# Top secret or experimental craft (Much more likely. I'd say over 40% of genuine sightings are military)

# Balloons, Chinese lanterns ect. (These things have been cropping up a lot recently. Ultimately, I'd say about 50% are non military, terrestrial objects, misidentified)

# Aliens (from another planet), # Beings (from another dimension), # Angels or Demons (These are all in the same category for me. We don't know the nature of any of them and they could be any, a mix or all of the above. Given the expanse of the (multi)universe, i'd say that these were certainly a portion of the sightings, 10% perhaps).

# Atmospheric anomalies (This could be very high but an estimate on how many sightings are actually atmospheric anomalies is difficult since we don't know what we're looking for).

# Hoaxes (Hoaxes as actual sightings would be very low I would think. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to set up a real world hoax and keep intelligent people convinced of it for any length of time. If we're talking youtube videos, then there is a huge majority of hoaxes but not in the case of eye witness events. Let's say 2% or less)

# Swamp gas (Very unlikely. Less than 0.1% at best)

Id say I believe that a small portion of the recorded sightings are 'Alien'. I dont really buy into the exta-dimensional theories though.

In my opinion a lot of sightings are deliberate hoaxes, possibly to make Ufologists lose heart and give up.

In my opinion, some advanced alien species are quite likely to exist. It would make sense that these advanced species would monitor other species that have the potential the rival them in the future and maybe give them a push into the direction they wish them to live.

- Maybe they could be considering using us as slaves, it would be easy enough when you look at how many people go missing each year.

- Maybe we are being groomed for an alliance or membership into a larger group of species.

- Maybe they are just wondering whether to kill us all now and save themselves the trouble later when we have more advanced weapons.

Who knows??

I believe that we are being visited by many different species coming from different places.
A few theories:
1) Dimensional Travelers: Life forms from other dimensions have found ways to cross over into our dimension by using a craft that can break through the dimensional barriers.
2) Space Travelers: 1. Life within our universe is able to take advantage of short cuts through the universe (black holes, worm holes, etc). 2. They found ways to travel faster than the speed of light (like we found ways to travel faster than the speed of sound). 3. Travelers have an energy source powerful enough to bend time and space to reach any part of the universe almost instantaneously.
3) Time Travelers: Humans from our future are traveling back to study and/or correct problems.
4) A fourth possibility does exist. The visitors originated on Earth millions of years ago. They were here first. They have secretly co-existed with us until now. In the last 50 or so years our technology has advanced to the point that it is not easy for them to keep their existance secret anymore.
What is really going on may a combination of any or all of these theories.





[edit on 30-11-2008 by A TRUE AMERICAN]

1. 30% Military and other top secret experimental aircraft.
2. 20% Hoaxes
3. 20% Mistaken identities and other naturally occurring phenomena
4. 10% Extra terrestrial / Inter terrestrial visitors.

If life can exist here, than it must exist elsewhere too.

On a side-note, the current situation with UFO research, especially via the internet media, reminds me a lot of what happened years ago, when a lot of payable adult sites were hacker targets due to poor security practices. Tons of access passwords were stolen on a regular basis and published publicly. In order to come up with some damage control the sites in question absolutely flooded the net with fake stolen passwords so it was no longer possible to distinguish the working ones from the fake ones. That in turn gave birth to a new cross-site advertising scheme we have today.

That is pretty much what we have right now in regards to UFO research. There is so much ( please pardon the expression ) crap floating around that it's impossible to find the real article.

Kind regards.

EDIT: Speelin'.

[edit on 30-11-2008 by Manawydan]

My (attempted) logic is basically this:

There definitely appear to be a percentage of unidentified flying object sightings which remain unexplained and mysterious. This means that UFOs exist, even if only very few sightings constitute true UFO sightings. They might be things we're capable of identifying, but lack the ability or information to do so. Regardless, for the time being they remain unidentified and so are technically UFOs. If the alien abduction phenomenon is a real experience and not a psychological or sleep phenomenon, then whatever or whoever pilots at least some of these few persistently unidentified objects that make up the genuine UFO phenomenon are very likely the ones responsible (at least in part if not in total) for the abduction phenomenon, because of the conformity in description of the craft reported in both phenomena. Because there is at least a possibility that these are military, privately owned (by people we don't know about,) or intelligence-related craft, it is therefore at least conceivable that the abduction phenomenon might be perpetrated - if real, of course - by human beings.

