Faster-than-Light Travel May be Possible After All, BUT . . .

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-faster-than-light-travel-possible.html

The link above is to a blog run by Dr, Sabine Hossenfelder.

Hossenfelder points out that we have no engineering basis for traveling faster than light, but that Einstein's equations do not forbid it.

We should also consider that very advanced technological civilizations on distant planets, may have mastered laws of nature which we do not know exist.

Also, to travel from one place to another need not require moving from point a, to b, to c, etc.  Jumps across intervening distances without occupying the intermediate points, while entirely speculative, are not ruled out in principle.  Quantum entanglement suggests a possible foundation for such an idea.

A few people with whom I have discussed this are very quick to brush aside Hossenfelder's comments, in some cases without having actually read them.  That indicates a level of bias and closed mindedness that is incompatible with scientific inquiry.

Hossenfelder has a Bachelor's degree in mathematics and a PhD in physics. She graduated at Frankfurt University, Germany.  She is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

This does not necessarily mean that she is right, but only that she is worth hearing out.
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Mysterious Men-in-Blue

For many years there have been reports of so-called “men in black [suits]” who intimidate reporters into self-censoring their accounts of UFO sightings.

Furthermore, nearly every description of UFO crashes (or in some cases, landings) is accompanied by reports of military, or military-style, personnel responding to the scene very quickly, and absconding with all physical evidence of the crash.  In addition, potential witnesses to the event are either barred from approaching the site, or in some cases, ordered to remain silent.  Threats are made, either implicitly or explicitly.

The presence of uniformed men, arriving suddenly where dramatic UFO events have been reported to occur, is not limited to the United States.  Witnesses to the 1966 Westall Incident in Australia report that at least one man in uniform (either police or military) was soon on scene, and confiscated a teacher’s camera.  She had photographed the UFO. 

Of more concern is that a young student at the Westall High School, who was first to arrive at the site, was found either unconscious or hysterical (perhaps convulsing) at the scene, but she was found only after the UFO had lifted off.  Her name was Tanya.  She was carried (or helped) back to the school where an ambulance took her away.  Tanya was never seen or heard from again by her classmates.  One of them who tried to visit her at her house, was told that no one named Tanya had ever lived there.  What happened to her, both at the scene, and afterward?

The more recent, well-publicized case of military men responding to UFO sightings involves the now famous incident involving the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton.  Sailors report that immediately after the incident, military helicopters landed aboard the two ships.  Men disembarked from the helicopters, and confiscated all recordings of the incident.  Apparently, they did not quite get control of all of them, because video of the encounter was leaked to news media.

A curious detail of the incident is that the men who disembarked from the helicopters were not Navy personnel.  They wore Air Force uniforms.  (Men in Blue, as opposed to black.)  Also curious is that at least one of the Navy pilots insists that no such men ever landed on the ships.  Witnesses were ordered to sign non-disclosure agreements, effectively silencing them for years afterward.

It is a prominent feature of these reports, of mysterious men, that the reports tend to be inconsistent with each other, and without solid evidence that they ever occurred, despite the testimony of credible witnesses.

Perhaps the most curious feature of all is that, their one consistency (assuming veracity of the witnesses), lies in the rapid response of the men who show up.  They are often on scene within minutes, which given the circumstances, is an amazing feat.  How could this happen?  If the reports are true in this regard, it seems very much as if these men were already on alert before the incident happened.  It is not as if the men were performing unrelated duties at the time of the incident, and then unexpectedly called to the scene.  Likewise, some incidents involve rather large numbers of military men, equipped with trucks and tarps.  They also, show up within a very short time.

This makes it sound as if the response teams were already expecting to be called to action, and in turn, that makes it sound as if the UFOs involved were themselves part of a military project.  It also makes it seem that large numbers of men, at widely dispersed locations, are always at the ready, at least when there is scheduled activity on the project.

The question then arises, how could the military involve large, well-equipped quick-response teams, without someone, at some time, spilling the beans?  Can secrets be that closely held, across so many years, and by so many people?

It is plausible that they could.  Major military projects have been conducted in secret, with no leaks.  The development of stealth aircraft at Area 51 occurred with nothing more than rumors, until the aircraft were unveiled to the public. 

It is also plausible that whenever secret projects are conducted, for example flight tests, quick response teams are scheduled to be at the ready in case something goes wrong.  They could be directed, very efficiently, to the anticipated location of need.

