Why do people still believe in flying saucers?

[Archae]

This isn't just a copycat on the homeopathy thread.

National Geographic Channel had 2 programs tonight, that showed just what a pile of SHIT is the UFO "culture."

Especially the Roswell story.

I've noticed the UFO shows on NG channel do have a far more scientific bent to them, as opposed to the garbage on the History Channel, I mean, the History Channel has ever dredged up Eric Van Dummy...I mean Van Daniken and his "Chariots Of The Gods" con.

[DS1]

1. I liked that book

To each their own, I guess

[Boudica the Lyoness]

77. I read that book back in the early 70's.

It was very interesting and made me think. But I'm not into that kind of thing but like to keep an open mind.

[AwakeAtLast]

2. Because people keep throwing them?

:hide:

:hi:

[Archae]

4. Yeah, why do so many "UFO photos" look like Frisbees?

:D

[AwakeAtLast]

6. That's really the reason so many dogs bark at night

Trying to catch that frisbee!

:)

[AwakeAtLast]

3. Oopskie dupeski

:blush:














:hide:

:hi:

[mainegreen]

5. There is no belief that someone, somewhere does not hold.

Nor is there any person who does not hold some really absurd beliefs. Hell, I'd argue that most people hold one belief that they know to be absurd, but still would rather believe it than not.

Mine is the aquatic ape theory. I know it's pretty much on the out, but you know, I think that there's a damned good chance that it might be right, and frankly I like it better, so I'm going to stick with it. Absurd? Yes. Still, I like it!

[kentauros]

17. Info's a little old

but here's a link on anomalies and the Aquatic Ape theory:

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf034/sf034p09.htm

from the search on "aquatic ape"

:)

[Kingofalldems]

7. I actually saw one, although it wasn't a disc

It was oblong and yes it was real, so it is not actually a case of believing. I saw what I saw.

[Archae]

8. Swamp gas.

:-)

[Kingofalldems]

10. Swamp gas? I love that story.

No swamps within miles.

[originalpckelly]

15. More like Swamp Rat gas...

:P

[Deep13]

26. I had that once.

I felt bad for the other people in the car.

[Deep13]

25. Will describe what you saw for us?

:shrug:
I mean where in the sky, which direction, how far above the horizon, what time of day, where geographically, how long you looked at it, weather conditions and anything else you can remember.

Thanks

[Kingofalldems]

33. Sorry for the late reply--Here goes

Around 1AM drove under an overpass (Rte 270 in Md) and there it was. Very low in the sky and seemed to be barely moving. I stopped and gazed for a few secs before moving. As I started to move I noticed another car pulled over just ahead. The driver was out of his car and leaning back against the trunk looking upward. He looked absolutely terrified. I pulled off to the side and watched it go by from a distance. I could have crawled faster than that thing went. It was NOT a helicopter as it was completely silent. As the years went by I finally decided based on the direction it was headed, that it was going toward a now closed missile site about 1 1/2 miles away.

[Deep13]

58. What did it look like? Do you remember?

I know you said it was oblong. You mean like coffin-shaped? Do you remember the color (if it had any?)

[Kingofalldems]

59. Oblong like the body of an airplane

Maybe 25 ft. long. Couldn't see the color, it had several lights on and it was dark.

[Deep13]

60. Were any of the lights flashing red?

If so, then it was almost certainly an airplane. The FAA requires those lights for commercial airplaners anyway. I don't know about military or private airplanes.

[Kingofalldems]

63. No red lights--large light on front

Also it was flying so low I could see there were no wings. Furthermore no airplane could fly going that slow.

[Deep13]

64. Isn't there a naval air station near there called Pax River?

I can't say what it is, of course. I did not see it. Is there any chance you were looking at wings edge-on? The darkness may have obscured them. I'm thinking it could be a Harrier jet. They can land vertically and fly very slowly. And they are used by the Marines (part of the Navy).

Just a guess.

Could it have been the Hindenberg? Did it suddenly get really bright while newsreaders said "Oh, the humanity?" :evilgrin:

[Kingofalldems]

65. Nowhere near Patuxent--northern Mont. County

This was 1978 mind you. Are Harrier jets silent? As for the Hindenburg--Oh I get it, you're effing with me.

[Deep13]

66. They're not silent, but they are not booming either.

Anyway the earliest was 1980 and then only in Britain.

[quakerboy]

9. Because Tea and crumpets make people angry, and you wouldnt like them when they are angry.

[tigereye]

11. who knows what is out there in the universe?

Why would anyone think we are pretty much it? :shrug: The little grey men thing is a bit old, though.


Don't mind me, I've seen waay too many X-Files episodes...

[Archae]

12. I'm of the firm belief that...

Aliens landed on the White House lawn, said "Take me to your leader," saw Bush and left laughing their asses off. :-)

[tigereye]

41. that makes sense - I can't help but think of their responses when they met

Homer Simpson!

[Deep13]

28. There may very well be other life in the universe.

That does not mean any of it has been here. Space is pretty roomy and we as humans have only been here for a brief instant.

[tigereye]

40. fair point -I'm fairly skeptical as a rule, but who knows?

I do think the planets that have been found that could sustain our type of life are very few and very, very far away.... I agree that we are youngsters in the cosmos...

[Deep13]

43. I'm not aware of any Earth-like planets being found.

I know as the search continues astronomers are finding smaller and smaller planets. Yet AFAIK, none come close to terrestrial size or temperature. If you have read otherwise, I would love to know about it. The circumstantial evidence is that if conditions are right, life is pretty much inevitable. Of course had anyone visited Earth during most of its existence, all the visitors would have found were bacteria.

[JitterbugPerfume]

45. cosmology says

that planet formation is a by product of star formation . Stars give off light so they can be seen , planets do not. They can only be detected by the pull of gravity. Space is mostly empty with astronomical "space " in between galaxies etc making travel inbetween virtually impossibl

Another complication: the further out you go in space , the further you go back in time. What we see is what existed eons ago.

I find it hard to believe that in the vast expanse of space that we are the only sentient beings, but I do not believe that we have been visited by little green men , but who knows?

I love this stuff!!

[Deep13]

52. The new Sky and Telescope has actual photographs of extra-solar planets.

They are just specks, of course, but the central star was masked off to prevent its glare from obscuring the three planets detected.

[JitterbugPerfume]

55. that is just amazing!

this is a wonderful time to be alive. Mark Whittle PHD says that this is a golden age for cosmology

[tigereye]

47. I seem to remember some of the guys from either JPL or Berkeley

talking about finding similar systems that parallel our own structure and a possibility of similar atmosphere on said planets - there weren't a lot that were found, I don't think. I think it was a PBS show. But I could certainly be wrong....

[Deep13]

53. We're getting closer, I know that much.

There was one planet that was small enough that it may be rocky, although it was still 5x bigger than Earth. I don't remember if the orbit was highly eliptical or not or if it was in the "Golilocks" zone.

[originalpckelly]

13. I used to be way into that stuff, when I was a kid.

Most kids were afraid of monsters under the bed, I was afraid of the aliens who could walk through walls to abduct me. (Although, I built a fort of pillows on my bed to protect me, as we all know aliens who can walk through walls cannot walk through pillow forts. :-) )

I'm open minded, and if aliens came down from the sky tomorrow, I'd probably be more OK with than most people, but I think most everything out there today is bullshit.

[edbermac]

14. If we're the only intelligent life in the universe and Bush is the leader of it...

Now you know why.

[amitten]

16. I've seen one, and so have about 1/3 of the people I know.

No way all those people are hallucinating or lying. There's stuff out there--we just don't know what it is or who's flyin' it.

PS--The one I saw wasn't a saucer--it was a large hovering orange glowing orb that shot straight up at an unbelievable speed about 10 seconds after I spotted it over some trees in the distance.

[Lucian]

18. Maybe because there is some evidence?

You know (as well as everyone else) that the govt. is covering whatever happened at Roswell, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was a UFO cover-up.

[RandomKoolzip]

19. I don't believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis, but I DO believe people are seeing

stuff that's both real and unexplainable. I know too many people who've seen stuff, read too many books about the subject, and I refuse to close my mind to the possiblity that there's weird shit going on that humans cannot comprehend.

[deucemagnet]

20. Thank you.

People don't seem to understand that there's a huge gap between, "What the fuck is that?" and "What I saw is irrefutable proof that extraterrestrials are visiting our planet in spacecraft that are far beyond are understanding."

