Human alien interactions

[CliffEdge]

Why is this thread in science. Surely it's a joke.

[odysseus2000]

It is certainly possible that an alien human interaction could be very bad for humans, but if aliens have visited they have, so far at least, not been hostile.

If there is to be a human alien communication it seems probable that the aliens would communicate with leaders rather than ordinary people and of course many of the conspiracy theories assume this has happened, but I have no idea.

Uh? Sorry, but how does what you now say above tie up with the "measurable health effects on people who say they have been abducted" that you keep on mentioning as a major point?

Abduction is not "communication", it has been (by all accounts) of "ordinary people" and, even if, somehow, you don't count abduction itself as "hostile", certainly alleged health effects are (esp. when you consider what some abductees say was done to them).

And then the world wide cattle mutilations that you've also raised? These are your points and they certainly sound hostile to me!

If abductions happen & aliens are responsible it is hostile for the folk abducted, but not on the scale of Europeans meeting native people where the Europeans took land, wealth, food etc on a large scale.

Similarly the cattle mutulations, if alien, are not compromising human food supplies.

Both examples could be classed as “research” rather than species level hostility.

Things could change in many ways but from we have now if there are aliens they do not seem to want to wage war on humans.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Why is this thread in science. Surely it's a joke.

No it is science.

Trying to fit observations of unknown phenomena into a frame work.

It may turn out that everything is an hoax, but as of now there is serious research going on in most of the world’s advanced nations into the observations discussed in this thread.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

It is certainly possible that an alien human interaction could be very bad for humans, but if aliens have visited they have, so far at least, not been hostile.

If there is to be a human alien communication it seems probable that the aliens would communicate with leaders rather than ordinary people and of course many of the conspiracy theories assume this has happened, but I have no idea.

Regards,

Governments in most democracies seem to leak like a sieve so it is difficult to imagine that government documentation of their interactions with aliens wouldn't have leaked.

Also if contact between the US government and aliens was made during the Eisenhower presidency why is there no mention of them on the Nixon tapes. You would expect the US president to be kept informed of what these aliens were upto during his presidency so an occasional mention would be likely - unless of course the only mention was on the missing 18.5 minute gap (but then I can't really see Nixon getting that tape wiped to cover for aliens if it didn't contain damaging information linking him to Watergate and it would be an incredible co-incidence if that 18.5 minutes contained both).

The other problem with such a conspiracy is why after making contact the aliens would continue to abduct random people from remote areas. If they wanted to study people, rather than just relying on whatever information the government could provide them, then surely the government would be able to find some people either volunteers or detainees from black op sites who wouldn't be missed or believed, or for that matter people from mental hospitals who again wouldn't be believed (The US government after all has a history of experimenting on army soldiers and parts of its population up through the 1970s so its difficult to believe it would have had many qualms about providing subjects to aliens).

As to cattle mutilations - how many cattle do they need to "investigate" and why not just remove the cattle and dispose of them elsewhere rather than leaving their mutilated remains ? It would just be put down to cattle rustling which is on the rise again

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/25/434605993/an-old-crime-is-on-the-rise-cattle-theft?t=1651165657168

Crooks and criminals in America's farm country are turning to an old crime — cattle rustling. The high price for beef and substance abuse are behind the surge in livestock theft, and that's putting some ranchers on edge.

At Susan Edmondson's farm near Henryetta, Okla., cattle started disappearing one by one last fall. At first she thought they had just wandered off. But over the winter, more and more went away, until she had lost 12 cows and 16 calves.

The culprits: teenage cattle thieves. Edmonson knew them well.

"Two of the kids are my neighbors," she says. "Two of the kids were on my kid's football team. I've coached them in Little League. I took them to rodeos with us. They live right across the street from me. I can see their house from my house, and they ate at my dinner table."

One of them, a 19-year-old, now sits in the county jail.

Edmondson says her losses were major. "I don't know, it's like $65,000. It was a huge hit. It was a major hit."

Cattle rustling is a crime with "low risk, high reward, really," says John Cummings, a special ranger for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, which investigates agricultural crimes in Texas and Oklahoma.

[XFool]

Anyone who thinks aliens have ever visited the earth is wrong. There is no other intelligent life in the universe, just as there is no God.

Everyone with a functioning brain knows that. You're wasting your time. Why not take up knitting, you might end up with something useful.

Can you prove these assertions?

Regards,

A friend of mine knitted me a soft cloth which is very useful for cleaning the screen on my pc.

Could perhaps also make a useful towel. As you travel about the galaxy...

[odysseus2000]

Most governments leaks, but small highly regulated units don’t. The Engima code breaking never leaked for example.

