UFO claims.

undidly

People who claim to see space aliens in our sky are mocked.
Government agencies participate in the mocking.
Religious people who claim that there is an invisible man living in the sky are not mocked.
Government agencies support the invisible man delusion.
Why is this?.
Seems to be a huge conspiracy to me.
Soon to be reversed I think.

Ivan Seeking

Hello undidly, note that conspiracy theories are not allowed. Also, religion bashing is not allowed. Please review the guidelines at the following link:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5929

infinitenight

In my opinion it really doesn't matter how many times people try to play off these sightings for everyday natural phenomena because even if a fraction of them are correct, it means that we are being visited by extraterrestrials. Hundreds of cases have been debunked down to natural, even comical explanations but there are still those that cannot be explained even by the most imaginative of skeptics. I think that it really is time we all open our eyes and see that there is so much more to this universe than any of us could imagine. Other races of intelligent beings exist, and they have visited us. Get used to it because this is going to play a huge role in the future of mankind

Evo

Please post your proof of visitation.

It's ok to post that you think we have been visited, but it is not ok to say that we have.

DaveC426913

The fact that they cannot be explained does not mean they must be of extraterrestrial origin. It means simply that we cannot explain them.

Consider the following unrelated but equally-plausible scenario:

We see phenomena that, despite our very best efforts, simply cannot be explained by any known terrestrial event. Flying saucers in our skies, abductions, whatever you care to put on the table.

By process of elimination, since these are not of any terrestrial origin, they must be the only thing left:

Acts of God.

God, for whatever reason he sees fit, is tossing saucer-shaped devices through our skies and kidnapping people.

You see, your process-of-elimination argument works perfectly well. You have just proven that God must exist and we'd better get used to it.

jreelawg

It is interesting considering NASA, it's position and role in addressing UFO issues, and questions of extra terrestrial life.

My grandfather worked for NASA as a public relations officer, in charge of wester operations. He worked for NASA from it's inception until the late 80's. One of his roles was to address this issue of how NASA would address the public in the event extra-terrestrial life was found on other planets, from intelligent to microbes. This issue was a complex and controversial issue at the time among NASA officials. What would news of such events cause. How would religion be affected, how would the economy be affected, and so forth.

It's important to realize, that NASA, is obligated to have particular stances on the subject independent of observation and science depending on who is in charge. Second, that any NASA obtained evidence of the subject is NASA property and would be illegal for anyone to talk about without NASA permission. Thirdly, some UFO sightings could possibly be classified aircraft developed through or with the help of NASA, or known to NASA which they are not authorized to talk about.

So the thing is, NASA in spite of being the one agency you would expect to be the experts on the Subject of UFO's, most likely would be the last place you are going to get information on the subject.

There are however a lot of older retiring NASA pilots and astronauts who claim to have witnessed extra-ordinary UFO's while on flights/mission. Then again, what they witnessed could always be just another NASA project or project of another government agency which was not privy to them. NASA operates in a need to know basis when it comes to sensitive information, and you can get in a lot of trouble for saying things your not supposed to if you work for NASA.

jreelawg

I've had this thought run through my head a few times. What if the these lights which are in formations and perform seaming impossible aeronautical stunts, are nothing more than some kind of sophisticated light show, and illusion designed to make people think they see something extra-ordinarily advanced. This would get around the issue of how many of these sightings report rapid changes of direction and rapid drops and gains in altitude, at the magnitude which would easily kill any human passenger. The only thing is that there are a lot of reports in which UFOs demonstrating seemingly impossible acrobatic stunts were tracked on radar.

zoobyshoe

Yes, the point would not be that any craft have to be able to actually do any of these remarkable things, they just have to appear to be able to do them. The brains behind the stunts would be David Copperfield caliber magicians let loose on all the technology available to the military. They would study things like radar and focus on all the loopholes and glitches that could be exploited to make craft seem like they're doing impossible things.

The US did, in fact, hire a magician to create a bedazzling light show in the Panama Canal when it was suspected axis forces were planning on bombing it during WWII. It was some sort of rotating configuration of mirrors and searchlights that just outright blinded airplane pilots looking down on the ground at it. They became disoriented and couldn't see where to drop the bombs. Plus we know, from WWII both sides went way out of their way to create false, "dummy" battalions of tanks and trucks to make it look like troop strength was building up in places it wasn't.

