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Apollo 14 Moonwalker Claims Aliens Exist
An anonymous reader writes "Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions — but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'"
If its as well covered up as he says it is, why did they let him talk? They're obviously allowing him to go public so he'll appear as a crackpot and give credibility to the opposing view.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
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Tom Cruise worships L. Ron Hubbard.
Jim Carey think vaccinations give you autism.
Just because you're famous doesn't mean you can't be a total crackpot. Its too bad this time its somebody more science-related.
Why does it seem so many assume that this is something he have started believing now at this late age; and that is it connected to dementia?
Edgar Mitchell have been involved with fringe science for a long time, and have made statements proclamation his belief in UFOs for a long time. It is his belief; if he seen something to make him believe this I do not know. But to say that this is simply old age and senility is unkind and inaccurate.
The Long Now Foundation
I find it impossible to believe that the government is capable of keeping conspiracies secret. They couldn't keep 5 guys breaking into the DNC office a secret (Watergate), but somehow they can orchestrate an elaborate conspiracy involving thousands of people over the course of 6 decades and not a single shred of credible evidence has been leaked. I'm sorry but deathbed confessions don't count.
That's ridiculous. That's like saying an airline pilot knows about the latest top secret fighter plane designs. Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that a civilization is smart enough to travel interstellar distances but too stupid to use basic camouflage.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
You know what is confusing me about these aliens? Why do they always contact governments when they come to Earth so they can cover it up?
I can only applaud our governments, they are doing an excellent job. If they are capable of covering up moon hoaxes, 9/11 plans and aliens crash landing, I'd just wish they were able to do their job just as fine with, say, the war in Iraq?
This is what always gets me about these people, they talk as if the government is a body of competent people. Last time I checked, they aren't! Private corporations could run most countries better.
A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned.
Clicked pie.
Not to mention, I've met many people that believe weird things without being able to blame dementia/alzheimers/any diagnosed mental illness.
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Keep in mind that Apollo astronauts weren't selected because they were good scientists. They were chosen because they were good pilots.
How do all these aliens actually pull off the secrecy... amidst all these people that LUST for its exposure?
Don't tell me that "Take me to your leader." actually works!!!
require extraordinary proof. Regrettably, there is none.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
One of the most common reasons for not revealing the existence of aliens, is because the top leaders of the world are afraid that the population of earth will panic. I don't think that is the case, I think most people would say something like "yes, I knew there really were aliens". The only ones I think would panic is the religious nut-jobs, although you would think that the would be used to have their view of the world shattered at least once every hundred year or so.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Or land their crates safely after traveling for billions of miles, or at least crash somewhere else but in the middle of nowhere, midwest USA.
One could imagine that they're either more subtle when they try to remain under cover than leaving mutilated cattle and anally probed people lying around after their departure, or that they'd be more choosy when trying to reveal themselves than to show themselves only to some moonshine-swigging hicks. Why not land in the middle of the Superbowl finals, now THAT's revealing!
Seriously, for such an advanced species, they make very little sense.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It seems far more likely to me that the government is covering up things they themselves do than the actions of aliens. Furthermore, why would an intelligent species meet with what I consider to be generally the most violent portion of supposedly civilized society, find reason to return, but not take stuff from us.
Unless all they want are our bees and ozone.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Uh, no. It would be truly remarkable that alien life would have master traveling at the speed of light to get here. Otherwise it would take a journey of hundreds or thousands of years. What's next? Are you going to tell me that maybe these aliens have a life span of twenty thousand years and they just read a book on the way here? I don't think so. Alien life is more then plausible, it is all but assured. Space travel to far away solar systems is very, very unlikely.
As Michael Shermer has observed, "smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." A humble reminder that you can have a degree in aeronautical engineering, a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics, and also walk on the fucking moon, and still have totally pseudoscientific, non-evidence-based views about the world just because you personally want them to be true.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
I would imagine it would be pretty hard to walk on the moon and NOT have a religious experience.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You sound so... sincere.
The reason that logical, rational people dismiss alien contact is there simply isn't any evidence that is bulletproof.
It's FAR, FAR more likely that people:
1) play hoaxes on the public
2) misremember or misinterpret natural events
3) hallucinate due to drugs/alcohol or mental illness
4) lie for attention
You're right, though, to a certain degree. As we accumulate more and more anecdotal evidence, we SHOULD keep our eyes and ears open. But we must also remember that we're very fallible creatures, so we shouldn't accept any evidence unless it is truly convincing.
