Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick had a few choice words for the public on his way out the door of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick had a few choice words for the public on his way out the door of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
Sean Kirkpatrick was once the man in charge of a D.C.-backed agency tasked with investigating claims into unidentified anomalous phenomena, the new term for what most people still call UFOs. He stepped down from the position in December, and has now published a excoriating farewell letter in Scientific American detailing some of the reasons why.
So why did he stop hunting for UFOs on behalf of the American government? In short: Because congressional leaders believe in conspiracy theories with absolutely no substantial proof. “Our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative,” Kirkpatrick said in Scientific American.
it's worth a read. Though, ask yourself... given the capability of interstellar travel, and knowing humans had the psychotic tendency to nuke themselves... multiple times... Would you visit here on vacation?
edit to add: here's the Wildcats demo team, they're a UK based acrobatics team flying. The tictocs, inverted flying, etc, are things you see in rc heli 3d flying; a consequence of the ridiculous power to weight ratio and being able to adjust the throw on the swashplate so that the blades can go "negative pitch" (relative to the aircraft, the rotors would be pushing down instead of up. there's no reason to do that on a full scale bird; besides making passengers vomit. Which is easy enough to do anyhow. Wildcats love taking fighter pilots up...)
I mean, humans would do it. We would hold Running Man contests on pay-per-view to help pay for it. The contestants would literally kill each other for the ability to take an interstellar flight to a planet with deadly alien life. Just for the chance see and probably be killed by an alien.
"So begins the mating dance of the dominant species on this planet, a mostly hairless ape that is nearly sapient, capable of great feats of intuitive engineering but shockingly lacking in yfgiiizghi thought processes. Their unfortunate lack of competition has already created a devastating ecological catastrophe that shall yet grow worse, but that matters not to Brad, who appears to be exaggerating the size of a fish he caught to Becky."
First, FTL travel cannot exist with our current understanding of physics. This is why you see most sci-fi going to either wormholes/jump drives - Orion’s arm, star gate, BSG; or by jumping into not-our-universe- Star Wars, also star gate, and andromeda. Maybe Star Trek, but Alcubierre drives themselves would not be able to go FTL. The short explanation is it would violate causality. (Wormholes don’t actually violate causality, but otherwise bridge two points in space-time)
Secondly, it should be noted that while technological advancement does impart military advantages… evaporating a space rock serves no real purpose; and doing so would represent a massive economic investment; further on this point, the sightings are insisting they’re visiting frequently.
Which given our instability (they have every season of the Jerry springer show, for example.)… the question isn’t would they decide to send us to oblivion, or not. But visit us.
And given the energies involved getting here, a species that hasn’t thought twice about nuking themselves isn’t going to think twice about reverse engineering their tech and doing exactly what you propose. And we are very likely to take their presence… the wrong way.
Final though: if aliens were to show up on earth? It’s either to harvest the only thing that makes earth special: life. (Aka they’re slavers or something.) alternatively, they’re space Mormons.
We have mathematically worked out near light speed travel, we just lack the energy requirements to test it currently. There are two methods proposed, one being riding a wave we create and the other riding under space(this one was way more confusing). The wave one would accumulate debris ahead of the wave so you aim at a planet then stop short propelling everything the wave has gathered at near light speed into the planet, instant obliteration. We are trying really hard to solve fission which is the only thing holding us up right now. Optimistically we might see a practical test in our life time albeit very late into our lives.
I think we humans are probably a bit self-centered or narcissistic in our fascination with aliens, like the belief they may wish to control or take our planet, or something. Objects in space are all pretty much made out of the same elements, so we probably have nothing they would need if they have technology that makes traveling to us trivial. Space is so vast it would be easier for them at that technology level to obtain whatever they need from uninhabited planets or asteroids and avoid any unnecessary hassle or contamination. I've often felt that if we've actually been noticed by any alien presence, we're probably regarded much the same way an anthill at the edge of a truck stop parking lot is, rarely acknowledged, much less cared about when we are.
Except for the entomologist-types that are into that sort of thing, or we piss off the wrong proverbial trucker and they pour out a proverbial gallon of gas and set the anthill on fire, sure.
The entomologist types would be careful enough to not give us anything crazy… unless they’re polish. At which point, they might just let the proverbial cannibal ants out. (Seriously, did they not realize cannibal ants in an abandoned Soviet nuclear bunker is how the world ends? They need to watch more b-rated sci-fi…)
Also, AARO didn’t even have a website until August 31 2023. Sean Kirkpatrick admitted to speaking with people like David Grusch prior to officially starting his role. But, since these didn’t go through official reporting channels they never got reviewed. DOD even released a report admitting to failing at documenting UAP.
And as expected the conversation shifts from the facts gathered by the article to every other kind of speculation possible. Didn’t even have time to make popcorn.
I dont need faster than light travel, I just have to have developed earlier than you.
You know what a Von Newman probe is?
Its a machine that is capable of self replication.
So lets say that thousands of years ago an alien species identifies solar systems with planets inside their habitable zones and launches Von Newman probes at them - no faster than light travel required.
Also explains crashes, the mini-probes, built by the "mothership" are literally that - expendable.
We are literally talking about doing something similar to Alpha Centurai
He's actually upset about continued interest in UFOs despite unsubstantiated theories and contradicting evidence rather than conspiracy theories, which would be fair it was true.
But it isn't all contradicting evidence and unsubstantiated according to the congressman on these inquiries, and Congress gets to choose how to spend money anyway, so this is actually a weird article about this one guy who's unreasonably upset people are investigating UFOs.