Pain Paien

Originally posted by Calzaer:


No, you've got it all crooked and bendy-like.

It's easier to believe that SOME of the UFO sightings are due to magnetic fields, with the rest due to conventional aircraft (satellites, planes, weather baloons, etc.), heavenly bodies, other natural phenomena, and outright hoaxes.

All this is MUCH more credible than the belief that there are beings that are more technologically advanced visiting earth (not just anywhere in the universe, but here, on earth: BIG difference there). To accept this, you also have to accept that these aliens are able to travel light-years, yet are so unbelieveably incompetent (or outright stupid) as to be unable to avoid accidental sightings.

What could their motivation possibly be? If they wanted to contact us, why not just do it? If they wanted to study us, but didn't want us to see them, why should we be able? If they wanted to study us, but didn't care if we saw them, why are the sightings so brief and so rare (and so poorly documented)? None of this makes any logical sense.

If you believe in UFO abductions, as well as genuine sightings (and since both have about the same amount of evidence for them, I don't see why not), then this is an even bigger obstacle to logic, and I'll attempt to address it.

B. H. Manners

If the Roswell "crash" was anything more than a balloon, I bet it was a rocket that was launched out to space and something went wrong, making it crash.

We are told the space race started when the first satellite was launched by the Soviets in '57, but both we and them had been sending rockets out into space a good while before then. I saw a picture of Earth once that was taken from space in 1947. This has been common knowledge for some time too. A rocket would be sent up with certain instruments and cameras on it and would fall back to Earth after transmitting whatever data it had.

Radcliffe Emerson

I have no doubt there is life on other planets. I do not believe at all that any of them are, or ever have visited earth.
It would take so so long for a spacecraft to get here from any other inhabitable world that I find it extremely unlikely other beings have come here, or would even want to.

Arken

No one claimed that Sputnik was the first human-crafted object to go into space. It was the first human-crafted object to go into orbit (as far as I know) and it did start the Space Race in that before Sputnik I, space research was about research and afterwards, it was about beating the other superpower.

ElectEngr

As far as being visited by other beings...Think "Prime Directive" of non-interference....

And as for those "black helicopters"...They were ment for a military coup-de-ta in April/May 1981 if President Carter was re-elected....the military thought Carter was too much of a pacifist to be allowed to

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Marduk

“I have no doubt there is life on other planets. I do not believe at all that any of them are, or ever have visited earth.
"It would take so so long for a spacecraft to get here from any other inhabitable world that I find it extremely unlikely other beings have come here, or would even want to.”

You are probably right, but I can think of a few reasons they might:

Simple curiosity, they have a network of telescopes that can detect small planets orbiting potentially life creating stars (like NASA is trying to build) if they had a 10,000 year lead on us technology wise they could have arrived here long ago to study ‘primitive cultures’.
Or as I said before half jokingly, they could stop for water or food, the next water bearing planet could be hundreds of light years away.
On a more threatening note, they could be scouting out a new planet to move to, maybe their sun went nova and they are looking for a new home.
Or maybe Earth really is their ‘lab’.

Pain Paien

I suppose all of this is, technically, possible, but it runs countrary to any logical examination of the issue.

As I said before, if an alien race really is attempting to observe/conquer this planet, why should we be able to observe them at all, if they didn't want it (if they have the technology to transverse light-years, they can hardly lack even simple camoflaging technology)? On the other hand, if they weren't concerned one way or the other if we could see their craft, then why are UFO observations so fleeting (and never in high population areas, where the most data could be gathered)?

All UFO phenomena are much much more consistant with a series of random, natural and man-made events than with any sort of organized extra-terrestrial agenda.

Marduk

“As I said before, if an alien race really is attempting to observe/conquer this planet, why should we be able to observe them at all, if they didn't want it (if they have the technology to transverse light-years, they can hardly lack even simple camoflaging technology)? On the other hand, if they weren't concerned one way or the other if we could see their craft, then why are UFO observations so fleeting (and never in high population areas, where the most data could be gathered)?”

OK, but not to drag this on too long, In the non-menacing scenario they might not want to cause trouble (or get shot at) just observe and collect samples. So they keep a low profile, however there have been mass sightings over large cities: (Mexico City 1999, Phoenix AZ 1997, Brussels Belgium 1991) and their technology may not be all powerful either, no cloaking devices/sub light speed etc. Those who claim to know say they come from Zeta Reticuli A & B a binary system 40 LY away, I think.
The same could be said for the threatening scenario, scout ships keep a low profile till the main fleet arrives.
I love this stuff! I saw a show once on UFO’s in Israel, the aliens are not small & gray they are white, bald and 9 feet tall, the sightings are never brief either, a single UFO will hover in one area till a crowd arrives, then put on a little show before zipping away.

Asha'man

I watched the Sci-Fi channel show the other day, and was struck by two impressions:

1. The government policy of secrecy sometimes has the opposite effect from what is intended: people become more interested when they think they are being kept away from something interesting.

2. The aliens, if they exist, sure are inept. Having mastered the technology to cross interstellar distances and to observe humans without notice, that technology seems to fail an awful lot. Their stealth systems leave much to be desired, and the are obviously neglecting basic maintenance on thier ships, given the number of crashes, forced landings, and other apparent mistakes on their part.

scombrid

Two big harms.

1. Waste of money
2. Validates the veiwpoint of the kooks and cranks.

Ronald Reagan believed in astrology, lets fund investigations into that.