Why Haven't You Seen a UFO?

I have wondered why so many people claim to have seen UFO's and at the same time the amount of people who have never seen one in the skies is nearly everyone. Are all these people that have viewed them deranged? Maybe, but doubtful.

Here may be part of the reason not everyone has had their chance to see a UFO.

1st how much of your day do you spend looking up? I bet you spend even less time looking up at night. Most people who have claimed to see UFO's have had them in view in unusual circumstances. The UFO is behaving oddly in the sky, it is illuminating in bright and non-typical colors, it is hovering low over the ground, or it is interacting with the observer.

You may think that there just aren't UFO's, at least operated by E.T., but consider this. How many airplanes do you see everyday? 0,1,2,3,4...5? There are over 5,000 commercial airline flights over the United States alone at any one given time. If there were only 5,000 flights per day you would have the opportunity to see potentially 500 airplanes in flight, per day in any given state and how many do you see?

Honestly, I see airplanes a lot and by alot I mean a little. I see them maybe 2-3 times a week. Partly because I don't spend much time looking up and partly because I don't spend much time outside.

Consider also the UFO phenomena. If there were only 100 flights over the U.S in high altitude per week how many would you see - if you live in the U.S.?

I am betting you wouldn't see any, unless they were acting oddly in the sky, it is illuminating in bright and non-typical colors, it is hovering low over the ground, or it is interacting with the observer.

Also, the people who spend time looking up are the same individuals who report seeing the phenomena. Maybe, if you want to see them, look up and have patience afterall the prospect of spotting a UFO is looking up.

airplanes fly at different altitudes in different airspaces (places around the country) and in all 4 different directions.

heres a simplified example.
going east there are appxly 10 different flight levels. lets say every other odd number from 21, 000 ft on up. 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, etc thousands of feet asl(above sea level).
going west there are appxly 10 different flight levels.
lets say every other odd number from 20,000 ft on up.
24, 28, 32, 36, etc thousands of feet asl.
going north there are appxly 10 different flight levels.
lets say every other odd number from 23,000 ft on up.
27,31, 35, 39, etc thousands of feet asl.

lastly , going south there are appxly 10 different flight levels.
lets say every other even number from 22,000 ft on up.
22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 3tc thousands of feet asl.

if you study this...you will see that minimum seperation is at least 1000 ft in any direction.
going in opposite directions ,flights are usually routed into air corridors to keep minimum seperation of at least several miles horizontal and at least 1000 ft vertical.

so, even with 5,000 plus commercial flights in the air at any one time over the whole usa...thats a pretty slim chance of intrusion into another aircrafts safety zone.

plus with the air controllers, pilots and computer avoidance equipment... the situation is sager than on the local freeways.
over the whole usa

blessings,
dr james
retired cfo, pilot and air surgeon
ex]



[edit on 5-2-2010 by esteay812]

Great points. Good thread.

I would also like to point out that Astronomers do not see UFOs that often because of one simple reason.

They are only looking at a super small section of the sky through a telescope the majority of the time they "look up".

By looking deeper into space through a small very tiny proportion of the entire viewable sky cover, limits the possibility that you would see anything like a low flying object.

How many astronomers get a shot of a passenger airplane while looking up into the cosmos? Around none of them, as I have never seen or heard of this type of incident occurring.

So basically the odds of a typical astronomer to see a terrestrial low flying aircraft are close to nil /none. Due to these and several other reasons.

reply to post by esteay812


In the show Star Trek the Federation has a policy of no contact with non space faring species, It is very much possible that these other Alien Races view as the same way we view Monkeys and Ants. They will not make contact with us because we are to primitive, while There are other races, no one from our lifetimes will ever see one because we lack the ability to travel in near space let alone deep space so don’t get your hopes of for disclosure or the Klingons decloaking over DC. Unless we develop warp speed, or hyper drive.


So while I am sure they have viewed our plant and studied us, I doubt they will make contact with our Race.

Originally posted by esteay812
I have wondered why so many people claim to have seen UFO's and at the same time the amount of people who have never seen one in the skies is nearly everyone. Are all these people that have viewed them deranged?

