32 thoughts on “Alien Invasions”

  1. If we really have crash retrieval (or have found intact) UFO’s as has been alleged, and have been vigorously working to reverse-engineer them also alleged the success (or lack thereof) would likely be the deciding factor.

    1. Whether we could reverse engineer anything from a crashed spaceship would depend on how much more advanced their technology is compared to ours. Imagine Issac Newton being given a smart phone. How much could he reverse engineer from it?

      1. “Imagine Issac Newton being given a smart phone.” Yes; or Ben Franklin and a team of “craftsmen” circa 1776 trying to reverse engineer and F-35 fighter. Even if they had seen it flying earlier and it was landed intact and abandoned. But I would wager we probably would have developed heavier than air powered flight much sooner than we did; just the knowledge that such was possible would have spurred development. A second unknown wild card would be if we had some kind of direct help from said aliens in understanding their tech.

        1. A team of 18th century craftsmen would have a shot at reverse engineering a gas turbine engine. Even limited by materials, they could at least see the mechanisms in action.

          Semiconductor chips, on the other hand, they’d have neither theory to explain the operation if the mechanism was diagrammed for them, nor the instruments to observe key elements of the internal structure,

          Give these same craftsmen a modern firearm, they’d wonder about the miraculous steel, and puzzle over the chemistry of the propellant, but have little difficulty understanding the mechanism sufficiently to adapt it to the gunpowder they knew.

          1. “A team of 18th century craftsmen would have a shot at reverse engineering a gas turbine engine. Even limited by materials, they could at least see the mechanisms in action.”

            Yes. Applying that logic to today the alleged TR3B and the later more advanced TAW-50 are supposed to be examples of reversed engineered from alien UFO’s developed by the US military. That part of the acquired alien tech that our modern “craftsmen” can figure out how it works gets duplicated/adapted, just like in your hypotheses

  2. The Japapese seemed to handle cultural invasion the best of all the western colonization period countries. They quickly copied western technology and soon matched it. Then they made a fatal mistake of starting their own colonization period 20 years after it became “inappropriate” in the west and then decided to take out the empire with the most resources in the world. Something to keep in mind should the aliens show up.

  3. Nice to know that I think like Stephen Hawking, because long before he raised his concerns, I expressed concern about naively beaming radio signals into the unknown that possibly identifies our existence to who-knows-what. Then, the idea of there being a conventional battle we could win against technologically advanced beings is ridiculous. And in any event, there wouldn’t be a battle. If they want Earth for themselves, they only need to release a manufactured virus. Or if they are willing to wait a while for the dust to clear, they could drop asteroids on us. We wouldn’t even know aliens were behind that, and even if we did, there would be nothing we could do about it. So, best not to beam high-powered “Hello From Earth” radio messages into the void.

    1. Whatever we broadcast on earth would be drowned out by the sun when observed at stellar distances.

  4. Logistics. Logistics. Logistics.

    Why did they come here? How (easily) did they come here? How Powerful (militarily force) are they? The answer to these is the answer to the question.

    I have felt that there is a basic four part grid for Interstellar Travel:
    (1) Fast & Cheap : welcome to the movies! Tramp freighters like the Millenium Falcon are legion. Biggest question: If it is so inexpensive why aren’t they here already trading glass beads for all our “quaint ethnic art”…?

    (2) Fast & Expensive: Maybe they need to build a Stargate out of Unobtanium™ or their stardrive is the size of the a moon… Biggest Question: If it takes that must effort then convincing them to ‘compromise’ with earthlings will take… what?

    (3) Slow & Cheap: von Neumann probes with cloning vats or sleeper ships with cryosleep pods. They may seem less dangerous than their faster cousins but they are here and they aren’t leaving. Question: If it is easy why aren’t they here already?

    (4) Slow & Expensive: Generation ships in hollowed out asteroids, perhaps… That seems to be what our current scientific understanding thinks is “possible but not practical or …feasible”. Unlikely to the extreme, but if they come there are not leaving.

    1. (1) Known/Knowns – No spaceship hovering over the UN demanding our immediate surrender.
      (2) Known / Unknowns – Weird images caught on FLIR cameras. Unusual aerial phenomena over mil bases and atomic storage sites.
      (3) Unknown / Knowns. The Drake Equation.
      (4) Unknown / Unknowns. Unknown.

