Aliens & UFOs

Not so long ago I mentioned the great city of Alexandria in the post Constantine & Naissus when I described the horrible misfortune and death of Hypatia, one of the greatest philosophers and astronomers of the 4th century AD, who lived at the very end of the classical Greek era of prosperity. Within the same city walls, a couple of centuries before, one of the greatest and most famous scientists of all time, Claudius Ptolemy, was living, exploring, teaching, and dedicating his life to various disciplines, including astronomy and, of course, the unavoidable astrology, which was considered to be "connected science" for centuries, especially in the old ages.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

Among other things, Ptolemy will be remembered as one of the first scholars who described and identified 48 constellations of clear and unpolluted nightly skies above Alexandria so many centuries ago. One of the biggest constellations in his list was the great constellation of Gemini. This zodiac member* (one of 13 constellations that appears in the background of the Sun during one year of Earth's orbit) is made out of 80 stars. Perhaps the most interesting stars in Gemini are two "twins", Castor and Pollux (twin brothers from Greek mythology), who are among the brightest star systems of the heavens, the first being a system made out of 6 stars gravitationally bonded while the other is an old and evolved giant star. These two stars are the pillars of the whole constellation and certainly the most important stars in Gemini, but from the point of view related to this post's title, maybe the more interesting star in the constellation is its 37th member. A star without a name with astronomical designation HD50692 and simply called 37 Geminorum or "37 Gem". It came to focus during the year of 2003 when astronomers Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull, under Project Phoenix (a part of SETI), published the article Target Selection for SETI. I. A Catalog of Nearby Habitable Stellar Systems. The goal was to, by thorough examination of various star features (like star age, composition, similarity to the Sun, capability to harbor a stable habitable zone where liquid water can exist, etc.), narrow down 118,218 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue database to the relatively small number of potential SETI targets. The result of the research is the Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat), with a selection of 17,129 candidates with potentially habitable exoplanets capable of complex life similar to Earth.

After this initial research was done in 2003, according to one of the paper writers, astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull, "37 Gem" was most likely the best candidate to harbor an Earth twin planet within its Goldilocks zone. The star is stable and non-variant, middle-aged, and just a bit hotter and brighter than our Sun. It is located 56.3 light-years from our solar system, and it is one billion years older than our sun. Now, if this system is rich with elements originated from old supernova explosions in the distant past, like in our planetary front yard, and if major cosmic collisions and natural doomsday scenarios didn't interfere much with the evolution of lifeforms, then this star and its potential planetary system is more than promising. However, so far no planets are detected in this system, and no radio messages are caught from this direction, but if some Earth-like planet is there and, in one potential scenario, if some sort of intelligent life emerged and evolved, the fact is that they had one billion years ahead of us. In simple words, if alien humanoids, or whatever they look like, exist, they could be far more advanced than we are, and they may not communicate with radio waves anymore. Furthermore, if interstellar travels are possible with some sort of 'warp speed' spaceship technology, it is likely that they already developed it by now. Not to mention that this kind of advanced civilization would be fully aware of all star systems in their neighborhood of, say, 100 light-years in all directions. In other words, if they exist, they already know about us.

Astronomy, of course, is the science dealing with extremely large numbers, and thanks to many new techniques in interstellar observation, we now know a great deal about the star "37 Gem". Even though the two stars are similar in many aspects, it is actually not the exact Sun twin. Like in the case of the identical twins of the mythological story of Castor and Pollux, the two stars are different. Slightly, but they are. Way back in the year of 2004, I read one interesting hypothetical question within a popular Serbian Astronomy Magazine. Miroslav Filipović, one of the astronomers who worked at the time at the Australian Parkes Observatory, asked a very interesting question. He wondered what would happen if we took the almighty hand and in one millisecond replaced our sun with "37 Gem"? It was actually an interactive quiz question (here is the Serbian link), and I couldn't resist posting my thoughts on the subject. Basically I said that this scenario would be catastrophic for our solar system. All orbits would start changing immediately, and our Goldilocks zone would suffer the most as the asteroid belt would go into a chaotic stage, and in the process of adjusting to the new boss, until all orbits stabilize, Earth would probably lose all habitable properties due to asteroid bombardments similar to the early stage of the solar system, and life as we know it would most definitely cease to exist. The biggest unknown to me was what would happen to Jupiter? This giant planet and its orbit act as a gravitational balance between the main star and all other planets, and with its enormous gravity, it attracts all killer objects toward itself and keeps the asteroid belt in line. The moral of the story is that even the slightest difference between two stars can be the major difference in their system geometry and behavior. Not to mention that if we use our solar system analogy, in order for life to survive billions of years of evolution, there must exist one giant planet in the right position in order to protect the planets in the habitable zone from serious attacks from large asteroids and comets. If we put this story into consideration, it seems now that finding Sun's twin doesn't guarantee the existence of a habitable Earth-like planet capable of the evolution of intelligent life.

