The Supreme court just ruled in favor of the drug companies by allowing Corporations to buy Presidents, Senators and Congress and judges.

NASA should be dissolved because it cannot show result for all the investment that were put in it. We the people should push for dissolving this entity that is swallowing money year after year.

We are not alone guys. If DNA is discovered in Martian rock that fell out of the skies, then we are not the only species that were made with DNA instructions. Then we must surmise that we are not alone.

But I feel I really have to take issue with the very unscientific ad hominem attacks on anyone who believes UFOs might be real, calling them “nutjobs”, “red necks”, “hillbillies” etc.

That’s not a very skeptical position, either. It’s not true that there’s no physical evidence for the existence of UFOs. Photos are evidence, and there are some that still defy explanation after decades of analysis. Videos are another. There are many cases of UFOs showing up on radar. And thousands of cases of UFOs reported by credible witnesses and trained observers, including astronomers and astronauts.

I’m not saying “they’re here”. I’m just saying that generalising anyone who has seen a UFO as crazy, stupid or ignorant isn’t a scientific argument.

There _is_ a case to be answered here. These sightings represent perhaps some as-yet unknown atmospheric phenomena or maybe, just maybe even, extraterrestrial visitation. I mean, there’s no reason why not, let’s face it. The galaxy is very, very old and we’re learning more and more that life can thrive in a much wider set of circumstances than we thought even 20 years ago. And it won’t be that long before we can build machines that could be smarter than we are that would be capable of “living” in deep space for thousands of years – more than long enough to traverse the vast distances between solar systems at comfortably sub-light speeds.

As Fermi asked: where are they? But at the same time we argue that flying saucers can’t be real because “how would they get here?” It’s circular logic. Fermi’s paradox suggest we’re alone because if aliens did exist they’d be here by now, and anyone who sees what might be evidence of alien visitation is obviously mistaken because Fermi’s paradox suggests that we’re alone.

Did someone mention Occam’s Razor yet? Well, here’s one for you. Which is the simplest explanation?

Personally, while not at all convinced yet, I think dismissing the possibility that _some_ UFOs (maybe one in a million) are extraterrestrial spacecraft completely out of hand would be a mistake. The scientific community do themselves a huge disservice by leaving that question entirely to the “nutjobs”.

I mean, when you see some of the risible “me too” research that gets funded these days, something like SETV doesn’t sound all that wasteful:

http://www.setv.org/

Personally, if I were looking for signs of alien life out there, I’d look for signs of artificiality in our own solar system, too.

I am frankly disappointed in the gross display of prejudicial, unscientific thinking and willingness to accept unproven hypothoses & erroneous conclusions; after all, its Bad Astronomy. Not to mention, the name-calling is disappointing as well.

I would think that subscribers to “Discover Magazine” would be more willing to …discover, and explore intruiging and mysterious new data. To simply dismiss data, or a hypothesis, just because there happen to be “nutjobs” who believe in ufos, is not at all logical. There are also pulitzer prize winning doctors, professors, scientists, astronauts, etc. who also attest to the existence of extra-terrestrial spacecraft, or ufos.

But to get back to the topic, there are a lot of really compelling videos from NASA (some of it live-feed) that show truly bizarre anomalies. As with “ufos” many of these anomalies aren’t actually anomalies, rather, they represent particle reflections, satellites, debris, etc. But many obviously do not fit these explanations. Now, I’m no astro-physicist, but I know that “they’re just ice crystals” doesn’t cut the mustard for many of the anomalies photographed by NASA.

For instance, the video in question (I believe) is that taken from the Discovery shuttle in 91, which shows a light colored object (or “ice crystal reflection”) seeming to appear in Earth’s atmosphere, travel slowly, slow down and stop right before a flash, and then take off in another direction (seeming to leave the atmosphere & jet out into space). My questions are as follows.
1) How is it physically possible for an ice crystal to change velocity (slowing down and stopping) and direction due to the impact of thrusters or jets.
2) Just after the object stops, there is a flash, and then a beam of some sort that shoots out from the Earth directly toward where the object was prior to jetting away. What is this “beam” that seems to have been aimed in the direction of this object.
3) Since the camera is focused on infinity, as it is apparantly focused on the far away Earth, how would an object of any moderate size very near the shuttle show up, as such, on camera? We can see that when the camera pans down to the shuttle bay, everything is blurry until the camera focuses on close-range.

