UFO Evidence From SOHO Satellite

Anonymous Coward writes "EuroSeti is set to reveal during the week of Jan 24-27 National Space Centre in Leicester, UK scientifically sound and verifiable evidence based on observations taken by the SOHO satellite and other satellites that indicate UFOs are present within our solar system. For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites. NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up.'"

Comments

Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

A Small Office/Home Office satelite would do something the big commercial, governmental and scientific satelites couldn't! Amazing!

Re:Who knew

[Jace of Fuse!]

Not really very amazing at all. UFO means unidentified. NASA probably see thousands of UFOs a day, but since they're probably just rocks or something, there's no reason to get all excited about a few objects that you found someplace where you expected you would find nothing.

Supposing this isn't some stupid scam, there's no doubt a simple explaination for what they've seen. They just probably aren't skilled enough to explain it, so their imaginations are running wild.

Re:Who knew

[Cerlyn]

And how do we know that you, my friend, are not part of the conspiracy to cover this up?

(/me puts on a tinfoil hat on to protect themself from the programming rays put out by the government that they learned to produce from the Du'horti that they learned from the Ma'khal that they learned from the J'dar that are really in control of us all!)

Re:Who knew

[IAR80]

Then how do you explain the little green fellow waving from the window?

Re:Who knew

[Senjutsu]

That's just the planet Venus you saw. It's very bright this time of year.

Re:Who knew

[IAR80]

Nope. Just my sister's boyfriend comming to pick her up. :)

Re:Who knew

[WatertonMan]

And how do we know that you, my friend, are not part of the conspiracy to cover this up?

The conspiracy to cover it up involved the DoS attack aka being slashdotted. The boys in the black jackets knew that no one of slashdot would accept the aliens because they used a closed non-open source computing environment and that it had already been done in Star Trek and X-Files. Plus they are all too hard for regular people to understand anyway. Then the UFO site goes down under the load and the government conspiracy can get back to doing trilateral control of the oil reserves.

Re:Who knew

[Tablizer]

A Small Office/Home Office satelite would do something the big commercial, governmental and scientific satelites couldn't! Amazing!

Yes: Make a profit (by selling UFO videos)

Re:Who knew

[Jondor]

And how do we know you're not part of a meta-plot, who's job it is to bring discredit to the plot and as a result make it more believable by the easy impressionable loonies?

(no, I can tell yo about my meta-meta plot, but I would have to kill you..)

Re:Who knew

[discogravy]

as long as you're not running a safe operating system, no amount of hats are going to protect you, buddy.

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, of course NASA buddies (*) are always smarter than their clueless european counterparts.

(*) have you ever noticed that most of the brilliant scientists working for it are not americans?

Re:Who knew

[rrowv]

Soho stands for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in this case, not Small Office/Home Office.

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an easy mistake. Jokes are supposed to be funny.

Re:Who knew

[zaqattack911]

Why do all alien species have an apostraphy "'" in their name?

Maybe an alian race has an unusually easy to pronounce name. Like "Bob" or "people of Bob"

Re:Who knew

[JohnFluxx]

Unfortunetly everything is like that. Rape, death, being short, being bald, being fat, being thin, being irish, blonde, poor... and so on.

You have just got to laugh - the alternatives aren't good :)

I'm not being insensitive- I've spent half my laugh in a mental hospital..

Re:Who knew

[schon]

Not really very amazing at all.

Yes, it really is.

UFO means unidentified.

OK, but what does the 'F' stand for? Flying. As in "something that flies". Not "drifts", or "orbits", but flies.

NASA probably see thousands of UFOs a day

No, they probably see thousands of UOs a day, and many of them are probably drifting, but what about flying ones?

Re:Who knew

[Anonvmous Coward]

"A Small Office/Home Office satelite would do something the big commercial, governmental and scientific satelites couldn't! Amazing!"

You gotta see how fast their people are though. Look at this guy:

http://www.ufomag.co.uk/VidFast.jpg

Now tell me he doesn't look high speed! No wonder they're getting more results than a bunch of beaurocrats!

Re:Who knew

[smittyoneeach]

apostrophe.
The trophy they took from the apos, silly.
Or maybe they're just Zappa fans.
Guess we'll know when they begin to serve man.

Re:Who knew

[Iguanaphobic]

Guess we'll know when they begin to serve man.

Really? I hear they're good with onions and a little brown sauce. :-)

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I had a friend who became Irish, and it no longer is funny.

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that NASA knows the location of and trackes every piece of debris in orbit around the earth. Colisions are not good for satelites, shuttles, etc.

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

Major Gordon Cooper to the United Nations: "I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets... Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs." "I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe."

It is time for the truth to be brought out... Behind the scenes
high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But
through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the
unknown flying objects are nonsense.... I urge immediate Congressional
action to reduce the dangers from secrecy about unidentified flying objects.
Former CIA Director Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, signed
statement to Congress, August 22, 1960.
__________________________________________________
We have, indeed, been contacted -- perhaps even visited -- by
extraterrestrial beings, and the US government, in collusion with the other
national powers of the Earth, is determined to keep this information from
the general public.
Victor Marchetti, former Special Assistant to the Executive Director
of the CIA, in an article written by him for Second Look entitled "How the CIA
views the UFO Phenomenon", Vol 1, No 7, Washington, DC, May, 1979.

A great man of science once told us:
"When, however, in the course of UFO investigations one encounters
many cases , the probability that a new phenomenon was not
observed becomes very small, and it gets smaller still as the number of
cases increases. The chances, then, that something really new is involved
are very great, and any gambler given such odds would not hesitate for a
moment to place a large bet. This point bears emphasis. Any one UFO case,
if taken by itself without regard to the accumulated worldwide data
(assuming that these have already been passed through the "UFO filter"),
can almost always be dismissed by assuming that in that particular case a
very unusual set of circumstances occurred, of low probability (but strange
things and coincidences of extremely low probability do sometimes occur).
But when cases of this sort accumulate in noticeable numbers, it no longer
is scientifically correct to apply the reasoning one applies to a single
isolated case Thus, the chance that a thoroughly investigated UFO case
with excellent witnesses can be ascribed to a misperception is certainly
very small, but it is finite. However, to apply the same argument to a
sizable collection of similar cases is not logical since the compounded
probability of their all having been due to misperceptions is comparable to
the probability that if in one throw of a coin it stands on edge, it will
stand on edge every time it is thrown".

J. Allen Hynek said it very well

Re:Who knew

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Maybe you're new here, but don't ruin the joke by actually explaining how you get to Profit, ok? We'll have none of that!

Re:Who knew

[fucksl4shd0t]

This used to be funny. Then one of my friends became mentally ill, and really thinks they need to do this. Now it's not funny anymore, just very, very, sad. If one were to be exposed to the plight of the mentally ill, one wouldn't make so many jokes about it. It is depressing to see one so bright, promising, and fun spiral down.

Hey dude, need a band-aid? It looks like your heart is bleeding...

Re:Who knew

[some guy I know]

Maybe an alian race has an unusually easy to pronounce name. Like "Bob" or "people of Bob"

IIRC, the evil entity in "Twin Peaks" was named "Bob".
I don't know whether it was alien, though, or whether the name referred to the race of the entity or to the entity itself.

Re:Who knew

[Rip!ey]

No, they probably see thousands of UOs a day, and many of them are probably drifting, but what about flying ones?

To be flying, does it not need to be within an atmosphere? These ones don't appear to me to be flying.

Re:Who knew

[RKBA]

Yes, I know of many people in that situation. They all ended up at TimeBomb2000

Re:Who knew

[meatspray]

No one has accurately coined what it's called when you navigate around outside the atmosphere to my knowledge. If you're on water your sailing, if you're on land your driving, if your in the air you're flying. You could say in space they're orbiting, but that's like a ship in the harbor docking, it really dosen't fit the bill for ocean travel, I'd imagine space travel will eventualy take up nautical terms, due to the numerous silularities. (and all the past star trek movies :) The term UFO was coined at the time when they saw something in the sky,(presumably flying to them) if these are the same kinds of things thay saw back in the day,(whatever they are) I guess you could accurately call them UFOs. I don't really buy in to all this stuff, but if you wanted to get down to it, supposedly these things don't use friction of the air to generate lift anyway so technically if they exist they probably don't 'fly' at all.

Re:Who knew

[John Sullivan]

Watch TITAN A.E.

Were you signing that Albert Einstein or Andrew Eldritch?

Re:Who knew

[forest_rock]

Maybe an alian race has an unusually easy to pronounce name. Like "Bob" or "people of Bob"

I think you mean "people of B'ob"....

Re:Who knew

[JimFromJersey]

> I'm not being insensitive- I've spent half my laugh in a mental hospital.

What is the sound of one half-laugh laughing?

Re:Who knew

[Red Door]

The UFO issue isn't what was alien for the SOHO. Years ago, NASA lost the satellite due to failed gyros. It was thought lost... :-) Then out of the blue the SOHO made contact. It was back on track. But what feaked everyone out was that it was using it's jets to maintain it's position. At once the NASA SOHO team began reviewing and revamping the program. For a time the chatter about this was all over. I still have some archived post from the Satellite group. Then!!! mysteriously, web pages went blank. And the whole incident was totally rewritten. NOW they are saying that they did it. When a satellite looses it's position so does it's antina. So no one was buying it. Now they are saying SOHO is gracking objects? :-) Coincidence? I don't think so. My father worked at the Lockheed Skunk Works in Palmdale and they did testing at Area 51. It's not all fiction. Where do you think our stealth technology came from. Check this out. http://www.monmouth.com/~bcornet/mantaray.htm RED DOOR

Re:Who knew

[meatspray]

not bad, however,

If I say to you, (he/she)'s sailing, you know they're likely on some form or watercraft on some form of water. If you were told someone is flying, you'd expect to find them soaring along in the air (hopefully in some sort of flying maching, but not necessarily), if I told you I was navigating, I could be sailing, flying, driving, walking. I think someone will coin a more ubiquitous term. Then again maybe it will all just get lumped into flying ...

Re:Who knew

[PyroMosh]

Yes, stealth tech came from Skunkworks.
Yes, Skunkworks and Skunkworks derived programs did lots of testing at "Area 51".
No it's not all fiction.
But it's not like aliens came down to Area 51 and gave us stealth. The truth is much more mundane. (But still an excelent read.) Basicly it came down to a little computer program called ECHO I (ECHO 1?).

The gyro story is interesting though. I do vaugley recall something along those lines. But I don't have enough info, to know what happened. Maybe something *is* up there.

As for the consparacy theorist site you linked to, so far all the claims I've seen for extrordinary aircraft later proove to be nothing more than new tech in prooving grounds. How many F-117 prototype flights do you think were mistaken for spaceships by nut-job conspiracy theorists in the 1980s?

"As for the "no fighter plane that *I* know if in the world could possibly turn like THAT!" people, I give you the Russian MiG 35. It doesn't look too radical, but the way it maneauvers is unreal. It uses vectored thrust like the U.S. F-22, but the russian designers have taken the vectored thrust a couple steps further than the F-22's. The diffrence is one of design theory. Western design emphesises standoff weponry and stealth. BVR kills (beyond visual range), where you shoot and kill the other guy before he even knows you're there. Russian designers are still designing for the dogfight. Close in furballs where speed is life. The guy with the most power and the tightest turning radius will usualy win (and in many cases, the guy with the most altitude has a tremendous advantage. Remember: You can always trade altitude for airspeed and vice versa). This kind of combat hasn't evolved a hell of a lot since the days of Baron von Richthofen. Anyway, I saw a demo of the MiG 35 on Discovery Wings. Amazing. The pilot was quite skilled, and a master of his aircraft. He could coax it to do things, that I would have told you were impossible to consistantly do on purpose and in control ina modern fighter aircraft. The man actually put the plane into reverse controled flight. He flew backwards for a short distance in controled flight. The Russian SU-37 also has thrust vectoring, but it's unclear to me which of the two represents a more advanced form of this tech. At any rate, an aircraft like these (or a more advanced generation of the same idea) could have moved like these "impossible patterns".

Re:Who knew

[jelizondo]

Hell No! They use open source software.

Just see "Fourth of July" they are able to interface in minutes with their computers!

A team of top hackers couldn't have done that unless it was all standards-compliant and open-sourced!

When UFO's Attack!

[OutRigged]

And when they come to Earth and systematically wipe us out one city at a time, one brave computer geek will upload a virus to thier mothership, and take the whole alien fleet out! They'll make movies out of this!

Oh wait, they already did...

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Malcontent]

And of course it will be done with a Mac.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[AKnightCowboy]

And when they come to Earth and systematically wipe us out one city at a time, one brave computer geek will upload a virus to thier mothership, and take the whole alien fleet out! They'll make movies out of this!

Just remember guys, a few things we know about these aliens so far: They're VERY susceptible to dying from earth based bacteria (War of the Worlds), their computers can be interfaced via Macintosh computers.. although I'm afraid we'll need to use OS9 or Classic mode to do that since they aren't advanced enough to use a BSD kernel yet (Independence Day), and water is deadly to them! (Signs) Remember this when they start invading guys.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[AndroidCat]

water is deadly to them! (Signs)

But I thought they were here to take our water? (V) And of course, Mars Needs Women!

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[CybSirius]

We could just post the URL for the mothership and wait for the Slashdot effect...

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Bicoid]

If they try any of that crap, the MPAA will sue their extraterrestrial asses for copyright infringement before they can say "Take me to your leader." After 5 years of extensive lawsuits, do you really think they'll have the will to live, let alone run a massive full-scale invasion?

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[SerpentMage]

Ok I think it has to be said. Can we not give them Internet Exploder? I mean it regularly gives me grief, so how different would aliens REALLY be. But since we have been already immunized using the three finger salute the aliens might have issues with this immunization....

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Presence2]

I'm running win2k on alien hardware right now.

http://www.alienware.com

Still waiting for the mothership though.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[egreB]

Now, that just made my day (-8

We'd totally melt her down. Poor thing. We wouldn't even have to use PowerBooks.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[linzeal]

Wait till we meet the RIAA/MPAA IP rights of the galaxy we will all have to eliminated because we resemble some other lifeform, and therefore have no value to them.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Malcontent]

The declared dividend will not eat into their cash reserve very much.

I think Bill was waiting for George to implement what Bill told him to do (remove taxes from dividends). This way Bill and the other handful of MS bigwig stock holders can collect the cash without being taxed on it.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[dbrutus]

I believe that this is BillG's way of encouraging all MS shareholders to get behind the Bush tax plan. You get your $0.08 'training dividend' right now but if the tax plan fails or gets very watered down, the shareholder's get it in the neck. They've committed to dividends going forward now and they are likely to raise it considerably... if the tax plan passes.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[grumling]

Don't forget they aren't fans of Slim Whitman, either (Mars Attacks!).

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[ryanw]

You forgot about the "Head and Shoulders" attack (Evolution) and that they hate 50's Music (Mars Attacks)

Ryan

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[dogfart]

And they need women . Of course, they should have no problem, as earth girls are easy

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[appleprophet]

"and water is deadly to them! (Signs)"

Ouch... Hadn't seen that movie yet. Oh well.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Kong99]

So I guess I need to stock up on Super Soakers then?!?!

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[technomom]

and ginger is like crack to them (Harry Turtledove).

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Dman33]

Not to mention that water severely burns them like acid {Signs} and despite that fact, the 'advanced beings from outer space' try to take over a planet made mostly of water by attacking beings made mostly of water...

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[nick_danger]

Sure, people laughed at me then, but I'm damned glad I bought all of those Slim Whitman albums when I had the chance. When those ugly green heads start popping like zits on a teenager's face, who's gonna be laughing now, huh? Morons...

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[deckmanz]

they already landed

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Dr. Manhattan]

water is deadly to them! (Signs)

Man, I got into such an argument with my wife about that movie. Almost nothing the aliens did made any kind of sense, and the rank stupdity of trying to take a planet with is hopelessly deadly to you is so glaringly obvious I don't know how anyone could take that remotely seriously.

I suppose all the people who were living where it rained had a nice, quiet Invasion Day. Or maybe, just possibly, the aliens in rainy areas wore some kind of hazard suit.

Maybe it's my fault, but is it too much to ask for them to make a movie with even a minimal effort to help the audience suspend disbelief?

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[Raindog]

There are major holes in Signs as far as the aliens are concerned, but IMHO it doesnt matter. Signs is not a sci-fi movie or about aliens, it is a movie about god that just happends to have aliens in it. Oneo of the things I thought was great about the movis was its shift from the sci-fi to the divine.

On the other hand, the fact that aliens had a hard time with doors really annoyed me. These were wacky aliens.

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[slashdot_commentator]

I dunno, doesn't look like its slowed down Microsoft that much. (Or do you really think the MPAA can generate more legal heat than the Dept. of Justice?)

Re:When UFO's Attack!

[HedRat]

> don't forget to play Slim Whitman really loud (Mars Attacks!)

I'll admit, Slim Whitman works, but for *my money*, nothing works better than "Zamfir - Master of the Pan Flute".

One question?

[RaZ0r]

If UFOs are in our solar system then why hasn't SETI picked up any signals??

Re:One question?

[SuperCal]

I think seti looks for signals outside the solar system. I remember reading that they have some sort of system set up to filter out any signals that don't come from the part os space they are checking.

Re:One question?

[Jace of Fuse!]

It doesn't do any good to look for signals that we either wouldn't recognize or even see at all.

Who is to say that a more advanced civilization would even bother communicating with Radio? That whole "Light Speed" limit kind of makes communication by this method rather worthless.

I'll leave scientifically valid theories as to other ways they might communicate to someone advanced enough to figrue that out.

Re:One question?

[iCEBaLM]

I'll leave scientifically valid theories as to other ways they might communicate to someone advanced enough to figrue that out.

Two words: Quantum pairing.

-- iCEBaLM

Re:One question?

[brianosaurus]

I think the best reason for space-travelling aliens to communicate with radio is that a primitive society like ourselves might be able to hear them.

Assuming they're not just cruising around stealthily, looking for planets to wipe out, and are in fact searching for other societies, sending primitive beacons would be a good way to find them, since we would be more likely to be able to answer them. Using their latest communications technology would go right over our heads.

Obviously they would use something more advanced for their own communications (assuming they've figured out space travel, they've probably figured out lots of other neat stuff).

On the other hand, they could be using SETI's approach and just cruise around listening for signals with their AM/FM/8-track stereos in their pimped out rides.

Re:One question?

[Q Who]

Three words: you have no clue.

This "quantum pairing" doesn't allow passing of information.

Re:One question?

[jschrod]

And? Still doesn't break the light speed barrier. Read any decent article, it explains it in painstaking detail.

For beginner's, the articles in Scientific American are fine.

Re:One question?

[sql*kitten]

Who is to say that a more advanced civilization would even bother communicating with Radio? That whole "Light Speed" limit kind of makes communication by this method rather worthless.

Even if you assume that that light speed is an absolute limit, there are good reasons not to use radio over any distance greater than a few hundred metres. The reason is simply efficiency: if you know more or less where the entity you want to communicate with is, why waste energy by broadcasting the signal on other directions? Over short ranges, broadcasting is good because it gives you freedom to move relative to a relay station, but between relay stations, hard links like optical fibre, or directional transmission by laser or microwave are the way to go.

This can explain also why SETI@Home haven't found anything. The period of time between an alien civilization starting to broadcast radio and then realizing that there were more efficient ways to communication would have to overlap with the period in which our civilization was listening for said signals. Not only that, but even if a civilization would have overlapped at 50 lightyears, if they happened to be 200 lightyears away, there would be no overlap. We are talking about mere decades out of millions of years. Maybe exactly the signals we were looking for passed us by just before radio invented.

Further, the limitation of lightspeed in communication is only really a problem if you assume that the users of it have to worry about time. I think it is reasonable to assume that before any civilization makes it any distance into space, they will have solved the problem of aging for themselves by whatever means.

Re:One question?

[VoidEngineer]

I beg to differ.

As I understand the process, it works like this:

Under controlled situations, one heats up an element. General black box radiation will usually suffice, but you typically need to have some weird constraints like using only a single atom as your emitter. Utilizing various methods, such as a laser, you excite the atom such that it emits a photon and an anti-photon (but, remember that a photon is it's own anti-particle, so the quantum pair turns out to be two photons). These photons are emitted in different directions.

By pulsing the laser and the excitation level of the atom, you can emit photons in a morse-code like manner.

Now then, utilizing affects of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Schroedinger Wave equation, the trick is to not 'observe' the photons as they are emitted (else, they wouldn't be observable to the folks you're sending them to on the other side of the galaxy).

Anyhow, assume that these photons travel half way across the galaxy and are 'observed' by some other group. When the photons are observed, the quantum wave collapses, and discrete information is passed from the source of the photons to the observation apparatus. Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light.

That is, by calculating the direction of the incoming photon with the measurement apparatus, one can discretely calculate where the other photon is. Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you loose the velocity information, however, so you know where the other photon is, but don't know how long it took to get there, or how fast it's traveling.

This method of calculation, at the quantum level, is not un-common amongst scientists.

I'm sure I haven't gotten the details exactly right, but this is a basic description of the method.

Re:One question?

[TheLastUser]

Just because SETI uses radio telescopes to listen doesn't mean that the little green men used radio to transmit. Couldn't the signals have been red shifted to radio by the expansion of the universe?

Re:One question?

[Sophrosyne]

They aren't looking for radio transmissions like you'd find pumping out of your local FM or AM station. They working on the premise that Alien lifeforms use some type of energy for power, like electricity. Every electrical device gives off some kind of Electromagnetic field and produced radio waves. Yes there may be some super intelligent squids living at the bottom of an ocean on some planet light years away, but I think seti is most interested in finding life that is a lot like us.

Re:One question?

[Mac Degger]

As I was reading your post, it struck me more and more that what you were saying does not at all add up in comparison to what I've read on the subject in Scientific American and Science. But then came this:

"Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light."

This just doesn't fit with current physics. Why? Because those photons travel in a reference frame...it's not called general/special !relativety! for nothing. The photons (and the data) travel at a speed of c...also relative to each other, due to the space-time dilation effect (ie it space-time compresses the faster you travel). Thing is, we don't know why or with what mechanism paired particles retain that odd connection...that's why it's called the 'strange attraction' :) We just know that it happens. And it has already been used to transmit data...check out the Scientific American of a couple of months back, which had an article about how this was done for not just a particle or two, but for two whole volumes of gas.

Re:One question?

[Mac Degger]

I kind of agree with you...I'm just wondering why they would choose the hydrigon band to broadcast in...that's one assumption of SETI's which I just don't get.

Me, I'd also start looking into the modulations of gamma-ray bursts, too. Or any other phenomenon which could carry information. Just in the off chance....kinda like SETI is doing now.

Re:One question?

[myowntrueself]

I totally agree;
"Further, the limitation of lightspeed in communication is only really a problem if you assume that the users of it have to worry about time. I think it is reasonable to assume that before any civilization makes it any distance into space, they will have solved the problem of aging for themselves by whatever means."

But I once was stunned into mental chaos when I heard the eminent Carl Sagan completely and unequivocally dismiss the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting Earth on the grounds that it would take far too long to travel over the vast distances involved. Carl Freakin Sagan! I thought the guy had imagination.

After that I realised that he was, after all, a pothead like myself...

Only I allow myself a bit more imagination when I am stoned out of my gourd.

Re:One question?

[Bandman]

right, but just because right now, they are advanced enough to use to communicate, doesn't mean that at some point in their technological evolution, they didn't use radio...and since it takes A LONG TIME for /anything/ to get here from there, hundreds or thousands of years ago, a civilization may have used radio, and we'd be picking up their oldies, if you catch my meaning. like if you could break the known physical laws, and teleport yourself 50 light-years away from the earth, and point a big honking antenna at the earth, you may just hear some Doo-Wop music.

Re:One question?

[topham]

If you want to argue that Seti looks at the wrong range in the electromagnetic spectrum, do so. If you want to argue that there are methods of communicating which would be extreemly difficult to pickup by any method we currently have available feel free.

I don't personally hold much hope for SETI, for a variety of reasons, and yet I suport the endevour.

(Ultrawide band transmissions would for instance be almost impossible for use to pickup, we would see it as background noise at best.)

A carefull analysis of the radio spectrum would revela that SETI looks for singals in the promising ranges and that any aliens wishing to communicate could also determine that these choices would be good.

Remember, a civilization which is technologically equal to our own could theoretically cmmunicate with us, it would not HAVE to be more advanced than us.

Re:One question?

[sql*kitten]

Just because SETI uses radio telescopes to listen doesn't mean that the little green men used radio to transmit. Couldn't the signals have been red shifted to radio by the expansion of the universe?

Yes, but if they weren't beamed at us in the first place, they would also have to be bent around to us as they passed stars. That makes it many orders of magnitude more unlikely that those signals would happen to cross our path.

Re:One question?

[Saeger]

the limitation of lightspeed in communication is only really a problem if you assume that the users of it have to worry about time.

