177 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
177 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: DID A LITTLE RESEARCH ON ZETA RET. FILE: UFO2645
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At Don Allen's urging to the Net, I decided to do a little research
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into the Reticulan stories. I didn't want to wade through a bunch
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of weirded out crap about "pyramid-based space brothers" and such, so
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I decided to assume the LGM (little grey men) got here by means unknown
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and look at the astronomy of the situation instead. Unfortunately, I'm
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an hour away from my alma mater's physics and astro library, so I had
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to rely on whatever books I still had lying around after being out
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of the business for 12 years.
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Item number 1: Zeta Ret. is a double star. Normally, it's pretty
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unlikely that a planet in a binary system could harbor life due to high
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radiation fluxes and wide temperature variations. These are caused by
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complex orbits and gravitational perturbations by the nearness of the
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companion star; I invite you to read some celestial mechanics to verify
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this. Actually, planetary formation itself can be a real bitch if the
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stars are too close. However, my info doesn't indicate if it's a *visual*
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double or a *physical* double i.e. binary. If the system is only a visual
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double with a common proper motion (motion measured against much more
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distant stars which can be considered fixed) caused by formation in roughly
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the same area of space, the arguments about a minimal or non-existent
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"lifezone" are not applicable. So, we need to determine if this baby is a
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physical double or not.
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Item 2: My info gave an M-K spectral classification for the two stars
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as G1 and G2. Our sun is a G2 star, but it's a dwarf star, indicated
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by a third element: G2V (Roman numeral five). The classification is
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important because the hotter/more massive a star is, the faster it
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burns its fuel and dies. The Pleaidian stories have a major flaw:
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the Pleiades are type O and B stars and therefore can't have existed
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for very long. The probability of life evolving on planets around
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those stars in that time frame (million versus billions of years) is
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small plus you've got a lot of radiation coming off those puppies. Yeah,
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yeah, "But they just colonized that area!", sigh. Anyway, a gentleman at
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Princeton U. was kind enough to supply me with the complete measured
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classifications. There will be some variation depending on observer,
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technique, etc. but the consensus is one star is a G1V and the other is a
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G2V. Before we jump to conclusions, we need to consider that a lot of
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stars in the Solar neighborhood are relatively cool and are dwarfs, so
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this might not be any big deal. On the other hand, spectrally, the LGM
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picked the "right" kind of star from which to originate.
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I'm going to try to dig up more of the physical properties of the system
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and follow up on this. Corrections of my info and critiques of my
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reasoning are encouraged and welcomed. And for the record, I'm still a
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skeptic (F=ma and at relativistic speeds mass goes to infinity).
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From ron@vort.uucp (Ron Hill) Wed Jan 22 05:59:40 1992
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Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!alberta!cpsc.ucalgary.ca!vort!ron
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From: ron@vort.uucp (Ron Hill)
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Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
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Subject: Re: Did a little research on Zeta Ret.
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Message-ID: <1992Jan22.105940.10126@vort.uucp>
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Date: 22 Jan 92 10:59:40 GMT
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References: <1992Jan21.183535.25572@tellab5.tellabs.com>
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Distribution: na
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Organization: VORT Computing Calgary, Alberta, Canada ...calgary!vort
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Lines: 56
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I suspect this is old hat to most of the readers of this group, but the
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question of alien abductions was examined in the yearly "fringe science"
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(their term, not mine. no flames, please) program on Quirks and Quarks
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last year. For the uninitiated, Quirks and Quarks is CBC Radio's weekly
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science program. Zeta Reticuli figured prominently in the story, so I
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thought I'd add my 20 millibux worth. This is all from memory, so any
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inaccuracies are mine.
