UFOs - Alien Beings, Weather Balloons or Natural Phenomena?

[Leaffan]

I have no doubt that we are not the only planet in the universe that contains life. The odds of us being alone are, well astronomical.

I do however think that the odds of us contacting, or being contacted by, another life form are negligible. It would appear that travel at the speed of light for quite a number of years would be required in order to make contact with anyone close to us. Traveling at the speed of light is not going to be easy! Imagine the impact a grain of sand would have: E=MC^2 and all that.

Making this journey of multiple light years of travel, only to hover over Butt Crack Saskatchewan, and then leave seems very unlikely too. What would we do? Perhaps send a probe from the mother ship and investigate further? We certainly would not just hover and leave after say 12 light years of travel.

Also, nowadays just about everyone has picture/movie taking capabilities at their fingertips and still no conclusive evidence exists of alien spacecraft. Oh sure, there's the usual blurry "something" but we're not sure what, and some that appear totally fake, and others that have been divulged as military aircraft or even Jupiter or Saturn in the night sky, but you would think that - since the inception of the UFO craze 50'ish years ago - we'd have something conclusive by now.

No, there's other life out there but it's way too damned far away for us to contact, or vice versa.

Of course this is an opinion, and I solicit yours.

[Jayn_Newell]

This is a bit of a hijack, but there was a UFO that crashed into Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia back in '67), and I've heard that something was hauled up from the bottom by divers. We're still waiting to hear back on what it is, though, and I'm rather curious. I've heard speculation that it was a weapons test of some sort (which of course makes me extra glad that it hit water and not land), which would probably explain the lack of information from the government about what they found.

I don't hold that it was an alien craft or anything, but I'm not dismissing that possibility either. I would think that if there was alien life that could make it here, they'd probably have the technology to hide from us as well, or view us as so inferior that they don't really care. I doubt we're being visited regularly, and most UFO reports are undoubtedly cases of mistaken identity.

[diggleblop]

There is no doubt in my mind that we are being visited and also abducted by these beings. I feel there are more than one type of species visiting us too. I have witnessed a UFO and at the time had a camera and took a picture of it. It was in the one o'clock position when I saw it, then it zipped to about the three o'clock position in a split second. I may or may not post the pic later.

There is too much testimony, video and pics of these visitors for this to be a hoax or some other type of phenomenon. THAT many people can't be lying, mistaken or just plain wrong with what they saw. There have been WAY too many credible witnesses of UFOs for there not to be something going on.

I've read a lot of abduction books and testimony and these people are NOT lying or making up these experiences. Sure, some probably are sleep paralysis, but a vast majority are not.

There are too many galaxies out here for there to be no life.

You said it was pretty ridiculous to travel that far just to hover over Butt Crack Saskatchewan. But think about it, we go to other planets (and spend TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN THE PROCESS DOING IT) with mars rovers just to sit there and take rock samples. If we had the capabilities to travel to other planets in and outside of our solar system, you'd better believe we would be doing it too. These "aliens" that come to our planet are no more than some other planet's NASA scientists doing their jobs. They are discoverers, Christopher Columbus' from other planets.

[beowulff]

Well, if diggleblop believes, it who am I to disagree :rolleyes:

Ignoring the whole problem of the distances involved, as an engineer, I just really have a hard time believing that any race capable of interstellar travel is going to a) crash or b) get shot down with our weapons.

Also, I just don't think we are all that interesting.

[Shagnasty]

I completely agree with you. There may be life on Mars although it has yet to be discovered and it would be very small and not what we would describe as intelligent. The same can be said for various moons in our own solar system.

One of your points is also one of my favorite ones. Interstellar travel basically violates the laws of known physics. Not only would we (or any other intelligent set of beings) have to spend thousands of years to travel to some place where life is believed to live but we would have to expend the same amount of energy to stop the ship and then do something...something...something.

Any tiny spec of a particle would destroy the whole ship along the way. It has already happened to a space shuttle window and that is only the tiniest amount of energy compared to a ship travelling at any significant fraction of the speed of light. It is almost inevitable that the ship would be destroyed in terms of human habitation along the way and, even if it didn't, there is still no know way to stop at the destination let alone put explorers down somewhere, anywhere.

Of course, this all ignores the daunting task of keeping a ship and crew functioning for about the same time as the time of the pyramids to now with perfectly reliable systems and resources to make it happen. A single flu outbreak or even incestuous behavior could destroy the whole thing. We are talking about a really, really long time and the margin of error is insurmountable even as a flying biosphere experiment.

Extraterrestrial aliens have to contend with the same thing and there is no reason to assume any of them found a solution to the problem. The laws of physics are one of the things that we would all hold in common. This isn't a scripted video game and it is likely that there is no solution to the problem of visiting other intelligent extraterrestrial life.

[beowulff]

Oh, another thing-
When I was in High School, I had a mentor who was a really bright, if a little wacky, guy. He used to do lighting and theatre management around town.
He related a story to me once:
He was working on a conference for some UFO-believer group, and he was listening to all the testimonials of people who had seen UFOs, and he found many of the stories very convincing. Then, a guy gets up to the mic, and tells about how he say this amazing array of UFOs, way up in the sky, performing all sorts of very-un-airplane-like maneuvers. The guy was very convincing, and the audience was completely enraptured by his story, and it was very strong eye-witness evidence for intelligent UFOs.
Except.
My friend realized that HE had seen the same thing, at the same location.
At the time, his first thought was UFOs also, until something "clicked" in his brain, and he realized that what appeared to be large objects very high in the sky were really much smaller objects much closer to the ground, in fact birds swarming after insects attracted to upward-pointing building illumination lights. At that moment, he realized that essentially all of the UFO eye-witness accounts were bogus, a trick of people seeing what they expected to see.

