Do you believe in UFO's?
 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/0...rch/index.html

That article brings up some interesting questions, are UFO's (and aliens to a lesser extent) real or are they just part of people's imaginations?

I myself am somewhat skeptical, but I remember when I was about ten years old, during the summer, and looking at the cloudy sky from behind my house in the city. After a while I saw 4 round objects flying through the sky, in almost a V formation. They didn't make any noise like an airplane does when it flies overhead, and they seemed to be moving pretty fast too (I think they were orange in color, but that might be due to the city lights).

I've been trying to figure out what exactly I saw that night. It couldn't be an airplane, because planes aren't round, and they make a lot of noise until they're very high off the ground (yes, there's an airport in my city, and I hear them often when they're first climbing up in the air). I doubt it was searchlights either, because the objects moved too uniformly across the sky, unless they had a new design that they've never used again.

It might've possibly also been ball lightning, but again, it's highly unlikely that 4 ball lightnings would happen to be "flying" across the sky in such a uniform way. And I doubt it's some secret military aircraft being tested (unless there's a secret base in Milwaukee, WI that we don't know about, but I doubt the government would build a base to test secret planes near a large urban population).

I remember taking an Western Great Lakes philosophy class, where the professor told us of one of his elders claiming to have seen a "fire ship" take off into the sky. Considering that the elder called it that, and had never seen Star Trek or any other sci-fi show of the day (I think this was back in the 70's), it's kind of interesting. He also said there's a large round rock formation on Beaver Island, where inside the rock formation everything appears burnt up, but strangely, nothing is burnt outside the rock formation. He's not sure what it is, but he believes it's probably a landing area for a UFO. He also believes we've been visited by aliens, but humanity simply isn't ready to accept that idea yet.

Yeah, the last part I've said sounds really far-fetched, but just letting you know what I heard from him (I liked that class too, he made learning that stuff fun and interesting, even if we don't necessarily believe him). And yeah, a lot of people probably just claim to see UFO's to make their lives more interesting, but then again, it's a very large universe out there. We may be the only form of sentient life nearby our branch of the Milky Way, but for all we know, there's another "Earth-like" planet on the other side of the galaxy that we simply can't see.

For all we know, we probably already have been visited by aliens, we just don't realize it. But you can imagine the kind of chaos that's going to happen if and when it does happen. Heck, we still kill each other for the most trivial reasons, you can bet if aliens visited, the first thing people will probably want to do is kill it because they'll be scared of it (or at the very least, be prejudiced towards it). I just hope that if we do get visited, the aliens don't treat us the way the Europeans treated people in the New World (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about).

I'm severely skeptical, but it just seems there are too many witnesses to ignore at least the possibility.

I will not rule out the existence of intelligent life existing somewhere else in the universe. UFOs could be alien spacecraft or they could be tricks of the mind. There is no way to know at the moment.

Do I believe in Extraterrestrial Life? Yes. Statistically, it's basically a certainity. Do I believe it has visited Earth? No. That's all but impossible. Absolutely impossible within the laws of Physics as we know them, and even assuming some sort of Faster-than-light travel, it's still almost impossible to believe that they would have known of our existence.

Hmmm...it could be geese. They tend to fly in a V formation, but they tend to fly with more than just four in a group, but they will sometimes fly with 4 or 3 within a group.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/UFO

Based on this information, I would say that I do believe in UFO's because when we don't know what is flying around the air (even though someone else may know what it is) it is unidentifiable to us at that moment. However, if you want to go on the belief of UFO's being strictly alien aircraft, then I am a little uncertain about it.

I'm more likely to believe that UFO's of alien nature have visited based on the large number of reports and video footage where at least 700 cases out of 1,200 have been left as "unknown". I don't think they will try to take over the Earth or talk to humans, but I don't think that all of the cases could be explained by something simple as "swamp gas" or "weather ballons".

One case that leads me to believe that they probably do exist is the 1897 case in Aurora, Texas. What is so interesting about this case is that something large flew into a windmill of John Proctor's land and crashed before the invention of flying aircraft. This was before H.G. Wells and the mainstream idea of little green men visiting Earth, so it's not a psychological fear portrayed by the media. The strange readings around the tombstone where the alleged alien was buried and the strong defense that the state of Texas built around the grave in the 1970's--when a group of ufologists wanted to search the grave after receiving the strange readings--causes me to wonder why sheriffs and other officers from around Texas would be called to block the ufologists for a week, and then the readings and gravemarker disappear by the time the ufologists are allowed back at the site.

