I'll also put my tinfoil hat on, since I've had a long fascination with anamolous phenomenon. I still think the jury's out on what exactly is going on, but one thing that's consistent worldwide is that balls of light are associated with UFOs, bigfoot, poltergeists, etc.
My rational mind doesn't really believe in all of this, but if it did, I think I'd take Jacques Vallee's theory seriously. Jacques Vallee is an astronomer and computer scientist (involved in early ARPANET) who's studied the phenomenon since at least the 70s. Here's a fun paper:
I like the Zoo hypothesis. We do that to North Sentinel Island[1]. It is populated by 50-400 stone age tribes people. India does not prosecute them for murdering anyone who happens to land on their island. Previous contacts with these people led to them rapidly dying of diseases they didn't have immunity to, so staying uncontacted is literally a life or death issue for them.
Looking at the wiki page, it seems the population on the island is decreasing. Hopefully they will either all die, thus relieving us of the ethical dilemma, or India will come to its senses and stop the abuse of these poor people and actually help them. Its criminal that they are allowed to carry on without access to any of the modern world's technology or services. And of course the islanders that killed those fishermen should also be forcibly removed and punished - murder is murder, and the fact that someone is pretending they are still in the stone age has never been a recognised defense...
The time travel argument I've always found to be far more compelling than the extra terrestrial argument.
For example, similarity of physical form (with exaggerated evolutionary aspects relating to modern society, such as bigger eyes/brains, and diminished aspects that would be obsolete, such as weakened physical strength).
And in a universe where different systems could be billions of years different in age, the UFOs have always seemed closer to a few thousands of years off from current technology at best.
And yet there's zero evidence of even life, let alone advanced life, in our near proximity. Wouldn't it make more sense that the advanced species that's in near physical proximity to ourselves (i.e. humans) would be responsible for flying objects very similar to our own flying objects and supposedly operated by bipeds looking very similar to ourselves?
And the physical rules bring broken to enable time travel are roughly the same rules that would need to be broken for faster than light travel, so the scientific likelihood for time traveling UFOs is roughly the same as for extra-terrestrial UFOs, but the former makes a lot more sense in other regards than the latter.
> And in a universe where different systems could be billions of years different in age, the UFOs have always seemed closer to a few thousands of years off from current technology at best.
I think this is something that doesn't get enough attention; in a universe like our's, almost all first contact events will consist of relativisticly expanding spheres of von Neumann machines impacting planets populated solely by nonsapient life. (Say three billion years before humans evolved versus a generous million years of human 'civilization' gives a three thousand to one ratio.) We should not expect to see anything remotely near our point in the developmental timeline.
(If "relativisticly expanding spheres of von Neumann machines" sounds unlikely, let me remind you that every star in the sky is a massive pile of valuable raw materials that has unfortunately caught fire and needs to be extinguished as soon as possible.)
Can you time travel without being able to alter your location in space? I mean, the earth is moving pretty fast, if you popped back a few hours, wouldn’t you land in empty space?
Vallee is a serious person worth paying attention to, a rarity in that field. Spielberg used him as the model for that French scientist in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Another good book of his is "Messengers of Deception", expands greatly on the non-extraterrestrial idea.
Interesting. A possible explanation for some strange and poorly understood phenomenon accompanied by bright lights could be "earthquake lights", bright lights that appear in the sky around the time of an earthquake.
I have been through several earthquakes and have seen power pole transformers spark and explode as the oil inside splashes about and is ignited by the electricty. This could be a possible explanation for "earthquake lights".
Huh. I've seen this exact blue/purple light in my hometown when I was a small kid (like 15 years ago). It was late night, we were in the patio with my family, eating nuts and talking, just a normal summer evening. We saw this light, and it deeply spooked us children. For years I was wondering what the hell was that. But since an earthquake didn't hit us that night (thanks god) I suppose it likely was something else.
I've been developing a theory about abduction stories overlapping with MK Ultra-type experimentation. There seem to be a fair number of parallels in the type of activities done to subjects of the MK projects (allegedly) and casting the alien abduction story on the victims makes deniability straight forward.
I haven't thought much about UFO sightings. I always find the ones with video, especially from arial sources interesting.
