More scientifically literate world, "Chariots of the Gods" falls flat?

I have mixed feelings about this book, read it when I was a kid. Even back then I was skeptical about the whole idea of ancient astronauts.. but.. at the same time, I was fascinated by all the supposed historical anomalies, and started getting an interest in ancient history.
 
Contrary to the popular view, aliens don't actually come from elsewhere in the universe; they come from other dimensions, unconnected to us by space and time.

Then why are they usually associated with flying craft that go up?

So, that's why they can exist, without us seeing them all over the place every time we look into a telescope.

I don't think anyone detected a meteorite before it entered the atmosphere. Superluminal travel--if possible--might also explain it.

(Is what I've been told by people who believe in aliens.)

The ETH is still the leading hypothesis.
 
Once coming into O’Hare Airport, I saw a UFO. It was a gossamer craft in the clouds. No way was it a terrestrial craft designed to handle air resistance. For about five seconds, I wondered what it was. And then I placed it as a sail boat on the lake below.

But those five seconds were pretty interesting! :)
 
. . real O'Hare case of '06.
I favor case studies which are boogie woogie, spooky look-like-they-might-be-the-real-thing, although I’m not sure there are any!

I also favor cases in which I might go back and forth, sometimes thinking it’s real, other times not so much.

I guess I’m saying I’m pretty open minded to discussing at least a couple of cases (and even the cases where a full look leads to the conclusion, not likely, might still be interesting on the psychology front)
 
I've seen some weird lights in the sky before--a plane-looking light which flew around in no real pattern, slowing down and speeding up randomly, but I'm not convinced what I saw was alien. But I'm sure that other people who saw the same thing (like some family I was with, who were more open to idea that it might be alien when I showed them it) might be more convinced then I was. That right there is why the "ancient aliens" hypothesis as argued by Däniken is so compelling to many people. Anything which gives a convincing answer to mysterious things (like Chariots of the Gods points out) will make sense to many people who haven't researched the subject more or otherwise have some level of skepticism.

Sagan said it would take a billion.

I don't know why Sagan would have said that. The Milky Way is at most 180,000 light years in diameter, with the majority of stars in a region 100,000 light years in diameter. Let's say the average colony ship can travel at 10% the speed of light, which is perfectly reasonable considering hypothetical propulsion methods which don't violate physical laws. The most distant stars in our galaxy can thus be reached in not even 2 million years. If the human population experiences exponential growth, doubling once per millennia (perhaps a reasonable growth rate for a post-scarcity society which might colonise the galaxy, not even considering the demographic development of space colonies!), then the human population will easily be enough to have a fully populated Dyson swarm of 1 quintillion people for all 100-400 billion stars in the galaxy plus every single brown dwarf and rogue planet. Even if the biological population remains low (a possibility, and maybe the more likely one considering demographic trends), then the digital population is likely to expand at exponential rates as new AI beings or digitised human beings are born or created for whatever reason, and these beings could presumably "incarnate" themselves in physical bodies if they so chose to. Like biological beings, they'd seek out new sources of energy (stars, brown dwarfs, etc.) to sustain themselves.

This means the galaxy can (perhaps will is the best word) be filled in no more than 2 million years, and possibly no more than a million. Since aliens can and would do the same to their galaxies if they could, we'd expect to see this. The fact they haven't means they either do not exist, are too primitive to do so, or we cannot see them because of light lag.

Then why are they usually associated with flying craft that go up?

Because even though you can travel between dimensions (meaning you don't have much reason to expand outside your solar system, or even within your solar system), there still might be some reason why you would want to fly out of an atmosphere without using your dimensional drive or whatever (assuming that some accounts of UFOs aren't just that--some aliens using their inter-universe drive). The theory that aliens have some way to travel from another universe to ours seems compelling, because it explains why we don't see Type II or Type III civs. If FTL travel were to be possible, then the odds are high that it would be via wormholes which according to some theories don't link between points in this universe but points between universes.

