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Thoughts on extraterrestrial life? UFOs?

I am a skeptic about most pseudoscience. However, when it comes to extraterrestrial life, I do keep an open mind on the subject.

I had an experience when I was 18 years old. (Yes, I was sober). I was on my way to work at about 4:30 A.M. At the time I was living in a semi-rural area in Ohio, just outside Columbus. I was driving down a road, when something in the sky caught my eye in my left field of vision. I slowed down and saw a large triangular or arrowhead shaped object in the sky. It had steady red lights on its exterior. The object was nearly hovering, or maybe drifting slightly. It was just above a treeline. Unusually low for a large aircraft.

I was about a quarter mile away from it. I rolled down my window and didn't hear any noise at all. I observed it for about 10 seconds. I got the creeps and drove off. About 15 minutes later, I saw the same object, this time at a much higher elevation, probably several thousand feet, in the sky, and in the same westerly direction. I saw it for maybe 30 seconds and it seemed to fade away in the still dark morning sky. There were other people that saw it in the parking lot of the place I worked at. We were all like "WTF was that?"

This isn't to convince anybody. Just sharing an experience I had. I'm not sure what exactly I saw. It wasn't a commercial aircraft nor was it a conventional blimp. It was way too low and slow moving. Certainly may have been a military aircraft. As far as a drone, I'm not sure either but it was quite large, as in 737 large.

What prompted this was a video that people are talking about from a ring doorbell of a series of lights seen about 30 miles east of Cincinnati. Looks like something very high energy in the atmosphere.

Fletch 6 Jan 22
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78 comments

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8

I'd like to add that if I were an alien, I'd stay the fuck away from earth anyway, because we are a dumpster fire.

One big dumpster fire called Alamagordo NAGASAKI Chernobyl 3 mile isle Fukishima and Fort Calhoun Nebraska and the well water poisoned by frackers

6

Totally possible and probable we "are not alone".
I've never understood how people can scoff at that.

6

One of my fav quotes:

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

― Arthur C. Clarke

This actually gave me a chill...absolutely resonates. I had two experiences at the age of 12-13 in Clarksville, Indiana. I will never forget the feeling of fascination and awe mixed with a primal sort of fear.

@ReadyforaChange Yes, i felt the exact same way when I heard it the first time. It echoes for a bit with me, even to this day.

6

Regarding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, someone please alert me if any is found on earth.

g

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Eric Idle

You've been watching the impeachment. I can tell.

@Remowill Yes but there is intelligent life struggling for survival there. I may have to leave my guy for schiff. Brains are SO sexy!

g

5

Never saw an FUO. But the other day, I was laying back in a dentist's chair, with sun glasses on, under a very bright light. My lady dentist, and her assistant were doing strange things to my teeth; and she asked if I was okay. I told her I felt like I had been abducted by aliens, and was being examined aboard their space ship. They got a big laugh out of that. Did they do anything 'kinky' to me? Nope. But maybe next time!

4

Having worked and been around airports most of my life, and the fact you were near a large city, it sounds like you’re describing an aircraft ascending. Over long periods of time our memories are terrible. The odds are for life somewhere out in the universe. If that life has the intelligence/technology to travel the distance required, I would think it would just observe us undetected. Much as a human would not go striding into a troop of gorillas.

Perfectly stated. I would only add that the difficulty in estimating the distance to an object of indeterminate size with nothing to give it scale is nearly impossible. Any estimates of size is extremely unreliable for the same reason.

Last summer I saw a Piper Cub land some distance away in a field. When I got closer the "cub" turned out to be a large scale RC plane that was much closer than it had seemed.

Aircraft landing does not explain an object the size of a football field, levitating silently several hundred feet above my head for several seconds or minutes. The experience I had absolutely happened and I don't know why or how or who or what it was but it is something I will never forget.

4

A the beginning of my religious research journey, I did a lot of extraterrestrial research. THere are books about aliens in the bible, especially Ezekiel. After a while I realized that most of it was bad arguments and insubstantial.
My view is that the universe is vast, and I doubt that life is that uncommon. I also think we are living on a remote island and it seems to be that we are alone. Have we been visited? are we a ancient genetic experiment abandoned? Are we a quirk of evolution?
My Mom tells of a UFO she witnessed before I was born. Ive been an airline pilot for over 30 years. and I havent seen one yet..SMH.

I like your point of view

4

To quote Carl Sagan “The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

I am not saying the life is intelligent or even halfway there, it could be bacterial, plant, microscopic still, or it could be so far past our understanding that we look like simpletons to it. If animal (as we understand it) it would I believe still consist of a tube with support systems attached (essentially we are a tube mouth to anus that has arms and legs a fish is a tube with fins) but it may not it may absorb through its skin anything is possible which makes it wondrous.

As to what you saw, who am I to say I have never seen anything like that. If you decide to start a cult based on the experience I will call you out on it but I can not suggest anything for what you describe.

4

we are an alien childs experiment left on the shelf after the grade was given

3

That kind of UFO talk always reminds me about the Prime Directive in Star Trek.
If some aliens can make it all the way to here and they don't want to be seen, I don't think it's much possible for a humble bunch of apes with car keys like us to be actually able to see them.

When discussing in class, I always pisited, "What makes us believe that we can see or recognize life from another planet. Are imaginations are limited by knowledge of what is available to us."

3

I have seen unidentified flying objects. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a reasonable explanation for them.

3

I live on a flat plain where nothing except a few trees blocks my view of the sky. I look up often, but have never seen a UFO. I know people who swear they have, and I believe they believe they did. I would never say definitively that they don't exist, but I'm not convinced that they do. Any species advanced enough to get here would look at us as we do monkeys. We would interest them only as food or vermin in need of extermination, so they could claim the planet. On the up side, we are rapidly making our planet look like a less attractive option for alien life forms.

Deb57 Level 8 Jan 25, 2020

Or they just might obliterate Earth to make way for an intergalactic highway. 😉

Thank you for the defense of polluters heroic prevention of ET eating our previously unpolluted flesh

3

Those who believe that aliens have visited Earth are using the “god of the gaps” argument. If something is unexplained, it doesn’t mean there are aliens, any more than there is a god. 5000 gods, and zero evidence of any of them. Umpteen thousand UFO sightings, and again zero evidence. What a coincidence.

3

I helped form a skeptics organisation in Canada in the 80s. I handled most of the UFO claims. UFOs are possible, but let's look at the reality of the situation. It is not like UFOs can fly here for a weekend adventure. The amount of energy required to transport between stars in enormous. If another civilisation visits us, it is not going to be to scare cows in a back water hick town. They are going to be visible from before they enter the solar system. Sure there is the possibility that they will have worm holes or some other esoteric form of travel. But, we have seen no compelling evidence of even one UFO.
Someone came up to me after a meeting many years ago, and recounted their personal experience and said "Explain that!". So I did. They were furious. The most likely explanation, I said, is that you are lying. Next most likely is that your memory is faulty (read Elizabeth Loftus work on memory). The next most likely is that you were fooled by something (jets adjusting their landing lights can cause what looks like UFOs to race across the sky) you saw. Way, way down the list is it likely that you actually saw a extra-terrestial vehicle.

3

The Drake equation.

N=R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible

and

R = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

[en.wikipedia.org]

You must also factor in the distance. We now know that it's likely that a significant majority of stars will have planets which increases Drake's results exponentially; however the vast distances make it unlikely that any signal we receive would come from a civilization that still exists. It's even more likely that both they and we would still exist.

3

The main reason aliens have not shown themselves is because we are so stupid we would try to harm them thinking they were here to take us over. They have the ability to see all our TV shows and get a view of just how dangerous we actually are. They do not want to have to defend themselves so they hide if they are here at all. If you were smart and in the same circumstance you would do the same thing. If they are visiting us then we know they are not after any of our resources as they would not want to have to sort all the garbage from what they want. That is unless they wanted a beer, a good glass of wine, or something else for entertainment. Everything else exists out in the asteroid belt. Out there one would not have to put up with us and our stupidity.

3

In a universe this big, the idea that we are the only life is pretty amazingly arrogant. But the idea that said life would spend the time and energy to travel all the way here to see us? Equally arrogant. Possible? Sure. Probable? . . . .

We jump to the most complex/fun options first. The still high tech looking SR-71 Blackbird jet was first come up with in the 50's - and flew for more than 20 years before any public got a peek at it. So, what might be flying now that we won't see for 20 years? There must be new technology, and it must be pretty wild at this point!

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" -- Douglas Adams

I lean toward stealth blimp. Lots of black triangle sightings. Not sure what they're up to.

3

I have been looking up (amateur astronomer) for over 65 years. I only twice have seen something that I could not identify. Once was a very high object moving slowly above the mountains of Virginia, probably a very high flying aircraft. The other was about 7 years ago here in Az. 4 lights in a check mark pattern bright, moving towards me. Seen for about 10 minutes. We stopped the car, it was abt. 10 at night. Absolutely no noise or sound. They held formation and moved off to my right. They were in front of some mountains that were about 6 miles away. Gradually disappeared. Moved like helicopters. Do we have stealth 'copters? It was really eerie. And, yes I'd love to believe they were aliens but probably military, ours I hope.

Definitely think there are very advanced aircraft being developed. Exciting but also kind of eerie.

@Fletch Yeah, considering they had stealth planes 10 years before the public knew of them.

3

I've never experienced one but believe 100% that they are out there. United States Army Colonel Philip J. Corso wrote a book called 'The Day After Roswell' which is a fascinating read from a first (military) person account.

The alien autopsy if real, shows very pale humanoid about 5 foot tall allegedly taken from Roswell to Area 51 west nw of Las Vegas...the billboards with ET there are next to the brothel selling sexual favors

3

Hey, you better watch out or Meepzor will probe yo ass!

3

Believing in something without hard evidence kinda sounds like religion? Maybe you really didn't see what you think - like all the people that swear they saw a statue crying tears of blood...?

3

Better question...why is it mostly people who live in either suburbs or bumfuck farm country who complain of shit like getting abducted? It's almost as if it's the farther people are from each other, the more likely they'll more readily believe anything!

This is not a knock at you btw...

I might add near military Air Force bases and testing areas.

2

I do believe in the literal meaning of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). They key is that they are unidentified. Could be futuristic military machines. Based on how much the USA spends on its military, I would suspect they have all kinds of UFOs sitting in hangers somewhere. I have to suspect that there is other life somewhere other than earth. Earth is not the center of the universe unlike what the Bible suggests based on the fact that all if the stories take place in a small area of one planet. If we ever discover higher life forms on other planets it will be an incredible discovery especially when scientists have a comparable to study evolution and species development based on entirely different environmental variables.

2

I truly believe that there is other intelligent live. I believe that some of them may have visited the earth, and may still be coming here. It is very narrow mined to think there is no other intelligent life out there.

2

Doubtful that anyone with the knowledge to travel great distances in space need running lights or would travel at a visible level over the earth.
Does life elsewhere exist? Most certainly.

Those were backup lights. Aliens are terrible at backing up.

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