Deranged is the wrong word. I would say the vast majority of us aren't very good observers.

You made some interesting points which I agree with, however you left out perhaps one of the biggest points of all which is revealed in this thread:

This has to be 100% genuine???

Now look at that video, I wouldn't say anyone calling that a UFO is deranged, but like I said, most of us are generally poor observers and on top of that not so good at interpreting our observations.

But I find this interesting, I've never seen a UFO though I have spent a lot of time looking up at the sky. But when I saw that video, I knew immediately that it was not a UFO.

Now here's the point you missed: several of the posters in that thread, who identified that object as a UFO, state that they have personally seen UFOs before, do you see the correlation? Even the guy who lives next to an airport and sees planes all the time doesn't recognize it's an airplane, probably because the angle he's used to viewing them from is different. And you'd be surprised how many sightings are of the planet venus, etc.

I'm not saying ALL UFOs are misidentifications of ordinary objects like airplanes, Venus, natural phenomena, etc, but the vast majority ARE! And I don't think people that misidentify them are deranged or nutjobs, they are just ordinary people and as a general rule most of us are terrible observers.

[edit on 5-2-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by muzzleflash
How many astronomers get a shot of a passenger airplane while looking up into the cosmos? Around none of them, as I have never seen or heard of this type of incident occurring.

OK now you have:

science.nasa.gov...

Lunar Transient Phenomena
January 23, 2007: If you stare at the Moon long enough, you start seeing things. "82 things to be exact," says Bill Cooke, leader of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Group. That's how many "transient phenomena" the group has video-taped since they started monitoring the night side of the Moon in Nov. 2005.

In 107 hours of observing, we've tallied 20 lunar meteors + at least 60 Earth-orbiting satellites + one airplane + one terrestrial meteor = 82 in all.

So one airplane in 107 hours, it does happen. But look at how many satellites were observed in the same time!

Nice Thread.

Most people have no interest in looking skyward unless something
really catches their eye. I have seen some very interesting things
in the sky over the years. Which I guess has made me interested.
Once you have seen something truly anomalous, you will find that
your attention is drawn to the heavens.
What are they ?
Who are they ?
What do they want ?
What a great mystery it all is !

I think the answer is much simpler!

I know enough about optics, aeronautics, and weather to know that everything I have seen is explainable. A reflection on my car windows, a prizm effect of distant clouds, a low flying plane, a high flying plane on a direct course, etc., etc.

I have seen a great many things that defied explanation, I even considered taking pictures, but instead I observed for a little while and the explanations became clear.

Examples:

1. About 1 month ago, I took an extra 20 minutes driving home, because the oddest and slowest moving light I had ever seen was over the center of our downtown area. It scared me at first, so i drove toward it. As I drove toward it, it slowly drifted away from the main roadway, and it began to change colors. I called my wife, but she couldn't see it. Long story short, after driving around for 20 minutes and changing my perspective, I discovered it was an extremely poorly built blimp advertising an online Casino, but having a lot of lights burnt out.

2. My account is in another thread about seeing bright lights hovering in the woods near my home a few months ago. We would get odd noises at all hours, we would see lights through the trees and in the air, and in some cases they would just stop, or they would turn and accelerate away. After asking around at the airport and spending some extra time outside in the late evening, I discovered it was Cobra Helicopters conducting military training exercises in the area.

I live in south Africa, there isn't much UFO activity here, I don't know why...so much open space for them to roam around in. I have never ever seen a UFO...I am envious of people who have because I believe, and they could at least grant me that.

Funny, I'm quite the hypocrite...I ridicule religious people for believing in a God they cannot see, when all the time I am hell bent on that aliens & UFO's exist...when all this time I have never seen one heard one smelt one or felt one!

Maybe one day, if I'm lucky.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Great examples!

Reminds me of the woman posting UFO videos in PA of "lights in the woods", but the difference between you and her is, you tried to figure out what they are. She just keeps taping them, never walks toward them to try to get a better look and see what they actually are.

Originally posted by jinx880101
Funny, I'm quite the hypocrite...I ridicule religious people for believing in a God they cannot see, when all the time I am hell bent on that aliens & UFO's exist...when all this time I have never seen one heard one smelt one or felt one!

