Aliens and stuff

[StellarHibee]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jul/26/ufo-hearing-congress-david-grusch-whistleblower-live-updates

It's all coming out now. I for one welcome our proxima centaurian overlords.

[Salt n Vinegar]

I'm getting distinct "don't look over here, look over there" vibes here. With everything that's going on.... 

[ScotiaNostra]

anything interesting been said yet, some facts would be good. Its usually someone told me or I saw but apart from a handful of cases where something clearly happened not much else to support it

[Boo Khaki]

Load of folk eyeing up careers as authors/guest speakers/Comicon delegates and so on.

When they wheel in a bacta tank with the body of Zorg the Defiler from Zeta Reticuli inside it, and park their 'captured flying saucers' on the Whitehouse lawn, then I'll accept some of the incredible claims they are making have some substance to them. Until then, it's not anything more than Bob Lazar was spraffing on about decades back.

[ScotiaNostra]

someone recently in a newspaper or online was saying whats most scary that only us exist or that theres a universe full of different aliens

 

I think the most scary would be if aliens arrive and it turns out they are exactly like us, then we are truly fecked

[welshbairn]

It's notable that the whistleblower David Grusch refused to repeat most of the stuff he's said on TV interviews under oath to Congress.

[Salt n Vinegar]

It is strange. There's folk like me, who consider themselves fairly rational, who will take a Hell of a lot of convincing that there's anything to these UFO type reports. Them there's folk who seem content to jump on the latest bandwagon.  Remember Erich Von Daniken and his "Chariots of the Gods" stuff? Other examples like David Icke, faith healing, psychic surgery, "cold fusion", flat Earth, hollow Earth/moon ... there seems to be an extraordinarily large number of folk who are prepared to believe things on the basis of evidence so sparse or otherwise unreliable that they'd want more substantial evidence in deciding which coat to buy.

[GTG_03]

Thankfully we're still part of the union otherwise we'd have been more at risk of attacks from space. 

[StellarHibee]

17 minutes ago, ScotiaNostra said:

I think the most scary would be if aliens arrive and it turns out they are exactly like us, then we are truly fecked

Perhaps that's why we are truly fecked? Something to think about.

[Big Rider]

2 minutes ago, GTG_03 said:

Thankfully we're still part of the union otherwise we'd have been more at risk of attacks from space. 

ExACtlY!!!!

Ireland has its independence but its subjected to occassional "slurry dumps" from passing UFOs, killing millions.

Doesn't happen here!!!!

[Salt n Vinegar]

Just now, GTG_03 said:

Thankfully we're still part of the union otherwise we'd have been more at risk of attacks from space. 

Seriously? There's a case to be made that the invasion has already begun.

Half the cabinet give off distinctly "other worldly" vibes. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the second most likely to be of extra-terrestrial origin and goodness only knows what planet Nadine Dorries is from.

[Boo Khaki]

Just now, Salt n Vinegar said:

It is strange. There's folk like me, who consider themselves fairly rational, who will take a Hell of a lot of convincing that there's anything to these UFO type reports. Them there's folk who seem content to jump on the latest bandwagon.  Remember Erich Von Daniken and his "Chariots of the Gods" stuff? Other examples like David Icke, faith healing, psychic surgery, "cold fusion", flat Earth, hollow Earth/moon ... there seems to be an extraordinarily large number of folk who are prepared to believe things on the basis of evidence so sparse or otherwise unreliable that they'd want more substantial evidence in deciding which coat to buy.

I think it's just intrinsic, basic, human curiosity. It's something inherent to us as a species. We're naturally inquisitive, so we are always looking for answers and explanations for things that we don't understand.

I also consider myself a pragmatist, so I'm naturally sceptical about things until someone provides some sort of cogent explanation for something backed up with evidence, or at the very least a working hypothesis that does not contradict other things that we already know to be fact.

Having said that, I'll admit there was a point about 25 years ago where I was utterly fascinated by Hancock's 'Fingerprints', because there are a multitude of still unexplained things about the Pyramids, the Giza plateau, and the other ancient human civilisations. I realise now, with the benefit of time and a bit of distance, that a lot of his claims are totally wild and don't 'fit' in the way he insists they do, but nonetheless, here was someone offering apparently plausible explanations to things that 'conventional' scientists either ignored because they were incongruous, or invented completely fictional and obviously flawed 'official' lines on, then they would throw a fit if anyone dared question them, even though their own hypotheses were, in many cases, no less ridiculous than those put forward by Hancock, Von Daniken and co.

