Talk:Unidentified flying object/Archive 1

Comment
There are additonal terms, names, and links which should be part of the article. NICAP, the National Investigations (Investigating) Commitee for Aerial Phenomena, has a website:  http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/. I knew Ray fowler, an investigator for NICAP, many years ago, and read his (first?) book on his experiences. He has a website, http://members.evansville.net/slk/rfowler.htm, with other books. Also interesting is an interview with Ray: http://boudillion.com/interviews/fowler.htm. Ray pointed out to me that perhaps the book of Ezekial--the "wheels"--recounted UFO sightings. --User:John Barrington

Serious NPOV problem
This article has serious NPOV problems. It is important to note that the VAST majority of the scientific community, as well as governmental agencies, do not believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis. As such, in keeping with wikipedia's NPOV policy, the majority of this article should be explaining the position that the vast majority of the scientific community holds. This article frequently mentions fringe conspiracy theories and theories which are not accepted at all within scientific/government circles at least on the same level as the scientific view. And, when the non extraterrestrial evidence is presented, it is always intentionally undermined by immediate presentation of said fringe beliefs. I am going to do a MAJOR edit of this article soon.

I acknowledge that the belief that UFOs are alien spacecraft is important and certainly worthy of being presented fairly here. However, this article leans WAY too far to that side of the debate. I am going to greatly strengthen the anti-alien side of things, while still keeping the major pro-alien arguments (trimming some as this page is getting long). --Krazikarl

Could you please cite the study or poll showing that literally the "VAST majority of the scientific community" does not believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis? References and numbers please.

Actually your assertion flies in the face of actual internal polls sometimes taken within the scientific community. E.g., Dr. Peter Sturrock did an internal poll of 2600 members of the American Astronomical Society (half of whom responded). Sturrock's summary of the results:

"Each respondent was asked to state his opinion on whether the UFO problem deserves scientific study: 23% replied "certainly", 30% "probably", 27% "possibly", 17% "probably not", and 3% "certainly not", which represents a positive attitude among 53% of the respondents, as against a negative attitude among 20%. Analysis of the returns shows that older scientists are markedly more negative to the problem than are younger scientists. One also finds that opinions correlate strongly with time spent reading about the subject. The fraction of respondents who think that the subject certainly or probably deserves scientific study rises from 29%, among those who have spent less than one hour, to 68% among those who have spent more than 365 hours in such reading."

In other words, the poll showed that ignorance of the subject matter resulted in skeptical attitudes. The majority of the scientists, however, felt the subject at least merited further study.

Even if your statement about the "VAST majority" were correct, so what? The history of science is replete with examples where the strongly held majority view turned out to be short-sighted and wrong, restricted by their own personal beliefs and scientific paradigms (not to mention ignorance of the evidence, as Sturrock's survey demonstrated).

E.g., it is fair to say that the theory of continental drift was not "believed" by the vast majority of the scientific community for over four decades after Wegner first laid out various lines of strong evidence pointing to it. Why didn't they "believe" Wegner's evidence? Was it because it was poor or they thought Wegner incompetent or dillusional? No, it had nothing to do with that. It was simply because they couldn't understand how entire continents could move, hence his evidence had to be wrong.

Another example is meteor sounds, heard instantaneously by people on the ground. Consistently reported for hundreds of years by many thousands of eyewitnesses, the "vast majority" of the scientific community scoffed at the reports. Why? Because again they couldn't conceive of a physical mechanism that could account for such instantaneous sounds. So they simply ignored the overwhelming evidence that people were in fact hearing them.

If you read "UFO's: A Scientific Debate" (1972), Frank Drake in his UFO debunking chapter brings up the subject of meteor sounds, acknowledges they have been consistently reported for hundreds of years, but then dismisses them because he personally can't understand how they could be generated. Instead he postulates a "psychological" theory that would make a Psych 101 student wince with its obvious stupidity. But the whole point of Drake's exercise was to debunk UFO's with the argument that eyewitnesses are all inherently unreliable. He was also arguing, falsely, that since the phenomenon was purely psychological and not physical, there was nothing for physical scientists to study. Sound familiar?

Since then a theory of how meteor sounds are generated has come out and they have actually been recorded in the field during meteor showers. Apparently the tape recorders are also suffering from psychological aberrations. Possibly the "vast majority" of scientists that didn't believe in meteor sounds simply because they didn't understand how they could be generated has disappeared.

