Pentagon releases UFO footage

SixTwoSix said:
I remember when I went to the Colosseum in Rome in 2004, was shocked how small it was, mentioned this to one of the guides who promptly told me people were a lot smaller back then.
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Romans were. Not people in general. There are a fair few surviving references to many of the northern barbarian tribes averaging a fair bit taller than Romans. Average height of ancient Roman men was about 5 feet 6 and a half inches IIRC. The Colosseum was built for Romans, of course (and to fit as many people as possible in).

I've seen some people simply translate pes and uncia as feet and inches. I think that's a misleading translation because most people nowadays think of feet and inches as British imperial feet and inches (USA feet and inches are the same). There were various different values for the same sort of unit. Roman pes and uncia were a bit shorter than British imperial feet and inches. So if you look around and see references to average ancient Roman height for men being more like 5'9" or 5'10", that's why. It's also partly why Napoleon is famous for being extremely short. He wasn't unusually short, but French feet and inches were a bit longer than British feet and inches.

EDIT: As an example, Vegetius refers to height in De Re Militari when referring to the selection of soldiers. English translations usually state "6 feet or at least 5 feet 10 inches", but the original Latin clearly states "VI pedum uel certe V et X unciarum". pes and uncia, not feet and inches. About 5'8" in British imperial feet and inches. Which is clearly stated by Vegetius to be tall for a Roman man. It's also clearly stated that it should be treated as a guideline and not as a requirement.
 
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gpuerrilla said:
Three things.

One is (not my input by the way just remember absorbing the info) there is a black hole not that far from us that will engulf our galaxy.
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It's currently thought very likely that there's a supermassive black hole at the centre of most if not all galaxies, including ours. I don't know if there's any direct observation of that yet, but it's definitely at least very strongly pencilled in due to other evidence. But that doesn't mean it will engulf our galaxy. If nothing falls into a black hole, it doesn't get any more massive. The opposite - it shrinks. Although with a supermassive black hole the timescale for that shrinkage so long that it hardly matters and it may as well be considered unchanging. But unless stuff is falling into a black hole, things remain stable. Another possibility for death by black hole might be when our galaxy breaks social distancing rules with the Andromeda galaxy. There's probably another supermassive black hole in there and it's not yet known what'll happen when the two galaxies move through each other. It could get very messy. But that's billions of years away.

Second is apparently the universe could also at some point reverse and collapse back in on itself.
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Maybe. Big bang, big crunch. Or (more accurately but much less catchy) everywhere expansion and everywhere contraction. But maybe not. Not enough is known.

Third, bit of an obvious one but the Sun dies/something happens to it then well Earth is doomed.
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Unless humanity of the far future refuels the sun or makes a new star to replace it. Way beyond our capabilities now, but who knows what humanity will be capable of in a billion years if it still exists?

Some of these theories seem to change over time just like when people thought the Earth was flat or revolved around the moon!
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Theories (and hypotheses) should change if new information is discovered. As happened with geocentric and heliocentric models of the solar system. Back in the day, either model could be made to fit the available evidence so both were valid at that time. I don't know about any idea that the Earth revolved around the moon, though. Never heard of that one, but maybe it fitted the known evidence at some point in the past. I don't know.

There's no evidence of people thinking the Earth was flat before the flat earthers in modern times, though. That's a different thing. In the past, people either knew it wasn't flat or didn't think about its shape at all.
 
SixTwoSix said:
I remember when I went to the Colosseum in Rome in 2004, was shocked how small it was, mentioned this to one of the guides who promptly told me people were a lot smaller back then.
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some old buildings/apartments still have smaller doors.I visited someone who lives in an old apartment block in St Gallen and the door frames are only around 5.8ft or so..

I can barely fit through an English standard door without ducking..

they were like "people used to be smaller" yea no doubt....

it's not evolution though its just better diets and less people being malnourished. obviously some of it's genetics but diet brings the average down
 
Angilion said:
Unless humanity of the far future refuels the sun or makes a new star to replace it. Way beyond our capabilities now, but who knows what humanity will be capable of in a billion years if it still exists?
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I'd imagine if we had that kind of capability we'd also have the means to spread to other stars. If humanity is still around in 100s of millions of years let alone billions they are probably going to have to deal with some tough realities or face extinction anyway.
 
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Sankari said:
So how we coming along with the aliens, then? Any news from our intergalactic friends, or is it just the usual stream of dodgy camera footage, straw-clutching assumptions, and idiotic conspiracy theories?
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Generalising much :) The last I heard the US Air force had gained control of the investigating - so expect the claims of a cover up along with the conspiracy theories to continue.
 
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ethan said:
Generalising much :) The last I heard the US Air force had gained control of the investigating - so expect the claims of a cover up along with the conspiracy theories to continue.
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OK, firstly there is more than one country in the world, and the USAF does not have the capacity to conceal UFO incidents all across the globe. So unless aliens have made the mysterious decision to restrict their activities to the USA, the 'US government is covering it up' argument won't wash.

