The UFO thread

[soon]

10 minutes ago, EvanG said:

Out of curiosity, what did you make of that episode? I mean, when you watch something like that, do you think it's all a bunch of nonsene, or do you tend to believe them?

Speaking just about that episode specifically, I also found them to be very credible as others have already said. A bunch of people who'd never met had similar experiences and sightings. I believe them. 

I was just being flippant about the Naruto Run - because what are the odds that a UFO related meme actually has some sort of connection to the actual phenomena? lol

I also believe them about why its taken all this time for them to really voice their stories. I think in todays world we have comparable examples of how people who suffer traumatic events can take decades to feel comfortable speaking publicly about it. And that they experienced a lot of ridicule in their childhoods over it. And lives were uprooted. So I think, just like Me Too, they all needed time to heal and also the chance to come together to tell the story as one group.

I think exactly what they are reporting is what they experienced (allowing for human error of course). Was it a bodily experience or some odd event cast into their minds? I dunno. But I believe that they experienced it, one way or the other. And the question remains, as always, but who was doing it?

Thats my quick thoughts at least. What did you make of it all?

[EvanG]

6 minutes ago, soon said:

Speaking just about that episode specifically, I also found them to be very credible as others have already said. A bunch of people who'd never met had similar experiences and sightings. I believe them. 

I was just being flippant about the Naruto Run - because what are the odds that a UFO related meme actually has some sort of connection to the actual phenomena? lol

I also believe them about why its taken all this time for them to really voice their stories. I think in todays world we have comparable examples of how people who suffer traumatic events can take decades to feel comfortable speaking publicly about it. And that they experienced a lot of ridicule in their childhoods over it. And lives were uprooted. So I think, just like Me Too, they all needed time to heal and also the chance to come together to tell the story as one group.

I think exactly what they are reporting is what they experienced (allowing for human error of course). Was it a bodily experience or some odd event cast into their minds? I dunno. But I believe that they experienced it, one way or the other. And the question remains, as always, but who was doing it?

Thats my quick thoughts at least. What did you make of it all?

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you. I believe that something happened to them that they can't explain. But what it is? I don't know. I can't imagine all of them having the same brain fart at the same time, that seems impossible. But I was just curious where you stand in all of this; either a total sceptic, believer, or somewhere in between.

[SoulMonster]

46 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

If the testimony by the Navy pilots is close to the truth and the radar data (that hasn't been released yet) backs them up, then the vehicles they encountered fly at hypersonic speeds, can stop on a dime, move around air-space as if it were a "ping pong ball in a cup" (quote from Commander Fravor), have no visible exhaust, have no wings, and go in and out of water with ease....well if that is close to the reality, then you tell me, does that sound like a project the US or Russia or China have at the prototype stage?  

Absolutely not. But such fantastical claims require proper evidence, personal accounts simply isn't enough. People can be convinced to believe anything, even otherwise intelligent and educated people. Which is why objective evidence is needed. 

[soon]

13 minutes ago, EvanG said:

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you. I believe that something happened to them that they can't explain. But what it is? I don't know. I can't imagine all of them having the same brain fart at the same time, that seems impossible. But I was just curious where you stand in all of this; either a total sceptic, believer, or somewhere in between.

Yeah, Its a good question for me to ask myself maybe. 'Where am I on that spectrum?' Im not sure I have a tidy answer for you, sorry.

I believe that the UFO phenomenon is now established fact. I believe that the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe is incredibly high. I think we should be working on the assumption that they exist, whether or not theres ever been contact.

Are ETs behind the UFO phenomenon? I dont know about that. I lean towards 'maybe sometimes?' But we must be vigilant and guarded in making such conclusions, imho. We dont want to accidentally give cover to any brutal government/military/academic programs like MK Ultra by attributing abductions, implants and mutilations to ETs in UFOs, imho.

I guess I could sum up my position by sharing my views on a current reality - Industry is engaged in projects to use space probes to attach themselves to passing meteors to then mine them of H3 to return to Earth with it for sale. Im thinking "what if other beings have laid claim to those meteors and their H3?" We dont know the underlying logic of intergalactic law!

Therefore lets get UFO files and programs disclosed, for public consumption and open analysis. In this age, we all have a "need to know."

What about yourself? Where do you fall on the subject?