A theorectical Matrioshka Brain can live as long as its star burns. So what's a few million years lagtime between buddies when you live for hundreds of billions of years? Of course, as you think faster, the world outside seems to come to a standstill; like cityfolk observing countrybumpkins. :)

--

Re:One question?

[VoidEngineer]

Well, I don't have a PhD in this subject or anything, so you may be correct.

As I understand it, however, data can 'travel faster' than photons.

For instance, assume that we both have direct fiber optic connections from our personal computers to the slashdot servers. So, all information is traveling between us at the speed of light.

Data theory and logic suggest that in order for us to be communicating at all, via 'the internet', we have to both have a web-browser that can transmit HTML, a network protocol stack, a computer screen and keyboard on which to view this information, and so forth. Further, we could also deduce that the other person is a carbon based life form, which possesses DNA, and has grown up in a social environment, such that it learns 'English'. At the very minimum, this can be encoded as a couple of megabytes of information, if not a gigabyte. All of which was transmitted to me the very second that I looked at your message.

Now, one response to this may be that all of this information/data is transmitted in parallel, and it hasn't traveled faster than the speed of light.

On the other hand, there is an argument that information can flow faster than photons.

Let me put it this way: If you encode information on the photon itself, then the data is confined to the physics of the photon. If you encode the information on the wave-equation of the photon, then one can determine and transmit information about states which exceed the speed of light.

The real meat of this post, then, goes back to the previously mentioned scenario. Imagine that we are connected via fiber optics from our personal computers to slashdot. Also, assume that our fiber optics actually transmit information at the speed of light without latency. Now then, assume that we set up our computers to recieve 'push' information from Slashdot's servers, and we both stand in front of our monitors. Also, assume that we are 180 degrees from each other. For the purpose of this argument, assume that there is no latency in regards to processing of the packets, and so forth.

You ------ Slashdot ------ Me

Here is the thought experiment: Slashdot sends an update to both you and me, at the speed of light, via fiber optics. It does this by sending a network packet out it's network card, which is then split into two identical packets by a splitter (one of those mirrors which seperates polalized light, or some similar contraption). The two packets travel to you and me at exactly the same speed, and arrive at the same time.

Now then, I claim that it is true that the network packet travels from Slashdot to Me at no greater velocity than the speed of light (c). I also claim that the network packet travels from Slashdot to You at no greater velocity than the speed of light (c). However, I also claim that there is information transmitted between you and me, at that moment in time, regarding the status of the other packet. This information is transmitted via the wave-equation, not the photon. It's transmitted via the context and the nature of the observation, not with the obersvation itself. In this case, I think that the information passed between You and Me, regarding this network update, has traveled at twice the speed of light (2c), due to quantum parity of the network packets.

If this is not the case, and data is confined by the speed of light, then the thought example must be modified. Perhaps a 1/2 multiplier is needed somewhere within the thought example.

Anyhow, I don't know all the answers, and I'm not claiming what I've said is absolute. I do know, however, that there are definately other scientists on our planet who believe that information can be encoded on the wave-equation, and not just on the photon. In that instance, as I understand it, data can be transmitted faster than the speed of light.

Anyhow, I gathered that from reading and studying articles by Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Fermi, Einstein, Chamberlain, Turring, and Knuth. But I'm not on par with them. I hope that it is obvious that this thought experiment is relevent to UFOs and the topic at hand.

Anyhow, I could be wrong.

Re:One question?

[Scott Carnahan]

Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light.

Unfortunately, there is no information transmitted from Photon Receiver A to Photon Receiver B in your scenario, so no information travels faster than light. Schrodinger and Heisenberg are pretty much irrelevant here.

You may be trying to describe teleportation via quantum entanglement, which has been done in the laboratory. This involves some surprising correlations between measurements of widely separated particles, such as the photons in your example (although a black body is a terrible source). However, the correlations in question do not represent any sort of information transfer, and this phenomenon has been explained quite well by theory which keeps everything at light speed or less, despite the wishes of various crackpots and science fiction fans.

Re:One question?

[leeward]

...since we would be more likely to be able to answer them.

Hmm.. answer them? If they are a hundred light years away, then it has taken a hundred years for their signal to reach us, and another hundred years for our signal to reach them. Conversation is going to be rather difficult. Hopefully their attention span is a bit better than the typical American.

And we have probably done a reasonable job of scanning nearby systems (within a couple hundred light years), so ET is likely to be much further away, making the problem much bigger.

Re:One question?

[Snorpus]

Directional or not, microwave is radio (electromagnetic radiation), as is everything from ELF used to communicate with submarines to light.

Practical microwave for communications is always directional, unless you're setting up a "cloud" for your WiFi network.
BR>

Re:One question?

[VoidEngineer]

Unfortunately, there is no information transmitted from Photon Receiver A to Photon Receiver B in your scenario, so no information travels faster than light. Schrodinger and Heisenberg are pretty much irrelevant here.

Does information need to be transmitted in order to be received? Can't information be determined directly from the wave equation itself? In the scenario described, photons are transmitted from the Emitter to Photon Receiver A and Photon Receiver B. However, data is jumping - or in the term you used, teleporting - between Photon Receiver A and B without either of them transmitting anything. They don't need to transmit. They just receive. And with quantum parity laws, the data they receive can be used with Heisenberg and Schroedinger equations to calculate states at the other receiver.

Teleportation and quantum entanglement is definately an example of this phenomena which has been achieved in laboratories. There is also work being done (at Northwestern, I believe) on quantum cryptography which utilizes some of these principles (I think it does).

And don't get me wrong. I'm not going to be talking about warp drive in any of these posts. But I do think that Heisenberg and Schroedinger are applicable, in terms of the quantum entanglement, which you mentioned.

As Carl Sagen stated, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Re:One question?

[Snorpus]

But then, we can only look for means of communications that we 1) know about, and 2) have the technology to receive. Isn't it better to look "just in case". And what if c _is_ the limit?

Also, remember that much RF is "incidental" radiation as a side-effect of the normal operation of equipment. For example, any half-decent spectrum analyzer will find significant energy at 133Mhz, 266Mhz, and anywhere from 1GHZ to 3GHZ in the vicinity of your PC.
BR> Maybe the ETs on Sirius saying right now Must be another great article posted on /., look at the spikes on the graph!

Re:One question?

[brianosaurus]

When I said "answer them", I wasn't really specific. My point was more that if they broadcasted using some technology that we couldn't even hear/intercept/whatever, we would have no way to acknowledge their existance. So the reason they would be sending on radio frequencies is so we could hear them.

As for answering them, according to the "scientists" at the UFO mag, there's aliens flying around nearby right now, so once we pick up their signals we can just call them up on their cell phones. Bwahahahahaha!!!!

Re:One question?

[God! Awful 2]

Thing is, we don't know why or with what mechanism paired particles retain that odd connection...that's why it's called the 'strange attraction' :)

Uhh... the "strange attraction" I know about refers to co-dominant poles that can cause iterative functions to become chaotic (but deterministic).

Could you please explain what this has to do with quantum mechanics?

-a

Re:One question?

[iCEBaLM]

1: That was 12 words.
2: It very well may, we just don't know how to do it *yet*. Welcome to the wonderful world of science.

-- iCEBaLM

Re:One question?

[Mac Degger]

Sorry, I mean 'action at a distance', which also has a snazzy buzzword description which I thought was somewhere along those lines...but I can't be bothered to have a look through my books at the moment.

Re:One question?

[Guppy06]

Who's to say that their method of FTL communication doesn't involve tunneling radio waves through "something else," and the signals before and after the tunnel are just plain ol' radio waves?

(OK, so I've read too many BattleTech books)

Who is to say that they wouldn't want to announce their presence to us lesser life forms?

Who is to say that they're more advanced than us?

Re:One question?

[Cyclometh]

It's an interesting point, but to turn your question on its head, why should we assume that we're the only life form that has a fetish for communication?

If you assume that any other forms of intelligent life exist, you probably have to assume that there's more than one other. So for every one that doesn't like to communicate, there should be one that does.

Re:One question?

[Mac Degger]

That's not data traveling, that's assumptions you are making. And that's not actual data (except in the sense that you can say "based on this, I now make this assumption; the data I have consists of that assumption").

There is a HUGE difference between data and assumptions.

It's like saying royalty travels at an instantanious speed, because as soon as the king is dead, his son is king. No data has traveled, and you also don't know at the time that the king has died that something has happened: you only know that that transfer has taken place when you hear the news...so it's not even like royalty, as royalty travels at the speed of newsbroadcasts :)

Re:One question?

[Jucius Maximus]

"Three words: you have no clue."

Three words: you cannot count.

Re:One question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that "current physics" has no working
model to reconcile quantum level behavior with
general relativity.

"current physics" is broke, but we're still
waiting for evidence from any of the smart
people proposing various and sundry
improvements/counter-theories.

Re:One question?

[God! Awful 2]

Sorry, I mean 'action at a distance', which also has a snazzy buzzword description which I thought was somewhere along those lines...but I can't be bothered to have a look through my books at the moment.

Quantum entanglement?

-a

Re:One question?

[Mac Degger]

Bing! That's it :) Thanks for aiding my ailing brain ;)

Re:One question?

[puppybane]

I think it is reasonable to assume that before any civilization makes it any distance into space, they will have solved the problem of aging for themselves by whatever means.

um. It is NOT reasonable to assume that any civilization which travels in space would have solved aging problems. The two are in no way connected. It is, in fact, reasonable to hypothesize that there ARE no solutions to aging.

Re:One question?

[SEWilco]

If they're looking for planets to wipe out, in addition to cruising around stealthily they also would set up primitive beacons.
It's called a trap.
Standard technique when trying to catch something threatening yet chewy with a crunchy center.

Re:One question?

[Alien54]

That's not data traveling, that's assumptions you are making.

Actually the data was transmitted, but not when he thought.

He, as the reader, had to learn all of the data to make the context that allowed him to reach those conclusions. That data communication took place while he was undergoing is primary and secondary and collegiate education.

Which was likely a good while ago.

No speed of light paradox here.

Re:One question?

[Absoluttt]

Argh.. it's LOSE not LOOSE.. Goddamn that has come up more in the last few days of 5+ posts it's disconcerting.

Re:One question?

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Insightful? Don't know about that, but we do need mods for Can / Can't Count...

Re:One question?

[Dr. Spork]

This doesn't seem right, because I think we will be using every band from now on. Sure, we may not be using it for music radio, but we would be stupid to just leave those bands empty--and I don't expect that we ever will, even if we discover something like Star Trek's silly "sub-space" for sending signals through. Even if sub-space bandwith is unlimited, it will be overkill for most simple devices like remote controls. That's why I think they and many other simple things will transmit in EM bands forever. I really can't imagine a reason why we would vacate an EM frequency band, no matter what we might possibly discover.

Re:One question?

[sql*kitten]

This doesn't seem right, because I think we will be using every band from now on. Sure, we may not be using it for music radio, but we would be stupid to just leave those bands empty--and I don't expect that we ever will,

I don't forsee abandoning any parts of the frequency spectrum, but instead of a few powerful transmitters on each frequency, there will very many short-range users of each frequency. That's the only way to get more concurrent users squeezed into the spectrum.

Re:One question?

[sql*kitten]

They wouldn't ... unless they know whom they are communicating with. Like single human would never bother communicating until there is a group of human-likes.

Dude, what do you think we're doing posting to /.? :-)

Re:One question?

[Quizz]

A photon's antiparticle is a photon? Shouldn't they have oposite electrical charge? A neutrons antiparticle is a neutron, but are you sure about the proton?

Re:One question?

[Weirsbaski]

"Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light."

This just doesn't fit with current physics. Why? Because those photons travel in a reference frame...it's not called general/special !relativety! for nothing. The photons (and the data) travel at a speed of c...also relative to each other, due to the space-time dilation effect (ie it space-time compresses the faster you travel).

The earlier post wasn't clear on whether this trick would be used to send info from a photon-emitter to a photon-observer a half-galaxy away (this info travels at c, because the photons have to travel the distance), or from the observer to the emitter (also c), or if this trick would let two "observers" send info to each other.

Suppose you're generating photon pairs. Half the photons go toward an observer out "east", and half go toward an observer out "west". Thanks to earlier planning, the eastern observer knows when the photons should get there, and can try to observe them or not. Can the western observer tell whether the eastern observer "observed" the photons, and therefore get some bits of an easterner's message? If so, the speed of this info would be the same as the "strange attraction" connection speed.

In this case, you're generating photons not to send your own message, but to let East talk to West.

Re:One question?

[LittleBigLui]

At the very minimum, this can be encoded as a couple of megabytes of information, if not a gigabyte. All of which was transmitted to me the very second that I looked at your message.

this means that you have a PHAT PIPE (TM) (i.e. great bandwidth - you can transmit lots of information in a relatively short time) but doesn't say anything about your ping (how long it takes the information to travel)

I think that the information passed between You and Me, regarding this network update, has traveled at twice the speed of light (2c), due to quantum parity of the network packets.

well in this case it probably would have arrived BEFORE he even sent it. if you are quick you can respond to him and send him a message telling him to use the preview button because he will be making a typo. well. this is probably EXACLTY what slashdot needs.

Id love to believe this but....

[Liquidrage]

Ill believe evidence of UFO's when the evidence isn't a link to a UFO-centric site.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[iCEBaLM]

Yeah, absolutely, because you know it's true when it comes from a dog groomers website. Or when you see the remains from a squished alien who fell out of his spacecraft and landed on a concrete sidewalk of NYC on stileproject.com.

I mean really, who else would have evidence of UFO's but the UFO centric people who have been researching them. Just because they're looking for it doesn't mean it isn't there.

-- iCEBaLM

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Raiford]

I guess the logic is: if an atheist states that God does exist it is a far more credible statement than a sermon from Jerry Falwell.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Tiro]

Ill believe evidence of UFO's when the evidence isn't a link to a UFO-centric site.

I'll believe it when someone other than Timothy posts it ;P

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Mad Quacker]

Perhaps we should have all waited the 359 YEARS that it took the catholic church to forgive Galileo and thereby concede to the fact the earth revovles around the sun.

http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/71.htm

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[PD]

That's the kind of thinking that gets people in trouble. The person flapping their lips and making noises has no bearing on the truth of what they are saying. The statement must be judged independant of who says it.

Example: Drink this kool-aid, it's delicious. I am a former Congressman, so you can trust me.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Chicane-UK]

You are right.. I'd much rather wait till it gets reported on in the highly reputable newspapers & magazines... THEN i'd know its the truth :D

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'd much rather wait till it gets reported on in the highly reputable newspapers & magazines... THEN i'd know its the truth

It's really a matter of degree. A UFO-centric site is probably going to be biased to a higher degree than media that isn't founded on trying to make such specific claims.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[PylonHead]

No, that's the kind of thinking that makes one skeptical, and skepticism is the knife that divides science from psuedo-science.

If someone has been hoping to find something their entire life, and claims to have found it, you should take their claims with a grain of salt.

If they can convince others with less of an emotional stake in the issue to repeat their experiments and those people come to the same conclusions, then you might have something worth posting on slashdot.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[PD]

If either of those people said that the UFOs were real, I'd not believe them, but would want to test it myself. But, if someone lesser said UFOs were real, I wouldn't even bother testing it. The difference is subtle.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Ted_Green]

Frankly, anyone's statment is more credible than a statment made by Jerry Falwell.

Without a doubt, I'm sure some of the more religous people are thinking "C.S. Lewis" as that particular atheist.

Anyways while using Ad Homminum is a poor logical method to discredit any statment it *is* prehaps an ok method for filtering what statments you're willing to listen to.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[KalvinB]

If an Athiest stated that God exists, he wouldn't be an athiest now would he?

If you have an opinion, you're biased. It's stupid to dismiss people for what they believe simply because they believe it. Which is basically what the parent post is doing.

You may have identified the "logic" but it's the most illogical form of logic I've ever seen. And yet in the magical world on Slashdot where logic doesn't matter, it gets modded up as insightful.

If you have an opinion you're biased. Claiming someone isn't credible simply because they believe what they're saying is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in a discussion.

Ben

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[Raiford]

If you have an opinion you're biased.

That kind of goes part and parcel of the definition of opinion. It's impossible to not have a bias. Find me a man who appreciates the truth based on pure objectivity and I will guarantee you that he probably does not have a pulse.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[SubtleNuance]

or when Fox does an Alien Autopsy...
I mean, you need a real trustworthy authority for (dis?)information this important.

think about it.

Re:Id love to believe this but....

[NitroWolf]

I guess the logic is: if an atheist states that God does exist it is a far more credible statement than a sermon from Jerry Falwell.

Preach on brother! Amen and Hallejula!

They're here

[john_is_war]

They're coming to take me away, ha ha!
They're coming to take me away!

were not ready yet..

[ubugly2]

they're just waiting until we have warp capabilities.

As scientifically reliable as this report may be..

[Neophytus]

A html page with its as New Page 3 has got to be taken with a pinch of salt.

More seriously, who says that these 'new' images arn't straight out of photoshop.

now

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can get the american public to believe it.

Re:now

[oliverthered]

then you could spend more on arms...
Ok, after the cold war..
No more threats to security, so , well have asteroids that are going to hit the earth...
then 11/09 and hey forget the asteroids, lets go after the Axis of Evil. that should stop people thinking about local issues to much and prevent an uprising of the plebs.

Anyone notice the $600bn over 10 years tax cut Bush gave to the the rich.
And all that 'control freek' legislaion that's been sneeking it's way in.

Re:now

[Road]

Anyone notice the $600bn over 10 years tax cut Bush gave to the the rich.

Gave to the rich? Christ you bought the talking points hook line, and sinker. Bush is not giving anyone anything! He is however allowing them to keep more of what is rightfully thiers.

Slow news day...

[owlicks58]

Call me crazy, but I think that website was just made to sell some tickets for a cheesey show. This neither proves nor disproves anything exists. I could make a pic on my computer, put up a site and say I caught it with my super-neo-plasmic-electron-scope and it'd be just as relevant. Might as well just tune into Unsolved Mysteries guys...

Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Why has it become such that UFO = flying saucer?

A "UFO" is just an unidentified flying object. Anything whizzing through the air that I can't identify is a "UFO", whether or not it has anything to do with spacecraft from another world.

Re:Why

[Q Who]

Use defines language.

Get over it.

Re:Why

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Verbing weirds language.

-- Calvin

Re:Why

[jc42]

A "UFO" is just an unidentified flying object.

Yeah; I just saw a UFO out of my window here. It landed in a nearby tree. It was probably either a sparrow or a downy woodpecker, both of which are fairly common in this neighborhood. But it's getting dark, and the critter was too far away to identify clearly.

So it was definitely a UFO.

Re:Why

[(void*)]

But language must not obfuscate meaning!

Re:Why

[Mac Degger]

So should we base the definition on the usage of people who have degrees in mechanics and physics, like the people who work for ESA and NASA, who call a UFO an "Unidentified Flying Object" and use that for asteroids, comets and other phenomenon which haven't been classified yet, or do we use the nutcase's definition, meaning flying saucer?

Use defines language, indeed.

Re:Why

[Archie Steel]

Or, as we used to say: eschew obfuscation.

Re:Why

[CaptainAvatar]

Nobody in astronomy calls asteroids etc UFOs, even before they are positively identified. They don't use the term at all - it has no technical meaning, only the lay one.

Re:Why

[firewrought]

Why has it become such that UFO = flying saucer? A "UFO" is just an unidentified flying object.

Because this is what languages do. Acronymns, compound words, word composed with derivational affixes... all are subject to loosing their generalized meaning when used repeatedly to describe something specific. For instance, "homosexual" could mean "consistently preferring the same style of sex (e.g., always missionary, or always doggie). It could also be synonymous with monogamy, in which case you would see Southern Baptists encourgaing homosexuality. As it happens, hetero/homosexuality refer to something quite different. That's because the meaning we attribute to the word has stabalized on one of the many implied meanings that come from combining "homo/hetero" with the word "sexuality". Intrestingly, a similar thing has happened with the prefix "homo" by itself... if things had worked out differently, "homo" might be short for homogeneous or homomorphic. Or we might have kept the latin meaning of "human" (as in Homo Sapien).

Anything whizzing through the air that I can't identify is a "UFO", whether or not it has anything to do with spacecraft from another world.

Wrong. That's a fair mentality based on disecting the acronymn, but it's not a practical one. If I saw something indistinguishable in the air that I suspected to be mundane, I would not refer to it as a "UFO". If it was spectecular, unexpected, and/or explainable (or if I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek joke to my audience), THEN I would use the term, specifically because it invokes the spookiness of little green men using our atmosphere just because it's fun to navigate those tricky New Mexico crosswinds. :-) I expect most speakers of English would be in agreement with me. I also expect that most speakers would have no problem using "UFO" to describe a mysterious orb piloted by winged, man-sized three-headed penises they found sitting on the ground in the middle of a clearing deep in the forest. Even though it isn't flying, and it's quite plainly not a weather balloon or experimental fighter jet, the term will still apply. Because it's meaning has drifted and everybody sees it that way.

In general, it's easier to invent new words then to "correct" the usage habits of others. Languages like to drift and semantics like to change.

Re:Why

[tigga]

May I call it unidentified flying critter (UFC) then?

Re:Why

[mpe]

Why has it become such that UFO = flying saucer?

Let alone then mutating into "intersteller spacecraft".
The term "fl;ying saucer" was originally used to describe the pattern of flight, rather than the shape anyway.

A "UFO" is just an unidentified flying object. Anything whizzing through the air that I can't identify is a "UFO",

Something travelling through space is probably really a "UO" since it dosn't have any air to fly through.

Re:Why

[_Gus]

Actually, it was

"This is the sort of english up with which I will not put"

Re:Why

[Mac Degger]

The people in the tracking centres (where they track sattelites and orbital debris etc) do.

Re:Why

[CaptainAvatar]

Sorry bud, but you said "asteroids, comets and other phenomenon which haven't been classified yet", nothing about satellites. "Tracking centres" have nothing to do with comets and asteroids; that's an astronomer's job and they don't use the term UFO ever (and you can trust me on that; I used to be one). If that wasn't what you meant, well, you shouldn'ta said it ...

About "tracking centres", well, I have no evidence either way. But I would have doubted they used it in that sense, and even if they did, they would not have priority, because the term UFO predates Sputnik (just - it was apparently first used in a Blue Book publication in 1956) and hence any tracking centres. So if they do use the term UFO in tracking centres, they've imported it from popular parlance and not vice versa.

Re:Why

[jc42]

May I call it unidentified flying critter (UFC) then?

Well, you could, but how do you know? If you really get into the UFO thing, you'd have to realize that it could be a tiny robot spy. Those aliens have advanced nano-robot technology, you know. How many of the flies and mosquitoes are really tiny mobile cameras? We don't know ...

SOHO Rocks!

[Chmarr]

It's amazing what the little-recognised Small Office-Home Office sector can come up with, eh? We're a power to be reckoned with! Now... give us some cheap colour laser-printers, dammit!

Can anyone prove the web-site exists?

[Jack William Bell]

Sure, I know they are claiming that the so-called 'Slashdot Effect' has rendered it invisible, but do we have any independent witnesses? Any physical proof? No...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertisement!

[EchoMirage]

Dammit, editors, RTFLA (linked article)! I quote from the site:

On Tuesday, 7 January 2003, Mr. Mike Murray, one of the founders of EUROSETI, visited the offices of UFO Magazine to conduct a WORLD EXCLUSIVE filmed interview. With his kind permission, that interview - which features a healthy selection of these images - can now be viewed on our website.

Those wishing to attend the lectures at Britain's National Space Centre in Leicester should book their seat a.s.a.p. with EUROSETI. Tickets are £20.00 each and available NOW!

Even if there had been linked information (there wasn't) why should this type of very skeptical pseudo-science make the front page? What's next, a link to the cold fusion magazines? Perpetual motion devices?

This article exemplifies the growing problem of apathy amongst the editorial staff of Slashdot. I'm disappointed, too, because I like this place.

Woops they are gone already!

[Prince_Ali]

Colonel: "They've seen us! Prepare ship for Light Speed."
Dark Helmet: "No, no, no, Light Speed is too slow."
Colonel: "Light Speed too slow?"
Dark Helmet: "Yes. We're going to have to go right to...Ludicrous Speed!"

Re:Woops they are gone already!

[EngMedic]

Colonel: "They've seen us! Prepare ship for Light Speed."
Dark Helmet: "No, no, no, Light Speed is too slow." Colonel: "Light Speed too slow?"
Dark Helmet: "Yes. We're going to have to go right to...Ludicrous Speed!"
Oh...my...god...they've gone...PLAID!

Re:Woops they are gone already!

[cornjchob]

I figure to stop obligatory movie references like this, we'll have to stop.

Shit, we can't do that...I think we have to slow down first.

Re:Woops they are gone already!

[fenix down]

"Sir, there's something wrong, we can't stay still! We doin' a hundred on the highway!"
"Move, bitch! Get out the way!"

Its genius!

