The TRUTH is Out There . . . Maybe

JayUtah said:
I don't have any problem with this being an exercise in proposing a goal that requires a lot of new and innovative data-gathering capacity. Even if the nominal goal isn't the one that ends up being most useful, the framework is there. (I have problems with such things being used for intrusive domestic surveillance of persons, but that's another thread.) But I would have framed it as, "We need all that for this prosiac purpose, but (wink, wink) we're really going to use it to look for UFOs." Maybe that's why the project references the nothingburger defense report that basically says we need more data-gathering capacity.

I agree that real science has to get out in front of the hypothesis. You can't rush to the scene of where something extraordinary happened and content yourself with the scraps of data you can collect after the fact. You want the data you need already to have been collected, like data recorders in commercial transport vehicles.

Here's the problem. The UFO movement has progressed steadily in the face of new and ubiquitous data gathering. We have reams of radar data, cameras already scanning the skies for other purposes, and practically every citizen in the civilized world carrying a reasonably high-quality camera. It doesn't matter how extensive your network is, or how good your optics are, or how clever you can make your AI. There will always remain a class of observations that is just beyond the threshold of whatever equipment and techniques you're using. And that class of observations will always be the basis of belief in UFOs. Every attempt to systematize data collection Once And For All in order to resolve the UFO question will ever only succeed in kicking the can down the road.
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Would that were true. At least that would be progress but we are dealing with TRUE BELIEVERS who continue to believe in face of incontrovertible mundane explanations -- the so called Phoenix Lights for example.
 
theprestige said:
As I understand it, their proposed solution needs to be preemptive. They can't do this by waiting for a UFO report, then rushing to the site to set up their cameras and radars. They way they describe it, they want an a comprehensive camera and radar network watching the sky all the time, with pattern-recognition software filtering out the false positives.

That way, whenever someone says they saw three lights, this team can dive into the video footage and radar returns from that region of the sky, and figure out what - if anything - was actually seen.

It's basically this:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/update-eye-sky

But pointed at the entire sky, rather than a specific urban center, and with the addition of radar for cross-referencing. Forget about The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. This would probably cost more than the entire air defense surveillance expenditures of the US, Russia, and China combined.
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As JC said, "By their fruits you shall know them". We'll see how well they do.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Would that were true. At least that would be progress but we are dealing with TRUE BELIEVERS who continue to believe in face of incontrovertible mundane explanations -- the so called Phoenix Lights for example.
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How true. There is a class of observations that have been thoroughly explained to a reasonable standard of proof, but which will always feed the imaginations of the true believers. I speak (perhaps in vain hope) of those who genuinely want to explain the strange lights in the sky, and will always be stymied by the need for just a little bit more resolution in the sensor, a little bit more clarity in the optics, and a little bit more I in the AI. If one's goal is to eliminate the "But we just don't have enough information to explain it" inductive leap, one will be sad a lot.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
As JC said, "By their fruits you shall know them". We'll see how well they do.
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They're already doing badly, in my opinion.

I could almost buy:

"We need trillions of dollars for a spacecraft to carry out a high-resolution optical survey of everything in the asteroid belt. It will provide a comprehensive catalog of what's there, and allow future mission planners to make informed decisions about what objects to focus their resources on. This large monetary outlay at the beginning will lead to substantial cost efficiencies over the lifetime of our exploration of the Solar System. We may also discover one or more alien artifacts this way wink."

I cannot buy:

"We need billions or trillions of dollars for a comprehensive sky surveillance system and database, so that whenever someone claims to have seen a UFO we can conclusively rule one way or the other on their claim. And we need more millions or billions for a survey of the asteroid belt and everything else in orbit around the sun, just in case one of them turns out to be an alien artifact. And we need more millions at least to check if there are any small, stealthy alien satellites in high-altitude polar orbits. Remember Galileo!"

ETA: "See how well they do" doesn't really apply for me, in this case. It's not like these guys are inventing high-res cameras, or radar, where we're not sure if the tech is viable and we're still in the process of figuring out if we can make it work. I assume that, given enough money, they would do just fine at pointing cameras and radar at the sky and recording whatever is up there. I assume they would do just fine at cross-referencing UFO claims with the data they collect. My objection is entirely to the premise that this is a project worth spending billions on.

The only real science here would be the pattern-recognition software they say they'll need to make sense of the ridiculous amounts of sky surveillance data they'd be collecting. That would be a worthy object of a research grant all by itself... Maybe that's their real goal? That's the science that's supposed to be funded under the guise of "UFO research"?
 
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But will it cost billions of dollars?

It may be a matter of placing the right sensor and optical packages in the right places (lord knows where those are). Maybe as simple as a civilian version of the RC-135 Cobra-Ball which has high powered telescopes, and electronic telescopes, and assorted ELINT goodies to monitor missile tests and satellite launches.

