Like I said, I don’t believe in UFO’s, though I refuse to rule out the possibility of their existence outright. I don’t find my contention a compelling argement for UFO’s, and would hope you don’t either. I just don’t find the inverse of the argument a compelling reason against them either, which was my point.
While it is true that in modern times that man spends a lot more time and energy looking up and recording what we see, we aren’t watching that much of it. And most of those that are looking up, are too busy looking for specific things (stars, airplanes, clouds, thunder cells, hurricanes, comets, et cetera) to notice all the other subtle stuff that may be happening around them. It’s too easy to dismiss a random radar blip or dot in the sky as a natural event, technical glich, or image artifact (which would be what most (read: probably all) of them are, anyway)
I don’t think we would ever find conlusive proof of UFO’s (the little green men kind) unless they (read:the little green men) wanted us to, or a reputable group (read: peer reviewed) of scientists and educated individuals with a lot of resources specifically went looking for them. I don’t advocate the use of such vast resources at present mind you, it would be much nicer to spend that kind of time/money/energy on something like, I don’t know, education. But, if we were to ever find evidence of life on other planets (whether through SETI, or a bigger hubble or similar telescope) then it might be worth it to look for evidence of intelligence of same.
I’d like to echo the recommendation for the Great Airship Mystery. What I find compelling about this book is that it documents “UFO” observations very similar to those today - except that when contact is made, it wasn’t with an alien, but with an inventor from New England who is going to unveil the airship to the public real soon now. These sightings and encounters are even more compelling than UFO sightings, especially since they were more plausible. There were lots of them, some seen by many people. Yet none of them happened! This is a great example of how eyewitness accounts and anecdotal evidence are not proof.
Jeez people, hasn’t the obvious conclusion occured to any of you? Once we invented nuclear weapons, the aliens couldn’t come down and change the batteries on the mind control beam transmitters any more. If you just wore your tinfoil hats you’d have known all along!
Seriously though, as many have said there’s been no lack of stories about mysterious objects in the sky. Which isn’t surprising. We’re still working on documenting and explaining all the lights and such that are seen regularly. People don’t like not understanding things, and ghost/alien/etc stories are pretty good campfire fare, so people make up “I’ve seen this all before” stories when there’s a bit of ball lightning or an oddly shaped cloud. Then to top it all off, there’s plenty of wierd stuff out there for people to point to. “Superadvanced” technology from specialist cultures like the furnaces at Tijuanaco or the Pyramids or a hundred other things. Religions based on “beings from the sky.”
Look, if another civilization went to the effort and expense to build interstellar travel, they aren’t going to use it to buzz some half drunk redneck on the way to hook up with his cousin. They’re either gonna use it for exploitation or exploration, and either way it’s not going to be much of a secret when they shell out the cure to all disease or decide to use our pineal glands in soup. So if you see something up there, it’s probably a perfectly natural phenomenon. Or else it’s the Air Force testing out their new hypersonic stealth fusion-powered spy zeppelin, which ain’t much of a stretch these days.
it really does seem likely that if a race was visiting us that there WOULD be a time before they were. I mean likely they had some sort of development into a techological society. so it very likely could be a case that there was a time before UFO visited, either before the alien society existed to visit us, or because they just hadn’t found us yet. maybe reports of them only started when the UFOs actually started being around.
Why can’t some of you people just accept the fact that we are not alone in the universe? And since we aren’t, there is a very good possibility that some of these species (other than us) could have a faster evolution rate than us, hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of years faster than us, I believe in aliens, not necassarily little green w/ big black eyes and big heads, but different species throughout the universe-absolutely.
I do too. However, physics poses some rather extreme limits on what can and cannot be done in terms of travel arrangements. The vast distances between stars make travel between them highly impractical. Even the most liberal estimates state that there at at most 10 advanced civilizations in our galaxy, and given that the Milky Way is 210,000 light years in diameter, this leaves a HUGE gap between neighboring civilizations. Look, as much as I’d like to meet an intelligent alien being, it ain’t gonna happen. Get over it.
There is an equal chance that this imaginary life on other planets is just now figuring out the mysteries of toilet paper. Not to mention, ameoba of today are about as ‘intelligent’ as amoeba of millions of years ago. Evolution doesn’t neccesarily equate ‘more intelligent’.
I love a good consipiracy theory. Ghost stories? Bring 'em on! And who can resist tales of some alien visitors dicking with the ‘rural types’. But recognize that these are all stories, with little or no basis in hard science.
It is much easier to say ‘That light in the sky was from The Mothership’, then it is to have the discipline to build a telescope, observe what is actually happening, put the whole mash through the scientific process, etc.
Because the beings we call aliens, gods, and angels are not based on the same principles of life as the inhabitants of Earth. They interact with our minds differently than cats or fish or other people. We can only “see” them as reflections of ourselves. Although everything is actually seen as a reflection of ourselves, we construct a worldview that “explains” the more common ones. This worldview blinds us to the fact that everything we experience is a self-created illusion (David Bohm and Karl Pribram are not pseudoscientists).
Therefore, the forms the mysterious beings take when we observe them depend on our preconceptions, which are determined by such things as Ezekiel, Verne, and von Daniken. If our kosmology includes robed, winged, haloed androgynes, we will see angels. Some people (usually poor Catholics) still see angels today. If our kosmology includes technology, Darwin, and anthropocentrism, we will see creatures that look like extrapolations of humanity’s future: humanoids in flying machines.
If our kosmology refuses to acknowledge these beings at all, we will rationalize them away as Venus, military craft, or hallucinations. People who do so will fail to communicate with the beings, which may lead to problems for them. But the problems can probably be rationalized away, too–at least for a while. The advantage of living in an inescapable illusion is that nobody can tell you you’re wrong.
BTW, isn’t their an historical account describing a war having taken place in the skies over India. Flying machines, different races of folks, Gods and Devils etc.
I think it was written before the last century IIRC.
Try looking up Vimanas and see what ya come up with and make note of the date in which the texts were written.
I don’t think the idea of spaceships or alien races is a new one.
Whether you believe these accounts are fiction or not is irrelevent. The fact is that man has at the very least referred to these ideas in the past.
Eh? I’m not saying that UFOs are visiting alien spacecraft–I’m virtually certain they’re not. However, I do think it’s possible, even likely, that there is life elsewhere in the Universe, and perhaps even intelligent life. Or have I misunderestood your remarks?
Actually, I think we probably underestand each other quite well.
You just surprised me with the use of tautologies and absolutes offered as your proof. You’re usually more concise in your responses, at least what I’ve read of them.
But what the Hell, it’s Labor Day, we shouldn’t have to work too hard trying to prove something doesn’t exist… now where have I heard that before. :dubious:
Because some of us require proof (or at least non-circumstantial coroborated evidence) before we dogmatically accept something as fact. While I am perfectly happy to concede that it’s possible that life, even hyperintelligent (smarter than we are) life, is a possibilty somewhere else in the universe (and even maybe a statistical liklihood), that’s a far cry from saying it’s a ‘fact’.
