Lot of renewed interest in UFO's and some real characters shilling crazy tales on YouTube - Jeremy Corbell, Bob Lazar, Robert Bigelow, Luis Elizondo spring to mind.

I agree with you - the actual content is slender, with inferences as shaky as the video footage we get. No one doubts that people see and photograph things in the sky from time to time, it just doesn't seem to amount to much. Set the tales in the context of a government conspiracy and stories accrue an instant allure.

This reminds me a little of the Chinese balloon incident, which many claimed was merely a story purposely blown up to divert attention to various failures of US policy.

Everywhere we look, the universe looks/sounds silent, pristine, and unlived in and we also have UFO vehicles? That doesn't make sense.

Lazar gained a bit of fame or notoriety some decades ago when starting similar claims.
Types of claims generally easier to prove than disprove (due to their nature).
With grand fantastic stories like this, I'll need a wee bit more.
Maybe those people should take up writing novels?

Maybe those people should take up writing novels? — jorndoe

It appear to me that becoming pulp fiction authors, upon leaving the military, is what they are doing.

I'm highly skeptical. It seems impossible for something like this to have been covered up for so long. — Michael

It is impossible that 100% of the time when a UFO crashes, the government gets to the scene first and cleans it perfectly outside the presence of any witness or video. And this happens not just in the US, but everywhere on the planet. And every government also must have a secret pact to conceal the information, working in harmony, even those countries currently at war, and they then store these alien vehicles in some warehouse, where every person involved has taken a solemn vow of secrecy that has never been violated until this lone voice.

For some reason the UFO stories started gaining popularity on FoxNews and in conservative circles. I guess it goes along with the government conspiracy theory thing.

It is impossible that 100% of the time when a UFO crashes, the government gets to the scene first and cleans it perfectly outside the presence of any witness or video. — Hanover

Also, no one has mentioned how crappy the alien pilots must be to keep crashing all the time. I can only think of two possible reasons 1)After you get three DUIs on Koozebane, they sentence you to Earth 2) Earth is where all the college kids on Venus go for spring break.

For some reason the UFO stories started gaining popularity on FoxNews and in conservative circles. I guess it goes along with the government conspiracy theory thing. — Hanover

What's interesting about this case (at least according to this), is that he "has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin."

Maybe that entire report is rubbish, or maybe he's given them a bunch of stuff that he erroneously believes to show evidence of aliens.

What's interesting about this case (at least according to this), is that he "has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin." — Michael

I wonder like if it has four foot pedals and a steering wheel that requires twelve hands or something like that.

I wonder like if it has four foot pedals and a steering wheel that requires twelve hands or something like that. — Hanover

Or it has writing in some gibberish like Chinese or Russian.

Interesting, but doesn't move the needle much for me given all the plausible ways it could be false. I expect a debunking by the end of the week.

For long what was missing was to treat unidentified flying objects as unidentified, flying, objects.

I think that can have changed a bit when the Navy came out officially with material that couldn't be identified and the Navy pilots were interviewed in the media ...and continued to have their jobs as fighter pilots afterwards. It's one thing to point out something is unidentified and unknown, another thing to come to the conclusion that it's extra-terrestials with an advance technology that (apparently only) the US government knows about, but it's kept hidden for so many decades.

The conspiracy theorists basically are the problem. In the typical American way, when there is a buying audience, then to get money you have to please that audience. And if you don't please that audience, well, they won't just ignore you, part of them will attack you. For many it's an interesting entertainment and actually the few believers are entertainment for the people too.

It's basically an American phenomenon, because only Americans can both distrust their own government and yet think their government bureaucracies can be so capable at the same time to have these huge cover ups. In other countries when you distrust your government, you don't rate their abilities to be so high up. The UFO cult would have been different if it would have been based in some other country than the US. Yet that there are interesting open questions and obviously unidentified things is a different matter than believing that the UFO cult is right.

Also, no one has mentioned how crappy the alien pilots must be to keep crashing all the time. I can only think of two possible reasons 1)After you get three DUIs on Koozebane, they sentence you to Earth 2) Earth is where all the college kids on Venus go for spring break — T Clark

:100: :party: :clap:

It's basically an American phenomenon, because only Americans can both distrust their own government and yet think their government bureaucracies can be so capable at the same time to have these huge cover ups. — ssu

Maybe, but here in Australia we had a major UFO event in 1966 called the Westall Incident. I knew one of the teachers involved who saw the UFO flying over a school for an extended period, with dozens of children. Conspiracy (in the form of traditional government cover up and interference) has followed this one since 1966, since before X Files and before Roswell was revived and spun as a grand conspiracy theory in the 1970's.