Abduction stories fit very well within suggestibility + sleep paralysis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis), before aliens it was demons or other things. When I've suffered from it I've had my dog ripping my face off and intruders entering the house, no alien probes yet but apart from that the experience sounds identical.
That theory doesn’t seem compatible with the apparent existence of similar UFO reports from before the 20th century, unless there were other similar programs.
Thanks, reading the paper now.
I liked how, when describing possible alien visitation to earth he wrote:
"sophisticated interaction with the human and animal lifeforms present on the planet."
Man A (ATC?): There's nothing showing on either primary or secondary
Woman A: Ok, it was moving so fast. [Inaudible]
Man A: Alongside you?
Woman A: Yes, it was rapidly [inaudible] bright light and then it just disappeared at a very high speed. I am still wondering.
Didn't think it was likely collision course. Wondering what sort it could be.
Man B: Meteor or another object. Some kind of re-entry. Seem to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory. Very bright where we were
Woman B (ATC?): Ok, that's copy, so what's the direction it was going in.
Man B: Virgin 76 [inaudible] saw that NRS 11-o'clock position two bright lights.
Woman B: Roger that's copy, thank you.
Man C: So that wasn't just me?
Man B: No. Yeah, very interesting, that one.
Man B: Virgin 76. I saw two bright lights 11 o'clock. Seem to bank over to the right and then climb away. Speed at least Mach [inaudible]
Woman B: Okay, we're passing that on, thank you.
Man D (or is it Man A?): [inaudible] 94 Shannon.
Man D: Just to let you know that other aircrafts in the area have also reported the same thing. So we're going to have a look and see.
Man E: Speed was astronomical. It was like Mach 2.
I don’t think you can trust their assessment of its speed. There’s no way to reliably determine the speed of an unknown object of unknown size and distance.
I was watching a meteor shower once, and after a few hours, the angle seemed to change. Instead of streaking across the sky, they appeared as a circle that got brighter and bigger before winking out....they were coming right at me.
This could explain the light in this video if it were a fairly large meteorite, maybe.
They enter at orbital velocity or higher, so yes. Mach 20 or 30 would be on the low end. Of course depending on their shape and mass they lose a lot of it on the way down...
The relevant regime for astronomical entities is in above the 'high-hypersonic' and into 're-entry speeds' (uber-sonic?). These are above Mach 25.
At these speeds, not only is the air no-longer considered an ideal gas, nor a two-temperature ideal gas, nor a dissociated gas (O2 and N2 become O and N along the wings), nor an ionized gas (electron temperature must now be considered), but rather a radiation dominated gas. Modeling these radiation dominant gases is very hard. As you increase the number of volumes to model, the computation load grows exponentially.
would be interesting to know the relative trajectory – would help determine if it was a known satellite reentry or on a typical orbit of debris (lots of periodic comets have well known debris trails, they form most of the "meteor showers" that happen yearly.)
Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat...
What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too?
One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who needs difficult shit like invisibility when we can just pound the earthlings' pupils with light so they can't see us well! Nevertheless, has always made the skeptic in me raise my eyebrows recursively.
Even if we assume that "UFO" means "space alien", it doesn't seem puzzling to me.
Answer 1: selection bias. Obviously the only ones that people see at night are those which have lights. We aren't going to hear about the ones that people don't see because they're dark.
Answer 2: alien apathy. You've flown a million light years to spy on some great apes who aren't even sure you exist. Who cares if a few of them get flashed with bright lights, while you're looking around? They don't even have flying saucers yet, so it's not like they could chase you.
From a rational standpoint, I generally subscribe to the selection bias you (and Scriptor in a separate reply) raise as #1. However, for the sake of discussion, let's operate under the assumption these sightings are legitimate/noteworthy.
Personally, I grew out of bothering ant hills when I was about twelve. Nowadays, I pleasantly observe from high above. So why wouldn't aliens do the same?
In this case, your second theory fills in the gaps. But, one would assume some species capable of this technology would also have cultural norms about not interfering with less developed groups. Much the same way we (generally) try not to interfere with primitive tribes around the world.
