UFO's or explainable phenomenon?

Hey Doc, thanks for responding to my post. I have a few responses

First, I think I may have been unclear in my first post. I mean to say that one would look for phenomena where the UFOs DO NOT appear to be at the same height and DO APPEAR to be at a significant distance. This would be hard to replicate with lanterns on a horizontal surface such as water.

But maybe I misunderstand you. Do you mean by 'floating lanters', something akin to hot-air balloons tied in a formation?

Second, I would avoid any argument that suggests "Why would they come here?" or "If they want to experiment on us", as these are anthropomorphic concepts. I try to avoid thinking like this, as this simply detracts from the observable phenomena by supplanting a potentially foreign phenomena with assumptions of human rationality. There is nothing to say that aliens even 'think', if such aliens exist at all. In fact, the concept of 'alien' may be entirely off track when it comes to the UFO phenomena, even if the UFOs are not terrestrial in origin, nor simple phenomena such as meteorites or 'shooting stars'.

It is very frustrating examining this phenomena, I would say, because there is so much bad science out there. Yet again, yesterday. I saw another STS Secret NASA video where someone claimed that an object changed course when it was merely the camera zooming out.

Despite the fallacy of many observers, however, I would not discount the phenomena itself. And I would not assume simple explanations of terrestrial or banal origin (Ice crystals, for example, in the STS footage.) I happen to know that atmospheric physisists have been observing the things in the STS videos for a long time, and that what they are (their signature on burn up in the atmosphere, has been classified for a very long time.) To me, that makes them inherently interesting.

In any case, the key poin is that there are UFO cases with chase planes, radar returns, multiple observers in positions of professional authority, and such, that remain unexplained. Obviously, I will always apply Occam's Razor. But there are cases where the 'official explanations' simply do not cut it (pun intended) and so we must investigate further.

I would still urge you to look for examples of "fleet" UFO phenomena, such as the Mexico Lights where there might be some significant variation in height of the o9bjects) to test yhour hypothesis of lanters. If the objects are of varying height and at great distance, then the water lantern hypothesis would not be feasible (I would argue). ON the other hand, if all examples are of objects on a horizontal plane, then the water lantern hypothesis deserves further scrutiny.


[edit on 20-4-2006 by Ectoterrestrial]

The_Doctor

I am sorry but please do not claim facts from vague resources you cannot proove this.

What do you mean I can't prove the UFO phenomena has been happening on Earth for several hundred years?

If you researched the topic you'd find UFO reports dating back into the 18th Century.

Please see Issac Koi's "UFO Chronology 1877-2006"

Here is an excerpt from an old UFO report.

1783 , August 18, Windsor Castle , Thomas and Paul Sandby

"An oblong cloud moving more or less parallel to the horizon. Under this cloud could be seen a luminous object which soon became spherical, brilliantly lit, which came to a halt; this strange sphere seemed at first to be pale blue in colour but then its luminosity increased and soon it set off again towards the East. Then the object changed direction and moved parallel to the horizon before disappearing to the South-East; the light it gave out was prodigious; it lit up everything on the ground."

( ufologie.net... )

[edit on 20-4-2006 by lost_shaman]

Dont' get me wrong here, i think lanterns make up a resonable number of cases. There was i believe a video from a police chopper that showed an object on infrared camera. This turned out to be one of the paper lanterns you are on about, it moved at a good speed as well.

The problem with the lantern hypothesis is that many UFO's change direction multiple times at good speed. A lantern if it got caught in a thermal might shoot upwards i can admit, but it wouldn't change direction multiple times.

I prefer to focus on the cases that are either in the daylight or ones which are at night but were seen on radar and things like that. I am willing to bet a lantern wouldn't show up on radar, mass lanterns might but even then it would only be lights and they wouldn't perform any unexplainable manouvers.

Some of these lights and craft have been shown to move at such high speeds that the G-Forces would be incredible. This couldn't really be done by a lantern. Shooting stars could reach these speeds but they don't have a habit of changing direction multiple times.

With the exception of the cases in which they perform "unknown" manuevers i would say unexplainable by our conventional methods. However even daylight ufo's like the mexican fleets which do not display crazy manuevers are most likely balloons or lanterns. Some sky lanterns are huge and one can assume that decent radar could pick up the mass floating in the sky. However even my government says it has picked up UFO's on radar. The problem with the term UFO is it has been associated with ET. What needs to happen is people need to forget about ET and focus first on reasonable doubt which their is a lot of in most cases. The stealth aircrafts that were tested way back were reported by many as "UFO's" givin their triangular shape and silence we now know that many of the triangular sightings of yesteryear were infact stealth aircraft.

