"UFOs" Topic

UFOs:

Are they real?

Yes?
No?
Maybe?

Nope, Bigfoot scared 'em off

LOL

Yeah, sure: whered'ya think the Cockroach That Ate Cinncinnati came from?

Unidentified Flying Objects are real, anything flying you can't identified is a UFO.

Could some UFO's reports be extraterrestrial? maybe, however the odds are against it.

However, ghost are real, I saw it on the Scfy channel!

UFOs are real. Intelligent beings from all over the galaxy are surveiling United States military bases in order to find out what a $75 USD toilet seat looks like.

This is all classified. This thread will self-destruct in 10 seconds….

The truth is out there……………

There are definitely unidentified flying objects that have remained (at least officially) unidentified by governments and militaries…. most of those (the ones that the governments even bother with) actually do show up as blips on the radar and have been trailed by fighter planes and such, but so far no aliens (unless you think someone has aliens but keep it secret or failed to capture them and is therefore declared crazy).

Personally I doubt we're seeing aliens in UFOs sneaking around undetected (in space, no less). Its remotely possible if there was a huge cover up, but I doubt it.

A totally different question is are there aliens?
I have little doubt that at some point, some where, there has been alien life… even if it came from Earth (simple cells picked up by a meteor strike float over to Mars while its still fertile enough to have life, and voila).

Recent evidence suggests Earthlike (capable of supporting life as we know it, though not necessarily OUR life, though on the other hand other types of life could live elsewhere) planets are more common than we thought. Planets in general are more common than we thought, too.

And of course, there is always the 'religious' argument…. "Of course there are aliens, otherwise its an awful waste of space!" or "Why else does *insert religious text here* vaguely mention other worlds and alien life we will never meet?"

And here's the whole 'nother thread. :)

It depends on what you mean by "real." Yes, there are things in the sky that haven't been conclusively identified. No, I don't think they're extraterrestrial spaceships.

Our Milky Way galaxy alone contains 400 billion or more stars; 50 billion or more planets circling those stars; 1 trillion or more free-roaming planets; and those numbers are revised upward almost daily. So, yes, I think the odds favor intelligent technologically advanced life elsewhere in our galaxy, let alone the rest of the universe.

However, I *don't* think that an interstallar race that wants to stay hidden for some reason is going around probing rural people, mutilating cattle, making crop circles, and flying all over the daytime and nighttime skies buzzing airliners, flashing lights, and making weird noises.

Why not. Are you saying our new alien masters can't have a little bit of fun at our expense while checking out this backwater planet.

UFO is a bit of a misnomer nowadays.

They really should be called IFOs or AFOs, for Identified Flying Objects, or Alien Flying Objects, respectively (PC types would call them Undocumented Non-Terrestrial Flying Objects, or UNTFOs, since they don't like the "Alien" label – now you see why I prefer AFOs instead).

Still, the renaming gives the military, spooks, and bureaucrats plausible deniability, since there are no UFOs anymore. That way, they can answer truthfully, and still be lying to you, when asked about UFOs.

And, yes, they are out there……….and perhaps here as well.

;-)

We're discovering new exoplanets almost every day…and Fermi's question remains unanswered.

UFOs? Yeah, probably.

Have I seen one? Maybe. Not entirely convinced one way or t'other.

Have I seen any aliens? Nope, not that I'm aware of.

Is there 'life'….(maybe not as WE define it…but that keeps changing)…OUT THERE??? Mathmatically/biologically possible..

Maybe even in our own solar system, in subsurface acquifers on Mars, some moons of Jupiter, Saturn, even the Dwarf Planet Pluto or some comets!!

Most of us have read or heard about 'extremophiles', like bacteria that live in the acidic, boiling mudpots around Yellowstone Park, or tubeworms and other critters living around 800 deg F sulfur-spewing volcanic vents under thousands of feet of ocean, in pitch blackness…or algae and bacteria living in symbiosis, just below the surface of porous rocks in the 'dry' Antarctic valleys…were it's dark for 6 months a year and 100 years between any moisture and temperatures of minus 100 deg F are common…

So yes, I think there is 'life' beyond the earth…somewhere and even more than one 'somewhere'..

'Little Green men' or 'Bug-eyed monsters' or 'Gray aliens'….I'm not so sure about…nor do I believe EVERY sighting of a 'UFO' is an 'alien spaceship' as the earth is not the GRAND-FRICKIN' CENTRAL STATION of the Galaxy! Especially considering where our solar system is located so far out from the galactic center!

