Matt Gaetz said something sensible (bear with me here) which was to the effect: "either we have flagrant liars and crazy people at our highest levels of disclosures, or there's really something here. Either outcome would be of national interest"
Here's another analogy I find useful: the Star Trek test. Ever noticed in Star Trek that battles often take place as if you're watching Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic wars? Coming along side one another and firing broadsides, dodging and weaving, "we have them on visual!"
Visual? Did you say visual? You have FTL travel and matter transportation. Why not just teleport a missile into their ship? Or into the core of their planet? Why are you *drilling* a hole into their planet instead of just warping the payload in?
Sure, it's sci-fi, and as such the authors can simply bend their world building to fix this. "Well, you see, the quantum entanglement of the spacetime alternator is so great at the center of a starship that it's *impossible* to …"
Not so in real life. You have to ask these questions (as Ryan has). If these guys can afford to travel across space and time, that presupposes a level of technology that isn't going to manifest in the ways you or I are expecting. And this is *after* you compute all the probabilities above. Ok, so they have shown up here … why would they show up *like this*?
For example, if they wanted to observe us, you can be sure that a civilization with advanced physics is going to have space based observation capabilities that make the NRO look like a child peering through a "telescope" made out of a toilet roll. They can see everything they want to see, across all spectrums, without needing to take any risks.
If they want resources, if they are a space faring Rio Tinto, what the heck do we have that you can't get from the uninhabited rocks in great supply elsewhere? These guys can bend physics but we imagine they "need" us in a very anthropocentric way.
You see where I'm going (and I think Ryan is going too) – if you map out the entire tree, like he has, and then you overlay a physics-defying technological advantage on top, literally every branch of questions terminates at the same dead end. As does every report and every observation.
The point is that whatever their goals, they can't have this unimaginable technological advantage while making mistakes and decisions you no longer face with such an advantage. Like a Napoleonic battle in Star Trek or a F-35 pilot deciding to pop open his canopy and drop bricks on enemy planes. We can't have it both ways, we can't say they're advanced while presenting evidence that they're kinda stupid.
Does this mean there's zero credibility in the witnesses, or that there's *not* something of national security interest out there? No, just that the probability is very low, and gets lower and lower the more brutally honest you are with yourself.
Except that the sole source of this information is Grusch, the “My Pillow Guy” of UAPs. More and more dramatic claims, and never any evidence, and pressed it turns out it’s all hearsay, from people and sources he can’t identify. Fame is addictive. Conspiracy theory fame even more so.
In the aggregate the various UAP programs have collected many more witnesses, Grusch is just the highest profile one so far making the most specific (and seemingly credible) claims.
In my view the Navy pilots have been the most credible, because they have sensor data in multiple domains backing them up. That's something worth looking at, it's not "nothing". Whereas Grusch …
"Who are the people you spoke to?" - I can't tell you in public, otherwise they'll appear behind me and give me a wedgie
"Have you touched any of these objects?" - No, but I do know guys who have slept with a woman
Sure he "sounds credible" but at some point you have to show us the money. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars and instantly boost your credibility beyond doubt at the same time by introducing *real* evidence.
I agree about navy pilots. But if you go down that rabbit hole, there are actually some other explanations for these aerial phenomena then aliens that are quite reasonable. The video is extremely low quality only black and white. Any pertinent information is raised and not a single pilot said it was aliens.
I agree and this makes the Navy pilots very credible, the only leap they have made beyond "unidentified" is an appropriate concern it could represent an advanced threat. This entire thing could be hosed down pretty quickly if the Navy or whomever coughed up the full set of tapes, but they continue to maintain that it would reveal our sensor capabilities to our adversaries. Which is true but anyone in military intelligence, if they're smart, already assumes the Chinese and Russians know this. Again, we could be spending this taxpayer money on even better sensors, not a dog and pony show …
There are only 4 people making these claims. If there weren't mundane explanations that very clearly debunk the "proof" Grusch has, there would be hundreds or thousands of other military members coming forward. Not to mention, there are what, 3 billion cell phones in the world and NO ONE has ONE SINGLE picture or video? Come on ... this is no better than Bigfoot or Nessie.
You had me at "Matt Gaetz said something sensible (bear with me here)..." not since George Orwell's, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" have I enjoyed an opening line as much.
I think these sightings are exactly what Occam's razor tells us, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one and in this case, it's classified military technology being tested. I mean, look at all the sightings back i the 70's and 80's that we know for sure now were the early stealth programs. The government has a vested interested in holding these "hearings," it's an extremely way to sow disinformation because UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists are LOOOOOOUD and love attention.