Want yet another example from the history of science? Lord Kelvin tried to debunk Darwinian evolution theory with a theoretical argument that the Earth and Sun couldn't be more than 100 million years old, not billions as the evolutionists were saying, based on then understanding of physics and chemistry. Kelvin was arguing that theory trumped evidence. Of course, Kelvin nor any other scientist back then knew anything beyond chemical energy sources. Atomic and nuclear physics still lay a few decades in the future. (And that is a good example why evidence should normally take precedence over theories, which are almost always incomplete.)

Or how how about most scientists at the turn of the 19th century snickering at the notion of rocks falling from the sky, i.e., meteorites. Those were the superstitions of the unwashed peasants who reported such things.

The point is that scientists are human beings and are encumbered by their own belief systems just like other human beings. This often takes the form of putting their own internal models or understanding of reality above contradictory evidence, however strong.

If you want to put most scientific DISBELIEF in UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis in a nutshell it is this: most scientists personally don't understand how interstellar travel might be possible or practical within our current knowledge of physics (energy and distance arguments). From this many of them jump to the unscientific conclusion that aliens couldn't get here because they personally don't understand how they could get here. And if aliens can't get here, then UFOs must be bunk, and to hell with any evidence to the contrary. With such illogical circular reasoning, most don't even bother to look at the available evidence (as is often the case with controversial theories in the history of science).

Instead we get nonfactual and unscientific arguments that there is no physical evidence worthy of study and literally all UFO cases represent psychological delusions, hoaxes, or misidentifications of common things. All could be explained if only more data were available, etc., etc. Based on actual evidence and studies by our own government agencies, these contentions are false. E.g., the massive Battelle Institute statistical study for the USAF in the 1950s thoroughly disproved the idea that unknown cases merely represented poor quality sightings and could all be explained if only more data were available as conventional phenomena. It was also clear from the statistics that the unknowns had distinctly different characteristics than the knowns (thus, they represented something distinctly different from conventional phenomena used to explain the known cases).

The dividing line between scientists who don't _believe_ in UFOs as ET generated and those scientists who accept at least the possibility that they might be real ET craft is really nothing more than the "disbelievers" rejecting interstellar travel as possible while the "believers" accepting that interstellar travel might be possible even if we humans currently don't understand exactly how it might be done. Note that a number of prominent scientists (e.g. astronomer [Clyde Tombaugh] who had numerous UFO sightings) have taken other scientists to task for being so narrow-minded in their thinking.

Please keep these points in mind before you take a meat axe to the current version. I have already seen skeptics previously edit out material they obviously find uncomfortable to their own belief systems, such as the statistical results of the Battelle Institute study or early USAF studies concluding UFOs were real craft. The rationalization, no doubt, was that the article as written had serious POV problems to their way of thinking. Editing out certain material would slant the POV more in a direction to their own liking. But is that really being more "scientific" or NPOV or just personally self-serving? --Dr Fil


 * Your question can be answered by (1) realizing that if scientists say that UFOs "deserve study", that DOES NOT mean that they think that they are ET spacecraft, and (2) reading the rest of the report - only 3% of the scientists polled believe that UFOs are ET:


 * 23% - unfamiliar natural  phenomenon
 * 22% - a familiar  phenomenon  or  device
 * 21% - an unfamiliar  terrestrial device
 * 12% - a hoax
 * 9% - an unknown  natural phenomenon
 * 7% - some specifiable other cause
 * 3% - an alien device


 * the report


 * So 97% of the scientists DON'T believe that UFOs are alien spacecraft. I'd call 97% a "vast majority". --Bubba73 (talk) 03:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


 * In addition, in 1969 a study by the National Academy of Science concluded that "the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings." See page 93-94 of The Demon Haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark, by Carl Sagan. --Bubba73 (talk) 18:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Name of article
It seems to me that this entry violates the Wikipedia convention to spell out acronyms, and that Unidentified flying objects would be the correct site. What makes it particularly important for this topic is the tendency when discussing the matter to forget the meaning of the word "unidentified". Eclecticology

What is more important than having an article reside on its spelled-out page, is the way the acronym is used in the English. The acronym UFO really no longer has the meaning of "unidentified flying object" in any modern context.


 * This claim is false, and is the same type of thinking that leads to preposterous assertions such as "We don't know what it is but it is not a UFO" (when they have excluded the possibility of its being a flying saucer but still don't know what else it is). Isn't this facially absurd? --Daniel C. Boyer


 * The issue here is with how the term is currently used in the English language &#8211; not on how it should be used. There is a presupposition in the average person&#8217;s mind nowadays that UFO is a term in and of itself that has a meaning beyond simply &#8220;unidentified flying object&#8221; &#8211; as I state right after you interjection. --maveric149


 * I'll throw my weight in here as well - Wikipedia should be primarily descriptive, not prescriptive. Certain acronyms have gained ascendancy over their "spelt-out version", SCUBA, RADAR, UFO, LASER.


