...so I can sleep soundly again?

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=5553040

12/19/2007 10:33:46 PM

floating palm trees

12/19/2007 10:37:56 PM

uavs

12/19/2007 10:40:40 PM

OK looks like it was done with Vue 6 Esprit.

But have any of our TDUB Pilots seen anything wierd up there?

12/20/2007 12:02:14 AM

theres some video that the mexican air force put out of some pilots spotting some really weird lights out there. pretty cool stuff.

after watching some history channel, discovery channel, and cnn shows on UFOs recently, i'm a believer!

12/20/2007 1:12:24 AM

They looked like Christmas trees lashed together.

12/20/2007 1:42:21 AM

Why is this in Soap Box instead of Chit Chat?

12/20/2007 9:26:40 AM

^
Could be borderline chit chat...but I think UFOs are worthy grizzle for the SB crew. Does anyone think the gov't is holding back alien info from us?

I read a book a few years ago by a Phillip Corso. He wrote the book just before he died of old age. I believe he was an Army officer put in charge of filtering out UFO technology to manufacturers so they could claim "inventing" the stuff. Things like IC circuits, lasers, optics.

I just found it odd that a man with such a distinguished army career would make such a claim..if it wasn't true.

12/20/2007 10:04:22 AM

^I heard something along those lines....supposedly reverse engineering the technology from a crashed craft was the catalyst for us entering the information age.


I don't really buy it tho.

12/20/2007 10:09:50 AM

Those UFO don't seem to break any laws of physics.

If the video ain't chopped, they're probably some sort of experimental craft.

Humans are much more likely to be behind UFOs than aliens.

We have a long history of doing strange things.

12/20/2007 11:29:23 AM

Quote :

"Could be borderline chit chat...but I think UFOs are worthy grizzle for the SB crew. Does anyone think the gov't is holding back alien info from us?"

UFOs? Maybe.

Viral videos from six months ago? Hardly.

12/20/2007 12:59:52 PM

Quote :

"Does anyone think the gov't is holding back alien info from us?"

oh come on, you didn't just go there....

why is it that people who think the government is too inefficient and incompetent to run anything more complex than their office copy machine are often the same people who think that the government is also run, at least behind the scenes, by groups of masterminds who are capable of keeping secrets for decades without leaking the slightest bit of evidence (Roswell) or who can coordinate attacks on their own country of a massive scale involving hundreds or thousands of people who they've managed to keep completely quiet (9/11 conspiracies).

Is there life elsewhere in the nearly infinite universe? It's almost statistically impossible to deny that.
Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Likely.
Is there a possibility of that intelligent life visiting our own planet, and leaving nothing behind except blurry pictures and unsubstantiated videos? Not a chance.
Is "the government" covering up said visitors?

The government reverse engineering alien technology so they can apparently sell it to industry to "reinvent" on their own? Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break. That is not only insulting to common sense, that's insulting to the scientists and engineers who spend years researching and developing these technologies. So you want to trust a former army officer over the words of thousands of engineers who can precisely and in full detail trace our current technologies directly back to the notebooks of the guys who laid the foundations for it, then even further back as to how those foundations were created?
You don't think an Army officer would do such a thing? Really? 1) oh right, because being a US Army Officer prevents you from telling lies, even if the potential for profit from something like.... sell a book is available to you, and 2) because being and Army Officer somehow proves you're not batshit crazy? sorry dude, but there are batshit crazy people doing nearly every job on this earth.

12/20/2007 1:20:37 PM

btw
http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/haitiufos.asp
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/newmedia/la-et-ufo22aug22,0,2266445.story

Quote :

