Oolite Bulletins

Greyth wrote:

Indeed, lunar regolith itself is an effective radiation shield at a depth of a few feet. As for lunar mounds and rills being caused by lava... possibly... as for scale they come in all sizes. I would have thought it worth mounting a lunar expedition just to find out if our best guess concerning their origin is correct It has been postulated that Luna once had an atmosphere and if that is true then she may have supported life, so it is not totally inconceivable that they are artefacts/structures.

The moon has an atmosphere, but it's negligible. There's no indication that it ever had any sort of serious atmosphere for any serious length of time – solar radiation would have stripped away anything that didn't just freeze out onto the surface. The gravity isn't strong enough to hold an atmosphere thick enough to allow e.g. liquid water on the surface – certainly not for the length of time required to allow life to evolve, become multicellular, develop intelligence, tool use and technology, and start building structures. Granted, that's using our one and only example – Earth – for the speed of evolution, but there is no reason to believe that the moon ever evolved any form of life capable of building structures – and the structures we can see are not so wildly unusual as to lack any natural explanation.

It's not beyond the bounds of imagination to create stories where visiting aliens build structures on the moon – it's the central plot device at the start of 2001 – but equally we can imagine aliens building all sorts of stuff anywhere we want, from the heart of the sun to underneath the Pentagon. Crucially though there's absolutely no reason to believe they ever have. The surface of the moon and Mars and all the planets and other bodies in the solar system – Earth included – contain mysteries, puzzles and surprises, but nothing that screams, or even hints, at any non-natural processes (at least, not ones that don't involve humans operating broadly within currently understood historical and archaeological parameters).

Because something is currently inexplicable, or even just currently subject to scientific debate, doesn't mean that we should postulate outré explanations and fill the gaps with huge conceptual leaps. Occam's razor is just a rule of thumb but it's a bloody good one. All sorts of things now comfortably within our understanding – things which we routinely exploit to carry out everyday wonders – used to be regarded as "forever beyond our mortal ken". All sorts of other "amazing" things – the "face(s) on Mars", for example, or the whole "moon landings were faked!" fallacy – dissolve when examined more closely. "Aliens", like "gods" or "magic", can be pulled out to explain anything at all – except they don't actually explain it: all they are is a big box marked "Don't ask – it's forever beyond you", into which people try to dump things they don't want examined or which they'd prefer to be left "wonderful", i.e. unexplained. Science constantly drags stuff out of that box and nails it firmly down in the real world (which is why some people tend to get hostile towards scientists).

Greyth wrote:

A monolith on Phobos?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDIXvpjnRws

This video cuts off just as Aldrin starts to say "Who put it there? The universe put it there. If you prefer, God put it there ...". He's trying to enthuse people about space, by saying there's all this fascinating stuff out there and that we shouldn't abandon manned exploration of space.

From the Wikipedia entry:

The Phobos monolith is a surface feature, a large rock, on the moon Phobos which orbits Mars. It is a boulder about 85 meters (~280 feet) across. A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive piece of rock. Monoliths also occur naturally on Earth, but it has been suggested that the Phobos monolith may be a piece of impact ejecta.

[Edit: there's another "monolith", this time on Mars, and this one's more rectangular:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... -life.html

Alfred McEwen, professor of planetary science at the university and HiRise's principal investigator, said: "Layering from rock deposition combined with tectonic fractures creates right-angle planes of weakness such that rectangular blocks tend to weather out and separate from the bedrock."

He added: "It is not that unusual. There are lots of rectangular structures on Mars.

"It is striking when you see one that is isolated, but they are common."

Veteran astronaut Buzz Aldrin recently stoked space conspiracy theory further by announcing that a similar "monolith" had been detected on Mars's moon Phobos.

Calling for money to be pumped into space exploration, Mr Aldrin - the second man to walk on the moon - told US network C-Span that scientists should focus on Mars's moon: "There is a monolith there, a very unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object that goes around Mars once every seven hours.