I suppose, then, that the comparison could be made to the Sentinelese firing arrows at aircraft out of fear and suspicion. The aliens (in my opinion rightly) assume we would do the same to them because they are so foreign to us.
You can generalize answer 1 even further. For all you know, there are hundreds of UFOs all around you that just have very advanced cloaking technology and only a few that don't. :)
>Answer 2: alien apathy. You've flown a million light years to spy on some great apes who aren't even sure you exist. Who cares if a few of them get flashed with bright lights, while you're looking around? They don't even have flying saucers yet, so it's not like they could chase you.
I just read your reply and so I deleted mine which was similar, but a bit stronger; its not like we could possibly hurt them.
3. Human cruise ships (and airplanes) have bright lights too. What if it's just an "alien" cruiseship entertaining a bunch of interterrestial holiday makers?
I could also imagine aliens that might see in different light spectrums and our visible light spectrum is 'dark' to them, like how we would perceive infrared, microwaves, or radio waves without giving a second thought as to whether or not something unknown might be able to sense that random spectrum emissions. Maybe they see in microwave range, maybe they use the light spectrum much like we use our radio spectrum and just blindly broadcast it in mass quantity as line-of-sight communication technology. Maybe it is used as a scanner/detector beam source, like how we might x-ray rock samples or something to determine composition.
But beyond something crazy like that, yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be spewing light as an alien visitor.
But wouldn't an intelligent species capable of inter-galactic travel have some of the Federation style rules to obey? Don't interfere with a less intelligent civilization for fear of disruption or whatever?
I'm not sure they would consider "us" unimportant. There's clearly some sort of "intelligence" with all of the radio energy emanating from this rock. If they sat back and observed for quite a bit of time, they would at some point be curious and want to study. Hence the probing. What's this hole for, let's find out. Plus, you'd want to dissect a couple of specimens to study it. After that, you start messing with the subject to see how it behaves/reacts.
That's a familiar argument, but I just realized that it mistakes scale for evolution. I imagine that if there are aliens, they are closer to the scale of a human than an ant.
Devil's advocate: the aliens may simply not care about being seen, or they may be aware that they can operate "in the open" with plausible deniability from a skeptical public and governments being unwilling to admit their existence.
Interstellar speeds certainly must be in excess of the speed of light (or those creatures are chill with cruising for thousands of years), so they wouldn't do much good. :)
Maybe the alien version of anthropomorphism? If they and most galactic species eyesight was in the infra-red red range then the might not think of hiding light in our visible spectrum. Imagine if exhaust from our cars gave off visible light? We'd want to change that pretty quickly.
So long as we're brushing off tinfoil hats, my pet theory is the bright lights are necessary symptoms of whatever is powering those thing. Such immense power would naturally give off lots of light.
Life on earth survived the KT boundary asteroid impact. Life on earth isn't going to end from our activity, it will only end from our inactivity in protecting the earth and the sun from major cosmic
impacts. We need to get out shit together and stop feeling guilty about burning all the oil. We need to do whatever it takes to get established in space and the moon, ready to deflect and close call objects. We are natures best design yet to protect itself from the dangers of space, we are one people, one planet, one sun, and we need to stand together against the cosmos, or nature will find a new guardian or perish trying.
A few months ago I was walking alone in the park when I saw a bright light moving in strange patterns in the sky. It scared the pants off of me.
For about a day my mind was nothing but paranoid thoughts. I had fear that I had seen something that I shouldn't have. That not only extraterrestrial life was real, but that they knew of my existence and would be coming for me. Or perhaps they were coming for all of us. I was a mess.
And sure, it was probably a drone. Or a plane. Or a shooting star, etc. But was it? I couldn't shake the thought that it wasn't.
It sounds hilariously silly now, but at the time it really screwed with my mental state.
Once this happened to me with a friend. We were staring at the sky when suddenly a progression of lights started moving quickly across the sky. At first I thought it might be a shower of large meteors about to hit us.
A similar thing happened to me a few weeks ago, I was so freaked out by it that I downloaded and paid for an app that showed satellite positions. Turns out...my rational side was right, it was indeed a satellite in low orbit, giving it the appearance of a fast speed and a very bright disposition. It was still a weird experience. There were two satellite actually.
