Aliens Poll

[Turtle]

... True, but central to most “UFOs are real” claims I’ve read, including Ed Mitchell’s recent ones, is that one or more alien spacecraft has crashed, and been recovered by the US or other government agents.

 

I’m skeptical of these claims.

 

Fair enough. It still doesn't give me any reason to trust your assessment over Mitchell's. To the contrary, he is an authority of a sort that we are not, having real access to government/military people & documents, and must assuredly be aware of the controversey his claims engender, and yet he is making them. He goes into some detail about the event and circumstance, and each is an issue requiring its own evaluation.

 

I'm with T-bird and Craig on this one. Initially, I have a problem with the logistics of traversing the space/time continuum, particlarly when you arrive at your destination and then supposedly stay there indefinitely with some unlimited supply of resources.

 

Or maybe the aliens that were here during ancient times are a different race of aliens from a different planet. Obviously, with all the varying reports and unique descriptions, there are vast races of aliens from different planets that visit here regularly, and have been throughout recorded history, and yet somehow, all we have to show for it is nothing but stories and tales.

 

I've never said it isn't possible. But considering the vast distances between star systems, and the fact that most of the local stars that you can see at night are still hundreds of light years away, and the fact that none of the local stars have offered a single intelligent radio wave, it just seems very improbable that we are being visited.

 

Meanwhile, back on Earth, while it's true that testimony has value as evidence in a court room, science requires something a bit more concrete, like something that can be examined.

 

Therefore I too remain skeptical.

 

Skeptical good; mocking, not so much. Mitchell has in essence testified as an expert witness and carries more weight in court. It is not enough now to simply disagree, but rather the correct action is to recess & investigate further.

[Jet2]

Regarding the answer I chose:

There's complex life beyond earth Very simple. Why not?

but its not intelligent Of course not the intelligent we call ourselves. They may have many other standards, forms and whatsoever natures we can not comprehend with our own still limited knowledges and 'intellegent'.

[Moontanman]

Ok this is where we are as I see it, correct me If I'm wrong. Photos no matter how good the source are not evidence, eye witness accounts are not valid even if the witness is above reproach. Radar tapes don't count, testimony from air force pilots trusted with nuclear weapons don't count. testimony from astronauts don't count. All of the above listed things do exist. Convincing evidence would have to consist of an alien space craft and or it's operators. It really looks like an impasse of unsurmountable proportions. Unless for some unknown and unlikely reason a space craft has already landed or crashed, in which case the truth is being kept from us and I think this is criminal, but to expect a landing or crash to happen is really not a reasonable expectation. So there would seem to be no area open for discussion.

[REASON]

Skeptical good; mocking, not so much. Mitchell has in essence testified as an expert witness and carries more weight in court. It is not enough now to simply disagree, but rather the correct action is to recess & investigate further.

 

I wasn't intending to respond to Mitchell in particular. To be honest, I haven't read his statements. And I really wasn't trying to come across as mocking. Those are just some issues that I've had with the whole notion of being visited by aliens or alien space craft throughout the centuries. They have to come from somewhere, and most everywhere they could have come from is very, very far away.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, just not very probable. And without some direct evidence other than testamony, it's difficult for me to believe. But I'm not locked into this position.

 

Now I do believe the universe is brimming with life at virtually every stage of existance because the life on this planet serves as evidence that it can occur. But considering the vastness of space, proximity is likely to be a hinderance to interplanetary interaction where there does happen to be life.

[REASON]

Ok this is where we are as I see it, correct me If I'm wrong. Photos no matter how good the source are not evidence, eye witness accounts are not valid even if the witness is above reproach. Radar tapes don't count, testimony from air force pilots trusted with nuclear weapons don't count. testimony from astronauts don't count. All of the above listed things do exist. Convincing evidence would have to consist of an alien space craft and or it's operators. It really looks like an impasse of unsurmountable proportions. Unless for some unknown and unlikely reason a space craft has already landed or crashed, in which case the truth is being kept from us and I think this is criminal, but to expect a landing or crash to happen is really not a reasonable expectation. So there would seem to be no area open for discussion.

 

If they are flying around being witnessed, having photos taken of them, interacting with civilians in the form of abductions and such, and being recorded on radar, why would a crash or a landing be an unreasonable expectation? Why do we automatically assume that they are upholding the Prime Directive by not revealing themselves. I'm sure it probably makes more sense that we appear threatening, assuming they are observing our behavior.

 

I don't know Moon, people will lie, and photos can be manufactured. Is anyone really above reproach? It's all just so circumstantial.

 

I won't deny there's some very compelling stories out there. I would love to be convinced it were true.

[Moontanman]

If they are flying around being witnessed, having photos taken of them, interacting with civilians in the form of abductions and such, and being recorded on radar, why would a crash or a landing be an unreasonable expectation? Why do we automatically assume that they are upholding the Prime Directive by not revealing themselves. I'm sure it probably makes more sense that we appear threatening, assuming they are observing our behavior.

 

I don't know Moon, people will lie, and photos can be manufactured. Is anyone really above reproach? It's all just so circumstantial.

 

I won't deny there's some very compelling stories out there. I would live to be convinced it were true.

 

From my point of view assuming all reports are true is just as bad as assuming none are true. If indeed most of the reports are true then I would expect the things to be colliding in mid air all the time but I think we can safely assume a great many reports are due to explainable things. It's the very few that are inexplicable that intrigue me. I have argued on another thread that they do not have to be traveling from another star. They indeed may be inhabitants of our solar system. Assuming that FTL is impossible then the only realistic way and reason for them to travel would be in world ships traveling at reasonable velocities from one star to another and colonizing the asteroidal type debris in each star system before multiplying and send out more world ships to other stars. using this method the entire galaxy could be occupied in a just a few million years with out any planetary landings at all.

[Turtle]

I wasn't intending to respond to Mitchell in particular. To be honest, I haven't read his statements. And I really wasn't trying to come across as mocking.

 

:eek: :D Roger the intention. I was gently trying to encourage you to have a look see, as it's not your run-of-the-mill everyday Joe. As to mocking, I meant to implicate T-birds joking responses, which you allied yourself with. :eek2:

 

Those are just some issues that I've had with the whole notion of being visited by aliens or alien space craft throughout the centuries. They have to come from somewhere, and most everywhere they could have come from is very, very far away.

And for a very old civilization(s), this is not a barrier. While we humans don't yet have the technology to head out, we are tackling the hard questions and problems as if it is possible and as if we intend to really do it. So far, so good. The Phoenix has landed. What did it take us to go from no flight to spaceflight? A mere 70 years. What kind of mothership/traveling world do you think a million year old species might have dreamed up?

 

Well, these are just a few issues I have with your issues. :hyper: ;)

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, just not very probable. And without some direct evidence other than testimony, it's difficult for me to believe. But I'm not locked into this position.

 

You got your chocolate on my peanut butter!!! Nuh uh! You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!! Does this mean war!??? Stay tuned...we'll be back after this word from our Galactic sponsor. Ah the improbability of candy. :ud: We are ...Fench. :Alien:

[freeztar]

“ Well hell, all they needed to do was hit it with a windmill.

 

 

EDIT: Sorry, I found the comment funny, but reading on into the thread I realized that my laughing at this might be misconstrued as mocking, so I aim to correct that. I agree with Reason that it is highly unlikely that interstellar visitors have come to Earth, yet as Craig mentions, it's quite probable that such spacecraft would be unmanned (much like our own modern space probes). Nonetheless, for me to believe in extraterrestrial spacecraft, I would need to see some hard evidence in the form of machinery (tech) or physically testable material of some sort. Otherwise, we might as well consider a picture of Mormons in the 1800's holding a plate to show that time-travelers had delivered a cd to these people, from the future. Pictures are not enough. Words are not enough.

 

I once saw a UFO. It was a bright blue light that flew across the sky with very little apparent angular change in vector. It passed in front of some clouds and behind others. It was visible for about 3 seconds. At the time, I was taking astronomy classes full time and asked my professor what it could have been if not a ET vehicle of some sort. She calmly explained that meteors can account for my sighting. I was not convinced and thought she was simply explaining away my valid observation. It took me years of contemplation to come to the same conclusion she had. The more I learned about physics and astronomy, the more I became aware that I was associating a value to my observation that was not tenable. In this sense, I agree with Tbird that we create mythology in a sense by projecting our modern tech onto ideas of ET. I can't prove this, but I can't disprove it either...

[Moontanman]

 

EDIT: Sorry, I found the comment funny, but reading on into the thread I realized that my laughing at this might be misconstrued as mocking, so I aim to correct that. I agree with Reason that it is highly unlikely that interstellar visitors have come to Earth, yet as Craig mentions, it's quite probable that such spacecraft would be unmanned (much like our own modern space probes). Nonetheless, for me to believe in extraterrestrial spacecraft, I would need to see some hard evidence in the form of machinery (tech) or physically testable material of some sort. Otherwise, we might as well consider a picture of Mormons in the 1800's holding a plate to show that time-travelers had delivered a cd to these people, from the future. Pictures are not enough. Words are not enough.