Check YouTube for the "selective attention test" (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it). We have to consider the brain's ability to both see things that ARE there, and to not see things that ARE NOT there. In my mind, that is a more parsimonious explanation than introducing aliens, because we're then obligated to consider the Drake equations *and* the "Star Trek" problem as I've described.
In ancient China - from coast to coast you might say - they believed solar eclipses were a celestial dragon devouring the sun. The quantity of people who believe a thing doesn't tell us everything, and sometimes tells us more about the believers than their beliefs …
I will be rereading this several times to try to commit into my pea sized noggin. One of the wonderful aspect of being alive is knowing that there are others who are very insightful, knowledgeable, and plain smarter than I am. It doesn't bother me, and I love reading what you put together. I do believe this is the perfect bipartisan issue for Congress to demand answers for while ignoring the much harder to solve problems this nation faces. Between this and multiple hearings about gas stoves the 118th Congress has been a disappointment. Thank you for distilling this into one article. Again, well worth the subscription fee.
Thank you. You’re reasoned analysis really distilled the important factors in this conversation. I was especially struck by the thought of the immense resources, as well as the travel time, it would take to make any journey to visit us by some other intelligent civilization. And that if someone did “discover” our existence by some means, they would have to have a very strong reason to expend those resources. And I agree that the “survival” motivation of any visitor would probably mean an unfortunate outcome for us. Barring a real “science fiction-type” scenario, it does seem highly unlikely we are being regularly or otherwise visited by anyone else.
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. While there are some pretty interesting videos of UAP, I really have a hard time believe they are aliens for most of the reasons you've identified Mr. Mcbeth. Space is WAY too big. Probabilities are WAY too small. Cheers!
Ryan: Analogy discussion #1: Your use of analogies to support your argument is generally sound but two points in your ALIENS post deserve improvement. Carbon as a backbone for organic life is preferred over silicon, etc, not for the strength of the bonds between atoms but due to the stability of carbon bonds in water and other related properties. See:
I’m surprised you are stooping this low and engaging in Weekly World News low grade conspiracy content. Grusch is a self-serving circus barker, the “My Pillow Guy” of the serious UAP world. Always promising more and more dramatic evidence, and then crickets…nothing. He is addicted to the attention, it’s a heady world when people start seeing you as a cult leader, despite having no evidence of your claims.
HOWEVER, I DO appreciate the highly scholastic way you have approached the issue and the thought experiment logic you propose. In our academic thought experiments, the likelihood of a visiting alien civilization being friendly is about 5%, and a greater than 60% chance that our existience is inconsequential to them.
But Grusch? C’mon Ryan. If you DID listen to his testimony, it’s all hearsay, he’s never seen any thing, he’s “reporting” on witnesses he doesn’t identify, doesn’t mention sources or locations and the longer he is in the press, his claims get wilder and wilder, and still zero evidence
(This may have been mentioned already, but I have limited time to read through all the comments just now)
If aliens wished to destroy us in order to limit competition in the galaxy. Why visit? This isn't something we do on earth, but if we actually wanted to eliminate the population of Australia so they cannot compete on the global stage wouldn't we send ICBMs and not the marines? I'd think the aliens would much rather accelerate a huge rock with simple targetting algo's to it, than take the trip to come visit us before they hit the delete button.
Or if they are advanced enough, forget the rocks. They could set up a Nicoll-Dyson beam in a star system and just aim it at whatever planets they find to have oxygen. Washing the galaxy clean of life-bearing planets one at a time, from a single (or multiple, depending on the output) location.
While I enjoyed the read, I have to say your analysis contains numerous errors which negate your entire analysis.
You assume the Darwinian theory of evolution is correct.
Unfortunately, it is total nonsense. It is too time consuming to explain what should be self evidently obvious, and it should be a source of embarrassment that people who self identify as scientists even have this theory in their vocabulary.
But consider a couple of points:
a. Examine the formation of carbon in the universe.
Of all the elements formed, it is the one that has a spectacularly anomalous creation process.
It is also the one that is absolutely essential for life as we know it.
This is either an impossibly improbable coincidence, or most probably the result of a planned design.
b. Consider the eight steps you enumerate for the appearance of life on earth.
Even high school statistics should tell you how infinitesimally small is the probability of any one of those steps, let alone all eight.
c. Consider the Drake equation.
