Are UFO’s real?

Let me tell you, this is more of a controversy than global warming. Despite what people think, UFO’s or Unidentified Flying Objects have been seen all the way back to antiquity. The real term for this is the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis, which proposes that intelligent extraterrestrials came here in ancient times and made contact or influenced humans. The proponents of this idea go so far as to say that humans are the product of extraterrestrial sex with humans or that aliens created the human race genetically and helped humans build the pyramids and all sorts of ancient artifacts such as the Moai stone heads on Easter Island. There are many interpretations of ancient inscriptions and art that suggest the presence of extraterrestrial vessels and astronauts in ancient times. These are too numerous to list. My problem with this is with the more modern interpretations of what may have been ancient religious references to gods or goddesses and their means of conveyance.

The term UFO was introduced by the United States Air Force in 1953 to be a phrase for a plethora of unexplained phenomena. Although credible UFO sightings go back to the nineteenth century, the modern era of UFO craziness occurred in July 1947 at an otherwise obscure Nevada town by the name of Roswell. The Roswell Daily Record, the local newspaper, revealed that the Army had reported that a flying saucer crashed on a ranch nearby. This report created a ruckus that hasn’t subsided to this day, mainly because the United States Army subsequently declared that the incident was just a weather balloon mishap. Many witnesses of the crash itself, the collection of the debris and the autopsy of the aliens that were found in the crashed saucer have added fuel to this firestorm of controversy, which was labeled a government conspiracy designed to cover up the incident.

UFO sightings escalated after this incident to the point of insanity. The most notorious incident--from the point of being covered up--is the event that occurred on April 6, 1966 at Westhall high school in Melbourne. Over two hundred witnesses saw a gray saucer-shaped craft flying over the school. What made this incident notorious is the fact that the witnesses saw air force planes chasing after the alien craft. The also saw the craft supposedly land and when Andrew Greenwood, a science teacher, went to the location where the craft allegedly landed, he was chased away by army personnel. Again, the government said it was just a weather balloon, which has become the most often thing blamed for these sightings.

UFO sightings are considered close encounters of the first kind. The second kind involves a physical effect, such as a ground impression, a scorched area or a chemical or radiation trace. The third kind was made famous by the movie of the same name. This is where an actual sighting of an alien is made.

Yes, there are close encounters of the fourth kind; they’re alien abductions. The fifth kind involves communication between a human and an alien. The sixth kind involves an animal or human death associated with an alien encounter. The creation of an alien-human hybrid is called the seventh kind of close encounter. All of these kinds of encounters have been reported and dutifully recorded by UFO chasers.

Everyone that follows UFO culture knows about the infamous Project Blue Book, the official study of UFO sightings by the United States Air Force. The Air Force had collected thousands of reports and systematically concluded that they were misidentifications of natural phenomena, a favorite of which is the ubiquitous weather balloon, but it also includes clouds, ice crystals, stars, and flights of secret aircraft as possible causes for mistaken UFO identification. A small percentage of these sightings were labeled as being unexplained.

I have a problem with the Air Force’s conclusions. Both military and civilian pilots who are trained to observe things that may represent a threat to their planes made many of these observations. Astronauts and police officers also made a lot of the observations. I could understand how one would question the credibility of civilians but not people with good eyesight and experience in seeing things in the sky. I’m not saying that UFO’s represent extraterrestrial visitation to our little planet, but I think that dismissing these credible observations as mistaken sightings of natural phenomena is not scientific.

Psychologists term many of these UFO observations to be the result of group suggestion. They argue that people want to see aliens and thus see them in everything up in the sky. Okay, I get that, but this could not cause all of these sightings. I’m not convinced that aliens have visited us because there is no credible evidence, but I did see a UFO when I was a teen and out with my telescope at night trying to get a good view of Jupiter and Saturn. I’m not sure what I saw. It looked like a light that hovered and then shot off quickly at speeds not consistent with aircraft of that time. I don’t know what it was; I just know what I saw. Of course, no one believed me. What else is new?

Thanks for reading.