BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today

Subject: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 02:13 PM

Anybody else see this news?

Whatever the FO turns out to be, for now, it's still U!

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: bobad
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 02:42 PM

It seems that they just wanted to check out the sights and do some shopping http://unconfirmedsources.com/?itemid=4623

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 02:46 PM

"officials have not confirmed what the objects were"

And they won't...until they decide they want to. Whatever "confirmation" they offer when and if they do decide to, it may or may not be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 02:51 PM

If it's in the sky and you don't know what it is, it IS a UFO at that moment...even if it later proves to be a Boeing 757.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: MarkS
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:05 PM

Bloomingdales must have been having a sale on designer space suits.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:19 PM

I'll confirm it for $2000.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: bobad
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:19 PM

They have a sales promotion stating that their prices are out of this world.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:22 PM

Yeah, John. ;-) That's why I favour calling them something different than UFOs if one is discussing what are presumed to most likely be some sort of alien vehicle...but no one can seem to agree on the right acronym. I suggested one once, and it had about 20 initials in it to cover EVERY possible contingency! One must be very thorough when dealing with debunkers. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:44 PM

Why didn't anybody taking pix have a good telephoto? Weren't there any japanese tourists around?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 03:50 PM

Where ARE those Japanese when we need them??? ;-D The problem is usually that people are just taken by surprise. Then again, whose video gets on the news, and whose video doesn't? And who sets that policy? And why?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 09:18 PM

The balloons were released from a school in honor of one of their teachers.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: bobad
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 09:37 PM

Belief is a wondrous thing, ain't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 10:32 PM

Belief in anything is the quickest leap most people make. That applies equally well to the professional debunker/skeptic and the professional believer in the unusual. They both leap to the ramparts of their chosen belief in a microsecond, because they like it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 07:06 AM

Hmmmm..... You can't see it and there is no evidence that it was ever there but I'm supposed to believe in it because others tell me to do so.

Sounds like God to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 09:20 AM

Or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Wesley. ;-D Or a thousand other alleged items in the popular culture, many of them promoted by the government. A lot of things sound like God.

Hitler had most of the German population believing that Poland had attacked Germany first in 1939! And there was even "evidence"....slain jail prisoners dressed in Polish uniforms...they were supposedly Polish soldiers who had stormed across the international border without provocation and attacked a German radio station. People believed it. They believed the assertion and they believed the "evidence". Things can be untrue even with evidence...if the evidence is cooked or misinterpreted.

I believe the existence of alien visitors to this planet who are coming in advanced vehicles is extremely probable because I SAW what I feel must have been alien vehicles in the late 60s with my very own eyes. And through a fine set of binoculars. I wasn't told about them....I SAW them.

You are NOT obliged to believe it because I say it. You're not obliged to believe anything. It doesn't matter to me or anyone else what you believe, and it's your own business anyway, as it should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:07 PM

Rest easy, everyone. FOX News has stated that the so-called UFOs were actually kids` balloons. Whew, that was close.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:13 PM

Too bad they did not fly them kids balloons here. I would of got the .22 out and seen if I could shoot them all donw.

I been adbucted about 5 times by them alienes the Grays now and I hafta say that they are good guys, eh? They fixed my teeth and all and they restipuctipated me after that bad accdient I had with the garbage mashine. Otherwise I would not, like, be here at all, know'm sayin'? And that would not be good.

So I am in faver of more flippin' contact with the space aliens any time, eh? They are way nicer than the cops are. I'm talkin' waaaaaaay nicer. But no offence to Officer Dana! She rocks.

- Shane

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:15 PM

There are Eileens among us.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:19 PM

Some years back a troop of Girl Scouts released numerous balloons into the sky, each bearing the message: Don't Pollute.

lol

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:45 PM

And of course we believe what Fox News says...

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 01:59 PM

If Fox News reported that the sun was going to rise in the east tomorrow I believe I'd want to get up in the morning to see it for myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 04:12 PM

Yeah. ;-) I take all the mass media "news" with a grain of salt. There's usually some truth in it, but you always have to wonder what they're not telling you.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 04:55 PM

Absolutely--those who remarked on FOX News. The balloon is purported to have got loose at a birthday party. The estimated weight of the skin of the `craft` was 247,000 tons. The kids filled it with some stuff they mixed together in chemistry class. Well, maybe I`m getting two stories confused, but I don`t think FOX will mind. They read me about as much as I read them. Gotta be, because it wouldn`t be possible for FOX to read me less than I read them.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 07:40 PM

It seems that the ballons were released in the afternoon but the sightings went from 9 AM to 7PM.