Secondly, this entire planet is monitored by satellite cameras on a daily basis (not to mention our vast array of radar systems and radio telescopes) so if aliens were trying to sneak in, we'd sure as hell have captured the event right now.

Thirdly, any species capable of interstellar travel would be smart enough to identify world governments and establish contact, which is something every alleged alien visitor has so far failed to do.
 
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I'm not going to bother to respond except to say I was referring to the data that was recently presented to congress where it was hoped the material would have made it into the public domain and various scientific bodies screaming out for it. The Air force have since restricted it. So expect the claims of a coverup to continue etc
 
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Sankari said:
OK, firstly there is more than one country in the world, and the USAF does not have the capacity to conceal UFO incidents all across the globe. So unless aliens have made the mysterious decision to restrict their activities to the USA, the 'US government is covering it up' argument won't wash.

Secondly, this entire planet is monitored by satellite cameras on a daily basis (not to mention our vast array of radar systems and radio telescopes) so if aliens were trying to sneak in, we'd sure as hell have captured the event right now.

Thirdly, any species capable of interstellar travel would be smart enough
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If theoretically an alien species was capable of travelling here I think they'd be able to avoid our primitive means of detecting them
 
Rroff said:
I'd imagine if we had that kind of capability we'd also have the means to spread to other stars. If humanity is still around in 100s of millions of years let alone billions they are probably going to have to deal with some tough realities or face extinction anyway.
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I agree. I was allowing for the possibility of the far distant humans (or descendents of humans) having some sort of emotional attachment to Earth, enough of one to want to preserve it even if it wasn't necessary for them to do so.

SexyGreyFox said:
How do you cover something up that isn't there?
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That's the perfect scenario for claims of a cover-up, which is what ethan was referring to. If there isn't anything there then nothing will be found, which "proves" there's a cover-up!

In fact, there is a "cover-up". The USAF is restricting information about its capabilities, technology and activities. As it should, of course. But that means that, as Ethan pointed out, some people will continue to claim that as evidence of alien spaceships.
 
Roar87 said:
If theoretically an alien species was capable of travelling here I think they'd be able to avoid our primitive means of detecting them
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I'm quite fond of Douglas Adams' joking explanation in the Hitchhiker's Guide series - the alleged alien incidents are adolescent aliens deliberately being detected to mess with primitives like us for their own amusement.

Although current human tech that could detect spaceship-sized physical objects from space coming to Earth isn't all that primitive and there's a lot of it. I think it wouldn't be trivial to evade it with 100% effectiveness, even with technology beyond our current understanding. Maybe there would be a few unintended detections if there were loads of alien spaceships coming to Earth. Which is a very big "if".
 
Angilion said:
Although current human tech that could detect spaceship-sized physical objects from space coming to Earth
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didn't we almost miss some cigar shaped rock and only spotted it when its orbit was already going away from us?

"could" sure we could easily miss anything too and I'm sure they don't need to come all that close to observe us, unless we are assuming they are using old school Earth tech like monoculars

would we even know if they had a satellite orbiting the planet or would we just assume it's a piece of junk.

here's how big of a satellite Blacksky use for satellite images
q6yX2bG.jpg


if they are so advanced why would they even come in person anyway? surely probes are the answer and I don't mean anal ones.... more like tiny drones

odds are no one found us anyway
 
Angilion said:
I'm quite fond of Douglas Adams' joking explanation in the Hitchhiker's Guide series - the alleged alien incidents are adolescent aliens deliberately being detected to mess with primitives like us for their own amusement.

Although current human tech that could detect spaceship-sized physical objects from space coming to Earth isn't all that primitive and there's a lot of it. I think it wouldn't be trivial to evade it with 100% effectiveness, even with technology beyond our current understanding. Maybe there would be a few unintended detections if there were loads of alien spaceships coming to Earth. Which is a very big "if".
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What if they could make their spaceships out of dark matter?
 
arknor said:
didn't we almost miss some cigar shaped rock and only spotted it when its orbit was already going away from us?

"could" sure we could easily miss anything too and I'm sure they don't need to come all that close to observe us, unless we are assuming they are using old school Earth tech like monoculars

would we even know if they had a satellite orbiting the planet or would we just assume it's a piece of junk.
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I think all I need to say in reply to that is to repeat the rest of my post, the part after the half a sentence you quoted:

Angilion said:
[..] isn't all that primitive and there's a lot of it. I think it wouldn't be trivial to evade it with 100% effectiveness, even with technology beyond our current understanding. Maybe there would be a few unintended detections if there were loads of alien spaceships coming to Earth. Which is a very big "if".
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arknor said:
if they are so advanced why would they even come in person anyway? surely probes are the answer and I don't mean anal ones.... more like tiny drones

odds are no one found us anyway
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I agree on both points. Although maybe there would be some other motive for coming in person. Maybe some people would want to see with their own eyes rather than see images on screens from sensors.

potatolord said:
What if they could make their spaceships out of dark matter?
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Doesn't make any difference. The allegation is that some alien spaceships are just about observed, indirectly and indistinctly and unreliably. If their spaceships were genuinely absolutely undetectable then there could be a million a day with no evidence at all.
 
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