As for what this was? Honestly it sounds like people may have seen an air force drill of some military (possibly Russian or US.)
Had that same feeling years ago. Went out to a dark place to see the stars. Ended up seeing a light jumping around on the horizon. Then there was a bright white flash that lit up the whole field and forest, but not like lightning. No shadows, no source of light. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, no thunder. It wasn't lightning.
Pretty scared, I kept watching the jumping light on the horizon. A few minutes later the white flash again. I ran back to my car.
I had the same ridiculous thoughts as you. "what if they know I saw?"
It freaked me out for a long time. The way the light was moving.... Too fast to see the movement even, it was here, then there. I watched it bounce around for at least a full half hour, it wasn't a satellite or a meteor.
Saw a similar light when I was a child, my brothers saw it too. But this one was right above our heads in the sky, and there was no flash when it disappeared.
Bounced from one place to another, and it was really far away, so we are talking hundreds of kilometers in a second. Never forgot about it.
Since we're all giving our UFO encounters I'll chip in with mine.
About 25yrs ago as a teenager and utterly obsessed with the supernatural and the unexplained, my family were on a fly drive holiday on the west coast of the US.
One night in a roadside motel in the Nevada desert, I was woken up by a strange, loud, rythmic, droning sound outside. Absolutely convinced that it was a UFO landing and terrified that if I moved or made a noise I'd be abducted, I laid still, sweating with my heart racing for hours until the sun came up.
Similar story here. As a kid I was laying in bed staring at a bright disk floating in the sky at night. Totally sure it was a UFO. Turned out to be a reflection of a street light in the window.
I was on a beach off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka late in the night. I saw what seemed like a star dart around in the sky. I figured it was just an aircraft, but it moved extremely fast in a near zig-zag fashion, making sharp angled turns - something no aircraft can do.
I've been on a UFO binge lately, prompted by all the news about Oumuamua. So many credible and fascinating reports.
I've also seen less resistance to the idea of UFOs than there used to be. People claiming to have seen a UFO aren't outright dismissed as cuckoo anymore.
My dad told me of seeing some fighter jets following a light in the sky near Lemore airforce base just a few years ago. He figured it was another jet, but then the light did, what seemed to him, an impossible turn, then took off north at an incredible speed. The fighter jets followed, but not even close to the same speed, as the light was no longer visible a few seconds after it turned direction due to its apparent speed.
What to make of it? Who knows.
A few years back I saw a plane that was behaving very strangely, so I tried to take a photo. My phone shut itself off. Afterwards I tried to turn it back on and it was back to 20%. I’ve since wondered if our phones come with remote shutdowns.
Your battery was wearing out. The camera draws a lot of power and if a degraded battery can't output enough then a protection circuit will shut down the device below a voltage threshold.
A lot of people typically have a "Where's the proof?" wrt UFOs. However, there is Dr Steven Greer who in 2001 fronted a 'Disclosure Project' in which many people from positions of authority (eg FAA chiefs, Tower operators, Military pilots, etc) stated quite clearly on National Press Club in Washington their testimony on UFO's. [0]
Since then, he's been often quoted as saying that there's such an abundance of proof that it's embarrassing. He has video and other testimonies from world leaders, and often sits down with heads of state advising them, and now has hundreds of testimonies from verifiable people in the military industrial complex testifying to the authenticity of their existence, as well as the massive deliberate misinformation systems put into place to control the UFO 'story'. [1]
I'd recommend watching his documentaries, Sirius and Unacknowledged [2][2b]
I can't disagree, but at what point can sworn testimonies be allowed? 100, 200, 500? What about their 'respectability'? To dismiss such a mountain of evidence is unwise, I feel.
There are also hundreds of government documents on his website, discussing various et issues.
Most of the testimonies talk about how there is a systemic coverup going on. What if they can provide proof, but due to high classification, it can't be provided, except to Congress? This was ultimately what the disclosure project was about in 2001. Most of the testimonies attest to that fact.
I'd go for sworn affidavits with independently verifiable credentials for things like this. Dr Greer has collected thousands of data points on this topic, however.
