Imagine your average teenage American kid with their new drivers license, and parents old car, before the oil embargo. Most didn't know how things worked, but they were able to use the technology to go anywhere they wanted. I imagine the same would be true of any sufficiently advanced civilization. The kids, and tourists, would be out and about, visiting the universe. That's how I figure they could traverse light years, but still crash, get shot down, etc.<p>My hunch is that there are a lot of deep and disturbing deliberate and accidental events, programs, etc... that are hidden deep under the covers in the name of "national security", both in the US, and across the world. The truth is going to be much weirder than any of us expect, and simultaneously far more mundane in many cases.<p>I give it a 50/50 shot at this point. I just want my own personal megawatt box if there is alien tech to be had. You can do a lot of nifty stuff with that much power. Grow food and live anywhere on the planet, with almost no need for inputs from elsewhere once you're up and running.
I think it's probably a combination of a lot of factors (full disclosure: I'm quite unsure about whether extraterrestrial life exists, but I am hopeful that it does). More sensors capturing more data, newer developments in drone tech that are being mistaken for UAPs, and an increased willingness on the part of military servicemembers to speak out about things they've seen with less concern about the repercussions. That said, if you are referencing the recent discussion fomented in part by Leslie Kean about the U.S. government having actual physical alien ships, I am much more skeptical as to the truth of that and recommend listening to Ezra Klein's podcast with Kean.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-leslie-kean.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...</a>
<i>What's your take on the surge of UFO/UAP sightings, discussion, etc.?</i><p>UFO's: A UFO is anything the FAA or Military of each country can not identify. If I launch a metal disc into the air and a camera briefly captures it but that camera or sensor lacks the speed and resolution to identify it, then it's a UFO. Sensors can also be tricked. There are a lot of hoaxes started this way. People could easily build a large drone, add some cool light and sound effects and fly over a football stadium on a foggy or cloudy night and people would lose their minds. Until it is officially identified, it's a UFO created and controlled by a human prankster.<p>Aliens: Even if one of them engages with the military or reporters and ultimately does a 3 hour long form interview on Joe Rogan that would not be enough to convince me they are aliens. Humans are slowly making some progress in science and can already make human hybrids that when combined with other species would appear alien. That would be tantamount to a circus freak show and just gets into ethical and medical legal issues. I would just add to this that if there were aliens and if they even briefly monitored us they would certainly never land here. They know we would jack their ride. <i>meaning we would steal their tech and probe or dissect them.</i> If they did land here it would not be at a military base. It would be where there are supplies and soft targets that would not be a threat to them. Probably a warehouse for a hardware store at 3am.<p>If the "sky people" and the "floating cities" the ancient Sumerians referred to were real and not drug induced hallucinations then we had best hope they do not come back or there would be no doubt about aliens. We would all be slaves and building them more megaliths and/or digging out the existing ones and retrofitting them. Hopefully we were just a <i>stop-over</i> for food and fuel on a one-way trip. I'm leaning towards hallucination as I used to have dreams about these floating cities when I was a toddler.