> Consider this - the flying saucer craze really took off right after the United States developed the atomic bomb - wouldn't such an event pique the interest of

> Consider this - the flying saucer craze really took off right after the United States developed the atomic bomb - wouldn't such an event pique the interest of an advanced civilization? No? Why would it, any more so than what came before? We're talking about a civilization advanced enough to detect a few little atomic firecrackers on a planet light years away (in the best halfway-plausible case) in a universe full of REALLY BIG atomic firecrackers, then make a series of recon visits just for the hell of it I guess (must not have limited resources, like, at all) all using physics we're not even on the verge of discovering yet and that would seem to sharply contradict what we have discovered, but also leave no to-us-detectable trace anywhere we can detect, in their visits or with their sensing equipment or their civilization itself, but also also be pretty bad at hiding from us in some kinda implausible ways, but also also also good enough that we can't quite prove they're real (so they... kinda care about being hidden, but not much, or they've carefully selected exactly enough stealthiness to confuse us but nothing more or less, on purpose, for... reasons?). Plus they have to be inclined to care in the first place, enough to visit over and over (but if they can detect an a-bomb from light years away, instantly... why bother to enter the atmosphere?). But not to contact us or attempt conquest or any of that. "Maybe they left probes here a long time ago, so seeing the a-bombs wasn't so hard" OK, but you've got the same "they're perfectly stealthy except in some very specific ways that don't seem like they'd be hard for a civilization like that to solve" problem, and most of the rest still holds, too. The "it's aliens" explanation just doesn't make sense to me. It's a whole series of near-impossible or implausible things, required for it to even be possible. Like, it's not technically impossible that Russell's Teapot exists, but... it totally doesn't. I judge "it's aliens" barely more likely than "it turns out god is real and does miracles sometimes".