Comet redux

Okay, can we all please please puhleeeeeez stop posting stuff without checking to see if it's true?

I know it's a pain in the ass, but this needs to become a habit.  For all of us.  Unless you make a practice of never reposting anything anywhere -- which eliminates most people -- it's got to become an automatic reflex when you're using social media.  Stop before you hit "forward" or "share" or whatnot and take five minutes to verify that it's accurate.

The reason this comes up is something about comet 3I-ATLAS that I've now seen posted four times.  I wrote about 3I-ATLAS here only a couple of weeks ago, and to cut to the chase: the considered opinions of the astronomers who have studied it -- i.e., the people who actually know what the hell they're talking about -- are that the object is an interstellar comet made mostly of frozen carbon dioxide.  Despite the claims of people like Avi Loeb, the alien-happy Harvard astronomer, it shows no sign of being an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

That, of course, isn't sufficient for a lot of people.  Without further ado, here's the image I've seen repeatedly posted:

There is nothing in this image that is accurate, unless you're counting "3I-ATLAS is an interstellar object" and "Japan has a space agency" as being in the "correct" column.  Japan's space agency has released no such "footage."  There are no "precise pulsating lights."  No scientist -- again, with the exception of Loeb and his pals -- are "questioning if it's artificial."

And the object in the image?  That's not 3I-ATLAS.  Jack Gilbert, of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, has identified it as a microorganism.  "That is a paramecium," Gilbert writes.  "Freshwater I believe -- although better phase contrast, and where it was found, would be ideal for better identification."

Another image that is making the rounds is from NASA, but it's being used to claim that the 3I-ATLAS has changed direction and speed in a fashion that "indicates some kind of propulsion system."  This shift in trajectory, they say, made the telescope at NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) image alter its aim to keep up with it, resulting in the background stars showing rainbow-colored streaks:

This isn't correct, either.  If you go to NOIRLab's website, you find a perfectly reasonable explanation of the streaks right there, without any reference to propulsion systems and alien spacecraft.  I quote:

Comet 3I/ATLAS streaks across a dense star field in this image captured by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South at Cerro Pachón in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.  This image is composed of exposures taken through four filters -- red, green, blue and ultraviolet.  As exposures are taken, the comet remains fixed in the center of the telescope's field of view.  However, the positions of the background stars change relative to the comet, causing them to appear as colorful streaks in the final image.

Once again, the upshot: 3I-ATLAS is a comet.  That's all.  Of great interest to planetary astronomers, but likely to be forgotten by just about everyone else after March of next year, at which point it will be zooming past Jupiter and heading back out into the depths of space, never to be seen again.  There is no credible evidence it's a spaceship.  If there was, believe me, you would not be able to get the astronomers to shut up about it.  The concept some people have of scientists keeping stuff hidden because they're just that secretive, and don't want anyone to know about their big discoveries, only indicates to me that these people know exactly zero scientists.  Trust me on this.  I know some actual scientists, and every single one of them loves nothing better than telling you at length about what they're working on, even if it's something that would interest 0.00000001% of the humans who have ever lived, such as the mating habits of trench-dwelling tube worms.  If there was strong (or, honestly, any) observation that supported this thing being the ship from Rendezvous With Rama, we'd all know about it.

And after all, if there was evidence out there, the hoaxers wouldn't have to use a photograph of a paramecium to support their bogus claims.

So for fuck's sake, please be careful about what you post.  It took me (literally) thirty seconds to find a site debunking the "Japan space agency" thing.  What I'm asking you to do is usually not in any way onerous.

I mean, really; wouldn't you rather be posting things that are cool, and also true?  There is so much real science to be fascinated and astonished by, you don't need these crazy claims.

And believe me, neither does the internet as a whole.

****************************************

The first step

The UFO community -- and, honestly, a great many other people -- are buzzing today because of the U.S. congressional hearing on Wednesday about what we are now supposed to call "UAPs" -- "unidentified aerial phenomena."

While I still do tend to agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson's comment that "if they're unidentified, that means you don't know what they are... and if you don't know what they are, that's where the conversation should stop," I have to say that even I and other folks who are accustomed to giving the side-eye to the hype are paying attention.  What strikes me about the people who testified are that they are not your stereotypical wild-eyed "I saw it in my back yard and no one believes me!" types.  They're staid military men with excellent reputations, who have now put those reputations on the line to bring to the attention of Congress -- and the public -- that there has been a coverup for years not only of sightings of UAPs, but recovery of material from downed craft.

Including what one of the whistleblowers, David Grusch, called "non-human biologicals."

It's kind of amusing how reluctant they are to use the "A" word or the "E" word, because as my wife pointed out, our dogs are "non-human biologicals."  But it was abundantly clear what -- or, rather, whom -- he was talking about.

I have to admit that some of the testimony was pretty eye-opening.  Navy pilot Ryan Graves, one of the people who testified, said that he and the people in his squadron had "frequently encountered objects... dark gray or black cubes inside a clear sphere," and that "if everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change."  Graves said he saw himself one of these cube-within-a-sphere objects hovering perfectly still -- in hurricane-force winds.  Another, David Fravor, said the craft he had personally seen were "far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today or are looking to develop in the next ten years."  

The members of Congress who attended the hearing all seemed to be taking the testimony completely seriously, which is itself a little shocking considering the partisan rancor accompanying damn near everything these days.  These craft -- whatever they are -- are being treated as a serious security concern, which I have to admit is accurate enough even if they aren't extraterrestrial in origin.  

I'm not ready to say we're being invaded by the Daleks or Skithra or Slitheen or what-have-you, but I have to admit that if what these people saw is of human make, the reports are downright peculiar.  Assuming the multiple sightings aren't simply fabrications or misinterpretations of natural phenomena -- and there are so many detailed accounts and records like radar and video footage that I don't see how you could discount them all -- the only other option is that they're advanced human technology (presumably not from the United States).  But it's a little hard to imagine some other country (China and Russia are the two whose names come up the most frequently) having technology that much more advanced than ours.

If I'm right about that, and I hasten to state that I'm no expert, we're thrown back on two possibilities.  Either these are some combination of glitches, misinterpretations, and lies, or they really are of non-human origin.

See?  Even I don't want to use the "A" word or the "E" word.

But unfortunately, a lot of the details -- including the hard evidence, like the pieces of downed craft and the "non-human biologicals" Grusch mentioned -- are still classified, and all three of the men who testified were very elusive about giving details in public.  And, of course, therein lies the problem; until we actually have material (biological or not) of extraterrestrial origin available for scientists to study, and written up in peer-reviewed journals, there aren't many of us skeptics who are going to be convinced.

Still, it's definitely grabbed a lot of people's attentions, including ones who ordinarily scoff at claims of UFOs and aliens and so on.  I hope that whatever comes out of this, we can drop some of the secrecy and bring out into the open whatever actual evidence there is.  If we really do have alien spacecraft buzzing about and keeping an eye on us -- if even some of the claims, going back to 1947 and the Roswell Incident are true -- then it seems like the public has a right to know.

So as a first step, the hearing was great, but it can't just stop there, or worse, conclude inside closed doors.  All that fosters is The X Files-style conspiracy theories, wild speculation by people who don't honestly have any solid facts, and more frustration from us skeptics who would just like to see, once and for all, whether there is evidence, and if so, what it actually is.

****************************************