UFOs

[edwest4]

To Orionblamblam et al,



You know why I became interested in aerospace? Because it was cool. Because some people designed some incredibly interesting aircraft and spacecraft. There was a sense of wonder there, because every year, I could pick up Popular Science and learn about new designs and see concept designs. I counted myself fortunate to know two incredibly smart people I could talk to about this. But you know what was really great? Research. No matter how outlandish a claim was, we could research it and come to a conclusion. It was fun.

But I get on the internet and what do I find? At least one or two people on every forum that's got a bad attitude and a highly refined skill in typing/cutting people into little pieces. It's a game now - a sport if you will.

So, UFOs. Let's get solution oriented, shall we?


Option 1) Ban the topic. Just put a permanent notice across the top of every page. I don't like option 1.

Option 2) Put up a permament explanation about why it's all sheer nonsense. After all, who knows? Maybe someday, someone will post here with something credible and checkable. I like option 2.

Option 3) The current option. Whenever someone wanders in here and starts going on and on about aliens, underground bases, Roswell and similar, just take out your copy of Official Words, Phrases and Profanity to Use on Tin Hat Wearing, Bozo Brain Controlled, Mush Headed, Imbecilic Imbeciles.


I suggest option 2. That way, people get directed to real information and the blood pressure does not go up for some here. I had thought the information superhighway could be fun and cool without people going off on each other like hand grenades. Is that intelligent? Is that productive? Wouldn't it be more challenging to find a solution that nips the problem in the bid?

I think Orionblamblam is an intelligent person and could contribute to solving the "why the heck do these deluded morons post here?" problem.

Just a thought.



Ed

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Ahem.... Forum Rules 6.5

Posting Guidelines

The primary purpose of the forum is to discuss unbuilt military and aerospace technology in various forms.
Posts on UFOs, Nazi wunderwaffen/flying saucers, 9/11 conspiracy theories, alien crashes, moon landing denials and the like are specifically not encouraged and would be better posted elsewhere.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,7428.0.html (Last revised: August 09, 2009)

 

[edwest4]

As a forum moderator myself, I know that most of the troublemakers I see are rarely concerned about rules.




Ed

 

[Matej]

This is why the ban was invented.

 

[Orionblamblam]

But I get on the internet and what do I find? At least one or two people on every forum that's got a bad attitude and a highly refined skill in typing/cutting people into little pieces.[/quote]

It's called "science." The marriage of creativity and skepticism. As opposed to superstition, which is the marriage of creativity with credulity.

I think Orionblamblam is an intelligent person

Damn right I am. Fat lot of good it's done me, though. "I'd rather be happy than right any day."

Fill in the next two lines.

and could contribute to solving the "why the heck do these deluded morons post here?" problem.

People post rubbish about flying saucers, or 9/11 conspiracies, or Holocaust denial, or suppressed car engines that burn water, or chemtrails, or secret FEMA concentration camps, etc. not necessarily because they are morons, but mostly because fantasy is generally more interesting than reality. Reality is mostly grubby, dirty, tired, sweaty, exhausted and in the end disappointing and depressing. A belief that there is a secret space program with antigravity and warp drives, and *that* is why we publicly abandoned space exploration, is more interesting and fulfilling than a belief that government is full of self-serving bureaucrats and that the vast majority of the public just doesn't give a shit about space. Believing in these fringe conspiracies allows one to have a sense of hope that otherwise might not be there, just as believing in Heaven (Paradise/Nirvana/Valhalla/etc) gives many people a sense of hope they'd lose if they lost their faith in the afterlife.

But just becuase a belief in UFOs, secret ginormous blimps or neato afterlifes makes you feel good doesn't say a single damn thing about whether or not it's actually *true.*

As I posted in the other thread, a good test about a hypothesis is whether or not it is internally consistent. And the vast bulk of these kook bits of crackpottery simply are not. And when that is pointed out, the result, as you amply demonstrated, is generally anger, not reflection or reasoned counter-arguements.

