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Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
Posted: April 22 2013 at 18:40
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
There is a good probability that somewhere in the Universe there exists life that is not of this Earth. The chances of that life being smarter than an amoeba is quite probable. For it to be at our stage of intellectual evolution or higher is less probable. If it is has surpassed our level of technical development is thus fairly improbably. Of it being capable of interstellar space flight is even more improbably. The chances of it finding us on a tiny wet planet orbiting a nondescript star in the outer suburbs of one galaxy out of billions of galaxies in the vastness of space is highly improbable.
You are assuming that ufos originate from other planet.
I am assuming nothing of the sort, I'm certainly not assuming they come from other planets. If I am assuming anything, it is that they have a more rational and down-to-earth explanation.
However, the "other planet" idea would be the explanation that most "believers" would go for. So, what is your explanation? The makers of these craft have lived amongst us all along? They come from the dark side of the Moon? Under the sea? Beneath the polar ice caps? They materialised out of a pan-dimensional Universe containing a parallel Earth?
Or perhaps they are just everyday objects (insects, birds, balloons, kites, model aircraft, real aircraft, airships/blimps, ball-lightning, St. Elmo's Fire, will-o'-the-wisp, marsh gas, bolides, contrails, clouds, lighthouses, beacons, radio masts, flares, fireworks, reflections, refractions, aurora, deliberate hoaxes, etc.) being misinterpreted?
ArturdeLara wrote:
Furthermore our presence in this planet would be easily detectable for a sufficiently advanced civilization (without mentioning the direct panspermia hypothesis ).
Please explain how our presence on this planet would be easily detectable - please feel free to be as technical as you like, it's been 30 years since I studied telecommunications at University but I'm sure it will all come back to me.
And if you can give a valid explanation of the panspermia hypothesis that would lead to UFO sightings and aledged alien abductions then fire away.
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
All UFO sightings can be (and have been) explained by fully understandable natural explanations not requiring visitors from other worlds - Unidentified does not mean Unexplained.
No they haven't... You clearly never payed much attention to the evidence.
Special Collaborator
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Points: 37575
Posted: April 22 2013 at 19:46
ArturdeLara wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
What about peer-reviewed scientific journals? Btw, telekinesis is very probably a real phenomenon.
Peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals confirming in a scientific way (that is, with reproduceability confirmed by peers) the existence of UFO's understood as machines built by extraterrestial civilisations and visiting us? Let me know which ones please, I'm highly interested.
Would you please also explain the probability of telekinesis being a real phenomenon?
Thanks,
The Journal of Scientific Exploration publishes UFO-related peer-reviewed articles regularly. And I never said that these articles and studies proved that an extraterrestrial civilization was visiting us.
The Journal of Scientific Exploration does not constitute a peer-reviewed scientific journal, its contents are not listed on the Web Of Science index of scientific journals and because it delves into fringe topics it is viewed by academics as being a journal of pseudoscience.
Special Collaborator
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Joined: May 13 2007
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Points: 37575
Posted: April 23 2013 at 05:44
tszirmay wrote:
Having majored in philosophy, I guess the fascination about the UFO subject has been haunting my thoughts for the past 50 years or so, and as is often the case with constantly acquired information, one’s opinions can morph easily into something a bit more precise. First of all, I have come to realize that there needs to be a major distinction: On one hand, there are UFOs and on the other, “Life” beyond our planet. I have come to believe that the two are not necessarily foldered into one neat file, that is just plain silly and nefarious.
This major distinction is one that science arrived at sometime ago and such ideas should be kept in two distinctly separate folders and regarded as two separate disciplines.
tszirmay wrote:
There is little doubt that there must be somewhere in the galaxies, a civilization that has not only thrived beyond the distant stars but may have also influenced Earth’s progression from caveman to atom bomber. Our planet is littered with visual proof, be it in architecture, literature, history and arts. From Admiral Piri Reis’ cartography that is simply unexplainable, to distances between planets measured by Mayans being proven correct by laser equipment left on the moon, through linguistic coincidences (?) that are simply incredible (Aztec and Basque), massive monuments that have similar characteristics thousands of miles apart, the Nazca lines and of course, the greatest source of “divine” intervention, the Holy Bible, as imaged as it is….. There is little doubt in my mind that we have been coached, tutored and observed by alien life forms, perhaps even our ancestors who have evolved elsewhere (Noah’s ark if true, sounds like an evacuation!) but UFOs are a totally different kettle of fish.
