It's Time To Rethink Some Common Assumptions About UFOs

[Paul_Exeter]

Excellent article in my opinion:

"Sightings of UFOs may challenge our entire worldview, but the facts are too compelling to ignore, and they’re not going away. So, it’s time to wash off the sticky stigma and engage in serious discussion about the evidence, and its implications.

Most UFO sightings are attributable to man-made objects like experimental aircraft or satellites, innocent misidentifications of Venus and other celestial objects, or outright hoaxes. However, we now know that in a minority of cases, there appears to be something else going on: something quite extraordinary and beyond our current comprehension."

https://thedebrief.org/its-time-to-rethink-some-common-assumptions-about-ufos/

 

[charliebrown]

You have to have walked in the shoes of a person in his younger years who saw a night UFO and a daylight UFO.

 

[eburacum]

Glawson has got one thing right; government disclosure will never happen, because they are just as much in the dark as we are.

 

[BS3]

I'm glad that the author hints, at least, at the "parasociological" idea I've mentioned a few times before:

Another possibility is that UFOs are a special kind of mental phenomenon that can manifest in visible, external ways

The question is, if the UFOs come from 'within', and follow certain archetypal patterns, do they really need to objectively exist, or is the notion of a 'collective unconscious' a better model?

 

[eburacum]

For better or worse, the Internet is a major part of our 'collective consciousness' nowadays. That is where ideas, dreams and shared perceptual phenomena run riot.

 

[Salmonellus]

That's a very good article, and the writer makes some interesting points.

I've never been deeply into Ufology myself, because I have a sneaking suspicion that UFO's - whatever they are - are not really physical objects existing in 3d space. They are something else. The quoted article contains a discussion of the possibility of the eye projecting images onto external reality. I like the analogy, and I suspect something like that is going on, although the 'projector' works via the mind rather than the eye.

So I have a question to ask all of you who know more about UFOs than I do. (Most of you, basically!)

I want to know if they share one attribute with ghosts. There are multiple examples of ghost sightings where there have been a group of observers, all of whom were in a position to see the 'ghost' (whatever that is). Multiple observers, sharing the same line of sight, all of whom should have seen something if it was actually there as a physical object.

And yet there are many accounts where A has seen the ghost but B has not. I don't think it's always denial. I think the percipient is an essential part of the loop, and it works for some people but not others. It's the mind that sees the ghost rather than the eyes.

This is not hand waving in the sense that the sceptics will say "it's all in your mind". Well, it is mostly in your mind, although it's more an interaction of your mind with external forces that results in the perception. And it's often both repeatable and consistent.

So... the question.... how common are UFO sightings where there have been multiple witnesses, apparently honest and sensible, and all sharing a line of sight to something clearly visible to some of the witness, who even at the time simply don't perceive what the others are perceiving?

If the answer is "Yes, it happens" then that would be a valuable clue to the nature of UFOs.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

That's a very good article, and the writer makes some interesting points.

I've never been deeply into Ufology myself, because I have a sneaking suspicion that UFO's - whatever they are - are not really physical objects existing in 3d space. They are something else. The quoted article contains a discussion of the possibility of the eye projecting images onto external reality. I like the analogy, and I suspect something like that is going on, although the 'projector' works via the mind rather than the eye.

So I have a question to ask all of you who know more about UFOs than I do. (Most of you, basically!)

I want to know if they share one attribute with ghosts. There are multiple examples of ghost sightings where there have been a group of observers, all of whom were in a position to see the 'ghost' (whatever that is). Multiple observers, sharing the same line of sight, all of whom should have seen something if it was actually there as a physical object.

And yet there are many accounts where A has seen the ghost but B has not. I don't think it's always denial. I think the percipient is an essential part of the loop, and it works for some people but not others. It's the mind that sees the ghost rather than the eyes.

This is not hand waving in the sense that the sceptics will say "it's all in your mind". Well, it is mostly in your mind, although it's more an interaction of your mind with external forces that results in the perception. And it's often both repeatable and consistent.

So... the question.... how common are UFO sightings where there have been multiple witnesses, apparently honest and sensible, and all sharing a line of sight to something clearly visible to some of the witness, who even at the time simply don't perceive what the others are perceiving?

