Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: CliffordK on 24/05/2011 06:42:07
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There were a couple of recent National Geographic Specials.
"Area 51 Declassified"
"When Aliens Attack".
So, Area 51 was a super-top-secret military base, originally setup for the U2 spyplane, which of course was called a weather reconnaissance plane.
Then later the Lockheed A-12 Oxcart was transported to Area 51 in the most odd shaped box, and later the SR-71.
Nobody would admit planes running Mach 3+
And, perhaps the Government would blame some things on Aliens.
Even at least one plane crash of a top secret plane that had to be covered up.
There may have even been some intentional fake alien sightings to help divert suspicion elsewhere.
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There was also a special about "When Aliens Attack".
Interesting Show.. Although I thought it was very much exaggerated. Not "science future", but rather pure "science fiction". The assumption is always that somehow aliens will be able to break the speed of light barrier... somehow... yet this is not supported by physics. Obviously there will be more research about high speeds in the future, but one should also be realistic.
If you reverse the scenario. We could almost send a colony ship to the nearest star now. It would take a monumental effort to do, and probably take around 1000 years to get there, and would be very battered when it arrived, in no shape to wage war on a planet, and no backup resources for an extended campaign against an indigenous population. In fact, we'd likely be similar to the White Settlers landing on the North American Coast. We wouldn't have survived without cooperation from the Natives.
If we happened to find a "Goldilocks Planet" somewhere, that had life. It is likely that all the native plants would be entirely foreign to humans, and would be toxic. I.E. There is nothing fundamental about our 20 amino acids, DNA, RNA, Triglycerides, etc. Even if one was to find a hydrocarbon based life, it would have evolved differently. That is assuming that life on Earth wasn't seeded from some common supernova remnant. Undoubtedly even the Oxygen/Nitrogen/CO2 mix in the atmosphere would be quite different than Earth.
Nonetheless, any landing would be for the purpose of establishing a permanent colony. And, it would necessarily be a one-way-trip. The question is whether we would choose to terraform the planet to our liking no matter what we find, or whether we would be content to bargain for a large island or small continent where we could live and grow Earth plants, perhaps always requiring the use of a breathing apparatus.
The show concluded that the only thing "unique" about Earth was life itself (not to mention being a Goldilocks Planet). And, that the aliens would have hovering craft that would suck up living matter for exporting to their homeworld. But, what that means is the interstellar transport of hydrocarbons, perhaps the equivalent of oil and coal. How practical is that? And them being able to transport the resources to Earth to decimate our biosphere? And to need to, want to, or to be able to afford to transport our "life" to another stellar system.
And what is the thing of beaming up trees to hovering craft? In many senses, logging on Earth hasn't changed much since 1920. Bigger equipment, better brakes on trucks. But, still a lot of work on the ground. There is some helicopter logging, but it is quite marginal. Why would one expect aliens to suddenly be able to hover in space and suck up trees whole?
And, if they do have craft hovering over Earth, what altitude will it be? A few hundred feet, or 22,000 miles above the planet. A "low tech" attack using circus balloons would be exceedingly ineffective against craft hovering at 22,000 miles.
Anyway, in the exceedingly minute possibility there was to be an attack on Earth, the aliens would likely first land on Mars, and establish a base on Mars. They would develop industry and begin to multiply on the Red Planet. Only after their industry reached a critical level on Mars, they would move against Earth, having critical resupply routes.
Either that, or they would first bargain for New Zealand, then expand into Australia, and perhaps take over Africa, successively replacing all life on each continent with life from their homeworld. Or, they might be aquatic, and not interested in the continents at all.
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BTW, did you notice the CDC has released an advisory on what to do in the event of zombies?
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BTW, did you notice the CDC has released an advisory on what to do in the event of zombies?
Social Media: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse
The following was originally posted on CDC Public Health Matters Blog on May 16th, 2011 by Ali S. Khan.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Femergency.cdc.gov%2Fsocialmedia%2Fimages%2Fblogbanner_zombieprep_560x140.jpg&hash=b128c117bd160bb05fdacb9e8580bf33)
http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp
Who ever thought that one up?
They can't really be serious!!!
I suppose it is all a publicity thing.
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I'm watching the When Alien Attack thing now.
In my opinion, it seems to have been too heavily inspired by Independence Day and War of the Worlds.
I think it might be wiser for the aliens to zap the planet with a huge electromagnetic pulse or a series of them. That would take out a lot of our ability to make war. Not only that, but if they had studied us for long enough, they may realize that destroying our power structure and transportation systems would be enough for us to go crazy as a civilization and start killing each other over dwindling food supplies.
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BTW, did you notice the CDC has released an advisory on what to do in the event of zombies?
Social Media: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse
The following was originally posted on CDC Public Health Matters Blog on May 16th, 2011 by Ali S. Khan.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Femergency.cdc.gov%2Fsocialmedia%2Fimages%2Fblogbanner_zombieprep_560x140.jpg&hash=b128c117bd160bb05fdacb9e8580bf33)
http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp
Who ever thought that one up?
They can't really be serious!!!
I suppose it is all a publicity thing.
From TV Tropes (ftp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrazyPrepared/RealLife):
Zombie Squad is a disaster preparedness organization that uses the Zombie Apocalypse concept as a metaphor for the importance of preparing for a natural disaster, on the precept that if one is prepared for the total collapse of civil order due to an invasion of the living dead, one is prepared for anything. People being prepared for a zombie invasion is completely justified since no rational human being could scrape together a plan of action while being chased by the ravenous undead, and thought experiments like this can help people think on the fly for when real unplanned trouble starts. Leicester City Council could learn a lot from them.
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I dont know why people dont believe in Aliens. Maybe they are the sort that still dont get that there are other planets, solar systems, and galaxies out there. Or even cant point to where they are on a map.
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If space takes too long for aliens, maybe they are from underground and studying us. And now they want to play.
I would.