Ufology

[Scorpio]

I am not sure whether there is much interest in the subject. To much bad data has made it the subject of derision by the scientific community and in popular culture, so the interesting stuff is usually ignored. When i say bad data, i mean extraterrestrials. Modern folklore has reinvented the hobgoblin, the warlock and the incubus and relocated them to the void of the space, from the plain of supernatural. Still, good quality data from reputable sources,coupled with the lessons of history, can suggest a terrestrial hypothesis which might provide an answer.

[Phil H]

I once made a determined effort to ascertain whether there was ANY truth in the Roswell incident.

I acquired every book I could on the subject and then said i would only accept as FACT any point that was corroborated by at least one other source.

I could not find one single fact that met that fairly basic criteria. Most things seemed to be at least misremembered (that's being charitable) or made up (even that's being generous).

There is NOTHING in the whole story that actually hangs together.

I have read other things about the Rendlesham Forest incident(as one example) that are equally difficult to believe. Not that the alternative explanations really add up either!

I warm to your idea of UFO's being the modern supernatural.

Yet I still wonder?

Phil

[Scorpio]

I dont believe that all UFO's are broomsticks, but some data correlates well with terrestrial technological developments which have been in a state of flux since WW2. Incidentally, the UFO/supernatural connection belongs to Carl Gustav Young. I subscibe to his view

[Phil H]

If you mean the man I know as "Jung" then I agree.

Phil

[Scorpio]

Jung...yes, that's the man. Does anyone know if
jung is German for young?.

[bolo]

Hi Scorpio,

Jung...yes, that's the man. Does anyone know if
jung is German for young?.

yes it is.

Regards,

Boris

[Scorpio]

Crypto-memory.

[Wickerman]

I am not sure whether there is much interest in the subject.

Probably not until it's too late....


To be honest, it is extremely naive for anyone to think that we are the only inventive lifeform in this universe, I don't think many people truely appreciate how vast it is.

The trouble is, history does repeat itself. We are content in our own little world, just like the Aztecs, ...so what will we do when Cortez appears on our horizon?

We'll be praying that they only come for gold!


Jon

[Scorpio]

Yes, the Universe is big, but, for UFO's at least,i consider the terrestrial explanation, and misidentification, the only acceptable one. The very size of the universe and the mind boggling distances separating the stars, would, given our current grasp of physics, make stellar travel improbable; especially If you combine this problem with the simple fact that not a single piece of evidence suggesting Alien life exists,and i would not accept apochryphal tales of frozen saucermen concealed in secret government facilities as evidence.

[The Grave Maurice]

I once believed that I had seen a UFO. I was out on a boat, late at night, in Lake Memphremagog in Quebec's Eastern Townships. I was looking up at the stars when I noticed that one of them was moving...quickly. Oh boy, I thought, aliens! Turned out, as I learned from the radio the next day, that it was just a Russian satellite passing by. Still, it gave me a bit of thrill at the time.

[Errata]

I saw a UFO once, i just don't think it was aliens. I think aliens probably have better things to do than anally probe the population of the southern United States. I think it's patently ridiculous to think that we would even recognize alien life as life. Anyway, we aren't even the dominant species on this planet. Why would they want us?

It's like Dan Ackroyd's character in Sneakers when he's reading the tabloid "Oh look! Cattle mutilations are up""

[Scorpio]

Anthropoid aliens are a stumbling bloke. Little fellows with big heads and grey skin dont quite cut it. The size and complexity of the universe compared to the limitations of our own planet reduce the probability of an alien species looking anything like us to pratically zero.

[Stephen Thomas]

About a year ago it was revealed that the Roswell alien autopsy film was shot in a room over a restaurant in London using a manufactured model.