If the answer is "Yes, it happens" then that would be a valuable clue to the nature of UFOs.

Good points.

Ufos certainly often behave like a projection, that is they appear as a distant point flight, zoom in towards the witness and then move away too the distance at phenomenal speed. This is essentially how a torch beam or laser behaves when it is pointed towards you from distance and then away again.

As of yet I am not personally buying into the 'it's all in the mind' argument. Some people are paying more attention to their surroundings than others, and often for the simple reason that some people are more into nature, landscapes or historic buildings. One of the better aspects of my job is that we get to go on rural group walks down here in Cornwall. As I have a keen interest in wildlife I have often spotted buzzards, deer, rabbits etc. and pointed them out to the group, however by the time many have shifted their attention from chatting, looking at phones or whatever said creature has scarpered. I don't see how this would be any different with a ghost; even though someone might appear to be looking in a certain direction they can be mentally 'miles away'.

As for UFOs, as a teen ager I was convinced they were nuts-and-bolts physical craft from outer space, although this evolved to being from a different dimension. Now I am convinced that far folk, werewolves, bigfoot, Ufos, alien big cats and poltergeists are different manifestations of an intelligent 'other' that has existed alongside mankind since the dawn of time (not so sure about ghostly apparitions though). But these are personal thoughts and I enjoy reading and debating alternate views.

 

[Sabresonic]

That's a very good article, and the writer makes some interesting points.

I've never been deeply into Ufology myself, because I have a sneaking suspicion that UFO's - whatever they are - are not really physical objects existing in 3d space. They are something else. The quoted article contains a discussion of the possibility of the eye projecting images onto external reality. I like the analogy, and I suspect something like that is going on, although the 'projector' works via the mind rather than the eye.

So I have a question to ask all of you who know more about UFOs than I do. (Most of you, basically!)

I want to know if they share one attribute with ghosts. There are multiple examples of ghost sightings where there have been a group of observers, all of whom were in a position to see the 'ghost' (whatever that is). Multiple observers, sharing the same line of sight, all of whom should have seen something if it was actually there as a physical object.

And yet there are many accounts where A has seen the ghost but B has not. I don't think it's always denial. I think the percipient is an essential part of the loop, and it works for some people but not others. It's the mind that sees the ghost rather than the eyes.

This is not hand waving in the sense that the sceptics will say "it's all in your mind". Well, it is mostly in your mind, although it's more an interaction of your mind with external forces that results in the perception. And it's often both repeatable and consistent.

So... the question.... how common are UFO sightings where there have been multiple witnesses, apparently honest and sensible, and all sharing a line of sight to something clearly visible to some of the witness, who even at the time simply don't perceive what the others are perceiving?

If the answer is "Yes, it happens" then that would be a valuable clue to the nature of UFOs.

Good post so our favourite topics be it UFO's, Ghosts and Time Travel is a experience seen through the mind ?...I wonder if we can program our mind to see these things at will.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

I am positive that the very large craft I saw was a physical 'nuts and bolts' vehicle, obvious to me that it was not of this planet, and was intelligently controlled.
It was no 'projection' or light display or anything of that sort.
Judging by all the abduction cases and details, I don't think there can be any doubt that these vehicles are real and that we are being visited on a regular basis.
Could we really expect the rest of the universe to completely ignore our planet?

 

[BS3]

That's a very good article, and the writer makes some interesting points.

I've never been deeply into Ufology myself, because I have a sneaking suspicion that UFO's - whatever they are - are not really physical objects existing in 3d space. They are something else. The quoted article contains a discussion of the possibility of the eye projecting images onto external reality. I like the analogy, and I suspect something like that is going on, although the 'projector' works via the mind rather than the eye.

So I have a question to ask all of you who know more about UFOs than I do. (Most of you, basically!)

I want to know if they share one attribute with ghosts. There are multiple examples of ghost sightings where there have been a group of observers, all of whom were in a position to see the 'ghost' (whatever that is). Multiple observers, sharing the same line of sight, all of whom should have seen something if it was actually there as a physical object.

And yet there are many accounts where A has seen the ghost but B has not. I don't think it's always denial. I think the percipient is an essential part of the loop, and it works for some people but not others. It's the mind that sees the ghost rather than the eyes.

