Is there a UFO Superstition?

Who says we would be limited to c?
Ever heard of warp drives and wormholes?

I can’t say for sure if UFO is real. It may be, it may not, we just don’t have a solid evidence. So, if you don’t have any evidence, why use UFO to explain anything unexplanable? I’m not an expert in astrology or anything like that but I don’t believe in anything without solid evidence.

And if UFO is real, why do they come to Earth in the first place? OK let’s assume that they want to invade us or do research on us like in those sci-fi, but why do they have to care? Why do they need to own a planet that is far less advanced than theirs? That just doesn’t make sense to me.

Oh, and if you ask the people who believe in UFO what an alien may look like, their description is quite absurb too. The aliens are most certainly pictured as some kind of deformed creatures that look like something from a horror movie, and are always stronger than human one way or another.

…

Oh I almost forgot! We have an alien coming from an advanced planet sitting here on Fluther watching pathetic human in disgust. I’m a believer now! ~

@ragingloli

Do you have any good reason to believe there are such things as “warp drives” and “wormholes?”

@Mimishu1995

Tell me who the alien is . . . come on, I won’t tell anyone else.

What is the point of such a question? Your wording and subsequent responses show your opinion. Ok, no such thing as aliens in your lexicon. Why try to start an argument with people?

@Setanta
The fact that both are allowed by the Theory of Relativity.

@Jak

I’m not trying to start an argument, but you are, of course, entitled to think so.

@ragingloli

I claim no expertise on either special or general relativity, so i’d be interested to know why you think that.

To clarify, the question is about superstition, although demonstrating that it is possible for aliens to visit this planet, or that aliens have visited this planet, would refute the claim that it is a superstition.

The text in your details smells strongly of copy & paste, therefore not your words & even if they are, it comes across as arrogant & patronising

http://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

@ucme

I guess you don’t see how that remark comes across as insulting, or arrogant and patronizing itself. It certainly is not a copy and paste—you are welcome to do a literal word search to show that it is. The most you might come up with is my having posted the first paragraph elsewhere on-line in the;past. Only the last sentence of that paragraph is new.

My intent was to discuss this as a superstition, just as people may discuss the god superstition and what they think motivates it. That would not alter, though, the right of people, and that possibility of people coming here to deny that it is superstition, as Ragingloli is doing.

It’s modern folklore until some tangible evidence is produced.

@ragingloli

Thank you. These are things i did not know, although i will point out that in both cases, the claims are speculative. It certainly does sustain your reason for claiming that wormholes are supported by general relativity. When i have time, i will go back to the Wikipedia article to read the section under the rubric “Difficulties.”

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Do you view it in the same light as religious superstition, as i do?

No. Believing UFOs are aliens is more probable and there is not really a religious component attached to it.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

I have met a few, a very few people, who attach a religious-like fervor to a belief that aliens have and continue to visit this planet. I acknowledge that it does not resemble theistic religion.

This universal assumption that says any alien life is hugely advanced both intellectually & by definition, technologically, is rather baffling to me
Who’s to say that they are, in fact, morons lost in space who stumbled across our planet & thought “LANDD AHOO!” (morons can’t spell)

@ucme

OK, that’s novel, at least. I don’t think, though, that an assumption that a species capable of developing the technology for interstellar travel is advanced intellectually and technologically is unreasonable. I would point out that i said nothing to support such a claim, or the use of the adjective “hugely.”

@Setanta Well tell them to stop listening to coast to coast then. It has become part of fringe newage bullshit. I suppose someone has probably made a religion about it. “Ufologists” certainly make money doing speeches, seminars and history channel shows.

@Setanta I wasn’t referring to you or anything you said, just a general topic of discussion

Object? Check.

Is object flying? Check.

Is flying object unidentified? Check.

We got us a UFO!

Die hard X-phile here:

UFOs are just fun.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Erich von Däniken made a mint with his “ancient aliens” BS. Then, some time in the 70s, a couple of jokers stumbled across the so-called Roswell incident, and they were off and running. Roswell itself holds a UFO festival and cashes in.

