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luigirovatti's avatar

Do you think the following description about why the Greys from abductions don't come from Zeta Reticuli is accurate?

Asked by luigirovatti (3001points) November 4th, 2020

Let’s consider the stars Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli. It’s a double star system thirty-nine light-years from Earth. Reticulum is a constellation visible in Earth’s southern skies . . . not far from the Large Magellanic Cloud, so observers north of, say, Mexico City won’t be familiar with it. In dark skies, it’s visible as a very faint double to the naked eye. The two components are roughly 3,800 AUs apart. The two stars orbit one another once in roughly 170,000 years. Both Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 are quite similar to our sun. Zeta 2, a G2, is very slightly more massive and brighter than Zeta 1, a G3. Our sun is a G2.

Those of you familiar with the lore of UFOs and alien abductions will immediately recognize the name of this star. In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were purportedly abducted while driving through a portion of rural New Hampshire and taken aboard a spaceship. While on board, Betty was shown a three-dimensional star map. Later, under hypnosis, she was able to reproduce the map, which showed fifteen stars.

In 1968, an Ohio Mensan and elementary schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish decided to try to use the Hill map to determine where the aliens had come from. Using beads hanging from threads in her backyard, she created a three-dimensional model of the stars nearest Earth. After a long search, she found one viewing angle that seemed to match Hill’s map, one positioned at Zeta Reticuli. From there, Zeta Reticuli entered modern UFO lore. It’s almost taken as a given nowadays that the Grays come from there.

But . . . there are problems with that idea. First, I believe we have spotted one planet—around Zeta 2. Zeta 2 has an extensive debris field or asteroid belt which has been distorted by an unseen planetary companion. However, such a planet would be a gas giant the size of Jupiter or a bit larger, located 150 to 250 AUs from the star. This would not be a likely candidate for life, to say nothing of an interstellar civilization.

Second, and more problematical, recent data has suggested Zeta Reticuli can’t be more than about two billion years old. Even if the star does have terrestrial planets, they would be far too young to have developed any life more complex than bacteria.

So, am I right in assuming that or am I missing something?

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4 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

Skimming over Wikipedia, the discovery of a “gas giant” was shown to be caused by a pulsation of the star. The “debris field” was also shown to be an observational error.

That aside, assuming that both the gas giant and the debris field exist, if one were so inclined, one could come up with a number of explanations and excuses.
1. Earth’s sun is 4.6 billion years old, Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old, and the first life appeared on earth 3.5 billion years ago. Assuming that life emerged similarly quickly there, one could say that the transition from single cellular life to multicellular life, which took almost 3 billion years on earth, could have happened much sooner there.
2. Life there could have evolved on a moon orbiting the gas giant.
3. The debris field could be the remnant of a planet that the aliens evolved on.
4. The aliens might not be native to the system and just settled there.

luigirovatti's avatar

Well, I’ve certainly made my argument. I can’t say anything more. :)

elbanditoroso's avatar

this seems to offer some serious doubt.

gorillapaws's avatar

If one abandons all reason and suspends all doubt, it’s a perfectly good explanation.

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