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March 11, 2018 — Robert Schroeder with J. Randall Murphy


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
We revisit this subject with an expanded perspective and some critical comment.

But Robert's a sweet guy, calm, gentle, and didn't mind some difficult questions.

We decided to finish this episode on After The Paracast, where Greg Bishop joined us, and the discussion expanded to include a Washington Post story about the apparent lack of interest in UFOs on the part of the government.

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Robert's ideas are speculative, but they are based on real science. I think we should welcome such an attempt to explain the propulsion of UFOs.
By contrast, the co-creation hypothesis is far out. There's no reason to believe the mind can create things out of thin air, without taking advantage of limbs and tools.
 
You know I love the show but this one left me frustrated because the poor guest was hammered pillar to post to keep things simple (if I want simple, I can tune into C2C or Jimmy Church, i tune into the paracast as I assume we can dive in a bit deeper). I wish you could have just let the man get on with the thing you had asked him to come on and do.

Secondly he was then asked how you might look for evidence of this science and then was berated about his answer e.g. no that could be camouflage. He wasn't making a case that this was conclusive evidence, he was saying it could indicate this effect was being used. He never said it rules out active camouflage.

Overall he puts a case worth consideration as it could explain how the distance problem is solved and some possible observable effects of such a technology. Bravo.

Also Randall, you can say we KNOW ufos exist all you like but we don't know. There are reports of UFOs, we can say the reports exist, but then there are also reports of fairies and Bigfoot. No evidence exists to prove UFOs are real as a physical phenomenon. Sorry dude.
 
"UFOs are here to make us think"

This theory doesn't hold up well.

If you wanted to make people think, why would you appear at 2am in the morning to 1 person who is walking their dog? Why not do a mass sighting and then the "thinking" would be done with all the added benefits of mass participation and the credibility of observation

Can we imagine humans doing this? If we thought their was a primitive race on mars, would our goverments sign a bill authorising the tax payer dollars and risk of human life so we could go and make another species "think" by abstractly showing up in various elusive ways. It's absurd.

It's another one of these ego centric theories that humans are so important and so special that aliens are willing to travel the cosmos just so they can dance around, hoping they in someway will make us think. Why would they want to dedicate their time and their resources just for our benefit? C'mon
 
You know I love the show but this one left me frustrated because the poor guest was hammered pillar to post to keep things simple (if I want simple, I can tune into C2C or Jimmy Church, i tune into the paracast as I assume we can dive in a bit deeper). I wish you could have just let the man get on with the thing you had asked him to come on and do.
We did let him go on ... and on and on ... often with stuff that most of our listeners are already well aware of. Finally it became necessary to just get to the point.
Secondly he was then asked how you might look for evidence of this science and then was berated about his answer e.g. no that could be camouflage.
There was no "berating" going on at all. It is perfectly legitimate to point out that the sorts of observations he described can have a much simpler explanation. Ockham's Razor isn't always correct. But that doesn't make it unreasonable or insulting to anyone either.
He wasn't making a case that this was conclusive evidence, he was saying it could indicate this effect was being used. He never said it rules out active camouflage.
Schroeder clearly says he doesn't think the strange vanishing behavior of UFOs is stealth technology ( around the 1 hour mark ). It's true he doesn't say that UFOs don't use stealth technology as well, but in the context of what we were talking about, he was clearly in disagreement.
Overall he puts a case worth consideration as it could explain how the distance problem is solved and some possible observable effects of such a technology. Bravo.
Actually the assumption that Schroeder's theory "could" explain the distance problem is entirely dependent on certain things being the actual case. The word "could" also implies a logical consistency that would make the theory possible. There are serious problems on both accounts.
Also Randall, you can say we KNOW ufos exist all you like but we don't know. There are reports of UFOs, we can say the reports exist, but then there are also reports of fairies and Bigfoot. No evidence exists to prove UFOs are real as a physical phenomenon. Sorry dude.
Your assumption about what I meant by the word "we" when I say "we know" seems to assume that I mean "everybody", which is not accurate. The show is aimed at an audience reasonably well informed on the subject of UFOs, many of whom know from a combination of sufficient firsthand experience and study that UFOs are real. Obviously there are probably a lot of other people who don't even know about UFOs at all. So how could they know? But that's a technicality that isn't in context with the situation. And to be fair, I did try to briefly put that comment into context by adding "at least we in the UFO community".

Certainly you could be entitled to the opinion that those of us who do know don't really know. But that is rather weak in the face of the number of reasonably good cases out there that have been reported by reasonably good eyewitnesses, and it certainly isn't going to hold much weight with those of us who have had firsthand experiences. But believe whatever you want. I can't download my consciousness into yours and you don't know how to do a Vulcan mind meld, so there's no way to demonstrate to you that there are those of us who know, and there's no way for you to demonstrate that we don't know.