"When people find out about that, they are going to say 'who put that there?'. Well, the universe put it there, or if you choose, God put it there."

]

Seriously, if there was any way that something like this genuinely defied any explanation which didn't involve some intelligent agency, scientists would be yelling about it all the time. Phobos has a surface area of roughly 1800 square miles, no erosion and very low gravity, and it's been out there being hit by rocks for billions of years. It would be highly odd if there weren't big things poking up from its surface. Is it interesting? Definitely. Is it worth investigating? Absolutely. Is it beyond rational explanation? No.

Well, the trouble is that very little is beyond rational explanation. 'I imagined it', 'I was overtired', 'Perhaps I had one too many pan galactic gargle blasters'. In the early days of steam it was thought that man couldn't travel much faster than a good horse can run because we wouldn't be able to breathe. 'Stands to reason' they said. People were quite serious about that. As you say, Disembodied, it's worth investigating.

When I was a young lad I remember one English individual who claimed he had been visited by aliens and taken to the moon in their spaceship. He described it as a huge ruined city, some of which was still inhabited. I cannot remember his name (perhaps someone here does?) but he had a sensible well paid job such as accountant or solicitor. Of course, his career was ruined and he was ridiculed for the rest of his days. The greatest probability is that he was a nutcase, but I am not certain.

Greyth wrote:

Well, the trouble is that very little is beyond rational explanation. 'I imagined it', 'I was overtired', 'Perhaps I had one too many pan galactic gargle blasters'. In the early days of steam it was thought that man couldn't travel much faster than a good horse can run because we wouldn't be able to breathe. 'Stands to reason' they said. People were quite serious about that. As you say, Disembodied, it's worth investigating.

When I was a young lad I remember one English individual who claimed he had been visited by aliens and taken to the moon in their spaceship. He described it as a huge ruined city, some of which was still inhabited. I cannot remember his name (perhaps someone here does?) but he had a sensible well paid job such as accountant or solicitor. Of course, his career was ruined and he was ridiculed for the rest of his days. The greatest probability is that he was a nutcase, but I am not certain.

People have been making utterly extraordinary claims about just about any conceivable subject pretty much since the dawn of speech, I think. They are NEVER backed up with actual hard, physical evidence which can stand up to public scrutiny. Not "seldom" or "hardly ever", but NEVER. Absence of evidence is not of course evidence of absence, but if I were in a court of law, or even just placing a small wager, I know which side in these affairs I'd bet against.

Another good rule of thumb is: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone makes a claim which requires a vast conceptual leap, I want there to be a hugely convincing reason so to do, not just "that sounds amazing!" Take for example "strange lights seen in the sky over a secret military airbase": a small conceptual leap would be

--> "Secret military aircraft?"

A very large conceptual leap would be

--------------------/ /--------------------> "Aliens!"

Regular science has this too: take the recent "faster-than-light neutrinos". The large conceptual leap was a variety of wormholes, dimensional tunnelling and generally Einstein's theories being wrong. The small conceptual leap was, basically, experimental error – and so it proved to be.

I'm all for keeping an open mind, but not so open as to let anything wander in (or my mind to fall out).

If the world were a truly rational place things like this just wouldn't happen...

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/batm ... 2012-03-26

I thought about the airbase example where there might be strange glowing lights and lots of people do a Rimmer... yeah, I'm sure it goes on. I'm certain that a lot of what gets paraded as footage of craft from the Klatoo Nebula is fakery. Is that the whole of it? No probably not...

When I was a child British fighter and bomber aircraft where the fastest and most advanced in the world (partly because German aviation industry was dismantled). Pilots of that era (you know the kinda guys that have a handle bar moustache) report that they were buzzed, out outmaneuvered and over accelerated by bogeys of unknown origin. I suppose it's 'do you believe their testimony?'... I do believe their testimony. I don't know what buzzed them but I do believe them when they say they were buzzed. It's not as if there is one isolated report but a litany of log entries describing unknown contacts spanning several decades by more than one airforce. So, given that we made the best aircraft who or what could have been overtaking us? Aliens? It's difficult to believe that craft could travel thru the interstellar void at relatevistic speeds just to buzz a bomber stream. The point of origin is probably within our solar system and most likely on Earth, Luna or Mars in that order. What else remains?