This is more nonsense predicated on a selection of random variables with no basis in reality. It is premised on Darwinian foundation and has absolutely no credibility.
It is not even worth discussing.
d. Consider the probability of any biological system occurring as a consequence of random mutation.
For example, consider the steps required to produce a functioning urinary system.
Then explain how that would have occurred by a Darwinian process.
Then explain how an entire biological life form has evolved by Darwinian processes.
Total nonsense.
In light of the points raised above, it is obvious that the universe as we know it is the result of a planned and executed process arising from some form of intelligence. Given the size of the universe, the age of the universe, and the abundance of galaxies and contained star systems, it is clearly obvious that life is abundant in the universe.
The big question is who, or what, created it.
You assume that travel between the stars must be driven by physics as we know it. The problem is that we don't even know what we don't know. But we do know that we don't know how to commute between the stars.
It is highly likely that in the billions of years that the universe has existed, and the fact that an intelligence is behind it, that there is some way for beings to commute between the stars.
We just need to discover how.
Regarding Grusch:
He has zero credibility, in that every time he has been asked a specific question, he has waved it away by claiming national security concerns. He has said a lot of words, but provided no information.
Sure.
He has obviously been commissioned by his previous employers with the mission to begin the process of softening up the general public regarding the existence of Aliens on planet Earth.
His interviews and testimony has clearly been scripted, and rehearsed.
He should be viewed a a source of entertainment, and given zero credibility with regard to the fact that Aliens are here, and have been for a very long time.
His employers are obviously watching the public reaction while deciding their next step.
There are so, so many other holes in Grusch's story as well. He's conveniently hiding behind "need to know" when asked for ANY specifics. I fully believe there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, even assuming the 'Great Filter' hypothesis is right, the odds are just too great. However, I don't for one single second believe that we have been visited on Earth by any extraterrestrial life form, unless it's bacteria that hitched a right on an interstellar asteroid or comet. I grew up with the X-Files, Witley Streiber, and I own a Bob Lazar signed sketch that I have framed on my wall - so I would LOVE for friendly aliens to visit Earth with a warm "Hello, Earthlings." But it just hasn't happened and is unlikely to in my lifetime.
Ryan: Analogy discussion #2: You have a neglected a potential religious justification for interstellar travel and contact. You ignore the sacrifice of Jim Elliot and countless other Christian missionaries who have sacrificed for two millennia to fulfill what you view as futile in the absence of usable resources.
The resource you miss is the presence or absence of a soul that is precious to God. In order to determine the presence or absence of such a soul, it may require face-to-face interaction, justifying interstellar travel and contact. That is one of the themes of ‘The Mote in God’s Eye’ and ‘The Gripping Hand’, novels by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Correct. It isn’t as if the Jesuits would have pulled out of Latin America just because the conquistadors, who frequently hated them, got back on their ships and headed home.
"A pilot saw a thing! He cannot explain it! MUST BE ALIENS" is the siren song of religion. I've read into the UFO scene my whole life and can confirm it is a cult. Sounds harsh but it's true. Grusch is a sane-sounding front man for madness. Standing right behind him, promoting him, and supporting him, are all the usual dorks spewing fantastical tales about alien abductions and reincarnation and what-not. Skeptic Mick Ryan did a good run-down of it all at 31:10 of this video. https://youtu.be/AvhMMhW-JN0
Thank you so much for a wonderful example of scholarly work in this platform. I would like to point out that even on earth, some life forms are not carbon based, there are other element based life forms at the base of undersea volcanoes. Secondly, life can exist in space, it may not profligate, but it could seed other planets, which means, there are many more planets that have been seeded by life from other planets. It does not always have to originate in each place. Lastly, there are more dimensions than we commonly recognize, modern physics attests to this. So, the idea that aliens are utilizing technology we don't recognize, especially interdimensional travel is a strong arguing point. Sorry I don't have references for these claims, however the interweb could help you research these points. I am very grateful for the examples you set Ryan, and find my $5 well spent.
The level of information McBeth has gathered here is indicative of his dedication to details. Kinda hard to say "nah" to anything he wrote on the topic.
Matt Gaetz said something sensible (bear with me here) which was to the effect: "either we have flagrant liars and crazy people at our highest levels of disclosures, or there's really something here. Either outcome would be of national interest"
Here's another analogy I find useful: the Star Trek test. Ever noticed in Star Trek that battles often take place as if you're watching Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic wars? Coming along side one another and firing broadsides, dodging and weaving, "we have them on visual!"
Visual? Did you say visual? You have FTL travel and matter transportation. Why not just teleport a missile into their ship? Or into the core of their planet? Why are you *drilling* a hole into their planet instead of just warping the payload in?
Sure, it's sci-fi, and as such the authors can simply bend their world building to fix this. "Well, you see, the quantum entanglement of the spacetime alternator is so great at the center of a starship that it's *impossible* to …"
Not so in real life. You have to ask these questions (as Ryan has). If these guys can afford to travel across space and time, that presupposes a level of technology that isn't going to manifest in the ways you or I are expecting. And this is *after* you compute all the probabilities above. Ok, so they have shown up here … why would they show up *like this*?
For example, if they wanted to observe us, you can be sure that a civilization with advanced physics is going to have space based observation capabilities that make the NRO look like a child peering through a "telescope" made out of a toilet roll. They can see everything they want to see, across all spectrums, without needing to take any risks.
If they want resources, if they are a space faring Rio Tinto, what the heck do we have that you can't get from the uninhabited rocks in great supply elsewhere? These guys can bend physics but we imagine they "need" us in a very anthropocentric way.
You see where I'm going (and I think Ryan is going too) – if you map out the entire tree, like he has, and then you overlay a physics-defying technological advantage on top, literally every branch of questions terminates at the same dead end. As does every report and every observation.
The point is that whatever their goals, they can't have this unimaginable technological advantage while making mistakes and decisions you no longer face with such an advantage. Like a Napoleonic battle in Star Trek or a F-35 pilot deciding to pop open his canopy and drop bricks on enemy planes. We can't have it both ways, we can't say they're advanced while presenting evidence that they're kinda stupid.
Does this mean there's zero credibility in the witnesses, or that there's *not* something of national security interest out there? No, just that the probability is very low, and gets lower and lower the more brutally honest you are with yourself.
Except that the sole source of this information is Grusch, the “My Pillow Guy” of UAPs. More and more dramatic claims, and never any evidence, and pressed it turns out it’s all hearsay, from people and sources he can’t identify. Fame is addictive. Conspiracy theory fame even more so.
In the aggregate the various UAP programs have collected many more witnesses, Grusch is just the highest profile one so far making the most specific (and seemingly credible) claims.
In my view the Navy pilots have been the most credible, because they have sensor data in multiple domains backing them up. That's something worth looking at, it's not "nothing". Whereas Grusch …
"Who are the people you spoke to?" - I can't tell you in public, otherwise they'll appear behind me and give me a wedgie
"Have you touched any of these objects?" - No, but I do know guys who have slept with a woman
Sure he "sounds credible" but at some point you have to show us the money. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars and instantly boost your credibility beyond doubt at the same time by introducing *real* evidence.
I agree about navy pilots. But if you go down that rabbit hole, there are actually some other explanations for these aerial phenomena then aliens that are quite reasonable. The video is extremely low quality only black and white. Any pertinent information is raised and not a single pilot said it was aliens.
I agree and this makes the Navy pilots very credible, the only leap they have made beyond "unidentified" is an appropriate concern it could represent an advanced threat. This entire thing could be hosed down pretty quickly if the Navy or whomever coughed up the full set of tapes, but they continue to maintain that it would reveal our sensor capabilities to our adversaries. Which is true but anyone in military intelligence, if they're smart, already assumes the Chinese and Russians know this. Again, we could be spending this taxpayer money on even better sensors, not a dog and pony show …
There are only 4 people making these claims. If there weren't mundane explanations that very clearly debunk the "proof" Grusch has, there would be hundreds or thousands of other military members coming forward. Not to mention, there are what, 3 billion cell phones in the world and NO ONE has ONE SINGLE picture or video? Come on ... this is no better than Bigfoot or Nessie.
You had me at "Matt Gaetz said something sensible (bear with me here)..." not since George Orwell's, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" have I enjoyed an opening line as much.
I think these sightings are exactly what Occam's razor tells us, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one and in this case, it's classified military technology being tested. I mean, look at all the sightings back i the 70's and 80's that we know for sure now were the early stealth programs. The government has a vested interested in holding these "hearings," it's an extremely way to sow disinformation because UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists are LOOOOOOUD and love attention.
There is a huge community of UFO believers, just check out Coast to Coast AM. It could be disinformation.....but many people believe.
It's a cult.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool"
Check YouTube for the "selective attention test" (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it). We have to consider the brain's ability to both see things that ARE there, and to not see things that ARE NOT there. In my mind, that is a more parsimonious explanation than introducing aliens, because we're then obligated to consider the Drake equations *and* the "Star Trek" problem as I've described.
In ancient China - from coast to coast you might say - they believed solar eclipses were a celestial dragon devouring the sun. The quantity of people who believe a thing doesn't tell us everything, and sometimes tells us more about the believers than their beliefs …
Yes, it’s fun to believe in horses and puppies in the clouds and magical beings isn’t it?
I will be rereading this several times to try to commit into my pea sized noggin. One of the wonderful aspect of being alive is knowing that there are others who are very insightful, knowledgeable, and plain smarter than I am. It doesn't bother me, and I love reading what you put together. I do believe this is the perfect bipartisan issue for Congress to demand answers for while ignoring the much harder to solve problems this nation faces. Between this and multiple hearings about gas stoves the 118th Congress has been a disappointment. Thank you for distilling this into one article. Again, well worth the subscription fee.
Thank you. You’re reasoned analysis really distilled the important factors in this conversation. I was especially struck by the thought of the immense resources, as well as the travel time, it would take to make any journey to visit us by some other intelligent civilization. And that if someone did “discover” our existence by some means, they would have to have a very strong reason to expend those resources. And I agree that the “survival” motivation of any visitor would probably mean an unfortunate outcome for us. Barring a real “science fiction-type” scenario, it does seem highly unlikely we are being regularly or otherwise visited by anyone else.
Just a correction. Graves and Fravor are former Navy pilots.
How do you know when you are talking to an Apache pilot, don't worry, he'll let you know.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
-Carl Sagan
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. While there are some pretty interesting videos of UAP, I really have a hard time believe they are aliens for most of the reasons you've identified Mr. Mcbeth. Space is WAY too big. Probabilities are WAY too small. Cheers!
Edit: And great breakdown as always!
Ryan: Analogy discussion #1: Your use of analogies to support your argument is generally sound but two points in your ALIENS post deserve improvement. Carbon as a backbone for organic life is preferred over silicon, etc, not for the strength of the bonds between atoms but due to the stability of carbon bonds in water and other related properties. See:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345352/#:~:text=Silicon%20is%20the%20closest%20analogue,(non%2Dionic)%20compounds.
Great analysis! More than I've ever seen in one place, and perspectives that are new to me....
My only question is "Now that the secret is out, when will the US send space lasers to Ukraine?"
I’m surprised you are stooping this low and engaging in Weekly World News low grade conspiracy content. Grusch is a self-serving circus barker, the “My Pillow Guy” of the serious UAP world. Always promising more and more dramatic evidence, and then crickets…nothing. He is addicted to the attention, it’s a heady world when people start seeing you as a cult leader, despite having no evidence of your claims.
HOWEVER, I DO appreciate the highly scholastic way you have approached the issue and the thought experiment logic you propose. In our academic thought experiments, the likelihood of a visiting alien civilization being friendly is about 5%, and a greater than 60% chance that our existience is inconsequential to them.
But Grusch? C’mon Ryan. If you DID listen to his testimony, it’s all hearsay, he’s never seen any thing, he’s “reporting” on witnesses he doesn’t identify, doesn’t mention sources or locations and the longer he is in the press, his claims get wilder and wilder, and still zero evidence
Thank you for the education Ryan!
(This may have been mentioned already, but I have limited time to read through all the comments just now)
If aliens wished to destroy us in order to limit competition in the galaxy. Why visit? This isn't something we do on earth, but if we actually wanted to eliminate the population of Australia so they cannot compete on the global stage wouldn't we send ICBMs and not the marines? I'd think the aliens would much rather accelerate a huge rock with simple targetting algo's to it, than take the trip to come visit us before they hit the delete button.
Or if they are advanced enough, forget the rocks. They could set up a Nicoll-Dyson beam in a star system and just aim it at whatever planets they find to have oxygen. Washing the galaxy clean of life-bearing planets one at a time, from a single (or multiple, depending on the output) location.
While I enjoyed the read, I have to say your analysis contains numerous errors which negate your entire analysis.
You assume the Darwinian theory of evolution is correct.
Unfortunately, it is total nonsense. It is too time consuming to explain what should be self evidently obvious, and it should be a source of embarrassment that people who self identify as scientists even have this theory in their vocabulary.
But consider a couple of points:
a. Examine the formation of carbon in the universe.
Of all the elements formed, it is the one that has a spectacularly anomalous creation process.
It is also the one that is absolutely essential for life as we know it.
This is either an impossibly improbable coincidence, or most probably the result of a planned design.
b. Consider the eight steps you enumerate for the appearance of life on earth.
Even high school statistics should tell you how infinitesimally small is the probability of any one of those steps, let alone all eight.
c. Consider the Drake equation.
This is more nonsense predicated on a selection of random variables with no basis in reality. It is premised on Darwinian foundation and has absolutely no credibility.
It is not even worth discussing.
d. Consider the probability of any biological system occurring as a consequence of random mutation.
For example, consider the steps required to produce a functioning urinary system.
Then explain how that would have occurred by a Darwinian process.
Then explain how an entire biological life form has evolved by Darwinian processes.
Total nonsense.
In light of the points raised above, it is obvious that the universe as we know it is the result of a planned and executed process arising from some form of intelligence. Given the size of the universe, the age of the universe, and the abundance of galaxies and contained star systems, it is clearly obvious that life is abundant in the universe.
The big question is who, or what, created it.
You assume that travel between the stars must be driven by physics as we know it. The problem is that we don't even know what we don't know. But we do know that we don't know how to commute between the stars.
It is highly likely that in the billions of years that the universe has existed, and the fact that an intelligence is behind it, that there is some way for beings to commute between the stars.
We just need to discover how.
Regarding Grusch:
He has zero credibility, in that every time he has been asked a specific question, he has waved it away by claiming national security concerns. He has said a lot of words, but provided no information.
Sure.
He has obviously been commissioned by his previous employers with the mission to begin the process of softening up the general public regarding the existence of Aliens on planet Earth.
His interviews and testimony has clearly been scripted, and rehearsed.
He should be viewed a a source of entertainment, and given zero credibility with regard to the fact that Aliens are here, and have been for a very long time.
His employers are obviously watching the public reaction while deciding their next step.
There are so, so many other holes in Grusch's story as well. He's conveniently hiding behind "need to know" when asked for ANY specifics. I fully believe there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, even assuming the 'Great Filter' hypothesis is right, the odds are just too great. However, I don't for one single second believe that we have been visited on Earth by any extraterrestrial life form, unless it's bacteria that hitched a right on an interstellar asteroid or comet. I grew up with the X-Files, Witley Streiber, and I own a Bob Lazar signed sketch that I have framed on my wall - so I would LOVE for friendly aliens to visit Earth with a warm "Hello, Earthlings." But it just hasn't happened and is unlikely to in my lifetime.
Ryan: Analogy discussion #2: You have a neglected a potential religious justification for interstellar travel and contact. You ignore the sacrifice of Jim Elliot and countless other Christian missionaries who have sacrificed for two millennia to fulfill what you view as futile in the absence of usable resources.
https://www.kevinhalloran.net/jim-elliot-quote-he-is-no-fool/amp/
The resource you miss is the presence or absence of a soul that is precious to God. In order to determine the presence or absence of such a soul, it may require face-to-face interaction, justifying interstellar travel and contact. That is one of the themes of ‘The Mote in God’s Eye’ and ‘The Gripping Hand’, novels by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Correct. It isn’t as if the Jesuits would have pulled out of Latin America just because the conquistadors, who frequently hated them, got back on their ships and headed home.
"A pilot saw a thing! He cannot explain it! MUST BE ALIENS" is the siren song of religion. I've read into the UFO scene my whole life and can confirm it is a cult. Sounds harsh but it's true. Grusch is a sane-sounding front man for madness. Standing right behind him, promoting him, and supporting him, are all the usual dorks spewing fantastical tales about alien abductions and reincarnation and what-not. Skeptic Mick Ryan did a good run-down of it all at 31:10 of this video. https://youtu.be/AvhMMhW-JN0
Thank you so much for a wonderful example of scholarly work in this platform. I would like to point out that even on earth, some life forms are not carbon based, there are other element based life forms at the base of undersea volcanoes. Secondly, life can exist in space, it may not profligate, but it could seed other planets, which means, there are many more planets that have been seeded by life from other planets. It does not always have to originate in each place. Lastly, there are more dimensions than we commonly recognize, modern physics attests to this. So, the idea that aliens are utilizing technology we don't recognize, especially interdimensional travel is a strong arguing point. Sorry I don't have references for these claims, however the interweb could help you research these points. I am very grateful for the examples you set Ryan, and find my $5 well spent.
The level of information McBeth has gathered here is indicative of his dedication to details. Kinda hard to say "nah" to anything he wrote on the topic.