[redqueen]

34. You're entirely too reasonable.

:hi:

[RandomKoolzip]

57. Why thank ya!

Hopes you's is having a happy holiday.

:hi:

[redqueen]

61. So far so good!

Hope you are as well... nice seein you around. :)

[tigereye]

42. Koolzip!

:loveya: How are ya, my friend? :hi:


How is school and such?

[RandomKoolzip]

56. Finals are over, I'm snowed in, and tomorrow I'm meeting my girlfriend's parents

for the first time. In other words, two different types of stress are dancing with one another, while a third threatens to butt in.

Otherwise: just ducky! How's by you?

:hug: :hi:

[tigereye]

71. hope you have a great time!

:hi:

[RoyGBiv]

21. Because there is still beer

[Orsino]

22. Because people keep seeing them.

I know NatGeo broadcasts in HD, but real life is even higher-res, and therefore counts for more.

[Deep13]

27. The mind is too easily fooled for that to be a valid conclusion.

The suceptibility of the human mind to make the wrong conclusions about what someone sees is too well documented to be able to rely on eyewitnesses.

[Orsino]

29. What conclusion do you think I just made? n/t

[Deep13]

30. That a witness' account is more reliable than video.

Didn't you pretty much say that?

[Orsino]

32. No, but the human mind is easily fooled, as you say.

:7

But I see I was unclear, too. I meant only that people who witness the unexplainable (or who think they have) are unlikely to be persuaded otherwise after the fact.

Really, it doesn't matter how many flying saucer reports have previously been debunked, if one feels that one really has encountered the Zeta Reticulans. The sort of folks eager (or reluctantly willing) to believe that aren't going to let a television show spoil their fun.

[tigereye]

48. " there is nothing in the mind that is not in the senses...."

touche - I think the evidence of many folks having similar experiences (and some need to trust said sensory experience) isn't so easily discounted...


Otherwise, how else would someone make a decision about their experience? Neurological break-throughs not withstanding...

[Deep13]

54. It is a logical dilemma.

How can we prove anything if our senses are not reliable? Well, they are reliable for most things. We would not be here if they were not. The problem is that our evolution favored false detection over failure to detect. Mistakenly thinking there is a tiger when there isn't one is harmless except for a moment of fear. Failing to see one that is there is lethal. One reason we are so smart is because our brains are good at recognizing patterns (especially of faces). Sometimes ambiguous information leads us to see patterns that are not there. Again, that presents no survival disadvantage while failing to see a real pattern might.

Also, the blind spots in our eyes mean that the brain is exceptionally good at filling in missing data. Some small, but significant amount of what we see all the time is hallucination because our eyes are wired backwards. The brain capable of doing that is also capable of imagination and of visualizing things that are not right in front of us. Scientists have found places in Africa where water was hidden in improvised containers so that traveling humans could find it later. There ability to visualize a time in the future and to remember what had been left in the past is what seperates us from earlier ape-men. Unfortunately, we can also be tricked into seeing things that are just not there. I suspect that this is the origin of religious belief.

There are ways to minimize this, of course. Mostly, it has to do with cross checking perceptions among multiple witnesses and relying to the extent possible on objective values like weight, height, temperature, speed etc. The classic example is a double-blind clinical test where the researches don't know who is being tested and the test subjects don't know either. Data is collected without knowing who got the experimental agent. Only after data is collected is it compared to secret information about who got what. Unfortunately, UFOs don't fit in Petri dishes. A general rule of thumb that is helpful is that the more extraordinary or outlandish a claim is, the more convincing the evidence has to be. One writer (I forgot who) said that the only way for a supernatural claim could be proved is if the observed phenomena was more unlikely than the supernatural agent.

[tigereye]

70. yes, I am aware of scientific and research methodologies

but often brain and physiological researches find that many things (perceptual and otherwise) that were previously thought to be either illogical, irrational, artifactual or otherwise impossible actually are the brain and body's ways of reconciling conflicting information as you note, or fit in with a previously unexamined, but biologically consistent paradigm.


One example might be the tendency of related or proximal females who are menstruating to cycle together. I can't think of another one in the short time I have before I have to get back to cooking, but....

[mdmc]

23. It is a big universe

I'm sure something is out there...

[Iggo]

69. Something's out there alright.

However, I do not even remotely believe that that something is visiting us.

