The Navy Says Those UFO Videos Are Real

[Arthur_Frain]

46. Everybody has 4K video on their phone these days.

This generation does not travel anywhere without said phone, and the reflex (which I simply lack, I’ve tried to develop it) to grab the damn thing and start videoing whenever anything takes place. Hell, there have been so many selfies taken since the advent of cellphones, that the law of averages demands there should be at least one random, irrefutable pic of a UFO by now. There really isn’t. Why? Always liked this explanation from Peter Mulvey in one of his songs. He asked a Russian astrophysicist he’d met on his travels this question.

"I've always wanted to know the answer to this question, and you strike me as the only guy I'm ever gonna meet that can give me an answer. So lay it on me, pal: Are there intelligent civilizations out there, other than us And if there are, then why haven't they contacted us?" Vlad looked at me over his glasses. "That is two questions," he said. "First question is easy to answer. The answer is yes, many. Given the number of stars, the abundance of amino acids everywhere in universe you look, very possibly many, many civilizations have risen. No, the second question, why have they not contacted us, that is the real question, and it is difficult to answer, but here is my best guess. You must use your imagination." And he held his hands out at shoulder width, and he said, "Imagine the entire universe is only about this big, only the size of a beach ball. I mean, universe is not spherical but go with me on this, okay? Now, imagine that all of time- thirteen and one half billion years from the big bang until now- imagine that that goes by in, say, five minutes. On that scale, consider us. We are an intelligent civilization, yes? We make radio waves, rocket ships, baseball, Great Wall of China, Bach sonatas- clearly intelligent civilization. The question is: how long do we last? Hm? Another 5000 years? 50,000? Another 5 million years? It does not matter. On the universal scale that I am asking you to consider, those all look the same, they look like this." And he held his hand in front of him, with thumb and forefinger pressed together, and parted them for the barest instant, and as he did so, he made a sound through his teeth, "Fss." He looked at me, to see if I understood. Every human that has ever lived, and will ever live... All the history that we have made and will ever make..."Fss." He paused, to let that sink in. It sank in. "So," he said, "here is the universe," and again he held his hands out defining the space
"And here are the intelligent civilizations as they arise in the universe." And he moved his hand here. "Fss." Then here..."Fss." Then here - "Fss." "You see?" He said, "They never meet each other. Time is too long, space is too large. I mean sure, maybe at one time, it happened that right next to each other at the same time- fss, fss - two civilizations sprang up and they had war, better yet they had peace, they had arts exchanges, they had an intergalactic library...but they are all dead now, too. In all likelihood, we are alone, and by the time the next civilization arises, we will have been gone for a long, long time."

If we could stop being so human-centered for a moment when we think about things like this, that really have nothing to do with humanity, we might make a few less obvious mistakes. There’s nobody else out there right now guys, at least not anywhere near enough for us to even hear their noise. The universe is really, really big, bigger than folks who imagine aliens might be interested in us (or be able to get here) stop to ponder.