Why does the government hide UFO's?

Stick to the one liner insults troll. Apparently it's the only thing you know how to do here.

 

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With all these conspiracies, ghosts, goblins, Bigfoots, UFO's of Alien origins conducting medical procedures, running about helter skelter, it's a wonder some have the nerve to get out of bed in the morning!

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Is that a two-liner insult or just two separate one-liner insults? Another question for the philosopers, I guess!

 

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I don't believe that the world's governments believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial visitors or that there is any conspiracy to keep extraterrestrial visits secret.

Why do I think that?

Because none of the governments show the kind of interest in UFOs and in UFO reports that one would expect, if they really believed that they were extraterrestrials. One would expect them to take UFO reports very seriously and sightings to attracts hordes of government investigators. There would be far more emphasis on manned space travel and on space defenses. SETI would receive massive funding. We don't see anything remotely like that, and never have.

 

If you stopped your incessant snark and actually used your mind for a moment, you would recognize that isn't a bad hypothesis.

Lets assume (just for the sake of argument) that descriptions of extraterrestrials such as the big-eyed 'greys' is accurate.

That means that whoever is driving these things possesses a humanoid anatomy very similar to our own. Two arms and two legs, with a head riding on top. Musculature not unlike our own. Two eyes, perhaps a nose, and one mouth centered below the eyes. No mandibles or insect-like mouth-parts. Hands with fingers.

The obvious similarities to human beings suggest to me that if beings corresponding to these descriptions really existed, they would be genetically related to human beings. There's a clear family resemblance.

So what could account for that?

Time travelers from the far distant future would be the hypothesis I'd favor. People argue against the possibility of time travel by asking, 'If it is possible, then where are the time travelers?' Well, this might be the answer. It could even explain the UFOs reluctance to make unambiguous contact, if the time travelers knew that they can't change the past without endangering their own future (the old science-fiction conundrum).

Other possibilities might be crypto-zoological hominin species that have somehow remained hidden from us while developing superior technology, or perhaps visitors from some alternate earth in a many-worlds multiverse ('interdimensionals').

Whatever, the obvious anatomical similarities to ourselves would suggest some connection to Earth. They would most likely be local-boys, not extraterrestrials with a totally different prebiotic origin and evolutionary history.

(The explanation that I think is most likely is that these things are folkloric, products of the human imagination. That would account for the similarities too.)

 

I dealt with that in the short space of five lines in post #24

Or maybe it could more accurately be called "pursuing a hypothesis".

 

100% incorrect.

for reasons

except society itself has--maybe it is just you?

 

This is worth repeating.

This is a good summation by Magical Realist of the implausibility of UFOs and aliens. In one succinct paragraph, he has come around to the conclusion that the notion is preposterous.

The rest of the post goes in the wrong direction though, looking for an even more implausible explanation (thus multiplying entities unnecessarily) - but the acknowledgment of the preposterity of aliens and UFOs is definitely progress.

We should applaud this.

 

Yay MagicalRealist! A small step in the beginning of a long journey towards rationality!

 

"Clark: You say that scientists are entering ufology in search of physical evidence. But is there physical evidence? And if there is, are they going to find it? What happens if they don't?

Vallee: If I were speaking for them I would say, "Jerry, it's premature to ask those questions." One doesn't know the answers until one really looks - and so far nobody has looked very seriously. So far the people who have looked have been military types searching for enemy craft or direct threats to national security. Or they've been superficial investigators, dedicated civilians with good training but limited time and limited resources.

But you're asking me what I think. I think there are physical data. They are very, very interesting. They may contain a message. My inclination is to look at the message both in a physical sense and in a symbolic sense, but that's because I'm an information scientist and not a physical scientist. I look for the meaning behind the object.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Recently Paul Cerny investigated a case in northern California in which two older persons saw a UFO take off. Afterwards they saw a sort of ring on the ground. Within the ring they found some molten metal and a pile of sand.

