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How many guys or gals here think that Aliens actually visit us in UFOs? They may not exist at all, but there sure are a lot of people having the same hallucinations.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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pimple
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 375
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Greetings
Have you ever seen something that you can't explain?
5000 years ago people said it was god.
500 years ago people said it was whitches.
For the last 50 years it has been UFOs
Regards
Simon
Joy Peace and Tranquility
Joyceility
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Hi Brian,
>there sure are a lot of people having the same hallucinations.
Hah, no.
There is a much simpler and easier explanation -- sleep paralysis. It's when you are semi-conscious, but you can't move a muscle. If it's the same phenomenon, then of course the "hallucinations" will seem the same for those people who are affected by it.
UFO doesn't necessarily mean "alien". There are lots of unidentified flying objects that turn out to be birds or aeroplanes or clouds or balloons. 'Course, once you know what they are they're not UFOs any more. So, by definition, UFOs could be of alien origin. There's no other evidence to suggest they are, though.
That's not to say I don't think that there is no possibility (though I do think it is a very, very, very small one) of us seeing evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life, but I do think that the whole abduction-implant-return mechanism is an incredibly bizarre and convoluted mechanism. It's also a rather American and stupid-person thing, I think -- of course, I suppose, it's possible that the aliens only take stupid people because they know no-one will believe them. 
David
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David, I take it you must mean a North and South American and stupid-person thing. I know you wouldn't pick on the old U.S.A. Canada and a lot of South American nations have had interesting experiences too. I have never seen anything or heard of proof of anything alien having arrived, but I too am open to the possibility. They better come soon, I'm not waiting.
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Deej
I agree 100% right up to your last sentence!
But I had too many friends at Uni who were UFO-watchers, and have spent too many nights (as a sceptic) freezing my ass off on Star Hill outside Warminster, Glastonbury Tor, Arthurs Seat, Shotover Hill in Oxford, assorted bits of the Ridgeway (and more other places than I can remember) to agree that it's "a rather American and stupid-person thing .
Actually, I support the "sleep-paralysis" theory for 99% plus of 3rd-kind encounters. The same explanation fits the classic Incubi and Succubi of medieval religion that fascinated me as an adolescent ... except all the accounts I came across were heterosexual!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... well, you know the rest; I've used the quote before.
I don't know - and, whatever they may say, neither does anyone else!
I'm not much of a Sci-Fi fan; the only authors I've really enjoyed were C S Lewis and John Wyndham, both of whom I read enthusiastically in my teens.
I agree with Deeej that most, if not all, UFOs might well be terrestrial rather than extra-terrestrial. I do however believe that there have been a number of FOs which are still U! To me, the most convincing sightings are those by pilots, especially those in combat aircraft; their life expectancy depends upon rapid reaction and sleep paralysis would hardly apply in that situation!
Of one thing we may be sure - government intelligence will, if at all possible, be withheld from us, even if this involves categoric lies.
As I said above, I don't know - but it seems to me to be arrogant in the extreme to assume that if there IS intelligent life elsewhere, its scientific development cannot be aeons ahead of ours.
And I'm perfectly happy living next door to a smallish guy with a greenish complexion, 'cos he keeps inviting me in for a glass or six of malt whisky!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Im not saying that I believe they are all alien visitors and I have my doubts about abductions. Im well aware of sleep paralisis. There was an incident in Mexico where everybody was seeing them. Police, military, man on the street, etc. etc.. If even one percent are actually real, thats still a lot. I know Newton said that with enough gravity you could bend space. So warp speed could be real. I saw a show were a bunch of reports from Russian pilots were released. the Mig pilots were actually having dog fights with these things. All of these pilots werent suffering from oxygen starvation.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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In the USA an anal probe is de rigeur when you are abducted by aliens, of course.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Brian said,
>If even one percent are actually real, thats still a lot
If everyone is seeing them then the chances are that those people are all seeing the same thing, or a related phenomenon. Or they are all disposed to fabricate for some reason, perhaps because of all the media attention. Just because there are a lot it doesn't mean the probability of a sighting being real goes up -- in fact, if anything it would go down because of all the people "cashing in". If there really were aliens visiting us, I would put the probability of a sighting being a real one in the billions or even trillions to one against -- not absolutely impossible, but nothing like 1 in 100.
>I know Newton said that with enough gravity you could bend space.
He most certainly did not! Perhaps you mean Einstein?
>Warp speed could be real
There is still the speed of light problem. There's no problem going up to (close to) that speed, provided you have enough energy to do it -- but then you get to an absolute barrier. The only question is whether you could somehow circumvent that and "warp" through another dimension. Probably not, but it does give you a possible loophole to exploit for science fiction purposes, etc.
>I saw a show were a bunch of reports from Russian pilots were released. the Mig pilots were actually having dog fights with these things. All of these pilots werent suffering from oxygen starvation.
I'm afraid that television programmes on UFOs and related phenomena are made for the sole purpose of entertaining their audiences. They often repeat apocryphal stories/urban legends as something close to the truth for the purposes of titillation. Just because they interview someone who says it happened in a certain way does not mean it did. If there were "real" proof we would have seen it. I can't believe that there would be a global conspiracy involving all governments, all news agencies, all reputable scientists, all commerical operations (airlines etc.) and so on.
