Alien civilisations - less likely?

[Starbeast]

Secret Aircraft?

I think this all depends on what you would call authentic.

When I was in U.S. Army basic training at Fort Ord in the 1960s, I and my entire training platoon observed a UFO. It was at night and we were going through what was called an "infiltration course". We had to maintain absolute silence. So when the glowing object that traversed the entire horizon from west to east was sighted by us, it was difficult to maintain discipline. But we all saw it. The next day we snuck down to nab a newspaper and saw that it had been chalked up to a "missile from Vandenburg". Last time I checked, missiles didn't hug the horizon for three or four minutes from one side to the other like this one did. But you see my point: all the discussion and a couple of dollars may get you a cup of coffee, but that's all.

I only use the word authentic when an object is described by hundreds of witnesses seeing the same thing, this one happened in the early part of the afternoon. But, like you said, they could have been mistaken.

However, one of the best incidents I remember was back in the 1980's, I was at work when I suddenly heard the DJ pop on the radio saying he was getting all these weird phone calls about something going on at Lake Michigan. He said the phone callers were talking about giant cylinders hovering above the water, flying saucers of different colors zipping through the sky and many millitary helicopters at the scene.

My jaw dropped and I almost left work to check it out since I was only 15 minutes away from Lake Michigan and it was roughly about two in the afternoon. I stopped and thought: "Bah! That's just crazy talk. I'm not falling for some prank people are playing on the DJ." So I changed the radio staion and went back to work. The next day I checked the newspaper and it only mentioned a huge millitary exercise happening by Lake Michigan that scared a bunch of people, so I didn't think anything more about it.

A few years later I met a friend of a friend, we chatted about our interests, then we began talking about UFOs, I mentioned the radio DJ who got a lot of weird calls about UFOs at Lake Michigan and said I almost left my job to check it out.

He said to me: "I heard talk about that on the radio too. I had the day off and I went to see for myself....and I saw helicopters flying over the lake, there were these big long metallic looking things hovering above the water. But what scared my friends and me was this big bright green lighted disk that flew over my convertible (his car). It came from behind us and it was so low that we all ducked as it passed over us. My mind went into overdrive and I hit the gas pedal and raced to lake's shore, but when we got there all these army guys told us to get the hell out of here."

I froze in astonishment staring him, then I asked him about more details, he told me everything exactly as it happened. He told me it inspired him to make a t-shirt design, and the very next day he showed me the t-shirt he airbrushed, it had helicopters, the cylinders over the water and the green disk that buzzed him and his friends in the car.

I wish I had seen what he saw, I'm still amazed by the fact that that incident was kept quiet. I began to wonder about other incredible incidents that are hushed up around the world.

Is it all secret aircraft?

 

[RJM Corbet]

So many observations, thousands and thousands and thousands -- and even if 99.99% are wrong, just ONE has to be true, yet mention the subject gives everyone the right to treat you like what Riff calls a nutbar, even if you're a highly trained pilot, or even an astronaut -- or even if your name's Buzz Aldrin ...

 

[J Riff]

Then there's Phoenix, was it 2007? A ship far too big to believe coasted over the city, escorted by five spheres.
What's wrong with the sighting is the lack of photos. There is footage of the 5 balls, but none of the giant craft. Therefore... somebody is holding on to this evidence until the proper moment, which may be nearing. Wahoo.
A tourist ship, the first of many to come? Will they they have shiny beads and magic beans? Do we really have to wait until 2012? What's wrong with, say, next Thursday?

 

[Anthony G Williams]

While the vast majority of "UFO reports" have been found, on examination, to have simple and mundane explanations, a very small number have not (so far) been so explained.

So there are some genuine UFOs - but note that UFO simply means "Unidentified Flying Object". It does not mean alien spacecraft! It means "we don't know what the hell that was so we'll park it as 'unknown' until an explanation comes along."

The automatic association of UFOs with aliens which some people make is pure fantasy, with no credible evidence to support it.

 

[RJM Corbet]

While the vast majority of "UFO reports" have been found, on examination, to have simple and mundane explanations, a very small number have not (so far) been so explained.

So there are some genuine UFOs - but note that UFO simply means "Unidentified Flying Object". It does not mean alien spacecraft! It means "we don't know what the hell that was so we'll park it as 'unknown' until an explanation comes along."

