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From: David <furry@nobelmed.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 17:48:09 -0400
Fwd Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 00:07:01 -0400
Subject: Re: 'Roswell-- Anatomy of A Myth' - Part 2/6

>SNIP

>UFO Crashes

>Even before the advent of recent negative developments in the
>Roswell case, I have always felt that a UFO would never crash.
>However, because of the impressive witness testimony about which
>I was told, I suspended judgment and allowed for the possibility
>that Roswell might be an exception -- some kind of
>one-in-a-quintillion fluke. That was, in retrospect, a mistake.

>The problem with the concept of a UFO crashing is that as
>technology advances, so does reliability. Be it with cars,
>airplanes, televisions, or wristwatches, the reliability of
>today's technology far exceeds that of the technology of just a
>few decades ago. For example, because of the high reliability of
>their engines, long-range, twin-engine commercial jetliners are
>now authorized to fly nonstop across the North Atlantic. A few
>decades ago, that would have been unthinkable. (The positive
>correlation between advancing technology and reliability applies
>to "proven" technology, not experimental state-of-the art machines
>still in the developmental phase, such as experimental aircraft
>or space vehicles.)

>With today's industry-average engine-failure rate of less than
>one failure per 100,000 flight hours, the chances of both engines
>of a two-engine jetliner failing during a given hour of flight
>are less than one out of 10 billion. Figuring 50,000
>aircraft-ocean crossings per year, and factoring in such
>variables as average time over the water and average distance
>from land, the odds are less than fifty-fifty of a double-engine
>failure and consequent ditching in the North Atlantic of even one
>such aircraft over the next 10,000 years.

>This incredible degree of reliability is found with a technology
>that would be primitive compared with a UFO. Even with today's
>relatively "primitive" technology, our commercial aircraft have
>very efficient collision avoidance systems, as well as excellent
>radar systems for avoiding thunderstorms and their associated
>hail and lightning (phenomena, incidentally, that are surely not
>unique to this planet).

>If we assume that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft and that
>some of the many reported UFO sightings are genuine UFOs, we are
>dealing with machines apparently capable of high-speed
>right-angle turns, incredible accelerations and speeds, and
>wingless flight -- not to mention of traveling light-years
>through the void of empty space in, presumably, a relatively
>short period of time. Such capability would require a technology
>totally beyond our present understanding of physics -- a
>technology the sophistication of which we cannot even begin to
>imagine.

>Because of the positive correlation between technology and
>reliability, such incredibly advanced technology would most
>certainly mean a correspondingly high degree of reliability.
>Common sense dictates that the chances of such machines crashing,
>breaking down, or colliding would be all but zero. It certainly
>would be many orders of magnitude less than the already
>infinitesimally small chance of one of today's twin-engine
>jetliners having a double-engine failure.

>SNIP

Kent,

I'm reading your posting with great interest.
However, with THIS particular LINE of thinking,
I have only one PHRASE to say.

Can you say "Unsinkable Titanic!"

Dave (Furry) Furlotte