On this day: UFO sighted in Roswell, N.M

[geetrue]

When will we ever know for sure?

On this Day: UFO Sighted in Roswell, N.M.

July 07, 2008 12:10 AM
by findingDulcinea Staff
On July 7, 1947, William Brazel reported seeing a UFO at his New Mexico
ranch, sparking widespread public rumors about aliens and a U.S. government cover-up.

[Skybird]

This second UFO thread gets my same treatement like the first one here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=138883

Originally Posted by Skybird

I once held strong interest in the UFO phenomenon, but always stayed away from easy, linear approaches like thinking of it as little green (grey) men flying technical vehicles with ultra-super-transwarp-speed from planet A to planet B - ridiculous. Especially the parrallels between the psychological consequences and the schematic proceedings of these events and near-death-experiences captured my strong interest (thanatology was a special field of mine), as well as the obvious parrallels to fairy-tales and mythologic stories from cultures around the globe and from many different ages. but at some point I realised that there are too many questions invovled that cannot be ultimately answered as long as no substantially new data and information can be obtained, so I put it all on ice, made a mental note saying "I don't know - more data needed to compute", and left it to that.

However, of the many books I once read about it, especially about the psychological impact and the mythologic components, today I only would recommend the trilogy by Jaques Vallee as worth to be considered. There are plenty of books available, but at least nine of ten seem to be spoiled more or less seriously, may it be due to the author trying hard to believe in UFOs and turn every cup of coffee into an extension of a flying saucer, or may it be due to the author being a freak needing to prove that UFOs do not exist and thus even the most solid data availabe - not much really solid data available, agreed - gets twisted and distorted, in violation of nature's laws and verified data from reality. UFO literature for the most is a total mess. both camps think and argue highly anti-intellectually.

Consider these in the main:

http://www.amazon.com/DIMENSIONS-Cas...5342050&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/REVELATIONS-Al...d_bxgy_b_img_b

http://www.amazon.com/CONFRONTATIONS-Scientists-Search-Alien-Contact/dp/1933665297/ref=pd_cp_b_2_img?pf_rd_p=317711001&pf_rd_s=center -41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1933665300&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKI K X0DER&pf_rd_r=0APCEE1V3HJ5JKASYDVG

If there is one slogan amongst UFOlogists that I really hate, then it is the poster in Fox mulder's office, showing a flying saucer and below that a text saying I WANT TO BELIEVE. - Idiots! Don't believe, but check it,. and where you run against a wall, realise that there is somethign you do not know, and remain sceptic. Believing something just because it cannot be explained - is neither needed, nor helpful.

Be sceptical on both camps, guys: the ufo-believers as well as the missionaries trying to "prove" that UFOs do not exist. I for myself see it this way: there can be no doubt that a phenomenon, a very complex pohenomeneon does exist indeed, and just in modern times it has been named UFOs. the phenomenon itself has been with us since ages. But what it really is, we have no knowledge about, just more or less reasonable theories. Only star Trek-like ideas of aliens visiting planet earth in space ships - this must be the most childish and ifantile idea human mind can come up with in this context. Many people wish to find out the real, the one and only, the true nature of the universe, and existence inside this cosmos, but it is possible that in form of what we call the UFO-phenomenon we are already being touched by this very nature and essence of what the universe is - and just are unable to realise that.

alien astronauts in spacehsips? Come on guys, let's stop being childish.

"The truth, as always, will be far stranger."
(Arthur C. Clarke, foreword to his novel "2001")

[XabbaRus]

So sky are you saying that intelligent life doesn't exist in the universe and their isn't the possibility that maybe they are way in advance of us and could possibly come to visit?

I do agree that 99% of UFO sightings are phenomna that can be rationally explained as being earthbound or at the most near skybound.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

So sky are you saying that intelligent life doesn't exist in the universe and their isn't the possibility that maybe they are way in advance of us and could possibly come to visit?

No. what I say is that this scenario is one of the weakest to describe certain characteristics and the complexity of the phenomenon. Vallee would point out that certain aspects of the phenomenon even contradict this scenario.

As Jodie Foster said in "Contact" so very nicely to a schoolboy near the end of the movie: the universe is a very big place, and if we were the only ones in it, it would be an awful waste of space. but we should stay away from being so arrogant to believe we could define the ways in which other forms of intelligence must be structured and must be designed, or to assume that cosmos is made like our models of scinece seem to indicate. I would even say that we are completely unable to recognize other forms of intelligence if they are sufficently superior to ours, and maybe are even unable to realise most other forms of life, that are different from the way we are designed ourselves. I think we could stand right in front of alien intelligence - and maybe simply would overlook it, would not realise it as such as long as it does not wish to reveal itself to us. and then this superior intelligence maybe fails to make us aware of itself like we are unable to establish diplomatic relations with a state of ants. what we do with all our science and research, is simply this: projecting our own image of what man and earht and life and intelligence is, into space, and when space reflects it back to us we consider it to be "alien". But by defintion, the truly alien intelliegnce would be so very difrerent and ALIEN to us that we have no scales and standads to which we could compare it. I see the UFO-phenomenology much like this, like Vallee also does: it is a brief glance behind the door that separates our models of what the cosmos is from what it really is. the first is our own creation, and we are fascinated by wonder and insight that we have articifically imagined and created all by ourselves. But the second is what our mind and soul probably is completely unable to embrace, realise and make sense of: this is what really "alien" means. Tell a fish about flying high in the air and look at the mountains, or tell a sandworm about planet Mars, or a mole about colour and light - it does not work. The term alien used in reference to the extraterrestrial context must mean a level of "alieniness" where we have been stripped of all what we believe to know, and have been stripped of all standards to which we can compare. Our science forms images and models of the universe becasue we are like we are, have two eyes, two hands, etc. If we were intelligent, but would live on a plnaet full of darkness, where no light and colour exists, and that is completely flat, without an opporntuity to realsie the meaning of term slike "high" and "low", above and "below", ouzr understanbding if the unioverse would be as different from our actual one as is the world we realise is different from thr world as a bat exopereinces it when always living inside a cave and using its sound-specialised perception exclusively.

