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Berder's avatar

You've said all this before, and maaaybe if UFOs are actual aliens you have the most likely explanation. But come on, the far more likely reason we see UFOs only in blurry form is that if we saw them more clearly we would be able to identify them as something mundane.

If the aliens really wanted to impress us with their mysterious power, they have far better ways to do so than, "show up, but only as blurry dots too far away to make out." They could put their mothership over NYC where everyone can see it. Everyone would be extremely impressed and scared. They could push km-scale asteroids at Earth only to deflect them away at the last second, as a warning of their capabilities. Once it became clear that humans have no defense against them, human leaders would be willing to listen to their demands.

The argument is reminiscent of arguments for God. "You just have to have faith. No, he won't show himself, except in ways indistinguishable from hallucinations or mundane sequences of events."

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Lasagna's avatar

Fifty years from now Space X launches hundreds of super-duper advanced probes in order to explore nearby solar systems. Using the one weird trick developed in that time a probe is able to get from here to Proxima Centauri in only a thousand years instead of the six thousand it would normally take and we decided it's worth it. The probe is outfitted with all of the most advanced planet-exploration measuring gadgets and beam-back-information whosits money can buy. We're going to get our first serious examination of an exoplanet and we want it to be as thorough as possible.

Probe-1 arrives at Proxima Centauri a little beat up from journey but still functioning fine. It dips below the clouds on the first planet in the system and starts poking around and (holy shit!) there's a whole civilization there. It's not nearly as advanced as ours - they've got muskets or catapults or what-have-you - but they're there and they're conscious. To them our probe moves at impossible speeds and is inconceivably advanced and they start tossing spears at it or at least trying to get as good a look at it as they can.

We didn't really build much in the way of stealth technology into this thing, and certainly no military capabilities - it's a probe, not a drone strike. Hell we don't even have direct control over it. Sure it's built to last and moves so much faster than their horses that to their minds it just vanishes, but it's not meant to keep evading attack - in fact it's not meant to leave the planet at all. Like most of our space exploration equipment it's supposed to just keep beaming back stuff until it gives up the ghost. Eventually the thing crashes in front of a Centaurian.

Maybe the UFOs are something like that. Probes sent by a civilization more advanced than ours - and by now, maybe far more advanced than ours - but shot in our direction ages ago.

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