U.F.O. Sightings

[AE35Unit]

In the words of Arthur C. Clarke, anyone who hasn't seen a UFO must be blind! Flying saucers on the other hand...

[J Riff]

Well it's still interesting, somehow. Not to be taken seriously, until the day finally arrives when... * " BEEEEeeP!! Attention, people of Earth..."

[Peter Graham]

Through research I've uncovered, some people from ancient times made references to invisible telepathic beings who they call "the Watchers". There have even been in modern times, authors on the subject of aliens, who are convinced that there are invisble telepathic otherworldly beings who are watching us.

What is the actual evidence for these beliefs?

That could be very possible, there are records in ancient text from India about wars fought in the sky for Earth that have been witnessed by thousands of people.

One has to be careful not to conflate myth with historical fact. Sky battles are a popular feature of many cultures - my bet is that they are an early way of explaining thunderstorms. But a creation myth is nothing like the same thing as a historical fact.

In addition, such myths persist in to relatively modern times - in the mid seventeenth century, it was alleged that a spectral Battle of Edgehill was recreated in the sky above the original battlefield on a number of occasions.

Plus other ancient cultures (like in Peru) that mention beings from space came here to collect precious minerals like gold.

See above. Von Danniken got excited about this stuff, but most of his arguments are palpable cobblers and rarely get beyond wild hypothesis. What do the texts actually say - word for word? This is possibly like the the Nostradamus thing - we are confidently told that he predicted the rise of Hitler (for example), but when one reads the actual text it is clear he did no such thing. What he actually said was a load of vague, portentous drivel which other people twisted to fit what they wanted it to be about. Had he said "I predict that in the 1930's a chap called Adolf Hitler will come to power in a country which does not yet exist as a defined political unit but which will be called Germany", it might have been rather different.

After many years of thinking about it, I believe it was not from this world, it was silent (except for the hissing gas-jets), it moved away fast toward the south, became orange and yellowish in color (ionization?), it was smooth, black and without any features on it, and appeared to ascend into space gracefully.

But with the best will in the world, what you believe is not necessarily the same as what you can prove. I don't know you, but I'll wager you don't work in top secret military research labs. In imputing otherwordly qualities to something you don't personally understand, you are doing precisely the same thing as the Vikings, who imputed divine qualities to things they didn't understand - rainbows, lightning and so on.

Regards,

Peter

[J Riff]

The flipside o' that is - if we could prove it, it would be suspicious. Any race advanced enough to even be here at all - would be able to ghost around and ignore us by definition. Proves nothing of course. Sigh*
Hey ALIENS! Enough already. Show yourselves!

[Peter Graham]

Hi J Riff

The flipside o' that is - if we could prove it, it would be suspicious. Any race advanced enough to even be here at all - would be able to ghost around and ignore us by definition.

I'm not sure that hangs together. If they are able to ghost around and ignore us, how come people claim to see them?

Proving the existence of something we don't understand shouldn't be that difficult. All we have to do is rule out everything we do understand. For UFO's, that would include taking a sighting and conclusively being able to rule out things like:-

1. Man made hardware
2. Weather and atmospheric conditions
3. Hoaxers
4. Tricks of the light or other optical illusions
5. Genuine mistakes
6. Dreams

If we can do that, then I would have to accept that the most likely remaining explanation is extraterrestrial activity. But unless we can rule out all of the above - and in particular 1 and 3* - the smart money has to be on entirely terrestrial explanations.

Regards,

Peter

* Never understimate this. Fans of the Loch Ness Monster will remember with some embarassment the famous "Surgeon's Photograph", which purported to show a head and neck sticking out of the water. It was stated that the photo had been analysed and was genuine. The photo graced the cover of any number of books and believers hurriedly discounted the possibility of hoax by pointing to the fact that the taker of the photo was an eminent and sober surgeon who swore that his picture was genuine and who had no reason to lie. Except that he was lying, as was revealed after he died. He'd mocked the whole thing up for a laugh.

[Starbeast]

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

What is the actual evidence for these beliefs?

One has to be careful not to conflate myth with historical fact. Sky battles are a popular feature of many cultures - my bet is that they are an early way of explaining thunderstorms. But a creation myth is nothing like the same thing as a historical fact.

Von Danniken got excited about this stuff, but most of his arguments are palpable cobblers and rarely get beyond wild hypothesis. What do the texts actually say - word for word? This is possibly like Nostradamus - what he actually said was a load of vague, portentous drivel which other people twisted to fit what they wanted it to be about.

But with the best will in the world, what you believe is not necessarily the same as what you can prove. I don't know you, but I'll wager you don't work in top secret military research labs. In imputing otherwordly qualities to something you don't personally understand, you are doing precisely the same thing as the Vikings, who imputed divine qualities to things they didn't understand - rainbows, lightning and so on. Regards, Peter

I admire your skepticism Mr Graham (I'm skeptical of everything), I'm not doing this thread to convince people of the existence of other worldly beings. I could text a few hundred pages of postings explaining everything I've discovered, uncovered, witnessed and relay secretive information, but as I've learned from doing that in the past.........it doesn't do any good if someone refuses to believe. Talking about the existence other worldly beings is as difficult as talking about GOD. How can a person convince another individual that GOD exists without any physical evidence, it's near impossible. If I took the three holy books, the Torah, the Bible and the Quran and tried to convince my Native American Indian ancestors that all of these books are 100% true, they would probably stand there and blink at me, then politely say: "Well, that's nice you believe in that." I know a few atheists who would say the same thing, and a couple of them would tell me that humans evolved from primitive mammals, while the rest would say: "I don't know how humans came to be, an accident I guess".