David
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my bad! I did mean Einstein. The sightings in Mexico were not one but a bunch scattered over several days. This was a news program and I dont believe they paid all those people for the interviews, but anyting is possible. the Russian thing were reports filed by Mig pilots for the KGB. These reports were reliesed (not positive about the date) sometime in 2003. these were not interviews. IM sure the program was skewed to take the producers point of view. Im not saying these things are real, just that its odd. Einstein said with enough gravity you could bend space so the distance between one object and another become almost nil. Im well aware that reaching the speed of light would require an infinate amount of energy.
What I wonder about is why beings so much more advanced would be interested in a primitive society like ours, or be so shy that they just dont pop down and say hi, you guys got a long way to go, bye.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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WARNING - THIS POST COULD BE INJURIOUS TO THE MENTAL HEALTH OF PEDANTS!
At the limits of current human knowledge and comprehension, do we make too many assumptions?
Our sun is a relatively young star. The universe is vast and we know that there are other planetary systems. The building bricks for life are out there, and we really have no means of knowing what the odds are that other life-forms could have evolved. If that HAS happened, the period of planetary evolution could be millions of years ahead of Earth.
Consider the development of science and technology over the last thousand years, and over the last hundred years. The rate of progress is clearly accelerating. Do we expect that to continue? We know vastly more about the universe than we did even fifty years ago, and many recent discoveries have required the re-thinking of earlier theories. How much more will we know a hundred years hence? A thousand years? A million years?
Over such a time span, the human animal will evolve further. The boundaries of knowledge will expand immeasurably. Who knows what discoveries lie ahead? Why should scientific development be limited by what we can envisage today?
All I am saying is that we do not know what the long-term future may bring - we simply haven't a clue. But let us suppose that we do one day discover a means of exceeding the limitations of our present understanding, so that inter-stellar, and ultimately inter-galactic travel becomes a possibility. What would be a top priority in exploiting the new-found technology? Yup, we'd be buzzing around looking for evidence of life elsewhere!
Logically, therefore, our little planet could well be on the tourist route for members of a more advanced civilisation!
I'm not saying that I believe in UFOs, but I'm certainly not saying that I don't. It's relatively easy to come up with a hypothetical set of circumstances which could explain pretty well any UFO sighting, but frankly some of these explanations have a probability factor no greater than the probability that the sighting is genuine.
'Don't know' seems to be the right answer in this situation - and in response to Deeej, being grievous cynical in such matters, I DO think that it is highly likely that governments would conceal and deny any evidence they discovered, because the potential value of the extra-terrestrial technology would be immense.
Or does anyone think differently?
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Sonny,
Well, the fact remains that Americans get more exposure, through the media, than the rest of the world (film, television programmes, etc.) -- and that is where most of our depictions of "little green men", "alien abduction" and so on come from. (Not all of them, but still most, at least in recent years.)
Note that I'm not saying that Americans are stupid -- all countries have stupid people -- but simply that stupid Americans who claim to have seen aliens are likely to get a greater voice than stupid or deluded people in other countries.
David
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Hi Cossie,
Okay, what you say may well be true, but by saying that there could be aliens visiting us it sounds as if you're accepting there is a real possibility.
The probability, if there is something going on, that it could be kept completely and utterly hidden, that the aliens would be so skilled that they have never been satisfactorily photographed or tracked until there is no doubt as to what they are (I know UFOs are tracked, but it's a far cry from saying that all UFOs are aliens), that other life forms (if they existed) would have a preoccupation with visiting our planet, hiding away and not trying to make contact -- well, it's impossible to quantify. But one thing for certain is that it would be unbelievably unlikely. We still have the speed of light barrier, and faster-than-light travel may well turn out to be impossible. (You'd need impossible quantities of energy or mass to generate enough gravity to bend space, Brian.) In that case, the chances are we could only get visitors from the nearest few light years -- and the chances of there being intelligent life on our nearest neighbours are, again, impossible to quantify, but most likely nil.
I don't deny the possibility, but I would put the probability at damn near zero.
>frankly some of these explanations have a probability factor no greater than the probability that the sighting is genuine.
Come now -- how can you possibly know what the probability of aliens coming here is? And how many times have you known humans to make mistakes? The probability of the latter is easy to quantify -- it happens every day, and has been measured by psychologists. Imagination, maybe even deliberate mis-remembering, all that.
David
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To clarify the response to your line:
>frankly some of these explanations have a probability factor no greater than the probability that the sighting is genuine.
Some of the explanations are indeed preposterous. But, on the other hand, some are very good in almost all circumstances (imagination, private pilots/balloonists, clouds, sleep paralysis etc.), and even if they are very unlikely (a million to one to happen to a person in those circumstances) it would be a very severe error of logic to take that as evidence that it didn't happen. After all, people win the lottery all the time, even though it's very unlikely that one particular individual will get all the numbers right.
