UFO sightings...

[deadrats]

check out this pic and vids and give your thoughts:

http://maps.google.com/maps?source=embed&layer=c&cbll=42.36396,13.368008&cbp=13,320.72...59.997589&z=19

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/UFO-Kremlin-Moscow-Russia-Pyramid,news-5398.html

now i will admit to seeing a ufo on 2 separate occasions, both times over the town i live, both times they looked similar and both times in broad day light during the summer months.

the most compelling of the two was about 20 years ago, i was working out and my brother was looking at a window of the first floor apartment we lived in, all of a sudden my brother calls for me to come "see this". i thought it must be a fight or some hot chick walking by so i run to the window and start looking up and down the block and i say to him that i don't see anything, he says "up there" and i look up in the sky. what i saw at first surprised me then shocked me, with the naked eye it almost looked like a celestial body, kind of like the moon or mars looks on a clear afternoon-dusk time frame, only it was smaller and wasn't giving off as much light (i know that the moon and mars only reflect light), anyway my brother grabs his telescope with finder scope and we run outside to get a better look.

through because of the distance between the object and ourselves, which we estimated to be maybe a few hundred feet up, the best view was with the finder scope (that's like a mini telescope that sits on top of the telescope used for aiming the telescope) and we both saw the same thing: a saucer shaped ship, for lack of a better word, that had 3 distinct sections, what appeared to be a top portion which we surmised was the cockpit (he, he, i said cockpit) a main sections and the bottom section which had lights that ran around the perimeter of the saucer, and they light up in a sequential fashion, i.e. one would light up, then it's neighbor would light up while it went off and so on all the way around, they odd thing is that these details were not visible with the naked eye, and there was no visible means of propulsion, no sound was being made, it just hovered there.

my brother and i ran to the roof of our building hoping to get a better view and by that time, what must have been less than a minute, the object had flown from the town we were in (which is near new york city on the new jersey side, at the top of a hill) to new york, specifically over the new york skyline and was flying low enough and slow enough that our view of it would get obscured by the really tall buildings.

after what seemed like 15-20 minutes it took off at an extremely high rate of speed in a north west direction and in less than 10 seconds or so it was out of sight even by telescope.

the funny thing is i don't believe for a second that it was of extras-terrestrial origin, by definition a ufo is an unidentified flying object and that's exactly what this was, an unidentifiable flying ship of some sort.

the ironic thing is that just recently i was watching the discovery channel and the had a program where they showed an experimental flying saucer shaped shipped that some secret project developed back in the '40s or '50s and they showed the actual prototype w with footage of the very first one actually being able to fly to about 10 feet up and it looked almost exactly like we had seen, albeit missing some of the cosmetic details.

the program claimed that the project was canceled years ago, but i know what my brother and i saw and i have a feeling someone kept working either on it or a similar project somewhere.

edit: i just found a pic on an experimental saucer shaped ship that looks almost exactly what we saw 20 years ago:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/23/flying-saucer-zoom.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/23/flying-saucer-uav.html

http://www.geobat.com/

[guns1inger]

Oh FFS /*face palm*/

[freebird73717]

The google pic looks like a tree branch.

And the second one.... Looks like Daniel Jackson was right! Ancient Egyptions were space aliens!


Not really meaning to poke fun though. I do think there is life elsewhere in the universe. I mean it's a really big place and would seem an awful waste of space if there were just us.....

[guns1inger]

Agreed. The odds that we are the only life in the universe are pretty slim.

However the technology required for interstellar travel would put any alien race vastly far ahead of us. Hell, we can't even get the moon on a regular basis, let alone a nearby planet. The idea that one vastly advanced race would visit here and either crash or simply abduct yokels is absurd. That many different alien races (and given the vast range of so-called ships being photographed, it would have to be many) would do so, is simply asking too much.

Especially when to date not one piece of evidence has ever been provided for legitimate study.

