Stan and SETI

As readers must be aware by now, Stan Friedman and I disagree about Wilbert Smith (and all related subjects) and MJ-12.

However, there is still much we agree on. One is SETI.

Stan's views can be found at his website, www.stantonfriedman.com. However, here are some of my favourite excerpts from his paper UFOs: Challenge to SETI Specialists (note: Not all of his points are included, for the sake of brevity):

"Here are my challenges for the SETI SPECIALISTS (SS):

1. Why is it that SS make proclamations about how much energy it would take for interstellar travel when they have no professional competence, training, or awareness of the relevant engineering literature in this area? As it happens, the required amount of energy is entirely dependent on the details of the trip and CANNOT be determined from basic physics. If one makes enough totally inappropriate assumptions, as academic astronomers have repeatedly done down through history in their supposedly scientific calculations about flight, one reaches ridiculous conclusions...

2. Why do SS assume that radio is the ultimate means of long distance communication, when we have only had this kind of technology for roughly 100 years? Just down the galactic street there are two sun-like stars (Zeta l and Zeta 2 Reticuli) only 37 light years away and a billion years older than the sun. Of great interest is the fact that they are less than 1 light year apart from each other. It is good to see recent recognition of the fact that we can already, with our primitive technology, create laser signals able to be observed by other civilizations in the neighborhood. Optical SETI is coming in to its own. But remember progress comes from doing things differently. What new communication techniques will we master in just 50 or 100 years...

3. Why do SS make proclamations about how aliens would behave, when, as physical science professionals, they have no training, experience, or special insights as to how Earthlings, no less aliens, would behave, or what their motivations are. One might consult psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, nurses, etc, but radio astronomers...

4. Why is it that SS take every opportunity to attack the notion of alien visitations without any reference to the many large scale scientific studies? They act as though the tabloids are the only possible sources of UFO data. There are at least six large scale scientific studies, more than ten PhD Theses, and many dozens of published professional papers by professional scientists. These are all almost always ignored...

7. Why is the assumption made that aliens wouldn't know there was a technological civilization here until they picked up our TV or radar signals? We are already, though in our technological infancy compared to a cosmic time frame, considering building a radio telescope with segments on opposite sides of the solar system that could directly observe earth size planets around all the stars in the neighborhood. Other civilizations in the neighborhood could have done this a billion years ago...

9. Why is it that SS seem to assume that aliens would want to deal with them? They don't speak for the planet any more than ham radio operators speak for their countries. If their annual budget were even $100 Million, that is miniscule compared to the $1 Trillion for national security...

10. Why is it that SS so often try to stress how big and how old the universe is? In fact the sphere centered on the sun and having a radius of only 54 light years includes 1000 stars of which about 46 seem to be sun-like and suitable for planets and life. At least two of these sun-like stars are 1 Billion years older than the sun. If my car were stolen near my home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, it wouldn't make much sense to suggest that the thief might be any one of 6 billion Earthlings. It would appear to be much more likely that the thief was one of 725,000 New Brunswick residents or one of only 50,000 Frederictonians. The odds of finding the thief would be greatly enhanced. Note, too, for example, that residents of Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli, being less than one light year apart, could directly observe planets around the other star...

14. Why do SS, who should know better, or at least should have done their homework, so often pronounce that it would be impossible for anyone to withstand the "enormous" accelerations of UFOs so often observed for brief times? They quote no data to support their pronouncements despite the huge amount of data that NASA and others have compiled over the past half century. It turns out that trained and properly constrained humans can withstand "enormous" accelerations, for significant times, so long as the acceleration is in the appropriate direction vis a vis the body. Astronauts are launched while on their backs for a good reason...

16. Finally there seem to be no signs that either SETI leaders or UFO debunkers are willing to note the false reasoning of their own kind . This lack of internal evaluations provides a scientifically unhealthy and dogmatic, almost cult-like atmosphere, with charismatic leadership, a strong dogma, and irrational resistance to outside or new ideas. Scientists and journalists have a serious obligation to study the relevant data rather than to make pronouncements having no factual basis. Does the end (presumably public rejection of flying saucer visitations and enhancement of the status of SETI) really justify the means of misrepresentation based on ignorance and arrogance? Ufologists are, in contrast, very critical of each other. Party Lines should be for politicians, NOT for scientists."

Hmm... given our recent discussions about Wilbert Smith, I wonder if Stan sees the irony of #16?

Still, he's right about SETI. A "Silly Effort to Investigate" indeed!

Paul Kimball