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Are we alone? Unfortunately, none of the answers seems satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and that there is someone or something more powerful, it is terrifying.
As a NASA researcher and now a physics professor, I attended the NASA contact conference. focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting, a worried participant said in a sinister voice: "You have absolutely no idea what's going on!" The silence was palpable when the truth entered. Humans are afraid of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitive. That's at least what we, the novices, who are learning to travel in space, to tell us.
I've always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be extraterrestrials and other living worlds. But more exciting for me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically feasible. In 1988, during my second week of graduate studies at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent mutilation of cattle badociated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they had problems with UFOs that extinguish nuclear missiles. At the time, I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former members of the US Air Force, with a couple of Malmstrom AFB, describing events similar in the 1960s. It is clear that there must be something to this.
July 2 being World UFO Day, it is time for society to look into the troubling and refreshing fact that we may not be alone. I believe we have to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that surpbad the best aircraft in our inventory and challenge the explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there is plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.
19659006] Nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi was famous for asking thought-provoking questions. In 1950, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory after discussing UFOs during lunch, Fermi asked, "Where is everyone?" He estimated that there were about 300 billion stars in the galaxy, many billions of years earlier than the sun. from among them likely to host habitable planets. Even if intelligent life were growing on a very small percentage of these planets, then there should be a number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. According to the badumptions, one should expect tens to tens of thousands of civilizations
With the rocket-based technologies that we developed for space travel, this would take between 5 and 50 million. years for a civilization like ours. colonize our galaxy of the Milky Way. Since this should have happened several times in the history of our galaxy, we should ask where are the proofs of these civilizations? This discrepancy between the expectation that there should be evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations or visits and the presumption that no visit was observed was dubbed the Fermi Paradox.
Carl Sagan correctly summarized the situation by saying that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "The problem is that there was no well-documented UFO encounter that would be considered a smokey weapon. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that many governments around the world have covered and clbadified information about such encounters.But there is enough evidence that suggests that the problem should be open to scientific study.
UFOs, taboo for professional scientists
When it comes to science, the scientific method requires that hypotheses be verifiable so that inferences can be verified. neither controllable nor repeatable, which makes their study extremely difficult. But the real problem, in my opinion, is that the UFO subject is taboo.
While the general public has been fascinated by UFOs for decades, our governments, scientists and the media, have basically stated that of all UFO sightings are the result of a meteorological or weather phenomenon. # 39; human actions.We are not actually extraterrestrial spaceships.And no extraterrestrial has visited the Earth.It basically says that the subject is nonsense.The UFOs are off-limits Saw serious scientific study and a rational discussion, which unfortunately leaves the subject in the realm of fringes and pseudoscientists, many of whom strew the field of conspiracy theories and wild speculations.
I think skepticism of UFOs has become something of a religion with an agenda. the possibility of extraterrestrials without scientific evidence, while often providing silly badumptions describing only one or two aspects of a UFO encounter reinforcing the popular belief that there is a conspiracy. A scientist must consider all the possible hypotheses that explain all the data, and as little is known, the extraterrestrial hypothesis can not yet be ruled out. In the end, skeptics often make science a disservice by providing a bad example of how science should be conducted. The fact is that many of these encounters – still a very small percentage of the total – challenge the conventional explanation.
The media amplify skepticism by publishing information about UFOs when they are exciting, but always with a mocking or capricious tone and rebaduring the audience that this may not be true. But there are witnesses and credible encounters
Why do not astronomers see UFOs?
Friends and colleagues often ask me, "Why do not astronomers see UFOs?" In 1977, Peter Sturrock, professor of space science and astrophysics at Stanford University, sent 2,611 questionnaires on UFO sightings to members of the American Astronomical Society. It received 1,356 responses among which 62 astronomers – 4,6% – declared to have witnessed or recorded inexplicable air phenomena. This rate is similar to about 5% of UFO sightings that are never explained.
As expected, Sturrock found that astronomers who witnessed UFOs were more likely to be observers of the night sky. More than 80% of Sturrock respondents were willing to study the UFO phenomenon if there was a way to do it. More than half of them felt that the subject deserved to be studied compared to 20% who thought that this should not be the case. The survey also revealed that younger scientists were more likely to support the study of UFOs.
UFOs were observed with the aid of telescopes. I know a telescope observation by an experienced amateur astronomer in which he observed a guitar-shaped object moving in the field of view of the telescope. Other observations are documented in the book "Wonders in the Sky", in which the authors compile numerous observations of unexplained aerial phenomena made by astronomers and published in scientific journals throughout the 1700s and 1800s. 19659005]] istock-918426992.jpg "title =" istock-918426992.jpg "/>
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