A website I recently looked up asked you to vote on what UFOs were.
53% said that they were extraterrestrial spacecraft. This posting is
meant to disabuse anyone of this notion.

My arguments do not rest on whether of not we are alone, with the
Drake equation or anything else of this type. No the argument against
ET is technological. I think a good starting point for this discussion
is to look at how we might make an interstellar journey, and what the
state of our technology would be likely to be were wee to make it.
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/sci...60610c 4da1bb
One interesting aspect of our present day technology is the fact that
everything is getting miniaturized. We are talking about molecular
memories, about a cube which will be available by 2020 and hold our
lifetimes experience. I have discussed using antimatter in the thread.
Antimatter is of course a feasible route when you are not transporting
very much material. An interstellar journey will be made with a Von
Neumann probe. How large will it be and how fast will it travel?
Certainly not FTL, this has been discussed at length and ruled out. I
am postulating a probe delivering 1 gram of active material travelling
at c/2. Sam Wormley thinks that is optimistic, I think he said so in
the thread. Now if we look at nanotechnology and its probable
development all you will need to deliver is a gram. Remember that a
single sperm carries half the human genome of 600MB. If more
information is needed it could be sent by laser.

How do you explore the world? Well where is all human life? - on the
Internet of course. If ET had indeed visited us there would be strong
AI on the Web. Unless FTL is possible (I maintain it is not) then it
has taken a long time for an interstellar spacecraft to have reached
us. Probably centuries, perhaps even millennia. It is simply
inconceivable for ET not to have AI. This rather puts people like Sir
Gillan Horry and Sir CB Wohlsetter in a bit of a spot. If their
postings do indeed manage to nail ET, ET is certain to have something
to say himself. This is why I asked in some of my replies "puerde leer
en espagnol". ET will be speaking for himself, the AI providing good
simultaneous translation in all languages. If ET wants to remain
hidden he will put out postings denying and ridiculing the sightings.
Of course to get AI on the Web you only need one visit. If you really
don't want to be seen you can simply tap into a fibre optic cable and
place your AI. As I have said your spacecraft need not be of any great
size. In fact something the size of a large earthworm could easily tap
into a cable, and deposit AI.

What do you do with no Web? Well there again the philosophy of
miniaturization still holds. Transhumanism envisages us tapping into
the brain and connecting it to a computer. How far we will go, or want
to go, down the transhumanistc road is an open question. However one
thing is certain, ET will be capable of taking insects and using them
as electronic probes. Hence you have the picture - the ET spacecraft
is small. 1g is deposited as a VN probe, and exploration will be done
by genetically modified insects. There may be an even better way of
doing things. It may be possible to produce bucky tubes of super
strength material. However the transhumanistic use of insects is a
feasible route. Better routes only serve to strengthen my arguments.
Transhumanistic mosquitoes would seem the logical route to getting DNA
off individuals. ET can thus fairly simply explore the fauna and flora
of Earth.

We see therefore that a visit by ET would not involve large
spacecraft, would certainly not involve things like alien abduction.
This of course assumes that ET just wants to explore and does not want
to show us anything. He could of course walk down the lawn of the
White House if he really wanted to make a splash. On the Web he could
quite easily produce a television program featuring the history of
Alpha Centauri. No conceivable scenario would seem to fit what the ET
buffs believe.

Forgive me if my logic is wrong, but it seems to me totally impossible
that ANY UFO sightings are the result of ET. What are they the result
of? This leaves hoaxes (I include black flying under the category of
hoaxes), unexplained phenomena or mistaken interpretation. Does it
matter that ET is believed in? Well a scientist is always wanting to
find out the truth. If ET is impossible UFOs must be something else.
Two phenomena spring to mind. The first is that before an earthquake
there are electrical discharges caused by piezoelectricity and elastic
deformation of the rock. The second is seeing streetlights upside down
and possibly moving rapidly because of a temperature inversion. Hail
occurs because water starts to fall as rain and then freezes. Both
these phenomena are interesting and worthy of further investigation.

Is it possible that ET has come in by the methods I suggest. Just
about, I tend to think not, perhaps it is because I find the
consequences so unpalatable - more later.

