There has been a lot of news about UFO (unidentified flying objects) sightings in Russia, Britain, the United States and even in the Middle East in the last few weeks. People are filming flying "unidentified" objects as frequently as they film flying birds. A sighting reportedly occurred while a BBC anchor dispenses the news, while the heavens reportedly "opened and revealed a UFO" when Iran unleashed their missiles into space, some even suggesting that the "UFO" is simply a sophisticated US aircraft ready to neutralize enemy missiles.
Such news is occupying headlines throughout the globe, satisfying the curiosity of many while giving skeptics more jobs and more headaches.
These sightings occur almost without fail, even shortly after the British government added more funds to the Afghan war effort or when North Korea flexes its muscles or the Iranian government saber-rattles again, to the chagrin of U.S. president Barack Obama.
Curiously, these sightings occur near military installations, like in the case of Russia where people reported seeing UFOs dash from under the sea near naval stations. Others report UFOs hovering above British air fields or U.S. military installations, with some reporters even suggesting that both countries have been testing crafts that shoot faster than the speed of light or are capable of vertical flight almost instantaneously as a house fly does.
But, when all is said and done, and an honest-to-goodness probe is concluded, we find that all of these are part of mass hysteria often seen when the world is experiencing either a crisis of global proportions or when people speculate or express their fears on escalating wars. Months before World War I, people reported seeing heavenly signs or UFOs all over Europe. Same case when Hitler declared war against all Europe in World War II.
Reported sightings often occur in Russia, Britain and the U.S. — countries now involved in the global fight against terrorism. People of these modern societies always report seeing UFOs in their fields, their offices, even in their homes.
I am not, however, suggesting that aliens do not exist or UFOs are not real nor imagined. Microbes found on Mars or moon water are "alien". Same as those fossils found on meteorites, these are "extra terrestrial" by definition. However, living aliens or UFOs peopled with E.T.s have not been proven as yet, and there is not enough reason for people to believe or not to believe in them. When science completes its mission of explaining natural phenomena using the logic of the universe, then we will be able to explain why aliens look like bugs or why UFOs always look like buttons.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - ptbuggy
What side of the fence are you sitting on? Seems to me that you're trying to straddle both sides. Can't do that my friend - take a position! If you need to take a position based on "proof" to date, simply YouTube them. Granted, even if 95% are bogus, what about the other 5%? They are out there!
2 - UFOsAREReal
Undeniable Proof of UFOs... do your research buddy. There's TONS of evidence out there if you sift through the mix.
3 - Ilya Stavinsky
Hundreds people saw AFOs(Aliens Flying Object) in the night sky under my guidance in New York and New Jersey, including 5 PA MUFON UFO field investigators, chief investigator Butch Witkowski, Jonh Ventre (director of PA MUFON), well-known Ufologists, etc - at UFO conference (Montgomery county community College on 10/09/2009), be one of them.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Of course UFOs exist.
Anything you see in the sky that you can't identify is a UFO. I've seen numerous such objects myself.
But it's an unrealistic leap from that to conclude that these objects are vehicles built and/or piloted by extraterrestrials.
5 - Ian
I live in the UK I'm always looking for UFO I even challanged them to abduct me ha seen nothing I thing there scared
6 - Jet Gardner
My Father was in the air force and I inherited his computer, I have some military images of UFOs following air transport planes that'd blow your mind!
7 - Bill
What the officials are telling us is we are all having a mass halucination; seeing things that aren't really there... So in that case we don't exist! We are all just a figment of an imagination. A load od capitol BS! There is more credible proof that UFOs exist than God!
8 - Dr Dreadful
Bill, your reasoning skills need some WD-40.
First of all, who are these 'officials' and when did they tell 'us' that? Or did you just catch a screening of Men in Black on the Sci-Fi Channel?
Secondly, it does not follow that nothing else exists if you are told a particular thing doesn't exist. After a few too many lagers and chicken biryanis of a Saturday night, you might be convinced you saw a seven-foot poppadom bouncing towards you as you waited for your cab ride home. You'll take it as read, I hope, that there aren't really mutant specimens of Indian cuisine roaming the streets. So since giant bouncing poppadoms don't exist, does that mean you and I don't exist? Of course not.
Lastly, as I said earlier, of course there are UFOs - nobody's disputing that. As to what they are... well, perhaps physicist and PBS TV personality Neil DeGrasse Tyson can help straighten out your thinking.
As he points out: the key word here starts with a U...
9 - Jet Gardner
Doc, what'd you think of those photos I sent?
10 - Dr Dreadful
Jet, I've respected your wishes and deleted your e-mails and the photos, although I think there was probably no need. I suspect most if not all of them are in the public domain: I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one of those photos before (the head-on shot of the plane with the UFO tailing it).
As to what I think: certainly very interesting, and as good as some of the clearest UFO photos out there. What are they? Don't know... although that last one (the cigar-shaped object) kind of looks as if it's attached to the roof of the aircraft - radar equipment maybe?
11 - Jet Gardner
I'm glad you liked them, the cigar shaped one orbited around it for a while and definately wasn't attached.
