UFOs exist and everyone needs to adjust to that fact

[RedParrot]

Excerpt: One of the gutsiest working paper presentations I have witnessed was Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall presenting a draft version of “Sovereignty and the UFO.” In that paper, eventually published in the journal Political Theory, Wendt and Duvall argued that state sovereignty as we understand it is anthropocentric, or “constituted and organized by reference to human beings alone.” They argued that the real reason UFOs have been dismissed is because of the existential challenge that they pose for a worldview in which human beings are the most technologically advanced life-forms.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/ufos-exist-everyone-needs-adjust-that-fact/

Billions spent on defense by all nations on Earth. Imagine those governments having to admit that there are all these flying objects that they can’t stop.

[MineralMan]

1. "Unidentified" does not necessarily mean "Extraterrestrial."

Often, it simply means that the person seeing the thing can't identify it. Space aliens? No, probably not.

[Javaman]

30. +1 nt

[First Speaker]

45. I believe, after a lifetime studying the issue...

...including a fair amount of field work, that there is unquestionably something going on that is outside the current paradigms of science. In my opinion--and that is all it is--the literal "extraterrestrial" scenario is relatively unlikely to be true. As to what is true--I haven't the foggiest notion...

[MineralMan]

87. OK, then...

[trueblue2007]

56. "Unidentified" does not necessarily mean "Extraterrestrial."

?w=640

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

78. That's enlightening and scary at the same time.

[NewsCenter28]

90. I believe these UFOs

To be demonic entities trying to tear us away from our creator, the almighty Lord, and his son, Jesus Christ, who died for all of our sins. If you could prove life on other planets, that would shatter Christian beliefs. What better thing for Satan to do to than to have demons flying around trying to shake our beliefs? That’s why you can’t believe in ET but you find you must simultaneously conclude something unexplainable is going on.

I’m a bit strange I must say. I am a far-left evangelist. Proof they exist I guess! I also believe the New Testament and Jesus’s teachings to be the true foundation of our liberal ideology.

[Codeine]

97. Magical thinking comes in all flavors, I suppose. nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

218. ...

[musicblind]

261. In what way would the existence of extraterrestrials contradict the existence of a God?

I'm a Christian as well, and I don't recall the Bible ever discussing other planets, much less emphatically stating aliens don't exist.

The most it would do is make people rethink how the historical documents that make up the Bible are interpreted and applied, but that's been going on since they were compiled in 400 AD.

[Control-Z]

119. Why, "No, probably not"? n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

128. So true.

And while I am personally somewhat open to the possibility of "extraterrestrial", I have definitely seen UFOs in the sense of something unidentified. I do not believe that any of what I've seen has been extraterrestrial, simply unidentified.

For what it's worth, I've been reading about UFOs for a very long time. I probably read every single book on that topic that was written in the 1950s and 1960s, and a lot of those in the decades since.

One problem with that field is that it has evolved, and someone getting in to it now with no background can absolutely get lost.

I myself don't have a fixed opinion on the topic. I'm capable of thinking one thing one day and another thing another day. And I'm reluctant to try to convince anyone else that my take on this is the definitive one.

Related to this topic, to anyone who reads this, I'd warmly recommend a visit to Roswell NM and the UFO museum there. Part of it is completely a straightforward account of the news reports in 1947. Another part is somewhat nonsense. And best of all, Roswell is home to a couple of truly wonderful art museums that, no matter what your take on what might or might not have happened in 1947, are well worth visiting.

[Honeycombe8]

197. +1. nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

273. +1

Was just going to chime in with this- Though I'm definitely open to the possibility of ET life.

[SidDithers]

2. Uh huh...

Sid

[wasupaloopa]

3. UFOs unidentified flying objects exists I guess

people have reported seeing them. But they remain unidentified.

So saying they are aliens or something is bull shit. Nobody knows for sure what they are.

There is no physical evidence anywhere on earth of beings from another place visiting earth.

All there is speculation.

[MineralMan]

8. Say! What is that thing flying over there?

"I dunno. I've never seen anything like it."

"Space aliens. Must be space aliens! They're everywhere, you know?"

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

129. More than once I've seen something in the sky

that I cannot make sense of. Sometimes, after a bit, I can figure out what I'm seeing. Not always. I have never concluded that my unidentified whatever is extraterrestrial. But that's just me.

[MineralMan]

151. There are lots of things moving across the sky.

I was out one night, and saw a very bright object moving across the sky from horizon to horizon, at a fairly rapid pace. After thinking about it, I guessed it was the International Space Station. Sure enough, when I checked, it would have passed over where I was looking at that time.

I once saw a green fireball at 4 AM while driving southward in California. It was moving from east to west. Very bright, and seemingly quite nearby. Of course, it was a meteor of a pretty good size, which was headed out over the ocean. It didn't make the news, because i might have been the only person looking in that direction at that early hour.

Another interesting thing I have observed is that if you look at a fixed object in the sky long enough, it seems to move. Bright stars, for example. The longer you stare at it, the more apparent the virtual motion is.

Assuming that what we see but can't identify is something with extraterrestrial origins is pretty silly. So, I never do that.

[ProfessorGAC]

222. Same Here

Saw a bright object going fast. Then appeared to change direction. I didn't know what it was, therefore an UFO.

I found out a couple days later that an incoming meteor over eastern Iowa broke up at around 80,000 feet

Some larger fragments were still visible for a second or so.

I surmised that from my distance & angle the fraction appeared to change direction and got smaller quickly. That would be consistent with it burning up.

No, I can't prove it. But, there was a meteor spotted by experts, it was in the sky where I could have seen it, and what I saw was now logically explainable.

It was a UFO, to me, for a couple days, but I never just jumped to "aliens"!

[Archae]

223. Several years ago I saw a shape-chaging orange UFO...

Had I stopped or had to turn, it would have been "unidentified."

As I got closer I saw it was a bunch of orange balloons tied to a local car dealer's lot.

[trev]

59. Hm.

You obviously haven't done the research I have.

[PSPS]

4. Aw, Jeez

[customerserviceguy]

95. Thanks!

We needed that a little further up this thread...

[Major Nikon]

177. Coming up next, crop circles and chemtrails

[Aristus]

5. A wise person once said: "They're not Unidentified Flying Objects.

They're MIS-identified Flying Objects."

[Cartoonist]

6. Who's flying them?

If not aliens, then who? Who has the technology?

[wasupaloopa]

7. Flying what?

[Cartoonist]

9. I can't identify them.

Big and fast lightning bugs?

[MineralMan]

10. Those things. They're, you know, unidentified,

and they're flying. Must be space aliens, for sure.

When you hear thundering hooves, think rhinos, after all, right?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. All righty, then.

[Sneederbunk]

12. Most are from the Lost Planet Oron.

[sop]

13. UFOs, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, who shot Kennedy, Donald Trump...

Lots of strange, unexplained phenomena in this world.

[Ghost Dog]

15. Problem with the term "UFO" is

they don't seem to be flying (via Bernoulli effect) since they appear to have no flight surfaces aka wings.

Hell, who knows if they are even objects... Some could be subjective phenomena? Or Instrument glitches?

So unidentified aerial phenomena UAP would be a better term.

[edhopper]

22. On thing that is just unidentified

one thing we know the answer to. Two things that don't exist and one we wish did not exist.

[jberryhill]

14. It's fairly obvious that they are of no consequence whatsoever

Considering that people have been seeing things in the sky they can't identify for a very long time, then it does not appear that the things seen in the sky by people who can't identify them have any practical effect on anything.

It is not an "existential challenge" to admit that people see things in the sky which can't be identified.

It does also not mean they are "more technologically advanced".

Human technology cannot replicate a flying object such as a mosquito either. That does not mean that mosquitoes are more technologically advanced than humans.

If, collectively, all of the unidentified flying objects are, in fact, flying objects, then what makes the author believe they are technological artifacts instead of simply being flying creatures of some kind which are, in fact, dumb as a stump.

[anarch]

79. in my opinion, that more than likely goes the other way around

That is to say, clearly people have been seeing things in the sky for a long time, some of which remain unexplained. Just for the sake of argument, if some/any of them happen to be representatives of some advanced space-faring civilization, it seems like if our species was of any consequence to them they'd have introduced themselves by now.

Or maybe they tried and got shot at or something; more than likely.

[Blue_true]

114. Or we are ant in an ant farm to them.

Facinating to observe and avoid disturbing their little world by showing our presence there.

[jberryhill]

155. That's obviously incorrect

The fact is that they are pretty stupid if they think they are not interfering.

They’ve had a huge impact on earth’s culture. Look at all the cultural works they’ve inspired - movies, books, hell there’s a whole TV series dedicated to them.

The suggestion they are not interfering ignores obvious reality.

They can zip around the universe, but are completely inept at hiding. Right.

Also, if they are monitoring us, they KNOW they are being seen, and obviously don’t care.

[Blue_true]

112. Actually, micro drones have been produced that simulate a mosquito flying.

As far as UFOs. They can simply observe us, they being too intelligent to destroy us for no reason to them.

I think that anyone that believe that we are the only beings in the universe is wrong. There are estimated to be literally hundreds of millions or even billions of earth-like planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. To think that we are alone and beings much more intelligent than us have not found us is what is astounding.

[jberryhill]

115. Non sequitur

What do these things have to do with each other:

1. Believing that UFO’s are extraterrestrial vehicles.

2. Believing that life may exist somewhere else in this immense universe.

Those two propositions have NOTHING to do with each other. The universe is much larger than people imagine it to be.

Collectively, UFO sightings do not demonstrate any indication that they are intelligently directed.

If they are trying to observe without being noticed, then they are actually pretty fucking stupid and doing a piss poor job of that.

And, no, there are no self-powered drones with the size and range of a mosquito. If you believe otherwise, please link to such a drone.

[Blue_true]

118. They have everything to do with each other.

Reaching the nearest planets that have earth like features (oceans, land masses) is limited only by us figuring out how to supply the energy to reach something close to the speed of light to make the journey quicker. If advanced beings have figured out that energy problem, they can routinely visit us. So yes, if there is other life out there and that is almost infinitely possible, it is entirely possible that some have visited our planet in their traveling vessels. It is also possible that they can mask from detection by even our most advanced instruments.

[jberryhill]

124. Obviously their masking technology is crap

“If advanced beings have figured out that energy problem, they can routinely visit us.”

For the purpose of doing nothing other than generating folklore, because they can’t figure out how not to be seen, so they just enter the atmosphere and zip around for no purpose.

What you don’t grasp is that the universe is some 14 billion years old. The earth has been around for about 4 billion of those years, and life on earth of any kind has been around for a little over 3 billion years.

Now, humans developed language something like 50,000 years ago, and even then did not exist on much of this planet. Humans only reached what are now the Americas in any significant number not more than half the time we could talk to one another.

As a proportion of the age of the earth, humans have been around for .0000125 of the earth’s age.

The earth, of course is one of around 30 billion planets just in this galaxy alone.

Against that backdrop of improbable discovery at the right moment by some alien intelligence, to believe that not only are they visiting us now, but keep showing up to do nothing other than a shitty job of hiding themselves, is PRECISELY the same medieval anthropocentric mentality that put he earth at the center of everything as the special creation in God’s own image. Humans have a hard time conceiving of a vastly large and vastly old universe which is constantly changing and in which humans do not have a starring role.

It is no different from any other religious belief system in which the unknown is explained away by gods, rather than simply face the fact that we don’t know everything.

[John1956PA]

146. +1. The concise phrase "improbable discovery at the right moment" captures my feeling.

I agree with your view. The improbability of civilizations from different star systems having contact with one another goes to your point, expressed in your other posts as well, that the vastness of the known universe militates against such happenings.

[Blue_true]

187. The galaxy and the universe operate on set principles.

Some we understand, the vast majority we have no clue about. To even imply that beings from a planet that could have been around billions of years longer than ours may have not figured out things that we won't figure out for many hundreds of millions of years is provincial thinking, bound by the extent of one's incapacity to see beyond limited confines.

[Blue_true]

185. The universe is older than 14 billion years old. Our galaxy alone is around 13-14 billion years old

And it is just but one of an untold number of galaxies in our universe. Our galaxy is at approximately middle age, it is expected to last to around 30 billion years old. Just correcting your misconception. There are galaxies that are much older than our own and sun-like stars in our galaxy that are much older than the sun. So, it is possible for beings from an earth like planet or even another life bearing planet to be potentially billions of years in existence longer than we have.

I don't get into ancient superstition or religion. So to imply that my position is driven by that is rather short sighted. You assume that the intellectual development of other beings in the galaxy mirrors our own, which in the most charitable description must be called supposition at the least.

Instead of being clumsy, maybe visitors are simply letting us see and detect what they want us to see and detect. They would most likely understand things that we won't understand for many more centuries, if then. So yes, maybe they just choose to play a cat and mouse game with far less intelligent beings. Why would they do that? Ask yourself, why do you watch television, go to a movie, read a book?

[jberryhill]

189. Okay so, take this line right here:

“So, it is possible for beings from an earth like planet or even another life bearing planet to be potentially billions of years in existence longer than we have.”

And how many planets would you expect them to have visited during a billion years?

What if they checked out earth a million years ago? Or are you suggesting that they check out each of trillions of planets several thousand times during the course of their billion year existence?

Let’s say they visited earth A THOUSAND TIMES during the last billion years. That would be once every million years, and humans weren’t even here the thousandth time they checked.

[Blue_true]

203. If one accepts the Big Bang Theory, the Milky Way and Universe are the same age.

Of course, I think there is another explanation and the universe is much older and like Hawkings wrote about, is not the only universe.

Now, back to our disagreement. The points that you made do not dismiss my basic premise. Even our galaxy, earth-like planets can have age spreads up to 5-6 billion years. Our planet is approximately 4 billion years old and is expected to perish at around 8 billion years old. The location of our sun and earth is probability wise not an optimal zone for star and planet formation, there are other zones in the galaxy that are much more favorable for formation of the same sequence star as our sun. There are approximately 100-400 million sun sequence stars and an untold number of earth-like or life (in some form) containing planets, with billions of years in age between the oldest and youngest.
Both of us are making assumptions, yours seem to be that beings that are from planets billions of years older than our own won't develop knowledge that we are still hundreds of millions of years from understanding. My assumption is that time alone is a major factor and that simple development of beings, if they are intelligent, would produce advanced capabilities over billions of year, even in the case of intelligent species succession. The first species that discovered us could have long ago perished and newer species that have developed advanced knowledge compared to our own have reached us over the millions of years of our existence. So the same species is not necessarily visiting us on loop.

So, here we are in a standoff, both of us making assumptions and projections from the standpoint of what we know and what we believe is possible, yet neither of us are seers. I will leave it at that.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

132. Even travelling something close to the speed of light

involves an incredibly long journey. Years and years. The nearest star is 4 light years away, meaning it would take four years at light speed to get from there to here. Most stars are farther away. Our galaxy, Milky Way, is some 100,000 light years across. So it would take 100,000 years to go across the galaxy. Think about it.

And think about this. Our galaxy, Milky Way, contains about 300 million stars. Andromeda, about 2.5 million light years away, has about a trillion stars. We are on a collision course. Brace yourselves. In about 3.75 billion years, that's billion with a b, our two galaxies will intersect. Or collide, if you will. A while back I asked My Son the Astronomer, just how many stars will actually crash into each other when that happens. He said, "Well, we're not completely sure, but no more than ten." Think about it. That tells you more than anything else just how vast interstellar distances are. Of course, more stars will gravitationally interact, but only the most minuscule percentage will go BANG into each other.

So any time you see some careless something about some alien species from another galaxy, you can rest assured that will never happen.

I don't know if intelligent aliens have ever visited this planet. But I do know that interstellar distances being what they are, the probably life span of any particular intelligent species being probably less than a million years, and given the current age of the Universe, the chance that two intelligent species could exist at the same time and could have any chance of crossing hundreds or thousands of light years and visit each other is vanishingly small, my best guess is that we are for all practical purposes, alone.

Oh, and for what this is worth, My Son the Astronomer has also told me that current thinking in his field is that given the relatively young age of the Universe, we may well be one of the very first intelligent species to have evolved so far.

[ProudLib72]

135. Well, you've just given us three choices

1) These are beings from another dimension crossing into ours from a relatively close distance.

2) Aliens can time travel.

3) A super advanced race that existed prior to the big bang figured out a way for their technology to survive the total collapse of that previous universe, so what we are seeing now is that ancient technology.


I like my theories, and I'm sticking with them!

[Blue_true]

195. If one accepts the solar nebulae theory as the origin of our sun.

Then one must accept that there are earth like or other potentially life sustaining planets in the Milky Way Galaxy that are billions of years older than our own. You gave an estimate of 300 million stars in our galaxy, that is interesting because my sources of references say that earth-like planet(s) containing stars alone number that amount. And our star is just one of several sequence stars, some of those sequences having a much larger probability of developing than our own star (which, given it's location in the galaxy would have a very low formation probability if one accepts the solar nebulae theory).

Don't get hung up on the speed of light number. It is a number which has meaning only to us. Astrophysicists speculate on a potential "dark matter" in the galaxies and universe (though it could instead be a force that we have not yet figured out). Beings that have understood that matter or force and figured out how to use it aren't working by the rules that we are, so the speed of light would likely be somewhat meaningless to them, they could potentially travel multiples of that speed and do things with light that we have no concept of.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

201. My Son the Astronomer

is doing exoplanet research. It looks like almost every single star has planets. To what extent any of them have the right kind of conditions to result in life as we know it is at this point the big unknown.

He's actually working on one method of finding exoplanets, called radial velocity. He attended on conference on that very topic in Grindelwald, Switzerland in March.

Astrophysicists are pretty certain dark matter and dark energy are real. Whether or not either of those is a way to circumvent the speed of light, well who knows? But any astronomers I've ever talked to are unanimous in their agreement that the speed of light is the absolute limiting factor on how fast we can possibly travel.

Here's another thing. No species is immortal. On this planet a tiny handful have hung around for several hundred million years, not only are they rare exceptions, but more to the point none of them show any potential for evolving meaningful intelligence. We homo sapiens are about 200,000 years, but only in the past five thousand or so have we developed technology. How long we will last is the question. Will we destroy ourselves by war? By making the planet uninhabitable? Will we be wiped out by some future asteroid impact? Will it really be possible to establish self-sufficient colonies on the Moon or Mars? As for that last, I don't think anyone has ever looked at what the much lower gravity will do to the human body, especially gestation and physical development after birth.

Also, My Son the Astronomer has told me that one line of thought in his field is that the Universe is actually so young that we may be the first technologically advanced species so far, at least in our galaxy. Other galaxies are so far away that travel between them will probably never happen, despite your optimism on the topic.

[Blue_true]

206. Does your son accept the Big Bang Theory of Universe formation?

If he does, then he would have to accept that our galaxy is the same age as the universe and other galaxies. If he accepts another theory of universe formation, then our galaxy can actually be "a younger galaxy". It isn't a multiple choice answer question, it one or the other and the choice then determines how a person moves from there.

Astrophysicists estimate that the Milky Way contain 400-500 BILLION stars, some estimate more. Starts like the sun are said to number around 300 million-1 billion. Even among stars like the sun, the age range can be up to 7-8 billion years. So to say that there is not species that are billions of years older via their planet is somewhat wrong. There is no certainty that a given planet with life has (had) species that developed what we would see as godlike intelligence, but there is no certainty that did not happen either. Also, neither of us know what takes the place of human beings when we run our course (assuming we don't kill ourselves first), that life form could be vastly more intelligent, as humans are to what came before us, integrate that progression over 2-4 billion years and it is clear that there could be and has been intellectually superior beings in the galaxy and universe that understand the energy and forces within the universe in a way that even if we lived and learned that long, we still won't understand for hundreds of millions of years, despite how smart we think we are or our relatives are.

Lastly, you have a right to be proud of your son, but to use him as a crutch is wrong. I can promise you that there are astronomers, astrophysicists, geophysicists who would debate every thing that he claims. There is no absolute in science and you should know by now that a theory that is "universally accepted" today ends up on a trash pile as more knowledge is gained.

Lastly. If astronomers and astrophysicists don't understand what they call "dark matter" (they have not remotely proven it's existence, it's just a warm feeling that they have), how can they be sure that the speed of light is the ultimate speed?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

209. All galaxies are not the same age. Galaxy formation is ongoing.

Although our galaxy seems to have been formed pretty early on, but none of the very first stars formed are still around.

I don't know where you find the 400-500 billion star estimate for this galaxy, since the consensus number seems to be 300 billion.

And yeah, we haven't much of a clue just how long it might take for intelligent life to evolve in any particular place.

Your question of his accepting the Big Bang Theory is rather patronizing, to say the least. In fact, we often have conversations about the conditions of the Universe in the microseconds after the Big Bang. We talk about stuff like that all the time.

Dark matter is the best explanation for a lot about the Universe, so yeah, it's a well accepted construct. As for the speed of light being the ultimate speed, well so far nothing going faster has been reliably found. And yes, I do understand that scientific knowledge changes all the time, so maybe that will turn out to be a guideline, not an inviolable speed limit.

But there's far less evidence for god-like intelligent creatures out there than there is for dark matter, so I'm going to wait for more indications before I'm willing to even hypothesize them.

[Blue_true]

212. On the star estimate. Several sources that I read, including one associated with NASA

indicate that there are 100-150 billion small end stars and 300+ billion other stars.

The consensus that I read said that as a result of the Big Bang, the universe and all galaxies within it are the same age. To state differently would imply belief in a model other than the Big Bang. Not that it matters to me, I am a novice, but I am no adherent of the Big Bang Theory, a lot of it does not make sense, for example, if there was an enormous burst of matter to form the universe 14 billion years ago, why is the universe still expanding and where is the energy for that expansion coming from? It may be possible that we are simply in a position in the universe where we see something as expansion that is not. I believe in another model of how the universe and galaxies formed and are forming, in that model galaxies of different ages would be a given. I also accept Hawkings theory of there being many universes.

I don't think the speed of light is a basal number, instead it is just one mark of many possible speeds, we just have to gain the knowledge to show that and take advantage of it.

Someone implied that I come at this from somewhat of a religious perspective, I don't, I believe that classical religion originated from minds trying to explain phenomena that they didn't understand at the time biblical, Talmudic or Koranic verse were written. I do believe that everything that we discover or invent already existed, we just did not know that before finding it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

213. Nope. All galaxies were not formed at the same time, despite

the Big Bang. And the Big Bang is widely accepted, to say the least. It is what does make sense, even though astrophysicists acknowledge they haven't a clue what might have come before, or how every single bit of matter in the Universe was somehow originally contained in a very, very small space.

When I do a google search for number of stars in Milky Way I don't come across the numbers you are quoting.

And just because you have some kind of gut feeling that the speed of light isn't a basal number, well your feeling just doesn't jibe with what's known.

You might want to read up on how it is we know the age of the Universe. It has to do with the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, which is left over from the Big Bang. It took a while for the CMBR to be accepted for what it was, rather than, for instance, scattered starlight from distant galaxies. And it is exactly that CMBR that proves the Big Bang and also shows that the Universe is going to expand essentially forever, not recollapse or even reach some sort of equilibrium where it stops expanding but doesn't collapse.

Here's an interesting factoid: Right now, some 13.6 billion years after the Big Bang, it is still possible to find proof of the it, mainly the CMBR is still detectable. Some many billions of years in the future, all of the galaxies in our local group will have merged and have become one extremely large galaxy. By that time, every other galaxy in this expanding universe will have gotten so far away that their light will no longer reach of. So astronomers and astrophysicists in that distant future will have no way whatsoever of figuring out that there is anything else out there besides our giant galaxy, and will also have no way of determining the age of the universe, since the CMBR will no longer be detectable. We are living in a rather fortuitous point in time.

The expanding universe does not need a continued input of energy. If you think that, then you are falsely inferring from an internal combustion energy model, or something like that.

The possibility of multi-universes is reasonable. It's unlikely that we will ever be able to demonstrate it, however.

[Blue_true]

214. Cosmic microwave can come from galaxy centers.

In theory, if the universe has a center of a nature as Sag-A, it would emit cosmic microwave radiation until it died. So the cosmic microwave radiation does not prove anything more than there is a source for it.

I stand by my statement on the speed of light.

Every source that I have read estimate the stars in the galaxy at 300-400 billion. It is an estimate because we really don't know what is exactly on the other side of Sag-A from us, that is why some astrophysicts estimate there could be more stars in the galaxy than 300-400 billion.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

215. The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

does not come from galaxy centers.

Cosmic rays are out there, but they are not the same as the CMBR.

I keep on seeing 300 billion as the number of stars in our galaxy. Or, more precisely, 250 billion ± 150 billion. Notice that is plus or minus. So from 100 billion to 400 billion, with 300 billion as a nice median.

As you probably know, Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course. They'll crash into each other in a bit less than 4 billion years. A while back I asked My Son the Astronomer (because he knows things I don't know) just how many stars of the combined 1.3 trillion or so stars will actually crash into each other. He said, "Well, we're not entirely sure but probably not more than ten." That tells you more than anything else just how vast interstellar distances are. Of course, many more will interact gravitationally, but that's a different topic.

What sort of evidence do you have that the speed of light is not fixed?

[Blue_true]

251. I did not say the speed of light is not fixed, where did I say that?

I am unsure whether it is the basal measure of speed in the universe(s). Recent activity to put more work into understanding neutrino physics will likely shed a lot of light (no pun) on the speed of light as the ultimate speed in the universe. There are a number of unanswered abnormalities about how fast neutrinos travel, understanding those better will almost certainly lead to doors that are not yet opened.

I stick to my stars in the galaxy number, about 100 billion smallish stars, 300 billion other stars. I have tea searched those numbers enough to be confident that I am not pulling them out of my behind.

You have mentioned the coming approach of the Andromeda. A couple of things. If the Big Bang is to be believed, how can two galaxies that are the same age, have an approximate 8x difference in star estimates? Also, will the two galaxies collide or will another mechanism happen that from a vast distance can look like a collision? I know you will say that scientists have observed galaxies colliding, in that case did they also observe release of collision energy (a given)? Even if a few stars collide, movement of galaxial arms should have been widespread and substantial energy release should have been and outcome. The solar nebulae theory opines that a precursor for formation of the sun and other stars near it was a collision between the Milky Way and a second galaxy billions of years ago. Of course we can't observe the remnants of that energy release because we are in the middle of it (if it in fact happened that way), but scientists looking at the remnants of two distant galaxies colliding should see the remnants of the energy released by that collision in a way that the remnants of a star exploding billions of years ago in a distant galaxy is visible today.

[anarch]

220. this is somewhat off-topic, but are you familiar with the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology?

promulgated by Roger Penrose...I only fairly recently learned of the concept; it resolves a great many of the issues that the Big Bang theory has--not least the "inflationary epoch" wherein in the BB theory, for some vaguely described reason the expansion rate of the universe increased exponentially for a period after the grand unification epoch, and associated with the separation of the strong force from the other fundamental/known forces. Anyway, if you haven't looked into it, it's interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

The whole inflationary theory always struck me as something that someone came up with because the math didn't make sense without it, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense about it.

[Blue_true]

253. No I have not read that theory. I will read up on it tomorrow.

There is just so much about the claims made about the Big Bang that boggles the mind, and when I pin an expert adherent of it down, I get a lot of hand waving bullshit,

I believe that Nature is both symmetrical and repetitive on several levels. For example, once you break them down to the basics, a galaxy looks and operates similar to a star system, with a few differences that occur at a level that a star system can't reach. I have said several times that I believe Hawkings conclusion that there are many universes, because if one extrapolates from the workings of an atom outward, what is seem is a similar pattern taking place at increasingly more vast levels. Each galaxy has a core and expands around that core. The universe is constantly expanding, yet if you ask "experts" detailed questions about how that can happen, the result is hand waving bullshit. But if the universe has a core like a galaxy, like a star system, like an atom, then why it seems to be expanding infinitely becomes both plausible and explainable both via words and math. Also, if the universe has a core, by extension there must be more than one universe, as Hawkings theorized before his death.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

120. The very first UFOs have indeed been scientifically identified......

we now call them clouds, lightening and tornadoes......plus comets and meteorites......

First observed some 6 or so million years ago. Unfortunately, no first-discovery photos....

Some experts say that when man first became self-aware and saw things such as lightening and thunderclouds, that was the day we invented our first god. That's especially true if the storm killed our mate......

[spanone]

17. We have an alien in the White House.

[madinmaryland]

50. There are a lot of aliens in the White House. nt.

[democratisphere]

152. Yes.

And he is also illegal.

[grumpyduck]

18. Ummmm... do we need to build a wall?

[qazplm135]

19. yes, and the Rigellians will pay for it!

I'm tired of the Rigellians coming here, causing crime with their abductions and anal probes, and then applying for federal benefits.

[grumpyduck]

21. So we need to detain them,

maybe at Trump hotels.

[qazplm135]

24. cruel and unusual punishment

and violates both the Geneva Convention and the Articles of Altair 3.

[DarthDem]

130. Rigellians!

I love it! Rigel is my favorite star. I hope they're benevolent!

[SouthernProgressive]

20. Not a very good argument.

"Billions spent on defense by all nations on Earth. Imagine those governments having to admit that there are all these flying objects that they can’t stop."

They would just use it as a fear tactic to get billions more.

[skypilot]

26. Yeah. Trump's "Space Force" comes to mind.

*

[edhopper]

25. As far as Extraterrestial spacecraft

beyond a blip on a radar screen, or a dot of light we have nothing.
And considering half the population on Earth now carry a camera with them everywhere, you would think some better video of Alien crafts would show up by now.

Unless it is bunk.

[USALiberal]

28. Amazing cameras EVERYWHERE and no evidence of aliens! Nt

[roscoeroscoe]

67. Well, there is

There are Polaroids, stunning originals. Photos from the 1890's. All sorts of photographic evidence.

[USALiberal]

72. Fake photos from the 60s. Where is the 2019 proof? nt

[Lady Freedom Returns]

127. +1

Till I see a ship land, Till I see an alien. I ain't going to bite.

[trev]

176. Check out YouTube.

Surprised you didn't think to do that.

[edhopper]

42. extraodinary claims

require extraordinary evidence.

For visitation by aliens, there is none.

You are making a fallacy out of ignorance. There is no reason to come to the conclusion you have about the Navy.

"They didn't make something public...Aliens" That is a giant leap based on nothing.

Of course I shouldn't bother with a follower of Von Danikin.

BTW: Your explanation of why there are no pictures is simply hilarious. Usin one conspiracy about the US Governemnt to support another about Aliens. Too funny.

[Chin music]

43. And you don't know me Ed. Or what my life experience has shown me either.

Thanks. Glad I amuse you. Isn't one of the rules here to be nice to each other? Doesnt apply to you I guess.

[Archae]

46. I can be nice to you...

And still say your theory is total SHIT.

I used to work with a guy who was convinced Santa Claus was real.
The whole thing, flying sled and reindeer, Norhth Pole workshop, etc.
And he was ten years older than me.

He "saw Santa's sled fly off the roof."

I said it was probably a vivid dream.

Nope.
"He saw it!"

Your theory has nothing to back it up. Period.
It's a wild fantasy to cover up the fact that even with everyone and their Mothers having cameras nowadays, UFO pictures are fakes, or just ambiguous blobs of light.

[lapfog_1]

134. I wouldn't use Santa Claus as a counter example

The whole Santa Claus "mythology" as popularized by Macys is base on some distorted history (like many myths).

There really was a Saint Nick ( Nicholas of Turkey) who was the "patron saint of children" and handed out treats and toys.

The Germanic Santa Clause of the red/white suit and sleigh was real too... pre Christianity in the German and Finland parts of Europe there were shamans... The shamans would eat hallucinogenic mushrooms to "commune with god or nature". Those mushrooms were red with white spots (and the shaman would dress like their favorite drug... hence the red suits, often with white polka dots in the original Santa). Not only would they take the mushrooms, in the winter time they would travel from homestead to homestead and bring news and trade goods with people... and their visits would often be a cause for celebration. Not only that, but with deep snow... they would use their sleds to reach the rooftops (doors and windows were often snowed in... so they would enter via the fire pit opening on the roof (mostly just an open hole to let smoke out).

So... all of the elements of the modern Santa Claus are there.

Feast in the winter time (mistaken as the birth of Christ, however if you read about the birth of Christ if it happened... it happened in the spring time, not the winter... the early Christians moved it to appropriate the pagan holiday of Saturnalia).

Gifts for the children from St. Nicholas (early Christian Saint)
Santa Claus visit on a sleigh - possibly drawn by reindeer
Lands on the roof (snow is that deep)
enter through the "chimney"
dressed in a red suit with white trim - to honor the mushrooms that allowed them to communicate with the gods


It's dark outside (and around Dec 22... it's the darkest time of the year in the northern latitudes

Was there a "Santa Claus"... well yes, there was.

[Codeine]

55. Wait. Are you actually saying

that the government controls my camera? In all seriousness, that’s your claim? They can actually manipulate film remotely as a picture is being taken?

[USALiberal]

73. Send me a link to your most convincing proof. nt

[jberryhill]

80. The US government controls all the cameras in the world?

Really?

[Codeine]

83. Explains my recent run of very unflattering selfies.

I knew my face couldn’t possibly be that goofy in real life.

[Blue_true]

116. Advanced beings would likely have the capacity to cloak.

We would never see them with even our most advanced technology, even if they were moving around right beside us.

[edhopper]

148. And you know this how?

Star Trek?

An explanation made out of nothing to explain why there is nothing?

[jberryhill]

156. Well, it turns out... the pan galactic game of choice...

...is hide & seek.

They come all the way across the galaxy to play, but they keep getting spotted.

[Blue_true]

179. Actually, if you understood the nature of light and what can be possibly done with it.

You would laugh at what you just wrote.

[jberryhill]

180. If I understood the nature of light?

You mean during years of research in optoelectronic devices, I missed out on learning about light?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33850797_A_novel_high-speed_light_emitting_diode_for_optical_interconnections_microform

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253561131_Opportunities_For_GaAs-On-Si_Technology_In_Interconnect-Limited_Systems

Dang. All of that graduate level coursework in optics, electro-optics and photonics wasted.

Please don’t assume that because someone disagrees with you, that it is because they are not familiar with the topic. From Maxwell’s equations to quantum optics, I’m kind of familiar with light

[Codeine]

182. For those in the cheap seats, that was a mic drop. nt

[Blue_true]

199. Yes, even I agree with that. nt

[Blue_true]

198. Ok, I'm schooled. My apologies. nt

[jberryhill]

202. No worries

[MineralMan]

190. Don't assume ignorance on the part of others.

That's my advice.

[Blue_true]

200. I got ahead of myself and threw shade.

But being a lifelong technologist makes me understand that even people with similar levels of knowledge can disagree on the very same topic.

I felt that I was being dismissed as some idiot, so I lashed out. Not a smart thing to do among generally bright people, but I went there anyway and it didn't end well.

[Blue_true]

178. It is called having the capacity to take the known physics of the universe and apply it.

Some don't have that capability, I understand, no mark on them.

It is said that black holes could not be seen or imaged because they absorb light. It is also possible to rapidly detract light to the extent that an image can be transposed. Super intelligent beings would be way ahead of us in their capacity to understand and control natural things around them, just finding us is evidence of that. It would be simple for them to make us see or not see whatever they chose.

BTW, I am definitely NOT a Trekkie, my world is too grounded in reality for that to be.

[edhopper]

181. You mistake what I said

Last edited Wed May 29, 2019, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

did not say some advanced civilization could not "cloak" it's spacecraft. Clarke's Law and all.

I said he was using Science Fiction to try to defend something for which there is zero evidence.

[jberryhill]

184. First off.

No one said a “black hole can’t be photographed” because tremendously ungodly amounts of energy are released by matter being sucked into them.

Secondly, if they are so good at “cloaking” themselves, then why is anyone seeing UFO’s?

Explaining a phenomenon which people perceive visually by saying “you can’t see them” is a peculiar approach.

The notion that they are cosmic voyeurs who are trying to watch humans without causing interference is obviously stupid, since they must be aware at this point that they are a huge cultural phenomenon. So they must know they royally fucked up the “don’t be seen” thing.

[Blue_true]

204. You have advanced training in optics.

You should know that refraction, absorption and/or filtering out of some wavelengths of light totally changes the perception of what is seen.

Some people that claimed to have seen UFOs simply saw some phenomena that a scientist with the right training seeing would explain as a function of light being altered to give an illusion of an object when there was none. There are potentially many life containing planets, as I have pointed out over and over, some with beings that are much more intelligent than even our brightest. To say that we have not been visited is no more correct than saying that we have, neither of us possess intelligence that are centuries past our capabilities and both of us can only project forward what we know, believe or theorize on.

[jberryhill]

205. "To say that we have not been visited"

Who said that?

There is no evidence that aliens have visited.

Like a belief in God, it is simply a position of faith.

If you look upthread, I said I don’t know what UFO’s are.

You seem to be mistaking the statement of “there is no evidence to support your faith” as an affirmative denial of your faith.

And if the reason for a lack of evidence is “they are deliberately hiding from us”, then, sure, one can twist oneself into the pretzel of stating that the the lack of evidence is somehow itself evidence.

What is it, in any UFO sighting, which distinguishes between (a) alien vehicles, (b) human time machine travelers from our own future, or (c) angels?

Just tell me what test you are using to rule out (b) and (c), leaving “(a) aliens” as the explanation for unexplained phenomena perceived in earth’s atmosphere.

[Blue_true]

208. I don't believe in angels. I do believe though that there is vastly superior intelligence in the

galaxy to our own. Not that I believe in biblical writings, I don't, I believe that bible stories were just tools of the time used to control people.

On the questions that you posed. You know fully well that I can't answer any of those with anything but supposition, but neither can you.

Do I believe aliens have and will visit us. Yes, because my thought patterns and how I apply what I know lead me to that possibility. Are the same aliens visiting us over and over? Statistically, that would be improbable.

Both of us can only project forward on what we don't know and that projection is colored by what we believe. What history has shown is that as people become better educated, they largely become more peaceful. So projecting, an alien being that is 1 billion times smarter than we are likely would have no interest in harming us because harming us would have no meaning to that being. But they certainly would observe us, if only as something that they want to learn more about.