" Barzolff, Sam said, wished to remain anonymous, but he was prepared to share the full story of the videos. I agreed not to reveal his real name. Then I was all ears as Sam began parroting into the phone the words I could hear Barzolff saying in the background. The 35-year-old Barzolff is a professional animator who attended one of the most prestigious art schools in France and has a decade of experience with computer graphics and commercial animation. It took Barzolff a total of 17 hours to make both the Haiti and Dominican Republic videos. He did it all by himself using a MacBook Pro and a suite of commercially available 3-D animation programs, including Vue 6. The videos are 100% computer-generated. The videos, he said, were intended as research for a feature film project he's been working on with Partizan, the France-based production company responsible for, among others, Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." When contacted to verify the story, "Eternal Sunshine" producer Georges Bermann said it was all true, and that Barzolff was "an absolute genius" who could "make anything look entirely real." To prove that he was truly behind the videos, Barzolff agreed to provide the L.A. Times with a new spacecraft video. Called "Proof," the video depicts a small version of one of the spacecraft floating above a Paris street. As the camera pans over, the viewer sees two elderly women at a cafe, one of whom is holding a remote control device. Humorously, of course, this video makes use of computer graphics as well. The movie Barzolff is working on for the big screen is about two guys who create a UFO hoax so realistic that it spirals out of their control. "For better or worse," said Barzolff, who cited being "overwhelmed" by the response to his video as one of the reasons he didn't want to go public with his name. Barzolff stressed the videos were not intended as a viral marketing ploy. His movie is still in the idea phase, and he created the hoax strictly as a "sociological experiment" -- in other words, just to see what would happen. What happened far exceeded his expectations. After he finished producing the videos, he posted them and went to bed. "I thought they would reach perhaps 2,000 people," he said through Sam. "When I woke up the next morning there were 70,000 views," on the Haiti video. "Twenty minutes later it was up to 130,000 views. It grew exponentially from there." Barzolff called the results of his experiment "entertaining, thrilling, completely addictive, and a little scary." The scary part, he said, was that in spite of the evidence, "many people refuse to believe it's a hoax." "

note the last sentence: people who believe in UFOs (or ghosts or ESP or bigfoot or 9/11 conspiracy or whatever) refuse to accept admission or proof as evidence of a hoax or trick. People who are so damned convinced of this bullshit will continue to believe this stuff even after being definitively proven wrong, claiming that the proof is just evidence of more cover up.

12/20/2007 1:40:52 PM

if you are interested in ufos and are a believer or non..then check out this link. there is some very interesting stuff on this website.

as an avid believer of UFOs and life out there...i thought the footage was awesome and very well done. i keep up with UFO stuff and ive never seen it before on any page that i visit made me wonder about the authenticity of it.

http://www.hyper.net/ufo/video-documentaries.html

12/20/2007 4:37:07 PM

Quote :

"mexican air force"

Do they put donkeys in slingshots?

12/20/2007 4:39:08 PM

Quote :

"as an avid believer of UFOs and life out there..."

wait, let me make sure i read this right.
Do you believe that there is "life out there", which is a near mathematically certainty, or that life actually visits us here on Earth?

Quote :

"made me wonder about the authenticity of it."

really? you questioned the authenticity? So UFO-believers actually do some some kind of bullshit meter? you question a well made video with no discernible flaws at first viewing, but you'll accept as fact blurry and fuzzy black and white pictures?

12/20/2007 4:49:14 PM

If aliens could get here, we'd most likely only be able to detect them when they wanted us to.

12/20/2007 4:53:12 PM

oh right, of course they would.
more than likely they can break the laws of physics by traveling faster than the speed of light to get here anyway.

it might get old adding everywhere, but i feel compelled to put them after every sentence when discussing UFOs....

12/20/2007 4:59:03 PM

Uh, you don't need FTL to get here. Just a decent fusion or antimatter drive and bit of time. Advanced civilizations wouldn't have to worry about our absurdly short lifespans.

12/20/2007 5:03:26 PM

ok fine. let's say, for the sake of argument, that you have an inexhausable supply of fuel and living creatures have figured out how to survive for the millions of years it would take to reach us at anything less than light-speed......
that would still leave open the questions:
1) how would they find us
2) why would they come here
3) why wouldn't they communicate with us
4) if they did have technology or whatever to stay hidden off our radar or satellite tracking, why do they so often show up in badly lit and focused pictures and videos
5) why do only crazy/uninformed people see them, or at least people who are already convinced they exist and therefore look for any excuse to say they've seen one
6) what's their deal with anal probing. i mean for realz

but why am I even bringing these questions up? The UFO people have yet to produce a single bit of verifiable evidence that any of this stuff is or has happened. The burden of proof is on you/them to prove they exist.

12/20/2007 5:54:37 PM

Quote :

"5) why do only crazy/uninformed people see them, or at least people who are already convinced they exist and therefore look for any excuse to say they've seen one"

Well, Dennis Kucinich says he's seen on... oh, wait. Nevermind.

12/20/2007 5:59:23 PM

Quote :

"ok fine. let's say, for the sake of argument, that you have an inexhausable supply of fuel and living creatures have figured out how to survive for the millions of years it would take to reach us at anything less than light-speed......"

