Meanwhile, as the alien-weary Earthlings continue to cast apprehensive glances skyward into what they perceive to be an infinitude replete with menace, mayhem and mendacious monsters, the astronomical community has exponentially heightened this gnawing anxiety with the bold announcement that they have, indeed, located UFO’s! Now, before we allow the unbridled panic to fray the curtains and splinter the rafters, we should offer a bit more detail.
A team of astronomers have recently announced that the JWST has uncovered evidence of 56 ‘Ultra-red flattened objects,” which, in a pulsar-compressed parlance of this mad modern acronym-happy world will likely soon be known merely as URFOs. These are reddened galaxies so enshrouded in dust that they eluded the detection of JWST’s illustrious predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. That they were found by JWST is hardly surprising since these galaxies emit most of their radiation in the infrared spectrum, where the JWST is fine-tuned. Some of this radiation seeps into the fringe of the red section, hence the crimson coloration.
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder determined that these galaxies exhibit a similar structure to our own barred spiral Milky Way except that they contain 50 times the amount of dust that one would encounter in our home galaxy. [A night sky seen from any world within such a galaxy would likely appear far less star-adorned due to the enhanced obscuration.] Through observation, computer simulation and mathematical modeling, they were able to determine the shapes of these hidden island Universes. Their shapes are reminiscent of thin discs and prolate spheroids, a Vulcan word meaning an ellipse rotated around its longer axis. Hence the name “UFO,” or, of course, “URFO.” They are shaped like alien spacecraft, or, much more correctly, shaped like our own imaginary version of alien spacecraft.
These galaxies exhibit a red shift between 2 and 4, which means we’re seeing these galaxies as they appeared between 10.3 – 12. 1 billion years ago.* Though that value represents quite a distance, these galaxies are surprisingly close. So, close, in fact, that astronomers might have to re-evalulate their galactic formation models. After all, one may safely assume that other such hidden UFO’s might be lurking out there in the distant reaches. How they formed and why they appear so red and dusty are mysteries that only more observations and modeling will enable us to solve.
For now, we can openly declare that UFO’s do exist. No need to flee in terror -where would you go, anyway-. These UFOs are so far away as to be completely harmless…we think.
*Now is a perfect time to clear up a bit of confusion. Even though we might be seeing a galaxy as it appeared 10.3 billion years ago doesn’t mean that the galaxy is currently 10.3 billion light years away. Rememeber that during the 10.3 billion years during which that light has traveled, the galaxy, itself, has been receding from us due to the cosmic expansion. According to current estimates (which could change on a dime), a galaxy which we’re seeing 10.3 billion years ago would currently be about 15.4 billion light years away.
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