And BTW my comment above wasn't put to you in a scientific context, so invoking a burden of proof counterpoint isn't relevant to this discussion. But even if it was, I fully admit that to my knowledge, there is insufficient verifiable scientifically valid material evidence to prove to everyone in the world that alien craft have visited Earth. However even in the absence of that evidence, it's also true that there's no substantial counterpoint sufficient for anyone to reasonably claim I and at least some others out here in the world don't know UFOs are real.

Therefore in the absence of evidence that disproves the reasoning of those who say they know, or proves every case to be a hoax, telling me or anyone else they "don't know" is not a reasonable or fair-minded position. You'll need to do better than simply declare the knowledge doesn't exist.
 
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Overall he puts a case worth consideration as it could explain how the distance problem is solved and some possible observable effects of such a technology. Bravo.
This merits some clarification: the distance problem has been solved for decades - any form of gravitational field propulsion will do the trick. Expoiting the Alcubierre metric, you could leap to the Andromeda galaxy and be back in time for dinner, if you could generate a steep enough dipolar gravitational field gradient. Heck - if you're willing to jump forward in time with respect to your departure point, any relativistic travel will get the job done: at an acceleration of just 1g, you can circumnavigate the visible universe in your own lifetime due to on-board time dilation, but the Earth would be a cold cinder by the time you get back.

Honestly, the fact that people still think that there is a distance problem, is a chilling testament to the enormous inertia in the public's understanding of physics. Even special relativity tells us that it's possible to travel to Alpha Centauri and back within in a few weeks of on-board flight time, but the Earth will have aged more than eight years when you get back. You actually have to go all the way back to Newtonian physics before you run up against the now-completely-debunked concept that you can't get anywhere faster than the speed of light (8+ years to Alpha Centauri and back, for example) - and we've known for over a century that Newtonian physics gives us the wrong answers in these kinds of scenarios. And with general relativity, there are no time/distance limitations whatsoever: the only limitations with GR lie with your technological capability to distort the spacetime metric. So in practice, according to GR, it's theoretically possible for a craft to visit the Earth from beyond the horizon of the observable universe, and return within a week, or even a day, with respect to your launch point - and you won't even feel any acceleration in transit.

So we already have the theoretical physics to permit superluminal travel like we've seen in Star Trek - the only thing that's holding us back is the limitation of our modern technology.

There are reports of UFOs, we can say the reports exist, but then there are also reports of fairies and Bigfoot. No evidence exists to prove UFOs are real as a physical phenomenon. Sorry dude.
You're mixing up your terminology here: there's a vast body of evidence that UFOs exist, and that they've been prancing about our airspace for over 70 years: myriad credible eyewitness reports, radar-visual cases, trace evidence cases, and of course the enormous body of evidence collected by the DoD, of which we've only recently been permitted the most fleeting and ambiguous little glimpses. Thanks in part to Luis Elizondo's break from routine protocol, we now have a pretty clear idea of the actual extent of the evidence that the DoD has collected in recent years, and what he's seen as director of the AATIP is apparently well beyond "a reasonable doubt."

But okay - we plebes in the public sector haven't had the privilege of seeing what he's seen, thanks to the excessive secrecy of the US government. We still have an abundance of evidence. But that's still not equivalent to "scientific proof," which is an altogether different issue. The DoD clearly has sufficient evidence to constitute "proof." But the public? No, not really. The really clear and compelling evidence has been collected by the US military, and they're not sharing (except for a few brief blurry clips which prove nothing).

But for those of us who have seen these devices perform totally unearthly inertia-defying maneuvers, it's already essentially proven to us. Because 70 years after people started reporting sightings of exotic devices zig-zagging through the sky at thousands of miles per hour, as I've seen and many others as well, even the most cutting-edge modern military jets can't even come close to those kinds of maneuvers, because it takes applied general relativity to achieve those kinds of performance characteristics, and we still don't even have a plausible conceptual approach to get there. But we can and will get there, because these devices operating in our airspace prove that it's possible. So it's only a matter of time before we figure it out. And in my opinion, that's probably why they're here, and monitoring our progress - think about what we're doing to Syria right now, and then imagine what we might do when we discover the technique for superluminal spaceflight so we can reach inhabited alien worlds. If I were a neighboring alien civilization, I'd be deeply concerned about that. And I'd be as covert as possible with my monitoring efforts. Because until we wrest control of our military apparatus away from the sociopathic war profiteers, human civilization as it is today poses an existential threat to every form of life in the galaxy, including our own.
 
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Robert's ideas are speculative, but they are based on real science. I think we should welcome such an attempt to explain the propulsion of UFOs.
A very fair-minded position to take. I would only add that we might want to distinguish between "real science" and theoretical science, and the degree to which someone who isn't a theoretical physicist should invoke theoretical science that they don't fully understand as an explanation for something we're not sure works anything like the way is being suggested. Otherwise we're inviting accusations of pseudoscience, and I'd go so far as to say that Schroeder's theory falls dangerously close to pseudoscience, if not falls all the way in.
By contrast, the co-creation hypothesis is far out. There's no reason to believe the mind can create things out of thin air, without taking advantage of limbs and tools.
I completely agree. But I also think that co-creation implies that the witness plays a part in the formation of the perceptions experienced. In that context, the co-creation theory could be very true.
 
