Have you ever seen a UFO?

Carrera said:

Although years ago I used to read all manner of books about UFO's and read all the cases such as the Betty and Barney Hill encounter in the sixties, I concluded some time ago that 99 per cent of UFO encounters are fantasies or errors of judgement. Much of this has to do with the media and its effect on the way we interpret things, such as weather phenomena, meteorites and even stars. 😕
However, a couple of weeks ago I had an experience I simply cannot explain:
I was at work on a night-shift and it was about 23.30 p.m. The sky was dark and very cloudy. The streets were very close by and you could hear sirens from police cars and even the shouts of passers-by.
Just as I was approaching a field, I heard the most unusual noise that just got louder and louder. I mean, one minute I was thinking about what route I'd be riding my bike on the following day and then I heard this very loud noise. I can only describe it as a kind of pulsating, bleeping sound that was literally as loud as an ambulance siren but was directly above me. Poor visibility was certainly a factor so I saw very little. Then the noise got so loud I actually backed up and genuinely experienced a moment of panic before the noise simply started to fade and finally disappeared. There was no light or anything coming from the source. The duration of my observation must have been just over 60 seconds.
I told my uncle about it and he reckoned it must have been a plane or a helicopter but this simply isn't possible. I'm still scratching my head over the incident and it's the first time I ever encountered something I couldn't explain.

Well one evening on the campus lawn at Roswell, George, Ronnie, and I were sharing a hubble bubble.......When something strange flew down and settled nearby, and little Cadburys Smash men got out. Well Ronnie said it was the Russians following him around in their UFO's, George was too far gone too care, so I got on board the UFO with Maggie and we had meat pie, mash, and gravy.

I was just perusing Google to see if there is such a phenomenon as people who hear inexplicable noises yet see nothing visual (the night I refer to was extremely cloudy and rainy) but the noise reverberated right across the fields from the sky. I found this:

"MYSTERIOUS SKY SOUNDS PUZZLE OHIO POLICEMEN

On Sunday, December 5, 1999, from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m." several residents of Defiance. Ohio (population 16,768) telephoned the city police to report weird sounds in the sky above their homes.

"Several city residents along with two Defiance police officers reported hearing strange sounds coming from the skies above the city Sunday night."

"According to police, the sounds were heard 'moving very fast' above Wildwood Drive residences and from as far away as Ayersville."

"The noises, which one witness described as sounding like a motorcycle hum, were reported between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m."

"Police have not determined a possible source for the noises."

Carrera said:

I was just perusing Google to see if there is such a phenomenon as people who hear inexplicable noises yet see nothing visual (the night I refer to was extremely cloudy and rainy) but the noise reverberated right across the fields from the sky. I found this:

"MYSTERIOUS SKY SOUNDS PUZZLE OHIO POLICEMEN

On Sunday, December 5, 1999, from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m." several residents of Defiance. Ohio (population 16,768) telephoned the city police to report weird sounds in the sky above their homes.

"Several city residents along with two Defiance police officers reported hearing strange sounds coming from the skies above the city Sunday night."

"According to police, the sounds were heard 'moving very fast' above Wildwood Drive residences and from as far away as Ayersville."

"The noises, which one witness described as sounding like a motorcycle hum, were reported between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m."

"Police have not determined a possible source for the noises."

Try something nearer my old home and training ground. Google in 'Todmorden UFO' You should find it interesting. Honest.

Well, you know, I just read that President Carter's famous UFO sighting turned out to be the planet Venus. I'm also fully aware that so-called ufology is teaming with highly imaginative crackpots who have a great deal of imagination.
Even so, I think there are people who, at some point in their life, might encounter something they can't explain. With regard to my own experience, it was quite impossible for me to make an official report as my boss would have wiped the floor with me.
Reminded me of another time my boss wiped the floor with me for reporting a big cat sighting. Later it turned out someone had released some big cats onto the moors and one young lad was pawed by one when he approached a bush and had his cheek gashed.
The problem of incredulity has been caused by people such as Whitley Streiber who had us all fooled with the Communion movie. We were all taken in at the time. Whitley went on to write other books that confirmed any original misgivings that the guy wasn't quite the full dollar bill and was a fantasist.
Such books and movies make a total mockery out of the subject in its entire perspective.

FredC said:

Well one evening on the campus lawn at Roswell, George, Ronnie, and I were sharing a hubble bubble.......When something strange flew down and settled nearby, and little Cadburys Smash men got out. Well Ronnie said it was the Russians following him around in their UFO's, George was too far gone too care, so I got on board the UFO with Maggie and we had meat pie, mash, and gravy.