So far, no truly convincing evidence has been found.
Adman
I hope that we're not alone. The idea that this is the only planet with sentient life anywhere in the Universe isn't just a waste of space. It chills me to the core to think that there's no Others out there. I hope they're waiting for us. "Hey, humans, you made it! We thought you'd never get out of that singularity."
Let's also assume that they have different physics and that FTL travel is possible and routine.
If there were aliens that were aware of our existence, it's likely that they would watch us to see what we would want them to do.
"Hmm. There's genocide here and here, 40 000 of their offspring starve to death each day. They do not interfere. We should not interfere with their development.
"They are afraid of things which are different. We are different. We should not show ourselves."
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
That's ridiculous.
Really? Picture this scenario: Aliens are real. You know it, and you're about to send an Astronaut to the moon, where you feel it is likely they may encounter aliens. Would you NOT brief said Astronauts beforehand? No procedures, no protocol, not even a heads-up? Really?
I think that THIS would be the ridiculous position.
Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that a civilization is smart enough to travel interstellar distances but too stupid to use basic camouflage.
What stupidity would be required? Again, imagine you're an alien. You know these inferior beings represent no threat to you at all. Likewise, you know their civilization will deny your existence. Why, then, would you waste any spare cycles on camo?
Your assumptions seem to be based on excluding the possibility that aliens do, in fact, exist. There's nothing wrong with that, as an opinion, except that it limits the opposite conclusion unnecessarily.
I couldn't agree more. These people stating with such certainty that there is no such thing as extraterrestrial life are nuts. My view is that people who seriously believe we are alone in the universe just don't understand the numbers.
You "unbelievers" do know how many stars there are in the universe, don't you? It's around 10^21. Do you have any comprehension at all of what kind of a number that is?
The chance of us, out of the countless trillions of star systems in the universe and over billions of years, somehow being the only place to develop any form of intelligent life is so remote I can't take it seriously. Of course other systems have intelligent life. It's as statistically certain as the sun coming up tomorrow. Probably a few orders of magnitude more so.
People talk about fools who "believe" in aliens but they're believers in a much more unlikely scenario, IMO. I don't know why this insistence that we're "alone" is so common - some relic of Christian "we are god's favourites" or something, maybe.
We haven't even made it to the nearest star, FFS. Who knows what is out there. We certainly don't and anyone who claims to - or claims to know what is NOT out there - is talking out their ass.
Not that I give this astronaut much credence, of course. Why would an advanced alien species bother with earth? Believing that they do without any solid evidence to back it up is just another kind of "humans are important" wishful thinking, IMO.
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
Just because they're advanced doesn't mean the have the same notions of importance as we as human being do. Add in language, cultural, and technological barriers, and it isn't so strange at all that aliens could do some really dumb things by human logic. Perhaps aliens use biotechnology we haven't dreamed of, or have never heard of radio waves, etc etc.
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I'd love to play with this a bit:
1. There's a lot less to crash into during space travel than when you're at or near a planet. We did a lot more crashing of probes into Mars than in the space between here and Mars.
2. The mutilated cattle and anal probes are probably being done by people and being blamed on aliens. That never had to be UFOs, and it can still be someone covering up for their sick relatives.
3. Why not land in the middle of the superbowl? What if they deemed our civilization was not secure enough for open contact. What are the odds that enough scared people with the means of launching a missle would be interested in doing so out of fear. Pre-emptive strike ring any bells? From that perspective, landing in desolate areas makes logical sense. Although it would probably make more sense for a water landing if possible. Easier to hide.
4. We need more gratuitous references to our typical /. memes
I for one welcome our alien brethren/overlords
1. mutilate cows
2. anal probe astronauts
3. flashy thing people
4. ???
5. profit!
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
No, they can't.
If you actually research it, you would find that Government agencies are almost always on target.
There are three things to remember.
1)I corporation can fail at 99 project, and succeed at one. No one will talk about the failures, and they will hype the success. Where as with a government agency they can do 99 projects right, and miss one and that one gets hyped all through the media.
2) Go to the library and look at the fiscal records, almost all projects are done on time and within budget.