As for aliens, I haven't seen any or received any alien messages or whatever, but I do believe they exist. Granted, there is a formula that tries to prove the chances of aliens visiting Earth is highly unlikely, but it formula does prove that there is a possibility of life on other planets (even if it is just a handful). I don't think they have created technology to talk to us, or have even thought that there was anything past their own planet, but to think that we are the only lifeforms within all the planets, galaxies, universes, and beyond is very hard to believe. I even have a hard time believing that God would only create one planet of life and not bother creating other planets for practice or to see if he could create lifeforms that would obey his wishes and live in their version of Eden.

You could apply this to stories of ghosts and cryptozoology. Could very well be histeria or fakers. Or misinterpretation.

Visavi --
Boy. Texas must be missing out on these fluorescent geese... =p He said they were orangish lights in a V formation.

I'm with Arainach on this matter. Statistically, there *should* be alternative life. Awful waste of space, y'know! They wouldn't need to be discreet or KNOW they had to be. They'd pop in to the middle of New York city and go "HEY WHATS THIS" if they wanted to head to the Earth's surface. Given alien technology, I think they'd observe safely thousands upon thousands of lightyears away.

Edit:: Also, a "Ufologist" doesn't sound like a credible scientific fellow. Could've been a group of quacks and the folks didn't want them around there. Block for a week and they might lose their tenacity or the members might taper off to elsewhere. Also, what readings would they take? Alienomagic Readings or some crap like that?

What kind of dumb question is this? UFO means Unidentified Flying Object and of course these exist. Just throw a weird shaped box out of your window and whoever see it at distance will say it's a UFO, because... well it's a UFO, the person could not identify the flying object.

Now if I belive in aliens? Arainach says it all.

I don't believe in UFOs. Members of the Earth population are clearly the superior, and only, lifeforms EVER!

Right? Right.....?

But seriously, I couldn't believe in UFOs. Mainly because of technical reasons as to things such as what may power them. A berlilium sphere from Galaxy Quest? For a ship to rely on a consumable resource for traveling long distances, I don't believe there are such.
In order for something like that to happen, the ship's fuel device would need to be a larger size than the ship itself. Like, glueing on a golfball to a bowling ball. The golf ball is the ship, the bowling ball is its fuel. But collection of that much fuel for one tiny spaceship ride is uneconomical. No matter what the fuel is made of, even.

LOL, sometimes the white portions of animals tend to reflect light, but like I said it was probably unlikely since they don't usually fly in such little packs. There's a lot of crazy stuff in Texas that make fluorescent geese look normal ;).

Their readings are similar to other paranormal readings. Mostly, they read electromagnetic energy, and when they read high levels of energy that most objects would not radiate, they become suspicious. There is a History Channel exclusive on the Aurora story if you want to check out the skeptics and believer's views on the incident. Many times, when ufologists find something unusual, they will take it to credited scientists that study metals, geography, or biology to examine their readings or debris for clarification on what it could be.

There was one theory that they may be able to use wormholes to skip across galaxies, but it's a very thin theory...about as thin as the belief in aliens.

No, I don't believe in UFOs. Life elsewhere in the universe? Yes. I believe there is because chances are there probably is life out there. It doesn't even have to be the life we generally think of. Life is a very adaptable thing and is found in all kinds of enviroments on Earth. Think of how many planets there our in our portion of the galaxy alone and then add in the fact there are such a large amount of galaxies in the universe. Your chances for life go up real quick.

But that life coming here? Not possible. Well, not possible with the knowledge and laws we currently know. Even if it were possible, why would you waste the time and energy to come here? Chances are they have thier own problems to take care of. They have no reason to come watch some severely primitive humans fighting and destroying each other.

Plus, if they had the technology to come here don't you think they would be able to better hide themselves? You know, so your average farmer out in the middle of no where couldn't capture a blurry image or recording of some object.

Yes, i do beleive in UFO's, having convinced myself a few years back that i saw one.

I believe that there are extraterrestrials in the universe. I also believe that they may have visited us in their UFOs. But I don't believe that all of what your average Joe Shmuck claims are extraterrestrial are in fact extraterrestrial. These cpuld be explained by other means. The small percentage that can't be explained could be some alien who forgot to turn on his active camo. Or it could just another weather balloon. Who knows?