I don't know what they all saw. I think the story, which has various parts, is a mosaic of bits remembered and bits imagined. I think it could have been a cigar shaped target tug being towed by a plane on a military exercise.

It is impossible that 100% of the time when a UFO crashes, the government gets to the scene first and cleans it perfectly outside the presence of any witness or video. — Hanover

:up:
It inspired me to just come up with another, relevant one: Almost 100% of the reports regarding UFOs come from and/or relate to USA territory, milirary personnel and government. What about the rest of the planet, where there are no such governments and military personnel that can cover up UFO visits and crashes?

How many more of these do the UFO conspiracists need to shut up? (I mean the real ones, not those who act as such for commercial and publicity purposes. )

Not that I consider this discussion as a philosophical one. But, like other similar ones, it's always fun to have a peek at! :smile:

I seriously believe that there are other places where life exists in in the universe. It is, just by the "known" size of it almost a statistical impossibility.
The question would be, how many of these life forms could actually be capable of developing technology?
Even if we count only 1% of the visible galaxies, and only 1% of their star that have planets, and only 1% of those planets that could support life in some form, and then only 1% of them that might have beings capable of developing technology there are still a great quantity of possible places for aliens to come from.
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/how-many-galaxies-in-universe/

Even counting the minimum amount of galaxies they mention in the article 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) that is a lot to think about. But if the other estimate 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) makes it practically impossible to ignore.

It is estimated that the average galaxy contains about 100,000,000 stars.

Anyone want to do the math?

The main argument I see is not if aliens exist, but why would the come here? Any ideas about that?

The main argument I see is not if aliens exist, but why would the come here? Any ideas about that? — Sir2u

I don’t think it’s specifically about coming here. One of the arguments is just that a sufficiently advanced civilisation would colonise their entire galaxy, even if just with unmanned probes, whether for research or to find resources.

At 10% the speed of light it would take a million years to cross the Milky Way. If intelligent life is common you’d have expected someone to have done it in the last few billion years.

One of the arguments is just that a sufficiently advanced civilisation would colonise their entire galaxy, even if just with unmanned probes, whether for research or to find resources. — Michael

Not necessarily so, just because we would do it does not mean that they would have the same motivations we do.

At 10% the speed of light it would take a million years to cross the Milky Way. If intelligent life is common you’d have expected someone to have done it in the last few billion years. — Michael

Let us suppose that there is a group of beings out there.
First of all, why would they have to be more advanced than we are. True, there are many older galaxies out there that could have developed highly intelligent life forms along time ago, but there is also evidence that many galaxies have already died out. Anyone of the many galaxies could have life similar to our own at with the same level of technology, thus unable to come visiting.
Second point, a million years ago when they set out it would have been impossible for them to even guess that we might appear on this planet. So why would they head in this direction instead of one of the other millions of possibilities in all of the other galaxies?
And there is always the possibility that they came a long time ago but unless you have knowledge the rest of do not, we have no idea what happened back then. We just don't know whether they came a couple of million years ago, said "what a shithole" and never came back
It might also be possible that we will have to wait for a long time for them to come, if they have a reason to do so.
Last point, no one said that intelligent life is common. The possibility of life developing and advancing in technology is not zero though. Developing the level of technology needed to travel the universe is not as common as developing the hammer, that should be obvious. And we should also take into account that some very intelligent beings maybe out there that do not posses the ability to develop any technology and those that might just not to want to do it

Not necessarily so, just because we would do it does not mean that they would have the same motivations we do. — Sir2u

Certainly not necessarily so, but unless we're something special it stands to reason that at least one would.

First of all, why would they have to be more advanced than we are. True, there are many older galaxies out there that could have developed highly intelligent life forms along time ago, but there is also evidence that many galaxies have already died out. Anyone of the many galaxies could have life similar to our own at with the same level of technology, thus unable to come visiting. — Sir2u

Of course it's possible, and one explanation for the Fermi paradox is that we are one of the first intelligent species in the galaxy. But given that the oldest planet in the Milky Way is 12.7 billion years old and the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, it would appear reasonable to infer that there were advanced civilisations long before us.

Second point, a million years ago when they set out it would have been impossible for them to even guess that we might appear on this planet. So why would they head in this direction instead of one of the other millions of possibilities in all of the other galaxies? — Sir2u

Just considering species born in the Milky Way, as I said before, the conjecture is that a species would explore all of it. Assuming the resources are available and they don't die out first, it's unclear why they wouldn't.