Disembodied wrote:

The volcanic features on the moon are interesting, and potentially useful: lava tubes could provide the beginnings of ready-made underground bases, shielded from solar radiation.
http://www.moonzoo.org/Lunar_Volcanic_Features

Oh, wow. Those I knew nothing about - they have the potential to be the source of an entire sub-genre within science fiction.

Greyth wrote:

When I was a child British fighter and bomber aircraft where the fastest and most advanced in the world (partly because German aviation industry was dismantled). Pilots of that era (you know the kinda guys that have a handle bar moustache) report that they were buzzed, out outmaneuvered and over accelerated by bogeys of unknown origin. I suppose it's 'do you believe their testimony?'... I do believe their testimony. I don't know what buzzed them but I do believe them when they say they were buzzed. It's not as if there is one isolated report but a litany of log entries describing unknown contacts spanning several decades by more than one airforce. So, given that we made the best aircraft who or what could have been overtaking us? Aliens? It's difficult to believe that craft could travel thru the interstellar void at relatevistic speeds just to buzz a bomber stream. The point of origin is probably within our solar system and most likely on Earth, Luna or Mars in that order. What else remains?

But when the MOD investigated these over a number of decades, they consistently found no evidence of anything where they could say "Not of this Earth". The RAF disbanded the unit that investigated such things at the end of the Cold War very recently having found nothing concrete that said "Hang on, that's downright alien."

So, what else remains?

[edit] all I can think of is that a previous civilisation arose and at least partially survived the thing that almost wiped us out between 12 to 25k years ago. I know.. I know.. there is little evidence to prove that is the case but what else is there? [/edit]

Greyth wrote:

So, what else remains?

Magnets.

I have a reasonable grasp of physics, for a lay-person. But I didn't 'get' magnets at school and reading up since on magnetism has done nothing to explain to me how and why magnets work in a plain English way.

Take a nail, stroke it with a magnet, and the nail becomes a magnet. That nail with then hold other similar nails suspended indefinitely.

The energy required to magnetise the nail was trivial. Yet it will then hold multiple objects of its own weight against the force of gravity for months or years.

If that isn't magic, what is?

Greyth wrote:

all I can think of is that a previous civilisation arose and at least partially survived the thing that almost wiped us out between 12 to 25k years ago. I know.. I know.. there is little evidence to prove that is the case but what else is there?

There's not little evidence, there's no evidence. Assuming a previous high-tech civilisation which still exists in hiding somewhere, that pops out now and again to buzz a few aircraft to no purpose before vanishing once more, is wild supposition and not supported by any other evidence (e.g. pollution in ice-cores, to dig that up again). There is no evidence that any technological civilisation has ever existed on this planet before us. No plastics in the geology, no evidence of ancient deep-core mining, no large quantities of the corroded remnants of high-grade steel in city-sized layouts, no traces of ancient industrial pollutants: nothing. I think it's safe to conclude that, barring some sort of miracle evidence-erasing cleanup process – and if we postulate things like that we might as well start postulating anything at all – it's a safe bet that we are the first high-tech civilisation there has ever been in this neck of the woods.

Some unusual sightings made by pilots operating at the extremes of technology and experience is evidence of ... some unusual sightings made by pilots operating at the extremes of technology and experience. Frankly, there's not enough evidence of anything to reach any sort of conclusion at all. My best guess? Probably something like this:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8 ... etail.html

Disembodied wrote:

I think it's safe to conclude that, barring some sort of miracle evidence-erasing cleanup process – and if we postulate things like that we might as well start postulating anything at all – it's a safe bet that we are the first high-tech civilisation there has ever been in this neck of the woods.

