What is the definition of a UFO? Seriously-Thinking Caps required

I was just on this thread (bump): www.abovetopsecret.com... and I got to thinking...
NOTE: Time to become a Thinker:
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When I joined ATS, I did mostly to learn/reseach/discover UFO/Aliens-via the Giaz Pyramids. A co-worker turned me onto ATS so... Anyway, you can see from threads I have done since joining until now and I think you could chart my progression to where I am now (I guess); Are Homo Sapiens Part Alien?
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www.abovetopsecret.com...

So anyway, I am in this thread about a UFO above the Russian crowds protesting Putin etc. UFO amazes etc etc. Well, I contend it ISN'T a UFO.

To the people on the gound at the protest looking up at it may have not known what it was but the people operating it (cause it is a human object-trust me). Anyway, I content it is a surveillance vehicle or camera operated by the Anti-demostrators (the Gov't). So, they know what it is... Therefore it isn't a UFO-officially.

SO similar to the quesiton I poised in the other thread about Homo Sapiens:

An Alien lifeform from another planet/world coming to Earth and making contact with Humans
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OR

God speaking to people from a buring bush about things?"


I ask:
1: If a human knows what the object is (meaning a man-made device) and another human doesn't know what it is: does that constitute an OFFICIAL UFO (that no one can explain by evidence, knowledge or other scientific ways).
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2: What is the threshold-say-if we could leave the future people (say) 3 best pieces of evidence that we deem Officially the Best Evidence there is ALIEN life and/or UFOs (in the forms of beings similar to us humans) off this planet?


Thanks for participating and have a great holiday season!
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See, more UFO's or not? We know what they are.... but the Aliens don't.... hmm

Definition of a UFO..

Unidentified - as in we don't now what it is

Flying - well it is assumed to be flying or floating because as we don't know what it is, we don't know if it is flying or floating or just blowing in the wind

Object - can be anything from a balloon to a black ops craft to an alien spacecraft

So the title of your thread and your OP are not the same. Seems you are assuming UFO means Alien spacecraft

reply to post by zorgon


Well, yes, I should have said Other than the obvious ones-as you described and yes the is a definition but that is what I am challenging. Try to look at it from the whole human race rather that oneself-individually.

To use a balloon. You set off a huge, funny painted weather balloon in the USA.

It goes north across the US/Can border. Some people up there see and and yell UFO UFO. It's investigated and determined to be a weather balloon. That is not an official UFO. You knew what it was going up and it was demostrated to be what it was on the otherside of things.

Now, When does something become a UFO that all on earth agree, It isn't from here etc etc. At one point do we as the human race determine that something observed isn't from this earth and can't be explained etc, aka A UFO/Alien created etc.

For now, I don't believe there is an thing that can be 100% call a UFO/Not of our world or making. Backing up a theory I have-noted in the other thread.

There is more evidence to prove there isn't UFO/Aliens than there is to prove it.

reply to post by anon72


Earth is under so much surveillance by our satellites, telescopes, cameras all over the place. For anyone to even think something could enter our atmosphere without being identified or known to us (humans) is funny. U.F.O.'s as we perceive them are man made, all of the Alien crap is Hollywood. In my opinion the possibility that there might be another life form out there in space just like us is like thinking that out of all the living things on earth, 2 of them think exactly alike.

What is the definition of a UFO? Seriously-Thinking Caps required

Sorry I'm late!

Well as Zorgon stated - I am trying to understand whether or not this thread is an argument on semantics or not.

A UFO does not necessarily mean E.T as we all know - yet it does indeed mean Alien (See Definition). So for a large amount of people to agree that something is a UFO simply means "A lot of people were not able to come to a conclusion as to what the unidentified object could be."

The government, interestingly enough has always promoted the "idea of Aliens" - yet never the "Truth of Aliens". They pop the champagne every time people see one of their black ops air crafts and shriek "Gray alien".

I fully believe we've been visited - in fact I think being "visited" is a huge under-statement - as even in your OP you bring up the theory of Alien Intervention on the human race.

There is quite a lot of information on this,
Much of which is complete crap of course,
Yet there is enough evidence found from ancient cultures to make one seriously question their species' origins.

reply to post by FidelityMusic


This is a sarcasm, right?