[M Bruner]

Well, if there were any aliens, they wouldn't contact us because we have a lot of trouble using advanced technology or getting along with others. And whenever we ever discovered another culture, the first thing we did was try to enslave them. Probably the main reason they prefer not to contact us.
Of course, if there were aliens, they would probably study us, grab a few of us unsuspecting souls, do experiments on us, then let us go, or maybe bring a few of us that won't be missed back to their zoos or research facilities.

[deadrats]

Agreed. The odds that we are the only life in the universe are pretty slim.

However the technology required for interstellar travel would put any alien race vastly far ahead of us. Hell, we can't even get the moon on a regular basis, let alone a nearby planet. The idea that one vastly advanced race would visit here and either crash or simply abduct yokels is absurd. That many different alien races (and given the vast range of so-called ships being photographed, it would have to be many) would do so, is simply asking too much.

Especially when to date not one piece of evidence has ever been provided for legitimate study.

not entirely sure where this came from, as i pointed out a ufo, by definition, is an "unidentified flying object", ufo does not mean, nor imply, extraterrestrial origin, all it means is that someone has built an aircraft that doesn't resemble any conventional design.

however, allow me to address the points you raised:

1) there is nothing absurd about an alien race visiting earth. yes, they would need to be most likely 1000+ years more technologically advanced than us, but that is well within reason when you consider that the universe is estimated to be roughly 13.8 billion years old and when you consider that man has only walked upright for what, about 10 thousand years and only really taken off technologically for about the last couple of hundred years, it's well within reason to assume that there exist highly intelligent species, well ahead of the human race, somewhere in the universe.

2) the notion that they would visit and while here abduct people is in no way absurd or stupid, consider man as an example of the type of behavior we could expect: we go on road trips, exploring remote, unexplored parts of our planet, such as mountains, jungles and oceans, we have sent maned craft to the moon and in orbit and there are plans to eventually send maned craft to mars, why would you find it difficult to believe that an alien race technologically advanced enough to transverse solar systems and galaxies wouldn't do so to explore the universe, if it were possible wouldn't you do the same thing? in so far as the abduction goes, what does man do when we discover a new species or fish, animal or plant, don't we take a sample, to study and learn, don't we experiment, don't some people take endangered wildlife, such as rare frogs, lizards and other small animals, that they find while on trips, home as a pet? aren't we constantly trying to study those creatures we consider inferior to us? what makes you think an alien intelligent species a thousand, two thousand or more years more advanced than us wouldn't have the same desire to learn from beings that they not only considered inferior but in fact would be developmentally inferior to them? you really find it that odd that they may go on an exploration mission with the goal of bringing back an alien species to study them? in all likelihood we would be little more than an ape to them.

and lastly allow me to address one of the most commonly used objections as to why an alien civilization couldn't possibly visit us, the question of time, specifically how long it would take to travel here. the problem with that reasoning is that it is assumed that said alien species have a life span similar to ours, but there is no reason to conclude such a thing.

on this planet we have sea turtles that live 900+ years, trees live to be hundreds of years old and there is a species of plant that lives over 10 thousand years, why wouldn't anyone think that perhaps there are alien species out there that live extremely long (by our standards) lives? it's certainly plausible to conclude that a being that had a life expectancy of 10 thousand years would be more than willing to go on a trip that lasted one or two thousand years, isn't it?

[lordsmurf]

UFO = unidentified
I've seen UFO's before -- no idea what they were. But I'm not an expert on all the crap we have in the sky.

UFO doesn't mean space aliens. That's just stupid.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
See how big it is? It's like finding a molecule in a haystick -- a needle is easy. While life may be out there, it would be pure luck to find us.

[guns1inger]

The two most common UFOs are in fact Venus and, of all things, the moon. Of course, they only remain unidentified to those who insist that they are something else.

I like this photo - http://jessejchapman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/pale-blue-dot-wide11.jpg - taken by the Voyager probe at some 6 billion kilometres from earth. We are the small blu-ish speck in the red band.