I have no idea if the alien contact with US presidents happened, but if so it would likely have been compartmentalised to a very select group & would not be mentioned in normal government business. As an example it appears that Saville was part of a gang of abusers who were protected by powerful figures & the lower ranks were told to ignore anyone who put in a complaint. Governments seem able to conceal what ever they want.

Regarding cattle mutilation, this is not thieving as is normal with rustlers. In mutilations almost all the cow is left behind, just a few organs are taken & all the blood. Mutilations have been recorded for centuries in most nations of the world including the uk. In the US they are predominantly in a mid band stretching from the west to east coast. As far as I know mutilations are classified as unexplained cattle deaths. See wiki for more details.


I have no idea if any of this is due to aliens or other intelligent non human life, but I can not explain many facts that have been reported by likely trustworthy individuals skilled in various arts.

Regards,

[Itsallaguess]

I have no idea if the alien contact with US presidents happened, but if so it would likely have been compartmentalised to a very select group & would not be mentioned in normal government business.

As an example it appears that Saville was part of a gang of abusers who were protected by powerful figures & the lower ranks were told to ignore anyone who put in a complaint.

I reckon Ody's actually been abducted, and his replacement is currently running some weird logic-adjustment routines that have yet to settle down properly...

There might be a better explanation, but all we've got to go on at the moment is the evidence in front of us from all our sensors...

Klaatu barada nikto

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[odysseus2000]

Ha ha! No I am not a robot, needing a phrase.

I am simply trying to argue that the idea that governments behave honourably & don’t have secrets is not supported by evidence.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

Most governments leaks, but small highly regulated units don’t. The Engima code breaking never leaked for example.

I have no idea if the alien contact with US presidents happened, but if so it would likely have been compartmentalised to a very select group & would not be mentioned in normal government business. As an example it appears that Saville was part of a gang of abusers who were protected by powerful figures & the lower ranks were told to ignore anyone who put in a complaint. Governments seem able to conceal what ever they want.

Saville was protected by our libel laws

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/28/jimmy-savile-escaped-justice-because-of-libel-laws-claims-reporter


And there were leaks about Bletchley Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park#Secrecy

Nevertheless, there were security leaks. Jock Colville, the Assistant Private Secretary to Winston Churchill, recorded in his diary on 31 July 1941, that the newspaper proprietor Lord Camrose had discovered Ultra and that security leaks "increase in number and seriousness".[58] Without doubt, the most serious of these was that Bletchley Park had been infiltrated by John Cairncross, the notorious Soviet mole and member of the Cambridge Spy Ring, who leaked Ultra material to Moscow

And it was fully described in 1974 in the book "The Ultra Secret" though some details had been published in earlier books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Winterbotham#The_Ultra_Secret

Ultra remained secret even after the war. Then in 1974, Winterbotham's book, The Ultra Secret, was published. This was the first book in English about Ultra, and it explained what Ultra was, and revealed Winterbotham's role, particularly with regard to the dissemination and use of Ultra.

There had been mentions of Enigma decryption in earlier books by Władysław Kozaczuk, Ladislas Farago and Gustave Bertrand. However, Winterbotham's book was the first extensive account of the uses to which the massive volumes of Enigma-derived intelligence were put by the Allies, on the western and eastern European fronts, in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and perhaps most crucially, in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Regarding cattle mutilation, this is not thieving as is normal with rustlers. In mutilations almost all the cow is left behind, just a few organs are taken & all the blood. Mutilations have been recorded for centuries in most nations of the world including the uk. In the US they are predominantly in a mid band stretching from the west to east coast. As far as I know mutilations are classified as unexplained cattle deaths. See wiki for more details.


I have no idea if any of this is due to aliens or other intelligent non human life, but I can not explain many facts that have been reported by likely trustworthy individuals skilled in various arts.

Regards,

That was my point. Why would the aliens call attention to their actions by leaving the remains of mutilated cattle behind rather than taking them away doing whatever they wished and then disposing of the remains elsewhere ? Surely if they can abduct humans and conduct experiments on them then they could abduct the cattle - such missing cattle would then be assumed by the farmers to have been rustled rather than being known to have been mysteriously mutilated. It just doesn't seem to make sense for aliens to mutilate cattle in this manner and leave such evidence.

[odysseus2000]

The Enigma secret was not leaked in a way that caused Germany to stop using it. Indeed there are reports that the enigma system was used after the war by South American countries unaware that the uk & us were reading all the messages & this is perhaps why Churchill did not mention it in his history of the second war.

Yes there were rumours about Saville, but he was never prosecuted. One can argue that this is like aliens. There are all manner of rumours but no one believes them. Is this because they are hoax or have not yet been verified?