@ucme

I went to Wikipedia to make sure i spelled von Däniken’s name correctly, and saw this quote of Carl Sagan:

That writing as careless as von Däniken’s, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken.

That’s a succinct statement of an idea i’ve had for many years, but hadn’t expressed that well.

I think that your personal information is too limited to make such a statement.

@Setanta This question is structured as pejorative of people’s ability to think.

A discussion of UFOs and alien life forms is not superstition. Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology and certain aspects linked to religion…

Speculation is the ability of people to think beyond the current parameters and restrictions of the day, and wonder about possibilities. No one is claiming the ability of alien civilizations to reach earth as some supernatural event; rather, it is extending current knowledge and hypothesizing if interstellar travel at beyond light speed is possible.

@Jak

I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean, nor to what statement of mine it refers. Do i need to be personally vetted to make statements in this forum? Why do you display such personal hostility?

Well, my girlfriend and and I saw something very strange one night, and so at least one other person in the stopped line of cars (due to train) in 1977 or so. Have no idea what it could have been, but it was strange. My girlfriend jumped out and ran up to the guy in the car ahead of us, asked him if he saw it. He seemed agitated and insisted it had to be some sort of government experiment of some kind then rolled up the window to forestall any further discussion. Well, we were within 20 miles of McConnell Air Force base.

Rick and I had an odd experience with something for several weeks, not long after we got together. We called it “Our friend.”
“Our friend is back! He’s following us home from the lake.” This was not very long after 9/11.

I don’t see it as a superstition. I think superstition refers to things you can’t actually see, or relates to something magic, like, “luck.”

I think it’s exactly what it is, An Unidentified Flying Object. That’s not to say it can’t be identified, it just can’t be identified by the people who see it.

I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in magice, and I can state with certainty I have witnessed two UFO sightings in my life.

”Well, my girlfriend and and I”
Oho

@Setanta “OK, that’s novel, at least. I don’t think, though, that an assumption that a species capable of developing the technology for interstellar travel is advanced intellectually and technologically is unreasonable.”

Well, America made it to the moon and back, and is now seriously contemplating Donald Trump as president. Technological and intellectual/social advancement do not always go hand in hand.

@zenvelo

The question is not “structured as pejorative of people’s ability to think.” It amazes me that such strong, hostile responses have been engendered. Your definition of superstition is particular and self-serving. Here is the Dictionary-dot-com definition:

1. a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.
2. a system or collection of such beliefs.
3. a custom or act based on such a belief.
4. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion.
5. any blindly accepted belief or notion.

You don’t get a reference to religion until the fourth definition. A complete lack of any evidence that interstellar aliens have, do or ever will visit this planet is sufficient to warrant the use the term superstition. Using the term superstition is not pejorative in the absence of any such evidence. Mimishu expressed skepticism, is he not to be criticized for that skepticism? Is that because he is known here, and I am not?

In addition to the lack of evidence i will point out that no one has addressed my two points about the real costs in energy and materials which would be necessary for such an endeavor, and the question of why anyone would come here in particular. Ragingloli is the only person to have responded with any attempt to support a claim that it were possible.

I seem to really have struck a nerve with some people. Some of those who have responded appear to think that a personal ox of theirs has been gored.

@dappled_leaves

Mencken wrote: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” I suggest that the word intelligence could be used in place of taste.

@Dutchess_III

Sighting UFOs does not constitute evidence that aliens have visited this planet. Based on a definition of superstition such as is listed as number 1 above, a belief that UFOs are alien visitors qualifies.

It would be possible to discuss the proposition that UFOs as alien visitations constitutes a superstition without making slighting remarks based on assumptions about how i view others.

It is kind of pointless to speculate over energy and material costs, because humans have been wrong before about those kinds of things.
Before the space age, people thought it was impossible to launch a rocket into space, because the amount of fuel and therefore mass required would be greater than what the fuel would be able to lift.
Then the problem was solved by using multi-stage rockets.