 * But this is completely off-point! These are typically used rather than the spelt-out versions but what maveric149 is talking about is using the acronym with a meaning other than its spelt-out meaning. --Daniel C. Boyer
 * Unfortunetely, that is the case. We report the way things are here, we don't try to change to common meanings of things. --maveric149

We should simply recognise that, not debate the philosphical legitimacy thereof (or else I'd have to start arguing against the appalling "spelled" - instead of the proper "spelt" - that you ghastly ermerikens insist on using :) Conversely the acronym "WHO" is far better under its full name "World Health Organisation". I can't think of any "grey area" examples where much debate would be necessary. --Manning Bartlett, Monday, June 17, 2002

What this term now means is "spaceships with little green men who make crop circles, mutilate cattle, have sex with trailer-park humans" etc. In addition, most people that believe this don't know what the acronym means (well they don't know alot of things - but that is another story). This is the same reason why the NASA article resides at NASA and not National Aeronautics and Space Administration. What is important, is what the average visiter will most easily recognize as the right name of something - not whether an article title is an acronym or not. Redirects will do just fine in these cases. The article/redirect order should be reversed. --maveric149, Saturday, April 6, 2002

I think this discussion is a little pointless. The many diferent interpretations of the word Ufo might be inside the article, not in it's name. I vote to simply rename it to Unidentified flying objects, simply because i can't see any against.

The real question would be if the UFO page should eb a redirect or a disambig.

--Zero00 15:08, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Unidentified flying objects

Pro


 * end the discussion
 * agree to wikipedia rules
 * being more specific and avoiding ambiguity
 * teach those who does not know what Ufo means

against

UFO

Pro


 * many don't know what UFO means

against


 * Althought 90% of the times we mean flying objects, there are many more acronims that might give Ufo. Like United Future Organization (the band) for example.

"UFOs are most frequently seen in Scotland."

Source? I've never heard this before.

This link no longer works: Neither the original page nor the supposedly archived page exists. Parking here in case the situation is temporary. --Ortolan88
 * http://web.archive.org/web/20001201174900/http://www.primenet.com/~bdzeiler/index.htm A page belonging to proponents of the extraterrestrial life hypothesis

Very odd, since I was briefly at that site when I made my NPOV edit eariler today - that's why I changed the description to mention that it belonged to propoments of the extraterrestrial life hypothesis. I wonder if the archive got alerted to the link from the referrer when I followed it, and they took it down. --Bryan 04:08 Sep 23, 2002 (UTC) - There is some additional info from this version that might deserve reinclusion into the article. The author took out much of the current article w/o any explanation and CamelCased some things which was odd. --mav - This might use some NPOV for the alternative view. As vital as skepticism is, this version kind of discounts by omission. I had a good 15-second sighting of three during the daytime; there was no mistaking the flight patterns, it does make one a believer. There are good methodical books out there like Timothy Good's Above Top Secret, which even as a resource reference might lend this balance. Might do sometime if someone else doesn't. --CR 03:34 Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia have an article on UFO hoaxes?
Hoaxes are fair game for discussion; elimination of alternative views, particularly without discussion, are not, and pretty revealing. NPOV requires acknowledging even the existence of alternative views. Removing edits that did not undercut one view, they simply presented the alternative, is bad enough, but deleting even two links discussing the evidence is highly POV. I've been studying this field for years (even subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer) and observed these non-delusional craft in flight. Selective bias has no place in wiki. Kindly practice civility and discuss first, but I do intend to revert it. --Chris Rodgers 08:51, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * An article on known hoaxes (of all kinds) would be fun! --Mark Richards 22:59, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Great idea. Why don't you write one then chris? --Zero00 13:43, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

There it is ! hoax --Mark Richards 23:17, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"UFO-ism"
This section is presently rambling editorial speculation. I can vaguely see the idea you're getting at, but so far it's rubbish. Is there any good reason this section should stay at all in its present form? --David Gerard 16:12, May 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * The article might be not perfect, and might not be based in facts. But A important aspect of the UFO's mith is the religious aspect some see in it, this should not be omitted. Maybe a little less speculation a more names of sects with believes as described might improve the article. I'll do some research, but i don't agree to eliminate everything --Zero00 14:52, 16 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok I improved the article, we both happy? I do prefer him like this. --Zero00 15:30, 16 May 2004 (UTC)