This is not hand waving in the sense that the sceptics will say "it's all in your mind". Well, it is mostly in your mind, although it's more an interaction of your mind with external forces that results in the perception. And it's often both repeatable and consistent.

So... the question.... how common are UFO sightings where there have been multiple witnesses, apparently honest and sensible, and all sharing a line of sight to something clearly visible to some of the witness, who even at the time simply don't perceive what the others are perceiving?

If the answer is "Yes, it happens" then that would be a valuable clue to the nature of UFOs.

Yes, it happens. And it *might* have some connection with the psychological preoccupations of the witness.

Here is an article by David Halperin (once a ufologist, now a respected academic) about a UFO sighting in Byberry, Philadelphia in 1974, investigated by the late Matt Graeber. The implications are interesting, as well as pretty funny in this instance

https://www.davidhalperin.net/drawing-dirty-pictures-philadelphia-ufo-january-1974/

 

[charliebrown]

One of my greatest questions for me about UFOs in relation to the ones I have seen is their energy source.

At night it seems the color of the UFO whether fluorescent white, powder blue or red seems at first to explode away from the ship, but then some force pulls all that color back to the ship and the pulsating starts all over again.

This pulsating of color is a real mystery to me.

Maybe it has to do with their gravitational field the UFO generates ?

 

[PeteByrdie]

This seems an appropriate thread for this, if nobody objects.

Cool Worlds' take on why scientists rarely weigh in on the subject of UAPs.

 

[What Tyler]

Whilst I would love a Michael Rennie and Gort situation...I just don’t think they are physical ‘ nuts and bolts’ craft- well not extraterrestrial, really at least the sheer distances and material effort involved would mean a bit more of a mission aim than say stalling a Mini estate on a back road in 1978 and scaring the hell out the driver and passengers...hmm..

 

[charliebrown]

Past Ufology “ lore “ Wernher von Braun claimed the Roswell UFO was alive, organic with almost no instrumentation where the humanoids mind connected with their craft.

Bob Lazar also made a strong point that the UFOs at Area 51 had also few instrumentation.

I find this likeness intriguing.

 

[Aether Blue]

I think one big unwarranted assumption most humans make is that more advanced beings (from wherever) would automatically treat us as equals or near-equals. A better working analogy might be that, to them, we would not be "people," but wildlife: clever, tool-using wildlife, but clearly a lower order of being.

Let's review the main ways in which humans interact with wildlife:

1) If we're going to be honest, most people ignore it most of the time.

2) We hunt it for food, fun, or profit.

3) We do research on it in a variety of ways, ranging from passive, covert observation, to vivisection.

4) We capture it for zoos.

5) We run over it by accident.

6) We feed it, pet it, try to teach it simple tricks, or take selfies with it.

7) We talk to it, often in silly or nonsensical ways.

8) We torture it pointlessly for fun (e.g. burning ants with a magnifying glass or throwing rocks at squirrels).

9) We try to have sex with it. (see also Florida Man)

10) We exterminate it.

Now, if WE were the wildlife, don't most of those (except #10) sound vaguely familiar in the context of CE3Ks?

What humans generally DON'T do with wildlife:

1) Explain in detail the purpose of our lives or the functioning of our technology to it.

2) Send legitimate diplomatic missions to it.

3) Make serious efforts to convert it to our religion or political ideology.

4) Try to buy or appropriate their assets (e.g. ant hills or beaver lodges). We do bulldoze or pave over such things, but that's not quite the same thing.

Again, activities alleged for nonhuman Intelligences seem to fit this pattern.

 

[Aether Blue]

Another big one might be that there is no reason why nonhuman beings (from wherever) can't play dress-up. I mention this because there is a tendency either to discount or treat as disproof of the ETH when people submit High Strangeness reports that involve things like "Jesus in a spaceship" or "space clowns."

If a human can put on an eagle mask and do an eagle dance, why can't a nonhuman dress like a human clown and "do a clown dance?" It's equally possible that there may be artistic, cultural, or religious reasons for nonhumans to cosplay as various figures from human history, legend, or myth.

Furthermore, this activity may or may not be intended for viewing by a human audience. I don't believe that eagle dances require the presence of actual eagles to be considered worthwhile, for example.