Last point, no one said that intelligent life is common. — Sir2u

Actually, lots of people do. It's called the mediocrity principle. Of course others also propose the Rare Earth hypothesis in opposition.

Certainly not necessarily so, but unless we're something special it stands to reason that at least one would. — Michael

Correct, but maybe they went exploring in the other direction.

Of course it's possible, and one explanation for the Fermi paradox is that we are one of the first intelligent species in the galaxy. — Michael

It would also make sense if we were the last and missed the others by a couple of million years. Just because there is a great possibility that there is intelligent life out there does not mean that they have the technology or reasons to "come calling".

But given that the oldest planet in the Milky Way is 12.7 billion years old and the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, it would appear reasonable to infer that there were advanced civilisations long before us. — Michael

Maybe they all went extinct by screwing up their planets like we are doing.

Just considering species born in the Milky Way, as I said before, the conjecture is that a species would explore all of it. Assuming the resources are available and they don't die out first, it's unclear why they wouldn't. — Michael

Again, in all of that time they might have come and gone hundreds of times but we know nothing about it. How many plan trips to Disney world and never get there? Maybe when they arrived it was a barren world that they just put on their list of future resources and then died out. Is there any proof anywhere that they earth was not visited? Fermi's question about the absence of living beings coming visiting from other planets was not even original. It was just a slightly different version asked long before him about the absence of light from the stars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

Actually, lots of people do. It's called the mediocrity principle. Of course others also propose the Rare Earth hypothesis in opposition. — Michael

The most stupid of people believe in the most extreme ends of any possible concept. The people that actually try to use their intelligence are usually somewhere in the middle. The people with some sort of special (academic, scientific) interest in the subject tend toward the direction their knowledge leads them.

Suppose we are that highly intelligent species with advanced technology, and we wish to travel to a star and its planets a million light years away. We are capable of bringing our speed in short order to very, very close to light speed. So we hop aboard and take off, and it takes us less than a year to reach the star. However, Earth is long gone, not even a scrap of matter remaining. Of what value is our journey to those left behind?

If we left our planet because it was quickly dying, and we wanted to preserve humankind the trip would indeed be a terrific gamble. And our destination might have changed dramatically by the time we arrive.

So, even if there had been intelligent life other than ours, it would have been a truly desperate decision, coupled with incredibly advanced technical capabilities, to attempt a journey to Earth.

I like xkcd's take on this: https://xkcd.com/718/

ATTENTION, PEOPLE OF EARTH

We are on our way to your planet. We will be there shortly. But in this, our first contact with you, our “headline” is: We do not want your gravel.

We are coming to Earth, first of all, just to see if we can actually do it. Second, we hope to learn about you and your culture(s). Third—if we end up having some free time—we wouldn’t mind taking a firsthand look at your almost ridiculously bountiful stores of gravel. But all we want to do is look.

You’re probably wondering if we mean you harm. Good question! So you’re going to like the answer, which is: We mean you no harm. Truth be told, there is a faction of us who want to completely annihilate you. But they’re not in power right now. And a significant majority of us find their views abhorrent and almost even barbaric.

But, thanks to the fact that our government operates on a system very similar to your Earth democracy, we have to tolerate the views of this “loyal opposition,” even while we hope that they never regain power, which they probably won’t (if the current poll tracking numbers hold up).

By the way, if we do take any of your gravel, it’s going to be such a small percentage of your massive gravel supply that you probably won’t even notice it’s gone.

You may be wondering how we know your language. We are aware that there’s a theory on your planet that we (or other alien species from the far reaches of the galaxy) have been able to learn your language from your television transmissions. This is not the case, because most of us don’t really watch TV. Most of our knowledge about your Earth TV comes from reading Zeitgeisty think pieces by our resident intellectuals, who watch it not for fun but for ideas for their print articles about how Earth TV holds a mirror up to Earth society, and so on. We mean, we’ll watch Earth TV sometimes—if it happens to be on already—but, generally, we prefer to read a good book or revive the lost art of conversation.

Sadly, Earth TV is like a vast wasteland, as the Earthling Newton Minow once said. But, for those of you who can understand things only in TV terms, just think of us as being very similar to Mork from Ork, in that he was a friendly, non-gravel-wanting alien who visited Earth just to find out what was there, and not to harvest gravel.