I can conclude that some of the UFO's reported could be next generation propulsion or other types of military operations. It has been years since a major breakthrough in propulsion happened. It is only logical to say that their are still secret aircraft and space craft projects. Like the USAF just declassified a 2 stage space shuttle that they had for 16 years. Just in time too since the current shuttles retire in 2010. Think about this though the internet and other forms of communication as well as the jet engine among many inventions were invented by the military for their applications. Perhaps what we see in the sky is new technologies. We have hit the limits of propulsion in aircraft. The JSF-35 and F22 Raptor will most likely be the last fighters flown by human pilots because they push the limits of human reaction time and and physically as well. NASA is also working on a new type of engine to propel people to mars in 45 days. It is anti-matter propulsion they say a few miligrams could do what tons of rocket fuel does. NASA has also said they are working on new types of propulsion as well including a project that deals with anti-gravity.

First what people need to do is find out what technologies we have who knows maybe we are capable of building things like this already. I mean seriously look at how much money these black projects get.

"1783 , August 18, Windsor Castle , Thomas and Paul Sandby

"An oblong cloud moving more or less parallel to the horizon. Under this cloud could be seen a luminous object which soon became spherical, brilliantly lit, which came to a halt; this strange sphere seemed at first to be pale blue in colour but then its luminosity increased and soon it set off again towards the East. Then the object changed direction and moved parallel to the horizon before disappearing to the South-East; the light it gave out was prodigious; it lit up everything on the ground." "

It is very likely that it could have been ball lightning as it is known to display radical behaviour as well. As I have said before though eyewitness testimony is infact sketchy at best because memories deteriorate overtime. I have seen proof of UFO's

Ball lightning here:
www.cerncourier.com...

this picture here may have been similar to what they seen at Windsor Castle.

Originally posted by The_Doctor
"1783 , August 18, Windsor Castle , Thomas and Paul Sandby

"An oblong cloud moving more or less parallel to the horizon. Under this cloud could be seen a luminous object which soon became spherical, brilliantly lit, which came to a halt; this strange sphere seemed at first to be pale blue in colour but then its luminosity increased and soon it set off again towards the East. Then the object changed direction and moved parallel to the horizon before disappearing to the South-East; the light it gave out was prodigious; it lit up everything on the ground." "

Yeah ball lightning did come to my mind when i read this one. No one can be sure about it but i don't think it's a great case.

Can you leave off the mexican fleet lantern thing. I think everyone has conceded that lanterns can be very easy to misidentify. The good cases are what i like.

Yes everyone has stuck UFO with aliens. I mentioned in another thread that i saw a UFO once, i did my research and it turned out to be a local science group with a balloon. When i mentioned UFO to people though they instantly jumped to the conclusion that i was talking about aliens. Media hype has done that.

See there is an explanation for everything it's just ussually the explanation people do not want hear. People should try to disprove things first to proove them because only after you have ruled all possibility of human intervention can you theorize other things.

You can only theorize these things you cannot claim 100% you know for sure because real evidence and facts have are not very abundant at all. It like finding a needle in a hey stack.

Originally posted by The_Doctor
See there is an explanation for everything it's just ussually the explanation people do not want hear. People should try to disprove things first to proove them because only after you have ruled all possibility of human intervention can you theorize other things.

You can only theorize these things you cannot claim 100% you know for sure because real evidence and facts have are not very abundant at all. It like finding a needle in a hey stack.

The 'sighting' i had was an easily explanable thing yes but this does not mean that all are explanable. Your tone of 'See there is an explanation for everything' isn't correct at all.

As for evidence you have been shown tons of it with cited cases! The governments involved said they didn't know what it was. The belgium UFO showed an actual craft, it was seen on two seperate radars i believe, two air force pilots in fighter jets saw it, an enormous amount of people saw it. The belgium government said they had no idea what it was, please dont' say that was natural phenomena because factually it can't have been. Don't say it was an apparition, don't say it was a comet or space debris because it can not have been those things. They have been scientifically ruled out! And it could not have been venus although i know venus is mistaken for a lot of UFO's.