Back to optics. If I shined a flashlight on you and you were behind a filter that filtered out all except the very shortest wavelengths of light, what would I see of you? Can you say that beings have not visited us with them having the capacity to change what we see and as a result perceive?

[Blue_true]

255. Are you going to answer my question about shining the flashlight?

I think we both know where an answer leads to.

Comeon, give the people watching and cheering for you from the cheap seats something to cheer more about, well maybe?

[USALiberal]

27. Lol, ahhhh NO! Really really silly! Cameras EVERYWHERE yet no proof! Nt

[trev]

60. No proof of what? That these craft exist?

There's tons of photographic proof, from television news cameras to cell phones to targeting cameras on military aircraft. Something is in the sky, and the Navy has tacitly admitted it.

[Beringia]

29. Rey Hernandez has written about UFOs and aliens

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-UFOs-Science-Consciousness-Intelligence/dp/1721088652

The Science of Consciousness and Contact with Non Human Intelligence


(I have had my own direct experience, which I was able to share with Rey. There aren't safe places to share these stories).

[MicaelS]

31. People can be TOO skeptical.

When the US Navy admits they are encountering UFOs, then something is there. Not saying they are aliens, but someone is flying these things. They could be very advanced drones being flow by our own government.

[Chin music]

37. Of course some of this is alien. I for one, do not fear that.

When we started touching off nuclear devices we triggered some kind of response, imho. Could just as well be extra-dimensional. I doubt thousands of reports in modern history, and ancient sites that seem to point to something possibly different are all imagination.

[zackymilly]

165. Didn't touching off nuclear devices cause Godzilla to respond?

I saw it on TV.

[Chin music]

174. I guess if the whole topic is a big joke, then this thread isnt for me. Thanks.

No comment. Ridicule of things unknown seems like a strategy for defeatists. I don't care to be part of it.
Ps..Im not the only one who's said that.
So few posts and making jokes on honest posters? Not a good look. Welcome to DU...I think.

[anarch]

221. not that I'm kicking this thread out of personal interest in the topic or anything, but...

The whole topic is "a big joke" because society has collectively made a long-term project of making sure it's always treated that way...people get viscerally offended if the topic is even discussed seriously (see: a bunch of responses in this thread); it just bothers them for some reason--usually/mostly people who have some strong emotional or intellectual stake in humanity being the very top pinnacle of evolutionary possibility.

I find it ironic to see such hubris in a species with such a fundamentally poor understanding of the most basic elements of physical "reality" (see: the entire history of quantum theory & wave/particle duality; gravity/galaxy rotation problem; quantum entanglement/EPR paradox; what even is the base "reality" if one even exists, what is "consciousness"?, etc...these are "serious" topics of science, despite some of the theories I've read seeming way more far out-there and speculative than anything anywhere in serious investigative journalism regarding unexplained aerial phenomena)

[LenaBaby61]

39. "People can be TOO skeptical."

There is a place for healthy skepticism and for stringent investigation of everykind.

Years ago, people guffawed and were laughing @ and saying that our own government would never do anything to its own citizens. There was talk in many small, rural, and extremely poor towns where African-Americans existed who told about doctors 'shooting us up with something that may kill us' is the way My late Mom (Who'd be in her mid 90's if she were alive) said it was explained, told to her by several relatives who were guinea pigs at the hands of it's OWN government. Yes, The Tuskegee syphilis experiment turned out to NOT be a hoax as we later found out.

"By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. Of the original 399 men, 28 had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis."

Hell, look at tRump and Senate thuglicans--who are destroying and selling out this country to ru$$ia/putin. A coup in plain sight. All are guilty of TREASON. Who'd have thunk it? tRump and most of his fellow thuglicans are selling out our country to the USSR. Well, it's happening. A coup in 2019, and in the 'Good old USA.'

As for UFO's, I've known people in the military (Family included) who, while they cannot speak to me about certain aspects of their military service (Even though retired, there are still classified things they cannot talk on), most of them have told me between the lines, that we are not alone. I agree in that I find it difficult to believe that within a galaxy as big and vast as ours that we 'crazy humans' are the only ones who exist within it.

[Polybius]

32. I wonder if Trump has ever tried to look at the classified UFO files

Or at least look into Roswell 1947. He would probably be the one President that would open his mouth.

[RedParrot]

54. Hillary would have opened UFO files

John Podesta long believed the government was keeping secret UFO information. Podesta hoped that once Hillary took office, she would declassify UFO information. UK’s Ministry of Defence declassified its own UFO files last year. They raised more questions than answers.

As to Trump, he has the reading comprehension of a second grader.

[MFM008]

33. Maybe if you see something

Up close, there would be no question it was a UFO and not swamp gas or something.👽👽👽👽

[GeorgeGist]

34. Speculation doesn't make it true.

[Chin music]

38. Or false.

[LanternWaste]

48. And yet, you say with absolutism it is true.

" Of course some of this is alien..."

You say with absolutism it is true, yet provide zero objective (let's repeat that word, shall we? "Objective&quot evidence to support your premise.

It's one thing to hope. It's another thing (i.e., a logical fallacy) to state it as such without supporting your conclusions.

Lacking that objective evidence, there is no "or", anymore than lacking objective evidence, 2+2 does not equal five... regardless of how much or why we hope it were so.

[BootinUp]

36. And, if you have the secret glasses u can see it all.

Chuckle.

[zackymilly]

166. RIP Roddy Piper. n/t

[colsohlibgal]

40. Probably

Think where we are now and compare it to where we were as a species 20,000 years ago.

Imagine a species that is 20,000 more years developed beyond where we are.

Watch “Black Box Secrets” From season 1 of “UFO Files”. The History Channel got the actual communications between the Aircraft and Air Traffic Control, and in one case NORAD.....and caught NORAD blatantly lying.

Pilots know what’s what, just saying.

[grantcart]

41. Projecting extraterrestrial travel into form familiar to 21st century technology

Is THE definition of anthropocentric projection.

Oh yeah welcome to DU.

We were so in need of UFO discussion to help us on promoting progress values.

[trev]

194. Can you please point out definitive instances of 21st Century technology that

does what these UFOs do?

And if they are secret military aircraft, as some here are contending, why did the Pentagon investigate them in 2007?

"Earlier this week, the New York Times and Politico revealed the existence of a secret government program to investigate UFO sightings. It was especially focused on encounters by members of the military."

[grantcart]

217. Your epistemology is at the level of a 7th grader

So even though the nearest possible life forms you don't don't it coincidental that after tens of thousands of human evolution foreign visitors happen to show up exactly at the point that science fiction popularizes the idea and humans get close to approaching the technology.

No evidence of It is until science fiction starts to present images of flying saucers and then presto people begin seeing flying saucers. You are the inheritor of 50 years of gibberish, just slightly more sophisticated.

That you would cite an article that refers to anthropocentric projection while engaging in classic anthropocentric projection is by turns ironic and hilarious.

Did the government lie about what it was doing in New Mexico n the 50's? Yes but not about UFO. Roswell NM was ground zero for government experimentation that went wild during anti communist hysteria.

During the same time that the government was experimenting in NM they were releasing contamination from Hanford Atomic works in WA state to see how it would effect live stock. Decades later the government admitted what they did and paid out claims, but it was never really reported nationally.

Evidence that you can't explain isn't proof or evidence of anything, especially in the world of CGI.

There are lots of places that will embrace your low brow obsession with UFO, this isn't one of them but in the era of Trump we can all use a good laugh, thanks.

[anarch]

224. just a comment on "especially in the world of CGI"...and a minor prediction

Just for the sake of speculation, let's say that in the near future there should happen to be some visitation from some non-human intelligent entities similar enough to us for us to recognize them as "people"/fellow-civilized-beings...wherever they may be from or however they got here; doesn't matter--for instance it could be that they are some hitherto unknown human sub-species that evolved separately in some subterranean environment under Antarctica or something (or whatever, could be they are from some relatively nearby star and came here in a subluminal spacecraft that might look like that Oumamamowmow object or something [yes I know that's not how it's spelled]),


Whatever...this is just speculation...but at any rate let's assume they have some sort of highly maneuverable aircraft/vehicle that is what people have been seeing, and they land and introduce themselves to, I dunno, the mayor of Podunk, IA, in front of a local news crew, and then just split, leaving a message of peace and goodwill, or a warning about the climate, or whatever--it doesn't matter, let's just say they were here, seen by some small sub-set of the population, and caught on film, so that all the major media outlets pick it up (of course there's a delay while they verify sources, etc.) and this small town where it happened becomes world-famous.

My conjecture is this: given all of these circumstances (a "close encounter of the fourth kind" or what-have-you; a non-terrestrial-standard non-human craft is caught on film, etc.), regardless of the evidence, a majority of the population would dismiss the whole thing as a hoax; "fake news," just a CGI creation, etc.

I'd venture to guess this trend will increase as the technology evolves (e.g. this "deepfake" thing I keep reading about), so too will the difficulty increase with respect to being able to accept any recorded video evidence as "proof" of anything.

(note that this would also apply to recorded video evidence of other, more prosaic events...why I've always said, even if there is clearly documented video of Commandant Bonespurs cavorting with underage sex slaves in Moscow, people would still just say "nah, that's Fake News! That video's not real!" and his level of support wouldn't budge)

[trev]

238. In other words, No, you can't point out any evidence.

All you can do is engage in ad hominem attacks. "Low brow"? I graduated college Magna cum laude.

When you calm down and can actually answer my question, please get back to me.

[grantcart]

263. Pedestrian, uninformed and uninspired

There are three gaping holes in your position that reduce it to the level of Junior High "whatifisms" that obviously do not measure to either graduate or post graduate work. In my field there were similar attempted by self appointed Magna cum laude pretenders who were dismantled with great hilarity much in the same way that Dr. Kingsfield destroys the simple but ambitious in the movie Paper Chase.

Life is limited and it is necessary to establish a minimum standard or you just end up wasting your time.

I will outline three very obvious ways that detail that you are not close to that standard and then use the features that the site has to ensure I don't have to accidentally bump into your product again.

I) You use words you don't understand and you cite people who use words that they don't understand, namely an attack on your philosophical premises and logic is not an ad hominem attack no matter how embarrassed you are by the attack:

a) Your use of the word ad hominem is incorrect. My attack may be not be tasteful to you but it isn't ad hominem.

Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.

At no point did I attack any attribute of the person but rather the architecture of your argument, and as such it is in fact the opposite of an ad hominem. I attacked your methodology of constructing the basis of your argument by stating that your epistemology is the level of a 7th grader. That is not an attack on your character, motive or attribute, it is an attack on your argument. Got that Magna (sic).

b) You cite people that don't understand the words that they use.

We start the hilarity with the obnoxiously idiotic

In that paper, eventually published in the journal Political Theory, Wendt and Duvall argued that state sovereignty as we understand it is anthropocentric, or “constituted and organized by reference to human beings alone.”

State sovereignty is organized to establish a government to define power between the people it governs and the different state organs that are defined explicitly or implicitly in a constitutional arrangement. Those constitutions are meant to solve the problems within the sovereign territory only. The establishment of the US Constitution articulates an order for the people within the geography of the US. If it was anthropocentric it would then attempt to define the natural order of dogs, dolphins or other species like Extraterrestrial life in human terms.

Rather than being anthropocentric defined state sovereignty is anthro "exclusive" applying only to the order of homo sapiens. For a political constitution to be anthropocentric it would, by definition, attempt to define, for example, how Martians or Dolphins be incorporated into the political system.

II) It is the entire history of Ufology that is classical anthropomorphic projection. Early humans projected human traits onto the various gods that they imagined. As society got more sophisticated so did the gods. James Michener's The Source brilliantly displays just how this anthropomorphic projection evolves by studying the various levels of an archaeological tell that goes back to the stone ages and defines each new iteration.

Beginning with the Cult of El we see humans developing their understanding all the way through to the modern Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition.

The examination of that development has been examined in exquisite detail through the development of The Higher Criticisms which include various philosophical tools to examine the premise and logic of an idea through history. The useful tool for this discussion is called "The Redaction Criticism".

For example should we be sceptical or not that Joseph Smith discovered extra terrestrial (yes the book of Mormon is claimed to be an extra terrestrial work having been "written" elsewhere and brought here for translation). Redaction criticism would point out that the fact that Egyptian hieroglyphics were first translated in 1822 by Champollion and then quickly followed by Joseph Smith's finding of an extra terrestrial tablets that used hieroglyphics is beyond suspicious and that one event influenced the production of the other.

The entire history of UFO sightings follows the exact same suspicious path. Fiction writers write about flying saucers and then magically people start seeing flying saucers.

Here is how the progression works:

1) Phillip Nowlan writes a fictional work about Buck Rogers "Armageddon 2419 and its Amazing Stories". It is very popular and Nowlan sells the idea of a serialized cartoon about Buck Rogers.

