Re: This funny Rosswel bussines

James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:55:56 -0700

At 10:19 PM 7/11/97 -0400, Michael Lorrey wrote:
>James Rogers wrote:
>>
>> At 08:50 AM 7/11/97 +0200, you wrote:
>> >> From: Michael Lorrey
>> >
>> >> Personally, I don't know. I do know of the things I saw when I was in
>> >> the Air Force that I still can't talk about. Given that all of the stars
>> >> in our region of the galaxy are relatively the same age, I would give it
>> >> a 50% chance that we've been visited in the past or will be visited
>> >> within the next 100 years.
>>
>> Why would the next 100 years be any more special than the last million? Or
>> the next million? On someone elses timetable it should make no difference.
>
>Because of the light speed balloon of radio signals we are constantly
>pumping out. Sooner or later, someone is going to notice at the very
>least a drastic change in the radio noise level from this quiet little
>yellow dwarf we orbit around. SInce most of the stars in our neigborhood
>are of similar age, its higly likely that we are temporally coexistent
>with another intelligent race within 100 ly or so. Given that we will be
>heading out within the next 100 years, its equally likeley we will
>either find them, or we will find each other.

Possibly, but will our very weak (relatively) radio source be detectable
among the myriads of strong radio sources? Will they even be looking?
Will they care? They may not even exist on a planet that has an atmosphere
that is particularly transparent to radio waves. We are making large
assumptions regarding the motives, interest, and capabilities of a
hypothetical advanced race. Even a distance of 50 ly is prohibitively
large based on our current understanding of physics. They might not even
be interested in making any type of contact with us, to the point where
they go out of their way to avoid us even assuming they have developed
strong interstellar capability. A race that was simply looking for
resources in other systems might prefer to avoid us to prevent possible
contention. Consider all the unoccupied yet equally accessible star
systems available.

>A civilization a mere 100 years ahead of us technologically should have
>interstellar capability now and be heading this way. If they are more
>advanced, then they could already be here.

Then again, the situation could be that we are the most technologically
advanced society in our neck of the woods. Within a 100 ly sphere, this is
a very plausible possibility. IMO, our best odds of finding ET
civilizations is to go out and look ourselves.

>>
>> >I didn't make an argument about whether we have, or will be, visited. I
>> >simply tried to say that if anybody was able to visit us thru space, they
>> >would probably be able to do so without us detecting them in any way.
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>> I am sure the aliens are seriously upset with the disturbing and uncanny
>> ability of rednecks and trailer trash to spot their stealthy craft.
>
>Hey, Murphey doesn't give a damn about stealth. At least three of our
>own stealth planes have crashed, for all their advancement. Stealth does
>not mean that you're invisible to a drunk sitting on his porch or a
>co-ed getting porked in the back seat, just that such a vehicle is
>designed for "low observability", not "unobservability".

I was presuming that the stealthy craft were of super-advanced alien
origin. Of course our stealth aircraft have much more limited capability.
"Stealth" as currently applied means hard to detect via electronic means.
As for crashing, "stealth" aircraft have very ordinary airframes and are
subject to the same laws of physics as any other aircraft.

-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com