You would not be able to interact with anything or anyone, nothing would be aware of your presence. So no obvious answers like spend more time with my Dad, Grandad, etc.
No “see creation” religious debates. Suffice to say if you are religious you could not see creation because God created everything and THEN created man and if you are of the scientific minded type you cannot see the “big bang” because there would be no space for you to stand in and watch it happen.
So it’s basically “Ghost of Christmas Past” rules. But if you could be a remote viewer of the actual event as it happened, what would make the top of your list?
Jurassic Dinosaurs - We think we know what they look like, but we are seriously guessing. I would love to know for sure, to see the species I marveled at as a kid as they really were.
Carboniferous Earth - With oxygen concentrations as high as 35% some incredible life forms exists, including monstrously large insects that could star in a 1950s science fiction movie. Scorpions up to two feet in length are the things of nightmares, one has to wonder what spiders looked like.
The KT Event - While this is correctly more of a period than an event, lasting from a few years to a few thousand years depending who is correct, I want to know what the actual “smoking gun” catalyst was.
The Pyramids - Yes, it’s kind of stupid because you can still see them. I wouldn’t even want to see them built so I would know definitively how it was done. I just want to see them about 3,500 years ago when they were still cast in limestone. I want to see dynastic Egypt at the height of it’s power.
Battle of Sekigahara - This was the big one, the massive Samurai battle that finally unified Japan and ended hundreds of years of civil war.
And I would trade any of the above for any visitation by other life forms at any time during Earth history if it ever actually happened. That would be something to see.
I can’t find fault with any of your list, although I’d trade the Carboniferous Earth (I hate bugs) for the life of Jesus. I’m not even religious, but the man, son of God or not, has profoundly influenced Western Culture and in doing so, the entire world. I’d want to see it in person.
I’d consider trading the KT event for the moment some planetoid collided with the Earth to form the Moon because it’s probably the biggest fireworks show in the context of the history of the Earth.
I kind of want to see some moments in Human technological development… fire, tools, agriculture, etc, even if they weren’t Humans that invented it.
Everyone is already hitting all the stuff I’d like to see. At the top would be those human events we simply don’t understand, like the Great Pyramids, Pumapunku
, Teotihuacan, Sacsayhuaman (Cusco) etc. To know how they did it and what technology they had available would answer some of the greatest mysteries of our time.
It’s not yet history, but it would be interesting to see the end of the earth. Will it be cataclysmic, or just die off like Mars?
Have always thought the pyramids for sure-- I’d like to hover overheard and do a fast-forward observation of the building of them.
The grassy knoll and a few other historic events, but–
I’ve always wished I could just see my parents, let’s say about the time they got married. I would be in the next booth in a restaurant or something, where I could listen to them and observe them for a while.
In no particular order, here’s my answer off the top of my head:
5.) The KT Event. Time lapse into it as required to see how the various notable dinosaur species died off. Bonus: seeing how they actually looked and behaved vs. what we think.
4.) The Invasion of Normandy.
3.) The entire Apollo 11 mission, from Neil Armstrong’s perspective.
2.) The Wrights’ first powered flights at Kitty Hawk.
1.) Any one (or all) of my great-uncle’s combat missions in the Pacific theater flying the SBD Dauntless. There is so much I simply don’t about him since we never met, and his U.S. Navy records were apparently destroyed in the 1973 NPRC St. Louis fire. This is by far my #1, I have wondered about him ever since I learned about him.
Is it like a movie where we only see the view point that “they” want us to see, or is it like a living 3D environment where we can fast forward, reverse, pause, play at normal speed, and hover around to view the same event multiple times from different angles, even above the surface of the whatever?
I’m changing it up a little bit. 5 people I’d like to have a beer with throughout history.
1.) My Father, never met the guy, he died a few months before I was born in a KC-135 Crash at Beale AFB. Everyone says I’m just like him. He grew up moving between KY and northern MN, his family was so poor that he slept on a couch until he was 16, became an officer in the Air Force and a accomplished musician.
2.) Chuck Yeager, kind of a childhood hero of mine after watching The Right Stuff. I’d like to talk to him about all the missions and adventures he got into throughout his career. He’s memoirs are something I still page through from time to time.
3.) Jack Kerouac, I read On the Road when I was 14 and it changed my outlook on this country forever, the freedoms and the good and bad of it all, amazing book, and an odd guy, I’m sure he could go on and on about the trouble he’s been in.
4.) Two people, a tie, George Patton and Chesy Puller, they were cousins and both brilliantly enraged. The two of them together discussing there accolades would be awesome, I’m sure there would be a little bit of rivalry.
An honorable 6th event (place and time) would be to have the language skills and time to visit the Ancient/Royal Library of Alexandria. I think the fire that destroyed it might have been the single greatest setback for human knowledge to date.
The Last Supper, well perhaps that whole last day of Christs life.
The Fall of Rome, I want the whole enchilada, and I want to see everything go down from all sides.
The Travel West with Lewis and Clark.
The D-Day Landing, to actually run off of a landing craft and run up the beach.
I would like to play a game of baseball with my Grandfather in some sort of “Field of Dreams” thing where we were the same age.
