believers becoming non believers?

Reread my post diplomat-the very first thing I said in response to you was that it may not have been aliens. I am certain(from what I've witnessed with my own two eyes)that we are being visited. By who or what I am unsure of as yet.

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective
Reread my post diplomat-the very first thing I said in response to you was that it may not have been aliens. I am certain(from what I've witnessed with my own two eyes)that we are being visited. By who or what I am unsure of as yet.

Fair enough, my mistake. That is basically how I feel about the whole thing. I think there is no doubt that "something" strange is flying around in our skies. UFOs exist without a doubt. It's the whole Alien part that is a bit tricky. Nothing has really convinced me that Aliens have been visiting us just yet...

Originally posted by Diplomat


Fair enough, my mistake. That is basically how I feel about the whole thing. I think there is no doubt that "something" strange is flying around in our skies. UFOs exist without a doubt. It's the whole Alien part that is a bit tricky. Nothing has really convinced me that Aliens have been visiting us just yet...

Myself as well. I don't know who is flying these things, but I'd love to find out(even if they're human).

[edit on 6-9-2007 by DimensionalDetective]

I think its non-believers becoming believers, not the other way around. There is so many witnessess, abductees, stories and coverups, if you scratch the surface, you realise something indeed is going on. Most non-believers dwell in their belief, without even trying to see if it could be possible. Doesn't apply to Ats non-believers though, since well, you're there looking at this topic eh

Also, some people have difficulty accepting aliens and UFOs could exist.

More imaginative people who watch science-fiction, fantasy, who are open minded on weird stuff accept a lot more the possiblity that aliens exist when faced with evidence.

On the other hand, you got people who have problems accepting, or refuse to believe in aliens just because that idea makes them unconfortable.

A little if your cat starts talking fluent english. Some people would scream, run away out of their house, and need several weeks or months to get used to the change. Some other people would just find it cool, and start talking with their cat like nothing happened.



[edit on 6-9-2007 by Atlantix]

I came to ATS a 100% believer in UFO'S, but after just a few months I'm very skeptical about the whole UFO phenomenon. I still believe in UFO's, but see no point in debating on the topic, as it's impossible to evaluate the evidence at hand. I think even if BCC took a film off a ship landing in their gardens, it would be dismissed as CGI. People would say it's to perfect, If the evidence is poor, people say it's grainy and poor quality. I don't believe the people who are seeking disclosure will ever be successful in there aims. If disclosure does happen it will have to be on a massive scale, something like independence day.

Originally posted by williamjklopp
that is an intelligent answer, It would be arrogant to thing otherwise

I think it would be arrogant to think we are the only intelligent life in the universe -- or even this galaxy. But I don't think it is arrogant at all to NOT believe we are being visited without having pretty good proof.

I believe in extra-terrestial intelligent life...I'm not sure about the visitation part, though.

And to directly address the topic of this thread: If the people who post their sightings on ATS are representational of all of the people who have seen something they think is unexplainable, then that further decreases my belief in alien visitation. It seems that most of the threads that have said "Look at this PROOF of aliens visitation!" have offered very little to actually prove the existence of alien visitation.


[edit on 9/6/2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

reply to post by williamjklopp

Actually, I am losing a lot of faith on it. After seeing so many hoaxes, prophecies I started to wonder if all this is true.
Right now I'm in the middle.

When I was a teenager (and even into my 20's) I believed that there was probably something to it. People like Greer and Timothy Good have made some good cases for a government coverup of UFO's using FOIA documents. However, after spending several years looking in to it more directly, combined with my experience in the wonderful world of government contracting, I can say that I no longer believe in any kind of coverup. I do think that the majority of "real" UFO reports (i.e. not hoaxes, where the observer is sincere) are military test aircraft or known atmospheric phenomena. There is a small percent of cases that are unexplainable. It's possible that those are alien craft, but its more likely that it is just unknown natural events.