[Ogrez]

A crappy html page called new page 3... with a link to 23 minutes of video that does not work... why.. because its /.'ed... Did anyone get the video to work, or are they using the /. effect to cover the fact that they have nothing.

foo

[grub]

To: Ms. Dana Sculley,

I told you so.

Regards,

Fox

I was abducted by aliens once

[SweetAndSourJesus]

They dragged me into their van and drove me all the way to Los Angeles.

It was a strange weekend.

National Waste of Space & Money blah blah...

[ContemporaryInsanity]

When *will* they get the bloody lift fixed ?!?

UFOs....

[niker]

ofcourse!! he had to arrive from Melmac some way.... :P

Profile

[TheSHAD0W]

Umm... Wouldn't the profile of a flying saucer, viewed from a satellite be, um, circular?

Re:Profile

[brianosaurus]

The profile of a sphere would always appear as a circle.

If the flying saucer were flying tangentially to the satellite, it would appear as a circle.

If it were flying with its edge towards the satellite, it would not appear as a circle.

But really it all just boils down to what the photoshop artist thinks it should look like.

Re:Profile

[SecretAsianMan]

Umm... Wouldn't the profile of a flying saucer, viewed from a satellite be, um, circular?

No. For that to always be true, it would have to be a flying sphere. If it's just a saucer, you might be looking at its front instead of its top and see something else, definitely not a circle.

Re:Profile

[Steve Franklin]

Actually, the original Ken Arnold saucer wasn't saucer shaped either. It was kind of a cross between a crescent and an echelon. (How's that for historical foreshadowing?) It was only after the media picked up the term "flying saucer" that people started seeing saucer-shaped objects. This type of evolution would tend to indicate something other than nuts and bolts.

Re: Profile

[Black Parrot]

> It was only after the media picked up the term "flying saucer" that people started seeing saucer-shaped objects. This type of evolution would tend to indicate something other than nuts and bolts.

Such as loose screws.

Re:Profile

[hplasm]

Flying Sausage.

ufo conspiracy garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

Please can slashdot not post crap like this in future?

So they found some satellite images with some objects (asteroids / space debris) that hadn't yet been named / catalogued as it only showed up in a tiny mesh of 4x4 pixels before it crashed into the sun. Because of lossy image compression artifacts they think it looks like a UFO and NASA stops talking to them (something the UFO nuts take as "proof" that they're right).

Big deal - I'd stop talking to them as well.

Now they want to sell tickets to a "conference" where they'll reveal all. Wow. The only thing this scam is missing is an official from the Government of Nigeria / promise of Hot Teens / free Viagra / cheap home refinancing.

But, of course!

[Pavan_Gupta]

It's hard to tell myself that our planet is 1 in trillions that has life. Think statistics... 1 planet out of ~9 (Quaor doesn't count, and pluto barely does), with a medium sized star like the sun has life. How many more suns are there? How many more earths are there? I'm sure we can find some more primordial ooze on other planets, just give it some time. I don't think the stigma attached to UFOs is at all intelligent; what's to be worried about? Star wars? Now, the question has to be: from which UFO did those guys who cloned that human come from? ;)

Re:But, of course!

[0123456]

You're thinking backwards. Any expansionist technologically advanced society could colonise our entire galaxy in a million years or less with no magic technology that we can't currently understand. So if there is another alien species out there more advanced than us, they should be here by now. They're not, therefore the odds are very high that they don't exist.

To put it simply, one species has to be the first to evolve, and a million years after it starts expanding to other star systems there'll be little prospect of a second one evolving independently anywhere in the galaxy. And a million years is a tiny window in the lifetime of the universe.

Mod up!

[Corporate Troll]

Exactly my thought after seeing that page. If this came from some serious institution, it would be better. Without any pictures, how are we supposed to tell if thisis bogus or not.
Not really a worthy article. If the ESA or NASA published something like this, I would be less sceptical.

A couple of problems..

[toupsie]

1) Anything you cannot identify would be "Unidentified".
2) Nothing can fly in space because there is no atomosphere therefor it cannot be a "Flying Object".

Move along, nothing to see here just a picture of a Christmas Hershey Kiss in space. Just because of bunch of Spaniards can't figure out what is in a bunch of pictures does not mean its ET. Plus, why would aliens visit Earth? Are we really that interesting?

Re:A couple of problems..

[toupsie]

When people think of the shuttle moving in space, they call it flying.

Most people would think it was "orbiting".

High traffic

[kc8ioy]

Now I know that you can actually use photoshop or the GIMP or something like that to get more traffic to your website!
Maybe I should make an image like this and get millions of hits. :-)

Let's hope they come soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple might go really bankrupt sometime and then we have no weapons left to use against them.

Re:Let's hope they come soon.

[IAR80]

We could upload them the audigy drivers.

Re:Let's hope they come soon.

[erpbridge]

I know this is OT, but can you give a relevant link? Some reason, I don't get the joke.

Re:Let's hope they come soon.

[Guppy06]

We're already screwed. The aliens never upgraded to OSX and the virus has some compatability issues.

Re:Let's hope they come soon.

[erpbridge]

I am a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up.

Someone set you up the bomb.

Groan

Re:Let's hope they come soon.

[orichter]

So remember, if you don't sell your SUV, and buy and Apple, you support terrorism and alien attack respectively :)

I want to believe, but..

[dr_labrat]

Somehow I think there might be another explanation:

News story

Re:I want to believe, but..

[qengho]

News story [icnetwork.co.uk]

Finally, some Information. Thanks. Where are mod points when I need them?

Re:I want to believe, but..

[Alsee]

From that link:
"The image seen in various newspapers is of an over-exposed planet - it is not a UFO."

Heay! Just because it's a planet doesn't mean it's not a UFO! Them there aliens got them some pretty fancy shmancy tecnomology. Maybe they took that thar planet and FLEW it over here!

-

Buyer beware...

[dbarclay10]

Buyer beware. They're selling stuff. CDs for 15 pounds a pop (~25USD), and tickets for 20 pounds a pop.

Supposedly, you are supposed to be able to view a video interview with some guy, but there are no links to that interview. You've got to buy the CD.

So, "uh-huh".

And let's keep in mind that UFOs are unidentified flying objects. A meteor *IS* a UFO, if it hasn't yet been identified.

In fact, if they have identified it as anything, it's not a UFO any more. :) Significantly less sexy, eh?

Re:Buyer beware...

[brianosaurus]

There are links. If you click on the words "High Speed" or "Low Speed" in the interview pics, it gives you some WMV. I didn't feel like waiting for the download, so I don't actually know what the video is.

But I'm sure it's, you know, scientific and all.

Re:Buyer beware...

[PhoenixFlare]

"Supposedly, you are supposed to be able to view a video interview with some guy, but there are no links to that interview. You've got to buy the CD."

Actually, yes there are. Granted, the links are not extremely visible, but if you'd at least waited for all the images to load, you'd have seen them.

http://www.ufomag.co.uk/Euro56kps.wmv

http://www.ufomag.co.uk/Euro150kps.wmv

25 meg files. I'm in the process of downloading a copy as we speak.

Re:Buyer beware...

[MrSeb]

Er, I don't know about you, but I just clicked the bit of text 'dial-up' or 'high-speed', and the movie started streaming...

RTFA.

Or RTFA-P (properly).

Some of these pictures are quite interesting :)

Re:Buyer beware...

[KZigurs]

well - the link's actually ARE there. They are on the pictures. Only - the site is /.tted - so don't expect to be able to access them :)

Re:Buyer beware...

[rzbx]

Actually there is a link to the video. It's in the picture; the red text.

image filename: Disney.jpg??

[jungd]

The name of the image file on the page is Disney.jpg.

Hmmm.

Re:image filename: Disney.jpg??

[Neophytus]

Oh dear.. It actually is. Whatever pseudo-trust I had of this site (ie: they took their work 'seriously') is now gone. Must be a slow news day in the realms of /. towers.

Re:image filename: Disney.jpg??

[Inda]

Man I must be bored because I did it... with notepad by the way.

Didn't you find the word "Ducky" on the top line a bit funnier? His username maybe?

Re:image filename: Disney.jpg??

[JASegler]

If you watch the video you'd understand why they named the file that.

They nicknamed the image that because it looked like it could have come from a movie.

They also go into detail that they show the unretouched nasa photos and then the enhanced ones.

Additionally for some of these images there were multiple satellites involved. Absolute proof that there was a real object not a CCD fault (well I suppose it is possible that the CCD's in the 2 sats failed at the same time, showing the same false image.. yea.. right..)

Re:image filename: Disney.jpg??

[Sabbe]

Well those images are in my opinion real evidence if they are truly unmodified.

The true question is that are the "original" pictures original or are they made with photoshop.

Consistent Aliens

[1nv4d3r]

Good to see they've stuck with the tried and true 'saucer' body style they've used since the 40s. The aliens must be immune to NIH.

If humans had these ships they'd at least have have fins or something by the next season.

Re:Consistent Aliens

[mat.h]

If humans had these ships they'd at least have have fins or something by the next season.

Have a look at these screenshots from Zak McKracken, IMHO still the most believable alien invasion story to date (tough "Mars Attacks" comes close). The alien mothership is at the bottom and...has fins or something, by the late 80s!

Glad I have cable..

[grub]

The "Hi-Speed" .wmv file is coming in at a blistering 0.3KB/sec. At this pace we'll have made our first warp engine test run and the aliens will have made first contact before I finish the download.

Two Words: Bull Shit.

[kevlar]

UFO Mag says there are UFO's around the world and we're supposed to believe them? There is absolutely no evidence that even remotely validates their claims that a bright blur on some SOHO images are UFO's, versus meteors, comets or cometary fragments. They don't even describe what wavelength or anything. I say bull shit now!!! The burden of proof is on their shoulders!

Re:Two Words: Bull Shit.

[ender81b]

Wait a minute... do you mean to say that the internet could LIE to me? That would be like saying everything TV has taught me is false!

Heretic!

Re:Two Words: Bull Shit.

[kevlar]

Yes, take everything with a grain of salt, but this is surely not Science, and it surely does not belong in a Science Section of anything published.

I'm confused

[DasAlbatross]

What the heck does "UFO-like" mean? Is that something that's been identified, but looks like it hasn't? Or is it something that you know you can identify, and the name is on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't remember it?

alien economy?

[Narcocide]

mabye the aliens can give me a job...

Re:alien economy?

[Tablizer]

mabye the aliens can give me a job...

Nah! They only seem to hire wacky celebrities. Plus, they never let Haffa visit home for vacation.

Date Error?

[SpikyTux]

A full-page advertisement in the January 2003 issue of UFO Magazine has generated considerable interest amongst the UFO community. It refers to an event taking place on the weekend of 24-27 January, when some extraordinary satellite images of anomalous objects will be screened at the National Space Centre in Leicester.

But it's only 20 January today.

Re:Date Error?

[Burgundy Advocate]

That's the lecture they're trying to sell tickets for, not the date the pics were captured. They say on the website that the pictures were taken over the past two years.

It's about time ...

[Raiford]

... I have been getting pretty bored and annoyed with the current lifeforms inhabiting this planet.

Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Malcontent]

What difference does it make where the evidence is presented? Why don't you instead ask if the evidence is stong.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Liquidrage]

Because unless you plan to do your own detailed scientific research into the evidence, the source is what matter most.

Can you trust the source?

If a professor at Cal-Tech released this, I would be midly interested. If it was then further verfied by a research team from the University of Arizona and then later by another team from a Sweedish University, then I would consider it pretty legit.

Now, if you have the resources, the training and capability to validate claims yourself then by all means go ahead. As for me, I use my "BS detector" to the best of my ability but in the end I know where my shortcomings are and in these areas defer to the experts.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What difference does it make where the evidence is presented? Why don't you instead ask if the evidence is stong.

Because evidence that appears on its face to be strong yet comes from a completely incredible (i.e., not credible) source can usually dismissed without further examination. It's a time-saver.

We use this technique all the time here on Slashdot. Remember all those Microsoft press releases about how Windows is more secure than UNIX? Because Microsoft released them, or funded the company that released them, we don't even bother to try to refute them. They're obviously not objective. Same thing here. When a UFO nut says, "Satellite detects UFO!" it's not even worth reading the article.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[pediddle]

I use my "BS detector"

For me, the blinking GIF at the top of the page and the fact that they are using this site to sell tickets and CDs was a dead giveaway.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[AeiwiMaster]

Because evidence that appears on its face to be strong yet comes from a completely incredible (i.e., not credible) source can usually dismissed without further examination. It's a time-saver.

This is a techniques which the shadow government use to keep there work secret.

They mix facts with fiction and release it trough a not credible source.
The most used source is Hollywood.

You can find clues about real projects in films/series like.
X-files
7 days
Stargate.
MIB

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Zigg]

You can find clues about real projects in films/series like .... MIB

I knew there was something not quite right about that Shalhoub guy.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Danse]

Actually, a lot of people do spend a good deal of time going over those studies. Usually it provides good information as to the biases of the study, and it also helps to highlight areas where Linux/Unix needs work. Dismissing things solely because of the source is just ignorant.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[drinkypoo]

Because the UFO Fanatics have been bringing forth crappy evidence for decades and they have no credibility whatsoever as a group. This doesn't mean they're all necessarily wackos, but you can't trust them because so much noise comes from that direction.

Once this has been verified by some more reputable sources, I'll be interested, and it'll be worth posting on slashdot. I know this place is a fringe site as it is but there's no reason to go THIS far off the path of reason.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[SN74S181]

Dismissing things solely because of the source is just ignorant.

However, dismissing things because of the source, and because there are better ways to spend one's time is not 'ignorant.'

But what would I know? I haven't written any crappy non-peer-reviewed glossy books, NOR am I on any of the nutcase 'science' programs on Cable TV.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[aminorex]

What is a UFO nut?

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[lahi]

A UFO nut is used with UFO bolts to join UFO parts. Apparantly aliens haven't invented UFO rivets yet.

-Lasse

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[AsbestosRush]

It's like a snipe, only different. You'll know it when you see it.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The fact that it's not peer-reviewed is a better reason than simply citing the source.

No, dismissing certain opinions or reports because of their source is fine, too. The old saying goes, "Keep an open mind, but not so open that just any old junk can fall into it."

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not. That would be almost as stupid as the people in the early 1900's believing shitty paperbacks about underwater travel or space travel.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Except that a snipe is a real bird...

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[AftanGustur]

Because evidence that appears on its face to be strong yet comes from a completely incredible (i.e., not credible) source can usually dismissed without further examination. It's a time-saver.

Oh, you mean like when Mr W says "We know that mr Saddam has weapons of Mass destruction, we just can't tell you where they are since that could compromise our sources" ?

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Oh, you mean like when Mr W says "We know that mr Saddam has weapons of Mass destruction, we just can't tell you where they are since that could compromise our sources" ?

Heh. I love it when people make snide political remarks that betray their utter ignorance of the subject at hand. Just shut up for a minute and Google "Khidir Hamza," okay?

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[seven89]

Another thing they do is take serious posts and mod them as "funny." ;)

Anyway... You should add "Wag the Dog" to your list. Lately, there has been a whole lot of wagging going on.

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Sorry, but you're wrong. Dismissing things solely on the basis of the source is dumb.

Pff. Why should anybody listen to an anonymous coward?

Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best.

[AftanGustur]

Heh. I love it when people make snide political remarks that betray their utter ignorance of the subject at hand. Just shut up for a minute and Google "Khidir Hamza," okay

Done, I read it, now what ???

I think you just don't get the whole issue. The real issue is not weather Saddam has weapons he isn't supposed to have, or not. Of course he has them.. He has to have them where he lives.. His neighbours aren't exactly Mother Theresa..

And of course there should be UN weapons inspectors enforcing the UN doctrine.. But that is not happening.. Mr W is intoxicated with all the power he has and is acting with similar disrespect for other nations opinions. The biggest difference is that Mr W has the microphone but Saddam hasn't.
Saddam is a sadistic dictator and Mr W is a drug addict.

The picture is much bigger than the average couch potato gets from CNN. The Palestinian issue is linked (Saddam has aided families of suicide bombers after the Israelies have demolished their homes, thereby decreasing the terror factor of the Israelies actions).

Conquering a nation with the intent to install "your" governament is actually illegal according to international treaties. But Mr W has made no secret about that that is actually his main purpose of going to war with Iraq.

And of course, oil.. I guess you know the whole story..

I think the whole issuie should be dealt with by the UN, but just yesterday, Mr W was saying that Saddam "would not get more time" thereby indicating that he would go to war, and just shit on the UN.

should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com

[StarTux]

Seeing this type of news on a UFO centric site certainly raises the crap-o-meter, but if in any doubt go and ask real astronomers over at http://www.badastronomy.com

Its a site run be a real astronomer with real scientists there ready and willing to answer questions.

StarTux

Re:should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com

[mechaZardoz]

Agreed, seeing an advancement of 'new data' from a pseudo-scientific publication raises a lot of flags.

For a dose of cure for some of this, here are some relevant links:

National Space Centre

SOHO Mission Page

In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.

Re:should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com

[Beautyon]

In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.

You obviously didnt watch the interview. Take a look at it, listen carefully to the explanation offered, then come back.

Interesting use of the word "cure" as if someone is ill.

Re:should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com

[Dex Ro]

No need to ask, there's a page on it:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/soh o. html

Yeah, and looks like they are in trouble...

[Junta]

Looks like they've taken damage and are leaking pixie dust.
Oh no! Tinkerbell's going down!

Heh, just a memory of MST3K and the cheesy effects of some movie... How can you not laugh your ass off after seeing that 'actual picture'. They should have stuck with weird blurry blobs they could blame on poor atmosphere/camera focus, this is so ridiculous.
Why is this not 'it's funny, laugh'?

Moderate it up! - good link

[kurthr]

It has the link that should have been on the front page for balance, if not accuracy.

"A full-page advertisement..."

[core plexus]

And little else. It's not really even news. Sure, there are UFO's. Does it mean they are spaceships piloted by intelligent beings? Not even remotely. I didn't see the pic posted to the site, except for the guy in the terrible suit.

Well, they need money now, if only to pay for the massive bandwidth and other problems due to their /.'ing.

Experts explain geometric formations found on Arctic plains Speaking of UFO's and crop circles.

They have been ./'dotted

[StarTux]

Can see this adding to their conspiracy theories:

"The US Govt hit us with a massive denial of service attack after we broke this story, which means they are trying to hide something".

StarTux

Slashdot effect

[whovian]

KANG: Your Slashdot attack on the puny humans will lead us to victory!
KODOS: Yes, they will not know what hit them!
MR PEABODY: Quiet you!!!
SHERMAN stands silent, aloof.

Re:You want proof? You can't handle the proof.

[Jack William Bell]

Some Anonymous Coward says:

You want proof? You can't handle the proof.

Google cache [216.239.39.100] of page in question.

Oh yeah? Like that proves anything. That page was probably Notepadded...

There is no group called Euroseti!

[Xtifr]

See this link. :)

More seriously, the first google link is a bunch of eurofolks running seti@home. I seriously doubt that seti@home has generated any pictures of "ufos" in our solar system. The second link is the one above. The third seems to be some crank who regularly gives speeches on "SETV" (the "Search for Extraterrestrial Vehicles") -- he claims to be a "professor", which may be true, as advanced degrees are hardly a prophylactic against insanity.

So, ooh, ahh, some bunch of UFO freaks have announced that some obscure other group (which may or may not also be a bunch of UFO freaks) have proof (proof! At last, real proof! Mwuah-ha-ha-ha-ha!) of UFOs. Geeze, there's news for ya! Guess what, one group or another of UFO freaks has been claiming that they have proof (real proof, see, it's a genuine photograph of a blob, what more do you want, sheesh!) for years. Wake me when someone with a operating brain gets involved. :)

Frankly, without a little more than this, I'm sticking with Timothy Leary's theory that so-called UFOs are actually human time-travellers from our future astral-projecting themselves back to our time. :)

Re:There is no group called Euroseti!

[iggymanz]

Good grief, Slashdot is turning into the National Enquirer.

I'm thinking of submitting one of these stories:

• Kabalists Apply Fourier Transform to Torah and Result Proves to be OpenBSD 3.3 Kernel (much sought after UltraSparc III version)!!! !
  
• CmdrTaco says: My mother was tentacle raped by a Space Alien (and here I am)
  
• Government Mind Control Satellite Rays Make Male Computer Geeks Download Naughty MPEGs
  
• Elvis Appears to Bill Gates, Tells him India is Next Market
  

Re:There is no group called Euroseti!

[Tablizer]

My mother was tentacle raped by a Space Alien (and here I am)

An Octopussy!

Re:There is no group called Euroseti!

[The_dev0]

Wouldn't that mean his mother has eight pussies? I didn't know he had seven brothers...

Re:There is no group called Euroseti!

[MikeFM]

You forgot an important one..

Aliens kidnap geeks - force them into weight loss camps; Linus brainwashed and forced to run WinCE; Escaped Transmeta CPU eats Tokyo.

Who knew it, Bill Gates really is Borg!

I knew it ...

[Ninja Programmer]

Its just like the Raeleans told us. They are monitoring us in flying saucers piloted by clone babies.

Gooooogle girl!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

UFOs, maybe, maybe not

[magi]

...in the sense of unidentified objects. A few arguments pop into my small amateur astronomer mind:

• It might be some dynamic physical or electric behaviour in the CCD or optics. The hardware is a few years old, after all, in extreme conditions. Might be water condensating on lenses, might be reflections from ice crystals, might be obscure electric charge dynamics on the CCD.
  
• SOHO is located in one of the 5 Lagrange points where it stays at same relative position with both Earth and Sun. Since this is an exceptional point, some space garbage such as rocks or space suit gloves might get stuck in the vicinity of the (unstable) point for some time.
  
• UFOs, as flown by some extra-terrestial intelligent beings, might generally be rather small objects. Space is big. SOHO's cameras do not have extremely good resolution and any visible object would have to be either enormous, very bright, or somewhat close to SOHO (and Earth), but between SOHO and Sun. Somehow that wouldn't seem to make much sense.
  
• Similar bright objects have not been observed from Earth based observatories, which would mean that it's a local phenomenom to SOHO. This would hint towards the first two possibilities above.

IANAA, IAAAA.

Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not

[AndroidCat]

It might be some dynamic physical or electric behaviour in the CCD or optics.

I've gotten precisely those sorts of odd effects when taking digital pictures at night. The camera slows down the "shutter speed" to gather more light, and the slightest jiggle causes really odd effects.

I'd post a link to an example, but I have no wish to have my machine slashdotted! :^)

Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not

[horse100]

CCD effects look like a good bet. If you watch the interview video, you'll see that all the "saucer" shapes line up with the pixel grid of the camera. Funny that.

And then read the SOHO FAQ page and you'll see that it's a known artifact. I'm personally used to CCD artifacts in video cameras, where the design tends to result in vertical lines from bright lights (aka "vertical smear"), but obviously the SOHO CCD design lends itself to horizontal smear instead.

If anyone ever makes a real UFO discovery, it won't be from science-ignorant bozos like these.

Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not

[sl3xd]

It is almost a guaranteed thing that the image is an artifact from the imaging device used to take the picture. Even in the absolute absence of all light, CCD's, and to a much larger extent CMOS imagers, have pixels register light when there is none there. It is impossible to observe any light without effecting the picture in some way or another; it's a scientific fact. Toss enough photons at a non-film camera, and there will be ghosting, and there will be 'erratic non-smooth' tails. It's interesting how often people point at a 'right angle' in a photograph, and say "see that right-angle blur? That can't happen in nature." And yet these people are the same ones who conveniently forget that the camera used to take the picture has (gasp!) right-angles in its mechanism. Or the hexagonal lights (can you say 'camera iris' or 'lens flare'?).

The sad fact is that all too often, people in general (and Americans in particular), believe that they really 'know science', when the reality is that much of what we see is based on an incomplete understanding. We Americans are particularly bad about believing pseudo-science, and its supporters. For that matter, there is a famous test (I don't recall whom did it; please feel free to elaborate), in which test subjects were told to turn a knob which would inflict pain on another person. The 'real' scientists who were performing the test were observing how the average American tends to believe anyone who looks like they are educated about something. The test subjects were told that turning the knob would do no harm, in spite of the actor in the next room screaming in 'agony' and begging for mercy. Basically, there are a lot of human sheep who just want to believe a liar because it's easier than educating oneself, and trusting his/her own judgement-- so they trust the judgement of someone else, often con artists.

It's this lack of understanding of science that enables groups to claim that the Apollo moon landings were faked. Con artists found some loopholes in what people believe about physics, and exploited them. It doesn't even take a degree in physics to show they're lying, or at least mistaken. But too many people do not know the real nature of how light works, how it is percieved, and how our machines translate and process light into data we like to believe is useful. The fact is simple: Light is extremely complex, and its behavior is still extremely difficult to understand. There is so much about the nature of light that isn't taught in even a mid-level college physics class, that people just think that it must be simple, when in fact it is very, very complex. So when a lie is presented to them, they believe it fully, because it 'makes sense', even though it is pure rubbish.

Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not

[Cujo]

some very good points:

UFOs, as flown by some extra-terrestial intelligent beings, might generally be rather small objects. Space is big. SOHO's cameras do not have extremely good resolution and any visible object would have to be either enormous, very bright, or somewhat close to SOHO (and Earth), but between SOHO and Sun. Somehow that wouldn't seem to make much sense.

The LASCO coronograph is actually three telescopes. The tightest field of view looks out to 3 Solar radii. Even this is about a 0.03 radian field of view, so that something spacecraft-ish in size (even very large) would have to be quite close to make a good image. I get that a kilometer size image could be no further than about 10^5 km to even be a one pixel image. To register on several pixels in the tightest telescope, we're talking about 10^4 kilometers max for a big object. That's pretty close for deep space.

I can't reach the site....

[Ugmo]

Has it been slashdotted or...

It's a Government cover-up!!! THEY don't want us to see the evidence so they enlisted Slashdot to nuke their server.

The truth is out there!

Re:No kidding, UFO == Unidentified Flying Object

[duncan bayne]

Not necessarily - not all words have to be represented by letters in an acronym; but you're right, in that case it should have been 'Incorrectly identified Flying Object'. And if I'm a silly fuck, you're a pedant :-)

Well, of course they're UFOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they're UFOs... what does UFO stand for?

Unidentified
Flying
Oject

So yes, they're UFOs, because they don't know definitively what they are. Oh, you mean you think they're alien spacecraft? I don't see any proof of that.

Re:Well, of course they're UFOs

[ThaReetLad]

Except that they're not flying, unidentified, or objects. They're optical artifacts.

"they're coming to take me away ha ha"

[senducemhere]

...to the funny farm where basket weavers sit and twiddle their thumbs...

Re:"they're coming to take me away ha ha"

[studious jew]

Try not to get sent away to the funny farm. They generally treat the Patients' Bill of Rights in a similar fashion as the United Stats government treats the Constitution's Bill of Rights

75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings

[Baldrson]

Maybe now that some more people want to start being scientific about UFOs they'll take a look at improving this formula that accounts for 75% of the variance in the frequency of UFO activity per square mile:

(FemaleStateLegislatorsPercapita2001*CostOfLivingG roceryItems2000*(AIDSTotalPercapitaThru2001/4+Suic idesPercapita1990+10*MurderPercapita2001)*(America n_Indian_Eskimo_or_AleutPercapita1990+Scotch_Irish Percapita1990)/BlacksPercapita1990)

Re:75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings

[brandonY]

That's easy to improve! Just take out all of those percapitas, 2001's, and 2000's, then divide the whole thing by the population. Then watch how it becomes easier to read!

Re:75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings

[Baldrson]

Well, yes... but... and this is a big but... a lot of people get confused between the absolute numbers per state and the percapita numbers per state. I prefer to use percapita (and other rate variables) so that people don't fool themselves with the statistical equivalent of units errors.

Re:75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings

[sanity_slipping]

The site has a major problem. It lists the Suicides per Capita in several different regions as being greater than one.

This is, unfortunately, somewhat impossible. Maybe they are taking the suicides for the entire year, divided by the survivors, but that's just bad statistics. Furthermore, if 86% of the population of several states had committed suicide, it would have been on Slashdot.

I'm afraid this is a fraud.

Re:75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings

[Baldrson]

The site has a major problem. It lists the Suicides per Capita in several different regions as being greater than one.

Are you referring to places that have percapita suicide rates of numbers like "9.09611951631765e-05"? If so you missed the "e-05". I saw none that had a suicide rate greater than one -- just a few that had scientific notation as above.

PS: "Fraud" is pretty strong language even if there had been an erroroneous statistic.

Re:Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertiseme

[TheZapman]

Yet somehow the HSA wasn't important enough to put as a headline.

Google cache of link

[Torqued]

Google cache link of http://www.ufomag.co.uk/euroseti.htm

Im not going to believe it until

[JeanBaptiste]

I get probed. Apart from that I will not believe in ET

Your sig (offtopic)

[Osty]

Have you visited the link in your sig lately? Not only does Slashdot not pass W3C validation, it now blocks the W3C validator. I get:

I got the following unexpected response when trying to retrieve <http://www.slashdot.org>:

403 Forbidden

Please make sure you have entered the URI correctly.

Way to go, Slashdot!

Damn it

[geek]

Now I have to filter out Timothy too. I'm down to like 2 "editors" left.

good link, great pic

[Xtifr]

Yeah, I see what they're talking about now. That photo looks exactly like an early eighties video game UFO! No wonder they're convinced this is real! :)

Mirror of picture

[jgaynor]

The picture from the farked site is here: disney.jpg

Re:Mirror of picture

[Openadvocate]

If people want to see more interesting flashing lights, one could go to Project Hessdalen for their fancy monitoring station.

The station consist of one black-and-white CCD-camera, connected to a computer and a video-recorder. The station has also a magnetometer, which is connected to another computer. Whenever a sudden light shows up in the view of the CCD-camera, an alarmpicture is send on to this web at page last alarms, and the videorecorder is started and run for 15 seconds. The station do also measure changes in the magnetic field, which also is send to the Internet, and it takes a picture, every hour.

Slashloid? Tabdot?

[radpole]

New slashdot headlines:

Britany Spears impregnated by CowboyNeal.

CmdrTaco blood is made of taco sauce.

Timothy's brain is removed and no one noticed.

Oh well thats why I keep reading slashdot you never know what is next.

Why Slashdot Isn't Journalism, or To Be Trusted

[reallocate]

...a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up.

In case anyone is wondering if the people at Slashdot practice journalism or even make an attempt at verifying facts, that quote provides the answer: no.

Who says? What "European-led constortium"? Where's the evidence that NASA "clamped up"? What does "clearly none of the aforementioned" mean? That's an assertion of an opinion.

This story may be perfectly true, but then again it might not be. Meanwhile, /. goes on in full amateur mode.

Re:Why Slashdot Isn't Journalism, or To Be Trusted

[reallocate]

Slashdot does not run every story that's submitted. The staff selects what it wants to post. That kind of selection is a journalistic function. By not going the rest of the way and acting responsibly, /. is just copping out.

Dispatch an Avenger!

[LionKimbro]

We need the Elerium-115!

Re:Dispatch an Avenger!

[AtariDatacenter]

I'm trying to remember. Is than an X-Com: UFO Defense reference?

Re:Oh, They Have A Job For You...

[gangibson]

Or as dinner. . .

Yet, no radio signals

[autopr0n]

This should do a lot to discredit Seti. Either they are UFO loving wack-jobs, or UFO's do exist, but obviously aren't using any kind of radio communication that can be detected using Distributed computing.

Perhaps these people will put their computers to better use.

All I know...

[batobin]

All I know is I'm going to be at the conference, and when the aliens come down from the sky and hover over everyonce in the audience, I'll be there. Then a really hot alien chick will get beamed down in front of me, and we'll be the first inter-planetary-species couple.

Wait? What day is the announcement? CRAP! That's the day of my Star Trek convention! Oh well, I bet the engines from the alient craft will burn everyone in the audience anyway.

It's a COVERUP!

[Openadvocate]

The site speaks the truth!
So the dark side posted it on Slashdot, making sure that no-one would be able to read or view it until they got to the ISP and had the server shut down!
I'm sure of it, now I have to finish this post quickly because there seems to be a brownout in the power here!
Now if only that idiot outside my livingroom window would turn off those bright headlights! hmm wait, I live on the 5th floor..

New Slashdot Section?

[ed__]

Pseudoscience.

any suggestions on what the image icon should be?

Re:New Slashdot Section?

[squiggleslash]

A crop circle.

Re:New Slashdot Section?

[Cpt_Kirks]

A zodiac wheel overlaid with a grey alien head.

Re:New Slashdot Section?

[oPless]

Mini goatese.cx image ? ... if you look carefully you'll see UFOs up there.

Re:New Slashdot Section?

[asparagirl]

A beaker bubbling over with a radiation symbol superimposed on it, i.e. cold fusion?

An aerial shot of crop circles?

A Windows box showing over three months of uptime?

You're talking about different things...

[VoidEngineer]

Hmmm. I think that you and the parent post are talking about different things.

According to quantum information theory, quantum pairing should have a theoretical maximum of twice the speed of light.

As I was posting elsewhere on this thread, the basic concept, as I understand it, is that an atom or molecule is excited such that is emits a photon and anti-photon (photon is it's own anti-particle, so two photons are emitted). These photons are emitted in different directions. If the photons are emitted at an acute angle to each other, then the information is passed at a rate less than the speed of light. If the photons are emitted at an obtuse angle to each other, then the information is passed at a rate greater than the speed of light, but less than twice the speed of light.

If I recall correctly, Feynman's Lectures on Physics covers the basic principles, as do works by Heisenberg and Schroedinger. Specific to the topic, however, is the work by Owen Chamberlain, for his discovery of the anti-proton, and the work by Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee for their investigation into parity laws of the elementary particles.

Formula is NOT right

[spineboy]

if you follow the link to the site you'll see that its a Log vs Log plot!! You can just about generate a straight line of anything vs anything on a log-log plot. I'm sure you could almost generate a similar curve by plotting the (log)number of eggs that people eat vs (log) UFO sightings. Anyone with a basic Stats knowlege should know this...

But it is funny..

thanks,

[Erris]

Some of these pictures are quite interesting :)

Would you kindly liberate a few from M$.WMF and post them somewhere?

Re:alien economy? (+5 Flamebait)

[rampant mac]

mabye the aliens can give me a job...

A little cliche twist...

On Klacknar, job finds you!

Science as a belief system

[Steve Franklin]

This is the basic premise that science is a belief system. To some degree, it is. What is really scary is the number of people who won't even entertain an idea because some "expert" says it's nutso. The plain bald truth is that no one on Earth, scientist or nonscientist alike, has the foggiest idea what's under the surface of Mars, let alone orbitting alpha-Centauri. Try to keep an open mind, fellows.

Re:Science as a belief system

[ryochiji]

>What is really scary is the number of people who won't even entertain an idea because some "expert" says it's nutso

There's a difference between entertaining an idea and believing in one. I entertain the idea of extraterrestrial life, but I don't think every unidentified flying object is one. I'll believe it when someone proves their existence using logical reasoning and not wishful thinking.

Re:Science as a belief system

[dvdeug]

The plain bald truth is that no one on Earth, scientist or nonscientist alike, has the foggiest idea what's under the surface of Mars, let alone orbitting alpha-Centauri.

By the same judge of evidence we don't have the foggiest what's under the surface of the Earth. We've sent probes to Mars, and orbiters around Mars. We know what the surface looks like, in great detail. We know there are no signs of life on the surface, and we know from the Earth and every measurement of every planet and moon that it's probably solid below. Given the mass and density (basic Newtonian physics), and the composition of the surface, we know what's below the surface: lots of rock, with such and such elements predominating.

Re:Science as a belief system

[Steve Franklin]

I was actually referring to those areas just barely beneath the surface, where a displaced surface civilization might have moved to escape the obviously quite desolate conditions above ground, or where an alien species, a la Donald Keyhoe, might set up a base, or where the remnants of a previous advanced Earth-based civilization might hide.

There are indications of water flow underground. There are certainly peculiar geometrically shaped objects on the surface, explained away in various ways by the same folks who brought you Kohoutek, the comet of the century. And there are a multitude of indications of vast water flows sometime in the past. The areas actually sampled for (Earthlike) life are miniscule compared to the actual surface area. And there has even been a suggestion that the "canals" reported in earlier times were the result of surface melting of frost from the heat of underground waterways. So it's really how you look at the data that determines whether you see any signs of life or not. Personally, I prefer to remain sceptical of claims of the lack of life on or under the surface of Mars.

Re:Science as a belief system

[dvdeug]

There are certainly peculiar geometrically shaped objects on the surface,

And there are faces in mountains on Earth without any evidence of natural plan. Humans are very good at finding order where there is none.

there has even been a suggestion that the "canals" reported in earlier times

There's been a lot of suggestions. But there's no particular reason to believe this one. Phenomina that disappear when you take a closer look are inherantly suspicious.

Re:Science as a belief system

[Steve Franklin]

And folks who spell it Phenomina are also inherently suspicious. ;-)

Seriously though, there is a qualitative difference between simulacra, which are complex, fractal-like entities in which people see similarities to other complex, fractal-like entities, and geometrical shapes. Much has been made of the supposed face on Mars, but there are many half-spherical mounds nearby that are much more interesting in that natural objects tend not to be geometrical. With the exception of basic crystalization of molecules, there are very few things in the world that are geometric and not living. On earth, the presence of geometrical shapes is normally taken as evidence of the presence of man, as in block walls and perfectly round shrubs. Yet when something geometrical is found on Mars, there is a mad dash to see who can come up with the first "explanation" of its natural origin.

"Phenomina that disappear when you take a closer look are inherantly suspicious."

Yes, they are. If I walked past an abandoned red gas station and a week later it was blue, I would be highly suspicious indeed. And not of my own sanity, either. I would surmise, almost assuredly correctly, that someone had painted it. That the face on Mars has changed over an extremely short period of time would indicate to me--not that there was something inherently wrong with the original images--but that someone had changed it. There is something here that smacks of the medieval notion that different laws applied to the celestial sphere than applied to the Earth. On Earth, the blue gas station would be evidence of the presence of intelligent beings, but on Mars it is evidence of the falsity of the original redness of the place. This was the essence of the medieval notion, that the sky was perfect and eternal, unlike the Earth where things changed.

Re:Science as a belief system

[Yunzil]

On earth, the presence of geometrical shapes is normally taken as evidence of the presence of man, as in block walls and perfectly round shrubs. Yet when something geometrical is found on Mars, there is a mad dash to see who can come up with the first "explanation" of its natural origin.

The problem is, people took the low-resolution photographs from the old Mariner orbiters, saw thinngs that vaguely looked like a face or pyramids and immediately jumped to the conclusion that OMG there was a civilization on Mars!!

Later, when high-resolution photographs of the same regions became available and the "face" was revealed to be just another hill and the pyramids to be a lot less geometrically perfect, the True Believers immediately jumped up and claimed conspiracy.

That the face on Mars has changed over an extremely short period of time would indicate to me--not that there was something inherently wrong with the original images--but that someone had changed it.

There was nothing *wrong* with the original images. There were just too low resolution to make out any detail; and human brains are very good at supplying detail that isn't really there. It's nothing to get worked up over. There is no evidence of a lost civilization on Mars. It would be COOL if there was, but there isn't.

Re:Science as a belief system

[dvdeug]

If I walked past an abandoned red gas station and a week later it was blue,

And if you saw it the first time while glaring into the setting sun from the top of a hill four miles away? I'd assume that it was the glare of the sun, provided it still looked abandoned and not freshly painted, because I can clearly see it's now blue, and there's no reason why anyone would change it.

ummm...

[koan]

O.K. I'm new here so this must be a joke right? because that is the worst fake I have ever seen...the grain of the picture is mismatched.

The term "flying saucer" was a 1947 accident

[sbjornda]

From An Aeronautical History of Flying Saucers":

It is important to bear in mind that the UFO phenomenon kicks off in 1947, in the form we now recognize, as a result of observations made by Kenneth Arnold over Mount Rainier. Paradoxically, Arnold didn't see "flying saucers," rather, he witnessed a formation of nine boomerang-like devices, or "D"-shaped with the straight section aimed backward (the reader will recall the comments made by Justo Miranda regarding this most aerodynamic shape). It was a journalistic error that assigned Arnold the term "flying saucer." What really matters is that the saucer myth spread quickly across the U.S., and then throughout the rest of the world.

Re:The term "flying saucer" was a 1947 accident

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also interesting to note that throughout history different cultures have reported seeing flying objects or flying beasts, men from the heavens, and men riding chariots across the sky. Just because they didn't call them flying saucers prior to 1947 doesn't mean that they didn't exist. Those with limited knowledge will give a label to something they've never seen in comparison to something they have seen. What we label "saucer" today ancient people may have called a chariot, a dragon, fenris the wolf, or what-have-you.

The problem may not be the legitimacy of certain sightings but may be in the fact that in 1947 people were given a term and an image that they could then slap on to anything they saw in the sky that they couldn't explain. Not much better than claiming "Faeries came to visit me last night". I don't really see us as having made too much progress on the whole past the point of those medieval and ancient peoples. We are still speculating about what's in the night sky. We are still labeling something we do not understand.

"Houston we have a problem"

"What's the problem"

"We think we just saw a UFO"

"Nah couldn't be it was probably just a metorite or a tool or something reflecting off the sun"

"Uh Houston could you identify that object for us"

"Oh could be just about anything"

"Then you're saying it's unidentified right?"

"Well no not exactly it could be a screw from MIR, or something burning up in the atmosphere"

"It's burning up in the atmosphere, right. Would that technically be considered flying?"

"Oh no no no. That would be falling or maybe we call it negative floatation, sky sinking.... hmmmm what will I call that..."

"Houston. It's an object right?"

"Well not necessarily, it could be gas or electricity or plasma and have no solid form..."

"So then what do we call it?"

"Oh let's see, we wanna stay away from UFO because for all practical purposes we have identified it.... so... hmmmmm... how about PIPTFAB (Partially Identified Possibly Terestrial Falling Atomic Bundle)"

"Why don't we just stick with Unidentified Flying Object"

"Well marketing decided that 'flying' seemed to purposeful a word. Plus anytime you say UFO people go nuts."

"Oh...."

Its like the Raelian claims...

[Neophytus]

They claim first and prove 'later'. The first group which comes straight out and gives the evidence without some bullshit pseudo-hype before it should be given the publicity they deserve.

I wonder if this conference will be delayed because of.... a power failure brought on by UFO interferance? Or perhaps they will announce their leader has been abducted and given a probe up the rear end.

clamped up

[Openadvocate]

when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up.'"
Don't we all know the feeling, when some moron just keeps on talking and we really want them to shut up or go away. First my responses gets limited to "yes" and "no", then "ah" and "hm", then I just stop reacting on what they are saying all together.

Re:clamped up

[sohp]

some moron just keeps on talking and we really want them to shut up or go away
Or be like Buzz Aldrin and deck the rude wacko:

A much bigger and younger man was hounding the 72-year-old astronaut in Beverly Hills, Calif., calling him "a coward, a liar and a thief" and trying to get him to swear on a Bible, on camera, that he walked on the moon. Aldrin, a Korean War combat pilot, responded with a fist in the chops.

Go Buzz!

I am prepared

[micaiah]

I am sitting in my basement with my aluminum foil hat on and glass of water in hand.

SOHO satellite hack???

[jamesk]

So has anyone taken credit yet for hacking into these SOHO Satellites image databases and inserting these pics???

Formula IS right

[Baldrson]

You're getting the cart before the horse.

If your random variables are not normally distributed ('normal' means they have low values of skewness and excess kurtosis) the typical rule of thumb is to apply some remapping function to normalize them.

If a random variable is in some sort of exponential distribution it will have a high skewness (and possibly high excess kurtosis as well) and the proper thing to do is normalize with log before looking at the Pearson correlation coefficient. This is because the statistical significance math for correlations presumes normality.

It so happens that a lot of variables on the 50 United States (plus DC) are not normally distributed and taking the log or sqrt gives a better distribution for statistical work.

Cool video

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.scifi.com/happens/happens_1_big.mov

And an analysis of the video by a special effects expert:

http://www.realufos.com/wtcopinion.shtml

Re:Cool video

[thasmudyan]

Yes, the video is pretty cool. But I don't think it's genuine. Here's why:

1. The girl is pointing to the tower and says something like "whats that". The reaction of the cameraman is to zoom right in until we see the craft hovering at the side of the building. I know *I* wouldn't have zoomed in instinctively at once if someone just said "look there".

2. Although the craft is moving *really* fast (exceeding 2000 kph in my opinion) the girl never looses track and continues to point to its exact location. I know that if *I* would ride a helicopter when a strange aircraft is passing by at ludicrous speeds (tm), *I* would be having trouble to track it in real time.

3. (now the most scientific point) Towards the end of the movie the aircraft passes in front of the helicopter at a speed of, say, at least 2000 kph. We can't be sure about distances here but let's say it's distance to the helicopter was 10 meters at its closest. Now: passing by in front of a brittle thing like a small mid air helicopter WITHOUT even making the helicopter shake a bit? Hell, the air draft alone (not to mention engine exhaust) should have gotten the heli into serious trouble at those speeds!

Mind you, I don't know a thing about aviation, that's probably why my analysis is wrong. Any pilots around here? I'd like to hear your opinion!

Re:Cool video

[Neophytus]

A UFO analysis published on none other than a UFO website - already treading on thin water. Also, they have not put any effort into making the stealth bomber integrate into the picture, it looks like they have literally just, to use their words, 'dropped it in' with no thought.

Re:Cool video

[OldStash]

It's ham-fisted "analysis" like this one that makes a the panic-monger's job even easier.

Re:Cool video

[nordicfrost]

From realufos.com:
I asked the world famous psychic Sollog about this video.
He says it is REAL!

Well, I'm convinced!

Seriously; this happens over New York. Is this the only footage of this UFO? At any time, there's so many camera crews in atcion in Manhattan (ref. the WTC plane crash first footage) that someone had to get this on tape in addition to the ones in the helicopter.

I believe in extraterrestial life, but I also beleive that if you can travel 10 + light years, you don't smash into a planet like a Mars probe (ref. the Roswell incident.) or expose yourself like this.

Re:Cool video

[DThorne]

I didn't even need to trace this thread back - I could tell by your description what this was. I work in visual FX, and one time we were toying with the idea of making a ufo hoax as a pr gimmick(we never got around to it). Anyway, I spent a fair bit of time analysing that movie, and I hate to disappoint any abductees out there, but you're right - it's a fake. Even discounting the common sense things you mention, there are motion blur problems with the UFO for those few frames when it zips past and it cuts to the shot straight up. It's obviously a CG element. I also noticed some artifacting issues when they did a hold-back matte for the saucer when it emerged from behind the building.
It's a *good* fake, mind you! But it's a fake. :)

DT

A Mac, of course...

[dcavanaugh]

For compatibiity with the alien systems. There may very well be other aliens (using Windoze), but they can't get out of their own galaxy without rebooting or encountering BSOD. The resources these aliens could have used to improve and stabilize their systems were foolishly squandered on DRM.

Re:A Mac, of course...

[Cruciform]

Or give them Linux... since they'd be using bleeding edge technology it'd be months before they got working drivers, and the death rays would be offline for the interim :)

Unless Alien hardware developers are more open with their driver specs :)

Re:A Mac, of course...

[dcavanaugh]

Sigs have nothing to do with the discussion, and are therefore exempt from the Godwin effect. Unless, of course, someone makes the sig part of the discussion (as you have done). As James T. Kirk so eloquently stated, "Double dumb-ass on you."

Three things that point out something wrong....

[c0dedude]

1. The site uses blink tags. yick.
2. The title of the page is New Page 3.
3. It's being hosted on Win 98! with IIS!

Re:How does the virus work?

[eatdave13]

IAAC (I Am A Coder), and it's about as likely as a blind man picking out your house on a world atlas. And that's only if they use binary computers.

A UFO that was in the Sunday Times in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

The pic here Very interesting Looking craft.

Re:A UFO that was in the Sunday Times in Australia

[Tablizer]

Notice how the "craft" appears to be at right angles (even with) the frame of the picture (assuming they have not altered the rotation for the newspaper photo).

This would lend credibility to those who claim that it is an artifact of digital camera construction. The "blur" lines up with the pixels of the camera. If most of the other UFO images aligned like this, it is a dead ringer for "pixel blur".

Sounds too commercial...

[popmaker]

"Order the CD NOW!" So, if you would spot an alien, would you start burning CD's with the images and sell them for a few dollars. Hope not!

And I've seen too many of those, too many people say they have seen aliens. I once sent an e-mail to a site like this, asked them "how the space-ship could have travelled faster than the speed of light" as was said in the article. They never answered.

I mean... how can we believe people who say they have seen aliens when so many do - and their stories obviously contradict each other. If I decided to believe in aliens, not only would I have to believe that they were orbiting our planet right now, but that there were actually various types of aliens orbiting our planet! And that's just a bit too incredible.

Just look into a book store, you will find at least one book about people who have seen aliens. As I say - too many!

lotr

[mikeclark]

They are coming....JIMMY!

Re:Yes it does

[Anonymous Coward]

There's telepathic communication which is quite feasible as well. You think of something and I try to guess it. BTW, I've just read your mind. Guess what? You're clueless.

Re:Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertiseme

[fo0bar]

What's next, a link to the cold fusion magazines?

What? I don't see anything absurd about Cold Fusion magazines :)

Slashdot Jumps the Shark

[easyfrag]

Years from now people will reminisce about the late great Slashdot, I predict that a consensus will emerge that this story here was either the beginning of the end or the final straw depending on how you feel about /. today.

Re:Are we ready for this information?

[some1somewhere]

10 years... in cosmic terms, is still peanuts.

I doubt anything will happen in 10 years to advance our society enough.

Maybe another few hundred years...

Re:Yes it does

[naasking]

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. The "spooky action at a distance" you are referring to has to do with observations, not imposed changes. As soon as you try to modify the particle it will lose decoherence and will no longer be entangled with its partner.

This just in.....

[Tablizer]

They really *are* flying disks: They are AOL disks tossed out by shuttle astronauts.

I toss my AOL disks into the sky also. However, gravity eventually interferes down here.

Press Release

[ibib]

http://www.ufocity.com/modules/news/article.php?st oryid=3521

Here's a press release entitled: EUROSETI TO REVEAL STARTLING UFO IMAGES AT THE NATIONAL SPACE CENTRE! (yes, all CAPS)

I'm putting it here so you can read it even after the site has been slashdotted.

---

From Graham W. Birdsall, Publisher of UFO Magazine (UK)

EUROSETI TO REVEAL STARTLING UFO IMAGES AT THE NATIONAL SPACE CENTRE!

A full-page advertisement in the January 2003 issue of UFO Magazine has generated considerable interest amongst the UFO community. It refers to an event taking place on the weekend of 24-27 January, when some extraordinary satellite images of anomalous objects will be screened at the National Space Centre in Leicester. The screenings will be held on the evenings of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with each commencing at 7.30pm.

For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites and which defy explanation.

NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up'.

On Tuesday, 7 January 2003, Mr. Mike Murray, one of the founders of EUROSETI, visited the offices of UFO Magazine to conduct a WORLD EXCLUSIVE filmed interview. With his kind permission, that interview - which features a healthy selection of these images - can now be viewed on our website.

http://www.ufomag.co.uk/euroseti.htm

Those wishing to attend the lectures at Britain's National Space Centre in Leicester should book their seat a.s.a.p. with EUROSETI. Tickets are £20.00 each and available NOW!

Note that each ticket holder will receive a FREE CD containing all of the EUROSETI images, including a vast range of computer analysed enhancements.

The EUROSETI ticket hotline number is: 01733 293720

Not only that

[Galahad2]

Not only that, but a civilization that is still using radio transmissions to communicate will absolutely not be making transmissions that are powerful enough for us to hear. I doubt if people with our level of technology can hear us from more than a few light years away, if that.

Re:Not only that

[orkysoft]

Well, they can receive Fox affilite stations on Omicron Persei 8, which is 1000 light years from here!

Lrrr: "I don't get it. Why does the largest friend not simply eat the other five?"

Re:Not only that

[valdis]

Actually, the Areceibo dish with its current transmitter and receiver should be able to hear a copy of itself from anywhere within the Milky Way (except possible for the small wedge hidden by the galactic core). And those could be upgraded if we really felt the need/desire to do so.

We're *well* within the ability technically to make ourselves heard. The problem is being noticed. With that many stars in the galaxy, everybody's transmitting with a -3 AC penalty.

With language like his, how can you *not* believe?

[dr.badass]

Quoth this article :
"I think it's absolutely irrefutable that this couldn't be anything other than a machine. It's an astonishing picture."

See that? Absolutely irrefutable! So just give up the debate! This man is obviously an extremely smart scientist. How else could he be so absolutely sure?

-drb

This article and Slashdot

[Korona]

Hello, I have never posted. I always just enjoy reading. After reviewing this article I felt I had to say something. This article is not good enough for slashdot! I mean, if it were linked to a non-UFO centric site I'd let it slip but give me a break. /. readers are smarter than this and the moderators should be too.

The wonders of a little googling...

[MickLinux]

You know, I couldn't get through to the link. So I googled around for "euroseti", and found zetatalk. Once I had unscrewed my head, and screwed it on backwards, I was ablt to understand it.

Actually, it even made sense then.

Of course, in order to write this post, I had to screw it on properly again, so I can't tell you what it said. Go do your own googling, and read it for yourself.

However, having done my own little search, I have come to the conclusion that NASA's clamping up represents a conspiracy to not talk to idiots and nut cases!

Clearly, the orders come from the very top, probably within the cranial region of their spokesmen and scientists. Meanwhile, we get back to other slashdot news, stuff that matters.

Re:The wonders of a little googling...

[Neophytus]

That zetatalk thing..... surely its a joke. Please let it be a joke. I also had to unscrew my head, mind.

Re: Mind Control Lasers vs. Tin Foil technology

[MisterMook]

Dear Sir,

Thanks to recent advances in technology mind control lasers have never before been as safe and as effective as they are today. Insights from confidential sources have allowed us to make past limitations in our systems obsolete. Now mind control lasering technology relies on non-material interference bands and goes directly into each subject regardless of most terrestrial technologies jamming efforts.

Please cease your /. revolutionary activities at once and report to your Control.

Thank you,
They

New Logic

[mabu]

What is with the "New Logic" that the mainstream now employs?

* "Inspectors have not found any evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Cheney cites this as a clear indication they indeed do have weapons of mass destruction and are hiding them."

* "UFO evidence shown to NASA. NASA doesn't respond. This clearly indicates that they can't refute the evidence."

People have gone mad. I suspect that since nobody is denying it, everyone has actually gone mad. This is clear evidence!

Re:New Logic

[Vann_v2]

Well, it's not really new. People have been using those, especially the second, forever. "Huh, not going to deny it?! So then you admit to it!"

Of course, when you deny it, you're just called a liar.

Re:New Logic

[Mike A.]

Well, I'm not mad. But of course, since I'm denying it, I must be lying, since you know I'm mad (despite the fact that you refuse to provide any evidence), and that the psychiatrists who've so far found no evidence of my madness are clearly just delaying your attempts to have me committed.

Re:Yes it does

[mesocyclone]

While you can show statistically that the particles are linked, you cannot transmit any information. The linking is hidden is such a way that it is only apparent when you have the information from *both* ends, and of course to do that, you need to send it at light speed or less.

This "transcendental modem" idea has been around for a long time, and a lot of very smart people have considered this issue, without ever finding a way to violate the speed-of-light causality (transfer of information rule) - probably because it is inherent in how the universe functions.

too bad...

[gregRowe]

I wish this were real. Then people wouldn't be so nationalistic. The world would be brought together since the "UFO threat" would affect all of the earth. I'd love to be a citizen of earth, rather than the United States. Then we'd only have to worry about stupid humans trying to start an intergallactic war.

Greg

Why is this under the science logo?

[kalidasa]

There should be a tin-hat logo for News of the Absurd: Stuff that Inspires Laughter. Like this. I mean, come on, could this be any more laughable?

Kang is our leader but...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't blame me...*I* voted for Kodos!

Satellites?

[baryon351]

For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites.

As opposed to the normal land-based satellites we're all used to?

Timothy? A little unbiased, maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I don't care if this gets me modded down: when pseudo science, a la roblimo's Alex Chiu "interview" is the norm, I won't bother reading Slashdot. Fortunately, there've been relatively few such articles thus far. Timothy, however, is clearly attempting to change that: first was the Starcraft book review (http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/16 /1630223&mode=thread&tid=160), and now he's posting unverified, unsubstantiated tripe from clearly biased sites. I -want- to believe in alien life! I'm dying to! But I consider myself in the same league as Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." There's a big difference between the SETI folk, who want to believe in UFOs, but are yet to see proof, and the UFO-weenies, who already believe, proof be damned.

Re:Yes it does

[DeltaStorm]

maybe now I'll get a decent ping time

Jere's the image...

[effer]

ASCII version: -------.:.
Note what appears to be a string or wire of some sort suspendend it! Hmmm...

Jimmy

[lux55]

Time to put my tinfoil hat back on. I named mine 'Jimmy'. :)

Mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

timothy shouldn't be allowed to post stories anymore.
He's been watching too much TV lately.

Homeland Security

[SuperGlue]

Wait just a second.....

Unidentified Flying Objects?

Has anyone notified our Homeland Security of this potential threat?

All it takes is a couple of these so called "Ufo's" flying around us and then WHAM!!!!...

If they don't blast a new moon outta us, they will surely rob us of all our valuable plastic grocery sacks.

SuperGlueBooger

National Space Center in Leicester

[Anonymous Coward]

Their website is here. They apparently cater banquets and probably hired out to "euroseti", but there's no press release or news announcement about this on their site.

Re:National Space Center in Leicester

[mechaZardoz]

They might not announce privately-sponsored conferences on their website; doing so might lend tacit support to the organizer's legitimacy.

Still, seeing the link on the NSC's main page to a resource for educators to debunk claims of the 'we never landed on the moon' naysayers, one has to wonder why they would support such wild speculation. Of course, what might be closer to the truth is there is a legitimate conference around data from the SOHO mission being held at the Centre, but EuroSETI simply saw what they wanted to see in a press release from the ESA and ran off proclaiming that UFOs were invading our solar system.

And, OF COURSE...

[ElGanzoLoco]

Now, what a coincidence: the picture shown on that guy's computer (the movies are slashdotted anyway...) resemble... wow, a flying saucer! The same shapes that have been used in all the hoaxes from the last fourty years! Now I'm convinced.

Re:And, OF COURSE...

[geek]

No kidding, we all know aliens fly around in giant cubes. I mean, DUH.

Re:How does the virus work?

[KewlPC]

Assuming that the aliens designed their computers the same way we do, there is still virtually no chance of a virus we made even running on their computers.

1)Completely different CPU instruction sets
2)They probably have some form of network security.
3)Even us stupid human sysops know that you don't just run any old program that you get off the network. You verify that the person who gave you the program is trustworthy, then you verify that the program itself doesn't do anything bad by running it on a standalone system.
4)The only way to get their computers to run our code would be to root their OS.
5)Of course, we wouldn't know anything about their OS. And since they're aliens, they probably use EBCDIC instead of ASCII ;)

PLZ? Science?

[KillerLoop]

nice joke, but I don't think it's ok that sucks /. posts it under science.

"...using two space-based satellites...". yeah, as opposed to my two garage based ones. *sighs*

Re:Old Kike 956 972 0032

[nightherper]

UGH ew nasty.. jesus

please mod that down please... I actually started reading it, thinking there might be a funny ending - but seeing "pouting foreskin puckered" made me realize that someone isn't playing fair...

Mommy!!!

except...

[small_dick]

the scientist debunking the photo says it's overexposure of a planet, not a UFO, and that such things happen frequently with this instrument.

great, by every measure you've posted an excellent link to provide a reasonable explanation for the image.

note that it should be a trivial matter for a reasonably competent scientist look at the date/time the pic was taken, the direction it was pointing, and identify the exact planet beyond any doubt.

when the required info comes out, this will surely happen, exposing the UFO site as a fraud, or not, as the case may be.

Re:except...

[dameron]

Additionally, they are UFOs. The English scientist quoted in the article says they are overexposed planets, white NASA says they're comets or meteors. Until there is a consensus it's perfectly acceptable to call them UFOs.

More interesting is that NASA considered the possibility that it was a camera error, then changed their minds.

-dameron

Re:except...

[pogen]

Sure, planets revolve around stars, but do they move that quickly? I thinketh not.

Well, I agree with the last sentence.

The camera panning and zooming can create the illusion that an object in its field of view is moving.

Re:except...

[Rogerborg]

Brush up on your reading skills.

"NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up'."

If the images that "clearly were none of the aforementioned" were clearly of overexposed planets, the above statement remains 100% true. 'clamped up' is a meaningless phrase, irrespective of who's supposed it's supposed to be 'quoting'. I'd suggest that by 'clamped up' (by which I imagine they mean clammed up) they mean that NASA just stopped dignifying them by looking at any more of their amateurish splodges.

Now we have confirmation...

[bobdotorg]

Now we have confirmation that there are in fact Klingons around Uranus.

Sorry.

Europeans HA!

[mlg9000]

They manage to find UFO's but they can't manage to find WMD in Iraq....

Not it doesn't

[QEDog]

There is a lot of confusion with this. When the particles are, as you called, 'a quantum pair' and Alice measures one of them, the other one assumes the same measured value, so Bob also sees the same value. There is no way to transmit information that way, since Alice doesn't know or controls what value her measurement will turn out to be. But, as soon as she measures, both Alice and Bob has the same, totally useless, random piece of information. Well, not useless, you can use this as an encryption key, but that's another story...

Re:Not it doesn't

[the_2nd_coming]

and setting up an intervle of measurment and then combining groups of measurment intervles

like:

measure-rest-measure-rest-rest

that would then while transfering random information will be a meaningfull patern....like a telegraph.....we do not analise the wire to get information, we analize the electrtic current patters of on-off-on-off.

Re:Not it doesn't

[fucksl4shd0t]

we do not analise the wire to get information, we analize the electrtic current patters of on-off-on-off.

Um, I don't analize shit. er, well, I guess I do.

Re:Not it doesn't

[BinaryForces]

How about this... Use precisely timed and synchronized clocks at each end. On the first "tick" I read the quantum pair. If it is not the value I want I simply read it again until it is the value I want. The next "tick" of the clock the other side will see the value I intended them to see. This is done in cryptography all the time by the military. Could someone punch a hole in that?

Re:How does the virus work?

[Hard_Code]

6) MPAA/RIAA mandated TCPA/DRM mechanism will render their hardware immune from attack!

Some answers

[Goonie]

Radio astronomers use the hydrogen band for observations. Hence, if you're trying to attract attention (the initial assumption of SETI researchers), it was thought that aliens would broadcast on the hydrogen band so that anybody doing radio astronomy could spot the beacon as part of their normal observations.

There were also other technical reasons - that part of the spectrum was believed to be one of the most efficient for transmitting through interstellar space.

Aside from the fact that that was what their radiotelescopes were designed to detect (we have a hammer, therefore the problem is a nail)...

Re:Some answers

[Mac Degger]

Heh...I just re-read my phrasing...that was what I meant to intimate :)

Re:Yes it does

[sbillard]

That process is called "Entanglement". Quantum entanglement is the anti-thesis to a seamless-whole universe/existence. Quantum entaglement suggests the possibility of "faster than light" travel. The trick is coordinating all the matter that matters. There is alos the dubious question of whether or not the "traveler" is actually the same person, or just a copy, when he/she arrives at a destination...
Live or Memorex?

The Scientific American is a great mag for this sort of thing. IANAPP(Particle Physicist) but I really love this stuff.
Up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm.
The ani-matter stuff they are doing at CERN is outrageous. I hope they dont accidentally manufacture a blackhole or something - sheesh - that would suck. hahaha get it? suck?
Anyway, from the small to the big, from the micro to the macro, there is always the concept of revolutions. Electrons around nuclei. Moons/satelites around planets around suns around galaxies in clusters.
Brian Greene has published some works on sub-atomic string-thoery. Vibrating stings! That is like an orbit when viewed in 2 dimentions.
Speaking of dementia. I gotta go. The pickle needs to be scratched.

Space-based satellites

[javajedi]

"...a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites."
This apparently yielded much better results than the Polish-based team who used two ground-based satellites.

Re:Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertiseme

[egoff]

Right, but supposing they do have hard evidence, but just didn't make it available on the site, /. might want the scoop. All editors want scoops.

Won't work.

[oGMo]

Either you're either overlooking reality, or you're asking the impossible:

• Many atheists have come to believe in God.
• Once an athiest states that God exists, this person can no longer be considered an atheist.

So in reality, as other posters have said, you need to look at what is being said, not who said it, or you will be looking for a long time.

Re:Won't work.

[Raiford]

Ahem ... it was a joke.

Re:Won't work.

[oGMo]

Perhaps you intended it as such, but far too many people think this way, unfortunately. They will see this comment and think "yeah, that makes sense!" as opposed to actually getting the contradiction. I'm glad you see it as such, however.

One has to admire that "enhancement"

[memes]

...absent scale bars, can't be sure, but
it certainly looks as though your flying
saucer is three (count 'em, 3) pixels
in the SOHO image.

EUROSETI?

[egoff]

Has anyone heard of them? Google hasn't heard much...

Now that they're on the way...

[Everard Took]

Where's my towell?

Logical reasoning?

[Steve Franklin]

What does this have to do with logical reasoning? It has to do with observation and the accurate reporting of observation. The problem is that the scientific establishment has been laughing at anyone who even looks at the evidence for so long that scientists working in observational astronomy are deathly afraid of reporting anything that smacks of forbidden ideas like alien craft in the Solar System. Jacques Vallee has documented the actual destruction of observational data that resulted from this fear. Thankfully, it appears that at least now there is some chance that those who make valid observations will not be afraid of reporting what they have seen.

As to what you believe, I--and science in general--do not care. I am not interested in convincing you of anything. I am not a missionary. What I do wish you and your compatriots would do is stop ridiculing long enough to allow observational science to deal with the phenomena involved. This could very well be quite serious business. One can only imagine what the local witch doctor told the chief when the first European was sighted off the American shore. We need to learn a bit from our own history.

Re:Logical reasoning?

[ryochiji]

>This could very well be quite serious business

It very well could be. But it also very well may not be. I'm not making a judgement either way because I haven't seen enough evidence for either case. What's so difficult to understand about that?

Re:Yes it does

[QEDog]

what the uncertainty principle says is that there is a limit of how much information in position and time you have. so, you can be very precise in one, but that increases the error in the other one.

Take a look at the image closely.

[sbaker]

When I look at the image at the head of the linked page ("Disney.jpg" - curiously)
what I see is a VERY low resolution image.

Look at the red trail behind it. There are a bunch of little raster-aligned
four-pointed star shapes. (The one on the extreme left is a prime example).

This is what you get if you take a VERY low resolution image an blow it up
with simple bilinear blending between the pixels. Taking this as evidence
of the original image resolution, we can see that the 'spaceship' at the
righthand end of the image is just about 3 pixels across - but has been
false-coloured so that the bilinear blending has become magenta and yellow
bands. Those are not 'real' they are just a part of the false-colouring.

Isn't it suspicious that the "UFO" is exactly aligned with the raster?

This is a fake...well, perhaps not exactly a fake - but an intentional
mis-use of image manipulation to produce an image that was never really
there.

You could reproduce this image in GIMP in about 3 minutes flat.

1) Create a 20x20 RGB image.
2) Using a 1 pixel brush, paint a diagonal line using bright red.
3) Fatten one end of the line slightly.

At this point, your image (if you'd gotten it from a photo of the
night sky) wouldn't convince you that this was a UFO - would it?
It could be any kind of a trail, meteor, military jet on afterburner,
a flare, a firework, anything like that.

4) Increase the image resolution to 400x400

Notice how the 'tail' now looks EXACTLY like the one in the
ufomag web site. Look at the 'star' shapes in the tail.

So, now let's do some "false-colour enhancement":

5) Choose 'select by colour' - set the threshold down to nearly
zero percent and click on a region at the center of the 'head'
of the trail. Fill it with magenta.

6) Pick a pixel close to that, fill it with a nice lemon yellow.

Notice how your image looks startlingly similar to the one
on the ufomag website. All the artifacts present in their
image are present in yours.

Now, I'm not saying that they painted their image in GIMP,
I'm quite prepared to accept that it's a photo of a real
world night-sky object. However, the pretty pink and yellow
spaceship on the right - complete with spooky red glow and
engine exhaust is no more than a deliberately produced
artifact.

The yellow and pink regions are BOTH narrower than the original
pixel resolution - no feature narrower than TWO pixels wide
(Nyquist sampling limit) can ever be reconstructed from an
image.

Bah. BULLSHIT!!

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[IdahoEv]

Okay, that's hilarious. The instant I saw their image, I tried to reproduce it, starting from a 15x11 pixel image in photoshop. THEN I saw this posting.

Well, here for your viewing enjoyment, are the results of my simulation.

Cheers,
Ev

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[edunbar93]

Heh. And much more importantly, is the fact that this picture was the result of an exposeure of several hours, meaning that if this was a real UFO, then it's clearly not moving at all.

But much more likely is what you said.

What I really like is the bit where the site infers "NASA clams up about this, and therefore it must be true." Rather than NASA saying "You know, you guys are a pack of loonies," which would be the truth, but really they're being polite and biting their tongues. That, and the fact that no matter *what* they say, they know that this guy's already made up his mind about what this picture is, and won't stop badgering them until they say what he wants to hear.

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[superyooser]

Ahh, good work. That may in fact be how the picture came to be.

However, it's a logical fallacy if you take this to be *proof* that the photo is not real. Almost all night sky views, with or without UFOs, are nothing more than black backgrounds with dots or simple geometric shapes with blurred edges or trails. They're not like rain forest scenes with artistically detailed plants and wildlife (e.g. ferns, parrots, monkeys). Almost any *real* night sky photo would be easy to manually reconstruct in graphics software.

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[AndroidCat]

they know that this guy's already made up his mind about what this picture is, and won't stop badgering them until they say what he wants to hear

Maybe they refused to leave the office until they heard "Paging Buzz Aldrin" on the intercom?

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[IdahoEv]

Yet another poster who says that "they dont care". Obviously you DO care; do you think that by saying this you


I'm not saying at all that I don't care about this thread. Obviously, as you point out, I do, or I wouldn't have done that simulation. What I meant (at the bottom of the website I posted and which you quote) is that I don't care to spend more time on the simulation, because I didn't believe it necessary.


Proving that something can be faked doesnt make the original a lie; what it proves is that you are skilled at forgery,


I was not attempting to prove that it was a forgery, and I do not in fact believe it was a forgery. I suspect it is, most likely, an actual telescopic photograph taken by the satellite in question.

What I was attempting to demonstrate was that there wasn't enough information in their original image to form a conclusion about the nature of the object.

That the original was a very low-resolution image. In specific, that the bright white object seen is only 3 pixels wide and in reality is just a 4-pixel upside down "T" shape. In only looks like the classic UFO shape because of the "enhancement" they applied. The shape it was before ehnancement could have been a picture of anything: a star, a planet, a comet, a spacecraft, or a speck of dust on the lens.

My argument is that, based on only a few pixels of color and no other information, one cannot generally make a conclusion as to the nature of the object.


havent got either the brains or skills to do the REAL WORK that is needed to comb through this evidence to find out whats really going on.


While normally I wouldn't even respond to such an obvious troll, in this case I'll make an exception. I would be the first one to cheer in the case of confirmed evidence of extraterrestrials. My real work is, in fact, in astrobiology - the search for life on other worlds. It involves a great deal of "combing through the evidence" -- many years worth, and a whole lot of hard work. I work now at the California Institute of Techonology in collaboration with researchers at JPL and USC.

I just can't abide people who don't understand the scientific method and critical thought, and who believe a tiny amount of nonspecific, unconfirmed data like a three-pixel-wide image can prove anything.

Give me *real* evidence, say a few 300-pixel-wide image showing spacecraft structures, or parallax and spectrographic shift data demonstrating that this object is in our solar system but moving contrary to gravity (i.e. under thrust or other sort of propulsion), and get that data confirmed by a couple of independent laboratories, and you'll make a believer out of me. I want it to be true as much as you do.

In the meantime, I'll remain wary of charlatans who would capitalize on your naievete and fanatical desire for UFOs to be real in order to sell you CDs of "enhanced" pictures of what are probably random space rocks.

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[sbaker]

No, no, no - you misunderstand me.

I was very careful to explain that I do NOT believe this to be a 'hand-painted' image, created entirely in Photoshop or GIMP or something.

I believe this was originally an extremely low resolution (maybe 10 x 10 pixels) image of *something* - I don't know what - and could easily have been taken by NASA.

That in itself is extremely unremarkable. The original "unenhanced" version
of this picture would not have convinced anyone that this is a UFO - it would be a minute streak with no discernable features.

What was done to that image AFTERWARDS is a clear attempt to make it look
like a truly remarkable image of a spacecraft - and *that* is nothing short of fraudulant.

Blow up the image resolution of any tiny picture with bilinear interpolation - and then add false colour and you'll get interesting 'non-natural' looking images of things that seem to be spaceships. You could take a 10x10 picture of your dog and make it look like a UFO. However, there was never any information in the original low resolution image to indicate anything more than a fuzzy blob.

So, the fact that I could paint something that looks like their image isn't
proof that they also painted it. It is, however a CLEAR demonstration that inappropriate use of image enhancement techniques can turn a totally non-convincing handful of red pixels into something that *looks* to the uninitiated just like a photograph of a spacecraft. My 'source' image is DEFINITELY nothing but a meaningless blob of pixels. After "enhancement" it looks just as convincing as theirs. Since my final image most emphatically does not prove that a painting of a spacecraft was 'hidden' in the original image - neither does their picture prove that there was a UFO in the original NASA image.

This is a fraud - pure and simple - and that doesn't in any way depend on whether the original source of that handful of pixels was from NASA or anywhere else.

What's interesting to me is whether the person who produced the image from the original 10x10 pixel NASA photo *deliberately* tried to turn it into a spaceship - or whether they were simply so ignorant of the tools they were using that they truly believed they could pull a detailed picture of a spacecraft from so little input data by 'enhancing' it.

I want to see the ORIGINAL, unenhanced NASA image at it's original resolution. Let me examine that image for myself - then maybe I'll be convinced. I doubt it.