Speaking of a vast wasteland, you might want to start picking out and clearing off a place for our spacecraft to land. Our spacecraft, as you will see shortly, is huge. Do not be alarmed; this does not mean that each one of us is that much bigger than each one of you. It’s just that there were so many of us who wanted to come that we had to build a really huge spacecraft.

So, again, no cause for alarm.

(Full disclosure: each of us actually is much bigger than each of you, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So please don’t use any of your Earth-style discrimination against us. This is just how we are, and it’s not our fault.)

Anyway, re our spacecraft: it’s kind of gigantic. The deceleration thrusters alone are sort of, like . . . well, imagine four of your Vesuvius volcanoes (but bigger), turned upside down. — THE NEW YORKER

NEW YORKER cartoon showing aliens returning home with stolen NYC trash cans.

FERMI'S PARADOX

The following are some of the facts and hypotheses that together serve to highlight the apparent contradictions behind the Fermi paradox ("If there are so many possible livable planets out there, then where is everybody?"

• There are billions of stars in the Milky Way similar to the Sun.
• With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets in a circumstellar habitable zone.[9]
• Many of these stars, and hence their planets, are much older than the Sun. If Earth-like planets are typical, some may have developed intelligent life long ago.
• Some of these civilizations may have developed interstellar travel, a step humans are investigating now.
• Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.
• Since many of the Sun-like stars are billions of years older than the Sun, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial civilizations, or at least their probes.
• However, there is no convincing evidence that this has happened.

It would be quite impressive if we heard accounts of strange dish-like ships in the sky over France in 1817, for example. As far as I know, stories about extra-terrestrials got seriously under way during the later years of the 19th century. H G Wells wrote the book between 1895 and 1898 and Orson Wells and CBS scared the bejesus out of Americans with its War of the Worlds broadcast on October 30th of 1938 (even though they said, several times, "This is NOT a true story!"

QUESTION FOR EVERYBODY:

Do you wish that UFOs, Alien Abductions, and Alien Visits were, in fact, REAL, meaning our planet has been visited by aliens from another star system, and that aliens may be present on our planet right now?

Or, do you fear that UFO stories may actually be true, and it frightens you greatly?

Or, do you think this is all malarky?

Do you wish that UFOs, Alien Abductions, and Alien Visits were, in fact, REAL, meaning our planet has been visited by aliens from another star system, and that aliens may be present on our planet right now? — BC

No. Unless it means aliens can save us from ourselves - climate change, nuclear war, etc.

Or, do you fear that UFO stories may actually be true, and it frightens you greatly? — BC

I don't know anything factual about aliens. I do believe people see UAP's (as they are now known) but I have little idea what these are. Probably a mix of phenomena.

Or, do you think this is all malarky? — BC

I don't know that it's all malarkey. I think there are sometimes phenomena that we have no explanation for. This means I do not believe that UAP's are aliens visiting earth but I don't say there is no such thing.

If aliens have technology that can 'bypass' the laws of physics we know and travel light years in little time, then they may well be so advanced that talking to them would be for them what talking to a chimp might be for us.

Also, from a more Kantian perspective - what if human cognitive apparatus allows us to see a version of reality that does not include alien reality? Could not an advanced species, with different cognitive capacity and an alternate physicality, inhabit the 'space' we do not experience?

Could not an advanced species, with different cognitive capacity and an alternate physicality, inhabit the 'space' we do not experience? — Tom Storm

Flying saucers would be horse and buggy stuff for them.

An astrophysicist on the radio today said that one part of our alien-knowledge problem is that when pictures are taken of alleged alien vessels, it's almost always by 1 camera. Multiple camera angles are needed to judge distance, actual speed, and direction. A single camera shot just can't reveal too much.

There was a conference on UFOs and SETI back in the 1970s. Ashley Montague was one of the speakers. He addressed a question about confronting "superior civilizations". He noted that Europeans among others, had encountered "superior civilizations on earth" a number of times, and the first thing we did was was wipe them out. He wasn't sanguine about our ability to benefit from an alien "superior civilization" (whether they were gravel-seeking or not).

"Flying saucers" apparently were not employed by visiting aliens until the 1940s and 1950s, at least on American territory. What they used before then, don't know, and why they chose to fly around in rather flat disks without a whole lot of usable space, don't know. Maybe the aliens are pancake shaped, or maybe the flying saucers are the ACTUAL aliens, and not just their mode of transport.

Another question is did the aliens travel from Z343X, 5 light years away, in a flying saucer, or were the saucers in a very large, boxy, commodious mother ship?