"I want to believe" is one of the *worst,* most destructive motives a person can have, because in the end it is entirely random and meaningless, yet can firmly root a person in utter bullshit. "I want to know" is infinitely better.

 

[sublight]

To further this line of thinking, it would appear that some members are vehemently opposed to discussions on any anomalous "secret projects" unless those projects have mounds of previously declassified pictures or substantiated documents which would make them just "previously secret projects". So is theorizing on "currently secret projects" forbidden on this site?

It would just be easier if some people didn't "flip out" over such matters, but I suppose that is just entertainment for them.

 

[Matej]

Well... anomalous secret projects... I can see the two different situations:

1. Someone is going to discuss the topic that was one million times proved wrong/fake. Roswell UFO incident, "fake" moon-landings, Nazi top secret military base in Antarctic and such. Then the best thing to do is to stop him even before he starts senseless discussion. Its not a bad idea to ask (yourself or others) if the theory of the relativity is right and if it works. The stupidity begin when you find milion of experiments that proves it and you will still be arguing that it is not right because you believe the opposite.

2. Someone is going to discuss the highly controversial and speculative projects - hypersonic Aurora, TR-3 Black Manta and such. Okay, we have even the special section for that kind of the projects. But... at least for me to make the statement that somewhere in the desert is somebody flying the top secret hypersonic plane or that all F-22 program is just a cover for the much advanced futuristic fighters flying from the Groom lake means much more than simply make a statement. Do I said that the Aurora exists? Fine. Than in the same time I must have a good and logical argument to support my statement. For example: Who operates/have such a specific need for this kind of plane? Are the current technologies matured enough and ready to support such a project? Who paid the development and operational costs? What the supersecret platform do that other white-world systems cant do? Is there a connection in technologies with the other projects (such as A-12 - YF-12A, X-30 NASP - MDD Orient Express)? And that's just the beginning.

edwest: you started about the UFOs. So write some specific example: What are the facts that you collected so far, what is your explanation of them, what do you think that unidentified object is and so. Of course - to keep the forum idea intact - it should have the connection to the aviation. Identification of the clouds or the lightning bugs in the sky does not fit here.

 

[Orionblamblam]

To further this line of thinking, it would appear that some members are vehemently opposed to discussions on any anomalous "secret projects" unless those projects have mounds of previously declassified pictures or substantiated documents...

Nice hyperbole... nobody said anything about "mounds." And nobody said anything about 'previously declassified." But if you want to make a claim... back it up. The more remarkable the claim, the better your evidence ahs to be. If someone wants to claim that there was a Cessna project to replace aluminum skins on such-and-such light aircraft with, say, fiberglass skins... fine. Just the say-so will be *largely* sufficient, if the "sayer" has a record of accuracy. But if someone wants to claim some truly remarkable design was studied or, even more, built and flown... you'd damned well better have more evidence than hearsay or uselessly blurry and low-rez photos.

Take this thread for example:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11104.0.html

There we have Clioman making some claims regarding a very remarkable series of aircraft designs that few if any of us had ever heard of before. And yet, nobody has called him out on spewing utter rubbish. Why? Because he has backed up his claims. And a minor design study for a ridiculously large, yet still largely conventional aircraft are many ordeers of magnitude more reasonable and believeable than the usual UFO crap... and yet he's provided in one thread many orders of magnitude more useful and credible evidence than in all the UFO threads on all the discussion forums across the web.

 

[sublight]

I think if Overscan could just enable the "ignore list" function in SMF, everybody could just use it to their personal desires and there would be no more conflict....

 

[edwest4]

"on all the discussion forums across the web"


Oh well, thank you for your responses.





Ed

 

[dannydale]

I'm admittedly a noob here, but my thought on this is that if I wanted to go to Above Top Secret, I'd go there. I'd very much rather stay here with you guys.

 

[Orionblamblam]

if I wanted to go to Above Top Secret, I'd go there.

Well said.

 

[saintkatanalegacy]

yeah and "deny ignorance" :

 

[airman]

in history of aviation there are many examples of flying disk aircraft like Avrocar :
we don't underestimate the fantasy of the man !