[Ace Nova]

13 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Absolutely not. But such fantastical claims require proper evidence, personal accounts simply isn't enough. People can be convinced to believe anything, even otherwise intelligent and educated people. Which is why objective evidence is needed. 

In terms of the way the crafts move/maneuver, they do have "proper evidence".  They have the crafts recorded on video (which wasn't supposed to be released to the public, btw...but once it was, the military stated that it was "authentic")  Did you not see that video?  And yes, it was confirmed to be authentic by the US military. 

[EvanG]

15 minutes ago, soon said:

What about yourself? Where do you fall on the subject?

I guess my problem is that I'm a little bit too much Mulder while I maybe should be a little bit more Scully. It's hard to believe that there isn't any life on other planets when you realize how big the universe is, but beings from other planets visiting us? I don't know, if they are thousands or maybe millions of years ahead of us in technology and are able to do things that we cannot even comprehend yet, why not? Doesn't mean every UFO story or sighting is real obviously, I try to be as sceptical as possible, but for example when I listen to that Lazar guy and try to read him... then I believe he's telling the truth.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

Absolutely not. But such fantastical claims require proper evidence, personal accounts simply isn't enough. People can be convinced to believe anything, even otherwise intelligent and educated people. Which is why objective evidence is needed. 

And that's where the momentum is finally heading. People like Harry Reid has said more of the information and materials need to be made public. Politicians in office like Marco Rubio and Mark Warner wrote it into the recently passed defense bill that public reporting on what the government knows has to be disclosed in a report to Congress. 

It's taken forever but the era of complete secrecy and lying is coming to an end (I think we'll get partial secrecy and partial lying, but it's better than where we were before).

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

57 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

In terms of the way the crafts move/maneuver, they do have "proper evidence".  They have the crafts recorded on video (which wasn't supposed to be released to the public, btw...but once it was, the military stated that it was "authentic")  Did you not see that video?  And yes, it was confirmed to be authentic by the US military. 

There are rumors the video's that were released were not the full videos. There are also more videos that haven't been released. And the corresponding radar data on the previously released videos and any subsequent video's will need to be released too. If we have pilot and other personnel testimony backed up by full length video's and radar returns, the debunkers are going to be out of options of saying this is another airplane, seagulls, or canopy reflections. And that's not even going into the actual physical retrievals, which if they exist, will need to be presented and studied.

[SoulMonster]

I definitely believe in life elsewhere in the universe. It is simply too vast for us to be alone. With recent discoveries of exoplanets, the Drake Equation applied to the entire universe and not only the milky way, certainly pushes the probability towards a multitude of planets with life. I would think it is difficult to take an "we are unique and exclusive" stance without being influenced by theism that places an emphasis on everything being created for us.

But life doesn't equate intelligence. It is a common misconception that evolution drives towards intelligence. It is certainly not the case here on earth. Humans have existed in about 300k years out of the 4bn years with life on earth. Highly successful clades of organisms have lived for millions of years but with barely any ability to "think". Intelligence simply costs too much. Only under rare occasions will highly intelligent beings evolve, like what happened with the hominids. If it wasn't for this rare evolutionary development over the last million of years, earth would be devoid of any species that could even ponder life in the universe.

So the likelihood of development of intelligence part of the Drake Equation is a bit tricky. That being said, I still believe that the vastness of the universe and the seemingly common existence of exoplanets, makes it highly likely that there are thousands or more of highly intelligent life forms around the universe.

But this vastness creates a huge problem for communication and travel. Even with a million lifeforms spread out over the universe, there would still be huge distances between them which would make communication and travel difficult if not impossible. Intergalactic travel would be necessary. Granted, there are esoteric fringes of physics that allow for travel near or beyond the speed of light, but if we don't account for that, it is simply not reasonable that we would have been visited by aliens from other galaxies. First off, why would they think of coming here? They wouldn't have been able to observe us from afar because our radio transmissions from the early 20th century has only travelled a hundred light years or so from earth, which although it does cover our nearest sun systems in the milky way, is extremely far from having reached another galaxy which is 25k light years away. Intergalactic travel just seems too impossible and although another exocivilization can of course have technology highly superior to ours which would allow quicker travel, they still have to abide by the laws of nature that rule the universe. 

So in other words, highly unlikely that another intelligent civilization has heard us, also unlikely that someone has decided to travel to earth without knowing about us, and in either case extremely unlikely that they would have been able to travel here at all even if they wanted. 

Looking at it from a different angle, which of the two following scenarios seem most likely:

1. Despite the above, we have been visited but the aliens have almost been able to hide except for a few occasions where they have crashed leading to covert research that is only now slowly coming out yet without any evidence.

2. We haven't been witnessed but people really, really, really want to believe it so there will be occasional stories about it but no actual evidence. 

And with "evidence" I again mean more than personal anecdotes, footage that isn't conclusive, and alleged retrieved materials that aren't fully available to the public/scientific community to study. 

Personally I am definitely in the group of people who would want it to be real but I can't be convinced until there is evidence. Otherwise this just resembles another crackpot conspiracy theory.

[action]

17 hours ago, Kasanova King said:

UPDATE, NEW NY TIMES ARTICLE....clarifying that this information is not based on "beliefs" but on facts and that the technology they recovered isn't from "China", "Russia" or anywhere else on the planet....

 

Do We Believe in U.F.O.s? That’s the Wrong Question

Reporting on the Pentagon program that’s investigating unidentified flying objects is not about belief. It’s about a vigilant search for facts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/insider/UFO-reporting.html

 

By Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean

July 28, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

We were part of The New York Times’s team (with the Washington correspondent Helene Cooper) that broke the story of the Pentagon’s long-secret unit investigating unidentified flying objects, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, in December 2017.

Since then, we have reported on Navy pilots’ close encounters with U.F.O.s, and last week, on the current revamped program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force and its official briefings — ongoing for more than a decade — for intelligence officials, aerospace executives and Congressional staff on reported U.F.O. crashes and retrieved materials.

We’re often asked by well-meaning associates and readers, “Do you believe in U.F.O.s?” The question sets us aback as being inappropriately personal. Times reporters are particularly averse to revealing opinions that could imply possible reporting bias.

But in this case we have no problem responding, “No, we don’t believe in U.F.O.s.”

As we see it, their existence, or nonexistence, is not a matter of belief.

We admire what the great anthropologist Margaret Mead said when asked long ago whether she believed in U.F.O.s. She called it “a silly question,” writing in Redbook in 1974:

“Belief has to do with matters of faith; it has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge that is based on scientific inquiry. … Do people believe in the sun or the moon, or the changing seasons, or the chairs they’re sitting on? When we want to understand something strange, something previously unknown to anyone, we have to begin with an entirely different set of questions. What is it? How does it work?”

That’s what the Pentagon U.F.O. program has been focusing on, making it eminently newsworthy. And to be clear: U.F.O.s don’t mean aliens. Unidentified means we don’t know what they are, only that they demonstrate capabilities that do not appear to be possible through currently available technology.

In our reporting, we’ve focused on how the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Intelligence and members of two Senate committees are engaged with this topic. Current officials are now concerned about the potential threat represented by the very real, advanced technological objects: how close they can come to our fighter jets, sometimes causing a near miss, and the risk that our adversaries may acquire the technology demonstrated by the objects before we do.

So if U.F.O.s are no longer a matter of belief, what are they and how do they do what they do?

And if technology has been retrieved from downed objects, what better way to try to understand how they work?

Our previous stories were relatively easy to document with Department of Defense videos of U.F.O.s and pilot eyewitness accounts backed up by Navy hazard reports of close encounters with small speeding objects.

 

But our latest article provided a more daunting set of challenges, since we dealt with the possible existence of retrieved materials from U.F.O.s. Going from data on a distant object in the sky to the possession of a retrieved one on the ground makes a leap that many find hard to accept and that clearly demands extraordinary evidence.

Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.

We were provided a series of unclassified slides showing that the program took this seriously enough to include it in numerous briefings. One slide says one of the program’s tasks was to “arrange for access to data/reports/materials from crash retrievals of A.A.V.’s,” or advanced aerospace vehicles.

Our sources told us that “A.A.V.” does not refer to vehicles made in any country — not Russian or Chinese — but is used to mean technology in the realm of the truly unexplained. They also assure us that their briefings are based on facts, not belief.

 

 

what if...

the world is actually run by aliens, and these UFO's are from aliens even more advanced than those governing earth?

