When I was a teenager, our local ufologist had a radio show that I listened to every night. Many years after that show ended its run I have found that events he described as very mysterious were easily (or sometimes not so easily) explained.
For instance, he referred (in the 1970s) to the De Havilland Comet crashes. The De Havilland Comet was a revolutionary aircraft at the beginning of the 1950s, ushering in the era of jet travel for the masses. Unfortunately, the design was flawed and after some cycles of take off and landing, the hulls suffered from fatigue and the planes began to desintegrate in midair. It took the De Havilland company a serious amount of research work to figure out what the problem was in order to correct it.
This guy I am telling you about (and I am keeping his name in reserve, just to protect the guilty) showcased the Comet crashes as "unexplained" and probably the work of "hostile aliens" or other paranormal events. And this was 15-20 years after the crashes were explained.
My childhood ufologist is out there. Still believes in Velikovsky and Berlitz. (yawn)
So, this guy Stanton Friedman is the greatest ufologist now in existence.
Friedman apparently made his fame with the claimed Roswell UFO crash. I sincerely accept the explanation of a crashed aerostatic balloon covered with foil but Friedman and his friends have taken the case to an incredible level of conspiracy and government cover-ups. He has, apparently, also written and researched the alleged Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction, a story that has so many holes in it you could drive a truck through.
He is another irretrievably lost soul.
My buddy Brian Dunning, of Skeptoid fame, mentioned in his Facebook status that Friedman had made an attack on him via the Paranormal Podcast. (No, I refuse to link to such places from here. Google it.) So I went on iTunes and downloaded the relevant episode. And yes, indeed, Friedman makes fun of the Skeptoid episode about Betty and Barney. He also denigrates SETI which is a serious scientific effort and insists on government interests in keeping UFOs a secret.
When people believe and don't want to stop believing they will just close their minds and not listen to any reason. For instance, when Friedman was talking about government conspiracies I was thinking that you might kind of believe that the US government can keep a secret but what about other governments? It shows that Friedman was born in the US and has no idea how inept most if not all other governments are since the alleged UFO phenomenom is not unique to north american skies.
People like Friedman make it look like the Earth is the crossroads of the Universe. That is extremely unlikely. The energy expenditure required for interestellar travel makes the possibility of such long distance travel very unlikely. The energy required to travel to Alpha Centauri alone is 100 times the current energy output of the whole planet!
According to some estimates we are a Type 0.7 civilization, where a Type 1 civilization would be one that is able to harvest the entire energy available to a planet. Obviously, a race capable of interestellar travel would have to be a Type 2 - able to harvest the entire energy available to a solar system.
Interstellar travel would be cool. But it seems that we are far from attaining it and, while not impossible, it does no seem likely that our little blue planet is the crossroads of the universe Friedman and other wackos would make us believe.
Dream on!
No comments:
Post a Comment