You don't need that much fuel. Only enough to speed up and then slow down. That's the wonderful thing about space. Once you get moving, you keep on moving. I'll grant that purely biological creatures are unlikely. However, intelligence doesn't have to reside in fragile forms.

Also, millions of years? We already have plans for a theoretical antimatter drive that could manage 0.4 c. So it'd take around 250,000 years to travel across the whole galaxy. Are you assuming these aliens would have to come from outside the Milky Way? If so, why?

Quote :

"4) if they did have technology or whatever to stay hidden off our radar or satellite tracking, why do they so often show up in badly lit and focused pictures and videos"

That was more or less my point. I don't see why they would, unless they wanted to mess with us. The type of aliens I'm imagining to could hide from us. I don't know why they'd go for all the weirdness typically associated with UFOs.

12/20/2007 6:09:04 PM

Quote :

"However, intelligence doesn't have to reside in fragile forms. Also, millions of years? We already have plans for a theoretical antimatter drive that could manage 0.4 c. So it'd take around 250,000 years to travel across the whole galaxy. Are you assuming these aliens would have to come from outside the Milky Way? If so, why?"

ok, you know what? I agree with all this. It's great. Like i said before, it's nearly statistically impossible that we're alone in the universe. There is life somewhere out there among the hundreds of billions of stars and solar systems. And maybe somewhere else life has transformed into sentient machines who are immortal.

But this has nothing to do with idiots running around photographing planes in the night sky or believing hoaxes that are easily created with 1970's computer technology, then ignoring facts or explanations when they come out!

12/20/2007 6:48:00 PM

Yes, I think we more or less agree. Most of the behaviors attributed to aliens are downright silly. Anal probes? Chopping up cows?

I doubt it. If aliens were here, they'd have the tech to examine us painlessly.

[Edited on December 20, 2007 at 7:04 PM. Reason : the]

12/20/2007 7:00:51 PM

we agree if you believe that:
1) there is "life out there"
2) there is potentially and maybe probably intelligent life out there
3) that life may or may not be able to travel light-years, or could have robotic life to do it for them
4) there is no hard or real evidence that said life has ever visited our earth or had contact with humans

12/20/2007 7:22:05 PM

Yes, I can agree with those.

12/20/2007 8:53:54 PM

Interesting stuff there StellaArtois.

I remember reading about the St. Clair County sighting. 6 people, 5 of them police officers all in different areas of the city...reporting the same huge triangle. Making no sound as it hovered.

I've never seen a UFO, and I tend to discount sightings by one or two people...especially ones looking for them.

But my credibility meter goes up a bit when multiple people report the same thing..especially when they are people prone to disbelieve..such as cops and pilots.

With the Minot AFB sightings in '68. You had over 10 soldiers on the ground and a B-52 crew in the air...all describing the same thing. It hovered almost next to the B-52. They described it as glowing yellow and as long as a football field.

The official gov't report was that everyone had seen a star.

I also remember the 1979 mass sighting in Phoenix. Gov Symington came out the next day with a guy dressed up as an alien to ridicule what hundreds of people had seen the night before...a giant triangular craft hovering over the city.

Years later, after Symington was out of office...he admitted seeing the craft that night as well. He pulled the stunt the next day to calm nerves as he put it.

Some won't be convinced until a craft lands on the White House Lawn. And that's OK.

[Edited on December 20, 2007 at 11:49 PM. Reason : .]

12/20/2007 11:48:22 PM

Did anyone actually think they weren't computer generated?

12/21/2007 12:16:32 AM

^^^^ You've obviously never read A Wrinkle in Time. If I were you, I wouldn't be so damned cocksure that movement beyond our understanding within the space-time dimensions is impossible. I mean, have you even considered the possibility of nonlinear time as it relates to travel?

12/21/2007 3:12:44 AM

Oh, well if it's in A Wrinkle in Time then yeah, of course.

12/21/2007 10:00:59 AM

^^exactly, i cant believe people hold advanced aliens to the same low standard technology that we use.

Fuel? they dont need no sticking fuel? seriously do you think they us light a match and burn combustable fluid to travel through space?

if you dont believe me, try explaining to someone who lives in a jungle that you can talk to someone on the other side of the earth in real time, he'll say its impossible. just like we'll think its impossible how they can travel from place to place in no time.

do i think they're here? probably in some form, but im sure they wouldnt let themselves be seen, they could do anything they wanted and we'll never know about it.
if there are advanced civilizations out there why wouldnt they visit and check out life all over the universe.
thats what we'd do.