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[sbaker]

Yes - your images look quite a bit like mine. I think simple intensity-to-hue
lookup (such as is commonly used in 'false colour' imaging) is enough to produce
the yellow and magenta region along with all the subtle shading.

With modern computer graphics, you can produce photo-realistic images of anything you like. Photographic "proof" is not longer convincing if you can't trust the people who made the picture. This image proves that this particular band of UFO nuts are not trustworthy - so even if they publish an 8x10 glossy of their president shaking hands with The Great Thwaart of Twaarg himself with the seal of a notary public attesting to it's authenticity - I won't believe it.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Occam's razor dictates that when faced with a choice between bilinear-blending plus false colour versus hordes of invading little green men in pink and yellow spaceships (yeuck!!) - we should go with the faked image theory until overwhelming evidence shows otherwise.

Re:Take a look at the image closely.

[superyooser]

I was very careful to explain that I do NOT believe this to be a 'hand-painted' image, created entirely in Photoshop or GIMP or something.

Whether the picture is entirely fabricated or just an altered photo is irrelevant to my point. Both can be done easily. The ability to produce the desired image either way does not prove that a particular photo is fake.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that you were taking this as proof that the picture was inauthentic. I was just cautioning people not to get themselves set on a conclusion based on this alone. It certainly does raise (more) doubts, though. I don't believe the photo is real myself.

still...

[QEDog]

The problem with that is that the only way for Bob to tell if Alice performed or not a measurement is if Bob performs one himself. Bob would never know if the value he has is due to Alice's or his measurement.

Re:still...

[the_2nd_coming]

what if he monitored at an interval of plank time. then, it would change between his measurments. all alice would have to do then is to take her measurments begining when bob is not, and her measurment lasts say 1 second...bob would see that and know........

i mean we know so little about this phenomina in applied ways that it might have some merrit.

YOU FOOLS

[Anonymous Coward]

These images are just being beamed from Fidel Castro's one man escape sub through Hitler's frozen brain to fool the freemasons into thinking that the men in black and the omega council are not consorting with the illuminati... OR HAVE THEY GOTTEN TO YOU TOO?!?!?!

Re:Yes it does

[Gabrill]

Recently the effects of gravity were proven to travel at the speed of light. Who is to say that the effects of quantum entanglement don't travel at the same speed?

Simple explanation

[titaniam]

This looks to me like an image of an ordinary star saturating the ccd (the cross), with some small portion of the exposure time suffering from a tracking problem (the diagonal smear). Many telescopes have a cross-shaped support for the imaging device within the light path, and what results is a cross-shaped diffraction peak around bright stars. Or, saturation of the pixels under a bright image bleeds out along the principal directions of the ccd. Notice how the cross is aligned with the up and down directions of the image?

What a load of old bollocks!

[JimPooley]

Bullshit sense... Tingling!

This story is obvious nonsense.

I apply the same rule to right-wing nutjobs

[ChrisCampbell47]

Because evidence that appears on its face to be strong yet comes from a completely incredible (i.e., not credible) source can usually dismissed without further examination. It's a time-saver.

Similarly, I've learned to comppletely ignore the "facts" espoused by the usual conservative commentators (Limbaugh, Hannity, Boortz, the entirety of Faux News). Because every time I've bothered to investigate their charges further, I found them to be completely wrong, and I mean 180 degrees out. So why waste my time even wondering if what they say is true? It never is.

On the other hand, I've learned to generally accept NY Times reporting as accurate (although they have occasional conservative corporate/government blindspots, like their endorsement of the anti-democratic Venezuelan coup a year ago), the Economist isn't afraid to take on some of the sillier positions of the WSJ, and the local news is never ever EVER a good source for anything but the weather. The world in 60 seconds, indeed.

Why I'm wasting my time typing all this, I'm note sure :)

Re:How does the virus work?

[dbrutus]

Independence Day was stupid on many levels but you're not giving them a fair shake.

There would have been significant amount of inter-ship traffic that would have confirmed that they have idiot IT management too (let's have all systems running one OS in one huge monoculture). They did have that one ship for several decades as well so the CPUs and instruction sets were probably very well known (we did know partially how to run the craft, remember?).

What the SMEG is up here?!?

[fzammett]

Wow, this cracks me up...

The one group of people on this planet I would have expected to be open-minded and a least examine this with the thought that it MIGHT be legit, instead automatically and almost universally dismissed it out-of-hand as a hoax, mistake, conspiracy or other something or other, but certainly not possibly real.

Are we suddenly so jaded by fake human clone claims (which even STILL could be legit, but I digress...) that we just as a matter of course believe that anything regarding UFOs must be false?

NONE OF YOU ARE TRUE GEEKS!! Please hand in your nerd ID card and pocket protector on your way out of the "rent-a-date" center and immediately delete Linux from your machines, your not geeky enough!

Re:What the SMEG is up here?!?

[WoodSmoke]

FYI: EuroSeti has already dismissed this as overexposer on the CCD camera. It was a 3rd party, (the ufo magazine I "think") that took the issue and ran with it.

Obligatory Flame/Troll

[Guppy06]

EuroSeti? What's that, an organization dedicated to searching for intelligent life in Europe?

(Judging by the content and quality of the website I bet it's just another hoax.)

Long-distance communications:

[tynman]

As the alien spaceship leaves its homeworld, it begins letting out a piece of string. It continues to let out string as it travels, stopping by the occasional asteroid to pick up more raw materials for string. When it reaches its destination, they use the string to communicate with the homeworld. No, dummy, not by talking into a tin can! That would require sound waves, which would be limited to the speed of sound. They tug on the string in Morse Code. Of course, they wouldn't call it Morse, 'cause the person on their homeworld who invented it would be named something like "Boeulrak". So they tug on the string in Boeulrak Code. Instant intergalactic communication! All brought to you by the miracles of a ball of string! (Would this hypothesis of communication be called "String Theory"?)

Re:Long-distance communications:

[nyquil]

i have to say, that is a really great idea. perhaps you could set up string 'repeaters' so that you dont actually have to run your string the whole distance. just send your correspondences the short distance to the nearest string repeater. it'd slow things down, but would probably save some string (and lessen the huge tangled web that would eventually become a problem as interstellar travel becomes more frequent.)

Re:Long-distance communications:

[coastwalker]

Sadly I believe the tug on the string would become a compression / expansion in the string, which is a sound wave, and they move rather slowly.

Even a totally rigid string made out of a long thin black hole would warp space around itself as a gravity wave which moves at the speed of light.

No, what you need is an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters on call, just ask them to keep typing and the message will appear in the text they produce. Then all you need is a Beowulf cluster of slashdot readers to find the important bit in all the infinite pages of gibberish.

This of course happens every day, right now, on this web site, its just that the story never gets past the three headed alien moderators and submitted as a news story...

And if you dont believe me just wait and see how long the whole of this post remains - I list below the contents of the message I detected in a posting yesterday -

"Message from Xarg command to Cowbo£$ SD£$"£"DFS .. .

Re:Long-distance communications:

[cyclist1200]

Yeah, but what's the likelihood that a civilization would become that advanced? It's much more likely that they would have built a board with a nail in it so big that it destroyed them all.

remember U2 planes?

[linuxislandsucks]

was listed as UFO object in late 1950s until it was shot down by communists..

Sometimes a UFO object gets the label because of miltary secrecy..

Re:Oh please. . .

[geek]

No matter how hard you try to sound intellectual, you'll still be an idiot. Just stop now while you're behind.

Extraordinary claims...

[$beirdo]

...require extraordinary evidence. Is this extraordinary evidence?

Re:Extraordinary claims...

[Gleng]

It's extraordinarily *poor* evidence. Does that count?

Re:How does the virus work?

[micromoog]

IAAC (I Am A Coder)

And you think that gives you some kind of authority? Please, this is Slashdot. We're all a bunch of self-proclaimed coders here.

Looks exactly like a planet or minor planet

[chascarrillo]

I've done some playing around looking for SOHO comets in the past. The images at the bottom are very clearly a planet or asteroid moving into SOHO's view. You can search through SOHO's image archives and you will see that this is exactly the case.

In fact, there's a great picture at Science@NASA that shows Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn all in SOHO's field of view. All with the diffraction spikes at the sides of the planets.

More images with diffraction spikes:

The Finding of Comet SOHO 2002 C4
Hot Shots from SOHO - high bandwidth, but great examples showing that the image at the top of the EuroSeti page is almost definitely a comet

nasa's hiding something

[Jafafa Hots]

NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc.

They are always pulling that kind of rationalization or disinformation.

Once, when I showed them a picture I had of an alien on the moon, they tried to explain it away as being Buzz Aldrin. When I kept confronting them, they clamped up.

Laser Pointer!

[PyroX_Pro]

Oh man, that image on their site looks just like the "ufo" tip on my laser pointer,,, What is this thing's range again? It is just too stupid that every single "picture" of a UFO is shaped like a damned 'flying saucer'. Are any of our space travel vehicles saucer shaped? Wouldn't something like this: http://www.b5mods.com/site/banner_star_wars_episod e_1.jpg be more likley? And the little green men standard is just stupid as hell. I believe that anyone who claims anything to do with a UFO lacks any sort of imagination at all, when the reference these 'standard' descriptions. If there are inteligent beings out there, and they land their milk saucer on my front lawn, and pop thier little green heads out, and talk to me with their minds while gazing at me through their hug black eyes, then I will believe. Or until I see it on CNN, or the president makes a statement. Until then its just a bunch of bullshit. Who really care's if there are aliens 10,000,000 light years away from us and the goverment is coveing up this knowledge? Does it really affect me in any way? NO! Honestly, is that the best picture they could come up with for their site? It looks so fake I cannot even look at it without laughing. And what is with the 'dialup' and 'high speed' images? This site looks to be designed by a high school student, certainly not a reputable group. Just my reaction, you don't have to enjoy it.

Re:Laser Pointer!

[PyroX_Pro]

Ya, let me know where I can pick up the martian bible, or visit the tomb where a martian died and was resurected.

Look for yourself

[teridon]

More seriously, who says that these 'new' images arn't straight out of photoshop.

Well, if they are claiming the pictures are from SOHO, you can look at the data yourself. All data from SOHO is available to the public via an archive (I'm not going to link to it, find it yourself) -- you just have to generate the images! You'll need IDL (or other similar software) to analyze the FITS format files, but the data is there.

Unidentified

[Geekbot]

Wonderful, someone has used satelite imaging to show that they have seen objects they can't identify. Kind of like how the Hubble gave us a bunch of unidentifiable objects in space, now this satelite gives us UFO's from back home. They didn't need this kind of a project. I could have sent them some of my pictures. I, Mr Cant Take A Good Picture, has several pictures with UFO's.

Page 3

[Dr. Cody]

Let me tell you this: Almost everything on Page 3 (not safe for work) is photoshopped.

Invaders from the planet Imagic!

[5KVGhost]

Nevermind, the satellite just picked up someone playing Cosmic Ark.

photons don't age.

[Leers]

I think it is difficult to talk about the speed of a photon in the rest frame of another photon. This is because any rest frame traveling at the speed of light experiences no change in time. Time stands still. It will travel to the end of the universe and back (assuming it was not annihilated in route) and will never experience time.

In other news....

[teridon]

a large, flaming head takes a bite out of the sun!

Favourite sci-fi UFO explanation

[Tyreth]

My favourite would have to be the Alpha Centauri scenario - humans leave earth, but fragment on arrival at new location. Then advance through technology rapidly. Then...they return to earth. And that is the UFO's we see now! These people left the earth before the last great world-wide destructive force, and during that calamnity most of the high-tech equipment was lost, and the people returned to a dark age. And our society began to grow again to what it is today.

Of course, I don't believe this, but it's fun to think of.

Re:Grrr...what's next?

[frostman]

What's next, a link to the cold fusion magazines? Perpetual motion devices?

or even weeks straight of front-page news in major media about some wacky UFO cult's latest attention-getting stunt?

oh, wait... nevermind...

faster than light? well, not quite so...

[QEDog]

In the EPR experiment both one particle knows that its twin was measured instantly and changes accordingly. An instant is faster than light :-) The only catch is that no information can be transmited this way, so the c limit is still valid.

Whatever that means

[Steve Franklin]

I have done extensive personal research over many years and the most striking thing I have learned about the UFO phenomenon is that it changes depending on what is expected of it, in a manner similar to the way the properties of hypnosis have evolved since its discovery by Mesmer. What does this mean? I don't know. But it might be a good idea to keep in mind the old saw about watching what you wish for, or in this case watching what you believe they are. Vallee thinks it's some kind of control system, a homeostatic device like a thermostat. More likely, it just adapts to its surroundings--or the mental state of those around it.

Looking for Hard Evidence...

[Cheesewhiz]

I don't care how many rooms full of blurry, patheticly useless photos of Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, or UFOs you compile, these things will continue to be what they've always been -- unidentifiable anomolies, or hoaxes -- until there's unavoidably conclusive evidence.

Look, every Joe knows what UFO stands for. As long as these objects can possibly be considered "unidentifiable", they're not evidence at all, they're just freak anomolies. Inexplicable, or basically meaningless anomolies are a fact of life in every field of research, and life in general.

I think I speak for quite a few people when I really could care less, and tell me when something is conclusive. Otherwise it's just more whining about what we DON'T know and can't explain, rather than what we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

I seriously think Roswell sky-watchers are doing their cause more damage than good by constantly arguing utterly inconclusive anomolies. As long as it's even POSSIBLE to conceive of explaining them as "pixel faults", or whatever, that's not evidence. As such, they degrade their credibility one level further.

If you disagree, don't mod me down, just reply to this post.

Re:Looking for Hard Evidence...

[dacarr]

Look, every Joe knows what UFO stands for. As long as these objects can possibly be considered "unidentifiable", they're not evidence at all, they're just freak anomolies.

Consider also, though, that an F16 with no transponder can also be considered a UFO. It's up in the air and moving, and you don't (necessarily) know what it is.

Re:How does the virus work?

[Iguanaphobic]

or perhaps the technical hooks in films are just a touch facile nowadays.

DOn't forget that they had access to an alien ship for 50 years. So our architectures and computer concepts are all devolved from theirs.

This isn't faster than light communication...

[FuzzyDaddy]

However, I also claim that there is information transmitted between you and me, at that moment in time, regarding the status of the other packet.

This is where your argument breaks down.

This is the same problem with EPR type communcation. I send out two entangled photons. Person C and A measure the polarizations simultaneously, far apart. They know they got the same answer. But how do you use this to send a message from A to C?

Or in less esoteric terms, suppose I can send two letters to people who can't communicate with each other. They know they both got the exact same letter - but how can they use this to tell each other anything? They can't - and hence no information has passed from one person to the other.

Every body knows...

[3seas]

Man is the center of all creation.

This place we call earth is what all the universe revolves around.

The earth is flat, just look at any picture of it, it's round but it's flat. You can fall off.

And everybody knows programmers are psuedo god helpers, specifically MS programmers.... and this is the damn second time I've typed this cause fu&in psuedo god decided it wanted to take my browser to some damn windows media player error page in the middle of typing this. And I wasn't even using the fu&in media player.

Wanna know if there are UFO? ask psuedo god what he thought that pie was before it hit him.

Actually- there is a linked video

[purduephotog]

It's hidden under IE and i'm not even gonna try to find it in Netscape, but i'm 'buffering' it right now.... been 20 minutes and it's at 2%. I'll let yiou know if it was any good....

Re:How does the virus work?

[1u3hr]

)Of course, we wouldn't know anything about their OS.

The raionale was that we'd been studying the Roswell ship in the Area 51 buker for 50 years, and so did understand their OS. (Assumes no major changes in the OS 50 years, which seems reasonable in the situation.)

I worked on the SOHO project...

[Dr. Zowie]

... and there have certainly been "UFO's" sighted in some of the images, in the strict sense of "unidentified flying objects".

Most of them are attributable to dust thrown off by the spacecraft itself -- e.g. one of the instruments would close its door, and then another instrument would see loads of moving specks.

Other streaks (like the one at the top of the linked page in the article) are often attributable to cosmic rays (often deliberately mistyped as "comic rays" by my cow orkers) or ionizing radiation from the Sun itself.

The LASCO wide-angle coronal camera often sees stuff moving in strange directions -- most of that is sungrazing comets from the Kreutz family of comets.

I work at the Southwest Research Institute now, and my coworker Dan Durda has done an extensive search through thousands of LASCO images for moving objects that don't fit the pattern of the sungrazing comets -- because he's interested in "vulcanoid asteroids", asteroids inside Mercury's orbit. He didn't find any, but I'm sure that any alien spacecraft jetting through the field of view would have tripped his algorithm.

It's certainly possible that these guys have found something new, but remember that "UFO" doesn't necessarily mean "alien spaceship".

Interestingly enough, SOHO itself registered as a false positive (caught by humans, fortunately) for the earthbound SETI algorithms. It's a strongish radio source that doesn't fit their earth-satellite pattern, since it's sitting at the Earth-Sun Lagrange point.

EuroSETI?

[khuber]

I've never heard of EuroSETI before today. I don't think it's reputable like SETI.

2. SOHO takes pictures of the Sun and presumably is specially instrumented for this purpose. Does that mean that UFOs are flaming balls of fire?

III. UFO just means that, unidentified flying object. It's too bad it has come to mean something else in the vernacular. I have unidentified stuff in my fridge. How can this unidentified object be flying in space? Doesn't something have to be in an atmosphere to fly, or do we say that asteroids "fly" now?

Why is this even taken seriously?

-Kevin

Not Photoship...

[vikstar]

They should've used gimp.

Gimmie A Fucking Break...

[Bowie J. Poag]

*blink*blink*UFO MAGAZINE WORLD EXCLUSIVE*blink*blink*...

Gimmie a fuckin break. I click on the only link on this page, expecting to see hard scientific data. What do I see? A bloated-ass animated GIF of a poorly rendered flying saucer, and three magazine covers. One magazine cover has a picture of a "grey" superimposed over the white house. Lovely. The second picture suggests the Moon landing was a fraud, which is a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of engineers who made it happen. The third image suggests aliens are abducting us with spooky-dookie glowing tractor beams. Yeah, thats great. Tons of credibility there.

This "news" isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell.

Cheers,

Re: Gimmie A Fucking Break...

[Black Parrot]

> The second picture suggests the Moon landing was a fraud, which is a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of engineers who made it happen.

No problem. Some of those involved are starting to slap back!

using...

[Eric Damron]

"For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites." ...and the hubcap from a 81 Ford Bronco... :-)

I'm Going To Sacrifice +2 Karma To Say This:

[Bowie J. Poag]

...Because its true.

Timothy, it's true what everyone says about you. You're a retard. And you prove it regularly. Wherever Rob and Jeff originally found you, ask them to take you back there and drop you off.

You forgot...

[Eric Damron]

"Just remember guys, a few things we know about these aliens so far: They're VERY susceptible to dying from earth based bacteria (War of the Worlds), their computers can be interfaced via Macintosh computers.. although I'm afraid we'll need to use OS9 or Classic mode to do that since they aren't advanced enough to use a BSD kernel yet (Independence Day), and water is deadly to them! (Signs) Remember this when they start invading guys."

You forgot one: Country music causes their heads to explode. (Mars attacks) Maybe you left it out because Country music has the same effect on a lot of us too... :-)

A flying saucer...

[g4dget]

is not exactly "unidentified": if you know that a piece of kitchen china is whizzing through the air, it seems to me you have done a pretty careful job at identifying what it is already.

Which planet?

[g4dget]

"The image seen in various newspapers is of an over-exposed planet - it is not a UFO."

For an object that big, it should be easy to figure out which planet or asteroid it was.

What makes the planet explanation a bit odd is the way the trail is structured--it has a kink in it, and it isn't uniformly blurred. If this is a planet, then the picture must have been taken while the observatory itself was actively moving around.

Re:Which planet?

[KjetilK]

See my other response, but it isn't big. It is actually at most a couple of pixels. The image has very clearly been resampled to a resolution much bigger than the resolution of the detector.

Re:Oh please. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

No matter how hard you try to sound intellectual, you'll still be an idiot. Just stop now while you're behind.

Sound, 'intellectual'?

You bozo. What the hell does that mean?

Oh, right. Silly me. You want me to function on your level; without thought, deduction or rational inquiry. Right. I keep forgetting. It's just more of the same; The endless media scream, "DO NOT THINK!!! THINKING IS NOT COOL!!!"

You sad, sad little shit.

Please. Grow up. --Or failing that, try responding, (horrors!), to one or more of the actual points I made in the post which so offended you, rather than just toss out some one-line, poor-ass attempt at name-calling. (WHY do I waste my energies on you one-liner gumbies?)

Why indeed? 'Nuff said.

-Fantastic Lad

Let's assume the aliens are REAL (read the rest)

[Anonymous Coward]

And let's assume ALL the reports of abductees by little white aliens with big black eyes are bipeds, and have hands, feet, fingers, toes, etc... (just like us). If they are THAT similar to humans and Earthly primates, then one of two things occured: 1. (the most likely) They came from Earth before us, aka a "Pre-Adamic Race" - the bible may mention this, and I may be wrong on this; or 2. They put us here and all other bipeds/quadrapeds. I think the former is more likely, but that they branched out to explore the universe/solar system, taking a break to examine the little ape-like primates that we are. It is so very unlikely for these features to develop in species that originated from completely different environments let alone different PLANETS! The Earth seems replete with the right combination of chemical elements to keep life, the economy, and technology interesting. This could be an incredible and unlikely chance event or by divine design, you be the judge, but according to some information out there, WE are the experiment designed by the aliens, who also instilled into our conscious the idea/sense of God or other diety. So many things to ponder...

All of those videos are fake.

[pr0ntab]

They're all promotional videos for Sci-Fi. I mean jesus: who the hell says this kind of stuff on a helicopter ride of the NYC skyline: "That's the World Trade Center?" YES YOU DUMBFUCK. Thanks for letting all us Sci-Fi viewers who don't live in NYC know where this video takes place. Also, there's a bug on your hand. AND THEY DONT HAVE SHADOWS. Also they appear out of nowhere on the tablecloth. And the lighting for a crappy filiming-the-family camera is "too good". The electrified fence one is the worst. HOLY SHIT HOW DUMB COULD YOU BE. I guess pretty dumb to think that one was real. Let me tell you, when you get electrocuted, THERE ARE NO FUCKING ARCING SPARKS. Also the fence is grounded SO WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!!!! WHAT KINDA MAGICAL ELECTRICITY IS THAT DUMB SHIT. I SO GODDAMN HATE THE SCIFI CHANNEL. IT IS BAD SCIENCE AND EVEN WORSE FICTION.

obligatory comment

[minard]

imagine a beowulf cluster of those...

How can I download this thread

[EmnmE]

This is the most interesting topic and the funniest conversation this year. How can I download everything, the reply and all? I'm for real. I will show it to my friends in my next space mission. :)

...roles of the various US government...

[pr0ntab]

Quick thing. I just want to lay something on the table about these supposed G-Men and people in the ivory towers.

Let me just state that I work with an FFRDC and I have had some contact with the kind of people who you would consider "the key people".

And frankly, they don't give a shit. They like to talk mostly about RADAR and RADAR avoidance. Which governments have access to which kinds of sensors, etc. They get hard-ons talking and speculating about that.

A lot of them are geeks. A lot of them subscribe to us not being alone in the universe. And a lot of them have 5 year reviews neccessary to keep their TS or COMSEC clearences. In that situation, you don't want them finding out you've been associating with Raelians or anyone with anything resembling a political or social motiviation because you like your job and geeky toys. You don't want to lose credibility, funding, or be made fun of by your associates.

So you ignore and just don't encourage any group who makes claims that you are involved with extraterrestial stuff. It makes you too high profile and some guy with the money may not look on you so favorably next fiscal year, especially since you can't deliver and your hair-brained project was probably stillborn.

Even though it's all in a black box, it's still the same ol' bullshit. Quid pro quo, tow the line, make the Joint Chiefs feel safer.
Really.

destructive method

[QEDog]

The tricky part is that any measurement is destructive. And the only way to 'see' anything is measuring. So, when Bob tries to know if Alice performed or not a measurement, he performs one himself, collapsing the wave function. After he does that, there is no way for him to tell if that value was collapsed by him or Alice, therefore, no information is transmited faster than light. This is known as the EPR Paradox, Eistein thought of this as an experiment to 'disproof' quantum mechanics, but it was learned that no information was transfered after all, so the c limit is still true.

is this story even considered "news"

[skermit]

"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."

This matters not because it's fake crap. This is the kind of journalism I expect from http://www.cosmiverse.com/ with its crazy-talk, but not Slashdot. *shrug*

a bookmark in Opera explains

[Ilgaz]

I am a registered Opera user. Opera, as all browsers offers paid bookmarks by default (e.g. news,science etc)

That "UFO Mag" is in entertainment folder.

Need more explanation? :))

More photos, I thought it was a pixel error

[homesteader]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2662787 .stm

I saw one of these a year & 1/2 ago using Solscape, which downloads from NASA's SOHO site. I figured it was a weird lense error, or capture error.

