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Subscribe to RSSRetired Air Force Capt. Robert Salas says he was at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana when UFOs hovered over the base in 1967 and nuclear missile launch systems somehow went non-operational. So you might think that watching the latest alien-attack movie, "Battle: Los Angeles," would cause him some sleepless nights.
Not really.
Salas doesn't think the aliens are in any mood to launch a globe-shattering strike like the one in the movie. "If they were going to attack, they would have done it by now," said Salas, who serves as a consultant for the film project. "They could have caused a lot more destruction ... but all they did was shut our missiles down."
For the folks who truly believe we've been visited by extraterrestrial craft, "Battle: Los Angeles" (opening Friday) and other E.T. thrillers provide additional opportunities to keep UFOs in the public consciousness. Which is why Salas is touting the film. "I think the public is taking more of an interest in this subject," Salas told me this week. "Of course, just about all these movies are going to be a little on the extreme side, but it continues to be of interest."
Even if you're not ready to give credence to reports of alien visitations, there are plenty of stories in the news that serve to stoke the interest in strange phenomena. William Birnes, who is the publisher of UFO magazine and a consultant for "UFO Hunters" as well as other TV projects, pointed to three such stories from just the past month.
- Last week, the British government released 8,500 pages' worth of reports on UFO sightings, ranging from obvious misunderstandings to still-unsolved mysteries. "What it shows is that there are active discussions and investigations going on among the defense departments of First World governments about the existence of extraterrestrial craft and the potential threat to national security," Birnes said. "The back-door message is, 'Yes, we are monitoring this, and although we haven't found anything yet, if you thought that your government wasn't concernedf about the existence of UFOs, we are.'"
- Scientists have been debating whether or not meteorites linked to the early solar system contain microbes from beyond Earth. "The UFO community eats this stuff up," Birnes said. "They love this. Why? Because it is scientific validation for one of the premises of the UFO community's investigation of whether there's life out there in the universe. ... When people laugh at us and say, 'Oh, you guys wear tinfoil hats, [we can say] our own government is spending a lot of money on this."
- IBM's Watson supercomputer vanquished two of the top human champions on TV's "Jeopardy" trivia game show. "That's a real fear ... creating a machine that will start using this amoral machine logic," Birnes said. "They figure out that since human beings are doing the polluting, they'll get rid of us."
Over the decades, fear has been a strong theme in E.T. movies. On one level, extraterrestrial tales serve as a convenient backdrop on which to project our own all-too-real worries. In the 1950s, movies such as "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "War of the Worlds" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" were seen as Cold War parables. (All three movies inspired recent remakes that haven't stood up quite as well as parables for environmental or virological threats.)
On another level, evil-E.T. movies and other fear-inducing flicks may serve as "practice runs" for dealing with real-life threats. Psychologists have hypothesized that we're hard-wired to seek out scary experiences that unfold in a safe environment. Just as early humans gathered around the fire to hear about fights with saber-toothed cats, we gather in front of screens to watch the aliens blast LAX.
Not all movie E.T.s are terrifying, of course. The cartoon Martians in another movie opening this week, "Mars Needs Moms," get the Disney treatment. And in the 1982 movie "E.T.," the alien is the good guy and the humans are the bad guys ... which is what makes this "E.T.-X" trailer on YouTube so funny:
But for every cuddly E.T., there's an evil "Independence Day" overlord plus an rampaging "Alien" predator. Birnes said "Battle: Los Angeles" combines two of the genre's most potent fear factors: relentless killer machines (think "Terminator") and goo-filled super-insects (think "Starship Troopers").
"What are human beings most afraid of, in terms of some existential threat to the human race?" he asked. "Creatures that are repellent. Exoskeletal types of insects, primarily because we and the insects are fighting for control of the planet, in a sense."
The movie plays off yet another monster-movie meme: the unstoppable attack from above. Birnes said "Battle: Los Angeles" echoed one of the better-known chapters in UFO lore, known as "The Battle of Los Angeles."