The fact that there has never been a shred (no pun intended) of hard evidence leads me to believe ETs visitng Earth is just a fantasy.

[Magiver]

While I agree that the odds of other life forms exist I also think 2 things would be preclude anal probing anthropologists:
1 - travel in excess of light speed may exist in some form
2 - if we can currently make camera's that can be swallowed for diagnosis then surely an advanced race could make a probe the size of a pinhead. In that case, we could be observed through our entire history without the slightest awareness. Everyone of those damn mosquito's could be nothing but little bio-robots checking our DNA.

And I've always been suspicious of my cats the way they just stare at me sometimes....

[BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed]

Y'all are forgetting warp travel, shields, and the prime directive. As soon as we figure out why Einstein was wrong, the rest of the interstellar world is going to take notice.

[Crocodiles And Boulevards]

Dean Koontz's book Strangers had an interesting idea about how aliens would get to our planet.

Oh, btw: I really liked this novel even though I'm not usually a Koontz fan. So if you'd rather read it, don't look at this spoiler!

In the book, the main characters encounter the first alien ship from a very ancient race landing on Earth. The aliens were thousands of years old and were being supported by suspended animation or some such on the ship, but the ship was so old that many of the systems were failing. All of the aliens but one had died because of those system failures. Fortunately, the automatic landing tech didn't fail them.

What they discovered is that these aliens were like intergalactic missionaries. Their civilization was so old and so advanced that thousands of their species would leave their planet every year in these ships targeted at systems they thought might have life. 99.99% of the ships were doomed, their occupants sacrificing their lives for naught, but they were hoping for that 0.01% that would find someone out there other than themselves.

These aliens didn't use faster than light travel. They just hoped that their ships worked long enough to get the message out.

[Voyager]

They are discoverers, Christopher Columbus' from other planets.
If I remember correctly, Chris didn't play hide and seek with the Indians.

[Voyager]

In fact, there were reports of UFOs all over the country, with many people testifying that they met the pilots. Some were seen by large groups of people. Pretty convincing, right?

Unfortunately this happened in the 1890s, the UFOs were supposed to be airships, and the pilots were supposed to be Yankee inventors. Clearly, none of the stories were true. The Great Airship Mystery (http://www.amazon.com/great-airship-mystery-UFO-1890s/dp/0396079903/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207294264&sr=1-1) tells all about it. I recommend it to anyone saying lots of sightings must mean something is there.

[One And Only Wanderers]

There is no doubt in my mind that we are being visited and also abducted by these beings. I feel there are more than one type of species visiting us too. I have witnessed a UFO and at the time had a camera and took a picture of it. It was in the one o'clock position when I saw it, then it zipped to about the three o'clock position in a split second. I may or may not post the pic later.

There is too much testimony, video and pics of these visitors for this to be a hoax or some other type of phenomenon. THAT many people can't be lying, mistaken or just plain wrong with what they saw. There have been WAY too many credible witnesses of UFOs for there not to be something going on.

I've read a lot of abduction books and testimony and these people are NOT lying or making up these experiences. Sure, some probably are sleep paralysis, but a vast majority are not.

There are too many galaxies out here for there to be no life.



Do you also believe in ghosts? Many of the arguments you have used to support the existence of UFO visitors to Earth could be used for paranormal events i.e. that many people can't be lying mistaken or just plain wrong.

[sandra_nz]

At that moment, he realized that essentially all of the UFO eye-witness accounts were bogus, a trick of people seeing what they expected to see.

Hmmm....I don't think one instance of disproving a UFO automatically means that all UFOs are bogus.

Personally, I would be very surprised if Earth was the only planet sustaining life, but I don't understand enough about physics (and I doubt anyone on the planet really does right now) to even guess the feasibility of travelling the vast distances required between galaxies.

I think a lot of UFO sightings are weather balloons and other man-made devices, a lot of sightings are natural phenomena (viz ball lightening), but that doesn't mean I disbelieve the posibility of actual alien visitors.

In summary: maybe. :D

[CalMeacham]

Answer: All of the above, and more. Donald Menzel, onetime director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory, and the first major UFO debunker, wrote three books and numerous articles about UFOs, and came up with a list of possible explanations for unexplained sightings. It ran on for two pages.

Most "natural explanations" aren't as exotic as ball lightning, or the often-lampooned "swamp gas". They're things like unexpectedly bright planets, especially when seen through clouds. (Robert Schaeffer, in The UFO Verdict, has a great plot showing the times UFOs were reported in John Fuller's book incident at Exeter and the heights of Jupiter and Saturn -- the correlation is damned near perfect). Or ice-crystal meteorological effects, like Sundogs and the Circumzenith Arc. I point there out to people all the time, and they're weird looking and almost completely unknown. Then there are airplanes not properly identified, blimps, helicopters, and satellites, in addition to balloons.

There's no shortage of things that are in the sky or which may appear to be there that can be misidentified. As Philip Klass points out, it's realy a mistake to call them "flying" and "objects" -- many of them aren't flying, and aren't physical objects.





I, too, find it highly unlikely that we're being visited. But I want to point out that it's certainly possible to imagine circumstances in which aliens might want to visit us and NOT land. Read Poul Anderson's Brain Wave some time, for instance.

