This topic actualy came to my mind yesterday while watching the History channel. Now obviously nobody is going to prove or disprove the existance of Aliens, people from an alternate Earth(s) or any government coverup/ conspiracy.

The intent of the thread is simply to spark a discussion on people's opinions about UFOs. Depending on one's perspective UFOs are real in the sense that they're just that - Unidentified Flying Objects, or USOs - Unidentified Sea Objects. But this also means that just because an individual sees an object in the sky or sea that they don't understand doesn't mean it cannot be explained, not does it mean that are aliens or something just as outlandish.

Through out history and on into the present the current "mind" of the time has tried to explain things in the skys and seas they don't understand using the knowledge and science of the day. Needless to say there are countless accounts from people, sometimes en mass, wittnessing some kind of strange phenomenon in the sky and seas. And these accounts span the ages to the dawn of time itself. Even cave paintings display dipictions of strange humanoid creatures and objects in the sky. Since cave men didn't have written language the only way we could know what they were really trying to express is to go back in time and ask them. Not very likely anytime soon. This is equally true of other ancient "evidence" UFO enthuesiast have pointed to - the Nezca lines, stonehenge, the pyramids and other superstructures, Greek/Roman paintings of fiery chariots or flamming disks and so on in the skys, strange creatures seemingly operating mechanical vehicles in Aztec paintings, pictures of the Gods raining terror from the skies in what may seem like to us as space ships, the saint's encounters with angels were actually aliens. Some even claim the creation of civilization, and possibly humans, itself is due to an alien presance. A few think that these supposed "aliens" are not actually even aliens but ancient peoples who existed here on Earth long before humanity - possibly people from Atlantis.

We could go and on about other such "evidence" that seems to occur on into the 19th century and beyond. In our modern time we've advanced our vocabulary to include expressions of concepts ancient peoples probably couldn't even of dreamed. Because of our technical advancements we've encountered more than just hersey or esoteric piantings and writtings. Now we have numerous amounts of pictures, video coverage of strange objects, supposed radar and sonar coverages, unexlained interferance with electrical devices and so forth. And now even numerous accounts of abductions (some of which supposedly leave strange marks on abductees) as well as cow mutilations. While most (something like 95%) of these have been written off by skeptics and experts there are a few insidents in which the government, skeptics or experts could not or would not offer an explaination - or at least so says "UFO Files" on the History Channel.

So taken all of this "evidence" what do you all think it really means? Do UFOs indicate some unknown, possibly otherworldly, presenance? Or that the Goverment(s) are just using psychology to manipulate the world about its secret programs? Or are people just using their imaginations to try and make sense of the world around them using the knowledge of the time? Perhaps its is actually a combination of these. Then again we all could just be feeding ourselves a bunch of nonesense.

Your take?

This post has been edited by Acid09: Nov 20 2006, 03:11 PM