I'm tired of this, so I'll not respond to this I'll only hope this is a good joke...

Originally posted by anon72
reply to post by zorgon

 

Now, When does something become a UFO that all on earth agree, It isn't from here etc etc. At one point do we as the human race determine that something observed isn't from this earth and can't be explained etc, aka A UFO/Alien created etc.

edit on 12/12/2011 by anon72 because: (no reason given)

You're never going to find any situation in which every person on earth agrees that way. UFO is a subjective thing. Obviously there is no way to rule out the possibility that someone on earth can identify it. And even if someone does identify it, there might be no way to verify their identification.

Well, this got me thinking. So to us something comes across as unidentified, however it was constructed so someone or something knows what it is.

Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that E.T.'s have been visiting and we have commerce with them. Their vehicles would not then be U.F,O.'s they would be "the Zeta's RV" or whatever. So this is semantic nonsense. A simple definitions is that its unidentified, flying (floating or levitating) object. Simply put if something went by and no one could identify it, its a U.F.O. until or unless someone lets us know what it is.

reply to post by Nikola014


No. I'm being serious and practical with things.

reply to post by anon72


Always found this thread on what a UFO was interesting

Introductory Space Science - The Science of Unidentified Flying Objects

UFO Unidetified Flying Object

everyday i see ufo's, its all relative!

a bird flying that i cannot identify
a plane that i cannot identify
lights flashing in the skies from a plane i cannot identify

a pattern emerges IDENTITY!

i believe we are not alone but as for 'aliens' visiting us then no,(though i would love to be proved wrong)

Well, we have the case of the so-called ghost rockets. About 2,000 sightings (half daytime, half nighttime) were logged between May and December 1946, with peaks on August 9 and 11, 1946. Two hundred were verified with radar returns. The number of witnesses is large: perhaps around a milltion or more. Photos were taken, and a crater was found in the bed of a lake one was seen entering by a government official. Some were likely meteors, but the bulk of the sighting didn't not occur during the Perseid meteor shower, They were seen mostly over the Scandinavian countries but also in other parts of Europe.

This was, of course, before Area 51 was even built. They were not balloons, swamp gas, plovers, spacecraft reentry, or secret U.S. craft. A Swedish pilot said the one he followed kept a constant altitude in relation to the hilly terrain (a behavior typical of the later-developed cruise missiles) . So what if not Unregistered Foreign Overflyers? Ball lightning? Some sort of unknown natural phenomenon? Ghosts?

As we have come to know the word UFO , it represents something of intelligent design that did NOT originate from this planet . Anything else is just mucking around with a play on perceptions . Did humans originally design it/them ?

If we make copies , I don't believe the original designers will be arguing the copyright of it/them .
They wouldn't be that petty unlike humans, or would they be petty as to who got there first . Imagine if they were , that would make them just like us born in our image or us in theirs with all the faults we have .

Originally posted by FidelityMusic
reply to post by anon72

 

.... In my opinion the possibility that there might be another life form out there in space just like us is like thinking that out of all the living things on earth, 2 of them think exactly alike.

So if i were to sail out to sea in hunt of "life" using a plastic container the size of a bathtub... i would scoop up a tub of water. Examine it once, assume there is no life in any of the Earth's oceans, rivers, seas or ponds... and simply forget about the whole ordeal and that life cannot exist in the sea.

We cannot even see the whole universe.... within our lines of sight alone, there are simply too much planets, stars, and galaxies to ever examine properly before we become extinct. Even so, it could be said that most of the universe around us is pointless to bother researching because it is simply too far away (as long as Einsteins theory of relativity is correct) as we will never even be able to send/receive messages to each other within several generations. Even our own milky-way galaxy is still too humungous for humans to explore every corner of it before we are extinct, and this is "one, tiny" galaxy alone.

Sorry for blabbering on... lol. But what i'm trying to say is that the universe is so infinitely large as it is, small. There are so many combinations that could happen with life, you eventually have to repeat the same process. It very well may be that "intelligent life" such as humans (in terms of self awareness and the ability to build) might find the best journey through evolution to end up with 4 limbs, 2 thumbs, a head, and a spine.

I think there's a very large chance alot of ETI's could look "similar to us".

