BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 11:03 PM

Yeah, that happens, Bill. You do often get a wide variety of different stories from eyewitnesses of an incident, in which case you have to look for what commonalities you can find and go from there. I think it's partly because people don't usually observe things in what could be called a "trained" manner. Their focus for the details isn't good.

What set Sherlock Holmes apart from most people in Conan Doyle's stories, for example, was that he had trained himself superbly in observing and remembering every single detail, something most people don't do at all.

I wasn't amongst a crowd, though, I was just observing the craft on my own through a set of binoculars. My mother was there, although she'd make a terrible witness to anything at all...her story about something changes every time she tells it and she exaggerate as well! ;-) I don't know if she even remembers the UFO sighting at this point. I also phoned a friend of mine, and he saw it from his place, but I haven't spoken to that guy in about 40 years.

Even film of an event is only helpful to a certain extent. It may not be very good quality film, and it is, by necessity, only from one particular angle...perhaps not the most useful angle. Look at all the different conclusions that people have come to regarding the short film shot during the John Kennedy assassination. Most of them insist that it supports their favorite explanation of what happened. ;-) And they're happy to tell you why. Again, they are seeing what they want to see, based on some mental position they have adopted.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 11:04 PM

"I just wait & hope that one will land on MY lawn."

You'll go through hell trying to get folks to believe you, Bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 12:26 PM

"I just wait & hope that one will land on MY lawn."

You'll go through hell trying to get folks to believe you, Bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 01:37 PM

nawwwww.. because *I* have the reputation as a skeptic, YOU all would believe me....and besides, my wife is at the window photographing birds everyday...she'd have evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 03:05 PM

So now the aliens are going to arrive in birds. Bill, you are getting stranger by the day.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 05:55 PM

I don't doubt that you saw something unusual and inexplicable in the late 60s, LH. And I suppose that there's a possibility that you could have seen an alien craft. But without further data any guess as to what it was that you saw must remain just that - a guess.

On the other hand, given the number of stars in our Galaxy (about 200 billion I think?) and the number of galaxies in the Universe (a similarly enormous number) then the chances that there are no other intelligent species 'out there' are, I would have thought, rather small - especially as we now have scientific evidence for planets orbiting other stars.

But we also have scientific evidence to suggest that interstellar travel is enormously difficult and may actually be impossible.

Nevertheless, an alien civilisation may have overcome the problems posed by interstellar travel and, for all I know, may have even visited us. But if they have I must repeat the questions I posed on this thread last year, and that is: why have the aliens only revealed themselves to ordinary Americans and Canadians who have usually been travelling at night on country roads when the encounters occurred? And why have such auspicious encounters been free of any lasting consequences for the rest of us?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 06:52 PM

999...shhh! They'll hear you!

yes...birds! How do you think Starlings GOT that name!?

So far, I have not seen one of their crafts around here, but I photographed one in Oregon years ago! It's quite old, and may be where the Starlings aliens first landed!

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 07:42 PM

Here's the mathematical probabilities made clear.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 01:41 AM

Shimrod, I'll answer those questions you had:

"why have the aliens only revealed themselves to ordinary Americans and Canadians who have usually been travelling at night on country roads when the encounters occurred?"

Absolutely not so! Things that appeared to quite possibly be alien craft, and which were interpreted as probably being alien craft, have been seen by people in all walks of life including several heads of state (Jimmy Carter, for one, a South American president for another, and it doesn't end there), numerous politicians, civil airline pilots, military pilots and other military personnel, doctors, lawyers, police officers, a very large part of the population of some entire cities (such as Phoenix Arizona), civic officials (such as the mayor of Phoenix), etc...ad infinitum. It is nothing but a hilarious cliche and an often repeated piece of mythology (or else a deliberate lie) that no one sees "UFOs" except "ordinary Americans and Canadians who are travelling at night on country roads". Total bullshit...and, frankly, one has to wonder who was the turkey or the agent provocateur who concocted that ridiculous myth in the first place? Who disseminate it?   And what in the world gave him the idea that there was any basis to it...because there isn't. UFOs have been seen in every country on Earth, they have been seen by both day and night, by every sort of person, and they are not a strictly American/Canadian phenomenon. There are some South American locales where they have been seen so often that the local government there has put signs up on the roads designating the area as a UFO sighthing area (a bit like the signs you put up to warn of deer or moose crossings). The Mexican air force has pursued and filmed UFOs over central Mexico. You are living in a fantastic thought bubble of your own (or someone else's) devising if you think that your question above has any relevance to the actual situation regarding UFO sightings on planet Earth.


