[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49635396]Wait, how did we get to "they're ignoring us" from "they're extra careful about avoiding flying near us now that they know we have 1080p/4k cameras that can obtain much more credible evidence that they exist"? Stick to one argument.
Either they're ignoring us and not bothering to make contact, or they're hiding their presence from us while they do whatever alien thing they're visiting Earth for. Pick one.[/QUOTE]
Both. Not everyone here's thinking the same thing, you know. There are individuals. Some don't care if they startle the apes, and some do. Anything is possible. All we can do is learn.
[QUOTE=ScottyWired;49635423]What are we gonna do, give the footage to their overlords? Get them fired for breaking the rules about not contacting undeveloped species?[/QUOTE]
Like I said, this isn't [i]that[/i] important. If they're even real, they probably just don't want us to freak out.
My theory was that alien youth who go joyriding are the ones that left crop circles, like interstellar graffiti.
[QUOTE=Captain James;49635517]My theory was that alien youth who go joyriding are the ones that left crop circles, like interstellar graffiti.[/QUOTE]
Sorry to be Mr. No Fun Allowed, but crop circles are faked for tourism dollars.
[video=youtube;2OlnUbHofJ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OlnUbHofJ4[/video]
[QUOTE=Captain James;49635517]My theory was that alien youth who go joyriding are the ones that left crop circles, like interstellar graffiti.[/QUOTE]
"Yo Glorg, I found this funny ass planet a few thousand lightyears away let's go troll the fuck out of them"
"ok I'll ask dad if I can borrow the ship"
[QUOTE=Thlis;49635508]Is this a genuine statement?[/QUOTE]
genuine in that it does fit in with abduction reports and a memory regression is SOP for investigators but not genuine in that i actually believe anything happened to him (especially since it is a MGS2 quote)
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49635304]Pretty damn considerate aliens considering the massive energy/material/time investment to come here. Why would they care if we spotted them? What threat could we possibly pose if they're capable of interstellar travel? We're technologically outmatched by default. And PowerBooks are not able to connect to alien networks outside of Will Smith movies so that's not an option either.
...I also don't understand the marmot metaphor, especially as I live within day-travel distance of the natural ranges of three different North American marmot species, but never mind that.[/quote]
That's making a lot of assumptions. If it is aliens, then to claim we know anything about them is really arrogant. We truthfully know nothing about them. So as far as whether or not it does take them "a massive amount of energy/material/time investment to come here", we don't know. Maybe it actually doesn't? If they can come here, then clearly they're already much more advanced technologically than we are. We haven't even sent another human to Mars yet, and we've only ever sent six manned expeditions to our own moon. We haven't even successfully sent a probe out of our solar system yet (and no, contrary to what is often claimed, neither one of the Voyagers has left our solar system yet; they're still discovering new things all the time though).
And as far as us seeing them goes, it's not even about us being a threat. Again, if they can come here, then they're already much more advanced than we are-- by centuries if not millennia (who knows how long they've been around for?). They've not got anything to fear. This is where the marmot metaphor applies, and it applies perfectly. More correctly, it's the wildlife biologist metaphor. Suppose they just study us the way that we study animals in the wild on our own planet. It makes sense for them to be curious about us; I'm inclined to think they'd be moreso in a scientific sense than a militaristic Independence Day one (again, considering how advanced they'd be, if they wanted to destroy us, they could probably easily do so at any time). The difference is however that we're not deer or bison or something along those lines. We're the most developed and intelligent creatures on the planet. We're sentient beings. Why would you be open about your presence then? If your objective is to study us, announcing your presence like it's nothing would be a really stupid idea; that would completely change everything about us: our attitudes and religious beliefs (hell, beliefs in general), our behavior, etc. Again, we're a bit different from deer and other wild animals. You can't just fly a helicopter overhead (or in their case, some kind of weird craft/probe/whatever) and not expect us to notice. We're smarter than that. Being unobtrusive and maintaining stealth would make sense, if you don't want to interfere and ruin everything.
Best thing to do is just to declare "we don't know". Because we don't know. We should keep looking into these phenomena of course, because something is clearly going on (whether it's related to meteors, or weather/atmospheric conditions, drones and planes, helicopters, etc.), and it only makes sense to try and keep an open mind about them. Don't outright claim "it's aliens", that's not what I'm saying. But we should be open-minded enough to consider the possibility that yeah, maybe there is something bigger than us going on here. Maybe we're just like ants in an antfarm to something bigger. Maybe not. Again, who knows? And why worry about it anyway? Think about it and consider it, certainly, but don't worry or necessarily believe it.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49635304]Human perception is easily fooled. One police officer in the UK held a frantic, high-speed chase to follow a UFO at night, and he was sure it was dodging him and trying to evade him as he sped around corners. He chased the moon for [B]miles[/B].[/QUOTE]
Have you got a citation for this story? Because I heard it was Venus, not the moon. Which isn't impossible or even unlikely since, as you've put it, that sort of stuff has happened plenty of times before.