Anyone else want to mention any U.F.O. encounters?

[AE35Unit]

I saw a green flash once years ago. Came vertically down and exploded on the wet road. It had been raining, the road was shiny, creating the illusion of something other, but it was a meteor.
When talking about aliens visiting us most people, myself included, use the argument of vast distances as the barrier. Good enough but I don't believe we're done with our solar system yet. Sure there's nowt on mars-War Of The Worlds is a great story but is only that. But what of the unexplored moons of jupiter, saturn, neptune etc.

[skeptical]

It is kind of interesting to note what people in days gone by thought of UFO's.

Lights in the sky have always been seen. However, it only since the invention of aircraft that they have been interpreted as space craft. In previous times they have been identified as angels, devils, witches and other such entities. Often the observers describe those entities in enormous detail, down to the glowing horns on their heads!

The obvious conclusion is that human interpretation plays a very big role in what we see. Our own expectations strongly drive our perceptions.

I have personally seen three UFO incidents. In all 3 cases, I have a simple and mundane explanation. However, people are often less skeptical than me. In fact, one of those cases involved the New Zealand navy in night time exercises, with search lights and helicopters etc. The local newspaper wrote it up as a UFO sighting!

[J Riff]

I saw an absolutely spectacular meteor in the 70s, I was driving cab outside the city and a fireball crossed the entire sky in less than 5 seconds. Huge, chunks of fire falling off, it apparently crashed in S. America less than a minute later, and UFO stories circled around it, but it was just a huge burning rock.

Ghost around and maybe we see them now and again - why would they care?
I like the list, but I'd go with all of the above.
The universe is insanely old. There are things out there that... I dunno...if I had to bet my life on it suddenly- are they here or not - ...I'd ....I'd plunk for ... uhmm... Yea. I just wish they would make an official appearance, tho it may put a few SciFi writers out of business.

[Parson]

Hmmm! Interesting thought. Does it seem likely that if there were intelligent species making "contact" with us; do you think that they would be more intelligible or much less intelligible than SF story aliens?

[Starbeast]

Nasa astronaut takes pictures of a ship-shifting U.F.O.
(all photos are of the same black craft)

[Williamlk]

Last summer, my wife and I were standing on our back stoop a little after midnight. We saw what we first thought were three very bright stars. We noticed them because they were extremely bright.

The only way I can explain what happened next is like this; moments after we saw the three bright specks of light they began to dance about rapidly in circles for about 30 seconds, then they vanished. We just looked at each other in shock. We still talk about it.

[Starbeast]

Originally Posted by Williamlk

Last summer, my wife and I were standing on our back stoop a little after midnight. We saw what we first thought were three very bright stars. We noticed them because they were extremely bright.

The only way I can explain what happened next is like this; moments after we saw the three bright specks of light they began to dance about rapidly in circles for about 30 seconds, then they vanished. We just looked at each other in shock. We still talk about it.

I've gotton a lot of reports from people who see what look like bright stars zipping around in the starry night skys. A close cousin of mine told me this same story about twenty years ago, and a close friend who lived in Jordan told me he saw these fast moving lights on a starry night in the 1970's. I often wonder what these U.F.O.s are doing, sending signals to us or to other U.F.O.s, or are they just having fun flying around in the upper atmosphere.

[skeptical]

After the first full bottle of wine, I see stars dancing too.

[Peter Graham]

I could text a few hundred pages of postings explaining everything I've discovered, uncovered, witnessed and relay secretive information, but as I've learned from doing that in the past.........it doesn't do any good if someone refuses to believe

I think that perhaps you misunderstand me. I don't refuse to believe. That would be silly. But belief can arise on one of two ways - from faith or from evidence.

Faith based belief is fine and most of us are obliged to rely on it every day. I'm not talking specifically about religious belief, by the way. A faith based belief is simply a belief which is not based on good evidence. By way of an example, I have no evidence that Mrs Graham isn't carrying on with the coal man, but I choose to believe that she isn't - that's a faith based belief. There is, of course, some evidence to support my belief, but most of it is of the self-validating and self serving variety, because I trust her and would naturally be disinclined to believe that she is up to no good.

Evidence based belief is something quite different. One believes something because it can be proved to a satisfactory standard - not necessarily 100%, I grant you, but certainly to the point that objectively minded folk can be reasonably sure of the truth.

For me, once people start making extraordinary claims (such as the existence of guardian angels, alien flying saucers, ghosts, the efficacy of new age remedies and so on), then I am unlikely to believe without evidence. I too have looked into some of this stuff, but the quality of the evidence I have seen is unremittingly feeble and unconvincing.

But I'm an open minded chap. If you can prove alien flying saucers exist, I'll believe it.

Regards,

Peter