I happened just today to see a UFO program on the History Channel. They interviewed two former Soviet Generals. When Andropov was in power he ordered the military to keep nightly watch of the skies everywhere for UFO's. This went on for 13 years. Many reports were collected. One general said they automatically suspected any report they could not otherwise explain was some sort of new US spy plane or attempt to create disinformation. Military strategists think about deception all the time and it would not be the least unusual for both sides to have a UFO distraction/deception program going.

ecsspace

What people claim to see in the sky tells you more about the observer than what's in the sky. You can go out at night with a large group of people to "watch for UFO's", and depending where you are and with enough time a normal airliner will pass over. There will always be be someone in the crowd who insists it's "a UFO"; from their perspective meaning they see this airliner as an alien spacecraft.
Because: they want it to be, and their desire to see it as such is more important to them than any sense of reason and experience (they may or may not possess) that tells them it's a common jet.
I mean, your parents said "Santa Claus, oh sure' They leave the room, you go look up the chimney - someone of the dimensions they describe is gonna fit through a four inch flue? Yet you have friends in elementary school, and here comes some guy in the Santa suit, and to them he's the man, no question. Even after you say, no, it's coach in a red suit and beard. Some of your friends actually
start to cry because you ruined the ride.
I still have that bad ruin-the-ride habit. Maybe there's some twelve step program: AA - Assholes Anonymous. Or even better: AO 'Assholes Obvious"

jreelawg

This is all true, yet really tells us nothing of the mystery of the UFO phenomena. The only reports you can explain by this phenomena, are ones that no rational person would take serious anyways.

Santa Clause is a proven fictional character, whereas the UFO mystery is still, as far as you or I know, unsolved. So in my opinion people who claim to represent any certainty about the UFO phenomena without evidence, should take the JAA twelve step program, Jack-A**'s-Anonymous.

FlexGunship

"More interesting and inexplicable reports" can still be explained by mundane misunderstandings.

Ivan Seeking

"Might", not necessarily "can".

And there is no way this applies to all reports.

Ivan Seeking

Note that you and Russ had to posit a conspiracy theory [with no basis other than wild speculation, I might add] to explain the Iran 1976 event. And there are others, like the case of the RB-47 over the Gulf. Even the Condon committee, which is well known for its bias and failure to accurately reflect the body of the report in the summary by Condon, had to concede that there was no known explanation for this.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case665.htm

FlexGunship

You are correct about the distinction between "might" and "can" and I accept your modification.

However, there is no fundamentally-implicit reason why it couldn't apply to all reports. That's really a tautology.

DaveC426913

It is meaningless to suggest that all observations might, in an ideal circumstance, be explainable by mundane means.

We explain what we can, and the rest is unexplainable. No one is suggesting that unexplainable===extraterrestrial.

ecsspace

I once saw something myself that by it's behaviour did not exhibit any traditional human-created flight characteristics, but did demonstrate behaviour that could very easily be considered to be under some conscious control.
But even now many years later I shy from considering that it could be a vehicle or some conveyance of an extraterrestrial origin.
The most remarkable aspect of the sighting was how unremarkable it seemed at the time, which I still think about once in a while. There was no accompanying emotion of any kind, yet I would imagine that most people would expect some sense of awe or fear. My father saw it with me, and seemed equally nonplussed, as if it was no more remarkable than the overflight of a normal airplane.
Following from this experience I tend to be closer to dismissing outright claims of people who speak of sightings and then relate their emotional state, as if they are attempting first to illicit the emotional state in any listener as a means of qualifying the veracity of their sighting. For instance, I only know personally one other person who saw something unusual 9whose story I 'believe'), and she too described it as if it was 'no big deal', and her sighting was far more detailed than mine. She seemed convinced that it was an actual craft from another world, but it seemed as though she took no more regard for it's presence at the time as if she had seen a billboard or any other common roadside object. Somehow, her emotional detachment made her story more 'believable' to me.

When you and your friends saw this UFO, do you recall any particular emotional state of your own, or if any of your friends seemed more affected by it emotionally than others? Did the sighting cause any kind of uncomfortable emotions in any of you while you were seeing it, and was that ever a topic of discussion amongst any of you later?

davenn

Thanks for the link Ivan, amazing reading and also amazing is the lack of serious reporting of events (as commented on) in the Condon and Bluebook reports
I also followed some of the other links at the top of that first page and 1.5 Hrs later had to call it quits and go do something else for a break.
thanks again happy NY

Dave