With the latest update of this post, I tried to simulate this hypothetical scenario in Universe Sandbox. 37 Gem, actually, is not part of the app's default library, so, to test it out, I just enhanced the Sun's mass to match 37 Gem's, which is estimated to be 1.1 solar masses. In the simulation result, within hours and days, the Earth's orbit changed and the Goldilocks zone expanded, causing the average temperature to jump from a cozy fifteen degrees to more than fifty. I am not sure that there is a physics process in existence to create something like this, but this fragileness gave me another stomach twitching nevertheless.

But to get back to the title, and in light of so many reported UFO sightings all over the world and with lots of stories involving alien autopsies, abducted humans, and (ancient) alien astronauts, we believers can ask ourselves, is there an ultimate connection between aliens & UFOs?

Well, the ultimate fact is that we still have no single proof that aliens exist at all, and sometimes, the lack of proof means that it doesn't exist at all, and in this case, this might be true for our small interstellar neighborhood. So, for now, the answer to the famous question "Are there aliens in UFOs?" will stay "No". UFO will still be what the acronym means in the first place: "Unidentified Flying Object". To be honest, on several occasions I saw UFOs in the sky. One of them was pretty memorable—a decade or so ago there was one bright light flying very fast above the beach resort in Greece, and its magnitude was probably about -5 or even brighter, which was probably the brightness of three or four full Venus magnitudes, and believe me or not, what first popped to my mind wasn't aliens driving some fancy saucer, and instead the first thing I thought was that this might be related to the jet military planes from the nearby air force base located a couple of hundred kilometers near Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country. It's not that I am one of those conspiracy theorists out there; it was the simple fact that we were regularly seeing these jets during daylight, with some of them repeatedly breaking the sound barrier above the Aegean Sea. However, what I didn't hear that night was the sound of a jet. It was flying completely quietly. That fact is still buzzing in my mind. But not enough to immediately imagine little grays in shiny alien aircraft in search of abductees.

UFOs Explained***

In favor of the fact that there is no proof of aliens visiting our planet or any significant proof of their communications detected in past decades speaks the 50+ years of radio silence since SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been using scientific research to detect at least one confirmed artificial electromagnetic signal from above. That is if we exclude the WOW!** signal from August of 1977. Jerry R. Ehman, an American astronomer, detected the strong narrow-band radio signal that appeared to originate from Chi Sagittarii, a shared three-star system in the constellation Sagittarius. However, even though the signal never repeated again, it remained the best candidate for the proof of one alien world 220 light-years away from Earth. The signal was 30 times louder than normal deep space noise, and the fact that its frequency was 1420 MHz, the same frequency the most common element, hydrogen, resonates at, no doubt points toward the valid conclusion that it indeed was artificial in origin. Too bad it has stayed unconfirmed ever since. But if it was really a message from the alien race living in one of the star systems of the Sagittarius constellation, I could say that I fully understand why it was not repeated (or detected) again. The simple reason is the same as why we here don't send messages to outer space on purpose. Or, to be precise, why broadcasts sent from Earth to chosen star systems are not continuous messages and are instead just some isolated, shy, and timid dispatches.

Ever since SETI started its research in only listening to the heavens, there has been a loud debate over whether or not it is wise to send pointed messages to the unknown aliens. There is a simple fear that some of them can be violent and eager to enslave us the moment they receive this kind of invitation. If you ask me, I stand by the point that sending these messages is too early. We are still a young civilization, and it is wise to wait for a couplemore decades until we, at least, evolve from residents of one planet into residents of one solar system. We simply need to understand more than just Earth before we start actively searching for the contact of the third kind. Of course this doesn't stop people behind Active SETI or METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), who have been trying to send messages ever since the first message to ET was sent in the form of Pioneer plaques, placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 spacecraft, illustrating a hydrogen atom, a naked man and woman, and the solar system's main objects. A couple of years later, the first radio message was sent from the Arecibo radio telescope toward the 25,000-light-year-distant star cluster M13. The Arecibo message was created by Dr. Frank Drake with the help of Carl Sagan and contained simple physics along with mathematical and graphical data, and it served more educational purposes than as a real attempt to contact extraterrestrials.

'Aliens form Orion'****

On the other end, there are pointed messages to the desired star systems with more complex data included. Scientists and politicians are not really united when it comes to possibly messaging extraterrestrials, not to mention that there is no valid protocol for what we should do if some ET pays us a surprise visit, and so far there are no united efforts to perform active SETI on a global scale. Instead, some not very bright individual messages are sent from time to time, like the one sent last year toward the source of the WOW! signal with, believe it or not, 10,000 Twitter messages. I wonder what aliens would conclude after reading tweets, but I am sure nothing good. Equally problematic, to say the least, a message called "Teen Age Message" is sent from a radio telescope in Ukraine in 2001. The message's content and target stars were selected by a group of teens from four Russian cities. You probably guessed, teens, among other data, have chosen to send an audio file, and in this case a concert named "First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials". Among other stars, this message is sent toward "37 Gem" as well, and it will arrive in December 2057. Then we will know for sure if aliens there like music and art.

