Moontanman

Mr. Skeptic, so far no films that would pass the test for me or you but these sightings are very troubling if for no other reason for the way they were seen on radar and by people whose testimony could easily put either one of use in jail or maybe even on death row with less evidence than this.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread546470/pg1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westall_UFO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-Landrum_incident

Which you essentially do in post 95. Yes, given the assumption that alien craft are very unlikely, photos of such are likely to be fake. Much like I usually dismiss photos of presidents in bikinis as fake without so much as examining them.

That's not a fair comparison and you know it. The director of the CIA in a lingerie is unlikely but at one time unknown to the world it was very true occurrence.

Just to clarify: sightings by a UFO convention don't count. It would be extremely unlikely for an alien to show up just exactly in front of a large group of people who were looking for them.

I think I've shown that I am not talking about stuff like that. I take this seriously enough to comb through stuff that is likely to be tarnished.

It would convince me. And yes, technology does occasionally break, and flying things occasionally get shot down.

yes that is possible but not likely, as I've said I live under the flight path of an airport, so far no pieces of airplanes have fallen off. Even though dozens of planes land every day, I'd like to think an advanced alien space craft would be even more reliable.

Or a whole specimen. Again, it would convince me. The thing about hard proof is that it is hard...

Yeah it's hard not to mention unreasonable.

Any examples? Remember that clear photographic evidence is also a component (ie, the craft has visible technological features).

I'll give it my best google shot

And if the aliens are based in our solar system they must have a base here. Otherwise, I can't really see aliens coming all this way just to fly around a bit.

Now on that we are in total agreement.

However, photographs are easy to imagine. I've seen several photos where things appear to be something they most definitely are not.

Yes and photos that are obviously some sort of strange craft are assumed to be fake no matter how good they are. As a matter of fact the better the photos are the more they are assumed to be fake.

Well of course UFOs represent unknowns, it's right in the name. But what would it take to convince me that they're aliens? How about one of these:

One of them has been shown many times, sightings by large groups of people have occurred and there are films of these sightings, always assumed to be faked or hoaxes.

1) A piece of alien technology. Technology, not just a new alloy, unless the alloy is made of non-terrestrial material (verifiable via isotope ratios).

You expect a piece to fall off an alien space craft?

2) A piece of alien biology.

You expect an alien to shed an arm or leg and leave it behind ?

3) A clear photograph or video, together with a large (100 or so) crowd of witnesses confirming that they saw it too.

That has already been produced several times, it's always debunked by skeptics as too good to be true or a mass hallucination caused by some sort of hoax. Such mass sightings are dismissed out of hand as quickly as individual sightings.

4) An alien colony (eg using solar power out in space, or on a planet or asteroid).

This is not impossible but so far no such thing has been found. I have some high hopes for the infrared telescopes but I'm not sure the places in the solar system they might be are being looked at seriously.

I'm offended. Are you saying we don't have fertile imaginations? That in reality people do not imagine things?

Ok, point taken, i generally view imaginations as being personal to the person having them, if it is the same thing being imagined independently by different people over large periods of time I have to think of it as some sort of mental thing (not crazy or flaw) that many people have in common. Like sleep paralysis, I have it, my mom has it and so do my sons. Only once have seen beings around me during that time, my mom sees demons with some regularity, so far my son only has out of body experiences as do I most of the time.

I know the experiences are not real, so does my son, my mom I'm not so sure about, her religious views seem to be confirmed by the experiences.

UFOs could indeed be some sort of stuttering of the brain if not for the photos and group sightings. Imagination is hard to photograph, I know the hard core skeptic refuse to believe any photo can be real but their refusal to believe does not make them all fakes any more than belief makes them real.

My take on this so far is that, as i have said many times so far, IF UFOs are real the most likely source is aliens already colonizing our solar system via artificial colonies.

I think the evidence is powerful that UFOs represent some real unknowns, exactly what the unknowns are has yet to be determined but it would be nice to know what would it take to make the skeptics believe UFOs are real?

What would it take?

Billy Meier is a case of either absolute proof or total Bullshit, not much room in the middle at all. The photos of his that have been tested seemed to show they are fakes but then again he says the photos were altered by intelligence agents to make them look like fakes....

I've on a down hill slide into the grave, wanna trade places?

#5 a fertile imagination

Ah, no, we are saying if they are here, not assuming they are not.

Neat! Is this one a different species as the type that prefers saucers?

