Skeptics, why doubt ufo's?

Think for a second and look around you. Look at the Universe and its vastness, all of its many mysteries yet to discover. There are trillions of galaxies, of planets, of stars, etc. We are nothing. We still are in pre history taking into consideration our very limited understanding of reality, of the Universe. It would be very ignorant and arrogant to assume or say that ufo's don't exist when there are thousands of reports from all around the world, be it from the military and other credible sources or common people who witness ufo's and even film the phenomenon. Just because you haven't seen a real ufo in your life, dosen't mean that the phenomenon is not real or that it dosen't exist. Just as there is a planet in space you haven't seen and aren't aware of its existence, but yet it exists and is part of reality. When I look at the stars and understand how insignificant we are, I know instantly that one can't say what is impossible when we have very limited knowledge of our Universe. And as there is more than one planet, star, galaxy, there may be even more than just one Universe. We don't even know if we really have been to the moon or if it was staged. Our own origin is a mystery. Therefore, taking our arrogance away, we have to admit that the Universe and its many mysteries to unravel surpass deeply our human logic. We will probably have to apply a different type of logic than that we are used to if we want to fully understand it. But even then we may be limited by our 5 senses. Just look at the quantum world, its a different logic than the one we are used to. What we all think as absurd may exist, since we can't say what is absurd or not when we only understand a very small percentage of reality and the rest is a complete mystery to us.

originally posted by: MDT20
Think for a second and look around you. Look at the Universe and its vastness, all of its many mysteries yet to discover. There are trillions of galaxies, of planets, of stars, etc. We are nothing. We still are in pre history taking into consideration our very limited understanding of reality, of the Universe. It would be very ignorant and arrogant to assume or say that ufo's don't exist when there are thousands of reports from all around the world, be it from the military and other credible sources or common people who witness ufo's and even film the phenomenon. Just because you haven't seen a real ufo in your life, dosen't mean that the phenomenon is not real or that it dosen't exist. Just as there is a planet in space you haven't seen and aren't aware of its existence, but yet it exists and is part of reality. When I look at the stars and understand how insignificant we are, I know instantly that one can't say what is impossible when we have very limited knowledge of our Universe. We don't even know if we really have been to the moon or if it was staged. Our own origin is a mystery. Therefore, taking our arrogance away, we have to admit that the Universe and its many mysteries to unravel surpass deeply our human logic. We will probably have to apply a different type of logic than that we are used to if we want to fully understand it. But even then we may be limited by our 5 senses. Just look at the quantum world, its a different logic than the one we are used to. Lets all admit, that what we all think as absurd may exist, since we can't say what is absurd or not when we only understand a very small percentage of reality and the rest is a complete mystery to us.

Well we do have proof we have been to the moon and there are plenty of threads on it as well.

I believe most on this site believe in other intelligent life out there, just most don't know if they have visited Earth yet. Most are just waiting on that "definitive proof", because the sites motto is "Deny Ignorance".

I'm going to reply to your thread title only.

Because I completely believe that if a race had the technology to be flying in extremely technologically advanced spaceships, they'd have no reason to come around earth.

Do they need materials? Okay, they could likely scan our planet from light years away.

Do they want to know about us? Same idea. They'd be able to do surveillance from much further away than inside out atmosphere, if they could reach us from many light years away.

I very much doubt UFO sightings themselves because people don't know what an F-22 jet looks like, let alone the hundreds of other crafts and the like that could be in the sky.

Do I think it's possible? Yes.
Do I think there's life out there? Absolutely.
Do I think they're interested in a primitive life form? Not really.

a reply to: MDT20

It would be very ignorant and arrogant to assume or say that ufo's don't exist when there are thousands of reports from all around the world, be it from the military and other credible sources or common people who witness ufo's and even film the phenomenon.

I think you'll find that many UFO skeptics here started out as believers , some of us have been into this subject for decades and disbelief in Alien piloted UFOs stems from lack of tangible evidence not the desire to disbelieve.

Just because you haven't seen a real ufo in your life, dosen't mean that the phenomenon is not real or that it dosen't exist.

