However, what I have is simply my own eyewitness account. I don't expect anybody to believe me if I tell them. Some friends who were there at the time couldn't even see the thing when I tried to point it out to them. So really the whole story doesn't count for much, and that's the way it should be. As someone stated above, a true skeptic is a valuable thing... it is important to keep a clear and rational scientific mentality about these things. As I believe Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence."
But in light of all the things you have pointed out, I do agree that even the most rational mind ought to be asking a few unanswered questions. Some would say that the most plausible solutions for these sightings are commonly explainable phenomena, but I must disagree at a certain point. In fact, I find it useful to come at the subject from the other side:
It is generally accepted in the scientific community that intelligent life has evolved in numerous places throughout the universe, even on as many as hundreds of worlds in our own galaxy (or conversely, as few as one or two per galaxy). Drake's Equation is just an outdated, early version of this observation... nowadays, everything we know about planetary formation and the evolution of life supports this theory. So, why WOULDN'T there be intelligent life, observing us?
Even today, we are able to see the chemical compositions of smaller and smaller planets in star systems that are farther and farther away, with the advance of telescope technology. Is it so hard to believe that a hypothetical intelligent alien race could observe the potential for life on our own world? And wouldn't they be extremely curious about it if they could?
If you ask me, the only argument against an alien "presence" here on Earth (even if just watching us, say, from a distant orbit) that seems to consistently hold any weight is the idea that the laws of relativity prevent any reasonable travel of interstellar distances. As far as relativity is concerned, this is absolutely true. But what astounds me is that these people honestly believe we will never find a technological solution to this problem.
The Greeks said man would never fly. Theorists during the Industrial Revolution said technology would never advance farther than it was. And the sound barrier, well we could never go faster than that one, either.
There had been speculation in the late 1940s that it might be impossible to break the sound barrier (that was why it was called a barrier), and the early tests of the Convair F-102 gave some credence to this fear.
www.century-of-flight.net...
My point is, as soon as you start assuming that you've got the final word on a subject, you cross over from the land of scientific inquiry into the land of fools. Newton's Laws of Physics are being broken down as we speak, and who knows what they'll discover at the LHC. Interstellar distances are just one more Atlantic Ocean for the Vikings to cross.
( And yes, the Vikings crossed it before Columbus.
) So when all is said and done, aliens aren't such a hard thing for me to accept. Of course I will never dismiss the possibility that what I personally saw might easily have been something else, too. But aliens are a real possibility, and I see no reason to dismiss that one, either.