12 - Bill
Dr Dreadful - Who do you think you are? You sound like some pompous old retired english professor who takes everything literally by the book. For a start there are officials who are in denial and tell people they must be hallucinating when they see unexplainable objects. And I did not suggest I believed nothing exists and everything is imagined - that was a reflection on what some people say! Not my invention dear sir. I was having a go at these buffoons who can't accept what they cannot see. And I don't watch Sci fi channel - in fact I rarely watch trashy television full stop. SO I'm not one of these morons who see things on the telly and believe it. Sorry to deflate your analogy of me - but you got it wrong Mr. Now I could rave on and pic you to threads with your statements but would be the point? Recycling comments over and over for the sake of getting name in print? no than you.
13 - Dr Dreadful
Bill -
I repeat myself for the third time: there ARE such things as UFOs. They are objects you see in the sky which you cannot identify. I have seen a number of them myself.
Where we appear to differ is in our interpretations of what these objects are. If I see, in the night sky (as I have done), a large, moving triangular-shaped pattern of lights which does not appear to conform to the nav light pattern of any aircraft I know - not to mention being far bigger - I am, with 100% accuracy, going to classify it as an unidentified flying object.
The moment I claim that what I saw was an alien spacecraft piloted by beings from another world, it stops being a UFO. I have, wrongly or rightly, identified it - and it is then up to me to supply evidence to support that identification.
To my knowledge, no-one has successfully done this for the (what must now be) hundreds of thousands of sightings since World War II.
In plain and simple language, then: Yes, there are UFOs. Duh. So what?
And Bill? Some people who see unexplainable objects are hallucinating.
14 - Bill
Dr Dreadful - I don't understand where you are going with your comments. I did not say I didn't believe in UFOs! You should learn to read a comment before attacking it! Get a grip man!
15 - STM
I have seen UFOs in Australia.
Generally about 3am on the way home from the pub (that's me heading home, not the UFOs ... although I reckon I've seen a few aliens in the public bar, so who knows???).
They must've been from another planet.
They were drinking Foster's.
16 - Jordan Richardson
UFOs must not know how to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. I think they're having difficulties with the passport regulations.
17 - STM
Silly buggers. Can't fill out the form, that's why.
18 - Christopher Rose
Whilst it is easy to accept that there are unidentified flying objects, I don't see how that translates to what everybody is really interested in, the possibility that some of them might be spacecraft from other star systems.
19 - Doug Hunter
Chris #18 has a reasonable point. Also, the article mentions these are often seen near military bases. Since the stealth technology unveiled in the 90's was developed and built in the 60/70's I think it is likely that there are also secret experimental aircraft that might perceived as UFO's bult in the ensuing 35 to 40 years.
20 - Stanton Friedman
Try reading the 5 large scale scientific studies I discuss in Chapter 1 of my 2008 book "Flying saucers and Science". Clearly SOME UFOS are indeed flying saucers.
Stanton Friedman nuclear physicist
21 - Robert Foster
You put forth one unsupported notion, that most UFOs are seen in the USA, Russia and Britain and then spin a theory about the sightings being the result of mass hysteria based on the fear of terrorism. This ad hoc theory is just plain nonsense. You need to do your research before making yourself look so foolish. UFOs are sighted worldwide, most recently mass sightings occurred in China, and had nothing to do with world terrorism. And lest we forget there have been UFO sightings long before there was global terrorism.
Robert Foster
environmental scientist
22 - Christopher Rose
No, clearly you think some UFOs are alien spacecraft but there still isn't any credible or substantial evidence to support that.
I'm practically desperate to meet intelligent aliens but have never seen or heard of anything that made me think it imminent.
In addition to the paucity of evidence, I am struggling to imagine how a group of aliens sufficiently scientifically advanced to create a craft capable of interstellar travel, presumably meaning a faster than light drive, and capable of avoiding detection by humanity would then be so casual as to fly low enough to be seen, to say nothing of why they would come all this way and then do nothing.
23 - Clavos
In addition to the paucity of evidence, I am struggling to imagine how a group of aliens sufficiently scientifically advanced to create a craft capable of interstellar travel, presumably meaning a faster than light drive, and capable of avoiding detection by humanity would then be so casual as to fly low enough to be seen, to say nothing of why they would come all this way and then do nothing.
Bingo!
24 - PurrlGurrl
Ahem.. These are the three countries that have top secret military/intelligence aerospace hardware, which gets deployed in larger numbers when international "situtations" heat up. It's not hysteria, it's Top Gun.
25 - Sawyer
Well folks, there's not much more to say about all this, the report and all your comments and the object of the report. It's all happening and it's all true. All are right because ALL things ARE possible because we are really nobodies in someone else's creation. The neat thing about it, is we can choose to remain nobodies and talk this or that OR we can ask whoever/whatever it is that brought about this reality (as it sure did not come from nothing and did not come from something less than what it is) if we can be a part of their world or not. Our choice and I'm not talking religion. Religions, to include athesism and new age spirituality are all potential stepping stones or entrenchments into ignorance. Sure wait for science to explain everything is like depending on the religious to explain everything. Now I'm going to be hated by everyone for saying this but as hard as it is to believe there is only one "highest" answer and if one in a million thirst enough, they will get that answer and will know it, but then will have to decide what to do with it as it will change their life but will have it's great reward, not so much in this life but in the opportunity to come for those that are willing to break out of the human mold. Ask Ti and Do.