Obviously here is physical evidence. Two tangible things - the molten metal, which turned out to be brass, and the sand. I took some of the latter to a geologist friend who knows about sand. He said it was highly unusual because it did not contain quartz and it was not stream sand or beach sand or residue from mining or anything else. It seemed to be artificial sand created from grinding together stones of different origin.

Well, to a physicist that may not mean too much. It's an indication of something that turns out to be absurd. We can put it alongside other cases of physical traces and then we may start looking for patterns which might lead us to a better understanding of the modus operandi of whoever's doing all this.

In that sense, yes, there is physical evidence. But if you mean physical evidence in the sense that we're going to discover somebody's propulsion system from it, I would have to say I don't expect that to happen.

Clark: Can we infer from the existence of physical evidence, then, that there is a physical cause?

Vallee: If the UFO phenomenon had no physical cause at all, there would be no way for us to perceive it because human beings are physical entities. So it has to make an impression on our senses somehow. For that to take place, it has to be physical at some time.

Clark: So in other words there is such a thing as a solid, three-dimensional flying saucer.

Vallee: No, I didn't say that. That may or may not be true. I don't think there is such a thing as the flying saucer phenomenon. I think it has three components and we have to deal with them in different ways.

First, there is a physical object. That may be a flying saucer or it may be a projection or it may be something entirely different. All we know about it is that it represents a tremendous quantity of electromagnetic energy in a small volume. I say that based upon the evidence gathered from traces, from electromagnetic and radar detection and from perturbations of the electromagnetic fields such as Dr. Claude Poher, the French space scientist, has recorded.

Second, there's the phenomenon the witnesses perceive. What they tell us is that they've seen a flying saucer. Now they may have seen that or they may have seen an image of a flying saucer or they may have hallucinated it under the influence of microwave radiation, or any of a number of things may have happened. The fact is that the witnesses were exposed to an event and as a result they experienced a highly complex alteration of perception which caused them to describe the object or objects that figure in their testimony.

Beyond there - the physical phenomenon and the perception phenomenon - we have the third component, the social phenomenon. That's what happens when the reports are submitted to society and enter the cultural arena. That's the part which I find most interesting."====http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc608.htm

 

Who could possibly understand a level of humanity that has evolved thousands of years from now? What common psychology would remain for us to identify with, especially with beings obviously evolved to become highly visual nocturnal telepaths? What would their agenda be for imitating extraterrestrial invaders? What constraints must they observe in the very feat of traveling into their own past? What do they know about consciousness and history and time that we have just barely skimmed the surface on? What is the nature of our time in history that we must have these sightings planted into our collective consciousness like viruses or worms that quietly change the whole system from underneath? These are questions needing to be asked, if we are going to be open to the reality of this phenomenon.

 

Conversely, these are questions that do not need to be asked because they are based on an absurd fantasy.

Why not ask and ponder the question, "how long do unicorns live?"

 

i would say humanity--since humanity has been doing this for centuries.

 

Go ahead and ask it if that's what you're worried about. It's a free world. Pursue the mysteries that are relevant to you.

 

That depends on the author of the story.

 

No that's not the only two options. As I explained, the phenomena itself appears to be real, but it just eludes scientists and government agencies as to what is behind it. Here's a list of CIA and government reports on UFOS that has recently been made public:
==============================================================
IT HAS long been claimed the US Government, its enforcement agencies, and NASA have been involved in a massive cover up over contact with aliens and UFOs.

Old files released by the CIA have exposed the agency's previous UFO cover ups
Most notably, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been fingered by conspiracists as being at the heart of it and even responsible for controlling the mythical men in black - mysterious black-suited shades wearing men who turn up to dampen down any UFO or alien hysteria, reportedly telling any witnesses "it didn't happen."

In January the CIA poured cold water on the conspiracy by releasing a treasure trove of former classified UFO-related documents on its website to coincide with the new upcoming seasons of the X-Files.

But has the release dampened down the conspiracy or merely confirmed it?

Tucked away in the several files now on its website are a number of references to several sightings official investigators were UNABLE to explain and orders that followed that could be interpreted as a cover up.

Scores of unexplained UFO sightings were revealed and also a policy not to release details
There is even reference to the potential to mirror Soviet state-controlled media censureship of flying saucer sightings.

As many as 26 per cent of reported sightings could not be explained and could be down to aliens, according to reports written in the 1950s.

One is a report by the then deputy assistant director/acting chief of the Weapons & Equipment Division dated August 1, 1952 and entitled "Flying Saucers" by Edward Tauss.

It was an "overall evaluation of "flying saucer sightings" for the agency.

It told of between 1,000 and 2,000 reported sightings, most were either "phoney," known US aircraft, or natural or weather phenomena such as meteorites, clouds, tricks of the light, or reflections.

• But it said there were touching 100 "reasonably credible reports" that remained "unexplainable" - meaning "interplanetary aspects and alien origin were not thoroughly excluded" - so approaching five to 10 per cent of the sightings were unresolved.

Later reports quoted higher amounts of unexplained cases at 20 and 26 per cent.

The report went on to say that while it was likely there could be explanations if more information were available, as long as there remained inexplicable reports, the CIA interest in the subject should continue.

It said: "It is recommended that CIA surveillance of subject matter, in accordance with proper authorities of primary operational concern at Air Technical Intelligence Centre, be continued.

"It is strongly urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as 'confirmatory' of the soundness of the 'unpublished facts' in the hands of the US Government."===http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird...FO-sightings-to-prevent-mass-hysteria-exposed

 

The Fortean in me likes your #2. (Sorry James, but I do.)

It seems to me that the powers of human imagination, including scientific hypothesis generation, are limited by previous experience. We frame hypotheses in terms of what we already know and in terms of what we have already experienced. So it's tempting to speculate that maybe ufos are a manifestation of something from totally out of left-field, something that we have never before experienced and whose existence we have never even suspected. In other words, it's conceivable that they are some kind of phenomenon that's totally new to human beings, which prevents us from grasping them and getting our minds around them.

I have to say that I'm more inclined to think that ufos are folkloric, which I'd guess is JamesR's view too, even if he's nastier about expressing it. But neither of us knows what ufos are for a fact, it's more of an assumption.

Just the nature of the situation suggests that it might be very difficult to assign probabilities to these kind of speculations, since how can one assign probabilities to totally unsuspected possibilities straight out of the unknown? It's more like your critics are just assuming a-priori that nothing can possibily exist that has no place in their existing worldview.

 

And maybe snarky juvenile wisecracks by people who haven't even studied it is what keeps this phenomenon from ever being taking seriously in the first place. The fallacy of incredulity applies again: "Hey! I don't know what it could be! Therefore it isn't real."

 

I think that there's a huge difference between

1. Government investigators are unable to explain away all ufo reports.

or even

1a. The government doesn't want to admit that they can't explain them all, since they know how the media would run with that.

and...

2. The government knows that ufos are extraterrestrial spacecraft.

or even

2a. The government knows that ufos are extraterrestrial spacecraft and is engaged in a huge conspiratorial coverup to keep information about the presence of extraterrestrials on Earth from the public.

As for me, I have no problem believing 1., that the government can't explain them all. It's basically what I would expect.

I can even believe 1a, that the government doesn't want to publicly admit that they can't explain them all.

But I see absolutely no evidence that 2. or 2a. are true.

What kind of evidence would we expect to see if they knew that extraterrestrials were visiting Earth?

I would expect to see far more interest in ufo sightings than we actually see. I'd expect to see government investigators descending on anyone who makes a ufo report. They would want to extract all the information that they could about what kind of extraterrestrials were involved and about what capabilities they displayed and what they were up to.

I would expect far more government interest in manned spaceflight and in space defenses.

And I would expect tremendous funding and effort flowing into SETI. I'd expect worldwide networks of electronic listening posts and huge watch-the-skies efforts.