These plausible speculations suggest that the government knows far more about UFOs than they are revealing to the public.  We should not be surprised if they are.  How many governments are involved?  The greater mystery is whether the UFOs that crash, or land, are from our own planet, or some other.

Both possibilities introduce further mysteries and inconsistencies.  It is a tangled web indeed.

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Some Interesting UFO Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRgoisHRmUE

This is a very clear and well-presented, first-hand, plus

reenactment, documentary, the best I have seen about the USS Nimitz UFO

encounter.  Eye witnesses included.

Of incidental interest is the view of Navy life aboard ship.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPHVvg-dXOs

Westall UFO

This report on an Australian local news station

interviews several schoolgirls, 50 years later,

who witnessed a UFO.

What I find to be the weirdest part is at about minute 7.

A girl from the school who witnessed the UFO was quickly taken away

by authorities and never heard from again, and what's more,

visitors to her house were told that no such girl had ever lived there.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The Westall UFO (2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPHVvg-dXOs

This is another, more detailed report
on the Westall UFO

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Might UFOs be Earthly Aircraft?

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The most popular explanations of UFOs include theories that they are technological artifacts from other planets, alien civilizations.

However, there are also people who believe that they might be some secret technology developed and produced right here on earth.

There are some reasons to accept that theory, but much stronger reasons to reject it.

The reasons to accept it include the fact that, indeed, there are secret aircraft being produced and tested right here on earth.  The stealth aircraft used by the United States Air Force are no longer secret.  At least, their existence is well publicized.  They are seen relatively often in the skies, and have been deployed overseas in combat.

However, during the in-flight testing phases, such aircraft were sometimes seen by members of the public, who reported them as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).  Some people speculated that they were from other planets.  Of course, they were wrong.

We can plausibly assume that there is more secret research going on, well concealed, to test advanced technologies, including aircraft.  Therefore, it seems possible that some of these aircraft will on occasion be seen, and will be misidentified as alien spacecraft.

However, the sightings of UFOs include reports of aircraft performing high velocity changes in acceleration and / or in direction that no human pilot could survive.  Even if they were unmanned drones, the performance of many UFOs exceeds anything that earthly technology can produce.  If an earthly government could produce them, that government would be in possession of technology with which they could rule the planet.  The spin-off technology would be dramatically advanced.  The scientific principles they evidence would be Nobel Prize developments.

In short, the long-term concealment of such things would seem to be both impossible and counter-productive.

There is a hybrid theory.  Some people speculate that alien spacecraft have crashed on earth, and have been recovered by the government.  Such wrecks, the rumor goes, have been taken to secret government laboratories and studied.  The studies have produced limited results, but perhaps enough has been learned to enable the development of primitive prototype aircraft that can perform a few of the aerial acrobatic feats described by witness reports.

An even more dramatic speculation is that, not only have alien space-craft come into the possession of our government, but also, even nonhuman crewmembers of those space-craft.  Some say that crashed space-craft recoveries have rescued downed space-men.  Others propose that alien space travelers did not crash, but are interacting with our government voluntarily in some kind of diplomatic capacity.

All of the foregoing theories have problems with them, but that is not to say that we in the general public can rule them out.  We can, however, be very skeptical of them, and with good reason.  Governments can be very good at keeping secrets for a long time; but if those secrets are valuable and exploitable for advantage, those exploits eventually become evident, and the secrets spill out.

Some people claim that there has been such spillage.  They have attributed earthly advances in science and technology to captured alien spacecraft; but none of those advances violate known natural law, as many UFO sightings describe them.

Once again, without having access to government secrets, we can only make estimations, but the evidence for the extraordinary claims of copied alien technology is vague and unconvincing.

Ironically, the most extraordinary claim is the most plausible, which is that the UFOs are spacecraft from alien civilizations on faraway planets.

Even there, however, one encounters some paradoxes, such as, why can we detect UFOs at all?  If they are so advanced, they should have foolproof stealth.  Or, if they do not wish to hide, why can’t we see them all over the place, all the time?  What makes the least sense is that they seem to try to hide, but get seen anyway.

In the end, we are left with the unsatisfying theory that UFOs are phenomena that we cannot begin to understand in terms of our present paradigm.

That, however, seems to be the case.

