this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think people realize just how big the universe is. Or even just our solar system. The nearest star is multiple light-years away, and as far as physicists can tell, the speed of light is basically the speed limit of all things in the universe, so at minimum they traveled for multiple years at near-light speed (already basically impossible due to the quantity of energy required) just to...??? in our atmosphere?

It took over 50 years for the Voyager probes to travel a single light minute, and Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us is 4.24 light-years away. Which means the Voyager probes will take thousands of years to travel a fraction of the distance of Proxima Centauri.

Another problem is time dialation. Suppose you happened upon a craft that could take you to Proxima Centauri at close enough to the speed of light that you would arrive there within a human lifespan, the time that would have passed on earth is actually thousands of years. So any aliens visiting the earth now would have set off during the ice age at the very latest. They absolutely wouldn't be popping by for a quick visit then running off every few years, they would either be visiting then leaving again and not returning for many more millenia or they would be arriving and setting up permanent shop in our solar system, which we'd likely have observed by now given how many probes we send around the solar system and how many telescopes we have pointed at the sky all the time

Are we alone in the universe? Almost definitely not, considering the sheer number of planets and stars the random chance that created sentient life on earth is extremely likely to have repeated a few times, but sentient life evolving close enough to us physically and in time that both can become aware of each other and maybe even communicate? Basically impossible, at least certainly not within a timeframe that any of use can truly comprehend

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I know how big it is. But aliens are not coming here in their first probes they sent out into space. If they are here, they have had space travel for at least thousands of years, probably much more. So they have found ways to travel that we are not aware of, perhaps light speed travel or possibly wormholes, teleportation, who knows.

I guess the reason people think so different about this is that they assume that aliens would travel with only human knowledge of space travel. But we have been doing it for only 75 years now, and never sent humans anywhere except the moon.

To me, looking at space travel as if others would do it the same way we do, with our limited experience... It doesnt make sense. We are beginners at space travel.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So they have found ways to travel that we are not aware of, perhaps light speed travel or possibly wormholes, teleportation, who knows.

I think you're missing that you're hand waving away literally the laws of physics. Light speed travel runs into a relativity problem (and relativity is so well understood at this point your phone's GPS receiver will make adjustments to the GPS data it receives because the exactness of the data actually exposes some relativistic differences between the satellites and the ground) which I've already described (a few years of near-light speed travel is thousands of years on the ground)

The light speed barrier appears to be entirely unbreakable. Conservation of energy is proven in transportation and the energy sector constantly and is why near-light speed travel is highly unlikely is the amount of energy required to propel a vehicle to such speeds is absolutely immensely impossibly big, and therefore breaking the light speed barrier if it is even possible would require orders of magnitude more energy.

Oh and Wormholes and teleportation are literally pure fiction

I guess the reason people think so different about this is that they assume that aliens would travel with only human knowledge of space travel

No no. It's because we assume aliens would be bound to the same physics as the rest of the universe is

If they are here, they have had space travel for at least thousands of years, probably much more

That is how long they would need to travel to get here from any other solar system. If aliens are coming it ain't going to be a couple of little green men in a saucer the size of a truck, it's going to be a generation ship, a cryoship or entirely robotic, and the current alien mythos really doesn't fit that.

Circling back to the core claim that aliens have been visiting the earth and may or may not be abducting random farmers and probing them, the entire alien mythos is easily explained with previously-classified aircraft that were being built by the US during the cold war, drugs and mental illness, and largely doesn't exist before the 1950s. If you read some of the very first reports of UFOs before the mythos really received much media attention they entirely don't match the now classic imagery of little green men with giant bug-like eyes flying a circular ship, because these people didn't already have that imagery to apply to whatever weather balloon or classified aircraft they happened to get a glance of.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah. I think science fiction is exactly what we are talking about here. Its science that we think is fiction, because of our current knowledge.

Your opinion is based in current science and of course its not possible to do manned space travel across the galaxy using what we know at this point.

Im just saying that i believe its likely and possible that other species have far more advanced knowledge about space and physics then we do. I dont see why humans would have a full grasp of it at this point. Whatever laws we think are unbreakable will most likely not be.