1. I personally believe that there are aliens (and thus UFOs) in existence in the Universe... No offense to skeptics, but you'd have to be as arrogant as anything to think we are the only ones around (regardless of distance)...

2. I don't think authenticity should be marked by who saw it and where... You either have to trust the information/story, or find enough facts that could make the encounter more possible... I honestly don't think the aliens would differentiate a rural rancher and a celebrity...

3. All-around judgement call... Some may be fake, some may be real... We'll never truly know...

4. Please refer to answer #3...

5. Concerning the Face on Mars... (If it was alien made) Either the aliens who made it look like us and thus the similarity... Or they got close enough to us to make a replica... (If not) Coincidence...

6. I honestly think something alien related is being covered up by governments everywhere in there respective "Area 51"s... Either that or something bigger...

Over all I love the idea of UFOs... However, I doubt most sightings are real... For even if there are hundreds or thousands of planets that house advanced life, they would also have to be able to space travel and many would have to happen across Earth several times a year (or however often the sightings are)... I do believe that a few could be real...

1. I strongly believe that there are other sentient species out there in the Universe, we just simply haven't found them yet. The Universe is just too large for us to be the only ones in the void.

2. I'm far more inclined to trust someone like Buzz Aldrin, who is already famous, than a farmer or hippy potentially looking for a moment in the proverbial spotlight. I don't believe most eyewitness accounts, personally.

3. The amount of photographs where it could have been photo-shopped, the camera exposure settings or any other setting might have been wrong, or there was simply something natural the camera didn't catch properly is too high for me to really believe photographs.

4. Same for above.

5. I don't think we'll ever find large signs like the 'Face of Mars' in the solar system at least. We might find faint signs as we dig deeper into the mysteries, but nothing like the face of mars.

6. Complete crap, imho.

One thing that does interest me is the idea in many religions of them being visited or talked to, etc. by beings from the heavens. Could it all have been made up, or is there some truth to the stories, i.e., ET visitors?

UFOs, not religion, Arvy. Don't even try.

My opinion on the matter is that as long as they don't turn out like Independence day (not so much the burning every major city, more like having to depend on the americans! ), I don't really care too much at present- doesn't impact on my day-to-day life. I would love for the Doctor Who or Star Trek universe to be real, but that's just not going to happen, is it? I would put money on there being some form of life elsewhere in the universe, but how developed I can't say. I doubt they'll be in round little space ship.

I would trust Buzz more than the rancher for Arvy's reasons. Also, if the person was a confirmed skeptic and reported a sighting, it must have been pretty damn convincing.

Photographs? Photoshopped, tampered, exposure. It's also curious how whenever people report UFOs electrical stuff goes down the pan quite often. Videos will also suffer from this.

The face on mars is AFAIK a fluke of nature eroding away the rock. It's happened before- look at the Japanise crabs that have the 'face of a samurai'.

Area 51 and the like I put down to people desperately trying to make a theory run. I find the military jet explanation plausible, though if they had been harvesting technology from some crashed space ship it would account for the rising speed of development- 6:00 onwards.

I believe in aliens, but not UFOs.

Except, when people generally see "UFOs", that is precisely what they're seeing (unidentified flying objects), however I don't think cute little aliens are the pilots.

[This message has been edited by Ashrzr (edited 08-04-2009 @ 11:41 AM).]

UFOs, not religion, Arvy. Don't even try.

... I wasn't trying to turn this into a religious debate. I brought up a very valid point which I've heard talked about multiple times in the past.

(not so much the burning every major city, more like having to depend on the americans! ),

Yeah, like we'll have to depend on Britain!

I think we all know the Armenians would be at the forefront of the Earths defence.

1. I personally am not that convinced there is life on other plants. I feel if there is it's so distant from us it's doubtfull we or they will make contact any time soon. They certainly haven't visited us. I do believe in extraterrestrial forms as Angels, Demons, Nephliem, etc., though those are more supernatural.

2. People are certainly seeing something. Many are destined to be paranoia and kookery though such folks as Jimmy Carter and an old Sunday school teacher I had some years back have officially reported seeing them. So there's plenty of credible sane people seeing this stuff.

3. They can and certainly are many different things.

4. Same as above.

5. Nothing I know of like that I find convincing, many things like that happen naturally.

6. Pure hype.

I was hoping to generally get longer posts.

1. I think that extraterrestial life exists on other planets, perhaps within our solar system, very probably within out galaxy, but definitely within the universe. An old line of Greek thinking had it that if the universe is infinite, then there could be an infinite amount of habitable planets (like Earth), which means life could develop an infinite amount of times. I remember from somewhere that there are an estimated 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe. That number is so flippin huge, I can't really comprehend it, similar to infinity. Even if the lowliest of a percent are similar to our solar system, there could be a hundred billion earths. One might say it is statistically probably that the universe is teaming with life, yet we will hear nothing; the Fermi Paradox.

As I have said though, I think it is very unlikely they are visiting earth, much less that we have made contact with them through any means. My frist bet would be projects like SETI, although these are poorly funded and maintained, since investment in them is correctly perceived as unlikely making a return.

2. As a general rule of thumb, I don't trust first hand accounts from anyone concerning UFOs. The human mind manipulates memories and people aren't entirely honest. Fewer UFO sightings and alien abductions were reported during the middle ages. Instead, people reported being rapped by succubi, being abducted to witch gatherings, and ascending into the heavens to be accompanied by angels, saints, or demons. These are reported much less now, and UFO and alien encounters are reported more. There something wacky about some peoples' minds, and the popular imagination prevails.