Have we been 'visited' by other, INTELLIGENT (another whole definition needed there) lifeforms from another 'star'…

During all of the HISTORY of our planet…well now, that's the question isn't it?

Maybe they passed by during one of the ICE AGES and saw nothing worth noting…or during a 'recovery period' after massive volcanic eruptions or cometary/meteoroic impact…when 90% of our planet's life-forms were wiped from existence??

Maybe they've just been 'listening' to us…like we've been using SETI to listen for THEM…and because of DISTANCES…it will be never more than a series of short messages….

Maybe the 'UFO's' (or some of them), might have been their 'Viking' or 'Voyager-type' probes…because of the HUGE expense in energy/time/technology to get even CLOSE to the speed of light with a MATERIAL object.

Or maybe they had their own 'CERN' like we do in Europe, only 100-200+ years ago and have found 'loopholes' in the theory of relativity?

I bet it's STILL technically tough, expensive and a challenge to travel even SHORT distances of under 100 light-years…but who knows?

but it's sure fun to think about!

Pretty sure they phase in & out from another dimension. Takes care of all that 'coming from light years away' stuff (and also gives hope to garage experimenters trying to build their own phasing units…. ;-)

SgtPain 28 Feb 2012 6:14 p.m. PST

Unidentified Flying Objects are real, anything flying you can't identified is a UFO

Strictly speaking, while this is the original intent of the term that gave us the acronym that in the minds of so many (including, I suspect, the OP) stands for "craft of intelligent xenoc species", it is a sort of a misnomer.

In vast majority of the so-called UFO sightings, it is unclear if there is any "object" that is doing "flying" (except in the boardest sense of the term – being airborne – and even that is sometimes in severe doubt). A slightly better and somewhat less loaded term would be Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon or UAP.

With that preamble, I agree with Sgt up to the point where he talks about ghosts (-;)

This BTW is not really a science fiction topic, it's more @ religious topic if anything.

Most of us have read or heard about 'extremophiles', like bacteria that live in the acidic, boiling mudpots around Yellowstone Park, or tubeworms and other critters living around 800 deg F sulfur-spewing volcanic vents under thousands of feet of ocean, in pitch blackness…or algae and bacteria living in symbiosis, just below the surface of porous rocks in the 'dry' Antarctic valleys…were it's dark for 6 months a year and 100 years between any moisture and temperatures of minus 100 deg F are common…

We get slapped around with extremophiles, implying that there might be intelligent life on a giant hot Jupiter being blasted by four pulsars and having just survived the wake of a pair of supernovas and a comet impact every fortnight.

The reason why extremophiles survive in such extreme conditions is that they are very simple, anything more complex is too vulnerable in the long run. You could have aliens living in conditions that would be harsh for humans, but I seriously doubt we'll see advanced, intelligent aliens on planets that could support extremophiles.

The universe is probably teeming with life, the overwhelming majority being just single cells or a pond of snot at best. A few planets here and there might have more complex life forms and once in a zillion years we might bump into an intelligent species. Of course not all intelligent species will have technology we can pick up and discover so even if there are plenty of intelligent species out there, many will be "silent" Also note that evolution does not particularly favour intelligence as a trait, so lots of planets may have a fully formed fauna, but no "intelligent" species to build technology etc. And then there are those that fall victim to mass extinction events or self destruct before contact can be made.

So even if there is a lot of life out there, there are probably few intelligent species that have technology and travel in space etc.

My guess why we haven't picked up anything so far.

You could help look link

I assume craft exists but why come here so often – are we the local zoo?

"I assume craft exists but why come here so often – are we the local zoo?"

Simple…we have

I mentioned extremophiles as an example of how varied 'life' can be and how it can exist in conditions normally not associated with being capable of supporting 'life as we know it'….

In using the term 'simple life'….for bacteria, etc…single-celled life and similar things…THAT term is 'over-used' more than extremophiles. While there might be 'extremophiles' in the atmosphere of 'hot jupiters', etc as mentioned earlier by Patrick, I'm not implying they are 'intelligent' or 'sentient' (at least as far as compared to humans or computers), but I am saying that 'life', extremophile or not…may be more prevalent than we imagine.

Whether or not it is 'sentient' or 'technically advanced' or even capable of 'shifting' NATURALLY through time and space…I haven't a clue…

as one 'prophet of science fiction' has said…not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine!

and in a way….isn't that a source of wonder, awe and mystery in itself for us to ponder?

