after much research i must confess i no longer believe

this thread brings up some good points. somebody mentioned that reality is relative to the individual. how true! i have seen ufos, but i have never been abducted, so basically all i can attest to the phenomena is, "UFOs exist in some shape or form, and i really dont know about abductions." I could speculate opinions about both subjects, but they would be speculations - the above are solid facts as far as i am concerned.

I particularly liked this:

Some people like Jaques Vallee and John Keel (who wrote The Mothman Prophecies) believe that much to do with UFOlogy may in fact come down to the idea of a 'trickster', that is a kind of archetype/entity that co-opts and references a cultures myths to make mischief and have fun at our expense by appearing in the forms familiar and known to that particular culture, in days past it might be fairies in our modern space age it's et craft. I've never seen a UFO or been abducted and I'm not suggesting this as a blanket explanation but it might help explain some of the seemingly ridiculous and innacurate aspects of certain cases. Channeling being a case in point where supposed alien entities give out false, misleading or sometimes totally innacurate information.

not enough people are talking about these possiblities. The UFO/abduction/ET phenomena is clearly over our heads. Regardless how much energy we devote to cracking the case, our efforts (as humans) are wasted. A good scientist wouldnt dismiss the obscure evidence we've already collected, but expand the realm of possibles which he/she is open to. Whether intented by some sinister intelligence or not, the phenomena that we all love to study is a distraction if we cannot penetrate the limbo-ish forcefield it is engulfed in. Throughout all of recorded history, every culture and civilization has added its own manifestations of the extra-dimensional phenomena present in our lives. It is really naive of any scientist to assume he/she has a monopoly upon the possibles. There is always more.

although many of the abductees state the claim of world peace none of them,even the ones who channel the spirits of aliens, can explain even the basic aspects of inter-dimensional travel or what quantum mechanics entail speed-of light travel.

This is a bit like expecting a dog riding in the car on the way to the vet, to understand the basics of an internal combustion engine. Hell, most DRIVERS don't even understand the basics of an internal combustion engine!

Student of science? I beg to differ....

A student of science would be unable to ignore the numerous OFFICIAL government documents on the phenomenon, the numerous projects to study them, the numerous military officers and pilots which have gone on record, unidentified radar returns, military intercepts, etc. Not to mention the sheer statistics of us being the only intelligent life are beyond astronomical....

Originally posted by Phood
EDIT: Added picture taken in 1927 Oregon. Pretty convincing and the phenomena was not widley known back then.


[edit on 9-6-2005 by Phood]

If that one hasn't been debunked yet, it certainly needs to be. It's a photoshopped montage by someone who knows dead nothing about photography.

Cameras in 1927 were not very good at taking pictures of quickly moving things, but they did have a slow enough shutter speed that details were very crisp. In this case, the hillside in the distance is not in enough detail to be a convincing photo from that era.

Furthermore, the color is wrong. Some limp-brain with no knowledge of photography (luckily for us) "knew" that old photos were sepia-toned. What Limp-Brain didn't know is that the sepia process was replaced in the early 1900's by the silver process that gives crisp black and whites.

For proof, take a look at these famous photos from the depression:
www.loc.gov...

And from Houston from the 1920's
www.sloanegallery.com...

And finally, go get an old photo album from family members who like to keep photos of long deceased relatives. You'll see that photos from the 1900's and onward were not sepia-toned.

Luckily, the hoaxers are too stupid to do any real research and this makes them pretty easy to catch.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Not to mention the sheer statistics of us being the only intelligent life are beyond astronomical....

Yeah, but the chances of that intelligent life being able to first find earth then have some sort of transportation to get here is astronomically low....


Now I have no doubt UFOs exsist. But...what are they?
There's no evidence at all that they are piloted by aliens (there's really no evidence that aliens [as we know them - grays, etc.] exsist [in this realm]), and there's no evidence that the UFOs people have seen can travel between galaxies. There's more evidence that governments have more to do with UFOs than aliens....

Originally posted by ubermunche
Some people like Jaques Vallee and John Keel (who wrote The Mothman Prophecies) believe that much to do with UFOlogy may in fact come down to the idea of a 'trickster', that is a kind of archetype/entity that co-opts and references a cultures myths to make mischief and have fun at our expense ...

I also think this theory merits attention. There could be a single explanation for a lot of weird phenomenon. Except for one thing. Witness’s accounts of the Roswell crash showed it was a material object with possible real biological entities. This does not sound like a trickster phenom that can change form or produce hallucinations. But who knows, that's why it's a mystery.