But then you have to consider other cases that are harder to dismiss. Some people's perceptions can easily be fooled, but others are keener than what they're given credit for. Things like the Gorman dogfight, the Clarence Chiles and John Witted encounter... and my personal favorite [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident]the JAL Flight 1628 incident[/url]. I'm inclined to give experienced pilots and flight personnel in these instances (both military and commercial) the benefit of a doubt. I don't think George Gorman (a veteran pilot who had been flying since World War II) pursued and tried to engage a "lighted weather balloon", that Chiles and Whitted saw a meteor streak by them with windows and a cockpit, and I really think that the JAL incident speaks for itself. Those guys clearly experienced something, and the really fascinating thing is that wasn't the last time incidents like that were reported in the same area (by an Alaska Airlines flight a few months afterwords and the Air Force itself a day after the AA flight).
And then there were things like the foo fighters which resulted in so many reports during and after World War II that the military finally said "fuck it, just stop sending us reports on this stuff; they're not bothering anyone, so we don't care". People have speculated all kinds of crazy things about them, from aliens to secret Nazi projects to atmospheric phenomenon like St. Elmo's Fire. Whatever the case, something was going on there.
In general, there's plenty of UFO sightings that can be accurately explained away. It's either a natural phenomenon or a case of human error or the military testing something, etc. But there are still those instances that do occur where that's not really possible. Not in a fair, logical, and satisfactory way at least. And that of course pisses people off because we're people; we like to have explanations for things and don't like admitting when we're wrong or that we just don't know.
[editline]30 January 2016[/editline]
I just realized I wrote a wall of text about this shit, but it really is interesting when you think and read about it. And it's fun too.
[QUOTE=cdr248;49635321]Yes! I knew there was someone else that felt it too! Something happened to me last Thursday when I was driving home. I had a couple of miles to go when I looked up and saw a glowing orange object in the sky to the east. It was moving very irregularly. Then suddenly there was intense light all around me, and when I came to, I was home.
What do you think happened to me?[/QUOTE]
On Thanksgiving I saw my grandmother's head open up on and a UFO flew out.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49635222]So the aliens know what our consumer electronics are capable of, now?
Why were they quite happy to hang around when all we had was film?[/QUOTE]
Because they don't want us to know about them yet because they don't think we're ready to be part of galactic society.
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49635772]On Thanksgiving I saw my grandmother's head open up on and a UFO flew out.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Taepodong-2;49635781]Because they don't want us to know about them yet because they don't think we're ready to be part of galactic society.[/QUOTE]
Mockery isn't exactly an argument, here. Some can use the same argument for religion. No?
[QUOTE=Govna;49635752]This is where the marmot metaphor applies, and it applies perfectly.[/quote]
I still don't understand the marmot metaphor at all. I don't understand why a marmot seeing you while you take a walk would be any kind of concern for you. If the animal was a honey badger or something I'd at least see the concern. The only thing I can think of is that a species of European marmots are believed to be the originating source for the bubonic plague - the theory goes that marmots carried the plague and sneezed plague onto food ate by rats who then infiltrated human settlements and spread plague through their poop. That's a veeeery obscure reach for a metaphor people are seemingly comprehending on first contact, though.
I don't see a point in arguing with you here since you make sensible comments, but I still have no idea what's going on with this marmot metaphor.
[QUOTE=Govna;49635752]Have you got a citation for this story? Because I heard it was Venus, not the moon. Which isn't impossible or even unlikely since, as you've put it, that sort of stuff has happened plenty of times before.[/quote]
Admittedly, my source for the moon anecdote is an episode of QI. :v:
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635829]Mockery isn't exactly an argument, here. [B]Some can use the same argument for religion. No?[/B][/QUOTE]
Well now that you mention it...
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49635838]I still don't understand the marmot metaphor at all. I don't understand why a marmot seeing you while you take a walk would be any kind of concern for you. If the animal was a honey badger or something I'd at least see the concern. The only thing I can think of is that a species of European marmots are believed to be the originating source for the bubonic plague - the theory goes that marmots carried the plague and sneezed plague onto food ate by rats who then infiltrated human settlements and spread plague through their poop. That's a veeeery obscure reach for a metaphor people are seemingly comprehending on first contact, though.