The USAF has a small number of decommissioned observatories which could be reactivated with new optics. We could connect with the Russians and get them to reactivate their as well.

I'm not up on optics like I once was, but that technology must have improved since the mid-1990s as far as resolution, portability, and spectrum. I don't think they have to reinvent the wheel to do most of their mission statement.
 
CSI / CSICOP on ETI/UFO issues dates back to early 1980's

For those who know me as a skeptic on psychic detective and medium matters, I actually began my skeptical career on the original CSICOP UFO Sub Committee when the late Phil Klass was Chairman. I believe my "entry" into that small group --- ten of us by 1988 --- started about 1984.

The group included Robert Sheaffer (author and co-founder of the Bay Area Skeptics); James Oberg (space journalist and historian, who had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA); the late Dr. Ernest Taves, (author of The UFO Enigma (1977), co-authored with astrophysicist Donald H. Menzel); the late Paul Kurtz (author, humanist, and both CSICOP founder and CSICOP Chairman); Dr. Gary Posner, M.D., (author and the founder of the Tampa Bay Skeptics); the late Michael Dennett (who co-founded Northwest Skeptics with me); Major James McGaha (Astronomer, director of the Grasslands Observatory in Tucson with credits on many TV series and documentaries on UFO/ETI); the late Henry Gordon (author, skeptic, magician, and founder and first chair of the Ontario Skeptics, a precursor to Skeptics Canada).

Associate members on the CSICOP UFO Sub Committee by 1988 included the late Fred Durant III (former Assistant Director for Astronautics of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum); David Schroth (author and UFO/ETI researcher); John Patterson (Professor Emeritus, Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University); Professor Roger Taylor (Professor at Western Wyoming Community College and co-author with Michael Dennett of The Saguaro Incident: A Study of CUFOS Methodology); Andrew Fraknoi (retired Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Foothill College, and now serving on the Board of Trustees of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute); Ron Schaffner (publisher of the cryptozoology Creature Chronicles); Joe Truncale; Charles Wilhelm; Eric McMillan in Canada; Randy A. Brown; Ian Ridpath (science and space author in England); Allan Brunt in Australia; Jacques Scornaux in France; and Captain Peter Beer, pilot and previous President of the Austrian Cockpit Association.

There’s an enormous amount of public data and commentary that exists among those on this list, and many of those still living continue to write on UFO/ETI matters. I did research in the Physics / Astronomy departments at the University of Oregon over 4 years and became as skeptical about claims of previous and current earth ETI visitations as I am about mediums and psychics having any paranormal powers. And for those who know me, that is saying quite a lot.
 
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Axxman300 said:
But will it cost billions of dollars?

It may be a matter of placing the right sensor and optical packages in the right places (lord knows where those are). Maybe as simple as a civilian version of the RC-135 Cobra-Ball which has high powered telescopes, and electronic telescopes, and assorted ELINT goodies to monitor missile tests and satellite launches.

The USAF has a small number of decommissioned observatories which could be reactivated with new optics. We could connect with the Russians and get them to reactivate their as well.

I'm not up on optics like I once was, but that technology must have improved since the mid-1990s as far as resolution, portability, and spectrum. I don't think they have to reinvent the wheel to do most of their mission statement.
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Their vision calls for continuous, comprehensive surveillance of the sky, using both radar and hi-res megapixel cameras. Not just at certain national borders, like an air defense network. And not just at specific pre-planned events, like Cobra Ball does with missile launches.

And it has to be linked to cutting-edge pattern-recognition software, that can sift through all of the data and proactively address the false positives and known phenomena.

Which also means investment in a lot of data storage. Hold onto this data for any length of time, and pretty soon you have to accommodate petabytes of video footage. Even at commodity storage rates, that's going to add up.

Even just to cover North America, I don't see how that setup could cost less than a billion or so.

As for linking up with Russia, they say they don't want to rely on equipment not under their control, and they don't want to rely on data provided by government agencies. They want their own proprietary network, and their own proprietary data.

Think about what they're trying to accomplish: Their goal is that any time anyone claims to have seen a UFO, they will have high-res video of that portion of the sky, cross-referenced with radar returns, all from equipment under their control, so that they can say conclusively what if anything was actually seen.

If they were just doing the sky above Harvard, I could see them bringing it in for under a million if they really wanted to (unless I'm way off about the price of suitable radar sets on the civilian market). I don't see them covering all of New England for under a million, though. Let alone all of North America.

There's also FCC, FAA, and probably Air Force related questions about spamming the sky with that much civilian radar.
 
