[extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) Physicists discuss UFOs [was Re: Former Politicians To Look Out For ET]

[Terry W. Colvin]

From: Isaac Koi <isaackoi2 at gmail.com>
To: <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 20:25:52 -0000
Subject: Re: Former Politicians To Look Out For ET


>From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac at compuserve.com>
>To: <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:38:05 -0500
>Subject: Re: Former Politicians To Look Out For ET

>>From: Diane Harrison <auforn at hypermax.net.au>
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
>>Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 06:02:26 +1000
>>Subject: Former Politicians To Look Out For ET

>>Source: ABC - Australian Broadcasting Commission

>>http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1526555.htm

>>Friday, 9 December 2005

>>ABC Science Online

>>Ex-Pollies To Look Out For ET
>>by Anna Salleh

>>Philosophers and former politicians will soon join an elite
>>group of scientists whose job it is to work out how to respond
>>to signals from extra-terrestrial intelligence.

>>Professor Paul Davies, of the Australian Centre for
>>Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney,
>>who heads the group, says a call from ET would
>>raise profound issues that require
>>consideration from more than "a bunch of gung ho scientists".

>>"Nothing would be the same again. I think there's no doubt
>>about that," says Davies, who has just taken up the chair of
>>the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology
>>Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics.

><snip>

>>"You can imagine that if you had a civilisation that maybe had
>>10 million years of development, pretty much everything that
>>they could do would seem like magic to us," says Davies.
>>"Things like immortality might be very straightforward."

>>Friend or foe

>>Davies says some scientists are nervous about replying to a
>>signal if it announces our existence to aliens with bad
>>intentions.

>>But he is more optimistic.

>>"If they were out there, and they were aggressive and
>>expansionary, then they would have already been here. We would
>>have already taken over a long time ago," he says.

>This is a simple restatement of the Fermi Paradox (paradoxical
>only when UFO reports are ignored):

<snip>

>(Again I point out that this ignores the implications of UFO
>sightings. One wonders whether or not the numerous UFO
>sightings in the late 40's prompted this brief discussion by
>Fermi and others, or if it simply came "out of the blue"... or
>black.)

Hi Bruce,

Yes, discussion of UFO sightings prompted Fermi and others to 
discuss extraterrestrials during the relevant lunch in 1950.

It seems that the relevant group had been discussing UFO 
reports, then moved on to other topics when Fermi came out with 
his question (rendered variously as "Where are they?", "Where is 
everybody" etc etc).

The relevant discussion is summarised by Stephen Webb in his 
"Where is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox" 
(2002) at pages 17-18 (in Chapter 2), 245 (in the Notes and 
Further Reading) of the Copernicus hardback edition. That 
summary is largely based on an article by Eric Jones entitled 
"'Where is Everybody?': An Account of Fermi's Question," Los 
Alamos National Laboratory report number LA-10311-MS, March 
1985.

That article (including the relevant correspondence with 
participants in the discussion with Fermia) is available online 
at the link below:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-10311-ms.pdf

Since I've sometimes had problems with the above link, I note 
that there is a substantial extract at the link below (without, 
unfortunately, the images of the supporting documents which are 
included within the full pdf of the report by Jones):

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1057.htm

Further interviews with participants in the discussion are 
summarised in an independent article about the relevant lunch, 
by Paul Horowitz in "SETI 2020 : A Roadmap for the Search for 
Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (2002) (edited by Elkers, Ronald 
D and Cullers, Kent D and Billingham, John and Scheffer, Louis 
K) at pages 373-374 (in Appendix J) of the SETI Press softcover 
edition. The account by Horowitz is less detailed, since it is 
largely based on the recollection of Herb York (who joined the 
relevant discussion after it had started).

For ease of reference, the report by Eric Jones includes the 
following:

"... Thanks to the excellent memory of Hans Mark, who had heard 
a retelling at Los Alamos in the early 1950s, we now know that 
Fermi did make the remark during a lunchtime conversation about 
1950. His companions were Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and 
Herbert York. All three have provided accounts of the incident.

We begin with Konopinski: "I have only fragmentary recollections 
about the occasion... I do have a fairly clear memory of how the 
discussion of extra-terrestrials got started while Enrico, 
Edward, Herb York, and I were walking to lunch at Fuller Lodge.

