An alien visited in 2017, says Harvard prof

[Dejarma]

15 minutes ago, ChrLzs said:

I have a challenge for you, TDL.

Will you walk the walk?  I'll even let you pick whatever you think is the best evidence, not only from this guy but anyone you choose (probably would be polite to stick to this dude and keep it ontopic, but whatever).

Up for it?  I am.

I doubt anything will be put forward. But if so; what's the bet it'll be: 'just a story' told to us in a book or some form of media, thrown at us via a link & nothing more?

Everyone/ All of us (believers & skeptics alike) get our data regarding this subject in this way-- oh well, what do we know

[ChrLzs]

BTW, for those who can't be bothered to look, Loeb's very first claim about his alien garbage, is in fact about the object named "Oumuamu", which is an unusually shaped object that has passed through ur solar system. sadly it did not get close enough for a telescopic view, but lots of illustrations (aka guesses) have appeared.  Let's hear Loeb's assertions... 

Quote

First were ‘Oumuamua’s dimensions.
Astronomers looked at the way the object reflected sunlight. Its brightness varied tenfold every eight hours, suggesting that was the amount of time it took for it to complete a full rotation.

So, it may be a shape issue, or it could just be that one end or an area of its surface is much more reflective than another..  Would you like me to demonstrate? 

And that was his first, and thus best evidence of alien origin?  Save me.  It's all downhill from there..

Quote

Scientists concluded the object was at least five to 10 times longer than it was wide — sort of like the shape of a cigar. 

It MAY be, but note that all the illustrations always use the 10x - five times doesn't look as impressive, nor does a big whitish blob....  

Quote

No naturally occurring space body we’ve ever seen has looked like it — or even close.
“This would make ‘Oumuamua’s geometry more extreme by at least a few times in aspect ratio — or its width to its height — than the most extreme asteroids or comets that we have ever seen,” Loeb writes in his book.

"Extreme" = by a few times?     He needs to get out more.  Thing is.. when an object, say a planet, breaks up there will, of course, be some bits that are strangely shaped -  shards of material.  Over time (millenia) with multiple collisions and the force of gravity, they will gradually tend to be more spherical, but lots of asteroids for instance have strange shapes.  If it was fairly recently created, and hasn't hit many things on it's travels, there's no reason to be ultra-surprised or to leap to conclusions.

 

I'd have to observe that Loeb didn't write this as a scientific paper where it will meet peer review, but prefers to make a buck from a sensational book.  It's also a bit sad that the object is now heading out into deep space so we'll likely never know.  The challenges to getting a deep space probe to it are rather enormous... 

But I'm sure that NASA's Supa Secwut Divishun is workin' on it right now.

 

And at least we've now learnt that varying brightness or a strange shape means ... ALIENZ!!!!  I'm certainly convinced - I'm no longer a "scared denier".  

Lastly, I guess I missed the "lot of maths" - can someone point me to that?

[ChrLzs]

PS - I'm kinda surprised that Saturn's moon, Mimas:

.. didn't attract Loeb's attention.  Surely that is the Death Star?

[ChrLzs]

And not that I'd ever put the boot in...  , but also the title is misleading, inaccurate, and frankly, very stinky clickbait.

There's no actual evidence of alien construction AND it didn't visit earth, just passed by the outer edges of the solar system.

 

Typical money-making bull****.  I hope his book sinks like a stone.  The New York Post should be ashamed, but they love this sort of crap - there's an ill-informed audience, so give 'em what they crave..

[Nobu]

1 hour ago, ChrLzs said:

BTW, for those who can't be bothered to look, Loeb's very first claim about his alien garbage, is in fact about the object named "Oumuamu", which is an unusually shaped object that has passed through ur solar system. sadly it did not get close enough for a telescopic view, but lots of illustrations (aka guesses) have appeared.  Let's hear Loeb's assertions... 

So, it may be a shape issue, or it could just be that one end or an area of its surface is much more reflective than another..  Would you like me to demonstrate? 

And that was his first, and thus best evidence of alien origin?  Save me.  It's all downhill from there..

It MAY be, but note that all the illustrations always use the 10x - five times doesn't look as impressive, nor does a big whitish blob....  

"Extreme" = by a few times?     He needs to get out more.  Thing is.. when an object, say a planet, breaks up there will, of course, be some bits that are strangely shaped -  shards of material.  Over time (millenia) with multiple collisions and the force of gravity, they will gradually tend to be more spherical, but lots of asteroids for instance have strange shapes.  If it was fairly recently created, and hasn't hit many things on it's travels, there's no reason to be ultra-surprised or to leap to conclusions.

