UFO's

[Merc]

So what do you think? Someone recently on the forum blatantly spat out that UFOs simply "aren't real" and I think it's a very narrow view to take. I mean, yeah there's a lot of crackpots out there thinking every piece of falling debris is an alien mothership, but are we really trying to suggest that it's entirely impossible for there to be such things as unidentified flying objects?

What are your views? Do you think most of them are government tests? Alien visits? Illusions?

 

[KSpiceFantastic]

I was that person...

I flat out believe that UFOs are not real. There is no evidence for these objects existing in the 'alien' sense of things. Now I am not ruling out debris from orbit or illusions. Illusions and orbital debris are actually my central arguments. The amount of debris in orbit is considerable enough that whatever may be seen as a UFO could easily be mistaken for debris or a meteorite.

It's just hard to believe that people will jump to a UFO conclusion within a minute of reading a story on a light in the sky.

 

[generalblue]

I was that person...

I flat out believe that UFOs are not real. There is no evidence for these objects existing in the 'alien' sense of things. Now I am not ruling out debris from orbit or illusions. Illusions and orbital debris are actually my central arguments. The amount of debris in orbit is considerable enough that whatever may be seen as a UFO could easily be mistaken for debris or a meteorite.

It's just hard to believe that people will jump to a UFO conclusion within a minute of reading a story on a light in the sky.

Well we can't really prove that "alien" UFO's exist or not. But UFOs have been in the air before and were indentified later by the government, only much years later.

I believe that "alien" UFO's exist. Just recently they found out life exists on arsenic and who would of thought that. We are led to believe whatever the media, schools and the government wants us to believe because they are the biggest influences in our lives besides our family. So who is to say whether or not there are "alien" UFO's flying on this Earth right now and that they are not visible to the naked eye. Also debris burns through our atmosphere giving the "shooting star" effect. I mean I could go on forever and a day about the UFO's possibly existing. But I believe that they are real and I am pretty sure that most world governments already have the proof. That is my belief.

P.S. The Fireball Thread video is not an UFO.

 

[Dekzper]

Well, there really are UFOs. I mean, if a duck flies by and nobody could prove it was a duck then it is def an "unidentified" flying object. But yeah, lots of people wanna see a real spaceship from somewhere else but I noticed they wanna see one for diff reasons. Some people wanna be "saved" by aliens so that's kind of like religion. And some people think the government is hiding aliens and I dont really understand that part. I wanna see a real alien spaceship just to see what one would really look like. And what real aliens would look like. But that might never happen since the aliens (if their are some) would prolly have the same probs travelling in space that we have.
Oh, and I wish the people filming those things would hold the camera steady. It makes it tuff to see what's happening. But that Georgia thing was prolly just a weird trail or space debris or a tiny meteorite since I haven't seen any alien spaceships on the news yet.

Wow! I just read GBlues post and I hope he's right but (if he is right) I wish they'd tell us! Life that lives on arsenic!? Awesome!

 

[Ilus_Unistus]

I believe a UFO, that is "unidentified flying objects" do exist, but I do not believe any UFO is or has been from other intelligent life other than from earth.

It is simple reasoning, if UFO from another planet was sent to earth they are obviously much more advanced than us and have nothing to fear from us, so why avoid us knowing they are here?

Also, imagine we (earth) had this technology to travel to other planets, we would go there, find life and... hide? It makes to me no sense whatsoever for intelligent life to hide from other life forms.

 

[ExpectantlyIronic]

There is probably extraterrestrial intelligence. Given the number of stars in the universe, and the Copernican principle (i.e. Earth has no special place in the universe), it would seem odd if there weren't. I'm just not convinced they're secretly flying around Earth. There are a whole host of explanations for various UFO's, such as experimental military aircraft, weather balloons, missiles flying out of control, plain old airplanes, hoaxes, tricks of lighting, etc. Occam's kinda insists they be considered first, and I kinda question why aliens with hyper-advanced technology would be using it to troll us, and in a questionably amusing manner. I mean, you have to imagine they would be able to do a better job at covert surveillance if that were their game, and a much better job at making themselves known, if that's what they wanted to do.

 

[Raos]

It is simple reasoning, if UFO from another planet was sent to earth they are obviously much more advanced than us and have nothing to fear from us, so why avoid us knowing they are here?

Also, imagine we (earth) had this technology to travel to other planets, we would go there, find life and... hide? It makes to me no sense whatsoever for intelligent life to hide from other life forms.

You are assuming things that are not necessarily true. The assumption that an alien life form that is able to reach Earth has to be more advanced that humans does not need to be true. There could be a number of factors that show this to be false. For one, just because they are intelligent with travel does not mean they are intelligent to the same level in other areas. Also, what if the alien life forms evolved with the means of travel without the need for a space ship? That would not require intelligence. They would just instinctively know how to travel vast distances just as you instinctively know how to walk to cover ground.