3 & 4. Most photographs can be explained as being part of an optical illusions, misidentified aircraft, hoaxes, or photoshopped, tec. But there were a few from the film day that have perplexed the "experts" employed to explain them away. I don't know about some of these, but I'm pretty sure that at least 70% of it is crap.

5. Whether it's Stalin's face on Venus or the face on mars, they are shadows that human mind recognizes in patters. We do this all the time, that's the reason why the virgin Mary has been seen everywhere, from toast to pigeon droppings, and the same goes for Jesus, Bhudda, several saints, and Elvis.

6. The military and intelligence agencies do have secret bases and operating facilities. However, alien bodies and experiments, these are the stuff of legend, crazy conspiracy theorists, and entertainment.

I'm sure there's microscopic organisms out there. I don't think any race comparable to our own ever lived on Mars. If we were to go extinct right now it'd take 10,000 years for all traces of us to vanish. Much of that is do to nature taking over and such. What would there be to take over and erase the remains? It'd probably still be there in ruins.

There might be microbes on Mars, but the discovery would have to be confirmed that it is not the result of unintended contamination from the landers. NASA spends a lot of time keeping everything clean to prevent it, but it only takes a few...

Microscopic life is much more likely than multicellular-like or intelligent, but the odds are so great that it could be said to be a statistical probability. Space is so immense, we might never make contact.

We've got to survive though. Bacchus is right, if we exterminate ourselves, there could be little left of our global civilization. Hopefully other mammals might evolve to replace us if it happened, but such wasted time and opportunity!



I must admit though, eye-witness accounts from already-famous-and-respectable-people are more convincing than one from a rancher or a hippy. But I still think it possible that they have no clue what they saw or what else it might have been. They still have a brain that is only human.

[This message has been edited by Sir Hugh (edited 08-06-2009 @ 01:28 PM).]

Here's something that always got me: why would aliens be inherently more advanced then us? I mean, wouldn't different planets have different levels of technology? And would the different cultures on that planet vary widely?

Cirrow would love this

Cirrow is shit. Don't bring him here. Please.

Here's something that always got me: why would aliens be inherently more advanced then us? I mean, wouldn't different planets have different levels of technology? And would the different cultures on that planet vary widely?

Yes, there would be many differences. Cultures vary from country to country, just on our own planet. I think the idea that they would have advanced technology is that there are many star systems hundreds of millions of years older than ours, some even in the billions. Given the assumption that it takes their solar system about as long to develop life to an intelligent stage similar to ours and that it can thrive and continue, then they have a whole lot of time to discover things ahead of us. Of course this assumption has very large error bars, and an intelligent space-faring civilization could take much longer or shorter to form.

Cirrow is shit. Don't bring him here. Please.

Too late. E-mail has been sent

I wonder if Gungans and Ewoks are real. Then we'll have a fun way to get rid of the world's nukes!!!

[This message has been edited by Old Bachus (edited 08-08-2009 @ 10:56 PM).]

Ewoks are sooooo cute. Anyone who suggests nuking them will be banned.

[This message has been edited by Blatant7 (edited 08-17-2009 @ 12:40 PM).]

NUKE THE EWOKS!!!

My life philosophy applies here. You just never know.

1. At a much younger age, I really bought into the whole extra-terrestrial thing, but now, I'm much more skeptical. I mean, statistically speaking, if there were extra-terrestrial life, it would be trillions upon billions of light years away from us. Now, in order for them to be able to travel all the way here, they'd have to have nearly God-like technology. If they do, then I doubt there is anything they could possibly learn from us, and I further doubt that there is any reason why we would ever see them. If they have the technology to travel the vastness of space, I'm sure they have the technology to be perfectly and absolutely undetectable. And if they are disregarding stealth, I'm sure they would have opened communication with us by now.

2. My opinion of humanity over the years has slowly degraded to the point where I feel that, unless I know a person, anything they say should be disregarded and researched on my own. Hell, I don't even believe half of the things some of the people I know say. I know that there are some sightings where people really see something, but whether or not that something is an alien craft of some sort is yet to be seen. For example, I believe Belgium used to be a huge hotspot for UFO sightings. Many of the eye witnesses described a similar object that moved at a lazy pace and seemed to be able to make sudden directional changes. One such man happened to be an artist and drew what he saw. Wouldn't you know it, thing looks exactly like a UH-60 Black Hawk or similar helicopter. Coincidence? And then, some people are just crazy.

3. Photographs of this sort of quality aren't really all that reliable. I mean, if we got a high resolution, close up shot of an alien craft, that might be doable, but all of these shots where they zoom in on what looks like it might just be lint on the lens just aren't going to cut it for me. Not to mention what a man can do in Photoshop.

4. I will admit that some of the videos were actually quite compelling. While some of them seemed rather dubious, that one where the little sphere pulls up behind the satellite retrieval and then zooms off was rather good footage. Of course, whether that is actual footage or not is yet to be seen (you'd think that if that was real footage, you'd be seeing it on TV on the Discovery channel or something, not on Youtube ). I'd also like to note that appearances can be deceiving. In the first video, the fourth clip, there are a bunch of spheres in formation buzzing around in the sky. Then the narrator identifies them as helicopters and points out another object only noticeable as a reflection of light seeming to follow along behind.

5. Well, I believe there was talk about how we found a monolith on Mars not so long ago. Because, you know, a big pillar like that couldn't possibly be a rock...

6. Area 51 very obviously exists, but whether it is the home for the study of extra-terrestrial artifacts or simply a military base where we develop experimental aircraft is yet to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these UFOs are just experimental aircraft so advanced that if we knew about them, they'd seem alien. I mean, several decades ago when the B2 Spirit was still at Area 51, the idea of a plane being completely RADAR-proof was quite alien, and the design was like nothing we'd developed before.