Aliens and Ghosts.. (1 Viewer)

[RobertR]

It always fascinates me that such phenomena get utra shy about showing themselves when committed skeptics are around.

 

[MarkHastings]

Dave, that's kind of the whole point of the thread. I really don't believe in these things unless I see it for myself. I've actually known people who wanted to believe something so bad that they've actaully convinced themselves it happened.

Not to say that this is what happened with you, but there are usually so many other explanations that I don't think that the "supernatural" conclusion is the first place we should immediately jump.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

In the Amazing Randi incident I saw, he showed the participants video where their knees were plainly seen lifting the table, but they still denied it. They had been preselected by the "mentalist" through a series of questions and they, as Randi explained, were preconditioned to believe in the paranormal. It was obvious to anyone that they were moving the table themselves, but they denied even the video evidence. The mind seems to be more powerful than any spook or spectre. As far as sounding condescending, I was no more condescending towards the extraordinary claims than the poster was towards Penn and Teller's rational experiment.

PS, as far as the Goth thing is concerned, I've seen The Cure 4 times, most of them before anyone knew who they were.

 

[BrianW]

Not to worry, Dave. If one can't contribute a narrative such as yours to a thread titled "Aliens and Ghosts..." without fear of recrimination from the skeptics, then something is definitely wrong here. I've seen BryanX confess to believing in ghosts in this and other threads, and to my knowledge, he's never caught any grief for it.

No, simply posting your own personal experiences that seemingly defy mundane explanation is NOT the way to catch grief from a proper skeptic. The way to catch grief from a skeptic is to do one or more of the following:

1. Require him to prove a negative. (I should make that a keyboard macro. )

2. Make illogical arguments, like "Science doesn't have ALL the answers, therefore science doesn't have ANY answers."

3. Submit non-personal (third-party) anecdotal accounts as some kind of proof.

As far as I know, nobody here is going to lecture you either for your experiences, or for your beliefs. But dis the Scientific Method, and you're toast.

In all seriousness, Dave, thanks for having the courage to post. Now go have some fun with it.

 

[Will_B]

Jeff, I'm not sure that "odds" are a reasonable way to assess a situation involving decisions being made by conscious beings. If there is an intention to seek out other life (a la Star Trek), then the "odds" of that happening are increased because it becomes a choice. The power of will makes "odds" unreliable to the point of being irrelevant.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

My critique is not as much about whether they'd visit, but how they'd do it. I think the fact that the universe is so large and the possible amount of life so vast; to think a tiny planet which happens to emit radio waves which may or may not be exibiting patterns, fourth from a relatively minor star in a generic galaxy, would be the target of highly intelligent beings who do not come down and announce themselves, but instead do things like creep around in the dead of night gutting cattle and leaving symbols in corn is highly against the odds. I think if they were coming in peace, they'd just land in NYC, Paris or London and say "We're here!", and if they came to conquer, we'd be the cattle by now. YMMV.

 

[Chu Gai]

Maybe they're just waiting for the temperature to get a bit warmer before they sit down to eat.

 

[Holadem]

I grew up in the land of Voodoo. I mean that litterally, the word is from my native language (where it's pronouced "Vaudoo"). Hatians and such are direct descendent of my people, who can be pinpointed to a strech of a 150 miles tops, of West African coast (and a couple of hundred miles inland). Ghosts are triffle compared to the things that are said to routinely roam the nights out there. I couldn't even begin to tell you the stories you hear on a daily basis.

Yet how come I've never experienced anything remotely outworldy in all those years, but a bunch of westerners in an apartment in Manhattan can conjure up spirits at will?

--
H

 

[Jeff Gatie]

All the ghosts, spectres and creepy crawlies have been corrupted by Big Corporate Interests and will only answer to a Parker Brothers Ouija Board (tm), thus bespoiling yet another pure and clean tradition with the virus of capitalism?

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Can I get a Ouija Board at Toys 'R' Us?

 

[Brad Porter]

Mars?

My very elegant mother...

RADIO WAVES FROM MARS!!!!!! JEFF ANNOUNCED IT!!!

Brad

 

[RobertR]

I have to hand it to you, Holadem, for doing such a good job of jettising that particular bit of cultural baggage.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Doh!!! THIRD, I meant THIRD! Wow, I guess I gotta hand in my secret scientist decoder ring.

PS, I take that back. Everyone knows they would use Mars as a staging area to observe us before invasion. Yeah, yeah that's it, that's what I really meant . . .

