Originally posted by easynow
so do you agree with Michiu Kaku's opinion or do you not have an opinion on that ?
Yes I have an opinion, and while I don't agree with Michiu Kaku's "panic" statement, I have other reasons to think some types of ET discoveries
might be kept secret based on some facts.
The facts are military secrets that have been declassified, and there's a long list, but the F117A is an example, is something that was kept secret
because it had a technology believed to be superior to that of enemy forces. It's in the best interest of self preservation of a military force to
maintain an advantage. Now look at the advantages of the F117, it was supposed to be nearly invisible to radar, but otherwise it's flight
characteristics and payload capabilities were unremarkable, in fact I doubt they could fly it without computer control the aerodynamics were so bad.
Now this had a slight advantage and it was kept secret, right?
What if a real flying disk crashed somewhere with alien propulsion technology that could be reverse engineered? The advantages of such a technology
could dwarf the slight advantages of the F117A, for example if it could travel fast enough to outrun any manmade missile it wouldn't even need
stealth, the missiles could never reach it. Now take the fact the F117A was once secret and use the same mindset involved in that security
classification to decide what level of security classification to apply to advanced technology from an alien source. It seems to me that it would be
an inescapable conclusion to expect the advanced alien technology would have even more reason to be kept secret than the F117A.
Now if we detect extremophile lifeforms on Mars or the moon, I don't think it would cause any kind of mass panic or unrest for people to learn
there's essentially bacteria or its equivalent living on other planets in our solar system, and no military advantages to keeping that secret for
reasons of national security. Furthermore, NASA seems stretched to get funding and a discovery of that nature would possibly allow them to get more
funding so we can learn more about the alien life. So no national security concerns if you don't believe people will panic about alien bacteria and I
think it's silly to think they would, and more funding...seems like there are no valid reasons why they wouldn't announce it.
With regard to the SETI question, Seth Shostak says there are no MIBs hovering over the SETI institute trying to classify any disclosures about ET
radio signals, and I happen to believe him. But I do agree with Kaku to an extent if Seti finds something, we won't hear about it right away, it will
be for different reasons, because Seti has found so many "false" signals from earth sources, the delay would be due to double-checking and
triple-checking the results to rule out any earth sources before concluding it's really an alien signal. Now about these new protocols being drafted
for the Allen array that Kaku refers to, I'm a little bit undecided on that, I really don't think it would cause mass panic to learn that we got
radio signals from ET located many light years or more from earth. Could someone decide someday that such a discovery should be kept secret? I
wouldn't rule it out, but if you believe Kaku's explanation of "draft protocols" then perhaps he's also alluding to the fact that since they are
drafts, there's really no formal, approved secrecy protocol in place yet for SETI discoveries.
[edit on 26-11-2009 by Arbitrageur]