But why wouldn't aliens want to take an interest in us. Here on earth people study the animals' shit. I happen to believe that human affairs--the grand ones like wars and launching people into space-- are infinitely more interesting than shit, and as such would pique the interest of some sort of extraterrestrial. Saying that we're not important enough to warrant studying is downplaying the entire species.

My personal belief is that if there is any type of sentient being in the universe outside of on Earth, it doesn't resemble us at all. It's likely that it would have come into existence on a planet with an environment totally dissimilar to ours, and it evolved (assuming it even evolved) based on its environment and would very likely be unimaginably different than we are.

Then of course it has to be "intelligent" enough to ravel throughout galaxies and systems and happen to find our planet or somehow have discovered life on it before travelling here, and then visit us without somehow killing us intentionally or uninentionally. For some reason I just don't find it to be likely.

So I find it inevitable that there's other life in the universe but are they visiting our stupid little planet? I don't think so.

I do believe that there are some intelligent lifeforms out there.
But I don't beleive that they have visited Earth. (Nothing interesting here, or something :p )

I do not believe in UFOs because I can't shake the stereotypical image of flying saucers with lights and big black eyed green creatures, tractor beams, probing and the whole bit. Bluntly put, because of that, I think people are gullible in that way.

Do i believe in UFOs? no.

Do i believe in life on other planets, yes. It's highly unlikley that they posess the means to travel greater distances than humans. My guess, is there is another planet full of life, having not yet developed "intelligence" and is still somewhere along the evolutionary chain of events. If not that, then there is another planet full of beings that is at the same stage as us.

I figure if it happened once, it could happen again. I'm sure there are other planets out there that have livable conditions.

Also, who's to say that life has to be carbon based? Who says that life requires the presence of water? I'm confident that there's life out there somewhere other than earth, but the chances of our ever meeting is highly unlikley.

I personally believe that there's got to be other life outside of Earth around inside the universe. It makes no sense that humans are the only ones in the entire galaxy. I'm sure there's aliens around. I just hope I never see one. I've been spoiled by too many sci-fi movies that make aliens out to be little green men. :(

I believe there are other life forms somewhere in the universe (because I'm a sci-fi nerd), but I can't take anyone who claims to have seen or been abducted by them seriously.

UFO means unidentified flying object, so of course I believe in them. There's nothing not to believe in, there. People are seeing things that they can't account for. That happens all the time.

Aliens? Well from what Science has shown so far, the likelihood of life on other planets is very, VERY high, but I don't know whether any other sentient life has advanced to the point where it could travel here.

I believe in ufo, alien, or any creature outside earth. The galaxy is just too enormous. I dont think earth is the only planet in universe that has lifeform.

If you say ''all but impossible'', doesn't that mean that it is possible? Either way, there are no laws of physics that we (I) know of that forbid UFOs visiting Earth. It's not very probable that some aliens would actually fly all the way here, but I think saying that it's physically impossible is just disinformation.

My sentiments exactly. I think that UFO's are highly unlikley to have been near enough to Earth if I believed they existed, but as for other life-forms, I think there are, but not some super-intelligent race with capabilities and (to use a very chliched phrase) technology far in advance of our own.

I remember I used to reply in a similar manner that of course they exist otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with that acronym. >_<

I can't really say I believe in something that I have never seen though.

Crap me, I voted the wrong option.

Of course I believe in UFOs because I have seen one. Now, I'm not saying that it was an alien spacecraft of some sort, but over a year ago my mother and I saw something in the sky that definitely couldn't be identified. And no, I wasn't drunk nor on mind-altering substances at the time.

As for life on other planets, I definitely believe in that. The vastness of our universe can't even be fathomed by the human mind, so the chances are that somewhere a planet's conditions for life were favorable. Now, I'm not sure whether or not I believe that any beings from another planet actually visit Earth. I've always been of the belief that, if they ever do, it's not going to be a "we come in peace" sort of thing. I think it would be more like a "we fucked up our planet, give us yours" sort of thing.

Well, I'm not voting since there's no "I'm skeptical" option. A direct yes or no can't be said for me.

I really don't know. The same applies for ghosts - although back in the 70's, my mother's friend took a picture of her, and one of my mother's ancestors (who happened to be involved in World War II, and happened to be wearing a suit) was vaguely standing beside her.

You know that everyone apparently has a guardian angel, right? Well, I'm skeptical of that as well. But most people will remain in the same boat as I - skeptical - because there's no way of telling different.

I believe in UFOs as well but I dont think it is as ludicrous as television makes it seems. Although I am a believer, I am still skeptical because although the galaxy is large, I don't have any first hand experience and the evidence is not well pieced together. I will give UFOs the benefit of the doubt...