Your other question was: "And why have such auspicious encounters been free of any lasting consequences for the rest of us?"

Now THAT is an intriguing question, and one well worth asking! Yes, indeed. I regard it as a virtual certainty, given the number of recorded incidents and the other evidence that has accumulated by now, that aliens have been visiting us....and it does appear that it hasn't had lasting consequences for most of us (as far as you or I know). That's VERY interesting indeed! What does it suggest? It suggests that they don't act as we would act. Because we are ruthless exploiters. When we discover a New World (as Columbus and the Conquistadors did), we invade it, we exploit the crap out of it, we wipe out or dominate the indigenous people, hunt down the animals, cut down the forests, dig up the land, and so on. We are pillagers, wasters, and despoilers, intent on profit and dominion.

If we were dealing with aliens who were the kind of cultural barbarians we are, it would all be over for us by now, in my opinion.

We are probably dealing with someone who is quite unlike us. That is, they may have a far more developed sense of both morality and responsibility than the human race presently does. They may regard it as wrong to invade, exploit, and dominate other races...but not wrong to observe them. If so, it would behoove us to stop fighting idiotic wars with one another and learn something useful from these visitors that could help us move out of early adolescence and into adulthood.

Perhaps you have to reach adulthood before you can develp the kind of technology to do really effective and fast space travel. It might even be a fail-safe mechanism built into the very chain of evolution. ;-)

If so, it could prove quite handy, I think. I'll put it bluntly: If we were them, we would devastate this planet. Let's bloody well hope they are not anything like US.

And yet another possibility: They may not really need anything we have here...but they may still find us quite interesting to observe, simply as a way of adding to their knowledge about other lifeforms.

And yet another possibility: They may consider us to be their distant relatives or their spiritual brothers and sisters, and they may be concerned about the great danger we are putting ourselves in by our own destructive behaviour on this planet. If so, they could be attempting to make some sort of useful contact with our governments in order to help us in some way. Now...if our governments preferred to maintain the status quo as is...that status quo being based on our governments being seen as the ultimate and unchallengable power on this planet, and seen as having the answer to everything, and seen as our protectors rather than our dominators...then our governments might want anything BUT the general public getting any wind of such a situation at all. They might do a great deal to suppress what information they have and to avoid open contact or public recognition of what is happening.

Those are all possibilities. I don't necessarily espouse any one of them, I'm just saying those ARE among the possibilities suggested by alien visitors who do NOT interfere with us much at all.

And then there's the ONE possibility you clearly favour: No aliens at all. No alien vehicles. Nobody who has mastered distant and speedy space travel. Nobody around but us. No government coverup. Just a bunch of confused ordinary Americans and Canadians driving around on country roads at night and having hallucinations or not knowing what they were looking at. ;-) What a simple and comforting thought to hold to one's bosom! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 04:05 AM

LH, as far as I am concerned you are free to speculate away - but I have encountered all of those thoughts before - even had some of them myself. I still haven't seen any evidence for aliens though. As far as I can see the Fermi Paradox still holds: They ought to be out there but so far we've seen no convincing evidence for them (and you can rant and rave to your heart's content, LH, and call me all the names under the sun, but I'm not convinced by UFO sitings).

But here's another thought. Isn't there something a bit Judaeo-Christian about all this stuff about superior beings (angels?) from the sky coming down to help and/or pity us 'poor sinners'? I can't help noticing that you tend to come over all 'evangelical' when you write about them and get all sort of 'wrathful' about us poor 'unbelievers' (although I'm definitely not an unbeliever but a sceptic - there's a world of difference). I would like to speculate, if I may, that your beliefs may be culturally determined and have a strong religious character to them.

Finally, the cost and difficulty of interstellar must be immense and it still seems unlikely to me that a space-faring people would travel that far just to disconcert a few Americans and Canadians ... and, OK, the odd Peruvian and airline pilot.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 07:06 AM

It's just escapism we all need a diversion sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Stu
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 09:42 AM

There's another alternative:

Stop pratting about with hearsay and the flights of fantasy and get stuck in to the science, which is far more interesting. I've seen UFO's (most recently last year in Montana), and I've posted on these threads about the Red Rain of Kerala and no-one's taken a blind bit of notice. Well, here's more evidence to ignore: Cyanobacteria fossils in metorites

This research is by a NASA scientist Richard Hoover and offers compelling proof that life my have travelled to earth via comets, which are known to contain complex organic chemicals. If these are the fossils of cyanobacteria then the ramifications are enormous, as it would indicate life is everywhere and planets are seeded with life by extremophile bacteria. This research is being conducted (as it should be) in the harsh light of peer review and commentaries from the author's peers are invited on his page.

