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May 7, 2010· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

UFOs in SCV?

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

Image not recoveredX_Files_I_want_to_believe-thumb-300x375-22457.jpg
Some of the comments on my post about the strange aerial activity over the SCV on Tuesday are taking a decidedly Coast-to-Coast with George Noory tone, with links to YouTube videos about alien UFOs and coverups.

Whoa, slow down there people, jump to conclusions much?

I’m excited that I finally get to use the knowledge I gained from my Astro 390 class (Extraterrestrial Life and Space Travel) from my college days. Here’s the thing about UFOs people: virtually every scientist thinks that inter-stellar space travel is enormously expensive not only in resources but in time. I’ll explain.

Say you are an advanced alien race on a world far far away. You want to check out the interstellar neighborhood with your advanced technology. Suppose with your technology you can approach the speed of light (a feat which would cost a lot in resources and energy), you still have to deal with the problem of relativity, the principle Einstein discovered and which most scientists who think about this kind of thing say makes space travel really difficult. Relativity, put simply, means that the faster you go, the slower time appears to you.

In other words, if you’re an advanced alien race, you still have to overcome the problem of relativity whereby you, traveling near the speed of light, age relative to your homeworld. Your voyage may take 20 years, but your home world will age several hundred or even thousand.

This makes interstellar travel at any speed really difficult.

Which is why most scientists who think about these kind of things believe that 1) aliens, like humans, will use the cheapeast method possible to communicate (radio waves) or 2) some kind of phenomenon like worm holes will be used for transportation.

Least likely are space ships that have to use massive amounts of energy to travel huge distances at speeds that would make the relativity problem really acute.

Is it impossible? No, I suppose not. But you have to consider plausibility here. Is it plausible that an alien flew his spaceship far from his homeworld and visited Santa Clarita Tuesday night? I mean, I know Santa Clarita is a nice place to live and all, but is it plausible that an alien would visit given all the problems above?

No it’s not. And especially with all the eyewitness accounts we have of fighter jet afterburners and the accompanying loud roar. That’s all this was: military activity and an unexplained orange glowing object, which could be another aircraft on afterburners.

More Resources:

Contact by Carl Sagan

The Drake Equation

YouTube video about Time Dilation

Comments (13)

  1. OlenkaMay 7, 2010 at 8:59 am
    “Is it impossible? No, I suppose not. But you have to consider plausibility here. Is it plausible that an alien flew his spaceship far from his homeworld and visited Santa Clarita Tuesday night? I mean, I know Santa Clarita is a nice place to live and all, but is it plausible that an alien would visit given all the problems above?” YES! Yes it is! They wanted to move to AWESOMETOWN! HELLO!?!?!
  2. SamMay 7, 2010 at 9:07 am
    WTF Even aliens are now speeding in Santa Clarita?
  3. Timothy MyersMay 7, 2010 at 9:16 am
    Jeff: You are obviously “forgetting” about the established fact that the Guild navigators ingest the spice melange and then can fold space and time! (See how many nerds get this reference.)
  4. navigatorMay 7, 2010 at 10:43 am
    DUNE was a great movie but an even better book!
  5. Timothy MyersMay 7, 2010 at 11:14 am
    The original movie was virtually unwatchable. (Sting just has no cred as an actor.) A few years back Syfy channel did a 9 hour miniseries that I found actually much better.
  6. navigatorMay 7, 2010 at 11:58 am
    Save for the fact that Stings part could have been done better by someone else, I liked both versions. Reading the novel first made my appreciation of the original movie much greater. The only complaint I had about the novel was the fact that I couldn’t pronounce half the words!
  7. Scott ErvinMay 7, 2010 at 9:43 am
    Klaatu barada nikto (Nuff sed)
  8. JimMay 7, 2010 at 10:15 am
    Added two video links to your original post where people witnessed the same “UFO” in PA and AZ. UFO doesn’t necessarily mean extra-terrestrial. The second glow was definitely not the afterburner of a second jet – clear difference between the two. Personally, it sounds like the T3RB and what better place to conduct a classified test flight then over AWESOMETOWN!
  9. townbeetMay 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm
    By show of hands who still runs SETI@home? If you have to google “SETI” and have no idea why this is connected to the post then you are: 1) not married to Jeff 2) not interested in SETI and hopefully never will be.
  10. Fred ButlerMay 7, 2010 at 2:31 pm
    A few years ago, I had a guy tell me with a scared look in his eye that UFOs hover over the wash in Canyon Country. He even produced a brief cellphone video of what was definitely a brightish light hovering over the wash. He said it happened every night at 2:30 AM. I never had the wear-with-all to get out of bed, get dressed, and go look.
  11. ReaderMamaMay 7, 2010 at 5:27 pm
    That’s the thing. Most of us are indoors most of the time, not outside looking at the sky. Especially at 2:00 in the morning. They could be putting on laser light shows all night long for all we know!
  12. CopperhillMay 11, 2010 at 11:41 am
    It truly was an unforgettable Tues night when the jet flew over. I’m sorry we couldn’t have gotten a “heads-up” ’cause I would’ve been sitting out there in my lawn chair to gather in all the sights and sounds. The last question is why fly over a populated area when the air force has the entire Mojave? I like to think we were part of the experiment…how many people phoned the cops, how many people panicked, how many people recorded the event with cell phones or in sites like these. As far as whether ETs have the tech to travel here, why would they bother to contact us? Our own air force won’t tell us what they’re doing, why should ET?
  13. gdfgfdgfdgMay 13, 2010 at 8:54 pm
    well, you fail to take into consideration that mainstream science doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of our universe. it is very well possible that alternative forms of energy beyond our comprehension, exist some where out there, or here for that matter and who knows if that energy is wildly costly or not it is quite possible that technology beyond what we can fathom overrides the theory of relativity you cannot be bound by mainstream science when mainstream science still dabbles in the realm of theories

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