Instead you need to compare it to the probability (which is admittedly hard, if not impossible, to come up with in the absence of real evidence) not only that there is intelligent life out there but that it is buzzing us and even playing games with us (hiding or preventing any possible evidence, not establishing contact, except with crackpots no-one will believe) -- which I would say could be anything from trillions to 1 against to virtually infinity to 1 against. (If you put the probability at less than that I expect some reasoning why!). A million to one versus a trillion to one? I know which one I would bet on.
David
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cossie wrote:
> (snip) being grievous cynical in such matters, I DO think that it is highly likely that governments would conceal and deny any evidence they discovered, because the potential value of the extra-terrestrial technology would be immense.
>
cossie,
as I'm sure you know, I am not lacking in cynicism myself - but I honestly don't think our governments have the competence to maintain a longterm (decades) cover-up of any ongoing programme of research based on aquired alien technology.
As you say, we *don't* know. Myself, I think that there's an excellent chance that life of some kind exists on other planets. I think there is a small chance that the habit of over-exploiting the environment until it is incapable of sustaining life is a uniquely human perversion, so other lifeforms *might* be able to develope a sustainable society which incorporated advanced technology. I think there is a smaller chance that some kind of FTL / "warp" travel is possible. So I don't altogether rule out the possibility of alien visitors.
But I think it likely that an advanced society with interstellar capability who chose not to directly contact human "civilisation" in general would be able to avoid detection: I certainly don't think they would allow themselves & their vehicles to be seen and remembered with the kind of frequency that's reported!
I'm not saying that none of the cases of UFOs are due to ET visits. But I think the burden of proof is firmly on those who claim that any particular incident or sighting is of ET origin, rather than those who ascribe a terrestrial origin.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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jhawk
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Getting started |
Location: England
Registered: June 2006
Messages: 8
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let us get back to basics.
years back people thought that they should worship gods,totam poles with faces of the people they thought would look after them,
this has gone on since the beginning of man time.
some people think that jesus was a space man from another planet.
well to sum it up the whole world is full of different religeons etc,
so it does nor suprise me that people think that we are visited by alliens.
i would like to say why on earth do they think that they would look human,
do they know about let us say bacteria, and i agree with timmy they always have to examine their prey by rectal examination.??? 
what goes up must come down ?
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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No, I don't really believe in alien visitations, though neither I nor anyone else can deny that they are a theoretical possibility, however remote that possibility may be.
I just wanted (tongue in cheek!) to make the point that it isn't logical to attempt to determine the question by applying the limitations of our current scientific and technical knowledge.
I'd argue that it's meaningless to put forward any sort of odds for (or against) there being life elsewhere in the universe. We simply don't have sufficient data upon which to begin to assess the probability.
And if there IS life, there is no reason to expect it to resemble any life-form which exists (or has ever existed) on Earth. For that matter, though our current state of knowledge does not envisage life which is not carbon-based, I'm not sure that even this limitation is logically valid.
We simply don't know!!!!
In deference to NW's comment, I do accept that it would be difficult for a government to actually apply 'alien technology' without it becoming known. What I meant (and this is no more than a political comment!) is that if there WERE convincing evidence of UFOs, governments - and their respective military establishments - would be unlikely to pool or publicise their knowledge unless there was a real threat to the entire planet. The Pentagon and its equivalent establishments elsewhere cannot be said to have any history of transparency!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I think the whole UFO business is a myth created by the FBI's "Anal Probe Unit" (or APU) in order to cover their tracks after probing a good citizen.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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I always thought it was a Brittish plot.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I admit it is a generalisation, but as such we as a nation have never had any desire to probe some of the simpler minded US citizens anally. I believe the APU performs this function under some sort of hypnosis. You can se the results in the eyes, somewhere, of your current glorious leader. The real question I have is "Who has the remote?"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Thats the thing.... I think it began as a Brittish plot but when they tried to probe their own citizens it was discovered that for the most part they were so tight assed that all they could do was tickle around the rim......
What remote???????
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Havent you guys figured it out yet? Small guys, green, strange eyes. Ita a Chinese plot. There trying to get us to blame each other while they sit back and laugh.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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No matter what the scenerio.... the chinese always sit back and laugh.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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I think we finally found some common ground where I tend to agree with you about 100% David. I have read a lot of stuff about the ufo thing including the books by VanDaniken who had a lot of things that seemed to show alians had been here. Well I would think it would be easy enough to prove or disprove the stuff he talked about in his books, but so far I have heard nothing.
We in the US have the incident at Roswell, New Mexico of course and I am not sure what really did happen at that time. It is too bad that secrecy had to envelop that before all the real truth could be known. Of course there would still be those who would think that hundreds if not thousands of people could agree to the same story and keep that secret all these years. It is highly unlikely given human nature being what it is.
There is always this idea that since a lot of people have supposedly seen ufo's etc that it must be true because all those people couldn't be wrong. Oh yes, they sure could be wrong! I must appeal to the same arguement you used against me for denying that God must exist. I think there is far less reason to believe ufo's are around than for me to believe in God.
Ken
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