestrial UFOs is for fun and entertainment.
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