 * That's a lot better :-) The section header needs a new name. "UFOs and religion", or something. Listing the UFO sects is very good! --David Gerard 16:49, May 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've tried to clean it up a bit. I've listed the religions before the list of characteristics - some of those listed don't share those characteristics. Is there a written work or two we can reference on the subject? --David Gerard 17:06, May 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * In fact yes there are many books. I added the Erich Danikem reference. I am trying to write in a tone more apropriate to ufo article than extraterrestrials article or something. --Zero00 18:25, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Merge flying saucer
I just merged flying saucer, which was basically about the same stuff this article is about. The text will need a bit of digestion. Also, that article had a different inter-wiki link to ja: - someone who can read Japanese will need to check which is the right one. Assuming the ja: articles don't need a merge too! - David Gerard 11:52, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering about this. Here is a video of a real flying saucer (a commercial project for military use). This is more an engineering thing than a mystical thing, but is still a flying saucer and not a UFO! Stephen B Streater 18:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Positions of UFO groups
I was appalled to read in the article that CSICOP was a group that "encourages critical investigation of the alien spacecraft hypothesis from a scientific point of view." That is a pure BS. CSICOP is a hardline debunking group, nothing else. They have postulated "explanations" for every conceivable UFO sighting in history without even conducting ANY investigation of their own. They slander researchers who they think might even hint at the idea that there could be something even remotely unexplainable about any UFO reports. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be written from a neutral point of view and such a gross deception as this is not becoming of such a perspective. I am not just talking nonsense here. If anyone needs evidence that CSICOP is exactly that, there is more than enough available.

I deleted that brief section from the article for this reason. It might be a good idea to have more critical investigation be conducted of ufo groups' true positions than simply looking at what's on their home page.

If people think there should be a section on different organizations and groups and what positions they hold, I think that would be a worthwhile addition. --truthseeker7 08:47, 7 July 2004 (UTC)


 * Someone has reinserted this garbage without any explanation. Sorry but that is unacceptable. This is the most ridiculous description of CSICOP's position I have ever heard. Despite their name they do not and have NEVER conducted ANY investigation, scientific or not. They make armchair conclusions without any supporting evidence. They are a travesty of science and most definitely not an objective investigative body. A false portrayal of this magnitude on such an important topic is very alarming and will continue to be deleted. Please respond here if you want to put it back or differ so we can work out something. --truthseeker7 17:54, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

Your characterization of CSICOP certainly doesn't sound neutral. Perhaps in the interest of NPOV we should invite someone in CSICOP to explain their position. Or link directly to their website; after all, other groups whose conclusions people may disagree with are linked to as well.

Case in point: current mention in the article of a radar/visual case in Santiago links only to a pro-extraterrestrial intelligence explanation for UFO site, and doesn't offer the opinion that just because something is seen in the sky and tracked by radar does not mean it is piloted by extraterrestrial intelligence. It would be a disservice, perhaps even an insult, to readers to imply that radar cannot also track inanimate objects.

17 Nov 2004

I realise that the verdict of this article has already been decided but I feel that many of the things said in the article were rediculous. It basically said that all of those who believe in UFOs are amature scientist though in a recent survey of 250 scientists from NASA, about 90% believe that either life once existed on Mars or bacterial life currently does. As Earth is believed to have been oxiginated through the emissions of bacteria, the next step on a more habital planet (one of the reasons that Mars isn't as easily habitable is because of the large amount of methane)would logicaly be the evolution of macroorganisms and eventually extremely intelligent beings. -- LunarMoon, Saturday February 26, 2005

Inconsistencies regarding the alleged hoaxes.
The article includes three entries under UFO hoaxes. Two of those entries have Wikipedia pages, but if you check those pages, there's no proof offered that they are indeed hoaxes. (For Adamski's page, there is at least the fact that his claims about Venus, etc., are inconsistent with later observations.)

I think the UFO page should either mark these as alleged hoaxes or the Adamski and Meier pages should more clearly state why the preponderance of evidence points to hoax.

Sorry, but I don't know the cases well enough to contribute the changes myself.