Thanks to the late Carl Sagan for insisting that NASA turn the cameras around for this last shot of earth as Voyager left the solar system.

[zzyzzx]

UFO = unidentified
I've seen UFO's before -- no idea what they were. But I'm not an expert on all the crap we have in the sky.

UFO doesn't mean space aliens. That's just stupid.

I agree, and tend to believe that UFO's originated as experimental German aircraft:

[guns1inger]

UFO = unidentified
I've seen UFO's before -- no idea what they were. But I'm not an expert on all the crap we have in the sky.

UFO doesn't mean space aliens. That's just stupid.

I agree, and tend to believe that UFO's originated as experimental German aircraft:

Except that there is no actual evidence of the so-called 'Nazi flying saucers", and plenty to refute it. Most of the photos you have posted (and many more like them) are obvious fakes, and the few that aren't obvious are just the ones a little more care was taken with. As with most UFO history (both alien and non-alien) you can usually track a strong cultural decendence. In the case of the Nazi saucers, such images didn't appear until well into the late 1950's and 1960's. Well after George Adamski's thoroughly debunked initial UFO photographs were published (1952). The 'Nazi saucers' carry a striking resemblance to Adamksi's lamp-shade derived hoax. As do the initial saucer images put forward by the completely nutty Raeliens. The current design of the 'gray aliens' has a clear history back only as far as an Outer Limits episode, after which is was usurped by Barney Hill as a false memory implanted through hypnosis, and has been refined into a cultural staple.

[zzyzzx]

UFO = unidentified
I've seen UFO's before -- no idea what they were. But I'm not an expert on all the crap we have in the sky.

UFO doesn't mean space aliens. That's just stupid.

I agree, and tend to believe that UFO's originated as experimental German aircraft:

Except that there is no actual evidence of the so-called 'Nazi flying saucers", and plenty to refute it. Most of the photos you have posted (and many more like them) are obvious fakes, and the few that aren't obvious are just the ones a little more care was taken with. As with most UFO history (both alien and non-alien) you can usually track a strong cultural decendence. In the case of the Nazi saucers, such images didn't appear until well into the late 1950's and 1960's. Well after George Adamski's thoroughly debunked initial UFO photographs were published (1952). The 'Nazi saucers' carry a striking resemblance to Adamksi's lamp-shade derived hoax. As do the initial saucer images put forward by the completely nutty Raeliens. The current design of the 'gray aliens' has a clear history back only as far as an Outer Limits episode, after which is was usurped by Barney Hill as a false memory implanted through hypnosis, and has been refined into a cultural staple.

It's believeable when you consider that the during WW2, the Germans did invent a whole host of other things that are stil being perfected today. Or at least more believeable than Martians anyway.

[amin_dada]

The last time I thought I saw a UFO it turned out to be a shooting star or an asteroid self destructing in our atmosphere. Anyway, I'm working on building my own unidentified flying object...

[JohnnyMalaria]

The Google image is laughable. The photoshopping is pathetic. The object looks like a corroded metal pipe such as you'd find in the sea. The lens distortion for the rest of the picture isn't consistent.

The Moscow 'pyramid' looks more like someone flying a kite.

Occam was a smart guy.

[rallynavvie]

The Google image is laughable. The photoshopping is pathetic. The object looks like a corroded metal pipe such as you'd find in the sea. The lens distortion for the rest of the picture isn't consistent..

It isn't a photoshop embedded into the Google Streets engine, that would be weird. It is a stick or branch as freebird mentioned long ago. You can actually trace it back through the photo capture session along a path. Here's a shot of the "UFO" flying under a bridge with the Google vehicle:
http://maps.google.com/maps?source=embed&layer=c&cbll=42.363436,13.365527&cbp=13,74.49...59.998152&z=19
And this is the woods where it apparently picks it up:
http://maps.google.com/maps?source=embed&layer=c&cbll=42.363268,13.362714&cbp=13,6.57,...59.998152&z=19