As for what UFOs themselves are, my three favored hypotheses are:

1) Military, privately owned, or intelligence-related atmospheric craft in conjunction with psychological operations.

2) Extra-terrestrial and/or interdimensional visitors.

3) Various natural phenomena and misidentifications.

I don't have an opinion as to which of these is most probable, as I honestly don't know. I will say that I find it interesting that MDMA produces visions of alien visitation of the sort recognized in the mainstream (greys, etc.) Some people theorize that this suggests an interdimensional or psychic component, while others suggest that it might indicate human activity intentionally disguised as "alien" abductions. I find that whole angle quite fascinating, if highly disturbing in the case of the latter.

I have no idea, though. I don't have just one hypothesis, so I can't really pick just one option. I'm skeptical of all hypotheses because none of them have been proved, and I don't adhere to any of them. I remain open minded to all of them, and others, though.

[edit on 11/30/2008 by AceWombat04]

i think it's quite clear that some of these UFO's are vehicles of some kind, but who is driving them? I think some of them are alien beings either from another planet or dimension, or some of them are driven by us using back engineered technology. Either way it proves that the world and universe is nothing like what we thought it was, and that we don't know to the extent we have been lied to. We are being lied to on so many different levels that we don't know what to believe, all we know is something's out there. Is the scientific explaination of how life formed on this earth a complete lie? are there alien bases on the moon and other planets? Our solar system could be teeming with life and we dont even know it.

They are simply UFO's. Nothing extra terrestrial. The so called evidence and the amount of people that testify is just a very small amount of the whole population. 0.00000001%. I beleive when at least 1% (wow...60 million people) would give evidence. Just a bunch of attention seeking money making nothing else to do time wasters.

I think govts know they are real, but they refuse to disclose it at this time maybe because of lack of knowledge or a secret scientific race to be the first to make "contact"

I personally think that most of the sightings that people see (for example, things flying out of air force bases) are experimental craft of some description with the insight to be used for military purposes.
A lot of other sightings are conventional things such as balloons, planes, helicopters and so on. I would guess that there are well over a million sightings per year in the UK alone and I do not think that all of those can possibly be alien.

However, I believe that the whole "reverse engineering" concept is also true. I think that governments have had their hands on real alien craft and have used this as a basis for experimental craft that has been built by human hands. This does, however, leave me a little skeptical as to whether all current technology is descended from alien tech, I think a lot of technology is our own.

Why would aliens visit us? Well why not? The world of science is often gripped by the discovery of a new species of animal and so a new species of humanoid would have the science world in raptures. Could this not be the same for them?

UFOs are real. Of course they are. People see things in the sky that they can't identify all the time. As you've said, the question is, what are they?

Although obviously some are fakes and hoaxes, we'll throw those out of consideration because they really aren't, by definition, UFOs. Someone (the author/creator) knows exactly what they are.

Of the "real" UFOs left, I don't think there is one answer that covers them all.

Some sightings which remain "unidentified" are probably experimental aircraft or natural phenomena (birds, planets, etc.). For example, there's one Mexican ufo video which claims to be a flying horse. I've watched it several times and I've yet to understand how people don't see that it's a large bird. The angle of the shot as the bird turns makes it resemble the outline of a rearing horse, but it's a BIRD.

We are left with numerous sightings of "somethings" which are NOT hoaxes, natural phenomena, or military craft. What are they?

My simplest answer is that I believe they are craft piloted by non-human intelligent beings who have technology superior to ours. Are they from another planet, another dimension, from deep inside the Earth or under the oceans, or from the future? I don't know, and short of flagging one down and asking the pilot, I don't know how we can tell.