In 1942, the city weathered what was thought at the time to be an aerlal artillery barrage, waged by phantom forces that couldn't be brought down. At first, the authorities thought it was a Japanese air raid, but the "battle" was eventually attributed to war jitters that sparked spontaneous rounds of anti-aircraft fire and flares from L.A.'s defenders.
At least that's what the authorities said. UFO aficionados, however, put the Battle of Los Angeles in the same category as Salas' close encounter in 1967, and the rash of flying-saucer sightings reported in Washington in 1952. "There's solid, solid evidence that UFOs really have interfered with the military," Birnes insisted.
That's a claim I'm not ready to agree with, though it sounds good as a movie P.R. campaign. I do, however, agree with Birnes' view that E.T. movies have an enduring hold on the popular psyche. "Science fiction movies are made because there's a huge market for science fiction," Birnes told me. "'Battle: Los Angeles' is really John Wayne meets 'Independence Day.'"
So it's time to saddle up. For solid, solid evidence that this is the year of E.T. in Hollywood, check out this list of other upcoming releases:
- "Paul" (March 18): Slacker movie where the alien (Paul) is one of the slackers. (Official movie site)
- "Apollo 18" (April 22): Why did NASA stop doing moonshots, and why was the agency's plan to send astronauts back to the moon canceled last year? Surely not because the missions were too expensive. It's because of the murderous aliens that astronauts ran across during their super-secret Apollo 18 mission. Of course. (Official movie site)
- "Super 8" (June 10): Kids use a Super 8 camera to make their own zombie movie in 1979, and stumble across a catastrophic train derailment that sets loose some hazardous alien cargo being transported from Area 51 to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. (Official movie site)
- "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" (July 1): Those lovable Transformers battle over an alien spacecraft hidden on the moon ... wrecking Earth and rewriting the story of Apollo 11 in the process. (Official movie site)
- "Cowboys & Aliens" (July 29): The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of movie genres ... a star-studded Wild West posse is all that stands in the way of an alien takeover of the planet in 1873. You got cowboys in my sci-fi movie! (Official movie site)
- "The Darkest Hour" (Aug. 5): American kids in Moscow fight back against an alien invasion.
- "The Thing" (Oct. 14): Prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter film (which itself was a remake) about a murderous E.T. that crash-lands in Antarctica.
- "Area 51" (Date not yet set): Faux documentary about teens who break into super-secret Area 51 and leave behind "found footage," a la "Paranormal Activity."
Extra credit: If you see "Battle: Los Angeles," take note of the smoke rings. Robert Salas told me that he was recently looking at purported UFO pictures taken by highway maintenance engineer Rex Heflin in California in 1965. The photos show a hat-shaped object in the sky that apparently left behind a dark, unexplained smoke ring when it zoomed off. Then Salas watched an advance screening of "Battle: Los Angeles," in which alien missiles rain down on Earth. "As I was watching the movie, lo and behold, these objects were leaving big smoke rings," Salas said.
More on aliens:
- If aliens attack: Visitors to Earth will likely be robots
- Lesson one: The aliens never, ever come in peace
- UFO book criticized | Author strikes back
- Six signs that alien life may actually exist
- How would alien life change your life?
- Search for "extraterrestrials" on msnbc.com
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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The fear of ET is the fear of the unknown. But whether we should be afraid if an intelligent civilization exists in our vicinity, I am not sure. I don't think they will exterminate us because they want to mine resources from Earth. They can use many other planets for that. Will they want to colonise Earth to spread their species? Maybe they will, if they find this planet is habitable for them (or they fall on hard times), because they will share the same instincts of survival as we do. Or maybe they are so advanced that they understand/obey the ethics of colonising an already occupied planet?
I know that no ET will show up at my doorstep. That's because vast intergalactic distances make direct contact almost impossible. It's like leaving 3 humans afoot on the American continent and asking them to meet up with each other.
So basically u just said it was possible. as leaving 3 humans afoot on the American continent can meet up with each other pretty quickly. Now if you meant back in like 1888, then we are talking about some problems and one of the major ones being communication.
"Fear of the unknown" I know that's why I read H.P. Lovecraft. I became afraid of aliens more after I read his works. I lost some of that fear after I read Contact, but still have a little. Awesome article!
Rakesh, why is it that you and countless others assume that alien life only works on our realm of understanding the cosmos. For anyone that says that there is no proof of alien's visiting us or they don't exists, you truly have not done your homework and that saddens me. Take the time to do some research and really look out there for evidence, (believe me it's out there if you just look) For arguments sake lets say we know they exists and the tech they have far surpasses ours and traveling through worm holes or whatever is very much in their grasp. Weather or not the Gov or the aliens themselves will reveal themselves is not going to be kown for some time probably.
They're here. They're watching. They're curious about us and the way we are evolving. Our existence offers them a glimpse into their own primitive, long forgotten past. The universe is 3 times older than our Solar System, and the first solar systems like ours began to take shape in the first billion years as the first Class A/B stars all went supernova. That created an abundance of heavier elements for rocky worlds to form from, and that material was pulled into proplyds (collapsing protostar disks) in side giant molecular clouds (such as what we see in Messier 42/43). It's completely ridiculous to believe we're alone, even in our own galaxy. We are relative late comers to the game.
Hopefully they'll intervene if it looks like global nuclear war is inevitable, as happens in the Abyss.
Yes Gendo, it's true, we're here and have been for many years. We've infiltrated your government and we will be revealing our master plan for you and your planet very soon. What was it Hamlet said? "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." BWHAHAHAHAAHA
But seriously folks, the best Science Fiction is ALWAYS a parable. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS, Imperialism. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, communism. But ultimately they are all extentions of Grimms and the boogey man. The evil power, demon, machine, virus, whatever that appears unstoppable except for that ONE MAN (or woman, like Sigourney Weaver) who, despite their fears and weaknesses, defeats the creature and saves humanity, the damsel in distress, or whatever.
Science Fiction and the evil ET is also an extension of our own Xenophobia. Fear of people or "things" that are different from us.
Having said all that, I still have to agree with Hawking. Be careful about reaching out to those who may be "out there" among the stars. Even is first contact is benign, what follows may not be. The only model we have for this is our own, "first contact" with aboriginal peoples around the world followed the same pattern, whether it was peaceful or otherwise. Ultimately our superior weaponry defeated them, our diseases and vices devastated them and they became much much less than what they were before our arrival. There is no reason to expect first contact with an extra-terrestrial will be any different.
BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.
Well, and I have to agree with Dr. Kaku in that an aggressive, violent intelligent species is very unlikely to pass from a stage 0 to stage 1 civilization. They'll almost always destroy themselves before they figure out interstellar travel.
That bodes ill for us doesn't it!
There are solar systems whose metalicity is similar to ours, which are a billion or more years older than Sol and its planets. And there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy.
Logically, then, life has arisen elsewhere in our galaxy, and some of it is older than what is found on Earth.
Any civilization in the galaxy even slightly more technologically advanced than our own has not only located planets around other stars (as we are already doing), but has gone on to catalog which of those extrasolar worlds hold life. They have located other biospheres, and, if any civilizations exist on those worlds, they've also noted indicators of industrial activity on some of those worlds. Civilizations more advanced than those have mastered tools for learning much more than that, and aware of our existence.
Looking is easier than visiting. We have found planets around other stars, but have only left footprints on our moon, while our farthest-flung machines have barely entered interstellar space.
Anyone out there who can visit us has long known of our existence. And we are still here. One day we will grow up a little, and cease to be afraid of extraterrestrial intelligence. We've been allowed to go on existing, and will continue to be allowed to go on existing.