Wow. Quite a lot going on here and none of it proof of external influence on human history beyond poor supposition and unsubstantiated guessing.
First off the intelligence of the human race (and by that I'll confine it to the species of ape known as homo sapiens sapiens) has not changed throughout history - the brain that put a man on the Moon and created digital watches and the internet is the same brain that formulated the theory of gravity, painted the Mona Lisa, created the Roman Empire, built the Pyramids, invented iron smelting, discovered fire and created all the language, art, literature, technology and history since that naked ape first walked off the African savanna to migrate around the world (or from wherever they came form - Africa is the best candidate at the present).
taking your examples one by one:
Admiral Piri Reis’ map - not unexplained and not developed in isolation from other previous/contemporary maps and cartographers There are no valid reason to assume help from ET
Distances between planets measured by Mayans ... I'm not aware that they had measured the distances between planets and can find no evidence of this that isn't based upon applying modern methodology and understanding to Mayan data. The Mayans believed in a geo-centric model and therefore could not have calculated the distance between planets because their model was as wrong as the Greek one of Ptolemy. What they measured was the periodicity of Venus and Mercury (ie their orbits) and that does not require any specialist knowledge, technology or insight, not the distance between them... [which if you think about it constantly varies as their orbits around the Sun are different, you cannot even produce a mean distance between them]
Linguistic coincidences (?) [...] (Aztec and Basque), ... are not surprising given a common ancestry of all the races on earth. Homo sapeins sapeins has always been capable of language and it is disingenuous to presume that "caveman" communicated in grunts and crude gestures, we cannot know what that early language was like, but it is not too fanciful to assume that a lot of the vocabulary was common and migrated with them, especially those words that were originally onomatopoeic in origin (even if that onomatopoeic root has long-since been lost).
Massive monuments that have similar characteristics thousands of miles apart... are not surprising if those monuments were modelling natural landscape features such as mountains, and/or whose construction methods predefined the logical shape they would adopt. For example a pyramid or neolithic burial mound could be man's attempt to manufacture a mountain - the shapes of mountains is predetermined by how nature, erosion and gravity affects their formation (no one questions why a mountain in China can look like a mountain in Sweden and a mountain in Chile - we don't assume that those mountains had a common architect). When man echos that structure in man-made earthworks or masonry they will be governed by the same affects of gravity - there are examples of failed pyramids whose proportions and slope angles were simply wrong - they fell down. Another more mundane example is the pitch of rooves found around the world, here the pitch angle is governed by what will fall on it (be that mainly snow or rain) and the annual quantity of that (a lot, a little, none), so it is not surprising that roof pitches will be similar between regions of similar climate to the extent that regions of little rainfall have flat rooves.
the Nazca lines... not that old (1500 years) and proven several times to have been man-made requiring no specialist skills, as are all other geoglyphs found around the world.
[I'll stop there as we need not get embroild in a long discourse on teh bible or any other religious text]
tszirmay wrote:
As a history student, I am convinced that relating specifically to WWII, there were various incidents that seemingly were random but what if they were somehow manipulated. The war had just started and an Enigma decoder was already in British hands! The war turned on the German Luftwaffe blitz accidently dropping bombs on Buckingham palace and thus attacking London and not the factories.
The British government purchased a commercially available Enigma machine in 1927, the Polish Cypher Bureau made several breakthroughs in decoding the German military version of the Enigma machine in 1932, this information they shared freely with the British and French governments just prior to the outbreak of war, including the duplicate machines they had created. Again human ingenuity does not require external influence.
The same is true of the London Blitz, how, when and why this occurred is all a matter of public record - the "trigger" bomb did not fall on Buck House. The Luftwaffe had problems locating targets at night - counter-espionage fed-back false information to German Intelligence network regarding the actual locations of bombing strikes - with the aim was to keep German bombers away from airfields, docks and factories. Don't underestimate how ruthless Churchill could be, remember it was Göring who said that "if one enemy bomb should fall on Berlin...", and Hitler who said "When the British air force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150, 230, 300 or 400 thousand kilograms - we will raze their cities to the ground". None of this requires external influence or manipulation.
tszirmay wrote:
The Flying saucer phenomenon is directly related to the US getting their hands on German prototype planes such as the Horten Ho 229 (better known today as the F-117 and B-2 bombers) and the presumption of flying machines such as the very real Hannebau and Bell saucers which turned into the failed post-war Avrocar project.
The flying saucer phenomenon started long before that (H G Wells, Orson Wells, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon).
