Are UFOs just AI probes which are learning?

It would explain a lot, I think. I think that UFOs might just be a type of "Von Nuemann probe"

A von Neumann probe is a self-replicating spacecraft designed to investigate its target system and transmit information about it back to its system of origin.[6] The concept is named after Hungarian American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann, who rigorously studied the concept of self-replicating machines that he called "Universal Assemblers" and which are often referred to as "von Neumann machines". While von Neumann never applied his work to the idea of spacecraft, theoreticians since then have done so.

If a self-replicating probe finds evidence of primitive life (or a primitive, low level culture) it might be programmed to lie dormant, silently observe, attempt to make contact (this variant is known as a Bracewell probe), or even interfere with or guide the evolution of life in some way.

... BRACEWELL PROBE ...

A Bracewell probe would be constructed as an autonomous robotic interstellar space probe with a high level of artificial intelligence, and all relevant information that its home civilization might wish to communicate to another culture. It would seek out technological civilizations — or alternatively monitor worlds where there is a likelihood of technological civilizations arising — and communicate over "short" distances (compared to the interstellar distances between inhabited worlds) once it discovered a civilization that meets its contact criteria. It would make its presence known, carry out a dialogue with the contacted culture, and presumably communicate the results of its encounter to its place of origin. In essence, such probes would act as an autonomous local representative of their home civilization and would act as the point of contact between the cultures.

Crop Circles could be a way that this AI is attempting to communicate with life, very subtly because of the hoax implications, here by using natural images and patterns rather than any type of human or alien language. They could also just be "warming us up" to their presence.

After all, by what mechanisms would we assume that these AI probes are attempting to learn the human language. I don't think it would be a very easy task, universal linguistics, that is... and simple mistakes in a newly learned language could lead to misinterpreted messages.

It would also explain why when they are seen by other aircraft (perhaps because they are hiding in the sky, recharging their energy sources, or even recording data in some type of stable particle matrix that they have the ability to create and store in the atmosphere) why they usually get away.

It would also answer the question of "Why they would travel light-years just to make circles in the crops". It's because they are essentially dispensable probes and there is a high chance that the seemingly biological life forms inside are merely an anthropomorphic prototypical yet still alien looking model created after viewing the most intelligent form of life on the planet. In our case they have a symmetrical body, two eyes, head, arms, legs, digits, etc...

When and if they do decide to, after enough investigation, make themselves known and offer to meet with our world leaders - and they are attacked and destroyed.. it will not be a sign of aggression, but merely a sign that we are not ready. We've merely destroyed a self-replicating probe of virtually no value to those who have constructed them.

They've done it this way to protect both sides.

Cool idea. Makes perfect sense to me. I'm going to think about this some more and I'll post some more in a little while...

my only qualm with this (playing devils advocate and agreeing that aliens are real) is that UFOs tend to be pretty big for just probes

Well,its obviously hard for us to even try to put ourselves in the mindset of an alien.But logically...it would make sense for an advanced species to send out probes with AI more than likely far greater than human intelligence to probe the galaxy.Send back information and if anything of significance popped up maybe then they would send a manned ship to investigate.And advanced civilization could probably send out millions of these and it would obviously be more efficient than aliens being inside every ship.

Originally posted by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest
my only qualm with this (playing devils advocate and agreeing that aliens are real) is that UFOs tend to be pretty big for just probes

That could be true if the whole reason is not to be noticed. With all of the abduction stories, it seems to be logical that they would create probes that are large enough to be familiar to humans. This would include being large enough to have rooms, human accustomed sized controls and other environmental objects that we would immediately recognize like tables, lights, ect...

Originally posted by trace_the_truth

Originally posted by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest
my only qualm with this (playing devils advocate and agreeing that aliens are real) is that UFOs tend to be pretty big for just probes

That could be true if the whole reason is not to be noticed. With all of the abduction stories, it seems to be logical that they would create probes that are large enough to be familiar to humans. This would include being large enough to have rooms, human accustomed sized controls and other environmental objects that we would immediately recognize like tables, lights, ect...

