DannyinJapan said:
Oh yeah, did I mention that Hawking has accused the US govt of hiding facts about UFOs and their technology?
He has publicly stated that he believes the US govt has UFOs in their possession.
That's the second time you've dragged out this name-dropping.
Can you provide a quote
in context?
Something better than this context-less quote that appears everywhere:
""Of course it is possible that UFO's really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the government is hushing it up" Comment by Stephen Hawking on C Span Television. Stephen Hawking was the guest lecturer at the second Millennium Evening at the White House on March 6, 1998. "
Which is often transformed into somthing like "Stephen Hawking admits UFO coverup!!!!"
Here is some context:
From talks at Hawking's website
http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/public/life.html
"Public Lectures - Life in the Universe
What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy. If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self designing mechanical or biological life forms? Why hasnt the Earth been visited, and even colonised.
I discount suggestions that UFOs contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant."
Or this bit excerpted from his popular book, "A Brief History of Time"
"We thus have experimental evidence both that space-time can be warped (from the bending of light during eclipses) and that it can be curved in the way necessary to allow time travel (from the Casimir effect). One might hope therefore that as we advance in science and technology, we would eventually manage to build a time machine. But if so, why hasnt anyone come back from the future and told us how to do it? There might be good reasons why it would be unwise to give us the secret of time travel at our present primitive state of development, but unless human nature changes radically, it is difficult to believe that some visitor from the future wouldnt spill the beans.
Of course, some people would claim that sightings of UFOs are evidence that we are being visited either by aliens or by people from the future. (If the aliens were to get here in reasonable time, they would need faster-than-light travel, so the two possibilities may be equivalent.)
However, I think that any visit by aliens or people from the future would be much more obvious and, probably, much more unpleasant. If they are going to reveal themselves at all, why do so only to those who are not regarded as reliable witnesses? If they are trying to warn us of some great danger, they are not being very effective."
Or this one described in an article recounting a 1996 public lecture given in Seattle
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Press/04.15.96.times.html
"Hawking got them laughing with jokes about his former student Nathan Myhrvold, now a Microsoft vice president and futurist who introduced the physicist.
And Hawking's robotic voice, each sentence triggered by a tap of his button, kept people rapt for about 40 minutes as he explained in simple terms space-time, space warps, and the prospects and paradoxes of time travel.
If time travel is possible, where are our visitors from the future? he asked rhetorically. "It's hard not to believe someone wouldn't show off and tell us poor benighted peasants the secret of time travel."
Perhaps UFOs are from the future and a government conspiracy is hoarding their secrets? "If the government is hiding something, it is doing a poor job of extracting useful information," Hawking suggested, the synthesizer unable to match his wry wit with its tone.
Theory that may unify relativity and quantum mechanics may yet make the dreams of science fiction a reality, he allowed. So perhaps, "There is a Chronology Protection Agency at work" from the future, he speculated. "
These excerpts of Hawking's addresses don't quite sound like what you've posted about Hawking. Context.
BTW, here is a rather extensive site
Art and UFOs
I doubt that you will be particularly receptive to the authors' analyses and conclusions, but at the least, it may provide some examples that you haven't yet run across. Or maybe not. Unfortunately a good portion (but by no means all) of the most detailed anaylsis is not translated from the original Italian. Many concise summaries are provided in English. Complete English text is provided for at least one of the images that you posted.
Please take the time to carefully examine the site before commenting.
They seem to meet and amply exceed your standards regarding research as delineated on the "anitgravity" thread:
"These are actual paintings you can view in museums in Europe.
If anyone doubts the authenticity, of course, its understandable.
why ? Because there are, quite clearly, UFOs in these 500 year old tapestries and paintings."
"I only post original, authenticated art from actual books with citations.
I dont just surf the net and post anything I find."
From the site:
...The first impression is that at the basis of these web sites lies a very simplistic methodology, being any historical or artistic knowledge carefully avoided. The standard practice seems to be: first taking a book concerning art, better if dealing with art works of the XVII or previous centuries; then looking for any strange detail, above all saucer-like objects of any kind. Thats it. This way, obviously, it is easy both to detect strange elements and to declare them alien or unidentified in respect to the environment or the period in which they appear.
The point is that no one of the authors of these web sites takes into account the symbolic meaning of these strange elements in respect to the art of the period. Worst of all, by considering these elements as the representation of something real or really seen by the artist, they assume that the artist, eg. an Italian artist of the 400 or an anonymous Byzantine painter, may actually be allowed to insert any non canonical or un-codified element into a religious representation.On the contrary, in past times the commissioners (those who choose the subject and supervised the execution of the art work - in these cases the religious institutions) would have never allowed the author to insert into a work of art anything other than what previously decided, especially in case of religious subjects. In this latter case, in addition, restrictions were even stronger.