You got me, it lookes like a winged flying penis to me.

I sincerely have no clue as to where they came from... They 'could' come from Titan, the dark side of the moon, or one of our deepest oceans. There is literally ZERO evidence to start speculating.

 

My only point is that there's no need to 'require' that they posses the ability to travel inter-stellar distances to get here, as they've always been 'here'/in the neighborhood.

If we allow that there is enough evidence to show they are here then there is enough evidence to at least speculate where they do not come from. to say they could come from Titan is very hard to allow for, we know the conditions on titan do not allow to creatures even close to the creatures we see in historical documents or in UFO mythology.

"They" almost certainly have to come from

#1 Another star system, at least originally

#2 A past civilization that colonized the solar system but died out completely on the earth, Intelligent dinosaurs anyone?

#3 time travelers.

#4 alternate worlds or dimensions.

Any other suggestions?

Another point that needs to be made is that the U-238 that is left over in waste can be used in breeder reactors to make fissile material as well.

Here is another good one, from 1870! purported to be the first UFO picture ever taken! A stereo picture at that!

Close up of the object.

1870-Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. This photo is dubbed, "the oldest UFO photograph ever taken." This item was the subject of bidding at Ebay in 2002, when finally the photo was purchased for $385.00 by Samuel M. Sherman, who was the president of Independent-International Pictures Corp. This was originally a "stereo" photograph. Certainly it was difficult to manipulate photos at that time, and remember, there were no flying objects then; at least, not from this world.

Thanks to a reader, we now have the "stereo" photo.

Merged post follows:

It's really inconvenient that all those alien ships are round shapes. I mean, round is an extremely common shape and also very easy to make. If you get two round shapes you get a the traditional flying saucer. I mean, if the things were airplane-shaped, all those smudgy ones would definitely be more credible.

 

Edit: And not one of our airplane shapes.

For all we know the propulsion system requires the round shape. Then again if they were shaped like airplanes the skeptics would say they were just airplanes...

Merged post follows:

here ya go Mr. skeptic

1961-Pescara, Italy. Bruno Ghibaudi, a scientific newspaper journalist, took several photographs of strange flying devices on the beaches of Pescara along the Adriatic sea in April 1961. He also claims he had encountered extra-terrestrial beings. Here is a larger version of the picture. Note: This looks more like a flying locust than anything else. One of the strangest flying objects I have seen.

Moontanman - I agree and that's why I asked what your estimated prior probability that the photographed (or any) UFO contains Alien life on board.. Is it 90% is it 60%???

 

You may be interested in the following blog posts:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/are-ufos-aliens.html

http://lesswrong.com/lw/27e/but_somebody_would_have_noticed/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/

Any estimate i could give would be based on my assumption of biological isolation between different planetary ecosystems. Or at the very least the unlikely idea that different planets would be enough alike to allow beings from one to live successfully on others.

I think UFOs if real would most probably be automated probes, possibly if the beings involved are real, then they would be robots of some sort, possibly so sophisticated we would see them as living beings. I also have serious doubts that advanced beings would risk themselves to capture by primitives like us.

Great links BTW, nice to see real rational thought hasn't completely gone byby these days.

Merged post follows:

'They' as in the phenomena isn't 'singular'. And, I don't care to elaborate, as I have no idea whatsoever from where they hail, nor evidence to even begin such speculation.

They, have to come from somewhere, we can speculate on teh possibilities even if we cannot say for sure.

I wouldn't say they are native to this planet, either.

Alternate worlds?

What I would only say that it isn't necessary to 'require' that they be able to travel inter-stellar distances, given that they appear in our historical just as soon as man started carving on cave walls.

So you have some ideas but you will not share them with us?

Actually the term U.F.O. generally refers to things like clouds, airplanes, weather balloons, meteors, etc., which have not been identified as such by the speaker at that time.

I think if you replaced "generally" with "originally" your statement would be more accurate. in the modern vernacular UFO pretty much means alien space craft. I often try to assert that UFO simply means unidentified thingy in the sky and i am often told in no uncertain terms that was it's original meaning but now it means a alien space ship.

The photos i posted are not just for ydaops, I would welcome some input from all interested parties. There truly are some photos that are simply inexplicable. Taken far before the popular idea of flying saucer was coined and way before the idea of hoaxing alien space ships came about.

