The mere suggestion by a top government official that “aliens” could explain some UFO activity is the latest example of the government’s striking shift in tone regarding this issue.

This week, the director of the U.S. government’s UFO analysis office stated that there is “evidence” of concerning unidentified flying object activity “in our backyard.” According to physicist Seán Kirkpatrick, who heads the congressionally-mandated All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, this alarming UFO activity can be attributed to one of two extraordinary sources: either a foreign power or “aliens.”

To be sure, the ramifications of either would be significant. But Kirkpatrick’s comments, which come as he is about to retire after a 27-year defense and intelligence-focused career, are more intriguing because he also says that “none” of the hundreds of military UFO reports analyzed by his office recently “have been positively attributed to foreign activities.”

At the same time, Kirkpatrick and senior defense officials have ruled out the possibility that secret U.S. programs or experimental aircraft explain the phenomena.

  • rambaroo@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Time travel to the past is orders of magnitude more unlikely than alien life existing at the same time as us. We know interstellar travel is physically possible, just very difficult, while our current knowledge of physics shows that time travel to the past is physically impossible.

    I think it’s more likely that if these objects are extraterrestrial that could be uncrewed drones meant to perform basic science/reconnaissance. It’s even possible the civilization that launched them is long dead due to the distances involved and that’s why they aren’t contacting us.

    That said, I also wouldn’t assume that we’re uninteresting. Any form of life that demonstrates intelligence is probably rare, so simply observing us out of curiosity would make sense too.

    • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      You misunderstood.

      The issue isn’t whether it’s possible to travel interstellar.

      It’s that the rate at which the universe is expanding means that even if you could travel at the speed of light, the majority of the observable universe could never be visited. Traveling slower than the speed of light, and even more is permanently inaccessible.

      Additionally, we’ve only been generating ‘interesting’ signals that could be detected for only around 100 years.

      Assuming those signals could still be read somehow at a decent signal to noise ratio maximally far from us, that’s still only around 10,000 star systems within a 100 light year radius around us.

      Given the speed at which less than light speed interstellar travel would occur plus the time to reach us after receiving an interesting signal, and you are talking about maybe around a 30 light year radius that’s practically the range at which any alien life would have received a radio signal from Earth and been able to arrive to check it out.

      Given credible sightings go back to the mid 20th century, that reduces the practical range to more like a 10 light year radius to get a signal and come check it out using conventional interstellar travel.

      There’s like 30 star systems in that range.

      • Dieinahole@kbin.social
        1·
        11 months ago

        We’re currently using spectroscopy to try and find possible bio signatures.

        Which our planet has had for anyone looking, for oh, several million years longer than our radio broadcasts, which have largely stopped