who believes UFOs are extra-terrestrial?

[Sweetbriar]

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

[Bigceasar]

Incredibly unlikely that it is aliens. Any such alien craft would have to have the ability to transit multiple light years of space. Yet somehow that technology cannot defeat earth’s primitive tracking systems?
Then there are alien crashes. These same craft and advanced alien beings can transit the galaxy, only to crash when they reach earth? Are we located on some kind of intergalactic dead man’s curve?
Finally there is the basic math. There are billions upon billions of stars in the universe, why would multiple alien crafts wish to repeated visit our humble planet located in an unremarkable solar system in a remote spiral far from the center of our galaxy that appears to be no different than the millions of other galaxies.
I lean towards either human and equipment failures of interpreting natural phenomenon or possibly military craft and technology. One guess would be technology that can broadcast fake radar and visual contacts. That would have enemy defenses literally chasing ghosts. Extremely useful military technology and a lot more likely than Mork from Ork.

[UFO Pilot]

The only UFO I believe in, is the one I drive.

[MinntoMich]

Originally Posted by ttavasc

I have the same interest and recently finished reading a couple of good books on the human aspect of UFO culture - very interesting to delve into that point of view...

Interesting. I often find myself delving into past mysteries, seeking answers to those questions of the here and now and the future by reading books from authors like Graham Hancock. Thanks for the suggestions.

Working the graveyard shift years ago I found great pleasure in listening to Art Bell. Even though most of the show was tailored to "what if" listeners and had all the authority and veracity of the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News I still enjoyed it.

The wonder of "what if" leads to some very interesting fire pit stories.

[K Charles]

There is a big difference between aliens and UFOs I believe many things flying around are unidentified.

[RRR]

[ROUGHRIDER3]

MSHappyCamper,

My question was/is the possibility of aliens may exist, why would this not be a possibility. Who knows, they may be a 100,000 years more advanced that we are.

[EdInArk]

Originally Posted by ROUGHRIDER3

MSHappyCamper,

My question was/is the possibility of aliens may exist, why would this not be a possibility. Who knows, they may be a 100,000 years more advanced that we are.

Or less advanced.

[Randm Musing]

Originally Posted by MSHappyCampers

The military is once again doing a study on UFOs because so many military pilots have reported and verified the sightings. I have always believed they exist. When you think of the vastness of the universe it's hard to imagine that we are the only intelligent beings out there. What do you think?

Do UFO's exist? I'm sure that they do.



Are they extraterrestrial? I do not believe that they are.



Are there other intelligent species out there in the universe somewhere?
I think that it would be naive to believe that we are the only "intelligent" species in the universe. But physics - as we know it now - says that we are not going anywhere, and no other species is coming here. This little piece of rock is wll that we get, to make it or break it as we see fit. And it looks like we are not doing a very good job of making it.

[dbircky]

They certainly exist, here’s proof:

[astrnmrtom]

Do UFOs exist? Yes, in the strict definition of the letters = Unidentified Flying Object. The key letter is the U - unidentified.

I'll ramble on a bit about this subject because it is related to two of my interests. I'm an amateur astronomer/space nut and have been for over 55 years, and as a spin off of that hobby, I have an interest in human visual perception. My interest in visual perception has led me to do a lot of reading on how the visual system works. It applies here because a lot of UFO based reports are eye witness accounts. More on that in a bit.

First a logical comment - One problem with the "evidence" is: it does not constitute proof. Just because something behaves in a way that can't be easily explained, it isn't proof that its alien technology. All it proves is something unknown was seen/detected/photographed that doesn't fit a known object. Concluding it's alien is a complete leap of faith. It's connecting two dots when you've made up one dot. A LOT of internet discussions claim various things as proof of extraterrestrial objects when they are nothing of the sorts. The most recent big deal was the release of the government report on UFOs. The report basically stated a certain percentage of the events couldn't be explained, and don't fit the behavior of any known object. This was touted online as proof of alien technology in play, when the only thing it proved was that pesky U in UFO again. I've even seen some videos not long ago supposedly taken by fighter pilots of unusually shaped objects - again touted as possible USOs - meaning something alien. In several popular online examples I immediately recognized them as out of focus point sources. They were things I've seen countless times through a telescope when focusing on a star. I've also seen what aberrations look like when light travels through another irregular medium at an angle such as, in those cases, as aircraft's cockpit window. That can produce an aberration which elongates the donut into a cone. If the camera moves the point source travels through differing angles on the cockpit plexiglass, making the object change shape and pulsate. Again, these videos were being touted as proof, but certainly were not, they were distorted out of focus images of something reflecting light, not any proof of what make those reflections. Same with radar data. It may show something doing something, but still offers no proof of what that thing is. Just being something never seen before doesn't make it prove anything.

Re: Eyewitness testimony, even by "professionals" i.e. Police, Pilots, military personnel. Just because a person is a highly trained professional in one or more field, they can still be fooled just as easy by things they've never seen. Even the most highly trained individual, is still a novice at other things.

The visual system.

One very common mistake the average person make regarding eyesight is they, excuse the pun, "see" the eyes as cameras, and the brain as a viewscreen, and nothing could be further from the truth. The eyes are sensors, sending signals to image processors (the visual centers of the brain), which then assembles a representation, and sends it onward to your conscious mind. It's important to note there's so much data coming in the processing system must decide which is important and which isn't - it simply doesn't have the data bandwidth to handle it all. It's a survival technique. I like to explain it with a simple saying: "In the dark, where all you see are shadows, it's better to mistake the shadow of a rock for a bear, than it is to mistake the shadow of a bear for a rock." To survive, the visual system must be quick, and one way to speed things up is to trade speed for accuracy. People don't realize this is happening all the time. The visual system, and brain, takes shortcuts all the time, and one shortcut is to fill in some data gaps, or throw out data based on what the brain has learned to expect to see. Magicians take advantage of this in their shows. You hear they use misdirection to fool you, but that's only half the answer. They also use these brain shortcuts to make you see things that aren't there, or not see things that are, simply because your brain EXPECTS them to be there or not be there, and it fills the image in to fit what it perceives to be happening. In doing this the audience really believes they see something even if it's not there, and in a way they did see it because the brain manufactures the event.