Michael Persinger
I have removed Michael Persinger from the list of prominent UFO researchers. Aside from my personal feelings that he is a New Age scientific quack, he has never researched a UFO case in his life as far as I know. Instead he makes claims that incredibly minute geomagnetic fluctuations can induce hallucinations of alien abduction scenarios. Nobody can replicate his lab work, which I don't find surprising, since it doesn't make any sense from a physical science or neurobiology POV. Regardless, the point remains he is simply not a UFO researcher, much less a prominent one. --Dr Fil 12 Sep 2005

This is unacceptable. Persinger is a mainstream scientist who has in the laboratory attempted, with some success, to simulate various experiences that tend to be labelled paranormal, and UFO "alien abduction" experiences. He's a researcher in this field. --Tony Sidaway Talk 18:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I speak as an expert who worked in closely related brain research. There is no way Persinger could be getting the things he says he does. He _claims_ to simulate these things but absolutely nobody can replicate his results. Isn't that a clue that there is something wrong here? Have you read any of his papers? I have. The guy is anything but mainstream. He also has claimed in the past his lab rats dropped dead because of incredibly tiny geomagnetic fluctuations. Maybe he should have explored the possibility of disease first before writing another paper. Only those ignorant of the science or UFO debunkers think Persinger's research has any merit, the latter because his screwball theories feed their own prejudices. I would also like you to name even one UFO case that Persinger has investigated or one UFO witness he has talked to or one UFO film he has analyzed, etc., etc. Even UFO debunkers like Menzel and Klass knew something about the cases they were attacking. The point is Persinger has done ZERO UFO research and makes bizarre _claims_ about alien abductions that no other scientist can replicate, and somehow you think he deserves the title of "prominent UFO researcher." Again, I fail to see what it is he has done that makes him a "UFO researcher" much less a prominent one. It's a disgrace to put him in the same league as Dr. James McDonald, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Dr. James Harder, Richard Hall, etc., highly intelligent men who devoted thousands of hours to actually investigating the topic, something Persinger has never done. --Dr Fil 13 Sep 2005


 * The failure to replicate tells us that there may be problems with Persinger's methodology and his results may be artifacts. The fact that Persinger hasn't investigated any specific cases is immaterial; Persinger claims to have reproduced sensations that are reliably reported in many alien abduction cases.   He can be classed as a prominent UFO researcher because the field is so empty and little scientific research has been performed.  His research has probably had more influence in scientific circles than the work of most recent investigators, precisely because he doesn't focus on investigating specific cases but seems to provide possible mechanisms for a breadth of different experiences that remain mysterious.  To omit Persinger because he's probably wrong or because he's "not mainstream" is indefensible--we'd have to omit nearly everybody from the list.  --Tony Sidaway Talk  17:01, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * By similar logic, maybe we should call an MD who doesn't see patients or read X-rays or follow medical research, but writes popular books about how all you need is a positive attitude to stay healthy as being a "prominent medical researcher." Ditto for witch doctors and faith healers because they have comprehensive theories of unexplained diseases such as "evil spirits" or "blocked energy flow" and attract wide followings. Or maybe we should call religious fundamentalists like Pat Robertson "prominent biological researchers" because they also have a comprehensive "explanation" for all unexplained mysteries of biology, namely "intelligent design."  Again nevermind that someone like Robertson has probably never cracked open a biology textbook or looked at a fossil in his life.  All that counts, according to you, is that he have a comprehensive theory and can attract a wide following than can the many unknown biologists who actually do solid field work and analysis.  To claim that Persinger  "can be classed as a prominent UFO researcher because the field is so empty and little scientific research has been performed," is nothing but a feeble rationalization and shows exactly the position of ignorance and bias that you are coming from.  For starters, you admit now that Persinger's methodology and results are probably completely bogus, so please explain how exactly he has made any scientific contributions to a field which you claim is so "empty" of good scientific research. Under the circumstances, can his research even be called science? (Do you really think his lab rats dropped dead because the earth's magnetic field fluctuated .1% one night?) If you really knew anything concrete about the subject, instead of harboring caricatures from the one-sided skeptical magazines you probably read, you would know that a great many scientists and engineers have been involved in investigating the UFO phenomenon and done outstanding research in addition their regular professional careers.  These people, unlike Persinger, actually knew something about the subject, because, unlike Persinger, they actually got involved in the nitty-gritty of the subject matter. These include real notables like Dr. James McDonald, Dr. James Harder, Dr. Jacques Vallee, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Clyde Tombaugh, Dr. Lincoln La Paz, Stanton Friedman, James McCampbell, Paul Hill, Aime Michel, Dr. Mark Rodeghier, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Dr. David Saunders, Dr. Peter Sturrock, Dr. Bernard Haisch, Dr. Hal Puthoff, Dr. Harley Rutlidge, and many others, most of whom most people have never heard of, but they did actual UFO research.  In contrast, Persinger has never researched any alien abduction reports, like say Dr. David Jacobs, Dr. John Mack, or Budd Hopkins, so how can he create a true scientific theory of what causes them if he doesn't even know what characterizes them?  At the end of the day, basically we have an experimental psychologist with highly questionable methods, results, and theories, who does no specific research into UFOs or alien abductions that he claims to be explaining, and he magically becomes a "prominent UFO researcher" because one administrator on Wikipedia thinks simply attracting media attention to one's highly questionable theories is what makes one a "prominent UFO researcher."  All this time, I thought actual solid research grounded in deep knowledge of the subject matter is what made a real "researcher," prominent or not.  Foolish me.  Maybe Persinger deserves a brief mention under "abduction theories", or some such thing, over in the "Abudction phenomenon" section of Wikipedia, but a "prominent UFO researcher" Persinger is not. --Dr Fil 14 Sep 2005