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maybe most UFOs are probes and the abductions are done by actual alien spaceships that have traveled here. maybe they have a base of operations closer to home where the probes get sent from and where the spaceships return to between abducting people.

Cool thread, where'd you get your information from? It's a really interesting idea and would seem to make more sense from an exploration point of view, probably economic/resources-wise.

S&F

Originally posted by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest

Originally posted by trace_the_truth

Originally posted by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest
my only qualm with this (playing devils advocate and agreeing that aliens are real) is that UFOs tend to be pretty big for just probes

That could be true if the whole reason is not to be noticed. With all of the abduction stories, it seems to be logical that they would create probes that are large enough to be familiar to humans. This would include being large enough to have rooms, human accustomed sized controls and other environmental objects that we would immediately recognize like tables, lights, ect...

__________________________________________________________________________
maybe most UFOs are probes and the abductions are done by actual alien spaceships that have traveled here. maybe they have a base of operations closer to home where the probes get sent from and where the spaceships return to between abducting people.

That could be true, but it somewhat goes against the idea of sending out probes in an omni directional fashion from your home planet. The idea for the probes is that they have all the resources available to monitor, analyze, and make contact with humans while providing a security blanket between both races. Being self-replicating, they would be able to intelligently design the next generation of devices around the environment and species of the planet.

The idea about the probes is that they are ambassadors of an alien civilization. In order to provide the most safe way for an alien race to converge with humanity on various levels (economically, socially) I think it would be more practical to at first have the probes show up and condition the planet for the next step. After that, it would be AI biological drones (The Greys that have human qualities) and finally, after acceptance of that, the true alien form which resembles nothing of a human.

Originally posted by jokei
Cool thread, where'd you get your information from? It's a really interesting idea and would seem to make more sense from an exploration point of view, probably economic/resources-wise.

S&F

I got the quoted material from wikipedia, but I've studied Von Neumann's work in college in computer science and economics classes.

How a von Neumann probe might work

Boyce, in his book, envisaged the following scenario. Initially, a von Neumann probe, consisting of an interstellar propulsion system and a universal von Neumann replicator with human-level intelligence, would be launched from the home star toward a neighboring stellar system. Upon arrival it would seek out raw materials, from local sources such as asteroids, and use these to make several copies of itself (including its rocket engines). The copies would then be launched at the next set of neighboring stars. This process would be repeated, over and over again, so that increasing numbers of identical probes would be involved in penetrating ever more remote regions of the Galaxy.

Having dispatched copies of itself, a probe would begin to explore the star system in which it found itself. It would conduct scientific research and transmit the results back to the point of origin. It could also be used as a means of interstellar colonization by constructing an artificial life-sustaining environment and then implanting this with synthesized fertile egg-cells bearing genomes transcribed from the probe's computer memory. Eiseley has suggested that the embryonic individuals of such a colony could be tended by robots, also built by the probe, until they were old enough to function independently. They would then be free to develop their own civilization around the host star.

The great advantage of a von Neumann probe is that, being a universal machine, it can be used for any purpose at its target system depending on the instructions sent out to it from its ultimate creators. Consequently, as the creators made technological advances at home they could reprogram a remote von Neumann probe, for example, to build faster rocket engines for the next generation of probes or more sensitive sensing equipment with which to study its host stellar system. How rapidly the Galaxy could be completely explored and colonized in this way depends on several factors, including the interstellar transit times of the probes (see interstellar travel), the speed at which they reproduce and carry out other tasks within the host systems, and the specific strategy used for interstellar colonization.

These probes could also be used as a way to colonize a galaxy in order to ensure the long term survival of a species so that it's not based upon the age of the host star. It's not readily apparent that humans could have come from probes such as this due to evolutionary clues, but it could even be that the whole purpose of these probes for some advanced civilization is the create intelligent life in the universe where it had not existed before by introducing some type of "evolutionary algorithm" which resequenced the DNA of a particular creature (primate) on Earth, which resulted in us.