[EvanG]

7 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

 

But this vastness creates a huge problem for communication and travel. Intergalactic travel just seems too impossible and although another exocivilization can of course have technology highly superior to ours which would allow quicker travel, they still have to abide by the laws of nature that rule the universe. 

 

Needless to say you have to entertain the idea that they are much more advanced in terms of technology and science and are able to travel through space in a way that is incomprehensible to our scientific knowledge. 

[Ace Nova]

9 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

I definitely believe in life elsewhere in the universe. It is simply too vast for us to be alone. With recent discoveries of exoplanets, the Drake Equation applied to the entire universe and not only the milky way, certainly pushes the probability towards a multitude of planets with life. I would think it is difficult to take an "we are unique and exclusive" stance without being influenced by theism that places an emphasis on everything being created for us.

But life doesn't equate intelligence. It is a common misconception that evolution drives towards intelligence. It is certainly not the case here on earth. Humans have existed in about 300k years out of the 4bn years with life on earth. Highly successful clades of organisms have lived for millions of years but with barely any ability to "think". Intelligence simply costs too much. Only under rare occasions will highly intelligent beings evolve, like what happened with the hominids. If it wasn't for this rare evolutionary development over the last million of years, earth would be devoid of any species that could even ponder life in the universe.

So the likelihood of development of intelligence part of the Drake Equation is a bit tricky. That being said, I still believe that the vastness of the universe and the seemingly common existence of exoplanets, makes it highly likely that there are thousands or more of highly intelligent life forms around the universe.

But this vastness creates a huge problem for communication and travel. Even with a million lifeforms spread out over the universe, there would still be huge distances between them which would make communication and travel difficult if not impossible. Intergalactic travel would be necessary. Granted, there are esoteric fringes of physics that allow for travel near or beyond the speed of light, but if we don't account for that, it is simply not reasonable that we would have been visited by aliens from other galaxies. First off, why would they think of coming here? They wouldn't have been able to observe us from afar because our radio transmissions from the early 20th century has only travelled a hundred light years or so from earth, which although it does cover our nearest sun systems in the milky way, is extremely far from having reached another galaxy which is 25k light years away. Intergalactic travel just seems too impossible and although another exocivilization can of course have technology highly superior to ours which would allow quicker travel, they still have to abide by the laws of nature that rule the universe. 

So in other words, highly unlikely that another intelligent civilization has heard us, also unlikely that someone has decided to travel to earth without knowing about us, and in either case extremely unlikely that they would have been able to travel here at all even if they wanted. 

Looking at it from a different angle, which of the two following scenarios seem most likely:

1. Despite the above, we have been visited but the aliens have almost been able to hide except for a few occasions where they have crashed leading to covert research that is only now slowly coming out yet without any evidence.

2. We haven't been witnessed but people really, really, really want to believe it so there will be occasional stories about it but no actual evidence. 

And with "evidence" I again mean more than personal anecdotes, footage that isn't conclusive, and alleged retrieved materials that aren't fully available to the public/scientific community to study. 

Personally I am definitely in the group of people who would want it to be real but I can't be convinced until there is evidence. Otherwise this just resembles another crackpot conspiracy theory.

Almost everyone agrees that its unlikely other lifeforms would get here through conventional means...ex. traveling the speed of light from point A to point B.

 

Most believe (if they are able to get here) it would be through them being able to bend space/time, possibly creating some sort of "wormhole".

"A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge or Einstein–Rosen wormhole) is a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. Theoretical models of wormholes postulate it is an adelic homogeneous subset whose imaginary field is an ideal in a Z-graded ring.[1]

A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, or different points in time, or both).

Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether wormholes actually exist remains to be seen. Many scientists postulate wormholes are merely a projection of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object.[2]

A wormhole could connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years or more, short distances such as a few meters, different universes, or different points in time.[3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

 

Others believe that these crafts are actually from future humans/beings that have traveled back in time.