What is the WORST UFO/Alien Encounter?
What do you consider the WORST UFO/Alien Encounter? --Martial Law 03:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC) :)

What is the BEST UFO/Alien Encounter?
What do you consider the BEST UFO/Alien Encounter? --Martial Law 03:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC) :)

I would have to say that it would be reports coming out of the Soviet Union of MiGs in Dogfights with Saucer and Gulf Breeze globe type UFO's over Siberia. The government hasn't exactly been secretive over UFO's, and I remember hearing a radio transcript of one such dogfight on the History Channel. It was really strange listening to the Soviet pilots trying to keep track of the vehicles as they moved in ways MiG's could not. I also saw a video of an American F-14 Tomcat following a Gulf Breeze (I think) type UFO over central Puerto Rico. Those would be the best examples. In my opinion.

What does lucid dreaming have to do with anything?
I don't quite understand how lucid dreaming fits into this. If a person is indeed having a lucid dream, that is, he is aware of the fact that he is dreaming, then he would not have reason to identify a UFO sighting in the dream as having actually occurred. On the contrary, it would seem that only non-lucid dreams could be confused with reality in such a fashion. --narkisto 10:23, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * "Despite unexplained cases, the general opinion of the mainstream scientific community is probably that all UFO sightings ultimately result from ordinary misidentification of natural and man-made phenomena, deliberate hoaxes, or psychological phenomena such as optical illusions or lucid dreaming/sleep paralysis (often given as an explanation for purported alien abductions)."
 * In the absence of a good explanation, I am removing the word "lucid" from the aforementioned sentence. --[[Image:Anarchy symbol neat.png|15px]]narkisto 11:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think he means with a lucid-dream, a dream which looks real. it can be a good-explanation for some sightnings. Or havent you never thought if something was real or a dream? Well, doesnt mattter if you personnally did or not, but there are outside people who confuse about that.

The picture captioned Another UFO from Brazil
The picture captioned Another UFO from Brazil is obviously an optical phenominon, I think a better, less explained picture should be used.

Ancient Indian/Atlantian Technology Theory
See http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ritson/scispi/roswell/ancient.htm Some believe that UFOs are relics from our past.


 * It's gibberish, full of typographical and spelling errors. Make of it what you will, but it isn't an authoritative source. --QuicksilverT @ 05:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Speak up now, or forever ...
This article has strayed way off the subject, and needs a really severe edit. As the title states, the subject is unidentified flying objects as reported by various people around the world. Hopefully we can be charitable and assume that the reported sightings are genuine, not fictional. And yet, this article refers/links to works of fiction which feature "spaceships" that are described as UFOs but are in fact not Unidentifed FOs because the movie/book/TV actually identifies them. For instance in the Earth vs. the Flying Saucers movie we are told they are spaceships from Mars, IOW, they are identified. In UFO (TV series) they are identified as alien spaceships, so much so that we learn all about their seating capacity, survivability, what they sound like, their laser defences etc. You get the picture - these things are not UFOs. Another point is that the prevailing theme in various links from this article is that if something is not identified it then simply has to be an alien craft full of greys who are up to no good. So, if we can't identify an object why do we not simply say it is unidentified and not automatically assume it is a nasty from space. This article is supposed to be about UFO facts. If there is a case for UFOs in fiction, then someone should start such an article. But they shouldn't include objects that are identified by the author/s of that fiction. That's another issue. Anyone agree this article needs dealing to first? --Moriori 01:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Done so. See UFOs in fiction. --Martial Law 22:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Forgot to name one thing
About some of the "natural explanations" given to explain UFO sightments (i.e. clouds, aircrafts, meteorological balloons...) you forgto the most plausible: it is stimated that around a 10% of the population has some kind of mental disease (some not very trascendental for a day to day life, of course), and teh willingness for seeking to be teh center of attention. Arent you telling me that (even if there would be real alien ships), there wouldnt be at least 1 of each million people enough idiot to lie about that?? then you there 1 thousand sightments per year in the occidental world...

