Well, it depends. Are you a scientist, or are you a used-flying-saucer salesman? The Prime Directive is all well and good, but there are a lot more Quarks than Picards among us, I think.
Has to be a lot of weed before it gets to too much, brother. 
Well, having seen an UFO I do believe in them.
I was around 7 or 8. My Dad and I were coming home, at night. Being a kid before the days of walkmans and gameboys, I was spending the time looking out the window. Over the Los Angeles skyline, I saw a plane pulling a glowing banner. I was trying to make out what the cool banner said, but even then I remember thinking that something was just not right. Why is the banner glowing? How is the banner glowing?
I kept yelling at my Dad to look at it and tell me what it is, but seeing as he was driving and we were on the freeway he couldn’t spare more than quick glances.
I then noticed that the ‘glowing banner’ was gone, and the object was getting bigger meaning it was coming toward us.
It ended up stopping a little ways in front of us and we drove underneath it. As we drove underneath, I pressed my face against the window trying to keep it in sight. On the bottom were three lights that rotated.
It moved a little ways away from the freeway, then just flew off. It was there, then zoomed off and disappeared. Went from hover to out of my sight in a matter of one or two seconds.
This event shook me up badly, and I was genuinely scared. It wasn’t until I thought about it later that I didn’t hear anything. No roar of jet engines or sonic boom.
I watched the news the next day and read the newspaper expecting to see big headlines about the UFO in the sky, but there was nothing. The only conclusion I have been able to come to is that no one spends much time looking up at the sky. You seem to spend less time looking up at the sky when you become an adult. Think about it. When was the last time you really spent any amount of time looking up. You might spend a moment or two to note what a beautiful day it is or that it looks like storm clouds moving in, but that is about it.
As to your other questions, I think any alien species that can visit would have to have mastered FTL travel. If they can travel FTL, I would assume that they have FTL communications as well.
I know a lot of people believe that FTL travel is IMPOSSIBLE, and I find that thought depressing. To think that we can only ever know a miniscule part of our own galaxy, which itself is a miniscule part of the universe is disturbing.
As for why the would visit us, it makes sense to me. I like to think that there is an extra-terrestrial version of Jane Goodall who gets a bunch of accolades for her work documenting the habits and history of those strange hairless monkeys of Sol-III
Since this is a poll and not a debate, I’ll reserve observations on the above. But I did want to respond to this:
I spend a lot of time looking at the sky.
Me too. How can anyone not look at the sky? It’s kind of hard to miss. So many cool things to look at–clouds during the day, stars and moon at night, gorgeous colors. I have lots of trees around my house, so I have to go stand in the street to see the sky, but sometimes on really nice nights I’ll stand there and stare at the sky for a while. Especially if there’s a full moon–I like to soak up the moon’s rays (kind of like sunbathing, but cooler and bluer). I never see UFO’s, though.
I lived in the Chicago suburbs for a few years. There’s a lot of light pollution there, and you can only see the brightest stars. My parents lived out in the country, so when I went to visit them, I was just amazed by all the stars, not to mention the Milky Way. I’d forgotten how bright the stars could be, and how many there are.
Do I believe in UFOs (as space alien spacecraft)? No.
Do I believe people see things. Oh yes. I’ve seen things I can’t explain, but I leave it at that. I don’t try to describe them as alien encounters or supernatural events, just my brain playing up or some illusion. The human mind is a funny thing and experiences can/will be bent to fit to mindset of the experiencer.
I once had a friend who started seeing UFOs everywhere. Once you believe in the things they’re hard to miss, it would seem. I gave up talking to the guy, every conversation got diverted to the subject of UFOs :sad-rolleyes-here:
I don’t believe we have been visited by ETs, because all the things that would have to come together makes the event seem vanishingly unlikely.
- Alien life has to exist (I think this part is extremely likely, FWIW)
- It has to have a desire to explore
- It has to have the technology and/or the lifespan to make the journey
- It has to include our planet in the group of places it explores. Out of the unimaginably huge possibilities in the universe, this is unlikely to the extreme.
- All of the above has to come together during the lifespan of the human race
If one sees a strange machine in the sky, even if it doesn’t look a human craft they are familiar with, surely it’s still far more likely to come from humans than any other explanation? We live on a planet known to have billions of humans on it, many of which are known to make air and space craft!
Seeing a machine in the sky of Earth and not assuming it’s from Earthlings is like seeing a cigarette butt on the ground next to a group of known smokers, and thinking maybe it grew out of the dirt.