I have seen a real UFO , I don't know that it was Alien though so why would I assume it was ?
I don't doubt there are other civilizations out there but I need evidence of their existence before believing they are coming here.

a reply to: MDT20

i do not doubt UFOs - nor do i doubt the existance of etxtra terrestrial life

what i do doubt is your logic

I don't think any of the the posters in this forum will say that there is no other life in the universe. Most will say 'of course there is.' And of those, most will say that other intelligences are likely.

That is still a far cry, however, from saying that we are being visited. As you said, the universe is huge.

What skeptics are saying is that we don't have good, solid evidence of being visited.

As mentioned already, many came to ATS for this forum, hoping to find more information and have some other avenues to explore. It's seems that all we get are CGI from a few known hoaxers or pictures that are of lights and could be anything.

Apparently aliens a) don't want to let themselves be know to us, because they don't seem to land, be public about their existence, etc. and b) have awesome technology to get here from across the universe, but still let their craft be 'seen' on a daily basis. Don't those two things contradict a bit?

a reply to: deadlyhope

Because I completely believe that if a race had the technology to be flying in extremely technologically advanced spaceships, they'd have no reason to come around earth.

Lets flip this around, and look at it from another perspective. If we had the capability of interstellar flight, and we found a planet within reasonable distance with primitive, but intelligent life. How fast do you think we would have a manned scientific expedition ready to go? I'd say quite fast, even if we had already been to other planets with intelligent life. Why? Curiosity, knowledge, learning. Scanning from light years away isn't even comparable to being there for scientific study.

Why we give our concept of aliens almost god status when it comes to these types of things is beyond me. My guess is their scientists would be just as anxious to study us, as we would be to study a species more primitive than us.

@OP: UFO's I have no problem with. My problem is assuming they are all extraterrestrial. To this point, we have no definitive evidence they are. We have hypotheticals and possibilities, anywhere from ancient aliens to modern experiences. Don't get me wrong. I believe it's a very good possibility we have been visited for many thousands of years. But that's all it is at this point. A belief.

a reply to: Klassified

Good comeback, that's reasonable to imagine.

The reason some give them god status is because traveling possibly millions of light years... Why would they physically come to earth? They could probably just program some drone that's the size of a fly to document everything, rather than messing with us personally. Do you think humans would honestly just go land on some other planet writing " We come in speech " in our world languages hoping we don't get attacked or something else? It's not I believe aliens are nuke proof.

Though most UFO's can be explained, there is a percentage that can't. I would imagine that someone is piloting those ships.

We have had credible and multi witnesses on UFO's, Astronauts, Airplane pilots, police officers etc, people from all walks of life and all over the world. There have been pics long before all the computerized fakery.

originally posted by: MDT20
Think for a second and look around you. Look at the Universe and its vastness, all of its many mysteries yet to discover. There are trillions of galaxies, of planets, of stars, etc. We are nothing. We still are in pre history taking into consideration our very limited understanding of reality, of the Universe. It would be very ignorant and arrogant to assume or say that ufo's don't exist.

Oh, God, not THIS lecture again! Yeah, yeah. Blah blah. heard it all before, and you know what? I don't know ANYONE who believes this straw man argument you've set up--just like hundreds of people before you. WHO SAYS there isn't any other life in the Universe? Nobody. You are not especially enlightened by claiming other people are ignorant and arrogant. And in this instance they are not. The whole proposition is faulty from the beginning.

But then you jump from that false proposition, that straw man argument, to the idea that there REALLY ARE UFOs. Wow. Just wow. Of course there are. And you know what? 99% of them are daylight disks and nocturnal lights, pinpoints in the distance that someone can't identify, and that's all they are. Just look at the thousands of reports produced by, say, Project Blue Book. Have you ever read ANY of those thousands of reports? As a so-called "Archivist" here on ATS I have, and nearly all of them are of the daylight disk, nocturnal light variety. In other words, the NUMBER of UFO "sightings" has been greatly exaggerated. The actual reports are actually mind-numbingly boring.

Then the NEXT leap of faith is to say, well, there are UFOs, AND it's a big universe, THEREFORE "aliens." Now THAT'S a leap of faith if there ever were one. How did you get from lights in the sky to aliens? There's no real justification for that at all. And the fact is, you can't even answer the simplest questions about it:

Given the speed of light issue, how did they get here? Well, you don't really know. We don't know everything about the Universe and how it works, so they must have invented Warp Drive or something. Or something. But you're avoiding the question. You have to prove Einstein wrong and you can't do it.

Given the vastness of the Universe you are so intent upon, how did they find us? Our radio waves have only gotten as far as the first few stars out there. You think they were cruising around and saw those lights and said, "Let's go check out those lights on the 3rd planet from this obscure star at the edge of an obscure galaxy to see if we can exploit their resources or something." Uh huh. You think they are here because we are? Now THAT'S arrogant.

Next issue: Well, there might be other dimensions or universes or something. True; they're might be. How does that work, exactly? Well, you don't really know that and have no good theories about how that could work, and no "string theory" doesn't cut it so don't even bring it up if that's all you've got.

Next issue: Well, people have actually seen these creatures and talked with them and they SAID they were from outer space! Uh huh. And 200 years ago when we were pretty ignorant about space they were forest sprites. These guys seem to adjust to the times, don't they? Please, go read Jacques Vallee. Really.

Next issue: But Steven Greer says...... And that's an issue, because every time we are told of all this "hard evidence" from people like Greer or Billy Meier when you actually examine the claims they fall apart into a steaming pile of poop. Of course, you've got your pick of "hard evidence" stories. There's "Dr." (not really) Kenneth Reed with an alien in his refrigerator. Or how about Truman Bethurum who had a "relationship" with Aura Rhanes, a small Latina-looking space captain from the planet Clarion on the other side of the sun who wore her red beret at a jaunty angle? Or how about Billy Meier, who went back in time to see the dinosaurs and brought back a picture that just happens to be copied from a contemporary art book or the picture of Semjase who just happens to look exactly like an actress on the Donna Reed show? Oh, and Billy is the reincarnation of Jesus, just so you know.

Yes, there are lots and lots of stories. Some of them sound pretty good, too, and some of them are just Cargo Cults full of wishful believers who just "want to know!" Or, like Roxanne, just want to believe lights from the cars on the hill across form her apartment were really aliens from space. And like so many people EVEN when she was show the hill in the daylight, shown the road, shown the cars, absolutely refused to NOT believe. Now who is ignorant and arrogant again? And way too many of them are downright hoaxers, unfortunately, who go to great lengths to deceive us, thus wasting our time while attempting to take our money.

Now am I claiming there is no such thing as UFOs? Of course not. Tell me where I said that. By definition, there are. Am I claiming there are absolutely no "aliens from space"? Nope. I just need you to do a better job of explaining how they got here. Am I saying there is no such thing as other universes, warping of space time, other dimensions, etc.? Nope, but once again, abject speculation of what might be true is no substitute for proving what is true.

But I AM saying that the basic argument of "The Universe is big, therefore aliens are here." is not a very good argument, even though it's been used a thousand times on ATS alone, by a lot of people who are unaware they are not the first person to have said it. Once you have spent about ten years reading up on the subject so that you are thoroughly familiar with all the theories, all the players, and with a solid background in the subject, THEN come back here and start lecturing us on UFOs. But do not come on here and start calling everyone else ignorant, when you are ignorant of the field yourself.

I don't think skeptics doubt the existence of unidentified flying objects.


And given the vastness of the universe one would think you could have selected a fresher cliche'.

a reply to: MDT20

But keep in mind that you're mixing the term "skeptic" and "denier"--I'm skeptical that the modern version of UFOs and ETs are accurate and all based on factual interactions or sightings. I am, however, more apt to believe that ancient drawings and descriptions, even reports up until near-recent history, prior to our major advancements in technology and flight, do indicate something not of our world has visited in the past.

And while I agree that life most likely exists in multiple places at the same time we do in the universe, it could also be said that assuming or saying that UFOs do exist just because of the vastness of space--or at least using that as evidence to base the deduction that they've visited Earth--is ignorant and arrogant.