Sherlock said:
For those who know me as a skeptic on psychic detective and medium matters, I actually began my skeptical career on the original CSICOP UFO Sub Committee when the late Phil Klass was Chairman. I believe my "entry" into that small group --- ten of us by 1988 --- started about 1984.

The group included Robert Sheaffer (author and co-founder of the Bay Area Skeptics); James Oberg (space journalist and historian, who had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA); the late Dr. Ernest Taves, (author of The UFO Enigma (1977), co-authored with astrophysicist Donald H. Menzel); the late Paul Kurtz (author, humanist, and both CSICOP founder and CSICOP Chairman); Dr. Gary Posner, M.D., (author and the founder of the Tampa Bay Skeptics); the late Michael Dennett (who co-founded Northwest Skeptics with me); Major James McGaha (Astronomer, director of the Grasslands Observatory in Tucson with credits on many TV series and documentaries on UFO/ETI); the late Henry Gordon (author, skeptic, magician, and founder and first chair of the Ontario Skeptics, a precursor to Skeptics Canada).

Associate members on the CSICOP UFO Sub Committee by 1988 included the late Fred Durant III (former Assistant Director for Astronautics of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum); David Schroth (author and UFO/ETI researcher); John Patterson (Professor Emeritus, Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University); Professor Roger Taylor (Professor at Western Wyoming Community College and co-author with Michael Dennett of The Saguaro Incident: A Study of CUFOS Methodology); Andrew Fraknoi (retired Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Foothill College, and now serving on the Board of Trustees of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute); Ron Schaffner (publisher of the cryptozoology Creature Chronicles); Joe Truncale; Charles Wilhelm; Eric McMillan in Canada; Randy A. Brown; Ian Ridpath (science and space author in England); Allan Brunt in Australia; Jacques Scornaux in France; and Captain Peter Beer, pilot and previous President of the Austrian Cockpit Association.

There’s an enormous amount of public data and commentary that exists among those on this list, and many of those still living continue to write on UFO/ETI matters. I did research in the Physics / Astronomy departments at the University of Oregon over 4 years and became as skeptical about claims of previous and current earth ETI visitations as I am about mediums and psychics having any paranormal powers. And for those who know me, that is saying quite a lot.
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Sherlock,

Given your background, do you have any thoughts on the Galileo Project? Is it viable or useful? Will it solve anything?

:D
 
theprestige said:
Their vision calls for continuous, comprehensive surveillance of the sky, using both radar and hi-res megapixel cameras. Not just at certain national borders, like an air defense network. And not just at specific pre-planned events, like Cobra Ball does with missile launches.

And it has to be linked to cutting-edge pattern-recognition software, that can sift through all of the data and proactively address the false positives and known phenomena.

Which also means investment in a lot of data storage. Hold onto this data for any length of time, and pretty soon you have to accommodate petabytes of video footage. Even at commodity storage rates, that's going to add up.

Even just to cover North America, I don't see how that setup could cost less than a billion or so.

As for linking up with Russia, they say they don't want to rely on equipment not under their control, and they don't want to rely on data provided by government agencies. They want their own proprietary network, and their own proprietary data.

Think about what they're trying to accomplish: Their goal is that any time anyone claims to have seen a UFO, they will have high-res video of that portion of the sky, cross-referenced with radar returns, all from equipment under their control, so that they can say conclusively what if anything was actually seen.

If they were just doing the sky above Harvard, I could see them bringing it in for under a million if they really wanted to (unless I'm way off about the price of suitable radar sets on the civilian market). I don't see them covering all of New England for under a million, though. Let alone all of North America.

There's also FCC, FAA, and probably Air Force related questions about spamming the sky with that much civilian radar.
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Maybe it would be cheaper to look down from orbit? Anyone care to run the numbers?
 
Galileo Project: Beyond Earth's Geocorona?

In response to Gord's request:

I just retired from Boeing where I began a career starting as a mechanic and electrician on commercial aircraft (737/767/787/777/747 and their many variants). Over the past decade much of my work was acting as a liaison between manufacturing, engineering, and quality on U.S. and foreign military aircraft, principally the KC-46 Pegasus.

If the Galileo was limited to software development only, and designed for scanning and object evaluations beyond Earth’s “geocorona” then perhaps something less than $25 million MIGHT be reasonable. However, I agree with the above concerns of earth-wide software interfacing (though simplistic non-proprietary designs could overcome some of that challenge), and whether other existing software systems already duplicate such work, though not necessarily designed for the same task.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has commented ““It’s really hard to see how you establish a search strategy that would have a chance of seeing one. I suspect there are more well-motivated SETI projects, or even UFO-search projects, that could be funded for less money.”