Why do I think this? Because my personal sighting in the late 60's displayed technology that I personally think humans do not yet actually have (a green light that can pass through solid objects without changing or harming the solid objects).

I personally think that it is more likely that our UFO pilots come from somewhere closer to home than another galaxy, unless they have discovered something like wormholes or Dune's "folding space" that allows them to travel from there to here in a brief time. The idea that they would travel for years to get here and then just fly around, kill a few cows, make some pretty designs in someone's corn field, and conduct a few "examinations" of humans before going back home doesn't make any sense to me. If, on the other hand, they're just next door (dimensionally speaking), or inhabiting some portion of our own planet, and getting here isn't much harder for them than for us to visit another country, their actions (and lack of certain actions such as introducing themselves) make more sense.

Still, considering all the different types, shapes, sizes, and behaviors of craft as well as occupants, I don't think there is just ONE answer.

I have never seen 'Swamp Gas' I have never seen a Chinese Lantern, I have only ever seen one Weather Balloon, I have only seen one Hoax{a black plastic bin liner,} I have seen several top secret aircraft, test flown at night, and I have seen dozens of UFOs over many years.
I have accepted UFOs as a fact of life for over forty years.
Who are they, I believe that some are based here on Earth, some are based on 'our' Moon, many operate within 'our Solar System' and possibly some come from further afield.
The Tibetans used to refer to the orbs/spheres, as the Gardeners of the Earth, other peoples refer to them as 'The Watchers'. I would think that some of them have, over the years, modified, increasing our brain capacity for example{Evolution does not explain something exceeding our needs, only eventually meeting our needs} Maybe our brains were enlarged {Cro Magnon} and have since REDUCED to present day sizes due to lack of utilization.
Just a thought,

Regards,

Horsegiver.

There is something called the "theory of least hypothesis", otherwise known as Occam's Razor (see "Sir William of Occam").

May I add to your list of potential explanations this tidbit?

UFOs are manned/controlled by human beings from a future time when mankind has learned to travel in time, and they are back to look around.

I am not arguing this case, merely presenting it for your consideration (in my best Rod Serling voice). Accfording to Occam's Razor, this would seem to be a more likely explanation than "space aliens".

Ok so the're real, now what? I'll tell you now what, now we figure out who's on the side of humanity and the peaceful existance of all species everywhere and who's not. Since we've had contact for decades now maybe the PTB have that figured out already and we the public will be the last to know so to speak. That in a nutshell is my now what. Who's on my team...and who's not?

The Undertaker

Originally posted by XSilencedxdream
I've been reading threads here on ATS for awhile now, and this is the thread that inspired me to sign up and comment. Personally I believe that UFO's are very real, and most are the work of different groups of aliens.

Thats where things get complicated for me. Someone mentioned earlier that UFO's would have to travel for years to get here, keep that in mind and think about USO objects and the fact that aliens could be using the ocean as a base.

Surely other planets are inhabitable if ours is. However some sightings may be due to ignorance, military testing, or something else skeptics would love to use against the UFO believers.

I've come to believe that there's multiple groups of aliens out there judging by the different types of sightings. Each could have their own unique plans for us. Perhaps they could all have signed some sort of treaty to not interfere with us, they probably know that if we got a hold of their technology we would just mess up everything.

One theory of mine is that they (At least one or two groups.) visited our planet long ago, and thats why you see ancient paintings of odd looking figures and stories of strange looking people. If thats true, then that may have been the early days of one groups space quests.

What if one of these groups are humanoid or somehow related to us? If time travel is ever achieved in the future, then of course they would go back in time for different reasons- which can explain footprints that have been found along side dinosaurs and misplaced technology.

Finally, yes the government is hiding many things and it shouldn't even surprise people. After all, they can't release any papers on the subjects of UFO's without marking out 80% of the words.

" Someone mentioned earlier that UFO's would have to travel for years to get here "

Not necessarily true.