Yes, one might expect the aliens to move the carcass or perhaps burn it, but this is not what is recorded. I have no idea why this happens. I am just reporting observations that have been recorded for centuries & happen regularly in many countries. Perhaps there is some simple explanation but as far as I know no one has come up with an acceptable one and the large geographic range & reports from many investigations suggest they are not a hoax. One could argue that if these are done by aliens that they may have reasons that are unknown to us. One could perhaps argue, as some do, that the blood is needed for some biological process unique to aliens & that to keep things as secret as possible they just get what they want & go.

Regards,

[CliffEdge]

Ridiculous

[XFool]

Yes, one might expect the aliens to move the carcass or perhaps burn it, but this is not what is recorded. I have no idea why this happens. I am just reporting observations that have been recorded for centuries & happen regularly in many countries. Perhaps there is some simple explanation but as far as I know no one has come up with an acceptable one and the large geographic range & reports from many investigations suggest they are not a hoax.

Is it not possible that many disparate occurrences are being lumped together and classed as "cattle mutilations", which might have differing explanations? I noticed in the Wikipedia article there is an un-sourced mention of cattle having being dropped from the air* - that sounded to me possibly like an attempted smuggling by helicopter having gone wrong.

* Also see the article Talk section:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cattle_mutilation#Work_to_be_Done

One could argue that if these are done by aliens that they may have reasons that are unknown to us. One could perhaps argue, as some do, that the blood is needed for some biological process unique to aliens & that to keep things as secret as possible they just get what they want & go.

I think there is an inherent problem with grouping together all kinds of diverse, unknown phenomenon and seeking to 'explain' them as caused by "Aliens". To me this sound possibly to be a kind of magical thinking that seeks to explain diverse unknown events by recasting them as having a single, central, named cause - they are, in fact, simply "not understood". I realise that is a psychologically unsatisfactory conclusion and there is always a human need to provide some sort of explanation.

I am reminded of the poltergeist phenomenon.

[ursaminortaur]

The next question is if aliens exist and want to communicate would they want to talk to all humans or just those who we elect to lead us?

Why would they want to communicate with us?
Would they even think to try?
It's not our first thought when we find a new organism.

A couple of years ago in The Lakes we came across some huge antheaps peopled by some huge ants. We did not think about communication.

In general I would say that mankind's first thought is 'is it dangerous', then 'Is it useful' then 'is it edible'.
So any interstellar visitors may have taken a few specimens and thereafter lost interest.

Recolonise the earth from Mars... aiui anyone residing long on Mars will not be able to return to the earth as they will be too damaged.

V8

I don’t think these analogies are correct.

When Europeans arrived in South America, North America, south sea islands & Australasia the first thing they did was communicate with the locals.

If more advanced aliens arrive or have arrived would they not potentially follow the European & native culture approach & communicate with the leaders?

Regards,

How'd that work out for the dodo

Not good, and neither did it work out particularly well for all the peoples that were colonised, enslaved, massacred, had their land, resources & treasures stolen, their wildlife killed and their populations infected with non-native diseases, sometimes purposely.

Our own history of more technologically advanced civilisations (Europeans) arriving in less so places is what informed Stephen Hawking's (and others) "we should keep our head down" view.

https://suquamish.nsn.us/home/about-us/chief-seattle-speech/

Micro-organisms generally have great problems crossing between even relatively closely related species hence it seems unlikely that alien organisms would affect us in the same way that European diseases affected aboriginal people after first contact.

As to resources the asteroid belt (and similar belts in other uninhabited solar systems) would make a far better target for metals and the bodies of the outer solar system (and again bodies in similar regions in other uninhabited solar systems) for water and other more volatile products. Only complex organic chemicals might make Earth a target but given how much further advanced the aliens would be they would probably only require a single sample to enable them to replicate it from simpler compounds or elements. So although they might be interested in coming here to find out about life on Earth and any possibly beneficial complex organic compounds produced by that life it is unlikely that they would want to farm it or engage in large scale hunting to obtain those chemicals.

It is also difficult to see why they would bother enslaving humans when their machines and computer systems would be far more efficient for pretty much any purpose they could use humans for.

[XFool]

I noticed in the Wikipedia article there is an un-sourced mention of cattle having being dropped from the air* - that sounded to me possibly like an attempted smuggling by helicopter having gone wrong.

I of course meant "rustling", not "smuggling".

[odysseus2000]

ursaminotaur

icro-organisms generally have great problems crossing between even relatively closely related species hence it seems unlikely that alien organisms would affect us in the same way that European diseases affected aboriginal people after first contact.

As to resources the asteroid belt (and similar belts in other uninhabited solar systems) would make a far better target for metals and the bodies of the outer solar system (and again bodies in similar regions in other uninhabited solar systems) for water and other more volatile products. Only complex organic chemicals might make Earth a target but given how much further advanced the aliens would be they would probably only require a single sample to enable them to replicate it from simpler compounds or elements. So although they might be interested in coming here to find out about life on Earth and any possibly beneficial complex organic compounds produced by that life it is unlikely that they would want to farm it or engage in large scale hunting to obtain those chemicals.