There's another pesky problem in addition to the what I describe above, and it can contribute to the errors - Observer's bias. There's hardly an adult alive in the modern world that hasn't hear of UFOs, and may even believe they are here. Even if it's not intended, that bias can quickly enter into into a "conclusion" when that person sees something unusual. On the subconscious level, it plays toward what the brain is expecting to see.

I've been an amateur astronomer for over 55 years, spent countless hours looking out into the universe, and I believe there is life out there somewhere. With all the countless stars in the universe, I just can't believe only one has a planet orbiting that contains life - Earth. Stars are common, and the past few decades of exoplanet research is showing planets are common too. It's not going to be too much longer before some sign of life is detected. Webb and future telescopes will be looking at exoplanet atmospheres and trying to detect chemical traces that suggest life. Water is a good first step because it seems to be very important to life, but water isn't an indicator of life. Oxygen is an indicator, and a big one, in more than trace amounts. It's a very reactive gas, so it doesn't stick around in any significant quantities unless it's constantly being replenished. Life is the great Oxygen replenisher. There are other chemicals, and which ones to look for are a great debate in exoplanet research. One indicator would be industrial pollutants that are rare in nature. From a distance, Earth would show those along with large amounts of Oxygen and water.

Now the big stickler regarding visitors from another solar system. Space-is-huge! So huge in fact it's hard to grasp. It took 3 days, 3 hours and 49 minutes for Apollo 11 to reach the Moon. It's taken two of the fastest spacecraft, the Voyager Probes, around 40 years just to reach the edge of the solar system where the Sun's influence gives way to interstellar space. Let's speed things up a bit.... The fastest thing in the universe is light in a vacuum - 186,282 miles per SECOND. Even at this speed it take about one second to reach the Moon. The Sun is 8 light minutes away (93,000,000 miles), 12.5 minutes average travel time to Mars, Jupiter about 40 minutes, and Pluto about 5-1/2 hours on average. The nearest star? 4.3 YEARS! The speed limit of light seems to be unbreakable. Test after test, after test, backs that up. So travel time by the fastest spacecraft considered possible would be considerable. There's about 400 stars within one parsec of Earth (32 light years) so that's a 32 year long one way trip, not unreasonable except now you must look for stars that are not unstable, don't give off too much radiation, or fit within a range of stars considered able to allow life IF there's a planet circling them. There are about 20 type G stars at this distance. The Sun is a G star. Do any of them have planets? If so, are any of those rocky like Earth? Do they orbit in the Goldilocks zone? What are their atmospheres? Do they even have atmospheres? Remember there's only one planet in our solar system that is proven to have life. To up the odds of finding life you need to up the number of possible stars and planets, to do so, you increase the distances and therefor the travel time. As you can see, the odds of spaceships whizzing through space for long periods of time to visit us, isn't as likely as people want to believe. The distance add up real fast and, the odds go down just as fast.

As I said, nothing wrong with wanting to believe. I believe life is out there, and very possibly life more advanced than us, but the odds are of it getting here from there, and on a regular basis? I don't believe it's possible. Stuff is just too far away.

Fun conversation though.

[garyb1st]

Originally Posted by Bigceasar

Incredibly unlikely that it is aliens. Any such alien craft would have to have the ability to transit multiple light years of space. Yet somehow that technology cannot defeat earth’s primitive tracking systems?
Then there are alien crashes. These same craft and advanced alien beings can transit the galaxy, only to crash when they reach earth? Are we located on some kind of intergalactic dead man’s curve?
Finally there is the basic math. There are billions upon billions of stars in the universe, why would multiple alien crafts wish to repeated visit our humble planet located in an unremarkable solar system in a remote spiral far from the center of our galaxy that appears to be no different than the millions of other galaxies.
I lean towards either human and equipment failures of interpreting natural phenomenon or possibly military craft and technology. One guess would be technology that can broadcast fake radar and visual contacts. That would have enemy defenses literally chasing ghosts. Extremely useful military technology and a lot more likely than Mork from Ork.

Thanks for the post. Had a great laugh. And I think you summed it up quite well.

[scbwr]

If there are other life forms out there and if some are more advanced than our species, we could certainly use their help in getting past our current phase of evolution!

Considering what we currently understand about the universe, I wouldn't doubt that there are other life forms out there. While they may be similar to the life forms on Earth, it is just as likely that they may be very different which could explain why they may be here or occasional visitors and we don't know it.

As to traveling distances measured in light years, perhaps there is a possibility that in time, we could learn how to develop "warp speed". Consider our technological advances during the past two or three centuries. Our ancestors in the 17th century wouldn't have believed what we are able to do in the early part of the 21st century. It's hard to imagine what our species and the earth may be like in a century or two. The earth will still be here...most likely...but it may be with or without the human species. And, science tells us that eventually, the earth will be no more.

Are there UFO's.....specifically from other places than our planet? I'd have to say that it is very possible. I doubt that in my lifetime we will be able to have a positive answer.

The more we know, the more we realize what we don't know.

[EdInArk]

Considering how we've treated humans less advanced than us, I'm not sure we want to know.