UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

The science fiction movie "Arrival," which opened in theaters this month, poses tantalizing questions about how humans might make contact — and eventually communicate — with intelligent aliens. The much-hyped film has renewed people's interest in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But what would happen if humans really did make contact with an intelligent alien civilization? If E.T. calls, is there a plan?

The answer is yes, and no, said astronomer Seth Shostak, who leads efforts to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

"There are some protocols, but I think that's an unfortunate name, and it makes them sound more important than they are," Shostak told Live Science.

In the 1990s, Shostak chaired a committee of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) that prepared a revised version of the "post-detection protocols" for researchers who watch for possible alien transmissions using radio telescopes, a field known as SETI (short for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).

The protocols were first drawn up in the 1980s to help scientists in the United States and the Soviet Union share information about any potential SETI signals. But, Shostak explained, the SETI post-detection protocols are guidelines for governments and scientists, rather than a global action plan for dealing with alien contact.

A still from the movie "Arrival" Paramount

"They say, 'If you pick up a signal, check it out ... tell everybody ... and don't broadcast any replies without international consultation,' whatever that means," he said. "But that's all that the protocols say, and they have no force of law. The United Nations took a copy of the early protocols and put them in a file drawer somewhere, and that's as official as they ever got.""

Men in Black

"In the movie "Arrival," spaceships land in several cities around the world, and a linguist (portrayed by actress Amy Adams) and a physicist (played by actor Jeremy Renner) are recruited as part of an international effort to try to communicate with the aliens and find out why they are here.

In real life, apart from the protocol dictating that researchers should share news about SETI signals with other astronomers around the world, Shostak said he is not aware of any government-level plans or established procedures in case of an alien contact, whatever form it might take.

And it seems there really are no "Men in Black," shadowy government investigators of UFO-lore, depicted in the comedy sci-fi movie series starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

"If [the government] could afford the 'Men in Black,' then they could afford to support SETI," Shostak joked.

But the U.S. government has shown no interest in SETI research so far, he said. "It's not a government program, so they have nothing to do with it. I would love to see some interest from them, but I never have," he added.

Radio Telescope, Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico

Worlds largest single-dish radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory, Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

UniversalImagesGroup / UIG via Getty Images

After one early SETI "false alarm,"which eventually turned out to be a signal from a European research satellite, the only response was from journalists.

"In 1997, we got a signal that looked pretty promising for most of the day. We thought it was possibly the real deal," Shostak said. "I kept waiting for the 'Men in Black' to show up — they didn't. I kept waiting for the Pentagon to call. I kept waiting for the White House to call. They didn't call. But The New York Times called."

Close encounters

In a review of the science and speculations about extraterrestrials, published as "Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence and Civilization" in 1979, the author and scientist Robert Freitas described a purported military briefing in Washington, D.C., in 1950 that outlined potential U.S. military responses to alien contact.

The supposed military plan, which became known as "Seven Phases to Contact," was first reported in a 1967 book on UFOs by the American broadcaster and UFOresearcher Frank Edwards.

But Shostak said he has seen no sign of any extraterrestrial action plan for U.S. government agencies or the military. "As far as I know, there's nothing, and I think I would have heard something because of the [SETI] false alarms," he said.

While detecting an alien radio signal would be different from encountering spaceships that landed on Earth, Shostak doesn't think protocols will play a big part in how we respond.

"Some people asked me at a conference last week, 'What plan does the military have to deal with aliens should they land?' And I said, 'I don't know … but to the best of my knowledge, they don't have a plan.

'"Shostak noted that any aliens who could travel here in a spacecraft would need to be centuries or thousands of years more technologically advanced than humans are now, so it's almost impossible to imagine the consequences of contact between the species, let alone the thought of developing a plan to deal with them.

"It would be like the Neanderthals having a plan in case the U.S. Air Force showed up," he said.

Calling planet Earth

Although the aliens in "Arrival"helpfully travel to Earth in faster-than-light spaceships, willing and ready to talk, Shostak said a more likely "first contact" scenario would be the detection of a SETI radio signal, perhaps from a source hundreds or thousands of light-years away.

That means it could take centuries for the aliens to receive any reply transmitted from Earth in an effort to communicate with them, he said. As such, there might not be any real hurry to decide what to say.

File - A car moves along the Extraterrestrial Highway near Rachel, Nevada, in this Wednesday, April 10, 2002 file photo. The ET highway was established by the Nevada Legislature in 1996 and runs along the eastern border of Area 51, a military base on the Nevada Test Site. George Washington University's National Security Archive obtained a CIA history of the U-2 spy plane program through a public records request and released it Thursday Aug. 15, 2013. LAURA RAUCH / ASSOCIATED PRESS

And if E.T. does call, what should humans say in response? Some scientists, including British physicist Stephen Hawking, have expressed concern about "Active SETI" programs designed to transmit messages from Earth to any aliens that might be listening. Hawking warned of the potential threat posed by unknown extraterrestrials and their alien motivations.

There's also the difficult matter of making the right first impression in any extraterrestrial chat, Shostak said.

"I've been to several conferences where people discuss whether we should tell [aliens] all the bad things about humanity, or just the good things, and that sort of thing," he said. "But I think that is terribly overdrawn. To me, that would be like the indigenous people of Australia seeing Capt. Cook coming over the horizon in his ship, then saying, 'We're going to have a couple of conferences to discuss what we're going to talk to these guys about, and what language we'll use' — [but] it doesn't matter."