Re:Yes it does

[h'biki]

Yeah, and Paul Davies wrote a paper on how the speed of light has slowed over time. This may or may not break relativity.

There is a remote possibility that we mightn't be able to travel faster than light but that we might be able to increase its speed.

Anyway. Said paper is at:

http://aca.mq.edu.au/lightspeed.html

European consortium?

[soccerisgod]

What kind of consortium?

This sounds like total piffle to me.
Where's the vulcan females I can teach how to love? I AM NOT AMUSED! :

Re:How does the virus work?

[roynux]

Let's assume the aliens have the best user interface possible (direct control by the mind).

The task of the virus should be to convince the computer to do a very stupid and long task (get all the numbers of PI for instance) and convince it that this task is of very high priority.

This was the finale in 3001 from Arthur C Clarke, but explained with great talent.

War of the worlds

[Mr2cents]

This is not something you want to read when listening to 'war of the worlds'!

Yes, but it's a matter of when. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Let me just state that I work with an FFRDC and I have had some contact with the kind of people who you would consider "the key people".

And frankly, they don't give a shit. They like to talk mostly about RADAR and RADAR avoidance. Which governments have access to which kinds of sensors, etc. They get hard-ons talking and speculating about that.

I don't doubt you in the slightest!

The thing which should be kept in mind, however, is that you are talking about the state of affairs today. It has taken sixty years of hard work to get the Status Quo to look the way it does. Sixty years ago the story read very differently. The key figures I was talking about were the ones making policy back in the forties and fifties, where all the balls started rolling and the dominoes started falling which gave us the picture we have today.

Further, the 'key' people today are no longer in control of the same things that they were fifty years ago, and while I am sure you may have association with some powerful people, I think it is unlikely, (I certainly hope), that you know anybody who has a direct hand in Shadow Government works, or if you do, that they have discussed with you anything of significance. --You certainly wouldn't be in a position to discuss the subject in a public forum such as this one were you truly connected. It's a good way to get yourself and others hurt.

A small statistic. . .

In 1969, the NSA had a 2 billion dollar budget. That's 2 billion late-60's dollars. And that's just the cash we know about. It is no secret that illegal activities have provided other sources of income for similar agencies. The CIA is infamous for its drug running activities. Nobody knows exactly what the secret organizations were doing with all of their resources. And that's just the NSA and CIA, over neither of which the President at the time had any real control. (Or, depending on the president, any actual desire to tackle those powers in the public's best interest.)

The public version of Government does its own thing, behaving in a stage front manner, while the behind-the-scenes agencies remain in charge of the real game, and have done since the hats were handed out fifty years ago. The whole Bush 'election' was an example of one of those times when the stage-direction got a little shakey.

-Fantastic Lad

Re:Yes, but it's a matter of when. . .

[pr0ntab]

Those people that are in charge of the real game; aren't really in charge of much. In fact, it seems to me that in the whole internally funded bureaucracies, no one person is in charge of much of anything significant at all! It'd bet that the most powerful men in the government are actually the Senators, and they'll tell you otherwise. But all the money comes from them, and they ultimately decided the fate of any agency and any projects suckling beneath them in the shadows. And the people running those projects are just doing for a) the money b) ego trip, so they don't want the air supply cut off. It doesn't matter what the game is, they just want to keep doing what their doing so they act covertly and hope no one notices them. hey, free money, do whatever tickles your fancy. (Insert quote about $40 hammers)

There is no conspiracy, only inefficiency, stupidity, pride, and secrecy (mostly to hide the first 3). And we likes it that way. I think THAT is something that hasn't changed for 50 years. :-)

You should look for a job with one of us. We're all antisocial freaks, and we need company. What's the line, if you can't beat em, join em? ;-P

Re:Oh please. . .

[nagora]

Oh really? Dozens, you say? As in at least 24 books?

I am going to go out on a limb here and call you a liar.

I used to follow this stuff in detail, I meant "dozens" as in "more than 24". That you simply can not entertain the possibility that anyone could have looked at the evidence and not believed simply shows how little evidence is important to your faith. I'm going to go out on a limb here and call you an idiot.

And further, going to a UFO convention, if indeed you have even done that,

Several.

then I would suggest that simply having had contact with a lunatic fringe,

I avoid the lunatic fringe. The people I met were calm, normal, fairly sensible people that had no idea what they were talking about and very little in the way of judgement. But decent enough, if deluded.

You are a good little boy, holding the party line and entrenching your own ignorance like so. Many gold stickers for you, son. --Your laziness and fear are exemplary!

Yes, Quite. I grew up in the assuming that there were aliens involved and that at least some of the claims held water: I tried to prove it both to people I knew and to myself. I have learnt to think outside my conditioning and come to realise that the whole UFO thing is bunk. I seems to me that you are the one stuck in a rut.

TWW

Re:How does the virus work?

[eatdave13]

Ah, but how many of us get paid?

Did anyone bother to check SOHO's explanation?

[chascarrillo]

Here's the dirt according to Dr SOHO's FAQ:

What are those flying saucer-shaped objects in the LASCO images?

The "funny-looking spheroid" is a typical response of the SOHO LASCO coronagraph CCD detector to an object (planet or bright star) of small angular extent but so bright that it saturates the CCD camera so that "bleeding" occurs along pixel rows. There is a bright horizontal streak on either side of the image, because the charge leaks easier along the direction in which the CCD image is read out by the associated electronics.

CCD stands for charge-coupled detector, and refers to a silicon chip, usually a centimeter or two across, divided into a grid of cells, each of which acts like a small photomultiplier in that an incoming photon knocks loose one or more electrons. The electrons are "read out" by row (fast direction) and column (slow direction), the current converted to a digital signal, and each cell or picture element ("pixel") thus assigned a digital value proportional to the the number of incoming photons in that pixel (the brightness of the part of the image falling on that pixel). This is the same kind of detector as is used in a hand-held video camera, though until recently, the analog-to-digital conversion was left out in consumer devices.

If you point a video camera at a very bright source (say, the Sun), the image "blooms" or brightens all over --- there are so many electrons produced in the pixels corresponding to the bright source that they spill over into adjacent rows and column, perhaps over the entire detector. Better CCD's will "bleed" only along the fast readout direction (a single row), and perhaps a few adjacent rows.

The LASCO and EIT CCD cameras include "anti-bleed" electronics which limit the pixel bleeding around bright sources to less than the full row (and usually no adjacent rows). In the case of a marginally too-bright object, the pixel bleeding will be only a few pixels in either direction along the fast readout direction. Thus, the "flying saucer" images.

A few of the LASCO images that have appeared on the "extraterrestrial" Web sites show much larger and brighter, but still saucer-like features. These images are in fact obtained with the instrument door closed, but with an incorrectly long exposure. The big "saucers" result from massive pixel bleeding along every row of the detector containing part of the image of the "opal," or small diffusing lens, in the instrument door, that is used for obtaining calibration data.

If your correspondents still prefer to believe that the pixel-bled images of planets or bright stars are something else, ask them why the extended part of the "saucers" (i.e., the pixel bleeding) always occurs in the same direction relative to the image --- even when the spacecraft is rolled relative to its normal orientation relative to the Sun.

Re:How does the virus work?

[eatdave13]

I don't buy it. If you were so successful, explain THIS.

LOOK!

[mwm158]

What is that weird object flying above that top-secret military base in the middle of the desert?!? It must be from outer-space, it couldn't possibly be man made! Jackass.

Re:How does the virus work?

[JimPooley]

You ask the computer for a cup of tea, and it spends all its time thinking why an ape descendant should want dried leaves in boiling water with juice squirted from a cow...

Know why aliens don't respond to our messages?

[tizzyD]

They have much better SPAM filters on. To them, we're just SPAM.

my suspicions have been confirmed!

[hangingonwords]

i KNEW that was a UFO i saw! i KNEW it!

Re:How does the virus work?

[KewlPC]

1)You'd still need to know about their CPU instruction set, as well as the architecture of the rest of the machine. The virtual machine that Java code runs upon has to translate the Java instructions into instructions for your CPU, which requires knowledge by the virtual machine writer of said CPU.
2)Yes, but we wouldn't even know their network protocols, i.e. our network couldn't interface with theirs
3)An invading military force that doesn't at least TRY to make sure their communications and computer systems are secure?
4)You can send then trojans all day long, it won't make a difference unless they actually run them on a live, production system. The only way to guarantee a virus would spread across their network would be to root one of their servers
5)I was making a joke. Of course there are still people around who know EBCDIC, all 5 of them ;)

Re:How does the virus work?

[KewlPC]

Face it, Roland Emerich was pulling insipid crap out of his ass (again). All his movies follow the same pattern:
- Excellent first act, makes movie seem full of potential
- Boring second act. Dumb melodrama. Lots of talking heads. We usually learn more about the bad guys than we could even want to know.
- Lame and uninspired third act. Protagonists are down and out, but at the last minute they pull something together and kick the bad guys' ass.

Take, for example, ID4:
- First act: aliens come and blow shit up
- Second act: they're down in the Area 51 bunker for what seems like ages. Lots of "talking heads" scenes.
- Third act: down and out, all seems lost. Suddenly, Jeff Goldblum has a "Eureka!" moment, and after some trite "Tell my children I love them!" self-sacrifice crap, the good guys win.

Stargate:
- First act: the stargate is discovered. They go through it, and come across the natives.
- Second act: Mr. Crying Game arrives, we get some uninspiring examples of how bad of a person he is. Then he kicks the heroes' asses.
- Third act: down and out, all seems lost. Then, "unexpectedly", Guy From Supernova won't kill his friends, and Boys Who Rebelled Against The Establishment Because They Saw The True Path help our heroes save the day.

The Patriot:
- First act: the colonists get sick of the Limeys and start some shit. While clearly outclassed and outmanned, there is still Hope. We see the Good Guys use their Good Guy Intuition to kick some British ass.
- Second act: Colonel Bad Guy On Horseback gets permission to do whatever he wants. Cue melodrama about how much he's beating the Good Guys. In a particularly underwhelming scene, Good Guy From Down Under gets whacked by Colonel Bad Guy On Horseback. Mucho mas talking heads.
- Third act: All seems lost. Both of That Braveheart Dude's sons are dead. The rebels are getting their asses handed to them. George Washington is going to be taking it up the poop chute Real Soon Now. "Unexpectedly" That Braveheart Dude comes up with a plan, and the colonists pull a Hail Mary tactic in the following battle. Cue trite "Dead Good Guy From Down Under told us some insipid 'insightful' crap in Act Two, so we're doing it by building a house" scene.

Yes, it's true that most movies follow a three act layout, but none are as formulaic as a Roland Emerich movie. None have as uninteresting of a second act or as uninspired of a third act as a Roland Emerich movie.

say cheese!

[bloobeary]

Wow - those are some really nice shots. When they do their little photoshop magic trick to expose the inner details, I get all goosebumpy. Not because the flying saucer at the heart of each blurry litttle blob is suddenly revealed, but because each and every single one of those space-bound flying discs is exacly edge-on towards the camera. Not a single 3/4 or slightly off-center shot to be had in the whole batch, it seems. I'm in absolute awe of their ability to get all those random, and distant spaceships to pose so perfectly for them, in dushc ridgid profile. Absolutely astounding!

They come..

[hplasm]

..to see what's being said about them on /.

Selective ridicule

[Steve Franklin]

No, actually something along the lines of a control system, as Jacques Vallee theorizes. Whether this has a physical component is still in question, but the continual ridicule of morons like you is not in the best interests of science nor mental health in general. What always amazes me is the folks who so easily laugh at UFOs are strangely silent when some lunatic in a black robe starts telling people they're going to live in the sky when they die. I guess it's just another case of the old magic trick, the incredible disappearing balls.

As the article says...

[Private Baldrick]

I thought the National Space Centre was better than that, but they are a buisness and they make money hiring out conference facilities. I tried to persuade my firm (I live and work in Leicester, UK) to do our IT Xmas bash there and we are a car rental company! Does that mean we've discovered UFO's? I'll deny we have proof so we must be hiding something...

Moral Dillemna

[TheConfusedOne]

So who would you really have to root for? The hideous, ugly, soulless, human eating scum?



Or the aliens?

Suspicious Saucer Symmetry Seems Strange

[Inflatable Hippo]

All of the "saucers" were seen from the side and nearly everything was symmetrical and about the X and or Y axis.

If these things were just zipping about we'd see them from all sorts of angles?

Surely this implies some artifact of the CCD properties or post processing?

And, unless these things are all the size of pluto, they'd almost be invisible to the camera or only a pixel big anyway.

We sure live in a crowded neighborhood...

[onlyabill]

For a minor solar system in a 'backwater' section of the milkyway, we are quite the tourist trap! The alien spaceships are just all over the place! There must be an interstellar Danny's on the other side of the sun.

It is a bit funny that all of the ship images that they show are in the solar plane and edge on. I always thought it was pretty funny that even though StarTrek and most of the rest of the space shows and films were about ships in outer space, all of the directors and producers seem to forget that objects move in three dimensions. Whenever ships in space approach each other, they always seem to come at each other in the same flat plane and usually head-on. Never from above or below or any other attack angels. I know that they may do some of that to simplify the production or to not loose the audience but it is amusing that the 'alien' ships in these photographs were kind enough to do the same thing!

I have finally figured out Slashdot

[gosand]

So this story finally made the light-bulb go off for me. Slashdot has a pretty solid following of geeks who like to figure things out. The editors post stories like this, various other hoaxes, lies, and half-truths, just to get the readership riled up.

It is like professional wrestling - people love to hate the bad guy, and around here the editors are the bad guys. They post crap like this story, knowing full well that the readership will debug it to death. The headline draws people in, and gets the real scoop from the comments. I know that is what happens to me. I usually read the first few highest rated comments, and then check out the linked article. In the example of this story, I knew it was probably a hoax article, but read the first few comments before clicking on the link because I knew the /. crowd wouldn't let a bad story slip by. I am betting the editors know this as well. There seems to be much more of this type of thing happening in the last few weeks.

This is exactly what is happening, whether it is intentional or not. After all, the ads are on the comments page, not on the front pages. That is what they want you to read.

Timothy

[matt_fk]

Perhaps Timothy would enjoy reviewing the links that he posts, prior to posting them. Then! Perhaps, he would find that he's just posting just another advertisement.

UFO usually = military

[siskbc]

Not to flamebait the UFO people out there, but people, there's a reason that a WHOLE LOT of UFO sightings occur near military bases - at least that's how it occurs here in the states. I mean, I have no trouble believing our government lies to us, but it's more likely about next-generation military aircraft than space aliens.

I think fundamentally that some people have to believe in a higher power, and attribute all "unknown" phenomena to that power. Religious freaks do it all the time, and UFO people are doing the same thing. There has been, to date, no affirmative evidence for the presence of intelligent life having visited our solar system, but that doesn't dampen their spirits a bit.

Words, usage and meaning

[c13v3rm0nk3y]

"homo" might be short for homogeneous or homomorphic

For years, the word "homo" as an adjective usually meant "homogenized milk" in Canada. That meaning is slowly falling out of favour, but you can still go to the grocery store and see rows upon rows of 1- and 2-litre cartons in the cooler, all printed with the word "HOMO" in large block letters.

Famous psychology test...

[ThousandStars]

Stanley Milgram conducted the famous psychology test to which you allude. In the 1950's, he decided test white males of a wide variety of educational levels to see their obedience to authority. (This was right after WWII, so people wanted to know how an entire nation could follow someone as evil as Hitler.) In the test, Milgram had the subject and a confederate draw straws, or something to that effect, to see who would be the teacher and learner. The learner would need to memorize words, and the teacher would apply "pain" to the learner, and if the teacher wanted to stop Milgram (or some other authority figure from Yale University, I don't recall who actually did the coercion), the psychologist would order the teacher to continue. A quick Google search revealed this for further reader: Link to the Milgram Experiment, which includes a handy picture. Today an experiment probably couldn't be conducted because most universities have strict codes governing experiments with human subjects.

Another interesting psychological phenomena that might apply to these UFO types was conducted by Solomon Asch. He brought together around a dozen people and gave each one a piece of paper with three different sized lines, then asked each person which line was longest. Out of the dozen people, though, there was only one experiment subject and all the rest were confederates, who would unanimously say a wrong answer. Then the experiment subject would usually repeat a wrong answer. If enough UFO types get together and repeat the same thing, the new guy starts to believe it and repeats the party line even if he isn't sure if it is right.

Hey, sounds like politics. Or slashdot. Or religion. If you have a basic knowledge of psychology, you probably post a large number of interesting comments relating psychological theories to behavior commonly derided on slashdot, like using Windows, etc.

Re:Famous psychology test...

[vrmlguy]

The "three lines on a piece of paper" test reminds me of an old gag. Candid Camera was an early TV show produced by Allen Funt. ("The Jamie Kennedy Experience" is a direct steal.) His favorite episode involves an elevator where the first person goes into the car and faces the front. The next three people, all Candid Camera confederates, get into the elevator and face the rear. By the time the fourth person comes in, the first one feels so uncomfortable that he turns around and also faces the rear.

Look here for info on some of the other classic stunts.

Re:UFOs are everywhere

[Lord Lazarus]

You're right on this when you say UFO's are simply that: unidentified flying objects. It will be interesting to see what this Euro-SETI organization actually does announce. It's not safe to simply jump the gun because the site, although detailed in its summary of alleged upcoming events, is not too strong in its characterization of it and may even be misleading. There is obviously the motive of "We need to find the aliens" on the site... with no sort of objectivity to it at all.

Re:Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertiseme

[Bartmoss]

I couldn't agree more. Slashdot's really taking a dive when it comes to quality. I mean I am used to spelling mistakes and whatnot, and I could even see a decent UFO story here, but this kind of obvious nonsense and drivel? Maybe this is part of /.'s campaign to sell advertisement, but seriously, it's making me want to go away and pretend to never have been here. :-\

Re:Something simple

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

as opposed to all those aliens from this one?

Gross misunderstandings

[Richy_T]

Voidengineer, I have read this and other of your posts in this thread and have to say that you seem somewhat misinformed. PLease don't take that as a slam, some of this stuff is quite complex.

Firstly, in the case of quantum entanglement, the speed of the quantum entanglement effect (the supposed information transfer) is not limited by the speed at which the particles separate from each other, the issue is that if the particles are half a galazy apart, the state of the particles may be unknown but as soon as you (party A) know the state of your particle, the other party (party B) knows the state of theirs, giving effectively infinite speed of information.

Your second error is in thinking that this means that information has been passed between party A and party B. It hasn't. And as it turns out, it hasn't passed between the particles either.

Imagine that your aunt sends a persent to you and your sister. You know that she always sends you both the same gift. You open the gift at the same time so you know instantaneously what your sister has received. But the important thing is that no information has passed between you and your sister.

The apparent paradox with quantum entanglement as I understand it is that the particles have no way to carry this commonality that they share with them unlike the parcel your aunt sent you which actually contains the gift. This seems very perplexing indeed but then, so do many things related to the quantum world. But when you do the maths, it tends to turn out OK.

This is the current mainstream scientific understanding as I know it. If you cannot reconcile it then I would suggest that you maybe need to do some more reading (if you are so inclined), these can be quite hard concepts to grasp. If you refuse to reconcile it then you're either haev extremely advanced cutting-edge physical theorie or you are a crackpot.

Rich

Wow, talk about typos...

[Richy_T]

What have I been smoking? Hopefully it is still comprehensible.

Rich

Re:When UFOs Attack!

[matrix29]

Man, I got into such an argument with my wife about that movie. Almost nothing the aliens did made any kind of sense, and the rank stupidity of trying to take a planet with is hopelessly deadly to you is so glaringly obvious I don't know how anyone could take that remotely seriously.

I suppose all the people who were living where it rained had a nice, quiet Invasion Day. Or maybe, just possibly, the aliens in rainy areas wore some kind of hazard suit.

Maybe it's my fault, but is it too much to ask for them to make a movie with even a minimal effort to help the audience suspend disbelief?

Better yet, ask "Why did the aliens invade our planet NAKED?"

What was it NAKED invasion day?

Sheesh, these types of stupid plots are reason I decided long ago to boycott all Mel Gibson movies. I certainly don't want to be in an audience of OBVIOUS MORONS.

Spaceship OS's and DRM

[HopeOS]

"I'm sorry, but your spaceship is operating outside of your home galaxy. Please contact sales for a service upgrade."

-Hope

Oh?

[barakn]

Or was it a beautifully planned DoS attack using a bunch of unwitting /.ers? If ever there was a website deserving a DoS, this was it.

That's a TOAD with a lithp?

[Steve Franklin]

"FOAD, thank you for playing."

That's the ideal of Science, as religions have ideals that if followed would lead to peace on Earth and good will toward men, blah blah blah. I am talking practical reality here, where "scientists" cook the data to fit their preconceived notions, and sightings of UFOs by major telescopes are chucked in the trash can. Give me a break here, fellow. I am not an 12-year-old who believes what his science teacher tells him about the wonderful objective and incorruptible scientists.

As for crumbling, no, Science does not crumble because it has a real penchant for turning the folks they vilified into genuine Heros of Science when they turn out to be right. This has nothing to do with objectivity. It has to do with major league ass-covering by the protectors of the Scientific paradigm.

Alright then. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Fair enough. Which brings us to everybody's favorite part of the broadcast. . .

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!

If you can do that, then I'll apologize in grand style for making assumptions, and perhaps I'll learn something from you in the process. We'll see.

(I notice you've managed to stop swearing and making dismissive cracks about Santa Claus, so perhaps there is some hope. But like I said; we'll see.)

Let's begin, shall we?

You say it's all, 'bullshit'. I'd be very interested to hear some of the case examples from your readings and your thoughts at to why you are certain they were 'bullshit'. Let's start with a couple of the better known cases, and let's stay within the bounds of military sightings during the period of Blue Book. I'll let you pick.

And don't worry about looking silly. This thread is dead, old, and it's been modded into the ground (as per usual when I touch on subjects like this). It's just you and me.

-Fantastic Lad

Re:Alright then. . .

[nagora]

Let's start with a couple of the better known cases, and let's stay within the bounds of military sightings during the period of Blue Book. I'll let you pick.

If you really, really, want to then you pick; I haven't held on to my UFO books since I smelt the coffee in about 1988, although I do dip into stuff at the library (I read some Tim Good stuff a couple of months ago). But if you want to pick something I'll go over the "evidence". But, it is pointless; It's quite obvious that nothing could convince you to change your mind.

TWW

I See. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

So you've read dozens of books, none of which you have now because you got rid of them in the late Eighties; so long ago that you couldn't possibly be asked to remember enough from them for any kind of discussion. But even so, you really are knowledgeable enough to make broad and unqualified declarations like, "UFOs are all Bullshit". --We know this, because you are a thoughtful and well-read person who, as it happens, was just a short while ago down at the library, 'dipping' into the very subject under discussion; (despite the fact that it happens to be a subject you dislike so much that you got rid of all your books regarding, and which you rudely bash people on the web for bringing up.)

Now what the heck am I supposed to do with that?

Look. I'm still trying to work out whether or not you're full of shit, and you're really not helping me out.

I'm still out on that limb. --I'm not saying that I wouldn't come back in, or that I wouldn't even apologize for making quick assumptions. But assumptions are all I have to work with at the moment. I'd be happy to have something more solid!

Why do I care? Because my primary argument and point is that people who have done no proper reading or research beyond watching television, have no responsible basis upon which to declare anything regarding UFOs, let alone declare that the whole subject is bunk. (Or by the same token, that they are real!)

I think that's a pretty solid place for me to stand.

But then you come along and pitch in with your two cents, beginning with the charming, "Oh, fuck, not another one", --that you have an extensive research background, based on which you know more than enough to judge the whole issue of UFOs to be nonsense and that people should "Get over it" (and that Santa isn't real either). Flip, cocky and mean.

And all I'm asking is that you back some of it up.

If you really have that much knowledge, and if that knowledge has led you to conclude that the whole issue is bunk, then I absolutely want to know how you got there and what information you were working with. --Because, believe it or not, I am by no means closed minded; as a rule, I let everything in, form theories based on it, and then subject my ideas to rigorous testing, and then form new theories as the bad information burns away. --Which, incidentally, is exactly what I am doing now. The internet is an amazing place to test ideas; you have access to thousands of people with massively varied areas of knowledge, and who are willing to correct me when I air crap. It's wonderful! I am first and foremost in the pursuit of knowledge, and the crucible of the internet has been a great tool in this quest.

See, I came from a background where such things as UFOs were simply beneath consideration, and what consideration one gave them always proceeded from a subconscious prerogotive to 'debunk'. Then one day I realized to my horror that I had been basing this behavior entirely on dogma and programming. So I decided to start actually honestly looking at and testing some of the material I had been deriding. Much is crap. But some, I discovered, is not. From there, things got interesting.

