Is this…
The Event?
Damn, we’ve been scouted! They’ll just build high templars to counter our nukes.
OBAMA: My kingdom for the ability to cancel Open Border deals.
I have a friend who believes that the government somehow funds sci-fi movies/tv shows about alien life because it will acclimate the general public to the idea that aliens exist and will allow for an easier transition for society when that knowledge finally becomes public.
I’d like to say that his theory has no merit, but the results of a poll CNN Time conducted shows that a majority of Americans believe in ET life and that the government is hiding that information. That poll is almost 15 years old (quick google search yielded that result. I’m sure I could find a more recent poll but I’m lazy) and I’m sure those numbers have only risen since then.
If alien life becomes a fact of life I would think that the only people who would be surprised would be religious zealots.
I would be surprised as hell and I’m an atheist. I believe alien life exists somewhere, probably multiple places, but the chance that we’ve been visited by aliens technologically advanced enough to do so? Infinitesimal.
That’s been a popular theory since the release of the 1960 Brookings Institute Report (wikipedia link):
Proposed studies on the implications of peaceful space activities for human affairs (actual report PDF here).
It also cites this 1940 work about the impact of Welles’ 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast: The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic
I would love to watch aliens land on CNNHD. I look forward to many funny Facebook posts such as “Wow, this is awesome! I knew it!”
Seriously though, if they do exist and have visited, I think the human race is ready. At least the “developed” world.
From that website, it’s the winged draconians that scare the shit out of me…or the opposite:
While part of me would like to see that in action (mostly my fecal part), it’s still pretty terrifying that a species can do that.
I tend to feel the same way. People are seeing something though. What the hell is really going on?
You know, millions of people report speaking to an invisible being that controls the entire universe. Pfft, science. Right?
H.
Ninjas?
Science is all about observation and testing theories, right? If thousands or even millions of sightings have been reported over the last 60 or 70 years, that’s at least data. Something is going on, whether it’s mass hallucination or beings visiting from some other place/dimension or even highly advanced secret military aircraft. I understand your point was to assert your super smart atheism, but if you wanna talk science, don’t the mandates of science bear out that at least something is going on here worth investigating?
Oh, I thought you were being ironic. People see all kinds of imaginary shit or make things up based on inexplicable visual experiences. Area 51 anyone?
Honestly, it seems to me one would have to have more absolute blind faith to discount out of hand thousands of reports from believable witnesses, than to believe that these people are actually seeing something.
That is my point. They saw something, something they couldn’t explain and interpreted it wrong.
Why do you think people invented dragons?
Interpreted it wrong? If people are simply reporting what they saw, then that’s that. Interpretation comes later. If someone (or thousands of someones) says, “I saw something huge fly right over Phoenix,” then that’s what was seen. If the person says, “I saw an alien spaceship fly over Phoenix,” he might be interpreting it wrong, but really, eye witnesses tend to simply describe what was seen. Others come in later and say it was X, Y, or Z without any way of knowing what it really was. Sort of like you’re doing by simply saying whatever was seen was “interpreted wrong”. You can’t know what any of these people really saw. None of us can.
Oh, most of them are seeing something, but it ain’t aliens. Also, it was my super-smart skepticism I was displaying, religion is just the easiest example of mass delusion to use.
If you want to talk probabilities, without even wandering into the general near-impossibility of there being aliens
- Of spacefaring technological progress
- Alive at the same time as us
- Able to bend all known physics
- Unwilling to contact us in any way
- Yet also unwilling to eradicate us
- Still yet fascinated enough to constantly expose themselves to us
. . . you still need to explain why I can get photos of snow leopards in the wild, yet massive vehicles appearing in populated areas surrounded by people carrying cameras never seem to get decently photographed.
It’s not science you’re after, it’s Occam’s Razor. You don’t get clear photos of spaceships simply because if the photo is clear, it becomes obvious it isn’t a spaceship. QED, and all that.
H.
Other place is Frumple. Orz are here now, but almost not yet.
Soon Orz are really here! You are help Orz with parties.