Belief in alien visits to Earth is spiralling out of control – here’s why that’s so dangerous

[DaveC426913]

The SR team deliberately stop their evaluative process at the point where normality would prevail or be favored.
_

This is exactly what i deduced, and I've never even seen the show.

They oohed and aahed about this incredibly fast craft that was caught on camera BEFORE even considering whether it was a bug. That's not accidental; that's deliberate.

 

[foghorn]

The fact that something improves on religion is a rather low bar, and in no way validates it. Also, thousands of alleged encounters actually sounds quite a lot like religion. Every day, all over the world, people claim to have religious experiences of angels, gods, demons, ghosts, et al. And yet you are not suggesting those are credible. Nor would you probably suggest sightings of the ET equivalents of earlier centuries, like fairies or trolls or banshees, are credible.

I maybe behind in the News, but I was reading the following article on The Guardian site and remembered this thread.
JD Vance thinks ufos are the devil's tricks.
I thought it rather scary that someone, JD Vance, in such a high government position, would actually believe such a thing.
Would it mean, any extra-terrestrial attempt at contact with humans would be met with instant hostility?

The God-fearing vice-president’s fixation, it was further revealed, extended to the question of the existence of extra-planetary beings, and where they might fit into a wider conversation about religion.
“I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a longer discussion,” he said.
Johnson asked him to expand.
“Well, look, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people. I think that the desire to describe everything celestial, everything is otherworldly, to describe it as aliens,” Vance said.
“Every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain. And I naturally go, when I hear about sort of extra-natural phenomenon, that’s where I go, is the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there.
I think that one of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”

The Guardian

 

[C C]

I maybe behind in the News, but I was reading the following article on The Guardian site and remembered this thread.
JD Vance thinks ufos are the devil's tricks.
I thought it rather scary that someone, JD Vance, in such a high government position, would actually believe such a thing.
Would it mean, any extra-terrestrial attempt at contact with humans would be met with instant hostility?

The Guardian

Though this would be a Christian or Abrahamic sub-category, the view of UFOs being "trickster" related events fits under Jacques Vallée's broader concept of them involving entities from a prior-in-rank level that makes this one possible. (Which should include the simulation hypothesis, not just the classic extra-dimensional tropes.) Which spurred outrage from the majority of UAP addicts that were strictly devoted to space-aliens. Thus potentially making Vance a similar counterculture figure in that mainstream "Foo Fighter" establishment. Vance adapting MAGA's populist "anti-elite" tactic even when venturing into this pop culture of eccentricity and fringe beliefs.

EXCERPT: By 1969, Vallée's conclusions had changed, and he publicly stated that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was too narrow and ignored too much data. [...] As an alternative to the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis, Vallée has suggested a multidimensional visitation hypothesis. This hypothesis represents an extension of the ETH where the alleged extraterrestrials could be potentially from anywhere. The entities could be multidimensional beyond space-time; thus they could coexist with humans, yet remain undetected. Vallée's opposition to the popular ETH was not well received by prominent U.S. ufologists, hence he was viewed as something of an outcast. Indeed, Vallée refers to himself as a "heretic among heretics"...

Fortean Winds: The trickster is one of the most consistent archetypes in human mythology. Loki in Norse tradition. Coyote across dozens of Native American cultures. Anansi in West Africa. Nanabozho among the Ojibwe. Hermes in Greece. These figures share a behavioral profile: they are boundary-crossers, rule-breakers, shape-shifters. They are simultaneously creative and destructive, sacred and profane. They operate in the liminal spaces where categories break down. They reveal truths through deception. And they are, almost universally, associated with communication between the human world and whatever exists outside it.
_

 

[Roosters for ever]

I would venture to say that most scientists, and anyone who knows something about science, would accept the premise, that the life we know of, that started on Earth, (abiogenesis) and then evolved over the eons, to what we see today, would not be the only life that has started and evolved in this rather large near infinite universe, of near infinite content. Most I believe would accept the likelyhood that Earth is not "Robinson Crusoe" in that regard, while still understanding that as yet, we have absolutely no evidence of any Alien life form ever visiting Earth, if any other Alien life form does exist. Abiding by the laws of physics, the two great barriers preventing any Alien inter-species contact, are time and distance.
Of course as yet scientists cannot be sure that life at some degree of evolution does not exist, closer to home. eg: Beneath the ice-covered moon of Europa, or the apparent hydrothermal activity on Enceledus, moon of Saturn.
Also as I mentioned somewhere sometime on this forum, I have seen what can be regarded as a UFO or if you like, a UAP. That sighting many decades ago, does not, nor ever has caused me any concern. It simply remains unidentified or unknown.
I don't accept that believing in Aliens, would be anything to be too concerned or worried about, or that it is in anyway dangerous. As long as that belief is accompanied by the fact that we still have no evidence of any other life form off this fart arse little blue orb we call Earth.