This is a truly profound finding, and raises so many questions that major paradigm shifts will be required in many disciplines. Darwin would have loved this. And it would be fitting too if cyanobacteria were the first extraterrestrial life forms we discovered; they have been around since very early in the story of life and today still rule the world along with their other prokaryote brothers and sisters, whatever us arrogant humans might think.

Brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 10:37 AM

Sugarfoot Jack...that is an absolutely fascinating theory, and I see no reason why I should cast aspersions upon it or attack it in any way. It may be quite correct that "life is everywhere and planets are seeded with life by extremophile bacteria".

I've always thought it quite probable that life is, in fact, found all over the Universe, but probably in a tremendous variety of forms. If so, only a few of those forms would likely have evolved to the point of doing what we've done, and developing technologically advanced civilizations. Many of those forms of life might be so different from life on Earth that we wouldn't even recognize them as life.

In any case, I think the theory you've mentioned is a really neat one and there may be something to it. Furthermore, it could be a correct theory, and we could still be being visited by alien spacecraft anyway, as those 2 possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Shimrod - Why look at it strictly from a Christian point of view? All the major religious traditions suggest that humanity in its present state is in need of further enlightenment and moral development. It's not an exclusively Christian concern, it's a universal human concern, and that's because it's a REAL concern.

Any human being honest enough to examine his own nature and the behaviour of humans in general can see that we need to make some improvements. ;-D I do not have to belong to any religion to see that (and I don't belong to any religion). I just have to use logic and common sense to see it.

Furthermore, I'm not particularly attracted to the Christian religion and never have been. I find the 3 main religions that sprang from the people in the Middle East (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) not very appealing at all because they are:

- too patriarchal
- too guilt-ridden
- too authoritative
- too violent
- and just generally creepy in certain respects

I much prefer Taoism and Buddhism. ;-) Read a book on Taoism and then get back to me. You will find no God in that book, no guilt trip, and none of the well-known negative hangups with which Christianity is littered. Just good humour and common sense.

Then you said: "we've seen no convincing evidence for them"

Wrong. You've seen no convincing evidence for them! ;-) I have. Many other people have. And the government has, but the government isn't telling you about it. If they decide one day that they can control the domestic population better by scaring the shit out of them about space aliens (like they are now scaring them about terrorists), THEN they will tell you some stuff about aliens...but it probably won't be very true stuff, because they generally lie pretty much every time their lips move.

And then you said: "Finally, the cost and difficulty of interstellar must be immense and it still seems unlikely to me that a space-faring people would travel that far just to disconcert a few Americans and Canadians"

Well, Duh!!! ;-) Really??? No, of course they wouldn't do it just to disconcert a few Earthlings. Why would they care about disconcerting anyone? Did European explorers send fragile wooden ships across the Atlantic and Pacific and dare all the perils of those early voyages to disconcert people in Hawaii and North America????? No. They did it because they wanted to KNOW about stuff they didn't know about yet and go places they hadn't been yet. Nothing is more basic to intelligent life than curiosity. If people can go somewhere new or try something new, they will, mostly because they want to satisfy their insatiable need to KNOW about things.

Why did we send men to the moon? Why do we climb Mount Everest? Why do we do any of these risky things? For the very same reasons that any intelligent race explores unexplored territory...we want to know what's there. We want to understand it. We want to enlarge our knowledge. And that is why they would come here, go anywhere else in the Universe that they could reach, and they would spend ANY amount of effort to do it....just like we do. We have spent insane amounts of money to make brief and very unprofitable trips to the Moon and to put little machines on Mars, etc....so why wouldn't others do similar stuff if they possessed the technology to do so?

Like us, they would go absolutely anywhere they were capable of going, because that is what curious creatures do.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: josepp
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 12:38 PM

LH wants us to believe that there are people just like us out there and then wants us to believe they are not like us at all--otherwise they would have taken over this planet and exploited whatever is left to exploit and leave it a dying hulk.