I don't see a point in arguing with you here since you make sensible comments, but I still have no idea what's going on with this marmot metaphor.
Admittedly, my source for the moon anecdote is an episode of QI. :v:[/QUOTE]
It means hypothetically, they just don't want to bother with us. Hypothetically they don't want a panic.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635829]Mockery isn't exactly an argument, here. Some can use the same argument for religion. No?[/QUOTE]
Lol how do you not get it? UFO claims are identical to religious claims. Unfalsifiable, based on subjective experiences, always dubious, unable to ever be reproduced under scientific circumstances, mired in hoaxes and fakery, and at best what anyone has in an unexplained phenomenon.
[QUOTE=Mingebox;49635845]Well now that you mention it...[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49635854]Lol how do you not get it? UFO claims are identical to religious claims. Unfalsifiable, based on subjective experiences, always dubious, unable to ever be reproduced under scientific circumstances, mired in hoaxes and fakery, and at best what anyone has in an unexplained phenomenon.[/QUOTE]
They cannot be disproved, either. You'll just have to believe, or not, deal with the fact people will oppose you on this matter, and move on.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635863]They cannot be disproved, either. You'll just have to believe, or not, deal with the fact people will oppose you on this matter, and move on.[/QUOTE]
Do you have any idea what unfalsifiable means and why it's a logical problem?
Also, I enjoy your stupid attempt to run away. "You just have to accept that I believe in ridiculous, logically absurd nonsense and stop talking about it!"
will read later, looks interesting.
[url]http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000015462.pdf[/url]
BIBLIOGRAPHIES ON PARAPSYCHOLOGY (PSYCHOENERGETICS) AND RELATED SUBJECTS -USSR
[url]http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/0000015462[/url]
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49635878]Do you have any idea what unfalsifiable means and why it's a logical problem?
Also, I enjoy your stupid attempt to run away. "You just have to accept that I believe in ridiculous, logically absurd nonsense and stop talking about it!"[/QUOTE]
I don't believe in it, though. I'm purely on the fence about it. Hence, the word "hypothetical".
We don't even have a feasible conceptual method on a mechanism by which interstellar distances could be traveled.
Unless physics has yet to discover something currently intangible this is all silliness.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635863][B]They cannot be disproved[/B], either. You'll just have to believe, or not, deal with the fact people will oppose you on this matter, and move on.[/QUOTE]
Nothing can be disproved, it is a null argument.
You cannot disprove that flying pink elephants exist.
[QUOTE=Aftermath;49634373]There's no doubt in my mind that we're not alone. How could we be when our universe is so vast with so many other planets outside our solar system that are orbiting their very own suns? There has to be other forms of life somewhere out there and it really wouldn't surprise me if they're more advanced and have visited us.
There's been plenty of unexplained events that would support it and even ancient hieroglyphs depicting beings coming down from the sky. I've seen some pretty crazy shit with my own two eyes that I couldn't make any sense of other than it being extraterrestrials.
I think our governments know more then they're telling us and it's only a matter of time before they make themselves known and it can't be denied anymore. I just hope that when it happens it'll be peaceful and we don't get into some insane war with them. If they've got the ability to travel across galaxies then there's a good chance they've got more advanced weapons then us.[/QUOTE]
We could be the first intelligent species...
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635829]Mockery isn't exactly an argument, here.[/QUOTE]
Neither is pushing the burden of proof on someone else by saying it can't be disproven.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635863]They cannot be disproved, either. You'll just have to believe, or not, deal with the fact people will oppose you on this matter, and move on.[/QUOTE]
Yet, here we are.
[QUOTE=Thlis;49635895]Nothing can be disproved, it is a null argument.
You cannot disprove that flying pink elephants exist.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Jacen;49635906]Neither is pushing the burden of proof on someone else by saying it can't be disproven.
Yet, here we are.[/QUOTE]
I'm saying that this shouldn't even be discussed. It's up in the air.
[QUOTE=Nicolas;49635897]We could be the first intelligent species...[/QUOTE]
Ehhhhh.
I dont know about that.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49635924]I'm saying that this shouldn't even be discussed. It's up in the air.[/QUOTE]
I don't see the harm in people talking about it if they want to. It's not like there's any flaming going on.
[QUOTE=Ithon;49635883]will read later, looks interesting.
