UFO's. Are they real?

[Brock]

I've never seen any UFO's, I've always known what they were.

Ah but they might have been WIFOs.
Wrongly identified flying objects.

 

[Pete]

YES!! I have definite proof! While walking near Cissbury Ring, I see clear evidence that the aliens have arrived at last! It looks saucer-shaped and metallic in appearance from a distance, bobbing up and down over the Downs. Unfortunately, as I hurry forward rehearsing in my mind the routine for getting past the coppers in Downing Street and presenting Mr. Little-Green-Man-With-TV-Aerial-Sticking-Out-Of-His-Head, to Tony Blair*, the blasted thing ducks down behind a hill. When I catch sight of it again, the darn thing has transmogrified into an Earthling’s model aeroplane! Damn!

*This was a few years ago.

 

[GaryA]

Most people find it hard to grap the immensity of space and time. 100 BILLION starts in our galaxy alone, and our galaxy is one of a hundred BILLION galaxies. I find it hard to believe that with the massive number of planets that exist out there life has not flourished. Surely to believe that this pale blue dot in space is the only that harbours life is both naive and arrogant. Check out the equation created many, many years ago by the astronomer Frank Drake. It uses a number of variables to calculate the number of civilisations in our galaxy. The answer may surprise you.

I'm afraid Drakes equation is rubbish and completly descredited....Enrico Fermis question "where are they" remains even more valid today

SETI? Deafening silence

The Earth-Moon double system we have is vanishingly improbable, an equal probability necessary for the planetry stability essential to produce conscious beings

 

[bonj2]

Most people find it hard to grap the immensity of space and time. 100 BILLION starts in our galaxy alone, and our galaxy is one of a hundred BILLION galaxies. I find it hard to believe that with the massive number of planets that exist out there life has not flourished. Surely to believe that this pale blue dot in space is the only that harbours life is both naive and arrogant. Check out the equation created many, many years ago by the astronomer Frank Drake. It uses a number of variables to calculate the number of civilisations in our galaxy. The answer may surprise you.

Depends how you define 'life'. We are just chemicals at the end of the day, carbon, oxygen, water, etc., just arranged into cells which interact.
There could be lots of other possible arrangements of molecules into cells (or even other alternatives to cells) that are equally complex that we may have already been able to detect but not thought it was anything interesting.
Probably the only reason we haven't found life is that we're expecting it to too much like us, or like your stereotypical 'alien', with short fat green body and eyes on stalks. Neither are they likely to slowly land in a clearing in a forest amidst a pool of light, then walk down a flight of steps that lowers with a slow mechanical whirr, and say 'take me to your leader'.

 

[LordoftheTeapot]

 

[Cab]

Nothing really wrong with the Drake equation, except that it doesn't have any of its parameters defined.

We don't know the probability of life evolving around any star, we don't know the probability of it gaining intelligence, we don't know the probability of that intelligence existing at the same time as ours. So we haven't got enough parameters defined to do anything with that equation; the equation itself is fine though. All of the babbling on and estimates about what the values that can be added in it regarding life on other planets are sheer folly until we have a sample size of planet candidates for life larger than 1.

However... Aliens coming to earth in UFOs... No. I don't believe a word of it.

 

[andy_wrx]

UFO
ITV 4, 8:00-9:00pm Thursday 4th October

Kill Straker!
Foster is brainwashed into challenging Straker's authority - and then launches a more deadly attack. Classic sci-fi, starring Ed Bishop. With George Sewell, Michael Billington, Peter Gordeno, Norma Roland and Gabrielle Drake.

 

[got-to-get-fit]

Ive seen what i thought were UFO's 5 sets of triangular shaped objects with red lights at each point of the triangle making rapid ascents and decents ....shooting off in deifferent directions and mind boggling speed and the reappearing just as quickly......just outside carlisle one summer night .....very freaky

 

[Melvil]

I think any civilisation that had mastered the art of crossing the unimaginable gulf between the stars would, ahem, he more than adept at camouflage...so the chances of seeing a genuine alien UFO would be around nil. The whole brightly coloured UFO theory also pre-supposes that aliens would see in our exact visual spectrum, which while possible, is also unlikely.

On a little tangent, I was reading once about 'project Aurora', the top secret (and uncertain existence) US spy plane project, which apparently produced a prototype in a triangular shape that was capable of hypersonic speeds and produced a distinctive 'doughnut chain' contrail. This could account for some UFO sightings?

 

[yenrod]

Why where you out drinking with a few last night Bonj...

Depends how you define 'life'. We are just chemicals at the end of the day, carbon, oxygen, water, etc., just arranged into cells which interact.
There could be lots of other possible arrangements of molecules into cells (or even other alternatives to cells) that are equally complex that we may have already been able to detect but not thought it was anything interesting.
Probably the only reason we haven't found life is that we're expecting it to too much like us, or like your stereotypical 'alien', with short fat green body and eyes on stalks. Neither are they likely to slowly land in a clearing in a forest amidst a pool of light, then walk down a flight of steps that lowers with a slow mechanical whirr, and say 'take me to your leader'.

 

[Fnaar]

Poem by Edwin Morgan

The First Men on Mercury
-We come in peace from the third planet.
Would you take us to your leader?

-Bawr stretter! Bawr. Bawr. Stretterhawl?

-This is a little plastic model
of the solar system, with working parts.
You are here and we are there and we
are now here with you, is this clear?

-Gawl horrop. Bawr Abawrhannahanna!

-Where we come from is blue and white
with brown, you see we call the brown
here ‘land’, the blue is ‘sea’, and the white
is ‘clouds’ over land and sea, we live
on the surface of the brown land,
all round is sea and clouds. We are ‘men’.
Men come –

-Glawp men! Gawrbenner menko. Menhawl?

-Men come in peace from the third planet
which we call ‘earth’. We are earthmen.
Take us earthmen to your leader.

-Thmen? Thmen? Bawr. Bawrhossop.
Yuleeda tan hanna. Harrabost yuleeda.

-I am the yuleeda. You see my hands,
we carry no benner, we come in peace.
The spaceways are all stretterhawn.

-Glawn peacemen all horrabhanna tantko!
Tan come at’mstrossop. Glawp yuleeda!

-Atoms are peacegawl in our harraban.
Menbat worrabost from tan hannahanna.

-You men we know bawrhossoptant. Bawr.
We know yuleeda. Go strawg backspetter quick.

-We cantantabawr, tantingko backspetter now!

-Banghapper now! Yes, third planet back.
Yuleeda will go back blue, white, brown
nowhanna! There is no more talk.

-Gawl han fasthapper?

-No. You must go back to your planet.
Go back in peace, take what you have gained
but quickly.

-Stretterworra gawl, gawl…

-Of course, but nothing is ever the same,
now is it? You’ll remember Mercury.

(actually, Fnaar speaking here, sounds like a night out in Glasgee!)