 

I once saw a UFO. It was a bright blue light that flew across the sky with very little apparent angular change in vector. It passed in front of some clouds and behind others. It was visible for about 3 seconds. At the time, I was taking astronomy classes full time and asked my professor what it could have been if not a ET vehicle of some sort. She calmly explained that meteors can account for my sighting. I was not convinced and thought she was simply explaining away my valid observation. It took me years of contemplation to come to the same conclusion she had. The more I learned about physics and astronomy, the more I became aware that I was associating a value to my observation that was not tenable. In this sense, I agree with Tbird that we create mythology in a sense by projecting our modern tech onto ideas of ET. I can't prove this, but I can't disprove it either...

 

I love it when people assume all UFOs can be explained by meteors or other natural phenomena. While some reports are simply lights in the sky the really inexplicable ones that beg for real research are not lights in the sky and cannot be explained by a simple misidentification of some natural event. When i talk about UFOs i am not talking about lights in the sky that could be anything. see the link to the 1968 sighting involving several people on the ground at a military control tower a B_52 crew, military observers on the ground and even a commercial airliner pilot. All of these people were involved in the is sighting as well as ground radar and radar in the B-52. this is the type of sightings that needs to be studied and to say UFOs are just fakes and lights in the sky does a disservice to everyone.

[Thunderbird]

I love it when people assume all UFOs can be explained by meteors or other natural phenomena. While some reports are simply lights in the sky the really inexplicable ones that beg for real research are not lights in the sky and cannot be explained by a simple misidentification of some natural event. When i talk about UFOs i am not talking about lights in the sky that could be anything. see the link to the 1968 sighting involving several people on the ground at a military control tower a B_52 crew, military observers on the ground and even a commercial airliner pilot. All of these people were involved in the is sighting as well as ground radar and radar in the B-52. this is the type of sightings that needs to be studied and to say UFOs are just fakes and lights in the sky does a disservice to everyone.

 

What people are saying is we do not know what people are seeing . When I read the accounts of these phenomena witnessed by many credible observers that say the same thing I can deduce that they observed something that appeared out of the ordinary, and these instances happen time and time again. I have observed also that most of these occurrences are in fact the result of man made or natural phenomena.

 

As I said before give me something to study and I’m in, so to me the what actually happened has become less interesting than what happens after the occurrence. When someone tells a story of a strange encounter with something from an unknown world, well a persons interest is peaked... the story is told and retold it sells books news stories they make box office gold and then is embeds into the psyche of the public and generates even more encounters. These cycles of the psyche have been happening throughout man’s history. If you have a culture that tells stories about encounters with angels and demons that's exactly what you can expect to be reported.

When you have a culture raised on Jules Vern, HG wells, and NASA well what do you expect.

[Moontanman]

My point is that when UFOs come up for investigation all that is studied are the 90% that are obviously not anything but misidentified or natural or BS but the 10% that really need study are dismissed because of the 90%. I have been told that since 90% is BS then the rest must be too no matter how compelling they might be. In a serious discussion the 90% that is BS should be swept aside the the 10% studied. This is not what happens and I think it's a mistake. We need to stop concentrating on the easily explained and concentrate on the difficult to explain.

[Eclogite]

In a serious discussion the 90% that is BS should be swept aside the the 10% studied. This is not what happens and I think it's a mistake. We need to stop concentrating on the easily explained and concentrate on the difficult to explain.

I agree with your argument, but not your numbers. I would suggest that 90% barely require an explanation, 9% are difficult to explain without some work, which leaves 1%. Most of this 1% can be explained with reasonable levels of confidence. We are left with much less than 0.1% of truly peculiar and seemingly inexplicable.

[Moontanman]

I agree with your argument, but not your numbers. I would suggest that 90% barely require an explanation, 9% are difficult to explain without some work, which leaves 1%. Most of this 1% can be explained with reasonable levels of confidence. We are left with much less than 0.1% of truly peculiar and seemingly inexplicable.

 

I'm sorry the numbers were just off the top of my head, the percentages do not matter. what matters is the idea of not concentrating on the easily explained or the one that lack evidence and investigating the the ones that cannot be explained. Don't tell me a a meteor was mistaken last night for a UFO, why bother to go there, tell me what happened here.

 

1968-Minot Air Force Base, UFO Hovers, Seen by B-52 crew, UFO Casebook Files

 

The official explanation is lame to put it mildly. what was it? The are many such sightings, stop with the lights in the sky and explain the really hard ones. so far they hard ones are swept under the carpet and the easy ones are touted as what UFOs really are! a serious discussion should not consist of the easy cases at all.

