Astronomy, science, rockets, NASA, and all the space topics thread. FREE ALIEN QUIZ INSIDE! DON'T WAIT! ACT NOW!

When I was little, a family friend was babysitting me and let me watch an alien “documentary “ on tv. Possibly an Unsolved Mystery alien special? Whatever it was, it looked legit in my eyes! I was convinced for the better part of my childhood, that I would be abducted. Never happened but I definitely believe!

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Excited about this thread! I’m looking forward to the You Tube mentions here and all of it. I’ve seen most but from the vibe of the thread I think it will bring attention to more fascinating ones I’ve not seen and hopefully I can understand them. Quantum mechanics/physics is def one I’m so interested in but but get lost trying to understand parts of it. If anyone knows a good starter let me know! But Aliens??? Absolutely!! I believe wholeheartedly and love the thought of life, a “species” being breathtakingly advanced enough to explore theirs and other universes…to think that they may even experience emotions and feelings like we do, challenges like we do but just happen to have discovered the necessary resources to make the journey a reality…. Love it.

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@Dan531 On the most basic and fundimental level, I completely agree with this. I can’t help but ask myself, “what does it mean to “love one another”?” What specifically are we talking about here? There are a lot of things that we, as people in general, tend to say, but we never really stop to define them.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized just how differently we all see and understand things. So the idea of what it means to “love one another” isn’t always the same from person to person, family to family, or culture to culture. I kind of wonder if that’s part of why we don’t have “world peace” yet. We can’t know how to do a thing, if we don’t actually know what the thing is, and have a genuine shared understanding on it.

@Matt It’s a good question. You are definitely right that there is so much we don’t know, even as we think we know so much. As a thought on your thought, I wonder if–as we are now–would be able to fully comprehend some ideas or visions of beauty if we were presented with it. :thinking: Maybe having a regular habit of looking up at the night sky allows us to maintain a certain amount of humility and teachability that allows for the possibility of being able to get to where we can learn those things and also not be completely crushed by the weight of whatever might be beyond us right now.

Also, I love that you work with kids and have a focus on community service projects for the year. What a great thing for those kids to be able to connect with community and learn how to care for the people around them.

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So hard to get a decent shot of the sky with a cellphone camera. :laughing: Too dark and the smaller items don’t show up well, but too light and the moon just looks like a white blob. :laughing:

Anyway, you have the moon there (obviously) and then if you look at the upper part of the the picture you will see three dots. The brighter one in the middle is Mars, which is currently in Taurus. To the right you have Aldebaran, which is one of the four “royal stars”; and then the dimmer dot to the left is Alnath. Both are part of Taurus.

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Love it- welcome to here :grin: thank you for posting, has anybody done anything w it yet or proposed uses?

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I’ve been trying to keep up to date on rocket development. There’s so much activity! I especially like the Starship program.

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Welcome to the forum! Interesting post!

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I saw this Phenomenon documentary yesterday, very good serious one!

Highly recommended for UFOs geeks :alien::grin::wink:
Edit: and all the scepticals too!

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This one is pretty good maybe you haven’t seen it ?

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Thank you! Look forward to it in my day off.

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The kind of stuff i watch when i get into bed with some snacks :laughing:

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My favorite cellphone app is definitely ISS live now
Pure magic, anytime

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:rofl: you know what that made me laugh your post.
I believe the earth is round but i will say i have done alot of research and watched alot of documentarys and the “science” behind why people think its flat… i had too :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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Behind the Curve documentary is a crazy ride to follow the “science”.

Fitting end to it.
Brilliant

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When you dig into a lot of these conspiracy theories you find what you might call a type of “carnival fortune teller”. People are making a lot of money selling books and courses and products that reveal the “truth”.

It’s simple hucksterism (a “huckster” is someone who sells things through sensational lies):

  1. whip people up into a frenzy; convince them there’s a problem; keep your words sensational but also vague (vague enough to fit into a lot of different situations; vague enough to not be measurable)
  2. offer a unique solution to the problem, available only from you (and since your words are vague, there’s no way to verify the performance of your solution; buyers have to believe you and your solution are the only answer - and the sensational words you’re using are what makes it work: “available here only! The truth the _____ doesn’t want you to hear!”)

Dig into any conspiracy theory and you’ll find people making a lot of money from it. It’s not about truth, it’s about making money by telling stories people want to hear.

People want to believe they’re special. So why not tell them they’re special? (Edit to add: people want to - need to - believe there’s a reason for their feelings.) Especially if they’ll pay for my books or courses or conferences so they can learn the truth. (Obviously anyone interested in honesty wouldn’t do this, but if your goal is to make money by any means, without limits of ethics or integrity, then this is fair game.)

I’m not sharing this to be negative, just to open it up a bit. The conspiracy stuff isn’t “crazy” in the sense of being utterly not understandable. It is actually understandable. It is hucksterism: sleazy people pumping the audience up then selling “solutions” to these people, who feel powerless and lost.

I actually think of this as a hopeful thing. What is needed is a compelling, unifying message; a compelling mission to work together for everyone’s well being. Help people feel a sense of true empowerment, and the conspiracy theories lose their appeal.

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The tough thing for them is they need to believe they haven’t been wasting their time, money, and energy.

If I’ve fought with family and fractured relationships with people who I grew up with, there had better be a damn good reason.

Put yourself in their shoes: if they’ve been suckered, it’s humiliating. It takes the original sense of disempowerment - the feeling that originally attracted them to the compelling message of the “flat earth” group, a space where they could feel purpose and have a place - it takes that feeling of disempowerment they originally had, and makes it even worse.

Without a truly empowering message to give them something else to belong to, it’s hard, very hard, for them to separate themselves from the feeling of belonging - the feeling of group membership - in the place they are now.

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I’ll add that the powerful art of confirmation bias is at work here.

Confirmation Bias is the tendency to look for information that supports, rather than rejects, one’s preconceptions, typically by interpreting evidence to confirm existing beliefs while rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data.
~ American Psychological Association

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images

We are all inclusive here in the Universe+ thread. :laughing::+1:

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