If they're like us--the last thing I ever want to see are these assholes coming to this planet. Since we haven't been colonized and our planet destroyed by their greed, we can assume they don't exist.

Oh, and LH, the europeans didn't come to the Americas and Hawaii just to "know." You know very well what they came to do--history speaks for itself. If your aliens are coming here, that's what they'd be coming to do as well. It hasn't happened so they're not coming here. Can't have it both ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 04:34 PM

I don't want you to believe anything. I want you to stop categorically disbelieving things. I want you to stop arbitrarily denying certain things on principle, things that you cannot possibly be certain about, merely because you want to disbelieve them for some emotional reason...or out of your own insecurity.

It is your absolute denial of things you can't really be sure about that I object to...not the fact that you don't "believe" this or that. Belief is not knowledge, it's simply a temporary opinion, and it's usually based on hearsay, cultural habits, and resistance to anything new or unfamiliar.

I bet if you'd lived in the 1700s you would have laughed uproariously at any suggestion that men could one day build powered flying machines, exceed the speed of sound, travel at 100 miles per hour in a horseless carriage, take xrays, send radio transmissions, and do heart transplants. ;-) And you'd not have been unusual. 99.9% of the people of that time would have laughed right along with you, because people are creatures of habit, and they all think they know it all already. The average largely ignorant man thinks as he walks into a room, "The smartest guy here just walked in." He pats himself on the back in his own mind for being more clued in than his neigbours, his relatives, his boss, his president, and his wife. He's an insecure egotist in other words, and you can't tell an insecure egotist anything he doesn't already know, because he already knows everything. Just ask him.

I'm saying I don't know if there are space aliens visiting us, but I think it's very probable, based on my own direct observations and thousands of direct observations by other people, many of them highly trained people.

You're saying you DO know that there are no space aliens visiting us, based on absolutely nothing except your kneejerk certainty that it must be that way. And your own ego will keep you in that little mental insecurity box, because that's where it likes to be...where it's safe because it's always "right", and everything is either "YES" or "NO", but never "maybe". "Maybe" is too frightening.

"If your aliens are coming here, that's what they'd be coming to do as well. (invade and exploit) It hasn't happened so they're not coming here."

1. The evidence suggests to me that they are coming here.

2. They haven't invaded and taken us over and exploited our world.

3. I draw a perfectly logical conclusion from that, which is: they ARE quite different from us.

You seem to feel that it's impossible for an intelligent race to rise above sheer greed and selfishness. That's sad. I think you have a very poor estimation of the real positive potential of humanity or of any other intelligent race. You lack idealism. You're willing to settle for a garbage mentality and a petty set of material objectives. If it were impossible for all individuals to rise higher than that, you'd be right in what you say, but various individuals have risen higher than that. If a few individuals can do it, then an entire race of beings can eventually do it. THAT's social evolution! We CAN improve ourselves.

Your reasoning that they haven't done what we would do if we came here, therefore they can't possibly have come here, is a Catch-22. It's circular reasoning, like a snake eating its own tail, and it's anything but logical. It's a statement of blind faith, nothing more. I guess you're the one who really belongs to a religion...you just don't realize it. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 04:47 PM

I have told my story here before about my experience with seeing very clearly a flying saucer (UFO) and so I'll just put it this way:

1. They do exist...

2. I don't have a clue if they where they come from... Maybe the US government is making them, I don't know...

3. I won't go thru the story again...

...but... 4. Anyone want to pay for the polygraph, I'll take it and pass it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: josepp
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 04:51 PM

////The evidence suggests to me that they are coming here.////

There is no evidence or this thread would not exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 06:55 PM

No need for polygraph, Bobert. I don't think anyone is making up stories like you & Little Hawk tell..(well, maybe a 'few').

But the LACK of hard evidence suggests to me that something don't add up.

1)If they can been 'occasionally' seen, that means they should be 'occasionally' photographed...or at least seen by large groups of people at the same time...and NOT just as 'weird lights in the sky', but as actual solid objects.

2) I know that 'science marches on' and people in 1700 would NOT have believed what we have today...but the metaphor has its limits! We have today a MUCH better idea of what technology is and can...even theoretically... do. Because we "... have powered flying machines, exceed the speed of sound, travel at 100 miles per hour in a horseless carriage, take xrays, send radio transmissions," etc., we can also measure and calculate the known limits of these things, and just saying that ..."they" must have technology that allows FTL speeds and gravity-defying acceleration and soundless drives doesn't explain much, as the reasoning is circular - requiring you to 'believe' in each to prove the other.