That is a little ironic but at least you realize it!

Sounds like you might be religious too, it's just that God is the old religion and "aliens and UFOs" are the new religion, for some people at least. Kenneth Arnold wasn't into UFO religion when he made his sighting, but the people who believed what he saw was aliens, could be called religious, as he never described seeing any aliens.

I've seen 'em, but not for a while, there's too much light pollution and too many clouds.

Thank You all for the replies.

I have to say there are some good points and examples in them, but alos remember that this thread isn't about disclosure or the need for the UFO's to be justified.

Many, many of the UFO sightings are very easily explainable when viewed by a professional or an obserer viewing an object that is relative to their field of experience.

Another point I thought about after re-reading original posts is that with all the ailiner flights in the sky at a given moment you would think that their are a multidude of sightings from these flights and the sightings would be ongoing - as the flights are ongoing.

I think if you want want to see a UFO you should look into the sky, still - even though what you may see could probably be xplained by someone, you may see something unexplainable.

When a UFO is see at a great distance it is hard to ever be 100% sure that it isn't your neighbors kid floating a knock-off lantern into the sky. This may be why the only way we can ever make progress in finding out what many of these things are is to see them at a close range. Not more than a 1/8 mile away and preferrably a ride in one

The cases like the one where the S.African children saw a UFO. Accounts like this are hard to deny and heighten the desire to know by the people who aren't consumed with everyday life to be to busy to care about these things.

Thanks Again

reply to post by esteay812


I think the reason some people see them is they look for them in the sky, while other do not. Most people walk about with their heads down, fully controlled by the electronic device in their hand, and most live in cities where you have to look straight up to see the sky. The best places are out in the western plains States, big sky country. No artificial lights there, and you can see for miles and miles. Some do see, then deny it not only to to others, but to themselves too. Some see them and assign religious names to them.

About five years ago I made a decision to actively scan the skies whenever I ventured outdoors. This wasn't as simple as it at first seemed, when driving your automobile, the overhead view is largely obstructed by the roof of your vehicle, even with a moon roof, and when on foot your field of view is limited by trees and the terrain. But there are other factors to consider such as what do you look like to others when you constantly and obviously scanning the skies, my neighbors have no doubt noticed that whenever I check my street mounted mailbox, that I am looking up while scanning a 360 degree sweep of the skies and the surrounding skyline. It is embarrassing to have your neighbors and even strangers seeing you engaging in this rather unusual behavior. But if you really, REALLY want to see a unknown flying object, then this type of deliberate effort must be made, and doing so will be noticeable by family and friends, so be prepared for the results.
That's the bad news, the good news is that after two years of doing this religiously, I finally saw a UFO in broad daylight right in front of my house as I was checking my mail, it didn't look like any kind of craft with occupants, it was the brightest florescent day-glow Orange that you can imagine, it was shaped like the shape of a dam, with the bulge facing outward,(convex shape), it was maybe ten feet across,(horizontally), at it's widest point, around two or three feet up and down,(vertical), dimension, it had no thickness discernible, as it would look if it were made from fabric. A strange aspect of the sighting was it's motion, it was wildly vibrating in a up and down motion, the range of this motion was less than half it's own vertical height. The speed of these oscillations were probably around five to maybe ten cycles per second, very fast, producing a blurring effect on certain portions of the object. It's path was like a car driving past me on a road, meaning that as it approached I was seeing it from the side, when it did this I could see behind it, into the concave portion of the curved orange panel, here the color was more a dark orange. I saw it from pretty close range anywhere from 100 to 200 feet away, it's altitude was very low, tree top level, or a little above roof level. It's velocity was equal to walking speed, the weather was clear with unlimited visibility, no clouds, not even one, it was ten minutes after noon, and there were no other people anywhere within my sight. When it came abreast of my position it's appearance changed considerably, the effect was similar to the way a timing light on an engine illuminates the flywheel, but not yet syncronized. It became two objects now, each of them mostly translucent and rising in altitude. It was very strange and hard to describe, the feeling was one of momentary disorientation as my eyes weren't able to get a good focus on the unknown object. It was at this point that it dawned on me that this was something unusual and then I finally grabbed the Sony Digital Camera out of my pocket and attempted to get a shot of the "thing", the camera is very slow to take the first shot so it took forever to finally start making the clicking sounds, indicating a picture is being taken. Simultaneously as I am doing this the mystery object seems to stop for a second and consolidate into one again, I have the shutter trigger depressed, at this moment the time lag seems like forever and to my amazement, before the first shot fires off, the object turns translucent to invisible within half a second and at the same time as it does this, a very bright very small welders arc type light appears just to the left of it's former position maybe a hands length held out in front of me, it appeared about ten feet from where the original object was. The camera finally started clicking, but too late, for the orange object, it was gone, and now the welders arc started doing the most extreme and wild motions back and forth like some one trying to impress me by waving a bright white led on the end of a long stick, as this was occurring I realized that I was seeing something that I've heard described here and other places, the wildly moving point of light, like a Tinkerbell fairy from a Walt Disney movie. The motions were too fast to make estimate of any speed, thousands of miles per hour would be a good guess. The direction of the motions were mainly horizontal with some climbing, followed by a burst of upward speed seemingly taking it about a quarter of a mile up and away, again more wild incredible motions keeping me awestruck and my mouth wide open the entire time. It did have a trail of light behind it effect because of it's incredible speed and it was very beautiful to see, it then drew a perfect saw tooth oscilloscope shape in the sky and proceeded to exit at incredible speed almost straight up and away in a most impressive fashion. The camera caught almost nothing, just tiny barely visible points of light very far away that could be lens flare or anything. That was two years ago and since then I haven't seen that object again, but I now think that the shape of the thing was only a small portion of something larger, the curved panel if continued all the way around would have described the shape of a disc around ten to twenty feet in diameter. Draw your own conclusions, I can only guess what it was. But in my case I was rewarded with an exciting view of an unknown object. Will you see something if you dedicate yourself to watching the skies vigilantly, maybe, it worked for me.