There are still things that Hancock highlights that are still ignored by the mainstream because they don't 'fit' with conventional narrative. That doesn't mean Hancock is correct, but it does show that even the conventional, respected authorities should not just be blindly, and implicitly trusted. Again, as a pragmatist, I expect people who honestly don't know to say 'we don't know', not just fill in the gaps because they fear 'I don't know' makes them look incompetent, but that comes back to that natural human thirst for answers and explanations for everything and anything.

[RuMoore]

[GTG_03]

18 minutes ago, Big Rider said:

ExACtlY!!!!

Ireland has its independence but its subjected to occassional "slurry dumps" from passing UFOs, killing millions.

Doesn't happen here!!!!

An Irish friend of mine thinks they should join the United Kingdom, it'll help defend against the aliens and he doesn't see any way that the UK would treat Ireland poorly.

[GTG_03]

16 minutes ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

Seriously? There's a case to be made that the invasion has already begun.

Half the cabinet give off distinctly "other worldly" vibes. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the second most likely to be of extra-terrestrial origin and goodness only knows what planet Nadine Dorries is from.

Good point, how else can we explain Michael Gove?

[Granny Danger]

The best thing about extra terrestrial life forms being a reality is that it would totally discredit the religious fuckwits.

C’mon the aliens.

 

[Boo Khaki]

1 minute ago, Granny Danger said:

The best thing about extra terrestrial life forms being a reality is that it would totally discredit the religious fuckwits.

C’mon the aliens.

 

No, they just claim God created the entire universe, including everything in it, aliens and all.

Been there, been round in circles with people who wilfully refuse to practise critical thinking.

[coprolite]

30 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

I think it's just intrinsic, basic, human curiosity. It's something inherent to us as a species. We're naturally inquisitive, so we are always looking for answers and explanations for things that we don't understand.

I also consider myself a pragmatist, so I'm naturally sceptical about things until someone provides some sort of cogent explanation for something backed up with evidence, or at the very least a working hypothesis that does not contradict other things that we already know to be fact.

Having said that, I'll admit there was a point about 25 years ago where I was utterly fascinated by Hancock's 'Fingerprints', because there are a multitude of still unexplained things about the Pyramids, the Giza plateau, and the other ancient human civilisations. I realise now, with the benefit of time and a bit of distance, that a lot of his claims are totally wild and don't 'fit' in the way he insists they do, but nonetheless, here was someone offering apparently plausible explanations to things that 'conventional' scientists either ignored because they were incongruous, or invented completely fictional and obviously flawed 'official' lines on, then they would throw a fit if anyone dared question them, even though their own hypotheses were, in many cases, no less ridiculous than those put forward by Hancock, Von Daniken and co.

There are still things that Hancock highlights that are still ignored by the mainstream because they don't 'fit' with conventional narrative. That doesn't mean Hancock is correct, but it does show that even the conventional, respected authorities should not just be blindly, and implicitly trusted. Again, as a pragmatist, I expect people who honestly don't know to say 'we don't know', not just fill in the gaps because they fear 'I don't know' makes them look incompetent, but that comes back to that natural human thirst for answers and explanations for everything and anything.

Lots of the mainstream opinion as represented by Hancock is no more than a strawman. 

Ok, archaeology isn't maybe the most rigorous discipline in using the scientific method, and it's more popular exponents can be careless chucking around words like "know", but most serious practitioners are quite happy to admit that most of the past is a big question mark. 

I do think that cranky enthusiastic amateurs like him and even von Danniken add value, partly by challenging received knowledge and testing it and partly by engaging people. Even if they are at it. 

[Salt n Vinegar]

1 minute ago, Granny Danger said:

The best thing about extra terrestrial life forms being a reality is that it would totally discredit the religious fuckwits.

C’mon the aliens.

 

Dunno. For every 'there's nothing in the Bible about extra-terrestrials" you'd get a 'nothing in the Bible says they aren't there'.

In Biblical times I doubt if most folk had any idea what the stars they saw were, let alone about the existence of other planets. As I recall the first non-Earth planet discovered was Uranus, only a couple of centuries ago.

[Salt n Vinegar]

9 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

No, they just claim God created the entire universe, including everything in it, aliens and all.

Been there, been round in circles with people who wilfully refuse to practise critical thinking.

As Arthur C Clarke put it in his third law... "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Show a mobile phone to someone from Methil and you'd probably find yourself being worshipped as a God, or burnt as a witch .