I don't think anyone detected a meteorite before it entered the atmosphere. Superluminal travel--if possible--might also explain it.

We've detected several impact events before they hit Earth. See 2008 TC3, 2014 AA, and 2018 LA last month. Granted, none were discovered more than a day before the impact.
 
. . . If the human population experiences exponential growth, doubling once per millennia (perhaps a reasonable growth rate for a post-scarcity society which might colonise the galaxy, not even considering the demographic development of space colonies!), . . .
Stephen Jay Gould had a quote to the effect, the actions of his own family members sometimes mystify me, even my own actions sometimes surprise me. So, I'm really at a loss on how to respond to arguments that ask me to predict the actions of extraterrestrials.
 
https://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_secret_life_of_j_allen_hynek

‘ . . . On April 5, 1966, [J. Allen] Hynek made his first public break with the Air Force, boldly using the occasion of his testimony before the Armed Services Committee to do so. Stung by the “swamp gas” criticism, the astronomer apparently wanted to show that he wasn’t the Air Force’s or anyone else’s puppet. In a statement not cleared by Major Quintanilla, the Project Blue Book director, Hynek told the sitting congressmen that there were aspects of the UFO phenomenon “worthy of scientific attention,” and he called for the creation of a panel of physical and social scientists to seriously analyze what he termed the “UFO problem” (House of Representatives 1966, 6007–6008). . . ’
I want to tension the situation.

For wow, these statements seem pretty tame for his colleagues at Northwestern University to ostracize him as it sounds like many of them later did. Perhaps they picked up on the fact that he was prepared to go further. Plus, a big dose of the human trait that some people shy away from you merely because other people are, and in my opinion, one of the sorrier of our human traits.

And then, this article from a “skeptical” perspective criticizes J. Allen Hynek because he had mystical beliefs? ? Would they be so quick to criticize if he was a Buddhist, a Baptist, a Muslim, or a Mormon! Well, maybe, but probably not.

And then, someone like von Daniken takes on the whole academic environment and calls it out for all its insular conformity. Of course it feels embracing and liberating.

And that is the tension. :)
 
083017_LG_tabby-star_main.jpg


Tabby’s star is probably just dusty, and still not an alien megastructure
New analyses suggest the object might have an odd stellar cycle or be shrouded in tiny particles

ScienceNews, Lisa Grossman, August 31, 2017

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tabby-star-probably-just-dusty-and-still-not-alien-megastructure

' . . . The team observed the star with the infrared Spitzer and ultraviolet Swift space telescopes from October 2015 to December 2016 — the first observations in multiple wavelengths of light. They found that the star is dimming faster in short blue wavelengths than longer infrared ones, suggesting smaller particles. . . '
Yes, I want to know the truth and know what's really going on. But all the same, it's a little disappointing. :confused:
 
More on the 70s alien best-friend-saviors obsession..."Come Sail Away" by Styx.

The characters we're meeting start off as angels, and then . . .

"much to my surprise, we climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies"

And the guitar play starts slow with a lot of feeling, and then mid to late, becomes fast
 

youtube: Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Indian Chant

From the beginning of the movie . . .

A scene in which people in India have heard sounds and music from the heavens. And the religious among them interpret it religiously. Of course, they do, just like the religious among us would.

And notice just the sheer number of extras that Spielberg uses! :)
 
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The characters we're meeting start off as angels, and then . . .

"much to my surprise, we climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies"

And the guitar play starts slow with a lot of feeling, and then mid to late, becomes fast

I did a thread on the alien saviors coming in the 70s. Surprisingly little response from what I recall.
 
from Close Encounters of the Third Kind



Major Walsh: "Because somebody could be trying to subvert this whole operation, by sending in fanatics, and cultists, and Christ knows what all."

--------------------------------------------

So, no, he didn't exactly share the view that the civilians were there because of a psychic connection with the extraterrestrials! :p
 
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