Or take the previously mentioned alcubierre warp drive.
Previous estimates on energy requirements were in the range of several solar masses.
By adjusting the warp field geometry, those estimates were reduced to about 700kg.
FTL interstellar travel might actually turn out to be quite trivial.

@ragingloli

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. When you send living creatures out into the interstellar medium, they need food and water in renewable forms and they need very heavy shielding from stellar radiation. One of the reasons i have become more skeptical about claims regarding space travel in recent years is that people tend to ignore these things. Even if you can reduce the material and energy costs, you still have to feed the crew and shield them from stellar radiation, and that means big, heavy ships.

Who says you have to send humans

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Not necessarily humans, but anyone who says aliens have visited is making such a claim. I don’t believe that i specified humans.

That is really more of a logistics problem, not a technological one.
You could send several unmanned vessels loaded with food and drink ahead of the main mission and dot them along the route.
The manned vessel then drops out of warp, picks up the supplies, and jumps back in.

You could also put the crew into suspended animation.

Or you could make the ship fast enough to make supplies much less of an issue.

And depending on how low you can push the energy requirements, ship size might not even be a problem in the first place (you can build the ships in space, after all), so you can have your onboard farms and hydroponic gardens.

If your food is irradiated by the level of stellar radiation which would kill you, you could kill yourself by eating it. You cannot get around the necessity of shielding living beings from stellar radiation. If you were out there on the way to Mars in what has been the standard space vessel in our “space age” and you got hit by the radiation from a solar flare, it would kill you. Period. The only question would be whether the level of radiation were low, and you would therefore linger for months before dying, or it were high enough to kill you in a fews days. That’s physics and biology and no amount of amount of science fiction/fantasy can change it.

Now you have introduced “suspended animation.” We don’t know that that is possible, either.

@Setanta
“Now you have introduced “suspended animation.” We don’t know that that is possible, either.”
Frogs do it.

Furthermore, if you have the energy to create a warp field for interstellar ftl travel, you have the energy to erect an EM deflector field.
Or you put on enough conventional materials to provide the shielding. Remember that the mass of the ship may not be an issue.
Or you coat the craft with metamaterials that are engineered to be invisible to the harmful types of radiation in question.

What I am seeing here is that you are looking for problems, and intentionally refusing to look for solutions.

We aren’t frogs.

What I see here is a science fiction/fantasy writers’ workshop. I’m not looking for problems, I’m pointing out problems which exist, and for which no one has provided evidence of a solution, never mind an economical solution. Keep in mind that your alien culture has to pay for this, and aliens may be as averse to high taxes as we are, especially for endeavors with no prospect of a return on investment.

My skepticism began and grew with considering the so-called Fermi paradox. One of the first questions I asked myself is how the government of governments of other planets with sentient, technological life would justify the expenses in energy and materials would justify the effort. Initially i was responding to Fermi’s implication that there must not be any other technological cultures out there. Ironically, the more I consider the question, the more i am convinced that Fermi may be right, although for all the wrong reasons.

Brian Cox thinks we’re alone in this galaxy. He hasn’t been terribly forthcoming about why he thinks so, other than to say the rise of humans was essentially what an American might call dumb luck.

You’re all over the road here—you say it might not cost a great deal in energy and materials, and then answer objections by saying they could just build bigger ships. Building big ships is something I’ve already mentioned as a limiting factor. At any event, saying it might have happened is speculation; saying it has happened while offering no evidence is superstition.

The odds of us being alone are astronomically low, literally. That said odds are conversations between us and “them” is likely to be about as meaningful as trying to communicate with a smart sea sponge.

@Setanta
You are not birds either, yet you still learned how to fly.
You are not fish, yet you learned how to traverse the oceans, both above and below.
You are not worms, yet you learned how to burrow through earth and rock.

