# What are UFOs if they're NOT alien spacecraft? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2024, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108 "2024-02-26T17:14:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/101 "2024-02-28T03:18:40Z")
I don’t agree at all. I just think in terms of sheer numbers, no matter how advanced the civilization is, there is little chance it finds us specifically. Out of 700 quintillion planets, how many of those do you think have life? Let’s say it’s “only” a billion. What are the chances that they find us and decide to visit? Even if we ignore travel times and assume travel is instantaneous between any two points in the universe, it seems highly unlikely to me that we get picked out as one of the one billion planets with life to visit. There’s just absolutely no way in my mind. Where a poster upthread said it’s human arrogance to think an alien culture can’t do things we can’t – I would never say that – I think it’s human arrogance to think we’re so special in the universe that we’re the ones they’d visit. As for UFOs, hell, they could be time travellers from the future, for all we know. Maybe the aliens were us all along! _cue mystery music_ But, seriously, if FTL travel is possible, that means time travel backwards is possible. If the aliens have FTL technology, why can’t we have FTL technology in the future and visit ourselves in the past? That makes as much sense as the idea that aliens are clumsily visiting us and leaving blurry traces of their existence instead of, ya know, being a bit more discreet with all the technology at their hand. Why would they even need spaceships? Couldn’t they somehow remote view? Great telescopes? Spaceships seems like such quaint Earthly technology, not something an actual alien species tens of thousands to millions of years ahead of us would use. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/102 "2024-02-28T03:41:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t agree at all. I just think in terms of sheer numbers, no matter how advanced the civilization is, there is little chance it finds us specifically. I agree. It is like saying “There are 1.47 billion cars in the world. Surely _one_ of them is capable of jumping the Grand Canyon!”. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/103 "2024-02-28T03:52:10Z")
We are very close to being able to detect a civilization like ours within our section of the galaxy. All it takes is a very large telescope and an automated observation system that looks at the stars in the sky and spectroscopically analyzes planet atmospheres looking for habitability, pollution, etc. We’ve found thousands of exoplanets already. If there is an advanced alien civilization near us, it will have known that Earth is at least habitable for life, and probably know that there is life here. If they’ve looked recently and they are near enough, they might have detected pollutants in the atmosphere, the rapid rise of CO2, or other technosignatures. If habitable planets are super rare, we’ll stand out like a bug on a plate to anyone who goes looking. If they aren’t rare, and there isn’t life everywhere, that would be strange. Maybe the only way we’d be invisible is if life filled, habitable planets are common, but almost none develop technological civilizations. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/104 "2024-02-28T03:57:32Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > … Why would they even need spaceships? Couldn’t they somehow remote view? Great telescopes? Spaceships seems like such quaint Earthly technology, not something an actual alien species tens of thousands to millions of years ahead of us would use. Remote viewing and telescopes would be limited to the speed of light. They would be viewing us x amount of light years in the past. I don’t know the answer, but i suspect some civilization out there does - and is able to use some sort of technology to travel between galaxies. I also realize that we’ve only been transmitting radio signals for less then 100 years and our reach of detection is very limited. Btw, I dont think ETs have visited us either. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/105 "2024-02-28T21:55:46Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Let’s rephrase it then: The faster we think other civilizations could possibly travel, the less likely it is that they exist. If tech is possible to reduce travel times between stars to weeks, months or even years, then the universe should be fully colonized by now. So if there is FTL, it’s ‘weak’ FTL like you described - just a little faster than FTL. A civilization that is mature enough to make it to an FTL drive has probably learned to keep its population in check, so I don’t think it inevitable they will want to colonize the galaxy. Explore, perhaps, colonize no. They also might be ethical enough to know that contact between an advanced culture and a relatively unadvanced one does not go well for the latter. That is one of the gripes I had about ST:TOS. Even if they followed the non-interference directive, the very act of letting a relatively primitive culture know that there is other life out there interferes. Imagine what would happen if aliens came here, said that they had been all over the galaxy, and start laughing when they hear the average human’s idea of gods. I rather suspect that intelligence may not be good for long term survival, which also answers the problem. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/106 "2024-02-28T22:47:55Z")
If you had a spaceship capable of interplanetary travel, it would be a simple matter to fly to someplace where almost any star and some object circling it had the same apparent diameter and see an eclipse any time you wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/107 "2024-02-28T23:15:13Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Extraterrestrials, like the organizers of massive conspiracies here on Earth, have enormous resources, technologies we cannot comprehend and the power to readily vaporize their enemies. > > And yet they make idiotic mistakes allowing their plots to be discovered by curious amateurs, who are allowed to plaster their evidence all over the Internet, in books, movies etc. Reminds me of the _space isn’t real_ CTers who love to point to “mistakes” in Apollo films and ISS broadcasts while at the same time talking about NASA’s billions. With an essentially unlimited budget, NASA didn’t think of doing another take. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Speaking of which, here’s what Wiki has to say about the original report of “little green men”. When the first pulsar was discovered in the late 1960s the signal’s timing was so regular one of the spitball hypotheses was that it was a beacon of some sort. Accordingly, the discoverers tagged it [LGM 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1919%2B21), LGM meaning little green men. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/108 "2024-02-29T01:26:19Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > They also might be ethical enough to know that contact between an advanced culture and a relatively unadvanced one does not go well for the latter. That is one of the gripes I had about ST:TOS. Even if they followed the non-interference directive, the very act of letting a relatively primitive culture know that there is other life out there interferes. Imagine what would happen if aliens came here, said that they had been all over the galaxy, and start laughing when they hear the average human’s idea of gods. I vaguely remember an episode of either one of the Star Trek series or The Orville in which the alien world developed differently based on observations of a nearby Star Fleet/Planetary Union ship. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/109 "2024-02-29T02:49:08Z")
nevermind ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/110 "2024-02-29T04:09:34Z")
That would be the _Star Trek: Voyager_ episode “Blink of an Eye”, where the eponymous starship _Voyager_ is trapped in a space-time differential above a planet, causing its local time to pass hundredfolds slower than time on the surface of the planet. This allows the crew of _Voyager_ to observe the planet’s occupants progress from a Stone Age level of technology, to an advanced spacefaring civilization that even attacks them with antimatter torpedoes, in just a matter of days. Fantastic episode, by the way. > **[Blink of an Eye (episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Blink_of_an_Eye_(episode))** > > Over time and generations, a world tries to uncover the mystery of a strange object in the sky. The USS Voyager approaches a planet rotating 58 times per minute and, while investigating, the ship enters a gravimetric gradient pulling it into a... ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/111 "2024-02-29T04:50:21Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > 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? We aren’t talking about a city-sized object hovering silently in the sky above a major metropolitan area, much in the same way a brick doesn’t. Before assuming an “Unidentified Flying Object” is extraterrestrial in nature, we need to rule out more mundane terrestrial phenomenon such as an aircraft built here on Earth, some sort of weather phenomenon, astrological phenomenon, or optical artifact (lens flares, reflections, etc). As to whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, who can say? There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Let’s say Elon Musk discovered FTL travel tomorrow that could take you anywhere in the galaxy and back within a day. It would take 273 million years just to zip to each star, look around a bit and return home. It took a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire to put an Italian on North America. The Milky Way is over 100,000 light years across. Any civilization that’s more than 100 or so light years away has no way of hearing us or for us to hear them as we didn’t invent radio until 1895. And I don’t think we want to meet a space-faring civilization. An Earth civilization a decade or so behind the state of the art technology is hopelessly out-matched. Any civilization we would encounter would be centuries or millennia ahead of ours. Imagine the Roman Empire trying to take on NATO. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/112 "2024-02-29T07:19:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > A civilization that is mature enough to make it to an FTL drive has probably learned to keep its population in check OR with now near-limitless _lebensraum_, they might experience a different drive - to fill all that space… I don’t know where this idea comes from that technological advancement somehow renders a species more rational, or more ethical. That’s definitely not the example shown by our sample of one. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/113 "2024-02-29T10:12:19Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > suspicious new disclosure timelines for UFO incidents (IIRC, 25 years) Please, explain what you mean by this. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/114 "2024-02-29T11:23:50Z")
Also consider that war can be the motivation behind increased technology. Oppenheimer anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/115 "2024-02-29T14:13:12Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > One thing I’ve thought about is the motivation of aliens to come to our planet. Throughout human history, exploration was usually for the purpose of finding resources, such as gold. When that didn’t necessarily pan out, newly discovered lands could be occupied and claimed for their resources. That of course led to the oppression of natives and the start of wars. I can’t think of a massive relocation into a new country that _didn’t_ have fatal repercussions offhand. > > So if the aliens are here to determine what, if any resources they could use, their purposes would probably run contrary to ours, because we don’t want our planet torn apart with no benefit to ourselves. So far, we’ve (allegedly) only seen smaller and elusive aircraft, so it’s likely these are used for scouting and collecting data. If we have lots of something they want, they’d send bigger ships, more security and armaments. In other words, they’d be just as altruistic as Europeans settling into the New World and shove our human asses aside. If the aliens are after a mineral resource that can be extracted by tearing apart the Earth, they could harvest that same matter from any of trillions and trillions of uninhabited worlds. Not that they’d necessarily care that we are here, just like we probably wouldn’t cancel a planned mine just because an anthill was built on top of the designated site. But we would probably notice them going solar system by solar system and stripping all planets for components. No, if they’re targeting Earth, they aren’t after materials produced in the hearts of stars that can be found literslly all over the universe. There’s only one thing that makes Earth special, and that’s life; so if they’re here, that’s what interests them. Why would aliens be interested in Earth life? Well, if I were writing a scifi story, I’d probably have the aliens be masters of genetic engineering using ANA, the alien equivalent to DNA. They can “build” whatever they want as an organic machine through this mastery. By studying samples from the biosphere of Earth (and the biosphered of other planets they discover), they can expand their genetic library with entirely new languages. Further, since every form of genetic code would have evolved under the same physical constraints of the natural world, once they master enough different “languages” they might start to gain some “meta” knowledge, too, better understanding how genetic codes work and enhancing their capabilities even further. The richer and more diverse the biosphere of a planet they encounter is, the better for them. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/116 "2024-02-29T14:15:05Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The richer and more diverse the biosphere of a planet they encounter is, the better for them. Not only that, resistance is futile. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/117 "2024-02-29T14:20:00Z")
[![](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_96H-ov8cLVg/SA7F9fSVE9I/AAAAAAAAAJw/T4jdsRqbZ2k/w1200-h630-p-nu/calvin1.JPG) ](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_96H-ov8cLVg/SA7F9fSVE9I/AAAAAAAAAJw/T4jdsRqbZ2k/w1200-h630-p-nu/calvin1.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/118 "2024-02-29T14:24:00Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If habitable planets are super rare, we’ll stand out like a bug on a plate to anyone who goes looking. If they aren’t rare, and there isn’t life everywhere, that would be strange. Maybe the only way we’d be invisible is if life filled, habitable planets are common, but almost none develop technological civilizations. I assume you mean “intelligent” life, because I don’t see how a planet could be habitable (to humans) without at least somr life to maintain parameters within acceptable ranges. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/119 "2024-02-29T14:31:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > A civilization that is mature enough to make it to an FTL drive has probably learned to keep its population in check, so I don’t think it inevitable they will want to colonize the galaxy. That seems like a very strange assumption. If there’s a bunch of empty planets out there (and they’re actually empty, not American West/Manifest Destiny “empty”) why would it be a _good_ thing dor a culture to “keep its population in check”? Anyways, if FTL is possible, and intelligent life is common, then it doesn’t matter if the first civilization to develop FTL, or the 2nd or 3rd or 100th, all decline to expand - if the 101th _does_ decide to expand, and the universe is old enough for there to have been many more that 101, then that civilization takes over everything. > [@Voyager](#): > > They also might be ethical enough to know that contact between an advanced culture and a relatively unadvanced one does not go well for the latter. Erm, if there’s aliens smugly sitting in orbit, watching plagues and crusades and the holocaust, and congratulating each other on how moral they are being by not interfering - then these are immensely evil beings whose influence over the galaxy should be broken as soon as we decelop the technology to do so. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108/120 "2024-02-29T14:35:36Z")
> [@](#): > > On June 20, 1959 the syndicated “Pogo” strip published three panels showing the characters Porky Pine and Pogo the Possum. Porky Pine speculated about beings on other planets:[[1]](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/02/18/space/#f+15516+1+1) > > > Porky Pine: I BEEN READIN’ ‘BOUT HOW MAYBE THEY IS PLANETS PEOPLED BY FOLKS WITH AD-VANCED BRAINS. > > > > Pogo: UM > > > > Porky Pine: ON THE OTHER HAND, MAYBE WE GOT THE MOST BRAINS…MAYBE OUR INTELLECTS IS THE UNIVERSE’S MOST AD-VANCED. > > > > Porky Pine: EITHER WAY, IT’S A MIGHTY SOBERIN’ THOUGHT. [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/02/18/space/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/02/18/space/) Sorry – couldn’t find the actual comic strip itself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-ufos-if-theyre-not-alien-spacecraft/998108.md?page=7)