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Aliens are Lurking in the Dark Forest—a Serious Scientific Theory—and Beyond

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There is a theory described at

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/01/the-dark-forest-theory-a-grim-answer-for-where-all-the-aliens-are/

which suggests a solution to the Fermi Paradox.  It proposes that there are many space-faring technological civilizations among the stars and planets of our galaxy, but that we have not detected them, because they are hiding.  Furthermore, the Dark Forest Theory (DFT) posits that they are hiding not only from us, but also, from each other.

And with good reason.

In the galaxy presumed by the DFT, every technological civilization that arises has one priority:  to survive.  As in any wilderness or frontier, only the fittest survive.  There are two main methods of doing this.  One of them is to eliminate (kill) all threats.  The other method is to hide from those threats that one cannot eliminate.

It can be argued that any civilization that does not successfully execute one or both of these survival methods does not survive.  Those who failed no longer live.  Therefore, all the surviving exo-planetary alien civilizations have either eliminated the threats against them, or are hiding.

As reasonable as this theory sounds, there are those who argue against it. 

The dissenters propose that, in order to survive, an alien civilization has to be, well, civilized.  Being civilized, means that a society has to solve its problems in an orderly way that furthers its progress.  In the early stages, this means using the “kill or be killed” policy, but in the later stages, there comes a time when this becomes counter-productive.  War is expensive.  Instead of producing wealth, it destroys it.  Even though warfare does incentivize technological advancements, it does so only in the early stages.  As the destructive potential of advanced technology increases, the risk of both sides destroying each other reaches unacceptable levels.  Therefore, the optimum survival strategy requires cooperation.  Let’s call that, the Friendly Aliens Theory (FAT).

If there are numerous exo-planetary alien civilizations in the galaxy, one of these theories may be correct.  Indeed, some combination of them may apply.  For example, they may be at war with each other, but in circumstances that favor defense over offense.  One might compare that condition to the situation in World War One, where both opposing sides were safer in their own trenches, than they were when attacking across the “no man’s land” that separated them.

The main problem with the FA Theory, compared to the DF Theory, is that, if the aliens are not in hiding, then we have not yet solved the Fermi Paradox.  If all the neighbors are friendly, they should stop in and say hello.  Even if the distances are too great, they should at least turn the front porch light on, that is, to send some sort of signal.  Instead, we see only darkness; we hear only silence.

What is it, then?  Should we favor the Dark Forest Theory, the Friendly Alien Theory, or the Trenches Theory?

Before we settle on one of these, we should carefully consider the possibility that none of them is even close to being right.  We may be anthropomorphizing, that is, assuming that the aliens are like us, at least in terms of how they (and we) solve the problem of survival.

Let’s speculate.  Let’s do so reasonably.

Let’s speculate that life has arisen on faraway planets.  Let’s assume that on a dozen or so of them, life arose billions of years ago, as it did on earth, but that on those dozen or more planets, either the event occurred long before it did on earth, or else, that it afterward, developed much more quickly than we did.  In either case, we are reasonably speculating that any space-faring civilization is much older than ours.  Indeed, even the most advanced civilization on earth is only about five thousand years ahead of the hunter-gatherer phase.  Five thousand years compared to a galaxy is the blink of an eye.

Moreover, because technology moves at an ever-faster pace, we have advanced amazingly far in only the last five hundred years.  In less than a century we both invented the first airplane, and traveled to the moon and back.

What this tells us is that, an exo-civilization that is even five thousand years ahead of us could be so far advanced that, to us, its capabilities would seem magical.  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961

Five thousand years may seem like a long time (okay, it is a long time), but there may be alien civilizations that are a million years, or much more than that, older than ours.  At compound interest, at the accelerating pace of technological advancement, that million years could provide an unimaginable advantage to the older civilization.

What effect age has on survivability, however, is not the main issue here.  One could propose that the first interstellar civilization could easily have conquered the entire galaxy.  Or, one could propose that it chose not to do so, but pursued some other objective, for example, galactic brotherhood.

The effect of age would very likely mean that a million-year-old civilization might have become so vastly advanced technologically, that it has moved into realms that we cannot imagine.

Consider that our scientists now claim to have discovered the existence of dark matter.  Consider further that, aside from its gravitational effects, we have virtually no idea what dark matter might be.  How much less we can imagine, then, what could potentially be done by using dark matter?

Is there a science of dark physics?  Dark chemistry?  Dark biology?  Dark psychology?

Then ask yourself, what else might there be?  Are there fundamental laws of nature that we have not discovered?  Might not any sufficiently advanced alien technology have discovered them, and employed them in their technology?