This is an unknown--it's best to not take a hard stance one way or the other until we know for sure.

a reply to: schuyler

BURRRRNNNN!!!


but you do have allot of good points, i have only been around in the 'UFO field' for about 7 years. It started for me with very personal sightings.

so the first thing i do is get on the internet and start reading everything i can, I'm not sure if it was my desire to believe or just a much younger mind but i was convinced everything I personally couldn't ID in the sky was a ALIEN/ET/UT.

but with time and allot of reading and some knowledge on aircraft and some spacecraft allot of what i thought were UFO's quickly were explained away.

but then again there are some things i have seen with my own eyes that i can not explain. Jacques Vallee and Terence Mckenna actually did a interview together where they discussed there opinions on what UFO's really are/were. The UFO does seem to fit its self to the civilization it is showing its self to i.e ferry's,trolls,demons and ET's.

I think there is something to to be said about the idea that 'UFO's have always been here and are a part of us and earth

here is that video

www.youtube.com...

it has John Mack, Budd Hopkins, Jacques Vallee and Terence Mckenna

I don't doubt that there could be UFOs, I just doubt most of the claims are correct of sightings. Many could be military vehicles that we do not know of, which technically makes them UFOs. I'm sure that a few of them are caused by swamp gas as a couple of people sit near a swamp sucking down booze.....getting all gassed up.

I think a small percentage, about ten percent are possibly government technology or even possibly a few ETs. The chances of a super advanced earth born race would actually have better odds though. Just thing where our technology will be in a hundred years if we don't blow ourselves up.

Perhaps they have always been here, before us. a reply to: schuyler

a reply to: schuyler
Dammit Schuyler! You Debbie Downer you! I'll bet you tell your grand kids Santa isn't real too.

What about the Galactic federation of light, and Bashar? There's proof aliens are here, for ya.

a reply to: MDT20
My perspective after reading available ET & UFO material on the web is that it is highly probable they exist and have interacted with Mankind and that our Military may posses real TR-3B craft.
Maybe ETs follow a kinda Star Trek 'Prime directive' or could be Gene Rodenbery got the idea from ET

There is a difference between UFO out there and UFOs here. We are 100% sure life is out there but for many that is translated into advance beings flying around out planet...lol

Time is the enemy in all this. We have about 9 billion years to work with since after the big bang it took 4+ billion years for all the elements to form and to start to produce the universe we see today. 4.5 billion years ago earth started and in all that time out of trillions of life forms one came along, us, to maybe go into space and be advance, so not really a good indication there to suggest our galaxy is teeming with advance life. I'm saying this because the argument is we have a endless universe with unlimited possibilities so everything is possible, but we don't have endless time, we have 9 billions of time to work with and that is a limitation in all this. Another time issue is travel of matter, but then we easily just refer to Star Trek to fix that...lol Another big time issue is with life itself, and more directing species. In a few million years even if we survive it all we will not be human anymore, so if a space craft went zipping around 100,000s or millions of light years they would most likely never see their species again. They zoom here a million light years and then back to their home world they would get back to see their home world 2 million years older.

With all this said if I was going to speculate and say there are UFOs here I would say they are machines from some long ago race that has come and gone. Self replicating machines do not have the issues that life has so give them a few billion years and they can travel the galaxy ever collecting data for a race long gone billion of years ago.

originally posted by: schuyler
Or how about Billy Meier, who went back in time to see the dinosaurs and brought back a picture that just happens to be copied from a contemporary art book or the picture of Semjase who just happens to look exactly like an actress on the Donna Reed show?

You're just making it up as you go along here Schuyler.

These others might not notice, but you can't fool me.

For example, Semjase was a dancer from The Dean Martin Show - they were "The Golddiggers." There's not a whit of evidence that she ever appeared on The Donna Reed Show.

Harte

a reply to: MDT20

UFO's most definitely exist. After all, all a ufo is is an unidentified flying object. However, to make the jump in logic that UFO's are actually alien in nature requires evidence and proof. This also isn't saying that aliens don't exist (it is likely mathematically inevitable that aliens exist in the universe), but none of that means aliens are visiting this planet.