Alright lets start this debate off right, even though the usual morons will come in making pointless 3 word comments and jokes. I'm not trying to bring about a 'yer i seen a flyin' sawsir in my back pasture' thread or 'i believe in little green men' thread... I want this to be AS SCIENTIFIC AS POSSIBLE HERE!

With that said, recent events near me in Stephenville Texas has sent me on a interesting search. After reading, watching, and listening to many accounts not only from that event, but from events across the globe... What exactly are they?

If you take into consideration that it seems no government is really 'interested' in what they are, or what they can do... then shouldn't that lead us to believe they either A) Already know what they are or B) Are in fact government project crafts.

Reports of these things over the last century has exploded probably due to public media, but it doesn't deny the fact they are still being reported and have been for a long time.

So... Lets 'imagine' that they are things not of this planet. Who's to say they are 'ships' at all. Why does everyone think there are some sort of alien on each of them? Lets consider this. If we sent a probe to a distant planet, and found a massive civilization on it, would we not send MORE probes to check things out? Maybe send a manned mission or two to check them out. I'm sure we would probably even 'abduct' one of them for analysis. However, this is all just assuming that there is life somewhere else to the extent of our own here on earth.

If you consider the fact that if we had no greed, no lust, and no thirsts for power... what kind of technological advancements could we achieve? Would we strive for them at all? Most of our accomplishments are made BASED on those three ideas... However perhaps there is another planet somewhere, with a population of beings who lack those flaws but have a desire to be intelligent, to know everything they can learn and continue to search the stars for more information than their own planet contains..

Okay since I ranted on for some number of paragraphs I guess I will see what kind of replies I get....

*searchs for the 'block rob's replies' button*... just kidding.

Okay... One down, whos left?

*****es don't be stealin my Thetans

An interesting thought is that if an unmanned alien craft did come to Earth, it might not even be from a civilization more advanced than ours.

We've had the technology to send large unmanned probes to other stars at >0.1C for close to 50 years; just sayin'

If there was life on a planet we were probing, I don't see why we couldn't just come down and interact with them. If there were aliens abducting people to analyze us, they must be writing up one hell of a demented report because to score only people who are legally insane.

And why does these UFO incidents keep happening in the south. Its as if aliens have a fetish for studying alcoholics.

arora borealis

Who?

Aurora borealis, northern lights.

About 4 to 5 weeks back I was laying in bed having trouble sleeping, so I looked out my window which had a wide shot of the horizon. Because I live an hour away from an airport and live in the country, I see planes and their blinking lights in the sky. They usually have 2 lights. A white light and a red light. The red light stays on and the white light blinks. One in particular caught my eye, it had red and white like usual, but blinked off and on completely. Then I saw 3 pop up randomly, my first thought was fighter jets, and I started to count them, I got to six when instantly there were 20 in the air. Then, from the horizon I saw a bright light, and it started to lift, it got so far up then dimmed down and went across the horizon. After a while all the lights went out. Nobody believed until the next week, where I overheard two guys I knew telling another friend of theres about it, and she believed they were under the influence at the time (like people thought that I was) I questioned them about what they saw and it was the same thing.

It was a joke.

Actually there have been some rather convincing reports from the UK that are interesting to read/hear about. Seems they like to be close to water IMO salt water.... lots of sightings near oceans, not as many inland.

I think first we should question weather it's possible to beat relativity via. a worm hole or something.

I was abducted by aliens last night.


True story.


They wanted money, and held me at knife point. I mean, I think they wanted my money. I don't ****ing speak spanish.

Who's to say they don't come from our own planet, and live under the oceans in a lost civilization?

They are already amoung us.

****, I hated that cartoon. And the Burger King toys.

The vast majority of UFO cases have been closed. They're usually natural phenomenon or known artificial phenomenon, like artificial satellites, aircraft, or some combination of whatever else.

For the few cases that are left open, there is hardly enough evidence to think they are being piloted by beings from another planet.

You want to be scientific, you say, but your posts reek of massive confirmation bias.

It's completely ridiculous to assume that a government's lack of "interest" in UFO sightings implies that they are either involved in them or already know about them.

Jawsome.

I think that, given the immense size of the universe, it is likely that life has arisen multiple times, maybe even life similar to us (carbon-based with water as a medium). I'm not convinced, though, that they would have visited Earth. It's possible, but I see no reason to assume that it is true. The vast majority of UFO sightings are easily explainable, and for those that aren't it's usually due to a lack of information. There are a lot of crazy things that happen on Earth with no extraterrestrial intervention, and I find it far more likely that there are as yet undescribed atmospheric phenomena than that there is alien life that hasn't slipped up enough yet that their presence would be undeniable. That explanation itself assumes that they would want to keep their own existence a secret, which isn't exactly a given. Even experiences of alien abduction have potential explanations aside from the obvious alcohol/ crazyness/ attention-seeking. If governments are so disinterested in extraterrestrial life, why do the fund SETI?

I think it's ignorant to think we're the only living specimens in the whole universe.

I also think it's pretty selfish to think that extra terrestrials visit us all the time.

^yeah good point.. besides we aren't that interesting

Stop misusing the word "ignorant"! It has a use, use it for that! There are other words to properly convey your meaning!