Originally posted by InsideYourMind
So if i were to sail out to sea in hunt of "life" using a plastic container the size of a bathtub... i would scoop up a tub of water. Examine it once, assume there is no life in any of the Earth's oceans, rivers, seas or ponds... and simply forget about the whole ordeal and that life cannot exist in the sea.

If you took a bathtub size sample of any seawater on earth it would be teeming with life.

Originally posted by watchdog8110
As we have come to know the word UFO , it represents something of intelligent design that did NOT originate from this planet .

Who is this 'we'? Most serious researchers understand the difference between the term UFO and Alien spacecraft

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by watchdog8110
As we have come to know the word UFO , it represents something of intelligent design that did NOT originate from this planet .

Who is this 'we'? Most serious researchers understand the difference between the term UFO and Alien spacecraft

Most would include ? Thus the rest of the most are ( we ) . Hows that ?

Any serious researchers on ATS , or is there going to be a degree of how serious they are ?

Umm is this a troll thread or something, the answer is pretty obvious

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object

As in a thing in the sky that cannot be identified, if u look in the sky and see a bird but you cannot tell it is a bird then it is a UFO, its that simple.

I know what your asking, your hoping someone will come along and say a ET Space Vehicle is a UFO. this is incorrect, once you have identified an object as a ET flying craft then it is no longer a UFO.

We call ET crafts UFOs because we have no proof that they are actually extra-terrestrial, once they have been identified we would not call them UFOs, it would be like "that is a alpha centauri craft"

and how do alliens call UFOS?

FO

reply to post by xpoq47


You said:

Originally posted by xpoq47
About 2,000 sightings (half daytime, half nighttime) were logged between May and December 1946, with peaks on August 9 and 11, 1946.

and...

Originally posted by xpoq47
Some were likely meteors, but the bulk of the sighting didn't not occur during the Perseid meteor shower

Well, in 1946 the peak of the Perseid meteor shower would have been around the 11th of August, with a gradual build up in the days before, which mirrors the peak dates of the ghost-rocket sightings.

At the moment the peak occurs on the night of the 12th/13th of August, but over the years, variations in Earth's orbit and in the position of the Perseid meteoroid stream mean that back in 1946 the peak date for the Perseids was around a day earlier, as records (herefor example) and computer modeling show.

Furthermore, the bulk of meteors throughout the year are not related to the Perseid meteor shower, which also mirrors the ghost-rocket sightings in that respect.

In fact 1946 seems to have been a busy year for meteors with storm of Draconid meteors observed in the US, though rates in Europe were less due to the lower height of the radiant above the horizon.

Interestingly, when the radiant is low on the horizon, that is when we see what are known as "earth-grazing" meteors, which can be quite spectacular, and do rather odd things that in my experience most people are not prepared for, such as appearing to shoot up from the ground, and then traveling overhead and off into the distance - I've seen this a few times myself and it's very cool! How many times have we all heard that in UFO reports - "It took of at high speed and disappeared into the distance" ??

You said:

Originally posted by xpoq47
A Swedish pilot said the one he followed kept a constant altitude in relation to the hilly terrain (a behavior typical of the later-developed cruise missiles)

which is interesting since it's exactly what earth-grazers can do.


It's also interesting that:

The 1946 event marked an important first for meteor astronomy---the detection of a meteor shower by radar. In the United States alone, 21 radar systems were operated at frequencies of 100, 600, 1200, 3000 and 10000 Mc/sec.

Source: /meteorshowersonline.com

since, as most who support the alien hypothesis would have you believe, one of the main supporting arguments is that the objects were caught on radar.

This bit of info suggests that, radar being a relatively new thing,some operators may have not known that meteors could easily be picked up on certain frequencies, and misidentified meteors for ghost-rockets (AKA UFOs). Radar up until quite recently was also prone to "ghost" or false refection's, so I don't think it constitutes reliable evidence to begin with.


You'd think people today are better at identifying meteors, but we still have the same problems hard wired into our brains which make us prone to misinterpreting things we see, even if they are relatively familiar (which meteors are not to most people).

Now I'm not saying all of the reports from 1946 should be put down to meteors, and I haven't researched this case in any detail, but everything I have read so far suggests that most sightings (perhaps nearly all) could easily be explained by meteors.