Now, I'm not saying that such reports specifically support an extraterrestrial etiology either. But they are not inconsistent with it, nor with the Extradimensional Hypothesis, nor really with any other etiology.

 

[BS3]

Personally I always rated Martin Kottmeyer's analysis of the stranger aspects of the UFO phenomenon as "theatre", notably the regularity of car chases:

What possible rationale could chases serve for an extraterrestrial piloting a souped-up aerial dragster which, if some reports serve as a guide, could fly rings round a dragonfly? If it wanted the Earth vessel it could latch on to it in seconds and not spend a great deal of time curling the hairs of the drivers of the vehicles. The spectacle of cars, including police cars, chasing vessels with the implicit ability to achieve escape velocity from Earth itself has to be viewed as pure farce if we aren’t meant to accept these episodes under the proviso of dramatic licence

The motif of abduction:

Like chases, abduction is a staple item in action-adventure drama: the disparity of the frequency of abductions in drama compared to real life is again striking. The essence of all drama is conflict; for conflict to take place one requires a pretext to bring antagonists together. Ideally a moral dilemma must exist. Kidnapping sets up such a clear moral dilemma and at the same time inevitably brings the hero into interaction with the villain.

We know abduction was not a necessary feature of extraterrestrial contacts. Originally the novelty of the contact was enough to capture the interest of its audience. Problems arose in such contacts: the choice of the contactee and the aliens’ chary attitude to giving quality gifts commensurate with their benevolent talk. After a number of embarrassing incidents like the Adamski photos and Howard Menger’s recantation, the fate of contactees was declining audiences. The advent of abductions represented a fortuitous turn of dramaturgy. Abductions brought aliens and humans together, and then overlaid an element of conflict and power

The motif of amnesia:

Sometimes called the common cold of the soap opera, it is an extreme rarity in real life, but its dramatic possibilities are very seductive to TV writers...In ufology likewise, amnesia is common. It is generally limited to a small period of missing time and is not associated with physical or emotional trauma. Rather it is considered an erasure of events from the mind by the abductors. What gives away the dramatic intent of this event is the recoverability of the memory. Without recoverability there would of course be no plot. Permanent erasure would seem to be a feat more fitting of a super-technology

and explosions and crashes:

Explosions and crashes are the punctuation marks of adventure shows. Again there is an exaggerated frequency among UFO reports which seems to speak more to a shared function of entertainment rather than to an aspect of technological realities.

along with many other features (full article at https://web.archive.org/web/2014062...87/break-a-leg-the-ufo-experience-as-theatre/).

He concludes that the UFO experiencer (or more accurately the 'reporter', since we are usually dealing with reports) is, in a sense, acting.

 

[catseye]

I just keep coming back to the question 'why'?

Why would alien races, with the ability to cover interstellar distances, fly around in our atmosphere? Just, because? That doesn't cut it for me, either they'd be here to observe - in which case, landing, contacting people (and not just the occasional person, on their own) would be more useful, or just flying past on their way somewhere more interesting, in which case, why fly so low? Why be in our atmosphere at all? And why flying things that look like they could be out of a film rather than made of ..I dunno, clouds of gas or photons of light?

It just all seems so meaningless and lo-tech to me.

 

[BS3]

I just keep coming back to the question 'why'?

Why would alien races, with the ability to cover interstellar distances, fly around in our atmosphere? Just, because? That doesn't cut it for me, either they'd be here to observe - in which case, landing, contacting people (and not just the occasional person, on their own) would be more useful, or just flying past on their way somewhere more interesting, in which case, why fly so low? Why be in our atmosphere at all? And why flying things that look like they could be out of a film rather than made of ..I dunno, clouds of gas or photons of light?

It just all seems so meaningless and lo-tech to me.

Well, precisely. It's like the car (or plane) chases - so many come up in statistical analysis that it's been suggested we need to answer the behavioural question "why do UFOs want to chase/be chased by vehicles"? You don't get this many chases in normal life. They don't seem to fulfil any function.

The answer is probably that chases create dramatic tension. They have "meaning". Who is creating that meaning, and by what process, is another question entirely.

 

[ramonmercado]

I just keep coming back to the question 'why'?