The technology used in the Horten Ho 229 was pre-existing before the outbreak of war, this aircraft was not the direct predecessor to the F-117 or the B-2 (or the SR71 come to that) - Frank Whittle patented the jet engine in 1930, experiments into flying wing technology began in 1910 in Germany, then in the 1930s in the USA and UK. Again with the development of the Avrocar - the lineage of this is well documented and employs pre-existing technology - none of this requires help from ET or is evidence of alien influence in human development.
tszirmay wrote:
These are not coincidences!
No, they are not, but not in the way you are implying. Every human event is preceded by a history of related human events, each new discovery is built upon earlier discoveries - even an egotist like Issac Newton acknowledged this. This is not indicative of a conspiracy, covert or otherwise, it's just how stuff works.
tszirmay wrote:
The entire UFO phenomenon has 3% of reality (like the craft intercepted by Belgians fighters)
Not reality - the Belgian "triangle" is far from being a reality - there is a severe lack of coherence in the eyewitness accounts, confessed hoaxed photographic evidence, the fighter plane observations are consistent with equipment failure and the alleged subsequent scientific investigation is about as unscientific as it gets.
If there was a figure (pulled out of the top of someone's head) like 3% of reality then that would be 100% incontrovertible proof, and that is simply not the case - there is no incontrovertible proof and that 3% is in reality 0%.
Once again unidentified does not mean unexplained (or unexplainable).
tszirmay wrote:
[...]and the balance is orchestrated misinformation intended to deviate public interest from 2 ongoing realities 1-Human governments and aliens have met and have been doing so since Adam and Eve. 2- The military/scientific complex have been working on information and technology that goes beyond our “conventional “knowledge, such as tachyon propulsion and quantum physics and in order to keep the silence, an interplanetary alien conspiracy needs to be primed and fueled , thanks to good old Hollywood magic.
This is pure conjecture and wild guessing, neither of which can be called "ongoing realities" by any definition of the phrase.
tszirmay wrote:
To me, looking at this issue with simplistic black and white lenses is kind of primitive! Fifty years of interest and research have led me to believe that there are various scenarios and multiple options that often intersect, which is why there is no real, direct answer. I daresay this is done on purpose by both sides of the equation, us and our creators. Strange thing though, one has never discovered a truly atheist tribe anywhere on the planet, which can only mean that someone must be watching ………
Joined: April 06 2012
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 07:26
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
These were military and police personnel, not Joe the farmer. I strongly doubt these people would mistake a light house for the extremely complex (with more than one light source) display that they described.
What you are presenting here is an argument from authority - the presumption that the professional credentials of the eyewitnesses renders their testimony infallible and superior to that of someone of a more humble profession. Which is clearly a fallacy - police and military are more than capable of making errors of observation and judgement, they are just as fallible as any other person. If you require evidence of that you need not look too far in the newspapers, on the news channels or on the internet - proof that military and police personnel are capable of making mistakes is easy to find.
People (police, military or even farmers) will make mistakes in observation when what they are seeing is unexpected in the location they find themselves - no one expects to see the light from a lighthouse when they are in a forest, even if they know the forest is only 5 or 6 miles from the sea - how that light is perceived in the disorientating environment of a dense woodland at night can be easily misinterpreted - the complex display could feasibly be nothing more than a trick of the light.
If you fail to consider this explanation as more plausible than an extraterrestrial explanation then you are not doing the search for extraterrestrial life any favours, as I said before - the onus is on the believers to prove their implausible theories, not to disprove any plausible ones. Even if you can prove that it wasn't the lighthouse it does not discount other plausible non-UFO explanations.
Although I agree that my argument has no philosophical validity, it is a question of common sense: these were highly trained people, and their jobs required high levels of preparation in dealing with stressful and adverse situations. Now, this incident wasn't witnessed by just one person, but by dozens of people on two different days. Unless the USAF criteria for the selection of personnel was extremely sloppy and faulted at the time, something real and extraordinary must have happened there.
"Those who are not shocked when they first come across Prog theory cannot possibly have understood it." - Niels Bohr
"If you think you understand Prog, you don't understand Prog." - Richard Feynman
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 07:31
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
These were military and police personnel, not Joe the farmer. I strongly doubt these people would mistake a light house for the extremely complex (with more than one light source) display that they described.
What you are presenting here is an argument from authority - the presumption that the professional credentials of the eyewitnesses renders their testimony infallible and superior to that of someone of a more humble profession. Which is clearly a fallacy - police and military are more than capable of making errors of observation and judgement, they are just as fallible as any other person. If you require evidence of that you need not look too far in the newspapers, on the news channels or on the internet - proof that military and police personnel are capable of making mistakes is easy to find.
People (police, military or even farmers) will make mistakes in observation when what they are seeing is unexpected in the location they find themselves - no one expects to see the light from a lighthouse when they are in a forest, even if they know the forest is only 5 or 6 miles from the sea - how that light is perceived in the disorientating environment of a dense woodland at night can be easily misinterpreted - the complex display could feasibly be nothing more than a trick of the light.
If you fail to consider this explanation as more plausible than an extraterrestrial explanation then you are not doing the search for extraterrestrial life any favours, as I said before - the onus is on the believers to prove their implausible theories, not to disprove any plausible ones. Even if you can prove that it wasn't the lighthouse it does not discount other plausible non-UFO explanations.
Although I agree that my argument has no philosophical validity, it is a question of common sense: these were highly trained people, and their jobs required high levels of preparation in dealing with stressful and adverse situations. Now, this incident wasn't witnessed by just one person, but by dozens of people on two different days. Unless the USAF criteria for the selection of personnel was extremely sloppy and faulted at the time, something real and extraordinary must have happened there.
There is no "must have" at play here. When a logical, rational, plausible explanation exists then it puts any (and every) extraordinary explanation under serious doubt. Ignoring the plausible in favour of the implausible is inexcusible.
Joined: April 06 2012
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Points: 124
Posted: April 23 2013 at 07:44
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
Please show me a video with parachute flares behaving like this.
I assume you mean besides the two you've just shown...
this following video is of a firework that is designed to have specific flight pattern and burn characteristics, this is not the same as the string of military flares (droped from an aircraft) that the Phoenix lights are possibly caused by, but does show that parachute flares don't behave quite as "normal" as you would expect.
If you had seen the display above without knowing it was a firework parachute flare what would you assume it to be?
The only counter-argument that Ufologists have put up is the lack of smoke, but as I have said before - the human eye is terrible at judging speed, size and distance of bright points of light, especially at night - no visible smoke could simply be too far away to see.
Again, why discredit and/or ignore the plausible and the feasible in favour of something of an unproven and implausible extraterrestrial explanation?
The flares in the first video are very different from the Phoenix Lights, and although i agree that smoke and trails can be hard to see, the fact that these ones are moving is very obvious to me. There are no signs of movement in the Phoenix Lights, they appear out of nowhere, one by one, apparently motionless, and disappear exactly the same way. I said before and I'll say it again: show me flares with this modus operandi and I will immediatly admit I was wrong.
PS: By the way, if the lights in the video are flares dropped by an aircraft, where are the aircraft lights? Also, and I'm asking this sincerely because honestly I don't know, are flares supposed to fade before they reach the ground?
Edited by ArturdeLara - April 23 2013 at 07:45
"Those who are not shocked when they first come across Prog theory cannot possibly have understood it." - Niels Bohr
"If you think you understand Prog, you don't understand Prog." - Richard Feynman
Joined: April 06 2012
Location: Faro, Portugal
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Points: 124
Posted: April 23 2013 at 07:53
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
These were military and police personnel, not Joe the farmer. I strongly doubt these people would mistake a light house for the extremely complex (with more than one light source) display that they described.
What you are presenting here is an argument from authority - the presumption that the professional credentials of the eyewitnesses renders their testimony infallible and superior to that of someone of a more humble profession. Which is clearly a fallacy - police and military are more than capable of making errors of observation and judgement, they are just as fallible as any other person. If you require evidence of that you need not look too far in the newspapers, on the news channels or on the internet - proof that military and police personnel are capable of making mistakes is easy to find.
People (police, military or even farmers) will make mistakes in observation when what they are seeing is unexpected in the location they find themselves - no one expects to see the light from a lighthouse when they are in a forest, even if they know the forest is only 5 or 6 miles from the sea - how that light is perceived in the disorientating environment of a dense woodland at night can be easily misinterpreted - the complex display could feasibly be nothing more than a trick of the light.
If you fail to consider this explanation as more plausible than an extraterrestrial explanation then you are not doing the search for extraterrestrial life any favours, as I said before - the onus is on the believers to prove their implausible theories, not to disprove any plausible ones. Even if you can prove that it wasn't the lighthouse it does not discount other plausible non-UFO explanations.
