'Are UFOs Real?'

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (I, v)

A point which still holds true today. What I'd like to know is why some people, instead of first researching, investigating and eliminating possible terrestrial causes, immediately jump to the conclusion that these phenomena must be alien in origin rather than terrestrial. As far as I'm concerned there are two possible terrestrial factors that are of immense interest:

1. The vast majority of sightings seem to be reported in countries that were major Cold War powers, and particularly in the vicinity of military or civilian establishments know to be involved in advanced systems development and testing.

2. We are still getting to grips with the atmospheric sciences, particularly phenomona such as lightening, the Aurorae, St. Elmo's fire and refractive or reflective local effects of sunlight, moonlight and the light from the brightest planets (Venus is interesting at the moment, if only I had the time to spare).

It seems to me that first we should examine and/or rule out what we know about or can with some certainty research and learn about. Instead what has happened is that those who in the past would have openly espoused superstitions about angels, demons, omens and portents have now transferred their interest in a quick and easy answer to imaginary little gray men from the mythical planet Magog, or some such.

A lot of the stranger reports are the result of a mis-spent youth watching too many 50s B movies while smoking the wrong type of tobacco substitute, careless mushroom picking or or sucking on patches of blotting paper if you ask me. Speaking of a mis-spent yout, the strangest creatures I've ever seen were pink, built like dancing elephants and had butterfly wings - and it was the morning after. That was one bad bottle of poitín.

A lot of the stranger reports are the result of a mis-spent youth watching too many 50s B movies while smoking the wrong type of tobacco substitute, careless mushroom picking or or sucking on patches of blotting paper if you ask me. Speaking of a mis-spent yout, the strangest creatures I've ever seen were pink, built like dancing elephants and had butterfly wings - and it was the morning after. That was one bad bottle of poitín.

That remind me of a quote

"UFOs are better explained in terms of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial beings rather than by any unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial beings." ~ Richard Feynman

Hi Eamonn
Yes, it is certainly big news internationally; New Scientist, Fox News, Ireland.com Irish Times, BBC, Space.com to name but only a few are carrying the story. The demand was so great on the CNES computer server that it crashed within two hours after the announcement to the media regarding the disclosure of previous held UFO information.

Wow, heavy stuff. Either their server wasn't up to the task, or interest really is, as Eamonn said, growing at a rapid rate.

John Hoare,
I hear what you're saying, and it is perfectly logical in my opinoin. But, there will always be a few sightings that seem to defy belief of being terrestrial and/or atmospheric in origin. Isn't THAT where UFO's stem from? Ignorance plays a part too, in that even the quintescential dummy to any of the sciences will make their own conclusion about what it doesn't know, to try and understand. Erroneous, I know, but that is also a big logical factor.

Yes Seanie,

UFOs are "Unidentified Flying Objects" and I have no problem with people who want to find out what they are so long as they are willing to use scientific methods and follow a logical process. I object to anyone assuming that UFOs are necessarily, or likely to be, extraterrestrial in origin on two counts:

1. They don't know what they are, therefore they can't support the assumption.
2. The odds of a UFO being extraterrestrial in origin (based on what little I do know) are significantly lower than the odds of it being an unknown terrestrial phenomenon and nobody has ever successfully presented a logical case to the contrary.

As for those who 'believe' - send them to church. Belief has no place in any scientific discussion except insofar as religious beliefs may influence one's views on ethical matters.

“I Do Not Think the Evidence is at all persuasive that UFOs are of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Origin, nor do I Think the Evidence is convincing that no UFOs are of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Origin”. – Carl Sagan 1968

Hi John,
Thank you for your input; you raised some good questions in your first post that require at least an “attempt” at an answer. From my understanding from point 1 that you made are you saying that most UFO events around military and civilian establishments are terrestrial in nature :
There is some research / data available relating to point 1, which you or indeed others here might find interesting. An article by Donald A Johnson, PhD entitled “Do Nuclear Facilities Attract UFOs?” Offers some statistical analysis…
Quote;
“So we are left with a somewhat troubling finding. Apparently UFO reports do occur more frequently in the vicinity of nuclear sites, after controlling for population and the region of the country. Given that the motives of the intelligences behind UFOs, assuming that UFOs are intelligently controlled, are not well known, we should be concerned. Given the long history of UFO incursions at sensitive, highly-restricted nuclear facilities; and given that the events of September 11, 2001 have drawn attention to the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to terrorist acts; it would seem to behoove national security agencies to re-direct some attention to the issue of UFOs entering restricted air space over nuclear facilities”. End quote.
Ref: www.nicap.org/ncp/ncp-johnson1.htm