 

 

But just about no one actually thinks these beings traveled 200+ light years at the speed of light to get here.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Kasanova King

[soon]

16 hours ago, EvanG said:

I guess my problem is that I'm a little bit too much Mulder while I maybe should be a little bit more Scully. It's hard to believe that there isn't any life on other planets when you realize how big the universe is, but beings from other planets visiting us? I don't know, if they are thousands or maybe millions of years ahead of us in technology and are able to do things that we cannot even comprehend yet, why not? Doesn't mean every UFO story or sighting is real obviously, I try to be as sceptical as possible, but for example when I listen to that Lazar guy and try to read him... then I believe he's telling the truth.

I believe Lazar too. But in Mulders arch he comes to see that government compartmentalization and 'lies to prove lies' or whatever his line was makes even Lazars experiences up for question, imho. Also, Scully is exquisite 

But yeah I still actually fully believe Lazar. This subject can really fuck with you! lol

[EvanG]

1 hour ago, soon said:

I believe Lazar too. But in Mulders arch he comes to see that government compartmentalization and 'lies to prove lies' or whatever his line was makes even Lazars experiences up for question, imho. Also, Scully is exquisite 

But yeah I still actually fully believe Lazar. This subject can really fuck with you! lol

I finished the Rogan interview last night, which was quite the challenge because I find Rogan to be a know-it-all douchebag, but Lazar comes off very believable, which doesn't mean he's telling the truth, but that's just what I think, or my bullshit radar is really off. The fact that a lot of what he claims has come true over the last 30 years helps too of course.

As for Scully; oh yeah, I love those redheads.

Edited July 29, 2020 by EvanG

[soon]

19 minutes ago, EvanG said:

I finished the Rogan interview last night, which was quite the challenge because I find Rogan to be a know-it-all douchebag, but Lazar comes off very believable, which doesn't mean he's telling the truth, but that's just what I think, or my bullshit radar is really off. The fact that a lot of what he claims has come true over the last 30 years helps too of course.

As for Scully; oh yeah, I love those redheads.

Like I say, I believe him too. I cant remember in this moment if Lazar says he saw ETs, though? I guess in my mind it comes down to how good Lazars bullshit radar was? 

And that redhead is aging like a fine wine. Im hoping for another X Files reboot. Or film!

[EvanG]

10 minutes ago, soon said:

Like I say, I believe him too. I cant remember in this moment if Lazar says he saw ETs, though? I guess in my mind it comes down to how good Lazars bullshit radar was? 

Good point. And no, he didn't see any ETs, he only talks about what he knows, which is mainly the craft he worked on. I believe he only worked there for 6 months in total and they didn't give him more information than what he needed to work on that craft.

Edited July 29, 2020 by EvanG

[Ace Nova]

13 minutes ago, soon said:

Like I say, I believe him too. I cant remember in this moment if Lazar says he saw ETs, though? I guess in my mind it comes down to how good Lazars bullshit radar was? 

And that redhead is aging like a fine wine. Im hoping for another X Files reboot. Or film!

In one of his interviews he briefly mentioned something along the lines of "seeing something from the sides of his eyes" at some point but he wouldn't confirm whether it was an ET or not. 

[EvanG]

I believe there were 8 or 9 crafts but he only worked on one and got to see the other ones very briefly at one point. They all had different shapes. He did state that an average sized person couldn't fit in the seats of the craft that he worked on.

[EvanG]

5 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

In one of his interviews he briefly mentioned something along the lines of "seeing something from the sides of his eyes" at some point but he wouldn't confirm whether it was an ET or not. 

Yeah, I think that's also in the documentary, but he says it was probably a dummy, he saw something in the blink of an eye, but by now he doesn't think it was more than some kind of dummy or whatever.

[SoulMonster]

3 hours ago, EvanG said:

Needless to say you have to entertain the idea that they are much more advanced in terms of technology and science and are able to travel through space in a way that is incomprehensible to our scientific knowledge. 

Of course they would be more advanced in technology than us. But there are two limitations here: limits on technological skills and physical limits. It doesn't matter how advanced a civilization is if there is some physical limitation that prevents something from happening. I am not saying that it is definitely impossible to achieve intergalactic travel (I hope it is possible and it might be!), just that when considering the possibility of us having been visited by aliens we cannot just think that since they are more technologically advanced than us it should be a trifle matter for them to achieve this. We also have to account for them not only superseeding us in technological prowess but that they are so advanced they can achieve something most physicists think is impossible. Let's not forget that wormholes and warping of space-time and all that stuff is pure theory and not necessarily something that is possible to achieve, even if a civilization is endlessly more intelligent and have had billions of years to figure something out. And this should affect our thinking when we consider whether it is likely that we have been visited by aliens.

