Probing Discussion on UFOs & Alien Abductions
- Thread starter steveda19
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Re: UFOs in West Virginia: 10 witnesses, 4 low-flying UFOs
Many years ago i read a book about it...
Somebody made a drawing or even a model of itIIRC...
Looked like some jet-powered vehicle...
Many years ago i read a book about it...
Somebody made a drawing or even a model of itIIRC...
Looked like some jet-powered vehicle...
Re: UFOs in West Virginia: 10 witnesses, 4 low-flying UFOs
A lot of things, really. The majority of UFO sightings are the moon, of all things.
Remember, our minds play tricks on us, our perceptions aren't great and lend themselves to major optical illusions, and on top of that, we have pretty advanced video manipulation skills that can make anything photographed or filmed appear real. I think the second video you linked was clearly a fake (I mean, you can see things just as convincing in the theater), and while the first was more bizarre, aliens is still a pretty big stretch.
So, if you're interested in discovering the truth, rather than just confirming a bias that UFOs must be aliens visiting, you should ask yourself some questions. Start with Occam's Razor: the explanation that requires the fewest new assumptions about reality is most likely to be true.
So, what do we know to be true? We know people's eyes play tricks on them. We know people's minds play tricks on them. We know that, without a frame of reference, it is impossible to tell the size or speed of a moving object both in real life or on video. We know that the military tests technology that has in the past been mistaken for aliens. We know that other natural phenomena can cause normally recognizable objects in the sky such as the moon, venus, lightning, clouds, or human tech (like planes and satellites) to look unusual and urecognizable.
So, any one of these things provides a more likely explanation for UFOs than aliens, because, for any of these explanations, we don't have to make any new assumptions about reality. If we say it's aliens, we have to make a bundle of new assumptions: there is alien life, it exists in close proximity to earth and is capable of avoiding detection by the most advanced tech (though, paradoxically, not by laymen with poor videography skills), or it can travel at FTL speeds (which is likely impossible), and so on.
It's not very thrilling, and certainly it's more fun to imagine that there are advanced aliens visiting us; I'd love to see that happen. But I think it's better to seek the truth than to try to support my fantasies. People can easily dupe me (with fake videos) and I know enough about how the brain and senses work to know that those can easily dupe me too (yes, your own brain dupes you more than anything else in the world, and cannot be trusted!). The best way to find the truth is to try to disprove what I believe, or want to believe. I want to believe aliens would visit us, but given the current evidence, it is very easy to disprove that hypothesis and impossible to prove it.
A lot of things, really. The majority of UFO sightings are the moon, of all things.
Remember, our minds play tricks on us, our perceptions aren't great and lend themselves to major optical illusions, and on top of that, we have pretty advanced video manipulation skills that can make anything photographed or filmed appear real. I think the second video you linked was clearly a fake (I mean, you can see things just as convincing in the theater), and while the first was more bizarre, aliens is still a pretty big stretch.
So, if you're interested in discovering the truth, rather than just confirming a bias that UFOs must be aliens visiting, you should ask yourself some questions. Start with Occam's Razor: the explanation that requires the fewest new assumptions about reality is most likely to be true.
So, what do we know to be true? We know people's eyes play tricks on them. We know people's minds play tricks on them. We know that, without a frame of reference, it is impossible to tell the size or speed of a moving object both in real life or on video. We know that the military tests technology that has in the past been mistaken for aliens. We know that other natural phenomena can cause normally recognizable objects in the sky such as the moon, venus, lightning, clouds, or human tech (like planes and satellites) to look unusual and urecognizable.
So, any one of these things provides a more likely explanation for UFOs than aliens, because, for any of these explanations, we don't have to make any new assumptions about reality. If we say it's aliens, we have to make a bundle of new assumptions: there is alien life, it exists in close proximity to earth and is capable of avoiding detection by the most advanced tech (though, paradoxically, not by laymen with poor videography skills), or it can travel at FTL speeds (which is likely impossible), and so on.
It's not very thrilling, and certainly it's more fun to imagine that there are advanced aliens visiting us; I'd love to see that happen. But I think it's better to seek the truth than to try to support my fantasies. People can easily dupe me (with fake videos) and I know enough about how the brain and senses work to know that those can easily dupe me too (yes, your own brain dupes you more than anything else in the world, and cannot be trusted!). The best way to find the truth is to try to disprove what I believe, or want to believe. I want to believe aliens would visit us, but given the current evidence, it is very easy to disprove that hypothesis and impossible to prove it.
Merged the UFO thread with the alien abduction thread since they were both about sharing your experiences.
Klaatu Barada Nikto.
Klaatu Barada Nikto.
Re: teacock and I were talking in the Neutral Zone
Now 'Frakes, you KNOW I would never take the Plunge without inviting you. Plus, the Bachelor Party on Rishathra's vessel will be unforgettable. Unfortunately, it will also be completely forgettable.
Now 'Frakes, you KNOW I would never take the Plunge without inviting you. Plus, the Bachelor Party on Rishathra's vessel will be unforgettable. Unfortunately, it will also be completely forgettable.
Re: teacock and I were talking in the Neutral Zone
Thank you for sharing, and you and your compatriots will remember that experience for the rest of your lives.
Thank you for sharing, and you and your compatriots will remember that experience for the rest of your lives.
"You can't cure stupid", but you can cure laziness... now, click that mouse, Mister!
You sexy talker, you!
Never seen a UFO, don't believe they exist. If the Vulcans are watching us, they are most likely not going to reveal themselves until we are ready to accept the concept of life on other planets.
BTW, UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, not aliens. I'm sure you saw at least one UFO.
There's a difference between seeing an object that I haven't identified and one that no one has identified. On various occasions at night, with my naked eye I've seen what I'm pretty damn sure are man-made satellites orbiting the Earth, but even though I don't know which satellites they were, as I've not matched their orbital elements, I don't claim to have seen UFOs. I have no reason to believe they were anything but man-made satellites. They may possibly have been planes, but they were moving awfully fast for that.
Ten points taken from Hufflepuff. I think everyone gets the difference between a UFO in the technical sense of just being an unidentified object in the sky and the more colloquial sense, which is something of an alien variety. He's clearly referring to the latter. Someone feels the need to point this out in every UFO thread.
Ugh...
If you count objects that fly that I can't identify, then I have seen thousands of UFO's, including things that possibly could have been birds, planes, caped superheroes, zeppelins, or Nathan Petrelli.
As CC pointed out, I was referring to objects that no one could identify.
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