 

I'd have to observe that Loeb didn't write this as a scientific paper where it will meet peer review, but prefers to make a buck from a sensational book.  It's also a bit sad that the object is now heading out into deep space so we'll likely never know.  The challenges to getting a deep space probe to it are rather enormous... 

But I'm sure that NASA's Supa Secwut Divishun is workin' on it right now.

 

And at least we've now learnt that varying brightness or a strange shape means ... ALIENZ!!!!  I'm certainly convinced - I'm no longer a "scared denier".  

Lastly, I guess I missed the "lot of maths" - can someone point me to that?

I believe that it accelerated when ,according to physics, it should not have. The ice explanation doesn’t hold water. At the very least it is good attention is being brought to this mystery. Gaining knowledge isn’t a bad thing.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Nobu

[Dejarma]

1 minute ago, Nobu said:

The ice explanation doesn’t hold water.

no pun intended i take it

[ChrLzs]

First up it's notable that you quoted me but did not actually address most of the comments..... so perhaps you should just skip to the last sentence below...

4 hours ago, Nobu said:

I believe that it accelerated when ,according to physics, it should not have.

If you desire conspiracies, you could say that...  But in truth the object's size, shape, composition/mass and even rotational orientation are NOT known to any great degree of accuracy.  Some sort of outgassing is a very strong possibility for the very small discrepancy.  If you wish to dispute that, bring the maths, and let's look at the actual numbers and *published* articles on it.  There are plenty..

4 hours ago, Nobu said:

The ice explanation doesn’t hold water.

NO,bu...    You do NOT get to handwave away possibilities without backing your 'argument' up.  As you have not cited anything or even given a reason, then it can be dismissed just as quickly.  And Ice does hold water  .  Do you deny that it is a component of comets?  Eplain why not for this object.  What other substances might outgas, and how would that effect what was observed?

4 hours ago, Nobu said:

At the very least it is good attention is being brought to this mystery. Gaining knowledge isn’t a bad thing.

Yes, but your post certainly didn't demonstrate that.

[Peter B]

5 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

[snip]

Thing is.. when an object, say a planet, breaks up there will, of course, be some bits that are strangely shaped -  shards of material.  Over time (millenia) with multiple collisions and the force of gravity, they will gradually tend to be more spherical, but lots of asteroids for instance have strange shapes.  If it was fairly recently created, and hasn't hit many things on it's travels, there's no reason to be ultra-surprised or to leap to conclusions.

[snip]

I wonder if anyone's done a study to work out if there's any relationship between the shapes of break-up shards and their likelihood of being ejected from a solar system. Or would there simply be too many parameters to measure - type of object breaking up, speed and angle of impact, distance from star...

Still, it would be interesting to know if interstellar break-up shards are more likely to be "odd-shaped" than "more spherical". It's annoying to have a sample size of only 1.

[ChrLzs]

24 minutes ago, Peter B said:

I wonder if anyone's done a study to work out if there's any relationship between the shapes of break-up shards and their likelihood of being ejected from a solar system.   Or would there simply be too many parameters to measure - type of object breaking up, speed and angle of impact, distance from star...

We do have our nearby asteroid belt... problem is, most of the objects in it are too small to resolve.  There are some scholarly articles on asteroid shapes and sizes, but they are fairly limited for that reason.  There are certainly some weird shapes, eg 433 Eros:

Quote

Still, it would be interesting to know if interstellar break-up shards are more likely to be "odd-shaped" than "more spherical". It's annoying to have a sample size of only 1.

The vast majority of small to medium asteroids are not spherical - the gravity force is too weak to do much until you get up to the really bigguns...

As for long thin ones, they obviously will tend to get broken near the time of their creation by hitting other similarly created objects.  But after that, it's pretty much down to dumb luck how many long thin ones would survive.  Space is VERY empty, and even if you are smack bang in the middle of the asteroid belt, you will find the other asteroids are not as depicted in movies and you are VERY unlikely to hit one or even see one for very long periods...

Space is big...  You just won't believe... 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by ChrLzs

[Trelane]

It reminds me of when Hoagland had completely lost his mind and asserted that Phobos was a derelict spaceship.

[Nobu]

9 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

First up it's notable that you quoted me but did not actually address most of the comments..... so perhaps you should just skip to the last sentence below...

If you desire conspiracies, you could say that...  But in truth the object's size, shape, composition/mass and even rotational orientation are NOT known to any great degree of accuracy.  Some sort of outgassing is a very strong possibility for the very small discrepancy.  If you wish to dispute that, bring the maths, and let's look at the actual numbers and *published* articles on it.  There are plenty..