Although I agree that my argument has no philosophical validity, it is a question of common sense: these were highly trained people, and their jobs required high levels of preparation in dealing with stressful and adverse situations. Now, this incident wasn't witnessed by just one person, but by dozens of people on two different days. Unless the USAF criteria for the selection of personnel was extremely sloppy and faulted at the time, something real and extraordinary must have happened there.
There is no "must have" at play here. When a logical, rational, plausible explanation exists then it puts any (and every) extraordinary explanation under serious doubt. Ignoring the plausible in favour of the implausible is inexcusible.
So you're saying that it's plausible that dozens of USAF personnel mistook a lighthouse for such an extremely complex incident, which also included physical contact with one of the objects?
"Those who are not shocked when they first come across Prog theory cannot possibly have understood it." - Niels Bohr
"If you think you understand Prog, you don't understand Prog." - Richard Feynman
Joined: June 22 2004
Location: England
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Points: 16130
Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:01
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
These were military and police personnel, not Joe the farmer. I strongly doubt these people would mistake a light house for the extremely complex (with more than one light source) display that they described.
What you are presenting here is an argument from authority - the presumption that the professional credentials of the eyewitnesses renders their testimony infallible and superior to that of someone of a more humble profession. Which is clearly a fallacy - police and military are more than capable of making errors of observation and judgement, they are just as fallible as any other person. If you require evidence of that you need not look too far in the newspapers, on the news channels or on the internet - proof that military and police personnel are capable of making mistakes is easy to find.
People (police, military or even farmers) will make mistakes in observation when what they are seeing is unexpected in the location they find themselves - no one expects to see the light from a lighthouse when they are in a forest, even if they know the forest is only 5 or 6 miles from the sea - how that light is perceived in the disorientating environment of a dense woodland at night can be easily misinterpreted - the complex display could feasibly be nothing more than a trick of the light.
If you fail to consider this explanation as more plausible than an extraterrestrial explanation then you are not doing the search for extraterrestrial life any favours, as I said before - the onus is on the believers to prove their implausible theories, not to disprove any plausible ones. Even if you can prove that it wasn't the lighthouse it does not discount other plausible non-UFO explanations.
Although I agree that my argument has no philosophical validity, it is a question of common sense: these were highly trained people, and their jobs required high levels of preparation in dealing with stressful and adverse situations. Now, this incident wasn't witnessed by just one person, but by dozens of people on two different days. Unless the USAF criteria for the selection of personnel was extremely sloppy and faulted at the time, something real and extraordinary must have happened there.
There is no "must have" at play here. When a logical, rational, plausible explanation exists then it puts any (and every) extraordinary explanation under serious doubt. Ignoring the plausible in favour of the implausible is inexcusible.
So you're saying that it's plausible that dozens of USAF personnel mistook a lighthouse for such an extremely complex incident, which also included physical contact with one of the objects?
I think the simple explanation is that they didn't....
Joined: April 06 2012
Location: Faro, Portugal
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Points: 124
Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:08
Blacksword wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
These were military and police personnel, not Joe the farmer. I strongly doubt these people would mistake a light house for the extremely complex (with more than one light source) display that they described.
What you are presenting here is an argument from authority - the presumption that the professional credentials of the eyewitnesses renders their testimony infallible and superior to that of someone of a more humble profession. Which is clearly a fallacy - police and military are more than capable of making errors of observation and judgement, they are just as fallible as any other person. If you require evidence of that you need not look too far in the newspapers, on the news channels or on the internet - proof that military and police personnel are capable of making mistakes is easy to find.
People (police, military or even farmers) will make mistakes in observation when what they are seeing is unexpected in the location they find themselves - no one expects to see the light from a lighthouse when they are in a forest, even if they know the forest is only 5 or 6 miles from the sea - how that light is perceived in the disorientating environment of a dense woodland at night can be easily misinterpreted - the complex display could feasibly be nothing more than a trick of the light.
If you fail to consider this explanation as more plausible than an extraterrestrial explanation then you are not doing the search for extraterrestrial life any favours, as I said before - the onus is on the believers to prove their implausible theories, not to disprove any plausible ones. Even if you can prove that it wasn't the lighthouse it does not discount other plausible non-UFO explanations.
Although I agree that my argument has no philosophical validity, it is a question of common sense: these were highly trained people, and their jobs required high levels of preparation in dealing with stressful and adverse situations. Now, this incident wasn't witnessed by just one person, but by dozens of people on two different days. Unless the USAF criteria for the selection of personnel was extremely sloppy and faulted at the time, something real and extraordinary must have happened there.
There is no "must have" at play here. When a logical, rational, plausible explanation exists then it puts any (and every) extraordinary explanation under serious doubt. Ignoring the plausible in favour of the implausible is inexcusible.
So you're saying that it's plausible that dozens of USAF personnel mistook a lighthouse for such an extremely complex incident, which also included physical contact with one of the objects?
I think the simple explanation is that they didn't....
There's always the hoax possibility, but the same can be said about everything
"Those who are not shocked when they first come across Prog theory cannot possibly have understood it." - Niels Bohr
"If you think you understand Prog, you don't understand Prog." - Richard Feynman
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:09
ArturdeLara wrote:
The flares in the first video are very different from the Phoenix Lights, and although i agree that smoke and trails can be hard to see, the fact that these ones are moving is very obvious to me. There are no signs of movement in the Phoenix Lights, they appear out of nowhere, one by one, apparently motionless, and disappear exactly the same way. I said before and I'll say it again: show me flares with this modus operandi and I will immediatly admit I was wrong.
PS: By the way, if the lights in the video are flares dropped by an aircraft, where are the aircraft lights? Also, and I'm asking this sincerely because honestly I don't know, are flares supposed to fade before they reach the ground?
As I have said before movement of lights at night are very difficult to judge - within the Phoenix videos you have no points of reference to determine whether the lights are moving or not, even with the city lights in the background the relative distances involved give no indication of relative speeds or distances - in the first video what you are seeing is a hand-held video camera image taken by someone tracking the lights - it is most likely (in fact very probably) that they are moving but you cannot see that because the photographer is holding the image in the centre of the viewfinder.
You can search YouTube as well as I can to find videos of flares, fireworks, parachute flares and aircraft dropped flares to see if any mimic the "m-o" of the Phoenix lights - it will be impossible to find a precise match but examples (picked the first one that came up in a search) such as this:
Place enough doubt over any extraordinary, extraterestrial, psuedoscientific explanation for them to be so low down on any list of possibile causes for them to be discounted from any rational discussion.
Where are the aircraft lights? Out of frame would be the obvious answer. What would your explanation be?
Are flares supposed to fade before they hit the ground? I hope so, last thing I'd want is for a burning flare to bounce off my head/house/car/children.
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:09
Blacksword wrote:
ArturdeLara wrote:
So you're saying that it's plausible that dozens of USAF personnel mistook a lighthouse for such an extremely complex incident, which also included physical contact with one of the objects?
I think the simple explanation is that they didn't....
Aye - the two people who claim physical contact give conflicting accounts, which is odd and far from convincing.
The apparent complexity of the incident is only in the eyewitness accounts which as I said earlier can be easily explained by the disorienting effect of being in a dense woodland at night.
Joined: February 10 2010
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Points: 5154
Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:14
ArturdeLara wrote:
Nobody answered to my previous question: if you think aliens have been visiting us, do you think they want us to know or they want us not to know?
It seems clear that they do not want us to know, for if they would they would simply show us that they exist uncontroversially.
But if they don't want us to know and they are supposedly so advanced, how come they would be so sloppy as to miss in such terrible ways as flashing weird lights which can be seen, flying around on brightly lit saucers during night and stuff like that? that does not seem a very good strategy at not wanting to be seen
Oh wait, maybe they are blind so they can't tell the difference between our night darkness and their lights
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:17
ArturdeLara wrote:
There's always the hoax possibility, but the same can be said about everything
Hoaxes are common, spooking your mates on the walk back from the pub is not uncommon, the Rendlesham Forest incident has not been immune from claims and admissions of hoaxing. Those that are not hoaxes still have many plausible non-ET explanations that should be given credence long before any extraordinary explanations.
Joined: April 06 2012
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Points: 124
Posted: April 23 2013 at 08:41
Dean wrote:
So, what is your explanation? The makers of these craft have lived amongst us all along? They come from the dark side of the Moon? Under the sea? Beneath the polar ice caps? They materialised out of a pan-dimensional Universe containing a parallel Earth?
3 words: I DON'T KNOW
Dean wrote:
Or perhaps they are just everyday objects (insects, birds, balloons, kites, model aircraft, real aircraft, airships/blimps, ball-lightning, St. Elmo's Fire, will-o'-the-wisp, marsh gas, bolides, contrails, clouds, lighthouses, beacons, radio masts, flares, fireworks, reflections, refractions, aurora, deliberate hoaxes, etc.) being misinterpreted?
Probably most of them, yeah...
Dean wrote:
Please explain how our presence on this planet would be easily detectable - please feel free to be as technical as you like, it's been 30 years since I studied telecommunications at University but I'm sure it will all come back to me.
Some possible ways for an alien civilization to detect us:
Satellite and radio signals sent to space (for a sufficiently close civilization).
Nuclear fission products in a quantity that could possibly be achieved only as the consequence of nuclear fission technologies (nuclear weapons and energy for instance).
The fact that our planet has all the proper conditions for life could draw an alien civilization's attention.
This is an entirely speculative hypothesis but it's funny as hell: an advanced civilization could have perfected it's mind to a point where it could search for other intelligent beings via remote viewing (God i actually can't believe I made this one up, it's genious ).
Dean wrote:
And if you can give a valid explanation of the panspermia hypothesis that would lead to UFO sightings and aledged alien abductions then fire away.
I was talking about direct panspermia, which proposes that Life was deliberately inseminated on Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization.
Dean wrote:
More than some, less than others it would appear.
Are you calling me a geek? I'll take that as a compliment
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 09:11
ArturdeLara wrote:
Some possible ways for an alien civilization to detect us:
Satellite and radio signals sent to space (for a sufficiently close civilization).
Nuclear fission products in a quantity that could possibly be achieved only as the consequence of nuclear fission technologies (nuclear weapons and energy for instance).
The fact that our planet has all the proper conditions for life could draw an alien civilization's attention.
This is an entirely speculative hypothesis but it's funny as hell: an advanced civilization could have perfected it's mind to a point where it could search for other intelligent beings via remote viewing (God i actually can't believe I made this one up, it's genious ).
1. See Dean's earlier post. Our signals are really weak and space is really big. One light year is a REALLY large distance, and any possible civilizations are many, many light years away.
2. Not sure if there's sufficient amounts of these products to be detectable to the type of spectral analysis one would employ to ascertain a planet's atmospheric composition.
3. This is what we do now - but of course, we can only surmise that a planet could support life - we have no way of detecting what kind of life exists, if it exists at all.
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 09:29
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
So, what is your explanation? The makers of these craft have lived amongst us all along? They come from the dark side of the Moon? Under the sea? Beneath the polar ice caps? They materialised out of a pan-dimensional Universe containing a parallel Earth?
3 words: I DON'T KNOW
That is the only valid answer, made even more valid when you don't assume to know that aliens are present on Earth at this time.
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
Or perhaps they are just everyday objects (insects, birds, balloons, kites, model aircraft, real aircraft, airships/blimps, ball-lightning, St. Elmo's Fire, will-o'-the-wisp, marsh gas, bolides, contrails, clouds, lighthouses, beacons, radio masts, flares, fireworks, reflections, refractions, aurora, deliberate hoaxes, etc.) being misinterpreted?
Probably most of them, yeah...
Dean wrote:
Please explain how our presence on this planet would be easily detectable - please feel free to be as technical as you like, it's been 30 years since I studied telecommunications at University but I'm sure it will all come back to me.
Some possible ways for an alien civilization to detect us:
Satellite and radio signals sent to space (for a sufficiently close civilization).
Nuclear fission products in a quantity that could possibly be achieved only as the consequence of nuclear fission technologies (nuclear weapons and energy for instance).
The fact that our planet has all the proper conditions for life could draw an alien civilization's attention.
This is an entirely speculative hypothesis but it's funny as hell: an advanced civilization could have perfected it's mind to a point where it could search for other intelligent beings via remote viewing (God i actually can't believe I made this one up, it's genious ).
None of these overcome any of the problems of intersellar distances.
That we have a technology finger-print that can be detected at close-range (a few million killometres) is a given.
The question was how does a an alien civilisation detect us implying that it is from a greater distance than our local stellar neighbourhood.
When I suggested you be as technical as you like I was expecting some technical feasibility within the realms of what is possible. You need to be a lot more specific than simply "sufficiently close civilization".
Remote viewing is a complete nonsense up there with astrology and palm-reading.I'll not even dignify that with an more considered answer.
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
And if you can give a valid explanation of the panspermia hypothesis that would lead to UFO sightings and aledged alien abductions then fire away.
I was talking about direct panspermia, which proposes that Life was deliberately inseminated on Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization.
Yeah, we call that guessing and hasn't answered the question.