Why would alien races, with the ability to cover interstellar distances, fly around in our atmosphere? Just, because? That doesn't cut it for me, either they'd be here to observe - in which case, landing, contacting people (and not just the occasional person, on their own) would be more useful, or just flying past on their way somewhere more interesting, in which case, why fly so low? Why be in our atmosphere at all? And why flying things that look like they could be out of a film rather than made of ..I dunno, clouds of gas or photons of light?

It just all seems so meaningless and lo-tech to me.

Teen tearaway ETs pranking us.

 

[charliebrown]

I am sure since UFOs have shown up in long ago paintings, UFOs have been around along time.

I could be a symbiotic relationship, we need them, they need us.

A theory of mine is they need our DNA for cloning, and since 75% of UFO sightings are near water, they need our water.

 

[Aether Blue]

I just keep coming back to the question 'why'?

Why would alien races, with the ability to cover interstellar distances, fly around in our atmosphere? Just, because? That doesn't cut it for me, either they'd be here to observe - in which case, landing, contacting people (and not just the occasional person, on their own) would be more useful, or just flying past on their way somewhere more interesting, in which case, why fly so low? Why be in our atmosphere at all? And why flying things that look like they could be out of a film rather than made of ..I dunno, clouds of gas or photons of light?

It just all seems so meaningless and lo-tech to me.

My personal hypothesis is that we happen to live in the cosmic equivalent of a vacant lot. Our only visitors from more advanced species consist of children at play, homeless people sleeping rough, and drunks peeing in the woods on the way home.

When the responsible adults show up to build a hyperspace bypass we'll know it...however briefly.

 

[charliebrown]

Maybe we are the “ Garden of Eden “ of the universe.

All of the Web pictures don’t look habitable !

 

[Salmonellus]

If I might recommend one of the best books on the association between UFO observations and High Strangeness, it would be the anthology
edited by Robbie Graham - 'UFO's: Reframing the Debate.' It makes a very convincing case for UFO phenomena being part of the wider spectrum of parapsychological events. I read it quite recently as part of an effort to research the UFO field, and it made an impression on me.

One example: most people would accept the often repeated claim that UFO contactees often develop minor psychic abilities afterwards. I found myself wondering if it might actually be the other way round. Could tuning into UFO's be a symptom of the manifestation of some psychic talent?

Anyway, the book is definitely worth a read if you're an adherent of the nuts-and-bolts hypothesis.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Personally I always rated Martin Kottmeyer's analysis of the stranger aspects of the UFO phenomenon as "theatre", notably the regularity of car chases:



The motif of abduction:



The motif of amnesia:



and explosions and crashes:



along with many other features (full article at https://web.archive.org/web/2014062...87/break-a-leg-the-ufo-experience-as-theatre/).

He concludes that the UFO experiencer (or more accurately the 'reporter', since we are usually dealing with reports) is, in a sense, acting.

Thanks for posting this link, he does seem to have hit the nail on the head.

For example, the Normanton (UK) case a couple or so decades ago where a number of children watched a UFO shaped like a Mexican hat land in an adjacent field (but on the edge of a built up area). They call their mother and together they all watch three 'ufonauts' in classic ufonaut silver suits pointing an object at the ground. Suddenly the ufonauts realise they are being watched! Oh no, those pesky kids! They scurry back to their craft and fly away....

I mean seriously, they landed on the edge of a Northern town in broad daylight, what did they expect? How come they have the ability to evade the UK's state-of-the-art military and civilian radar and yet get rumbled by those pesky kids? This is a case I really like as there were multiple witnesses and it is difficult to explain away as a helicopter given the immediate proximity of electricity pylons.

Yet the whole event was pure theatre. Why not send a small drone down to point the object at the ground rather than an Apollo-style landing in daylight? It is as if they wanted to be seen but that in turn makes the whole endeavour futile.

 

[What Tyler]

Regarding how ETs could view us... I often find myself observing ants, ( other insects are available) - they are complex, have an interactive society, are very organised, arguably have a class system, build what could be defined as towns and even cities, cultivate crops ( fungus etc) and even “ farm” other insects... and yet, they have absolutely no idea or comprehension that a creature like me is observing them, or even if they crawl on me what I actually am.
Maybe, just maybe The Zoo Hypothesis, is a factor with UFOs... and that the close encounters are experimental theatre...

 

[BS3]

Thanks for posting this link, he does seem to have hit the nail on the head.