It was deffinatly a structured craft, now whether this was an ET ship or a government craft i have absolutely no idea. I would say government craft is more likely but that's still a problem for me. Even if it's a government black project it is using extremely exotic technology and so it can still be called a UFO. The reason for that is because no ordinary citizen and even most military personnel couldn't tell you what it was.

That is decent evidence of a UFO now isn't it. Again it isn't to say it's alien it is simply a UFO. It was a structured craft of a decent size.

Yeah Doctor,

Who am I to believe? My eyes? Or you? I am not impressed with your science or modern science for that matter. Man has to understand his limitations. We've got plenty. To dismiss the unknown but visible is caveman science and it continues today. Ha!

"See there is an explanation for everything' isn't correct at all."

It is correct there is an explanation for everything even if we don't understand that explanation yet.

Not impressed with science highhorse? Is it because it is responsible for all the wonderous things we have in the age of information like the Internet for example. Just because someone says it's aliens doesn't make it aliens. UFO's as i have said could be human who is to say they aren't (unexplainable cases). As for our limitations we are very limited from our stand point but what about the governments and corperations who could possibly be developing exotic technologies by funneling billions into various projects in secret?

Highhorse i get the impression that you truly beleive in ET visiting and that UFO's are alien but you cannot dismiss science if you do so you are just being silly. I do not completely rule out the possibilties of ET contact it is just highly unlikely. I still stand behind my word that we can explain and have explained in the past a majority of UFO sightings. However there are the few cases that still puzzle me as well. But again before you can claim it's a space craft you need to have proof which no one publically seems to have.

Is there proof of UFO phenomenon hell yes. Is there proof of ET intervention hell no.

Is there proof of UFO phenomenon hell yes. Is there proof of ET intervention hell no.

Well at least we have that admission now.

The point of this thread was to discuss the UFO phenomenon so the question of whether science can explain everything is a seperate one. You started this thread going on about the lantern thing. As i stated everyone accepts or at least i hope they can accept the lantern thing can explain a decent amount of them.

I am with you dcotor on not knowing if they are government or ET though. There is though factual evidence that these are craft and it seems logical they are space craft.

To be honest i don't get you, you say 98% are explanable and i agree on that. Then you say that the other 2% aren't space craft, if they aren't space craft then they are natural phenomenon surely? I kind of need you to clarify your position on that if you could please.

My position is that they coould just as likely be new exotic aircrafts as well or maybe even weapons know one really knows. We don't even know if they are manned or not.

I am looking for all possible explanations even if those explanations are somewhat out there. This includes everything from secret air and space craft to baloons and lanterns and even natural phenomenon like mirages for example.

All UFO's, every UFO that ever has been, is explainable.

We may not know what the explanation is, but one exists.

Wouldn't a government craft be an explanation lol. Again look into the facts n smething like the belgium case. It wasn't a satalite, shooting star, lense flare, lantern, weather balloon, normal aircraft, cloud, flocks of birds, venus and anything else you can throw up. I am a careful person and when i approached the UFO subject i was completely neutral. The cases that turned my opinion were the rendalsham forest case, the belgium case and the L.A case in 1942 which is commonly refered to as The Battle of Los Angeles. I don't like that title but the case is very very good.

Anyway after looking at the evidence it seems something is deffinately flying around our skys. I don't see how saying something is a government craft is a wild accusation based on nothing more than fantasy. I mean the government has had tons of secret air projects that people have misidentified. The stealth bomber is an absolute classic, i mean that thing looks like a UFO from the front even now. Obviously it isn't but you see my point.

Originally posted by The_Doctor

It is very likely that it could have been ball lightning as it is known to display radical behaviour as well.

That's funny because Ball lightning is a pseudoscientific theory that attempts to explain UFOs.

And almost all the Ball Lightning theories that even attempt to make sense involve an initial lightning strike.

So you see just because you can fathom a Possible explanation for UFOs doesn't mean you've explained them.

because it challenges me to accept what my gut says is truth, but my head says is infeasable.

I've spent a lot of time looking at photos and I'd venture that 80% of them are explainable and not at all phenominal in occurance. That other 20% in addition to my own experience...well that's where places like ATS come in.

It is far too egotistical to assume we are the only solitary sentient beings in the universe - that is unproven however - given how immense the solar sytems are it is extremely likely that life exists out there.