To speculate even further, might aliens have harnessed the powers of pure consciousness?  Might they have moved beyond the need for physical bodies?  Might they be able to travel between universes?

What has all this to do with Fermi and the Dark Forest?  Only this:  we can only speculate, and our speculations may be hopelessly wrong.

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Are UFOs Sinister?

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As I have pointed out previously, most of the UFO theories do not make sense.  For example, if UFOs are spacecraft from an advanced civilization, why do they seem to try to hide, but so often fail to achieve even the primitive level of stealth that earthly aircraft can achieve?

 

There are other paradoxes as well.  For example, what could alien planetary civilizations possibly seek to gain from us?  If they wish to conquer us, they could have done so long ago, with less effort than it takes a bulldozer to destroy an ant hill at a construction site.  They would not even need to expose themselves to our weapons.  They could destroy us from afar, for example, by directing a few large asteroids to smash into our planet.

 

As far as our mineral resources, highly advanced technology could easily synthesize any element or molecule they desire, from hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.  As the famous science fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

 

One thing that the supposed aliens could gain from us, that they could not manufacture, is knowledge.  While their knowledge of physics is assuredly vastly greater than ours, they might be interested in such things as social structures.  Whether from mere curiosity, or from a more practical motive, they might wish to study us.  However, such studies are best done without interfering with the society being studied.  UFOs (even if they do not exist!) have already exerted some influence on us, if only in our arts and entertainment.

 

Once again, we find that all the theories of UFOs have defects.  There remain only two that have none, or at least, no defects so serious as to disqualify them.  One of them is that UFOs are exactly what the government has been telling us since the famous Roswell incident:  that UFO reports are prompted by misidentified ordinary objects (such as aircraft or stars), or by hoaxes.  Case closed.

 

Even that theory has some holes in it, but so far as we in the general public can prove, it might be right.

 

The other plausible theory is that UFO reports are substantiated accounts of extraordinary phenomena, one of them possibly being that they are space-faring objects which are produced by alien, technological civilizations on distant planets.

 

This theory, while dramatic on the face of it, is not at all unreasonable, considering the size and scope of the observable universe.  Most people who know anything about science seem to accept as a given that such alien civilizations must surely exist.

 

This second theory still presents us with the problems, not so much of who, but of why, which we have already examined.  The question of why, if not plausibly resolved, could disqualify all the theories except the “misidentified objects” theory.

 

If that theory is also wrong, then is there a plausible one?  There is.

 

To consider what that theory might be, we must begin with the plausible premise that the government has at least some knowledge of UFOs that they are hiding from us.  What would the government hide, and why?  What would its purpose be?

 

After all, most people seem already willing, and able, to soberly accept the proposition that alien planetary civilizations exist.  No surprise there.  The public is also willing to accept that UFOs are possibly spacecraft from those aliens.  Again, little surprise.  Those two public attitudes being commonplace, then why would the government hide from us any knowledge it has that UFOs are what many of us already suppose they are?  Wouldn’t the public reaction be little more than a shrug, or at most, an outpouring of curiosity?

 

Apparently, the government does not think so.

 

To be sure, the US Navy has released audio-video evidence of at least one actual, official UFO sighting.  This did not result in public panic, or any of the negative reactions that some have proposed is the reason for secrecy.  The idea that, “the public cannot handle it,” is discredited.

 

That leaves us with this question:  might there actually be some government knowledge that we truly could not handle?  Even if there were no riots, revolutions or other spectacular result, might the public be so disturbed by the facts that confidence in our institutions would collapse, and collapse to a critical degree?

 

My suspicion is that there is evidence, of such a nature, that competent government analysis has concluded that such is the case.  Revealing it would bring about catastrophe.

 

As to what that evidence is, or why the conclusion is so terrible, I can of course only speculate.  But there is the possibility, and I think even the probability, that those high in the government believe it.

 

Imagine what would happen if the president of the United States, or perhaps a respected international body of authorities, began a speech, televised worldwide, which began with some words such as these:

 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the world, we have incontrovertible news about the UFOs.  The news is bad.  It is very bad.  We have been, and continue to be, completely at the mercy of a powerful force beyond our control.  That force is sinister, and it has no mercy.  Thus far, we have appeased it. The appeasement involves taking steps that you would, under ordinary circumstances, find utterly and unspeakably abhorrent.  We do not know how much longer we can stave off the inevitable doom we face.  Perhaps we can do so for years, even centuries.  But, the sacrifices now being made will soon become obvious.  They will be painful.  Prepare yourselves, because they involve you and your loved ones.  They are these:”

 

This theory has only one factor in its favor:  it fits all the known facts better than any other theory so far proposed.
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UFOs Are Now Officially Real--But What, Exactly, Are They ?