Furthermore, possible solutions have been offered to you, either being theoretically possible, or even close to being practical.
You can deflect cosmic radiation with electromagnetic fields. That is what Earth’s magnetic field is doing.
Metamaterials invisible to certain frequencies of light have already been created.
Dropping supplies along the way is basically what one of the plans for a manned Mars mission intends to do: send a return rocket ahead of the main mission that will produce the fuel required for the return trip on Mars.

And also, how big do you think NASA’s budget is? It is half a percent of your federal budget.
And they still manage to do quite a lot with what amounts to a tiny fraction of what is available.
The financial cost argument seems completely baseless to me.
And why would you want to go to space?
Why DID you go to space?
You have a space station, you have had guys on the moon, you have robots on Mars, and you have probes that have already left your solar system. Why?
Why is SpaceX doing what it is doing?

You want to do interplanetary and interstellar space travel to:
– colonise other planets and ensure your species’s survival in case/when Earth goes bust.
– exploit natural resources available on asteroids and other planets
– space tourism
– military considerations. if there are actually alien threats out there, you want to know about them, in detail if possible.
– preventing natural desasters originating from space. would be a really good idea to destroy/reroute that killer asteroid that you just discovered.

I see no hostility, only people pointing things out to someone who professes to want to know what people think, then tells people that they’re wrong. Telling you that your personal information is limited is certainly not hostile. If a blind man is touching an elephants leg and then states that an elephant is like a tree, he obviously is not cognizant of all the available information and it is not being hostile to point it out.
An opposing pov is not hostility.
I maintain that you know too little of the vast amount of information to make a statement like you did and subsequent answers have pointed out to youthat even your choice of words are incorrect for the sentiment you are trying to put across.
And if you are going to make statements like calling belief in UFO’s a superstition, you can expect some backlash and some people correcting you and pointing out the fallacies in your logic.
That isn’t hostility, it is point/counter point debate, which I noticed that you stated elsewhere is something that you like.
If you wanted everyone to just agree with you, you’ve chosen the wrong forum.

The assumption is that since these “visitors” are showing up with such frequency in front of credible sources, they must have discovered ways around the physical barriers we now confront. In other words, there are discoveries awaiting us which should allow us to duplicate their travels and confuse folks more primitive than ourselves. Who can predict how or when such breakthroughs will occur?

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Brian Cox does not think there are other technological civilizations in our galaxy.

From that link:

He said: “There is only one advanced technological civilisation in this galaxy and there has only ever been one – and that’s us,” Professor Cox said. “We are unique.”

So that contradicts your claim, if by alone you mean other technological civilizations, at least with regard to this galaxy.

@ragingloli

You stated that frogs are capable of suspended animation. Now you speak of birds, fish and worms. So you refer to the innate abilities of other animals, and the technologically similar abilities of humans as though that makes it reasonable to assume we can “do” suspended animation. I am not convinced. Then you instruct me on why one would go into space. I understand these considerations, but i don’t see that as germane to the question of whether or not believing that interstellar aliens have visited this planet is a superstition. Absent any evidence that using the means you refer to or any other means, aliens have visited this planet, i consider such a claim superstition. Do you know of any credible evidence that aliens have been here?

@Jak

I consider being told that i am arrogant and patronizing, and that i am pejorative to disparage other peoples’ ideas to be a hostile reaction. Your mileage may vary. What possible relevance can the content of my profile have to whether or not believing that interstellar aliens have visited this planet is a superstition? What logical fallacies do you allege are present in my statement? What was incorrect in my choice of words? I have no idea what you refer to when you say that elsewhere i said that i like point/counterpoint debate. I don’t dislike it, but i made no such statement here. I consider “backlash” to a statement which anyone makes to be hostile in character, and hardly consonant with debate.

@stanleybemany

I am unaware of any unambiguous evidence that anyone has seen interstellar aliens. Perhaps you could provide such evidence.

Some of the responses i have gotten here convince me more than ever that a belief that interstellar aliens have visited this planet constitutes a superstition which rises to the level of a religion.