We still have not left behind our belief that the earth, or better: it's dominant species: man - is the centre of the universe and all stars and all cosmos is revolving around man. But it makes no sense to fantasize about alien life by imagine it to have a form and shape like what we can imagine it to be from our experiences on earth. however, a superior intelligence wishing - for whatever a reason - to make us aware for itself, probably cannot do any better and more helpful triock than to dress itself into forms and cloathings that we can understand from the contexts we know from life on earth, and use our cultural smybols and history for a purpose of mimikry.

This is one part of Stanislav Lem'S classic novel "Solaris", one of the key passages of the book (my own translation from German).

„We start out into cosmos, we are prepared for everything, that is the loneliness, the struggle, the martyrdom, death. For modesty’s reason we do not speak it out, but sometimes we believe that we are wonderful. However, that is not all, and our readiness turns out to be just play-acting. Actually we do not want to conquer all space, we just want to expand Earth up to its’ boundaries! Some planets have to be like a desert like the Sahara, others have to be as icy as the poles, or tropical like the Brazilian jungle. We are humanitarian, and we are noble, we do not want to subjugate other races, we just want to bring them our values, and adopting their inheritance. We think we are the knights of the holy contact. That is the second lie. Humans we do seek, no one else! We do not need other worlds, we need mirrors! We don’t know what to do with other worlds. We want to find our own, idealized image; these globes, these civilizations have to be more perfect than ours, while in those others we hope to find the image of our own primitive past. However, there is something on the other side that we do not accept, against which we fight, and after all it is not only the pure distillate of human virtues that we have brought with us from Earth, the heroic monument of mankind! We have come here like we really are, and if the other side is showing us this truth, this part of it that we hide – then we are unable to accept that!”

If you do not know the novel, or the movie by andrej tarkowski: go and watch it! It is more complex (and better) than the remake by Soderbergh, with george clooney.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by geetrue

When will we ever know for sure?

On this Day: UFO Sighted in Roswell, N.M.

Its all BS didn't you watch FUTURAMA?

It was Benders ass. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[FIREWALL]

I thought for sure someone on this website had been abducted and PROBED. :p

[geetrue]

I wish McCain or Obama would make a campaign pledge to reveal the truth as soon as either one takes office.

That would settle it once and for all.

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by geetrue

I wish McCain or Obama would make a campaign pledge to reveal the truth as soon as either one takes office.

That would settle it once and for all.

You mean tell us whether they've been probed or not. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by geetrue

I wish McCain or Obama would make a campaign pledge to reveal the truth as soon as either one takes office.

That would settle it once and for all.

Would it?

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by geetrue

I wish McCain or Obama would make a campaign pledge to reveal the truth as soon as either one takes office.

That would settle it once and for all.

No, because when they'd take office and say "Uh, yeah... Weather ballon after all!", the conspiracy theorists would be like ZOMG! CONPIRACY!!!! anyway.

Those people Want. To. Believe. And they will, no matter what.

[Herr_Pete]

Atleast people in Britain are willing to admit when there pissed...

[Frame57]

I think my Doctor may be an alien. He gets a little too probey when I go in for a check up. Is that prostate exam really necessary?

[XabbaRus]

OK Sky, just checking. I do agree with you however.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Etienne

Those people Want. To. Believe. And they will, no matter what.

"Those"? Believers, or sceptics? You would be surprised how stubbornly sceptics "believe", too. They still are determined to talk of a weather balloon in the upper layers of atmosphere when the thing was measured on radar to criss cross at sharp angles with 17.000 km/h.

For some it must be because they want it to be. For others it cannot be what they do not wish to be.

Imagining contact with aliens - yesssyesssyesss, but only under conditions that we have set and under control of our terms and meanings. We are the masters of the place. After all Captain Kirk was a homo sapiens being in control and command, and not a victim of foreign powers that decided about his fate by their own will, not asking him. Only superheroes like him can suffer from notorious saving-the-universe-syndrome. where does it lead if there is contact with aliens who do not ask us about the when, the where and the how? We only contact aliens under conditons of negotiating on the same eye level, right?

Man most often reacts with panic and traumatisation when being in a situation he does not understand, where he has no power over it, and where he is disoriented. We cannot bear to live in a world that does not make sense to us, we depend on seeing a meaning. Deny this to people, and I promise you that most of them will panic, sometime in a dramatic, sometimes in a more subtle form - even in far more earthly situations than alien abductions and grey dwarfs poking holes into their noses and skull bones. and the human brain can become quite creative and visual when trying to build imagined fantasies that should fill holes in our concepts of a meaningful, controllable world.

There is a phenomenon. It is old, maybe has been with us since the dawn of mankind - and the simple truth is that it is beyond our control, that we do not know anything for sure about it, and have no reasonable idea whatever.

And many of us don'T like that, like we also do not like the presence of an invisible foreign man in our home. That's why some ignore it, or distort it, or nice-talk it, or simply reject to accept the existence of the phenomenen itself . all that are strategies to cope with upcoming panic, and to move beyond the fact of having to accept to live in a state of lacking knowledge and control.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by geetrue

I wish McCain or Obama would make a campaign pledge to reveal the truth as soon as either one takes office.

That would settle it once and for all.

When President Carter was running, this was one of his campaign promises. Once he was in office and indoced, all of a sudden he would not talk about it. :hmm: