Am I missing something or is the only thing that makes this different than so many other "insider" claims is that this guy has a career history that implies he isn't just another crackpot spewing theories?
It reads just like so many claims like we have heard in the past, but this time people think the guy is more reliable.
I'd love to think that alien contact is possible, but as I attempt to learn more and more about physics, travel approaching the speed of light, the mechanics that transformed us from a basic life form to a life form with a consciousness, it just seem incredibly unlikely sadly.
Consider this hypothetical: A person in intelligence knows something you would rather didn't get out, but you suspect there's a chance they will leak it. Maybe they have a personality that leads you to believe they can't in good conscience keep that secret, or maybe you're just callous and paranoid, doesn't really make a difference.
One thing you could do is convince them of something completely ridiculous that no one will take seriously. Even easier if there is a large existing community of nutters that already believe that (possibly you manufactured that too, just for such an occasion). Put on some little shows, make sure they see some documents they "weren't supposed to", and when they've bought into it enough have someone all but confirm it to them in person.
Then, if they're in a leaking mood, they'll discredit themselves for you.
What if it was against his will? What I mean is what if he has served his purpose and the government did something to make him slip into borderline insanity?
Not saying that I even remotely believe this, then again. . . It's not like the US government hasn't carried out horrible, immoral, and unethical experiments before.
Seriously though, it' one of those fun Black Mirror-like plots that pop in my head occasionally. Since everyone is throwing out all kinds of what-ifs I thought I'd try to have some fun too.
I'm pretty sure there are documented, widely-recognized case of this happening. Can't remember the details, but I think it was an amateur radio operator that found a secret broadcasting station, and was thrown off the trail when said station decided to broadcast fake stuff about aliens. And another case where the government needed to test animals for radiation following a nuclear test, so secretly stole them from farms in a way that suggested UFO abduction?
I can't remember where I read/heard this, but sure it is on the internet somewhere.
The part that you quoted was me summarizing what I thought they were saying and kind of asking if that was what they were saying. I've never met the guy. And by the way, yes, I do think crackpottery is an equal opportunity condition.
> but as I attempt to learn more and more about physics, travel approaching the speed of light, the mechanics that transformed us from a basic life form to a life form with a consciousness, it just seem incredibly unlikely sadly
As if humanity's knowledge circa 2023 is the end-all of things!
I'm extremely skeptical, but open minded too. until I see actual evidence, I won't believe it, but ftl isn't needed per se, warp drives supposedly could create worm holes or little folds in space they could jump through to essentially go as far as ftl with fractional speeds. if a worm hole opens between two distant spaces, does time dilation still work the same way? Maybe there's some shortcut through a parallel universe that takes people through space faster, ... I'm obviously not a physicist, but there's plenty of exotic science we don't yet know about, so this is definitely suspect and Occam's razer and all, but that's still like 1 percent or so that it is possible. I would've said 0.0001 percent 4 years ago.
This arrogance underpins so many comments on here. We don't know whether some breakthrough is possible that makes interstellar travel viable using hitherto unknown physics.
If dark matter and dark energy are real. While it is generally accepted that they are, dark matter's existence isn't a a closed case yet. Look into the MOND theory.
I personally don't have the education to state a theory with confidence, but I like the idea the physicists saw galaxies rotating in a way which seemed to break the rules of physics they knew and so they said, "our rules can't be wrong, there must be something there we can't see or measure or prove what it is." When it is possible (emphasis on possible) that maybe the laws of physics as related to motion and acceleration are different at scales that include multiple galaxies. Maybe they are rotating at the precise rate they are supposed to and there are undiscovered laws of physics at great scale. They are different rules at the quantum level and we haven't found quantum gravity yet. Is it possible the rules of gravity could be not as concrete at the largest levels of existence? Einstein said large masses bend space and time and we see that as gravity. Could the unexpected rotation of galaxies that is now explained as proving dark matter exists actually be caused by galaxy sized massed bending space and time at a different proportion. I dunno, but wouldn't it be fun if the explanation was so revolutionary and simple?
Disclaimer because this is the internet: I have no clue is this theory could be real, and it is mostly based on other theories by actual, real physicists--which I am not.
Sure they aren't open minded, but I mean thinking that our current state of knowledge defines the limits of what is possible, which is more specific than just closed-minded. It's crazy how often people make this mistake.
It isn't close minded at all. I would LOVE to have my thinking changed.
After listing to people who research this area like Martin Rees, Sabine Hossenfelder, Matt O'Dowd of PBS Spacetime, it just seems unlikely to me that the logistics of such travel--especially in a small craft that would just carry several beings--seems like it is just too hard to do and will remain so difficult for many, many generations to come.
Extend that too:
a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is able to visit in a manner that doesn't create a second sun in the sky
Seriously people underestimate the ludicrous energies involved in near-c travel. Even with engines off at those speeds the interstellar dust undergoing nuclear fusion off your hull will give you away
Extend that too:
a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is able to visit in a manner that doesn't create a second sun in the sky
b) then crash
Machines would be more likely than anything biological in any case. Not implying this is what we have here, just a general observation. It's weird people believe space travel requires pilots.
> Machines would be more likely than anything biological in any case.
Counterpoint: biology is a machine in itself.
Our machines of metal and microchips are incredibly primitive compared to where they'll be in 100, 500, 1000, 10K+ years from now - and when a machine has the ability to to self-replicate, have autonomy, and to protect itself from microscopic threats, then it sure looks a lot like life-as-we-know it.
Having just finished Iain Banks excellent The Algebraist, this is immediately what came to mind: we have no idea what timescales aliens would operate on.
Idk what’s so special about the speed of light/causality, in an alien universe it may not even be relevant. When talking about alien intelligence and technology literally everything is on the table.
I'm not sure we will ever know if this is the only universe. However it seems highly unlikely that aliens could travel from another universe and, even if they could, bring their own laws on physics with them.
Even at non-relativistic speeds self replicating robots could have visited every star system in the galaxy within a few tens of millions of years. We haven't seen any evidence.
Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on.
If aliens can travel even a light year, they almost certainly also have the technology to not crash.
Agree with everything you’re saying except the cameras in phones. Cameras in phones are advanced but most do not have kind of optical zoom. Try to take a picture of a plane flying overhead with your iPhone or a bird. It’s hard to get a clear photo of something so far away.
>Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on.
This is key in why I was much more optimistic of finding any of those paranormal items than I was 10 years ago. I hope I'm wrong.
There are zero indisputable photos of 99.9999999% of things that happen on earth. I mean, even if you have 10 separate people seeing the same thing and someone videoing, that's still disputable. You'd need a stadium of observers and several camera rigs before photo/video evidence would be the necessary level of "sure" to be considered indisputable when it comes to UFOs.
Can't there be a c) of "Who the hell knows, but there's a lot of evidence piling up." I'm with you in that I don't believe that an alien civilization that has overcome challenges of FTL, etc. would come to Earth to apparently joy-ride. There's something else that's causing trustworthy individuals to make these claims. At this point I just call it "magic" until a better word comes along.
One theory is that these bogeys have been here as long as we have and are basically automated tests, sort-of like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It's ridiculous, but less ridiculous than a). The more I think about it, flying octopuses from Europa is less ridiculous than a).
Oooh I didn't catch that. I think that's funny. Given the limitations of FTL, etc., that'd be the equivalent of me canoeing across the Atlantic to spy on a nest of rather dull shrews. I should clearly read what he's saying.
To be fair, COVID escaping from the one and only lab capable of doing that kind of research in the area seems the most likely too. However, the best evidence so far points elsewhere. Sometimes the unlikely circumstance turns out to be the real one.
I assume that interstellar travel is really difficult for any civilization. That assumption is based on my knowledge of physics (relativity in particular).
First you need an incredible amount of energy to get even a modest mass out of the earth's gravity well. Then you you need a truly fantastic amount of energy to get it up to a fraction of the speed of light. Then you need an equally fantastic amount of energy to slow it down again at it's destination. Then you run into time dilation effects, which diminish the usefulness to the sender of any information they are going to get back (due to the delay).
Going slowly has it's own issues. If it takes you 100,000 years to cross the space between 2 stars, you are going to need a lot of energy/food to keep your crew/robots/computers going - because there isn't going to be much solar energy available. Also is any civilization going to invest the effort to create a probe/mission that they are not going to hear back from over that sort of time-scale?
Very true, but the point is it just shows there's a lot we don't know still that an advanced civilization might and likely have already discovered and learned to harness/control.
> I'd love to think that alien contact is possible, but as I attempt to learn more and more about physics, travel approaching the speed of light, the mechanics that transformed us from a basic life form to a life form with a consciousness, it just seem incredibly unlikely sadly.
With all the absurdly crazy complexity that has arisen in our universe, and the tiny primate brain you were born with, and the mere 10k years of civilization in our multi-billion year old universe which may be one of a near infinitude stretching back for eternity, you've figured out with high likelihood what is and is not possible. Right.
I’ve not taken a side yet, but to answer your first question, the original journalism outlet that published his story is The Debrief (who are pretty widely respected in the defense world), and they documented the source checking they did on Grusch:
even if he and the sources all know a friend a work on these teams, it's still not enough evidence. im very skeptical at the same time, I'm not completely shut off to the idea, I mean I'd say 98 to 2 percent are the odds differential but that's up from like 0.00000001 percent previously, before all the ufo releases.
I'm warming up, and I'm not naive enough to claim what a civilization a million years now advanced than us with bigger and more efficient brains(or ai) could accomplish in large enough time scales.
This is definitely the just trustworthy source to date, perhaps, but still the evidence isn't enough to blindly just say, yes it's definitely aliens.
There is the fact that Grusch gave sworn testimony to congress on it, he's going to prison for perjury if he's lying. Doesn't prove it, but it's more than just saying it in an interview.
People lie to Congress all the time without any consequences. That depends more on the political necessity of having a scapegoat/figure to tar and feather than the actual law.
"does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
"No, sir."
"It does not?"
"Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."
So, do people lie to Congress all the time? Not wittingly, but in the sense that this phrase means "absolutely yes, all the damn time."
I personally believe FTL is likely impossible so I think the only realistic hypothesis is if we encounter aliens, that they're von Neumann drones on the vanguard edge of a colonization wave from an alien race that's been doing it for millions of years.
If we survive for long enough as a species, either we'll meet races in this manner or we'll be the ones doing it.
For the record I still only assign a fairly low probability that this is what is happening, it's more likely that UAPs are craft from terrestrial origin.
I'm no body language expert, but I did notice him shaking his head when he says something to the (opposite) effect that "we categorically have non human craft".
Games within games. Insiders playing credible dupes.
It reads just like so many claims like we have heard in the past, but this time people think the guy is more reliable.
It is pretty funny that the one of the people often quoted who backs up Grusch's claims is Jonathan Grey. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2241801/)
I'd love to think that alien contact is possible, but as I attempt to learn more and more about physics, travel approaching the speed of light, the mechanics that transformed us from a basic life form to a life form with a consciousness, it just seem incredibly unlikely sadly.