The failure of imagination lies in assuming that “alien spacecraft” is the only possible explanation to seeing such a thing. I can think of multiple equally likely explanations for any possible sighting that don’t include aliens. Time travelers, prankster with a really good image and sound projection system, mischievous elves pretending to be aliens, mind control ray, chip the government implanted in my brain … the problem is that even if you have something you can’t explain through any normal means, you can’t just assume one particular supernatural explanation must be the truth.
“Time Traveler” is covered if you would reread the OP: “aliens/unknown beings not of our time”. You can interchange OPQ’s “alien” with “elves” and rest of your examples, if you’d like, except for the “prankster” one… that’s a weak one.
To reiterate what I said on post #4, the real question is ‘would you/people report such sighting knowing the kind of reaction such reports are expected to generate’… that is plenty obvious here on this thread.
The ship could be slower than light. It could go near lightspeed to time dilate the trip to a survivable length. Or suspended animation, or robots, or whatever. No reason for FTL to be required.
Or wormholes or wormhole generator.
…
Is it just me that most attitude/arguments of folks so adamantly peg ALL unexplainable reports/stories as “loon” or hallucinations seem uncannily similar to the responses of the many resistant conservative views against new ideas throughout the history?
I was an extreme skeptic as well and I totally understand where such staunch positions come from, however where does it stop just in case there are things out there, that we ought to notice, that we cannot begin to fathom with our current understanding of Universe and our reality?
You’re not a loon if you see an unidentified aircraft. You are a loon if you immediately decide it must be an alien spacecraft and that the only possible opposition is from the “haters” who would write it off as a hallucination.
If I saw an alien spacecraft (or something that looked reasonably like one) but had no physical evidence, the first thing I would do is get some physical evidence. If nothing else, there’s the camera on my phone-- It’s a lousy camera, but it’s something. And I’d record everything I could observe with my own senses, in as much detail as possible.
Then I would share that physical evidence, along with my observation, as widely as possible.
Unfortunately I think the above is badly-phrased.
If I have no evidence, how can I be **in no doubt **sure what I saw?
Was it a plane?
Was it a planet?
Was it a hallucination?
Was it a hoax?
In October 2003, UK TV Channel 4 ran a program on ‘A Very British Hoax’, where after building and flying a remote control UFO (with portholes and everything!), they achieved world-wide coverage and genrated statements like “This proves there is life on other Worlds - and they have visited us!”
I’m also puzzled that you don’t mention alien abductions. There are many witnesses who have actually been inside alien spaceships and met aliens.
Why bother with brief sightings of UFOs?
Maybe they are testing me to see if I tattle. I wouldn’t tell anyone in the hopes that they would see I could be trusted. If I get undeniable proof again and again, with each being more undeniable than the last, I’d figure I’d be making headway. Eventually they would land and teach me their technology then I could fly away with them and explore the universe!
Congratz! I’m actually one of “they” surveying the Earthlings. Based on internet notoriety we’ve picked SDMB as one of the first few internet discussion boards to survey. You passed the first test, refreshingly. Now go back to your life and wait patiently with an open mind.