I saw a UFO

[kungfuscience]

Firstly, I'm a sceptic, but Brett has said it's ok for me to share my experience, ask questions, but to stay civil. Well, I will stay civil, but sometimes I've found to believers to be uncomfortable if I ask question. I can't help that.

I saw a UFO when at Milldwon Middle School in Blandford, Dorset. I was about 12/13. I was with the older of my oyunger brothers, who saw it too. It was a cloudy day. What looked liek a black disk moved across the sky, and then looked to have disappeared. at the time, liking hte X Files, paranormal activity and the rest, I thought this was well cool, especially as my brother could back up the sighting. As I began to question things more, and became the sceptic I am today, I always wondered what i'd seen, and left the answer as "I don't know".

Many years later, well, about a year and a half ago, I saw almost exactly the same thing. However, this time the sky was less clody. The more I watched the black disk, the more it started to change, until, eventually, I saw that it was a bird.

I am now almost certain that it was a bird I had seen in my youth. Loving the X Files and such, not only did the object look like a disk, but I also would have wnated to have seen it be a UFO, and when it must have gone behind a cloud and out of sight, well, obviously it disappeared as opposed to just leaving my line of sight.

Here's another example of a UFO encounter a sceptic had, click .

On top of that, I recently saw video, and it had a great Big Foot tale.

It seems to me that most things do seem to have a rational explanation, without having to invoke the supernatural, aliens, conspiracies and the rest.

As Fox Mulder's poster said "I want to believe". I used to want to beleive too. I still do, but would add "the truth" at the end of that statement. I think the only way to get that is to keep questioning things.

What do you guys think?

[NinjaPuppy]

[ProfWag]

[brett]

and surprisingly so AM I - as i have seen pictures recently of a claimed UFO that one only had to look at to see it was a bird - all be it in an unusual attitude - but nevertheless a bird - so you where right to question - well done , see this is what a lot of the problem is , because some of us believe in the possibilities of SOME facets of the paranormal , it is sometimes believed wrongly that we believe any old hokum that's trotted out - NOT so some of us do actually look at the evidence and make reasonable judgements - and ALSO dismiss stuff as the BUNK it is !!

but , again some of us take the position NOT to dismiss it all as this ,other wise one might just throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water

the prof is probably scratching his head now given some of our exchanges - but just a question of perception of my style of thinking - which to many is somewhat illogical , but serves me well enough ( don't worry prof few people understand me or the way i think - so you are in good company )

so good post - honest consideration of the events and a conclusion honestly held - nothing wrong with that in my book


see us woos ain't all that bad are we ??

[ProfWag]

To dismiss any evidence could be detrimental to society. To accept it all, equally so. To critically think about evidence is of the utmost importance. Logic, common sense, study, etc. are all important in the field of the paranormal. No one can be an expert in all facets of paranormal activities and neither are they in conspiracy theories. However, we must all critically think to ourselves before spreading incomplete or deceptive issues and presenting them as facts.
Do I believe in anything paranormal? No. But that doesn't mean that I outright disregard it. I rely on science and trust that I would be informed of any proof. So far, no such luck. Ahhh, but I'll continue the quest as it is an interest to me.
ProfWag

[brett]

[ProfWag]

[ciscop]

I also saw an UFO!
to this day i dont know what i saw
it was late at night
and i was camping
i saw something quite shiny moving really fast in the sky in a lot of directions and then dissapearing
but thats.. WHAT I REMEMBER
i am not sure of what it was.. other people that were with me saw it too

however
im skeptical of what i think i saw
late at night + drinking = bad perception

i should add that memory isnt perfect, so im pretty sure what i remember is not what it was.. (i remember doing like Z shape) but then i heard a friend saying it was moving in a wavy way..

who knows
my experience, is just my experience and it doesnt proof ( nor disproofs) ufo´s exist.

(perhaps it only prooves that drinking in the woods makes you see weird stuff)

[kungfuscience]

[Scepcop]

Interesting. So you share your own paranormal experience here in order to debunk it. I guess you found a loophole in the rules. Nice. lol

BTW, what is your take on the Washington Merry Go Round Incident of 1952?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washi ... O_incident

How do you explain cases where radar reports aircraft moving in ways that aircraft can't do?

I've also seen weird things in the sky that turned out to be planes. But many are not that explainable.

The Phoenix lights, that famous case, was never fully explained either. Skeptics just threw out conjecture and cited it as fact. But reasonable people knew better than to fall for it.

One of the Roswell debunkers who wrote a book about it, claims to have seen a UFO, but I forget his name.

Have you read any books by Stanton Friedman? He is one of the top UFO authors.

[Eteponge]

Reminds me of that SETI woman who mistook the moon as a UFO, and then uses that example to ignorantly claim that all sightings must therefore be just as silly and simple as that. I disagree.

There are many impressive cases of UFOs that interest me. The main types are...

* Cases with witnesses of reputable authority who are trained observers. Air Force Pilots, Astronomers, Police Officers, Government Officials, Military, Astronauts (such as Gordon Cooper), Etc.