In conclusion let me say the obvious. Space is a cruel place, and distances between two star systems are tremendously huge. Technology to build a spaceshipfor interstellar travel is definitely extraordinary and not just within the realm of solving the cruising speed to be faster than light. I am more than positive that first contact with alien technology will be with some robotic probe instead of live contact with cute and friendly aliens in a flash. If traveling through the space was easy and solvable, we would probably have significant proof by now that aliens exist, and we wouldn't be buzzing our minds with the Fermi paradox and the obvious question of why the nightly sky is not filled with alien spacecraft, deep space stations, and beautiful green girls from Orion.

Original post date: November 2013; Updates: December 2016, December 2015

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

*What is the Zodiac?
http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-zodiac
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder2/en/

**Wow! signal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

***UFOs Explained –– and Unsolved
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a3995/4304207/
http://ufodigest.com/news/0809/ufos-solved.php

****The Green Sisters
http://www.startrekmemorabilia.com/non-human-hotties/slave-sisters-from-bound

More resources:
http://static.astronomija.co.rs/razno/zabava/igre/pobednik2.htm
http://static.astronomija.co.rs/dubokisvemir/galaksija/explanete/37gem/odgovor.htm
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/627/habitability-betting-on-37-gem
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031008190106.4hcm1yfo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_twin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_to_Extra-Terrestrial_Intelligence
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/newworlds/HabStars.html

Constantine & Naissus

A couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was a very popular name. Especially among soldiers in the Roman and Byzantine empires, along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within Latin, Cōnstantīnus, and Greek, Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos), the name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast, especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called Moesia Superior, with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for the Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I have lived ever since. The Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin", and even though it is not related to the military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name, Viktor, won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son, his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip), but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.

Constantine the Great*

Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will be equally about my birth town, the history of the Christian religion and the "Edict of Milan", a small glimpse of the Roman Empire, the end of the Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria, and a little photography along the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of the "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and Licinius I, his fellow emperor of the eastern part, in February of 313 BC, declared Christianity, the rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole of southern Europe, northern Africa, and a big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after the Crucifixion of Jesus, where the modern history we are living in started. But the early days (or, to better say, centuries) of "modern history", or what we love to call "AD," were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of the fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great cities, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since—the great Library of Alexandria. In those times, over a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and many other nations were stored in the library, and comparing it to nowadays terminology, we can safely say that the entire ancient "internet" was located within one single library. More than a hundred scholars worked full-time within the library's walls, performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, and writing books. It was one of the shiniest periods of the whole world's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews, and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there were no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities rose to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and in his raid, around 391 AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of the Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents were destroyed, and the temple was converted to a church. The rest of the library's treasure was probably lost a couple of years later when one of the most famous women who ever lived, Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity, or the era of prosperity I was talking about in the post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten, and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640 AD, when all the remaining scrolls were proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who foresaw all possible futures of the Roman Empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge the definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with the first multicultural societies. Rome and Constantinople under his rule and the rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive Alexandria's fate. At least until a couple of centuries later, when the third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The Crusades. What happened to Alexandria in the fourth century started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If the story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts, and they all originate way back to the point of the first founders of my hometown. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that its location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Whoever the warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times, your path would lead through Naissus, and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were a member of the Triballi tribes who invaded this area in the 4th century BC, a member of the Gallic groups who invaded the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century BC, or a Roman who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all, but with the price of thousands of men lost in numerous battles, with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus", where Romans with the help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Goths and their allies. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns and barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs, in the year 540 AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium, but also with frequent interruptions by various invasions in the face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). The second millennium was no different, and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers: firstly by Byzantine forces, the Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, the Ottoman Empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans, and the Nazis and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium has devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.

Third-century Roman soldiers battling Gothic troops**

Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in the 3rd century and after. The most famous one was, of course, Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organized economy by the name of Mediana***. Until it was fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine, including Julian the Apostate, who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman Empire, and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of the Neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia), and for several edicts in various laws, including the Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts were not successful for a longer period of time, and religions with gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best-known role of the residence of Mediana, which is, by the way, only a couple of hundred meters from my home, was in the year 364 AD, when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation between west and east was never without serious consequences. The separation of the Roman Empire, over time, moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, starting with Rome's fall on September 4, 476. The Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math, and the Church finally separated in the so-called "Great Schism", culminating in the early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium has passed since then, and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking at each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one Catholic cardinal and one Orthodox patriarch and ask them why the Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" the lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy, and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once and for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this, and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse of the world, please go to Science of God.

In front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena

Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, Master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner, and after a little search online, I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote, but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and the religious event happening this weekend.

This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorialized with special liturgy (λειτουργία), where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš, or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give the rising new religion a chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city, and for this occasion a piece of wood from Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus, were transferred to Constantine's new church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display, and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic, and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was the official event for "VIPs", which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was the presence of a zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's a topic for another story.

1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia

After 1700 years, I guess lots of things changed. There is no Roman Empire anymore or big crusades, but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about the Christian church in general whatever we want, but one thing is for sure. A society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are, and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until we die, there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean, I can't imagine a wedding here in Serbia without the church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organizations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine the Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan