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Posted

It doesn't really apply but this thread does seem to be developing into a general discussion on UFO's so I hope the following isn't too far off topic.

 

I was a young Airman in the 1960's manning an anti-aircraft missile system. One night we locked on to an unidentified aircraft which was flying higher than our fighters could reach, was not showing navigation lights and was flying with no flight plan. The first thought was that it was Russian (Cold War era). I don't know how it was finally identified but it turned out to be a US U2 Spy plane. Who knows but I suppose if it hadn't been identified.................

 

 

http://www.britishpa...ched-at-woomera

 

 

I would like to avoid the whole Ancient Astronaut thing, there is another thread for that but it is true that UFO like objects have been reported since ancient times.

 

I have talked to a US Navy fighter pilot that said he and his wing man chased a shiny metallic object object they could not catch when they were scrambled off the deck of an aircraft carrier when it was detected on radar approaching the ship.

 

These type of reports are not uncommon and of course are just hearsay. Pictures and videos are a bit better or would be if not for what seems to be a world wide contest to see who can fake them better than anyone else.

 

Any modern pictures or videos are doubly suspect due to this "contest" It is still fun to discuss the evidence and there are sightings that are simply impossible to explain and not due to lack of information.

 

One of the best reports...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident

Posted

Today I was watching a UFO show on Netflicks, UFOs: The Secrete History, it was made in 2010 and I had never seen it before, i thought I had pretty much seen them all. if you have any interest at all about UFOs I would highly recommend it.

 

I follows the UFO phenomena from the Kenneth Arnold sightings in 1947 and across the early to mid 80's. I learned a few things I didn't know and the documentary covers everything from disturbingly credible to outrageously crazy...

 

One of the things pointed out is that the very first UFO government report asserted "flying saucers are real" and goes on to assert that they are "interplanetary space craft".

 

The Washington merry go round, where UFOs were seen on radar by ground observers and by military pilots as the UFOs flitted around the air space of our Nations Capital was very interesting.

 

Also discussed is the Military's attempt at debunking UFOs at any cost via ridicule and derision which started with Project Grudge.

 

People physically affected by UFOs, burns and poisoning, and sightings by military personal which are well documented.

 

One particularly interesting sighting was a helicopter which had a large UFO hover over the helicopter as it flew at night, the UFO shone a bright light on the helicopter and was so close the pilot was fearful of a rotor strike. It was explained as a "slow" moving meteor...

 

Great documentary...

Posted

I finally had the time to watch those two. They are certainly some of the best I've seen, going through the whole shebang without any hype.

 

The sections talking about the whys and why nots of what went on in the 50s and later is logically and well presented. The psychological look at why so many in the science field have a "gut" rejection of the idea is also interesting.

 

The parts of the second vid concerning the Fermi Paradox are extremely well argued. "Why haven't they made contact?" "Why should they? What do they have to gain except our destruction?"

 

I thoroughly recommend these vids to anybody with even a passing interest in the subject.

 

There is, I believe only one way to evaluate the phenomena and it should be done on a case by case basis with a series of two value questions. The answers to each question are complete and mutually exclusive;

 

Q1. Is the reported "object" real or imagined? (These ar the only possibilities.) With a simple visual sighting we cannot rule out "imagined" but if there is corroborating evidence from other observers, films, radar, etc then we can call it "real".

 

Q2. If real, is it a natural or manufactured object? Again mutually exclusive. A bit harder here as it could be a natural phenomenon that we simply don't understand or know how to describe. But I think we can assume that if it is clearly seen and shown to have "non natural" characteristics then we can conclude it to be "manufactured".

 

Q3. If manufactured, who made it? The only possibilities are either "human" or "non human" construction.

 

And that is where peoples minds grind to a halt. They would rather believe that the large silvey object that just flattened their water tower was a rogue cloud of swanp gas because they know that if it was manufactured, then it could not possibly have been made by us. They bypass common sense and logical analysis because they emotionally reject where the logic will inevitably lead them.

 

To wit. Rather than being some sort of "favoured by God" and "Lords of Creation" we are low man on Totem Pole and could be squashed like a bug if other races so desired. Realisation of insignificance hurts some egos. :P

Posted

Thank you JohnB, I have been informally studying UFOs for most of my life, I've talked to eye witnesses, and kept abreast of what the real researchers were doing and this documentary is the best one I've seen from the stand point of not hyping one view or another.

 

Some documentaries intentionally go in one direction or another and it becomes plainly obvious quickly they are either for or against UFOs and the evidence presented. Most go in the direction of UFOs are everywhere and the invasion is about to begin type stuff. This one really does walk the fine line between they are real no doubt and they are all fake no doubt.

 

There are sightings that are inexplicable and insulting explanations like slow meteors or a comet are no better than faked photos in my opinion.

 

I would like to continue this thread if possible, we will have to get past the idea that UFOs are all hoaxes or that all UFOs are alien space craft and look at what the evidence really tells us...

 

I like your two value questions, the emotional baggage invested in this subject is more important to many people than any search for evidence. Far too many people either assume that it's all bunk or they assume it's all true, the middle ground of reason seems poorly represented...

Posted (edited)

Thank you JohnB, I have been informally studying UFOs for most of my life, I've talked to eye witnesses, and kept abreast of what the real researchers were doing and this documentary is the best one I've seen from the stand point of not hyping one view or another.

 

Some documentaries intentionally go in one direction or another and it becomes plainly obvious quickly they are either for or against UFOs and the evidence presented. Most go in the direction of UFOs are everywhere and the invasion is about to begin type stuff. This one really does walk the fine line between they are real no doubt and they are all fake no doubt.

 

There are sightings that are inexplicable and insulting explanations like slow meteors or a comet are no better than faked photos in my opinion.

 

I would like to continue this thread if possible, we will have to get past the idea that UFOs are all hoaxes or that all UFOs are alien space craft and look at what the evidence really tells us...

 

I like your two value questions, the emotional baggage invested in this subject is more important to many people than any search for evidence. Far too many people either assume that it's all bunk or they assume it's all true, the middle ground of reason seems poorly represented...

I listend to and looked at the entire footage Moon. But not being an actual witness to such phenomena, I leave it entirely to conjecture and question. Were these sightings actual as described, or to give persons their fifteen minutes of stardom?? Lilke the Bible!, people will believe what they want to believe come hell or high water. Me, I'm a total skeptic! Edited by rigney
Posted (edited)

I listend to and looked at the entire footage Moon. But not being an actual witness to such phenomena, I leave it entirely to conjecture and question. Were these sightings actual as described, or to give persons their fifteen minutes of stardom?? Lilke the Bible!, people will believe what they want to believe come hell or high water. Me, I'm a total skeptic!

 

 

I, like you rigney, am a skeptic, it's just being a skeptic to me doesn't mean dismissing something because it goes against my world view or because the Military ridicules it.

 

There was one sighting report in that video I am aware of which had much if any controversy around it and that was the sightings over DC, as extensive as they were the report that one of the interceptor pilots was surrounded by the lights is disputed...

 

Most of the rest I was aware of, the helicopter incident, which was seen by people on the ground as well, is the type of thing the military uses to make people look stupid, a slow moving meteor... :lol: It's insulting and it shows the lengths the military at the time would go to debunk any report, the truth had no place in this for them... :o

 

I still stand by the Tehran sighting as extraordinary and evidence of something inexplicable happening...

 

The sightings around missile silos were very interesting as well.

 

I did like the explanation of the SIGN report being dismissed due to simple in house politics instead of an effort to cover it up, it made sense...

Edited by Moontanman
Posted (edited)

I, like you rigney, am a skeptic, it's just being a skeptic to me doesn't mean dismissing something because it goes against my world view or because the Military ridicules it.

 

There was one sighting report in that video I am aware of which had much if any controversy around it and that was the sightings over DC, as extensive as they were the report that one of the interceptor pilots was surrounded by the lights is disputed...

 

Most of the rest I was aware of, the helicopter incident, which was seen by people on the ground as well, is the type of thing the military uses to make people look stupid, a slow moving meteor... :lol: It's insulting and it shows the lengths the military at the time would go to debunk any report, the truth had no place in this for them... :o

 

I still stand by the Tehran sighting as extraordinary and evidence of something inexplicable happening...

 

The sightings around missile silos were very interesting as well.

 

I did like the explanation of the SIGN report being dismissed due to simple in house politics instead of an effort to cover it up, it made sense...

If you were to ask me if I believe there are other civilizations beyond our solar system and on out into the universe, i would say with tongue in cheek, yes! Not that I can substantiate it as fact, only that I believe there is a great probability of it being so. With the intellect of very brilliant people here on earth, why would a life form from another civilization simply pass us by without giving a look at earth? Being that far advanced, they would have nothing to fear from us. Edited by rigney
Posted

If you were to ask me if I believe there are other civilizations beyond our solar system and on out into the universe, i would say with tongue in cheek, yes!

 

I would say yes with no qualifiers at all. Close by? Hmmmm, I can think of scenarios to support a yes on that but no positive evidence.

 

Not that I can substantiate it as fact, only that I believe there is a great probability of it being so.

 

I agree.

 

With the intellect of very brilliant people here on earth, why would a life form from another civilization simply pass us by without giving a look at earth? Being that far advanced, they would have nothing to fear from us.

 

Being so far advanced they might not have any interest in us at all, do you stop by the ant hills in your yard to say hello when you go to the mailbox?

 

We might be interesting to someone who specializes in ants but it still doesn't mean they would stop and say hello, maybe get a few specimens and anal probe them for information?

Posted

Rigney, what a lot of people miss is the time factor. We live on a young planet. The Universe is old enough for a planet to form, give rise to life, have that life develop intelligence and advance 10 million years past us. Then blow their Solar system to dust and have it recombine and go through the entire process again all before our Sun even formed.

 

 

Why would they want to talk to us?

 

I have no problem with the idea of visitors, it doesn't crash my worldview. I don't want to disparage the great work done by our science community over the last couple of hundred years but I simply can't accept that we are so smart as to have discovered the ultimate "Laws" in so short a time. I fully expect that sometime in the future Einstein will be modified just as Newton was.

 

Moon, I use the two value system to try to remove my emotional reaction from the problem. I think of it as a version of the old Holmes saying "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 

Once you have eliminated all known "natural" explanations for the sighting/object, then what you have left is that the object was "manufactured". Most people baulk at this because they know damn well that if "somebody made it" then that "somebody" wasn't from around here. This means that they will believe physically impossible explanations rather than challenge their preconceptions.

 

The "slow moving meteor" is one example. Another is the "official" explanation for the Valentich incident in Australia. The explanation for the 1978 sighting in New Zealand is also worth a chuckle. A double sighting with the objects filmed by the news crew onboard the aircraft while the local Air Traffic controller was watching the action on radar. The explanation is that the film crew saw "moonlight reflected of cabbage leaves" while the ATC radar was actually reading "the planet Venus". I believe that this is the first time that Venus was clocked doing 300 mph in Earths atmosphere, but there you go. :D

 

Similarly to believe the explanations about Roswell you have to believe that the head of military intelligence on the only base with nuclear weapons could not tell the difference between a balsa wood and tinfoil weather balloon and a crashed aircraft/spacecraft.

 

I've also been reading about this topic for a long, long time and the evidence to me points in only one direction. Some of the sightings are of real, physical objects that exhibit performance abilities far beyond what is capable for human craft.

Posted (edited)

Rigney, what a lot of people miss is the time factor. We live on a young planet. The Universe is old enough for a planet to form, give rise to life, have that life develop intelligence and advance 10 million years past us. Then blow their Solar system to dust and have it recombine and go through the entire process again all before our Sun even formed.

 

 

Why would they want to talk to us?

 

I have no problem with the idea of visitors, it doesn't crash my worldview. I don't want to disparage the great work done by our science community over the last couple of hundred years but I simply can't accept that we are so smart as to have discovered the ultimate "Laws" in so short a time. I fully expect that sometime in the future Einstein will be modified just as Newton was.

 

Moon, I use the two value system to try to remove my emotional reaction from the problem. I think of it as a version of the old Holmes saying "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 

Once you have eliminated all known "natural" explanations for the sighting/object, then what you have left is that the object was "manufactured". Most people baulk at this because they know damn well that if "somebody made it" then that "somebody" wasn't from around here. This means that they will believe physically impossible explanations rather than challenge their preconceptions.

 

The "slow moving meteor" is one example. Another is the "official" explanation for the Valentich incident in Australia. The explanation for the 1978 sighting in New Zealand is also worth a chuckle. A double sighting with the objects filmed by the news crew onboard the aircraft while the local Air Traffic controller was watching the action on radar. The explanation is that the film crew saw "moonlight reflected of cabbage leaves" while the ATC radar was actually reading "the planet Venus". I believe that this is the first time that Venus was clocked doing 300 mph in Earths atmosphere, but there you go. :D

 

Similarly to believe the explanations about Roswell you have to believe that the head of military intelligence on the only base with nuclear weapons could not tell the difference between a balsa wood and tinfoil weather balloon and a crashed aircraft/spacecraft.

 

I've also been reading about this topic for a long, long time and the evidence to me points in only one direction. Some of the sightings are of real, physical objects that exhibit performance abilities far beyond what is capable for human craft.

One of my problems in believing these different sightings is that each of them are blurrier than the next. Many photos, but in none of them can you make out distinctly what the picture shows. You would think that after 60 years of sightings someone woulg get a descent photo. As you stated, our solar system dating back 4.5 billion years is young compared to what the overall universe may have to offer.

Civilizations may have evolved several times and in many different life forms throughout the universe. Perhaps even right here in our own solar system on another planet or different planets. No! To say definitly that there aren't other civilizations out there would be a stupid statement. The ant and human comparison in the video makes no sense to me though. Even here on earth we have never stopped seeking out the different species of animal and plant life for fear we might miss something. For aliens to pass by a planet with life of any kind on it just wouldn't make sense.

.

Edited by rigney
Posted

The idea of alien contact is extremely interesting and perhaps very telling, not necessarily about aliens but humans. I think UFOs are intimately connected with this, in historical times we went from seeing angels and demons to alien space craft but the descriptions are often very similar.

 

This stuff has been hashed out many times on this forum but while our historical ancestors might not have had photos of the things they saw they did indeed paint them, from cave walls to Renascence paintings people have been seeing things in the skies and drawing or painting them for a very long time.

 

In the late 1800's to early 1900's people saw sky ships with propellers and even anchors. Later they saw flying wings or discs, the battle of Los Angeles in 1941 was fought against glowing discs or airships depending on whether you are reading first hand accounts or accounts written later.

 

I know it's not good science but IF you assume these phenomena are real and not part of the human Psyche it begs the questions who, what, where, and why. I will attempt to, if not answer, at least define these questions..

 

Who? Aliens or the human mind? This is the central question to me, are these things real or products of the human mind? There is a third alternative, a natural occurrence but that still plays into the idea of a human minds interpretation of reality.

 

What? Lots of possibilities, from illusions created in the human mind to actual nuts and bolts space craft to multidimensional travelers, time travelers, and not to be ignored the possibility of natural phenomena.

 

Where? Again, do they originate in the human mind or outside the human mind? If outside then the real possibility of alien space craft of some sort would seem to be easier to explain than time travelers or multidimensional travelers but some sort of natural phenomena can still explain what we are seeing but it cannot account for all sightings either now or in the past. I suggest they originate inside our solar system, a long term colonization of the galaxy, star by star, by other intelligent beings, quite possibly many different intelligent beings.

 

Why? The $64,000 question and it is easy to answer. Any intelligent beings who have the built in urge to reproduce and expand their territory will eventually turn their gaze up... In a few million years, even without some magical technology, we will use the resources in our solar system to build artificial habitats and once we do we will eventually push the limits of our resources in our own region of space and again look outward. either that or go extinct as a species and leave no related species.

 

But of course this again begs the question, are we alone and if not... where are they? My suggestion is that we are not first, in fact i think we are a day late and a dollar short. Most people concentrate on planets, Terra forming the ones we have access to and star travel to find more to colonize and or Terra-form the ones we find around other stars...

 

I think this is a mistake and assumes that planets are the only place we can live or would desire to live, not only can we live in artificial habitats but such habitats would be far more compelling than alien planets. Alien planets might very well be dangerous, if the planet is filled with life enough like Earth for us to live there then we would have to worry about diseases and parasites but even something as common as allergenic particles could doom us. The long term effects of being exposed to alien viruses might doom any colonists just as surely as an immediately fatal disease.

 

Artificial space colonies would how ever be under our, if not complete control, at least some semblance of control since we would know the organisms we place inside and our relationship to them.

 

Such colonies would be space ships and once we mastered the ecology of enclosed environments star travel becomes a real possibility. To the inhabitants of such a hyper city (such colonies could enclose wilderness type areas as well) your proximity to a central star is less of a problem than if you have to live on a planet.

 

Pared down to fundamental necessities very nearly all stars are colonize able by this method and estimates of how long it takes one species to colonize the entire galaxy is a mere blink of an eye in terms of geological time or even the life span of a species. conservative estimates are in the hundreds of thousands of years to a few million at most.

 

This would seem to indicate that either one species colonizes the entire galaxy and excludes all others (which would indicate we are either nearly first or alone) or that different species can and do colonize the same stars, the resources are so abundant that warfare would only be an option to the most aggressive of species.

 

So this leads us to the possibility that a great many stars have been colonized by many different creatures over millennia. This is where the idea behind alien contact and religion comes in.

 

It is quite possible that either a series of alien species have colonized the region or that many have colonized our solar system concurrently with each other. Some of these aliens might have some concerns about what will happen when we achieve practical space travel and have either accidentally inspired religion or have intentionally experimented with manipulating us with the concept of religion.

 

This could explain why so many different aliens have been described in sightings and why aliens would seemingly do inconsequential things like landing in farmer Jones's field and not contacting us in any bigger manner when star travel seems to be such a daunting endeavor.

 

If they are already here and living in artificial colonies in the suns Kuiper Belt or Ort cloud visiting the earth isn't the huge investment in resources it would appear to be. In fact the Earths only interesting quality would be the possibility of collecting elements that are more concentrated in small areas on a planet like Gold or Copper.

 

Some reports have aliens using humans to mine such materials in very ancient times but even if this is not true the colonization of places like the ort cloud make good sense because everything needed to construct such colonies would be there, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and other elements contained in the ices of the bodies in the outer solar system.

 

An infrared telescope with the proper sensitivity should be able to detect such colonies with ease since getting rid of waste heat would be more of a problem than staying warm in the vacuum of space...

 

One of my problems in believing these different sightings is that each of them are blurrier than the next. Many photos, but in none of them can you make out distinctly what the picture shows. You would think that after 60 years of sightings someone woulg get a descent photo. As you stated, our solar system dating back 4.5 billion years is young compared to what the overall universe may have to offer.

 

Rigney, there are lots of very clear photos of UFOs, people tend to discount the good ones as too good to be true and discount the blurry ones because they are blurry.

 

ufo4.jpg

 

http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html

 

Civilizations may have evolved several times and in many different life forms throughout the universe. Perhaps even right here in our own solar system on another planet or different planets. No! To say definitly that there aren't other civilizations out there would be a stupid statement. The ant and human comparison in the video makes no sense to me though. Even here on earth we have never stopped seeking out the different species of animal and plant life for fear we might miss something. For aliens to pass by a planet with life of any kind on it just wouldn't make sense.

 

I agree, any planet with complex life becomes interesting but if complex life is common then it becomes a bit more problematic. Some rare scientist that specializes in up and coming civilizations might be interested but why would they contact us? If they are indeed a million years ahead of us then we are no more than annoying creatures who happen to have primitive technology. Personally the Million years ahead thing doesn't seem as great a barrier as many seem to think. I think there is a limit on technology and no such vast magical technology barrier exists...

Posted (edited)

I have a hard time trying to wrap my mind around distances such as those we associate with the closest stars to our galaxy. Measured in light years, these distances are colossal to say the least. Our closest neighboring stars are light years distant from us. And to think someday we may go there boggles my mind.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars#Future_and_past

 

At some future time, if humans should exist so long, we may actually find ways to make these sojurns into deep space to other stars and plantes. I know that Science has only scratched the surface of space travel, but that scratch will never be erased. Meaning that our need to know is stronger than our will to survive. If I could retain things as you do Moon, I would probably write science fiction for no other reason than making a living.

Edited by rigney
Posted (edited)

I have a hard time trying to wrap my mind around distances such as those we associate with the closest stars to our galaxy Measured in light years, these distances are colossal to say the least. Our closest neighboring star is over 4 light years distant from us. And to think we may go there boggles my mind.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars#Future_and_past

 

At some future time, if humans should exist so long, we may actually find ways to make these sojurns into deep space to other stars and plantes. I know that Science has only scratched the surface of space travel, but that scratch will never be erased. Meaning that our need to know is stronger than our will to survive. If I could retain things as you do, I would probably write science fiction for no other reason than making a living.

 

 

My personal take on this is that they are not visiting from another star, they are already here having colonized the Ort cloud or Kuiper Belt thousands of years ago. Slow boats with technology not far in advance of us could colonize the entire galaxy in a few millions years at worst.

 

To me there are three main possibilities here...

 

1 They are all hoaxes or misidentified phenomena of some sort, natural or man made. (this would also cover hallucinations as well)

 

2 They are alien and coming here via technology that is magical enough to make Star Trek look low tech

 

3 They are alien and are already here in our solar system and visiting the Earth is not a big deal to them

 

There are a few other options like time travelers or inter dimensional travelers but these would be covered by #1 I think.

 

No matter, saying there are no clear photos or that they can't be here due to light speed limits is simply not true...

 

Oh wait, i forgot about the intelligent dinosaur idea... just kidding...

 

I'm gonna make a true believer out of you yet rigney :rolleyes:

Edited by Moontanman
Posted

And then we also have oddities like the Phobos Monolith.

 

It's perfectly normal to have large, rectangular objects in the middle of flat, dusty, bombarded smooth plains. ;)

  • 1 year later...
Posted

1967 UFO identification chart...

I see condoms and diaphragms. :o Are you sure that isn't a birth control chart? :P

Posted

I see condoms and diaphragms. :o Are you sure that isn't a birth control chart? :P

 

. . . .and shower heads . . . .and light fixtures . . . .and kitchen utensils, from pots to pie pans. . . .and motorcycle type hand grips and general everyday objects found in a typical hardware store (except condoms and diaphragms) that someone could hang from a surf fishing pole and photograph.

Posted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fK5C2IPthk

 

This is interesting.

I'm not entirely sure if this is real or not, but it sure would be a pretty good hoax if it was fake. Its extremely convincing :wacko:

If this is NASA footage, however, why would they release videos of Unidentified Object sightings?

 

 

The black triangle at 09:00 and forward is interesting but there is no context to judge it's actual size...

Posted

 

 

The black triangle at 09:00 and forward is interesting but there is no context to judge it's actual size...

Indeed. That's the main problem with most UFO footage, there's hardly anything to judge size/speed upon.

It does look intriguing though.

Posted (edited)

But the film shows it obviously moving against the background. It does have a slight look of separation from the background as though it was added but I can't be sure, it is an odd looking object for sure.

No you're somewhat right, I've done photograph clouds before and I have seen lens-like clouds that are isolated with no mountains around on multiple occasions. But, I can tell they are not UFOs because I can see them dissipate over local lakes, sometimes enough to fade away mostly and stretch out. Isolated lenticular clouds can sometimes form from waves of air movement itself in a powerful gust picks up a slab of moisture like a pileus cumulonimbus effect as opposed to mountains, but only very rarely, about as rare as kelvin helmholtz clouds.

Edited by SamBridge
Posted

Indeed. That's the main problem with most UFO footage, there's hardly anything to judge size/speed upon.

It does look intriguing though.

Another issue is how we can determine if the film is either real or if it is just CGI effects.

 

That is the main issue with credibility of UFO sightings. If there is no image or photography then your not considered credible. If you do get photography, there have been so many ploys that they aren't believable anymore.

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