What I have done is refuting your objections as to why it is somehow impossible for aliens to come here.
Then I refuted your claims as to why aliens would not want to come here.
And now you seem to have forgotten the fact that you were the one that brought up these objections and claims to impossibility to which people have posted refutations, considering that you now want to move the goal posts again.
It is clear by this point that you are not really interested in an honest discussion, and there really is no point in continuing with this.

Oh, and Stephen Hawking thinks that aliens might destroy you.

So Brian Cox is somewhow an all knowing psychic or something? He is going to be a minority and dare I say holds a fringe opinion on this. There is other intelligent life on this planet.

I did not at any point say that it is impossible that aliens have come here, just that it is improbable. I did not at any point say that aliens would not want to come here. I did ask why they would want to come here. I haven’t moved any goal posts. I have already acknowledged that the sources you linked suggest that so-called wormholes might exist and that a so-called warp drive might be possible.

None of that constitutes evidence that aliens have ever visited here. Those are the goal posts, if you want to claim i am wrong to call the belief that aliens ahve visited here is superstition.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Brian Cox is a Fellow of the Royal Society, an English physicist who is also an Advanced Fellow of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. I do not consider it irrelevant to point out that in his informed opinion there are no other technological civilizations in this galaxy. I in no way offered his remarks as coming from an “all-knowing psychic.” Really, if all you are going to offer is snide hostility, I see no reason to continue to talk to you.

Just because the man has those credentials does not mean he has any more insight on this than anyone else. I would take the opinion of a biologist over his when it comes to the probability of intelligent life. As far as snide hostility you have not seen that yet.

I won’t see it either, because i don’t intend to read any more of your posts, now that you’ve added implied threats to your repertoire.

You’re taking things too personally.

HAHAHAHAHA! Not gonna read it, so there!
Confirms my suspicions about the level of maturity all along.

@Setanta “Sighting UFOs does not constitute evidence that aliens have visited this planet.” I never said it did. I said I’ve seen a UFO twice. To me, and those who were with me, it was a UFO. It was flying, and it was an object, and we couldn’t identify it.

Are you actually trying to have a serious discussion about UFOs? I think you may be on the wrong site. Try My Space. Ha ha!

@Setanta I haven’t read this whole thread, but I’m getting the impression that you think that many of us here on Fluther believe in the UFO, beings-from-another-planet-visiting-earth nonsense.

Am I misunderstanding you, and your point?

@Dutchess III makes a good point that is often ignored. The gap between unifentified flying object and visitors from another world is quite real and very large. The clue is in that word “unidentified” further enforced by the vagueness of “object”.

Motivation for aliens to travel here or anywhere to me is curiosity. Think of when humans could only walk. Distances were not greater, they just took longer to cover. Man was curious, and possibly in search of more resources. Some of early man’s travels were extremely dangerous. Who knows how many early humans died attempting to traverse ice mountains and torrent rivers.
Then eventually they created boats, used horses and even wheels to help move supplies. Journeys across massive deserts and oceans may as well have been the equivalent to how covering space is for us now. In other words as a species advances, it invents and or finds new ways of covering distance. I think the disparity between walking on foot and flying in jet powered planes is similar to that of our current capabilities and interstellar travel. The more time a species has lived it seems plausible to me that their technology would advance to a point where going from say our Sun to the nearest star would be like us now going from New York to England. Eventually, having mastered this type of travel , their technology would keep improving until the time required to travel such distance would be even less. The size of the universe is soooo vast to us because of the limitations of our technology. Looking into the heavens for us now is what it must have been like for the first humans looking g out to the ocean. It seemed formidable and probably to most unthinkable to try and explore. But after the invention of boats, rigging, sails etc. It became common to traverse the seas.
I think if there are ETs that have mastered space travel, why not explore. Just because we as a species are presumably less intelligent than them wouldn’t make us less interesting to observe or research. We humans never tire of observing and studying the animals on our planet ( all of which are less intelligent than we are.) Many times our observations lead to breakthroughs in technology and medicine. Exploration is INVALUABLE to any species hoping to improve. Well worth the countless dollars and resources we put into it. And our government knows it, that’s why we put so much money into it.