As attractive as Occams razor may be it doesn't explain this prolific sighting.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 08:30 PM

Verrry interesting. It always helps to release a few balloons.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: kendall
Date: 16 Oct 10 - 08:07 PM

I was watching a field in 1960 with another Warden when suddenly we both saw something in the sky very close to land. It was a row of lights that did not move. We did not see it come or go. I got out of the car to use the scope on my rifle for a closer look and that the last I recall until a few minutes later when it was pitch dark.
Until the day he died that other Warden refused to talk about it.

I still don't know what it was. I do know what it wasn't; a plane, helicopter, weather balloon, etc. And there is no swamp gas over Deer Isle Maine.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Oct 10 - 08:52 PM

Thanks for the report, kendall. I have heard dozens of personal testimonials by now from people I knew and knew I could trust. Among them were both civil and military aviation pilots. They all saw things in the sky or near the ground that were completely unexplainable in terms we are familiar with, and that appeared to be alien vehicles of some kind. So did I in the late 60s. I have no reason to doubt any of those people or to be skeptical of what they told me.

People who think they do have reason to doubt those testimonials are people clinging to a personal faith (of a negative sort) that rivals the faith of the most fundamentalist religious fanatic. They don't WANT it to be so....therefore they believe it must not be so. That is the negative faith they stand upon. They will talk till they're blue in the face about how it can't be so for no other reason than that that's the way they want it. They have no personal experience to go on, but feel free to ridicule and explain away the experiences of others. That is what you must contend with if you've had a sighting, and you dare to talk openly about it...specially if you're a public figure like a politician. Ridicule is used to keep such people quiet.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Oct 10 - 04:18 PM

I think I'll recount once more an experience I had in December, 1964, I believe it was. Of course, there are several people on the Mudcat who may go back in the annals of the 'Cat and say that what I relate now is not what I claimed some years before. So be it. I can't be arsed, as some might say, to go back and see what I wrote before.

Anyway, I was on my way home on a country road about 2:30 one night without my little daughter whom I'd left at the babysitter's because I was coming down from the hills in the morning next day. I was living in the foothills of the Coast Range about 7 miles (if I remember correctly) from town.

As I passed by a farmyard on my left I saw a row of what looked like red and green windows of a large airplane on the other side of tall Douglas firs. The "windows" were very low, much lower than a plane would travel. I rolled down my window- but it was perfectly quiet out there.

Bemused, I drove on and down a slope and then a sharp turn to the right. Just before the curve at about an 11 o'clock position (but a little lower) I saw a 'moon', round but a little squashed from the top, glowing orange but not emitting light, just self-contained. Startled, I looked up at the sky and found the real moon, which was in a crescent stage. The round moon traveled parallel to me; it was closer and a little higher than the trees across the field that traced a small stream.

At that point I went into a still kind of place inside myself, not really even thinking. I remember telling myself or hearing someone saying, It's all right. Just be calm. It's all right."

I was maybe a couple of hundred yards down the road from the curve when suddenly it just zinged through me: This is how people disappear! and I stepped on the gas.

(At this point I don't think I had ever heard of anyone disappearing- I have no idea of where that thought came from.)

Anyway the very first driveway I came to was on the right hand side and I turned in on it. Poor choice. It was bumpy and rutted and long. I pulled into the farmyard and turned off the motor and just sat there. No dog barked, no lights went on.

After a few minutes, not knowing what else to do, I started the car and turned it around and bumped back down the driveway.

I still had about 4 miles to go and I drove as fast as I dared on such a winding road and kept my eyes just on the road. I didn't want to see anything else.

About a mile from home, just as I went into a tight turn on the road (a narrower road along a creek, the third road that my course required) something made me look into my back seat. It was all lit up from the rear window- and if I'd had time I could have seen every toy back there. It was not a glaring light; rather it was a mellow orange, very much like that of the "moon" I had seen in the sky.

I whipped my head around, made it around the turn and sped home. In my own yard I drove as close to my front door as I could and ran into the house.

And that was the end of that.

Looking back at it today I can see that it might be said that I saw something I couldn't explain. filled in the details with data that is unproven and panicked. I can't help that. I only know what I saw and didn't see, and how I reacted.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: kendall
Date: 17 Oct 10 - 04:48 PM

Want an education? Read the KRYON books.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 11:39 AM

They all saw things in the sky or near the ground that were completely unexplainable... (Little Hawk)

Still making the same language terminology mistake year after year even if it has been pointed out to you (and acknowledged by you)?

Unexplainable: It cannot be explained in terms we are...

That neither them nor you can know for certain.

(Yet) Unexplained: waiting for an explanation in terms...

That someone sees something she cannot explain in terms..., does not imply that it cannot by explained in terms...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 01:15 PM

Amazing. Wolfgang, you are the person I was thinking of when I said that some Mudcatters may delve into the annals of the 'Cat and come up with the information that my story has changed over the years.