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ZR1 and ZR2 are not considered to be graviationally bound, and are about
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two light-weeks apart. They were brought up during the program because of
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details from a September 1961 abduction incident. I won't talk about the
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incident itself; that is covered well in _The Interrupted Journey_ by John
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G. Fuller (Dial Press, New York, 1966.) Apparently, during the abduction
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the woman was shown a star map. There was no scale given and no
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orientation specified, but there were lines connecting the stars that were
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on "trade" routes or "exploration" routes. A copy of the map was included
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in the Fuller's book, and when it was published, astromomers tried to find
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a match between the map and stars in our neighbourhood. In the mid-70's
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(I think) an amateur astronomer, working from a 3-D "beads on wires"
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model, found such a match. Interestingly, to spot it, she had to remove
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from her model all stars except for old, single, quiescent, main sequence
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yellow dwarves. All such stars in our neighbourhood were present in the
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map and only those stars. In addition, all the route lines were
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consistent with minimum distances. Her map was subsequently published in
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Astronomy magazine (I can't remember the exact date, mid-70's is the best
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I can do.) The Zeta Reticuli pair was most prominent in the original map,
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and many of the lines radiated from one of the two stars. Old Sol is on a
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"trade" route. (Has anybody tried to sell you a used saucer lately? :-)
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The program tried to present a journalistically balanced view of abduction
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episodes. A neurologist was interviewed; he attributed abduction events
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to hallucinations induced by hyperactivity in the hippocampus and the
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amygdala. An historian who has interviewed ~50 abductees (~300 episodes)
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was also interviewed; he says there are too many similarities in fine
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details between events to make it possible to dismiss them as
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hallucinations. He didn't discuss many of the details, doesn't want to
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spoil future data collection with fakes.
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I suspect that the show's host was more affected by it than he would
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(probably) care to admit. A few months later, there was a piece on the
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establishment of the first southern hemisphere SETI installation (in
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Chile, I think), and the host brought up Zeta Reticuli specifically.
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Reticulum is a southern hemisphere constellation. The interviewee said he
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wasn't privy to the targeting schedule, and it was left at that.
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My impression of the star map is that one could probably find a good match
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between *any* set of points drawn on paper and an actual star field, if
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one looked hard enough. On the other hand, this is the only solid match
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that's ever been found (there is one in Fuller's book, but it's way off.)
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I'd like to hear from a statistician on this point in particular, but if
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anyone has further information on the analysis of the map, feel free to
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jump in.
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Fun stuff, but who really knows?
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-RJH (ron@vort.cuc.ab.ca)
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From sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Thu Jan 23 00:25:50 1992
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Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!netcomsv!sheaffer
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From: sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer)
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Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
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Subject: Re: Did a little research on Zeta Ret.
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Message-ID: <1992Jan23.052550.7791sheaffer@netcom.COM>
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Date: 23 Jan 92 05:25:50 GMT
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References: <1992Jan21.183535.25572@tellab5.tellabs.com> <1992Jan22.105940.10126@vort.uucp>
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Distribution: na
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Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
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Lines: 39
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In article <1992Jan22.105940.10126@vort.uucp> ron@vort.uucp (Ron Hill) writes:
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B
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>My impression of the star map is that one could probably find a good match
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>between *any* set of points drawn on paper and an actual star field, if
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>one looked hard enough. On the other hand, this is the only solid match
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>that's ever been found (there is one in Fuller's book, but it's way off.)
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Actually, there have been THREE proposed identifications of the supposed
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alien "star map" that Betty Hill drew after her 1961 "UFO abduction."
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I go into this in considerable detail in my book, "The UFO Verdict"
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(Prometheus, 1986), where I have a whole chapter on the Hill case.
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The first "identification" is, as Ron notes, in Fuller's book, "The
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Interrupted Journey." It is simply a visual match-up by Betty Hill
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of her 'star map' with a map of the constellation Pegasus.
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The second was the famous identification by Marjorie Fish, which gave
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us "Zeta Reticuli". Among UFOlogists, this is the only one it is
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"Politically Correct" to mention. It is a 3-D map of nearby stars,
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done by stringing beads on wires. It has major flaws that the pro-UFOlogists
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never talk about, that are too complex to write down here. They are in
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The UFO Verdict. Suffice it to say that there are many inconsistencies
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and 'ad hoc' decisions in it.
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The third is a pattern detected by Charles Atterberg, using pencil
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and paper to plot the nearby stars. His accounts for more stars than
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does Fish's pattern, and while it contains many non-hospitable stars
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for life, the three main ones just 'happen' to be strong SETI candidates.
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But again, I think it's a case of 'seek long enough, and ye shall find!'.
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--
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Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
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Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!
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"Simply follow nature, Rousseau declares. Sade, laughing,
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grimly agrees." - Camille Paglia, "Sexual Personae"
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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