I think the likely hood something would travel all the way out here to anally probe our cows. I bet there are dozens of other planets with cow like animals on them they can make their sick sick porn off of.

ok, so lets say we try to assume that UFOs are aliens.

the drake equation :



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

this calculates the probability of advanced alien life in the galaxy that we could make contact with. this number is assumed to be between 100 and 100,000.

but theres many more factors to be considered. how many civilisations destroy themselves, how many races in the galaxy wipe out other races, how many races develop the technology to develop starcraft that can travel vast distances in time.

with this taken into account, the number becomes even smaller.

I for one believe in other alien races, but as for these UFO's, i dont really think they are aliens, or even unmaned alien probes.

Greys:

If you put human beings in a technologically advanced environment, in space, after many many generations, they would become thinner, shorter, but their heads would remain the same size. Stick a grey space suit over them with big black eye ports, and what do u have?

Greys. Greys arent aliens, if greys DO exist, its far more likely they are the left overs of the human race far in the future,or even a shifted dimension.

This brings further arguements about time travel. This however seems less out the ordinary when you consider the perfomance of these UFO's. they seem to control gravity itself, their propulsion seems to use only force. they buzz around like insects in the sky, which seems impossible, to move around with such speed... Unless you understand physics,and know that gravity has an effect on time, simply these UFO's act within a bubble of space time much faster than normal.

with that main babble out of the way,some more possiblities include:

Ball lightning: when lightning hits soil concentrated in silicon, it superheats the silicon into a ball of plasma, that is affected by electric and magnetic waves, they swirl around and seem to act intelligent. some of these balls of plasma can last for hours.
ever seen a video of a glowing ball swirling around a field? OMG ITS A UFO, making crop circles. ... no, its a ball of hot silicon vapour moving along lines of thermals and natural magnetic/electric fields.

Thats my 2cents, for now. thanks !

Ps. dont mess with me, i'm a university astrophysics drop-out.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Do you know how long it would take anything ( probe or **** ) to get to the next star ( solar system ) even if it travled at the speed of light?

My point is, ok there may not be aliens that come to invade or kill or steal our jobs, but, it is just ignorant to think that we are the only planet with life in the universe.

Think about it, every star as a solar system, ther are a bunch of stars ther fore a bunch of solor systems, i mean even by chance or accident, there HAS to be at least 1 other planet with life, either as or more intelligent as us.

I've heard of space probes, but not intergalactic ****.

No, but based on commentary of so called 'witnesses' people have experienced a number of wierd things associated with them. Including electronic failure, as well as the objects 'intelligent' movement. There have been documented cases of military aircraft pursuing(sp?) such things.



Why is that? You think if a country were to have such extraordinary equipment (objects/vehicles) that can maneuver such as they do that they would acknowledge it? It wouldn't be the first time our (the US) government has tried to make a saucer shaped vehicle.



While that is true, what is the probabilty of THAT happening? In comparison to the intelligent life probability? I would imagine it is at better odds, but with better understanding we can make a better judgement of the lightening than we can the vast expanse of space.



I agree, to an extent. We have a confined way of thinking at times. To us, the fastest mode of travel may be light speed, but to a superior technology, there may be other means. Also, there ARE many solar systems true, but finding planets with not so extreme conditions is sparse. There are however, a couple rocks in our system (not planets necessarily) who could harbor life... or may have at one time.

The Sci-Fi channel UFO special doesn't count as "documentation."

Haha, you can find the documents on government websites if you know where to look. Does the Sci-Fi channel even do UFO specials? I know the History Channel does.

Oh yes, the government did have a real program for investigating UFOs. Guess what, they never found anything.

No they wouldn't. That would only happen if everyone suddenly found short scrawny people with gigantic heads to be the most attractive people there were. And there would still be plenty of muscular properly proportioned people mating with other muscular properly proportioned people because they can't score the 'more attractive' variety.

For that matter, without gravity - if they could survive at all - they would be slightly taller. The difference would be a lack of muscle mass; there would have to be some simulation of gravity in their environment to allow them to build muscle, and for their children to develop properly.

Saying 'They never found anything.' Doesn't make it true. As well as the fact that 'finding' a UFO isn't the same as seeing one. The Government looks for other civilizations... not things in the sky. Or I would guess thats partly what SETI does. Not really sure on that one.

4.22 years.

I'd like to introduce you to a program or two that have been around for awhile now...

Haha Norad? Seriously? Like our radar technology can keep track of things that move far faster than any machine we make? Supposedly these 'things' only blip once or twice on radars.... Who knows...

If I had to bet my life on it right here and now, I would be more likely to bet that 'UFOs' are machines of our own creation that are being hid from the general public for sake of having an edge against other countries.... (or whatever country has these things vs the ones that dont)

Hahaha.

90% I'd say of UFO sightings are rubbish to be honest. Even more so for abductions.

My problem is that if your going to travel all that way to buzz people and possibly abduct why go to America?... Of course that could explain the number of supposed abductions... They've been trying to find an intelligent one

Why do so many people think America is the only place that gets this stuff? (assuming by america you meant the US)

South America and Mexico get just as much or more than the US does in terms of sightings. The UK and China seem to get a good amount of activity as well.

I don't believe abduction stories.... If it did happen, I don't think you'd be returned.