2) As it grows in popularity Nowlan reaches out to modern engineers, especially Buckminister Fuller for inspiration on design ideas for his cartoon space ships.

3) Fuller shows his futuristic car the Dymaxion Car at the 1933 World's Fair



4) Nowlan uses that basic idea to create the image of "flying saucers"




5) Magically people start seeing flying saucers that are remarkably similar to those imagined in fiction, what a coincidence.




Now we can all laugh at the early attempts by hoaxers to use primitive images from comic books but the progressive evolution of the sophistication of sightings by UFO fans exactly parallels the evolution of sophistication of publications in fictional media, that is how you know it to be contrived.

Now if the first sightings of UFOs were sophisticated in the same way your example is, that would be proof of something. That it now parallels what you can see this Saturday in the movie theatre simply proves that it is following the same anthropomorphic projection that humans have been doing since they projected their traits onto the god UR 5,000 years ago.

The reason that I say that your epistemology is undeveloped because you approach the question not as a sceptic but as a believer. Just as the simple uneducated rural Mormon believes that the book was delivered by an angel and can see relevant proofs all around him in the field you already believe that there are UFOs and search for confirmations rather than apply appropriate scientific sceptical analysis.

You find proof that confirms what you already believe. Another word for that is Republicanism.

III) The fundamental premises of the idea of UFO sightings simply doesn't make any sense.

Some of this is covered by the well discussed "Fermi Paradox" but let me be more specific.

In order for us to see UFOs certain assumptions have to be made and these assumptions are highly contradictory.

First the reality: The space between us and any other possible life form capable of space travel is not huge it is almost unmanageable. Not only is it vast it is growing larger literally by the second.

Now for life to be able to evolve in intelligence requires a billion lucky breaks in chemistry, biology, etc but also a great amount of luck. Not only does it have to evolve with critical thinking abilities these creatures have to have something nimble like an opposable thumb. There could be worlds with dolphins that have construct melodies that would shame Mozart and plays that would surpass Shakespeare but without digits that work in a particular way they aren't building space ships.

Then they have to have the right ingredients for propulsion and they can't have their planetary evolution interrupted by heavy meteor showers.

So we give all of the above and have these absolutely brilliant space travellers who have figured out how to manipulate black holes so that instead of wasting 1000 generations to get here they only spend 10.

They are brilliant, but once they get here they don't expose themselves. Why? The only answer is that they want to observe first, maybe interact incognito.

So if they are so brilliant and don't want to interact then why don't they just observe without being seen?

We have that technology and these guys are a million times smarter than us so why don't they just watch the TV, or intercept our communication or send hard to see drones, or use stealth technology to hide their aircraft.

See this is the irreducible problem for UFO sightings: These guys are brilliant beyond our comprehension because they were able to get here but once they got here didn't want to be seen but we were able to capture them on our cave man like filming system because they fucked up.

It doesn't make sense. If they came all of this way they would either a) reveal themselves or (because they didn't want to interfere) make sure that they observed us without getting caught on our cameras. Obviously they were able to travel that kind of distance they would be able to send some type of observation device that would be hidden, something akin to a "nanny cam".

Your line of discussion is dated, two dimensional, pedestrian and uninspired.

You have no objective epistemological discipline because you keep finding the evidence you want to find.

Now here is my question. You just joined Democratic Underground and are attempting to drag it into areas that have nothing to do with developing progressive policies, supporting Democratic candidates or supporting the Democratic Party.

So why do you post here?

You may be sincere but as you can see I am sceptical. A few years ago we had similar visitors who would, shortly after joining make similar silly threads and then go to their cave and write humorous stories about how gullible DUers are.

If you are sincere then I am sure that you can find UFO fan sites that will confirm that you have found the Rosetta Stone that you were looking for. How wonderfully coincidental. Had you proferred this type of theory in any of the graduate classes the Professor would have spent the hour asking you questions that would have exposed your bias and your desire to prove what you believe rather than to make an objective analysis. One ended the torturous questioning by asking if his mother had brought him to class today and when he answered in the negative he told him, in a thick German accent "Well let me give you a dollar for lunch. I am terribly afraid that without your mother's assistance I am afraid you will starve to death before you reach home". Apparently you attended a University where they were so impressed with your Magna they didn't stretch your analytical capabilities.

[trev]

267. And still no evidence from you.

Oh, well. Have a nice unenlightened life.

[SWBTATTReg]

44. Seeing is believing, I believe. As one who saw one in broad daylight, fly right over me...

in the late 1960s (no cell phones etc. back then), I believe. From outside the earth? You couldn't tell from looking at the craft if it was from earth or outer space, but I saw. Obviously it was not a standard aircraft with wings and such. But others in the region (classmates of mine) saw it too (my sister too). Never will forget it and firmly believe in them.

[trev]

61. My friends and I saw one in 1969

on a clear summer evening in southern California. Years later, as an adult, I discovered that the object we saw had been reported all over the world.

I've researched UFOs ever since Project Blue Book was published, and am convinced that something is taking place.

[LuvNewcastle]

65. When people tell me that they've seem something,

especially if I know a person to be a reliable witness, I generally take their word. No doubt there are some people who lie and some who are delusional, but most people, I think, can be trusted when they give their accounts. People see and document UFO sightings every day, but only a tiny portion of it gets reported. Most of it gets explained away as natural or man-made objects, but there's always some that can't be explained by conventional science.

[SWBTATTReg]

164. I too, do believe people when they tell me something. As you do, I give the benefit of the doubt...

until there is a reason not to believe them. I don't go around hyping or telling people that I saw something...I'm not one into hype or anything like that...I'm a computer nerd, been for 40+ years, and am a pretty scientific/logical guy (as one would expect w/ a computer guy). I agree w/ you in that lots of sightings don't get reported due to the sigma of reporting such a sighting. The government did its job of covering up this pretty good.

The craft can be one of five things...beyond the earth origins, foreign (Russian, Chinese, etc. manufactured), American made, private (citizen made), or swamp gas...I lend towards the beyond the earth theory, as I personally don't think we on earth have the technology yet to make such craft, swamp gas - a ridiculous theory put forth by the air force in some cases. So what if we do have visitors from outer space? Wouldn't it make sense, after all, in our own history, there were many divergent groups on earth, all eventually discovering each other through the eons.

Take care.

[LanternWaste]

47. We've already adjusted to the fact that weather balloons, natural phenomena

We've already adjusted to the fact that weather balloons, natural phenomena, Defense Dept projects etc. exist.

I'd love to see extra-terrestrial life arrive on earth. But, being a rational person, I'm not investing anything at all (money, time, research, etc.) other than my own simple, inconsequential hope on that arrival.

[trev]

63. Not doing research?

You're missing out on some fascinating reading....

[USALiberal]

74. Send link to your most unexplained story. nt

[trev]

121. This isn't the most unexplained, but it is my favorite.

Object observed in Rendlesham Forest, Britain, December 1980.

http://www.therendleshamforestincident.com/

There is also an exhaustively documented book called Encounter in Rendlesham Forest. https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Rendlesham-Forest-Best-Documented-Incident/dp/1250063310/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GVHYJYR17QYA&keywords=rendlesham+forest+incident&qid=1559102349&s=books&sprefix=rendlesham%2Caps%2C208&sr=1-1

[anarch]

77. technically speaking, there's a strong possibility that all life on earth originated from space

well it's a theory anyway... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-building-blocks-of-life-may-have-come-from-outer-space-3884354/

[defacto7]

125. Actually...

we are in space.

[zackymilly]

167. ...

[Archae]

49. There are four main groups of "trVe believers."

The first and smallest group are those who are certifiable crazy.
"The voices told me there are aliens!"

The second is the agenda freaks, there are more of them.
Conspiracy theorists are in this group, anything that shows them to be dead wrong is a part of "The BIG PLOT against us!"

There are still more in the third group, those who mistake other objects or lights for flying saucers.
Clouds, balloons, etc.

The largest group is the fourth one, they are in it for MONEY.

"Buy my book/movie/whatever about the aliens!"

[Gore1FL]

51. Feynman Chaser - The Likelihood of Flying Saucers

This:

[misanthrope]

69. +100

Any Richard Feynmans in this thread to posit a response?

[book_worm]

52. How embarrassing for us if they ever want to be brought to our leader.

[Ghost Dog]

68. They'd want the General Assembly of the United Nations...

... and then technical, social, political committees...

[anarch]

82. I would take them directly to Willie Nelson n/t

[zackymilly]

168. Just keep them away from his stash. n/t

[get the red out]

53. I have always found this topic interesting to a degree

I like contemplating weird possibilities.

[Laffy Kat]

57. It is so much fun to think about!

Number one answer I want before I die.

[USALiberal]

76. UFOs, Ghosts, ESP, Etc.......pure BS. nt

[happyaccident]

108. Whitley Striber (Communion) considered the possibility that they were us

Either from the future (to rejuvenate their tired dna) or our afterlife (change from 3D matter to pure energy beings) Fun stuff.

[Farmer-Rick]

62. show me the evidence

People claim to see all sorts of crazy things. It doesn't make them true.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

[trev]

66. If you're not going to do any research

(which is what your attitude conveys), then I would say your beliefs aren't true.

Lots of good information out there, some with evidence provided by military sources.

[misanthrope]

71. The burden of proof is on those making the claim

The government and these pilots are offering no conclusions. That's part of the reason they changed the accepted nomenclature to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. It doesn't even proffer that there's an object in flight, just the apparent observation.

[USALiberal]

75. Links please! nt

[anarch]

81. what is people's take on this CBS story, which I assumed was the impetus for the thread?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-pilots-ufo-reports-confirmed-new-york-times-military-unidentified-flying-object/

and this old story has a video link, I think:

https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-up-with-those-pentagon-ufo-videos/


Just nothing, I guess?

[misanthrope]

94. My take is a rational one

The pilots' evidence, as it was, was scant and inconclusive of much.

[anarch]

249. welp, looks like it's all explained now anyway, according to this new story

https://www.theonion.com/government-closes-case-on-ufos-after-determining-sighti-1835129546

so I guess that's that

[Farmer-Rick]

147. I have looked at much of the so called evidence and it lacks credibility

It is made up of people saying they saw this and that. It is made up of fuzzy pictures of lights and admitted hoaxes. It is sensationalized, non repeatable, poorly documented, untestable and unfalsifiable hearsay evidence. Which is really NOT proof of anything. To believe it, you have to have faith. And faith is NOT a pathway to truth.

[trev]

163. I agree that many of the older reports are like that.

I'm also skeptical of regression hypnosis, by which sublimated memories of abductions are dredged up from the subconscious. I do recognize that many of the psychologists using that technique were themselves highly respected, noted academicians--probably the most famous of whom was the late John E Mack (whose books I've read). It's iffy there, for me.

But if we're going to discount eyewitness reports altogether, then we need to find a new justice system. A witness to a murder is just saying s/he "saw this and that." Police recognize the unreliability of such testimony (which is why lawyers try to gather as many witnesses as possible), yet we still put hundreds of people to death on the basis of what is essentially hearsay.

A couple of years ago I saw a YouTube video of a saucer-shaped craft being pursued by an Air Force jet. The video was captured by the plane's combat camera and lasts a good number of minutes. The images are sharp and clear; you can clearly see the subject vehicle as the AF jet tries to keep up with it. Since reading this thread I've been looking for that video; if I can find it, I'll post it.

[Farmer-Rick]

173. well, eyewitness testimony is very unreliable

Just because the justice system uses it does Not make it anymore reliable.

Yes, there are some videos out there that show unusual things. I don't know what they are but no one has proven aliens either. Until it is proven, I will withold belief in aliens.

[trev]

175. I'm willing to accept that UFOs are simply modern technology

but that hasn't been proven, either.

[Farmer-Rick]

230. Modern technology has not been proven?

I think home computers are a proven modern technology. Easy enough to prove the existence of home computers.

Nothing has been proven on some of those weird and often rigged videos. I withhold belief until the thing has been proven. We can speculate and guess, but "I don't know" is good enough until proven otherwise.

[trev]

240. Why are you speaking in non-sequitors?

What has a home computer got to do with UFOs?

You have not even investigated the problem, yet you flail away anyway.

Just to make it simple enough for you to understand, I was asking that you show me aeronautical technology that can engage in the kinds of maneuvers UFOs have been captured on military cameras doing. The military takes these videos seriously enough to repeatedly open investigations into them.

Can you, or can you not?

[Farmer-Rick]

266. I spent 20 years in the military...their equipment can make mistakes

They investigate to ensure the equipment is functional. The military equipment can malfunction, they can pick up shadow images, even a cloud of insects can set off radar and other imaging technology. All of these things have NOT been ruled out. Until they are, I withhold belief.

I am not flailing. You don't need to be rude and dismissive about this.

You were being short and snippy and did not get your point across.