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind . . . 2001: A Space Odyssey . . . Contact . . . Mission To Mars. Those are some good alien encounter films.
http://ufopartisan.blogspot.com/
Was there even any Alien encounters in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
I think that would be more along the lines of 2010. I doubt a homocidal computer counts as alien life. Mission to Mars I dunno is debateable, cause there really wasn't any aliends, just remnants
You didn't SEE the Aliens in 2001. But they were there. Right from the beginning of the movie. Remember the monolith? Watch it again.
2001 was about discovering indirect evidence of alien intelligence ie. the monolith on the moon. The odd thing about that story was the existence of the strong magnetic anomaly in the Tycho crater. It wasn't clear to me if they had always known about it since the early days of moon exploration and took decades to actually look into it.
I'm with Frank. I've been saying for a while that they should do big budget film that is at least quasi-realistic, meaning without all the "terrible moster invasion ATTACK! ...run for your lives!!"
Close Encounters and Contact were definitely on that path... Those are the one's that really interest me.
Awe man I thought E.T. X was real...... grrrrrrrrrrrr!
Fill 100 Wal-Mart stores up with ping-pong balls, and that's about how many stars are in our own galaxy. (100 thousand million, astronomers say, in just our own Milky Way!) Our sun is just one ping pong ball in all of that. So, why do people find it impossible to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life? To me, it would be much more astonishing if there were NOT other intelligent life. Our science is really only a few hundred years old, though we've accomplished many impressive things. Astrophysicists are just now starting to wrestle with ways to get around the "light barrier" (travel at faster than the speed of light). And there are at least a thousand stars within 100 light years of Earth anyway. Just imagine what we'll know in 100 years... or 1,000. Imagine what intelligences with 1 million years or more of real science might have discovered? Mind-boggling!
If you're like me, you're quite turned off by the irrational bunk of the whole UFO "movement"... the conspiracy theory talk, people saying they've sipped tea with ET, etc.... However, just before the holidays I read a quite serious book by a quite serious author, and it has convinced me that at the core of all that silliness are many dozens of truly intriguing UFO cases, with UFO's caught on radar and such, and testified to by generals, veteran pilots, NASA scientists, governors, astronauts, etc. The book is by journalist Leslie Kean, and is called "UFO's: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record." It single-handedly opened my mind as to the possibilities and with respect to the reliability of the best cases. (They are actually quite reliable.) Times are rough, and anyone's who's interested in serious exploration of the topic but who doesn't want to spend the money on a book, there are a few good free resources; just google the French COMETA report (look at the impressive credentials of the authors!), or check out the NARCAP website (NASA scientist, aeronautical engineers), or google Prof (physicist) James McDonald's submission to the House Committee on Science & Astronautics from the late 196o's. There are tons of strong cases. In the early 1950's, many Air force higher-ups actually said that the ET hypothesis was the most likely explanation for what was being seen in the skies, but they had to back off of that because it freaked people out, and because the Air Force didn't want to admit that they really could do nothing about the phenomena that were "violating" our airspace.
Basically, this whole UFO thing is not just drunk hillbillies seeing lights off in the distance, as I assumed only a few months back. There appears to be some credibility to SOME cases, a small minority. But even one real case would be amazing. Don't take my word for it... just go read if you're seriously interested. The sources I mentioned are a good start. It has been a fascinating journey!!
Best,
SttPt
What this article hints at . E T aren't going to come here to eat M M's again . Like it did in the movie " ET call
home " .
They see humans in all their bright color of dress . Red , yellow , orange , blue , green . My , my doesn't that look tasty .Much bigger than M M's
Will they bring , giant Gorge Forman Cookers with them , or will they eat us raw ? Will they worry about what kind of oil they fry us in , or how much salt they put on us ? Will they have their own version of a F D A , to pick and chose who they eat and who might be unsafe to eat ?