Slishfully,
Sgt DWW-btod

UFO is such a loaded terminology, it allows all the quacks to honestly say "We have proven UFO sightsings!", and then go on to add the bogus bit "so why are these alien…"

As we know, aliens like Strawberry ice cream.

To understand UFOs, one must understand the civilization of the planet Metalinor, a world orbiting the star we know as Aldabaran. Metalinor existed for thousands of our years as a post technological civilisation on priniciples whould would be familiar to our Theosophists. The beings of Metalinor did not travel through space because they preferred to monitor the radio waves of civilised planets throughout the Galaxy. Then, something happened to upset that staid intellectual civilisation almost overnight.

All radio monitoring resources were concentrated on our planet, earth, in the mid 1940s. A space faring expedition was proposed and keels were laid for the first "Huckle-Buck" class starships. The craft seen by Kenneth Arnold on 24 June 1947 were Huckle-Buck craft. Research continued as more expeditions to earth were conducted. The craft that crashed at Roswell was a "Huckle-Buck" type. Latter models such as the "Little Richard" and "Doo-Wop" craft were far more reliable. Missions became far more ambitious, such as an attempt to abduct Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The earth has remained under intense radio scrutiny and there is reason to believe that Metalinor craft have gone beyond anti-matter technology and are now propelled by some form of Funkadelic energy.

My spirit guide Z^Aan (who appears to me in the form of Kylie Minogue) has informed me that the Metalinorean Funkadelic drives were susceptible to infiltration by Chaosmönger beings for the alternative dimension Hatröss who destroyed the entire planet Metalinor on June 29, 1988 of our calendar.

I assume craft exists but why come here so often – are we the local zoo?

We're the equivalent of their 'reality TV'.

Terran 'reality TV' is a declared WMD in all civilized locales!

My spirit guide Z^Aan (who appears to me in the form of Kylie Minogue) has informed me that the Metalinorean Funkadelic drives were susceptible to infiltration by Chaosmönger beings for the alternative dimension Hatröss who destroyed the entire planet Metalinor on June 29, 1988 of our calendar.

And I thought it was Hip Hop.

Kylie Minogue? link

I'm still stuck with Madame Blavatsky! link

I dont think so. though i do believe there is life out there.

I have to agree with SgtPain … I believe (and many Scientist do too)that there is a high probably of "ETs" … Whether they came or are coming here … I'd give it 50/50 at best. Ghosts … well the evidence(as with some UFO cases) sometimes is compelling … I may have seen one as a young child ? If my fading mermory holds true. But as with UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, Nessie, etc., I truely believe that many, most, the overwelming majority are mis-identification … But as I saw one scientist say on a History Channel UFO show, IIRC, "Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out …"

Apparently there are about 2000 stars within 50 light years. I guess aliens from these star system could have radio-ed us back after detecting our first transmissions. No idea when transmissions became powerful enough for alien radio-astronomers to detect though!

There are around 15000 stars within 100 light years, ie, that could call us back by 2162.

"ET phone home !!!"

There are some points about radio signals reaching us.

1) Radio signals do degrade, if their transmitter isn't strong enough we may not be able to hear it through the interstellar noise.

2) It's possible their signal hasn't reached us or even reached us in the past when we didn't have radio receivers.

3) It's possible the aliens don't use radio signals (directed microwaves, telepathic crystals, cans of beans connected by wires …) in which case we can't hear them.

4) It's quite possible that even if we do get a message, we might not be able to communicate with them due to major differences. We have sophisticated technology but we still can't discuss ocean currents or explain Fermat's theorem to a dolphin …

5) Of course if we do hear something, do we take the risk of sending a message ? What if they are a bunch of religious nuts that make Chaos worshippers of Khorne look like a bunch of stoned hippie quaker pacifists ?

6) Fermi paradox, they should be here … maybe they are …

7) Have fun with the Drake Equation link

Yeah a bit more Googling came up with opinions that the distance limit for detection of un-focussed radio is between 20 and 100 light years, depending on who you believe and how much you speculate that Alien tech would work better than ours.

An 'aimed' radio signal works a lot better, but you need to know where to aim it. Now with Extrasolar planets already found that could support liquid water, there'll be some candidates to try out, or perhaps a decision made to remain silent in case of the 'wrong sort' dropping by….

YES

Definately. I shouldn't be telling you this – but our government has been secretly sending UFOs to Mars for years, to buzz the Martians just to see what they'll do.

but our government has been secretly sending UFOs to Mars for years, to buzz the Martians just to see what they'll do.