[Crafter_Man]

Simple logic proves that we have never been visited by aliens. Someone once explained it this way (my paraphrasing):

As noted by Shagnasty, it would take a mind-boggling amount of time, energy, and resources for aliens to travel from planet to planet in a Star Trek fashion. The challenges are almost insurmountable.

Suffice to say, if there were aliens that could pull it off, they would have to be highly, highly, highly advanced and highly, highly, highly intelligent. Many orders of magnitude more than us.

So we have concluded one thing: the aliens must be super smart.

Next, one of the following must be true:

1. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens want to be seen.
2. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens do not want to be seen.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #1 is true, then we would have lots of concrete, verifiable evidence that aliens have visited Earth. This is obviously not the case. Alas, #1 can't be true. So this means #2 must be true.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #2 is true, there would be no reports of anyone seeing them - they would know how to visit us without being seen. (They're extremely smart, remember?) You can't (on the one hand) argue that the aliens are extremely advanced and intelligent, but (on the other hand) argue that they routinely screw up and are accidentally seen by us. "Oops, the farmer saw us again!! Have to remember to turn off those starboard lights."

[Mangetout]

If I remember correctly, Chris didn't play hide and seek with the Indians.
Not sure what his stance on anal probing was either.

[Musicat]

I have witnessed a UFO and at the time had a camera and took a picture of it. It was in the one o'clock position when I saw it, then it zipped to about the three o'clock position in a split second. I may or may not post the pic later.The first thing to ask if a spot of light seems to defy physics or gravity is, "is it just a spot of light?" Reflections can perform in ways that physical objects cannot, and reflections are everywhere, especially inside cameras.There is too much testimony, video and pics of these visitors for this to be a hoax or some other type of phenomenon. THAT many people can't be lying, mistaken or just plain wrong with what they saw. There have been WAY too many credible witnesses of UFOs for there not to be something going on.If every observation of a number is faulty, taking them as a group doesn't make them any more valid.

How about picking out the single, best example of a UFO and presenting it so we can discuss it? Surely if that holds up under scrutiny, there might be others to support your theory, but let's start with the best first.

[RealityChuck]

There is no simple answer. Each "sighting" can have different explanations, and it's hardly worth the effort to track them down.

Some are natural phenomena, some are fabulations by the "witnesses," some are man made objects that the viewer didn't understand.

From my own experience, I saw something that some might call a UFO. It were three bright white lights in the sky by the airport. Not a tower or anything, and not an airplane because they hovered without moving. So if I believed in such nonsense, I would be giving that as evidence.

Except sometime later, I saw the same thing: three light hovering. But the sky was a bit brighter, and I could see what it really was: an airplane landing. It only appeared to be hovering because of the angle (I was driving by the end of the runway).

In fact, the biggest reason why people think they see UFOs is based on one fact: it is impossible to determine the size and distance of an unknown object in the sky.

In any case, UFOs make no sense. They would have to be piloted with creatures whose science is to beyond us that we couldn't be able to comprehend it. If they wanted to stay hidden, we'd never detect them. If they wanted us to see them, they'd land in a major capital and announce their presence.

Basically, there is no hard evidence for UFO.

[divemaster]

I love Star Trek and all sorts of Sci-Fi movies and books. But my personal belief is that there is nothing else out there that could be considered "intelligent life." So it would stand to follow that I absolutely do not believe the earth has been visited by aliens. No ancient astronauts, no close encounters, no X-Files, and no anal probes.

Just my opinion.

[Missy2U]

Well, if diggleblop believes, it who am I to disagree :rolleyes:

Ignoring the whole problem of the distances involved, as an engineer, I just really have a hard time believing that any race capable of interstellar travel is going to a) crash or b) get shot down with our weapons.

Also, I just don't think we are all that interesting.

Pretty much sums it up for me. Besides, my second husband swore he'd seen a UFO - and he was an asshat (and one of the biggest idiots I've ever known) so there ya go!

[Leaffan]

I love Star Trek and all sorts of Sci-Fi movies and books. But my personal belief is that there is nothing else out there that could be considered "intelligent life." So it would stand to follow that I absolutely do not believe the earth has been visited by aliens. No ancient astronauts, no close encounters, no X-Files, and no anal probes.

Just my opinion.
Billions of stars, with billions of planets and we're the only one with intelligent life?

[BrainGlutton]

I have no doubt that we are not the only planet in the universe that contains life. The odds of us being alone are, well astronomical.

True, but life and intelligent life are two different things. On Earth, life has been around and evolving for at least 2.5 billion years; the only (known) intelligent or semi-intelligent life-forms that have ever emerged all come from the genus Homo, which is only 2.5 million years old -- an eyeblink of time by comparison. Any ET who had visited the Earth before then would have found no sign of intelligent life. So if we send an expedition to a world known to be life-bearing, what are the odds of finding a civilization there at that particular snapshot-moment of its planetary history?

We also have absolutely no way of knowing how long an intelligent species can survive.

The Drake equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) can't even help us make any educated guesses; too many of its variables are not only unknown but, at present, imponderable.

If there is such thing as an intelligent, high-tech-civilized species elsewhere in the Galaxy, now, and if they have the technology and the patience to cross the unimaginable gulfs of interstellar space to visit our planet, and if for some reason they wanted to, why would they go to all that trouble and then hide? That's not what the Europeans did when they went exploring!

[Der Trihs]

Suffice to say, if there were aliens that could pull it off, they would have to be highly, highly, highly advanced and highly, highly, highly intelligent. Many orders of magnitude more than us.