(Perhaps you haven't watched the 3rd link posted above, which is >1.5hr interview with a Richard Doty from OSI whose job it was to discredit/cover up/investigate all of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZMgbXNSBs
Also, the news wouldn't get out anyway:
"So, every news agency, every television and radio station in the Albuquerque and Santa-Fe area had our snitches in there... we paid them good money" 1:24)
Do any airlines have high-def video cameras on planes? Seems like something that would be financially feasible with modern technology and would provide very useful data for unexplained phenomena like this. I imagine I'm not the only one who would pay to subscribe for a streaming service for airline footage, even when there aren't UFO sightings to examine.
Actually, yes, some newer aircraft have high-def video cameras mounted on the tail and on the belly of the aircraft, and the video stream is streamed into the aircraft so that passengers can see the "outside view" on in-flight entertainment systems. The only thing is I believe the the cameras often get turned off in the middle of the flight when the boring part is going on..
Many long distance flights have cameras on the tail + nose that you can watch on your entertainment system. I wouldn't expect them to stream it to the public though.
You might be surprised at the popularity of "Slow Television" [0], which televises the long journeys of trains, cruise ships, etc. It is apparently quite popular in Norway and growing elsewhere. Add some potential UFOs to the mix, and who knows where it might go?
It it were aliens, they are probably making contact with the cephalopod population under the sea to see if they have developed technology yet, and in this planets case they've found another monkey hominid infestation in one of those rare millennia before its civilizations manage to collectively off themselves.
The cephs are better suited to space travel owing to their ability to survive cryogenisis, replication of their memories and intelligence throughout their bodies, no need for gravity, ability to breed i large numbers and transmit information to offspring. Hominids are a peculiarity of adapting to a given planet, where the cepholopods are adaptable to more common environments in the universe.
Readit News
My rational mind doesn't really believe in all of this, but if it did, I think I'd take Jacques Vallee's theory seriously. Jacques Vallee is an astronomer and computer scientist (involved in early ARPANET) who's studied the phenomenon since at least the 70s. Here's a fun paper:
https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/4/jse_04_1_vallee...
He essentially argues that the UFO phenomenon is neither extra terrestrials nor merely misidentified aerial craft. It's something even stranger!
Also, if you find that paper interesting, here's one of this books (one of the most well-known in the anomalous phenomenon field):
https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Magonia-Folklore-Flying-Sauc...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island
For example, similarity of physical form (with exaggerated evolutionary aspects relating to modern society, such as bigger eyes/brains, and diminished aspects that would be obsolete, such as weakened physical strength).
And in a universe where different systems could be billions of years different in age, the UFOs have always seemed closer to a few thousands of years off from current technology at best.
And yet there's zero evidence of even life, let alone advanced life, in our near proximity. Wouldn't it make more sense that the advanced species that's in near physical proximity to ourselves (i.e. humans) would be responsible for flying objects very similar to our own flying objects and supposedly operated by bipeds looking very similar to ourselves?
And the physical rules bring broken to enable time travel are roughly the same rules that would need to be broken for faster than light travel, so the scientific likelihood for time traveling UFOs is roughly the same as for extra-terrestrial UFOs, but the former makes a lot more sense in other regards than the latter.
I think this is something that doesn't get enough attention; in a universe like our's, almost all first contact events will consist of relativisticly expanding spheres of von Neumann machines impacting planets populated solely by nonsapient life. (Say three billion years before humans evolved versus a generous million years of human 'civilization' gives a three thousand to one ratio.) We should not expect to see anything remotely near our point in the developmental timeline.
(If "relativisticly expanding spheres of von Neumann machines" sounds unlikely, let me remind you that every star in the sky is a massive pile of valuable raw materials that has unfortunately caught fire and needs to be extinguished as soon as possible.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIEwKrvepH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKMTSDzU1Z4
Not to say that it applies to this particular case. Just goes to show that there is much to this natural world we don't understand yet.
At 1:50 in that first video, the 'light' occurs and then amazingly the electricity goes off.
What a coincidence that is.
Also coincidentally the 'light' has similar colour characteristics to the arc flash of a high voltage electrical line/transformer shorting out.
And coincidentally at 4:40 the same scenario repeats!
It would have repeated again in the first minute if they'd been closer to the electrical circuit that faulted out.