 

[Stargazer]

Discussing "unidentified flying objects" does not mean discussing hypothetical aliens from outer space. Any object that was spotted while in flight and could not be properly identified is by definition a U.F.O.! I see no problem with discussing such sightings, collecting testimonies and even formulating hypotheses so long as we assume they are earth-made machines incorporating top secret high technology AND we don't indulge in all sorts of (often) wacky conspiracy theories but stick to the facts.

 

[Orionblamblam]

stick to the facts.

The problem is, when you stick to the facts regarding the vast bulk of UFO sightings, the facts are:
1) "I saw a thing in the sky"
2) There is no 2.

Trying to draw connections between "thing in the sky" and a specific program is often sheerest speculation.

 

[bobbymike]

I think Dannydale puts it best this site is a fact/reality based community, that's why it is my most oft visited site. I am amazed by the remarkable depth and breadth of knowledge.

As for aliens I don't believe in them, at this point, and ascribe to the "Fermi Paradox" of, simply stated, if life is prevalent in the Universe the aliens should have been here long ago. Another lesser known author, Marshall Savage, who wrote the book "The Millennial Project" expounds on the Fermi Paradox by calculating the probability of there being other sentient beings elsewhere in the Universe or even our Galaxy (alien bugs and bacteria may be tremendously interesting but not capable of inter-stellar travel)

Mr. Savage estimates that we on Earth will be capable of traveling at 1/10 the speed of light in 10,000 years (maybe far earlier) so will be able to explore large portions of our own Galaxy in the next few hundred thousand years (No I am not entering the, "If we survive that long debate.") Based on that notion there are parts of our Galaxy BILLIONS of years older than Earth, we should have been visited by several hundred civilizations by now. He also says to put away the idea that "they are only observing us" as he rightly determines from our own history that aliens that have reached the technological ability to travel interstellar distances probably will be far more "Independence Day" than "ET".

The other claim he puts to rest in the notion that because there are trillions of stars and possibly hundreds of trillion of planets that life MUST HAVE developed on other planets. The shear number of possible planets makes it very probably, right? No not really. Using the largest estimates of possible worlds at 1 X 1018 he calculates using basic probability formulas that spontaneous complex life forms "accidentally" forming at 1 X 1056. So not very probably. Now he like I quite rightly add that if we are visited tomorrow we will gladly eat our humble pie but until then we will wait for better evidence.

His lesson from all this? That we here on Earth better act like we are the only sentient beings in the Universe and start the very long journey of getting humanity off this one miraculous planet; as this (and not waiting for our alien superiors) is the only chance to insure our survival.

p.s. Now there are complexities to this argument only one being the debate about how long an advanced civilization can survive before wiping itself out or dying off. While I am open to such speculation I do find it interesting that they all coincidentally attempt to strengthen the argument against the simple premise that Fermi introduced, "where are they all".

 

[dannydale]

stick to the facts.

The problem is, when you stick to the facts regarding the vast bulk of UFO sightings, the facts are:
1) "I saw a thing in the sky"
2) There is no 2.

Trying to draw connections between "thing in the sky" and a specific program is often sheerest speculation.

Yeah, when I was a kid around 8ish (shortly after the Gulf War or so), I heard a terrible ripping noise in the sky and saw a vaguely pyramidal black object in the sky heading toward me. I didn't know the local Navy airbase was practicing for an upcoming airshow, and I thought these "Stealth fighter" things still looked like the F19 or the LORAL concept with rounded curves. I couldn't identify this thing flying over me toward the base, so...

 

[dannydale]

Bah, how the hell did I ever hit 'quote' instead of 'modify'?!

 

[Justo Miranda]

Surely, if ET beings walking around ,watching us and snooping into our lifes,they must have a tracking device for the UFO word in Internet....
Hey , guys....how are you?
I would like to acquire an Alderson FTL drive

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Personally I think ATS should be renamed All Things Stupid.

Oh, and there is no stealth blimp.

Cheers!