NO,bu...    You do NOT get to handwave away possibilities without backing your 'argument' up.  As you have not cited anything or even given a reason, then it can be dismissed just as quickly.  And Ice does hold water  .  Do you deny that it is a component of comets?  Eplain why not for this object.  What other substances might outgas, and how would that effect what was observed?

Yes, but your post certainly didn't demonstrate that.

I wouldn’t get too excited about me quoting you. I really just wanted to post that the acceleration is not normal. No matter how you try to spin it... we know and can predict how every object in our solar system reacts in motion in space- except this one.

[ChrLzs]

 

3 minutes ago, Nobu said:

we know and can predict how every object in our solar system reacts in motion in space- except this one

NO.  The bolded part is simply not true, for reasons that I began to outline earlier BUT YOU WON'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE..

 

CITE, Nobu.  Cite some scholarly articles, don't be lazy and just gullibly lap up what you find on your fave media outlets.

[Poncho_Peanatus]

It could also be alien space junk. like bio trash from the latrine of a generation ship passing nearby?

[Tom1200]

On 1/6/2021 at 9:12 PM, ChrLzs said:

NO.  The bolded part is simply not true, for reasons that I began to outline earlier BUT YOU WON'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE.

CITE, Nobu.  Cite some scholarly articles, don't be lazy and just gullibly lap up what you find on your fave media outlets.

I've found a couple:

https://esahubble.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1813/heic1813a.pdf

https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/174957554/issi_oumuamua_resubmitted.pdf

and this is a good article: 

https://www.universetoday.com/139545/oumuamua-accelerated-out-of-the-solar-system-like-a-comet/

Now - I won't pretend to have understood every word in these papers.  Or even read every word.  Or even looked blankly at every word.  Or page, for that matter.

What I can say is - wow!  We've got telescopes that can spot a dark object 400 m long at 30 million km:

and we've got scientists who - from this dot - can work out what it is, how fast it's going and where it's heading.  And a few days later they look again and conclude it's not where it ought to be - it's actually accelerated a bit.  And they did the maths and calculated that the acceleration discrepancy was 5x10^-6 ms^-2.  (That's a really, really, teeny tiny amount.)  Then they wrote pages of clever science stuff trying to make sense of this and concluded they weren't sure, but the most likely explanation is outgassing - evaporation of volatile chemicals from the objects surface, like a comet.  This hasn't been verified - no gas or dust has been detected in the object's path.

This has nothing to do with Professor Loeb's new book.  There's nothing to prove him wrong.  But there's nothing to prove him right, either.  And I haven't seen any scientists backing him up. 

On his book sleeve he has allowed to be written: "There was just one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilisation."  So I'm calling him a fraud, a charlatan, and liar liar pants on fire.  

[ChrLzs]

Thanks, Tom - yes those are some of the articles I've read.  I was hoping that Nobu might take the time and effort to simply look them up and .. well.. read them.

 

To Nobu...  Here's an analogy - I don't know much about brain surgery.  Thus, I don't post on brain surgery forums, nor on any posts that talk about the finer points of brain surgery.  If I did feel inclined to contribute to that topic, I would FIRST take the time to research it.  For instance, I'd read up articles on brain surgery, Google the terms that I didn't understand..  I would NOT gain my 'knowledge' from Tinfoilhat websites or obscure media outlets that are obviously just clickbaiting.  Both of those are pretty easy to spot.. 

And if I couldn't find enough info to properly understand, I would then ask questions of those with more experience.  Learning stuff is fun and rewarding and helps you grow.  Imnsho, it's even better than the incredulity gained from getting baited, or the buzz when you first wind some tinfoil around your noggin..

 

 

[Trelane]

9 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

Thanks, Tom - yes those are some of the articles I've read.  I was hoping that Nobu might take the time and effort to simply look them up and .. well.. read them.

 

To Nobu...  Here's an analogy - I don't know much about brain surgery.  Thus, I don't post on brain surgery forums, nor on any posts that talk about the finer points of brain surgery.  If I did feel inclined to contribute to that topic, I would FIRST take the time to research it.  For instance, I'd read up articles on brain surgery, Google the terms that I didn't understand..  I would NOT gain my 'knowledge' from Tinfoilhat websites or obscure media outlets that are obviously just clickbaiting.  Both of those are pretty easy to spot.. 

And if I couldn't find enough info to properly understand, I would then ask questions of those with more experience.  Learning stuff is fun and rewarding and helps you grow.  Imnsho, it's even better than the incredulity gained from getting baited, or the buzz when you first wind some tinfoil around your noggin..