I also think you assume that these hypothetical creatures would have the same needs as we. They may have a natural immunity or high tolerance for radiation. They may not require large amounts of food or water. They may live exponentially longer than us , so spending years traveling space might not take up as big of a percentage of their lives. Perhaps your question should have been, is space travel (long distance ) for US a superstition? We are the species that has the limitations in resources , technology, and our frail bodies. Our only effective means of space travel currently is propulsion. Even if we made advances in increasing the speed to faster than we ever thought possible, our bodies could never survive the acceleration and deceleration. Manipulation of space and time ‘wormholes’ or something similar is probably the only way to cover the vast distances of space. If aliens have that part figured out for instance, the distance between wherever they come from wouldn’t matter.
So, yeah….

@Dutchess_III

I have wanted a serious discussion, and absolurely no one here has addressed the question of why people would have a UFO superstition. As for the snide comment in the post before yours about maturity, how mature have been the comments of several (but by no means all) of those responding here? How mature was it to suggest that i should have gone to My Space? Is this typical of how members here treat people who ask question they don’t like?

”I haven’t read this whole thread, but I’m getting the impression that you think that many of us here on Fluther believe in the UFO, beings-from-another-planet-visiting-earth nonsense.

Am I misunderstanding you, and your point?”

Yes, you are. There is nothing which I wrote in the opening post which for a moment can reasonably be construed as a comment on the membership of this site. I offered nothing which justifies a conclusion that i have such an opinion of the membership here, and in fact, I thought, perhaps foolishly, that i could get a mature and civil discussion of UFO obsession as superstition. Silly boy, eh? Stanleybemanly’s response is germane, but in no way describes my attitude, nor would i have assumed, before i started this thread, that it would hare characterized the membership here. I think now that it may describe some few members, but despite being called arrogant and patronizing—although i had called no one any names—i have not made any assumptions about the membership here, and at the outset believed it were possible to have an intelligent discussion of a UFO cult as superstition.

Those who disagree might simply have said, “I disagree,” rather than taking cheap shots at me.

@MrGrimm888

I have already stated that I don’t allege that it is impossible, but only improbable that aliens have come here. Regardless of whether or not there are “wormholes” and “warp drives,” the real cost in energy and materials would be high. I doubt that any technological civilization would engage in such an expensive venture merely to gratify an idle curiosity.

I have also twice linked the statement of Brian Cox that we have the only technological civilization in this galaxy. While I feel that is too absolute, I do think that it is likely that there are no more than a few, at most, and largely for the same reasons which journalists report are his. I don’t entirely trust journalists when it comes to reporting on what scientists have said—witness the unwarranted claim that Cox had said there were no other technological civilization in the unviersek, which he certainly did not say.

But the question of this thread is not what i do or do not believe in this matter of alien visitations. I have made it clear that i don’t believe that. I had wanted to discuss why there would be this UFO cult superstition.

I know that UFOs are an obsession with some that the intensity of which is similar to a ‘god superstition. ’ Personally I don’t put religion and superstition in the same category. I guess they’re beliefs.

I use the term superstition to refer to belief which is not based on evidence.

Why would the be people who believe in UFOs is the question then?

I think most ‘believers’ probably started with seeing something that was a UFO or at least to them . Also, it should be noted that there are some people who are bat shit crazy. But I assume you’re asking about ‘normal ’ people.
In addition, it’s fun to believe that there are aliens . I find the possibility endlessly intriguing.

OK, let’s see if I can answer this.

I don’t think a belief in extraterrestrial UFOs is a “superstition.” Superstitions are based on unseen magic and luck. It’s most closely related to religion..

