Ever seen a UFO?

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by C420sailor

Bubbleheads.

The Navy’s undersea acoustic arrays likely heard it—if it made a noise. But that system is still very highly classified.

Todays subs can hear most anything and know exactly where it came from.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Russian007

With all due respect, you have no credibility sir. The prospect of a UFO smoking a cigarette is implausible and defies the laws of physics.

It was a spliff...
Then 'Spliff' it woz gone...

[ilenart]

Yep, everytime I went sailing in my last yacht

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_34

[David B]

Originally Posted by boatman61

... just because science cannot explain something does not mean it cannot exist.. it is impossible for 'long extinct' species to exist according to science, yet occasionally they appear to prove science wrong.
There is still much to learn about our own world and to my mind judging everything by one's own limitations is not looking beyond the horizon.

https://www.newsweek.com/extinct-fos...gascar-1591688

Very well said!

[David B]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

Being a scientist firmly attached to the principle of parsimony, I fail to understand why people perceive something for which they have no explanation, an unidentified flying object, and immediately attribute it to an advanced alien civilization capable of violating known laws of physics. That's more than a stretch. It's invention of an entire different world to explain somethng that went bump in the night.

With emphasis on the 'known' .....

[jimbunyard]

Would like to see how some of these 'unknown' laws of physics translate into 'space beings', as well as how they (both the beings and the laws) morph back and forth between the two.

And why.

The only thing the belief in 'ET' demonstrates is the irrational ability of the human mind.

And, perhaps counterintuitively, a paucity of imagination.

[Taichungman]

Yes, Yes and thank God I'm not the only one. I was sailing across the Indian Ocean and one dark night a large bright object came down and hovered above the water. A door opened on the object and three naked girls who looked identical stepped out and ask me to come aboard. I was just about to step aboard the craft when something hit me in the back of the head. I looked around and there was my wife, hollering wake-up dummy, it's your watch. This is a true story and I'm sticking to it.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Taichungman

Yes, Yes and thank God I'm not the only one. I was sailing across the Indian Ocean and one dark night a large bright object came down and hovered above the water. A door opened on the object and three naked girls who looked identical stepped out and ask me to come aboard. I was just about to step aboard the craft when something hit me in the back of the head. I looked around and there was my wife, hollering wake-up dummy, it's your watch. This is a true story and I'm sticking to it.

Thanks for the good chuckle.

[apweng]

Yes I have. And very similar sighting to most of the "serious" posts on this thread.

I was teenager in the early 80's. Mom and dad had a Yankee 30 that was on a permanent mooring outside of Manchester (Mass.) harbour. After a weekend my friend and I picked up the dinghy at the mooring ball, rowed to shore with a bunch of our weekend gear and brought the car to the loading area near the dock - while mom and dad cleaned and prepared the boat for unloading at the mooring.

It was dark, we were sitting in the car waiting for them, and we both noticed an exceptionally bright light out over the direction of the harbour - about 20 degrees off the horizon. We were pondering what the light could be and at first thought it was masthead. No - that was too tall for the harbour. Then as we were coming to the conclusion that it was a light on a communication tower on the peninsula, this light didn't disappear, or fly slowly away (after about a minute or so of pondering) - it shot off and left a massive streak behind it and it was gone beyond the horizon, just like that.

That's what we saw you draw your own conclusions. I've already drawn mine!

Andy

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by apweng

...That's what we saw you draw your own conclusions. I've already drawn mine!

Not to pick on you Andy, or presuppose what your conclusion might be, but your phrasing is exactly the challenge we humans face. We dislike a mystery. We have this evolutionary tendency to see patterns -- sometimes where none exist. We need to, as you say, "draw our own conclusions," even when the evidence doesn't support it.

The lesson in all this is NOT to draw any conclusion. These are "unidentified." So don't try and impose an identification on them. Embrace the mystery. Research it. Study it if it interests you enough, but don't 'draw any conclusion,' and certainly not a fantastical one -- not without fantastical evidence.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Not to pick on you Andy, or presuppose what your conclusion might be, but your phrasing is exactly the challenge we humans face. We dislike a mystery. We have this evolutionary tendency to see patterns -- sometimes where none exist. We need to, as you say, "draw our own conclusions," even when the evidence doesn't support it.

The lesson in all this is NOT to draw any conclusion. These are "unidentified." So don't try and impose an identification on them. Embrace the mystery. Research it. Study it if it interests you enough, but don't 'draw any conclusion,' and certainly not a fantastical one -- not without fantastical evidence.

The thing is.. Neither of you can prove it either way.

[apweng]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Not to pick on you Andy, or presuppose what your conclusion might be, but your phrasing is exactly the challenge we humans face. We dislike a mystery. We have this evolutionary tendency to see patterns -- sometimes where none exist. We need to, as you say, "draw our own conclusions," even when the evidence doesn't support it.

The lesson in all this is NOT to draw any conclusion. These are "unidentified." So don't try and impose an identification on them. Embrace the mystery. Research it. Study it if it interests you enough, but don't 'draw any conclusion,' and certainly not a fantastical one -- not without fantastical evidence.

Ha Ha - thanks for the response Mike!

OK hats off now - my conclusion is that I would like to think that what I saw was some form of intelligence from another world but my better senses tell me that I don't know what I don't know! We draw our conclusions based on our "wealth" of knowledge, but that base is probably almost infinitesimally small given what could be occurring in the expanse of our unimaginably large galaxy, let alone universe!

[Don C L]

one thing is for sure, when the aliens land, the first question I'm going to ask... the biggest mystery in the universe... which anchor do they have?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by boatman61

The thing is.. Neither of you can prove it either way.

You misunderstand. I'm pointedly NOT trying to prove anything. I'm saying, instead of concluding anything, that we should acknowledge exactly what these things are: Unidentified.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by apweng

Ha Ha - thanks for the response Mike!

OK hats off now - my conclusion is that I would like to think that what I saw was some form of intelligence from another world but my better senses tell me that I don't know what I don't know! We draw our conclusions based on our "wealth" of knowledge, but that base is probably almost infinitesimally small given what could be occurring in the expanse of our unimaginably large galaxy, let alone universe!

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'd love it if an alien intelligence was visiting us. Although, much like the coming AI revolution, I suspect 'First Contact' won't end well for us. I'm with Hawking and Musk. I think it's better for us to stay quiet and not invite space-faring travellers to come here.

But it's nice to dream about a benevolent, thoughtful Vulcan species who just wants to help us take the next technological steps.