For decades, the US government has dismissed reports of Unidentified Flying Objects, known more familiarly as “flying saucers.”  Pilots learned that, reporting what they saw, could end their careers.  Their very sanity could be called into question.

 

That policy actually created a threat to national security.  Military pilots who were intimidated from reporting what they thought were extraordinary airborne objects, could just as easily have been discouraged from reporting actual enemy threats from communist or terrorist nations. 

 

With the advent of advanced radar and optics, and with millions of people carrying video-capable cell phones, the danger to national security has given way to the far lesser danger of embarrassment to the government.  It may be only a matter of time before coordinated sightings by radar, pilots, and civilian witnesses on the ground, become so widespread that official denials will be seen as ludicrous.

 

Moreover, when the government tells thousands of its citizens that, “You did not see what you saw,” the trust in government will erode dangerously.

 

Now that we have admitted that there is a problem—the first step toward solving it—there arises the question, just what the heck is it that so many of our friends are seeing?

 

The first answer that pops into the minds of many people is—space aliens, intelligent life from technologically advanced planets far, far away.

 

While this answer is not entirely implausible, there are very good reasons to doubt it.  I call this answer the “Superman” theory.  “Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane,” it’s an intelligently piloted spacecraft.

 

Birds and planes are so familiar to us that when we see strange objects in the sky, we tend to classify those objects as something within our experience:  birds, planes, stars, meteors, perhaps even “swamp gas.”  Flying saucers may not be in our actual daily experience, but most people have some concept of what they might be.  If you ask them, they will likely answer, “manned” space vehicles.

 

More recently, drones are becoming ubiquitous.  Because of them, we now can add to our list of possibilities as to what UFOs are.  If they are unmanned drones, then we must ask, are they coming from Iran, or from other planets?

 

Astronomers and other scientists have, for years now, been searching for signs of technological civilizations on other planets.  The discovery that exo-planets are a common feature of the galaxy makes that search seem worthwhile.  So far, however, the search has been fruitless.  We have made the same mistake:  to expect the unknown to conform to our experience of the known.  Because our technology broadcasts (unintentionally) radio waves into space, we somehow expect that alien technologies will do the same.  If so, we should detect their transmissions.  Why haven’t we?  It is because, they might transmit, for three or four hundred years, but that is a tiny slice of time, compared to the estimated age of the galaxy.  We are not finding such signals.  We may never.   Any advanced aliens out there have likely moved far beyond that stage.

 

Experiments in our own laboratories suggest that emerging technologies may soon render electro-magnetic spectrum communications inefficient and obsolete.  Such topics as quantum entanglement are at present considered “far-out” physics, but they are in fact, based in solid science.

 

Even putting all that aside, there is one glaring inconsistency in most UFO sighting reports:  we can see them.  That should not be possible.  If the space aliens possess technology so advanced that they can cross trillions of miles of interstellar space, with all its hazards, then surely, they possess stealth technology that can make them invisible to all our detection methods.  Even here on earth, we are capable of amazing stealth, not only in radar, but even in the visible light spectrum.

 

The inconsistency is that UFOs behave as if they wish to avoid detection, and yet at the same time, they seem clumsy in those efforts.  We see them.  They “run away.”  None of that makes sense.

 

Finally, there is the question:  if there are space aliens in our atmosphere, are they hostile?  If they are, then we are helpless against them.  Science fiction movies glamorize heroic battles to defeat the aliens, but we cannot even defend the planet against a potential swarm of giant meteors.  Any advanced aliens could easily redirect a few thousand asteroids to crash into our planet with devastating effect, while keeping themselves at a safe distance. 

 

By the way, what would the space aliens want from us?  Surely, they can synthesize anything they could wish for, and do so from the most common element in the universe:  hydrogen.  Who knows what they could manufacture from dark matter, the unknown material that comprises 80 percent of the matter in the universe?  Who knows, they might even have four-D-printers!

 

After all that, we must ask, what are the UFOs, and why are they here?  The bottom-line answer:  they are something we cannot begin to imagine.  Their reasons, if any, are hopelessly inscrutable.

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