I think people have seen things they can’t explain, as I have, but that isn’t unseen magic or luck. It’s actual physical “evidence” of some kind. Now how they choose to interpret that “evidence” is up to each individual.
I think that the more religious, or the more conspiracy minded people would be tempted to view it as something more than it is, which is just an unknown object, but I don’t view that as a superstition, any more than I view 911 conspiracies as a superstition. I view it as irrational behavior.

Is that what you were looking for @Setanta?

”@MrGrimm888

Indeed, see the comment of SecondHandStoke, above.

@Dutchess_III

Yes, that is the sort of thing I had wished to discuss. I acknowledge that that might not have been clear as I originally phrased the question, but the moderators bounced it back to me to be edited.

This is the opening statement I made:

I have no doubt that people see, or think they see, objects, or what they think are objects, which are flying, or which they think are flying, and which they are then and subsequently unable to identify.

I have said this many times in conversation, and posted it on-line. The angriest response I have ever gotten was from a man who is a devout Christian, and who was offended as though I had personally attacked him, because he says that he has seen a UFO, and knew it was aliens.

So, what do you seek from this question? What response did you desire most when crafting the question? And yes it’s sometimes tough to phrase a question just right. Especially knowing that it will be picked apart.

Well, as I said, I was willing to be the the more religious will see mystical magical things in things like that, than more rational people.

@MrGrimm888

A discussion of what would motivate such a superstitious response.

Because they were raised to believe in magic and taught that the the irrational and impossible is real?

Your question,’ Is there a UFO superstition? ‘s answer would depend on solid fact (like a crashed UFO in broad daylight in front of thousands of people, with dead aliens everywhere ) for it to NOT meet your definition of the word superstition. So the answer is yes. There is a UFO ’ superstition. ’

@Dutchess_III

That’s a distinct possibility. I genuinely did start this thread because i don’t understand that thinking at ll.

@MrGrimm888

Cool . . . what do you thinbk motivates it?

Motivation? Perceived witnessing of an oject, or event someone couldn’t explain, and (for maybe lack of a better word ) gossip. If someone says they saw something, they tell others. That coupled with all the ‘normal’ stuff flying around up there that probably is to blame for most experiences…Some people believe in big foot. I don’t consider that near as plausible.

I suppose I believe in UFOs…I’m not wearing an aluminum foil hat or anything though. I guess I think it seems reasonable to me that there would be other beings in our universe. And if they happened to notice us , why not observe us? We might be they’re advissary one day. They might want to get a good look to make sure we aren’t a threat to them maybe. Maybe their just nosy…

Ok. I thought about it more. What if we are alone in the universe? (For the sake of the discussion )
Perhaps it’s natural for humans to think that you aren’t alone in a large void. If a person was floating in a large body of water they might naturally be concerned for their safety. Even if they saw or heard nothing. A person’s (well some people ) survival instinct would make them feel uneasy because with all the unknown area bellow them a predator could be lurking. It would seem plausible to me that human’s survival instinct could play a role in our belief that ‘there’s just gotta be something out there.’

Now that seems a plausible position. I agree with Mr. Cox that we are probably not alone in the universe, he says we are alone in this galaxy. I don’t know, but absent evidence, i don’t accept alien visitations.

I’m beginning to form a superstition that @Setanta and @MrGrimm888 are the same person.

No shit?

Lol. Hardly. I was simply attempting to see his/her point of view. Perhaps then I could come up with a unbiased answer. As I said, I do believe. But I felt I could better serve this forum by playing devils advocate (no pun intended. )
The person who asked this question was seeking a specific type of conclusion, and I attempted to see things like I thought he/she might.
I don’t find entertainment in speaking with people who agree with me. Our differences are much more interesting.

I agree that it’s natural (though perhaps conceited) to believe alien intelligence to be driven by the same curiosity afflicting ourselves. I believe that there probably are intelligent beings other than ourselves in this our galaxy, and there may be several varieties that are eons ahead of us developmentally. This would imply that they are very probably aware of our existence and given our nature, particularly monitoring us due to our BIG flaws.

Now imagine our own reaction if as an advanced spacefairing civilization we look down on a pretty place we’ve known about for awhile and notice thermonuclear detonations in the planet’s atmosphere. Wouldn’t we more or less sound the alarm, and send all the research and data collecting assets we could muster to go over the place before the idiot residents hell bent on destroying it could have their way?

It appears that this is becoming, once again, an argument that there are, have been or will be visitations by interstellar (even intergalactic) aliens. I see no reason to believe that, absent any evidence,and given the implausibility of the proposition. So I am interested in why people persist in adhering to a belief for which they have no evidence. It is thinking I genuinely don’t understand. That people may hold beliefs unexamined does not surprise me; that they would persist in a belief for which they have no evidence once challenged does.

I just think it an interesting coincidence that just as cold war nuke tests get rolling, UFO sightings suddenly become so commonplace as to be routine. Now there is something to be said for the failure of anyone to produce wreckage from a flying saucer or little green corpses. But when conspiracy advocates accuse world governments of suppressing such evidence, only a very naive individual would doubt for an instant that if evidence of such things were indeed discovered, our governments would damned sure spare no effort to confiscate and suppress it as a matter of routine.

I don’t agree with you final statement, because conspiracy theories are almost always based on a premise that at least dozens, or even hundreds or even thousands of people keep their mouths shut for years on end. That’s not human nature. I think governments might try to keep it a secret, but i doubt that they would keep the secret for very long.

As for the cold war and alleged UFO sightings, i think that is likely just coincidence. Governments have other reasons for keeping things secret. Conspiracy theorists who write books don’t necessarily believe what they are writing, but they make good money from human credulity. In 1947, a high-altitude balloon which had crashed in New Mexico, well to the north of the town of Roswell, was found by a caretaker. It was in the “silly season” and a local reporter came up with a flying saucer story. The United States Army Air Corps issued a statement, the purpose of which was to divert attention from the real story. The real story wasn’t that they had discovered aliens, the real story was that the balloon was from Project Mogul, and the Army Air Corps would rather have the press babbling about flying saucers than give the Russians any clues.

It was in the 1970s, after the unexpected success of Erich von Däniken’s ancient astronauts BS, that other exploiters of human credulity began looking for conspiracy theories to exploit to their profit. Someone stumbled across the so-called Roswell incident, and they were off and running. The Army Air Corps was protecting an honest to Dog secret project, not evidence of aliens. But those addicted to the UFO superstition wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m glad to note that the city fathers of Roswell milk the UFO BS for all it’s worth.

I agree that the great preponderance of UFO sightings amount to shucks and hokum. But the “incidents” were buzzing up in the 50swhen I was entering grade school. There was a rash of saucer movies in the 50s that undoubtedly drove the craze, and I saw every one of them.

As for my last statement, I agree that it would seem difficult to suppress such a monumental secret for so great a length of time, but believe me the government was in the best position to pull off such a trick between WWII and Vietnam than any period in the history of this country. It was a time when people believed and trusted the government, and more importantly, followed orders. Now if you believe for one second that our government would allow revelations about anything outflying the Air Force to become public knowledge, well I suppose it might happen. But you and I both know that “national security” considerations would be and were roughshodly implemented and enforced in those days with strong arm alacrity. I would also ask you, how do you suppose our government would behave when faced with the issue of revealing alien existence to its citizens. Do you suppose whatever technical discoveries recovered would not be classified with the threat of death for those revealing them?

No death threat could be explicit. My point about suppression of the story was that it was a genuine top secret project being protected, and not evidence of aliens picking up drunks in the mountains and working them over with anal probes. (The UFO cracks me up.)

But it’s just become too difficult to suppress information, for all that people are fond of Orwellian paranoia. If in an isolated area, at least one person would be there filming it with a cell phone. In a more populated area, it would be a race to see who could post it on Youtube first.

Yes it would be extremely difficult today to pull off concealment of such things. But you can rest assured that our government has had decades of practice in refining the necessary techniques and no effort has or will be spared in their quick implementation should the need arise.