* Cases with mass witness sightings where the overall accounts of what occurred and the description of the craft or crafts match one another to a great degree.

* Cases where UFOs have been caught on Radar going impossible speeds, doing impossible maneuvers, being of ridiculous size, and anything else suggesting that we don't know what the hell it is, but it was there.

* Cases of Trace Evidence of UFO Landings. Where a purported landing spot of a UFO is later examined by experts. Radiation is discovered there, indentions on the ground are documented, other anomalies in the grass and soil are recorded, Etc.

* CERTAIN Cases of excellent Photography and Video that DOES stand up to scrutiny when examined by photograph, video, and photoshop experts (such as David Biedny, who has examined many, and accepted few as truly unexplainable and untouched). And there are SOME good examples of clear Photographs and Videos, not all of the best stuff are blurry or out of focus.

Those are the best types of cases that impress me.

Of course, what UFOs are, no one ultimately knows. The "Extraterrestrial Hypothesis" is merely one of many. They could be top secret government craft, they could be craft from another dimension, the crypto-terrestrial theory (which suggests these might be craft from another advanced civilization residing on this planet we don't know about, such as under the vast ocean, or under the earth, or in some secluded place) might be correct, or time travelers from an alternate history or alternate future, or some local or non-local phenomenon we don't know what the hell it is. Ultimately, we don't know. Therefore, Unidentified Flying Objects.

Debunkers seem to strawman everything as:

* "Only rednecks and drunks and trailer park folks see "lights in the sky" and claim it's UFOs". (Ignoring the highly reputable, trained observers, who have witnessed and experienced them, such as government officials, military, pilots, astronomers, astronauts, etc.)

* "No pilot, military official, astronomer, or trained observer has ever witnessed a UFO and deemed it unexplainable!" (Complete and total lie.)

* Claims it's all in people's heads, mass hysteria, or people misremembering or misidentifying everything in *every single last case*, despite undeniable Radar evidence and physical trace evidence in many cases independent from people's experiences and photographs / videos.

* Focus on the many many many fraudulent, suspicious, woo woo aspects of UFOlogy, such as the New Age stuff that has crept in, "researchers" in the field that are pure woo and have a total woo audience, the UFO Cults that have sprang up, and the dime a dozen very poor quality Alien Abduction stories (some are very convincing and very good quality and well documented, many many many are not), basically all of the poor quality stuff, while ignoring all of the good quality stuff, using a poisoning the well, "best of us, worst of you" type of fallacy.

* Focus entirely on the extraterrestrial hypothesis and ignore all others.

I'd say, overall, there's something there, but we don't ultimately know what.

I myself have witnessed a UFO. In Rowan County, NC, in 1991, when I was 10 years old, I witnessed a Black Triangle shaped UFO, with three red lights at each end, which *exactly* resembles the one in this drawing (which is an artist rendition of the same type of UFO spotted in Jackson County, NC, in 1986) I was with my entire family in a car at the time that I saw this, they all saw it too, we stopped the car and all watched it for several minutes, it wasn't very far up in the sky, it was motionless in the sky for several minutes and was totally silent, we drove away, came back a few minutes later, and it was gone ...



Sorry, but that was not "a bird" or "the moon".

[ProfWag]

For what it's worth, I saw that very same UFO circa 1980 and again in 1999. Same craft both times. The first time, it scared the bejeezus out of me (I was 15). The second time, I just thought it was pretty cool.

[kungfuscience]

[ProfWag]

You haven't read a book by THE top UFO investigator kungfu? Gee, where have you been... (just kidding.) He's an opponent of SETI if that says anything...

[ciscop]

For what is worth
i do think i saw an ufo that night
i had a real ufo experience
since i DONT KNOW WHAT I SAW
what was ufo? unidentified flying object?
then yes thats what i saw
i didnt identified

i was fascinated with ufos until i reach puberty and the age of reason
i went to see Jorge Maussan.. he is an ufologist (he created his own career, how cool is that?)
and he is one of the top researches of UFOS in the world
i remember he was talking about ufo´s that were seen by an mexican pilot over the coast of veracruz
and they were UNIDENTIFIED and unexplained.. therefor it most be aliens...
all right...
so.. a few years later.. i was in canada
watching children´s tv.. and there was this tv show called.. mystery detectives (or something like that.. any canadian that can help me?)
and they went on to talk to Jorge Maussan.. and he told the same story.. then the kid went to talk to a top mexican scientist (skeptic), and went for a ride on a helicopter over the place the pilot saw the UFOs...
turns out IT WAS AN OIL EXTRACTION PLANT... what the pilot saw was BALLS OF FIRE
A FREAKING CANADIAN KID DEBUNKED A TOP UFOLOGIST...
daaaaamn..

and yes.. i know what you are going to say
because a lot of those UFOs have been debunked, are fakes or just simple mistakes by honest people (some of those people are sweet and honest and wouldnt lie right?) that doesnt explain ALL THE OTHER sightings..