 

[Dreamfighter]

Any object that was spotted while in flight and could not be properly identified is by definition a U.F.O.!

I have the impression that with regard to the word UFO, Europeans think mostly about manmade unidentified airplanes (like a possible Soviet intrusion of Westen' airspace during the Cold Days) and on a few occasions about possible secret (US) fighter-prototypes, while people on the other side of the Atlantic seem to more easily make a mindlink to ultra-advanced aircraft and /or hypothetical Aliens & their spacemachines.
Probably Europeans used to be aware in a more direct way about "us and the others beyond the Iron Curtain", while Americans are/were more exposed to "what's happening at Edwards, Groom Lake and Hollywood right now".

 

[Stargazer]

Any object that was spotted while in flight and could not be properly identified is by definition a U.F.O.!

I have the impression that with regard to the word UFO, Europeans think mostly about manmade unidentified airplanes (like a possible Soviet intrusion of Westen' airspace during the Cold Days) and on a few occasions about possible secret (US) fighter-prototypes, while people on the other side of the Atlantic seem to more easily make a mindlink to ultra-advanced aircraft and /or hypothetical Aliens & their spacemachines.
Probably Europeans used to be aware in a more direct way about "us and the others beyond the Iron Curtain", while Americans are/were more exposed to "what's happening at Edwards, Groom Lake and Hollywood right now".

I don't think so. We were brought up on shows such as the Twilight Zone, The Invaders, and plenty of others... Movies such as Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Independece Day and many, many more were huge hits over here...

So, although UFO sightings seem to be mostly a North American phenomenon, I think most people on each side of the pond would automatically associate UFOs to space aliens, because we have been so impregnated with US culture.

 

[Jemiba]

At least for those, who were watching TV in the late '60s/early '70s,
"UFO" means aliens ", due to influence of the TV series with that title.
Manmade UFOs ? Oh, yes, of course ... ;D

 

[Stargazer]

At least for those, who were watching TV in the late '60s/early '70s,
"UFO" means aliens ", due to influence of the TV series with that title.
Manmade UFOs ? Oh, yes, of course ... ;D

Blast, we never had that series. As a teenager I used to dream of being able to watch it, I'd heard the title theme, seen pics, it looked fantastic! Of course I loved Thunderbirds and Space:1999... but we never got UFO and Joe 90... :-(

 

[Orionblamblam]

... we have been so impregnated with US culture.

Cultural Darwinism, baby. Survival of the awesomest!

 

[Justo Miranda]

Impregnation? ;D

 

[dannydale]

All I can say is

 

[Dreamfighter]

I think most people on each side of the pond would automatically associate UFOs to space aliens, because we have been so impregnated with US culture.

Hmm... I don't agree with "automatically". Yes, perhaps/probably the European generations who were growing up when 'Men in Black' and 'Indepence Day' were released (= after the fall of the Iron Curtain) and who didn't consciously experience the Cold War-era.
Back in the 50's-60's-70's, Europeans indeed got some of the tv-series and movies about Aliens and their UFO's on the screens. But certainly not in the same degree as in the US. Overhere (and I'm not in a deep dark forest), most people were still using oldstyle antennas till the late 70's, and were lucky if they could watch a neighbouring country's channel in addition to the own 2 or 3 national channels. Series like the Twilight-zone and Invaders indeed got through, but never to such an extent that something unindentified flying over caused people to immediately wonder if it could be a visit from Outer-Space.
(Yeah, I know Orson Welles' radio-broadcast of "War of the Worlds" back in the 50's caused widespread panic in the UK, but that didn't cross to mainland-Europe. Silly Britains! )

As I remember, Europeans rather wondered if it were 'the Russians' when seeing a strange aircraft. Importantly, like you say, Europe never got many UFO-sightings. And with f.e. the Belgian and British sightings at the end of the past century, thoughts went rather towards US(?)-prototypes, not to Aliens.
Europeans do think(*) about Aliens when the UFO-word falls, but not - and that was my point - so automatically as the confraters across the pond.