[trev]

268. Sorry if I came across that way. It was not intentional.

I don't write in run-on sentences; I try to get my point across more succinctly. I guess sometimes that sounds rude. I am also prior military, an electronics technician, so I'm familiar with how equipment works.

And I'm not dismissive. If you'd read all my posts on this thread, you'll see that I am open to any valid explanation.

I suppose, at this point, I should come right out and say that I don't think modern UFOs are piloted by extraterrestrials. But that doesn't mean the case is closed. One of my thoughts is that these are experimental craft from other nations. There is good evidence that the Nazis were building anti-gravity machines. I have read one book that claims a prototype, lab equipment and technical papers were confiscated by the Soviets after the war. Seventy years of technological advancement could produce what we're seeing now. It's a thought, anyway. (To be honest, the idea that the Russians might be wantonly violating our airspace is more frightening to me than any ET.)

As to equipment functionality, I do disagree with you. Many sightings are visual, made by pilots and other crewmembers. Modern aircraft cameras are extremely reliable; it's not like we're looking at a blip on a 1940s radar screen or a spot of light in the darkness. We're looking at actual daytime video of a moving object taken over many minutes. This, IMO, is something that shouldn't be ignored. The Pentagon and the Navy agree with me on that.

[Siwsan]

64. trump* being in the White House has convinced me that ANYTHING is possible, so why not.

I've long held to the theory that he is an alien who had a very, very inept researcher. Which explains why he looks and acts the way he does.

[Kid Berwyn]

211. Mr. Bean was beamed down.

Gawsh, what you said!

[anarch]

70. this is going to be a controversial topic, because there has been a long term effort to suppress it

I have my reasons for stating this with some degree of certainty, at least based on my limited knowledge of the subject.

Regardless of the precise reasons, at this point in our culture if you even entertain the idea that "hmm maybe there actually is something to all those stories; maybe there could possibly be some extra-terrestrial and/or extra-dimensional entity (or entities) manifesting as visual/electromagnetic and even physical phenomena..." etc. you are instantly labelled as a total kook and nobody will listen to anything you have to say from there on out.

Maybe this is changing, and I agree with the OP that everyone needs to adjust their attitudes. I suspect there's some sort of stage-by-stage disclosure in process, or else people who have knowledge about these things have just given up trying to lie about it anymore, etc....I suspect more information is going to come out over the next few years, and unexplained aerial phenomena may become increasingly common.

There, now at least three fourths of you reading this think I'm a kook (if you didn't already, for some other reason). If you really want to discuss it, ask me about 3/13/1997. Someday someone is going to FOIA some interesting records about that date, I think.

[jberryhill]

85. The Maryland Air National Guard has already disclosed what they were doing that night

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/27/us/flares-caused-old-sky-lights-air-guard-says.html


But Capt. Eileen Bienz, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Air National Guard, tracked down information on the Maryland unit this week. Capt. Drew Sullins, a spokesman for the Maryland Air National Guard, said jets had dropped high-intensity flares to illuminate the target area at the Barry M. Goldwater miles south-southwest of Phoenix where the military routinely conducts night training. The flares fall slowly by parachute and illuminate a wide area.

[anarch]

88. so let me give you a little timeline on that

as it relates to the main incident, which was a large, silently moving v-shaped formation of lights (or, according to some witnesses, a solid or at least opaque v-shaped mile-wide object with lights on its leading edge), first seen over the Northwestern part of the state (or actually in Nevada I think), then moving rapidly in a south-easterly direction and passing over the Phoenix metropolitan area over a timeframe from about 8:05 PM local time (when it was first spotted) to something like 8:30 PM...and then it moved south, apparently, I don't know, but anyway the Air National Guard undoubtedly dropped some flares later that evening, around 10:00, for some reason not anywhere near where they would usually have done so under normal practice circumstances, such that the whole damn city could see them floating and then disappearing over the mountain.

Just about every photo/video I have seen of this/these events is of the later, flare-dropping part.

There is some kid that the media found who swears the V-shaped formation was "just planes" and everyone put two and two together and said "oh well obviously it was just those A-10s flying at high altitude with their landing lights on or something, haha, totally makes sense, let's just move on..." but the timeline is completely off and none of it makes the slightest bit of sense.

So yes, all you will hear about this whole "Phoenix Lights" incident from all of your sane, rational, normal authorities is that "it was just flares" and that is the accepted story, and that is what you will always hear, as if that settles it.

But let me tell you, from the perspective of having been there and seen the thing at about 8:15 PM, moving, from the perspective of a hill outside of Prescott: "it was just flares, nothing to see here" my ass.

But again, nobody wants to hear it. I think at this point space aliens could literally just blend in with society and nobody would notice; partly because everything is so fucked up in general, what difference would it make?, and partly because nobody can be bothered.

[jberryhill]

92. "There is some kid that the media found"

“Some kid” eh? It seems your memory is not very accurate...

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/the-great-ufo-cover-up-6422930

Mitch Stanley, 21, spends several nights a week in his backyard with a 10-inch telescope, exploring the night sky. He's owned the telescope for about a year, and has learned the sky well. With its 10-inch mirror, the telescope gathers 1,500 times as much light as the human eye. And with the eyepiece Stanley was using on the night of March 13, the telescope gave him 60 times the resolving power of his naked eye.

That night Mitch and his mother, Linda, were in the backyard and noticed the lights coming from the north. Since the lights seemed to be moving so slowly, Mitch attempted to capture them in the scope. He succeeded, and the leading three lights fit in his field of vision. Linda asked what they were.

"Planes," Mitch said.
It was plain to see, he says. What looked like individual lights to the naked eye actually split into two under the resolving power of the telescope. The lights were located on the undersides of squarish wings, Mitch says. And the planes themselves seemed small, like light private planes.

Stanley watched them for about a minute, and then turned away. It was the last thing the amateur astronomer wanted to look at.

"They were just planes, I didn't want to look at them," Stanley says when he's asked why he didn't stare at them longer. He is certain about what he saw: "They were planes. There's no way I could have mistaken that."

[anarch]

111. no, that's exactly what I was talking about--some young adult then

I think of 21-years-old as "kid;" which is actually funny when I think about it, I wasn't much older than that myself at the time.

But this sort of illustrates my point. You have one person that was found that seemed to provide a reasonable explanation within the bounds of things humans know about and are master of, and testimony from those who provide this type of confirmation bias are given much more credence than people who will swear to the day they die that what they saw wasn't any damn plane or flare or whatever else that is a normal everyday thing. That one person's testimony, with the additional enlightening piece of information that the kid...sorry, the guy was an amateur astronomer, as if that makes him a more trustworthy witness than the thousands of people who saw the thing up close.

Here is what I saw: I was camping on a hill outside of Prescott, off of Rte 89; at a little bit after 8:00 or so local time, I saw what appeared to be a V-shaped formation of lights--I would call them white lights, but they did not resemble airplane landing lights or any other aircraft lighting that I know of--and I saw them appear to descend from very great altitude, and travel from a point on the horizon to a point directly overhead in a matter of just a few seconds--this whatever-it-was did not make any noise at all. And it covered a huge arc of sky--I can't vouch for whatever anyone saw south and east of me, but the formation/V-shape made what appeared to be a banking turn to the right, and then disappeared to the southeast, toward Phoenix. I can assure you that this was profoundly affecting and unlike anything I have seen before or since.

I would be curious to know more of Mr. Stanley's story. Perhaps he saw an unrelated formation of aircraft, perhaps he did actually spot the A-10s from the Maryland ANG, I don't know...but the description he gives does not sound anything like what I saw, or what the thousands of other up-close witnesses from the area described.

But who are you going to believe? You weren't there (I assume); you don't have anything to go on but other people's reports...so you, and I think basically everyone, will find the answer that best meshes with your worldview, and you probably won't be budged. I can continue to try to describe the actual events that I recall, but I seriously doubt it would make you reconsider your apprehension of something that is a discrete, historic event involving what I would still consider to be an unexplained phenomenon...a specific incident, with a great deal of testimonial evidence...and mind you, nobody here is saying "it was aliens!" or "it was angels!" or "it was our ancestors' spirits" or whatever other theory--I have no slight idea what I saw. But I can flatly say that it wasn't "just planes" or "just flares." It still gives me goosebumps to think about it, more than two decades after the fact.

[Mike Nelson]

84. I've seen hundreds...

… of UFOs. I like to take pictures of the moon and planets at night. The flying objects in the sky that I can't identify are UFOs because I can't identify them. No aliens, though... not even once. I guess they don't like me.

[former9thward]

86. Jimmy Carter said he saw a UFO.

During the campaign he said he would release the UFO files. The CIA rejected his request. After his election he asked Bush I who was then CIA Director about UFOs and Bush said "Mr. President Elect you have no need to know". When he became president he reversed his stand and said it was due to "national security".

[Beringia]

91. Interesting

I think Dennis Kucinich saw one, but then I don't think DU likes Dennis.

[edhopper]

149. Carter saw the Planet Venus

one of the most mistaken lights for UFOs.

[former9thward]

170. Were you with him?

The original party line was he saw a "weather balloon". Now its "Venus". Why did he backtrack and refuse to release the files?

[edhopper]

172. Or a cloud from a NASA rocket

https://badufos.blogspot.com/2017/01/jimmy-carters-ufo-sighting-was-it-venus.html

[Kid Berwyn]

89. "We have absolutely no idea what is out there!"

https://dailygalaxy.com/2019/05/spinning-like-a-hypersonic-top-us-navy-pilots-reported-strange-unknown-objects-2014-and-2015/

[jberryhill]

93. Many in this thread are quite certain about what is out there

One of the fascinating aspects of this pointless discussion when it comes up is that those who are certain they know, are the ones who accuse others of being closed-minded.

[MicaelS]

96. People can be TOO skeptical.

When the US Navy admits they are encountering UFOs/UAPs, whatever term you want to use, then something is there. Do you completely dismiss that? We are told to present photograps or video, and when that is done it is dismissed.

I am NOT saying they are aliens, but someone, or something, is flying these things. They could be very advanced drones, or autonomous vehicles being flow by our own government or foreign governments. This government has a history of habitually lying about damn near everything in the name of National Security.

When trained observers, aka airline and military pilots, keep seeing UAPs, then THAT tells me something is there. No matter how many skeptics try to explain it away.

[jberryhill]

98. I'm not sure you understand the definition of "skeptic"

I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact there are things we don’t know.

What I find irritating are those who think they know, or who believe a stupid explanation is somehow better than simply not knowing.

That’s how we get bullshit like religion.

Going from “don’t know what that is” to “extraterrestrial vehicles” is just plain dumb.

How about angels?

How about humans in time machines from the future?

If we just want to guess, why limit it to something as mundane as aliens? That’s just a lack of imagination in addition to being closed minded.

[Iggo]

100. "That's how we get bullshit like religion."

[jberryhill]

102. It's obviously ghosts

What happens is that the spirits of dead people join up to form luminous balls that leave earth toward heaven, and occasionally have a look around on the way up.

Just as plausible as anything else.

[Iggo]

103. But if the believers in dead angel choirs and the believers in little green men join up...

...we're fooked.

[jberryhill]

106. What's funny is

The believers in extraterrestrial visitors think their belief is “scientific” compared to the equally unsupported believers in ghosts, demons and whatnot.

Plenty of people report encounters with ghosts and other supernatural characters, but the “scientific” alien believers have no problem dismissing those things.

It says more about human psychology than the universe.

[Iggo]

107. They don't see the eerie similarity...

...in "I saw a ghost" and "I saw a spaceship", eh?

[jberryhill]

144. They both have issues with unbelievers

[anarch]

126. real talk - this is a valid point

people who think they have it all figured out as to what is going on...from whatever point of view in this case...are probably wrong.

Really though, not sure if you're being fully sarcastic here or not, but why couldn't some of these things be some sort of intelligent entity manifesting as balls of energy or whatever as far as humans are able to perceive them?

I would still contend, with respect to what the U.S. government may or may not have evidence of, there may be some degree of intentional and phased disclosure going on...these articles with military witnesses keep cropping up, and evidently there must have been a serious rash of sightings in the 2014-2015 timeframe...who knows, time travelers wanting to see how it all went wrong or something, maybe? tourists??

[Ligyron]

123. Amen

[Kid Berwyn]

210. What the US Navy pilot saw was confirmed by radar on the carrier.

...and videotape...



https://www.space.com/ufo-sightings-us-pilots.html

[jberryhill]

227. Yes, and...

...what about any of that demonstrates it to be a vehicle piloted by creatures of extraterrestrial origin?

[Kid Berwyn]

228. UFOs are a national security concern.

From Newsweek:

UFOS INVADING MILITARY AIRSPACE MULTIPLE TIMES PER MONTH, BUT PUBLIC WON’T BE TOLD MORE

BY ANDREW WHALEN ON 5/1/19 AT 4:53 PM EDT

Since 2014, UFOs have intruded upon military airspace as often as several times per month, a military official told the Washington Post. In a follow-up published by the Post on Monday, the same official said that the U.S. Navy will not share any more information regarding what they call “unexplained aerial phenomena” with the public, despite drafting formal procedures to document UFO sightings on an ongoing basis.