If anyone can offer me an explanation that is logical and physically possible, I would gladly accept it. Sure, its not as fun as government Star Wars equipment shooting at giant ufos, but I’m all about finding the TRUTH (whether its unbelievably strange OR undeniably boring). I discuss this NASA video, (as well as the multitude of astronauts who claim to have seen alien spacecraft) on my humorous blog, What’s Up With Aliens. Feel free to comment “politely” on any of my posts, at whatsupwithaliens.blogspot.com

This has been a truly invigorating discussion!! Let’s keep our eyes and our minds open.

Clearly, quite a lot of the people on here know what they’re talking about – those were pretty good descriptions I read of the behaviour of gasses in a vacuum. And, just so you know, there are those of us with a pretty good attention span. I read all 226 posts, because I found it, y’know…interesting. Then again, it’s easy to criticise those who are clearly quite clever – they’re just so downright threatening, aren’t they?

Indy

How do you know they’re leprechauns, and not mostly-invisible pink unicorns? Where’s your evidence?

*hehe* Leprechauns.

Actually, Jimmy, some people DO know squat about something. UFO nuts who claim to be nuclear engineers yet don’t understand the physics of gases would fall into that category, I’d say.

People who make comments on blogs dismissing everyone and everything while admitting they don’t read “the long ones” would be another.

Sorry Lars, I couldn’t resist.

*For global warming deniers, It’s a joke, not a call to arms keyboards.

Here’s the bottom line, ready?

NOT ONE OF YOU KNOW JACK SQUAT ANYTHING. so stop writing diatribes of
absolutely no meaning. Nobody reads the long ones anyhow. bla bla bla

Wow, MY Blackberry didn’t come with that app. Where can I buy one?

Show up making grandiose claims and touting loads of earth shattering evidence, then lie about same and disappear when called on the b.s. History repeats itself.

Of course, Eric is probably off doing some nuclear engineering, so I shouldn’t be too hard on him. And besides, I’m just being an obnoxious skeptic who refuses to open his mind to the Truth™. (Now on DVD for only $49.99!!! Act now, before the black helicopters come and confiscate all the disks! Cuz, you know, they will!)

I read thru many of the documents you suggested. NONE of them supported the conclusion that anyone saw anything that was extraterrestrial. The conclusions in the reports are identical to those in the Executive Summary.

So, do you have any evidence that supports your claims:

“The fact is that objects which are not authorized to be flying in a given airspace are putting commercial and military jets at serious risk, via both electrical interference and mid-air collision potential.”

As I said, the reports you linked to say the opposite of this.

“Die-hard skeptics and those of us who think extraterrestrial visitation MAY have occurred differ on the nature and value of evidence. Time will tell, won’t it?”

Since you keep bringing it up, please explain to us what your version of evidence is. Why do you consider heresay, rumors, fuzzy pictures and unsubstantiated claims evidence?

And what will time tell? That one of us is wrong? Well, duh. If we both can’t both be right, then yes, eventually, WHEN or IF the evidence presents itself, one of us may be wrong.

Greg in Austin says “If you honestly were not trying to convince anyone of your beliefs, you would never had posted here in the first place.”

My only “belief” is that extraterrestial visitation MAY have occurred. My first post — I was mistaken earlier — was in AGREEMENT with Phil’s blog entry about the shuttle video. I only got into the thick of things when the name calling started. If you choose to believe your “attitude is not at all dismissive,” fine. Your words and the posts of many others on this topic speak for themselves.

Die-hard skeptics and those of us who think extraterrestrial visitation MAY have occurred differ on the nature and value of evidence. Time will tell, won’t it?

One comment on kuhnigget’s statement that “Books are writen (sic). TV programs made. DVDs produced and sold. Money changes hands. It’s not about Truth, or Believing, or anything else. It’s about the money and self-aggrandizing of these folks.” Regrettably, that seems to be true for many of the so-called experts. “UFO Hunters” and ALL of the “documentaries” I’ve seen are laughable. Some of the written words are a bit better, but they often strike me as far too accepting of dubious premises. In my OPINION, that’s all the more reason for the UFO phenomenon/phenomena to be taken seriously by science, thereby removing it from the province of, um, entrepreneurs.

Signing off.