I haven't seen a post of yours in months- maybe years? Welcome back.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 01:36 PM

"They don't WANT it to be so....therefore they believe it must not be so. That is the negative faith they stand upon."

I'm one of those doubters that really wants it to be true. Maybe it's all the science fiction I've read over the years. But so far I've never seen anything { personally or recorded } that made me say - "Wow - now THAT'S from another planet". But I'll keep watching the skys.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 02:12 PM

Wolfgang, I am better impressed by the personal accounts I have heard from highly qualified witnesses than I am by your apparent emotional desire to somehow discount them or explain them away because they aren't in accord with your chosen world view.

Of COURSE, I can't know for certain. ;-) I never said I could. I am merely assessing what seems most probable to me, given my own experiences, and the personal accounts of many others I have met. I have said in the past that there may be other explanations than that we are being visited by advanced alien lifeforms. There may indeed. People might, for example, have seen secret vehicles built by our own governments. But I think it is more probable that we are being visited by advanced alien lifeforms.

I am not declaring certainties. I am theorizing as to what seems most probable to me.

Wesley - Yes, I'm sure there are many doubters who, like you, wish it were so and there were alien visitors. ;-) They don't make such pests of themselves, though, as the professional debunkers who are determined to attack any witness who thinks it may be so...those debunkers seem bent on attack and ridicule and specious stories about weather balloons or "swap gas" rather than on having a fair and balanced discussion, and I frankly suspect that some of them are in the employ of certain government agencies who are managing a very large coverup. If so, it isn't just the US government that's involved. It's all the major governments.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 03:03 PM

So ALL of the major governments are covering up proof of visits from aliens from other planets? That's where you loose me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 03:10 PM

LH,

IMO, the likelyhood of UFOs being alien visitors is a lot lower than them being time travellers from our future ( or distant past).

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 03:23 PM

And I tend to veer into another angle... It seems possible to me that they are among us all the time and have been for generations, whether occasionally invisible or with some kind of mind control over us making us only rarely see them.

lol That sounds goofy to me- in other words, I just don't know. On the other hand, positing that they are from another world seems a bit of a leap to me. As I said, I tend to think that they are much closer to us than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 10 - 11:45 AM

Here's how the math looks, done right.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Oct 10 - 07:39 AM

There's absolutely nothing wrong with scepticism ('skepticism'). A good scientist is a sceptic. A sceptic is a person whose beliefs are founded on good evidence - not anecdote. He/she also keeps an open mind until the evidence is produced.

If extra-terrestrials are really visiting us they're not really doing very much or making much of an impression (except scaring and mystifying those Americans and Canadians who choose to drive at night on country roads). Lots of anecdotes - no convincing evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 01:40 AM

British UFO files trace sightings (and hoaxes)

8,500 pages of previously classified documents made available on Internet

Reuters
3/3/2011

LONDON — British officials on Thursday released about 8,500 pages of previously classified reports that document sightings of unidentified flying objects by the military and members of the public dating back to the 1950s.

The 35 large files, available via the Internet, mainly cover the period from 1997 to 2005 and include photographs, drawings and descriptions of flying saucer sightings, as well as letters that the Ministry of Defense sent eyewitnesses in response to their accounts.

[The article at the link describes a very few of the incidents reported.]

"The files are available to download free of charge for one month at the National Archives website."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Stringsinger
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 01:59 PM

Unidentified Flying Objects don't have to have come from an alien planet.
There are air force tests being conducted all the time that may not be "identified"
by either witnesses or the press.

Why flying saucers? Do aliens drink tea? Bertram Russell's teapot comes to mind.

The probability of space aliens visiting earth would substantiate Hawking's view that their germs would probably contaminate humanity and wipe 'em out.

I vote for the surreptitious visits from the air force or NASA.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: josepp
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:09 AM

Hard to believe grown people believe in this garbage.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:16 AM

Let's get one thing straight: There's absolutely nothing wrong with scepticism! Every good scientist is a professional sceptic.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: josepp
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:24 AM

You don't have to be a scientist, you just have to know the difference between science and science-fiction. UFOs fall into the latter category.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:59 PM

No, UFOs fall into the category of something that someone sees in the air, but cannot identify. That's an entirely different subject from science fiction, which is a well known form of literature. It's hard to believe that grown up people can't understand the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 06:15 PM

I'll wait..... I am patient.....

But this is like 40 other things that people profess belief in...many from 'personal experience'...-- they 'might' be true, and there 'might' be some evidence someday...but people will continue to cling to their beliefs, even if there is never any corroboration.

Personally, I think it is "Red Queen Syndrome".


Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said 'one can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

I wish the Red Queen had left a list...

