Why do we / I bother believing ?

This is a personal view point that I have sat thinking about for the last couple of months, it's irked me, made me think of what I believe in and why I bother to carry on.

I have visited ATS for many years, mostly lurking, I post here and there trying to give valid input rather than just posting because I like the sound of my own typing, it's a subject I believe in very seriously and I have seen 2 UFO's (whatever they were) so it's a subject I have some real attachment to.

Sadly I have become somewhat disillusioned as of late, I had hoped with our now more powerful technology that we would be seeing major steps into identifying these objects but we still get the same grainy tiny little blobs floating here and there. In fact the technology we have now has clouded the whole subject even deeper with fraud and alike.

Some wonderful images pop up here and there but pretty much every one is the production of a CGI program or Photoshop, daily there are 100's of video's posted declaring REAL UFO's but it's clear even to a poor person like me that there are just natural phenomena, fakes and most definitely NOT UFO's. The whole subject has become a media circus and has lost pretty much all credibility because it's rampant with money making fakes, 'experts' whose only expertise is counting the cash into the bank from people all too willing to believe anything and people who just inhabit the virtual world wanting to become 'known' by publishing white lights behind tree's, night vision birds etc etc desperate to pass them off as UFO's hoping for some celebrity status amongst the media circus.

I've looked at too many lanterns that are obvious lanterns that despite this have countless long threads regarding them, threads that are normally filled with no real content, threads that have become all to frequent, threads that are as useless as the object in question. Every time there's a shuttle launch you can guarantee a thousand and one threads on UFO's around the shuttle, indepth discussions about what clearly are small spinning flecks of ice, only rarely is there something in the video's which actually DO catch the eye and are worth the time to look at.

You see, this is what's making people like me step back and wonder what the hell have I been looking for all these years, there's no more proof than there was in Kenneth Arnold's days but if you look on the Internet you would think we had all the proof we need, instead we are stuck with 98% fakes and the same unrecognisable tiny objects in photo's.

I'm not a religious person, to be honest I could never claim to be and say I was a believer for obvious reasons but I feel like a person who says they have lost their religion, I look with tired eyes at the same threads, the same objects, the same lies and the same nonsense knowing I'm no nearer knowing anything more let alone this widely vaunted Disclosure that people have stuck on their minds..

And who talks of disclosure, the same money orientated 'experts' who have made other absurd claims all of which line their pockets.

All this technology has merely made it harder to see the honest from the dishonest, it's given a new platform to frauds and in some cases mentally deluded people, people grasping at anything to feed their demon. The number of times I have seen posts regarding them being in contact with Aliens yet when you ask certain questions of this person you get the normal evasive 'I'm not allowed to say' complete rubbish. Yet another painful cancer in Ufology, people eating away at the very fabric of the subject they claim to believe in yet make it stink with lies and delusions.

Yet despite this I do believe in the term UFO, I have seen 2 things I have never seen any aircraft do but I have no idea what they were, for that fact I cannot just jump on the little green man bandwagon, that would be illogical and pathetic.

I do believe in life elsewhere, it's scientifically almost let alone a mathematical guarantee but whether they are flying here at this point in time I don't know but I do believe they have been here early in this planets life, I base that on drawing that are too technical in aspect to be much else from tribes that had no technology of any kind let alone technical building skills.

But I digress, the main point of this post is to highlight how much the subject has lost it's zest, the fire for it in me is almost out, the childish numerous youtube posts of fakes by people who are old enough to know better is staggering, the level of profiteering from the subject is vulgar, the level to which people will bend to make something fit is disgusting. People are starting to lose the very items they need most, the power to rationalise, the power to study, research and investigate has been watered down in many, they get fed their UFO snacks without stepping back and looking at it.

It's starting to look like a net version of the American publication the National Enquirer in here, it really is and too much attention is wasted on obvious STORIES, too much jabber is allowed regarding them. Mods should cut short threads once it has lost track, if a claim is made and no proof provided then it's a nice STORY and the thread should close soon after, instead they become sidetracked and in a lot of cases are hijacked by sets of people who post for flags, points and to be seen hoping they get some 'elite status in a clique.