The rest of the videos appear as borderline CGI (floodlights washed out in truck area)or some video of clouds.
I haven't thought much about UFO sightings. I always find the ones with video, especially from arial sources interesting.
I read through that and it immediately reminded me of Miller's flying saucer theory from Repo-Man - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRJ5cCP0ZPE
Man A (ATC?): There's nothing showing on either primary or secondary
Woman A: Ok, it was moving so fast. [Inaudible]
Man A: Alongside you?
Woman A: Yes, it was rapidly [inaudible] bright light and then it just disappeared at a very high speed. I am still wondering. Didn't think it was likely collision course. Wondering what sort it could be.
Man B: Meteor or another object. Some kind of re-entry. Seem to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory. Very bright where we were
Woman B (ATC?): Ok, that's copy, so what's the direction it was going in.
Man B: Virgin 76 [inaudible] saw that NRS 11-o'clock position two bright lights.
Woman B: Roger that's copy, thank you.
Man C: So that wasn't just me?
Man B: No. Yeah, very interesting, that one.
Man B: Virgin 76. I saw two bright lights 11 o'clock. Seem to bank over to the right and then climb away. Speed at least Mach [inaudible]
Woman B: Okay, we're passing that on, thank you.
Man D (or is it Man A?): [inaudible] 94 Shannon.
Man D: Just to let you know that other aircrafts in the area have also reported the same thing. So we're going to have a look and see.
Man E: Speed was astronomical. It was like Mach 2.
Man D: Roger, OK. Thank you.
The relevant regime for astronomical entities is in above the 'high-hypersonic' and into 're-entry speeds' (uber-sonic?). These are above Mach 25.
At these speeds, not only is the air no-longer considered an ideal gas, nor a two-temperature ideal gas, nor a dissociated gas (O2 and N2 become O and N along the wings), nor an ionized gas (electron temperature must now be considered), but rather a radiation dominated gas. Modeling these radiation dominant gases is very hard. As you increase the number of volumes to model, the computation load grows exponentially.
https://twitter.com/IrishAero/status/1061669444093730820
Direct link to the audio:
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/einn/EINN-High-Nov-09-2018...
Side note; including a screenshot of a tweet with out a link to it, is pretty lame.
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Dead Comment
What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too?
One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who needs difficult shit like invisibility when we can just pound the earthlings' pupils with light so they can't see us well! Nevertheless, has always made the skeptic in me raise my eyebrows recursively.
Answer 1: selection bias. Obviously the only ones that people see at night are those which have lights. We aren't going to hear about the ones that people don't see because they're dark.
Answer 2: alien apathy. You've flown a million light years to spy on some great apes who aren't even sure you exist. Who cares if a few of them get flashed with bright lights, while you're looking around? They don't even have flying saucers yet, so it's not like they could chase you.
Personally, I grew out of bothering ant hills when I was about twelve. Nowadays, I pleasantly observe from high above. So why wouldn't aliens do the same?
In this case, your second theory fills in the gaps. But, one would assume some species capable of this technology would also have cultural norms about not interfering with less developed groups. Much the same way we (generally) try not to interfere with primitive tribes around the world.
I suppose, then, that the comparison could be made to the Sentinelese firing arrows at aircraft out of fear and suspicion. The aliens (in my opinion rightly) assume we would do the same to them because they are so foreign to us.
I just read your reply and so I deleted mine which was similar, but a bit stronger; its not like we could possibly hurt them.
But beyond something crazy like that, yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be spewing light as an alien visitor.
http://orbwatch.com/paulrhill.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Hill
I tend to think a species advanced enough to get here may find us similarly unimportant.
I'm not sure they would consider "us" unimportant. There's clearly some sort of "intelligence" with all of the radio energy emanating from this rock. If they sat back and observed for quite a bit of time, they would at some point be curious and want to study. Hence the probing. What's this hole for, let's find out. Plus, you'd want to dissect a couple of specimens to study it. After that, you start messing with the subject to see how it behaves/reacts.
My question, is why do they only buzz the trailer parks and the 'very highly educated folks'?
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Do you try to hide your existence from ants? Or flowers?