With the ubiquity of cameras and video, you'd think someone (like a news crew, for example) would be able to take a clear, defined picture of a UFO.... but those photos/videos are extremely rare.


[edit on 9/6/2007 by JustMe74]

i do believe i was within 15 feet of what i believed to be an alien.

i have heard voices whispering my name and without mentioning it to anyone had a friend say he heard voices whispering my name.

i have put my hand through what i believed to be a ghost that was sitting next to my bed.

despite those first hand experiences it is a little disheartening sometimes to come on to ATS and see all of the crazy doomsdays and ufo hoaxes. i originally came here seeking answers. now i come here for entertainment.

reply to post by Diplomat


yeah, i did.

this is not a 1 liner anymore.

There are a lot of things that can diswade people. I'm a little more skeptical now than I used to be, but still believe. But there are some things that really make me wonder now...

For starters, there never seems to be any more big cases involving UFOs. No more Roswells, no more battles with aliens Dulces, no more Montauks...


Also, now that there are more video and still cameras out there, UFO pictures & video aren't quite as common. The few that do come out are usually very blurry or very far away, where the old ones used to seem of much better quality (as cameras have gotten better the quality close ups seem to no longer exist for some reason)...

Also, many of the UFOs photographed today look significantly different than the old days' photos... They now look high tech while older photos (which seemed to look high tech at the time) now look unrealistic by todays standards...

[edit on 9/6/2007 by bobbyt]

I think there's more than enough evidence and reliable witness testimonies to prove there's some truth to the UFO phenomenon. I've not lost believe in the subject, because of all the recent hoaxes, but I've definitely lost interest.

These days, I very rarely waste my time with threads about, Aliens, UFO's etc. You can speculate all you like but I dont think we will ever know the real truth in our lifetime. The Aliens are the one's in control and I very much doubt they have any plans to introduce themselves anytime soon. Certainly not in my lifetime. I live in hope, but that's all I can do.

I like Whitley Striebers take on the Alien Phenomenon.

I was told by General Arthur Exon that Dr. Von Neumann had been an important part of the scientific steering committee that worked on the alien question, and that he had come up with a warning based on his understanding of quantum physics, which was one of the underlying reasons that the US has so adamantly refused to admit that the aliens are real.

I called my story "The Open Doors," because, by reading Dr. Von Neumann's work on the quantum perception problem, I figured out the nature of his warning. I was also aware of this warning from another direction. When Lyndon Johnson was president and Hubert Humphrey was vice president, a briefing was offered to the president on the UFO subject. He was not interested, but Humphrey was given a document, probably similar to the Brookings Report that postulates that the discovery of aliens would be a terrific shock to mankind. However, Humphrey would also have been told that they were already here, and that, in the absence of some sort of acceptance 'tripwire' being triggered on our part, they might be literally unable to fully interact with us.

I believe that Dr. Von Neumann thought that this tripwire would be official recognition, and that, if it happened, it would open a door onto an unknown world that we could never again close. This is why Humphrey, on reading what he had been given, commented that its release would have "unpredictable consequences" and the Johnson Administration took no further interest in the UFO phenomenon.

In its simplest form, the quantum perception problem asks the question, does the observer's presence mediate reality? In other words, if nobody is there to see it, is there anything there to be seen? And, if so, does our general disbelief in aliens, carefully cultivated by our government, literally act as a wall that they cannot scale without expending enormous resources in energy?

Probably, nobody knows the answer to that question, which cannot be resolved unless we accept the alien presence--but if we do that and we don't like what we see, then what?

The reason for the secrecy--one of them, anyway--revolves around the unanswerability of that question. Even if Von Neumann's suggestion was only wild speculation, because we can never close the door once it is open, we dare not test his hypothesis by officially admitting that aliens are real and that they are here.

This is why I know that all disclosure projects are doomed from the start. The government can't answer the question of whether or not official disclosure will be the tripwire that brings aliens pouring into our lives without doing it, and they are not going to do it without knowing what might happen.