Cliques are the very worst a site can have, positive sceptical intelligent minds are fantastic, people like Phage, Internos etc but sadly there's all to many who post fo non ethical reasons, they drag a subject into derision and make claims they cannot back up (be it for many reasons but mostly because it's a figment of their imagination). Sorry, but this breaking down on the cohesion of the subject is just making the place a laughing stock and making people like me worry that each thread will be full of BS and surfer dude talk.

I say all this because I care, there's no novelty value for me, no imaginary power to be gained, just a person watching a whole lot of nothing carry on going around and around.

Such a shame...

[edit on 27-1-2010 by Mclaneinc]

You can still believe in UFOs, without believing they have visited here yet...

You should feel fortunate, most of us will never see one...and you have seen two!

I share your sentiments—and I'm sure many others do as well—regarding the current state of affairs of both the field in general, and this ATS forum, but you seem like someone who truly cares about the search for truth and the real phenomena, so it's somewhat confusing to me why you seem to qualify your interest—as evidenced by the title and some passages in your post—as a matter of faith.

There is nothing wrong with believing certain things about this complex subject, but I think you should reframe the way you approach it. It would be more fruitful, in my opinion, to think of this as a way to gain knowledge and discover things for the sake of it, rather than to try get the answers in order to validate personal beliefs.

Instead of seeing every hoax; every fabricated photo and video; every made up story; and every outrageous claim as another cancer in a seriously sick field and another reason to give up, instead, seeing those things as challenges and stepping-stones on the way to, at least, finding out where the truth isn't, separating the wheat from the chaff.

If the UFO phenomena truly has a non-human aspect—as some suspect—then it would be one of the biggest discoveries in human history. If it really is that complex, then the search and struggle for understanding it is supposed to be hard. It's unrealistic to think otherwise.

Good luck!

[edit on 27-1-2010 by converge]

Mclaneinc - It's as if I wrote your post myself, you have summed up perfectly how I feel about the subject.

I'm an astronomer/imager of the past 10yrs, but my interest in what's going on up there started with the subject of ufo's. But I can't keep reading about the same old cases, the same old asscertions placed on those cases......and don't gt me started on youtube - granted there are a few good channels there dealing with the subject, and there are some genuine people out there recording the skies too.....but the subject has become the fodder of tabloid rubbish, and some of the most promiment names in the subject are responsible for the circus that surrounds the subject now.

I have given up trying to find anything insightful from other cases, or looking for that killer piece of evidence from other peoples footage. I approach this from one angle only now - I record/image the sky at every given opportunity, with telescopes, cameras, and camcorders (normally all at the same time). I have seen plenty of things I couldn't identify, but only 2 that gave me that 'WOW' feeling, and both of them were through a telescope.

I only look for personal proof now - and if I get that one 'ground breaking' piece of footage i'm not sure I'd bother letting anyone know anyway....it was just get lost in the plethora of crap.

The subject of ufology has a long way to go to clean up it's act, and i'm not sure it ever will now, to much money and egos involved now. I find it a real shame, since my interest hasn't wained, just my faith in the majority of the clowns involved in the subject now.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by Subz949]

I suspect that you are seeing the side of the UFO phenomenon that makes this more than just ET or objects in the sky.

Two of the investigators that I feel have come closer to identifying the true nature of this phenomenon are the late John Keel and Jacques Vallee. Both noticed that at various times the phenomena tended to act in a teasing or taunting manner -- often in ways that were ridiculous and irrational.

When we look at the whole range of phenomena, not just cherry picking the ones that look "solid" from a scientific point of view, we see contactees, abductions, Men in Black, sexual activity, odd links to religious and occult symbolism.. in short a whole lot of stuff of high strangeness.

Even more, looking at the historical UFO record we find that the observed UFOs seem to be more or less what the population of the time expects them to look like -- the great airship flaps of the 19th century, ghost rockets, flying disks in the mid 2oth century and the black triangles of the last few years (my only personal sighting has been of a massive black triangle). Now we are abducted by greys, and 200 years ago, we had the same experiences as a species at the hands of the faery folk. We see greys as aliens yet shamans see those same entities when they walk between the worlds, as do experimental subjects sometimes when they are given doses of '___'.

The hypothesis that seems to be the dirty secret of the UFO community, the elephant in the room so to speak, is that the UFO phenomenon (or at least a lot of it) represents a part of us as a species. WE are the UFO phenomenon -- it is a part of own selves that somehow manifests itself in a way that calls into question our very concepts of what objective reality is.

The proper stimulation of the temporal lobe produces a totally vivid abduction experience. And we know that there are cases (Jenny Randall documented a few I recall) where abductees were observed by witnesses to be sitting in a trace state in front of the witnesses while undergoing the abduction state. As for scars and teh rest of the physical evidence, we still have no idea how powerful the mind is a altering of physical bodies.

The phenomenon is real, or as real as anything else. But because it is not apart from us as an objective phenomenon but seems to be at least conforming to our expectations, there probably never will be definitive physical proof one way or another, simply because like the shadow you see our of the corner of your eye, you know it's there, but when you focus on it, it fades away.

Open you mind and keep moving forward my friend. I believe that as we start to really understand what this is all about, we shall be amazed by wonders beyond description and terrors that make the ancient fears of our species tangible.

I agree metamagic, that the 2 men that have probably got closest to any answers so far are Vallee and Keel. The kind of investigative, non-prejudiced approach they used though is a dying art with the subject....cases are cherry picked to fit the alien agenda, that said, there could be 2 types of phenomena occuring here, both with similiar signatures.

reply to post by Subz949

Exactly, and when one copies the other, it becomes very difficult to start to figure out where one begins and the other leaves off.

@Converge..

Please don't read too much into the belief / faith idea from me, it was a crude explanation of my ideals by me. Trust me, I know what my mind has seen and I need no belief system to depend on for it.

The only faith I'd say is that I'd have more faith in the ATS side of things if they modded more vigilantly, for every little gem / nugget of decent debate on genuine unknowns there are umpteen completely useless threads based time and time on ill researched posts. The problem with these posts is that fame seekers on here jump into the thread and just post dribble based upon personal experiences claimed by them without having the decency to provide any real proof thus rendering the thread nothing more than a mouthpiece for them.

I know what I have seen and I posted it to Mufon, end of story, If I have ever mentioned it on here it's because it had a similarity to a posted claim.

As I say, I look on here for honest reports, clear thinking and technical prowess in the discussion of the subject, sadly I feel it's more of a conspiracy subject which is not really what it's all about.

Are UFO's Alien...I don't know

Is the government hiding something from us...Pass I don't really care, I would not be able to change it anyway.

Would I like them to be aliens?......Maybe but there's far too many complications in that thought.

Do I believe in things like Niburu(sp)........Er NO, too many pictures taken thru double glazed windows for my liking and again there's no proof.

As I say, so much has been crammed into the field and forums that it's almost uninteresting for any person who' looked at the subject for so long. There's too many who use and abuse the subject and sadly they seem to get the most coverage with their own lackies hanging off their every breath.

Lets get it back to the scientific environment it should be seen in, if people have conspiracy theories then lets keep them separate. Posts where people refer to people they know in X dept X military should be refrained upon unless proof is given. Lets discuss the radar reports, lets debunk the frauds if we have to but lets keep the feet on the ground and bin the cliques, the in it for the fame etc peeps.

I don't mind digging to find a gem but when it's constantly horse manure then it's pointless.

Originally posted by Signals
You can still believe in UFOs, without believing they have visited here yet...

You should feel fortunate, most of us will never see one...and you have seen two!

I don't know if fortunate is the right word, I'm glad I saw what I saw, it made me more open minded as to what is out there, I'm not talking aliens here, just the technology that I might be seeing..

I do believe they have been here before based upon some research but I have no proof so it's not really worth commenting on...

Ufo's. More like IFO's. People that have been witness to legit sightings are too fortunate. You are very lucky to witness something not of this world within our skies. Don't EVER let anybody put you down because of what your beliefs are in this subject. The "Closed Minded" types are just part of a tiny, but growing stain on humanity. Skeptical on things that they see, don't happen on this world, in their short-spanned lives. It's always got to be a logical explanation to them, no matter what, when there simply is none. Even when it has been proven not to be a flare on a balloon or a plane. Furthermore, when a skeptic who is ignorant is proven wrong they tend to generate more questions right out of their ass until it becomes utterly ridiculous.

Skeptics need to think twice before making us part of the laughing stock for you are the ones that accept the explanation of "Bright Planets" being the culprit on the Rendlesham Incident, and folks, bright planets dont move at extreme speeds. They accept without hesitation, a lighthouse being the one responsible for the incident. When do lighthouses have propulsion systems?
We have even compared video evidence between what they call flares on balloons with sightings on tape, and they look nothing similar. Yet, they still stick with flares or move on to another bogus explanation. They continue to deny and call you a nutcase when you are witness to a sighting with the backup of TWO Pilots, of TWO different planes, even with confirmed VISUAL RADAR SIGNATURES from ground based stations. Not to mention how the pilots gave the SAME EXACT DESCRIPTION of the objects. Skeptics are fighting on a side that is constantly losing, step by step. You can't only have one side doing all the work so, when have they proven that Aliens would not come here or that aliens dont exist?

Mclaneinc, there are things that we cant explain and that are not of our control in our airspace not to mention on our planet. Things such as the stealth plane are such technology that can be considered "Human". However, the things out there that we are seeing are just not from us. Especially when the military sends fighter jets out to intercept the object. Remember, we are still type 0 and we are at least 150 years away from entering a type 1. I believe, without a doubt, there is something going on with the military and whats flying around up there, as such as the ufo's that flew over the white house in 1952. As well as the untimely deaths of Microbiologists and Ufologists at the peaks of their career. There is a game being played and it's responsible for the deaths of many people who's families never got justice, AKA James Forrestal. We have been warned many times by those who agreed to speak up against the secrecy and yet there are those whom want to stop, ask questions, laugh, and get on with their little lives, thinking nothing is going to happen because we would know if it did. I guess we know who to blame when its too late and # hits the fan. Just like Michio Kaku said, "It's going to take a catastrophe for people to wake up."

Don't let anybody ridicule you Mclaneinc.

For skeptics. We will see who's laughing when in the near future when they, their children, or their childrens children have to pay for their Closed Mindedness. Your going to find, "Face to Face" what "Slave to the System" really means. They got themselves to blame.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


I agree with you. Sometimes I get so tired with the nonsense on ATS I just want to puke. Post upon post of utter garbage. Some members seem to have made it their mission to drive away the healthy skeptics. We all know who these members are but I won't mention them here of course. These people get a lot of slack from the moderators imo. They get away with calling anyone who disagrees with them a disinfo agent.

Either the moderators should come in and clean up the garbage once in a while or the posting rules should be changed..

wwell guys.. its not like its strenuous , or physically debillitating to believe in et life. i mean really, so you get tired of reading the same tripe, and discussing the same old debated debates... so dont do it. start something new.

It's a vicious cycle. Confusion is prominent within society/internet and the path to finding the real truth is a blurry one. If you look around you, everything that make up a society catalyze confusion. From religious advocates to UFO hunters. The media spurious lies/deceit to the Internet's ignorant teachers of the supposed truth.

The misinformed teach their misinformation, and the vicious wheel keeps turning. Preconceptions are shared, and rarely do one question anything. Truths should be proceeded with unequivocal evidence.

Spirituality is a concept I ease up on for the demand of unequivocal evidence because it's something that I experienced within my subjective reality, which can't be verified by someone else subjective reality.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by GrandKitaro777]

My cousin took a simple picture of some mountains in Puerto Rico. As I looked through them, whaaaaam (my cousin didnt even see the pictures yet after they were developed, so he wasnt aware of the ufo).. a freaking perfect shaped disc flying over the mountains. All possibilites removed, only thing that remained was that is was a UFO.

Since that day, GOD, life, and everything was questioned. It was quite a revelation, I dont care if others care, and I dont care if anyone here doesnt believe me, my purpose was to never convince anyone aof nything, I saw what I saw, and yes... the world seems a lot more magical and special to me now.

Seeing how theirs no really good videos of ufos landing, or of them walking around, yet images of them are just like the one i saw... which can be faked... shows me (atleast to some level) that questionable images of ghosts, demons and everything else has a chance to be real too, even tho theres not clear 'smoking gun' evidence to their existence.