Perhaps if humans ever discovered that we were the only intelligent form of life, that we would take it upon ourselves to introduce probes like this that had the ability to find non-intelligent life and introduce an evolutionary algorithm to speed up the process.

If UFOs are probes with AI that are trying to communicate with humans using crop circles then I guess their AI is as good as ours, because it may sure be artificial, but it's far from intelligent.

The general idea is a good one, but once you started talking about crop circles being used as a way of communicating with humans you spoilt it all, at least for me, not because I think that crop circles are human creations (and I really do think that) but because, as a way of communicating something, they have been proved useless, nobody has the faintest idea of what they mean.

But it's a good, general, idea, and it also made me think that, if from a not so distant source, they can even be remotely controlled in some way, like we do with the Mars rovers; someone looking at them on Mars may consider them as having their own intelligence (see, vze2xjjk, I even consider your opinions as possibilities ).

Originally posted by ArMaP

The general idea is a good one, but once you started talking about crop circles being used as a way of communicating with humans you spoilt it all, at least for me, not because I think that crop circles are human creations (and I really do think that) but because, as a way of communicating something, they have been proved useless, nobody has the faintest idea of what they mean.

I think you are assuming too much when I say "communication".

The whole point of the probes creating crop circles is communication through mystery.

It's a very conceptual idea. They are creating something which is a mystery to us. It opens up the question of "Where did this come from?" and has no concrete answer... and an object without a concrete answer regarding its origin is exactly what is supposed to be created.

If we knew 100% that aliens/alien probes had created crop circles, then what good would that do? How would we react? Some people still think they are maps or markers for areas to attack! We first have to be massaged into accepting the fact that they are not here to harm us or change us, but merely to be with us?

Knowledge of their presence is one thing, but I believe that intent of presence must be understood before fact of presence. I think they are trying to communicate something similar along the lines of "love" where we must believe in the intent of love, rather than a fact of love to get anywhere.

As I said before, this is just a step to "warm us up" to the idea that things still exist out there which we will not, and can not now understand until we are ready. They don't want to appear to us right away with a technology that is entirely indistinguishable from magic. They don't want us to think they are our religion's Gods, Angels, or Demons (Anymore???)

reply to post by trace_the_truth


Communication through mystery?

I understand it now (I think), but to me, communication means transmission of data between two active "elements" (for the lack of a better name) in a way that both can understand.

It may be a flawed interpretation, but I don't think that would be the best way of communicating with someone else, that way the ones being contacted could make a completely wrong interpretation of the communication and jeopardise the whole idea behind it, I don't see it as an effective way of communication.

Unless the idea is not to be understood, but that way I don't call that communication, just teasing.

And, as I said before, I don't think crop circles are related to the presence of extra-terrestrial life forms (or even AI probes), so it's a little difficult for me to follow that "crop circle connection" possibility.

Edited to correct the "Reply to " part, I didn't noticed that I used my own post, sorry.

[edit on 29/6/2009 by ArMaP]

I do believe that theory is correct based on my personal experience. I was walking home at around 10pm with a friend of mine, we were about 7 houses away from where I lived when I noticed a cylinder shaped object about 30 feet away from us sitting in grass. It was matte black with a triangle protrusion on top.

As I pointed it out to my friend we started to approach it and when we were about 20 feet away it just shot straight up into the night sky without making a sound. To this day I am pretty sure it was some kind of a probe, at least that was my impression of it.

Originally posted by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest
my only qualm with this (playing devils advocate and agreeing that aliens are real) is that UFOs tend to be pretty big for just probes

Big? Compared to..? Oh, compared to OUR logic.

You do realize there are stars mind-blowingly larger than our own, and same with planets, so why not same with what is considered "big" in those areas of the universe?

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by ArMaP

 

Communication through mystery?

Unless the idea is not to be understood, but that way I don't call that communication, just teasing.

And, as I said before, I don't think crop circles are related to the presence of extra-terrestrial life forms (or even AI probes), so it's a little difficult for me to follow that "crop circle connection" possibility.

