Has anyone ever noticed this?

[Wookietim]

I have been doing some reading lately and I noticed something really odd... For roughly the first 15 years of the modern UFO era (Starting in WWII with the "Foo Fighters" and going on into roughly the late 50's) UFO's were assumed to be terrestrial in manufacture. Either the Allies assumed they were Axis machines or vice-versa, or the USSR assume they were US or vice versa. Then, when it started to become evident that these things were not the products of humans, we all just skipped happily to the explanation of "ET's" and aliens from another planet.

I am not going to argue that they can't be ET's - they very well may be. But doesn't it seem odd to anyone that the very explanation that is the hardest to argue in favor of with our current knowledge of physics and space travel is also the one that popular thought glommed onto? I am sure that there is a certain component of popular fiction at play here (Sci Fi stories about other worlds and travel have always been popular ever since Gulliver did it after all), but I have to wonder if maybe there is something else going on here.

I mean, the UFO's (The ones that are entirely unexplained) and aliens seem to show off characteristics that are very much more than just nuts-and-bolts spaceships. Appearing/disappearing, shape changing, completely odd actions... None of this entirely makes sense if they are just visitors from a different planet. One would think that they would either remain hidden or be completely open about their presence here if that were the case. Instead we get a almost bipolar set of things where at one point they are really theatrical and showy and then they are stealthy and quiet. We have UFO flaps like the Hudson Valley where huge UFO's are seen by hundreds of people over the course of years and then they seem to switch to trying to go undetected.

So it seems to me like maybe we ought to rethink some of our assumptions. Why not start with the basic one - how come we have sort of decided (In the majority - I am aware of the minority that have suggested other dimensions or time travel and such) that these things are from a different planet?

[Goodnite]

Many UFOs are also deliberate hoaxes. For hoax information, search Google for UFO kits. There are kites, glowing Frisbees, balloons and many other things. One of my favorite UFO hoax tricks is this: buy a triangular kite and attach a light weight flashlight to the bottom. There are many sites about flying kites at night

http://www.xenophilia.com/zb0015.htm

[Wookietim]

Many UFOs are also deliberate hoaxes. For hoax information, search Google for UFO kits. There are kites, glowing Frisbees, balloons and many other things. One of my favorite UFO hoax tricks is this: buy a triangular kite and attach a light weight flashlight to the bottom. There are many sites about flying kites at night

http://www.xenophilia.com/zb0015.htm

Yes, which is why I was careful to specify the truly unexplained UFO's rather than the hoaxes or mis-identifications. Let's be blunt : out of all the UFO cases reported, roughly 80 percent are either misidentified objects or hoaxes. 15 percent are probably the same but we don't have the data to definitely say they are. 5 percent are interesting and of that 5 percent there is probably 10 percent that are honestly "Alien" in origin. But that, to me, still leaves the question open.

And even with that small number (And the Hudson Valley sightings are a good example of that - I have done enough research to prove to myself at least that there was something non-human going on there) we still have this bipolar weirdness where one day they are theatrical and seem to want to show off and the next they seem to want to be working in secret and don't want anyone to know about them. It's entirely an odd way to go about things and makes no logical sense.

But either way, even if every one of the more showy sightings is a hoax or venus or swamp gas, my question still stands : why do we assume aliens from a different planet? It's the easiest possible explanation to debunk with our current knowledge of physics... and the only way to argue against that debunking is to sound like a loon by saying things along the lines of "Well, these aliens have a special technology we don't know about" (They may, but assuming that seems to be assuming a bit much about the UFO intelligence - I mean, if there are other explanations that do not require them breaking our known laws of physics, then why do we assume that those routes are incorrect?)...

[Goodnite]

I have done enough research to prove to myself at least that there was something non-human going on there) we still have this bipolar weirdness where one day they are theatrical and seem to want to show off and the next they seem to want to be working in secret and don't want anyone to know about them. It's entirely an odd way to go about things and makes no logical sense.

I never could figure this out either. Why hide if you come to explore, conquer, or destroy? Just contact us and try to communicate.

[Wookietim]

I have done enough research to prove to myself at least that there was something non-human going on there) we still have this bipolar weirdness where one day they are theatrical and seem to want to show off and the next they seem to want to be working in secret and don't want anyone to know about them. It's entirely an odd way to go about things and makes no logical sense.

I never could figure this out either. Why hide if you come to explore, conquer, or destroy? Just contact us and try to communicate.

But the question that underlies my post still stands - why do we assume they are from a different planet?

[Rlyeh]

I mean, the UFO's (The ones that are entirely unexplained) and aliens seem to show off characteristics that are very much more than just nuts-and-bolts spaceships. Appearing/disappearing, shape changing, completely odd actions... None of this entirely makes sense if they are just visitors from a different planet. One would think that they would either remain hidden or be completely open about their presence here if that were the case. Instead we get a almost bipolar set of things where at one point they are really theatrical and showy and then they are stealthy and quiet. We have UFO flaps like the Hudson Valley where huge UFO's are seen by hundreds of people over the course of years and then they seem to switch to trying to go undetected.

Assuming they have the technology to arrive from another planet, I don't see why such actions would be impossible for nuts-and-bolts spaceships.

[Oppono Astos]

In 'the old days' the data of most amateur/civilian UFO research groups suggested around 5% of all sightings remained unidentifiable against then current knowledge after due investigation (due investigation being sadly lacking in the internet/blogging era). With progression of science and knowledge - such as with plasmas - and subsequent re-investigation, the absolute unidentifiables will be closer to 1%. This 1% is where true research should be focused.

Fully agree that there is no logic in the narrow-minded leap from unknown to it must be ETH... While sci-fi and its influence has origins earlier than many will care to admit, it would be wrong to forget the incorrect beliefs of established scientists of the age who assumed life was abundant elsewhere; hence the Canals of Mars etc, and William Herschel believed that every planet was inhabited - this included the surface of the sun.

[scowl]

But either way, even if every one of the more showy sightings is a hoax or venus or swamp gas, my question still stands : why do we assume aliens from a different planet?

Because that's what we all grew up knowing what these things are. If we saw something mysterious in the sky, we don't think, "Oh, that's a strange airplane/helicopter." We don't think, "I wonder what natural phenomena could cause that." We think we are seeing aliens from outer space.

It's the easiest possible explanation to debunk with our current knowledge of physics... and the only way to argue against that debunking is to sound like a loon by saying things along the lines of "Well, these aliens have a special technology we don't know about"

You won't sound like a loon to most people when you say this. Another thing we grow up knowing is that technology is practically "magic" and egghead scientists are always wrong about what's possible.

[vitruvian12]

I have been doing some reading lately and I noticed something really odd... For roughly the first 15 years of the modern UFO era (Starting in WWII with the "Foo Fighters" and going on into roughly the late 50's) UFO's were assumed to be terrestrial in manufacture. Either the Allies assumed they were Axis machines or vice-versa, or the USSR assume they were US or vice versa. Then, when it started to become evident that these things were not the products of humans, we all just skipped happily to the explanation of "ET's" and aliens from another planet.

I am not going to argue that they can't be ET's - they very well may be. But doesn't it seem odd to anyone that the very explanation that is the hardest to argue in favor of with our current knowledge of physics and space travel is also the one that popular thought glommed onto? I am sure that there is a certain component of popular fiction at play here (Sci Fi stories about other worlds and travel have always been popular ever since Gulliver did it after all), but I have to wonder if maybe there is something else going on here.

I mean, the UFO's (The ones that are entirely unexplained) and aliens seem to show off characteristics that are very much more than just nuts-and-bolts spaceships. Appearing/disappearing, shape changing, completely odd actions... None of this entirely makes sense if they are just visitors from a different planet. One would think that they would either remain hidden or be completely open about their presence here if that were the case. Instead we get a almost bipolar set of things where at one point they are really theatrical and showy and then they are stealthy and quiet. We have UFO flaps like the Hudson Valley where huge UFO's are seen by hundreds of people over the course of years and then they seem to switch to trying to go undetected.

So it seems to me like maybe we ought to rethink some of our assumptions. Why not start with the basic one - how come we have sort of decided (In the majority - I am aware of the minority that have suggested other dimensions or time travel and such) that these things are from a different planet?

Are you putting forward an alternative theory or just asking why? If they were timetravellers wouldnt they be in danger of altering their future by being seen here or leaving evidence behind?

[Wookietim]

Are you putting forward an alternative theory or just asking why? If they were timetravellers wouldnt they be in danger of altering their future by being seen here or leaving evidence behind?