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 07:35 PM

Yes, most people do cling to their beliefs, whatever those beliefs are, even if there is never any corroboration.

I clung to my very firm belief that there were no extra-terrestrial vehicles visiting us, Bill....until one day in the late 60s when I saw a vehicle in the sky which I simply could not explain in any conventional manner (and I know a good deal about aircraft). After that I decided that the existence of extra-terrestrial visitors to this planet was a good deal more likely than I had previously thought! I don't say it's a certainty, because I don't know for certain. I say that I think it's likely, that's all, and I am basing that statement first and foremost on my own direct experience. Direct experience beats hell out of preconceived conventional assumptions which one acquired from parents, teachers, media, government, and the general culture around one. It convinces in a way that nothing else can.

I tell you this NOT to convince you of anything, just to explain why I abandoned a very firm belief I'd been clinging to...and opted to consider other possibilities. I abandoned a wholly unconfirmed certainty in the face of a wholly undeniable experience....and admitted that I don't already know everything.

This is what most people are loath to do. They act as if they already did know everything. Just ask them. ;-D They're apparently dead sure that they already know the score, and the score (as far as they're concerned) is ZERO for anyone who doesn't see it their way. That's not knowledge. It's not wisdom. It's not maturity. It's nothing but ego.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 08:47 PM

I remember your story. LH...too bad I didn't see it. I'd LOVE to have one of those experiences. With my attitude, I wonder how I'd process it...

Almost every day I click on this link, which often has images of galaxies and other wonders.... and I would BET that somewhere 'out there' there are other sentient beings.
I would also bet, if there was any way to decide the bet, that they are stuck in one spot and wonder if WE are here.

Boy, would I like to lose the bet.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: josepp
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 09:21 PM

It wouldn't matter if you could prove there no life anywhere else in the universe, people will still see UFOs. People see what they want to see and that's all it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 09:43 PM

Yes, they see what they want to see, and they believe or disbelieve what they want to disbelieve, josepp. That's what I've been saying.

Very few indeed are those willing to even consider that they might be wrong about something and that someone else might be right about something that is different from what they believe.

There is no way to prove that there is no life anywhere else in the Universe...but how likely a proposition is that anyway? (unless you're a religious fundamentalist who believes that God ordained this planet Earth...and this planet ALONE...to harbour life?) I would think that nothing else but a kind of blind religious fanaticism could possibly lead anyone to so unlikely a conclusion as that.

It would be about on the level of some people on a tiny, isolated island somewhere on this planet thinking that there's no other island or piece of land out there across the great waters containing other living people or animals. About that silly, in my opinion. And I'm sure there were people in earlier who believed stuff like that...until other people came on ships and proved them wrong.

Whether there are advanced races out there with alien technology who can easily travel between solar systems and galaxies...or not...I don't know. But there very well may be. We have no particular reason to believe there aren't...except ingrained habit. And ingrained habit is just this: "I ain't never seen one a them things in my life. Therefore they don't exist! Don't talk to me about nothin' I ain't seen, cos if I ain't seen it, it ain't real."

Hillbilly logic.

Hillbillys see only what they want to most of the time too. If they see something they didn't want to, though, well...that gets them really upset! ;-D They may convert to a new belief or they may just go into some sort of hysterical denial pattern.

Bill - If you did see what I saw, I think you'd put your analytical mind to work on it and theorize what you thought were the most likely explanations. And it could only really be one of two.

1. it's a secret vehicle that our own military people built
2. it's a visiting alien vehicle of some sort

You would then set about making a guess as to which explanation was the more likely of the two...but would have no way of deciding for an absolute certainty which explanation was the right one.

And that's where I stood after seeing that vehicle (and another one, a different type of vehicle, not too long after that during the same summer). I still don't know for sure what they were, other than to say that they were very advanced and unusual vehicles, vehicles which I could not identify as to their origin, and I have never been able to identify since. No presently serving military vehicles that I know of would match them, and it's been over 40 years now since I saw them.

Either way, that's some impressive level of government security to keep those things unknown, wouldn't you say?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:25 PM

One of the reasons I doubt the 'explanation' of experiences like yours, LH, (not the experience...I have NO problem with your honesty and sincerity)... is comparing how witnesses recount sudden, shocking experiences like traffic accidents. Cars change color, and come from different directions and the identity of the driver changes...etc.
I saw a program where they staged a wild scene of some sort, then interviewed various witnesses...who had no idea it had all been filmed.
Then the actual event was shown and compared to what several honest people 'thought' they saw. Amazing variety in memories...
Now, an 'alien craft' or 'new military vehicle' would likely do the same. Those who saw the Stealth Fighter over Nevada gave wildly differing descriptions...so...*shrug*...
   I never deny ... I just wait & hope that one will land on MY lawn.