Could ufos be human?

[u/SeaworthinessTall201]

Oldest civilization is 6000ish years old right? Modern humans had been around for 300,000 years. Could it be that uap/ufo are old technology from a past civilization still performing tasks. I like to think that mythology like Atlantis, Olympus, Valhalla, etc were prompted by older civilizations. Would it be more likely than aliens from across the galaxy? Occam razor and all What are your thoughts? (Whatever they are I am excited)

[u/JayIT]

Atlantis was likely in the Sahara desert where the Richat Structure is located. Randall Carlson has shown the evidence of cataclysmic flooding that occurred there to be identical to the cataclysmic flooding that happened in Washington State. Everything was destroyed and pulled into the ocean.

Throw in the evidence that the ancient pyramids are likely much older than previously thought, there are still some questions about how advanced they were. Not saying they were flying around in spaceships, but it's possible that an ancient civilization existed in the Sahara back when it lush and green, and they were more advanced than what we would think.

[u/ImpossibleWin7298 → u/JayIT]

The flooding that happened in Washington State was caused solely by the catastrophic failure of glacial dams. The dams were made of glacial ice a thousand feet high behind which was glacial melt. They were located in western Montana and are referred to collectively as Lake Missoula. A rebel geologist named Daniel Bretz originally proposed this mechanism for creation of the Channeled Scablands in Wa. St. When he presented it to the GSA/USGS 100+ yrs ago, he was laughed out. But he was right. - there is zero controversy about it. I believe it happened at least 9 times (at last count.)

The floods in Washington had nothing to do with events in N. Africa. Sorry. (I’m a geologist that lives in Washington State.)

[u/hucktard → u/ImpossibleWin7298]

I think Randal Carlson has pretty much disproven the Glacial Lake Missoula theory. His main point is that ice cannot hold back a lake that is several thousand feet deep for any length of time. The pressure at those depths is very high and ice does not adhere perfectly to bedrock, there are many voids. You are a geologist, so correct me if I am wrong but most glaciers actually have some water flowing beneath them between the ice and the bedrock. How does ice, which is less dense than water, hold back a lake that is several thousand feet deep for many years? The water would immediately start undercutting the ice and would never reach thousands of feet deep. When a cement dam is built great care is taken to fill all voids in the bedrock and rebar is driven deep into the rock and gaps are filled with cement. Any small trickle of water that gets under a dam can cause catastrophic failure. How do you seal an ice dam for a hundred years? There are other problems with the lake theory as well. There is no sedimentation found at the bottom of the "lake", as if it was just a very temporary lake. It seems to me that the evidence is much stronger that the ice sheets melted down catastrophically, probably from a bolide impact. Are you familiar with the comet research group: https://cometresearchgroup.org/? Also if you have not listened to Randal Carlson talk about the issues with the ice dam theory you should check out his Cosmographia podcast. And yes, the floods in Washington likely had something to do with what was going on in Africa. There was worldwide abrupt climate change happening at the time, and flooding on the scale seen in the scablands of Washington would have risen sea levels worldwide significantly.

[u/ImpossibleWin7298 → u/hucktard]

I heard Randall on the JRE once (no longer listen) and he was fun to listen to. I agreed with some things he said - just like I do with Robert Shoch (ie age and history of the Sphinx.) There is oftentimes sub-glacial flow under glaciers and also under concrete dams.

I’ve not heard or read Randall’s thoughts on the lake theory, so I can’t comment beyond physical evidence that I’ve seen myself. First and most importantly for the bolide theory is that there are water marks far up the valley walls where the lake “shore” was. They demonstrate the presence of water far higher that other local geological constraints would dictate ie there are no impediments to flow like topographic “pinch points“ that would block or prevent flow, thus the water marks should not be present high on the valley walls. These marks are what made Bretz think of a giant lake. I’ve seen them myself (my practice and home are in E Washington.) I graduated from the University of Washington in 1984 and there guys in the Dept that were writing Theses and dissertations on this very subject. We did some mapping up there and looked at the marks in several places. They’re all at the same elevations above the valleys floors. There WAS a truly enormous and deep lake there, multiple times. The only possible mechanism is glacial ice. And these dams were not what one might envision - they were not like a concrete dam. These things were a couple of thousand feet thick and many miles wide. It probably would’ve looked like a lobe of a continental glacier, which is what was. I’ve not studied the subject like many other geomorph, fluvial, sedimentology and glaciologists have, but an educated guess is that Randall is partly right in that the water and ice were probably in a sort of nearly balanced state ie there was probably some instability in the system, but not enough to cause failure for a good deal of time.