3)We DO have good reason & evidence to posit other theories and explanations for sightings that don't involve extraterrestrials. Just because 'some' events have not adequately BEEN explained...yet... does not show they have no earthly explanation.

Remember... *I* want to lose this debate! I would dearly love to lose. I just have seen too many documentaries about strange stuff that people believe...ET, Yeti, ghosts...the list goes on and keeps the late night TV channels filled.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:31 AM

I've just had a radical and terrific idea!!!

Let's josepp and I pretend that we agree about this subject! If we do that, we will be able to save a great deal of time, typing, and aggravation. ;-)

We don't have to say what we believe or disbelieve, we just pretend we agree about the UFOs, that's all. The perfect solution.

Whew! What a load off my mind. (And it won't change the actual situation in the world one iota, so why worry?)

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 04:10 AM

"Stop pratting about with hearsay and the flights of fantasy and get stuck in to the science, which is far more interesting."

I have to agree with 'Sugarfoot Jack' above. Trouble is the science is undoubtedly interesting but it's not nearly as superficially exciting as saviours/invaders from the stars, is it?

Whoops! Another Turkish goat herder has just been scared half to death by strange lights in the sky! It just has to be down to visitors from Epsilon Eridani - I must BELIEVE!!

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 06:53 AM

Exactly, Bill...

Why in the heck would anyone make up a story that when told 9 outta 10 people think to themselves, "Uh huh, another fruit cake..."???...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Stu
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 10:54 AM

The thing is, the science is far more interesting because it's based on what we know at present. Personally, if alien life were like greys and the other menagerie of invented aliens human have come up with (especially those effin' Ewoks) then that would be a crushing disappointment - how drab and unimaginative.

But . . . just imagine if life on earth was seeded by a comet. If from those bacteria rose the the whole gamut of all the life that has ever existed or exists on this planet today. All of it in it's glorious diversity over deep time, from the critters of the Burgess Shale that don't fit into any known phyla to the dinosaurs to dung beetles, drongo's, dingo's and the countless, squirming legions of nematodes . . .

But think on. Cyanobacteria contain chloroplasts which enable photosynthesis, the driving force at the base of so many ecosystems that converts solar energy into material that enters the food chain, and if they seeded life on this planet then photosynthesis and chloroplasts did not originate on this planet - and that is an incredible thought that really transcends the mediocrity of modern UFO culture. The main powerhouse of life on earth is not terrestrial at all - it developed in a far off world a long time ago and is spreading around the universe over the eons. Can it be more exciting that that?

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 11:07 AM

if they seeded life on this planet then photosynthesis and chloroplasts did not originate on this planet

It's an "if", isn't it? Might there not also be the possibility that such cyanobacteria already existed on this planet? If that's true, then the presence of cyanobacteria in meteorites is still interesting - but not necessarily conclusive proof that they (meteorites) were the cause of life on earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 11:23 AM

In fact, given certain conditions and enough time, life MUST 'happen'. Those chemicals just behave according to various 'laws' we are beginning to understand, and although some 'might' have come from comets..etc., there is growing evidence that it happened here also.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:46 PM

I never said that science wasn't interesting, Jack. ;-) I've been interested in science all my life, and I have a very positive view of it. It's politicians and military security people who worry me with their little mind games and their hidden agendas...not science. I like science.

Anyway, I've decided to talk to Bill about this stuff in PMs, because he's reasonable and respectful and you can actually talk to him about something like this without (hopefully) totally wasting your time doing so.

As for the other skeptics who are flaunting their usual flippant "attitude" here...naw....no point in even bothering.

Subject: RE: BS: Hey skeptics, UFOs over NYC today
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 02:24 PM

Oh, I should mention again that your cyanobacteria theory of the seeding of life throughout the Universe sounds fascinating to me, and I think your interest in it is fully justified. I don't see that it applies one way or another to any UFO incidents...or that they need to be compared to each other to decide which of them is a more interesting subject...why do that???

But I do agree with you that it's a most interesting theory of the origins of life and definitely worth further investigation.

In other words: I like your favorite theory and am in no way competing with it by talking about UFO incidents...nor do I regard your theory as competing with or threatenting anything I'm talking about. They are separate fields of inquiry. But should they both prove to have merit, then they would complement each other in interesting ways.