snowy

I think it was UFO's probably but there are too many people that get paid HIGH BUCKS to rebut otherwise.

Ritehsedad

I will neither confirm, nor deny...

jsharr

Man, you are always pushing the envelope!

ModoVincere

it was just someone from BF on a wind trainer and turning it up to 400 watts

EJ123

One time I was exercising outside and was on my back along the ground looking up. I was this one object, sort of low to the ground, maybe small, and it was moving very slow in a straight path. It wasnt a bird or anything, but this round ball type thing and was rotating around from left to right, and again in the straight path (I knew this since it was pretty parrallel to the horizontal gutter along the garage) and was maybe going 10mph. Looked like this, maybe a foot or two in diameter.

substructure

Reminds me of the Kids in the Hall skit. 2 large headed aliens trying to figure out why they were doing what they were doing when they came to this planet. All the while another alien was carting in new humans to "probe."

One of the aliens said something like, "All we've really figured out is that one in ten really like it."

Then in the background you see a guy with is butt in the air and a look of pleasure on his face as the probe light disappears.


I split a gut.

iamlucky13

The article referred to the Drake Equation, which is mathematically valid, but it has 7 variables, of which we only have even a decent estimate on one. Depending on the numbers you put in for the other 6, you can get numbers ranging from 0 to greater than 10^20 (100,000,000,000,000,000,000). And that's only if you want to use realistic estimates for the variables. The Drake equation is a nice thought experiment, but it is for all practical purposes useless.

50 strikes me as a decent estimate. So does a million. So does 0.

However, I still don't believe any of the UFO reports, because
1.) I can't fathom a reason to fly interstellar distances to smash down corn fields in funny patterns.
2.) They only seem to be spotted by people who are paranoid and won't talk about it or can't focus a camera to save their life.
3.) The federal government can't even balance a budget (which, for those who don't know, requires an advanced skill known as subtraction). There's no way in hell they could consistently hide a political bombshell like extraterrestrial visits and supposed captured/recovered technology.

Cyclologist

Indeed. There is absolutely no way someone could arrive at scientifically accurate values to plug into this equation for a valid estimate. I suppose all that one could take from it is the idea that life can exist elsewhere, if one were to plug in bare minimum values for the terms requiring the most speculation.

bluebottle1

Sagan also analyzed the likelihood that intelligent life would come into contact with Earth. Not impossible, but very long odds, indeed.

some_guy282

https://www.disclosureproject.org/

edzo

any ******bag with time and motivation can take a simple 50 dollar toy helicopter, rip out the
control circuits, build a helium ballon spinnig thingy, add batteries and controls, and choose to
fly it anywhere, causing any sort of UFO report.


it is soooooo easy to take consumer electronics and some basic electronic knowhow and build
a controller package for a house-size hot air or helium balloon and fly it around. it only takes
time and a place to test it out so you can refine your control of it. been there done that.
built a large balloon, filled with helium, added crappy servos and a big fan blade and plastic
motor and flew it around a beaver pond in maine. It was wicked cool, and could deliver a single
can of beer [if you attached a can filled with water for the return trip] so it wouldn't get away...
and if you saw it and didn't know then I guess you could freak out and imagine it was a UFO.

someone with more time and skills could build a serious looking UFO...but all the electronics needed are
at your nearest toy store. problem with line-of-sight infrared emitters ? then gang them up and attach a
fresnel lens, and pump up your emitter. dangle the receiver in the open. range can be a mile.

Stacey

This my friends is a classic example of self pwnag3.

smoke

seems pretty obvious to me that aliens flew here, got into the chicago arrival pattern, were put into endless holding, and finally diverted somewhere else. we could have had our first close encounter decades ago, if not for the chicago airspace problems

smoke

not the ones i work with!

edzo

I know what I posted
and thought it has teh funny myself

douchbag = me and I am not afraid to admit it

1) I lost my camera, cell phone, and wallet that day when i flipped
the canoe (plus a huge bag of catnip)

2) it did start to get away and went toward powerlines and with all the mylar
we could have caused a huge fire or transformer backout. I scared myself
****less and stopped flying half-assed balloons. forest fires suck especially
if you are the one setting them

USAZorro

You must work with jet jocks.

I suspect that the UFO (which was reported almost a year ago in a dead thread until someone dug it up ) got to O'Hare, and realized they were supposed to go to Midway.

Stacey

Thanks for bein a good sport and seeing the fun I saw in it too.

deraltekluge

There are indeed strange looking things in the sky at times. Here's a photo from an email I received from a friend this morning:



"It is called Bird in Flight. Occurs when atmosphere moisture gets super cooled , freezes suddenly and falls through a thin layer of clouds. Picture from Gulfport, MS Sun-Herald."

I've never seen a UFO, but I've been present when others were seeing them. That is, I looked at what they were seeing, and identified the object. A couple of times, it was an airplane with its landing lights on, and once it was Venus.

ModoVincere

It was Jsharr's llama just checking up on how things are going with the Jsharr, X, & Pup plan for world domination.

Hobartlemagne 

Look, there is no such thing as UFOs.
All flying objects are identified. There's never been a case of one being unidentified.

lodi781

This isn't the first time reports have come in over ohare and other airports. If you remember in the late 90's, there was a whole slew of sightings over washington. I personally believe there are ufos and aliens. How could we possibly be the only life in a galaxy that is greater than we can even see from our telescopes. If people want to laugh at me, fine. But what I get a kick out of is the same people that laugh at me about ufos are the same ones that believe mankind was started by an invisible man who's son born from a virgin. Who's the fool.

deraltekluge

Back in the old days, we used to hear about little green men from space visiting us. Nowadays, we hear about gray space aliens. It's the same guys...they've just gotten old hanging around and waiting for intelligent life to develop on Earth.

road monkey

Civilizations advanced enough to construct interstellar spacecraft coming to earth in search of amazing intelligence will be sorely disappointed, I think...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V55Zq5whVCI

Will G

I have heard of one (never met him) that would avoid flying through clouds because "the mother ship" might be in it. Other than that, they seem fairly rational.

I think the Chicago Approach controllers either stuffed him in holding or tried to give him the big slam dunk and decided that the search for intelligence on this planet was a non-starter and went home.

iamlucky13

Ouch...It didn't even start playing and I already lost. I saw where it was going.