A student of science would be unable to ignore the numerous OFFICIAL government documents on the phenomenon, the numerous projects to study them, the numerous military officers and pilots which have gone on record, unidentified radar returns, military intercepts, etc. Not to mention the sheer statistics of us being the only intelligent life are beyond astronomical....

And yet we are still debating the topic of wheather or not they exist.

I here people state the overwhelming evidence that exists, however, its amazing that with the vast leakage of supposed crediable evidence nothing concrete has escaped to the general public. This phenomena is unlike most conspericies in that it would take a tremendous amount of people to keep it as secret as has been done. Would you agree or disagree? That being said, at some point in time wouldnt someone in the loop, like those mentioned above, (your pilots, astronauts, scientist, etc....) someone, anyone, put the greater good of the people of Earth above everything else, to show proof of the existance of alien life.

PS I get a kick out of people who say they "want to believe". I could care less if they do or dont exist. I just don't like the idea of something that substantial being kept from me. Its funny because, while growing up in a christian home, I kinda allow the UFO phenomena to hinder my faith. I dont (but know I should) go to church, yet this UFO thing could just be a test to my faith.

P.S. TO ANYONE!! Your immediate family and close friends aside, What on EARTH could be as important as knowing that we are not alone in the universe. Your Job? Your New Car? Your Nice Home? That Plasma Screen TV? The NBA Championships? WHAT?!!!

Someone said it earlier, that information would give all us humans something in common and bring us all closer together, and would make our small differences seem even smaller!

That would be a FAR SECOND only to making it to HEAVEN.
The other alternative is that this world is just an every man for themself world.

Thats far worse too me!

People thats just my opinion!!!

[edit on 9-6-2005 by CrossBone]

Originally posted by muzzleflash
ive seen ufos with my own eyes

so i know personally they are real and true

i did not have a video camera at the time sorry; i do regret that

dont you just love it when credulous people claim

"The Absence of Evidence is obviously the evidence of absence"

anyways
keep thinking whatever you wanna think

as a scientist i cannot deny the fact i saw with my own eyes a flying saucer

im not trying to convince you of anything; other than the simple fact i will always disagree with you about this

why dont you learn something called "patience" and go find the ufos yourself

step 1 : get your lazy butt off the computer!
step 2: go outside a little bit and look at the SKY!
step 3: stop the ADD/ADHD and just chill out! keep watching the sky

if you watch the sky for at least 2000 or 3000 hours i will give you the benifit of the doubt and i will fully respect your disgust over the absence of ufo phenomena

but im pretty sure within 2000-3000 hours you will find your own evidence

from my expierance within 200hours you should have seen More than One unexplainable event

all im saying is that your speaking all this rhetoric without even knowing anything about what your talking about
how could you? you havent seen one yourself! lol

instead of wasting our time trying to help you overcome your doubts why dont you just go invest some work into it and try to find one yourself?

or r u 2 lazy to get ur butt off the comp?

Yeah I tried that, but thanks anyway for your cynical approach, that always works. For you to assume that I sit on my lazy butt just goes to show that you speak out of ignorance, which also translates into life. I have never said UFO's don't exist but I do not believe they are "alien" craft. The Germans had been working with anti-gravity technology since the thirties. I would encourage you to read Carl Sagans "Demon-Haunted world". Oh and excuse me for having an opinion, I though that was what this was for

Originally posted by Gazrok

although many of the abductees state the claim of world peace none of them,even the ones who channel the spirits of aliens, can explain even the basic aspects of inter-dimensional travel or what quantum mechanics entail speed-of light travel.

This is a bit like expecting a dog riding in the car on the way to the vet, to understand the basics of an internal combustion engine. Hell, most DRIVERS don't even understand the basics of an internal combustion engine!

Did it ever occur to you that certain info is leaked by the government to use fear tactics to control the population. Sorry but it's the oldest trick in the book. Control through fear. Does anyone remember the impact of the original airing of "War of the Worlds". If I here another story of an alien traveling all this way to tell us we are destroying the earth i am gonna puke. How about telling us how you can travel at over mach 12 from a dead stop and not experience G-force concussion, or at least show us how to use technology without pollution, It shouldn't be that hard if there are all these abductions. If they want to help then why not land in New York. I'll tell you why, Aliens do not exist as Little small grey men and they do not have a secret base in Dulce, NM. So when you personally get video I will come and lick your feet. Call me when you get it.
Student of science? I beg to differ....

A student of science would be unable to ignore the numerous OFFICIAL government documents on the phenomenon, the numerous projects to study them, the numerous military officers and pilots which have gone on record, unidentified radar returns, military intercepts, etc. Not to mention the sheer statistics of us being the only intelligent life are beyond astronomical....

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Phood
EDIT: Added picture taken in 1927 Oregon. Pretty convincing and the phenomena was not widley known back then.