So we have concluded one thing: the aliens must be super smart.

Next, one of the following must be true:

1. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens want to be seen.
2. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens do not want to be seen.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #1 is true, then we would have lots of concrete, verifiable evidence that aliens have visited Earth. This is obviously not the case. Alas, #1 can't be true. So this means #2 must be true.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #2 is true, there would be no reports of anyone seeing them - they would know how to visit us without being seen. (They're extremely smart, remember?) You can't (on the one hand) argue that the aliens are extremely advanced and intelligent, but (on the other hand) argue that they routinely screw up and are accidentally seen by us. "Oops, the farmer saw us again!! Have to remember to turn off those starboard lights."That sums up my attitude. Even if there ARE aliens or more likely one of their probes in our system, I find it unlikely they have anything to do with UFOs.

[chappachula]

Billions of stars, with billions of planets and we're the only one?
..billions of stars,billions of planets...... but also billions of years.
They may have visited us when the planet was inhabited by algea floating in a primordial sea, or when dinosaurs ruled, or when mammals were starting to evolve, or when neanderthals communicated with grunting sounds, or when a few homo sapiens were learning to make fire, or when knights in armor were fighting the Crusades.
But the chance that aliens who have all those billions of years to choose from, just happen to visit specifically today, or yesterday, or in the past decade? Methinks is pretty unlikely.

[Voyager]

Not sure what his stance on anal probing was either.
You'd have to check with the Indian women about that.

[Stranger On A Train]

The "so many people testify to it that there must be some truth in it" meme can be applied to any of a number of cracktastical notions, including the Sasquatch/Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, the image of Jesus appearing in potato crisps, multi-level marketing, et cetera. The fact that after fifty years in which thousands of reported incidences of alien sightings, crashes, abductions, et cetera have occurred leads to only three conclusions: The aliens are inexcusably careless about their visibility and personal safety, but also incredibly capable in regard to cleaning up and recovering physical evidence after the fact, A world-wide cabal of benevolent but secretive men (one assumes that women would have more sense) have striven for decades to successfully maintain a conspiracy covering up and/or dismissing any evidence or verifiable claims about the aliens among us, or it's nothing but complete balderdash fed by the universal feeling of alienation in the modern industrial world, and participants like the sense of value and necessity that comes from being an integral part in some mysterious plan by shadowy, unseen forces.

Given that the latter argument already has a strong empirical basis I think it not untoward to grant it the greatest likelihood.

I personally suspect that life has developed more frequently throughout the universe than most people would imagine, and sapience has probably emerged in some form or another (whether we could recognize it or such) with some modest degree of regularity. However, given the scale of even our own galaxy and the brief fragment of time for which we even have a historical record, being visited by a sapient extraterrestrial species would imply that we are either astronomically fortunate (or unfortunate, in the case of those being anally penetrated or whatnot) or such a species must have spread wide across a considerable portion of the galaxy for us to have come into contact.

I find it beyond any reason that such a species would be in any way likely to resemble humans in even superficial form (i.e. bipedal, binocular, grasping appendages attached to the upper trunk). As for communication, I find it unlikely that we could share any cultural concepts outside of the hard sciences and mathematics, and even that may be mutually unintelligible. (Imagine trying to discuss mathematics with a species that has no notion of discrete numbers--their fundamental arithmetic would be integral and differential calculus, and with no doubt a much different conception than our own.) Any species capable of commanding the kind of energy and technology to cross the vast distances between stars is probably going to have about as much to say to us as we do to a tapeworm.

Stranger

[John DiFool]

Also, I just don't think we are all that interesting.

That is a mind boggling point of view, one not unique to this thread (i.e. seen it before on numerous occasions). If we consider that intelligent life with the ability to construct a technological society is very rare in the galaxy/universe, and thus also very precious, then any aliens out there would most certainly find us fascinating, so worthy of study that there simply can't be any doubt about that at all. They at least would be interested to see "how we've done it", and compare notes, if nothing else. Now I'll add the caveat that there likely are some alien races which have absolutely no interest in lifeforms from other planets, but for any race which contains even the tiniest shred of curiousity and imagination they must be hugely interested in us, even in a negative way (to be exploited or the like).

[GuanoLad]

So we have concluded one thing: the aliens must be super smart.Well, the aliens that invented the spacecraft may have been pretty darned clever. That doesn't mean Klaatu Sixpack who was driving the thing couldn't be just some everyday schlub. The controls of a 747 can be marvellously complicated, but that doesn't mean the pilot can't turn up drunk one day and make a mess of things.

Just being devil's advocate. Really, you're probably right.

[Apocalypso]

Just because space is vast, that doesn't mean it's not empty...

I'm always puzzled by the "but SOMEWHERE out there in the vastness of space there HAS to be some type of intelligent life" argument. It has not a shred of logic whatsoever. The fact that life ever arose on this planet is a billion different billion to one shots hitting us at the same time. It's like hitting the lottery every single day for 80 years.

[greatshakes]

I don't have any opinion either way: however, the debunkers arguments are just as flawed as the adherents, e.g., the Jimmy Carter sighting of whatever. Yeah, Yeah, he saw a configuration of some planets. That is a good story, but it doesn't satisfy me. I mean, dork President, sure, but let's be straight: the guy was an engineer...this means a derned lot of physics, which would preclude his making such a careless mistake. And even I, since I was four years old, knew that different light amplitudes in the sky could only be stars or planets. I doubt that Jimmy saw the first wave of interstellar hostilities, but, my money says that it wasn't a couple of planets in alignment.

