What do guys think about UFOs and their connection with human origins?

[Sisyphus]

 

The first occasion was in Fiji, during day time. I was looking over the sea and saw a bright red light in the sky. It seemed to rise very slowly, and then began to descend, while moving slowly to the side. After it sank a distance, it slowly faded and disappeared. It was visible for a good 30 seconds.

 

Sounds like a nautical flare.

[Moontanman]

Ok, I'm going to be the devils advocate here. First I would like to say that it totally disingenuous to say that all UFO reports are from wild eyed crazies or that all UFOs are just lights in the sky. One of my favorite sightings was seem close to the ground, in the air, seen on radar, ground and airborne, the air radar was from a nuclear armed B-52 that was diverted from it's flight plan by ground radar operators to investigating the sighting. Radar returns were not only seen from the B-52 but a gigantic structured craft was also seen from both the B-52 and a commercial craft. the UFO was first seen over a nuclear missile complex by ground observers. This was very complex sighting by many well qualified people some of which were qualified to carry nuclear weapons. the UFO was observed for many minutes and never explained except that blue book concluded it was the planet Venus. At one point early in the sighting it was seen hovering close to the ground and then took off at a high rate of speed not to mention seen on radar and by the eyes of pilots as a structured craft, Venus seems to be a little less than credible. Ok, this is just one of many such sightings. I am very skeptical but that doesn't mean I take the track of most skeptics and only discuss easily dismissed sightings. One of my favorite explanations often given by skeptics is the comet explanation. The observer sees a bright light in the sky that moves slowly over head and then disappears. it's in sight for several minutes and is close enough to be seen as a ball and not a point source of light. the explanation is a comet or meteor. Does anyone else see the problem with this knee jerk reaction?

Bob Lazar who may or may not be a total BS artist, said that not only did he see saucer shaped alien craft at area 51 he also read a description of the aliens that said they had bred us back the beginning of our humanity from more primitive but human shaped hominids to be workers for the aliens who later set us free to take over the planet. BS probably but it's another bizarre story that might give us some perspective on the possibilities or at least the BS.

 

I would like to add that i agree, photos are a catch 22, good photos are automatically fake and bad ones are just not evidence. In this day and age of photo shop all photos and films are suspect. there was a film going around on the Internet a year or so ago that looked so real you would expect to see alien troops landing at any time but of course it was a total fake.

Edited October 14, 2008 by Moontanman

[Sisyphus]

The trouble with these sorts of sightings is that there's no way to tell what people actually saw, what they thought they saw, what their minds pieced together, etc. All the time you hear these accounts, with demands to explain them. Well, I can't explain them, because I didn't see them, and I'm certainly not going to trust the account of someone who's already decided they're ETs or something, since they're going to make the observation fit the hypothesis. As far as I'm concerned, the stories put together by "ufologists" might as well be completely made up.

[SkepticLance]

First, my two small challenges have been defeated.

 

Sisyphus is correct about the red light. I am sure it was a parachute flare.

 

JohnB is close to correct. The two white lights at night were car headlights. The only thing is that they were reflected off low cloud, making it seem as though they were wide apart and moving extremely rapidly. I observed the road they were moving down the next day when the sun came up. A night later, I saw the event repeated, and with hindsight, the cause was obvious. At the time, it was a very strange observation.

 

I am convinced in my own mind that a great many UFO sightings are simple hoaxes. I am reminded of the 'fairies at the bottom of the garden' hoax. A group of young girls, early in the 20th Century, set up drawings of fairies on cardboard, propped up at the back of a garden, and took photos with an old black and white camera. These photos were taken as 'proof' of the existence of fairies for many decades. Only when all the girls except one had died of old age did the truth come out. The survivor, who was now in her 90's, admitted the hoax.

 

In exactly the same way, and along with hoaxes of Big Foot, Loch Ness monster, strange wheat field patterns, and other weirdnesses, hoaxes of UFO's will be common. And the thing about a hoax, is that if it is clever, it is really hard to debunk.

 

Re Stonehenge. There is no reason to assume they did not use cranes. Ancient Roman cranes could lift 100 tonnes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loader_crane#Ancient_Roman_cranes

Those cranes were made from simple materials, which the Stonehenge engineers could well have built. A group of cranes working together could have lifted even more.

[Moontanman]

The trouble with these sorts of sightings is that there's no way to tell what people actually saw, what they thought they saw, what their minds pieced together, etc. All the time you hear these accounts, with demands to explain them. Well, I can't explain them, because I didn't see them, and I'm certainly not going to trust the account of someone who's already decided they're ETs or something, since they're going to make the observation fit the hypothesis. As far as I'm concerned, the stories put together by "ufologists" might as well be completely made up.

 

The report i told about is not a report made up by a ufologist, it was part of project blue book.

 

Everyone needs to understand that yes most UFOs are indeed misidentified normal objects and made up BS but some, a very small core group, are not only quite detailed but not made up or in some way suspected of being a hoax, they are truly inexplicable with an embarrassment of information. If only one is true, even if the one has has promoted and or has been covered up by hoaxes and misidentifieds, this one is of profound significance. Focusing on the ones we know are false and rehashing them over and over again to prove the rest are false as well is not good science.

Edited October 14, 2008 by Moontanman
multiple post merged

[Sisyphus]

The report i told about is not a report made up by a ufologist, it was part of project blue book.

 

Which parts of your description were part of project blue book? You said they concluded it was Venus. I'm guessing they didn't also say it was a "gigantic structured craft." So where did that part of it come from? Have you read the report itself?

[Moontanman]

Which parts of your description were part of project blue book? You said they concluded it was Venus. I'm guessing they didn't also say it was a "gigantic structured craft." So where did that part of it come from? Have you read the report itself?

 

Yes I have read the report and it was reported as a gigantic object but the people at blue book assumed the B-52 pilots and the commercial airline pilots were mistaken, also Venus was not visible at the time of the sighting. Blue book is famous for making stupid claims like the object was a comet, that made less sense than the sighing it's self.

[mooeypoo]

Yes I have read the report and it was reported as a gigantic object but the people at blue book assumed the B-52 pilots and the commercial airline pilots were mistaken, also Venus was not visible at the time of the sighting. Blue book is famous for making stupid claims like the object was a comet, that made less sense than the sighing it's self.

 

Uhh.. didn't you just quote it in your previous post, as adding credibility to your claim?

 

The report i told about is not a report made up by a ufologist, it was part of project blue book.

 

So.. you treated it as credible when it suited your claim, but now it's "making stupid claims" when you disagree with the suggestions in it?

 

It's either credible or it isn't.. which is it?

[Moontanman]

Uhh.. didn't you just quote it in your previous post, as adding credibility to your claim?

 

 

 

So.. you treated it as credible when it suited your claim, but now it's "making stupid claims" when you disagree with the suggestions in it?

 

It's either credible or it isn't.. which is it?

 

I didn't quote blue book to make anything look credible, It was said the sighting was made up by Ufologists. I pointed this particular sighting was not made up in this manner. Blue book is widely know for simply wanting to debunk and cover up. No effort was given to really investigating anything. the scientist hired by blue book to investigate eventually became critical of Blue Book due to Blue Books actions. Don't put words in my mouth, I am not a "true believer" but I do call a spade a spade, Blue Book was a farce, used to only try to down play all reports, even the ones that were inexplicable. This pattern became worse as the project went on. The sighting I mentioned was explained away in a manner that was insulting to everyone involved, it may very well have nothing but a shared hallucination of military ground personnel, air traffic controllers, military pilots and civilian pilots. I have no idea what it was but it could not have been what the "official " explanation was. This pattern of obfuscation was wide spread in Operation Blue Book and only served to put an air of suspicion on all explanations even the ones that were obvious.

 

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc296.htm

 

An earlier investigation came to an unusual conclusion.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sign

[JohnB]

There is no reason to assume they did not use cranes.

There is no evidence that the culture that built Stonehenge had the wheel. Most dating puts the construction circa 2500-3000 BC, even the pyramid builders didn't have the wheel then. The best we've found at Giza is a "protopulley". No wheels, no pulleys. No pulleys, no cranes. Do you have other information?

 

Mooeypoo, since it was the USAFs ultimate "Move along, nothing to see here" report, many view Project Blue Book as authorative. Those who delve a little deeper (rather than take it at face value) find it very entertaining.

Which parts of your description were part of project blue book? You said they concluded it was Venus. I'm guessing they didn't also say it was a "gigantic structured craft." So where did that part of it come from? Have you read the report itself?

That's why the official explanations are sometimes so entertaining. You read the witness statements and then the conclusion and go "WTF???" It's even funnier when the official explanation manages to defy the laws of physics.

 

One problem with this particular topic is that people tend to mentally rehash previous debates. Moontanman probably brought up Blue Book because previously it had been quoted to him by opponents. Along the lines of "Blue Book investigated that and said.........." He just got in early.

 

Or,

All the time you hear these accounts, with demands to explain them.

Again thoughts are coming in half way through the conversation. Such demands are most often made after the skeptic side claims that "All sightings have simple explanations" or similar comments.

 

It could be worthwhile to limit ourselves to what is actually said in this thread.

[Mr Skeptic]

I think there is a very close connection between UFOs and human origins. That is, I believe that UFOs have human origins

[JohnB]

I like it.

[mooeypoo]

Anyone read "Sphere" by Michael Crichton? The book rocks (the movie much much much less.. lacking the good message of the book, I must say).

 

Great philosophical conclusion there.. if anything, I'd believe in these type of life forms, the ones we won't even know are alive because they don't quite fit our definition of life.

[padren]

So how do you explain the stone slabs weighing at least 5-10 tons placed above 2 stone slab pillars at least a height of 20-30 feet above the ground at stonehenge. There were no cranes back then, I absolutely don't doubt that our ancestors were great engineers and thinkers, but this seems too complicated for their time. Also this HEAVY stone blocks are perfectly placed so that the would mirror the heavens, like summer and winter solstice and star maps and constellations. How could they have achieved this feat?

 

This is something I kind of call "Sherlock Syndrome" when trying to find answers:

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

 

The problem is that often, the simplest, most brilliant methods are the ones that are the easiest to miss. Very few people have been urged to solve the problem of moving such heavy blocks with primitive tools since the advent of cranes, but as has been mentioned here, there are some very clever ways of doing so.

 

It is just too easy to dismiss something as impossible by available means when it really is, possible.

 

It doesn't rule out that aliens visited our ancestors, but it does seem more probable that we've overlooked a simpler explanation than aliens traveling across light years to help us move some rocks.

[Moontanman]

This is something I kind of call "Sherlock Syndrome" when trying to find answers:

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

 

The problem is that often, the simplest, most brilliant methods are the ones that are the easiest to miss. Very few people have been urged to solve the problem of moving such heavy blocks with primitive tools since the advent of cranes, but as has been mentioned here, there are some very clever ways of doing so.

 

It is just too easy to dismiss something as impossible by available means when it really is, possible.

 

It doesn't rule out that aliens visited our ancestors, but it does seem more probable that we've overlooked a simpler explanation than aliens traveling across light years to help us move some rocks.

 

People tend to think of our ancestors as dumb naked people living on the edge of rock over hangs eating raw meat and picking their noses for fun. Ancient people were very bit as smart as we are and in some ways maybe even smarter. They might not have had the great technology we do but they had their brains and they used them, probably much more than we do. When you have huge population of people willing to do almost anything for the people in power almost anything is achievable. Roll blocks of stone up dirt ramps that are later removed, build a pyramid, similar techniques can be used to build large objects, even huge stones apparently suspended in impossible places. Given time and labor I wouldn't fault them for anything.

[Mr.want2know]

Originally posted by Moontanman

People tend to think of our ancestors as dumb naked people living on the edge of rock over hangs eating raw meat and picking their noses for fun. Ancient people were very bit as smart as we are and in some ways maybe even smarter. They might not have had the great technology we do but they had their brains and they used them, probably much more than we do. When you have huge population of people willing to do almost anything for the people in power almost anything is achievable. Roll blocks of stone up dirt ramps that are later removed, build a pyramid, similar techniques can be used to build large objects, even huge stones apparently suspended in impossible places. Given time and labor I wouldn't fault them for anything.

 

Ok so 10,000 years ago the early humans were CAVEMEN and did not know mathematics, engineering, and other stuff that could be considered as ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY perse'. Then about 3-4000 years later they built cities, ziggurats, towers, learned math, sciences, medecine, mold bricks, extract metals from the earth and other stuff that so absurdly they weren't ready for. HOW ON EARTH DID THEY ACCOMPLISHED SO MANY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IN A VERY SHORT SPAN OF TIME??????????

Please give me detailed explanation, because you claim that they are geniuses!

[JohnB]

Ok so 10,000 years ago the early humans were CAVEMEN and did not know mathematics, engineering, and other stuff that could be considered as ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY perse'. Then about 3-4000 years later they built cities, ziggurats, towers, learned math, sciences, medecine, mold bricks, extract metals from the earth and other stuff that so absurdly they weren't ready for. HOW ON EARTH DID THEY ACCOMPLISHED SO MANY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IN A VERY SHORT SPAN OF TIME??????????

125 years ago, the major form of transportation on this planet was the horse. As we have now been to the moon, how do you explain this?

 

However, you are the one saying that our ancestors weren't smart enough. Can you prove that "so absurdly they weren't ready for." those various technologies?

 

Also you are the one claiming that 10,000 years ago they were cavemen and didn't know more advanced technologies. I for one, ain't so sure.

[Sisyphus]

4000 years is a "very short span of time?"

 

Incidentally, common technology is one thing that it's relatively easy to keep track, archeologically speaking. Those things you mention developed logically and gradually, not all of a sudden.

[npts2020]

4,000 years is only a short time if we are talking geological or cosmological scales. On a human scale it is a very long time, well over 200 generations.

[iNow]

I love how this kid suggests that it's so impossible for our ancestors to have gradually learned this stuff and to do it themselves, yet then so fervently accepts the likelihood that little booger eaters in flying saucers urinated on the planet and made humans and pooped out pyramids from their cosmic ray guns.

 

It's funny that the answer the OP sees as so incredulous is actually so much less so than the alternate proposal being offered.

[I_Pwn_Crackpots]

You know, there are written records of "UFO's" from ancient and medieval times. I think they were called "demons" back then though.

 

Also, have you noticed that these alien visitors keep originating further and further away as time goes on. At first, they were all from Mars or Venus. When we failed to find any sentient life on that planet, then they starting coming from the Alpha Centauri. Or Andromeda.

 

Then about 3-4000 years later they built cities, ziggurats, towers, learned math, sciences, medecine, mold bricks, extract metals from the earth and other stuff that so absurdly they weren't ready for. HOW ON EARTH DID THEY ACCOMPLISHED SO MANY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IN A VERY SHORT SPAN OF TIME??????????

Please give me detailed explanation, because you claim that they are geniuses!

 

Advanced technology? What are you talking about. Sure, they knew math, and could build cities, but they were nothing compared to what we have today.

 

Most of it was just trial and error, and the first rigorous logical proofs for maths did not come until the time of the Greeks, a full 3500 years after the first civilizations. I mean, the ancient Egyptians used to think that pi=3.0, how can that be ANY evidence of advanced alien civilizations educating them????

