UK UFO Sightings Spiked When Blockbusters Released

While there are many threads the past two days about the most recent release of UFO documents by Britain's MOD, I want to focus on one specific thought within the documents.

According to an AP article...

But another intriguing finding to emerge from the 1981-1996 archives was a surge in reports at the time of UFO-related blockbusters such as 1996's "Independence Day," not to mention the British television run of "The X-Files."

There are many here, those who believe every sighting is of a genuine alien craft, who will dismiss this out-of-hand. However, this thread is for the more open-minded. Taking it at face-value, why do you think this is?

Can these movies being influencing the popular conscious and inducing people to see things that are not there? Or perhaps are they ascribing extraordinary explanations to things they would ordinarily pass off as mundane? Could they simply be inspiring more people to look up?

reply to post by DoomsdayRex



It could be as you say, or maybe it's the fact that once something is on someone's mind they look more. personally i never cared about space at all until xfiles came on then i'd be lookin' all the time. It just started a general interest in space, so asa kid i'd stare at the sky and think how cool it would be if i met some aliens and had a cig with the smoking man.

I thought you meant UFOs were sighted around the Movie openings.
Well according to my thought the Illuminati might make money off
these movies to support all the Tesla craft (UFOs) they made.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex
I think the likely explanation is that more people actually look, and are more likely to report what they see. A lot of people don't seem to appreciate how easy it is to miss something unless you're actually looking for it.

It's not an isolated incident, it happens all the time, when a UFO sighting is mentioned on the TV or in the papers - more people start looking, and you tend to get more reports.

Most of these reports are easily dismissed, and only get reported because people don't tend to look up, and so are easily fooled by anything they see in the sky.

I started looking at the high fliers making high altitude trails.
One day I saw four in the sky at once and one was heading my way.
I had no time to run for my camera.
So I arched back to see the direct over flight.
Strangely the craft was not so high up and all I saw was a dark violet
area in front and a sparking ball of light on the left side of the
back right before the trail.

Just now I realize due to the number in the area the one by me
might have been lower and offered me a better observation.

I never checked to see if any X was left in the sky.

I think there is a case for and against here personally.

The timing of this claim in the media to me, seems more then coincidence. It's as if it's to say, yeah, there's been sightings by people, but they all happened after movies on the alien theme were released, so really the sightings are just peoples imaganitations and over excitement, ie aliens don't exist.

I personally am not convinced we are being visited by aliens(ie abductions and crop circles). But on the other hand there are so many videos and people from all over the world who claim to have seen them. Hell even the Belgian Air Force thinks something is visiting us. Military radars have picked things up countless times and still have no idea what it is..or if they know, they aren't saying because 1) it's either from another planet, or 2) it's a top secret military project(which I also heavily believe accounts for a lot of sightings). I even know some people who claim to have seen a ufo in the outback. I know these people very well, honest and hard working(aren't they all?), and they have no reason to lie. They didn't report it however.(was between Alice Springs and Woomera, it's rough loation I mention because as I said I believe many sightings are actually top secret military projects which we obviously can not be told about for obvious reasons).
I do believe however there is surely some form of life out there. The universe is too big for us to be all there is.
Whether that life form is in the form of a being similar to our selves in that it can walk talk breath, or microorganisms or something, I don't know.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


This has always been the case. I think some people get a bit excited about what they see on the silver screen and this effects their critical thinking when they see an object in the sky they can't immediately identify.

From memory, similar things happened after the release of Whitley Strieber's 'Communion'. Abductions really sky rocketed!

I guess people are eager for a piece of the action and don't give a second though to how it may adversely effect UFOlogy in general. We see it here on the board all the time!

IRM

[edit on 19/8/09 by InfaRedMan]

I think there is little doubt the more weak and simple minded folk psychosomatically experience things when exposed to outside stimulus like movies, etc. It is common not just in this subject, but I'm sure in many others as well.

I think it's very simple.

Movies about aliens are based on previous human sightings. Humans have had sighting of aliens for thousands of years, actually, let me rephrase that, humans have had sighting of UFO's for thousands of years.

These movies about aliens are generally intended to shock or frighten, many are in the horror or action genres. Rarely are they dramatic, comedies, or some other genre.

This, in turn, gets people thinking / worrying more, and when they find themselves outside at night, they find themselves looking up.

When you spend enough time looking up, you are bound to notice something strange. Might be a satellite, meteor, or something else.

When it's something else, that flashes and blinks and does incredible feats of flight that a human could never achieve, that is when people begin reporting wildly that they have seen a UFO.

In conclusion: I think more UFOs are reported during times of UFO movies because most people never look up or think about the sky or the universe, or take the time to determine for themselves with their own eyes what exists.

When they take the time suddenly, and see something, then things change for them. They know what they saw, and they just saw a movie about UFOs. Logically they will believe it and report it as well.

I think the reason for the 'spike' is films like 'Independance day' and the 'X-Files' and indeed ANY UFO or alien film it makes people LOOK UP.
People go about their daily routine looking at other people on the street or these days more often than not at the ground when they try to avoid eye contact with others, either through fear of assualt or even an 'ear-bashing', or simply because people's moral is at such a low that they don't want to be noticed.

When more and more people look up even if the reason is a film, there will always be more sightings of the 'unusual', if more people are looking in the right direction then who knows what can be seen?. for example as an experiment when I was at school back in the 80's I was studying peoples reactions to 'weird' so I got a fellow student to stand in a busy street and just keep looking up. I then proceeded to count how many others looked up to see if they could see what my guy was doing , needless to say there was a lot of people all looking up that day.

Now if you get a film that focuses on the 'skies' how many peoples eyes turn upwards? Ever since I joined ATS , I always spend quite a bit of my time looking up( obviously when not driving- thats plain crazy), whereas 2 years ago I was looking at the ground with really crap moral trying keep my head below the radar.


[edit on 19/8/09 by DataWraith]