“There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air spaces in recent years,” the Navy said in a statement released to Politico, who first reported on the new approach. “The Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in drafts.”

The new processes come in response to multiple sightings of rounded objects spotted and tracked on infrared cameras, including footage of a so-called “Tic-Tac” UFO craft released by The New York Times in 2017. During the 2004 incident, the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group tracked multiple UFOs off California’s Baja Peninsula, with pilots, radar technicians and other military officials confirming the mysterious technology.

Snip...

Speaking with CBS affiliate KLAS in Las Vegas, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described widespread sightings on military bases. “You can’t just hide your head and say these things are not happening,” Reid, who has previously described a UFO arms race between the United States and competing countries, told the I-Team’s George Knapp. “We have military installations where hundreds and hundreds of people who are there see these things."

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/ufo-sightings-2019-us-military-tic-tac-pentagon-navy-unidentified-aerial-1412272

[jberryhill]

229. Do you feel inclined to address the question?

No one disputes that persons observe unidentified objects.

Would you care to address the leap of logic which demonstrates that these unidentified objects are vehicles piloted by extraterrestrial aliens?

Or are you going to just cut and paste more stuff that does not connect "unidentified objects" to "vehicles piloted by aliens"?

[Kid Berwyn]

231. Never said that, did I?

What’s it called when you hammer me over what you wrote?

[Hotler]

99. Sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh........they live among us. nt

[Iggo]

101. Hey, Mods. Can you move this thread to Creative Speculation?

K, thnx.

[AJT]

104. Guess it's time for.....

SPAAAACE FOOOORRRRCE!!!!!

[Kilgore]

105. They met with Eisenhower in 1955 at Holloman AFB

Too many people saw it to keep hidden.

[jberryhill]

110. Why didn't they suggest he ditch Nixon?

[lunasun]

109. I'm scheduled to go out to NM later in the summer . Is Roswell worth a visit - anyone ?

My own belief so far has been the sightings have been misidentified military flying objects perhaps of some kind that is classified , or experimental . Could be US or of foreign origin
That’s me
As for people abducted and experimented on I do not know but I like that Kate McKinnon character on SNL who talks about them probing in her cucu while dragging on her cigs
https://m.

#

I just hope it is not these assholes who show up

[X_Digger]

113. Conspiracy theory claptrap. n/t

[krispos42]

117. The energy required for effective intersteller travel is enormous

Unless you permit them technological prowess that is functionally magic, we would see them coming as they expended uncountable terawatts of power decelerating from near-light-speed.

And our planet has been here for over 4 billion years; that's more than enough time for a space-traveling species to populate the entire galaxy (including us) several times over, even assuming no magic-level technology.

They would have been here millions or billions of year ago if even one species began traveling and colonizing throughout the galaxy.

We're the only sentient species in the galaxy. Accept it, realize how unique we really are, and how precious.

[912gdm]

131. if we are the only sentient species in the galaxy

then god, or G-D, or creator, etc needs a big old bitch slap right across the godly face.

[misanthrope]

133. Well thanks to the vagaries of special relativity

I don't think we would see much. Time would be at a standstill for them relative to us so our observation might not amount to much.

FTL travel is impossible as we understand physics. The only way around it would be wormholes (jumping space) or Alcubierre drive (contraction and expansion of space) and both are not only highly hypothetical but require energy on scales we can't access.

[ProudLib72]

136. I had to look up "Alcubierre drive" on wikipedia

And what did I find? A bunch of spoil sport physicists trying to ruin a perfectly nice theory:

Another possible issue is that, although the Alcubierre metric is consistent with Einstein's equations, general relativity does not incorporate quantum mechanics. Some physicists have presented arguments to suggest that a theory of quantum gravity (which would incorporate both theories) would eliminate those solutions in general relativity that allow for backwards time travel (see the chronology protection conjecture) and thus make the Alcubierre drive invalid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

[misanthrope]

140. As I said, it's a long, long ways from do-able

Alcubierre's ideas about Casimir vacuums seem way out there on its face as I've only heard about those vacuums existing between massive metallic plates of hypothetical size and proximity. But the basic idea of moving space around the vehicle seems the simplest way of achieving FTL effect while avoiding problems with time dilation and inertia.

Aside from the quantum gravity thing, my question has long been about the expansion and contraction of space that occurs in the basic model. If you're contracting space, what happens to everything within that space, including the field energy?

[BannonsLiver]

269. Stephen Hawking and Neil Degrasse Tyson disagree

I’ll take their intellectual chops over yours seven days a week and twice on Sundays. Have other intelligent life forms visited earth? I have no idea, and neither do you. Regardless, It’s the height of human arrogance to assume in the vast universe “we’re it”. Comically arrogant, in fact.

[krispos42]

274. Universe? I never said that.

I said "galaxy". you know, where stars are clustered relatively close together.

Try reading this book; I didn't want to believe the conclusion, but it makes a lot of sense.

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-WHERE-EVERYBODY/dp/0387955011


The basic tenant is that the extremely old age of the universe means that far more time has elapsed than is necessary for a spacefaring species to spread itself throughout the galaxy, even if it wasn't through direct colonization but through automated starships with embryos on board.

Try as we might, we keep NOT finding any extraterrestrial DNA on our planet. Every animal and plant and microorganism we find has Earth DNA.

There are other arguments as well, such as the configurations of our solar system, the development of speech centers in the brain, and of language. But that is the crux. The universe the author paints is one full of life, but lacking in intelligent life.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

122. It's the dark matter UFOs that worry me most.

They say there's a hell of a lot of it in the universe, so dark matter UFOs must be everywhere!.....

All assembled using nothing but gluons and bosons......

[hatrack]

150. And ducton tape! LOTS of ducton tape!!

[Duppers]

137. DUer Enoki33 recently posted...

"It seems the pinnacle of human hubris to assume we have some sort of monopoly on technology and universal exploration. The shock to our social, political and religious systems will be worldwide if and when we finally get answers that confirm our own ancient tribal oral histories. Hope l am still around then."

[misanthrope]

141. Did you see the film "Contact?"

If so, do you remember the mass of protestors and assorted humanity who gathered outside the radio telescope once the message was announced? That is likely to be more indicative of the human response to such a thing than we would like to believe. We tend to be xenophobic little primates.

Then there's the vast mass of humanity for whom the distraction wouldn't last long as they struggle to eke out a living or survival in a world growing more economically and environmentally shaky by the year.

[912gdm]

138. once again a group of old white men telling us what we should and should not believe in.

The usual players are so sure to mock any dissenting views.


It's the usual group as always.

[miyazaki]

139. This is Ceti Alpha V !

[Tech]

142. Art Bell is missed

After work late night drives, after 12 to 16 hour shift, Art would keep me entertained and awake.

Also a fan of Robert Heinlein, Stargate, and Star Trek.

Entertainment.

[Javaman]

157. Coast to Coast with Art Bell was fun....

years ago, I used to do these long drives through west texas at night and would listen to him.

it would always keep me awake, because some of the stories would scare the hell out of me LOL

[Spider Jerusalem]

143. The probability of a technologically advanced alien species sending spacecraft to earth is near zero

first: space is incomprehensibly vast. The nearest star with a potential terrestrial exoplanet is 4.3 light years away. Faster-than-light travel is not so far as we know something that is possible; at speeds known to be attainable by (uncrewed) spacecraft, a journey of 4.3 light years' distance would take over fifty thousand years.

Second: even if intelligent alien species with advanced technology wouldn't be too far away to reasonably ever visit Earth, the odds that they exist at all are also extremely low; so far as we know, humans are the only species, out of many millions, to have emerged on earth in the 3.9 billion year history of life on this planet to have the capacity for advanced technology; there's genetic evidence that suggests most of our species has gone through significant population bottlenecks that probably represent near-extinction events, so the fact that we're still here now is somewhat improbable, and we're presently in the process of hastening our own extinction through our addiction to fossil fuels (which may prove to be an issue for any similar alien civilisation that develops advanced technology along simiilar lines; see the idea of the "Great Filter").

[hatrack]

145. Woo And Bullshit Exist And Everyone Needs To Adjust To That Fact

.

[Iggo]

264. PLUS-to-the-emmer-effin-ONE.

[brooklynite]

153. Ever notice that. as our photo capability has improved, the quality of UFO images has decreased?

[democratisphere]

154. Extraterrestrials do exist and they are far more advanced than humans.

Human exceptionalism is a joke, as we are constantly reminded.

[Archae]

158. Ok, show me.

I can say unicorns exist.

But they magically cloud our senses so we usually don't see them.

Prove me wrong!

Obviously, you can't.

The rules of logic say *YOU* made the claim, so *YOU* have to back it up.

Simple.

[democratisphere]

159. And you have no definitive proof that there are no extraterrestrials.

There is far more evidence supporting the existence of extraterrestrials than not.

FYI:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/13-reasons-to-believe-aliens-are-real.html

AND

https://www.history.co.uk/shows/ancient-aliens/articles/do-aliens-exist-most-compelling-evidence-of-alien-existence

Similar to deniers of global warming and climate change, people need to inform themselves on this subject. Snubbing the evidence is not acceptable.

[USALiberal]

196. Silly argument. The burden is on the person making the unlikely claim. So.......

I have a cure for cancer, prove I don't.

Get it?

[democratisphere]

207. There are some cures for cancer with more cures everyday.

Survivors are the proof that the cure is real.
Likewise there are many humans with impeccable reputations and substantial degrees that have seen extraterrestrials, been abducted by extraterrestrials and made contact with extraterrestrials. This is undeniable and has also been verified through legitimate hypnosis. There are religious and national security reasons to suppress the exsistence of extraterrestrials; Earth is not the center of the Universe, humans are not the most intelligent creatures known and no human wants to believe there are creatures with superior everything compared to humans.

[jberryhill]

186. Human exceptionalism is what leads people to believe they must be visiting us

Because humans are just so fascinating, we must be the talk of the universe among the flying saucer set.

[PatrickforO]

160. You know, I was skeptical of UFOs for a long time.

But then Trump was elected. I think Trump is from another planet.

And Giuliani? Oh, he's an ET for sure. There is probably is little guy pulling the strings in a special command center inside the head - you know, like in Men in Black.

[hunter]

161. To paraphrase Captain Kirk, why would gods need starships?

I'm pretty sure the speed of light is absolute. There's no such thing as warp drives, inertial dampers, or time travel. There is no starship culture anywhere in the galaxy.

Bummer.

We live in a world of miracles. Non-human sentient cultural beings exist right here on earth. But we don't see that. Instead we imagine dull space aliens driving their stupid space cars to earth.

Fuck that.

There may be space aliens here who simply willed themselves to earth, as easily as we walk, no vehicles required, but they are probably too disgusted with humanity to make contact. Like Charles Darwin, they're here studying beetles.

[fescuerescue]

191. And if these Aliens have found a way to exceed the speed of light

(which is pretty much required for them to visit)

Then they aren't going out for joy rides in tiny craft in our atmosphere.

[hunter]

193. True universal sentience is the ability to be everywhere and anywhere at once.

I speculate this occurs in most highly evolved sentient species long before near-lightspeed-starships.

Near-lightspeed-starships are an evolutionary dead end.

[Bayard]

162. They may be nothing extraordinary

But in the words of Fox Mulder, I Want To Believe.



And there's the age-old question.....why are we so self-centered as to believe we are the only intelligent (ahem) life in the universe?

[Hotler]

169. If anything should happen to me......

repeat these words to Gort. Klaatu barada nikto. Klaatu barada nikto.

[Tarc]

171. Whatever you say, Spooky Mulder

Someone needs to have their dosage adjusted.

[hunter]

183. Hey, hey, don't be mean.

The universe is a lot weirder than you'd like to believe.

[fescuerescue]

188. I believe Aliens are possible.

But I don't believe that aliens travel billions of miles, just to joy ride around in the equivalent of space Cessna's in our atmosphere doing nothing for 60 years.

If Aliens exist, and if they are interested in us. They are far more clever than to ONLY be spotted buzzing around in the atmosphere.

[keithbvadu2]

192. Is there intelligent life out there?

2 space aliens looking down on earth.
I see the dominant life form has developed space weapons.
Does this mean they are an emerging intelligence?
I don't think so. They have them aimed at themselves.

----------------------------------

[ZX86]

216. Ignoring compelling UFO evidence is not in our best interest.

The amount of evidence and serious scientific speculation on the UFO phenomenon that goes completely ignored when this subject is discussed is dependable as the sun rising in the east. If you think you understand the UFO phenomenon because you've seen a couple cheesy episodes of Ancient Aliens you would be mistaken. If you think UFO witnesses are limited to inbred hillbillies hopped up on moonshine you'd be mistaken.