 

 

Precisely why I mostly read and learn in the archaeology/ancient history threads.

[qxcontinuum]

Some of the very interesting characteristics off this object were the following:

- had an unusual composition of co2 between nine and 26 times higher than that of an average Solar System comet.

- variable brightness high and low which made astronomers to imply that it was tumbling but maybe has not. This was just a supposition.

- large areas of red detected that no one can explain.

- sudden acceleration without trace of gas.

- it escaped our solar system being at a relatively short distance from the Sun this is very hard to believe

[Tom1200]

11 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

To Nobu...  Here's an analogy - I don't know much about brain surgery.  Thus, I don't post on brain surgery forums, nor on any posts that talk about the finer points of brain surgery.  If I did feel inclined to contribute to that topic, I would FIRST take the time to research it.  For instance, I'd read up articles on brain surgery, Google the terms that I didn't understand..  I would NOT gain my 'knowledge' from Tinfoilhat websites or obscure media outlets that are obviously just clickbaiting.  Both of those are pretty easy to spot.. 

True.  But times are hard, and brain surgery is expensive.  (I'm guessing we pay brain surgeons at least the minimum wage?)  So what should we do when that nagging headache becomes a persistent, serious concern?  Well - there's a simple and cheap home-made solution that's been around for millennia:

• This might get messy, so go to your bathroom
• Get really, really, Russian-truck-driver-style drunk
• Get a friend (you will have to ignore social distancing measures for this procedure so check there are no cops in your bathroom)
• Get a hard, sharp object: traditionally the surgeon would use a flint, but a hammer or a steak knife might work - be creative and share your results online!
• Your friend smashes a hole in your head to release the trapped devils (a quick Google search might help, but hey - how hard can it be? they did this in the Stone Age)

2 hours ago, Trelane said:

Precisely why I mostly read and learn in the archaeology/ancient history threads.

Don't be shy!  I don't know much about any of the topics discussed here, but I join in.  I find that SHOUTING AT PEOPLE REALLY LOUDLY helps mask the fact that I'm a complete dunce.  And insulting their moms - that works wonders too.  Most of the so-called experts here are really schoolchildren messing about in their computing lessons, so they're easy to intimidate.  (e.g. Kenemet is actually a nine-year-old boy from Wolverhampton called Gary.)  In fact the only person who really has a clue is Cladking, whose crazy, mind-boggling, impossible, unintelligible, contradictory, nonsensical theories about the pyramids are actually all correct.  Honest - Cladking told me so.

[Nnicolette]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:43 AM, Robotic Jew said:

I think his first step is....bending over.

 

On 1/5/2021 at 9:44 AM, Robotic Jew said:

I volunteer.

[Nobu]

On 1/12/2021 at 2:56 PM, ChrLzs said:

Thanks, Tom - yes those are some of the articles I've read.  I was hoping that Nobu might take the time and effort to simply look them up and .. well.. read them.

 

To Nobu...  Here's an analogy - I don't know much about brain surgery.  Thus, I don't post on brain surgery forums, nor on any posts that talk about the finer points of brain surgery.  If I did feel inclined to contribute to that topic, I would FIRST take the time to research it.  For instance, I'd read up articles on brain surgery, Google the terms that I didn't understand..  I would NOT gain my 'knowledge' from Tinfoilhat websites or obscure media outlets that are obviously just clickbaiting.  Both of those are pretty easy to spot.. 

And if I couldn't find enough info to properly understand, I would then ask questions of those with more experience.  Learning stuff is fun and rewarding and helps you grow.  Imnsho, it's even better than the incredulity gained from getting baited, or the buzz when you first wind some tinfoil around your noggin..

 

 

Snore... you think I actually read your posts? You are

literally debating against electrons.

 

hope you won!

[Dejarma]

36 minutes ago, Nobu said:

Snore... you think I actually read your posts? You are

literally debating against electrons.

you know this how? If you don't read his posts then you must have psychic abilities 

[Dreamer screamer]

On 1/3/2021 at 5:46 PM, HandsomeGorilla said:

Fact: Higher education doesn't make you any more truthful, smarter OR better looking. 

You are 100% bang on there.  

[Dejarma]

Quote

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens

@Nuclear Wessel

The day: "The Hitch" passed was a very sad day for me! A major loss IMHO but what can you do!?

Although the words quoted are of course rational thinking; unfortunately, there are those who feel the data we are all privy to is convincing enough for it to be true, which kinda makes these great words meaningless when trying to converse with certain individuals in this place

Edited January 17, 2021 by Dejarma