UFO sightings?

[Randy]

What do you think about UFO sightings? Have you seen one?

Have aliens visited earth?

 

[Nebulous]

I've never seen one. Not sure I believe in them in the first place. But plantlife does exist on other planets so I am sure more advanced life forms are out there somewhere.

 

[Vaeve]

It would be cool if they did. We've been at the top of the food chain for really long, let's see how we react to a higher life form.

 

[Elvira]

It would be cool if they did. We've been at the top of the food chain for really long, let's see how we react to a higher life form.

 

[Vaeve]

Yes at first, but we'll eventually give up since they (supposedly) have superior weapons. So we'll now be serving the No. 1 instead of being in that position for the first time in long.

 

[Nebulous]

It would be cool if they did. We've been at the top of the food chain for really long, let's see how we react to a higher life form.

We'd probably launch everything we had at them and end up blowing ourselves up accidentally.

 

[DrLeftover]

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
— Carl Sagan

 

[MrDawn]

The Navy declassified some footage taken by their pilots.

 

[DrLeftover]

Many of the sightings CAN be explained as unique weather phenomenon, flying garbage bags, misidentified conventional air traffic, and/or wishful thinking.

The same can be said for ghosts and spirits, and the Loch Ness Monster and friends.


But not ALL can. Which means something interesting is going on.

 

[MrDawn]

the Loch Ness Monster

I used to be fascinated with that subject. Still kind of am but at this point, I'm kind of just done with it at this point. More like "concluded" that it more than likely doesn't exist seeing as they never find anything and they did conduct a shit load of research and expeditions on it. I figured if it existed, they would have found it by now. But they've been all over the loch and found nothing. Put up cameras, used satellites, submarines, sonar tests, divers, biologists, and everything they could think of and still they've presented no evidence. Often I'm of the sound mind that it doesn't exist until they prove it exists. If they do find a sea monster, I'll happily admit that I'm wrong.

Start with the most obvious point: According to the legend, there's supposedly a giant sea monster that (probably) looks like a dinosaur living in Loch Ness, a freshwater lake in the Scottish highlands. Though the monster was photographed most famously in the 1930s, fans say the myth has been around for centuries.

The monster, lovingly called "Nessie," is one of the most formidable examples of "cryptozoology," the study of animals that haven't been proven to exist. For a giant dinosaur-like animal that lives in a lake, we'd need a lot of evidence. But we haven't found anything yet.

There is a long history of monster "sightings" around Loch Ness. In 1852, for example, villagers brought out actual pitchforks to battle a "sea serpent" (it turned out to be a pony taking a bath). In 1933, a Londoner named George Spicer said he spotted the beast carrying a lamb in its mouth. From there, accounts ballooned and took on a life of their own.

But these accounts have always been unreliable and often differ wildly on what the monster even looks like (early reports suggested the Loch Ness Monster was a seal-like creature, not a dinosaur). So far, hoaxes aside, no one has produced a single authentic photograph. That should make us extremely suspicious. But that objection is just the beginning.

How scientists debunked the Loch Ness Monster

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www.vox.com

 

[Nebulous]

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
— Carl Sagan

Sure is! Lets send some people out there it wont be so crowded down here.

 

[MrDawn]

Sure is! Lets send some people out there it wont be so crowded down here.

The problem is that it weighs heavily on an astronauts mental health. Yes, Space Madness is a real disorder. You can only send people out there for so long before they start seeing shit that isn't there.

 

[Nebulous]

The problem is that it weighs heavily on an astronauts mental health. Yes, Space Madness is a real disorder. You can only send people out there for so long before they start seeing shit that isn't there.

I believe it! Ever seen event horizon?

 

[SpookyZalost]

have I seen them? Yes, on at least 3 separate occasions in 3 wildly separated places.

Do I think they're aliens though? no. More than likely they're experimental aircraft.

It's really freaking hard to travel interstellar distances within a reasonable timeframe without being really obvious about it. For exampe, warp drives would generate gravity waves and bursts of Cherenkov radiation that'd be visible from lightyears away.
Wormholes would generate gravitational waves that are kinda unique, they'd look like blackholes but weirder.
space folding, same as above.
etc etc. you can't get away with traveling faster than light without disrupting space/time and creating photonic booms (cherenkov radiation bursts). Not to mention bursts of hawking radiation.
so It's unlikely they're from outside our star system at the least.

Now they could be from another universe or time sure. but that's a whole different kettle of fish and would lead to space/time anomalies again.
Since nothing like that is being picked up by gravitational wave detectors that have been setup around the planet... and there haven't been any hawking, Cherenkov, or Neutrino radiation bursts it's unlikely to be that either.
Then of course you take the age of the galaxy and the mineral composition of candidate stars within 2,000 Light years. most of which are minieral poor if older than around 6 billion years and thus have a harder time growing rocky planets anyway.

so I think it's unlikely to be aliens. Not saying there isn't life... just that they probably aren't coming to this primitive backwater.

 

[Nebulous]

have I seen them? Yes, on at least 3 separate occasions in 3 wildly separated places.

It was just a weather balloon

 

[SpookyZalost]

It was just a weather balloon

Well the first time was a light, it moved very quickly and zigzagged in a way that no baloon or natural object could since it seemed to stop on a dime and change direction almost instantly.

The second time I was out in the middle of nowhere up late, I later saw a coyote just a stones throw away, close enough I could see the individual matting of it's fur. but this light seemed to hover in place got real bright then shot away and vanished.

The third time made me question things for a bit but I won't go into it... the way it appeared though was highly unusual in that it literally seemed to shift the world around it like stepping through a doorway. That one made me wonder but we didn't have gravity wave and neutrino detectors sensitive enough to pick up on FTL travel back then.

 

[Gizmo]

Yep I've seen one.

 

[Nebulous]

Well the first time was a light, it moved very quickly and zigzagged in a way that no baloon or natural object could since it seemed to stop on a dime and change direction almost instantly.

The second time I was out in the middle of nowhere up late, I later saw a coyote just a stones throw away, close enough I could see the individual matting of it's fur. but this light seemed to hover in place got real bright then shot away and vanished.

The third time made me question things for a bit but I won't go into it... the way it appeared though was highly unusual in that it literally seemed to shift the world around it like stepping through a doorway. That one made me wonder but we didn't have gravity wave and neutrino detectors sensitive enough to pick up on FTL travel back then.

That is pretty trippy. Why do you think aliens selected to visit you 3 times and not the rest of us?

 

[SpookyZalost]

That is pretty trippy. Why do you think aliens selected to visit you 3 times and not the rest of us?

I don't think I was chosen at all... It was all outside observer type stuff, just happened to be the right place right time... the first time I swear it shot behind the moon because the light literally vanished behind it and the moon as a crescent so it's not like it was washed out... just blinked out behind the dark part then reappeared on the other side and vanished again.

the second time I've no idea...

and the third time... okay let me tell you the whole story on that one.
I've no idea why this didn't make national news but I wasn't the only one watching it... unfortunately I was the only sober one in my group so most people didn't believe it anyway... I was studying the effects of psychotropic mushrooms on some friends who wanted a sober person to keep an eye on them... it was mutually beneficial.

Anyway we were sitting in a park overlooking the city when the sky rippled and what I can only describe as a ship materialized front to back over the downtown area. it sat there for a minute and then vanished... there were military jets flying over after which clued me in that this wasn't a hallucination... it wasn't a holiday either.
Anyway after about an hour the sun had gone down and I noticed that on the mountain overlooking the town a line of vehicles had gone into the woods with their lights flickering among the trees. they were looking for something. from that point until a month later nobody could visit the NCAR laboratory in the area and a friend who worked there told me it was closed off by guys in gov suits.
after that month there was a lightning storm that happened randomly, a fire was started. then after a couple hours another storm rolled in and put out the fire. access was restored to the research lab for tours and the like not long after.

I have no idea what that all was about but I know it was really far above my understanding of things and was the only time something made me question if that was an experimental aircraft or something more.

 

[Nebulous]

I don't think I was chosen at all... It was all outside observer type stuff, just happened to be the right place right time... the first time I swear it shot behind the moon because the light literally vanished behind it and the moon as a crescent so it's not like it was washed out... just blinked out behind the dark part then reappeared on the other side and vanished again.

the second time I've no idea...

and the third time... okay let me tell you the whole story on that one.
I've no idea why this didn't make national news but I wasn't the only one watching it... unfortunately I was the only sober one in my group so most people didn't believe it anyway... I was studying the effects of psychotropic mushrooms on some friends who wanted a sober person to keep an eye on them... it was mutually beneficial.

Anyway we were sitting in a park overlooking the city when the sky rippled and what I can only describe as a ship materialized front to back over the downtown area. it sat there for a minute and then vanished... there were military jets flying over after which clued me in that this wasn't a hallucination... it wasn't a holiday either.
Anyway after about an hour the sun had gone down and I noticed that on the mountain overlooking the town a line of vehicles had gone into the woods with their lights flickering among the trees. they were looking for something. from that point until a month later nobody could visit the NCAR laboratory in the area and a friend who worked there told me it was closed off by guys in gov suits.
after that month there was a lightning storm that happened randomly, a fire was started. then after a couple hours another storm rolled in and put out the fire. access was restored to the research lab for tours and the like not long after.

I have no idea what that all was about but I know it was really far above my understanding of things and was the only time something made me question if that was an experimental aircraft or something more.

Sounds like you've seen some odd stuff, thats for sure!

Also I like how you consider babysitting a bunch of your friends doing mushrooms as research, that was nice of you!