Excuse my bad English, but I should its important to add the reference for "seeking attention" stuff.

And I miss a critic point speaking about the lack of more photographic/video proofs when the number of camaras has increased exponentially in last years. Millions of peoples has even a camara in their mobile phones. But there is not a huge increment of a wave of photoraphic proofs (well, at least I didnt listen about that).

I did not change anything for myself, to see if there is someone agrees --85.8.5.131 17:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem With Recent Edit
The "Recently, STS-48, and especially..." addition should be one or more of the following things: moved to a different section, re-worded, formatted, or deleted. The "American media is silent" sentence seems completely unnecessary and unfounded. The edit wasn't made by a logged in user. --User:FSGuitarist
 * Great minds think alike ):-. I had already reverted when I saw your message here. Cheers. --Moriori 00:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The media is controlled. Should there be alien contact, all media, incl. the Internet, thus Wikipedia WILL either be shut down or tightly controlled. While "Out West", I had some military contacts, some police contacts. To prevent rebellion, Martial Law will be declared all over the planet. The reason for rebellion will be religious(Some people believe ET is the Devil) and/or to obtain revenge for being intentionally ridiculed as persuant to the Robertson Panel protocol. --Martial Law 08:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Any Wikipedians seen...
Any Wikipedians out there who has had a UFO/Alien encounter? --Martial Law 08:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I once saw a strange pulsating red light above night sea. I went out and walked into the direction of it, only to discover that it is a warning light atop of rather tall construction crane :)


 * I once felt all drowsy and tired, crazy-shaped people making a terrible scary noise where surrounding me, I started to sweat real bad, and then I thought "Jesus, I need to stop drinking and taking dope!!" :D


 * Yes, and they are absolutely real. They are not weather balloons, they are not swamp gas, they are not hallucinations, they are not helicopters, and they are not Venus.  They can give definite light -- in my case they glowed bright red, possibly an ionization effect -- and they can be clearly identified against background objects.  They make instantaneous changes of direction in defiance of our naively primitive assumptions of what is possible under the laws of momentum.  I sometimes can't believe how blindly dogmatic those who call themselves scientists or skeptics are, and it's probably just the extent to which this blind dogmatism pervades this article throughout that keeps me from editing it back to something resembling neutrality.  Chris Rodgers 09:03, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Once, I was in my car on the way home when I saw an amber triangle pass to the south. It was moving pretty fast, when it just stopped, hung for a second, and then shot off, this was around the time of the Arizona Triangle sightings, and believe it may have been one of those. I don't know for certain wether it was an Alien craft or one of those "Top Secret" stealth airships Lockheed is working on, but it could have been either.

Reason for Robertson Panel
The reason this was initiated was the CIA intends to "reduce", even eliminate any interset in UFOs. Even psychiatrists are utilized, so that people who has had seen these things/aliens are to be considered mentally unfit by the rest of society. This is NOT vandalisim, see the Robertson Panel article itself. --Martial Law 23:13, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