[url]http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000015462.pdf[/url]
BIBLIOGRAPHIES ON PARAPSYCHOLOGY (PSYCHOENERGETICS) AND RELATED SUBJECTS -USSR
[url]http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/0000015462[/url][/QUOTE]
if this kind of thing interests you i found this paper which gives an overview of research done by Russia and the Soviet Union into related phenomenon
[url]http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.1148.pdf[/url]
[QUOTE=Jacen;49635976]I don't see the harm in people talking about it if they want to. It's not like there's any flaming going on.[/QUOTE]
It's the same as religious debate. It's nothing.
[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;49636037]It's the same as religious debate. It's nothing.[/QUOTE]
It's no more nothing than talking about things like books or music.
[QUOTE=Nicolas;49635897]We could be the first intelligent species...[/QUOTE]
We [i]could[/i] be the first intelligent species in existence. We [i]could[/i] be the only life in the universe. We haven't even explored our own solar system thoroughly yet, so we don't know whether or not alien life exists elsewhere-- if not within our neighborhood, then certainly elsewhere. We [i]might[/i] be it. Here's the thing though...
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/NASA-HS201427a-HubbleUltraDeepField2014-20140603.jpg[/t]
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Hubble_Extreme_Deep_Field_%28full_resolution%29.png[/t]
The first image is the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. It was compiled between September 2003 to January 2004. There's more than 10,000 [i]galaxies[/i] alone pictured there. The second is of the Hubble Extreme Deep Field, which was finally finished compiling a few years ago; it adds another 5,000+ galaxies to the original UDF-- some of which are 13.2 billion years old (see those little tiny specks of barely-discernible light in the background? yeah, they're fucking ancient). Our universe, for reference, is about 13.8 billion years old, and our own galaxy is made up of anywhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars... we don't know how many exactly, but the point is to convey just how large and small some of these other galaxies we've examined may be in comparison to ours. And remember, the light we're seeing from them now is unspeakably old because of the time it takes for it to travel here. We're looking back in time, basically. [url=http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/690953main_i1237by.jpg]And the really funny thing is that those images were taken of just a tiny, tiny portion of the visible sky[/url].
Images like that really are worth a thousand words. They say it all: we [i]probably[/i] aren't it/the first/etc. We probably aren't the only planet with lifeforms in the universe, we probably aren't the most intelligent ones alive today in the universe... we're probably just one of many, many other worlds out there with life, intelligent life at that, going about its business of running a civilization without a care. Who knows, thinking back to the past, how many countless others out there may have already lived and died and go unknown forever?
Again, the conundrum is we can't declare any of that for certain, because we're constrained by technological limitations, and we also aren't as knowledgeable as we like to think we are. We haven't explored any of these other places; we haven't even explored our own solar system yet, and we barely ever did anything with our own moon (our backyard buddy) when we did bother to go (which was more than 40 years ago; 1972 was the last time a person walked on it). So we can't honestly say what's going on out there. Still, we know at least a little, and the little bit we have to go off of should tell us that there's more out there. It just isn't logical to assume we're it. We could be, for whatever strange reason, but it's not likely and shouldn't be a conclusion we settle on. It not only seems silly, it's also really boring and doesn't get us hyped to explore space like we should be doing.
[QUOTE=Aftermath;49634632]I witnessed an orb of bright light shooting down from the sky at 5:30 in the morning on my way out the door for work. Normally I would just dismiss it as a meteor and move on if it weren't for the fact that it was heading directly towards another bright orb of light that was just hovering out over the ocean when there wasn't a star in the sky. I stood there and watched both of them until they got close to each other and then both of the orbs just vanished... I wouldn't call that god even if I believed in one and I wasn't the only one that watched it happen.[/QUOTE]
The Air Force is using something compareable to flares to calibrate their systems. It looks like a bright orb that barely moves an inch and disappears once it burns out. Also they only use these tings above the ocean.
They also use these for execerice and during training.
[QUOTE=Aftermath;49634632]I witnessed an orb of bright light shooting down from the sky at 5:30 in the morning on my way out the door for work. Normally I would just dismiss it as a meteor and move on if it weren't for the fact that it was heading directly towards another bright orb of light that was just hovering out over the ocean when there wasn't a star in the sky. I stood there and watched both of them until they got close to each other and then both of the orbs just vanished... I wouldn't call that god even if I believed in one and I wasn't the only one that watched it happen.[/QUOTE]
There's a whole plethora of scientific explanations that could be applied to this, but instead you automatically jump to the conclusion that it must be aliens. That's quite a leap in logic.
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