[gonzomax]

When I was about 12 years old a friend and I walked out my parents front door. A light was roaring down the street. It was house high and went down the middle of street with a whoosh. It went past the house and shot up at an angle skipping over the street lights . Then went up and went rapidly into the night sky out of out sight.
Must have been an interesting configuration of planets there.
I do not know what it was, I will not make a guess. But not a planet configuration.
We immediately looked out to see if anyone else saw it but the streets were empty. We never discussed it after that night.

[JimOfAllTrades]

I’ve always thought there is life and possibly intelligent life out there somewhere, but I don’t think we’re getting visited by aliens for basically the same reasons others have stated.

All the reports, all the investigations, and *zero* hard evidence.

Plus, I always come back to this: In every case where enough information was available to say with any certainty what happened, is has always been something prosaic, something perfectly normal. Even the most fanatical believer in alien visitation will generally say that 90 to 95 percent of sightings are explained by normal things.

So what is the most reasonable assumption about the other 5 percent where there isn’t enough information to say with certainty what happened? That they would also be explainable by normal means if we had a little more information, or that they have some other explanation entirely, an explanation involving aliens?

[Telemark]

The fact that life ever arose on this planet is a billion different billion to one shots hitting us at the same time. It's like hitting the lottery every single day for 80 years.
This is faulty logic. It only makes sense if you assume that humans in our present form is the only possible outcome. Since there are billions of different possible outcomes once self-replication starts the odds you quoted aren't correct.

[ralph124c]

UFO reports seemed to have peaked during the late 1950's , early 1960's. This was probably a stress reaction the Cold war (aliens come to save us from ourselves). funny-everybody has a cell phone camera today-why don't we see more of UFOs now?

[Czarcasm]

Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.

[chowder]

If there are ETs out there and if they've visited us I imagine they've taken a look and thought "Jebus, these guys are fuckin' dangerous, let's get the hell outta here and right quick"

Just sayin'

[Der Trihs]

I don't have any opinion either way: however, the debunkers arguments are just as flawed as the adherents, e.g., the Jimmy Carter sighting of whatever. Yeah, Yeah, he saw a configuration of some planets. That is a good story, but it doesn't satisfy me. I mean, dork President, sure, but let's be straight: the guy was an engineer...this means a derned lot of physics, which would preclude his making such a careless mistake.First, "Astronomer", not "engineer" would be the relevant area of expertise; engineering training isn't going to give someone a better grasp of the appearance of the planets as seen from Earth. Second, it's the logical burden of the person claiming something exists to provide evidence, so no, the debunker's arguments AREN'T as flawed.

And finally, people are terrible eyewitnesses. Study after study has shown this. Saying that you saw something doesn't mean a whole lot.

[Mosier]

If aliens wanted to be seen, we wouldn't be able to deny them.

If aliens didn't want to be seen, we wouldn't see them.

If aliens were advanced enough to come here, they wouldn't crash and we wouldn't be able to shoot them down.

There's every UFO encounter we've had so far, debunked by 3 common-sense statements.

[Anomalous Reading]

I find the idea of life somewhere out there easy to grasp. Intelligent life seems only a bit less likely, since intelligence (like physical advantage) would easily be selected for.

Each time we figure out the science of the universe, we find a new truth later. I know that Relativity and all really work - and likely will for a long, long time. What if there's more? What if there are implications to a Unified Theory that we just don't understand because we don't have a solid, cohesive theory yet.

So... I see the immense gaps between what we consider to be the habitable planets as a very REAL challenge. I can say that if I were in control of a society and we could travel to other planets - we would. And something akin to the Prime Directive would be in effect.

So... I give it all, as a whole, very low odds - but not impossible odds. It seems a reasonable and humble position. Overall, I can't say I've seen one thing to convince me we are being visited.

And I'd think an alien race wouldn't have much to gain by being noticed - unless they hoped to spur science or see how friendly we might be.

[gonzomax]

If aliens wanted to be seen, we wouldn't be able to deny them.

If aliens didn't want to be seen, we wouldn't see them.

If aliens were advanced enough to come here, they wouldn't crash and we wouldn't be able to shoot them down.

There's every UFO encounter we've had so far, debunked by 3 common-sense statements.
Why wouldn't they crash.? They still are mechanical devices. Shit happens. Everything breaks eventually.

[Q.E.D.]

There's every UFO encounter we've had so far, debunked by 3 common-sense statements.
Where? I must have missed them.

[BrainGlutton]

If aliens didn't want to be seen, we wouldn't see them.

Nobody's perfect. Just because they've mastered interstellar flight doesn't mean they've cracked invisibility.

[BrainGlutton]

Just because space is vast, that doesn't mean it's not empty...

I'm always puzzled by the "but SOMEWHERE out there in the vastness of space there HAS to be some type of intelligent life" argument. It has not a shred of logic whatsoever. The fact that life ever arose on this planet is a billion different billion to one shots hitting us at the same time. It's like hitting the lottery every single day for 80 years.

Likewise with the view Ellie Arroway expresses in Contact: "If we were the only ones, wouldn't that be an awful waste of space?"

So it would.

When rain falls on the ocean, that is an awful waste of fresh water.

Nevertheless, rain falls on the ocean.

[Voyager]

UFO reports seemed to have peaked during the late 1950's , early 1960's. This was probably a stress reaction the Cold war (aliens come to save us from ourselves). funny-everybody has a cell phone camera today-why don't we see more of UFOs now?
Except that Charles Fort, writing in the '30s, had plenty of UFO sightings in his books. Not called that of course. I think they probably became a fad because of the cold war, though. I've already mentioned the unidentified flying airships from the 1890s.