In Aliens? Yes.
In UFO's manned by people from other planets? No.

I do believe in UFOs. There are occasions in which something flies over the head of someone and that someone doesn't know what it is. Unidentified Flying Object, not necessarily "alien spacecraft."Do I believe aliens visit our planet and watch us? No. Do I believe there are little green mean in orbit somewhere? No. I believe that aliens could exist, but that if they do, they are humanoid. Maybe they resemble human-animal bipeds. Maybe they look like four-armed people. Maybe they just simply have tails. I don't believe, if they do exist, that they are small, big-headed telepaths with laser rifles.

Saucers manned by green men? No, why would they bother on this primitive planet..
People seeing fat ducks flying and mistaking them for green men in frisbees? Quite possible.
Alien life-forms on other planets far far away, with biology, tecnology and society from completely different structure to close to ours? Very likely, we're here after all.
Loonies wanting to believe? That's humanity for you.

Uhh, what makes you say that? Earth (and humanity in particular) is hardly primitive, unless you think that anything below godlike immortality and faster-than-light travel is primitive.

It is not unlikely that 'they' would bother for the same reasons that we do. Even finding some truly primitive organisms in space would have a huge impact; finding actual sentient life on other planets would be one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind.

Same here. This is a tricky question to answer simply with a yes or a no.

Aliens. Now do I believe in aliens? Definitely. I have a picture taken years ago that if you look closely, you can spot them.

http://www.illegalaliens.us/images/A...l%20Aliens.JPG

The first option isn't a direct 'yes,' it's 'they could exist.'

Well, for one, humanity is still quite young. We've made so much technological advancing that evolution can't keep up. You would think our distant "cousins" have had their time to build up their smarts, while and before setting out.
No, you don't have to be god-like to be advanced, but faster-than-light travel sure could come in handy, unless you want to spend forever traveling from star A to star B.

So, either grey/green/bug faced freaks like to conquer new holiday planet, which really isn't that hard for someone managing to get here
or
they go with the Star Trek style, "you don't go messing primitive races society suddenly".

My point, since we've had no visitors yet, they either aren't there, they're not interested or maybe they study us behind Mars by watching Oprah..

That's it! It's officially time for me to give in and SLEEP.

It's 4am here. I'm out.

I believe it isn't unlikely that humanity will soon be controlling its own 'evolution,' extreme technological advances being a new form of 'evolution' by themselves. Though that's pretty much a different topic. There's a great Stephen Hawking lecture about this issue, if anyone's interested.

Not necessarily. It is just as possible that we are much more advanced than our 'cousins,' and it will be up to us to seek them out. It is also quite possible that their intelligence and way of thinking is very different.

That's somewhat true, but 'forver' is a pretty relative term, in this case. I don't think it's possible to effectively speculate about lifespans of extraterrestrials, but it's not impossible that they are much longer (or shorter) than ours, and travelling between solar systems is thus possible. There's also the possiblity of generation space-ships and suspended animation.

Well, if by 'visitors' you mean actual alien-manned UFOs near Earth, then I agree.

As for extraterrestrial life in general, there are other possibilities. For one, actual visits might be impossible because we are simply too far apart (in space or time). Thus, effective communication could only be possibly using some kind of (radio) signals. Humanity has been actively looking for those signals for a very brief period of time, so, who knows?

Yes, I believe in UFO's. For the simple reason being that I think that we are not alone within the universe. I just don't see Earth as the only planet in the entire universe that houses intelligent life.

Although I have only seen a UFO once, (and to be fair, it was dark, I was tired, and it could have been a plane - although it was moving very erratically, as I recall) I truly believe that there are UFO's out there. Maybe not aliens as such, but until we actually get a visit from them, we'll never know.

As someone said earlier, the statistical probability that other life does exist convinces me that there are aliens in the universe, but people who claim they've come to this planet still have a very Earth-centric perspective. WHY this ball of dirt?

Also, I'd like to hear what religion has to say on this matter. Would the revelation that there's undeniable proof of alien life shatter its credibility? Or would it refuse to acknowledge it? Anyone care to offer religious insight (as I have none)?

PS, thread creator, I live less than an hour west of Milwaukee. Cool.

It is unlikely that anyone would *come* here. I think it is unliekly that the technology could exist anywhere in the universe; if it did, it'd most likely stil lbe a waste of resources to come here of all places.