(Eye spel gud.)

[Iggo]

24. The History Channel treats bible stories as history.

And there you have your answer. Why do people believe in flying saucers? Because people will believe anything.

[Deja Q]

31. Because flying saucers are our only hope of escape

[TZ]

35. Nice post,

Tom Cruise...

[Deja Q]

36. At least,

you didn't call me John Travolta...

[woo me with science]

37. Because when you've been anally probed,

it makes you a Believer!

You can ask the repressed memory folks about this, too!

[Deep13]

38. That's why I believe in proctologists. nt

[BarenakedLady]

39. I want to believe.

That's what Mulder told me.

[skygazer]

44. I saw a UFO once

It was round and there were multi-colored lights flashing all around the edge. It was somewhat low in the sky and moving against the wind.

Had I not been doing 3 hits of Orange Sunshine at the time, I probably would be better able to describe it. :P

[av8rdave]

46. Because frisbees work so well

I saw a UFO once, but then I was able to identify it.

[dolo amber]

49. Why do people still believe in God?

That one seems way more far-fetched to me than the possibility of (non-theistic) life existing elsewhere in the universe. :shrug:

[redqueen]

62. Cause if they don't...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLwtqwnI6ko

[dolo amber]

67. Holy shit

:spray: :rofl:

:D :hi:

[redqueen]

68. I dunno which I like more... that hymn,

or this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8


:hi:

[Broken_Hero]

50. Because Mulder told me UFO's were real....

:D

[pitohui]

51. as others said folks see them so...

at some point you have to ask yourself do i believe my own lying eyes or do i believe the teevee? i do not fault people for believing their own eyes first, it opens up too many doubts and you pretty much would be paralyzed and unable to make any decisions or make much use of your own brain if you always had to check first with the teevee about what to believe about what you were seeing

the folks at roswell saw something, and the gov't has since acknowledged that what they saw was a mogul balloon, the folks did see something, they didn't imagine this, and it is hardly the fault of the witnesses that project mogul was classified for so many years and it was to the gov't benefit to spread a phony ufo story...people see something, then they're told there is no official explanation because the experiment is classified, are they bad and evil to wonder about what they saw? true, the media exploited this story much more than it should have been exploited, but perhaps they too were encouraged by the gov't -- what better cover for classified aircraft and experimental craft than "it came from outer space?"

if you make your decisions based first on a teevee program, and only second based on what you see, then that may work for you okay depending on what show you get lucky enough to see first -- there's an awful lot of religious and financial "hooey" on teevee, you know, so while you're laughing at the person who believes his own eyes rather than nat'l geo, maybe he's laughing at you for believing nat'l geo instead of your own eyes

the argument that people should believe as YOU believe because of a teevee show, is not a good argument, is indeed a frightening argument if you think about it for a moment

[Redstone]

72. Because they're fucking idiots, maybe? And if you don't believe me, just pay a visit

to the September 11 group, right here at DU.

Redstone

[laconicsax]

75. Hey now...

How do you know that alien spaceships didn't fly into the WTC when the lizard people gave them the signal to proceed via the recovered alien communication device that the CIA loaned to the Mossad in exchange for cold fusion technology developed in the late 50s by a scientist who was killed by the FBI because he discovered the equations that prove the electric universe theory?

You should watch this video because it shows the proof that THEY don't want you to know!

[Redstone]

76. Oh, damn funny. Thank you.

Redstone

[foxfeet]

73. Because flying tea cups are just silly.

[Nevernose]

74. I saw UFOs at Area 51 in the early 90s

At the time I was pretty impressed, though not willing to call them aliens. In retrospect I suspect that I what I saw was experimental UAVs, cruise missiles, or most likely the Osprey.

[WinkyDink]

78. Because we don't know everything?

[grannylib]

79. Maybe because so many people have seen them?? I'm not trying to be snarky...

but I personally have seen some REALLY strange shit in the sky that is not easily or credibly explained in any other way...

[kedrys]

80. Well, the UFO I saw four nights in a row in '77

was also seen by half my high school, my entire dorm, my sister and her friends back at our house, and oh yeah, the local airport radar. Nobody ever explained what whatever it was, was.

I'm emphatically NOT saying it was an alien craft - but damn if anyone had a clue what the heck it was.