[Voyager]

I mean, dork President, sure, but let's be straight: the guy was an engineer...this means a derned lot of physics, which would preclude his making such a careless mistake.
I'm an engineer, and let me assure you engineers can make lots of careless mistakes, and have no better observational powers than the usual person.
(In fact I've worked on some careless mistakes. :) )

[Voyager]

This is faulty logic. It only makes sense if you assume that humans in our present form is the only possible outcome. Since there are billions of different possible outcomes once self-replication starts the odds you quoted aren't correct.
He was talking about life arising, not humans, but it is still faulty logic. Since we don't know exactly how life arose, it might be almost inevitable given the right raw materials and environment. The environment doesn't even have to be that good, the one on Earth wasn't, and we know the raw materials are there, from observing organic molecules floating around in space. All you need is one replicating molecule, and then evolution more or less takes over.

[BrainGlutton]

I'm an engineer, and let me assure you engineers can make lots of careless mistakes, and have no better observational powers than the usual person.
(In fact I've worked on some careless mistakes. :) )

I recall an NPR interview with an ad exec who specializes in coming up with catchy names for new products or services. Tasked to name a new HIV-diagnosis kit, she coined "Accu-Di." The problem with which was shortly and readily brought to her attention. The interviewer asked, in essence, "How could you, a specialist in this field, make such an obvious mistake?" Her response was, "Everybody makes mistakes, and only someone in my field could have made this one."

[jimmmy]

This has already been touched on but there are plenty of unexplainable and documented UFOs in our skies that were reported by non-crazy, non-jack@sses. It is probably safe to believe that there were such sightings before the Cold War as well -though I am not sure which I would hang my hat on as totally solid.

What takes these UFOs to the next stop (crazy town) to is to jump from "I saw a light in the sky that I can't fully explain" to ""I saw a light in the sky that I can't fully explain so it must be (or more than likely is or my best WAG is) that it is piloted by Aliens."

Just saying UFO (which there undoubtedly are) does not equal Earth Visiting Aliens

[Nametag]

I don't have any opinion either way: however, the debunkers arguments are just as flawed as the adherents, e.g., the Jimmy Carter sighting of whatever. Yeah, Yeah, he saw a configuration of some planets. That is a good story, but it doesn't satisfy me. I mean, dork President, sure, but let's be straight: the guy was an engineer...this means a derned lot of physics, which would preclude his making such a careless mistake. And even I, since I was four years old, knew that different light amplitudes in the sky could only be stars or planets. I doubt that Jimmy saw the first wave of interstellar hostilities, but, my money says that it wasn't a couple of planets in alignment.
First of all, Carter himself can't recall why he filed that report, and doesn't believe it was an alien spacecraft. Second, can anyone verify whether Carter is or was ever an engineer? I know he held a BS in physics from Annapolis, but his biographies only list "doing graduate work"; he never finished the nuclear power training school, having only studied at Union College a few months before leaving the navy (when his father died). Not that his education in physics is in any way lacking, but I hear and read so many "Carter was a nuclear engineer" comments, and ... well, he wasn't.

[BrainGlutton]

Actually, we do have some hard proof. (http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/articles/X0030_I_Was_Abducted_By_Al.html)

[CalMeacham]

I don't have any opinion either way: however, the debunkers arguments are just as flawed as the adherents, e.g., the Jimmy Carter sighting of whatever. Yeah, Yeah, he saw a configuration of some planets. That is a good story, but it doesn't satisfy me. I mean, dork President, sure, but let's be straight: the guy was an engineer...this means a derned lot of physics, which would preclude his making such a careless mistake. And even I, since I was four years old, knew that different light amplitudes in the sky could only be stars or planets. I doubt that Jimmy saw the first wave of interstellar hostilities, but, my money says that it wasn't a couple of planets in alignment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


You might want to read the actual debunking. It's by Robert Schaeffer in The UFO Verdict. It's well-researched (Schaeffer went to a lot of effort to see what the cause might have been) and very convincing. It's not merely some skeptic saying "Pshaw! It was probably just planets!" Schaeffer finds Carter's report accurate and credible.

[gonzomax]

UFO reports seemed to have peaked during the late 1950's , early 1960's. This was probably a stress reaction the Cold war (aliens come to save us from ourselves). funny-everybody has a cell phone camera today-why don't we see more of UFOs now?
A stress reaction to the cold war is seeing flying saucers. Theres an explanation I can get behind. Whew.
There were a lot of sightings when I was growing up. It was often front page news. The stories were common and were also on the news regularly. The Michigan ones were attributed to swamp gas. The explanations got weirder and weirder. I think we have no answers. We do not know what was seen. The explanations are guesses. There is equal proof on both sides. None.

[Napier]

As I understand the current state of affairs in cosmology, they seem to require that the universe is infinite in size and therefore contains an infinite number of intelligent civilizations, including an infinite number that are arbitrarily similar to our own.

In fact, physicist Max Tegmark has written a peer-reviewed paper calculating expected distances to some of these. There are scenes that are absolutely indistinguishable from the one you occupy right now, down to the quantum state of every particle within the observable universe radius from that point. The distances are stunning and inconvenient to represent except by nesting layers of exponentiation.

