More arrogance on your part, puny man-animal. Have you ever watched an infection spread, or an infestation grow? You were clearly watching, clearly concerned, but did you think to try to hide from it?
“You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?” --The Mothman Prophecies
No-I’m politely asking you whether you intend this thread to be a poll or a debate. I have no problem with a poll on this subject staying in this forum.
IMHO isn’t exclusively a poll forum, is it? Sometimes it’s fun just to chat or speculate about something without having GD spoilsports coming in and taking away the punchbowl.
Just checking, but if I see something zooming buy in the sky, and can’t decide whether it’s a comet or a shooting star or something else, does that count as an extraterrestial UFO in your book? Because, if so, then yes, I believe in extraterrestrial UFOs.
Would your husband’s uncle be a friend of Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, by any chance? ( New York Times blog post about Edgar Mitchell’s recent interview on a British Radio show: 24 July 2008 - When an Astronaut Believes in Aliens - By Mike Nizza) Edgar Mitchell doesn’t claim first-hand knowledge, but unnamed sources have confirmed to him the existence of alien visitors.
By the way, Edgar Mitchell is also a founder of The institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization that “conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor.”
This argument is one some people have found very persuasive. The premise is that while the vast majority of so-called alien sightings are BS, there remains a collection of cases that are said to be resistant to explanation, etc, which are then trumpeted as the “evidence” for alien visitation.
I have looked for (but can’t find) a marvellous quote by Feynman on this argument. Since I can’t find it, I have to paraphrase, but it went something like “How many robberies are there in America every year? Thousands? And the great majority are solved by the police. But the mere fact that some small percentage are not solved doesn’t mean aliens did them.”
Oh, and to keep this a poll, I vote no alien visitations.
I also vote No for visitations. Considering how quickly (million years or thereabouts) we evolved into fairly upright intelligant communicating beings, and the rapid advances made in the past 100 years, imagine where we’ll be in another million. If there is advanced life on another planet - why couldn’t they ‘teleport’ rather than take the galactic cruise in their big shiny ships? And why would they only visit Government officials? It’s a bit like the 9/11 conspiracies - so many people to shut up for it to work - and ufo visitations are supposedly worldwide, rather than limited to the US and some parts of the UK (most widely reported sightings).
The thing is, I wouldn’t call that an argument FOR aliens, it simply leaves aliens as a remote possibility. Some people certainly USE it as an argument, and that is a great counter-argument, it’s just that because of something, muddy detail, flawed recollection, or even solid evidence that is actually strange that can’t be placed without surrounding data we might as well shrug and say “a wizard did it.”
Obviously the argument for it potentially being ETs is slightly more nuanced than saying “it’s one of the infinite possibilities,” but at its core it really is just saying “hey, it’s not identifiable as a recognized phenomenon, and it’s in line with the perception of aliens… the glove might fit but good luck proving it there chief.” I don’t think the argument was really meant to prove anything other than “it’s a acceptable but unlikely educated guess.”
I’d give it a slightly higher position that 9/11 truthers. There’s, at the very least, odd accounts of high ranking officers, and some of the time no one calls them on it in a press release or any official capacity, not even a comment to the History Channel saying “this guy is full of shit” after they interview him. Usually if something is up they get proven to be at best embellishing the truth (especially when they claim to have worked for some nebulous “Top Secret” team). And yes, sightings are worldwide but:
When was the last time YOU got Nigerian local news? This stuff is odd, but it probably barely makes a blip on the worldwide scale. It probably won’t be news to us unless it involves a well known person from that area.
Aliens are so ingrained in our culture, ESPECIALLY American, that it only makes sense that we have a higher volume of fake sightings, just because we have a plethora of fake ones doesn’t mean we can dismiss the more plausible sounding ones from reputable people (or more plausible sounding from nobodies with good evidence) out of hand. And by more plausible I mean they MAYBE 100+ that aren’t really explainable without more information about the event.
I’m kind of arguing Devil’s Advocate here, by the way. I don’t really believe my points wholly stand up, I just think they should be made by someone and goddamn it, I might as well be the one to make them.
Hope I’m not being hyperactive in this thread, feel free to slap me if so.
Another thing is that very few people would have first, second or even thirdhand accounts to tell of events directly surrounding 9/11 and the purported coverup–I’d imagine almost everyone promulgating 9/11 conspiracies is relying on “evidence” gleaned from the Internet and other forms of media.