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A very fair-minded position to take. I would only add that we might want to distinguish between "real science" and theoretical science, and the degree to which someone who isn't a theoretical physicist should invoke theoretical science that they don't fully understand as an explanation for something we're not sure works anything like the way is being suggested. Otherwise we're inviting accusations of pseudoscience, and I'd go so far as to say that Schroeder's theory falls dangerously close to pseudoscience, if not falls all the way in.
I'm uncomfortable with the conflation between "theoretical physics," which I regard as the wing of physics which is perfectly valid and yet often beyond the limits of our technological capabilities (gravity waves, for example, were "theoretical physics" until our detectors achieved sufficient accuracy to prove their existence) - and Schroeder's ideas. Unless Schroeder has published an academic paper which has passed peer review, then it doesn't qualify as "theoretical physics" - it could only qualify as "speculative physics" if not "pseudoscience." Honestly I'd be surprised if Schroeder's ideas have passed the peer review process.

But I also think that co-creation implies that the witness plays a part in the formation of the perceptions experienced. In that context, the co-creation theory could be very true.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and here's what I think: my sighting experience has the exact same quality of objective reality as seeing a shooting star. Sure, the way that I describe my sightings of a shooting star may involve subtle personal idiosyncrasies. But nobody would invoke the "co-creation hypothesis" to explain my sightings of shooting stars. So the "co-creation hypthesis" is just a BS way of saying that what I saw was somehow "in my mind." No. It wasn't "in my mind," or in any way a product of my mind. It happened in objective reality just like a shooting star. And I resent any implication that it had something to do with me.

If someone tried to tell you that the shooting stars that you've witnessed involved "the co-creation hypothesis," you'd be annoyed, because you'd know that it's a BS explanation: shooting stars are real events involving tangible physical objects. So was my sighting. Stop trying to attribute it to my mind - it was as physically and objectively real as a meteor.

I'm sorry that some people have so much trouble conceiving that technologically advanced physical devices are operating in our airspace from time to time, but that's what's happening, and it has nothing to do with my mind, or anyone else's mind. They're caught on radar and FLIR cameras, for crying out loud. No metaphysical mumbo jumbo explanation is required; they're just technological devices.
 
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and here's what I think: my sighting experience has the exact same quality of objective reality as seeing a shooting star. Sure, the way that I describe my sightings of a shooting star may involve subtle personal idiosyncrasies. But nobody would invoke the "co-creation hypothesis" to explain my sightings of shooting stars. So the "co-creation hypthesis" is just a BS way of saying that what I saw was somehow "in my mind." No. It wasn't "in my mind," or in any way a product of my mind. It happened in objective reality just like a shooting star. And I resent any implication that it had something to do with me.
It's natural to be annoyed at the suggestion that your unimpaired firsthand observations are essentially some sort of hallucination. But at the same time not everyone is like you or I. Some people are less well informed and more prone to interpreting things according to their own biases, including UFO witnesses.

I recall interviewing a couple who were insisting that a bright object they had been viewing over the mountains west of Calgary was a UFO, but it turned out that they were seniors with eyesight that wasn't perfect and that Sirius was in the same location on each evening. We watched it ourselves the following day and then asked them if they also saw it. They did. So what we saw as a bright star setting in the west, they saw as a UFO landing in the mountains. So I can see how although co-creation might not apply to everyone, it could apply to enough people that over time it leaves an imprint in the ufolore.
 
"I have seen fairies.

Some people who haven't seen them will say they may not exist, but not me and the other people who have seen them.

We know they exist."

You can see why this is a problematic position to take when making arbitrary statements such as we know "X" exists, you don't. You think you know, big difference
 
You have this all distorted. We never disputed the possibile validity of Robert's theory, only the fact that he seemed to be pushing the possible UFO connection too much. In fact I said quite the reverse, that I was interested in the theory as a possible means of interstellar travel.

You must have heard a different show.

Nobody was upset because Doty didn't make it.
 
now-completely-debunked concept that you can't get anywhere faster than the speed of light

Wait, what?

The AC drive works - if it works at all - by expanding and contracting space conveniently. You never actually travel faster than light, because the space around your ship is the thing that's moving. You're actually not moving at all.

It's a pretty nifty hack, but I'm not convinced it's a thing. (And I know we disagree and we don't need to air it here, I get why you think it might work and I know you get why I think it might not.)
 
This is definitely correct. But in GMP's defense, USI Calgary has said that UFOs are alien by definition.
Not that I've ever heard. We discussed this in person at length, and I think he's open to other possibilities - I think he just thinks the simplest answer is the ETH.

And I agree with him.

Randall, feel free to disagree with me, and apologies if I've put words in your mouth.
 
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