Can cameras pick up cosmic radiation?
Playing the devils advocate. If the Zoo hypothesis is correct. They are probably thinking the same about us.
Like.
"We get so close to them, and they sometimes see us too. Just imagine how stupid they must be to not notice us or become aware of our presence."
>>One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage.
No one I know who ever went to Safari in Africa wore a camouflage. Why should they do it?
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1. Reflections and other visual phenomenon 2. Space debris burning up on reentry (natural or unnatural)
Dead Comment
For about a day my mind was nothing but paranoid thoughts. I had fear that I had seen something that I shouldn't have. That not only extraterrestrial life was real, but that they knew of my existence and would be coming for me. Or perhaps they were coming for all of us. I was a mess.
And sure, it was probably a drone. Or a plane. Or a shooting star, etc. But was it? I couldn't shake the thought that it wasn't.
It sounds hilariously silly now, but at the time it really screwed with my mental state.
Later on discovered someone had just released a bunch of sky lanterns, something I'd never seen before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern
It can be tricky to judge the distance, speed and size of objects in the sky.
Sky lanterns definitely look other worldly under the right conditions.
As for what this was? Honestly it sounds like people may have seen an air force drill of some military (possibly Russian or US.)
The NOSS satellites commonly can be seen in a double or triple configuration.
Here is an example image https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7XAxIsInxSM/maxresdefault.jpg
China also launched triple satellite configurations into an almost identical orbit.
http://www.satobs.org/noss.html
Pretty scared, I kept watching the jumping light on the horizon. A few minutes later the white flash again. I ran back to my car.
I had the same ridiculous thoughts as you. "what if they know I saw?"
It freaked me out for a long time. The way the light was moving.... Too fast to see the movement even, it was here, then there. I watched it bounce around for at least a full half hour, it wasn't a satellite or a meteor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_flash
About 25yrs ago as a teenager and utterly obsessed with the supernatural and the unexplained, my family were on a fly drive holiday on the west coast of the US.
One night in a roadside motel in the Nevada desert, I was woken up by a strange, loud, rythmic, droning sound outside. Absolutely convinced that it was a UFO landing and terrified that if I moved or made a noise I'd be abducted, I laid still, sweating with my heart racing for hours until the sun came up.
Turned out to be a dodgy air conditioning unit.
I've been on a UFO binge lately, prompted by all the news about Oumuamua. So many credible and fascinating reports.
I've also seen less resistance to the idea of UFOs than there used to be. People claiming to have seen a UFO aren't outright dismissed as cuckoo anymore.
Since then, he's been often quoted as saying that there's such an abundance of proof that it's embarrassing. He has video and other testimonies from world leaders, and often sits down with heads of state advising them, and now has hundreds of testimonies from verifiable people in the military industrial complex testifying to the authenticity of their existence, as well as the massive deliberate misinformation systems put into place to control the UFO 'story'. [1]
I'd recommend watching his documentaries, Sirius and Unacknowledged [2][2b]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClhNHIEPCKE
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJVg1HBlWA4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZMgbXNSBs
[2] http://siriusdisclosure.com/
[2b] Sirius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA
edit: better links
There are also hundreds of government documents on his website, discussing various et issues.
Most of the testimonies talk about how there is a systemic coverup going on. What if they can provide proof, but due to high classification, it can't be provided, except to Congress? This was ultimately what the disclosure project was about in 2001. Most of the testimonies attest to that fact.
https://xkcd.com/1235/
https://youtu.be/Fm8FJ8la2VU
I'd go for sworn affidavits with independently verifiable credentials for things like this. Dr Greer has collected thousands of data points on this topic, however.
(Perhaps you haven't watched the 3rd link posted above, which is >1.5hr interview with a Richard Doty from OSI whose job it was to discredit/cover up/investigate all of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZMgbXNSBs
Also, the news wouldn't get out anyway:
"So, every news agency, every television and radio station in the Albuquerque and Santa-Fe area had our snitches in there... we paid them good money" 1:24)
edit: added relevant quote from doco.
Here's a YouTube example of a tail camera on takeoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeBcZXjSfkE
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television
I mean, maybe. I don't know. Could be. I've never talked to one.