There was a big ice storm in the Tennessee area in '96 or '97, and it knocked out power to half the city. Electrical transformers were exploding everywhere, with nice green flashes and loud bangs. Quite an interesting display honestly. Trees were being uprooted due to the heavy ice and limbs were cracking like crazy. You could hear it coming from wooded areas, and it sounded like King Kong was thrashing about in the trees. Anyway,,,this is just the setting for my 'UFO' sighting.

The same night of this storm, while all of the above was going on, I had to work. I was driving into town, coming up a large hill. The cloud cover was very low, almost fog-like due to the weather. As I crested the hill, I saw a flash of blue/green above me. At first I thought that it was an exploding transformer like the others I had seen during the early evening from my house, but since there no power lines anywhere near this road, I decided to slow down and peek out my window to get a better look. Right above me was this bluish 'glow' coming from the cloud cover that persisted for about 4 or 5 minutes, with hints of red on the edges. Now it was just a glow, no searchlights or anything specific, no shape of any kind, just a fairly pronounced glow coming from the clouds above me. It could have been anywhere from several feet to several yards wide, it was fairly large at any rate. It went away, and never came back. I stayed for a few minutes hoping to see it again, and then drove off. While I'm convinced it was probably some form of Ball lightning caused by the fairly unique atmospheric conditions that day, it was definitely the weirdest thing I've ever seen. That's my UFO story.

Carrera said:

Well, you know, I just read that President Carter's famous UFO sighting turned out to be the planet Venus. I'm also fully aware that so-called ufology is teaming with highly imaginative crackpots who have a great deal of imagination.
Even so, I think there are people who, at some point in their life, might encounter something they can't explain. With regard to my own experience, it was quite impossible for me to make an official report as my boss would have wiped the floor with me.
Reminded me of another time my boss wiped the floor with me for reporting a big cat sighting. Later it turned out someone had released some big cats onto the moors and one young lad was pawed by one when he approached a bush and had his cheek gashed.
The problem of incredulity has been caused by people such as Whitley Streiber who had us all fooled with the Communion movie. We were all taken in at the time. Whitley went on to write other books that confirmed any original misgivings that the guy wasn't quite the full dollar bill and was a fantasist.
Such books and movies make a total mockery out of the subject in its entire perspective.

I had an experience a few months ago. I was leaving my house around 11:00 am. As I was getting into my car I saw something shiny in the sky. I stared for a second and thought it was a plane but it wasn't moving, it just hovered there. Then it started slowing moving around rather erratically. There was absolutely no noise so I knew it wasn't a helicopter. I stared in unbelief for a few minutes trying to figure out what it was. I called my wife out to see if it was just me seeing things. SHe confirmed my sighting and we both stared for a while. I was honestly a little freaked out. Finally I went inside and got some high power binoculars to get a closer look. After a few minutes I was finally able to determine that it was a mylar balloon at a pretty high altitude. Nonetheless, I was convinced for a few minutes that I had seen a UFO.

I once saw this thing hanging in the sky, just an off-white, circular shape hanging there, looked fairly far away, looked not unlike the moon but that definitely wasn't it. I couldn't imagine what it could be, but then it turned side-on and I saw that it was just a lit-up blimp - I had been looking at it head-on and hadn't recognised it. Oh well.

You know, the main problem with UFO discussion is precisely the term UFO (unidentified flying object or flying saucers). But if we forget the whole idea of men from Mars and space ships, we can conclude that a genuine UFO is simply something you see in the sky that you can't, at that point, explain. This is where I'm at. It's a tempting attractive proposition to convince yourself you witnessed a UFO as such, but there are various alternative possibilities.
(1)Could I have witnessed the effects of some kind of weird electrical discharge? I looked for power cables in the immediate area and there weren't any, although I know the city power point was located pretty close to the field I was standing next to.
(2)Maybe some kind of freak sound reverberation?
It was strange since I could clearly hear a police siren from the nearby streets at the same time as I heard this most unusual noise so, comparing the 2 sounds, there was such a major difference. It was like very loud bleeping and I never heard such an unusual sound before.
I plan to do some Google searches to find if anyone else ever had an identical experience and whether there might be some rational way to explain it.

Carrera said:

You know, the main problem with UFO discussion is precisely the term UFO (unidentified flying object or flying saucers). But if we forget the whole idea of men from Mars and space ships, we can conclude that a genuine UFO is simply something you see in the sky that you can't, at that point, explain. This is where I'm at. It's a tempting attractive proposition to convince yourself you witnessed a UFO as such, but there are various alternative possibilities.
(1)Could I have witnessed the effects of some kind of weird electrical discharge? I looked for power cables in the immediate area and there weren't any, although I know the city power point was located pretty close to the field I was standing next to.
(2)Maybe some kind of freak sound reverberation?
It was strange since I could clearly hear a police siren from the nearby streets at the same time as I heard this most unusual noise so, comparing the 2 sounds, there was such a major difference. It was like very loud bleeping and I never heard such an unusual sound before.
I plan to do some Google searches to find if anyone else ever had an identical experience and whether there might be some rational way to explain it.