I am wondering why we, as a rule, have settled so strongly on the ETH. After all, from the looks of the evidence there isn't a hge amount of proof for it and there are valid arguments against it. The same can be said for the other theories too. So it seems to me that there is no real reason to assume the ETH to be the working theory yet, and I think that is hampering the discussion.

In other words, we latched onto a theory (And one that is easy to rebut from the POV of debunkers) and seem to have discarded other theories and made them even less mainstream than the ETH. Therefore we have sent the question of what UFO's are into a virtual straightjacket...

I think it is time to toss our preconceived ideas out and look directly and only at the data. Because if one starts out saying "The ETH is true" then we end up only accepting into the discussion things that fit ETH (The same is said for every other alternative theory by the way - I am not arguing in favor of them). It's the old saying "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

[DONTEATUS]

Most of us wouldnt believe an E.T. if they sat right down and ate you ! But thats another story all in it self.

[TSS]

Good question Wookietim!

It seems to me that many people look for an answer to the phenomena - in terms of a single answer, this is a non starter as far as i'm concerned. Sure you can do that, and you can cherry pick cases to suit your own preferences, but for me there are many different causes to this phenomena. If you just rely on data you have very little to go on, plus you narrow your cases down to those that exhibit some form of readable data, you're likely then to dismiss those that don't fall into the category as you'll naturally be drawn to look for similar patterns in your quest to find an answer...(when saying 'you' or 'your' i'm obviously generalising).

Witness reports are notoriously unreliable, yet essential (imo) particular in understanding how people interpret things...which could be key to many of the answers people are looking for here..

So the way I see it is you have different options:

You have an idea of what the cause might be (alien for example) and find cases that you think support your stance (your level of critical thought will probably fall a little here, since we all want to find the answers we'd like to be true deep down).

You go strictly on data and narrow your field of research, but you're not really trying to answer the overall question then, you are trying to answer a question..

You judge each case individually, accepting that the witness report is only an interpretation, nothing more....and just stick to looking for your own cases, with no preconceived idea as to what the cause might be, and accept you might find a different answer for every sighting/experience you have...that way yo might just be surprised what you dig up..

Edited February 6, 2012 by The Sky Scanner

[Wookietim]

Most of us wouldnt believe an E.T. if they sat right down and ate you ! But thats another story all in it self.

I am not arguing that the ETH is wrong - as a matter of fact, I suggest that we keep it around as one of many possible explanations. But I suggest that it seems we have consistently went about answering this question the wrong way : We consistently decided on the answer we like and then tried to find ways to justify it.

Maybe it is time to let the data guide us rather than what we want to see...

[Wookietim]

Good question Wookietim!

It seems to me that many people look for an answer to the phenomena - in terms of a single answer, this is a non starter as far as i'm concerned. Sure you can do that, and you can cherry pick cases to suit your own preferences, but for me there are many different causes to this phenomena. If you just rely on data you have very little to go on, plus you narrow your cases down to those that exhibit some form of readable data, you're likelt then to dismiss those that don't fall into the category as you'll naturally be drawn to look for similar patterns in your quest to find an answer...(when saying 'you' or 'your' in obviously generalising).

Witness reports are notoriously unreliable, yet essential (imo) particular in understanding how people interpret things...which could be key to many of the answers people are looking for here..

So the way I see it is you have different options:

You have an idea of what the cause might be (alien for example) and find cases that you think support your stance (your level of critical thought will probably fall a little here, since we all want to find the answers we'd like to be true deep down).

You go strictly on data and narrow your field of research, but you're not really trying to answer the overall question then, you are trying to answer a question..

You judge each case individually, accepting that the witness report is only an interpretation, nothing more....and just stick to looking for your own cases, with no preconceived idea as to what the cause might be, and accept you might find a different answer for every sighting/experience you have...that way yo might just be surprised what you dig up..

What if we look at the data and try to connect the pieces of the puzzle into whatever picture they result in rather than trying to make the picture we decide on first?

Let's face it - if we decide that ETH is correct then we have to discount anything that doesn't represent physical spaceships or we need to create more and more wild technologies just to incorporate everything... Which to me screams that perhaps we have a theory there that needs to be worked on quite a bit.

But the ETH may very well be correct - but it would behoove us to take our blinders off and look at all the data and see what picture presents itself rather than choosing the picture first and then finding the data that supports it.

[scowl]

I am wondering why we, as a rule, have settled so strongly on the ETH.

Give us a list of other theories and why they make more sense.

