I’ve had an idea in the back of my head that would explain the UAP behavior and motives. And it makes me really, really sad. :(

Let me first qualify this by stating that I make a couple large assumptions, so this is a speculative idea that is only valid if those assumptions are correct. I actually hope this idea is wrong, for what it’s worth.

The assumptions:

1. The UAP are technology of extraterrestrial origin
2. Either there is some energetically practical means of faster-than-light travel that also doesn’t allow closed time-like curves (backwards time travel/causality problems) or at least wider physics that renders the causal structure of spacetime to be irrelevant/a non-issue in this context. OR the extraterrestrial origin is located within our solar system.
3. The Trinity nuclear test in July, 1945 marks a transition where the UAP first arrived in a meaningful way, and likely had at most a minimal and passive observational presence if they had any presence at all prior to that test.

What I feel this idea explains is the UAP’s strange behavior that is neither hostile nor friendly.

Why are they so interested in our military? Why the constant incursions into the airspace of our training bases and nuclear weapon facilities?

They seem particularly interested in our military assets, they openly fly sorties against our carrier groups that are quite clearly meant to test various capabilities of our militaries.

They clearly want to keep a relatively low profile, but are also not so concerned about this that detection is unacceptable. Indeed, they clearly want to see to what extent we can detect them, at least based on their actions around our Carrie groups. And they likewise have no problems with being noticed if it means they can monitor our training bases and nuclear weapon facilities as well.

Yet they also are clearly non-hostile. For all of this otherwise alarming behavior, they have never actually attacked us. Depending on the rumors you are willing to believe, they have not even attacked us even as we have tried (and probably succeeded) in shooting down a few of their craft.

Beyond that, they’re not gods. They’re not in a totally different class then us. They are fallible. They fuck up. They have accidents just like we do. For all their advanced technology, they still sometimes crash. They know they have and they expected it would happen eventually, so they do all this knowing that it would only be a matter of time before we probably recovered some of their tech.

And while they are without question more advanced than we are, I don’t think the gap is nearly so wide as many of you seem to think. There is been an obvious progression in their own technology and design of their craft over the last 70 years or so, development with a speed that is more familiar to us than it is not.

So what the hell is going on?

…what if they’re afraid of us.

That’s what would explain all of this.

What if they never made nuclear weapons. Not due to any lack of capability, but lack of any willingness to do so.

What if they evolved from a more passive ecological niche and were never hunters like we were. What if a pacifist temperament is as much a part of their core biology and identity as predation and hunting is to ours.

What if they never fought wars. What if they don’t even really have weapons at all.

Imagine what horror they would have felt when they detected the first atomic weapon go off.

The idea probably never even occurred to them. Sure, they have scanned our warheads and missiles and easily understood every aspect of how they worked. But to them, it was maximizing something dangerous and without purpose beyond what not to do. What to avoid.

The idea of intentionally releasing so much energy in a rapid and uncontrolled manner like that would be purposely to them. They could easily be far more advanced with a much deeper understanding of physics, yet remain unaware of just how far nuclear weapons could be made to go simply because the very idea of weapons on that scale or possibly any scale is so utterly foreign to them.

So utterly alien.

What if we’re the Klingons. What if we’re the brutal race of warriors, always fighting amongst ourselves.

They have to feel threatened by us. There is no other explanation I can think of as to why they would be so preoccupied with our military assets yet also non-hostile.

I think they are not so far ahead of us. They behave as if it inevitable that we become fully aware of their existence, and are worried that we will treat them as badly as we treat ourselves.

That’s why they don’t seem overly concerned even with accidentally seeding us with technology. Because we will be there soon enough, and what would it matter? We are already far beyond them when it comes to technology that kills and destroys. The very concept is the most alien thing about us to them.

We like to project onto them, but there is no reason to believe another civilization would be like us in that regard. That weapons as a concept would exist in any and all alien cultures.

They simply lack the mindset to outwit us when it comes to killing. They know how to run or hide or evade and so that is what they are testing against us. And gathering intelligence on the thing that scare them: our militaries.

What if they’re non-violent by nature, not by choice. What if it’s only really a choice for us.

So they’re afraid of us. We frankly probably scare them shitless. That’s why they straddle the line of provocation when testing our abilities. Yet never act with violence towards us.

They hope for the best but are preparing for the worst. That’s why they go through all this effort. That’s why they’re here. That’s why they are present yet avoidant. They aren’t looking forward to contact. They’re dreading it.

And I’m sure they aren’t all of one opinion on us. We might even be one of the most polarizing issues of their time. I’m sure some of them have varied opinions on us.

Some of them have seen us wave to them, and some of them wave back.

They’re afraid of us, and it makes me really, really sad.

I hope I’m wrong. But we do fight wars, we do build horrifying weapons. I do mean horrifying. A single Ohio-class submarine can literally level a continent. They can launch enough MIRVed warheads such that one submarine could wipe out every single population center in the US with a population greater than 107,000. If you live somewhere with more people than that, then one submarine in one strike can wipe it out and everything else as or more populous.

What if there exist those that don’t? What if that is what is truly alien about us.

It’s not even our fault really, it’s our evolutionary roots. Which is what makes us all the more terrifying.

:(

submitted by /u/chodilocks
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/penns9/ive_had_an_idea_in_the_back_of_my_head_that_would/