    2. If they got here on a generation ship, they don’t need a planet to live on. The resources they need to upkeep, expand, or reproduce their ship are likely all available without touching Earth. On the other hand, they may find an aggressive and quickly advancing society in the neighborhood a risk.

  6. No worries. Developing a space warp drive creates a negative energy bubble that looks just like a black hole on the outside, which swallows up the home planet of its creators. It’s a self-correcting problem. Kinda like the H-bomb for those civilizations that don’t make it far enough to build a space warp.

    1. That web page must be the result of someone placing second in a 2008 “horrible interface experience” competition.

  8. “Alien Invasions”: Aliens

    “The invisible and the none existent look very much alike.”

    Attribution is contested.

  9. If the Universe was incapable of supporting Life, we wouldn’t be here.

    Relativistic frames of reference say we’re not special.

    We can’t afford to explore the galaxy for neighbors.

    They probably can’t either.

    Give it some time (maybe the simulation needs to do an update).

  12. –“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans,” Hawkings said in a 2010 documentary for the Discovery Channel.–

    Native Americans doing quite well, we would be so lucky.
    But why would space aliens be interested in planet Earth.
    How about you humans stay on Earth and we get the rest?
    Earth doesn’t have much energy, humans don’t live on 70% of Earth, which is better than living on the land-we too dumb to know it.
    Our star, sucks.
    Why even talk to us, we can barely get to orbit.
    Who needs nukes when you can change an orbit of 10 km diameter space rock.

    And worst thing is, if they talk they going to talk to Earth bureaucracies, which are very embarrassingly dumb.

    1. “But why would space aliens be interested in planet Earth.”

      Planets are probably a dime-a-dozen but planets containing complex multicellular life with billions of years of evolution might be very rare. In any case Earth’s biotica (including us) would be unique to Earth and therefore valuable in an information sense of the word. Cattle mutilations human abductions possible genetic experimentation to produce a hybrid genetically engineered race for whatever reason. The key is what our government knows and parts of it are keeping a large portion of the legitimate government in the shadows for whatever reason.

      1. The topic in general is fun to think about in a dorm-bullshit-session way. We know nothing, so we can make up any scenario we want.

        Seconded on the thought that if they come to Earth, they’re probably interested in something specific to Earth, not dumb dead matter, or energy, or any of the things that preoccupy us because they are limited for us at our current level of technology.

        If they’ve gotten matter from there to here, they don’t need energy. If they’re spacefarers, they don’t need matter.

        They’d probably want to mess with human civilization while we’re young and impressionable/easy-to-prank, in which case it’s probably not going to be a *military* campaign, as we think of it.

        1. I am not really making up the scenario of alien abductions they have been reported for years; Luis Elizondo knows about the reports but hasn’t said much publically. What we can say is that the US government now admits that they are observing crafts that are capable of making maneuvers inconsistent with our understanding of how the laws of physics work. Like rapid acceleration assents/descents (like from 80K feet to 100 feet in half a second) without any visible control services or reaction exhaust. Sheer 90 degree right angle turns at high velocity etc. UFO’s were reported being able to do such as far back as the ’50’s; difficult to believe that some terrestrial adversary has had such for so long and concealed it.

  13. Boeing Starliner capsule launches on critical NASA test flight to space station

    By Josh Dinner published about 6 hours ago

    Starliner’s second crack at a key shakeout mission is underway
    https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-space-capsule-oft-2-launch-success

    Cool.
    Just found out, 6 hours late. Oh well, let’s see:
    The Starliner is targeted to dock to the station at around 7:10 p.m. ET, Friday, May 20. This completes the ascent profile of OFT-2. Live broadcast coverage of rendezvous and docking will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET on NASA TV and at http://www.nasa.gov/live.
    https://starlinerupdates.com/

  15. “We don’t even need to invade to conquer these morons!”

    “Aww, stop ruining my fun.”

    “No, seriously, check out this Milgram dude: All you have to do to completely backdoor their brains is to speak to them in a stern authoritative voice and act like you are to be obeyed.”

    “No waaaaay”

    “Have you seen their history books? No wonder they don’t want to teach it, it’s embarrasing. A few millenia of people just clumping up into mindless robot columns and following dorks wearing funny hats.”

    “Well, I suppose I’ll fire up the radio then.”

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