You bring up an interesting point. I have long believed that the whole purpose of project Bluebook was not to investigate aliens---but as a way to put a spin on sightings of aircraft being tested at skunkworks.


I do question the lofty habit of humans referring to themselves as intellegent life forms. ;)

My thoughts on UFOs is best summed up by this Richard Feynman quote:

"UFOs are better explained in terms of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial beings rather than by any unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial beings."

I can either make tons of assumptions and speculations and try to form an incredibly unwieldy, complex conspiracy theory about UFO's, or I can remember that there are a lot of irrational humans who are either dumb, or have a desire to trick people, or who have mental disorders. Occam's razor pretty much takes care of the problem for me.

I think its almost a certainty for life to exist out there, and relatively likely that intelligent life exist(s/ed) out there, but I have never seen a shred of evidence suggesting they've been here. The universe is so big that in addition to the amount of energy needed to traverse it, the time difference between us and what we are seeing is incredible. If we recieved a signal, the civilization that sent it would likely be long gone by the time we got it.

I know its fun to speculate about faster than light travel and sources of nearly-infinite energy, but once you start using them as arguments to support the theory that we've been visited by aliens, it just seems like a stretch. Here we are with tiny pieces of highly questionable evidence, and in order to satisfy our theory, we not only have to hypothesis the existance of a super-advanced civilization with technology that no only doesn't exist here on Earth, but theoretically can't exist based on our current understanding of the universe. I'm not saying its impossible for those things to be true, just that when you have to make so many assumptions for your theory to be true, its probably time to look for a better theory, one that fits the existing data a little better.

I'd love to be part of a first encounter. I agree with Laura, if aliens came, and I had the opportunity to travel with them, I think I'd do it. But somehow I think its a little unlikely.

In terms of 'government coverups', I agree that our government has been known to keep a lot of stuff secret, but I have a hard time believing something like this would stay secret. Our government is also bumbling and inefficient, and it seems like all sorts of things that should stay secret don't, and the lifetime of any conspiracy seems to be finite based on the number of mistakes made.

Someone made the point that perhaps the alien rumors were started by the military to provide a more compelling (and easily dismissable) explanation for tests of new types of military vehicle. This is an interesting idea, and I wouldn't totally disregard it since there are lots of odd ways to get around, including various functional disk-shaped planes and helicopters that people have tried out over the years. But again, I don't know that I've seen or heard anything suggesting that this is the case.

So anyway.. UFO's, compelling, but ultimately, not a realistic theory. I wish it were true, but that, unfortunately, doesn't make it so.

peace,
sam

Actually most of the air on Earth comes from the ocean.