I thought it was just to sat "Kaor"

Read 'The Fermi Paradox' (& the links) and 'A Killing Star' entries in Atomic Rockets:

link

Brrr….

I renounce my skeptisism! UFOs are real and they are extraterrestrial!
link

---

By they way of an explanation for the Fermi paradox, I'll add the logical result from this to the list of mildly impropable ones, right alongside with "gamma ray bursts are the literal final blaze of glory from a civilization turning on their first over-unit energy generator":
link

Maybe for me.
My dad was in the Royal Navy and was adamant about "things" seen at sea and high ranking naval personnel "knowing" about it.My stepdad was a chopper pilot in the British Army Aircorps and told us he had seen and reported "things" buzzing him and other helicopters whilst on NATO exercise and was told to always report.I remember my mum asking him and he would say he couldnt really talk about it and wouldnt go into detail.The scientific evidence against is pretty logical but the number of credible witnesses seems to be compelling.Im pretty much on the fence my self.

I'd say the number of truly and really credible witnesses is actually fairly low if "things" indeed are rather constantly (as it appears) being seen at sea/around nuclear facilities/etc. buzzing the military craft and being reported up the chain of command.

Except that *anything* seen around strategic facilities and military exercises would get reported. You're reporting that someone was watching, whether human or not.

I dont doubt that plenty of people have seen UFOs.I dont know what they are though……some say ET some say new aircraft…I dont see any definite proof either way of what they actually are.I like to think im open minded and a bit sceptical at the same time.Some people promote the idea that we are being visited by aliens and others insist that there is nothing at all unsual except manmade objects being mis-identified.I do it find it strange that military personnel see things in the sky and cant identify them if they such trained observers.I find the whole subject fascinating and like to check out the latest stories about UFOs on the net……..but so far Ive seen no definite answer that can prove or disprove what they may or may not be.

Until they land on the White House lawn(or my backyard), we will not know for sure …

> "Until they land on the White House lawn(or my backyard), we will not know for sure …"<

Not specifically directed at Legion but this is an excellent example.

I take it then, that most people will only acknowledge the presence of something different if it behaves, reacts, and performs in a method by which humans expect it to do.

Is this true?

No harm, no foul !! Regardless, I'd think generally most us humans think that way. Unless all out war broke out, we'd still have to go to work, pay taxes, etc. … unless they, the aliens, changed that paradigm. The biggest impact (short of war), after the shock & awe dies down, would be to religions and the like. Althought I'm interested in aliens, UFOs and such … so the short answer would be, "Cool" … unless the try to exterminate us …

X-Files axiom: All Things Die.

But how do you successfully defeat something you don't understand. We have difficulty combating organisms we do understand: example HIV, the flu virus(es)

I think, if an alien invasion ever occurred, it would be over before we could understand it was happening, largely because we are confined to our human method of classification, categorization and cataloging. We define everything by the known (naturally) which leaves us vulnerable to the unknown (naturally).

Pyrate Captain 01 Mar 2012 4:26 p.m. PST

I take it then, that most people will only acknowledge the presence of something different if it behaves, reacts, and performs in a method by which humans expect it to do

Arguably, the presumed intelligent xenocs (IXs) are behaving in a rather human-like manner. If such entities indeed did invade us, they would very probably do it just like in the movies. Apart from that just maybe IXs couldn't be beaten back by a bunch of brave Americans.

I, for one, welcome our new alien mast….(zzzzzzaaappppp! frizzzzlefrizzzlefrizzzlesmoulder)

Kylie Minogue?

As an aficionado of the 18th C., I appreciate the way she wears the typical short breeches of the period: YouTube link

For me, the most interesting subject about UFO(s):

And I can testify that mini-skirts were *real* in the late "60 – early "70:

there is reason to believe that Metalinor craft have gone beyond anti-matter technology and are now propelled by some form of Funkadelic energy.

I'd favor orgone en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone: F u c k adelic energy, if you prefer.

Remember a novella describing an alien invasion, long ago: aliens looked like tiny pink elephants using their ears to fly, nesting in the corners of bars ceiling and feeding by dipping their trunk in whisky glasses. Nobody reacted before it was too late

Perhaps I am too old, (or too young) to have derived meaning from the last post, but it was cool none the less.

OK:
framecaplib.com then framecaplib.com/ufolib.htm then link link open 050

YouTube link

Certainly too young, Pyrate Captain!

Why do these UFOs travel all the way across the galaxy only to crash in New Mexico? Are there no driving tests to get a fly saucer pilot's license on Skytron?