I have made a list of the names so far on this thread, and respectfuly suggest that psychiatric help might be of some help. Why do you have this trepidation about aliens from outer space? You must be all so mentally insecure.

FredC said:

I have made a list of the names so far on this thread, and respectfuly suggest that psychiatric help might be of some help. Why do you have this trepidation about aliens from outer space? You must be all so mentally insecure.

Your name is now on the thread so does that mean you are seeking psychiatric care? Just kidding. I have no trepidation about UFO's and frankly I don't believe in them. It was just that one experience that caught me off guard. Needless to say when the binoculars proved the "UFO" to be a balloon I had to laugh at myself for getting caught up in the moment.

birdman23 said:

Your name is now on the thread so does that mean you are seeking psychiatric care? Just kidding. I have no trepidation about UFO's and frankly I don't believe in them. It was just that one experience that caught me off guard. Needless to say when the binoculars proved the "UFO" to be a balloon I had to laugh at myself for getting caught up in the moment.

Why don't you all go and sleep in the desert for a couple of nights. Take the medication with you of course.

Why so skeptical? To me it doesn't seem logical to limit knowledge to phenomena you can only see, feel, hear and touch. We humans live on a tiny piece of floating rock that constitutes a microscopic fragment of the universe as a whole, so basically we're like fish in an aquarium.
Let's remember, UFO's aren't actually the same as flying saucers. An object or phenomenon is only a UFO till the point you can explain what it is. Then it becomes an IFO (identified object). Even a meteor is a UFO if you don't know exactly what it is when you see it.
The purpose of this thread to kind of scratch my head online and share something that had me kind of baffled but this is a long way from stating I saw a UFO in the sense of a flying saucer. Prior to that, I've never seen a ghost, ghoul or anything else that goes bump in the night.
I also thought it could lead to discussion of any other unusual experiences people might have had (most people have had one in their life).

FredC said:

I have made a list of the names so far on this thread, and respectfuly suggest that psychiatric help might be of some help. Why do you have this trepidation about aliens from outer space? You must be all so mentally insecure.

Hey, the question is just "have you ever seen a UFO?" Now I, for one, never said my sighting had anything to do with aliens.

Neither did I. As I emphasised, a UFO is any supposed ariel phenomena that doesn't seem to fit with a conventional explanation.
In a way, there's a funny side to all of this as I figured I'd run the risk of being labelled the cyclingforum crackpot for raising such a thread. I think that the term UFO is also a definite turn-off these days and should be replaced by something like "unusual phenomena".
The problem is that if, in future, any one of guys or girls sees some kind of object or phenomenon in the sky (even during a cycle ride) you have 2 choices: Either keep it to yourself or share the fact you were puzzled by the incident.
Of course, the inevitable result may often be the locals at the local bar will give you a nudge with the elbow and say:
"Little green men, eh? Had a few vodkas that night did you, eh?"

mjw_byrne said:

Hey, the question is just "have you ever seen a UFO?" Now I, for one, never said my sighting had anything to do with aliens.

And, here's another point, folks. During the battle of Britain, several allied pilots reported seeing unusual phenomena in the skies as they engaged German warplanes. These were experienced, trained observers who couldn't explain what they had witnessed.
Now, again, nobody is claiming these pilots had witnessed "aliens" or "martians" but the point was simply they couldn't explain what they had been experiencing.
Today these pilots would be more likely to face public skepticism or ridicule but I think this is chiefly due to all the nonsense that has been promoted over the last decade due to incidents such as Roswell, where believers were absolutely determined to prove the theory aliens had landed in New Mexico.
What the so-called foo-fighters of the second world war were we still don't know (meteorological occurrences, mass hallucination induced by stress e.t.c.)

I have never seen an UFO, well at least not one that i believed to be extra-terrestrial.

Some parts of america have nothing short of an obsession with it...nevada i believe.

What do you think of the claims about Area 51...real? fake?