However, if Von Neumann was right and our refusal to acknowledge the aliens--if that's what they are--as real IS what is keeping them back, then the whole UFO and abduction phenomena are explained as a sort of military operation designed to bypass official denial by creating so many firsthand witnesses that they themselves eventually become the tripwire, and the door opens despite government denial.

Maybe there's some truth on some level to what he's saying. Interesting.

Originally posted by williamjklopp
Just a thought. I have a extreme believe in the alien community because of my own experiences. No one could ever make me think otherwise. I am just curious if anyone out there is losing belief because of all the hoaxes out there making you a non believer? Not me, just wondering.

It's not the hoaxes that make me a non-believer that there is alien life visiting Earth. It's the complete and total lack of verifiable evidence, people like John Lear and his civilizations all over our universe theory, and half of the goofy threads in this section spouting some of the most ridiculous things without on BIT of evidence to back it up, or a convenient excuse as to why they can't provide it.

All these years and not one slice of evidence makes me not believe. I want to believe, but not bad enough to fall for the crap floating around out there.

I'm not with ufo 'believers', too much religion for me

As to wether I think we've been visited and if I 'believed' it more in the past, then yes. I don't think we've really been visited nowadays.
Maybe in the ancient past yes, but not currently.
Honestly I don't think we are all that interesting to any intelligence out there. Primitive people that still kill each other.. Why would an advanced race be interested in that? Why bother? I'm sure there are more pressing matters for an advanced space faring race, like relations with other spacefaring civilizations.
We are small and not all that important in this universe (yet?)..
Maybe they are crashing and such here at times. But still I wouldn't think it's because of us. Maybe Sol is along a busy trade route?

So yes I do 'believe' in alien races, the sheer number of star systems in galaxies and then the number of galaxies tells me that.
I just don't think they are visiting us at the moment or know that we are here. Our spacetravel abilites are most likely very primitive from their perspective, so is our culture. And space is very, very, very vast and diverse. Thinking we are so interesting is just vanity. It doesn't add up from the point of view of another species that might be thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us.

(And more depending on the age of their planet, even millions of years, they could have evolved several times since they've reached intelligence for example or chose to control their evolution with genetics.)

The only species that perhaps would think us great and/or interesting is a species that's at our stage, or not far behind or ahead of it. In which case they, like us, don't have the technology to get here.

In the end it's lack of evidence of anything being here that confirms that idea for me. Add to that the sheer number of people that hoax stuff and even worse, people that religiously believe in saucers regardless of where evidence leads. That's called religion. I'm highly interested in phenomena like this but I also hate it when people ridicule actual scientists and/or shout immediately: cover up! , but neglect common sense and science in their own idea's.

Both sides are wrong in a way. The scientific method is the best way to study any phenomenon including these types of phenomena. But not when you start with preconceptions, prejudice etc. and the worst of all, wishfulfillment making people get the results they want to get instead of actually seeing what is there. This goes for both sides.. neither are impartial observers. In that light neither party is being scientific about it.

iow, the ufo topics are starting to frustrate me. So my interest is declining.

I wouldn't say that I've become a disbeliever, but I sure do take everything with salt these days. I've seen a few things that don't follow the current rules of physics, and have come to my own opinions on them. I originally came to this site in search of knowledge and perhaps some insight into the possibility, but have quickly slipped into the role of amused observer and check for entertainment value.
I understand why the quality of UFO photography has slipped, and can accept some of the evidence as plausible. The thing that annoys me is the huge amount of people that see photoshop as the answer to every question. There has to be a vast amount of people with the money and talent to use this program professionally. I've not bought the program, but have played with it, and it takes alot of training to do so well. Even with help from the guy who owned it, my work was still easilly and quickly spotted.
And the religion of UFOs and abductions has gotten crazy. What was once an area that could be studied as an abstract has become a refuge for the disallusioned and the nut bars. If a 'saucer' did appear and hover over an area for a full day, you couldn't get near it for the 'true believers' that would swarm to the spot holding signs and looking for a ride.
Digging through the hoaxes and nonsense hasn't been made easier by the internet. Every believer with a computer seems to be putting something out there to 'prove' the phenomenon. So I'd say that believing has become more difficult.

