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UFOs In the News
Several readers have let us know about a report on MSNBC that France's space agency has announced plans to publish its archive of UFO sightings in a month or so. The archive includes some 6,000 reports relating to around 1,600 incidents over 30 years. In a separate development, many readers have sent in word of the reported UFO that at least six United Airlines workers saw over Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last November. National Public Radio picked up the story with an interview with the Chicago Trib reporter who wrote about it yesterday. United is, strangely, denying that any such incident was ever brought up. The FAA admits there was an incident but is not investigating it.
A while back I was reading some book of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke, and in an essay between stories, he described the time he saw a U.F.O. I was taken aback. Here's an author who practically invented "hard sci-fi," talking about seeing a U.F.O. By the end of the essay he mentioned what it turned out to be (I forget what, exactly, but it was something mundane and Earth-based). But at the time, "UFO" was the appropriate term, not because he thought it was a spacecraft, but because he couldn't figure out what it was.
That left an impression on me. People tend to use "UFO" as a shorthand for alien spacecraft... but when you get down to it, "Unidentified Flying Object" refers to anything unidentified that you see in the sky. A segment of a sun halo, a satellite, an odd cloud, a distant airplane with the sun glinting off of it... The same would apply to the "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" term used in the O'Hare article.
Conversely, if alien spacecraft are ever verified, they wouldn't really be UFOs, would they?
Many people saw something and United is unable to give a reasonable explanation for what it was. This might not be a huge threat, it surely is a potential and perceived threat. That nothing showed up on radar is surely more of a worry. It means that the radar is not able to see everything there and surely leaves passenger and flight staff safety in question.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
While I doubt what they saw is locally-made, I used to live in that area and have seen some crazy stuff at some nearby forest preserves. Many of the forest preserves near O'Hare have radio controlled aircraft landing strips and are heavily used by local hobbyists. Last year I personally saw a home-built craft performing some absolutely incredible tricks and maneuvers with a small radio controlled helicopter-like machine.
The fact observers said it made a hole in the cloud deck for minutes, to me, rules out any purely optical effect. It must have been some physical device, whatever that may be. Further, professional airline pilots saw it and stated it was not familiar to them as a known aircraft. My take is a new stealth military craft - hence all the coverup by the FAA.
All those people saw it and no one took a moment to use a cell phone camera to take a pic? Sure a cell phone camera doesn't prove or disprove anything, but at least we could take more guesses as to what was actually seen. I keep waiting for photos of this to appear, but none have surfaced AFAIK.
invading mob of muslim youths waging war on their infrastructure
OH NOES! TEH SWARHTY BROWN HORDEZES!
Sorry, but the riots were about institutionalized racism in France, they were not some kind of a covert religious war. Most of the youths you identify as "muslim youths" consider themselves as not very religious. What they do have is a lot of free-floating anger at a society that invited their parents in to clean swimming pools and tend gardens, only to discover that there are French citizens, and then there are "French citizens."
With little opportunities for honest work, constant belittlement by societal elites, and repressive police tactics that give cops a pass on bad things happening to brown people, you tend to get street gangs and race riots. In France, they tend to be reasonably polite race riots, where damage is almost entirely to property rather than people. Weird, but whatever.
But you go on and worry about the Coming Islamic Invasion. Somebody needs to buy the Free Republic Secret Decoder Rings.
Sure, a UFO is a bone fide sighting. It means exactly what it stands for: Unidentified Flying Object. Only an idiot would jump to some kind of a conclusion that it's the master alien race visiting Earth under the command of god-king Marduk without concrete evidence.
So where are the photos? It sounds like there were enough witnesses and viewing time that there should be some photos taken of this UAP.
The FAA is probably sitting on them.
EP
Why worry about relevant issues to their national security like an invading mob of Muslim youths waging war on their infrastructure (and winning) when they can declassify documents about unsubstantiated crap and temporarily distract their citizens and the world from their rapidly approaching destruction?
Most of what goes by the name of "national security" is also distracting crap; "invading mobs of Muslim youths" and airplanes crashing into skyscrapers simply are not high on the list of things likely to kill you. The things people ought to worry about and that kill them and others, they like to forget about and are all too happy to be distracted from: nutrition, traffic accidents, poverty, civilian killings during war, global warming, etc.
it really pisses me off when people start mentioning "i am an atheist", what the hell does that matter... the UFO is either natural, man made, or alien... clearly ur religion is not relevant... u could be a Muslim and the strange looking cloud is still a freaking cloud... or a freaking imperial star cruiser.... come on chewy realize ur religion may be important to u but does not change reality and is not appropriate for this discussion...
"Alien" means just that. Until it's been identified as a alien spaceship, it could just as well be the alien spaghetti monster. I don't know why everyone assumes just because humans can't identify something in the sky it MUST be little green men from space. Humans have terrible long range vision and generally very poor video recording devices. Most people probably can't identify something 1 mile in front of them on the ground.
From the article: "...estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter..." That's, uh, quite a variance.
Also, a dozen people sounds great, but... O'Hare is the busiest airport in the US now, I believe - and no one else noticed this thing? Also, the 12 people worked for the same airline, so it's possible they would all be relatively close to each other while working. What about people in other parts of the airport?
Airline pilots and air traffic controllers tend to be observant and cautious for obvious reasons... and none of them noticed anything?
I like the lights-on-clouds explanation - it would explain why 12 people near each other might see something very odd, but no one else would - it's some sort of reflection from a light source in or near the airport. Then whatever it was that was generating the light for the reflection moves, and *poof* the UFO disappears up into the clouds at a dizzying speed.
No. No, it can't.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Oh what short memories we have. 9-11 comes, tanks the economy, raises unemployment rates, scares the shit out of the country, and today all people can remember is the number 3,000.
Well, looks like you never quite figured it out. See, 9-11 "tanked the economy" and "raised unemployment rate" because people had the shit scared out of them. Why did they? Because politicians like Bush wanted to spread fear to distract from their incompetence and institutionalized corruption.
Of the five characteristics you listed, three (the omnis) are pretty clear and simple to define. The other two--perfect and good--are not so simple to define. Now, I'm not Christian and my beliefs about divinity differ significantly from those of Christians, but in defense of those who believe in a higher power that is "good", I would like to say this:
Most people seem to think that if a "god" was "good" and in control of everything, life would be some kind of easy utopia where no one has any hardships and nothing "bad" happens. IMO, this is a severe misunderstanding of what life is about. Life is about learning, growing, and experiencing; about facing hardships and overcoming them, or at least learning from them. This necessarily requires plenty of "bad" things to happen. Different people leading different lives have different trials to face and different lessons to learn. Without challenges and difficulties, there is no drive for any kind of improvement or advancement. If our existence is somehow the result of some kind of divine entity, I believe said divine entity has generally good intentions, but does not mean for us to be coddled pets, dependent on our god for some kind of perpetual state of easy contentment.
The above is just my view, which I'm not interested in trying to impose on anyone else; the main point is that it is not illogical to believe there is a "good" god in a world full of evils.