It is also difficult to see why they would bother enslaving humans when their machines and computer systems would be far more efficient for pretty much any purpose they could use humans for.

The absence of large scale offensive operations by potential aliens is supportive of these ideas.

If there are aliens then what do they want or need?

One line of thought is that humans are an alien/monkey clone. The human genome has been decoded with no obvious non terrestrial components & not much different from chimps which weighs against this, unless the aliens are so similar that we can not tell their dna from ours.

Another line of thought is that the aliens are an intelligence that evolved on earth before humans & choose to let humans develop with out overt influence.

More & more lines of thought exist including ideas that there are several alien species here.

All of this is speculative & may be wrong, but if aliens are here the reason is unknown.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

I noticed in the Wikipedia article there is an un-sourced mention of cattle having being dropped from the air* - that sounded to me possibly like an attempted smuggling by helicopter having gone wrong.

I of course meant "rustling", not "smuggling".

The idea of helicopter drops is inconsistent with mutilations having been observed for hundreds of years.

Given the wide geographical range & similar reports I think one has to accept that some thing extraordinary is happening to at least a subset of these mutilations, but I have no idea what.

Regards,

[88V8]

I don’t think these analogies are correct.

When Europeans arrived in South America, North America, south sea islands & Australasia the first thing they did was communicate with the locals.

If more advanced aliens arrive or have arrived would they not potentially follow the European & native culture approach & communicate with the leaders?

Yes, but they were humans communicating with humans. They knew that by speaking slowly and loudly and waving their arms, they would be understood.

Assuming that aliens even thought of communicating, would they comprehend our nation-state structure? Or would they look for the dominant language coupled with the largest population, and assume that there was the planetary leader?
That would be the leader of Communist China by a country mile. Would the Chinese let us know that they had turned the galactic emissaries into a chop suey?

V8

[XFool]

The idea of helicopter drops is inconsistent with mutilations having been observed for hundreds of years.

Given the wide geographical range & similar reports I think one has to accept that some thing extraordinary is happening to at least a subset of these mutilations, but I have no idea what.

I wasn't so much offering a general explanation, rather pointing out how there may be an issue in these kinds of things by assuming there is just one explanation. Indeed, the helicopter rustling explanation couldn't possibly explain events centuries ago, just as it presumably can't explain all events today. Likewise, past events may have different (unknown) explanations, just as with events today.

Believing aliens might be an explanation is, apart from anything else, possibly jumping to the conclusion that there is a single explanation at all.

[odysseus2000]

I don’t think these analogies are correct.

When Europeans arrived in South America, North America, south sea islands & Australasia the first thing they did was communicate with the locals.

If more advanced aliens arrive or have arrived would they not potentially follow the European & native culture approach & communicate with the leaders?

Yes, but they were humans communicating with humans. They knew that by speaking slowly and loudly and waving their arms, they would be understood.

Assuming that aliens even thought of communicating, would they comprehend our nation-state structure? Or would they look for the dominant language coupled with the largest population, and assume that there was the planetary leader?
That would be the leader of Communist China by a country mile. Would the Chinese let us know that they had turned the galactic emissaries into a chop suey?

V8

If there are aliens & they are more advanced I would imagine they have studied our species and learned our social interactions & languages. We now have translators that easily convert one language to another suggesting advanced aliens would have much better technology and a good understanding of humans and our social structures.

There are many who believe aliens have already contacted our leaders & that the current drip-drip of information is preparing the ground for an announcement, but if so it seems the aliens have agreed not to interfere in human affairs else e.g. Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he feared aliens telling him off.

Very little makes logical sense, but if the aliens are alien they may have very different concepts to human ones.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

The idea of helicopter drops is inconsistent with mutilations having been observed for hundreds of years.

Given the wide geographical range & similar reports I think one has to accept that some thing extraordinary is happening to at least a subset of these mutilations, but I have no idea what.

I wasn't so much offering a general explanation, rather pointing out how there may be an issue in these kinds of things by assuming there is just one explanation. Indeed, the helicopter rustling explanation couldn't possibly explain events centuries ago, just as it presumably can't explain all events today. Likewise, past events may have different (unknown) explanations, just as with events today.

Believing aliens might be an explanation is, apart from anything else, possibly jumping to the conclusion that there is a single explanation at all.

Sure there may be multiple explanations.

All that I can deduce currently is that there are some events that I can not explain.

These unexplained events may be created by non human intelligence. Currently I can not exclude this possibility.

Regards,