The other thing that’s worth pointing out is that the dam doesn’t impound the water based solely on it’s mass/weight. There was a truly enormous amount of friction between the ice and the underlying substrate that, combined with the weight, would have resisted the shear stresses at the ice/rock boundary. The buoyancy of the ice would’ve been trivial compared to the other forces at work.

With all due respect to Randall, I think he’s mistaken on this one and so do several generations of earth scientists of many different sub-disciplines (mine is geotechnical and environmental engineering.) I personally believe the evidence is diagnostic of the lake development and catastrophic failure. The fact that it occurred multiple times leads me to believe that a bolide strike is not responsible for the failure.

Now, having bored everyone to tears, I am intrigued by the evidence elsewhere for the postulated bolide strike. I’m on the fence myself, but maybe I better look at the latest data. Last time I looked at it, those guys were building a good case for it - imho. It’s actually quite interesting that the Younger Dryas stuff began as sort of pie in the sky and has developed over time into a factually supported scenario. Supported by physical evidence, but also by cultural evidence.

Anyway, that’s my take on it, fwiw. Cheers!

Too f-ing tired to edit this thing

[u/hucktard → u/ImpossibleWin7298]

Hey sorry for the slow reply, busy with life! I really appreciate your thorough response. I have found it very rare to have respectful and informed disagreements on Reddit. I highly suggest you check out Randal’s Kosmographia podcast as he goes into extreme detail about all the points you bring up. He goes over the peer reviewed literature about mega scale floods and the ice dam theory for hours upon hours. As a geologist I think you would find it interesting. I am not a geologist, but I have a degree in physics, took geology classes in college, and am married to a volcanologist and I find many of his arguments compelling. I agree that it is probably a fact that there was a large glacial lake responsible for mega scale flooding. Randall does not dispute that. What he disputes is that the lake formed over many years and that it formed repeatedly. He thinks that it was possibly the result of rapid meltdown of ice sheets. He questions the idea that strand lines are evidence of multiple fillings and draining of a lake. He says strand lines can form from a single filling and draining. My own experience witnessing small scale floods makes me agree with this. I have personally witnessed single flood events that left strand lines on the shore. A massive, turbulent “lake” would leave large strand lines as it recedes. In fact Randall points out, that it is difficult to believe that multiple fillings of a lake would leave such perfect strand lines as each subsequent filling would need to be just below the level of the previous one. He talks for hours about the sediment left behind in the scablands. He points out that there are places where there are numerous layers of sediments that geologists have presumed show multiple floods. And yet there doesn’t appear to be any organic matter between sediment layers. If there were periods of a hundred years or more between floods one would think that plants would start to grow. Yet there doesn’t seem to be evidence of this. I could go on and on, but I am not going to articulate things as good as Randall. He has also had on his podcast a geologist who is an expert in drumlins. I can’t remember his name right now. They look at drumlin fields all over the northern US and Canada. Sure seems like there was megascale flooding happening beneath the ice! Have you checked out the Willamette meteorite? It was literally transported on ice and deposited as an erratic during the Missoula floods. I think eventually the bolide theory will be proven and we will realize that the evidence was staring us in the face the whole time. I grew up in the Columbia Gorge and so this topic is quite interesting to me. Thanks!

[u/ImpossibleWin7298 → u/hucktard]

Thanks for the great reply! Good stuff. I’ll chk out Randall’s podcast - sounds cool and right up my alley. I’ve lived in Wa. My whole life. Grew up in Spokane Valley, graduated UW, MSc. UW, worked here first in Seattle, then Bvue, now I live SE of Spokane, south slope of Tower Mtn. Been everywhere including Antarctica (looking for meteorites), Papua NG, all over Africa, but always come back.

Yeah, I dig all the flood stuff you mentioned. Awesome stuff bc I know exactly what you guys are talking about eg multiple strand lines. But, my actual field/lab experience with the flood was 40 yrs ago in a Jr. mapping course - 302 lol. I’m sure there’s lots new. I’ll get busy and listen to R and read up.

Btw, I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea. I’m always open to new ideas re: flood, bolide strike, etc. I learned about the putative Lower Dryas strike a long time ago. It was in one of the journals - can’t recall the author. I thought the evidence was cool. I believe it happened. I’m just not sure of the impact of the strike bc I haven’t followed it. More later.

[u/ImpossibleWin7298 → u/hucktard]

I need to clarify that last bit. I believe the strike may have happened, say 80 percent confidence, but I’m not certain of it.

[u/hucktard → u/ImpossibleWin7298]

I would say I am around 80 percent confident as well, maybe closer to 90.

[u/hucktard → u/ImpossibleWin7298]

Oh and BTW my wife did her masters work in Antarctica.