A few nights ago, I was leaving home around 9:30 pm to go grab some fast food. It was a cloudy night, kind of gray streaky clouds with dark dark bluish black sky. I looked up as I walked to my car and saw tiny little specks of light that I thought were stars. Then I noticed they were moving. All in the same direction. Spread out over a large area, some were alone and some were in clusters of 3 or 4 and some in a straight light side by side. All going to same direction.

I do live sorta near a major airport, but from what I've learned there are no more than 10 flights that depart after 9 pm. I saw easily 40+ lights in the sky. Departing or arriving airplanes look much larger than these specks of light from my house, and they always blink. The specks of light didn't blink and were much further up. When I got back from the fast food drive thru about 10 minutes later, I got out of my car and looked up again. They were still coming. I waited for a few minutes until they stopped. Who knows how many there were.

Originally posted by esteay812
I have wondered why so many people claim to have seen UFO's and at the same time the amount of people who have never seen one in the skies is nearly everyone.

Because one persons UFO is another persons helicopter, or plane, or flare etc.

I find it highly unlikely in such a vast universe that there are not other advanced life forms capable of space travel.

However the reality is that should the earth in fact be visited by such off world originating species they don’t actually make themselves publicly known by stopping by the local supermarket, restaurant or Wal-Mart.

The latter is very suspicious because like Recreational Vehicles I am pretty sure Wal-Mart would let them park their space craft over night in the corners of the parking lot!

Now it is true that some very strange and bizarre looking creatures can be found shopping at Wal-Mart especially late, late at night and early, early in the morning.

Yet no conclusive testing or evidence has ever been presented that proves any of them do originate from off world.

Face it earth is just not a popular intergalactic tourist or business destination for beings from other worlds.

Maybe if we updated our image, stopped worshipping mythical deities no one has ever seen and stopped incessantly murdering one another and hording life sustaining resources from one another, and invested in some nice full color glossy brochures this would all change.

Now if you don’t mind Luke I need you to get those new droids fixed and have them up on the south 40 by morning if you want to go to the pod races this weekend!

Thanks.