“UFO sightings at ICBM sites and nuclear Weapons Storage Areas”
The author of this article has interviewed over 50 people, some highly trained / qualified personnel that were in the front line as it were when high strangeness events occurred at various military installations…
Quote:
“Although the vast majority of Americans are completely unaware of its existence, the UFO/Nukes Connection is now remarkably well-documented. Air Force, FBI, and CIA files declassified via the Freedom of Information Act establish a convincing, ongoing pattern of UFO activity at U.S. nuclear weapons sites extending back to December 1948” end quote.
www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc2009.htm

“Dr. Vladimir V. Rubtsov's lectures as published in MUFON's 1994 Symposium Proceedings” relating to the Chernobyl disaster…
Quote:
"It became known that on the night of the fire in the ChNPS, some 3 hours after the explosion, a team of nuclear specialists saw in the sky over the station a fiery ball of the color of brass. The witnesses estimated its diameter as 6-8 meters and its distance from the burning nuclear reactor No. 4 as some 300 meters. Just before the observation these specialists measured the level of radiation in the place where they were standing. It was measured at 3000 milliroentgens per hour. 'Suddenly two bright rays of crimson color extended from the ball to the reactor... This lasted for some 3 minutes... The rays abruptly faded and the ball slowly floated away in a north-westerly direction, towards Byelorussia. Then we again looked at our radiation monitor. It displayed only 800 milliroentgens per hour” end quote.
www.nicap.org/ncp/ncp-ufois.htm

John, it is unfortunate that over the last five decades some “crackpots” have indeed caused damage for reputable scientists that wish to seriously study the UFO phenomenon with the full application of scientific methodologies and technology to bear, and in many cases much to the derision of their fellow colleagues.
However a number of scientists and highly qualified people (various disciplines) over the years have completed some quite comprehensive research with no funding into this controversial area (some were skeptics to begin with). A few scientists and other qualified people that have taken this brave step that come to mind is - Dr. Stephen Greer (Disclosure Project), John E. Mack (Pulitzer Prize winning author and Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School), French Computer scientist and Astronomer Jacques F. Vallée, Ph. D, Stanton T. Friedman Ph D (nuclear physicist and lecturer), J. Allen Hynek (astrophysicist), Dr. Richard F. Haines (Senior Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Centre), Paul R. Hill (aeronautical research engineer), Massimo Teodorani, Ph.D (CNR Radioastronomy Institute) and the list goes on.

Does UFOs = Extraterrestrial spacecraft, your guess is as good as mine, does UFOs = terrestrial secret craft, your guess is as good as mine, are UFOs real, the answer is an unequivocall “YES”, real in the sense that there is a tangible phenomena, unknown flying objects whatever they may be are interacting within our biosphere. It is the science aspect of finding out that is really interesting, one must be at least curious in any field of scientific endeavor in order to discover the truth no matter how difficult it may be to digest (my opinion for what’s it worth).

"No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon" Niels Bohr (physicist).

Clear skies
Mike
PS
Sorry for the long message

A recently released scientific study, "A New Empirical Approach to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," proposes a series of experiments for testing the feasibility of communications with extraterrestrials through a form of telepathy termed "Controlled Superluminal Communications". First published on the prestigious physics database at Cornell University and available on the Los Alamos National Laboratory database, the study's author, Fred Thaheld, suggests that extraterrestrial communications may be located within a specific frequency band in the human brain (0.1 - 70 Hz) that can be easily monitored using EEG machines. Thaheld, a quantum physicist and author of a number of widely cited physics papers, proposes that 'quantum entanglement', what Albert Einstein described as "spooky action at a distance," makes possible a direct measurable influence between living organisms. He proposes that all life is connected at the quantum level despite the great macroscopic distances separating biological organisms. Thaheld argues that the quantum influence occuring between all biological life can be directly measured in human brain waves that can host instantenous communications from extraterrestrials anywhere in the universe.

[Note: Fred Thaheld's study "A New Empirical Approach to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Astrobiological nonlocality at the Cosmological Level," is available online at: xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/physics/papers/0608/0608285.pdf ]

Eamonn A