

Ministry of Defence files on UFO sightings released - isomorph
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14486678

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ZoFreX
It feels a little like the MoD are being attacked for not investigating these
things more seriously, but as a taxpayer I'm not particularly upset by that.
What do you think? Should I be?

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Zumzoa
It depends. If all they have is unreliable, inconsistent eyewitness testimony,
then it's acceptable to ignore. If they have physical samples they've not
tested or electromagnetic readings they've not had analysed, then it's an
incompetent blind spot.

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tomlin
The thing I don't get about aliens is that they seem to have the technology to
pass through lightyears to our galaxy, but somehow don't have the technology
to hide themselves? Yeesh.

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tzs
I don't see what is odd hypothetical about having one hard technology but not
another hard technology.

Intersteller travel is only hard from a physics point of view if you want to
go from X to Y and then back to X, with not too much time elapsing on X. If
that isn't a constraint, it's just engineering and biology:

1\. If you need to get back to X, without too much time having elapsed on the
ship, you just need to go fast. Time dilation keeps the trip short for the
travelers.

2\. If you are willing to make a one-way trip, you don't need to go fast.
There are a couple of approaches:

2a. If you need the original crew to arrive at the destination, then some form
of suspended animation (cryogenics?) will do, as well extending your lifespan.

2b. If you don't need the original crew to arrive at the destination, then you
can do a generation ship.

If/when we do encounter aliens, I would not at all be surprised if they aren't
much more advanced than us. For instance, a civilization that recognized an
upcoming planet-wide natural disaster that they could not avert (e.g., big
asteroid on collision course), and abandoned their planet on a fleet of
generation ships, each ship wandering the galaxy looking for a habitable
planet to take over.