12/21/2007 11:44:06 AM

Quote :

"Fuel? they dont need no sticking fuel? seriously do you think they us light a match and burn combustable fluid to travel through space?"

No, they'd most likely use fusion or antimatter.

Quote :

"do i think they're here? probably in some form, but im sure they wouldnt let themselves be seen, they could do anything they wanted and we'll never know about it."

They wouldn't need magical tech to hide from us. Decent nanotechnology plus understanding of the human brain would make us their playthings. I'll grant they could be here. But I don't know of any evidence.

12/21/2007 11:51:26 AM

to anyone who believes "they are among us" or that we've been visited or whatever:
I'm fine with aliens having technologies that we don't have or haven't even thought of yet. I'm fine with them figuring out how to harness the space-time continuum or traveling through wormholes or whatever.

But the fact remains, we on earth have no such evidence this is taking place! Arguing that aliens walk among us without actually having a reason to believe so, even if it is technically possible is flawed logic. It's almost like how Creationists argue. They already "know" the end result, now they just try to backfill the evidence to support their preconceived conclusions. People who "know" aliens are on earth or visit earth don't have any actual scientific evidence to support that conclusion or how that conclusion is even possible, so they just make up "what ifs" to try make it sound like their conclusion could or is happening.

12/21/2007 2:20:55 PM

check this out and judge for yourself
http://www.videosift.com/video/Most-accurate-Investigation-into-UFOs-ever

12/21/2007 5:47:46 PM

Quote :

"we on earth have no such evidence this is taking place!"

Try telling that to the hundreds of people in Phoenix- including the governor of Arizona who watched the huge Triangle hovering silently over the city.

12/21/2007 9:29:54 PM

as far as the original post video, sorry to break it to you but it looks like a hoax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDRv4o6SRQ

12/21/2007 10:23:15 PM

^^^ That was interesting. Perhaps there's something to the phenomenon, but I'm certainly not ready to conclude it comes from another planet.

12/22/2007 10:34:34 AM

Quote :

"we on earth have no such evidence this is taking place!"

Try telling that to the hundreds of people in New Jersey who watched Martians invade in 1938.

[Edited on December 22, 2007 at 11:17 AM. Reason : ]

12/22/2007 11:16:28 AM

Quote :

"we on earth have no such evidence this is taking place!"

think about this. Lets say you were driving down the road and you see a flying saucer, you see its alien, you even video tape it then show it to people, the media, police etc.
what do you think is gonna happen?

there will be some buzz, then with no further evidence it will be put aside like all the other sightings and video and it will only be remembered by those who keep up with it.
so before you say we have no evidence, you have to think, how much evidence do you need?

12/22/2007 11:26:13 AM

I am amused that the French take UFOs seriously.

Of course, they also believe 9/11 conspiracy theories.

12/22/2007 11:29:58 AM

If you believe in angels and demons and such then you believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. These are beings which are distinct from humanity and are, from what I can gather from scripture, lifeforms which interact with our plane of existence but also transcend it. So, I would not be entirely surprised if we were to find proof of "alien" life at some point in the future.

As far as I've seen that point is not now. Not in terms of the type of "proof" which observational science requires, I mean I believe I have encountered the work of angels I've heard testimony and accounts which are difficult to account for if not for some supernatural influence... but these are not events which we can control, so there is not much chance of "proving" that there was an angel at work. I think it is logical to suppose that an angel was at work, but there are other possibilities so probably none of you would count it as "proof". Because when it comes to the subject of the supernatural the burden of proof required by the unbeliever often seems to be the burden of mathematical proof almost, entire incontravertible evidence... not the sort of proof we require to argue whether or not our favorite theory of politics works, or for that matter physical "law".

Transitioning a bit ( now I'm talking about the traditional extraterrestrial not an angel or demon),

You guys are funny, why should Aliens use the physics we know now to run their spacecraft? And who is to say that their lifespan isn't a million years? OK, I see your point if it is something like "even with the physics we know now" it is possible... but lots of things are possible. A mouse could live on the sun, I could phase through a wall,... well if you believe quantum mechanics really applies to the
macroscale, but much like the creation of life from nonlife these are incredibly unlikely events, certainly outside the realm of observational science.