So that also eliminates my adolescent wondering whether some dinosaur-era critter reached a high enough level of technology to cause the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, and themselves.

Disembodied wrote:

... some unusual sightings made by pilots operating at the extremes of technology and experience.

I've always had my doubts about bipedal apes that evolved on the ground to travel at up to 10 miles an hour who see pictures in ink blots and imagine monsters under the bed and hear noises of intruders in the night ... who then fly at > 20,000 feet at > 300 mph while deafened by wind & engine noise: would they make reliable eye-witnesses to anything?


A story that did amuse me was when one of the astronauts confessed to another about seeing flashes before his eyes and the other admitting the same. They had been seeing occasional flashes of light when in space, but never reported them for fear of being rated as medically unfit. When they confessed to NASA, it turned out all astronauts had been seeing these and none of them had owned up for fear of being taken off the space programme. The conclusion was that of all the huge number of high energy particles that pass right through a space capsule, some pass through the optic nerve of an astronaut, causing a tiny flicker of response in the nerve resulting in the brain interpreting it as a flash of light.

Edit: found a link: "BIOMEDICAL RESULTS OF APOLLO, SECTION IV, CHAPTER 2, APOLLO LIGHT FLASH INVESTIGATIONS"

Crewmembers of the Apollo 11 mission were the first astronauts to describe an unusual visual phenomenon associated with space flight.

SandJ wrote:

So that also eliminates my adolescent wondering whether some dinosaur-era critter reached a high enough level of technology to cause the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, and themselves.

Weeeel ... I don't know. 60 million years is a long time. It would depend I suppose on the size and development of any proposed Saurian civilisation. There's no requirement for one, and no evidence there ever was one, and no hint in the (admittedly sparse and incomplete) fossil records of any creature that could even have plausibly evolved into a tool-using, technological Saur, but I'd judge it to be acceptable science fiction, in that there's nothing to specifically rule it out. It also covers an important role of SF in that it talks about the current human condition (i.e. are we in the process of causing our own extinction?). The existence of an ancient high-tech human civilisation though is a different matter: there, the absence of evidence pretty much is evidence of the absence.

Ice cores are indeed useful indicators but they only take us back some 750k years. So they are not all encompassing and on a geological scale are only telling us about yesterday's events. I wouldn't give up on your dinosaurs just yet SandJ. Any evidence of civilisation is likely to be erased by an ice age. Solutions for survival the ice age are conceivable but somewhat improbable.

Industrial pollution is a sign of technology development such as ours but even now research into biological processing is beginning to yield results that hopefully and ultimately will make industrial pollution obsolete. So a possible signs of high technology are large works lacking signs of pollution? To call our level of achievement high tech is a misnoma except by comparison to earlier civilisations. Even there there are some oddities that should give pause for thought. For instance Sumerians were able to describe the colours of Neptune and Uranus but are not credited with use of lens.

Is there any evidence? Yes, thousands of tons of masonry in accessible places. Puma Punka may be cast but for the foundations and lower levels at Machu Picchu there is, as far as I'm aware, no convincing explanation or plausible theory.
http://recyclingtheworld.us/wordpress/w ... tambo2.jpg [burp] So, to say there is no evidence is fallacious. Precisely of what it is evidence of I am far less sure.

The same bipedal descendants of primates that manned fighters and bombers 60 years ago have mapped the solar system, theorised faster than light (a neuron fizzles - anyone remember FTL's sundog?) travel and sent craft to neighbouring celestial bodies. I can give credence to their observations, to do otherwise is, I feel, an injustice.

Magnets are fascinating aren't they? So is water, so is air suspended in water. One of the few 'over unity' energy producing devices to show promise is based on the rapid expansion and contraction of air bubbles in water. Passing sound thru water in which is suspended small bubbles of air causes the air to vibrate causing the water to heat somewhat alarmingly. It is akin to 'water hammer' although few research facilities for the subject exist. It has been seen as a route to fusion but to spin a turbine all that is required is to superheat water so the fusion aspect may be a red herring.