[edit on 9-6-2005 by Phood]

If that one hasn't been debunked yet, it certainly needs to be. It's a photoshopped montage by someone who knows dead nothing about photography.

Cameras in 1927 were not very good at taking pictures of quickly moving things, but they did have a slow enough shutter speed that details were very crisp. In this case, the hillside in the distance is not in enough detail to be a convincing photo from that era.

Furthermore, the color is wrong. Some limp-brain with no knowledge of photography (luckily for us) "knew" that old photos were sepia-toned. What Limp-Brain didn't know is that the sepia process was replaced in the early 1900's by the silver process that gives crisp black and whites.

For proof, take a look at these famous photos from the depression:
www.loc.gov...

And from Houston from the 1920's
www.sloanegallery.com...

And finally, go get an old photo album from family members who like to keep photos of long deceased relatives. You'll see that photos from the 1900's and onward were not sepia-toned.

Luckily, the hoaxers are too stupid to do any real research and this makes them pretty easy to catch.

Haha, oops
Thought it was a real one(was my favourite one this far), think I saw it at UFO Casebook.
Thanks for correcting it

[edit on 9-6-2005 by Phood]

Look, the guy has doubts. Well founded doubts. I'm not going to pee on his feelings. I have doubts, it's tough to carry on in the light of so much crap that's tossed out there that destroys any smattering of credibilty. There is doubtless scads of life out there somewhere, but are they visiting the earth in droves probing people and stealing our livestock? I guess that still remains to be seen. Everything is still just anecdotal and circumstancial. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

Klevers-
I would have to ask how long you have actually been examining any cases of "alien" experiences or truly unknown enigmatic cases. Yes indeed, there are plenty of haoxes and liars to go around, and you do have to do some serious work to get at any still unknown cases...but if there's even one, it's worthy of looking further.

If you have your mind made up, thats fine. I would encourage you to look less at "nuts and bolts" aspects of the question and more at the subjective experience of the entire thing.

I say again as I have said to many, the study of UFOs is a study of people. Many refuse to see it this way, but it's a study of reports and data collected by people. The quality of the messenger, the hard core experience that a person might have, or even the odd missing piece. It's all about people, and how it effects them.

Thats the direction I would tell you to look. To look at this engima with an open mind, and critical thinking, there's no way you come away saying it's all idle folly. To come to such an end is to refuse data, whether ancedotal or otherwise.

i seriously doubt that any "UFO"s have ever come from space to visit this tiney, festering planet.

but, like the thoery of the multi-verse, can almost state for a fact that there is life on other worlds.... there are litterally trillions if not more worlds in JUST THIS GALAXY that are more hospitable than Earth. these planets alone have an rather high chance of holing life.... no matter how promitive. multiply those trillion or so world by about 1,000 (representing the other galaxies) and you have about 1 quadrillion planets(1000000000000000)
all with about a 7% chance of holding life... and POOF suddenly there are about 7 trillion (70000000000000) other planets in just this universe... that hold life. i'm not saying these numbers are accurate.. but think about it.

[edit on 9-6-2005 by midgetstar]

I've long studied the subject of UFOs. I've read hundreds of books on the subject and tried to keep up to date on reported sightings. This is a subject that has interested me since I was young. Initially, I took to heart the ETH (Extraterrestrial Hypothesis) and that the governments of the world (not just the U.S. government) knew the truth, had crashed discs and ET bodies. However, over time I've come to realize that there is really no evidence to support either one these ideas or beliefs. There is no doubt that UFOs represent a very real phenomenon that can be physical and non-physical (paranormal, supernatural). This phenomenon can leave real, verifiable physical traces and it can, also, have an effect on the human conciousness.

It seems that the longer I study the subject the less clear it becomes. I do feel that UFOs represent contact with a non-human form of conciousness, but I don't believe it's an extraterrestrial one in the classic sense. However, the subject has become so hazy from all the poorly researched material available that it's increasingly difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. For a while, I was totally discouraged by all this. I felt like (and still do) that no one was doing any serious research on the subject that represented true critical thinking. Why even report sightings if they weren't being really studied? Well, I now think that sightings should still be collected for obvious reasons. I recently read two books by Dr. Jacques Vallee that, in my opinion, are excellent. Vallee examines many of the often ignored aspects of UFOs and I highly recommend that anyone who is serious about the subject read them.

Yeah, but the chances of that intelligent life being able to first find earth then have some sort of transportation to get here is astronomically low....

Not really. Given our estimates on the age of the universe, the Drake equation, etc. the chances of an advanced civilization thousands of years ahead of us in technology is astronomically high I'd wager, though any statistician should feel free to give us an estimate, hehe....