[Wookietim]

Give us a list of other theories and why they make more sense.

I am not arguing against the ETH. I am arguing that there is no reason to settle on any one theory yet since doing so will lead us to discount certain bits of data that don't fit into it.

You see, this is the problem... Many people have decided "UFO's are Extraterrestrial" and then proceed to try to prove that. That's nice, except then one is required to do one of two things (or a combination) : either posit (With no actual proof) new laws of physics and technologies or to simply disregard bits of data that do not fit. That's not a really good way to go about trying to determine the truth of the situation. As I said - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Maybe none of our theories fit. Maybe the ETH fits. Maybe time travel fits. Maybe other dimensions fit. Maybe it's a combination of all of them in a configuration nobody has yet thought of. But deciding on one and single-mindedly trying to prove it doesn't help...

[scowl]

I am not arguing against the ETH. I am arguing that there is no reason to settle on any one theory yet since doing so will lead us to discount certain bits of data that don't fit into it.

If the ETH is the only theory that makes sense then that's the theory people will settle on.

If you can't come up with better theories then you've answered your own question.

[Wookietim]

If the ETH is the only theory that makes sense then that's the theory people will settle on.

If you can't come up with better theories then you've answered your own question.

But the ETH doesn't always make sense. As I said - it only makes sense if one continuously invents more and more elaborate technologies that argue against all known laws of physics... and then get's around that by just coming up with new laws of physics with no basis in anything real. All of that may very well be valid but as it is that is just tossing off fantasy to explain a theory.

One could say "Unicorns are real". And the response is, "No they aren't - if they are where are they?"... "Well, they are invisible and don't interact with the physical world much.", "But that makes no sense - how did they become invisible?", "Well, they evolved much earlier than us and developed a technology to become invisible.", "But what kind of technology allows one to become invisible?", "They know about a special quantum particle that absorbs all light and even allows one to pass through this reality as if they are a ghost."

In other words, one can hardly even use the word "Hypothesis" within the ETH at this point since a hypothesis is supposed to be falsifiable - simply making up explanations based only on fantasy to get around any objections removes that quality.

So, perhaps, the ETH isn't the best explanation for the data at hand.

[vitruvian12]

But the ETH doesn't always make sense. As I said - it only makes sense if one continuously invents more and more elaborate technologies that argue against all known laws of physics... and then get's around that by just coming up with new laws of physics with no basis in anything real. All of that may very well be valid but as it is that is just tossing off fantasy to explain a theory.

Mistaken identification, lying and hoaxes dont require any of these things. They fit quite nicely into our knowledge of not only physics but of human behavior. So it seems if you were looking for a simpler theory that one would work well

[Paul Rubino]

But the question that underlies my post still stands - why do we assume they are from a different planet?

Short answer? Humans are hardwired to believe in a higher power ... such as a god. In this day of modern technology, we satisfy our god-need with high tech gods.

[quillius]

Mistaken identification, lying and hoaxes dont require any of these things. They fit quite nicely into our knowledge of not only physics but of human behavior. So it seems if you were looking for a simpler theory that one would work well

and yet there are cases where none of the above can apply.

[Wookietim]

Mistaken identification, lying and hoaxes dont require any of these things. They fit quite nicely into our knowledge of not only physics but of human behavior. So it seems if you were looking for a simpler theory that one would work well

Question - if they are from a different planet, how did they travel here? Answer : "They have a special technology that allows that". Question : How do they eat while here? Answer : "They have a special technology that allows that".

Medieval scholars knew that there was a problem with the original conception of the solar system since they had to keep adding new orbits for each planet and then sub-orbits and then sub-sub-orbits to prop up the theory that they sun and planets revolved around earth. The math was impossible because every new observation required a new fix to the theory that made it even more unwieldy... And here we are doing the same thing with UFO's - latching onto a theory that requires more and more unsupported theories to be grafted onto it every time new data becomes available just to keep it limping along.

[vitruvian12]

and yet there are cases where none of the above can apply.

But which ones?

[quillius]

But which ones?

you want me to pick one that doesnt qualify as misidentification, lying or hoax...yes?

[vitruvian12]

you want me to pick one that doesnt qualify as misidentification, lying or hoax...yes?

Sure, well your opinion at least. Im not saying they can all be explained but those explanations cover such a large proportion you cant really rule it out as an overall explanation. It seems to have more support for it than any other theory put forward. Its far more parsimonious