The problem is that I only very rarely meet people in the disbeliever camp who aren't also riddled with fears, dogma, preconceptions, denial, blind faith in what we were taught as kids, and outright, 'Fuck You,' hostility toward anybody who would suggest anything outside those narrow parameters. Now, if you happen to be among those few who is clear of all that stuff and who actually has something worth sharing, then I would be VERY happy to learn from you.

But I've got to say that you haven't impressed me at all so far. Indeed, you haven't offered anything other than some nasty barbs and what, essentially, could be boiled down to, "I'm right, you're an idiot, and I don't have to prove it."

So give me something, or stop wasting my time.

-Fantastic Lad

Re:I See. . .

[nagora]

We know this, because you are a thoughtful and well-read person who, as it happens, was just a short while ago down at the library, 'dipping' into the very subject under discussion; (despite the fact that it happens to be a subject you dislike so much that you got rid of all your books regarding, and which you rudely bash people on the web for bringing up.)

The key item is that my girlfriend is interested in UFO's so, although I'm heartly sick of the topic I find that I do have to keep up with some reading just to be able to debate the issue at home.

no responsible basis upon which to declare anything regarding UFOs, let alone declare that the whole subject is bunk.

In a technical sense it is impossible to prove that UFO's (by which I mean alien-directed craft) are bunk since it is impossibile to prove that every bright light in the sky is not an alien craft.

However, when every case that has enough detail to make any decision one way or another falls apart and when every photograph turns out to be faked (often badly) for years on end, it really becomes quite tedious to hear people going on about how the next book/film/demented eye-witness will prove that this is going on - no, really this is the one, I kid you not...

I grew up assuming that UFO's were real and in the 70's I was a real nut on the subject but I started looking at the cases in detail and one by one the "sure thing" cases that I thought were air-tight evidence evaporated and by the mid 80's I had to re-evaluate what was going on. There are lots of perfectly intelligent people that appear to have lapses of judgement (I'll never forget the woman that spoke at a convention and described going to sleep and then aliens came into her room and took her away through the walls of the house "It was like a dream" she said! Quite.), stupid people that don't know what they're talking about, and (the majority) crooked or poor people that want to make a quick buck/be on TV/be locally famous (the Peruvian guy that got radiation burns over most of his body but strangely got better before being photographed stands out here).

There are lots of reasons for UFO reports but, contrary to normal belief, there is not a small residue that can't be explained away. There are some that can't be called one way or another but given how many are bunk the reasonable approach is to assume they're not world-shattering events. Extraordinary claims and all that...

But some, I discovered, is not.

Well, I assume you have a case in mind; what is it?

But I've got to say that you haven't impressed me at all so far.

I think that is inescapable. This really is a matter of faith and no one shifts from one side of the fence to the other except by their own efforts. What could I possibly say in a message that would change your mind? I could perhaps talk you out of one particular case but what of the hundreds of others? That would be a very long thread indeed. And what proof could you give me that a case is absolutely real?

TWW

the hole...

[QEDog]

Let's say Alice want's to transmit a 1. Alice reads the quantum entangled particle, and gets a 0. Bob measures it, and gets 0. There is no way for Alice to tell Bob that that value is wrong (if there was, they could just use that as the information channel instead). Alice measures again, to see if she gets the 1 she is looking for, and get's another 0. Bob notes in his side another 0. Finally, Alice gets a 1, Bob on his side by now has 001, and has No idea about which bit is te correct one. Was Alice trying to send a 0? a 1? Bob never knows. So, no matter what, information can not violate the causality principle implied by relativity.

expanding on this idea

[QEDog]

Even more, lets say in the tick Alice gets a 0. She needs to measure again, another entangled particle (the original one is now useless because its wave function has been collapsed, so they are not entangled anymore). So, Alice uses another particle, and gets a 1 this time. and that's the end of Alice's tick. So Bob, has a bunch of particles on his side. He doesn't even know how many particles Alice measured. Also remember that whenever he measures something, he gets a random value. So, on Bob's side he sees a 0. Was this the value Alice wanted or not? there is no way for him to tell, so he measures the next value, a 1. Was this the real information? Or was this a random value? Bob never knows!

Thanks!

[Fantastic Lad]

Thank you for an even-handed response. (I do find that many internet conversations tend to start off in flames and go down in reason. It's an odd set of protocols to say the least.)

In any case. . .

Faith IS a major factor here. You are quite correct. Unless you have bourn witness to something, then realistically, (and even then), there is always, always doubt. --I happen to know several witnesses myself, who describe spectacular events, one of which seen by twenty or more people; an enormous light stopping, hovering, lighting a whole valley and then shooting away with laser beam speed. Another sighting involved a big black tea-pot shaped object rising from the horizon, moving and hovering over the house, and then flashing away. But as you say. . . Faith. I wasn't there, and trusted friends or not, witness accounts are just that.

Which is why I tend to prefer military and commercial air traffic accounts where multiple radar systems record the same event and where military or commercial pilots are the witnesses. The very best accounts are those which also include confirmation from ground witnesses, and where the official investigating bodies take the matters very seriously. --In the U.S., there are laws in effect, (or which at least were in effect during the sixties and seventies; I don't know what their status is today), which threatened any member of the military with heavy fines and jail sentences for speaking publicly about UFO sightings. That in itself, I find intriguing.

Now, perhaps such accounts are all based on lies; perhaps the authors in question are liars and fools. This is indeed possible. But some of these figures would not otherwise be regarded as dimwits. Retired Major Donald Keyhoe, using his influence and inside connections, wrote extensively regarding UFOs. Another, Captain Edward Ruppelt, who headed Blue Book during the fifties, wrote a book regarding his experiences. --A book, as you may know, which under suspected military pressure, he later re-published with a heavily revised conclusion which debunked his earlier position, and then died less than a year after having done so. James McDonnald, a highly regarded atmospheric physicist involved with the US government, was another such figure who was quickly convinced by the data he was exposed to, and moreover outraged by the many blatant cover-up attempts he observed. (He was another, incidentally, who died under questionable circumstances after a time when it was quite clear that he would become an increasing pain to the status quo.)

Aside from the many multiple radar, pilot sightings, the apparently massive chasm between public and internal government policy and behavior regarding UFOs and the endlessly stupid logical inconsistencies in the Blue Book explanations, (Hundreds upon hundreds of sightings, some of the utterly spectacular Spielberg variety, which Blue Book claimed to be Venus or Saturn or birds, etc. Blue Book appears clearly to have been purely a P.R. body under the primary order to absolutely explain everything away at all cost, regardless of what a sighting might really have been of.) This kind of behavior of the official bodies raises its own questions. --Clear cases of reliable witnesses, airline pilots and such, dramatically reversing their stories; Jobs and wives being more important than speaking out. --This kind of thing I find simply too much to ignore.

But as you say, faith is required.

Now, you describe your experiences and reading as having led you to conclude that there is nothing of interest in our skies. Fair enough. Indeed! Fair enough. Faith is what it is, and everybody must make their own choices. However, given the kind of material I have been reading and the kinds of witnesses I have spoken with, I have more difficulty in persuading myself that there is nothing going on. As such, my faith has its definite leaning at the moment. Now, perhaps you know something about these writers and this kind of information which would alter my faith. If you do, as I have said, I would be very, very pleased to hear it.

Anyway, thanks again for speaking reasonably!

-Fantastic Lad

Re:Thanks!

[nagora]

perhaps the authors in question are liars and fools.

It's also worth remebering who we are: apes that have evolved somewhat but hardly to perfection. Our brains are good at working with trees, animals, running, hunting, talking, calculating etc. but are susceptible even after training to making strange interpretations of things in the sky, which is not our natural habitat. You don't have to be a liar or a fool to be thrown off by lights in the sky. I have lived near airports for years have often watched distant aircraft at night and seen the tricks caused by only being able to see the lights and not the airframe.

I once looked out of my living room window and thought I saw a spacecraft hovering over the bay with a thin trail of smoke coming out of the top left corner. I really thought that this was it - aliens had arrived in broad daylight! In the space of about two or three seconds the object turned and my brain finally managed to work out that a large grey-green object suspended in the air is called a "helicopter" and that the "smoke" was the rotor seen almost edge-on. I continued to watch the army doing their training exercise but that was the point when I really started to wonder about UFO's. If I had seen that in a situation where I couldn't just stand and watch until my brain caught up, or if it had been night and no further clues had been visible, I would have been one of those people that have seen alien craft "with my own eyes". And, I would have thought that because my faith at that point was that there really were UFO's to be seen. If I hadn't had that faith perhaps I would have seen a fiery chariot or a starcase to heaven or a cloud or whatever my brain initially tried to categorise the strange shape as.

Food for thought.

TWW

Re:Thanks!

[Chasuk]

Fantastic Lad, I've been reading your posts for quite some time, and I haven't yet decided whether you are a talented troll, or utterly sincere, or some combination thereof. I'm going to throw caution to the wind and treat you as if you were serious.

First of all, regarding faith. We all take some matters on faith. It is pragmatic to do so; if I didn't have faith that I would reach the other side of the road when I commenced crossing it, then I would never venture forth. I accept on faith that Benjamin Franklin existed, as I can conceive of no reasonable advantage that anyone would gain by having fabricated his existance, and I have no acutely compelling reason to disbelieve. I accept on faith that the sun rose yesterday, even though I did not observe it, for the simple reason that I have no model of the universe which would have allowed it not to rise and all of us still be alive. In every one of these particulars, I could be wrong, of course, but I have no reason, at this point, to question those things that I accepted on faith.

This leniency (laziness?) doesn't apply to every belief. I met a man on IRC who insisted that he was Jesus Christ, and he may have been, but I had no pragmatic or evidentiary reason to believe him, so I remained,and remain, skeptical. I don't believe that Joseph Smith was ever directed to golden plates, or that lotus blossoms sprouted in Sidhartha's footsteps. These things possibly occurred, but I am not willing to accept them on faith.

In short, if I accept something without concrete evidence, it must be logical for me to do so, and not contradict other beliefs which I have about the universe. I will discard any belief, without exception, if my current beliefs can no longer be supported. Indeed, I have done so several times in my life.

I'm 42 years old, and I've never read a single scrap of evidence which convinced me that anything paranormal/supernatural/extra-physical has ever happened at any time or place in the world. I don't believe in U.F.O.'s (read: that crafts piloted by E.T's have ever visited our planet), the Loch Ness monster, spontaneous human combustion, ghosts, any claims of spiritualism, the afterlife, the soul, channeling, crystal healing - I am skeptical of it all.

It might all be true, however. I would like huge dollops of it to be true, because life would certainly be more interesting if it was.

I don't believe that Jesus ever turned water into wine. I don't believe that the founder of the Shakers, Ann Lee, was the second coming of Christ, that Krishna ever walked the earth, that... well, you get the idea.

Again, maybe I should have faith. But in what? Things that I have arbitrarily chosen, that tickle my fancy? I'm not interested in deceiving myself. I'd like to find the truth, or as close an approximation of it as my brain can manage.

I formerly believed in a phenomenon called speaking in tongues. I spoke in tongues, or at least believed that I did. I believe now I was deluding myself. If you had asked me then, I would have reported that I absolutely KNEW that what I believed was true. Knowledge is a belief about which you are certain until it is replaced by another belief.

Revelation as a source of knowledge doesn't work for me. This eliminates prayer or staring deep within a hypothesized soul or anything else which has, IMHO, a fairly large percentage chance of being wishful-thinking.

Christians KNOW that Jesus died for their sins. Indian Sadhu's will sit with piles of shit on their head, for years, KNOWING that it brings them closer to their God[s]. Raelains KNOW that Claude Vorilhon is telling them the truth. Scientologists KNOW the same about L. Ron Hubbard.

My problem? My worldview doesn't stretch far enough for all of these things to be true.

Roman Catholics believe that Mary, mother of Jesus, has appeared occasionally and left messages to the faithful. Maybe she has appeared: she has been seen by millions of people. Still, I don't think it is unreasonable of me to have my doubts.

I want to believe. Show me a Loch Ness monster washed up on shore. Show me Dan Rather interviewing an alien. Show me anything that constitutes real proof - physical evidence that as a non-metallurgist/biologist/botanist I can determine is probably not of this world. Introduce me to a channel or a psychic who indisputably knows something that should be impossible for them to know (what do I have in my left hand as I type this, for instance? And no, I'm not making a vulgar joke) and I'll happily believe in ten impossible things before breakfast.

Personal testimony isn't good enough, no matter how reliable the witness. Human memory and powers of observation are too fallible. Photographs are useless, especailly in this digital age. Arthur Conon Doyle believed in fairies, and he based his belief on photographic evidence. This was in 1917, and two teenage girls were the perpetrators (only confessing in 1982). Methods of deception have gotten much more sophisticated in the interim, but the credulity of the public is about the same.

I'm not looking for a preponderance of anecdotal or circumstantial evidence here; I want clear proof. If it can't be offered, then my lack of faith isn't such a bad thing, is it?

Still, I would prefer to believe. I don't need a plethora of cases. Just give me one. Not where an anomaly is merely unexplainable, but where the evidence leads inarguably to a paranormal/supernatural/extra-physical explanation. If it can't be proven with the same certainty that I can prove that milk is an ingredient in cheese, then I'm not interested.

I've already identified the types of things I will believe on faith, and I've probably missed a couple. Basically, if I have a pragmatic reason for believing, and no substantive reason for disbelieving, and no credible alternative, I'll accept the most logical explanation before entertaining more fantastic explanations.

So show me! I want to believe in something incredible, and I'm not particular what it is! Upset my paradigm, please!

not supported by the data

[g4dget]

The data consists of 47 samples. It's not surprising to find some rational function of 10 variables that gives you 75% correlation.

In different words, they are using bad science to argue against bad science. And while UFOs are at least a theoretical possibility, this use of statistics is just plain wrong.

Re:not supported by the data

[Baldrson]

Pearson's tables set the odds of such a correlation occuring at random at less than 1 in 1000.

Re:not supported by the data

[g4dget]

What does that have to do with this data? Pearson's r is for linear relationships between two variables, not rational relationships between many variables. (And that's not even getting into the intrinsic problems with using Pearson's r as a statistical test for anything, even if its assumptions are satisfied.)

Re:not supported by the data

[Baldrson]

Pearson's tables are for any correlation between random variables however constructed so long as they don't depart too far from normal distribution. Skewness and excess kurtosis are listed with the scatter I gave.

Statasticians use ratioanl relationships between varables virtually everytime they derive random variables. For instance it makes little sense to run a correlations between population counts of two demographies, by State, due to variations in total State populations. What you do instead is divide your counts by the State populations to get percapita and then correlate that.

Simple data-trolling is going to pop up more pairings with high correlations the more random variables you construct and the more combinatorial you get with arithmetic expressions the more variables you can construct. By the same token you construct more pairings with low correlations. As long as you control for normality, Pearson's tables hold.

What you have to avoid, but not all all costs, is mindless "data trolling" -- just fishing for any correlations between random variables regardless of your prior hypotheses. The costs of not doing such data trolling are that frequently one has hypotheses that can't be directly measured or that are still in formation and one is searching for means of refining the hypotheses or ways of testing. This is tricky and can't be reduced to simple bromides like "don't data mine" or "correlation doesn't imply causation", etc., valuable as those exoteric rules may be for some students just starting out, without damaging science and technology irrepairably.

You can argue about the value or lack thereof of using Pearson's r "at all" -- but that is really what we're doing when we discuss its limits of utility.

Re:not supported by the data

[g4dget]

Pearson's tables are for any correlation between random variables however constructed so long as they don't depart too far from normal distribution.

Yes, and that's in effect what I was saying, but that's not relevant. You get to apply Pearson's tables only once to a single linear relationship computed on one dataset. If you keep constructing different combinations of variables and keep testing for normality and correlation, the significance of the test sooner or later erodes. Sometimes you get lucky and you get to try a lot of hypotheses before that happens (which is why people often get away with using it), and sometimes you don't.

Look at it this way: pick any distribution of 47 (u,v) values that satisfies your normality and correlation test. Now, I can construct a pair of polynomials that maps any 47 datapoints (x,y) you actually measured onto those 47 (u,v) values. If you had just kept trying different polynomials and fitting their coefficients, you'd eventually have hit upon this. So, you can't just keep trying different combinations of variables: sooner or later, you are going to find one that satisfies whatever statistical tests you apply.

What you have to avoid, but not all all costs, is mindless "data trolling" -- just fishing for any correlations between random variables regardless of your prior hypotheses. The costs of not doing such data trolling are that frequently one has hypotheses that can't be directly measured or that are still in formation and one is searching for means of refining the hypotheses or ways of testing. This is tricky and can't be reduced to simple bromides like "don't data mine" or "correlation doesn't imply causation", etc.,

Maybe it's tricky for people who only have "Pearson's r" in their bag of tricks. But there is nothing "tricky" about it statistically. The question of what hypotheses one can explore and what the significance of the results is is reasonably well understood. Machine learning techniques routinely explore billions of possible formulas and hypotheses describing the relationship between variables of some dataset. But they use accurate, theoretically justified measures of the significance of such hypotheses. Pearson's r doesn't work for that; that's not a theoretical debate or a matter of preference, it just fails absolutely miserably when you actually use it.

valuable as those exoteric rules may be for some students just starting out, without damaging science and technology irrepairably.

The damage is that many universities teach outdated junk statistics to their students. Fortunately, it's slowly dying out, but I suspect it will still be another couple of generations of academics before it's completely gone.

Re:not supported by the data

[Baldrson]

I'm not sure I entirely understand your argument against Pearson's r but your when you state "Machine learning techniques routinely explore billions of possible formulas and hypotheses describing the relationship between variables of some dataset. But they use accurate, theoretically justified measures of the significance of such hypotheses." you have my attention.

I used Perl's Algorithm::Evolutionary::Individual::Tree to write up some search strategies for good arithmetic expressions on random variables and of course the first thing I found was how difficult it was to give the E.A. a fitness function.

Please share your references on machine learning -- I'd like to look at them.

If I can update my (hopefully) out-of-date statistics education then I'll happily dispense with the bad science I've been doing.

Re:not supported by the data

[g4dget]

CART (Classification and Regression Trees) by Breiman et al. is a good reference for tree-based classification and makes the connection between exploration of hypotheses and validation very directly. (CART would probably be a good method to apply to this data.)

I'd also recommend Hastie et al. "The elements of statistical learning". For general machine learning, Mitchell's book "Machine Learning" is also frequently recommended.

Books on support vector machines generally also talk about the tradeoffs more theoretically (VC dimension, etc.). The following book may be reasonably readable: "An Introduction to Support Vector Machines and Other Kernel-based Learning Methods" -- by Nello Cristianini (Author), John Shawe-Taylor (Author);

Ahh. But that's the trick, isn't it?

[Fantastic Lad]

I follow your thinking and wholeheartedly sympathize with it.

The problem is that Dan Rather is never going to interview an alien. Won't happen.

Now it is true that my belief structure is unconventional, to say the least. In order for it to exist and function, there are certain premises which had to be built first. There are two basic rules of conduct in my head. . .

1. It is a fairly straight forward affair to affect behavioral responses using the tools provided by the media.

2. There are people who have a great deal of interest and desire in affecting the behavior of the populace, and who can and will use all the means at their disposal to do so.

I have spent a great deal of time studying the hows and wherefores of those two simple points. I've even run my own adverts and measured the responses. I have learned that it is frighteningly easy to manipulate thought. In any case, as a result of this, I have come to a position in life where I not only don't trust most forms of the media, (and can easily see the manipulations in progress), but have concluded that a vast quantity of very deep, very effective behavior modification has already been achieved quite some time ago.

For instance. . .

The position you describe where have not yet seen proof, where you would like to believe in things existing beyond the 'normal' sphere, and the locked state you are currently in, is not at all uncommon. In fact, I tend to think that it is a psychological position which a huge number of people have been successfully led into without their realizing.

Let's examine the following. . .

"Guilty until proven innocent."
"The Burden of proof."
"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence."

We have heard these sayings so many, many times that they have become, both consciously and perhaps more importantly, subconsciously, defacto law. But let's examine them a little more closely. . .

"The Burden of proof." --Burden? Who's burden? Why, obviously, as we have been shown, the burden is placed squarely upon the people making the claim. The Jury, we have been told, must be unbiased and skeptical of all claims, and must only be moved to a conclusion when enough solid, cross examined evidence has been presented to them. --Indeed, the sequestered Jury sits in a Jury Box and does not move; they are not allowed to accept any information from the outside world which might influence their decision. And so the Jury sits and watches the performance being played out in front of them, and on that and that alone, ("the Jury is instructed"), to make their final conclusion as to what they will believe.

The Jury sits and watches. The Jury does no work on its own. It is not allowed.

And therein lies the problem. If we, as our subconscious automatically does, extend the court room metaphor to the real world of claims and evidence, we can see that society behaves in exactly the same manner as we have seen in countless television legal dramas. We expect the people making the claim to dance before us in the various arenas, and we believe that we are not active participants. That we are sitting in a box, watching the show.

The problem is that the court room we spend most of our attention on; television and news papers primarily are all under the thumbs of people who, I firmly believe, do not have our best interest at heart.

Dan Rather is NEVER going to interview an alien. It just won't happen. --In the history of UFOs and supernatural phenomenon, there have been several documented instances where key investigators were invited to appear on popular expose television programs of the "Unexplained Mysteries" variety with which we are all familiar. --Behind the scenes, fights ensued, scripts were written and re-written, producers cut footage and broke promises to guests as to what material and demonstrations would be allowed to air. And in one notable instance, when a guest in great frustration, deviated from the script, his microphone was cut and his lips moved without sound for about two minutes, after which the camera was cut off altogether. In short, the Trial is Fixed, and the prosecution (a negative word, btw), is never allowed to bring their case to court, or those allowed are only the ones who will make a poor presentation which supports the status quo.

This stuff really does happen, but then people forget it happens. People have short lives, and the very structures we have been taught to depend on to mind our stores of knowledge are owned by the very people who force last minute script changes and who cut the audio. The only way to find information like this is to dig for it yourself. And that's the key. --Because if you stay in your jury box and only look straight ahead at the pre-designated show, you will NEVER NEVER NEVER be deliberately shown a true picture of reality. The people who own the courts have a vested interest in keeping you within very narrow parameters.

And that is the grand manipulation. (Well, one piece of it, at any rate.) Proof is not actually that far away. But seekers cannot be passive. The Burden of Proof is NOT on the person who brings an idea to forum.

And let's think about that.

What is the purpose of data? --To increase knowledge. Indeed, the increasing of knowledge and awareness is the only true prize in these matters. Knowledge is the treasure! And the people making the unusual claims, while they may not always be right, are the ones who are growing and groping towards knowledge. And some of them are actually quite far along the path. So how are they burdened? How is struggling to increase one's awareness in any way a bad thing? (Of course, it can be a difficult thing, but only in the context that it can make life hard to live when you realize that you are within an ignorant system and must perform tasks which seem insane and unnatural to nobody but yourself who is alone aware. But that's not what I'm talking about here.) What I am saying is that people seeking knowledge are actually relieving themselves of burden! They are making themselves lighter and more aware.

The Jury has been taught to protect and value its ignorance; to value its static state. --To think of knowledge as something which should be, at best, unassisted in its collection, and at worst, actively resisted!

I like to sum it up in this manner:

"Your level of awareness is YOUR problem. There is NO value in maintaining your own ignorance. Any hints or bits of information which others offer to help you in your own quest for knowledge are in every way, gifts which you do not automatically deserve."

But this is certainly not the message we are sent as a populace!

Now I have seen my own wonders. I have made the effort; I have traveled and I have found very powerful people in a number of different fields, from politics to spirituality. I won't bother telling my stories, 'witness testimony' being what it is; of whole value to nobody but the witness.

For your benefit, though, I will say that the wonders are much closer to hand than you might realize, but it is up to you to seek them out.

And it snowballs. When you discover one thing, then other bits of information become easier to evaluate. Knowledge grows geometrically.

Remember; study everything. You mentioned speaking in tongues. From what I have learned, it is indeed a nothing phenomenon with little or no value or meaning. You mentioned religious miracles; weeping statues of Mary and such. Again, from what all I have learned, most things associated with large religions are simply more manipulations; more ways to limit thinking; to encourage blind belief rather than critical thought and growth. --A general rule of thumb: "If a system of thinking affects a large number of people, then you can bet it was almost certainly been targeted long ago and turned into a vector of behavioral control." Religion is just such a thing.

The truth lies in the cracks of the stage production version of reality which has been sold to us since birth. But those cracks can be pulled open by those who wise up to the fact that they have been duped and controlled thus far. And when they do, they will find to their amazement that the entire Universe lies beyond. . .

-Fantastic Lad

Re:Ahh. But that's the trick, isn't it?

[_ph1ux_]

Hey Fantastic Lad,

I left a post for you over at K5 - and thought I'd hit you up here as well...

I would like to see what other links and info you can provide - for a more coherant line of thought than just the perusal of your comments on K5 and Slashdot.

I would likte to speak with you directly (email) also at some point - rather than in an open forum such as this...

If interested in helping me in my search for understanding, please reply.

thanks

Vade Mecum....