[soon]

26 minutes ago, EvanG said:

I believe there were 8 or 9 crafts but he only worked on one and got to see the other ones very briefly at one point. They all had different shapes. He did state that an average sized person couldn't fit in the seats of the craft that he worked on.

Oh right, he said that about the size of the pilot! Fascinating stuff!

23 minutes ago, EvanG said:

Yeah, I think that's also in the documentary, but he says it was probably a dummy, he saw something in the blink of an eye, but by now he doesn't think it was more than some kind of dummy or whatever.

Maybe thats what was rattling around the back of my mind. Id imagine a research facility like that would have an active dis-info campaign against its employees - for just such a person as Lazar. Like Jim Henson making some creatures to walk around the place like its Disney Lands.

Can you imagine seeing something out of the corner of your eyes in a place like that and just have to wonder about it the rest of your life!

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

11 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

I definitely believe in life elsewhere in the universe. It is simply too vast for us to be alone. With recent discoveries of exoplanets, the Drake Equation applied to the entire universe and not only the milky way, certainly pushes the probability towards a multitude of planets with life. I would think it is difficult to take an "we are unique and exclusive" stance without being influenced by theism that places an emphasis on everything being created for us.

But life doesn't equate intelligence. It is a common misconception that evolution drives towards intelligence. It is certainly not the case here on earth. Humans have existed in about 300k years out of the 4bn years with life on earth. Highly successful clades of organisms have lived for millions of years but with barely any ability to "think". Intelligence simply costs too much. Only under rare occasions will highly intelligent beings evolve, like what happened with the hominids. If it wasn't for this rare evolutionary development over the last million of years, earth would be devoid of any species that could even ponder life in the universe.

So the likelihood of development of intelligence part of the Drake Equation is a bit tricky. That being said, I still believe that the vastness of the universe and the seemingly common existence of exoplanets, makes it highly likely that there are thousands or more of highly intelligent life forms around the universe.

But this vastness creates a huge problem for communication and travel. Even with a million lifeforms spread out over the universe, there would still be huge distances between them which would make communication and travel difficult if not impossible. Intergalactic travel would be necessary. Granted, there are esoteric fringes of physics that allow for travel near or beyond the speed of light, but if we don't account for that, it is simply not reasonable that we would have been visited by aliens from other galaxies. First off, why would they think of coming here? They wouldn't have been able to observe us from afar because our radio transmissions from the early 20th century has only travelled a hundred light years or so from earth, which although it does cover our nearest sun systems in the milky way, is extremely far from having reached another galaxy which is 25k light years away. Intergalactic travel just seems too impossible and although another exocivilization can of course have technology highly superior to ours which would allow quicker travel, they still have to abide by the laws of nature that rule the universe. 

So in other words, highly unlikely that another intelligent civilization has heard us, also unlikely that someone has decided to travel to earth without knowing about us, and in either case extremely unlikely that they would have been able to travel here at all even if they wanted. 

Looking at it from a different angle, which of the two following scenarios seem most likely:

1. Despite the above, we have been visited but the aliens have almost been able to hide except for a few occasions where they have crashed leading to covert research that is only now slowly coming out yet without any evidence.

2. We haven't been witnessed but people really, really, really want to believe it so there will be occasional stories about it but no actual evidence. 

And with "evidence" I again mean more than personal anecdotes, footage that isn't conclusive, and alleged retrieved materials that aren't fully available to the public/scientific community to study. 

Personally I am definitely in the group of people who would want it to be real but I can't be convinced until there is evidence. Otherwise this just resembles another crackpot conspiracy theory.

Well, the people on the record are openly saying there is evidence but that it's classified. The 3 videos that were released had to go through a process to be released in the first place. And we still don't have the radar data from those incidents that would tell us a hell of a lot (and it's likely those videos aren't even the complete the videos). To get this data you need the DOD to declassify it or an act of congress to demand it (which is kind of where we're going now).