Considering we went from the horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than a century....the odds are certainly in favor of some clever little alien coming up with a way to get here in all of those thousands, perhaps even millions, of years... And we've certainly been announcing our presence for over a century as well....

after much research i must confess i no longer believe

Then please, answer this...

What do you believe crashed near Roswell in 1947?

Mogul Balloon? Can't be. The time is completely off (no launches around the recovery date), and Mogul balloons recovered prior to and after the event were NEVER treated with that level of secrecy and importance. They were left where they fell, for only the mission (not the parts) was classified. We won't even get into the AF explanation of flight dummies being mistaken for bodies... (that were part of a DIFFERENT project...project High Dive...and about 5 years AFTER the event!)

Top Secret craft? Can't be. Surely such a craft would not STILL be classified over 50 years later... Hell, even the Raptor is common knowledge...no reason to keep a 1947 craft in such secrecy...

Foreign craft? Can't be. Same explanation as above.

So what is left that fits the facts, and numerous eyewitness descriptions (many of which were ranking military officers)? Not to mention the military's own initial admission of what it had? Please, I'd love to know....

but like i said before... there is no appparent reason for aliens of any type to come to this heck hole of a planet on the outer tendrils of our galaxy. there are trillions of other, more hospitable, larger, etc. planets for them to investigate. they would not come to a solar system with and oddly small star... and chose to land on the 3rd planet from said star

Originally posted by Gazrok
Not really. Given our estimates on the age of the universe, the Drake equation, etc. the chances of an advanced civilization thousands of years ahead of us in technology is astronomically high I'd wager, though any statistician should feel free to give us an estimate, hehe....

It's possible.
I was talking about that civilization finding us and getting here, not if it exsist.

Considering we went from the horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than a century....the odds are certainly in favor of some clever little alien coming up with a way to get here in all of those thousands, perhaps even millions, of years... And we've certainly been announcing our presence for over a century as well....

Given the sheer size of the universe, the odds of anything or anyone finding earth is virtually impossible.


How fast do you think our announcements are traveling btw? Answer: too slow for anything signicifant.

yeah, but we have to take in consideration that they may not be traveleing vast distances, in our human way of thinking. if they're bending spacetime to travel, then those distances are meaningless.

and as far as the speed in which our "announcements" are traveleing...it depends on what announcements you're referencing: if its radio waves, then i agree. but i also think detonating a-bombs and the like are an equally effective way to announce ourselves to any non-human intelligent beings. plus, if these beings are extra-dimensional, as opposed to extra-terrestrial, then it would be quite easy for them to receive our announcements, as they are "here", but noe here, so to speak.

[edit on 9-6-2005 by el cid]

Originally posted by Kleversdad
exactly, just another buisness, like lottery tickets keep on buying if you believe hard enough

How is that fair to everyday people like myself who have had a close encounter with something that was not of this world! (Not Abducted / close as in proximity)

I spend hours on this board , for the sole reason to help others understand the reality of visitation , just because I think everyone has the right to know the truth.

It's possible.
I was talking about that civilization finding us and getting here, not if it exsist.

So was I. My point being that a race thousands of years ahead of us would probably have figured out a way to traverse such distances...

How fast do you think our announcements are traveling btw? Answer: too slow for anything signicifant.

NASA has announced the likelihood of water on Mars and Europa. In our limited experience, we know that where there is water, there is usually life. That's two locations in just our solar system alone. If this is any indication, then the universe may be TEEMING with life! You are of course, referring to such announcements as Voyager, radio, tv waves, etc. However, for all we know, they may be able to detect other key signs over vast interstellar distances as well, such as atomic detonations, etc. We don't know what kinds of detection capabilities may exist for beings capable of traversing such distances.

Originally posted by midgetstar
but like i said before... there is no appparent reason for aliens of any type to come to this heck hole of a planet on the outer tendrils of our galaxy. there are trillions of other, more hospitable, larger, etc. planets for them to investigate. they would not come to a solar system with and oddly small star... and chose to land on the 3rd planet from said star

What persuades you to believe that the Earth is a "Heck hole", its really a beautiful wondrous planet , as land based mammals , we only see 1/4 of our world.

Its not the size of the star that counts it’s the planets around it that matter.

As far as choosing where to look , you need to keep in mind that we have been advertising our presence on this planet 24 hours a day for the last 150 years or so!

Also we are just learning that we can look deep into space and learn so many things about planets by the way in which they reflect light , and how large they are by the wobble they induce on their stars.

Imagine what we will be able to tell about planets far from us in say 100 years from now!

[edit on 9-6-2005 by lost_shaman]