I love the flake equation, it is so very true! The best jokes often are, in our society of often instant information is has become far to easy (IMHO) to find someone that will agree with you no matter how completely full of shit you are. It has become almost impossible to thread your way through the bullshit to find some semblance of the true in almost all topics.

This effect has caused the ideas of UFOs and aliens to become especially silly, no one can find any real info with out diving through miles of total bullshit.

Merged post follows:

yeah and the meme had to have come from somewhere. People had the ability to fake pictures before the days of photoshop.

 

What is your prior that these photos are legitimate evidence of alien tech/life.

The idea that UFO photos are of two groups is how what i call rabid skeptics explain away all possible photos. Either they are too fuzzy to see anything or they are too good to be real.

Rabid skeptics are just as bad as the rabid believer who thinks every odd thing in the sky is an alien space craft. I honestly do my best to try and be open minded with out allowing my brain to fall out.

The photos shown are not all false, they are not all hoaxes, coming from the time period they do both hoax seems very unlikely, almost to a photo they depict something the skeptics say only happened after the Kenneth Arnold sighting in California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold

Skeptics used to be proud of the fact that flying saucers or round UFOs were not seen until after Kenneth Arnold and the media made the idea popular. When it was shown not to be true they fall back on "well even before photos could have been faked and due to the photos the round shape must have already been in the popular mindset after all"

No matter how good the evidence the skeptics will pic it apart. Great picture? Too good to be true, must be a fake, can't be shown to be a fake? Then why no pieces of an alien space craft? Until a alien space craft lands on the Whitehouse lawn and calls a press conference there is no way to even allow for the possibility among skeptics.

On the other hand true believers will take any thing that is claimed with no evidence what so ever as absolute fact. UFO abducts woman from her New York pent house apartment on the busiest street in the city and no one else sees the UFO hovering outside, no problem.

Aliens visit the white house, no problem, some where some how there has to be some sort of in between where these things can be investigated with no baggage. Allen Hyneck tried and failed, there is no room in the middle anymore for many issues, it's sad and would be counter productive to any investigation about anything.

Just because it might have been possible to fake photos back then the idea of alien space craft was not part of the popular media or zeitgeist, To say that all good photos must be fake is just wrong IMHO. Far to many really credible sightings have been reported, sightings that were not just lights in the sky, reported by credible witnesses, seen by military, civilians, and radar from both groups.

I honestly do not think UFOs are just stupidity no matter how goofy the popular culture makes this idea at one time the it was not such a circus and the evidence was still there. BTW the one photo over San Francisco is a military photo of the battle of San Francisco which was a real event and not as easily portrayed as war jitters as everyone now tries to say. Back then it was taken very seriously and photos do seem to show actual craft in the sky.

I'm not asking you to believe, I'm asking you not to give me the knee jerk reaction of automatic dismissal of all evidence because it's impossible. it's not impossible as i have theorized, it is improbable but the improbable can happen. Ignoring that possibility because the two extreme schools of thought cannot get together is simply wrong.

BTW, yes the meme had to come from some where, did you ever consider the idea might have come from actual sightings of alien space craft? Just because now days the circus has all but swamped all possible information makes it important to note these things were being seen way before the circus got started.

swansont, i have not asserted that every time a cross shows up it is a religious symbol when i type a t I don't think Christian, but in the context of this thread, the Latin crosses used in the contexts were are discussing, it is indeed a religious symbol. No human who has been raised in our culture would look at a Latin cross used as a memorial and think lower case t, they always think religion, almost always the Christian religion.

In Heinlein's book "Glory Road" he had dragons that belched a gaseous substance that ignited from some rocks that catalyzed the reaction, the dragons chewed the rocks to obtain this substance, their breath was terrible and when they belched at you you got to smell the stuff before it ignited, if gave you a chance to jump out of the way of the soon to come flame.

Does the dragon have to spray out flames? How about a really poisonous gas?

I agree, the flames would fry the tissues of the dragon if the flame ignited inside his body. that's why i proposed spraying some sort of catalyst out through his salivary glands so the methane would ignite after it mixed with the air.

The hydrazine producing bacteria are way cool, has to be some way of including them in this scenario!

Laugh - Why is it when i purpose using the Gulf Stream as an clean renewable energy source I get heckled - - When I said USA only has 1 year supply "Out There" - I was referring to the oil reserves offshore - I thought that would of been a given since that's what we where talking about

 

 

 

 

Wow man -That LED statement was a joke - It was meant to convey the huge energy potential that the gulf stream is - If you took every river on this planet and multiplied that by 100 - You'd get the energy of the gulf stream - Does that analogy suit you better?