"When l joined the party, I found being discussed evidence about 
flying saucers. That immediately brought to my mind a cartoon I 
had recently seen in the New Yorker, explaining why public trash 
cans were disappearing from the streets of New York City. The 
New York papers were making a fuss about that. The cartoon 
showed what was evidently a flying saucer sitting in the 
background and, streaming toward it, 'little green men' (endowed 
with antennas) carrying the trash cans. More amusing was Fermi's 
comment, that it was a very reasonable theory since it accounted 
for two separate phenomena: the reports of flying saucers as 
well as the disappearance of the trash cans. There ensued a 
discussion as to whether the saucers could somehow exceed the 
speed of light."

Teller remembers: "My recollection of the event involving 
Fermi... is clear, but only partial. To begin with, I was there 
at the incident. I believe it occurred shortly after the end of 
the war on a visit of Fermi to the Laboratory, which quite 
possibly might have been during a summer.

"I remember having walked over with Fermi and others to the 
Fuller Lodge for lunch. While we walked over, there was a 
conversation which I believe to have been quite brief and 
superficial on a subject only vaguely connected with space 
travel. I have a vague recollection, which may not be accurate, 
that we talked about flying saucers and the obvious statement 
that the flying saucers are not real. ...

Teller continues: "The conversation, according to my memory, was 
only vaguely connected with astronautics partly on account of 
flying saucers might be due to extraterrestrial people (here I 
believe the remarks were purely negative), partly because 
exceeding light velocity would make interstellar travel one 
degree more real.

...

It was after we were at the luncheon table," Konopinski recalls, 
"that Fermi surprised us with the question 'but where is 
everybody?' It was his way of putting it that drew laughs from 
us."

York, who does not recall the preliminary conversation on the 
walk to Fuller Lodge, does remember that "virtually apropos of 
nothing Fermi said, 'Don't you ever wonder where everybody is?' 
Somehow... we all knew he meant extra-terrestrials."

Teller remembers the question in much the same way. "The 
discussion had nothing to do with astronomy or with 
extraterrestrial beings. I think it was some down-to-earth 
topic. Then, in the middle of this conversation, Fermi came out 
with the quite unexpected question 'Where is everybody?' . . . 
The result of his question was general laughter because of the 
strange fact that in spite of Fermi's question coming from the 
clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at 
once that he was talking about extraterrestrial life.

"I do not believe that much came of this conversation, except 
perhaps a statement that the distances to the next location of 
living beings may be very great and that, indeed, as far as our 
galaxy is concerned, we are living somewhere in the sticks, far 
removed from the metropolitan area of the galactic center."

York believes that Fermi was somewhat more expansive and 
"followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of 
earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the 
probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration 
of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such 
calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and 
many times over. As I recall, he went on to conclude that the 
reason we hadn't been visited might be that interstellar flight 
is impossible, or, if it is possible, always judged to be not 
worth the effort, or technological civilization doesn't last 
long enough for it to happen." York confessed to being hazy 
about these last remarks. ... "

>Simple solutions to the paradox are:

Despite the importance of discussions of the Fermi "Paradox" to 
an informed consideration of the ETH, I'll avoid the temptation 
to include a long list of relevant references. I'll simply note 
that the most detailed discussion of the various solutions to 
the "paradox" that I've read is by Stephen Webb in his "Where is 
Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox" (2002) 
generally, particularly at pages 1-274 of the Copernicus 
hardback edition.

The "fifty solutions" of the title are summarised in the chapter 
headings, available online at:

http://tinyurl.com/8lutl

Virtually all of the more intelligent discussions of the Fermi 
paradox in the SETI literature do at least refer to UFOs. Almost 
all do so in terms along the lines of the following:

"There is no need to discuss suggestions that UFO reports are 
caused by visiting extraterrestrials since such suggestions are 
not taken seriously by most scientists".

A slight variation on this theme is the following comment by 
Keay Davidson in his "Carl Sagan : A Life" at page 347 (in 
Chapter 14) of the Wiley softcover edition:

"If interstellar travel is indeed feasible, and if aliens exist, 
then why haven't they visited us? (UFO sightings don't count; 
most good scientists rejected these as nonsense".

Kind Regards,

Isaac Koi



-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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