Mostly there’s a clear need to clarify the obvious. There is, in my opinion, no need to develop a project related to UFO’s – we’ve been down that rabbit hole for almost a century. Sky Hub’s earth-bound AI analysis of datasets also seems a non-starter. There is simply zero validity (from what I’ve studied over 45 years) of ETI craft bouncing around planet Earth.

And if they do exist, at this stage they are clearly objects that are somewhere between delusional space and under a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

Such cloaks, which by-the-way can be purchased from Amazon (and many others) now include a Harry Potter Deluxe invisibility cloak at just $58. I estimate about 1200 of these would cover the typical alleged ETI craft bouncing about earth for just $69,600, plus tax.

So why spend funds to unravel what I like to call the Harry Potter deluxe invisibility cloak syndrome?

P.S. Gord --- I too often regret my twirling responses to your always polite efforts to get concise and on-topic responses from me.
 
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If you're going to go looking for aliens, I think our own planet is the wrong place to look.

The same goes for our solar system, as far as intelligent technological aliens goes.

Maybe there's a remote possibility of microbes somewhere like the oceans of Europa (which lie deep under a thick crust of ice).

This timely video came up today:

 
Puppycow said:
I don't believe aliens have ever visited our planet.

The universe is so huge that there's probably other life out there somewhere.

Unfortunately it is likely to be so far away that we may never be able to meaningfully communicate with it.
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Not only in space, but in time as well. There may have been an advanced civilization around a star only 100 light years from us, but they went extinct a billion years ago.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Not only in space, but in time as well. There may have been an advanced civilization around a star only 100 light years from us, but they went extinct a billion years ago.
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I think L is by far the most important variable in the Drake Equation. If it's millions of years then it hardly matters how small a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be other civilisations around in our galaxy right now. If it's a few centuries then it hardly matters how big a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be no other civilisations around in our galaxy right now.
 
How about we take ET out of this equation and just focus on aerial phenomenon instead, because this has always been the most productive angle when investigating and researching UFOs.

The fact is this current UFO hype is based on US Navy video, HUD, and radar recordings of incidents in the Pacific and Atlantic. The US Navy's ultimate job is to shoot things and blow them up. The same is true with the Air Force. The world is quickly moving back to a hair-pin trigger, and with the development of hypersonic weapons the shoot/no-shoot decision-making time will shrink. Fast-moving unidentified objects might be a problem. All we need is some jumpy commander at NORAD on duty when one of these mystery objects trips the wire in the middle of an international standoff (which will be a common thing by the end of this decade), and the next thing you know we've launched our crowd-pleasers from their silos.

And yes, that's worst-case, but it has come close to happening a few times in the past already.

Taking the time and spending the money to properly investigate this stuff is worthwhile IMO.

And while their mission statement is grand it reads like the usual optimistic Plan-A that every big project sets for itself, the reality and the working budget set in, and what they end up going with is Plan-D.
 
Take ETI craft out of the equation = 0-10 earth based originators

Taking ETI out and basing a development program on determining the originators of earth based UFO craft (I assume the process would also eliminate natural and recognized phenomenon) would leave --- at best – 10 global human entities capable of wishful thinking designs matching the aerodynamic claims of most UFO craft believers.

But seriously, these haven't been manufactured by Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, GE, Honeywell, COMAC/AVIC, Russian VKS suppliers, Boeing, Airbus, Lockhead Martin, or other avionics manufacturers.

And I don’t anticipate anyone coming up with WARP drive or 70-2400 foot (typical claimed range outside of drones) full-cloaking craft anytime soon.
So again, you’re back to investigating delusional claims and sizing up Harry Potter cloaks.

We absolutely should scale up our identification of man-made space debris --- but public ID of earth bound non-ETI UFO craft -- nope.
 
Pixel42 said:
I think L is by far the most important variable in the Drake Equation. If it's millions of years then it hardly matters how small a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be other civilisations around in our galaxy right now. If it's a few centuries then it hardly matters how big a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be no other civilisations around in our galaxy right now.
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I like to think of L more optimistically as not so much an extinction timeline but how long the civilization gives off evidence of their existence that can be picked up at interstellar distances. For example, changing from broadcast frequencies to wired and other more locally contained methods.
 
Pixel42 said:
I think L is by far the most important variable in the Drake Equation. If it's millions of years then it hardly matters how small a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be other civilisations around in our galaxy right now. If it's a few centuries then it hardly matters how big a fraction the other variables are, there will almost certainly be no other civilisations around in our galaxy right now.
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Although, if a planet is conducive to life like the Earth for example, it's conceivable that intelligent life could evolve more than once. If the earth is a typical example, it would take about 2 billion years just to get to eukaryotes, an important milestone on the road to complex multicellular lifeforms like animals.

If we were to go extinct within the next thousand years, it's certainly conceivable that another intelligent species could evolve here in the future.
 
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