The automatic association of UFOs with aliens which some people make is pure fantasy, with no credible evidence to support it.

Yes, and anyone deciding to have a serious look at UFO 'sightings' is bound to become acutely aware of all that at an early stage -- especially the simple point that 'unidentified' doesn't mean 'extra-terrestrial'.

Credible and serious people have devoted serious time and research to the subject, and there are MANY extremely credible reports by extremely credible observers mixed in with the vast majority of hoaxes and nutbar stuff ...

 

[J Riff]

Authentic. All the authentic people have stepped up already. What does this tell you?
The people with the real story are not regular Govt. people at all.
I can sit here and tell you I've been up, seen them, talked to them, and I can tell you that for ten years straight, and would have been, except there's no point without Govt. backup.
However, if the true story is put up here, and the military types back it up... what then? Because that's where it sits at this moment.
People DO know. Convincing anyone is not even part of it, it's been holding it back so the shock isn't so great.
And, no normally-trained Govt/Military type could deal with such a mission anyway - one-on-one dealings with aliens, it's far too weird, and you need an artistic, highly-imaginative, compartmentalized person who can forget the whole thing for about thirty years, because that's about how long it will take to condition people to it.
All the disclosure people are strictly observational and above board, the hands-on, invisible people are all that's left, and as I said, everyone is now supposedly 'off the hook' and allowed to talk... which seems to indicate that they expect the whole issue to be redundant soon, due to an unmistakable appearance by Aliens.
What will the aliens do? Maybe they track this board, of course they do.... hey guys! How about a ring around the moon?
What would you like to see the aliens do when they show up, to prove they exist oncet and for all?
According to rumors, the next big tourist ship won't be here until February, and I'm getting impatient.

 

[RJM Corbet]

President Carter was (allegedly) refused access to documents by George Bush senior, then director of the CIA -- and so was President Clinton (allegedly) denied access to documents by the CIA. US nuclear warheads were (allegedly) based on British soil without the knowledge of the British people.

So who really runs the show?

That's the question, isn't it?

Big oil? Those nice guys?

UFO witnesses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyVe-6YdUk&feature=player_detailpage
(Two hours -- poor sound quality)

 

[Anthony G Williams]

President Carter was (allegedly) refused access to documents by George Bush senior, then director of the CIA -- and so was President Clinton (allegedly) denied access to documents by the CIA. US nuclear warheads were (allegedly) based on British soil without the knowledge of the British people.

Credit is due for putting in the "allegedly" qualifier - but almost anything can be and has been alleged by someone at some time, so why bother mentioning them? Wait until there is evidence...

 

[RJM Corbet]

Credit is due for putting in the "allegedly" qualifier - but almost anything can be and has been alleged by someone at some time, so why bother mentioning them? Wait until there is evidence...

It's in that video link in my previous post ...

 

[J Riff]

Rather than wait for further 50-year old evidence, I tossed off an eMail to the Barackster himself, and he responded politely with some doubletalk about waste spending or some such, avoiding the issue smoothly. I wonder if he's even able to so much as twitch when it comes to UFOs or Mars, or any of it. No idea.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

It's in that video link in my previous post ...

Wait until there is solid, independently verified, evidence...

 

[J Riff]

Hee hee. As if evidence or proof to civilians means anything at all.
Reverse field a moment, and concede that it's not real, any of it. It's faked. Thousands in on it. Pilots, crypto-clearance people, everyone back to biblical times. A real nifty scam.
All faked or hallucinated or nutbar. If you consider that a while, you'll see it's a worse problem than the real thing. It would qualify, in fact, as a full-blown racial mental illness.
It's one or the other. I choose to believe in the giant spider, rather than a planet of nutbars.

 

[Varangian]

Pre-existing alien life has already been found on Mars...just not intelligent life (fossilised bacteria for instance).

Something that is quite interesting is that one of Mars' moons (Phobos from memory) has given serious grief to NASA. Each time a satellite comes within close proximity of the moon, the satellite malfunctions and NASA loses comms with it. *Que X-files music*.