Shostak pointed out that humans have already been broadcasting newsinto space for decades, in the form of television and radio signals, and so it's probably too late to keep quiet.

"Those signals have been going out into space since the Second World War, so we've already told them we're here," he said.

Original article on Live Science.

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There was excitement in the city of Geneva in Switzerland last Wednesday after hundreds of people took to social media to report sighting a mysterious UFO that hovered in the dark skies over the La Praille area of the city near the stadium.

Scores of excited witnesses took to Facebook moments after the sighting to upload photographs and videos of the mysterious object.

The UFO hovered over the Geneva stadium area for about 20 seconds at about 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 12, before speeding away. Witnesses said they saw the shape and form of a solid object hovering in the sky very clearly. It was a dark-colored circular object that glowed brightly in the night sky as it took off and sped away after hovering for several seconds.

Others described it as oval-shaped and flat-topped.

Matías Vitkieviez, a Servette FC footballer, took to Facebook to report his experience, according to RT.

“Everyone sees the same thing as me? It’s completely crazy! UFO above the industrial area behind the stage of la praille #ufogva.”

A witness told Tribune de Genève that he saw the circular shape of an enormous UFO in the sky and that it was “as big as a plane.”

As it hovered over the stadium area it emitted a strange shrill noise, the witness added.

“It was about 8:30 p.m.,” he continued. “The phenomenon lasted about 20 seconds and the object departed at once, as if it was burning.”

“We can hardly see anything on the photo, but we clearly distinguished an oval and flatted-shaped object with three lights; then it quickly disappeared,” another witness, identified as Sacha, reported on Facebook.

The website 20 Minutes reports that Sacha said he had always been skeptical about UFOs but the sighting on Wednesday evening over the stadium changed his attitude.

“It changed my way of thinking. Let’s say that before I believed 30 percent in UFOs, now I believe 70 percent.”

The mystery of the strange craft over the Geneva stadium was compounded when the control tower at the Geneva International Airport responded to inquiries, saying that surveillance radar did not detect any unusual activity over the La Praille area between 8 p.m. and midnight.

The response by the control tower sparked a furious debate on social media, with hundreds of people confirming to skeptics that they saw a massive saucer-shaped UFO hovering over the Geneva stadium for several seconds before it sped away.

But some skeptics suggested that witnesses may have seen a drone equipped with LED lights.

However, an expert who analyzed images taken by witnesses concluded that the object was unlike any drone he had ever seen. According to Fabio Chironi, an aerial photography expert, the craft was simply too big to be explained away as a drone. He also argued that analysis of the footage did not reveal an aerial object resembling any known model of a drone

“Usually [drone] lights are arranged under the arms and not the ends,” Chironi told Tribune de Genève. “Moreover, they are of different colors to distinguish the front from the back. Finally, the object appears to be too big to be a drone.”

And although Chironi had no idea what the flying object might have been, popular UFO blogger Scott C. Waring was convinced, as usual, that he knew exactly what it was.

Waring claimed that the UFO was almost certainly a TR3B UFO.

“In the two videos posted to Facebook, I notice that there are three lights in the sky which make it look like a TR3B (alien tech in USAF hands), which could be USAF or it could be actual aliens,” he argued in an October 15 post to his UFO Sightings Daily blog.

According conspiracy theorists, TR3B crafts, also known as “black triangle UFOs,” are a new generation of advanced stealth reconnaissance aircraft developed by the USAF under decades-long Pentagon black projects.

The technology on which the alleged crafts are based was inspired by decades of reverse-engineering research conducted by teams of U.S. government scientists working in secret with alien UFOs recovered from several UFO crash sites, including Roswell in New Mexico.

The USAF TR-3 series includes prototypes, such as the TR-3A Black Manta, and the more advanced TR-3B prototypes that allegedly include the Aurora and the Astra.

UFO flying saucer hovers over a city

[Image by Andrea Crisante/Shutterstock]

Although the U.S. government has never acknowledged the existence of the alleged TR-3 crafts, alien hunters claim there have been hundreds of authenticated sightings following the first reported sightings in the 1980s over the Antelope Valley in southern California.

However, Waring argued that the craft that appeared over Geneva was possibly not a reverse-engineered USAF TR3B craft, but one of the original alien crafts that inspired the design of the USAF TR3Bs. And one reason why he thinks it may have been an alien craft was the observation that it released a “dozen tiny glowing white drones” while hovering overhead (see video above).

“I think it is a real alien craft because I see there are a dozen tiny glowing white drones that leave the UFO and fly about just over the houses,” Waring commented.

Another reason why he thinks it may have been an alien craft was that it appeared the UFO “cloaked” itself while hovering but began glowing brightly after it powered up and sped away

“Although an alien ship can cloak itself, when it powers up its propulsion to shoot away, it will glow and be visible at night,” he wrote.

UFO hunters believe that after many decades the U.S. government is still keeping the original alien crafts recovered from the UFO crash sites, including one recovered from a site near Roswell in 1947, and another recovered from a sight near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in the 1960s.

Thus, the UFO that appeared over the Geneva stadium may have been an alien craft manned by a human pilot or a UFO manned by ETs visiting Earth from space.

It is believed that government scientists and engineers were able to repair the crashed UFO crafts and human pilots learned through trial and error, during decades of reverse engineering efforts, to fly them.

[Featured Image by Esteban de Armas/Shutterstock]