Since I still remember when Mars had canals, probably dug to irrigate the spaces between the major population centers, I would like to preserve the plausibility of all these things being incorrect because of some other important consideration we don't know about. Kelvin argued strenuously that the Earth could not be more than a few million years old because it would have cooled off more by now if it were - since he didn't consider radioactivity as a heat source, he did the wrong math and got the wrong conclusion. So might we.

Well, then.

I've seen UFO's. They were not identified, and they were flying (in the sense of moving around overhead), and they must have had some physical manifestation because we could see them. Owls, would be my first guess. Something natural. I doubt any UFO's in history have been anything surprising enough to make it worth all the effort to identify them with confidence.

I think it's stunningly unlikely that aliens have visited here, with the possible exception of microscopic life bouncing back and forth between the planets the way meteoritic materials always do (which wasn't what anybody meant when they designed the T-shirts sold in Rosswell).

I do, though, think it's somewhat likely that we will identify electromagnetic or other radiant communications from other intelligent worlds one of these years. It is hard to say with much confidence, but the significance to all of humanity and history of a contact, and the very low cost of continuing to search with increasing sensitivity and thoroughness, certainly seem to argue for looking.

[Telemark]

I think we have no answers. We do not know what was seen. The explanations are guesses. There is equal proof on both sides. None.
This is simply not true, not even close to being true. Reports of UFOs that contained verifiable details are very easy to debunk to an extremely high degree of confidence, and they are on a regular basis.

It's easy to make up something out of whole cloth and challenge someone to come up with an explanation. But when you have reports that include video (for example) they are very easy to explain with a high degree of confidence.

[gonzomax]

This is simply not true, not even close to being true. Reports of UFOs that contained verifiable details are very easy to debunk to an extremely high degree of confidence, and they are on a regular basis.

It's easy to make up something out of whole cloth and challenge someone to come up with an explanation. But when you have reports that include video (for example) they are very easy to explain with a high degree of confidence.
Some have been. Planetary configurations and Venus etal. But many have not been easily explained away. We do not know what they are.
I know none of these explanations come close to explaining what I and a childhood friend saw over 50 years ago.

[Czarcasm]

Some have been. Planetary configurations and Venus etal. But many have not been easily explained away. We do not know what they are.
I know none of these explanations come close to explaining what I and a childhood friend saw over 50 years ago.There is no way to analyze 50 year old memories from someone's childhood without direct evidence to support(or refute) those memories. Have you considered the possibility that your memory might be faulty?

[gonzomax]

http://www.cohenufo.org/carter/carter_abvtopsec.htm Carters testimony. Sounds like planetary configuration.

[lelebuh]

Simple logic proves that we have never been visited by aliens. Someone once explained it this way (my paraphrasing):

As noted by Shagnasty, it would take a mind-boggling amount of time, energy, and resources for aliens to travel from planet to planet in a Star Trek fashion. The challenges are almost insurmountable.

Suffice to say, if there were aliens that could pull it off, they would have to be highly, highly, highly advanced and highly, highly, highly intelligent. Many orders of magnitude more than us.

So we have concluded one thing: the aliens must be super smart.

Next, one of the following must be true:

1. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens want to be seen.
2. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens do not want to be seen.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #1 is true, then we would have lots of concrete, verifiable evidence that aliens have visited Earth. This is obviously not the case. Alas, #1 can't be true. So this means #2 must be true.

If aliens have visited Earth, and #2 is true, there would be no reports of anyone seeing them - they would know how to visit us without being seen. (They're extremely smart, remember?) You can't (on the one hand) argue that the aliens are extremely advanced and intelligent, but (on the other hand) argue that they routinely screw up and are accidentally seen by us. "Oops, the farmer saw us again!! Have to remember to turn off those starboard lights."

Maybe #2 is true, and they are visiting, but do not want to be seen, so they are therefore hiding themselves so completely that we have no proof of them. All the so called UFO sightings are cases of mistaken identity.

I do agree that any aliens who have made it to our planet would be so far advanced that they would be like gods to us. So if they wanted to stay hidden there is probably no way to prove that they do exist or that they don't exist.

[gonzomax]

There is no way to analyze 50 year old memories from someone's childhood without direct evidence to support(or refute) those memories. Have you considered the possibility that your memory might be faulty?
No I have not. Because I was there.

[Musicat]

There is no way to analyze 50 year old memories from someone's childhood without direct evidence to support(or refute) those memories. Have you considered the possibility that your memory might be faulty? No I have not. Because I was there.And because memories (http://www.skepdic.com/memory.html) are never wrong, never biased, never change and are a perfect recording of the world around you, right?

[gonzomax]

And because memories (http://www.skepdic.com/memory.html) are never wrong, never biased, never change and are a perfect recording of the world around you, right?
Sure. I guess you know better than I . I am a flawed first person observer. Please do let me know what my experience was.

[Q.E.D.]

I am a flawed first person observer.
That's right, you are. And it's not just you, either; nearly anyone who hasn't been trained to be particularly observant is going to be subject to perceptive and memory distortions and these problems tend to be magnified over time, resulting in decreasingly accurate recollection the more time has passed. No one is more aware of this fact than police who have investigated incidents with multiple witnesses; they can interview ten witnesses and get twelve different descriptions of what happened. Everyone has their own biases, experiences, expectations and perceptions which tend to color their observations.

For these reasons, firsthand witness accounts are the LEAST reliable types of evidence. Sorry if that offends you.