 

[DaveC426913]

I would venture to say that most scientists, and anyone who knows something about science, would accept the premise, that the life we know of, that started on Earth, (abiogenesis) and then evolved over the eons, to what we see today, would not be the only life that has started and evolved in this rather large near infinite universe, of near infinite content. Most I believe would accept the likelyhood that Earth is not "Robinson Crusoe" in that regard, while still understanding that as yet, we have absolutely no evidence of any Alien life form ever visiting Earth, if any other Alien life form does exist. Abiding by the laws of physics, the two great barriers preventing any Alien inter-species contact, are time and distance.
Of course as yet scientists cannot be sure that life at some degree of evolution does not exist, closer to home. eg: Beneath the ice-covered moon of Europa, or the apparent hydrothermal activity on Enceledus, moon of Saturn.
Also as I mentioned somewhere sometime on this forum, I have seen what can be regarded as a UFO or if you like, a UAP. That sighting many decades ago, does not, nor ever has caused me any concern. It simply remains unidentified or unknown.
I don't accept that believing in Aliens, would be anything to be too concerned or worried about, or that it is in anyway dangerous. As long as that belief is accompanied by the fact that we still have no evidence of any other life form off this fart arse little blue orb we call Earth.

Me, I've been wondering about the frequency of complexity.

I figure for every 45 planets we find life on, 30 will be single-celled algae-like.
Another 10 will be multicellular, leaving only 5 planets with anything as complex than bony fish.
Of those 5, maybe 3 will have dinosaur-analogs, and one will have primate-analogs, if we're lucky.

Not that I think it will play out in those numbers, but anybody who talks about exo-life always talks about the one that has intelligent life, while ignoring the vast majority of them that will likely be just planetary algae seas.

 

[TheVat]

Not that I think it will play out in those numbers, but anybody who talks about exo-life always talks about the one that has intelligent life, while ignoring the vast majority of them that will likely be just planetary algae seas.

It's hard to even begin to assign probabilities (given our single data point) of Spirulina Smoothie planet v big brains planet. My guess for complexity going whole hog is that much depends on land area, tides, and stretches of 100s of millions of years without sterilizing cataclysms. (I struggled on the plausibility of of intelligent life on Trisolaris in The 3 Body Problem)

 

[TheVat]

fits under Jacques Vallée's broader concept of them involving entities from a prior-in-rank level that makes this one possible. (Which should include the simulation hypothesis, not just the classic extra-dimensional tropes.) Which spurred outrage from the majority of UAP addicts that were strictly devoted to space-aliens. Thus potentially making Vance a similar counterculture figure in that mainstream "Foo Fighter" establishment.

The possible Vance-Vallée axis seems orthogonal to science. Unnecessary multiplying of purely fantasized extra dimensions is kind of the ultimate breakage of Ockham's razor. At one end, Vallée is the scientist (astronomer, originally) who slips off the rails, at the other, Vance is the crypto-theocrat who never got on the rails at all.

 

[Roosters for ever]

Not that I think it will play out in those numbers, but anybody who talks about exo-life always talks about the one that has intelligent life, while ignoring the vast majority of them that will likely be just planetary algae seas.

Yet still while agreeing totally with that comment, any discovery of any extraterrestrial life, including simple single cell algae, will be Earth shakingly momentous!. (well at least a 6 on the Rhicter scale)
Incidentally, why I was so disappointed a couple of decades ago when NASA shelved a Europa probe, in favour of the "New Horizons" craft to Pluto, and beyond. The great success of New Horizons did though temper that disappointment some.

 

[foghorn]

Though this would be a Christian or Abrahamic sub-category, the view of UFOs being "trickster" related events fits under Jacques Vallée's broader concept of them involving entities from a prior-in-rank level that makes this one possible. (Which should include the simulation hypothesis, not just the classic extra-dimensional tropes.) Which spurred outrage from the majority of UAP addicts that were strictly devoted to space-aliens. Thus potentially making Vance a similar counterculture figure in that mainstream "Foo Fighter" establishment. Vance adapting MAGA's populist "anti-elite" tactic even when venturing into this pop culture of eccentricity and fringe beliefs.

EXCERPT:By 1969, Vallée's conclusions had changed, and he publicly stated that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was too narrow and ignored too much data. [...] As an alternative to the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis, Vallée has suggested a multidimensional visitation hypothesis. This hypothesis represents an extension of the ETH where the alleged extraterrestrials could be potentially from anywhere. The entities could be multidimensional beyond space-time; thus they could coexist with humans, yet remain undetected. Vallée's opposition to the popular ETH was not well received by prominent U.S. ufologists, hence he was viewed as something of an outcast. Indeed, Vallée refers to himself as a "heretic among heretics"...

It does seem an odd thing to call Vallee a new take on ufos.
I have always gone along with wherever and whatever the evidence leads to.
And, that leads us to where we are today.
It’s funny that ‘ufologists’ have their luddites too.