Everything about where they come from and how they got here is a pure assumption on our part. Remember, they might not just be a thousand years more advanced in technology (and that's even using the same scale that we discovered technology and the scientific method and all of that, their path to technology may have been vastly different), they might be a millions of years more advanced. Arthur C Clarke said it best when he said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And assuming they came from another planet is another assumption, what if they are from another dimension? What if they are from another time? And about crashes, you are assuming they crashed as a result of an accident. Maybe they wanted their technology to be discovered by different countries on earth so they could watch an arms race (or as I described it, like us throwing a cell phone into a monkey cage and watching their reactions). Factions of whatever this is could be malevolent.  

Yes, we all have to abide by the laws of nature, but who says we have a complete understanding of the laws of nature...we can't possibly since there's so much we don't understand about the universe yet.

This is beyond bigfoot level conspiracy at this point when closed door Senate briefings are occurring and Senators are asking for reports on what is known about this phenomenon. 
 

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Basic_GnR_Fan

[soon]

Another guess regarding distance travelled could be that they are nomadic and it did take them 1000s of generations travelling at unimaginable speeds to cross our path and now they hang out in this region.

[EvanG]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Of course they would be more advanced in technology than us. But there are two limitations here: limits on technological skills and physical limits. It doesn't matter how advanced a civilization is if there is some physical limitation that prevents something from happening. I am not saying that it is definitely impossible to achieve intergalactic travel (I hope it is possible and it might be!), just that when considering the possibility of us having been visited by aliens we cannot just think that since they are more technologically advanced than us it should be a trifle matter for them to achieve this. We also have to account for them not only superseeding us in technological prowess but that they are so advanced they can achieve something most physicists think is impossible. Let's not forget that wormholes and warping of space-time and all that stuff is pure theory and not necessarily something that is possible to achieve, even if a civilization is endlessly more intelligent and have had billions of years to figure something out. And this should affect our thinking when we consider whether it is likely that we have been visited by aliens.

There are a lot of theories out there, wormholes, interdimensional hypothesis, etc.. I'm not even going to pretend that I understand all of it. And perhaps they are all nonsense, or maybe some could actually be partly true, I really don't know. Or they have found a way to travel that's not even remotely possible for us to comprehend (yet). My point is that just because we don't understand something or that according to our scientific knowledge it seems impossible, doesn't mean it is. It all seems far-fetched, no matter how you look at it, but that doesn't make me dismiss all of it because we don't understand or because it reads like a science fiction movie.

 

2 hours ago, soon said:

Oh right, he said that about the size of the pilot! Fascinating stuff!

Maybe thats what was rattling around the back of my mind. Id imagine a research facility like that would have an active dis-info campaign against its employees - for just such a person as Lazar. Like Jim Henson making some creatures to walk around the place like its Disney Lands.

Can you imagine seeing something out of the corner of your eyes in a place like that and just have to wonder about it the rest of your life!

I think he was pretty convinced that it wasn't real. Have you seen his documentary? If you haven't, you should check it out. It's not a great documentary, I mean, it has fucking Mickey Rourke as the narrator, he's half an alien himself, but it's good enough to hear what Lazar has to say.

Edited July 29, 2020 by EvanG

[SoulMonster]

12 minutes ago, EvanG said:

There are a lot of theories out there, wormholes, interdimensional hypothesis, etc.. I'm not even going to pretend that I understand all of it. And perhaps they are all nonsense, or maybe some could actually be partly true, I really don't know. Or they have found a way to travel that's not even remotely possible for us to comprehend (yet). My point is that just because we don't understand something or that according to our scientific knowledge it seems impossible, doesn't mean it is. It all seems far-fetched, no matter how you look at it, but that doesn't make me dismiss all of it because we don't understand or because it reads like a science fiction movie.

Yes, but I didn't dismiss anything. What I wrote was that when we consider the plausibility of alien visiting earth we have to accept that it isn't simply a matter of having more advanced technology than us, but having so advanced technology that they might have dealt with physical barriers regarding travelling at speed faster than light. The former is trivial, the latter isn't. So it isn't just a matter of them being more advanced than us, they might have to be more advanced than the physical laws themselves. Again, I am not dismissing the possibility of intergalactic travel, but I am trying to put some emphasis on a point that should substantially lower our beliefs in aliens visiting earth. And I am not saying we should conclude on this basis alone that we haven't been visited, but if we haven't taken this into account before we should definitely be less convinced now.