ArturdeLara wrote:
Dean wrote:
More than some, less than others it would appear.
Are you calling me a geek? I'll take that as a compliment
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:27
Dean wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
A good mix of answers..some pro, some con , and some neutral.
I'm curious as to how everyone has come to their own positions. Have you read articles, books, online web sites...or are you forming an opinion based on cultural information via the media?
I recommend these books to get a good overall picture of the enigma:
The UFO Experience by Dr J Allen Hynek
Dimensions by Dr J Vallee
UFO's And The National Security State by R Dolan.
Abduction:Human Encounters with Aliens-Dr John Mack
While there are many books on ufos and the later abduction 'syndrome' , I found these to be thorough, well written, and fair minded.
As to a few comments above about alien motivations....imo it's impossible to say why a truly alien species would want to visit earth or what their agenda might be. One can certainly speculate and the ufo arena is full of that.But if we had the technology I have no doubt we would be buzzing around the galaxy checking out the other residents also.
Regarding the tech itself, again it's impossible to say for certain how advanced such beings could be. They could easily be 100,000 years or more ahead of us (or even a million years) and have discovered laws of physics new to us or learned how to bend them.
I don't necessarily accept the ETH (though I have no doubt there are sentient races out there.)....but imo 'something' is interacting with mankind and has for a very long time. For me the question is what does it truly represent?
Can I ask you, do you want to believe?
The glib answer is No One Knows - but when there is a plausible answer within what is possible and an implausible one requiring what is impossible then the onus is on the non-sceptic to demonstrate that the implausible is plausible and the impossible is possible for it to be more feasible than the plausible answer.
No one has seriously commented on "alien" motivation - all the comments on that topic have been derisive, flippant and dismissive.
And... "Laws of physics new to us" won't change how stuff works, that's simply a poor understanding of how physics works.
I'd like to believe that people are open minded enough to consider possibilities but obviously many are not.
Currently you are right in no one knows for certain what the ufo phenom represents. Aliens, unknown beings, a mental aberration in humans or something else.
I would like to see some serious comments on 'alien' motivation and the ufo phenom in general rather than just glib remarks of disbelief or belief.
And your comment about physics imo is simply a lack of understanding on your part. We discover new processes and techniques every day in case you haven't noticed.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:29
Gerinski wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
I'm curious as to how everyone has come to their own positions. Have you read articles, books, online web sites...or are you forming an opinion based on cultural information via the media?
I recommend these books to get a good overall picture of the enigma:
There are plenty of books and sites about irrational subjects, astrology, the new testament, life spontaneous generation, levitation, telekinesis, devil possession or whatever. The existence of books on a subject proves nothing.
Why do you consider life on other planets and the possibility they have come here to be irrational.?
....to me that sounds a bit irrational.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
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Posted: April 23 2013 at 10:39
dr wu23 wrote:
I'd like to believe that people are open minded enough to consider possibilities but obviously many are not.
That's not answered my question - do you want to believe?
dr wu23 wrote:
Currently you are right in no one knows for certain what the ufo phenom represents. Aliens, unknown beings, a mental aberration in humans or something else.
I would like to see some serious comments on 'alien' motivation and the ufo phenom in general rather than just glib remarks of disbelief or belief.
If we (okay I) am of the conviction that none of the evidence presented thus far gives any indication that aliens exist or that they are present amid us then the question of their motivation is simply not valid. This would be like giving an opinion on the motivation of the Tooth Fairy.
dr wu23 wrote:
And your comment about physics imo is simply a lack of understanding on your part. We discover new processes and techniques every day in case you haven't noticed.
I suggest you carefully explain to me in very simple terms what this lack of understanding on my part constitutes then.
The laws of physics explain how things do work based upon all the known data, coming up with new laws of physics will not affect how things work. Gravity is still the same gravity of Aristotle, Newton and Einstien even though each of them had a new take on what the law of gravity actualy was - changing the laws of physics concerning gravity did not change how gravity acts - trip over and you will still fall to the ground. New processes and techniques of how to do things do not affect the existing laws of physics that explain how things work, how things worked in the past and how they will work in the future.
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The UFO Phenomenon
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ArturdeLara wrote:
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The British government purchased a commercially available Enigma machine in 1927, the Polish Cypher Bureau made several breakthroughs in decoding the German military version of the Enigma machine in 1932, this information they shared freely with the British and French governments just prior to the outbreak of war, including the duplicate machines they had created. Again human ingenuity does not require external influence.
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