[Thunderbird]

I read the report, as it stated it was a "real UFO" which means just that, unidentified nothing more. A blank spot for conjecture. Unidentified does not mean extraterestrial.

[Turtle]

I read the report, as it stated it was a "real UFO" which means just that, unidentified nothing more. A blank spot for conjecture. Unidentified does not mean extraterestrial.

 

A possible view of the case that is indicative of extraterrsstrial origin is that the object both hovered and moved at 3,000 mph. Taken together, no understood natural phenomena exhibit this behavior and our own craft at the time either. The report mentions a plasma ball as an explanation, and this is possible but does not discount the ET conjecture. It is not hard to understand why the military would not write it up as a UFO, given their joint history. Unidentified may not be necessasry for ET, but it may be sufficient. :doh:

 

We come from... France. ;)

[CraigD]

1968-Minot Air Force Base, UFO Hovers, Seen by B-52 crew, UFO Casebook Files

The linked webpage is poorly written, contradictory, and lacks the sort of fact-checking references that lend credence to even ordinary journalistic stories.

 

No copy of or reference to the source of the radio recording or transcript is provided.

 

The article’s quotes of radio conversation contradict the conclusion it reaches (following the text “What we have, then”). The quote states that the B-52 crew, JAG 31, had nothing on their airborne radar, but saw an orange glow where ground radar detected unknown returns. I can’t tell from the article the source of the “traveling 3000 MPH” report.

 

Finally, it describes the Air Force explanation as “doubting the testimony” of dozens of personnel. I can’t, however, see anywhere in the article where such impeachment occurs. Controllers and weather staff report reported radar contacts, but, from the text included in the article, no mention of unusual speed. Aircraft crew reported seeing an orange light, and several minutes inability to send, but not receive voice radio. It states that 14+ scattered around Minot AFB “saw the UFO”, but not what specifically what they reported, and that the UFO landed, but no mention of who reported that, or what they reported. It then mentions open doors and “moved” combination locks on the “rings” of a missile site on the base, suggesting that the UFO or its occupants attempted to break into some sort of structure. From the article, I find it difficult to picture what is being described.

 

In short, the article seems to described an attempted break-in to a structure at an Air Force base by occupants of a UFO, but is too poorly written to support this or even a more mundane explanation of events, or even clearly describe the events.

 

Another documents I checked for references to 8/24/1968 and Minot, http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/bluebookunknowns-v1-6.pdf, contained only a brief summary of these events, with “[?]” near many of the claims.

 

Moontanman, do you know of a better written account of this event? ;)

[Moontanman]

The linked webpage is poorly written, contradictory, and lacks the sort of fact-checking references that lend credence to even ordinary journalistic stories.

 

No copy of or reference to the source of the radio recording or transcript is provided.

 

The article’s quotes of radio conversation contradict the conclusion it reaches (following the text “What we have, then”). The quote states that the B-52 crew, JAG 31, had nothing on their airborne radar, but saw an orange glow where ground radar detected unknown returns. I can’t tell from the article the source of the “traveling 3000 MPH” report.

 

Finally, it describes the Air Force explanation as “doubting the testimony” of dozens of personnel. I can’t, however, see anywhere in the article where such impeachment occurs. Controllers and weather staff report reported radar contacts, but, from the text included in the article, no mention of unusual speed. Aircraft crew reported seeing an orange light, and several minutes inability to send, but not receive voice radio. It states that 14+ scattered around Minot AFB “saw the UFO”, but not what specifically what they reported, and that the UFO landed, but no mention of who reported that, or what they reported. It then mentions open doors and “moved” combination locks on the “rings” of a missile site on the base, suggesting that the UFO or its occupants attempted to break into some sort of structure. From the article, I find it difficult to picture what is being described.

 

In short, the article seems to described an attempted break-in to a structure at an Air Force base by occupants of a UFO, but is too poorly written to support this or even a more mundane explanation of events, or even clearly describe the events.

 

Another documents I checked for references to 8/24/1968 and Minot, http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/bluebookunknowns-v1-6.pdf, contained only a brief summary of these events, with “[?]” near many of the claims.

 

Moontanman, do you know of a better written account of this event? :QuestionM

 

I read a detailed account in a book many years ago, but the most recent and detailed account was in Peter Jennings last documentary. He described several very detailed but unexplained sightings but unfortunately a few less than detailed ones as well. When we put aside something unknown because information is difficult to come by we miss the possibility of new discoveries. Just like the alien abduction reports, at one time they were thought to be nothing but BS, lies and hoaxes. Now we know why they all shared a common thread and why so many people with no connection had very similar experiences. If no one had seriously gone after these reports basic information about the human mind would have gone undiscovered.