For UFOs, however, I imagine almost anyone you meet will have a third, second or firsthand tale to tell, often based on a source considered nominally reliable. For example, how many airline pilots have told friends about weird phenomena they’ve encountered while in flight, and how many of those friends have told their own friends? I’ve definitely heard a few tales out here in Asia.
I believe in extraterrestrials (out there somewhere in the universe), and I believe in UFOS (as in flying objects that are unidentified) but I’m skeptical to agnostic about extraterrestrial UFOs. My grandmother saw a UFO once. I find it intriguing that former astronaut Edgar Mitchell claims to have heard many confessions from government people confirming their existence. On the other hand, while I could see a desire for secrecy many years ago, 1) I don’t see the current climate of our culture as being prone to panic, 2) it would be a convenient excuse for the government to take away more of our civil liberties than they already have and 3) it would surprise me greatly if not just the US, but every single other country would choose to and be able to keep it a secret. Of course then there’s the folk who think UFOs are some sort of other phenomenon - angels, time travelers, self transforming machine elves, etc. :dubious:
Not to mention, with the existence of the internet, now it’s very very hard to keep things secret.
I don’t know. He may very well be. He’s been really sick lately, had several heart surgeries and last I heard was in semi-critical condition. I don’t know if he’s out of the hospital. I can e-mail him and ask, but I don’t know if he’s checking that now. I do find it intriguing that WhyNot’s NASA friend is saying the same thing as he is, though.
There must be millions of UFO reports. But every one I have run across falls apart when examined (hoax, misperception, or inadequate information, mixed with a dollop of wishful thinking). Therefore, all we have is millions of anecdotes, and the plural of anecdotes is not hard facts.
Much like parapsychology, until ONE good event exists, we can reasonably assume both alleged phenomena (aliens visiting Earth or ESP) does not exist.
I’m a bit surprised at how many people are convinced that alien life exists. I lean that way, but I’m far from convinced.
If life is as common as everyone seems to think, and if intelligent life is a common subset of life, and if it’s at all possible to travel interstellar distances-- then where is everyone?
The galaxy should have been permeated with life millions of years ago.
(bolding mine, of course)
That’s the big IF, isn’t it? We don’t know if interstellar distances are at all possible or practical to travel. We don’t know what sort of energy sources they might invent. We don’t know what the lifespan(s) of alien life might be. Perhaps they’re functionally immortal, like planeria on Earth, or perhaps they’re short-lived as mayflies. We don’t even know the scale of potential alien life - are they the size of dust motes or the size of mountains? Perhaps they *have *been here, but their entire warfleet was inadvertently swallowed by a small dog. 
We still haven’t figured out what most of the mass in the universe is made up of, who’s going to have the hubris to claim definitively that interstellar travel is or is not possible?
Maybe it is. How would we know? I’ll admit the lack of discovery by SETI so far is disappointing since we’re more likely to be hit by radio waves than Little Green Men, but most of the universe is millions of years away from us anyway (billions, even). Even if we ever detect it, it’s old news. VERY old news.
Of course they’re all big ifs… but, in practice we know that interstellar travel is possible (we already have a couple of probes on their way), it’ll just take a long time. Probably longer than the life-spans of any aliens that might be out there. But what about robotic probes? They should be flying all over the place, I would think. Or EM communications? We’ve been looking, but so far nothing has been found.
That’s a point, I suppose. But unless intelligent life is far more rare than a lot of people seem to think, at least our galaxy ought to be simply teeming with life, and so far we’ve seen nothing. I should think we’d be able to see some sign of it.
Perhaps we simply can’t see anything right now because of our technological and logistical limits. Also, intelligent life doesn’t mean creatures akin to Klingons or Vulcans. For all we know we could be the most advanced beings in the galaxy. Or maybe intelligent life exists in a form that is truly alien like the world-spanning being in Solaris. Or maybe the galaxy teems with life, just not intelligent life.
Again, lots of ifs.
But there’s gotta be Klingons! Who else we gonna fire photon torpedoes at?
Maybe it is teeming with life. If they don’t generate radio waves and haven’t begun interstellar travel yet, or began it millions of years ago and yet are millions of years away, how would we know they exist?
Sure, it “ought” to be. Seems logical, even likely. But a hunch is far from a scientific estimate. (By all logic, I should be rich, but I’m not.) The Drake Equation is the best guess we have, and it is far from a firm number or even a firm, narrow range of numbers.