As for hiding, who says that any life forms that may be here are actually hiding? Maybe it is just that we can not see them as they are. They could be unbelievably small. Smaller than any or our equipment could notice. They could be in a form that we just can not see or recognize. Aliens, if they do exist, will not necessarily fit into the humanoid form many think of when thinking of aliens.

Yes, UFO's exist. UFO is an unidentified flying object. A UFO does not mean flying saucer from outer space. It is simply something that is flying and we have not determined what it is yet. If you shoot a video of an airplane and it is too fuzzy and shaky to make out exactly what it is then that is a UFO. The real question that I think is being asked is if extraterrestrial vehicles exist and have visited us. Of course this is just semantics to some.

I believe alien life exists. I think the universe is too huge for it not to exist elsewhere. I do not think any has visited Earth though. I am making this judgement call based just solely on the math and the size of the universe.

 

[KSpiceFantastic]

Yes, UFO's exist. UFO is an unidentified flying object. A UFO does not mean flying saucer from outer space. It is simply something that is flying and we have not determined what it is yet. If you shoot a video of an airplane and it is too fuzzy and shaky to make out exactly what it is then that is a UFO. The real question that I think is being asked is if extraterrestrial vehicles exist and have visited us. Of course this is just semantics to some.

I believe that I did not explain this well enough in my original posting. UFOs exist in meteorite and space junk form, not in alien form. Just making that clear in case any people think I am too quick to judge.

I believe alien life exists. I think the universe is too huge for it not to exist elsewhere. I do not think any has visited Earth though. I am making this judgement call based just solely on the math and the size of the universe.

I doubt that. The universe is large, indeed, but not all of the planets can support life. The "Arsenic-feeders" are here on Earth and that applies to bacteria only. Bacteria can adapt and evolve to live off of anything, really.

The math itself is quite complex. Aliens in our stereotypical sense of green guys and big heads are extremely unlikely. 1 in 250000000000000000 according to Wikipedia. 1 in 1000000000 planets have the ability to possibly sustain life in any form.

Plus the universe is shrinking.

 

[Raos]

I believe that I did not explain this well enough in my original posting. UFOs exist in meteorite and space junk form, not in alien form. Just making that clear in case any people think I am too quick to judge.

You are getting your terms confused, but again it is just semantics. If you know it is a meteorite then it is not a UFO. A UFO is unknown by definition.

I doubt that. The universe is large, indeed, but not all of the planets can support life. The "Arsenic-feeders" are here on Earth and that applies to bacteria only. Bacteria can adapt and evolve to live off of anything, really.

The math itself is quite complex. Aliens in our stereotypical sense of green guys and big heads are extremely unlikely. 1 in 250000000000000000 according to Wikipedia. 1 in 1000000000 planets have the ability to possibly sustain life in any form.

Plus the universe is shrinking.

Which part of my statement do you doubt? You do not make that clear with your post.

You are basing your comments on what humans know. You are assuming we have all the answers, but we do not. Your statement that not all of the planets can support life is based on what humans have learned so far. That does not mean it is correct. 5 years ago we did not think a life form could live off arsenic. We now know that is not true. What if there are non-carbon life forms out there? Many did not think they exist, but who is to say for sure that they do not?

As far as the universe shrinking, lets put it into perspective on how large of a place it really is. The average distance between starts is 4 light years. A light year is the amount of time it takes light to travel in 1 year going at 186,000 miles a second or 700 million miles an hour. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the Earth. That was an estimation made many years ago. Recently scientist have said they now think there are at least 3x more stars than they originally thought. Saying that the universe is shrinking does not diminish just how mind bogglingly huge it is.

 

[ExpectantlyIronic]

I doubt that. The universe is large, indeed, but not all of the planets can support life. The "Arsenic-feeders" are here on Earth and that applies to bacteria only. Bacteria can adapt and evolve to live off of anything, really.

The math itself is quite complex. Aliens in our stereotypical sense of green guys and big heads are extremely unlikely. 1 in 250000000000000000 according to Wikipedia. 1 in 1000000000 planets have the ability to possibly sustain life in any form.

Plus the universe is shrinking.

I'd like to see how those probabilities were derived. I'm impulsively dismissive of such things, since we're not dealing with complete information. The universe isn't a roulette wheel. As for it shrinking: where did you hear that? The universe is expanding, in the sense of things getting further away from each other. It is also getting more dense in terms of our knowledge of it: recent findings revealed there may be 3x as many stars in it as previously thought, due to a greater than expected number of red dwarfs being found in old galaxies. Many have joked though, that its a bit hard to visualize 3x an unimaginable amount of something.

As for bacteria evolving to live off anything: the most recent findings were such a big deal because the bacteria were the first to be discovered that could be composed of arsenic as opposed to (I think it was...) potassium. All life known previously was composed of the same set of basic elements, regardless of what they ate. Not so for the little buggers in California.