For example, the Normanton (UK) case a couple or so decades ago where a number of children watched a UFO shaped like a Mexican hat land in an adjacent field (but on the edge of a built up area). They call their mother and together they all watch three 'ufonauts' in classic ufonaut silver suits pointing an object at the ground. Suddenly the ufonauts realise they are being watched! Oh no, those pesky kids! They scurry back to their craft and fly away....

I mean seriously, they landed on the edge of a Northern town in broad daylight, what did they expect? How come they have the ability to evade the UK's state-of-the-art military and civilian radar and yet get rumbled by those pesky kids? This is a case I really like as there were multiple witnesses and it is difficult to explain away as a helicopter given the immediate proximity of electricity pylons.

Yet the whole event was pure theatre. Why not send a small drone down to point the object at the ground rather than an Apollo-style landing in daylight? It is as if they wanted to be seen but that in turn makes the whole endeavour futile.

That is a great case.

Various factors, as you said, seem to rule out the usual misperception of something mundane, like a helicopter. You can't put it down to a Wollaton Gnomes-style 'shared fantasy' because an adult also became involved and saw the same thing. There's also the fact that the witnesses that Mantle was able to contact unambiguously remembered the same thing decades later.

Yet as you mentioned nothing about it makes much sense as a 'spacecraft'. In fact why go to the trouble of analysing, or whatever the device held by an entity was doing, a very ordinary field on the outskirts of an ordinary town: why *there* particularly?

 

[CharmerKamelion]

One thought re: trying to understand what supposed aliens are doing when they visit us .... if we assume the beings are objective (as in really there, not imagined) and we assume that they are aliens in the generally accepted sense (entities from another planet), why should we think that what they come here for would make any sense to us at all? Trying to rationalise their intentions in our own terms seems to me to take a narrow, parochial view. This has been said up-thread, I think. Every thing about their attitudes, aims, interests and technology might well be completely and utterly unfathomable to us.

Also re: the notion of their behaviour sometimes coming across as a performance designed to confuse us, it occurs to me that maybe most of the time they can operate without fear of us realising they are there because their ultra advanced tech successfully hides them from our eyes and our detection systems. Perhaps occasionally their disguising mechanisms fail and they realise with horror we can see them. They land in a field somewhere, assume their cloaking tech is functioning, start going about their business then see a bunch of kids and their mum standing staring at them. "Oh no! They can see us! Did you forget to switch on the invisibility field again, Thaarg? Better leg it, guys!"

 

[Tunn11]

I am sure since UFOs have shown up in long ago paintings, UFOs have been around along time.

I could be a symbiotic relationship, we need them, they need us.

A theory of mine is they need our DNA for cloning, and since 75% of UFO sightings are near water, they need our water.

Doesn't that mean that they are not from "space"?

Water is much easier to obtain in space, lots of asteroids etc. with no gravity well to overcome and presumably not contaminated by fish shit and other undesirable content.

If they need our DNA then panspermia must apply, unless they originated here but you would think given our current ideas that stem cells would be of more use to them.

Of course if they are not from "space" but elsewhere then, IMO the water/DNA argument applies.

But we don't know (assuming intelligent beings are behind this) how they travel. If some sort of "stargate" applies that pops up in our atmosphere then crashing UFOs, abductions, mutilations, DNA harvesting, needing water, may make more sense.

 

[BS3]

Looking again at the Normanton sighting, I think it points to the fact that the reason the UFO appeared there, particularly, is that it was where the witnesses were. In other words the sighting is 'aimed' at the witnesses quite particularly by some intelligence. The presence of water or anything else may be a red herring; the main thing was to be seen (and upon being seen depart again).

This is a common pattern. Michael Swords talked about a sighting by an astronomer of a red light that moved over her head in a zig-zag path, quite clearly stopping at places where it occluded certain specific 'significant' stars. But to appear to stop exactly 'over' these stars the UFO, or any postulated intelligence controlling it, would have to have only a few hundred square feet of the earth's surface in mind - in other words the sighting was unambiguously and specifically intended for the witness. I think this is one thing that does seem to make sense in many cases, among all the other incomprehensible imagery.

The question is where does this intelligence lie; with the witness themselves or somewhere outside them?