I like C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, his vision of alien life in those books is quite novel.
I would expect the reality would be more like "Signs"

12/22/2007 12:07:49 PM

Quote :

"But my credibility meter goes up a bit when multiple people report the same thing..especially when they are people prone to disbelieve..such as cops and pilots. "

You need to do a little bit of reading about psychology and the effect of memory on peer group interactions.

When multiple people report the same thing, my BS meter goes up even MORE, unless one or more of the people are experts in the field (and being a UFO "expert" does not count)

Go play a game of telephone with a group of 10-20 people, and let me know how accurate your information ends up.

12/22/2007 12:48:48 PM

Quote :

"When multiple people report the same thing, my BS meter goes up even MORE,"

Are you serious? Does apply to multiple witnesses as well? In any case, data from many sources form the basis for most good arguments.

12/22/2007 1:37:28 PM

When its in reaction to a known event, being recorded by an outside person, yes.

When its hysteria, no.

And no, in any case, SUBJECTIVE accounts from many sources is not a basis for any good argument. This exactly why it's called circumstantial evidence. Eye witnesses are very very often incorrect and can be easily misled while being questioned.

12/22/2007 1:41:43 PM

Quote :

"And no, in any case, SUBJECTIVE accounts from many sources is not a basis for any good argument."

As a history major, I have to completely disagree. We tend to base our arguments on a pile of subjective accounts. (All accounts are subjective.)

12/22/2007 1:45:52 PM

Then you of all people should know the fallability of human recollection.

And again, there's a difference when asking people about an event without them discussing it together. Separate, unmuddied accounts are completely different.

Its when a group of peers see the same event, then talk about the event, then report the event to a biased person, that it becomes questionable. Which is what always happens in UFO sightings. And the interviews invariably ask completely leading and biased questions

12/22/2007 2:21:26 PM

Quote :

"Which is what always happens in UFO sightings."

Not really. Some only have only a single witness. Personally, I find those less convincing.

I find the evidence in military memos most interesting. For example:

http://www.outofthebluethemovie.com/data/Smith_Sarbacher/Smith.html

http://www.outofthebluethemovie.com/data/Hoover/Hoover.html

None of it proves aliens have been here, of course, but I think it's safe to say something strange was going on.

12/22/2007 6:54:22 PM

Quote :

"You need to do a little bit of reading about psychology and the effect of memory on peer group interactions."

I dunno. Watching Astronaut Gordon Cooper tell about his experience was pretty convincing. He didn't seem like the type to go into your pyschology mumbo jumbo excuse. He was a steely-eyed test pilot, who lived or died on his ability to observe and react.

Quote :

"unless one or more of the people are experts in the field (and being a UFO "expert" does not count)"

How can you be an expert in the field of UFOs and not be a UFO "expert"? But as I said, I tend to discount people who are looking for UFOs. People like cops and pilots are usually busy doing something else when they encounter one.

Quote :

"all people should know the fallability of human recollection."

Multiple witnesses cannot always be written off that easily. In the St. Clair, Minot AFB and Phoenix cases...multiple people who were not in the same vicinity described the same object and it's movements.

And these people didn't just catch a quick fleeting glimpse. They observed the objects for an extended amount of time. And I would think seeing a UFO for more than a couple of minutes would stick in your mind very clearly forever.

12/22/2007 10:55:25 PM

I was referring to expert in the terms of real professions, aka an aerospace engineer, mechanical engineers, etc.

And being a test pilot doesn't make you of sound mind. Go take a look at any of the tens of thousands of veterans who are loon bats. It just means you can fly a plane. Or maybe the astronaut who is on trial now for attempting to kill a rival lover, wearing diapers.

Or any of the several other looney astronauts who have all kinds of kooky ideas and beliefs.

Lets compare this to a real event, the last space shuttle that broke up on reentry. It was a TINY ship (compared to most "UFO" sightings) and yet was sighted (and more importantly photographed and videotaped) by thousands of people.

Even THEN, there was pretty huge variance in reported sightings and what happened. It took a long time investigating and examing the physical evidence to reconstruct what happened.

[Edited on December 23, 2007 at 12:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/23/2007 12:11:21 PM

Quote :

"I heard something along those lines....supposedly reverse engineering the technology from a crashed craft was the catalyst for us entering the information age."

yeah this was a plot for voyager two part episode with sarah silverman

12/23/2007 1:58:37 PM