The official denials I know generate conspiracy theories I know. This
is largely because officials regularly lie on other issues. On this
one though they must be speaking the truth, there have been no alien
autopsies, no alien spacecraft being worked on. There simply cannot
have been. I am one of military man's sternest critics, you know this
from my other postings I am certainly not an official debunker. If I
really believed there had been a cover up I would have said so.

SETI - Dependent of Radio Reloj and a waste of money

When I was learning Physics, many years ago, I was taught that a clock
was a frequency standard and that what we looked at was a display.
Cuba calls one of its radio stations radio reloj. This term I will use
to describe anything that you could see at interstellar distances
using FFTs and other integrating methods. Radio reloj refers to
analogue television with its sync pulses. Now by 2020 all television
will be digital and radio reloj will be confined to GPS. GPS BTW is
capable of giving you the time to less than a microsecond. GPS cannot
be detected by SETI type techniques at interstellar distances. For one
thing the satellites are at MEO and have constantly varying doppler
shifts, for another they are low powered compared with broadcast
transmitters. We have a time for RR that we can plug into the Drake
equation, it is about 100 years. Long wave cannot penetrate the
ionosphere and RR in the SETI sense is analogue television.

It is claimed that the Earth is brighter than the Sun at radio
frequencies and our mobile phones and digital televisions will be seen
as radio noise. This I doubt for 2 reasons. First of all radio noise
can originate from a planetary system for a whole host of reasons. The
star may not be as peaceful as the Sun etc etc. To distinguish between
the different possibilities would require a general advance in
astronomical observation. Not specifically SETI oriented. Exactly the
same arguments apply to Dyson (Type 2) civilizations. The second law
of thermodynamics tells us that heat must by given off by a Dyson set
up. If however we look for Infra Red stars we find super giants with
huge tenuous atmospheres. Telling the difference between a Dyson and a
super giant is a matter of general astronomy viz understanding these
super giant stars. We know there are no Type 3 civilizations - unless
of course we live in a simulation of a Type 3!

I am not even convinced that the Earth is going to remain as bright as
it is. There are health concerns about mobile phones, and campaigns
against masts. There is in fact a paradox here. If you had more mobile
phone masts, the total power radiated would be much less. In fact a
mast on a school roof would protect the children. I can envisage
microwaves being supplemented or replaced by highly directional laser
devices.

The other side of the coin to Radio Reloj is of course ET wishing to
make contact himself. This is very much the "White House Lawn"
scenario. If he did he would have little difficulty in so doing with a
phased array. In fact a phased array is needed for interstellar travel
(the Forward proposal).

What is coming to Earth in the technological sense? There is little
doubt of course that technology elsewhere is going to follow a similar
course. Radio Reloj is going to be 100 years virtually everywhere. BT
is offering BT On Demand. This is a service which is in effect taking
television from the Internet. BT is putting the "Tele" in the world
occupied by Google and Yahoo. You will be able to see "Independence
Day" on demand and break off for a phone call or someone at the door.
However the service itself has made "Independence Day" absolute
twaddle. You see ET (if he exists at all) is already on the Web. ET,
along with Google is going to me selecting what you see. We know all
modern politicians have to be telegenic. ET is on the Web. What if the
Web and television were one and the same thing. This is a frightening
thought, it was in fact the thought I had when I said that it would be
difficult to have a terrorist group in an AI world. I was pooh poohed
for that. Television will be even more ubiquitous than it is now. I
wish the UFO buffs would take this on board and discuss these points.
Google BTW has got a campaign to learn as much about us as possible.
Do we have anything to hide? Well if a benevolent authority is in
charge of Google possibly not, although the fact that we have our
first sexual experience well under legal ages of consent (14.9 yrs)
might be a cause for some concern. If ET were in charge he would
implement his own program which might or might not be in our best
interests.

Another interesting statistic 53% think some UFOs are
extraterrestrial. Only 25% have twigged the amount of information
Google is collecting. The headline in the Independent "Google is
watching you". If they put these two things together they would be
scared stiff.

BTW - The end of Radio Reloj will mean great political changes. There
is a legend about the end of the British monarchy if the ravens leave
the Tower of London. Radio Reloj ceasing to exist in Cuba would end
the régime.


- Ian Parker