[kensei]

I think it was established much more than a year ago that the Alien Autopsy film was a hoax. Bodies dead for any significant length of time just don't bleed like that. But to call it the Roswell Alien Autopsy film-- I guess that was implied, knowing that people would associate it with Roswell, but actually there was nothing in the film that stated "This is from Roswell." The Roswell case is actually very, very well documented by credentialed ufologists like Kevin Randle and Stanton Freidman, and while it is true that most of the evidence for it is anecdotal, there is a ton of such testimony by people who say they witnessed various aspects of the incident, and such eyewitness testimony is routinely used in courts of law to convict criminals. A jury hears someone say, "The defendant told me that he committed the murder," and they convict. But when it comes to paranormal subjects, for some reason, no amount of people swearing "I saw this" seems to be enough for hardcore skeptics. They'll blame the whole thing on weather baloons, crash test dummies mistaken for alien bodies, and aging witnesses surely being senile and mixing up the years in which they saw things.

A soldier named Walter Haut was the public information officer for the Roswell base in 1947 when the incident occurred. He issued a press release stating publicly that a "flying disc" had been recovered by the military. The next day it was rescinded, with the explanation that it was only a weather baloon carrying a radar target that had fallen to earth. That was the official explanation for many years, but a few years ago when Walter Haut died he left behind a sworn deathbed statement that not only was his original press release the truth but that he himself had seen the alien bodies that were recovered.

I understand that people will speculate that the universe is so vast that there is no way that beings from other worlds could get here, and that descriptions of aliens being of basic humanoid form are unlikely. But advanced physics teaches that civilizations far more advanced than our own may have developed ways to manipulate space and time, using wormholes to traverse the vast distances in space in mere moments, making the number of miles between worlds completely meaningless. And then you have the myriad of people from all areas of the United States and even around the world, from all walks of life, a complete cross section of humanity, that claim to have had interactions of one kind or another with aliens. It is absolutely NOT only anally-probed citizens of the deep south. That is a bigoted and quite offensive stereotype, and anyone who would say that is demonstrating that they have only skimmed the very surface of the subject and have not delved into its study in any real depth.

There have been implants removed from people that have been analyzed and found to be made of something not identifiable on Earth, or of earthly elements but in combinations never seen before. There are alien abduction cases in which witnesses have come in and found a person to be literally gone during the time in which the abduction was supposed to be occurring, ruling out the possibility of it just being a dream or hallucination. There are UFO landing sites where grass has been killed in circular patterns with no other obvious explanation as to how such could have occurred other than that someone claims to have seen a spaceship landed there. There is all kinds of evidence for this phenomenon. But is there PROOF? Well, evidence and proof are two difference things as people like O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony keep reminding us. I think the only real proof when it comes to UFOs will be when the aliens finally reveal themselves to us in some undeniably public worldwide way.

[Steven Russell]

I am as convinced as one can sensibly be that ours is not the only planet to harbour intelligent life. The vast numbers involved are just too persuasive. But, if we were confronted with alien life, would we recognize it, as an earlier poster has asked? The differences between, say, an elephant, a jellyfish, and a bacterium seem vast but these life forms have all evolved on the same planet. Even if we restrict ourselves (and there's no reason why we should) by saying that life needs a home planet, must be carbon-based, and needs liquid water, alien species could well evolve completely differently to Earth species given differences in environment.

For example, we would not exist in our current form without:
1) chemical and geological composition of the Earth,
2) the Moon, providing tidal forces and stabilizing the Earth's rotation,
3) Jupiter hoovering up potentially disastrous comets and rogue asteroids etc.,
4) extinction events e.g. that which put paid to the dinosaurs.
I am sure there must be many more but I hope these few will serve to illustrate the point.

Interstellar distances do seem to be an insurmountable problem. But so did the sound barrier and powered, controllable flight. It may be that warp speed is possible. Nonsense, you say, but imagine sitting Shakespeare down to watch the cricket on telly from half a world away. In any case, Earth species enjoy very different lifespans. Our three score years and ten might seem like an eternity to the average insect but a bit pathetic to a redwood tree. What if there are alien species with a lifespan of thousands or millions of years? Even at sub-light speed, a trip to Earth might seem like visiting your aunty.

So I firmly believe that intelligent life exists elsewhere. But have they been here? I think probably not. But they may be watching...

Best wishes,
Steve.