It's one thing to reject the alien hypothesis because you can't examine physical evidence in a laboratory. That's a fair bar to set. However just because a phenomenon can't be examined in a laboratory environment or have a mathematical equation attached to it does not mean it does not or cannot exist. Until 1992 there absolutely no evidence of any exoplanets what so ever. That doesn't mean no other planets existed, we just couldn't detect them.

There is no bigger fan of the scientific method than me but until science can explain the double split experiment, quantum entanglement, or what happened before the big bang I cannot accept that our current understanding of science is the be all and end all of that is natural, unnatural, normal, or paranormal in this universe or any possible multiverses.

[Archae]

225. Ignoring mistaken idetification and bullshit is in my best interest,

And to date, outside of the above, that is *ALL* the flying saicer groupies have.

Nothing more.

[ZX86]

232. Flying saucer groupies?

Your understanding of the UFO phenomenon is juvenile at best. The U.S. Navy is not a band of tin foil hat wearing UFO groupies. They do not investigate ghosts, the Loch Ness monster, or big foot. If private, commercial, and military pilots are reporting aerial phenomenon it needs to be investigated as a national security and public safety issue. This is regardless if you believe in little green men are not.

If private, commercial, and military pilots are lying and creating hoaxes about aerial phenomenon we need to know that. It's a public safety issue. If private, commercial, and military pilots are suffering delusions or having hallucinations in the cock pit it's a public safety issue. It needs to be fully investigated. If private, commercial, and military pilots are reporting aircraft violating U.S. airspace that is a public safety and national security issue. We need to know what's going on.

Dismissing and ignoring valid eye witness accounts from credible witnesses because some guy with a goofy hair cut on basic cable has a UFO show you think is silly would be dangerous.

This links to 12 United States official documents that take the UFO phenomenon very seriously. Unless you believe high ranking U.S. military officials are "flying saucer groupies" you should find it enlightening.

www.richarddolanpress.com/twelve-government-documents

[inanna]

234. Weird.....

This post has garnered almost 6000 views and over 200 responses. That says something right there.

I want to believe.

Some people here don't like that.

Tough shit.

[edhopper]

235. It says something about the gullibility of people

nothing about the veracity of alien visitors.

[inanna]

236. ....

Did you mean "gullible"?

I do not think the US Navy....is "gullible."

Multiple reports on this.

[edhopper]

237. Reports of seeing unidentified objects

no one is claiming people don't see unidentified objects.

it's claims of Alien visitation which is bunk.


typo fixed

[inanna]

241. Yep. I would like to believe....

in something that fantastic - "bunk" or not.

That seems to concern you for some reason.

But I never said (in my post) that was the case here. I never said " the aliens" are here!

You're the one who jumped to that conclusion.

I do think it's very interesting that the US Navy has gone public with this. It seems to signal some kind of a policy shift. That is why people have become so intrigued by these reports.

But I'm sane and rational enough to understand the difference between a ufo report and an ET visitation. I don't require assistance with that.

Nonetheless, I want to believe in certain possibilities. And so I will.

[edhopper]

242. Sorry if it seemed I was attacking you

this is a big thread and I was restating my position.

Believe whatever you want, people believe in all sorts of weird stuff. Some much more unfounded than UFOs.

We could sart with much of the Bible.

[inanna]

243. No worries.

It is a big thread....ha.

Take care.

[edhopper]

245. You too.

time to get back to talking about what a horror show Trump is anyway.

[ZX86]

244. How can you claim alien visitation is bunk if objects are unidentified?

When private, commercial, and military pilots report physical objects of enormous size or behave in ways contrary to known physics what should responsible investigators do? Immediately ground the pilots for mental observation and revoke their pilots license?

Yet this does not happen. Why? If a pilot reported seeing ghosts, leprechauns, or big foot while piloting an aircraft I can guarantee he/she would be immediately relieved of duty. Why the exception for UFO reports if they are just crazy hallucinations of the mentally disturbed?

I know it is hard for many people to accept other worldly events are being witnessed by responsible people while performing duties in a official capacity in private industry, law enforcement, or the military. But these events are happening.

If you are serious about what unidentified objects are being observed in the skies I would suggest reading UFO reports published by the U.S. government and other nations and not rely on some cable tv show hosted by some guy with a funny hair cut.

[edhopper]

246. Actually I have

and also talked to serious UFO investigators like Phillip Klass, Robert Shaeffer and James Olberg.

No one is saying people are not seeing objects they cannot identify.
Do one is saying it is a figment of their mind or am hallucination.

We are saying there is ZERO evidence that any of it is Aliens.

As for your pilots, you would be amazed at how many report Venus as a UFO.
Turns out they aren't as good a witness as you might think.

[ZX86]

254. Prior to 1992 there was ZERO evidence of exoplanets.

Phillip Klass, Robert Shaeffer and James Olberg are UFO debunkers. Not investigators. Offering money to UFO witnesses to recant their experiences are not techniques of any kind of reputable or ethical investigator. Again I would refer you to official U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and official documents released from other nations. Not agenda driven debunkers hustling book sales.

Summing up thousands of eyewitness UFO sightings from private, commercial, and military pilots as misidentifying Venus is patently absurd. It's obvious you have no knowledge of the volume of reports and the detailed observations they contain, many including collaborating radar evidence and eyewitnesses on the ground.

[edhopper]

256. Now I see where you are coming from

thanks, have a good night.

[ZX86]

260. Thank you.

Have a good night as well.

[whistler162]

219. Okay if you say so!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

226. Stephen Hawking was cautious about finding alien life.

From Newsweek:

Hawking took a conflicted position on alien life, at once promoting the search for extraterrestrial life and warning about the potential dangers of first contact with an alien species. His position on extraterrestrial life advocates two approaches: collecting intel and keeping as quiet as possible.

“There is no bigger question,” Hawking said, while announcing his support for Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million program to search for alien communications via radio wave and visible light observations of 1 million nearby stars and 100 galactic centers. “It is time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth.”

In 2010, Hawking worried what that answer would bring, describing the dangers of first contact with aliens in a Discovery Channel documentary. “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” Hawking says. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”

“Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach,” Hawking said in the documentary, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.

In other words, they came, they saw, they ate us.

[Jersey Devil]

233. If there are aliens among us then they are not hostile

Any civilization so advanced that its ships can be seen or not seen whenever they choose could destroy us instantly if they wanted to. I tend to think of them, if they indeed flit among us due to curiosity about us, as the David Attenboroghs of the 4th Dimension, perhaps sending home soft spoken, low keyed monologues about the strange, primitive species they observe, as though we were butterflies.

[Ellipsis]

239. Zuckerberg and Bezos are aliens...

...seriously just look at thier pictures.

Elon Musk is actually a Demigod.

[nocoincidences]

247. The Nimitz

[Kid Berwyn]

262. Chilean navy aviators

Leslie Kean,
Huffpost Contributor
Investigative Journalist and Author

Groundbreaking UFO Video Just Released By Chilean Navy

01/05/2017 11:19 am ET Updated Jan 05, 2017

An exceptional nine-minute Navy video of a UFO displaying highly unusual behavior, studied by Chilean authorities for the last two years, is now being released to the public. The CEFAA - the Chilean government agency which investigates UFOs, or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), has been in charge of the investigation. Located within the DGAC, the equivalent of our FAA but under the jurisdiction of the Chilean Air Force, CEFAA has committees of military experts, technicians and academics from many disciplines. None of them have been able to explain the strange flying object captured by two experienced Navy officers from a helicopter.

The Chilean government agency always makes its cases public when an investigation is complete, and acknowledges the existence of UAP when a case merits such a conclusion.

General Ricardo Bermúdez, Director of CEFAA during the investigation, told me that “We do not know what it was, but we do know what it was not.” And “what it is not” comprises a long list of conventional explanations. Here is what happened:

On November 11, 2014, a Chilean Navy helicopter (Airbus Cougar AS-532) was on a routine daytime patrol mission flying north along the coast, west of Santiago. On board were the pilot, a Navy Captain with many years of flying experience, and a Navy technician who was testing a WESCAM’s MX-15 HD Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR) camera, used most often for “medium-altitude covert intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,” according to the product website. The aircraft was flying at an altitude of approximately 4,500 feet on a clear afternoon with unlimited horizontal visibility, and the air temperature at that height was 50 degrees F (10 C). There was a cloud base above at 10,000 feet, and a layer of stratuscumulos clouds below. The helicopter was flying at about 132 knots, or 152 mph.

Source:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/groundbreaking-ufo-video-just-released-from-chilean_b_586d37bce4b014e7c72ee56b?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANVfEAMl37WnMJJirbNtTa91iY4QOeG7zPl5FmVcDFxJQu-9uwRyPHozQmySVnroWMZnWphGS7sWy5vI0NPJwHvFbWlu1eEBTtOUPOM6Ma-LOoUqI-c1G6Iudylirfe2AtXnk0B7dQaamNJczJLIKA5GIScT2vr0DU4jP6pY5HWw

[Blue_Tires]

248. Have we been *trying* to stop them?

I thought we were just observing them?

[inanna]

250. Kick.

Thanks for the post.

Nice break from all things Trump.

[DBoon]

252. I saw a movie about this once

It was about a Chevy Malibu with radioactive space aliens in the trunk.

At the end, the car just flies off into the sky

[sandensea]

257. Of course though, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting anything to do with us

[cbdo2007]

258. Its much more likely they are from other dimensions rather than outer space

[DavidDvorkin]

259. How so?

What does "from other dimensions" mean? And why is it much more likely?

[cbdo2007]

270. we can't really grasp the distance between objects in space...

While I'm not one to say interplanetary travel is impossible, the idea of aliens kissing their family goodbye and launching and flying in the way us humans understand those concepts, doesn't make sense in the realm of space where distances are measured in LIGHT years to travel from one place to another, and even if you could travel at the speed of light it is still taking multiple tens of years to even get to the closest stars. Even if they had the technology to travel those distances, how would they even know we are here when any visual or radio bursts they get from us would have been traveling for decades as well.

IF there are alien visitors visiting us in UFOs, my guess is that it is through other dimensions or even through some sort of portal they have discovered that connects us through some other means that we aren't aware of yet.

We know a lot about the universe from our human understanding, and in the context of the knowledge we have gained over 10,000 years of being an intelligent species, but we probably realistically only have 1/100 of a comprehension how all of that works. We are still at the basic concept level of how to travel 300,000 miles away safely, and for the most part we are stumped how to take that to the next level.

Plenty more reasons but none we will have answer to in our lifetime or the next 100 earth life times.

[DavidDvorkin]

271. We know that extrasolar planets exist

We know that travel between the stars is possible, even though the time required makes it impractical for humans. We can reasonably speculate about alien civilizations having ways to deal with that -- cryosleep or (for ships able to travel at close to lightspeed) being okay with the difference in the rate of time passing on the ship and time passing at home. So while alien visitation seems unlikely, it's not unthinkable. Our difficulty with grasping the distances involved is irrelevant.

The alternative you propose -- undefined other dimensions and portals -- is pure speculation. We have no knowledge that those exist at all.

[ZX86]

272. People assume too much about possible alien visitation.

They may have been here for millions of years. They may be nomads and have no home planet. Spacecraft may be piloted by drones or remote control. But most likely where ever they are from, how they got here, and what their agenda is probably beyond our comprehension. It would be like us trying to explain to a squirrel why we're cutting down trees in his forest to make way for a super collider.

[Archae]

265. The problem is too many people are making too much money from this.

Yup, there it is, in a nutshell.
Money.

In Roswell there is several "museums," who have dioramas and newspapers on the walls, and of course sell stuff to tourists.

Eric Von Daniken is a convicted Danish embezzler and perjurer, and his books have been shown to be total shit.
Yet the Hysteria Channel (I haven't watched that channel in years now,) has their wack job "Ancient Aliens" show that just regurgitate old debunked stories from the "ancient astronaut" fairy tale spreaders.

I saw one episode that brought up the "Ica Stones," decades after Nova on PBS showed how they are fake.

The flying saucer zealots are using this US Navy announcemnet as some sort of "Holy Writ," and of course...
"Buy my book! Buy my movie! Watch my TV show! Listen to my radio show!"

[nocoincidences]

275. VIRGINIA BEACH Oceana Naval Air Station

Pilots part of the VFA-11 "Red Rippers" fighter squadron out of Naval Air Station Oceana have begun speaking up about UFOs they claim to have seen from Virginia to Florida starting about five years ago.

The pilots appear in a six-part History Channel series premiering Friday called "Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation."

Lieutenants Ryan Graves and Danny Accoin, both F/A-18 Super Hornet pilots, recently told the New York Times they've seen unidentified objects that they cannot explain flying up to 30,000 feet in the air. The strange objects appeared almost daily and had no exhaust or engine plumes, the Times reported.

"These things would be out there all day," Graves told the Times. "Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we'd expect."

https://pilotonline.com/news/military/local/article_aca37c50-821b-11e9-89c6-93f6f6739d95.html