[gonzomax]

That is why I never talk about it. Other people know what I saw. I do not. It is not wise to bring up such things. On a computer board maybe less risky.
How the hell do you train someone to be observant and why do you assume I am not.
What about the cops who saw something. did their ability suddenly leave them only to return when needed for work.
So seeing is the worst kind of evidence. Every thing has that for a starting point. I did not touch or smell anything. When I cross the street I still rely on my poor seeing abilities. I should be more careful.

[JimOfAllTrades]

That is why I never talk about it. Other people know what I saw.No one is saying that at all. They are saying the exact opposite.

What is being said is that no one, not me, not you, not Q.E.D., could be certain of all the details after 50 years. So we don’t know what you saw, no one does. At least, not exactly. Memory is too malleable across that period of time.

[Nars Glinley]

Next, one of the following must be true:

1. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens want to be seen.
2. Upon reaching Earth, the aliens do not want to be seen.

Why couldn't the aliens be indifferent to our seeing them? They could fly by, not see anything of interest and then move on to Venus. Since they are supersmart, they probably wouldn't need to land in order to learn what they were interested in.

My personal belief is that we probably haven't been visited but I'm agnostic on the matter.

[gonzomax]

No one is saying that at all. They are saying the exact opposite.

What is being said is that no one, not me, not you, not Q.E.D., could be certain of all the details after 50 years. So we don’t know what you saw, no one does. At least, not exactly. Memory is too malleable across that period of time.
Not right. That is not the kind of thing that fades with memory. Like your first kiss or homerun,they stay there forever. Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated . How about when Elvis died. Your mother or father die. You will remember as long as you live. My dad died 35 years ago. I can tell you what we were eating when the hospital called . I can tell you who was there.

[Telemark]

Not right. That is not the kind of thing that fades with memory. Like your first kiss or homerun,they stay there forever. Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated . How about when Elvis died. Your mother or father die. You will remember as long as you live. My dad died 35 years ago. I can tell you what we were eating when the hospital called . I can tell you who was there.
And many of those memories don't hold up to examination. It is a fact of life, not a judgment or an accusation, that some of our most treasured memories are objectively inaccurate or wrong. I have had cherished memories from childhood that I've told and retold, but in speaking of them with my folks they've informed me that those events couldn't have happened.

In one case, I can remember a relative who died before I was born. How did that happen? Somewhere along the line I confused a memory of one person with stories I'd been told of another person. The memories seemed so real but they couldn't possibly have happened. Even now, knowing that the meeting never occurred I can draw on that memory and it feels real.

I don't think anyone doubts that you saw something. But the at this point the details and specifics are so unreliable as to be impossible to verify or assess.

[ralph124c]

I was reading about Carter's (alleged) encounter with the UFO-then read where he was attacked by a swimming rabbit!
Given Carter's tremendously poor judgement (as president), was he suffering from some kind of mental illness?

[gonzomax]

I should have never posted. I knew where it would go.

[Captain Carrot]

What, people pointing out to you (accurately) that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, and you treating it as a personal affront of some sort?

[JimOfAllTrades]

Not right. That is not the kind of thing that fades with memory. Like your first kiss or homerun,they stay there forever.I didn’t say the memories would have faded away, I said the details would not *all* be correct.

This isn’t something that is directed at you, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the memories are of something that seemed alien or paranormal to you. Any memory from 50 years is suspect with regards to the fine details. Likewise any memory from a high tension or traumatic situation. Some details may be spot on, some others will have been distorted by time, selective recall, combining of memories, etc.

This is true of all of us. Unless you’re willing to say that you’re a one in millions who has perfect recall in these instances. As Telemark points out, we all have this problem. Memories that seem rock solid and certain turn out to be off in some respects. Sometimes just small details are wrong, sometimes memories have been created wholly.

What was said (and I’m going by memory) is that there is no way to tell what happened to you 50 years ago because there is not enough information. Your own memory, good as it may be, will not be correct on all points.

Someone trying to investigate based on that would likely never be able to say anything other than “Yep, you saw something you couldn’t explain.” And since further information most likely does not exist, your statement that no one can explain it is likely correct. Not necessarily because it was something of alien origin or paranormal, but because of the lack of complete information.

[gonzomax]

I make no claims about what it was. I do not know.

[CalMeacham]

I was reading about Carter's (alleged) encounter with the UFO-then read where he was attacked by a swimming rabbit!
Given Carter's tremendously poor judgement (as president), was he suffering from some kind of mental illness?


As Schaeffer points out in The UFO Verdict, Carter's observations sem to have been accurate. And he didn't say he saw a "Flying Saucer", he said he saw an unidentified object. Which it was -- he simply didn't identify it properly as a planet.


As for the rabbitm, the film shows that a swimming rabbit did indeed approach the president while he was canoeing. Carter was understandably concerned that the rabbit might be rabid, since a rabbit swimming TOWARD a boat is aberrant behavior. He avoided the rabbit. Prident behavior, in my opinion. What should he have done? Smacked it with the paddle? Helped it into the boat?


I can't see anything wrong with Carter's actions in either case. What would YOU have done?

[Grendel's Father]

This is a little bit of an aside, but all the speculation that any other life form, on Earth or anywhere else, may be "intelligent" strikes me as extremely anthropocentric. Isn't "intelligent" in this context just shorthand for the specific set of behaviors and ways of thinking that have evolved in tool-using post-arboreal primate mammals? Even if other life is "intelligent," I see no reason to think it would be intelligent in anywhere near the same way humans are, or that "intelligence" would ever lead to science and space travel except in one very specific case.

The very idea of alien-piloted UFOs visiting Earth or anywhere else is giving extremely human-like characteristics to the most un-human like beings imaginable.