Edited October 22, 2008 by I_Pwn_Crackpots
multiple post merged

[JohnB]

the ancient Egyptians used to think that pi=3.0,

No they bloody didn't.

 

Two values were in use during the ancient times.

1. (4/3)⁴= 3.16049 or

2. 256/81= 3.16049

 

Not too shabby when your basic unit of measurement was the Pharoahs forearm.

Sure, they knew math, and could build cities, but they were nothing compared to what we have today

Ya reckon? The engineering of some of the ancient works is superior to todays. The Greeks made their sewers self cleaning. Little waterfalls and twists to keep the water turbulent and preventing the crud from sticking.

 

Think about the logistics of supplying food and water to a city of 50-100,000 people when all you have are carts and donkeys.

 

Given the tools and technology of the times, the cities of the ancients were at least as impressive as modern ones.

[I_Pwn_Crackpots]

No they bloody didn't.

 

Two values were in use during the ancient times.

1. (4/3)⁴= 3.16049 or

2. 256/81= 3.16049

 

Not too shabby when your basic unit of measurement was the Pharoahs forearm.

 

Depends on which source you look at. As far as I'm aware, the Egyptians knew that the ratio between the circumference and the radius was about 3, but they did not have the tools or the logic necessary to actually get the exact value. The first few digits were discovered by the Greeks.

 

Ya reckon? The engineering of some of the ancient works is superior to todays. The Greeks made their sewers self cleaning. Little waterfalls and twists to keep the water turbulent and preventing the crud from sticking.

 

What????

 

Are you really that serious???? They were not at all superior to modern times, especially at the scale that we do things at. And you do really want our sewers to be self cleaning, a lot has changed in our waste since ancient times.

 

 

Think about the logistics of supplying food and water to a city of 50-100,000 people when all you have are carts and donkeys.

 

Only 100,000 people? The Romans and the Chinese could supply water and food for over a million people living in their cities by late antiquity.

 

But, even cities the size of 50K could never sustained if not for slave labor; if you have enough men and women forced to work for you, I'm pretty certain that you could do things on a large scale like build roads and metropolises, and maintain a relatively high standard of living for a select few.

 

Nowadays, we can maintain cities containing up to tens of millions of people, without the use of slave labor. Modern methods completely pwn the ancients.

 

Given the tools and technology of the times, the cities of the ancients were at least as impressive as modern ones.

 

I agree that their accomplishments were impressive given the times, but you also should keep in mind that what they could do demonstrated their limitations as well. It's not that big a feat to build a pile of rocks in the shape of a pyramid.

 

They did not have machines, or steel, or electricity, or wind mills (not until medieval times), or mechanized farming, or any of that good stuff. They were totally dependent on slave labor, and even that had severe limitations. Engineering principles were quite undeveloped, and they just simply didn't have the philosophical and logical principles necessary to gain any significant scientific or mathematical knowledge.

 

Which all makes the idea of alien visits completely questionable, if they have visited way back when and helped humans, why weren't humans building mega-cities 3000 years ago, or going into space, or utilizing advanced technology in general? Why did it take so long for us to compute the correct value of pi???

Edited October 22, 2008 by I_Pwn_Crackpots

[iNow]

Good grief, we are all so pedantic.

[waitforufo]

Still waiting…

 

But when they show up and give us all that extra terrestrial super technology its gona be AWSOME! Better than free gubment cheese.

 

On a more serious note. I'm always amazed when people think our ancestors must have been incapable of the technological accomplishments displayed in the archeological record. Things like fitting large stones together. Perhaps, just perhaps, people in the past were not as impatient as we are today. Perhaps the average workers of that time, if they showed up to carefully and slowly chisel rock, were given an abundance of bread and beer. Since beer and bread made them happy showed up every day. Slowly they got lots done. Also, who's to say they didn't know things then that we have yet to rediscover today. Who know what was lost when the library at Alexandria was burned?