It could be similar to a sign/countersign exchange. When someone approaches a sentry or another spy, they say some phrase like "The bull at the market is in a rampage" and if they receive the correct countersign of "But the bird on his back has calmed him down" then they know they are talking to a right person.

Perhaps we don't understand what we are supposed to be countersigning. Perhaps people have been creating crop circles to countersign the ones made by aliens.

UFOs might be both AI and intelligence controlled. We just have the term UFO for anything hovering in the sky we cannot explain. It is logical to assume other civilizations have invented space flight and that might exist a vast interstellar network of routes and hubs that would need some kind of maintenance like active probing for navigational hazards to be observed and identified and even active management of the environment at some extend for that hypothetical network to be at functional levels. We also know nothing about how interstellar should really work in an empirical way or how it is supposed to really look like, or even how nature would influence any of its mechanics if it could. It could be several different methods of traveling from intelligent species, we just assume that UFOs are visitors from outer space with an interest in our civilization while large portion of it could be normal interstellar traffic of some sort with different methods employed by different civilizations and even activity of some kind of network pathways maintenance and or active probing scanning exploration for updating data for it and the immediate different environments that this network has to interact with.

Also crop circles might not be intended for us to be understandable simply because we might not be the intended recipients at least for some portion of them. We might just happened to be here, in someones path.

Some things could be simple after all.

[edit on 29-6-2009 by spacebot]

UFOs are all HI for human intelligence.
Even Walton knows but had to say tall greys.
His nasty bump on the head luckily didn't have complications.
Perhap it was the force of the saucer landing.
He might have got hit by a landing light on the landing gear.

Spent the last couple of days searching the Web for similar theories to my recent 'UFOs are Machine Intelligence' thread and it seems like this idea is gaining traction in academic circles

There is a similar thread here on ATS from 2009, perhaps from the halcyon days when ATS featured rational debate rather than wild excursions like "My neighbours dog is a cloaked gray alien", which caught my attention because it may bring crop circles into the thesis

I never really paid much attention to the crop circle phenomenon but there was a study performed by Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff which showed that the 'node length', where each blade of corn is bent across the crop circle, resembles the distribution of electromagnetic radiation from a point source:

www.youtube.com...=4m34s

That video finishes with the assertion that "It is now a scientifically accepted fact that at least some crop circles were generated by balls of light"

It got me thinking that such crop circles, which may be very difficult to hoax, could be some form of communication or even machine art disseminated by our cybiotic von neumann orbs

I also read that in such crop circles each blade of corn survives because the nodes are extruded with heat, and not just trampled by hippies with a plank of wood, which may alleviate wider concerns regarding the peaceful intentions of these proposed extraterrestrial entities

Perhaps one could create a crop circle depicting a mathematical construct like a Mandelbrot set with deliberate errors and then film the scene expecting the orbs to show up and correct the errors

One criticism that was raised on my thread is the fact that von neumann probes could mutate during replication and go haywire

There is an interesting excerpt from the Wikipedia page on self-replicating spacecraft:

"It would only require a single probe to malfunction and begin unrestricted reproduction for the entire approach to fail unless each probe also has the ability to detect such malfunction in its neighbours and implements a seek and destroy protocol"

en.wikipedia.org...

It occurred to me that this may actually introduce coherence into my theory that the orbs have been deactivating nuclear missiles causing panic in the military

Perhaps the orbs recognise nuclear missiles as malfunctioning probes which threaten the existence of biological life and automatically seek and destroy such malevolent machines

(I wonder if threads can be merged on ATS)

After an experience I've had I also think they are probes. I was walking home with a friend in the evening when about 50 feet ahead of us we noticed a mate black cylinder off to the side off the sidewalk. It was about 4 feet tall and it had a distinct flat triangle on top of it. As we got closer it shot off straight up into the air and disappeared into the night sky without making any sound.

Ever since seeing that object I always thought it was some kind of a probe, and if you think about it why would little gray aliens zoom around our planet when its much easier to send probes?