 

I think the point of my post was - What is the point of drilling off shore when the cost and risk are so high - since there is only a 1 year reserve out there - when we have an endless supply of energy floating by in the Gulf Stream

 

I'm sorry you missed it rain man - But I find your purposeful heckling disturbing - I am very passionate about this topic - I fail to see why this isn't the single most important goal in science today

How would you propose we gather that energy? if we disrupted the flow of the gulf stream it would have very bad consequences for the environment. But if you can see how it could be done with out the bad consequences I'd like to hear it.

What sort of catalyst? Where would the methane come from?

Well all animals produce some methane in their digestive systems, herbivores more so than carnivores but who says dragons have to carnivores? They could at least be omnivores and the belches could be stored inside their digestive tracts. The catalyst you have me on, platinum is a catalyst for hydrogen and oxygen, i have no idea if it would work for methane and oxygen, maybe he could have platinum teeth coverings?

They are native to our planet? They have been here as long as we have? They ? Care to elaborate on where THEY came from? While I admit the evidence of aliens is subject to argument at the very least, "They" in the way you are using it makes no sense ot me.

Merged post follows:

Well I was kind of joking, considering dinosaur bones and all. But you do have a point. Where's the stuffed dragons, or other trophies from such an impressive kill? You'd think someone would have kept a tooth or a claw at least.

Well actually the fossilized heads of proto-ceratopsin dinosaurs were once thought to be evidence of Griffons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin

Scholar Adrienne Mayor argues that the griffin was inspired by Protoceratops fossils in Central Asia.[3] Mayor noted that, like griffins, Protoceratops had beaked faces, protected eggs in nests, and were associated with gold due to their fossils often being located in or near gold-bearing ores.

Merged post follows:

Are you seriously suggesting that deliberately taking things out of context helps your case?

 

 

edit: It looks like a peach pit.

Yes, i am, the object looks like technology to me, it has three glowing lights, portholes, a gun, and a round hull with a round protrusion on it. You seemed to think that looking at the picture of the man and the dog looking at it in the sky caused people to think UFO so i took it out of the picture so it can be seen independent of any external leading images. Peach pit? ydoaPs, are you so much a skeptic that you would reject any image as either too little info or too good to be true? What do you think of this image?

Or this one

Or this one

Or this one

Or this one

Notice all but one of these pictures were taken way before the idea oif "flying saucers" had hit the popular media and way before the frenzy of hoaxes had started. "Lights in the sky?" I don't think so.

From that link:

 

In the Latin alphabet, the letter X and the minuscule form of t are crosses.

 

Which supports my position that crosses are not always Christian symbols, and that not all Latin crosses are Christian symbols.

 

It has been assumed that the cross in question is a Christian symbol. I'm wondering if that has actually been established.

Swansont, none of these crosses we are discussing are examples of the Latin alphabet, no one goes around setting up lower case t's because they like the Latin alphabet. To insinuate they do is being totally disingenuous.

Crosses when used in this way this one is being used crosses are always religious symbols, I'll buy not necessarily a Christian symbol but a religious symbol none the less.

The only way this cross could be justified is if it was accompanied by the religious symbols of everyone else who died in that war. At the very least the top three or so should be included, on an individuals grave I see no problem as long as every individual gets the proper symbol.

A large lizard could belch methane and have a catalyst spray into the stream from his salivary glands as it leaves his mouth.

From that link:

 

In the Latin alphabet, the letter X and the minuscule form of t are crosses.

 

Which supports my position that crosses are not always Christian symbols, and that not all Latin crosses are Christian symbols.

 

It has been assumed that the cross in question is a Christian symbol. I'm wondering if that has actually been established.

I guess you could be correct, i mean there must be lots of reasons people would want to set up a huge lower case t in the desert on top of hill so everyone can see it. Literacy maybe? Do they set up other letters around the world so every one will know the alphabet? Maybe they are trying to teach the space alien visitors their letters?

I said I believe in the possibility of it, I know where it is not, not where it is.

LOL

Absolutely!

Then at least we agree on one thing.

Agreed.

I will rephrase.

Sometimes stupid acts lead to favorable outcomes.

This would be greatly dependent on whose definition of favorable you were using don't you think?