No doubt many of you have read about the recent and “much-awaited” preliminary report on the government’s assessment of UFO phenomena.
According to this article, “The report finds that an overwhelming majority of more than 120 sightings in the past 20 years did not come from any U.S. military or other government technology.”
So the next question automatically becomes: Where did they come from?
Some have promoted the theory that they are super-advanced foreign military craft. Others have commented that the phenomena may be “alien” spacecraft — not necessarily “extraterrestrial” but rather “experimental technology” developed by other countries.
Both of these scenarios are naturally a chief concern for the United States because if hostile countries are involved, that would threaten the world’s largest military power.
Of course there are untold numbers who insist the objects are most certainly and definitely “otherworldly.”
From my personal perspective, I tend to agree with Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine. Michael is a science historian and a longtime analyst of UFO theories and other phenomena – and he points out the blurry and hazy element to the sightings. He notes that several billion people have smartphones that take crisp, clear images, not to mention satellites that can precisely render detail on the ground.
He then puts forth this challenge: “Show me the body, show me the spacecraft, or show me the really high quality videos and photographs … and I’ll believe.”
I admit that when I was considerably younger, I fancied the idea of visitors from other parts of the universe. Looking back, I’m sure it had a lot to do with my love of sci-fi movies. In fact, one of my favorites was “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the 1951 version), in which an alien lands and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets. (Actually, the warning in the movie is not so far-fetched even today.)
However, as I matured, I began to see things differently. Based on my current perspective, there are simply too many rational thinking hurdles to overcome for me to accept the idea of extraterrestrial visitors.
Yet … stranger things have happened.
What’s your take? Will these blurry images that move and shift and disappear in the blink of an eye be explained in the final governmental report? Or will they remain in the UFO file with a “to-be-determined-later” notation?
P.S. Further reading on this topic can be found here.
Nan's Notebook 