So your reply to a stereotype is to stereotype?

Not everyone who believes there's something more to UFOs than misidentifications, known phenomena and man-made aircraft are zealots.

Thank you for your valuable input.

I went to YouTube and put, 'ufo america first contact' in search, and they show a trailer. It's chock -full- of computer'animation ufos. Has anyone besides me, noticed, that whenever a ufo TV series animates someone's reported sighting, it looks like, "WOW, right out of 'Independence Day!" Only thing missing, is Will Smith!

Well, I'm not entirely sure they can be classified as "crafts" until somebody actually pops one open and everybody sees that they are a vehicle or probe of some sort. Until then, we can only really say they are some kind of "thing."

Anyway, short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: Things flying around in the air is only a tiny fraction of the total "UFO experience." The actual experience includes an incredibly wide assortment of other phenomena, including stuff that is simply downright baffling and unexplainable. Time distortion or "displacement," stuff fading in and out of reality, psychic stuff, etc. Or the odd way several different responsible people can witness the same thing but come up with widely varied descriptions, as if they're all seeing something different. That's a puzzler.

People have a tendency to focus on the stuff like flying saucers because it's easier for them to put them into some kind of intellectual context they can deal with. "Alien spaceships" is probably the least imaginative of all the possible answers to this stuff.

One huge clue to the phenomenon is the continuing lack of good, solid proof (of anything) in spite of the huge volume of credible witnesses, radar tracks, and occasional physical trace evidence. What would cause this?

After pondering this for a couple of decades, I, and a number of other folks here, suspect that it all might be related to some unknown and subtle aspect of reality and the way we perceive it. The way we understand space and time is very limited. So these UFO things -- along with various ghosts and monsters and angels and aliens other stuff -- could possibly represent some kind of shift in reality or perception. A "shadow" of something from the future, or a different reality. A manifestation of our own consciousness brought into semi-reality in some way. A glimpse of a dream cooked up subconsciously by a lot of people. Or the consciousness of some super entity we're incapable of comprehending.

Not they they're illusions or pure hallucinations. More like... not quite entirely real as we understand reality, or transiently real. Physically real, but only for a few moments.

But this is extremely difficult to test and prove. We don't really even have good words to use to try and describe it. The best we can do is use a lot of fuzzy words cribbed from metaphysics. And because of this, we're having a hard time functionalizing our study of this stuff.

And, therefore, the best answer we have is: "I don't know."

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UFOs or saucers or Tesla craft have been owned and operated by
the Illuminati since 1945.

I'm sure Rockefeller or the likes can tell you but they are also
funding Alien tails so good luck on that one.

In fact I see the Alien Tails as a good source of development revenue.

Apparently the poster was really what many people thought, a previously banned member.

I say this because he was banned, and while his posts were more provocative than it should be expected, that would have not been a reason for a ban, while having been previously banned is.

I think we can forget about this thread going anywhere...

reply to post by ArMaP

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Agreed ArMap

This debate has been beaten to death more often than not. Simply put.. skeptics are people who find the evidence to be lacking. And The middle types like myself find some evidence of things to be compelling and thus coming to my own conclusions about things that could be considered ridiculous to skeptics. And then there are the believers.. well.. too many scam artists and disinformation drive these people nuts, they are taken advantage of by the interconnected whackos in UFOlogy because they have a need to believe complex.

Maj

reply to post by elliotuk90

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From the OP:



See, wrong from the start.
UFOs are from earth.

Like who saw them, earth people.
Where were they seen, on earth.

Thinking otherwise makes you think too much.

What else you got.

I don't want to get into a debate, this is just my opinion and you're welcome to yours, I'm not here to evangelise, or challenge people. Life's too short .

I'm a sceptic; I think UFOs are the following:

• Misidentified aircraft; conventional, secret and military
  
• Space related; space debris of extraterrestrial or terrestrial origin (space junk, bolides etc.), satellites, potentially military space programs
  
• Weather phenomena causing optical distortion of objects at a distance
  
• Unknown but potentially explainable phenomena with rational explanations
  

The extraterrestrial theory is possible but unlikely, I think, because of the distances involved (bar finding a hidden advanced civilisation in this solar system). If there is extraterrestrial life it would need to travel at the speed of light or beyond. Without that they'd have to have exceptionally long lives, or suspended animation and people that recognise them when they return hundreds (or thousands) of years later. Space is big. I think there's probably intelligent extraterrestrial life, but it is likely the case that we're so spread out from each-other that real-time communication is impossible or improbable.

But...

If it turns out that breaking (or even approaching) the speed of light is possible for large complex objects such as a space craft, then it could be possible. The question then becomes how such an advanced species could advance to the degree of breaking the speed of light – but not have similarly advanced stealth technology that is incredibly reliable. Similarly the computing power available to such a species would be phenomenal; they could accurately simulate a solar system, species included (hello The Matrix). Unless they made the leap to faster than light technology but somehow didn't make similar advances elsewhere – a highly unlikely situation.

I don't think people are reliable witnesses. I don't mean that in a negative way and I mean all people, myself included. Because we're not perfect recording devices. Our perception and memories are subject to many factors that aren't necessarily within our control. Take the famous (and damn cool) checkershadow illusion:

web.mit.edu...

If I didn't know that was an illusion and someone asked me if A & B were the same colour, I would emphatically state NO. But I'd be totally wrong. If I didn't know A & B were the same colour I would remember it as different colours. It wouldn't be my fault, and I would be telling the truth.

So, in summary, I think UFO reports are often true. I think a small minority of people are attention seeking and/or in it for financial gain/social status. But I think it is highly unlikely UFOs are alien.

[edit on 11-1-2009 by jackphotohobby]

To use our understanding of physics and technological limitations to dismiss the possibility that an advanced alien civilization could travel faster than light (or through some other means) is the equivalent of man saying the Earth was the center of the Universe a few centuries back.

I will now leave you with a quote from Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and 'father' of the Television:

To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances. – 1926

reply to post by converge

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I don't think it is fair to say that "there are no pictures of alien beings" There are many pictures of alien beings that have no means of being authenticated as real, but are assumed to be fake. Then there are other pictures of alien beings that are very obviously fake or that the person involved in their creation has come forward and positively identified them as fake.

I am always interested in uncovering who has hoaxed a picture, as this should not be an impossible task. But in the end, whatever remains remains unauthenticated, leaving it up to the viewer to decide for themselves what their opinion might be.

-rrr