I've seen strange lights in the sky. Things that I can't explain.
Years ago, when I still lived with my parents, I had been at a friends place till around midnight. Now there were two ways to go home. One was through town and the other was a more circular route through the outskirts of the city which was longer by distance but would take less time.
This particular night I decided on the latter. There are small hills which overlook the suburb where I lived and it was a very clear night and the stars were blazing and these two hills were very prominent from the main road. That's when I noticed two very bright stars sitting stationary in the sky just above these prominent hills. Now normally I would not of thought anything of it except that these two "stars" were bright orange! They were just like normal bright stars except for their colour. Now I didn't think too much of it, just that it was a little strange. It was only when I got home a few minutes later that things started to get a little stranger!
The two "stars" were almost right over our house. They then started to move towards each other then back into their original position. I then started to think that I couldn't possibly be seeing this. There was no noise, nothing.
To confirm that I wasn't crazy I roused my mother out of bed to confirm what I was seeing. She saw them too but wasn't nearly as impressed as me and went back to bed almost straight away!
I was mesmerised. The "stars" then swapped position by moving in a circular route, one going right and one going left. Then after several more minutes one moved off to the south and the other moved off to the west.
Now I am certainly not suggesting that these were alien spacecraft but they were certainly UFO's. I scanned the newspapers and listened to every radio news bulletin for days after that to see if anyone else had reported seeing strange lights that night but it seems that it was only me and my mother.
I've never seen anything like it before or since. It was definitely a controlled thing. They could have been aircraft of some sort I suppose but the way they hung in the air and moved from side to side was something I've never seen a chopper or fixed wing aircraft do.
Anyway, sorry for raving on but there are definitely things that happen in our world occasionally that are unexplainable to the average person.

MountainPro said:

I have never seen an UFO, well at least not one that i believed to be extra-terrestrial.

Some parts of america have nothing short of an obsession with it...nevada i believe.

What do you think of the claims about Area 51...real? fake?

If you are referring to UFO's....I suppose you can never rule it out. The famous crash and the vehicle or parts/bodies recovered could be from anything. Obviously there was a limited cover up at the time, but probably nothing more than the military does nowadays to cover up plane crashes under mysterious circumstances, not unlike that strange A-10 crash in Colorado a few years back. It probably just got blown out of proportion for various reasons...cold war hysteria, possible first strike weapon or aircraft experiment, just plain handled badly by the Air Force, etc. Who knows. If there's a real UFO there or somewhere else in the US, I would expect us to have some serious investments in laser weapons and photon torpedo research.

The base is real enough. Scary too. The accounts of the white SUV's and special security services showing up before you can walk two feet past the warning signs is very true,,,you can't get anywhere near the base even now. From what I've heard though, most of the secret research has been moved underground somewhere else.

Yep, and that's why I adopted a very skeptical position on UFO's. The fact is I used to study UFO cases but, unlike most others, I kept an open mind in as much as looked at various cases with skepticism.
Here is why I concluded 99 per cent of UFO cases are fake:
(1) Science fiction and the media influence our perception of anything unusual that we see. Any bright light or shape we see in the sky is immediately associated in our minds with saucers, E.T. and the like. This is called media, environmental influence. Hence, Jimmy Carter when he saw Venus automatically associated something that puzzled him with flying saucers e.t.c. (he had grown up in the fifties culture).
(2) The whole scenario of aliens landing in a craft, abducting humans and subjecting them to medical examinations is kind of ridiculous (Barney and Betty Hill were the first to report this in the sixties, under hypnosis. Ask yourself why would extraterrestrial visitors need to repeatedly keep taking samples of hairs, nails and blood? Theoretically, you only have to do this once, not dozens of times.
(3) So-called UFO researchers actually lead the witness into a story involving UFO's. They apparently use hypnosis and then place their own suggestions in the subject's mind. This same technique was used on children by crackpot doctors who convinced the kids they had been abused, (for example by occultists).
There are many other reasons to be skeptical of the whole thing.
As for Roswell, the probability is that the Air Force may have been conducting research in the area and some experiment may have gone wrong so they tried to cover it up. That led groups of fanatical UFO investigators to claim there had been a huge cover-up and that the U.S. Air Force had retrieved an alien craft (with strange insignia e.t.c.)
Personally I suspect it's a lot of hyped up nonsense.
However, here is the point:
If there are indeed people who occasionally see strange things, isn't there a possibility that somebody has been experimenting with new technologies, such as advanced satellites e.t.c.? I mean, first time the stealth aircraft came out, a wave of UFO sightings followed. These sightings were quite genuine but (and this is the important point) witnesses immediately concluded they had been seeing UFO's, not aircraft. The abundance of Star Trek movies, ET films e.t.c. had influenced their perception of the phenomenon.
The important thing, though, is that if you see something you just can't figure out (as the above poster shared) you should basically share the fact it puzzled you and then try to come up with a logical explanation. 9 times out of 10 it can be explained somehow (freak weather conditions, possible comets, meteors, e.t.c.

MountainPro said:

I have never seen an UFO, well at least not one that i believed to be extra-terrestrial.

Some parts of america have nothing short of an obsession with it...nevada i believe.

What do you think of the claims about Area 51...real? fake?