But on the other hand . If they come here and don't eat the humans . But eat up much of our food supply . Will we be forced to eat them ? Does this make you wonder what E T might taste like ? If you were to fry E T , would they taste like fried rattlesnake ? Doesn't a fried rattlesnake or E T sandwich with a coldbeer sound good ?
I'll get busy and design a six foot and eight foot long " Fry Daddy ". Is there any one out there who might help me connect with some one on T V to have E T cooking shows ?
Mr. Boyle . I hope you get a chuckle out of this .
RON
E.T. I'm not afraid of. Daleks on the other hand.....
So, why do people find it impossible to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life? What is
rarely if ever addressed by folks who believe skeptics such as myself believing that alien intel
is impossible is that...we do not necessarily believe such things to be impossible. The real
problem is this.
The whole alien visitation ET thing has gone on for half a century or more of just the
regularly documentable stuff from the Kenneth Arnold sighting to the Phoenix lights. Yet
there has been no change in the one thing we need to take any sort of step towards proof
of ET visitations. That thing is an event that a movie such as "Battle" is describing.
Or short of that, at least ET could show humanity they are actually visiting if such is
the case. Sci fi has certainly prepared the population for such things as well as our own
astronomy and human space flight efforts. Therefore, ET landing should not be as much a
shock as it might have been pre 20th century. Instead, we still get light shows, the
usual government conspiracies etc.
So why have aliens not made themselves known if they are visiting?
That in part, gets back to the question why do people find it impossible to believe in
intelligent extraterrestrial life? I myself do not consider intelligent ET to be impossible.
However, what is not known is how many lets say, interstellar travel capable civilizations
in our galaxy are there?
What if humanity is the only intelligent beings to have attained Human Level Intelligence
(HLI) in our galaxy or even the universe because we may be the first to do so? This too is
not an impossible scenario unless or until proven otherwise. Look at Earth itself as an
example. Of the countless millions of forms of life on this planet, only one has
attained advanced tool making ability that we know as technology, including
space travel technology...but not interstellar or even interplanetary
capable travel for humans.
And even humanity is at best...probably half a millinia from venturing to even the
nearest star. So for those like me...we would not say ET intelligences are imppossible.
Were just not convinced Earth has been visited by them in any meaningful way...if even
at all.
Even for an ET intelligence several hundreds of thousands of years ahead of humanity in
technological development...interstellar travel may well remain a very daunting task beyond
there local neighborhood. They could have explored stars within say, a hundred light years
of their home world. And if they happen to be on the other side of our galaxy, thousands
of light years from us...they might not even know we exist.
To say nothing of the possibility of ET intelligence in another galaxy that may long
have since perished or if one subscribes to the "Battlestar Galactica" idea...they left
their galaxy and have since populated Earth. The battlestar problem is that if
humanity is the result of panspermia, we may never know it.
Just a few reasons why skeptics like me remain unconvinced of ET earthly visitations,
while still considering them to be possible.
L.J. Dean, I have an answer for you and it is up to you to decide if it is valid or not. I myself have a hard time not believing over a few 100 ex employees of every part of our Government and International Governments that say they are real and there are many different species of aliens out there. But if you just look up the Disclosure Project, you should be amazed at what you haven't the foggiest clue about. That not only have we been visited but are in very close contact with them. Dr M Greer has been trying for over the last decade to get all Governments to finally disclose the truth. I know I know it's already hard to believe, but once again if you just do even a little homework on the subject you will find that there is more proof about visitation than you can shake a stick at.
I have researched such things as the disclosure project and other sources of
UFO related materials. I have done so for decades. I'm not an expert on it and
would not claim to know for sure if we have been visited or not. Its important
that be understood.
I have had many people tell me there is a God too...all credible folks, some more
so than others. Yet I am not convinced of that either. But at the same time, I do
not discount God anymore than I would alien visitation. I guess what it all boils
down to is that ultimately, in my half century on this planet...I know of ET
because of other humans, not from actually witnessing ET visitations.
There is plenty of evidence out there including that found at the Disclosure
project. But it is the quality of evidence that I look at and for three decades,
the story has been the same. Always government coverups, men in black, images
that can sometimes be questioned and of course...sometimes there is evidence
that simply cannot be explained.
But I have never seen in my experience, convincing evidence of ET visitation.
Different folks have different experiences and maybe I haven't had the kind of
experience that would convince me. I certainly had hoped by now we would know
of such things without question given I'm an astronomy and spaceflight
hobbyist. I had hoped to see an ET visitation in my lifetime.
I know some people who think the spate of ET movies (in all of which we end up victorious) are being put out at the behest of the government. That way, when the aliens are revealed, the public won't freak out. I think it's just that Hollywood can't think of anything better to do. Nothing new under the sun.
I've heard that as well. There is probably no really effective way to prove
the government is coaching the movie industry so to speak. What I look at is
the idea of aliens that get vanquished by us in the end and see a kind of
feel goodism at work.
Lets face it...if an ET intelligence can travel several light years in craft
still far beyond our capability to design...how can we really expect to defeat
such beings. This also brings up the question, why would any ET intelligence
want to collaborate with governments to keep themselves hidden from the rest
of us?
My other problem with the government coverup scenario is that this is the
government that couldn't keep a lid on the JFK assasination, the gulf of
Tonkin incident, Watergate, Iran Contra, and other scandals too numerous
to mention here. And this government can cover up UFOs, ETs?
Of course there are the people who have been in government who have claimed
that they saw or were part of a coverup. Its one thing for the government to
possibly cover up maybe one alien species...but numerous species? Still, the
coverup possibility while unlikely to me...cannot be ruled out. And thats
the main problem with the whole thing.
My opinion on ET visitation as mentioned before...inconclusive at best.
The UFO community eats this stuff up,".....YEP, it's a cookbook (err kookbook) cept to serve man, it's titled, big profits in fun and games. More pranksters than misidentificatoin. In any event, a manned space program could at last get us started on the way to meeting them on thier turf, not ours. We are the apparent king of the beasts on this planet...if they come to inquire what we are, as we may well do to them, good, if they come for the fish they may soon be outta luck, and if there are a lot of them and fish is only an appetizer, they might see a food source here anyways, nice story for books. In the innerpart of our galaxy, older races have a better chance of exiting closer together, out here in the outer perimieter, it is likely that civilizations would be younger and farther apart. Of course civilizations could very well come and go with milleniums between them and never be aware of thier existance. Right now, from our point of view, just finding another civilization would be a miracle of incalculable odds...err..impossible, must be seen with ones own eyes...I ain't seen any, I don't rule it out as never going to happen, so if it does, I must first assume it came a long way with few if any fast food stops, therefore it has gotta be hungry....in the meantime keep your eyes peeled for some of the stuff from social blogs and forums poppin up in these movies, I am more suspicious that the writers are bone dead at the typewriter.....at least I could toss an et a lobster and see what he thinks of it.....not so sure I want to waste a perfectly good lobster on a writer though............
These upcoming Hollywood movies that depict ETs as evil creatures play into the hands of the cabals and the military industrial complex who want nothing other for us to be afraid of these beings so it justifies what they want to do, and it keeps their hold on power and wealth. These movies are disgusting.
ETs are peaceful beings who have originated from planets where they have evolved to the point of world peace. They do want to have contact with us - they don't want to destroy us. Do they watch us? Well yes. In your own neighborhood, don't you worry about that one resident or two that cannot seem to get along with anyone even in his own house, burns his trash in the open and doesn't keep up his lawn or the appearance of his home?
It is the same with humankind. We are newcomers to the galactic neighborhood. Seventy years ago we split the atom - which essentially was a signal to the rest of the universe that we have arrived, we have moved into the neighborhood.
We are still burning fossil fuels and blowing off mountain tops to get coal for power. We could be getting virtually cost-free power from the energy fields around us but our so called leaders and the folks in power want to suppress that from us because "they can't put a meter on it"
Remember the Jestons from the 60s - back then we really thought that in a decade or so this would not be a cartoon but a true reality. But our technological progression has been hijacked - which actually started back in the days of Tesla.
We have yet to figure out what peace and love really mean although I believe true change is coming. When Disclosure comes and we have official acknowledgement and interaction with ETs, only good things can happen ! But Disclosure won't happen until you and I do something about it.
Agree with a lot of what you say.
We have ourselves already demonstrated that we will go out into space more as a species, and less as warring tribes. Space exploration is difficult and is a collective activity emergent from, and essentially the same as, the general advancement of science. Where biospheres elsewhere produce technological intelligence, the equation likely remains the same: space travel and science together go forward (or don't) as a technological species as a whole progresses in its cultural, political and scientific development.
Elites are the decision-makers. It is not yet in the interests of those making the decisions for our global civilization to make full disclosure of what our militaries know. Nor is it in their interests to make energy cheap enough for us to quickly move out into space. Change, especially rapid uncontrolled change, always threatens those who hold power, and has in the past brought about revolutions.
But all things change. Perhaps the day is not so far off when we will make a beginning in our colonization of space, or when our civilization will learn of the existence of other life living on other planets orbiting the stars we have wondered about ever since we first stood to look up at the sky.
Just food for thought: Is GOD an ET? After all, God was (supposedly) here to 'create' the heavens and Earth. He couldn't be terrestrial, the Earth didn't exist at that time. Therefore, he MUST be an ET! Which means that we MAY be his pantry. Oh, my!!
Seriously though, with billions of galaxies out there and the billions of stars in each galaxy, and all the distances between, I am sure there are other intelligent beings in the Universe. As to whether thay have visited us? I don't think so. There would be SOME SORT of record. We have records of Pre-Cambrian creatures that roamed the ancient Earth, so wouldn't there be something, somewhere, that would point to a possible alien visitation? Especially if it happend in the past few thousand years.
I find this discussion to be more interesting than a lot I have seen on Space.Com! At least so far, no religious zealots and such spewing their misguided beliefs.
L.L. Dean, you put forth some interesting points. Good to see someone keep their head and remain totally sane.
L.J. Dean, it is not at all like belief in God. God has never been tracked on radar or chased by fighter jets. If you read about the few dozen best radar cases, you'll see what I mean. Check out the RB-47 case, the Japan Airlines case, the Belgian wave, and look at the analysis of the radar data in the Stephenville, TX case, where the Air Force had to admit a few weeks after it happened (after the radar data was going to be released) that okay, yes, they were mistaken before, but they DID have fighter jets in the area. (So, just like witnesses described: multiple fighter jets chasing an object that was the size of a department store and could start/stop on a dime.) With radars involved, it's absurd to label it all hearsay, so I'm not sure what it is you've been studying for 30 years. It sounds (forgivably) like maybe you've been distracted from the 5% truth by the 95% junk? Easy to do, given all the extreme claims, books, etc., but your comments on The Disclosure Project do suggest this, since that project is highly suspect. There are definitely some very credible witnesses in it, like Robert Salas, but... if you look at some of the highly bizarre things Dr. Greer believes, and if you consider that Greer did not properly check the credentials of a few crackpots he's had speak in the project, then in the end the truth is highly muddied there. My advice is to ignore Greer's words altogether, and check the credentials and testimony of each speaker independently. Salas, for example, is highly legitimate, and has been consistent for many years.
I compared UFO sightings to God because as a person, I have only ever
heard about both entities from other persons. Never any direct contact
or proof for myself. Radar reports are mostly if not all, second hand
reports without actual screen captures of radar blips.
The blips one sees on various media still and video images are mostly
SFX generated graphics designed to provide visual aid to the narrative.
There may be some screen captures of radar sightings but I've never seen
one and even if I had, it does not necessarily mean an ET piloted vehicle
is the culprit. Radar sightings would be good evidence but not proof of
ET visitation.
In that way its not so far removed from saying evidence exists that Jesus
in fact existed. Archaological evidence seems to suggest there was a Jesus.
But was he the Son of God? Or just an extraordinary man, the MLK of his
day? The archaological evidence cannot say just as radar cannot show
conclusively, the causes of the blips.
As for witnesses...Sure there are hundreds of witnesses. I don't personally
know any of them and I dont put much stock into a persons credibility because
of their profession or status. It is also counterproductive to get into debates
with witnesses because if you were not there, you cannot really say what a
witness may or may not have seen.
Witnesses boil down to this: Three people say they saw a UFO. Person
number 1 may have actually witnessed an ET piloted craft. Person number
two saw something but does not know for sure what it was they saw. Person
number three is out to make a buck and simply lies about what they saw.
How can one decide which person is number one?
Point being, the radar data...witness sightings, recorded images ect.
are all evidence of possible ET visitation. Not proof of ET visitation.
As for the Disclosure project. It appears to be as much about selling
books, DVDs etc. as much as it is about disclosing the existence of
ET piloted craft which IMO, it has so far failed to do.
An example being some of the stuff you can order. The contact training
set for meditating including guide meditations to vector ET craft. Says
so right on the shopping link. Sounds more like new aged stuff than
ET piloted craft disclosures to me.
At best, they still talk of cosmic Consciousness and hidden truths which
is no different really than Dennis Hoppers description of UFOs in the 1968
movie "Easy Rider". What I want to see is an event that provides proof of
ET visitations. An example being scores of piloted craft arriving not
so much to invade us...but actually establish contact and a
subsequent interaction on a scale similar to when nations
establish relations.
If that happened, this skeptic would no longer have reason to be skeptical.
It's all a load of balone. But I'm still wondering if there will be a sequel to District 9.
Test.
LA still has dirty air all too often. I wonder if respiratory disease and cancer is significant there. I guess the aliens will have to be robotic. Anything else would choke to death. They couldn't land there even if they wanted. Maybe that's why they can't visit us. The whole planet is too polluted for them. They require a pristine atmosphere and "we" can't give it.
Not really. Each planetary biological species would have evolved to use the available elements such as minerals and gases in much the same way that humans evolved to use the elements and gases from the environment.
Earth would not have to fear an invasion from a species from lets say Titan where methane is the promonent gas used (see the archaea microbial) where a species from Titan would not be able to survive in an oxygenated atmosphere such as Earth. They would come suited up with the environment from their homeworld kept between them and their skin.
Earth would need to fear if such an invasion came from a species that had a comparable atmosphere to Earth meaning that the species breathed primarily oxygen.
Any species that found our planet and was not able to use or needed to consume at least water or oxygen would probably fly by making note of the planet for a possible trade with...a species that they were at war with of whom needed oxygen and water to survive.
How nice that would be wouldn't it. A bartering chip in two Exo-Earth species fight for dominance over another.
There are over 500 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. It would be really moronic and stupid to think that one planet among 500 BILLION was the only inhabitable or inhabited planet out there.
1. The farthest members of our own species have traveled: our moon.
2. The farthest our machines have traveled: just beyond our solar system and not yet to another star.
3. We have already detected planets around other stars.
4. We will soon look at the spectra of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets to determine which ones harbor life.
5. Long before we can visit the biospheres orbiting other stars, we will have detected and studied them.
6. Any extraterrestrials capable of visiting other stars ~ in person, or via their machines ~ already know a lot about us. And we're still here. For this subscriber to the hypothesis of extraterrestrial intelligence, therefore, the conclusion is: All is well. :-)