3) Government agencies have for more accountability then corporation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Attempts to expand Godel's incompleteness theorems to anything beyond their original scope are foolish. From the Wikipedia article you cited: Authors such as J. R. Lucas have argued that the theorems have implications in wider areas of philosophy and even cognitive science as well as preventing any complete theory of everything from being found in physics, but these claims are not generally accepted. Don't make poor Godel into a sociologist!
Yeah, the seemingly logical human brain makes all kinds of silly blunders.
Such as inserting a naive interpretation of Godel's theorem into a debate that isn't about the derivable elements of a formal system.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The crazies are the ones whose judgment is enough impaired that they make the mistake of talking about it.
Sane people see a lot of weird stuff over a lifetime, but we keep our mouths shut because (a) we want to be able to keep a job and pay the bills, and (b) no one wants to hear you talk about the weird stuff except the crazies. See, other sane people either (a) never saw the weird stuff, so they think you are crazy, or (b) they have, and they know better than to talk about it in public, so they think you're one of the crazies for talking about it. Either way, they back away quickly and you find that no one sane wants to talk to you.
The first rule about the Weird Stuff is we don't talk about the Weird Stuff.
---dragoness
Seriously, for such an advanced species, they make very little sense.
Yep. It's almost like they're, you know, alien or something.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Although improbable, there has to be a first civilization in our galaxy, and maybe we are the most advanced life form in our galaxy so far. Regarding the age of the universe, it is possible, because the matter of the solar system had to go through 2 or 3 supernovae before having enough high period elements, and it took the universe about 5 billion years alone to create us since our planet was created, which is more than a third of the age of the universe.
This leaves us with a number of possibilities:
- we are the first
- intelligent life is very rare or very fragile and volatile in our universe
- the guy is right and they are already here and among us (maybe they are criminals hiding on a primitive planet)
- interstellar distances are simply to big to be overcome, or no one wants to pay for the energy
- evil alien predators are already on their way to blow us out of the sky before we become serious competitors
- we live in a zoo and are just being watched
- everything is just a big illusion, and our reality is only virtual
p.
Without order, nothing can exist. Without chaos, nothing can be created.
Oh really now.
Does anyone here find this all that surprising?
The odds are other life does exist, get over it.
Not only that, I bet they are better than we are, absolutely laugh at our television broadcasts of our "top" scientists BY DECREE, telling us that the distances between blah blah blah and that is totally impossible to cross such distances....blah blah blah....
Really lets put this in perspective.
In less than 120 years, we went from Orville and Co, to the moon.
Our basic understanding of the very structure of the universe and the forces and materials of things go together is infantile at best.
I mean, we have no concept of what gravity is, although we know enough to describe it and how it acts on objects.
We have no clue about the various types of materials the universe is made out of or their properties. I mean dark energy, matter etc have practically just been discovered for example.
Now take a sentient being other than humans, and instead of 150 years to figure out how to travel in space, give them say an extra million years. Even, dare I say a BILLION years of time.
Point is, you no longer have just ET's, you have gods with a small g walking around up there.
If we can do this rate of advance in just 150 years, imagine what ET's could have done with a billion years.
What is possible would be pretty much fantasy to us.
If there are ET's and Earth is not a rare occurrence, they must be all over the place.
I bet we are just the ants in their backyards. :-)
-Hack
PS: I hope there is something better than humans out there. We suck.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I think he just had a case of the senility.
Probably. But the lack of evidence of aliens doesn't mean they don't exist. Notice that I said there is a lack of evidence of aliens. Read that again. Now again. Okay now you understand that I am not claiming any evidence of aliens nor that I have any experience with them. Think about that, hard. That's what I said. Now that I've said that, consider that if you were a highly sophisticated life form and could travel interstellar space, you might have a heightened sense of the maxim: don't fuck with the wildlife.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Right, but this is just religion, with aliens standing in for gods.
Currently, the number of planets we know have ever sustained life is one. We can disprove the theory that Earth is unique by finding evidence of life on e.g. Mars, but that would just shift the goalposts -- we still wouldn't have any evidence from which to argue that life has ever existed outside our solar system, and we still wouldn't have any evidence from which to argue that sentient life has ever existed other than on Earth.
Face it: we have no meaningful data at all on how widespread life is in the universe, and there is no realistic prospect that we will get it any time in the foreseeable future. What this means is that speculation on the existence of intelligent alien life can only be just that: speculation. You can make personal arguments about how unlikely you think it is that life is unique to Earth, and you can make emotive arguments about how silly you think it is to assume that humans are "special" or "unique", but the fact remains that we have no evidence either for or against this position.