My U.F.O. and abduction experiences
I don't know if U.F.O.s are extraterrestrial alien related, but I have had experiences that relate to the U.F.O. and abduction phenomenon. When I was about 10, I was standing on the back porch when I saw an oval light move across the sky above my house in the direction from the back porch to the front porch. Alone that didn't mean much, but about that time I had a strange experience with my brother of having been asleep for 24 hours. My brother and I went to bed one evening and woke up the following evening. My mother wanted to know where we had been, but all we could tell her was that we were sleeping. She probably thought we were lying. Likewise when I was child my mother had related a story of seeing a ghost by her bed when she was pregnant. She tried to wake my father but couldn't wake him. She described the ghost as a man-sized cat. She didn't like it's eyes. As a child, I thought this was just superstition. She didn't believe our story and we didn't believe hers. Looking back through the prism of the abduction phenomenon, did my mother see a classic grey alien and were my brother and I abducted for those missing 24 hours? Since the time from when I was a pre-teen, I remember having a small circular object embedded in my left thigh. I would always through the years try to pick it out. I was able to remove it sometime in my mid 30's and flushed it down the toilet. Soon after I got a serious nosebleed for several days. That was the only nosebleed I have ever had during my adulthood. I normally don't remember my dreams, but two that I remember are one that I am on an operating table surrounded by figures which I can't make out. In the second dream the figures are classic grey aliens and I'm a little boy coming down the stairs of my old house and there are two aliens sitting on the old couch in the living room. All this could be coincidences, but there is a small percentage of people who have these coincidences and the abduction phenomenon is the most convincing explanation for some. --User:68.160.212.241 17:21, December 19, 2005 (User never signed. Added by Moriori) --Barney Hill 00:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't sound like a coincidence to me @ all. Had one horrific CE-3+, many CE-1s. --Martial Law 09:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Should've held on to this thing. It may have been a probe or a monitoring device. A Dr.Greer is - or was - collecting these things AS proof of alien abduction. Go to Dr. Greer's Homepage for more. --Martial Law 09:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you wish to report this? --Martial Law 09:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Please sign statements.
Please sign your statements. --Martial Law 09:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Reason for this is simple: So that I can ask you all IF you want these things reported, but NOT to the authorities, unless you want to be intentionally ridiculed as persuant to the still ongoing protocol initiated in the Robertson Panel. Even psychiatrists are used to intentionally ridicule anyone who has had these encounters. This is a CIA program created to intentionally eliminate any and all interest in these things, to keep people from even reporting these things. --Martial Law 07:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If UFOs are real, the occupants seem to be technologically and mentally way ahead of us. They obviously want to remain secret for their own reasons. I don't see how one can prove that one's experiences are real. If one has no conclusive proof its as if UFOs are not real, even if they are. --Barney Hill 00:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Theoretically I can imagine that 'greys' maybe probably can exist. What I have big difficulty believing is WHY they may possibly need to abduct people. Whatever they want to know, can be learned far more clandestinely by examining dead humans, reading our medical literature, listening to radio and TV signals. Second, why do they even need to do anything clandestinely? Today's Earth civilization is most probably poses no threat to any civilization able of interstellar travel. For the comparison: are you afraid of present-day Amazonian tribe people? Will you hide from them?

The consensus among the Budd Hopkins-David M. Jacobs crowd is that they are here to create hybrids (human-grey). For what reason? Who knows? Maybe to repopulate a planet. Lets hope its not to repopulate the Earth. Lets hope its to repopulate some other planet and when they're done with their project, maybe they'll leave and will never know that they've been here. They'll have left the inhabitants of Earth as undisturbed as possible. --Barney Hill 03:10, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Some say,.....for food. See this link:Malevolent Alien Abduction Research Homepage. --Martial Law 05:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Just as we observe less advanced societies, they observe ...us, but in a manner to avoid contaminating our social systems, similar to the Prime Directive( I have a book that says Gene Roddenberry got his ideas from attending UFO conferences. ) seen in the Star Trek franchise. --Martial Law 05:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

New ball game - Beckjord is here
When I get through revising the Bigfoot and Nessie and CZ pages, I'll be here. I am a ufologist, have seen 22 UFOs, over time, have filmed them at Area 51, been abducted, and was the still photographer at the first Alien Implant Removal Surgery (1995). The rest of you, except Martial Law, can go home. Skeptics have NO chance. I beat Phil Klass, and you have no chance. --Beckjord 10:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Blowhard. Your spelling and typography are atrocious.  We'll all be watching you. You might as well take your ball and go home now. --QuicksilverT @ 11:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Beckjord. For your own good you had best sit this one out. All you are going to do is get yourself banned if you keep editing like you are. I'm not saying who's right or wrong, but you need to get someone to edit for you or learn how to make entries properly, and I don't have any more time to give you in this regard. And don't come into a forum with the idea you are going to make waves, because it's likely the first wave you make is going to end up washing you right out the door. Please head this advice. I don't want to see you get blocked. --DanielCD 03:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Beckjord, I don't know if you editing this or those other articles is going to be good for you or wikipedia. This is one topic we don't need an 'expert' on. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for ufologists. This article has a history of NPOV problems as it is, please don't make it worse. If you think you can give it an intellectually honest effort then by all means. Otherwise, you might be better off editing an article you -aren't- passionate about. We'll be watching. --Duke nemmerle 14:04, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Beckjord mate, let me give you professional advise, STAY OFF THE DRINK!!

In the mean time
... I just made an important editorial change, ascribing "Calling Occupants (of Interplanetary Craft)" to Klaatu, "made popular by" Karen Carpenter. Charlie (CO) ChasRMartin 04:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Note
The point of this article is not to prove the existance of aliens, nor to prove that this is all hot air either. Failure to observe this ''will' result in a Edit War. thus locking the article from further edits. --Martial Law 01:54, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Why was the Furthur reading topic removed from the Article?
DreamGuy I cannot understand why you deem it 'unencyclopedic'. --Obaidr 19:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)Obaidr