3 ms·

This is the simplest explanation, indeed. In fact UFO sightings sharply increased starting in the 1940s which corresponds exactly to the period when military av

by mrb 8y ago

This is the simplest explanation, indeed. In fact UFO sightings sharply increased starting in the 1940s which corresponds exactly to the period when military aviation research and experimentation took off.

notahacker 8y ago
Though of course a lot of those sightings also consisted of objects which supposedly resembled saucers, which matched media mischaracterisations of a particularly famous UFO sighting and an older trend in pulp sci-fi... (I quite like the idea of aliens drawing ideas from their spacecraft from our popular culture as a storyline, but not as an explanation for the phenomena!)
- krapp 8y ago
  And, prior to the meme of the "flying saucer," UFO sightings often involved airships[0]. And stories of abduction by aliens often involved those aliens claiming to be from Mars or Venus before it was commonly known that those planets didn't harbor life, much less advanced civilizations. And the archetypal "grey alien" didn't really become the template for modern alien abduction stories until Whitley Strieber popularized them in a book - many descriptions of alien encounters until that point were of "Nordic" human type aliens. So yeah, either aliens are being careful not to appear more advanced than popular culture would allow (maybe to the point of appearing as angels and demons to humans when their view of reality was entirely dominated by religion and not science) or much of the UFO phenomenon is basically a meme. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship
jk27277 8y ago
Kindly consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_ov...
- burk96 8y ago
  Consider the first citation on that wiki article: https://web.archive.org/web/20121214172708/http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/nuremburg-ufo-battle-debunked/ https://web.archive.org/web/20121214172708/http://ancientali... It seems much more likely that these assumed acts of God were a misunderstood natural phenomenon rather than extraterrestrial beings who we have yet to capture on camera. Considering how closely the depictions of the event match pictures of sun dogs leaves it as the most reasonable solution.
  - krapp 8y ago
    >Considering how closely the depictions of the event match pictures of sun dogs leaves it as the most reasonable solution. Yeah... sundogs are weird, leaping sundogs are weirder[0]. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPk0mKVnnCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPk0mKVnnCs

by mrb 8y ago

notahacker 8y ago

Though of course a lot of those sightings also consisted of objects which supposedly resembled saucers, which matched media mischaracterisations of a particularly famous UFO sighting and an older trend in pulp sci-fi... (I quite like the idea of aliens drawing ideas from their spacecraft from our popular culture as a storyline, but not as an explanation for the phenomena!)

krapp 8y ago
And, prior to the meme of the "flying saucer," UFO sightings often involved airships[0]. And stories of abduction by aliens often involved those aliens claiming to be from Mars or Venus before it was commonly known that those planets didn't harbor life, much less advanced civilizations. And the archetypal "grey alien" didn't really become the template for modern alien abduction stories until Whitley Strieber popularized them in a book - many descriptions of alien encounters until that point were of "Nordic" human type aliens. So yeah, either aliens are being careful not to appear more advanced than popular culture would allow (maybe to the point of appearing as angels and demons to humans when their view of reality was entirely dominated by religion and not science) or much of the UFO phenomenon is basically a meme. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship

jk27277 8y ago

Kindly consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_ov...

burk96 8y ago
Consider the first citation on that wiki article: https://web.archive.org/web/20121214172708/http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/nuremburg-ufo-battle-debunked/ https://web.archive.org/web/20121214172708/http://ancientali... It seems much more likely that these assumed acts of God were a misunderstood natural phenomenon rather than extraterrestrial beings who we have yet to capture on camera. Considering how closely the depictions of the event match pictures of sun dogs leaves it as the most reasonable solution.
- krapp 8y ago
  >Considering how closely the depictions of the event match pictures of sun dogs leaves it as the most reasonable solution. Yeah... sundogs are weird, leaping sundogs are weirder[0]. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPk0mKVnnCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPk0mKVnnCs