At this point one may wonder whether these authors writing about art and UFOs have ever entered a museum or a church. If so, they would be astonished about the infinite amount of strange objects included into paintings, statues and art works of any kind
Next pages focus on the subject and meaning of a variety of art works which appear into Italian and other ufology web sites. These pages, nevertheless, are not against ufology as a whole. They are just a strong response to those web pages which publish ancient art reproductions without any knowledge of their real subject, meaning and historical value...
I will post a couple of excerpts
It may be absurd but certain authors of ufology web sites consider with astonishment the Annunciation of Carlo Crivelli displayed at the National Gallery of London. What they consider most surprising is the fact that there is a ray coming down from the sky and reaching the Virgin Mary. They affirm that this ray comes from a saucer-like Unidentified Flying Object standing among the clouds. All the reproductions of the detail concerning the circle of clouds in the sky are awful, blurred and indecipherable. No one seems to have searched for a better reproduction. On the contrary this same version is spreading out from one site to another again and again
[ representative example of ufo-ology "analysis" snipped]
Unbelievable as it may be, those who publish this stuff really seem to have never entered a museum. If so, they would notice that there is a vast amount of Annunciations in which a ray descends from the sky reaching the Madonna. Furthermore, as far as the Crivelli painting is concerned, they would notice that the object in the sky is formed by a circle of clouds inside which there are two circles of small angels.
It is a very common way of representing the divinity, visible in so many works of sacred art.
[a score of examples are shown]
This image presented on the other thread is very convincingly shown to also be religious iconography:
Returning to the above mentioned detail, the one that was interpreted as an UFO, we see that it is to be found in a great many "Nativities" of the '400 and '500. It is but the announcement to the shepherds, as told in St. Luke's Gospel:
«...and there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, an angel of the Lord come upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear ye not: for behold!, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you was born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord...»
We can see this scene represented in much the same way of the Madonna with Child of Palazzo Vecchio in many other paintings of the Nativity or the Adoration of the Child:
Included are examples of similar and some essentially identical paintings of the same occasion that feature an angel in/on the luminous cloud that represents the announcement to the shepherds of Christ's birth and a couple more with luminous cloud sans angel.
[It would, I suppose, be self-consistent to propose that the passenger(s) of a UFO made this pronouncement to the shepards]
The site provides a thorough, extensively documented case that the images depicted in European religious paintings are religious iconography and not flying craft. Here also, context is important.
I think you were wrong to so casually dismiss Dan Koster's, as well as Mike Kilo Niner's postulations of religious iconography.
At the apparent risk of being accused of resembling the nether regions of a draft animal, may I again quote you?
"Would you look at the picture and give me an objective opinion ?
Try to forget the limits that your own education has given you, after all, truth changes, right?
Peter Lynds has demonstrated to the world that Time does not exist.
So, Einsteins' work that requires time as a constant is now entirely questionable, which Im certain Einstein would have agreed with in the first place. I am all for objective skepticism, but that means OBJECTIVE skepticism, and it feels like some people are saying " i learned in college that this isnt possible so I, knowing everything, have determined that it is not possible, no matter how much evidence nor how many astronauts indicate that there is something alien in our skies"
this is part of what made me angry the first time.
Instead of listening to what I had to say, people started regurgitating what they knew.
They didnt actually ponder or consider what they might not know.
I guess thats why we have the word "magic.""
Gander, sauce or pot, kettle?
I don't know what UFOs are. Haven't yet found anyone who can convince me that they know. If such people exist, they aren't talking and writing that I have seen.
That's not to say UFOs or "alien technology" are impossible, or don't exist. I have tried not to imply that. Just that I don't find what is presented as evidence convincing. Often an alterative explanation nearly as interesting provides explanation. And often there is what would charitably be called "junk" science at work.
There are new things to be discovered, some quite spectacular.
Until recently nobody knew much about the bright flashing upper atmospheric phenomenae whismically known as red sprites, blue jets, elves and sprite halos. That is changing. Until a few years ago pilots who reported such things were not believed. Spectacular pix, and theoretical work being done.
http://http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/16_sprite.shtml/
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/rgk/atm101/sprite.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0625_030625_atmospherethunder.html
http://www.rps.psu.edu/0309/electric.html
Don't take this as a personal attack. Just asking for some common "ground rules" for what is presented as factual and evidentiary.
If somebody started claiming that some guy had just re discovered the secret forging method that produced katanas able to slice through rifle barrels, you'd be a bit particular about what the evidence was, no?
Guess I'll be waiting for that Damitol Klownster guy to show up and ban me again.