And if you did, you would make sure you had a chance to communicate without having to come back for every little chat, too.

I belive aliens exist somewhere. I think if they are smart enough to be able to come here, they'll also be smart enough to not do it.

Most of my very Christian friends believe that God created one life in his image and that he only watches over our planet and none other. Therefore, they believe that there are no other lifeforms on other planets. However, some people relate the people of Mt. Zion to aliens. Also, there are religions that believe aliens created humans and should be worshipped.

Biblical verses that supposedly relate to aliens:
http://www.ufoarea.com/aas_bible_accounts.html

Site to locate other UFO & Alien phenomenon:
http://www.doomsdayguide.org/UFO/ufo..._the_bible.htm

There's another problem with life visiting us. The fact that we carry tons of bacteria that could be harmful to anything that has not built up an immunity to them. This would be the same for any alien life coming here. Unless they're moving around us in suits there's no way to completely sanitize yourself and prevent contamination. They could make us sick or we could make them sick.

This is actually a real problem for us if we ever take a visit to mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We could kill any life living on those moons or have severe effects on the evolution of life on that planet just by being there. If I remember right, NASA has forced a few probes down into Jupiter instead of letting them drift in space because they feared the probe(s) would hit a moon like Europa and destroy any chance of life there.

This is another reason why I just cannot believe any life has visited us. Especially the abduction stories. Having such intimate contact (touching, surgery, probes, ect) would of transfered some kind of bacteria or virus that would make people sick or worse.

I don't care if UFOs exist or not. Aren't women weird enough? ;)

Isn't this a threat every day?

I read about types of super-microorganisms that could survive the intense heat that comes from soaring through space, and the blast from crashing into our planet. Any foreign object (eg meteor) crashing into the planet could carry some kind of super-virus/bacteria like this, so why haven't we all gotten sick and died yet? I mean, not all bacteria and viruses are deadly; we have an immune system that fights them off 24/7.

I wonder why we as humans are dumb enough to assume that even if aliens do exist (which they do) that they are flying around our planet looking at us. Is it entirely impossible that they too are just chillin' on their homeworld doing what we're doing? I think not.

Saying there is no other super intelligents in this universe is like saying only one seed will grow in a field....

I believe there is other life on different planets. Could be interesting to see what there is if we ever get out into deep space. Geezzz... I wish everything was closer, like in Star Trek.

While I am hardly advocating "Fire in the Sky" type stories of Jim Bob being probed by Elvis, I do have to point out that if a species has managed to master intersteller traffic, they probably have got sterilization down.

On that not, so I believe that aliens have been to earth, sure why not. I suppose it could be possible. Do I think they're stealing people and jamming things in their butts? No.

I think that things here on earth / this plane of existence are more complex than we realize. UFO's have always been mentioned by ancient man whether it be in the bible or other religious, historical, or mythological texts. My gut tells me they're here, they've always been here, and maybe watching us is part of their job (the only reason I can think of something being here thousands of years). Maybe we trully are trapped in a science experiment with amnesia?

They had a discussion about this on the Discovery Science Channel. They said that this is one of the main reasons why aliens are less likely to visit Earth since they would have to figure out how to get through the atmosphere and survive the unsual bacteria on our planet. Also, there's the whole thing about how they probably wouldn't talk to us b/c our communication pattern isn't as complicated as other animals (many of the physicists and astronomers that were addressed on the issue thought that htey would talk to whales first).

Amen ;).

One of the History Channel programs--wish I could remember the name of it--had a program about proof of aliens and UFO's being visible in religious text and Renaissance paintings. I think one of the Madonna w/ child paintings had a guy in the background looking toward the sky and his eyes were aimed right at a shadow in the sky that looked a lot like a flying saucer.

Hmmm...aliens using us as science experiments without our knowledge...I think that's part of the Scientology belief isn't it (either that or the idea about dead aliens possessing our bodies)? I remember Rodney Dangerfield talking about how he believed that aliens created us and were watching over us as science experiments before he died, then again he wanted to clone himself.

Haha :)

Anyway, I think there must be life somewhere else than just our little planet in the whole universe...

I believe in UFOs, and I'm sure there are aliens out there -somewhere-... I'm just not one of these "WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF BRAINWASHED ALIEN GHOSTS" theorists.

I take this stuff lightly.

There is intelligent life out there, I'm shure.
But it's hard to find here on earth. ;)

I don't believe the ones that are spotted on video the recent years. But I do believe there are living things outer space.