As far as intelligent non-earth entities are concerned, if they are very advanced, would they want to come and watch a bunch of monkeys bash each other over the head? And what's more, would they really want to be discovered by said monkeys?

 

[Vertigo]

Pre-existing alien life has already been found on Mars...just not intelligent life (fossilised bacteria for instance).

Something that is quite interesting is that one of Mars' moons (Phobos from memory) has given serious grief to NASA. Each time a satellite comes within close proximity of the moon, the satellite malfunctions and NASA loses comms with it. *Que X-files music*.

As far as intelligent non-earth entities are concerned, if they are very advanced, would they want to come and watch a bunch of monkeys bash each other over the head? And what's more, would they really want to be discovered by said monkeys?

The idea that fossilised bacteria have been found on Mars is as yet inconclusive. A couple of scientist revisited some old data and claimed they had found something. But I believe it is generally held that the evidence was way too thin to make any conclusions.

As far as I'm aware there has only been one incident associated with Phobos which was the Russian Phobos 2 probe. Communication was lost with this probe close to Phobos and it was determined to be an on board computer failure. There was some speculation about a couple of the last images sent but these oddities have been put down to a being the shadow of Phobos on the surface of Mars.

On your last point I agree absolutely

 

[TheTomG]

I've always been intrigued by a civilisation so advanced they can travel vast distances between stars at speed that must allow that in a reasonable timeframe, sustaining life all the while, only to have the brakes fail when they get here and crash.

Unlucky!

 

[Vertigo]

You should read Poul Anderson's Tau Zero TTG, that's essentially what happens to them except instead of crashing they keep on accelerating... for ever!

 

[bobbo19]

to tell people the honest truth, We still just know absolutely **** all about the Universe. Wait for the civilisation to mature a few thousand years then we will have a better idea.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Its always occurred to me, as was mentioned at the start, that there may be only a very limited timeperiod in which alien civilizations would be observable to us. The Earth after all is something over four billion years old, mankind's had radio etc for a bit over a century - a relative split second. Now I'm not saying that we're finished and that all civilizations follow the same route to self destruction. But surely at some stage even if we don't wipe ourselves out, our technology will advance to a point where it won't be recognisable by our current technology. So maybe they are out there and we simply can't recognise them.

As for them coming here - why? What have we got that would rate more then maybe a scientific curiosity mission? And if they did come here, that speaks volumes about their tech. It'd be so far advanced over ours that we'd surely barely even recognise it. And in any case surely they could crack invisibility if they can transverse interstellar distances - we'd never know they were here.

Cheers.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Hi,

Its always occurred to me, as was mentioned at the start, that there may be only a very limited timeperiod in which alien civilizations would be observable to us. The Earth after all is something over four billion years old, mankind's had radio etc for a bit over a century - a relative split second. Now I'm not saying that we're finished and that all civilizations follow the same route to self destruction. But surely at some stage even if we don't wipe ourselves out, our technology will advance to a point where it won't be recognisable by our current technology. So maybe they are out there and we simply can't recognise them.

As for them coming here - why? What have we got that would rate more then maybe a scientific curiosity mission? And if they did come here, that speaks volumes about their tech. It'd be so far advanced over ours that we'd surely barely even recognise it. And in any case surely they could crack invisibility if they can transverse interstellar distances - we'd never know they were here.

Can't argue with any of that.

Researchers are already working towards invisibility (although currently on a very small scale and at limited frequencies) so we'll certainly get a "cloaking shield" impervious to visible or invisible radiation long before we have any practical means for manned interstellar travel (if indeed we ever do).

 

[TL Rese]

i think the likelihood of a technological species evolving is very small. so many elements have to be present. just look at our own planet - home to countless species over the years, yet we're the only ones who have gone into space.

however, leading astronomers aren't spending millions to find extraterrestrials because they think there's no hope. the universe is a Huge place, and we've only just started exploring it. who knows what we'll find in the next couple of centuries?

btw, there Is profit to be had in outer space. we're fast using up our own earth's resources - we could always use more minerals, water, etc. not to mention that our ever-expanding population needs more places to live. land is something that our species has always needed and been hungry for, so it's only a matter of time before we acquire land on other planets. and w/ our expansion into outer space, there will likely come an increased knowledge of space travel, the universe in general, and of life on other planets.