Can it come here? is it evolved enough technologically, and if it is why would it? Why would humans be so dang interesting? (This is of course open to a WIDE array of speculation)

The whole abduction thing comes up in there too - if they are visiting, why not inspect the local wildlife? Why not investigate and test and decipher? (Again open to speculation)

I think most should keep an open mind, but no so open as to become gullible and overly emotional. I think a little skeptisism is healthy and challenging.

In the same right, pulling Neener Neeners and making fun of or belitteling someone with conflicting ideals/values/beliefs/religion etc etc is unproductive and definitely not much fun to read.

There is also the distinct possibility that of that 20% I mentioned...a percentage of those unexplainables - could be explained and likely will be explained as time progresses - likely Military craft, Un-announced satellites, Weather/communications equip realeased under Gov authority and tight lips.

So what would the percentage be of actual unexplainables? Quite small I'd think. I highly doubt the visitors have humungous fleets of these craft as would be required to account for the numerous and varied accounts of sightings (so many different shapes and sizes and speeds and colours....)

While it all could be quite possible it's hard to calculate and speculate on a technology and a race that has yet to be proven as in existance to begin with.

Hey, I personally suspect I've been abducted, I personally believe in UFOs and a certain degree of coverup...but who really knows for certain?

One day, I think we'll know. Facts are always there somewhere.

Hey Doc I seen a metalic cigar shaped object that defied all laws of modern physics, oh excuse me it was probally ball lightning or venus or one of those lanturn things you keep yapping about.

Bottomline is we try our best to explain something that is currently unexplainable but at the end of the day we still dont know what it is.Sure we can put in our minds that it was probally this or probally that but the key word here is PROBALLY. We dont know for sure.

Also with all of the UFO videos, pics, and storys I have Investigated I can honestly say that with some of the maneuvers that these UFO's do, the only way they can be secret goverment craft is if we have found out how to
A. Go against the laws of gravity
B. Disapear atwill
C. Accelerate Instantaneoustly(did i git it right) to Speeds that we should not be at for at least 200 years

"A. Go against the laws of gravity
B. Disapear atwill
C. Accelerate Instantaneoustly(did i git it right) to Speeds that we should not be at for at least 200 years"

A: Many people claim this can be done and it somewhat has just look at lifters they float and hover on electricity alone. They are just balsa wood and tinfoil

B: We also have invented a primative for of visual cloak but it is more along the line of what you see in the predator films

C: How fast are we talking cause we will soon be able to reach mars in 45 days with an anti-matter powered spacecraft and they figure we will be at near light speeds by the end of the century.

links:
www.nasa.gov...
Nasa Anti-matter project.
www.time.com...
Optical Camo (invisibility).

Originally posted by The_Doctor
"A. Go against the laws of gravity
B. Disapear atwill
C. Accelerate Instantaneoustly(did i git it right) to Speeds that we should not be at for at least 200 years"

A: Many people claim this can be done and it somewhat has just look at lifters they float and hover on electricity alone. They are just balsa wood and tinfoil

B: We also have invented a primative for of visual cloak but it is more along the line of what you see in the predator films

C: How fast are we talking cause we will soon be able to reach mars in 45 days with an anti-matter powered spacecraft and they figure we will be at near light speeds by the end of the century.

A. Lifters i think can be explained with basic principles. The ions that flow downwards would cause force to be applied upwards, this would explain why they have to be so light to work. Of course people still argue about these but that conclusion makes sense to me.

B. Yeah the cloaking tech is coming along nicely.

C. NASA is considering this along with many other options. The idea of heim theory i find more appealing but we will see. As for approaching the speed of light well that is hard but possible. The difference is that everything i have read so far suggests a slow transition to that speed, like a car. UFO's seem to jump from one speed to another. Actually this makes sense because if they are jumping from 0 MPH to whichever speed they choose then G-force wouldn't be applied if there was no acceleration. Simply changing states from one speed to another would get rid of that. I am probably explaining that a little clumsily so sorry.

"we will be at near light speeds by the end of the century."

Well last time I checked we weren't at the end of the century.
I think your problem is u dont want to except the possibility that there could be ETs on earth, so for every UFO case you try to give your version of a "reasonable" answer.Well my friend, ET's visiting earth is very reasonable and possible. Its just that media has put into peoples heads that it can only happen in the movies and anybody who says otherwise has been watching to much star trek. Sure we can give a more "down to earth" explanation for a lot of UFO cases, but sometimes the explanations people give are are more unlikely to happen then it being a actual alien spacecraft.