(*): maybe I'm getting old and it should be "did think". :

 

[Barrington Bond]

Silly Americans methinks - the Welles broadcast was in America in 1938 - nothing to do with us Brits, we only supplied the book!

Regards,
Barry

 

[Jemiba]

"...Europeans rather wondered if it were 'the Russians' when seeing a strange aircraft"
That's right, at least, when it was of roughly aircraft like shape, or was loud and
annoying. Born and still living in "West-Berlin" I remember a day in the early '60s, when
two MiGs thundered low overhead. Wow, it really made my day ! My father was furious
about it ....
But with the advent of the "Erich von Däniken" phenomenon, from 1968 onwards, the believe
in the possibilty of extra terrestrial life forms grew considerably and so the willingness to believe
in non-human made UFOs, too, I think.

 

[edwest4]

Just for the record, I don't buy the alien idea. Yes, Close Encounters was a fine piece of fiction but that's all. And the same for The Invaders, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and similar.





Ed

 

[Dreamfighter]

Silly Americans methinks - the Welles broadcast was in America in 1938 - nothing to do with us Brits, we only supplied the book!

Regards,
Barry

You're absolutey right of course! :-X My apologies.
I don't know how I could get that one so mixed up ... ???

 

[shockonlip]

I don't know why this has to be discussed. This is not the place
to discuss UFOs. OK, done. You're all are saying the same thing.
In fact, I agree, because when you open it up, there is no baseline
from which to discuss it, unlike aircraft.

But just because the rest of you have not seen one that doesn't mean
that there aren't people who have. And let's be very clear here about
what we're talking about. I am not talking about lights in the sky, or
aliens snatching cows, but machines in the air (not any aircraft
that has ever been ID'd), at low altitude, in broad daylight, so close
in some cases you can see extreme detail. Don't believe me, but there
are people who have had such experiences. They didn't ask to see it
either, but it happened. They know you don't believe them, and they
wouldn't believe it either, but they also know what they saw was very
unusual and didn't fit. That's what's so cool about it too. It didn't fit in
at all !!!! It's like a huge discontinuity in a mathermatical sense !!

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I don't think it is worth discussing UFOs here unless there is some support. Not a single blurry photograph or a bunch of lights on the sky, or so forth. Do I believe we have black projects flying? Yes. Do I believe aliens exist? Yes. Do I believe said alien have observed or visited our planet? Possibly. Do I believe any of these "encounters" or abduction stories? No.

OrionBlamBlam I don't really appreciate my religious beliefs, whatever they may be, being compared to the old bum on the side of a street wearing a cooking pot on his head and yelling about the alien conspiracy.

Regarding the Soviets, I wonder if they did have anything flying over Western Europe that they have never revealed. I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[Orionblamblam]

OrionBlamBlam I don't really appreciate my religious beliefs, whatever they may be, being compared to the old bum on the side of a street wearing a cooking pot on his head and yelling about the alien conspiracy.

Who's doing what now???

 

[Colonial-Marine]

Who's doing what now???

Maybe I mistook your intent in your first response. I just don't consider my beliefs comparable to say Scientology or crazy UFO conspiracies. But the idea that aliens killed JFK does have some ring to it. It was retribution for the faked moon landings that occurred in the future.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Who's doing what now???

Maybe I mistook your intent in your first response.

My intent in the first response boils down to this:
"Your level of Belief in X has no bearing on whether or not X actually exists."

Coupled with:

"People often believe in things which there is insufficient or even contravening evidence, because that belief makes them feel better."

If either of these concepts makes you upset... sorry. But I stand by 'em.

I just don't consider my beliefs comparable to say Scientology or crazy UFO conspiracies.

Just about everybody has some personal woo that they are fond of, myself included. And everybody thinks that their woo is better than the woo of that nutjob over yonder. But as Heinlein once wrote, one mans theology (or conspiracy theory, or alien abduction hypothesis, or economic system) is another mans belly laugh.

 

[saintkatanalegacy]

thread lock :

 

[Orionblamblam]

thread lock :

Look! It's a Zeta Reticulan battlecruiser!