Really the only reason we have for supposing that UFOs are vessels for extraterrestrial beings is a number of accounts that seem dubious and contradictory. So what else could they be?
I’d like to toss out a somewhat unhelpful but valid possibility: UFOs are something we don’t have a concept for yet. They’re so outside our current experience that we don’t yet have the mental background to understand what they are. For example, how would you explain the concept of “a glitch in the Matrix” before computers introduced the idea of virtual reality?
All UFO means is Unidentified Flying Object. It can be an airplane, satellite, drone, balloon, meteor, reflection, optical illusion, or any number of things. Aliens or technology beyond our comprehension, while not impossible, would require substantial evidence to prove over the more mundane explanations.
It is mighty suspicious that they don’t ever seem to occur near populated areas or anywhere where this is good camera footage. Every the Navy’s footage just looks like a distant blob.
If you’ve read the explanations for UFOs in the past, you’ll see that they are a range of things, not just one thing.
You wouldn’t. It is like asking “How did they discuss computer processors before the age of electronics?” Also, I don’t see how this pertains to UFOs.
Actually, that is a damn good reason not to suppose that UFOs are vessels for extraterrestrial beings.
If they’re not alien spacecraft, how do you explain this?
I went to a ‘show’ with Neil deGrasse Tyson recently. He doesn’t believe that aliens have visited earth. He said that there are 15 billion cell phones in the world today and over 3.2 billion images are uploaded to social media each day, and yet we still don’t have a clear photo of an alien spacecraft.
Good point Mr. Tyson.
Unhelpful is exactly correct. So, what brain spasm prompts you to toss such rubbish HERE, of all places? What do you expect folks to say?
As usual…
I disagree with this statement. There are many UFO incidents that have been witnessed by military people and civilian pilots.
Because UFOs are FLYING objects, the Air Force got stuck with the task of investigating and hopefully resolving the issue. There were actually 3 Air Force efforts, the far lesser known Project Sign followed by Project Grudge, and the far more publicized Project Blue Book. By Blue Book, the Air Force was fed up with it and wanted to lay the UFO controversy to rest, so they recruited the services of Dr. J. Allen Hynek who was then the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory. They wanted him because he was a known skeptic, and they wanted him to debunk the issue once and for all.
He started out with every intention to do just that but, as he investigated case after case, he came to the conclusion that a percentage of the cases, albeit a small percentage, were very strong cases. He ended up writing a book, “The UFO Experience”, in which he took a very rigorous and scientific approach to the issue. It has long been out of print, but used copies are available if you search. Warning, the first 30 pages or so are very dry because he lays out all the groundwork of his study but, when you get to the incidents he feels are very viable, it becomes very interesting.
Doesn’t it seem odd that outside of his book these “very strong cases” have not become the centerpiece of scientific inquiry?
How can rational people compare a handful of visual effects to the overwhelming weight of astronomically low probabilities and still conflate “unidentified” with “very interesting, maybe alien!”?
I wonder what you are implying: So Dr. J. Allen Hynek was a known skeptic. Fine, but what was his skepticism directed to? What was he skeptic about?
Therefore they chose him to debunk the issue once and for all. OK, let me follow you step by step. Who are they? And what was the ominous issue? How is an issue debunked, what does that mean?
So he reached then the conclusion that a small percentage of the cases were very strong cases. What does it mean, that a case is very strong? Does it come close to proving something, or disproving it, or the opposite?
I’m not “implying” anything. I’m flat out stating that the OP’s statement, “Really the only reason we have for supposing that UFOs are vessels for extraterrestrial beings is a number of accounts that seem dubious and contradictory”, which I am supposed to accept as gospel and upon which the rest of his points are based, is not true. Period.
The skepticism to which I was referring was was his skepticism about the UFO issue. I thought that was obvious.
Read the book and make your own evaluation.
Moderating
“Brain Spasm” is attacking the poster and not the post. Do not do this again.
Because one proposal is the Simulation Hypothesis, with UFOs being manifestations of the higher-order reality we’re embedded in. How would one begin to explain that to someone unfamiliar with the concept of virtual reality? That might not be the explanation but it’s an example of how unfathomable the real explanation might be to our current level of understanding.
It is not even in the top 100 of plausible explanations.
So what you are claiming is that supposing that UFOs are vessels for extraterrestrial beings is not dubious or contradictory, that somebody powerful and with vested interests (NASA?) hired an expert who did not believe in this extreterrestrial origin to prove and officially certify that the vessels were indeed not extraterrestrial, but that this expert then was convinced by the evidence he studied that UFOs, at least in some cases, were extraterrestrial.
And the proof of that is a book that has long been out of print that starts with 30 dry pages, but it is available second hand if you find it.
As you write yourself: Period.
The government via the Air Force had a definite interest in seeing the issue debunked. Acknowledgement of the existence of alien craft roaming our skies freely simply because we had no way to prevent it was not something to which they wanted to give credence. Remember, the Cold War was still going strong, and we weren’t that far removed from the “duck and cover” days. The best way to deal with public anxiety was to simply say it wasn’t true.
I still don’t get what debunked means in this context to you.
Sorry, I don’t remember that, probably because you have not stated yet when this book was written. You seem t assume that people reading your posts are on the same wavelength as you and are informed like you. This not true in my case. I can’t follow your reasoning, I don’t know what your point is. I find your statements too vage to falsify.