Nah, even I can't pull that one off. You got me.

 

[MarkHastings]

They're only available at the "Haunted" ones.

Why else do you think that 'R' is backwards in their name!!!!!! It's the work of the supernatural I tells ya!

 

[Chu Gai]

That's because there's a lot of botanicas in Manhattan.

 

[Kevin T]

yes you can.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index...tId=2266493&cp

kevin t

 

[DeathStar1]

I think the fact that the universe is so large and the possible amount of life so vast; to think a tiny planet which happens to emit radio waves which may or may not be exibiting patterns, fourth from a relatively minor star in a generic galaxy, would be the target of highly intelligent beings who do not come down and announce themselves, but instead do things like creep around in the dead of night gutting cattle and leaving symbols in corn is highly against the odds. I think if they were coming in peace, they'd just land in NYC, Paris or London and say "We're here!", and if they came to conquer, we'd be the cattle by now. YMMV.>>>

Good point. But the only two reasons I could think of.... one is banned because it's government speak. The other, has already been mentioned. Maybe they are just waiting for us to evolve more b efore being contacted and are sort of 'testing' us to see how we'd react to a true arrival. All the lights in the night sky....etc.

As for the cows... maybe they have their own way of making burgers .

 

[Will_B]

We do not know enough about the disposition of life in the universe to say whether Earth is special enough in its multitudes of life forms to merit attention or not. But judging by the relative lack of other life on the other planets in our system (all we have to go on so far), I'd venture we may have some cache. We've got dolphins for heaven's sakes, and they're really cute. See 'em now, while they're still alive!

Minor star, generic galaxy - these terms express a sense of comparison, as if we knew what a trendy, popular galaxy would look like. I suppose in our imagination we'd say that a popular galaxy would be a heavily populated galaxy - one with more than one Earth. I don't deny that would be cool, to be able to look up to the sky and see another planet and know there were a few billion more souls there. That would be incredible.

But for all we know, populated planets are interesting enough one at a time.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Will, you still have not addressed the fact that every "visitation" has taken the form of clandestine raids consisting of cattle mutilations, quasi-sexual anal probes on unsuspecting trailer park dwellers, mysterious landings in cornfields leaving behind relatively amateur representations of the Mandelbrot set, and/or craft capable of interstellar navigation and travel completely bypassing large populated areas only to crash like a drunk driver on Ambien into a unpopulated desert floor. As I said, I have more doubts about the odds of these 'types' of visits than I do about the chance of being an attractive destination, should a visitor find us in the vastness of space.

After all, Neil Armstrong didn't search out the nearest small crater to hide behind or aim for the dark side for the cover of night, he landed smack dab in the Sea of Tranquilty and caused quite a ruckus at that - little green men or no little green men.

 

[BrianW]

If you're looking for a delicious apple to eat, you don't first look for the continent wth the most interesting shape. And once you've settled on a continent on which to find your apple, you don't look for the orchard with the greatest number of caves, interesting though that may be.

Perhaps this is a bad analogy, because apples are found almost everywhere on Earth, whereas life in the Universe is believed to be much more rare. My point is that the most unremarkable stars in the most unremarkable regions of the most unremarkable galaxies are by far the most likely to have the most remarkable planets orbiting them.

If life does seek out life, then our average, middle-aged sun is a perfect candidate.

Again, put the shoe on the other foot. When we began detecting extra-solar planets, we found huge gas giants circling stars in such close proximity to their suns that the existence of smaller, rocky planets in stable orbits in a habitable zone was utterly impossible. Finding a gas giant four times the size of Jupiter circling so close to its 20 solar-masses sun that its year is only 30 days long is pretty sweet.

But it wasn't enough. Astronomers wanted to be able to find find small, rocky planets orbiting average, middle-aged stars like our own. Even now, they have a couple of quite good candidates, and astronomers couldn't be more excited.

I do think life seeks out life, and I submit our own species as an example. Moon rocks are fun. Finding planets in other star systems is fun. But all of this would pale in comparison to finding the first extra-terrestrial being, feather, fossil, or even bacterium. Now that would be fun.

So out of all the remarkable, breathtaking sites that the HST has brought us, the two that intrigue us the most are two average, yellow stars whose images we wouldn't even consider using as computer wallpaper. If not for the vastness of space, we'd be on our way there now.

Ah, but there's the rub. Can those seeking the likes of us overcome the vastness of space?