So UFO's and aliens... what's the deal?

[Fake Messiah]

Look at this short doc if you have time. It's a realistic look at UFOs the "evidence", the industry and the bullshit. Even Cigarette Smoking Man (William B Davis) is here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o92V9JEzbIU

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Regarding "reverse engineered" goodies. The development history of all the items claimed to have been reverse engineered is available for anyone who isn't too lazy to look for it.

[Fake Messiah]

Regarding "reverse engineered" goodies. The development history of all the items claimed to have been reverse engineered is available for anyone who isn't too lazy to look for it.

Yeah why didn't I think of that!!? But in reality UFO people are much more complicated, they have their own version of reality in which CIA faked documents that show how those stuff was invented by individuals instead of "real truth" where it's reverse engineered.
Let me give you an example, how naive I was once. Sex years ago I got into an argument on some UFO forum: I though what the heck I'll try to reason with these people, they waste large amounts of time reading UFO books and "studying" cases, maybe they just need a cold sober head -RIGHT?!! -WRONG!!!. And with that in mind I got into an argument about infamous so called Swiss contactee Billy Meier. Now what ever you might think of Meier (if you even heard of him) he did gain some fame into the mainstream, for instance Mulder's poster "I want to believe" in early seasons is a photograph of a saucer by that swindler Meier. Now to argue with them I visited his web site where I found photos of supposed alien beings and dinosaurs (aliens took him in time) and of course dinosaur photos were visible drawings of old fashioned dinosaurs and pictures of aliens were some 70's women TV speakers.
So when I told them that they told me that CIA and MiB planted pictures of those women on his website to make him look like a fraud and when it comes to dinosaurs, well they told me "Who are you to judge? How can you tell?"

And then one of them pulled this video link shot by Meier long ago on 8mm where, according to them it is without question evidence of real aliens because somewhere around 8m 20s there he filmed a saucer going behind a mountain and that, my friend, could not be faked and others agreed. OK, so I looked the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c9_VcHBkko
(btw why can't I put youtube videos as links? why do they have to automatically show themselves here?)
I noticed that you couldn't see anything because the picture was blurred, so I told him that lens was out of focus which made me feel like some Hollywood camera expert when they asked me what do I mean when I said "out of focus".
I tried making screencaps but alas they proclaimed me as a debunker, they even found in my forum's nick name omens that I could be reptilian or at leas Illuminaty agent, others pitied me that I'm under influence of poison in the water aliens use to cloak themselves from us.

Just like religious people are trained to comfort with rationalists as one fooled by the all powerful devil that can even create fake stuff like fossils, UFO people have CIA, MIB.

[thesummerqueen]

An Unedentified Flying Object is just that. From there to jump to aliens is simply an appeal to ignorance. "Oh we saw this odd thing in the sky, therefore aliens". If there is an UFO, best way to identify it is getting more data.

This.

If you're talking about alien spaceships, say so, or at least say "flying saucers". UFO's are not saucers. They're "shit I don't know" and that does not equal "aliens." And since most of us are not astronomers or meteorologists, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that just because you see something strange in the sky that doesn't mean that it's not natural to earth and its varied phenomena.

I recall a joke about a literature class at uni where a student fell asleep. The professor called his name twice, the student went on snoring. Frustrated, the professor took the copy of 'The Canterbury Tales' he was referencing and whipped it with freakish accuracy across the room, hitting the student square on the head. Roused, the student said, 'What the HELL was that??'

The professor replied calmly, 'That, young man, was a flying Chaucer.'

Which, I reckon, is about as close as we're ever likely to get to alien visitation.

Boru

I spit out my coffee laughing. Well done.

[LostLocke]

And then one of them pulled this video link shot by Meier long ago on 8mm where, according to them it is without question evidence of real aliens because somewhere around 8m 20s there he filmed a saucer going behind a mountain and that, my friend, could not be faked and others agreed. OK, so I looked the video

I looked at that spot and saw no point where the ship "definitively" went behind the mountain.
It could have at one point. Or, more likely, there were other issues.... 8mm film is crappy for trying to capture details. And, the film tech of the day, at least for consumer film, gave people a medium with horrible dynamic range. The ship and the mountain had the same tonal value, as far as the film was concerned, and just literally became one "object" being recorded.
Do that today on modern 35mm stock and you will see absolute detail and tonal separation between the "ship" and the mountain.

Not to mention, the way the alleged ship is flying makes it look like it was designed and flown by a bunch of incompetent buffoons.  

[Jackalope]

So what's the best answer to the Fermi paradox?

One answer to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel is really, really hard, if not impossible.

[downbeatplumb]

Intelligent life has to exist elsewhere in the universe somewhere, but what are the chances that they are here? Are the UFOs in the sky aliens? Or are they of a more natural or man-made origin? Is there really 4 races that visit us to tell us to not use nukes, or is that all just a hoax by a guy who couldn't even get the history of things like lazers right? What about the alien abduction stories around the world? Are they just dreams and hoaxes? 

The only encounter I've had with unexplained things in the sky is red explosions that appeared to be high in the atmosphere. Not fireworks, literally red balls of fire. I've seen this twice, a few years apart from each other. Most likely it was just some missile testing, but I really don't know.

The ufo phenomenon is a fascinating one, whether it's all just hoaxes and interpreting tricks of lighting and other phenomenon that are unknown to you as being extra-terrestrial, or it being legit.

More likely to be time traveling humans than aliens.

[The Grand Nudger]

So what's the best answer to the Fermi paradox?

One answer to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel is really, really hard, if not impossible.

-and possibly pointless.  There's enough stuff in this solar system to last us beyond human imagining.   Eeven if we -wanted- to leave...we';d get waylayed like "Oh, look at all that iron!" "OMG oceans of fuel?"

[GrandizerII]

So what's the best answer to the Fermi paradox?

One answer to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel is really, really hard, if not impossible.

Would be nice, though.

[Fake Messiah]

One answer to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel is really, really hard, if not impossible.

Would be nice, though.

Well if you want to talk about interstellar travel it's not impossible and it would be nice to at least visit one other star system to see how it looks like up close - is it how we predicted or not.
The biggest problem about interstellar travel is the reason why. It is estimated that we could send, right now, few people to Mars with the cost of 50 billion dollars, but who would pay for it and most importantly why? There is no profit in it or at least it looks like that. There is no golden bowl awaiting us on Mars or fountain of youth.
We must face the truth that we are profit driven society and until that changes we won't advance much in space exploration. Even when minor spacecrafts are launched today there are always questions "Why?" it is even frequently questioned why have space program at all and then people are reminded that we got weather satellites and mobile phones from space program. I mean just remember how hard it was for Columbus to get the money to sail where no man has gone before and he had to find profit in it. And when we're talking about Columbus we could say that interstellar travel is incredibly difficult, perhaps as difficult to us today as a flight to Mars would have appeared to Christopher Columbus.