I do believe we have been visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft (though I have never had a personal UFO or abduction experience).
I think FTL travel is a possibility. I, too, am disturbed by the fact that so many people are so confident of our almighty grasp of physics as to say that FTL travel is “impossible.” Meanwhile, these same folks are in a raging brawl among themselves, trying to get string theory, M-theory, and whatever other multidimensional flavor of the day is out there to work, much to no avail.
When come back, bring grand unified theory. Until then, you haven’t even come close to adequately explaining how the universe works.
As for direct evidence of non-human intelligent flying objects, I recommend Richard Dolan’s excellent book, UFOs and the National Security State. Don’t like that fact that easily-confused laypeople are the ones who always see this stuff? Like to point to the fact that the US govt. has no interest in them, therefore they can’t exist? Think that the vehicles seen are simply advanced man-made craft? Read it. Case after case of trained military professionals seeing UFOs do things no manmade craft can do, taking measurements with observation equipment from multiple vantage points, and pissing their pants because they know the vehicles can’t belong to either the US of Russia–often because these incidents took place in the 1940s and 1950s.
There is evidence out there, made by people whose sole job is to observe aerial phenomena. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that, for the majority of people, there will never, ever be good enough evidence, shy of aliens landing on the White House lawn and holding a two-hour press conference.
And as to those who say, “aliens would never behave like that,” … how, exactly, would you know? We don’t know what their agenda is. Maybe they think we’re vermin, and not to be spoken to. Maybe they have a 500-year plan that involves gradual acclimation to their presence before they can engage in widespread contact. Maybe, like in the Fermi Paradox and ST, we’ve been quarantined until weve developed further and are ready to join the galactic community. Maybe they have secret agreements with the leaders of world governments that preclude open contact. Maybe they’re running advanced sociological and biological experiments on us and don’t want their existence widely known. Maybe they’re missionaries trying to spread their religion to us, but find that the best way is to do it one person at a time, in private, like some brainwashing cult. Maybe they’re here to secretly purchase heroin, chocolate, tomatoes, and sweet corn, which they don’t have on their planets. Maybe they run an intergalactic sex trade, and are bringing wealthy businessbeings to our planet for some exotic sex with unsuspecting “abductees.” If they could fly across the galaxy, why wouldn’t they make themselves TOTALLY undetectable? Maybe they can’t. I mean, since we have flying machines and cars, why don’t we make it so that no plane or car ever crashes, right? Since we can cure a lot more diseases than our hunter-gatherer ancestors could, surely we can also cure cancer, AIDS, and stop teh aging process, right?
Just because someone can do more than you can doesn’t mean they’re omnipotent. Maybe, flying saucers just crash sometimes. Maybe their cloaking technology works poorly in high humidity. Maybe some of the vehicles are old and in bad shape and in need of maintenance, or their pilots are drunk or have a stroke or something.
Physical evidence? If so, what?
As a Sci-Fi geek and an astronomy buff, I’ve been watching the skies ever since that large blood sucking carrot made mincemeat out of that Artic post. KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!
Whether life was created or has evolved, I see the Universe as being way too big a place for it to have happened only once.
However, I do not believe we are being observed as we speak. The Universe is HUGE! And Time boggles the imagination of even a child. So, to think that we are being visited by BEMs and LGM seems pretty improbable. Needle in a haystack and all that…
Like Mulder tho, I want to believe. Show me some independently verified concrete evidence and I will. (Years old memories of childhood won’t cut it, sorry.)
Sorry, visual observations. If you want physical evidence of everything, then most science (i.e., anything involving measuring something at a distance or at a micro level with electromagnetic radiation) is out. And if you want only something for which there is photographic evidence (of course, I don’t believe there could ever be photographic evidence that would convince most die-hard skeptics … they’d just go “huh … can’t figure out how it was faked, exactly…”), then all astronomical observations made before 1840 are also invalid, and should be dismissed.
I said I wasn’t going to debate, but…
Cite? Are you saying, for example, that we cannot tell the composition of a distant star by passing its light through a prism and analysing its spectrum?
As for visual observations, humans are fallible no matter how well-trained they are or what professions they are in. I think (hope) people regard me as reasonably intelligent, and able to think critically. Pilots are often pointed to as reliable observers, and I’m a pilot. So if I were to say I saw an extraterrestrial craft, I should be believed? I did see a UFO once, as I described in the OP. Since it was bright with indistinct outlines, and since it stationary unlike an airplane would be, and since it looked like a ‘flying saucer’, then I should conclude that I saw a space ship.
But it was a hazy day. Could it have been a lenticular cloud that was reflecting the sun ‘just right’, that was diffused by the haze layer? Or could it have been a blimp, again with the sun ‘just right’ to give it an unearthly glow? A weather ballon? This object was certainly unidentified and flying; but which is more likely: one of the hypotheses I just made, or that it was an alien spacecraft? As an observant person, I can attest that I saw what I saw. But the most honest evaluation of what I saw is that I don’t know what it was.
But anyway… The thread is ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’. I don’t and you do.
I stopped believing in UFOs when I realised they were all liars. Just out to make a quick score. Wine 'em, dine 'em, anal probe 'em, and then just dump you out somewhere with nothin but hillbillies and brain damaged ex sherriffs around.
Not even a “Thanks, Human!” The little bastards…
I think toadspittle is Mulder! I am not Scully, however. I believe there’s a possibility there’s life out there somewhere, and that it’s possible it’s figured out a way to travel great distances. But I’m going to say it’s not visited us, or that it has visited us in any way that we recognize. I guess my stance makes me Mulder and Scully’s love child.
If early 21st century Earth can engineer military aircraft that appear invisible on radar (or thereabouts), then an advanced extraterrestrial civilization capable of FTL travel would have not the slightest problem evading our detection, as they survey our bizarre little world. If these beings indeed have visited Earth, they certainly wouldn’t travel in a flying saucer trailing flickering colorful lights like some rogue intergalactic pimps. Our understanding of the intracacies of the cosmos are porobably about as comprehensive as an orangatan’s grasp of aerodynamics, meaning I wouldn’t be surprised if Earth had been surveyed by several ET civilizations, but we will never know the truth.
I do not believe ETs have visited Earth; I am, in fact, pretty sure of it.
I base this not on some objection to the alleged impossibiliy of faster-than-light travel, but on the fact that a study of the history of UFO sightings rather quickly reveals that all sightings are by people who are either liars, nut cases, or (in the great, great majority of cases) just mistake something else for an extraterrestrial craft.
The fact is that “Alien visitations” were nearly unknown until they became popular topics of “Weird Tales” and other sci-fi media. The details of alien visitations are linked to the most recent sci-fi interpretations to an extent that is almost comical.
No, [del]we[/del] aliens from other planets would have no reason to zoom around where [del]we[/del] they could be noticed by irritating earthpeople.
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Indeed. The Clangers have had space travel for decades and could easily visit Earth. As you will know from the Historical Documents we have observed Earth and Human “civilisation” via TV and telescope. We have seen enough of those buffoons thanks.
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To all Mankind: Thanks for the tablecloth (um, it’s not really a towel is it?).
This just screams blimp with an electronic billboard.
Very interesting, Johnny. You have seen what some people would have believed was a UFO, but you do not believe that it was. With regard to that attitude (and I’m not consciously making any judgement on it at all), let me tell you a story that my co-worker told me. When he was a young man in Northern Ontario, he, his parents, and everyone else in town that day saw what he described as a large spaceship hovering over the town for several hours. He observed the spaceship, and he observed his parents and the rest of the townspeople studiously ignoring the large spaceship hovering over the town. Everybody went about their business with a “Spaceship? What spaceship?” attitude.
I’m not saying you saw a UFO and you’re in denial; I just find it extremely interesting idea that people could see a definite, no doubt about it UFO, and we could still deny its existence (and I’m also not saying that that is what the people in a Northern Ontario town saw that day).
As for your simple poll, do I believe in UFOs? I have to reserve judgement until I have more information.
Nah. Sagan should have been right but the Fermi Paradox is a major problem…thus, appropriately called a paradox. Our galaxy should be bumping with life and orderly activity, but when we listen all we get is random noise. FTL isn’t required at all, self-replicating probes should have reached every star by now, if they were coming from nearer the galactic core.
But all we hear is dead silence. Nothing. No automated “welcome to sentience!” messages, no repeated non-random noises…we should have at least overheard something by now, even if it wasn’t intended for us.
I believe that either we’re a lonely freakish accident, or they are being very, very quiet. And if they’re being very quiet, then we could be in big trouble.
And since thinking the latter would make me a nutcase, I opt for Choice #1. The galaxy is ours, let’s get the show on the road. I want me a galactic empire. 
So, non-believer here.