Well I havn't actualy seen an alien in person in front of me, but have had enough bizzare experiences with flying objects in Newcastle NSW to still believe that someone is visiting us from another place..... The only way people will believe a news story about EBE's / UFO's etc is if there is some kind of mass flap like the ones in mexico over say near Sydney or NYC where you have 1000's of people seeing something that that goverment cant explain or we have some kind of landing near a major metropolitan city... It will happen one day we just have to be patient...

I was a believer but am now a non believer in aliens flying ufos into are atmosphere. i might be able to believe governments building these crafts. I don't think theres enough evidence of this phenomenon and a believe that witness accounts are garbage because they get sucked into the whole thing of aliens and start believing they saw things that they actually didn't. also i have a great understanding of how large the universe is and even if aliens do have these crafts that can go the speed of light the chances of us coming in contact with them is very very slim. i am very optimistic about life on other planets but i don't think any has ever passed through our solar sytem.

Originally posted by williamjklopp
Just a thought. I have a extreme believe in the alien community because of my own experiences. No one could ever make me think otherwise. I am just curious if anyone out there is losing belief because of all the hoaxes out there making you a non believer? Not me, just wondering.

I've been seeing things in the sky that look a little weird, so I've always believed in the possibility that we're being visited. Even if I never saw anything unusual in the sky, I'd still believe in the possibility based solely on the odds.

All the hoaxes out there don't dissuade my belief in the possibility. More than anything, they irritate me because this is a pretty serious matter. The confirmation of alien visitors would be the biggest story and realization in the history of our planet. It would probably only be trumped by the appearance of God in the sky.

Yet, people treat it with no respect. People make fraudulent reports, write fanciful books, post "true" stories online such as the whole Serpo thing, go onto mediums such as C2C to tell their insider secrets, make crop circles in the dead of night, try their hand at Paintshop Pro, or show their skill in 3DStudio Max. The agenda is always the same.... to deceive for the enjoyment of deceiving, to have a laugh at people, or to fill their egos with each view their fabrication gets on YouTube, or how many hits a website gets.

The end result is that we might ignore the biggest thing in the history of mankind because of these people. The UFO subject is so saturated with BS that no one will trust anything anymore.

No, my belief in the possibility of alien visitation is not shaken, and never will be. But I find myself not caring about the subject as much anymore. I still read a lot on the subject, but I'm growing tired of people trying to have fun at our expense.

What better way to hide a secret than to put it in the public domain.You know something is happening but you dont whant people to be absolutely certain about what they are seeing so you start to lay a smoke screen of to much false information and the truth gets hidden.People start to doubt what they see.Who can blame them when very clever people are putting out very plausable reasons for doubting your own eyes.When it comes to ufo,s you will always have masses of fraud ,trying to make a few quid before they are found out.Dont be down hearted by it all , and dont doubt what you see!I know what i saw, and until either i or somebody else can explain what i saw in a different way i will continue to believe my own eyes.

Hmm, well how do you know it wasn't being flown by a race that has always lived within our planet? Maybe it was a craft being flown by time-traveling humans? How do you know that Earth militaries aren't much more advanced than any of us can imagine? Maybe it was regular humans flying it.

Just because you see a strange craft in the sky doesn't mean Aliens exist.

[edit on 6-9-2007 by Diplomat]

Cmon, we are still washing our clothes and ironing them like we did decades ago. Nothing has advanced much, really. Our so called "modern medicines" are a joke and kills more often than we care to admit, our primary mode of flight is through blasting explosives to create thrusts...how much more primitive can an aircraft get?