It's only the teasers that we get to see on Earth. These are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for level 5 planets and buzz them, meaning that they find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.
Advanced species know that Earth is mostly harmless, so they tend not to bother with it.
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-
If you have the technology to handle the incredibly, stupidly huge energies needed to travel between the stars, all the missiles on Earth don't mean a thing to you.
I disagree. A modern supersonic F-22 Raptor Fighter Jet armed with missiles, bombs, 20mm rotary canon, etc is orders of magnitude beyond say, a 1000 year old trebuchet. The jet utterly dominates and controls every aspect of the engagement... its just absurd to contemplate such a 'battle'.
Yet even so, if the pilot were to land the jet within range of the trebuchet to say hi to the locals, a barrage of 300lb rocks crashing into it is still going to break it.
Point is: just because something is fantastically advanced technology doesn't automatically mean it can't be smashed by a big rock.
1. There's also the possibility that they are messing with us. I can see benefits to a first contact scenario in which you fake a crash and come off looking all helpless, and a lot less scary. If I can see the benefits, then so too might alien-thinking aliens. It amazes me how many intelligent rational people will implicitly assert that aliens don't exist unless they behave like humans would expect them too. ("aliens can't be real because if they were then they would surely be doing _____")
2. There was a documentary done a while back that made a very good case for cattle mutiliation being a government black op to monitor radiation absorption levels in areas near where secret nuclear testing and uranium mining has been done. Apparently the tissue (lips, anus) which are most frequently removed from mutilated cattle are the ones that also provide good indication of radiation absorption.
3. See my rant in point 1. Aliens look alien. Aliens think alien. You can't assess their likelihood of existing based on a priori assumptions about what you expect their behavior should be.
4. That's a given
A coverup? A massive worldwide coverup? C'mon. Is there anyone really believing that governments are capable of it? Do you remember stories about Word documents with metadata that revealed more than intented? Governments aren't capable of covering much simpler things, let alone UFOs.
Currently, the number of planets we know have ever sustained life is one.
So what? We're so primitive that I can count on two hands the total number of planets that we can actually see, and they're all orbiting the same star, one of billions in this galaxy (which is one of thousands of galaxies that we can currently see). Only in the past decade have we even been able to detect exosolar planets, and even then we can only detect them by their effects on their host stars, not by direct observation (so we can only detect the massive gas giants, not the small rocky planets more likely to have life like ours). Making any assumptions based on our observations of the universe is outright idiocy in my opinion, since we know so little.
Face it: we have no meaningful data at all on how widespread life is in the universe, and there is no realistic prospect that we will get it any time in the foreseeable future. What this means is that speculation on the existence of intelligent alien life can only be just that: speculation.
True, but the vastness of the universe indicates that it's extremely likely that other life exists out there. The idea that, out of probably quadrillions of planets out there, there is no other life but that on Earth, seems rather silly to me. Yes, it's just speculation, but given the choice between saying 1) it's likely we're the only planet with life, or 2) it's likely that we're NOT the only planet with life, choice #2 is the only one that makes any sense. It's possible #1 is true, but it's far less likely than #2.
and you can make emotive arguments about how silly you think it is to assume that humans are "special" or "unique"
There's no emotion involved here. It's pure numbers and probability. If there's 1E12 stars out there that we know of alone based on our primitive astronomy, and an unknown number of planets in the "habitable zone" around those stars, what are the chances that life never evolved on other worlds? Given that we've already shown experimentally how cell-like structures can spontaneously evolve given the right mixture of materials, pressure, and temperature (normally seen on planets in this habitable zone), it seems pretty obvious that the chances are extremely low that we're the only world to have any life. And that's just assuming that our hydrocarbon-based life is the only viable kind, instead of considering totally alien lifeforms which may evolve in totally different environments.
Provided you're right, I guess the "Jesus experiment" was considered a failure, considering what we made out of the experience. Seriously, the atrocities you mention, a lot of them have been justified in the name of some religion. Forced conversions, religious prosecutions, crusades, I guess that's not what he had in mind.
If anything, religion is one of the leading causes of war. I think if Jesus could see what we made out of his religion, he'd have stayed a carpenter and shut up. Well, I would have, put in his boots.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.